LbN: Written for the Teachers' Lounge Iron Fic challenge. Xposted to The Chairman's account. My wonderful competitor was Intervigilium with Pitch Me a Story. You should go read that one as well!
"Nothing brings people together like booze, Quidditch and weddings," Bill had once told her. She had contested the first item, knowing that it usually brought people together in the manner of fist-meets-nose. And weddings she was still holding as debatable, since Bill and Fleur's had been good, Ron and Hermione's a few mishaps away from disaster, and George and Angelina's had nearly caused another war. But Quidditch? Definitely. From perfect strangers singing, and sometimes crying, with one another in pubs, to the glowing sense of camaraderie you felt at the World Cup, Quidditch was universal. Hell, in the past six weeks it had done what Ginny would have thought impossible previously.
It turned her and Blaise Zabini into friends. Granted, they were the sort of friends who would still kill each other if it meant they could have the last biscuit, but they had reached an understanding. All due to the hell that was called Collective Quidditch Tryouts.
Every minor and professional league team was scouting at the moment. It was a month and a half of grueling practices and drills. Ginny had been on a broom in every type of weather imaginable, including snow. The owners of each organization had wanted to see how they handled it, and had enchanted the practice arena. In any case, she'd watched the hope and passion drain from fellow Quidditch junkies like color from an ice pop over the past weeks. Now there were only about twenty of them left, all anxious to fill any open positions they could. Ginny and Blaise were both in the Chasers group – the largest of all – and had taken to subtly encouraging one another. She wasn't sure how it started – probably out of some Hogwarts versus the "others" bonding - but it continued because both of them were too damn stubborn to let the other fail at this point. They may not make the teams, but at least they could say that training camp hadn't beaten them. And not just them. All of the Chasers had come into camp with not so much chips as entire logs on their shoulders – each had something to prove. But after this, they were a team in and of themselves. It was funny, the way life worked out sometimes.
Now Ginny loomed over Blaise in the still dark hours of a rainy Saturday morning.
"Get up, Blaise!" she said, nudging him with a foot. "Get up!"
"Right, I'm up woman!" he griped, rising from the tiny bunk in the Chasers' quarters. He was already dressed in his clothes for the day.
"Did you sleep in –"
"No. Ainsley's snoring woke me an hour ago. Just got up and changed and thought I'd go back to sleep for…." He trailed off, looking out the window. "Hey wait! It's still dark outside! What are you playing at?"
"All Chasers on the field in twenty minutes," she said, then caught his dark look. "Don't shoot the messenger. Apparently they decided to go easy on us – they woke the Keepers by blaring the Wyrd Sisters through the speakers in their hall."
"What fresh hell do they have in store for us, do you think?" he asked, yawning.
"Maeve's going on about diving drills, Peter's sure they're going to put us through another obstacle course," Ginny listed, hoping the second one wasn't true. She'd had to explain a broken rib cage to Harry, which hadn't been fun. "The twins, Ezra and Emily, just think they want us out in the rain again."
They grabbed their brooms and stood just inside the doors, looking out onto what was affectionately known as "The Garden of Quidditch and Evil". The rain came down heavily, and they could see figures congregating at the center of the pitch.
"Sure you don't mind getting your hair all messed up, Weasley?" Blaise asked, smirking.
"Piss off, Zabini," Ginny said.
With that, the two walked out into the rain.
Obstacle course, Ginny thought as she rolled her broomstick left to dodge the large wooden arm that came swinging out. Essentially it was a large tunnel, with three Quidditch hoops at the end. Every so often, nearly certain death would fly toward your face, or swoop down from above, or explode like a bomb below. There could be no mistakes, or else you'd drop the Quaffle. Another player could toss it back to you, if they felt so inclined and weren't dodging lingering pain themselves. The walls were enchanted so that the teams and managers could watch from the stands, and even though each Chaser had his or her own "lane", they could all see each other as well. She dove to dodge a jet of flame as Blaise pulled ahead of her. That put her in second place, and she couldn't have that….
Climbing, she put on a burst of speed and shot forward, narrowly missing the padded arm that jutted down from the ceiling suddenly. They were flying side by side now, both diving under another wall of flame to fly closer to the hoops. They were outside of the obstacle tunnel, but all of this was for naught if she didn't make the goal. She swore as she flew out into the rain, and rolled to dodge a tackle from another Chaser. Ten in the tunnel, and ten waiting to prove themselves by stealing the Quaffle and going back the way the other Chaser had come. She didn't feel the slightest bit guilty elbowing her opponent in the stomach and flying off. She felt movement just above her and looked to her right.
Blaise had just cannoned into another potential threat. "Eyes open, Weasley!" he called above the rain. Just then, the man he'd pushed came back for round two. In the confusion, they lost hold of the Quaffle.
It fell fast, but Ginny was faster. She caught it and threw it back up to Blaise, praying the wind or another Chaser didn't take it. "Eyes open, Zabini!"
He caught it and scored.
She flew back up, dodging one last opposing player before shooting at the middle hoop. The Quaffle went through, and with a sound like a firework, the words "Weasley – 5:36" flashed above the hoop. She grinned and flew to the ground where the trainers were waiting with blankets. She'd beaten her best time, but would that be enough?
"You could've had the record!" Blaise said as the trainers wrapped them in fluffy yellow blankets. "What'd you waste time catching my ball for?"
"I could make a dirty joke right now," she said with a grin.
"I'm serious."
"You're telling me you wanted me to let you fail the course?" she asked incredulously.
"No, but…you could've had the camp record," he repeated sullenly.
"A simple 'Thank you, Ginny' would suffice, you know."
"Bloody noble Gryffindors."
"Bloody title hungry Slytherins."
"All right, you two, that's quite enough," one of the trainers said, ushering them to the warm dry area under a tent. "You two just sit here and enjoy the rest of the carnage."
"Carnage?" Blaise asked.
"We came through without a scratch," Ginny said.
"You did," the trainer said, obviously trying not to smile. "Not everyone else, though."
At that precise moment, there was a loud scream of agony from behind another tent flap.
"Peter zigged when he should have zagged," the man said. "He'll be fine with the help of a bottle of Skele-Grow."
"A whole bottle?" Ginny asked, horrified.
"Look at it this way – he'll have a great story to tell when people ask how he got his scars." With that, the trainer strode away, humming.
The next people to enter the tent were two managers. Ginny recognized them as Faustus Crizzlebreak from the Ballycastle Bats, and Teagan Melville from the Hollyhead Harpies. There was a lot of handshaking and small talk for a few minutes before Faustus said,
"We'll be speaking to all of the Chasers just after breakfast," he said in a voice like honey. "If you could pass the message along."
And just like that, they were gone, leaving Blaise and Ginny to watch the rest of the mayhem and ignore the groans from just behind the curtain.
Harry had burned so many things in his time that he knew not to attempt cooking without supervision. Thus, for lunch that day, he'd gone to the Indian take away place a few blocks down and brought back food for himself and Ginny. He checked his watch, eager to actually see his girlfriend for the first time in weeks. There'd been letters, and they'd talked via the two-way mirror, but he was near giddy at the prospect of being in the same room. And she'd been completely mum on the subject of which team she'd made. Harry hadn't bothered wondering if she'd made a team – of course she had. It was Ginny after all.
The key turned in the lock, and a moment later she was hugging him.
"All right, we can hug later," he said, grinning. "Tell me!"
"Can we eat first?" she asked with a small laugh.
"No! No food for you until you tell me!" he said, lifting her off the ground.
"And here I thought we were making progress with your patience," she said, shaking her head solemnly. The slight smile gave her away though.
Harry pouted.
Ginny laughed.
"Fine," she said. "I'll tell you all about it."
*The Next Year*
"I'm Michael Corner here with Lee Jordan at the last game of the season! It should be an exciting one, right Lee?"
"Definitely, Mike. This game will decide who goes to the Continental Finals this year. Plus, it's the second showdown between the two star rookies. I can't wait to see how this plays out."
Down on the field, the Appleby Arrows and the Hollyhead Harpies met in the center of the field to shake hands.
"Eyes open, Weasley," Blaise said, grinning.
"Right back at you, Zabini."
"Players, mount your brooms!" the referee called.
"See you in the air," she said with a wink.