Gust: Angelina Johnson


It was going to be the perfect shot. Angelina could feel it in her bones as she released the quaffle toward the left hoop, knowing that Oliver wouldn't have time to block it. It was only practice, of course, but not taking practice seriously meant that you wouldn't be ready when the situation really was serious and you had to pull out all the stops to beat the other team. Angelina had always been highly competitive by nature, and if she lost to the Slytherins one more time, she couldn't be held accountable for what she might do. She'd had just about enough of them throwing it in her face that they'd beaten the Gryffindors in the Quidditch cup the previous year.

This year was going to be different. This year, it was Gryffindor's time to shine. Angelina watched in satisfaction as the ball sailed toward the hoop, only for a badly-timed gust of wind to send it careening off the outer rim of the hoop. Damn it. She'd been sure that it was going to go in. She'd been sure that it was an easy goal - Oliver had barely had time to see it coming, let alone to stop it. And yet, one shift in the wind could change everything.

It just went to show that a girl couldn't leave anything to change. If she'd been closer when she'd made the shot, if she'd thrown the quaffle harder, so many ifs ran through Angelina's mind. Oliver was just grinning at her like he'd just won the lottery.

"Alright, lads. Good practice. We could use a bit of work, but at least I know Angelina's throwing harder than last year."

At least somebody thought she was improving. Any praise received from Oliver and her teammates only served to spur Angelina on, to make her want to work harder. Some day she was going to achieve great things, but that would never happen if she didn't put in the work now.

"Don't worry, Wood. I'm working on it." Every moment she could manage to find the qudditch pitch empty and didn't need to be sleeping, eating or in class, she was working on it. For the moment she didn't bother to correct him about the fact that there were three females on his team, and that she certainly didn't like being called a lad. She'd approach him about that later for the hundredth time, after she was done replaying the shot in her mind to determine what she could have done differently.