A/N: For any of you who read this story the first time around, this chapter is new with the revision. Let me know what you think!

Chapter 3

Quidditch Tryouts

x-X-x

On Saturday morning, Harry headed down to breakfast early and sat by himself. He wanted to keep himself separate from his friends today. Because today, he was holding quidditch tryouts.

When his badge had come with his letter over the summer, he had seriously considered turning it down. He didn't want the attention or the distraction that his fame would bring to the team. But Ginny had changed his mind.

"You said you wanted to be normal for just a year. What's normal without quidditch? You love to fly. And, really Harry, I know the fame has gotten worse but why, if it has never been a distraction before now, would it suddenly be one now? If we could win during all that 'Chosen One' drama, we can win with all this 'Savior' drama."

And so, Harry was now preparing to head out to the pitch and find his team. As soon as he finished eating, he headed outside, hoping to beat the crowd that he was sure would show up for tryouts. As he walked onto the pitch, he felt his body relax. Quickly slipping into the Gryffindor locker room, he pulled on his practice kit and grabbed his Firebolt II, which had bought for himself over the summer, knowing Sirius would have been devastated if he hadn't gotten himself the best broom just because he missed his godfather. When he kicked off, he felt more at home than he had felt since he had arrived at Hogwarts. In the air, he felt like he could handle anything.

Noticing the students walking onto the pitch, Harry descended and landed in front of the growing crowd. Among the aspiring players, he spotted his best friend, girlfriend, and two of his roommates. Sighing, Harry prepared himself for a long morning.

"LISTEN UP!" he yelled, causing the crowd to quiet. Knowing what was coming, he first said, "Anyone not in Gryffindor, clear off now!" Unsurprisingly, nearly half of the students turned and headed to the stands, grumbling along the way. Still, there were more than twenty people left in front of him. Knowing that he still had some weeding to do, he split everyone into groups of five and set them to fly around the pitch. Four students couldn't even mount their brooms and five more were eliminated all at once as they each lost control of their brooms and crashed into each other, creating a pile of twisted limbs and broomtails.

Finally, with fifteen players left, Harry began tryouts for real. Dividing them up by position, Harry began with the beaters. He sent all five of them up into the air and released the bludgers. Using the goal posts as targets (since he really didn't want to risk any of his future players on beaters who couldn't control their aim), he challenged them to see who could score goals with the bludgers. He figured it was a pretty good way to test their ability to direct the bludgers and with only two bludgers in the air and five beaters, it also allowed him to see their control and their grit as they battled each other for access to the two dangerous balls.

After a brutal fifteen minutes where Harry was hit with three bludgers and two of the players (one of whom was Seamus Finnegan) crashed into each other trying to get the same hit, he had his beaters. Holding his side where he could feel a bruise slowly blossoming across his ribcage, he welcomed Jimmy Peakes, a fifth year player whom Harry had played with two years ago, and a fourth year boy named Ethan McDonald who was good but inconsistent. Still, he was the best of the remaining four after Peakes. As he congratulated them, he took a moment to mourn Ritchie Coote who had been Jimmy's partner before the war but had been brutally killed along with his family for being a muggleborn.

With one position taken care of, Harry then sent the seven potential chasers into the air. As he watched Ginny rise, he realized he was holding his breath, knowing she needed to be impeccable for him to put her on the team and to avoid the appearance of favoritism. Half an hour later, he wondered why he had ever been nervous. After all, this was the same girl who had stunned her brothers with her flying skills, the same girl who had seamlessly switched from chaser to seeker and back again, proving she could play both positions with a brilliance that could only come naturally, and the same girl who had shown Harry day after day how amazing she was. She had excelled at every passing scheme he had had them test, had nailed every goal from every position, and dominated the mini-scrimmage he had made them play, even dodging a particularly well placed bludger from Peakes, who, along with McDonald, was hitting a bludger back and forth to disrupt the chasers.

However, he was less happy that his girlfriend's ex, Harry's very roommate, had also made the team after a tryout nearly as flawless as Ginny's. He, along with a tiny but fast fourth year named Andra Grayson, had even outflown Demelza Robins, who had been on Harry's last team. However, her play had always been a little erratic and today had been no different, allowing Dean and Andi, as Andra liked to be called, to lock in the last two positions on the team.

Finally, Harry sent the three remaining Gryffindors up to fill the keeper spot. Harry knew how nervous Ron could get and hoped his friend would remember how good he could be when he was on his game. He had each of the three potential keepers try to block ten shots from his new team of chasers. The first player, a third year, made an amazing catch on the first try but then missed every other one, clearly trying too hard to make the impressive catch. The next player was a fifth year who managed to save eight of the ten shots but fell for both of the trick plays thrown her way.

Last, Ron flew in front of the rings. As Harry watched, his friend was transformed before his eyes. Dean flew quickly at Ron, the quaffle firmly held in his arm. Two yards from the rings, Ginny appeared suddenly from below and Dean tossed the quaffle directly to her. She held it for a split second before whipping it towards the hoop opposite from the one Dean was aiming for. Ron, spotting the diversion, flipped his broom around and reached out, confidently catching the quaffle and then throwing it back out to Andi, who was waiting around the midpoint of the pitch. After nine more brilliant saves, Harry had his keeper.

Harry was thrilled with his team and was grinning ear-to-ear as they descended to the turf. However, his excitement was short-lived, as, the minute they touched down, Ginny threw her hand over her mouth and bolted towards the locker room. Concerned with the shade of green her skin had taken on, Harry yelled, "Team meeting tomorrow after dinner!" and ran after her.

He entered the locker room and hesitantly called out, "Ginny?" There was no response and he walked in farther. From the direction of the loo, he heard retching. Scrunching up his nose at the sound, he nonetheless followed it to his girlfriend, who he found bent over the toilet, quickly losing her breakfast. "Gin? You okay?" he asked quietly, reaching down to pull back her hair from her neck.

"Ugh," she said as she took a shaky breath, still not relinquishing her position over the bowl. "I think I have the flu or something."

"You think?" Harry asked, he tone full of sarcasm. Ginny smiled weakly as she leaned back, leaning her head against his shoulder, eyes closed. "You should go to bed Ginny? How did you even tryout?"

"I was fine in the air. It hit me the minute my feet hit the ground."

"I still think you should go back up to the castle. Get some rest Gin. Sleep."

"I think that's probably a good idea."

"Come on," Harry said, helping her to her feet. "I'll help you." Together, they walked out of the locker room, Ginny's head on Harry's shoulder. Outside, they met Ron, still in his sweaty practice gear, and Hermione, who eyed Ginny with concern.

"I sent everybody back up to the castle," Ron informed them.

"Are you feeling okay, Ginny?" Hermione asked worriedly.

"Pretty sure it's the flu," Harry answered for her. "I'm going to get her to bed."

"As long as it's not your bed," Ron said quickly, a small grin on his face.

"Ha Ha, Ron," Ginny said, her voice muffled as her head was buried in Harry's shirt. "Don't make me sick."

"Just joking, Ginny," Ron said as the group headed slowly up to the castle.

After depositing Ginny at the foot of the stairs to the girls' dormitories, leaving her in Hermione's capable hands, Ron and Harry headed up to their room to change out of their quidditch gear. Entering the room, they found Dean and Seamus sitting on their beds. Feeling awkward after just cutting one from the team, Harry stepped forward tentatively.

"Listen, Seamus, about the team –"

Seamus cut him off. "Don't worry about it Harry. I'm not cut out for quidditch. I was only trying out to support Dean, here."

Harry nodded. "Right. Well, you were really good, Dean."

"Thanks. Played quidditch a lot this summer," Dean said, his tone flat.

"Bad summer?" Ron asked as he flopped back on his bed, sweaty clothes and all.

"Just a lot to process, you know." Harry and Ron silently agreed as they nodded knowingly. "Had some trouble sleeping so I tried playing quidditch until I was dead on my feet, hoping it would help. Sometimes, it even did, although I'm really not sure if that was the exhaustion or just the hours of solitude in the air. Either way, I picked up a few tricks that came in handy today."

"Yeah, I think we all had our own demons to banish over the summer," Harry responded as the each of the four boys became lost in their own thoughts.

The next few weeks passed in a craze of one thing after another. Ginny's flu never seemed to completely go away but, after watching Harry fret every time she bolted out of the room to be sick, she began to hide it, not wanting to worry him.

The increased stress of the N.E.W.T. workload didn't help Ginny's illness. Each day, it seemed they had more and more to do. Despite it only being September, the professors were already stressing the importance of their end-of-year exams.

The only class that everyone seemed to look forward to was DADA. Diggle was still a little overwhelming, with his over-the-top personality and the slight hero-worship he continued to show Harry sometimes, but the student-taught format ended up being not only a way for students to put their expertise to use but also as way for them to work through some of their left-over issues from the war. The topics presented in each class really gave Harry and his friends a new way of looking at some of the problems they had faced in their own battles against Voldemort's forces.

Throughout the final weeks of September, Harry's insane quidditch schedule further complicated his fellow students' workloads and Ginny's illness. Team practices were getting intense as they approached their match with Slytherin, set to happen in early October. The team was playing great, but Harry wasn't taking any chances. He may be all about school unity when they were battling evil but on the quidditch pitch, Gryffindor was taking Slytherin down.

Hermione wasn't having it any easier without quidditch. Not only was she taking more classes than any of them but she also had head duties. Ron often returned from quidditch practice late at night, only to find her missing from the common room. Inevitably, she could be found buried under books in the library or the head's office.

However, Harry knew his friends were finding their own forms of stress-relief. He had walked in on Ron and Hermione snogging in the head's office three times in the last two weeks. He had lost track of the number of times when his two best friends went mysteriously missing, although he suspected if he pulled out the Marauder's Map he would find their dots together in some broom closet somewhere. Harry smiled, thinking about how happy they were together. Those years of tension had been excruciating.

Harry and Ginny, too, were keeping each other sane. After long days of classes, homework, and practice, they often found themselves headed to the Room of Requirement for the night. Together, they would take comfort each in each other and de-stress. It helped to keep the nightmares that still plagued them both away. So far, they had managed to avoid being caught by Ron, who hadn't noticed that Harry's bed was empty every night and hadn't caught Harry and Ginny sneaking back into Gryffindor Tower each morning. Even more impressive was that Harry had yet to catch on that Ginny was still sick.

Still, even after ignoring all the pressure that came from being a N.E.W.T. student, Harry was worried. Maybe it was because he had never had a simple year at Hogwarts or maybe it was some kind of premonition but he knew his first few weeks had been way too easy.