Everyone was loafing around in the common room that Saturday afternoon when the portrait hole swung open and Rachel clambered in, beaming like she'd been elected Supreme High Ruler of the World.

"Where have you been?" Hannah asked.

"You are now looking at the newest Gryffindor Beater!" Rachel replied, sweeping a deep bow.

Everyone goggled at her. "What about Fred and George?"

"McGonagall okayed it! Fred and I will switch off every game! Then next year, hopefully, George and I will switch."

Seamus stared at her. "No. You don't know how to play Quidditch, do you?"

She flashed him a brilliant smile. "There's a lot you don't know about me."

"Ah, no, you can't be serious!"

"I am. If you doubt me, I challenge you to a one-on-one game."

"No thanks."

"Told you."

He gave her a half smile. "I'll believe it when I see it."

"Shush, leprechaun. I can legally use a bat now."

He stuck his tongue out at her.

------------------------------------------

"Rachel. Rachel!"

Rachel opened her eyes blearily to see Tanya's face looming above her. "Whassamatter?"

"Oliver Wood said to remind you about Quidditch practice. Here." Tanya tossed her a bundle of scarlet cloth. "Your new Quidditch robes!"

Rachel unfolded them and caught the dim glint of her name in gold letters embroidered across the back. "Oh, they're beautiful!" She jumped out of bed and pulled them on. "And look! A real Beater's bat! And wristguards..! This is so cool!" She quickly buckled the leather braces over her lower arms and tied her hair up in a ponytail. "You coming to watch, Tanya? Tanya..? Oh, never mind."

Rachel sighed and left, closing the door quietly behind her so as not to wake Tanya, who had fallen asleep across Rachel's bed.

It was freezing out on the grounds. If she had been outside an extra minute, she would have frozen, for sure. However, she doubted her teammates would have noticed her even if she had crawled into the changing rooms spurting blood and screaming and crawled onto Wood's lap and died. All of them looked pale as corpses and just as awake, too.

"Um…Oliver?" she asked tentatively. Said Captain seemed to be asleep with his head in a locker.

He jumped and jerked his head out. "Oh…hello, Rachel, uh…just resting my eyes."

Since she had known him since her first year, Rachel grabbed his shoulders and shook him briskly. "Wake up, Captain, I won't have you sleeping on the job."

Wood blinked and pinched his cheeks. "I agree. I wouldn't want to give you the wrong impression that this team is lazy! By the way, both Fred and George are here for practice because I don't want either of them to get soft. Strength!"

Rachel shook her head and took a seat on the bench beside Katie Bell just as Harry walked in. He stared at her for a minute, then took a seat on her left. "What—" he began, but Oliver, who seemed to have woken up completely, now clapped him on the shoulder.

"There you are, Harry, what kept you? Okay, since we're all here, I want you to meet the newest member of the team. Rachel will be our third Beater; sShe and Fred Weasley will be taking turns this year. Now, I wanted a quick talk with you all before we actually get onto the field, because I spent the summer devising a whole new training program, which I really think will make all the difference."

As Oliver droned on and on about new tactics, Rachel felt herself drifting off into sleep. She tried to imagine flying, but soon her broom grew fuzzy wings and the constant rocking was annoying her, so she got off and began talking to a leprechaun about how bad the broom was. The leprechaun promised her a hug, so she chased after him, but then the broom got mad and whacked her on the shins. She tried to run away, but then the broom poked her in the side, then turned and bashed her hard on the back of her head—

She woke with a start and rubbed the spot where her head had hit the lockers. She wiped the sleep from her eyes and realized the poking was Harry and Katie trying to wake her. She blinked guiltily.

"Now listen here, you lot," Oliver was saying. "We should have won the Quidditch cup last year. We're easily the best team. But unfortunately—owing to circumstances beyond our control—"

Rachel nodded, remembering how poor Harry had been stuck in the hospital wing for the last game of the year. Shame, that…

"So this year," Oliver continued, "we train harder than every before. Okay, let's go and put our new theories into practice!" He grabbed his broomstick and left the locker room.

"I'm sorry about him," Katie Bell said when he had left. She pulled a key from her pocket and unlocked the school brooms. "He's a little…"

"Overzealous?" Rachel offered.

Katie handed her a broom. "Exactly. Here. This is a Comet 140. I think you'll like it."

"Thanks." Rachel took a deep breath and walked onto the pitch.

-----------------------------

"How was practice?" Hannah asked as Rachel dragged herself into the common room three hours later.

"Don't ask," Rachel replied with a groan, and curled up in a chair without even bothering to take off her wristguards.

"Well, she did, and I'm asking, too," Katelyn said. Dean and Seamus looked up in interest.

Rachel sighed. "Well, Oliver Wood spent the first hour talking about new tactics. I fell asleep and didn't listen. I had to get used to using a bat with other players about. I had to work on my aim. I used a Comet 140. Oliver says I need a new broom. The Slytherins have a new Seeker. We—"

"Hold on," Dean interrupted. "How do you know?"

"They kicked us off the field so they could practice with their new Seeker, Draco Malfoy. He bought his way onto the team with new brooms: Nimbus Two Thousand and Ones. Ron and Hermione fought with Malfoy. Ron got hit with one of his own hexes, and now he's b-b-b-belching slugs…all over. And I…I…"

"You what?" Seamus asked eagerly.

"Don't bother," Katelyn said dryly.

"Why not?"

"She's asleep."

Sure enough. Rachel had fallen asleep in her chair, still in her uniform and holding her

bat.

"Oh, well," Dean sighed.

---------------------------------

Over the next few weeks, the Gryffindor Quidditch team trained hard for their upcoming match against Slytherin. Every week Rachel and Harry returned from practice muddy and sopping wet; Rachel's hair never seemed to dry and she spent half her time in the showers. Her eyes grew big and dark-circled (Oliver kept egging them on) and she slept fitfully, wracked with nerves about her first game.

Finally, the big day arrived. Oliver gave them his usual pep talk before the game, but this time Rachel was too nervous to sleep through it.

"Slytherin has better brooms than us," he began, pacing in front of the team. "No point denying it. But we've got better people on our brooms." He beamed at them all, and Rachel shifted nervously. "We've trained harder than they have, and we've been flying in all weather—"

"Too true," George muttered to Rachel. "I haven't been properly dry since August."

"—and we're going to make them rue the day they let that little bit of slime, Malfoy, buy his way onto their team.

"It'll be down to you, Harry, to show them that a Seeker has to have something more than a rich father. Get to that Snitch before Malfoy or die trying, Harry, because we've got to win today, we've got to!"

Rachel patted Harry's arm sympathetically, trying to keep a straight face as George said sagely, "So no, pressure, Harry."

"What," said Oliver, turning to them suddenly, "is the first rule in the Beater's Bible?"

"Oo, oo!" said George, bouncing on the balls of his feet and waving a hand in the air. "I know this! I know this!"

"What is it, George?" Oliver said fiercely.

George closed his eyes, laid a hand over his heart, and recited solemnly, "'Take out the Seeker'."

Oliver looked sternly at his two Beaters, and did nothing but raise an eyebrow.

"It'll be my pleasure, Oliver," Rachel said, but her face was bloodless with nerves.

"Buck up, Rachel," George told her as they came out onto the pitch. "Look—your friends have made us a banner!"

Rachel squinted up at one of the towers, and could barely make out the words "We Love The Beaters" written in gold and scarlet letters across a white banner. She smiled and felt some of her courage returning.

"Mount your brooms," Madam Hooch called. "On my whistle. Three…two…one…"

Rachel kicked off hard from the ground, and the whistling of the wind dimmed some of the crowds' noise. She glanced about for the Bludger. In the corner of her eye she saw George streaking after one. Bludger…Bludger… she thought wildly.

Aha.

With a burst of speed, she caught a Bludger aimed for Katie Bell's knee and sent it hurtling toward Marcus Flint. As she swept past him to get a clear shot at Malfoy with the same Bludger, she made sure he heard her voice: "We-e-e are the champions, my friend…"

As the teams below were fighting furiously, the heavens were brewing their own storms. With a crash of thunder, the rain began. "Oh, Merlin, this is awful," Rachel cried, shoving her sopping wet hair out of her face. She swiped hastily at the water beading on her glasses, but she had to squint to see just the same.

"Slytherin lead, sixty points to zero!"

Rachel shot across the field toward Oliver; a Bludger was hurtling down at him and if the weather didn't kill her Haley certainly would. She aimed it at the reedy Slytherin sixth year Beater and dove down to avoid it as it came careening back.

"Rachel!" George bellowed. He was battling the same Bludger she had just ducked. "Someone's—tampered—with—this—Bludger—" he grunted.

Together they swung both their bats into the Bludger, sending it speeding off, but all too soon it came swerving back. "We need a time out," Rachel said, panting as the Bludger resumed its attack on poor Harry.

"Oy! Oliver!" George roared with a mighty swing at the Bludger.

Rachel turned, tucked her bat under her arm, cupped her hands around her mouth, and cried, "Oliv—"

With a dull thud, something heavy slammed into her back. For one sickening moment, she hung in thin air, and then all of a sudden she was on the ground. Pain dimmed everything else, but suddenly, a conscious thought sprang from the deep wells of her mind.

My broom.

She coughed, stood with a major effort, and just managed to grab hold of her broomstick before it was swept away. "Whew."

"Oy, time out!"

Rachel grimaced and joined her teammates, where Oliver was telling off George.

"We were twenty feet above Katie, stopping the other Bludger from murdering Harry, Oliver!" George said angrily.

"Yeah, Wood, what were we supposed to do?" Rachel asked. The pain that shot along her side when she breathed made her suspect a cracked rib or two.

Oliver seemed to notice her for the first time. "Are you okay? I saw you fall off your broom…"

"Yeah, I'm fine, it was only ten or so feet."

He seemed to agree and turned back to the others, but Rachel didn't hear what he had to say next, because someone took her sore arm and turned her around. She bit back a squeak of pain. "Hi, Seamus."

He handed her an elastic hairtie. "From Katelyn."

"Thank you."

He seemed to be clenching his jaw, but suddenly said furiously, "What's wrong with you?"

"What?"

"Why weren't you watching? Why weren't you helping the other players? Why only Harry?"

She was hurt and taken aback at his outburst. "He needed it," she said, fighting back tears.

"So did the other players, Rachel."

"I'm trying," she protested, her voice quavering. "It's only my first game."

"Try harder." Seamus looked angrily at her, his hair dripping water into his eyes.

Tears were falling quickly now from Rachel's eyes. "Didn't you see me fall off my broom? In case you didn't notice, it hurt a lot." She turned her head in outrage. "I don't need this right now."

"I don't need you killing yourself because of a stupid Bludger in a stupid game! Be more careful!"

Her head snapped back, and she said, fuming, "Stop. Just stop. In fact, Finnigan, just don't ever speak to me again! The one time I need you, you won't come through for me! Don't ever talk to me again."

"Fine."

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

Seamus glared at her for a minute, then stalked off.

"Good riddance," Rachel cried, then, as soon as he was out of earshot, let out her breath in a gasp of pain.

"Up you get, Rachel," Katie Bell said. "We're resuming play. You sure you're okay?"

"My left side hurts pretty bad, but, yeah, I think I'm fine." Rachel tightened her ponytail and clambered clumsily back onto her broom.

The game was over in a matter of minutes. Harry, left to his own devices, had finally been bested by the Bludger and was now in even worse pain than Rachel; not to mention much worse off with Lockhart about to do who-knows-what to his arm.

"No! I'll keep it like this, thanks."

Rachel hovered close by, horrified at the grotesque angle of her friend's broken arm. "Oh, Merlin, Harry, I'm so sorry!"

"Hey!" George grunted. "Help me with this Bludger!"

Rachel assisted him in getting the Bludger back into its box. "I assume we won, then?"

"Heck, yeah!"

Rachel was assaulted from behind by a various assortment of arms. "Ow! Hey, guys, lay off." She managed to turn around to see her friends.

"You did so great!" Hannah said.

Seamus sidled up. "You did…"

Rachel glared at him, then shook loose from Katelyn's bear hug. "I thought I told you to leave me alone!"

"I wanted to—"

"I don't care if you wanted to ask me to accompany you on a safari to find the Lost Stone Of Beedlebum! Frankly, I don't give a damn what a beer-guzzling Irishman has to say!"

In the silence that followed, Seamus' face turned noticeably redder. "Oh, yeah?" he bellowed. "What if I wanted to say that you were the worst flyer on the face of this earth?"

"I'd say 'look who's talking'!"

Rachel's face was now red too, and her eyes were streaming with tears from anger and physical pain. She and Seamus both had their fists clenched and were having an out-and-out row.

"You are by far the lamest excuse for a witch! You are lazy and mean and—"

"Oh, yeah? At least I don't have a fake Irish accent!"

"At least I don't live in a country founded by a bunch of old geezers!"

"Potato farmer!"

"Redneck!"

"Whiskey head!"

"Jackass!"

"Well, well, well, what do we have here, Mr. Finnigan, Miss Hekman?"

Seamus and Rachel glared at the unwelcome intrusion of Lockhart. "We're just talking, Professor."

"I think we have a little spat!" Lockhart said jovially. "Don't you think so?"

"Yes, Professor," they mumbled.

"Don't worry," he said merrily. "I have just the solution." Up went the sleeves, out came the wand. "Ropus Armento!" Out of his wand flew a fifteen-foot rope, which tied itself first around Seamus' waist, then Rachel's.

"Five days and nights with this will, I think, cure you of your disagreement. On Thursday perhaps you will find that it cures itself!" And with that, Lockhart was gone.

Rachel and Seamus stared in absolute horror at the rope that was tethering them together. "I'm supposed to sleep in this?" Seamus exclaimed.

"I'm supposed to live in this?" Rachel cried. The day's stress had finally gotten to her, and she simply sat down in the mud and sobbed.

"My life is over," Seamus muttered.