Chapter 9: The Harpies

A few weeks later when I walked into the Harpies' headquarters my excitement reached a new level. I had read the letter more carefully when I had calmed down and saw I was one of five new recruits who had been chosen as reserves for this coming season. We all arrived at around the same time, and were shown into the large meeting room. It was clearly a busy place. There were piles of parchment lying everywhere, squashy armchairs with discarded pieces of clothing were scattered around the room and a pensieve had been set up on one wall. I guessed that was a way for them to watch their training sessions and games. I stopped myself short – our training sessions and games, I thought with a smile. I caught the eye of one of the others, a tall willowy girl with dark brown hair, and she smiled back looking a little shy.

I sat down on one of the chairs and the other girl sat down near me. We were just beginning to shuffle a little in that way you do when thinking about starting a conversation with a stranger when our attention was caught as a new person entered the room. Gwenog Jones was noticeable anywhere; even if I didn't know who she was I would have known she had some authority here. She held herself with poise, almost arrogance, and had a knack of drawing all eyes to her. She stood at the front of the room and it was obvious our induction was about to begin.

'You have all been selected because we have seen that you are the best of the best coming out of the schools and sports academies,' she began and I frowned in puzzlement. I knew that no-one from the clubs had been to any of our games last year so I didn't know what she was talking about. I can't have been the only one looking confused because Gwenog flashed out what I was soon to know was her signature grin. 'We sent scouts in the form of ordinary spectators to your games, and watched you all in the pensieve. You represent the best chasers,' she nodded at me and the dark haired girl I had ended up next to, 'beaters,' with a glance at a stocky girl on the other side of the room, 'seekers,' this time she grinned at a tiny woman who seemed to disappear into the chair she was on but who grinned back in a familiar way, 'and keepers,' she nodded at a solemn looking blonde who nodded back. 'You will find these next two weeks very challenging. We will do our best to break you, since it is important that you are challenged as much as possible as soon as possible.'

I shuffled uncomfortably, and noticed most of the other girls doing the same. I had known that it was going to be tough, but to be told so matter of factly by the team captain that they were going to try to break us was a little disconcerting. She grinned, having expected this reaction, and said, 'it's not all bad, ladies. We will also show you how we have fun here at the Harpies. Now, I know some of you have left boyfriends behind.' I was feeling even more uncomfortable now. I had a strange feeling she was talking to me here. 'Because of our role as the only all-female team in the league, we have a certain reputation among the men, which we strive very hard to dispel. So, part of your job, and one of the things you signed to when you signed your contracts, is that you will keep your own reputations as unblemished as possible. That means,' and here she caught and held my eye, making me blush, 'that anyone the media is particularly interested in will have to work twice as hard to avoid unpleasant stories.' She turned back to the rest of the girls, looking at them one by one. 'So, those of you with boyfriends at home, you will do your best to avoid any scandals or any sort of attention that will harm our reputation. Those of you without boyfriends will also be discreet and careful about those with whom you choose to associate.' She grinned around the room once more, clearly enjoying our discomfort. ' Now ... time to get to work. Marcela will show you where you will be sleeping during this training period, and you will meet us on the pitch in thirty minutes.'

I gathered my things and followed the indicated girl out of the room. The girl I had been sitting near, the other chaser, caught up with me and held her hand out. I took it, and smiled self-consciously. There had been a certain amount of attention directed my way as people wondered why I would generate more media attention than the other recruits, so I was a little suspicious of why this girl was approaching me.

'You're Ginny Weasley, aren't you?' She was looking at me with awe, which wasn't the reaction I had expected.

'Yes.'

'I'm Gertrude Hightower. I'm a chaser too. I was at the sports academy in France for the last two years, so I missed all the unpleasantness here, but I hear it was terrible.'

A shadow crossed my face as I nodded, and she clapped her hands to her face. 'Oh, I forgot! You were involved, like right there, weren't you? And your brother ...' she trailed off as she noticed the expression on my face.

'Look, I really don't want to talk about this,' I made my voice as forbidding as I could, and she took the hint, but she was still fascinated by my life and peppered me with questions.

'Are you really going out with Harry Potter?'

I couldn't contain the smile that slid on to my face as I nodded again, and ducking my head in an attempt to hide the extreme sappiness from her. She grinned at me, undeterred. 'Oh that's so cute. You really like him, don't you? I knew those stories must be a load of bull.'

I grimaced wryly and said, 'yeah, well ... Rita Skeeter was never known for letting accuracy get in the way of a good scandal.'

She snorted and agreed with me. By this time we had reached the room assigned to us and Marcela was waiting patiently for Gertrude and me to catch up with the rest. We had all been assigned to the same room and the five beds were set along one wall opposite a large mirror. I wondered why we needed such an extravagant item when Marcela said that the mirrors were useful tools to check our posture and placement on the broom; they were spelled to tell us when we dropped out of proper form. Our quidditch stuff was already in lockers at the end of our beds, and the other girls were already struggling into their practise gear. We had all been provided with several sets of robes in the Harpies' colours, and we were unused to the new style which was a lot sleeker then the old robes I'd worn at Hogwarts. This really was a different league. I could feel excitement coursing through me as I looked at myself in my new clothes.

When we were out on the pitch, the other Harpies were as good as Gwenog's word and challenged us all as soon as we took off. It was, without a doubt, the most gruelling quidditch I have ever played. They kept us in the air for hours, never once letting up on the bludgers and the quaffles that came at us, nor with the fouls they repeatedly made against us. Instead of feeling intimidated and defeated by these tactics, however, I felt exhilarated. Every time I was pushed harder and faster, I thrilled to it. This was what quidditch was supposed to be, and I knew that this was what I wanted to do with my life. If they were trying to break me it hadn't succeeded. All they had done was fire me up even more.

At lunch that day I was still buzzing from the practice and I saw the other girls seemed to feel the same way. Gertrude, who insisted on being called Gerry, and I ended up sitting next to each other at lunch and we shared a little more with each other. She had been schooled at home by her mother who had used to teach at Hogwarts when my brother Charlie was there, and had gone to France immediately after she finished school two years ago. So she was fascinated with my stories of life at Hogwarts and what it had been like especially during the year it had been run by the Death Eaters. She had a horrified fascination for how awful the teaching had been, and she loved the stories of the DA and standing up to the authorities. In return, I was obsessed with finding out what life had been like at the sports academy. She had trained six days a week in all weathers and had extensive theory lessons as well. I was a little concerned that I wouldn't measure up despite the hours of practise I had put myself through. But I decided I had been chosen just like she was, and I determined to keep doing my best. Gerry might have had a head start but I could catch up. In fact, I was determined to.

That afternoon comprised of a long test that quizzed us on all aspects of the game, players in other teams and their strengths and weaknesses. To my relief, as I surreptitiously looked around the room, everyone seemed as stunned as I was by the depth and detail required in the questions. Immediately after the test, when we thought we had some free time, we were sent back to the practice field for some drills which were just as gruelling as the morning's session had been and which left me gasping for breath when we were finally allowed back onto the ground. At last we were finally allowed some free time, and we all sank thankfully into our beds and vowed not to stir ever again.

Every day followed the same pattern, except that on subsequent days instead of doing a test we were all individually assigned research to do based on weaknesses that had been found in our knowledge based on the test. I was nowhere near the best of the new recruits (that honour went to the tiny seeker, Meredith Gibbs) but I was relieved to see that I wasn't as abysmally poor as I had thought I might be. My weakest area was my knowledge of the other teams' players and their foibles so I was assigned a lot of time in the pensieve with memories of games they played and told to find the weak points of opposing players and figure out ways to exploit them and how to negate any strengths I saw. It was fascinating watching these players. At first glance they seemed so amazing, just like they had when I idolised them all those times I'd watched the games, and yet when I looked closer I saw that one favoured his right side when throwing the quaffle or that another always used the same combination of moves to 'throw off' her opponents. There were always small things that I could see and I had fun coming up with tactics to use against them.

In a kind of dizzy disbelief, I imagined playing against these people and what I would do to avoid the bludgers sent by one beater, or how to get a goal in past another team's keeper. Gerry felt the same. By the end of the first week we were firm friends and we both felt the same kind of awe that we were actually at some point going to be on a field against these people. It was almost more surreal than the fact that we were here being brutalised on the field day in and day out by Gwenog and the other Harpies.

True to their word, however, they also showed us the kind of fun the Harpies had. It seemed to involve a lot of firewhiskey and bawdy jokes. But they were right; it was fun and cemented bonds between the new players and the old hands. By the end of the fortnight I was sad to leave. It had been extremely hard work and I had been exhausted beyond belief at the end of almost every day, but I felt like I belonged here, in this groups of dedicated women, and I knew once and for all that this was what I wanted to do. They had a party for us on the last Saturday, and guests were welcome. I invited Harry, of course, and he caused something of a sensation when he walked in. That he would come wasn't a surprise to them (by the end of the first day every single person at the headquarters knew we were together) but I think actually seeing him still came as something of a shock.

I was talking to one of the older girls at the bar when the feeling in the room changed. Conversations slowed and people became a little tense. I turned, puzzled, to see what was going on and saw Harry. He caught my eye and grinned, making his way through the crowded room, trying his best to ignore the whispered comments that followed him. Mindful that I was in a place where I had a reputation to uphold, I hugged Harry enthusiastically and dragged him down to sit with the group that had suddenly sprung up at the bar. He remained the centre of a fascinated group for the rest of the evening, but he took it pretty good naturedly even when talk drifted perilously close to the articles Rita had written about us. The frown he wore when redirecting attention put people off (he can look pretty off-putting when he's angry) and talk drifted back to safer subjects.

At the end of the night I walked him outside to the apparition point.

'I'm sorry they were so eager to talk to you, Harry. I should have thought about it a bit more.'

'It's OK. They were refreshingly blunt with their questions.' I looked at him in surprise. 'My fellow aurors always beat around the bush when they want to know about any of the things I've done or about you.' He grinned. 'It was quite fun to be asked right out what it was like to kill Voldemort.'

I sniggered, remembering the question from one of the drunkest girls in the room. She was almost certainly too drunk to remember any of the silly things Harry made up about that day and he had managed to direct attention away from the question. I figured he must have had some practice himself; he never used to be that good at sliding out of unwanted conversations.

'Well, either way you were a hit. You should drink firewhiskey more often. It loosens you up quite nicely.'

'Well, it did wonders for you too. Or is it just being with these Harpies that made you bubble over so much?'

'I think it's more likely the effect of seeing you again after two weeks apart.' I had been with him all evening, and after a little firewhiskey I had mellowed enough to risk sitting snuggled to him and had been relieved that Gwenog didn't seem to mind. In fact, she had been similarly snugly with a very good looking man of her own.

Now that we were alone, however, I took the opportunity to say a thorough goodbye to him, and sent him off back to the Burrow with the happy knowledge that I would be seeing him the next day. Returning to the party, I was accosted by Gerry who was in raptures over Harry.

'Oh, Ginny, he is so adorable,' she said passing me another firewhiskey. 'I thought he would be all forbidding and intimidating. You know, the 'Boy Who Lived' and all that, but he's not.' I choked on my drink at the thought of Harry as forbidding, and she grinned at me. 'I can see why you like him – and not just because he's famous.' I stuck my tongue out at her, used by now to her bluntness. I had let slip to her that I had a 'thing' for him when I was eleven and she now took every opportunity to tease me about it. 'And he's just as head over heels as you are, which is good. I was worried you were too sappy for your own good, but it's obvious he's just as bad.'

I took a swipe at her, which she ducked away from. 'Watch who you're calling sappy, witch! Don't forget I've heard on the floo to your bloke.'

Giggling, we both made our excuses to the other Harpies and made our way to bed where we continued the banter. I was sorry to leave her the next day, but as we would be practicing every week day even if we weren't staying overnight at the complex anymore, I knew I'd be seeing her and the other girls soon enough. My thoughts turned instead to my family and Harry and how excited I was to be going back to see them again.