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Flying High
Chapter 14: Quidditch Practice
A couple of weeks in and Oliver had us all gather in the common room one morning, ready to start the new training regimen which made him oh so happy. He would have started the first week if McGonagall hadn't convinced him it would be better if we all got settled in first before we started properly training, he'd begrudgingly agreed with her and so we were able to have a few weeks to get adjusted before he'd be having us run round the Quidditch pitch.
"What's the matter?" Harry yawned as he entered the common room he wasn't the only one who was half asleep, Angelina and Katie were practically asleep on the couch facing the fireplace.
"Quidditch practice" Oliver stated as he grabbed his broom and was heading for the portrait hole beckoning the rest of the team to follow. "Come on."
"Oliver it's the crack of dawn." Harry moaned as he grabbed his broom and other gear, he'd at least caught on not to argue with the overly obsessed captain when it came to going somewhere, arguing back was another problem. There was no point in arguing with Oliver.
"Exactly." Oliver exclaimed as we made our descent down the staircase, today would be a long day and I'd be lucky if I didn't fall asleep in Transfiguration in the afternoon. "It's part of our new training programme. None of the other teams have started training yet, we're going to be first off the mark this year."
"Couldn't you convince him to start later in the day?" Angelina asked as she rested her head on my shoulder once the staircase began to move.
"You know there's no convincing him out of anything to do with Quidditch." I mumbled back half yawning through the sentence as the staircase connected with the next platform.
"I think he'd listen to you more now that you know the two of you are together." Katie added where she would have been giggling she instead yawned.
"Yeah and you are the co-captain." One of the twins interjected, the pair of them looked even more tired than the rest of the team with puffy eyes and tousled hair. I mean I was the co-captain as well as the captain's girlfriend, and if it was anyone else other than Oliver I probably could have convinced them out of putting practice at literally first light, but once Oliver was set on something to do with Quidditch there was no way he'd stop it.
"Now I wanted a quick talk before we actually get onto the pitch, because I spent the summer devising a whole new training programme which I really think will make all the difference." Oliver stated as we gathered in our area of the stadium, he waved his wand and diagrams on the chalk board began to move as he started to explain his formation for this year. Fred was already snoring in within the first couple of seconds of Oliver explaining the plan; he'd rested his head on Angelina who was also half awake. George was propped up on one of the oak beams as was Katie while Harry had his head in his hands as he tried to listen. "So is that clear, any questions?"
"I've got a question, Oliver" George piped up. "Why couldn't you have told us all this yesterday when we were awake?"
"Now listen here you lot we should have won the Quidditch cup last year were easily the best team but unfortunately owing to circumstances beyond our control…" Oliver began looking at Harry briefly who avoided his glance, I mean we don't know that if we had Harry in the final game would we have won and therefore won the Quidditch cup, all we know is that we lost the game and therefore lost the cup as well. "So this year we train harder than ever before…ok let's go put our new theories into practice."
We all filed onto the pitch with our brooms and kicked off into the air, he had us running drills in the air, passing the Quaffle in different formations while the twins circled around us dealing with the bludgers as they would in a normal game. We'd test Oliver with a few shots as Harry circled round finding the snitch, usually we'd have the reserve team fly with us, but for very early morning practices Oliver would only get up the first team…Alicia was so lucky to be in bed still.
"What's that funny clicking noise?" Fred asked as he came to a stop next to me, I listened for a moment and he was right there was a weird clicking noise every now and then. The pair of us scanned the stands and pitch finding a young student with a camera…the clicking noise was from him taking pictures. "Who's that?"
"I'm not sure, why is he taking photos?" I asked the rest of the team stopped as well, Oliver and Harry where now at the level where Fred and I where.
"No idea." Harry stated as we all looked over to this student, who seemed to be a short blond boy. Maybe he was a fanatic Quidditch fan of the team…after all it was a strange time in the morning for someone to just casually want to take photos, but why photograph Quidditch practice?
"What's going on?" Oliver mumbled clearly agitated at the 'intruder'. "Why's that first year taking pictures? I don't like it he could be a Slytherin spy trying to find out our new training programme."
"I doubt he's a spy Oliver." I interjected although he shook his head, I mean if they really wanted to spy I doubt they'd get someone to take photos so openly that our team could clearly see them.
"He's in Gryffindor." Harry stated and looking more closely…well really squinting and dropping a few centimetres down you could see the red on his robes that signified that he was indeed a Gryffindor student, whether he was a first year I don't know you couldn't really tell other than he was rather short from where we were in the sky.
"And the Slytherins don't need a spy Oliver." George hollered from his positon a little bit away from the four of us. I wasn't exactly sure what he meant until I spotted them from the corner of my eye strolling onto the pitch in their green robes.
"I don't believe it." Oliver growled as he began descending down to the ground, I looked over at Fred we both knew this wouldn't be good and we followed him down. "I booked the pitch for today we'll see about this. Flint, this is our practice time we got up specially, you can clear off now."
"Plenty of room for us all Wood." Flint fired back, Oliver was not happy what so ever he'd lander rather hard from the anger with Fred and I trailing behind him, we didn't need a fight between these two and potentially causing Oliver to be banned for the match against them.
"He booked the pitch Flint, if you'd checked the board you'd have known." I stated catching up to Oliver as he squared off against the Slytherin team, the rest of our team shortly came down behind us. This would make our day worse, getting up so early for practice just to have it cut short.
"Ah." Flint began his smirk showing off his wonky teeth. "But I've got a specially signed note here from Professor Snape."
"I Professor Severus Snape, give the Slytherin team permission to practise today on the Quidditch pitch owing to the need to train their new seeker." Oliver read off the note that Flint had handed to him, they'd gotten a new seeker even though Higgs was an alright seeker who was unlucky to square off against Harry. "You've got a new seeker, who?"
"Aren't you Lucius Malfoy's son?" Fred asked as Flint and Pucey had stepped aside revealing the smaller blond boy who was indeed Lucius Malfoy's son. He seemed rather happy with himself as Harry seemed awestruck that he had actually made the team, but then again Flint had a habit of making up his team with other things in mind than talent, although saying that his usual go to of the stereotypical tough bloke was not something I would call Draco Malfoy.
"Funny you should mention Draco's father." Flint said as he shifted his broom from one shoulder to another drawing everyone's attention to it. I couldn't believe it as I looked round the whole team; they all had the new Nimbus 2001 broom, every single one of them. "Let me show you the generous gift he's made to the Slytherin team. Very latest model only came out last month I believe it outstripped the old two thousand series by a considerable amount, as for old Cleansweeps, sweeps the board with them."
"Well you know what they say; only bad craftsmen blame their tools and not their bad technique." I snidely commented drawing the attention of the smirking captain.
"No, but I know what they say about the captain screwing round with the co-captain." He retorted had to hold Oliver back from swinging at the snarky asshole. "Touched a nerve I see, oh look a pitch invasion."
"What's happening? Why aren't you playing and why is he here?" Ron and Hermione had come down onto the pitch giving us a bit of a distraction so that I could get a better grip on Oliver's arm, the last thing we needed was a fight.
"I'm the new Slytherin seeker Weasley." Draco answered if his smirk grew any bigger his eyes and nose would disappear, god was he such a gloating bastard. "Everyone's just admiring the brooms my father's bought our team. Good aren't they, but perhaps the Gryffindor team will be able to raise some gold and get new brooms too. You could raffle off those Cleansweep Fives, I expect a museum would bid for them."
"At least no one on the Gryffindor team had to buy their way in." Hermione added, this girl was god's gift to our house. She literally took the words out of my mouth. No matter how good the broom is, it is always limited by the user. "They got in on pure talent."
"No one asked your opinion you filthy little mudblood." Malfoy responded, the immediate minute the words came out of his mouth Flint dove in front of him as Fred and George tried to go for him, I just couldn't believe what he'd just said and I don't think Oliver could either. Angelina and Katie held the twins back trying to get them to calm down.
"How dare you!" Katie shouted at him as she dragged George away from the team followed by Angelina and Fred. Harry looked rather confused at what was going on; maybe he didn't understand just how bad of a word it was and how insulting it was to Hermione.
"You'll pay for that one." Ron yelled angrily as he withdrew his cello taped wand from his robes and aimed it at Malfoy who was now out of the shadow of Flint. A loud bang followed by a stream of green light sent Ron flying backwards and the Slytherin team into absolute hysterics. Everyone ran over to him where he lay a few feet away from the group.
"Ron, are you alright?" Hermione asked as she and Harry propped him up the rest of the team circled round them, he'd gone a really unhealthy shade of green before he puked up a live slug.
"Ew." The whole team said in unison as even more slugs were puked up, well I can say my day was a lot better than what Ron had in store for him for what could be an entire week if there was no immediate remedy to this spell. The Slytherins howled with laughter still behind us.
"Take him to Madame Pomphrey." I suggested as Hermione and Harry got him up to his feet. "I'd say practice is finished for the day, so everyone back to the changing rooms."
"We can't let them…" Oliver began but I cut him off.
"They've got a signed note off Snape and no doubt if we went to argue they'd bring up Ron trying to hex Malfoy." I explained he nodded along knowing that I was right. "We don't need any suspensions or outright bans at the start of the year or at all quite frankly. They want a rise out of and unfortunately Ron took the bait and look at him."
"But Malfoy should be punished for calling Hermione that awful, awful name." Angelina stated she was right, Malfoy had used an offence slur and not even Flint could defend that. But even if we brought that up it could still get Ron in heaps of trouble.
"Yes he shouldn't have done that; there is no way of defending that behaviour. But his father will always be able to get him off the hook for stuff like that, whereas Ron will end up in a lot of trouble. The best thing we can do now is get off the pitch back to the dorms and make sure that Ron is alright." I explained ushering everyone towards the changing rooms while the Slytherin team came further on to the pitch.
"If that was Gryffindor's pure talent, I'd hate to see the talentless members of your house." Montague joked snarling at us all, I grabbed Oliver's arm steering him away from them.
"I think you're looking at them." Flint chimed in making the rest of his team howl with laughter, I had to grab Oliver by both arms along with Angelina to try and stop him from decking Flint.
"Ignore them." I whispered as I steered him once more away from them. "They want you to hit them so they can go cry to Snape about it and get you suspended if not outright banned off the team."
"Seems the co-captain has got the captain in her back pocket." Warrington hollered I shook my head this was going to go on all bloody year.
"Yeah Wood you seem rather whipped."
"Has she got your balls in her purse?"
"Do not fucking listen to them, do you hear me?" I hissed as I battled to keep an ever angering Oliver from dashing back to them and giving each and every one of them broken bones.
"Oh look at you jealous lot, couldn't get a girl even if you bribed them." Katie shouted back at them drawing a smile from everyone even Oliver. "I mean look at the lot of you, you definitely wouldn't win Witch Weekly's most handsome wizard award."
"And I hear even Snape won that award." Angelina added as we finally got to the entrance of our section of the stadium, luckily we had had no more incidents. Hopefully Harry and Hermione had gotten Ron to Madame Pomphrey and he was getting looked after. The twins and the girls went off to get changed while Oliver hit the desk in front of his chalk board with his fist a few times.
"They are not worth it Oliver, they are a bunch of snivelling idiots." I stated as I placed a hand on his shoulder, he needed to calm down before we got back to the castle. "They want to rile you up so that you get into a fight and end up off the team. They'll say anything that will get a rise out of you."
"Yeah, but they're a bunch of complete…argh! They're talking about the team, about us…about you. I cannot stand for that." He said as he once again hit the desk.
"Look at me." I said moving my hands to his face and turning him to look at me. "No matter what they say, no matter how they say it, it does not matter. You have got to cool down before they get you banned from the team."
"I'm lucky to have you." He whispered as his arms wrapped around my waist pulling me closer to him.
"As a girlfriend or as a co-captain?" I joked making him laugh.
"I mean both, but I'd say the former is on my mind." He replied before he kissed me.
Author's Notes:
Hi another chapter finally written up, hopefully I've posted this shortly after the previous chapter. I hope you have enjoyed this chapter and the story so far, I'm hoping to get a few more chapters finished and posted with my time off. Thanks again for all the support it means a lot, I also just realised that this story has been advertised by Mibba's Tumblr account as I also posted it on my account on their site, although I think I haven't updated it as much as the one as I can't remember my password or just outright forgot about it on there. Again I hope you have enjoyed this chapter and I shall see you in the next one.