About Quidditch
If there was one thing Pierre Delacroix, sixth year student in Beauxbatons, lived for, it was the Quidditch practices.
It was exhausting, having to wake up early every three days - sometimes well before dawn too – for long hours of intensive sport, but it was well worth it.
Be it winter or summer, snowy or sunny outside, they always started by running around one of the nearby lake – the Pyrenees, where Beauxbatons was situated, were full of them, and there were half a dozen lakes visible from the school, and even more a bit further away.
They run around a different lake every day, circling through them every month or so. It was good practice for your breathing and for your balance, as some of those lakes were bordered by treacherous rocks that could slip beneath your feet faster than you could say Quidditch or by muddy earth that, at best, stuck to your shoes and at worse, trapped them and forced you to stop.
There were other surprises too. Some nasty, like that winding trail that seemed to go on forever and had actually did, having been cursed to do so years ago by a wizard whose name had long been lost to history; others much nicer, like the frequent sightings of all kind of creatures along the paths.
Pierre had even seen a unicorn once, and even though no one had believed him when he told them the story, he knew he hadn't been mistaken.
He had been a bit dubious at first – training for so long, without magic and on the ground for a magical sport that was played in the air, but it hadn't taken him long to see the results.
Some of the harder maneuvers he had always had trouble with before now came easier to him: the barrel rolls to avoid the Bludgers hit his way or the twisting dives he sometimes had to take to get the Snitch: all those weren't exactly easy, but he had noticed a marked improvement in his flying.
The flying parts of the training were obviously his favorites. Half of them were coupled with the activities of the Flying Club, simple races or obstacle courses, but the others were more Quidditch oriented.
There was no actual Quidditch team in Beauxbatons, because aside from the matches they had every couple of years against Durmstrang or the nearby German, Belgian, Spanish and Italian schools, there was no need for one.
The coach who was responsible for the Quidditch Club chose who the people who he thought would best represent the school when time for these encounters came, and those lucky few had additional sessions to prepare them for the international matches.
It was Pierre's dream to be selected. The next match – against Spain – was happening at the end of this school year, and the selections would come any day now.
That was why he tried to do his best to ensure his team always won their matches.
You see – there were no official teas in the school, but that didn't mean there were no matches. Twice every month, the coach organized mock matches between two teams made from the members of the Quidditch Club: if there were more than fourteen people willing to play on those dates, the players relayed each other, giving everyone the opportunity to play for each team.
Sometimes, they even tried out other positions too, to 'better anticipate the other's actions'.
Yes, Pierre truly lived for those practices.
