By: HermioneNRon51791
Co. Written by: Ravenclawizard
Harry Potter and the Basketball teams
Chapter 1
When they got Muggle Sports
(A/n: Weird, huh?)
It was a beautiful Saturday morning when Harry awoke in his wonderful dormitory at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Hogwarts, as it has been said, is for people from the ages of eleven to seventeen that have magical powers. Harry Potter and his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger were 15 and half way through their fifth year at Hogwarts.
Harry used to stay with his mother's non-magical sister Aunt Petunia, her husband uncle Vernon and their elephant-sized (plus a few pounds) son Dudley. But ever since the end of his summer he'd been living with his godfather Sirius Black. It was wonderful living with Sirius in London by Diagon Alley.
Harry rolled over with that happy thought on his mind and got out of bed. He dressed quickly to go join Ron and Hermione, who were probably already at breakfast by now judging by how high the sun was in the sky, seeing to it that he ran down the staircase of the boys' dormitories as fast as possible without breaking his neck.
He whizzed around the last curve in the stairs. When he got to the bottom, after regaining his balance from all of the twists, he looked up and saw a crowd of Gryffindors' around the bulletin board. They were all chatting excitedly, as par usual when dealing with this bulletin board. A couple came from the crowd their eyes wide with amazement. Harry squeezed through to the front where Ron, Ginny and Hermione were standing. There was a poster hanging on the board, which showed figures moving about with a ball; the people were on the ground shooting the ball into hoops. The poster read:
HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY
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Basketball tryouts
For all ages
Great Hall Saturday night at 6:00 sharp
Thank you for your participation
Your Head of House
Minerva McGonagall
P.S. No Magic is allowed in the game
Harry had already known about basketball but never got a chance to play it. With Dudley being as lazy as he was, the Dursleys had never had any sports equipment, aside from Uncle Vernon's golf clubs. And in the Gym classes at school, they always seemed to have to play cricket. He was sure Hermione, being a Muggle-born, knew about basketball, too. But she probably didn't know how to play either. It was Ron he was really worried about. He sighed at the thought of Ron being hit in the head repeatedly with the ball while trying to shoot it. To take his mind off this distressing thought, he glanced around to see the reactions of some of his housemates.
The first years were all in the front too looking at the sign curiously. The smallest one, named Candace Burnette, was talking to her friends saying that she would surely make the team due to the fact that she was muggle-born, and last year her dad and her had had an undefeated team at her Muggle-school in America. Candace seemed like a nice girl to Harry, and one who knew almost as much about him as Colin Creevy. She never bothered him as much as Colin since she was really rather shy and only talked to few people in the school. Harry also thought she was quite pretty for a first year. She also was the smartest in her year. Hermione and her were best friends in the library.
"So Harry you think you're gonna try?" asked Ron in disbelief, still absorbing the fact that magic wasn't allowed in the game.
"I might," Harry said with a shrug. "What about you Hermione?" he added, as if to pass along the question.
"Maybe." She bit her lip. Harry was sure that she was trying to remember if there was a book in the library about Muggle Sports. "What about you Ginny?" Hermione inquired, her eyes still moving as if she were reading an invisible list of library books.
."If there's food bar then I'm going," she said with an excited look on her face. Ron rolled his eyes.
"If it weren't for that near un-human metabolism of your's you'd be as big as Crabbe by now." Ginny stuck her tongue out at him. Ron reached into his pocket, pulled out a Ton-Tongue Toffee, and quickly popped it onto Ginny's tongue. Soon one thing lead to another and all four of them wound up lying in a heap on the floor, panting for breath.
The day went by faster than it normally did on a Saturday. Everywhere you went people would be talking about the tryouts, and how it would be, and wondering why on earth they were playing a muggle sport at Hogwarts.
Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny and Candace were hanging out through the day, despite their age differences. After dinner they went back up to the common room and at 5:50 Professor McGonagall came up to the Gryffindor Common Room and asked for the names of those who were trying out for the team and for captain. Harry and Candace both signed up for Captain along with a couple of others. Ron, Hermione, and Dean signed up for the team, with a handful of people from every other year
At 5:55 precisely, Professor McGonagall led them down the Marble staircase to the Great Hall. The Gryffindors were the first House of the four to arrive. The other three slowly filled in intervals of about two minutes each.
The Great Hall was decorated like a basketball court from America, complete with hoops, nets, and foul lines. Along the back wall were four long rows of chairs. There was also a little stage with a table that had four chairs behind it; Professor McGonagall was standing on the stage. As the houses entered, Professors Sprout, Flitwick and Snape joined her. She waited for the rest of the houses to find seats, and then she announced something to the whole Great Hall.
"We have built this court through the courtesy of a design done by one of the Gryffindor's parent's. (Harry saw Candace go pink in the face.) This year we have decided to try a muggle sport to enhance our ways of learning about Muggles." She cast a very stern look toward Malfoy who shut up at once. He had been commenting rather loudly to Goyle about how small the chances were that they could be expected to play such a stupid game.
And yet, Harry thought amusedly, he decided to show up for the tryouts. He's really something else. Now if only we knew exactly what that was.
"Since I have your names down I will call you up to the front where that curtain is." The entire content of the Great Hall looked at a curtain none of them had noticed before, embroidered with the great seal of Hogwarts. "This way you can try out for your house team without anyone looking at you. So no one will see your skills. And so you will not be nervous. " McGonagall finished as she unrolled a scroll of parchment. She cast a small smile towards Harry as Prof. Flitwick charmed the platform to move behind the curtain. At least he thought it was smile. It was just so odd to see one on her face.
While Professor McGonagall started down the list, he turned to Candace and asked, "So Candace, you're muggle-born?"
"Nope. I'm Half-Blood. My mother was a witch here at Hogwarts. My brothers are Half-Bloods, too, but they can't come this year." She paused to take a deep breath. "There's been a crisis at home and I only had to come here to be safe. My brothers already know enough magic to help my mum and dad, because he knows magic to but he's half-blood also. So I'm actually ¾ blood when you think about it. So all my family is magical. My brothers go here also, but they're in Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff." She then looked up without a pause and said "Please remember that for me" then she ran away to her first-year friends, leaving Harry extremely confused.
And McGonagall was still going. "Abbot, Hannah!" This is going to be a long night, Harry thought. He glanced around to see what the others were doing to occupy their time.
McGonagall had apparently had the House-Elves send up a food bar. Ginny was smiling widely as she stuffed her face. Her and Hermione were sitting with the food in their laps and wee chatting about the game.
Hermione was holding her fork with one hand and had a book open in the other. It seems she found her book, Harry thought, a small grin on his face.
And speaking of Muggle sports-, he thought. He scanned the room to find Ron. He was near the entrance with another group of students. Near the wall was a cart of basketballs. Ron and the others were trying to practice it looked like.
Harry watched on as Ron dropped the ball and saw the surprise on his face when it came back up to him without any spell. Grinning broadly, he tried it again and again, throwing it harder and harder each time. Finally, the ball had enough force that it flew up into the air over his head. He stared up at it as it slowly came back down. And then faster. And then faster. And then faster still. Until…SMACK! Harry winced as the ball hit him square in the face. He looked dazed for a second, then scowled and kicked the ball as hard as he could.
Harry sighed and glanced at the watch Sirius had given him for his last birthday. The magical screen popped up and plainly said, "The time is now 6:15 P.M." A really long night.