Dawn decided that Professor Snape's office qualified as 'a place where the sun don't shine' so she took a detour on the way to Quidditch practice that evening. She shoved Malfoy's wand through the slot in his door for students to hand in written assignments.
When she reached the Quidditch pitch she found that there were a lot fewer kids there tonight. Many of Wednesday's hopefuls had taken themselves out of the competition when they found out what they were up against. Not all of the younger kids were gone though. Harry had gone around to talk with some of the second years who had been discouraged by how much better some of the older students were than them, and encouraged them to come back. He wasn't just thinking of this year. He wanted to have some younger players ready to move up to take the places of Jack and Andrew after they graduated at the end of the year.
Harry was down to having half a dozen Chasers to work with. Dawn recognised Colin Creevey, Seamus Finnigan, Dean Thomas and Lavender Brown among them. Colin's younger brother Dennis was among the three Seeker hopefuls still working with Ginny. Jack and Andrew had a pair of seventh years and a pair of second years that Harry had encouraged to come back working with them.
Dawn watched Harry working with the Chasers. She had her clipboard again. This time Hermione had prepared forms for her with every player's name, and columns in which she could tally every time they successfully, or unsuccessfully passed the Quaffle or scored a goal, and half a dozen other measurements. She wondered for a moment if Quidditch fans got as obsessed with statistics as Baseball fans. Dawn added Harry's name to the forms, and kept track of him while they practiced too.
Dawn looked off to where Ginny was working with the Seekers. They had the practice balls out again, and Hermione was shooting them around the sky where they could be chased after by pairs of flyers. Ginny was taking turns herself, and she was clearly the best of them all.
Harry traded places with Ginny forty-five minutes into the practice. He wanted to have a good look at the Seeker hopefuls himself, and he wanted to give Ginny some practice at Chasing before the actual tryouts tomorrow. Dawn watched for a while, while Ginny took part in an exercise with the Keepers: games of two on one like the one Dawn had played with Harry and Hermione a couple of weeks ago. She winced when Ginny threw the Quaffle a little too hard one time, and nearly knocked Ron off his broom.
Dawn switched back to watching Harry work with the Seekers. She got to see how well he flew in comparison to Ginny. She knew she wasn't an expert, but it seemed to her that they were pretty close in ability. Her idea started to crystalise.
They ended the practice session with another half hour scrimmage. They had pared down the number of kids trying out so that they had two full teams, with only one extra Keeper and Seeker, so they rotated through the three Keepers, swapping one out every ten minutes.
They also included the Seekers in the game, two at a time, orbiting the pitch looking for the 'Snitch.' Harry released one of the practice balls from time to time for them to chase, and then they swapped out whichever one caught it (on the theory that the slower Seeker needed the practice more.)
Dawn flew up beside Ginny after all the Seekers had had a couple of chances. "So, how good are you at Seeking, compared to Harry?"
"No one's as good as Harry!" said Ginny.
"Are you sure?" asked Dawn. "Have you ever flown against him…now that you've got a good broom…and you're a Slayer?"
"What are you saying?" asked Ginny.
"Buffy demonstrated a few weeks ago that being a Slayer doesn't do a whole lot for your flying ability. I'm sure that your faster reflexes and things will help, but being a Slayer wouldn't affect your ability to catch the Snitch nearly as much as it affects how you play as a Chaser. I'm no expert, but I've been watching both of you practice, and you don't look that different to me. I'd be curious to watch you fly against each other."
"You think I can beat Harry?"
"One way to find out," said Dawn. "You game?"
Ginny thought for a second, and then smiled. "Sure!"
"Hey Harry!" called Dawn.
"What?"
"I want to see how good a Seeker you are!" said Dawn. "Why don't you and Ginny give these kids a demonstration of how it's really done?"
"Okay!" said Harry. "Hermione, you can control our practice Snitch."
Harry and Ginny replaced the two Seekers currently circling the pitch, and took up looking for the Snitch. Dawn flew over to Hermione. "Really make them work for it."
"Alright," said Hermione. While they'd been working with the kids they had kept the speed of the practice Snitches down, but they were actually capable of going faster than the real thing.
Hermione waited, carefully watching Harry and Ginny circling the pitch. She released the practice Snitch at a point half way between them, when neither was looking in the right direction.
Ginny saw the Snitch first, and dove for it. Harry dove half a second later. Dawn couldn't tell if it was because he'd seen it himself, or because he'd seen Ginny, and knew she had to be going for it. Ginny's half second lead was being eaten away slowly though by Harry's faster broom. Dawn watched them both closing on the Snitch in what looked like a game of chicken. If one of them didn't flinch first, they'd collide.
Neither flinched. Hermione sent the practice Snitch flying off at a right angle, through a group of Chasers vying for control of the Quaffle. Ginny reacted an instant faster than Harry, and turned to follow it, weaving her way through the other players, and closing on the Snitch. Harry wasn't far behind her, and started to close again.
Hermione made the Snitch reverse directions. This time Harry and Ginny both seemed to react at the same time as they came around to chase it, and now Harry had the better position on it. He started to draw closer, and reached out his hand.
The Snitch swerved away. Harry was caught a touch off balance, and when he recovered and turned to follow he found Ginny was ahead of him again. He started to draw up beside her. Ginny swerved sideways, bumping into him…hard.
"If that's the way you want to play this!" said Harry, and he bumped her back. They flew shoulder to shoulder bumping each other, trying to make the other lose their balance. Harry was surprised by just how hard Ginny was hitting him, and how well she was standing up to his hits.
Harry finally hit Ginny hard enough to make her waver a bit on her broom, and by the time she had recovered he'd shot ahead. He closed in on the Snitch. This time when he got in range his hand flashed out and caught it before it could swerve away from him again.
Harry pulled up on his broom, bringing it to a stop. When he'd slowed enough that the wind noise wasn't drowning out other sound he heard the cheers and whistles of the other people on the pitch. He saw that the practice game had stopped while everyone had watched him and Ginny chasing the Snitch around the pitch.
Harry circled back toward where Ginny was sitting up on her broom applauding him too. "That was great!" he told her. "You were amazing!"
"Not quite amazing enough," said Ginny. "You still won."
"But I think it was mostly because I've got a faster broom!" said Harry. He looked around at the people still watching them, and glanced toward the setting sun. "I think we just brought this practice to a close."
Harry swung himself around, and flew back toward where everyone was watching. "Alright! I think we're done for today! I want to see all of you back here at 1:00 tomorrow afternoon! Those of you on school brooms, get them back into the shed! And try not to leave such a mess this time!"
The five of them returned to the castle together that night. Harry, Ron, Ginny and Hermione turned toward the Fat Lady's portrait when they got to the seventh floor. Dawn called them back. "Guys! There's something that we have to talk about." She nodded the other way. "And I haven't had a chance to show Ginny her training room yet. Come on." She walked down the hall toward the Room of Requirement, thinking about what she needed in it. The door was there when she arrived.
Dawn pulled the door open and waved the others inside. Ginny was looking amazed by what she saw. "You had this all set up for me?"
"Apparently, it wasn't that difficult…at least for us," said Dawn. "I'm sure that someone worked very hard to create this room. Harry tells me it takes whatever form you need, when you need it. This is pretty much a copy of one of Buffy's old training rooms."
Ginny looked at a wall rack full of knives, swords and axes. "I'm really going to learn to use all of these?"
"Eventually," said Dawn. "But we'll be starting with the basics. Hand to hand and stuff before we move up to weapons, but there's something else we have to talk about now. I don't think Ginny should be a Chaser."
"What?" cried three voices together. Harry, Ron and Hermione all started talking at once. "Why do you say that?" "What do you know?" "You'd never even heard of Quidditch a month ago!" They kept yelling at her.
Ginny remained silent and looked unhappy. Dawn waited for the others to quiet down. "Why don't you explain yourself," said Harry coldly when Ron and Hermione had run down.
Dawn pushed the copy of the target dummy Xander had made out into the center of the floor. "You're right. I don't know much about Quidditch, but I know a lot more about Slayers than you guys do." She patted the dummy on the shoulder. "This is Oscar by the way." She walked over to a shelf by the wall and took the special item she'd requested when calling up the room from it. She walked over to Harry and handed him the Quaffle. "Let's pretend that Oscar is the other team's Keeper, and he was fast enough to block your shot. Throw the Quaffle at him. As hard as you can."
Harry frowned at Dawn for a moment, but he did as he was told. He let the Quaffle fly and it hit Oscar squarely in the chest. He was knocked back across the room, tumbling across the floor.
"Okay!" said Dawn. She went to pick up Oscar off the floor. "When I was watching you guys tonight I saw Ginny almost knock Ron off his broom when he blocked one of her shots." She pushed Oscar back into position. "Would you say that Ginny threw the Quaffle much harder than Harry did just now?" she asked.
"Maybe a little," said Ron. "Not much though."
"I asked Ginny to be really careful, not to throw too hard tonight," said Dawn. "Were you careful Ginny?"
"Yeah," said Ginny. "That one shot got away from me a bit though. I remembered to tone it down after that."
"But it still wasn't as hard as you could throw, was it?"
"No," said Ginny.
Dawn retrieved the Quaffle and tossed it to her. "Okay, it's your turn. Oscar is the other team's Keeper. As hard as you can. I mean it. They have to see it. You have to see it."
Ginny threw the Quaffle. Oscar exploded when it hit his chest. Stuffing flew in every direction. Bits of wood from his shattered frame were scattered around the room.
There was a stunned silence following the sound of the last pieces of Oscar bouncing to a stop on the floor. Dawn walked over and picked up the Quaffle. It was flattened. It had ruptured from the force of the impact. She came back and handed it to a stunned Ron. "Now imagine what might have happened if Ginny had gotten a little more carried away tonight. That was just a practice. In the heat of a game she could kill someone."
"So I can't play Quidditch," said Ginny. "Being a Slayer sucks."
"Talk to Buffy about it sometime, when she comes to visit," said Dawn. "Sometimes it sucks a lot… But I didn't say you couldn't play Quidditch. I said you couldn't play Chaser."
"Huh?"
"I think we saw tonight that you're as good a Seeker as Harry. He said it himself, the only reason he beat you is that he had a faster broom."
"But Harry's the Seeker!" said Ron.
"Does he have to be?" asked Dawn.
"The team Captain, really ought to be on the team."
"But he doesn't have to be the Seeker does he."
"What am I supposed to do?" asked Harry.
Dawn looked around at them all. She was surprised that none of them seemed to get it. They all had Harry so firmly tied to the Seeker spot that they couldn't imagine him in any other position.
"Lord knows I'm not an expert," said Dawn. "But to these rather inexperienced eyes, watching over the last couple of practice sessions, Harry looked like a pretty good Chaser too."
"What?" asked Ron.
"Hermione had me keeping count of everything tonight. Received passes caught, received passes missed. Thrown passes on target, thrown passes off target. Passes intercepted. Pass interceptions made. Goals scored, goal attempts blocked. I kept count for Harry too. The only one who was doing better than him was Ginny."
"You're saying I could play Chaser," said Harry.
"Why not?" asked Dawn. "Ginny becomes the Seeker, where her Slayer abilities are less likely to kill someone, and we can handicap her a bit by giving her a slightly slower broom to keep things fair for the other teams."
Ron, Harry and Ginny all exchanged a look. "But my new broom is the second fastest in the school," said Ginny.
"I think that's handicap enough," said Dawn. "The other Seekers can get faster brooms if they think it'll help them."
