(Who's Ravenclaws house leader? I know Gryffindors' is Prof. McGonagall Who's Ravenclaw's?)

A Year in the Life of the Ravenclaw House

Chapter 2: "Sarah's Quidditch Tryout"

It was Thursday, after school. Sarah dragged her no-name broom to the Quidditch practice grounds with great determination; some might say that is what Sarah only has...great determination.

Three years ago when she was in her 2nd year she tried out for the position of Ravenclaw seeker there was only one other candidate...unfortunately it was Cho Chang. The next year she tried out for the only vacant position for that year, Keeper, and never being one she failed miserably saving only 2 quaffles out of 15 thrown at her at the tryouts. She was never picky about positions; she just wants to play the game.

(A/N: 4th year there was no quidditch cup)

She entered the grounds already seeing her fellow Ravenclaws up in the air throwing the quaffle around for warm-up. But she sees a familiar figure standing, looking up just 3 meters away from her.

'Thom?'

'Sarah, it about time you showed up. I thought you chickened out or something.'

'No. As you see your assumptions were wrong,' replied Sarah, 'What are you doing here anyway?'

'I came to see you tryout of course, what else would I be here?' said Thom slightly putting up his defenses.

'Why would you even care?' said a suspicious Sarah.

'...Uhh...' stalled Thom as he starts to blush just a little but manages to find a snide response anyway, '...Just wondering if I'm actually going to have to jump of the Astrology tower or not ha...ha!' fake laughed Thom who's fearing he may have sent the signals he wasn't prepared to give out just yet.

And to Thom's relief and slight disappointment Sarah didn't pick up on the signals as her instincts were too focused on Quidditch she just took it as a normal Thom sarcastic comment and retorted with, 'You might wanna try to practice levitating yourself after I'm though with this.'

But when Thom wanted to deliver his comeback the captain of the Quidditch team, Roger Davies, yelled from his broom, 'Kaparnos-Lightbody! We haven't got all day! Get airborne now!' and Sarah kicked the ground leaving Thom to sulk about his feelings.

But Thom did manage to get one more sentence in; he yelled..., 'What position are you trying for this time?'

Sarah was almost thrown off by Thom's rarely-heard sincere tone and replied, 'Chaser!' as she zoomed to normal Quidditch altitudes.

[=====]

'So you wanna be a Ravenclaw chaser, huh?' said Roger as he flew past the already lined up candidates when the other team regulars watch by the sidelines. Sarah was on the far right as she was the latest to assemble; she looked curiously to the right and saw 5 other people.

'Nikolai Casablancas, Daniel Watson, Nikki Nicholls, Liam Albarn, Sonia Kendal,' muttered Sarah to herself, 'Tough competition...young competition.' Sarah was starting to worry that she was gonna be passed over just because for the fact that she was just too old; consider the competition, Nikolai is a 3rd year, Daniel is in his 2nd, Nikki is in her 4th, Liam is a 2nd year, and Sonia was in her 1st!

'It's not gonna be easy, you guys,' Roger looked at Sarah as if he was talking to her and her alone when he is not. Sarah was already sweating of fear, fear of getting rejected the 3rd time.

'Now first test, this will test your reaction time. I will simulate the start of a match where the ball is thrown up and chasers scramble for possession. If you're denied 3 times your out of the running, understand?'

The six murmured an agreement.

'Ok, first up, Casablancas and Watson. Get to your positions you two,' ordered Roger.

The two dark haired boys got into their stance and prepared themselves. Roger threw a quaffle up in the center of the two and they stormed the ball. With lighting swiftness Casablancas snatched the ball from Watson's hands. Then Watson got a hold of it the next throw, then Casablancas...then Casablancas. Watson has lost and was sent to the ground to go back to the common room.

'We have our first winner! Nikolai Casablancas!' exclaimed Roger and his teammates applauded and Nikolai was sent back to the line, 'Next, Kendal and Nicholls. C'mon.'

The brunette and the blonde did the same thing as the two dark haired boys. Sarah was predicting that Nicholls was gonna win this easy, she is after all in the 4th year in comparison with Kendal's 1st; Sarah also has a bias against this Kendal girl because...she doesn't quite know her yet and she just has the face that glows "bitchy"...at least to her.

The quaffle's thrown and Kendal gets the quaffle, the same thing happened the next, the same thing happened the next, and before anyone could find it believable Sonia Kendal, a 1st year, has snatched the ball 3 times in a row from Nikki Nicholls, a 4th.

It was unbelievable, Roger Davies kept on saying "Good show, Good show" and other complements like that and his teammates agree even the uneasily impressed Cho Chang and Stephen James were applauding.

Sarah was just panicking right now. This girl was practically a shoe in, Sarah thought and most were probably thinking the same. Thom, standing down on the ground, can't even conceal his worried face but managed to morph to calm every time Sarah appeared to be looking at him.

'Kaparnos-Lightbody and Albarn!' Roger said it like they had a winner already which was uneasy for Albarn too.

As Sarah went into the position facing Liam, she distributed all her mental energy to this one task getting the quaffle before her opponent does.

Roger throws the first one up; both Sarah and Liam pulled their broom up and ducked for speed and reached out for the quaffle and Sarah made the mistake of closing her eyes and in a split second her control over the broom faulted and lost. Score one, Liam.

Sarah cursed in her mind but didn't express it just yet, she lined up for the next throw...rain started to shower on her. It was weird a minute ago the skies we're mildly cloudy and the next it was pouring. Maybe she didn't notice the gradual change in weather as she was so preoccupied by the happenings in the tryouts she didn't bother to become aware of...

Roger threw the second quaffle, this time Sarah just charged for it and it paid off, she got the quaffle. She was a bit pleased with herself after that catch but she immediately told herself to curb her enthusiasm for a bit, at least until all this is over.

Then the third quaffle, the rain sheet down even harder than before and it was getting hard to see; by now it was as much as instinct then just broom specifications. Davies shouted a signal to tell the candidates that the quaffle had been thrown as soon as Sarah saw a shade of brown on her vision, she went for it...she was wrong, her eyes had fooled her.

Sarah became frustrated knowing very well if she failed to snatch this one it was all over. No one's gonna except her in her 6th year now would they?

She moved back to her position and so did the prematurely-celebrating Liam to his. Roger threw...Sarah and Liam saw...Sarah beat out Liam in a heartbeat...now the score is 2-2! Who ever gets the next one goes to the next stage of the tryouts.

Both looked unwavering as they looked at each other in a deadlock. Roger threw the quaffle, Liam suddenly went for it before Sarah moved...but the quaffle slipped from his wet hands and Liam was to fast to turn around, Sarah took advantage and snatches it with ease and Sarah wins 3 to 2.

Liam looked extremely disappointed with himself and retreated to the common room without any sending-off from Roger the Captain.

'Ok, now the fields down to Nikolai Casablancas, Sonia Kendal, and Sarah Kaparnos-Lightbody! It's getting exited here!' acted Roger as he did "a Jordan", 'So now the 2nd test is just you three going from this end to the pitch to the other side, in other words go hoops to hoops, while our resident beaters here,' The Ravenclaw beaters waved, 'Try to hit you with bludgers, understand?'

The three nodded.

'This test is to see how good your evasive skills are,' explained Roger as he looked at the three candidates line up parallel with each of the hoops and ready themselves to zoom forwards to the other side, seeing them all ready he counted down to the start of the race, '3, 2, 1, 0!'

The three zoomed forward for about a quarter of the field before they had to scatter because of the incoming bludgers. One almost caught Sarah in her head but she just managed to roll before it happened. Disoriented in the middle of the vicious, unforgiving rain she scouted her surroundings but see nothing but water over a foggy gray background. But when she saw a broom zooming to a direction looking very steady she followed it no question as she caught up to the being it turns out to be Nikolai, who was very sure that he was going to get to the other side. But suddenly appeared another broom with a ball following her and both were heading straight for Nikolai. It looked like it was certain that the three things were going to crash but suddenly the broom changed its course drastically, the ball couldn't follow the agile broom but it hit the straight-course broom, Nikolai. He got hit by a bludger so bad he was knocked off his broom and fell down to the ground in a thud and he seemed unconscious. While the other broom, Sonia, finished the race first. Sarah slowly flew to the finish while looking at the fallen Nikolai (the bludgers have stopped bombarding now.)

'Ok, seems like there's only two candidates left, Sarah and Sonia', Roger calls them in their first name showing both of an amount respect but seemingly unaware of the fallen Nikolai.

A concerned Sarah cried, 'Somebody help, Nikolai!'

'Stephen!' Roger calls his co-captain just noticing Nikolai, 'Take Casablancas to the hospital wing, now!'

'Will do!' yelled Stephen from afar and swoops down and rescues Nikolai and takes him away from the grounds leaving the other 4 members of the Quidditch team left to watch the tryouts. By this time Sarah felt a relief through her body seeing her friend finally is being taken away while Sonia acted like nothing happened; maybe the lack of reaction is just proportionate as her lack of acquaintance.

'Ok, with that out of the way...time for the final test!' said Roger playing host, 'Winner of this one will become our full-time Chaser and loser will become her backup. Now the test is a sudden-death shootout! Now one will play attacker and one would play defender and basically it's a one on one situation. Who ever gets one in then defends one out, wins the spot, hey that rhymes!' said Roger revealing his true jolly nature, (hey that rhymes!), 'Now, Sarah will have possession first then Sonia will. Remember one in, defend one out, gets the spot!'

Roger hands a nervous Sarah the quaffle and Sonia hovers in between Sarah and the hoops. Roger signals the go and Sarah flies slowly toward the hoops as the rain starts pouring harder making Sarah to squint then out of nowhere Sonia came from below and reached out to swipe Sarah's quaffle. The attempt failed as Sarah executed a perfect roll that evaded Sonia's reach and that's when Sarah zoomed and threw the quaffle in the middle hoop.

'Advantage Sarah. Now switch positions!' said Roger.

And they did, Sarah was confidant that she could just steal this one quaffle and fly away with the Chaser title. Sonia hovers opposite Sarah who's in between her and the hoops, Roger signaled the go...

Sonia flies in a zigzag pattern in moderate speed and Sarah found herself following the pattern, then when Sonia judges Sarah's hypnotized enough to fall for her trap she accelerates as fast as she could on her broom right in Sarah's direction, Sarah panicked and ducked allowing for an easy goal to the left hoop.

'Ok, I didn't see that coming,' muttered Sarah to herself as she got her hair out of her eyes vision.

'That puts us back to square one, ok you know the drill, girls.'

And yes they did, Sarah holding the quaffle and Sonia defending.

Sarah just started to accelerated as fast as she could zoomed toward Sonia as she did before and Sarah actually saw Sonia flinched and capitalized on it, Sonia ducked and Sarah threw the quaffle where Sonia's head would be if she hadn't avoided it and hit the insides of the right hoop but went inside anyway. Sonia sulked but carried on anyway.

'Ok, get into positions, girls it's getting dark!' said Roger when he noticed the day was ending. 'Hurry it up.'

Both candidates got on to their positions and prepared themselves.

The pressure was on Sonia but Sarah only saw confidence in her eyes, or at least the illusion of confidence in comparison with her fear.

Sonia opted to go with the zigzag approach again. Even though Sarah knew what's coming this time she still felt terrified of what's to come...then like before she zoomed in...Sarah decided to just let go and took Sonia head on! In panic Sonia just threw right before Sarah was about inches from her, right after that...they just crashed into each other and both fell down...the last sensation Sarah felt was the rich sound of a Quaffle hitting a Hoop post...

Did it go in? or did it go out? Who's gonna get the spot? All this in the next chappie!

To Be Continued...

If anybody has crucial Ravenclaw or Hogwarts facts and anecdotes to tell, please send them to , I really don't wanna forget to include a big, obvious bit about the world that J.K. built, your help would really be appreciated!