Chapter 3: That has GOT to hurt!

Harry woke up early Saturday morning. He yawned and stretched his arms, he'd been dreaming something about Dean and dodgeball... he quickly shook off the thought as he headed toward the bathroom.

"Ow!" Harry felt something hard under his foot; he bent over "stupid rubber duck!" he made a mental note to tell Neville not to leave his stuff lying around. He stepped into the shower and let the warm water run down him. The door opened.

"Morning 'Arry" Dean yawned. "We got practice at 9:00AM don't forget" he picked up his toothbrush and started to brush his teeth.

'Practice? That's funny he's not on the Quidditch team...' Harry thought confusion taking over him. "Hey wait a minute, we don't have Quidditch practice today"

"Nwot ferh qwidith! Dogthbarl!" Dean said foaming at the mouth.

"Dean spit out the toothpaste..." Harry said.

"Dean rinsed his mouth. "I said, not for Quidditch, it's for dodgeball you dolt"

"WHAT!?" Harry's eyes shot open as big as dinner plates "I thought it had been a horrible, horrible nightmare!!!"

"Harry you are clearly not a morning person..." with this he left for breakfast.

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Harry arrived last at the courtyard, his bad mood not far behind. Somebody had conjured up a basketball court; only it was a bit shorter. His other team mates were already there waiting for him.

"All right, I see that we're all here, let's begin!" Seamus said

"Okay, Hermione has hexed these quaffles to pummel us. All you have to do is dodge them, or catch them. Now... if you get hit you're out, when there is one player left standing you have to get that quaffle through that hoop; if you do you get all your team mates back."

"All right Hermione!" Seamus signaled her. Hermione waved her wand and the quaffles zoomed towards them.

Harry had been sulking in the back of the courtyard until a Quaffle whizzed by his ear. Another one came towards him, he screamed and ducked. On the floor, he eyed Ron, he was actually not that bad, he'd just caught a Quaffle and thrown it back to the other side. Harry skived sideways and into a nearby bush narrowly escaping a second Quaffle. He glanced at Hermione, a Quaffle came at her rather low, causing her to jump, and unfortunately for Dean the Quaffle bounced and hit him, so he was out. Harry sighed in relief, at least he wasn't the first one eliminated. Just as he was getting out of the bush Seamus got a blow to the face... blood spattered all over the place, Seamus was out.

"Harry watch out!" Dean had yelled, but too late, poor Harry caught four consecutive blows to his... manhood so to speak.

"Blimey!" Seamus and Dean almost squealed in pain.

"Oh that has got to hurt like a m-OW MY NOSE!" Ron had stopped paying attention to the incoming torpedoes, instead squirming slightly at the pained Harry.

"Oh my God..." Harry said in an unnaturally high-pitched tone, waddling over to the squirming boys "Well the factory is closed for the day, please come back again" he collapsed on the floor, grabbing his...ego.

"Wow Hermione's pretty good" Ron said in awe.

"All she has to do is get the ball through the hoop" and as Dean said this, she did.

"C'mon Harry we have two more rounds!"

"I think we're ok... we don't need more practice" Harry said, still in an unnatural high-pitched voice.

"Just two more rounds Harry!" Hermione called back... to Harry's utmost horror.

Next round Harry was the first one eliminated taking a blow smack in the face. Ron had been the last one standing, but missed the hoop shot. On the last round poor Harry was the third one eliminated by eight simultaneous blows to different parts of his aching body. ("Wow Harry... you're a ball magnet!" "Shut up Ron!").

"Ok We're done-

"FINALLY!!!" Harry nearly jumped with joy.

"Let me finish! We're done with dodging practice, now it's time for target practice!" Dean finished.

Harry groaned, if he was bad at dodging, he was much worse at targets.

"Ok" Seamus conjured up some targets. "You have to hit these moving targets, once you do they'll vanish, but they will keep reappearing until a certain amount of knock outs"

"Mobulus!" Hermione cast the spell on the cardboard cutouts and they started moving.

Harry picked up the nearest Quaffle and threw it at the target, he missed by a mile. He got another one and threw it harder (roughly ten feet in distance), not even close. He grabbed two Quaffles, taking a running start Harry threw them with all his might.... He missed those too. A couple of hours of target practice and they were done.

"Hey Hermione how many did you get?" Ron asked eagerly "I got 25!"

"That's really good Ron, I'm impressed" she smiled "I got 32"

"Wow I only got 18" Dean said. "How about you Seamus?"

"Around 41"

"Whoah! Wicked!" Ron was astonished. "Oh! How about you Harry?"

Harry mumbled.

"Excuse me... didn't hear you"

"FIVE! I ONLY HIT FIVE BLOODY TARGETS!!!"

The group stopped in their tracks... their expressions unreadable...for five seconds. They burst out laughing. They were laughing their heads off leaving one very confused/bewildered/furious teenager agape. They were now thrown out on the floor clutching their sides.

"Boy Harry you weren't kidding when you said you stunk!" Ron said still choking in laughter.

"You guys! Stop it!" Harry trembled with fury.

They laughed even harder.

"I CAN'T TAKE THIS! I'M GOING TO THE COMMON ROOM!" Harry stormed off muttering something about stupid fast moving targets and this being all Hermione's fault.