Here's another chap, hope it's fast enough!! I've already got the next chap
of 2000 words out in my notebook waiting to be typed out, just to let you
know!! The next update wouldn't be too long!!
~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~
It took Harry two days and cauldrons of the Blood Replenishing Potion and antidote to fully recuperate from the potion poisoning, Ginny took a day longer and cauldrons more of the potion and antidote before she was allowed to discharge, due to alcoholic complications. Nothing too interesting happened during their stay unless you count the incident where Mark went to visit with what seemed like the whole lot of the Gryffindor first years. The funny thing was that they were all hiding out of view behind Mark's small frame, during the whole visit.
Ginny tried to be friendly by trying to engage in a conversation with them but all she got for response was a few squeaking and Mark rolled his eyes irritatedly everytime they did so.
"They all begged to come with me when they got wind that I'm coming here, saying that they want to see the Harry Potter, as if you are some extinct animal in the zoo", Mark explained to them. "They are making a big deal out of me knowing you. I told them you are just Harry but they argued that you aren't just Harry, you are Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, famous in the wizarding world for defeating the dark lord when you were only a defenseless baby. I told them to get a grip and I'm not interested in whatever happened between you and the lord thingy, and you know what they said?" Mark paused and took a deep breathe for a dramatic effect. Both Harry and Ginny shook their shoulders to indicate that they had no idea, and he continued, "They say that I'm a nutter like you (Mark points at Harry) for not knowing about you and the dark lord. Danny, the boy who was also a muggle born, that word is muggle, isn't it? People with normal parents? Okay back to what Danny said. He said that even he knows everything about you and that lord guy, and I'm a fool to not know and not interested in it. Honestly, they are the ones who are nutters and talking about nut cases, they all said that the old bearded man who was supposed to be the headmaster was famous for being weird and nutters when he said something like 'Quack quack, let's us all now go to rest, the day had ended and the ducks are tired. Moo moo, the moon is hanging high on sky, let us all turn in and wake up a refreshed cow the next morning' at the feast." Ginny and Harry were sniggering, thinking that it was quite normal of Dumbledore to say something like that.
"I personally think that he's pretty sane and cool. I mean, his hair and beard was that long enough for my old mamma to plait into little tails like what she always does to my baby sister's hair. Since he's sane to my standard, you can't be any worse, can you, Harry? Or will you bite my fingers off when you get short-circuit up there? (Mark did a screwing motion with his fingers at his head) I hope not, Harry, because my old mamma would like her precious son back with exactly ten fingers on each of his hands by the end of the day, thank you very much!" the three friends looked at each other and burst into laughter, their laughter echoed eerily through the hospital wing and the noise they made frightened all the unwanted visitors away.
Rolling his eyes at the retreating backs of the scampering kids who were fighting head to tooth to get out through the narrow door, Mark made himself comfortable on an empty bed. The three of them joked, talked and laughed like old time, Mark ticked them off for not telling him their true identity sooner and they simply laughed at him, pissing him off and making him shout at them louder. The noise level got to an uncontrollable high level and it got onto Madam Pomfrey's nerves. In the end, the matron levitated Mark out of the hospital wing personally and she locked the door after him. Having got the hint that the matron was already annoyed, Harry and Ginny quickly lie back onto the bed and pretend to fall sleep.
~^~^~^~^~^~
Slowly, life went back to normal after Ginny and Harry got discharged. They retuned to their daily routine of waking up for the day, having breakfast with yawning students, going for boring lessons, sleeping or nodding off in class after a heavy lunch, more lessons and realised that they have got Gryffindor to lose ten points by the end of the day, dragging their feet to dinner and stuffing themselves up, tons of homework earned through the day, fall asleep on their book and resulted in having ink marks all over the face. Yes, that was the kind of boring life they were going through.
Due to their busy life, the two of them hardly get to meet, let alone have the time to chat casually like they did during the summer. Even if they were in the same room, both of them would be too engrossed with work to notice each other's presence.
It's Ginny's OWL year, she could hardly breathe through the mountains of homework set by the professors to help her prepare for her OWLs, though Harry was better off in the amount of homework he had to do, he never take the initiative to chat up with her. Ginny was greatly sadden by the fact that he could find the time to chat aimlessly with Ron and Hermione every night but couldn't get any time to even ask her of her well-being.
Reluctant Ginny might be, she can't change the fact that they had returned to the kind of you-mind-on your-on-business-while-I-mind-on–mine relationship. Sometimes Ginny even wonder if the last summer, the happiest summer she ever had, was real or just a figment of a illusion, a dream, a wishful dream. Everytime she tried to catch Harry's eye, he would just flash her his heart capturing smile and turn away to continue his conversation with Ron and Hermione which left her with a more broken heart.
~@~@~@~
Time passed quickly and soon, it was already November and Ginny found Hermione, Harry, Ron, Andrew, Jack and herself, crowding at the fireside of the commonroom one night, discussing the reforming of the Quidditch team for the year.
"Okay, guys!! (Several disapproving coughs coming from Hermione and Ginny) And not to forget, our honourable girls. (This time, Ron was the only who coughed but to his annoyance, Harry chose to ignore him) "As you know, the Quidditch season is drawing near and I, who was permitted to rejoin the team after Dumbledore lifted my lifetime Quidditch ban, was honoured to be appointed Quidditch captain. You'll find many of the familiar faces who used to fight battles with us side by side were all gone and there are only a few of us left, and clearly, we need more talented people in our team. Our advisor, Hermione, and I had decided to carry out a tryout to those said people." Harry paused for a while to look at every of them and carried on, "Now, we want to clear out some doubts, Ron will remain keeper, Ginny the seeker, you two (Harry pointed at Andrew and Jack) are beaters, and I have decided to take the position of a chaser...." Harry was interrupted when Ginny shot up her hand in the air in a very Hermione way, getting everyone's attention, "Yes, Ginny?"
"I'll like to give up my position as a seeker and be a chaser instead"
"No, you have proven yourself a great seeker in the match against Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw last year. Though you are only a reserve seeker, temporary seeker, whatever you want to call it, last year, now I pronounce you the seeker and you are to keep that position. Okay, back to where I have stopped at earlier, so from the look of it, we still need two chasers before the team is considered formed. I've already informed Professor McGonagall that we will be carrying out the tryout on the fourth of October, any objections?" Ginny shot her hands into the air once more and everyone turned to look at her once more,
"What more do you have to say, Ginny? Could you please don't interrupt Harry?" Ron retorted but Ginny ignored him.
"I'm sorry, Harry but I don't see why I can't go for the chaser position. We can exchange position, you can be the seeker back and I'll be chaser, I don't see anything wrong with that."
"This is Quidditch we are talking about, not some silly games where you can change your position as and when you please. This is the same as football; you can't change from being a goalkeeper to a striker. You understand me?" Harry raised his voice slightly, clearly annoyed for being cut off and that shut Ginny up nicely though she looked terribly livid with anger throughout the meeting. With hands folded at her chest, she kept shooting dangers at Harry and Ron.
~@~@~@~
"....................You understand me?" Ginny mimicked Harry's low voice and gave a series of empty laughter.
"Why is he doing that to you?" Mark asked sympathetically as Ginny stabbed at her chop, imagining that it's Harry's stupid arrogant face.
"He's an arrogant, fat head. Here I was trying to give the position back to him in the nicest way possible and there he was throwing it into my face. He was embarrassing me by suggesting that I'm not taking Quidditch seriously. Me,not taking Quidditch seriously? I hate you, fat head potter" Ginny mumbled under her breath as she attacked her new target of frustration, the apple pie.
"I wouldn't believe it if it was another person who told me this. I mean, he used to be very nice. I never believed my old mama when she told me that the Potter boy whom I'm acquainted with is a hardcore hooligan, he is always so nice so nice and polite. I remember the summer before, he saved me from his dough of a cousin" Mark said while wincing as he watched Ginny savage the apple pie into something unrecognisable.
"That doesn't change the fact that he's an arrogant fat head", Ginny said simply and Mark nodded his head in agreement so as to make Ginny feel better.
"I've got to have a heart to heart talk to Harry about Ginny some time soon. I can see that she's pretty upset and hurt although she said all those horrible stuff about him. The mouth says it but the heart didn't mean it. I'll kick sense into him if I need to, I just can't simply watch him hurt Ginny and not do anything about it. Poor Ginny!" Mark thought to himself as he patted Ginny on her arms sympathetically. She was now trying to mix mashed potatoes with ketchup, fillings of the apple pie and everything that was in front of her and result was a brownish-red gooey stuff that gives out a smell unrecognisable but surely not pleasant to the nose. Mark had to gulp hard when Ginny threatened to empty them into Harry's cocoa that night.
~@~@~@~@~
"Beep..... beep...........", Harry blew his new captain whistle which was the shape of a broomstick and everyone hurried to fall in, except Ginny who took to stride slowly to the assembly area and stood at the farthest end from Harry. He saw Ginny's fiery redhead behind Ron, he knew that Ginny doesn't want to stay anywhere near him, in fact she didn't even want to stay in the same room as him, she no longer smile or greet him, but at that moment, Harry chose to ignore that fact.
"Today is the tryout for the positions of chaser. I want everyone to play to his or her best, for I want to see if those people who came for the tryout could work together with us well. No fooling around and let's get up on air." Everyone mounted onto their broom and took off, just as Ginny was about to mount onto her cleansweep which passed down to her by Fred, Harry called her. She turned to look behind slowly to face Harry, eye to eye,
"Yes, captain?" she asked, a tone of irritation and sarcasium thick in her voice.
"Okay, Ginny, I want you to try those techniques we had devised during the summer ("Oh, now you remember we spent the summer together, arrogant boy?" Ginny thought bitterly). I wouldn't let out the snitch today, so I'll only need you to fly around as close to us as possible as you try out those stunts. Clear?"
"Crystal, captain", Ginny said while mounting the broom and took off right in front of Harry without a back glance. Shaking his head, thinking what had he done to provoke her, Harry took off and spent a few minutes trying to get used to the new position, a chaser. After taking a few rounds in air as warm-up, Harry blew his whistle once more and everyone took their position.
Hermione was sitting at the stand, a clipboard like the one Umbridge used to own, on her lap as she shout out the first tryout's name,
"Guy Walters".
A built and dark fifth year boy with dark blond hair walked out from the crowd of well-wishers, onlookers and potential tryouts and immediately took off into air with his chimney1500. He flew a few rounds around the stadium to get familiarise with the environment and stopped in still air in front of Harry, waiting for instructions. There was an aura of confident and arrogant in him, Harry liked his confidence but despise his arrogance, because it reminds him too much of Draco Malfoy, his archenemy.
"Okay, let's not judge someone so fast. Let's see what is he made off, trash or talent?" Harry thought to himself and gave another deafening blow at the whistle. Everyone started to fly around, Mark released the budglers and they scurried dangerously near him as they passed, the big red clumsy Quaffle under Harry's arm and the game starts. Harry flew at great speed, looping pass the players effectively and threw the Quaffle at Walters who caught it easily. They continued dabbling it between themselves, steering away from crazy and well-aimed Budglers until they reached the scoring area guarded by Ron. Walters flew to the left and Ron imitate him and flew towards his right to guard the goalpost at the right when Walters suddenly gave the Quaffle a hard thrust to his right where Harry was and before Ron knew what had happened, a soft ting was heard: indicating the first goal.
At the end of six games, three goals were scored, which means that the goalkeeper and chasers were doing their job well. It was the best performance compared with the next ten people who turned up for the tryout. Most of them either unintentionally knock the other players off their broom due to nerves, or was too afraid to throw out the Quaffle hard, causing it to lose speed halfway before it could reach Harry and fall to the ground. There were several cases where they fell from the broom before they were ten feet off the ground.
Harry blew on his whistle twice, and everyone stopped whatever he or she was doing to crowd around him. The eleven tryouts stood a good distance outside the circle of crowd of team players and Hermione. All of them were either pacing around nervously or wringing their own hands while stealing looks at the crowd who were whispering among themselves, every now and then, except Walters. He was standing a good distance away from the players and tryouts, his facial expression show neither fear nor nerves, but plainly a look of irritation as he kept on glancing at his watch, tapping the ground with his feet impatiently.
"Hem..... hem......." Harry cleared his throat and everyone laughed at his imitation of Professor Umbridge the most loathed Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher Hogwarts ever had. Harry waited good-naturedly for them to finish laughing and cleared his throat once more, getting everyone's attention this time. Harry felt his face getting warmer and he looked away from their eyes nervously as he spoke,
"Thank you for turning up for the Quidditch tryout today. All of you did very well. ("You are lying downright, Harry. Even Hermione knows that they are gone cases." Ginny thought to herself as she noticed that Harry was blinking unnecessarily) But as there are only two positions, we are sorry that only two among you lots are in the team and they are Guy Walters and Frank Detour. Let's welcome them to our team!! (Everyone clapped politely) Once again, thank you for taking time to come for the tryout, hope there are more opportunities to work with you in the near future." Harry smiled nervously at the rejected tryout players' dejected faces and felt so sorry for them, in his heart he wishes that he could take in all of them but in real life, it's impossible. He had no choice but to watch them walk back to the castle with hung heads.
Harry walked out of the changing room to see Walters still hanging around and he went up to him,
"Welcome to our team, Walters. Hope we can work well together and win the Quidditch cup this year." Harry extended his arm to Walters who took it briefly before letting it go as if it's some dirty rat. He gave a hardly noticeable nod at Harry and walked away without saying anything. Harry was shocked of his hostile behaviour but he did notice that Walters had approached Ginny who was also hanging around the changing room, and they had walked back to the castle together. From the distance, he could tell that they were chatting animatedly; even an idiot could see that there were no signs of hostility in Walters' part towards Ginny.
"I don't think I'm going to like that Walters guy. He is too cocky to my likings, he was the exact duplicate of Malfoy." Harry thought as he escort Ginny and Walters back to the castle with his eyes, "Hey, you can't have that kind of attitude towards your team mates if you want the Quidditch cup with your name this year", the angelic Harry in his mind chided. "Okay, okay!! For the sake of the Quidditch cup, I'll tolerate him, no matter what." the devilish Harry grumbled. "No doubt this is going to be another chaotic year" Harry sighed as he stride back to the castle in the orange sunset.
~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~
Another chapter with 3000 words. Wooo...... Hoooooo......... hope it's long enough and you like it. Any comments?? Review it to me!!
Oh by the way, this chapter is unbeta-ed. My dear old beta reader is now busy with exams so I have to post this without beta or you have to wait for ages before my beta reader finishes his exam.
Here I advertise for a temporily beta-reader, whoever is kind enough to help me for 2 mths or so before my beta reader comes back, pls email me or simply leave ur email add in the review!! Thanks!!
~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~
~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~
It took Harry two days and cauldrons of the Blood Replenishing Potion and antidote to fully recuperate from the potion poisoning, Ginny took a day longer and cauldrons more of the potion and antidote before she was allowed to discharge, due to alcoholic complications. Nothing too interesting happened during their stay unless you count the incident where Mark went to visit with what seemed like the whole lot of the Gryffindor first years. The funny thing was that they were all hiding out of view behind Mark's small frame, during the whole visit.
Ginny tried to be friendly by trying to engage in a conversation with them but all she got for response was a few squeaking and Mark rolled his eyes irritatedly everytime they did so.
"They all begged to come with me when they got wind that I'm coming here, saying that they want to see the Harry Potter, as if you are some extinct animal in the zoo", Mark explained to them. "They are making a big deal out of me knowing you. I told them you are just Harry but they argued that you aren't just Harry, you are Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, famous in the wizarding world for defeating the dark lord when you were only a defenseless baby. I told them to get a grip and I'm not interested in whatever happened between you and the lord thingy, and you know what they said?" Mark paused and took a deep breathe for a dramatic effect. Both Harry and Ginny shook their shoulders to indicate that they had no idea, and he continued, "They say that I'm a nutter like you (Mark points at Harry) for not knowing about you and the dark lord. Danny, the boy who was also a muggle born, that word is muggle, isn't it? People with normal parents? Okay back to what Danny said. He said that even he knows everything about you and that lord guy, and I'm a fool to not know and not interested in it. Honestly, they are the ones who are nutters and talking about nut cases, they all said that the old bearded man who was supposed to be the headmaster was famous for being weird and nutters when he said something like 'Quack quack, let's us all now go to rest, the day had ended and the ducks are tired. Moo moo, the moon is hanging high on sky, let us all turn in and wake up a refreshed cow the next morning' at the feast." Ginny and Harry were sniggering, thinking that it was quite normal of Dumbledore to say something like that.
"I personally think that he's pretty sane and cool. I mean, his hair and beard was that long enough for my old mamma to plait into little tails like what she always does to my baby sister's hair. Since he's sane to my standard, you can't be any worse, can you, Harry? Or will you bite my fingers off when you get short-circuit up there? (Mark did a screwing motion with his fingers at his head) I hope not, Harry, because my old mamma would like her precious son back with exactly ten fingers on each of his hands by the end of the day, thank you very much!" the three friends looked at each other and burst into laughter, their laughter echoed eerily through the hospital wing and the noise they made frightened all the unwanted visitors away.
Rolling his eyes at the retreating backs of the scampering kids who were fighting head to tooth to get out through the narrow door, Mark made himself comfortable on an empty bed. The three of them joked, talked and laughed like old time, Mark ticked them off for not telling him their true identity sooner and they simply laughed at him, pissing him off and making him shout at them louder. The noise level got to an uncontrollable high level and it got onto Madam Pomfrey's nerves. In the end, the matron levitated Mark out of the hospital wing personally and she locked the door after him. Having got the hint that the matron was already annoyed, Harry and Ginny quickly lie back onto the bed and pretend to fall sleep.
~^~^~^~^~^~
Slowly, life went back to normal after Ginny and Harry got discharged. They retuned to their daily routine of waking up for the day, having breakfast with yawning students, going for boring lessons, sleeping or nodding off in class after a heavy lunch, more lessons and realised that they have got Gryffindor to lose ten points by the end of the day, dragging their feet to dinner and stuffing themselves up, tons of homework earned through the day, fall asleep on their book and resulted in having ink marks all over the face. Yes, that was the kind of boring life they were going through.
Due to their busy life, the two of them hardly get to meet, let alone have the time to chat casually like they did during the summer. Even if they were in the same room, both of them would be too engrossed with work to notice each other's presence.
It's Ginny's OWL year, she could hardly breathe through the mountains of homework set by the professors to help her prepare for her OWLs, though Harry was better off in the amount of homework he had to do, he never take the initiative to chat up with her. Ginny was greatly sadden by the fact that he could find the time to chat aimlessly with Ron and Hermione every night but couldn't get any time to even ask her of her well-being.
Reluctant Ginny might be, she can't change the fact that they had returned to the kind of you-mind-on your-on-business-while-I-mind-on–mine relationship. Sometimes Ginny even wonder if the last summer, the happiest summer she ever had, was real or just a figment of a illusion, a dream, a wishful dream. Everytime she tried to catch Harry's eye, he would just flash her his heart capturing smile and turn away to continue his conversation with Ron and Hermione which left her with a more broken heart.
~@~@~@~
Time passed quickly and soon, it was already November and Ginny found Hermione, Harry, Ron, Andrew, Jack and herself, crowding at the fireside of the commonroom one night, discussing the reforming of the Quidditch team for the year.
"Okay, guys!! (Several disapproving coughs coming from Hermione and Ginny) And not to forget, our honourable girls. (This time, Ron was the only who coughed but to his annoyance, Harry chose to ignore him) "As you know, the Quidditch season is drawing near and I, who was permitted to rejoin the team after Dumbledore lifted my lifetime Quidditch ban, was honoured to be appointed Quidditch captain. You'll find many of the familiar faces who used to fight battles with us side by side were all gone and there are only a few of us left, and clearly, we need more talented people in our team. Our advisor, Hermione, and I had decided to carry out a tryout to those said people." Harry paused for a while to look at every of them and carried on, "Now, we want to clear out some doubts, Ron will remain keeper, Ginny the seeker, you two (Harry pointed at Andrew and Jack) are beaters, and I have decided to take the position of a chaser...." Harry was interrupted when Ginny shot up her hand in the air in a very Hermione way, getting everyone's attention, "Yes, Ginny?"
"I'll like to give up my position as a seeker and be a chaser instead"
"No, you have proven yourself a great seeker in the match against Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw last year. Though you are only a reserve seeker, temporary seeker, whatever you want to call it, last year, now I pronounce you the seeker and you are to keep that position. Okay, back to where I have stopped at earlier, so from the look of it, we still need two chasers before the team is considered formed. I've already informed Professor McGonagall that we will be carrying out the tryout on the fourth of October, any objections?" Ginny shot her hands into the air once more and everyone turned to look at her once more,
"What more do you have to say, Ginny? Could you please don't interrupt Harry?" Ron retorted but Ginny ignored him.
"I'm sorry, Harry but I don't see why I can't go for the chaser position. We can exchange position, you can be the seeker back and I'll be chaser, I don't see anything wrong with that."
"This is Quidditch we are talking about, not some silly games where you can change your position as and when you please. This is the same as football; you can't change from being a goalkeeper to a striker. You understand me?" Harry raised his voice slightly, clearly annoyed for being cut off and that shut Ginny up nicely though she looked terribly livid with anger throughout the meeting. With hands folded at her chest, she kept shooting dangers at Harry and Ron.
~@~@~@~
"....................You understand me?" Ginny mimicked Harry's low voice and gave a series of empty laughter.
"Why is he doing that to you?" Mark asked sympathetically as Ginny stabbed at her chop, imagining that it's Harry's stupid arrogant face.
"He's an arrogant, fat head. Here I was trying to give the position back to him in the nicest way possible and there he was throwing it into my face. He was embarrassing me by suggesting that I'm not taking Quidditch seriously. Me,not taking Quidditch seriously? I hate you, fat head potter" Ginny mumbled under her breath as she attacked her new target of frustration, the apple pie.
"I wouldn't believe it if it was another person who told me this. I mean, he used to be very nice. I never believed my old mama when she told me that the Potter boy whom I'm acquainted with is a hardcore hooligan, he is always so nice so nice and polite. I remember the summer before, he saved me from his dough of a cousin" Mark said while wincing as he watched Ginny savage the apple pie into something unrecognisable.
"That doesn't change the fact that he's an arrogant fat head", Ginny said simply and Mark nodded his head in agreement so as to make Ginny feel better.
"I've got to have a heart to heart talk to Harry about Ginny some time soon. I can see that she's pretty upset and hurt although she said all those horrible stuff about him. The mouth says it but the heart didn't mean it. I'll kick sense into him if I need to, I just can't simply watch him hurt Ginny and not do anything about it. Poor Ginny!" Mark thought to himself as he patted Ginny on her arms sympathetically. She was now trying to mix mashed potatoes with ketchup, fillings of the apple pie and everything that was in front of her and result was a brownish-red gooey stuff that gives out a smell unrecognisable but surely not pleasant to the nose. Mark had to gulp hard when Ginny threatened to empty them into Harry's cocoa that night.
~@~@~@~@~
"Beep..... beep...........", Harry blew his new captain whistle which was the shape of a broomstick and everyone hurried to fall in, except Ginny who took to stride slowly to the assembly area and stood at the farthest end from Harry. He saw Ginny's fiery redhead behind Ron, he knew that Ginny doesn't want to stay anywhere near him, in fact she didn't even want to stay in the same room as him, she no longer smile or greet him, but at that moment, Harry chose to ignore that fact.
"Today is the tryout for the positions of chaser. I want everyone to play to his or her best, for I want to see if those people who came for the tryout could work together with us well. No fooling around and let's get up on air." Everyone mounted onto their broom and took off, just as Ginny was about to mount onto her cleansweep which passed down to her by Fred, Harry called her. She turned to look behind slowly to face Harry, eye to eye,
"Yes, captain?" she asked, a tone of irritation and sarcasium thick in her voice.
"Okay, Ginny, I want you to try those techniques we had devised during the summer ("Oh, now you remember we spent the summer together, arrogant boy?" Ginny thought bitterly). I wouldn't let out the snitch today, so I'll only need you to fly around as close to us as possible as you try out those stunts. Clear?"
"Crystal, captain", Ginny said while mounting the broom and took off right in front of Harry without a back glance. Shaking his head, thinking what had he done to provoke her, Harry took off and spent a few minutes trying to get used to the new position, a chaser. After taking a few rounds in air as warm-up, Harry blew his whistle once more and everyone took their position.
Hermione was sitting at the stand, a clipboard like the one Umbridge used to own, on her lap as she shout out the first tryout's name,
"Guy Walters".
A built and dark fifth year boy with dark blond hair walked out from the crowd of well-wishers, onlookers and potential tryouts and immediately took off into air with his chimney1500. He flew a few rounds around the stadium to get familiarise with the environment and stopped in still air in front of Harry, waiting for instructions. There was an aura of confident and arrogant in him, Harry liked his confidence but despise his arrogance, because it reminds him too much of Draco Malfoy, his archenemy.
"Okay, let's not judge someone so fast. Let's see what is he made off, trash or talent?" Harry thought to himself and gave another deafening blow at the whistle. Everyone started to fly around, Mark released the budglers and they scurried dangerously near him as they passed, the big red clumsy Quaffle under Harry's arm and the game starts. Harry flew at great speed, looping pass the players effectively and threw the Quaffle at Walters who caught it easily. They continued dabbling it between themselves, steering away from crazy and well-aimed Budglers until they reached the scoring area guarded by Ron. Walters flew to the left and Ron imitate him and flew towards his right to guard the goalpost at the right when Walters suddenly gave the Quaffle a hard thrust to his right where Harry was and before Ron knew what had happened, a soft ting was heard: indicating the first goal.
At the end of six games, three goals were scored, which means that the goalkeeper and chasers were doing their job well. It was the best performance compared with the next ten people who turned up for the tryout. Most of them either unintentionally knock the other players off their broom due to nerves, or was too afraid to throw out the Quaffle hard, causing it to lose speed halfway before it could reach Harry and fall to the ground. There were several cases where they fell from the broom before they were ten feet off the ground.
Harry blew on his whistle twice, and everyone stopped whatever he or she was doing to crowd around him. The eleven tryouts stood a good distance outside the circle of crowd of team players and Hermione. All of them were either pacing around nervously or wringing their own hands while stealing looks at the crowd who were whispering among themselves, every now and then, except Walters. He was standing a good distance away from the players and tryouts, his facial expression show neither fear nor nerves, but plainly a look of irritation as he kept on glancing at his watch, tapping the ground with his feet impatiently.
"Hem..... hem......." Harry cleared his throat and everyone laughed at his imitation of Professor Umbridge the most loathed Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher Hogwarts ever had. Harry waited good-naturedly for them to finish laughing and cleared his throat once more, getting everyone's attention this time. Harry felt his face getting warmer and he looked away from their eyes nervously as he spoke,
"Thank you for turning up for the Quidditch tryout today. All of you did very well. ("You are lying downright, Harry. Even Hermione knows that they are gone cases." Ginny thought to herself as she noticed that Harry was blinking unnecessarily) But as there are only two positions, we are sorry that only two among you lots are in the team and they are Guy Walters and Frank Detour. Let's welcome them to our team!! (Everyone clapped politely) Once again, thank you for taking time to come for the tryout, hope there are more opportunities to work with you in the near future." Harry smiled nervously at the rejected tryout players' dejected faces and felt so sorry for them, in his heart he wishes that he could take in all of them but in real life, it's impossible. He had no choice but to watch them walk back to the castle with hung heads.
Harry walked out of the changing room to see Walters still hanging around and he went up to him,
"Welcome to our team, Walters. Hope we can work well together and win the Quidditch cup this year." Harry extended his arm to Walters who took it briefly before letting it go as if it's some dirty rat. He gave a hardly noticeable nod at Harry and walked away without saying anything. Harry was shocked of his hostile behaviour but he did notice that Walters had approached Ginny who was also hanging around the changing room, and they had walked back to the castle together. From the distance, he could tell that they were chatting animatedly; even an idiot could see that there were no signs of hostility in Walters' part towards Ginny.
"I don't think I'm going to like that Walters guy. He is too cocky to my likings, he was the exact duplicate of Malfoy." Harry thought as he escort Ginny and Walters back to the castle with his eyes, "Hey, you can't have that kind of attitude towards your team mates if you want the Quidditch cup with your name this year", the angelic Harry in his mind chided. "Okay, okay!! For the sake of the Quidditch cup, I'll tolerate him, no matter what." the devilish Harry grumbled. "No doubt this is going to be another chaotic year" Harry sighed as he stride back to the castle in the orange sunset.
~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~
Another chapter with 3000 words. Wooo...... Hoooooo......... hope it's long enough and you like it. Any comments?? Review it to me!!
Oh by the way, this chapter is unbeta-ed. My dear old beta reader is now busy with exams so I have to post this without beta or you have to wait for ages before my beta reader finishes his exam.
Here I advertise for a temporily beta-reader, whoever is kind enough to help me for 2 mths or so before my beta reader comes back, pls email me or simply leave ur email add in the review!! Thanks!!
~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~
