HPatTch10: Old Habits Die Hard.
Chapter summary: it's the beginning of a new day, a new Quidditch season, and a new prankster era…
After a Saturday of doing practically nothing Harry and Leisha now stood in Madam Hooch's office clawing their way around in search of the closet that held the Quidditch balls, as training was about to start and minute now.
But instead of waiting at the pitch the two of them were tumbling over old stacks of parchment of old Quidditch scores. Avoiding rusting trophies that were so old even Dumbledore would not be able to remember why they were even made and memorabilia of famous Quidditch teams. This included overly large team shirts of many different colours, broken action figures of different team players, and an old Quaffle (which neither Harry nor Leisha knew why madam hooch kept it).
Of course Hermione and Ron stood outside as moral support. Because when they saw the mess that the room was in they both decided that it would be best if Harry and Leisha got the balls, being the team captains and all.
And with the encouragement of Madam Hooch,
"No really dears you go right ahead, it should be in the cupboard", both Harry and Leisha really did hope that it was in the cupboard……. Where ever that was……
Harry started overturning piles of parchment and moving the memorabilia out of the way, and Leisha had also started helping. But as she saw the mess they were creating, (as she could distinguish their mess from the previous mess of course) she pulled out her wand and started to sort out the clutter.
"What are you doing?" Harry asked as a pile of old broken action figures that he was about to move came to life and flew past his cheek and in to a bin next to Leisha.
"Cleaning up, duh!" she told him as she summoned a pile of old newspapers towards her for sorting.
"We're meant to be finding the Quidditch balls" Harry argued with her as he avoided the flying furniture as it began to rearrange its self.
"Well we can't just leave her office in this mess! What kind of a model are we setting?"
"But we are in a rush, we can't just-"
"Well I don't care" Leisha reasoned as she waved her wand pointedly at Harry's face.
"Would you two stop your bickering and find those bloody balls!" both Harry and Leisha heard Hermione screech impatiently from the other side of the door.
"You know you two could actually help us!" Harry yelled at both Ron and Hermione as he had given up on trying to stop Leisha from cleaning the whole room from top to bottom.
"Nah, you two are going well. No need for us." Ron answered quickly as he covered Hermione's mouth with his hand to stop her arguing back at Harry.
"Harry I think I found it?" Leisha called as she knelt over a wooden chest with the Hogwarts crest embellished in the front. Carefully she undid the latches as opened up the lid. That was the first time she had actually seen the scarlet Quaffle, the temperamental bludgers and the radiant shine of the golden snitch.
She slowly closed the lid.
"Wow"
"Fascinated Leisha?" Harry asked as he lent against the near by, newly cleaned and sorted, desk with a mocking grin.
"Oh shut up Potter and help me lift this thing!" she yelped as she attempted to carry the chest by her self. She had made it to the doorway before she nearly dropped it on her toes. When Harry reached the door, Hermione was blushing, Ron was looking everywhere but straight at anyone and Leisha looked shell shocked.
When Leisha noticed Harry standing close by she shook herself out of her state of shock.
"Well don't just stand there Potter, help me pick up this bloody box before I turn you into one! And hurry up about it too we're late enough as it is!" she snapped.
Immediately Harry walked to grab one of the handles of the Quidditch ball's box and as he did so he thought he heard Hermione whisper to Leisha "thankyou".
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"So Ron, are you going to try out for the Hogwarts team?" Harry asked as the four of them could now just see the pitch up ahead. Harry of course, was practically being dragged there by Leisha.
"Of course not! Being stuck on a team with all those Slytherins. After what they said about me last year." Ron answered back testily
"I was just asking Ron" Harry said in a slightly offended tone.
"Well Ginny is still trying out, so you'd still have a Weasley on you team Harry. And if you don't pick her, she'll kill you" Ron pointed out.
"I like the sound of this Ginny" Leisha announced proudly as the length of her stride increased because she was eager to reach the pitch quickly.
"You would probably like her a lot" Harry said fondly.
Once arriving on the green grass Leisha was somewhat disappointed that all her team was already standing around waiting for her. But what Leisha was really disappointed in was that Charlie, Katie and Alexia were also standing amidst her team.
"Charlie? Katie? Alexia?" Leisha started in her stern tone of voice "What are you all doing here I thought you had homework?"
"Who needs to do homework when you've got a friend like you Leisha?"
"Geez thanks" Leisha then turned back to her team, "hmmm, only five. Six if you include me"
"Really I counted twelve" Charlie said as she started counting everyone again.
"I meant on the team. You three don't count, and nor to Harry, Ron or Hermione"
"Oh, then yeah there's only six. Who's missing?"
"I don't remember." Leisha said angrily
"Would Harry know?" all four girls turned to Harry who just stared back at them
"Probably not." Leisha then concluded. It was then that the seventh member of the Castells Quidditch team arrived.
"ROB ROB!" Leisha yelled excitedly as she ran up to her brother and gave him the biggest hug she could muster.
"BOB BOB!" Charlie squealed as she also ran to give Rob a hug.
"ROBBIE!" Katie imitated the high pitch voice that Charlie used, but she had enough common sense to remain standing where she was.
"Hehe," Alexia laughed to herself. Everyone turned to face her before she blurted out, "ROBERT ROBINSON!" she then fell to the ground in to a fit of uncontrollable giggles. Lloyd then casually stepped over her and towards the slightly more sensible side of the pitch. It was then that the attention was turned to him.
"What?" he asked as he noticed people watching him.
"Say his name!" Charlie urged as she pointed to Rob.
"Um…….Rob?" Lloyd said in his confusion.
"Oh Lloyd you're no fun" Leisha screwed up her face.
"Yeah Lloyd you have to have a cool nickname for me to" Rob said.
"Ok Roberta" Lloyd said evilly.
"That's not funny and you know it" Rob then turned on him.
"Oh but it amuses me" Lloyd said simply as he sat back down.
Taking that as a sign the rest of the team followed Lloyd's lead and sat down on the pitch and stared up to both Harry and Leisha, who could not remember a time where she had been more nervous in her life.
"Now I bet you are all wondering what the bloody hell we are doing here" Leisha managed to start, somewhat anxiously.
"Leisha can I say something?" Leisha heard an all-to-familiar voice ask her. 'Damn you Craig' she thought to herself.
"No. Now as I was saying-" she tried to start again, but was still interrupted by him.
"But it's relevant!" he whined
"Fine" Leisha sighed knowing that she was going to regret that decision later.
"Why are we here anyway? We know nothing about Quidditch and between all the studying and learning that we have to do I don't think there is enough time for us to practice. What's in it for us?"
"Um ok," Leisha said stunned, "I guess that's a fair question-"
"Ok I'll be fair and settle with maybe two dates and a kiss on the cheek, my cheek not yours." Craig said smugly.
"How 'bout I let you keep your nose intact?" Rob said sternly back at Craig.
"I guess that will do"
"Good" Rob then concluded and turned his attention back to Leisha.
"So basically Quidditch is um…… a wizarding sport played by….. wizards…. Witches and……. Umm…… wizards…." Leisha said slowly, she stared at everyone and they appeared just as lost as she was, "As you can probably tell I have no idea what this sport is so I'm going to hand you over to Harry who is going to explain it…… in 2 minutes" Leisha finished as she took a quick glance at her watch and then stared back at Harry. Harry turned back behind him in hope of finding support from either Ron or Hermione but he couldn't find them.
"Well, Quidditch is basically played by two teams, each with seven players. On each team there are three chasers, who have to get the Quaffle," Harry held up the scarlet Quaffle for the team to see, "past the keeper and into the hoops for ten points. Then there are two beaters who have to stop the bludgers" Harry pointed to the two balls that were still chained in the wooden box. "From hitting their team with these bats and hit the bludgers into the other team"
"Oooh, I wanna be the beater" Leisha declared as she held on of the beater's bats.
"And then finally there is the seeker who has to find the snitch" Harry then held in the palm of his hand the golden snitch and everyone's eyes were transfixed on it, "once a teams seeker catches the snitch, the game ends and that team gets one hundred and fifty points"
It did not appear that the team had actually heard the last part as they still stared in awe at the gleaming golden snitch.
"Ok thankyou Harry for that thrilling talk. So I bet you guys are wondering why I, sorry Lloyd, we picked you. Well for starters we needed a keeper, so that's why we asked Claire because you know who to do the goal saving thing"
"That's why I love soccer!" Charlie said with her arms raised in excitement.
"It's football here" Katie whispered to Charlie
"I don't care! SOCCER! WHOOOO" Charlie still had her arms raised but she then started to run around the Quidditch pitch screaming "whooo" as loud as she could.
In an attempt to ignore Charlie Leisha turned back to the team. "Liam you're here because we needed some one that could aim when hitting a bludger, and that's basically why we picked you" she told the beach blonde haired boy that sat near the back of the team with the over done sun tan from hanging out down at the beach for too long.
"Craig you're only here because Lloyd forced me to let you. And you apparently can aim when hitting a ball" Leisha said off handedly.
"Well that and you'd do almost anything for Leisha, so I planned to take full advantage of that" Lloyd cut in, "so in other words we're just using you to fill in space"
"How comforting…" Craig said sarcastically.
"Riiiiiight. Rob I'm now saying that the reason you here is so you can protect me in case Craig does anything to me. I don't trust him"
"Ok" Rob shrugged. But he turned to Craig and cracked his knuckles.
"Leisha you know why you're here" Lloyd said quickly to Leisha,
"Lloyd you know why you're here" she replied in the same rushed tone. "And then we have Mel," Leisha said while holding the shoulders of a small brown haired blue-eyed girl who was probably only just in her third year. "Mel is playing seeker and is our youngest team mate. If anyone hurts her I'll kill you!" Leisha then threatened.
Lloyd then started assigning practice drills for each of the different players to do while Leisha took Mel over to talk to Harry.
"Ok, Harry this is Mel. Mel this is Harry. Basically, when Harry was describing what the seeker does, I got really confused so he has sportingly suggested that he helped you out with seeker training. The only thing I understood what that the seeker played a very important part. If we lose you we lose the game. So losing you in not an option." Leisha said as she casually ruffled up Mel's brown hair.
"So as an extra precaution, I suggest that you put some of the protective padding on. You know just in case"
As the Castells seeker skipped away Leisha grabbed Harry by the cuff of his shirt and pulled him within an inch of her face.
"Ok Potter here's the deal. You harm a hair on her head and I'll kill you…."
"Hurt girl and suffer immense pain, or teach her to play seeker and stay alive, hummm" Harry said sarcastically.
"I'm serious here Harry, you hurt her I'll kill you"
"Ok, ok, teach her to catch snitch. Don't hurt her. Do you need anything else?"
"A good shot of caffeine but I'll get that later." Leisha said as Mel returned fully protected from almost anything by the looks of it (she even had two woollen jumpers on). She looked like a miniature sumo wrestler but had the waddle of a penguin.
"Charlie, Katie and Alexia, helped out" Mel told Leisha who was giving her weird looks.
"Well that explains it" Leisha said as she helped Mel out of some of the excess protection.
Once Mel could actually move around comfortably Leisha then decided that is was time for her to leave Harry and Mel to their training.
"Now I'm going to go practice throwing Quaffle at Craig." She said as she stood back up.
"You're meant to be practicing scoring" Harry reminded her.
"Yes but this is more fun" Leisha said simply. She then turned to face Mel, "now keep safe and if he hurts you, scream and I'll beat him up"
"YAY!" Mel said excitedly as she jumped up and down on the spot at the idea.
Before Leisha turned away Harry held her back. "Hey, Mel isn't your sister is she?" he asked cautiously
"No." Leisha said quickly as she picked up her broom.
"Well she seems a lot like you"
"Hence she's on the team" and with that Leisha mounted her broom and joined the other chasers.
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Towards the end of training, many students from Hogwarts had crowded around the Quidditch pitch and waited for their turn to try out for the Hogwarts team. While they were waiting they watched the sky as the Castells team still training hard.
"Yep that's right Castells is sooooo going to win," Charlie said as she casually walked on tip toe along a near by wall.
"No you won't, we've got Harry Potter on our team" a small fan girl screamed out from the crowd.
"Yeah he's the best Quidditch player there is" someone else joined in.
"Yeah and so far he's the only Quidditch player your team has." She then said defensively as she stopped her balancing act and faced the mob of Hogwarts students with her arms placed on her hips.
And that was when Leisha looked down from her place in the sky and saw the line for the Hogwarts Quidditch team tryouts she felt like hitting Harry in the back of the head for not already picking his team.
"Harry" she screamed out as loud as she could to attract his attention, "we could be here for ages!" she continued to scream as she pointed to the line. She then traced the general direction of the line all the way back to the castle. It appeared that the whole school had turned up for tryouts and Leisha was so not in the mood to try them all out.
"Well Quidditch is a very popular sport" Harry reasoned as he flew along side Leisha as they started their decent towards the ground. The rest of the team had already landed and on Lloyd's orders were permitted to "hit the showers" (something that he had secretly always wanted to say).
Leisha looked again at the line as she walked alongside Harry to greet them "Damn the man that invented Quidditch" she said out loud
"Well the game actually originated from another game called-"
"Did I ask for your life's story?"
Harry was shocked by the sudden hostility in her voice
"Sorry, you caught me at a bad time. I'm not feeling to happy right now." Leisha explained as she took on her 'I'm-not-happy-so-I'm-going-to-snub-anyone-that-comes-near-me' walk.
"Why is that Leisha, is it your time of month?" Katie asked quite openly, almost to the point where she practically screamed it out
"No" Leisha said defensively,
"Which time of month would this one be?" Charlie butted from behind.
"You know Charlie, the one where she gets all angry and throws tantrums at everyone and then starts kicking people and then-"
"I'M NOT SUFFERING FROM BLOODY PMS!" Leisha yelled out so loud that everyone that was waiting for their turn to try out shut up and faced her.
"Riiiiiight" Alexia said to break the silence as she walked to catch up to the head of the group. Leisha of course was fuming with rage.
"Ok! That's it! You three out!"
"But-"
"OUT!" she yelled at the top of her lungs.
"Ok," Charlie said despondently, but that soon changed as she announced "we'll be up in the stands then!"
Leisha was now breathing very heavily to calm herself down. Harry just stood there in hope that she would relax herself. 'Where was Hermione when you needed her' Harry thought to himself. Come to think of it, where was Ron?
Lloyd came up behind Leisha and patted her comfortingly on the back.
"Try and keep your temper Leisha, we don't want the Quidditch pitch up in flames."
"Oh 'ha de haha' that was so funny" she said sarcastically back to him.
"I'm just saying"
Leisha looked back at the line of students.
"How can there be this many?" she asked Harry.
"I don't know, unless…" Harry stood up as high as he could and shouted across the line, "Is there anyone in their first year here? Because I have to ask you to leave"
Some students did leave but not enough to actually sufficiently shorten the line.
"I tried" Harry said as he walked back to Leisha.
She glared at him and the concluded, "I hate you"
And so the Quidditch tryouts continued for several hours and even then they were not even done. Leisha had resulted in seeing how long she could tear a piece of parchment; this was after she finished tying 83 knots in her shoelace and then undid them all. She checked her watch for what had to be the thirty second time and sighed.
"How much longer?" she asked as she tugged the sleave of Harry's shirt.
"I don't know" Harry said as he banged his head against the table several times.
"Why are we even still sitting here? The rest of them haven't even been on a broom before!"
A blonde haired girl wearing the shortest skirt Leisha had ever seen walked up to where Harry was sitting. "Hiya Harry" she said in a girly voice as she sat on the edge of the table. Leisha was still bewildered in how this girl planned to fly around in that skirt, that's if she was actually wanted to try out for the team.
At this behaviour, Leisha raised her eyebrow and swivelled her chair to stare at Harry, who apparently had not noticed her.
"What position are you trying out for?" he asked her casually, not even looking up at her. Instead he started to take a drink of water.
"Whatever position you want me in"
Immediately Harry spat the water out, projectile style. Leisha felt like she was about to puke, it had been like that all afternoon, 'Damn fan girls' she thought to herself, 'wasting my time to flirt with boys. I could be studying by now, or sleeping!'
"Do you even know how to fly a broom?" Leisha asked impatiently.
"What does that matter" the blonde girl said as she stared at Harry longingly. Harry didn't know whether to be flattered of sickened, so he just sat there with an awkward smile on his face in hope that she would go away.
With a roll of her eyes Leisha was in half minds about summoning a bludger to knock some sense into the girl. It would at least wipe that look off her face.
"Well why don't you come back when you learn" Leisha said as nicely as possible.
"Oh, I'm sorry Harry I didn't know you already had a girlfriend"
"WHAT!" both Harry and Leisha yelled in unison.
"You think that she…."
"YOU THINK THAT I…..!"
But before Leisha could argue more, the girl walked off in a huff towards a group of Ravenclaws that were standing close by. Harry thought he recognised Marietta Edgecombe standing in that group glaring back at Harry.
But her glare was nothing compared to the one he got from Leisha.
"Um, sorry about that"
"'Sorry about that'! Is that all you're going to say. I've sat in this chair for Merlin knows how long, I've watched more halfwits than serious players attempt to fly on a broom and not to mention half a dozen bimbos throw themselves at you. Oh and I've just been accused of dating you, and all you have to say is "sorry about that"!"
"Well it's not like I can leave until I actually decide on a team" Harry pointed out.
"Oh for Merlins sake Harry, just pick Ginny and the Slytherin and Hufflepuff for chasers. Add the two Ravenclaw beaters and out the Slytherin guy in keeper and then were done!" Leisha said as she started to pack up.
"Why are you in such a rush?"
"Because Alexia's no longer in the stands and I have a bad feeling on where she is." Leisha explained to Harry, even though she knew he wouldn't understand.
But Leisha had every right to be worried about where Alexia was at that moment, as Alexia would never willingly enter the library without a very good reason and according to Alexia. Having a quick chat with the Pink Prankster was a very, very good reason to be in a library.
Sitting in the back of the library, with a not-so-small tower of books surrounding her sat Jezebelle Harker
"Good to see you again Jez" Alexia said cheerfully as she took a seat opposite her.
"We're not meant to be making public meetings" Jezebelle whispered over to top of her book.
"It's Saturday afternoon, the sun's out and we're in the library…..hardly anyone is going to see us here."
"Hey, don't you bag my library!" she said defensively, finally putting down her book.
"Since when did you start needing to study?" alexia asked as she read the title of the book Jezebelle had in her hands.
"Since I started seventh year…it's hard stuff you know"
"So you're giving up pranking!"
"Not entirely" she said with a mischievous grin.
"Good because I need you to tell me where I can get some supplies…" Alexia reached into her pocket handed the girl over a small sheet of parchment.
"Water and spell resistant hair dye…… old magical tanning lotion…….. A map to the Hogwarts plumbing system…. Hmmm what are you planning?"
"Just a little introduction for 'the Princess of Pranks'. Nothing special"
"Catchy" Jezebelle handed back the piece of parchment "Well I don't even know where you'd get some of these. The Weasley's might have some of them though…"
"I've already been there"
"Well go again…. it's not like you won't be going there again soon"
There was a brief moments silence between the two of them until Jezebelle broke into a huge grin.
"Oh my god those twins are hot!"
"Hehehe, shhh some one will hear"
"Well they are!"
"Hehe I know."
For several moments the two of them laughed like little school girls. That was until Alexia looked down at her watch.
"Any way, I better go. Places to be, people to prank"
As Alexia stepped away from the table she heard the shriek of a girl from one of the nearby row of books.
"THAT BOOK TURNED MY HANDS PINK!"
Alexia gave Jezebelle one last look only to see that she had already buried her head back in her book
