CHAPTER 30: SPARHAWK, THE SEEKER


The next day they had flying lessons and Sparhawk was none too keen about that. The children from wizarding homes seemed to be familiar with the concept and weren't evincing much anxiety, which was in direct contrast to the muggleborns.

"They ride brooms" Hermione shrieked, "how comfortable can it possibly be?" and so on and so forth until one of the older Hufflepuffs took pity on her and took her aside and told her that there were cushioning charms and such universally on brooms. Common sense.

"It occurs to them," she fumed, "that it's common sense to enchant one with cushioning charms. Did any of them ever think it was common sense to enchant something else, like a carpet?"

Warrick concurred enthusiastically. "Yeah, magic flying carpets!"

Sparhawk was very much interested in their unhealthy interest in carpets and asked, "Why carpets?" and they treated him to a muggle fairy tale with flying carpets and the like.

Cedric Diggory overheard their little conversation and informed them that there were indeed flying carpets. "Apparently they're really common in Africa and India and the east."

"Why not here?"

Cedric shrugged. "Tradition, I guess?"

Hermione wrote down 'research magic carpets' in her little notebook and filed it away for later.


Soon enough, the flying class rolled around after yet another period of transfiguration where Sparhaw managed to transfigure his object on the first try, and the class trooped out onto the quidditch grounds. Predictably it was a shared class with Slytherins. They seemed to get an awful lot of those.

Sparhawk stood next to a battered-looking broom, hand gripping his wand. "Nervous, father?" asked Aphrael. "The skies were meant for the birds" he replied. "And dragons" he added as an afterthought.

"Care for some advice? I used to fly, you know?"

"Anything other than staying firmly on the ground isn't going to be much helpful, you know?"

"A horse, Sparhawk."

"What?"

"Think of it like riding a flying horse. And trust your instincts," said Aphrael, sounding exasperated.

"There are flying horses?" asked Sparhawk, a tinge of excitement in his voice. Aphrael groaned. "Never mind that."

"Now," Madam Hooch's voice rang out across the field, "I want you to hold your hand out over your broom and command it to rise "Up!". Like you mean it."

Predictably, a lot of the Hufflepuffs failed. Just too nice for the whole affair you know. Sparhawk's on the other hand shot straight up into his hand. Madam Hooch went around screaming orders a couple more times and soon enough everyone had their brooms in their hands except Hermione. She was beginning to look miserable and Malfoy was beginning to look very smug.

Sparhawk glanced around and shuffled places until he came next to Hermione. "Like you mean it, Hermione. Imagine you're a captain of a ship and the broom is a sailor. Command it to rise."

"I've never been a captain of a ship!" she protested.

"Use your imagination!" he snapped.

Hermione closed her eyes and screwed up her face. A few moments later, after muttering something that sounded suspiciously like "Avast, ye scallywags!", she all but screamed "Up" and the broom flew into her hands.

Now that everyone was holding their brooms, Madam Hooch next showed them the proper way to...mount and hold them. Yeesh.

Malfoy, who'd been boasting to all and sundry about all his broom riding adventures was taken down a few notches when Hooch pointed out that he'd been...holding his broom wrong all these years and Sparhawk took far more pleasure in that than a man of his years should. Maybe it was something to do with being in a child's body?

"Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground, HARD," said Madam Hooch. "HOLD your brooms STEADY, RISE a few feet, and then COME down by LEANING forwards slightly. On my whistle - three - two-"

But Hermione, frightened of being left alone on the ground had pushed off hard before the professor blew the whistle and she'd taken off straight up like an arrow. "Come back, girl!" Madam Hooch screamed, but Hermione was rising up and up, twelve feet, now a twenty, now thirty. Sparhawk saw her white, scared face look down, glanced sideward to see Madam Hooch, face pale and rooted to the spot, and decided to take matters into his own hands.

He shot off from the ground, his broom rising with alarming speed and he'd nearly reached her when she suddenly slipped off her broom. He grabbed for her but missed. Heart racing, he turned his broom down and pushed it to its limits, trying to beat gravity, reaching down. When his fingers closed around Hermione's cloak, he braked hard, pulling his broom upwards and, you guessed it, dislocated his shoulder. Gritting his teeth against the pain, even as the added weight threatened to topple him, he felt old instincts kick in and he counterbalanced. He heard a loud rip, but her robes still held.

Looking down, he was relieved to see Madam hooch finally on a broom, heading towards them. He handed the girl off to the teacher and sagged, his broom drunkenly making its way down to the ground where he was surrounded by his peers, clapping on his back and jarring his shoulder even worse. Warrick took one look at his pale, sweaty face and shouted for Madam Hooch. "Sparhawk's hurt!"


In another world, our protagonist would have blacked out because of the pain and woken up later to the white walls of the hospital wing, pain comfortably dulled. Not so for Sparhawk who bore his pain stoically, sweating, and was very much aware of it and would rather die than flinch in front of the Malfoy kid. It finally ended when Madame Pomfrey gave him a potion that she said would dull the pain after he'd firmly refused one that would knock him out. He gulped it down and promptly passed out.

When he awoke, he found himself staring at the white walls of the hospital wing and cursing his gullibility. But he wasn't alone for long, so he had to stem the increasingly creative stream of profanity. Four voices piped up from near the door of the wing demanding to see him. Madam Pomfrey appeared to be trying to beat them back without much success. Finally, she gave in and Neville, Cullinan, Warrick, and Hermione trooped in to see their friend.

On seeing him, Neville promptly burst into tears on how he thought he was dead and had to be dragged off by Pomfrey because he was jarring Sparhawk around too much trying to hug him. Hermione was next, looking rather contrite. "I'm so sorry, Sparhawk" she muttered miserably, "if it weren't for me, you'd probably not be here."

Sparhawk waved his hand expansively. It hurt. But then again, it had been quite some time, decades even since he had so much fun. All this was turning out to be very good for his mental health.

The Hufflepuffs stayed by their friend's bed until they had to be shooed away by Pomfrey. Once the healer had checked him over once again and retired to her chambers, he waited for a good ten minutes before slipping his wand into his hand. He wasn't ready to let anyone find out about Aphrael just yet. And especially not children.

"I don't know why you would think that, Sparhawk. They're the perfect age for a bit of religion, I would think."

Sparhawk sighed. "You're unheard of here, Aphrael. I wouldn't want to trigger any suspicions."

"Father" Aphrael chided, "that's because you always think of me as your daughter, and I love you for it, but you really ought to start thinking as my High Priest."

"Your what?!" he asked, eyebrows rising.

"High Priest, father. I'm a God, and you're pretty much my only follower here. You qualify, I would say."

"But I'm no preacher! How am I even supposed to go about doing this, anyway?" he protested.

"Oh father, don't be so down in the dumps. I'm not much a demanding God. All I ask is a bit of love"

"And according to Dumbledore, that is the most powerful force in the world daughter" he observed wryly.

"Well, at least the old man got that right."

Sparhawk sighed. Well, this was it then. He was officially retiring from being a church knight and taking up the mantle of High priest of Aphrael.

"Oh, you can be both, Father. As I said, I'm quite lenient"

Sparhawk smiled, "Well, your Holiness, what would you have of me?"

"Followers, Sparhawk."

He gaped. "What?"

"I'm weak, father. Weaker than I have ever been. I lack the strength to even manifest myself. A God is only as strong as the followers they have. And I have but one."

Sparhawk protested this belittling of his position.

"Do you not want to see me in the flesh once more, Father?" she asked, her voice threatening tears.

Oh, he could never say no to that tone.

"But I'm a soldier Aphrael. I don't have the slightest clue about spreading religion" he protested.

"Oh, you'll get the hang of it Sparhawk. Now how about an altar?"


The next day found Sparhawk discharged from the hospital wing and surrounded by three burly Hufflepuffs. The burliest among them, which wasn't much really when compared to the knights Sparhawk was used to being around, stepped forward and put a hand on his shoulder. Giving him an evil grin, the boy asked, "Mind accompanying us to the quidditch grounds?"

Sparhawk was surprised. Bullying didn't seem in the nature of Hufflepuffs and he wasn't the sort to take kindly to it. He measured his options. They had managed to corner him when he was alone, a rare occurrence when you were in Hufflepuff, and they were all bigger than him. And probably more skilled in the local magic. The odds did not look good. But when he'd faced the likes of Azash and his seeker, school yard bullies just didn't cut it.

He dropped his twelve-inch, very solid, sapphire wand into his hand. And replied to the question asked with a solid whack between the eyes. Burly Hufflepuff #1 went down like a sack of potatoes and the other two gaped. Sparhawk decided not to question their inaction and grabbed whatever happened to be nearest, which happened to be a bottle of Rook's lotion for crotch rot, and threw it on burlypuff #2's face. As the gent pawed at the vile concoction coating his face, he ran up and punched the remaining one really hard in the crotch and he went down groaning. Stepping over the fallen bodies of his foes, he paused by the door to the common room and turned back. "I despise bullying" he said, just in case the message hadn't gotten across.

"Wait" wheezed burlypuff #3, in a high soprano from where he lay on the floor, "We just wanted to talk to you about quidditch."

"What now?"

Cedric Diggory chose that exact moment to step in and was suitably shocked by the carnage.

"Sweet Merlin!" he exclaimed rushing forward to help the one who was still struggling with the crotch rot lotion. It was proving to be quite resilient. Once he'd spelled it off him, he turned to Sparhawk, the only one who seemed unharmed. "Sparhawk! What happened here? Did someone get in?"

Sparhawk mulled over that a bit. "In a manner of speaking?"

"Was it Peeves? But I've never known him to actually hurt students like this. We've got to let the prefect know about this! That poltergeist has gone too far this time!"

Burlypuff #3 had managed to stand up a bit awkwardly and put a restraining hand on Cedric's shoulder. "It's alright, Cedric. It wasn't Peeves."

"Who was it, then?"

Sparhawk decided to own up. "There might have been a misunderstanding."

"What now?"

"These three gentlemen wanted to talk to me about something. Well, since they cornered me in the restroom and wanted me to accompany them to the quidditch grounds, I assumed the worst."

"The worst?"

Sparhawk could feel his face heating up. What had he been thinking, beating up children?

"He thought we were bullying him and decided to beat us up, Cedric." explained burlypuff #3, now looking a bit shamefaced.

Cedric stared at him. "You can't be serious, Supple!"

Supple hung his head and the one with the lotion recently cleared was helping bring burlypuff#1 around. "Enervate!" he tried, pointing his wand at him. Burlypuff #1 stirred, catching his head and groaning.

"I think we'll have to take him to the hospital wing." declared burlypuff #2.

"You take him, Rigid. I'll catch up."

"Yeah, you need to have that crotch looked at too."

Supple gave him a nasty glare and turned back to a bewildered Cedric. "Well, we wanted to talk to Sparhawk about Quidditch, you know. What with Hyde coming down with a nasty case of Dragon Pox and the healers saying he'll be out for most of the season, we're short a seeker. And we heard about his flying skills when he saved Hermione, you know? Everyone's talking about it. A natural, they said. And we thought maybe we'll have a look at it ourselves, see if we can get Professor Sprout to badger Dumbledore to bend the rules a little, if he was worth it. So Rigid, Oakstaff, and I came down to invite him to a little flying demonstration. Only it went all horribly wrong."

Sparhawk was feeling quite put out. "Well, why didn't you just say so?"

"You never gave us a chance!" wailed Supple, looking with something akin to real fear at the boy.

"What about the older years, though? I mean, I could do Seeker," said Cedric.

"You could. But you're far too valuable as a chaser now. And besides, look at him. he's only a first year. That slight build would do wonders for a seeker. And honestly, we've always been a bit low on good flyers. The quidditch team is pretty much it. We don't even have good reserves!" he wailed.

Sparhawk was beginning to feel a bit sorry for the lad. "Alright. I'll give it a go."

Supple brightened up. "We might have to wait a bit though. Until Oakstaff recovers from that concussion you probably gave him." And he went walking off to the Hospital Wing with a nice bandy-legged gait.


Once the Hufflepuff quidditch captain had sufficiently recovered from the beating Sparhawk had laid on him, he came by to once more ask him to the quidditch pitch, this time with a bit of preamble to avoid a repeat of the previous day's incident. The evening found the four of them clustered on a wet, cold pitch. Sparhawk could already deduce that this was not going to be a very pleasant experience.

"Oh, come on, father! The icy wind in your face as you sweep through the skies! It's going to be fun"

Sparhawk grunted and removed his hand from within his robes. Oakstaff relaxed the tiniest fraction.

"Well, Sparhawk, these are the rules of the game, so listen carefully. There are seven people on each team. Three Chasers. two beaters, one keeper, and one seeker. That's you, by the way. And there's three types of balls. Bludgers, Quaffles, and a snitch. Now, you can see there's two sets o hoops on either side of the pitch, right? One set's ours and the other set's the opposing team's. Now the chasers, they take this here ball, the quaffle and try to throw it through the opposing team's hoops, the goals. The keeper, tries to keep them from scoring."

"How?"

"What?"

"How does he keep them from scoring? Does he hit them or push them off or something?"

"Ah, no, Sparhawk. You see, the chaser has to throw the ball through the hoop from this here scoring area and the keeper tries to block the ball afore it goes in."

"So, no violence?" Most of the games Sparhawk had been involved in back during his novice days had involved a fair amount. Well, if you count jousting and sparring as games.

"I was getting to that part. The bludger, this here bucking ball, is a right bastard. It's the beaters job to, one, hit the other teams players with it and two, keep your team fellows from being hit. They use these bats for that."

"We're the beaters!" said Supple, patting his younger brother's shoulder.

"Right. That leaves the seeker and the snitch. The snitch is this here golden ball. Once released it flies all over the pitch like a little birdie. And it's the seeker's job to catch the snitch. While scoring with the quaffle only gives you 10 points per goal, catching the snitch gives you one hundred and fifty points and ends the game."

"So, I've got to catch the snitch and end it all?"

"Well, when put that way, it does seem a bit ominous. But that's that. So now, just to get an idea of how you fly, can you get in the air and do a few loops and dives and such?"

Sparhawk gave him the gimlet-eye, but complied. Nasty stares weren't much effective when they were backed by an eleven year old body.

A few minutes of rather gymnastic flying, Oakstaff asked him to come down. "Merlin!" he exclaimed when Sparhawk touched down, "you're the real deal! Where ever did you learn to fly like that?"

"By the grace of God, neighbour" Sparhawk replied sagely, leaving Oakstaff to blink in confusion.

"Ah, well...that aside, now I'm going to throw these little golf balls, they're around the size of the snitch, all over the place and you can try to catch 'em all."

Sparhawk grunted and took off. Oakstaff started throwing the golf balls and needless to say it was a clean sweep. Rigid and Supple were clapping as he touched down. Sparhawk was feeling rather proud of himself.

"Well, mate, you're in!" exclaimed Oakstaff clapping Sparhawk on the back, "And with you in there, we may as well have a good chance at the Quidditch cup. And don't you worry, we'll get Sprout to do some hocus pocus and get you on the team."

"You'll be the youngest seeker in over a century, Sparhawk," said Supple, the brothers coming in to pat him more.

"I've got just one question," Sparhawk said, a strange tone in his voice.

"What's that?" asked Oakstaff.

"Are the seekers allowed to have bats?"


A/N: And there you have it. Sorry for the impromptu break last week. I thought about Sparhawk not joining the Quidditch team and then said, "You know what? Screw it. What can Sparhawk do?" And the answer to that will be found in the chapter "Million point man" of Hajime no Ippo. Once again, read and review. P.S. : Di you catch the dick jokes?