A/N: I just wanted to thank the readers who favourited and followed this story and special thanks for the comments, they're like ink to my quill :D
5. She is really very clever (clever is the new sexy, you know)
"Ugh! I swear my brain has stopped working like an hour ago. Maybe we should take a break." Harry said leaning his head against the wall behind him. He, Ron and Oliver Wood were sitting in his study room for nearly two hours, trying to come up with some new strategies for their upcoming game against Ballycastle Bats. Wood was even more of a workaholic as the coach of the Puddlemere United than he was just a player and he was stressing Harry out.
"Yeah, couldn't agree more." said Ron, his head resting on the table which was covered with parchment pieces. Ron had nothing to do with the team but Harry had asked him to help them out and it really wasn't an easy task to convince Wood, he was a little paranoid about "discussing the team's secrets in front of strangers".
"But we didn't come up with anything remarkable yet." Wood said, he was looking at a draft of a Quidditch pitch drawn from above, as if he looked long enough, the parchment would reveal the secrets to win the game.
"We can continue lat-" Harry's sentence fade down with a knocking on the door. A second later Hermione's head poked in.
"Sorry to interrupt but it's been two hours, don't you think about taking a break?" Harry looked at his girlfriend's face with gratitude, she was his hero.
"Yeah, we were just taking a break." He said but just as he was standing up, Wood put a hand on his shoulder.
"We can't go out of this room without an actual strategy. We can't just count on your talent, Harry. We have to come up with a plan for our chasers." Harry sighed and nodded his head.
"Maybe I can help." They looked towards the source of the voice. Hermione was no longer standing at the door, she was now standing near the table and she was looking over their notes.
"And what do you know about Quidditch that we don't already know?" Wood asked. Harry winced at question, never ever question Hermione's knowledge on something, even if the topic is Quidditch. Hermione shot a look at Oliver Wood as if calculating him, then she gave him a sweet smile which Harry knew meant anything but sweet. This was Hermione's I-will-show-you-what-I-know smile, it always ended with leaving a shocked but enlightened interrogator behind.
"I may not know a lot about Quidditch but I know chess." She said. Ron snorted.
"It's nothing like chess, Hermione, believe me. In chess, every piece has its own move and you know which one can go where. It isn't like that in Quidditch." Hermione smirked and Harry readied himself for a show he knew was coming. He could understand Wood, he didn't know Hermione that well but Ron should knew better than to push Hermione's buttons.
"Exactly, in chess every piece has its own move and in Quidditch every player has a capacity, you just need to know them and surpass them." Hermione looked at the notes again and found a blank piece of parchment among them. "Okay, let's start with their brooms." Harry could see Hermione was getting in the mood for some serious brainstorming and this Hermione always managed to turn Harry on. Clever Hermione was sexy.
"They have the new Dragonbreaths." said Wood, he still looked a little sceptic. "They're not better than our Thunderstorms."
"Tell me their velocities." Hermione said, she was dipping the quill in the ink. Harry was watching her fingers gripping the eagle feather, they were already smeared with ink.
"Dragonbreath can go 150 miles per hour while Thunderstorm can go 155 miles per hour." answered Wood without a need to look at his notes, they had discussed all of this a hundred times before but Harry was really curious about Hermione's point of view.
"Okay, but we don't care about miles and hours, we need feet and seconds. So…" Hermione wrote some numbers on the parchment and tapped it with her wand. New numbers appeared instantly. "So it makes approximately 220 feet per second to 227 feet per second. Unfortunately not a long distance." When Hermione looked up all three men were looking at her in astonishment. "What? It's called simple mathematics, maybe you should look it up some time. Working with miles on a 500 feet pitch, I mean really?" Harry hid his smile behind his hand, he was sure Wood was swearing at himself for not thinking it sooner.
"Yeah but having a 7 feet of advantage per second won't be of any help, we need more time and space to use this advantage." Wood reached for the draft of the pitch and drew straight lines from one side to another. "Before we can put some distance, another player will cut our way. The pitch isn't big enough to gain speed without getting blocked." Hermione knit her brows, Harry knew this was a sign of her thinking. A few seconds later she smiled and pulled another blank parchment from the stack. Harry was watching her every move like he was in a trance.
"Why are we thinking of the pitch on a flat platform?" She waved her wand over the parchment and another drawing of a Quidditch pitch appeared. This one was drawn from the side. "Quidditch is a multi-directional game. It may be only 500 feet between the hoops but you can go high and low, too, and that lengthens the route to the hoops which is-"
"An advantage for us to gain speed." Harry spoke for the first time since Hermione came inside the room. His voice was a little raspy. He cleared his throat. "You're brilliant, 'Mione. Truly." Hermione smiled at Harry which really didn't help his situation. He just wanted to be alone with his girlfriend right now.
"So we have to go up and down to grow the distance between two players. But what if they press from different sides with two players?" asked Wood, studying the new drawing. Hermione looked thoughtful for a second.
"First choice should be passing the ball to the free player. If they press with more than one player that means at least one of our chasers is free. The second choice could be using the beaters, they can fly close to the opposing chasers and block their way." Wood wrote the things Hermione said, he no longer looked doubtful, instead his face was glowing with excitement. Harry looked at his girlfriend with pride, she was incredible.
"Oh and it says here that their seeker is left handed." said Hermione looking at the notes they took about Daryl Derrickson, the seeker of Ballycastle Bats. "You have to be careful, Harry. If you came shoulder to shoulder, try to be on his right side and push him out of the way, don't just go for the snitch. If you push him away when you're at his right side, he'll be either forced to use his weaker hand or he will try to reach from outside. And since he is a few inches shorter than you, I guess his arm length must be shorter, too." Before Harry could say something, Ron spoke up.
"Woah, Hermione, that's pretty smart." Hermione rolled her eyes but couldn't help her smile.
"Thanks, Ron. Oh, before I forget, I realised that the keeper- Ollie right?" Upon Harry's affirmation she continued. "He is weak on his left side. He can reach out better on his right side so he should stay closer to the left hoop. Don't make him fly in the middle." At this point Wood was looking like he could worship Hermione as his new Goddess. Harry cleared his throat with a frown and pulled Hermione on his lap with a protective arm around her waist.
"I think that's enough strategy for us, Oliver, huh? Maybe you should go and prepare a training programme according to these notes?" Wood nodded his head, he looked like Harry's words had made him come back to his senses. He got up quickly and gathered his notes while mumbling,
"You're right, I have lots of work to do. Have to go and prepare a new programme. Thank you, Hermione, Ron. See you at training, Harry. Bye!" And he was gone in a heartbeat. Ron got up from his seat, too, stretching his muscles.
"I'm going, too." He said, rubbing his belly. "I'm pretty hungry." After he apparated and they were finally alone in the room, Harry pulled Hermione closer and started kissing her neck.
"Hmmm, Hermione. I didn't know you were such a Quidditch enthusiast." Hermione turned sideways on his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck.
"We can't really say I'm a Quidditch enthusiast, I'm more interested in the players actually." Harry lifted his head instantly.
"Players, you say, as in more than one player." Hermione laughed and quickly kissed her boyfriend's jawline which was a little rough with stubble.
"I'm just joking, love. We both know that I'm more of a Harry Potter enthusiast. It rubbed off on me, I guess. I mean I watched every single game you played since we were eleven. And I read about it, too." Harry arched his eyebrows.
"You read about Quidditch?" Hermione rolled her eyes.
"Of course I read about Quidditch, Harry. You know me… It's always books…"
"And cleverness…" Hermione smiled fondly at his words, he remembered. "I know you… and I love you for that… And I love that brain of yours, too." He said as an afterthought, kissing her temple fondly. Hermione laughed.
"Well, I guess my brain loves you, too because you're the only thing she keeps thinking about constantly." Harry smirked while getting back to his mission on her neck.
"Mmm, that's good to know."