Thank you to everyone who's reviewed, favourite etc. It really does make me happy! I'm going to try speeding up the time a bit because so far it's been pretty slow, we're going to see the Quidditch tryouts this chapter, I wander who will get to be Seeker and Beater? So I hope you enjoy the chapter :D
Disclaimer: I still don't own Harry Potter unfortunately :(
3 Quidditch tryouts
My first week at Hogwarts seemed to fly by. I enjoyed most of my lesson, history of Magic being the only exception, due to the ghost teacher who made most of us fall asleep. Potions had probably become my favourite lesson. I loved the practical work and being excellent at following instruction, I quickly became top of the class. I also enjoyed DADA, but as it was mostly theory at first, I found it slightly boring. I much preferred doing actual magic.
I stayed true to my plan of practicing for Quidditch the next day and after we'd eaten a hasty dinner, James, Louis, Fred and I snuck out to the Quidditch pitch with my broom. Each of us has a fly on the broom, even Louis reluctantly. I could see that James and Fred had taken after their fathers when it came to flying, they were both natural in the air, Louis, whilst good, lacked the enthusiasm of his cousins and was just happy to watch the rest of us. We didn't get caught and Victoire chose not to bring up the subject.
The one thing that managed to dampen my week however came in the form of a letter from my father, I had expected him to say what he said, but that didn't stop it from hurting. He was disappointed, I was a failure in his eyes. He said I would be staying at Hogwarts over Christmas and we'd be having a serious talk when I got back in the summer. The guys were all very supportive when I mentioned it in the common room on the Friday evening and soon cheered me up.
"Hey guys," I said glumly as I walked through the portrait hole.
"Hey Cally, what's up?" asked Louis, putting a book down and walking over to me.
"I don't suppose any of you are staying here for Christmas are you?" I asked, not wanting to tell him directly.
"We weren't going to be, why?" answered James, looking over at me with concern.
"I got a letter from my father saying, amongst other things that I'm staying here for Christmas. I'm also a disappointment and a failure, plus I have to have a serious talk with him when I get back, which probably means I'm going to be thrown out," I replied, dejectedly.
"What? He can't throw you out, you're only eleven!" exclaimed Fred, standing up.
"Oh, you don't know my father, he will if he wants tom I've seen it happen before," I answered bitterly.
"Well if he does, you can come and live with me, I'm going to be getting myself a place once I've left here, I'd love to have you stay with me," shot Teddy, trying to cheer me up.
I couldn't help but grin, the older boy had helped me settle in so much that first week, he felt almost like an older brother to me already.
"Thanks for the offer Teddy, but I wouldn't want to impose myself on you," I joked, smiling at him.
"No, I'm serious. I know they shouldn't be able to throw you out but you're right, that's what happened to my grandmother. If you need a place to stay, just tell me and you're more than welcome. Also, I'm staying for Christmas, so you won't be all alone," smiled Teddy reassuringly.
"Yeah, and we can owl our parents to see if we can stay as well, can't we?" said James to his cousins.
"You don't have to do that, I wouldn't want to keep you from your families," I replied kindly.
"We want to though. We're best friends, we stick together. No-one gets left out," said Louis quietly from beside me.
We spent the remainder of the evening talking excitedly about the Quidditch tryouts the following day and I went to sleep content again.
The following morning I woke up at 8.30am. Although I knew it was a while until tryouts, I couldn't stay still, so quietly got dressed, trying not to wake my dorm mates and went downstairs to the common room with my Spitfire over my right shoulder. I almost bumped into someone as I reach the bottom of the stairs.
"Woah, sorry. Oh hey Cally, you're up early," grinned Teddy, wearing bright orange hair.
"I couldn't sleep," I answered simply.
"No, I don't blame you. Shall we go down to the Great Hall and have some breakfast before anyone else gets down? I wouldn't mind taking you up on that offer to have a try on that broom of yours," said Teddy, looking at the broom with a twinkle in his eye.
"Sure, let's go," I replied, walking out of the portrait hole and down to the Great Hall.
We were the first two down, apart from Professor Longbottom, who decided to join us at the Gryffindor table. We ate pancakes as we discussed Quidditch and the two men marvelled over my broom.
Before long, Teddy and I bade Professor Longbottom goodbye and headed out to the pitch. It was still only just after 9.00am so we had a long time before the tryouts started.
"Now I warn you, James is a good Seeker, takes after his father, so you'll need to be on the ball the whole time," warned Teddy as we reached the pitch.
"Don't worry, I'm pretty confident. You haven't seen me fly yet," I grinned, mounting my broom and kicking off.
I did two very fast circuits before flying up to one set of hoops, weaving in and out of them as fast as possible, inches away from each post as I swerved between them. I flew back towards Teddy before taking a sudden fast dive towards the ground, speeding up as I went. I pulled up from the dive mere feet from the ground, before making my way steadily back to Teddy.
The look on his face was priceless, somewhere between shock, worry and excitement.
"Well, what do you think?" I asked, smirking slightly.
"Bloody hell, you're good! I've never seen someone pull off the Wronski feint as well as that before, except perhaps James' father Harry, but he's a fully grown man," said Teddy with a look of incredulity on his face.
Teddy then had a go on the broom and I could see why he was Captain of the Quidditch team. He flew through the air o easily and was so in control, I could see he would make a brilliant Quidditch player.
He swapped back onto his own broom, a Firebolt, bought for him by his Godfather for his seventeenth birthday. Teddy got the balls out and we ha d a mess around with the Quaffles, taking it in turns to play as Chaser and Keeper. We then got the Bludgers out and hit one between us. This was Teddy's forte, he had to go easy on me because of the power in his muscled. We didn't get the snitch out just in case we lost it but soon people started coming down so we had to stop anyway. The first people down were the rest of the team.
"Hi guys, I'm glad you could all make it. This is Cally, she's a friend of mine and she'll be trying out for Seeker. Cally, meet the rest of my team, this is Toby Goodridge, he's the Keeper, this is Harvey Pendarvis, he's a chaser, this is Imogen Wood, also a Chaser and you've already met Vicky, she's the final Chaser," said Teddy, introducing us.
Victoire gave me an encouraging look while the others smiled at me in a way that told me they thought I was too young to be Seeker.
Teddy must have noticed this too. "She may only be a first year, but you haven't seen her fly yet, plus she has a Spitfire," added Teddy with a grin.
The rest of his teams eyes widened, taking in my broom and I could see a flash of jealousy cross the Keeper's face, but only for a second.
"Cally, why didn't you wait for us?" cried James indignantly, storming onto the pitch with Fred and Louis running after him.
"I couldn't sleep, so Teddy and I went down to have breakfast. Then we came out and had a fly. I would've been waiting for about an hour," I replied, shaking my head.
It was soon 10.00am and there was a large amount of pupils trying out. The older students were looking at us with amused looks on their faces, and I couldn't wait to show them up.
"Right, first I want you all to warm up, so I'd like you to get into four groups, two lots of hopeful Seekers, and two of Beaters, then I just want you to fly around the pitch at a steady pace, no showing off," Teddy directed the last comment in my direction with a wink.
James and I stuck together as Fred joined the younger group of Beaters and Louis went up to the stands to watch. James and I ended up in a group of mostly first, second and third years.
When Teddy gave the order to fly, James and I struck off at the same time, immediately heading to the front of the group. I could tell that I wasn't the only one fighting the urge to speed up, but I managed to stay at a steady speed and looked lazily around the pitch.
Teddy had also risen into the sky and started speaking again. "Now I'm looking to see how natural you are on a broom, so if I think you're good enough I will approach and you can return to the ground."
He looked intently at everyone and after a minute or so, flew over to a tall guy from fifth year who was trying out for Beater. I saw him look over at me and James with a wink, he obviously didn't want to show favourites. Another few people returned to the ground before her flew over to me and James.
"I already knew you two could fly, but I didn't want to look like I was favouring you," whispered Teddy so only James and I could hear.
James and I returned to the ground with grins on our faces and were soon joined by Fred. By the time Teddy returned to the ground, there were eight hopefuls for the position of Beater and six for Seeker. James, Fred and I were the only first years selected. The rest of the hopefuls left from the pitch disappointed.
"Now, what we're going to do is myself, Toby here, our Keeper and Harvey, one of the Chasers are going to test the Beaters, and my other Chasers, Imogen and Victoire will test the Seekers. For the Beater it's simple, we'll just be seeing how you fly with the bat and seeing if you can hit the Bludgers hard enough and in the right direction. Seekers, I'm going to let the snitch out, then two of you will be allowed to Seek at the same time for it, then Victoire and Imogen will decide which of you is best for the job," Teddy finished, letting the snitch out and bringing out the two Bludgers and Quaffle.
I got paired with a sixth year called Emily Fawcett, who seemed nice enough, but talked to me a little patronisingly. James got paired with a third year called Percival Douglas and there was also a second and fourth year paired together. James and the third year were the first to have a go. Both were good flyers, but James' eye was sharper and he was faster, so caught the Snitch relatively quickly. Next was the second and fourth year, again both were good flyers, but it was obvious that James was better. The fourth year ended up catching the snitch. Next was my turn, I took off into the sky once Victoire told us to and started looking round for the little winged ball. I flew down to one end, catching sight of Fred and giving him a grin as he hit a Bludger at the Chaser, Harvey. He grinned back at me, having hit it on target and almost hitting the fourth year off his broom. I headed back towards the other end and that's when I spotted it, it was hovering just behind the other girl and she hadn't noticed it yet. I made a split-second decision and started heading towards the bottom of the posts at the other end. Emily caught sight of me and started to speed up to catch up with me, several metres from the ground, I pulled up and turned back after the snitch. I reached it easily and closed my fingers around the Golden Snitch, a grin on my face. Emily looked rather disgruntled as we returned to where the other were standing and I handed the snitch back over to Victoire.
Teddy came back down to the ground with the others as well and the team separated from us to discuss. Several minutes passed before they turned back towards us, Teddy had a look of conflict on his face, but I saw Victoire squeeze his hand, encouragingly.
"Well, we've come to a decision, it hasn't been easy I can tell you, you were all very good. I shall be offering the position of Beater to Fred Weasley, congratulation Fred, I think we're going to work really well together," Teddy grinned, patting the younger boy on the shoulder. Fred looked ecstatic and I grinned at him before turning to look back at Teddy.
"The position of Seeker was even harder for us to decided on, but I've decided to offer the position to Cally, that Wronski feint of yours really is brilliant," smiled Teddy, then looked apologetically at James.
"I'm very sorry to those of you who didn't get on the team, I just want to say thank you for trying and it would be lovely to see you supporting us at our games," Teddy said, addressing the rest of them.
The rest of them left the pitch, leaving me, James, Fred, Teddy, Victoire and we were also joined by Louis. I looked uneasily at James, knowing how much he'd wanted my position.
"Sorry James..." my voice trailed off as I looked down at the grass.
"No, it's alright, the best person got the position, you really were amazing. Congratulations," smiled James, looking only slightly disappointed.
"I'm really sorry James, I know how much it meant to you, but that Wronski feint really was impressive, maybe you could tryout next year to be Beater with Fred," suggested Teddy.
James' face lifted slightly as he thought about that idea. "Actually that's not a bad idea, I bet I'd have fun," James grinned mischievously at Fred.
"Hey, congrats both of you, you really showed that sixth year Cally," Louis said, smiling at me.
The six of us turned and walked off the pitch together, chatting about the tryouts and all the other hopefuls, all of us smiling, happy.
Well that's the chapter, it was a bit longer than usual but I felt it would be cheating if I went any shorter than that, so there you go. I don't know whether any of you have noticed but I'm rather fond of Teddy. This may be his last year at Hogwarts, but he's going to be in it the whole way through, I hope you like him as much as I do. I'm also rather fond of Louis, he's the sweet, sensible, smart guy that all of us girls want to meet ;) Anyway I hope you liked it. Reviews are very much appreciated, also suggestions, feedback would really be lovely, I'm not really sure what people think of it, is it going to slow? Is it too boring? Should I move on a bit and have a bit more excitement?
