Rose POV:

Tryouts were in thirty minutes and Rose was sitting on the floor in her dormitory next to her bed. She was going over her equipment trying to calm her nerves. Her broom lay across her lap and her broomstick kit sat next to her open. First Rose took the clippers and clipped all bent or broken twigs. Next she took the cloth and polished the metal where the bristles met the stick. She rubbed in circles until the silver shone. After that she took the other cloth and rubbed it over the worn handle until it was glossy. Finally she took her wand and refreshed the cushioning charms. She knew that tryouts would take a while and she did not want to be hindered by sore legs.

In addition to inspecting her broom she looked over her gloves. She made sure all the small rips were mended in the dark green hide and she made sure the buckles were tight so they would not come undone with her sporadic movements in the air.

Rose felt more relaxed after she went through the simple motions of taking care of her equipment. Her hands had stopped shaking so she stood up and walked to her small mirror. She tied back her glistening red strands of hair with a deep red hair tie. She pushed a plain white headband over her forehead to hold the whispy's away. Rose put on her gloves and listened to the quiet snap of the buckles and picked up her broom and she walked out of her room.

Rose was walking through the halls of the castle now towards the pitch. She was oblivious to the strange looks she was receiving because she was so focused on her destination. People were whispering and pointing as she walked. Rose felt someone fall into step next to her. She knew with out looking that is was Scorpius. She felt him his hand wrap around her arm. She glanced at his fingers long and pale. Yup, Scorpius. She felt better now more relaxed knowing the one person who had actually seen her fly before and believed in her was coming with her to the tryouts. They were nearing the pitch and Scorpius stopped pulling her back.

"I'm going to watch from here so I don't get kicked out of watching your tryouts," Scorpius said.

"Sounds good and thanks for walking me here," Rose said softly. She did not want her voice to betray her nerves. She was sure that if she spoke louder her voice would shake. Scorpius let go of her arm and Rose walked the rest of the way to the pitch with out him.

She stood with a group of other Gryffindor's waiting for the captain. The grass of the pitch was emerald green, the sun was low in the sky and cast a glowing golden light into the air. Everything seemed to shimmer. The Captain was walking over to the group.

"Hi everybody thanks for coming to try out. My name's Jack Wood. As you may know my father was Captain Oliver Wood. He was a great Captain and the team did great that year. I would like to try and do as well as my father and so I am going to try and create the best team possible from these tryouts this year. I am looking for one Beater, two Chasers and a Seeker. Previous members of the team and myself take the other spots. In order to best access your abilities I am going to put you through some competitive drills. Just one more thing before I send you off with instructions. I know that some of you have what you think is better equipment than others but you know your equipment better than your opponent does and each broom has it's own faults know yours and use that to your advantage. Now Chasers…."

Rose stopped listening to Jack then and examined the other players. Only two others were wearing gloves that made them Seekers. The girl was tall and thin. Her face looked pale and drawn. Despite her nervous appearance she had top-notch equipment and it was very new and appeared to be unused. Her parents wanted her to play not her Rose decided. She'll be nervous and skittish more likely to be draw in by fakes or sudden dramatic movements. She will probably be fearless, because of her parent's expectations, when the time comes for head to head moves and will do something stupid.

The boy Rose deemed as the true competition. He was shorter than the girl but taller than herself by a few inches. He was slim but had muscles. His equipment was old. Probably his parents last broom before they graduated. She thought it was the original Firebolt but it could possibly be the second model as well considering there was no difference except the acceleration speed. She looked the boy over again. He was excited and so she placed him as a backyard player who played with friends and family. He probably was quite good but his old equipment would hold him back. Rose returned her focus to Jack just in time to hear the Seekers competitive drill.

"Seekers you will be in charge of catching the Snitch three times consecutively. If you don't catch it at least once before the person who catches it three times in a row does then your out. By out I mean your cut from the team. Now that all of you have your drills two laps easy warm up, no racing. I'm watching your flying not your stupidity. And go!" Jack finished with exclamation.

Rose was one of the last people off the ground. The other players zoomed ahead and Rose was worried considering she had never played with other people before. She hoped they would not be a distraction.

She watched all the other players get twisted up in one another, bump each other and frown. Rose flew a little higher and a little behind the group. She wanted to be fully warmed up, free of distractions and bruise free when she landed back in front of Jack. She observed the setting sun. It cast a glowing light on the emerald green pitch. It caught all they player's hairs making it look like they each had a halo. Rose let herself drift and glide with the gentle wind that blew through the autumn leaves. She did a gentle falling leaf patter as she landed a few seconds behind the rest of the people trying out. Her hair was wind blown, her cheeks were probably a faint red and she was bruise free. She felt excited.

"Okay good warm up. Some of you," Jack said looking around at the mostly battered group, "Let's get started, everybody up in the air!"

Rose took off carefully so she was not jostled. She hovered on the far side of the pitch where she could see everybody and everything. Jack had released the quaffle. She watched the chasers zoom away. Next she saw the bludgers had been released. The Beaters were moving now too their clubs raised competitively. Lastly Rose saw the little golden ball being released. She was not going to let it out of her sight for a minute. She was surprised how easy it was to follow it after years of playing in the middle of the night with a altered training snitch. She was glad of all those hard nights she had put in. It made her job easy now.

She planned out her tactics. She knew the other two players had no idea where the snitch was. So she had to be careful that they didn't catch on to her knowing where it was. She needed to get them to think, particularly the boy that she was an amateur. She needed to obviously shadow their moves to get them to think that they knew better than her. In doing so she could drive them away from the snitch until she was in perfect position. Another factor that Rose wanted to keep in mind was the endurance of the players. The boy was probably as fit or fitter than her but the girl would tire easily because she had no practice. Rose wanted to tire her out so if it ever came down to a race then Rose could keep her in check because of her tiredness. Rose planned to make the other two players wait.

Rose was now putting her plan through its motions. The boy had caught on to her shadowing him, the girl however had not. The girl was blindly following the boy as well. Rose didn't need the girl to realized that she was being shadowed she just needed to manipulate the boy and the girl would follow.

In addition to manipulating the players she could also manipulate the snitch. She had found during her evening practices that the snitch could sense when people were close to it and it would move away to evade the player. Rose took her time shifting her position subtly until she was in the perfect spot. The two players were split up one high in the air one low in the air. Rose was in the middle with the snitch parallel to her just 30 meters away. The boy or the girl no matter how fast they went would not be able to catch it. Rose wanted to catch the first snitch unnoticed so that she would not have to show off any major moves. Luckily for her the snitch was positioned so that Rose would have to ride towards the glare of the setting sun. Both players were turned away from the radiant sinking sun to shield their eyes from the blaze. Rose took this opportunity and glided seamlessly forward the short thirty meters to close her glove covered hand around smoldering golden ball.

She flew back to her original place and when the other two seekers looked back at her, checking on her they didn't notice a difference. Rose smiled to herself. Rose waited a few minutes to see if they noticed anything and then flew calmly over to Jack, when they didn't, who was currently hovering watching the Chasers and the Beaters.

"Hey," Rose said quietly not wanting to surprise him, "I caught the snitch what now?"

Jack turned and looked at her. He looked surprised. Rose guessed he hadn't noticed her crafty catch either. Rose watched, as he looked over at the other two seekers who were still flying around the pitch unaware of her catch.

"I didn't notice," Jack said smiling, "And I'm guessing they didn't either?"

"I guess," Rose answered, "I didn't want anyone to. It's easier that way. No competition."

"Your right…" Jacks voice trailed off thoughtfully, "Well I'll call them over so we can restart. John! Stella! Come over please!"

Rose watched as the two turned suddenly and looks of surprise came across their faces as they saw her hovering next to the captain. Rose angled her body away from the two approaching bodies and grinned to herself. As Jack talked to the other two about being more aware of their competition Rose cooked up her next plan.

Rose knew now that the two other players would know that she was a better player than she looked originally. They would be more wary of her especially the boy because he, if Rose had read him right, was typically a very acute player because of cheating family in his backyard games. The girl however would not become like this and would only be focused on what Jack had said and would want to go as fast as she could to catch the snitch first. So this time it would be a race of Rose's knowledge and skill against the girls equipment. Rose thought about the broom the girl, Stella, was using.

Rose knew that it was the newest version of the Infinitus. Rose thought about how Jack had made the speech on knowing your broom. Rose knew her broom and she knew Stella's. Rose had the Infinitus 2000 while Stella had the Infinitus 2001. The only difference was the acceleration speed, the top speed and the minor defect that had kept Rose from buying the Infinitus 2001. When Stella's broom accelerates to full speed the boom would buck causing an inexperienced rider to loose control of the broom. Rose would want to force Stella to accelerate full speed downwards to she would loose control close to the ground and not get seriously injured. She knew in doing so John would be left behind because of his older broom's slower speed.

"I'm letting go in three… two… one…" Jack called up. Rose shot downward along with Stella leaving John behind in a turbulent wind. Rose spiraled earthward on Stella's tail accomplishing her goal of having the other girl go full speed. They were nearing twenty feet above ground, ten, five, two. Stella's broom was out of her control and Stella corkscrewed into the grassy pitch headlong. Rose pulled out quickly before she met with the earth. Her knees dragged along the ground as she still was shooting forward, parallel with the grass now, towards the snitch just two feet away. She captured it and turned back towards where Stella had crashed.

The poor girls broom was embedded in the cold ground and she was lying a few feet away. Rose turned Stella over on to her back. Her skin was pale, marred with scratches and dirt, her eyes were shut and she had an obviously broken nose. Rose looked at the girls bedraggled body. Rose was still in shock on how fast every thing had happened. The snitch had left Jacks hand only seconds before and the short flight both girls had ended abruptly.

"I'm sorry that you got hurt. I knew you were but I want to get this position so badly. Plus, it's what a real seeker would do. Also you don't really want this, your parents want this. Now that your injured you have a real excuse not to play," Rose whispered remorsefully to the girl.

"Hey, she okay?" Jack said quietly surprising Rose; she had not heard him come up behind her.

"She'll be fine," Rose replied, "Just a concussion and a broken nose, nothing life threatening. I think her tryouts will be over though. I'm sorry."

"It's okay, I'll send some one with her to the hospital wing. You were just competing hard," Jack replied, "That was an amazing move, it was a Wronski feint except it was not a feint it was a move, a play, something new, something that no one in Quidditch has done that I have seen. Nice job!"

Hearing that Rose felt reassured that she had done nothing wrong by setting that miserable girl up for injury. She got her head back in the game while Jack figured out how to get the unconscious Stella up to the hospital wing. She knew that the third catch would be tougher than that one. They both would not just go at it like she and Stella just did, it would be a game of wits, patients, and pure unadulterated skill. Rose had all three. She had seen more backyard Quidditch matches than probably anyone including the boy John, who she still had pegged as a backyard Quidditch player that gave them equal wit. She could not assume his patient but she knew she had plenty considering she did not even share what she called her talent until today. As to pure, unadulterated skill this was putting it to the test and she was ready.

Rose came out of her thoughts and saw Jack walking over to release the third and final snitch. Rose was not going to let that golden ball or John out of her sight until she got the shinning orb in her hand. That ball was her golden ticket to the world of competitive Quidditch.