Chapter 3

The Team

"... and then you'd fly over here, and Alicia would stay in the middle, and the third Chaser would be on the other side," Wood said, pointing his finger at all the different spots on his wriggling diagram, "And Fred, you'd have to stay over here, and George would take the opposite side so that-"

"Oliver," Fred interrupted lazily from the other end of the compartment, where he was building an Exploding Snap card house with George, Angelina Johnson, Alicia Spinnet, and Lee Jordan, "You know none of us are listening, don't you?"

"Shut up and pay attention then!"

"Bu it's not even Quidditch season yet!" George protested.

Angelina looked up from the game. "It's our last little bit of summer! Just let us relax, yeah?"

"This is relaxing!"

"No, it's not," Fred said, "I feel like I'm in Binns's class already."

"Ha ha," Wood said sourly, as the rest of them laughed. "At least just let me finish showing you this chart..."

"No," said Lee flatly, "None of that stuff is any use to me anyway, and you all will have plenty of time to go over your thousand or so game plans at practice."

"Lovely," George muttered.

Ignoring this, Oliver turned to Lee, "Of course it's some use to you! You commentate all the matches, don't you?"

"Yeah, I'm the commentator, but I don't really say, 'Oh, look, Gryffindor now running The Play That Takes About Twenty Minutes To Explain-'"

"The Willington Formation," Oliver growled. It was a pet peeve of his when people got Quidditch terms mixed up.

"Yeah, that," Lee continued easily, "What I say is more like, 'Oh, look, Fred- or George- just hit a Bludger!' or 'Angelina has the Quaffle; why won't she go out with me?'"

He turned to grin at her, and she gave him a playful shove.

Fred rolled his eyes. "When are you two going to stop with that joke?"

"When she realizes that I am the most brilliant bloke to ever walk the earth," Lee said, trying desperately to keep a straight face.

"I don't get it," Wood sighed as the others all laughed. He really wanted to finish showing them his diagrams, but he also hated not being in on other people's jokes.

"This girl in our year, Elizabeth, was like, convinced last year that Lee was in love with Angelina, but she wouldn't have him. I dunno where she even got the idea, really, but she was dead set on it being true, and she wouldn't shut up about it for months," Alicia said very fast. She had always been a big talker; Wood remembered that from the one game she played with them last year. He reckoned that the only reason she hadn't complained with the rest of them about hearing all the Quidditch plays was that she didn't want to get on the bad side of the Gryffindor Quidditch captain before she was officially on the team.

"Anyway, she finally figured out that she was wrong, which was kind of a miracle, actually, because Elizabeth never thinks she's wrong," Angelina smiled, and Wood laughed.

"Don't encourage them, Oliver," Fred said wearily, "It was funny, I admit, but by now the two of them," he indicated Lee and Angelina, "Have pretty much killed the joke. Murdered it, in fact. But from the way they go on about it, you'd think it was the funniest thing since... since..."

"Us?" George offered.

"Yeah," said Fred, "Since us, and nobody is funnier than the Weasley twins. Smarter, maybe, but not funnier."

"Well, I'm both," Angelina said, "And I saw you laughing, and Lee, Alicia, and Oliver will back me up. Right?"

Lee and Alicia nodded.

"Nope," Oliver shook his head. "Sorry, but, come on, you guys, this is stupid. We need to go over the plays-"

"I thought we established you'd have time in practice to go over them, and that it was cruel and unusual punishment for me, because I'd never need to know them," Lee said.

"You don't think you'll ever comment on the way we're executing certain plays?"

"No, I stick to talking about who has the Quaffle, the Snitch, or the Bludger. If we're doing badly or the other team's cheating, I do tend to get a bit more creative, but that never lasts long, because McGonagall always tries to take the megaphone away."

Wood fought the urge to laugh. "Okay, so you'll never use any of this stuff. The rest of them all want to hear it. So can't you just-"

"The rest of us don't want to hear it either," Fred pointed out, placing a card on the top of the card house.

"You need to hear it, then," Wood said hotly. "We're a young team and we don't even have enough Chasers or a Seeker yet. All the other teams have years more experience than us. All this stuff is probably common knowledge to them."

"If this is common knowledge to anyone, then I'm a flobberworm," George muttered, but his brother shushed him.

"I reckon you're right, Wood," Fred said, "I do want us to be good this year, and it is going to be hard without Charlie."

"Exactly," Wood said, a bit surprised that Fred is suddenly agreeing with him. The other four looked shocked as well, especially George.

"Fred!" Angelina complained, "What are you agreeing with him for? We're busy with this!"

"I know," he said, looking at the card house "So why don't we finish it up, and then we can talk about Quidditch... C'mon, Wood, you can help."

"How long will it take to finish the house?" Wood asked. He didn't play Exploding Snap much and was a bit wary. Perhaps he was agreeing to play for hours.

"Not long at all," Fred grinned, handing him a card. "Put it down, now, and get close, you've got to be careful or the whole thing will fall down."

There was something evil in the grin. Wood could see that, although he couldn't put his finger on exactly what Fred was manipulating him into. He felt extremely stupid later, though. It had been obvious what was about to happen. He'd taken something that Fred Weasley had given him and used it, placed it on top of all the cards, so of course it blew up in his face.

As Fred, George, Lee, Angelina, and Alicia burst out laughing, Wood reckoned that being a Captain- especially for this team- was going to be a lot harder than he thought it would be.

June 8 - Just a note to say that I'm extremely sorry for not updating in so long, especially as the dang thing is already written... on paper, and was supposed to be updated every Saturday. Oops. Still, I hope to post the last two chapters soon!

-Julia