Disclaimer: I don't own the world of Harry Potter… J.K does

James trudged up the path the Gryffindor team room by himself. He opened the door to the corridor around the pitch and walked down to the red and gold Gryffindor team room door. He put his hand on the handle, took a deep breath, and pushed it open. There were about 50 people in chairs surrounding a whiteboard. Katie was standing at the front of the room with a piece of parchment. She looked up and smiled at him.

"Hey James, there's a seat up here." She directed him to a seat in the middle of the front row. As he made his way up to his seat, heads turned to stare at him. Right before he sat down he glanced back behind him to see everyone staring at him with a look of confusion on their faces. They think that I'm a joke. I will prove them wrong. He sat down, ignoring the people next to him with their jaws dropped, and just looked at Katie. She was looking around the room smirking at everyone's faces. A few more stragglers walked in just before Katie's watch started beeping.

"All right, it's 8:30 now so we'll get started. My name is Katie Wood, I'm 36 years old. I'm a chaser and the captain of this team. I went to Hogwarts, I was in Gryffindor. I played chaser on the house team for 6 years. We won the Cup when I was in my fourth and seventh years. I'm married to an ex-professional Quidditch player, Oliver Wood. He played with me at Hogwarts and we have two kids, Logan and Chelsea, twelve and nine respectively. Now, this team needs some serious work. We lost every single game that we played last year and I will not do that again this year. So I don't care if you were on the team last year or not, you will be trying out again. Now I don't know if you heard about our seeker, but he has been seriously injured, idiot. So I'm looking for someone at least competant on a broomstick to fill his place. I know we don't get a ton of good players trying out because this team is so bad but I'm trying to change that. I'll take anyone who is actually good on a broomstick, no matter how old they are." She glared around the room and James felt that statement was particularly about him. "Alright, let's head out to the pitch."

The group stood up and walking out onto the Hogwarts Quidditch pitch. Katie led them out to the bottom of the hoops. Alright, I want ten people in a group for ten laps around the pitch. Give the group in front of you about ten seconds before you go. I'll take the first group."

James immediately rushed forward to be in her group. He wasn't sure if any other the other people there would let him in their group, but he knew Katie wouldn't stand for it. She smiled at him when he joined her.

Once everyone was in a group they took off flying. They weren't going very fast, but it was enough to eliminate an entire group. They could barely stay on their brooms. Katie was holding her clipboard and was scratching off numbers, barely paying attention to where she was going. James was flying next to her and he could hear muttering about the "stupid professional teams that paid more and took her players". The season was at the same time so players had to choose. Because the British were so bad, everyone played professionally instead and the ministry docked the national pay.

They landed after their laps and she sent eleven of fifty two hopefuls home. They then went through a conditioning routine that sent another seventeen packing. James was very in shape already so he had no problem with everything she had them doing. The other people were another story though.

Katie gave the remaining twenty four players a water break and started banging her head against the wall. James went over to her.

"Hey, at least the rest of us are decently athletic and can stay up on a broomstick. You have to take little victories." He smiled at her and she looked away from the wall to him.

"The only problem is that we need fourteen people to make it, so that we have a reserve team. That means we can only cut ten more people. I'd like to get rid of about fifteen right now because of attitude and I haven't even put people into positions." She glanced over at the others who were glaring at James talking to Katie.

"Well, let's get this over as quickly as we can then. Maybe we won't even need our lunch break." Katie smiled at James and led him back to the others.

She put them into positions and had them scrimmage a little bit. A few of the professors that were at the school in the summer came down to watch them play. James recognized McGonagall, Slughorn, and his Uncle Neville.

His team wasn't all that bad. He had Katie on his team so they actually scored, but the other chasers were pretty much worthless. There were two chasers on the other team who looked at least decent. The other seeker was just following James around. James knew that if he let this idiot catch the snitch before him, no relationship with the captain would let him on the team. The only other seeker left was a complete idiot.

James searched the pitch for a good twenty minutes before he saw it over by the teachers. He pushed his Firebolt as fast as it could go. The other seeker was trailing way behind him. He saw the teachers quickly get out of the way as he flew right through where their heads had been and caught the snitch. James stopped and spun around to see the people on his team cheering for him.

They made their way back to the ground and Katie told them she had enough information to make a decision and went back into the captain's office to make up the teams while they packed up their stuff.

"Wow, that was some seriously amazing bit of flying!"

"How long have you been playing?"

"Is your last name Potter?"

"Are you actually eleven?"

The other players started harassing him with questions as soon as Katie left. All of the sudden, he was this amazing flyer and he was sure to make it. They all were clearly impressed and actually talked to them now. Some of them, the ones that hadn't glared at him all day, we're actually nice and friendly. There were two girls and a guy that were very kind to him. He couldn't remember seeing them play but he hoped they made the team so he had more than just Katie to talk to.

Katie came back out fifteen minutes later with the lists. "Okay, there is the starting team of seven and a full reserve team of seven. I'm very sorry to those of you that didn't make it. Keep practicing and come back next year." She stuck the list on one of the lockers and stepped back to let everyone look at it. Luckily, it was right next to James so he got to look at it first.

Starting lineup:

Keeper: Amy Kirken

Chasers: Katie Bell

Cameron Groves

Hannah Costal

Seeker: James Potter

Beaters: Mark Clara

Owen Clara

James didn't even bother looking at the other list. He didn't care who was on the reserve team because he was on the starting team. He tried his best to contain his excitement, but it wasn't working to well, so he went into Katie's office and shut the door. He, very silently, jumped around and danced like crazy. His dreams had come true.