Okay, you guys asked for: here's your reward. This chapter's a biggie to make up for last chapter. It would have been up yesterday, but yeah; unforeseeable circumstances. Many thanks to all who reviewed to get this chapter up early – this one's for you. Bonus points for ShadowedDark and Mariano's-twins, whom both made the cheeky comments on the lack of material to review. Also kudos to Emz, whom gave a very constructive review. I love when people tell me what works and what doesn't. That way I can make the story better :)

Name: Katie Bell
Age: 16
Hair: Fluttering in the breeze – Not in the pretty way. It's probably forming matts and knots as we speak.
Current Mood: Harbouring murderous intentions towards a certain Gryffindor Scottish Captain
Current Location: Quidditch Pitch, halfway through drills.

Obviously, Wood had a death-wish. He made us Chasers practise passing with medicine balls. UNCHARMED medicine balls. I lost five feet of height every time I had to catch one of those suckers. And every time I dropped one, I had to fly all the way down to get it, do 20 push-ups, and fly back up again. And then he made us PLAY a whole Quidditch match using the medicine ball as a Quaffle. No Gripping Charms. No Floating Charms. Nothing.

Fred and George didn't have it easy either. Wood charmed the Bludgers smaller, faster and lighter, so the Weasely's had to improve their aim, and hit the things harder because they were so weightless. And you think he'd go easy on Harry, wouldn't you? I mean, he's already got the fastest, smallest ball to catch. You know what he did? He made it even SMALLER and FASTER. Now Harry'll never find the freaking Snitch, and we'll never finish this freaking game and finally finish freaking practise. I know it's because Wood's freaking out that he's got Puddlemere trials tomorrow, on top of trying to recover from last week's Quidditch loss. I tell you, that man is a walking basket case.

We eventually won the game when Fred Summoned the Snitch and surreptitiously passed it to Harry, who looked like he was about to sob with relief. I know real Quidditch equipment was Charmed so it couldn't be tampered with, but this was just the practise equipment. If Oliver had done it, so could Fred. I swear, I could kiss that boy sometimes. It looked like Angelina was going to anyway.

"Oi, Oliver, we've caught the Snitch!" George bellowed.
"Really?" Oliver asked, surprised. He loved to set unobtainable, impossible goals, so he was shocked we actually managed to achieve something. Albeit, with Fred's help.

"Where's the Snitch?" Wood asked suspiciously. Harry handed it to him. "There's nothing in your hand." Wood accused. Harry pointed to a small speck on his palm. "Ah-ha. There it is. My mistake. Well, since you finished that game in record time (three hours), I'll just run you through my latest plays for the game against Slytherin." We all groaned. Wood continued, unperturbed.

Fifty freakin minutes later:
"…And then, we soar through the air, form a pyramid and Angelina and Bell perform a sloth-roll in unison and –"
" - Oliver, what is this, a Quidditch play or dance choreography?" George muttered.
"Quidditch is dance," Oliver sniffed. "It is art." Whatever. Quidditch is brutal. Wood just can't see that. To him, Quidditch is the most beautiful art form on the planet.

And so, at like, eight o'clock at night, in pitch blackness, we're meant to be practising Oliver's stupid intensely and insanely-complicated play. He's Charmed our robes and the Quidditch balls luminous with some form of the Lumos charm, and put little blinking lights on our broomsticks so our brooms resemble car's head and tail lights. They even turn red when you're breaking, like a real Muggle car.

"Bell! You dropped the Quaffle. AGAIN. What do I have to do, hex you another set of arms?" Wood bellowed in frustration. I don't see him trying to do a stupid Belosofski Pivot. No. But I bit my tongue to stop myself mouthing off. He's obviously stressed out about Puddlemere try-outs, and if making us his whipping dogs will make him feel better, I'll take one for the team any day.

Two hours later it was bordering on plain ridiculous. The illuminating charms on our robes and the balls had faded to practically nothing. We were stumbling into each other in the dead of night. I had fallen off my broomstick 54 times: more times than I'd ever fallen off my broomstick previously in my WHOLE LIFE. And I've made some classic stacks in my lifetime.

The reason I keep falling off is at this one point in the game, I'm meant to stand up on my broom like a Muggle surfboard so I can make this incredibly complicated pass to George, of all people, who'll hit the Quaffle with his club to Angelina. Whatever. At least we're practising with the proper equipment now, not medicine balls and faster Bludgers. Wood got the idea off Harry two years ago, and we all saw how brilliantly that turned out. I mean, Harry caught the Snitch and all, but he did the worse stack of Hogwarts history and left a skid mark of about thirty feet on the pitch turf, and lost about sixteen inches of skin. Not to mention he almost digested the Snitch.

Plus, I may fly like second nature, but standing on two feet, I have no sense of balance whatsoever. And whizzing around at great speeds on a broomstick firmly wedged between two legs and hands is a completely different matter to whizzing around at great speeds on a broomstick with NO HANDS. Or legs. Alicia and Angelina managed no worries. The zoomed past me, gloating and skiting.

"Look Ma, no hands!"
"Johnson, cease and desist." Oliver barked.
"Wood, why can't Angelina or Alicia do this play?" I whinged.
"Because I want you to!" Wood roared back.
"I'll end up killing myself." I pouted.
"I don't care, as long as you make that play!" My pouty lips weren't working on Oliver. He wasn't having any of that. I heard him mumble to himself, "Do you think they allow ghosts on the team?"

Take one for the team my sweet arse.

"Wood, if there's one person here who should be dead, by rights it ought to be you!" I shriek, flying up to him (ha! I do have the balance to handle this surfboard thing. Perhaps this play of Oliver's isn't so stupid after all). I prodded him with a finger for each of my last seven words. "You got me a detention with Sprout." I shove him hard.

"Well, did you read the assignment before you handed it in? Didn't think so." He smirked, shoving me back twice as hard. I was still standing on my broom in that stupid way Wood was trying to teach me. I have now reinstated it back to a stupid manoeuvre. I almost toppled to the ground, some good ten to twenty-odd feet away. After I regain my balance I lay into him again.

"I shouldn't have to." This time I barrelled into him, using my broom's flight momentum as extra force. "You're supposed to be my friend, and that was a low, nasty trick."

"Uh, guys," Angelina began. "This is not a good idea."

"Bell," Wood sighed trying to sound mature, "I'm not getting into an argument with you about this. It's not even Quidditch related." I could make it Quidditch related. "Let's just sort out these plays on the pitch while it's still light (It was ten o'clock at night) and then we can sort this out later."

I just threw my Quaffle at him again in disgust. And he caught it again. Much to my disgust. "There's nothing you can throw at me that I can't catch, Bell." He grinned arrogantly.

It was at that moment that a Bludger soared straight into me. I heard George utter a few sharp curses, but it wasn't his fault. We'd all lost sight of the Quidditch balls several hours ago. I think Harry was halfway to the moon by now, trying to track down the Golden Snitch. And Wood used to swear he'd never let that thing out of it's cage if it was even so much as approaching dusk. Shows you how desperate and stressed out he was over the whole professional trial thing tomorrow.

Now, for the record, usually it takes more than just an errant Bludger to unseat me from my broom, but seeing as I wasn't actually SITTING on my broom, I was still STANDING on it, and that's a whole different kettle of fish.

I had all these thoughts in my head as I was falling because, let's be honest: I fell a long way. And the landing hurt like hell. I swear I had little Golden Snitches flying around my head.

There were several soft thumps over several bodies hitting the ground quite hard as they sprinted over to me. Oliver reached me first. He grabbed the front of my robes roughly. Ow. If this was Wood's idea of being gentle with an injured person who's sustained possible concussion and multiple fractures, I… yeah. Can't think of anything else to say other than thank God he's not seriously entertaining notions about being the next Madame Pomfrey as a future career choice. Or if he is, he's hiding it well.

"Bell, I couldn't see you fall, I didn't know where you were." Wood explained hysterically. Yeah, that's because his stupid illuminating Charms wore off hours ago. I tried to tell him that but all the air had been knocked out of my lungs, and I was having difficulties breathing more in.

"Hey Wood," I manage. "I thought you said you could catch anything." Ha. It was meant to come out as taunting but even to my ears it sounded pitiful and weak. My breath caught in my throat as I felt my rib shift, putting a lot of pressure on my lung. I don't think it should be doing that... Wood looked panicked. He had his fingers trapped in my hair, and another hand scooping my neck, supporting it as he tried to raise me to a sitting position. It hurt. I don't remember crying out, but Wood must have got the message somehow, because he hurriedly let me lie down again. Honestly, hasn't that boy been trained in giving first-aide? Wasn't that part of his Captaincy role?

"Bell, no dying on me, okay?" Wood pushed my fringe away from my face. "Remember the deal? I make all my players sign the "No-dying-before-the-end-of-the-season contract."

I laughed weakly, before biting back another cry of pain. Wood looked like he was in physical pain himself. His brow was furrowed in concern.

"You'll have to do better than that if you want to off me." I joked. "You didn't even knock me out."

"You had me worried for a minute there." Wood let out a small smile of relief, but made no effort to untangle his hands from my hair. I don't know what he was up to, but let me tell you, he was playing havoc with my breathing. I didn't know if I couldn't breathe because of my injury, or …something else. Just as I was gaining some control over my heartbeat and breathing patterns, he brought his face closer to mine, his eyes lowered…

No, Katie Bell, you are not going to blank out now, of all times. NOT NOW, you understand! Not –

Aw fu--