The harvest season was officially in full swing! It was the last weekend of October when the first Quodpot game of the season was supposed to be held. It was Wampus vs Thunderbird! Considering how much of a natural athlete Link was, Evergreen was quite surprised at how nervous he was. Link could do anything, Link was one of the most multi-talented guys he had ever met! He had no reason to be that nervous about something like this. In his place, Evergreen would be over-the-moon excited, that is, if he had half of the hand-eye coordination that Link had. Obviously, Evergreen was quite lacking in that department. Who knows, maybe he needed to join the Grimoire dance club at some point to give him some semblance of grace.

Link was looking somewhat green while Evergreen and their friends all were enjoying breakfast that Saturday. A small pile of still sizzling maple sausage links and a Belgian waffle covered in strawberry preserves with two eggs, one scrambled, one hard-boiled, covered Evergreen's plate. He wasn't sure if he was going to also taste the southern-style cinnamon bread pudding. Probably, but he hadn't decided yet. Andie was seated beside him drinking her pulpy orange juice. She was wearing her hair up, which she didn't often do. It accentuated the length of her neck which Evergreen found kind of distracting for some reason. He decided not to look straight at her neck because it made him feel funny.

A similar but more intense funny feeling found him when he glanced away from their table where Esme was seated. She was smiling a brilliant, blinding smile and talking about something rather serious with one of the older Horned Serpents. He couldn't hear what she was saying, but he could tell that it was spoken with gentleness and grace. She was prettier than any fairy he had ever seen, including the cute little one who kept bugging him during play rehearsals.

"Hello. Earth to Evergreen!" Diva yelled into Evergreen's ear.

He jumped almost out of his skin and realized that he was chewing on a napkin for some reason and had deposited his spoon into his water goblet. What was going on here? Was this how it felt to have a crush on a girl? You acted stupid for no reason? How embarrassing.

Smiling fondly, Diva lowered her voice. "Whatcha doing there?"

"Chewing on a napkin I guess." He replied, "Don't know why."

"Maybe it's due to a certain thin, curly-haired Horned Serpent girl?"

"Hey. Shut up." Evergreen whispered.

"It's okay. It's normal. At least that's what my mom tells me. Link was my first crush. I acted like a fool quite a bit when I first met him. Just know that I'm always here to bring you back down to planet Earth."

"Thanks Diva. This really is the last thing I need right now."

"Crushes are hardly ever convenient. I mean, look how put out Link is with his new crush. Plus, it's called a crush for a reason, it doesn't always feel good, you know."

She put her arm around him and gave him a firm squeeze. By doing so, she legitimately squeezed some of his stress from his body. She should do that more often. He let out a long exhale and returned her pleasant smile. He then looked toward the bread pudding. Yeah, he made his choice. Wait, what was that she said about Link being put out?

The trek toward the Quodpot stadium was fairly long. The rain had started and it was a little slippery, but their school regulation footwear had some anti-slip charms enchanted within them, so they didn't slip and slide all over the muddy mound between the school and the stadium. Evergreen was wearing his cloak that he had enchanted again with the spell provided to him by the impostor that previous year. It was a handy spell, keeping the cold and wet out of the article of clothing used on. Some of the older students, he noticed, had cast some sort of invisible umbrella charm over them and possibly a significant other. He knew he had to learn that one. He made a mental note.

By the time they got to the stadium, what was a mist had completely changed into full-on rain. Evergreen noticed that where they weren't there the day he accompanied Link to tryouts, there were what appeared to be clear fiberglass panels hovering right above the stands. They must have been conjured by a professor to keep the spectators dry. Nice thinking. It's a good thing, too; I don't know how fun it would be to be rained on for 2 hours.

"Good morning, and welcome to the first Quodpot game of the year!" came the voice of Apollo from someplace in the stadium,,Evergreen couldn't tell. "For those who don't know me, my name is Apollo Warin, I am your student president and will be your man behind the curtain this year!"

Evergreen shuffled in his seat, looking around to see where Apollo might be. Then he saw him up in one of the stadium's high towers. His wand was up against his neck, amplifying his voice.

"And without further ado, please welcome the Wampus team!"

Just then, 11 people came flying out on broomsticks They were in short robes of red and tan, wearing matching red track pants underneath. Evergreen recognized a few of them.

"The Wampus team has a strong start this year with their new Capitan, and central midfielder ,Junior Lyra Hanson ,and her defense ,the Randall siblings, Phoebe and Uma ,with the new addition James Noblepelt!"

From various places in the stands, people cheered at the names. From his vantage point, Evergreen could see that the caramel-colored Lyra Hanson, though she was rail thin, had a fierce expression on her face. Her silver hair was cut quite short. She probably did it for the intimidation tactic. If so, it definitely worked on Evergreen. She could probably beat him up if she wanted to.

"From my own house, please welcome the Thunderbird team!" Apollo yelled.

Each Thunderbird, including Evergreen, let out a scream or a yell at this. Evergreen may have even put his hands up in the air and wiggled them around like he just didn't care. As the 11 members of the Thunderbird team appeared, all dressed in robes of white and gold, he thought that the feeling of being a part of that crowd was wonderful. They were part of something bigger. Their team was out there representing them and it was great!

Pretty soon, Coach Frost made an appearance on his broom. He was holding a large, cubed box. He yelled out something to the players that Evergreen couldn't hear, both Lyra Hanson and Imari Spellman shook hands, and soon after they separated, the cube was opened, and a large, dark ball the size of a basketball was thrown out. The quod. Both forward lines then rushed at the quod, one of the Thunderbird forwards caught it, a young, Latina, and started to fly forward, pushing into the other team's defending side.

The forward was in the process of throwing the quod to Amari, but she was intercepted and nearly thrown out of the air. She did a clever midair somersault and was able to pull herself back up on her broom. Unfortunately, two of the Wampus forwards were tossing the quod between themselves, pushing through the midfield. One of them got knocked down by a Thunderbird midfielder, but the quod was held tightly by the other.

As the forward quickly approached the Thunderbird defensive line, Link rushed him and somehow got the quod out of his grasp, throwing it with all his might to one of his teammates in front of him. It wasn't long until the Thunderbirds scored the first 110-pointgoal of the game.

Another quod came out from Coach Frost's cube and both sides rushed at it with an intensity that could only be described as feral dragons. It was grabbed by the Wampus team who were passing it until the last moment when it exploded and took one of them out of that half.

"Ouch!" Apollo yelled overhead, "That's gonna leave a mark!"

Yet again another quod made its way into play. This one lasted a little longer, but took out the Latina forward who was playing so well earlier in the game. She appeared to be visibly frustrated. She was so close to getting it in that Evergreen completely understood. To have one's goal so close yet so far away and for it to be suddenly swiped out from under them is a fresh hell indeed.

After halftime, things started picking up. Link was slide-tackling everyone he could who wasn't also in white and gold ,and he even managed to knock a few Wampus players out of the second half by tossing the smoking quod at them at the last moment. It was an ingenious strategy, Evergreen thought. It came to the point where the teams were neck and neck. The game would be won by a single goal! Lyra Hanson appeared to be yelling something at Kristoff, who was floating around on his broom opposite her. Evergreen couldn't hear what it was, but it made Kristoff laugh, so it couldn't have been too bad.

The quod made its way from the center, to the Wampus defensive line, back to Link, Etheri ,and Arcana, his fellow defenders. Then, by some stroke of luck, the quod exploded in the possession of one of the other Wampus players. When the next quod appeared, Imari herself tossed it into the Wampus basket, thus giving the victory of the first Ilvermorny Inter-house Quodpot game to the Thunderbirds.

"That was amazing!" Apollo cried out, "With Spearman's quick goal, the victory goes to Thunderbird house!"

Evergreen joined his house in screaming out in their shared victory.

The victory followed the Thunderbirds to the Nest where a party was officially underway. Evergreen had never been to a party that wasn't chaperoned by someone's mom or dad, so this was a new experience for him. Some of the older students managed to sneak in some alcoholic drinks somehow and were enjoying them. Because he wasn't at all interested in that sort of thing, Evergreen avoided anyone who had any of that on themselves. He did ,however, make his way to a back table that was covered with a variety of different snacks. They can have their poisons and I'll be happy with mine!

While he was at the table, he was joined by an unexpected person. It was the short Aaron with his dark hair and playful expression. Evergreen considered how close they had started to become considering they were co-leads in their Shakespeare production.

"Hey Evergreen," he said.

"Hey yourself. I see even the Pukwudgies got an invite." Evergreen replied with a friendly grin.

"You know me. I'm just trying to be where the action is."

Suddenly, Evergreen remembered a conversation that he had with Professor Graves many weeks ago. He recommended Evergreen to seek someone out who could help him with the animagus potion. Because the Pukwudgie house was filled with natural healers, it made sense for him to ask the help of one of them. Who would be better than Aaron Talbot, who Evergreen could already tell would be willing to help out a friend. Plus, he also meant to make his other little summer project work. Since it failed at the start of the school year, he didn't try to do it again yet. Perhaps Aaron could be a resource on both fronts.

"Aaron, speaking of action, how good are you at potions?"

The other boy laughed good-naturedly. "You may as well ask me how good I am at breathing. Why?"

"Well, there's a few projects I'm working on that I'd like some help on if you'd be willing."

"Why not!" Aaron replied, "Do you wanna meet up after dinner on Monday and talk about it?"

Evergreen smiled but fought the urge to laugh in response. "Yeah. I do. Let's enjoy these snacks in the meantime, though."

Link made an appearance at some point during the party and looked like he was having the time of his life.

"Hey there, Ev!" he said, with his contagious, blindingly suave smile.

"The celebrity sportsman graces we plebs with his presence!" Evergreen replied with the combination of an exaggerated bow and a curtsy.

"Cower before me!" Link said in a posh accent.

"Oh no, we can't bear his presence!" Aaron laughed, whilst shielding his face.

"Hey Aaron. It's cool to see you in the Nest." Link said, noticing him for the first time.

"Well, like I was telling Evergreen, when something is going on, I always like to get involved."

They continued talking for a little while in the corner at the snack table as the rain heavily pounded on all of the Nest's windows. Evergreen found that he always felt right at home when he was snug and cozy inside when it was raining cats and dogs on the outside. Suddenly, Evergreen noticed Link get distracted with something he was looking at across the Nest. He followed his friend's line of vision through a bunch of people at various ages and stages of sobriety until he noticed Grace Moonbeam. She was tall and thin, like Link, only she had slight curves, which many girls in their grade didn't rave. Her long, straight, chocolate-brown hair cascaded around her tanned face. She was lovely indeed. She wasn't supermodel gorgeous, but she was still quite eye-catching

"You like her, don't you?" Evergreen asked.

"Huh?" Link managed.

"Grace. You like her, what's stopping you from going over there?"

"Most girls I like just come over to me and I don't have to do much to get them to like me. She's different."

"So, you've been moping around because you have to talk to a girl first? That's weak man, even for me." Evergreen laughed.

"Well, now that you put it that way—" Link said.

"Dude, you are tall, good-looking, talented, and a winner. She wants you to go over and talk to her. I know she does." Evergreen explained, grabbing Link about the shoulders to look him straight in the eye.

"You're right. Thanks, nerd."

With that, Link took a swig of some Fizzing Whizbeer and floated over the crowd of people, touching down a few paces away from Grace. He smiled and said something to her. She tossed her long hair in response and let out a little laugh. Evergreen couldn't hear what was said, he only knew that Link definitely had game. Sure, he knew that Link had people who were just naturally drawn to him because of his charisma or something, but it didn't make sense to have a hard time over something as easy as talking to someone. In Evergreen's case ,it was different, because he was perfectly content with admiring Esme from afar. It wasn't a whole thing like Link was with Grace.

The rest of the party Evergreen spent with Aaron, chatting about potions and the play. Aaron was a fabulous Bassanio ,and the kiss that Bassanio dropped on Antonio's cheek wasn't as awkward to rehearse as Evergreen thought it might have been. Something about the kid just really put him at ease. He would have been quite content to stay there in the corner until it was time for bed, but at some point, Andie made an appearance. Her hair was still up ,but she wasn't wearing her glasses ,which emphasized her wide, honey-colo. She was out of breath from dancing perhaps.

"Evergreen, dance with me." She said, grabbing his hand.

Such a wild invitation! Evergreen wasn't a dancer. He had two left feet and made a point to not perform his utter lack of coordination for anyone. He decided a long time ago that he wouldn't let himself be made a fool out of in ways such as this. He swore in his wrath that he wouldn't ever do something as foolish as dancing the night away, especially with a pretty girl. So, he did the logical thing when Andie spoke those words.

"Uhhh, sure…" came his dumb reply, as she pulled him out to the crowd in the middle of the Nest.