Author’s Note: I have gotten a few comments and concerns from some people that I’m not being true to the genre that I said I’d be writing. Please be patient with me. What I do in my story, I do for a reason. I fully intend to make Harry and Ginny a couple, but I want to finish this sub-plot that I have started first. Please bear with me.
On Friday afternoon, after the last lesson had let out, Ron and Harry made their way out to the Quidditch Pitch. Harry had his Firebolt draped over his shoulder, while Ron held his Cleansweep in his right hand. When they reached the field, they saw twenty plus students waiting for them. Harry scanned the field and saw a face that shouldn’t be there, but was more than welcome.
“Wood!”
Oliver Wood was a former captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team in Harry’s first three years at Hogwarts. Since he had left, Wood had been playing on the reserve Quidditch team for Puddlemore United. “What are you doing here?” Harry asked.
Wood looked around the pitch. “I heard you were holding tryouts for a new team. Thought I might stop in and see if I could be of help, if you want it, of course.”
Harry nodded. “Of course, I love to have you help pick a new team.” He lowered his voice a bit. “To tell you the truth, I was a little nervous about this.”
“Don’t worry, Harry,” Wood said, in an equally low voice. “I’ll give you some pointers.” He and Harry started to walk among the collected students. “Is everybody here?” Wood called out.
“Here comes someone,” Ron said, pointing up the field.
It was Ginny. She was carrying a sleek broom over her shoulder, and wearing a determined look on her face. “Am I too late for the tryouts?” she asked in a stern tone.
“No,” Ron answered, stepping back from his sister. “We were just about to start.”
Harry ran his eyes over Ginny. There was something different about her today. She looked focused and determined. He turned away from her. “All right. If you’re trying out for chaser, I want you to gather over here.” He pointed to a spot behind him. About half the group split off and walked to where Harry was pointing; Ginny was one of them. “All beaters over there.” He pointed towards Ron; half the remaining students gathered around him. Seamus and Dean were among that group. “Keepers, I want over here, next to Wood.” Four students joined him. “And the rest of you are with me. Now we’re just missing one person…ah, here she comes.”
Katie Bell was running down the field. “Sorry, I’m late. Professor McGonagall kept us a bit long.” She bent over to catch her breath, then straightened up and saw Wood. She went over to him and threw her arms around his neck. “I didn’t know that you were going to be here.”
“I wasn’t supposed to,” he replied. “But a letter from Professor Dumbledore convinced me that a visit might be worthwhile.”
Katie broke off from him and joined the chaser group. Harry addressed the whole Quidditch pitch. “Now each group is going to be put through the paces that will be expected of you in a Quidditch match. We will be picking a few students for each open spot, which are three chasers and two beaters. Ron Weasley and myself currently fill the keeper and seeker positions. We will, however, be choosing reserves for those positions as well. For those of you that are not picked for the main team, you will still be expected to show up for practices and matches. We will do our best to rotate you in, but if you don’t get to play this year, don’t worry. We are also training a team to take over next year and the year after that. As other players leave the school, you will get moved up. Also, you’ll get the benefits of years of practice.”
The four groups broke away from each other. Harry took the seeker group off the side of the stands. “All right, being a seeker is simple, yet it can be the most difficult position on the team. He pulled a small golden orb from his pocket. Turning it over on his hand, it sprouted wings and started fluttering them. Harry kept a firm grip on it. “Now I’m sure that you all know the basic rules of Quidditch, so I’m going to release this snitch and I want to see how you all fly while trying to catch it. The trick is that it will probably fly in between the other groups of students. This is common in a match since the snitch will fly over the entire pitch. Just fly your best and watch where you’re going.”
He released the snitch, and it flew into the air. “Mount your brooms.” Harry and the three young students got onto their brooms and soared into the air. When they had risen forty feet into the air, he pointed to one of the candidates. “Maria, you’re first.” She was a second year girl with short brown hair. Gripping her broom tightly, she flew away from the group and started looking for the snitch.
She circled the pitch for a couple of minutes before catching sight of the small object near the ground. Maria dove towards the grass at a great speed. The snitch took off into the air; Maria pulled from her dive to follow. The snitch flew into Ron’s group of beaters, forcing Maria to make a choice whether she wanted to fly around the group of between them. She chose the second option and zipped between Seamus and a third year boy, both of which were caught off guard and stumbled on their brooms. She caught the snitch a moment later.
Harry blew a whistle he had had around his neck and Maria flew back over to him. “Great work, Maria. Excellent choice to flew through the beaters.” He turned to address the other two. “In a match, the seeker has to watch out for the other players. More than once, I’ve had to fly close to someone else. All right, Terrence is next.” A fourth year blonde, he took off after the newly released snitch.
Terrence showed remarkable talent at sharp turns and straight shots of speed. He stayed near the snitch for the better part of seven minutes before finally catching it. Finally, a second year boy with brown hair, Trey, took his turn. He had the most difficult run of the three candidates. He saw the snitch early on in his run, but couldn’t keep up with it. It kept zipping just out of reach of his hand and changing directions too quickly. This continued for ten minutes before he managed to turn in the same direction as the snitch, giving himself enough momentum to catch it.
Harry told the three seeker candidates to wait in the stands while he checked on the other groups. Ron had just finished working with his group when Harry flew over. The Quidditch keeper sent his group to join Harry’s in the stands. “How did everything go, Ron?”
“They could all be great beaters,” Ron answered. “Some might even be as good as Fred and George.” Katie and Oliver soon finished with their groups and they all gathered in the stands.
Harry addressed all the students. “Thank you all for trying out today. We should have a decision by the end of the weekend.” The students left the pitch. Harry turned to Oliver. “Thanks a lot, Wood. I was afraid I’d have to double up on a few groups. Do you think you can write down who you think would make a good reserve keeper before you leave?” Wood nodded. “And you, Katie,” Harry continued. “I know you’d rather be playing Quidditch then training, but I do appreciate your help also.” Katie smiled at him.
The four of them started to walk back up to the castle, when Ron pulled him back towards the pitch. “We’ll catch up with the two of you later. I need to talk to Harry for a moment.” They waved as they continued up the field. Ron and Harry walked off to the Gryffindor locker room.
“What is it, Ron?” Harry asked.
Ron looked straight at him. “What is wrong with you?”
Harry looked confused. “What do you mean?”
Ron sat him down. “I mean, what is wrong with you? Ever since you started seeing Cho, you haven’t been yourself. You’ve been spending your free time with her and staying out late a few nights.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
Ron shook his head. “Nothing, except that I thought the two of you stopped speaking to each other last year. When you told me she wanted to start seeing you again, I thought I had a hearing problem or that you were insane. She was horrible to you, trying to make you jealous and always sticking up for the traitor friend of hers, Marietta.”
Harry had expected this sooner or later. Without Hermione to keep him in check, Ron was free to say what ever he wanted, which was usually something that hadn’t been thought through. “I know. I know that we had our problems last year, but she wants to try again, and quite frankly, so do I.” He took a deep breath. “Listen, you know that I’ve been alone for a long time. You and Hermione have been the best friends I could have asked for, but there are some things that the two of you can’t give me. Cho is the something that has been missing in my life.”
Ron shook his head. “I knew that you would eventually fall for someone, mate, but why did it have to be her? I kind of hoped that it would be…” His voice trailed off.
“Who?” Harry asked.
“Never mind,” Ron answered. “Harry, I just hope you made the right decision.”
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Ron’s words kept Harry in the common room late that night, as he glanced over the reports about the Quidditch tryouts. It was his own fears voiced by his best friend. He did care for Cho quite a bit, even more so then he had last year. He was, though, having more and more thoughts about Ginny. It was going to be even harder to keep her off his mind when he made the decision to make her a starting chaser.
Writing down the last name on the parchment, he set his quill down and leaned back into his armchair. Kevin had said if he wanted to make one relationship work, he had to forget about the other girl. What Harry had not asked, though, was how did he choose which relationship to pursue. He had thought Kevin was talking about Cho, since that was whom he was seeing at the moment, but what if he had meant something else? Had he known that he had feelings for Ginny? Did he mean that he should try to form a relationship with the young Gryffindor?
Harry took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. Why did this have to be so hard for him? He wanted to keep seeing Cho, but he couldn’t forget about Ginny. He wanted to spend as much time with Cho, but Ginny kept invading his mind. He was supposed to forget about one of them and concentrate on the other.
It was something he just couldn’t do.
“Harry?”
A voice from behind him stirred his thoughts. He put his glasses back on and saw Ginny standing at the bottom of the stairs to the girl’s dormitory. She was wearing her nightdress and gown, which Harry couldn’t take his eyes off of. She walked over to the armchair across from him and sat down. “Have you finished making out the new Quidditch team?”
He passed over the parchment he had been working on. She looked it over. “You made me a starting chaser,” she said, with a smile. “Thank you. Oh, and Dean Thomas got the beater spot. Good choice.”
At the mention of his name, Harry understood why he should forget about Ginny. She and Dean were together. It wasn’t right that he should torture himself about her, when it was clear that she couldn’t feel the same way. She passed the parchment back to him. “When do you think practices will start?
“Probably next week,” Harry replied. “This year we’re going to try a different practice regimen since we have enough people to have two teams.” He got up and pinned the parchment to the Gryffindor message board. “I hope that we’re up to it.”
Ginny stood up and stood behind him. “We’ll be fine, Harry. Don’t worry about it.”
Harry didn’t realize she was so close. When he turned around, he was almost face to face with her. They stood there for a moment, looking into each other’s eyes before Harry turned away. “I should get some sleep. Ron and I are going to work out strategies tomorrow. Goodnight, Ginny.”
He left the common room so fast he did not hear her respond.
“Goodnight, Harry.”