Mara's Magic

i - harry's joining the squad and charms disasters

We had only been at school for a week when I heard from Minnie that Harry Potter was joining the quidditch team. No try outs or anything. 

"He caught that thing in his hand after a fifty-foot dive," Minnie told me."Didn't even scratch himself. Charlie couldn't have done it." 

My expression of astonishment and excitement quickly dropped as I grumbled, "He couldn't be that good. He's a First Year."

She stared at me with an unimpressed look on her face and simply rolled her eyes before continuing on with her evaluation of the Potter boy. 

"He is of the right build. But, Minnie, he's going to need a good broom in order to be the Seeker and Dumbledore's got that stupid rule about First Years not being able to have one." I knew from personal experience how annoying that was, as I hadn't been allowed to bring my own my First Year and was stuck practicing with the old, jerky ones they had in the broom cupboard. And let me be the first to say that they were absolutely rubbish.

"That's exactly what Wood said and we've worked around that. Dumbledore will allow it under these circumstances."

"That would mean that he's the youngest quidditch player in over a century! I sure hope he's good."

I immediately went to find Oliver and found him teaching Harry the basics of quidditch out on the field. Goodness gracious, the boy doesn't even know the game? How is he supposed to play if he has no idea what he's doing? 

I walked up to the two boys. 

"Quidditch is easy enough to understand," Oliver started, carrying a Beater's Bat in his free hand. "Each team has seven players: 3 Chasers, 2 Beaters, 1 Keeper, and the Seeker. That's you." The two boys set the quidditch chest that they had been carrying on the ground and Oliver squatted to open it up. He popped open the latch and grabbed the quaffle, standing up again. "There's three kinds of balls."

He threw it to Harry. He looked up and spotted me walking up to them with an amused smile.

"I expect she'll be able to explain the role of this one better than I could," he said, glancing down at the First Year next to him. Harry spun around to see me. 

"Why?" He asked. I gestured for the quaffle in his hands and he threw it to me lightly. I tossed it around in my hands, admiring the familiar feel of the red leather ball.

"Well, my whole job involves this ball," I reply, throwing it into the air before catching it again. He just stared at me with curiosity in his green eyes. I tossed it back to Harry, the boy catching it easily and messing around with it as I had, tossing it which way and the other.

"This one's called the quaffle," I told him. "Now the Chasers, that's me, handle the quaffle and try to put through one of those three hoops." I point over to the three hoops at the end of the pitch. 

"The Keeper," Oliver smiled, "that's me, defends the hoops. With us so far?"

"Think so," Harry nodded, throwing the quaffle over to him. His eyes fell to the two shaking bludgers in the chest. "What are those?" His voice was direct and had a sassy tone in it, it was kind of endearing. Oliver put the quaffle back into the box and handed him the Beater's Bat.

"Better take this," he said. Harry looked at him wearily before grabbing the bat. I went down and quickly unlocked the bludger - it took off straight into the air. We all watched it go up several kilometers before it began to come back down.

"Careful now, it's coming back," Oliver said to Harry. The younger boy wound up with the bat and launched the bludger off to the side when it came back at him. It flew through the middle goal closest to us. I looked at him, impressed. My eyes shifted to Oliver who also looked impressed.