Chapter 11 - Chapter 9 - The Tryouts

I don't own anything related to the Harry Potter franchise

The three days leading up to the Hogwarts Quidditch team tryouts were increasingly hectic and busy for everyone involved, as the pitch was crammed with teenagers on brooms and everyone tried to figure out who their competition was.

Harry was still experiencing a lot of staring/gawking almost everywhere he went, but the looks he was receiving had a distinctly different flavor to the ones he'd received two years earlier. Thinking back to the stony silence and staring that he'd endured back when the student body suspected him of being the heir of Slytherin, Harry found the comparison amusing. Nowadays, while he had the attention of a wide variety of Hogwarts's ladies, they were mostly content to blush and sigh. If these girls were guilty of anything, it was the fact that they were far too persistent.

Whenever Harry entered a public area of any variety, groups of young women always ended up gathering somewhere nearby, and it was becoming obvious they had no intention of giving him space.

And in a surprising twist of fate, all of the female attention Harry was currently receiving was turning out to be a bit of a hassle…

While Harry didn't know who it was that first caught on to his early morning workout regime, Ginny, along with about a dozen other girls, had started to watch him from the sidelines whenever he ran his obstacle course around the Black Lake. For the most part, their presence was an inconvenience because it forced Harry to cut out most of Author's involvement, reducing his movement speed by a significant margin and decreasing his enjoyment of the activity at exactly the same time.

Equally disruptive but far more welcome, the three Gryffindor chasers, Angelina, Alicia and Katie, had thrown on some athletic gear to see what all the fuss was about. Just the day before, they'd run to the side of the obstacles, trying to keep pace with Harry as he climbed and rolled through the courses' various elements. While Harry still outran the girls by a significant margin, all three of them were quite a bit faster than he'd been at the beginning of the summer, and managed to finish a lap around the lake with minimal difficulty.

While training his body, flying and Quidditch took center stage in Harry's life, his classes became of secondary importance in his mind, which was only acceptable because he was excelling in all of his schoolwork without any trouble at all. After sending out tendrils of his magic to sense how his Professor's perform whatever spell they're teaching, Harry could usually recreate their efforts after one or two attempts (Harry hadn't had Defense with Moody yet, but since he couldn't sense the man, he'd most likely have to be much more attentive during that class). Truth be told, the only reason Harry ever failed to cast a new spell the first time he tried was because he was pumping way too much magical power into the spell.

Hermione was the same extreme genius as always, except she was even sharper now. Over the summer, she'd become an intermediate Occlumancer, with all of the control over her memories that the skill had to offer.

Neville Longbottom was no longer forgetful, which was allowing him to make steady progress in all of his classes, including Potions. The boy had been surprised to find out that he actually had a talent for Potions, without that git Snape looming over his shoulder the entire damned time. Harry was quick to point out that Herbology and Potions share several skill sets, which meant that Neville was probably good at the class all along.

There was also the fact that Harry ended up sensing a glaringly obvious problem with Neville's wand after just a few days of going to classes, and he managed to coerce the boy into doing something about it…

During the war against Voldemort, Neville's parents Frank and Alice Longbottom, were tortured to the point of insanity by Cruciatus curse exposure, and ever since that day, they'd been admitted into a St. Mungo's long term care facility. While it was to be expected that Madam Augusta Longbottom would suffer over the loss of her son, what was unusual was how she treated her grandson Neville. She was simultaneously overprotective of Neville in the extreme and yet both distant and cold at exactly the same time. It was as if she couldn't bear to lose Neville but didn't have the strength required to commit herself to him emotionally either. Not only that, but Augusta was fixated on Neville becoming the Wizard powerhouse that her son had been, despite the fact that her memories of Frank were biased to the point of Delusion.

Of course, it was Augusta's odd fixation that had Neville using his father's old wand, despite the fact that it was of poor compatibility to him.

But she wasn't the only one at fault for his predicament...

Neville is a sensitive soul. Due to his innate kindness and strong sense of empathy, he had the ability to read between the lines and truly understand the people around him. Unfortunately, this level of insight didn't do Neville any favors when dealing with his extremely taciturn grandmother.

By the time Neville was only nine years old, he was already well-aware of his grandmother's many hangups. He was also fully aware that his grandmother was being both selfish and irrational by forcing him to use his father's old wand. None of that changed the fact that Neville willingly used said wand for several years in a row, and struggled on a daily basis as a result.

Neville loved his grandmother, despite her many faults, and he was reluctant to hurt her even in his own self-interest.

In the end, it was only after Harry explained all of his newfound abilities, including the fact that he could actually feel Neville's wand rejecting his magic that the boy finally gave in.

Immediately after returning from a day trip to Diagon Alley with his very own wand, Neville began to use magic much more fluently and with far, far fewer mishaps. In fact, the difference was so dramatic, Neville lost an entire night sobbing into his pillow...

Neville just felt so overwhelmed, and it felt like such a waste.

All those years, despite knowing that his wand was less than ideal for him, a small part of Neville had always believed that it was his failure as a wizard that was causing all of his mishaps. Now that he knew better, it was all of the lost time that bothered him most. He could've been excelling or at least attempting to excel. Instead, he'd always been considered the hopeless near squib of his entire year…

It goes without saying that Neville's feelings were distinctly bittersweet, but a day after receiving his brand new wand, the teen reemerged from his dormitory determined to improve himself, causing both Harry and Hermione to go a little overboard in their excitement. Over the last three days, the three of them poured over three years worth of Transfiguration, Charms and Defense textbooks, bringing Neville up to speed like the worst kind of tyrants, and Harry even snuck in a few of the spells that were going to be taught later on in their current semester…

The fourth year spells that Harry tricked Neville into learning several months ahead of schedule were the following:

-Accio is an almost instantaneous summoner spell that can make objects fly into your hands.

-The Arresto Momentum spell is used to stop the movement of an object for a few moments, before it continues its original trajectory

-Aguamenti is a weak water summoning spell that can be overpowered to create a large outpouring of water

-Glacius is a weak freezing spell that can be overpowered to freeze a wide swath of water or surface area

-Incendio is a weak fire summoning spell and the base spell of the much more powerful Incendio-Maxima flamethrower spell

-Reducio can shrink an object for a predetermined period of time

-Engorgio will enlarge a shrunken object or any object if given enough power

-Episkey is a minor wound healing charm and a staple charm for any student living at Hogwarts

-The Carpe Retractum spell is like a really cool, orange and glowing magical lasso, of which Harry was an enormous fan.

Harry also taught Neville how to use both the Expelliarmus wand disarming spell and how to maintain a proper Protego shield. While he definitely wasn't trying to weaponize his friend, he still considered those two self-defense spells to be of absolutely vital importance for any wizard living and studying at Hogwarts.

An unforeseen benefit of this tutoring process was that Harry and Neville truly became the friends that they desired to be for each other. They were a source of support and solidarity for each other. They could trust and rely on each other, and they knew it.

Then again, due mostly to Harry's new outgoing attitude, the lion's share of his relationships were improving with every day that passed.

With one exception...

Harry's relationship with Ron was devolving to the point that he didn't even trust the boy anymore. There was no glaringly obvious reason for Harry to feel the way that he did, but a vague sense of unease had him using his brand new Rune skills to security ward both the perimeter of his bed and his trunk. The Runes that he inscribed into his belongings weren't all that sophisticated, but they'd still be effective because he channeled a boatload of magic into them.

On the Friday at the end of his first week of classes, Harry had Dobby deliver both Appoline and Gabrielle a letter, explaining his comings and goings (and gifting gabby some chocolates). Both mother and daughter were happy to hear from him and relieved that he managed to stay out of trouble. In return, Gabrielle sent him several dozen charcoal pencil drawings (to decorate his dorm), so the two of them started an art exchange program of sorts. Harry kept up with his sketching hobby as often as he could, and he practiced the piano in his Mindscape every single night.

So far at least, the new semester was going very well for Harry Potter… Now all that was left to sort out was his extracurriculars…

Saturday Morning, Hogwarts Quidditch team tryouts…

When Harry woke up on Saturday morning, he smiled up at the ceiling because today was finally the day of the tryouts and he was excited to take part. As per the new norm, Harry was feeling extremely well rested, but because of how physical the tryouts were going to be, he debated whether or not he should complete his daily workouts. After waffling back and forth about it, he eventually decided that he'd complete his exercises, but keep them light.

Upon his arrival at the usual starting line for his run, Harry saw that the Gryffindor girls were absent this morning, probably in favor of being well rested for the tryouts. There were still several Hufflepuff girls in attendance, who in a rare show of courage, walked up to him in the midst of his stretching.

Harry was met by Abigail Williams, a short and pretty raven haired girl, Ashley Duncan, who was almost as tall as Fleur and also quite pretty, and Susan Bones, one of the most sought after girls in his grade, due to her cute freckled face and curvy body. The three girls waved as they walked over, flagging him down.

"Good morning, Harry," the three girls chorused to him, almost but not quite in perfect harmony.

"Good morning," Harry replied, with what he hoped was an easy smile. "How can I help you ladies?" Even as he asked the question, Harry continued stretching out his shoulders.

After taking a step closer to Harry, Susan Bones leaned forward provocatively and gazed up into his eyes with a wide, unblinking stare. "We were wondering if you planned on trying out for the school team this afternoon?"

"Yeah, I'm going to be trying out for the Seeker position," Harry replied, while pulling a knee up against his chest.

"If that's the case, we didn't expect to see you out here this morning, Abigail pointed out while raking every last inch of Harry's body with her eyes. "Won't you be too tired to take part?"

As soon as Abigail was finished speaking, Susan was asking another question of her own. "Shouldn't you be trying out for chaser or keeper instead, Harry? You're very big and strong now. Seekers are all very small and fast."

While stretching out his other hip, Harry nodded at both girl's questions and then smiled in what he hoped was a very easygoing and friendly fashion. "I'm only going to be jogging this morning rather than using the obstacles, so it won't be too strenuous, and I've been practicing to refine my flying style. I think I'll surprise you all with how fast I can move on a broom."

At Harry's words, the Hufflepuff girls smiled widely both at him and each other. All of the sudden, all three girls looked extremely excited.

"Okay Harry, we'll be cheering for you then! See you later." Very suddenly, all three girls ran off towards the school in one huge hell of a hurry.

At first, Harry rationalized to himself that the girls were probably trying to get some sleep before breakfast. Then he sighed because he wasn't dense enough to believe his own story. Susan and her friends probably had something in mind for the tryout later today, and he suspected he was going to find it embarrassing.

Following that rather unkind thought, Harry paused, shook out his head, and palmed his face with his hands. Has Fleur Delacour completely broken my appreciation for other women?! Susan Bones was a complete knockout, and Harry had fantasized about her maybe five-hundred times during the past three years. Now that knowledge felt objective. Harry could still recognize that Susan was extremely good looking, but the intensity wasn't there. He liked all of those girls, but he found that the only female attention he actually wanted at the moment was Aethir's. The two of them would be "playing" a lot today and he wanted to warm her up.

Shaking his head at himself again, Harry started moving some of the Air around his limbs and torso, waking up the sleepy little air spirit as nicely as possible. It could be compared to the difference between roughly shaking someone awake and gently rubbing them awake. Harry wanted to take his time today.

The audience being generated by the Hogwarts Quidditch Team tryouts was just as big as it had ever been for any official match over the last few years, which made sense since the Inter-school tournament was a really big deal at Hogwarts, and the team selection was of interest to almost everybody. If anything, the audience filling the stands today was even more excited and rowdy than normal, because the tryouts weren't an inter-house competition. There was quite a bit more socializing between the four different houses than there'd ever been at any event in the past, which was giving the proceedings a festive air the school didn't normally achieve.

As he walked through the arched entryway into the pitch, Harry found himself trying to guesstimate just how many good friendships had been denied by House division. Then his mental mathematics were put on hold by far more immediate concerns. Emerging out into the bright sunshine filling the pitch, Harry suddenly felt the eyes of hundreds and hundreds of people following his every move. To his chagrin, there even appeared to be four or five extremely large POTTER banners up in the stands.

Well... It was official. The twins were going to bust his balls over this, and he knew it.

Sigh…

At the very least, Harry knew that one of the smaller banners was Hermione, who hadn't hidden the fact that she was going to be bringing one.

As he walked up to his Gryffindor friends, Harry pulled back all of his increasingly long and wild hair into a short ponytail to help keep it out of the way. Letting his hair blow around in the wind is fun and all, but since he'd need to be able to actually see this afternoon, he'd keep it under control. He also decided to just take the ribbing that he knew was coming, and wear tighter than normal clothing for less wind resistance. Harry was wearing a tight, black Adidas t-shirt and shorts combo that was both simple and close to the skin. He was well aware that his choice of clothing would make him look like he was trying to show off, but he was trying to be confident now, dammit!

Sure enough, Harry was met with cat calls, just as soon as he was within shouting range of George and Fred, or Gred and Forge, as he'd recently begun calling them.

"Harry Potter, number one," Gred Yelled out, at the top of his lungs. "You pretty, pretty boy you!"

"Harry Potter, have my babies," yelled Forge while rubbing his belly enticingly.

"A fan club," yelled Gred. "An honest to Gods fan club!

We

are

so

PROUD," they both yelled at exactly the same time.

Harry laughed good and hard, even as he shook his head in chagrin. "Yah, yah I love you guys too. Now, let's get our heads in the game right?" Belatedly, Harry noticed Ron standing to the edge of his group, where he was glowering at him like a petulant child. Resisting the sudden urge to roll his eyes, Harry returned his attention back towards the twins.

At Harry's words, the twins' laughter came to a sudden end so that they could instead nod their heads in perfect unison. Gred smirked, punching his right fist into the flat of his left palm. "Right! Game face time. Gryffindor owns this team, I'm telling you that right now."

"That's right," agreed Angelina, as the Gryff girls approached from off to the left where they'd been stretching. "Nice fan club Potter," she added immediately after, successfully rubbing it in even more.

"Very impressive," Alicia added in a sing-song voice.

Katie's nod of agreement was a little more sincere, as she scanned the audience. It appeared she really was impressed.

There was only one thing that Harry could think to do in this situation. He threw his hands out at his sides and exclaimed, "I had nothing to do with this!" Then, cutting back on the melodrama a bit, he dropped his hands and just shrugged helplessly. "We all know that I didn't endorse the banners. Well... Except for Hermione over there." Harry waved up at Mione, at which point she waved her enormous sign back and forth in the air, clearly enjoying his embarrassment.

"Oh we know you didn't ask for this," Alicia admitted, while grinning. "That doesn't mean it's forgivable though. We will henceforth tease you relentlessly."

"Damn!" Harry looked down at his feet in a comically dejected fashion. "It sucks, but unfortunately that does sound fair."

At first there was only interspersed giggling, but soon enough they all broke out into a loud fit of laughter.

"Let's get on our brooms then," Harry suggested, just as soon as they all calmed down again.

"Not so fast," came a sharp voice that halted everyone in their tracks. Madam Hooch was striding into the pitch, with upwards of twenty ancient looking wooden crates floating in the air just behind her. "No one will be allowed to use their own brooms during the tournament, so you won't use them today either. Everyone here will be flying the school's practice brooms."

"Someone's going to die today," predicted Gred, with a haunted expression on his face.

"Bodies piled like firewood," continued Forge.

While Harry did laugh at the twin's antics, he also had to admit that they had a point. The school's practice brooms were as old as time, and were notoriously poor in quality. It was bad enough that a common joke told to first years every single year was if they successfully learned to fly using them, they'd automatically become pros at flying literally anything else.

This turn of events was also going to be an inconvenience to Harry, because he didn't want to leave his Firebolt laying around for just anyone to play around with.

He was going to have to get creative.

Placing his broom down next to his gym bag, Harry began carving some quick wards into the sandy dirt that covered the pitch. Powering up the wards, he saw a brief flash of green on the ground that assured him they were now active. Then, when he stood back up, he saw that the twins had witnessed what he'd done, were smiling winningly at him and were gesturing for him to do the same to their stuff. Soon enough, Harry was warding all of the Gryff girl's stuff and even a random guy from Ravenclaw who had a rather nice Cleansweep broom he was worried about.

Unfortunately for Harry, Madam Hooch had been walking around and handing out brooms, first come first serve, the entire time he was working on the wards. By the time he returned his attention to the task at hand, the broom selection was most certainly not looking pretty. His broom looked more like a used toothbrush than it did anything else. All of its straw ends were frayed outwards in crazy directions and it even looked a little moldy.

After focusing on the broom with his magic, Harry wasn't the least bit comforted by what he sensed. The flight magic was all out of whack, the cushioning charm on the seat was gone and the stabilizers were all but nonexistent. All of those charms are applied hundreds strong over days, so he wouldn't have had the time to fix the broom, even if he knew how to do so.

Grunting his disapproval, Harry released some of his magic, using it to tie himself tightly to the broom. He was going to fly this damned toaster and it was going to obey. Harry also started showing Aethir that this "broom" was going to dance, so he'd need her help keeping it airborne.

As Harry expected would be the case, Aethir responded by giggling quietly into his ear because she loved it when he offered her creative problems. Soaking into the pores of the broom, she idly swirled around it's scattered bristles, trying to figure out how she could help the broom move with the most grace and enthusiasm.

Harry reminded the little wind sprite that he didn't actually desire an unfair advantage, he just needed the broom usable.

The tryouts had started without Harry during the time he was performing first-aid on his broom. Thankfully, it didn't take long for him to catch up with the events taking place around him. Just one look and it was obvious that the tryouts weren't going to be well-constructed, structured or safe. What he was looking at was unbridled chaos of the highest order.

The current position up for grabs was the two Beater positions and the test was a no holds barred, free for all, with like thirty bludgers flying about and no mercy shown whatsoever. The only two people working together came as no real surprise to Harry at all. The twins had stacked up together and were taking on all comers.

Eventually, every other Beater in the air saw what they were dealing with, at which point they began attacking the twins en masse. It wasn't enough. Between the two of them, the twins had a 360-degree view and unparalleled nonverbal communication, verging on, if not actually magic. They were aware of every bludger sent their way and they smashed off their retaliations, in a tangled blur of twists and turns that had Harry staring up in awe.

Harry was so impressed, in fact, he started sending what he was seeing directly into the "for a pensieve" area of his Mindscape.

Eventually the twins were the only ones left standing and were a shoe in for the team.

As the twins slowly eased their brooms back down towards the earth, Harry hooted and hollered and then bowed down to the ground (classic Wayne's world we're not worthy pose) when they landed on the sand. The girls were cheering loudly as well, so the only person not celebrating was Ron, who was poking at his broom with a sulky expression on his face (GIT).

"Yes, Yes," Gred gasped out, winded.

"We're quite good," Forge panted out, purely as an afterthought.

"Wow, just wow," Harry announced, in an extremely serious voice. "You two are almost too tired to twin-speak. That must've been tough."

The twins both smiled at Harry before collapsing down onto their butts together, with perfect timing.

Next up on the tryout docket was the Chasers, and thankfully their test wasn't going to be a bloodbath like the Beater position was, because their position had an entirely different focus. Instead of proving how aggressive they can be, there was a high speed obstacle course, followed by a shot on the hoops. This test made much more sense because it was aimed towards showing off individual skills. Following the obstacle course, there would be a quick three on three round robin tournament.

Harry knew for a fact that the Gryff girls were the best wing of Chasers in the school, but he had no idea if they were the best in individual skills. There was at least one girl out there who looked like she was doing an excellent job. Harry couldn't remember her name but she was Asian, very small and extremely fast.

Ginny Weasley was up in the air as well, giving it her all with the rest of them. Her level of effort was impressive, but it actually appeared that she was pushing her broom too hard without the necessary control. Ginny was bobbing and weaving through the different obstacles, with her broom-tail wildly wagging back and forth behind her. There were a couple very close calls, but soon enough Ginny had made it through all of the obstacles and was screaming towards the hoops at blistering speeds.

The only thing left for Ginny to do was to try to throw her Quaffle past the volunteer Keeper and through one of the three goal hoops. It was a one on one shootout so Ginny actually had a major advantage over the stationary Keeper. Nevertheless, Ginny poured on even more speed as she started turning into an extremely elaborate barrel roll about three meters above the hoops. It appeared she wanted to throw her quaffle from upside down in order to throw off the Keeper and stand out to Madam Hooch.

But that's when it happened...

Ginny's loaner broom sank way faster than she'd predicted it would, causing her to veer off course directly towards the leftmost goal hoop… and everyone present in the Quidditch pitch froze, when instead of clearing high the hoops Ginny flew way too close and...

CLANG!

Ginny's forehead rebounded off the top rim of the hoop, at which point her body's momentum sent her flying off into dozens of extremely tight, high velocity flips. As the broom she'd been flying sailed off without her, Ginny's newly ragdolling body began dropping down towards the earth at what amounted to terminal velocity.

And that wasn't the worst part of the situation…

By some fluke of both bad luck and piss-poor planning, Ginny Weasley wasn't falling towards a soft patch of sand, Instead, she was careening down towards the twenty plus wooden crates that madam Hooch left piled up in the end-zone of the pitch…

Very suddenly and very thoroughly, as if the audience had become a hive consciousness of some kind, the entire stadium became stone silent and frozen in place. No one moved and no one spoke. All eyes were on Ginny's limp and languid body, as she plummeted towards the jumbled up pile of wood and rusty nails.

Harry moved.

At the exact same time that he dashed in Ginny's direction, Harry wandlessly Accio summoned the old, nearly useless broom that he'd been given, and he pulled out his wand almost as an afterthought. He didn't trust the loaner broom that he'd been given to have the necessary thrust to get him to Ginny in time, so he was doing completely the opposite and bringing the broom to him.

With the broom flying up from behind, Harry sprinted inhumanly fast towards Ginny, aided by both Aethir and the fact that he was containing every scrap of his magic within his body. At this point, Harry was pushing so hard at the ground beneath his feet that huge eruptions of sand were flying out behind him with every extension of his legs, and he was having to firm up his footing with nearly instantaneous efforts of Transfiguration. At exactly the same time, he thrust his wand out in front of his body in order to Banish-spell the wooden crates out of the way, and…

Splinter! Crash!

Shit!

The crates that Harry hit with his instantaneous movement spell were in such bad repair they instantly shattered into dozens of sharp jagged, nail-filled pieces to pile up all over the crates that remained.

Harry's efforts weren't improving the situation… They were making it worse.

Damn…

And that wasn't the only problem.

Casting a glance over his shoulder, Harry saw that he was actually outpacing the speed of his summoning spell by a considerable margin, which immediately forced him to pour even more magic into the spell in order to pull the broom at a much faster speed. He needed his broom and he needed it now.

Harry knew just one thing for sure in that moment. It'd be a complete waste of time to get under Ginny's falling body, if he couldn't catch her from a broom. He had literally no idea what spell Dumbledore cast to slow his descent the year before when the Dementors made him fall unconscious during a Quidditch match, but the Wingardium Leviosa spell doesn't work on wizards. Some aspect of a witch or wizard's magical animus always interferes with the magic process in the levitation spell, which is the reason why no wizard has ever learned how to sustain personal flight without the use of a magical construct.

No… There would be no spell floating Ginny out of danger, and even if he did slow her down, her trajectory had her landing on her head… Harry had to get there in time… He simply had to make it there…

Finally, in response to Harry's increased magical power output and insistence, the old broom blurred up to his side at the speed of a bullet, allowing him to leap atop its saddle with picture perfect timing, and then tear upwards into an extremely rapid climb.

It still wasn't fast enough…

The unconscious redhead was still six meters in front of Harry and only three meters away from smashing into the crates. It was too late. Harry wasn't going to make it in time.

No!

He was there. He was right freaking there, so there just had to be a way! In a moment of frenetic and almost dizzying focus, Harry scoured his entire mind for anything at all, landed on a spell that could technically do the trick, pointed his wand out in front of his body and screamed out the spell "Arresto Momentum," at the top of his lungs.

The Arresto Momentum or stop motion spell isn't supposed to work to slow down heavy, airborne objects for more than an instant or two, because the magic that goes into its creation isn't strong enough to negate both inertia and gravity on an ongoing basis. Most garden variety spell or wand magics don't completely disregard the laws of physics after the spell comes to an end because they're just not powerful enough to do so. Larger, more complex workings of magic can and will completely ignore physical reality, but they're definitely not done in a split second or without the wizard releasing a titanic amount of magic.

That's why, under normal circumstances, when the Arresto Momentum spell comes to an end, the item it targeted generally returns to its original speed and trajectory as if it were never slowed down in the first place.

Nevertheless, when Harry's pale blue charm impacted against Ginny's upper thigh, her downward momentum came to a sudden stop and it stayed that way, allowing him to fly up under her body. It did this because Harry was continuously pouring more and more magic into the spell with every second that passed, even as he positioned himself beneath her…

He had no other choice in the matter.

Harry knew right away that he was going to have to position Ginny's body extremely carefully against his own before he released the spell. He knew that when Ginny started moving again, it was going to be at full bone-breaking speeds and for that reason he needed to get… intimate, with her.

In the four or five seconds that followed, Harry pulled Ginny's body into position on his lap and then grabbed ahold of her head to rest her chin atop his right shoulder. Next he cast a non-verbal Carpe Retractum spell and willed the bright orange magic lasso to encircle the two of them in as many loops as he could. Finally, Harry dropped his wand to hang at his waist, grabbed tightly onto the old broom and braced for impact.

WHAM!

In a single instant, Ginny's downward momentum returned in what felt like a cannon shot, slamming into Harry's stomach, chest and shoulder like a ton of bricks, to drive a hard grunt of pain from his mouth. After being slammed both backwards and sideways by the impact, Harry found his broom swerving to the right and plummeting downwards towards the crates.

He didn't have any time! He needed to fix this now!

Scrambling desperately for control, Harry turned directly into his current tailspin, aiming to throw the bristles of his broom back towards the ground. Then, when he finally had his broom aimed towards the sky again, he hammered on his magic to lift and push!

With just inches remaining between the broom's bristles and the wood, Harry finally managed to halt their intense downward momentum, and then pull the violently bucking broom aside to settle gently in the sand. With that done, he sprinted towards Madam Pomfrey with Ginny affixed to his body in a damsel carry, and then eased her onto the gurney put aside for the Healer's use.

In the moments that followed, Harry and the twins waited nervously while Poppy magically looked the redhead over…

Poppy beleaguered the school for allowing the use of those death trap, loaner brooms, every single damned year, even as she completed a thorough diagnosis spell on the girl's badly bruised head. Once she was done, Poppy wiped her face, smiled in relief and then turned to assure the twins. "Ginny has a rather bad concussion, but I'll be able to get her sorted out within the next half a day."

As the twins dropped back onto their butts in their sudden relief, Poppy turned back towards Harry and patted him on the shoulder. Then she arched an eyebrow at what she felt under his t-shirt, only to relent when he gave her a very significant look. "Yes, yes, you'll heal and I'm busy with the girl anyway," Poppy sighed out, with a look of long suffering. "Go on, have fun and don't get yourself killed."

Harry grinned at Poppy because he knew that she was soft on him despite her playacting. "Thanks Poppy. I'll try my best. Keep my bed free for me in the meantime."

After turning around to the sound of the old woman huffing, Harry immediately froze in place at what he saw.

Oh... Oh yeah...

There were a lot of witches and wizards staring at him from all directions…

Shaking off his surprise as well as a sudden attack of nerves, Harry slowly started walking across the pitch as if he didn't even notice the hundreds of different people gawking at him.

Finally, the moment of eerie silence was cracked open like an egg, when a boatload of noise started being generated by the various POTTER banners dotting the stands. The young ladies occupying those banners were all losing their collective minds in excitement, and jumping around as if they'd won a bet.

Soon after, the cheering that broke out from those locations slowly swelled outwards, until the rest of the audience erupted with near deafening levels of yelling and clapping.

For the second time in less than a minute, Harry froze in place, completely overwhelmed. This was a level of crowd support that he wasn't used to receiving, and despite the apparent positivity of everyone's attention, he felt an immediate desire to run away… Then he quickly reminded himself that he was a confident and self-assured man now, and he drew in a very deep breath.

After shaking off the desire to shrink into himself, Harry started walking again, scanned the audience in the stands with his eyes, and offered them all a wave. He did his absolute best to thank all of those people that were cheering for him, going at it as if it was a bandaid he was pulling off.

That's why, when Harry finally arrived back at the location of his broom, he was incredibly surprised by what he found…

The broom that he just flew on, as well as the entire pile of wooden crates… was on fire…

Before Harry even had a chance to wonder just what in the hell was going on, Gred and Forge were suddenly enveloping him in a double huge twin hug, with very real, very intense gratitude being conveyed through the medium of their auras. Both boys were shaking and it looked like they might even cry, but they were beaming wide happy smiles at him, as they clapped him on the back over and over.

"We were helpless to save our sister just now, Harry. That all happened way too fast and we were flat on our backs," Forge admitted in a self deprecating voice.

"I've never seen anything like what you just did though," continued Gred.

"You pushed your broom so hard that it caught fire," Forge all but yelled out in his excitement.

"Wait what?" Harry was getting a very bad feeling about this.

"As you were hauling ass demanding the bloody broom not smash into the ground, the damned thing caught fire in a small explosion that lit up the pile of crates," Gred described loudly, with his arms waving at his sides. "It looked like you'd turned the broom into a rocket for a split second, before we realized what was really happening. It was so impossible it was... it was..."

The twins all of the sudden stopped still, looked at each other and said two words as if they answered everything...

"HARRY POTTER"

"No way..." Harry groaned, while shaking out his head. He was picking up a pattern of blowing up magical constructs, but right now definitely wasn't the time for that kind of nonsense, because there were waaay too many spectators around.

As the twins moved to stand at his sides, Harry took a closer look at the nearby bonfire and the little broom that could... not… that was resting a few feet to its side... The broom was toast. It'd become kindling under the strain he'd put it through. Ah damn, Harry thought to himself ruefully. The legend of Harry Potter indeed, with over fifteen hundred witnesses.

Slowly turning back towards the twins, Harry performed an exaggerated, one armed shrug, purely for the benefit of the crowd. The twins smiled and shrugged as well, but Harry could see that they weren't really buying it.

"Well, I think I'll need to use another broom," Harry pointed out, as calmly as possible. "Were either of you the least bit satisfied with yours?"

Gred gestured to a broom laying to the right of them. "Mine was the lesser of the two evils. May I suggest that you use all of the practice brooms today and force the school to restock?" While there was a joke somewhere in his voice, it was only half hearted.

Harry just shook his head as Angelina, Katie and Alicia ran over, mobbing them all into an impromptu Gryffindor team hug. He was grabbed onto tightly by his five teammates and jostled around quite a bit because everyone was so relieved. Harry felt very "part of" in that moment. This was his team and they cared about him. He forgot about how high profile his latest impossible stunt had been, he forgot about the gawking masses, and he just let himself enjoy the sense of solidarity he had with his friends.

Crackle, crack, POP!

At the very distinctive noise, everyone immediately froze in place. The team slowly separated from and then began staring at Harry. His shoulder had chosen that exact moment to loudly pop back into place.

Katie was the first person to find her voice. "Harry... Did you have a dislocated shoulder just now?... Were you just standing around and ignoring a dislocated shoulder? Did we just violently shove it back into place with our group hug?"

"Uh... well, you see…" Harry began, while rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. "Ginny's body was flipping when her momentum was suspended by my spell. When it restarted again, the lion's share of her forward momentum slammed directly into my shoulder. It's no big deal because of adrenaline, right? I barely even noticed..."

The twins just looked at each other and said it again...

"HARRY POTTER"

The Gryff girls were nowhere near as dismissive. They immediately started harassing Harry to go see Poppy about the injury.

In the face of his concerned teammates, Harry abruptly decided that discretion was the better part of valor. He cooperated with the Gryff girls' wishes, even though by this point his shoulder was already healing all by itself.

The Gryff girls ran up to Poppy, asking her to spare Harry some attention.

Poppy was busy fixing up Ginny, but purely for the sake of appearances, she turned back to Harry and began a diagnostic spell. Poppy scanned his shoulder with her wand and then gave him a second very significant look, before turning back towards the girls. "Harry's very lucky because the shoulder went back into place almost ideal. He'll be sore for the remainder of the day, but that's about it. Personally, I don't want the boy taking part anymore, but if I try to stop him, he'll have killed both a Nundu and a Basilisk by the end of the day. Better the danger I know than the danger I don't with him."

The three Gryff girls were perfectly synchronized when they nodded their profound understanding of the elderly Healer's words.

Soon after, the tryouts began again, and the Gryff girls crushed all of their competition in the three on three tourney. They were all but certain to be chosen as Chasers for the Hogwarts team.

About an hour and a half later, it was time for the Seeker tryouts, which was causing the jam packed stands to buzz with building excitement.

As he approached Madam Hooch standing in the center of the pitch, Harry wasn't surprised to find Malfoy already standing there, and staring daggers at him. He almost laughed just thinking about it. Okay, I get it you little ferret, you have some sort of dastardly plan to ruin my day. It's never going to work if you reveal your intentions like that... Idiot.

Dismissing the boy from his thoughts, Harry took the time to repeat the same ritual he'd performed with his first broom earlier in the day. He bound himself to Gred's old broom with his magic, and Aethir started seeing exactly what she had to work with. Harry also took the time to ask if Aethir could keep this broom from overheating and catching fire, by keeping oxygen away from the tail? Aethir thought that idea sounded like fun and conveyed that she'd try.

As he stood in the middle of the pitch, where Madam Hooch wanted them to wait, Harry began to notice something a little bit interesting about the people that were taking part… Over and above Cho, Cedric and the eight other people that were seriously trying out, there were also ten other Slytherin boys taking part in the test. Hell… About one third of them weren't even on the Slytherin house Quidditch team.

I wonder what Malfoy has in mind with the ten miscellaneous boys he's involving in the tryout, Harry mentally grumbled to himself before shaking his head and rolling his eyes. It was safe to assume he was going to be doing some goon dodging...

In the split second that followed, Harry extended out his magic hundreds of yards in every direction, so that no one would feel it leaving his body. He knew that he was going to need some extrasensory perception to navigate his tryout, so he needed the magic out and watching. In the seconds that followed, Harry felt his eyesight, tensile strength and everything else, become just a little bit dull as his magic left his body, but there was nothing he could do about it. He wouldn't have access to preternatural reflexes for his tryout, no, but what he would have… is Aethir, and she would help him dance.

She was going to have to after all, or Harry was going to get beaten into the ground…

By the end of his first year at Hogwarts, Harry knew without a shadow of doubt in his mind that Hooch was never going to Police a Quidditch game in any way, shape or form. She seems to think of Quidditch as a full contact sport or something, so no help was forthcoming from that direction. With that much in mind, Harry and Aethir were going to dance together, and Harry was just going to let his magic find the snitch. Any compunctions that he might have about cheating would have to be dealt with later, when he wasn't under attack.

Lining up across from Malfoy, Harry rolled his eyes again when the boy smirked at him like a complete ponce. "Yeah, yeah," Harry drawled out, both casually and dismissively. "This is going to be REALLY embarrassing for you when I win anyway."

As per the new norm, Malfoy's face immediately flushed red, but he did manage to control his temper this time… sort of… "You're dead, Potter," He whisper/snarled with a feral scowl on his face.

Harry didn't even respond except to smile… Thankfully for Harry, the smile seemed to work.

Malfoy was furious…

"When I say go, you will be released to fly, and I will release one of these eighty-percent speed practice snitches," Madam Hooch loudly announced. "I shall then release a snitch once a minute, for thirty minutes. Every time you catch a snitch, it will disappear, turn the color associated with you and reappear in this box." Hooch pointed at a box full of snitches. "Spread out on the sand of the pitch there will be numbers that are color coded to you all, in order to let you know what number of snitches each of you have caught. The Seeker that catches the most snitches at the end of thirty-five minutes will be the winner."

Malfoy looked around at the Slytherin boys lined up to his sides. They all nodded in unison as if they were the villainous goons from a superhero movie.

"Everyone, grab a random color from this box," Madam Hooch ordered.

Harry queued up, shoved his hand into a hole in a box, received the color green and decided to take that as a favorable sign. A few moments later, Malfoy received the color hot pink and Harry bellowed out a nice, healthy, belly laugh at his expense.

All of the Seeker hopefuls made a large circle, where they tensed up their muscles and waited for Hooch to say the word.

"Give em Hell Harry," Gred roared into the silence.

"You've already won, they just don't know it yet," yelled out Forge.

"Tallest, hottest, Seeker in a century," one of the Gryff girls added, in a loud and amused voice.

Harry thought he might just blush.

"Go," yelled Madam Hooch.

Instantly, Harry kicked off of the earth hard, accelerating with all of his will, and shooting into the sky with way more than this broom had to offer. He needed to get an early start and he needed some space, so he went high. He went really, really high. By the time he fell backwards into a roll and careened back down towards the newly released snitch, Harry was positioned like a World War One era fighter pilot that was coming in with the sun as cover.

"I dare you to get in my way you damned amateurs," Harry snarled to himself, as he screamed towards both the Earth and the snitch. Everyone below had scattered and there was a cone of the best Seekers following a rapidly moving golden dot. Harry made a beeline for it as he poured on reckless amounts of speed...

Cedric was reaching out and well on his way to getting the first snitch. It was right there... closer... closer... gone... A black blur had crossed his vision for just a split second, and then... the snitch was gone.

Harry had the quickly disintegrating snitch in hand, as he plummeted towards the earth. With just twenty feet to go, he started turning in a corkscrew right and left, before using that sideways momentum to rip himself out of his fall. With just two meters between his broom and the sand, Harry tore himself free of his dive and started screaming across the sand of the pitch. Then, as soon as he leveled out, he sharply turned back towards open air again because he couldn't afford to be hemmed in near the earth right now. "Hoookay," Harry breathed out to himself. "Let's dance…"

Exactly as he'd predicted would happen, the airspace around Harry almost immediately became extraordinarily crowded. As per the plan, he used his extended out magic as a radar to let him know where enemy pilots were at all times. What that meant was that he needed to keep scanning his surroundings with his eyes, merely to give the appearance that doing so was necessary.

A red-shirt boy on a broom was approaching from the left, so Harry slalomed over the boy before sharply diving to evade yet another guy in green. Harry dipped and rose and sometimes even stopped on a dime, to evade the persistent Slytherins trying to unhorse him. Then, when it was almost time, he picked up even more speed and flew straight up again. He needed to get free of the Slytherins so that when the next snitch was released he'd have a chance at it. He knew he couldn't just join in a straight-forward race, because he'd get pummeled by Malfoy's goons.

Good Gods, this was fun!

The next time Harry dove for the snitch, he was forced to pitch and roll past several pursuing Slytherin, so he didn't make it in time and Cho was the one who got her hands on it. He shook off both his own disappointment and his pursuers at the same time by diving into a feint that careened two Slytherin noobs into the sand below. Harry's expression was beginning to warp into a feral little smile as his airway was blocked and Slytherins dive-bombed at him from every single direction.

As more time passed, Harry fell behind more and more, as he was too busy being body checked, punched and kicked on all sides, by an entire squadron of Slytherin pecker heads. By the time ten minutes had passed, he found himself with only that one first snitch out of the eleven that had been released. Cedric had caught four, while Cho was currently tied with Malfoy with three snitches each.

Okay. Enough was enough... No more Mr Nice Guy.

Harry needed to eliminate all of the Kamikaze goons that were bodily slamming into him once and for all, so with a low toned growl he decided that they'd all become extremely... intimate.

Pulling out of a rapid series of evasive actions, Harry started circling the red-shirt boy over and over again. He bobbed and slalomed around the boy, sticking close but never once touching his body or broom. As the rest of the goons quickly closed in on the two of them, Harry drew red-shirt into a close quarters game of tag, steering the boy into his best friend green-shirt with a merciless efficiency.

When green-shirt and red-shirt finally saw each other, they both attempted to slow down and avoid each other, but it was far, far too late and…

SLAM!

Red-shirt and green-shirt experienced a high speed collision with each other before dropping to the sandy ground below. Unlike Ginny earlier in the day, they both landed within the pitch proper and the sand was thick enough to cushion their landing... sort of…

Suffice it to say, both boys would be pretty banged up when they finally came back to consciousness.

With an idle wave of her wand, Poppy began Levitating the two knocked out boys towards her healing station.

Long before his first two victims finished slamming down onto the pitch, Harry was allowing a second pair of goons to catch up to him from behind. He gave the two Slytherin boys a brief chase around the pitch, aiming to make them pour on the speed, and then when the timing was juuuust right, he suddenly stopped on a dime. Using his far superior agility and broom control, Harry went from full speed flight to a perfectly still hover in less than a second, surprising the living Hell out of his pursuers.

Without even beginning to turn away, the two goons slammed into Harry's back, at which point their brooms stopped dead, caught in his hands underneath his armpits.

Catching the two brooms barehanded hurt like hell, but the effect was gratifying enough that the pain didn't matter. The two goons immediately flew high over Harry's shoulders, and then fell towards the earth in a rather graceful arc until...

SLAM!

While shaking her head in long suffering, Poppy started cleaning up these two goons as well.

While Harry's last trick was a rousing success, it had the unfortunate outcome of bringing him to a complete standstill in the middle of the pitch. As his last two attackers' broom's dropped towards the earth, Harry noticed that he'd suddenly become an extremely tempting target. His magical senses were showing him that there were two extremely eager Slytherin fliers careening towards him from completely opposite directions. They were so eager in fact, they didn't seem to notice each other's presence...

Well... Okay then. They were idiots, and they were going to pay for it…

So far as Harry was concerned, his next move was obvious. He just sat there and acted oblivious. He waited until the two extremely unwise boys were almost upon him, at which point he suddenly flipped upside down and then pulled up (down) towards the earth as hard as he possibly could.

As Harry entered into an extremely severe nosedive, the two Slytherin ambushers slammed into each other, and then dropped towards the pitch in an untidy heap of limbs.

While at first Harry was only holding onto his broom with the strength of his hands and thighs, the weight on his limbs lightened as he kept pulling up until he was once again being pushed down into his seat by gravity. Finally, with just a few feet to spare from the sand, Harry leveled out again and was free to pick up speed.

As he pulled away from the earth, Harry caught sight of his most recent attackers ragdolling towards the sand below, and he gave them both a small dismissive wave. Unfortunately, he was far too busy to actually watch them make contact with the sand. The remaining two Slytherin goons were already swooping in from Harry's five and seven, with the somewhat obvious intention to pincer attack him from above. Then, when Harry looked up over his shoulder and actually caught sight of Malfoy's last two stooges, he wasn't the least bit surprised to find out that it was Crabbe and Goyle.

With an unsurprising lack of originality, Crabbe and Goyle dropped in behind Harry to hem him in from either side, and Harry allowed it to happen with only a token amount of resistance. With a look of grim determination on his face, Harry took a few of the boys' punches and kicks, because he was sticking to a plan and it wasn't going to be fair. In the end, he had zero intention of playing nice with these two imbeciles, like at all, so it felt oddly appropriate that they were doing their worst.

For that reason alone, as Harry took an elbow to the chin and a kick to the upper thigh, he smiled an evil looking smile. He was the one with the better broom control here, so Crabbe and Goyle were currently flying where hewanted them to fly. Not only that, but as they flew, Harry began binding himself to both of their brooms, so that when he needed to he'd be able to "suggest" a course of action for them. By nature Harry wasn't a cheater, so he wasn't a huge fan of what he was about to do. Tough... He'd have to deal with the guilt later because he was not going to allow these two mongoloids to keep him from the Quidditch team. With that thought in mind, Harry mercilessly crushed down his own reservations.

It was time to end this...

When Harry suddenly pulled up, Crabbe and Goyle followed. When Harry turned to the right, so did they. When Harry tore into a split second dive however, both Crabbe and Goyle balked and tried to pull away. Under normal circumstances, neither Crabbe nor Goyle could handle that kind of dive so Harry would've shaken them off. Well, too bad for them, they weren't the ones in control of their brooms anymore… Harry was pulling the two goon's right alongside him as he careened towards the Keeper hoops of the visiting team.

As Harry continued plummeting straight down as fast as he possibly could, he heard two loud yelps of alarm from the goons affixed to his sides, as for the first and last time ever, Crabbe and Goyle achieved a really impressive flying speed.

When his destination came blurring up in his vision, Harry knew that it was time. With no warning whatsoever, he released Crabbe and Goyle to their own devices, and then completed a very tight barrel roll through the left side hoop.

Since they had no idea that they'd suddenly regained control of their brooms, neither Crabbe nor Goyle reacted to save themselves in the slightest. They crashed into the same hoop that Harry had just rolled through crotch first, before folding in half around the wood and kicking themselves in the face. Over the following ten seconds, the two already unconscious boys slowly slid off of the ring and then flopped down towards the sandy earth below...

SLAM!

Poppy was already busy trying to sort out the rest of the Slytherin goons, which is why, for the moment, both Crabbe and Goyle were left just laying there in the sand...

After scanning the area with his magical senses, Harry verified that he'd finally unseated all of the Slytherin goons. Hell yeah!.. As soon as his moment of celebration ended however, Harry sobered and his face became extremely serious. The fact of the matter was that what he'd just done was only the warmup. Now that he'd taken out all of the no talent mobs, it was officially time to take on the Seekers and he was at a huge disadvantage. He needed to catch essentially all of the snitches from her on out, if he wanted to even be considered for the team.

Looking down at the score, Harry saw that Cedric, Cho and Malfoy had all caught seven snitches. What that meant was that with Harry's single snitch there were just eight left to catch...

They were all going to be his!

There was one major problem with Harry's absurd commitment. The piece of garbage broom that he was currently flying was rapidly giving up the ghost on him. It was losing both power and thrust as it shook, shuddered and popped, because it was being pushed far beyond what it was capable of performing. Harry immediately began shoring up the old broom with even more of his magic as he rocketed around the pitch, and it started trembling in his hands as if it was experiencing a violent series of muscle contractions.

It didn't matter.

It didn't matter to Harry that his broom was scalding to the touch. It didn't matter that he was leaving behind a thin contrail of light gray smoke. It didn't matter that he could hear a sizzling sound coming from within the wood...

None of it mattered…

As Aethir helped him drop into a state of zenlike grace, Harry began catching the remaining practice-snitches one after another, after another, after another. He snaked around Malfoy and ghosted up behind Cedric. He disappeared from Cho's sights only to show up underneath and in front of her. He made a huge pain in the ass of himself, and his broom took increasing amounts of damage as he pushed it well past its limits.

With only seven minutes remaining in the test and only two more snitches available to be caught, Harry was in the midst of pulling off a miracle by catching five of the last six snitches… Cedric was the only participant who managed to snake one out from under him, but the aerial twist move that he'd pulled off to do so was so damned cool, Harry didn't even resent him for it.

Instead, Harry made sure the next snitch was his by swooping down from an extremely severe angle and snagging the damned thing just two meters above Madam Hooch's splayed open fingers.

Just one snitch to go, and the day would be his.

But that's when it happened…

Harry's magical senses started feeling thick, chaotic and billowing waves of magic pouring out from within the wood of his broom, just moments before it suddenly lurched, popped, shuddered and then began bouncing in the air like a beaten up old laundry machine.

Damn… This much damage couldn't simply be ignored...

For the next few moments, Harry attempted to mitigate the broom's worsening problems by pushing even more magic into it, but that didn't help in the slightest because the intensity of his magic was the problem in the first place. The broom simply couldn't handle it. It was never designed to operate at the level that it was being pushed to, and that was fifty years earlier when it was first constructed.

Well... Shit.

After completing a quick diagnostic of the broom with his magic, Harry's mouth drew into a thin little line at what he saw. While for the most part the broom's steering charms were still intact, it was immediately obvious that it had almost no propulsion charms remaining.

The broom was dying, It had nothing left.

In an immediate response to this newest problem, Harry grit his teeth and began channelling titanic amounts of magic into the tortured old broom in order to force it to carry him straight up into the air. If he only had a few more moments of thrust remaining, then he was just going to have to use every last second of it for the best possible results. By using every ounce of life that the old broom had left to give, Harry slowly, painfully, pushed for the altitude that he needed in order to finish the job.

It worked... barely.

At a nice high altitude, Harry just barely managed to turn his broom back down towards the ground for just a single instant of last second thrust, before an extremely loud chuffing noise burst forth from within its bristles and it began expelling copious amounts of thick black smoke.

Harry's loaner broom had officially died a glorious death… and now it was time to make with the crazy.

Harry was going to have to use a mixture of Aethir and gravity for this last bit, because his broom was officially a dead stick when it came to propulsion. After using the broom's last second of life to push him back towards the pitch, Harry Potter started plummeting towards the newly released, last snitch, with a dangerous and half wild smile upon his face. He turned to the right, the snitch turned left, he turned and slalomed while dropping as fast as his momentum and gravity would allow. Harry was arrowing his body on the broom as flat as possible and his feet were together and pointed straight behind him. He was basically in a free fall dive that you could steer magically now and it was awesome!

As Harry micro-adjusted his fall back and forth, the snitch swerved again and again like a hunted animal. Malfoy was the Seeker who was closest to the snitch. He was just a few feet away from it and was beginning to reach out with his right arm. That's the main reason why Harry found it so damned satisfying, when he suddenly swerved his destroyed broom right in front of the greasy ponce's face and smoke screened his ass like a champ.

Even as Harry pulled up in front of the newly coughing douchebag, he could already tell that he was going to miss the snitch. The little golden ball was zigging and zagging further away even as he dropped passed, and the dead broom that he was holding wasn't going to allow him to follow.

But... There was one thing that his broom would allow him to do... The broom could still steer…

With a growl of max effort, Harry instantly pulled up on the broom with all of his physical strength and magical might, and for a miracle of a second, just a single instant really, the broom responded to his need. The broom's tip shuddered as it rose to a forty-five degree angle and Harry made a decision... He braced both of his feet on top of the broom and then he bodily leapt off of it with all of his might...

As the destroyed broom dropped towards the earth in a black spiral of smoke, Harry suddenly found himself just a few feet away from the snitch. Since he'd completely committed to his jump, Harry was currently careening through the air completely flat to the ground in a classic flying squirrel maneuver. It wasn't a wise decision… like, at all, but it was there! The snitch was right freaking there!

Reaching out with his left, the closer arm, Harry opened his hand as wide as he could and splayed out his fingers to an almost painful extent. Everything felt like it was happening so very slowly. The world around him seemed to disappear completely as Harry's entire focus leveled on that little golden ball. Sounds seemed to drop away and for an indeterminate amount of time he felt as if he existed outside of normal physical reality.

Harry's outstretched hand slowly, ever so slowly, touched, rubbed alongside, and then finally snagged the snitch. He'd done it!

Oh… Gods, had he done it…

Almost immediately after the catch was completed, time and space became a factor again, and Harry was faced with the true reality of his current situation. He was in fact, currently, in a very real free-fall towards the pitch below… In just a little over a second, Harry accomplished a full flip in a tight ball as an angle correction (with Aethir's help), to face where he was going, and he saw that he was now only nine feet off the ground! Thankfully, Harry was dropping at a relatively shallow angle because of the way he'd swerved upwards before jumping off of the broom.

Yes, oh yes, Harry was definitely falling at an extremely fast speed, and yes, oh yes, this was definitely going to suck big time. On the other hand, the chances were pretty good that he'd survive... ish.

As he dropped to the earth, Harry brought every scrap of his magic back into his body, and tried to prepare for some excellent gymnastics slash parkour style tumbling. Aethir also dove around/inside of his body, in order to add what guidance and agility she could to his imminent crash landing.

The ground below approached with a very disorienting time warp like feeling. The sand simultaneously seemed to be racing towards him at lightning speeds and yet it felt as if it was taking forever for him to finally reach it. Every scrap of Harry's focus was centered on his body and the desperate movements that he needed to accomplish right this very second.

When Harry felt his feet meet with the ground, he immediately started letting them bend slightly behind him, dragging his feet so that his forward momentum would bring him into a roll. He curled his upper body forward into a ball. He let his shoulder meet with the sand first (ouch, damn the shoulder injury), and then he rolled when the sand met his back. He rolled, and rolled and then just kept rolling like a damned madman.

For an incredibly dramatic one or two seconds, Harry's entire world became a flurry of flying sand, as he entered into a laying roll next and began turning through the sand as if his very life depended on it (because it did). After what felt like an eternity of smashing through the rocky sand and rolling as fast as he could, Harry finally came out of the crash landing extremely roughed up but successfully not dead... Not only that, but he'd somehow found himself crouched upon the sandy pitch, with his right hand pressed flat on the ground at his side like a well-known superhero.

Ugh... Well… That sucked.

Even with his extremely high pain tolerance, Harry was currently pretty uncomfortable... Suffice it to say, it'd be nice to just lay down and have a little bit of a snooze right about now. On the other hand, showmanship demanded that he act completely unaffected, and he'd be damned if Malfoy got to see him limping around in obvious discomfort.

As it turns out, spite is actually a pretty good motivator.

Over the next five to ten seconds, Harry Occluded all of his body's burning, achiness, behind his mental barriers, even as he continued to hold that wonderful crouch pose that he'd found. Only then, when he could move without wincing or flinching, did he slowly, carefully, rise back up to his feet.

By the time he reached his feet, Harry was relatively certain that he hadn't broken anything in the fall, but he couldn't be entirely sure. It was admittedly hard to tell, because he was so roughed up and bruised. Either way, his body would heal itself within a half dozen hours, so he decided to just ignore the pain for now. Then, while casting out for a distraction, he caught sight of a black pillar of smoke to his right and he turned in its direction.

After marching over to the source of the smoke, Harry picked up and studied his smoldering, sparking (deceased) old broom. For several moments, he just stood there, looking at the small fire that was taking place within the broom's bristles, and thanking it for giving him so much more than it'd ever had to offer. Eventually, Harry snapped out of his reverie and started walking towards Madam Hooch. As he approached the woman, he saw that she was just staring back at him in a somewhat vacant form of shock.

When the timer struck zero, a loud gong-like noise went off in the distance, signaling that the test had come to an end, and all of the Seekers that had taken part slowly drifted down to the sand. Soon enough, every one of these Seekers were doing exactly what everyone else in the stadium was doing. They were staring at Harry potter…

At the moment, Harry was carefully ignoring all of the scrutiny that he was receiving, opting instead to spend the time checking himself over. He was... a mess. He was bleeding from his scalp, down his face to drip onto his completely destroyed t-shirt. He was also bleeding from both of his knuckles and covered head to toe in abrasions. To complete the image, Harry was also bruised from top to bottom and he already had the makings of at least one gnarly black eye. He was also holding onto a broom that was still releasing small clouds of inky black smoke to the sky.

When Harry was finished acting out his self-diagnosis, his eyes suddenly snapped up to take in the organizer of this little circus performance. Harry locked eyes with Hogwarts's flying instructor, so that he could start giving her a cold, stone-faced stare.

As Harry pierced Madam Hooch with his eyes, he began surrounding the woman's entire body with an extraordinarily condensed cloud of his magical aura. He poured out more and more magical power, completely immersing Hooch's body, to the point that both her knees and the sand at her feet started shaking. Then, when the Professor was very nearly overwhelmed by the magical power that she was currently standing in, Harry forcefully injected all of his current feelings into his magic. He used his magic to fully express his opinion of Hooch, both as an educator and as a human being. Harry wanted Hooch to know what she'd done, and he wanted her to understand how he felt about it.

One thing was for certain... Hooch wasn't going to like how it felt.

Harry was unbelievably furious at Hooch for allowing this ultra-violent kangaroo court of a tryout. Hooch wasn't a child, she wasn't a student, she was a Hogwarts Professor, and yet she'd watched this travesty happen as if it was prime time television. While Harry disliked Malfoy as a matter of course, he mostly viewed Draco as nothing more than an ignorant child and a product of his environment. Madam Hooch however, she was worse. She was a fully educated, fully socialized adult, who'd allowed a student to be attacked on a grand scale, merely for her own entertainment. Harry was so furious with her, he had to be careful to keep himself from cursing her with accidental magic. He reminded himself that punishing Hooch wasn't necessary anyway. What he was currently doing was going to be more than enough...

Over the next thirty seconds, Madam Hooch turned a ghostly white, developed a cold sweat, flinched in place, gasped for breath and whimpered like a small, submissive animal. She started to fold in upon herself as the full weight of Harry's magic made her feel the fact that her Quidditch bloodlust was cruel, self-indulgent, irresponsible and negligent. She could feel that Harry considered her unworthy of any position of authority, let alone a teaching position at a world famous school. Harry's opinion of her was far too much for her to handle and yet it was carried by magic that was far too powerful to ignore. Harry's feelings crashed down upon her like a tidal wave of scorn and disgust and contempt. Madam Hooch was having a eureka moment of brutal self-awareness and the experience hurt like a knife to the heart. She couldn't move, she couldn't react, she thought she might fall over, she thought she might pass out!

For several moments longer, Harry empathically let Hooch feel the full brunt of his anger, without holding back in the slightest. Then, finally, after the thirty seconds passed, he suddenly retracted his magic and crossed his arms over his chest. "Are we done here, Hooch?" The fact that Harry hadn't called her Professor Hooch or even Madam Hooch was a mild form of disrespect. The disrespect in the tone of his voice however, was far, far, more obvious. Somehow, Harry had made that one question convey that Madam Hooch was on his shit list for life...

When she was suddenly released from within Potter's unbelievably immense magical aura, Madam Hooch staggered back a step, then a second step, caught her balance, gasped in a full lungful of air, tried to reply to his question, failed, and then nodded extremely quickly as a fallback plan.

With a curt nod of understanding, Harry suddenly dropped the smoldering, smoking broom directly atop of Hooch's feet, and gave the woman one last piercing stare. When Hooch blanched and looked down at the broom, he nodded again and then walked with as much dignity as he could towards Poppy. The aged Healer gently patted him on the shoulder as they started drawing the procession of injured students out of the dead silent stadium.

In the wake of Potter's exit, Madam Hooch drew in a very deep breath, sighed in relief and then suddenly froze in place. It was only now, with her ability to think clearly returned, that she fully realized just how bad her current situation really was. Harry Potter was going to become a Noble and Most Ancient Lord. Harry Potter was easily the most frightening man she'd ever encountered in her whole entire life. Harry Potter hadn't said a single word just now, but nonetheless he'd made himself abundantly clear.

She needed to grow the hell up. What's more… She needed to either start doing her damned job… or he'd find someone who would.

Madam Hooch felt like she might throw up as she watched Harry Potter stiffly walk out of the pitch.

Around the time Harry and Poppy were almost to the Quidditch pitch's entrance gate, the Gryffindor team suddenly started following them out of the stadium at a dead sprint. It was only as Harry and his team moved through the Entry gate and disappeared from sight that the entire stadium…

EXPLODED!

The cheering was vibrating the stands; it was so loud. No one could even believe what they'd just witnessed. What happened that day would be repeated until what was merely improbable became impossible and the story became a big fish tale. The story would be argued for decades to come, until finally someone from France would donate a Pensieve memory to the school. The memory would from then on be stored in a vial in the school trophy case for hundreds of years.

Only one thing was certain to everyone in the stadium that day. Not one person present in that Quidditch pitch would ever forget the day that Harry Potter tried out for the Hogwarts Quidditch team.

Up in the stands, three different groups of talent scouts started dashing towards Hogwarts' perimeter wards. They had to get moving ASAP! They had several Floo calls to make.

Dear Fleur

I'll begin my letter by answering the questions you asked in your last letter. Yes, I have been drawing fairly regularly. I even sent your sister some drawings not too long ago. I've also been practicing piano in my Mindscape every night, and I'm currently a level five. As has become the new norm, I've done well to exercise every single day. I run my obstacle course at five-thirty every morning, under the watchful eyes of some very persistent and voyeuristic young ladies. I also sneak into a secret room of the school, where I lift weights and drink protein like every good meat head should. My grades are top of my class, with the likely exception of Hermione. Oh, and I had Quidditch tryouts today...

Anyway, more about those charcoal drawings. I've been working on shading lately and...

Okay, okay fine, I can feel your disapproval from here, at Hogwarts, in the past...

I did pretty well at the tryouts. I tied for first, but most people believe that I'll be the one who makes the team. It's not favoritism that's making people believe I'll be chosen, there were just some extenuating circumstances during the test itself. I had a bit of an adventure... I don't wish to tell you more for fear that even now, in the past, in another country, this page will burst into flames, smiting me.

Well, you wanted people talking about me when you arrived at Hogwarts, and now I have officially delivered. The students of my school won't give me even two seconds of peace, ever since the tryouts earlier this afternoon. It's all pretty rude considering I'm covered in cuts and bruises from top to bottom. You'd think they'd allow me just a few moments of quiet to convalesce.

One of the reasons I waited for the tryouts to send you a letter is because I wanted to have a lot to say. Now I wish I hadn't waited. Writing to you feels like a poor man's version of talking to you, but I still prefer it over the alternative, which is no contact with you at all…

I've become very close to my house's Quidditch team. I'm especially close with the twin older brothers of the git who shall remain nameless. They've never let me down and I never even noticed because I don't think I've ever seen them serious once in over three years. Hermione is doing well (she seems to miss the git though. I fear for her). Neville's become a happier, more confident boy, and I feel like a proud parent every time I see him doing so well. I still miss you terribly...

How has your week been? Are you and Selene besties yet? Has the selection of your school's delegates finished? If you had to become an animal which one would it be? What book, movie and item, would you take to a deserted island?

Yours Truly

Harry Potter

Dear 'Arry

I wonder if you wrote that letter with the specific idea that you wanted to create textbook conflicted emotions in me, a psychologist's wet dream. The first paragraph was lovely. I am very happy and I'm proud of you. The second and third paragraph had me seeking out time and space magic so that I could burn you...

WHAT HAPPENED AT THE TRYOUT YOU IDIOT?!

You will tell me now, and I mean start writing right this second, before you even finish this letter. We shall be exchanging several letters tonight, so drink a coffee.

I miss you too. No more days in between letters.

Selene and I have become close and she is everything that I hoped for. My week was good, normal, and because of Selene for perhaps the first time at this school I am not lonely. Yes, the school delegates are picked and calm is restored on campus. If I had to become an animal it would be a bird obviously. I feel an affinity for fire and birds, so I would choose a phoenix (the immortality doesn't sound too bad either). The one book for a deserted island will have to wait for it is a hard question. Princess Bride obviously for the movie and the item would be a cellular phone.

You better be writing by now you ingrate! I waited for Dobby to appear for three whole days and now you hold out on the details? I am furious at you for being so damned interesting in your stupidity!

Sincerely Yours

Fleur Delacour

Dear Fleur

I've had Dobby procure for me two vials that are designed to hold memories. The vial with an H on it is a copy of my memories of the tryouts. In the other vial is a copy of the memories of my friend Fred, who was nearby and watching. Between the two of us, we have completed a scene that you may explore, if you have access to a Pensieve at your school.

I will be awake for a while and I do not require caffeine. I fear your retribution far too much to sleep.

Yours Truly

Harry Potter

Dear 'Arry

I have no words.

I have so many words.

I can't figure out what to do with these words.

Harry Potter how dare you break my ability to use words to convey meaning!

It goes without saying that none of your actions were low key or not making waves. Those were TSUNAMI WAVES 'Arry!

I am very proud of you for saving your friends' little sister. It was an exceptional bit of problem solving using fourth year magic. YOU DIDN'T PAY ANY ATTENTION TO A DISLOCATED SHOULDER?! Your actions were very gallant. I think I saw at least three of your fangirls faint in the stands when you damsel carried the girl to the Healer. I find I hate those girls for only now being in love with you, when you were there saving their collective asses for YEARS!

You are building a track record of blowing up magical constructs that refuse your absurd demands. Those poor old brooms…

Your saving of that girl should have guaranteed your placement on the team.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS MADAM HOOCH?! She was grinning; GRINNING the entire time you fought to survive that tryout test! You could see it in her eyes that she KNEW you were going to bring hell to those cheating swine, and she enjoyed every single second of your vigilante justice!

The way people have described you on a broom in the past was talented, gifted, etc. You are certainly all those things. You are the AIR after all 'Arry and it was beautiful.

You are also INSANE on a broom! The violent, evil, predatory smile on your face when you decided to stop evading your attackers was scary even to me, and I trust you implicitly. You were magically holding together your broom right? Did you hear the sounds it was making? By the end it was whistling like a boiling over tea kettle and I thought it was going to explode and kill you in SELF-DEFENSE!

Then of course the broom does stop working properly and instead of going down to land you force it to ASCEND so that you may have some perverse Quidditch LAST STAND! You rose into the sky, the broom died a violent death and you rode it's smoking corpse down, smiling the entire way like a lunatic!

You caught the snitch and after all of that you tied for first. I wonder what it feels like to be this Cedric Diggory guy right now. It cannot be easy.

You landed on the pitch at near terminal velocity, only to roll like an assassin and end up posed like a hero from a comic book. I was captivated, I was mesmerized. I was so captivated that I didn't at first notice that you were naught but a CORPSE WALKING! There was not one inch of you not torn to shreds 'Arry, it was only STUBBORN OBSTINACY keeping you on your feet. Needless to say I enjoyed it when you nearly made that ghoul Madam Hooch have a panic attack. You'll need to explain to me at some point just how badly she got it. It's subtle but I saw the sand at her feet vibrating so I know you were giving her hell.

Yes, yes, I would have feared explaining all of this to me too.

I shall be exacting my revenge on you for making me watch that by first sending these memories to my family. Then, in a week and a half, I shall punish you personally when I come to Hogwarts. Until then, you may make me less angry by sending me copious amounts of letters, describing everything from the important to the mundane. I do not wish to go another three days or any days without hearing a POP from Dobby.

Sincerely Yours

Fleur Delacour

Dear Fleur

I just reread the letter you sent me easily fourteen times. I never saw any of what you saw in my actions. Perception is a funny thing. Everything you said is true, but to me everything was different. It's as if I wear glasses that tint the world a different color.

There's an important aspect of my perception of today's events that isn't readily apparent. I will never allow myself to be a victim EVER again... EVER.

To me I can be fighting against the odds like today, and it's okay for I am fighting and I find comfort in that. I find satisfaction in my newfound RIGHT to defend both myself and my interests. Draco Malfoy, the blond pansy, stacked the odds against me, and I struggled, and it felt just as liberating as it always does. I was defiant and I reveled in it. I also love flying and so that smile was a mixture of two freedoms; the freedom to defend myself and the freedom of being in the air.

I will take the memory of this and consult the psychology section in my Mindscape. I fear I still have a long ways to go, if my goal is good mental health.

You're the only person who explains things to me like this. Hermione is a little too analytical and wouldn't have the depth, Neville is far too gentle to even begin and the twins just want to be as tough as I am. I need you to help me be healthy.

Whoa… I just used the word need and I avoid that word as if it's made of poison.

I've avoided sending you too many letters to avoid the appearance of need. I once told you I don't extend myself to people and this was just more of that cowardice.

I trust you implicitly as well Fleur. I need your help smoothing out some of my rougher edges.

Yours Truly

Harry Potter

Dobby is a house elf. He is designed to be as near a perfect servant as he can be. That was before Harry Potter supercharged him into the devil superman of house elves. He's fast, he's smart and most importantly, he's empathic. Dobby knows what Harry needs through the bond that they share. He also knows what the Lady wants through the bracelet she wears. As he sent back and forth eight letters each in one night, he never stopped smiling. He could already see the writing on the wall and they had nooooo idea.

Dobby's new and improved, larger brain enjoys the little things.

To Be Continued

Author's Note:

If you like my writing, want to check on my release schedule + want to help support me, consider visiting my P-a-t-r-e-o-n page

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