Quidditch Trial 13 by Grievous

“Do you know what they call Quidditch in Norway?”

“They don’t call it Quidditch?”

“Nope.”

“Then what do they call it?”

“Rumpeldunk.”

There was a pause.

“Rumpeldunk?”

“Yep.”

“Why do they call it that?”

“I don’t know.  Maybe for the same reason ‘football’ and ‘soccer’ get mixed up in the ‘States.”

There was another pause.

“So, I’m guessing that you’re completely freaking out, right?”

“I’m reading a month-old magazine aloud at…two-thirty-five in the morning.  Yes, I think it’s safe to say that I’m completely freaking out.”

“Well…just wait until we’re out on the pitch to freak out.  By then it’ll be too late to do anything, and everything will work out.”

“There are so many things that could go horribly wrong.  I could write a book series about how many things could go wrong, and never stop writing it until the day I died.  Which, incidentally, may be tomorrow.”

“Good night, Winston.”

A final pause.

“G’night.”

Alaric finally set the magazine aside, placing his glasses and the beaker of luminous fluid next to it on the nightstand.  After pulling the dark blue hangings of his bed shut for the final time that night, or rather, morning, he lay back against the pillows, frantically chewing on his lower lip.

Nat was right; he really should have just put all this worry out of his thoughts, and let the day of their first game arrive without this horrid sense of dread.  It wasn’t for lack of practice or preparation, either.  He’d trained alongside the rest of the team, thrilling at the sheer joy of speed and freedom that the sport brought.  He had never known just how tied-down he’d felt until he realized that he didn’t have to be tied down at all.

And yet, fear and foreboding gnawed at his innards, keeping him awake with all manner of hideous possibilities.  Injury, death, or, even worse, the humiliation and shame that a bad performance could bring him all seemed imminent.  All he had to do was not climb onto that broom, and he would be safe…

He sat up again, disturbing Piwacket, who made a grumpy mewl before readjusting herself on the covers.  Sliding out of bed, he changed quickly, making sure to not wake his roommate or their pets.  Alaric retrieved a long, thin package from under his bed, then proceeded out of the room, then out of his House’s tower altogether.

The moonlit halls of Hogwarts were all but completely silent as Alaric padded out of the main gate, moving towards the dark bulk of the Quidditch stadium.  The sharp night air brought him to instant wakefulness, and his eyes quickly adjusted to the dim illumination, allowing him easy passage.  He was not thinking anymore; was not worrying anymore.

There were no obstructions to his entrance, and before he knew it, he was standing in the middle of the grassy pitch, watching the clouds drift over the twinkling stars and milky crescent of the moon through the huge frame of the stadium stands.

In the morning, those seats would be filled with hundreds of students, each cheering or jeering even before the game was underway.  Alaric could see and hear them clearly, even when they were all still asleep in the castle.

He unwrapped the package, letting the night wind snatch the heavy paper away like a bit of cloud itself, leaving only the precious contents behind.  It hovered exactly three feet off the ground, a sleek shaft of jet and sapphire, six feet from tip to tip.  

Alaric sat on his broom, testing its response.  There was none; it did not sink even a millimeter with his weight.  He mounted it properly, kicking off the ground and into the biting cold night.

It was his first flight, all over again.  The speed, the weightlessness, the sheer power of being able to say “Go there” and going there faster than anything else in the whole bloody world.  He looped the entire length of the stadium, diving back down into the midst of an imaginary game.  He ducked invisible Bludgers that came at him from all sides, hanging on for dear life to a Quaffle that was not there.  Phantom Chasers swarmed him with feet and fists, and the absent Keeper was a giant, blotting out the entire sky.

Why was he worried?  He could fly.



Breakfast on the day of a first game was traditionally a quiet affair for the teams in question.  They ate lightly, talked little, and looked at each other only in sparing glances.  Even less was said in the locker room, even from the Ravenclaw Captain.  As they filed out onto the pitch to the thunderous noise of the student body, each shared a final look at each other.  A few gazes lingered on the face of the bespectacled, tousle-haired boy with the vicious-looking black broom, and those in the crowd with sharp eyes or magnifying contraptions puzzled over him.

Alaric was grinning from ear to ear, virtually bouncing with eagerness to get off the ground.  Bludgers?  He could take them.  Chasers?  He could beat them.  The Keeper?  He could trick him.  The Seeker?  He could outscore her.

He’d been here last night, and he’d already won.  After all, he could fly.