Chapter 12
They were now nearly two months into the term, and Gryffindor's opening quidditch match was coming up quick. Harry, whom was very busy with all his homework, occlumency, and the DA, only made practice about once a week, but he had made it for tryouts.
Katie Bell, having been on the team for many years before, was obviously automatically on the team, just like Ron and Harry. Ginny and Dean had made the team as chasers, and to Ron's great disgust, Dean was still teaching Ginny how to play football, Neville came to the tryouts and played extremely well, earning himself a starting beater position.
The other beater was either Sloper or Kirke, the one that played would be the one that was the least injured from the last practice. Then there was Ron as keeper, and nearly nothing got by him, and then Harry at seeker.
The morning of the opening match, Harry grinned at Neville as he came to eat breakfast. "Scared mate?" Neville nodded and went back to his toast.
Harry was sure he'd be fine, for Harry had been very nervous before his first match, but had ended up catching the snitch in the end.
Finally, the time for the game had come, and the entire school turned out for the event. Ron smiled and shook Cho's hand, she was now the captain of the Ravenclaw team, Madam Hooch blew her whistle and they were off. Harry circled high above the field, searching for the snitch.
Although Sloper was on his way to the hospital wing within five minutes, the Gryffindor's were doing great. Ginny scored on a beautiful kick shot, which she rocketed past the Ravenclaw keeper to a huge uproar from the crowd.
"An amazing goal!" yelled Seamus, the new announcer. "I guess all that football her boyfriend's been teaching her has paid off!"
Seamus flinched at the hard stare McGonogall gave him, and Ron nearly let a goal in while glaring bullets at Seamus. After ten minutes and 80 Gryffindor points, Harry decided it was time for a Wronski Feint.
The crowd ood and awed when he dove, and Cho followed him. Harry pulled out of the dive only inches above the ground, but Cho wasn't so lucky. Her broomstick hit the ground as she tried to pull up, breaking the broomstick in many pieces and sending Cho flying.
"Oh and a beautiful Wronski Feint from Harry Potter, tough luck Cho, but I bet Hermione' glad it wasn't Harry." Seamus had to jump out of the way as McGonogall tried to take the mike from him.
Harry laughed, feeling a slight twinge of guilt at seeing Cho being carried off to the hospital wing, a piece of her broomstick impaled in her thigh. But Harry dropped that thought immediately as he went into a dive sighting the golden snitch. He did a brilliant Sloth Grip Roll to dodge a bludger and stared the beater in the eyes as they zoomed in at each other, the beater obviously trying to knock Harry off course.
But the snitch jumped up at the last moment, and Harry pushed off his broom and jumped over the beater, his firebolt going under, and snagged the snitch, landing gracefully back on his broom, arm raised in triumph.
"Hermione you can stop covering your eyes now, Harry's caught the sni-" Seamus couldn't finish the sentence as the mike was ripped away from him by a fuming McGonogall. Harry landed gracefully and was immediately swarmed by his fellow Gryffindor's all wowed at his catch, saying that it was his best yet.
The party continued into the common rooms, and everyone got a good laugh when Seamus gained a solid three hundred pounds after accepting a seemingly harmless chocolate ball from Harry, who had told him he did a great job announcing.
When Seamus returned to his normal form, even he was laughing, although he didn't think he got the message as he made another crack about Harry and Hermione, then again, maybe he did.
Harry and Hermione announced that they were going to bed an hour later, Hermione glaring at Seamus after he asked if they were going together, and they parted at the staircases and went to their dorms and pulled out their friend diaries, and wrote to each other and only stopped after Ron, Seamus, Neville, and Dean came up, saw what he was doing, and Seamus told him to kiss her goodnight for him.
Harry laughed and said goodnight to Hermione, and they all stayed up until late into the night talking about the match, until one by one they finally went to sleep.
A/N:
Just thought I'd see if anyone agrees that the second-to-last paragraph of that chapter was the worst-written sentence in the history of the English language. I think it's up there myself.
Sora