Coach Amelia Pierce

February 26, 2012 3:22 PM

A Letter to the New Captain (Sam) by Coach Amelia Pierce

Three captains would be graduating at the end of the year and now that the year's Quidditch Final had concluded, Coach Amelia Pierce had considered the merits of who could succeed them. The new captains were, of course, straightforward. All of the Assistant Captains would be advanced to lead their respective teams. It was who would become the new Assistant Captains next year that required thought and possibly even discussion.

She had reached her decisions and three letters went out on the leg of Boomer, her large eagle owl.

Boomer stopped finally at Crotalus, since that was his second home and Amelia had returned there by the time he finished delivering the other two. He flew in through an open window - his mistress always kept one open for him in this House, but the fine weather outside today gave him more options than the one in her office. He found a perch and waited patiently in the common room until Sam Bauer appeared. At his arrival, Boomer hooted to get his attention, and held out the leg with the letter attached to it. The remaining envelope had the fifth year boy's name emblazoned across it in the Coach's formal calligraphy.

The letter inside was scripted in fine penmanship on parchment that bore letterhead claiming its origin was "From the desk of Coach Amelia Pierce, Sonora Academy" and its contents confirmed it.


Captain Samuel Bauer,

Congratulations on your promotion to Captain. You will be responsible for reserving the pitch for your practices and try-outs, putting up a sign-up sheet at the beginning of the year and recruiting as neccessary, hosting try-outs, and submitting your team roster within the first three weeks of school.

If you have a strong preference for someone other than Renee Errant as your assistant, please come by my office before the end of the year to discuss it; otherwise, I will assume Ms. Errant will be the next Assistant. You may inform her of her promotion if she is your choice as well.

Congratulations and good luck next year,

Coach Amelia Pierce
1 Coach Amelia Pierce A Letter to the New Captain (Sam) 20 Coach Amelia Pierce 1 5


Sam Bauer

March 03, 2012 9:57 PM

A Letter to the New Assistant Captain (Renée) by Sam Bauer

Sam came down the stairs from the dorms with lunch on his mind, then stopped short when, looking around the common room, he saw the coach’s owl. Sure, Boomer was more likely to be here than other places, and sure, Pierce might still have some business with Marissa even though her career was well and officially over, but it seemed at least possible that it was for him. He had just gotten used, sort of, to being a prefect when he’d noticed from out of nowhere one night after they lost to Aladren again that next year, he got to be a captain.

The owl approached him, then showed a letter with his name on it, which confirmed in his mind that this was about Quidditch. He couldn’t really think of a reason why the coach would ask him, of all people, about prefect stuff, after all; yeah, he had the badge, but Rachel and Marissa were the people-people in this House power structure, not him. He thought they did a lot better at mingling with the general population of humanity than he did, and would be the best ones to give an impression of Crotalus House if one needed to be given. He guessed there might be other things she might write to him about, but then he opened the letter and saw what it was, so he didn’t bother trying to come up with any of them.

He got to the end feeling pretty good about things, but then, lunch almost forgotten, leaned back against the wall to think for a second. He didn’t, personally, have much of an objection to Renée – he was like, as far as he could tell, at least ninety-two percent of the rest of the world in that he didn’t think he’d really pick her as his top person to hang out with on a personal level, but she was a good Chaser, and that was the capacity he knew and needed her in, and he really didn’t care what she did or thought on her own time – but, well, this was Crotalus, and it was common enough knowledge that her roommates didn’t so much belong to the ninety-two percent that didn’t really care to hang out with Renée for extended periods of time as they belonged to the…say…forty percent, because he liked the sound of it, that wanted to rip her guts out on sight. In Crotalus, the female was definitely the deadlier of the species. If Renée got a badge, there would probably be some backlash even if she had the sense to keep her mouth shut and not make a big deal out of it; if she did not have that much sense, then the question became how adroitly he could go about avoiding trouble if someone, anyone, tried to drag him into it all.

He didn’t think, though, that it would really be a problem – at least for him. Sure, her personality meant the team would probably start losing members the second she took over, but that wouldn’t be his problem because he’d be graduated. Sure, someone might murder her, but that wasn’t his problem, either, because the coach would just give him a new assistant once the blood was all cleaned up and the trial process started. The biggest problem he expected to have to deal with was if she didn’t want to listen to him, and if that got to be too much of a problem, he’d just go ask for someone else then, right? Seemed straightforward enough to him, and he didn’t really have a strong opinion otherwise.

Satisfied with his reasoning, he remembered about lunch and went for that. Once he he’d eaten, he found a scrap piece of parchment in his pocket, spent a moment trying to figure out what he'd torn a sheet in half for at some point and why he'd put the blank half in his pocket, and then scrawled a note onto it.

Renée, Got a letter from the coach and you’re going to be the Assistant Captain next year. Congratulations. Sam Bauer.

He then went up to the owlery to send it out and then went back to the library to study for CATS, which were, after all, somewhat important and things he thought he ought to give some consideration to before the end of the year. He’d rather not, all things considered, get chucked out of school with only two years to go. Be kind of embarrassing, that would, plus there was what it would do to what his uncle Isaac or Aunt Emily would call his prospects. He still didn’t know what he wanted to do, couldn’t think of anything that really sounded good, but he did know he wanted to do something, preferably something which would move him up to the middle class proper, or even upper end of the thing.
16 Sam Bauer A Letter to the New Assistant Captain (Renée) 163 Sam Bauer 0 5