As usual, Jake was all prepared for gathering as many potential players for his Quidditch team. Once the feast was over, he had gone up to his room and grabbed his already pre-made notice. This was his last year to make a difference and to show the other houses that Teppenpaw isn't the house they could walk all over. Granted, they had won games and a championship in the past (against Pecari no less), but that didn't seem to stop people from assuming they were the weakest team.
Once he had that and made sure it was perfect, he pinned it up onto the notice board. Hopefully, he wouldn't have to worry about getting a team and that his fellow team members from the year before would just happily re-sign themselves for the team this year. It made his life easier that way.
His notice read:
QUIDDITCH SIGNUPS/TRY-OUTS
For those interested in playing Quidditch or for those who have already previously been on the team, please feel free to signup for try-outs. Try-outs for any spot will take place on Friday. Walk-ins are always welcomed.
Please follow the guidelines for signing up by following my example. If you have never played Quidditch before or do not know what Quidditch is, please make sure to make a note of that beside your name and I'll see what I can do about that.
Thank you for your time and patience.
Sign-ups
Captain Jacob Santoro, Seventh year, Beater
Subthreads:
Yay! by Dalila Bastet
Adding my name by Hannah Laurent
Signing by Law Cooper
Obviously I'm playing by Lexi Stafford
Sign me up by Josiah
This looks like fun by Lucie Dupree
6Jake SantoroQUIDDITCH TEAM SIGN-UP!42Jake Santoro15
Dalila had spent the entire ride to Sonora debating whether or not to go to the Opening Feast and it wasn't until she hopped off her wagon that she made her final decision: not. So, instead of following the crowd into the glittering Cascade Hall for food, she grabbed a prairie elf and ask if a sandwich and a glass of pumpkin juice could be sent up to the Teppenpaw common room and then made her way up there herself.
It was a tad eerie being in there before the feast ended and the luggage hadn't arrived. The fire had already been lit, but there was still that empty feeling that her room at home always had when she went there for breaks. She sat down by the fire, supposedly there to keep the room from feeling unused rather than to keep it warm, and only had to wait another minute before a prairie elf appeared with a sandwich and a large glass of juice. After thanking the elf, it bowed it's way out and went to help the other elves who were currently levitating trunks into various rooms. Dalila watched them for a while, interested, as she rarely got to see them in action. She was usually at the Feast this time anyways.
She sighed and stared at her food. It would've been nice to see all her friends again, but then she'd also have to see Adam. It's enough that she had to ride the wagon with him (she had curled up in a corner and stared out the back the whole time) and that they were going to have some classes together. She didn't want to add anymore to that.
The elves had finished incredibly fast and there was nothing to do but stare around the empty room. Nut, her acceptance present to Sonora, was curled up next to her purring happily. Apparently he was thrilled to be back...or at least not stuck in a cage.
That was when a blur dashed through the common room and went up the boy's staircase. She saw another person or two wander in and then the blur dashed backed down and stopped at the bulletin board. It was Jake and he appeared not to have seen her, which was all right with her. There were some people that she didn't need to deal with right now and Jake happened to be one of them for reasons that even she was unsure about. Instead she focused on the Quidditch sign-up sheet he had posted. At this point in her mindset, she didn't want to anything ever again. But she suddenly realized that she was the assistant captain. She had to sign up. She'd thank herself later. Plus, doing more things would get Adam off he mind...right? Right.
So she stood up, Nut reaching out a paw for more caresses, and grabbed a pen that had been siting nearby and wrote her name right underneath Jake's.
After the feast, Hannah hadn’t bothered to check the notice board to find out if the Quidditch signup sheet had been posted yet. She didn’t want to appear overly eager, though, she really was, and she couldn’t deny it, as her eyes snapped open the next morning. Quickly, she put on jeans and a shirt and threw her hair up into a ponytail. She had a little bit of time before breakfast, but she had to know if the sheet was up yet. She pounded down the stairs, jumping off of the last two, before bounding up to the board.
Yes, there it was. The sheet. She reached into her pocket and gave a groan. She didn’t have a pen with her and there was no one in the Common room yet, and since it was the beginning of the year, it wasn’t likely there would be one lying about. Turning, she sprinted up the stairs, taking as many as she could with her petite frame, which wasn’t a lot. At the top, she rummaged through her trunk, scattering bits of clothing and the like about the tidy room, which was sure to be a mess within a few hours anyhow.
Finding what she was looking for, she jogged back down the stairs, up to the paper, and scrawled her name with a flourish.
Hannah Laurent, Third Year, Chaser or Seeker
She hadn’t been sure which one to put. For the last two years, she had been the reserve Seeker and last year, she had been a Chaser, but in the one game, the regular Seeker, Kaylie Brockert, had been injured and it wasn’t clear to what extent. Even if she was able to play, it was possible that she might not want to anymore. Hannah didn’t know how if she had ever been seriously injured before or not. If she hadn’t, then she might be afraid to take the risk again. She wondered if she ever got that hurt, if she would want to play again, but then she couldn’t imagine not playing.
Oh, well, it didn’t matter that much. She would go to the try-outs and she was sure that Jake would place her wherever he thought appropriate, even if it meant only being a reserve. It was always possible that there would be a newcomer who would be amazing and of course, they would deserved the spot more than she did, because they would have earned it and it would have been best for the team.
She glanced once more at her name and with a satisfied nod, heading once more up the stairs to get her things before going to grab a very early breakfast.
Law always liked Quidditch, but school came first. So this year, he waited a week before signing up for the team, in order to see if he could handle third-year work. He had to be absolutely sure that he could manage to keep up with all his schoolwork and manage to pass all of his classes in addition to putting his best efforts into the team. There was no point of signing up for anything if he wasn't going to try his best. Luckily, Astronomy – which had always been one of his worst classes – was no longer required, and he wasn’t taking any electives. Plus, he seemed to have a bit of a knack for History of Magic, as it was the class where he got the most E’s. O’s were always an extreme rarity for the thirteen year-old who only remembered getting five of them in his entire academic career.
He also remembered that Darla seemed especially quiet last year; which had led to Quidditch becoming the center of his social life. The boy didn’t mind this, as everyone on the team seemed quite nice to him, even Lexi, who seemed to have built something of a reputation for her beating skills. But this development made it even more important to sign up for Quidditch – not only did he have a duty to the team as a former member, but his life would be rather lonely without practices and games to go to. He’d have to focus on making new friends this year, Law was never a fan of solitude.
There was, of course, the added incentive created by the fact that his parents had bought him a new broom this summer. It wasn't top-of-the-line, but it was more reliable and faster than his old one, which was now six years-old. It wouldn't be right to accept the gift from his parents and then not play. The new broom was kind of a vouch of confidence - his parents believed he'd be able to keep up with all of his work, even with Quidditch. That meant a lot to him, as he had always held them in a high regard that was unusual among boys his age. His mind made up, he got out his best quill and added his name in his usual scrawl.
Quidditch was perhaps the only thing Lexi had consistently looked forward to since the first year she had signed up. Yes, there had always been other things that she viewed the return of with some pleasure, but nothing else had been in effect every single year, and nothing else from previous years seemed to matter anymore. She and Chris were long over, and she didn’t even have the vicarious thrills of dating through Dalila anymore, though, in all honestly, it was easier sometimes to deal with another single person than with her brother and his oh-so-happy relationship. It was unfair to begrudge Ben and Bella their lack of complications, she knew, but…did they really have to be so obvious about it?
Anyway, the point was, quidditch was going to give her a break from everything that seemed to have descended upon her. In practice, school wouldn’t matter, or consoling Dalila, or avoiding Chris (an exercise which was probably pointless by now, but which she kept up simply for appearance’s sake), or her brother, or anything else. All she had to do was play. Therefore, almost as soon as she’d recognized the sign had gone up, she got out her quill and added her name to the list that was beginning to form.
Josiah had gazed at the sign up sheet longingly many times since he arrived at Sonora. Now he was a third year. He knew he couldn’t try out. His parents would kill him. Still… he couldn’t help lifting a quill to the paper every time he saw it.
But now he faced the paper, determined to sign his name. But he didn’t know what to sign up for. After all, he had never really played. He knew the rules, he knew how to play, but he didn’t know what he’d be best at. Could he really score a goal? Could he block? Could he hit a metal ball with a huge bat? Could he find a tiny glint of gold?
He hesitated, ink bleeding from his self-inking quill into a spidery dot on the paper. What to write? Well, a name and year is a start.
Josiah Ashwood, third year
But what now? He looked at the other names on the list so far. Two beaters. Okay, he wasn’t needed there. Two chasers and a seeker. Well one chaser and one chaser/seeker. So chaser was still open? He looked again, and realized that chaser, also, was taken. He swore under his breath. Okay, so keeper, possible seeker or chaser? That’s it?
He sucked on the feather end of his quill as he thought. Well, why not be a keeper? It seemed fun enough, when the ball came your way. Why not?
Keeper, will play anything though
He had added the last as a precaution in case last year’s keeper showed up again. Before he lost his nerve and scratched out his name (indeed, his hand was still hovering over the words) he turned tail and ran away from the paper. He vowed to stay far away from it until try-outs were over and it was too late to change his mind. \n
As Lucie bounded into the Common room, always a bundle of energy, she stopped suddenly at the board. On it was a sheet advertising Quidditch sign-ups. She had watched the teams playing last year. It had looked like incredible fun to go soaring at the speeds the Chasers did. She wondered what it would be like to do that. Her experience on a broom had been limited to Flying class, but she had done well enough. Was it enough though to be able to qualify for one of the spots? Even if it wasn’t, at least, she could say that she gave it her all.
Should she though? Her parents might not approve. Devian might not approve. She cringed slightly at the thought. Up until this summer, her older brother had been the center of her world. She wanted to be exactly like him. Yet, somehow, it seemed to all shift and it was as though she were looking at the world through new eyes. She wanted to find out what she liked best. Last year, she had been thrilled over Potions, simply, because it was his favorite class, and while, she liked the class, it wasn’t her favorite. The title went to History of Magic. Who couldn’t love a class that made one wonder about the stories of people that had once lived? Or made one think about their own story?
She thought about that for a moment. One day she was going to write her autobiography. Did she want to say that all she ever did was write stories or did she want to actually lead an exciting life? There really was no decision. She wanted to be able to say that she had tried everything there was to try, that she hadn’t been scared of anything. Grabbing one of her new sparkly pens out of her pocket, she wrote her name and a position, as follows, making sure to dot the ‘i’ with a heart.
Lucie Dupree, Second Year, Chaser
Thrilled over seeing her name on the sheet, she gave a little noise that sounded a bit like a squee, before rushing up the stairs towards her room to write about what she had just done. She couldn’t wait until try-outs so she could write even more.