Present and Accounted For on Quidditch Pitch

Geoffrey Layne

May 31, 2009 6:35 PM

Aladren Quidditch Tryouts by Geoffrey Layne

He had exactly one shot at doing this right. One. This time next year, he would be out in the world and, if there was a team to be found by then, someone else would be leading the Aladren Quidditch tryouts. If Geoff screwed it up today, he would get to go down in history as the worst of all Aladren captains, which wasn't a title many people wanted. Not that many Aladren captains made it to 'good', but plenty of them had met Geoff's standards for being kind of pathetic.

So he was determined to do well, and never mind that Fate wasn't cooperating. If Anne was anything to go by, all he had to do to make things come together at the last second possible was worry about it endlessly, and he felt he had made a good beginning of that already. Somehow, the whole thing would work out.

"All right, everyone," he said once it looked like everyone who was going to come had already done so. "Glad to see you here today. For those I haven't met, I'm Geoff Layne. These are the Aladren Quidditch tryouts, so if you're not here to try out..." he nodded toward the exit.

As he looked over the group again, a pair of glasses caught his eye, making him do a double take. Surely not...oh, hell and half of Georgia, what was Gray Wright doing here? Geoff didn't know him well, had never liked him at all, but Anne, for whatever weird reason, did. By the look of those glasses, the kid could barely see. If Geoff let Anne's baby cousin get himself killed...

Alarm, quite abruptly, shifted into resentment. He didn't owe her anything. If the kid wanted to get himself killed to prove something, that was his prerogative; Geoff's job was just to fill the voids left by those who had left the team after its latest failure.

"Not much to say, really. Paul and I are the Beaters. Jera, you're staying on Seeker. Wright - " no way was he going to put the kid in Chaser; he actually wanted to win - "you can be the Keeper." At least that was a minimal-motion position that sometimes never came into play at all. "You two - " he pointed to the two remaining boys - "Chasers. We don't have a third Chaser right now, so everyone look for one, got it? Good. Paul, get Jera the Snitch while I talk to the Chasers and the Keeper. You can play around with a Bludger then."

Once Paul and Jera were off, Geoff looked between the three he was left with. Daniel was an actor, Wright was annoying, and Fitzgerald was Wright's roommate. That was all he knew, and more than he really wanted to. "Okay," he said. "So you know, I can't play Chaser to save my life and couldn't tell you more about it than 'take the red ball and throw it over there'. So..." he handed Daniel and Thomas each a short bit of parchment. "Recommended research materials. For now, you just take the Quaffle and see if you can throw it through a hoop while you're moving - try out some different angles of approach - and Wright is trying to stop the ball from going through. Got it?"

Subthreads:

Present and Accounted For by Daniel Nash II with Thomas Fitzgerald, Thomas, Gray Wright

Finding the silver lining by Jera Valson

16 Geoffrey Layne Aladren Quidditch Tryouts 72 Geoffrey Layne 1 5

Daniel Nash II

June 01, 2009 10:10 AM

Present and Accounted For by Daniel Nash II

Daniel arrived at the Pitch exactly on time, carrying a broom that he'd picked up from the school supply shed. Joining the team had been an impulse without nearly enough fore-planning. He should have bought a broom over the summer. Perhaps he could find someplace that sold them over midterm. There seemed to be enough secretly hidden magical stores in LA that he thought a Quidditch shop was virtually guaranteed to exist somewhere in the city. Until then, though, he was on the newest looking of the old school brooms that he'd been able find.

Captain Geoff seemed to already have positions figured out, so Daniel looked over at the other Chaser. He was older than Daniel, but Danny didn't remember him being on the team last year. They were still short one, though so it was possible wasn't going to remain the youngest player on the team. He wasn't sure who he might be able to rope into joining the team, though. Taylor didn't seem the type, Quentin would probably get pedantic about something and miss a play. He could maybe ask Juri, though. He made a mental note to do so.

As the experienced players were sent off to practice on their own, Daniel looked over his Quidditch homework, feeling better about joining already. Research was something he could do. It was times like this that he remembered why he liked being in Aladren so much. Even the jocks were nerds. With some luck, the books listed would give suggestions about the best brooms for playing Chaser, too. Then he could have some idea what to look for when he bought his own.

He nodded in response to the instructions for their practice activity and tucked the list of books away carefully into his robe pocket.

"Got it," he confirmed the clarity of Captain Geoff's instructions with a nod. He lifted off into a low hover on his broom and glanced over at the other Chaser and the Keeper to see if they were ready to start. It occurred to him then that he was missing a key bit of information and they probably were as well.

"I'm Daniel," he told the other Chaser, because Captain Geoff hadn't mentioned either of their names during the position division and he hadn't caught the older kid's before or since, either. "Or Nash, if that's how we're calling each other," he added with a glance at Grayson Wright, whose first name he knew only because he'd been the author of last year's play.

1 Daniel Nash II Present and Accounted For 130 Daniel Nash II 0 5

Thomas Fitzgerald

June 08, 2009 7:47 AM

Me, too. by Thomas Fitzgerald

Signing up for the Quidditch team had been a whim, but it didn’t look like it had been an ill-founded one. Even with Thomas and his decidedly un-athletic roommate, the new Quidditch captain had still failed to pull together a full team. That was…kind of sad, though not entirely a surprise. Thomas had always suspected the old Quidditch captain had gotten and kept players by nothing more than sheer intimidation, and while the new one was Head Boy and a Beater, he didn’t have that edge of fanaticism it took to make people seriously fear for the personal safety if they crossed him once.

This fact did not seem to have overly discouraged Geoffrey Layne, though. The team only had six players, at least three of whom were unknown elements, but he was proceeding with assigning roles and starting practice. Thomas wasn’t sure if that was admirable determination or counter-productive denial, but supposed it didn’t really matter; his job, at this point, was to nod and go along. So he did. Upon finding out he was one of the two Chasers, Thomas nodded, and upon the team breaking up, he went along with Gray and the other Chaser, Second Year Kid, for a word with Geoffrey.

A recommended reading list. It took an effort not to laugh. They really were all Aladrens here. Recommended reading for Quidditch; if the other teams got wind of this, Aladren might win a game just because the other team in question found itself unable to stop laughing long enough to score goals, deflect Bludgers, and look for the Snitch. Still, he supposed it wasn’t that fair to blame a seventh year for not wanting to learn all the technicalities of a new position from the ground up, though he had a feeling it was sort of expected.

"I'm Daniel,” the second year said. "Or Nash, if that's how we're calling each other.”

“Thomas,” Thomas said. He had never been much for nicknames, an aversion he guessed stemmed from his cousin Savannah’s frequent attempts to refer to him as T.J., which itself referred to the middle name he generally tried very hard to pretend he didn’t have. “Good meeting you.” He glanced between Daniel and Gray. “Have either of you ever played Quidditch before?”

0 Thomas Fitzgerald Me, too. 109 Thomas Fitzgerald 0 5

Daniel Nash II

June 08, 2009 9:18 AM

Previous experience is less accounted for by Daniel Nash II

"Thomas," Daniel repeated, hoping he could remember that. His ability with names was limited. There was a fair chance he might just remember the other chaser as 'the guy with a common name who also doesn't shorten it' and try to call him Robert or something. But at least it was pronounceable.

At Thomas's question about prior Quidditch experience, Daniel shook his head. "Not unless you count last year's flying lessons," he told the others. "That was the first time I was ever on a broom. I'm muggleborn," he added by way of explanation, though in this crowd, he wasn't sure that really put him at much of a disadvantage, sports-wise. Back when he'd still gone to North Hollywood Preparatory Academy, he'd usually fallen somewhere in the middle of the gym picks - never first, but never last either - and suspected that was doing better than Gray, at least, would have done.

"I've played basketball and dodgeball in gym, though, so I can probably pick up the basics of the game without a huge adjustment. I gather being a Chaser is sort of like a combination of those."

1 Daniel Nash II Previous experience is less accounted for 130 Daniel Nash II 0 5

Thomas

June 14, 2009 8:54 PM

I'm gathering we don't have a lot of it between us. by Thomas

Thomas' initial thought upon hearing Daniel was Muggleborn was, to use one of his great-nana's favorite sayings, that they were all up the creek. He had barely flown since he'd been at Sonora, and he had a feeling Gray had done so even less often. Not that he kept tabs on his roommate, but all of the time Sonora students spent in class together was enough to get a general impression, and Gray was literally the last person he would have ever expected to find out on the Pitch. Even after himself.

Daniel's next comment said a bit more for the future of the team. "That sounds about right," he said. "Except for never wanting to avoid the ball. The idea is to always keep it to your three Chasers until you get to the opposing goals, and then you try to throw it through one of the hoops while the Keeper tries to stop it from going through and the Beaters, if they're not too busy with the Seeker, try to flatten you and your teammates. If it goes through a hoop, your team is given ten points." Thomas shrugged slightly. "Half-blood," he added, to explain how he knew how to play Quidditch and dodgeball.

He turned to Gray, who was being oddly quiet. "What about you?" he asked.

0 Thomas I'm gathering we don't have a lot of it between us. 0 Thomas 0 5

Gray Wright

June 14, 2009 8:57 PM

That would probably be a good assumption. by Gray Wright

Gray had completely convinced himself that his flicker of an idea about joining the team had been come up with in a moment of temporary insanity. He had also been sure he no longer had any such stupid thoughts in his head. It was a fine thing to be able to think up something as completely ridiculous as the idea of him on a Quidditch team, but it was a whole different story to contemplate actually doing anything with it. Holly's aerial acrobatics were only the slightest of bits less probable than it working out well.

Since he was firm in his resolution that the idea was very illogical, Gray wasn't quite sure why he was on the Pitch. Maybe, when he got home, it wouldn't be a bad idea to make inquiries about therapy. Half the family was already in it anyway, and even some members of the family who weren't in it thought his cousin ought to be, so they could hardly go on about the stigma.

For now, though, he was mostly just trying to avoid Geoff as much as possible while hypothetically playing for that individual's team. He had never liked Geoff, and would've had no use for him whatsoever if he hadn't believed that, in his own weird way, the jerk really did care about Anne and want her to be happy. Since a successful Aladren team and absence of hex marks on the two of them seemed like a good way to make her happy, Gray thought that they could, if they avoided conversation, work together. Until he had seen about that therapy, anyway.

Everything was short and to the point, which wasn't really how Gray would have imagined it. Maybe it was just because he had always heard it spoken about in borderline mystical terms, but he had expected a lot more ceremony. Upon being informed what he was doing, he made a mental note to go to the library and figure out what that meant he was supposed to do. He thought that was the person whose job was protecting the goals, but wasn't sure.

Geoff also seemed to think so, since all he told their two Chasers was to throw the Quaffle at him repeatedly and see what happened. He didn't get a recommended reading list to use, which implied that Geoff either thought he had a clue what he was doing - which, considering who he successfully lived with, wasn't a bad assumption for someone who didn't know him but was still painfully inaccurate - or was doing his best to pretend Gray wasn't there. Whatever worked, he supposed.

Once Geoff had gone off to see how Jera was doing, Gray was able to relax a little. "Just Gray's fine," he said as they went 'round through introductions. He and Daniel had worked together - in a loose sense - on the Concert, and he'd been rooming with Thomas for a few years, but he knew neither of them well. Maybe doing this little experiment would improve his social life! Not that he'd been exactly displeased with his social life as it had been, but...

He wasn't sure what basketball or Dodgeball were - the latter sounded kind of self-explanatory, but the first made no sense whatsoever; a basket was not a ball - so Gray had no thoughts on that subject. "Pureblood, with no idea what you two are talking about," he said when attention turned to him. "I've thrown a Quaffle around with Anne a few times before, but never really played the game." Of course, doing what he was apparently doing couldn't be that hard, because his father, who had never been known for his intelligence and was about as coordinated as his only son, had done it back in the day and done it well enough that he'd spent his seventh year as the Teppenpaw team captain.

16 Gray Wright That would probably be a good assumption. 113 Gray Wright 0 5

Jera Valson

June 26, 2009 7:46 AM

Finding the silver lining by Jera Valson

Jera had her own broom, now. It was a good one, too. Not those really expensive racing brooms like some players on the other teams had, but it was steady and secure and turned really tight croners. The man in the shop had said it was a good Seeker's broom. Or so her father had said, because he'd bought it last week and delivered it to Jera only days ago, when she realized that it was very likely she'd be on the team again. Actually, as Geoff pointed out to the small crowd, they didn't even have a full team.

Jera couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for Geoff Layne. He had a lot to worry about, being a seventh year, and Head Boy, and a Quidditch captain. Then there was the sorry crowd gathered - aside from Paul, none of them looked like they should be on a sports team. Aladrens were built for studying, not sporting competition. Anyone could tell you that.

Yet there they all were. As Jera followed Paul to get the Snitch, she was secretly quite pleased to have Seeker over all the other positions on the team. Yes she had a lot of pressure to win the game, but she was separate from it, in a way. She didn't need to worry in quite the same way about the positioning of her teammates, which she was sure made the job easier. Yes, this was her place. Besides, she was the smallest, and apparently Seekers were often small (though again, some of the other teams at Sonora didn't appear to agree). And she was the only girl on the team; it seemed fitting she was kept somewhat separate.

As Jera pushed off from the groun to warm up, and test out her new broom, she felt quite content. Yes the games were scary and potentially dangerous and rather stressful if she thought about it too much, but she was supporting her House, and that was a good feeling.

0 Jera Valson Finding the silver lining 112 Jera Valson 0 5