CHAPTER THIRTEEN
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-: sixth year :-
── IN WHICH IT BEGINS
. . .
"Listen up idiots." It wasn't the most effective way of leading a normal team, but as a fairly small girl in front of a crowd of Slytherins, it was understandable. It also helped for her to seem confident, considering she was a half-blood and daughter of a blood traitor. "I said, listen up idiots!" Erin shouted, and finally the crowd fell quiet.
"Good. Now, as it's quite plainly obvious, you are all here for Quidditch trials. I see some new faces, some older ones, and some that I knew where banned completely." Erin's gaze fell on Flint. "Do you have something to say?" She asked, head tilted.
"Yeah I do." Marcus stood up, hand clutching one of the Nimbus 2001s that Lucius Malfoy had donated. "How do you think that this new little system is going to work when-"
"Have you spoken to Snape about the matter of your dismissal like he suggested?" Erin stopped him, and Marcus fell quiet. "That's what I thought. Now.." With a flick of her wand, the Nimbus was torn out of his hands and landed on the ground beside her.
"I'm not leaving, Tonks." Marcus gritted his teeth, and Erin sighed, glancing down at the black clipboard in her hand, running her spare hand down the list.
"Fine. You can be on the first alternate team. You can stay for tryouts, but you must use one of the school's broomsticks. In fact, all of you can." Another flick of her wrist and the Nimbuses had piled up beside her. "I don't want to judge anyone's skills on Shooting Star against someone on a Nimbus." Erin smiled up at them all, but it had no warmth in it. "That leads me up to my next point."
"As you might have heard already, I intend for this team to be successful, and I have spent quite some time devising a plan for how it will run out." She began. "There will be a total of three teams, and a handful of others. Of course, the main team who will be playing in the school competition. Then a first alternates team, which is filled with people who are almost good enough to play in the main team, but just aren't there yet. Then a second alternate team - which has the same purpose as the first, but you're all simply useless."
The harshness seemed to be a given, she couldn't get anyone's hopes up, and she didn't want any pureblood trustfund kids thinking they can get anywhere just on that. It was based on skill and skill alone.
"This is how it will work. All of you in the alternates team, I will assign you a player from the main team, given what position you play. I'm sure Marcus would be completely fine with me using him as an example-" Erin didn't even glance the former Quidditch captain's way, a smirk settling on her cheeks.
"So, I have my main team chaser, who has very unfortunately been taken to the Hospital Wing with a rather bad case of Mumblemumps, and won't be able to play in the upcoming match. I assigned Marcus to this chaser, and seeing as they would be unable to play, Marcus would take their place. Is that clear?" Erin got back a sea of nodding heads, and she seemed rather pleased with herself - Marcus did not.
Her eyes drifted over the crowd, and spotted Tyler Adley with a rather lazy hand pointed in the air. "Yes?" She asked, waiting for him to reply.
"Is that what you're going to do about Malfoy then? Replace him with an alternate seeker?" Tyler asked, and Erin glared at him. He had had the pleasure of witnessing one of her upsets over her cousin and his hurt arm.
"Possibly. Unfortunately, it seems that none of the current seekers on the list seemed to live up to his talents at all." She looked rather warily at the group, who all seemed rather too large to play seeker - you needed someone who was somewhat small, and nimble. Draco would utterly hate being described as that - but he was. "I am still considering what we, as a team, will be doing considering Draco's injury, and whether or not it would be best for us to play with an alternate or take another route." Erin finished.
The Tonks girl knew very well that Draco was milking his injury for all it was worth - Madam Pomfrey had his fixed up within the hour. And so she couldn't help but wonder if she should even bother replacing him, and just claim that Draco was still hurt and she refused to play without her seeker. Snape would understand very well.
"Any more questions?" Erin asked, looking around the crowd once more and seeming satisified when nobody replied. "Very good. Well, let's get this show on the road. Let's start with beaters, I want to see how you deal with the bats."
And with that, the Slytherin Quidditch team tryouts began.
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