The Titans of Secrets

─Chapter Nineteen

Story: The Titans of Secrets
Chapter Nineteen: Quidditch Practice

The next morning was a fine one. A sunny, warm and comforting Thursday was the perfect day for the first practice. Ginny grinned to herself as she skipped her way to the Great Hall with Luna for breakfast. The question she was going to ask a particular green-eyed boy kept her nerves on the edge.

Plopping down on a seat beside her forever hungry brother, she grabbed a sandwich before greeting everyone. Luna took the seat beside her.

"It's a perfect day for practice, isn't it?" Hermione brought up the topic as they had decided earlier. Ginny nodded.

"Yes! Will you guys come and spectate us playing?" she asked, pointing at Ron and herself. Luna smiled and Neville gave her a thumbs up. She looked at Gilligan and Harry.

"Of course. If I want to become a spare chaser or seeker, it'll help," Gilligan added with a wink. Ginny was in short of a player. Since Katie Bell had graduated, she was in short of a chaser. If she played chaser, she would need a seeker.

"You are in short of a chaser?" Harry asked.

"Yeah. And a seeker," Ginny snorted. Although Dean was a fair player, he was nowhere near Demelza and her.

"Whoa!" Harry exclaimed. "Why don't we join the fray, then?"

"That'd be supercalifragilisticexpidlidocious!" Hermione exclaimed and Ginny rolled her eyes. The bushy haired girl had gone overboard with happiness for her best friend.

"Cool!" Gilligan said, nodding. "Try us out whilst practice. Y'know, just in case I inherited my mother's clumsiness in the air."

Everyone shared a laugh at the impossibility.

"Then your poor kid will have your clumsiness too. Gin, let's start beating his bush and train him like a horse. It'll do the trick," Harry said with a smirk. Ginny chuckled and Hermione was sent in squeals of laughs. Ron finally looked up at her voice.

"Whazzablem Mermynee?" he asked, tossing another piece of roasted potato into his already filled mouth. Hermione glared at him.

"How many times do I tell you to not stuff your mouth like that?"

Ginny had, by then, zoned out of her brother and his girlfriend's 'arguments' and tunes into a world of Quidditch daydreams.

___________

Needless to say, when the practice started, Ginny started zooming in and out of the hoops in excitement. Below her, Demelza was laughing along with the two Potters at her antics. Ron was looking around nervously and the two beaters, Coote and Peakes were talking animatedly. Smiling to herself on the new strategy she had planned by referring from Gilligan's copy of 'Quidditch Through The Ages', she blew the whistle, signaling everyone to get in the air.

She had asked Dean to pair up with her as a chaser. They will be going against Gilligan and Demelza as she wanted the most skillful of players to be on the team and the practice which was going to take place will be a match between Gilligan versus Dean and Harry versus Ginny for the spots of chaser and seeker.

"SHALL WE START?!" she shouted at the Gryffindors.

"YES!"

Ginny tossed the quaffle at Gilligan. With Demelza on his side, he maneuvered nimbly past Ginny and Dean.

There came a moment when Ginny managed to knock the quaffle out of Demelza's hands but before Dean could catch it, Gilligan did a mid-air loop, dived down and caught it which led their team to a win.

"That was sagacious, Gil!" Ginny shouted at him from above, clapping with a grin. He blushed and scratched his neck as she came down to fly beside him. "Okay, two more rounds, Demelza, with Dean!"

When the chaser practice came to an end, Gilligan was hailed as the best one out of the trio, leading Ginny to pick him over Dean. Although disappointed, Dean gave her a charming smile and said, "I understand that you want the best but I just want to be part of the Quidditch team."

"Of course, Dean. You'll always be the first person I'll go to if any of my chasers are injured. And you still have a chance. There's a seeker match coming up," she said and looked at Harry who gave her a thumbs up.

Soon enough, the team was divided into two with Demelza, Ron, Harry and Coote on one team versus Gilligan, Dean, Ginny and Peakes on the other. Dean played the keeper for Ginny's team as it was a one-on-one chaser match. The snitch was released and the quaffle was thrown into the air to grab.

There was a rush of wind as the game began. Ginny rose higher in the air to keep an eye for the snitch before looking over to the stands where Hermione, Neville and Luna were seated along with some other Gryffindors. A loud cheer brought her out of her reverie and she looked down to see Harry high five Demelza mid-air. Demelza probably scored, she thought as she tried to beat down the growing tinge of jealousy.

The match went on for a long time as none of the seekers were whole to spot the tiny ball. Dean was not doing a great job as the keeper: he seemed to fall for Gilligan's fakes.

Sighing for not the first time, Ginny glanced at Harry and found that he was inching slowly towards their goalposts. Then a glint of gold caught her eye and realization hit her: he was stealthily making his way to victory.

Speeding up her broom, she approached their goalposts. Realizing her move, Harry sped up as well until they were on a neck-to-neck match. The tails of their robes whipped about dangerously, hissing violently. The wind rushed against their hair but they were not going down from the mid-air battle. Shouts of encouragement was heard from the stands but she did not care. Gritting her teeth, she extended her arm to catch the snitch which was not more than five centimetres away from her fingers. But before she could catch it Harry dived below her and suddenly rose up creating a vacuum which made her balance go haywire along with her hopes of winning the match.

When she finally regained her balance, a pair of golden wings were fluttering hard in between Harry's fingers. He grinned at her, his hair brilliantly messy from the windy battle, before his teammates gave him a mid-air embrace for leading them to victory.

Ginny sighed in defeat and was startled when Gilligan placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"We did pretty well, Ginny and you, the most superb. Don't you worry about that."

Ginny smiled and nodded at him. When she turned around, her heart fell. She lost to Harry: he would probably look her down now. She was, after all, nowhere near his leagues especially on that evening.

To top it, the stinging feeling that Demelza was chatting rather animatedly with him was dejecting to her.

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Thank you for reading!

Miyoko x