Serendipity (S. Black)

TWENTY-SEVEN

" to be a team, you must be a family"

*

"You all right there, Taylor?"

Eva glanced up from tightening her Keeper gloves. Her hands shook slightly. McKinnon's face seemed rather green, and his eyes were wide with apprehension.

"Yeah, I'm good. Just thinking." Faintly she could hear the roar of the rest of the student body as they made their way onto the Quidditch pitch for the most anticipated match of the season; Gryffindor versus Slytherin.

Conditions were terrible. A blizzard had swept over the castle last night and continued raging into the morning. Even with their goggles, the team knew visibility would be almost nonexistent, and the temperature had dropped to its lowest point all year.

"Good. That's good," he said. She could tell he was barely listening, but she gave him a pass. Scouts for professional teams would be in the stands for the game and she knew McKinnon wanted to play after graduation more than anything.

James sat down next to Eva and cleaned his glasses for the twelfth time in the last half hour. She could tell he was nervous, too. He'd jokingly tried to get a good luck kiss from Lily that morning at breakfast, but after that, his teasing manner subsided and he fell silent. Normally, she would have made fun of him, but she didn't feel well either.

"All right. Everyone gather around." The seven scarlet-clad teammates surrounded a chalkboard with strategies and notes scribbled all over any available space. McKinnon sat down but rose back up, like he was unable to stay still. He probably wasn't. "You all know what it's like out there. We really need to be focused. Concentrate on everything you do. On top of this bloody blizzard, we're playing Slytherin, and you know they're not going to play fair. I'd love to give them the benefit of the doubt, but I don't want to."

"So optimistic, Mitchell," Leo Johnson, one of the chasers, joked.

McKinnon only rolled his eyes. "When we played them last year, you ended up in the hospital wing for a week."

"Yeah, but that was because he crashed," Frank Longbottom, the third chaser, pointed out. "That was bad steering. We can't blame the Slytherins for everything."

"Just almost everything," James finished, sitting back. Everyone on the team laughed, even McKinnon.

"So remember the plan," he said after the laughter had faded. "Potter, Longbottom, and Johnson are going to score as many goals as fast as they can because they've trained relentlessly for this."

"Got it," the three chasers chorused in perfect unison.

"Meadowes and Vane are going to keep those bludgers as far away from us as possible because they work as one on the pitch."

The two boys saluted playfully.

"Taylor isn't going to let a single damn quaffle in because she is the best Keeper Gryffindor has ever had."

"Stop it, McKinnon, you'll make me blush," Eva teased, fanning herself dramatically. The boys, especially James, chuckled.

"And I'm going to catch the snitch as soon as possible," McKinnon finished, clapping his hands together, the sound muffled by his gloves. "The sooner the match is over, the better."

"Righto," James said. He picked up his broom and tossed Eva hers. "You ready, Blondie?"

Eva ran her hand down her broomstick and took a deep breath. "Yeah. Let's kick some serpent butt."