Harry Potter and the Children of the Clan

Chapter 35

Chapter 35 

James sat on his broom, hovering over the center goal hoop watching the action taking place further down the pitch. They were two hours into the match and his team was up by ten points. He was playing in his first club match since joining the team known simply as 'The Kids'. His team mates were from the first through third years, across all four houses. Two Gryffindors, one Ravenclaw, three Hufflepuffs and a Slytherin. Soon after tryouts he had gotten an invite to play. Apparently the Gryffindor captain had passed on the word that a good keeper needed a slot for the year.

One thing he was happy about was that the team was all boys. When he told Kai he was going to play with the 'Kids' she expressed her happiness that he would be playing but the question 'are there any girls on the team' had an ominous undertone to it. Things were still a little nervous between the two of them after what had happened in the corridor. She seemed to have recovered rather well and he assured her that he wasn't going to worry about the future at the moment, there was plenty going on right now to keep the both of them occupied. He did notice, however, that any physical contact, whether a hand hold or kiss or just sitting close together, seemed to have some jitters to it, at least at the start.

At the moment, however, he needed to focus on the game as one of the opposition chasers, a little hellion of a blonde witch from Ravenclaw was coming at him full speed, yelling something that sounded like a war cry. He wondered if the blonde hair marked some sort of Viking heritage. He had seen this earlier when she had tried to drive straight through him and he was able to block her with a quick pivot that put his broom bristles right in her face and caused her to fumble the quaffle. This time he could see she was starting to veer right but he was sure a left handed throw was coming.

Sure enough, she tried an off hand toss to his right side but he was there to make the grab and then a quick throw to one of his own chasers. The blonde witch had been coming so fast she had to pass the goals and make a wide turn so her team mates were going two on three to try and stop the Kids scoring drive, which they didn't. As she whipped past him on the way back he heard her shout,

"Bloody hell, Potter."

Then the whistle blew and he looked up to see his team's seeker holding the snitch over his head. So the Kids won their first match of the season by one hundred and seventy points. He could see a small cheering section in the Gryffindor portion of the stadium yelling and pointing in his direction. By the time he landed and shared congratulations with his team mates, Kai, Fred and the sisters were hurrying up to offer their own hurrahs. Normally, James wouldn't have expected to see Vee and Domi here but they said since it was his first team effort they should be there to cheer him on, but don't get used to it.

Kai almost knocked the breath out of him when she hugged him at practically a run and then proceeded to tell him what an amazing performance he just had. Fred smiled a bit and said,

"She may be overstating it, but not by much. You've got some great moves up there."

It was at this point that the Ravenclaw blonde walked up, stopped and said quickly,

"Sorry about that 'bloody hell, Potter' business. It was just the game talking, you know? You did really well today."

"No worries. What happens in the stadium stays in the stadium," he replied with a smile.

The girl smiled back and then with a sidelong look at Fred walked away briskly. James saw Fred looking after her and when she disappeared into the gloom of the tunnel, he said,

"Anyway, well done, you, James. See you back at the castle," and he hurried off.

James smiled and then looked back at Kai, who asked,