long way to heaven || marauder ff

23- falling

"Nothing like that. I just figured it wouldn't do you much good to just look for a snitch the whole time, since we are not doing any drills today. You are going to be assisting me as co-captain" The dark-haired troublemaker smiled at Elaine as the girl squealed slightly. "I get to command other people around?", she asked gleefully, clapping in her hands.

"If you manage to get the reservists up in the air, yes", James confirmed, pointing over towards half a dozen new people entering the pitch. Elaine recognized most of them from either the try-outs or the common room, though there were some unknown faces. "Select six of them to start and put them up in the air. Since I will be playing, you are my eyes", he instructed her, before mounting his broom and flying up and away.

As Elaine walked over to the new group of players, she couldn't help but be once again reminded of her old school. There, she and her late best friend had co-captained their quidditch team ever since third year, being the youngest captains the school had ever seen.

The pain had resumed to a dull throbbing at the bottom of her heart.

Pulling herself together, she gifted the Gryffindors a tight smile. "James asked me to get six of you up on the pitch. So, if you could just sort yourself by positions, that would be great", she greeted them, the other players following her command.

"You will be playing against the other team, though we will be interchanging slightly for fairness. Are there any keepers here?", she asked, immediately being met by a burly hand stretched out to her. "Kevin Fawkes, I was second at the try-outs", a very muscular seventh year introduced himself.

Next to him stood a slightly smaller, but also very muscular and agile looking girl that only snorted at the boy's arrogance. As she felt Elaine's eyes on her, she gave the French a small smile. "Hestia Jones, missed try-outs because I was in the hospital wing"

Since Elaine was really not in the mood for the amount of testosterone presented by Fawkes, she returned Hestia's smile. "You start, get up to the rings"

As expected, Fawkes immediately began protesting, though Elaine only sent him a death glare that was enough to shut him up. "You will get your time as long as you don't annoy me", she promised him. Sending a glance over the remaining people, she tried to remember as much as possible from the past friendlies where the reservists had also played.

"Johnson, Pudgens, Loewe, you start as chasers", she instructed three players that had all performed quite well before. Only problem would be that Francis Johnson and Ramona Pudgens had broken up a few weeks prior, the latter going on to date one of the Ravenclaw players. Elaine was quite excited to see how they would transform the tension between them.

Letting her eyes glide over the remaining few players, she chose to go with the safest option. "Gregory Wood and Thea Fletchley as beaters. Sorry for everybody who is not starting, I will have a look at when substituting is a good option. You six, get up on the pitch"

A few murmurs came from the remaining players, though Elaine was slightly too bored to focus on that. If James told her to select a team, she would do so at the best of her abilities. The French accioed six yellow shirts from the changing rooms and handed them to the players, before sending them on their way.

As the six selected Gryffindors mounted their brooms, Elaine followed the action and sped towards James, who had already removed himself from a throwing practice with Marlene and Benjy Fenwick. "And?", he asked her interested, letting his eyes glide over the players appearing behind her. "Both Pudgens and Johnson?", he asked concerned, before shrugging his shoulders. "We'll see how it goes", he confirmed Elaine's previous thoughts.

"Ready?", the girl only asked, glad that her captain was overall agreeing with her decisions. As James nodded, she whistled as loud as possible, receiving the attention of her team. "Quaffle and bludgers to me", she instructed, catching the quaffle from Marlene and magically freezing the two bludgers in the air so that they wouldn't hit her. "We will start with the teams as obvious, yellow against no shirts. There are definitely going to be a few changes during the game, so don't get too attached", she shouted, waiting for confirming nods. As everybody seemed ready to go, she removed the spell from the bludgers and threw the quaffle high up in the air, speeding out of reach so she wouldn't be in the way.