There's Something About Potter

Chapter 9

Draco blew his whistle to signal the start of practice.

Seconds later, Aria found herself up in the air atop her broom, fully attired in her Slytherin quidditch robes and gear. The golden snitch, which Draco had released into the air a few minutes before they started, was nowhere in sight.

Aria adjusted the goggles on her face and took a long, perusing scan around her.

She hadn't been lying when she told them that it had been awhile since she had the chance to play like this. In fact, the last time she remembered playing quidditch was back in their sixth year, before the war started and before everything in her life had quickly gone to shit. Of course, that didn't mean she didn't miss the familiar feeling of exhilaration she always felt whenever she was up in the air like this.

Aria flattened herself against her broom and sped off as fast as she could towards the brief glints of gold flashing occasionally at her from the many different areas of the quidditch pitch.

The snitch would usually disappear long before she got there but Aria would just smile and easily maneuver herself back towards the pitch's outer circle, ready to try again.

As she passed the keeper's goalpost in the air, Aria smirked and quickly zipped her broom past Blaise. The sudden rush of air caused him to curse and clutch tightly onto his broom to keep himself from falling over. When he saw her sticking her tongue out at him over her shoulder, Blaise glared at her and rolled his eyes.

Chuckling to herself, Aria stopped and hovered near the outer edge of the pitch again, watching curiously as Draco, Blaise and the rest of the team began working on some basic drills. When she looked up about fifteen minutes later, it was to the impressive sight of Draco effortlessly tossing the quaffle through Blaise's defense for the sixth consecutive time since they had started.

I guess he wasn't kidding when he said he was a much better chaser than he was a seeker.

Aria smirked at the thought and shook her head.

She quickly tore her gaze away before Draco could notice the surprised look on her face and circled the quidditch pitch a few more times, her narrowed eyes on the lookout for the golden snitch.

A few times during the course of their team exercises, when she passed Austin in the air, the dark-haired boy would smile at her and engage her in a few minutes of friendly small talk. Unfortunately, Draco didn't seem to like the fact that one of his chasers was distracted and each time he caught them talking to each other, he sneered and called them both out, shouting angrily for them to stop wasting time.

For some reason, Blaise seemed to find this really amusing.

However, given the many strange things the git seemed to find amusing these days, Aria was not about to ask him why.

Trying not to wince under the vicious glare Draco was still giving her, Aria sighed and flew a good distance away from Austin, returning to her previous task of observing her new teammates instead.

Glancing over at the chasers, she saw how badly Zach kept fumbling nearly every time Austin or Draco tossed him the quaffle. Their beaters, Harper and Graham, were nothing short of efficient and precise as they juggled the bludgers back and forth between them like they were tossing a pair of paper balloons.

And lastly, though Aria was reluctant to admit it, Blaise's skill as a keeper was easily on par with Ron's.

All things considered, while her new teammates may not be as good in terms of individual skill as compared to her old quidditch team back in Gryffindor, Aria had to admit that in terms of teamwork and strategy, the Slytherins were very much unparalleled.