To Let it All go Down in Flames - jegulus/starchaser

Freedom in the Sky (Reggie Pov)

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tw: some one gets in a quidditch injorey (not reg) and gets hurt pretty bad so blood and stuff like that. and talks of attempted murder and things of that line.

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When I was younger, I feared heights, now I soar effortlessly through the sky. I used to watch quidditch with my brother wondering how seekers could see the snitch, now I have never lost the snitch in a game. I used to fly on my brother's broom when he was pouting in his room, now I fly on my own silver arrow (got it a couple years ago I should upgrade but that one was still going strong, and all the new ones were shit). I used to look out to the stands during a game to look for my brother and see if he was proud, now I still do that but more to see the pissed of look he always held when Slytherin was winning.

The first time I flew I was with my brother; we must have been around 8 and 9 back then I thought we would be together forever. Now I know nothing lasts forever. Now I know my brother didn't last forever. I remember the first time I flew I fell; I couldn't have been more than 5 feet in the air slowly getting higher Sirius was by my side holding my hand coaching me the whole way. "Flying is a lot like life." he said, "you are inevitably going to fall but that only makes the next time you fall less scary and makes less of an impact." 

I remember laughing at my brother clenching the broom handle until my knuckles turned white "when did you get so wise brother?"

"Maybe I have been this whole time and you have yet to notice."

I still laugh at the memory of that day, how pure it seems compared to what happened later in our lives. Oh, how naive we both were to our coming demise. I remember the years leading to his time at Hogwarts Sirius often spoke of how we would both be playing for Gryffindor; he often said the commentator would call us the 'The Black brothers' and how they would all speak of the greatest quidditch pair in Hogwarts history. How young. How blind.

I also remember how the wave of guilt and shame that the notion of 'The Black brothers' being in Gryffindor seemed to drown me from the inside out. I will not lie to you when saying that picturing the pair of us in bright Gryffindor robes did make me feel as if I wanted it. But I did not want to betray our parents like that after all they had done for us.

The worst quidditch position for me to play on is keeper. Something about being confounded to 5 feet when there was a whole stadium to explore was sickening. One could say my life was like I was being forced to play keeper, having to stay in one place when there's a whole world and things you would rather be doing. not to forget that playing keeper is making you ache and rot when all you want is to have the freedom of a seeker. A cruel metaphor but a rather good one.

My first quidditch game at Hogwarts I was so scared. I remember looking into the stands and seeing my brother and his friends holding anti Slytherin sighs and chanting for the other team. I remember how bitter I became. I remember flying through the air plummeting towards the ground everything faded everything disappeared and it was just me and the snitch, no shitty brother who doesn't care for me, no crazy ass mother who won't love me, no fucked up crushes, just me and the game.

It was freeing.

During my brother's first year at Hogwarts while I was still home, I would take his old broom (first years aren't promoted to have brooms) and I would go outside every day much to wrath of my mother.

I had never played quidditch with anyone else other than my school team. That was until Barty, Dorcas and I decided to play. Well not exactly play the game but we would throw a quaffle around or have one person be keeper and the others try and score, sometimes we would play for seeker, other times we could guilt another Slytherin into joining us and play 2 on 2. Evan and Pandora, who weren't very fond of the game, would sit in the stands talking away for hours. Pandora was even teaching Evan how to crochet much to Barty's delight.