The Chaser's Heart

Year 4: Gryffindor

McNully and I didn't discuss what happened the night of the Celestial Ball. Not that we spent much time alone together anyway. I did tell Skye that I ended up on the Pitch to run through some drills, but I left out the bit about McNully being there. She told me I didnt miss much by not going to the Ball and she wished she would have thought of having the Pitch to ourselves. She was quick to assure me before the Ball even happened that she was only going with Orion as friends. I believed her. I knew opposites attracted, but I felt that Skye and Orion were perhaps a bit too opposite. They'd probably kill each other if they tried dating. Or were even alone together for too long.

McNully was more ruthless than Orion when it came to Quidditch practises. In the weeks leading up to our match against Slytherin, McNully held Chaser training sessions two nights a week, usually before regular practises. I was too knackered to consider much beyond the match against Slytherin. Erika Rath had, if it were even possible, grown even taller and broader over the summer. She had always been a force to be reckoned with and she was on the war path since Slytherin's defeat against Gryffindor in November.

She'd definitely been out for blood during our match against Slytherin. At least two Bludgers came close enough to me that I felt the wind as they zoomed by, narrowly missing hitting me in the face. But I managed to stay on my broom, a definite improvement from our match the February before. Seth, one of our Beaters, wasn't so lucky. He got a face full of Bludger and his nose was definitely broken when Christ and Orion escorted him off the pitch. Later, when the match was over and we visited him in the Hospital Wing, we discovered that his nose, jaw and several teeth had been broken with the hit. Madam Pomfrey had him completely mended by the time the rest of us arrived. He'd also suffered a concussion, so he was kept for the night and was thankfully released the following morning.

Fortunately for us, Irina was much lighter and speedier than Bruno Devlin was, the Slytherin Seeker. Plus, Orion, Skye and I knew each other and could anticipate each other's moves as well as we could our own siblings. We had trained relentlessly and despite Rath and Garreths' attempts, still managed to keep the score even. McNully had been correct in his assumption that Siobhan had the potential to be better than Sean. She made some truly spectacular saves. After two hours of flying in the bitter cold, the final half-hour of which was snowing, Irina caught the Snitch and the match was over, keeping Ravenclaw undefeated and Slytherin winless so far in the season.

It was now May. We were getting ready for our final match of the regular season against Gryffindor. They were also undefeated, though they'd won by a narrower margin against Hufflepuff than we had. And Charlie had caught the Snitch during both matches. I knew Irina was a good Seeker, but everyone knew she wasn't as good as Charlie. No Seeker at Hogwarts was as good as Charlie.

We'd met up in secret a couple of weeks before the match, our teams crossing paths between practises.

'I've been thinking about how we're going to get into the Forest,' he said, looking around to make sure no one was paying us any attention. I was early for the Ravenclaw practise, the first to arrive, and he had lingered following the Gryffindor practise for this purpose. 'And it hit me last week during practise. It's so obvious, we'll fly!'

He was right, it was painfully obvious what the solution was.

'Of course,' I groaned. 'D'you know where the map says to go?'

'Yeah, I've worked all that out,' he nodded eagerly. 'So, when d'you want to do it?'

'Er...' I hesitated, my own eyes darting around for any sign of newcomers. We were outside of the changerooms, and even though we were friends, I knew one figure dressed in blue Quidditch robes would look slightly suspicious speaking with another figure in red robes. 'I dunno, what d'you think?'