Harry Potter and the Year of Surprises by erinpotter

Building Up To It

Harry woke the next morning, quite happy. Then he remembered what day it was. Today was the first quidditch game of the year. As usual, it was Slytherin versus Gryffindor. Harry had pretty much perfected his team but as always, he was nervous. He got up and had a shower, dressed into his quidditch robes and went into the common room to find Ginny and Ron already there, sitting in silence.

‘Why are you two up so early?’ he asked, breaking the silence.

Ginny jumped. ‘Oh Harry. You scared me! I was too nervous to sleep anymore. But I got the eight hours, before you start complaining!’

‘I wasn’t going to say anything about eight hours. I was just going to say that there was nothing to worry about. You both know we’ve got every move practised to perfection. And there’s no way the Slytherins know what we’re up to because I put that blocking spell around the pitch so that if anyone came within spying distance, they’d get thrown up to the school doors.’

‘Yeah Harry.’ Ron said. ‘It’s alright for you. You’re the best seeker Gryffindor has ever had, which means the best seeker the school has ever had! Me and Ginny are just…just… Weasleys.’

‘Ron, don't you dare.’ Harry pointed his finger at his best friend. ‘Don't you take anything out on me, and secondly, don't you dare put yourself or Ginny down. We all know that Ginny’s the best chaser we’ve ever seen on a house team, and Ron, you haven’t let one goal in since fifth year!’

‘Yeah Harry. I'm sorry mate. I just keep thinking that the Slytherins might have something sneaky up their sleeves.’ Ron said.

‘Ron you are so stupid! They can't hurt you! You’ve got the locket. Is that why you’ve been a bit scared? You don't think, do you?’ Ginny scowled.

‘Oh yeah. I forgot about that…I'm quite hungry now. Do you want to go and get breakfast?’ Ron perked up a great deal. ‘I'll go and wake Hermione.’

‘No need.’ said Hermione, coming down the stairs. ‘I'm ready.’

They all went down to breakfast to find the rest of the team sitting there, poking at bits of their uneaten breakfast. The team now consisted of Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnegan as the beaters, Parvati, Lavender and Ginny as the chasers, Ron as keeper and Harry as seeker. 

There hadn’t been much of a choice for Harry because Voldemort had killed many of the Gryffindors last year. Dean and Seamus were almost as good as the Weasley twins. Harry thought that a couple more months of practise would bring them up to the twins’ level. It had taken almost a full month to get Lavender and Parvati to stop screaming when the ball came near them. Once they had gotten over their fear of bludgers and quaffles, they turned out to be pretty good. They weren’t as good as Ginny, though. 

‘Everyone ready?’ Harry asked as he sat down. 

They all nodded, although Harry knew that they were all scared. It was the first ever match for Dean, Seamus, Parvati and Lavender and the fact that they were up against Slytherin made it a lot worse. There were very few Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws so Harry guessed that they would be no problem. But Slytherin. Slytherin still had their whole house to choose from and over the past few years, the team had been pretty good. 

But that wasn’t going to get Harry down. He sat down at the table and looked at his team. None of them were eating except Ron, who was eating enough for all of them.

‘Come on, guys. You have to eat! It’s not like you Seamus. You always eat in the mornings. And you Ginny! What’s got into you?’

‘Sorry Harry. I'm just a little nervous.’ she whispered and then put a few bits of bacon onto her plate. She looked to her fellow chasers, ‘Come on, girls,’ she said. ‘We need to keep our strength up.’