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Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw were both getting trounced in the Hogwarts league standings, both teams having failed to catch a snitch.  Ravenclaw, though, appeared to be in far better position than Hufflepuff.  But only time would show who would be able to get the boost in points they needed to contend for the Quidditch Cup.

With the utter disaster that was the preivous match between Slytherin and Gryffindor, Hooch was sure it couldn't go any worse this time.  Despite Hufflepuff being a bit of a mess, they were fair players - same as Ravenclaw who always played a tidy match. 

Hooch stood at center pitch with her beautiful custom broom at her side and the crate of the game balls in front of her.  All the players were aloft and waiting.  She lowered her goggles and placed the whistle in her mouth.  With a glance to ensure both teams were ready, both Keepers in the hoops, she bent low and released the Snitch.

It flitted into the faces of each Seeker, sizing up who it would have to avoid with impossible finesse.  And then it was gone.

Next, Hooch released the Bludger who rocketed off into the sky to wait until the moment to attack.  And finally, the Quaffle.  Hooch tweeted on her whistle as she tossed the Quaffle into the air between the waiting chasers.

FWEEEET!

The game was on!

---

The match has begun!  Captains, please post your roster on your first post.  Remember, posting order isn't so important as keeping the thread moving along.  Clearly post your actions and highlight the balls when you interact with them.

Have fun!

After what seemed like a good enough pep talk and a firm enough handshake, Angie took her position by the hoops. Despite previous… attempts (if you could call them that) at winning one of these games (and losing each one), she was desperate to do her best in this game. The Ravenclaw captain was a real jerk; she patronized Angie to no end and seemed as if she existed just to rain on the fourth year’s parade.

She scanned the field before Hooch released the snitch, wondering if any of her words had taken in Figaro’s head. He seemed to be convinced that he could pull off a maneuver reminiscent of some of the Falcon’s finer moments. As the whistle blew, the Hufflepuff Captain tensed. To be honest, she was pretty nervous for this match, even if her own speech had been centered on not being nervous and doing their best.

She held her place in the center of the hoops, watching for the first strike of movement. This was the worst part of the game. Who would get the Quaffle first? Who would get hit by a bludger? Would anyone get hit?

She started to worry about her team; a combination of praying that Helio didn’t royally screw up this time and sending mental messages to Fig in hopes that he didn’t try to pull off something reckless.

She sighed, “Here goes nothing.” She muttered under her breath.

Beater

"Got it, Soggybottom? Hands and face, only."  Figaro gave the little half-mer wierdo Seeker an encouraging rap on the back before they pushed off.  As if Heliotrope needed to be reminded again after famously messing up a previous match by using slimy seaweed to lasso the snitch, but Figaro wasn't the sort to let that thing lie. 

It wasn't as if the sixth year Hufflepuff beater had much room to talk - despite being one of the older members of the team, he was one of the most unreliable.  He was late to practice, he was far too preoccupied with how the Falmouth Falcons did things, and he seemed to lack focus on actually doing his job.  But hey - he played with enthusiasm and his skills as a Beater were beginning to improve by sheer raw exposure to the game.

He was aloft and he waved the bat in the air trying to rouse the long-suffering Hufflepuff crowd into a frenzy.  "Badgers  bold! Badgers gold! Badgers bold! Badgers gold!"

But soon the balls were released and the game was on!  Figaro did what they'd practiced and immediately went for the nearest bludger to send it at the nearest Ravenclaw Chaser.  Pressure.  Pressure. Pressure.  Never let up.

Circling the goalposts as the start of the game, Alvis took a deep breath to calm his nerves. They weren't as bad as they could've been, more bristling with excitement than trembling with fear. It's only Hufflepuff, he thought, and immediately felt like a jerk. All right, so they fielded a young-ish team with a nice girl like Lemon as Captain. So LeJean's somewhat limited understanding of human nature  had kind of screwed them over in their last game. So they weren't having the best season. That didn't mean they weren't viable opponents, and he shouldn't disregard them.

Keeping one eye on the bright red of the quaffle as it changed hands -- here to a 'Claw, there to a 'Puff and back -- he changed his pacing to circle counter-clockwise, grateful that there was no similarly-shaded hair or robes on the field today to distract him.

He caught a glimpse of Angie across the pitch and thought that it was a bit of a shame Keepers, by definition, couldn't go head-to-head. Neither he nor Lemon were quite "traditional" in the post -- she was small and quick, he lanky but not athletic by any stretch of the imagination. Comparing their styles after the fact would be interesting.

He took another deep breath and rolled his grip on the handle of his broom. This was no place for his mind to be drifting. There was only one question that mattered right now: Who had the quaffle? And where was it going right now?

1.	Posting the roster for Alice, who's currently working with a wonky connection.

Seeker

This was, honestly, a hard game to gauge though Sasha was attempting to do just that.  It should be an easy game.  After all, he'd been on the team since his fourth year and he was flying against a newbie fourth year Seeker who seemed better suited to a game of marco polo.  He'd been assigned to tutor LeJean this year and had observed enough to know there was no telling how she really interpreted the rules of the game or the strategies.  Simply put, if Sasha actually lost the snitch to LeJean properly, who had a history of resorting to cheating, he'd be best off walking around the school with a paper bag over his head. 

That didn't automatically make for an easy game, though.  If anyone on the Hufflepuff team had thought about strategy, they'd have come to that conclusion, too.  Maybe not the paper bag, exactly, but they'd know the race for the snitch would be the team's Achilles heel.  If Sasha were in Angie Lemon's position, he would have told his beaters to take out the opposing Seeker as quickly as possible.

LeJean did have one advantage: the weather.  It was cold and it was raining.  They might as well be flying in the lake.  But, the Sasha ignored the chill already seeping through his team uniform as he leaned forward against the broom and hurried off in search of the snitch.  He kept one eye out for the flash of gold and the other eye out for incoming bludgers.  For the meantime, Figaro seemed focused on the chasers and a none-threat.  Either Lemon hadn't discussed strategy, Figaro had been distracted at the time, he was distracted now or he was biding his time.   

Seeker

Seemingly the inexplainable could be reasoned out if examined well enough. Like Heliotrope's instincts for snitch catching. Or in her terminology, the Gold Snidge. Before she was old enough to be on the team she was always watching the Gold Snidge in games and once almost dived off the platform to catch a wayward snidge out over the audience. And who knew why this was the case? Maybe the telltale glimmer of gold from the winged flying ball was like the gleam from a fish, like the kinds Heliotrope had learned to hunt and eat.

Maybe that was the case, but the methods of catching fish were not appreciated to Golden Snidge catching in this game. Kelp whippings, ill-timed divings off her broom, crashes into the stands and once grabbing the of-age pocket-watch from an older student had not let Helio to actually catch a snidge. Fast and determined she was as a Seeker. At last practice after the umpteenth iteration she finally understood one of the core rules of Seeker-hood: you had to catch the Gold Snidge with your hands.

She was somewhat at home in the weather today, the chill like the temperature of the depths of her loch. Though it wasn't the same kind of cold, being an airy cold with precipitation warm enough to not be considered frozen. It was an inconsistency of cold with the spattering rain. Though this wasn't the lake it seemed Helio had made herself at home up on her broom that, like herself on occasion, was colored with flecks of lake greens.

Up at her broom that was idly drifting at the absolute top of the quidditch pitch air space. Upside-down. Another quirk Helio did on the field. With her sopping wet hair dangling out of her eyes she watched the field below. Her tutor on his path. The one that called her 'Soggy-Bottom' knocking a bludger at the other team. The early scrimmage of two of the Hufflepuff Chasers and a Ravenclaw[1] going after the red ball. Even though Helio tried her best to keep her eyes on the darting Gold Snidge when it was released, she always lost it before the players were allowed to fly. Now she just circled watching everything below, watching for the snidge.

Or from her perspective, watching everything take place above her.

1.

the NPCs

CHASER

Chloe walked on to the pitch, gave Angie quite the firm handshake, and then lifted off, maintaining a good height by the center of the pitch. The Quaffle was tossed up, and Chloe snatched at it, holding it firmly in her hands, as she jetted off towards the young Hufflepuff keeper.

"We are eagles! We were made to fly!" She shouted, weaving in between a bludger. She was going to do this. For the team. For the house. For herself.

Chloe managed to dodge Figaro's bludger, but he was on the move without any sense of discouragement.  The game was still young and the bludgers would never tire.  He hunkered down on his broom and cocked his bat behind him, ready to swing.

Figaro caught a lucky break and the second bludger was coming his way.  SMACK!  Fig got a good angle on it and sent yet another bludger at Chloe who was heading towards the hoops.

Watching her team with a careful eye,  Angie let out a wince. Chloe was coming at her with the Quaffle after dodging Fig's bludger. Frick. She would have loved to watch the Ravenclaw fall off of her broom. Maybe break her nose. For a pacifist, Angie was feeling pretty violent.

"Helio!" She shouted as she got ready to defend her hoops, "STOP MESSING AROUND!" Their seeker was upside down and didn't appear to be looking for anything but the interactions between players. The Captain growled as she hunkered down on her broom and got her game face on.

The Hufflepuff chasers were hot on Chloe's tail as Fig sent another bludger her way. She was pretty darn good to miss the first one, they'd see how well she did with the second one.[1]

1.	Sorry, posting from my phone. Possible grammar/ color errors. Sowwwwy.

Chloe hadn't seen the other bludger, but she sure did feel it as it collided with her shoulder blade, sending the Quaffle to fall out of her hands.


She fumbled a little, rotating her shoulder and making sure nothing was dislocated, before diving off towards the red ball.

It took little more than a quick glance towards the other Seeker to reveal the extent of the differences between their approaches to the game and to seeking (and, probably, to life itself).  LeJean was hanging, upside down, from her broom and watching the game below her.  Or, above her.  Depending on one's individual perspective.  As if their approaches needed even more differentiation. 

The Ravenclaw shook his head and turned back to the task.  While LeJean's seeking strategies may have had their roots in fishing, Sasha's came from years of competitive riding and, more specifically, polo: cover ground, don't worry about speed or direction (motor skill responses in his muscles would react several times faster than his brain) and keep an eye out for that small and swift ball.  He flattened himself against his broom and picked up speed, weaving between the other flyers with ease. 

He only drew to a halt at the Ravenclaw's end of the pitch, Alvis hovering by the goal hoops.  Chloe was making a run for the Hufflepuff's goals.  He watched as Figaro belted a bludger towards the Chaser.  "Ah! Schade!" He cast a sympathetic scowl to Alvis and waited just long enough to see Chloe recover and with a parting "good luck!" to Alvis took off again. 

As he worked his way down the field, it occurred to Sasha that LeJean did have one advantage he hadn't previously considered: her reactions were far from predictable.  Though there was always some variation in player's styles, most fell into some established strategic patterns.  Just assuming they held true for LeJean would could be a fatal error.  As long as the snitch remained elusive, it was worth getting to know what her playing style was. 

Test 1: Reaction to a feint.  Though the snitch remained elusive, Sasha suddenly swerved ninety degrees and took off towards the center of the field. 

"HELIO, STOP MESSING AROUND!" The call briefly caused Heliotrope to watch the team captain make way for picking up the quaffle if the bludger use succeeded. She wasn't quite sure how one caused messes on a broomstick. If a mess could even be made in midair the freezing rain would wash it away. She resumed scanning the field, passing players being the only noticeable features in lieu of the tiny object of her search.

Then she noticed her tutor, the rival seeker, make a sharp turn and fly off in a perpendicular direction. Helio tugged at her broom to point downward. If something else was hunting the same thing as you the hunt could turn into a race. Helio dived from her high altitude, the broom's acceleration and the pull of gravity bringing her to great speed as she fell in line with Sasha's trail.

A trail she followed until, after a couple of seconds filled with specks of rain nailing her face, she diverged from his path at an acute angle because she thought she had seen the golden glint of something.

The game was off into full swing and Hooch found herself holding her breath, just waiting for something to go wrong.  Either rule-breaking antics from Sellaphix, some sort of tidal wave from LeJean, or an earnest disaster out of Schlagenweit.  But... the game played on and it looked like... real Quidditch!  She smiled and continued to follow the action.

The crowd went "Oooh!" as Chloe Harris took a bludger to the shoulder.  But Hooch had seen worse and Harris was still flying.

The match moved on - Hufflepuff regained control of the quaffle and took a shot on Ravenclaw's goals.  Would a bludger, chaser or keeper interfere?

"Ooh..." Alvis winced in sympathy at Chloe's blow to the shoulder. He spared a moment to salute Sasha as the Seeker shot off, but that was all he had time for before a Hufflepuff chaser came barreling towards him with quaffle in hand.

He ran the angles in his head. No sign of blue robes nearby, so there wasn't a clean shot for a deflection from this position, he'd just be knocking it back to the Hufflepuffs if he tried. Shooting for open air was no good either, it'd be harder to predict the rebound. But with a bit of adjustment and the wind at the right angle...yes.

At the throw, Alvis pulled up sharply, coming up from underneath to jab the quaffle with his left elbow. The ball popped up, clear over the top of the hoop. With his feet braced against the kickstands, Alvis hit the breaks and let the wind blow him backwards through the hoop to the other side. He held off just long enough to make sure his whole body was through -- and out of flacking distance -- before pulling both hands off the broom and bumping the quaffle volleyball-style with as much force as he could muster.

The quaffle arched up, cleared the top of the hoops by a good three feet and kept going, out of the Ravenclaw scoring area and into the arena proper. A flash of blue shot by as one of the Ravenclaw chasers snatched the quaffle in mid-flight and shot off towards the Hufflepuff goals.

Alvis dropped five feet before he got his modded Cleansweep back on track. He flew back around to the front of the goals, pushing his glasses up his nose. His limbs tingled with adrenaline and he grinned. "One down. Just try it again."

Alvis, that post was glorious!

Norling blocked the shot and Figaro rolled his eyes.  The action had quickly shifted and the beaters were due back on defense.  He turned his broom around quickly as he could to track down a bludger and get an angle on the Ravenclaw Chasers.

But wait - he remembered something Dominik Weidman always did in his matches.  He never let the Seekers rest.  With a grin, he found Sasha in the sky and angled himself behind a bludger. 

"Watch your back, Schlagenweit!" he called as he sent a bludger towards him with a whack!