Formation Flying on Quidditch Pitch

Holly Greer

May 21, 2009 1:23 PM

Formation Flying by Holly Greer

The first week back was always the worst. That was when she most sharply missed Wendy. She rode her horse every day over the summer and the sudden cessation of her favorite activity in the world was hard. The only thing that made it bearable at all was to climb onto a broom and pretend it smelled like horse.

She went out to the broom shed, found the broom she usually used for these maneuvers, and headed out for the Pitch instead of the Gardens. Later, when the separation wasn't so sharp, she could just ride along the Garden Paths, but right now, she needed something a little more formalized.

Holly straddled the broom and brought it to a hover about five feet over the ground, about the height of Wendy's back. She began going through the motions of a parade exhibition, nudging the broom with her knees as though it were a live horse and pulling at an imaginary set of reins. She was even wearing her equestrian uniform - boots, chaps, riding jacket, and English helmet.

She made a turn and realized she was no longer alone. How long the other had been there, she had no idea, but she brought her flight to a motionless hover and absently patted the broom as she would have done for Wendy, and nodded in greeting. "Hello." She even smiled. Just because she was missing Wendy was no reason to be impolite.

1 Holly Greer Formation Flying 123 Holly Greer 1 5

Grayson Wright

May 25, 2009 9:32 PM

That sounds very difficult, and I am impressed. by Grayson Wright

Over the summer, an idea had slowly started to form in the back of Gray's mind. Maybe it was the product of a delayed and slightly skewed form of sibling rivalry. Maybe all was explicable as a teenager rebelling against his established role in society. Maybe, as Gray himself thought, it was an instance of genuine temporary insanity. No one, after all, had ever accused many Wrights of being mentally stable.

Whatever it was, it was strong enough a force to remove him from his books and take him to the last spot on campus Gray would have ever expected to go without compulsion. He could see breaking into one of the other common rooms for a dare, but it had never crossed his mind until the day before that he might actually go down to the Pitch for no good reason.

So far, his visit wasn't going well. Since he didn't own a broom of his own and Anne, though she hadn't touched it in all the weeks since she'd graduated, had never allowed him near hers unsupervised, he'd had to make a quick side trip to the broom shed. As he was even less skilled in the ways of the pathfinder than he was at making speeches, the side trip took much longer than it should have done. Then, once he found the shed, he realized he knew nothing about makes of brooms and had been forced to select one at random. The stage had been set for a moment of wondering what on earth he was doing before he actually got onto the Pitch, and it came right on cue.

He was Grayson Wright, hopeless geek extraordinaire. He had written a play, for Merlin's sake, and regularly gave names to the animals in Care of Magical Creatures. He was at or a hair's breadth from the top of his year academically and at the very bottom socially; his only friend was Lucie Dupree, whose surname and House and general eccentricity gave her a pass on the usual rules, and the girl he liked probably had no idea he existed. He wore glasses and could barely walk a line without tripping over something. The last time that he had checked, none of that screamed 'Quidditch star'.

But the House needed players. And he - well, he didn't need his father to finally be just proud of something he did and not slightly bemused, but it would be nice. Besides, this was just a test run to see if he could figure out some way to get on the broom, make the broom move, and not fall. If it went awry, no one would ever have to know he'd come.

Gray sighed and gave the old-looking broom in his hand a glum look. "It's just you and me now," he informed it.

That wasn't, however, quite true. Someone else had come out to the Pitch. Someone he knew, albeit only by sight. It was a little odd to see her dressed the way she was at present, and odder to see her flying in some kind of pattern at five feet, but he was definitely looking at Holly Greer.

He decided it was probably better to go. There was no way he was going to try what he'd had in mind with a witness, and if Holly had wanted an audience, he figured she would have brought it with her when she came. Before Gray could follow that very sensible course of action, though, Holly spotted him.

"Uh - hi, Holly," Gray said, trying to hide the broom he'd picked behind him and wondering if he could toss it into a row of bleachers without making a loud and very indiscreet clatter. "Didn't know you were down here." The last thing, the very last thing, he needed was for fourth year's oddly popular resident neurotic to think he was stalking her. He considered hightailing it, but thought that would look odd when he'd just arrived.

16 Grayson Wright That sounds very difficult, and I am impressed. 113 Grayson Wright 0 5

Holly Greer

May 26, 2009 10:10 AM

Practice is required by Holly Greer

Holly recognized her company as Grayson Wright. She didn't have much opinion on him one way or another. He was a bit nerdy, she thought, but with both Chelsea and Danny in Aladren, too, she wasn't going to hold that against him. But why he was here, trying to hide a broom behind his back, was beyond her. She was fairly sure he wasn't on the Aladren Quidditch team. Between Alexis and Raoul, she'd had to watch every game that was played last year.

"Didn't know you were down here, either," she returned neutrally. She waved a hand to encompass the entirety of the Pitch. "If you want to fly, I promise I won't tell anyone." She was nearly certain the Ladies censure of playing Quidditch did not include boys, but she didn't understand why it included girls, either, so if there was some reason Grayson didn't want anyone to know - which his attempt to hide his broom suggested - she wouldn't put it past the weird notions of the magical purebloods.

She wasn't entirely sure if the Ladies knew about her own penchant for broom riding, and she wasn't going to advertise it if they didn't. It wasn't Quidditch, but she wasn't certain they'd approve and she simply couldn't give it up. "Please don't tell Chelsea you saw me out here either," she requested. She doubted he interacted much with the other Ladies, but Chelsea was in his House, so it was probably best to be sure. "She's part of that WAIL thing." Holly shook her head and beetled her eyebrows as she said the last two words with frown. Her tone rose at the end, making the statement almost, but not quite, a question, as though she wasn't sure she was calling the organization by the correct name.

1 Holly Greer Practice is required 123 Holly Greer 0 5

Gray Wright

May 26, 2009 12:06 PM

As it is for most things. by Gray Wright

Apparently, his broom-hiding skills were insufficient for the task at hand. It had been worth a shot, especially as he'd grown taller over the break. Gray returned the broom to his side, hoping he was at least holding the right end of it. Holly seemed to know what she was doing, so it was very likely that she'd notice if he had it upside-down or something.

"Er - thanks," he said. "Though you'd probably have to tell the medic within five minutes."

The rationality of the statement assured him that coming to the Pitch had, indeed, been only temporary insanity. It was logic that was actually logical. Though he would need to do something to improve the skill eventually - it was always a good thing to have a back way out of a situation, and to be able to react as circumstances dictated - the reality of it was that if he hadn't learned to fly well by this point, he probably never would.

Of course, he couldn't be quite sure he'd returned to his right mind yet, because he was under the impression Holly had just asked him for a favor, and a favor relating to a person who would probably hex him on sight if he spoke to her at that. Telling Chelsea about the lunch specials had never crossed his mind, much less telling her stuff about her friends.

"Sounds like something she'd be into," Gray agreed, nodding as he misinterpreted the hint of a question at the end. "No problem. About not telling her, I mean." He looked over her odd ensemble and low height above the ground again. He was, of course, no expert, but neither resembled anything he had seen in three years of watching Aladren games. "What are you doing, anyway?"

16 Gray Wright As it is for most things. 113 Gray Wright 0 5

Holly Greer

May 26, 2009 1:03 PM

I have noticed that as well by Holly Greer

Holly smiled a little at his comment that he was going to need a medic within five minutes, taking it to be a joke or an exaggeration. She didn't recall Grayson killing himself during the Flying Lessons during first year, but then, she hadn't really been paying him much attention.

She nodded and the smile turned a bit relieved when he promised not to tell Chelsea. She was about to explain that she wasn't actually doing anything unladylike, the request for non-disclosure notwithstanding, when he gave her a perfect opportunity to do just that.

She touched a finger to her riding helmet, tipping it back just a tiny bit, and explained, "Back home, before I knew I was a witch, I used to be on the Equestrian Team at my private muggle school. I have a beautiful white mare named Wendy at my Dad's house, and she's who I miss most when I come back to Sonora." Holly patted her broom. "There aren't any horses here, so I make do with what riding materials are available." She shrugged. "Pecari, you know. We adapt."

She gave another gesture around the Pitch. "So I'm practicing one of my dressage routines now. It helps the homesickness. And keeping in practice so I don't forget the maneuvers is good, too, even though I won't be in another competition until next summer."

Holly nodded toward the broom he had stopped trying to hide after she'd given her promise not to tell what he was up to. As she'd already dismissed the possibility of it being Quidditch that brought him out here, and he didn't recognize her equestrian outfit, she had only one other guess as to what people did on brooms. "What about you? Are you a secret broom acrobat or something? You don't have to tell if you don't want to," she hurried to add, in case he really was embarrassed, though she thought aerial acrobatics on a broom would be very cool. She would have taken lessons had she known where to go looking for them, if they even existed.\r\n\r\n

1 Holly Greer I have noticed that as well 123 Holly Greer 0 5

Gray Wright

May 30, 2009 4:42 PM

Very observant. by Gray Wright

To Gray's surprise, Holly didn't seem offended. He thought, in retrospect, that minding his own business about what she was doing would have been the more correct thing, but there was no help for it now.

His half-formed thoughts of a conspiracy involving a secret league of ostensibly WAIL-oriented girls who dabbled in the forbidden art of Quidditch were, however, quickly disproven by her explanation of her activities. Even he knew that the theory had been improbable, but a year ago, Gray would have said the same of the idea that Anne would drop the game and refuse to even say why. Improbable did not mean impossible.

"That's cool," Gray said when Holly finished. He was, in fact, impressed; if it took effort to stay on a broom that couldn't think for itself, he could imagine how much more it would take to stay on a horse, which could and did think. He wasn't quite sure about what all the things she'd said meant - dressage routine? - but it was still impressive.

His theory about the improbable not being the same thing as the impossible took a beating when Holly offered her theory on why he was there, though. Gray couldn't help but laugh at the visual that brought up, then realized how that might sound. He really was determined to offend her, wasn't he? "Sorry," he apologized. "But - no, no, uh, acrobatics." He shook his head at the broom. "Just temporary insanity. I blame Anne. She wanted me to join the Aladren team and help out the source of all annoyance." Gray had never been fond, to put it mildly, of Geoff Layne. He suspected Geoff wasn't his biggest fan, either.

16 Gray Wright Very observant. 113 Gray Wright 0 5