"A Little Extra Practice"
Who: Eru, Marston
Where: Hogwarts Quidditch Pitch
When: 25 September 2008
Synopsis: Eru and Marston grab a few minutes of extra practice after
the rest of the team's left for breakfast.
Logger: Marston Crewes

It's early in the morning. Far more early than most students would
like to be up on a Saturday. Practice is just wrapping up for the
Hufflepuff Quidditch team, though. Eru has just come out of the locker
rooms. He's still dressed in his canary yellow sports robes and
carrying his broom, but he did bother to shower. He doesn't head back
to the castle right away, lingering on the field.

Hufflepuff's new Keeper is still in his sport robes, too.
Unfortunately, he is far less clean. Marston's hair is sticking up all
over the place and his face is streaked with sweat. He doesn't seem to
have left the pitch yet. Standing on the ground with his broom against
his shoulder, he stares up at the sky, frowning and tossing a Quaffle
from hand to hand.

"Eh?" Eru hollers at Marston with a wave of his hand, mounting his
broom and propelling himself across the pitch, toward the Keeper. He
keeps low and flies slowly, even lazily. As if just enjoying the
sensation now that the actual work is done. "You lose something up
there, Crewes?" he asks with a grin.

Marston looks a bit startled as Eru approaches. He shakes his head.
"No, Captain," he replies, looking at the ground off to the side. "I'm
just running through some of the plays again. I didn't fly well today,
I'm sorry." Marston tries to wipe some of the sweat off his forehead,
leaving a streak of dirt behind.

Eru snorts at that, going into a low hover near Marston. He shrugs.
"You don't have to call me 'Captain.' It sounds weird. Like I'm on a
boat or something. Just Croft is fine. Or Eru. I like both well
enough. Anyhow, don't sweat it. Most of us have been flying together
for a couple years. It'll take you and the new Chasers a bit to catch on."

"Oh. Sorry about that, um, C-Croft." Marston looks a little
uncomfortable with that last word, as if it tasted funny. He lets it
slide, though, and continues. "Thanks. I'm trying. I don't want to let
the team down."

Eru makes a furrow-y sort of face at the way Marston says his name. As
if trying to figure something odd about it. Finally, he just shrugs
again. "Like I said, don't worry. You can ask any of us if you've got
any questions about how things're run. It's my job, at least. I don't
expect you all to be grand at once. I wanted younger folks on the
team. Both me and Sasha Koslov are graduating next year, and Bev
Jaubert's a fifth year - getting up there. We need players who're
going to stick around for a time, when we're all gone."

Marston smiles for the first time during the exchange. "Well, I do fit
the bill in that regard," he says, a little dryly. He sighs and looks
back at the sky. "Thanks, though. This is a lot more intense than
Junior Quidditch, and that year I worked on my own did me no favors."
He looks up at the older boy. "Do you know any ways to enchant
Quaffles to try to fly through the goals at random? So I can get in
some extra hours on my own?"

Eru shrugs. "I suppose you could, though it'd take some pretty complex
flying charms to do it. And it still wouldn't be a very good match of
the real thing. Get Mandy Bailey or Fletcher Howell, or the other
Chaser, to practice with you. You can game a charm easy enough but
people are harder to figure." As most of the Chasers have gone inside
already he offers, "I can throw it at you a few times, if you want.
I'm no Chaser, but I can give it a go. I'm not tired of flying yet."

"Really?" Marston's face and voice are undeniably hopeful. "I'd really
appreciate that." He holds the Quaffle out to Eru. "I'll make sure I
get the others to throw it for me, too. A flying charm good enough is
probably far too messy for me to try."

"Sure," Eru says, tucking the quaffle under his arm and vaulting
himself into the air. He flies up toward the goal hoops nearest them,
though he doesn't get too close right away. Hanging outside the
scoring area until Marston is in position.

Marston immediately swings his leg over his broom and darts into
position in front of the hoops, calling out a "Thanks!" as he goes. He
leans over his broom just slightly and waits for the ball to come at
him, eyes narrowed a bit.

"No worries!" Eru calls, flying in close and lobbing the quaffle
toward the center hoop. The shot is aimed well enough, though he makes
no attempt at faking or curving throws. Clearly more used to hitting
things than sneaking something past a goal-keeper.

Marston zooms over and scoops the ball out of the air before it can go
through the hoop, careful to tuck it against his chest to avoid
dropping it. "Got you." He turns and throws it back to Eru. The tail
end of his broom drifts a little to the left as he waits for the next
ball to come at him.

Eru nods at that catch, with some satisfaction, getting in position so
Marston can throw the ball back to him easily. "Watch your drift
there, Crewes. You don't want to let yourself get too far away from
where you'r etrying to be."

Marston looks extremely embarrassed. "Sorry about that," he says,
watching the ball arc back to Eru. He glares briefly at the brush of
the broom, and then shifts a little. The drift lessens, but by no
means disappears. "It's been doing that for a week."

Eru catches the ball easily enough, eyeing Marston's broom critically.
"You still using one of the school ones?" he asks. "Some of them have
got some weird little crooks to them."

Marston looks even more embarrassed. "No, it's mine," he says lightly,
trying not to sound too disgusted. "Mum sent it to me after I made the
team. I think she got it secondhand somewhere. It flies all right," he
adds hastily, as if defending his mother, "just that little drift,
that's all."

Eru appears more concerned about the broom than Marston's mum. "You
should have Madam Hooch take a look at it. Or I could take it into the
broom shop in Hogsmeade on the next weekend if you want. Broom
control's probably the most important part of being a Keeper. Got to
be in the right spot at the right time. What model is it?"

"It's a Comet 320," Marston replies. "It looked brand-new when I got
it, even though it's old. Whoever owned it took good care of it. I
didn't think you could get rid of a drift, though, so I've just been
compensating. Is that really bad?" He looks at Eru, extremely
concerned. "I don't really have the gold to do an overhaul on my broom."

"It's not ideal..." Eru admits, his eyes widening with mild alarm when
Marston names the broom's model. "A 320?" He flies closer, so he can
get a better look at the thing. "I've never even seen one of them.
Though I knew a couple blokes who'd held onto their 260s and they did
alright. So it'll likely be OK." Another shrug. "The flyer's more
important than the broom, anyhow. I think I flew best on my old
Cleansweep Millennium, and there are lots of people who say it's a
kid's broom."

Marston smiles a little, his worry apparently slightly abating. "I
guess as long as the broom goes where you want it," he says. "I don't
have any trouble with it. I'll take it to Madam Hooch this week,
though. Hopefully she won't be too busy and it won't be hard to fix."
"Aye," Eru affirms with a nod. Both to the 'going where you want' bit
and the part about taking it to Madam Hooch. He winds up for another
throw, going for the far left hoop this time. He manages to put a lot
of force behind the ball, lack of Chaser strategy or not.

Well, he claimed he could get the broom to do what he wanted, and now
he has to prove it. Marston spins and streaks towards the goal,
sticking his right hand out just in time and halting the quaffle's
progress. The ball bounces off his hand and nearly drops, but Marston
manages to grab on with his left hand. Certainly not as neat a save
that time, but it got the job done. Marston throws the ball back to Eru.

Eru allows himself a grin at that save, flying over to catch the ball.
"Well, maybe your broom's not /too/ broken," he allows. Though he
still sounds skeptical. "Which JQ team did you play for? I was on
London, myself. Not that my tenure was too shining. They used to make
me play Seeker a lot." He grimaces. "That wasn't pretty."

"You played Seeker? Really?" Marston seems to be trying very hard not
to smile at that. "I was the Greater-London-Southern-England team," he
says. "My brother played, too, and my sister's still there." He shifts
back to his original spot in the center and readies himself for the
next throw.

Eru snorts. "They made us play everything," Eru says darkly. "I did
best at Keeping and Beating, but I had longer arms than a lot of the
other kids, so the coach thought it'd help me with grabbing snitches.
It didn't." He speaks no more of his Seeking experience, hurling the
ball back at the middle hoop this time.

"Well, right, I played Beater once," Marston says. He shoots downward,
catching the ball against his chest with a thud. He lets out a small
grunt and tosses it back to his captain. "That was a disaster. Fleta's
much better than me, even if she's tiny. Don't know why."

"Girl Beaters can be scary," Eru says, taking on a martyred sort of
tone. "I'm friends with a couple of them. On the other House teams.
They're solid at hitting things. Though it's best not to cross them if
you see them with their bats off the field." The ball is lobbed again,
with even more force this time, toward the left hoop.

Marston lets a peal of laughter escape him, a moment that costs him a
save - he speeds after the ball and reaches out, making a swipe for
it, but the Quaffle is going too fast. It brushes past his fingers and
flies straight through the hoop. Marston gives a yell of
disappointment and flies after the quaffle, snarking a stream of
inventive scoldings at himself that include things such as, "Moldy
peas and fuzzy mushrooms, I should have had that one!"

Eru chuckles at the cursing. He indulges in a momentary look of
triumph at getting a shot through, before he remembers this is
supposed to be for Marston's benefit. "Relax. You can't stop them all.
Just try and stop most of 'em. Our Chasers and Seeker'll do their bits
keeping the score in our favor. And Koslov and I will lob bludgers at
everyone else."

Marston comes up with the ball and returns to playing height, throwing
it back to Eru. He is unable to hold back a smile. "Yessir," he says,
saluting. "I will do my best." He wipes some more sweat from his
forehead, leaving another dirt streak, and waits for the next one. A
determined look is on his grimy face and he grips his broom tightly.

Eru smirks a bit. "You don't have to call me 'sir'," he says. In a
tone that suggests he'd much prefer Marston not. He catches the
quaffle, but pitches it straight back at the Keeper. "You look like
you're shaping up just fine. You can stay and practice if you like,
but I've got to be heading in. I want to see if there's any breakfast
left. The house elves don't clear if as quick on the weekends."

Marston catches the ball easily. "All right," he says. "I am getting
kind of hungry." As if in agreement, his stomach grumbles. He grins
sheepishly and adds, "And I look a fright. Thanks for the extra
practice, it was good."

"Anytime," Eru says, angling his broom back toward the ground. "Come
along if you like. There's usually some good scraps left." That said
he lands, then heads back into the castle.

Marston throws the ball as hard as he can straight up and zooms in the
opposite direction, towards the ground. At about ten feet from the
grass, he stops, turns around, and watches the ball. It reaches the
top of its arc and begins to fall. Without waiting a second longer,
Marston speeds towards the Quaffle as fast as he can, letting go of
the broom at the last moment and catching the quaffle in both arms. He
tumbles backwards, doing one complete somersault, then pulls himself
out of it and heads towards the locker room, grinning a little and red
in the face. "Keeper for Hufflepuff House, Marston Crewes," he says
softly. "Hogwarts hero, one save at a time." He lands, swings the
broom up on his shoulder, and trots off to a highly anticipated shower.