Defying Gravity (OPEN!)

Hunter had been back at Hogwarts for a short while, but up until this moment he hadn't gotten a chance to do the one thing that he'd been truly looking forward to - flying! He'd been so caught up in seeing his friends again and going to classes that it just hadn't happened. So now that he had a few hours of freedom, he made the decision to grab his Nimbus 2000 and a quaffle and slip away to the Quidditch Pitch. After all, he wanted to be ready for Quidditch season when it began - not to mention, he couldn't wait to feel the elation that came from flying again!

There wasn't anyone in the pitch when he arrived, and the moment he stepped foot on the turf he threw a leg over his broom and pushed off, his quaffle tucked tightly under his arm. A grin immediately spread over his face as he drifted forward, the wind sweeping his hair back from his face. He sped around the pitch a few times, just enjoying the feel of being in the air. It was a relieving feeling, and for the first time since he'd arrived at Hogwarts all of his confusion and frustration about how much things - and people - had changed left his mind. It was so easy to just let it all go when he was flying. The problem was, why couldn't he keep his head this well when he was on the ground?

It didn't matter at the moment, though. Turning his attention toward the goalposts, Hunter zoomed across the field and chucked the quaffle toward the rightmost one. He smirked to himself as the ball flew straight through it. Not that it was very hard to score a goal without a keeper trying to stop him. Quidditch was strange - quite like a mix of soccer and basketball. In the air. Breathing in happily, Hunter went to retrieve his ball and take a few more shots, completely oblivious to the world around him.

Already, Aoife missed Jack, her partner in crime and secret best friend. Maybe he didn't know that. Maybe nobody knew that. But it was true. At least she had his git of a brother, Hunter. Where was Hunter? She'd seen him at breakfast, but not since the. Oh well, he was probably off with Blake, eating. Because that was what he did. And since she wasn't hungry and hated to be around Blake, she decided to go outside, like usual.

As she was walking down the stairs from the Gryffindor tower, she remembered her brand new, shiny Comet 260. Maybe it wasn't the newest model, but it was a huge improvement on the horrible school brooms. In first-year, she wasn't allowed to have her own broom. In second-year, she had no real need since she wasn't in the team until a few weeks in. This year, she'd finally convinced her parents how much she needed one. It was amazing. Hunter's broom was better, but she was still proud of her Comet.

Okay, so she'd need her broom and her huge beater's bat. Aoife ran quickly back up the stairs, collected them and then skipped down again, towards the quidditch pitch. When she arrived, it was nice to see someone with very floppy hair up on a broom. he was too good at throwing to be Hunter. Maybe Tor? Or Oliver? Ryland? It was a shock to discover that it actually was her best friend up there. He'd got better since tryouts last year.

Unfortunately, she hadn't had any time for flying this year so was probably a bit out of practice. Still, the redhead was quick enough to mount her broom and fly up high. Hunter couldn't be having much fun without a keeper. She was no keeper herself, but perhaps she could manage to catch that one ball before it went through the hoops. Very dramatically, she steered her broom forward and dived for the quaffle.

No. It still went through the hoops. "I'm a beater," she shrugged lightly, waving her bat around madly. just to prove the point, yeah.

Hunter was glad to find that he hadn't lost any of his skill since the last time he'd flown. He looped around easily and chucked another ball toward the goals, this time toward the left one - and he was completely caught off guard when a flash of red rushed past him and dove fiercely at the quaffle he'd just thrown. He raised an eyebrow at Aoife as she missed the save and the quaffle sailed through it's target. A smirk played onto his lips when she pointed out that she was a beater and wasn't meant to stop the quaffle.

"A very small beater," he added. Though she'd grown in height, she was still rather tiny and Hunter still wasn't so sure how she'd gotten the spot. "So where are your flying magical spheres of doom?" he asked, referring to the bludgers.

Where had she come from, anyway? He hadn't even heard her show up. His smirk faded a little as his mind wrapped quickly around the fact that Aoife had showed up and was floating midair a few yards away from him. Of all people to show up, it had to be Aoife - he'd come to get his mind off of her, and it had been working. Why couldn't Blake or Ryland or one of his other teammates turned up? Or anyone who wasn't a girl? Hunter hated girls right now because they were distracting the hell out of him. Even right now. And it was irritating.

"What are you doing here, anyway? Don't you have other things to do? Like campaign for your sheep charity and whatnot?" While the words themselves were a joke, Hunter felt like a bit of coldness crept into his tone when he said them. Because it was her fault that he was so confused all the time. Had she even noticed that Hunter had been avoiding her more lately? He let out a sigh, because he didn't want to offend Aoife but he really wanted her to leave. But at the same time he really didn't want her to leave at all.

It was annoying that she hadn’t caught the ball. Also she had plenty of reasons to justify it, making excuses sucked. Even though she could tell Hunter that it was because she only had her weaker hand to use (with her bat in her right) and because she’d come from a long distance away to make a difficult dive. What was annoying was Hunter’s face. It was just so distracting because it was so ugly. No, his hair was too beautiful to miss. He was probably amused that she’d missed so terribly. The quaffle was nowhere near her hands. It wasn’t bad luck, it was a failed attempt. Aoife didn’t like failing at anything, least of all in quidditch.

“I’m still not small!” she protested, shooting a glare at Hunter. Average size! Slightly above, even! “I finally got my growth spurt! And I’m so TALL now!” It was true, her “best friend” was just an evil git. He couldn’t stand the fact that she was taller than him, and also had nicer hair. So he said mean stuff because he was so JEALOUS of her looks. He was just as bad as Seren! Well, maybe not. He’d have to be very bad to be as bad as Seren.

Good point, where were the bludgers? “In the shed, I’ll go down and get them.” She retrieved the quaffle first, chucking it up to Hunter. Then Aoife flew quickly down to the shed where the school brooms and quidditch equipment were kept. Since there was only her as a beater, she just grabbed the one ball, then watched as it flew out onto the pitch. She was quick to follow and give the ball a good whack, happy to release her balled-up anger about her brother being a git, doing badly in Potions and missing the quaffle. This was good therapy. “I’m a great beater because I use quidditch as an opportunity to pretend I’m hitting you and Seren and Blake and Michael and Professor Henley!” she grinned, once she got back up to Hunter.

Was it just her or did Hunter’s words sound a bit like they weren’t a joke? What had she done wrong? Had she said anything to offend him? Her smile faded a little bit, but she didn’t say anything. “I thought… I could do with some practice,” she replied, not as light-hearted at she’d intended them to be. Oh great, maybe Hunter would think she had something against him now. Maybe he hadn’t meant it spitefully at all.

Oh well, she wasn’t going to worry about Hunter. He didn’t have to practice with her if he felt like being a git.

Aoife didn't seem to appreciate Hunter's smirk - or his comment. He raised an eyebrow at the red-head as she pointed out how tall she was. "You may have gotten taller, but you're still about half my size," he told her, laughing. Honestly, she couldn't weigh more than a hundred pounds. Hunter considered that pretty small. "I could lift you with one hand." That was a bit of an exaggeration, but it made his point.

Hunter swooped down to catch the quaffle when Aoife tossed it up to him and went to practice a dive when she disappeared into the shed. He made a wide, climbing circle, and when he was high enough from the ground he dropped into a dive, forcing the handle of his broom downward. He grinned as the wind rushed past his face, and he held the dive until he was a few yards from the ground. It wasn't nearly as impressive as the professional quidditch players who performed flawless Wronski Feints, but it was fun!

Hunter feigned a hurt voice when Aoife said that she pretended that the bludger was him. "Is that supposed to mean that you detest me as much as Blake and Seren? That's a bit low, don't you think?" Of course, Hunter didn't detest Blake and Seren at all. But Aoife hated them with a burning passion, so to be categorized with them was a bit of an insult. But Hunter knew she didn't mean it quite that way.

The moment the words were out of Hunter's mouth, he regretted them. Aoife's smile faltered, and she responded much less enthusiastically than before. Good job, you hurt her feelings, you git, Hunter thought to himself. It really wasn't fair of him to take everything out on Aoife, so he did his best to recover from the rough patch that he'd caused. "Well, you won't get much practice aiming at the sky. Want a moving target?" Hunter asked, giving her a grin that he hoped would return the normalcy to the conversation. He was pretty sure that offering to let Aoife hit a heavy flying ball at him repeatedly would be enough to make up for his mean tone. "Not that you'll ever hit me. I'm too fast," he joked, leaning forward on his broom and jolting away from her, bumping her playfully with his elbow as he passed.

Aoife was aware that her constantly commenting on how tall she'd grown could be annoying, but surely not so much as when Hunter insisted she was REALLY small in comparison to him and she didn't weigh much and bla bla bla. What she needed now was another growth spurt, this time making her so much taller than her best friend that he couldn't possibly deny it. She just shook her head. If she carried on, they could probably argue for hours on the subject.

Hunter was still as stupid as ever, so she still had to go over her insults for him. "I don't hate you nearly that much," she chuckled. That would be ridiculous, only Seren and Blake deserved that much angry hatred! "I dislike you about as much as I dislike my brothers. They suck and most of the time I feel like smashing their faces in with a bat, but I lov- like them really. I guess it's a bit like that with you." She had almost forgotten that this was a comparison to Hunter. How awkward would it be if she said love? Romance, ew, gross. The only things she LOVED were her family and sheep. Obviously.

All those times she had wanted to make Hunter's pretty little face into a messy smush? Now she had the opportunity! Immediately she forgave him for being a git on this occasion and flew slowly towards the quaffle, ready to get revenge for all the other times he'd been a git! "Yes," she agreed. First, for every time he'd mocked her for being smaller than her. Aoife held up the bat and brought it crashing down to the heavy ball. Her anger was unleashed and she watched happily as it flew in Hunter's direction. Even though he was stupid, she imagined he'd have the sense to get out of the way before it hit the target, his face. Still, a girl could dream.

Hey, would Seren still be in love with him if he had a face like a mashed potato?

"I see," Hunter said when Aoife started explaining that she didn't hate him as much as Seren. She compared him to her brothers. Was that good? Or was that bad? Hunter wasn't sure. He didn't have too much time to think about it, though, because Aoife had hit a bludger in his direction. At least she didn't seem upset anymore! It was always good to know that you could cheer your best friend up by offering to let her hit heavy balls at your head.

The first bludger was easy to dodge. Hunter laughed as he swung out to his left to avoid it. The next one was a bit of a closer call. He glanced over his shoulder and saw it hurdling toward him, and dodged just in time to hear it fly past his ear. "You can do better than that," he called to her, grinning. Unfortunately, she apparently could do better than that, because the third time she sent the bludger hurdling at him, he didn't dodge in time and the bludger caught his face mid-dive.

"ARHG!" Hunter exclaimed as the force of the hit caused him to topple from his broom. Luckily, he was at the lower part of his dive and landed unharmed in a heap on the ground. Pain instantly shot up into his head, and when he raised his hand to his nose it came away with blood. A lot of blood. And it hurt like hell, but otherwise he actually seemed to be fine. "Good hit," he said weakly from his spot on the ground, reaching up again to feel his broken nose again.

First bludger failed miserably. Aoife shrugged. It was a first try, and it seemed Hunter was going to let her carry on hitting bludgers at his face. Second one was slightly better. But he still dodged it. She sighed, but took a pause to determine how she was going to go about this. His strategy seemed to be to dive out of the way. In the same sort of direction. So if she aimed the bludger slightly in that direction, she had more chance of it hitting him.

And it worked! Yes! "Much better!" she cheered. But then she stopped cheering. Because Hunter had fallen off his broom and landed on the floor. It was a soft part, though, so he'd be alright. Aoife held back a laugh at his fall as she neatly caught her bludger and flew down to check if he'd broken his arm or anything. Probably not, the fall didn't look so bad from up there.

But when she got down there, she winced at the blood all over the floor. Looked painful. "Don't touch your nose!" she exclaimed. How would that help anything?! Er... what was that spell she successfully used on a broken pencil the other day? It couldn't do any harm. Maybe it would even help? "Reparo!" Suddenly Hunter's nose looked even worse. Oh, of course! "The charm is suitable for use only on inanimate objects. Serious scarring can result if is were cast on a person or animal in an attempt to heal wounds."

"Oops," she murmured. "Maybe you should go to the Hospital Wing?"

Okay, broken noses really hurt. Hunter had broken his nose before, but never by getting hit in the face by a hurdling metal ball that was trying to attack him. "I can touch it if I want to, it's my nose!" Hunter replied when Aoife yelled at him for touching it. What was she, his mother? He could actually hear his mother in his head, chiding him for not being careful.

"Wait, what are you doing?" Hunter asked Aoife suspiciously as she knelt down in front of him and pulled out her wand. But before he could decide whether or not he could trust her, she was waving it at his face and muttering something. Reparo! That made sense, didn't it? Just as Hunter was convincing himself that it would be fine, the spell took effect and a searing pain shot through his nose. And he was pretty sure it wasn't because it was healing.

"I don't think that helped," Hunter grunted, wincing at the pain. His thoughts were confirmed when Aoife said oops like it was no big deal. Who knew what his face looked like? "Right," he said. That was probably a good idea. "Could you take my broom up to the common room with you, then? I'll see you there later." As he was leaving, he managed a grin at Aoife, who didn't seem to feel the slightest bit bad that she'd destroyed his face. "I'd say your aim's improving at least!" he said in the brightest voice he could manage before taking off for the hospital wing.