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gooseberryhigh2017-10-27 12:20 am
of_mice_and_men) wrote in gooseberryhigh2017-10-27 12:20 am
Entry tags:
(no subject)
Who: Avery and Evangeline
What: extra chaser practice
When: Friday, October 27
Where: Quidditch Pitch
Warnings/Rating: pgish, maybe language?
Eve was still flying high on the feeling of winning a game the Sunday before. She'd spent her entire life emerged in quidditch. It was a main part of her culture. But, American quidditch was also different from hers. The rules were all relatively the same, but there was a history to how Gooseberry played their quidditch. Game plays and acknowledgement and strategy that was unique to Gooseberry, that Eve hadn't been around to learn before this year.
Which was why she'd asked Avery for extra practice, to become familiar with it. But more important than becoming familiar, she needed to become comfortable with it and with Avery as her captain. She had to apply how she understood and played quidditch to how Gooseberry did and do better.
“Thanks for meeting me, mate,” she said as they made their way down to the pitch.
Avery was, of course, very pleased with her teammates. They had done fantastically the day before given how tough Azurcrest’s fight was, and how new they all were to not just the sport, but each other and the team. Of course, Peyton and Evangeline both had parents who played Quidditch and were more immersed in it than some, but for Evangeline - her knowledge and plays were more specific to the types played abroad. Still, she’d done a great job and Avery couldn’t have been happier.
“No problem, Ev. I’m always happy to do extra practices.” She replied easily, and she meant it. Quidditch meant a lot to Avery, and seeing as she spoke to a scout last year and was likely to be scouted this year for professional teams after she graduated, she wanted to be on top form all the time. It was like a whole new level of obsession had developed on her. Winning was far more important than it had ever been before. At least to her anyway.
When they stepped onto the pitch, Avery held her broom next to her briefly and turned to face Eve. “So, what is it you want to work on in particular?”
Good. Eve was coming to appreciate the level of devotion toward quidditch this school had. Nothing could kill a team faster than someone who didn't care about winning. “Me speed, mostly,” she admitted. Now that they were out of classes and isolated, Eve’s accent got muddier as if she put actual effort into it when she was in front of a lot of people - which she did. She never sounded American and she never lost the edge that made it obvious which dialect she had, but it was easier to understand. In the end - it was still like clenching her hand for the entire day; toward the end of the day, it just got exhausting. So she let it get muddy outside of classes, usually in the cabin, around her dorm mates, like letting down her hair.
“Figured you're the most senior keeper at this school. I seen you in practice and at the last game. You're good. I figure me and you just about break even in terms of team playing experience. Wanna test my metal against you without leaning on the rest of the team, without the advantages of the distraction of the game, yeah?”
Eve brought her own broom with her from Hogwarts. It wasn't top of the line and it’d been several years out of date when she'd bought it. It wasn't anything fancy, but it was the first thing of import that she'd ever bought for herself and it'd done her just fine over the last few years. She had a great deal of fondness for this broom. She could be fast on it. But she wanted to see just how fast.
The accent didn’t bother her at all. Eve wasn’t the first person to come to Gooseberry with an accent and though as it got a bit muddier Avery was more keenly aware of it, she didn’t find it difficult to understand her new teammate. If anything, it made her pay a little more attention to what Eve was saying which lead to a better understanding. She nodded her head in agreement that speed was good to work on, particularly given how that - along with synchronicity - seemed to be their problem against Azurcrest.
“I made the team in my freshman year.” She said, nodding her head. She certainly was the most senior Keeper at Gooseberry, and had been playing since before she came. “I came here on a Quidditch scholarship.” It was definitely something she was proud of - and one of the reasons she worked so hard at both school and the game. It was the entire reason she was allowed at Gooseberry and failing at either meant she could lose her scholarship. Now, in her senior year, the drive was far more about winning a cup before she graduated than anything else. Particularly after how awfully it was robbed from her last year.
A grin spread over her lips at the suggestion they play one-on-one, Chaser versus Keeper. Avery was… very intense about her Keeping skills and took it as a personal failure if they didn’t win because she couldn’t stop enough goals. This was something right up her alley. She knew the odds weren’t exactly in her favor - she wouldn’t have the luxury of having other chasers or Beaters to slow down her ‘opposition.’ Still, she was excited for practice and to see how Evangeline worked without any distractions from her other teammates.
“Let’s do it, then. I’m game.” She had brought out the equipment with her and now went to open it, grabbing a single quaffle and tossing it at Eve before she took to the air. “Whenever you’re ready.” She called, steady in front of the middle hoop.
The scholarship program is what drew Eve’s eye to the school. A quidditch scholarship was what got her foot in the door, but she'd come on other feet too. Her grades, her extracurriculars, she'd been hellbent to prove she could succeed here, but like everything else in life - that needed to start with succeeding at quidditch first.
“Made the team me third year,” she said. “Came here on a quidditch scholarship meself here.” Eve ran a hand gently over her head, to ensure the bobby pins she'd used to tack down her hair in preparation for this were all still securely in place. She used them to pin back the front out of her hair. The effect it had was to make the back half of her hair stick out, but it kept her wild hair out of her eyes and had become her standard way of playing quidditch.
Eve caught the tossed quaffle and kicked off. She quickly climbed higher until she was about level with the goals.
Playing one on one like this was often difficult because a good portion of goals were made through distractions. When a keeper could see you coming at them with no interference, it took a great deal more skill to score on them. Often time it took even more skill to score on your own keeper, since that keeper ought to know your playing technique. Eve being so new to the team likely wouldn't have to worry about that part.
She didn't shoot immediately. She circled the pitch a bit, before settled at the far end, near the opposing goal posts. Like a rocket, she shot off, quickly picking up speed. She didn't slow as she approached Avery, not even when she neared her. Instead, she threw at the last second and pulled up, doing a quick high ended loop to change directions rather than having to slow.
Although she made it a point to know a lot about her teammates, Avery was disappointed she hadn’t known Ev came here on a Quidditch scholarship. She had assumed she got in based on Quidditch skill and possibly grades or community service - but honestly how could there be a question? Her uncle was the Ludovic Bagman. International Quidditch star, total legend. Avery had read all about him, even before meeting Eve. She wondered, vaguely, if Eve might be able to talk to her Uncle for her...
She ignored those thoughts, though, as they rose into the air and the threat of Eve trying to score on her became more imminent. Avery took this as a personal challenge. Whatever anyone said, Quidditch was highly genetic as well - the kids of Quidditch players, siblings of, even as in this case likely uncle to niece, if one in the family was good at Quidditch another would be as well. Avery also assumed that Eve had probably been immersed in Quidditch life from a young age, given her uncle’s fame.
Eve came at her like lightning - she was surprisingly fast for such an older broom. To be honest, Avery didn’t put too much stock in new brooms either. They were lovely of course but there was something to be said about the broom you’d been riding with for a while. It just knew you. Avery’s knew her, too, just like Eve’s seem to follow her every thought, Avery hardly had to lean sideways to get the broom to go where she wanted. Fast as she was, Eve was not fast enough to get the first goal past Avery who shot out at the last second and caught the quaffle. Not with ease, but caught nonetheless.
“Keep doing that you might scare all the other Keepers into just letting you score so you don’t run into them.”
Eve grinned a toothy grin. She was all wild hair and teeth, and she looked tiny at this distance. But the broom was tiny too, it fit her. Brooms were like wands, they felt molded and whittled down to the shape of you after a while, like they’d been yours all along, probably the only true possessions you’d ever own in this world. Those type of things were hard to come by.
She flew closer and held out her hand for the quaffle. “You were like lightning right there,” she said. “Actually thought I had you there for a sec.”
“You’ll have to try harder than that to get by me.” She replied, a little ruefully. The quaffle was easily tossed back to her teammate, and Avery went back to be steady and centered in front of the middle hoop. Eve was fast, and in all actuality she thought she might get her. She wasn’t going to tell her that, though. No, Avery was quite proud of her keeping skills and very rarely cast doubt upon herself. Only when she actually screwed up would she become even remotely self deprecating.
Ready for another go, she nodded her head towards Eve and eventually called out to the now rather tiny dot of a girl across the pitch. “Whenever you’re ready, let’s try it again!”
Eve caught the quaffle one handed and let herself gradually float back down toward the middle of the pitch. She wasn’t often self deprecating herself. It always felt needless and excessive to dwell on short comings. If you found yourself falling short, practice the fuck out of it until you didn’t, was basically how she did things. And even then, she was aware that not all people were built for certain things. No one person could do every thing possible. She couldn’t learn twenty different languages like some child prodigy might be able to, but she could do this. Quidditch was in her blood.
And so were building tiny robots - she could do that too - but they were here for quidditch.
Eve circled the pitch once more, quaffle under one arm, other hand steady on her broom. She leaned down closer to the broom, seemingly picking up speed, before she came out of the circle and made the trek back toward Avery’s goal posts. Eve changed up her tactics. It was subtle, she still came in fast and hard, but she threw with her left hand, when she had thrown with her right one last time. It pitted the ball off in the opposite direction, looking extremely close to actually missing the right most goal post. But it was a hard, solid throw.
This time, Eve was all business. There was no friendly chat and it looked like Eve was trying to analyze Avery a bit more than she was trying to fly fast. Still, Evangeline came at Avery like a bat out of hell and though Avery was able to follow her quite well, it was the change in hand and the fact that it looked like it might miss the goal post altogether that had Avery’s fingertips just barely missing the Quaffle.
It soared past her and through the goal. Avery dove down and behind the post to catch the quaffle and then circled back around to face Eve. “Much better.” She replied, steadying herself back up at the goal posts and then tossing the quaffle back to her teammate once more.
“Ambidextrous? You threw almost as well with your left as you did with your right. Does anyone else know that you can do that?” While most people could throw either way, not very many could throw accurately and so, as far as she could tell, many Chaser’s threw with the same hand every time, no matter which hoop they were going for.
It felt kind of like baseball. The difference in throwing the same pitch with the right and left literally made games. Avery’s eyes lit up like it was freakin Christmas.
Eve caught the quaffle a second time. “Nah, love, I default to my right,” she answered. “Nobody but a Bagman knows bout that. My uncle’s right handed, my pap’s left. They default to their dominant side, so it throws them off for a second when you switch it up on them. Figured it would you too” Because having a weak side was a weakness - it was an inability to rely on an entire hand as readily as you would rely on the other one and it was completely unconscious and completely unchangeable. Eve didn’t have that limitation, but this was a right handed world, from scissors to notebooks - everything was designed for that dominant hand. So Eve had adapted to that, and just defaulted to it.
“You look bout ready to have a stroke from joy there, lass,” she pointed out, but she was grinning.
Everyone defaulted to their dominant hand. It was easy, more accurate. It’s always how you learned and practiced - you didn’t practice writing with your left hand if you were right handed. Vice versa. Good athletes - no, great athletes practiced with both and were able to master both. Not everyone could do that, and though it wasn’t perfect - it was a hell of a lot closer than she had seen anyone else do it. If they could, they sure as hell were hiding it from her.
“Well hell yeah I am! That’s an ace up our sleeve there, Ev. If you can fake me out, who sees you play all the time, practices with you, knows your strengths and weaknesses better than other keepers? You’ll sure as hell be able to fake them out.” She pointed out, still looking excited as all hell. “Now how about we try that again.”
Avery wasn’t wrong. Eve hadn’t actively been trying to fake out her team, but she was new here. Evercreech likely watched the quidditch games before she got here, since his brother was on her team, but she hadn’t been playing left handed in those. To fake out everybody else would be to do simply nothing, which was the easiest thing in the world.
So Eve returned to the center of the pitch, picked up speed all over again, came at Avery like a bullet. She used her left hand to throw - a hard, solid throw, her broom canting just slightly to the side as she aimed for the left ring rather than the right this time. The ball wasn’t centered as it had been with her right hand but it was going where she was aiming it.
Avery was ready to watch both hands this time. She was noticing the tail end of the broom and which way it pointed as part of an indication of where Eve might throw. She was taking in the speeding figure as best she could and when the quaffle came her way she dove to the left - it wasn’t a clean catch, but it was a catch nonetheless. She held the ball to her chest for a moment, taking back her normal position.
“You move your broom a bit when you’re aiming somewhere. It gives you away, if the keeper is looking. Try for broom control more than speed or accuracy. I think if you throw with your right hand for now where you’re on point with accuracy, you won’t have to think so much about where you’re throwing but be able to focus on your room and body positioning.” She tossed the ball back to Eve and got ready for it again.
Eve caught the ball, nodded, taking in the critique in before moving back. She moved into her broom to put more weight behind the throw. She'd have to hit up the weight room maybe.
Eve’s face was a mask of concentration, as she switched the quaffle back to her right hand. When she came forward again, she was fast but not the rocket fast she'd been before. Her eyes were glued on Avery as she threw this time. Her broom moved a lot less this time, but the throw was still solid, a little off to the left, clearly for the left goal post. “Bit off,” she assessed, mostly to herself. Not so off that it would clear the goal post completely but off center.
It was off, but it was a good first try. Avery caught it and immediately tossed it back, telling her to go again. At least an hour slipped by as they went back and forth - in the end, Evelyn had thrown a hundred times. Avery had stopped 52 of them. All in all, she was quite impressed with the chaser and perhaps a little disappointed in herself. She should have been able to stop more, but Eve had been playing Quidditch for just as long as Avery had, and of course had been immersed in it since childhood.
When the last thrown attempt sailed cleanly through the hoop, Avery let the quaffle drop to the ground and she let out a little huff, tired. “Nice one, Bagman. I think that’s probably good for today. You know, I’m going to see if we can use some of the others on our team to play as keeper and see how they fair against you.” She commented. Avery and Evangeline now had a pretty intimate knowledge of the other’s play style, it would be difficult for either one to one up the other. But their other teammates? That might be fun.
“Let’s call it a night.”
What: extra chaser practice
When: Friday, October 27
Where: Quidditch Pitch
Warnings/Rating: pgish, maybe language?
Eve was still flying high on the feeling of winning a game the Sunday before. She'd spent her entire life emerged in quidditch. It was a main part of her culture. But, American quidditch was also different from hers. The rules were all relatively the same, but there was a history to how Gooseberry played their quidditch. Game plays and acknowledgement and strategy that was unique to Gooseberry, that Eve hadn't been around to learn before this year.
Which was why she'd asked Avery for extra practice, to become familiar with it. But more important than becoming familiar, she needed to become comfortable with it and with Avery as her captain. She had to apply how she understood and played quidditch to how Gooseberry did and do better.
“Thanks for meeting me, mate,” she said as they made their way down to the pitch.
Avery was, of course, very pleased with her teammates. They had done fantastically the day before given how tough Azurcrest’s fight was, and how new they all were to not just the sport, but each other and the team. Of course, Peyton and Evangeline both had parents who played Quidditch and were more immersed in it than some, but for Evangeline - her knowledge and plays were more specific to the types played abroad. Still, she’d done a great job and Avery couldn’t have been happier.
“No problem, Ev. I’m always happy to do extra practices.” She replied easily, and she meant it. Quidditch meant a lot to Avery, and seeing as she spoke to a scout last year and was likely to be scouted this year for professional teams after she graduated, she wanted to be on top form all the time. It was like a whole new level of obsession had developed on her. Winning was far more important than it had ever been before. At least to her anyway.
When they stepped onto the pitch, Avery held her broom next to her briefly and turned to face Eve. “So, what is it you want to work on in particular?”
Good. Eve was coming to appreciate the level of devotion toward quidditch this school had. Nothing could kill a team faster than someone who didn't care about winning. “Me speed, mostly,” she admitted. Now that they were out of classes and isolated, Eve’s accent got muddier as if she put actual effort into it when she was in front of a lot of people - which she did. She never sounded American and she never lost the edge that made it obvious which dialect she had, but it was easier to understand. In the end - it was still like clenching her hand for the entire day; toward the end of the day, it just got exhausting. So she let it get muddy outside of classes, usually in the cabin, around her dorm mates, like letting down her hair.
“Figured you're the most senior keeper at this school. I seen you in practice and at the last game. You're good. I figure me and you just about break even in terms of team playing experience. Wanna test my metal against you without leaning on the rest of the team, without the advantages of the distraction of the game, yeah?”
Eve brought her own broom with her from Hogwarts. It wasn't top of the line and it’d been several years out of date when she'd bought it. It wasn't anything fancy, but it was the first thing of import that she'd ever bought for herself and it'd done her just fine over the last few years. She had a great deal of fondness for this broom. She could be fast on it. But she wanted to see just how fast.
The accent didn’t bother her at all. Eve wasn’t the first person to come to Gooseberry with an accent and though as it got a bit muddier Avery was more keenly aware of it, she didn’t find it difficult to understand her new teammate. If anything, it made her pay a little more attention to what Eve was saying which lead to a better understanding. She nodded her head in agreement that speed was good to work on, particularly given how that - along with synchronicity - seemed to be their problem against Azurcrest.
“I made the team in my freshman year.” She said, nodding her head. She certainly was the most senior Keeper at Gooseberry, and had been playing since before she came. “I came here on a Quidditch scholarship.” It was definitely something she was proud of - and one of the reasons she worked so hard at both school and the game. It was the entire reason she was allowed at Gooseberry and failing at either meant she could lose her scholarship. Now, in her senior year, the drive was far more about winning a cup before she graduated than anything else. Particularly after how awfully it was robbed from her last year.
A grin spread over her lips at the suggestion they play one-on-one, Chaser versus Keeper. Avery was… very intense about her Keeping skills and took it as a personal failure if they didn’t win because she couldn’t stop enough goals. This was something right up her alley. She knew the odds weren’t exactly in her favor - she wouldn’t have the luxury of having other chasers or Beaters to slow down her ‘opposition.’ Still, she was excited for practice and to see how Evangeline worked without any distractions from her other teammates.
“Let’s do it, then. I’m game.” She had brought out the equipment with her and now went to open it, grabbing a single quaffle and tossing it at Eve before she took to the air. “Whenever you’re ready.” She called, steady in front of the middle hoop.
The scholarship program is what drew Eve’s eye to the school. A quidditch scholarship was what got her foot in the door, but she'd come on other feet too. Her grades, her extracurriculars, she'd been hellbent to prove she could succeed here, but like everything else in life - that needed to start with succeeding at quidditch first.
“Made the team me third year,” she said. “Came here on a quidditch scholarship meself here.” Eve ran a hand gently over her head, to ensure the bobby pins she'd used to tack down her hair in preparation for this were all still securely in place. She used them to pin back the front out of her hair. The effect it had was to make the back half of her hair stick out, but it kept her wild hair out of her eyes and had become her standard way of playing quidditch.
Eve caught the tossed quaffle and kicked off. She quickly climbed higher until she was about level with the goals.
Playing one on one like this was often difficult because a good portion of goals were made through distractions. When a keeper could see you coming at them with no interference, it took a great deal more skill to score on them. Often time it took even more skill to score on your own keeper, since that keeper ought to know your playing technique. Eve being so new to the team likely wouldn't have to worry about that part.
She didn't shoot immediately. She circled the pitch a bit, before settled at the far end, near the opposing goal posts. Like a rocket, she shot off, quickly picking up speed. She didn't slow as she approached Avery, not even when she neared her. Instead, she threw at the last second and pulled up, doing a quick high ended loop to change directions rather than having to slow.
Although she made it a point to know a lot about her teammates, Avery was disappointed she hadn’t known Ev came here on a Quidditch scholarship. She had assumed she got in based on Quidditch skill and possibly grades or community service - but honestly how could there be a question? Her uncle was the Ludovic Bagman. International Quidditch star, total legend. Avery had read all about him, even before meeting Eve. She wondered, vaguely, if Eve might be able to talk to her Uncle for her...
She ignored those thoughts, though, as they rose into the air and the threat of Eve trying to score on her became more imminent. Avery took this as a personal challenge. Whatever anyone said, Quidditch was highly genetic as well - the kids of Quidditch players, siblings of, even as in this case likely uncle to niece, if one in the family was good at Quidditch another would be as well. Avery also assumed that Eve had probably been immersed in Quidditch life from a young age, given her uncle’s fame.
Eve came at her like lightning - she was surprisingly fast for such an older broom. To be honest, Avery didn’t put too much stock in new brooms either. They were lovely of course but there was something to be said about the broom you’d been riding with for a while. It just knew you. Avery’s knew her, too, just like Eve’s seem to follow her every thought, Avery hardly had to lean sideways to get the broom to go where she wanted. Fast as she was, Eve was not fast enough to get the first goal past Avery who shot out at the last second and caught the quaffle. Not with ease, but caught nonetheless.
“Keep doing that you might scare all the other Keepers into just letting you score so you don’t run into them.”
Eve grinned a toothy grin. She was all wild hair and teeth, and she looked tiny at this distance. But the broom was tiny too, it fit her. Brooms were like wands, they felt molded and whittled down to the shape of you after a while, like they’d been yours all along, probably the only true possessions you’d ever own in this world. Those type of things were hard to come by.
She flew closer and held out her hand for the quaffle. “You were like lightning right there,” she said. “Actually thought I had you there for a sec.”
“You’ll have to try harder than that to get by me.” She replied, a little ruefully. The quaffle was easily tossed back to her teammate, and Avery went back to be steady and centered in front of the middle hoop. Eve was fast, and in all actuality she thought she might get her. She wasn’t going to tell her that, though. No, Avery was quite proud of her keeping skills and very rarely cast doubt upon herself. Only when she actually screwed up would she become even remotely self deprecating.
Ready for another go, she nodded her head towards Eve and eventually called out to the now rather tiny dot of a girl across the pitch. “Whenever you’re ready, let’s try it again!”
Eve caught the quaffle one handed and let herself gradually float back down toward the middle of the pitch. She wasn’t often self deprecating herself. It always felt needless and excessive to dwell on short comings. If you found yourself falling short, practice the fuck out of it until you didn’t, was basically how she did things. And even then, she was aware that not all people were built for certain things. No one person could do every thing possible. She couldn’t learn twenty different languages like some child prodigy might be able to, but she could do this. Quidditch was in her blood.
And so were building tiny robots - she could do that too - but they were here for quidditch.
Eve circled the pitch once more, quaffle under one arm, other hand steady on her broom. She leaned down closer to the broom, seemingly picking up speed, before she came out of the circle and made the trek back toward Avery’s goal posts. Eve changed up her tactics. It was subtle, she still came in fast and hard, but she threw with her left hand, when she had thrown with her right one last time. It pitted the ball off in the opposite direction, looking extremely close to actually missing the right most goal post. But it was a hard, solid throw.
This time, Eve was all business. There was no friendly chat and it looked like Eve was trying to analyze Avery a bit more than she was trying to fly fast. Still, Evangeline came at Avery like a bat out of hell and though Avery was able to follow her quite well, it was the change in hand and the fact that it looked like it might miss the goal post altogether that had Avery’s fingertips just barely missing the Quaffle.
It soared past her and through the goal. Avery dove down and behind the post to catch the quaffle and then circled back around to face Eve. “Much better.” She replied, steadying herself back up at the goal posts and then tossing the quaffle back to her teammate once more.
“Ambidextrous? You threw almost as well with your left as you did with your right. Does anyone else know that you can do that?” While most people could throw either way, not very many could throw accurately and so, as far as she could tell, many Chaser’s threw with the same hand every time, no matter which hoop they were going for.
It felt kind of like baseball. The difference in throwing the same pitch with the right and left literally made games. Avery’s eyes lit up like it was freakin Christmas.
Eve caught the quaffle a second time. “Nah, love, I default to my right,” she answered. “Nobody but a Bagman knows bout that. My uncle’s right handed, my pap’s left. They default to their dominant side, so it throws them off for a second when you switch it up on them. Figured it would you too” Because having a weak side was a weakness - it was an inability to rely on an entire hand as readily as you would rely on the other one and it was completely unconscious and completely unchangeable. Eve didn’t have that limitation, but this was a right handed world, from scissors to notebooks - everything was designed for that dominant hand. So Eve had adapted to that, and just defaulted to it.
“You look bout ready to have a stroke from joy there, lass,” she pointed out, but she was grinning.
Everyone defaulted to their dominant hand. It was easy, more accurate. It’s always how you learned and practiced - you didn’t practice writing with your left hand if you were right handed. Vice versa. Good athletes - no, great athletes practiced with both and were able to master both. Not everyone could do that, and though it wasn’t perfect - it was a hell of a lot closer than she had seen anyone else do it. If they could, they sure as hell were hiding it from her.
“Well hell yeah I am! That’s an ace up our sleeve there, Ev. If you can fake me out, who sees you play all the time, practices with you, knows your strengths and weaknesses better than other keepers? You’ll sure as hell be able to fake them out.” She pointed out, still looking excited as all hell. “Now how about we try that again.”
Avery wasn’t wrong. Eve hadn’t actively been trying to fake out her team, but she was new here. Evercreech likely watched the quidditch games before she got here, since his brother was on her team, but she hadn’t been playing left handed in those. To fake out everybody else would be to do simply nothing, which was the easiest thing in the world.
So Eve returned to the center of the pitch, picked up speed all over again, came at Avery like a bullet. She used her left hand to throw - a hard, solid throw, her broom canting just slightly to the side as she aimed for the left ring rather than the right this time. The ball wasn’t centered as it had been with her right hand but it was going where she was aiming it.
Avery was ready to watch both hands this time. She was noticing the tail end of the broom and which way it pointed as part of an indication of where Eve might throw. She was taking in the speeding figure as best she could and when the quaffle came her way she dove to the left - it wasn’t a clean catch, but it was a catch nonetheless. She held the ball to her chest for a moment, taking back her normal position.
“You move your broom a bit when you’re aiming somewhere. It gives you away, if the keeper is looking. Try for broom control more than speed or accuracy. I think if you throw with your right hand for now where you’re on point with accuracy, you won’t have to think so much about where you’re throwing but be able to focus on your room and body positioning.” She tossed the ball back to Eve and got ready for it again.
Eve caught the ball, nodded, taking in the critique in before moving back. She moved into her broom to put more weight behind the throw. She'd have to hit up the weight room maybe.
Eve’s face was a mask of concentration, as she switched the quaffle back to her right hand. When she came forward again, she was fast but not the rocket fast she'd been before. Her eyes were glued on Avery as she threw this time. Her broom moved a lot less this time, but the throw was still solid, a little off to the left, clearly for the left goal post. “Bit off,” she assessed, mostly to herself. Not so off that it would clear the goal post completely but off center.
It was off, but it was a good first try. Avery caught it and immediately tossed it back, telling her to go again. At least an hour slipped by as they went back and forth - in the end, Evelyn had thrown a hundred times. Avery had stopped 52 of them. All in all, she was quite impressed with the chaser and perhaps a little disappointed in herself. She should have been able to stop more, but Eve had been playing Quidditch for just as long as Avery had, and of course had been immersed in it since childhood.
When the last thrown attempt sailed cleanly through the hoop, Avery let the quaffle drop to the ground and she let out a little huff, tired. “Nice one, Bagman. I think that’s probably good for today. You know, I’m going to see if we can use some of the others on our team to play as keeper and see how they fair against you.” She commented. Avery and Evangeline now had a pretty intimate knowledge of the other’s play style, it would be difficult for either one to one up the other. But their other teammates? That might be fun.
“Let’s call it a night.”