Closed Buzzer Beater

[Troy Romanov]

Troy was glad to be entering his final year at Hogwarts, perhaps that meant he would be able to resume his true passion back home, though he knew he'd have a hard time explaining why he gave up ice hockey at the age of ten only to suddenly resume playing at eighteen. Perhaps he was doomed never to play the sport professionally after all, perhaps Troy would never see his name emblazoned on a trophy like the many that filled the trophy room. Troy had come down to the trophy room to escape the buzz of the new school year and that of the club fair. It seemed pointless to join clubs in his final year that he hadn't before and really no club was offering what he wanted.

While the fair was going on a mere few feet from him, Troy was stood in front of an empty section of the wall with a hockey stick in hand and a puck on the floor. "Gusev to Anisimov, he passes to Sorokin who passes to Romanov, Romanov has been playing like a man possessed during this game. Romanov passes to Grigorenko who quickly passes back to Romanov who has slipped past the defener, he shoots he scores! And the crowd goes wild!"

 

[Sara Benivieni]

Sara sighed, unsure as to what to do now that she had already started studying for classes. Granted, the girl had only picked two, but it was just best considering she knew that she wanted to work with Potions when she graduated. Maybe she would ask Professor Pendleton for advice, again, just to be sure. It was a possibility that she would also not do very well but she had to try, right. If all else failed, Quidditch was an option too. Sara was going to miss being on the school team a lot.

She was on her way back to the common room, however she got a thought and decided to stop and have a look at the trophy room. She noticed a boy there, and she furrowed her eyebrows wondering what on earth he was going on about. Was he insane, or just entertaining himself...? Sara couldn’t tell. Instead of saying something, she folded her arms and cleared her throat, watching him, confused but at the same time amused.

 

[Troy Romanov]

Troy was in a world of his own as he continued to hit the puck against the wall and control it with his stick when it bounced back. Suddenly the sound of someone clearing their throat brought Troy back to earth and he looked over at the source of the sound. It was a girl in his year, that was the extent of his knowledge of who she was but the most important part was she'd walked in on him doing something rather embarrassing. He smiled and in an attempt to brush it off he leaned on his hockey stick and looked over at her. "This isn't what it looks like,"

 

[Sara Benivieni]

Sara wondered just how many minutes it would take the boy in her year to realise she was standing there. She had made her presence known after all, she mused, as he sent her an awkward smile and causally told her that it wasn’t what it looked like. The Slytherin Prefect raised her eyebrows. "Really? Looks to me like you’re soloing a hockey game and commentating all at once." She paused, glancing once more at his stick. "So, if it’s not that, what is it then?"

 

[Troy Romanov]

Troy stood looking over at the Slytherin girl as she perfectly captured what he had been doing with her words. He tried to come up with something clever to say, but he was at a loss for words which was rare for the Russian. "I guess its exactly what it looks like then," He shrugged wondering what she was doing in the trophy room. "The club fair was boring, whats your excuse?"

 

[Sara Benivieni]

Sara pursed her lips in amusement, enjoying how the boy seemed to struggle with how to reply to her. She had outsmarted him which for some reason satisfied the seventh year prefect. She tried not to giggle. The question however caught her off guard since she hadn’t expected to dive in straight to why she had come to the trophy room. She raised her eyebrows. "I, umm. Wanted to have a look around," she said awkwardly, fidgeting. Sara hadn’t exactly had a reason. "I didn’t think everyone had to go to the club fair," she pointed out. She had Quidditch and the sisterhood, what else did she need?

 

[Troy Romanov]

Troy eyed the girl suspiciously, she seemed rather awkward when she tried to explain away her presence in the trophy room. Which was weird, she was more than welcome to be there he had just been curious what brought her there, it was after all a bit of a random place to find yourself. "Keep your secrets," He grinned as he absentmindedly continued to play with the hockey puck. "No of course they don't but it seems to be where most people find themselves no?" He suggested. Troy hadn't been part of any clubs during his time at Hogwarts and it seemed pointless to start now.

 

[Sara Benivieni]

Sara absent-mindedly noted how good looking her yearmate was, though she would never admit it out loud to him. Especially with that smile. No Sara. Focus. It was her last year, what did she think could happen? Nothing, she reminded herself. She wasn’t interested. There was a thing however - this boy was annoying. More so the longer she was here talking to him. Or maybe she was just in a mood suddenly. "Fine, I’ll keep my secrets, you mind your business," she said, but her tone didn’t suggest that she was angry. Quite the opposite as she tried to hide a smile that was itching to creep onto her lips. The girl shrugged. "Uh, sure. But there’s no point for me to be there. I’m not president of anything, I’m already part of a club and Quidditch, so I, um, just decided to wander around," she said vaguely. Actually, she didn’t know the reason for entering the room in the first place herself. "I’m Sara without an h, by the way."

Lol I’m sorry this one kind of sucks next one will be better

 

[Troy Romanov]

Troy shrugged his shoulders at the girl as she suggested he mind his own business. He couldn't help check the girl out, she was pretty, how had he not noticed her before? She mentioned that she was already a member of a club and played Quidditch, he must have seen her play before. "What position do you play?" He asked. Troy had been slow to come around to the magical sport but in recent years he had become a fan. It still wasn't as good as hockey however. "I'm Troy and I'm not part of any clubs, hence this," Troy held out his arms to demonstrate his current location.

 

[Sara Benivieni]

The boy giving her a one-over didn’t go unnoticed by the prefect, and to her dismay her cheeks turned red, betraying her attempt at not permitting her yearmate to have such an effect on her. She tried to get rid of the blush as quickly as possible, and in the meantime she needed to distract him so he wouldn’t notice. "Chaser," she smiled, proud. Sara had lost count as to how many years she’d been part of the team, but it was a while. "Oh, right," she nodded. "I haven’t seen you in Quidditch games before. So I’m assuming you don’t play?" she asked, then regretted it in case it had been obvious that he didn’t. He was holding a hockey stick, but what did that matter? Maybe he just liked muggle sports too.

 

[Troy Romanov]

Troy caught a glimpse of the girls cheeks burning bright red before she moved the conversation on no doubt in an attempt to distract him. Apparently she played chaser, he must have seen her before, he'd been to enough Quidditch matches over the years. "No, you'd remember if you had," He smirked, only kidding a little bit. "I only got into Quidditch recently, I've always been more of an ice hockey fan," He nodded his head to the stick he was leaning against.

 

[Sara Benivieni]

The fact that the boy was being flirty didn’t help Sara’s case - the case of her cheeks remaining pink, not as much as they were before, but a blush was definitely still there. She shrugged, "probably," she agreed, then gave him a sly smile. "But I usually just remember my fellow players as opposed to the people just watching." It was true, there were way too many people in this school for the seventh year to remember every single face. "So, what made you start liking Quidditch just recently?" she asked with a curious expression.

 

[Troy Romanov]

Troy was enjoying the little back and forth the pair seemed to be developing. He hadn't spoken to anyone with such ease since Vaska and Imogen, though both were for different reasons. "You'd have a slight disadvantage anyway, I haven't been at Hogwarts the whole time, there was a few years where I was on exchange at another school," Troy wasn't sure if 'exchange' was the right term but he had spent some time at Koldovstoretz and at first it was generally accepted that he would graduate from there before he found himself back at Hogwart. "Though it seems I'm the one who missed out," Sara hadn't been on his radar when he transferred out, no one had been which had made it an easy decision to leave. "Lets just say they do things a little differently at Koldovstoretz, so when I came back here I had a new appreciation for how Quidditch is played,"

 

[Sara Benivieni]

How the boy responded to her surprised Sara. Where had he been? She was curious and for a change she decided to ask what was on her mind, not paying much attention to the fact that it might not be any of her business. Plus, he was the one who had brought it up. "Oh is that so," she said. "Where did you go?" There were many other options as opposed to hogwarts in new zealand so she wondered which one he had chosen or not chosen to go to. Maybe it hadn’t even been his choice. "What do you mean?" she asked, with her eyebrows slightly raised, referring to the comment of him being the one who had missed out. He then mentioned his school and Sara mentally facepalmed for not having waited until he had finished before asking her question. Although on second thought at least he’d tell her where exactly that school was. It had to be magical, anyway. "Excuse the interrogation," she said with a sly smile, "but how do you mean different? Like, do they even have Quidditch? Or is it something else but dangerous?" There were suddenly so many questions Sara wanted to ask and she hoped she wasn’t scaring him off or anything. ​

 

[Troy Romanov]

Sara seemed to like jumping in with questions, one he often seemed to answer by the time he finished speaking. "There was a whole thing, my family were thinking of sending my sister there so went as a Guinea pig, needless to say since I'm back here its doubtful she'll be attending," Troy shrugged. He understood a degree why being closer to home was an attractive prospect, but when they were dealing with boarding schools what did it all really matter. When she asked him what he'd meant by him missing out he smirked a little. "I missed out on kknowing you of course," He was sure there were plenty he had missed out on by being away from the school but in that moment, that was the only one he cared about. "It's Quidditch, mostly, they just don't fly brooms, instead they fly uprooted tree trunks,"

 

[Sara Benivieni]

Sara nodded, it made sense, and although she was curious the girl tried very hard not to ask every single thing that popped into her mind to ask him. She didn’t want to pry too much, she never liked it when people made her business their business too. "A Guinea pig," she said, with a bit of disbelief evident in her tone. Was Troy subconsciously being disrespectful about his sister? He probably didn’t mean to but it sure seemed as though he was. "So, you’re not close to your sister?" she asked as casually as possible, even after she told herself firmly that she wouldn’t get into his problems, or issues...if they could be called that. Her mouth opened but closed again, a couple of times, she hadn’t really seen that one coming. Her? She got an idea, and gave the boy her best, most attractive smile. "I know what you mean," she responded, stepping closer to him ever so slightly. "We could always, you know, get to know each other better." A little harmless flirting never hurt anyone. Sara had never tried this before, she hadn’t been interested, well, not until Gabriel, and she was just having a bit of fun. "Uprooted tree trunks?" she snorted. "Lame."​

 

[Troy Romanov]

Troy wondered what he had said to make the girl question if he and his sister were close. They were by no means joined at the hip but but at the same time they didn't dislike each other either. The question of which school she would attend still remained a mystery but one thing was for sure, Troy wouldn't be there when she started. "Close enough," He said simply. Something changed the girls behaviour and he couldn't say he disliked it as she seemed to become a little flirty, "We could," He said stepping toward her. "Did you know the trophy room has a certain...reputation," Troy said suggestively.