Closed Life's Too Short to Take It Slow

[Harper Alston]

The school year had barely started, but Harper was already working her way through the football training routine she'd put together over the holidays. She didn't want to admit it, but the matches she'd played during the break had been harder than expected. The problem wasn't that she was out of shape, but that she simply didn't have as much in-game experience as everyone else. Unfortunately, Hogwarts's lack of a football team meant she couldn't make much progress on that front. Harper wasn't about to give up, however. Instead, she'd spend even more time working out, doing drills, playing against imaginary opponents. She'd even brought a small set of cones and an agility ladder to school with her. Come summer, she'd be unbeatable.

Technically, today was supposed to be a rest day, but Harper had quickly gotten bored just sitting in the castle. She decided to dig her ball out and head outside for a bit, where she'd take things nice and easy. The temperature was brisk, but with the sun out, it wasn't too bad. Besides, she'd warm up soon enough. The cooler weather also meant that there were fewer students milling around outside, giving her more space. If Harper had her way, she'd practice on the Quidditch pitch. But with tryouts looming, it was constantly busy, and getting whacked by a bludger would put a serious damper on her football plans. Harper decided to start off simple, just running at a steady pace as she dribbled the ball. Things were going well until she kicked the ball a little too hard, and it shot off towards a nearby boy. "Head's up!" she shouted.

 

[Nikko Blackwood]

Nikko was surprisingly at ease coming back to Hogwarts and had decided to go for a walk around the great lawn. He had brought his school bag with the intention of maybe doing some reading but he knew it was simply for show. School was starting to feel normal which he both found comforting and alarming. But he preferred this feeling over the deep seeded dread he had felt the first couple of years. It hurt not to be able to talk about this with his dad, who had a strict no talking about magic rule when he was at home. He was able to tell his mom some things, and he was grateful she had the patents to listen to him go on and on about quidditch. Nikko had gotten so wrapped up in his thoughts that he didn’t even hear the shout of warning until it was too late.

The soccer ball made contact with the side of his head, making his vision blur for a moment before he blinked away the disorientation. “Ouch!” he exclaimed and held his hand up to his head. He turned around and saw it had come from a girl, who he recognized as Gryffindor but nothing else. “Sorry.” he blurted out almost reflexively before realizing he wasn’t the one who should be apologizing. “Wait..that’s not right...” he mumbled, and was starting to think he got hit in the head much harder than he thought. It was only then he noticed the cones and other equipment she had with her. "What's all this?" he asked, gesturing to the set up.

 

[Harper Alston]

Why wasn't the boy looking up? If he didn't, he would — too late. Harper winced as the ball hit him in the head. "Sorry!" she called, running towards him before skidding to a stop. "I'm so sorry," she said just as he apologized to her. Harper blinked in confusion before frowning, now really concerned. "Are you okay? Do you need to go to the Hospital Wing?" Had she somehow given him a concussion? That would be Not Good to say the least. She hadn't thought she'd kicked the ball that hard, but the boy seemed to be a bit confused.

He started to gesture at the area surrounding them, and Harper's eyes widened. He didn't even know where he was. That was like sign number one of a concussion — in the movies at least. "Uh, Hogwarts?" She glanced backwards and caught sight of the equipment she'd left lying around, suddenly understanding the boy's question. "Oh, training equipment," she said before sighing in relief. "There's no football team here, so I have to train on my own." Harper turned back to him, eyeing him carefully. "How are you feeling?"

 

[Nikko Blackwood]

Nikko felt a little flustered suddenly being the focus of her concern. He laughed before smiling at her, he was still rubbing his head but he was fairly certain it was a survivable injury even if his pride was probably going to end up bruised too. "I'm ok. Really." he said trying to sound convincing. "Watch." he said before reaching his arms out before bringing the tips of his fingers to his nose, trying to prove he was fine. "I should have been paying more attention." he admitted a little sheepishly. "Oh cool." he said and worried he sounded sarcastic but he was being genuine. And he kind of wished he had thought of that himself. "I promise I'm fine." he said with a laugh. "I was actually on my school's team before starting here. I could help if you wanted?" he asked. Nikko didn't want to sound too interested and didn't want to just invite himself into whatever she had going on. But it had been forever since he had played and was just starting to realize how much he missed it. "Maybe that will prove that I'm in perfect health?" he joked.

 

[Harper Alston]

Harper watched as the boy touched his finger to his nose, insisting he was fine. It didn't exactly inspire a ton of confidence, only reassuring her that at least he didn't have a serious concussion. She only started to relax a bit when he laughed a little, seeming to rise out of his earlier confusion. "Really?" she asked, not bothering to conceal her surprise and delight at finding out that he used to play and was willing to help her train. "Yeah, that'd be great. But only if you're sure you're fine." Maybe she should be more cautious, but the prospect of finally playing against someone else was too tempting to pass up. Besides, if something turned out to be wrong, the Hospital Wing could heal him instantly, right? She had to imagine that they'd seen far worse bludger-related injuries.

Harper smiled at his joke. "You'd better be. It'd be terrible if I somehow managed to give the only other person who plays football at this school a concussion." She was sure there were others, but the problem was that she hadn't found them. People at Hogwarts were way too obsessed with Quidditch. Harper quickly retrieved the ball, which thankfully hadn't rolled that far away, and gently passed it to him. "I'm Harper, by the way. What position did you play?"

 

[Nikko Blackwood]

Nikko nodded again, not sure how else to prove to her he wasn’t in any kind of immediate danger after a soccer ball to the head. He’d like to think it would take a little more than that to take him out. “I swear.” he said a little sheepishly, not sure what to do with this kind of attention. “That would be unfortunate. But if I die, I promise I won’t haunt you.” he said in a serious voice smiling a moment later. “Nice to meet you. I’m Nikko. You're a second year right?” he asked, and stopped the ball as it got him. "I played defense mostly. Usually I'd play defender or goalie sometimes." he explained. His experience as goalie was half the reason he had gone out for keeper on the quidditch team.

 

[Harper Alston]

Harper laughed lightly at his joke about haunting her, glad that he seemed to be in better spirits. She nodded at his question. "Yup. And you're a... third year? Fourth year?" She knew he had to be older than her as she'd seen him a couple of times in the Gryffindor common room last year, and he wasn't in any of her classes.

"Oh, perfect," Harper said when Nikko mentioned he mostly played defense. "I usually play center forward. I had to get in the goal once for a drill. Never again," she said with a laugh. "It was way too stressful." She respected anyone who willingly played goalie; she'd much rather be on the other side. Harper backed up a little. "Wanna play one-on-one? Or I could keep on kicking the ball at you while you try to defend the goal," she offered, half-joking. Maybe as a goalie, he'd find that more fun.

 

[Nikko Blackwood]

Nikko smiled and tapped the ball with his foot a few times before sending it back towards Harper. “I’m a third year.” he answered, and it almost surprised him. He didn’t really feel like he'd been here that long yet, but here he was. He laughed as she talked about what position she played and she wasn't wrong, goalie was stressful. But the two of them it did seem to be an oddly perfect fit. ”I think I've done enough blocking during quidditch practice. Let go one on one, but you can't laugh if I'm awful. It's been a while since I've played.” he said with a mock serious face.

 

[Harper Alston]

Harper was glad he wanted to play one-on-one. That was a lot more fun than just doing more drills. "I promise," she said, matching his serious tone for a second before smiling brightly. "But I'm sure you'll be fine! You already have headers down." She felt a small surge of guilt for her joke. The "header" had of course been her fault, but at least he was no longer acting confused.

Harper glanced around. It wasn't the greatest location for a pickup game; there weren't any fences or walls to act as a goal. But she had a ball and a willing participant, and that would be enough. She passed the ball back to Nikko. "Give me a sec." Harper turned and quickly gathered up her equipment, moving it out of the way. She grabbed four of the cones and returned to Nikko, holding out two of them. "Here, to mark out your goal. I'll go mark mine." She couldn't wait until she was better at magic and could just conjure football goals and other equipment out of thin air.

 

[Nikko Blackwood]

Nikko smiled as Harper agreed to his conditions “Yeah, I think I’m good there.” he said with a laugh about her "headers" comment. He absentmindedly rubbed the spot where the ball had made contact as she kicked the ball back to him. He had been shaken up a bit by the hit but all of that was gone now and he was excited to finally get a chance to play a sport other than quidditch. Not that he didn't like quidditch, and he was thankfully he had made the team, but part of him definitely missed playing ‘muggle’ sports or whatever magical people would refer to them as. “Alright, yeah.” he said as he took the cones and ran jogged a little ways away to set up his goal. "Ready?" he called out once he got back to where he left the ball.

 

[Harper Alston]

Harper headed off in the opposite direction to place her cones, eyeing Nikko's to make sure they were about the same width apart. She jogged in place a bit to warm up as she waited for him to retrieve the ball. He had been nice enough to agree to play, so it was only fair that he got to start off with it. Plus, it'd be a fun challenge to see how long it took to steal it away from him "Ready!" she shouted. She watched Nikko for a few seconds, wondering if she should first try and strategically analyze his playing style a bit. But in the end, the excitement of finally getting to play against an actual person won out, and she threw caution to the wind, running up to meet him and make her first attempt to steal the ball. She'd always been a big believer in the old adage about the best defense being a good offense.

 

[Nikko Blackwood]

Nikko wasn’t really sure what he was expecting when Harper said she was ready but she was on him much faster than he was expecting. He managed to block her first attempt at stealing the ball and kicked it out of the way before following it quickly. His movements felt a little stiff as he realized just how out of practice he was. He dribbled a bit farther before attempting a goal while he was still kind of far from the pair of cones. Nikko’s shot went wide and missed the goal as it flew off to the left. “That was just practice.” he insisted before retrieving the ball. “Let’s see how good you are.” he called out as he kicked the ball to her as he jogged to take up position in front of his goal.

 

[Harper Alston]

Despite her best efforts, Nikko maneuvered the ball out of her way. Harper turned to follow him and try to steal the ball again, but before she could do so, he kicked it towards the goal. Thankfully it went wide. She laughed lightly at his excuse. "If you say so. Looks like you need to practice harder," she teased. Harper accepted the pass and started to dribble towards the other goal, waiting for him to get in position. It was so nice finally playing against another person and not having to practice shooting by aiming for trees and other random targets. "No more practicing," she responded, mostly as a joke though she definitely didn't want Nikko to take it easy on her. Once he was in the goal, Harper tapped the ball forward before running up to meet it and kicking it towards the lower right of the "goal."

 

[Nikko Blackwood]

Nikko threw his head back and laughed when Harper mentioned him needing to practice harder. She wasn’t entirely wrong but it wasn’t like he was expecting to use his soccer skills when he got up this morning. “It’s been a while.” he said. “What’s your excuse?” he called out, teasing lightly. Once in position he turned his attention back to the ball and watched Harper’s movements closely. He reacted almost instinctively as she kicked the ball towards the goal, and used his height to his advantage and managed to kick out his leg just in time to block the shot. “Not so fast.” he laughed before taking control of the ball and not hesitating before dribbling back towards Harper’s goal. He got ready to try and get past her but it really had been a while. Nikko tried to turn sharply to his right to get past her but he wasn’t sure if he was going to be quick enough.