Open Not Much of Practicer Usually

[Valeria Iglesias]

Valeria didn't usually spend too much time outside of the quidditch practices to practice quidditch. She'd been an alternate for two years and it had never required her to work very hard. Or beyond her natural skill level. Valeria was however trying to keep her mind from lingering too much on her parents divorce and instead wanted it to linger on anything else. So wherever she didn't manage to speak to cute boys she was doing more revision and now coming out to the pitch. Val wouldn't mind if she remained as an alternate on the team, but she really didn't want to get dropped from the team. So, here she was, on the pitch, with her broom and she was getting on to it to head up into the air. She could practice and then the try-out would come soon enough and she'd be actually ready for it for once. ​

 

[Michael Watson]

Michael had been pretty drained for most of the last year. He'd focused so much on trying to up his Quidditch skills he'd ignored everything else. And while Michael was enthusiastic about flying and playing, he wasn't unrealistic. He wasn't the best player. Pretty good for his age, but he had been pretty mediocre as a chaser. Regardless of how good Sawyer was. But he needed the team. It gave him a sense of purpose. So he'd just have to become competent at everything to be able to stick around.

He was surprised to see someone else flying around. Michael mounted his own broom - it was second hand, but he'd save up for a good new one once he'd grown a bit more. He somehow simultaneously relaxed and tensed when he saw it was Valeria. Relaxed because she was a fellow Ravenclaw player and he'd sat with her on the bench a bit last season, tense because she was also very pretty and clearly knew it. Still, he knew he needed to make an effort with the team, hoping that Sawyer had him back on board this year. They were good people who'd gotten an unfair go of it based on the weird snitch rules. "Hey, Valeria," he called, giving a wave and starting a slow warm up flight.

 

[Valeria Iglesias]

Valeria hadn't been a long time in the air when she heard someone fly towards her. She knew this boy, not well, but this was one of the other alternates on the Ravenclaw team, though he was a good player. Michael or something. He seemed like a nice boy, young and clearly talented. "Hey," she said with a smile. She of course wouldn't flirt with someone so much younger than her, she was not interested in that, but Val was capable of just being friendly to people. So she was. "You practicing ahead of the try-outs?" she resisted adding the word too, but felt it was fairly obvious that that had been what she was doing. ​

 

[Michael Watson]

Michael nodded, but realized that probably didn't translate mid air. "Yeah," he replied, shrugging. "Couldn't do much on the holidays," he added, casually. Although his mum was a witch, they lived in a muggle area and didn't really do much magically at home. She'd started doing more now she didn't feel like she needed to hide it from him, but it also kept her busy he guessed. "Guessing you are too," he added, he hadn't seen her practicing much outside of the team sessions before but he supposed maybe he hadn't been around at the same time she had. Or maybe she was just starting to get more involved. "Looks like I've got competition for the starting lineup," he joked, but not in a mean way - now Finn had graduated he was sure she would easily be their new starting beater. "You wanna race?"

 

[Valeria Iglesias]

Valeria knew that it was occasionally difficult to practice at home. Valeria lived amongst a magical community so she didn't need to worry about it, but Val just hadn't practicied that much. She hadn't wanted to practice, she'd been distracted with the issues her home life. But she nodded, Valeria wouldn't necessarily want to take the spot from the boy. She'd be content with just being an alternate. "Sure, let's race," Val said, deciding that she wouldn't bother trying to say anything about try-outs and would just focus on getting better at her flying. "I'll let you get a bit of a head start, since I'm older and faster," she said lightly, teasing a bit, but thinking she was probably a bit faster than him. ​

 

[Michael Watson]

Michael was having some misgivings about his actual skill level, but he at least had the tactical mindset to compensate for his shortcomings. Mostly. He did raise an eyebrow at her comment. "Strictly speaking, possibly. I would've had the edge purely on an aerodynamic level last year, but fortunately I got slightly taller." He shook his head, laughing slightly. "Which I spent last year hoping for, and now it's gone and thrown off my alignment." There was a good reason he was in Ravenclaw, after all. "So you don't need to give me a head start, since I need to have a good idea of exactly how much to compensate for the speed reduction."

 

[Valeria Iglesias]

Valeria laughed lightly at his comment. She thought it was an interesting thing to say, to not take the head start. "Okay then," she said with a little smirk. "I'll count us down, I'll count down from three and on go we go," Val told him, there was no sense in going back and forth on this, just time to get started. She counted down as she had said, and the moment she could set off. She was quick, her broom was relatively new and had some speed to it. ​