He looked everyone over. "Anyone want to take first shot?"

"I will," said Raphael to the coach. "Throw the ball."

After it was thrown, Raphael watched where it was going and falling - for just a second - and then he adjusted his grip on the broom. For just a moment. Watching the ball rise, and then hit the apex of it's flight, and start to fall.

Like a gun shot had sounded, the broom and he shot off, the broom pulling up before moving like a horse rearing in the air.

As he sped across the Quidditch pitch, rolling easily and stretching out so he went into a corkscrew, his hair flashing around and around and half the time looking at the sky below his broom, Raphael could hear faint music in the distance through the humm of the chunky broom. Faint music that, at the beginning, was all out of sync, but then as he slid into his corkscrew roll, the rhythm and he seemed to catch together, and he and the broom were one.

And as the landscape blurred just a little around him, Raphael stopped being able to see, or even feel the broom between his legs, and instead he could see the land as sound, music, all around him: he and his broom the omnipresent sound of water falling through a rainbow harp, the ground a distant thunder rumble, and the golf ball the harmony of a falling star...

Raphael reached out his hand, snatching at air in the middle of his flight snatching for the golf ball. Exactly a meter below it.

Then, as if he was holding an invisible bar in mid air, Raphael climbed up on his broom and kicked it around, his open hand still in exactly the same place in space, while his entire body thrummed around, the batmobile going around a corner... and with Raphael reaching above his head, leaning on his side against gravity with the broom etching a circle in the air.

And the golf ball fell into his hand easily, just as his broom was pointed back to Anders. As if it loosened his grip on the air, he shot out of the circle, and fell down under the broom before righting himself by sitting up on it as he skimmed the air back towards Anders. He threw the ball to the other, and smiled.

Okay, Raphael thought, the smile is fake, I know that. I don't have that bounce factor that Nathaniel has. I can catch a ball but I can't make it look good or with the right handholds or anything - I might be able to fly upside down and pull faces at the cheerleaders, but I can't bunnyhop convincingly, he thought. The idea crushed him. He pulled back into line with the other seekers and started practising doing handstands on his broom.

"May I try next, Sir?" Mahou asked after a short roll of the eyes at Raph's showy catch. Mahou didn't much like rolling around on a broom, so she tended to avoid it.

At the throw, Mahou sat there, watching the ball fly across the field. Upon her own personal Firebolt, Mahou streaked across the field as the ball reached its near-highest point. With Blackfoot on the bristles of the broom, the half-elf flew toward the small golf ball. No one else really knew that she was a half-elf.. and her enhanced sight might give her an edge over the others. She didn't really think of it as cheating.. she was born with it. Just as some were born with certain abilities.. she was born with good eyes. Moreso than humans.

The ball was lost against the clouds in the sky, it being white and all, and Mahou angled her Firebolt up to meet the ball rather than have it fall into her hand. Snitches didn't usually fall into anyone's hand.. so she raced toward the small white, pocked ball at a quick speed.

Reaching out with her hand, Mahou leaned forward on her broom to catch the falling object. She missed. Forming her mouth into a straight line, Mahou dived for the ball, leaning into her broom, her eyes merely slits on her face. She reached out and grabbed the ball just before it hit the ground.

Sitting up on her Firebolt, Mahou Amberstone held the ball aloft, smiling a little. Catching a golf ball was hardly anything to do.. it was the snitch she was interested in. But practise was practise and it was needed.

As she flew back to Anders, she pulled her cap down on her head. She didn't want it to fly off.. no way..

"'Ere ye go, Sir," Mahou said as she handed Anders the ball. Her strange eyes looked into his for a split second, those eyes of lime-green that slanted yet stayed wide. She smiled and looked at the stands.. at Nimue.. and waved.

After first Raphael's daring stunts in order to catch the ball, and then Mahou's calm classic poise during her own retrieval of the thing; Nathaniel was almost beginning to regret coaxing his broom into meandering over this way. Hells, even Mahou's _fox_ had gone along for the ride; whereas his own familiar was currently laying flat on the broomshed roof with both paws firmly over its ears.

Some confidence vote that.

It occurred to Nathaniel suddenly that there was, after all, a natural rhythm to this flying broomsticks lark; now that he had had chance to sit back and watch some other people practising. Nothing as crazy as Raphael's - that boy made his own rhythm up as he went if he couldn't find one that fitted - but something with a little flip and slide and twist all of its own.

He hummed maybe half a dozen bars of music, searching for the right song.

For a moment he thought it was a hiphop, or reggae tune that he was looking for.

~ change the game... ~ A few words of each trickled through his mind. ~ it wasn't me ..~

But even there the beat was too regular, not enough on the edge.

~ trip like I do...~ he thought, and then the words and the song and the beat unfolded in his head.

"Throw." he said to the coach.

The golf ball flew.

Nathaniel followed it, concentrating less on getting the broom to work than on the words flowing in his head, the melody that rolled and spun and twisted like the ball through the air.

~I've got the understanding of a 4-year-old, I've got the peace of mind of a killer soul, I've got the rationale of a New York cop, I've got the patience of a chopping block yeah ~

The golf ball fell, soaring through its arc, and Nathaniel paused to wrestle with the broom as it balked. The magic was almost there, and the broom was trying its hardest....

~ I've got the lack of say of a billion souls, I've got the world on my back but I don't seem to care ~

For a moment he feared they were going to dip into another kangaroo hop, and he was enraged at that.

But the song too knew rage.

~ can't you trip can't you think can't you feel like I do can't you walk can't you breathe can't you trip like I do...like me... ~

And the broom soared, and the golf ball landed neatly on the back of his hand in an automatic-three fingered cradle. Contact jugglers almost never catch a ball with the palm of their hand.

Holding it in that position seemed natural, and he pottered back down to the ground with rather less grace than he had ascended. The song didn't like stopping for such trivialities as down and slow.

"Try to trip like I do..." he half-sang as he returned the ball to Anders, and felt gloriously happy. He hadn't failed. He might not have done excellently, but he hadn't failed.

**********

Zidane watched the various display of Seeker styles, mesmerised. They were all just too awesome, and he hadn't expected to see such amazing speed and grace from his classmates. After Raphael and Nathaniel caught the golf ball, he clapped and hooted. He was really beginning to get the hang of this House thing. Ravens rule, yeah.

He grinned to himself. Might as well get over it, he decided, watching Nathaniel fly over the coach with the golf ball he had caught. He was fascinated with this Seeker position, as it was the most potentially dangerous, but his time on a broom had been limited only to the past weekend.

Zidane half-awkwardly steered the broom over towards the coach and raised his hand. "Don't want people to think we Raven guys even KNOW the meaning of 'chicken out'," he remarked cheerfully. "Me next." He swallowed but managed to stem most of his nervousness.

Time seemed to slow down as the ball went careening into the distance. He saw it cut through the air in a vision of streaking white.

Without thinking, without breathing, without even knowing what he was doing, Zidane was flying after it, his eyes beginning to get red and red with each passing millisecond.

//Faster, faster// repeated the mantra in his mind. Everything seemed to disappear into some huge hollow, with only himself and the flying golf ball left in the world, locked in the chase of hunter and prey.

He was closing in. He leaned forward, as far as his body could. The broom was not the best, far from it, but now he no longer seemed to feel it. Just him, after the golf ball. The prize. Then suddenly, the world became red. His fiery aura flared from all the adrenaline and encased his body in a bubble appearing remarkably like a tiny red sun, with hazy wings. Before he could keep it in check, he felt his right hand close over something. The golf ball.

"Oh, man," commented his disembodied voice through the fiery aura. The words were said in a mixture of surprise at his feat and the dismay that he had shown his strange power to the entire darn world.

//What the...?//

It was a painfully quick, stabbing realisation. He felt very heavy and the world began to rush in a swirl of white, blue, green, brown and lavender.

He began his rapid, broomless trip back down to earth.

The broom he had used was already on the ground, useless thereafter and charred like firewood.

Raphael had watched in sullen silence as both Mahou and Nathaniel had outperformed him. Mahou had been so graceful, swiping out, not making any problems with an error that Raphael was sure would have stumped him. And then she'd flown back. And it was smooth. Why couldn't he fly like that? Every time he flew, he felt like he had to convince himself that the broom wasn't there...

...and then Nathaniel, who'd somehow - after the jammy so and so had mastered the bunnyhop - simply swooped out and been all clever and caught the thing. Well, he put me to shame, thought Raphael. And he seems to have got this magic thing a lot better then I have. Oh well.

And then Zidane had fallen off his broom. Well, Raphael reflected, he'd actually burnt it in mid-air.

And then came a screech of metal in Raphael's mind - Zephyr - the angel had stopping himself - to swoops out - catch the Ravenclawer - Raphael screamed out in the silence of his mind: 'don't you DARE!'

And when the pain receded, and he opened his eyes, Raphael found the landscape blurring around him. How had he ended up here... heading towards Zidane... it wasn't a good idea... shouldn't he stop?

Maybe while I'm here, Raphael mused as the broom eat up the landscape below him, I ought to catch Zidane. Yes. That's a good idea. Hmm.

He couldn't see the other Ravenclaw member. Damn. Where was he? Against the landscape... the light... the brightness in his eyes... Raphael shut them tight, and held on to his broom.

And as he did, the confusion died, and the world seemed to slow: the whistle in his ears dropped to simple melodies, the harmonics of the dashes of wind slipping into his mind, until he could see the sound, see the way the air was moving around him... and he was too far from Zidane... so he hugged his broom... holding it tight... feeling it's murmuring rhythm... feeling the beat... rhythm... move... hum...

And Raphael reached out, and changed the tune from a slow weak beat into a strong deep thud. The sound of heavy claws on a stone floor. The sound of a warrior of light dodging scything blades of bone. The sound of slow footsteps through the crunch of leaves. The sound of an oaken scream from a dying pulse.

The broom, an old thing, shuddered and blurred to a double speed, and a bullet student shot across the stadium.

Wait... one... wait... two... footsteps... three... beat... four... strength... five.

Raphael leapt off the speeding broom and caught Zidane in mid air, and fell back on the broom with the other in his hands, the shock of acceleration dampened for Zidane due to Raphael himself.

And then the broom lost half it's brush, and magic started shrieking out of the back in purple flares which if anything seemed to be speeding them up - Butch started to die at seventy miles per hour. Raphael tried to kick the broom around, trying to turn it to go back to Anders and the others as he held gamely onto the other fiery student, and wondered to himself what happened when a broom plunged magically flaming into a hillside at this speed and getting quicker...

"Oh, for the love of..."

Anders, who had sprung into action as soon as Zidane had started plummeting watched as Raphael tried to Play Hero, resulting in the pair of them heading very, very fast towards the very, very hard ground.

He shook his head a little and scooted the Meteor Shower off at top speed.

Whipping his wand out, the first thing he did was to bellow the words of a water spell, which drenched the flames instantly. Then he yelled out, "CUNCTOR INCURSIO!"

The broom began to slow in its descent, but carried on heading for the ground. Anders turned and glanced at the first rider his eyes landed on. "SARAH!"

Sarah needed no urging, she hadn't wanted to complicate the situation by rushing forward. Yet at Anders' call of her name, she went after the plunging boys as if they were in the midst of a game.

She positioned herself near the slowed broom, and caught its handle firmly. Her own broom plunged alarmingly with the added drag of the broom and the weight of the boys for a few seconds - then held. Sarah, true to her word, had a strong grip and held them steady, slowing their descent even further.

Anders heaved a huge sigh of relief as Sarah steadied the falling pair and guided the Meteor Shower over to the little group, steadying them as they reached the ground.

"Off. Now," he said to Zidane and Raphael. To a Hufflepuff sixth former who was standing close by, he barked out a command to get Zidane clear of the pitch and to find Madam Pomfrey who was renowned for keeping a cool head when dealing with magical peculiarities.

He had Quidditch trials to do and he was damn well going to do them.

Mahou balked at the plummeting of the two kids, and then again at Anders' streaking toward them. She flinched as Sarah swooshed over and helped to slow the boys' descent. ~*I suppose I should help..*~ the girl muttered in Elfin. Keeping Blackfoot on the Firebolt, Mahou raced over to the clump of Hogwarts students and reached out to help. She held on with all her strength as she was pushed down by the weight of the boys. The half-elf wasn't strong...

As she whooshed down a few feet from the weight of the clump of folks, Mahou felt a light tug on her hat. ~Uh-oh.. not now!~ she thought frantically. She couldn't very well yank her hat down now.. not when others needed her help.. well.. they probably didn't *need* her help.. but she liked to think so. Gripping the broom with her knees, the girl watched as Blackfoot hopped over her like a cat and grabbed hold of one of the boy's clothes in her teeth. The little fox wasn't going to be left out of this! She loved the lime-light.

She felt another tug on her hat. It was almost halfway off her head. This wouldn't do.. not at all.. the observant person could already see her ears were slightly longer than they should be.. though not overly pointed. She prayed that this would be over soon.. before her hat decided to take a vacation.

**********

Hovering only a few feet above the ground, Nathan watched the trials while a sneer grew on his face. He shook his head. "Hogwarts!" he muttered. "Even the simplest things become great problems here... first the Sorting, now THIS!"

Drake, who was standing on the ground, watching the trials, looked up at him and was obviously unable to suppress a grin not unlike Nathan's own. Nathan landed next to him and sighed. "I don't know whether I want this any more, Drakey," he said.

Drake leaned close to him. "Th-there'll only be one S-seeker so you won't have t-to play with them if you g-get chosen..." he said quietly and smirked.

After he'd gotten off the broom, and had seen the sixth-former approach to take Zidane away, Raphael sat with the broom in his hands and looked at it mournfully.

What had happened? The broom was lifeless, dead to touch and feel, the magic burnt out except for the occasional spark, which was the death rattle of the thing. He'd killed the broom. The broom might have helped to save Zidane's life - gods, it might even have made the decision to move to get the falling student. Raphael certainly didn't remember the moment when he'd shot across the field towards the other student, and he hadn't made the decision. Perhaps the broom had made the decision. Perhaps it was willing to sacr-

But then, what he had done to speed it up had killed it. Him. Killed him. Raphael watched as another bit of the brush crackled and fell off, and felt the last spark of heat from the purple flying spells shudder out - and the handle cracked slowly.

Not moving from his sitting position, Raphael let his head rest on the broomstick, looking down it's length.

And then the coach had shouted, Raphael thought, to him- "Off. Now." And the look in his eyes said it all. Anders Grimalkin wasn't gonna have him on the team, no play hero. But he hadn't meant to - it had just - and Zephyr - and it wasn't fair. He wasn't safe on a broom, apparently. Just like everything else. Messed it up.

Raphael stood and wandered with the broom in his hands back towards where Nathaniel was, not letting Anders see his face as he went by. Raphael didn't say anything to Nathaniel, not wanting to share his shame, and instead approached Madam Hooch. "Um," he started hesitantly, letting his gaze slide towards the castle where he'd be spending the remainder of the trials - he just wanted the teacher to tell him what to do with the broken broom and then he could leave. He let Madam Hooch see the broken broom cradled in his hands before asking her, "er, what shall I do now?"

Madame Hooch looked at the remains of the broom in Raphael's hands.

"You get a new broom of course! There are plenty in the shed. Just be more careful with the next one!"

She had that look that said that she had thought it obvious. She was getting impatient. She could not really start to test the chasers, beaters and keepers until the Seekers had been done. A lot of the students trying for seeker were also trying for the other positions.

There shouldn't be too many left now though. "Well go on boy!"

Raphael looked at her with utter confusion for just a second. His next port of call, of course, was the broom shed, but he managed to beg one of the more bored Ravenclaw second years to run back up to the castle with the broom, to put it in the common room. Somehow... it didn't seem right just leaving it about.

His new broom was timid, retiring, and he stayed firmly on the ground.

Zidane slipped in and out of real-time awareness during his fall. Black and light, light blue. White and bright, bright red.

A quick stopping sensation had caught him, a comforting, friendly presence. Raph? Then a flash of gold had caught up with them. Was it Sarah?

Upon reaching the ground, he heard a voice bark a command for them to get off or something. He had no problem with that. He rolled off the broom, dazedly, and fell on all fours onto the ground.

"Sorry," he choked out, looking all around him at the curious, anxious faces of his classmates. "I didn't mean it to be like that. I never knew. I never should have gone here in the first place. I'm sorry..."

"Raph, thanks," he finished lamely, burnt out in more ways than one. Zidane had managed to singe the other boy's robes but had not really burnt him on the skin. That's good, he thought distantly.

He allowed himself to be helped up by an older student and escorted away.

Marvo continue to watch the game, impressed by some of the moves being made.

"You know. the reason I think this game is silly is that just one 'Accio Snitch' Spell and it would all be over! I mean,. what's the use in having magic if you don't use it?

AT that point a Hufflepuff walked past carrying a tray of bacon Sandwiches for her friends and Marvo gaze was momentarily distracted.

When he looked back he was the incident with Zidane was under control, but watched carefully, his eye glowed red and he inspected Mr. Summers closely.

"Most Odd. Bears investigation" He muttered to himself.