Quidditch Pitch
The Quidditch Pitch at Hogwarts
is quite impressive; it looks as if it could seat the whole school, and more.
Hundreds of seats are raised in stands around the
stadium, which are positioned very high so that the spectators may view the
game at its full potential. At both ends
of the field are tall, golden poles; three to each end, with hoops attached to
the ends of them. Usually the field is
empty, except for the case when the houses of Hogwarts may be playing against
each other, or a team may be practicing.
Below the airborne pitch is a well kept field of green grass. A distance away from here lays the
Though there was no practice scheduled today, a certain Ravenclaw Quidditch player
decided to run through the paces a few times. Cho
just finished flying around after imaginary targets and has landed and
dismounted from her Comet Two-sixty. Not an impressive broom, but she knows how
to handle it more deftly than people on better brooms. She reaches up and
unties her hair, letting it fall down past her shoulders; dark hazel eyes
scanning the Pitch.
Hikaru can't tell a magic broom
from a regular one, so she's unlikely to judge you harshly for having a
'generic' brand. She came out here herself mostly out of curiosity. Despite the
fact she's been here a while, there is still a lot of school she hasn't seen.
And she's only been out here once before. But to her surprise, someone else is
out here as well. "Hello!" she calls out. She's picked up English
quickly since coming here!
Catching the sight of a girl she doesn't know, but seems
quite friendly, Cho places a smile on her lips and
heads over to meet her. "Hello." Her smile is friendly, touching her
slightly tilted eyes. Despite her obvious Asian heritage, she does speak with a accent of the area (Welsh to be exact). And to her
surprise, the Seeker is actually taller than someone. "Did you come out
here to sneak a few minutes in the air?"
Hikaru is used to having to
look up to see everyone's face. So it's long since stopped bothering her.
"Not me, I can't use one of those." she says with a glance at the
broom. "In fact, I thought it was a joke when I heard that brooms were
actually used like that! But I guess not, particularly after seeing you up in
the air like. It's exciting to fly, isn't it? Umm..not that I know of course."
"You don't know-- Oh!" It finally registers.
The accent probably should have been a hint. Cho
normally isn't this slow, honest; she's just... distracted lately. "You're
one of the exchange students. I haven't met any outside of my own House."
She says that in an apologetic way; she's been withdrawn this year, after the
events of the previous. "I'm a Seeker on the Ravenclaw
House Quidditch team." She pauses, the girl may
not know much about Quidditch, "I
basically chase this tiny little golden ball around on my broom stick and try
to catch it before the other team's Seeker. It's wonderful to fly. If you want
to learn, I'm sure you can find someone to teach you." She pauses, "I
could even offer some help in that. I'd have to borrow a school broom for you,
something that's suited for a beginner.
Hikaru does know a little about
the game, in fact. Very little. "Yeah, I'm Hikaru Shidou! I came here with
some friends of mine. One of them is involved with the Quzzi...Qu..Q...that game you're talking
about. I never really thought about it, but I guess she has to know how to fly
if she plays it! She's not in Ravenclaw, though. So I
guess eventually you'll have to play against her."
"Cho Chang." The Ravenclaw girl offers with a smile and a nod. At the
mention of one of the exchange students on a house team, she pauses.
"She's the new Hufflepuff Seeker. I'd.. heard they'd given that position
to one of the new students." She seems to pause and take a breath, eyes
going a little distant for a second, before she lets her smile return, "If
she is, then she must be able to fly quite well. I haven't faced her yet, but
I'm certainly looking forward to it."
Hikaru is confidant in her
friend. She can't help but be, it's in her nature.
"I believe in Fuu!" the girl says
enthusiastically. "It was her idea that we all come here, her, I, and
another friend of our's. I'm sure she will be a great
competitor. I don't know how well I would do, though. She picked everything up
so quickly it's just amazing! I'm being left behind, I'm afraid."
Cho offers a kind smile.
"Believing in your friends is important. I certainly wouldn't be a Seeker
right now if I didn't have a team and friends who believed in me." She can
fully respect that the girl before her will cheer for her friend when she faces
off against her. She wouldn't have it any other way. "And don't worry.
It's a completely different style of magic where you come from. I doubt I could
take very easily to what you do."
Hikaru looks a little confused.
"You..know the kind of
magic I've done?" she asks. "Have you perhaps talked to Fuu-chan, or Umi-chan?" The
magic they used IS rather different from that taught here, after all. Limited,
but arguably pretty danged strong, even without any huge Mashin
around to step all over their foes. ^o^
"No." Cho shakes her
head. "It's just that my mother's on the Department of International
Magical Cooperation. I don't know what you practice specifically, but my mother
likes to send owl-mail about how different the styles of the new students will
be. She's hoping that I'll pick up some of what exchange students like you
know. But I have a hard enough time learning the
classes that are required."
Hikaru nods. "Oh, I
see!" It would of been a difficult task to learn about Hikaru's
magic, since she's only used it once..at
least on Earth. "Perhaps sometime when I know you better I can try to
explain. But it might be a little difficult to believe." Perhaps less so in a place like this, though.
Cho smiles, "I understand.
It can wait. Though I've seen some pretty unexplainable things the last few
years, and heard about a dozen more, so I don't know if there's much you could
say that would really shock me too much." She grips the shaft of her
broomstick, "And I expect it'll probably be just as difficult to believe
as it was for you when you found out we fly on brooms and wave wands
around."
Hikaru smiles. "I'm glad you understand. It isn't that I
mistrust you or anything! Everyone I've met here has been so kind and pleasant.
I just don't want to talk about it with someone I've just met. And it really
was hard to believe such things were real! Broomsticks and magic wands and potions..it's all like a
story."
"I know what it's like to have things you'd rather
not talk about." A sad expression enters her eyes for a second, but Cho turns them to scan the empty stands, as if looking for
someone. "I remember when I first came here. My mom conviently
forgot to warn me that there would be ghosts walking the halls. I embarrassed
myself horribly at the Sorting Hat ceremony when I first saw the Bloody Baron.
I don't think I've ever screamed that loud."
Hikaru hasn't heard about any
ghosts! If the look on her face wasn't proof enough of that, her words sure
are. "There are really ghosts here? Real ghosts?
I've never seen one before!" She seems more excited then scared, though.
Cho raises her eyebrows.
"You haven't seen any of them? I'd almost think you were lucky." She
gets a brief laugh, then nods in the direction of the school, "I don't
know how many, but each House has a ghost who claims them as their own. The
Baron is the Slytherin's ghost. Your house has
Nearly-Headless Nick. Then of course there's Peeves, he's a poltergeist who
likes to cause trouble. Some aren't too bad. I'm sure you'll see one
eventually. Just.. try not to
let it be the Baron or Peeves."
Hikaru doubts she'll have a
choice on which of them she first meets! But she seems to actually look forward
to meeting at least one of them. "This place becomes stranger the more I
learn about it." Hikaru says. "First giant
lobsters, now ghosts roaming the hall." The lobster courtesy of Umi's rather large appetite!
Cho grins and asks, "You
heard about the merfolk living in the lake yet? Or the giant squid?" This is probably not the best
subject, and would generally bring back the sad expression, but she pushes it
down. This student knows nothing about the last few years, and that's actually
more comfortable. Better than those looks Harry kept giving her just yesterday.
And that's not even mentioning the looks she's been enduring from her fellow
Housemates.
Hikaru hadn't heard about any
of this sort of thing! "No, I haven't! There must be a lot of things that
I don't know yet. But then, that's what I'm here for, after all. To learn and
grown and do as much as I can to help anyone I can."
Cho nods. "I hope that we
can all learn something from this. But now, I have to go. I'm supposed to help
out in the Hospital Wing, and I need to get my broom put away and changed
first. It was nice to meet you, Hikaru." She
offers another kind smile, and then starts to move towards the school.