September 11th, 1891; Afternoon — Hogwarts Quidditch Pitch

Elijah Urquart was not feeling as cocky as usual.

The sixth year had been (smugly) delighted to be named team captain and generally felt the sun shined out his own ass, but with almost his entire bloody roster to fill, it had occurred to the chaser that there was room for failure. He did not care for that in the least.

"Slytherin," Elijah declared loftily, "has not won a quidditch cup for almost a decade—and I will be the captain to change this. I am looking for only the best, and so that is what you must demonstrate today."

As the sixth year continued, he detailed the objectives for each position that day:

• Those interested in beater, keeper, and chaser would try out in unison.
  
• Beaters would be tasked with hitting targets—some stationery, and some moving. They would need to grab a bat, find a bludger, and try to hit as many targets as possible* in the two minutes allocated.
  
• Chasers would pass the quaffle amongst themselves before attempting to score on a keeper candidate. Elijah's whistle would indicate when it was time to swap in a new candidate.
  
• Lastly, the seekers would be in search of the lone golden snitch that had been released**. Ostensibly, the first to catch it would 'win', but Elijah would be carefully tracking their skills throughout. This would be done en masse, after the other roles completed their trial.

"I would say good luck," the captain smirked, "but skill is far more important. Begin!"

Please post once for each position you are trying out for. Make sure you have filled in the requisite form and have received a “like” from Kayte before posting! The deadline for all posts is 7pm EST on September 10th.

By posting in this thread, you agree to have your character present and whole regardless of what happens between the date of posting and the IC date listed.
* You can automatically give yourself up to three hits if you’ve got beating experience, one if you don’t. Anything beyond that should be left vague!
** Please end your post at seeing/chasing the snitch, and post your seeker trial last!

  

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— Elijah has heterochromia. His right eye is green and his left is blue. —

— MJ is a graphics goddess ❤ —

Leander was psyched at the fact that his chances of getting on the team looked good. He wanted to have a well rounded school career and being on the team was part of that for him. He listened as Urquart spoke and when the older man told them all to begin, he went through the Beater trial first.

He felt a sense of satisfaction when he hit a target and went about trying to hit as many as he could.

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Admire all of you
But fire burns me too
Can't stop that disco getting through
Can't stop that disco wanting you.

Leander finished his beater tryout and proceeded to the chaser one. He went about passing the quaffle with his other chaser hopefuls before trying to score on the keeper trying out. Urquart blew his whistle to switch out keepers and Leander landed so that he could try out for the next position that he was going for.

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Admire all of you
But fire burns me too
Can't stop that disco getting through
Can't stop that disco wanting you.

The position of Seeker was the last one to try out for. He kept his eyes peeled for the golden ball. There were a couple of false alarms, the glint of someones gold bracelet or necklace tricking the eye every now and then. And then - there! Leander caught sight of the winged golden ball and chased after it.

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Admire all of you
But fire burns me too
Can't stop that disco getting through
Can't stop that disco wanting you.

Urquart seemed to forget he was part of the embarrassing shutout defeat Hufflepuff handed them in the spring. Granted, if she'd ever looked so pathetic in front of the whole school, Anne would have rewritten history, too. With a sick wave of jealousy as a few boys went off for their chance at beater, Anne grit her teeth and gripped her broom. She had a plan and she would succeed; damn anything in her path.

She moved first to her Chaser trial. Working with other hopefuls was familar after Quidditch Club, she'd had plenty of practice adapting, but Anne was focused on her passes and keeping an eye on the hoops. She would protect them later, but right now she fancied proving that Slytherins remembered how to score.

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MJ about made me cry with this one!
Thread Log

Anne took her place in front of the hoops when Urquart blew the whistle. Keeper wasn't that different from chaser, really. It was still her job to keep her eye on the quaffle, watch for the opposition and get the ball to her team. It was about protecting the team, even if she didn't get to score herself. It wasn't so bad if she thought about it like that. Hands lose and ready to stretch, Anne settled in for the middle game.

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MJ about made me cry with this one!
Thread Log

As soon as the remaining hopefuls were released for the Seeker trial, Anne gained altitude quickly, wanting a view of her competition from above. She'd had Miss Bixby and Abney to offer her advice and she had practiced over the summer, but it wasn't the same as this. She needed to be good and she needed it to be now.

There were several false starts - the sun glinted just right or someone else dove and the rest reacted - but the waiting seemed to stretch on. She heard it first, this strange little whistling sound that registred as 'odd' and 'finally' in quick succession. Whereever it came from, it was now tearing off below her. Anne dropped quickly into a dive, hugging tight to her broom. As her stomach made peace with her rapid decent, Anne noted somewhere in the back of her mind that this was the most fun she'd had all afternoon.

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MJ about made me cry with this one!
Thread Log

He stood to the side of the field with a broom from the school broom cupboard he could only pray would work as the idea of telling an inanimate object to come up and climb on it and fly was still unbelievable to him.  Though he’d seen it done, gotten a broom to come up, and even managed to fly a few feet prior.  Thankfully he had nothing to lose as tryouts was his only shot and any sport that involved flying was an exception to Quincy's anti-sport past.

At least Slytherin hadn’t won recently enough for there to be any pressure beyond the captain’s desires.

He watched as others as they got into the air with most of them flying stories upon stories in the air before he even got his broom to rise to his hand with a series of determined “Up” being said each getting more insistent.  Of the positions it was obvious chaser was the one that was least interesting to him so he went for that first.

Or attempted to go for that first as it took a couple laps of slow rises into the air for him to even get high enough for another chaser to throw the odd shaped quaffle ball at him.  With the first quaffle hitting him square in the front without him even managing to release both of his tightly gripped hands from his broom to try to catch it as it fell to the ground.

Then the next one came felt like it was thrown harder, and he lifted his arm up managing to pull it into his body as his broom did a slight turn towards it.  Circling around he attempted to throw the quaffle towards one of the hoops as that would probably be easier than to a person - plus he wasn’t sure he’d manage to catch another. A toss that caused an unplanned turn from the momentum of the toss and a dip as his hand went quickly back to the broom with an unintended leaning down.

  

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Quincy throwback signature image by MJ

He decided to do keeper next figuring it would give him time to watch others, especially the beaters.  As he thought based on what he read about the sport over the last few days beater was the safest position.  As beaters had a bat and other people weren’t trying to push you about to get a quaffle or a snitch.

The first quaffle went straight thru the hoop without him even glancing at it as his eyes were watching how one of the beaters was swinging his bat. 

The second one he saw out of the corner of his eye so he moved slightly to the right with it also going thru the hoop.  Though he did notice the beater lean to counteract what was the turns he was experienced before when he caught the quaffle.

He didn’t expect all the time he spent reading books on anatomy to come in handy in any sport context.  Though if you told him he’d be trying out for anything sports related before he got on that train he would have laughed thinking sports were a waste of time and had too much risk of injuring his hands.  To become a skilled surgeon his hands had to be soft, dexterous, and steady meaning any injury could stall him in his tracks.  However, here there was no way to train to be a surgeon so hope there was lost.

So as the third quaffle came he leaned his body to move towards the left hoop with a slight dip.  The dip wasn’t enough but he did manage to kick it away from the hoop and keep his momentum without turning while doing so.

  

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Quincy throwback signature image by MJ

After his keeper trial he returned to the ground and fetched a school bat that was rather battered and he hoped wouldn’t break during try-outs. 

Then with another series of determined “Ups”, a slip off the broom before he managed to get on it fully, and a slow step like rise into the air with laps around the pitch he was ready with his bat to try out for beater.  Yet, he watched others until he could position himself to go as close to the end as he could manage hoping he could pick up more techniques from watching others before he went as this was the position he wanted.

Once the person before him stopped he moved towards the center of the pitch rising at a much faster rate than he did in his practice lap.  Reaching the level where the targets were he quickly watched them all picking out stationary target to go after first and moving in its direction.  Though it was one of the non-stationary targets that made his eyes widen and body clench slightly before he remembered his bat and swung it instinctively at the blunger hitting it away from him unknowingly towards one of the stationary targets.  The momentum made his broom spin in the air at a dizzying rate making him grip harder on his broom and bat as he leaned into the spin and after five spins managed to curve out of it. 

Then he continued to slowly attempt to hit bludgers during his try-out time. 

Until towards the end of his try-out time he saw another blunger heading towards him.  His eyes widened realizing he couldn't turn quick enough to hit it.  So he tipped his broom downward making the fastest decent he ever had with his eyes widening as he pulled his broom up about twenty feet from the ground.

As he hovered about twenty feet from the ground he realized the fear of being hit had drawn out of him the first bit of flying that could be considered fast.  As to this points his movements had felt to him like they’d been mostly at half the speed of the others.  Looking at the bat he said quietly " Thanks batty" as he tossed it to the ground and turned to watch the others continue try-outs hovering in the air.

  

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Quincy throwback signature image by MJ

If someone had told him seeker try-outs would be last and he couldn’t use them to practice flying and watch others he wouldn’t have signed up for them.  However, he did so he flew after the others attempting to keep up with them as he looked ahead for the snitch.

His main goal was to watch the others and try to mimic their movements to fly faster.  Hopefully they had seen the snitch as he didn't see anything golden but figured he had to appear to be trying.

  

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Quincy throwback signature image by MJ

Elijah grimaced as he observed the scene before him. Hobday was solid, but the ragtag group of girls, children, and disasters did not inspire confidence. Would he be able to cobble together a winning team from...this?

Elijah blew his whistle.

  

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— Elijah has heterochromia. His right eye is green and his left is blue. —

— MJ is a graphics goddess ❤ —