I let the wind blow through my open hair as I swooped down to brush my fingers along the surface of the black lake. Then I heard the blow of a whistle, signaling the lesson to be over.

I looked forlornly at the rickety old school broom I was leaving behind.

Flying was freedom, the exhilarating feeling of your body accelerating to speeds thought to be impossible. The way you just wanted to Shout to let the world know how alive you felt.

“Mate are you okay?” Wayne was acting concerned, he was concerned often, he and Susan knew me best from all my yearmates by now.

“Have you ever wanted to just start shouting to let the world know how alive you felt?” I said, to which he gave me a quizzical look.

“Can't say that I have, what brought this on?” He asked.

I gazed into the sky, I couldn’t believe I had went 11 years in the magical world without ever flying on a broom.

“Flying. It was my first time.”

Wayne nodded sagely. “The first time is always a bit special.” We laughed at that one.

Just because it was immature didn't mean it wasn't funny.

“Weren't almost all of your brothers Quidditch players?” Susan this time, I gave her a questioning look.

“I mean if all of them played Quidditch why have you never flown before.” Susan was still a bit mad at me, time to remedy that. It was time for the guilt trip.

I grinned maliciously, on the inside of course, on the outside I put on my best sad face.

“Me and my family never really had a great relationship.” I saw my two friends perk up, it wasn't often that I shared something about my home life.

“They thought I was a squib so they were probably distancing themselves emotionally before I was cast out of the family.” I saw them both gape at me and say almost in unison.

“The Weasleys do that!?” Susan exclaimed, shocked. To which I shrugged.

“We have a squib relative we try really hard not to talk about, I assumed the same would have happened to me if I turned out to be one.” Susan had an affronted mien about her.

“That's barbaric!” Before she could enter full blown rant mode, Wayne thankfully interrupted her with a question.

“So if you like flying so much, will you try out for the Quidditch team next year?“ He asked.

I gave the question a bit of thought. Just because I enjoyed flying did not mean I would enjoy the sport.

One negative aspect was that Quidditch would be a time drain, on the other hand it would probably be bloody fun.

And wasn't that what I wanted out of eternity. Fun? It wasn’t like I couldn’t leave the team after joining.

“Sure I will, I think I have enough money for a new broom actually.”

“Which position?”

I stopped in my tracks.

“I have no idea”

-/-

Later in the Hufflepuff common room I approached Cedric. With approach I mean I sat myself next to him on the couch, ripped the book he was reading out of his hands and slapped him on the back so hard he almost fell on the floor. He looked almost exactly like his actor, which annoyed me.

“Hey Cedric.” He sighed, then turned to me.

“Hey Ron what's up?” Wow this guy was polite. I started picking my nose. He watched with disgusted fascination as I pretended to pull out a booger and smear it on the couch.

“Oh nothing much, I want to join the Quidditch team next year and can't decide which position to take.“

He beamed at me.

“That's great! It's always nice to have some new players on the team. Meet us monday on the pitch at noon and you can fly a bit to decide ok?“ I nodded my assent, ruffled his hair, made sure to mimic smearing some imaginary booger in it and left.

-/-

And that's how I found myself standing on the Quidditch pitch, school broom in hand trying to decide if I wanted to throw balls, catch balls, look for balls or hit balls.

I immediately threw out seeker and keeper. If I wanted to float around doing a whole lot of nothing, I could do that without joining the school team.

Some guy whose name I already forgotten handed me a Quaffle and told me to throw it back too him.

I threw the ball at him.

The guy standing 20 meters behind him fell on the ground from the quaffle impacting the back of his head.

The guy before me smiled nervously, I think he was the captain.

He looked almost unwilling to hand me the bat, so I walked over to him and took it out of his hand.

I had played baseball in my last life, I dare say that I had actually been a pretty good batter. The bats were only a bit differently shaped and you had to swing them around while flying.

How hard could it be.

The Quidditch captain, from now on simply referred to as guy, threw a deactivated bludger at me. Old instincts activated and I hit the thing with all of my E+ strength aiming for a Home run.

„AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.“

A flyer that I recognized as Diggory fell out of the sky and impacted the ground with a loud thud.

I cringed hearing the distinct sound of bones snapping.

The guy turned pale.

“Well you could be a pretty good beater I guess?“ How cute, he didn't want to reject me even after I almost killed two people.

After we were done practicing that day I went to the hospital wing to apologize to Diggory.

And that's how I started my beater training every friday afternoon.

Later I would find out that Hufflepuff had really bad beaters, something about Puffs being too nice and refusing to hurt people, which was one of the reasons I wasn’t told to fuck right back off.