Quidditch Spectator Hogwarts vs Durmstrang - Summer 2023

Thought | Said

A pale boy with black hair looked up to the sky to check the weather. The sky showed various forms of overcast clouds that day. "It's... not a good day. Should I watch quidditch?" He thought for some moments. Zach missed all of the previous quidditch matches and he regretted it. And that day, his school, Hoggwarts, was going to compete against other school. He decided to go anyway. If not now, when else would he see a match between his school and other schools. Zach took a bottle of water and his wand, then put it inside his satchel. Afterwards, he walked to the Quidditch Pitch alone while slinging his satchel.

When he arrived at the Quidditch Pitch, he felt the raindrops begin to fall slowly. It somewhat gave him some anxious feeling. All the 'what if' questions filled his head and those ended when he heard the announcer's voice. "Ooh! interesting," he mumbled. His eyes widened for a moment of an excitement. Then he clapped his hands when the announcer finished the words. Both the teams appeared on their broom, flying around the quidditch pitch. "Oh my goodness! How can they fly so hight and fast?!" he said in admiration. Cheers from the spectator lit up the atmosphere at the quidditch pitch amidst the unfavorable weather. Zach looked at the surroundings, and found no one sat near him. He took out his wand and cast softly, "Pluvia Velo."

Open Interaction

english | russian

This was the low point of her life. Indefinite. The redheaded Durmstrang pushed through the spectator crowd without registering if someone looked at her or if she knew them. They were all the same to her. And right now she was one of them. The ones that shrunk to tiny needle heads as soon as you felt the wind in your hair, a faceless noisy mass. And she - she was one of them.
Her normally bouncy attitude was completely gone, swallowed by the anger, the pain, the frustration that had formed a lump in her chest. Most of her friends probably had never seen her like this. Clenching her jaw, she gave an oncoming student a shoulder check when he didn't move out of the way fast enough and pushed through the stands so fast she was almost running.
The emotions inside her wanted to get out. Wanted her to run, to scream, to fly. But that wasn't possible right now. She wouldn't miss this game for the world and cheer on her comrades. Even though she should have been there. She had been destined to show what she was really made of today. And yet she was part of the faceless masses. All because she had made a stupid mistake, which she now paid dearly for.
"Move!" she hissed at a second-grader, who flinched in fright and jumped up from one of the really good seats. Amina dropped with a snort and peered over the railing at her team. Her eyebrows met steeply above her aristocratic nose and her bright green eyes sparkled dangerously. Most of the students gave her a quick glance and then pulled up a chair next to her before hesitantly settling near her.
Amina still had her arm in a sling. After she had made a daring attempt to catch the quaffle in her last training session, when it was actually already out of the game and had crashed into the stands with it, the nurse had banned her from playing again in the next weeks.
And Amina could not forgive herself. She had let her team down. She had betrayed herself. She was supposed to be there fighting with them, but she had screwed up! Her jaw muscles ached, she clenched her teeth so hard and she felt tears of anger welling up in her eyes. Anger at herself. At the world!
Still snorting at regular intervals like an angry hippo, she pulled her Durmstrang scarf tighter around her neck and ran her hand through her hair in frustration. The result was a considerable mound of tousled hair that perhaps made her look even more dangerous.
Here she was, seeing her dream in ruins. Crash and burn. And yet she would not give up her place in the stands for anything. As much as it angered and hurt her that she couldn't play, she would support her team no matter what. After all, they were the best team in the world.
With a clearly aggressive burst of energy, she jumped up and hit the stands with her uninjured hand. The pain was lost on the way through her arm to her brain.
"Go get them! Show them how it’s done!!" She yelled down. She did not know if they heard her, but she had been considerably loud.

Mentions | Whole first string of Durmstrang / Ilvermorny team | @Astrea Soleil Neptune as Johannes | @Ruby Cazares as Vyacheslav Aleksandrovich Preobrazhensky | @Phaedra Stavrou as Lysander-Blaine Stavrou | @Pericles Dralt as Madhup Hexum | @Evelynn Decipio as Margarethe Fransson | @Lucian Mornstern as Alaric Havertz | @Piérre Marchonné as Romeo Marchonné |@ Aida Mòrsgor-Ama Ellwood as Valentin "Niffler" Schnell

When was the last time Alexander had watched a Quidditch match? While no one needed the answer to that question, it still have the power to reveal that the golden-haired boy had never been much interested in observing four balls deliriously flying through the air for an hour or more. It was true that, during the long semester that preceded this summer, he had managed to overcome his traditional antipathy to flying on a broomstick and had finally made peace with the idea that it was indeed a fun activity, but the fact that Alexander sat in one of the spectator seats in the stands today had nothing to do with that. For God's sake, if a person found flying enjoyable, he didn't have to watch everyone flying, right? But Alexander's hazy green eyes had the chance to see more than any Quidditch player today. This was the actual prize that had dragged Alex's feet here, the prize his mind had been chasing.

Nevertheless, it had to be recognised that the situation was somewhat complicated for Alex. The young badger was a true Hufflepuff, unwavering in his loyalty. The fact that he had even named his ferret Helga, who spent most of the day too lazy to do anything but sleep, proved this perfectly. Their bond was so strong that Alex was prepared to devote his life to ensuring that the values that Hufflepuff stood for were properly appreciated. Courage? Beautiful, very beautiful, but inevitably lacking in wisdom. Knowledge? Not useless at all, but undeniably limiting. Resourcefulness? Impressive, sure, but incontrovertibly egocentric. On the other hand, kindness and loyalty were virtues that have the power to transcend all limits and boundaries, including the limits that men draw for themselves.

Poor Alex, how could he possibly ignore all this and support the rival team? What a burden of conscience that would be! Did he not then have nightmares that the Fat Monk was chastising him three nights in a row? Or wouldn't he have deserved it if Helga Hufflepuff had haunted his dreams and bludgeoned the golden-haired boy in his bed? Or if he attempted such a thing, wouldn't the young martyr Cedric Diggory rise from his grave, grab Alex by the collar, and ask, "How could you stoop to such baseness?" They were all worse possibilities than each other.

But there it was, Alex was now irreversibly at the very point he feared he would be. He remembered his grandmother shaking her head from side to side in a very meaningful way, saying "Turpi e vret njeriun." Shame kills men. But was it fair at all to be angry with those who lost their way because they had no way to go? This time Alex remembered another proverb that his grandmother had murmured, shaking her head emotionally: "Dashuria nuk e njeh turpin." Love knows no shame.

Under the influence of such thoughts, Alex sat in a corner, trying his best to stay away from the other people who had come to watch this epic Quidditch match. His eyes burned with green sparkles symbolising his heart's longing to catch the amethyst gaze that he was sure would never lose its sharpness even as their owner flew through the air at an inaccessible speed. Was that too much to ask?

And yes, he was there. His slender body was like a reed swaying gently in the wind. Alex was suddenly filled with the urge to jump on the pitch. He wanted to go to him, to put his head on Valentin's, and to say, "Don't worry, you will succeed." If one of the Hogwarts students dared to stand up and call him "Traitor!", he would nobly turn to the owner of the voice and say, "But don't you know and don't you care about love?" But, oh, the tragic difference between the vastness of what goes on in one's head and the barrenness of what actually happens... Alex stood there, in the corner where he had taken refuge, stiff as an idol. He gazed upon Val's hair, which shone in an incandescent white hue and appeared tousled and dishevelled, silently humming "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the sacred wunderkind."

Mentioning @Aida Mòrsgor-Ama Ellwood as Valentin Schnell

Alexander gazed upon his fellow badgers, each of whom had fallen off their brooms and sprawled on the lush green of the Quidditch pitch, and could not help but feel a deep sense of sympathy reminiscent of compassion. Valentin, the dearest person in the whole world to Alex's heart and whose mere sight of a single strand of hair dancing in and with the warm breeze of July swelled the gigantic waves of passion coalescing into love inside the fair-haired Hufflepuff demonstrated that he was as adept at daring, almost uncanny, sports moves as he was proficient at gentle touches and tender kisses. Alex sensed that in the minutes that the vigour and intensity of the match were about to wane, every single aspect of the Seeker's unquestionable marvellousness was in fierce competition with each other. His strategic acumen, or rather, genius, that very quality elevating the Durmstrang boy to the status of an excellent team captain, must have been vindictively jealous of the fact that he had a remarkable prowess as a paramour - and vice versa.

Alexander, as a boy whose current circumstances were marked, on one hand, by ignorance of the future and the enviable promise of what lay ahead on the other, clung to the needlelike but considerably elongated railing of the spectator stand, striving to catch a glimpse of the briskly unfurling events of the holy game of Quidditch.

In that very instant, the sight that beguiled the verdant canvas of Alexander's eyes was so profoundly unimaginable that it was enough to make a person seriously question his own sanity. It was difficult to deny that, over the countless nights Alexander slept in the Hufflepuff dormitory, where every single conceivable tone of yellow reigned as unassailably as the ancient deities demanding annual virgin sacrifices, Alexander had encountered a recurring motif in his dreams - a handsome boy flying towards him and, it would be equally vain to repudiate the obvious fact that shedding its earlier vague countenance, the face of this phantasmal boy had metamorphosed into the unmistakable visage of Valentin since the commencement of the present month.

“I need you to fly with me, and I need us to grab the snitch together at the exact same time. Valentin said with a soothing voice that would leave nightingales in awe and cranes in envy of its beauty. Faced with such an offer that'd leave everyone astonished, Alexander could not possibly decline the legendary Seeker. Had the circumstances allowed, he would long ago have hurled himself onto the Silver Arrow, willingly making his chest a vulnerable target for any bludger that might come their way, all in an effort to shield the boy with hair as white as the source of light from even the slightest harm and scratch.

"Yes," the golden-haired boy whispered with a bashful expression on his face hiding all his joy, "whatever you wish - anytime, anywhere." Proud yet coy, brave yet hesitant, Alex mounted the broom of the most captivating Quidditch captain in the entire Wizarding World. He felt that the curious eyes from all around the Pitch and numerous media members were fixed on them. It could not be claimed that Alex, the humblest of all boys who had never shone in the public eye before, had much confidence in his own light. Still, the calming presence of Valentin and his warmth surrounding Alex's body on the broom instilled in Harland boy a solid and unwavering confidence.

Throughout the entirety of this airborne journey, Alexander found himself ferociously spellbound. He was entirely ensnared in the alluring charm of the Immortal King whose breath he felt on the nape of his neck. He contemplated the vast expanse of skies, in doing so, he momentarily lost awareness of the watchful eyes and inquisitive gazes around the Pitch. In the vast emptiness, amidst the brisk winds whose cutting edge was intensified by the velocity of the broom beneath them, and so high above the ground, they were present as two untainted, bare souls.

"I'm ready!" Alexander declared with a voice conveying his regained confidence, "my Pecos Bill." The interlaced hands of the pair like the ivy vines, tightly encircled the elusive little golden orb, and on Alexander's face, there spread a wide and warm smile, unlike any he had ever experienced before.

With the unavoidable culmination of this blessed moment, the Hufflepuff lad was reminded of the presence of the ever-curious large throng whose gazes were firmly fixed upon them. Fortuitously, the profound sense of felicity he experienced at that instant had no chance but to remain untarnished, sparing Alex from tumbling down into the deep and dark hollows of the agony despite the inexpressibly hapless fact that the Pitch was not the most convenient place to playfully nibble on Valentin's cute little chin.

As Valentin introduced Alex to his tired yet still vigorous teammates, the Hufflepuff boy sensed that the burgeoning wellspring of his self-confidence was once again tinged with the seeds of disquietude. 'What kind of impression', he pondered, 'could I possibly make on these agile and intrepid flying masters coming from the elusive school whose exact whereabouts remained largely unknown to almost anyone?' If one were to inquire of him, none whatsoever. Nevertheless, he gently greeted each of them, and as the etiquette dictated, offered his congratulations for their praiseworthy performances. As the white-haired boy guided his broom back towards the stands again, brimming with purely childlike delight, "It was incredible!" Alex said, "I'll cherish this day forever."

While passing in front of the Hufflepuff stands, Alex requested a brief pause from Valentin. With tears welling up in his eyes as he looked at the familiar faces in the stands, the young badger first tossed his hair, as if it were a prelude, and then shouted, "HUFFLEPUFF!" His eyes now resembled two tiny emerald orbs, aglow with the unified luminescence of tears borne from both happiness and gratitude. "JUST AND LOYAL!"

When they finally dismounted from the Seeker's magnificent broom, Alex sincerely thanked Valentin. Even though Alex wanted to stay in the very heart of the sphere of influence of his presence covering every inch in four directions, he knew that a team captain, especially when one of his friends had been taken to the Hospital Wing, had some nonignorable responsibilities. After securing a promise to meet again at the earliest opportunity, Alex walked together with the most lovable person who ever stepped all the way to the Hippogriff Cabin. There, his hands wrapped around the amethyst-eyed one's cypress body, Alex felt the warmth of the Seeker's crimson lips on his forehead.

Lingered at the cabin's entrance, Alexander watched Valentin as he strolled away at a leisurely pace. This was the first time Alex could find an answer to the question of what the best feeling in the world was - the assurance that he would return.