章 36: Tryout
It didn't take long for Pro to arrive at the Quidditch field with Hermione.
"Good luck, Pro."
After peeking around and seeing no one, Hermione gave his cheek a quick peck before she went to sit in the stands.
With a smile, Pro headed over to the changing room, where most of the Gryffindor players were already gearing up. Harry still wasn't here yet, but Pro easily spotted Wood, the captain of the Quidditch team.
"There you are, Pro. A bit early. I'll let you fly a bit when practice starts. In the meantime, you can familiarize yourself with the Quidditch rules in the meantime," Wood said with a smile as he handed a booklet to Pro and gave him a pat on his shoulder before turning his attention back to his team.
Holding the book, Pro began to flip through it to skim through the rules of Quidditch. Before, he had already spent some time reading similar books, but this tiny booklet includes a whole lot more tips from seniors and also brutal tricks that should be avoided ... or used.
"Umm ... is this to scare off newbies?" Pro chuckled as he leaned against the wall and flipped through the booklets.
Well, Pro wasn't going to re-read the Quidditch rules. That way, if his life is a novel, the author can be lazy and simply skip over all the word count that would explain Quidditch to readers that don't understand it. Instead, the author would simply say, "Go look it up yourself online."
Of course, Pro's life is not a novel. At least that is what he believes. After quickly reading through the small booklet and memorizing some lovely brutal tricks, Pro happily put the book down as he observed the Quidditch players for a bit.
Glancing at Alicia Spinnet, the reserve chaser, Pro knew she was his current competition. Maybe she felt his stare, she turned to look at him with a challenging look. It seems she also knows he was applying to be a chaser.
It didn't long for Harry to arrive. Wood was going to begin to explain his sure-kill strategy that he developed. As Pro wasn't officially part of the team yet, Wood sent him out with the excuse that Pro could go fly a bit to warm up first.
Well, Pro wasn't going to reject this offer. That strategy talk is going take a while and it most likely will end up being scrapped. In the end, the win still relied on Harry.
Strolling to the field with his broom, Pro waved at Hermione who was reading a book in the stands. She looked up and smiled back before returning to her book.
With a chuckle, Pro hopped onto his broom and lifted up into the air. Watching the ground become further and further away from himself, Pro had a queasy feeling at first but it eventually was replaced by a hint of excitement.
"This airspace ... should be large enough for me to play however I want," Pro mumbled with a smile and tightened his grip on his broom.
Leaning forward, Pro had already activated his Speed Burst skill. Whoosh! Pro felt the scenery around his blur for a bit as he shot straight forward in the air. It took a couple of moments for Pro to get used to the speed boost. It was then that Pro was finally able to enjoy the air currents brush against his skin as he controlled his broom to zip around in the air.
After a mere five seconds, Pro felt his broom suddenly slow down as he continued to glide forward. Although he was still flying at a rather fast speed, it no longer broke the limit of the broom speed and Pro was able to see his surroundings a bit clearer due to the slower speed.
After a couple more tries, Pro had concluded that this speed burst was very useful for quickly traveling in a forward trajectory. With the speed buff, Pro could easily go from a standstill and clear half the distance of the Quidditch stadium within 5 seconds or less; however, this was under the condition that there were no obstacles.
If there were obstacles, then activating this skill may be both a buff and a debuff because Pro will have to worry about crashing into other players or other things. In the end, it will all have to depend on his reaction skills which he will have to train.
The skill was also restricted by his run energy, but fortunately, his run energy will recover even if his broom is on the move. It seems him sitting on a broom counted as being stationary. Unfortunately, turning on run energy didn't speed up his flying, but Pro wouldn't complain about missing out on this function.
After having a bit of fun, Pro began to focus on what is most important, finding a new way to grind XP. Although Quidditch could be fun and all, it is also dangerous and wasn't something Pro would want to play. Pro only chose to join to see if there is any new way to grind for agility XP or other XP.
To Pro's delight, he easily discovered a Quidditch obstacle course after flying around for a bit. A prompt had popped up asking him if he wanted to start the course. Of course, Pro agreed.
Then, the Quidditch course, that requires him to fly through on his broom, appeared in his vision. Multiple checkpoints were highlighted as rings he had to pass through, and after passing through each spot, the highlight would disappear. These checkpoints could be in mid-air or between obstacles and it spanned the entire stadium.
It was like a game. If Pro successfully passes through all these checkpoints and complete the course, he would gain some agility XP. It was similar to his agility training course in the Muggle world, but on a broom.
"Well, what am I waiting for? Since there is XP to grind, of course I have to grind it!" Pro exclaimed with a happy chuckle before zooming through his new obstacle course.
Whooshy! Whoosh! Whoosh! Pro flew round and round in the stadium in the same fixed pattern. As he got more familiar with the route, he slowly increased his speed and also applied a speed burst from time to time.
It didn't take long for his level 8 agility to have finally have a breakthrough to level 9. This brought him a new interesting passive skill.
[Locate Quaffle] The quaffle will be highlighted and locked onto in player's vision. A green color indicator pointing to the quaffle will appear if quaffle is outside of player's vision. The distance to the quaffle will appear over the indicator.
"Hmm ... with this, I don't have to worry about weather conditions that would affect my eyesight. Even in normal conditions, the indicator will be fairly useful. I just have to figure out how the indicator points out different directions and maybe that will help even more. Too bad there is no quaffle around to test it at the moment."
Glancing down stadium, Pro only found Hermione and Colin sitting there. The morning mist was already slowly dissipating, but the Gryffindor team still hasn't finish listening to Wood's sure-kill strategy.
"Heh, if I remembered correctly, the Slyterins will come to steal the court. Had Wood came out to practice earlier, than they could have had lots of time to practice and it wouldn't matter even if they handed the court to Slytherins. Why spend so long going over strategy that would most likely be scrapped?" Pro thought with mirth before he continued to grind more agility XP.
The sun eventually came out and even Pro's agility level has risen to level 10. Using one of his hand to shield the rays of sunlight, Pro glanced down and noticed that Ron had finally came to join the two in the stands.
"Well, it's about time. I should prepare a bit to give little Malfoy a silent lesson. I can't have Ron suffer alone," Pro thought as he touched down to the ground.
Hopping off his broom, Pro waved to Hermione and Ron, who strolled up to talk to him.
"Blimey Pro, I didn't know you can fly like that. If I didn't know you lived in the Muggle world, I would have thought you practiced over the summer," Ron mumbled as he stared at Pro's broom in envy.
"Well I did practice some, but just the basics. I'm still far behind the experts, and practice is still different from the real thing after all," Pro humbly replied.
"Look this way Harry! This way!"
Hearing the excited cry from nearby, Pro and Ron glanced over to see Colin waving towards the disgruntled Harry with excitement. Seeing the trio, Harry lethargically walked over.
"Haven't you finished yet?" Ron asked incredulously.
"Haven't even started. Wood's been teaching us new moves," Harry replied with a sad face while glancing at the food that Ron and Hermione went to get.
Hermione has been here pretty much all morning, but she still went to get food. As for who the food is for, it was needless to say. Pro could feel Harry's jealous eyes as he received a portion of food from Hermione.
"Uhh ... want some?" Pro couldn't help but ask as he handed Harry a piece of toast.
"Thanks," Harry grabbed it and began to munch on it like a hungry wolf.
Glancing at Hermione who was blushing a bit because she realized she forgot to bring some for Harry, Pro shrugged and began to munch on the rest of his portion. Well, Pro was still happy that Hermione only brought food for him. He didn't want his waifu feeding other boys.
The group simply ignored the snapping sounds coming from nearby and finished their short breakfast. The rest of the Quidditch team filed out and Wood began to treat everyone as a spy. Poor bloke still thinks everyone is here to steal his shabby strategy.
Well, Wood didn't have to worry too long about that issue because the Slytherins filed in with new brooms not long after. The large, trollish Marcus Flint confronted Wood as the two house faced off.
It didn't take long for Ron and Hermione to clamber down to the field from the stands. Joining the group, they also came under fire as Malfoy's rotten mouth began to fire indiscriminately. Perhaps he may have originally gotten off scot-free, but not this time.
"Of all the people you could choose to burn, you chose my girlfriend. You can only blame yourself for the consequences," Pro thought as he silently sneaked beside Ron and hid out of the line of sight of the rest of the crowd.
Without pulling out his wand, Pro got his hand and spellbook ready. As soon as the angry Ron stood up for Hermione, Pro timed his spell perfectly and sent a tickling charm flying towards Malfoy.
Ron was sent reeling backwards, and Pro swiftly walked up to catch him, preventing himself from being suspected.
"Ron! Ron! Are you all right?" squealed the worried Hermione.
Honestly, Pro was a bit sad that his girlfriend was worrying over other boys. Maybe he could have stood up for her out in the open. It would've been cool, but he didn't want to deal with the trouble that followed if there were any. After all, Lucius Malfoy was not a powerless fool.
Ron made a good scapegoat if his curse was discovered, and Malfoy got his due punishment of non-stop laughing for a while. Maybe everyone else will think he was simply laughing over Ron coughing slugs.
"Heh, maybe I truly should've been in Slytherin," Pro thought as he helped Harry lug Ron To Hagrid's hut.
Pro wasn't sure where Ron learned the slug-vomiting charm, but it was clearly not a spell in first to third year books. After learning the incantation from Ron earlier this week, the spell was unlocked in his DADA spellbook. It was considered a fairly low level spell since even Ron could cast it, but it was one of those spells that wasn't in the curriculum.
"It seems that I will still have to slowly accumulate new spell knowledge if I want to unlock all possible spells. There are many spells that can't be found in school books, probably controlled by the Ministry of Magic," Pro thought as he watched Ron let out slugs into a copper basin.
Then, the group had a talk about the word mudblood. Well, Pro knew it was an insult, but pretended that he didn't know with Harry and Hermione.
When they headed back, Harry and Ron received notice that they had to serve their detention. Hermione put on a you-deserve-it expression while Pro secretly gloated.
As Pro strolled back to the common room with Hermione, he could feel her staring at him almost the entire way. In the end, he finally couldn't help but ask, "What's wrong? Why are you staring at me like that? Can't get enough of my handsome face?"
Blinking her eyes a couple of times, Hermione looked around to check to see that there was no one before she asked in a soft voice, "It was you, wasn't it?"
"Huh? Me what?" Pro asked in confusion.
"Even though everyone was distracted by Ron's spell backfiring, you know I pay attention to things other do not. That spell that mixed in when Ron cast the slug-vomiting curse, it was the tickling curse. I saw it," Hermione stated in a firm voice while she glanced at Pro.
Chuckling, Pro asked, "And?"
"You aren't denying it! I knew it was you!" Hermione exclaimed with a hint of happiness before she continued with a hint of curiosity, "That was wandless magic wasn't it?"
Smiling, Pro gave Hermione's head a couple of pets as he said in a soft voice, "Keep a secret alright?"
Closing her eyes in bliss as she enjoyed the strokes, Hermione answered in a soft voice, "Mmm."
Not long after, she opened her eyes as she whispered, "Thank you, Pro."
"It's what I should do," Pro replied in a firm tone as he gently smiled and reached out to hold her hand.
The two then silently strolled back to the common room together while enjoying their moment of bliss together. As Pro's eyes swept over to Hermione's face, he happened to catch a yellow dot at the corner of his eyes. However, this yellow dot was in a weird place, but it left his mini-map range before he could understand further.
"Huh? Inside the walls? How? Did I see it wrong?" Pro mumbled in confusion.
"What's wrong, Pro?" Hermione asked in a worried tone.
"Um. Nothing. Just thought of something," Pro replied with a smile as his thoughts tumbled inwardly.
"Why do have keep having a feeling of incongruity?" Pro inwardly thought as he felt a strange feeling that he had previously felt earlier in the day.
After a couple of moments, Pro left that thought behind as he continued to enjoy his peaceful school life with Hermione, but it was unknown for how long this peace will last.
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