บท 31: Chapter 31. Losing Keepers
Saturdays were the best after all because I got the opportunity to sleep in.
Apparently, Tanner had made up an excuse for me saying I needed to rest and he actually managed to convince Blair. I really owed him one.
He also snuck me some food because I somehow managed to sleep through the bell for breakfast.
I got up a couple of hours before noon, more like Tanner woke me up so I could get some nutrition.
At this point, if he asked me to catch him a dragon, I just might consider it. He was really reliable.
But now that I was wide awake and my hunger was satiated, I vividly remembered the events of last night.
'What the hell was that about?'
"Hey Tanner, did the Captain come for practice today?" I found Tanner in the common room.
His expression shuttered. "He didn't show up either." He replied, saying nothing more.
I looked thoughtful. I had been expecting that response.
I would have been more shocked if he had shown up to practice, to be honest.
"Have you seen him today though?" I asked carefully.
I couldn't let it be known that I knew what happened to Jon because I would have to explain how.
Tanner's brows furrowed. "What…"
Blair burst in before he could get all his words out, horror and disbelief on her face.
"Guys! Thank goodness I found you here, Jon is getting expelled!"
Her announcement caught the attention of the rest of the people in the common room so Tanner pulled her over. "Tone it down a bit, Blair." He hushed her, looking around with a nervous smile.
I was still trying to process her words. "Um, what?"
"I overheard Gabe talking with Hundley." She said in a much calmer tone, her eyes wide in disbelief.
Gabe was a 7th-year Slytherin prefect and Hundley was the Headboy and also in Gryffindor House.
"I find that a little hard to believe." Tanner leaned back with his arms crossed. "We're not talking about detention or suspension here."
I also found it a little hard to believe. Even if I got caught transforming into an unregistered Animagus in the Forbidden Forest, it would take a lot for me to be outrightly expelled
"What did they say he did?" I asked quietly.
The common room had suspiciously gone quiet, everyone no doubt listening in on our conversation.
They would all find out anyway though, the whole school would.
"No idea." Blair lifted her hands in defeat. "They're being extremely secretive about it, even Hundley didn't know."
I leaned back on the low-backed sofa, deep in thought. I might have to scrap my plans of going to the Forbidden Forest for the rest of the week, at least till everything calmed down.
"What's going to happen to the team after this?" Tanner asked, his expression dark.
He was the most recent member of the team and never liked the previous Captain, he also wasn't tactful enough to hide it.
Blair sighed, her shoulders drooping. "There's nothing that can be done about it now, we'll have to either scout out a new Keeper or ask one of the players in reserve to fill in."
"But the players in reserve aren't for the position of Keeper." I pointed out with a frown.
"I couldn't help but overhear." A new voice interrupted our conversation.
We all turned to look at the newcomer. It was a quiet 5th-year student that mostly kept to himself.
"I hear you're looking for a Keeper, mind if I offer to be the Keeper?"
Tanner didn't hide his skepticism. "Can you play?"
Blair kicked Tanner under the table. "Don't mind him um…" She trailed off, chuckling nervously.
"Ji-hun, Bak Ji-hun." The black-haired boy answered quietly.
"Ji-hun! How about we check what you can do on the Quidditch pitch by 4 pm?" Blair offered graciously.
"You're not even going to ask him if he can pla… ow."
"If you know anyone who's also interested in trying out, I'd appreciate it if you brought them along as well." Blair added, acting naturally even though Tanner was hunched over in pain.
"Hey! What was that about?!" He turned on her after Ji-hun left.
"Shh, we'll take anything we get right now." She hushed him. "If Jon hadn't been such a terrible Captain do you know how much damage it would deal to a team to suddenly lose their Captain and Keeper?"
Tanner fell quiet, Blair was being practical. If Blair hadn't mostly taken up the responsibility of being the Captain and the coach of the Slytherin Quidditch team, we would have been fucked right now.
"So I want to keep the net as wide as possible when we're looking for a good Keeper, besides he was the one that offered, we've got nothing to lose."
"I still can't imagine what Jon could have done to get himself expelled." Tanner muttered, staring into the distance.
I had seen Jon get caught and even I couldn't imagine what he could have done that was so terrible that he had to be expelled immediately.
Although the issue was kept tightly under wraps, the rumors spread like wildfire throughout the school.
It didn't help that it was a weekend so the students had a lot of free time on their hands.
Matters were also made worse when Jon wasn't even allowed to return to the dorms to pack up his things.
The school was probably trying to avoid him getting questioned by the students. They sent him straight out in the company of a couple of Professors and his things were picked up by House-Elves to be transported to him later.
After he was out of Hogwarts school grounds there was no way to keep track of the gist so most of the students resolutely waited for the Daily Prophet.
Something like a 7th-year student who was also a Quidditch Captain getting expelled for mysterious reasons would definitely cover the front page of the newspapers.
For now, I had other things to concentrate on, like homework and the mini-tryouts in the afternoon.
There was quite the turnout, not of people willing to join the team but of students from Slytherin and other Houses who just came to watch.
It was a big deal, losing your team Captain and Keeper under mysterious circumstances and having to hurriedly fill in his position.
I was just relieved that this was happening at the start of the semester. It was barely three weeks since the new semester began so we would be able to recover if we found a good enough Keeper now.
There was a decent turnout for the tryouts, Blair and Tanner were in charge of the trials while I sat back.
There was no need for me to be with them if all I could do was play badly, when the new Keeper was chosen they would be introduced to the Room of Requirement.
There I could just test them myself if there was a need to.
Although I had brought the team to the Room of Requirement in order to improve the team, I didn't tell them how to access it and they didn't ask either.
If they wanted to practice, I had to be there because I was the reason we were using it in the first place.
Although Bak Ji-hun personally approached us that he wanted to be a part of the team, he stayed back, letting the other students that wanted to try out go before him.
While the preparations were underway, I moved closer to Jason. He was in the same year as Ji-hun, he was the best person to gather intel from.
"Hey, what do you know about Bak Ji-hun?" I threw an arm around Jason's shoulders.
Jason perked up. "Eh? Ji-hun? He's a weird one." He scratched his head. "But I don't really know him well, I doubt anyone does. Ever since Year One, he's always preferred to be a loner."
I hummed, looking straight at Bak Ji-hun who had his head lowered, his black bangs covering the top part of his face.
"Most people steer clear of him, not because he's bad or anything but because he's so quiet and emotionless that it feels almost unnatural you know? Anyway, as I said, I can't judge cause I don't know him that well." Jason repeated, looking like he had let too much slip.
"Thanks." I patted his shoulders and moved away to better watch the tryouts.
Most of the students that had come to tryout were flops, it was clear that they weren't serious.
Blair painstakingly screened each and every one of them though. I hardly paid attention through most of it, only perking up when Ji-hun's turn came.
I couldn't say if I was surprised or not. Bak Ji-hun was the kind of person that if he turned out to be terrible at Quidditch or unrealistically good at it, I would still be caught off guard.
Well, safe to say that he was a pretty decent keeper. Compared to the rest that had come before him, one would think he was a pro.
Blair looked like she had found a diamond after searching through stones, she brightened up immediately, cheering as she decided then and there that he would be on the team.
Most of the onlookers dispatched at this point. Bak Ji-hun did not attract attention at all.
He was one of those kinds of people who blended into the background. Everyone knew who they were but somehow no one could say for certain exactly who they were.
We retired to the Slytherin locker rooms with our new member, there wasn't much of a celebratory air even though we had lucked out with Ji-hun.
We might have filled in the empty space of a Keeper but the Slytherin Quidditch team was still without a Captain.
After a period of stretch silence, Tanner broke it. "Are we seriously doing this? Blair was already the Captain even while Jon was still around, I don't see that changing now."
There was a unanimous agreement. Blair deserved to be the Captain, she genuinely cared about the team and worked hard to ensure its growth.
///Author's Note///
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