Around and around and around the pitch she went. Sierra was on a mission, and that mission included catching all the rocks she could with little or no effort at all. Yup. All she was going to do was fly around and around and those rocks would just fall right on in, right? Right. It was a foolproof plan! Sierra began the process of circling the pitch. As she did this, she drew in a soft sigh on contentment. Yes, this was just a leisure fly around the pitch.

It took her about five minutes to realize that she’d so far had no luck. She began to eye the area around her with a suspicious expression. This plan was going to work, wasn’t it? She could just fly around leisurely, make no effort, and get all the rocks she wanted, right?

Apparently…no.

A few more laps around the pitch, and Sierra was frowning again. Nothing. BAH HUMBUG.

Well...

At least there wasn't another wave of rocks right? She wouldn't be over attacked this time. 'Cause really... she hated the injuries she got already all because of falling rocks. But she didn't cry her eyeballs out, Katrina Hudson was a strong girl. And she will not cry.

NO.

CLUNK! CLUNK! CLUNK!

Holy mother of Salazar Slytherin. Three more rocks fell into her cauldron. Was this her lucky day? Naaaaaah, it was just luck for her at the right time. Yaah! Three more rocks to add to the collection, y'all. WHO'S JELLY HUH?!

It was now... or never. Not literally but eh. He was SO CLOSE. It was like... when... he was racing after the Snitch and his fingertips could almost FEEL the metal wings of the tiny, golden ball. And he just knew that he had to inch further a LIIIIIIIIIIIIITTLE bit more and then he'd catch the precious ball. Hopefully.

... Or... you know... when you're on the last question of your piece of homework.

And if he DID look at this like one giant piece of homework... this was probably the part where things would be trickier than ever, right? Because the last questions were always the one where you couldn't figure out the answer... but you do know the answer somewhere in your brain.

...

OKAY SUMMERS. GET YOUR HEAD IN THE GAME. Or class. Whatever.

But as much as he TRIED to concentrate, the cauldron on his head wasn't really letting him. Was it just him or was it starting to feel a LITTLE bit heavier now? Maybe it was because he had so many rocks in the cauldron and now they were all... well... it was as if they were having some sort of party up there every time he moved. Like a party where everyone had LOTS of ice cream and pumpkin juice!

... Maybe he needed to end this quickly.

Alec shrugged and narrowed his eyes slightly. Come oooooooooooooon... His broom could go faster than this! Yeah! And... and... those cluster of rocks? There were more than two there! He needed to get TWO and then he was DONE. He could practically TASTE the ice cream now.

ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! And... DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!

He was nearing the ground... he was not going to crash... he was not going to crash... whimper.

CLUNK! PING! PING! CLUNK! CLUNK!

THERE. ALL DONE. GRIN GRIN GRIN GRIN GRIN. Not caring about anything else at the moment, Alec jumped off his broom and belly-flopped onto the ground. MMMMMMMMMM. Did the ground want a hug? He wanted to give a hug!

... Actually... where was Pao? And Ells? And anyone else? HE. WANTED. TO HUG PEOPLE. GRIN GRIN GRIN.

ASDFGHJKL;

Kat loved the fact she got three rocks in her cauldron... AT ONCE. Oh Merlin, someone call the press Katrina Marie Hudson was a happy llama today. Award her with a goat sandwich, puh-leaaaaaaaaaaase? She like one... since she was already starving because they've been up in the air for, what, 30 minutes? She didn't know and she didn't care. All she wanted was house points and to get the rocks inside her cauldron AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

Aha, there's falling rocks. But not a wave of the at least, yay. Kat flew to her right and went forward trying to position herself to the falling rocks. BRACE YOURSELF.

CLUNK! CLUNK!

Yay! At least two rocks decided to call Kat's cauldron their home. But she'd totally love it even more if she got 3 or more rocks in at the same time. FWOOOOOOOSH!

After helping Ella up, and inwardly squealing at the touch of her hand, Theo was ready to take off for the third time. Though he'd be keeping an extra eye on Ella just in case she got hurt again. Or puked again. Or even got looked at funny by anyone.

Protective!Theo.

ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM - Theo was actually practicing some of his Quidditch moves on the pitch, totally just to show off in front of the amateur flyers. He was doing funky sweves, hoop-de-hoops, the lot! But back the rock stuff, of course. He only had twenty-four to get.

-_____________-

Was that...... Alec?

The Hufflepuff hand landed on the ground, looking very pleased with himself. DAMN - did that mean he had gotten all the rocks? Whilst Theo still had zero?! That was NOT cool. The second year put his imaginary competitive hat back on and whizzed through the sky with his cauldron raised.

Clunk. Bish. Bash. Bosh.

After zoooming through pretty much the whole length of the pitch, FOUR big rocks had clunked into his cauldron. Oh yes, he sooooo had this.

Kat was bored. She NEEDED to talk. But Vindictus hated her that much so everyone was also deaded. They looked like characters from those silent movies. Those annoying ancient movies. Ugh. Kat wanted to throw a brick at whoever thought silent movies were entertaining. But it was a whole lot worse that they were acting like they were part of the silent movie.

Vindictus wanted a Silencing charm huh? Why didn't he just make it easier and silenced them all? SNORT.

CLUNG!

Kat heard. Oh yay another rock... Waiting for another one.

...

Yeah, it didn't come. Kat was a bit furious now. *MENTAL HEADBUTT ON THE BRICK WALL*

Okay, right, soo...this idea wasn't working either. That did it. Sierra was getting beyond frustrated. Why was it that each and every time she had some brilliant idea, it ended up falling through on her? Speaking of falling, where were the rocks?! If she was flying around and around the pitch, why weren't any rocks falling into her cauldron?

She sighed. Her idea to not show any effort but still come out on top wasn't going to work, was it?

She growled loudly this time. Forget growling under her breath. This was WAR. It was Sierra versus the rocks now, and she refused to lose. Sierra leaned forward and flew rapidly toward the center of the pitch. She saw a group of rocks headed down, and if she timed things just right, she'd be able to catch them. Her focus was straight ahead, and she had a determined look on her face. Just as she got there, she steered her cauldron toward the rocks, and three fell right on in.

WOOT!

For the most part he loves the color blue, but now was probably not the time he would like to have it on him, like literally. He could imagine that he would be black and blue all over by tonight, something he’s not really looking forward to when he gets back to the dorms. He looked up to see Max zipping around the pitch. Oh to be an awesome Quidditch player like him….

…. Ok stop dreaming boy. Back to work.

He hovered for a while following the movement of rocks. He zoomed towards one, ducking a little low thinking he could catch it with his pot…

… and look at that. He missed.

Clang. Pitter. Patter.

Theo was like, awesome at this. And it took him AGES to even realize it. To quote Marty McFly: Once you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything. Uh huh, Theo had his heroes, you know.

But saying that, his little legs were getting quite tired, especially after having every bone of his body being knocked by a rock every two seconds.

IN FACT, THERE WAS ONE NOW.

"Oweeeeeee." Don't cry, Theodore. He slowed down on his broom to rub his shoulder that had just gotten impacted, but he was okay. He REALLY needed to check his cauldron, cos he couldn't exactly count very well when he was trying to focus on the path ahead.

Didn't he have like twenty?

No, only seven...

Laura was now ignoring rocks that were single, she wanted to get a group of rocks together, but they were all so far away from her, she wanted to get to them but she could reach them

*Clang* *clang* *Clang* Clang* *Clang*

Laura was really confused at first she turned and looked and saw that she had caught two more rocks but they was just hitting the sides of the cauldron and making a racket, she was hoping they would stop soon.

Okay... She needed only 9 more rocks. NINE ROCK. She can do it. Kat zoomed around the place to look for more rocks to catch. The girl nearly fell from her broom but she held tight to it. PHEW. She didn't want to lose those rocks. NUHUH. She'll totally storm out of the pitch and hide in the common room if the rocks all fell. HER EFFORTS GONE.

Oh crud... another wave of rocks.

>_____<

Kat hated them. But she braced herself for more injuries. As the rocks fell, Kat's shoulder got hit by a rock. At least it had landed on her shirt. Bad part was... it hit her cheek. UGH. Another cut below her eye. This was completely stupid! "ARGH!!!!"

CLUNK! CLUNK!

Right. Two more stones. MAKE IT UP FOR THE INJURIES.

After a sudden brain wave, Theo tried a different approach with the rock catching. By actually CATCHING the rocks with his hands. Hey, maybe if he got enough practice in, he could try out for seeker. Maybe just maybe, but actually, maybe not.

Theo was just a chaser to the core.

Raising one hand into the sky, he felt a little nervous, but was coping. These rocks weren't exactly as light as the golden snitch. Not that Theo had ever held the golden snitch. Maybe it was heavy? HE NEEDED TO ASK DYLAN.

But there was a perfect rock coming at him, and if he didn't move, it would hit him in the face so.... CATCHING TIME. As it impacted with his palm, Theodore closed his fingers on it and blinked. Wow, that was incredibly easy. Probably it was coming at him so closely. No brainer. Seeker in the making, WATCH OUT ALEC.

And oh look, whilst he was busy catching, a smaller rock dinged into his cauldron. Result.

Minerva looked around trying to decide which way was best to go now. Seeing a group of rocks falling across the pitch, she leaned forward and took off towards them. Zigzagging around other classmates seeing streaks of blue, yellow, red, and green on her way. If she wanted to she would have smiled and thought of Christmas lights, but she was on a mission. As she flew someone pulled in front of her. Minerva pulled up as fast as she could and shot up in the air just over their head maybe bumping them with a few twigs. "Sorry" she yelled as she continued toward the rocks.

As Minerva got closer she realized there were more rocks then thought. This was going to probably hurt a bit. Getting under them she leaned to where she thought they would be coming and soon one hit her arm and she glanced up just quick enough to know she needed to move an inch to the left. So she did and heard the ping, then she moved again hearing another ping, glancing up she saw more coming so she got into place and to her surprise she heard two pings. Counting in her head she smiled and threw her hand in the air excited to have caught four in a row. That was so many for her, but her hand didn't stay in the air for long. Next thing shew as doing was shaking it from pain as a rock hit her knuckles.

FIFTEEN ROCKS! Ariana was on a roooooolllll.

Swhhssshhh, Weee.

she did a zig zag pattern around the feild just hoping a rock would fall in. Several hit her hands and shoulders and she was getting FRUSTRATED!

"Ugh Come On you Stupid Stones!" she said alloud and the rocks must of heard her cause

CLUNK

Rock SIXTEEN fell in. and my these rocks were getting heavyyyyyyyyy

Laura was so delighted when she saw three rocks falling down near each other, she was in total disbelieve that she hadn't seen them before she raced off toward them.

*clang*

Laura looked as her cauldron one of the rocks had hit the side of the cauldron and then for some strange reason the rock had fallen into the other two and knocked them both away which was not nice, Laura sighed but then she saw another cluster of rocks falling together, she raced off towards them.

*clang* *clang* *clang*

Laura had managed to get there just in time and had caught all three rocks she was so happy about that, she had four more rocks to get to reach her target and she so wanted to get them.

This was getting booooooring.

And his cauldron of rocks was seriously beginning to ache against his shoulder. But, it only required a few more minutes of effort, because the rocks seemed to RAIN on him when he actually tried.

Ding, ding, ding.

An extra three! Theo stopped midair for a moment, just to count over his precious rocks.

Ten... eleven... twelve. TWELVE. Woot! Only... another twelve to go. Theo growled slightly. After ALL this time, he was only half way there? Was it worth swooping to the floor and snatching some of Alec's rocks? He could still see him down there, all vulnerable and stuff.

Nah - too risky with Ella being around.
....

MEANWHILE - HE CAUGHT ANOTHER ONE. With his bare hands. "Yesssssssssssss."

Eighteen rocks later Jory couldn't help feeling pleased with himself. The aches and pain were worth it all, he decided. He soared around looking for more. Sometimes, more of the rocks would bounce either off of him or his cauldron.

The Puff continued soaring around, carefully avoiding other students. He didn't want to bump into one of them and then for some reason he'd loose all his stones. He wasn't looking above him, so he didn't notice two more stones heading for him until... PLUNK! CLUNK! They fell into the cauldron. ''Twenty now!'' he though delightfully.

One Minute she was flying free as a bird next moment SOMEONE WAS HEADING RIGHT FOR HER!

"Not again." she mumbled and swooped down a foot so that the collusion would be avoided as she noted the person pulling up ."WOuld you watch where your going." She said as she got some broom twigs in the face before hearing the voice.

MIN!? She made a shard U turn as CLANK! Stone 16 fell in. Cool!Beans

"I didn't know you were in this class today Min." she said flying by her friend. She stayed within talking distance from her as she flew in a zig zag pattern again

"how many Stones have you caught."

PLUNK.

"that's seventeen for me." she told the girl, pointing to her cauldron to motion that one had just fallen in

"OOOOFF!" Kat said as another rock stubbornly went to her face. Now they were coming for her FACE. Vindictus and his rock minions totes hate her. Whatever. Katrina gets more injuries in Quidditch and doesn't cry. Why should she cry when this isn't even one percent of the pain they get while playing Quidditch? Right.. let's chill out.

CLUNK!

Whoa. Another rock! RESULT.

CLUNK! CLUNK!

Two more fell inside her cauldron.


BEST CATCH OF THE DAY.

Sierra was experiencing an adrenaline rush now. She could sense that the lesson was coming to an end soon. They'd been out here...what? A full hour now? Right. A full hour that felt like days and days. Nevertheless, Sierra still didn't have the necessary rocks needed to finish the final. Four more. That's all she needed. Four little rocks.

She wondered if the professor would mind a quick summoning spell...

Err...right. Nope, a summoning spell was NOT going to happen. For one, she knew the professor would never allow it, and for two, she'd likely end up summoning every rock on the pitch. EEP. She stopped hovering in one place and began flying again. She was on the lookout for rocks, and this was one war she WAS going to win.

Sierra versus rocks.

Sierra: 20
Rocks: 90273482974823

Sigh. Sierra saw a group of rocks just up ahead and zoomed toward them. Soaring...soaring...soaring... Then she was there! She positioned her cauldron just below them and grinned when two fell in.

Joy spotted three rocks ahead of him. "Got to get those!'' he thought and accelerated as fast as the broom would let him. "Come on...'' He kept his eyes on the target. They were falling but he was closing in. Closer, closer, closer. He dived a little so he would be underneath them, then averaged where they would fall, stopped and he waited.

Three PLUNKS told him he had captured all three! He was really starting to like this game.

Laura looked around the pitch, she needed to catch 4 more rocks she saw a cluster of rocks falling and sighed, she couldn't reach them in time, if she could have she would have and tried to get all 4 rocks in one go but they were too far off so she decided to just get the two falling near her, she was about to set off when.

*CLUNK* *CLUNK*

Laura looked into her cauldron and sat there shocked, two rocks had been added but how she hadn't seen them, this was strange maybe she should look more carefully next time, so now she had to find two more if she can.

Almost there...almost there...almost there.

Sierra kept mentally coaching herself along. She was so close. So, so close. If she'd counted correctly, she already had twenty-two rocks in her cauldron, which meant she only needed two more. She thought about trying to catch a few extra, because...what if she'd counted incorrectly?

Hmm...

Nevermind that now. She needed those two extra rocks, and she needed them now. She continued with her old faithful plan--flying toward the areas where most of the rocks were pouring down and then doing her best to get some to pour into her cauldron.

Once she got right into the thick of things for what felt like the millionth time, she began darting this way and that, waiting for the sound of more rocks tumbling into the cauldron. When one did, she felt like shouting for joy--twenty-three rocks!

...but she needed one more. Just one more little rock!

"Good catch, Laura!'' Jory called as he chased after the rock he ad just spotted a good distance from him. "Let's go, broom!'' he exclaimed as he accelerated.

"Don't fall further,'' he thought as if willing the rock to slow down. And he was gaining! Closer...until he braked to a stopped where he hoped it would fall. He waited, until PLUNK! Another down!

Minerva turned hearing a voice, "Oh hey Ariana.." Then she laughed.. "Really Ari.. A class that I'm not in, is that possible?" There really wasn't any hiding Minerva's nerd side when it came to classes. Oh and how many rocks, "Well...." she had to think, "I think I have 14. I had a bit of a slow start to this game. I think if you count the bumps from the rocks hitting me I would have more bumps then whats in my cauldron." She laughed. "Hey Ari.. want to make our own little game? Say keep are own numbers from here on out away from the class total. See who can get more before class ends?" She laughed seeing a group of rocks she was going to head towards.

Minerva smiled hoping her friend would want to play a bit and leaned forward taking off before getting an answer. She headed towards the falling rocks. Looking back to see if Ariana was coming she wasn't didn't see how close to the falling rocks she was and "Ouch" She put her hand to her eye. That will be a nice black eye tomorrow, Minerva thought. Trying to shake it off she lined up to try and catch another rock. Missing at her first attempt she quickly scooped under another rock and heard the ping as it fell into her cauldron.