As Theo was about two seconds from impacting Alec, he realized that this was an awful idea. How come heading for a rock, had ended up as heading for Alec? Did he WANT to crash into Alec? But he was like, one of Theo's best friends....

Whatever. It was just intuition.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOM.

The pair whizzed to the ground with a loud thud, making him VERY glad that he was using a school broom and not his own precious baby. But he was okay, apart from hurting his butt on the floor.

The first thing he looked at was his cauldron, which was now empty.

Theodore rolled over, shaking with fury. He even clenched his fists in the air. "LOOK WHAT YOU JUST DID!!!" ALL THE ROCKS, GONE. Even though this was ALL Theo's fault, it was actually all Alec's fault. Stupid Hufflepuff. Not happy. NOTTTTTTTTT IMPRESSED. "I HAD FOUR ROCKS, SUMMERS. FOUR." If maybe he'd just stopped showing off as a star seeker by snatching all those rocks, they wouldn't of had this problem, would they?

His fault.

He looked up at Ella, and wondered whether to act out an injured soldier scene, but he had rocks to catch and points to win. So after giving Alec a SHOVE on the shoulder, Theo jumped back onto his broom and rocketed up into the sky, making very loud grumbles as he did so.

Ignoring that mean evil rock, Cassia was concentrating on her balance which now was shifting thanks to all the students flying back and forth. Why were they flying FAST! The rocks were obviously not going anywhere so calm down and stop distracting ME. Well, she so would've loved saying this out loud and ask people to fly AWAY from her but she wasn't sure if people were going to obey so she thought of ignoring the people. Though it was pretty harder making sure not to lose balance and not bumping into people at the same time. Especially when she knew for sure that bumping into someone will only make her fell off her broom….and not gracefully.

So, where were the rocks! Come on some rocks must wanted to get into her cauldron. How come other students were having rocks into theirs! There must be something Cassia was missing. Maybe because she was flying in straight routs? Though she doubted it she figured that it won't hurt to try. And that required extra concentration because it was trickier while flying in twisted routs but anything to get the stupid little rocks into her cauldron.

And very slowly she started turning and steering her broom consuming her energy. And she managed to change her angle and keep flying no problem till now. She had everything under control a very suitable situation for a rock to clink inside the cauldron….No? No rocks!

Two rocks so far! That wasn’t so shabby, even if she’d done no actually work to catch them….Shrug. You take what you can get during these hard times, yeah?

The third year decided to make a loop around and go for a large cluster of rocks that seemed to be sticking together as it fell from the sky. If she could just get under it in time she’d totally be up like 3 more rocks! BEAM. Except…

As she looked up at the falling rocks, the third year noticed Theoman flying quite fast towards…O___O Hair Whipper?! Blink. What in Merlin’s beard was he doing? This wasn’t that kind of game! He was going to knock them both out of the sky and…
CRINGE!

The small blonde watched helplessly as her two friends fell from the sky and hit the ground, losing all of their rocks. Blink. That was SO not okay. If either one of them was seriously hurt she’d be SO writing them angry letters. Just saying. Oh! And they had a match coming up! Theoman knew this, yeah? He shouldn’t be trying to injure Hair Whipper! SHEESH. Seeker was kind of important to Championship games, y’know.

And then Theoman was looking up at Ella which was strange considering and she frowned at him before looking back up at the cluster of-

EEP!

And Ella Bishop took a flying rock right to the eye.

“Jumping Jellybeans!” She yelped, bring a hand up to her eye and cupping it. GREAT…now she’d have to be a flying cauldron wearing pirate. This was all Theoman’s fault. Frown.

PLUNK.

…And another rock landed inside Ella’s cauldron.

Jory heard shouting and looked down on the ground. It was obvious someone had crashed and lost all their rocks. A young Slytherin was shouting at Alec. Jory watched as the Slytherin gave Alec a shove then took off in the air. "Really?'' he thought. "It was an accident.'' Shaking his head, the fifth year looked around for more rocks.

He zig zagged among students, occasionally rubbing his shoulders as more rocks hit him. They boy turned his eyes upward, trying not to move the cauldron much, in case the rocks fell out or something. There were a few not far from where he was. "Aha!'' Maybe he could catch all, it looked like three at least. He urged the broom forward as they rocks came down but at that moment another student cut him off as she flew directly in front of his path. Hurriedly moving to the right, Jory kept his eyes on the target but unfortunately he made it in time to catch only one.

Shortly after Max's lucky catch, he drew his gaze down to Emmaleigh near the ground. She... was still alive, so that was good. Next, he turned his eyes toward Louisa - she was hanging in there, too - and he smiled over at little Ella(after her crash, which he missed) as she went. Even though she wasn't in his house, Max felt compelled to cheer for her in everything she did, whether it be Quidditch, answers in class, or... this current Flying final. He watched her catch a rock and seem surprised; he chuckled to himself lightly.

The Ravenclaw rested one hand on the side of his cauldron as he peeked back up at the sky, ignoring the people around him once more. Or he was trying to, until he heard a distinct crash, yelling, and turned just in time to see little Alec Summers' rocks floating back into the sky.

Poor kid.

Of course that little snide Slytherin Chaser was the culprit, Max assumed, as Theo's rocks drifted back up to the sky, too. Max forced himself to keep his face straight, just in case anyone saw his reaction to catching sight of young Theo losing his rocks. That kid was too pompous for his own good. The seventh year was glad he wasn't going to be around when that kid was older.

He was going to be the next Milton Shacklebolt, thinking he was Merlin's gift to them all.

As soon as the little scene had passed, Max shook his head, started to peek up, and lunged forward to catch a rock that was just about to pass him by. CLINK! The Ravenclaw smiled to himself, satisfied with the progress that he had made so far, and looked back to little Alec sadly.

He wished he could give the poor boy some of his rocks to make up for the unfair occurrence.

Laura was still trying to get the rocks into her Cauldron but she was having real trouble keeping her broom straight. "THIS IS HARDER THAN IT LOOKS!!!!" Laura shouted in frustration, she wasn't speaking to anyone but if someone would help her she wouldn't mind. "SURELY A GENTLEMAN WOULD HELP A LADY!" Laura giggled she didn't think there were many gentleman in the stadium so she should probably try and continue to get the rocks on her own.

WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT.

Maybe the fall had left him somewhat dazed and out of it. Because really, he didn't understand why the dude was SHOUTING at him, as if he INTENDED for this to happen. Really, why would Alec WANT to collide with other people, even if said people were one of his bet mates? Colliding just ended up HURTING people and that was MEAN.

Hear that Kinsley? It was MEAN. A very MEAN act that only MEAN people did.

"I... but... but..." Whimper. "That's not MY fault! You came to ME, remember?!" Accident? Not likely. Forces of attraction? Maybe. And maybe he felt a little bad about the fact that Theo had lost four rocks. Those were hard to catch, actually. "That's... still not my fault..." he mumbled, trying his hardest not to mention the fact that he had six rocks and now... they were all being caught by other people.

This was unfair.

And that shove? UNCALLED FOR KINSLEY. Alec narrowed his eyes slightly, letting his competitive and perfectionist side take over. He was GOING to catch more rocks than Kinsley, it was going to happen. And with that, the Hufflepuff expertly jumped on his broom and zoomed off, making a note to keep an eye on Theodore.

Maybe they can go for ice cream afterwards and just brush this little incident aside? Yeah. That would be AWESOME.

With this in mind, Alec grinned and shook away any negative thoughts and started zooming over towards another group of rocks. And it was just as he neared them that...

...

ELLS! O________________O

"Erm... are you okay?" he called out just as two rocks landed right into his cauldron whilst several more ricocheted off. If something happened to her...

FROWN. ... But he caught two rocks! ... But frown.

POST: 2. 2 Rocks

Oichi took a small dive as she got herself back on track from the dizzy spell of the first rock she caught. She then leaned back and flew upward. Rocks were pelting her again, "Owe, Owe, Owwweeee, THIS IS LUDICROUS", she gritted her teeth and carefully leaned in to fly lower and caught another one. It hurt a bit but she felt immune to pain at this point. She just wanted to get this over with.

Laura was still struggling to understand why she was doing this it was awesome but it was a hard game, she had to dodge rocks that was really really close to her but she had to get some of the rocks into her cauldron which was really really hard to do, without realising she suddenly heard.

*CLANG* *CLANG*

Laura looked into her bucket and realised that she had caught another rock that was so awesome, she hoped that she could continue to catch some more rocks but she had to hope she could get lucky some more.

As it continued to rain rocks all around her, Ella hovered with her hand over her eye, occasionally moving her neck in hopes that a rock might land in her cauldron. Unfortunately, the rocks seemed much happier bouncing off the thing. Le sigh.

Oh! And Alec was suddenly by her so he didn’t die! This was good considering things and stuff. Mhm. She gave him a faint smile and shrugged her shoulders at his question. “I think…a black eye might make me look more intimidating at the match.” Mhm. At least that’s what she was telling herself. “Are you okay?” Cause he’d just been tackled off his broom, he knew this, right? But…his hair didn’t look too messed up or anything so she figured he was feeling okay. That was good. “Don’t worry about me, okay?” She said giving him a small smile before gesturing to their classmates. “Better get going, yeah? Erm…be careful out there.”

Flying towards the middle of the pitch again, Ella did her best to watch where she was going. Having one eye all puffy and closed wasn’t exactly helping but she’d manage. Quidditch players were tough, DUH. Now to catch some serious rocks.

So. Two down, twenty-two to go. He'd be out of harm's way in no time, right?

With a bit more confidence this time, Pao set off down the pitch. Without even thinking about it, he naturally flew towards the goal posts. It took him several seconds to realize this. He swerved sharply to avoid the massive hard object. Oh, haha! Force of habit, I suppose.

CLUNK.

A rock fell into his cauldron. "Three!" he shouted excitedly. It would certainly be more fun if he kept track aloud, right? Huh, most of the rocks are landing in the middle of the pitch. I should head that way. Left tur--!

CRASH.

Someone else had had the same idea. Pao toppled off his broom, emptying his cauldron once more in the process. "Oh I'm so sorry! Are you al-- ALEC!" Yes, he had crashed right into the cool older dude. "Are you hurt? Did you spill your rocks?"

After Milton collected his first rock, he continued to swerve around under the path of the rocks, but he wasn't doing a very good job. Several of them just hit the edge of his cauldron and fell to the ground, only to fly back up to the sky. How was he good at quidditch, but not this?!

Milton let out a frustrated grunt and took a deep breath. He COULD do this! He continued on his way, focusing on a rock that was falling a few feet away and flew over towards it...

Clunk!

Yes! Milton grinned victoriously just as he saw another rock come raining down - and one right next to it! He zipped over towards the falling rocks and heard two nice CLUNKS! as the rocks fell into his cauldron. But he forgot to look around him and felt a solid THUMP as he collided with a Gryffindor.

ANYA. O_O "My bad!" he yelled said, making sure she was okay. At least his rocks were still in his cauldron.

Laura was still having trouble catching rocks, but at least she was avoiding people, if anyone knocked her off her broom so she lost her rocks she would shout and scream at them, but she knew no one would get that close to her, well she hoped that she would be able to catch enough rocks to show everyone that she was a good flier.

Laura looked up just intime to see a rock coming towards her. "OUCH!!" Laura sighed as she felt it hit her head, at least it wasn't going to knock her out or anything, but she would get her revenge on the rocks.

Lex stared after the girl, trying not to get too upset by her stupidity. She was the one to bump into her. Merlin, this was that Laura situation all over again! Just how many idiots did they allow in Hogwarts per year?? Didn't they have limits??? Everywhere needed limits!

Stupid people should have gone extinct ages ago.

In an effort to ignore the girl she zoomed a bit lower, hoping to hear some more clanking noises but just like the first set of stones, they were all missing! Ugh! Just as she got set to fly higher again she felt a stone hit her shoulder. She scowled a bit.

"Couldn't you hit the cauldron you bloody thing?!

Didn't rocks know anything??? Gosh! Lex took a sharp turn and tried getting one she'd seen start its descent once again. She had to get this one...

Max was AMAZED. How... in the world did everyone keep running into each other? Were they not looking at ALL? And how were some of them flying so fast? They... must have had nerves of steel. Surely they got pummeled with rocks every time they picked up speed and flew through the rainstorm of rocks. He kind of admired their ambition, but... he was just going to keep playing it safe by his established rules.

Rule number one: Take it nice and slow. Rule number two: let the rocks come to you. Rule number three: be mindful of your surroundings so unskilled flyers don't come barreling into you.

It had worked so far, so why would he try to catch the rocks faster but potentially collide with someone and lose them ALL?

That seemed a lot worse than taking his time to catch the twenty-four rocks.

Max gently leaned forward on his broomstick, moving slowly with his eyes on the sky near him. No, not that rock, he couldn't get to it in time on the school broom... not that one either, as it required too sharp of a turn-around for him to make it there in time... AHA! That one! He shot straight forward, had enough time to peek up at the sky, look around for unskilled flyers, and line his cauldron up correctly... CLUNK! Rock number eight!

Wait...whaaaa?!

Everything seemed to start happening at once, which left the Slytherin prefect wide-eyed and scrambling for her broom. She mounted it and kicked off into the air. It felt funny flying with a cauldron attached to her head. She was used to a bath in one of her hands and, well...nothing on her head. At least the professor had thought to charm the cauldrons, so it didn't feel as if they were wearing giants on top of their heads.

As the rocks rained down on them, Sierra tried to steer her broom in the direction they were coming in. She saw a few coming her way and sort of tilted her head toward them. One passed right by her face, causing her to frown and go back to a straight position on her broom. As she did this, though, she heard the distinct sound of two rocks dropping into the cauldron.

SCORE!

Laura looked around the sky she was going to try and find a cluster of rocks so that she could get more than one in each time because if she did it would be a lot easier to get to her target, she smiled when she saw two falling down near each other this was going to be interesting, hopefully she could catch them and she was going to do it.

"RIGHT!!!"

Laura went right, but then realised her cauldron wasn't in the right position, she was going to make it right and she had to do it quickly, she had missed them two but there was two more still coming down just above those two she had missed.

"Left!!"

Laura zoomed left and she had got her cauldron just in position when *DING* *DONG* Laura smiled, that was 7 down just a few more to go and hopefully this would show everyone she was good at flying.

It was a race to beat the stone. Lex leaned forward on her broom, accelerating down the pitch. If her timing was right she'd meet the stone and it would do that nice clanging thing she liked to hear inside her cauldron. No misses, please.

CLANG!

Yes!--Oww...that one actually made her head hurt a bit. All the loud clanging so close to her ear was giving her a headache. Once she was sure she got the stone she pulled up and started going higher. There was another stone she thought looked nice and she wanted it--

"Hey! Watch it!" She called, after nearly running into her least favourite Puffer. "I'm trying to catch stones here!!!" Pfft. Puffers...no; Laura.

Right. He had two rocks so far. And that meant that he had to catch another twenty two in... well... how long did they have until they have to stop playing? Did Vindy even say?

... Yeah... he didn't really know. Oops.

OH OH OH! There was a rock flying... well, not near him but somewhere over there! Alec grinned and shot forwards in his broom, his eyes on the rock and the rock only. He was so close! "Come oooooooooon..." he whispered to himself as he willed his broom to go faster.

And...

CLINK!

AWESOME! Grinning, the fourteen year old spun around on his broom. His third catch! And he wasn't too bruised or anything either! Feeling the mad urge to grin at someone, anyone, Alec looked around for a familiar face and his eyes landed on...

... COOL KEEPER DUDE.

The Hufflepuff GRINNED at Max and gave him a thumbs up. Obviously, he was doing really well, yeah? Alec would have been really surprised if he wasn't because... well... this was Maximus James! Dude was just... oozing with awesomeness.

Alec turned back around just in time to hear Ells speaking. ... Black EYE?! O_____O "Erm... I... maybe?" he said, grinning a little and silently wishing he could kiss it better. Or, you know, give her ice cream. Cough. "Yeah... yeah, I'm great!" GRIN. HE HAD THREE ROCKS. GRIN. "And... you as well, yeah?" And with that, he gave the girl a small wave before flying off towards another cluster right in the middle of the pitch. Out of instinct, the fourteen year old turned his head back to look at the blonde girl. She... flew really well, actually. Yeah... rea-

OOMPH!

"AAAAAARGH!" He was flying... soaring like a badger with wings... and without his BROOM. Uh oh.

THUD.

... WOAH. Alec blinked up at the sky as he saw a couple of familiar rocks fly out of his cauldron and back up to the sky. If it was Theoman again... "Pao!" Holy Superman, what was UP with this crashing thing today? At least Pao knew it was him and he was apologising. That was nice of the guy. "I... I'm fine, yeah," GRIN. More importantly though... "You okay, dude?" he asked, giving his shoulder a gentle pat. It WAS more important that Pao was okay. He wasn't going to let anything happen to his favourite firstie.

... Maybe he wasn't good at this at all.

She was still in over her head with the joy of capturing three rocks when out of the blue two more rocks dropped into the cauldron. MERLIN WAS ON HER SIDE! Louisa had to stare at the cauldron with its clanking raising and getting more energetic and loud. The broom underneath her was still lurching forward unsteadily as it flew, they were probably the tight shaking hands holding it. But that wasn't what the girl was paying attention to anymore, she HAD to--

BRAAAAAKE!

The Ravenclaw shifted the broom out of someone's way in the last minute before colliding into them. Imagine if she had actually hit them and fallen down losing all of her rocks! Crisis averted, PHEW.

Wait someone was near... "MAX!" Louisa squeak!yelled excitedly at the boy passing by. The rocks were hitting her back mostly but she didn't caaaare, she wanted to stop and show him!! "LOOK!" She inclined her head at her cauldron and flashed him a grin, "I'VE GOT FIVE!" Did she sound like her eleven year old self? Neat. The broom shot forward. "I wasn't even--" another lurch. "--trying! The game--" The broom jerked to the right. "--is not bad!" And now she was heading for the ground, not falling but like heading for the ground!

UH OH. Too much pressure on the front of the broom! D=

Pao got back on his broom and hovered about a foot off the ground. You know... just in case something was going to fall into his cauldron. That way it would at least count for something. "Good." He wouldn't want Alec to be hurt. "Yeah, I'm fine. Only thing wounded was my pride." Because of all the people he could run into out here, the worst besides Kurumi had to be Alec. "Well back to it, then!" He gave the cool older Puff one thumb up just before...

CLINK!

"Score! One!" he said, giving Alec TWO thumbs up this time. And then off he soared, putting some space between himself and the Seeker.

Okay, if he wanted to get this done fast, he needed to strategize. He tried to think of a new strategy. If I can watch one on the way up after it hits the ground... no. How about... If I see where it hits the ground, then I can hover directly over that spot. If the rock goes straight up and down, it should fall directly into my cauldron! Yes, that seemed like a decent idea.

He waited patiently until finally a rock made contact with the ground within a few feet of him. Pao zoomed to the spot, keeping his eyes peeled on the small indentation the missile had made in the soft springtime ground. Pao hovered for what seemed like years before... PLUNK. "Yes! It worked! Two!"

Boulders keep falling on my head, but that doesn’t mean that I will surely soon be dead…Black eyes aren’t for me…I can’t really see but I’m gonna keep it up cause nothings worrying meeee…even though I can’t seeee

If this whole flying thing didn’t work out for her, Ella was convinced she could be a lyricist. She was actually pretty brilliant at creating songs.

As she continued to fly, Ella noticed through her good eye that Max was going quite slowly. At first she was quite worried that her Hogwarts brother was hurt, as he was quite a good flier and she didn’t understand his pace. Well…that was until she saw the rocks falling into his cauldron. Hey! Brother was on to something! BEAM.

Slowing down a bit, the third year circled around the outskirts of the pitch, making a slight zig-zag path. The rocks were still falling down all around her and every so often a particularly large one would hit her awkwardly, causing her to wince. Boy, these rocks were no joke.

PLUNK!…THUNK!

O__O

YESSSSSSS! Ella BEAMED as she heard two more rocks fall right into her cauldron. This going slow thing was TOTALLY working! It also made it easier to spot other rocks and fliers. She seriously couldn’t afford to hurt her only working eyeball!

The ground was getting closer, and closer and there was no Vivi to catch her or soften the ground for her! What the heck was she supposed to do?! She didn't know how to pull brakes or maneuver the stupid broomstick gently!! WHat if the stones were dropped down and she lost the very thing she was so smug about a minute ago? No. Not in this lifetime, this was going to be her last broom flying and she was going to make it count.

Louisa shut her eyes tightly and with all her force pushed the broom's handle upward in a very reckless decision. The pile that was: the broom & the girl & the cauldron attached to her body, flipped twice in the air so fast no one or nothing fell down. Unless you count her stomach which was throbbing somewhere in her body, and her hair was a big heap of mess falling all over her face as she frantically peered into the cauldron to check on her FIVE! "Thank... Merlin.." she panted to herself.

Now to attempt and control this old broom.

Okay, so that strategy had several pluses to it. Number one, he didn't have to worry as much about running into people. If he was in a crash with this strategy, it would be someone else running into him, not the other way around. Number two, it was much less tiring. Number three, it took a lot of chance and luck out of the equation. Yeah, I'll stick with this for awhile.

He waited. And waited. And.. waited a bit longer. That's definitely the downside of this strategy. With my limited field of vision, there's really only a two- or three-meter radius in front of me that I can act on. I wonder if I can adjust my strap to give more visibility?

Pao glanced around to see if he was about to be plowed over. Seeing no one within a few meters, he touched down and fiddled with the cauldron's strap. Carefully, he slipped the cauldron back centimeter by centimeter until it felt like it was about to slide off the back of his head. Then he shifted it forward a little to make sure it would stay on. "There, much better." Plus it was using different neck muscles a little bit, so that was good as well.

Now that he could see a bit better, he was able to see a rock land off to his side via his peripheral vision. He sped over to the spot and waited. Ten seconds late, he felt the vibrations and heard the CLUNK that indicated success. "Three!"

So he was starting to not like this game at all. Not. One. Bit.

It wasn't nearly as easy as Quidditch, even if some people like Pao Too-Good-At-Keeping Mancini was making it seem as if it was. But was he going to give up? No way! He could do this and he could do it well! Because his name was Alec Blake Summers and... well... it was summer right now.

Internal manly giggle.

Alec nodded at Pao and gave him a thumbs up before jumping back on his broom. Whenever he was around Pao, he felt this insane urge to make sure that he was coming across as one of the cool, older guys. It was probably what came about from knowing people like Keefer and Treyen and Max. Though, he didn't really know Max that well. Oh, and Ellie was cool too. Nodnod.

...

CLUNK!

What? A rock? Oh right. He was meant to be catching these rocks! Not hovering in the air, wondering what it would be like to be properly cool. Right. And with that thought in mind, Alec shot forwards, bending down slightly on his broom. He narrowly dodged a cluster of large rocks and...

CLUNK! ... Again.

Two! Already! AWESOME.