trans_9 | On your broomsticks! [OPEN]

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On your broomsticks! [OPEN]

Following the instructions given to him by crew members here and there, Cedric stepped through a green archway tucked on a corner of the fifth floor and entered a grey void. He closed his eyes, concentrating on the sort of place that would be perfect for a day of flying. He imagined a bright grassy plain, a large lake, and a forest off to the side. Vague memories turned into vivid images surrounding him, so thoroughly convincing that he really believed he'd been taken from the ship and placed on a field back on Earth. It was quite a convincing illusion
.
All it needed now was the key piece: a group of brooms. He thought for a moment on which brooms to provide them with. Firebolts were the world standard, but he'd never known one well enough to be able to picture it accurately. The school brooms, Shooting Stars, were nice and safe for new riders but not quite reliable. In the end, he knew his own broom best: a sleek Nimbus 2001, gifted by his father. As long as he instructed the fliers to go slowly, they should be safe on those brooms.

Visitors would find Cedric side-mounted on a broom in his black and yellow Quidditch robes, gliding just slightly over the grass. As soon as he spotted them, he'd greet them enthusiastically and move to touch down. "Hi!"

((ooc: wide open for everyone to join in! We'll be doing some group exercises too, so thread around! Fly as a group when you're ready!))

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Cedric only looked mildly disappointed. He wouldn't try to force anyone, after all. "True, it's not for everyone. I can't imagine most medics being thrilled about all the injuries we get. Madam Pomfrey wasn't!"

He laughed to himself for a moment, thinking over Howard's other suggestion. "Right! We'd need a referee. You'd still have to do some flying, but you'd have a protective shield cast over you. Come to think of it, we'd also need a scorekeeper---maybe a commentator. Do you know anyone who might want to do those things?"

Cedric had slipped into Planning Mode.

"Protective shield sounds good. Protective shield sounds really good." Howard looks a bit concerned, though it's not at Cedric; he's just surprised by what he's even saying. He's never liked sports, never. Why would he help some guy he barely knows start a team?

And yet, he has to admit the feeling of flying is nice. And Cedric's been kind enough.

And that's probably why he doesn't recommend 'Karis' as a commentator. That could only end in disaster. "No, don't know anyone off the top of my head. Zou might be interested in scorekeeping, maybe."

"You'd be safe, don't worry. The last thing we want to do is lose our referee." Cedric wisely opted not to mention the angry Beaters that sometimes tried to hit a Bludger that way when their team had been ruled against. It was best not to scare people who were trying to help you.

"All right, then I'd have to keep looking. Scorekeeping's easy enough, I'm sure he'd be all right. You'd just have to get to know the basic fouls of Quidditch. There are supposedly seven hundred, but common sense will tell you what constitutes a foul."

Howard chews his knuckle as he thinks of that. "I'm not making any promises, since I work a lot, but we'll see. Sounds like it could be fun. And I can memorize seven hundred fouls easy."

Well. Not necessarily easily. But it would give him something to do.

"You'd only have to know a few dozen. I don't know all the fouls, no one does. The Department of Magical Games and Sports keeps most of them secret---it's for the silliest reason. They think people would be inspired to make the fouls if they knew they existed."

Cedric rolls his eyes. It's clearly poor logic. "They essentially boil down to this: no tampering with the other team's ability to fairly play and all the balls have to be handled correctly. You'd know after watching one game."

Howard gets an idea. "Could you reimagine one of the games you seen in the Sensoriums? I mean, if you got time."

"I could," Cedric thinks, a number of games running through his head. "Do you want a particularly dirty game, with plenty of fouls? Something well-played?"

"First one sounds good. Show me what fouls look like so I can recognize them and all that." And Howard actually figures that with his ability to multitask, keeping his eye on that many balls and players won't be too difficult. Tricky, but not impossible. Secretly, he does like those small challenges.

Cedric grins. Oh, he remembers a particularly foul Quidditch World Cup. He hadn't been invested in the teams that year, but he did appreciate a good game. You'd think professional players would know better!

The match unfolds before their eyes. Chasers after the Quaffle, Seekers weaving in and out in search of the Snitch, Beaters on top of Bludgers...at first it all looked fairly normal. But the fun was soon to begin, starting with a scuffle between the Chasers. One had grabbed onto the other's broom, dragging it down with her.

"That's blagging," Cedric explains, watching as they're forcibly broken up by a Bludger flying in their direction. It continues to the hoops, where the Keeper is using some...creative tactics, including sitting on a hoop and using their rear end to keep the Quaffle from entering.

"And that's the strangest instance of flacking I've ever seen," thought a bewildered Cedric. Huh. How did what they see make any sense?

"Do I have to know what they're all called or can I just point out when people are being really dumb?"

If Quidditch sounded silly, watching it is an entirely different level of ridiculous. Howard's fairly certain that at some point the players on both sides decided that they ad stopped caring about points and changed their goals to collecting as many yellow cards as they could get. Or whatever the wizarding equivalent was.

"No, you don't need to know the names. Also keep an eye out for people using their powers against each other---obviously, that's not allowed either."

Just as he says it, there's a subtle movement inside one of the Chasers' robes. In a flash, the other team's Keeper is wobbling off his broom. A subtle Jelly-Legs Jinx backfired.

"This match is unusual. I think the teams were in a dispute about ownership of some kind of kettle beforehand, and they were venting their frustration against each other."

"Might be tricky if you let any telekinetics on the team. Although the one from my world was always really obvious about it. Lots of jazz hands and booga booga fingers."

Howard looks surprised. "Over a kettle? Was there food in it?"

"True, but...maybe I misunderstood how the comm rings work, but doesn't everyone have that ability now? I'd either have to ban it or allow everyone to do it."

It might be easier to allow everyone, he thinks, though it'll definitely change the strategy of the game.

"We think it was a rare potion ingredient. Some ingredients, especially from rare magical creatures, are extremely expensive. Whatever they had was very valuable...or it could've been a potion as well. There are powerful ones, such as Felix Felicis. Whoever drinks it will be unnaturally lucky for a time. Everything happens to fall into place and their plans never go wrong."

Professor Snape had told them about it during one of their first NEWT level lessons. It was for fools, he'd said, and they needn't dawdle, but he'd always been curious.

"Telekinetics, not telepathy. TK is moving things with your mind, TP is mind control and brainwaves and that sort of stuff. Don't they have the X-Men in the wizarding world?" Although Cedric doesn't really seem the sort to like comic books, Howard guesses.

"That Felix stuff must fetch a fortune on the black market." Howard's eyes light up a little, as if considering that possibility for some alternate life where he was a wizard and had access to that sort of knowledge.

"Right," Cedric corrects himself. "Sorry. I'm not the greatest at understanding science fiction...or science reality, I suppose." It's real now, isn't it? "But those would fall under the same bans. I'll interview everyone playing to see if it's a problem first."

He laughs and shakes his head. Oh, if only it was that easy! "It's a notoriously difficult potion to brew, and it's not wise to drink too much. You'd start to become reckless, even addicted to it. It wouldn't surprise me if they were feuding over that."

Cedric exhales. "If only we had the ingredients. I can think of a few uses for it in a war."

The match eventually concludes, with both Seekers at war. One team's Chaser reaches out to grab the Snitch. "That's a foul too. Only the Seekers are meant to touch it."

Another quarrel breaks out, and finally someone wins. It was exhausting to watch.

"I've got their medical files. I can always screen 'em if you think they aren't being honest." Hey, HIPAA isn't codified on this ship. Howard thinks. Probably.

Howard nods, wondering if there's an inverse correlation there. The more unlucky you are, the more cautious you become. The more lucky, the more in reverse. It would explain why the kids back home with incredible superpowers were brash while the 'normal' kids like him or kids with useless superpowers were just scared and paranoid.

"If we could figure it out...I mean, I don't know how potions work and all, but I'm real good at chemistry. What kind of ingredients?"

He's still watching the game wrap up, but his mind's a bit elsewhere now.

"I wouldn't do that to them," Cedric shakes his head. "Not right away. How's a team meant to trust each other if you go in with suspicions?"

Such a thought is probably alien to some people. He shrugs, wishing he could pull it off. "I don't have any potion books with me, and even if I did it takes six months to brew. There are probably more efficient ways to get what we need."

Cedric's name under Howard's mental 'sucker' column just got underlined and circled. "Um, if you don't go in with suspicions you're kind of hiring a team of idiots. What, you think just because people sign up for sports mean they're great guys and girls?"

"I would hope so...well...you do have a point." He frowned and crossed his arms. "I wouldn't trust the Slytherin team as far as I could throw their brooms. Cunning and ambition don't have to involve antisocial behaviour, but they tend to take it to extremes," he muttered to himself. No doubt there were Slytherin-type people among the crew.

"Slytherin's what, another group of wizards or something?" Howard doesn't see what's wrong with cunning and ambition, or at least cunning - ambition has a tendency to backfire - but then again, he's pretty antisocial himself.

"Yes. Everyone at Hogwarts is sorted into one of four houses based on their aptitudes, and each has a Quidditch team. I was captain of the Hufflepuff team. People are placed in Hufflepuff if they're industrious, kind, and fair. Slytherins are known for their cunning, ambition, and self-preservation instinct. They could be good businessmen, but most choose to be common bullies instead. We can all get a little heated about Quidditch, I'll admit, but they're the worst. Deliberately injuring other teams' players, trying to steal playbooks. It never ends!"

How many Slytherins had he stopped in the hallways as prefect? He'd lost count.

"Anyway, time will tell who the captains need to keep an eye on here."

Howard looks a bit lost in thought as he tries to figure out a way to respond to that that doesn't make it obvious that he's have totally ended up in Slytherin, from Cedric's description. "So what, you show up for your first day of class and they give you a personality test to tell you where you go? Seems a little deterministic."

Cedric had mostly figured that out anyway. Not all Slytherins were bullies! Just the ones who tended to end up on their Quidditch team and the troublemakers in the hallways.

"Almost. We have an enchanted sorting hat that makes the decision. It's said to contain the wills of the founders of the Hogwarts houses---the brave and reckless people are Gryffindors, the wise and studious are Ravenclaws, the cunning and ambitious are Slytherins, and the loyal and hardworking are Hufflepuffs. Our attributes don't sound as impressive, so the other houses tend to call us a group of duffers."

Hmph. They could think what they wanted to, but it wasn't true.

Not that Howard wasn't a bully, back in his day, even if a few months ago seems like a very long time.

"And enchanted...hat." Howard nods as if this all makes perfect because, well, in this world now, it does. "Honestly, the Riverclaws sound more boring than you guys do. At least you guys are loyal. There's a ton to be said for loyal."

Howard has one rule he truly sticks to: you never abandon a friend. Everything else can and should be compromised as the situation demands.

"Yes. It sings too. A new song every year," Cedric grins. He always had liked to hear those tunes. Something about supposedly inanimate objects having some resemblance to life is amusing to him.

"Hey, not all Ravenclaws are bad. My..well, the girl who was my girlfriend is one."

He's not sure about their relationship status. He'd still want to be with her, but he shouldn't. He's at the end of his life on Earth. And Cho would probably come from a time after he'd died, wouldn't she?

"Anyway. We're all rivals, the different houses, but it rises to ridiculous levels, especially when Gryffindor and Slytherin are at each other's throats. Really, all we get for the House Cup is the hall decorated in our colours at the end of the year. There are more important things."

Like Quidditch! He always liked to try for the Quidditch cup. He'd ask Howard about his school, but he gets the feeling that personal questions are unwelcome.

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