Harry Potter and the Quidditch Island

Playground Antics

Harry had woken himself up earlier that morning, wanting to go for a jog, but one look out the window told him that it was out of the question. The storm had not let up at all. Well, that wasn't quite true, there was no more lightening, but the wind was still howling and the rain was still pouring and it didn't look like it would be over any time soon. Hedwig hooted at him.

"You don't want out, do you?" Harry asked Hedwig. She looked at him with a patronizing expression and tucked her head under her wing.

Ron had already left that morning, and as he didn't want to wake Terry up, Harry decided to read one of the books that he had taken out of the library. This proved to be extremely difficult, as the howling wind made it hard for him to hear his own thoughts. Instead, he decided to lay down his book and listen to the storm, waiting for Terry to wake up. He certainly was glad that he would be inside today as this storm was only a few lightening bolts shy of the storm they had flow through on their first day at the camp when they crossed the Irish Sea.

Terry finally woke up when an extremely large branch slammed into their window. He looked out the window and gulped.

"If Petalbee didn't like me on a nice day, what's he going to think of me flying in a storm?" he asked Harry nervously, who had a hard time keeping a straight face. He still couldn't see how anyone named Petalbee could be the least bit frightening.

When they reached the front hall, they saw Ron with a mop in hand. Harry felt a pang of guilt when he noticed that Ron was mopping up the mud that the two of them had dragged in with them. Before he could offer to lend a hand, a great force hit Harry in the back, causing him to stumble and almost fall flat on his face. He whipped out his wand and spun around quickly, only to see Cory laughing at him.

"Jumpy are we?" he laughed malevolently. "Don't worry Potter, there's plenty of real men here to protect you from all the scary monsters." He laughed and pushed past Harry. J.P and Hawk followed behind him. Hawk was grinning, but abruptly hid it when he met eyes with Harry. J.P was just shaking his head.

"Wha-OW!" Harry turned around and laughed out loud when he saw Cory sprawled on his back with Ron's mop tangled between his legs.

"Sorry Cory, didn't see you there," Ron said unconvincingly as J.P helped him up. Hawk laughed and clapped Ron on the back before grabbing Cory's arm and steering him away. This was not an easy task, as Cory was fighting against him, trying to sock Ron. Harry grinned at Ron, who grinned back mischievously before turning back to his mopping.

After breakfast, there were many upset looks on the faces of the twenty people that had to head outside and face the storm. Gratefully, Harry headed back to the front lobby and into the lounge that was just off to the right of the staircase. There were four old witches sitting in large, comfortable armchairs that had been pulled into a circle. They were all leaning forward and yammering very quickly about something. Harry distinctly thought he heard the word 'Hippogriff' in their conversation, but they all stopped as soon as he walked in and eyed him very warily.

He looked away from them quickly and began searching the room for an armoire. He found it against the back wall. It was quite a nice armoire: dark brown wood with elaborately carved patterns. On the doors were carvings of at least fifty Snitches, all painted with shimmering gold paint. Pausing, he tried to remember what Jiggs had said about the room.

Go to the lounge off the front hall and look for a big brown armoire with Snitches carved in the front. The room's just through there.

What did he mean, just through there? Through the armoire? It might have been big for an armoire, but it would be hard for most people to fit through it. Then again, Seekers were smaller than most people.

"That's one of those camp boys," he heard one of the witches hiss from behind him as he stared at the doors. "Up to no good I expect. You see Doris? You weren't missing out on anything, not having children. I brought up five boys, five BOYS, and not one of 'em turned out right."

"That's not something I would brag about," another said under her breath. He heard the first witch stomp her foot.

"It wasn't my fault, there's something about boys, always looking for trouble I say. Just look at this one, standing here as if he's king of the world. Doesn't even notice anyone else is in the room."

Harry turned around and glared at her.

"I didn't know there was a rule against standing in this manor," he said coldly before throwing open the doors of the armoire. He was surprised to find a rickety wooden staircase leading down through a hole behind it. He bent forward and climbed into the armoire, pleased to hear the shocked screeches of the witches behind him as he shut the door. Harry had to bend very far forward to be able to walk down the winding stairs. Someone Ron's height would have had to crawl down and Teddy wouldn't have been able to fit in the armoire at all. He wondered if Swan had ever been at this camp. If he had, he certainly would have had a problem getting to this next room, as it was hard for even the smallest Seeker to get down these stairs. He felt a lot like one of the archeologists that he had seen on the Muggle cable programs that explored the small tunnels of the Egyptian pyramids.

"Morning Harry," Jiggs said brightly as Harry stepped off of the last stair and straightened up. He was in a large room the size of a gymnasium that, to his surprise, was full of odd contraptions and equipment. "It's just a little training course I set up," Jiggs said when he noticed the bewildered look on Harry's face. "I'll explain it when the other two get here."

No sooner than he had said that when Logan and Patch came into the room. Logan whistled impressively and Patch looked politely intrigued.

"This, gentlemen, is a room created specifically for Seekers. The equipment in here is used to test and sharpen your reflexes, improve your eyesight, and help you become more agile. This morning, and every morning this week, I'm going to have you running this little obstacle course that I've put together. It'll also replace the running that Kitimer wanted you to do. I figured you wouldn't want to be jogging on a day like today. All right then, let's get started. Here's what you'll have to do."

He brought them over to the left hand side of the room. Looming in front of them was what looked to Harry like a much larger version of the type of jungle gym that you would see at a fast food restaurant for young children to play in. It had a cage-like frame and inside of it were many different types of swings and obstacles to get past. Jiggs motioned for them to come closer.

"This obstacle course was designed to test your reflexes and agility on land, as well as to get your heart pumping. The first step is through this opening. You run through this zigzagging track. Be warned though; as you pass different bars will swing out at you from different angles. You'll have to dodge, jump and duck your way through them." The area of the cage that Jiggs was pointing to flat on the floor and large enough for one person to run through at a time. It look plain enough; all it seemed to involve was running through the Plexiglas hallways that Jiggs had created.

The next part of the obstacle course/jungle gym also looked easy to get through. It was a series of hanging punching bags that the boys had to push through.

"Don't be fooled by how easy it looks," Jiggs said with a mysterious smile. "Those aren't ordinary punching bags, they've been bewitched, so they won't let you pass without a fight. It simulates the kind of things you might go up against on your way to the Snitch, like speeding Bludgers and violent players who want to knock you out of the game. Literally."

After getting past the punching bags, the boys were to climb a ladder to the second floor of the giant contraption. Once there, they were faced with the task of getting through a series of hoops that were floating in a snake-like pattern across the entire second floor. The rings were all different: some were gave you the room to simply climb through them and onto the next. Others were floating in large groups very close to each other, making Harry wonder how he was going to get through them without falling flat on his face. Some rings were floating at shoulder height, while others were almost touching the ground.

"Now, at the end of the rings course there is a ladder that you must climb up to get to the third floor. But before you climb the ladder, you have to catch five Snitches out of the air." He pointed to a small square of the platform facing a ladder where five Snitches were floating peacefully in the air. Harry looked at them, trying to see what the trick was, and saw that Patch and Logan both had confused and suspicious looks on their faces, but Jiggs didn't say anything else. He merely smiled, his black eyes twinkling playfully.

"Finally, you have to follow the path laid out for you to get across the third floor." Harry looked up and saw what looked like poles floating at different heights. "You probably can't tell from here, but those are all wooden poles exactly the standard size of racing brooms. You're going to have to use these different poles to get across the platform. You can walk on them, you can swing on them, you can jump and you can dangle; anything goes. But whatever you do, don't touch the ground. As you can see, the poles are all in different colour groups: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. You get through the course by following the colours of the rainbow. If you fall, you go to the first pole at the beginning of its colour group, which means that if you fall off of the fifth yellow pole then you have to start the course over at the first yellow pole. Understand?"

The boys all nodded, but didn't say anything. Harry could tell that they didn't quite understand, and neither did he.

"Now, this is going to be timed, and you'll have a chance to try it every day this week, as we're going to be in here practicing. The goal is to shorten your time each day."

"Uh, I have a question," Logan said. Jiggs nodded at him.

"Uh," he cleared his throat. "Well, how is all of this supposed to help us? Like, I understand working on reflexes and all, but how is being able to run my way through a jungle gym going to help me be a better flyer?"

"To start off with, you aren't just going to be running through it," Jiggs replied calmly. "I think that it's important for you to be able to perform the types of moves that you will use in your flying while you are on your feet. If you can trust yourself to do them than you will be one step closer to trusting a broom to do them for you, hundreds of feet above the ground. Also, the skills that you will have to use in this type of obstacle course will be essential on the Quidditch pitch. For example, on the third floor you'll have to be able to jump from broom to broom and trust your own balance to keep yourself up. You never know when you might have to fly one handed, no handed, or hanging from your broom. Quidditch is an unpredictable sport, and it pays to be prepared."

Logan nodded, but he still looked skeptical.

Jiggs clapped his hands together and grinned.

"Alright, who's going first?" He seemed to be getting a lot of enjoyment out of this activity.

Logan and Patch were both looking skeptically at the looming contraption in front of them. Harry could imagine how dumb they felt, after having been inspected by recruiters and playing harder than they ever had just to get to a camp where they were expected to play on a jungle gym. He himself felt like a little kid that was being taken to the park by his older brother. But Jiggs' enthusiasm was endearing and Harry had to admire his unique methods.

"I'll go," he said finally. Jiggs smiled more broadly as Harry walked forward to a line that had been drawn on the floor.

"You see that clock to your left?" Jiggs pointed to a large golden clock shaped like an owl. On the owl's stomach was a clock face that recorded time up to three hours. There was a long golden tail hanging from the bottom. "You pull that tail when you want to go. It starts the timer. Whenever you're ready, Harry."

Harry nodded and got ready to sprint to the obstacle course. How hard could it be? Dodge a few swinging punching bags, jump through a few rings, he could handle it. Couldn't he?

Harry pulled tail of the clock (which hooted angrily) and ran forward to the first long hallway of the enormous obstacle course. For a few seconds the thought that it might not be working, until a long wooden pole hit him in the shins, making him stumble forward. He barely had time to straighten himself up before a second stick swung down in front of him, causing him to jump back. Each pole would evaporate once it hit the ground or the sides of the Plexiglas hallway. Harry took a few cautious steps forward and ducked barely fast enough to avoid getting hit in the face by a high-swinging pole. Getting through this was much harder than it looked. After dodging past a few more swinging poles, he was hit by one that swung right into his stomach, causing him to stumble backward and have the wind knocked out of him. There was no way that he could have jumped over that one. And the worst part of it was the poles just appeared out of nowhere; you didn't know where they were coming from or what they were going to do until they were right in front of you. Taking a deep, steadying breath, Harry continued on much slower than he had before, partly because he was trying more carefully to dodge the speeding sticks and partly because he couldn't breathe.

He got to the end of the first hallway in one piece, but his relief changed to frustration when he saw that there were still another four to travel through. After having to duck under a bunch of swinging sticks, he decided to try crawling along the tunnel, which turned out to be a very bad idea when he was hit extremely hard in the forehead by a low-swinging one. He decided the best way to get through was to walk through it, and to bear with the pain of getting struck in the stomach.

He didn't know how long it took, but Harry managed to get through the first part of the course, with enough bumps and bruises to prove it. It must have looked more painful than it felt, not that it was a walk in the park, but the exclamations from Logan told him it probably looked pretty bad. He had started the course with so much vigor, but now all Harry felt like doing was sitting down and resting his sore muscles. Sighing, he turned to the orange punching bags that he had to get through. They hung in front of him, looking perfectly innocent. He raised his arms up in front of his face and ran forwards at top speed.

It was a good thing that he covered his head, because as soon as he got in he felt a force much like a punch hit his forearms, sending him stumbling backwards. As he pushed on forward, Harry was bombarded with more simulated punches all over his body. Squinting through a crack in his arms, he saw that every time he was hit, a giant bulge would thrust out of the punching bags and back in again. It was becoming continually more difficult to move on: the punching bags were beginning to swing at him as well, knocking him off course as if he was walking through a very violent crowd of people. And being thrown about didn't help much in his quest to get to the ladder, which he couldn't even see. His sides were becoming numb from bruises and he was losing his sense of direction.

"Harry! You're going the wrong way!"

Harry squinted through his arms and saw, as one of the punching bags swung out of the way, that he was facing Jiggs, Patch and Logan, and had his back to the ladder. Cursing under his breath, Harry turned around and ran forward as quickly as he could, knocking the punching bags out of the way as he went. It was a good plan, as he did finally get through them, but he ended up running straight into the metal ladder, almost knocking himself unconscious. Harry stumbled a little and grabbed onto the ladder to stop himself from falling over. After pausing for a minute, waiting for the room to stop spinning, he climbed carefully up the ladder and onto the second floor.

His head was still throbbing as he stepped onto the second floor of the obstacle course. He took a deep breath and looked over the rings course. This didn't look nearly as painful as the last part. He started forward, trying to move quickly, as he had wasted a lot of time getting hurt on the last leg.

The rings were about the size of hula-hoops and were stationary in the air. The top of the first hoop of the course was at the same height as his shoulders, meaning he would have to bend slightly to crawl through. Harry pulled at it and found out that it was fixed in position. He stared at the rings cautiously, still rubbing his sides. There must have been some trick to this task; it seemed too easy to crawl through a bunch of hoops. Maybe they burst into flames once he put his arm through, or maybe they would shrink around him if he were too slow. He didn't want to picture himself hanging in midair with a hula-hoop around his waist, waiting for Coach Jiggs to pull him down.

"Harry, what are you doing?" Harry looked down to see Logan waving at the owl timer on the wall. "You're wasting time, hurry up!"

Harry's stomach gave a great lurch. He had forgotten about the timer, and he must have already wasted at least a half an hour trying to get through the painful first floor. Immediately, he reached out to pull himself through the first hoop.

Surprisingly, nothing happened as he crawled through and moved onto the second ring, which was about two feet away from first and at the same level. If the entire course was going to be like this then he would be able to speed up and make up for lost time. But, as luck would have it, this plan didn't work out too well. Harry soon realized that it would be difficult for even a gymnast to get through the rings course.

Once you got past the first few rings, which were at a comfortable level and gave you enough space pull your leg through, the course became more difficult. Some were placed higher in the air so that Harry's chin was at the same level as the bottom ring. Others were so low that he had to get down on hands and knees and crawl through. The higher ones were especially difficult to get through. Kitimer might have though they were top heavy, but the heaviness in his arms definitely didn't come from muscle, which he desperately needed to pull himself up. Not all of the rings were hanging by themselves either. Some were floating in groups, each ring about two inches apart. These groupings proved extremely difficult to get through, since Harry wasn't very flexible and didn't have much practice playing on jungle gyms: he had spent most of his childhood running away from Dudley and his gang.

Needless to say, his plan make up for lost time didn't work. You couldn't cheat and skip past any rings either; he learned this when he tried to duck under one of the higher rings and got a violent shock in the arm. The groupings of rings that were placed near the floor were hard to get through as well, and were hard on the knees. When he finally got finished the rings course he was pink in the face and sweating from effort. His muscles were stiff from being stretched at such odd angles and his knees were significantly more tender.

"Alright," he panted quietly, "now I have to catch five Snitches. Just five, I can do-ouch!" He clapped his hand to his ear as something flew past it, smacking it painfully. He could just barely make out a small golden ball zooming around his head. All of a sudden, a Snitch flew right in front of his face and hovered there, about an arm's length away. He swung out to grab it but it moved backwards and, surprisingly, hovered in the same position. He swung at it again, and for a second time it hovered at eye level, just a few inches out of reach. Harry could have sworn that he heard a high-pitched giggle.

Another Snitch now flew out at him, and this one zigzagged in front of his eyes like an annoying fly. The Snitch that had snagged his ear came back and began to fly in circles around his head. The fourth and fifth Snitches that he was supposed to capture flew to him as well, though they seemed to find it funny to fly in circles around his stomach at incredible speeds. These had to be the most overconfident Snitches that he had ever come across. They weren't trying to hide from him or get away; instead they seemed to want to aggravate him as much as possible. He looked down at Jiggs, Patch and Logan. Logan and Patch were both laughing and Jiggs too was had a twinkle in his eyes and was trying very hard to conceal his enjoyment. These strange Snitches were clearly his idea.

Not only did the Snitches have serious attitudes but they were some of the fastest that Harry had ever seen. Catching them proved extremely difficult as he spent a lot of his time trying to keep himself between the Snitches and the rings course. There was no way that he would be able to catch them if they got in there. When he finally caught all five, a good fifteen minutes had passed. He turned to the ladder that stood before him and climbed up to the third platform and the final leg of the obstacle course.

It angered Harry that it had taken him so long to get to the end of the course. The jungle gym had looked so innocent when he had been standing with his coach.

"Just don't fall," Harry muttered to himself as he surveyed the broom poles that he would have to climb across. Small, elevated platforms separated each colour grouping of broomsticks. The lowest poles were about two feet above the ground and, by pulling on one, he found that the poles, like the rings, were all fastened in the air and wouldn't move.

As Harry wasn't much of a gymnast, this was going to a lot more time consuming than the other levels. From the looks of the poles that were higher in the air, it seemed that he would have to swing like some sort of trapeze artist. He approached the first pole, which was one of the lower ones on the course, and decided to sit on it as he would a normal broom, as it seemed easier than trying to walk like a tightrope walker. He lowered himself onto it and started to edge himself along by grabbing the pole with his hands and then sliding his legs forward. This plan worked for the first four red poles, as each was only about half a foot higher than the next and positioned in single file. But the fifth broom was too high to reach from a sitting position and was on the left hand side of his present position.

Harry paused, trying to think of a way to stand up without falling over. Carefully, he lifted his right leg and turned it so that his weight was on his knee, which was pointing to the left, towards the fifth pole, and his hands were on the broom between his legs. Next, he lifted his left leg so that his left foot was on the pole. He paused for a moment as he steadied himself. He looked up and sighed; his destination was so high up. He was going to have to do this quickly otherwise he'd fall over. He took a deep breath and quick as lightening he pushed off on his left foot and jumped towards the fifth pole, grabbing it tightly.

His legs swung forwards, his toes barely inches from the ground. He bent his knees and waited for them to stop swinging before making his next move. His first thought was to do some sort of chin-up and then swing one side of his body over the pole, but soon realized that his arms weren't strong enough to do that. He hung there awkwardly, trying to decide what to do.

"The clock's ticking, Harry!" he heard Logan call with a laugh from the ground below. Harry frowned. He couldn't wait until Logan tried this out, then he'd find out how hard it really was. With newfound determination, Harry dropped his left arm and swung it, trying to build up momentum. Next, he flung his arm over the pole so that it was lodged in his armpit. He did the same this with the other arm and rearranged his grip on the pole before pushing up with all of his might. Finally, he was able to swing his left leg over pole and was sitting on it as thought it was his Firebolt.

He breathed a deep sigh of relief and wiped the sweat from his brow. This was an extremely hard course to get through. He proceeded to look around for the next broom.

"Oh great," Harry scowled. The next broom was a few feet below his present pole and positioned slightly ahead of it. It would have been easier to just swing down onto it from the fifth pole rather than climb up onto it as he did. He carefully edged forward on the fifth pole and lowered himself so that he was standing on the sixth. Without taking his hands off of the higher pole he looked around to plan his path.

There were only two more red poles left before he reached the small platform that was the start of the orange section. Getting to them, however, was going to prove difficult. He would have to walk across the broom that he was standing on, jump to the second last one, and then edge his way forward and find a way to jump to the last pole. He'd have to swing his way to the platform somehow.

The first part was actually easier than he had thought it would be. He managed to walk across the broom pole, though he was extremely slow at doing so. Jumping down onto the second last pole, which was about three feet above the ground, was easy too, although it was a somewhat painful experience. Using the technique that he applied on the first four poles, he slid forward as far as he could go. Again, he twisted his knees around and managed to stand up. Praying with all of his might that, by some miracle, he was able to make the leap he took a deep breath and jumped. He swung for a moment with his eyes closed, and to his surprise, he managed to keep his grip on the pole. Using the type of moves you might see in an army movie, Harry, who was dangling by his increasingly sweaty hands, swung his way to the end of the pole and jumped down to the orange platform with a great sigh of relief.

How he managed to finish the rest of the obstacle course, Harry didn't really know. Luck seemed to be on his side on the third floor of the jungle gym because he only had to repeat a section once when he fell off of one of the yellow brooms. It gave him a rather nasty shock, because as soon as his toes touched the floor he suddenly found himself back on the yellow platform. Harry imagined that this was what it must feel like when you Apparate. It was an immense relief when he got off of the last purple broom and slid down the golden fireman's pole that marked the end of the course.

Logan gave a cry of congratulations and clapped Harry strongly on the back as he ran forward and pulled the tail of the owl clock again, stopping the timer. Harry flopped down onto the floor and smiled a tired smile.

"You might want some ice," Jiggs grinned as he walked up to Harry. He gestured at a statue of a polar bear that had a metal handle protruding from its stomach.

"What was my time?" Harry asked.

"An hour and twenty-seven minutes," Jiggs replied as he pulled the metal handle on the statue. The bear gave a moan and shook its head as a drawer opened and steam rose in the air. Jiggs reached in, pulled out four ice packs and shut the drawer with a slam.

"That long?" Harry gasped as his coach tossed him the ice.

"It's not bad for your first try, it's a difficult course," Jiggs shrugged. "Who's next?"

Logan looked at Patch and bowed out of his way. Patch gave a dignified sniff and stepped forward. Logan grinned at Harry and joined him on the floor.

"I'd like to see old Risto go up against that thing first," he whispered with a mischievous grin. "I wonder if prep school got him ready for this."

"What do you mean?" Harry asked curiously as he picked up one of the packs and placed it gingerly on his left hip.

Logan shrugged and looked over as Patch ran off into the first part of course.

"I dunno, I just don't really like him," he replied. "A little on the snooty side, ya know?"

Harry shrugged and watched as Patch jumped over a swinging stick only to be smacked in the stomach. He wasn't very inclined to take Logan's opinion just yet.

Watching people try out the obstacle course was a lot more fun that doing it yourself. And it did look a lot more painful than it really was. Patch didn't have as many problems on the first level as Harry had. He seemed to be a lot more agile when it came to dodging the sticks on the first part, but he got tossed around a lot more in the punching bags. He also lost a lot of time on the third level as he was even less flexible and had less arm strength than Harry. If Logan was right about Patch's background, he probably hadn't spent much time on playgrounds either. Nevertheless it was fun to watch him hanging upside down and trying to figure out what to do next.

Logan turn on the contraption was the shortest, as well as the funniest to watch in Harry's opinion. Logan was a very funny guy and had a very cynical way about him. Just looking at the expressions on his face was enough to make you laugh out loud. He got through the punching bags especially quickly, as he was stockier than both Harry and Patch, but this didn't come in handy on the second or third floors. He wasn't very good at the rings part and looked so awkward on the third floor that even Patch had to laugh; his frustration was just so comical. When he finally got down (an hour and three minutes later) they all had a long laugh before Jiggs addressed them all.

"That has to have been the funniest attempt at this obstacle course that I have ever seen," Jiggs said when they had all calmed down. "But it's lunchtime now, so go, all of you. You're going to be doing this all week, so remember your experiences today and try to learn from them." He looked at Logan and started laughing again and just waved for them to go upstairs.

"I don't know if I'm going to be able to take these playground antics all week," Logan said, rubbing his sides as they started to climb up towards the main floor.

"I didn't sign up to play on a jungle gym," Patch said to them and he took the first step on the small staircase. "I do hope it will be worth it."

Logan shook his head and rolled his eyes at Harry before following Patch.

Harry looked back across the room at Jiggs, who was on the third floor of the jungle gym, giving the poles a try. He was surprisingly good at it, walking across them almost cat-like. Jiggs had talent, that was obvious, and in Harry's opinion, it was definitely going to be worth it.