The Quidditch Match

The Quidditch Match.

The whistle blows.

A second later, fourteen dashes of colour race through the air, each playing its respective part. There were no uniforms. Street Quidditch; where uniformed movements were clichéd and there were no rules. All seven hundred of the rules in the Quidditch rulebook were acknowledged as fourteen creatures on brooms try desperately to flout each and every one of them in turn.

Three makeshift hoops on each end of the clearing, hovering out of position, making it just that much harder to score. And of course, the keeper has to keep track of the shifting 'hoops', in order to make sure he wasn't caught unaware, letting a opposing chaser put one past him. Today, the players had opted for muggle hula-hoops, trash that they had found at the nearby junkyard.

The snitch was an enchanted ball. They had had to pool their resources to buy the glittering imitation snitch, a small ball that was enchanted to bounce off small particles in the air. This made the ball harder to catch, as it moved randomly and quickly, but that was the point. In Street Quidditch, it wasn't fun unless it was hard. And preferably painful. Like the bludgers.

Two sly, conniving balls of solid metal. Each urging to kill and maim. They were the perfect killing machines. A blow to the head and you'd probably suffer long-term disabilities. In the muggle world, they would have been outlawed in thirty states. But in the wizarding world, people were less inclined to fret about safety. They had ways of healing unimaginable wounds.

The quaffle was just any old ball roughly the shape of a football. Occasionally, players used melons, just to see them smash upon the ground and spill their red innards. Juvenile humour, perhaps. But absolutely delicious to watch. But today, it was a plain ball, woven out of reeds. Smaller than the official standard, but it worked.

The players. Ah, now they were another topic of choice altogether.

The keepers wear gloves. And stomach pads. (Read: Pillows tied to stomachs.) It looks frumpy and uncomfortable, but it was either bear with the extra weight or risk taking bludgers to the stomach without protection. This particular group knew exactly just how dangerous how it could be without the proper safety equipment. One of their regular players had taken a bludgers to the stomach the week before, and he had upended his entire day's consumption on the grassy ground. And plenty of internal damage. Blood was good, too. There were no apologies made for that incident. You apologise or show signs of remorse during Street Quidditch and you'll never play with this group again. Emotions are not tolerated; they interfered with playing one's best.

Hard and ruthless, that's how it was played. And they reveled in every minute of it; the pain was just another rush of adrenaline to them.

The chasers, they are truly a sight to behold. Swooping down on each other like hawks intent on snatching their prey from another, they grapple for the quaffle, none willing to give in and let go. Scratches were common, and the least of the injuries you could hope to obtain. Indeed, the last time they played, you could have sworn the ground was painted over in the deepest shade of maroon. The players still bear the scars of past games. The freshest wounds standing out in a bright red, marked over healed ribbons of silver that trail down skin. If you were in a rough scramble, broken bones were nothing to be surprised over. Many of the players had long learned how to pop in their bones themselves. The unmistakable crunch of bone snapping into place occurred occasionally in a game, and no one wasted a second in wincing. The chasers went near mad every game. They wanted the ball, and you [I]knew[/I] it.

The seekers are no better. If you thought the chasers are mad, then the seekers are undoubtedly brutal. They lusted for the snitch. And god help any poor soul that got in their way when they had their eyes on it. The snitch was [I]theirs[/I], and no one. [I]No one[/I] was allowed near it but them. If they valued their sad lives, they would heed their advice and stay the hell out of their way. It was too bad that all of the seekers thought that way. It lead to many mid-air brawls, usually concluding with the entire team joining in the mêlée.

Insane? Of course it was insane. Insanity was a requirement to play Street Quidditch.

But if you want to talk insane, you have to think about the beaters. Snarling emotionally devoid machines of anger, they hunt the other team with such intensity; it hurt your eyes to see them fly around and swat bludgers towards the other team. In Street Quidditch, most of the beaters' skills were so well honed that they near never missed a mark. Hence the battered bodies of the players. If you had a good beater, it didn't mean that she beat the most injuries into a team. It meant that she kept an eye out for her own teammates and made sure that none of the players on her side took any damage from a bludger hit. Only then would she be termed a good player. They knew well that bludger hits could be potentially lethal if you hit a wrong nerve. So it was the job of the beater to ensure that not only she managed to inflict damage on the opponents, but also she had to guarantee that none of the players playing for her would suffer any pain. Well. From a bludger, that is.

Right now, if we would be so kind as to turn our attentions back to the clearing, we would see that the second set of blurs was trashing the first set of blurs. As a chaser speeds past our watching post, we can observe that his nose is broken, but he still flies on, not bothering to spend a mere moment to heal his gushing nose. There is no time; after all, he's getting in position to intercept the ball.

He reaches for it, but misses, the tips of his fingers brushing against the side of the quaffle. But it is enough to send it spiraling out of direction. For a spilt second, it seems that it might fall to the ground. But in the next instant, you curse yourself for thinking such an absurd thing, it's been instantly picked up by Broken Nose's teammate. She turns a loop, dodges a bludger but gets clawed in the side by another chaser. She growls, passes it quickly down the clearing, where it is caught by the third chaser and hastily put through the left hoop.

The keeper swears creatively and berates himself for not guarding his hoops properly. His eyes glaze and he retrieves the quaffle, tossing it to a nearby chaser, who catches it easily and passes it down. The beaters work together to send both bludgers blasting for the chaser from opposite ends of the clearing, knowing that it would be impossible to dodge both objects of irate iron. The chaser stops in his tracks, visibly worried about which course of action to take. But he spins around, hooks to behind himself to a waiting teammate and takes the blows of the bludgers head on. You hear his spine crack and he falls limply to the ground, where a couple of spectators rush forward to cast small healing spells. You're intrigued by the anguish, but force yourself to keep your eyes on the game.

The players in the air don't spare a thought for the chaser that lies on the green, back twisted at an unnatural angle. A moment later and the other team has scored, drawing the point margin closer together. You cheer loudly for you like rooting for the underdog but wait. Is that the snitch?

You're not the only one to have spotted it, it seems. The sight of the two seekers flying forward to grab the flittering ball between them draws eager gasps from the watching crowd. They reach it at the same nanosecond, roughly batting each other's hands away from the snitch. The snitch bounces from side to side almost cheerfully, and this seems to enrage the seekers even more. They leap at it, near jumping off their brooms in their impatience to get their hands on the dancing ball. A scuffle breaks out and you idly wonder whether the seekers have actually forgotten about the snitch itself, seemingly so engrossed on gorging the other seeker's eyes out.

The beater near you, raven hair flying in her face and eyes glowing a steely grey, hefts her bat over her shoulder and sends a bludger into the fray, letting out an inhuman cackle of glee as someone falls to the ground, unmoving. When the dust clears, you see the triumphant seeker clutching the snitch in her left hand, her right arm hanging limply at her side. Blood is spilling from her lower lip, but looking around, you note that every player has acquired a new wound or two. Or twenty. But they look wholly blasé and blithe about their appearances.

The supporters jeer at the beater that had sent the last bludger at the rival seeker, but she merely smirks and flexes her fingers, taking the final position to shake hands with the other team. They graciously gather in the center of the clearing, exchange handshakes and nod cordially. It was the beauty of Street Quidditch. If you lose, lose with your head held high and holding nothing against the rival team but the utmost respect.

This is Street Quidditch. A perfect mesh of torment and ecstasy.