Try harder this time

Being so preoccupied with essays and school work for the last few days, Alice had completely neglected Quidditch. Which made her very uneasy as the season was going strong and she didn't even practice enough. Just thinking about the many things that could go wrong on her next game made her head spin. She loved Quidditch more than anything and flying as well, but that didn't mean she was immune to falling flat on her face in front of the whole school. If you add her clumsiness as a child and all of the injuries she got from flying, the odds weren't exactly in her favor. This was why she decided to practice a lot more often this time.

As soon as she headed towards the Quidditch Stadium, she was glad she had worn her warm gloves. It was freezing and the wind was blowing in all directions without a sign of stopping. Well she should better get used to these conditions because they may be similar on their game. Thankfully, she had managed to borrow the quaffle from the team for practice. Warming up her cheeks with her hands, she looked around and made sure no one was around. Alice always seemed to do better without an audience watching her.

It became too cold to just stand around, so she quickly took out her broom and decided to fly around the field as a warm up. It was freezing, but even so the experience of flying was magical. She tried to shield her face from the wind but had no luck in it. This will certainly be a tough practice.

Isaac had wondered his way down to the Quidditch pitch. He was going crazy not being able to fly. His grandfather in Germany had just given him a new broom since his old broom was destroyed in the fire that consumed Isaac’s home. She loved his grandfather’s brooms, not a single broom is the same. Is there even a name for them? He just called it handmade. His hand went over the Star of David that was itched into it. He knew the cold wouldn’t be a big factor to him since he was used to the cold in Russia.

He saw a girl up in the air. He got onto his broom and kicked off. He hoped he didn’t scare the girl. He made sure his yarmulke wouldn’t come off.

Alice was high up in the air, bouncing up the quaffle in her hands just to feel it out. Even though she was a chaser, she found that she could practice by herself well as she mostly had to work on balancing everything perfectly. Which meant a whole team wasn't necessarily so she could practice on her own hours. Being a late owl, she was out on the field late in the evenings usually. Getting up early for practice was something she despised and it took every inch of self discipline she had just to get out of bed.

She was in the process of shuffling the quaffle from one hand to the other in a fast motion when a strange figure appeared in front of him. She squealed and let the quaffle fall to the ground. Looking up, her cheeks went red from embarresment as she saw it was only a boy on his broomstick. "Umm...hi there. Sorry, didn't see you before and you just surprised me I guess" said Alice explaining her clumsy actions more to herself than the boy in front of her.

Isaac felt bad for making the girl jump so he went down and got the quaffle. He wasn’t much of a chaser but he still knew what a Quaffle was. At Durmstrang he was a Keeper. He just didn’t have a build of a chaser. He was already missing his team at Durmstrang.

“I’m Isaac Cohen, I would shake hands but I don’t think it would be good if either of us fell,” said Isaac trying to slow down his words so she could understand through his thick Russian accent. He really didn’t want to fall. He was a good player but not perfect. No one was a perfect Quidditch player, if you are you have to be a robot or something, in his view.

"Alice, Longbottom" she said with a soft smile, introducing herself to him. It was strange as he seemed about her age yet she had never seen him around before, not even in her classes. And her year wasn't that big after all. "I was just trying to practice I guess. Didn't think anyone would be out this late here. Sorry for that reaction by the way" she said apologizing again, wondering what he was doing out. Perhaps he wanted to fly, just as she did. It was a nice way to both relax and practice her skills.

Another thing that was rather interesting about him was his strange accent. He definitely wasn't from England. "I haven't seen you around before. What year are you? Oh are you the new transfer?" asked Alice curiously. She had heard of two transfers this year but she had only met one of them, the girl. She was actually her guide of the castle as well. But someone else was assigned to the other transfer so they didn't get a chance to meet. "I'm guessing because of your accent." added Alice.

“No worries. I would have reacted the same way if someone randomly popped up in a broom next to me,” Isaac said. He knew that was a bit of a lie but it wasn’t going to hurt anyone. She seemed like a nice girl just had a confidence issue. Something Isaac knew little about but could understand to a point.

“I think I’m what you call a fourth year. I transfer from Durmstrang,” Isaac said unable to make his accent clear up any. “I’m sorry I’m hard to understand. I already had a mild miscommunication. I caused for sauce and someone thought I said sass,” he added. He held out the Quaffle.

Alice giggled as he mentioned his little misunderstanding. His accent was thick, but she could still understand him without any bigger issues. "You're fine. I can understand you just fine. So then we'll be in the same classes. Have you been sorted yet?" she asked not really sure how that part would work if someone had transferred schools. She could still remember her sorting hat ceremony when she was put into Hufflepuff. It was definitely one of her best and earliest Hogwarts memories.

"Do you play? Quidditch I mean." said Alice as she watched Isaac hold the quaffle in his hands. In her experience, people who liked to fly usually liked Quidditch as well. But of course, that was no rule. "I'm a chaser for my team so I just came out here to practice as much as I can before the game" said Alice still a bit nervous when she reminded herself how close was their next match and she hadn't done even half of the work she intended to.

“I was sorted into Hufflepuff. The process is much like we do in Durmstrang but ours is done by a fox fur cap, it talks just like yours does,” Isaac said. Durmstrang and Hogwarts weren’t that much different but he like Durmstrang better. People respected him there, it was a mutual respect. It was going to be a change but he would be fine. He always was. He always reminded himself he could be like his rather old grandparents, trying not to get killed by Nazis. Yes they were wizards, expect his maternal grandmother who still had lived long for a muggle, but it didn’t seem fair that they escaped while many of their friends did not just because they could do magic, at least that’s what they tell him.

“Yes I do. I played Keeper at Durmstrang. Excessive practice won’t help you either though,” he said. He had played Quidditch since he was seven or eight, a few years after he learned to fly. He had learned too much practice would wear you out and you’d become so obsessed about not making mistakes you would make mistakes.

"Oh, that's lovely! I'm in Hufflepuff as well" she said rather delighted at that discovery. It was strange how little in fact she knew about other schools. She was just so used to Hogwarts and they way they did it that she didn't even consider how other countries and schools managed their education. After promising herself that she would look something up on that topic, she turned back to Isaac and smiled.

"Oh no, I'm not practicing in excess trust me. If only, I wish. School is rather crazy at this time of year so I didn't get much chance to practice at all. Which is quite disappointing since our next game is so soon. So I was just trying to jam in some extra hours here and there to try and catch up with everything. And I like flying during the night the best for some reason not sure why. Would you like to play with me then? Just a few rounds perhaps?" Alice asked curious of his answer. Since he was a keeper, they could practice rather well together if he agreed to it. And just maybe he would be interested in the Hufflepuff Quidditch team since he used to play Keeper at Durmstrang.

“Sure, I haven’t been able to play Quidditch since I had to move,” said Isaac. He was more than happy to help this Alice girl and he also wanted to play Quidditch. He would do anything to play Quidditch these days. He loved Quidditch, maybe it was a bit forced onto him but he didn’t care.

Isaac flew over to the polls. He knew he was going to be rusty to begin with but he had his self-confidence at a level it didn’t bother him to make mistakes anymore. Everyone makes mistakes and it isn’t a big deal if he makes a few once in a while.