Chase the wind and touch the sky [Dasha]

[Deleted]

November 2025

In the end, most of Aura’s fears about Quidditch had been totally unnecessary. September and October had been tough months, incredibly tough with what she and Silver had set out to do. It had required secrecy, and discretion, and every ounce of magical knowledge the twins could muster between them. It had also required an incredible amount of self-sacrifice on Aura’s part. Sure, her brother was already kind of a loner and hadn’t needed to change his lifestyle much in the quest to become an animagus. But Aura was a social butterfly, and had more commitments than just her classes. Mostly Quidditch-related, because Quidditch was not just a sport but a lifestyle, and one Aura had fully committed herself to.

But, she hadn’t needed to worry much. Even with a mandrake leaf in her mouth, Aura had still outperformed every other potential Keeper at tryouts and regained her spot on the team easily. Not that that had ever been in doubt, but still…the confirmation that she was the best was nice. And the Keeper position was one of two singular positions on the team, besides the Seeker of course, and she couldn’t deny that it was nice to know all eyes would be on her whenever the Quaffle made its way to her half of the field. She loved her brother, and she loved being his sister – but having an opportunity to stand out would never go unappreciated.

As for the leaf, nobody had seemed to suspect a thing, so Aura had tentatively approached Quidditch practices on the basis that if it became a problem, she could always ditch until the potion was complete. But it was November now, and she was glad to be back at full capacity. She was mostly friends with her teammates, despite them being fairly scattered across the years, and it was hard to do things like discuss potential plays and the performance of other players if she was scared to talk. What she hadn’t been expecting was how much she’d be seeing of Dasha. Sure, she’d known from day 1 they’d see each other around, being in the same House and year level. But a Quidditch tryout from the Russian girl? And for arguably the most important, dangerous, and skill-based position on the team? That had been a shock, and yet the results of the tryouts spoke for themselves.

Knowing that they’d be seeing each other a lot as fellow year-mates, House-mates, and Quidditch-mates meant Aura had to approach the other girl carefully. It would be hell if they hated each other, although that hadn’t seemed to happen yet. They got along well enough – it turned out Dasha was a dedicated enough student that they could study together without killing each other – but there was an undeniable edge of competition. Aura didn’t mind it in theory – she thrived on competition and always operated at maximum capacity under pressure – but it also meant she was another potential challenge to look out for. Being best in the year was becoming harder and harder.

They played well together, that was for sure at least. The Ravenclaw team was in good shape, and Aura was feeling positive at the end of their latest practice. It had become dark a long time ago, and she was ready for dinner and some light studying before bed. She had her broom slung over her shoulder as the team entered the locker room, and they were noisy enough even as Aura was silently reviewing the feedback she’d gotten from the captain earlier. She would definitely need to diagram it later. She set her broom down heavily as she rubbed her eyes to ward off the exhaustion. Her closest teammate was Dasha, so Aura commented idly as she stretched. “Is it just me or do these practices feel like they’re getting longer?”

@dasha

[Deleted]

November 2025

For someone who had had very little knowledge of Quidditch prior to meeting Aura du Lac and feeling compelled to purchase a copy of Quidditch Through the Ages, Dasha Krovopuskova had very quickly immersed herself in the sport. Trying out for the Ravenclaw Quidditch team wasn't something that she had planned on doing, but she had still decided to do it. She hadn't had anything to lose, and she had gone into it sure that she could take the pain of falling off of a broomstick. The only thing was that she hadn't experienced that sensation—not in trying out to be a Seeker or in any of the practices since finding out that she had actually made the cut. It had been as much of a surprise to her as it was to some of the seasoned Quidditch players around the school: The new Russian girl had made the Ravenclaw team.

Dasha found that the skills that she needed for Quidditch weren't very different from the skills that she had developed years before in childhood, begging and borrowing and stealing to survive. She wasn't the greatest flyer, for example, but she was unafraid of moving quickly, which was what was needed if they wanted to catch the Golden Snitch and hopefully win their matches. She knew to observe what was around her so that she didn't get hit by a Bludger while in pursuit of the Snitch, and she knew to steer herself out of the way of the Chasers if they were coming through with the Quaffle. Maybe being Seeker suited her best, Dasha thought, because she didn't have to work in close coordination with her teammates as much as in some of the other positions. She didn't have to rely upon anyone else to throw her the Snitch—as with the Quaffle—nor did she have to work in tandem, like the Beaters, with the right timing to ensure that the Bludgers hit their targets on the opposing team.

While she still didn't know the exact terminology for everything in the rules, such as all of the different fouls, Dasha had tried her best to impress her new teammates. She felt as though she had done that, for the most part… with the exception of Aura. She and the other girl weren't at each other's throats, but they got on each other's nerves just enough that it made Dasha want to do even better than Aura—in schoolwork and on the Quidditch pitch.

The practice that had just ended had gone really well, though Dasha was eager to shower and return to the castle so that she could get some work done. It was already dark outside, which made it feel even later than it was, but staying up late was hardly a problem for her.

She took her broom—which was really just one of the school brooms—with her into the locker room, though she knew that she would need to remember to put it back into the broomshed before she left. It was an old Firebolt (not even a Firebolt Supreme), but it flew fairly well for being some thirty years old, and she had become sort of partial to the thing. Resting her broom up against the wall, she soon heard a thud, and she looked over to see that it was Aura's broomstick that had fallen over.

"Is it just me," Aura began, "or do these practices feel like they’re getting longer?"

Stifling a yawn, Dasha began to change out of her gear. Their practice sessions were getting longer, and the daylight hours were getting shorter, which was something of a tiring combination. "They are longer," Dasha observed, "but we need to practice for our matches." She felt as though she had begun talking like their team captain, which she found sort of amusing. The Hogwarts Quidditch teams would begin their schedule of matches soon. It was exciting for Dasha, knowing that she would get to play in a real Quidditch match, and she wondered if she could ask Madam Potter if Dmitri would be permitted to attend even though he wasn't a staff member or a student.

@aurum

[Deleted]

Sometimes Aura felt like she might get buried under the weight of all the responsibilities she had to keep track of. It was easier for most students to prioritize one or two things and then excel at them – certain classes, maybe, or an extracurricular they’d shown an immense talent for. Aura had never accepted that as a viable option for herself, however. She woke up early and stayed up late as appropriate to make sure all her homework – for all her classes – always got done, and always at an O level. In past years, Aura had been satisfied with any passing mark, but 5th year had become a challenge because with every paper or exam that got returned, Aura could imagine seeing that score on her OWLs as well. So getting homework back had become more nightmarish than in previous years.

But no, doing well in her classes wasn’t enough to satisfy the Ravenclaw. She’d also been assigned as a prefect this year, and she already felt like she was doing a shabby job. She’d spent the first few months of this year breaking a few school and Ministry rules to become an underage animagus, so she’d come down hard on the rest of her responsibilities to make up for it. But it didn’t do much to subdue the gnawing guilt, something she couldn’t really talk about with anybody as most people still didn’t know her secret. But it was there, and Aura knew she was going to have to make a few decisions about what sort of prefect she wanted to be.

So with all that, she was determined to prove her worth in Quidditch. At least, if the rest of her life was a mess, everything had a startling clarity on the Quidditch pitch. It was just her, and her teammates, and their ability to fly well individually and together. Things were simpler on a broom, when her sole job was to keep track of the Quaffle and be the barrier between it and her team’s goalposts. She’d been deprived of the simple joys of Quidditch for a few months, first because of the summer break and then as she and Silver had worked on the potion and kept the leaves in their mouths. Now she hoped everything could just be normal again.

Aura stretched her arms and back idly as she nudged her broomstick with her foot into some sort of upright position. Dasha’s answer was satisfactory, if not predictable in the Russian girl’s almost robotic execution of their captain’s orders. In fact, it almost sounded like the captain’s voice, simply put in Dasha’s succinct way of talking. Aura rolled her eyes a little even as she agreed. They had some new members of the team this year and needed to toughen up as a team before their first House match. Aura eyed Dasha’s broom – although calling it an ancient school broom would have been more accurate – but didn’t say anything about it. Instead, she responded, “Sure. I can put up with a bit of lost sleep if we thrash Slytherin this year.” They’d narrowly beaten Ravenclaw last year – the rest of the team had performed extremely well compared to their other matches, but their Seeker ultimately couldn’t handle the pressure – but Aura would also love a victory to shove down Gideon Ollivander’s throat. Maybe wipe the smirk off his face for once.

She rolled her shoulders to loosen them up before asking, “Planning to stay late again sometime?” Since Aura felt partially responsible for ensuring that Dasha performed well on the team (considering it had been Aura who’d introduced the girl to Quidditch in the first place), she’d offered to stay late with the other girl after practices to work on both their positions. It was easy enough to practice Keeping by enchanting Quaffles to fly at her, and Aura could even loose a bludger on the field while Dasha practiced finding the Snitch in the darkness. Her motives were two-pronged, and she hadn’t had any shame in telling Dasha either of them. The first, naturally, that as Dasha was new to the sport she needed more practice than their teammates who had been playing for most of their lives. And the second, that their Seeker had cost Ravenclaw the chance of winning the Cup the year before, and the entire team was eager not to see that performance repeated. A little pressure never did any harm.

@dasha

[Deleted]

November 2025

Dasha didn't mind that she had been using an older broomstick that belonged to the school. She was glad that she had the school's broomsticks available for her use. If it turned out that she was really that good, then maybe she would be able to convince Dmitri to purchase her a broom of her own for the next year, but she had no problems with cutting costs where she could. She didn't have aspirations to become the next great Quidditch star; it was just an extracurricular, something to do.

While their practices were sometimes a little tiring, Aura assured her that she could put up with it if they were able to "thrash" Slytherin that year. Dasha didn't want anyone to come away from any of their matches seriously injured, but it was a competition. It was rough, and even as much protective gear as they wore wasn't necessarily enough to keep people from taking nasty falls or getting hit with a Bludger at just the wrong angle.

It was also a good thing, too, that Dasha had gotten only partially through removing her gear, because Aura had a question for her. "Planning to stay late again sometime?" she asked.

Stopping her progress on getting changed, Dasha looked Aura over. They were both tired, but that wasn't to say that they couldn't stay later. Dasha doubted that any of the other House teams had reserved the pitch after Ravenclaw.

"Do you want to practice more?" Dasha asked Aura in return. "I will." What was a half-hour more, really?

@aurum

[Deleted]

Aura thought idly about the Transfiguration essay she still had left to do, but it wasn’t hard to be able to push the thought to one side. She kept a meticulous schedule of all her homework and studying, and things had gone much faster this year now that she and Silver were able to divide and conquer the different subjects. It was insanely weird having her brother in her head, and being able to communicate and share with him without needing to open her mouth, but it wasn’t too different from what they’d done before, honestly. They’d always had a unique connection, and an ability to communicate without speaking. Now it was just a much more literal manifestation, and they each only had to study half the subjects necessarily and then receive information on the rest from the other twin. Efficient in a way only Ravenclaws could be, and it took a lot of the edge off when it came to studying. It mostly meant Aura could focus on whatever she was doing at the time without worrying overly much about everything she still had left to do.

She briefly spaced-out in order to reach out and see what Silver was doing – or more accurately, what he was currently studying. When Aura was satisfied that she had finished checking in with her brother, she blinked a couple times to fully return to the present and focus again on Dasha (the best part being that her spacey behavior could be easily attributed to the fact that she was tired from practice, and that Dasha really didn’t have anything to compare her current behavior to, since she had only started this year). Yeah, Silver was right on schedule as expected, so it wouldn’t be a problem to stay up late and finish their Transfiguration homework after practice. Especially since Transfiguration was by far her best subject, and besides her natural talent for it Aura was also lucky that the class was taught by the coolest teacher at Hogwarts. He’d definitely understand the circumstances.

Dasha asked if she wanted to stay late for an individual practice, and since Aura had already been anticipating the Russian girl’s confirmation that she was willing, she nodded at the question. Keepers had the most protective gear compared to the rest of the team – which made sense, since they constantly had Quaffles being thrown in their direction and didn’t need the speed or range of motion of the other positions – and Aura hadn’t begun to remove any of her padding yet. She’d guessed Dasha wouldn’t say no (although it was hard to tell whether it was because she actually wanted to practice, or that she simply didn’t want to be out-done by Aura). Either way, Aura was ready as is to head back out onto the field, except for her helmet which she’d thrown on the bench by her broom when the team had first entered the changing rooms.

She groaned a little as she stooped low to pick up both her helmet and broom, although she straightened quickly (their captain really didn’t mess around with working them hard during practice, but they also didn’t really appreciate visible complaints). “Cool,” Aura responded, “We should definitely start with those speed runs first. We barely got to it today.” It was difficult to be able to change directions or turn quickly in the air without overcorrecting or losing your balance, but it was a skill every position needed (although ultimately the Seeker ended up needing it the most). Speed runs around the Pitch, changing directions on a whim, were a great way of practicing the technique enough times that during games it could be an effortless move. It was a mostly solo activity, unless you happened to have a friend with a Bludger on standby, so they never spent too long at it during practice since their captain favored group activities more. But it would be a good start for an aspiring Seeker, since the Snitch moved erratically. Aura shouldered her broom, shouted a generic goodbye to their teammates that had already begun marching their way back to the castle, and turned in the opposite direction to head back towards the Quidditch Pitch.

@dasha