When he’s on a broomstick, he feels like he’s flying.
He goes upupup and away, taking off for the next adventure, the wind rippling through his hair.
The feeling he gets when he realizes he left his stomach on the ground…that’s one of his favorite parts.
His all-time favorite, though, is when he gets to be a dragon.
A dragon—yes, a bloody
dragon—protecting her eggs. That’s what he feels like when he’s Keeper. He’ll guard his territory with his life, swirling and spinning and lurching and shooting forward at sixty miles per hour, trying to keep the next slimy Slytherin away from his goal posts.
And when he saves a goal? It fills him with such joy…such happiness, it can be overwhelming.
He wants others to feel it, too.
That’s why he makes his teammates go out into the freezing cold at five o’clock in the morning. They’ll train long and hard, and oh, they’ll complain, but in the long run they’ll be thanking him when they’re able to do their jobs properly.
His Beaters, Fred and George? They’ll protest and moan and groan, but he can see the joyous looks on their faces when they knock people off their brooms with a swing of their Beater’s bats. It makes him smile to see them so pleased.
His Chasers, Alicia, Angelina, and Katie? He can hear them whisper behind his back about his, ah, challenging practices, but when they work together to get the Quaffle into the center goalpost? The satisfied looks that they wear can be seen all across the stadium.
And his
fantastic Seeker, Harry? Well, Harry never complains to his face, but he can hear him mutter obscenities under his breath in the changing room, and he can see him stare off into space during his pep-talks.
When he caught the golden Snitch, though, that bloody, god-awful Snitch during the last game of the season, the look on his face told him that all of those frosty, snow ridden evenings out on the pitch were forgotten. Harry was completely and irrevocably happy.
That’s all he asks for.
There’s this moment…this one moment during every game when every emotion is gone. All of his cheering classmates? Their shouts don’t even reach his ears. Time goes by slower than molasses, and all of his concentration is on the one Quaffle that’s being hurled at the goalpost next to him. He sees its path. He feels its path. Its speed can be compared to that of a speeding bullet.
He waits…and waits…and waits…and then…
FWOOSH!
He lurches to the side determinedly, like the game (and his life) depends on that one shot. His gloved hand outstretches, and he catches it. He throws it to any of his Chasers, and they catch it under their arm and take off in the other direction.
He smirks at his dumbfounded opponent in a self-satisfied way, when inside, he’s feeling bliss, elation, content, delight, euphoria…
He’s feeling like he’s tackled this opponent with wholehearted zest.
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