Humbledore's Army

Okay, for those of you who have ever played and/or seen muggle quidditch, this is most likely a totally pointless article for you to read. However, if you’ve been totally dying to read more of my intense wit and witticisms, then you can suffer through it anyway.

My first introduction to muggle quidditch was this fall when I opened my morning paper (I feel like I am the last specimen of my age group to actually subscribe to print), and I saw my best friend Sunni Ryan. Sunni and I went to middle school together and got into loads of trouble (ha, as if, we wish we were that cool), and I missed the heck out of her. So imagine my delight when I see her riding a broomstick with a humongous smile on her face and a headline of “Quidditch Catches on Like Magic.” I had never even heard of such a thing in actuality, but I’ve been a total Potter nerd since I read the first book at age 4.

Sunni and I went to an intercollegiate match that day between State, Duke, ECU, and UNC-CH. Afterwards, I went to nearly every one of Sunni’s games.

The basic gist of the article was to explain how Quidditch for Muggles (non-magic folk) has spread across the globe. The International Quidditch Association (or IQA), has helped found 400 college and 300 high school teams already. 45 states in the country host quidditch teams.

Furthermore, the Quidditch World Cup isn’t just for wizards and witches anymore. The fourth annual was hosted this year in New York with 757 athletes representing 46 teams.

It’s been a goal at my school for a while now to form a team.

The principal of our school is Dr. Thomas Humble. Not only does his name remarkably resemble the famous Albus Dumbledore of the Harry Potter series, he also looks like him, sans lengthy beard. As such, punny nerds as we are, we have named our principal Humbledore.

So Humbledore isn’t a fan of having yet another club at Raleigh Charter, so we have formed an impromptu group with a tentative name of Humbledore’s Army. It makes sense, seeing as we’re a misfit troop of kids hosting an under-the-table association not approved of by the administration.

For you muggles who don’t know how ground quidditch is played, I have spared you your confusion and I shall list the rules as follows.

There are 7 people per quidditch team.  There are 2 beaters, one keeper, and 3 chasers, and a seeker. There’s also the snitch, but technically he/she isn’t part of the team. Everyone but the snitch must run around the duration of the game holding  the handle of a broomstick that they’re holding between their legs. It’s incredibly hard to do so and to perform the tasks mentioned below:

So let’s start with the beaters.

Beaters have dodge balls (bludgers), and their job is pretty much to beat the crap out of anyone they possibly can. Once hit by a bludger, the player hit has to drop the ball (if he or she is carrying one), and run around the goal post in order to reenter the game.

Got it? Good.

Then there are chasers. The chasers have a soccer ball (the quaffle), and they pass it back and forth down the field to try to pass it through a goal post (hula hoops sprayed gold attached to posts of varying lengths). A goal wins the team 10 points. However, if hit by a bludger, they must drop the quaffle.

Moving on. Keep up.

Keepers guard the goal posts to make sure chasers don’t score. Pretty simple.

Then there’s my favorite.

The golden snitch and the seekers.

Each team has a seeker who runs like heck to catch the snitch. In the book, a snitch is a little golden ball with tiny wings that flutters around the field for a seeker to catch. Obviously, seeing as it’s hard to green screen that sort of thing on a regular basis, ground quidditch uses a person. The snitch dresses in yellow and hangs a sock with a tennis ball inside off the back of his/her pants. The snitch is released first thing in the game when all other players have their eyes closed. Once out of sight, the game begins and the seekers take off after the snitch.

The snitch has no rules or boundaries. I have seen them:

·      Get into a car and drive away

·      Spray silly string in someone’s face

·      Hide in a bathroom the whole game

·      Duck under a refreshment table and dump a water bottle on someone who dares try to approach.

·      Slap someone across the face

Needless to say, I totally want to be snitch.

If the snitch is caught (by pulling off the sock), then the game ends and the seeker wins 30 points for the team. The goal is to know when to catch the snitch, because if one team has 50 points and your team has 10 and the seeker catches the snitch, then the team only gets 40 points and pretty much forfeits the game.

It’s a test of skill, agility, and ability to run around for an indefinite period of time with a broomstick between your legs looking like a complete dork.