What a Foul Up

It was the final year in which she would be leading this club and Marie-Laure was not saddened by the fact. She was more of a doer than a talker when it came to Quidditch and there were only so many things to talk about in regard to the game. Today she did at least have something planned. Though how much interest it will generate was another matter. No-one could be absolutely certain what interests other.

She watched in silence as the club members filed in. "Hello everyone welcome to another meeting of Students Depreciating Quidditch. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Marie-Laure Sylvian, leader of this club. Today we are going to talk about fouling. Why do people foul? Is it always intentional or sometimes accidental and who decided in the first place why a certain move or tactic is a foul? Or do you have your own point of view on fouling? Something which hasn't been covered by the questions?"

"Well, a lot of Quidditch fouls take place, so we can't say for sure that they're all deliberate," said Milan, trying to find what more to say. "Although a lot of it is, probably. Who would yank an opponent's broom tail "accidentally" or mistakenly jinx a player?" There were a few murmurs of agreement. Milan tried to remember what she had recently read from Quidditch through the Ages. "In the 1473 Quidditch World Cup they played a lot dirtier than we do now. Maybe wizards are realizing that Quidditch is not something to kill over." She shrugged. "Or the popularity of Quidditch is declining? At least, people are getting less hyped about it. I might do a minor jinx to a particularly foul opponent-outside the game of course."

Milan tried to remember any interesting fouls she had seen in a Quidditch game. "Hmm, well my relatives went to this Quidditch match and the Beater hit the Snitch away from the opposing Seeker. Quite a foul I heard, anyone seen anything like that?" Milan wasn't an expert on Quidditch but she knew catching the Snitch was a big deal. "Anyway, I don't think fouling makes you evil. I bet a lot of people on the school teams do it in the spur of the moment."

Marie-Laure nodded at the newest member of the club encouragingly. Whilst she didn't agree with everything the girl had to say at least she was not backwards about giving her opinion. That was much more than Marie-Laure not agreeing with her. Not that Milan would have a clue what Marie-Laure thought. She'd just given out questions for the club members to think about.

After a few more thoughts and ideas shared Marie-Laure decided to weigh in on her opinion. "As some of you have shared, it is certain hard to commit a lot of these fouls accidentally. I'd even go so far as to say most are impossible to do accidentally. Some it'd depend on the circumstances such as snitchnipping. A non-seeker may accidentally fly into the snitch or be hit by it." And Marie-Laure could clearly remember that happening to the worst Montagnard player on the team. "Or deliberately grab it to stop the opposing seeker from being able to catch it."

She smiled at Milan's mention of the school teams and shrugged. "I can't say I can recall many fouls happening over the years I've played for Montagnard but maybe the current players are more interested in just getting out of some of the awful conditions they have to play in than fouling." She was pretty sure she could only recall one instance of a broom being grabbed and the accidental snitchnip. Maybe there were more but Marie-Laure had played all seven years she'd been at Beauxbatons. That was a lot of games to recall.

"Now here is something different to ask. If any of you were tempted to commit a foul which one would you choose to do?" Law abiding Marie-Laure wouldn't consider committing a foul but she could think of a few times when she was tempted. "For example, there have been times when I thought a player or two could do with a cobbing."

"Yeah, I guess some can happen accidentally," Milan agreed. When Marie-Laure brought up snitchnipping she frowned. "How do Snitches act? Are they able to sense people extremely well and dodge them? Although I don't think a lot of people would be able to just grab the Snitch, since the whole game is built around them."

Milan wanted to try out for the school teams and was already nervous about staying on the broom, she didn't want to have to worry about people fouling. She was relieved when Marie-Laure said there hadn't been many fouls. She had been worried about getting out of the game with a black eye. "So, usually, its hard to foul by complete accident?" Milan had fretted about accidentally fouling.

In her experience with playing games, Milan had often been tempted to "cheat" and get back at the opponent. She certainly had issues with the words "its just a game" directed to her. She shrugged. "Well, I'd probably be impulsive and chuck a ball, maybe...but hopefully I'd find a way to direct my anger towards a player, to the game in a helpful way."