What is in a Broom

Marie-Laure was on her own this year in leadership and she wasn't so sure that she minded at all. The only problem was not having someone to use as a sounding board as she went over ideas for the meeting. How much could you cover in the game of Quidditch without going back over the same old stuff? Maybe stay away from the rules and different positions? They'd been done over and over in the years she'd been part of the club. It was time for something different and Marie-Laure had a few ideas which were finally narrowed down to one. Thankfully she'd done all the planning during the holidays and thus found it easy enough to get a hold of the things she needed at the Quidditch Shop in Amethyst Alley.

She made certain she was in the meeting room early and decorated it with posters advertising the various brooms and some scale models of players from French and Belgian World Cup Teams on their brooms. It'd been a little harder to find out which broom each one favoured but eventually she found out when she raided the Beauxbatons Library's Quidditch Magazine Collection. It'd surprisingly had not just information on the French team but then the school did cater to more than just French students. She was a case in point. Maybe the magazine editors also targeted student readers with that in mind.

Once she was set up she sat back and waited for the club members to arrive. That didn't take too long and once it was time for the meeting to begin she stood. "Welcome back everyone to another meeting of the Students Appreciation Quidditch club. Today we're going to talk about the various brooms which are available for anyone playing Quidditch. Does it matter? Which is better for which position? Is faster better? What about ease of movement? Who'd like to begin?"

It was Payton's second year in Students Appreciating Quidditch club and he almost enjoyed it. His first meeting had been a little rocky, but this year he was going to be on his best behavior. He walked into the room and took his seat, ready to listen to what the topic of today's meeting was. Luckily it wasn't about positions and how important or unimportant they were. The meeting was about the most important object in quidditch: brooms. Without brooms, the sport would be boring and wouldn't be the same.

"I don't know much about the different types of brooms, I've had the same broom since I began playing quidditch. But I suppose players perform differently because of the different types of brooms. All brooms are different or else there wouldn't be so many different types and models. People would just sell the same broom to everyone."

This meeting was beginning rather flatly. She raised her eyebrows at Payton's complete ignorance on the different brooms out there. He played seeker on the Montagnard Quidditch team and he didn't know what broom he flew? Something Marie-Laure had done before getting her own broom was a lot of research on what was out there. She could have gone with a French broom like the majority of the students had but went for a highly recommended British one the Quidditch shop in Amethyst Ally sold instead. Finally names of other favoured brooms came from around the room.

"Okay," she acknowledged. "From what I've read in the Quidditch Magazines it seems that despite the Meteor Shower 3000 being a highly popular broom in France and within this school itself most of them seem to think that the Firebolt which is made by a British company is the best." She picked up the model of a player on a Meteor Shower and another on a Firebolt and put them forward on the desk. "This is the broom which is best recommended for seekers because of the need for speed when catching the snitch. For a keeper on the other hand a broom which turns with ease is one which works better. Any ideas on what qualities are best for Chaser or Beater? How about the referee?" She was getting a vaguely uneasy feeling that she was sounded more like one of the Professors rather than a club leader but with the speed of the discussion she had to try something to speed things up.

Since money was always tight at the Johnson household, Payton used a school broom. Others had their own brooms but he used the same school broom for every game. But he didn't want to confess that his family was dirt broke and he was stuck with an old school broom.

He had glanced at a quidditch magazine once or twice, he liked seeing the players and he hoped he would be in a magazine like them one day. He hadn't heard of the broom she spoke of, probably because he didn't know much about anything outside of France. He nodded slightly, mostly to show that he was listening. He didn't want to sound stupid but he was probably going to since he didn't know anything she was saying. "Honestly, I'm not sure. I don't get my hands on magazines and I don't visit the quidditch shop that often."

"The type of broom a keeper would need is a broom that can move quickly and with ease since they have to block the goals. The beaters need a broom that is easy to use so they don't have to keep their hands on the broom all the time." He really hoped he didn't sound stupid since he wasn't giving any names of brooms. "The referee needs a broom that's fast so they can go back and forth so they can view the whole game."

The meeting was going rather flatly and Marie-Laure was unhappy with the lack of enthusiasm. This really was sounding more like a dull lecture than a proper club meeting with the lack of member participation. She looked at the array of models she had on display on the desk and what do you do when some members, such as Payton, didn't seem to know much more about Quidditch and brooms other than how to fly one and play Quidditch? "Well if you ever want to read one there's a good collection in the school library," she said. "As well as books on the best brooms and moves and players." Of course there was the time to do such things but Marie-Laure believed that all it took was good organisation skills and anything could be fitted in without compromising on lessons.

With as much as she could think of which could be talked about when discussing games her eyes fell on the models of players from the French teams. Maybe they needed some sort of activity instead of talk. That's all these meetings had been ever since she first joined the club. "Who would like a race using these?" She held up one of the models, Burrell Chauvin Beater for the Vesoul Vipers. "They'd been charmed to fly around like their real life counterparts." With that she tapped the player with her wand and set him off lying around the room and every so often swinging his bat.