For the first hour or so, Max had tried to stick to the plan. Up in the air, he was constantly humming little tunes to himself and singing jingles. The normal chaser formation was in shambles. He rarely had any idea where the other two were, unless Shane was making the bell noises. Really, he didn’t know where he was, exactly, as was made evident when his worst nightmare was realized and he scored at the wrong end of the pitch. Sure, he wasn’t the only one, and the fog was a good excuse, but he still felt just awful. And the shouting at him was not necessary.

“It’s the bloody fog!” he shouted back. As if he didn’t feel badly enough already. Still, he couldn’t let himself brood about it too much. They were still playing. After the mishap, he managed to get his hands on the Quaffle quite a bit, but before taking aim, he made sure to pause and squint to identify Maculric. Just in case. And hey! He was doing better than the others so far, so they had no right to complain at him. Even with the freebie goal to Gryffindor, he wasn’t doing any worse than Shane or T.J. Besides! If Skrumpkin had blocked the goal, it wouldn’t have even mattered.

When Madam Hooch finally called for a break, he was very disgruntled and angry—mostly at himself. The ground got the brunt of his frustration; as he trailed along behind his teammates, he kicked at it viciously, sending clods of dirt and dead grass flying everywhichway. T.J. was right. It could have gone a bloody lot worse: he could have made two goals for the other team. Ugh! That one mistake was going to haunt him for the rest of the match, which would mess with his concentration, and he would probably end up making more mistakes!

Clearly, at the moment, he was not inclined to be optimistic, despite T.J.’s little speech. It was just as likely that the Gryffindors would get better as the match continued. Unless someone got seriously injured and sidelined, he rather thought things wouldn’t change much. Hopefully the Captain could get them all motivated again. They would certainly need it, he thought. The way things were going, this match could go on for days…