Oh, good. T.J. had a plan. Even if her plan was terribly terrible, he’d take it. Any plan was better than no plan, and he had no plan. He listened, wide-eyed, while she explained her plan. Such as it was. “I’m not panicking,” he said, his voice a whole octave higher than normal. He coughed a little, cleared his throat, and repeated, “I’m not panicking,” in as deep a voice as he could manage. See? Not panicking. Okay… so that was a slight lie. But he could stop! Anytime he wanted to… He really could. Taking several deep breaths, he managed a slightly crooked, somewhat wavery smile.

Her confidence was helping, though. She clearly believed in her plan, so maybe he should believe in it, too. Right? He wanted to be confident. He wanted to win. He just… didn’t know if they could. They were severely handicapped without Shane. They could probably make a few goals between them, but… he wasn’t really feeling that good about their chances. Nodding, he said, “I’ll try to pull it together.” He was aware of the fact that if they embarrassed themselves, it’d most likely be his fault.

Remounting his broom, he kicked back up and did a couple of loop-de-loops to relax. It didn’t really help. “Close, fast, avoid Gryffindors,” he muttered to himself. “Close, fast, no Gryffindors…” He could do that. It would be just like normal… except without Shane in the middle. Max would have to remember to not to pass to him… seeing as he wouldn’t be there to catch it, and that violated T.J.’s third rule. Despite T.J.’s pep talk, it was just not fair. There were three Gryffindor Chasers to their pitiful two, and no matter how Max flew, there was always someone to cut him off and steal the Quaffle from him.  They were just not evenly matched.

He hated to be vengeful or stoop to their level, but… “Somebody knock them off their bloody brooms!” he shouted, after he had been sandwiched in by two of the Gryffindors and had nearly fallen off his own broom fighting to keep the Quaffle. He had lost that fight, but he had stayed on the broom… to fight another day, he supposed. “Come on,” he roared at a passing Beater. He would prefer to lose that mouthy Watkins, but the other freakishly tall one would be helpful, too. The tall one looked like he was barely hanging in there, anyway… how much could it take to put him out of the game?

At least then Hufflepuff might have a chance…