Quidditch
When Lea awoke it was still rather dark. The sky outside was black streaked with blue, the owls could still be seen swooping past the high windows of the Gryffindor tower to get back to the Owlery and the dawn chorus was really getting into its stride. Still, try as he might, he couldn’t get back to sleep. He tried in vain to drift off, but eventually gave up as the sky gradually turned a deep, salmon pink and started to go pale as daylight approached.
He quietly got up and dressed and went down to the common room. It was empty, but there was a fire in the grate. He decided, uncharacteristically sensibly, to finish his outstanding homework, so he padded on cat’s feet across the room, let himself out of the Portrait hole and went and sat in the library, alone, to get it done.
By the time he’d completed his Charms essay the day had become beautiful and bright. From what he could see from the window it was set to be a really pleasant spring day. Still, despite the niceness of it all, the atmosphere was tense all over the school.
The reason? It was a Quidditch day. If there was any single event guaranteed to heighten the usual tension between Houses, it was a Quidditch match. It didn’t help, of course, that the match was between Gryffindor and Slytherin, which just happened to have the strongest rivalry of any two Houses in the school and, given Slytherin’s performance in the previous match with Hufflepuff, even those and the Ravenclaws were eager to see them well and truly beaten.
Lea was nervous. Playing Seeker did that to everybody. The game’s completion relied entirely on him to catch the Snitch and, even if Slytherin were up by almost as much as one hundred and forty points, he had the chance of swinging victory for Gryffindor with one single move. It was never easy because the Snitch was notoriously difficult to see and even harder to catch, but he was determined to win it for them. If nothing else, he had a brand new broom that he’d been sent as a very early birthday present by his mother.
How she had managed to get hold of it he didn’t know, but he assumed that order forms and borrowing the Hogwarts Owl he’d used to send her a letter were a big part of it. Still, his broom was better than most of the Slytherins’ and definitely better than their Seeker Larxene’s. He doubted highly that it would remain that way after she caught wind of his new toy, but it was a surprise factor in the upcoming match and he was relying on that to hopefully scrape an easy win.
When he sat down at the table, his stomach turned at the sight of the food. It happened every time. For somebody who was usually such an enthusiastic eater, the idea of putting even so much as a corner of toast in his mouth made him feel ill.
“You have to have something,” Isa said wearily. They had had the same conversation before every match so far. “If you don’t, you’ll be weak an-”
“And pathetic and fall off my broom, I know,” Lea said, feeling too ill to snap. “You don’t have to tell me again.”
“Then eat something,” Isa shrugged, tucking into a boiled egg.
“It’s easy for you,” Lea sighed, pulling some plain, buttered toast towards him. “You don’t play Seeker.”
The expression on Isa’s face made it look like he had to concede that one.
Isa was, of course, also on the team, but he played Beater. While still an important position in regards to the eventual victory or loss of the match, it didn’t have anywhere near as much bearing on the result as the Seeker. Their input was direct and that was the reason why they were fouled more than any other member of a Quidditch team.
Before too long, other members of their House joined them. They, unlike the nervous Quidditch team members, had taken advantage of the Saturday to have a lie in.
“Good luck, Lea!” Zidane said, patting him on the shoulder. “You can smash them no problem!”
“He’ll be like a red blur,” Zack said, grinning.
“A red blur is right,” came a flat, cold voice from behind them, “all the way to the ground.”
It was Sasuke Uchiha, a Slytherin in their year. He didn’t play on the team and wasn’t usually the aggressive type, but he got just as into the House rivalry as much as the others when Quidditch was involved. He didn’t play, but it didn’t stop him talking his House’s team up. Lea didn’t like him, but he got on well enough with his brother, Itachi. The fact that he was a Gryffindor instead of a Slytherin might have helped.
“Shut up, Uchiha,” Zidane said, narrowing his eyes. “We’re gonna beat you no problem.”
“Why, you got a new Seeker, or something?” He was smirking.
“We don’t need a new Seeker,” Zack said, looking confident. “Ours is good enough as it is. He has beat you four out of five times, y’know.”
“Yeah, and the only reason he didn’t get the Snitch last time is because YOUR Seeker held onto his broom-twigs,” Zidane pointed out.
“Whatever,” Sasuke said, folding his arms. “We don’t need dirty tricks to beat you Gryffindorks.”
“Why, have you replaced your whole team?” Isa asked coolly, raising his eyebrows. “Because that’s the only way you’ll win a clean match and you know it.”
That wasn’t entirely true. They had a number of dirty players, granted, but some of them played a clean game. Just not enough of them to make up for the ones that thought cheating and making a dangerous game even more risky was part of the fun.
Sasuke scowled and went to open his mouth when the Gryffindor Head of House entered the Great Hall. He looked down at Sasuke and raised his eyebrows.
“You lost, kid? The Slytherin table’s thataway,” he said, pointing helpfully.
Sasuke took the time to glare at all of them before stalking back to the rest of his house.
Professor Johnson looked at the members of the Gryffindor team told them to “Make sure you beat Slytherin to make him eat his words, all right?” and carried on to the teacher’s table with no more than a grin.
Lea knew full well that he’d never hear the end of it if he missed the Snitch again, not least from the Professor. He had been on the Gryffindor team in his school days and age had not dulled his excitement or competitive nature when it came to Quidditch matches.
Lea picked at his food for a little while longer before Isa tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the doors. The other members of their team were leaving the hall.
“We should pick up our brooms and then go down and get changed,” he said, not looking half as nervous as Lea did.
“Sure,” he replied, dragging himself to his feet.
The walk from the hall was always a little difficult. Encouragement came from both those in their House and not (except for the Slytherins) and although the support was welcome, it made the reality of how much was riding on Lea catching a tiny, fluttering gold ball weigh all the more heavily on his shoulders.
“Make sure you beat them real good,” a cool, female voice said just behind him.
Lea turned and raised his eyebrows.
It was Catlin, a Chaser on the Hufflepuff team. Although she was fine now, the last match with Slytherin had seen her in the Hospital Wing thanks to Larxene’s underhanded techniques. She seemed to have recovered from the broken wrist she’d received thanks to the nasty fall she’d suffered, but that didn’t mean she didn’t want to get even.
Lea nodded determinedly. He didn’t want to look under-confident in front of her - she was a Prefect and rather scary on her own merit. She was absurdly good at Curses, Hexes and Jinxes and took no nonsense from the Slytherins in their year, regardless of number.
“Sure thing!” Lea grinned. “We’ll stomp them this time, got it memorised?”
Catlin gave him a funny look at his phrasing. She didn’t smile - she rarely did - but she nodded thoughtfully before going back to her seat where her friend, a quiet, almost anxious looking boy named Florian, waited for her.
Lea looked to Isa and shrugged before carrying on into the Entrance Hall.
“Did you have to say that?” Isa asked, looking awkward and embarrassed.
“What?” Lea replied, linking his fingers behind his head as he made his way up to Gryffindor Tower to pick up his broomstick.
“’Got it memorised’, to Catlin. You’re so embarrassing,” Isa sighed, shaking his head.
He didn’t keep his own broomstick in the school broomsheds, either. Isa’s mother made sure to get him the latest general-release Quidditch broom each year, even if he didn’t play for the House she’d wanted him in. At the moment he was using the Light Year, a fast but hardy broom perfectly suited to members of a team who played Beater. In the last match, Isa had been hit on the end of the handle by a high-speed Bludger and, although he’d been knocked off course due to the force of it, his broom had survived without so much as a mark.
Lea gave him a confused look for a moment, but it soon spread into a grin. “Ohhhh yeah, I forgot about your crush on her. Sorry if I cramped your style!”
“Shut up, Lea.” Isa muttered, deciding to continue the rest of the walk in silence.
*
Despite the bright spring morning, the air outside the castle carried a coldness left over from winter. The changing rooms weren’t much better and the whole Gryffindor Quidditch team changed hastily into their scarlet Quidditch robes to avoid feeling too much of the chill.
“All right ladies and gentlemen,” Snow Villiers, the big seventh year Captain said once they were finished. “As I’ve told you before, this is my last year here before I go off to greater things.”
It wasn’t any secret that he harboured a desire to play Quidditch professionally and, if nothing else, a decent record in school often helped players on their way to achieving that goal.
“That means that I wanna win this year more than any other,” he scanned the group in front of him.
Grimmjow Jagerjaques sat, checking the grip on his Beater’s club while Reno, a tall, red-haired boy in Snow’s own year mouthed along to his speech with a cheeky grin on his face. He stopped when the Captain fixed his eyes on him.
“I know you can do it, you know you can do it!” He said, growing more animated as he got into his stride. “We’ve easily got the best team in the school and we definitely have the best team on the field today. Slytherin cheat - we know that, but we’re good enough that even if they use every trick and foul in the book we’ll still beat them!”
His eyes were alive with excitement for the upcoming match. The other members of the team, cheered up by his pep talk, looked a little happier than they had ten minutes ago.
“Both of our blue-haired Beaters can give both the Bludgers and Slytherin’s team a run for their money, our Chasers have put away more goals this year than any of the other teams and our Seeker’s like greased lightning -- and that was before he got that new broom of his!”
Lea grinned broadly and held his broom a little bit more tightly. It was a good broom. Polished ebony with a diamond-hard polish reminiscent of the old Firebolts, it was a Wildfire - the new model. The ride was smooth and fast, it was sensitive enough that it felt like it was thought controlled and it was treated with a charm that allowed it to remain steady even in high winds and driving rain. It was their secret weapon and, of course, Lea’s most prized possession.
“It’s not just Gryffindor that want Slytherin to lose,” he said, looking at them each in turn and then punching the air. “If we manage to keep them off the top spot this year, we’ll be heroes! But don’t get too carried away,” he added. “We want this match over with as quickly as possible so that they don’t get a chance to cause any trouble or hurt anyone. We need this team for other matches, all right? Let’s go!”
They walked onto the pitch to the tune of three houses cheering for them.
The stands were filled to bursting with students and more teachers than usual had turned out to see them play. Anticipation was running high. Lea squinted in the sunlight and looked up to see the tell-tale crimson robes of the Headmaster, Professor Ansem, sitting amongst the Heads of House.
Wordlessly, the two teams, Gryffindor clad in scarlet and Slytherin decked out in green, faced each other and glares shot between them like a volley of arrows.
“All right, all right, settle the hell down,” the referee, Mr. Highwind, snapped. “I want this damn game to be clean, ‘specially after the mess y’all made of the last one -- I don’t want no crap pulled like the one against Hufflepuff, y’got me?”
His eyes fixed on the Slytherins, specifically their Seeker. She smiled pleasantly at him, undeterred by his singling her out. He turned to the others and she smirked at Lea, drawing a delicate finger across her throat.
“Planning to cheat again?” He whispered, giving her a filthy look.
“Me? Cheat?” Larxene said, her voice laden with false offense. “I’m hurt,”
“It’s the only way you’ll win,” Lea said, deliberately shouldering his new broom to show it off.
Larxene did not miss the gesture. The light caught the black, highly polished shaft and glittered along its length. She narrowed her eyes in anger. Her own broom was a good one - it was a Stormrider, a broom known for its speed and reliability, but it wasn’t fast as the new Wildfire and it sacrificed some manoeuvrability for speed. She collected herself and wiped the jealous look off her face.
“Never mind how we’ll win,” Larxene sneered, not looking quite as confident as a moment ago, “Just rest assured that you won’t.”
Their conversation ceased as Snow shook hands with Seifer Almasy, the fifth-year Captain of the other team.
“Okay, kiddies. Mount yer brooms,” Mr Highwind instructed, opening the chest containing the four Quidditch balls.
He gave his whistle a shrill blast and, all at once, both teams shot into the air like red and green blurs.
Lea had to try hard to resist letting go an exhilarated whoop as he sped towards the sky on his new broom. It was a lot cooler up there than on ground level, but it was nearly summer-bright. He pulled his tinted goggles (a gift from Isa for his last birthday) down off his head and scanned the pitch as the balls were released.
The Golden Snitch vanished almost as soon as it was let free.
“And the Quaffle is scooped up right away by Zuko Agni of Slytherin,” the magically magnified voice of Gryffindor Naruto Uzumaki announced. “He passes to Deidara Katsu who fumbles it - Katsu goes into a dive to retrieve the dropped Quaffle but is beaten to the punch by Gryffindor Chaser Tayuya Piper - she passes neatly to Yylfordt Granz - Yylfordt speeds towards the goal posts - ooh! He’s cut off by a Bludger aimed at him by Seely of Slytherin but he manoeuvres out of the way and shoots - bad luck, Yylfordt - it’s saved by Keeper Nnoitra Jiruga!”
Lea flew up high to scan the field for even the smallest speck of gold. Larxene, he noticed, was using a different tactic. She was below the rest of the match, keeping the sun out of her eyes. She, unlike Lea, didn’t have goggles.
“Jiruga passes the Quaffle back to Agni - Agni throws it to Almasy - he suffers a near-miss from a Bludger, speeds towards the goal posts - Snow Villiers misses the save - SLYTHERIN SCORE!”
Lea tutted as whoops and cheers went up from the supporters of the opposite team. To his delight, he was glad that the boos from the other three Houses practically drowned out their raucus celebrations.
“Quaffle back in play - it goes to Piper - Piper shoots a neat pass to Reno - Reno dodges the Slytherin Chasers - he throws to Granz - OOH! - Nasty hit by a Bludger for Slytherin Beater Raijin Lei - Some might say that he should have been paying more attention - the second Bludger heads towards Keeper Jiruga - What are the Slytherin Beaters playing at? - Oh well - Beater Seely deflects the Bludger, but not before Granz slips the Quaffle past Jiruga - GRYFFINDOR SCORE! The scores are tied ten-ten, BELIEVE IT!”
The cheers that time were much, much louder. Lea couldn’t resist giving the air a little celebratory punch. That stopped when he caught sight of Larxene moving. Had she seen..? He dived past player level and tailed her, trying to catch a glimpse of gold.
“With the scores back level play continues... have the Seekers seen the Snitch?”
Lea scoured the field, but couldn’t see anything. Larxene looked back at him with a smirk on her face.
She was feinting.
How could he have fallen for that? She rounded back towards him and slipped a hand into her robes. Lea scowled when she drew her hand out - her wand was clutched in it. Surely not even she would cheat to that extent. Lea pulled up sharply, accelerating away from her.
“It looks like it was a false alarm - Seely hits a Bludger towards Reno - Reno avoids the ball but drops the Quaffle - Ooh! Lucky recovery by Piper - Beater Selwyn whacks it back away from the Chasers - Piper heads for the goals, looking to score - OUCH! - Piper is barged by Lei - Gryffindor are awarded a penalty - Piper takes the shot - she SCORES! Twenty -Ten to Gryffindor!”
Lea made an effort to get away from Larxene. If he flew erratically, he knew that she would have no way of catching him on her broom - it wasn’t exactly designed for hairpin turns.
“And play resumes with Gryffindor in the lead...”
As Lea ascended, he caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye - the Snitch! He changed direction sharply and sped after it. A rush of wind behind him told him that Larxene was hot on his tail. He didn’t dare look back, but he had a feeling that she was still holding her wand.
“Seeker Cole has seen the Snitch - Seeker Flint is coming up close behind - there’s barely a hair between them!”
Lea tried his best to ignore Naruto’s voice and accelerated until he was mere feet from the tiny, fluttering Snitch.
“Oopsie!” He heard Larxene say, but didn’t turn to look at her.
He could do without her as a distraction.
Closer and closer he got and when he was almost upon it, he reached out - and the Snitch sped sharply upwards. He followed, putting on another burst of speed.
“HAH!” He said, giving himself a second to turn and grin at Larxene, still far below. He knew full well that she wouldn’t be able to do what he -
His face went pale.
The ends of his broom twigs were on fire. And the speed he was travelling at wasn’t putting them out. Built to withstand adverse weather conditions, the air rushing by was having no effect on the flames thanks to the charm that protected the broom. At close quarters, it seemed that fire spells could bypass it, but then again, why would Quidditch brooms have to be protected against that?
He couldn’t stop now. He couldn’t abandon the Snitch, and with it victory, to Slytherin. There was too much riding on this match. He should be able to repair the twigs, he told himself. If not, they could be trimmed. The fire wasn’t spreading, or growing - yet.
Lea turned his attention back to the Snitch and found it further away than he’d expected. He saw Larxene rocketing upwards - apparently she’d been able to change her trajectory while he had been distracted by the fire. He leaned forward and streaked across the pitch - there was no way he was letting her snipe a catch thanks to her underhanded cheating.
They both sped at the Snitch - him from the side, her from below. He reached out a hand, shot forward and, just as they were both nearing it, he snatched it from the air. Larxene came up a moment too late and, not anticipating his burst of speed, caught the back end of his broom.
“Whoa!” He cried, struggling to hold on one-handed. The force of the blow sent him forward and into a three hundred and sixty degree spin, but he managed to stay in the air, and on his broom.
Larxene, however, upon suffering the impact of a high-speed collision head on, spiralled off in the other direction and, Lea was delighted to see, smashed into the Slytherin Beater, Raijin Lei.
“Lea Cole of Gryffindor has caught the Snitch! GRYFFINDOR WIN!”
Lea couldn’t stop himself letting go a gleeful shout as he sped towards the ground with the Snitch still struggling in his fist. They’d won and it wasn’t just Gryffindor who were cheering. Snow was right - they would be heroes if they beat them. Even if that wasn’t the case, Lea sure felt like one.
His feet touched the ground to the tune of cheering louder than anything he’d ever heard before. Before he lost himself to the excitement, he got off his broom and hastily patted the still-burning twigs out. The damage didn’t seem too great, but they were still smoking and blackened from the fire.
Isa landed beside him, deciding to forego the aerial victory-lap in favour of celebrating with his friend. He blinked at the smoke coming from Lea's broom.
“What happened?” He asked, pulling his own wand from an inside pocket.
They weren’t really supposed to have them, but Isa knew better than to play a match against Slytherin without a wand just in case.
“Larxene happened,” Lea said, looking up at the celebrating players.
“Aguamenti,” Isa muttered, using a spout of water to make sure the flames were completely out. “There. No harm done and we still won.”
Lea wasn’t sure that he considered blackened tail-twigs ‘no harm done’ but he was too happy about winning to argue.
Larxene landed not far from them and wiped her bleeding nose on her sleeve. She looked livid.
“You won’t get away with this,” she spat thickly, her eyes narrowed to slits.
“I’m terrified, Larxene.” Lea said, giving her a grin.
After what she’d done to Isa in their fourth year he knew that he should be a little nervous about it but it was all forgotten about when he was picked up by his just-landed team mates and hoisted into the air to even louder cheers than before.
The Slytherin team members looked furious at their loss as they walked off the pitch. It seemed to take Seifer Almasy all of his will and effort to give Snow a handshake. Lea didn’t pay too much attention - he was high on victory. He was marched into the entrance hall on the shoulders of his team mates and carried up to the common room for the usual noisy, after-match party. He was never sure who it was who managed to procure all of the food, but he was rather glad somebody did.
The party continued right through dinner time, but none of the Gryffindors present wanted to go to the Great Hall at all - they were all rather too full from the party. Lea, while the party was still going on, didn’t think anything could possibly ruin his mood, though thinking that is always risky.
“Cole,” a cold voice called from the portrait hole to get his attention.
Lea turned to it and, to his dismay, he saw the stuffy Prefect in the year above, Giraud Nye. He wasn’t outwardly offensive, but he took his duty as a Prefect very seriously and always, always seemed to have an eye on everything. He was, in Lea’s opinion, altogether too observant.
“Professor Johnson wants to see you,” he told him, looking at the party with some measure of disdain. He hadn’t bothered to attend it but, then again, his two best friends were in other houses.
“What about?” Lea asked, pushing himself out of the chair.
“He didn’t tell me,” he replied, giving him a cold look. “He didn’t sound happy, though.”
“What?” Lea said, hardly able to believe his ears. He didn’t sound happy? But hadn’t he kept Gryffindor in first place? “What’s he annoyed at me about?”
Giraud gave him an impatient, patronising look and went back the way he came without answering his question.
Lea sighed made his way to Professor Johnson’s office, making a mental note to jinx Nye at the next chance he got. He knew he wasn’t in trouble - he hadn’t done anything to get himself in trouble, quite the opposite in fact - but it didn’t stop guilt creeping in from somewhere. A forgotten piece of homework, perhaps? Maybe he had found out about who accidentally flooded the bathroom with water after blowing up a toilet with an unlucky flick of the wand, or who had sent Professor Inferius some badly-packed bubotuber pus.
Swallowing a little bit of fear and with more hesitation than he would have liked, he knocked the door.
“Yeah?” came the ever-unprofessional voice from inside.
Lea pushed the door open and walked in. “Nye said you wanted to see me, Professor?”
“Yeah,” Johnson said, looking at him from his desk. “About the match earlier.”
Professor Johnson’s tone made Lea want to cringe back even though Lea couldn’t quite remember doing anything wrong. “... the match?”
“C’mon kid, surely you haven’t had that much smuggled Firewhisky, yet.” Johnson said. “Y’know, the match? Quidditch?”
“Well, yeah, but... we won. That’s good, right?” Lea asked, managing to sound unsure about it.
“Yeah, but it would have been a better victory if your new broom hadn’t caught fire, right?” He replied, raising his eyebrows.
Lea blinked. That had been noticed? They’d been going at such a high speed that Lea had been sure that most of the spectators wouldn’t have caught it. “Well, I coulda done without it,” he muttered. “How did you know..?”
“Years ago I got to see the Quidditch World Cup Final when it was hosted in England,” Professor Johnson said, scratching his head. “I got this nifty pair of goggles that lets you slow down the action. The teams were on Firebolts, so you could hardly see a damned thing without them and now your brooms are even faster. I saw what happened with you and Larxene, kid.”
Lea blinked. “You did?” He asked, looking confused. “Then why didn’t you call her here to give her a detention instead of me? I didn’t do anything! She flew into me!”
Professor Johnson gave him what can only be described as a Look. “Are you for real? You think I’m gonna give you a detention because of a mid-air collision? As if. That’s just part of Quidditch, not a punishable offence.” He sighed heavily and shook his head. “I’m giving you twenty House Points for resisting cursing her back for setting your broom alight.”
“What, seriously?” Lea asked, blinking. He immediately felt calmer. “You saw ... that?”
“Anybody else would have cursed her out of the air for setting their new broom on fire,” he said, shrugging. “That y’didn’t is pretty commendable - when I was your age I’d have made sure she took a nose dive.”
Lea couldn’t resist smiling broadly. “Thanks professor!”
“Yeah, yeah. Stop grinning like a cannibal at me,” he said, shaking his head again. “All right, I’ve got work to do, get out of here.”
Lea nodded and hastily turned to leave before he changed his mind.
“Oh, and Lea?” Professor Johnson said, not looking up from his marking.
“...Yes, sir?” He asked, stopping with his hand on the handle of the door.
“A few more catches like that and we’ll have the Quidditch Cup in the bag.”
That, Lea figured, was as close to praise as he was likely to get from Professor Johnson, so he left with a bigger grin than before and, to his great delight, twenty extra House Points.
He quietly got up and dressed and went down to the common room. It was empty, but there was a fire in the grate. He decided, uncharacteristically sensibly, to finish his outstanding homework, so he padded on cat’s feet across the room, let himself out of the Portrait hole and went and sat in the library, alone, to get it done.
By the time he’d completed his Charms essay the day had become beautiful and bright. From what he could see from the window it was set to be a really pleasant spring day. Still, despite the niceness of it all, the atmosphere was tense all over the school.
The reason? It was a Quidditch day. If there was any single event guaranteed to heighten the usual tension between Houses, it was a Quidditch match. It didn’t help, of course, that the match was between Gryffindor and Slytherin, which just happened to have the strongest rivalry of any two Houses in the school and, given Slytherin’s performance in the previous match with Hufflepuff, even those and the Ravenclaws were eager to see them well and truly beaten.
Lea was nervous. Playing Seeker did that to everybody. The game’s completion relied entirely on him to catch the Snitch and, even if Slytherin were up by almost as much as one hundred and forty points, he had the chance of swinging victory for Gryffindor with one single move. It was never easy because the Snitch was notoriously difficult to see and even harder to catch, but he was determined to win it for them. If nothing else, he had a brand new broom that he’d been sent as a very early birthday present by his mother.
How she had managed to get hold of it he didn’t know, but he assumed that order forms and borrowing the Hogwarts Owl he’d used to send her a letter were a big part of it. Still, his broom was better than most of the Slytherins’ and definitely better than their Seeker Larxene’s. He doubted highly that it would remain that way after she caught wind of his new toy, but it was a surprise factor in the upcoming match and he was relying on that to hopefully scrape an easy win.
When he sat down at the table, his stomach turned at the sight of the food. It happened every time. For somebody who was usually such an enthusiastic eater, the idea of putting even so much as a corner of toast in his mouth made him feel ill.
“You have to have something,” Isa said wearily. They had had the same conversation before every match so far. “If you don’t, you’ll be weak an-”
“And pathetic and fall off my broom, I know,” Lea said, feeling too ill to snap. “You don’t have to tell me again.”
“Then eat something,” Isa shrugged, tucking into a boiled egg.
“It’s easy for you,” Lea sighed, pulling some plain, buttered toast towards him. “You don’t play Seeker.”
The expression on Isa’s face made it look like he had to concede that one.
Isa was, of course, also on the team, but he played Beater. While still an important position in regards to the eventual victory or loss of the match, it didn’t have anywhere near as much bearing on the result as the Seeker. Their input was direct and that was the reason why they were fouled more than any other member of a Quidditch team.
Before too long, other members of their House joined them. They, unlike the nervous Quidditch team members, had taken advantage of the Saturday to have a lie in.
“Good luck, Lea!” Zidane said, patting him on the shoulder. “You can smash them no problem!”
“He’ll be like a red blur,” Zack said, grinning.
“A red blur is right,” came a flat, cold voice from behind them, “all the way to the ground.”
It was Sasuke Uchiha, a Slytherin in their year. He didn’t play on the team and wasn’t usually the aggressive type, but he got just as into the House rivalry as much as the others when Quidditch was involved. He didn’t play, but it didn’t stop him talking his House’s team up. Lea didn’t like him, but he got on well enough with his brother, Itachi. The fact that he was a Gryffindor instead of a Slytherin might have helped.
“Shut up, Uchiha,” Zidane said, narrowing his eyes. “We’re gonna beat you no problem.”
“Why, you got a new Seeker, or something?” He was smirking.
“We don’t need a new Seeker,” Zack said, looking confident. “Ours is good enough as it is. He has beat you four out of five times, y’know.”
“Yeah, and the only reason he didn’t get the Snitch last time is because YOUR Seeker held onto his broom-twigs,” Zidane pointed out.
“Whatever,” Sasuke said, folding his arms. “We don’t need dirty tricks to beat you Gryffindorks.”
“Why, have you replaced your whole team?” Isa asked coolly, raising his eyebrows. “Because that’s the only way you’ll win a clean match and you know it.”
That wasn’t entirely true. They had a number of dirty players, granted, but some of them played a clean game. Just not enough of them to make up for the ones that thought cheating and making a dangerous game even more risky was part of the fun.
Sasuke scowled and went to open his mouth when the Gryffindor Head of House entered the Great Hall. He looked down at Sasuke and raised his eyebrows.
“You lost, kid? The Slytherin table’s thataway,” he said, pointing helpfully.
Sasuke took the time to glare at all of them before stalking back to the rest of his house.
Professor Johnson looked at the members of the Gryffindor team told them to “Make sure you beat Slytherin to make him eat his words, all right?” and carried on to the teacher’s table with no more than a grin.
Lea knew full well that he’d never hear the end of it if he missed the Snitch again, not least from the Professor. He had been on the Gryffindor team in his school days and age had not dulled his excitement or competitive nature when it came to Quidditch matches.
Lea picked at his food for a little while longer before Isa tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the doors. The other members of their team were leaving the hall.
“We should pick up our brooms and then go down and get changed,” he said, not looking half as nervous as Lea did.
“Sure,” he replied, dragging himself to his feet.
The walk from the hall was always a little difficult. Encouragement came from both those in their House and not (except for the Slytherins) and although the support was welcome, it made the reality of how much was riding on Lea catching a tiny, fluttering gold ball weigh all the more heavily on his shoulders.
“Make sure you beat them real good,” a cool, female voice said just behind him.
Lea turned and raised his eyebrows.
It was Catlin, a Chaser on the Hufflepuff team. Although she was fine now, the last match with Slytherin had seen her in the Hospital Wing thanks to Larxene’s underhanded techniques. She seemed to have recovered from the broken wrist she’d received thanks to the nasty fall she’d suffered, but that didn’t mean she didn’t want to get even.
Lea nodded determinedly. He didn’t want to look under-confident in front of her - she was a Prefect and rather scary on her own merit. She was absurdly good at Curses, Hexes and Jinxes and took no nonsense from the Slytherins in their year, regardless of number.
“Sure thing!” Lea grinned. “We’ll stomp them this time, got it memorised?”
Catlin gave him a funny look at his phrasing. She didn’t smile - she rarely did - but she nodded thoughtfully before going back to her seat where her friend, a quiet, almost anxious looking boy named Florian, waited for her.
Lea looked to Isa and shrugged before carrying on into the Entrance Hall.
“Did you have to say that?” Isa asked, looking awkward and embarrassed.
“What?” Lea replied, linking his fingers behind his head as he made his way up to Gryffindor Tower to pick up his broomstick.
“’Got it memorised’, to Catlin. You’re so embarrassing,” Isa sighed, shaking his head.
He didn’t keep his own broomstick in the school broomsheds, either. Isa’s mother made sure to get him the latest general-release Quidditch broom each year, even if he didn’t play for the House she’d wanted him in. At the moment he was using the Light Year, a fast but hardy broom perfectly suited to members of a team who played Beater. In the last match, Isa had been hit on the end of the handle by a high-speed Bludger and, although he’d been knocked off course due to the force of it, his broom had survived without so much as a mark.
Lea gave him a confused look for a moment, but it soon spread into a grin. “Ohhhh yeah, I forgot about your crush on her. Sorry if I cramped your style!”
“Shut up, Lea.” Isa muttered, deciding to continue the rest of the walk in silence.
*
Despite the bright spring morning, the air outside the castle carried a coldness left over from winter. The changing rooms weren’t much better and the whole Gryffindor Quidditch team changed hastily into their scarlet Quidditch robes to avoid feeling too much of the chill.
“All right ladies and gentlemen,” Snow Villiers, the big seventh year Captain said once they were finished. “As I’ve told you before, this is my last year here before I go off to greater things.”
It wasn’t any secret that he harboured a desire to play Quidditch professionally and, if nothing else, a decent record in school often helped players on their way to achieving that goal.
“That means that I wanna win this year more than any other,” he scanned the group in front of him.
Grimmjow Jagerjaques sat, checking the grip on his Beater’s club while Reno, a tall, red-haired boy in Snow’s own year mouthed along to his speech with a cheeky grin on his face. He stopped when the Captain fixed his eyes on him.
“I know you can do it, you know you can do it!” He said, growing more animated as he got into his stride. “We’ve easily got the best team in the school and we definitely have the best team on the field today. Slytherin cheat - we know that, but we’re good enough that even if they use every trick and foul in the book we’ll still beat them!”
His eyes were alive with excitement for the upcoming match. The other members of the team, cheered up by his pep talk, looked a little happier than they had ten minutes ago.
“Both of our blue-haired Beaters can give both the Bludgers and Slytherin’s team a run for their money, our Chasers have put away more goals this year than any of the other teams and our Seeker’s like greased lightning -- and that was before he got that new broom of his!”
Lea grinned broadly and held his broom a little bit more tightly. It was a good broom. Polished ebony with a diamond-hard polish reminiscent of the old Firebolts, it was a Wildfire - the new model. The ride was smooth and fast, it was sensitive enough that it felt like it was thought controlled and it was treated with a charm that allowed it to remain steady even in high winds and driving rain. It was their secret weapon and, of course, Lea’s most prized possession.
“It’s not just Gryffindor that want Slytherin to lose,” he said, looking at them each in turn and then punching the air. “If we manage to keep them off the top spot this year, we’ll be heroes! But don’t get too carried away,” he added. “We want this match over with as quickly as possible so that they don’t get a chance to cause any trouble or hurt anyone. We need this team for other matches, all right? Let’s go!”
They walked onto the pitch to the tune of three houses cheering for them.
The stands were filled to bursting with students and more teachers than usual had turned out to see them play. Anticipation was running high. Lea squinted in the sunlight and looked up to see the tell-tale crimson robes of the Headmaster, Professor Ansem, sitting amongst the Heads of House.
Wordlessly, the two teams, Gryffindor clad in scarlet and Slytherin decked out in green, faced each other and glares shot between them like a volley of arrows.
“All right, all right, settle the hell down,” the referee, Mr. Highwind, snapped. “I want this damn game to be clean, ‘specially after the mess y’all made of the last one -- I don’t want no crap pulled like the one against Hufflepuff, y’got me?”
His eyes fixed on the Slytherins, specifically their Seeker. She smiled pleasantly at him, undeterred by his singling her out. He turned to the others and she smirked at Lea, drawing a delicate finger across her throat.
“Planning to cheat again?” He whispered, giving her a filthy look.
“Me? Cheat?” Larxene said, her voice laden with false offense. “I’m hurt,”
“It’s the only way you’ll win,” Lea said, deliberately shouldering his new broom to show it off.
Larxene did not miss the gesture. The light caught the black, highly polished shaft and glittered along its length. She narrowed her eyes in anger. Her own broom was a good one - it was a Stormrider, a broom known for its speed and reliability, but it wasn’t fast as the new Wildfire and it sacrificed some manoeuvrability for speed. She collected herself and wiped the jealous look off her face.
“Never mind how we’ll win,” Larxene sneered, not looking quite as confident as a moment ago, “Just rest assured that you won’t.”
Their conversation ceased as Snow shook hands with Seifer Almasy, the fifth-year Captain of the other team.
“Okay, kiddies. Mount yer brooms,” Mr Highwind instructed, opening the chest containing the four Quidditch balls.
He gave his whistle a shrill blast and, all at once, both teams shot into the air like red and green blurs.
Lea had to try hard to resist letting go an exhilarated whoop as he sped towards the sky on his new broom. It was a lot cooler up there than on ground level, but it was nearly summer-bright. He pulled his tinted goggles (a gift from Isa for his last birthday) down off his head and scanned the pitch as the balls were released.
The Golden Snitch vanished almost as soon as it was let free.
“And the Quaffle is scooped up right away by Zuko Agni of Slytherin,” the magically magnified voice of Gryffindor Naruto Uzumaki announced. “He passes to Deidara Katsu who fumbles it - Katsu goes into a dive to retrieve the dropped Quaffle but is beaten to the punch by Gryffindor Chaser Tayuya Piper - she passes neatly to Yylfordt Granz - Yylfordt speeds towards the goal posts - ooh! He’s cut off by a Bludger aimed at him by Seely of Slytherin but he manoeuvres out of the way and shoots - bad luck, Yylfordt - it’s saved by Keeper Nnoitra Jiruga!”
Lea flew up high to scan the field for even the smallest speck of gold. Larxene, he noticed, was using a different tactic. She was below the rest of the match, keeping the sun out of her eyes. She, unlike Lea, didn’t have goggles.
“Jiruga passes the Quaffle back to Agni - Agni throws it to Almasy - he suffers a near-miss from a Bludger, speeds towards the goal posts - Snow Villiers misses the save - SLYTHERIN SCORE!”
Lea tutted as whoops and cheers went up from the supporters of the opposite team. To his delight, he was glad that the boos from the other three Houses practically drowned out their raucus celebrations.
“Quaffle back in play - it goes to Piper - Piper shoots a neat pass to Reno - Reno dodges the Slytherin Chasers - he throws to Granz - OOH! - Nasty hit by a Bludger for Slytherin Beater Raijin Lei - Some might say that he should have been paying more attention - the second Bludger heads towards Keeper Jiruga - What are the Slytherin Beaters playing at? - Oh well - Beater Seely deflects the Bludger, but not before Granz slips the Quaffle past Jiruga - GRYFFINDOR SCORE! The scores are tied ten-ten, BELIEVE IT!”
The cheers that time were much, much louder. Lea couldn’t resist giving the air a little celebratory punch. That stopped when he caught sight of Larxene moving. Had she seen..? He dived past player level and tailed her, trying to catch a glimpse of gold.
“With the scores back level play continues... have the Seekers seen the Snitch?”
Lea scoured the field, but couldn’t see anything. Larxene looked back at him with a smirk on her face.
She was feinting.
How could he have fallen for that? She rounded back towards him and slipped a hand into her robes. Lea scowled when she drew her hand out - her wand was clutched in it. Surely not even she would cheat to that extent. Lea pulled up sharply, accelerating away from her.
“It looks like it was a false alarm - Seely hits a Bludger towards Reno - Reno avoids the ball but drops the Quaffle - Ooh! Lucky recovery by Piper - Beater Selwyn whacks it back away from the Chasers - Piper heads for the goals, looking to score - OUCH! - Piper is barged by Lei - Gryffindor are awarded a penalty - Piper takes the shot - she SCORES! Twenty -Ten to Gryffindor!”
Lea made an effort to get away from Larxene. If he flew erratically, he knew that she would have no way of catching him on her broom - it wasn’t exactly designed for hairpin turns.
“And play resumes with Gryffindor in the lead...”
As Lea ascended, he caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye - the Snitch! He changed direction sharply and sped after it. A rush of wind behind him told him that Larxene was hot on his tail. He didn’t dare look back, but he had a feeling that she was still holding her wand.
“Seeker Cole has seen the Snitch - Seeker Flint is coming up close behind - there’s barely a hair between them!”
Lea tried his best to ignore Naruto’s voice and accelerated until he was mere feet from the tiny, fluttering Snitch.
“Oopsie!” He heard Larxene say, but didn’t turn to look at her.
He could do without her as a distraction.
Closer and closer he got and when he was almost upon it, he reached out - and the Snitch sped sharply upwards. He followed, putting on another burst of speed.
“HAH!” He said, giving himself a second to turn and grin at Larxene, still far below. He knew full well that she wouldn’t be able to do what he -
His face went pale.
The ends of his broom twigs were on fire. And the speed he was travelling at wasn’t putting them out. Built to withstand adverse weather conditions, the air rushing by was having no effect on the flames thanks to the charm that protected the broom. At close quarters, it seemed that fire spells could bypass it, but then again, why would Quidditch brooms have to be protected against that?
He couldn’t stop now. He couldn’t abandon the Snitch, and with it victory, to Slytherin. There was too much riding on this match. He should be able to repair the twigs, he told himself. If not, they could be trimmed. The fire wasn’t spreading, or growing - yet.
Lea turned his attention back to the Snitch and found it further away than he’d expected. He saw Larxene rocketing upwards - apparently she’d been able to change her trajectory while he had been distracted by the fire. He leaned forward and streaked across the pitch - there was no way he was letting her snipe a catch thanks to her underhanded cheating.
They both sped at the Snitch - him from the side, her from below. He reached out a hand, shot forward and, just as they were both nearing it, he snatched it from the air. Larxene came up a moment too late and, not anticipating his burst of speed, caught the back end of his broom.
“Whoa!” He cried, struggling to hold on one-handed. The force of the blow sent him forward and into a three hundred and sixty degree spin, but he managed to stay in the air, and on his broom.
Larxene, however, upon suffering the impact of a high-speed collision head on, spiralled off in the other direction and, Lea was delighted to see, smashed into the Slytherin Beater, Raijin Lei.
“Lea Cole of Gryffindor has caught the Snitch! GRYFFINDOR WIN!”
Lea couldn’t stop himself letting go a gleeful shout as he sped towards the ground with the Snitch still struggling in his fist. They’d won and it wasn’t just Gryffindor who were cheering. Snow was right - they would be heroes if they beat them. Even if that wasn’t the case, Lea sure felt like one.
His feet touched the ground to the tune of cheering louder than anything he’d ever heard before. Before he lost himself to the excitement, he got off his broom and hastily patted the still-burning twigs out. The damage didn’t seem too great, but they were still smoking and blackened from the fire.
Isa landed beside him, deciding to forego the aerial victory-lap in favour of celebrating with his friend. He blinked at the smoke coming from Lea's broom.
“What happened?” He asked, pulling his own wand from an inside pocket.
They weren’t really supposed to have them, but Isa knew better than to play a match against Slytherin without a wand just in case.
“Larxene happened,” Lea said, looking up at the celebrating players.
“Aguamenti,” Isa muttered, using a spout of water to make sure the flames were completely out. “There. No harm done and we still won.”
Lea wasn’t sure that he considered blackened tail-twigs ‘no harm done’ but he was too happy about winning to argue.
Larxene landed not far from them and wiped her bleeding nose on her sleeve. She looked livid.
“You won’t get away with this,” she spat thickly, her eyes narrowed to slits.
“I’m terrified, Larxene.” Lea said, giving her a grin.
After what she’d done to Isa in their fourth year he knew that he should be a little nervous about it but it was all forgotten about when he was picked up by his just-landed team mates and hoisted into the air to even louder cheers than before.
The Slytherin team members looked furious at their loss as they walked off the pitch. It seemed to take Seifer Almasy all of his will and effort to give Snow a handshake. Lea didn’t pay too much attention - he was high on victory. He was marched into the entrance hall on the shoulders of his team mates and carried up to the common room for the usual noisy, after-match party. He was never sure who it was who managed to procure all of the food, but he was rather glad somebody did.
The party continued right through dinner time, but none of the Gryffindors present wanted to go to the Great Hall at all - they were all rather too full from the party. Lea, while the party was still going on, didn’t think anything could possibly ruin his mood, though thinking that is always risky.
“Cole,” a cold voice called from the portrait hole to get his attention.
Lea turned to it and, to his dismay, he saw the stuffy Prefect in the year above, Giraud Nye. He wasn’t outwardly offensive, but he took his duty as a Prefect very seriously and always, always seemed to have an eye on everything. He was, in Lea’s opinion, altogether too observant.
“Professor Johnson wants to see you,” he told him, looking at the party with some measure of disdain. He hadn’t bothered to attend it but, then again, his two best friends were in other houses.
“What about?” Lea asked, pushing himself out of the chair.
“He didn’t tell me,” he replied, giving him a cold look. “He didn’t sound happy, though.”
“What?” Lea said, hardly able to believe his ears. He didn’t sound happy? But hadn’t he kept Gryffindor in first place? “What’s he annoyed at me about?”
Giraud gave him an impatient, patronising look and went back the way he came without answering his question.
Lea sighed made his way to Professor Johnson’s office, making a mental note to jinx Nye at the next chance he got. He knew he wasn’t in trouble - he hadn’t done anything to get himself in trouble, quite the opposite in fact - but it didn’t stop guilt creeping in from somewhere. A forgotten piece of homework, perhaps? Maybe he had found out about who accidentally flooded the bathroom with water after blowing up a toilet with an unlucky flick of the wand, or who had sent Professor Inferius some badly-packed bubotuber pus.
Swallowing a little bit of fear and with more hesitation than he would have liked, he knocked the door.
“Yeah?” came the ever-unprofessional voice from inside.
Lea pushed the door open and walked in. “Nye said you wanted to see me, Professor?”
“Yeah,” Johnson said, looking at him from his desk. “About the match earlier.”
Professor Johnson’s tone made Lea want to cringe back even though Lea couldn’t quite remember doing anything wrong. “... the match?”
“C’mon kid, surely you haven’t had that much smuggled Firewhisky, yet.” Johnson said. “Y’know, the match? Quidditch?”
“Well, yeah, but... we won. That’s good, right?” Lea asked, managing to sound unsure about it.
“Yeah, but it would have been a better victory if your new broom hadn’t caught fire, right?” He replied, raising his eyebrows.
Lea blinked. That had been noticed? They’d been going at such a high speed that Lea had been sure that most of the spectators wouldn’t have caught it. “Well, I coulda done without it,” he muttered. “How did you know..?”
“Years ago I got to see the Quidditch World Cup Final when it was hosted in England,” Professor Johnson said, scratching his head. “I got this nifty pair of goggles that lets you slow down the action. The teams were on Firebolts, so you could hardly see a damned thing without them and now your brooms are even faster. I saw what happened with you and Larxene, kid.”
Lea blinked. “You did?” He asked, looking confused. “Then why didn’t you call her here to give her a detention instead of me? I didn’t do anything! She flew into me!”
Professor Johnson gave him what can only be described as a Look. “Are you for real? You think I’m gonna give you a detention because of a mid-air collision? As if. That’s just part of Quidditch, not a punishable offence.” He sighed heavily and shook his head. “I’m giving you twenty House Points for resisting cursing her back for setting your broom alight.”
“What, seriously?” Lea asked, blinking. He immediately felt calmer. “You saw ... that?”
“Anybody else would have cursed her out of the air for setting their new broom on fire,” he said, shrugging. “That y’didn’t is pretty commendable - when I was your age I’d have made sure she took a nose dive.”
Lea couldn’t resist smiling broadly. “Thanks professor!”
“Yeah, yeah. Stop grinning like a cannibal at me,” he said, shaking his head again. “All right, I’ve got work to do, get out of here.”
Lea nodded and hastily turned to leave before he changed his mind.
“Oh, and Lea?” Professor Johnson said, not looking up from his marking.
“...Yes, sir?” He asked, stopping with his hand on the handle of the door.
“A few more catches like that and we’ll have the Quidditch Cup in the bag.”
That, Lea figured, was as close to praise as he was likely to get from Professor Johnson, so he left with a bigger grin than before and, to his great delight, twenty extra House Points.