Ye Ol' Author's Note: This story was written for the Houses Competition 2019
House: Gryffindor
Year: 3
Category: Drabble
Prompt: [Setting] Professional Quidditch Pitch & [Speech] "Does your mother/father know what you've been up to?"
Word Count: 873
Alastor Moody cursed as he trudged around the Quidditch Pitch perimeters. Dark Wizards were on the rise and he gets detailed to be security for the Quidditch World Cup; the cost for calling the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement a "Snivelling Flobberworm Bureaucrat" to his face.
"Good-evening, Auror." Some wizard with a gaudy moustache cheerfully greeted as he walked by.
Moody grunted in response. This was a bloody waste of time and resources, and Crouch knew it. At least he should; if not, he was more of a fool than Moody already knew him to be.
"The Quidditch World Cup is too high profile for us to contract out security. We need certified Aurors." Moody mocked under his breath, "So you pull your me out of the Investigations Division and stick me here."
Other than arresting some drunk Mic early in the afternoon, the day had been dull. Children played, adults drank, people sang and danced in merriment, and Alastor Moody begrudgingly walked his rounds.
"Auror!"
Moody spun around, drawing his wand. "Expelliarmus!"
His spell struck the wizard running towards him. The man screamed as he was knocked backwards, falling flat on his back.
Moody rushed over and covered the man with his wand. He instantly recognized him as a groundskeeper for the pitch.
"What the devil are you doing running up on a man like that?" Moody rebuked as he pulled the man to his feet.
"I-I'm s-sorry, S-sir, I-I j-just-t n-eed-ed to say th-that there's p-people on the pitch." The man was shaking as he tried to tell Moody the news.
"So? Kick them off." Moody grumbled.
"Tha-that's s-securit-ty's job though." The groundskeeper countered.
"Fine. I'll go write the bastards a ticket." He stormed off towards the stadium and onto the Pitch.
"That was a cheap shot, James, and you know it!"
"Quit whining, Peter."
"He's not whining, that was foul play!"
"Fair!"
"Foul!"
"You're just a sore loser, Sirius."
"Am not; I just don't like cheaters."
"Oh, because everything you do is completely by the books."
"Shut it, Remus, nobody asked you."
Moody stood on the grounds of the Pitch and stared at the trespassers. Four boys, all looking to be around twelve-years-old were playing a game of Two-on-Two Quidditch. From what he saw, the kid with glasses flew into the chubbier kid which caused him to fumble the Quaffle, which was retrieved by the skinny boy who in turn scored what must have been the winning goal. The boy with longer hair was so infuriated by the cheap shot on his teammate that he did not even attempt to stop the skinny boy from scoring, instead he began calling foul against the spectacled lad.
They all landed on the pitch, still arguing.
"You know what, Sirius, I've had it with your grousing every time you lose. Let's settle it right now!" Glasses snapped.
"Let's go, James, mano y mano!"
"Um, guys?"
"Not now, Peter, I'm about to teach Sirius how to mind his betters."
"GUYS!"
"What?" James and Sirius yelled, turning to Peter.
The fat kid was pointing at Moody who had taken the opportunity to walk up to the boys, his auror robes flapping in the evening breeze.
Moody would have thought they had just seen their own ghosts as quickly as they paled. Once he was close enough to see their faces better, he recognized the two black haired boys as the Potter and Black family heirs.
"Does your mother know what you've been up to, Black?" Moody barked.
Right there Moody knew he had the boys where he wanted them. At the mention of his mother, Black's expression turned to pure terror.
"Please, Auror, we didn't mean to—"
"Didn't mean to get caught. Is that what you were going to say, Potter?" The Auror snapped.
"Trespassing on the World Cup's pitch is a criminal charge. I could have you all arrested, maybe even Azkaban if I write the reports correctly."
"Please, Auror." The skinny boy, Remus, spoke up, "we really didn't know it was such a big deal."
"Ignorance of the law is no excuse!" Moody snarled, "a criminal offence is a criminal offence. Wittingly or un."
"Can't you just please let us off this one time? We promise we won't do it again." Potter pleaded.
Moody glared over the boys while going over his options in his head. He was lying through his teeth about trespassing being criminal; this was a civil crime if anything. He was just grumpy enough, however, that he was contemplating following through on his threat of arresting them; he could easily blow up the charges to make it look like they were actual terrorists. Or, if he gave them a citation, they would see it as getting off easy and make less of a fuss.
Moody stopped himself. What the hell was he thinking? No way did he want to mess with court over a stupid trespassing citation, and the Blacks would fight, Merlin, would they fight.
"Fine." He growled. "Get your butts off this pitch before I turn you into ferrets."
The boys turned tail and ran for their lives away from him; Moody turned and stomped off back to his rounds.
"Bloody kids."