Based on an idea by the wonderful Ecks.

Banshees Balls!

Chapter One

'Welcome again to another year at Hogwarts.' Dumbledore smiled. 'Now that we have all been fed and watered I have a few start of term notices to give out. All first years and many of our older students should note that the Forbidden Forest is of course forbidden to all pupils. Secondly Mr Filch has asked me to remind you that no magic is to be performed in the corridors and that almost all Weasley Wizard Wheeze's products are banned. A comprehensive list detailing all of the banned items is available for viewing on the door of Mr Filch's office. If anyone cares to check it.' As with other years his twinkling eyes gave away that he himself didn't think that to be very likely.

'Thirdly I am happy to announce that Professor Remus Lupin has agreed to return as Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. During his absences for the full moon a substitute teacher will of course take over the lessons.' He yelled that last sentence over the sudden bout of applause that had arisen when he spoke Remus's name, it seemed that even the Slytherin students were happy to see the Werewolf again, especially as the other DADA teachers had all been nutty.

'And lastly the house Quidditch teams have been disbanded.'

For a moment the school wasn't sure that it had heard correctly, in the silence a few of the more timid teachers shoved their fingers in their ears as they didn't think they had the time to cast a silencing charm.

And not a moment later the school was in uproar, many of the older students and some of the braver young ones were on their feet, shouting all sorts of things at the headmaster. Again like a few times before Dumbledore had to resort to setting off several loud purple firecrackers so that he could be heard over the din.

'It was decided by the faculty and the governors that the school is quite divided. The rivalry that Quidditch inspires is a good example of this. That being the case the house teams have been disbanded but four new teams compromising students from all four houses will be formed. This way students will still be able to play, but will also gain a greater understanding of the other houses. If the final battle taught us anything it was that not all Slytherins are evil, or supporters of the dark side. Many of them fought with us and some even died with us.' He paused but a moment to gather his thoughts. The students continued to watch him silently, some understanding, others still not seeing the point or the truth of his words.

'No the Slytherins aren't evil. Neither are the Ravenclaws always infallible in their knowledge, or the Hufflepuffs loyal and true. And not everyone in Gryffindor is brave and chivalrous. The war has stripped away all of these traits that would stereotype us, you know this. Many of you saw this first hand and yet I still hear traded insults based on houses in the halls. Even in the wake of Voldemort's defeat you still fought when all should still have been celebrating the freedom given us anew. Think on this and know that if you turn your minds to another house, you may just find something there worth holding on to. Friendship maybe even love.'

'Tryouts for the new teams will be held on Saturday. If you wish to participate please submit your name to your head of house before Friday night. The names of the teams have been pre-selected and agreed upon by the two members of staff assigned to each team. The team captains will be chosen by the sorting hat after the tryouts, the Captains will be chosen based on all their merits, not necessarily their experience. Remember this is to encourage house unity; do not be blinded by old prejudices. Support a team you admire instead of one you feel obligated to. The world isn't just made up of Slytherins, Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws. Chose wisely. Thank you.'

'They can't do this!' Ron was yelling on his way up to the dormitory. 'It's always been about Slytherin and Gryffindor. What will we do if we can't compete against them at Quidditch? It was the only time we could get away with walloping them!'

Hermione sniffed disapprovingly. 'Personally I think it's a very good idea.' She climbed through the portrait hole, while Ron was still getting over his shock at her words and she had already gone up to her dorm by the time the red head was able to function again.

'What's got into her Harry? Surely she doesn't think it's a good idea for us to be mixing with Slytherins?'

Wisely Harry didn't say anything, choosing instead to stay out of it. It was the smartest thing to do when those two were arguing, sometimes he wished they'd just get over themselves and shag already. But Ron was right; he definitely didn't want to end up on a team with Malfoy. He actually shuddered at the thought.
He'd had a little run in with the blonde on the platform and it had been unnerving to say the least. Ron and Hermione had had Prefect duty to take care of and he was heading up to the carriages alone, planning on spending a few minutes of quality time with a thestral when out pops Draco Malfoy, unsurprisingly not doing his own Prefect duties.

But then again he was Head boy wasn't he? So maybe he had different duties all together, but no that didn't make sense as Hermione was Head girl…hhhmmm but then again it was Hermione after all she might be doing extra duties, he wouldn't put it past her.

Anyway back to Malfoy, Harry had been walking along minding his own business, when he'd heard someone come up behind him. Seeing the distinctive blonde hair out of the corner of his eye he tensed expecting a jibe. Just because he and Malfoy had been on the same side during the final battle when they'd defended the Ministry, didn't mean that they were on 'good' terms, hell they'd had some right arguments, one even in the middle of a battlefield. Malfoy accusing Harry of distracting him. It wasn't Harry's fault that a cutting hex had severed the buttons of his trousers, it certainly wasn't his fault that they dropped to the floor, nor was it his fault that Malfoy caught sight of it and just had to laugh.

It was lucky for Malfoy that Harry still happened to be paying attention to the battle or Malfoy might have ended up in the hospital wing or worse. Harry shuddered then, but put it down to the subconscious thought of what could have happened to his manhood if another cutting hex had come his way. He still had nightmares about that.

Anyway back to the point. Malfoy had come up behind him, he'd seen him and sighed.

'What do you want Malfoy?'

'Hear me breathing Potter?' he'd smirked.

'No, I noticed that distinctive girly hair of yours.' Harry replied, his hand moving till it was in easy reach of his wand, just in case.

Malfoy grinned. 'So my hair's distinctive is it Potter?' he said, purposely avoiding the girly comment.

'Don't flatter yourself Malfoy.' Harry snorted.

'Oh I don't Potter, plenty of other people do it for me.' And with one final smirk Malfoy had walked off. Leaving Harry very confused.

As Harry got ready for bed he contemplated the change in Malfoy, he hadn't said anything even remotely insulting…and his attitude. Now that just seemed different altogether. What the hell was going on?

Saturday dawned, crisp but with very little breeze, almost perfect for Quidditch. It was the day of the tryouts and the whole school could talk of nothing else, whether they agreed with it or not it was a good topic to discuss.

As in most cases Harry found himself the centre of many conversations. People were speculating which team would snap him up. But there had also been some speculation earlier as to which teachers would be in charge of each team.

Then Dumbledore had made another announcement at breakfast that morning. Each team was named after a magical creature, these were the Dragons, the Nifflers, the Banshees and the Bowtruckles. A couple of the names made quite a few people laugh. Harry included.

The Dragon's uniform was black with several orange-red dragons upon the robes. The Dragon's answered to Professors Trelawney and Hagrid. Draco Malfoy had been heard loudly exclaiming that that was the team for him, or at least he had been until he'd heard who the Professors in charge of it were, after that he seemed to get rather quiet.

The Nifflers had a black uniform with a gold coin motif on the hems of their robes. They answered to Professors Flitwick and McGonagall.

The Banshees uniforms were black with white and blue swirling mist motifs, that looked extremely cool if Harry did say so himself. Professors Lupin and Snape were in charge of that team and Harry didn't know how they'd even decided on the name, they argued more than him and Malfoy.

The final team, the Bowtruckles had uniforms that were again black but with a green and brown leaf and twig motif. They were watched over by Professors Sprout and Vector.

And as if that wasn't enough, Dumbledore also told them that at the end of each year the winning Hogwarts team would compete in a tournament with three other Wizarding schools, Beauxbatons, Durmstrang and Accindia (Harry thought it was a Spanish school but he wasn't sure). This was apparently to replace the now defunct Tri-wizard Tournament, the other schools also had several teams each. The team that won the cup at each school would then compete against the winners from the other three. This gave whichever team won the school league the chance to secure a Hogwarts win at an international level. The added benefits of this were closer relations with other schools/countries and the Quidditch scouts got to see the students play against international players, many of whom had different techniques and strategies to the United Kingdom's players.

Since Harry was considering a Quidditch career, this could really be good for him.
Ron of course still couldn't see past the fact that there wasn't a Gryffindor team anymore or even a Slytherin team to beat. He was starting to do Harry's head in.

Anyway, that was what had happened earlier over breakfast and right now Harry and most of the school were waiting in the stands, either to be called or to just watch the tryouts. Everyone was silent when Professor McGonagall brought the hat out and sat it on its stool, apparently so it could watch the tryouts. That was just odd, she then went and sat with the other Professors leaving Madam Hooch to organise the tryouts. There were enough people to make seven teams, but there just happened to be seven people who wanted to tryout for two positions, with a bit of working the teachers had managed to get eight teams out of the number. The idea was to pit two teams against each other so that people could compare their techniques and see how they played against another team and also see how they dealt with the pressure. Harry had no problem with pressure, he'd played often enough to get used to it, but his team was one of the first two up and he'd wanted to sit back and watch for a while. This was way too early to be up on a Saturday.

Luckily he wasn't against Malfoy or Ron. He was nervous enough without being against those two, both for different reasons of course. When playing Malfoy he usually ended up injured. And if he beat Ron's team the red head likely wouldn't speak to him for a week.

Anyway Harry's team was playing first. He went down to the pitch when he was called and stood there on the ground waiting for everybody else to come down. What idiot sits at the very top when they know they've got to come down to the pitch? Anyway Harry was wondering a bit about everyone's reaction to his new style. Well, it wasn't necessarily a 'style', but he had learnt a lot over the Summer. Since he'd killed Voldemort last year and had no need to go back to the Dursleys he'd been living at Hogwarts and as a true Quidditch nut would, he'd used the pitch everyday. He wasn't sure, but he did think he had improved a lot. He was definitely quicker, it was much easier to dodge the bludgers he had enchanted to fly at him and those moves he'd learnt from that tatty old book he'd discovered under a shelf in the library had really made it easier to catch the snitch.

It had demonstrated the correct way to position your hands on the broom, how to grasp the snitch with no chance of it getting away, not that he'd ever had that problem, but it was nice to know he was doing something right. And how to keep your balance when catching the snitch after a particularly difficult dive, which had saved him from falling off his broom quite a few times over the summer.

Well anyway he wondered how many other people had read that book this year, since he'd returned it to the library.

Finally everyone got to the pitch and Harry kicked off without further thought. The moment he felt the air whip around his robes he knew he was home, he did a quick loop to get his tensions out and then he was ready for the game, because that's exactly how he was treating this. That was another thing the book had said, "Treat every tryout as though it is a world cup match".

Since he didn't know what a world cup match was truly like (apart from watching it) he just went into the tryout as though it were a match against Slytherin.

The only difference was that the tryout didn't stop when the seeker caught the snitch, this was probably a good thing as Harry caught it within two minutes of the whistle blowing. He couldn't do that every time though, part of it was just luck that he'd been able to track the snitch since it set off. The sudden change in the weather to bright and sunny had of course helped.

Madam Hooch had given them all a little speech before starting, especially the seekers.

"After you've caught the snitch…" she said. "Give it a few minutes head start and do some other moves while you're waiting. Show how well you can avoid bludgers or the chasers. Everything helps in a tryout."

So that's what he did, he saw the opposite team had the quaffle, did a corkscrew loop and dropped. He startled the Chaser into dropping the quaffle allowing his team to regain it. A bludger was hit at him in retaliation, but he avoided it easily. This went on for ten minutes, before Harry spotted the snitch again. It was directly in front of his team's goal. As he sped forward their keeper saved a goal, he looped her easily and almost completely upside down grasped the snitch and shot through the middle goal hoop.

Five minutes later the whistle was blown and the moment Harry's feet touched ground he heard all the cheering. He went and sat down next to Ron, enduring a lot of backslapping and a couple of awestruck 'Bloody hell mate, that was brilliant'.

He watched the other tryouts with an intense gaze, it'd be just his luck to be picked as a Captain. So he was going to make sure he knew exactly who to pick. The big shock, other than Ron not having an anxiety attack and missing a save, was that Draco Malfoy was one of the ones to tryout for two positions, both Chaser and Seeker. And even though Harry considered Draco to be one of the best Seekers in the school, he had to admit he was better as a Chaser. Another shock had been Luna Lovegood trying out for Seeker and she wasn't actually bad, not bad at all. He supposed she'd never gotten a chance at her house team because everyone thought she was weird, that was probably the reason why McGonagall had chosen her for commentator last year.

The tryouts ended a couple of hours after they'd started and now everyone was waiting around to see if they'd make a team, but first of all the Sorting Hat had to pick the team captains. Harry hoped the hat didn't pick him, he didn't want to be the Captain.

Everything went quiet when the hat was brought out of the corner. They were all waiting expectantly for the hat to shout out loud, nothing new really. The tear at the rim opened up and the hat shouted to the silent crowd;

'The captain of the Bowtruckles is…Luna Lovegood!'

To say quite a few people were shocked would be lying, everyone was shocked. Luna stood and went over to Sprout and Vector. No one was clapping, shaking his head Harry stood and cheered.

'Woo, go Luna!'

A few people looked at him as though he was as batty as her, but the DA soon joined in and after that quite a few more people. Luna wasn't looking quite so nervous anymore.

The sorting hat's voice drew their attention back to it in time to hear the next name.

'The captain of the Nifflers is…Ronald Weasley!'

Ron looked like a fish out of water. There were definitely more cheers this time. Still in a daze Ron headed back down to the pitch to stand with McGonagall and Flitwick after Harry had slapped him on the back a couple of times to get him to do so.

'The captain of the Dragons is…Thomas Llewellyn!'

Llewellyn was a seventh year, he'd been on Harry's team, so Harry hadn't been able to watch how well the lad played. He was quite stocky and short, dwarfed as he was by both Hagrid and Trelawney, who was quite tall for a none half-giant woman. He was just the build for a beater.

'And the final captain, the captain of the Banshees is…Draco Malfoy!'

Ah crap. Harry thought. Dammit! Dammit, dammit!

Malfoy swaggered onto the pitch and smirked at Snape, who smirked in return. Remus shook his head, but he seemed quite pleased with the hat's choice in captain.

The sorting hat was removed and while this was going on the teachers had a quick conference with their captains. It was clear from all the meaningful glances sent in his direction that they were all talking about him. Whether that was a good thing or not, Harry wasn't sure, he was starting to get used to being the centre of attention. Still didn't like it but he could deal with it.

When everybody had settled down again Dumbledore stepped up. He pointed his wand to his throat and more than likely said 'Sonorous' because afterwards when he spoke his voice carried clearly over the stands, which it couldn't have done without the charm.

'Very well, so now we have our captains. Now it is time to pick the teams. To be fair I will be using a tried and tested non-magical method to choose who gets first pick. The muggles use a coin but I think we can get away with a cube. Now, red is for the dragons, green the Banshees, the Bowtruckles can be blue and the Nifflers yellow. Yes I think that will work. Now.'

And with that he threw the little cube into the air. Everyone watched it to see how it would land. But they couldn't make out the colours too well, so they had to rely on the headmaster to tell them.

'First pick goes to the Banshees!' Dumbledore said.

Harry felt an inexplicable sense of dread at those words. And sure enough he was right yet again. With a nod at the two Professors Draco Malfoy stepped forward, smirk firmly in place and glanced over the crowd. When his eyes finally rested on Harry the smirk widened.

'The Banshees choose as Seeker…Harry Potter!'

Bugger!

A/N...Well there you have it. What do you think? Should I continue?