Started: 3-18-06

When Harry Summoned his Firebolt, he wasn't very specific. At the time, any Firebolt that could get him off the ground and out of the way of the dragon would have been nice. How was he to know that he was Summoning the broom of someone else? More of a drabble than anything.

Author's Note: This is just a completely random drabble that was written after I reread part of GoF. I wondered about how Harry knew that he was summoning HIS Firebolt. So, well, here's the result. Just one of those annoying blot punnies that needs to be written before you can write anything else. Although, obviously, it's been bothering me for a while.

Mistaken Glory

Some people got all the glory. Like Harry bloody Potter. And Cedric effing Diggory. They had the talent. They had the looks. And now those two stupid pricks got the glory too. The glory of fighting for Hogwarts. The glory of representing their school, even if bloody Potter wasn't even old enough to be entered.

The glory that he, seventh year Hufflepuff Damien Alverston, could never have.

Sure, he was Keeper for the Hufflepuff Quidditch team. But no one paid any attention to the Keeper. The attention was always on the Seekers. No one seemed to realize that, without a good Keeper, the one hundred and fifty points the Seeker earned would mean nothing. Without a good Keeper, the other team might be able to rack up two hundred or more points. The other team could still win. It happened in the World Cup series all the time.

Sure, Damien was fairly popular… in his own house. He was a rather handsome seventeen year old wizard, if he did say so himself. What did Diggory have that he didn't, anyway? A rich father? Better grades? More height?

One thing Damien could be sure of was that DIggory couldn't possibly have a better broom than his own. His Firebolt. Firebolts were the best racing brooms on the market, everyone knew it. Only two other people had a Firebolt. Potter had somehow gotten one the year before (the rumors were that either Professor Dumbledore bought him one out of pure favoritism or that murdering lunatic Sirius Black had sent it in hopes that Potter wouldn't be able to control it and would die in mid-flight. Damien never believed the rumors at Hogwarts). Chaser Terri Blott of Ravenclaw had one, as well, but her great-great-great grandfather had been the co-founder of Flourish and Blotts, so that would explain how she could afford it.

No, Damien had spent his life's savings on that broom, and he was bloody proud of it. Which was at least part of the reason why he could be seen flying around the Quidditch Pitch while the rest of the school was at the first task.

The rumors said it was dragons. The first task, that is. It was said that each of the contestants had to face a dragon defenseless. Judging from the roars that were coming from the direction of the Forest, he was beginning to believe it. He never believed the rumors at Hogwarts unless there was direct proof (as has already been mentioned once in this story). Which, with it being Hogwarts, there usually wasn't. But Damien's tendency to believe Hogwarts' rumors is not the point of this story, so we shall move on.

Damien, while extremely loyal to his friends and family, could be a bit moody if he didn't get his way. This was another reason why he decided to skip out on the first match of a tournament that hadn't happened in probably at least fifty years (or so he guessed; he wasn't exactly sure) to fly his broom around the Quidditch pitch. Of course, he was expecting to be left completely alone. He wasn't expecting anything out of the ordinary to happen to him.

Damien was hovering only about ten feet above the ground, listening to the roars of one of the dragons and wondering who was competing now, when something happened. All of the sudden, his broom jerked. "What the—" With another jerk, it came out from under him. "Ahh! Oof!"

When Damien looked up, be was startled to see his broom flying off towards the area where the first task was being held. "What the hell!" he yelled. "Come back here!" But the broom just kept soaring over towards the forest until it was nothing more than a speck in the distance.

-> -> -> -> -> -> -> -> ->

It wasn't until after the task and making up with Ron and examining his clue that Harry even stopped to look at his broom. Well, to be more exact, he didn't even think about it until he was about to put it in his trunk.

He lifted the lid of his trunk to put the broom in with all of his other things when he noticed a broom leaning against the wall next to the open window. A Firebolt, to be exact. He looked down at the broom in his hand, also a Firebolt, and looked back to the broom against the wall.

"Oops."