Author's Note:
Round 8: The Wonderful World of Head Canons
Team: Pride of Portree
Position: Beater 2
Head Canon: [Keeper, AlwaysPadfoot, Montrose Magpies]-[Lucy Weasley was the youngest student to become Quidditch Captain at Hogwarts]
Prompts used:
5. (image) hellobaby. deviantart art /Running-away-from-blue-171028854
10. (quote) This is not a normal day. – Raymond Gaines, San Andreas
13. (object) paintbrush
Word Count: _2518_ excluding Author's Note
For the purpose of this story, Lucy Weasley was born in 2003 which means this story takes place in 2014. Also Hannah Lovegood is an OC and a relative of Xenophilius Lovegood.
A Bet's a Bet
"She's a first year, Professor. I don't think she'd be a good fit for our Beater!" stated Harmony Gray, a sixth year Hufflepuff and the current captain of the Quidditch team.
Unfortunately, Professor Sprout was having none of it. She pushed the little girl (who'd been hiding behind her robes) forward with a warm but stern smile. "Trust me, Miss Gray, once you've seen her fly, you'll understand."
Caught between a choice that seemed in every way disadvantageous for her team and a choice that involved disregarding the wishes of her Head of House, Harmony scratched her head and glanced down at the little girl. Then she looked at Professor Sprout again with skepticism. She knew she could say no and would not be penalized, but the Herbology professor had other ways to make it known she was unhappy, mainly a look in her eyes that conveyed a quiet, sad disappointment that made every Hufflepuff hang their head in shame.
"See, Professor, the things is—" Harmony sighed as she looked down at the young badger again. "Fine, I'll put her on the team."
Professor Sprout smiled warmly. "Excellent, I'm sure Miss Weasley will help get us back into the game!"
Harmony sighed as a response and cursed herself for giving in.
"Why is she on our team?" demanded Cedric Holloway, a third year and a Chaser.
Harmony glanced up from her Potions' homework and huffed. "I don't appreciate you questioning my choices, Holloway, but if you must know, she is on our team because Professor Sprout asked me to put her there." She sighed and pushed the parchment aside. "Look, I'm not any happier about this than you are, Holloway. But she's only a Beater. I'm sure that Lovegood will more than make up for her shortcomings." She noticed the boy starting to say something and cut him off. "I know she is eccentric, but she is a good Beater."
"She doodles. In the air. With a paintbrush. In the middle of a Quidditch match!" The boy shook his head in disbelief.
Harmony sighed. "This is not about Lovegood. She is what she is; and what she is, is the girl who can knock a quaffle through a goal post by hitting it with a bludger. So maybe you should just lay off her and her hobbies, and focus on your own performance. As for Lucy, she is on our team now so deal with it. Besides, I'll just instruct her to stay out of our way and not wave her bat around too much. The rest of the team will have to work a little harder, but we'll still have a chance." It was true, their team was a bit weird to the untrained eye, but it still had potential.
Holloway shook his head. "Fine. But if we had to get one of the Weasleys, why couldn't we have gotten one of those Potter brats? With Ginny Weasley as their mother, they must be naturals on the broom!"
Harmony could only nod in agreement. Word was that Professor Longbottom had high hopes for James Sirius Potter regarding the Gryffindor Quidditch team. With any luck though, Harmony would already be long gone from Hogwarts when Hufflepuff had to meet that boy on the pitch.
"I thought I told you to stay out of everyone's way!" Harmony was beyond furious. They were in their final practice before Hufflepuff was to play against Gryffindor and Lucy Weasley was refusing to follow her instructions. She kept swooping in to take aim at the bludger and in doing so nearly gave Harmony a heart attack. As a Captain in search of a good permanent Beater since her fifth year, Harmony had seen students come away with all sorts of injuries because they couldn't handle the bludgers or the bats. Or they misjudged distances. There were so many wonderful ways to injure oneself or others and a little first year with no concept of fear in the middle of all the action was a recipe for disaster.
Hannah Lovegood landed gracefully next to them, swinging her bat idly and shaking her head. "Why don't you give the kid a chance? She's better than you give her credit for!"
Except that was the thing, Harmony didn't need to give the kid a chance. She already knew how this was going to end. It was going to end with broken bones for an inexperienced player who'd inevitably underestimate a dangerous game. She'd seen it happen before and she'd have kicked Lucy off the team immediately if it wasn't for professor Sprout and her strange wishes.
Harmony nearly snapped back at Hannah that she wasn't about to listen to a girl who flew around with a paintbrush tucked behind her ear. Luckily, she caught her tongue before she managed to insult her only competent Beater. "Look, we don't have time for this. I don't have the time to train a Beater. So please, can we all just stick to the plan?"
They lost. For once, Lucy Weasley had done exactly as she'd been asked and they lost. Hannah simply didn't have the power to be everywhere at once or block every bludger and the score had been a dismal 400-210 with Harmony catching the snitch just to put her team out of their misery.
Then they lost again. This time against Ravenclaw, which was especially pathetic considering that ever since Cho Chang had graduated years ago, they'd never really gotten their team back on track. The members were all new, but somehow Hufflepuff still got their arses kicked; this time with a score of 210-200. Harmony was so distracted with diverting a stray bludger from Lucy that the Ravenclaw seeker, Marianne Hodges caught the snitch, ending the game.
All everyone wanted to do after that was console themselves with hot chocolate, which thankfully, the house elves provided. Harmony spent her evening after the Ravenclaw match drowning her bitterness over losing another year's Quidditch cup in a mug of chilli chocolate. As much as she hated to admit it, she'd really wanted to win this year. She was a good seeker, maybe even very good. If she could add leading her team to victory to her resume, she might even have a chance at going professional.
"Why don't you let me play?" Lucy asked.
"This really isn't the time, kid," Harmony replied, downing the last of her chocolate and wondered if she should just go off to bed. Next to her, Lucy was pulling up a chair and looking up with earnest blue eyes.
"I can help you win!" pushed the girl.
The scene was so ridiculous that Harmony couldn't help but smile.
"Look, kid, I'm sure you have potential, but I don't think we have enough time to teach you to be a Beater, to teach you to fly-"
"I can fly. You've seen it." Lucy poured herself some pumpkin juice from a jug on the counter. "You can't win this with one Beater down."
"What makes you think that you playing on the team would make a difference?" Harmony answered, wishing she could force herself to sound less bitter. The first year really wasn't at fault here. She just shouldn't have been on the pitch. Then Harmony could focus more on the game and less on their Beater getting hurt.
"Well, what have you got to lose?" A mischievous glint appeared in Lucy's eyes. "But, if it makes you feel better, we could make a bet!"
Harmony decided she needed to know what other substances the house elves had added to her hot chocolate because she was most certainly hallucinating this conversation.
"Alright, what do you want to bet?"
"I bet I can win you the Quidditch Cup. If I lose, I will tell professor Sprout that flying scares me and leave voluntarily so you don't have to kick me off the team."
"And if you win?"
"You'll make me the captain of the team!"
In the single most undignified moment in her life, Harmony fell from her chair in a loud thud. It wasn't exactly what the girl had said. It was the brazen manner in which she had said it. She seemed to believe with all her heart she would win and that that would earn her the right to be Captain. The audacity would have been laughable if the girl had not stated it with such confidence.
But really, what did she have to lose? They weren't going to win this year and with Lucy off the team next year, she wouldn't have to worry about the girl getting injured or accidentally injuring someone. Harmony would then be free to go out with a win. On the other hand, if the girl was as good as she boasted, two Quidditch cup wins would still be a hell of a thing to show off to potential recruiters.
Maybe Holloway or someone else with an equally bad sense of humor had indeed slipped something into Harmony's drink, because she picked herself up from the floor and nodded. "It's a bet. Training is tomorrow at nine sharp."
Lucy smiled happily, downed her pumpkin juice, and wandered off. Harmony shrugged and sighed. "This is not a normal day. Maybe not as bad as the entire San Andreas Fault shifting, but still not a normal day. Not even by Hogwarts standards." Then she too left for bed, not even fully realizing what she'd gotten herself into.
Sometimes Percy Weasley wondered whether Lucy was even his daughter. Not in the sense that he'd ever suspect Audrey of cheating on him. He loved his wife dearly. There was, though, something very different about his younger daughter. Their eldest, Molly, had taken after her parents. She was a bright kid who enjoyed studying, had inherited Percy's ambition and drive, and Audrey's love for art and music. One of her more beautiful pictures, a girl in a grey dress running through the wind with her hair flowing behind her, hung above their fireplace.
The only time Lucy ever picked up a paintbrush was to scribble down a maneuver on a broom that she was trying to explain to her friend, Alice. That was because, to Percy's utter surprise, if a bit dismay, both Lucy Weasley and Alice Kingsley, the Kingsleys' eldest, were–
ever since they could comprehend the game–utterly mad about Quidditch.
Audrey blamed Ginny. Lucy's doting aunt had seen the spark inside her and had fed it as best she could. She'd taken Lucy up on her broom and then let her play with one of her own older models. Percy couldn't put the fault solely on his sister, though. He supposed that if even the Weasley gene for adventure and mischief had skipped him, he should have expected it would re-emerge.
Still, no matter how incomprehensible and dangerous his daughter's hobby sounded, if Percy knew one thing about his family, it was that if a Weasley wanted to do something, they'd do it. Thus, though he still held reservations, he bought Lucy her first broom and then waited for the fascination to inevitably wear off.
By the time Lucy Weasley was on the train to Hogwarts, Percy knew that he'd failed.
And by the time Harmony Gray actually paid attention to the girl on the broom, she knew she had made one of the worst bets of her life. Still, as the practice ended, and Lucy landed gracefully next to her, Harmony only grunted. "We'll see how you do in a real game."
"Whatever you say!" replied the girl with a smile and Harmony wondered how on earth someone like Percy Weasley, the boy who had earned a legacy as the biggest rule follower at Hogwarts, had created a girl this brazenly cheeky.
Watching the game between Hufflepuff and Slytherin unfold was pure poetry in motion. Harmony had calculated that they'd need a very big win, but they had the chance to get the Quidditch Cup, so as soon as she figured out how talented her Beater was and got over cursing herself for not noticing the girl's talent, she ushered the team inside and made it clear that no one was to see Lucy practicing. As far as the world was concerned, nothing had changed.
When the Slytherin team started the fight, they had no idea what was about to hit them. Everyone was in top shape, Hannah had even left her signature paintbrush behind in an effort to show how serious she was. Harmony worked on delaying catching the snitch until her team scored enough goals. But Lucy was still the key. She was quick as lighting and small enough to move between players, swinging her bat and clearing a path for her Chasers or putting up a valiant fight defending their goal posts. She and Hannah fell into perfect sync as everyone on the team was finally ready to show what they were capable of.
At the most heart-stopping moment, when Henry Goyle was about to catch the snitch, Lucy let go of her broom and fell downwards causing Henry to panic and leap out of the way. At the very last moment, when the ground was approaching at a breakneck speed, Lucy suddenly caught hold of the broom and flew upwards, nearly knocking Henry off balance and making it up just in time to hurl a bludger and clear the path for Holloway to score.
When Harmony's fingers finally closed around the switch, she almost felt a pang of shame at ending such a perfect game. But all that was washed away as she landed and held the golden ball up.
"Harmony Gray has the snitch! Hufflepuff has won!"
The team landed around her and Harmony felt hands patting her on the back. "We did it! We did it!" declared Holloway while Hannah grinned and twirled, throwing her bat haphazardly in the air.
Harmony smiled and then her eyes landed on their young Beater. With a smile, she undid her captain robe, walked over and placed it around Lucy Weasley's shoulders. "A bet is a bet, kid. Good work, Captain!"
Lucy nodded back and squeezed the robe under her fingers. As the whole team ran to her, Harmony smiled and crossed her arms. She'd forgotten how good it felt just be a Seeker. As she looked over at the group gathered around their Captain, something told her that the Hufflepuff team was going to do just fine under Lucy.
"She's a bit young to be a captain, isn't she?" Headmistress McGonagall smiled at the scene unfolding and then nodded toward Lucy.
"I think she's earned it. Did you see—"
"Her fly? I did, Miss Gray. You know, in all of the time I've worked with Pomona, I've never seen her competitive side. Not until she saw that girl on a broom. That was the day she marched up to my office and declared that Hufflepuff was putting a first year on their Quidditch Team." She patted Harmony on the shoulder and walked away with that odd smile still on her lips.