The Bats Won't Fall
Written by brillantbutscary, lexi atel, Lily MJ Fae, and Uni Shall Not Sink
I woke up as my covers were pulled away.
"Tom!" someone exclaimed, their voice loud enough to wake the dead, a slight drawl in it, making it certain who had woken me. "Tom, wake up!"
I sighed and sat up, my hair ruffled and messy. "Why are you here, Abraxas?" He grinned, too delighted to notice the icy undertone in my pleasant sounding voice.
"The Bats won!" he said, a smirk splitting his usually placid features. "And, after such a bad season, they seem to be getting better!" he said, sitting down on my sheets, unaware of my furious expression.
"Let me rephrase that, Abraxas..." I said, my voice quiet, but deadlier than the animal on our house's banner. "If you don't get out of here this minute, I will test every hex or curse I have ever learnt on you!" I keep my tone mutual, but smirk evilly as he runs from the room.
"Don't you think that's a bit harsh, Tom?" Orion Black asked, replacing Abraxas on the foot of my bed.
I shrugged. "Quidditch is an useless waste of time, effort and intellect, if you ask me. Merlin knows why the abomination was invented!" Then I scowled, my calm disdain lost in an instant. "Besides, I may have taken the boy under my wing, so to speak, but if he annoys me again, I will destroy him!"
Orion sniggered. "Ahhh, third years!" He laughed. "When will they learn not to annoy us?"
I smirked. "You're in a good mood, did something happen that I should know about?"
He looked at me smiling. "I don't think you need to know about it, Tom," he paused, contemplating the risk of not telling me, no doubt. "But I don't think you'll be happy either way..."
I sighed. "I'm never happy, Orion, merely temporarily amused. Now, tell me before I have to come up with a way to force you to!"
He laughed. "Well... If you must know, I happened to have a very interesting time with a certain Walburga, from our year. We snuck into a broom cupboard and-"
I pulled out my wand and silenced him. "On second thoughts, I really don't want to know," I said, pinching the brim of my nose, trying to make the vile image that had just entered my brain vanish in an attempt to keep me fairly sane.
I pulled on various items of clothing and gestured to the rather furious boy to follow me. "Come, Orion, a new wonderful day awaits us!"
"Arthur, what do you expect to have scored on your Defense exam?" Molly asked, looking over at the red headed fifth year who was hunched over something that had been set onto the Gryffindor table. His lunch was untouched, left forgotten. He shifted in his seat but did not reply, having not have thoroughly heard her.
"The Bats lost again, Arthur." Molly added, knowing that if his favourite Quidditch team couldn't draw his attention, nothing would.
"Hmm?" Arthur didn't even look up from the paper he was reading, too absorbed in it.
"The BallyCastle Bats," Molly said. "You know, the Quidditch team that you've been following since the beginning of the season?"
"Oh, right, right." Arthur waved his hand at Molly, making her huff in annoyance. "I read all about that in the paper this morning! They finally won a match! The Chasers are having an awful spout of bad luck this season, but I still think they have a chance for the finals!"
"So what are you reading now then?" she asked, leaning over to get a peek.
Arthur's face turned a shade of red before he showed her the front of the paper that he had been reading.
"Oh, honestly, Arthur!" Molly rolled her eyes once she saw the big, black letters spelling The Times. "Where did you even get that?"
"Lily Evans gave it to me. She's a darling of a girl, isn't she?" Arthur took a moment to look up the table at the second year. "It's interesting," he said, speaking about the paper. "I've never seen a Muggle newspaper before; their pictures don't move."
"What in there can be so interesting?" she asked in doubt.
"Well, on this page..." Arthur quickly fumbled through the paper, a corner of it landed in Molly's soup. She sighed, taking it out and cleaning the paper from the mess.
"The postal workers- that's what they call the people that deliver letters because they don't use owls! Anyway, they went on strike in January, and the citizens had gotten into a massive frenzy over it!" He frowned then. "Imagine if, all of a sudden, our owls stopped delivering things!"
"Arthur," Molly groaned, rubbing her forehead. "That would never happen." She loved Arthur Weasley to pieces, but his fascination with the Muggle world was going to send her off the deep end one day.
"I wonder if Miss Evans will get me another one of these papers," he thought out loud, biting his bottom lip slightly.
"It's a waste of time to read that," Molly told him.
"No, it's not," Arthur argued. "Someone has to keep track of the Muggles. There's an actual job for that, did you realize?" His eyes were lighting up now, shining like a child's on Christmas Day.
Molly pressed her lips together. She didn't need to ask if he was going to work in that profession. She already knew the answer would be yes.
"Did I just see you smile, Severus?"
Severus looked up from the article he was reading in The Daily Prophet and met Minerva's shocked stare, "Believe it or not, Minerva, I am capable of smiling and do so plenty. It is not my fault if others do not notice."
"What could you possibly be smiling at in that paper?"
"If you really must know, the Bats made it to the finals. They were losing terribly and managed to get it together just enough."
"I didn't realize that you liked quidditch that much."
"There are a lot of things you don't know about me. I'm a very private person."
"But why the Bats? Don't they always have terrible luck?"
"Not always, but that's not why I root for them. They're just a great team. They work well together. And despite their hardships they continue to work hard."
"You sound like a hopeless romantic towards the team."
"I simply admire hard work. I expect nothing less in every person."
"Maybe you expect too much. Maybe that's why your students seem to dislike you."
"They may not like me, but those that want to succeed, respect me. I push them to do their best, much like the Bats' captain pushes them."
"We really ought to go up to dinner now," Minerva said as she began to get up from her chair.
"Let me guess, you're going to go gossip about the rare occurrence of a smile," he said dryly.
"Oh, Severus, don't be so grumpy."
"Go on ahead, I'll join you shortly."
The witch shrugged and headed upstairs towards the great hall as Severus returned to his article.
The Ballycastle Bats managed to secure their spot in the finals in a crushing game against the Wimbourne Wasps. The final score was a complete shut out of 460 points to 0. How the Bats managed to get past the Wasps' keeper, who has the best stats of the season only letting 9 quaffles past all season, 31 times is inexplicable. The beaters managed to stay on top of the chasers too, helping the keeper block every scoring attempt. But the truly magnificent act, was that the seeker managed to catch the snitch just seconds before the Wasps. It truly was a miraculous game, and we hope for a great finals for the Bats.
The clock on the wall signaling it was indeed seven PM made Harry groan, getting all of his kids ready for bed was enough trouble with just three of them, but now that there was a new member in the household it made for some even more difficult times. Once the baby was bathed and in bed it was time for Harry to gather up his other kids and get them in bed as well.
"Dad, Albus took my paper, again," Teddy cried sending a glare to his little brother causing Harry to shake his head.
"Teddy, you are ten years old," Harry said taking the paper from Albus'' little hands. "Surely you can keep your things away from your two year old brother."
"He's just too cute," Teddy replied with a pout. "But he chews on everything."
"Come help me bathe your brothers," Harry said with a smile. "What's so interesting in your paper, anyway?"
"The Bats won their last game!" Teddy exclaimed with a huge grin. "They were losing all season and they have managed to win!"
"Well that's good," Harry said with a small smile. "Maybe they'll get some of their rep back by the time you graduate Hogwarts."
"And make the team!" Teddy protested. "I'll make it, right?"
"Of course," Harry said. "Albus! Stop splashing!"
Albus giggled and continued to splash his brother who just started to splash him back.
"This is why you should never put them in the bath together, Dad." Teddy said, soaked with water from his two brothers. "James, stop splashing your brother."
"But he started it!" James pouted. Harry took both boys out of the bathtub and dried them off.
"Go get in bed and Teddy will read you a story," Harry said to James who ran off to his bedroom. He put Albus to bed and then headed to James' bedroom to say goodnight.
"Daddy?" James asked as Harry tucked him into bed.
"Yes, James?"
"Bats only come out in the night time, right?" he asked curiously looking at his father with big eyes.
Harry laughed. "Yes James, bats only come out at night."