The next few weeks flew by and before Charlie knew it March had arrived with an owl home to wish little Ron a happy fifth birthday. The small break in constant homework and revision came in the form of Quidditch matches. The Quidditch Cup Race was between Gryffindor and Slytherin, with hopes running high for Gryffindor to beat Hufflepuff. If Hufflepuff won they would overtake Gryffindor in the race, but if Gryffindor won and Slytherin lost to Hufflepuff in May then Gryffindor would win the Cup.
'We're going to win,' Tonks told Charlie as they climbed the stands.
Charlie laughed and shook his head. 'You wish.'
'So where's Robin?' Tonks asked.
'Sitting with Lucy in the Ravenclaw stands; she's not much of a Quidditch fan.'
'What? You've got to get rid of her mate,' Buck nodded sagely. Charlie ignored him.
Myron's commentary was even more outrageous than usual in an obvious display of house favouritism as the teams stepped out onto the pitch.
'Ladies and gentlemen! Here come the Gryffindors! Ryan, Hunter, Roberts, Dent, Jones, Jenkins aaaaand Rawlins!' The crowd cheered and banners waved, the Gryffindor lion waving in the sun and wind. The Gryffindor team lapped the pitch at speed and hovered over the centre circle.
'And now, I present for your entertainment and adoration – THE HUFFLEPUFFS!' Tonks screamed in Charlie's ear, sporting the badger look once more, Don jumped up and down with his yellow and black banner.
'Spungen! Dorny! Mullet! Campbell! Campbell! Dunstan! Aaaaand Spinks!' The Hufflepuff team circled the stands before taking their places opposite the Gryffindor team.
'The captains, Phillip "The Sphinx" Spinks and Gwenog Jones, shake hands before the match begins!' Myron told them. Spinks was lanky yet strongly built with dark hair that seemed to be permanently windswept. His broad shoulders and muscled arms contrasted severely with his long and thin legs, Charlie thought he was built like a triangle. Spinks was very clever at team tactics – hence his nickname "Sphinx". He swung his beater's bat over his shoulder as he shook hands with the serious faced Gwenog Jones who looked as though she was trying to crush him in her mind. All this, Charlie saw through his binoculars.
'I thought Jones and Spinks were going out,' Annie wondered aloud.
'Well Jones isn't going to give him any special treatment if they are.' Buck assured her. 'She's purely professional.'
'Not that he needs any special treatment,' Tonks added with a dig in Charlie's ribs. 'Hufflepuff are going to kick your butts.'
As the captains took to the air once more Madam Hooch opened the ball crate.
'This will be a tough one between Gryffindor and the just Hufflepuffs!' Myron announced to the crowd, 'yet only the best team will triumph in this game of Lions and Badgers,'
'Wagtail!' Professor McGonagall's voice interrupted, 'are you commentating on a Quidditch match or narrating a tragedy!'
'Sorry Professor, AND THEY'RE OFF! Mullet takes the Quaffle for Hufflepuff's first possession! Go on Olivia! She still won't go out with me. But she's past Dent and Roberts! Only Hunter and Ryan hover between her and those hoops! Can she make it? OH! SO CLOSE! A sneaky bludger from Jenkins and the Quaffle passes to Roberts, he's off towards the Hufflepuff hoops! Drop it! Go on!'
'WAGTAIL! YOU'RE MEANT TO BE NEUTRAL!'
'TACKLED! By Angus Campbell, well done Angus! Hufflepuff have possession once mo- Roberts has it again! He passes to Hunter and it's only her and Spungen now! SAVE IT SPONGE! HE HAS! IT'S STILL NIL-NIL HERE AT THE TENSEST MATCH OF THE SEASON!'
'Stop being dramatic Wagtail!' McGonagall ordered.
'Still no sign of the snitch as a bludger narrowly avoids Lenox Campbell as he searches the skies!'
The match seemed to go on forever before Katherine Hunter finally scored for Gryffindor, then the match really heated up.
'OUCH! That must have hurt! How Roberts is still on his broom after that bludger I do not know. Good shot from Spinks! And Jones has retaliated! Spinks only just makes the parry back to Jones! Wow their relationship must be tense. Now Jenkins has joined in! That bludger's like a hot potato, it's only a matter of time before it makes contact with one of those beaters! Spinks is really up against it now! Where's Dunstan to help? He's got trouble of his own keeping a bludger away from Spungen so he can save this next shot. OH! He missed it! TWENTY-ZERO TO GRYFFINDOR! AND SPINKS HAS DONE IT! TAKE THAT JONES! YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE BADGERS AND GET AWAY WITH I-'
Professor McGonagall wrenched the magical microphone away from Myron as Gwenog Jones crashed to the ground cradling a potentially broken arm. Spinks quickly landed to check on her.
Hufflepuff redoubled their efforts and it was 50-50 with no sign of the snitch. All Campbell and Rawlins had to do was avoid bludgers until-
'Was that the snitch?' The whisper sped around the stands as the two seekers raced after the tiny gold ball.
Dunstan aimed a bludger at Rawlins who twisted in mid air to avoid it. Jones, back on the pitch despite Madam Pomfrey's advice, returned the favour by catching Campbell's outstretched arm with a bludger. Campbell span out of control in pain, veering wide into Rawlins. In the confusion the snitch was lost from sight.
'Foul!' Tonks cried, 'surely that's a foul!'
'Perfectly legal,' Charlie told her as the game resumed.
'SEVENTY - FIFTY TO HUFFLEPUFF!'
'EIGHTY - SEVENTY TO GRYFFINDOR!'
And so it continued, well past lunch time. The players were getting tired and the play became more risky. Madam Hooch was awarding penalties left, right and centre.
'ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY - ONE HUNDRED TO HUFFLEPUFF AS MULLET SCORES THE PENALTY FOR BLATCHING!'
'Who wants bets on a weeklong match?' Buck nudged Charlie.
'Nah, two days at the most,' Charlie told him.
Evening fell and the wind picked up. Charlie couldn't imagine how the chasers still had energy to stay on their brooms, let alone tackle and shoot.
Tonks was falling asleep on Charlie's shoulder and Annie was curled up on the seat beside Don.
'Tonks! The snitch!'
Her eyes snapped open, 'Wazza score?' She demanded blearily, swaying on her feet.
'One hundred and eighty – one hundred,' Charlie admitted.
'To Hufflepuff? Yes!' Tonks cheered.
Rawlins was gaining on the snitch, just a few feet away, arm outstretched and fingers straining.
'GET BACK UP THERE CAMPBELL!' Myron was yelling. Professor McGonagall, beside him, no longer cared about being neutral. She was on her feet urging Rawlins on.
Feet became inches and the snitch weaved and bobbed around the pitch. Rawlins and Campbell bobbed and weaved after it, Campbell losing air as Rawlins crept ever closer until finally–
'He's done it! Richard Rawlins has caught the snitch for Gryffindor!' Myron sounded just a little bit relieved through his disappointment. 'That means the final score here is two hundred and fifty – one hundred and eighty to Gryffindor! GRYFFINDOR WIN!'
The crowd went wild as everyone, Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws and Slytherins included celebrated the end of the match.
'Don't forget to pop back in May for the Hufflepuff versus Slytherin match – will those sneaky snakes succeed to stay in the Quidditch Cup Race?' It didn't sound like Myron's heart was in it as he wished them all a good evening and turned off the magical microphone.
Dinner was quick and the Gryffindor after party was even quicker as Professor McGonagall woke half of the house up in the early hours of the morning and told them all to get off the sofas, out of the common room and up to their dorms. Gwenog Jones had been mysteriously absent from the celebrations. Charlie dragged his feet up to the top floor of the tower and collapsed on his bed, sound asleep.
After the excitement of the Quidditch, March passed at a crawling pace as Charlie found himself spending most of his time hunched over a desk, pouring over essay after essay on topics from the Goblin Rebellion of 1236 to the theory of switching spells. The other first years were also feeling the strain. Tonks ended up with pockets full of buttons as she practised transfiguring insects into buttons at every available opportunity.
The practical lessons, like Astronomy, were no better. Charlie even pretended to faint in one lesson after naming Saturn's rings became too tedious to continue. According to Professor Lawrence it is "not amusing to pretend to faint and proceed to blame it on the altitude of the Astronomy Tower". Tonks and Don thought it was a brilliant excuse when he told them.
Another thing that made March a frustrating month for Charlie was that Robin decided to break up with him. It didn't have much of an effect on him as they never really hung out, he just sat by her in some classes, but Buck and Fergus' teasing was really annoying.
'Don't worry about it little brother,' Bill comforted, 'plenty of time for all that later,' Charlie rolled his eyes and continued to thrash his big brother at Wizard's Chess.
A week later Charlie saw Robin being escorted to class by the Ravenclaw, Martin Amerinus.
'He's very clever,' Annie admitted when he pointed it out.
'He's annoying,' Buck sniffed.
But on the other hand, their pranks certainly did pick up after that as Charlie and Tonks found themselves in detention every other week, occasionally accompanied by Don or Buck. Never Annie, she was too good and careful to mess around removing Hogwarts toilet seats from their respective toilets and planting dungbombs in precarious places in the dungeons.
Tonks showed Charlie how to get into the kitchens (she had found out from a Hufflepuff sixth year) and from then on their pranks included adding Belch Powder from Zonko's Joke Shop to the Slytherin's food. Even Professor McGonagall had to suppress a smile when she saw Snape's face as he was surrounded by angry and burping students demanding an antidote to their chicken drumsticks.
Buck managed to sneak a vial of Babbling Beverage from the Potions classroom which was even funnier than the Belch Powder because the Slytherins couldn't articulate what their problem was. Somehow Snape found out who was responsible because Charlie, Tonks and Buck found themselves scrubbing the dungeons a week later.
'Why do we always get the scrubbing?' Tonks complained to Charlie as she rinsed her sponge for the hundredth time.
April came and went with rainfall so heavy that the Black Lake burst its banks and the Giant Squid had to be precariously levitated back into the depths by the teachers, with a massive crowd of students watching on, when it became beached on the bank.
Before they knew it the exams were a month away. These exams were important because the first years needed to pass them to progress to their second year. Savage, the Gryffindor fifth year prefect began sending people out of the common room for being too loud while he was studying.
'My Ordinary Wizarding Levels are more important than your chess game!' He told Kirley and Joey one afternoon.
'Well why don't you go and study in the library instead, this is a common room not a study room,' Kirley pointed out. Savage looked savage at his authority being questioned by a third year with messy shoulder length black hair.
May brought intermittent sunshine to the castle grounds as the Hufflepuff versus Slytherin match approached. Tensions ran high in the castle as Slytherin needed to beat Hufflepuff to win the Quidditch cup, so it became standard to see groups of students protectively circling the Hufflepuff and Slytherin players as they walked to and from their classes.
Connington, the big Slytherin beater ended up in the Hospital Wing from a bad Confundus charm when a duel erupted in the fourth floor corridor. Tonks, who had been a patient when he was brought in, said that he kept asking for milk and hissing when Madam Pomfrey came near.
When the day of the match finally dawned, the entire atmosphere of the castle felt as though it could be cut with a knife. At breakfast the Ravenclaw table looked anxious, as though a bomb might go off at anytime; they were sat between the Hufflepuff and Slytherin tables.
A minor skirmish broke out on the way down to the pitch: Thorfinn Rowle, a first year Slytherin, had decided to curse Augustus Pye, a good natured Hufflepuff first year, because Pye had waved his Hufflepuff flag at Rowle's group of Slytherins.
Charlie couldn't imagine what the players must feel like. They had been allowed to leave the hall before the rest of the school in case a mass duel broke out.
'AND HERE THEY COME!' Myron announced to the screaming crowd. Then the match began.
Charlie Weasley was in a daze. Hufflepuff had beaten Slytherin 160-20 within the first half an hour of play. Campbell, the Hufflepuff Seeker, had shot like a bullet after the snitch, and by the time Kiely had realised what was happening, the game was over.
But that wasn't all. As a result of Hufflepuff's win, Slytherin was out of the Quidditch Cup running ensuring Gryffindor's victory with one game left to play! The post-match after party ran for a night and a day in celebration. Bill and some of the older Gryffindors took it in turns to sneak food up from the kitchens for the House, and even Professor McGonagall turned a blind eye when the Gryffindor table was notably empty for breakfast, lunch, and dinner on the Sunday.
Then the following week was the final Quidditch match of the season: Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw. The teams put on a good show, with Gryffindor seventh years Hunter and Rawlins doing an emotional lap of the pitch for their last ever Hogwarts Quidditch game. And when Charlie saw Gwenog Jones lifting that large silver Quidditch Cup high in the air, glowing with pride, a part of Charlie yearned to trade places.
In the stands, Tonks and Don cheered along with Charlie, Buck and Annie as the Gryffindors and the Ravenclaws did a final loop of the stands before leaving the pitch.
That night Charlie dreamed of flying.
He was on a broom in scarlet Quidditch robes, dodging bludgers and chasers as he raced after a tiny speck of gold that always managed to stay that little bit out of his reach. He inched closer to the snitch, his fingers brushing its golden casing. He'd caught it! He waved his arm triumphantly and the crowd went wild. He saw his friends in the stands waving lion flags with his name on. He saw his parents and his brothers and little Ginny, too. They were cheering and his father was loudly telling everyone 'That's my son! That's my son!' Charlie landed and Professor Dumbledore was striding towards him, Quidditch Cup in hand. When Charlie lifted the Cup over his head the shining sun caught it and the silver blazed white. Charlie was floating with elation, flying on his own excitement and energy.
He rolled over in his sleep, a wide smile that no one saw spread across his face. And Charlie Weasley slept on.
