Chapter 21

Harry was exited, he was going to get to play Quidditch with his father finally. Another wish come true this night. Everyone who wanted to play Quidditch was sent to the pitch in the Apple orchard to team up.

Everyone decided to put Harry, James, and Sirius on one team, which would make it like a Potter vs. Weasley game with all the Weasley children on the other side. Left over were about six places overall, and Harry called over his old Quidditch team mates. Oliver, Angelina, Katie, and Alicia all agreed to play on Harry's team, so his team was full.

The Weasley's needed two more players and couldn't get Fleur or Percy to play, or either parent. Charlie had brought his new girlfriend of one week with him to the party and she agreed to play her old position of Chaser, and Lee surprised everyone when he agreed to play beater with George.

Harry hadn't known the young man, who had been the voice of the Hogwarts commentary over the years, had once tried out for beater, or had almost tried out. Oliver had let Fred and George try out before Lee, since they were a team, and once Lee had seen his best mates fly and play their positions, he said he'd do something else. They won the places fairly. Besides, he had said, he preferred commentating even more. Lee had often practiced with the twins on the weekends instead of studying, so he said he was a fair beater and could play a friendly game once in a while.

So as the teams went, it was The Potter Purple People Eaters versus the Weasley Watermelon Warriors. Since the whole teams couldn't agree Harry and Bill allowed James and Sirius and George and Lee to come up with the names. They were slightly regretting that decision now, but held back a retort. Oliver had asked why they were the Potters versus the Weasley's. He could understand why it was the Weasley team, it was mostly the red haired family playing, but it was only just one Potter on their team.

Harry didn't know how to answer that when Ginny spoke up.

"Because it's Harry's birthday you dolt," she retorted smartly and the matter was dropped.

On Harry's team: Harry, seeker; Jack (James), beater; Stanley (Sirius), beater; Oliver, keeper; Alicia, chaser; Angelina, chaser; Katie, chaser.

Weasley team players as follows: Charlie, seeker; Bill, chaser; Ginny, chaser; Reilly (Charlie's girlfriend), chaser; George, beater; and Lee, beater; Ron, keeper.

The only other problem anyone could come up with was brooms. Several people had to Apparate home and get their brooms, Harry returned with three, his, Sirius and James brooms. Harry, when he bought a new broom the month before, had bought a few extra to replace the extremely old brooms at the Burrow. Now the older ones and newer ones were all going to be used before the old ones were retired finally.

On the ground watching were the rest of the crowd containing, Molly, Lily, Percy, Arthur (who had to be dragged away from the Arcade), Fleur, Andromeda and Teddy, Hermione, the Hogwarts staff, the remaining Hogwarts students, and the seven Cannons. Everyone from the Ministry had left after eating, each citing fairly similar words of regret for not being able to stay late. Many of the students who had left were the ones Harry had never really talked too much or known outside of a class setting. Harry didn't even know why they came other than to say they'd been to Harry Potter's birthday party, and claim bragging rights, which made him feel ill to think about.

Molly agreed to let loose the Bludgers and Snitch, and toss the Quidditch up, while Lily agreed to keep score while Luna agreed to commentate. Lee looked a bit lost at this, he'd never heard about the Losers Lurgy story from anyone, and was worried she might mess up. Harry and Ron couldn't stop laughing when they realized she would commentate.

"And they're off. Ginny Weasley takes the Quaffle right away but Jack…I don't know his last name so I'll just say Jack Sprat. Jack Sprat sent a Bludger at her and she dropped it. Angelina Johnson, a really nice girl I remember helping me find the Great Hall on my first day of school. Oh, well she had the ball, now Bill has it and it heading towards a goal hoop. I think he's heading toward the wrong side though," Luna had asked someone to magnify her voice so all the players could here her. Harry knew Bill was going the right way, but Bill had a moment of pause that cost him the ball.

"Oh, it looks like Katie knew where she was going. She has the ball now, and she's flying towards Ronald. He's gotten really mature the last few years and he almost never calls my Loony anymore. Only when he thinks I can't hear. Oh, he missed the ball and it went through the hoop. Looks like the Team Potter has ten points now."

Lily, Hermione, Molly, Arthur and many others watching were fighting the tears rolling down their cheeks as they were all laughing so hard. Luna was smiling serenely not realizing, or maybe she was aware, that her commentating was causing the older players who'd never heard her before some issues. They didn't know if she was serious or joking, and for the first ten minutes their game was affected for it. Sirius had laughed so hard he almost fell off his broom at the Jack Sprat comment. James however chuckled and hit a Bludger towards Sirius in fun.

Thankfully the teams were fairly evenly matched with both teams only having two players who had heard Luna's unique comments. Harry, Ron, Ginny, and Katie all had heard Luna, or heard of Luna in Katie's place, so they had to rein in their fellows and get them going.

Harry's team was able to pull forward in points first seeing as how most of the players were either professional, near professional, or had worked with each other in the past. The Weasley's had family ties going for them, as only two people on the team weren't family.

Harry circled the pitch high up searching for the snitch. It was a new one he had whipped out with the brooms so he knew it wasn't slow or tired like the old ones they had used. He was ready for it when it showed, the only thing he was worried about was Charlie.

Charlie hadn't played many pick up games on the Reserve, so while he was an able player in school, his Seeking skills were a little scratchy. Despite this fact, he had been one of the only Weasley's to be approached and asked to go professional after Hogwarts. He had turned them down as he already had a job on the Reserve, but he knew that while his skills may have been scratchy at the moment, a few minutes in the air searching for the little ball refreshed his memories and he was almost as good as new. That and he had bought a Nimbus 2000 with his saved wages over the years and he knew his broom better than anything that didn't breathe fire and was covered in scales.

Charlie's method of searching wasn't to mark the other seeker like a certain Slytherin, he was better at keeping one eye on the other seeker and searching on his own. So while Harry was up high, Charlie wove through the other players with ease, eyes open and searching. His agility on the broom gave him the ability to swerve several Bludgers in the crowd, though they weren't aimed at him, and many other players while still searching. Having no such luck he turned to the goal posts.

Most seekers could tell you that the little ball usually showed itself near a goal post at least once a game. Once Charlie had finished the crowd, he turned his attention there.

Harry could see the opposing seeker and knew this tactic, though he'd only read about it before. Harry kept one eye trained on Charlie while scanning the whole pitch. He stayed relatively in the center of the pitch spinning in slow circles. This way if the snitch showed up on the other side of the pitch away from Charlie he'd have the advantage, but if it showed up near Charlie, he'd have no chance to win.

After ten minutes the score was 40-10 in favor of the Potter Purple People Eaters.

"Well, Harry is still looking for the golden ball with wings, it used to be a small bird in the game. I'm not sure how I know that, but there goes Ginny and she's flying towards Oliver fairly fast.

"She and Harry make such a cute couple together, I decided not to try and steal him. I prefer someone who's a little more adventurous and would help me find a Crumple-Horned Snorkack in Switzerland.

"Ginny scored another ten points for the Weasley team, so it's 40-20 now. Oh! Charlie is flying really fast over by that edge of the forest. It looks like he's chasing the snitch. Harry's catching up to him.

"He's a really good flyer, but I don't think they're doing it right. It looks like they aren't chasing anything really. Oh! Watch out Charlie, you almost ran into that tree back there."

Luna's commentating was so calmly directed that someone listening in might have not known there was a real match going on. She sounded slightly bored, and like she was just talking to someone, instead of watching and commentating a highly competitive match. Ron had stopped 13 attempts on goal, while Oliver had only stopped 9. So far, while Harry's team was winning, it was only because Reilly and Bill were two chasers on the Weasley team who had not gotten any real practice in nearly five years. Ginny had made both of the goals the Weasley's had made.

Charlie and Harry were indeed chasing something, only it was a very fast something. The snitch had revealed itself twenty minutes into the game, nearer to Charlie than Harry, but the little golden ball had directed itself to fly towards Harry, then suddenly change directions and fly away from both of them towards the forest. Then it flew parallel to the trees, for a few yards then disappeared into the leaves.

Both Harry and Charlie knew not to fly into the forest, so they resumed their paces of watching out for the return of the ball.

"Good flying, Harry! I'm surprised you kept up. That ball was a fast one," Charlie joked.

"Surprised I kept up? I'm surprised you were able to keep up. How long has it been since your last match? Eight years?" Harry jested.

"Hardy har, har. It's been four. I do get a few chances on the Reserve, thank you very much," the older man said snootily. Harry smirked.

"Oh really? Well than I hate to pop your bubble, but…" Harry didn't finish as he had sped up. Charlie took the bait and followed Harry up, then suddenly Harry wasn't anywhere in front of him but had descended. He was rapidly speeding down towards the ground and had actually stopped flying and was now free falling. His broom still clasped in his hands was not between his legs anymore but at his side.

No one on the ground had yet seen Harry falling, but Charlie knew that he had to do something or the lad would surely crash.

He turned his broom down and almost a one hundred and eighty degree angle and zoomed downwards.

He had to catch Harry, or let someone know what was happening before he died.

A/n: I finished this after a few hours of more math…I felt vindictive. I'm sorry, so sue me…*evil grin* I've begun posting another plot bunny attack story. This one was only 5 chapters long though, so It's finished, I'm just posing a new chapter every few hours. Please check it out. It's called Beautiful Little Monstrosity. This is the summary: Would there ever be a fanfiction about? A simple question turned horrifying for all! When a little harmless quiz turns ugly, who ends up with who? Who is scarred for life? Who suffers engorgement charms on their #$%'s? Oh the Horror!

Please REVIEW! (and go review the other story too, it's not got hardly any reviews…)

Oh and again this is only for my unsigned reviews that i can't email and they asked questions, or made a comment i need to answer

Lunapia: I had a good weekend, thank you. I hope yours was enjoyable as well. I like your idea I might use it…

Emily: the 70 chapter story was called Birthday Surprises by Lolly Phoenix (Harry is gifted with triplets to care for, and they turn out to be his own children created by the Ministry as back ups in case he looses the war. It's actually 76 chapters long, but they are short chapters.

Minerdude: I tried to respond to your question but you disabled PM's. I made a small mistake, Harry never made the slip up about his professors when we could read it, it was supposed to be in their conversations that took an hour. I cut a certain paragraph, and that was in it. Oops :-/

Everyone else who reviewed chapter 20 and I haven't responded, I'm sorry, the reviews aren't registering on my stats page, I read them in the emails though and thank you all! When this stupid site gets their act together and clears up the issues with the stats page, I'll respond to everyone! Just keep REVIEWING!