14
The window of the 14th was for the entirety of Hogwarts again.
"She feels strongly about team spirit, always has," Dumbledore whispered to McGonagall and the deputy headmistress nodded.
"You'd want a team behind you, too," the witch whispered back at Dumbledore, "if you were saddled with him!"
Dumbledore looked at his potions master benignly before Snape could say anything about McGonagall's remark. "If I needed a team behind me," the headmaster mused, "I'd want him in it."
Snape allowed himself a tiny smile before he handed the day's envelope to Flitwick who had been named to open it on behalf of everybody.
Sparks whooshed out of the envelope only this time they were not just pink but they came in two whirlwinds, one light pink and the other darker, almost purple. The whirlwinds chased each other around the Great Hall, along house tables, up into the rafters and at last to the head table where Flitwick was waiting, envelope in hand.
The two whirlwinds united in front of the small wizard and when they dissolved there was an ornate golden cup and a heap of things Snape could not identify on the head table. On top of everything were a couple of brooms that were clearly not meant for flying.
Everybody looked puzzled. What was this?
Luckily there was a roll of parchment in the cup. Flitwick summoned it – he was too small to reach it – and read it out to the hall at large.
"My dears," he read, "once again it's the weekend and I thought you'd enjoy holding a little curling tournament. To make things fair, I name Albus, Severus, Voldy and Filius team leaders. Here are the rules: each team needs three adults: the leader, a deatheater and another member of staff of Hogwarts. At least one adult team member must be female. The other team members have to be students, a pair from each house. The game must be played without magic. The rest of you, have fun cheering your team on."
"I guess I'll have to bring the invitation to Voldemort," Snape sighed. "There will be no team forming before I am back!"
Dumbledore and Flitwick agreed. "I guess since Tom needs students for his team, too," Dumbledore pointed out, "he'd be unhappy if we had our choice before he is here. I'll ask the students to sign up if they want to play while you are gone."
The Dark Lord was thrilled when he received his invitation and promised not to torture anybody without being asked to. "I have come to enjoy those little December activities," he admitted. "Somebody bring my snow stuff!"
It was Bellatrix Lestrange who rushed off to get Voldemort's warm clothes and five minutes later a group of deatheaters followed their leader to Hogwarts.
The Dark Lord looked dashing in his long read coat trimmed in white fur. On his head he wore a practical but elegant woollen hat. Reindeer were frolicking all over the headgear.
"People of Hogwarts!" the Dark Lord cried as he led his party inside the Great Hall. "Greetings!"
"It's good to have you hear," Dumbledore cried back. He was, of course, the perfect host. "Would you like a cup of tea to get warm or shall we choose our teams?"
The Dark Lord was eager to start and so the team forming began.
"Potter!" Snape cried as soon as it was his turn to choose.
The Gryffindor hero was not thrilled to be in the potions master's team but calmed down when Snape asked whether he preferred to play in Voldemort's.
"That would be a bad idea," the boy wonder admitted. "Thank you, Sir!"
In the end, Snape was surrounded by Madam Pomfrey and Bellatrix Lestrange, Potter and Granger, Malfoy and Parkinson, Finch-Fletchley and Bones and Chang and Boot.
"We are going to win," said Potter. "We have several quidditch players."
Snape rolled his eyes. "We are going to come out last. Or does any of you know wandless magic?"
Bellatrix glared at the other teams. "The headmaster and our Lord, yes, but who in the dwarf's team?"
"The dwarf," Snape glared at the students daring them to use that word for their Charms teacher, "is a renown charms master, of course he knows wandless magic."
"Wandless magic is not about mastery for a subject but about power. How much power does he have?" Bellatrix mused.
"We'll see," Snape sighed.
A couple of minutes later, the Dark Lord had chosen his last student – Lavender Brown of Gryffindor – and everybody made their way down to the lake.
The Dark Lord conjured stands for the spectators, Dumbledore strengthened the ice and Snape and Flitwick cleaned a large enough area of snow.
They played in pairs. There were to be six duels in the first round and they were going to count points. The two teams with the most points were to play for the cup.
The first match was Flitwick against Dumbledore. Everything went well and in the end Flitwick won because Lucius Malfoy threw back his long blond hair (the move had half of the girls in the stands swooning) at an inopportune moment and his teamleader – Dumbledore – had to throw as good as blind.
"We have to keep an eye on Bellatrix," Snape whispered to Granger. "We don't want to lose because the deatheaters sabotage their own teams to give the Dark Lord an advantage." The Gryffindor nodded and passed the message along among the students. Snape talked to Pomfrey when Bellatrix was distracted by her nephew.
Snape against the Dark Lord was next.
"I want you to give your best," Snape instructed his team. He looked at Bellatrix. "I rely on you. You know how he gets when he thinks we let him win."
"You know how he gets when he loses," the female deatheater pointed out.
She was right. The Dark Lord was known to be a sore loser.
"If we win," Snape instructed, "thank him for teaching you."
Bellatrix snorted. "I've never curled with my Lord before. Have you?" She wiggled her brows.
Snape made a sound of disgust. "I thought you were a Slytherin! He helped you train your aim on multiple occasions, did he not?"
"That could work," Bellatrix admitted.
The two teams were well matched. True, Snape had the quidditch players, but the Dark Lord had McGonagall and Yaxley. McGonagall had great aim and Yaxley's favourite hobby was fowl hunting. Both were great assets to the Dark Lord's team.
In the end it was wandless magic that decided the match. The Dark Lord's last stone ran a wide curve away from the target. Snape looked at his team members in turn but they were as puzzled as he was. The potions master looked at the other teams and for his taste, Dumbledore was looking much too innocent.
"Why did you do it?" Snape whispered at the headmaster once the next game – Flitwick versus the Dark Lord – had begun after a medium tantrum from the dark wizard and a short lunch break.
"You wouldn't want the dark side to win!" Dumbledore cried at a whisper, scandalized.
In the end, the final game was Dumbledore against Snape.
McGonagall and Flitwick provided the students with banners and flags to cheer the teams on. All of Slytherin house was wearing pink for the occasion, as did the deatheaters because of course the Dark Lord supported his spy once it had become clear that the Dark Lord's team was not going to make it to the finals.
The Slytherins were not the only house sporting the potions master's pink though. Most of Gryffindor was wearing pink, too. Snape had their Golden Boy, after all, and Dumbledore had the younger Creevey boy and Romilda Vane.
Snape was convinced that they were going to lose but it turned out that he had wandless magic on his side, too. The Dark Lord was without mercy when it came to savotaging Dumbledore.
One of Dumbledore's stones turned into a white bunny in mid-slide, another was attacked by a bald eagle.
"There are no bald eagles in Scotland!" the headmaster shouted at the Dark Lord.
"Then this must be a figment of my imagination," the dark wizard drawled as the bald eagle carried Dumbledore's stone off.
Meanwhile Potter scored.
The next time it was Dumbledore's turn to throw, a hole in the ice opened under the old wizard and Snape had to save him from drowning.
"That's it!" spluttered the headmaster as he sat on the ice. "I give up. Severus, you win!"
Snape's team and its supporters cheered. "Hot cocoa for everyone!" cried Snape as he held up the cup in triumph.
A little later everybody sat in the Great Hall, enjoying cocoa and chocolate cake provided by the house elves.
The Dark Lord and Dumbledore had spiked their cocoa with something that came from a small silver bottle the headmaster had pulled out of his beard. Together they went through some of the more spectacular moves of their little tournament.
Snape sat with Malfoy sr. and Bellatrix and they discussed Draco's figure skating lessons.
"I love figure skating!" sighed Lucius. "Why couldn't we have a figure skating tournament?"
"We could suggest it to our Lord," Bellatrix pointed out and they decided that, yes, they were going to do that. Snape promised to speak with Dumbledore about hosting again. The black lake was ideal for events like these after all.
Plans already forming in his head, Snape made sure to catch Hermione Granger before curfew to ask her to be his partner at the next contest.