Harry Potter - After the Epilogue

by PotterFanSteve

Continuing the storyline from 'After the War', this book focuses on the Hogwarts years and beyond for Albus and Lily Potter, Rose, and Hugo Weasley, and their family and friends. I hope you will enjoy this imagining of what happens in the Harry Potter universe - After the Epilogue!

88. Orange You Glad?

Chapter Eighty-Eight – Orange You Glad?

"Here's your revised schedule for today," Renee told Al and Gwendolyn as she stepped up next to their table in the cafe. "I'll need you to hand over your tickets to the Catapults' match; since you won't be able to go now."

Al laughed; summoned the tickets; and handed them over without needing to look at the 'new' schedule. "Have you collectively decided that I've hit my mad quota for the month already?"

"More like the rest of the season," Renee answered with a nod. "Be glad that you won't be there today. The consensus around here is that James is going to try to one-up you against the Wanderers; so you don't want to watch that happen."

"We do get to go to Hogsmeade with the twins instead," Gwendolyn advised him; and then laughed. "We have to take a nap with them this afternoon? Aw, Mum – it's Saturday!"

Renee laughed. "Malorie might be okay with you skipping the nap – as long as the girls don't fall asleep too-early or do that and then wake up early on Sunday morning. I'll leave that up to you to figure out. The gameday lunch at the Leaky is optional too; but the visit to St. Mungo's is still there; and your favorite little fans won't want to be disappointed."

"We wouldn't do that to them," Al promised. "Maybe we could take Jaimie and Lorie to a movie after that instead of the nap," Al suggested to Gwendolyn. "Let's check later to see if there is anything kid-friendly for them to see."

"That works for me," Gwendolyn agreed. "Thanks, Renee. I didn't want Al to go to that match either."

"You're welcome," Renee assured her. "I'm off to feed the wolves next – I mean the reporters." She grinned at them. "I still sometimes can't believe that I get paid to have this much fun!"

Al and Gwendolyn watched her go; and then smiled at each other. They were having breakfast for two because their usual morning meal companions had either eaten early; weren't there yet; or were staying home on a day off from the usual training day meals.

"Did you know in advance?" Gwendolyn asked; and Al shook his head.

"No, but I was sure that we were going to have a really good day; so it didn't surprise me that not going to that match would help to make that possible."

"We will have to watch that match eventually to help with our next matches against those teams, but we can deal with that when we have to; and just have fun today."

"That works for me," Al agreed. "You should check with your Mum and Dad too. They might want to come out and play too."

"I'll see what they're doing," Gwendolyn agreed. "I don't think that they were going to go to Hogsmeade today because they're going to the senior team match next weekend, but they might be interested in lunch or dinner with us."

"That sounds good too. Is there anything else you'd like to do today?"

They talked about that while enjoying their meal; picked up the twins; and headed for Hogsmeade. This time, they arrived in town and waited for their favorite students to meet up with them there; they had fun with a long round of hugs and kisses that included a lot of Quidditch jokes and a few attempts to imitate Lee with compliments about quality of hugs or advice on doing better next time. Gwendolyn then went off to do some fun shopping with the girls; they took Jaimie with them for that; and Al and Lorie joined Jonah, Hugo, and some of the other guys for the boring supply shopping.

"I'm glad that you're being banned from going to that Catapults' match today," Jonah told Al as they worked their way through the Apothecary. "Maybe I should try to convince Lily to stay here as long as we can instead of hurrying back to the castle to watch it; since I don't really want to see what James and his half-team of thugs do to Erin and the Wanderers. Erin may still have some bad feelings about the Harpies, but she was still a former player, and then Aunt Meghan's team mate for a long time; so I've hated seeing her get hurt by James and the McClaggens."

"Well, in this case; rule number one will definitely apply," Al suggested. "I'll feel bad about that, but I'm not sorry for how we played on Thursday night. If the worst players in the league want to keep doing things like they did to Gwendolyn; then I'm going to find a way to convince them that it's at least a really bad idea to do that to anyone on our team."

"We'll have to wait and see how that plays out with the Falcons," Jonah suggested. "This isn't keeping you in a happy place, though; so we should just change the subject. You've got the Harpies up next, and extra time to get ready for them. Have you decided how you're going to play against our favorite team?"

Al grinned at him. "Are you worried that we'd try for another all-night match?" he joked; and Jonah laughed.

"You'd need to worry about that if you did – not me. Mum isn't nearly as nice as you are; so she might even turn her own daughter and son-in-law into bugs if that happened!"

"Whatever should we talk about today?" Lily asked Gwendolyn. "We can't talk Quidditch when we both have big rivalry matches coming up next; and I'm likely up-to-date on the latest news from home after the extra mirror chats yesterday; so that covers most of what we normally gossip about!"

"That isn't really true," Gwendolyn disagreed. "It's a Hogsmeade weekend right after Halloween; so there must be teen drama stories. I'm okay with not talking about the league matches today, but we can talk about your apparition lessons; your plans for the rest of the day and weekend; and anything else we come up with that might be interesting."

"There hasn't been much in the way of teen drama for anyone we're close with," Lily advised her. "It's more-likely that we'll have Christmas season drama – though I suppose there could be some dating issues for the Quidditch matches this month too." She looked over toward where some of her friends were shopping in another part of the store. "I suppose we could talk about trying to find decent boyfriends for some of my friends, since they seem to be having problems with that, but maybe it's just that we're in a bad year for good Wizards."

"Do they all want to find 'good' Wizards?" Gwendolyn joked. "Some Witches prefer the bad ones."

Lily grinned at her. "That's funny, but I don't really want to set any of them up for dates with Slytherin Wizards, and now that you point that out; there really are some guys around here trying to be like James because they think they can."

"So did Ollie – and he found out that he was wrong about that," Gwendolyn reminded her. "Not all Slytherins are bad, but Al and I never managed to make any Slytherin friends even when we tried to do that; so you're likely right; and shouldn't work on any set-ups with the boys from that House." She glanced at the same little group of friends too; and nodded. "Most of you are over-age now," she said thoughtfully. "Older Wizards might be an option; and so are younger Wizards now that they're getting a bit older too."

"Well, younger Wizards work for Alyssa and me," Lily offered loudly-enough that their friend overheard. "Maybe that is an idea for some of our friends."

"We're only months older than our boyfriends," Alyssa said as she walked closer to them. "Younger than OWL-year Wizards wouldn't really work for most Witches in our year; and that will still be true next year."

"At least until those even-youger Wizards are over-age too," Gwendolyn agreed. "Maybe you should just keep an eye out today for Wizards of appropriate age that aren't attached to a Witch; and we can talk about whether any of them are suitable prospects for any of your single friends."

"I hate that idea," Alyssa advised her. "Our Wizards are currently going around town and unattached to us. You should likely add a few more conditions to that suggestion before we take it any further!"

"I'm glad that we decided to take steps and get Al to have a happier day," Ginny told Harry as they left the studio where they'd just finished two interviews, "but this was not a good day for doing interviews; and I'm getting tired of the never-ending attempts to tear us – and our team – down regardless of how well we do." She laughed. "How can we be a bunch of no-talents and show-offs at the same time? The Falcons cheated and pounded on you all night; yet we're horrid for running it up on them – even though we're the worst players in the history of the game. We got bashed in the papers when I played for the Harpies, but it was never as vicious as some of these reporters are being toward us."

"I thought that those interviews went well," Harry teased. "Maybe it's just a matter of perspective."

"Maybe," Ginny agreed with a laugh. "By this afternoon; we may both think that those interviews were brilliantly-fun by comparison."

"I'd suggest that we don't have to go, but if we just give up on James; then I don't know if there would be any hope for him after that."

"That's at least partly-true," Ginny agreed; "though he's going to need to want to find his way back to the Light. I don't know whether we'll be able to help or not, but we will keep trying – even if that's from a distance."

Al and Gwendolyn had fun in Hogsmeade for most of the morning; they ended up deciding to have lunch with the game-watching gang at the Leaky; and then they went on to St. Mungo's and spent two hours in the children's ward for particularly-serious maladies and injuries; and entertained those kids with lots of help from Jaimie and Lorie. They went with an afternoon animated movie instead of doing that after dinner; and then met up with Kirley and Gwenog for that meal. Jaimie and Lorie kept them all entertained with their adventure stories while they ordered and were served drinks; and then they were happy to eat and play together once their meals were delivered – and the two couples were glad of the chance to talk about what the kids in their group insisted were 'boring' things.

"Have you been keeping track of what's going on at Ilkley this afternoon – even though you're not supposed to do that?" Gwenog asked Al and Gwendolyn.

"No," Gwendolyn answered at the same time that Al sheepishly said – "Yes," and then laughed when Gwendolyn slapped his shoulder. "We should've confiscated your mirror and magical earbuds," she decided. "Okay, so what news have I been the only one missing out on from the stadium?"

"Erin's been knocked out of the match early," Gwenog answered; "and the Catapults are pounding on the rest of the Wanderers and running it up on them. I'd guess that they're trying to out-do your win over the Falcons."

"Though they don't have a shut-out; and might need a full day or more to win by more than fifteen hundred," Kirley added. "Thanks to all of the injury timeouts so far; they're barely four hours into the match, but what they're trying to do is nothing like what you did on Halloween."

"They see it as exactly the same," Al offered seriously. "There's a nugget of truth there too, since we didn't have to run it up on the Falcons, but we didn't try to beat them up; and we didn't cheat to win."

"Should I take it that James cheated to get Erin out of the match?" Gwendolyn asked. Al nodded; but Gwenog answered her question.

"Nearly as horridly as the last time he knocked her out," she confirmed. "Harry helped her out again too; though Ginny has already let us know that Erin isn't going to need long to recover from her injuries this time. She'll likely be sent home tonight – or maybe even by now."

"That's good to hear, but Erin won't be happy; and it's horrid that James keeps doing that to other Seekers," Gwendolyn declared; though she said that quietly; and didn't draw the attention from either twin. "I guess that means that our game-watchers are in for a long day – and maybe night too. Are you going to watch the rest of the match from home? I guess that Al and I will have to come up with something to do while everyone else is busy – and to keep the girls entertained."

"It's Saturday, so the virtual mirror rooms are likely booked, but we can take them swimmingand play ing the atrium," Al suggested. "They might need to go to sleep early too. We have been busy today."

"Some of us were busier than we were supposed to be," Gwendolyn reminded him with a meaningful glance to one ear and the magical earbud still in it. "You're doing pretty good hiding the mad – if you are getting mad about that match."

"I'm okay so far," Al assured her. "After spending time with the kids at St. Mungo's again this afternoon; I'm due for a change in perspective. Our problems are really unimportant compared to their life and death struggles."

"True," Gwendolyn agreed – "though that perspective won't keep me from getting mad about those less-important things. Instead of going on about that, though; maybe we should talk about anything else." She turned her attention toward her parents. "When will you start working on things like holiday shopping and all of the planning for everything we'll have on the go next month – and while Lily and Jonah are home?"

"A bit of that is already started," Gwenog answered. "Your father's holiday gigs are already booked – though we can't talk about most of them quite yet; and Glynnis and I have booked the team events through the end of the year." She smiled at her daughter. "I'm really going to miss having you at the teen day this year."

"Lily's seventeen," Gwendolyn pointed out. "Is she asking you for a chance to play the holiday matches?"

"Yes," Gwenog admitted. "I don't want to do that. Our team is playing well right now, and while Gabrielle might be willing to let her play; I don't want to mess up what's going right for us right now." She sighed and shook her head. "I don't know what to do about Lily – and neither does Glynnis. "We'd love to have her on the team, but Gabrielle isn't ready to retire – especially now that Ginny's back in the game; and I doubt that Lily will settle for spending a few years on the reserve squad. I'd also hate to give her the early start and not have that go well for her. You know that we're up against the Catapults and Prides for those matches; and I think that putting Lily in would be a problem – especially when she hasn't even flown a Lightningstorm and can't use her own broom or equipment."

"Don't say it," Gwendolyn warned Al. "Rose would never agree; and she's still not happy about the deal you have made with Mum."

"Speaking of – how is that going?" Gwenog asked Al.

"I'll have seven ready on time," he promised. "The only issue I'll have will be if they don't choose the players I'm making them for. That's worked out for me so far, but I have no idea if that will actually work every time or not. I'm still learning more as I go along."

"So those brooms will be even better?" Kirley asked and teased.

"Yes – and no," Al answered. "I can upgrade all of the brooms I've made to this point as I learn more; and we are finding out that the brooms are more-limited by the rider than anything else."

"That isn't really different than other top racing brooms," Kirley suggested. "Some players or riders can never reach the limits of those brooms."

"The Hurricanes are a bit different," Al disagreed, "but it amounts to the same results; so those differences aren't important."

"Well, I like what you're doing with them," Kirley advised him. "If the Harpies are successful with them too; then I expect that every other serious Quidditch player in the world is going to want one too."

"With the only problem there being that Al is making each of them himself," Gwendolyn pointed out. "He's not even sure he can teach others how to make them or not yet."

"I will try – once I find the right Wizards or Witches for the jobs," Al added. "That's definitely not a job for anyone."

"No doubt," Gwenog agreed. "Do you have anything else going on that will be news to us? Do you have that new camp built already?"

Al laughed. "No, but I am going to make that one of my winter projects for everything I can pre-manufacture like we did with the townhouses and flats. I'd like to be able to open the camp by June – in time for some off-season vacations and maybe a charity camp for the younger kids – though that might need to wait until Hogwarts is out for the summer and we can hire teen camp counselors."

"So you're going to build a new camp pretty much from scratch; try to win a league championship; keep building all of your toys; work on Merlin-only-knows how many other projects; and try to have a little fun along the way," Kirley summarized. "Did I miss anything?"

"Well, getting invited to play in the Europe Cup next summer is on our plan for the team," Al offered with a grin that earned him a round of laughs. "That'd keep us busy for a bit more than half of the off-season."

"I'm obviously getting old; since all of that just sounds exhausting to me," Kirley decided. "We were that crazy at your age, though, so I don't doubt you'll do most – or all – of that."

"You were crazier for sure," Gwendolyn teased. "Are the Weird Sisters back to being more-popular again this fall? I thought that you weren't really getting that many job offers so far this year – at least for bigger events."

"It has been slow," Kirley agreed, "but we've all been busy with other projects; and we need to take those breaks now and then. We will still be around a while longer, though, and we're looking at working on a new album next year to have ready in time for twenty-twenty-six."

"In time for the Quidditch World Cup parties," Gwendolyn guessed. "That'll be a crazy-busy summer if you're doing those shows with all four groups. Wendy and Wanda will both be done school by then too."

"That's exactly what we're hoping for," Kirley told her with a nod and smile. "We can do as well with those concerts as we can during a normal year – or more."

"We get that," Gwenog assured him; "but please don't start talking business – any of you. I get enough of that at work."

"Then let's talk shopping instead," Gwendolyn suggested. "Maybe we could set up a trip or two this month so we don't get rushed for doing that next month – especially when we'll have Quidditch matches every weekend in December."

That suggestion led to a chat that kept them entertained until they finished their meal; they moved on to their respective homes after that because Gwenog wanted to do some work and keep an eye on the Catapults' match; and Al and Gwendolyn played with the twins; took them for a bedtime swim; and then eventually got them off to sleep with stories and songs before they were able to wrap up their play day with some quiet time for two. They didn't watch any of the rest of the Quidditch match; and went to bed long before it was over.

They even went to sleep before any of their neighbors got home from the stadium!

Ginny was snuggled with Harry as comfortably as possible in stadium seats on a cold fall night – after nearly eleven hours of really-tough-to-watch Quidditch. During the afternoon, the horrid was fast and furious as the usual Catapults' foursome responsible for that sort of game play did their worst to the Wanderers. By late afternoon and into the evening, the 'true' Catapults' fans continued to enjoy themselves as their team earned the one-sixty lead; continued to pound on the Wanderers' players; and build their lead while their star Seeker entertained himself by taunting the Wanderers' players and fans. Now, as it headed toward midnight; nobody was really having any fun at all, but stayed out of some grim duty – or simply to find out just how far the Catapults would go before putting the Wanderers out of their misery.

"That's seven-forty," Ginny said unenthusiastically as they watched the exhausted and injured Wanderers' Keeper slowly chase down the quaffle after Scorpius scored yet another goal. "If I wasn't so tired; I could do the Arithmancy on how much longer it'll take them to get to thirteen-fifty so that they can prove that they're better than our team."

"You're better at that than I am," Harry told her just as quietly, "but the Catapults are slowing down now too. They only scored six goals in the last hour; and their average-per-hour is about eight thanks to those hours when they were really pushing hard. The Wanderers aren't scoring anymore, but they've started trying to keep the quaffle for as long as possible on each possession; and that's slowing things down too."

"At six and hour, they'd need another ten hours – not including timeouts," Ginny stated with a sigh. "We are not going to stay here that long."

"Not to mention that they'd still need longer than that if they slow down more – or want to score a lot more than fifteen hundred points." Harry added; and then shook his head. "This is ridiculous. Even if they do that now; they can't do it in fewer hours than we did with our Falcons match; so it really has become pointless."

"Facts are not required in James' version of reality," Ginny reminded him. "Let's give our misguided eldest son until one o'clock, and if he hasn't ended it by then; we'll call it a night and read about the rest of the match in the morning."

That didn't end up being a choice that needed to be made because James caught the snitch shortly-after Scorpius scored the seventy-fifth goal of the match; ending the rout with a final score of nine-hundred to fifty. Harry and Ginny only stayed long-enough to be sure that there wouldn't be any post-game trouble – beyond the taunts and bragging from James and the McClaggens; and then they headed home and pretty much straight to bed for the rest of the night. They weren't happy; weren't proud of their victorious son; and past-ready to put yet another tough day behind them – or at least a tough day from a parent's perspective.

"Thanks so much to those of you who quit on me out there tonight," James declared as he walked into the locker room. "I was tempted to just keep you out there for a day or two, but you started making that match so boring; I was worried that I might fall asleep and fall off of my broom!"

"Seventy-five goals in about nine and a quarter hours wasn't good-enough for you?" Miya asked tiredly. "That's an average of eight an hour – quite a bit better than our average for the season so far."

"I don't want to be part of an average team," James retorted. "We're defending league champions; yet that's the best you can do against one of the worst teams in the league!"

"It's over and done with," Louis told him. "We won; Scorpius has a big lead in the Chaser scoring race again; and you won another brilliant Seeker duel – and only needed seven or eight hours after you put Erin in her bed at St. Mungo's to do that; depending on whether you want to count time-outs or not. Brilliantly-done, everyone!"

"No – brilliantly-done for four of us," James disagreed angrily. "What's your current Keeper ranking? Fourteenth – behind that reserve Keeper that got to play for the Kestrels last month? Miya and Roman are just coasting along on Scorpius' broomtail – as usual; or they'd be ranked at the bottom too."

"Nothing we do will ever be enough for you," Louis told him. "You dump on us whether we win or lose – even with a blow-out win like this. As you're so fond of reminding everyone, you have a Quidditch World Cup and league championship; so when will you ever be happy?"

"When I'm officially crowned King of the World," James only half-joked.

"Now you want the world – not just the Quidditch world?" Louis asked. "Why stop there? Emperor of the known universe has a nice ring to it."

"It does," James agreed. "I'll add that one to my to-do list. Getting back to my point, though, I'll just add that you'd better do better than this against the Falcons. You'll look like a bunch of incompetents if you can't do better against them than this – not to mention better than the clown brigade."

"Don't you have a party to get to?" Miya asked him. "We wouldn't want to keep all of those Witches waiting for you for too-long, or they might get bored; and find someone else to play with instead of you."

"I'm worth the wait," James declared pompously. "Too bad for you that you'll never get to find out what it's like to be with a real Wizard – though maybe that's for the best. You'd never even want to touch the loser you're currently with if you ever did get to experience real stamina and power!" He laughed while Roman shook his head in disgust. "Don't shake your head – you know it for truth!"

"Whatever you say, James," Roman agreed indifferently. "Will there be anything else, oh great Quidditch King; or can we go and hit the showers now?"

"You may do that," James decreed. "Thine stench doth offend me greatly – nearly as much as thine cowardice and incompetence!"

The start of November had been pretty good for Al and Gwendolyn; and that trend continued as they got started on the first full week of the month. While they could get focused on their match against the Harpies, they also still had two full weeks to prepare; while the Harpies had their first match of the season against the Prides to deal with first – on Wednesday evening. When the league schedules were first put together, that pairing of matches likely seemed reasonable with the 'easy' match just ten days after a tough one, but in hindsight; the Harpies were starting two of the toughest weeks of their entire season.

The toughest part of the week for the Harpies fans on the Cannons team was not being able to go to that match on Wednesday night because of their training curfew. They still had a normal workday – which included a lot of fun and play time with their favorite twins; and then most of them met up in the cafe after dinner to watch as much of the Harpies-Prides match as they could. That ended up being less than half of the match; what they did get to watch was tough and brilliant; and then they had to wait until morning to find out that the Prides won by a score of three-forty to three-ten; that Gabrielle caught the snitch early in the ninth hour; and that she did that for the loss because Vicky wasn't able to keep up with Peter anymore; and they didn't want to keep the match going knowing that they had another big match to play against the Cannons.

Even with that decision, the Harpies lost a half-day of training on Thursday while the Cannons practiced as normal; and the only 'extra' family and friends fun for Al and Gwendolyn was on Friday – and that was just a ten-minute mirror chat with Charlene and Pietr to wish her a happy twentieth birthday. They did that with Harry, Ginny, Rose, and Brandon while at breakfast in the cafe; and then wrapped up their work week with more Quidditch and play time. With a week to go until their match against the Harpies, there weren't any extra activities booked for Friday night, so staying home and taking it easy was an option for Al and Gwendolyn – even as some of their team mates and friends decided to go out and do a bit of partying instead. The four Potters in their little community all decided to stay home, but they didn't hang out together. Al cooked dinner for Gwendolyn; they watched mirror network shows – including The Healer – for a couple of hours; and then they went to bed early – and didn't go to sleep for quite a while! They did eventually do that, since they had a rather-important Hogwarts Quidditch match to attend on Saturday; and Al made sure that they were both at full-power by the time they met up with Harry, Ginny, the twins, and the rest of the gang going with them to that match after having their morning meal for just two again too.

"Did the reserve squads for both teams get recruited to welcome visitors to the school?" Gwendolyn teased as their group met up with a fairly-large gang of cousins and friends a half-dozen paces onto the grounds from the gates.

"Shouldn't we do that when we have almost the entire Cannons' team visiting us today?" Meg asked in return. "You are the only still-undefeated team in the league this season."

"We're also here to give you escorts to the stadium and locker rooms as needed," Roxanne advised them – "and we're very happy to see you again today."

"Well, as for the escorts, maybe we should start by sending your fastest runner with Ray so that he can get there faster," Gwendolyn suggested with a smile for Ray. "I'm sure he wants to wish Melissa the best – and maybe get a moment to say hello to Cyndia too."

Roxanne grinned at her while reaching into the bag she was carrying and then pulling out LIly's magical hoverboard. "Will this get you there fast-enough?" she asked Ray. "I'll send a message to Lily and let her know you're on the way." She laughed when Ray hugged her; hopped on; and flew off. His grin was enthusiastic; and he was laughing too as he sped away.

"That was a good idea," Ginny told her niece. "Are you waiting for any other guests; or should we follow along?"

"We can split up and do both," Roxanne answered. "Most of you will want to do visits with the players on both teams; so maybe we should do that with the Ravenclaw team first – unless you'd prefer to be there to watch Cyndia snog Ray for as long as she can before game time."

Gwendolyn grinned at her. "Was that part of your plan?" she asked. "Get Cyndia distracted and then not tell her that it was game time?"

Roxanne laughed. "What a brilliant idea! I wish that I had thought about it."

"Cyndia might actually be okay with that suggestion if they could get away with doing that while the match is going on," Rose suggested, "but she's also one of the players we've come to scout today; so it's probably for the best that she plays."

"I still wish that I was one of those players today, but you wouldn't be scouting me anyway; so I guess that I can wait until next year."

"At least it'll only be one more year for you," Riley told her. "Lily will surely be Captain again next season; so I'll be waiting until our NEWT year to play again." He smiled at Al. "I'd suggest that it would have been nice if Lily was a bit more like you, but have no idea whether that would have helped me or not; since you won every Chaser tryout you were in – and you still haven't lost a match. Does it matter if tryouts are open or not if the Captain is the best player anyway?"

"I was only Captain for one season," Al reminded him; "and the difference is that the other players at least get to have that chance." He shrugged and smiled ruefully. "It still seems like the right thing to do to me, but that doesn't mean I'm right or wrong about it. Captains do usually earn the jobs, and that's often for more than just Quidditch skills; so we still haven't found out whether that would prove to be a problem for the team if a Captain was bested and replaced during tryouts."

"Boring!" Lorie told him. "Can we go see Aunt Lily now?"

"We're going to startwith Uncle Jonah and his team mates first," Ginny advised her before Al could answer; and she grinned at her granddaughter. "So you think that Uncle Al is boring now?"

"Only sometimes," Lorie answered. "Grown-ups talk too much about boring stuff."

"Way too much," Jaimie chimed in with a nod. "Let's go!"

They did that with their assigned escorts while the other teens and tweens waited for the other parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles. Roxanne stayed, since her parents – and Rose's mother – were among those expected guests; and there were Rivers and Jones cousins there for their family too. The visits with their favorite Ravenclaws and Gryffindors were fun, but relatively-short cameo moments; and then they split up again once in the stadium so that there were supporters for both teams in the visitor sections for each House. The only difference this time was that the weather was colder than during the junior team match; so the couples opted to stay together. Al was with Gwendolyn and the Ravenclaws; Brandon was with Rose and the Gryffindors; and the parents, aunts, and uncles supported 'their' kids – which was why Al and Gwendolyn ended up sitting with Kirley and Gwenog. They also got Jaimie for the start of the match; though they were expecting to share the twins – and need to entertain them together for parts of the day if the match was another long one.

There wasn't a lot of time to chat before Colin started his pre-game show, but they had fun talking about the match they were about to watch; Colin's recap of the season so far and then the team introductions was very entertaining; and then they enjoyed watching the good luck hugs and kisses at center pitch that earned cheers, whistles, cat-calls, and razzing from the spectators. That also led to some quick jokes about how the Cannons were rubbing off on Hogwarts teams while Mr. Peakes was doing his fair play speech; and then the two teams got ready for take-off. Al wasn't surprised when Stephanie and Cyndia were set against each other for the quaffle toss; and he was more-interested in watching that battle for first possession than in the start of the Seeker duel – mostly because he wanted to see what happened with his brooms when he or Gwendolyn weren't one of the players involved in one of those quaffle tosses.

"And the winner is..." Gwendolyn said quietly – "Cyndia!"

"Yeah!" Al whispered in return; and then laughed when Gwendolyn gave him a shoulder bump. "I'd have been happy either way, but that's a good start for Cyndia."

"It is," Gwendolyn agreed. "They're very closely-matched, though; so we should be in for a good match today."

"I hope so," Al answered. "Your team has at least a couple of advantages; so we'll have to watch and see whether they can really take advantage of those opportunities."

"Are you actually bragging about your equipment?" Gwendolyn asked in amusement. "Gryffindor and Ravenclaw had four players each with your gear – and possibly more for the uniforms; depending on how many of the older prototypes could be passed along to the other players." She laughed at that. "I haven't heard about that from Jonah. Maybe he was worried that I might pass that information along to the enemy through you."

"Lily hasn't said anything either," Al reminded her. "It's true that they have four players each with the brooms, and maybe more than four with the rest of the gear, but that's an even trade at Beater and Seeker; so I think that one of the advantages for Ravenclaw is having two Chasers with the Hurricanes. That'll be a mismatch against Kathryn or Melissa even if it's a draw with Cyndia. Ryan doesn't have one of my brooms but I noticed that he does have a Lightningbolt today; so that should be close to a match for Hugo in goals."

"I'll guess that he has a loaner from the Prides," Gwendolyn suggested. "They did have some extras now that they have some Lightningstorms. That's also another little secret they kept from us. I wonder if he's had that since the start of last summer?"

"If he did, it must've been tempting to use it during our family scrimmages," Al suggested. "That might affect Lily's game plan for today if she was hoping for a big advantage at Keeper."

"Okay, so how about the good for Gryffindor?" Gwendolyn challenged; and Al grinned at her.

"Their Seeker has only lost one match. I'd say that's an advantage. Seriously, though, I really do think that the little advantages that are available are with Ravenclaw. Everything else is just too-evenly matched."

"So you think it'll come down to the Seeker duel?" Gwendolyn surmised; and Al shrugged and nodded.

"Probably – unless something happens to change that – like any serious injuries."

Gwendolyn agreed with him on that – and they watched as his assertions began to play out above the pitch. The differences between the teams was small, so the scoring advantage wasn't obvious to most spectators at first. Ravenclaw scored the first two goals, but Cyndia earned one of those back before the end of the first hour, and while that ended the Keeper efforts toward earning shut-outs; only giving up three goals between them when they'd faced dozens of shots each said a lot about just how well Hugo and Ryan were playing too – and doing that against six very talented Chasers. Lily and Jonah were in another epic Seeker duel; and what Al loved most about the match to that point was that all of the players were having a blast!

The exciting Quidditch action didn't keep Jaimie and Lorie from getting bored of just sitting around, so Al met up with his father and they took the twins for a walk that included a loop by the lake and some story time; along with a horseback ride. That meant missing more than half of the second hour, but then the girls were happy to play with their toys and watch the Quidditch match through to the end of the third hour. As the match rolled into the fourth hour, Ravenclaw still held a lead, but it was only by three goals; and the seventyto-forty score still didn't seem significant when, at that rate, they'd need about sixteen hours to earn the one-sixty lead – assuming that the tide of the match didn't turn in Gryffindor's favor as the players on both teams got tired. That didn't happen during the fourth hour, but everyone was ready for a food timeout when lunch was offered at the start of the fifth hour. Al and Gwendolyn didn't help their respective House teams, but they did take care of getting the twins fed; and he and Harry both got teased a bit about not helping the players with some healing to help them out – or only help the Gryffindor players to give 'their' House an advantage.

While the team time-out wasn't all that long, it was an extended break so that the players really could take time to eat and go for washroom breaks or deal with any other issues – like equipment repairs or adjustments. The twins needed a longer break by then, though, so they went for a little picnic by the lake; there was some running around play time; and then they headed back to the stadium by the end of the fifth hour. Ravenclaw had built their lead to one-forty to ninety by then, and with Lily and Jonah still battling fiercely; there was no end in sight – and speculation began about whether there would be another two-day match. By then, many of the spectators were also keeping an eye on the league Quidditch matches of the day on their portable mirrors, and while the match play at the school stadium rolled along brilliantly; everyone seemed to settle in for the long haul; so the noise level dropped to more of a loud murmur with fewer roars of cheers or jeers for the best plays.

Jaimie and Lorie were together with Harry and Ginny after that extended lunch break; and they had naps while cuddling and staying warm with their grandparents. Al and Gwendolyn were happy to cuddle together and enjoy both the Hogwarts Quidditch and the league match play while chatting with her parents, the rest of her family, and most of their Ravenclaw friends. There were no major changes in the flow of the match; and neither team ever scored more than two goals without a response from their opponent; which was why the one-goal-per-hour lead increase rate continued through the sixth and seventh hours. After napping for an hour and then going for a washroom break, Al and Gwendolyn got another turn taking care of Jaimie and Lorie; they had a bit more play time outside of the stadium; and then they rejoined their gang on the Ravenclaw side of the pitch. The stadium magical lighting kicked in as the match transitioned from the seventh to eighth hours, and with the school dinner fast-approaching; an overnight time-out was looking more and more likely.

Al knew thanks to his extended senses when the decision was made to call that time-out if the match was still undecided by the end of the eighth hour. He didn't even tell Gwendolyn about that, but the players all seemed to be anticipating that outcome because they all began to make one last push to earn extra goals – or the snitch catch, for Lily and Jonah; knowing that even if they exhausted themselves in the attempt and didn't succeed; they'd be able to rest up and go at it again in the morning. Those efforts didn't change much of anything on the scoreboard – until they did. Kathryn had earned the first goal of the eighth hour for Gryffindor, and Stephanie had responded for Ravenclaw – while also regaining a tie with Cyndia for the goals they'd each scored so far. Al sensed the end of the match a few moments early, but waited to get to his feet until everyone watching the Seeker battle at that moment saw Lily and Jonah race after the snitch. He didn't get to his feet until Lily had to dodge a perfectly timed and placed bludger attack from Katrina, but he did give Gwendolyn, Jaimie, and Lorie the heads up; and they were all up and cheering as that brilliant bit of help from Katrina finally gave Jonah an advantage that Lily couldn't overcome.

"Yeah!" they all cheered in unison as they watched Jonah catch the snitch for only his second win in six seasons over Lily.

"I mean Boo!" Lorie added loudly; though she was only heard by the Witches and Wizards closest to them over the roar of the crowd. "I wanted Aunt Lily to win!"

"Will she turn Uncle Jonah into a Bat-Bogey now?" Jaimie asked; sounding a bit worried.

"I hope so!" Lorie suggested. "That'd be cool – and maybe Mum would let us keep him for a pet!"

"Do you think so?" Jaimie asked; suddenly sounding more-hopeful than worried; and earning a round of laughs.

"Well, if she was going to do that; I really think it's mean to hug and kiss him like that first," Gwendolyn teased, "but she punched him too; so it's hard to tell whether she's mad at Jonah or not."

"I'll guess that she's mad at him and happy for him," Al offered. "We're not going to get to spend much time with them after such a long match, though, so let's pack up and get out to center pitch so you can help Lily out with some hugs and kisses too. I'm sure that will help to cheer her up – and maybe save Jonah from ending up as a Bat-Bogey later."

They did that, and really weren't allowed to have all that much time for the post-game festivities when Colin announced that the students had a bit less than an hour to get to the Great Hall for dinner – and the players all needed to hit the showers and get cleaned up first. The celebration lasted for as long as possible – especially for Cyndia and Ray and Lily, Jonah, and their family, but then it was time for all of the visitors to go before the gates were closed for the night; Al, Gwendolyn, and their extended group said their last goodbyes at or near the stadium instead of having an after-dark escort of teens near the Forbidden forest; and then most of them headed to the Cannons' community so that they could have dinner together while their favorite Hogwarts teens and tweens moved on to their own evening meal and entertainments.

"Are we going to have a magical battle next?" Stephanie joked as she walked out of the locker room and saw that the entire Gryffindor team was waiting there a handful of paces away. Her comment earned a round of laughs from the rest of the teens around her.

"No," Lily answered. "We've decided to be happy for our friends instead of turning you into Bat-Bogeys."

"Especially since we really don't want to go into the Forbidden forest after dark to put you into the noses of Acromantulas," Fred added as he met up with Katrina and they shared a hug and kiss – as Lily and Hugo were soon doing with their respective boyfriend or girlfriend. "Thanks to our junior team, we still have the tie-break advantage with a win each – though the plus-thirty for us and minus-thirty for your House isn't a big deal."

Jonah laughed; and she looked at him in confusion. "Sorry, but that is a big deal when Hufflepuff currently has one win too – and a larger points lead right now; so we're only in second and third place tonight."

"Then I guess we'll all need to cheer for Slytherin in their next match," Lily decided. "I'm sure that our Hufflepuff friends will understand."

"They might; but I won't – unless Slytherin suddenly becomes a changed team and plays nice this season," Stephanie advised her. "I won't cheer for a bunch of cheats – even if that's best for us."

"Andrea's their Captain; so maybe we can hope that she will have them play nice," Jonah suggested; and Lily slapped him.

"You are far too-fond of Andrea Avery," she suggested; and Jonah shrugged.

"I'm not, really," he assured her. "That doesn't mean that I don't think that she's one of the few Slytherin players that doesn't cheat – mostly because she's good-enough that she doesn't need to do it."

"James is good-enough too; and that doesn't stop him from cheating," Stephanie reminded him; and Jonah shrugged again.

"Is he really that good? Do any of us actually know what his record would be for matches when he didn't cheat?"

"Has he played many matches when he actually did play entirely by the rules?" Lily countered. "That may have happened back in his first or second year here at Hogwarts; but notsince then – and definitely not since we started here. He always cheats. The only difference between his wins and losses is that the cheating doesn't always ensure a win."

"Well, his record for the first two years here wasn't very good," Jonah reminded her, "so even if we give him credit for playing fair in all of those matches; it means that he was only the third or fourth-best junior team Seeker at the school." He smiled ruefully. "I'm not suggesting that James isn't talented – only that we don't actually know how good he is compared to the other Seekers in a totally fair duel. That's exactly the same for the Falcons. We may never know how good any of their players truly are when they never play by the rules."

"I'm pretty sure we did find that out during their match against the Cannons," Hugo offered with a grin. "Sure, they still cheated, but when they can't hurt any of their opponents; then they don't do very well at all."

"Are you suggesting that we should have cheated today?" Lily joked; and Hugo shook his head.

"No – and you don't mean that. None of us would want to win that way. I think that we all played brilliantly – and our best. I'd only feel awful if I didn't do that and lost."

"I am so glad that Al's left the school grounds," Lily decided with an attempt to look serious. "Just having him around for most of a day messes everyone up!"

"Do you think that the Slytherins are all happier tonight too?" Alyssa teased.

"Actually, they likely are," Lily answered with a nod. "Gryffindor lost, so that's always something that makes them happy, and because we have three teams with one win right now; they've got a chance to go from last to as high as first if they win their senior team match over Hufflepuff by enough points."

"I'd say that they have a shot at that," Jonah suggested; "but won't add why; since that might just get me into trouble."

Lily laughed and pretended to punch him again. "So you'll just put it that way instead of saying that Andrea is better than Luke Summerby. I don't disagree with you, and shouldn't; since we don't want Hufflepuff to take two wins and the Quidditch Cup lead into the Christmas holidays. I'd also be happy to have our team in first place – even if that's only by sixty points!"

Al and Gwendolyn had fun with the post-game take-out dinner and evening entertainment on Saturday night, but as usual, there was a work price to be paid for taking Saturday off to play – and they paid that debt on Sunday with an early-morning mirror network interview; a VIP luncheon at the cafe; and then another in the seemingly-endless line of supplier events that was only fun for them because of the kids they helped to entertain and play with for a couple of hours. They were finished with the work in time for a family dinner with both sets of parents; and then they wrapped up their weekend with the usual mirror chat with Lily and Jonah, visits with some neighbors, and an early bedtime that was even ahead of training curfew because they were just ready to call it a night by then and wind down toward sleep with a bit of quiet play time for two.

There was a lot going on during the second full week of November. Al and Gwendolyn had no involvement in Andrea Avery's seventeenth birthday – other than a small gift that Al sent to her. That wasn't surprising, but they also had nothing to do with Molly's twenty-third birthday beyond sending a larger, joint gift to her too that all of the younger cousins were in on – and that Rose and Gwendolyn took care of choosing for their cousin. Normally, birthday celebrations should be more-fun than working most of the time, but that wasn't true for the Cannons; and they had a brilliant first four days of training as they counted down the days to their big match on Saturday. Al was sure that the fun level would drop for him thanks to the Catapults-Falcons match on Thursday evening – especially since that was going to be a battle between the team that wanted to beat the Falcons even more-convincingly than the Cannons had on Halloween night and the team that wanted to get revenge on that loss by besting one of the teams that had Weasleys or Potters on it. Al and Gwendolyn still had their training curfew to deal with, but after having a dinner for two at home; they met up with quite a few of their team mates and neighbors in the cafe to watch the match.

"Should we put a cheering charm on you before the quaffle toss?" Rose teased as Al and Gwendolyn sat down at the table she was already sharing with Brandon, Seth, and Susannah. "You can skip this if you really need to do that; since I don't want you in a bad place for our match on Saturday."

"I'll try to stay happy without the help," Al answered. "Did the predictions all go to the Catapults?"

"One expert picked the Falcons for the payback potential." Rose had that answer for him; and then Brandon added – "But we think that's rubbish."

"I don't doubt that the Falcons will hope to do that," Al offered, "but I'd still pick the Catapults to win tonight too."

"That doesn't mean that we want either team to win," Gwendolyn told their friends. "If either team gets an advantage through injury or some other way; we'll likely be in for a long night as they play on and try to run it up on the other team."

"No, we won't," Rose disagreed with a smile. "That's an advantage for training night curfews – for us!"

"Okay," Gwendolyn conceded; "but you know what I meant. This match is likely to be long and ugly – especially since the players on both teams are on record promising to bring the pain and earn a blow-out win."

"Which proves that our matches against them changed nothing," Seth suggested. "There's probably something wrong with me because I'm okay with that. We still had fun in both of those matches too; so maybe it's okay to have some bad guys to battle in the league."

"Al wouldn't agree with that," Susannah told him; and Seth laughed.

"Al wants all of the bad guys to become good guys, Susannah. You shouldn't want that either; since something like that would put your Mum out of a job – and we already know how hard it is for a former Head of the Aurors to find work!"

"Does your Mum play Quidditch?" Gwendolyn teased. "I've never seen her join in on a scrimmage."

"No, she doesn't," Susannah answered. "There's no point in going on about this, though, since there will always be bad guys; and we'll always have need for Aurors, the Hit Squad, and the rest of the Magical Law Enforcement department."

"We will," Al agreed, "but for tonight; I'll hope that none of them are needed at the stadium."

Lily and Jonah sat at a work table as the Catapults' match began; they were already working on their assignments of the day; and had Hugo, Alyssa, Kathryn, Melissa, and Denise with them while the rest of their study group and game watchers were at other tables or sitting on sofas. While she would have preferred the cuddle time with Jonah, history had proved that she couldn't cuddle first and study later; so they'd opted to get the rest of their work done before playing in the pool or cuddling on the sofas. The battle at Exmoor started out exactly as horridly as Lily had expected; there were hits and cheap shots on both sides as the fourteen players took off; and Scorpius both won the race for the quaffle and then scored the first goal of the match against Rupert Avery.

"Do you give him credit for that goal because he earned it despite the cheating from the Falcons; or not because he cheated too?" Melissa asked her table mates. "There should be a law or something against Wizards being that hot and also so rotten – and I mean that for Scorpius and Blaise."

"What's the world coming to when the bad guys aren't ugly too?" Hugo teased. "It used to be so easy to tell them apart; and now it's practically impossible!"

"I might have agreed with that – before seeing that portrait of the Dark Lord at the memorial service. He was hot when he was young too; so maybe it just takes time for the ugly to set in for the worst of the bad guys."

"There's some truth to that," Denise offered seriosly. "Just look at the differences between those old former Death Eaters and their youngest descendants; and you can see how much uglier they've gotten. The Dark Arts do take a toll on the Wizard or Witch."

Lily nodded. "We've always been told that some of those Death Eaters were very beautiful or handsome when young. Voldemort delved deepest into the Dark Arts; so it's no surprise that his appearance changed so much." She paused to watch some of the action on the mirror and shook her head. "I'd better change the subject; since I don't want to start thinking about how ugly my eldest brother might be in a few decades if he keeps going the way he has been over the past seven or eight years."

"He does pretty well against Brand – in a really bad way," Kathryn said as she paused her work to watch a replay of a particularly-nasty exchange between James and Brand. "I didn't expect them to use their manners and thank or compliment each other, but it is surprising that James can go up against bigger Wizards and not get knocked around."

Lily laughed. "Haven't you ever seen Al in a fight – and without using his wand? He's much nicer about it, but when he has to fight; the other guys always lose." She laughed again. "One time when we were visiting our Muggle cousins; one of them was goaded into an exhibition fight with Al. He's at least three times Al's size – and maybe four times bigger back then; but Al fought him to a draw."

"Gwendolyn told me that Al was holding back so that he didn't embarrass his cousin in front of his mates; and that cousin was also an undefeated school boxing champion."

"For an entire district of Muggle schools ," Lily added with a nod. "I'm only suggesting that James may have inherited some of those fighting skills too – even though he uses them in horrid ways."

"Says the Witch with a fondness for Bat-Bogeys," Melissa teased. "Will you use them against your opponents in the show?"

"I might," Lily agreed. "You might want to think about getting hired by the Harpies too."

Melissa laughed. "I'd like that; but have been wishing that there would be more job openings for the Cannons instead."

"Especially when we're watching a match like this," Kathryn added with a nod. "Having a couple of talented Healers on the team will make matches against teams like these a lot less-painful!"

As they watched the ongoing battle at Exmoor, Lily was sure that most of the players would soon wish that they had Healers on the team – even if most of them were too full of themselves to ever admit that to anyone. As usual for the top teams, the Catapults were able to jump out to a strong lead against the Falcons while fighting to avoid the fouls and cheap shots. James, Tiberius, Brock, and Scorpius were able to give as good as they got – or more; so there were definitely injuries adding up for all of the players that took a toll on them. Scorpius led the way to the one-sixty lead by early in the third hour; and the Catapults built on that lead fast through until Lily and Jonah led the way to packing up when it was time to head back to their Houses ahead of curfew.

Lily had most of her Gryffindor friends with her to continue the game-watching in the common room; so they all got to see James get knocked out of the match at a bit-more than half-way through the fifth hour. Lily could hate the way her eldest brother acted, but that didn't keep her from loving him; so she also hated watching him as he was pounded by Brand and Theo; they blocked him into a bludger hit to the side of his face from Gregor; and then he crashed into the stadium seating among the Catapults' fans. She knew that he was badly-hurt because he wasn't moving and there were body parts twisted in unnatural positions, and since it was well-past the Cannons' team curfew by then; she decided to call and wake Al up so that he could help their brother if needed.

"Hello, Lily," Al said in a whisper after answering his mirror on the first chime. "This must be bad if you're risking getting me into trouble with my manager and captain for breaking curfew."

"James just got knocked out of the match," Lily advised him shortly. "From what we're seeing; he's been hurt pretty badly. Brand and Theo sandwiched him; and then blocked him into a bludger hit to the face. The crash into the seating might have been worse; so you might want to get Mum and Dad and head for St. Mungo's – or the stadium."

"I'll do that," Al promised. "Keep in touch if you find out anything new; and I'll keep you posted on things at this end – by mirror messages if you're heading to bed soon."

"I doubt I'll be able to do that," Lily told him. "James has been a git all night so far, but he's still our brother; and I hate seeing things like this happen to him."

"Me too," Al agreed. "Try not to worry. We'll make sure he's okay."

"I know you will – that's why I called. Talk to you later."

Al ended the mirror chat; woke Gwendolyn; and explained what had happened. It took some convincing to get her to stay and sleep at least until they knew more about James' condition, but she conceded that she couldn't do anything to help anyway; and he got dressed and then met up with his parents after calling them. They headed for St. Mungo's after checking with friends at the match and finding out that James was being rushed there; and then Al and Harry basically threw themselves into the middle of the late-night medical emergencies being dealt with at the hospital. James was the worst case, but a dozen or more spectators were injured in the crash too, so while Al offered his aide to the Healers taking care of his brother; Harry went to help with the other incoming patients; and Ginny did what she could to help all three of her boys – including the one with some horrific injuries.

When Al got his first look at James' condition, he had to deal with some anger issues, but he pushed them aside for dealing with later; convinced the Healers on the case to let him deal with the worst head injuries; and jumped in to do what he could to save James from what might have been weeks or months of recovery time. He also ignored the little voice inside that suggested that months of downtime to reflect might be good for James – and for the league too; since those thoughts were definitely-wrong. The skull fractures didn't take him all that long to heal, but James needed to get another swelled head to deal with the brain swelling that simply needed time and ongoing treatments to heal. The facial reconstruction was much more difficult; and Al spent hours on that effort. He kept track of the rest of the healing being done on James; helped out here and there when he noticed problems that the Healers didn't; and they managed to get James put back together again by about four-thirty in the morning.

"Thank-you," Ginny told Al while pulling him into a warm hug once he was finished working on James and had wrapped up a last discussion with the Healers. "Are you okay?"

"Yes, but we may need to add a nap to our training schedule today; and Rose won't be happy if I don't get back to full power by tomorrow."

"If you're not – we'll get your father to help you out," Ginny assured him; and then grinned before adding – "unless you'd like to take the day off. I could play Chaser for you and put Harry in at Seeker."

"That's an idea, but unless I need to sleep for a couple of days; I really don't want to miss out on Gwendolyn's first match against the Harpies – or yours; and I'm sure you'd prefer to have that first official Seeker duel against Aunt Gabrielle too."

"I would," Ginny agreed. "How's James? I heard enough of what you talked about to know he'll be recovering for a while, but he looks a lot better now; and I'll guess that the big head is only temporary – like it was when he got hit at Hogwarts."

"He'll be fine; though we'll have to wait and see how long he needs to recover the rest of the way."

"I'll guess this recovery will be faster than that one," Ginny predicted. "Skipping classes is one thing, but missing Quidditch matches in the show is something else; and I doubt that his ego will allow him to miss matches."

"Probably not," Al agreed. "Let's get out of here. If we're lucky; we can do that without getting the attention of too many reporters."

Ginny shook her head. "Sorry, but the match is over; and there are both Catapults' team mates and reporters staked out here waiting for news about the condition of the World's greatest Seeker."

Al sighed. "I should've worked faster," he said in self-chastisement. "Okay, then let's get it over with as soon as we can and then go home."

"Your father is still busy," Ginny advised him.

"They're still working on the other injured spectators?" Al asked in surprise; and Ginny grinned at him.

"No, and if you think that your help for James will get some attention; wait until the reporters find out that Harry has been helping Blaise Zabini. Tiberius, Brock, and Scorpius teamed up for some payback and knocked him out of the match too."

"Does that mean that the Catapults won without James?"

Ginny nodded. "Yes," she agreed. "After the Falcons lost Blaise; Scorpius really pushed to run it up on the Falcons; and then Brand caught the snitch for the loss near the end of the seventh hour. The final score was six-eighty to two-forty."

"Are there Falcons here too? I hope we won't have to worry about a fight. I'm a bit tired."

"I'd have your back," Ginny promised, "but that shouldn't be a problem. Let's go and check in on your father; and then decide whether you should wait for him or head home without us."

They didn't end up needing to do that because Harry was on his way toward them by then. There was some weird to deal with thanks to the Catapults' players, but while they had to put up with glares and dark emotions from some of the players; the visit with Louis, Miya, and Roman was only awkward as they were happy about the help with healing James while wishing that Al hadn't done that – even after being advised by the Healers that the assistance had knocked weeks or months off of James' recovery time. Running the reporter gauntlet was worse, but Al and Harry simply told the truth; and it was a safe bet that many of the reports on Friday about their involvement would not be flattering. by then, Al was just ready to go home. He only had time for a nap by then, so instead of risking passing out for a day or more; he had a shower, got ready for the day; and spent a bit of extra time with Gwendolyn when she woke early despite his efforts to be quiet.

They moved on to eventually have breakfast with the team; and then tried to get back to work as normal for their last training day ahead of their match on Saturday.

"What's the latest news?" Hugo asked Lily as he stood and welcomed her in the Gryffindor common room. "I don't know whether to believe half of the Quidditch news stories on the mirror network or wireless web."

"That's normal for every day," Lily joked. "I managed to have a nap, but there were mirror messages waiting for me this morning; so I know that James is going to be okay. He'll still need some time to recover, so knowing him; that should prove entertaining."

"He can likely milk this for any losses over at least the next few months if he plays his cards right," Hugo suggested; and then shook his head. "I shouldn't speak ill of the seriously-injured – even though we know he'll be a horror toward Al when he wakes up and finds out that he has Al to thank for saving him yet again – even if that's just from a much-longer recovery."

"I didn't get any messages suggesting he'd been in danger of dying," Lily offered; "so you can likely ignore those reports."

"Did your Dad help Blaise Zabini?" Hugo asked. "That's another top story this morning."

"He did," Lily agreed. "I don't know why for sure. It's possible that the Healers were just overwhelmed with all of the injuries and he was available to help."

"St. Mungo's ought to hire both of them," Hugo suggested; and Lily laughed.

"Why? They've gotten the help for free so far. I'd really love to see the looks on the Catapults' owners faces if they got sent a huge bill for Al's services, but I suppose that's just wrong of me to feel that way."

"You're thinking that, and I was wondering whether your Dad and brother could get into trouble with the league for helping James and Blaise. The next teams that the Catapults and Falcons are playing against won't be happy if they might have been able to play against reserve players instead of James or Blaise."

"I doubt that applies for something like this," Lily said thoughtfully. "There are rules about interfering in matches or attacking other players before or after matches – if a Wizard or Witch was actually dim-enough to get caught doing something like that; but I can't think of any rules against helping other players." She laughed suddenly and grinned at her cousin. "If there were rules against that; then James should've tried invoking it while here at Hogwarts for all of those times Al helped other players!"

"Then there definitely isn't a rule; since he kept trying to invoke totally invented rules to try and get forfeits," Hugo suggested. "Are you meeting up with Jonah this morning? We don't have much time if you are."

"I'm sure we'll talk before breakfast, but we didn't set anything up – and I'm late because we stayed up way too late last night. I seriously need to make a new friend with the talent for fatigue healing – or get you or Jonah to learn the trick of it."

"Isn't it more-likely that you inherited the talent?" Hugo asked in amusement. "You definitely are your father's daughter in a lot of ways."

Lily laughed. "Honestly, I've never really thought about trying," she admitted. "I should likely talk with Al about that next time we see him and find out if he can teach me."

James woke up slowly. He drifted along in blackness for quite a while; which gave him time for conscious thought to kick in. As his memories slowly returned; he groaned silently; but not from physical pain – he didn't want to wake up and deal with the fall-out from having his team let him down yet again. As the last images of the match that he remembered played out in his mind; he turned his burgeoning anger toward Tiberius and Brock. What the hell had they been doing while half of the Falcons' team was ganging up on him and knocking him into his bed at St. Mungo's! That thought had him taking a moment to assess how he was feeling; and it was a surprise to find that he didn't actually feel all that bad. Sure, he was weak; and he recognized the swollen head that meant the Healers had made room for another brain injury, but all things considered; he was in better shape than he expected.

The potential reasons for that had him waking the rest of the way; and he opened his eyes and tried to look around without moving his head. There wasn't daylight shining through the windows of his room, and the lights were turned down low as normal for night time; but that didn't tell him anything about how long he'd been sleeping. He heard a sound to his right – someone shifting around in a chair to get more-comfortable.

"Who's there?" he asked in a bit of a croak; his mouth dry and throat parched.

"Ritchie – your evening shift Catapults' representative," Ritchie Cootes told him. He stood and stepped over to the bed so that James could see him. "It's a bit after dinnertime on Friday; and you've been out for about eighteen or nineteen hours. How are you feeling?"

"Not bad – for getting crushed; taking a bludger to the face; and crashing," James retorted. "If you're here; do I want to know the rest of the bad news?"

Ritchie laughed quietly. "That depends on the kind of news you expect to get. Since you're likely talking about the quidditch match; that's actually good news – we won."

"Right," James said in disbelief. "Remind me again which of us got hit in the head?"

"We won by a score of six-eighty to two-forty," Ritchie advised him seriously. "After you got knocked out of the match, Tiberius, Brock, and Scorpius retaliated and put Blaise Zabini in the hospital. With the extra Chaser advantage; we were piling the goals up on the Falcons; so Brand Bletchley caught the snitch for the loss near the end of the seventh hour."

"They should've knocked that git out instead – along with the Nott brothers."

"You'd want that, but when you think about it; what they did do was worse for the Falcons. They knew that they weren't going to catch up on the scoreboard; so intentionally losing the match meant admitting that we beat them."

"Maybe," James conceded grudgingly, "but I'll still want my Beaters to explain where they were while I was being ganged up on and knocked out." He frowned then. "If losing wasn't the bad news – what was?" he demanded.

"Your brother..." Ritchie began; and then stopped when James began swearing. "...and everyone knows it because that first round of Healing took hours; so your team mates, the reporters, and quite a few fans were here by the time they were done." He waited while the swearing continued for quite a while. "Yes, that's going to suck for you, but your father also helped to Heal Blaise Zabini while the Healers here were overloaded with injuries from the spectators that were hurt in your crash; so he's sure to have a bad few days too. The good news for both of you, though, is that we're talking aobout days of bad and much-shorter recovery times. Go ahead and hate that help all you want James, but we've been advised that you might have been off-work for months without it – not to mention that your face might have never been the same again on the side that got hit by that bludger." There was more swearing; but Ritchie just waited it out. "Are you done yet?" he finally asked as James got to the point where he was just repeating the curses over and over again.

"No," james spat derisively. "Why didn't you make sure that the Animorphfreak didn't get anywhere near me? I'll wager that the entire story you just told me is a lie; and he's just taking credit for being a hero again – as always."

Ritchie shrugged. "Believe what you want. I saw what you looked like after that crash. We also got that report on your injuries from the Healers – not your ex-family; and we didn't do anything to stop them because we didn't find out about it until after the match was over and we got here too – several hours after you did."

"Eveyrone always has excuses for incompetence; yet still manage to keep their jobs," James spat. "I should fire the lot of you!"

"Your team mates managed to find a way to win a match without you, James; so this might not be the time to convince the owners to fire them – or Daniel and me. I need to let the Healers on duty know that you're awake, though, and give Daniel an update too; so I'll go do that."

"Do that – and don't come back," James ordered. "If being the bearer of bad news is your only job; I'd rather hire a hot, naked Witch to do that instead!"

Ritchie laughed. "You'd prefer that for everyone that does any job for you – from team mate to housekeeper. I can head out now, if you're serious about that. I expect that you'll get some visitors soon anyway once word gets out that you're awake again – maybe even from some of your favorite Witches."

Al managed to get through their trainng day while dealing with being tired without showing that to the reporters or most of the others around him, but once they were finished work for the day, he let Gwendolyn take him home; they had dinner with his parents; and then he went to bed and crashed for the night. Harry and Ginny stayed with Gwendolyn for a while after he was out for the count; helped with the clean-up; and then they got drinks; went out to the atrium; and joined a group of neighbors that were all going with a quiet evening ahead of their match against the Harpies. Their conversation included a lot of Quidditch chat time; and they discussed both the Catapults' match and the latest news about those ongoing stories as well as going over their plans for Saturday. They were still doing that when the word reached them that James had woken from his extended nap; and Louis took a tiny step back toward them by calling his Aunt Ginny to give her that update personally. That was something to discuss after the mirror chat as much as the news.

"Now we know part of the reason for why Al's so tired," Ginny suggested. "Feel free to talk about that while I let Lily know the latest too."

"Al took the worst of the magical drain from the Healing," Gwendolyn surmised with an unsurprised nod of understanding. "How long does it normally take to wake up from those sorts of injuries?"

"A week or more," Harry answered – "and it can be that for far-less than the injuries that Al dealt with for James. We know that he'll hate it, but it's still true that James could have been out of commission for months without Al's special gifts."

"I have mixed feelings about that possibility; so I probably should say nothing," Gwendolyn decided. "Can we let Al sleep until right before game time tomorow? I'll guess that James will have some juicy, unpleasant quotes about him by later tonight or tomorrow morning at the latest."

"I doubt he'll do that, but if Al does sleep in; we don't have to wake him until later in the morning," Harry suggested. "I really wish that James would come around and figure out that he's been wrong about so many things. It's when things like this happen that we need our loved ones to be there for us, and he doesn't really have anyone to do that for him."

"He does have a few people that love him," Ginny disagreed. "We were there for him last night; and I'm sure that friends like Patricia and Bristol will be there for him now – even if he doesn't appreciate that either."

"Not in the way he should, anyway," Gwendolyn added. "Bristol's proving to be a lot like James – if the gossip is to be believed, so their relationship is different, but what he does to Patricia is just wrong – even if she should have figured that out by now and moved on."

"Been there, understand that," Malorie interjected as she joined them. "Did I overhear news about James?"

"Yes," Ginny answered while putting her mirror away after exchanging a few messages with Lily. "He's woken; and is probably in a foul mood; since Louis didn't want to comment on that with me."

"That's good that he's woken so soon, right?"

"It is," Ginny agreed; and then laughed. "I wonder if he woke at about the same time that Al crashed? That'd be a weird coincidence."

"And a bit funny," Malorie added with a nod of agreement. "I'll move on and give the girls that update. Do you want some play or bedtime cuddle time with them before I take them into the townhouse? We're going to turn in early so that they'll be ready for tomorrow."

"I'll come along," Ginny decided. "A bit of playground entertainment with the girls and then an early bedtime sounds like a great idea. Al isn't the only one that didn't get much sleep last night."

Louis and Deanna hosted a game-watching party for four on

Saturday afternoon with only Miya and Roman on the guest list. They had a pizza lunch; and then settled onto the two sofas in their sitting room in time to catch the game-day predictions from Teresa and Kylie. Unlike Lee's expert panel predictions; Teresa and Kylie usually came up with various, usually-amusing reasons for their picks that often had nothing at all to do with Quidditch. For the Harpies' match; Teresa picked the Harpies because she needed a break from big-headed Wizards after the Catapults-Falcons' match; and Kylie picked the Cannons because the Wizards are hot and more-fun to watch – especially in their new team uniforms. The mood in the room was a bit subdued, but they were also happy to do this 'work' assignment without any of the nonsense that they had to put up with when watching matches with the other four members of their team. They didn't have that problem today because the McClaggens were with James at St. Mungo's; and Scorpius had other plans with Lysandra that might or might not include game watching.

"Are you going to any of your sisters' matches anymore?" Miya asked Louis as they watched Gwendolyn win the quaffle toss against Victoire. "We're not allowed to admit it, but this would be an awesome match to watch at the stadium. Roman and I might have gone, but by the time we thought about getting tickets; the match was already sold out."

"Check with me next time," Louis suggested. "My family has quite a few seasons' tickets for the Harpies – and likely for the Cannons now too; though the tickets for this match were likely spoken for already before opening day of training camp."

"And do you catch many of the Harpies or United matches?" Roman repeated.

Louis shrugged. "I don't get to many at the stadiums anymore. Deanna and I like to do other things whenever we have time off together; and it's really strained with my family right now; so there's less stress for us if we just avoid the drama."

"We can relate," Roman assured him. "Politics at the Ministry of Magic are causing families to take sides; and it isn't good for any of us."

"We're having issues within ourselves when it comes to taking sides," Deanna advised them quietly; and then smiled ruefully. "to prove that, I'm half-wishing that you'd all go back to talking Quidditch instead of politics – and you all know how much I love Quidditch."

"Is it already time to invoke Rule Number One?" Miya teased; earning a round of laughs.

"Now and regularly pretty much every day," Louis offered with a nod and smile – with the nod being directed at the mirror. "There's goal number one for the Cannons; and it was already through before Vicky got turned around. Been there; know the feeling."

"I'd like to know that feeling," Miya told him as they watched the fly-by hug between Al and Gwendolyn. "The last time I felt anything that good about playing Quidditch was when I was still playing for Ravenclaw."

"Thursday night was pretty good," Roman told her. "I felt good after we bested the Falcons even without our King and Seeker."

Miya shrugged. "That was satisfying – except for the parts where our team mates needed to cheat as badly as the Falcons to get that win." She paused and laughed when Victoire stuck her tongue out at Al after he intercepted a pass that had been meant for her from Amber. "Been there; hated that too," she added. "Will you be offended if we don't spend the afternoon pretending that the Cannons are the worst team in history while watching them play this brilliantly?"

"I think the answer to that is no," Louis joked. "Watching Cannons matches has me as messed up about my job as Deanna and I are about the Ministry of Magic drama and politics."

"We've reached the top and play on one of the best teams in the league – the defending league champions; yet we hate our jobs," Miya summarized. "I'll trust admitting that to you."

"And I feel the same way," Roman added. "If I wanted to be honest, I knew what I was getting into when I signed on with the Catapults, but did it anyway; so this is just the price I was apparently willing to pay to win – and get closer to Miya."

"That last part ought to be what makes all of the awful worthwhile," Louis suggested. "I'm expecting that to get worse for us whenever James gets back to work again."

"How long do you think he'll be off?" Roman asked. "We managed to win the last match, but we already had the one-sixty lead when he went out. I doubt we'd last that long against any of the other teams with our reserve Seeker on the team instead of James."

"Not against the Tornados," Louis agreed. "We don't know how long James will need yet. Right now, my guess is that he'll find a way to avoid training with us; supposedly rest up to play in the matches; and then blame us or the injuries if we don't win. He milked his head injury for months after that time he got hit by a bludger at Hogwarts."

"It is totally wrong for me to be happy about the prospect of James-free practices for the rest of the season," Miya declared; and then laughed. "Oh well – nobody's perfect!"

It was fairly-cold in the stadium, but Harry had Lorie for a cuddle buddy under a blanket; and she was having a late-afternoon nap while he watched the non-stop action above the pitch. The third hour was coming to an end; and the Cannons had a comfortable one-sixty to sixty lead. The Chasers and Keepers battles were brilliant to watch – and a lot of fun, but so was Ginny's Seeker duel with Gabrielle – and they were having just as much fun as the rest of their team mates! Despite their preparations, the Harpies gave up the first three goals before Victoire led the fight for her team and began making adjustments to counter the tricks that Al and Gwendolyn were having so much fun with at their expense. As far as Harry was concerned, Victoire's game play proved that she was easily the best Chaser the Cannons had played against so far this season; and that challenge had all of the Harpies' Chasers fired up and having fun too.

With a granddaughter sleeping in his arms, Harry couldn't get up and cheer every amazing play, but he cheered on the inside and enjoyed watching Al, Gwendolyn, and Ginny play so brilliantly against their favorite team. There was a lot going on to try and keep up with, but he tried to watch everything – from the Quidditch action above to the little cameo moments of fun – like the time he saw Glynnis punch her Assistant Manager after a particularly-amazing goal from Gwendolyn. Even the family rivalry was entertaining, with one of the highlights being Molly and Arthur's decision to support Victoire and 'their' team instead of Ron's – and Ginny's – team. Harry was happy to cheer for all of his favorite players on both teams; and thanks to such a brilliant display of Quidditch; he was sure that he'd be happy regardless of which team eventually earned the win!

James was in a foul mood as he lay propped up in his hospital bed after eating a horrendously-bad hospital dinner – food that now churned in the pit of his stomach at least in part because the Quidditch match that he kept watching despite hating every minute of it was making him ill. Then again, it might just be the stench of the loser still lingering in the room from Thursday night making him want to puke as much as all of the happy smiles and faked good sportsmanship he was seeing on his mirror.

"Don't look so happy to see me," Patricia told him as she walked into his room. She was dressed up; looking her very best; and still he could barely manage a grimace in welcome. "I brought real food," she added; and James laughed.

"I wish that I'd known," he told her. "I'd have skipped eating that crap they call food around here at dinner – or all day."

"Well, turn that match off; and I'm sure your appetite will come back," Patricia suggested. "I don't want to watch that either; and now you have something better to do."

James grinned at her; and his smile and mood change were both real and welcomed. "Well, I'm practically still an invalid, but if we're careful; I'm sure that I can be up for anything you have in mind!"

Lily happily cuddled with Jonah on one of the sofas as they continued to watch the Harpies-Cannons' match – and she intentionally thought about it in that order because she insisted on supporting her team over the Cannons – even after her brother and sister-in-law had earned the one-sixty lead over her team despite Victoire's brilliant game play to that point too! Okay, the Cannons were collectively playing brilliantly too, and she loved watching her mother and adopted aunt having such an amazing Seeker duel too; which made it very hard to get mad about the score. Then again, cuddling with Jonah made it tough to be mad about anything too – which she should probably be mad about!

"Will you hex the messenger if I suggest that Gabrielle ought to catch the snitch for the loss?" Jonah leaned close and whispered; and then laughed quietly when she glared at him. "I'll take that as a maybe."

"More like a probably," she disagreed. "Why would you say that?"

"Because I think that Mum should make that call," he answered honestly. "Trying to catch up to Al and Gwendolyn isn't going to work; and she's forgotten that they just get better as a match goes along – not to mention that Al can keep healing his team mates so they don't get tired out."

"The Harpies only need to get three goals to get the lead back down to under one-sixty," Lily protested.

"Have you kept track of how long they've been trying to do that?" Jonah countered. "It's been a couple of hours now," he added when she shrugged. "Do you think that Gabrielle can keep defending the snitch indefinitely – against your Mum? The Cannons are giving the Harpies the choice by not defending the snitch, but your mother will end it if she gets the chance; since they don't want to keep having marathon matches."

"You think that Mum will win her Seeker duel?" Lily challenged.

"Don't you think she can?" Jonah asked in amusement. "You think that you can best Gabrielle – and your Mum has the advantage getting to just wait for best chances now? Honestly, I'm surprised that Gabrielle has lasted this long."

"We want our team to win," Lily reminded him, "but instead of going there; you have brought up something that I am wondering about right now. Do you think that you can best Aunt Gabrielle? You are planning on playing for the Cannons; so you'll have to face her at least once a year – assuning you share that job with Mum or someone else."

Jonah grinned at her. "Well, I finally managed to win a Seeker duel against you; so I'm feeling pretty good about my chances right now."

Lily laughed. "Don't get used to that; since I don't plan on letting you win another Seeker duel against me – against Gryffindor or the Harpies!"

"Okay," Jonah agreed; and grinned when that surprised Lily. "I'll be okay with losing the Seeker duels to you as long as I can keep up with you until my teams get the one-sixty leads in those matches."

"Probably is starting to look like definitely," Lily warned.

"I love you; and am shutting up now," Jonah promised.

Ginny smiled brilliantly as she raced around above the pitch and battled against her sister-in-law's sister and one of her own best friends. That friendship didn't keep her from being excited as she set up what she hoped would be a happy end to a brilliant day of Quidditch!

"Now!" she whispered into her magical earbuds as she took a hard turn; crossed paths with Gwendolyn; and then blasted off while Gabrielle had to dodge Gwendolyn and then a bludger. That gave Ginny all of the space she needed, since the snitch had been speeding toward them; and she laughed happily as she caught it and then did a happy spin-flip before braking and waiting for Gabrielle to catch up to her.

"Quit grinning like that – you just beat our team!" Gabrielle teased; and Ginny laughed again before sharing a mid-air hug.

"I can't help it. That was brilliant – and I mean the entire Seeker duel and match!"

"It was – right up until our team lost," Gabrielle agreed and amended. "Congratulations, Ginny. Now go celebrate with those kids while I get together with the rest of my team and have a chat with Gwenog about why we should've hired Gwendolyn and Rose instead!"

"Do you think that's a good idea?" Ginny asked. "Lily is looking to take your job in a bit more than a year and a half; so you might want to reconsider demands involving replacing any of your team mates."

"That's a good point," Gabrielle conceded easily – not to mention that the Harpies' owners might decide that they should hire you too after this match."

"I doubt that," Ginny disagreed. "We'll have to wait for our next match to see which of us can win a Seeker duel while the match-win is still up for grabs. We both know that no Seeker can defend the snitch indefinitely."

"We do," Gabrielle agreed, "but if the rest of my season goes like this against the Seekers in your family; I may consider un-adopting you!"

The five-ten to one-seventy final score for their nearly-seven-hours-long match looked really good for the Cannons, but said a lot about the Harpies and Victoire too; since seventeen goals was nearly-double the most goals Rose had given up in any other match to that point in the season. Al and Gwendolyn were happy about the win, but the post-game entertainment was all about celebrating an amazing Quidditch match among family and friends. Regardless of the viewpoint of the reporters or spectators, the love and joy was undeniable – even when hated by those who usually wished the worst for both teams. The press interviews were a disappointment for many of those reporters, since they got nothing but positive, supportive answers to even the most-leading attempts to get insulting quotes; which was likely why those reporters gave up sooner than later and the players could move on to having fun with their team mates and fans.

By the time they were finished at Exmoor after one last round of visits with fans on their way out, it was heading toward eleven o'clock, so while some of their friends and team mates went out to do a bit of partying; Al and Gwendolyn stayed home; and wound down for a while with Harry and Ginny in the atrium. They set up at the shallow end of the lagoon; sat in comfortable, padded patio chairs; and enjoyed the comparative quiet while having glasses of wine and bedtime snacks.

"I didn't expect to feel quite like this after our match today," Gwendolyn suggested after she and Al had settled onto their chairs.

"Did you expect to feel guilty – if we won?" Ginny asked; and Gwendolyn nodded.

"Yes; and possibly mad at Al if we'd lost," Gwendolyn answered and added with a grin for her husband. "The way I am feeling is still a bit strange; since the Harpies fan inside is mad at us for besting my team; while it's brilliant that we won against Mum and her team."

"Well, it might not be totally-brilliant if she's right and the Harpies' owners sack her for not hiring you," Ginny joked.

"That'd be a shame if they did that," Al offered with a grin. "I'd likely have to reconsider that broom deal if they did that; and having only the second set of them to use starting next season will be a big deal for the Harpies."

"Are you sure about that?" Harry asked.

"More-sure than ever after today," Al answered. "Look how brilliantly Victoire played today. Imagine how great she'll be on a Hurricane. That's just as true for Aunt Gabrielle."

"Better than us?" Ginny teased.

"I've never claimed to be the best Chaser," Al pointed out – "and you've always said that you think that you're as good as the other top Seekers – not better. I'm okay with being like that too – along with Gwendolyn. We also have some work to do; since Victoire came up with some pretty good counter-measures to our tricks to earn those goals – and set up the others. I'm not suggesting that my brooms will make the Harpies better than our team, and they do still have other issues, but they will make them a better team; and that's really great for the Harpies' fans in all of us."

"Which will be great – unless they beat us in our matches next season," Gwendolyn told him with a grin. "If they do that; I'll likely end up being mad at you instead even while that Harpies' fan part of me would be happy."

"It seems that James' rule number one really is brilliant and can be used for everything," Al joked. "Do you have much on the work side booked for tomorrow?" he asked his parents. "We were assigned one of the morning interviews and a VIP luncheon, but we have the rest of the day off; so I'm hoping that we can spend some time with our parents – and maybe Malorie and the twins."

"We have a lunchtime interview; and probably Lee's show for Ginny tomorrow night. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that he'll want Ginny and Gabrielle for that; since they did have a rather epic Seeker duel today."

"That'll be fun if we do that interview together," Ginny said with a nod and smile. "We can still have dinner together if you'd like; and maybe we have some afternoon play time around here with the twins too. I don't want to do more than that. We've had a fairly busy few days; and some of us actually need to rest up now and then."

"I'm okay with that," Al agreed, "but we should talk about some Christmas shopping for next weekend. Our schedules are going to get a bit crazy in December."

"Do you need to do any shopping this year?" Harry teased. "It's been years now since the last time you didn't have some major Christmas gift invention-surprise."

"I've always bought other gifts too," Al reminded them; "Maybe the surprise this year will be that I don't have one!"

"I'd rather see us do less this year for the family; and more for our charity," Harry advised him seriously.

"Susannah has a lot planned for this year," Gwendolyn told him seriously – "and we'll all get to help out. We can talk about doing something different for our own family and friends Christmas – especially now that our families are getting bigger. Even drawing names can end up being a lot for the couples or new families dealing with that four times over."

"Or more," Ginny added. "Teddy and Victoire have an extra in-law family; so their Christmas is more like times-five or six."

"Do they have House Elf family Christmases too?" Harry mused. "I don't think I've ever asked them."

"Teddy, Victoire, and Dora are Dasher's and Misty's family now," Ginny told him. "They do still have some sort of relationships with their families, but it isn't the same as it is for us – or other magical beings that put a lot of importance on family or other social grouping like the herd."

Their chat moved along from there, and they discussed some ideas for Christmas, but then they eventually split up and headed for their beds. That conversation did get Al thinking more about Christmas, and with two weeks to get ready for their next match along with a changing perspective on how much time he had to get ready for the holiday; he started 'making' time for the projects he had on the go for the surprise Christmas gifts he was making for some of the people he loved most. Using his time-stopper to do that extra work allowed him to do that without getting in the way of the rest of his schedule for work or family and friends activities; and added more fun to his days as they all moved into the second-half of November.

While Al kept busy every day, there weren't any extra events to deal with in addition to the work, play, and time-stopped fun. Lily, Jonah, and the rest of the students taking apparition lessons finished them up on Sunday afternoon, and the teens that were already over-age were looking forward to taking their tests in Hogsmeade on Saturday, but with only one Hogwarts Quidditch match left to go through to the Christmas break; it was a fairly-quiet week there too – at least for the Weasley clan kids and their friends. Al wasn't the only person in their collective families and friends group to be glad of the break; and he and Gwendolyn didn't even plan on spending much time watching the Quidditch matches of the week either.

That gave them time for a bit more non-work fun – including on the weekend. Since Lily had her apparition test, they didn't take a turn going to Hogsmeade for the morning or day, but left it to Harry and Ginny to do that trip with the twins while they spent their day doing some promotional work for the Cannons with Christmas shopping mixed in. There was more Christmas shopping on Sunday – and some Cannons-related work, but Al and Gwendolyn had the shopping fun with their parents; a late-afternoon, early dinner; and then they wrapped up their weekend with a quiet evening at home for two.

The Harpies, Cannons, and Catapults were all playing during the last week of November; with the Harpies playing the Kestrels on Tuesday evening; and the other matches on Saturday – the last day of the month. There were some extra events on the schedule, including one rather large surprise, but then while Al was anticipating that thanks to his involvement in the project; there ended up being another surprise that arrived first – right before the start of that Harpies-Kestrels' match on Tuesday. As usual now, Ala nd Gwendolyn couldn't attend the match, but they did meet up in the cafe with the rest of the interested game watchers to catch as much of the match as they could before the team curfew would send the players off to their homes and beds for the rest of the night. Al and Gwendolyn were sitting with some of their friends while Harry and Ginny were visiting with some kids their own age for a change; and nobody was paying much attention to the mirrors as the Kestrels were called out into the stadium – until they were thanks to the name that Kylie attached to the title for the Kestrels' Seeker!

"Ricardo Santini!" Gwendolyn exclaimed – and she wasn't the only one to do that in some form. "What did the Kestrels do? Hire him to play against Gabrielle?"

"Maybe he offered to play for free," Brandon suggested.

"That wouldn't be allowed by the league," Rose advised him – "but he could offer to play for minimum. The Kestrels still havent won a match; so they might've taken the deal – even when they should know that Santini won't try to win the match – just keep it going for as long as he can."

"We might never know about the details," Al suggested, "but it's a safe bet that Aunt Gabrielle won't be as impressed with this as Santini is expecting thanks to this show of selfless dedication to her."

"No doubt," Gwendolyn agreed. "I'm sure that Santini would like to keep this match going all week, but he hasn't played in a league match now since the end of April, and he's likely only been training against the Kestrels' Seeker – or possibly former Seeker; so he might be in for a surprise."

"Especially if he's not used to the faster speed of the Lightningstorm," Al added with a nod. "Let's hope that he ends up disappointed and we get to have a short match."

"Well, I understand the reasons the Kestrels have for hiring him," Rose offered, "but it could be a mistake for the rest of their team. We know from his history with the Cannons that the other players got demoralized because of those marathon matches with the Harpies when they lost by such large margins; and that sort of thing can affect the rest of the season. If Santini doesn't win some matches for them; then this move hasn't helped them at all."

"They haven't won any matches yet," Seth reminded her. "They can't do worse; so at least there is a chance for upside."

"That's true," Gwendolyn agreed, "but if the Kestrels are truly trying to avoid replacing the Cannons in last place of the league; I don't think that hiring the last Seeker to have that honor with the Cannons is the way to do it."

"Would that be a first for the league?" Brandon asked – "to be in last place in the league for two consecutive years on two different teams?"

"I have no idea – or whether that's even been something that has been tracked every year," Rose answered; and then smiled at Al. "Would you like to research that for us instead of watching this match now?"

Al laughed. "Yes, I probably would," he agreed, "but I won't; since not knowing the answer might come in handy during our interviews over the next couple of days. We're sure to get asked about Santini and his new job."

"I'm looking forward to that," Gwendolyn advised him. "Deanna, your uncle, and the rest of their faction at the Ministry will be very happy to know that the former Cannons' players are finding new jobs – and in far-less time than it took the last Head of the Aurors to find work again!"

That declaration earned a roar of laughter that earned attention from the Witches and Wizards at the other tables – and then the joke eventually got around to everyone as they watched the start of the match. Al had laughed too – if a bit guiltily; and then he'd even enjoyed a lot of the match – for as long as they could watch it before curfew. He didn't enjoy seeing the way that Santini acted toward Gabrielle, but the Kestrels seemed to be energized – at least at first; so it was a pretty good match. Victoire led the Harpies out to a modest lead that they continued to build on slowly, but then the Kestrels' effort began to slow as Santini returned to normal form – which meant that he spent all of his time trying to impress Gabrielle without trying to catch the snitch.

By the time they needed to head for their bed, Al and Gwendolyn were ready to leave the inevitable end to the match to others to witness; and end their day with some hotter, private entertainment for two. When they were eventually ready to get some sleep; they did still check on the score for the match first; and found out that they'd missed the end of the match thanks to Gabrielle winning her Seeker duel in a bit less than three-and-a-half hours to give the Harpies the two-eighty to fifty victory. Al was glad that they missed out on the rest of the match and the post-game silliness, but Gwendolyn watched the highlights; and had fun with that too. They were both happy that the Harpies didn't end up playing another marathon match; and they were each in a great mood when they cuddled close and went off to sleep.

All of the Cannons' players had to deal with Santini-related quiestions from reporters on Wednesday instead of being asked about their match against the Bats on Saturday; and then those same reporters seemed more interested during the rest of the week with getting quotes about what they thought about James and the Catapults' match against the Tornados. The reporters couldn't talk about the Catapults' training, but thanks to gossip reporters, there was rampant speculation that James was not doing much – if any – training with the team since being released from St. Mungo's. While that part of their job was often weird as well as entertaining, their training went well despite the continuing insistence from the experts that their program was ridiculous and useless; and the best work-related news arrived without most reporters even knowing that it was a big deal for GO MagiSports.

With December just two days away, Friday was picked for opening day of the VirtualMirror Systems Theater in Diagon Alley. It was not advertised as a GO MagiSports company, but it was; and Al had been involved in getting the six VirtualMirror rooms set up – each room capable of holding anywhere between one and hundreds of customers; depending on whether the room was being used for gaming or shows. Al and Gwendolyn did not go to London for the grand opening on Friday evening, but they did have one of the VirtualMirror rooms at home set up for the two shows that premiered in two of the rooms each in London. The first was an extreme adventure show that really showed off the capabilities of the rooms to an even greater extent than Al's original demo show; and the other was a remastered version of the drama club's musical movie, Home for the Holidays, that Al thought came out brilliantly despite the fact that they had to create the virtual experience by using all of the normal mirror-cam footage that had been taken while the show had been filmed.

Those shows were the Friday night entertainment for most of their neighbors and a lot of guests on Friday – and the new business was an instant hit with the customers in London. Two of those London rooms were dedicated to VirtualMirror gaming; and those rooms opened with gaming tutorials that could be watched by hundreds too; and then those rooms also had limited times available for trying out the gaming in small groups – or as a single for anyone willing to pay the premium to do that. Friday night was a game day for the Cannons, though, so staying up late wasn't an option; and they missed out on most of the fun going on at home or in London – except for the part where the theater was off to a great start when it came to making money for GO MagiSports!

Saturday morning ended up being a bit on the quiet side for Al and Gwendolyn. They had breakfast at the cafe; did warm-ups at their practice pitch because they could do that with the roof retracted and stay warm for longer; and then they eventually headed for Ellis stadium an hour or so later than normal for them – again because they didn't want to spend the extra time out in the cold when it wasn't needed. It wasn't a good idea to underestimate any team, but Al still wasn't worried about their match against the Bats – other than that he hoped that they could all have fun even though he didn't expect that the Bats' players would do very well against them – and they really needed to have competitive matches if they wanted to keep the ticket sales and merchandising going so strongly. That sounded a bit callous and opportunistic, but it was a fact; and Al thought about that in terms of all of the players and teams in the league – as well as wanting to share Quidditch matches with the spectators that were fun, exciting, and worth paying to see!

Lily was grinning at Hugo as she finished setting up the mirror for their game day party; and tuned into the 'A' game that Lee was covering – the Catapults-Tornados match. He didn't even notice; so she had to be more-overt about her not-really-joking choice.

"Are you going to watch the Cannons' match today too?" she asked; and laughed when that question did immediately earn her cousin's full attention.

"We're not all going to do that?" he demanded. "You didn't tell me that!"

"Would you have come if I did?" she challenged.

"Probably, since Alyssa can't watch the match with me in our common room," Hugo answered.

"Do you really think that's the match they'll be watching?" Lily challenged. "We all want to know whether James is able to play yet; the Harpers are insisting that they'll put him back into his bed at St. Mungo's if he does show up; and the Tornados do have a good team. You'll get none of that drama with the Cannons' match against the Bats."

"The Cannons are my team – and the Catapults' aren't yours," Hugo told her. "It ought to be my turn to pick every Cannons' match from now on for as often as I've had to watch Harpies matches for you over the years."

"You love those matches too," Lily said dismissively. "We can still keep an eye on the Cannons' match on our portables."

"I agree with you," Alyssa told her – "except for the part where some of us don't want to watch the kind of game-play we're sure to see in that match." She emphasized 'that' with a hand-wave toward the mirror. "The Cannons should win big today, but that won't be boring – and we'd learn a lot more from watching them – particularly if Al and Gwendolyn take the opportunity to experiment with some new tricks."

Lily sighed. "Okay, I'll make a deal. We take a vote – after watching the start of the Catapults' match to see how it goes with James; and if the majority wants to watch the boring match; I can always go for a swim – or nap – while you do that. Maybe I'll get lucky and Dad will end it in the first quarter-hour or less."

James limped the last couple of steps to the stadium entrance they'd be using as soon as they were invited into Exmoor stadium; and had to hide the grin from his team mates as he took his acting to new heights.

"Okay boys, I'm still practically an invalid – which ought to make my Seeker duel almost-fair for the Tornados; but it'll be up to the rest of you to keep me safe and win this match! It's time for you to step up and prove that you all deserve to be defending league champions!"

"So you insist on playing despite your delicate condition – that hasn't seemed to affect your personal life in any way except that you seem to have even more Witches around trying to help you out with your recovery; yet it'll be our fault if we lose," Tiberius summarized. "Got it!"

"That isn't any different than every other match," Brock faux-protested. "Besides, I'm thinking about letting the Harpers bash my head in today so that I can get weeks off from training and all the girls too!"

"Those perks are only for the superstars," Tiberius advised him. "Beaters that get their heads bashed in by other Beaters get fired."

"That doesn't seem fair at all," Brock decided. "I guess that we'll just have to bash some heads in ourselves; and then hope that our superstar is too worn-out after the match to play with the Witches."

"It's funny that you even think that's possible," James told him. "You'd likely still be in your hospital bed next summer if you'd crashed like that, while I'm sucking it up and doing my job again already; so I'm not asking much to have the rest of you play a bit better. Do that, and I'm sure that at least a few hot Witches will take notice while the rest help to nurse me back to health."

Ginny sat in the owner's section for the Cannons along with a few VIPs, Susannah, and six lucky kids that they'd picked to take to the match with them. The Bats had been introduced first; and now they were watching the Cannons' players do their lap of Ellis stadium. Her attention was divided between watching her team mates and the action from Exmoor that she was watching on her portable mirror and listening to with one magical earbud. James had her attention for that because he was getting all of the attention from Lee and his crew as they watched him limp around – both while he was flying and then after landing on the pitch.

"Either that's an act; or our information about his recovery is wrong," Susannah whispered to her; and Ginny nodded.

"I'd say he's taking it too far, but won't be surprised if most people buy the act and believe it. We'll see how far he takes it, since that strategy can work; or it can blow up on you if your opponent plays it right."

"I'm so glad that we don't try to play those games with our team," Susannah told her seriously. "That Falcons match was at least borderline to being wrong of us – if not a bit over the line, but I've loved the way we're playing in every other match. We'll get a lot of fans like me too if we keep that up."

"We'll keep trying our best," Ginny assured her, "but playing nice isn't always easy; so I can't say that we'll never make mistakes. Even with as far as Al's come over the years; he still gets mad now and then."

"I've noticed that," Susannah agreed with a grin. "I used to think that was a bad thing, but considering how much he gets done every time he's mad; it is tempting to provoke him regularly – especially when there are chores to be done."

Ginny laughed. "That's funny – and true." She nodded toward her mirror. "There they go for take-off; and I'd say that James is going to take his act into the air." She laughed as they watched James clumsily dodge an attempt at a cheap shot from Caleb Harper because it was also so-precise that she could see how much talent it had taken to stay on his broom and avoid a quick crash to the pitch.

"What was funny about that?" Susannah asked.

"Only that the moves he just pulled off would be challenging for any Seeker in perfect health playing their very best," she answered. "He's definitely acting the recovering invalid. That should make for a very-entertaining match."

"In a Terror Tours sort of way," Susannah added. "Thankfully for some of us; we have this match to watch now instead."

Hugo had expected to win the vote for the game pick for the larger mirror – until he'd seen James flying around the stadium so unsteadily; and then the slow, limping walking at center pitch; and then he'd known that he would end up watching most or all of 'his' match on his portable mirror. There was no doubt that the Catapults-Tornados' match was exciting, but that was also in a horrid way that he didn't like; which just got him teased for spending too much time with Al – even after it had been months now since they'd spent much time together at all. An hour of watching the McClaggens take their Beater game head-to-head against the Harpers while Scorpius played his more-subtle brand of dirty Quidditch was all that Hugo needed to see before deciding to spend some time in the portable pool while continuing to watch the much-nicer Cannons' match with all of the brilliant Quidditch skills on display – at least from his future team mates. Alyssa went along for the swim; and they got to have the pool to themselves at first while everyone else was more-interested in the brutal battle going on at Exmoor.

"Don't let them bug you," Alyssa counseled as they floated near the far-side of the pool from the sofas and mirror while keeping an ear and eye on Hugo's portable mirror. "We've been changed by seeing the way that Al wants to play Quidditch and live his life; and there's no going back for us. I'm okay with that; since we're in a much-happier place."

"Over here on our own while everyone else is having fun over there?" Hugo asked. "This likely is exactly how Al felt when he and Gwendolyn would be doing the same thing."

"This is pretty good," Alyssa suggested with a smile. "We also aren't exactly like Al, since we can have fun at parties and doing other things too while he really does prefer having the quieter kind of fun. He has his own reasons for that, but none of that really matters for us – or what we're talking about here. We like the kind of Quidditch we're going to get to play with the Cannons – and I think that there are a lot of Witches and Wizards interested in playing or watching that kind of game – where talent, skill, and love of the game matters most instead of the wins and losses."

"The naysayers would tell you that's easy to say while the Cannons are winning," Hugo suggested.

"I know, and they have a point because they haven't seen how our team will react to a loss yet, but they're also wrong – and we don't actually need to lose a match to prove that. Look at most of the teams that the Cannons have bested so far this season. The players and fans still loved those matches despite the loss; and that isn't true when they've had losses to teams like the Catapults or Falcons – or even against teams like United."

"I wouldn't have thought that about United," Hugo admitted; and Alyssa shrugged.

"That's just my opinion. Your cousins and their team mates are good and generally play fair, but they also have big egos; and a few of them can be more than a little bit arrogant – especially toward the least-talented players in the league. I'll wager that you'll never hear Belinda congratulating opposing players for scoring goals or offering them support for playing their best and trying hard."

Hugo laughed. "I'm not sure that I could do that," he suggested.

"Except that you did – against me and my team; and you proved that you could be happy even though we won that match this year."

"As Lily would say – I'd have been happier had we won," Hugo pointed out; "and that was my first chance to win a senior team match; so I'm not happy about how that's going for me when I'm following Rose and her undefeated record as a Keeper."

"We both have tough acts to follow from your sister and my older brother," Alyssa pointed out. "I'm not worrying about that." She nodded toward his mirror and they both watched Gwendolyn score yet another goal for the Cannons – another amazing, dazzling play that earned a roar of cheers from the spectators at the stadium. "We're good-enough to play with them, Hugo. I've had doubts now and then in the past, but after last summer; I don't doubt it anymore – and Al and Rose aren't joking when they tell us that we wouldn't have our brooms or wouldn't have had those summer jobs if they didn't think that we were the best fit for the team they're building. You do understand that they don't need another six or seven players at all, right? This is all part of the bigger plan – and I'm not sure that anyone except Al knows about everything he wants to do to make for a happy future for all of us."

Hugo laughed. "That wouldn't surprise me at all. Every time I think he's done something that can't be out-done; he finds a way to do something even bigger."

"While still managing to have those accomplishments go unnoticed by most," Alyssa added with another nod toward the mirror. "They're still undefeated – and likely will be after today, and I'd say that Al and Gwendolyn are the best Chasers in the league right now; but that isn't the case for the player rankings because they've only had that one match where they piled on the goals." She paused while they watched a play that ended with a pretty good save by the Bats' Keeper before continuing. "Al, Gwendolyn, and Ray likely could run it up on nearly every team the way the Catapults are trying to do in all of their matches, but they won't; and I wouldn't want to be part of a team that did want to play that way – even if they did that without any cheating."

"Yet we loved that match against the Falcons," Hugo reminded her; and Alyssa laughed and nodded.

"We did – and that just proves that we're not perfect; and it can really be tough sometimes trying to do what's right. This is way too serious. Let's just float around; enjoy this match; and get ready to put up with more of that supposedly-good match; since I'm pretty sure that the Catapults' poor, recovering Seeker is going to somehow find a way to keep playing a marathon match despite his partially-healed injuries while his team runs it up on the Tornados – if they can manage to do that for him."

Molly and Arthur tried to enjoy themselves as they watched their grandsons playing above the pitch at Exmoor stadium, but had a tough time doing that even though Louis was playing pretty well and having a good day in goals for the Catapults. They'd felt the need to take a turn watching a Catapults' match with Bill and Fleur, but they'd have preferred to be at the Cannons' match with Ron, Hermione, and Ginny instead. They supported their grandchildren with the Harpies and United too, though; so they had to take the bad with the good sometimes. For this match, there was much more bad than good; and even Louis' good play was tainted because of the cheating that helped him out against the Tornados' Chasers.

"Oh for Merlin's sake, James, knock it off!" Arthur muttered under his breath after watching James feign some phantom pain; pretend to lose control; and then hit the Catapults' Seeker with a hard cheap shot.

"What was that, Dad?" Bill asked; and Arthur shook his head.

"Nothing – just speaking ill of one of your nephews."

Bill grinned at him. "Did something happen in the Cannons' match to get Al in trouble with you?"

"No, but you'll be in trouble with me if you keep up that nonsense," Arthur warned seriously. "What is it about Albus that sets you against him like this, Bill?"

"It was just a joke, Dad," Bill protested, but Arthur shook his head.

"Only in part," he disagreed. "For all intents and purposes, you've sided with Percy when it comes to Albus, yet other than that recent bit of Muriel-worthy honesty for Percy back in June; Al has never, to my knowledge, done anything to deserve your anger or disapproval."

"Nobody can be as perfect as he claims to be," Bill told him. "Do you honestly believe all of his claims when many times there seems to be little proof?" He nodded toward where James was flying above them and about a quarter-way across the stadium. "James' claims seem just as likely – and have as much proof. Before you say it; he isn't the only one to speak up against Al for other things, so I think that his claims are too good to be true; and have a problem with that."

"You're implying that Jaimie and Lorie are actually Al's daughters – not his nieces," Arthur inferred. "Are you suggesting that other stories aren't true either – including for the cursed objects that you have handled from those incidents at Hogwarts?"

"I'm suggesting that none of us know the truth about a lot of what's happened between them – or which son was being protected," Bill offered quietly. "Is it not just as likely that it is Albus with the problem – a need to prove himself better than his father by being an even bigger hero?"

"No, it isn't possible," Molly interjected; "and you should be ashamed of yourself for thinking so, Bill. I am telling you that Al has always been truthful while James – and others – have not."

"You can't know that for sure," Bill challenged; and Molly gave him her full attention.

"I can – and do," she assured him. "Albus is far from perfect – and has never claimed to be; as you just suggested a few moments ago. He does, however, have his Grandmother Lily's heart, and that's a very good thing; since he's an incredibly-powerful and brilliant Wizard." She held up her mirror toward him and nodded toward it. "What do you see right now?"

"A Quidditch match," Bill answered. "We've one going on right here in front of us too," he answered a bit dismissively.

"I see smiles," Molly told him. "Lots of them. The players – on both teams; the spectators – everyone. Now look around here – including at yourself. The only smiles I see in this stadium are not of the happy variety."

"So your point is that Al's right because he smiles more?" Bill asked. "That's a pretty weak arguement, Mum."

"Now you're just being obtuse," she challenged. If you choose to dislike Albus because of his accomplishments compared to his siblings and cousins then do that – but be honest about it! If you want to hate him for being too-honest – as you've done with Aunt Muriel; then so be it! However, if you want to go around believing and repeating the lies about Al, then you've lost your senses; and can keep that nonsense to yourself." She shook her head. "If you believe any of that rubbish; you may as well also believe that Teddy is your nephew as well as your son-in-law – or any of a thousand other lies that have been told about our family over the past few decades."

"That isn't the same at all," Bill told her.

"Why not?" Molly asked. "Because you saw Tonks while she was pregnant? Because you have my word that Ginny wasn't? We were all in hiding; so you've no proof at all!"

"I can tell you why it's exactly the same," Arthur interjected quietly. "Your mother defended the truth back then; and she's doing that now. I'd also suggest that any Wizard strong-enough to force-feed all of those memories that Al gave us last June to a moderately-large group of Wizards and Witches could just as easily make us believe whatever he wanted us to believe."

"Maybe he..." Bill began; and then laughed. "Never mind. That doesn't even make sense to me." He shook his head. "I'm sorry, but I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one."

"That's your loss," Molly told him. "You're missing out on all of the love and happiness that goes along with sharing your life with Al and Gwendolyn."

"We're happy too," Bill declared; sounding offended. "Our kids are happy; and our granddaughter is a joy and light in our lives too. You made that sound as if the rest of us are miserable!"

"I wasn't suggesting that there isn't love and joy in your life," Molly told him, "but you can't sit here ant tell me that you're happy and filled with joy right now – that you're proud of the way the Catapults play whether they win or lose."

"We can be proud of Louis," Bill insisted.

"Can you?" Molly challenged. "Is Louis proud of himself – of the way he won that league championship? If the Dark Lord had won the war, do you think Percy would've been proud had he stayed on that side and been victorious too? I don't believe that Louis is happy or proud – at least when it comes to his job. I have no idea what he'd do if James and the McClaggens ever do their worst to someone he truly cares about. Would you still defend his team if they end Victoire's or Dominique's careers the way they've tried to do to Pauline, erin, and others? Louis may have picked sides with James for his own reasons, but I find it impossible to believe that he'd be willing to sacrifice his sisters or cousins to hold on to the fame and fortune."

"That hasn't happened – and won't," Bill insisted.

"I hope that it won't," Molly assured him; "but also have no doubt at all that it could." She smiled at him then; though it was a bit grim. "The good news for you is that the hero you're so fond of denigrating will be around to help out if there's ever a need – regardless of what you think of him."

Yes!" Hugo exclaimed excitedly; and then smiled as his shout had startled most of the other teens and tweens in the room. "Uncle Harry just caught the snitch," he explained. "We win, three-ninety to naught!"

"You – not we," Lily told him. "My team isn't playing today."

"That's the only comment you have?" Hugo asked. "Didn't you even see that catch?"

"No, but I'm sure I'll catch a replay eventually," Lily answered with a shrug. "The match we're watching is still more-entertaining."

"I don't think so," Hugo disagreed. "Fortunately for me; it's nearly time to head for dinner in the Great Hall. Do you want to leave everything set up for after dinner?"

"Yes," Lily agreed. "This match isn't likely to end anytime soon."

"Then you can have fun with that this evening, but I think that Hugo and I are done with Quidditch for today," Alyssa advised her. "We'll find something else to keep entertained with instead."

"If you really must miss out on the rest of this fun; I guess that's okay," Lily offered as if her consent was required. "Let's just get out of here now. I'd like to stop in to my dorm room before dinner – and maybe get changed before going on to the Great Hall."

Ginny went home with some of the members of her Cannons' game-watching group; met up with Malorie and the twins; and got started on setting up a late dinner celebration for their team and some neighbors. They had time for that, since the interviews and fan time took a while before her team mates were able to come home too, but that just gave her some time to play with Jaimie and Lorie; and she kept an eye on the Catapults' match too. She was watching her portable mirror when James and the McClaggens knocked the Tornados' Seeker out of the match with yet another horrid and cruel combination of fouls and bludger hits – an achievement that was nearly out-done by the celebration they had even while a fellow player was being triaged and then hurried off to St. Mungo's for emergency treatment.

"I must be on the way to being a full convert," Malorie suggested to Ginny. "Maybe it's the company I'm keeping these days."

Ginny smiled at her. "That might be it. I know we've talked about this before, but James really is a talented Seeker and has a good team around him; so they could choose a different path than the one they're on."

"They wouldn't be as good as your team," Malorie suggested – "and I don't know if they'd win against some of the other top teams either. I can't justify that sort of thing anymore, Ginny, but do think that this is their way of compensating for not being as good as the competition."

"In part," Ginny conceded, "but there's more to it than that. I'll guess that half of their team doesn't work as hard as most players in the show; they certainly party more than most; and those choices have consequences too. Cheating is almost-always easier than doing the work – and the true costs aren't always immediate or obvious. It can even look exactly like winning and prospering for longer than most can imagine. Most people now only remember the last couple of years of the war with Voldemort, but he was very successful as he slowly built his army for more than thirty years before his first, temporary defeat."

"I guess that I did know that from History," Malorie said after a moment of thought," but you're right about that. We seem to be getting a bit off-track from that nasty little play."

"Only a little," Ginny disagreed. "My point is that those choices to do bad things start small, but can escalate if the Wizard or Witch continues down that path. James continues to respond to even the slightest defeat with ever-worse acts." She shrugged. "We shouldn't keep going down this chat-path anyway; so I'll only add something that isn't in the Histiry books about the Dark Lord. His own path into the Dark began with petty theft and bullying the other kids in the Muggle orphanage. It may not look like it by comparison, but James is on that same sort of path – and that's why I hope every day that he will turn around and find his way back to us and to the Light."

"Maybe we should stop watching the Catapults' matches," Malorie only half-joked. "When was the last time that we did that and didn't have at least one serious, somewhat-dark conversation?"

"It's been a while," Ginny admitted. "I should turn this off before Al gets back anyway. He tries; but can't keep from feeling guilty when James plays like this."

"Well, rule number one really does apply this time," Malorie reminded her with a grim smile. "James wouldn't be playing in this match if not for Al's help a couple of weeks ago."

That joke was the end for that little cameo chat because Ginny got back to work and Malorie moved on to keep an eye on the twins and help out with some other chores. Their dinner was picked up once they knew that their team was on the way home; Ginny helped out with the victory celebration; and then enjoyed the meal with Harry, Al, Gwendolyn, Malorie, and the girls. It was near-bedtime for the twins by the time they finished that meal, but they needed some play time, stories, and music before they'd finally go to sleep; so it was past-ten by the time that their grandparents, aunt, and uncle were free for the rest of the night.

They were also tired, so instead of going out with some of the other couples or watching the rest of the Catapults' match at the cafe; they decided to head for their homes and beds too. While that might not seem like a particularly-exciting way to end November, Al and Gwendolyn managed to have their favorite kind of hot-rated fun that kept them entertained and happy as they moved into the first hours of December. Thanks to sharing and making all of those brilliant and hot new memories, they missed out on the rest of the Catapults' match – and didn't bother to even get an update before falling asleep. Missing out on the partying with their friends was another matter, since Gwendolyn did like to have that sort of fun too, but, for the most part; that worked out for the best for everyone too. Finally, getting more sleep than most of their friends, and being happier too was exactly what they needed to get rested and ready for a busy first day of December and what was going to feel like the start of the Christmas holiday season!

"Weren't you limping on the other leg when you walked into the showers?" Tiberius asked James – "and what took you so long? We could've been at the victory party a half-hour ago!"

James laughed. "I wasn't – you're just seeing me from the front instead of the back. Relax about the party. We'll have lots of time – as in the rest of the weekend if you get lucky too."

"Some of us just want to make the appearance and head home," Louis advised him tiredly. "We've had a long day."

"I don't know how you can stand to be you," James advised him. "I'm still practically and invalid; and have more stamina than you do!"

"Congratulations and good for you," Louis retorted. "Can we go now and make that grand entrance you're insisting on? I'd really like to get there before we start a New Year too."

James wasn't quite ready to go, and took his time just to annoy Louis, Miya, and Roman; but then they headed over to the victory party and he got back to playing the recovering hero to the hilt – a ruse that got him everything he wanted and more; whether that was hot Witches willing to wait on him hand-and-foot; hot Witches to play with while at the party; or an especially-hot Witch that eventually went home with him for the rest of the weekend to help nurse him back to health in a clothing-optional sort of way. Thanks to an abundance of strong drink and all of the hot, willing distractions, James didn't think about the start of December, Christmas, or anything else. He'd led his team to a brilliant, seven-hundred and thirty to one-sixty blow-out over the Tornados – despite his frail health and ongoing recovery!

That tactic was working out so-brilliantly that he planned on using it for as long as he could – for the rest of the season if he could swing it! Once you dumped all of the boring training and got out of the most-tedious parts of his normal work schedule; his job was really quite brilliant! He could really get used to working two or three days a month; and having fun the rest of the time!

It really was great to be King!

Lily was the last Witch still awake in her dorm room – though not the only one not sleeping; since two of them were still in the common room with their boyfriends. That was something that she sometimes wished that she could do with Jonah, but that was just a small downside to inter-House relationships; and had nothing to do with why she wasn't sleeping yet too.

No, she was still conscious, in part, because of her brothers. Their Quidditch matches had kept her entertained all afternoon and evening, and their teams had each won, but the way the Cannons and Catapults had earned those victories had been very diferent; and that was also true for her reactions. The conversations she'd had with her cousins and friends swirled around in her memories now; mixing in with her own thoughts; and spinning around as she attempted to make sense of the jumble of emotions.

Why had she picked the Catapults' match to watch – and then enjoyed it so much? Sure, that had been the match with the most drama and more-competitive with the stronger opponent, but the parts of the Cannons' match that she'd seen on Jonah's portable – not her own – had been brilliant without any of the horrid game play that had gone on between the Catapults and Tornados. She'd been joking about how being away from Al for most of the past three months was good for her, but the side-by-side contrast of Quidditch extremes had her reconsidering the truth of those assertions and jokes – especially now that it was December; and the Christmas season was really going to begin by morning; if the Christmas dance rumors proved true.

She'd picked the darker, uglier side of Quidditch for the day; and the majority of their friends had enjoyed the sometimes-brutal entertainment. That didn't say anything good about any of them – especially when they'd also made fun of Hugo and Alyssa for their open dislike of the Catapults' match and avoidance of watching most of it. As she thought about that; she had to admit that she'd led the way for those jokes – and Jonah had stayed out of it. He'd also been nearly-silent about the Catapults' match while watching the Cannons' match while it had been on; and then he hadn't said much of anything during the evening when there was only the one match to watch. Jonah's lack of daily influence from Al obviously wasn't affecting him; but wasn't that a good thing? She certainly wouldn't want Jonah to be anything like James – even if she sometimes wondered whether she'd have more fun if she wasn't dating just one Wizard.

Imagining that – or even going to a dance with anyone other than Jonah didn't make her happy – it just felt wrong. In hindsight; so did many of her choices on Saturday. Maybe watching the darker side of Quidditch was bad for her; since it brought out the worst in her – even if the jokes, razzing, and even her current mental musings were mild compared to some of the awful things that had gone on during that game.

It was a new month, now, though; she could make better, happier choices that would bring Christmas cheer into her life; and maybe even spread a bit of that holiday love and joy around – even if that wouldn't be as much fun as being just a little bit bad might be instead!

When she eventually drifted off to sleep, the good and bad mixed together to make for a fairly-hot sequence of dreams; which subconsciously had her wondering whether her own perfect Christmas – and life – could be found somewhere in the middle between the good and bad extremes.

Well, her Halloween prophecy had suggested that neither brother would help her to decide what her future would be like; so maybe she could be good – and bad; in a really good sort of way!