Chapter 11: Quidditch Tournament
I grin at the new broom, and run my hand across the smooth redwood handle as Viktor says, "We all pitched in money for it. It is the last one they had in stalk."
"Thank you." I say before looking over at them, "Its beautiful, I can't wait to fly it."
"So are you gonna try out for Quidditch again?" Cedric asks, "I miss the challenge from Slytherin, all I get is Harry in Gryffindor."
"Cedric, Quidditch was canceled this year." I tell him and he starts looking a bit sad at that before an idea occurs to me, "Though, I suppose we could make our own Quidditch Tournament this year, it would help distract everyone from the war that is going on." he lights up, "You know, keep up moral."
"Yeah." Cedric says excitedly, "We can arrange everything and even get a teacher to referee."
"We could even have a prize for the winner." Viktor says, "Any ideas?"
"Five hundred galleons and a basilisk steak dinner per person on the winning team and one person of their choosing." I offer thoughtfully, "With how rare and valuable basilisk steaks are in most places people will jump at the chance."
"Where would we get the steaks?" Cedric asks.
"I have a freezer full of them in my trunk." I say, "Professor Snape helped me harvest the basilisk from second year and I can pay the prize money with my trust vault."
"I think we can all offer some money for the prize." Viktor says, "You are providing the steak dinners and that way the prize isn't only from you."
"I won't stop you if you want to pitch in." I say with a shrug before adding, "We can get Lee Jordan to be the announcer. We'll offer him fifteen galleons per match. How many teams should be there in the start? We can do an elimination style tournament."
"I say eight." Cedric says.
"That seems like a good idea." Viktor says.
"Eight it is." I say.
"I can get cheer teams for each playing team together." Fleur offers.
"That would be nice, Hogwarts doesn't have a cheer team. We usually just rely on our houses chanting for motivation." Cedric says and I chuckle.
"It's not really that helpful a lot of the time. One of the Slytherin chants last year was 'Slither Serpents Slickly', talk about a tongue twister." I say and the other three laugh. "So, I'm thinking five rounds, alternating between non elimination and elimination for the first four and then the finals." they nod in agreement and I smile, "Great, you should go to the headmaster with this idea."
"But it was your idea." Fleur protests.
"Dumbledore won't go for it if he knows I helped come up with the idea." I say before checking the time, "Especially with what I am about to do." I then put my trunk and book bag onto my bed before saying, "Get onto the bed."
I then climb onto said furniture as they scramble to comply to my order. "Out of curiosity." Cedric says, "What are you about to do?"
"Out of curiosity, have any of you ever wanted to learn to operate a boat? Or become a pirate?" I ask as I send out a pulse of magic.
"What?" Viktor asks as we hear a distant rumbling and the room expands; the rumbling gets louder by the second. "What is that?"
"That..." I say as the first bit of water enters my room, "Would be my next prank. You might want to hold onto something."
I grab onto a bed post as water rushes in and lifts the bed up, as soon as its off the stone floor the bed morphs into a boat, with a bedroom below deck, soon enough the water stops rushing and we just bob a bit as a set of oars appear next to me. I grab them and begin rowing us out of the room as Fleur says, "How many places have you just flooded?"
"Everywhere inside the castle aside from the great hall and kitchen, I made the great hall into a marketplace that you can eat at, I made sure to make it so we float into the air when we need to go up the grand staircase." I say.
"What about the dungeon stairs?" she asks as we reach said area.
"Oh, the water is about ten feet above the top step, that's why the dungeon got taller, I didn't want to drown everyone." I say as I row us into the school proper, "Shall I drop you off at the headmasters office or the great hall? It's almost time for lunch."
"Let's go to lunch first, then can you give us a lift to the Headmasters office?" Cedric asks.
"Of course." I say cheerfully, "To the main docks it is then."
When we reach the great hall I find it filled with a bunch of very wet, very unhappy people standing in the center of the room and looking around. I dock my boat, seeing that my friends and allies aren't soaked, meaning they got the warning I sent with the magic pulse. I tie my boat up and climb out of it before holding a hand out to Fleur and helping her from the boat. The other two climb out after us and we walk into the great hall. I lead them over to one of the vendors, which are house elves, the one I walk up to smiles at me as he hands me a bag of coins.
"Here you go, ma'am, the first coins are free." the vendor tells me and I smile as I take the bag.
"Thank you." I say before walking over and sitting one of the tables. It takes all of three seconds for James and Lily to walk over to me, "Hello, James and Lily."
"How many places have you flooded? Do you realize how many students almost drowned because of this?" James demands.
"Why it it that I am always your first suspect?" I ask innocently. "For all you know this could have been the Weasley Twins, for all I know it could have been you. Unless I'm mistaken you are a member of the Marauders, are you not?"
"We know you did it, Iris. What all is flooded?" James demands again.
"I suppose we'll find out." I say. "For all I know the entirety of the grounds are underwater."
"Iris, you flooded the place. You know what is flooded." he says and I frown before slowly rising to my feet and glaring at him.
"Do you have proof that I am guilty?" I ask in an icy tone, causing him to tense a bit.
"No, but all the pranks this year have been pulled by you." he says.
"So that automatically makes me responsible for any and all pranks that happen?" I ask, "Even without any evidence you just place the blame? Really?"
"Well..." he says, struggling to speak.
"You wonder why I don't want to live with you? If this is how you treat family then I want no part of it." I sneer at him and he deflates, looking down, almost seeming ashamed.
"I'm sorry, we shouldn't have placed blame on you without proof." Lily tells me.
"We didn't mean to to make it seem like that's how we treat family." James says sadly, "We're sorry...we love you."
I tense up before throwing a cup across the room. It shatters against the wall, causing everyone to jump and look over at us. I take a shaky breath before lowly saying, "I would appreciate it if you would stop telling me that lie, sir."
"I'm not lying! Why don't you believe us when we say that?" he asks defensively.
"Do I need to answer that?" I ask sarcastically before storming out, going back to my boat where I enter the room and throw things around until I feel better. After that I enter my trunk and continue making my new sword. An hour later, as I'm working on making the handle, there's a knock on the trunk lid. I sigh, setting the blade to the side and going upstairs. I open the lid and find James and Lily looking at me, "Sorry, I'm not interested in speaking to you two at the moment."
I close the lid again and go back to what I was doing. When I get done making the handle there's another knock on the lid and I answer it, finding the other three champions. "Hello." Fleur says, "I was wondering if you could take us to the headmasters office."
"Of course." I say with a smile before climbing out of the trunk and closing the lid. I then grab the oars and row our way to the headmasters office. When we get there and enter the office the headmaster looks at me from his spot on the tiny island his desk sits on.
"Ah, Iris, may I ask if you came to remove the water from my book collection?" he asks.
"No, but don't worry. The books won't be effected by water damage. I would hate to be responsible for such a collection of knowledge to be ruined, even if my own collection is so much larger than yours." I say with a smirk, "I am simply acting as a valet for my fellow champions at the moment as they have something they wish to discus with you."
"Is that so?" he asks in an interested voice.
"Yes sir." Cedric says, "We came up with a way to boost all three schools moral."
"Ah, I see, well, that is a good thing to do during times of war." Dumbledore says with a nod, "Am I allowed to know who came up with this idea?"
"Well, the thought occurred to me and Viktor after Iris mentioned missing the thrill that came with playing Quidditch." Cedric lies, "Fleur thought of her own contribution."
He goes on to explain the tournament and at the end of it Dumbledore says, "I'm unsure, dear boy."
"We can hold the rounds every two weeks on Tuesday's." he says. "That gives us plenty of time to focus on the Triwizard Tournament. The first round can be next Tuesday."
Dumbledore considers for a moment before asking, "May I ask what the prize will be?"
"That's something I will be contributing." I say and he looks at me, "I have an entire freezer of rather expensive steaks, each person on the winning team as well as one person of each of their choosing, will receive a steak dinner while the team mates themselves will also receive a monetary prize of five hundred galleons per team mate."
"You volunteered to give the steak dinners?" he asks, "How expensive are these steaks?"
"Last I checked a single basilisk steak roughly a quarter of an inch thick cost around five hundred galleons. The ones I have are around an inch thick, which means a single one is around two thousand galleons. They will be served with a side of baked potatoes and green beans." I say, "I plan to keep some of the steaks for my own personal dinners and sell the rest of the steaks to the goblins after the steak dinner prize is won."
"Basilisk steak? Wherever did you get such a delicacy?" he asks.
"I killed a seventy five foot long basilisk and kept it under preservation charms until this year when Professor Snape taught me how to properly harvest and treat the remains." I tell him. "As you can imagine, I gained quite a few steaks out of the deal and I can personally prepare the steak dinner prize thanks to all the cooking I have done in my life."
"Vary well." he says. "May I ask if you'd be willing to give me one of these steaks?"
"Will it make you say yes to the Quidditch tournament?" I ask and he smile.
"Yes." he decides so I nod and go into my trunk, coming out a few moments later with one of the basilisk steaks, which I give him in a Ziploc baggie. "Excellent, thank you. You may have the tournament. I will announce it at dinner tonight."
"Great, now we have five days to gather our teams and submit the names of said teams onto the sign up sheet which we will make and post on the marketplace noticeboard. This is an inter school event so we will be allowed to recruit from the other schools." I say before looking at the others and smiling, "Shall we return to the market?"
"Of course." Viktor says and I row us out of the headmasters office. Soon as we're out of the office Viktor smiles at me and says, "I look forward to a match with you. Cedric says you are quite challenging to go up against. I hope he is right."
"I'm not as great as everyone says." I say while shaking my head.
"She's being modest." Cedric says. "In her first match she did a nosedive after the snitch. The other teams seeker pulled up around twenty feet from the ground but Iris here didn't let the rapidly approaching ground scare her away from victory. She managed to pull up less than a foot from the ground before balancing on her broom, reaching out, and snatching the snitch out of the air before going back to sitting properly on the broom; flying up to the announcers stand and showing that she got the little bugger."
"That sounds frightening." Fleur says in a concerned tone.
"Nothing is as frightening to me as doing something wrong." I tell her in French and she looks at me, "Tell no one of this, but growing up, failure wasn't an option for me."
"What do you mean?" she asks and I just give her a sad smile as we arrive at the great hall. I dock my boat and grab some parchment and quills. I then get off my boat and offer a hand to Fleur, who takes it and steps off the boat before we all head into the great hall and take seats at one of the tables.