Harry Potter and the Duplaticus Curse
Chapter 12 The Quidditch Try-outs
"What!" Shrieked Voldemort. "He knows! How could he KNOW?"
"I don't know my lord," said James. "He just said that he knew."
"And you answered when he spoke to you?" Voldemort said bitterly.
"I-I didn't have a choice," James stuttered, "He knew I was there…"
"How? I thought that you were invisible. You were to stay invisible until you returned to me."
"Harry saw me on-on the Maurader's Map."
"The what?" snapped Voldemort.
"It's this map, you can see anyone who is on the grounds of Hogwarts, you can see where they are and where they are moving to."
"And Potter has this map?"
"Yes." Voldemort put the tips of his fingers together and glared at James.
"Is there anyway to disable this map?" He said softly.
"Not that I know of my lord."
"Than burn it."
"B-but my lord! We spent years making that!" Cried James.
"We? Who's we?" Voldemort snapped.
James got very quiet all of a sudden. After a second or two he mumbled, "Sirius, Remus, Wormtail and I."
"Ah yes. Your little group of friends." Voldemort sneered. "If only Black and Lupin could see you now. After all, you're supposed to be dead." James remained silent.
Without warning Voldemort went for his wand and before James could do anything he had been hit by the Cruciatus Curse. He fell to his knees and started twitching violently. He gritted his teeth so not to scream. All of a sudden it was over and James was left panting on the floor.
"You are to burn that map or destroy it in some way," Voldemort said softly. "If I gain word that you didn't you shall be punished greatly. Perhaps one of your little friends will be too."
"Yes my lord," gasped James, getting up from the floor.
"Go, now."
The beginning of October signaled the beginning of Quidditch practice. Sean Johansen was a seventh year, who had joined the team the previous year and Professor McGonnagal had appointed him Quidditch captain.
"ALL RIGHT TEAM!" yelled Sean through a big purple microphone. "LET"S GET READY TO PRACTICE!" Harry tapped Sean on the shoulder.
"Sean," Harry said.
"Not now Harry, we need to practice."
"That's the problem Sean, we're the only players on this team at the moment."
Fred and George Weasley had been the Quidditch captain (much to their dislike) the previous year. This year however, they had lost five players. Angelina, Katie, Fred, George, and Alicia had all graduated from Hogwarts the previous year, leaving only Harry and Sean.
Sean gazed around the empty field.
"Well, I guess that we'll have to hold auditions," Sean said. He raised the microphone to his mouth again and yelled, "PRACTICE IS CANCELED!"
Harry rolled his eyes. Sean was as bad as Oliver Wood.
The next day a flier was posted in the Entrance Hall:
HEAR YE! HEAR YE!
The Gryffindor Quidditch Team is in need of Players!
If you are in Gryffindor and have experience playing Quidditch, please meet on the Quidditch Field on October the 6! Bring your own broom! We Currently need players for the following
Positions:
2 Beater
3 Chasers
I hope to see you all on October 6th.
Gryffindor Quidditch Captain,
Sean Johansen
Ron looked at the flier, and then at Harry.
"Hear ye, Hear ye?" He asked.
"Don't look at me," Harry said, "Sean made the flier."
The other Gryffindor students weren't looking at the 'Hear Ye, Hear Ye' they were to busy chatting about the tryouts.
"I want to be the Chaser!"
"NO! I WANT TO BE THE CHASER!
"NO ME!"
"ME!"
"I want to be beater."
"You're not going to win, you fall off your broom every time!"
"I wish keeper was open."
"What are you talking about? You're a Hufflepuff!"
On the day of November 6th almost all of Gryffindor showed up for the tryouts, along with Madame Pomfrey for some strange reason. There was even the little Creevy brothers. Of course they were constantly waving at Harry and kept wanting him to wish them good luck. Harry just buried his head in his notes and tried to ignore them.
All of the other Gryffindors were flying around on their broomsticks, occasionally bumping into each other.
"ALL RIGHT!" yelled Sean through the large purple megaphone, "GET IN TWO LINES! BEATERS IN ONE! CHASERS IN THE OTHER!"
After everyone was assembled (which took a while) Sean walked up and down the lines, giving everyone numbers.
"ALL RIGHT!" Sean finally yelled, "FROM CHASERS, WILL NUMBERS 1,2, AND 3, PLEASE STEP ONTO THE FIELD AND MOUNT YOUR BROOMS!" Sean himself got onto his brooms and flew over to the goal post. Then he instructed Harry to pick up the microphone.
"ALL CHASERS! TRY AND SCORE AGAINST SEAN!" Harry said grabbing his own broomstick and flying up to the posts so he could watch better. He took notes as all of the chasers flew up to the goal posts and attempted to score against Sean. After they went through the line, only one person had scored against Sean. Harry wrote her name down. An hour later two other people actually scored against Sean, Harry wrote their names down too.
"ALL RIGHT!" Harry said, "BEATERS NOW!"
It was absolute chaos. Bludgers were flying everywhere, people were being knocked off of their brooms while they were trying to protect themselves. Harry now understood why Madame Pomfrey had come. The Creevy brothers who were trying to whack the Bludgers as hard as they could, but they only succeeded in moving the great Black balls an inch or so. Neville fell of his broom within the first minutes.
"ALL RIGHT!" said Sean, grabbing the purple microphone away from Harry, "EVERYONE GET IN LINE AND TRY AND HIT THE TARGET! I SAID GET IN LINE!"
Everyone got in line and tried to hit the bullseye that was levitating in the sky. Most of the bludgers went off course and hit other things, like Sean.
"ALL RIGHT! EVERYONE STOP!" Sean yelled, rubbing his jaw where the Bludger had just hit him. He ducked as another Bludger came at him.
"THAT"S IT! TRYOUTS ARE OVER! WE'LL BE IN TOUCH!" Sean yelled finally.
Thirty minutes later, as Harry and Sean walked off of the field Sean said, "Well, that went well."
"Yeah, I know who should be the Keepers, but I have no idea about who should be the Beaters."
"How about Longbottom?"
"How 'bout not."
The two of them walked back up to the castle, discussing who should be playing Beater (don't worry it's not Neville. Although that would be funny) Both of them were totally unaware of the man watching them from the edge of the Forbidden Forest.