Chapter 4: Quidditch Games and Pepsi Bottles

Author's Note:  Ok, not totally sure about trademarks here, but Pepsi and the Pepsi logo are trademarks of Pepsi Co. or it's parent companies. Sorry it took so long to get this chapter up, hope you guys enjoy!

Elanus sat staring at the blackboard, watching the chalk write words on it as Professor Binns droned on about the day's history lesson. Normally he found the old ghost's lectures interesting, if dry. Today his mind was elsewhere, he'd completed and tested the Quidditch Team's scarves and the big game was today.

Finally, Professor Binns stopped his monotonous lecturing and dismissed the class. After waking up a few of his fellow classmates, Elanus walked out the door. He carefully made his way to the Hufflepuff dormitories to change.

"Hey Elanus!" John said as Elanus walked in the door to the boy's living quarters.

"Hey, John," Elanus said, shaking John's hand. "Ready for the game?"

"You know it," John said excitedly, "Why don't you meet us in the lockers before the game?"

"Sure," Elanus said, walking to his room. John followed closely and Elanus changed into another set of clothing.

"What's that?" John said, pointing to a small disk shaped object laying at the end of Elanus' bed.

"This?" Elanus asked, picking the disk up, "It's a project I've been working on."

"Does it do anything?" asked John.

Elanus shrugged, "It's nothing special really. It just has a silencing charm on it."

"Nice," John said, "We better get going, I still have to change into my uniform."

Elanus followed John down the school corridors to the locker rooms where the Hufflepuff team had already gathered.

"Hey look who I brought, the guy who's insured our victory today!" John announced as they walked in. The team cheered for Elanus and alternated between slapping him on the back, shaking his hand and hugging him.

"I'm gonna get changed guys. Elanus, why don't you inspect your handiwork and give a little speech?" John said, then grabbed a set of robes from a niche in the wall and stepped into a small curtained alcove.

Elanus shrugged and asked one of the girls if he could borrow her broom and scarf. The girl handed him her broom and scarf. He quickly tied the scarf to the broomstick, near the head.

"Just get out there and win," Elanus said, throwing the broom back to it's owner.

John emerged from the changing booth and led the team out to the stadium. Soon they mounted their brooms and flew out onto the field, meeting the Gryffindor team in the middle.

"Nice scarf," the Gryffindor Seeker told John, "You'll need all the luck you can get."

"Get a good look at my face, Potter," John retorted.

"Why?" asked Potter.

"Because for the rest of the game, all you'll be seeing is my back," John said.

The quaffle was thrown and the teams started flying around in a flurry of action. The Hufflepuff team was having a hard time keeping up with the Gryffindors, who had already scored two goals in the first minute or so of play.

"You shouldn't have used the scarves John, those tired brooms are already slow enough," Potter taunted.

John chuckled at James Potter's mocking. Elanus had cleverly designed the scarves to slowly but surely increase the speed of the brooms over the course of a few minutes so no one would suspect any tampering. Soon, just as planned the Hufflepuff team had caught up to the Gryffindors and were easily outpacing them. Hufflepuff scored several goals before John spotted the Snitch flying around.

John turned his head suddenly and took off slowly in a direction opposite to the Snitch. James quickly followed him and scanned around for any sign of streaking gold and soon realized John was no where to be seen. He turned his head and saw John on the far side of the Quidditch field chasing the elusive golden ball. James muttered a curse then sped off towards the Snitch.

"Very clever," James said.

"It was, wasn't it?" asked John, not turning his sight from the Snitch. The two pursued the Snitch across the field for a while as their teammates kept scoring.

"You know what?" John asked.

"What?" James asked.

"You lose!" John said, pushing his broom to it's fastest and easily grabbing the Snitch out of the air.

The gathered crowd roared with excitement as John flew around the court, Snitch in hand. After a few moments the players flew into formation, and then landed, walking off the court. Back in the Gryffindor locker rooms a frustrated Quidditch team growled at each other.

"They must have cheated," James Potter commented, throwing his shoes at a wall.

"Admit it, we lost fair and square," another young man said as he was changing back into his school robes.

"There's no way!" James screamed.

"There's no rule that says they can't fly faster then us, and besides I think we've been under estimating their Captain. John is an incredible player," the young man replied. "His only problem thus far is the shoddy equipment they've been provided."

"They had to have tampered with it," James said, calming down slightly. "That's it! They tampered with school property. There's no way those brooms could move that fast otherwise."

"Oh come off it, the brooms are inspected. Besides who here do you think is talented enough, not to mention skilled enough to modify flying brooms like that. They ain't easy to tinker with ya know."

James shrugged and muttered as he finished pulling on his robes. The rest of the day was slow for Gryffindor house, as few things were as humiliating as losing to the Hufflepuff team. While the Hufflepuff team wasn't bad, they did have the shoddiest equipment and they never made it to the final game. Their new found skill worried the Gryffindor team, as they'd been on top for well over a decade.

The Hufflepuff house however, was excited and the day passed entirely too quickly. Elanus couldn't be happier when it was over though, no matter how much attention he received from the team for helping them out. After everyone had gone to bed he quickly donned the cloak he had made and grabbed a small disk like object from under his bed. He knew those girls would be sneaking out again tonight and he had a trade to make. A few quick moments passed and he was on his perch overlooking a hall. His map showed several pink dots slowly making their way to an older part of the school.

"They don't use the same room twice, how clever of them," Elanus muttered to himself.

Once the dots converged, he quietly ran to the room they were in. He crouched by the door, listening for a few moments before gathering his nerve and walking in the door. His invisibility cloak wasn't perfect, so the girls saw a noticeable distortion moving into the room. The girls gasped and moved away from the distortion. One of them, a red head, was a bit braver and drew her wand.

"I knew we shouldn't have snuck out tonight," one of the girls said, as she huddled against the wall.

"James Potter if that's you I swear I'll blast you into next week," the redhead said, pointing her wand at the distortion.

Elanus shook his head and removed his cloak, and folded it in his arms. "I'm not James Potter," Elanus responded.

"Who are you?" asked the red head.

"He's Elanus Green, a Hufflepuff, I have a potions class with him," a pretty blonde girl in the corner said. "He'll turn us in, he's a stickler for the rules."

"Now why would I do that?" asked Elanus, "I'm out past curfew too you know. I came to make a trade."

"What sort of trade?" asked the red head.

"Well, first of all, I'd like to know your name," Elanus replied.

"Lily, Lily Evans," the girl said, putting her wand back in one of the pockets of her pajamas.

"Well, Lily, it's a pleasure to meet you," Elanus said, bowing, "I hear you girls have Pepsi?"

"You want a bottle of Pepsi?" asked Lily, "It's hard to get you know, my parents have to do all sorts of stuff to get it to my friends and I. What could a Hufflepuff possibly have that would be worth the trouble of having my parents send an extra bottle?"

"Have you girls ever got caught?" asked Elanus.

"A few times," Lily said, putting one hand on her hip.

"I have something that will keep all sounds made in a room, inside the room," Elanus said, "Interested?"

"No deal, we learned a charm that would do that in our third year," one of the other girls said.

"Yeah, but it's detectable, and not entirely perfect, what I have is," Elanus said.

"If you have something that can't be detected, it might be worth a bottle of Pepsi," Lily said thoughtfully, and slowly, "If you're talented enough to make something like that, perhaps you could," She paused for a moment and looked out the window, "Do you know about Potter and his minions?"

"Ah, yes the Marauders," Elanus replied.

"They have a map," Lily started.

"Yes I know," Elanus said.

"Do you know what it does?" asked Lily.

"As a matter of fact I do," Elanus replied, "I suppose those four bother you?"

"Yes, do you know of anything to make us undetectable to it?"

"Yeah, but it's a secret I don't want to part with so much," Elanus said, a small smile forming on his face.

"Listen, if you can deliver, we'll get you a few bottles of Pepsi a month," Lily said. "You can have a whole case if you want."

"I don't know," Elanus replied, "It took me months to figure it out."

"What do you want?" Lily asked.

"Six bottles of Pepsi a month, your silence about me sneaking out, passwords from all four houses, and I want to know where and when you plan to hold your little meetings," Elanus replied.

"The first part we can handle," Lily replied, "As for where and when we hold our meetings, that's our business."

"Alright, here's the device," Elanus said, tossing Lily a small disk shaped object.

"The spell?" Lily asked.

"Got a piece of paper?" asked Elanus. In response one of the girls produced a sheet of flowered stationary from a small diary she had with her and gave it to Elanus, along with a quill. After a few moments scribbling something on the sheet, Elanus handed it to Lily.

"It's pretty simple, really," Elanus said, "It can be cast on other people to."

"Thanks," Lily said, retrieving a bottle of Pepsi from a small bundle on the floor.

"You're welcome, a pleasure doing business with you, and there's more where that came from," Elanus said, stowing the bottle and wrapping his cloak around himself, and slipping through the open door.

"Who was that?" one of the girls asked quietly.

"He's cute," another said.

"Mr. Green is also talented," Lily said, turning the disk over in her hands.

"Where'd he get an invisibility cloak?" the blonde asked. "Aren't there only a few of those?"

"Four," Lily replied, "Two of them belong to the Potter family, one belongs to the ministry and the other belongs to you know who or one of his minions."

"Could he be a Death Eater?" asked the blonde with a shudder.

"I don't know," Lily said thoughtfully, placing the disk in her pocket and eying the door, "We should go to bed."

With that the girls quietly packed their things up and ever so carefully moved down the hallways back to their dormitories. Elanus himself found a quiet corner and sat down. He pulled a small red pocket knife from his robes and carefully opened what looked like a bottle opener. The very base of the device bore the word "Wenger". After applying it to the Pepsi bottle and stuffing the bottle cap in his pocket along with his knife he stared out the window to the Hogwart's courtyard. Fireflies danced along the grass and the occasional breeze stirred the trees. He sipped his Pepsi and smiled as two centaurs came into view at the very edge of the forest and just as quickly disappeared within.