Part 9 Quidditch Lessons
Willow, Faith, and Fred made their way out to the Quidditch field, after breakfast. As they approached, they saw that Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny were already there, and they could see Charlie making his way to the field from the other direction. When they had all arrived Charlie spoke first.
"Are we sure this'll work at all?" Charlie asked, "Is Faith even capable of flying?"
"Slayer's are inherently magical right?" Fred pointed out, "There whole existence is magical."
"Can't hurt to try," Harry said, "If not maybe we can bewitch the broom or something."
Charlie quickly explained and demonstrated what they had to do, then waited while the three women attempted it. Willow immediately went into the air and circled the field. Hermione and Ginny followed her and began showing her different flying tricks.
Faith was able to get the broom into her hand but hesitated to take off. Ron and Harry went over and helped her to get the broom off the ground. Soon the three of them were chasing Willow, Hermione, and Ginny in circles around the field.
Fred was still on the ground, the broom came to her hand immediately, and she hovered for a moment before panicking and landing again. Charlie watched quietly for a few moments while she repeated this procedure several times.
"Are you afraid to do this?" He asked coming up behind her.
"Yeah, I don't even like airplanes," Fred said, dropping the broom in defeat, "This isn't going to work."
"Well, I know nothing about airplanes, saw a picture once, and they don't look all that safe to me either. But I can assure you this is safe."
"I can't."
"Here," Charlie moved directly behind her, "Let's do it together, its how we taught Ginny."
He took Fred's hand and held it over the broom, "UP!" They said in unison, the broom quickly jumped into Fred's hand.
"Mount the broom first," Charlie took several steps back and waited for her to swing her leg over before climbing on behind her, "Now we'll just hover for a few seconds, then I'll take us higher okay."
"A-all right," She still wasn't sure this would work but she would try it.
Charlie helped her kick the broom off the ground and they hovered in place for several minutes before he pulled the handle causing the broom to rise slowly. When they were several feet off the ground, he began to move the broom forward slowly.
"Are you okay?" Charlie asked as Fred leaned back into him and he saw that her eyes were closed.
"Yeah, I guess it's not as bad as I thought," She opened her eyes and managed a weak smile.
"Just don't look down and you'll be fine," he assured her and urged the broom into making large slow circles, "So tell me about America."
"What do you want to know?"
"Doesn't matter, everything. Do you have a boyfriend?"
"Not really. Not anymore," Fred replied, "It's a long story."
"Not really?" Charlie repeated, "Does that mean if I were to ask you to go to Hogsmeade with me next weekend, there would or wouldn't be a jealous muggle after me?"
"Over protective vampire and demon maybe but no boyfriend," Fred smiled; Gunn certainly had no reason to be jealous anymore.
"So will you?"
"Will I what?" Fred asked had she missed something.
"Next weekend is a Hogsmeade weekend for the students, will you go with me?"
"What? Are you serious?" Fred turned her head to look at him, causing him to tighten his grip on the broom to stay on course.
"Of course I'm serious."
"Yeah, I'll go." Fred answered as Charlie changed his grip on the broom and brought them to the ground.
"Great," When their feet hit the ground he climbed off the broom, "Try it by yourself now."
"I was having fun this way," She grabbed his hand and tried to pull him back to the broom.
"So was I but we've sort of acquired an audience," He glanced over to the Quidditch field where everyone was now on the ground watching them.
"Oh." Fred blushed slightly and mounted the broom. She quickly took off and circled the field several times before landing.
After Fred landed, the group went over the rules and positions of Quidditch again for the benefit of the new teachers before moving on to how they were going to play with only eight people. While they were arguing if it was best to play as if they were at practice and use only one keeper and everyone would be trying to score or play only 4 to a team which would mean only one person per position, Draco Malfoy and the rest of the Slytherin Quidditch team approached the field, and announced they wanted the field for practice.
"We were here first," Ron, pointed out.
"But we're a school team not just playing around," The team captain pointed out.
While the students were all arguing, Faith leaned over and whispered to Willow and Fred. They in turn called Charlie and the Gryffindors over.
"I think it's a great idea!" Hermione smiled, "I won't play. I don't really like it anyway. Do you guys think you're ready for this though?"
"As long as I can be a beater," Faith responded.
"We have an idea Malfoy," Willow called to the other team.
"What?"
"Simple we want to learn to play, you guys want to practice," Willow stated the only facts everyone had agreed on, "So you play us."
"It'll give you the practice you want, against players from another house," Faith continued, "And we get to learn the game."
The Slytherins huddled together and quickly discussed it. The idea wasn't bad, as far as Malfoy was concerned, he didn't like the new teachers and it would give him a chance to best them.
"You can't punish us in any way if you lose or do badly," Draco turned to the group waiting for their decision.
"Of course not," Fred agreed.
Once everyone had agreed, everyone flew into the air to take their positions. Ron and Harry would play Keeper and Seeker because there was no reason to not use this a practice session for them too. Faith and Willow would be beaters, and Charlie, Fred, and Ginny would be chasers. Hermione who did not really want to play anyway would stay on the ground and referee.
As the game progressed over the first hour, the two teams were staying close in points, taking turns being in the lead. Faith and Willow both turned out to be very good beaters. Willow caught Malfoy several times trying to knock Harry off his broom, when they would both spot the snitch. Not being completely sure of the rules, she had remained quiet though, until Hermione motioned for her to come closer.
"Have you been watching Malfoy?" Hermione asked when Willow reached her.
"Is that allowed?"
"Well it's not really against the rules; I mean it's not an outright foul unless it was obvious that he was trying to injure Harry."
"I have an idea," Willow said, then whispered her plan to the girl, who smiled and nodded. "I'll tell Ron."
Willow quickly flew up as Hermione took off in Ron's direction. Willow found Faith and told her the plan, and the two of them split up to tell the rest of them team, as Ron smiled at Willow and Hermione was flying toward Ginny.
Once the whole team was aware of the plan Willow quickly spotted Malfoy watching Harry closely. That was apparently his method of finding the snitch, wait for Harry to make a move and follow. Willow muttered a few words under her breath and flew off to stop a bludger heading toward Fred.
Malfoy blinked several times, he couldn't believe his eyes, the snitch was right next to Potter's ear and he didn't even know it was there. Now he just needed a way to get to it without attracting the other boy's attention. He began circling the field moving slowly toward Harry, when suddenly Harry took off in the opposite direction at top speed. Malfoy immediately picked up speed heading to the spot Harry had just abandoned and the snitch was hovering. He reached out, wrapped his hand around the small golden ball, and yelled that he had caught it.
Everyone flew over to where he was hovering and he opened his hand. It was empty. His team was shouting at him to stop playing games. No one seemed interested in his explanation and the game resumed.
A few minutes later, Malfoy, once again, spotted the snitch, this time hovering next to Faith who Harry was looking directly at. This time not bothering to hide what he was doing, he took off toward the Slayer as Harry turned his broom and suddenly took off toward the Slytherin goal.
Malfoy reached out and once again wrapped his fingers around the small golden ball, shouted that he had the snitch and quickly landed. His team surrounded him immediately and he opened his hand to find it empty again.
"What the hell?" He yelled, he knew he had caught it. He'd felt it in his hand. Then he saw on the other side of the field the team of teacher's and Gryffindors laughing and Fred holding the snitch in her open hand.
Storming over to them, he grabbed the snitch from the laughing teacher, "You cheated Potter!"
"No I didn't," Harry replied, trying to control his laughter.
"Honestly Malfoy, how could Harry have cheated," Hermione asked.
"That snitch that I caught it wasn't real. I don't know how but you cheated."
"We're all in the same year, except for Ginny and she's a year behind us. Do you know of any way to make an object appear and disappear? Without transfiguration, since this would imply that Harry already had some other object." Hermione asked impatiently, she had to find out later how Professor Rosenberg had managed it.
"Well no but." Then his eyes landed on Willow, "You did it! I don't know how but you."
"Only because you decided not to play fair Malfoy," Willow said patiently, "Oh, I know you weren't technically cheating but Hermione knows Quidditch rules quite well."
"She knows anything that's in a book quite well," Ron muttered.
"And there is nothing in the rules that says you can't conjure a fake ball," Hermione said, very pleased.
"It's, even if it's not in the rules its wrong." Draco argued.
"As is trying to knock Potter off his broom," Came an unpleasant voice from the stands.
"Professor Snape they."
"As Miss Granger and Professor Rosenberg pointed out, were not technically cheating," Snape said coming off the stands, "I saw the game Mr. Malfoy. They were no more cheating than you were."
Draco deciding arguing would only make his head of house angry, he and the rest of the Slytherin team grabbed their brooms and stomped away.
"Don't you have homework this weekend?" Snape snapped at the remaining students, "I know you all couldn't have finished your Potions work."
Snape watched as Potter and his friends headed back to the castle and Charlie Weasley and Fred had turned their attention to putting away the Quidditch balls.
"May I speak to you a moment Miss Rosenberg?"
"I'll just go put the brooms away," Faith, said grabbing the brooms and following Fred and Charlie who were heading off the field carrying a large trunk.
"What?" Willow asked as she turned to head to the castle, "Gonna yell at me for picking on your students?"
"No, Mr. Malfoy was not playing fairly. This was not a real match, nothing at stake here," Snape said, "His behavior was uncalled for. Though how you managed to do that without a wand."
"I can do lot's without a wand Professor," Willow stopped and turned to smile at him, "Hell I almost ended the world without one."
"Yes, that was what I wanted to talk to you about."
"How to end the world without a wand?" Willow smiled, "Cause not sure it's something that can be taught."
"No," Snape snapped, did she have to be so bloody cheerful all the time, "Do you still want to know about Lord Voldemort?"
"Nope, changed my mind, decided to let him keep Dumbledore," Willow pulled open the large doors of the castle, "Of course I still want to know."
**********
Harry walked into the Gryffindor common room after changing to clean clothes, and immediately for Ron sitting in front of the fire and Hermione at a table covered with books. He walked over and sat next to Ron, the room was empty, except for the three of them, and it was still early so everyone was outside. When he had been changing clothes he had gotten a sharp pain in his scar and a flash of something, he would have sworn what he saw was a group of Death Eater's and maybe Voldemort. But it was different from usual he wasn't seeing it through the dark wizard this time. It was through someone else's eyes.
"Hermione," Harry called to the girl huddled over the books, "I. something." Harry was absently rubbing his scar.
"What is it? Was it your scar? Did you see anything?" Both of his friends were firing questions at him so quickly he held up his hands to stop them.
"Yes. To all the questions," Harry said impatiently, "It hurt but it was different. I saw Death Eater's maybe five or six of them, and I think Voldemort but his back was turned."
"How could you see Voldemort Harry?" Hermione asked, "I thought you saw what he sees?"
"So did I," Harry muttered, "Look I don't know what it was, but it wasn't coming from Voldemort. I don't know who it was."
"We need to tell." Ron's voice trailed off, normally he would say tell Dumbledore but they couldn't do that.
"We could. Oh, I know, Professor Burkle said to tell her or Professor Rosenberg if anything happened," Hermione said.
They quickly made their way out of the tower and went in search of one or more of their new teachers.
Willow, Faith, and Fred made their way out to the Quidditch field, after breakfast. As they approached, they saw that Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny were already there, and they could see Charlie making his way to the field from the other direction. When they had all arrived Charlie spoke first.
"Are we sure this'll work at all?" Charlie asked, "Is Faith even capable of flying?"
"Slayer's are inherently magical right?" Fred pointed out, "There whole existence is magical."
"Can't hurt to try," Harry said, "If not maybe we can bewitch the broom or something."
Charlie quickly explained and demonstrated what they had to do, then waited while the three women attempted it. Willow immediately went into the air and circled the field. Hermione and Ginny followed her and began showing her different flying tricks.
Faith was able to get the broom into her hand but hesitated to take off. Ron and Harry went over and helped her to get the broom off the ground. Soon the three of them were chasing Willow, Hermione, and Ginny in circles around the field.
Fred was still on the ground, the broom came to her hand immediately, and she hovered for a moment before panicking and landing again. Charlie watched quietly for a few moments while she repeated this procedure several times.
"Are you afraid to do this?" He asked coming up behind her.
"Yeah, I don't even like airplanes," Fred said, dropping the broom in defeat, "This isn't going to work."
"Well, I know nothing about airplanes, saw a picture once, and they don't look all that safe to me either. But I can assure you this is safe."
"I can't."
"Here," Charlie moved directly behind her, "Let's do it together, its how we taught Ginny."
He took Fred's hand and held it over the broom, "UP!" They said in unison, the broom quickly jumped into Fred's hand.
"Mount the broom first," Charlie took several steps back and waited for her to swing her leg over before climbing on behind her, "Now we'll just hover for a few seconds, then I'll take us higher okay."
"A-all right," She still wasn't sure this would work but she would try it.
Charlie helped her kick the broom off the ground and they hovered in place for several minutes before he pulled the handle causing the broom to rise slowly. When they were several feet off the ground, he began to move the broom forward slowly.
"Are you okay?" Charlie asked as Fred leaned back into him and he saw that her eyes were closed.
"Yeah, I guess it's not as bad as I thought," She opened her eyes and managed a weak smile.
"Just don't look down and you'll be fine," he assured her and urged the broom into making large slow circles, "So tell me about America."
"What do you want to know?"
"Doesn't matter, everything. Do you have a boyfriend?"
"Not really. Not anymore," Fred replied, "It's a long story."
"Not really?" Charlie repeated, "Does that mean if I were to ask you to go to Hogsmeade with me next weekend, there would or wouldn't be a jealous muggle after me?"
"Over protective vampire and demon maybe but no boyfriend," Fred smiled; Gunn certainly had no reason to be jealous anymore.
"So will you?"
"Will I what?" Fred asked had she missed something.
"Next weekend is a Hogsmeade weekend for the students, will you go with me?"
"What? Are you serious?" Fred turned her head to look at him, causing him to tighten his grip on the broom to stay on course.
"Of course I'm serious."
"Yeah, I'll go." Fred answered as Charlie changed his grip on the broom and brought them to the ground.
"Great," When their feet hit the ground he climbed off the broom, "Try it by yourself now."
"I was having fun this way," She grabbed his hand and tried to pull him back to the broom.
"So was I but we've sort of acquired an audience," He glanced over to the Quidditch field where everyone was now on the ground watching them.
"Oh." Fred blushed slightly and mounted the broom. She quickly took off and circled the field several times before landing.
After Fred landed, the group went over the rules and positions of Quidditch again for the benefit of the new teachers before moving on to how they were going to play with only eight people. While they were arguing if it was best to play as if they were at practice and use only one keeper and everyone would be trying to score or play only 4 to a team which would mean only one person per position, Draco Malfoy and the rest of the Slytherin Quidditch team approached the field, and announced they wanted the field for practice.
"We were here first," Ron, pointed out.
"But we're a school team not just playing around," The team captain pointed out.
While the students were all arguing, Faith leaned over and whispered to Willow and Fred. They in turn called Charlie and the Gryffindors over.
"I think it's a great idea!" Hermione smiled, "I won't play. I don't really like it anyway. Do you guys think you're ready for this though?"
"As long as I can be a beater," Faith responded.
"We have an idea Malfoy," Willow called to the other team.
"What?"
"Simple we want to learn to play, you guys want to practice," Willow stated the only facts everyone had agreed on, "So you play us."
"It'll give you the practice you want, against players from another house," Faith continued, "And we get to learn the game."
The Slytherins huddled together and quickly discussed it. The idea wasn't bad, as far as Malfoy was concerned, he didn't like the new teachers and it would give him a chance to best them.
"You can't punish us in any way if you lose or do badly," Draco turned to the group waiting for their decision.
"Of course not," Fred agreed.
Once everyone had agreed, everyone flew into the air to take their positions. Ron and Harry would play Keeper and Seeker because there was no reason to not use this a practice session for them too. Faith and Willow would be beaters, and Charlie, Fred, and Ginny would be chasers. Hermione who did not really want to play anyway would stay on the ground and referee.
As the game progressed over the first hour, the two teams were staying close in points, taking turns being in the lead. Faith and Willow both turned out to be very good beaters. Willow caught Malfoy several times trying to knock Harry off his broom, when they would both spot the snitch. Not being completely sure of the rules, she had remained quiet though, until Hermione motioned for her to come closer.
"Have you been watching Malfoy?" Hermione asked when Willow reached her.
"Is that allowed?"
"Well it's not really against the rules; I mean it's not an outright foul unless it was obvious that he was trying to injure Harry."
"I have an idea," Willow said, then whispered her plan to the girl, who smiled and nodded. "I'll tell Ron."
Willow quickly flew up as Hermione took off in Ron's direction. Willow found Faith and told her the plan, and the two of them split up to tell the rest of them team, as Ron smiled at Willow and Hermione was flying toward Ginny.
Once the whole team was aware of the plan Willow quickly spotted Malfoy watching Harry closely. That was apparently his method of finding the snitch, wait for Harry to make a move and follow. Willow muttered a few words under her breath and flew off to stop a bludger heading toward Fred.
Malfoy blinked several times, he couldn't believe his eyes, the snitch was right next to Potter's ear and he didn't even know it was there. Now he just needed a way to get to it without attracting the other boy's attention. He began circling the field moving slowly toward Harry, when suddenly Harry took off in the opposite direction at top speed. Malfoy immediately picked up speed heading to the spot Harry had just abandoned and the snitch was hovering. He reached out, wrapped his hand around the small golden ball, and yelled that he had caught it.
Everyone flew over to where he was hovering and he opened his hand. It was empty. His team was shouting at him to stop playing games. No one seemed interested in his explanation and the game resumed.
A few minutes later, Malfoy, once again, spotted the snitch, this time hovering next to Faith who Harry was looking directly at. This time not bothering to hide what he was doing, he took off toward the Slayer as Harry turned his broom and suddenly took off toward the Slytherin goal.
Malfoy reached out and once again wrapped his fingers around the small golden ball, shouted that he had the snitch and quickly landed. His team surrounded him immediately and he opened his hand to find it empty again.
"What the hell?" He yelled, he knew he had caught it. He'd felt it in his hand. Then he saw on the other side of the field the team of teacher's and Gryffindors laughing and Fred holding the snitch in her open hand.
Storming over to them, he grabbed the snitch from the laughing teacher, "You cheated Potter!"
"No I didn't," Harry replied, trying to control his laughter.
"Honestly Malfoy, how could Harry have cheated," Hermione asked.
"That snitch that I caught it wasn't real. I don't know how but you cheated."
"We're all in the same year, except for Ginny and she's a year behind us. Do you know of any way to make an object appear and disappear? Without transfiguration, since this would imply that Harry already had some other object." Hermione asked impatiently, she had to find out later how Professor Rosenberg had managed it.
"Well no but." Then his eyes landed on Willow, "You did it! I don't know how but you."
"Only because you decided not to play fair Malfoy," Willow said patiently, "Oh, I know you weren't technically cheating but Hermione knows Quidditch rules quite well."
"She knows anything that's in a book quite well," Ron muttered.
"And there is nothing in the rules that says you can't conjure a fake ball," Hermione said, very pleased.
"It's, even if it's not in the rules its wrong." Draco argued.
"As is trying to knock Potter off his broom," Came an unpleasant voice from the stands.
"Professor Snape they."
"As Miss Granger and Professor Rosenberg pointed out, were not technically cheating," Snape said coming off the stands, "I saw the game Mr. Malfoy. They were no more cheating than you were."
Draco deciding arguing would only make his head of house angry, he and the rest of the Slytherin team grabbed their brooms and stomped away.
"Don't you have homework this weekend?" Snape snapped at the remaining students, "I know you all couldn't have finished your Potions work."
Snape watched as Potter and his friends headed back to the castle and Charlie Weasley and Fred had turned their attention to putting away the Quidditch balls.
"May I speak to you a moment Miss Rosenberg?"
"I'll just go put the brooms away," Faith, said grabbing the brooms and following Fred and Charlie who were heading off the field carrying a large trunk.
"What?" Willow asked as she turned to head to the castle, "Gonna yell at me for picking on your students?"
"No, Mr. Malfoy was not playing fairly. This was not a real match, nothing at stake here," Snape said, "His behavior was uncalled for. Though how you managed to do that without a wand."
"I can do lot's without a wand Professor," Willow stopped and turned to smile at him, "Hell I almost ended the world without one."
"Yes, that was what I wanted to talk to you about."
"How to end the world without a wand?" Willow smiled, "Cause not sure it's something that can be taught."
"No," Snape snapped, did she have to be so bloody cheerful all the time, "Do you still want to know about Lord Voldemort?"
"Nope, changed my mind, decided to let him keep Dumbledore," Willow pulled open the large doors of the castle, "Of course I still want to know."
**********
Harry walked into the Gryffindor common room after changing to clean clothes, and immediately for Ron sitting in front of the fire and Hermione at a table covered with books. He walked over and sat next to Ron, the room was empty, except for the three of them, and it was still early so everyone was outside. When he had been changing clothes he had gotten a sharp pain in his scar and a flash of something, he would have sworn what he saw was a group of Death Eater's and maybe Voldemort. But it was different from usual he wasn't seeing it through the dark wizard this time. It was through someone else's eyes.
"Hermione," Harry called to the girl huddled over the books, "I. something." Harry was absently rubbing his scar.
"What is it? Was it your scar? Did you see anything?" Both of his friends were firing questions at him so quickly he held up his hands to stop them.
"Yes. To all the questions," Harry said impatiently, "It hurt but it was different. I saw Death Eater's maybe five or six of them, and I think Voldemort but his back was turned."
"How could you see Voldemort Harry?" Hermione asked, "I thought you saw what he sees?"
"So did I," Harry muttered, "Look I don't know what it was, but it wasn't coming from Voldemort. I don't know who it was."
"We need to tell." Ron's voice trailed off, normally he would say tell Dumbledore but they couldn't do that.
"We could. Oh, I know, Professor Burkle said to tell her or Professor Rosenberg if anything happened," Hermione said.
They quickly made their way out of the tower and went in search of one or more of their new teachers.