A/N Thanks to everyone who reviewed! This is meant to stand alone, rather than tie in to anything else, I just wrote it for a bit of fun.
The quotes in italics are taken from page 28 of:
Whisp, K Quidditch through the Ages. London: Whizz Hard Books.
OK OK… Rowling, J.K. (2001) Quidditch through the Ages. London: Bloomsbury.
Madam Hooch and Professor McGonagall carried the crate of Quidditch equipment down to the pitch for Thursday's training session. When they arrived, however, they were shocked and somewhat disgusted to discover that none of the other staff had arrived, but about thirty of the students were sitting together in one of the stands, looking excited. At closer inspection, McGonagall and Hooch realised that they included the Weasley twins and Kerry Schofield, who were obviously spying.
"Who told you about this?" McGonagall shrieked. "You can't stay! Go back to the castle!"
"You booked the Quidditch pitch," a twin pointed out. "Everyone could see you'd be here. There's some more coming along soon."
"No there aren't!" McGonagall ordered. Hooch was laughing…she wouldn't mind showing off. "Go away!" McGonagall continued, turning red, "or I'll take fifty points form each of you!"
The students looked at each other. Since all present with the exception of the Slytherin Keeper were Gryffindor, Ravenclaw of Hufflepuff, the loss of points would leave Slytherin with the advantage. McGonagall, however, did not look like she was joking. "Yeah, all right…" the twins muttered.
"If we can't watch your training sessions you're not watching ours!" Schofield protested.
Hooch looked somewhat annoyed. "Who was watching your training session?"
The answer was right behind her. "Good evening" said Professor Snape, to Madam Hooch and Professor McGonagall. "Clear off," said Professor Snape, to the assembled students. "Clear off, the whole lot of you!"
Grumbling, the students filed out of the stands and back towards the castle.
"Thank you, Severus" McGonagall told him, her colour returning to normal.
"I've taken all the copies of Quidditch through the Ages out of the library so the students can't have them" he told them, appearing somewhat pleased with his cunning. "And I watched the students training, they booked the pitch before dinner." He glanced at the students retreating towards the castle, and saw them conversing with another group who were coming the other way, clearly hoping to see that staff making fools of themselves.
"So you watched their training session, Severus," McGonagall stated disapprovingly. "We never said anything about spying, although we know you're the expert."
Snape looked annoyed, but was distracted by Madam Hooch pulling on his sleeve. "So?" she asked enthusiastically.
"So what?" Snape snapped.
"So, what did you find out?" Hooch demanded.
Snape smirked. "They're playing clean. We've got them."
Spurred by this news, the staff training session was still a disaster. Two Chasers couldn't pass, the other couldn't catch, the Beaters missed, the Keeper's charms seemed to be inadequate and the Seeker was riding an old school broom, which couldn't go half the speed of the snitch. There were eight days remaining to make up for lost decades, or, in the case of Professor Binns, centuries, of training. It was not looking good.
The students watched all of this with delight through the telescopes on the top of the astronomy tower. "They're even worse that last night," Harry grinned.
"Well, the game's in the bag," George concluded. "We may as well get on with listing our demands."
"Madam Hooch has called an emergency meeting," Dumbledore told the others at breakfast the next day. "Break, in the staffroom. She didn't sound too happy."
The message was passed along the table, and met with looks of varying embarrassment. Snape, however, was reading Quidditch through the Ages under the table, while McGonagall and Flitwick, either side of him, were sneaking sideways glances at it every now and then, for inspiration.
"It says here," Snape announced, "That 'rules are, of course, made to be broken'."
"Shhh!" hissed the team, eyeing the student tables warily.
"They might be listening!" Sprout protested.
There was a pause while the team looked around for their opponents. "Where are they?" Professor McGonagall asked suspiciously. "What could they be up to at this time?"
They were, in fact, sitting round several desks they'd pushed together in the Charms classroom, hunched over a few rolls of parchment for which Lee Jordan was the scribe. "Are you sure about this?" asked Angelina, reading one of the rolls, which was headed State Thy Demands, over Lee's shoulder.
"Dumbledore said they'd be sporting," Harry reminded the rest of the team. "But yesterday he said he wanted to see what we had planned before we went round annoying the Professors with…er, what did he call it? Oh yeah, inane schemes to embarrass the school."
"I say we state all the forfeits we like, and see which ones he accepts," Fred smirked.
"After the staff lose the match they won't want to lose face even more for not keeping up their end of the deal," George added cheerfully. "We still raise lots of money for a good cause, we may as well benefit ourselves a little for bringing it about."
"Good publicity for the joke shop," Lee added. He finished writing their fourth roll of parchment, and sealed the scroll. "Well, I think that's about it."
"I'm not volunteering to give this to Dumbledore," Terry Boot said apprehensively. "He won't know what's hit him."
"We'll do it," said Fred and George at once.
"Yeah, since most of this is your idea," grinned Angelina, prodding the scrolls with her wand. "Though Hermione came up with a few good ones."
At that moment, Hermione and Ron burst through the door. "Come on!" said Hermione, tugging Harry's sleeve. "Breakfast's finished, we'll be late for Potions."
The team said hurried goodbyes to each other, and scattered throughout the castle at top speed. Harry, Ron and Hermione needn't have worried. When they ran into the Potions dungeon to find the rest of the class already there and sitting in silence, Snape barely grunted. He waved his wand twice, causing the instructions to appear on the board and the store cupboard to open, continued to sit with his feet up on his desk, and didn't look up from the book he was reading for the rest of the lesson.
Madam Hooch stormed into the staffroom at break and slammed the door behind her. The six figures of the staff team cowered in armchairs, which in Hagrid's case was fairly difficult, while Snape glanced briefly at her over the top of his book. Several more copies were on a table beside him, and a couple more sticking out of his pocket. The rest of the staff appeared to have taken refuge elsewhere in the castle, having no desire to be part of this particular meeting. "Well?" Madam Hooch demanded. "Training was abysmal!" She paused and waited for a reaction, but didn't get one. The team continued to stare at her apprehensively, and Snape didn't look up from his book. There was red bump on his forehead, and there were rumours of his reading causing him to walk into a door on his way to the meeting. Madam Hooch continued, "In all my years of Quidditch…"
There was instant uproar. Being called abysmal, they could cope with, but any speech from Hooch beginning with "In all my years of Quidditch" could never be a good thing. Madam Hooch waited for the protests to die down before continuing. "We must do something! We will train every night, and study the rules every day! Last night's training went very badly, but…"
"My training," interrupted Snape "Is going very well, thank you. There are seven hundred known fouls! I'm sure you can manage to use some of them."
"How do we find out what they are?" Dumbledore demanded, the usual twinkle in his eyes turning into a manic gleam.
"There's a list in the Ministry," Hooch announced.
Snape smirked. "Yes… 'It is the Department's view that witches and wizards who see the list 'might get ideas'."
"We want ideas!" McGonagall exclaimed. "We want nothing but ideas for the next few days!"
"Well, Madam Hooch," Dumbledore smiled, turning to her. "It's down to you."
Madam Hooch looked slightly taken aback. "Sorry, but what is?"
"You're still an England coach, aren't you?" Sprout began slowly, obviously thinking along the same lines as Dumbledore. "If the Ministry's going to let anyone see the list, it would be you."
"And if not," said Dumbledore cheerfully, "I have an invisibility cloak you can borrow, and a few other items which may come in useful." He smiled around the group. Even Snape had looked up from the book. Dumbledore picked up the stack of copies from the table, and began to distribute them to his team mates. "Well, break's over. See you all on the Quidditch pitch tonight." He swept out of the room.
Madam Hooch stared at Snape. "This is all your fault."
Snape actually smiled. "Yes," he said, and departed, almost being knocked over by the Weasley twins, who ran past him in the corridor, evidently trying to catch up with Professor Dumbledore, who had dashed into his office as soon as he saw them.
"He can't avoid us all day," one of the twins said cheerfully to the other.
Dumbledore gave it a good try, though, but his luck ran out at the end of the school day.
"Aha, Professor Dumbledore!" Fred exclaimed, as he and George caught up to their Headmaster in the corridor.
"Mr Weasley," said Dumbledore cheerfully. "And Mr Weasley." He nodded to each of them in turn. The twins still thought their Professors called them both Mr Weasley to hide the fact that none of them could tell the two of them apart, and they were, of course, quite right. "What can I do for you?"
"We've spent the day making a list of our demands," George told him. "For when we… er, if we win."
"And here it is!" Fred presented Dumbledore with the list. "Well, we'll be off then."
They made a hasty exit up the corridor. "C'mon George, let's get out of here before he reads it."
Dumbledore unrolled the list, and read.