A/N: The penultimate chapter! The usual disclaimers apply.
Chapter Four: All Bets Are On
"Are you ready?" Dumbledore asked Hooch, as they stood in Hogsmeade at dawn on Saturday.
"Oh yes!" she said brightly. As expected, the Ministry had refused to show Madam Hooch the list of the seven hundred known fouls. It seemed that the Department of Magical Games and Sports had got wind of the impending match, had a shrewd idea of what she might want the list for, and knew that it did not involve England's forthcoming match against Lithuania, which was they only thing they cared about. "We don't want the list falling into the wrong hands!" the Ministry had said. "We dread to think what the likes of Dumbledore would do with that sort of information!" Madam Hooch had laughed awkwardly, backed out of the fire which she was using to talk to her colleague in London, kicked a table leg in annoyance, and gone straight to Dumbledore.
"The rest of the staff were going to come and see you off, but I think they're all still in bed," Dumbledore told Madam Hooch sadly. "Well, we've got the pitch booked from four, so try to be back by then. Bye then."
Madam Hooch grinned, and Disapparated.
Dumbledore called after her, although there was entirely no point, "And get that list, or die trying!"
The staff waited anxiously for her to come back. They paced the staffroom until midday, paced the hall at lunch, paced the Quidditch stadium as they watched the students training, and paced the changing rooms as they got ready for their own training session, while complaining about how good the students were. Professor McGonagall was almost crying. "It's all my fault!" she wailed. "I should never have let Potter play Quidditch, and I should have expelled Fred and George when they turned my wand into a snake, then they'd be out of the way!"
Snape snored. "I told you that all along," he snapped. He was attending all the staff training sessions so he would know exactly what they were planning, although he had spent most of them so far chasing stray students away.
"No you didn't, you said I should have expelled Potter and not let Fred and George play Quidditch as punishment for burning down your classroom with the illicit mixtures they were brewing in there over the Christmas holidays," she retorted.
Snape opened his mouth to speak, but Dumbledore rounded on him and said "And don't you dare start on about Hermione Granger setting your cloak on fire again."
"Is there even any point having a training session without that list?" Sprout asked anxiously, checking her watch.
"No," said Dumbledore angrily.
"Or without a Seeker," Vector reminded them.
"Never mind that," said McGonagall, throwing her broom down in disgust. "We need that list! Because of…" she pointed the scrolls of demands that Dumbledore had been poring over all day "…that list!" She stormed out of the changing rooms.
"If she only knew," said Dumbledore airily, causing the rest of the staff to snatch up the list and fight to see what was on it.
By dinnertime, Madam Hooch had not returned. Dumbledore was starting to get worried, but was distracted by an owl swooping towards him. He read the scroll it had brought him with great concern. The Daily Prophet was planning to do a report on the match. Dumbledore chose not to tell the rest of the staff this, lest it cause a panic.
"Psst," someone whispered from behind him. Madam Hooch was in the doorway behind the staff table. Dumbledore was about to speak to her, but noticed Terry Boot and his friends watching him from the Ravenclaw table, and waved her away.
"Where've you been?" he asked her ten minutes later when dinner was over. They were hiding, fairly unsuccessfully, behind a statue.
"Sorry, got distracted reading the list," Madam Hooch said, handing Dumbledore's invisibility cloak back to him. "It's gone up to nine hundred since the last cup final."
"Excellent!" said Dumbledore, clapping his hands. "Let's call a meeting."
"Midnight tomorrow, give us all a chance to read it. Tell the others. And we'll have our training session tomorrow afternoon so the students don't get suspicious."
But they were already suspicious. The staff were just… "Too confident," said George, as the team and some other students watched the end of Sunday's training session from their usual tower. "That was dreadful, why do they look so happy?"
"They must know something we don't," said Harry. "And to top it off, this morning Ron and Hermione overheard Snape talking to Vector and McGonagall about the list, they were saying it was too long to get through in time, and they were all physically incapable of carrying out three quarters of the stuff on it."
Fred shrugged. "Dunno what that'd be about then. Dumbledore said he'd get back to us about it by tomorrow, you'll know what he says as soon as we do."
"What exactly went on that list, Fred?" said Angelina sternly.
"You'll see," said Fred. "You'll see."
Breakfast on Monday was a noisy affair. Fred, George, Harry and Angelina had put their heads together at the Gryffindor table. "The staff are up to something." Harry whispered urgently. "Last night they were all in Dumbledore's office at 1am!"
"How'd you know?" Angelina asked.
"The Marauder's Map," said Harry, Fred and George together.
"The what?" Angelina asked.
"We'll tell you later," George assured her, but he was cut off by Fred.
"Uh-oh" said Fred, nudging George. "Dumbledore."
Professor Dumbledore approached them at the Gryffindor table, carrying the list of demands. "Good morning."
"Morning," Fred and George said warily. Harry and Angelina looked up and tried to look at Dumbledore as if they hadn't just been talking about him.
Their Headmaster passed back the lists of demands. "Well, I've had a look at this over the weekend, and this all seems in order."
"It… it does?" Angelina asked, taken aback.
"Perfectly reasonable," Dumbledore smiled. "Well, good day." And he strode away.
Fred and George Weasley made it their personal mission to wrangle as much money as possible from the staff. They began on Monday morning at the end of their first lesson, Charms, asking professor Flitwick if he would be willing to put ten galleons on the outcome of the match.
"Ten galleons?" George hissed. "Fred, we haven't got…"
"Shh…" Fred held up his hand. "What do you say, Professor? It's all for charity, eh?"
Flitwick sighed. "Oh, go on then…"
The mission continued at the end of Transfiguration. They stayed behind at the end of the lesson, to get Professor McGonagall on her own, while Lee stood sniggering in the doorway.
"Yes gentlemen?" she asked, looking up from the paperwork on her desk and surveying them over her glasses.
"We were just wondering how charitable you were feeling, Professor," George grinned, glancing at Fred. McGonagall indicated that they continue.
"If you win, you still get to teach us," Fred told her.
"And if you lose, you don't" George added.
"Gentlemen," McGonagall began. "Is this some juvenile attempt to have me throw the match?"
The twins put on their best innocent look, saved only for their beloved teachers. "Ten galleons" Fred told her.
McGonagall pursed her lips. "And which charity is this going to?"
"Our joke shop," George began. "The one Fred and I are setting up for when we leave school."
Seeing the look on McGonagall's face, Fred quickly laughed and changed the deal. "No, no, only joking Professor. It's for St Mungo's, that's the student charity. And we also want a television in the Gryffindor common room."
"A what?" McGonagall asked, curious, but she signed the form, and the twins left the room with a look of renewed triumph.
"The Weasley twins said if we lose, I no longer have to teach them," McGonagall told Professor Dumbledore during breakfast on Tuesday. He gave her a sharp look. "Please, Albus?"
"No," he told her. "No, we said that we wouldn't allow our charitable activities to interfere with the students' education."
"All they want is a joke shop," she told him sadly.
Albus chuckled. "I think they'll be very successful. Particularly with you on board."
"Me?" Professor McGonagall exclaimed.
"Oh yes." Dumbledore produced his copy of the list of demands. "If we lose, of course. They've asked for you, and Professor Flitwick, personally, and seem to have acquired a lot of sponsorship for it. They seem to need a bit of help in those areas."
"I've always been suspicious of their requests to learn spells for their extra-curricular activities, as they call them." McGonagall confided. "Mind, their marks in Transfiguration have always benefited from the extra practice."
Dumbledore chuckled. "If they offer you any food, don't take it."
McGonagall took the opportunity to snatch the list of demands, and marched out of the hall with it.
When the student team put their heads together at the end of the Hufflepuff table during dinner, they couldn't believe the pledges they'd accumulated, from both staff and students. "I suppose there's more to this than humiliating the Professors," said Fred, looking impressed. He caught McGonagall looking at them from the staff table, and he and George waved cheerfully to her.
"We must win!" McGonagall exclaimed to Sprout and Flitwick, either side of her. "Please save me!"
George turned to Fred. "On the other hand…"