A/N: I own nothing, JKR owns the characters and everything else but the
idea
A/N: Reviews like Beldin's that make me laugh are highly encouraged
A/N: This chapter is a little long. I was having fun and got a little carried away.
CH14 Great Game
Once again it had been Hermione's luck to be paired with Neville for the charms exam. It was her contribution to the team for their big game tomorrow against Ravenclaw. Hermione was sure that there had to be a better way though and vowed to find one before their second game of the season.
Professor Flitwick had randomly assigned every pair a number. Hermione and Neville were going to go first, Dean and Seamus second, Harry and Ron third and so forth and so on. Hermione decided to magic her stretcher with Neville in it first lest he do something to her that she couldn't perform the spell after Neville was through with her.
As everyone thought would happen, Hermione did a perfect job. She sent a stretcher from the pile in the corner over next to Neville and magicked him onto it. At a slow but steady pace her stretcher migrated to the opposite end of the room and hovered until Neville got off of it.
Now it was Neville's turn. Ron didn't know whether or not he wanted to watch. It was a good thing that Harry was still keeping an eagle eye out for any sign of the side effects. He was about to see some.
Neville was usually able to successfully retrieve the stretcher from the corner and today was no different. Professor Flitwick knew the pain Hermione was about to face and placed a charm on the floor that the students hadn't heard before. Most of the class was like Ron and couldn't decide whether or not to watch although they knew Professor Flitwick had probably just softened the floor.
Hermione felt herself slam into the stretcher. Although it did hurt some, she was grateful this time that at least he didn't slam her into the floor like last week. For the first couple of feet there was nothing amiss. And then it happened. Everyone in the room gasped in shock.
Neville's stretcher, as it was prone to doing, stood itself up on end. But Hermione didn't go flying through the air. She was STUCK TO IT. Neville was so worked up that when he tried to get the stretcher to lie back down, it rotated so that it was on top of Hermione and she was facing the floor. She still didn't fall.
Harry was laughing so hard he couldn't stop. Imagine the possibilities! Ron, Dean and Seamus couldn't fall off their brooms tomorrow --- no matter what!
Neville was getting more and more flustered trying to get his stretcher to the other end of the room. He had never gone this far before because his partner had always been flung to the other end of the room by now. In what was one of Neville's few true flashes of brilliance he decided not to fight it when the stretcher would stand up. He would just flip it back over. In the end he basically cart-wheeled Hermione across the room. Professor Flitwick had to admit that Neville had completed the task and game him full marks.
No test had ever been so much fun. Seamus and Dean picked up where Neville left off and eventually the class had turned the afternoon into one big contest. For Seamus, after Dean was "adhered" to the stretcher, he put a charm on it that slowly rotated Dean round and round while he was transported to the other end of the room. It had the odd effect of looking like he was on a rotisserie cooking over an open flame.
Dean decided to put Seamus on a roller coaster ride. After getting Seamus on the stretcher, he put his stretcher through all kinds of ups and downs and loops and turns before finally sending it across the room.
When Ron and Harry's turn came, Ron got Seamus to partner him. He didn't want to magic Harry across because Harry didn't get any potion on him. Ron wanted to be able to do something fun like everyone else so he needed someone with Neville's "curse". After Seamus found himself on a stretcher for the second time of the afternoon, Ron began. Although the roller coaster idea intrigued Ron, in the end he decided to do something that no one else had done yet. It was over in two seconds. He sent Seamus to the other end of the room at lightning speed. Seamus could be heard screaming well after Ron stopped him a foot from the wall.
Harry still got to use Ron for a partner though because he did get some on himself. Fresh out of any new ideas, Harry decided to go with the Roller Coaster theme. He made his last longer than Dean's and he also added a lot of steep dives. When he thought Ron was looking like he wasn't having fun anymore, he decided to go ahead and complete the task.
The girls picked up where the boys left off and put each other through some fairly complex ballet routines while completing their exams. In the end everyone passed will full marks and even Professor Flitwick had a go putting Neville through a complicated dance routine.
"I need everyone to gather around please." Harry had an idea.
The Gryffindors circled around Harry.
"Listen, I know this was a lot of fun and I know you want to talk about it to everyone but I have to beg you not to."
"WHAT?"
"WHY?"
"No way!"
This was about the reaction he expected. "Think about it. Snape had told everyone that Neville cursed part of the team. No one else knows what we can do and I'd like to keep it that way until after the game tomorrow."
They all agreed. It was something Neville said that gave them the idea to take it one step further. "Snape always thinks that I mess up everything. He probably thinks that by tomorrow none of us will be able to walk in a straight line much less play quidditch."
"That's it!"
Everyone looked at Ron, "what's it?" someone asked.
"That slimy git thinks that we're cursed now so let's play into that. He knows that all of us except Harry got the potion on us so why don't we act like it was a clumsiness potion? It'll only be until tomorrow and we don't have to keep it up in the common room."
Ron turned to see a huge smile on Harry's face. "That's perfect Ron. Let's do it - tomorrow's victory will belong to the entire Gryffindor house."
Before leaving, they also decided not to tell the rest of the Gryffindors until after tomorrow's game. It wasn't that they didn't trust any of them it was just that it was hard enough to keep a secret with twelve people let alone seventy.
The only person outside of the Gryffindors who could piece together what was really going on would have been Professor Flitwick. Harry and his team were fortunate that their charms professor had plans for the weekend and did not have time to ask the other professors about what had happened to the students. It was the perfect plan.
No one really noticed anything unusual until around dinner time. Some of the Gryffindors seemed to have trouble making it to the Great Hall. They kept tripping and for the first time in years, several students got stuck in the loose floorboard in one of the stairs that only ever trapped the first years and Neville. When they got to the Great Hall, Seamus and Dean couldn't seem to find their seats, they kept landing on the floor. A couple of the girls bumped into the head table (they wanted to be sure Snape noticed).
The Gryffindors didn't seem to fair any better during the meal either. Following Ron's lead, some of the class was missing their mouths with their forks. Other students couldn't pass a dish without dropping it. It was priceless.
When Professor McGonagall noticed her entire 5th year class acting like Longbottom, she was furious at Potter for not sending Ron to her office like she had instructed earlier. She almost leapt from her seat to grab Potter and take him to her office. After the spectacle she had just seen, Harry knew full well that she wouldn't believe him without proof. He told Ron to make his way to her office as soon as he could.
Ron got there in time to meet them as they were going into her office. He had taken a little longer than them to get there because he kept tripping and bumping into things but and Harry were a little delayed because she had stopped by Madame Pomfrey's office on the way to put her on full alert.
Before she closed the door, Ron bumped into the wall one last time and sniggered.
"Potter! What is the meaning of this? I thought tomorrow's game meant more to you than this. How dare you disobey me and not send this boy to me? --- "
Wow, Harry was thinking that he was really glad he had an answer for this or he probably wouldn't be seeing the light of day until next summer vacation --- if then. He let her continue ranting (Harry thought it was therapeutic) and rant she did. Of course it didn't help matters that Ron was shaking from trying to hold in his laughter.
When she finally seemed to be waiting for an answer, Harry told her everything. He started from when she had talked to him at lunch, through the charms exam. She told him how Ron and the others had helped devise this plan for tomorrow. At first she didn't believe them but then they offered to show her. She conjured a stretcher and Ron got on. Harry re- enacted some of his better roller coaster demos (Harry had never been on a real one but he had seen pictures enough to know).
When Harry finally brought Ron back down, both boys watched her face go from shock to pure glee. "While I can not, of course, condone trickery or deception, I am impressed with everyone's teamwork and ingenuity. Now it's my turn to surprise you two, I think. You will not be playing Ravenclaw tomorrow---"
"WHAT?"
"We can't waste this chance."
"Say you're kidding."
"Now let me finish. You will not play Ravenclaw tomorrow; you will be playing Slytherin."
Ron and Harry were looking like all their fondest dreams had just come true. "Why the last minute change?" Ron asked. Although the schedule had been known to change in the past it really hadn't usually changed this close to a game.
"Madame Hooch came to tell me right before dinner. It seems that some members of the Ravenclaw team had double potions this afternoon. It must have been an unusually bad day in the dungeon. Besides Longbottom's --- er --- incident this morning it seems that a numbness potion got away from one of his students in the afternoon. No one in that class will be able to hold anything until Monday. Madame Hooch didn't want to change the schedule so late but she knew that we couldn't have half the Ravenclaw's falling off their broomsticks --- it would be too dangerous. Since we were already scheduled to play tomorrow, she only needed Professor Snape's permission to have them play tomorrow --- which he was only too happy to give."
Ron and Harry couldn't believe their luck was this good. Snape had obviously taken advantage of what he thought was Neville's clumsiness spell to get the schedule changed. All he had to do was sabotage a Ravenclaw's potion and he knew they would be the next on the roster having won their first game.
What a perfect plan to blow up in his face.
Back at the common room Ron and Harry told their house of the change in schedule. The rest of the Gryffindors couldn't understand why every single one of the 5th years looked like they were having Christmas in October.
Both Harry and Ron were too excited to be able to sleep much. Finally they drifted off. Instead of going down to breakfast, Harry had asked some of the 4th year students to bring up enough breakfast for everyone. Ron and some of the others had done quite a job faking clumsiness yesterday that Harry was afraid they might really hurt themselves if they did it any longer.
Before they knew it, it was game time.
The older members of the team weren't exactly scared of playing Slytherin but they certainly weren't as excited about it as Harry and his classmates seemed to be. Harry told Angelina and Katie that he was going to have Seamus and Dean play in their spots today, at least initially.
They couldn't believe it. The twins also stood up for them.
"Come on Harry, how can you do that to us? Nothing against Seamus and Dean but they don't have nearly the experience that Katie and Angelina do."
Harry had come this far, he wasn't about to give up his secret now. "Just trust me guys."
Harry couldn't have been more right. Seamus and Dean couldn't fall off their brooms if they tried. They could stand on their broomsticks; they could execute complicate spins and loops without holding on; it was all Gryffindor --- all day.
Harry and his team were leading 80 - 0 after the first fifteen minutes of play. Lee Jordan could be heard screaming about fantastic goal after fantastic goal that the Gryffindor "secret weapons" were scoring. Occasionally Ron and Harry could be found sneaking looks to their potions master just to enjoy the scowl on his face. They both knew that he'd make them suffer later in class so they figured they might as well enjoy this while they could.
Harry called time-out after the score was 190 - 0. He had seen the snitch twice already and was successful in stopping Malfoy from catching it. He, Harry, had no desire at all to catch the snitch and put an end to this wonderful game.
When the players huddles during their time out, Harry told the twins to let Angelina and Katie take their spot for a while. He really wanted everyone to be able to participate in this victory and besides, he wasn't really worried about Ron, Seamus or Dean getting hit by a bludger --- they could dodge anything.
After the score was 300 - 0, Harry finally decided to catch the snitch. He was getting hungry and was looking forward to the massive party he knew would go on all night.
"Harry Potter catches the snitch and, by the largest margin in over one hundred years, Gryffindor defeats Slytherin 450 - 0!" Lee Jordan was saying this over and over. Professor McGonagall was so excited that she didn't stop him and he could still be heard saying that as people were leaving the pitch.
Although the twins pretended to be mad at Harry and Ron for not letting them in on the secret weapons, he knew that everyone was really excited. The other years' were making Harry's classmates tell them the whole story over and over. Even Neville was being treated like a hero for once. The whole house was in an uproar all evening and all night well into the morning.
One of the best nights in Gryffindor history only came to an end when Harry opened a package that Hedwig had brought him.
It couldn't have been a worse ending to their perfect day.
When he untied the string, the package erupted into a six foot tall Dark Mark.
A/N: Reviews like Beldin's that make me laugh are highly encouraged
A/N: This chapter is a little long. I was having fun and got a little carried away.
CH14 Great Game
Once again it had been Hermione's luck to be paired with Neville for the charms exam. It was her contribution to the team for their big game tomorrow against Ravenclaw. Hermione was sure that there had to be a better way though and vowed to find one before their second game of the season.
Professor Flitwick had randomly assigned every pair a number. Hermione and Neville were going to go first, Dean and Seamus second, Harry and Ron third and so forth and so on. Hermione decided to magic her stretcher with Neville in it first lest he do something to her that she couldn't perform the spell after Neville was through with her.
As everyone thought would happen, Hermione did a perfect job. She sent a stretcher from the pile in the corner over next to Neville and magicked him onto it. At a slow but steady pace her stretcher migrated to the opposite end of the room and hovered until Neville got off of it.
Now it was Neville's turn. Ron didn't know whether or not he wanted to watch. It was a good thing that Harry was still keeping an eagle eye out for any sign of the side effects. He was about to see some.
Neville was usually able to successfully retrieve the stretcher from the corner and today was no different. Professor Flitwick knew the pain Hermione was about to face and placed a charm on the floor that the students hadn't heard before. Most of the class was like Ron and couldn't decide whether or not to watch although they knew Professor Flitwick had probably just softened the floor.
Hermione felt herself slam into the stretcher. Although it did hurt some, she was grateful this time that at least he didn't slam her into the floor like last week. For the first couple of feet there was nothing amiss. And then it happened. Everyone in the room gasped in shock.
Neville's stretcher, as it was prone to doing, stood itself up on end. But Hermione didn't go flying through the air. She was STUCK TO IT. Neville was so worked up that when he tried to get the stretcher to lie back down, it rotated so that it was on top of Hermione and she was facing the floor. She still didn't fall.
Harry was laughing so hard he couldn't stop. Imagine the possibilities! Ron, Dean and Seamus couldn't fall off their brooms tomorrow --- no matter what!
Neville was getting more and more flustered trying to get his stretcher to the other end of the room. He had never gone this far before because his partner had always been flung to the other end of the room by now. In what was one of Neville's few true flashes of brilliance he decided not to fight it when the stretcher would stand up. He would just flip it back over. In the end he basically cart-wheeled Hermione across the room. Professor Flitwick had to admit that Neville had completed the task and game him full marks.
No test had ever been so much fun. Seamus and Dean picked up where Neville left off and eventually the class had turned the afternoon into one big contest. For Seamus, after Dean was "adhered" to the stretcher, he put a charm on it that slowly rotated Dean round and round while he was transported to the other end of the room. It had the odd effect of looking like he was on a rotisserie cooking over an open flame.
Dean decided to put Seamus on a roller coaster ride. After getting Seamus on the stretcher, he put his stretcher through all kinds of ups and downs and loops and turns before finally sending it across the room.
When Ron and Harry's turn came, Ron got Seamus to partner him. He didn't want to magic Harry across because Harry didn't get any potion on him. Ron wanted to be able to do something fun like everyone else so he needed someone with Neville's "curse". After Seamus found himself on a stretcher for the second time of the afternoon, Ron began. Although the roller coaster idea intrigued Ron, in the end he decided to do something that no one else had done yet. It was over in two seconds. He sent Seamus to the other end of the room at lightning speed. Seamus could be heard screaming well after Ron stopped him a foot from the wall.
Harry still got to use Ron for a partner though because he did get some on himself. Fresh out of any new ideas, Harry decided to go with the Roller Coaster theme. He made his last longer than Dean's and he also added a lot of steep dives. When he thought Ron was looking like he wasn't having fun anymore, he decided to go ahead and complete the task.
The girls picked up where the boys left off and put each other through some fairly complex ballet routines while completing their exams. In the end everyone passed will full marks and even Professor Flitwick had a go putting Neville through a complicated dance routine.
"I need everyone to gather around please." Harry had an idea.
The Gryffindors circled around Harry.
"Listen, I know this was a lot of fun and I know you want to talk about it to everyone but I have to beg you not to."
"WHAT?"
"WHY?"
"No way!"
This was about the reaction he expected. "Think about it. Snape had told everyone that Neville cursed part of the team. No one else knows what we can do and I'd like to keep it that way until after the game tomorrow."
They all agreed. It was something Neville said that gave them the idea to take it one step further. "Snape always thinks that I mess up everything. He probably thinks that by tomorrow none of us will be able to walk in a straight line much less play quidditch."
"That's it!"
Everyone looked at Ron, "what's it?" someone asked.
"That slimy git thinks that we're cursed now so let's play into that. He knows that all of us except Harry got the potion on us so why don't we act like it was a clumsiness potion? It'll only be until tomorrow and we don't have to keep it up in the common room."
Ron turned to see a huge smile on Harry's face. "That's perfect Ron. Let's do it - tomorrow's victory will belong to the entire Gryffindor house."
Before leaving, they also decided not to tell the rest of the Gryffindors until after tomorrow's game. It wasn't that they didn't trust any of them it was just that it was hard enough to keep a secret with twelve people let alone seventy.
The only person outside of the Gryffindors who could piece together what was really going on would have been Professor Flitwick. Harry and his team were fortunate that their charms professor had plans for the weekend and did not have time to ask the other professors about what had happened to the students. It was the perfect plan.
No one really noticed anything unusual until around dinner time. Some of the Gryffindors seemed to have trouble making it to the Great Hall. They kept tripping and for the first time in years, several students got stuck in the loose floorboard in one of the stairs that only ever trapped the first years and Neville. When they got to the Great Hall, Seamus and Dean couldn't seem to find their seats, they kept landing on the floor. A couple of the girls bumped into the head table (they wanted to be sure Snape noticed).
The Gryffindors didn't seem to fair any better during the meal either. Following Ron's lead, some of the class was missing their mouths with their forks. Other students couldn't pass a dish without dropping it. It was priceless.
When Professor McGonagall noticed her entire 5th year class acting like Longbottom, she was furious at Potter for not sending Ron to her office like she had instructed earlier. She almost leapt from her seat to grab Potter and take him to her office. After the spectacle she had just seen, Harry knew full well that she wouldn't believe him without proof. He told Ron to make his way to her office as soon as he could.
Ron got there in time to meet them as they were going into her office. He had taken a little longer than them to get there because he kept tripping and bumping into things but and Harry were a little delayed because she had stopped by Madame Pomfrey's office on the way to put her on full alert.
Before she closed the door, Ron bumped into the wall one last time and sniggered.
"Potter! What is the meaning of this? I thought tomorrow's game meant more to you than this. How dare you disobey me and not send this boy to me? --- "
Wow, Harry was thinking that he was really glad he had an answer for this or he probably wouldn't be seeing the light of day until next summer vacation --- if then. He let her continue ranting (Harry thought it was therapeutic) and rant she did. Of course it didn't help matters that Ron was shaking from trying to hold in his laughter.
When she finally seemed to be waiting for an answer, Harry told her everything. He started from when she had talked to him at lunch, through the charms exam. She told him how Ron and the others had helped devise this plan for tomorrow. At first she didn't believe them but then they offered to show her. She conjured a stretcher and Ron got on. Harry re- enacted some of his better roller coaster demos (Harry had never been on a real one but he had seen pictures enough to know).
When Harry finally brought Ron back down, both boys watched her face go from shock to pure glee. "While I can not, of course, condone trickery or deception, I am impressed with everyone's teamwork and ingenuity. Now it's my turn to surprise you two, I think. You will not be playing Ravenclaw tomorrow---"
"WHAT?"
"We can't waste this chance."
"Say you're kidding."
"Now let me finish. You will not play Ravenclaw tomorrow; you will be playing Slytherin."
Ron and Harry were looking like all their fondest dreams had just come true. "Why the last minute change?" Ron asked. Although the schedule had been known to change in the past it really hadn't usually changed this close to a game.
"Madame Hooch came to tell me right before dinner. It seems that some members of the Ravenclaw team had double potions this afternoon. It must have been an unusually bad day in the dungeon. Besides Longbottom's --- er --- incident this morning it seems that a numbness potion got away from one of his students in the afternoon. No one in that class will be able to hold anything until Monday. Madame Hooch didn't want to change the schedule so late but she knew that we couldn't have half the Ravenclaw's falling off their broomsticks --- it would be too dangerous. Since we were already scheduled to play tomorrow, she only needed Professor Snape's permission to have them play tomorrow --- which he was only too happy to give."
Ron and Harry couldn't believe their luck was this good. Snape had obviously taken advantage of what he thought was Neville's clumsiness spell to get the schedule changed. All he had to do was sabotage a Ravenclaw's potion and he knew they would be the next on the roster having won their first game.
What a perfect plan to blow up in his face.
Back at the common room Ron and Harry told their house of the change in schedule. The rest of the Gryffindors couldn't understand why every single one of the 5th years looked like they were having Christmas in October.
Both Harry and Ron were too excited to be able to sleep much. Finally they drifted off. Instead of going down to breakfast, Harry had asked some of the 4th year students to bring up enough breakfast for everyone. Ron and some of the others had done quite a job faking clumsiness yesterday that Harry was afraid they might really hurt themselves if they did it any longer.
Before they knew it, it was game time.
The older members of the team weren't exactly scared of playing Slytherin but they certainly weren't as excited about it as Harry and his classmates seemed to be. Harry told Angelina and Katie that he was going to have Seamus and Dean play in their spots today, at least initially.
They couldn't believe it. The twins also stood up for them.
"Come on Harry, how can you do that to us? Nothing against Seamus and Dean but they don't have nearly the experience that Katie and Angelina do."
Harry had come this far, he wasn't about to give up his secret now. "Just trust me guys."
Harry couldn't have been more right. Seamus and Dean couldn't fall off their brooms if they tried. They could stand on their broomsticks; they could execute complicate spins and loops without holding on; it was all Gryffindor --- all day.
Harry and his team were leading 80 - 0 after the first fifteen minutes of play. Lee Jordan could be heard screaming about fantastic goal after fantastic goal that the Gryffindor "secret weapons" were scoring. Occasionally Ron and Harry could be found sneaking looks to their potions master just to enjoy the scowl on his face. They both knew that he'd make them suffer later in class so they figured they might as well enjoy this while they could.
Harry called time-out after the score was 190 - 0. He had seen the snitch twice already and was successful in stopping Malfoy from catching it. He, Harry, had no desire at all to catch the snitch and put an end to this wonderful game.
When the players huddles during their time out, Harry told the twins to let Angelina and Katie take their spot for a while. He really wanted everyone to be able to participate in this victory and besides, he wasn't really worried about Ron, Seamus or Dean getting hit by a bludger --- they could dodge anything.
After the score was 300 - 0, Harry finally decided to catch the snitch. He was getting hungry and was looking forward to the massive party he knew would go on all night.
"Harry Potter catches the snitch and, by the largest margin in over one hundred years, Gryffindor defeats Slytherin 450 - 0!" Lee Jordan was saying this over and over. Professor McGonagall was so excited that she didn't stop him and he could still be heard saying that as people were leaving the pitch.
Although the twins pretended to be mad at Harry and Ron for not letting them in on the secret weapons, he knew that everyone was really excited. The other years' were making Harry's classmates tell them the whole story over and over. Even Neville was being treated like a hero for once. The whole house was in an uproar all evening and all night well into the morning.
One of the best nights in Gryffindor history only came to an end when Harry opened a package that Hedwig had brought him.
It couldn't have been a worse ending to their perfect day.
When he untied the string, the package erupted into a six foot tall Dark Mark.