A/N – The Quidditch Match! Goodness me, but it's taken a long time to get to this. Most of the delay on this chapter was entirely due to intimidation – I wasn't at all sure that I could write coherent quidditch. But here it is. And here, also for the first time, we see 'Lord Voldemort' at height of his power. I've never tried this before, but he must have been imposing to get so many to follow him, surely.

Disclaimer – Any original characters or elements are mine. Canon belongs to JK Rowlings and ors. I am making no profit from this.

CHAPTER 16 – The 1977 Quidditch Cup Grand Final

"Well, well, well, the Brothers Malfoy. What have I done to deserve such an honour?" The self-styled Lord Voldemort reclined in a throne-like chair and received them as if granting an audience. Jumped up half-blood or not, no one could deny he had a magnificent presence…

"We've come to demand our rights." Standing alone before the much older, much more imposing wizard, seventeen year old Lucius did not seem to have the right to demand anything.

As always, Luc stood in the background and observed.

Lord Voldemort laughed, and Lucius' pale figure seemed to dwindle into insignificance. "You have come to demand your rights?" he repeated, mocking him. "Why do you not simply take them, Malfoy Lord?"

"Snape killed my father on your orders." Though he drew himself up, Lucius had lost too much presence. "If I thought I could kill you, I would have tried –"

"And died." Though still amused, there was a tightness around Voldemort's eyes now. Perhaps he was not so sure of Lucius' caution?

"Perhaps," Lucius allowed. "But I will settle for Augustus Snape – or at least the promise of non-interference, and no retaliation."

"He is one of my most loyal servants. What weregild will you give me for him?"

Luc smiled grimly. He and Lucius had disagreed over this meeting, Luc arguing that they were entitled to their vengeance and should simply take it, Lucius advocating caution; they were only seventeen, and unable to take on the whole Death Eater army by themselves.

Both of them had known a meeting would always come down to this one point – what price were they willing to pay for the vengeance that should have been theirs by right? Lucius was willing to pay. Luc was not.

The bargaining – heavily slanted against them – began.

The day of the 1977 Quidditch Cup final dawned bright and clear, the perfect weather conditions evident as Kate glanced out the window of Luc's room. Despite her doubts and fears, she was caught up in the rising excitement that infected the school – it was perfect Seeking weather, and she knew instinctively that today's match would go down in myth and legend as one of the great matches of Hogwarts' history.

Later, she would look back at that excitement in bitter amusement. If only she'd known just how right she was…

But shadows and bitter irony were far in the future, and today nothing obscured the excitement of being young, and competitive, and certain of victory. She smiled, the thin, crooked smile common to all Slytherins, and went back to the bed, shaking her sleepy lover awake. Luc was never at his best in the mornings, preferring to lie in bed as long as possible.

"Come on, Luc, it's six-thirty. Get up – we need to get ready." She grabbed hold of the blankets and pulled them off him before he could react, and then grabbed a pitcher of ice-cold water she'd placed by the bedside for just this purpose and held it over him threateningly. Just before she tipped the water over a very sensitive part of his anatomy he groaned and rolled out of bed, tumbling to the floor in a gangling, cursing heap.

Sleepy silver eyes glowered at her, and she smiled sweetly at him before tossing him a pair of boxers. "Get dressed, and we'll go down to the Quidditch pitch and check it out."

He sighed. "Merlin's Balls, Kate, but you're a bossy wench. The game doesn't start until ten."

"That means we have three and a half hours to prepare for it," she said brightly, knowing it would infuriate him. He tossed her another dark look, but held his peace and crossed to his wardrobe.

She was already dressed in the green and silver thick woolen Quidditch robes. But Luc pulled on a black shirt, trousers and robe, preferring to make a ritual of stepping into his uniform – he swore that it brought him better luck, and Kate knew better than to call him on it. Who knew? Perhaps it did – or perhaps he simply believed that it did.

As they stepped out of the room together, they found that quite a number of other Slytherins were also up and about, already dressed in their team colours, discussing strategy and the game and their chances of thrashing the Gryffindors. It was as if she'd stepped into a completely different common room from what it had been yesterday, where all the talk had been hushed speculation about Augustus Snape's death and how it would change the political landscape. It was not often the cynical, sometimes desperately sophisticated Slytherins were so swept off their feet by excitement – it seems they were just as susceptible to Quidditch fever as the rest of the school.

It was oddly reassuring.

Lucius was there, cool and collected, his long white hair pulled back into a braid that hung halfway down his back. Kate had always thought his hair a ridiculous affectation, but Lucius was quite proud of it, and evidence of such vanity made him seem more human, less perfect than his carefully constructed public image.

He smiled when he saw Luc's casual clothes and his rumpled hair. "Ah, our star keeper. I don't suppose you're in any mood to go over more strategy before the game…"

Luc scowled. "We've been over it a thousand times before, Lucius. There's no need to go over it again."

Kate grinned at the way Lucius pretended to consider the matter, baiting Luc, who happily ignored it and went to sit down instead. They chatted a little, watching as the rest of the house assembled in the common room, clad in green and silver, talking animatedly and waving their hands about, demonstrating manoeuvres and gesticulating excitedly. It was only ever on the days of Quidditch matches that Kate truly felt an accepted part of Slytherin – much, she had found, could be forgiven if she caught the Snitch. Even if it was only for one day, the sense of fellowship was heady; today, in the greatest Quidditch game of the year, she could feel the magic building all around her, creating an illusion of what it must be like for Lily in Gryffindor all the time.

She was rarely jealous of her more spirited, more independent, more beautiful elder sister. But there were times when she wished that she, too, had been sorted and accepted into Gryffindor…

Just then Lucius, with his ridiculous hair, made a snide comment in Latin to Brandon Avery who accused him in Greek of intellectual snobbery, and then asked sweetly (in English) whether or not it was true that Sirius Black had warned him off his cousin Narcissa. Rayden Lestrange, who had once had a running rivalry with Lucius for the top spot in Slytherin, smiled even more sweetly and made a remark about kissing cousins that narrowed Lucius' eyes dangerously, and James Weatherby, an industrious entrepreneur, slyly insinuated that he had 'something' that would put Black out of commission for days – untraceable, tasteless, and only fifty galleons. Snape, whose skills were far superior, sneered at him and sent him on his way, not wanting any competition with his own side-business of supply.

And Kate knew that no matter what Lily had found in Gryffindor, it could not replace this.

By nine-thirty, the Quidditch stadium was packed with students singing team songs, sporting their house colours – or those of their preferred favourite – and waving flags and banners, already forming into the murmuring single organism that was a crowd, and could so easily become a mob. The crowd always became fiercely partisan when Slytherin and Gryffindor clashed, and today the competitiveness that so fired up the players had spread wholesale throughout the spectators.

At two minutes to ten, when the teachers took their seats and the flying instructor entered carrying the leather case containing the quaffles, bludgers and the snitch, the excited hum rose to a dull roar, and when the two captains finally led their teams out from their respective tunnels, the roar rose to an almost unbelievable crescendo. It echoed in Luc's ears, firing his blood to a primitive throb of excitement.

He could see the others also reacting to the primal thrill – Lucius was gripping his broom tightly, Snape's lips were tightly compressed, and Kate was grinning fiercely, her Slytherin tendencies brought to the fore by her excitement. This was what they had fought and schemed for, a spot in the finals team; and this one, single game was what they had trained and trained and trained for, often long into the night –

Not for a battered, dingy looking trophy, but for what it represented.

"And here they are," came the strictly neutral Ravenclaw announcer's excited, rapid fire voice as they mounted their brooms and began circling the pitch, waving to the crowd when their names were mentioned. "The Slytherin team: keeper Luc Malfoy, with an astounding ninety percent blocking rate for the season; beaters Severus Snape and Darius Flint, two of the most ruthless offensive players of the last three years; chasers Shan Andahni, captain Lucius Malfoy and Narcissa Black, the most celebrated trio in recent Quidditch history; and last but definitely not least, Kate Evans, the Slytherin Seeker, who's won the last eight games in a row for Slytherin…"

The crowd cheered or booed as their preferences dictated, and now it was the Gryffindor team's turn to mount their brooms and begin circling.

"The Gryffindor team: keeper Caine de Sauvigny, Luc's younger half-brother but definitely not his inferior, with a blocking rate of eighty-five percent; beaters Connor McGregor and Sirius Black, who've knocked twelve players unconscious this year alone; Liam Finnigan, Alison Hartley and Lily Evans as chasers – these three are magic to watch, people, absolute magic – and captain and Seeker James Potter, the best flier to come out of Hogwarts in four generations…"

The stadium looked as if it were in the middle of a bizarre red, gold, green and silver blizzard, and the noise was deafening; the announcer, even with the aid of a magically enhanced microphone, had to cast a Sonorous charm on himself to be heard.

There was a series of last, unheard instructions from McReadie, the flying instructor, before he opened his leather case and unleashed the bludgers, flung the quaffles up in the air, and released the tiny winged snitch.

The game began.

"And it's Hartley who gets the first touch of the ball, passing to Finnigan who takes it forward himself – oh! Flint! Flint sends a bludger whizzing past Finnigan and almost smashing his broom, and Finnigan loses the quaffle to Narcissa Black who takes it back for the Slytherins…"

Kate hovered high on the fringes of the match, her trained eyes always searching for the flickering metallic gleam of the snitch. Usually, in such games as these, it would not appear for some time yet; grand finals were seldom won so easily. But even so, it never paid to take such things for granted. Quidditch was anything but a rational game.

"…passes to Lucius Malfoy, who passes to Andahni who throws himself between Hartley and Lily Evans, and passes back to Malfoy, who goes for the goal – oh, de Sauvigny! De Sauvigny catches it one-handed and tosses it back to Finnigan…"

To some people, the mess of players and balls on the field may have looked like absolute chaos. But Kate could see the order in it, see the careful strategies and counter-tactics and the practiced manoeuvres of two highly disciplined teams at the very peak of their abilities. To Kate, Quidditch was an escape from Slytherin politics – it was pure. Fourteen players. Score as many points as you can until the Seeker catches the snitch; sometimes the Seeker won it for you, and sometimes not even the most spectacular catch could make up the points deficit. But out on the Quidditch pitch, there were no other pressures than the immediate ones of the game…

"Snape sends a mighty bludger whizzing past Black's ear – he ducks! – and almost hits Potter instead; Black sends one right back at him but Snape dodges in a very nice piece of flying…"

Yes, Black and Snape were actively trying to murder each other by bludger. When Gryffindor and Slytherin played, the teachers confiscated their wands before they were allowed onto the pitch; a lesson learned years ago after a particularly vicious game filled with invisible hexes and all kinds of magical skullduggery.

"Finnigan to Lily Evans Evans, Evans to Finnigan, Hartley runs decoy and circles under Narcissa Black's broom, Finnigan to Hartley to Evans, Malfoy charges towards Evans who almost loses the ball but holds on; Shan Andahni and Narcissa Black ram into her from each side, sandwiching her between them – Foul! Surely that was a foul! Come on, ref; what's going on – that was a foul!"

There was an animal roar of either disapproval or approbation, and Lily and Narcissa – two confident, dominant females – turned on each other and the claws came out. Finnigan, innocent in the ways of women, tried to break them up; older and wiser, Lucius, Shan and Black simply watched, fascinated and intrigued. While the players and the crowd were distracted by the catfight, Kate saw a metallic fluttering out of the corner of her eye, and turned her head very, very slowly, so as not to draw Potter's attention. But it was too late – he'd seen it already – and they both revved their brooms up to maximum speed and took off after it, threading through the hovering players who turned, startled, to watch, soaring high up into the air above the pitch, the wind tearing at their hair and robes. Up, up, up and then down, down, down they went, skimming the ground at almost two hundred miles an hour, Kate edging out a few inches in front of Potter, fingers outstretched…

"Look out!" Flint shouted, diving down towards them and leaning far out from his broom, his powerful arm smashing his bat into a bludger that would have caught her right in the ribs and deflecting it away. He couldn't stop his momentum and they all went down, Kate and Potter and Flint as well, ending up in a tumbled heap of limbs and robes and brooms. Kate picked herself up immediately and looked in surprise at Flint, who had always hated her, but he refused to meet her eyes and so remounted his broom and took off into the sky as soon as possible.

By then, of course, the snitch was gone.

"Well, that's something you don't see every day, kids," the commentator joked, after Narcissa and Lily were finally separated, Narcissa with a black eye where Lily had punched her and Lily with four vicious scratches down the side of her face. There was a small pause as the captains wasted some time before the restart – both teams being in the wrong – allowing their players to catch their breath, and for Kate and Potter to regain their positions.

The game began again.

"This time it's Andahni, zipping past Hartley, completely outmanoeuvring Finnigan, passing to Narcissa Black who ducks, avoiding what would have been a nasty bludger from Connor McGregor, and then zooms straight for Caine de Sauvigny and the goal – she goes left, oh it's a feint! She goes right! Caine de Sauvigny is left completely open and it's ten points to Slytherin!"

The green and silver sections of the crowd roared triumphantly. Lucius slapped Narcissa on the back, grinning fiercely. With her cheeks flushed from exertion and excitement and the beginnings of a black eye, Narcissa was no longer the Slytherin Ice Queen but an excited, laughing almost-woman, more beautiful now than she had ever been before.

Caine threw the quaffle back into the pitch, aiming for Lily, but a black blur shot past her and she drew up sharply to avoid it. The hesitation cost her, and Shan swooped in and intercepted it one-handed, swinging his broom sharply around to throw it to Lucius, but he seemed to fold in on himself, fingers spasmodically dropping the ball as he gasped and wheezed for breath that wouldn't come.

"Oh, that was a nasty one! Sirius Black smashed a bludger right into Andahni's diaphragm – that's gotta hurt, boys and girls. But look – Alison Hartley leans down on her broom and picks up the lost quaffle, whizzes past Snape, dives under Flint, Lucius Malfoy is speeding after her but she's got too much of a lead. There's no one but the keeper home in front of the Slytherin goal, can Hartley outwit Luc Malfoy? She zigs, she zags, but he follows her every movement – she goes down and left, and passes to Finnigan who comes up on the inside and zooms past her and it's Finnigan… Finnigan… FINNIGAN! I DON'T BELIEVE IT, FINNIGAN! GRYFFINDOR HAS LEVELLED THE SCORE!"

This time the red and gold section of the crowd roared and cheered and gibbered. Kate thought she saw a fluttering near the north tower, but when she went closer to investigate it was only a moth. Luc caught her eye and grinned fiercely; sweat dampening his hair and streaking his face.

The game continued on in this fashion, every goal hard won, every possession hotly contested. The chasers zipped in and out at ridiculously high speeds, pulling dizzying aerial manoeuvres and passing and catching as quickly and as crisply as they could. The beaters cheerfully sent bludgers whizzing, aiming to incapacitate, injure, or at least distract the best players of the opposite team; their victims either dodged them at the last minute or received painful bruises and a hard earned lesson to watch everything. The two keepers were under siege, constantly having to defend and block the chasers' swift, relentless onslaught - it was a stunning spectacle of skill, speed, strength and sheer determination, and the crowd loved it.

However, underneath the legitimate moves and concerns of Quidditch, there was a sharper edge, a darker undertone – even if no one else did, she saw Snape and Black smashing bludgers back and forth at each other with all their strength; Lucius concentrating and mumbling under his breath, giving Snape's bludgers assistance; Narcissa and Lily ramming into each other as often and as viciously as they could; Luc's nod to Flint just before he sent a bludger right towards the unsuspecting Caine, his half-brother…

And then she saw James Potter dive to his right, and she followed. The crowd saw them too, and cheered; here was what they had all come to watch, the Seekers' Duel that would decide the match.

"Potter and Kate Evans have seen the snitch! They've seen it! This is it, folks, this is the real thing – Potter heads towards the grandstands with Evans in hot pursuit…"

She could see it now, hovering some twenty metres away, taunting them both with its fickle golden promise. As she once more pushed the broom to its maximum speed, time seemed to thicken and slow, sound echoed oddly in her ears, and her heartbeat raced frantically in her ears. This, this was what she lived for in Quidditch – these few glorious seconds of speed, of freedom, where there was no nagging worry, no fear, nothing but single-minded determination to catch the snitch.

"They're neck and neck now, both of them pushing their very expensive brooms – new model Nimbus 500s, for all you discerning buyers – to the absolute limit. They're almost there…almost there…almost…it moved! The snitch is off, people, and the chase is on!"

Potter was a spectacular flyer. He jerked his broom ninety degrees to the left at more than two hundred miles an hour and made it look smooth, when an amateur flyer might have lost control at such high momentum and been thrown right off. But Kate followed him, her face set and, had she but known it, almost grim; all those Slytherins with their focus fixed on her, cheering so loudly for her – they had forgotten she wasn't pureblooded. They'd forgotten everything except that she was their Seeker, and if she caught this snitch it would catapult them all into immortality.

"Oh, what amazing flying! I've never seen anything like it! This game will be remembered for a long, long time…"

St. Crispin's day. Kate smiled. And then her smile vanished – as did all irrelevant thoughts, Shakespearean or no – as she and Potter zoomed just above the crowd in the grandstands, so close to the spectators she could probably reach out and touch one if she wanted. The wind of their passage whipped behind them, snatching off hats and upsetting robes and drinks and small pets. The snitch went high, and they followed it; it went low and they dived even further after it, actually mowing down a group of startled first years rather than lose speed and time going around them.

They were only Hufflepuffs, anyway.

Down through the maze of girders and beams and ropes that made up the underbelly of the stands, the constant manoeuvring requiring split second reflexes and absolute, diamond hard concentration. Up circling one of the towers, zigging and zagging according to some diabolically erratic whim, always just one step ahead of them, just out of the range of their grasping fingertips. Straight into the still interplay of the other players on the pitch, who were still locked into a struggle of their own, desperately trying to score enough points for a lead if and when the snitch was caught. Kate sent her broom sideways, bumping into Potter and sending him off balance and off course –

She was a Slytherin, wasn't she?

And straight into a bludger's path, before Black shouted a warning and he ducked. There was a shocked reassessment on Potter's face; perhaps she was more than just Lily's sister to him now? She thought she could hear Black swearing furiously, but she ignored it; it had no relevance to her situation now. She could hear the crowd like waves in a seashell, but every cell in her body – every last ounce of ice-cold Slytherin determination – was focused on catching the snitch.

But Luc saw Black's furious, twisted face. Luc followed the line of his hot, angry eyes and saw him pick up the bat and deliberately take aim.

Luc saw him whisper under his breath as he smashed the bludger, sending it after Kate.

Luc cried out a warning, knowing that Kate would not hear it.

Close now…neck and neck with Potter, both of them trying to knock each other off their brooms, vying for that last ounce of speed and distance; it was then she heard the unmistakable whistling sound of a bludger coming up behind her, and she tossed herself to her right, almost losing control and going into a spin, before she used the momentum to go under the broom and come up on the other side.

Potter shot ahead, and she cursed and set herself to catch up once more.

Luc looked on in horror, taking his eyes away from the game, as Sirius Black, a third cousin on his father's mother's side, once more took aim at Kate. He shouted and held out a hand – as if he could do anything, without a wand – as the crack sounded, the perfect sound of a sweet, flush hit, and a second, even more determined bludger was set on her trail.

Suddenly, his blood ran cold. He knew – he knew – that something terribly wrong was about to occur…

He shook himself out of his daze and kicked his broom into high gear, taking off towards Kate. Indignant shouting and puzzled calls floated after him, but he ignored them, heading towards the one thing that truly mattered to him in this world.

"But what's this? Luc Malfoy has abandoned his post as keeper and gone off to help the Seekers! Gryffindor score! What on earth is going on?"

She could sense something coming up behind her, could hear an insistent buzzing in her ears, as if a well-known voice was trying to catch her attention, but she was so close…

"Kate! Bludger! Sweet fucking Lady, Kate, listen to me! Kate! Duck!"

By now Lucius and Snape had caught on and were following him determinedly, but Kate was not listening. He continued to speed towards the two engrossed Seekers, but he knew – deep down, instinctively, he knew – that the bludger would get there before them.

He had no wand. He had very little wandless skill and that only when he was calm and collected. There was nothing he could do except watch in agonized disbelief…

"There's something about her, Lucius…something that could burn, given a chance…"

"Under my protection, no one will dare harm you."

"I will protect you for as long as I must. I swore it. Nothing will ever harm you, love, believe me…"

Her fingers had almost closed around it, she was so close that she could touch the feathery, metal wings and feel them vibrating harshly. And then there was a sickening dull thud and her head snapped forward, pain exploding from the back of her skull, and there was confusion – the sky? Why was it upside down and spiraling closer and closer? – as she slowly (almost in slow motion, really) lost her grip on the broom and fell.

There was a heartbeat of shocked, roaring silence.

"KATE!"

"…Kate Evans has just copped a vicious bludger to the head. Whew, Sirius Black really did hit that one hard. And now boyfriend Luc Malfoy to the rescue – spiraling down to catch her before she hits the ground – oh, this does not look good at all…"

He halted her fall some five metres from the ground. Gathering her close he set the broom down and lay her down on the ground, frantically calling her name, checking her pulse, seeking desperately for any sign of life.

Her face was so very, very white, and blood was trickling slowly from her nostrils.

A pale hand gripped his shoulder, framed by a silver and green sleeve, and pulled him gently back; he shook it off, but Lucius insisted. "She's alive, Luc. She's breathing. Look." He guided Luc's hands to her throat and forced them to stay there, to be patient, until he could feel the thready, erratic pulse. "She's only unconscious."

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the Slytherin players ranged all around him, a pureblooded honour guard, blocking the outside world from seeing Luc Malfoy behaving so emotionally. Now, they came through for Kate. Now they honoured her – he looked down at her right hand, limp, open, and empty.

She hadn't even caught the snitch.

MacReadie and the new school healer, Madame Pomfrey, raced onto the pitch with their bags in their hands and their hearts in their throats. It was one thing to joke about players dying during Quidditch, but it was quite another to see something like this happen right before their eyes. And at such a game, too – the Slytherin fans had seen Sirius Black deliberately aim that bludger, and were all but rioting in the stands, the excited roar replaced by an angry, threatening rumble. Already they were throwing food; soon it would be punches and hexes.

The players themselves were no better – the Slytherins were gathered around their fallen Seeker, and they, too, were muttering and throwing dark stares at the Gryffindor players gathered on the other side of the pitch. Lily Evans was trying desperately to get to her sister, but the Slytherins wouldn't let her in. Madame Pomfrey gathered her up, and marched up to the green and silver knot. Lucius Malfoy saw them coming; she could see the deliberate choice he made to let them through, and wondered what she would have done if he'd decided to exclude them…

She squeezed her way past them and into the centre of the circle, where Luc Malfoy, whom she'd always thought cynical, amoral and utterly heartless, was holding onto his muggleborn (girlfriend? Protégée? Sex slave? There were many different versions of the tale) Seeker as if he would never let her go.

"Come on, Malfoy, let her go. She needs immediate medical attention, and she can't get it if you're holding onto her like that. You know you can trust me, I won't do anything to harm her…"

Her own entreaties had no effect, but Lucius reached down and gripped his brother's shoulder, murmured something in the other's ear; slowly, reluctantly, Luc loosened his hold and let her see the girl's condition.

When they floated her away on a stretcher, her neck in a magical brace and Lily glued to her side, Madame Pomfrey looked back one last time, and saw something that, after this day, no one else would ever, ever see again –

Luc's face was open, naked, his hot, terrifying hatred laid bare for the entire world to see as he stood up slowly and his eyes focused on Sirius Black. The Slytherins were too slow – or too stunned at what they saw – to stop him, before he relinquished all caution, all forethought, and all considerations of Slytherin and High Clan behaviour…

It took Dumbledore and the Slytherin head of house to stop him from killing Black. It took Lucius and a ringing slap to bring him back to a semblance of composure. And it took two hours and one of Snape's more potent potions to still the shaking in his hands…

James Potter caught the snitch, winning the game for Gryffindor by 210-60. But by then, the Slytherins couldn't care less.

A/N – A very big thank you to all my wonderful readers, whether reviewers or lurkers. Thank you for staying with this fic, through two years and more. Next chapter – Snape's infamous revenge.