Chapter 95
Quidditch Tournament
The teams were being set for the upcoming Quidditch Tournament. Each team would put up a main team, with a full team of reserves. Beauxbatons and Durmstrang had their teams picked before they got to Hogwart's, and Hogwart's had pretty much their team, there were just a few that needed to be put in.
The tryouts were grueling, and the people that were going out for the different spots knew that some of the spots were already filled. They knew that both Seeker Positions were filled, and thy knew that Cedric knew who he wanted for the Beater spots, but was still having tryouts for the positions. He had approached the Weasley Twins about whether or not they wanted to be part of the team or not, and they agreed that they would help out, and thanked him for thinking of them. Now all it was to choose was the backups for the Beaters, and the main team and backups for the Chasers and Keeper. He also knew that he didn't have to really worry about jealousy from his girlfriend on the part of not making her the back up seeker, for she started out as a chaser, and she would try out for that instead. He also knew that he was going to need to put someone from each house onto the team, not that it was required, but he thought that it would be a good idea. He had a few choices that he was thinking of from the Slytherins, and he was happy that he would be able to choose.
"Well Cho, what do you think? I know who are my Beaters, and also my backup, but I need to come up with the rest of the team. I'm thinking about putting the two Keepers from the Gryffindor team, both their main one, and their backup. Do you think that having two fourth years from that house on the team will take us down?" Cedric was asking his girlfriend for her advice, for she was the assistant captain to the team, even if she doesn't make the team, he would still ask her advice.
"As far as the keeper position, your choices could have been worse. Oliver is a good choice, and Ron Weasley has been learning under him rather nicely, and doing well when needed, so they are a good choice. Who have you chosen from the Slytherin house for the team. I would choose Crabbe and Goyle, they seem to be pretty good as Beaters, and they would be great backups for the twins. Also I would choose Draco as a Chaser backup along with another couple of people. Now the problem is, you only have 1 Hufflepuff, and 1 Ravenclaw so far, so who are you going to be putting in from our houses?" She smiled at him, and told him not to worry about it.
After three days of tryouts, Cedric was able to pick his team out and he thought he had picked a good one out. On the Hogwart's Quidditch Team area.
Keeper Main Oliver Wood 6th Gryffindor
Keeper Backup Ron Weasley 4th Gryffindor
Seeker Main Cedric Diggory6th Hufflepuff
Seeker Backup Harry Potter-Weasley 4th Gryffindor
Beaters Main#1 Fred Weasley 5th Gryffindor
Beater Main #2 George Weasley 5th Gryffindor
Beater Backup #1 Gregory Goyle4th Slytherin
Beater Backup #2 Vincent Crabbe4th Slytherin
Chaser Main #1 Nellie Cash7th Hufflepuff
Chaser Main #2 Cho Chang5th Ravenclaw
Chaser Main #3 Howard Candaded 7th Slytherin
Chaser Backup #1 Katie Bell5th Gryffindor
Chaser Backup #2 Angelina Johnson5th Gryffindor
Chaser Backup #3 Alicia Spinnet 5th Gryffindor
Now that the teams were set, they had 2 weeks of practice before the tournament began. Team Hogwart's were having practices twice a week, and all the teams were pretty much keeping to themselves along the lines of the practices, and having the other teams coming and spying on them.
The night before the tournament, the teams were getting together for a quiet dinner at the Three Broomsticks for them held by Madame Rosemerita, as a get together and to go over the rules of the tournament, and how it would go down. It was decided that it would be a Round Robin style Tournament, where each team would play each other once, and it would be decided on the win loss record on the places. If there was a tie, there would be a tie-breaking game for that place. The three teams seemed satisfied by this, and were excited about going for this. It was also decided that each of the backups would have to be put in at some time during any of the games, for this was going to be a friendly game, but still for points.
After dinner, the teams were sitting around talking and having a Butter Beer, while interacting with each other. Each of the team members were talking with their respective member on the other teams. Harry and Cedric weren't letting anyone other than the ones on their team know that Cedric had taught Harry the Wronskey Feint, but told him not to use it, unless absolutely necessary. Harry had agreed on this, and was looking forward to playing a little bit against the other foreign teams. Cedric had promised him that he would be able to get in a bit because he was just as good, if not better, than he was. Cedric wasn't stupid, he knew who the better players were on his team, and wanted to win this tournament. He wasn't going to be going on a ego trip, and not let a better player play just because he's a backup. He was happy to have such a strong team, and if it meant that they were mostly Gryffindors, then so be it.
The teams went back to their respective dorms, or wherever they were staying early that night, for the tournament was going to be starting early the next morning, and was going to be running for two days. The first match was going to be Beauxbatons vs Durmstrang, followed by Hogwart's vs Durmstrang after lunch. The next day will find the final match of Beauxbatons vs Hogwart's, then a celebration dinner after words. They all went to bed and had dreams of flying and having fun.
The match between Durmstrang and Beauxbatons was a rather close one, but the French flyers were fast and scoring goals left and right, and even tho Krum had caught the snitch at the 5 hour mark, they were still 10 points to little when it was caught, so it was Beauxbatons 600 Durmstrang 590, the crowds cheered the two team with gusto for the well played match. The two teams were tired, but flew down and both Viktor and Fleur shook hands congratulating each other on a well played game.
They teams and the schools went down to lunch that day with high spirits, and were looking forward to the Hogwart's Durmstrang match that afternoon. Cedric had decided to play his backups in the second game the next day. He told all of them to sit and watch, and be ready just in case, but that they would be starting against Beauxbaton's the next day. They had agreed, and were going down in their house Quidditch robes, but with the Hogwart's Crest as part of a arm band to unify them against the other team. Cedric and Viktor shook hands on the Quidditch Pitch wishing each other good luck and a well played game that day. What the Hogwart's students didn't know, was that the Durmstrang students had gotten together and decided that they weren't going to be embarrassed like that again, like the last game. They had decided that they were going to win at all cost.
The game started with a nasty bash of the quaffle at Cedric, which he barely ducked while watching for the Snitch. The Chasers for Hogwart's were playing like a well oiled machine and scoring off and on, while Durmstrang was answering with their own goals, but they were also being blocked by both Keepers rather well. It was turning out to be a low scoring game, and they could tell that it was going to be going down to who catches the Snitch first.
Viktor decided that it was time for him to take out his opponent's chance at winning. He went into the dive like he had saw the Snitch. He dove for the ground, and Cedric had a bad feeling about this when he went into the dive to follow, he knew that this was probably the Wronskey Feint, but the score was so close, that he didn't want it to end with them winning just because he didn't believe that he would be doing this during the game. So he dived after Viktor, and just as he was about to go into the last 30 feet of the dive, he saw something out of the corner of his eye, and pulled out of the dive to go get the Snitch that was only 10 feet away from him to his left. Viktor hadn't seen it as he was going into his dive, and thought that Cedric was following him, and as he pulled out of the dive of the Wronskey Feint, he heard the roar of the crowd, and the call of the game, saying that Hogwart's wins from Cedric catching the Snitch.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, that was a quite interesting end to this match. Cedric Diggory had at first gone for Krum's Wronskey Feint and followed him, but at the last minute, he caught site of the Snitch, and pulled out of the dive, and went and caught it. He caught the Snitch just as Krum had pulled out of his dive. Way to go Cedric, and good game to both teams." Lee Jordan had been brought in to call all games, and was doing a fair job for all the teams.
When Cedric flew down to the ground to congratulate Viktor and the Durmstrang team, he stuck out his hand and said. "That was a great match Viktor, you almost had me there in that Feint. You probably would have had me, if I hadn't had seen the Snitch at the last minute." He smiled as he shook his hand.
"You are right Cedric, that was a great match. The Wronskey Feint isn't meant to be used in a match like this, and doesn't usually have the Snitch cooperate for the other team like that. We will get you the next time we play tho." He also smiled as he said this, and they went their separate ways for dinner that night.
Harry and the other backups played a very close game against Beauxbatons the next day, and had fun with it. They won handedly tho, when Harry caught the Snitch within 20 minutes of the start of the game, and went to shake hands with the other team.
The celebration dinner that night was loud and happy for the three teams. Minister of Magic Arthur Weasley stood up and made the announcement of the results of the tournament so far, and the standing for it at this time. "Welcome and this is turning out to be a close match up in this Tri-Wizard Tournament. The scores from top to bottom so far are as follows. In first place, Cedric Diggory with 485 Points. Second is Fleur Delacour with 390 Points, and Viktor Krum with 280 Points is in third place. Keep up the good work all of you, and the final task will take place in one month just towards the end of the school year. Good luck and have fun." He sat down to the applause and cheers from throughout the Great Hall.
A/N: I hope that you liked what I did for this. The people that you don't recognize as players are people that I made up, because they never say who most of the older players are, or I don't remember names, so I brought people in. Please read and review, I am over 300 now thanks to a few people. I would like to thank all my reviewers, good and bad reviews, I love them all. –Donald