Relevant Inspiration:

Deprived by The Crimson Lord

Disclaimer: I am not British, French, Irish, Polish, Bulgarian, Portuguese, Indian, Filipino, Brazilian, South African, nor Chinese.

Enjoy.


-XI-

The grass was cut short, just a little taller than the regulations for a football pitch. Her fingers plucked an errant blade and she rolled it between her fingers. Dimly, through her focus, she heard the roar of the crowd that filled the Hogwarts quidditch pitch to capacity. Well over ten-thousand fans from around the world stacked the tall towers to watch the opening game of the Triwizard Quidditch Tournament. More still, filled the surrounding lands and watched the game projected magically on swathes of white cloth hung along the outside of the stadium.

Around Salomé, her teammates flooded onto the grass and took to the air. After a deep breath, and nimbly weaving the blade of grass into her braid, she mounted her broom. There were two things she spent her savings on: football cleats, and quidditch gear. Her broom was a special order from the Magical Division of Quiantu, a rising name in sports cars in the muggle world. The Quiantu Zouwo was appropriately named after one of the magical world's most agile and fast creatures, a massive feline native to the unpolluted wilds of western China. In the hands of a skilled flier, its response time bordered on precognition.

The burgundy and white broom caught many an eye as she cut through the sky, but she ignored the looks. The eyes of the spectators didn't faze her; she was doing what she loved.

Instead of letting the crowd into her focus, she locked eyes with each player that rose from the opposite end of the stadium. Seven men and women in black robes with white detailing. Seven enemies to defeat. The crowd thundered for their home team. Salomé winced slightly as the roaring was split by the sound of feedback from the announcer's runic microphone, and the incessant buzz while a Wizarding-Wireless runemaster attempted to fix the issue. To the man's credit, he fixed it quickly.

"Good evening to you all, and welcome to the opening match of the Triwizard's Quidditch Tournament between Beauxbatons and Hogwarts!" The announcing boy wore the red-lined robes of the Griffin D'Or house, she noticed, and his declaration was met with all the enthusiasm of a warcry. He, clearly a skilled manipulator of crowds, waited for the cheering to subside, then continued. "I am, as always, Lee Jordan, and I will be your announcer for these matches!" The boy waved his hands in the universal request for silence. "But enough of me, I'm not the one you are here for...unless you are Miss Angelina Johnson, in which case I am absolutely who you are here for-"

"Jordan!" The transfiguration teacher in green robes brandished her wand with frustration.

"Sorry Professor, force of habit." He gave a clearly not-sorry glance to the crowd, then continued. "As I was saying, allow me to introduce our enemy...I mean, our opponents for tonight's match."

"Starting in Goal, Yves Deveraux. Serving as Beaters, Lucretia Botrel and Didier Rouselle. Chasing after the Quaffle but hopefully never getting it, Gwen Popelin, Kevin Gauthier, and Salomé Bardot. And finally, at Seeker, Jasmin Leblanc." His pronunciation was not too terrible, the chaser admitted to herself. Then the boy-called-Jordan continued, and his bias was made all the clearer.

"Now, for your HOME TEAM!" The crowd began to grow louder, forcing him to shout out the names with glee. "Ready to stop every shot sent his way, back at the hoops, Ronald WEASLEY!" He paused for feverous applause. "Prepared the beat the BLOODY SHI-"

"Jordan!"

"-SHINGUARDS, PROFESSOR! Prepared to beat the shinguards off the opponents, carrying bats, we have our Red Rovers, the matchstick menaces, the penultimate pranksters, Fred and George WEASLEY!" Salomé wasn't sure how to feel that half the opposing team was part of the same giant red-headed clan that had birthed the terrifying Durmstrang Duelist.

"Prepared to score umpteen goals on our French Foes, our beautiful duo, Katie Bell and Heidi Macavoy, and their not-quite-best-third, the somehow-yet-to-commit-a-foul and therefore perhaps-acceptable Slytherin, ADRIAN PUCEY!" Lucretia flew by and rolled her eyes at the announcers' antics. The two girls shared smirks.

"And, last but CERTAINLY not least, as fast as she is pretty, our champion seeker, the girl with legs for days-"

"JOR-"

"CHO CHANG!" The crowd bellowed along with their announcer, obliterating the sound of their professor's complaint. The team rocketed around the stadium, waving to various sections and earning personal cheers from friends, family, and housemates. However, it seemed Beauxbatons' captain noticed something she didn't like and signaled for her team to gather. Lucretia Botrel looked from player to player.

"Ecoute, listen. Hogwarts has been our rivals for over a millennium. Think of your friends. Think of your family. Think of our heritage. Do not let them down." She seemed to see a spark of energy among her players and stuck her hand out into the circle they had formed. "For Beauxbatons!" They echoed the shout, and for a moment they all felt brave.

Then the main referee, a woman with a shock of white hair, was calling for the captains to come listen to the rules, and the circle was broken. Salomé flew to each of her teammates. She bumped fists with Yves. She gave a smart salute to Jasmin. She shot a finger gun at Didier who, being a fellow muggleborn, understood and returned the gesture. She flatly ignored Kevin and Gwen, completing the ritual the team held. It was bad luck to cheer on your position-mates in Quidditch before the game. The last time someone had...well the Vatican no longer blessed the Italian Quidditch team. An Act of God, the papers had called it.

Lucretia returned, and completed her own round of motivation. The crowd slowly began to subside in its initial fervor. Then, the referee blew her whistle once. The teams gathered near the center.

A second time. They all ceased movement, save for the seekers soaring high above.

A third time. The quaffle was lofted into the sky.

"BELL SNAGS THE QUAFFLE! She narrowly dodges a swipe from Gauthier and flicks off a pass to Macavoy. Macavoy back to Pucey. Pucey to Weasley in Goal. Weasley back out to Macavoy." Salomé saw the young girl who wore a yellow and black badge in addition to her Hogwarts insignia glance at her faster companion. It was a small look, but when the girl dove under Gwen and flung a pass towards Katie Bell, the strawberry-blonde was blurring to intercept.

"AGH! Intercepted by Bardot! She rockets across the pitch and passes to Popelin. Popelin to Gauthier. He fakes a pass back, and dodges Pucey! A Gryffindor wouldn't have fallen for that fake…anyway, Gauthier does pass this time...to Bardot. Bardot lobs it to Popelin and gets the quaffle back. Beautiful give-and-go, that! She's alone against Weasley!" Salomé saw something grey in the corner of her vision, and she pulled up sharp on the broom, dodging the bludger by mere centimeters, and barely holding on the quaffle. Slowed as she was by the maneuver, the Hogwarts keeper had time to close the distance, and get in her face, attempting to strip the leather ball. So, she dropped the Quaffle.

It was a testament to his potential as a quidditch player that Kevin was ready and able to adapt. He caught the quaffle twenty feet below her and easily scored on empty hoops.

"10 points for Beauxbatons!" Jordan said with somewhat true enthusiasm. It had been a decent enough goal. Regretfully but dutifully, however, he updated the score. It seemed that scoring merely made Hogwarts more focused, and the team rallied quickly, scoring with a lightning fast counterattack from a full field cannon of a pass from Pucey to Bell. Lucretia ripped into Yves for not saving the shot, then flew off with a string of curses.

-XI-

Fleur sat beside John in one of the towers surrounding the field, watching her friend zipping back and forth through the air.

"She really is quite good."

John smiled. "Yep. She's one of the most motivated people I have ever seen when she is trying to show someone up."

Fleur laughed, the musical sound dragging eyes all around from the game to her. She pretended not to notice. "Salomé is easily the most competitive person I have ever met, boy or girl. She may not be the brightest…"

"Says the master of history…"

"Shut up! Anyway, she might not be the most book smart, and she once spent a week practicing pierre, papier, ciseaux, puits...uh, rock-paper-scissors-well in the belief that there was a solid strategy to it." John raised an eyebrow, visible barely above one of his mirrored lenses, but she ignored him. "That being said, when she decides she will be good at something, she will not give up until she is."

"She wants to be better than you at dueling."

"Perhaps she will become so in time," She sounded like she didn't really believe it, but was just being polite. "But I am better overall at classes…"

"And you certainly have her beat in humility…"

"John!" She smacked him playfully and he laughed. It was such an unexpected noise that she stared at him in shock. His grin was wide, and her eyes drifted to his lips. Then she grew warm at the collar and her azure blue eyes shifted back up to his hidden ones, her thoughts drifting to what they looked like, what passions and secrets they held. Her reflection broke her spiraling path into intimate ideas as she remembered something.

"John, back at the Chateau, what was the card on my head?"

His smile lit up even more, and her heart fluttered. "Guess!"

"Dammit John!"

-XI-

Salomé was in the zone. She didn't know the score. Nor even how many she had scored. She just knew three things.

One: Jasmin was outclassed by the Hogwarts seeker. She had almost swallowed a bludger that Chang had led her into a collision path with, and moments later, fell for a Wronski and had to be issued a second broom after the first cracked upon impact with terra firma.

Two: Lucretia had the two opposing beaters outclassed. It was all the two red-heads could do to keep her from single-handedly slaughtering the rest of the Hogwarts team. Therefore…

Three: She, Kevin, and Gwen needed to score as much as possible, before Cho Chang caught the snitch.

So, she flew like the Devil was at her heels. She dove, she twisted, she turned. With her skill, and the broom she had saved up for over a year to buy, it took two chasers to try and cover her. That left Gwen and Kevin to overcome merely one other chaser and the keeper, with Didier launching bludgers to help them. Out of the corner of her eye, through the blurred surroundings, it seemed the pale blue stands were moving more than the color mish-mash of Hogwarts' stands. She figured that meant she and her teammates were playing better.

Salomé dodged a nearly illegal Transylvanian tackle from the Slytherin, sloth-rolled upside down to avoid a weak attempt from the Gryffindor chaser, and scored while hanging from her broom.

Hogwarts launched a solid counterattack, but it was stopped by a brutal bludger from Lucretia that slipped by the 'matchstick menaces' and crushed the tiny Heidi Macavoy like an ant underfoot. The petite girl tumbled end over end to the earth, only saved at the last second by a well-placed cushioning charm from the referee.

Now unable to be double-marked, Salomé saw an opportunity. She swerved back and forth in tight turns, forcing Katie Bell to fight with every ounce of skill to stick with the grey-eyed girl. When Katie next lagged behind, the strawberry-blonde launched a long shot at the high hoop. Three things happened nearly simultaneously.

Lucretia, having noticed Salomé's move, took a clipping strike from one bludger to batter the other one right at the Hogwarts keeper.

Ronald Weasley easily caught the quaffle in his hands, and then the bludger to the gut. He flew backwards through the goal, bashed his head on the top of the hoop, and fell groundward.

The whistle blew, and the teams whipped their heads around to see Cho Chang holding aloft the snitch.

Silence temporarily ruled as every soul in the stadium looked from the Asian girl to the scoreboard.

210-210.

Utter bedlam.

-XI-

Fleur's hands flew to her mouth in surprise, as every living being in and around the stadium exploded in sound. Her head snapped over to look at John, who himself was smiling and pointing.

"Hogwarts lost two of their players in those final few plays. A tie in a tournament game means a shootout. They will have to field two reserves while we have our full starting squad!" Others around him heard his words and began to echo the positive sentiments until all the French Schools' fans seemed on the brink of a preemptive celebration.

"We can win…" Fleur's voice was soft, then she grew more confident. "Non! WE WILL WIN!"

-XI-

Lucretia gathered her team together, and they formulated the plan. This was why she was the captain. She had heard the whistle and checked the scoreboard mere milliseconds afterwards. In the time it was taking the rest of the stadium to make the connections she had quickly completed; she was already plotting how to win.

"Listen. They will have to bring two subs. I am not certain of the chaser replacement, but their keeper replacement is a second year. I have heard from their school's gossips that she is better than the redhead but likes charms too much to make the practices. Do not underestimate her." The team looked to the Hogwarts' team entrance and saw a girl somehow smaller than Macavoy running into the light, still tightening her pads and helmet. If not for their captain's words, they would have thought nothing of the barely-there brunette. Lucretia continued.

"Gwen, you shoot first. We want to open with power. Kevin, you shoot next, focus on speed." The beater turned to her final chaser. "Salomé, I want you to do the penalty shot you've been practicing."

"Seriously?"

"Oui, we might need the surprise." The tall girl couldn't help it, she glanced at where she knew Coach Villalobos to be. To her relief, the Mexican starlet was nodding. Salomé gathered her focus inward, and mentally reviewed the move she had been practicing.

-XI-

In the crowds that surrounded the stadium, fans from all three schools babbled in excitement for a rare shootout.

"Who's backup keeper? Hogan? Merletter?"

"The day a Hufflepuff plays keeper is the day I snap my own wand!"

"Gina told me her daughter was back up!"

"Bah! Gina always spews nonsense from that—"

Riddle tuned out that section of the crowd as he quietly slipped between exuberant wizards and witches towards a man that he had seen leave the stadium several moments prior. It didn't take long to catch up. To his annoyance, the tall blond hadn't even noticed him.

"Lord Malfoy." The man spun, using his cane to catch his balance. His eyes widened.

"My…er, Lord Riddle."

"I see you are still recuperating from your…injury?" Riddle's voice split the air like steel through paper.

"Yes, it is teaching me more each day."

"Good. Maybe one day it will teach you how to maintain your usefulness." Malfoy whipped his head to look at the crowd around. Riddle found himself almost growling. "You abject simpleton. It's a wonder you were potent enough to even pass the color of your hair on to your son. I would not speak of private matters if we had the risk of being overheard." Seeing the other's confusion remained behind a poor mask of understanding, he continued. "The masses are hearing a completely different conversation." Relief flooded in to wash away the fear.

"Of course, my Lord. Forgive me my foolishness."

"For now, I shall. But be aware each time I am growing more and more reticent to do so."

"I will endeavor to do better." Riddle sighed.

"One can only hope." He waved the quarrel aside. "I have an assignment for you."

"Anything, my Lord."

"If you succeed, I will heal your other leg and you will move closer at the table." He saw the man all but drool over the thought of a higher social standing. It was pathetic. How this man could be so fucking useless and yet sire a son with such potential…comprehension eluded him. Then, Voldemort smiled. "Lucius, if you fail…I will let dear Bella play with you. I remember that you used to stand up to her…until I let her have her fun. Do you remember what she did?"

The man looked ready to wet himself.

"Yes…but that's not enough…if you fail, you will also abdicate your place as head of house." Jaw dropped.

"But…my Lord…"

"Yes?"

"Who…why?"

"Who? Perhaps Narcissa. Perhaps your son. Why? Because twice now you have acted the fool, twice in a row without any accomplishments to appease me. I do not suffer fools." Malfoy looked ready to argue, but he froze as he felt something heavy brush against his leg.

"Or maybe I will let Nagini have all the fun…instead of Bellatrix that is. My beloved familiar does enjoy the extra terror that being invisible inspires in her prey."

"My Lord…"

"Leave us. Antonin has your instructions."

Riddle turned away and slipped back into the crowd. He knew Nagini would return as soon as she had her fill terrorizing Lucius. It was frustrating, truly, that the elder Malfoy had seemed to plateau in his usefulness, and now grew ever and ever worse. Once a bishop on the board, now he was but a pawn pretending to be a knight. The master manipulator let his focus drift to the projections against the stadium. He cocked his head in surprise…then approval. There was another blond in Hogwarts uniform rising into the sky…on a course to line up beside the other team…and a strawberry blonde. Riddle smiled.

'Well done, boy. Exceeding my expectations, if only more of mine had your zeal.' He thought. Still focused on the projection, he spoke quietly. "Amy, after the match, you may begin the test you spoke of."

"It will be my pleasure." A pause. "Do you wish me to delegate another to fill my spot with Nagini absent as well. Voldemort considered.

"No. However, have Yaxley informed that I wish an update regarding his work in the Ministry. I will meet him at his manor shortly. I have a mission for him as well."

"As you wish, my Lord."

-XI-

Salomé watched as the English Malfoy…Draco, rose to the sky and aligned beside her. He looked her up and down, and she readied herself for some comment. None came. He turned his focus back to the rest of the world. The white-haired referee had just finished announcing the rules of a shootout and had flown with quidditch in hand to just below the starting circle. The voice of Lee Jordan filled the air once more.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, let's quiet ever so slightly down so that our beautiful Katie Bell can prepare for her shot." The brunette drifted from the line of chasers, and hovered waiting.

The quaffle was lofted.

She took off like a rocket, blazing through the air, snatching the ball, and streaking towards Yves and the hoops.

"Katie flies low…she's speeding up…it's a quick lift as she flies high and lances a shot left…HOW HAS HE SAVED THAT!" The Beauxbatons' fans exploded in cheers as Yves switched directions in a split second, body twisting almost unnaturally as he pushed the quaffle just high. "Dammit! Good save from Deveraux!"

"Jordan!" The Durmstrang supporters cheered for the save, as if in agreement, and even some of the local crowd joined in politely to acknowledge the acrobatic keeper.

"Next up, we have Gwen Popelin. Hogwarts must rely on Vicky Frobisher after Ronald Weasley's brutal injury!" Salomé watched as the keepers switched. The new one was…very small. Maybe a little over one and a half meters, she was much shorter than the previous boy had been. However, there was a dangerous glint in her eye, a crazed grin pulling at her lips.

"Gwen scoops the quaffle from its gentle loft…she's flying straight for Frobisher…her arm cocks back, sweet Merlin that's a cannon—SAVED BY FROBISHER!" To the amazement of the crowd, the petite player had decided that she likely didn't have the arm strength to block the blazing shot. So, Vicky had opted to fly herself in the way, blocking the shot with her torso like a tavern brawler taking a body shot. The slightly pained smile convinced Salomé that this girl was crazy.

The blond by her side spared her another glance, but as she turned to confront him, his head snapped away as if he was purposely trying to infuriate her.

"After that spectacular save, Deveraux is back before the hoops, and Pucey gathers the quaffle! He flies slowly, taking his time to snake back and forth…awfully Slytherin if I say…he shoots left—no! It's a fake, he's flicking it high. MORGANNA'S TITS!"

"JORDAN!"

"Professor! Did you not see that save! He just has to be on liquid luck…or stretch-sap solution…or something! No one can twist like that! Why, even my beloved Angelina can't twist her body that much when—" There was scuffling over the microphone before someone had the clever idea to mute it. However, the damage was done, and the crowd had deteriorated into colorful jokes, and fingers pointing at the quarrel in the commentator's box.

Then…a quiet voice, one Salomé knew.

"Well, if Jordan and the Professor are going to fight…I'll do the job. After that bamboozling save from Deveraux…I think it was gigglebips that helped him twist that quickly, nothing illegal…err…" The airy girl seemed to have to regather herself. "Kevin Gauthier is about to grab the quaffle and try his best to score on a keeper only slightly smaller than he is."

Indeed, the boy was. He held the leather ball and streaked in tight turns toward the net. He was used to using his speed to befuddle the keeper, but being hardly weighed down, Frobisher's broom was able to keep up. Vicky blocked a decent shot, but without much difficulty.

"Smothered by our own keeper!" Luna seemed to have elected to keep it simple. Perhaps it was in her focus on her new self-appointed position, perhaps it was so McGonagall wouldn't realize what had happened and reacquire the microphone rune. "Next is Draco Malfoy, attempting to get past the dexterous Deveraux." As his name was called, the boy finally locked eyes with Salomé.

"You are as pretty as I'd heard." Then he was off, leaving her with her jaw loose and eyes wide. What the hell had that been?

He soared confidently forward, grabbed the ball-that-would-not-go-through-a-hoop, and shot high skyward. Up and up he spiraled. Luna giggled.

"Now what is that silly-Slytherin doing…oh, here he comes back. Ah, it's a speedy spiraling descent!" Muffled in the background was Lee Jordan trying to insist on the move's actual name. Luna tutted. "Now, Lee, if you had been a good boy, you would still have this job! But, you were bad! Someone decided to talk about tits and implied other things about Angelina's anatomy and not to mention…oh…Deveraux saved it again…that's too bad."

The crowd was a mix of cheers and groans at the save, chortles at the new commentary, and confused glances trying to figure out which to focus on. Their minds were made for them.

"Hey, that's Salomé…she's really nice." Luna's sudden way of speaking, an appropriate frankness that stole people's attention, drew ten-thousand eyes to the strawberry-blonde. The grey-eyed girl gulped but gathered her focus once more.

No thinking about Luna.

No thinking about Draco and his flirting.

No thinking about…no. No John.

Just quidditch.

She started reciting players in her head, all chasers, in alphabetical order by their national team. It only took twelve names to get her focused on the white-haired referee lobbing the quaffle. She grabbed it.

Salomé flew towards the hoops, veering slightly right, quaffle in her right arm. She began turning away, the tiny keeper tracking her every move. Then, in an explosion of movement, she cut left, hand moving out from her body to prepare to shoot. The crowd gasped at the burst of movement…at her losing her grip on the quaffle. Groans of disappointment began to fill her ears, but she ignored them, heart pounding.

Frobisher relaxed every so slightly at seeing the quaffle fall earthward. Salomé wrenched the broom left with all her strength, and her right leg shot out. She felt the laces of her soft boots impact the quaffle perfectly, and even with her body turning away from the hoops, thousands of hours on the football pitch let her see in her mind the path the football…the quaffle would take.

It shot past the stunned keeper and cleanly through the rightmost hoop.

"Goooooal!" Luna crowed, clicking the scoreboard once as the crowd burst into bedlam. Lucretia was first to crash into Salomé in celebration. Then Yves with his dreamy green eyes. Eyes that reminded her…she crushed the thought and let herself bask in victory with her teammates.

-XI-

High above, John smiled as Fleur, and the crowd around, thundered in cheers. The two school-children shot to their feet, and she crushed him in a hug. He tensed, but the smell of her hair, the feel of her against him made him begin to relax.

Fleur too began to be lost in his embrace. The warmth of him, the firmness, the…she felt his body tense again, and she heard him whisper, "Ozymandias." The veela felt a tug at her gut, and she cried out in shock as she was portkeyed away.

John took the curse meant for her and was flung bodily from the tower.

-XI-

Salomé saw from the corner of her eye someone fall from one of the Beauxbatons' towers. In a heartbeat, she was diving from the embrace of her friends and was blurring to catch them. In her head, the math wasn't good. Math had never been her strong suit, but even now she knew what she had to do. Her wand was out in a second, and she cast a slowing charm on the boy she now recognized as John. Then a reviving spell. Then she slid off her broom.

John had been awake when she had hit him with rennervate. Instead of waking him from unconsciousness, the overpowered spell felt like he had shotgunned three energy drinks of pure adrenaline. His eyes flicked over the stadium faster than a dog seeing a squirrel after months of winter. He appreciated her slowing charm when he realized he was about to slam into her broom. Because of her charm, landing on her broom wasn't as painful as it could have been, but it still nearly knocked the wind out of him. While falling, he had found the attacker, raised anti-apparition, anti-portkey, and anti-phoenix wards. He quickly shot Salomé with a slowing charm of his own.

Now, he dug his feet into the stirrup-bars on the back of the broom and willed it to go fast. He almost fell off. Around him, the crowd slowly learned, then quickly passed on that someone had attacked someone else. He ignored them all and shot towards one of the other towers. As he flew, his wand flicked a tight ball of runes into existence, and when he was mere feet from the tower, he launched it. The moment the runes left his wand he cast a cushioning charm on himself, and arresto momentum on his broom. Physics happened.

The broom went from almost 250 kilometers per hour to zero in a heartbeat.

John kept going 250 kph.

His ball of runes shattered the ward work that had masked the tower top. With the illusions gone, he saw one lone masked witch among dozens of bodies. He didn't have time to tell if the bodies were dead or alive as the cushioning charm did its best to keep him from killing himself.

He bounced off the benches in the stand like a dropped avocado pit, still feeling burning pain as magic could only do so much to cancel out the sudden negative change in momentum. However, the bounce saved him from a mahogany spell that shattered a bench and pelted the bodies with splinters. Mid-air, John twisted and unleashed a quick blistering barrage of hexes and curses.

The woman painted a quick rune, and the spells slowed drastically, allowing her to nimbly leap aside. John landed on the balcony edge, kept his balance, and renewed the attack.

-XI-

Salomé fell another twenty or so meters until she too was caught. Draco grunted from the impact and amended the last words he had said to her. "Pretty damn heavy, if nothing else."

She couldn't help herself. "It's called muscle, something to learn about maybe." His smile surprised her. He wasn't bad looking himself.

"Then the muscles are getting in the way of your thinking. Just jump willy-nilly from your broom every day?"

She blushed. "Shut up!" She pointed to where her broom hovered by a tower done in the colors of Luna's house. "Get me over there."

Draco looked at the light show that lit the tower top a rainbow of flashing colors. "Yeah, definitely getting in the way of your thinking." But he complied, taking off at a not-slow pace. Salomé turned to her still frozen teammates.

"Lucretia! Get people out of here so the police can have room to work!" The dark-haired girl caught on and began shouting orders to the other players. The strawberry-blonde turned back to her rescuer. "Malfoy, can't this thing go any faster?"

"Muscle."

"Touché."

From the magically enhanced speakers, Luna's voice chimed in. "Um, ladies and gentlemen, there is a scuffle in Ravenclaw Tower 3, please clear the area so Aurors can deal with it. Um, please." Ingrained by years of trusting announcers, the massive crowd began to do exactly that, in the energy of the moment not questioning that the voice was that of a fourteen-year-old girl.

"Bless you, child." McGonagall could be heard in the background.

"Of course, professor. I decided this wasn't the time to talk about Cho Chang's legs or Angelina's—"

"Yes, yes! I'll take it from here."

-XI-

John scowled behind his mask of passivity. He growled his next spells. "Tissu enflamme! Printemps plancher! Chaleur Fleche!" The masked woman, for her robes were a little tight to think otherwise, spun both wand and cloak, putting out the flames. She nullified the floor-to-spring transfiguration and stepped sideways to avoid the quintuplet of magma arrows.

Her wand twisted. "Cruor Madilus! Curtare!" She followed these with a blue spell that shot out in a solid beam towards him.

John, batting aside the blood-boiling curse, very quickly counter-spelled the ebony-castrater, and then locked the blue spell in place with a gold-beam from his. The spell-drain hex was an obscure creation of Charles V of Spain, the result of having to deal with dozens of magical assassins from France. It artificially replicated the extremely rare phenomena of magically locked wands. John pushed towards her, step by step, approaching the essentially paralyzed witch. From the tensing of her body, she was likely grimacing.

So close now that their wands were less than a meter from touching, John smiled. He focused on his wand. It was coral. Coral was stone. In the blink of an eye, the wand extended into a sword, a sword that split his opponent's wand in two. In the middle of receiving a river of magic, the wooden focus was no longer able to channel the destructive force in a safe manner. It exploded. The woman screamed, frozen in shock at the stump that had been her right arm.

John raised his sword to level at her face. "Who do you work for?" A different voice answered.

"Oh dear, what a shaaame! Amy got stomped by a wee-wittle child…" John saw in his peripheral one of the bodies stand up, clearly not as unconscious as he had thought. The woman wore no mask, and her skin was pale but flawless. Long black hair fell in curls down her back. She wore a devil's grin. "Or…maybe he is the big boy, and you are the little girl? Tell me, Amy, did you take it easy on the child so you could get spanked? You always were a kinky little bitch." The pretty woman flowed like water when she walked, and John took a step back. This one moved with the grace of a master dancer, and dancers made deadly duelists. The now identified Amy hissed her retort.

"Don't patronize—"

"No, no, no. Patronize? I would never! Run along little shadow, I'll guard your back." The new woman turned to face John, just as a broom rushed up to the railing and a girl taller than either of the combatants vaulted the wooden barricade and landed beside John. Malfoy followed, leaving the broom hovering by the edge.

John noticed the new woman mask a scowl, but he also saw the 'Shadow' prove her nickname accurate, vanishing into the darkness of the stairwell. He felt anger begin to grow.

"Ma'am, step aside or I will make you."

She giggled, far too girlishly for a woman. Unnerving. "Where would the fun in that be?" Her words had barely left her mouth when a wand appeared in her hand, and she was casting a torrent of spells, laughing as she went.

"Together." John growled to the other kids, then used his empty hand to raise a vaporous shield that seemed to catch the spells mid-flight. His eyes widened slightly at the volume of spells he was slowing. In his other hand, the sword shrunk once more to a wand. Salomé pushed forward.

"Confringo. Expulso. Defodio." Malfoy too stepped forward.

"Sectumsempra. Aldars. Imdinat." Giggling still, the woman literally flipped through the air to avoid the attack, spinning like some demonic circus performer. Her wand moved like it was alive itself, flicking to scatter incoming spells at the last second.

"Oh, is that all?" She landed, pirouetted as she ducked a pair of spells from John, and then shot out with two of her own. "Poor…poor…poor children! No one taught you how to properly dance! Who would be so irresponsible with their education? Very well, I will begin your training. Ready? One and two and three and four." She paused to scrutinize Malfoy's footwork. "No dear, you're off rhythm." The sound of pounding feet reached their ears, but John didn't have time to worry about them. This witch was very good. It was all he could do to keep the other two kids safe.

Salomé certainly wasn't bad, and Malfoy was half decent, but they lapsed when they needed to defend some of the witch's more eclectic curses. Several times John had to exert himself to raise a rune or shield in front of them at the last second. Thankfully, a tall man with messy black hair shot up the stairs, hardly glanced at the scene, and launched a bone-breaker at the witch's back. She spun her wand behind her to block, then her incessant chuckling grew louder still.

"Cousin, so kind of you to join! I was beginning to get bored!"

"Can't have that, Bellatrix." The man hissed.

"Oooooh, did I mention? Someone never taught these children to dance!" She executed a simple yet flawless horizontal leap from one leg to the other to avoid spellfire, a grand jeté. "Seriously…." She chuckled again, "Even you were taught some of the arts of a formal dance, but these kids, our very future, seem to have no formal education! If that isn't abuse, I don't know what is!"

-XI-

Luna saw her friend Salomé shoot off with Draco of all people to help the boy with sunglasses. Professor McGonagall had taken over the instructions through the speakers, leaving her to her own devices. Cool, she thought. So, Luna went off to find where that portkey had gone. She had felt the snap like a breeze through her hair.

In her mind, she did the maths. She liked the way the numbers clicked and clacked their way together like a row of dominoes. Even when they didn't fall right, all she had to do was change some numbers, and try again.

She hummed to herself as she slid between the crowd. The coefficient for the shear differential was six, that was obvious, but what percent of oscillation should she account for? It was a problem that took her the next five flights of stairs to figure out. It was probably the pretty girl who had been portkeyed, after all the barefoot boy was clearly a bodyguard, so…more maths.

If the girl weighed about eleven stone, with some to spare of course, then…carry the four…don't forget the…yes. Perfect. Her mental math concluded.

Luna set off towards the Forbidden forest.

Wait.

The girl was a Veela, right? Lighter bones, avian. Luna redid the math. Maybe nine something stones in weight. The math clicked in a prettier way. A prime number.

Luna adjusted her course and began walking towards the Black Lake. Maybe she could introduce the Veela to the giant squid. Cthulia was actually really nice once you got to meet her.

-XI-

John barely held back a scowl. Seeing Bellatrix fend off four attackers at once and knowing he could do a lot more if he wasn't protecting the two beside him brought resentment, resentment he knew he shouldn't be feeling. Fleur was safe, all of this was unnecessary. Yet, he felt his competitive side wrestling for control. He considered knocking the kids out and continuing the fight without their burden, but that was irresponsible. And Salomé would never forgive him.

He considered collapsing the floor and dropping Salomé and Malfoy out of the fight. A better choice, wiser as well. Then he felt someone new arrive.

"Bêhna xweliyê." The woman twirled yet again to try and block, but the curse hit her hand. Nothing seemed to happen for a long moment, as the intense battle continued with the newest arrival just standing and watching. Silent after the single spell.

Suddenly, Bellatrix's face began turning blue as she hacked and coughed. She clawed at her mouth and throat with one hand as she feebly fought off the attackers, but it was no use. The first man who arrived knocked her wand from her hand with a silver spell, and then the three kids each hit her with various bludgeoning and concussive spells, sending her into dark oblivion. The newest arrival pushed past the other four. An aura of command came with him.

"Auror Black, check on the civilians. Mr. Constantine, Ms. Bardot, Mr. Malfoy, please assist him. I will deal with Lestrange." While the auror bit back a reply, he complied. Malfoy also quickly obeyed, seemingly in awe of the new arrivals ability to quickly quell the seemingly uncrackable witch. He spared a quick glance at Salomé first, then joined the auror in checking the various unconscious bodies.

Salomé did not immediately comply. "What did you do to her?"

John replied hesitantly, trying to remember the spell cast, but only able to decipher one of the words used. "Sand?"

"That is correct, Mr. Constantine. I filled her lungs with sand." Now, John recognized the man as the one who had been talking with Fleur back at the first stage of the Dueling challenge. Riddle took his wand to the downed witch's sternum, made a small spiral with it, and pulled upward, along the path of her esophagus, up through her neck and to her mouth. Sand poured out. Once he had emptied her lungs and airways, he drew a rune for air, one for shock, and one for paralysis in the air. He chained them in that order, with timers and rule sets. Then he set it off.

First her lungs filled with air, then her heart was shocked. Her body exhaled the air forcibly. The process repeated like a muggle defibrillator until her eyes shot open. Then the paralysis rune activated, and she froze. Riddle spelled silver chains around her hands and feet, and idly summoned her dropped wand to his hand. He pocketed it.

Resuscitated then arrested.

John shook his head in appreciation. That rune work was blisteringly fast and incredibly impressive. Salomé caught his gaze. He shook his head and mouthed, 'Later.' She seemed disappointed, but she nodded and went to assist the other two in checking the bodies. After a moment, John followed.


Lord Yaxley stood, hands clasped in front of him, before the apparition point in his manor. He was about to reach for his pocket watch to check the time once more when Dolohov appeared where he had expected his Lord. However, ever the master of etiquette, Yaxley gave a half-bow.

"Seneschal, what brings you to my home?"

"Bellatrix stepped out of line." It was said with cold disregard, but Yaxley knew the man before him was furious.

"Has this affected our plans?"

"It has brought the time-table up significantly."

Yaxley nodded. He began calculating. "How significantly?"

"She's being arrested." Yaxley stopped, and slowly focused on Dolohov's face.

"Very…well. Yes, I can adjust to meet this new time-crunch."

"Good. Additionally, move up the transference of finances to the back-up plan."

Yaxley gave a courteous half-bow, a true sign of deference in the foyer of his own home. "Of course. Please tell our Lord that I await his further instructions."

Yaxley smirked, thin lips approaching a fox's snarl as he pictured the days to come. Oh yes, England would change. His Lord would see to it.


The portkey landed Dolohov at the front entrance of the Ministry building. Perfect. He rolled his head in a slow circle, relaxing the muscles in his neck. He cracked his wrists with slow turns, loosening the muscles for what was to come. He shook his legs one at a time, getting the blood flowing. When he reached the check-in desk before the legendary Red Hall of the Russian Ministry, the clerk looked up at him with bright eyes. A mere boy.

"Sir, may I have your identifi-" Dolohov put a piercing hex through the boy's right-eye, splattering the back wall of the tiny reception office with crimson and grey. The security officer behind him made a noise of surprise, and Antonin could hear a hand scrabbling for a wand. Ignoring the guard, the Death Eater began walking towards the gold doors to the Red Hall.

He began counting the beats of his adrenaline fueled heart. One two, three four, five six. The guard finally cleared his wand from its holster and to head height, but before the man could avenge the dead boy, he was silenced by a new quartet of beats, so close as to seem the same. A portkey, a spell, a wet slapping sound, and then a body hitting the floor.

Antonin didn't need to turn around to know that Thorfinn Rowle had appeared and immediately shot the guard with a violet curse, blasting the man's entrails through his gut and onto the floor. The now-corpse followed a breath later.

Dolohov approached the looming doors, and new sounds rose around him to create the orchestra he always heard during combat.

Magical sirens were the woodwinds, wheezing and hissing through the building.

Screaming men and women were the strings, singing at a near discordant pitch.

Portkeys, the brass instruments, rumbling and groaning across the ministry.

His heartbeat was the pounding bass drum bringing it all into harmony.

In the Red Hall, Russian wizards and witches were screaming for their version of the Aurors and were bracing the doors with magic. Poor fools.

A roar signaled Greyback thundering by Voldemort's Seneschal and ripping the Golden Doors from the wall like wings from a fly. More screams as he used them as massive hammers to flatten several wizards slow in fleeing.

Dolohov strode by the bloodthirsty werewolf. Many of the Russians were fighting back, but the fools were focused on the hulking monstrosity beside him, so Antonin cut them down like a field threshed. Any he deigned to pass by without killing were butchered by Rowle.

The trio carved a path of corpses through the Red Hall, and Dolohov spared a smile.

Too easy.


She ran as fast as her body would let her. Arms pulling her forward, feet pushing at the dirt, lungs fighting for every breath. Her French braid bounced and smacked her shoulders with every long stride. Her chest was beginning to burn, long after her calves had already begun screaming. Yet both of those pains had not yet reached the near-unbearable levels of searing agony that her bare feet registered. Every step drove jagged pebbles further and further into her feet, like shards of molten glass piercing her soles. An occasional root found its way underfoot, and it was a whole new level of vision-blackening anguish that racked her body. But still, she ran.

When the pain threatened her spirit, she trapped the thoughts as best she could, and threw them into a now ever-growing collection of fuel in the mental house John had helped her create. In its place, she brought to the forefront of her mind the memory of fear she had felt in the attack on the chateau, the moment of horrific acceptance at her fate before she had chosen to fight on, the snapshot of rage at her crush choosing Fleur over her at the opening duels of the tournament. When she had been a weakness in the team that fought the mysterious witches at the Quidditch match. That helped her ignore the pain and keep running.

Five more minutes passed after she had thought she would collapse. Still she ran.

Five minutes became ten.

Ten became twenty.

Her breathing became ragged, wheezing at twenty-one minutes past when her body screamed quit. Though she fought on, even her mind was unable to force her body to keep trucking. Her right leg shuttered mid-stride, and her dead sprint turned into a graceless, tripping, tumble along the forest floor. The strawberry-blonde's face contorted in her suffering, as she brought scraped hands to her skinned knee and now-purpling hip.

Foutre.

Salomé sucked her suffering through her teeth, and bit back the moans and sobs she so wanted to let out. Her whole body trembled and shook as she raised one empty hand towards the Black Lake, towards where her wand floated in its center. Nothing.

"Venez-ici!" She growled in the silent confines of her mind, pulling with every fiber of her willpower at the stagnant stick. "Accio!" Nothing.

She chuckled. Not in humor. Not in joy. In pain. In incredulous frustration. With fluttering fingers, the girl dug cracked fingernails into the dirt and mud, and slowly forced her way through the sticks and leaves to the sand and waves. The water was freezing, mocking her as it temporarily soothed the burning, but brought a whole new oppressive fatigue as the chill filled her bones. For the merest of moments, she thought of giving up, but she quelled the fledgling weakness with ruthless hate.

The cold of the water was amaranth for her suffering. The suffering she deserved for her failures, for her incompetence.

-XI-

From afar, John watched, and shook his head in amazement.


N/B: \Qiantu is a Chinese car company. They make fast cars.

\Adrian Pucey is the only known Slytherin player to not have commited a single foul. Fun fact.

\Rock-Paper-Scissors-Well is the French version of the infamous game. The Well defeats Scissors and Rock, but just can't overcome Paper. In America, we sometimes add a fourth option, but call it the 'Bomb'. The bomb obliterates rock and paper, but scissors cuts its fuse.

\'In the zone' is a saying that means a person is extremely focused and is performing at the peak of their ability.

\The Transylvanian Tackle is a faked punch that is supposed to make a chaser mess up and fumble the quaffle. It is not actually illegal, because no contact is made.

\Vicky Frobisher is, in fact, a canon character. Furthermore, it was mentioned that she was better than Ron at keeper, but she cared too much for Charms Club to make enough practices to warrant the starting position.

\If any of y'all care, the Twelfth professional chaser, alphabetically by name and national team, is Edric Vosper of England.

\Salomé scores her game-winning goal by volleying the quaffle like a soccer ball (football for the World). This is...technically illegal, but not until the late 90's, when Alasdair Maddock of the Montrose Magpies became famous for trying to blend football with Quidditch.

\Ozymandias was the key-word to activate the portkey. Some of my friends reading this commented that this was unclear during the first read-through. (Ozymandias is the title of two sonnets written by the British Romantic poet, Percy Shelley.)

\Avocado pits do, in fact, bounce. Try it...its oddly satisfying.

\Venez-ici means 'Come here'. I use it as the french equivalent of the summoning charm.


Author' Note:

I have been sitting on this chapter for a while. Not to sound like a diva or a perfectionist, but I just don't really like it. However, I'm being a moping jerk by not publishing it for as long as I have, so here it is.

I did enjoy the quidditch match, enjoyed crafting my relatively unique brand of psycho for Bellatrix, and as always Luna felt so fun to write.

I hope y'all like it, and though my life is ludicrously busy right now, I will aim to get the next chapter out within three weeks. I have not, nor ever will abandon this story. That's a promise.

Next Chapter will have the first task, more of the 'Boy-Who-Lived', and maybe some more political machinations. At least that's the plan! :)

Thank all of you for the patience and support,

Much love,

Semper,

Vi