CHAPTER 37: MURDER GAME


Time passed by all too quickly and the eve of the first Quidditch match of the season was upon them. Very predictably, it was Slytherin vs Hufflepuff. Quirrel was fuming in his chambers. Well, more accurately, his master was fuming and he was cowering, but narrator's liberties and whatnot.

The source of their ire lay in the fact that they hadn't been able to pump Hagrid for information quite as effectively as they'd hoped. For the past month, Quirrel had been spending nearly half his nights at the Hog's head trying to get Hagrid drunk enough to spill the beans on what he had hidden behind that door. Just a little peep of what he'd bought recently would have set his plans. But he had overlooked one particular fact. The fact that Half giants could hold hell a lot of liquor more than the average human being, especially one such as himself who had an unliving entity attached to the back of his head.

Quirrel and due to their close, mostly obscure biological relationship, Voldemort had spent most of the waking hours hungover and the duo were getting somewhat irritable. And so it was that they'd arrived at this juncture.

"Fuck the stone!" whispered the Dark Lord murderously. Quirrel started. He'd never heard the man, pardon, wraith use such crude profanity before.

"Fuck the stone." the Dark Lord repeated, seeming to come to a conclusion, "Put that plan on the back burner for now, servant. Let Snape earn his due. Tis the time for Quidditch and as we planned, tis the time for murder.


The stands were packed. A lot of bets had been placed on Slytherin winning throughout the school. Except from Hufflepuff. But that wasn't a new occurrence. They always bet on their own.

Sparhawk's inclusion into the team had been very hush-hush, and so had been the practices. Secret cloak and dagger affairs at the very break of dawn, zooming about the quidditch pitch half blind in the fading light of dusk, pushing the limits of curfew. And Sparhawk himself wasn't one to brag. So the silence that descended on the quidditch pitch as a tiny (not too much, though) firstie walked on to the pitch alongside the likes of Supple and Rigid who made him look all the more smaller was very understandable.

And then the stadium broke into a roar as last minute bets were made. And no it wasn't people changing their bets to Hufflepuff. It was more along the lines of the number of people Sparhawk would send to the infirmary. It was an entirely undeserved reputation.

Snape looked like he'd just swallowed a huge load of something and kept sending Sparhawk death glares. Sprout looked anxious, mentally wringing her hands, wondering if her gamble would pay off and Sparhawk would be the one to break her dry streak. She'd sworn she wouldn't touch a drop of alcohol until Hufflepuff won the Quidditch cup. But that had been so very long ago...

As per usual, Sparhawk made a quick note of where Quirrell was and to his mild discomfort, the man was looking positively giddy. Sparhawk could smell it in the air. Something was afoot...

"All this practice at odd hours has given me athlete's foot" moaned Rigid.

"Well, I heard the crotch rot lotion works wonders" supplied Supple helpfully.

Rigid glared balefully at his cousin.

All too soon the two teams were standing across each other, Madam Hooch sashaying down the middle. "Shake hands" she ordered the two captains. Marcus Flint tried to glower down at Oakstaff, but it was rather difficult considering the Hufflepuff captain was just as imposing as the other boy. Undeterred by the hostility, Oakstaff grabbed Flint's hand in a crushing grip and pumped it vigorously. "Let's put on a pretty good show, what?"

Flint scowled.

As Madame Hooch was finishing her usual spiel about fair play and whatnot, Supple whispered "That was mighty sportsman like of you, my Captain."

Oakstaff smiled

"We're going to crush them."


Sparhawk circled lazily above what was proving to be some sort of nightmare quidditch game to the rest of them, but was pretty neat by his standards. The beaters of both sides were out for blood, with the Hufflepuff team winning in the number of times they had sent the bludger smashing into some unfortunate Slytherin, never mind the morality of the thing. And the Slytherin side had yet to score a goal, what with Oakstaff displaying far more agility than someone his size had any business doing.

Of course he had spotted the snitch within the first couple of minutes, what with his magically enhanced glasses, but he was content to just hover watching the blood bath beneath him unfold. Sparhawk was like that sometimes. And it might have gone on like that had Marcus Flint not suicide bombed their captain.

"My Capitan!" screamed Rigid as the two of them went down in a tangle of brooms and limbs. The entire stadium watched with bated breath as the two behemoths desperately struggled to break free, their efforts somehow slowing down their fall from life threatening to mildly dangerous. Just as they were about to hit the ground, Marcus disengaged in an impossible move and Oakstaff crashed. Sparhawk winced as the boy bounced, but give the burlypuff some credit, he bounced back to his feet immediately. He reached for his broom, but suddenly grimaced, clutching his side. Madam Hooch blew her whistle. Fat lot of good that was going to do.

He called for a timeout and the Hufflepuffs swarmed around their captain. Batting aside the questing hands and cries of "My Capitan!" and "Foul wretches!", he grabbed Sparhawk in a death grip. "Can you do it?" he asked.

"I see it." replied Sparhawk.

"Alright Puffs, here's the plan"he motioned them to huddle around. "Abandon any attempts at scoring. Cedric, man the post. Mary and Jose will run interference in front of him. Rigid and Supple, stick to Sparhawk. And Sparhawk?"

"Yes"

"Get that Snitch"

Sparhawk grinned.


Quirrell sighed in relief as his jinx finally latched onto Sparhawk's broom. He'd wrongly assumed that the boy would be flying around on one of the pitiful school brooms, but then the lad had showed up on a freaking Nimbus 2000. The broom stubbornly resisted his attempts to jinx it in midair and the boy hadn't stayed still enough for his master to help him force the jinx on it.

But that little break provided so fortunately by that unfortunate accident, which Jordan Lee had called a repulsive but nonetheless effective play, had given him a golden opportunity.

Frowning he pushed out any distractions as his eyes latched onto Sparhawk's broom as the boy mounted it, his lips murmuring inaudibly. Jordan's voice saying, with some surprise, "The Hufflepuffs have decided to go with an unconventional strategy, pinning all their hopes on their seeker! By God, Oakstaff has balls of steel! Ow! Will Sparhawk..." slowly faded into irrelevant background noise as the Puffs rose into the air.

And just as Quirrell was getting comfortable, Sparhawk darted like a bumblebee nearly causing him to lose the jinx. Why the little brat...

He poured some more power into the incantation, finally getting to the juicy parts and was rewarded with Sparhawk's broom giving a nasty jerk, nearly causing the boy to fly solo. A nasty smile was probably making it's way onto his Lord's features just now.


Sparhawk's friends watched in horror from where Madam Pomfrey was patching up Oakstaff, as his broom jerked and bucked like an especially bad tempered bull, but their friend was gamely holding on.

"What in heaven's name is he doing?" asked Oakstaff, his voice filled with barely restrained horror. The plan was coming apart.

"Do you think there's something wrong with his broom?" asked Neville anxiously.


Sparhawk hung on grimly as his broom danced around madly trying to unseat him. A lesser man would have gone flying by now, but Sparhawk had faced far worse in his initial days with Faran.

Rigid and Supple were flying up to get on either side of him. As soon as the Burlypuffs flanked him on either side, his broom stopped it's wild ragings.

Sparhawk turned this way and that and found that he couldn't see Quirrell past the two cousins. Coincidence? Probably not. Styric magic sometimes required you be able to see the target and this was probably something similar. He smiled, a thing devoid of all humor. Rigid and Supple blanched. So the corrupt fiend had noticed and was making the first move. Well, he had something to say about that.

"Uh, Sparhawk?" Rigid asked, eyeing as the entire Slytherin team ganged on the unfortunate trio in front of the goal posts. It was physically painful to watch. The Quaffle was starting to slip through and their teammates surely couldn't take anymore of this abuse. "Another goal for Slytherin! It's sixty for nought and what is Sparhawk doing?" came Jordan's voice from all around.

"Now would be a good time." said Supple.

Sparhawk beckoned the two closer. "Do you want to win this match or not?"


Quirrell had panicked as he felt his hold beginning to weaken when the two Hufflepuffs, Rigid and Supple, or something like that, kept obscuring Sparhawk from his vision. Just as he was sure the jinx would fail, the two swerved away leaving Sparhawk on his broom in plain sight. Like a deer in the headlights.

Quirinus Quirrell nearly grinned.

And so the play continued, Slytherin battering away at the three Hufflepuffs bravely risking life and limb defending their goal. It was going to be a day for bruise balms and possibly even skele-gro.

In all this confusion, the Hufflepuff beaters dived into the morass and engaged their counterparts in a fierce battle for control of the bludger, luring them away and reducing the pressure on Cedric and the others just a little bit. It couldn't have mattered less to Marcus, who had creatively used the quaffle to bludgeon Jose who by now was a mass of bruises drunkenly weaving in front of the post this way and that.

The quartet of beaters seemed almost as if they were playing some macabre version of tennis as they gradually drifted closer and closer to the spectators, each trying to kill the other with all his might, or so it seemed.

Above it all, Sparhawk gamely hung on.

Hermione was sure that someone was messing with Sparhawk's broom, but who...? She frantically looked around at the faces lining the crowds, but she might as well have been looking for a needle in a haystack. She turned to her friends, but none of them seemed to have any ideas.

Finally, she turned to the only thing she could do. She clasped her hands and began to pray.

Rigid raised his beater's bat high and desperately hoped he was doing the right thing.

Quirrell was watching, mouth nearly salivating in anticipation as Sparhawk's broom gave a particularly nasty jerk.

The slytherin seeker flew alone and lost in some corner conveniently forgotten by the author

Hermione was squeezing her hands in a death grip, muttering prayers to what she hoped was a very real Goddess. Clutching hope in her heart, she opened her eyes just the tiniest fraction to see Rigid whack the bludger harder than the great depression hit the stock market. And the dull, brutal ball flew true and crashed straight into Professor Quirrell's face.

All of a sudden, Sparhawk's broom righted itself.

Sparhawk made a sudden steep dive, nearly debrooming the Slytherin seeker as he whizzed past him.

His hand extended, palm wide open.

And the stands exploded.


A/N: A bit impulsive on Quirrel's part? But sometimes, when you're stuck in the rut and moving nowhere, plowing ahead seems a good idea, especially if you're a disembodied, hungover wraith. As always, read and review.