A/N - Hello again. Here's a new chapter for you. I hope you like it.
Disclaimer: The X-Men were created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and belong to Marvel Comics. Harry Potter was created by and belongs to J.K. Rowling. I make no money from this and the only thing that's mine are the original parts of the story.
6) A FRIENDLY GAME OF QUIDDITCH
Quotes taken from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
The next morning everyone was up early so the tent could be packed up and they could all leave the campground. Mrs. Weasley insisted that everyone come back to the Burrow for breakfast. Harry wondered how exactly that would work since there were a total of 18 people in their group.
While everything was being packed up Fred and George approached Sirius.
"Excuse us oh honored Padfoot" said Fred.
"Yes?" said Sirius with a raised eyebrow.
"We were wondering – " said George.
"If you would be interested – " said Fred.
"In helping us – "
"With an idea that we have."
"Oh?" asked Sirius, "what would that be?"
The twins told him what they wanted to do and Sirius smiled at the idea.
"Yes" he said, "I have the equipment for that if you can convince everyone to participate."
"Leave it to us" said George with a grin.
When the tent was fully packed up and everyone was ready to go Remus brought out the rope he'd had from the previous day and once everyone had grabbed it he spoke the activation phrase and the whole group was transported to the lawn outside the Burrow. The arrival was rather chaotic. Once again Harry kept to his feet when he landed but Ron, Hermione, and Ginny all fell on their faces. The twins also fell over and as they went down they dragged Percy and Charlie with them and all four of them wound up tangled in a heap of limbs. Until their dying days Fred and George maintained this was an accident. Percy maintained they'd done it on purpose. Charlie just laughed.
Harry's teammates had mixed results. Scott stuck the landing just fine but Bobby slipped and crashed into Hank before they both went down. Jean wobbled a bit but caught herself before falling while Harry reached out and steadied Warren before he slipped. The rest of the adults all landed on their feet without problems but Sirius had a lot of trouble holding in his laughter at the sight of the "Weasley pile" as he dubbed it.
"I abhor these blasted devices!" said Hank before growling at Bobby to get off of him.
"Tell me about it" said Harry.
"You at least landed on your feet" said Ron.
"Well now that we're all here" said Mrs. Weasley cutting across the grumbling, "Bill, Charlie, Percy please set up the tables out here in the garden again and we'll eat here like we did two nights ago."
"Yes mum" said Bill as the three of them left to get the tables.
"There really isn't room for so many people in the kitchen" explained Mrs. Weasley to the guests, "but there's plenty of room out here so while I prepare breakfast please make yourselves at home. Ginny if you'll help me?"
"Yes mum" said Ginny and the two of them went into the house to begin work on breakfast. Meanwhile Harry took his things back up to Ron's room and put them with his other stuff that he didn't take to the World Cup. His teammates would be heading back to the U.S. later that day but he would be staying here until tomorrow.
When Harry came back out to the garden he saw that Bill, Charlie, and Percy had set the tables back up from two nights earlier and had added an extra one to accommodate the extra guests. They had also set out or conjured enough chairs for everyone and many of those chairs were already occupied by the people still in the garden. Harry found an empty chair between Warren and Bobby and sat down.
"You okay?" Warren asked him.
"Yeah" said Harry, "just glad to be away from all of last night's craziness."
"No kidding" said Bobby who then gestured at the Burrow, "by the way your friends have the most original looking house I've ever seen."
"Thanks" said Bill who standing nearby, "we like it very much."
"I'm trying to figure out" said Hank who was sitting across from Harry, "exactly how it is that a structure such as this can stay up. All the laws of physics say it should be impossible. I can only conclude that magic is in some way involved in allowing the house to remain standing."
"You would be right" said Mr. Weasley, "a lot of it is held up by magic. That's the wonderful thing about magical architecture. You can create all sorts of things. This house has been added to many times over the years as needed. Some parts have also been removed when we no longer needed them. That's why it looks like it does."
"Well it's definitely memorable" said Bobby, "I wouldn't mind having a house that looked like that."
"It would probably suit you" said Warren but before Bobby could respond an owl flew into the area and dropped a copy of the Daily Prophet in front of Mr. Weasley who picked it up.
"I wonder what the paper has to say about everything" he said as he looked at the headlines, "hmm SCENES OF TERROR AT THE QUIDDITCH WORLD CUP. That's true enough I suppose." Mr. Weasley showed them the headline complete with a twinkling black-and-white photograph of the Dark Mark over the treetops.
"But what's this?" continued Mr. Weasley reading another headline, "UNLOOKED FOR HELP ARRIVES TO FIGHT DEATH EATERS. This seems to be about the X-Men."
"What does it say dad?" asked Ron.
"The aurors and the wizards who stood against the Death Eaters" Mr. Weasley read out loud, "received unexpected help last night with the arrival of the American superhero team the X-Men, the same team that defended Hogwarts back in April. When asked afterwards how it was that the team was there it turned out that they were just there to attend the Quidditch World Cup! Team Leader Cyclops had this to say:
"Some magical friends of ours invited us so we came – not like this of course, but rather in our, I guess you would call them, civilian identities. That's why we won't tell you who invited us. We never expected a situation like this but when we found out what was happening we had to help."
"And help they did..." Mr. Weasley read the rest of the article which described what the X-Men had done and how much it had helped the aurors take down a lot of the Death Eaters. A list of the captured Death Eaters was printed too and Harry recognized names like Nott, Parkinson, Crabbe, Goyle, and other surnames of people he'd been to Hogwarts with, presumably these were their parents or other relatives.
"Too bad Lucius Malfoy isn't on that list" groused Ron.
"He was probably too smart to be involved" said Hermione.
"Or he got away" said Harry, "a lot of them got away."
"Yes" said Bill, "but a lot of them didn't. Those articles were pretty fair. Who wrote them?"
"Rita Skeeter did" said Mr. Weasley looking at the bylines.
"That's unusually fair for her" said Charlie.
"Not as unusual as you'd think" said Mr. Weasley, "her work has gotten a lot more even-handed and objective these last few months."
"Everyone in the ministry has noticed" added Percy, "I overheard the minister talking about it with Mr. Crouch the other day. They both agreed that she's become a lot more professional in her writing. The minister even said he didn't dread seeing her stories so much anymore and he wonders what brought the change about."
Any speculation into Rita Skeeter's motives were halted just then as Mrs. Weasley came out of the Burrow levitating plates and plates of food and saying that breakfast was ready and everyone should take their seats.
"This is delicious Mrs. Weasley" said Jean a little later as she ate her breakfast.
"Indeed it is" said Hank, "the delectable tastes of the food here today along with your cake from yesterday speak quite highly of your culinary abilities."
"Thank you my dears" said Mrs. Weasley with a smile, "please eat as much as you like."
After that the conversation died down for a while as everyone satisfied their needs.
"Great as always mum" said Bill a little later as most people were pushing away their plates.
"Thank you Bill" said Mrs. Weasley, "so what are you all going to do today?"
"We'll be heading back later today" said Scott, "although Harry will be staying until tomorrow."
"We can't go back right now" said Sirius, "it's ten o'clock here which means it's only 5 AM in New York. Even if we can portkey in without disturbing the professor it probably wouldn't be polite to do so."
"He'd know it was us" said Jean, "even if he was asleep. He wouldn't care."
"It's the principle of the thing" said Sirius.
"Or you have some other reason for not wanting us to go back just yet" said Scott. Sirius grinned and gestured to the twins.
"If you have to kill some time – " began Fred.
"We have an idea" said George. Harry looked at the mischievous gleam in the twins' eyes and wondered what they were up to.
"What did you have in mind?" asked Remus.
"Well our dear American guests" said George.
"Yesterday you saw a professional Quidditch match" said Fred.
"We thought that today – "
"You might like to play – "
"A friendly Quidditch game – "
"With us."
There was silence around the table for a long moment.
"Hm" said Hank speaking first, "that is a very intriguing proposition."
"But how?" asked Percy "they can't use brooms."
"Why would they need brooms?" asked George with a grin. Harry laughed.
"You want to play the X-Men" he said.
"Of course Harrikins" said Fred, "it will probably be the most unusual Quidditch game ever."
"The seven Weasley siblings" said George, "against the X-Men. We'll probably be able to sell pensieve memories."
"But there's only six of them" pointed out Ginny.
"Not if you include Sirius" said George.
"The professor did say last night that he could consider himself an X-Man if he wanted" said Warren looking over at Sirius, "what do you think?"
"I'll do it" said Sirius, "if everyone else will. The twins approached me before we left the campsite" said Sirius, "I said that if they could get everyone to agree I would help. I have the needed equipment and I know from Harry that the Weasley kids often play in their orchard."
"As long as we don't go too high" said Ron, "so the muggles don't see us."
"We'd have to lower the playing area in any case to make it fair" said Sirius, "that sounds pretty ideal. Scott, what do you say?" Scott looked at his teammates.
"What do you all say?" he asked. There was a short silence.
"We haven't had a training session today" said Hank, "and we are supposed to be able to deal with unusual situations."
"It sounds like fun" said Bobby.
"Ever since I learned I could fly on my own" said Harry, "I've wondered what it would be like to play Quidditch without a broom. I vote we do it." Warren and Jean also said that they would be willing to play.
"That's everyone" said Scott turning to the Weasley twins, "it looks like you have a game."
"Yes!" said Fred and George together before looking at their parents.
"Fine" said Mrs. Weasley, "as long as you don't hurt yourselves."
"We won't mum" said Fred before looking at his siblings, "Bill, Charlie, Percy, Ron, Ginny, this is going to require all of us."
"I didn't agree – " began Percy but since all of the other siblings liked the idea Percy gave in realizing that he was outvoted. The seven Weasley siblings went to get their brooms. Sirius stood up from the table.
"Remus" he said to his fellow Marauder, "please help me set up the field."
"Okay" said Remus.
"Sirius" Scott called to him before he could leave the table, "I think you should be our team captain. You know the game better than the rest of us except for Harry." Sirius nodded his head before heading out with Remus.
"I guess we'd better suit up" said Scott, "Mrs. Weasley is there a place we can all change?"
15 minutes later all of the X-Men were back outside the house where Bill Weasley was waiting for them carrying a broom, his siblings having gone on ahead.
"All right" said Cyclops, "where do we go now?"
"This way" said Bill leading them to the orchard. When they got there they saw that a full Quidditch court had been set up with the three goal hoops at each end of the orchard. The hoops were not nearly as high as they normally would be at a regular game but that was the only real difference. The other Weasley siblings were there and they all had their brooms. Finally Sirius and Remus were there with their brooms.
"Remus will referee" said Sirius to all of the players, "now let's prepare our teams."
While the two teams were getting ready Mr. and Mrs. Weasley brought out chairs and set them up at the edge of the orchard so that they and Hermione could all watch the game.
Since Sirius had been made team captain by Cyclops he assigned the team positions. Charlie, who had been Quidditch Captain when he was at Hogwarts, did the same for his siblings. These are how the line-ups went:
Team 1: The X-Men
Chaser 1: Sirius Black
Chaser 2: Angel
Chaser 3: Iceman
Beater 1: Cyclops
Beater 2: Beast
Keeper: Marvel Girl
Seeker: Lightning
Team 2: The Weasley Siblings
Chaser 1: Bill
Chaser 2: Percy
Chaser 3: Ginny
Beater 1: Fred
Beater 2: George
Keeper: Ron
Seeker: Charlie
For the most part Sirius didn't have trouble assigning positions to the X-Men. That he and Angel would be chasers was a given. Lightning, of course, would be the seeker. Marvel Girl was best suited as the keeper, and Cyclops would do well as a beater since he could strike the bludgers at long range. The main problem Sirius had was assigning third chaser and second beater to Iceman and Beast. There were good reasons they both could do each position and in the end they flipped a sickle with Iceman becoming the third chaser and Beast becoming the second beater.
"Now" said Sirius, "we've enchanted the balls so they won't rise high enough for any of the muggle neighbors to see. Also they'll stay in this area. We can't have the snitch getting away."
Once everything was sorted out Remus took charge. He rose into the air on his broom and looked down at the two teams.
"Is everyone ready?" he called down to them. After everyone said that they were Remus blew a whistle and the game began. The seven Weasleys and Sirius all rose into the air on their brooms. Angel and Lightning both took off and Marvel Girl floated herself up to hover in front of their side's goal posts. Although he couldn't fly Beast's powerful leaps easily carried him up high enough to smash bludgers with a beater's bat when he needed to while Cyclops was able to blast them away at long range. Finally Iceman was able to use his ice slides to reach the necessary heights with which he could score goals. Just to make sure the orchard didn't fill up with ice from his slides Sirius had enchanted the ice in the slides to vanish after a short time provided the vanishing didn't threaten Iceman's safety.
It was a memorable game to say the least. Everyone who was involved in it would remember it for a very long time whether they were playing, reffing, or just watching. All seven of the Weasley siblings had experience playing Quidditch even if not all of them had played on the Hogwarts team (Percy hadn't done so and Ron hadn't made the team yet). They all knew the game inside and out, backwards and forwards, and up and down. The twins in particular knew just about everything one could know about how to play their positions while Ginny proved that she was a very good flyer, something her brothers hadn't really known about before she joined the Hogwarts team the previous year. Ron and Percy also knew what they were doing even if they'd played less than their siblings and Bill was no slouch on a broom playing Quidditch either. As for Charlie – well we'll get to him in just a bit.
At first it would seem that X-Men wouldn't have stood much chance against the seven Weasleys and it was true that they didn't have the collective experience or skill at playing Quidditch that the Weasley siblings had. What they did have was a lot of experience working as a team, especially in dangerous and delicate situations. Although they didn't know the game that well (Sirius and Lightning excepted) they did know each other very well. They knew how best to work with each other and they meshed really well. They also knew how to use their powers to their best advantage when adapting them to play Quidditch and it showed. In Marvel Girl's case it was almost like cheating. She floated herself up to be in front of the goal hoops and then threw up a telekinetic shield in front of them which she maintained for most of the game and which none of the Weasley boys could penetrate no matter how hard they threw the quaffle. When she got a few complaints about this she just shrugged and smirked a little although later in the game she dropped her shield to let the opposing team take real shots at the hoops. That didn't work any better for the Weasley chasers because even though Marvel Girl had dropped her shield she didn't stop using her telekinesis which she then used to catch the quaffle whenever it was thrown and hurl it back across the field.
The only time Marvel Girl didn't use her telekinesis to stop the quaffle was when Ginny had the ball. As she had said to the younger girl the previous day that "girls have to stick together" she instead did her best to physically catch the ball when Ginny threw it. Bill and Percy soon caught on to this and passed the quaffle to Ginny as much as they could. It helped a bit. All of the Weasley goals were scored by Ginny although there weren't many of those because Marvel Girl was also very good at catching the ball without using telekinesis and if Ginny tried to fake her out she could fly over to where the quaffle really was and catch it. All in all she was a very effective keeper.
Meanwhile the three chasers were doing well. Sirius was an experienced Quidditch player of course so that was to be expected. Angel, being able to fly naturally knew exactly what to do in the air and, not having to deal with a broom, was able to maneuver more easily and turn more quickly than if he'd been on one. He could perform stunts that would have been more difficult with a broom. He could have flown rings around his opponents if he'd wanted to but he wasn't quite that cocky and instead concentrated on the game working well in tandem with Sirius and Iceman. The third chaser may not have been able to fly but he could use his ice slides to get himself high enough to be a viable third chaser as well as spending time helping to fend off the bludgers with ice bats that he made. He helped both Beast and Cyclops by doing this. A couple of times he'd also tried freezing the bludgers but all that did was make them bigger without stopping them so he soon stopped with that and just stuck with hitting them away. Beast also couldn't fly but he could leap pretty high and was able to whack at bludgers pretty effectively when he did. As for Cyclops he covered his team by blasting away bludgers from the ground whenever Beast couldn't reach one. They played quite well and the score soon reflected that.
"Um George" said Fred as Angel scored another goal, "who's idea was this again?"
"Yours" said George as he hit a bludger away from his team which Beast promptly leaped up to and hit back, "or was it mine?"
"I believe we have outsmarted ourselves" said Fred.
"True brother mine. Very true."
There was one place where a Weasley was matching an X-Man and that was the seeker battle. Lightning remembered that when he had first joined the Gryffindor Quidditch team Oliver Wood had told him that Charlie Weasley had been a good enough seeker to have played for England if he'd wanted to instead of going off to take care of dragons. It showed. Charlie was a superb flyer, clearly the best one in his family which was saying quite a bit. He and Lightning were matching each other throughout the whole game and it was impossible to say who was in the better position. Charlie was older and had more flying experience. Lightning, however, since he didn't use a broom was able to make turns and moves that Charlie couldn't make nearly as easily. When the snitch was finally spotted for the last time it was an all out race to get to it. The other players paused their own play to watch as Charlie and Lightning both tried to reach the snitch first.
In the end it was virtually a tie. Both of them reached for the snitch at the same moment. Lightning's hand closed over the snitch a fraction of a second before Charlie's hand closed over his hand. If Charlie had been one second faster it would have been the other way around. The two of them floated there for several moments staring at each other in amazement
"Wow" Charlie finally said, "that was incredible. You're really good."
"Thank you" said Lightning, "so are you. Um, would you mind releasing my hand now?"
"What?" asked Charlie who quickly released Lightning's hand, "oh, sorry about that."
"Not a problem" said Lightning as he held up the snitch. They both heard both teams applauding them as well as applause coming from Hermione and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. Everyone who was still up in the air landed on the ground. Fred and George both bowed to the X-Men.
"You have beaten us oh mighty X-Men" they said together.
"We enjoyed the game immensely" said George.
"A game for the ages" said Fred, "no one else can say they were beaten at Quidditch by the Uncanny X-Men!"
"Thank you" said Cyclops and they all shook hands, "I think if we'd played at the regular Quidditch height we'd wouldn't have though."
"They wouldn't have been able to play at all" said Sirius, "in a regulation game with the hoops at normal height I doubt Beast could have leaped high enough to play. Cyclops would have to hit bludgers from much further away. And Iceman might slide up high enough but it could be dangerous."
"Too bad" said Lightning who had missed playing Quidditch having not played since his second year at Hogwarts, "I always wondered if I could play in a real game without a broom. It was fun to do it today."
"Yes" said Cyclops, "that was fun but let's get changed. It's almost time to head back."
"You'll stay for lunch of course" said Mrs. Weasley and they did. After lunch was over the 6 classmates gathered together."
"Thanks for the hospitality Mrs. Weasley" said Scott, "we look forward to seeing you next week." It had been decided now that all of the Weasleys knew about the X-Men to invite the rest of the family to America. Bill, Charlie, and Percy would not be going as they all had to get back to their jobs. Mr. Weasley would be taking some time off from work so he could go. He and Mrs. Weasley would be bringing the twins, Ron, Ginny and Hermione to America the following Sunday, August 7th, to stay for about a week before heading back. Harry wondered how it would go.
Sirius pulled out a piece of rope.
"Oh great" muttered Hank with a roll of his eyes, "another portkey. Just what this physical personage has always desired."
"What?" asked Ginny blinking at Hank's statement.
"That means 'just what I always wanted'" said Bobby to Ginny,.
"Oh" said Ginny wondering why Hank couldn't have just said that but decided not to say anything.
Remus, Scott, Bobby, Warren, Hank, and Jean all grabbed the rope. Sirius looked over at Harry.
"See you tomorrow pup" he said to his godson who nodded. Sirius then said the activation phrase ("X-Mansion") and the seven of them portkeyed away.
(To Be Continued)
A/N - That's all for now. It was an interesting challenge to write the X-Men playing Quidditch and deciding positions for Beast and Iceman really was a matter of flipping a coin. Please take a moment to leave me some feedback. Constructive comments are always welcome but no flames or trolls please. Stay safe ad well everyone.