The Scandal
"No quote, but beware this is un-beta'd"
Harry groaned into his pillow when he heard the now familiar sound of O'Reilly's whistle, blasting through the early morning air. He checked the time and groaned again when he saw it was 4:30 am. Tuesday O'Reilly woke then up at five, Wednesday it was three, and yesterday she let them have a bit of a lie in and woke them up at 5:05 am. Every morning it had been the same, she would blast her whistle, then bang on all the doors until every first year seeker was up and out. She would then drag them outside and proceed with 'Morning Wake Up Fun' as she labeled it. To everyone else it was her 'Morning Torture Session'.
Harry thought that Healing classes would be a nice break from all the physical exertion, but it wasn't. Their instructor was a very big, very tall Frenchman named Jean-Louis. That was his name. No first name, no last name, just Jean-Louis. He would teach in his heavy accent and randomly during class he would throw candy at the students he caught zoning out. No one could eat the candy because O'Reilly had everyone on a strict diet. When he wasn't lecturing he had them all running around and demonstrating how an accident may occur, and then proceeded to heal the person, if they really did get hurt. It was an interesting class from the parts he could understand, but the magic and energy that was needed for healing spells was rough. Harry had told himself to send Madam Pomfrey a gift for every time she had to heal him in the past.
Besides Healing classes, the seekers were put through a rigorous physical program all day long. They would get a break for actual sit down classes, but lately the instructors would make them jog on the spot and listen, or do some type of exercise, so they were constantly moving. The only good thing to come from all the exercise was O'Reilly had set up a snack program. Twice in the morning someone would stop by with water and fruit for the seekers to replenish their energy stores, since everyone's appetite doubled. They would also have someone stop by twice in the afternoon, and instructors had started randomly yelling 'WATER', so the seekers would stop and take a water break. With everything going on Harry had yet to respond to Ron and Hermione, but he barely had the strength to crawl into bed, never mind lifting a quill.
To top it all off, he hadn't been able to talk to Oliver. Anytime he had seen his sponsor, the Keeper had to run off to deal with his students, or personal business. He mentioned this to the other seekers and they all voiced their concerns about their own sponsors all being unavailable. Malfoy had joined them yesterday for lunch and had mentioned having the same issue with O'Reilly.
Harry had just started eating when he felt someone sitting beside him. Looking up he noticed Malfoy had taken the empty chair."Hey Malfoy..."
"Quiet Potter, I'm not here to socialize. Blaise is busy and the other tables are full." The blond said while sending him a glare.
"Right.. ." Harry turned back to his food and berated himself for thinking that the blond would ever be a civil person.
"Har, have you managed to talk to your sponsor yet?" Will asked. Focusing his attention on the Australian instead of the blond, Harry turned in his seat to talk.
"No he keeps saying he's busy. Has anyone else managed to have a more than a 5 word conversation with their sponsor?" he asked the group.
"No" Blackcastle announced quickly in her sharp tone. Canon only shook her head and Sven shrugged his shoulder.
"You mean all the sponsors have been withdrawn?" Harry blinked when he heard the drawl from beside him.
"Have you had problems with O'Reilly too?" Harry asked quickly, in case the blond decided to ignore their existence again.
"Yes. The only times I see her are during her morning fun class, or at night for cocoa. I just assumed she was busy." He replied.
The response confused Harry. He knew that Malfoy and O'Reilly were close, just by how they acted around one another. The only time he had seen Malfoy smile, it was directed at the QM. Also, if O'Reilly had been his sponsor and coach since October, why would she suddenly stop? Harry didn't have time to ponder this, since Will was tugging on his arm to go to class.
Harry had managed to dress himself while he was thinking and stand outside his door, for the rest of the seekers to be ready. Every morning they had to wait by their doors until everyone was ready and then they travelled as a group to the pitch. O'Reilly wanted to promote teamwork this way. When Will had finally managed to drag himself out of his room, the group were about to start walking when O'Reilly stopped them.
"Hold on!" Everyone stopped and directed their half asleep gaze in her direction. "I'm not taking you out this morning for PT, but I did wake you to tell you that tonight during dinner there will be a meeting for all the seekers. Meet in classroom G23." When all she received was blank stares, she smiled at them and continued.
"Great, I have some personal business, See you tonight!" She gave them a small wave and skipped off.
"She voke us up this early vor no'ting?" Sven said to finally break the silence O'Reilly left behind.
"I wonder what personal business she has to attend to." Harry blinked when he heard the soft voice of Canon. He was also curious but didn't think it was right to go snooping in O'Reilly's personal business.
"She probably has to do damage control. Her team has recently had a huge scandal." Blackcastle replied.
"Team?" Will joined the conversation.
"Honestly you want to be professional quidditch players, but you can't even keep up to date on the International quidditch standings." Blackcastle sneered at Will and Harry who both had confused faces. "O'Reilly is the Captain of the American quidditch team. She has been their seeker for four years now. Their rumoured to be the favourite for the world cup this year. In the American Quidditch Digest, they have an entire five page spread dedicated to her. I'll let you borrow the issue." With that Blackcastle turned and stalked back into her room. When she reappeared she handed the magazine to Will.
"Now there's still time for a nap before breakfast and I fully intend on using it to my advantage." Blackcastle snipped out and then returned to her room. Harry turned to address the other seekers and noticed that at some point Malfoy had slipped away.
"Well anyone else want to read up on O'Reilly." Harry felt kind of bad about reading about O'Reilly, but at the same time justified the action, by the fact that it was only an article and it was in a magazine, so wasn't really an invasion of privacy.
Canon and Sven decided to join them in Harry's room to read the article. It took a bit of time to decide who would read aloud since Will and Sven both wanted to, but Canon and Harry agreed their accents would make it too hard to understand. They decided on canon since Harry wanted to avoid having all their gazes on him.
"Recently the American quidditch fans have been in an uproar over the supposed allegations that captain Heather O'Reilly has had her team taking muggle steroids to improve their performance. An inside source has gone to the press stating that they seen O'Reilly personally inject the steroids into the players while sitting in the locker room after practice. They backed their statement up by stating that since O'Reilly has taken over the team their performance has vastly improved and that could only be the cause of the muggle performance enhancers." The small group sat in a stunned silence after that.
"Do you really think O'Reilly would do that?" Harry asked the others.
"Nah, she loves quidditch to much to insult the sport like that." Will replied.
"but her team did show astounding improvement when she took over." Canon softly spoke to the others.
"Look at her training program. Any vone vould improve affer going through all that." Sven seemed to oddly defend O'Reilly.
"Well... maybe..." Harry trailed off after remembering Malfoy.
"Vhat do you mean?" Sven asked.
"Well it's just that Malfoy could never beat me in quidditch before but after O'Reilly took over he seemed so much better in the air. He almost beat me in our last match but now that I think about it, I think he purposely didn't catch the snitch, and then his performance on the first day. How did he catch so many snitches against the rest of us?" Harry really didn't want to cause trouble but he was plagued by these questions. Malfoy's performance just improved so greatly that the idea of O'Reilly giving him performance enhancers seemed a little bit plausible.
"Well that does seem to work against her." Canon spoke up.
"Und she does seem awfully confident in Malfoy" Sven agreed.
"No! The three of you are barmy. O'Reilly would never do that, and you should just accept that Malfoy is the best seeker so far." Will seemed sincerely upset over the conversation. Before any of them could respond he stormed out of the room to reveal Malfoy standing outside. Malfoy shot the three of the a poisonous glare before walking after Will.
Harry felt ashamed at the entire conversation. They didn't know anything about O'Reilly but they instantly jumped to the conclusion that accusations against her were true. The other two seemed shocked at Will's uncharacteristic display to say anything, so Harry made the first move.
"I think I'm going to the gym for a bit then shower." That said he rose and left the other two in the middle of his room, with the open magazine.
o.O.o
During dinner that night the seekers gathered in the designated classroom. The six first years sat at the desks while the four second years hung in the back quietly talking to each other.
Will sat to one side beside Malfoy completely ignoring Harry, Sven and Canon. Black either didn't know what happened or didn't care since she was being her usual self, while the last three sat together in silence. Just as Harry started to get impatient, the door opened to admit O'Reilly in black sweat pants and a green t-shirt.
"Evening everyone! So I have a treat for you this Sunday. We're going to watch a professional quidditch match and meet the players. Later we'll do like a workshop and have a mock quidditch game." O'Reilly sat on top of the teachers desk bouncing excitedly after the announcement. Everyone gave a small cheer at that but it seemed O'Reilly wasn't quite finished yet.
"Also it's time I informed the first years of one little thing." That instantly caught the first year seekers attention. "How many second year seekers do you see?" Harry was confused at the question but it was soon answered.
"Four" Blackcastle quickly snapped out.
"Correct. I only except four seekers into the program. The first month is like a third elimination process. I will process all data I gathered on all of you and then two seekers will go home. The ones remaining will get the full EQA experience after that." This seemed to stun the six first years. "One more thing!" The first years groaned, what else could she possibly spring on them in one meeting? "Next weekend is Family and Friends day! So invite your family and friends to come visit you." With that O'Reilly jumped off the desk, and grabbed Malfoy's hand before dragging him out.
"Is she serious?" Canon turned and asked the second years.
"Completely. There's a rumour that her first year as QM she kicked all but one seeker out of the school because she found the others hopeless." A tall boy with long black hair in a low ponytail told them.
That seemed to put the first years in a contemplative silence all over again.
"Do you know when the people she chooses to kick out usually know by?" Blackcastle asked. Her sharp tone seemed slightly hesitant.
A short girl with curly red hair answered her. "By the end of the month she will have her final candidates. She could remove you in the middle of the night or the middle of the day. Last year she stormed into one our healing classes grabbed one of the males and we never saw him again."
"It's why you don't see your sponsors for the first month. There's no point in them wasting time to help and train you when you are only going to get kicked out. After the first month is done, you'll notice them being more open." The tall boy told them.
Harry was just to emotionally exhausted at this point. First things this morning he had to deal with the whole 'is O'Reilly bad' thing, then hellish classes and exercises, and now the potential to be kicked out of the academy when he thought he was done with all this preliminary stuff. Giving a huge sigh, harry stood and left to return to his room and write Ron and Hermione.
Dear Hermione and Ron,
I had no clue what I was getting into when I signed up for this. The Quidditch Master O'Reilly is a sadist. We wake up at random times in the morning to her whistle, whether it be 4 am or 2 am. There's classes all day right until dinner and then everyone is too exhausted to do anything but crawl into bed and sleep until O'Reilly wake us up again.
Mione I was wondering if you could further research O'Reilly. There's some scandal happening in the U.S that involves her and I was hoping you could get more information about it.
Anyways guys, next week is a 'Family and Friends' day and I was hoping you could come. You could explore the campus and stuff and see the training facilities. I'm inviting Sirius and Remus as well, and I really hope you both can make.
Ron do you think you could ask your family if they want to come as well. I don't think there's a limit to how many people you can invite, and I really missed staying at The Burrow this summer.
I have lots more I want to tell the both of you but I can barely lift the quill anymore.
Night guys, and I miss you both.
Harry.
I wonder who I should kick out
Any suggestions?