A/N: This chapter is dedicated to Leslie, who helped me figure out if the Typhoon should win or lose. You'll have to read on to find out.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters that you recognise or "Strangers in the Night." Peace.
Chapter Five: Opal Typhoon
With the confusion about Dermot taking the priority lately, Harry was the first to admit they'd neglected the research into Ulysses Davenport's motives. "It could be entirely innocent," Ginny said that night over takeout. "I mean, the guy's always liked Quidditch. Maybe he just wanted to start up a new team. It has been the Quidditch Thirteen forever."
But Harry shook his head. "Why work with Draco Malfoy, then? I think Draco's finally taking his father's choices to heart. The Typhoon is funding something." He uncorked a bottle of Madam Pasty's Pumpkin juice and poured two glasses while he thought about it. "I bet you anything that Sam Werner's in on it, too."
"Sam Werner?" Ginny tilted her head to the side, trying to place the name. Coming up with nothing, she shook her head. "Who's that?"
"He was involved in that big scandal with Davenport, Malfoy, and Teddy Gingham."
"Ah, yes. The corrupt Quidditch King. Yet, he still reigns."
They made a cosy picture in the kitchen at the Hutch. Ginny sat on the counter and Harry leaned back against the table, neither quite interested in the conventional settings around the table. They were both holding Chinese food cartons, ordered from a small place not too far from the Hutch. Both of them were dressed like Muggles, for modern witches and wizards only wore the voluminous robes in public. "Maybe we should have somebody watch Sam Werner now, too?" Harry asked, handing her one of the glasses.
"I hear the twins are pretty bored lately. Well, when they're not planning pranks for Ron and Hermione's wedding." Now that they had set the date for their friends, Fred and George had dived fully into the project. Harry had already received two owls from them, detailing hypothetical situations. "Say," one had asked, "if we released a giant hippo at the wedding reception, would the Muggles immediately suspect us to be wizards? Or could we just write it off as coming from a zoo nearby the Burrow?"
"Ah, yes. Let's make George do it."
"Make George follow a suspected Death Eater that's four times older than my grandfather?" Ginny asked, a gleam in her eyes as she contemplated this. "Sounds like fun."
Harry wanted to ask what George had done to her lately to deserve such a malicious punishment, but decided against it. What with all of the pranks George could have pulled, he was slightly afraid of the answer, to be truthful. "Ron probably has surveillance on Malfoy already. Never trusted the little bugger, even though we knew he was innocent when Voldemort fell."
"Sure, he's evil, but he was always the type to just go along with stuff. He never was very creative. Always hid behind his father." Ginny stood to shuffle through the paperwork she had brought home with her. "I owled Bill and got him to pull the Davenports' bank statements for me. Highly illegal, but take a look." She handed over a couple of parchments stamped with the Gringotts letterhead and seal of approval. He whistled at the sum on the very bottom line. "See? Not nearly enough to afford his own professional Quidditch team, especially in a league with teams like the Magpies and the Harpies."
Harry was still scanning the bank reports. "So Malfoy's backing him, you think?"
"I'm not sure. The family lost a lot of money after Hogwarts. Could he afford backing a whole Quidditch team? Probably not." Ginny scribbled a note to herself on the notepad next to her paperwork. "I did some research and crunched a whole bunch of numbers, figured out how much everything for the Typhoon costs. It's no small sum, trust me. I don't think the Davenports and Malfoy could afford it combined."
"Maybe they could have other accounts?"
"Possible. Not likely. Bill's good at his job. He's kept an eye on several ex-Death Eater accounts since the war." Ginny resumed her seat on the counter and pulled her legs under her in a complicated fashion. "I'll have him pull accounts on Sam Werner and Teddy Gingham, if he hasn't already. It's entirely possible that the Typhoon is either a cover to pull attention away from an evil scheme or something to hide the profits in. Or worse, both."
Harry continued looking at the bank statements. "They record the destinations for the bigger transactions, don't they?" He tried to remember what his own bank statements looked like, but he'd never particularly bothered much with money. He had enough to get by—which was all that mattered to him. Ginny had underlined a few things on the report, it seemed. "Like, more than fifty Galleons or so to this place or that?"
"On the back."
He turned it over and looked down the list. "Have you tried comparing the two? See if they made any transactions to the same place? Maybe a middle-man?"
"Well, a couple of names stood out at me—"
Ginny broke off as the doorbell rang. Before Harry could even grab his wand, the sound of a lock turning came. "Oi! Anybody home?" Ron's voice flooded the Hutch.
"In here, Ron!" Harry called back, relieved. A few seconds, both Ron and Hermione appeared in the kitchen doorway, dressed as Muggles. They were both, like Ginny and Harry, in jeans and sweaters. Hermione had pulled her bushy hair into something resembling a bun. They were both carrying rain slickers, for it was pouring heavily outside. Their shoes had been sacrificed to the front doormat, for they were both in socks. "Why didn't you call?"
Hermione smiled at their tensed poses and the boxes of Chinese food. "We were in the neighbourhood. We didn't think you'd mind. What are you two up to tonight?"
"The Typhoon case," Ginny answered her, taking the slickers back to one of the bedrooms. She had rapidly adjusted to living at the Hutch, although her things were still in the flat that she shared with Tara. In order to avoid any rent issues, Harry insisted that she keep paying for her part of the rent on that flat and just split the chores around the Hutch with him. "We've decided to put George on surveillance duty, watching Sam Werner."
"No can do. The twins are taking off on a business trip to Argentina tomorrow. Harry, they're wondering if you can watch the shop in the afternoons, since you only have morning practice next week."
"Sure—as long as they don't set up signs announcing it again." Harry rolled his eyes and pulled two more glasses out of the cabinet, pouring more pumpkin juice for his friends. "Get some agent tailing Werner sometime if the twins are going to Argentina. We haven't figured out if there's a direct connection yet, but if there, he's our best. You know, since he's not connected in any way to the Typhoon as a team."
They migrated into the sitting room, Hermione and Ginny taking the couch. Ron and Harry pulled seats over the coffee table, which served as sort of a base of operations over the next while. Ron reviewed Ginny's notes on what she had observed at the various practices and meetings she had attended in her capacity as Team Co-ordinator. Hermione, meanwhile, grilled Harry and Ginny for any details they could give her about interaction with the Davenports.
"It's a bit odd, the way Dave is to the team," Harry told Hermione, sipping the pumpkin juice. "It's like he doesn't want us to be friends. Whenever we're all standing around talking, even on break, he comes over and tries to split us up. And when he can't, he just sends us these little poisonous glares like we're the scum of the earth. We make more money than he does—and we're saving his rear from whatever shady business he's been into. What's he got to complain about?"
Hermione jotted something down on her notepad. "And what are the other team members like?"
Feeling very much like he should be lying down in a psychiatrist's office, Harry thought it over. "They're your average Quidditch stars. I mean, I guess we're all a bit stuck-up in our own ways. But I don't really have reason to think they're hiding anything more illegal than a closet addiction to Billywig stings. You know what they say. Quidditch players love to fly…with or without the broom." He leaned back and played with his fringe, watching Ginny out of the corner of his eye.
"I've been checking backgrounds," she told Hermione now. "Nothing…suspicious, to say the least. They really seemed to pick players that the audience enjoy watching. Teddy Gingham is completely in on this scheme if there is one, for there's no way they could bag Stacy and Tracy Harrows and Harry Potter on the same team. The twins are as big a sensation as he is."
"Think Ludo Bagman's in on this anywhere?" Harry wondered aloud, thinking of the portly ex-Wasps player that had cheated the twins at Hogwarts.
Ginny actually snorted. "With all of the cane Fred and George have been raising about him being anywhere near Quidditch? No, I think we've got our full list of suspects right here."
"I don't think we do," Hermione told her, frowning. "There's something funny about the Typhoon players. You two keep an eye on them, okay?"
*
It was easier said than done. With the Dublin Demented game fast approaching, any suspicious behaviour could be chalked up to nervousness over the big scrimmage. On top of that, Harry's exhaustion was growing with each day that the twins were away in Argentina. Word had leaked that Harry Potter was working behind the counter in Weasley's Wizard Wheezes and hordes gathered every day in hopes of pestering him and obtaining his autograph. After a few days of this, Ginny took pity on him and tried her hand at running the shop. This didn't end well (namely in boils and a migraine from the singing erasers that had taken a liking to her and followed her around the shop, singing 'Henry the Eighth' at the tops of their little rubber lungs). In the end, they made Ron do it
Some days, they devoted their all to the 'Witch Hunter' project, while they focused on the 'Typhoon' project on other days. Sometimes the two even overlapped—studying the layout of the Tropicana Quidditch Stadium, where they would be playing in the American Open, and where they would eventually trick Dermot. Bill obtained the bank paperwork they needed on everybody, including even Harry and his teammates. "I can't believe Stacy spends this much on robes!" It felt like they were wading through a sea of paperwork, especially for Ginny. She was busy with her full-time job of co-ordinating things for the Typhoon, planning Angelina's wedding, and working on Tunnel duties. Also, there was the ever-present fear that Dermot was going to change his MO and come after her. The stress began to show before long.
The night before the Dublin Demented game, Harry had had enough. They had just started working through that night's paperwork when he closed his eyes and put his head down on the table (the ink from a fresh bank statement smudged across his forehead, but he didn't notice). "C'mon," he told Ginny, who was scowling at her own tower of paperwork. "Let's get out of here."
"Can't. Too much work to do."
"For Quidditch's sake, we're not at Hogwarts, Gin. Put down the quill." He said it so cantankerously that Ginny actually dropped her quill. She crossed her arms and gave him a look, however. "Aw, don't be like that. We're both tired to the point of nearly killing something. We need to get out. I'd say we need to get away from each other, but that's not possible. Let's go to Tony's."
"Tony's?" Ginny repeated dubiously. "What, is it Black Jack Thursday?"
"No. It's Friday. That's usually on Monday." Harry headed back into his room to change out of his sweatpants and old England Quidditch T-shirt. When he returned, Ginny had changed into a pair of snug-fitting trousers and a tank top that showed off parts that Harry had never thought a simple shirt capable of showing off. He stared.
"What?" Ginny asked, turning to look at him with a puzzled look. "Is something wrong?"
"N-no," Harry said quickly, remembering how to use his voice. He considered asking her if such a shirt was appropriate to wear out in public—other guys could look at her and see the exact same things he was seeing, after all!—but remembered Ron and Hermione's argument over the very same subject just in time. Besides, she might end up changing…and to be frank, he was enjoying the show. "No…It looks…You look great, Gin."
Her private grin told him that she knew exactly what sort of effect she held over him. He gulped. Women like Ginny Weasley were dangerous to simple guys like him. He slid his wand into his wrist holster while she gathered up her purse. They began to walk to the Apparation point. "Is there dancing at Tony's?"
"Yeah—it's popular with the University students in the area. He opens his doors to Muggles at night sometimes. It's quite the spot." They were silent until they reached the alley, where Harry politely took Ginny's purse and Apparated first to make sure that the area was clear. Ginny joined him a few seconds later and took her purse back. "I tend to avoid this place at night. I'm not exactly Mr. Social."
"I'm sure we can overlook that for one night," Ginny told him, patting him on the arm.
Tony was manning the door that night, double-checking ID's and letting people in at random. Even Harry hadn't thought Tony's had become that popular, but he didn't comment on it until they reached Tony himself. The big German sniffed and looked at them with narrowed eyes. "And just what are you two doin' out so late? Old bones should be home in bed."
"Heard your pitiful little place had good music," Harry replied in turn, giving the other man a greeting buffet on the arm. "Well, that's an exaggeration. Heard your place had music."
"Oi, Jack! When git here orders a drink, extra spit!" Tony called over his shoulder, careful not to use Harry's real name. With Ginny in her guise as Amy Mason and Harry's hair flattened over his scar, they looked like two normal young people out for a night on the town. "Nice to see you, Miss Mason."
Ginny didn't look all that surprised to see that Tony knew her undercover name. "Always a pleasure, Tony. How're you?"
"I'm great, but you two are holding up the line. Go on in." Tony waved them past and Harry kept a hand below Ginny's elbow. Tony's had been massively transformed, both saw as they entered. Immediately, a hard wall of thumping techno music them face-on, and bright lights dazzled them. Tony had turned the place into some kind of disco—the dance floor tiles, to Harry's unending amusement, actually lit up. There was a bar tracing all along the back wall, giving way to the dance floor and a stage. Tonight, there was no live band, just a DJ pumping beats from his oversized (and, to Harry's suspicion, magically enhanced) stereo system.
"You know," Ginny shouted at him over the music, "you may be great at ballroom dancing, but this is MY arena!" She grabbed his hand and tugged him over to the bar. "You like martinis, right?"
Harry wondered if it was wise to mention the fact that twelve-year-olds could drink him under the table. He decided against it, operating on the purely male principle that showing any weakness in front of a girl you were trying to impress was completely and totally forbidden, like putting the toilet seat back down. It was a purely primeval way of staking one's territory. "Yeah. Martinis are good," he said, wondering if he should grunt or something. Instead, he just took the drink and sipped it. "I had no idea that this place was so popular. I mean, I knew Tony made fairly good money, but…" He trailed off as he looked into the bobbing crowd.
"Some people like to live on the wild side!" Like him, Ginny was canvassing the area with her eyes, picking out potential suspects and making sure that nobody would attack them. There was no telling if Dermot would come back to finish the job he had started years before. She took a sip of her martini and swirled it around, watched the olive. "You don't go clubbing all that often, do you?"
"Not really, no. I told you that first time we saw each other—I'm boring." Harry shrugged and set his martini down, grabbing two bar stools and dragging them over. They kept their backs to the bar, the field agent instincts in both of them flaring up. No field agent would put his or her back to a crowded room. "In fact, I believe it's almost my normal bed time."
"Is that your line?" Ginny asked, wrinkling her nose.
"My—er—line? What?"
"You know, your pick-up line. To pick up women!" Ginny laughed at his startled expression. "Oh, come on. You could have any woman you want. Don't tell me you've never used a line before?"
Harry scratched the back of his neck. "Er, guilty?"
"Oh, come on. Never?"
"I was telling the truth. Never." He was starting to get a bit annoyed now. Perhaps she saw that, for she broke off in a peal of laughter and grabbed his hand again. "Er—where are we going?"
"Dancing! That's why we came out tonight!" Before he could protest, she had dragged him away from the bar and the two were rapidly headed to the heart of the dance floor. Harry, being naturally agile, was able to adjust his balance when other dancers plowed into him. Ginny was a natural on the dance floor, avoiding all collisions with an ease that surprised him. When he stood there, frozen, she laughed and began to show him various moves. He mimicked her with varying success, and soon both were laughing at his mishaps.
He'd learned ballroom dancing—tangos, waltzes, fox trots—out of necessity and boredom, but this was a style of dancing that he might actually enjoy. Ginny was certainly having the time of her life. Her eyes were closed and she was pressed up against him in the crowded space. Never had he been more aware of his own body and of hers, but still, he kept a cautious eye out on the balcony that overlooked the dance floor. They gained a bit of a posse for awhile, but the university students quickly grew bored with Harry's stilted dance moves. Occasionally, Ginny would open her eyes to smirk at him.
Why aren't you dating this woman, again? His mind wanted to know as the songs switched. Oh, right, she's your charge, by all definitions. You're her bodyguard and all. And her brother would probably kill you for trying to do anything with her while you're both on this case. And, oh, yeah, she might not even like you. Then there's always the fact that if you make a move and she really doesn't feel that way, and then things will be even more awkward than before.
"I think I need to sit down for a bit," Ginny called to him over the music, interrupting his self-deprecating stream of consciousness. "Why don't you go dance with that blonde over there? She's been eyeing you all night!"
Harry had noticed. The blonde, after all, wasn't very subtle.
"No, thanks! I'll go get a drink with you!" He followed her off the dance floor, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw it. A flash of peroxide-white blond. It wasn't very clear, but it was enough. He swivelled to the right, and there indeed was Draco Malfoy crossing the upper balcony. As Harry watched, eyes narrowed, the blond man said something to a bouncer, a guard of some sort, and was let through a black door of some sort. "On second thought, I need to see a man about a ferret."
Before Ginny could ask what was going on, Harry had crossed the crowded pub and was making his way back to the door. Tony was still admitting patrons, although the line had thinned quite a bit. "Tony? A word?"
"Sure." Tony signalled one of the bouncers to take his place and walked back into the alley without a question. Harry followed him, checking over his shoulder. Already, he was starting to feel stupid for leaving Ginny inside the same pub Draco Malfoy was in, but this conversation shouldn't take long. "What's up, Harry?"
Harry crossed his arms, but kept his stance loose. He could trust Tony; he knew that much. But he had to wonder at the other man's motives. "Draco Malfoy. He comes here?"
Tony's answer was a mere shrug. "He's a heavy card player. I see him occasionally."
He knew that Tony's establishment took in all sorts of riffraff and criminals, mainly to play cards in what they believed to be a "safe" environment. Tony and Jack usually delivered all relevant information to the Tunnel. But this was almost too much. He was letting Malfoy come in and play cards like a good little saint? Harry opened his mouth to protest, but Tony clamped a steely hand on his shoulder. "Remember the deal I kept with the Tunnel," the pub-owner said coldly, any friendliness gone from his voice. "You 'overlook' my activities as long as I give you information. What Malfoy is doing here is none of your business."
"Malfoy's doings are every bit my business," Harry replied in just as cold a voice, shrugging Tony's hand off. "I'm assigned to his case. He has partial ownership of the Nottingham Typhoon, and we believe he may be using the team to hide some sort of Dark Activity."
"With the gambling debts that man owes? I doubt it. He's probably just invested in the team to cover his scrawny arse." Tony snorted, his good humour back. "Look, Harry, you stick to our deal, and I'll get you that information. I work with a lot of trash like Malfoy. It's not the best job in the world, but somebody's gotta do it." He shrugged, and the subject was dropped, just like that. "Why don't you and Miss Mason enjoy another drink on the house and then head home? I'd hate for Mr. Malfoy to spot you."
"Sure. You're right. Thanks, Tony."
"I do what I can."
Tony resumed his position at the door and Harry headed back into the pub, hands stuck in the pockets of his slacks. He wanted to give into his juvenile temptations and storm that door and attack Malfoy on the spot. He had no doubt that the blond rat was behind his demotion to the Nottingham Typhoon. The move had only made his hatred of the peroxide-ferret, as he and Ron had started calling Malfoy whenever they were a little less than sober, grow exponentially. Still, Tony's message had been clear—if Harry attacked Malfoy here, the pub-owner's cover would be blown. Harry certainly didn't want to jeopardise this operation and pit Tony against the Tunnel, so he kept his head down and crossed the pub, trying to keep his temper in check.
What he saw as he neared Ginny did nothing to help him in that area. In the time he was talking to Tony, a brown-haired man had approached her and was apparently trying to chat her up. Jealousy flaring, Harry stopped walking and instead made a beeline for the bar. "Jack—something strong."
The greasy-haired attendant was in no mood to hurry. He sneered and then smiled as he looked down Harry's line of sight. "Say, isn't that your woman?"
"She's not my woman," Harry grumbled, accepting the whiskey that Jack pushed over his way. He downed it in one gulp and nearly gasped at the burn it caused. "Gimme another."
Jack simpered. "Nope, you're at your limit, buddy. No more than one whiskey for you. House rules."
"Screw house rules. Gimme another whiskey."
"Go take out some of your aggression on smarmy-trousers over there and get away from my bar. You're a royal pain in my arse." Jack snorted and Harry turned just in time to see Ginny give the man a poisonous look. Having been the recipient of that look many times, Harry knew exactly what was happening. He set the whiskey glass down and took his time ambling over, trying not to let anybody see just how much the whiskey had affected him.
"Is there a problem here?" he demanded, hiding the slur in his words.
Ginny looked caught between a grateful and a perverse look. "No—" she began to say, but was cut off by the man. "There wasn't a minute ago, but now there is," he told Harry, stepping a little closer. Not left with too many options, Harry stepped in between him and Ginny.
"Get away from her." His voice was low, to the point of a dangerous rasp. It was a voice he hadn't used since Voldemort's fall. Instantly recognising it, Ginny froze behind him. "I mean it."
"Who are you, her bodyguard?" the man demanded, more than a little drunk.
"As a matter of fact—"
"Harry!" Ginny interrupted, tugging on his shirtsleeve urgently. He tried to brush her off, but she clamped her hand around his arm and yanked him backwards. The man snickered, making Harry's blood boil strangely in his ears. His head felt light. "Maybe we should just go."
"Go?" the man asked, laughing raucously. He had a few centimetres about a two stone on Harry, but Harry was a professional Quidditch player and a trained athlete. There was no doubt in the young Seeker's mind that he could take this idiot. "What, babe, go with him?" Harry's hands clenched into fists. "You'll just put out for anybody, won't you?"
"Harry, no—!"
But it was too late. Harry sent his fist crashing through the man's face. The man staggered back a few paces and just dropped like a stone, cursing up a storm fit for a king. Before Harry could take a second swing, Ginny had grabbed his ear (of all things!) and was using it to haul him from the pub. Harry swore. The man tried to follow them, but one of Tony's bouncers held him back, unnoticed to Harry. He was still complaining about his ear. "Ow, Ginny! Lemme go!"
When they reached the alley, she released him and shoved him away for her, face red from anger. "What is your problem?"
It didn't occur to him that he had entered a very dangerous zone. He'd made Ginny mad before, but never like this. Never to the point of nearly hitting him. "What? My problem? That guy was—"
"I know what that guy was, Harry!" Ginny stabbed his chest with a finger, pushing him back into the brick wall behind him. The whiskey burning in his system, Harry stumbled a little. "Honestly, you're as bad as my brothers! I could have handled him!"
"Well, I handled him better!"
"Harry, you broke his jaw!"
Distraction in the middle of a fight was never a good thing, but Harry couldn't help it. He just stared at her, slack-jawed. Her eyes were practically as bright as stars, her cheeks flushed from her fury, her hair dishevelled from dancing. She was standing there tensed and ready to slug him, and he was noticing how amazing she looked? What was wrong with him? He blinked and stared at her again, but he'd already forgotten what she had just said. "Earth to Harry!" She snapped her fingers in front of his face, making him jump. "Quit staring at me like a lovesick fool! What is up with you tonight?!"
Over drinks one night, George had confided to Harry and Ron that there were two truly good ways to shut a woman up—kill her or kiss her. Of course, he'd said, if you kill her, you don't have to deal with any repercussions from her, but things might fly at your head if you kissed her.
Harry Potter decided it was time to take that risk, even though he didn't imagine that George had shared that information, thinking it might be his own sister Harry used it on.
Later on, he couldn't have described the kiss as anything but "amazing." One minute, they were in each other's faces, shouting at each other. And then…and then he was cupping her face with his hands and kissing her like it was the last thing he would ever do. She froze for what seemed like an eternity, and then she was burning into him, moulding against him. An eternity and no time later, he pulled away.
He'd thrown her off—her cheeks were even more flushed, her eyes glazed over in disbelief or shock. She just stared at him for a long time, and then finally closed her mouth. To his everlasting surprise, she gave him a dirty look. "Merlin, Harry. I thought you were more mature than that."
Before he could even say anything, she vanished.
Furious with her and with himself, Harry turned and punched the first thing he could think of—the wall. "Oh, SH—!"
*
"Blimey, mate, what'd you do to it?" Bear asked the next day, as the team was getting changed for the big game. They were in their home stadium, having won the Galleon toss about where the teams would play. Tad, Frank, and Bear were all gathered around Harry, examining his outstretched hand. Which happened to be his right hand, the one he always used to grab the Snitch. "Think you'll be able to play?"
"I'll be fine." Harry flexed the hand and hid his wince. Hermione had tried to heal it the night before, but mending broken bones always caused some pain for a couple of days afterwards. Plus, he didn't think she was inclined to be too nice, as she thought him rather juvenile for the whole bar montage. At least Ron didn't have a clue that Harry had nearly started a pub brawl over and then kissed his younger sister. Otherwise Harry didn't think he would be able to fly, much less breathe. "I'll grab it with my left hand if I have to."
"What's going on?" Tracy called from the women's side of the locker room.
"Harry broke his hand in a pub brawl last night," Frank called gleefully. Harry shot him a sour look, but he ignored the Seeker and cheerfully went about getting into his full gear. They had half an hour until warm-ups began and an hour before the game. The Dublin Demented were out on the field right now, warming up. Harry longed to go sneak a peek at them, but Dave Davenport's rules had been very strict. The team was to remain in the locker room until they were fetched by Ginny, acting as Amy Mason. "Was it over Amy?"
"More like next to her," Harry answered truthfully, wincing. "I was kind of an idiot."
"You punched some random bloke over Amy?" Stacy wanted to know. "Wow, that's incredibly sweet. I've never had a guy do that for me."
"She has different sentiments." Harry pulled an undershirt on and reached for the Quidditch robes. "I'm lucky she hasn't hexed me into oblivion yet. Maybe she's waiting until after the game." That thought made him wince again, for he knew that Ginny was more than capable of doing something like that. She'd stayed with Tara the night before, and her look when they had passed each other in the corridor earlier made subzero feel warm.
"Maybe she'll feel differently once you kiss her," Tad offered helpfully, for the team was certain that they would win.
Harry didn't mention that kissing her was what exactly had buried him in this trouble. Instead, he busied himself with pulling the robes over his head and searching for the shin guards. Seeing that Harry wasn't going to rise to any of their gibes, Frank and Tad moved to a new subject and the team joked around for a bit until Ginny came to fetch them for warm-ups. To Harry's surprise, she walked beside him as the team ambled out onto the field. "Just go on out for a minute. I need to steal Potter for a minute."
He wanted to wince a third time. Her use of his last name was not a good thing. Still, he waited as the rest of the team, shooting him pitying looks, headed out to the cheers of the gathering crowds. Ginny waited until they had all exited the glass doors leading from the building to the pitch. Her look could melt glass from its pane. "We need to talk."
"I noticed." He leaned against his broom, a natural and familiar pose. They had used it for the promotional photo shoots, although he had no idea that he was posing now. "I'm an idiot."
"Agreed." She pursed her lips and finally looked at him. "What on earth got into you last night, Harry? You're not normally like—like—"
"Like I was at seventeen?" he filled in drolly.
"Well—yeah."
He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, unconsciously making it stand up like his father used to at Hogwarts. He'd had all night to think of what he would say to her, and now he was left with no words. As furious as he was with her for calling him immature, he was smart enough to know when he was at fault (or, at least Hermione was smart enough to beat it into his head). "Caught me at a bad moment. Malfoy was in the club last night." Her eyes widened and he nodded grimly. "I was an idiot and tried to confront Tony about it, and he basically kicked us out. And then I came and saw that guy hitting on you…"
He shrugged and scratched the back of his neck, trying to find a way out of the next part of his little speech. Seeing that he was in for all or nothing, he sighed. "Look, I don't think I've made it a huge secret that I like you more than what's proper, seeing as I'm your bodyguard and all. I may seem all different now than I was at Hogwarts, but I'm a guy, Ginny. It's like this Neanderthal instinct. Find food. Scratch self. Protect woman." He actually thought he caught a smile at this, but it may have just been a trick in the light. "And I'm not going to apologise for kissing you, because I would do it again given the opportunity."
She eyed him shrewdly for a long time. "Angie's right."
Of all the answers he was expecting, this one wasn't on the list. "She is?"
"Yes, actually. You did bounce."
He stared, but before he could ask what she meant by that, Dave Davenport stuck his head into the hallway and spotted the pair of them. "Potter! You're supposed to be warming up!"
"Yes, sir." When Dave disappeared from the hallway, Harry turned back to Ginny. "I'm sorry I made a fool out of you last night and that I took advantage of you in the alley. I won't do it again."
She was looking at him with an expression that he couldn't quite decipher, so he fidgeted a bit and waited for an answer. Finally, she let out a gusty sigh. "You're making it very hard to stay mad at you."
"Then don't. I'm a nice guy, I promise, Gin, if you ignore the fact that I occasionally regress." Had somebody told him even eight years before that he would be the well-balanced young man he was now, he would have laughed. But even he had his faults. He was well-aware of all of them (something for which he blamed Hermione, who liked to point them out to him when he was being stubborn). "For now, just tell me you forgive me and you're not mad so that I can go win this game."
She shook her head and closed her eyes. "Sure. Make it about the team, why don't you?" But her smile was back to normal, her eyes teasing. "You're forgiven—if you promise never to do anything like that ever again."
"Of course! You have my word," he said hastily. He gave her a smile that didn't quite hide the fact that he was nervous about the upcoming game. However, now that he didn't have an annoyed redhead on his case, things were starting to look up. In fact, a little of his old humour was starting to come back. "How about a kiss for luck?"
"Now you're pushing it, Potter." But she gave him a kiss on the cheek anyway. "Now get out there before Dictator Dave comes back!"
Laughing, he took off for the Pitch.
*
The Nottingham Typhoon didn't take long to become the favourite team of the match. The Davenports had been wise, almost crafty, in their choices of players—with the Harrows' twins unmatched beauty, Melinda Warren's daredevil stunts with a Quaffle, Tad and Frank's jovial Beating skill, and even Bear's kamikaze Keeping moves, they were naturally the ones the crowd cheered for. They instinctively knew when to drop all pretences and just do a little crowd-control, flying around with raised arms to start a wave or purposely flying close to the crowd to see some young boy look up with his mouth hanging wide open. Harry Potter, of course, was automatically any crowd's favourite, even though he didn't try any of his teammates' stunts. He'd pushed all extra noise from his head in his search from the Snitch.
They were obviously the better team, as well. Dublin Demented presented a ferocious offence, spearheaded by none other than Seamus Finnegan ("Oi! Harry, mate! Good luck!" he'd shouted to Harry at the match's beginning), but their defence was pretty poor, practically handing the Harrows and Melinda several token shots. The Typhoon had a better camaraderie than the Demented, it turned out. While the Demented gained an early and fast lead, it hadn't taken long for the Typhoon to adjust and match, pulling ahead. They were ahead by 130 points, and Harry had yet to spot the Snitch. His main goal the moment was to keep Pierce McAnerney, the Demented Seeker, from spotting it first. As a result, he had pulled an impressive Wronski Feint and two Poseidon Pseudo-Passes to trick McAnerney. Of course, the other Seeker was sharp and hadn't been tricked very often. Indeed, Harry had been on the receiving end of some brilliant ploys as well.
"Doing okay there, Harry?" Bear called as Harry swooped near the Typhoon goal posts. "Soon as you bag that Snitch, you kiss Miss Mason. You know that, right? Is that why it's taking you forever?"
"Ha-ha," Harry called in reply, not really up to trying any of their normal banter. He thought he'd seen a flash of gold near the Demented goal posts, but it turned out to be one of their Chasers' watches. "Seen the Snitch anywhere lately?"
"That's your job, mate!" Bear did an impressive Starfish and Stick roll to block a shot and tossed it easily to Melinda, who lobbed it at Stacy without bothering to look to see if she was there. The three Typhoon Chasers were almost to the point of reading each others' minds during matches. Surely enough, Stacy scooped the Quaffle from the air and shot from the sky, two Demented Chasers hot on her trail. Harry tore his eyes away from the action to scan the ground once again from any glimmers of gold. A few seconds later, the Typhoon fan section let out a rousing cheer—Tracy Harrows had just plunked in another great goal, bringing the score up to 360 to 220. 140 points ahead. If the other team caught the Snitch now, it would be very similar to the World Cup match Harry had attended before his fourth year at Hogwarts.
"Couple more goals and you'll have to kiss Miss Mason even if you fail!" Tad chortled as he rushed by in hot pursuit of one of the Bludgers.
Harry rolled his eyes and glanced over at McAnerney. The other Seeker was searching the area near his own goal posts with a sharp-eyed intensity. The Dublin Demented was a top-notch team, with a fantastic Seeker, but Harry couldn't help but feel a swell of pride as he watched his own team interact without the slightest difficulty. Stacy and Tracy added a fast-paced intensity to Melinda Warren's reckless stunts. Adrenaline was pumping harder than blood by now, giving the team a hardened edge as each threw his or her all into the game. The cheering was nothing more than the sound of the wind in the teams' ears.
He turned just in time to see Melinda perform a flawless dead-fish roll (so named because it ended belly-up) and loft the Quaffle straight through the middle hoop. The Demented Keeper didn't stand a chance.
Movement out of the corner of his eye made Harry swear and pull into a sharp dive. McAnerney had spotted the Snitch. Harry could see it, fluttering down near Tad Gideon's left shoe. The Beater, seeing two Seekers press down on him, barrel-rolled out of the area and took off, yelling his support for Harry at the top of his lungs. Harry, flat against the handle of his broom handle, swore more viciously. He was a few pounds lighter than McAnerney, but the other man was fast in a dive. Soon they were neck and neck, chasing after the fluttering and random Snitch.
"Move, Potter, you bloody waste of space!" McAnerney shouted at him, but Harry just forced himself to faster. They dove around Stacy Harrows, Harry flying above her and McAnerney under her. She froze, still holding the Quaffle, and watched the two Seekers pulled into a steep dive. The Demented Beaters sent Bludgers after Harry, but he was on the hunt. A simple twitch to the right moved him out of the path.
Yes…yes…he was gaining now, he was sure of it. Flatter against the handle, Harry dove, accelerating to the broom's limits, right arm outstretched. Suddenly, vicious, terrible pain flared up his forearm. He shouted a protest, but it was already too late. McAnerney had savagely knocked his injured hand out of the way and had snatched the Snitch from the air. Harry stared, and nearly hit the ground because of it. Luckily, he regained his bearing and pulled out of the dive, swearing malignantly. McAnerney wasn't nearly so lucky—the other Seeker plowed into the ground, to Harry's never-ending satisfaction.
"What the—" His team was all around him now, one of the women examining his injured hand. "Did he do this?"
"No." Harry gritted his teeth against the pain, which seemed to be sucking his whole being into the hand. "I broke it last night—McAnerney must have done something to the charm—"
"Can he do that?"
"Isn't that a foul?"
"Did he really catch the Snitch?"
"Isn't that cobbing?"
The questions poured at him so quickly that his head spun. All over the stadium, the very same questions were being whispered. Harry heard them in the back of his mind, but forced himself on concentrating past the pains. Broken bones were supposed to be easy to heal, unless you went out and played Quidditch with them the very next day. It hadn't hurt this bad since he'd broken his arm back in second year. "Guys—I have to get on the ground. I'm going to pass out."
They double-teamed him then, Bear and Tad each taking a side and pushing their shoulders against him as they lowered him to the ground. Mediwizards were already sprinting across the Pitch, having loaded McAnerney (Snitch and all) onto a magical stretcher. "What's the problem 'ere?" one of them demanded of Bear as the rest of the team gathered around Harry. In the stands, the fans were in an uproar.
"Broken hand—got in the way of McAnerney and the Snitch," Bear explained, keeping a grip on Harry as though afraid the Man-Who-Lived might keel over on them. "Also, you might want to check Frank for a concussion. The Demented backbeating foul did a number on him." Harry glanced over and wasn't surprised to see that Frank's eyes were a bit glazed. One of the mediwizards took care of him while another waved his wand at Harry's hand "He broke it last night, too. So the bones probably weren't done healing."
"And you were still declared well enough to play?" the mediwizard barked at Harry, whose eyes were practically crossed from the pain.
"Just heal it," he grunted.
Snorting imperiously, the healer did as he asked, but poking at it for a good ten minutes after performing the pain-numbing charm. Harry was given a bone-strengthening potion and then sent to the locker room with the rest of his teammates. When he entered, it was to find Dave and Bear nose-to-nose, about two seconds from hexing each other. The rest of the team ranged in a loose semicircle around them, glaring ferociously at Dave. He stilled, his good hand on the doorknob. "What's going on here?"
"YOU!" Dave rounded on him, little piebald face red with anger. "You were supposed to catch the Snitch! We were supposed to win!"
"And we didn't. So what? It was just a scrimmage." Harry pushed past the group and started to strip out of his Quidditch robes. His blood was still boiling with anger at McAnerney's obvious foul, but he had learned early on in his career that punching the manager only got you thrown off of the team. "We'll beat them when we play against them in the League."
"We picked YOU because you've never missed the Snitch before!"
"Actually, I missed it once when I was thirteen and Dementors attacked the field." Harry kept his stare aimed at his locker, knowing that Dave would push the just the right buttons to get him going. He had already been in one brawl this week. He didn't have time for another. "But you know what, Dave? It's just a game. We're just a team. The Chasers did a wonderful job today. Bear was fantastic. Frank and Tad each deserve the Beater of the Year award. So the screw-up was mine. It won't happen again. Why don't you try complimenting them instead of getting on MY case?" He threw the dirty robes into his locker and swivelled to face the manager, standing there in just his game slacks and his undershirt. Sweat ranged on his upper body and made his hair straggle appealingly into his face, but he didn't notice. He was trying his best not to be furious and failing. Dave Davenport had never been one of his favourite people, and now the manager was dangerously close to crossing a line Harry didn't like.
Dave actually opened his mouth to retort to Harry's accusations, but Stacy Harrows was too quick for him. "Silentius!"
Without even a word of planning, Frank and Tad each hauled on one of the small man's arms, dragging him forcefully from the locker room. Stacy, Tracy, and Melinda began applauding, and Bear let out a wolf-whistle. A few seconds later, the two Beaters returned with matching broad grins. "We stuffed him in a broom cupboard," Frank told the team. "That should be the last we hear of him today. Maybe we'll come back in the morning and let him out."
Tad's grin told the rest of the team that this was unlikely. Chuckling to themselves, the team changed and showered. To Harry's surprise, the team wasn't too upset about the tie at all. "We actually won," Bear told him as they emerged from the showers, towels wrapped around their waists. "See, the way I see it, what McAnerney did to you was a foul, even though they claim that you were just between him and the Snitch. He punched your bloody hand!"
"Sucker-punched it, more like." Harry shook his head as he pulled on a clean pair of boxers and reached for his slacks. "I don't think I've ever seen somebody pull of the Tullerton Block like you did against Finnegan's upper-cross shot halfway into the game." He reached for his pants just as Stacy and Tracy came around the men's side of the locker room. "Hey! A little privacy here?"
They waved that off with a snort. "C'mon. We had a wager going. Pay up."
Harry stared. In his fury over Dave and McAnerney, he'd completely forgotten about the wager. "We didn't win or lose. We tied! I don't have to do anything!"
"Correction—you have to do both."
It took much cajoling and even a bit of muscling on the Beaters' part to get Harry over to the women's side of the locker room, where Ginny was seated on the bench, chatting comfortably with Melinda. She raised her eyebrows at seeing Harry dragged over by Tad and Frank, who both had several centimetres on him. Bear followed the lot, chortling with mirth. He was clad only in a towel, but his lack of clothing didn't seem to bother him. Indeed, Harry had never had the opportunity to pull his pants on, so he wore only his tartan boxer shorts. "Is something going on?"
Why are all the women fully-dressed and us guys in boxers and towels? Harry wondered desperately as Tracy informed Ginny that the team had had a small wager going on the game. "Mind you," she told Ginny, "this was supposed to be in front of the whole audience, but we decided to go easy on him. Ready, Harry?"
"No," Harry grumbled, not looking at Ginny. He wondered how long it would take to outrun the others if he bolted right now. No, one of the twins would probably put a feet-freezing charm on him. And besides, who wants to run through a Quidditch stadium in one's boxers? Why did Frank Sinatra, who was an American Muggle, have to be so popular in wizarding Britain? "Let's just get this over with."
Frank started it off, crooning a low, slow note. A minute later, he was joined by Tad, and then Bear. Between the three of them, they formed the easy melody. Harry, left with no other choice, sighed and resigned himself to his fate. Frank handed him one of the Beater's bats and he sang into that like it was a microphone.
"Strangers in the night, exchanging glances," he began, finally working up the nerve to look at Ginny. She was staring down at her shoes, her face beet-red. Might as well enjoy this since I can't get out of it. "Wond'ring in the night—what were the chances we'd be sharing loooove before the night was through—"
Stacy and Tracy began applauding, and he pretended to tip an invisible fedora at them. Oh, Merlin. His worst nightmare was coming true—he was singing to the woman he liked more than was believable, dressed in only his boxers and pretending that a Beater's bat was a microphone. Where had reality gone?
"Something in your eyes," he continued, "was so inviting…something in your smile was so exciting…something in my heart told me I must have yooooooouuu!"
A real fedora dropped onto his head as he sang, not really caring that he didn't have the best singing voice anymore. He'd been informed that he was a baritone, and some of the notes were hard for him to reach, but he still tried.
At some point in the song, Ginny found the courage to look up and start giggling with the Chasers. The men on the team all swayed in rhythm, Bear, Frank, and Tad even snapping their fingers and occasionally helping Harry out with the melody. "Ever since that night we've been together," all four crooned, standing in a line, "lovers at first sight, in love forever!" The women were falling off of the bench from laughter by now. Even Ginny was clutching her middle as though her ribs ached from laughing so hard. "It turned out so right…for straaangers in the niiiiight!"
It started first with Frank, who actually started giggling behind his hands, and spread to Tad, then Bear, and finally Harry. Harry actually had to hold himself up with Tracy's open locker. It wasn't long before tears were streaming down his face. "What on earth was that?" Ginny demanded through her giggles, standing up.
"He lost a wager—twice over." Stacy was red-faced from laughing as she stood up as well, helping Bear to his feet. The lanky Keeper was, like his Beater friends, clad only a towel, and Harry could tell that the women were enjoying the show. All of them were athletes. He was fairly sure that they made for a good show without shirts on, especially with Tad and Frank as bulky with muscles as they were. Of course, he had gained some tone since his days at Hogwarts, but Harry still wasn't much to look at, in his own opinion. "So…now he has to pay up on the second point?"
"In front of all of you?" Harry asked, wiping away the mirthful tears.
"That was the deal," Bear felt the need to remind him.
"What's going on?" Ginny demanded, looking between all of them. "What's the second part of the bet?" She swung her head around to look at Harry, still standing there and trying not to look too abashed.
He wished that he could go back and pull a pair of trousers on or something. "Well, er," he said, scratching the back of his neck and wishing everybody would stop gathering around them. "I'm supposed to kiss you now."
She raised her eyebrow at him, her expression gone. "You are?"
His face was bright red now. There were only a handful of things that could make him feel fourteen again, and Ginny Weasley turned out to be one of them. She pressed herself up against him and actually wrapped her arms around her middle, making him redden a bit further while Bear and Tad catcalled. "Well, the deal was that if we won, I had to kiss you."
Both eyebrows went up now. "But you tied!"
"So I had to sing to you and kiss you. Trust me, the humiliation with this team is never going to end." Harry pretended to send a glare around to all of them. "A little privacy here?"
"Oh, just kiss her already!" Melinda, of all people, ordered, rolling her eyes. Everybody in the room stared at her, and she ducked her head, reverting back to her normal shy girl phase. "And then we can have a toast and drink to our first game as a team!"
So he did.
"What is going on in here?" Ulysses Davenport himself barged into the locker room, eyebrows going wide at the sight of his team, all in various states of undress, holding up goblets of sparkling champagne and laughing. "You were all supposed to be outside to sign promotional photos ten minutes ago! Where's Dave?"
Bear handed him a flute of champagne. "We stuffed him into a broom closet! C'mon, boss! Live a bit. You just missed a great concert!"
And to Ulysses' confusion, the team burst out laughing once again. Sighing, the old man left the locker room. He'd hired a good team all right. Daft as a board, but good.
