Chapter 14
Quidditch and Tea
The staff celestial parties took a bit of a raucous turn in the spring. It seemed the stress surrounding the castle was getting to the professors. There was no question that Voldemort was growing in power, and there was nothing that any of them could do to stop it. The hundreds of students at the school were their charge to keep safe, and this was a daunting task. Many of the teachers' usual means of relaxation, such as getting away to Hogsmeade for a pint at the Three Broomsticks, were closed to them, because they needed to remain at the castle for security purposes. The monthly star parties were just about the only opportunity to commiserate and relax a little. As a safety precaution, someone had decided it would be best to hold all parties out on the front lawn, so that the professors would be able to see anyone, or anything, that tried to enter the castle.
Amidst a great deal of voluble chatter on an unseasonably warm April evening, Vector spotted Snape slinking across the grounds. When Snape realized he'd been seen by the group, he claimed he'd only come out to ask them to keep their volume down, but everyone seemed to suspect otherwise, even though they didn't say it. The planet they'd been viewing faded from sight soon after Snape had disappeared inside the castle, and the group stumbled into the cavernous entry way. Charity said her good nights and headed up the marble staircase plus two more flights to the third floor. As she passed the trophy room, she saw Snape's shadow in the doorway, and he motioned her in.
'What's this?' she wondered.
She stepped into the dark room, which was lit only by the few flickers of torchlight that filtered in from the hall and bounced off the collection of trophies. Half of Snape's angular features were hidden in shadow as he said in a hushed, deep voice, "Professor Burbage, you really ought to be more careful with these little parties of yours."
"My parties? You know that Firenze and Sinistra organize them," she retorted. Charity spoke in a harsh whisper, as if the darkness had swallowed up her full voice.
"They schedule the time, you," he said as his one visible eye glanced down at her basket, "are the one who turns them into parties."
"Oh, heaven forbid we get to have a little fun," Charity spat back. "Maybe if you weren't so busy creeping around doing whatever you consider fun, you could join us once in a while."
"I assure you, what I am doing is nothing like fun. This really isn't the time or the place for fun. The situation is very serious Professor, and I caution you to –"
Charity's voice rose above a whisper as she cut in, "Well, I am so sorry that we can't all walk around being as morose as you, Severus! What are we supposed to do? Give up who we are because what's-his-face is lurking around? If we do, then he's already won, hasn't he?" she shouted, glaring at him intently. "Well, I won't do it!" Snape was staring at her just as intently, and a fierce glint shone in his dark eyes, even in the weak light. Charity backed toward the door. Her voice dropped down to a near whisper as she told him, "There was a time when I cared very much about what you said – clung to every word. But you changed all that, didn't you? You no longer have any right, Severus, to ask me to listen to you. I suggest you learn to live with that." She was dangerously close to tears and turned toward the doorway and rushed out into the hall before giving Snape the satisfaction of seeing her cry.
In the hall she ran into Peeves, who wanted her to try out a new torture on Mrs. Norris with him. "Sorry Peevesy, not in the mood," Charity told him with a wave of her hand as she rushed past.
She saw Peeves look toward the sound of what she presumed to be Snape's footsteps clicking down the hall in the opposite direction. The next thing she heard was Snape yelling, and she peeked around the corner to see him dripping with hot candle wax. Peeves floated above him, looking at Charity with a huge grin while he held a large, no longer burning candle. Charity gave Peeves a big, wet smile and a thumbs up before practically skipping off to bed.
In May, Charity attended her first ever Hogwarts Quidditch game. There were usually six games played during every school year so that each house team played each of the other house teams once. Quidditch is something like Muggle soccer, except the players fly around on brooms and try to shoot the ball, the Quaffle, through one of three hoops instead of one goal. The Chasers (three per team) are responsible for scoring goals, while the Keeper is responsible for blocking them. Meanwhile, all the players attempt to dodge two renegade balls, called Bludgers, which try to knock them off their brooms. The Bludgers are so lethal that two players on each team, the Beaters, are dedicated to beating them away from their players. Oh, and there's a tiny golden ball with wings that flies around called the Snitch. The player called the Seeker has the job of locating and catching this elusive ball which is worth one hundred and fifty points. The team that catches the snitch nearly always wins the game, since each Quaffle through a goal is only worth ten points. Other than that, Quidditch is exactly like soccer.
The students and staff of Hogwarts turned out in droves for each Quidditch game, regardless of the weather. Charity, having not attended any of the matches thus far, was a definite anomaly. It wasn't that she didn't like Quidditch; she enjoyed a good game and often went to see professional Quidditch games with her father over the summer. At Hogwarts, however, she found the temptation of a practically empty castle or the chance to wander Hogsmeade without running into one of her colleagues too tempting. While Charity was primarily a social being, she did have an independent streak and needed doses of seclusion from time to time. She supposed it might have something to do with growing up an only child. Regardless, Quidditch Saturdays proved the perfect time to be alone.
Her absence from the games didn't go unnoticed, and she was sensing attitude from McGonagall and a few of the other professors. This particular game was the last of the year – Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw - and the winner of the Quidditch Cup would be determined by its result; it seemed as good a time as any for Charity to make her first appearance at a game. As an added bonus, she knew there was little chance of running into Snape, since she'd heard that he'd given the Potter boy detention every Saturday through the rest of the term. A group of Charity's old Hufflepuff students called out to her from the sunny stands, so she went to sit happily with them. She chose not to dwell on the fact that the last time they'd sat together in these stands was the night Cedric Diggory had died. She further tried not to reflect on Hannah Abbott, who'd never returned to school after her mother's death. On a positive note, Katie Bell, the girl who had been cursed earlier in the school year, had recovered and was now streaking about the field in her scarlet Quidditch robes.
Charity was impressed with the quality of flying on the field. She'd only seen professional games up until now and hadn't known what to expect from students. The Quaffle changed hands several times before the gruff-voiced announcer said, "And that's a score for Ravenclaw, as the Gryffindor Keeper completely misses the block." A few seconds later he announced, "Another failed attempt by the Gryffindor keeper," followed by what sounded like meaty fists pounding the table in front of the microphone. "I told them he was no good!" bursted out the announcer.
A softer, dreamier voice now spoke into the microphone, saying, "Careful, Cormac, you'll disturb the Snooglies resting under the table. And we all know what would happen if we set Snooglies loose on a Quidditch pitch." This female voice carried a lilt that may have been a laugh. Meanwhile, the fans in the stands exchanged confused glances and seemed to be stifling giggles.
"I…uh…" said the male announcer, Cormac. Charity now remembered that she'd heard about some problems with the Quidditch announcers this season. To keep things fair, Madame Hooch had decided to use one announcer from each of the opposing teams. Charity was having trouble telling which announcer represented which house, though, because the male announcer constantly berated the strategies of both teams, while the girl seemed to be talking about anything but Quidditch. All in all, Charity figured this was about as unbiased as could be hoped for.
The Gryffindor Keeper made a few more blunders and Katie Bell seemed a bit shell-shocked. The score was soon twenty - eighty, Ravenclaw. Cormac commented, "You really can't expect much more from Gryffindor when the Captain refuses to put the best Keeper on team, lands himself in detention, and then puts a girl in charge to cover for him."
McGonagall could be heard in the background telling Cormac to watch it. Katie Bell, presumably the "girl in charge," turned and glared at him as a hard look of determination set on her face. Bell yelled out a few orders to the team, and the three Chasers swiftly moved the Quaffle down the field to score a succession of goals, quickly bringing the score to one hundred - eighty, Gryffindor.
"Oh, that was exciting!" said the female announcer. She's turned her blonde head toward the crowd, applauding and waving to them.
McGonagall could again be heard, saying, "Luna the game, the game!" McGonagall's voice was somewhat muffled, but the tension in it was loud and clear.
"So, Cormac, wasn't Slughorn's Christmas party nice?" Luna said. She must have been one of the few students Charity had seen in Slughorn's office that night.
"Uh...what...yeah…and Ravenclaw scores again against Gryffindor. I knew it!" Cormac said angrily, but Luna didn't appear to notice.
"You didn't seem to mind girls at all that night. Remember the way you were chasing Hermoine Granger around? I really liked what you did with her hair under the mistletoe," Luna announced to the entire stadium. Now the red-headed Gryffindor Keeper turned and glared at Cormac. The same steely look that had taken over Bell's features consumed the Keeper's as well. He turned his attention back to the game and proceeded to deftly block ninety percent of what came at him. Gryffindor pulled away with the game and was soon dominating with a score of two hundred eighty - one hundred forty, Gryffindor.
The crowd's attention was drawn to the Seekers, who were now frantically searching for the Snitch to end the game. Ravenclaw needed to stem the now flawless goal shooting of the Gryffindor team, while Gryffindor desperately needed to seal the win before the tide turned. The Gryffindor Seeker seemed to have been keeping a sharp eye on the Ravenclaw Seeker throughout the game, and when the golden Snitch appeared just below the blue-clad player, the Gryffindor Seeker became a blur of crimson. She aggressively knocked the Ravenclaw Seeker out of the way, and grabbed the Snitch split seconds after Gryffindor scored two more goals, making the final score four hundred fifty - one hundred forty, Gryffindor. Not only had Gryffindor won the game, they'd scored enough points to earn the Quidditch Cup. Charity thought of how proud Oliver Wood would be.
The bright sunny day and mindless activity of Quidditch watching had been good for Charity's brain. It had cleared it of pointless preoccupations, and Charity felt as if she was thinking more clearly than she had done in a while. She gave a hearty, "Congratulations!" to Professor McGonagall, who was head of Gryffindor house and possibly even more excited than the team, then moved with the masses back into the castle. At the landing for the second floor, she decided against continuing with the throng that was jamming onto the next flight up and opted instead for a lesser known, therefore less crowded, staircase at the other end of the second floor corridor. She crossed the corridor to find nothing but a gaping hole; that particular staircase was off to regions unknown at the moment. Charity turned back to the hall and spied her favorite portrait - the one of the girls having tea. A chat with them seemed a perfectly wonderful way to pass the time until the staircase decided to return, or at least until the other one cleared.
Charity filled the girls in on the more exciting moments of the game. Quidditch was, of course, popular back in the girls' time (which Charity had discovered on a prior visit was about three hundred years ago), but women were not typically players back then, so these girls had mostly enjoyed the sport as spectators, like Charity. She did learn, however, that a few of them had tried their hand at Quidditch in remote fields far from Muggle view. Charity had difficulty picturing any of these proper girls zipping around on broomsticks, with their curls piled high on their heads and their long dresses trailing behind them.
While they were talking, Charity spotted the chocolate cake on the sideboard and suddenly had a very clear realization. "That cake has three layers doesn't it?" she asked.
"Of course – that's why it's called 'Triple Layer Chocolate Cake,'" answered one of the girls.
"It was you!" Charity exclaimed. To the bewildered painted faces, she explained, "Baking Without Magic - it's a cookbook in the school library. Is that where you got the recipe from?" Nine heads turned toward an auburn-haired girl whose face was screwed up in concentration.
"Yes, I think so. It was quite a while ago, but I suppose I had to get the recipe from somewhere," the girl answered.
"I made that cake with my class!" Charity told them. "I used the same recipe – you marked it. Oh, and you left your bookmark in there too, didn't you?" Charity looked around at all of the tea cups, and she first noticed that a few of the girls held long needles and yarn, their fingers subconsciously working. "Of course – Darjeeling; Topic: Knitting!"
Charity noticed that several of the girls cast slightly alarmed glances at each other. Suddenly, everyone was very still and no one was talking. "Well, it was yours, wasn't it?" Charity asked the auburn-haired girl, who said nothing and only looked toward three taller girls at the center of the group.
In contrast to her portrait-mates, the small, sprightly girl became visibly excited and beamed at Charity. "Well, aren't you clever?" she said to Charity. Then she turned to the group and said, "Isn't she clever? Oh, couldn't we—"
"No, we could not," the tall dark-haired girl said firmly, cutting her off. "She is not a student; nor do we have any evidence of her lineage."
"Oh come on, Malgy, maybe it's time we relaxed those old rules a bit," sprightly said. The small girl turned her smile toward Charity, saying wistfully, "I like her so much."
"Well, I like her too, but the rules were put in place for a reason…"
Charity listened to this exchange with interest and some confusion. What exactly was the little one proposing? Charity studied the painting closely and noticed a view of a vast forest beyond. The forest in the painting was much shorter and younger than the Forbidden Forest, but could it be…? Further inspection revealed a small shield hanging on the wall with tiny icons of all four Hogwarts houses. This was a room in Hogwarts! A tower room. It seemed very much as if these girls were in some sort of club that had at one time met at Hogwarts, and it seemed as if at least one of them wanted to bend the rules to let Charity in. Did one of the rules include being composed entirely of oil paints?
To be invited into a club with these girls was a welcome idea to Charity. Oddly enough, she was coming to think of them as friends at a time when friends around Hogwarts felt scarce. Charity got on very well with most of the other professors, but her interactions with them had been pretty much limited to the monthly star parties. Besides, she very often felt patronized by the rest of the staff because of her youth and inexperience. Charity had always found great joy in her friendships with her students, however, the increased size of Muggle Studies classes had stretched Charity thin and thus diluted those individual relationships. Charity sighed and reflected that she was probably just in a mood to feel sorry for herself. She knew that she loved being at Hogwarts.
Standing in the deserted hallway, wondering why she was so desperate for a positive verdict from ten girls in a painting, Charity's mind turned to an unavoidable conclusion. She realized that the root cause of her loneliness was the loss of Snape. For all his acerbity, she missed him. Sometimes there are things you just can't explain about what draws you to someone. She was anxious for something to fill the void he had left behind.
Unfortunately, the little sprightly girl lost the debate. She gave Charity an apologetic look and sighed, "Well, just remember – if you're ever in the mood for chamomile—"
"Volicity!" hissed the three taller girls, and sprightly said no more, although she did manage to slip Charity a conspiratorial wink.
Charity whipped her head around as the staircase clunked back into place. As she ascended its steps, she wondered how this could have happened – all she'd ever intended was a little shameless flirtation with Professor Snape, but now it appeared she'd fallen for the git.