Chapter Thirty-Three

Perilling

Francis Piece was not a good man. Everyone knew it, or at least those who knew him well enough. Part of it was the jokes he got on his first name, which while he thought was a good serviceable name, others thought it didn't have the ruggedness a man in his line of work needed. He didn't care what they thought or pretended not to. In fact, he used his first and last name so much that people just thought of him by the whole thing.

It didn't matter, once the hecklers found their diversion waiting for them. After that, they were never heard from again.

Francis Piece was a procurer. While that would seem to indicate that he dealt in physical items and related services, this was something in complete error to what others would have thought. No, his procurement services involved other things.

It had started at a relatively young age, when he convinced the local bully to let him steal something in a location that the other boy was far too large to shimmy into. The young Francis had done that. It wasn't done without some problems, of course, and maybe a good bit of mild danger, but it was something he had managed to do.

Once he had the item, which turned out to be an heirloom of some girl's family. He didn't see what was so great about a book that had a bunch of names and dates in it, but he took it anyway. Plus a few other things, once he had the dog dealt with. That was a bit of a wrench for him, because he liked dogs.

It didn't matter, in this case. The meat-laced poison had taken care of that quickly enough. After the dog jerked into his last breath, Francis took his time and collected what seemed appropriate. All the while wearing gloves that were too big for him.

A little more redistribution of assets, a term that he wouldn't learn for some years later, and he was ready for his first diversion at the age of eight.

The young Francis had taken the tools the bully had given him and let himself into a certain house to set things up. It didn't take long, and he was satisfied with his work. Even though he had hurried with it, he was satisfied with the results – mostly.

He made a telephone call from a lonely public phone in an area that didn't see much traffic, dropping the coins and carefully spinning the dial. The excitement in his voice came from the planning he'd done for this moment as he waited for the person on the other end to pick up and identify himself.

"There's been a robbery of something important! It looked like a lot of expensive things! I feel like I'm in danger from… from him!"

He quoted the bully's address in as scared of a voice as he could and pretended not to realize that he gave the bully's name – one Richie Glaston – and dropped the phone. It dangled from its cord and he was sure to make as much noise and screaming "Help!" as he rattled the old doors and stomping his feet as he ran off.

Even from a distance, he could hear the voice of the man on the other end of the line calling for him to answer. The handset was distorting some of the sound from the sheer volume, but it stopped soon enough with a click. Francis knew that he had to either hide or get out of there now. As it was a better idea to scarper off, he did just that. Once he got to a good, safe spot, he waited.

He heard rather anemic sounding sirens off in the distance and smiled to himself.

It took him a while to learn what had happened when the police arrived. The presence of the large, hardbound book with the girl's family name on the cover immediately raised suspicion. A call back to the station for a check for stolen-items reports and the police on the scene learned that there was a complainant there right then.

The description of the missing items soon matched up with what was there, and all the residents of the house was tracked down and encouraged to make an appearance at the station to answer questioning.

As the book was on young Richie Glaston's rather pitiable desk, in his room, there wasn't much to say. It was obvious that it had come to be there in a manner that the family belonging within the book didn't have any say about. In fact, the head of that family was angered. That was a mild description of the emotion displayed especially when they finally saw the other items that had been gathered up, but the reports that needed to be written up about the whole thing had to be creative in description.

After all, they couldn't transcribe everything in the Queen's English and be proper, not with that sort of language they had been exposed to.

It took a few days, but Francis was satisfied with his work. The bully, Richie Glaston, was remanded to a juvenile residential home. That was a delicate way of saying he was in a junior version of a prison. After all, there had been testimonies about his previous untoward interactions with others piling up and the judge had decided that enough was enough.

His protestations of innocence in this matter fell on deafened ears and the neighborhood breathed a sigh of relief.

Francis didn't breathe a sigh of relief, he outright grinned. No one was around to see the cruelty starting to show in that grin, so he let the upturn of the lips have its way. He continued in this vein for a while, staging diversions and learning the term redistribution of assets for months afterward and becoming more and more proficient at his chosen craft.

Then a few years later, an owl arrived with a letter.

|:-:|

Francis Piece had been Sorted into Slytherin, although it had been a struggle between that and Ravenclaw for the Sorting Hat. The Hat wasn't too pleased with the boy that sat under his brim, but according to the ancient magics that made up his being he had to accept and Sort the lad. Not for the first time, the Hat wondered what it would be like to essentially say, "No, nope, nada, not gonna happen!" The vernacular that the Hat used in his private thoughts had been tinged with the mental speech patterns and thoughts of a great many children over a millennium or so.

It was something that occupied some of the time better used to composing his new song for the next year's Firsties, but no one knew that. Except maybe Fawkes, of course. The phoenix seemed to know a great deal that he kept to himself. If the Hat didn't know better, he would think that the ancient phoenix was gathering blackmail. Fawkes did things his own way sometimes, even if the ancient hat and the ancient bird had certain things in common that no one suspected in the least.

Still, the boy had been Sorted. The surprise that he'd been subjected to when Professor McGonagall had turned up to introduce him to the Wizarding World had been overshadowed by the beginnings of what became the First Blood War. By then, he had become very proficient in procurement, and very efficient in avoiding detection. His magical studies had helped him in that, as he was quite invested in the axiom 'Knowledge is Power.'

Francis Piece also privately couldn't stand Thomas Riddle. The two had met a few times before, the younger and the older. It hadn't taken long for one to realize that the other held the key to untold influence. That, more than anything, was the important ingredient in the types of business deals Francis Piece now specialized in. It was something that he prided himself in, the influence that brought knowledge, and he supposed that maybe the Hat had known a thing or two about the process that could have made him wear blue instead of green.

The random thought that the Hat or the magics that made up the Hat would be good for psychoanalysis had crept up a few times over the years, and quickly banished. It wasn't something that he wanted to spend a lot of time over. He had more important things to do.

Death Eaters, of course, did a good bit of business with him. He wasn't Marked like they had been, since the loathing he had for their boss was more or less mutual. It was just personal and not business, so it didn't affect what he did in his procurement efforts. He continued on with his work, they continued on with their work, and everyone was happy. More or less.

Sure, the fighting made things hard for him at times, especially when a numpty Death Eater that didn't have the brains to pour piss out of a leaky boot tried to target him for one reason or another. He lost one wife that way and the group of apprentice Death Eaters found their death. It had led to sour relations in his business dealings for some time after that, until he was offered a 'replacement' from overseas. He made sure this replacement was free of charms, vows, jinxes, and whatnot before accepting. He still send a sharply worded letter of thanks.

Then came the amazing news nearly a year later that Riddle, in his Voldemort persona, had been defeated at Godric's Hollow.

|:-:|

Now, years later, he had a new business contract. It was something he didn't think much about, since it wasn't his business to think about things once he had something to fulfill. He didn't know the name of the person who had given him the contract, although he was fairly sure it was a man. It was hard to tell, what with glamours and Polyjuice Potion changing how people looked. One thing those really didn't do was change the look in someone's eyes. If someone took Polyjuice and was a cold, calculating sort, then it was evident still. If someone looked hard enough, that was. The image presented to others tended to mask it somewhat, but it was still there.

The way people carried themselves under Polyjuice or a glamour could give themselves away, too. He'd caught more than a few people that tried to scam him out of payment that way, and those poor souls would never scam anyone like that again. Francis Piece had ways to assure that. A stray thought some time ago had convinced him, an old pirate's adage, and he'd used it with great success.

Dead men tell no tales.

Sometimes it was harder to apply this adage, but he was sure to use every dirty trick he knew – and he knew plenty. At least he didn't seem to have to worry about that. Whoever it was seemed to be lifeless, almost and it gave him a rare case of the shivers. Francis Piece considered his new job for a moment, evaluating the risks and benefits.

It had been a while since he was supposed to procure something other than an object, and this was going to take a bit more planning than he usually needed. Indeed, whoever these Granger people were, he was going to have to work carefully to fulfill his contract with the usual high standards and quality of service that he was known for in certain quarters.

|:-:|

"Harry!"

The call came from some way around the corner that he'd just turned. It sounded a bit familiar and he stopped to retrace his steps. It wasn't Hermione, who sounded distinctive to him. The caller caught up to him finally and he raised an eyebrow, looking at the girl making her way to him. The person that had called him was wearing Slytherin green.

"Tracey?"

She huffed her way to him, through the crowd in the corridor. Her face was a shade of red that clashed with her robes, and a few people started to ask her if she was all right. The look on her face convinced them not to and they withdrew, happy to have found something else to gossip about.

"For a short, scrubby boy you move fast," she complained.

The reason for that had to do with Dudley and his gang but he wasn't sure that it was a good idea to mention that to a Slytherin, even if it was Tracey. She hadn't ever given him reason to mistrust her, so far. Still, he kept his thoughts to himself.

Old habits really did die hard, he supposed.

"Sometimes it helps," he shrugged and didn't elaborate.

"I suppose," she said, squinting at him for a moment as she caught her breath. "Anyway, did you hear?"

"Hear? Hear about what?"

"Some of us are looking for people for a pick-up game of Quidditch. Interested?"

He was. Having regular Quidditch canceled because of the Tournament was something that he didn't like and Harry knew that he wasn't the only one.

"When?"

"Tomorrow, after classes let out!"

He thought for a moment, realizing that he didn't have anything that he couldn't put off a little while longer – if he didn't mention it to Hermione – and grinned.

"I might be. Who's playing?"

"Not the regular Quidditch teams. Some have misbehaved with the dragons and gotten detention tomorrow."

Harry paused for a moment. Dragons and misbehaving didn't go together at all, he thought.

"Erm… I have to ask. Who misbehaved and how exactly do you misbehave with a dragon?"

He didn't mention that he didn't recall anyone talking about a student getting roasted with dragon fire in the last few days, so it had to either be recent or something else happened.

"Seamus…" Tracey started, but found herself cut off.

"Of course it's Seamus. How did I know?"

She whacked him on the arm.

"Are you telling this or not?"

"You are! I'm sorry, keep going!"

She squinted at him again and huffed a bit before continuing.

"Seamus got the bright idea of asking Master Xiang-Zhai if draconic magic had analogues for air-to-liquid transfiguration. What he was thinking, I don't know exactly, but he asked for that.

"That sounds like condensation," Harry murmured thoughtfully. "Let me guess, he wanted the liquid to be Guinness or rum or wine or something like that, right?"

"No, something called vodka."

"That's odd. What did Master Xiang-Zhai do?" It couldn't have been good. The old dragon had a way about him, and he sometimes made Tessaies seem easygoing if he was of a mind to be. It was very rare, however.

"From what I can tell, just gave him a disapproving look but sent him to talk to that Zmei."

"The one with the three heads?" Harry shuddered. That particular dragon seemed to be outgoing and friendly, if a bit loud. Still, visions of Fluffy at his most upset danced in his head.

"That one, right."

"So, what happened?" This was more interesting than he'd thought it was going to be, if only to find out what kind of trouble Seamus had gotten himself into.

"Pavel… that's the right name?" Tracey got confirmation with a head shake and barreled on. "Pavel told him something, and the others with him decided to go try it right away."

"Wait, others? Who?"

"Two Hufflepuffs, a Slytherin, three Ravenclaws, and Dean Thomas. Five of them were on House Quidditch teams."

He noticed that she didn't name anyone but Dean Thomas, but didn't say anything. He could figure out who'd gotten themselves in trouble by looking at the rosters later. It was a surprise that his housemate was in on whatever this was, but maybe there was a reason. Harry didn't want to think about what that reason might about been. He got into enough trouble as it were.

"So what did they do?"

"They decided to try to spray some of the vodka in front of Kirsa's snout when she was taking a nap."

He stared at her for a moment before he found his voice.

"They what?"

A nod was his answer, along with a roll of her eyes. He stared at her for a bit, mouth agape a bit. Kirsa was no pushover, even if she was the smallest dragon currently there. Sure, other breeds might show up on the lecture circuit that had many different dragons occupy The Dragon's Lectern for many different subjects, but Kirsa was there the most. She had the rowdiest brood, too.

"What did she do?" He finally asked the question that he wasn't sure that he wanted to know the answer to. He'd seen her chase after her own misbehaving young ones and wasn't sure how exactly she would chase after naughty humans. Dragons had fire, which everyone knew.

Of course, this was Seamus Finnegan. Fire and Seamus had their own special relationship, to be sure. Harry shook his head at the thought, hoping that Seamus never learned how to be a dragon animagus.

"She screwed up her face and aimed some fire a good bit above their heads. Probably forty feet above their heads and muttered something no one could understand."

"It was probably something about stupid drakons with stupid senses of humor doing stupid things that we don't want to know about."

She nodded, affixing a stare to him that made him uncomfortable as his words hung in the air between them.

"Um, well anyway, Tracey, what else did she do?"

"She found who sent them her way and I think she went to rip strips of Pavel."

Probably more like bloody chunks, he thought. Everyone knew that a riled-up Kirsa wasn't someone to get in the way of, although Harry was curious about what she was doing to Pavel now.

"Anyway, what about Quidditch?"

She raised an eyebrow.

"Don't think I didn't notice you trying to change the subject. And, much less smoothly than usual."

Harry grimaced. He couldn't help that he didn't have his godfather's reputed ease with the ladies. Which reminded him, he had to go visit Sirius soon. If this Quidditch match was about to start, he'd want to know.

"So what they're planning is…" Tracey led off, and Harry leaned in to listen before agreeing.

"That's all?"

She huffed at him.

"It might change between now and when the game starts."

"I hope so."

|:-:|

"Sirius!"

It had taken a little effort to find his godfather, who didn't seem ready to leave the castle yet. Harry was sure that the older man most likely had business to attend to, such as straightening out his finances if he hadn't already covertly managed it. Gryffindor Tower hadn't seen him lately and the Fat Lady was still more than a bit miffed with him. Hagrid had seen him around the grounds in both human and Grim forms, but the half-giant had things to do since his job never really stopped. Harry had asked him when he could finally catch up to him.

"Sorry, Harry, tha' all I can tell yeh," the half-giant had said, with a note of apology in his voice.

Sirius wasn't in the greenhouses, which hadn't seemed likely but Harry wanted to check just in case. Nor the boathouses or the covered bridge. He remembered Remus saying that his parents had spent a lot of time on the bridge, and it seemed likely that Sirius would have known that too. Maybe he would have wanted to spend some time there too, with a link to his departed friends.

But he wasn't there either.

A thought occurred to him and he slapped his forehead in irritation. Of course.

It had taken more than a few minutes to get from the covered bridge back to the castle, since a few people wanted to ask him if he was playing in the pick-up game.

"Possibly, but I've got to find out more first."

He told them that, but as a Champion, he really couldn't. Considering his run of luck where Quidditch injuries were concerned, maybe the chance to play would leave him in worse shape than he really needed to be.

"Maybe!" was another answer, along with "I'd like to, but I just found out about it myself."

After the tenth such question or so, he was wondering if he should just bother answering and just hold up a sign or something. Finally he reached his destination and tickled the pear. Thankfully, no one else was around to follow him into the kitchens and continue badgering him.

He winced to himself at the thought of Hufflepuffs badgering, considering their House animal and location relative to where he now stood.

"Sirius?"

Sirius was inside, stuffing his face with the largest sandwich Harry had ever seen. An open-faced roast beef sandwich, with gravy dripping onto the plate. Harry could see the crumbs from another such sandwich that hadn't escaped its doom and destiny in the Animagus' stomach. From the look of bliss on Sirius' face, both the man and the Grim found themselves greatly satisfied. From the looks of the rapidly disappearing sandwich inexorably disappearing into Sirius' maw, Harry couldn't blame him. For a moment, he wondered if he could get one for himself and realized that maybe it would be better to wait until his godfather wasn't around.

Harry was waved over to the table without a word as Sirius proceeded to demolish the second sandwich. From the way he was stuffing it into his mouth, table manners didn't look to be the foremost thing on his mind. Harry grimaced, thinking about the way most of the dragons ate and thankful that Sirius didn't have the ability to breathe fire. He saw a bowl of chips awaiting its doom and tried to grab one. They did look good, too.

It wasn't a good idea as Sirius snatched it out of his hand and ate it, almost quicker than Harry could see and gave him a dirty look to top it off. After that, Harry left him to his food and waited for him to finish.

It took a good ten minutes, during which Harry was wondering if Sirius was going to hurt himself with the amount of food that he put away. He could see the house elves trading something between them, but whatever it was looked too small to make out from where he sat. If he'd been looking at humans, he'd think it was money of some kind, but these were house elves and he wasn't sure that they used Galleons between themselves.

Whatever it was, it was definitely shinier than the most vivid Galleon he'd seen so far.

At the end of the longest ten minutes he'd ever waited – and considering some of the things in his life so far that was saying something – Sirius sat back, rumbled a more or less polite burp, and sighed happily. A few of the elves cheered at the amount of whatever their winnings had been after looking down at various chits in their long-fingered hands. Harry side-eyed them, still wondering what exactly they had been doing and debating whether to find out. From the slight gleam in Sirius' eye, it was probably something that he really didn't want to know about.

"Godson! What brings you here?"

Harry was sure that Sirius was up to something now. It wasn't the knowledge that Sirius Black was a Marauder, it was somewhat worrisome gleam in the man's eye. That, and the appearances of the elves that looked busy, but were listening with every scrap of their attention and failing to look preoccupied with their duties. They seemed as excited about the upcoming match as Sirius apparently was when Harry told him.

|:-:|

"Stefaniya Tymofiyivna Shapovalova. What do we know about this woman?"

The undertone hiss was a bit disconcerting still, but Molly Weasley had gotten used to it. Mostly. Nothing would make casual conversation with a predator that much outweighed you and had very, very sharp teeth something to get used to very quickly. The Weasley matriarch found herself wanting to Apparate out but for the Hogwarts wards that prevented it. The second choice was to pick up her somewhat less-than-slim legs and run, but that wasn't a good idea either, since said predators had excellent eyesight.

The question posed to the group distracted her from any thoughts of fleeing. It was something that she found herself asking more and more as her boys came of age. Bill was close-mouthed about his romances, and Molly didn't know what he did. Percy kept his dalliances close to his vest, although Molly couldn't imagine who could handle her somewhat stuck-up son prattling on about something that everyone didn't bother wasting thoughts on. Fred and George – even at their young age whoever snagged either of the twins would have her hands full, and while Molly loved them dearly, she knew those days would be peaceful… for her. She hoped whoever dealt with her youngest son was patience infinite. With Ron, she would need it.

Charlie, however…

Her dragon wrangling son was possibly the roughest and toughest of the whole group. He had to be, and she had worried about him even before the mind-bending revelations about the dragons' true personalities.

The question stopped her in her musings. Molly looked up at Tessaies' waiting face.

"From what I've been able to tell, she's a very sweet person."

"She can be very stern, if needed," came a voice from a Swedish Short-snout. This dragon had an aged voice, a bit crackly, and she seemed to be mostly preoccupied. There was a large reel of hawser rope nearby that came from who knew where, and she was using one of her talons to crochet it into… something. Molly wondered where a dragon learned to crochet, and how exactly she could stitch a half treble crochet along with all the others. The reel squeaked on its axle periodically as the dragon pulled it out by short lengths.

"Oh?" Molly wondered who said that before realizing the dragons hadn't said anything.

"Some of the handlers act like they never had mothers," the old dragon sniffed. "She puts them to rights. It's funny to watch, especially if one really gets on her wrong side and makes her mad."

Molly noticed the Ironbellies of the group snorting with repressed laughter. There was still a good bit of steam that the dragon nearest Molly waved away with a wing flex. She could feel the hair on her head moving around in the air current.

"Were you there when she grabbed that visiting wrangler that was bothering her over and over? I didn't know humans could squeak like that."

"No! When was this?"

"Last year. I suppose he said something she disagreed with. Human mating rituals are strange sometimes. I thought butterflies was some kind of tiny insect with large wings."

Molly thought so, too. She looked up at the old dragon, who she was thinking of as 'Granny.'

"What did she do? Never mind what he said."

Granny shrugged as she crossed another stitch and pulled out more hawser for her next row. The axle squeaked.

"She grabbed him in what seems to be a sensitive spot for human males with one hand, his neck with the other, slammed his head into a tree and yanked whatever she had grabbed first at the same time. There was a twist in there somewhere, but I didn't see which hand it was. It was amusing to watch, as we didn't particularly like him anyway."

"It was the first hand," one of the dragons that had been there mentioned, with a chuckle. "Did you see the kick?"

There was general assent among the dragons that had witnessed this, and those that hadn't expressed their desire to know more. Molly wondered if the poor man had received any treatment for what happened. She would have to find this Stefaniya woman and asked what happened, then maybe have her show Ginny what to do. It never hurt to have some extra tricks hidden away, after all.

Tessaies rumbled a bit, deep in her throat and all eyes turned to her.

"Lángoló haj has been spending time with her lately, if the presence of her scent upon his body means anything. It's particularly strong on the days after he has time off, and others have reported being kept awake by odd noises from his quarters and sometimes hers."

Everyone was silent for a moment.

"Is this part of human mating practices?"

Eyes turned to Molly again, and she shivered from the feeling of predator eyes upon her again but managed to restrain it. Her frown appeared.

"If he knows what good for him, he'll bring her to The Burrow before he goes much farther. I'll have to remind him to do that. I'm sure Arthur would like to meet her – he's always wanted more daughters."

There were several draconic chuckles at this, as they all recognized a mother about to admonish her drakon. Granny smiled at her, teeth exposed in a wide grin.

"I like her. Want some help?"

Molly never thought she would be a part of a mothers' group consisting mostly of dragons that talked about their offspring. However, the look on most of the faces around the group was just like any thoughts she would have had, even if she'd thought it would be witches. The mother dragons around her had their eyes full of gleaming anticipation – and Molly had laughed until it hurt to hear Tessaies relate what she'd told Charlie about being lopsided. Maybe Stefaniya could even him out. From the way the mother dragon had expressed herself in the retelling, she would have her work cut out for her.

Molly looked around.

"Sure. Who's first?"

|:-:|

In the dragon handlers' rather beat-up mobile office, ink splashed over a nearly-completed monthly inventory form and two completed reports as Charlie shivered again. He ignored the wasted work as the now-familiar sensation rolled over him. He spilled ink on himself but didn't notice as he gripped his ribs and shook. One hand smeared a jagged streak of black ink through Weasley red hair as he ran a hand through it.

"I've got to see Madam Pomfrey. This keeps happening," he moaned.

|:-:|

Sometime later, there was some excitement building at the Quidditch pitch. Most of the Hufflepuff team, some of the Ravenclaw team, and a couple of Gryffindors and few Slytherins filling out the missing positions had met to play what would have been one of the season's games. This time, there were special guests present to watch.

Dragons were there, perched on an impressive array of stands that had somehow been erected over the top level of the regular Quidditch stands. Each spot for a dragon had a few seats for humans arranged in front, and there were spots for about half of the dragons. There hadn't been time enough to build more. This worked out anyway, since only about half of the dragons present were curious enough about this to want to attend the game. Harry was there to watch with Hermione, and both wondered what was amusing Tessaies so. Every so often, they would hear a rumble and a short stream of steam would waft out whichever direction she was looking at the time. There weren't any explanations forthcoming to assuage the feeling of intense curiosity. It made Harry worry that something was about to happen and he didn't know whether to be worried or not.

It didn't help that Rhiain was doing her own chuckling, nor did it help that Annika seemed to be doing the same thing. Quiangya wasn't present, having had an errand to run that no one elaborated on. That was ominous, both Harry and Hermione thought.

Jack was present next to Perreh, who had flown in to see what this 'Quidditch' thing was. They were sharing something that smoked even as it rippled in the extra-large barrel. No one that wasn't a dragon was willing to ask what it was or if it should be allowed at a scholastic event – or even how it had even been placed there. From the genial expressions on both dragons' face, it was probably something better not asked. Kirsa was consuming more than either of the larger dragons without any appreciable effects.

Other dragons were here as well, some with large leather belts that looked like something Hagrid would wear strapped around their wrists. Someone had cast color-changing spells on the leather that denoted House colors even though this wasn't an 'official' game. It seemed to fit the mood of the gathering, somehow. The dragons didn't seem to care who wore what color, so long as it stood out against whatever color their scales were.

Annika was wearing all four colors and remarking that she'd like more.

Tessaies had a scarlet-red band as a nod to Harry's House color. Rhiain didn't have one, as it turned out that she didn't like the feeling of something on her arms or legs. It felt too much to her like the band that had a thick chain attached to her, if not as heavy. Neville, who sat in front of her with Luna cuddling next to him, understood. He didn't mention it to her or suggest the scarlet or cobalt bands at all.

It seemed that Beauxbatons and Durmstrang had visitors to this game as well, although only the French had human-sized wristbands matching the dragons' versions.

There was a bit of noise from the direction of the announcer's booth, and everyone heard Lee Jordan's voice – as everyone had expected.

"Hello and welcome to the Pick-up Quidditch Game to end all Pick-up Games!" Lee shouted, the exhilaration in his voice carrying easily everywhere in the pitch.

The crowd roared, and after a moment so did the dragons. They seemed bemused for the most part, but had noticed that the humans had much excitement in their voices. More than one murmured to another dragon that it looked like most of the seats weren't actually being used. Considering how many were on the very edges, this was a valid observation.

The players shot out in a mishmash of Quidditch robes and regular robes. One side wore mostly white headbands and the other wore black headbands, which helped with identification.

"Today, instead of House teams, it's the White Stripes versus the Black Bands. Since these aren't school teams, there was a lot of discussion about what to call the teams. If there's another pick-up game, there might be different names so don't get attached!"

Luna could be seen perking up at that. It was obvious that she was asking something that made Neville blush and shake his head in clear consternation. Whatever it was, the nearby dragons thought it was hilarious.

Everyone was excited.

Except for Harry. He looked around, wondering where the uneasy feeling was coming from. Something was bothering him and he didn't know what it was.

His thoughts found themselves interrupted by the shrill blast of Madam Hooch's whistle.

"And they're off!"

Author's Note:

So things are… maintaining. No details on that. On other things, I decided to set up something different just for the giggles and grins and not due to the troubles I've had recently. I have a Ko-Fi account now, which is something I never knew about up to this point – not that I keep up with what may well be a fad in Internet things. Frankly, I can't remember most of the others to be honest. Something about the color of a dress percolates up from the disinterested miasma of Internet pop-culture history. The link is my pen-name - https: doubleslash ko-fi dotcom /jbsteele - and who knows, maybe I'll glean something. I have a local Internet-hidden test Wordpress site running on a Raspberry Pi I've set up. I've put some original fiction that isn't in my for-sale books on Amazon, along with some of the HP fanfiction on… just to see how well it works. Wordpress has changed some since I've last used it, so I have to check things out. The main Wordpress site is https: doubleslash jbsteele dotxyz, but it's behind the test server in posts but ahead in features. I'm wondering if I want to post my fanfiction there or just link to AO3, with its easier to read interface than FFN. I'm waffling if I really want to set up a Discord, too. That seems to be bit more work than I really want, but I'm still debating that. It'll take me a while to decide on that.

So, it's a work in progress, but sooner or later I'll have it set up the way I want so I don't have to do anything but post. As for Ko-Fi, it's just set up to tip a few dollars for coffee and/or assorted caffeinated drinks. Also, my weakness – cream cheese Danishes. I live just down the road from a convenience store, so it's a good roundtrip goal for a daily walk – assuming my knees and hips let me!