Quidditch Captain
Within a week of getting the Galleon from Professor Longbottom, word seemed to have got round to all the professors that Hazel was teaching Johnny to be less, well, Johnny-ish. Even professors whose classes Hazel didn’t take had approached her in the corridors and the Great Hall with little gifts. The Potions master handed her a bag of Choco-balls after dinner one day, and the next afternoon there was a small bouquet of flowers waiting for her in Transfiguration. In Charms she was presented with a rather ornately decorated book of homework passes to allow her to skip essays she didn’t feel like writing. The Care of Magical Creatures professor gave her a small handful of Sickles and told her not to spend it all in one place.
The Potions master had really surprised her, since neither she nor Johnny were even in his classes any more.
Bemused by all this attention, Hazel showed the homework passes to Dora Lupin and told her about the rest of it when she ran across Johnny’s sister in the library. Dora was, predictably, rather annoyed about the entire thing but also clearly validated that the professors supported Hazel’s campaign to stop Johnny being a twat.
“I knew it,” said Dora, examining the passes. “I knew the teachers thought Johnny was a git too.”
“Comforting to know we’re not the only ones.”
“I’ve been telling Johnny what an ass he is for years and no one gave me any presents for it,” Dora remarked, tossing the passes back to Hazel. “S’not fair, that.”
That was because his sister’s insults had had zero effect on Johnny’s behavior, Hazel thought. She thought she was at least beginning to make a dent in his ego, somehow. When she spoke, he seemed to really listen to her.
“Anything from Professor Bartlebaugh?” Dora asked.
Hazel rolled her eyes. “You know she loves Johnny.”
“It’s so annoying,” Dora agreed. She sighed and looked at the bookshelf they were standing next to, poking at a few of the spines for a better look.
It was something of an informal swap meet on this bookshelf, where students brought comic books and novels they’d finished and left them for others to read. The school’s literary magazine was always stacked on one of the shelves, though it wasn’t terribly popular. Hazel had got many an interesting novel at the swap shelves, though, and usually brought in the books she’d read over the summer to donate to the swap. Sometimes students kept the books they got from the swap shelves, but most things were brought back to be passed onwards. There were always several novels on their absolute last legs, Spellotaped back together with cracked spines and torn covers. There was currently an old Fifi LaFolle novel on the shelf next to the pile of November editions of the Hogwarts Literary Society Magazine, broken into three pieces and held together with a rubber band because even Spellotape couldn’t hold the poor old book together. Hazel had always loved the entire concept of the swap shelf, and the warm knowledge that Hogwarts was full of other people who loved to read just for fun.
She would bet Johnny had never been to the swap shelf in his life.
Dora plucked a rather worn-out horror book off the shelf and tucked it into her rucksack before turning back to Hazel. “Are you going to the match this weekend? You can sit with me if you like.”
“No,” Hazel said in surprise. “I never go to Quidditch.”
“Yes, but now you’re friends with my idiot brother, I thought you’d go.” Dora’s gaze swept over her as she adjusted her rucksack on her shoulder. “You’ve never been to a game he played in, have you? I assure you, the Quidditch pitch is where Johnny is the absolute twattiest of all.”
Hazel sighed as Dora flounced off. She was probably dead to rights about that. Hazel could only imagine what Johnny was like when he had hundreds of people cheering for him in the stands. The mind reeled, honestly.
*
Hazel and Tink were at the dinner table Friday evening when Johnny arrived in the Great Hall, surrounded as usual by a small entourage. This time it seemed to be a mix of fourth and fifth year students, who all split off to their house tables, smiling broadly over whatever idiotic story Johnny had been telling them.
For his part, Johnny was as flushed with happiness as he always was when he had an audience. Like a vampire feeding off people, Hazel thought with a smirk. But he fed on attention, not blood. Probably that made him more harmless, but still a twat.
Tink looked amused as Johnny slid into the seat next to Hazel. “Always an entrance with you.”
“I try to leave an impression,” Johnny agreed. “I bet half of them will cheer for me in tomorrow’s match.”
“I bet all of them will,” said Hazel dryly. She watched as Johnny dished up a plate for himself, loading potatoes and beef Wellington into a tall pile. He always seemed to have a good appetite, even when a Quidditch match was looming. Not a person who suffered from nerves and stage fright, of course.
“How’s the team looking this season?” asked Tink.
“Oh, bloody marvelous,” Johnny assured her. “I have them on a good training schedule again. Had to put a few things back from last year. Turns out my brother Remus had one or two ideas right after all.”
This admission diverted Hazel from watching him eat, in a happy distraction from his abominable table manners. “Oh? I thought you wanted to change everything Remus did last year.”
Johnny shrugged, but he didn’t look at all embarrassed. “I did. I wanted to make sure the team was bigger and badder than ever, but as it happens, Remus’s ways aren’t all wrong. I put us back on his flying schedule and it really does work well.”
“Interesting,” drawled Hazel.
Tink rolled her eyes. “Sounds like you’re about to be coached, Johnny. I’m going to go sit with Lucas for a bit and let you get to it. Enjoy not being a twat.”
Lucas had just arrived over at the Gryffindor table, and Tink took her half-finished dinner plate with her to join him. He looked delighted in that golden retriever sort of way that he had, Hazel thought dispassionately before turning back to Johnny.
“Is it therapy time?” Johnny asked innocently, and took a big bite of potato.
“Why did you want to change everything Remus had done with the team?” Hazel asked. She was fairly sure this came down to Johnny’s deep-seated need for attention, to distinguish himself amongst the many Weasley relatives, but she wanted to see if he knew this about himself.
He shrugged again. “Dunno. I thought it would be better my way. But his way’s not bad.” He shoveled a bite of beef into his mouth, then waved his fork at her and asked with his mouth full, “Why d’you think I did it?”
Oh, she had a ready answer for that one. “Because you like everyone to know who you are and how good you are at everything. You want them to think you’re better than your brother at being the Quidditch captain.”
He considered this while he chewed and swallowed, then nodded. “Yeah, probably.”
“It’s very interesting.”
“But is it twattish?” he asked quite seriously.
She smiled, unable to help herself. “Probably. But I think it’s good you could admit you were wrong and do things Remus’s way again.”
“I didn’t say I was wrong,” Johnny told her. “My way was good. Remus’s was just a little bit better. I’m going to keep thinking about it, though, and see how I can do it better than he did. There’s got to be a way, he can’t really be better than me.”
Hazel heaved a long-suffering sigh. There was the twattish answer she’d been expecting. “That was definitely twattish,” she informed him.
He grinned at her, totally unashamed of himself. “Figures. I don’t reckon you’d want to come to the match, would you?”
Not really, if she were being perfectly honest, but since she was trying to teach him to stop being a twat, and Dora had said Quidditch was where he was the twattiest, she supposed she ought to at least see it for herself. “I suppose I’ll be there.”
“Wait, really?” A look of astonished delight crossed his face. “I thought you didn’t like Quidditch.”
“I don’t. But friends support each other’s interests.”
“Oh.” Johnny’s expression turned thoughtful, like he was absorbing what she’d said.
Hazel was still a little thrown by how much weight he seemed to put on her words, and tried to shake off the feeling that she was an imposter at this whole life coach thing. You know how to have a friend, she told herself. You’ve been friends with Tink for ages.
“So since you’re coming to the match, will you do me a favor?” Johnny asked then.
She was a little surprised by that. What favor could he possibly want from her? “What is it?”
“Keep an eye on those two fools,” he said, pointing over at the Hufflepuff table where his younger brother and his cousin were snorting with laughter as they chucked peas at each other. “Just let them sit next to you so they don’t do anything stupid. Dora will sit with you too, she’s the one who’s supposed to be keeping an eye on them but she won’t really do it.”
Hazel raised her eyebrows at him, amused. “You want me to babysit your little brother and your cousin? When Dora will be right there?”
“Well, Dora gets really into Quidditch matches, she’ll forget all about Liam and Ramses when the bloodlust kicks in,” Johnny told her seriously. “And Mum told us to keep an eye on them, but I can’t when I’m playing.”
“Do you really think your mother meant you to watch Liam every moment around the clock?” she asked with a roll of her eyes. “He’s not even in your house, how can you?”
“If he falls out of the Quidditch stands being an idiot firstie, my mum will murder me in my bed,” said Johnny with feeling. “Anyway, you’ll like sitting with Dora. You know she thinks I’m the world’s biggest git. She has a lot to say during Quidditch matches.”
Hazel could only imagine what Dora Lupin’s commentary about her brother during the game would be like. She hadn’t missed his bloodlust quip either, and while Johnny was the king of exaggerating his stories, she knew Dora could be pretty intense. It probably wasn’t much of a stretch to get to bloodlust from her. “Oh, I’ll bet.”
Johnny smiled at her as if he could guess her thoughts. “She’d try out for the team if I wasn’t captain. But she says she doesn’t want to be on my team, cause I’m bad enough when everyone isn’t cheering for me.”
“I’ve always thought your sister was an intelligent woman,” Hazel informed him loftily.
He grinned widely at that. “Thanks, Hazel. So will you cheer for me tomorrow? We’re playing your house, you know.”
She hadn’t known, because she paid little to no attention to what happened in Quidditch most of the time. “I don’t really care who wins, to be honest.”
“Well then you might as well cheer for me, right?” He wiggled his eyebrows at her.
She rolled her eyes at him, but she was smiling. “Oh, fine, I suppose I could cheer for you.”
He smiled back at her and took another bite of potato.
*
Johnny met with the team the following morning in the Gryffindor locker room. They were all filing in and giving him excited smiles as they grabbed their team robes and started pulling them on. Johnny always showed up already in his Quidditch robes, mostly because he liked the effect it had when he was walking through the school. He thought it looked more impressive when the team came in and their captain was already there, standing on one of the benches and ready to lead them.
Remus had never done that, which Johnny had always thought was a mistake.
Hazel would probably have something to say about that, he thought with amusement as he watched the team getting into their padding. She always had something to say, especially about his passion for being the center of attention.
“Right, you lot,” he announced, and the Gryffindor team all looked up at him, faces eager and smiling. Johnny began reviewing their game strategy for the match against Ravenclaw, and they all listened attentively, all eyes on Johnny.
He’d changed a lot of the team’s training since taking over as captain. Most of their strategies and tactics this year were completely different from Remus’s tenure as team captain. Some things Johnny had picked up watching professional Quidditch, others from listening to his uncle who was a League coach, and some he’d made up on his own. None of it was as cautious as Remus had always been. And Johnny didn’t care if they had fouls. Enough points scored overcame penalties from fouls, and if fouls prevented the other team from scoring, he was okay with that. Remus hadn’t been, and again, Johnny thought his brother had been short-sighted about that.
Who cared if they got a reputation for fouls? So long as they won. And it gave their fans something to talk about. Johnny was always game for giving people something to talk about.
The team was with him one hundred percent in the new ways of doing things. All but one of them had been on last year’s team with him and his brother. He’d replaced Remus with a new Keeper, a fourth year boy named Herbert, of all things, and while Bertie (as Johnny had nicknamed him, because Herbert was a terrible name) was rather good, he still played a little nervously. Johnny had told him to buck up, and he was pretty sure that was going to work in this match, because Bertie obeyed his every word just like the rest of the team. Hell, Bertie had enthusiastically gone along with Johnny bestowing a new name on him.
The team trusted Johnny, admired him. He knew quite a lot about each of them, and they’d heard all his stories by now. They were what Hazel would call his fans, what his uncle Scorpius called his enthusiastic minions.
He thought maybe he preferred Hazel’s appraising looks, evaluating him for how much of a git she thought he was each day, over the admiration of his fan club. Which he definitely didn’t have. They were his friends.
Like Hazel. Only not like Hazel. These were friends who agreed with everything he said. No one in here would ever tell him he was wrong, or a twat. It wasn’t that they didn’t dare say it or anything like that. It would simply never even occur to them that he might be wrong.
“You think we’re going to win?” asked Bertie eagerly.
Trent, one of the Beaters, clapped Bertie on the shoulder. “Course we will. Johnny’s our captain.”
The others murmured agreement, and then one of the Chasers, Gillian, put in, “We haven’t lost a match yet since Johnny joined the team.”
Johnny smiled confidently at them. “Course we’re gonna win. I know what I’m doing.”
Bertie looked both reassured and encouraged, and Johnny congratulated himself on his excellent selection in the boy, and in keeping the rest of last year’s team together. He really was better at this than Remus had been.
The team was getting to their feet, ready to follow him onto the field, when it occurred to Johnny that maybe he was being a little bit of a twat, if only in his own head, which was probably where all twattery started anyway. No time to consider that now, though, because the match was about to start.
Johnny, as both Seeker and captain of the team, led them out onto the field. Somewhere in the stands was Hazel, watching him with his sister, because now she was his friend and friends supported each other’s interests, even when one friend wasn’t interested in what the other was interested in. He hadn’t really thought of that before. Everyone supported his interests, but maybe he hadn’t supported theirs. He just liked when they supported him. Maybe that wasn’t friendship. Maybe that was just a fan club.
But Hazel was definitely his friend, so she was there watching him, and he was going to support her right back at the next opportunity.
The referee stood in the middle of the field, waiting as the two teams approached. Johnny listened with half his attention while the referee reminded them of the rules of fair play (three of which he’d specifically told the team to violate today if they were up by enough points), but he couldn’t help glancing off into the stands to see if he could spot where Hazel and Dora were sitting. He thought he saw Liam and Ramses at the front of one of the Gryffindor stands, and hoped Hazel really was there, because she’d keep them from being idiots better than Dora would.
He trusted her more than he trusted his bloodthirsty sister when it came to enforcing good behavior. Dora could be a bit of a drama queen, and she was a rabid Quidditch fan who didn’t care about anything but her team winning when a match was on. She’d once accidentally knocked one of their baby sisters off the sofa because she was cheering so hard for Puddlemere.
Maybe if Hazel could get him to be less twatty, Dora would try out for next year’s team. Johnny knew she was a good Chaser, but she wouldn’t play on his team. He was bound to convince her eventually, no matter how stubborn Dora was.
The whistle blew for the match, and they were off into the air with Johnny soaring above them all.