This weekend was the quidditch tournament. Harry and Ron organized it as a fundraising event for the aurors, but swung it so it doubled as a pseudo-event. The press was always good for professional teams, so the ones Harry reached out to were eager to agree for some spots on the front pages of the Prophet.
It was set up bracket style, the auror department had 35 people who wanted to play, but Harry could only get four Quidditch teams on short notice so seven people had to sit out. Four team captains were chosen from the Auror department and Tonk’s made the other three team captains come up with a team name so the game sounded more ‘official.’ Any professionalism went out the window when Tonks announced her team name, ‘Tom petty and the Death Eaters.’ Her team objected to being called death eaters, and Ron looked so confused.
“Who the bloody hell is Tom Petty? Do you mean Voldemort? His last name was riddle!” Ron looked around trying to catch the eye of any of the other aurors to see if he wasn’t crazy.
Tonks began laughing and before she started to explain her hair turned from purple to blonde. “It’s a play on words, there’s this muggle band I like called ‘Tom petty and the heartbreakers’. What’d you all choose?”
“Snapes on a plane” Harry said, bumping his elbow into Ron. “Your turn mate, what about you?”
“Hungry hungry Hippogriffs! Hoping to bring up some memories and traumatize the competition. Give us a leg up.” He said with a wink.
“Ron, that’s terrible. Let’s not even talk about Harry’s either. Dawlish? You pick a name for your team?” Tonks asked eagerly, her last hope for a good team name.
“Uh, I came up with ‘The Quafflepockers.’ I don’t know too much about quidditch.” He said while he looked down at the floor. Tonks burst out in a fit of laughter.
“Merlin, good thing you all chose to be Aurors instead of quidditch managers, these names are bloody awful.” She said through her laughing fits.
Harry cleared his throat and moved to the middle of the room full of aurors dressed in quidditch gear. “Alright, everyone listen up! We have 28 players here and four teams. The Captains already have their positions, I’m playing Seeker, Tonks is playing beater, and Ron and Dawlish are playing keeper. Fill in the teams! We need 3 chasers, 2 beaters, 1 keeper and seeker per team! We’re all adults here, let's keep some order and figure this out quickly.”
20 minutes and 2 arguments later, the teams were all made up. Harry, Tonks, Ron, and Dawlish went to the desk in the corner of the room and opened up the empty bracket sheet. They decided to pull names from a bowl to decide bracket spots. They were playing 4 games today, then the semi-final and final tomorrow. The order ended up being:
Game 1-Tom petty and the death eaters vs. Wimbourne Wasps
Game 2- the Quafflepockers vs. Chudley cannons
Game 3- Snapes on a plane vs. Montrose magpies
Game 4- Holyhead harpies vs. Hungry hungry Hippogriffs
Harry and Tonks nodded in agreement after filling out the outer brackets on both sides of the sheet. Harry walked to the middle of the room again and got the attention of the room.
“The first game will start at 12pm. It’s being held at the Hogwarts quidditch pitch, if your playing be there by 11:45 to meet Tonks she says she has-“
“I have team shirts! And 11:30! We have strategic planning to do people!” Tonks finished her interruption with a death stare to the 6 scared auror’s on her team.
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Hermione was in the kitchen preparing sandwiches, a tower of sandwiches actually when Draco walked In from the living room buckling the last of his quidditch gear.
“My darling, are you hosting an army I don’t know about?” Draco asked with a quirked eyebrow and a smirk. He knew why she was preparing so much, she always made sure he and a few of his teammates were fed during tournaments, and now she had her own friends who were gonna be there and hungry too.
“You all eat like an army during quidditch season, so I suppose yes, I am.” She said with a shrug while she swiped some mustard on a slice of bread.
He walked behind her and wrapped his arms around her and put his chin on top of her head while she finished making the last sandwich. She grabbed her wand and magically wrapped the sandwiches individually then placed them in her bag. She grabbed a large Tupperware container full of fruit salad and placed that in her purple bag too.
“Doesn’t that need to be kept cool?” Draco asked as he watched her move about cleaning up the kitchen quickly.
She waved her hand in a ‘don’t worry about that, obviously i thought about that already’ way. “I put a stasis charm on my bag, it’s a portable fridge for anything that needs to be cold. And don’t worry about squashed sandwiches either. I learned from last time! Magical wrapping.” She said with a wink before she arrived standing right in front of him. She leaned up on her toes and gave him a kiss.
“Brilliant witch, you made the wrapping charm yourself, then?”
She hummed her agreement and began fixing his arm guard. He knew how to do it right, but he loved that she always noticed it was wrong and took it upon herself to fix it. After she was satisfied he looked safe, she pulled his gloves from her pocket.
“I knew I was forgetting something, I just thought it was my morning kiss.” He said while he slipped on his fingerless gloves.
“Are you ready then? It’s almost 11:30.” She asked while he wrapped his arms around her again. She felt him nod against her head. “Would you like to apparate us there?”
“My pleasure, Darling.” He kept his arms wrapped around her in a hug while they spun away and didn’t let go until he was sure her feet were touching the grass of the quidditch pitch.
“Ah! There you are, mate! And you brought Hermione! Oh I love when she comes, she always brings food!” Theo nudged Blaise with his elbow “isn’t she the best?”
Blaise said nothing but he chuckled and shook his head while they walked to meet Draco and Hermione.
“Hello, are you both well? Here, have some fruit before the game.” She reached Into her bag and pulled out the container of fruit and then conjured two small bowls and dumped some fruit into each of the bowls and shoved them into their hands.
“As I said, she’s the best.” Theo said while he picked up a square of watermelon and tossed it into his mouth.
“That she is.” Draco said as he Leaned down and kissed her nose. Hermione started blushing and began busying herself looking through her bag for the first book of many to distract her from a day full of quidditch.
A whistle sounded from across the pitch, and all three of the men dressed in matching yellow cloaks shot their heads up. Their team captain Victor, also their keeper, was calling for the team. Hermione vanished the empty bowls in their hands before they turned their heads back around. Theo and Blaise took off jogging towards the whistle sound with a “thank you, herms!” Thrown over their shoulders.
“You know what they say, Darling.” Draco said as he leaned down and moved his face, so their noses were touching.
“A kiss for good luck.” She said gently as she tilted her head up and gave him a long, sweet kiss.
He broke away from the kiss and brushed his fingers through her loose curls. “I love these gloves; I don’t have to take them off to feel you.”
“And they help you catch the snitch.” She said with a smile as she pushed him away. The entirety of the Wimbourne Wasps had their heads turned and looking at them, waiting for their seeker.
Hermione hated quidditch, but she loved to watch her boyfriend play the game.
She was reading during the pre-match, but once the whistle sounded singling the start of the game she looked up. Draco always started every game by flying over to the side where Hermione sat, and doing a couple flips before winking at her. She always smiled, winked back and mouthed ‘stop that, be safe.’
Hermione read throughout most of the match, looking up whenever she felt the tingles in her stomach telling her Draco was doing something scary. The Wimbourne wasps won the match, unsurprisingly. Tonks was the best player on her team, but even she hadn’t played the sport in about a decade.
After the first, and last game Draco was playing in today, he walked over and took a seat next to Hermione. He was getting comfortable to sit and watch the next three games when Tonks walked over and joined them.
“Thanks for taking it easy on us, cousin.” Tonks said as she playfully shoved at Draco’s shoulder.
“He’d never throw a game! It’s in his contract.” Theo said as he walked up and took a seat behind Hermione, Draco and Tonks. He reached out and started rummaging through Hermione's purple bag, she felt the intrusion in her soul and shoved him away.
“Get out of there Theo! You won’t find anything rifling through it like that, you have to ask.” She put her hand in and quickly pulled out 4 sandwiches and passed them out to the sweaty quidditch players surrounding her.
“You didn’t ask.” Theo said as he took a bite.
“I asked in my head.” She rolled her eyes and conjured 4 bowls and filled them with fruit, smiling as she noticed four pairs of eyes excitedly watching her. “Just like an army.” She murmured as they devoured their sandwiches and fruit.
Hermione did not pay attention to the other three quidditch games, she did get through 4 books though. Draco would commentate the game by her side so while she was reading she had some idea of how the games were doing.
The Chudley Cannons won the second game against Dawlish and the Quafflepockers by a landslide. They caught the snitch a good thirty minutes in, and Draco made Hermione laugh by calling it a ‘mercy killing’.
The third game took about two hours, held entirely on Harry’s back. It was a close game towards the end until Harry swiveled and almost fell off his broom turning around and shot forward lunging nearly into tower to catch the snitch and end the game. Snapes on a plane won with 155 points on Montrose magpies. Draco wasn’t surprised, if you asked him the magpies were a shite team. Harry was also the superior seeker by far, even against a professional player.
The fourth game was entertaining to say the least, Ron was supposed to play keeper, but switched to chaser to be competitive against his sister. Hermione and Draco were laughing from the start as soon as they announced “Holyhead harpies versus Hungry hungry Hippogriffs!” Draco began laughing and Hermione said through her giggles “that is a terrible name, what was he thinking?”
Tonks told them he was hoping to go against Draco, which made them laugh more. She told them the story behind the team names, which prompted Hermione to come up with her own.
“If I were team captain, I'd choose “For Fawkes Sake.” Hermione said with a small giggle.
“See! That’s a good one! I knew it wasn’t hard, I have to tell the boys!” Tonks said as she jumped up and ran over to Harry and Ron.
They returned to the group, and they all ate sandwiches and fruit and laughed while trying to one up each other on quidditch team names.
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The next morning Hermione woke up and repeated the same process as she did yesterday. She woke up and got ready for the day, putting on a red summer dress. It had a little triangle cut out over her stomach and it had a line of white buttons down the skirt. She put her hair in a bun and went downstairs.
After Hermione had her bag full of food, she met Draco in the living room.
“I know you do this on purpose, but I like fixing it for you.”
Draco smirked while he looked down at his witch fixing his arm guard. “I’ve been found out.”
“A green shirt today? Aren’t you playing with the wasps?” Hermione asked him after passing him his gloves.
“Of course, I just felt nostalgic today, going back to my roots. Slytherin green baby.” He said with a wink while he pulled her close. “Ready to go?”. She nodded and then apparated away to the pitch once again.
When they arrived the scene was exactly the same as yesterday. The teams that lost their games yesterday sat in the stands now ready to watch and see who claims victory to the tournament.
The first game of the semi-final was the Wimbourne Wasps vs. the Chudley Cannons. As far as Hermione was concerned the game was unremarkable. Draco didn’t get hurt, and his team won the game. The game went on for almost three hours, which was normal when two professional teams went against each other, Especially when both of those teams were known for dragging out their games.
The next game was Snapes on a plane versus the Holyhead harpies. Ron made a remark before the game to Ginny, something about an all girls team against the boy who lived. He wasn’t the best at quidditch, but he was determined to show he was the best at holding a grudge. He was bitter he lost yesterday to his sister and the ‘bloody fast women’ as he put it. Zola and Ginny were the youngest girls on their team, but were damn fast chasers. Being small helped in that position, they were able to maneuver better then the men that mostly made up the chaser spot.
The game was neck and neck and once again, Harry won the game by a handful of points and a snitch. The harpies had the better team by far, but Harry was a better seeker than Wilda Griffiths. They saw the snitch at the same but Harry was able to dive down faster and he nearly crashed into the ground grabbing the snitch right from under Wilda’s broom. She was so close, but Harry was not going to let his girlfriend's team beat him in quidditch.
Ginny, unlike her brother, didn’t hold a grudge when Harry beat her team out of the tournament. She celebrated with everyone during the hour break before they got ready for the final match between the wasps and Snapes on a plane.
“Kiss me good luck, my darling.” Draco leaned down and got his luck, then ran out and took his spot on the quidditch pitch.
Once the whistle sounded Draco took off and spotted Hermione in the stands right away, he darted over to her and showed off for a moment before he got told off, he winked at her and flew high up keeping an eye open.
Draco swerved to avoid two bludgers before he realized maybe they were targeting him.
Hermione was reading and got tingles in her stomach and looked up immediately, she watched as Draco tried to avoid one bludger by going left, but she saw the second bludger going right to where he swerved to. She jumped up and let the book fall from her lap, she stared wide eyed as the bludger was hurtling towards his stomach, she grabbed her wand and cast a slowing charm on the bludger, it was too close to him he wouldn’t be able to avoid it, but at least it won’t break his ribs now. She was leaning so far over the railing she was about to fall over when it hit Draco and knocked him off his broom.
Hermione screamed while she took off running down the stairs of the stands and to the edge of the pitch.
Draco felt time slow down, he watched as the bludger hit and knocked the wind out of him, making him lose his grip and fall over. He could have caught himself, he probably should have caught himself but something gold caught his eye a few feet below him, it was to the left but moving fast. He did the seeker math and knew if he kept falling he’d intersect perfectly with the snitch, and catch it. Or he could grab the broom and stay safe.
Harry was looking desperately for the snitch, so he didn’t notice Seamus and Lee targeting the other team's seeker with the bludgers until it was too late. He looked up and saw two fast flying bludgers hurtling towards Malfoy. He watched from high in the sky as Draco fell towards the ground, grabbed the snitch, and crashed into the ground. He cursed under his breath knowing he just lost the game, and then spotted Lee and Seamus landing on the grass by the goal posts. He flew down and jumped off his broom.
“What the bloody hell was that?” He said as he charged towards the two beaters.
“Lee and I figured if we took out their seeker, it was a sure bed we’d win!” Seamus said with a smug grin.
“I think the hell not! We agreed to a fair game, we don’t cheat! And we lost anyway! I can’t believe you agreed to that, Lee, you lot better go apologize to Malfoy and Hermione.”
Draco woke up face down inside in the bottom of the Ravenclaw stands. He had a cut on his cheek where he crashed before he caught himself on the ground. He sat up and groaned before he was knocked back over and curls took over his vision.
“Are you okay?! Oh Merlin, you fell hard! Are you alright Draco?” Hermione asked as she scrambled off him and frantically ran her hands up and down him looking for any blood or bones. She pulled out her wand and cast a diagnostic spell to make sure he was okay, but he only had a sprained wrist and a cut on his cheek. She helped him up and they walked out of the crash site and back onto the pitch.
“I’m great, love. This broke my fall.” He held up a fluttering golden snitch and had this goofy grin on his face.
“You fell on purpose! Draco! You're supposed to be safe!”
“I didn’t ’fall on purpose’, I just didn’t catch myself on purpose.” He said as he crossed his arms, smiling down at his witch who had a disbelieving look on her face.
“I can’t believe you! You could have been seriously hurt, you idiot! You are so lucky I cast that slowing charm.
“I knew you did that, you're always paying attention to my safety, Darling. Why do I need to when you're here?” He blushed at the face she made at him.
Hermione crossed her arms mirroring Draco
“If you ever do something like that again, I’ll never bring food to your games again.”
“Merlin no! Don’t threaten us because Malfoy did something bad!” Theo whined as he snuck up behind Draco.
Hermione rolled her eyes “I wouldn’t dream of it, you eat like I’m the only one who feeds you.”
After Draco had to listen to an apology from Lee and Seamus, Hermione forced him to sit down while she healed his wrist and cheek.
Once they were home Draco pulled something from his pocket. “I caught this for you.” He said with a wide grin as he presented Hermione with the snitch he fell on.
“Thank you sweetheart. I’ll put it with the others.” She gave him a kiss and plucked the snitch from his hand.
She opened a carved wooden box and inside rolled around about a hundred golden snitches. She smiled while she looked down, each snitch accompanied with a memory of him catching and presenting it to her.
Hermione hated quidditch, but she loved getting that stupid flying ball each and every time.