‘Ok, gather around,’ Sirius shouted to the team.
The team had just finished their flying warm up and they were now gathering for the final tactical points before this very important semi-final match against the Silver Serpents, a team of boys, most of whom were sons of the most influential Wizarding families in Britain.
As defending champions, they were hot favourites to go through to the finals and Remus had expressed some concerns to Sirius about what might happen if their ‘team of misfits’, as they were often described in the media, would beat the Silver Serpents.
So far they had been able to hide Harry from the spotlight, even though he was by far the best seeker of his age, but the moment their team would reach the finals, they would no longer be able to protect his anonymity.
When Harry came to live with Sirius and Remus, they had changed his name to Henry Black to protect his real identity until he was old enough to attend Hogwarts, at which time the whole Wizarding world would know who he was. Until then only the Weasleys knew him by his real name.
When Harry turned ten, they had sat him down and explained how he had gotten his scar and that he was known in the Wizarding world as ‘The Boy Who Lived’ and that his name alone could potentially open doors for him in the future, but it could also mean that he would be regarded as Enemy Number One by certain Wizarding families.
Clearly Harry had already pieced together some of what they explained that day from things his best buddy Ron had told him, and Harry seemed unfazed by the news.
Sirius was too competitive and too excited about his team’s prospects to give the matter too much thought, but Remus was worried. He never played quidditch himself and his role as coach had more to do with the team’s wellbeing and keeping his partner out of harms way during the match than with any quidditch tactics.
From the day Sirius thought Harry to fly on his sixth birthday, the pair had bonded over their love of flying and it was only a matter of time before he shared his love of quidditch with his godson. Quidditch was now a passion for both of them and Remus loved seeing the pair of them so excited after all they had been through, but he did worry what winning this match would mean.
He already could see the Daily Prophet headlines ‘Prisoner of Azkaban leads Boy who Lived to the Junior Quidditch League Finals’.
If anyone would have told him a few years ago that one day he would pray that this team would lose the match, he would have laughed. He was ‘The Hounds’ biggest supporter, but there was so much more at stake for the two people he loved most in this world than winning this match.
He sighed and watched ‘The Hounds’ getting into their team huddle and starting their team song:
I am nothing but a Wolfhound,
Flying all the time
Well, you ain't never caught a snitch
And you ain't no friend of mine
At which point their Dog mascot howled loudly as the team mounted their brooms.
There were loud cheers from the crowd.
‘Nothing like being the underdogs to get the crowd on your side’, Remus thought morosely.
He joined Sirius in the stands, as their team got into formation.
They looked well in their quidditch gear, skilfully sewn by Molly, as two of her children, three if you counted Harry, which she most definitely did, were on the team. Ginny was much younger than the rest of the team, but Sirius had convinced Molly that Ginny was well able to stand her ground, having been brought up with six older brothers. Ron had initially been slightly put out, but now was proud of his little sister. In addition, the team was made up of local half-bloods who were less familiar with Sirius’ background and less likely to realise who Henry Black really was.
Today’s opponents knew every dirty trick in the book. Sirius was no stranger to such tactics from his own quidditch days and in preparation for this match he had ‘attended’ a number of the Serpents’ training sessions in dog form. It was amazing how little notice people took of a stray dog.
Ginny and her fellow chasers had narrowly escaped some attempts of deliberately being dislodged from their brooms and had spent half their time dodging bludgers. Remus had his wand out in case he needed to perform an emergency Arresto Momentum.
Despite their less than sportsmanlike tactics, the Serpents did not gain any advantage. The end result would come down to which team spotted the snitch first and who had the best seeker on their team. Their seeker wasn’t called ‘Eagle Eyed Henry’ for nothing and all eyes were on him and the blond seeker on the Serpents team.
All of a sudden they saw Harry go into a dive. The blonde seeker was hot on his heels and was gaining ground. He bumped into Harry to try to knock him off his broom, but Harry was prepared for this and pulled up his broom sharply, causing the Serpents’ seeker to lose his balance and nearly fall of his broom. Harry resumed his dive and seconds later triumphantly landed his broom flawlessly, holding up the golden snitch.
The Hounds had won the match and were in the final.
Cameras were flashing from all directions and reporters were flooding the quidditch pitch.
‘Oh Boy, here we go,’ Remus muttered, as he followed an ecstatic Sirius onto the pitch.
‘Goodbye anonymity; Hello being hounded by the press,’ Remus thought.
Maybe their choice of team name wasn’t as auspicious, as they had hoped.