The Quidlo Match

Lady Anne Withers sighed as she fanned herself. She was grateful that the weather at least seemed to be cooperating with her husband’s attempt, even if nothing else was. While waiting for the referee to show up, Lady Withers mused on how her husband’s mania had begun.

Lord Withers had been visiting with one of his aunts, who had married a Muggle. In this way he had been introduced to polo. Lord Withers quickly became obsessed. He was already well renowned for his line of Aethonans, but now he wanted to create a whole new sport for his beloved winged horses to participate in.

Lady Withers had realized how futile any attempts to stem the tide of her husband’s new ambition would be after she found him going to Muggle taverns to learn the rules of polo. After two weeks he’d locked himself in his study for three days, only to wake her up at two in the morning the fourth day, shouting, “I have invented Basket Ball!” Lady Withers had replied that she didn’t care and that if he woke her up again before dawn she’d use a Silencing Charm on him.

Lord Withers had continued to be quite excited about Basket Ball all morning and flew over to his sister’s estate on his favourite mare, Chesapeake, to deliver the good news. Cassandra Trelawney nee Withers, had promptly informed her brother that he had not invented Basket Ball as that wouldn’t happen for another two hundred years, so he would simply have to call it something else.

Not the type of man to allow his spirits to be dampened by a typhoon, Lord Withers took the news stoically. By the time he’d flown back home, he’d re-christened his sport “Polditch”. Fortunately, Lady Withers was now awake and in a much better mood. She had pointed out that “Polditch” sounded ridiculous and that if he were going to combine the two words, he’d do better with “Quidlo”. Thus the noble sport of Quidlo was named.

For a while Lady Withers had hoped that since so few people owned winged horses, Quidlo wouldn’t catch on and for a while it looked as though she was correct. Lord Withers had managed to get his friends Darius Gray and Paladin Malfoy interested in Quidlo, although neither of them was quite as passionate about the sport as Lord Withers. Darius’ family had been breeding winged horses for so long that the Granian breed had been named after the Gray family. Paladin had just managed to acquire a pair of Abraxans. However, while the three friends had enough horses for several teams, they were sorely lacking in riders. When Lord Withers would complain to his wife about how difficult it was to get anyone to play Quidlo because everyone wanted to play boring old Quidditch, she’d typicallylook sympathetic and go back to her needlework. One night she had pointed out that Lord Withers couldn’t very well force the Quidditch teams to disband. This did not have the desired effect.

She realized she’d made a mistake after Lord Withers yelled, “Capital idea!” and Disapparated without further ado. With the help of Darius and Paladin, Lord Withers had managed to use their political pull at the Wizengamot to force all but thirteen of the Quidditch teams to disband, under the pretense of forming a league. Thus Lord Withers suddenly found himself with an abundance of interested players. What he hadn’t counted on was that very few of them had the first clue as to how to ride a winged horse.

Lady Withers was pulled back to reality by the arrival of the Quidlo referee, Gavin Umbridge. She was disappointed that he’d arrived; now there would be a match. Besides, she’d never been overly fond of Gavin Umbridge or his wife. Then she realized that her husband would likely have waited all night for the Umbridges to show up and decided that it was for the best afterall. She knew this would probably be another endlessly long match since only about six of the fourteen players knew the rules of Quidlo.

Lord Withers was more than familiar with the rules; he could recite them in his sleep. Lady Withers had discovered this a fortnight earlier when she’d been woken up by her husband telling her, in his sleep, how the Bludgers were charmed to avoid the winged horses and only attack the riders. This time she hadn’t hesitated to use a Silencing Charm on him. While Lady Withers was quite glad for the horses, she rather hoped a Bludger would knock some sense into her husband. Although she had to admit this was unlikely; he was annoyingly good at Quidlo. Then again he ought to be, seeing as how he invented it.

Armenia Malfoy, Paladin’s wife made her way over to Lady Withers and conjured a lawn chair next to her. Armenia smiled wryly and greeted, “Good afternoon, Anne. I don’t suppose either of us will be so lucky as to have to rush one of our dear demented husbands to St Mungo’s and escape one of these wretched matches?”

Anne giggled. “Have you been using Legillimency on me? I was just wondering the same thing. However did Isabella worm her way out of it?”

Armenia explained, “She found a baby christening to attend, lucky girl, of course Darius thought it was the most rotten luck. So, dare I ask how many of these players have ever sat astride a horse before?”

“Six; Elizabeth Longbottom, Galadriel Weasley and Tiberius Black all came out to join, thank heavens. Stoddie was extremely excited because Tiberius is bringing a Thestral he apparently captured and tamed. Why Stoddie’s so excited I can’t imagine, since he can’t actually see the Thestral. I’m not sure Andrew Ogden knows one end of the Aethonan he’s riding from the other.”

Armenia bit her lip. “Are you certain that’s because of him only ever playing Quidditch and not because he’s been helping his father run the family business?”

Anne smiled. “Not entirely. Although I know I could use a shot of Firewhiskey to get me through this.”

“I could use a good deal more than that,” replied Armenia, “if I have to listen to that wretchedly boring Twycross commentator, I think I’ll have a whole bottle.”

Anne looked at her friend sympathetically. “Well actually, I hired a different announcer this time. After all, Twycross put one of the Keepers to sleep last time. I advertised in the Daily Prophet, but there was so little interest that I only had one applicant: a Miss Selena Ollivander. Do you know her?”

“No, but I suspect that would be her over there,” answered Armenia, pointing out a tall blonde woman. Sure enough, Selena Ollivander was walking across the Quidlo pitch, inspecting the baskets.

The two friends were then interrupted by Umbridge blowing his whistle as he mounted a large Granian. Before he could start the game a dreamy magically magnified voice was heard across the pitch. “Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, welcome to today’s Quillidillo match. The red team consists of Roran Gamp as Keeper, Marcus Bagman and Paladin Malfoy as Beaters, Gerald Fudge, Galadriel Weasley and Stoddard Withers as Chasers and Edward Potter as Seeker. The blue team consists of Andrew Ogden as Keeper, Esmerelda Flint and Wilhelm Prewett as Beaters, Darius Gray, Muriel Jones and Elizabeth Longbottom as Chasers and Tiberius Black as Seeker. They all seem to be sitting on winged horses, except Black. How odd.”

Lord Withers was so busy shouting to Selena that Black was riding a Thestral that he completely missed the fact that Umbridge had begun the game without him. This was also lost on Armenia and Anne who’d dissolved into giggles at the word “Quillidillo”.

“Er, I suppose you didn’t have much time to explain the rules to Miss Ollivander, did you?” inquired, Armenia sweetly.

Anne shrugged her shoulders. “I did give her a copy of the rulebook, but she seems to be using it to shade herself from the sun.”

Selena’s voice once again broke into the ladies’ discussion. “It seems that Ogden has fallen off of his horse. Now his horse seems to be attempting to eat the flowers off the hat of Mrs Umbridge. I wonder if her husband will consider that a foul?”

Gavin Umbridge was too busy concentrating on the fact that Lord Withers had put the Quaffle in the blue team’s basket several times while their Keeper was uselessly running on the ground trying to catch his horse, which in turn was happily pursuing a screaming Mrs Umbridge.

Selena continued, “That is, er was, a very nice hat Mrs Umbridge. Would you mind my asking where you bought it?”

Mrs Umbridge was too preoccupied in attempting to save herself and her already ruined hat to acknowledge Selena’s question.

Completely undaunted, Selena started guessing different stores in Diagon Alley without even mentioning that Darius Gray had gained control of the Quaffle and scored.

“Longbottom has managed to capture Ogden’s runaway horse and is currently shoving him back on it. That’s nice of her; she was always nice to me back at Hogwarts. I remember one time Lizzie helped me look for my lost toad; she had the idea to offer him dead flies. Perhaps they would have caught that horse quicker if they’d offered him some sugar cubes,” added Selena, “After all, my father always said that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar and that you catch more flying horses with sugar cubes than turnips.”

While Galadriel Weasley scored another goal against the blue team, Selena was giving the audience advice as to the best way to grow turnips so that gnomes wouldn’t get them. Lord Withers was turning purple shouting that Selena should be discussing the score as Paladin Malfoy flew over and saved him from a Bludger.

“And that concludes the first Quidpillow Chuckle,” announced Selena calmly. However, Anne and Armenia’s chuckles continued for several minutes afterwards.

Rather than enjoy the five minute break, Lord Withers was hastily scrawling instructions on some parchment, which read:

The sport is Quidlo and the time of play is a Chukka
At beginning of next Chukka, announce players, their horses, and their horses’ names
Whenever it changes, announce the score
When they occur, announce fouls
Do not discuss hats or turnips
Sincerely,
L S W

Lord Withers then levitated the parchment over towards Selena. Unfortunately he didn’t check to see that she received it since Chesapeake was trying to get her nose into his robes, hoping for some sugar cubes. En route, Ogden’s Aethonan, ever hungry, snapped at the parchment and all that Selena received was:

The sport is Qui
At beginning of next Chuk
Whenever it changes, announ
When they occur,
Do no
Sincerely,
L S W

Selena smiled, waved at Lord Withers and then proceeded to make the torn piece of parchment into an origami frog.

Umbridge blew his whistle and the game resumed. Much to Lord Withers’ dismay, rather than following his instructions, Selena announced, “If everyone would kindly direct their attention to the pond they would see a truly stunning specimen of kelpie.”

Sure enough, what appeared to be a large purple muskrat made its way out of the water and began to scurry around underneath the players and their steeds. While Selena was pointing out the lovely shade of purple that the kelpie had taken on, Esmerelda Flint’s horse shied at the sight of the enormous rodent.

Fortunately, Wilhelm Prewett managed to catch Esmerelda as she fell. This wasn’t so much due to him attempting the rescue so much as that the Abraxan he was riding was quite large and happened to be in the right place at the right time. What wasn’t so fortunate was that Wilhelm had been about to hit a Bludger when Esmerelda fell into his arms but completely forgot about it until it hit him squarely in the chest, knocking the wind out of him. Despite this, he and Esmerelda managed to stay astride the Abraxan and spent a large part of the rest of the chukka trying to recapture Esmerelda’s Aethonan. Darius Gray eventually caught him and brought him back to them, mostly because no one was acting as Beaters for their team and he’d spent far too much time avoiding Bludgers.

By this point Gavin Umbridge had all but given up any attempt to referee the match, the best he could do at this point was determine how many goals had made it to the baskets and try not to fall off his Granian. Gavin was fervently praying that the Snitch would soon be found and he could get off the dangerous beast and back on good solid earth. He briefly thought his prayers had been answered when he heard Selena’s next statement.

“It seems that Potter has spotted the Golden Snitch.”

They were very quickly dashed when she then added, “But I doubt he’ll find it over there in the pond.”

What had actually happened was that the kelpie had transformed into a horse and had caught the attention of Edward Potter’s Granian. The Granian then pursued the kelpie out over the pond and then unceremoniously dumped his rider into it.

“Does he have to be on his horse for a capture of the Snitch to count?” wondered Selena aloud, not that it particularly mattered since the Snitch wasn’t in the pond and Potter was.

Umbridge was about to declare that if the kelpie caught the Snitch it would count when Lord Withers bellowed, “Rule 372 clearly states that a Seeker must be seated upon his horse for capture of the Snitch to be valid.”

Galadriel Weasley was rescuing her teammate from several Grindylows, when suddenly the Snitch was sighted. Tiberius Black went after it and nearly had it within arm’s reach.

“Well isn’t that interesting? The Snitch just Disapparated,” remarked Selena.

“No! That ugly horse ate it!” screamed Muriel Jones.

“Now Jones seems to be suffering from either a Rudbrash bite or is having paranoid delusions,” commented Selena.

“There’s no such thing as a Rudbrash you stupid woman!” yelled Jones.

Nonplussed, Selena continued, “Hmm, still not sure which, but I’m leaning towards Rudbrash bite…”

The two women could not discuss the issue further as Tiberius Black confirmed that his Thestral had eaten the Snitch explaining that Thestrals are carnivorous and particularly fond of Snidgets, yet another of the reasons the poor little birds are nearing extinction. Tiberius supposed that the Thestral had believed the Golden Snitch to actually be a Snidget.

Before Lord Withers could quote a rule about how the Seeker needed to capture the Snitch, Gavin Umbridge declared the blue team the winners and the game, mercifully over.

Lady Anne and Armenia managed to stifle their laughter before their husbands dismounted.

“What a horrid excuse for a game!” Lord Withers complained to his wife.

Anne patted his arm. “I’m sorry you lost dear, maybe next time.”

“It’s not only that we lost! That woman couldn’t commentate to save her life, I want you to sack her and get Twycross back immediately!”

Anne sighed. “Yes dear, I’ll owl him as soon as we get home.”

Darius and Tiberius came over for some good-natured ribbing with Paladin and Stoddard. Tiberius was happily teasing Stoddard over how he had ‘beaten him at his own game.” Anne took the opportunity to have a quiet word with Armenia.

“Stoddie insists that I sack Miss Ollivader,” she confided.

“Well we got to watch one fun game,” Armenia sadly replied.

“True,” Anne mused, “Then again, once I rehire Twycross, I doubt that Quidlo will last much longer as no one wants to listen to his commentary.”

Armenia flashed her a grin. “Yes well that would be because Twycross actually commentates on the game. I’m afraid I will never enjoy Quidlo, however, Quillidillo will always hold a special place in my heart.”

Anne laughed and joined arms with her friend before facing the unpleasant task of sacking the best commentator she’d ever heard.