“So, the time has finally come then, Potter?”
Harry’s skin crawled at the sound of Voldemort’s accursed voice. It was but a hiss filling the silence, and it took every ounce of his strength not to attack.
“This is what it has come to,” Harry answered coolly. “I can promise that you will not emerge from this battle victorious.” Voldemort sneered.
“Confident, aren’t you?”
“I think I have good reason. What with the fact that you don’t have a chance and all.” Voldemort’s red eyes narrowed and his mouth curved into a bitter frown.
“We’ll see about that…”
Voldemort's eyes gleamed almost hungrily. "Face it, Potter," he hissed, "You're nothing but an inexperienced boy. What skills could you and your little friends possibly possess?"
Harry betrayed no hint of fear as he stared up into the Dark Lord's flat, masklike face. He knew that the Order of the Phoenix would not let him down, and that the Death Eaters wouldn't stand even the most fleeting of chances. "It's on," he replied in a small, strong voice.
Voldemort's slitlike nostrils inflated. "Then let the match begin."
* * * * *
Severus," the Dark Lord hissed hissily. "A word?"
Snape nodded and slipped into the hallway.
"Your services are needed."
"Of course, my Lord. I live but to serve you."
"Potter and I will be sending our warriors to battle. We'll need... a mediator, and it seems you are the only one trusted enough by both sides to fit such a pivotal role."
"Or distrusted enough, more like. My Lord."
"Yes, that too. I trust you will use your abilities to keep a metamorphmagus, several Death Eaters, Nagini, Potter's monkeys and two werewolves in check?"
Snape swallowed hard. "Yes, my Lord."
As Snape slouched away, Voldemort gazed contemplatively into the distance. "You are my only hope," he whispered, "I cannot allow my Deathpants to be claimed by the Order."
* * * * *
Meanwhile, in the Order's changing room...
"Stretch those legs, people!" cried Captain Nymphadora Tonks spiritedly. “We’ll be on in moments, by the sounds of it!”
Several people rolled their eyes and Ron Weasley, the team’s Keeper, secretly wondered whether Tonks actually knew how to play competitive Quidditch.
“Come on!” she went on loudly, clapping her hands. “Voldy’s Deathpants are on the line here! I want to see some focus!”
“And what are ‘Voldy’s Deathpants’ exactly?” snapped Charlie, waving his Beater’s bat grumpily. Tonks attempted to stare him down.
“Very important,” she retorted. There was an odd pause. “… Apparently.”
Remus Lupin, Chaser, sighed. "I thought Harry could tell me everything," he lamented. "Now it's just, 'This is a matter between me and Voldemort, and this match is extremely important, so please do your best.’ Apparently, they've got some sort of wager..."
"Over... Voldemort's Deathpants?" confirmed Kingsley Shacklebolt, the other half of the Beater ensemble.
"So it would seem," growled Mad-Eye Moody, twitching as Charlie’s bat nearly missed his face.
"Oi, watch where yer waving that thing, willya, Weasley?" snapped Moody, as Charlie Weasley's bat made another wild circuit towards his face. "I've got enough scars already, thank you very much!
And I'm not a dragon that needs to be beaten into shape!"
"Yeah, but a well placed blow might make an improvement to your looks, you know . . . "
"Why you . . . !" growled Moody threateningly, reaching for his wand. "I oughta hex you into next week!"
"CHILDREN!" shouted Tonks, slipping between the men. "There will be no hexing! We've got a match to play!"
Fleur Delacour, Chaser entered dramatically with a towel draped over her nose. “Mon dieu! Zees dressing room smells worse zan Bill’s month-old underwear!” she exclaimed shrilly.
Charlie sniggered.
"Then Bill’s obviously paying more attention to personal hygiene these days," he muttered, snickering.
"Excuse me!" Tonks spoke up again. "Minds on the game please, people. Minds on the game. This won’t be a breeze. It won’t be a piece of cake, and you can bet your sweet bippy it’ll be one heck of a lot harder than pie. We’re battling some of the darkest people in the magical world…"
* * * * *
Said 'darkest people of the magical world' were currently camped out in their own locker room. Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy (both Chasers) seemed to be holding a wrestling match over who was to gain possession of the locker room’s one curling iron, while the third chaser, Draco, had snuck off to a secluded corner to indulge in his stash of hair gel, which he had hidden from his usurping parents.
Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange, possibly the most brutal Beaters ever to fly over the earth, were plotting and conspiring as they placed horrible curses on the Bludgers.
"It would be brilliant!” Bellatrix cried heartily. “And they shall-”
“But dear,” interrupted Rodolphus, “I’m rather sure someone will notice if the opposing team all turn into mutating red globs of pus…”
Bellatrix scowled.
“Curses!”
The Keeper of the team, one Fenrir Greyback, looked quite fearsome, sitting alone at the other side of the room. No one seemed to want to go near him, for some reason, but he supposed that was alright. After all, people reminded him of blood, and he didn’t want to eat any more Death Eaters, at least until Voldemort had forgotten the other…incidences.
Next to Fenrir sat the team’s seeker, Nagini with a sulky expression on her face.
‘Now Nagini, what did I tell you about playing Quidditch?’ asked Fenrir in the same tone he would use on a five year old,
‘I must not eat team members’
‘Good snakey,’ Fenrir smirked.
A moment’s pause.
‘Hey Nagini, have you seen my boots anywhere?’ Fenrir asked, looking around.
‘You said I couldn’t eat team members. You didn’t say I couldn’t eat their boots.’ she hissed with a smile.
The blood drained from Fenrir’s face.
“Why-” he began to growl, but it was all in vain. Nagini was important to Voldemort, and turning her into a pretzel was very much against the rules of Death Eater-dom. Stupid… Dark Lord’s pet. Obviously knowing this, Nagini went on smugly.
“And Fenrir, what did I tell you about playing Quidditch?”
Fenrir felt his eyebrow twitch.
“I must not eat team members.” Nagini smirked. Well, as much as she could, being a snake.
“I can’t believe the Dark Lord picked a snake over me,” Wormtail grumbled, pulling on his cheerleader uniform with extremely little enthusiasm.
“Excuse me!” protested Nagini. “Are you discriminating against me because of my species?”
”No, I’m discriminating against you because it’s almost impossible you to sit on a broom and because you have to communicate via laptop computer with a Parseltongue-to-English translation software program installed!” Wormtail replied.
Nagini lunged toward him angrily. “I would devour you right now if it weren’t for my New Year’s resolution to cut down on fatty foods!”
* * * * *
“What on Earth are they doing?” whined Voldemort. Because he was commentating, though, the Dark Lord’s irritated comment rang throughout the Quidditch Pitch, and the few spectators shot weird looks at him.
“Obviously not a professional…” muttered Ludo Bagman.
“Probably stretching,” replied Harry off-handedly. A moment later, however, he spotted movement from the entrance to the Order’s changing rooms. “Or maybe they’re… yes they are!” he announced. “Now, ladies and gentleman, welcome the Order “ the ‘Good Guys’ if you will “ to the pitch! And who are they, Voldemort?”
Voldemort squinted.
“Uh, first there’s the Captain, that weird, muggle-loving half-blood, Tinkadora… "
‘Nymphadora.’ Harry hissed.
‘Right, Tinkadora Tonks is brought onto the pitch.’ Voldemort boomed, ‘And from the other end we have a lovely lady in green. Nagini Riddle steps forward and smiles friendly-ly at Tonks. Doesn’t Nagini look fantastic next to her?’
Harry scowled, ‘And as usual Voldy-poo’s biased commentary has raised some eyebrows. But there seems to be some confusion on the pitch regarding the traditional handshakes…’
Voldemort signaled to the cameraman. ‘Close in.’
The two teams left their locker rooms from opposing ends of the field and met in the center, Tonks as captain, leading the Order's team, and the Death Eater team being preceded by what looked to be a very large snake.
They met and Nagini raised her head to Tonks' eye level, as Tonks looked around the animal a bit, analysing what would be the most advantageous way to shake the beast's non-existent hand.
"Um . .. " Tonks asked with a confused look on her face. "How is, uh, 'that' . . . going to get on a broom?"
Voldemort’s eyes narrowed in anger. “‘THAT!’” he cried indignantly, coming pretty darn close to deafening everyone within a three mile radius of the stadium. “‘That!’ she says! Of course, the crowd demands an instant penalty to the Death Eaters for the Order Captain’s blatant insult towards Nagini!”
A ball of tumbleweed rolled across the Stadium floor. Then out into the forest, and through the nearest muggle town until a little boy called Mitch caught it, remarking upon the phenomenon of finding such poetically meaningful tumbleweed in his humble little English home town.
“Well, justice demands it anyway!” snapped Voldemort indignantly.
Harry examined his fingernails ‘You wish, Voldy. With that message from your unbiased commentator no penalty will be given. Now will the match start already?’
Voldemort turned a nasty shade of green. ‘Alright,’ he said, ‘if that is how you want to comment. No manners in the young people of these days. Humph! Still… yes I do believe, the Quaffle is being thrown up!’
‘By Snape nonetheless! And he’s thrown it towards the Death Eaters. That is a complete violation of referee/player policies!’
‘Nonsense, that’s just the wind, Potter!’
Harry was about to argue, but changed his mind quickly.
“And despite the grossly unfair start to the game, the Order have kicked off the ground fast Captain Tonks apparently happy to avoid having to touch the Death Eaters’ slimy Captain…”
“SLIMY!” spluttered Voldemort, infuriated.
“That’s Tonks. Tonks with the Quaffle, and other Order chasers Fleur and Lupin not far behind. Then… what’s this? Order Keeper Ron Weasley being pursued the other Keeper. Fly, Ron, Fly!”
“It’s the other side of the field, moron!” screamed Rodolphus Lestrange, but Voldemort was no help.
“Tear his throat out, Fenrir!”
“Ooh! A bludger-“
“And Fenrir Greyback, the Death Eaters’ Keeper, appears to have attempted to tear the Bludger’s throat out,” Harry announced, cringing slightly at the bloody and disgusting wreck of Fenrir’s mouth. “Luckily, Dr. and Dr. Granger, Hermione’s parents, have offered to fix him up after the game if he agrees not to eat Ron Weasley.”
“Don’t look at me!” Fenrir roared through broken teeth. “He’sh cherry-chocolate flavoured! I can’t reshisht cherry-chocolate flavour!”
Ron looked around to make sure no one was watching and surreptitiously licked his arm.
“Finally, Greyback learns the rules of the game and heads sulkily back to his end of the field…” Harry announced, smirking. Voldemort scowled.
“Which isn’t as bad as Keeper Weasley, who appears to be hovering uselessly by the side of the pitch, contemplating what appears to be his own wrist-”
Ron scowled at Voldemort. Keepers were meant to hover around the goal hoops. Moron.
“It’s Greyback who should be worrying though,” Harry went on. “As Chasers Malfoy, Malfoy and Malfoy are off to a very slow start, Lucius and Narcissa… What’s this? A hair curler on the pitch! FOUL!”
Narcissa gasped, and her hands flew over her mouth like albino butterflies. "Lucius!" she gasped, scandalized.
Lucius blushed and frantically tried to hide the fact that hair curlers were spilling out from inside the sleeves of his robes. Quickly, he ripped the scrunchies out of his long ponytail and used them as garters to tie off his oddly bulky sleeves. "That was not me," he insisted. "It was, er Draco!"
Draco pouted. "And people wonder how I got to be such a pansy," he muttered.
Narcissa, possibly in denial about Lucius’s questionable nature, frowned at Draco.
“Draco!” she snapped. “You should learn to stop framing your Father. And with my hair curlers! Is this the child I raised you to be?”
Voldemort made large, frustrated hand movements (funnily enough, with his hands).
“Malfoys! Stop this “ this…”
“Family business?” suggested Harry.
“Family business!” agreed Voldemort. “And listen to your Captain, the lovely Nagini, as she tells you to get to the Quaffle! Potter’s team is about to score!” Draco frowned in the indignity of being a mere Chaser.
“Potter? Score?” He scowled. “Not in his life.”
"And WHAMMO!" Harry exclaimed loudly and mildly obnoxiously. "Our team just scored, due to the fact that Fenrir Greyback was a tad busy trying to take a bite out of Fleur Delacour."
"In other news," said Voldemort, "Harry Potter is a git, and Ronald Weasley's fly is undone."
Ron blushed and looked down at his trousers, only to see Lucius Malfoy zip by on his broom and throw the Quaffle past Ron and into the goal.
"Oh dear, you unlikeable person, this has rather displeased me!" shouted Ron, although he used somewhat stronger language than that.
Harry groaned, the sound of it echoing out through the pitch and stands.
“With speed fuelled mostly by embarrassment as his… nancy-ness is shown up, Lucius Malfoy gets lucky and puts the Quaffle through the side hoop. Next time ignore him, Ron! You’re wearing QUIDDITCH ROBES anyway!”
Moody swooped around the pitch, normal eye on Nagini, who was balancing on her belly to ride the broom, like a caterpillar on a twig. Nagini hissed at him several times, and Voldemort let out an unusual laugh.
“How dare you!” Harry snapped angrily. “And I demand a FOUL! Parselmouth on the pitch!”
"Takes one to call one," Voldemort said to Harry in Parseltongue. "And by this, I mean both the name and the foul."
Harry pondered this thought. "True, that," he replied submissively, also in Parseltongue.
"And while Potter calls absurd fouls on the stunning Death Eater seeker, the rather smelly-looking Remus Lupin-- did I mention that an anagram of his name is Slurpin' Emu?-- takes the Quaffle from the very, er..." Voldemort struggled to find a word that could accurately describe Lucius without insulting him. "The very, er... THEY DON'T MAKE ADJECTIVES THAT FIT LUCIUS MALFOY!"
Severus would have snickered, had he not been quite so irritated with the situation. Just about everything in the game so far could technically be called a foul.
Blundering fools.
“I beg to differ, Mr. Riddle,” retorted Potter childishly. “There are plenty of adjectives to describe all three Malfoy Princesses. Just none that polite society is inclined to favour…”
The reluctant referee’s eyes followed the Quaffle as Lupin passed it to Delacour, who completely unnecessarily cut in front of a slightly dazed and vaguely depressed looking Draco Malfoy, before making her way rapidly towards the goal posts and Fenrir Greyback.
Rodolphus did a spectacular little pirouette in midair and hammered the bludger that Fenrir had bitten over toward the goal hoops, trying to knock Ron Weasley away.
But the Bludger didn't attack Ron's shoulder like it should have. Instead, it simply hovered in midair and... licked his arm?
"Oh, Gladys mother of Merlin!" swore Voldemort. "When Greyback bit the bludger, he passed on some of his more idiosyncratic traits. That's not possible... unless the bludger was tampered with...
Rodolphus sighed. "Bella, what did you do?"
Bellatrix smiled slowly. "Tee," she said. "Heeteeheesnortysnortchucklygigglesnort."
"I was afraid of that," replied Rodolphus.
“FOUL!” screamed Harry. “I mean it, FOUL!”
Snape reluctantly blew his whistle. It was a blatant foul, and he couldn’t ignore it, even if he was meant to appear on Voldemort’s side.
Several people stared at him, apparently having forgotten this ridiculous game had a referee.
“Free shot to the Order,” he called. “No targeting the Keeper unless the Quaffle is in his region of the pitch…”
Ron kicked at the bludger. “Someone get rid of this thing; it’s getting creepy!”
As Charlie, a Beater for the Order, swooped in to the rescue, Tonks prepared to take the free shot.
On and on the game went, and the score remained maddeningly tied. They played until the audience members ears began to get full of cobwebs and their bums began to fall asleep. They played until Draco Malfoy finally couldn't take the lack of a soundtrack anymore and turned on his iPod. In fact, they played until the sun called it quits and went to sleep and the moon began to rise in replacement.
“And they’ve played until Potter, my co-commentator, has fallen asleep,” finished Voldemort impressively. “But, with the rising of the moon comes a terrible curse, ladies and gentlemen, whether the little brat is awake or not.”
Remus Lupin froze in the middle of a Chaser arrow formation.
“Oh… flobberworm.”
“‘FLOBBERWORM’ IS RIGHT!” cried Fenrir Greyback euphorically, amazing werewolf Super-hearing powers kicking in. “You’re all done for!”
He paused.
“Especially him!” Fenrir pointed at Ron, who wondered exactly what he had done to deserve this.
As Harry’s magnified snores filled the stadium, so too did the sickly glow of the full moon.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, high above, Severus Snape eyed Fenrir Greyback, Remus Lupin and the approaching full moon with increasing trepidation. Lupin he could probably outfly on that Comet 260 the man was wielding; Greyback, not so much. Snape surreptitiously but frantically waved his wand. He “ wanted it raining, pouring nay, the proverbial 40 day flood, a glacier to pour down out of the sky more than he wanted to be in the air with TWO werewolves on the full moon. He wondered if he'd have to be on the ground to do the complicated bit of weather magic he was attempting.
With a mighty FOOMPH! the heavens opened like the proverbial drain. A gigantic torrent of water poured from the skies with the force of a sledgehammer… but this particular torrent was concentrated specifically on one area.
Snape was knocked off his broom and to the ground by the jet of water and splatted face-down in a puddle of mud. “Well, that’s one way to wash your hair, Snape!” Harry called joyfully. He, like everyone else but Snape, was perfectly dry and toasty.
Snape scowled, frowning at the sky. Just a few moments extra to get to the ground and he would have pulled it off. Now he was soaking wet, looking ridiculous and had a very sore back.
Never the less, with a small boost of strength, Severus crawled out of the isolated, yet raging rain storm and lifted his whistle.
“TIME OUT!”
Both teams, tired and annoyed, fought the urge to curse each other or mutate into giant bloodthirsty monsters (also, Lupin attempted to resist becoming a werewolf) as they made their way to their own goal posts.
“Doing good, people!”
Before Snape could get Remus and Fenrir safely off of their brooms, however, the moon whooshed out from behind a cloud (don't even ask how that's possible, or whether 'whooshed' is even a verb).
"Oh bother," Snape growled.
What happened next was as bad as a really bad thing. In a manner suspiciously reminiscent of The Incredible Hulk, the two men suddenly ripped their shirts off and turned into bizarre giant-Mexican-hairless-werethingies as seen in the film version of "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban."
Unfortunately, since they were insanely different creatures from regular werewolves, the two monsters were still able to fly on broomsticks. Harry woke up instantly.
“What’s this?” he asked stupidly. “Werewolves on the pitch?”
There was an awkward pause as the two werewolves gathered their bearings. And then…
“Fly, Ron, Fly!” Harry called out, and added to everyone else, “There must be something in the rulebooks about this…” He pulled his copy out from under the commentator’s desk. “Let’s see… Welts, Weminns, Phillip Wendle, Wepons“ whoever wrote this couldn’t spell “ ‘We Quit’, ah, Werewolves.”
“Hurry up, Harry!” called Captain Tonks urgently.
"If a member of your Quidditch team spontaneously morphs into a werewolf," read Harry, "then they should be allowed to consume any chocolate-cherry flavoured teammates."
This statement was greeted by general uproar.
"Hi," said General Uproar.
"HOWEVER," Harry continued loudly, "If one of your players turns into a freaky-Mexican-hairless-were-chihuahua-type-thingy, then they should be replaced immediately."
Wormtail's ears perked up. "Ooh! Can I play now?" he exclaimed.
Voldemort snorted derisively. "No. Stan Shunpike is subbing in."
"But he's not even a real Death Eater!" whined Wormtail.
A sound echoed from somewhere, which sounded almost like a waxy long-limbed non-werewolf’s cry, and, despite all reasonable judgement and common sense, the two hairless, globby, giant dog things tore off after the noise, conveniently leaving their brooms behind.
“I AGREE ABOUT SHUNPIKE!” bellowed General Uproar. “UPROAROUSLY SO! WHAT DO YOU THINK, HARRY?”
Harry blinked.
“Frankly, Sir, I don’t give a damn,” he told the General. “I need someone to replace Lupin though…”
Snape pretended not to notice as Fleur and Tonks took the opportunity to get some extra goals.
“WHAT ABOUT ME?” suggested General Uproar to Harry. “OR TRELAWNEY?”
Harry sighed. Either he was beginning to get a migraine, or an elf with a polo mallet was sitting on his head. "Sorry," said Dobby, getting off.
"Whatever you want," Harry muttered, exhaling. "Can you, er, fly?"
"ABSOLUTELY NOT!" the General bellowed jovially.
"Spiffing," replied Harry. "Get on the broom."
At the same time, Stan Shunpike was assuring his team mates of his broom-flying prowess. “Oh, yeh. I actually bought meself one of them brooms wot reaches Jupiter, you know. I’m a real pro”I fly as good as Ernie Prang drives the Knight Bus.”
“We’re doomed,” Draco whined.
* * * * *
“Finally, ladies and gentlemen, we get back to the game!” Voldemort commentated, impressed by Stan’s apparently broom flying prowess. “And the score is, ‘Death Eaters: 23’ to the Order’s 870…”
He paused, and the Dark Lord’s expression soured.
“How did that happen?” he demanded. “And how did we end up with three points?” Harry shrugged.
“That’s just the way of the game, my serpentine nemesis,” he snickered.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, in the Forbidden Forest…
“Awoo! Woof!” barked a hairless-dog-creep, who was Lupin.
“Woof! Grr!” agreed the hairless-dog-creep Greyback whole-heartedly. “Woofety woofety grr?”
The Lupin-wolf nodded sneakily.
“Woofety woofety. Woofety GRR!”
* * * * *
Elsewhere...
"And Draco Malfoy has the Quaffle, he passes to Lucius Malfoy, who hits it with his snake cane-- nice one, Lucy-- and... OOH! Intercepted by chaser Tinkadora Narf or whatever her name is," Voldemort announced. "Meanwhile, General Uproar seems to have trouble mounting the broom..."
"You sit on it the other way," hissed Kingsley.
"BY JOVE, YOU'RE RIGHT!" the General boomed.
“And Tinkadora passes to Fleur Delacour, who fumbles, haha, and the ball is… swallowed by Seeker Nagini?”
Voldemort blinked nineteen times consecutively. Nagini burped. Wormtail stomped out of the stadium. General Uproar fell off his broom.
Harry would have blinked, but Voldemort had used up the entire stadium’s quota on blinking. Thus, he instead stared, wide-eyed.
“Yes,” Harry agreed, “The ugly, horrible and inept Death Eater Seeker has swallowed the Quaffle, for no obvious reason.”
“DUDE!” screamed General Uproar, who wasn’t, apparently, all that British. “THAT LOOKS QUITE PAINFUL!”
“The biggest question now,” commentated Harry, “is whether the General will ever get on his broom, followed by whether Nagini will manage to stay on hers. Any thoughts, Voldemort?”
“Eem “ gleep!” mumbled Voldemort, terrified. “Miggle “ neep!”
“I see,” said Harry. “After a few moments, the snake has… fallen through the Order’s hoops, effectively scoring a goal for the Death Eaters.”
Harry shook his fist; Nagini misinterpreted it as a friendly wave and wiggled her tail cheerily.
“What should we do now?” Harry hissed out of the corner of his mouth.
His mortal enemy’s eyes suddenly lit up as he formed a devious plan.
“Your eyes just lit up,” Harry stated, somewhat frightened by this biological phenomenon.
“It’s a figure of speech,” snapped Voldemort. “If you’re upset by Nagini’s actions, you can always forfeit to us.”
“There’s got to be a rule against this,” Harry muttered.
Tonks scowled angrily at Nagini, who had just scored two more goals.
“Call a time out!” shouted Charlie, from Ron’s end of the pitch. For some reason, one of the bludgers was very suspiciously starting to resemble a crazy Mexican, hairless were-bludger. Plus, it grew a snout. “Our lead just went down to 817 points!” Captain Tonks winced. The Death Eaters were gaining on them.
“TIME OUT!” she shouted. Snape nodded and blew on his Referee whistle.
Harry pulled out his rule book. “Erm… Phillip Wendle, Wepons, ‘We Quit’, Werewolves, Werebludgers “ whoever wrote this didn’t know much about alphabetical ordering…”
"Werebludgers," he read aloud. "We don't think they exist." Harry gaped like a codfish and skipped to the next entry. "WESTLEY," he read. "Wow, whoever wrote this book was as dense as Hogwarts fruitcake. I declare this match temporarily suspended until I can find something-- ANYTHING-- about snakes eating Quaffles or werebludgers!"
He suddenly realized that he was now shouting at the top of his lungs, sounding very much like General Uproar. He thought back to the anger-management classes that he'd taken after his fifth year and began breathing deeply before delving desperately back into the depths of the book.
Deciding this was a good time to pep up her team, Tonks summoned her group.
“Come here, everyone!” Ron, very relieved, came down from the goal posts as Charlie caught the Snouted Werebludger. Fleur stopped trying to kick Nagini, Moody joined the group, magical eye spinning, General Uproar trotted over, broom underarm, and Kingsley Shacklebolt, the nearly unpublicised other beater, turned up too.
“WHY?” asked the General pompously.
“Because it’s time for a huddle/huggle. I know we’re only in the lead by barely over eight hundred points, but-”
It was at this moment, however, that Tonks was interrupted, by… The one and only Bellatrix Lestrange.
"HEHEHEHEHEHE!" she cackled as she rode by on her broomstick in a manner suspiciously remiscent of the Wicked Witch of the West. "Do you want to know what I did to that bludger?"
"It appears to be a werewolf type thingymajigger," Charlie replied sophisticatedly.
"Myesss," agreed Bellatrix (because evil villains can't just say 'yes,' like laymen). "But that was Fenrir's doing. I put a charm on the bludger, and, well, I think it's time for a bit of half-time entertainment. BEHOLD!"
Charlie tried to hold onto the Bludger, but failed. Ignorant of this, the Snouted-Were-Bludger jumped onto the ground and began to tap-dance, singing in a high-pitched voice. The camera zoomed in, so everyone present could see it on the big screen.
‘They just hit me around. It’s not fair.
They don’t understand; they don’t care!
Although a brain, I have none,
I feel as much as anyone.
And yet, still, STILL, they take a bat,
And smash me about. What’s with that?
I pray for the day I get the sack,
But until then, I’ll just hit them all back.’
"Somehow, dearest, I don't think that was quite as diabolical as you intended, dearest," said Rodolphus.
Bellatrix flipped her hair and made a snorting noise like an ill hippopotamus.
“I’ll have you know that this little charm of mine is quite lethal,” she replied snootily, smashing the non-singing bludger across the pitch at the little band of Order players. Rodolphus raised his eyebrows doubtfully as the other team scattered and Snape called a foul for ill conduct during a Time Out.
“Oh?”
Bellatrix snickered. “Yes, my dear. They’ll be having nightmares for weeks.”
As the Lestrange couple giggled in their sadistic delight at Bellatrix’s plan, Harry pulled out another rulebook, three times the size of the first.
And hippies worldwide sobbed, mourning the death of the hundreds of trees that gave their lives for this massive volume.
* * * * *
Three hours later…
"I knew it!" screamed Harry. "Page four thousand, two hundred and one of ‘Obscure, Often Useless Quidditch Rules’.
'If an abnormally ugly serpentine creature happens to be playing Seeker and happens to have eaten, swallowed, absorbed or otherwise consumed the Quaffle, it is acceptable for the opposing team to demand a new Quaffle come into play, until the first can be extricated from the opposing Seeker.’ And a sharp blow to the evil team as a new rule is found..."
"Excuse me!" interrupted Voldemort quite rudely, snatching away the book. "My snake is NOT abnormally ugly! "
"Yeah, well, you probably think you're not abnormally ugly, either!" laughed Harry.
"I'll have you know that several people think I'm quite the studmuffin," Voldemort replied coldy, but Harry simply ignored him and read,
"While the Quaffle-consuming Seeker is benched, the other, non-Quaffle-consuming Seeker must also be removed from gameplay."
"Curses!" shouted Mad-Eye Moody, pulling over his broom and stomping off the pitch. Moody being Moody, he added, “The Unforgivable ones are the Imperius, Cruciatus, Avada Kedavra, and Bad Hair.”
He sat down, extremely warily, on the bench next to Nagini.
“Right then!” called Harry blissfully, setting the huge piles of Quidditch books beside him on fire, irritatingly useless as they were.
From the crowd, Madam Pince screamed protests to the destruction of innocent books.
“Right team!” called Tonks, waking the rest of the Order team from their stupors. “It’s time to get on the ball, and win back our monstrous lead.”
Most of the team rolled their eyes, and Kingsley Shacklebolt decided to step up (as his voice sounded far more knowledgeable and wise).
“TEAM! ATTACK!” he screamed uncharacteristically, and the team sprung energetically to their respective feet.
The entire team moved in slow motion, accompanied by the playing of “Chariots of Fire.” Then, General Uproar tripped over Charlie’s foot and impaled Mad-Eye’s magical eye on his broom handle, rather spoiling the scene.
Nonetheless, the Order flew with unbounded energy and vigor, fueled by Kingsley’s enthusiasm and the inspirational soundtrack.
“Tonks has the *new* Quaffle and passes to Delacour,” stated Voldemort, “And now…” he gasped. “Nagini’s going in for a dive! Either she sees the snitch, or that Quaffle she ate didn’t agree with her. And if she catches the snitch, we’ll re-capture my red-and-yellow-leather Deathpants!”
“Nagini’s re-entry to the game was highly unexpected,” commentated Harry, being a commentator whose job was to commentate. “But apparently, the Quaffle she ate has been deemed ‘digested’, and both Seekers are back in play. She’s seen it and…”
Harry paused awkwardly.
“Did that red-headed buffoon just hit the snitch away from Nagini?” exclaimed Voldemort, horrified, “and towards the Moody character who’s fixing his magical eye?”
“I didn’t hit anything!” yelled Ron, annoyed.
“And as for the snitch moving,” Harry went on, covering Charlie’s sneaky move, “The Order’s fantastic luck can only be explained by the wind… Catch it, Mad-Eye!”
And, accompanied by a pumping burst of "We Are The Champions," Mad-Eye stretched forth a scarred and knotted hand and... grasped the Snitch by a shining silver wing.
“But… the Order can’t win!” gulped Voldemort. “My “ poor Deathpants…”
“You’re right,” agreed Rodolphus Lestrange.
“Shall we kill them all?” suggested Bellatrix.
“No, silly. The Order can’t win! Oi, Snapey!” he yelled. “Disqualify them “ magical eyes on the field, and playing General Uproar…”
“DARNIT,” Uproar swore. “HE’S RIGHT, FELLOWS.”
Out broke an outbreak of chaos on the pitch, as heightened emotions (and punches) were thrown around like old bits of liver. Several Death Eaters danced, and even Peter Pettigrew waved his pompoms around. Voldemort, now the official owner of his Deathpants, screamed maniacally in happiness and randomly cursed nearby people.
In the midst of the chaos, Harry got to his feet. “WAIT!” he bellowed.
Everything froze, like ice, but Harry plowed on, like a zamboni. “According to The Annoyingly Big Book of Little-Known Quidditch Rules, Loopholes, and Plot Devices, if the two team captains do not shake hands at the beginning of a match, then all subsequent action is null and void.”
“SO?” shouted some random bloke in the back row with an electric-blue mullet.
“So, Nagini doesn’t have hands,” Harry explained. “The whole match was for nothing.”
“Well, that’s anti-climactic,” said the random bloke.
“QUIET, YOU!” roared General Uproar. “I’M THE RESIDENT RANDOM BLOKE AROUND HERE.”
“General, please!” snapped Harry. “This is serious. What should we do?”
“I think we have no choice,” Dumbledore’s wisdom rained from the heavens and through the stadium’s loudspeakers, “but to decide which team is the least disqualified. Only then can they receive Voldy’s Deathpants.”
In a ray of white light, the Deathpants were lowered from the sky, to arrive on the random winner’s podium, a heavenly prize.
* * * * *
Meanwhile…
“Woof woofy!” encouraged the Greyback hairless animally thing.
“Grr, woof growl honk!” snapped the Lupin were-thingo, who hated being hurried.
* * * * *
There was a stunned silence at Dumbledore’s remarkable announcement, broken only by a single voice .
With immeasurable profundity, Fred and/or George Weasley muttered, “Well, bugger this.”
Nobody else in attendance saw the twins sneak off, nor did a single being witness one of the twins flex his nimble fingers and deftly snatch the pants.
“Let’s see how long it takes them to notice.”
“I’m surprised nobody did.”
“Naah, they were too busy listening to the inspirational soundtrack.”
They glanced at Voldemort and Harry, who had their arms around each other and were swaying to “I Believe I Can Fly.”
General Uproar wasn’t the most patient fellow, and (seeing as how he wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place) blinked out of that existence with one, final, inarticulate roar.
The twins both rolled their eyes.
“We don’t even need to try to get away with this,” Fred commented.
Just as everything seemed freakishly easy, however, a shout could be heard.
“Oi! Uh “ stop that!”
The twins spun around in slow motion. Standing behind them, hidden partly by shadows, were Draco Malfoy and his Slytherin non-chum Theodore Nott, both with iPods, their hair blowing in an unknown, slow-motion breeze.
“Uh, why aren’t you distracted by the inspirational soundtrack?” asked George-or-Fred.
Theo smirked and gave him an ironic salute with his iPod. “I have my own soundtrack,” he informed them. “Because I’m just that much of a rebel.”
“And we’re stealing those Deathpants back for the Dark Lord!” Draco added.
“Well, I’m not,” said Theo. “I’m just here for the kicks and the rather flattering slow-motion hair-blowing.”
“Ignore my sidekick,” began Draco. “He””
“I am not your sidekick!” hissed Theo. “I’m a free man! BORRRN FREEE…!”
Draco elbowed him and Theo stopped singing along to his iPod.
With the conflict ended, the slow motion effect picked up again, as Draco moved one foot forward and drew his wand steadily.
“Noooooow, haaand iiiit oooooooover, clooooowwnssss!”
The slow motion effects dude got fired.
“NOOOOO!” shouted Fred and George, jumping into heroic fighting positions, wands drawn, and tossing the Deathpants out of harm’s way. George threw a curse at Theodore Nott, who very impressively pulled out two long, spell-deflecting swords from nowhere. The spell rebounded like a grain of sand bouncing off a three tonne steel block, and Theo assumed a dramatic battle position.
“Yoooouu’re gooooing doooowwn,” growled Draco slowly.
The twins did indeed go down. More specifically, they flopped down on their backs, causing Draco’s incredibly violent curses to harmlessly drift over their head and assail the man with the electric-blue mullet.
It was only then, with the twins on the ground and no longer obstructing the lovely view, that Theo noticed something somewhat unusual going on behind them.
“Erm,” he said, pointing casually. “That’s rather interesting.”
* * * * *
Meanwhile, a few feet away…
“Growl! Woof!” the creepy Greyback were-monster commented excitedly.
“Woofety woof moo!” agreed the Lupin’s equivalent, both speeding abnormally fast towards a certain battle scene.
“Woof,” Greyback-werewolf commented thoughtfully. “Grr goo mrph.” This meant something like, ‘I think I’d look good in those red and yellow leather pants’.
“Prrup! Woofety,” replied Lupin-werewolf doubtfully. This basically meant, ‘don’t kid yourself, dude’.
Greyback-wolf went for the pants, and Lupin-wolf did too, beginning a werewolf tug-a-war, accompanied by growls that were so abnormally rude, I can’t even tell you what they were in werewolf language, let alone in English.
Remus tugged valiantly on the pants. True, Fenrir was bigger and stronger, but Remus was considerably more loveable and usually won such battles in cheesy fanfiction such as this.
Because of this, the two giant-anorexic-chihuahua-typy things remained in a deadlock until a stroke of wolfish inspiration came to Remus's head, the only way he could wrest the pants from his quarry.
The Lupin waxy-rubber-limbed-were-dog-thing carefully held on with his teeth, but used one of his waxy rubber limbs to reach for Draco’s iPod.
The loveable underdog/vicious killer dog snatched the music player away, causing Draco to be swept away by the current sound track like everyone else, then somehow managed the tricky manoeuvre of getting the earphones on the Fenrir were-monster, before and fiddling with the controls.
For one truly horrifying moment, Lupin-wolf’s opponent was possessed by the music of the werewolf version of Shakira, but a simple touch of the button had Greyback enlightened by musical enlightenment and doing pirouettes.
The wolfish Remus Lupin tumbled backward with the pants and... swallowed.
Meanwhile, Theo shook his head in disbelief as he observed the twirling werewolf. "What kind of music do you have on that thing?" he asked Draco.
Draco's shoulders hunched up defensively. "My therapist recommended it," he muttered. "Something about soothing my tortured adolescent soul."
Theo regarded him with a briefly contemptuous expression that then gave away to an expression of contemplation. "Can I listen?" he asked.
* * * * *
As were-Lupin swallowed the Deathpants, there was a moment of total silence as everyone froze, staring, and the slow-motion dude was rehired.
“NOOOO!” screamed Voldemort, sinking to his knees in anguish.
“WOOOHOOO!” screamed Harry and Ron, the only other people in the stadium who knew that the Deathpants were a Horcrux.
“YIPPEE!” giggled Tonks, who was just generally a cheerful kind of lass.
Snape rolled his eyes and stalked off the field, completely fed up with this whole affair.
And Theodore Nott and the Greyback wolf finished the scene with a well choreographed, perfectly executed ballet number.
* * * * *
The next morning dawned, bright and clear.
A rather ragged-looking man with grey-flecked hair and an unshaven face groaned and stirred, sitting up with a Herculean effort. His stomach churned like an Amish woman making butter, and he wasn’t sure why. The events of the previous night were hazy.
He stifled a belch with a scratched-up hand. Ooh… what had happened?
A single word floated into his mind”Deathpants
Remus Lupin gasped… then paused… then giggled evilly.
* * * * *
Quite a long way away from this inspirational scene of victory and nudity, Hermione and Ginny were arriving home from a sleep-over with a friend out of town. Everything seemed to be a mess.
“What’s going on?” asked Ginny. The sound woke up Harry, who had fallen asleep under the Burrow’s table during last night’s after-party.
“Err “ nothing,” he replied guiltily. “Certainly not a highly important Quidditch game, in which Fleur Delacour and General Uproar played (neither of which have played much Quidditch) while you two, a skilled Quidditch player and a brainiac, weren’t even invited.”
Hermione and Ginny blinked.
Voldy's Deathpants by Deathpants, Mind_Over_Matter, wendelin the wierd, cmwinters, Schmerg_The_Impaler
Chapter Notes: We, the Deathpants do not own Harry Potter. The closest we can get to that is writing fanfiction like this. Additionally, we do not own iPods, or any of the songs/artists that were mentioned in this story, such as "I Believe I Can Fly" by R. Kelly, "Born Free" by Roger Williams, Shakira, and "We Are The Champions" by Queen.
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