Harry Potter and the Curse of Ages

Chapter 13 Quidditch Tryouts

The rest of the week went as well as could be expected. Harry and Dumbledore explored the rest of the castle and grounds, meeting up with other teachers or house elves when they had significant memories pertinent to a particular site which had not been saved in the haste of the second war with Voldemort. It was emotionally draining for Harry to relive so many experiences he had as a Hogwarts student, and yet it also seemed to help him put them all into context. Nonetheless, the broom ride out to Voldemort's island with Dobby, Snape and McGonagall was a welcome break from the emotionally charged process of dredging up all his memories.

Unfortunately, when he arrived at the island, Professor McGonagall produced the pensieve and several memory bottles. "My apologies, Potter," she said when Harry groaned, "but these memories are as important to the school and the magical world as any others, and more than most."

Harry proceeded with recalling, removing, duplicating and storing his memories of the trip to the island as Snape and McGonagall began releasing the consumed souls from the dementors and Dobby laid out a pleasant brunch. The long broom ride and the crisp North Sea air stimulated Harry's appetite, so he was very grateful to be able to tuck in to the remarkable repast.

After the brunch, Harry decided to explore the tiny house which had served as Voldemort's home and hideout for the past several years. It really was rather pointless, since he could recall all of Voldemort's memories whenever he chose to, so he knew what to expect: very little evidence of magic there - some potions ingredients, a self-stirring and self-heating cauldron, a wizard chess set, and a collection of Famous Wizard cards (the Dumbledore cards were gruesomely disfigured). There were a few non-magical trinkets - a mouth organ, a harmonica, a thimble and a rabbit's foot: he was surprised to note how dark the memories pertaining to these things were, and so he forced himself to think of other things. Harry had had enough of delving into Voldemort's darkest thoughts. Harry had preferred to be in the house to hearing the repeated casting of the killing curse and McGonagall's comforting and encouragement of Snape. He showed the things to Snape and McGonagall.

McGonagall waved her wand and all the things arranged themselves into a satchel she had conjured which was entirely too small by muggle means to hold them. "This will be of interest to the Ministry. The aurors and Unspeakables will study them first, and then they can be turned over to the historians and the Merlin Museum of Magical History."

"That makes sense, but why study them? I can already tell you that these things are no more magically endowed than similar things you might find in Diagon Alley: Voldemort would have memories of any spells placed on them."

"Yes, no doubt he would, but it is something the Ministry would want to confirm. Also things which have been kept too long around a wizard or witch often begin to take on some of his or her attributes. In a family environment, the effects are so smeared that the imprint is usually meaningless unless the thing is a constant personal object, but around loners, objects can get downright peculiar."

"I could see that happening - sort of an unintended wandless spell placed on an object."

Snape sneered and almost laughed. "It is more often compared to wolves marking territory."

Harry grinned. "I guess that describes it, too. Are we done here, then? The sun has set quite a bit already. I've been here at night - I would prefer not to be again."

"Just one last thing, Harry," said McGonagall. "When we are all on our brooms, you need to undo Voldemort's spells on the island, since your formerly-shared power is what created the protections. The island should be returned to its normal state now that it has otherwise been cleared of magic."

Harry smiled. "Like turning out the lights as you leave," he said. "I'd be happy to."

For the weekend it was back with the Weasleys. On Saturday, Harry was taken by Ron and Ginny to visit Hermione at her new apartment, a flat in a building near Gringotts with office space in the bottom floors. The offices were used by the goblins for Gringotts' business. It was fairly small, but it suited Hermione, and the goblins had offered to magically enlarge it whenever she needed more space. She had been recognized as a good friend of Harry's, so they gave her a particularly good deal, and she liked the fact that it was nearly as secure as Gringotts itself.

On Sunday, the Daily Prophet had the first of their articles on the second war with Voldemort. It focused on the training for the battle and the scheme of appearing to be cursed into fractiousness to draw Voldemort's forces out. Harry and the Weasleys all enjoyed reading about it as they dawdled over breakfast, now that it was in retrospect. Nearly all of the team leaders were mentioned, and there was a special side piece about Neville, his tragic loss of his parents in the first war, and his remarkable development and contributions in the Battle of the Forbidden Forest.

"There's something missing here," observed Ginny, after she had read most of the articles about the training.

Harry was not as far into the article, as he had lingered on the background information about the Longbottom family. Having healed Neville's parents from the severe mental damage they suffered at the hands of Death Eaters in the first war, he felt a special affinity. "What's that?" he asked carelessly.

"You, Harry," she replied.

Mr. Weasley picked up his copy again and started glancing through it. "That's odd - with all the other names mentioned, I figured they had gotten all the leadership at least."

"No, she's right, Dad," said Harry. "I don't see Hermione or Dean mentioned either. In fact, I think ..." he said hesitantly as he scanned quickly through the article, "yeah, there's no mention of any muggleborn or half-blood leaders."

"Well, that's odd," said Mr. Weasley. "I'm sure the reporter was given all the names. I'm sure it's just a coincidence."

Ron shook his head. "I hope you're right, Dad. Have you gotten to the article about the fake-curse strategy, yet?"

"No, Ron, I haven't. What's up with that?"

"It reports how because of the development of the students as fighters, we had to have a way to get V-Voldemort to commit his forces, so we came up with the fake curse plan. It gives you lots of credit, and Remus and Moody, too."

"Well, I don't know how much I contributed, but the Minister gets both credit and blame. So what's the problem?"

"Well, it talks about how the Death Eaters 'had a source inside Hogwarts' that could tip them off as to the strength of the students."

"'Had a source!'" repeated Harry indignantly. "I have Voldemort rummaging in my brain for the whole year and I'm just 'a source'!?"

"That makes it sound like Draco or someone else was sending owls out," said Ginny. "There's no mention of Harry! After all we put him through to carry that off, and there's no mention at all! Dad, are you sure they knew how the whole thing was done?"

Arthur nodded thoughtfully. "I'm certain of that. Maybe they thought that was a bit too much of a private matter for Harry."

"They haven't shown any respect for privacy previously," said Harry, with a hint of a scowl on his face. "Mum, do you need any help with the dishes?"

"No, Harry. Kreacher is very attentive to the remaining Black family things here."

"I'll just take my tea to the library then."

Harry was slouched in a leather arm chair staring out the library window at the low grey clouds outside when Ginny opened the door.

"Knock, knock," she said. "Mind some company?"

Harry leaned his head backwards over the arm of the chair and smiled at her. "I'm always happy for you to be around."

Ginny stretched out on the floor in front of the chair with her feet toward the window and her head leaned up against the chair Harry was sitting in. He let a hand droop down to aimlessly stroke the side of her head and neck.

"Does it upset you?" she asked after several minutes.

"Hm, I'm not sure. Maybe it's just the way it was edited, or the focus of the stories."

"Everything in the strategy depended on Voldemort seeing into the school through your eyes, and you think the editor considered that unimportant!?"

"Well, maybe. It is a little ... esoteric."

"And I suppose you were irrelevant to the training, is that it?"

"Well, they had to make a story - people have already heard too much about me."

"They've heard many things, but not as much as they should."

"Spoken like my girlfriend," said Harry.

"Don't make me regret it, Potter. Yeah, I'm keen on you, but that doesn't mean I can't be objective. You trained everyone and there is not a person who was in Hogwarts last year that doesn't owe their life to you - we saw that at the feast, remember?"

"Sure, right, but that came out in the very first articles that were printed. Now it's time to give credit to all the others who took part."

"To the point that you don't even get a mention?"

"Well, that was a bit much."

"Thank you for recognizing that. It's got to bug you some," said Ginny, as she reached an arm up to tickle Harry's calf a bit.

"Okay, yeah, that's why I came in here. I didn't want to sound full of myself, but it seems like a bit of recognition would be in order. You know, 'training was overseen by Harry Potter,' that sort of thing."

"Of course, Harry. I made sure my name was in there, too, although I was kind of glad there was no mention of any details of our relationship."

Harry laughed. "That'd be hard to do without mentioning me, wouldn't it - 'Ginny Weasley snogged for hours with, well, whoever showed up.' That'd raise some eyebrows."

Ginny giggled. "You're silly."

"Speaking of which," said Harry, slithering down from the chair toward her face, "I'm terribly far behind on my snogging quota."

"Are you now?" she said tittering as he nuzzled at the nape of her neck. "Since when is there a quota?"

"I thought you read the fine print when you signed up."

"Must have missed that part - too late to renegotiate now, huh?"

"Do you want to?"

Ginny gasped as Harry nibbled her earlobe and lightly grazed the back of her neck with his fingers. She stretched her arms around to cradle his torso against hers, and she never did reply.

Sunday evening after dinner, Harry and Ron packed up clothes for a week and headed off to quidditch tryout camp. Tryouts involved various combinations of scrimmage matches and individual position work in which they got specialized instruction on the strategies of the professional version of quidditch. There were about forty hopefuls there, mostly people who had been to tryout camp previously and been passed over. Harry was a bit surprised to see Draco Malfoy and Cho Chang among the seeker hopefuls. Harry and Ron shared a room, but they were so worn out by the long hours that the only time they really had to talk was during meals.

Camp finished with a big breakfast Saturday morning in which it was announced that the procedure was for everyone to be visited by a representative of the league who would present the various offers of the various teams. Harry and Ron hoped it would be soon, since they were leaving the next week for their promotional tour. When it came time to leave, they both realized that for once, having spent so much time on brooms the past week, they had gotten their fill of flying. As soon as tryouts let out, they flew to the nearest point of Wales and apparated in several jumps the rest of the way back to London.

At dinner, all the Weasleys gathered as well as Fleur and Hermione. Mrs. Weasley was insistent that they all gather before they scattered. Charlie was returning to Romania the next week, Bill was going back to Egypt after a check-up at St. Mungo's, and Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny were starting the promotional tour. Arthur even insisted on putting off a meeting with his Haitian counterpart so that he could join the whole family. Molly had Kreacher prepare the formal dining room for the large feast.

Talk ebbed and flowed and swirled around the table. Occasionally Harry found a few moments in which he was not talking with anyone and just observed the chaos, laughter, jokes, reminiscences of meals gone by, chatter, plans - all manner of family interaction. Harry couldn't stop himself grinning at the splendor of it all. He felt Ginny's hand slip into his and give it a squeeze. He glanced over, and she looked through several loose strands of hair at him, smiling warmly. Harry had to act like he was wiping his mouth to sneak a wipe around his moistening eyes.

Ginny leaned close to him. "You aren't fooling me, Potter."

Harry glanced around the table. "Do you think ..., someday, ...?" He hesitated.

"What?" she goaded him coyly.

"Do you think maybe we might have a family like this?"

"We have one - they're right here."

"You know what I mean."

"Who knows what the future will hold? But it's the way I've always wanted it to be, and I've never known anyone I'd rather it be with." She gazed into his eyes, and he gazed fondly back.

Suddenly their reverie was broken by a dinner roll knocking Harry's glasses off.

"Break it up, you two," said Fred, laughing. "You'll have all the time together you need on the tour and at Hogwarts."

"Don't encourage them too much," said Molly. "They should take their time. And Fred, no throwing food at the table."

"Sorry, Mum, but it was better than shooting water at him, and I've been wanting to hear about the tryouts."

"Yeah, Harry, Ron," said Charlie. "I had considered trying out myself back in the day, before I settled on dragons. What was it like?"

"It was loads of fun, really," said Ron. "We got to run lots of scrimmages, and they showed us lots of positioning strategies we hadn't learned at Hogwarts. Bicknell, the Puddlemere keeper, showed us how to do the Double Eight Loop without getting sick or losing our bearings."

"Any troubles with self-consciousness, Ron?" asked George.

Ron reluctantly acknowledged that he had. "I was making some errors I shouldn't have. I was pretty nervous."

"But then they tried him out as a beater," prompted Harry.

"Really?" said Bill. "You never used to play beater even in our family games."

"Yeah, most of the beaters are stockier," answered Ron, nodding his head toward Fred and George, "but they gave me a go on both beater and chaser. They said I was bulking up enough for beater and that my long arms would be good for quaffle-handling."

"Oh, Ronny," said Molly. "It sounds like they really wanted to give you every opportunity to find a position that would work for you."

"Yeah, they really seemed to. I don't mind what position I play: it would just be great to be able to keep playing."

"And earning some gold while doing it," said Hermione, playfully nudging him.

Ron grinned. "You know me too well, Hermione. I'm more than ready to feel self-sufficient and to not have to buy second-hand all the time."

"Has it been that bad then, Ron?" asked Arthur, with concern. "We did the best we could."

"Oh, Dad, I know you did, and we always had what we needed. I'm really not criticizing. It's just, well, it would be good, ..."

"Financial security and a bit of a cushion are a big relief," finished Arthur for him. "Your mother and I have felt the same thing since I became Acting Minister. We were able to pay off some debts, get some nicer clothes, put some galleons in our vault. It's a relief."

"Exactly, Dad," agreed Ron.

"How about you, Harry? How were your tryouts?" asked Molly.

"Not quite as varied as Ron's, but interesting anyway. There were only four of us trying out for seeker - Cho Chang, some guy about 25 or so who's tried out seven or eight times, Draco Malfoy and me."

"Malfoy!" growled George. "What's that polecat doing actually looking for a job!?"

Harry shrugged. "Maybe he just wants to play? I don't really need the money either."

"No, but it's not just that for young Mr. Malfoy," said Arthur.

"How's that, Dad?" asked Ginny. "I thought they were filthy rich."

"That's the way to say, it, sweetheart, they were. With the change of heart Harry produced in Lucius Malfoy when he healed him, Lucius has been confessing to all sorts of things - things that would make your skin crawl. We've had to put him under special protection because he's ratting out all of the Death Eaters and others he had been up to no good with."

"That's great, Mr. Weasley," said Hermione. "It might be hard to get all the evidence needed to convict the surviving supporters of Voldemort without an inside witness, but what has that got to do with Draco needing the money."

"Forfeitures and fines. Wizard law provides for various punishments for various crimes: fines, forfeitures, Azkaban, wand loss, all sorts of things. Before Lucius was a tenth of the way into his confessions, the crimes he had admitted to required the forfeiture of the entire Malfoy fortune. The Ministry has taken it all. We'd be housing prisoners in Malfoy Manor right now except we don't trust that we can get all the dangerous dark magic objects out of there that they might do mischief with. If we can clear it all out and clean it up, it might be made the official residence of the Minister. Then Harry could have his house back."

"I like it the way it is - busy with all of you," said Harry.

"Be that as it may," said Arthur, "we can't use your house forever. If nothing else, I won't be Minister forever."

"So Draco is stone broke," marveled Fred.

"And homeless?" added George hopefully.

"No," replied Arthur, "and it is not good to revel in the misfortune of others, boys."

"They would have, if the war had gone the other way," sneered George.

Molly fixed him with her eyes. "And don't you want to be a better person than ... that sort!?"

George nodded sheepishly. "Yes, Mum, now that you put it that way."

"Anyway, he's not homeless" continued Arthur. "His mother had an endowment from the Blacks when she married. Lucius made sure she kept out of any Death Eater activities so that she would be insulated if anything happened. Her property included a smaller house they used on holiday and other occasions, as well as a decent amount of gold and investments - about what Sirius got through his Uncle Alphard."

"Wow," said Harry, "that's no small sum, well, unless of course you're used to living like the Malfoys did."

"Still, I imagine Draco Malfoy is feeling like he needs to be self-supporting," said Arthur. "It's one thing to live off the family fortune when you are the heir of an old blood name - it's quite another to live off your mother's dowry. So, Harry, what were the tryouts like for keepers?"

"They showed us various dives, swoops, turns, stuff like that. Frankly a good many of the things they showed us were more showy than useful."

"Well, of course, Harry," said Charlie. "That's one reason I didn't go pro. It's entertainment. The seeker doesn't just fly in circles half a mile up - he has to put on a show. I wasn't up for it."

"Harry?" said Ginny, putting a hand on his arm, "I know how seriously you take quidditch. Are you going to be able to do things just for the crowds? I won't think less of you either way."

Fred started to pantomime gagging until she started to put her hand toward her wand and grinned wickedly toward him.

"I sort of see the point. I reckon some flashy maneuvers are okay - so long as we also get to do some serious seeking. I kind of hoped to try out for the British National team for the World Cup as well - I'd hate to get rusty by not really trying for the snitch."

Just then a screech owl came swooping in and presented itself to Ron. He took the note off its leg and gave the owl a bit of beef. The owl waited patiently.

"Hey, it's Wood," said Ron excitedly. "He's drawn the duty of presenting the teams' offers to the two of us. He wants us to reply if we can meet him at 10 at The Leaky Cauldron."

Ron and Harry looked inquiringly at Molly. She nodded. "Tell him you can make it - Bill and Charlie and Fleur were going by then anyway, and your father has to get back to the Ministry." She added the last with a heavy, lonesome sigh.

Ron started scribbling a reply back.

Hermione spoke up. "Take Fred and George with you."

"Why, Hermione? They saw Wood often enough during training sessions last year. It's not like we need a chance to reminisce - this'll be doing business."

Fred was grinning slyly and nodding with approval at Hermione. "That's just it, little bro, Hermione understands. You want to find something in a library or brew potions, take Hermione. If you're in a fight, take Harry. Got to deal with dragons, take Charlie. But if you're going to cut a deal, you take George and me."

"I thought they'd just present offers," said Harry.

"Oh, they will, but that's just their opening position. You cut a deal on the Wizard Cards last year, didn't you? They bargained because they were going to make a bundle off of your name and likeness. And we bargained to get to host the kick-off. Business means bargaining."

"Fred's right, Ron," said Molly. "Don't be afraid to accept help from your brothers. You've never had much money before and you're likely to just accept the first offer they make. They'll help you a lot."

"Well, if he doesn't want the help, I'll take it," said Harry. "I did pretty well with the cards, but there are more issues involved in this. I want to make sure training can be adjusted to my school duties and see about playing time."

"Right, then," said Ron, "We'll all go. I'll learn from the masters."

"That's the way," said George.