At ten minutes to three o'clock, Harry and the Gryffindor Quidditch team were waiting in the Charms classroom to see who would come to their little meeting. They were sure that most of the school's Quidditch players would be there, with Slytherin as the only house that may not have their full team turn up. First in was the Hufflepuff team, who had all decided to arrive at the same time. Hufflepuff was the only team who wouldn't need to replace at least one player who had graduated last year. The Ravenclaws made their own way in over the next few minutes, and the Slytherins came in about thirty seconds after the meeting time, probably as some sort of statement only a Slytherin would understand. At first Harry thought he had been right and only half of the Slytherin team had shown up, but then he realised that they were down three players as their keeper/captain and their two beaters had finished with Hogwarts at the end of last year, so there were only four members of the Slytherin Quidditch team at the moment. The entire current Slytherin team had come; unfortunately that did include Malfoy, but every silver lining had to come with a cloud.
Once everyone was settled and sat at the desks like it was a class, probably more out of habit than anything else, Alicia stood up and walked to the front of the room. "Okay, we all know why we are here. The school has decided to abandon Quidditch for the year in favour of this tournament. Now I don't know about all of you, but I know at least some of you are looking at Quidditch careers after Hogwarts, and that includes me. The point of a school is to prepare us for our roles as members of society after we leave, and probably the biggest part of that is our careers. In that light, abandoning Quidditch, a viable career path for a number of us in this room, for a tournament where only one Hogwarts student gets to compete, goes against what a school is for."
As she spoke, Harry was writing down everything she said. Hermione had made one suggestion that was a bit of a nuclear option, but if it came to that then this speech would be pretty useful, so he copied it down word for word.
"That brings us to the reason we are here. We all want our game back. But how do we do that? I felt we should start a petition among the students, but I don't have much else beyond that. Any ideas?"
"Take the petition to our Heads of House?" Cedric Diggory suggested.
"All of us take it to Dumbledore?" Was the suggestion of one of the Ravenclaws.
"Send the petition with a cover letter to the school governors?" That suggestion came from Malfoy, and Harry actually thought it was a good one.
But not as good as the one Hermione gave him, so he stood up and said. "What about the press? Not the Prophet, but something like Quidditch Weekly surely would be interested in a story that has potential future Quidditch stars being hamstrung by a school tournament? It could even get the public support for us to have our Quidditch back. Like Alicia said, these are our futures that are being messed with. We shouldn't look over any avenue of getting this sorted out. I suggest we do the petition and each team takes it around their house and gets as many signatures as they can, and then we try Dumbledore first. He will probably say no, then we try the governors," Harry nodded at Malfoy for the suggestion. "Does anyone here know who they all are? And if the governors don't reinstate Quidditch, then we go to the press with our petition and tell them the story."
That got a lot of the Quidditch players agreeing with him, and they all started working out the details and writing up their petition. It was weird to actually be working with the Slytherins for a change, but they were surprisingly good at this type of thing. Harry even got a few nods of approval from the Slytherin chasers for the plan to go to the press.
Harry had a surprisingly easy time getting signatures on the petition, and for once it had nothing to do with the Boy-Who-Lived crap. He was Gryffindor's star seeker asking them to sign to bring back Quidditch; most of the House had signed immediately after being asked. The teams thought they only really had September to get this sorted, or the professors would claim it was too late in the year to change any of their plans, so they had to be quick. However, they were extremely quick; they finished writing the petition at around four o'clock on Saturday, and by five o'clock on Sunday over ninety percent of the students had signed it. One brave Gryffindor had even taken the petition to Madam Hooch and gotten her to sign it.
It was considered too much for all twenty three current Quidditch players to take the petition to Dumbledore, so only the team captains went (or the person their team had nominated as captain, in the case of Gryffindor and Slytherin) to deliver a copy of the signatures to the headmaster and to formally request that Quidditch be reinstated this year. From Alicia's recounting, Dumbledore had basically dismissed their concerns over how it could affect their chances at a Quidditch career, and with some flowery words told them not to worry their little heads about something so trivial. They sent copies of the complaint and the petition out to the school governors that same night.
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Monday, along with its other lessons, had Harry's first Ancient Runes class. A few of the students were surprised to see Harry transfer to this class, but when he confirmed that he had tested in and got an Exceeds Expectations on his placement test, they were happy enough for him to join. Their first class of the year introduced a new aspect of Runes to the class, their use in enchanting and warding. They were going to work on warding a jewellery box so that only the owner could open it. One of the boys had scoffed at how girly it was, so the professor had said he was going do the exact same project but on a full sized trunk instead, and the sight of him lugging around a trunk to bring it to class would be a lesson to him and the rest of the class that she was the professor and she knew what she was doing. Then she proceeded to hand out small plain wooden jewellery boxes to everyone else that were about the same size as the boxes Ollivander used for wands and would easily fit inside someone's robes pocket. Then she delivered a large wooden trunk that was big enough to hide a person to the Ravenclaw who couldn't keep his mother shut.
After class, Harry went and found Neville as he hadn't really had a chance to catch up with the boy yet, what with needing to sit his placement tests and then getting pulled into the Quidditch drama. After catching up on the stuff that had happened over the summer, Harry offered his and Hermione's help to catch Neville up on his potions. He explained how Snape had glossed over teaching them a lot of the basics that the grease ball saw as too obvious to bother teaching, and how even Hermione had gotten some of it wrong. He also offered to teach Neville the charms that kept people like Malfoy from throwing stuff into their cauldrons and the charm that meant that any noxious fumes from their potions wouldn't be breathed in. Neville accepted almost immediately and thanked Harry for agreeing to help him, apparently his gran was getting rather upset at him because of the cost of constantly replacing the cauldrons he melted.
The next few days were relatively routine: classes, homework, helping Neville, hanging out,, and of course sneaking off with Hermione so that they could continue the inspections of each other's mouths using only their tongues. It was embarrassing when they lost track of time one evening and they were found by a prefect in an empty classroom enjoying their time alone, but they got away with a warning as they were close to their common room and it was only a few minutes after curfew.
On Wednesday, Harry and his fellow Gryffindor fourth years got to experience their second Potions lesson of the year. Harry, Hermione, and Ron all cast their safety charms as soon as they were setting up. Snape glared at them, but despite the pulsing vein that was visible on the side of his temple, he didn't say anything. Neville hadn't been able to work out the charms yet, so Harry cast them for him; he was working with Neville today so he could show the other boy some of the things his grandfather had taught him while working on today's potion.
Snape set them an annoying tricky potion, and Harry would have thought that Snape was doing it just to spite Harry but he did the same thing after every summer holiday, so this was probably the same potion they would have brewed last Friday if the lesson hadn't been interrupted. With Harry now understanding the fundamentals in a way he never had before, he was able to coach Neville through it and together they made what Harry thought was a decent attempt at the potion. At the end of the class, Harry took not one but two vials of the potion and labelled one as his and Neville's and pocketed the other, making sure Snape saw him do it.
"Potter, why are you taking a vial of potion! Why do you need an ageing solution?" Snape demanded, his usual derision in his voice and the ever present sneer in full force on his face.
"My grandfather wants to keep track of my Potions education, so he wants me to send him a vial of each potion I make in class. Is that a problem professor?" Harry asked as innocently as he could. Snape just went back to what he was doing, refusing to say anything, so Harry just went back to his clean up. Grandfather Charlus hadn't asked anything of the sort, but Harry was sure that telling Snape that his work was being checked by a certified Grandmaster would keep the petty professor from marking him down unfairly.
After classes were done for the day, Harry had returned to the common room, where he was pulled aside by the twins.
"Harrykins, how are you doing right now?"
"Any real pressing things taking up your time?"
"Any head injuries affecting your memory?"
"Or maybe you are acting like a Malfoy and dealing in bad faith?" The twins bounced back and forth in their speech like they normally did.
"What are you guys going on about?" Harry asked, genuinely confused.
"Did you, or did you not, make a deal with us to introduce us to at least one of the Marauders?"
"If only we convinced you."
"Either little Harrykins was bluffing or he had set the price too high, right Fred?"
"Right you are George. And I think that some rather extreme pranking may be in order, don't you?"
Harry suddenly remembered the prank from the World Cup. "Damn, sorry guys, the plan was to tell you just before you left to go home after the World Cup, but with everything that happened I completely forgot all about it. Genuinely sorry about that. It's Sirius, he is Padfoot, and Professor Lupin is Moony. The prank was you would have spent the entire time in their company, then found out just before you left," he explained. "Still, Sirius did say he would be happy for the two of you to write to him." Harry offered up as an olive branch.
Both the twins looked at Harry for a while before they burst out laughing. They both considered it a brilliant prank that what they wanted was right under their nose, a few times when they were in the tents sitting room even almost literally. They were ecstatic to receive an invitation to be pen pals with one of their heroes.
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It wasn't until Friday that they heard anything about the petition they had sent the school governors. Apparently they were in a deadlock over the issue; some didn't want a disruption to what was considered a prestigious event and others wanted to give the students who earned it their shot at being signed for a team. Both sides seemed to be unwilling to budge from their positions. This led to the second meeting of the 'Quidditch Liberation Team', as Fred and George had taken to calling them. A few additional people had joined them for this meeting, like prospective team members and a few hangers on like Lee Jordan and Hermione who were close friends of some of the players. Unfortunately, that meant that Malfoy had his two bookends Crabbe and Goyle back, but as Harry had Ron and Hermione he couldn't say much.
The conversation was centred around if it was time to write to Quidditch Weekly. Some wanted to give the governors an opportunity to render a decision first, but Hermione spoke up. "If you wait for a decision to be made, then the governors would have to undo it. That would be a loss of face for them and they could dig their heels in. If, however, you can swing an opinion before the decision is made, then it should be easier for them to agree to resume Quidditch."
One of the Slytherin chasers said that Hermione's plan sounded almost Slytherin. Hermione nodded at the boy accepting the compliment as it was intended, but Malfoy just scoffed. It was perhaps an indication that Draco had lost some of his position in his house because none of the Slytherins, not even Crabbe and Goyle, paid him any attention as he scoffed at Hermione. It made sense to Harry now, after the lessons he had had from his grandfather over the summer. A lot of Malfoy's power would have come from everyone believing that he was the Black Heir. Warlock Black had a lot of power and people would have wanted to get close to that power. But that potential future power had been stripped from the big-mouthed blond bigot in a very public way. It wouldn't have taken long for word that Malfoy had been completely barred from any possibility of ever gaining the headship of the House of Black to spread around those who cared about such things.
In the end, they decided to send the letter to Quidditch Weekly. More accurately, everyone decided it was going to be Harry who sent the letter with the four team captains signing as well in support. It was hoped that they could exploit Harry's celebrity status to get the press on their side. Harry wanted to protest more than he did, but Hermione pointed out that it was a good strategy. At least Harry would be using it for something worthwhile and would get something he wanted for it.
Less than twelve hours later they got a reply. The editor was really interested in sending someone to interview the Quidditch teams, but there was a problem. Hogwarts being a school meant that adults couldn't just walk onto the grounds to talk to students whenever they wanted. Except for some very specific exceptions from the Ministry and the school governors, an adult wanting access to the school to speak to a student needed both the permission of a professor (either their head of house, the headteacher, or their deputy) and the parent or guardian of the student. As the professors whose permission they needed were the very ones likely to be targeted by the article they wanted written, there was little to no doubt that they wouldn't get it. They needed to find a way to do this without the professors getting in the way.
Harry briefly considered seeking the reporter in through the tunnel from the Shrieking Shack, but decided against telling a journalist about a secret way in and out of the school. Cedric was the one who had the idea that they should write to their parents. If they could get enough of the parents to take them out of the school for a day or even a few hours, then they could go and speak to the journalist in the Three Broomsticks or something. A few of the parents did agree, but most refused. Molly Weasley sent back a rather harshly worded letter that basically told the twins that they should do something useful with their time without Quidditch and finally do some studying. Harry thought Mrs. Weasley had that one completely backwards, in his opinion. The saying "Idle hands are the devil's playground" existed for a reason. Harry was sure if you kept the twins from flying, they would end up pulling more pranks this year than they had during Harry's first three years at the school combined.
It was Sirius though who came out at the top though. He refused to let Harry leave the castle, but he came up with a different solution, one that let every member of the Quidditch team talk to the reporter and for none of them to break a single school rule in doing so: the two way mirrors they had (Harry had one and Sirius the other). The reporter would visit Sirius at Potter Manor on Wednesday evening, and the 'Quidditch Liberation Team' would meet up in their usual spot at the same time, using the mirrors to give their interviews.
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There was more to the weekend than Quidditch. After seeing Harry, Ron, and Hermione use the charms in their Potions class that week, they were asked by the rest of the Gryffindor fourth years to teach them the charms. The girls especially loved the idea of the Bubble-Head charm as they really weren't too fond of the smell in the Potions classroom even when they went brewing, and it only got worse once the cauldrons were lit. Harry unfortunately couldn't help as he had his first detention with Professor McGonagall over his losing his cool in the first Potions class, but luckily for him Professor McGonagall put at least some of Harry's reaction down to stress of having a surprise extra exam placed on him that day that he would have only a few hours to prepare for, so she went easy on him. Instead of writing lines or scrubbing floors, Harry was just told to do his homework.
It wasn't as fun doing his homework in the corner of McGonagall's classroom as it was doing it with Hermione, but at least he was only doing work he was going to be doing anyway. Apart from asking the odd question of his professor when he got stuck, he worked in relative silence for a few hours before McGonagall let him go. Once he got back to the common room, Hermione and Ron had finished showing the Gryffindor fourth years the charms and he found them off in a corner while Hermione laughed at something Ron was saying. Harry walked over to the two of them and caught the tail end of some joke Ron was telling. "Then the wizard says, 'That's not a troll, that's my wife!'" And the two teens started laughing again.
Ron spotted Harry first and waved him over. Harry sat next to Hermione and she twisted around so that her legs laid across his lap and she leaned back using the arm of the soft sofa as a pillow. "So how was your detention?" Ron asked.
"Not bad. McGonagall just had me doing my homework. Saves me from needing to do it later. How did your demonstration go?" Harry asked.
"All the fourth year Gryffindors can now do at least one of the spells,, and they are going to keep practicing," Hermione answered. "Lavender said she was only learning to annoy Snape. Of course, a bunch of others heard that and wanted an explanation, so I told them about how Dumbledore approved the safety charms despite Snape not liking them, so the others all wanted to learn as well." Hermione was smirking by this point. " I'm pretty sure most of the students in the school will be using the charms in the next few weeks, some because they are good practice, others just to get back at Snape."
Harry smiled at that. Ron spoke up. "I'm just curious how much less students will need the hospital wing. If there is a big enough drop, maybe Madam Pomfrey will force Snape to make the charms mandatory."
"I'm more worried Snape will be a harsher marker for any students using the safety charms," Hermione said as she started to unpick a lock of her hair that appeared to have a small tangle in it. Harry told her about telling Snape he was sending samples of his brewing to Charlus, so Snape would think any unfair marks would be spotted and contested. Hermione thought that was genius but insisted they actually sent the vials, so if a mark ever seemed wrong Charlus could check.
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It took a full week more of interviews before the article came out in Quidditch Weekly. Harry didn't subscribe, so it was only when the teams got together again the day the magazine came out that Harry got to see the article. Unfortunately even though he knew it was coming, the article contained a large picture of Harry. Luckily there were also pictures of the team captains as well, but Harry's face had more page space than the article itself, which was basically just a rehash of the points the Quidditch players had made rewritten by a professional so they sounded a hell of a lot more convincing. Now they just had to wait and see how this would all play out.
Nothing happened until the next day at breakfast. When the mail arrived, suddenly the Great Hall went dark; not the pitch black where you might think you had gone blind, but more like all the windows suddenly had closed curtains. The cause of the blockage of the natural light was the onslaught of owls in the Hall. Over two-thirds of them were dropping their mail in front of six people: the four captains/acting captains of the Quidditch teams, Harry, and Dumbledore. Of the six of them Dumbledore had by far the most mail, his own pile of letters must have been twice as big as the piles Harry and the Quidditch captains had combined. Harry had the next largest pile, and he was just starting to look at his mound of mail when a few staff started to point at the smoke that was coming from Dumbledore's pile. Realising what it was, Harry barely had enough time to cover his ears before suddenly multiple Howlers went off at the same time. It was impossible to understand any of them individually, but Harry heard the words 'Quidditch, scout, restore, and Harry Potter' quite a lot.
Harry didn't wait for the fall out; he grabbed as much of the letters he had been sent as he could, stuffing them in his pockets and carrying even more, Ron and Hermione following him by doing the same. They quickly left the Great Hall and made their way to the classroom that the Quidditch Liberation Team had commandeered. Luckily, Quidditch Weekly was released on a Saturday, so with today being Sunday Harry wouldn't have to go to class. It wasn't long before the rest of the Quidditch players started to show up, all interested in finding out what the letters said. Harry and the captains put them to work opening letters and sorting them into pro-reinstatement of Quidditch and against the reinstatement of Quidditch, and 'other' for all the letters that were sent that had nothing to do with Quidditch. Harry's "other" pile mostly had a few proposals of marriage and offers of a sexual nature, but he just burned them right there with a quick Incendio. Harry was quite happy with his relationship, and Hermione got a little smile whenever she saw him burn one of those letters, so he was more than happy to keep doing it.
There was one letter from a professional team that basically offered Harry a spot on their team as soon as he graduated. Unfortunately it was the Cannons, the perpetual last place of the British Quidditch league for the last forty years, and while Harry was sure he was better than their current seeker and could actually win them at least a few games just by catching the snitch before the Cannons could even rack up a 150 point deficit, he had too much pride to play for a team that was only still in the league out of pity.
By the time they had finished sorting the letters, the pro pile had the con pile beaten by about twelve to one. If the letters Dumbledore and presumably the governors as well had received followed the same ratio, then things were as good as they could possibly hope for. Unfortunately, doing what they had was always going to rustle a few feathers, and eventually a worn out first year had come looking for them with a message from the headmaster and the heads of House requesting their presence for a meeting. By the look of it, the poor first year has been running around the school looking for them.
"Guess it's time to face the music." Cedric Diggory said before standing up and waiting for everyone to follow him. Even the hangers on like Hermione and Crabbe and Goyle went with them, intending to take their lumps with the players.