like a redheaded stepchild

Chapter 17: No More Marauder Puns, I'm Sirius

Anticipation tingled down Sirius' spine. It all came down to this. This was the last chance he had. He had to make it count. Carefully putting on his genius disguise, he snuck onto the Hogwarts grounds. In his hands he carried the tools of his mission. He was prepared. He could do this. Ahead of him, he saw his target: the red headed boy with his broom, waiting for the match to begin. Sirius walked up, and reached out a hand.

He clapped the ginger roughly on the back and growled, "Destroy those snakes for me, Harry."

The ginger turned around and frowned and Sirius. "Oi, I'm not Harry, I'm Ron. And who are you?"

Sirius held up his little Gryffindor flag, which he waved so that it roared merrily. "Oh I'm, um, Dour White. Good luck in the match kid, that's a nice broom."

"Thanks, my brother let me borrow it for the match. Say, is that a pair of groucho marx glasses?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Sirius said, adjusting his cunning disguise, and hurried off to the stands. He was disappointed that it wasn't Harry flying on the firebolt he'd sent him, but he still wasn't going to miss his chance to see Gryffindor slaughter Slytherin in the quidditch cup. He lived for stuff like this.

Plus, he had a couple of water balloons he could chuck at Snape and Moony! He'd enchanted them so it would turn their hair pink. Priceless.

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Harry and the rest of the Weasley's cheered from the stands as Ron, Fred, and George soared into the stadium. Slytherin and Gryffindor were within 80 points of one another. Slytherin had the lead, but would all come down to the final score today. Even if Ron caught the snitch, if Slytherin had too wide of a lead in quaffles they'd still lose the cup.

But that was not the primary reason that Ron was determined to catch the snitch early on. The dementors had been particularly restless today, coming close to intruding onto the grounds several times. They hadn't canceled the match yet, but Ron had half hoped they would. Somehow, playing quidditch just wasn't as fun when he was worried about Harry ending up in the hospital wing again.

Still, Ron was going to do his best. He waited for the quaffle to drop, then immediately started patrolling the stadium while Angelina faced forward on Ron's old Nimbus 2000 to grab the quaffle away from the Slytherin Chasers. Doing his best to ignore the frantic, Ron did a rapid circuit of the field. Malfoy, who normally relied on his superior broom to dive in and catch the snitch when the other seeker spotted it, found that he simply couldn't keep up.

"Where's your daddy's money now!" Ron shouted as he flew past, unable to resist taunting the other seeker. Malfoy shouted something after him, but Ron was already focused back on looking for the snitch as he drew away, his firebolt rapidly outpacing the Nimbus 2001.

In the stands, Remus Lupin was sitting with the Gryffindors feeling absolutely miserable. The full moon had happened the night before, and he was still sore and grouchy. That didn't matter though, as he had promised himself to keep an eye out for Sirius Black and any potential dementors that might try and feed upon the crowd's emotions. Dumbledore was in the stands as well, though he was sitting with the Slytherins while Remus stayed with the Gryffindors.

"That was a clear foul!" someone bellowed from nearby, standing and waving his roaring lion flag. "What, are you blind ref!"