Beat Them Back (A Harry Potter Fan Fiction)

Snitches and Talkers Get Stitches and Walkers

I stood in the change rooms, arms crossed and foot tapping rapidly against the ground. The wide eyes of my players starred up at me, each and every one of them wearing the same confused and frightened look on their faces. They sat uncomfortably, shifting in their seats and intermittently looking down at their nails beds. All five of them.

"Where's Diggory?" I asked, glaring down at them. They shrugged their shoulders and avoided eye contact, none of them daring to speak a word. Their little united front wasn't going to keep me from figuring out whatever they were hiding.

"How should we know?" Malcolm asked, narrowing his eyes to match me. With a flick of my wand, the lights in the room went out; the only source a tiny ball of light illuminating from the end of my wand.

I rounded on Anthony, who was visibly shaking in his seat, which was a hilarious sight for someone his size. "What are you five hiding?" I looked down at him, shining the light in his face probably with a bit too much enthusiasm. He shook his head and pushed my wand away with a hesitant hand.

"He's only ten minutes late, Colby. Take it down a few notches, ya?" Tamsin said in the darkness. I growled and rounded on him next, my wand only inches from his left cheek. My team knew that lateness was never to be tolerated. Lateness was to be met with swift and creative punishment, and if you knew me, you knew how creative I could really get.

Cedric was the most loyal of my teammates, and a shoe-in to be my predecessor for Captain next year once I graduated. Though if he didn't get his arse in gear, I was going to shove that snitch where the sun don't shine. "Only ten minutes late! By Cedric's standards, thats nearly twenty minutes later than usual!" I said, pointing my wand upwards and turning the lights back on. "There's nothing in this world that would get between Cedric Diggory and Quidditch practice..." I took a moment to ponder that thought, my mind immediately drifting to the looks that Cedric and the Ravenclaw seeker, Cho Chang, had been not so sneakily exchanging as of late.

"Cho Chang" I whispered, gripping my wand so tightly that I felt it bend in my grasp. "He's with Cho Chang, isn't he?"

"I don't know" Michale smirked, pushing up his glasses along the bridge of his nose.

"And even if we did, we'd never tell you" Tamsin rolled his eyes. "It's strictly against the bro-code."

I threw my hands in the air, yelling in frustration. "I swear to Merlin, if I wanted a team full of wise cracking buffoons, I would have just poached the Weasley twins. You lot are useless." They chuckled, and I felt my internal rage-thermometer bust out of its casing. "I'm going to find Diggory. If I get back here, and you lot aren't on the pitch running drills, I will suffocate you all in your sleep." They blinked at me, and I screamed again.

"GET OFF YOUR ARSES AND ONTO THE PITCH!" I yelled, and they promptly jumped off the bench and out onto the pitch, but not before I heard Herbert whisper in a low tone to Anthony.

"Cedric's screwed, isn't he?"

To which Anthony laughed under his breath "Definitely."

I turned around and darted out the door before I could catch another word of their conversation. There wasn't enough words in the English language to describe the level of rage and betrayal I was feeling right now. Sure, it was a single tardy to practice, but that's how it starts, you know? Cedric was my rock, the one player I could count on to demonstrate to the rest of the team how to obey their fearless leader and show me the damn respect I deserved. And for him to skip practice like that? It undermined my entire authority! If I didn't nip this in the bud and make an example of him, then I'd forever loose the grasp I had on my players.

I took a turn to the third floor and headed up to the Ravenclaw tower. He was smart enough to shack up with the bint in a place where I couldn't go. If he was really smart though, he might as well just tossed himself off a cliff now, because it would probably hurt a hell of a lot less than what I would subject him to on the pitch.