Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J.K Rowling and sadly not me.

Like father NOT like son

Chapter 6: The Game

Scorpius didn't want to look weak in front of Albus by going to the hospital wing for his broken nose. Although it felt painful he had decided to try fix it himself. Victoire, in her prefect mode had other ideas.

"You take yourself to the hospital wing right now Scorpius Malfoy or I'll tie you up and drag you there myself," she lectured. Scorpius, wanting to avoid any more unnecessary attention for the night, grudgingly agreed. He dragged his feet all the way to the hospital wing where he was met by an irritable Madame Pompfrey.

"Your visit last week wasn't enough for you then? As if I don't have enough to deal with already." Scorpius looked around and sure enough all of the beds were full. He spotted Kyle sitting up in one of them with his arm in a sling.

"What happened in here?" Scorpius asked Kyle.

Not in here," replied Kyle. "Out on the quidditch pitch. Two bludgers got loose and attacked everyone who was on a broom. It was in the middle of the seeker try-outs." Scorpius felt his stomach clench in anger when the word quidditch was mentioned. He tried to push this away and concentrate on Madame Pompfrey who had followed him to the bed. She patted the always grinning Kyle on the back and told him he was free to go. She then turned to Scorpius and pinched his nose.

"Funde imatra" she chanted while waiving her wand in front of his face. Scorpius felt his nose pop back into place. He felt it to make sure everything was aligned correctly, and of course it was. After all Madame Pompfrey was a professional at healing.

"Now scoot, and don't come back to soon" said Madame Pompfrey, obviously pleased with her work.

By the time Scorpius had arrived back at the common room it was getting late. The rest of his year mates had already turned in and Scorpius shortly followed.

When Scorpius woke up the next morning, his mood had completely changed. Instead of being filled with anger he was now filled with determination. Scorpius knew he was good at quidditch but if he could become great at quidditch then there was no way he could be denied a spot in next year's team. Especially with the current captain graduating at the end of the school year.

Before he went down to breakfast he scribbled his mother a quick note asking her to send him his quidditch balls as soon as possible. He then hurried off to the owlery to post the letter.

The balls arrived with the morning post only two days later. Kyle was awed to discover that the ball set was signed by both the Appleby Arrows and the Wimbourne Wasps, two rivalry teams. Scorpius didn't see the big deal, afterall all took was abit of money to convince them both to sign.

Kyle's arm was already out of its sling so that evening the boys took the balls out for a practice. They chased each other around the field passing the quaffle to one an other and showing off their tricks. They did make the mistake of letting the snitch out, which took them a full four hours to recapture. Neither of them were much of a seeker.

By the time they'd captured the snitch they decided to turn in. They were starting to get hungry but were shocked when they entered the great hall to discover it had stopped serving food.

There was a lonely house elf mopping the floors humming along to some unknown tune. Dressed in nothing but a smoky black apron, the creature with wrinkled skin and drooping ears was quite a sight to Kyle, who was not used to house elves. It didn't appear to have noticed the boys so Scorpius walked over to it and tapped it on the shoulder. The creature shrieked and jumped at least a foot in the air.

"Spinkle is terribly sorry young sirs. Spinkle should not have been seen. Spinkle will leave now. Bad Spinkle! Bad Spinkle!"

"No, wait!" said an alarmed Scorpius. "You don't have to leave. We were just looking for some food."

"Are the young sirs hungry? Spinkle has an idea. Follow Spinkle please."

The house elf hurried off towards the doors of the great hall. Kyle was the first to follow this curious creature and when Scorpius's stomach rumbled, he followed too. For a creature with such short legs Spinkle moved quickly and the boys had to jog to keep up with him. Just when Scorpius was starting to develop a stitch, the house elf drew to a stop. Scorpius looked around and decided that he was in the dungeons, though nowhere near his potions classroom.

"Welcome young sirs," said Spinkle proudly, "to the kitchens." Spinkle reached out to the painting of a bowl of fruit that was hanging on the wall and tickled the pear. The boy's mouth's dropped open when the portrait opened up to reveal he biggest kitchen either of them had seen.

There were what seemed to be hundreds of house elves running around. Some were stirring an enormous cauldron while other's were chopping ingredients or even milking cows. It really was a sight to be seen.

As soon as the other elves noticed the boys they rushed over to them with plates full of food.

"Would you like some pudding-here's some ice cream-roast hippogriff-try this sirs." The babble of voices were hard to distinguish from one another so in the end the boys ate whatever they were given, except the roast hippogriff. Both of them ate until they were sure they would burst. Despite this, the house elves seemed disappointed when they said they could eat no more. They sent the boys off with promises of many return visits.

It was well after lights out when the boys left the kitchen but they managed to sneak back to their common room undetected. From then on the boys would practice quidditch whenever the pitch wasn't booked and eat in the kitchens afterwards. After a few weeks of this, Scorpius could tell that he and Kyle had improved greatly. Their friendship had also strengthened through all their practice.

It wasn't long before quidditch was a hot topic around the school. The first game of the season was approaching and following tradition it would be between Slytherin and Gryffindor. Both teams had new players and students were taking bets on how they would do. Scorpius smiled grimly when he heard two students betting that Albus would be knocked off his broom in the first five minutes.

The whole school turned up to the quidditch pitch on what couldn't have been more perfect weather for a game of quidditch. Despite Scorpius's animosity towards Albus he was genuinely excited to see the game. He and Kyle were some of the last to show up due to Kyle misplacing his shoes (they eventually found them hiding under his bed.) This resulted with them getting front row seats right on the ground level. These were bad seats to have at a quidditch game where they would have to cran their necks upwards to see the action.

As the game got on Scorpius had to admit that Albus had improved since the try-outs. Privately though Scorpius still thought he could have done better.

Slytherin played a dirty game, exactly what was expected of these cunning snakes. Whenever the referee's back was turned, they would do something that would have usually resulted in a foul. As well as their dirty tactics Slytherin had a well organised trio of chasers. The three blonde Slytherins were not as dumb as they looked. These girls were triplets and seemed to know each other's next move without a word being spoken. They scored goal after goal and the Gryffindor captain and keeper was hopeless to stop them. It seemed that the only way for Gryffindor to win would be if they caught the snitch.

Due to a nice interception, Gryffindor chaser, Michael James was now in possession of the quaffle. He quickly turned his broom around and started towards the goal posts. He was ahead of the Slytherin chasers and it looked like he was going to score. The tension was so thick you could taste it in the air. All eyes were on Michael as he lifted his arm to shoot for goals.

Then suddenly Michael was spiralling towards the ground. It all happened so fast that no one was quite sure what was happening at the time. It came out later that a Slytherin beater had aimed a bludger at Michael's broom, for once doing something completely in the rules. The bludger broke the tail end of his broom which cause him to fall. Although the spiralling slowed down the fall, Michael was still not in control of the broom and his head hit the ground with a sickening crack..

Everyone in the stadium gasped when the heard the sound. The whole Gryffindor team rushed to Michael's side and the captain urgently signalled for a time out. Madame Pompfrey was on the field right away magicking up a stretcher. As soon as Michael was taken away the referee was signalling for the caption to hurry up with the time out. Scorpius could see that Albus was arguing with the captain, but was to far away to pick up any words. It seemed that Albus had won whatever he'd been arguing about because a huge grin suddenly appeared on his face. He started walking towards Scorpius who had no idea what was going on.

"So it seems we're down a chaser," said Albus to Scorpius, still with a grin on his face.

"Um, yea I guess so," replied Scorpius, instantly suspicious. He wished Albus would get to his point so he could hurry up and leave.

"Problem is we don't have a reserve chaser and we can't really afford to play Slytherin with only six people." That was pretty obvious to Scorpius, and probably the rest of the school too.

"So the captain and I were wondering if, you know, you'd want to fill in."

"What? Me?" asked Scorpius, extremely puzzled. "Why would you do that for me?"

"Well you'd probably make the next best chaser in Gryffindor, asides from me," replied Albus jokingly. "And besides, if I've got to share a dorm with you for the next seven years we might as well get along." Almost as if he was in daze, Scorpius followed Albus onto the quidditch pitch. Someone had thought to grab him a broom and the teams were back up in the air in less then thirty seconds.

As Scorpius zoomed along on the broom he truly felt as if he were home. It was if he and the team were one. The Slytherin team were still playing rough and Scorpius barely moved in time to feel a bludger whistling past his ear. Whenever he had possession of the quaffle he had to pass it on quickly or risk becoming a target for "oh I'm sorry I didn't see you there" Slytherins.

He and the other Gryffindor chasers had worked their way towards the goal posts and once more the whole stadium held their breath. Albus had the quaffle but two Slytherins were coming towards him. Suddenly he threw the quaffle to Scorpius who instinctively hit it through to the goals. The sound of the quaffle scraping metal as it went through the goals was the most glorious sound Scorpius had ever heard. He had scored!

Gryffindor house burst into cheer and started waving their flags. Scorpius could hear Kyle screaming for him in the front row. That was the last goal scored in the game because the Slytherin seeker caught the snitch shortly after. Gryffindor had gone down 290-20 but Scorpius still felt deliriously happy.

Turns out Albus was maybe not such a bad guy after all. In his joy Scorpius was feeling generous. He and Albus really got talking and he offered for Albus to join in his and Kyle's quidditch sessions. It took some time, but after a few weeks of not hating one another the two boys decided that they were actually friends.

Scorpius wrote to his father about the quidditch game and his new friendship with Albus Potter. When Scorpius finally got a return letter it wasn't from his father but from his mother.

Dearest Scorpius, (she wrote)

You really should not upset your father dear. He's very angry at you and I think it would be for the best if you just forget about this Albus Potter.

Love from your mother

'Oh well' thought Scorpius angrily. 'Who cares what father thinks anyway.' After all, Scorpius had two of the best friends in the world, and he had got to play quidditch.

'You know,' thought Scorpius to himself. 'Maybe Gryffindor isn't so bad after all.'

THE END