Every character depicted in the story below is a consenting legal adult over the age of 18)

A/N:

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Time slows down for Harry in that moment, even as his perception speeds up. And yet… he doesn’t actually spend much time at all contemplating whether to sandbag or not. The truth is… his body starts to move all on its own in that first second.

Call it instinct, call it a competitive nature, call it whatever you want. The fact is, Harry couldn’t have held back if he wanted to. Once he’s on a broom with a Snitch all but right in front of him, he simply doesn’t have it in him to do so.

With that said, Harry blasts forward on the Firebolt. He’s tangentially aware of Ginevra’s head whipping in his direction from where she’d been searching for the Snith mere moments before… but it’s already too late. Harry doesn’t waste time. He doesn’t hesitate. And as such… his hand closes around the Snitch within eight seconds of the Seeker Duel starting.

Not the fastest time in the world, Harry notes to himself even as he holds the golden ball tightly in his fist. He’s pretty sure the world record is something like three seconds or something, though he would have to look it up to know for sure.

Regardless, as he stares down at the small golden ball, he suddenly finds himself regretting his instinctive actions. Not because he wants to spare Ginevra’s feelings or anything so asinine as that, but because… it’s been a long time since he’s been on a broom, let alone a Firebolt. He should have held back a little bit just to extend the amount of time he’d get to fly around.

Now it was already over. They were done and-

“What the fuck was that?! No, actually… I want a damn rematch!”

Harry blinks, pulled out of his momentarily melancholic thoughts by Ginevra pulling up alongside him with a scowl, her eyes fixed on the Snitch in his hands. He looks from her down to it and then chuckles.

“Sure, we can do another round, I don’t mind.”

Ginevra slowly nods, not looking angry necessarily… but definitely looking both tense and intense.

“Alright. Let it go, we’ll do a thirty second count, and then we’ll go again.”

With a shrug, Harry releases the Snitch from his grasp. The golden little orb buzzes about between them and for a brief moment Harry fears that it’s going to stay right where it is and fixate on him just like the Snitch back at the game did. Using a bit of his magic, he sends out a tendril to the hovering ball and ‘shoos’ it away.

Fortunately, that seems to do the trick and it flies off, for all intents and purposes disappearing from view a few moments later. Harry looks to Ginevra as she tries to follow it with her gaze, her eyes narrowed like a hawk. He grins a little bit, which prompts her to snap her attention over to him and frown.

“What? Why are you staring at me?”

Would it be terribly gauche to say what he’s thinking? Eh, probably… but he can’t help himself.

“Just enjoying the view.”

Ginevra’s eyes widen and her face goes a bit red. But at the same time, her internal clock must have told her that thirty seconds are up, because his is doing so as well. She doesn’t dignify his words with a response, instead zooming off on her broom to hunt down the Snitch.

Harry follows suit… though he doesn’t physically follow her. After all, while she’s partially going in the right direction, it’s not quite correct. Harry finds the Snitch hovering close to the ground a bit aways from where Ginevra is headed… and so he dips himself down and dives for it, letting himself build speed until it probably looks like he’s about to crash into the unforgiving Quidditch Pitch.

He even hears some alarmed shouts from the onlookers, and considering most of them are professional Quidditch Players, their alarm says something about the maneuver. Not that it matters. Harry’s hand closes around the Snitch for the second time and he easily pulls up with an inch or so of clearance to space, slicing across the ground with his feet before pushing back into the air.

Ginevra is by his side a second later, growling as she glares at the Snitch in his grasp.

“Best of five!”

This time though, they’re both close enough to the ground to be heard, prompting Gwenog to let out a bark of laughter and call up to them.

“You’re getting your ass handed to you Weasley! You sure your ego can take another loss like that?”

Ginevra scowls angrily at Gwenog before glaring at Harry.

“Best of five.”

Harry just shrugs and nods, releasing the Snitch rather carelessly once more. This time around, his eyes slide downwards to the assembled crowd. Specifically, he seeks out Padma, hoping to see if she’s doing well for herself. Alas, while she is still present and appears to be watching with everyone else, he’s not sure she’s had any luck yet… that’s too bad…

“You shouldn’t be flirting with me you know. You have a date.”

Turning his gaze back to Ginevra as she speaks up with a frustrated voice, Harry smiles crookedly. Hey, maybe he could kill two birds with one stone here.

“Actually, Padma isn’t really that interested in me. In fact, the only reason we came to this party was so I could get her with someone else. You know of anyone here who might like that sort of thing?”

He doesn’t have to spell out that Padma is a lesbian. Not when he’s quite literally the only male at the entire party. Ginevra’s eyes widen in understanding and she glances down at Padma down below, looking at her in an entirely new light.

Alas, she doesn’t respond though… once again, the time they’d set runs out and Ginevra is off like a bullet, lancing through the air once more to try and catch the Snitch before he can. Harry actually does truly consider making this last go more of a tossup. Sandbagging now after winning twice should be fine right? Only… it also seemed a little ridiculous to sandbag now after kicking Ginevra’s ass so fast the previous two times.

More than that… the Snitch is right there. How Ginevra is missing it, how she hasn’t triangulated it’s position yet, Harry doesn’t know. She’d probably get it eventually, but… he can’t bring himself to pretend like he doesn’t see it for however long it takes her.

With a light sigh, Harry pushes himself forward. To her credit, Ginevra almost immediately locks onto him, making him realize belatedly that this time around she’d changed up her strategy and was using him to find the Snitch.

That was actually pretty clever and very adaptive. He’s impressed… but also, even if she wants to turn it into a race, he’s not going to lose. They’re neck and neck for maybe a half a moment before Harry pulls off a move he’s done on Firebolts a million times before. He spins.

It’s a lesser known thing about the original Firebolt but spinning it could increase the speed by as much as twenty percent. The Firebolt Supreme didn’t have that little ‘feature’, but it was just plain faster than the Firebolt in every way anyways so it didn’t matter.

Regardless, not only does spinning increase Harry’s speed… it knocks into Ginevra and pushes her off course. The ginger witch can only yelp in indignation as Harry zooms forward… and his hand closes around the Snitch for the third time in a row, signaling his third victory over Ginevra.

There’s a pause after this one, a hush falling over the crowd. And then Ginevra is there once more, growling angrily as she glares at the Snitch he's holding like it personally killed her family. Err... bad thought, considering the circumstances.

“Best of seven!”

“Oh shut up Weasley! You lost! Three times at that! Get over it and get your asses down here, both of you. Seeker Duels are over… now we’re going to play a real game!”

Harry blinks, even as Ginevra scowls angrily but nevertheless goes to join Gwenog on the ground. Harry does the same of course, only to watch on in bemused amusement as they start making actual teams. Only for Gwenog to immediately turn towards him with narrowed eyes.

“You’re not allowed to Seek, Lord Hallows. Can you play any other position?”

Caught off guard by the ban but not really all that surprised, Harry tilts his head to the side. Yes, he could play every Quidditch position with relative ease. The only question was, should he? Because at this point, he felt like he was being a pretty bad wingman… Padma didn’t seem to know how to peel one of the many witches watching away for herself and Harry had promised that he’d help her out…

“Oi, Patil! You play at all? You can be on my team!”

Harry looks to see Ginevra calling out an utterly baffled Padma… who nevertheless walks forward when the ginger witch doesn’t stop staring at her.

“Uh… y-yeah, I can play Chaser?”

Ginevra just nods and then smirks at Gwenog.

“You can have Hallows in whatever position you want him in.”

Gwenog stares as do a few other witches, none of them seeming to understand why Ginevra had just recruited Padma like that. Harry though… Harry smiles, caught off guard by the Weasley Witch’s generosity. He really hadn’t expected her to include Padma like that solely based off of his comments. Especially after he’d trounced her three times in a row so brutally.

But from the look of things, while Ginevra was competitive as all hell, she didn’t let it turn into resentment or hatred. And she’d clearly realized he was hesitating because of Padma and quickly settled the issue so he wouldn’t bow out and focus on getting Padma an actual partner for the evening.

In the end, Harry winds up playing the role of Keeper in the ensuing pickup game. He and Padma aren’t the only non-professional players on the pitch either. While Ginevra and Gwenog are default team captains, they don’t just pick their actual team members… and indeed, there’s even some crossover, with Chudley Cannons players playing for Gwenog and Holyhead Harpies playing for Ginevra.

It’s a very interesting experience for Harry. Keeper is probably one of his weakest positions, though that doesn’t stop him from utterly stonewalling the Chasers on Ginevra’s team the entire time. However, because he’s not Seeking… well, Ginevra is quite good at what she does. At least when she’s not facing a force of nature like him.

In the end, Team Ginevra doesn’t score a single point, though Harry is very tempted to let one of Padma’s shots get in, even if he ultimately can’t bring himself to do it. However, at the same time… Team Gwenog can’t quite get enough points scored before Ginevra herself finally swoops in and snatches the Snitch out from under their team’s Seeker, securing the points, ending the game, and ultimately winning it too.

Gwenog is annoyed, but ultimately they just switch up teams and swap out players and run it again. And the next time, they actually do manage to get enough points that Ginevra’s Snitch catch doesn’t win it for her team.

All in all, it’s a pretty fun series of pick up games… and to her credit, Padma takes to the whole thing like a fish to water. Whether it’s because she actually does have an interest in Quidditch after all that Harry didn’t track, or whether it’s because she simply enjoys being surrounded by so many sweaty, athletic women with smiles on their faces, it matters not. The end result is the same, a big broad smile on Padma herself as they play for what feels like hours.

All good things come to an end though. And as everyone comes in for a landing, Harry makes sure to stay close to Padma’s side as they return their borrowed equipment, happily singing praises for her good play to anyone who will listen.

He’s just about to start being more blunt about things when suddenly, Ginevra is in front of him and the Indian Witch, a strange glint in her eyes.

“Hey. You two are cute. You wanna get out of here and head back to my place? All three of us?”

And just like that, Harry’s plans are derailed. Because Ginevra’s proposition couldn’t be more obvious if she’d tried. Even still, he wasn’t expecting his wing manning for Padma to wind up in a threesome with whatever woman they found. Maybe he should have, all things considered…

Still, he glances to Padma, putting the ball firmly in her court. Was she interested in sharing a woman with him despite her own preferences? Because if she was… he was down too.

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