"Well, would you look at that!" exclaimed the announcer. "Draco Malfoy's certainly being uncharacteristically gentlemanly. Helping out a fellow player in need. Now that's the true spirit of Quidditch!"
Harry almost guffawed, and not just with relief. How wrong could you get? In the first place, that wasn't the true spirit of Quidditch. It wasn't anything to do with Quidditch! And in the second place, Draco had kept the other team's Seeker from crashing for one reason only -- to keep the game from being called.
Though it was probably just as well if everyone thought he was doing it from higher motives.
"And the Seekers are off again!" continued the announcer. "If Seraphim catches the Snitch now--the score stands at Hufflepuff 40, Slytherin 210--she'll cement a win for Slytherin. Bit of a dilemma, there. She needs to keep Draco Malfoy from ending the game--"
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Harry's ears were starting to hurt a bit from all the frantic noise. Quidditch matches could last an awfully long time, of course. They just usually didn't.
This one began dragging on, and on.
And on.
The announcer stopped mentioning goals unless they were by Hufflepuff. But that was pretty rare. She even stopped reporting on the Seekers' antics. Draco didn't have to stop Seraphim from catching the Snitch any longer. She had no interest in it as long as Hufflepuff was so far behind. She'd begun helping out her team by trying to get in Agnes DeMolay's way. At one point she even grabbed a Beater's bat from an exhausted looking team-mate, and had started whacking Bludgers toward the Slytherin chaser.
Meanwhile, Draco was doing his best to stay in the way of anyone who might get in DeMolay's way.
Harry didn't think he'd so much as glanced around for the Snitch in ages.
"Come on, now," shouted some Gryffindors from a few stands down. "We're dying of boredom, here!"
The announcer kept on talking in the vein she'd been in for quite a while. "It looks like Hannah Abbott and Susan Bones have begun playing patty cake. Several students in the Ravenclaw stands appear to be asleep. Oh--" The announcer leaned over and listened to something Dumbledore was whispering in her ear. "The headmaster would like everyone to know that conjured pillows have a nasty habit of disappearing right soon as you've got properly to sleep, so let's be careful with those..."
Apparently just as bored as all the spectators, the Snitch landed on the handrail right in front of Harry and began grooming itself, using one wing to brush off the other one.
"It appears to have an affinity for you," said Snape. "Perhaps that's the secret of your vaunted success on the pitch, eh?"
Harry smiled a little. "I think it just knows that if I were playing, I wouldn't mess about like this."
"Oh, indeed. You never check the score before you catch it?"
Harry glanced over at the scoreboard. "Well, when Gryffindor's six hundred points ahead I don't tend to drag things out even further." He cleared his throat and met his father's eye. "For some reason, Draco wants Slytherin to earn at least a thousand points today."
"Imagine that," murmured Snape.
"Yeah, that whole points thing was... um, very fatherly," Harry forced himself to go on, though considering they were surrounded by Slytherins, he lowered his voice. "Choosing me over your House, I mean."
Snape swivelled his head away and sought out Draco with his gaze. "Well, there's house and then there's home," he murmured, and then, with a sidelong glance, added, "Don't you dare thank me."
"Wouldn't dream of it," laughed Harry.
"...Slytherin 850, Hufflepuff 70," said the announcer, sounding like she could barely keep her feet any longer. Someone behind her was actually snoring.
"This is rubbish, rubbish!" screamed someone in the Gryffindor stands. "Draco Snape's not even trying!"
"Neither is Sellberg, you twit!" screamed Bulstrode back.
Snape winced and covered his ears for a scant second. Then he shrugged. "At least it appears you've convinced your dorm mates as to your brother's name."
"Don't you dare thank me," laughed Harry.
Clang!
Clang!
Clang!
"This actually is getting boring now," said Harry. The Snitch had curled its wings around its body and gone to sleep, by then. It was still sitting just two feet from Harry. The urge to snatch it up was getting stronger and stronger, but boy would that get him in trouble with Slytherin, Harry thought.
"We're bloody starving!" screamed a voice to the far left. "It's gone one, already!"
After a moment, a chorus of voices from that box took up a chant. "WE. NEED. FOOD. WE. NEED. FOOD. WE. NEED. FOOD!"
The demand spread like wildfire from stand to stand, until even the Slytherins all around Harry were screaming it too. Even though they wanted the match to go on until Slytherin had caught up on points.
Dumbledore stood up and waved his wand a few times, then whispered at the announcer again.
"Lunch will be provided in your seats in a few moments," said the announcer, sighing. "Dinner, too, I'm informed. And if the match goes past 10 p.m. we're all promised hot cocoa..."
Harry munched happily when his lunch came, glad to have something to do besides watch the monotonous action on the pitch. Goals weren't very exciting when they came pretty much non-stop for hours. The Hufflepuffs by then seemed almost resigned to their fate. When they tried to stop DeMolay at all, it was a pathetic, half-hearted effort.
Most of the time they just hovered in the air, their eyes glazed, and watched her score.
Clangclangclangclangclang.
Some of that wasn't DeMolay; Harry's ears were ringing.
"Mmm, fried chicken," said a voice just above him. "Don't mind if I do."
Draco lowered his broom slightly and came into view just in front of Harry, then proceeded to help himself to a drumstick which he ate with obvious relish, even licking his fingers as he hovered there, completely ignoring the game behind him.
"I thought it was rude to help yourself to food from a dining companion's plate," jibed Harry.
Draco shrugged. "Not at a picnic. Is that chocolate milk? Hand it over." Once he had finished the entire glass, Draco rubbed his stomach and grinned. "Enjoying the game?"
Harry leaned forward. "How long are you going to keep this up? Slytherin's way ahead already!"
"Well, now that I know I can zip by here for meals, there's really no reason to end it--"
"Draco," interrupted Snape. "You have met your goal, I do believe."
"Yes, but what's one thousand when we could have two? Or five? Or--"
"He's gone mad with power," said Harry.
"Can I have a roll?"
"Draco!"
"Oh, all right," groused the boy. "I did see it, you know."
Draco manoeuvred his broomstick until the end of it was pointed at the Snitch sleeping on the handrail. "Psst!" he hissed. "Yeah, you! Wake up!"
The Snitch lifted one wing as though peeking out from under it, then appeared to give a little stretch.
"Fly, you lazy little bugger," said Draco, laughing. He poked at it again. "Go on, now--"
The Snitch jumped up and hovered over the handrail, buzzing indignantly.
Reaching out a hand, Draco calmly closed his fingers around it.
The Slytherins all around Harry and Snape exploded with the noise of a celebration too long delayed.
"...a commotion in the Slytherin stand, it seems. Draco Malfoy's over there, not sure what the problem could be..."
"Oh, for Merlin's sake," muttered Draco, whirling his broom around and heading for the announcer as he held the Snitch aloft.
"...Oh! It seems that Draco Malfoy has finally caught the Snitch--"
"Draco Snape! Draco Snape! Get it right, for Merlin's sake!" shouted the boy as he circled the pitch in what looked like a victory lap. The Slytherins roared with cheers, but everybody else pretty much looked bored. Except the Hufflepuffs. They were seething.