Harry Potter and the Gift of Memories [Harry Potter Fan Fiction]

Chapter XIX: Quidditch

 “I can't believe you actually managed to buy everyone Nimbus 2000's,” Angelina shook her head as she and the rest of the Gryffindor team sat in the locker rooms getting ready for their first game against Slytherin. Sitting by her side was Alicia on her left, and a grinning Katie on her right. The latter had the broom in her lap, the former was actually stroking the broom like it was some kind of cat. Harry found the sight disturbing, but at least it was better than seeing how Ms. Figg treated all of her cats.

“Oh, you'd better believe it,” George said with a grin, tossing an arm over Harry's shoulder.

“Harry Potter does not do things halfway,” added Fred, repeating the gesture on Harry's left.

“Yes indeed. It's all or nothing with this lad.”

“In his mind, there is no such thing as overboard.”

“Yes, even overkill is a word that has no meaning in his vocabulary.”

“I am surprised,” Harry interrupted in a dry voice, “that you even know what the word vocabulary means.”

Alicia, Angelina and Katie snickered, while Fred and George gave him mock offended looks.

“Oi! I will have you know that Gred and I are the very definition of sophistication and snobbery.”

“Indeed, Forge and myself are so sophistimacated that our vocabularium supersedes that of everyone else's.”

“Too right. We're blokes of higher edumication.”

“And you can't tell us otherwise,” they finished together, much to the amusement of those in the room. Well, those whose name wasn't Oliver Wood, who did not look very happy.

“What I want to know,” the surly captain began with a brooding glare, “is why you decided to buy all of the other teams Nimbus 2000's as well.”

“First of all, I didn't buy the brooms,” Harry gave Oliver a blank stare until the older boy became uncomfortable, “In fact, I didn't pay a single knut for these brooms. I merely... convinced Nimbus Broom Racing Company that it would be in their best interest to donate the brooms to the school in order to promote their products.”

“How did you do that?” Katie asked curiously.

Harry tilted his head.

“I'm not exactly sure I understand the question. Could you clarify?”

“I mean, how did you convince the Nimbus Broom Company to give twenty-eight Nimbus 2000's away for free.”

A mysterious smile graced Harry's lips.

“Ah, but I never did say they were free, did I? I just said that I didn't have to pay for them.” Katie frowned. “As to the how, let's just say there are many more ways to get what you want than simply tossing a bucket full of galleons around and leave it at that.”

Not wanting to go into details about how he, or more specifically Andromeda, had managed to convince Nimbus Broom Racing Company to donate twenty-eight brooms on his behalf, Harry turned back to Oliver.

“As to your second question, I believe that answer should be obvious. It was to level the playing field. When we win, I don't want people to say it was because we had better brooms than everyone else, I want them to know that we won because we are more skilled, more talented, and just plain better than they are.”

Harry had always possessed a strong sense of fair play when it came to sports. To him, it should be the skill of the players that won the day, not the superior equipment they possessed. One of the things that had always disgusted him about professional sports in the muggle world was how many athletes took steroids and other enhancement drugs to improve their performance. That same situation applied here, albeit, in a different manner. Instead of drugs people had superior brooms.