Banned from the Pitch

They knew they wouldn't be allowed to expel the three from the tower as she'd allowed them to do to Harry. All because she didn't think Harry fit his Father's legacy well enough. They knew that now. Nor would she allow any in-house punishments on them as she claimed they'd been punished enough. So this was all they could do.

Ginny had been delighted to replace Harry as Seeker and swore she was even better at the position than he'd been although everyone knew she wasn't. Harry was a natural flier and he seemed to have a sixth sense for where the snitch would be. And once it showed itself nothing the poor snitch could do would deter Harry from it's tail. He had never missed the snitch during games he played.

Even when he had passed out fifty feet above the ground thanks to the dementors swarming the playing field, he'd caught the snitch during his fall from his broom. And he flew like he had been born with wings. No one could match his skill in the air and everyone in the school knew it. Despite her bragging. She claimed she was better than him because flying wasn't a natural skill for her.

She had to work at it which meant when she caught the snitch and won the game, she truly had something to brag about while he didn't.

Ron had become the new Keeper when Oliver had graduated and often bragged about how great he was in the position and how he'd make professional after he graduated. Everyone knew he wouldn't and not because of the mark on his face either.

He simply wasn't as good as he thought he was. Even before Harry had marked him, everyone knew the only way Ron would play professionally was if Harry bought him the spot on whichever team he played for.

Either Harry directly or through Ron's flagrant use of Harry's name and fame. But now, given how he and the rest of the Unholy Trio had delighted in trashing Harry's reputation, even that was unlikely to work once the students of Hogwarts spread the word beyond the halls of the school.

Now that the team knew what they had been doing to Harry, whom the trio had bragged was their friend, they kicked them off without a moments hesitation and banned them from the field whenever there was a practice. The team even went to Professor McGonagal to see if they could prevent them from being allowed to even attend the games Gryffindor played in.

She said no, of course, since they were her favored students. But that didn't stop the students and other teachers from working together to keep the trio away from the games. Professor Snape was only too happy to assign them detentions that just so happened to correspond to days and times when there was a quiditch game being played.

Since they weren't on the team there was nothing stopping him from doing so as any complaint Minerva tried to make was silenced by the fact that the students didn't have a guaranteed right to attend the games whether their house was playing or not. It was understood the players wouldn't be given a detention during game time for their own house but even they could be according to the school charter and Minerva knew it.

And the three detention supervisors were only too happy to help him. They rarely attended the games anyway. Hagrid only liked to go when Harry was playing and neither Mr. Filch or the elves ever went to the games. So having a detention to supervise away from the playing field during them didn't bother them at all. Hagrid often took Ginerva into the Forest of Death to remote and semi-dangerous places where he'd have her mucking about in the mud and sludge for grubs and hard to harvest potion ingredients Professor Snape claimed to have a need for.

Half of the time what she was looking for was something Harry had asked him to keep an eye out for but she didn't know that. The house elves had all sorts of disgusting kitchen duties for Hermione to perform while Mr. Filch kept Ron in the bowels of the Castle cleaning rooms and oiling old disciplining tools that were so out of date Ron didn't even know what they'd been called or how they'd been used.

Not even the uninvolved teachers had any sympathy for them once the truth of those runes made it's way through the school grapevine. Madam Pince didn't often speak up for any particular student or on a particular subject but when she did you could bet what she said was the truth and nothing but the truth. The entire hall had heard her say those marks were caused by the bearer's own sense of guilt and made with their own magic.

 And Professor Babbling, whom most of the students believed knew her Runes backwards and forwards, seemed to agree with her. And if those two women, who both knew Hermione Granger quite well due to her dedication to learning, believed Mr. Potter hadn't done anything wrong, then who were they to quibble.

Therefore, all the backstabbing attempts made by the trio to gain sympathy for themselves while painting Harry as a villain for doing such a thing as disfiguring them, backfired. It didn't help them any that the marks would tell their audience when they began lying even if the words they actually used were correct and every person in the school became adept at noticing even the smallest of inflamation around the runes.

After all, Harry had said they could no longer lie about him even by omission and all the students had heard Professor Babbling say the marks were behavior monitors. Those who had worn behavior modifiers on their clothing as children or had them used at the table during meal times, explained the term to those who hadn't. So it only took a couple of days for everyone in the school to understand how the Runes worked. And despite Minerva's best efforts, not one of the students believed them to be dark magic.

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