In the air above the stadium, distant figures on broomsticks swooped and pirouetted and spun around each other. The red-purplish truncated tetrahedron that was the Quaffle was caught, tossed, blocked, and occasionally thrown through floating hoops, accompanied by stadiumrocking cries of triumph or dismay. Blue and green and yellow and redtrimmed robes shouted with the enthusiasm that people felt so easily when no action would be required from them personally.
It was the first Quidditch match Harry had attended at Hogwarts, and he’d already decided that it would be the last.
“Davies has the Quaffle!” shouted the amplified voice of Lee Jordan. “That’s another ten points for Ravenclaw in seven… six… five… holy smokes, he’s done it already! Smack through the center of the central hoop! I’ve never seen such a winning streak—I’m calling it right now for
Davies becoming Captain next year after Bortan steps down—”
Lee’s voice cut out abruptly and Professor McGonagall’s own amplified voice said, “That’s the Ravenclaw team’s own business, Mr. Jordan.
Confine yourself to the match, please.”
“And the Slytherins take possession—Flint hands off the Quaffle to the lovely—”
“Mr. Jordan!”
“To the merely acceptable Sharon Vizcaino, whose hair trails behind her like a comet as she blazes toward the Ravenclaw defense—now with two Bludgers in close pursuit! Pucey’s on Sharon’s tail—what are you doing, Inglebee?—and she swerves in midair to avoid—IS THAT THE
SNITCH? GO, CHO CHANG, GO, HIGGS IS ALREADY—WHAT ARE
YOU TWO DOING?”
“Calm down, Mr. Jordan!”
“HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO CALM DOWN? THAT WAS THE WORST MISSED PLAY I’VE EVER SEEN! And the Snitch is gone—maybe gone for good, after being missed that badly—Pucey’s heading off towards the goal posts, Inglebee’s nowhere near him—”
In a distant era of history, maybe in another world entirely, Professor Quirrell had undertaken that the House Cup would be awarded to either Slytherin or Ravenclaw. Or possibly, somehow, both; for he had promised that three wishes would be granted. So far it was looking good on two out of three.
If you just went by the current score, Hufflepuff was leading the race for the House Cup by something like five hundred points, thanks to Hufflepuff’s students doing their homework and staying out of trouble. It appeared that Professor Snape had been strategically taking quite a lot of points from Hufflepuffs for, er, the last seven years or so. Slytherin House, reigning champion for the last seven years, still had to its advantage a certain generosity of its Head of House in handing out points; and this was sufficient to put it neck-and-neck with Ravenclaw House, home of the academic achievers. Gryffindor was far behind in the last place, as befit the House of nonconformists; Gryffindor had Slytherin’s profile when it came to academics and mischief, only without the advantage of Professor Snape. Even Fred and George had barely broken even on the year.
Ravenclaw House and Slytherin House both needed a lot of points from somewhere if either wanted to catch up with Hufflepuff in the next two days.
And so far as anyone knew, Professor Quirrell hadn’t done a single thing leading to the obvious result. It was happening all by itself, now that one lone Professor in Hogwarts had taught a class with creative problemsolving.
The final Quidditch match of the year was between Ravenclaw and Slytherin. Earlier in the year, Gryffindor’s initial Quidditch lead had vanished after their new Seeker, Emmett Shear, fell off a possibly malfunctioning broomstick during his second game. This had also required some hasty rescheduling of the remaining games.
This, the final game of the year, wouldn’t end until the Snitch was caught.
Quidditch scores added directly onto the House points total.
And what did you know, today it seemed that both the Slytherin and Ravenclaw Seekers just could… not… catch… the… Snitch.
“THE SNITCH WAS PRACTICALLY ON TOP OF YOU, YOU DIM-
EYED DIMWIT!”
“Language, Mr. Jordan, or I’ll remove you from this game! Though it was a terrible play, I admit.”
Harry had to admit that Lee Jordan and Professor McGonagall had a wonderful comedic routine, with Jordan as the banana-man and Professor McGonagall as the straight-woman; Harry now felt a little sorry to have missed it at the earlier Quidditch matches. It was a side of Professor McGonagall he hadn’t seen before.
A few seats down from where Harry sat in the Hufflepuff section of the Quidditch bleachers, there lurked the hulking form of Cedric Diggory. The Super Hufflepuff had observed the most recent near-air-collision between Cho Chang and Terence Higgs with the keen eye of a wizard who was a Seeker and a Quidditch Captain in his own right.
“The Ravenclaw Seeker is new,” Cedric said. “But Higgs is in his seventh year. I’ve played against him. He’s better than that.”
“You think it’s a strategy?” asked one of the Hufflepuffs sitting next to Cedric.
“It would make sense if Slytherin needed some extra points to lead for the Quidditch Cup,” Cedric said. “But Slytherin already has us beat for the title. What are they thinking? They could’ve won right there!”
The game had started at six o’ clock in the afternoon. A typical game would have gone until seven or so, at which point it would have been time for dinner. June in Scotland meant plenty of daylight; sunset wasn’t until ten.
It was at eight pm and six minutes, according to Harry’s watch, when Slytherin had just scored another 10 points bringing the score to 170–140, when Cedric Diggory leapt out of his seat and shouted “Those bastards!”
“Yeah!” cried a young boy beside him, leaping to his own feet. “Who do they think they are, scoring points?”
“Not that!” cried Cedric Diggory. “They’re—they’re trying to steal the
Cup from us!”
“But we’re not in the running any more for—”
“Not the Quidditch Cup! The House Cup!” The word spread, with cries of outrage.
That was Harry’s cue.
Harry politely asked a Hufflepuff witch sitting next to him, and another Hufflepuff sitting one row above him, if they could move aside. Then Harry drew forth from his pouch a huge scroll, and unfurled it into a 2-meter-tall banner which stuck in place in midair. The enchantment had been done courtesy of a sixth-year Ravenclaw who had a reputation for knowing less about Quidditch than Harry did. In huge, glowing purple letters, the sign read:
JUST BUY A CLOCK
2 : 06 : 47
Beneath it was a Snitch, with a blinking red X over it.
Second, after second, after second, the time counter incremented.
As that counter rose higher, there seemed to be an awful lot of Hufflepuffs who’d decided that they wanted to sit next to Harry’s banner.
As the game dragged on past nine, there also seemed to be a lot of
Gryffindors.
As the sun set and Harry started using Lumos to read his books—he’d given up on the actual game a long time ago—there were a noticeable number of Ravenclaws who’d betrayed patriotism for sanity.
And Professor Sinistra.
And Professor Vector.
And as the stars began to come out, Professor Flitwick.
The climactic final Quidditch game of the year… dragged on.
One of the things Harry hadn’t planned on, when he’d decided to do this, was that he would still be out here at—Harry glanced at his watch— eleven-oh-four at night. Harry was now reading a sixth-year Transfiguration textbook; or rather he’d weighted the book open, illuminated by a Muggle glowstick, while he did one of the exercises. Last week, when the graduating Ravenclaws were discussing their N.E.W.T. scores, Harry had overheard that upper-year Transfiguration practice involved several ‘shaping exercises’ that relied more on control and precise thinking than raw power; and Harry had promptly set out to learn those, whacking himself hard on the forehead for not trying to read all the later-year textbooks earlier. Professor McGonagall had approved Harry doing a shaping exercise that involved controlling the way in which a Transfiguring object approached its final form—for example, Transfiguring a quill so that the shaft grew out first, then the barbs. Harry was doing an analogous exercise with pencils, growing out the lead first, then surrounding it with wood and finally having the eraser form on top. As Harry had suspected, focusing his attention and magic into a particular part of the pencil’s ongoing transformation had proven similar to the mental discipline used in partial Transfiguration—which could indeed have been used to fake the same effect, by partially Transfiguring only the outer layers of the object. This way was proving relatively easier, though.