"This is..." Dudley felt those green tennis ball-like eyes were somewhat familiar. After just a moment's thought, he recognised them.
"That house-elf!" Dudley recognised those distinctive eyes from his encounter at Number 4 Privet Drive.
"How did he appear here?" Dudley's expression hardened. When he tried to look for him again, the house-elf had already disappeared.
"Go Gryffindor!" "Gryffindor must win!" The Quidditch match on the field had already begun, and Dudley was submerged in the roar of cheers for Gryffindor.
On the other side, Slytherin students were also loudly cheering for their team. Looking out, it was a sea of dark green, with no trace of the house-elf anymore.
"Appearing among the Slytherin crowd, is it possible he was brought in by someone from Slytherin?" Dudley speculated in his mind.
The most likely candidate was Malfoy, but at this moment, Malfoy was on the field playing the match, so the possibility wasn't great.
As for others, Dudley's gaze swept around but found no suspicious figures.
"There are quite a few ancient pure-blood families in Slytherin House. It would be perfectly normal for them to have house-elves."
"But at this stage, with that house-elf appearing, what exactly does he want to do?"
Dudley couldn't figure it out no matter how hard he thought.
The dark clouds in the sky grew thicker and thicker. Before long, heavy rain poured down, soaking everyone, but this still couldn't stop people's enthusiasm for watching the match.
Dudley cast an Impervius Charm on himself, making the rainwater slide off while keeping himself dry. At the same time, his sharp gaze swept over the situation on the field.
"What's going on with that Bludger?" Suddenly, Dudley frowned, focusing on a black Bludger in the rain.
Although he wasn't watching the match seriously, he still noticed something unusual.
Normally, Bludgers would terrorise players from both teams equally, creating chaos and excitement throughout the match. However, this particular Bludger was behaving completely differently. It appeared extremely persistent in chasing Harry.
Several times when Dudley's gaze fell on Harry, he saw this Bludger chasing Harry around the entire field.
"Did Slytherin tamper with that Bludger? Why is it constantly chasing Harry?" Ron also noticed the abnormality at this point.
"Oh! My goodness!" Hermione suddenly exclaimed.
That Bludger had just grazed past Harry's head. If Harry hadn't reacted in time, his skull might have been shattered by now.
"Fred and George are already doing their best to protect Harry, but it's useless. That Bludger keeps chasing Harry and won't go anywhere else," Ron said anxiously.
The Weasley brothers, serving as Beaters, were already doing their best to protect Harry, but that Bludger remained fixated on Harry. Even when knocked away, after a while it would fly back and continue charging straight at him.
"They should have noticed the problem with the Bludger too," Dudley said.
He had already activated his spirit vision, but due to the great distance, Dudley wasn't sure what was wrong with that Bludger.
However, he could see that the Gryffindor players were already making hand signals to Madam Hooch, apparently calling for a timeout.
"Scarhead, you're not good enough!" Malfoy's mocking laughter came from the sky.
Slytherin was also loudly booing, filling the field with jeers.
Many people in the stands couldn't see very clearly at this point either. Under the heavy rain, it was difficult to notice details. They only saw that Gryffindor had called a timeout, and many people were quite dissatisfied.
"What's going on? Why the timeout?" "What is Gryffindor doing? Hurry up and beat Slytherin!" "What's wrong with Harry Potter? Didn't they say he flew well? He's been chased around by a Bludger for so long without catching the Golden Snitch."
There were many complex voices in the audience stands, with people saying all sorts of things.
Especially for Harry, who was the focus of everyone's attention, any poor performance would be magnified infinitely. The higher he had been praised before, the harder he would fall now.
"If they pause the match at this point, Gryffindor might be disqualified," Ron looked at the field with worry.
"Damn Slytherin, they must have tampered with it."
"Harry's first match won't end like this, will it?" Hermione said with a pale face.
In the current situation, if the match ended like this, it would be very unfavourable for both Gryffindor and Harry. The subsequent mockery and pressure were unimaginable.
"They should choose to continue the match," Dudley watched the situation on the field.
Wood was saying something to Harry and Madam Hooch, obviously communicating about the Bludger situation.
Before long, just as Dudley had predicted, the match on the field resumed.
"How did you know?" Ron asked in surprise.
"That's Harry's character. He wouldn't let others suffer losses because of his own problems. So I guessed he would continue the match. As for the Bludger..." Before Dudley could finish, the match had started again.
As expected, that Bludger continued frantically chasing Harry.
"This isn't working. Harry has no time to look for the Golden Snitch," Ron said with an ugly expression.
Being constantly chased by a crazed Bludger, Harry was already exhausting all his energy just dodging. He had no opportunity to search for the Golden Snitch.
Meanwhile, the situation on the field wasn't optimistic either.
Slytherin, with their entire team riding Nimbus 2001s, had pulled far ahead of Gryffindor with their speed advantage, already leading by a large margin.
If they couldn't catch the Golden Snitch and end the match quickly, once the score gap widened to more than 150 points, Gryffindor would have almost no chance of winning.
"Scarhead, you look really pathetic when you're running away," Malfoy would occasionally fly past Harry, taking the opportunity to taunt him.
He didn't want to end the match quickly now. He just wanted to watch Harry's pathetic appearance being chased by the Bludger.
Dudley watched this scene from off the field, thinking of countermeasures.
Suddenly, he drew his wand and pointed it at his throat.
Dudley mouthed words silently, the spell leaving his lips without a whisper. Neither Hermione nor Ron detected his subtle intervention.
Even Hermione and Ron beside him didn't notice this action.
Not long after Dudley closed his mouth, Harry, who had been chased around the sky, suddenly turned direction and flew straight toward the stands where Dudley was, at extremely high speed.