Chapter 26 : Quidditch
Quidditch Pitch — November 15, 1991, 2:00 PM
The stands shook.
Five hundred students stamped their feet and screamed into the November air, and the Hogwarts Quidditch pitch absorbed the noise the way a cathedral absorbed hymns — amplifying it, bouncing it between the tall wooden towers until the sound became something physical, a wall of enthusiasm that pressed against Matt's chest.
He sat in the Ravenclaw section between Terry and Neville, wrapped in his cloak and the lumpy Weasley hat that Ron's mum had apparently knitted for "Ron's friend who let Harry visit" — a gift that had arrived by owl three days ago with a note that read Any friend of my son's deserves warm ears. — Molly. The hat was orange and purple, clashed with everything Matt owned, and was the warmest thing he'd ever put on his head.
Below, the pitch was a rectangle of trampled grass bordered by three golden hoops at each end. Fourteen players in scarlet and green circled on broomsticks. Among them, small and fast and flying like he'd been born doing it, Harry Potter wove between Slytherin Chasers with the natural instinct of a Seeker who didn't need teaching — only permission.
"He's incredible," Terry breathed. "Look at that turn. First-years don't fly like that."
"Harry doesn't do anything the normal way," Matt said.
The match was electric. Gryffindor scored first — Angelina Johnson, clean shot through the right hoop — and the scarlet section erupted. Slytherin answered within minutes, their Chasers playing with the brutal efficiency of a team that viewed fouls as negotiable suggestions. Marcus Flint elbowed a Gryffindor Chaser in the ribs during a feint, and the crowd booed, and Madam Hooch blew her whistle with the resigned authority of someone who'd been officiating Slytherin matches for decades.
Matt split his attention. Half on the match. Half on the stands.
Creature Sense was useless here — it detected magical creatures, not human intent — but five years as an adult and eleven as a child had given him a different kind of sense. Body language. Facial micro-expressions. The particular tension in someone's posture when they were focused on something other than the game.
Snape sat in the staff section, black-robed, arms folded, watching the match with the expression of a man who found children's sports personally offensive but was required to attend. His lips moved occasionally — commenting to McGonagall beside him, or muttering about a Slytherin foul, or —
Matt's eyes shifted.
Quirrell. Three seats from Snape. Turban purple against the grey sky. His hands were clasped in his lap. His lips were moving.
Not to anyone beside him. To nothing. The same rapid, focused muttering that Matt had observed in Defence class — the moments when the stutter vanished and the man beneath the performance surfaced.
Harry's broom bucked.
The movement was violent — a sharp upward jerk that nearly threw Harry sideways, followed by a rolling lurch that sent him swinging under the handle. The crowd gasped. Harry's hands white-knuckled around the wood, legs dangling, the broom twisting like a living thing trying to shed its rider.
"What's happening?" Terry stood, gripping the railing.
"Something's wrong with his broom," Neville said, face pale.
Matt was already looking. Not at Harry — at the staff section. Two sets of lips moving. Snape: intense, unblinking, the focus of a man pouring every ounce of concentration into a single task. Quirrell: identical intensity, identical focus, but angled differently — facing Harry, turban tilted forward.
Counter-curse and curse. Snape's trying to save him. Quirrell's trying to kill him.
The broom rolled again. Harry's grip slipped. One hand free, swinging by the other, fifty feet above the pitch with nothing between him and the ground but gravity and the prayers of five hundred spectators.
Hermione grabbed Matt's arm. She'd pushed through the crowd from the Gryffindor section — hair wild, face flushed, binoculars in one hand. "Someone's jinxing the broom! I can see — it's Snape, he's not blinking, he's —"
"Look at Quirrell," Matt said.
Hermione's binoculars swung. She focused. Held the view for three seconds. Her lips parted.
"They're both —"
"One of them is jinxing. The other is counter-cursing. Breaking either one's concentration stops the jinx." Matt met her eyes. "Go."
Hermione didn't ask questions. She didn't argue. She turned and ran — down the stands, through the crowd, toward the staff section with the terrifying efficiency of an eleven-year-old girl who'd decided someone was going to stop hurting her friend and she was going to make it happen.
Matt watched her go. Watched Harry swing. Watched the broom buck and twist. His hands gripped the railing, knuckles white, every muscle in his body straining against the fundamental helplessness of being on the ground while someone he loved was in the air.
Come on, Hermione. Fast.
A flash of blue light from the staff section. Then chaos — professors jumping up, robes catching fire, Snape batting at flames, Quirrell stumbling sideways as the person beside him knocked into him trying to avoid the spreading fire.
Both stopped muttering.
Harry's broom went still. The boy swung himself up — strong arms, desperate grip — and sat upright on the stabilised handle. The crowd roared. Harry didn't celebrate — he'd seen something, a glint of gold near the ground, and he dove.
The Snitch was in his hand within five seconds. He'd caught it — or nearly swallowed it, from the way he was coughing — and Gryffindor had won by a margin so absurd that the scoreboard operator had to recount.
The pitch exploded. Red and gold banners waving, students flooding the field, Fred and George Weasley hoisting Harry onto their shoulders. The noise was enormous, triumphant, the particular sound of five hundred people who'd been holding their breath and could finally exhale.
Matt's hands unclenched. The railing had left grooves in his palms.
He found Hermione twenty minutes later, in the corridor behind the stands. She was sitting on a bench, knees drawn up, breathing hard. Her hair smelled faintly of smoke.
"Did you set Snape on fire?" Matt asked.
"Bluebell flames. Waterproof. Non-lethal." She paused. "Mostly non-lethal."
Matt sat beside her. "It worked."
"It worked." Hermione's voice was steady, but her hands shook — the comedown of adrenaline, of having done something reckless and brilliant and necessary. "But Matt — you said to look at Quirrell. Why?"
"Because Snape was making eye contact and muttering, which is the counter-curse posture. Quirrell was making eye contact and muttering, which is the jinx posture. The difference is direction — Snape was facing Harry's broom. Quirrell was facing Harry."
Hermione processed this. The machinery was visible — hypothesis tested, evidence weighed, conclusion forming. "You think Quirrell was the one jinxing the broom."
"I think it's worth considering."
"But he's — he's terrified of everything. He can barely teach a lesson without stuttering."
"The best disguise is the one nobody questions."
Hermione went quiet. The corridor was empty. The celebration had moved to the Gryffindor common room, and the sounds of distant cheering drifted through the castle's stone walls like the echo of a storm.
"I set the wrong person on fire," Hermione said.
"You disrupted both of them. The jinx broke. Harry's alive. That's what matters."
"But if Quirrell is —" She stopped. Bit her lip. Filed it. The drawer marked Things About Matt That Don't Add Up gained another entry, but the drawer marked Things About Quirrell had just been opened for the first time. "I'll watch him. In Defence class."
"Be subtle."
"I'm always subtle."
"You set a professor on fire, Hermione."
A pause. Then a laugh — quick, startled, the kind of laugh that escaped before you could catch it. The sound bounced off the corridor walls and came back warm.
Matt smiled. In his pocket, Twig stirred, sensing the shift in mood through the bond. Through Whisper's bond — distant, the Kneazle was in the tower — a faint pulse of contentment-pack-safe.
They walked back to the castle together, and the November air was cold, and Harry was alive, and somewhere in the staff quarters, a man in a turban was wondering why his curse had failed.
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