"Can I take over the mike?" Harry's voice said to Lee.
" Boy, you are getting good with this Ventriliquo thing.
Sure thing, take over, there are plenty of things we want explained. What the hell had you been doing this entire match? How did you make the snitch disappear, or the bludgers follow you as if charmed? And so much that I will need to make a list.
Just what magic were you using out there? " Lee asked.
Harry's voice then took over the mike
" Magic?
Oh yeah, we used a powerful spell. Rinsio.
Dobby, the house elf taught it to us. He must be here somewhere with SPHEW members right now. Thanks for it Dobby.
It's a really useful spell. Cleans up all the stains on your cloak in no time. Particulaly useful for the blood stains that our cloaks would have after all the tests we conducted on bludgers.
For we knew that the rule book said that bludger is supposed to be random. That 'If left to their own device, the bludger would attack the closest player.' Quidditch through the ages, page 22. Yeah, I even remember the page number now. Did we read that one single line infinite times or what.
Asking ourselves questions like what would happen if two players are equally close to a bludger at the same time. What about 3 then?
Gathering the data about speed of the bludger, its turning frequency etc. etc.
We didn't cast any magic on bludgers. We just understood it.
And thanks Mrs. Pomfrey for mending me and Neville every single day as we pursued our line of curiosity.
And we felt compelled to find out these possibilities by ourselves, since while its true that we were playing a game, we weren't playing somebody else's game.
We weren't doing things just because that's how people have been doing them for hundreds of years. Or had been copying for hundreds of years.
For after all, this game was all about age. About assumption that older is better. About absorption of Dragon and Sunshine in the senior year armies just because they were born a few years ago.
And if anything sums it all up, its that snitch that was never the part of this game. That became a part when a power crazy bureaucrat disrupted the game and used his influence to change it according to his whim.
And nobody questioned it.
And by nobody, I mean you.
Your objective was to over come the opponents, our objective was to overcome the assumptions.
You wanted to be better, we wanted to be good.
Good on our own terms. True to our own objective.
To not see the world with a second hand imagination. "
Harry went silent with these words. Few in the crowd were paying close attention to all the things spoken and unspoken, while most were just noticing that their beliefs were being questioned.
Harry continued, " Most of you are still looking around to see what others are thinking. But then I wasn't planning to end this with an appeal to your rationality.
As I said the objective is not to overcome the opponents, but to overcome assumptions.
Rather than asking you to play the game without snitch, I will just make it irrelevant.
And to do that, I will explain the last mystery of the game.
Do you remember the time when Cedric just missed catching the Snitch and tying the game? You didn't think my spell at that time was a coincidence did you?
The thing is, we didn't just study bludgers. We also studied the snitch.
We found that they are almost opposites of each other. While bludger senses the players and tries to hit them, the Snitch senses the players and tries to escape from them.
That's why it is usually found high up or near the ground, since most players are in the middle level. That is why it is also frequently found near the toes or ears of the players, since that is their blindspot.
So the trajectory of a snitch can be said to be near negative to that of a bludger.
After knowing that, and finding out the details, all I had to do was this..
Lumos Maximus Multiplus.
Snitchus Calculus." Harry said the spell out aloud.
Five shots of lights emerged from Harry's wand at once and went to different locations in air.
Every player in the first year team took off at once to position of the lighted spots. Only two players didn't move, Harry who was still speaking and Hermione who just preferred hovering.
" And with just five players " Harry said " We have changed the player density of the ground. The snitch will now have to find a new location to hide, and by the base of calculations, it would be there. "
Harry pointed a finger. Just above the head of Harry and other players, the snitch fluttered its wings silently. Ready to be caught in a single swoop.
Yet nobody moved to take it.
" It will move in about five to ten seconds. Want to do a count-up?
Never mind, it has moved already to second optimum location. We can move to catch it , but rather than that I will just bring it up again.
Lumos Maximus Multiplus.
Snitchus Calculus
Continuus. " Harry said . And once again the five players swiftly moved to the new positions indicated by the light spots.
" There." Harry pointed to the snitch that once again was visible. " It is now visible again there. Worse, it is now predictable. My last spell will keep telling the team where to move. And as long as others are not flying too far away, that snitch will keep coming back to the same spot.
Anybody who knows how this spell works can easily catch the snitch.
And I will be posting the details of this spell on Floo Book by tonight.
Snitch wouldn't be part of this game any longer. Not if anybody wants to play it for more than 5 seconds."
A spell bound crowd kept seeing the snitch disappear, the lights change, the players move and snitch appear again. With precision, it fluttered on that exact spot.
Everybody in the stadium understood this pretty clearly; snitch was gone. Harry could have won the game anytime, could have had the first year armies back to their dormitories and victory parties after like first 5 seconds of the game.
But he played this crazy game, just to show the possibilities of the game without snitch?
" You think you know it all, don't you?" a voice contacted Harry through Ventriliquo.
"Derrick?" Harry said as he recognized the voice.
" You want to know the difference between first years and seniors? Its simple. We are bigger.
All your arrangements mean nothing. I will just knock out players of yours one by one. The game is not over yet, it would just count as a foul. Score extra points if you want to.
For that's all you can do. You got to gloat just now because Wood wouldn't listen to reason. Wouldn't foul against you first years. I will show you how the real game would have gone. I am not afraid of you Harry." Derrick said.
Harry located Derrick, he was about as far from Harry as Harry was from ground.
" That's because you are too stupid. But I promise you, if you do something like that, I will teach you to be afraid of me." Harry's cold voice said to Derrick.
" Whom to knock off the broom first? Whom? Whom?" Derrick said without paying attention. " Oh yeah, that little red haired sphew who doesn't know how to fly." And Derrick zoomed forward at full speed "She is going down. And there is nothing you can do to save her. You can't reach me on time even with maximum speed of your broom. Isn't that right?"
"No." Harry said in a quick resolution.
His hands moved and he shifted the weight effortlessly. In a moment his broom was pointing at an angle in the sky. It was an absolutely graceful display of flight control.
And then.. he jumped down.
...
Derrick was zooming towards Hermione. She had seen him but it didn't matter. She wouldn't be able to escape with her pathetic flying skill.
Nobody would interrupt this revenge. Everybody was far off, even Harry couldn't reach him until and unless he learned how to apparate in Hogwarts grounds.
Just then, he heard a sound of puff. Somebody grabbed him and everything in front of his blacked out.
" You got to be kidding me?" Derrick shouted " Did you actually learn how to apparate within Hogwarts grounds, Harry?"
He wrestled with the hands gripping his face to remove them. It was then he realized that the hands were too thin even for a first year.
He freed his eyes from the grip and saw that he was facing a little puny house elf.
"No." that creature said in a voice that reminded Derrick of last message of Harry.
For a moment Derrick panicked. But then something within him reminded him that there was no need to panic. He was facing a house elf after all. He didn't need to use force. Just an order would do.
" Get off me house elf." Derrick ordered to the struggling house elf.
The house elf didn't move.
What was happening? How could it have refused a direct order?
" Get off me, now!" Derrick shouted, a panic rising within him.
His hand prised his eyes free from the grip a little more and he found himself looking within round eyes of deep green.
That eye gazed back at him with a chilling look. As if to an unasked question, the elf answered.
" Dobby would not let anyone harm Ms. Hermione." Dobby said.
Derrick could have sworn that Dobby's pupil got narrower and scarier with each and every word.
Then suddenly there was an impact and his broom was gone from under him and he was falling. Falling upwards.
...
Few seconds ago.
Harry was falling down after he jumped from his broom.
" Fly. Full speed." He shouted to his broom that aimed upwards towards sky, at an angle and then he shouted once more "FRED! GEORGE!"
His body continued falling towards the ground. Madam Pomfrey can't mend scattered brains, he reminded himself of that fact as he saw the ground getting closer.
And then two arms grabbed him from the sides. His descent slowed down and then he started moving upwards. Harry looked up at the Weasleys.
" And we thought" Fred said
" That our jumping on a still broom was crazy." George said with great admiration in his voice.
" Had to do it." Harry said. " A broom's maximum speed falls with more weight on it. And it increases when the weight is removed.
Derrick was right, I couldn't have reached him on time. But a broom without rider could."
" So to save Hermione from falling down to her death, you fall down to your own death?" George asked.
" No way." Harry answered " I knew you would catch me."
They all looked up to see the impact of the Harry's broom with Derrick. There were some odd movements there, and a greenish blur.
" Now stop doing this Derrick." Cedric ventriliquoed with snitch in his hand" The game is over. Its their win."
Derrick's voice came back but it didn't seem to be addressing Cedric.
" Get off me, now!" Derrick said.
And then everybody around heard another voice , one that was cold and fiery at the same time " Dobby would not let anyone harm Ms. Hermione."
"Dobby?" Harry noticed with a wonder.
Then there was the crash. Harry's broom got entangled in Derrick's cloak , lifting him higher up in the sky.
Hermione had seen Derrick coming. She was ready with her wand to hex him the moment he came in the range.
But just as she was about to fire her spell, the crash happened. She breathed a sigh of relief. Everything was safe.
And then she was knocked out of her broom.
Derrick's rider-less broom had continued to travel towards her. She should have foreseen that, she thought. She should have been able to avoid that and now she just had few seconds to kick herself mentally as the ground rushed close. Maybe Dumbledore would save her. He wouldn't just let a student fall to death, would he?
Her fall stopped.
She was hanging in air by her cloak's neck, which was being held by.. " Dobby?" Hermione shrieked with relief as she looked up at Dobby who was now flying on her just abandoned broom. The sun behind gave him a halo and completed the glorious scene.
Somewhere in the back of her thankful mind, she was making a mental note to burn her copy of 'Hogwarts: A History' that talked about how 'people' can't apparate within Hogwarts castle. So even the wisest didn't think of house elves as 'people', did they?
She was the only person with those thoughts though. The rest of Hogwarts was almost violently celebrating the end of this phenomenal game and above all they were celebrating the final image as Dobby held on to Hermione's hand and didn't let her fall.
Somewhere in the distance Draco was hearing Patil twins coo at that scene "How unlike his master" they said. And Draco couldn't help but shudder at the thought that from now onwards he was forever going to be remembered as 'The Drop Lord'.