Hyper-focused on his Sirius dilemma, Harry conveniently forgot the first quidditch match of the season followed just after Halloween. In his defense, not even the disastrous events that plagued him on this particular holiday each year were a match for Oliver Wood's intensity.
But he wasn't a Gryffindor and therefore wasn't participating in the match, nor had he spent two months cramming in training sessions whenever the captain found time for them. Harry largely suspected that Oliver must have had a time turner that year. How else could the fifth year have handled regular team practices, special one-on-one training with his new seeker, and the insane amount of work and revision that came with O.W.L year.
McGonagall was competitive enough that he could absolutely see her writing a letter to the Ministry, playing up things like dedication and hard work and for his career. She had done so for a thirteen-year-old, for Merlin's sake, and when it came to quidditch, Oliver was more than a match for exam-mode Hermione.
Sitting at breakfast that Saturday morning, listening to the excited chatter of students who looked forward to the match—Gryffindor versus Slytherin. It was always the first match up of the year, except for when Malfoy was a slimy git in third year and played up his injured arm.
Ron had noted once, that the Slytherin team tended to suffer a humiliating defeat when pitted against the lions first. Harry had caught the snitch in his first year despite Quirrell jinxing his broom and after having broken an arm thanks to Dobby's bludger the year after.
Harry wondered if that would be the case for today's game, seeing as he obviously wasn't playing for the Gryffindor team.
The game was all anybody at breakfast was talking about. Even though Harry wasn't participating, he looked forward to it as well. Having hit a frustrating dead end with his research into the wizarding legal system and free his godfather, he was in much need of something to distract him.
A quidditch match was just what the healer ordered.
Harry had only witnessed one game that he hadn't played in, and that was the World Cup. During Hogwarts, he had never attended a match his team wasn't involved in. Not even when he was the captain, when he should have been in order to gather information and prep his team.
After watching a professional game, school yard matches paled in comparison.
Zacharias and Ernie were explaining the magical sport to muggleborn Justin over breakfast as they argued over which house would win.
"Gryffindor is going to get crushed," proclaimed Zac, biting a link of sausage in half. Harry, having looking up from his own breakfast to defend his former house, grimaced as he watched the grease roll down his chin. If his face was rounder, it would have been an unwelcome replica of Dudley's eating habits. "Charlie graduated last year. Wood wouldn't have had enough to train a new seeker."
"You want Slytherin to win?" Ernie asked.
The other boy scowled. "I didn't say that. But I think they will because none of their players are new."
Ernie deflated like a balloon. "Yeah," he agreed glumly.
"Don't listen to them," Harry said directly to Justin, earning a wounded look from Ernie and a glare from Zacharias. "Just because the seeker always ends the game doesn't mean they win it."
"What do you know about quidditch, Potter? You're just as muggle as Finch-Fletchley," Zac sneered.
Harry shot him a withering look for the muggle comment. "I know that it's ridiculous to say everything rides on the seeker. The seeker is just one guy. It's a team sport."
"But the snitch is worth one hundred and fifty points, isn't it?" Justin asked. "So catching it is an automatic win."
"Precisely," Ernie confirmed, reaching towards the center of the table for another rasher of bacon.
"Only if it gives your team more points than your opponents," Harry calmly stated, just now noticing that the rest of the first years were listening to the four of them argue over quidditch semantics and technicalities. "It's a points game, in the end. If your team catches the snitch when you're more than a hundred and fifty points behind, you don't win."
Ernie and Zacharias stared at him, incredulous, while Justin nodded and claimed what the black haired boy had said made sense.
"Well said," came Cedric's opinion, as Harry's mentor dropped into the open space between himself and Luca.
Harry offered the teen a genuine smile. "Thanks."
With the epiphany he had reached in wake of the troll incident, Harry had decided to stop rebuffing the older boy. It had been really hard, the last several weeks, to keep Cedric firmly in the bounds of a concerned upper year and nothing more.
Harry had been too concerned with figuring out just what exactly his dreams were and what they meant or if they even mattered at all, since nothing about them was the same since he stepped foot in Hogwarts, and if it was unfair and manipulative to use them to recreate the friendships he so desperately desired.
Right up until he dreamt Hannah's hair catching on fire and he failed to run into the troll last night.
Those two events had been a turning point for Harry. Maybe his dreams were prophetic, but they weren't set in stone. So, there was no point in keeping Cedric at a distance, especially since Cedric was a really nice guy. Harry had trouble naming anyone who might dislike him. Even Malfoy seemed to like him. Though that may have been because Cedric was the only person to beat Harry to the snitch.
"Like that would ever happen," muttered Zacharias.
Harry pointedly ignored him. It certainly was a rare occurrence that catching the snitch didn't win the game, and he couldn't exactly offer proof of it happening before. Instead, he chose to address Cedric and get his opinion.
"Who do you think will win?"
"I've got ten sickles on Gryffindor," he admitted. "Wood's chasers are a menace and the Weasley twins can be demons on the pitch."
Harry nearly snorted his tea. Fred and George were devilish tricksters no matter where they were. Adding in a hundred and fifty pound iron ball that was nearly the size of his head made them downright terrors.
Luckily, Harry had never had to face the twins on the pitch, and unless he joined Hufflepuff's team, never would.
Harry eyed Cedric, the boy happily regaling the crowd of firsties with the story of last year's cup determining match between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw. Was he on the team yet? He would become captain for Hufflepuff in two years, which implied Cedric was already Hufflepuff's seeker, no?
Across the hall, Wood called for his teammates to head down to the locker rooms, which signaled to everyone else still lazily enjoying their breakfast that it was time to relocate as well.
Buzzing with energy, the cete of Hufflepuff first years, even those uninterested in quidditch like Megan, Luca, and Wayne, followed the crowd of people dressed in black and yellow out onto the lawn and down to the quidditch pitch.
Harry briefly debated slipping away to sit with the Gryffindor section of students. Quidditch was something he and Ron could bond over and strike up a friendship, especially if Harry pretended he needed the red-headed boy to explain what exactly the sport was because he lived with muggles. However, he knew one of the prefects would no doubt perform a head count and notice he wasn't with them, which would lead to several questions later about why Harry chose to sit with the lions instead of his own house.
The game was riveting.
Just like Cedric had predicted, the trio of Gryffindor chasers—Katie, Alicia, and Angelina—kept masterful control of the quaffle. Slytherin could hardly keep possession long enough to fly the length of the pitch, never mind try to score against Wood. However, the Slytherin keeper, Miles Bletchley, was on form, prevent two out of every three attempts from scoring a goal.
Just like the Bulgaria versus Ireland match he had seen, Slytherin appeared to be relying on their seeker to catch the snitch before their opponent could rack up too many points. Unlike the international league, where the difference in points contributed towards league ranking and qualifying for the World Cup, losing out by a lot of points was simply humiliating. Losing by any margin of more than a hundred and fifty was an embarrassment, because it meant not only did your team fail to catch the snitch, but that your keeper fumbled too many goals and your chasers failed to score.
Lee's magically enhanced voice washed over him, tracking the players and impressive moves. The only thing he never commented on was the snitch, whether because he couldn't find it amidst the chaos of constantly moving figures and equipment on the pitch or commenting on the snitch's location when a seeker wasn't in pursuit just wasn't done, Harry didn't know.
Ron would probably tell him it was one of the seven hundred fouls that could be committed and name every game it ever happened in.
Luckily for Cedric, one of the Slytherin beaters accidentally snitchnipped, reflexively knocking the snitch out of his face when it flew right in front of him. Any player other than the seeker touching the snitch was a foul of course, but it also resulted in the guilty team forfeiting the game. Nobody was happy with the ending—forfeiting by snitchnip wasn't the best way to win—least of all the Slytherin team.
Harry could spot both Marcus Flint and Wood arguing with Madam Hooch, both captains wanting to replay the match for different reasons.
Game finished, Harry saw no reason to linger. He didn't need to be present to learn Hooch's verdict, all of Hogwarts would gossip about it there wasn't a ghost in the castle that wasn't aware the first match of the season was decided on a foul.
Besides, he already knew Hooch would stick to her ruling. Despite Cedric's many protests, the match between Hufflepuff and Gryffindor in his third year, the one that had been interrupted by dementors, had never been replayed.
Harry was squeezing behind a pack of fifth years when he felt his cloak snag, as if somebody had stepped on the end of it. The act forced him to pull up short, aborting the step he had been about to take. Off balanced by the by motion of being suddenly stopped, Harry's foot failed to firmly catch the step it was intending for. The heel of his foot hit the forward edge of the step and fell out from underneath him.
There was a burst of pain at the back of his skull when his head cracked against the stair, and Harry knew nothing but blackness.
Later, he would awaken in the hospital wing, Madame Pomfrey bustling over to see if there was any residual pain or tenderness, with no recollection of dreaming about a conversation between Voldemort and Quirrell, where the former was berating the latter for acting hastily and drawing unwanted attention.
He thought it was rather ironic though, as he nestled into his temporary sheets, that even when he wasn't playing in the match, Harry still wound up being sent to the hospital wing.