"It's too bad you never got to hear Wood's speeches," Harry whispered. "Angelina tries, but she can't match him." The Seeker paused. "You okay?"
Ron's normally white face matched the grass of the Quidditch pitch. His stomach had so many knots that he thought it might never come untied. Fingering the golden embroidery of his Gryffindor uniform, he pondered where the best place to throw up would be.
"Ron, are you listening to me?" Angelina asked. He looked up, having been lost in his nervousness.
"N-no…"
"Then I'll say it again. You look like you ate a bucket of broccoli. Relax. We would have left you in the hospital if we thought you couldn't do it." She turned to the rest of the team. "After the pounding that Hufflepuff gave Ravenclaw, we need a two-hundred point win to have a chance at taking the Quidditch Cup from Slytherin. Is it unlikely? Yes. Can we do it? Yes. Harry, make sure you keep Malfoy away from the Snitch until we have a fifty-point cushion."
Harry nodded. He hadn't spent many matches perfecting the Seeker's defensive role, but he had confidence. He wondered if Malfoy would act differently this time around, but, on further reflection, highly doubted it.
"Malfoy! Pay attention! Can't have any accidents on the broomstick, do you understand me? Slytherins should have impeccable hygiene while in the air," his Captain sneered.
Malfoy seethed in silence. Of all the abuse he had absorbed during the year, the worst had come from his Quidditch teammates. They never missed an opportunity to berate him.
"Now, everyone should drink exactly six ounces of this." He passed around full cups of a steaming green liquid. They all drank. "Everything will seem slower, but you'll be moving normal speed. Just like we practiced. They need a huge win to keep us from the Cup, and they have that Weasley boy as their Keeper. The game plan is simple. Score early and often. If you get a chance, make them bleed." The Slytherin Captain looked around at the smiling faces of his teammates. "Shall we?"
The stadium never looked so vast. Ron tried to take it all in, but everything seemed to blend together into one overwhelming din. Even with the fresh snowfall and the freezing conditions, the entire school had turned out to see the deciding match of the first round, and they all seemed to be cheering at once. If Slytherin won, with their overall record and point totals, they would win the cup outright. A Gryffindor win by two hundred points would force a playoff in the spring; anything less would hand the Quidditch Cup to Slytherin.
Thinking of the pressure, Ron's stomach did its tenth barrel roll in ten minutes. Harry patted him on the shoulder. Watching his nervous friend made him feel more confident. Glancing around the stands, he saw Grey, Willow, Tara, Giles and Hermione lumped together in the Gryffindor section. They cheered loudly, decked out in maroon and gold winter robes over their clothing. He offered a short wave and turned back to Ron, who had turned to feverishly biting his nails.
Angelina took the other Chasers, Katie Bell and Melissa Norton, and the Weasley twins aside as she watched Ron and Harry.
"Listen, here's what I want you to do: let Slytherin take the first possession. Hassle them, but let them shoot on Ron at once."
"What?" Fred shouted. "Are you daft?"
"No," she said, her voice reasonable. "He's nervous. Remember during the tryout? After one shot, he loosened up right away. If we don't let him get that first shot out of the way, he'll get more and more nervous. Let them through, understand?" Fred nodded warily, as did the others. "After that, though, kick their slimy serpent asses!"
Both teams mounted their brooms. Angelina declined to shake hands with her Slytherin counterpart; Madam Hooch blew the whistle, and the race was on.
One of the Slytherin Chasers grabbed the Quaffle immediately. As ordered, Fred and George offered meager resistance to the onslaught. Ron saw them coming and wondered why his brothers had picked today to play so badly.
Harry darted across the field, marking Malfoy and watching the boy's eyes for any sign of a Snitch sighting. He immediately knew something was wrong when he saw how unfocused they were.
Thanks to the magical brew, the game unfolded in front of Malfoy in slow motion. He saw the intricate weave pattern of his Chasers in perfect detail; the increased speed of their perceptions allowed them to turn far more sharply and judge the angles much better. As a result, they advanced on Weasley in a perfect line formation. The third man carried the Quaffle, shielded by the bobbing and weaving of the first two.
They came on, dancing and sliding through the air, and Ron had no idea where the Quaffle was. The Slytherin Chasers seemed to be flying much better than they ever had before, and he lost track of the red sphere among their twists and turns. Suddenly the first two Chasers broke out of line, while the third hurled the Quaffle. By sheer luck, Ron only had to veer slightly right and down. He caught it in the hollow of his chest; feeling the impact, he realized he had made his first official save.
His attack of nerves dropped away swiftly. Instead of a deafening mass of sound, he could pick out individual voices yelling. He caught the tail end of Lee Jordan's description over the microphone, the boy's excited voice echoing "Weasley saves it!" across the stadium. He saw the others waiting expectantly for him to clear the Quaffle, and felt the last of the tension in his stomach dissipate. Firing the Quaffle back out to Bell, Ron turned his full attention to the action for the first time.
On her broom, Angelina smiled and traded a look of triumph with Fred.
Unfortunately for Gryffindor, the game went poorly after that. Content to play defensively, Slytherin patiently withstood any Gryffindor attempts to break the game open. The two teams traded scores for twenty minutes. Despite Ron's best efforts, the Slytherin chasers had enough skill to put a number of shots past him. Gryffindor inched out to a 60-50 lead before Katie Bell, fed up with the deadlock, indulged herself in a tear. Three goals and two minutes later, Gryffindor had a forty-point lead.
Meanwhile, Harry tracked Malfoy around the stadium. Draco's eyes darted all over the place at lightning speed.
"What the hell is wrong with your eyes, Malfoy?" Harry shouted over the crowd.
Draco couldn't make out the words. Each one slowed down into one long bass note. When Harry finished, Draco shook his head and zoomed off across the field, trying to shake the other boy. He dodged and darted among the players, stands, and columns, trying to rub Harry off on something. As he zoomed by the announcer's tower, he saw the Snitch. Its normally madly fluttering wings seemed to beat in a lazy rhythm.
Harry saw it, too. They both put on a burst of speed, Harry from above and Draco from below. Rather than aim for the Snitch as Draco, who had lost track of the score, expected him to, Harry went into a steep dive.
Malfoy had all of the time in the world to grab the Snitch. He heard Harry coming straight for him with plenty of time to dodge, but decided to stay after the Snitch and let Potter pull away.
Seeing that he would be too late to cut Malfoy off, Harry ended the mid-air game of chicken the only way he could. He slammed his broom headlong into the other, knocking them both off course. When they righted their tumbling brooms, Malfoy shouted a stream of garbled obscenities at Harry and the Snitch had disappeared. They heard Madam Hooch's whistle before either could find it again.
"Penalty shot to Slytherin! Potter, what on Earth are you doing? Do you know how many Seekers have died trying that move?"
The best Slytherin Chaser, Jeremy Jacobs, took the Quaffle with a sneer and circled around to shoot. Ron steadied himself. Off to his right, he saw Angelina Johnson hovering at midfield, watching him. He remembered an old trick Wood used to pull; carefully removing a hand from his broom, Ron pointed at Angelina. Her eyebrows went up. Realizing his meaning, she shrugged and nodded, as if to say "I'll try it if you will." He nodded in return and shifted his attention back to Jacobs.
Just as Jacobs began his run, Harry saw the Snitch again, this time spinning wildly in the far corner. Malfoy did too, and they took off after it. On the ground it would have been a pure foot race.
Jacobs came straight for Ron. No pretense of ducking and weaving, just a straightforward run at the goal until he reached midfield. He dove for the ground, drawing a collective gasp from the assembled crowd as he pulled out of the dive at the last second and careened into a steep ascent. Fifty feet above Ron's head, he spun his broom and reared back for the shot.
Harry and Draco closed on the Snitch shoulder to shoulder; Draco knew he could time his burst better than Harry and eagerly waited for the perfect moment, knowing that keeping it from Potter would seal the victory.
Right before that moment, the potion wore off.
Jacobs' perception sped back up, throwing the angle of his shot off by a fraction.
Ron cut sharply towards the Quaffle. The adjustment made the difference. He flew through its path and stopped in perfect position for his gamble. With the end of his broom, he batted the red sphere out perfectly to Angelina, who caught it and took off for the Slytherin goal.
Draco, his perceptions back to normal, broke late for the Snitch and missed it. Harry edged him off, gaining a half-broom lead as they swung around for another pass.
Adopting a Slytherin tactic, Harry nudged him left with a kick from the side of his foot. Draco responded with a badly-aimed elbow that Harry ducked under. He heard the roar erupt from the crowd, then caught Lee Jordan's "Angelina scores! She scores!" Bursting ahead of Malfoy one final time, Harry grabbed the Snitch.
The celebration went on in the Gryffindor common room for hours.
"I can't believe you did that!" Harry exclaimed for the tenth time. "It took Wood a long time to learn to do that."
"I know," Ron said, basking in the praise. He had never received this much adulation in his life. His brothers had carried him to the common room on their shoulders, and everyone else offered only slightly less effusive praise. "When he came to visit, he showed me how, and I figured why not try it? How about you, though? Barreling into Malfoy at top speed? Brilliant!"
"I couldn't think what else to do," Harry said with a grin. Then his expression turned serious. "There was something wrong with him out there today, though. His eyes were moving all over the place really fast."
"What d'you mean?" Ron said.
"It just seemed like … I don't know. Maybe it was nothing."
"Do you think they might have been cheating, somehow, Harry?" Hermione asked. The three of them had managed to carve out some space for themselves amidst the revelry.
"I don't know. They didn't seem to be flying faster or shooting better than usual."
"No, their shots were good but not extra hard or anythin'," Ron added.
Before they could discuss it further, Willow and Tara walked over. Grey and McGonagall, as the leaders of Gryffindor house, were discussing the victory in the far corner of the room with an animated Angelina Johnson. The rest of the house swirled around them, savoring the victory over hated Slytherin.
"Hey!" Willow said brightly. Tara gave them one of her big, shy smiles. "You guys were great! Not that we really get what went on, except for the whole winning the game for Gryffindor thing."
"Thanks, Willow," Harry said.
Ron beamed. He had gotten over his crush, mostly, but found it hard to talk with the red-haired professor around. Seeing his expression, Hermione scowled fiercely.
"So now you play them again in the spring, right?"
"Yeah," Harry said. "They've changed it so that the first and second place teams play an extra match to decide the cup winner if they have the same record and a close number of points."
"Sounds like fun," Tara said. "Hopefully it'll be warmer."
The others nodded their agreement.
"You need to tell Sirius, Harry," Hermione said.
"At least now he'll get to see us play," Harry replied with a nod.
"How are he and Spike doing?" Willow asked.