From the Daily Prophet of 6 September, 2000
Potter paces reserves' rout
Seeker sparks big victory, bigger crowd
By Mike Thalia
PUDDLEMERE, England -- "Today was pretty exciting. I don't think I'm going to forget it anytime soon."
That was what Harry Potter had to say, but were it not for the degree of understatement involved, the words could have come from just about any of the more than 8,000 witches and wizards who spent Tuesday afternoon at Nimbus Arena.
Unforgettable, indeed.
Potter finally made his long-awaited public Quidditch debut and gave the raucous, overflowing crowd that turned out to see him plenty of reason to remember this day at the pitch. The celebrated Puddlemere Seeker flew brilliantly through the constant cheers, his smart capture of the Golden Snitch highlighting the United reserves' impressive 250-20 rout of the backups from the Pride of Portree.
"That was fun," Potter said.
"It was quite a show, and it's safe to say we have Harry to thank for that," added Adam Briscoe, the manager of the Puddlemere reserves.
After the Boy Who Lived sat out Puddlemere's two home preseason games and the senior squad's opener at Portree on Saturday, United fans showed up in unprecedented numbers to watch him play before an audience for the first time as a professional.
"It was great to be able to go out there with my team-mates and play a real match," Potter said at the post-game news conference. "Having 8,000 witches and wizards there watching us took a bit of getting used to, but we played a strong match and took the victory. That's what matters."
For most of the 8,103 fans on hand, a result in the meaningless game meant far less than a strong showing from the Boy Who Lived. To their delight, the hero-turned-Seeker delivered both.
After almost an hour of fast-paced searching interspersed with thrilling manoeuvres for space, Potter spotted the Snitch near the base of the grandstands at the east boundary line. Racing away from Portree Seeker John Devlin, who had been flying nearly at his side, he opened a seemingly insurmountable head start as the crowd's roars literally shook the stadium.
But Potter's best flying came moments later when, rather than fleeing directly away from its pursuers, the golden ball unexpectedly zipped toward the centre of the pitch, opening up Devlin's angle of attack. Using his pace advantage, Potter darted sharply across his Prides counterpart's path and neutralized the threat. Then the Boy Who Lived expertly kept himself between Devlin and the Snitch until he could chase down the tiny ball and the Puddlemere victory.
"It was a tough capture because the Snitch didn't do what I expected when I first saw it," Potter said. "When it turned, I knew I had to react quickly or their Seeker was going to have the advantage. Luckily, I was able to cut him off."
"Harry made a very mature decision," said Puddlemere first-team manager Glenn Watson, who watched the match from the top box. "A Seeker's instinct is to chase the Snitch when he sees it, but if he'd done that, the geometry would have been decidedly in (Devlin's) advantage. By playing for position, Harry was able to take back control of the situation as soon as he knew he'd lost it. That's impressive flying."
The crowd certainly thought so. The capture brought the loudest, longest cheers of the afternoon from all around Nimbus Arena. The rousing standing ovation -- emphasised by a series of fireworks set off by a group of redheaded supporters in the top box and the security wizards' struggle to keep the throngs from pouring onto the field -- continued for more than seven minutes until Potter led the Puddlemere players back to the locker rooms.
Devlin, meanwhile, was left to rue a doubly painful defeat.
"That was tough to take," he said. "After Potter got that head start, the Snitch did the one thing that could have saved me and even then I couldn't take advantage. It almost feels like I lost this match twice."
In truth, the entire match must have been frustrating to the Portree Seeker. He received little in the way of Bludger support and was forced to try to mark Potter almost single-handedly -- a task even the best of the league's first-team Seekers would find challenging. Devlin was completely overmatched.
"Give him credit," Potter said diplomatically. "He worked very hard."
Potter forced that hard work, hunting for the Snitch at a much faster pace than is typical of most Seekers. Devlin often had to push himself just to shadow the Boy Who Lived's movements, leaving him little opportunity for searching of his own.
Potter added to his advantage with periodic bursts of speed and dives or climbs that usually gave him valuable seconds of uncontested Seeking and left his Portree counterpart scrambling to keep pace. The most exciting moment of the match before the capture came on the quarter hour when the Puddlemere Seeker's perfectly executed feint resulted in Devlin nearly careening into one of the Puddlemere goal hoops.
"He was really good. It was only luck that I ever had a chance," Devlin conceded.
"The situation wasn't as challenging as it could have been, but Harry played well," Watson said. "He was thoroughly in control of his portion of the game throughout the match, and he got the Snitch. You can't ask anything more of a Seeker."
Watson would not say if Potter's showing was strong enough to earn him playing time with Puddlemere's senior team, which opens its home season Saturday against Caerphilly. However, the United manager did say his club will "continue to give Harry as much match experience as possible, be it with the first team or the reserves."
The prospect of more chances to see their newest hero will be welcome news to the Puddlemere faithful. Though the club does not sell reserve-team tickets in advance, many fans had to be turned away Tuesday after seats for the 1 p.m. match sold out within 45 minutes of going on sale at 10 a.m. United officials said it was the first time in the team's 708-year history that a reserve match has sold out.
"We usually play in front of 200 or 300 people," Briscoe said. "To have every seat full, everybody screaming and cheering -- that was pretty amazing."
Nimbus Arena was nearly filled to capacity an hour before the Quaffle was thrown up, and the boisterous energy inside the stadium grew steadily as start time neared. The crowd leapt to its feet at the start of the Puddlemere introductions and gave its first ear-splitting scream when Potter's name was called and the former Auror raced out of the tunnel on his Fireblast. Many supporters stayed on their feet thereafter, greeting every move Potter made -- and the Puddlemere goals -- with riotous applause.
One particularly enthusiastic group of witches behind the home team's bench alternated chants of "Harry rocks our socks!" and "Send Petrova home!" the latter in reference to Ekaterina Petrova, the Boy Who Lived's Russian-born girlfriend and fellow United Seeker.
"It was a great crowd and it helped us a lot," Potter said. "It would have been hard not to get caught up in that kind of excitement."
Though the massive show of support was almost entirely focused on Potter, he wasn't the only Puddlemere player to benefit from it. Puddlemere's young side began the match with a series of aggressive, inspired attacks that seemed to gain in intensity as the din became louder.
"The entire team fed off the crowd," Briscoe said. "All that energy really gave us a lift, helped us take control of the match right from the off."
Italian Alessandro Albertini tallied the game's first goal just 26 seconds in, and his partnership with speedy Chaser Madori Sato quickly left the Prides defence reeling. Add in the domineering display by United Beaters Erik Hansen and Raul Suarez and there was little Portree could do to stop the rout. By the half-hour mark, Puddlemere led 60-10.
Sato finished with a game-high five goals. Albertini added four -- plus four assists -- while defensive specialist Kate Towne also scored for United.
"I'm very impressed," Watson said. "Just about everyone made an excellent showing today."
Leisl Sterm scored both goals for Portree.
Mike Thalia covers Puddlemere United for the Daily Prophet. Owl him at thedpreporting(at)yahoo(dot)com
Thanks to all of you who reviewed the last chapter. It never ceases to amaze me that there people out there who actually want to read this, especially after such a long delay. But I definitely appreciate your support.
I also appreciate the support of my betas, Chi, Nancy and R.G., who were kind enough to jump back into working with me after I suddenly reemerged from my winter hibernation.