Felix sat in the stands, crutches under his armpits. Once again the final game of the season would declare who would win the Quidditch tournament, once again it would either be Slytherin or Hufflepuff.
Felix wore yellow pants and a yellow shirt under his school robes and a Hufflepuff scarf wrapped around his neck. Ethel sat next to him tapping impatiently her foot against the wooden tower stand's floor planks.
"This is excruciating, I should be out there with them!" Felix whined for the umpteenth time in less than twenty minutes tapping foot against the floor planks and fingers against the crunches.
Ethel rolled her eyes shoving his shoulder playfully. "Shush, this is stressful enough without you yammering about!"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah!" Felix dismissed her with a wave of his hand. "What's taking Professor Willows so long! Everyone's sat already!"
The teams came out walking on the pitch brooms in hand in two single file lines.
"And good afternoon folks!" The Ravenclaw girl commentator welcomed them. "The teams have come out to the pitch and Professor Willows is giving them the fair play instructions. Slytherins need a victory with at least three hundred points difference while Hufflepuffs just need a victory. Natalie will lead the Hufflepuffs today while Felix is sitting this one out, doctor's orders! But if Lisa leading the Slytherins thinks this is going to make it an easy game, she has to think again by the looks of it! Natalie and the Hufflepuff look as determined as always", the commentator's voice came loud and clear through the megamagiphones. Professors Jordan and Horsewood sat on either side of her, wands on their laps.
"The teams take off and Professor Willows is ready to open the balls' chest! Here we go folks! The game's about to start!"
"About bleedin' time!" Felix yelled as loud as he could making other Hufflepuffs around him laugh.
"And the game has begun!" Rachel the Ravenclaw girl commentating the game yelled as Professor Willows whistled the start of the match.
Natalie gave signs to her team and off they went.
"Don't wedge yet, draw her out…" Felix whispered under his breath as Eloise stole the Quaffle and passed it to Natalie.
"Eloise has the Quaffle and she passes it to Natalie, Gordon tries to steal it from her but ends up with a broom's end on his face! That has to hurt! Natalie seems possessed! She passes the Quaffle to Steven who changes it hand behind his back and scoooooooores! Ten – Nil to Hufflepuff!" Rachel commentated.
"Come on Norbert, see what Nate and Natalie are trying to do…dear Lords man have you not been paying attention to reserves training! Ugh!" Felix exasperated as the game progressed. Natalie was trying to herd the Slytherin chasers between Nate and Norbert while their chasers shuffled around the Quaffle between them like a shell game.
"Calm down! Dear Gods Norbert's stage frightened to death…" Ethel jumped as Eloise tried to score but the Slytherin goalkeeper caught it, passing it to Lisa and Lisa proceeded to score the equalizer for Slytherin.
A few minutes later Lisa gave a pass resulting to a second goal for Slytherin making the Slytherin students in the stands to erupt in cheers.
"Slytherin are leading by ten points, Eloise and Natalie are harassing Meredith, Meredith changes hand, she wants to pass the ball, but she has no clear line of sight, Natalie rolls over her, Meredith changes hand again but Eloise barrels under her and steals the Quaffle! The other Slytherin chasers try to steal it back but Eloise passes it to Natalie right under their hands! Natalie makes an instant long pass to Steven who is left alone and charges at the Slytherin goal hoops! He avoids the bludger with a loop de loop and scores! All tie!" Rachel yelled caught up in the game's excitement as the Hufflepuff stands roared "goaaaaal!" in a deafening single voice.
The Slytherin goalkeeper tried to pass the Quaffle to one of his Chasers but Natalie came in stole it and scored for the thirty – ten.
Twenty minutes later and largely to Natalie's single-minded passionate desire to win the two teams stood tied again at one hundred points each with both teams committing mistake after mistake.
Ten minutes after they were still tied with no goal in sight. "This isn't working, must deploy a strategy not involving the beaters as much….this should throw Lisa off. NATALIE!" Felix yelled as loud as he could waving his hands above his head to get Natalie's attention.
Nate saw him first, pointing him out to Natalie who stopped her broom to see him. Felix used a sign language to communicate with her without speaking.
She signed back giving a nod and proceeded to give new instructions to the team.
"You know sign language?" Ethel asked him astonished.
"Not a word, this one's made up for the team so we can exchange strategies and stuff without anyone knowing what we're saying", Felix replied looking ahead at the evolving game.
"Right, only you'd create a whole new language just for your Quidditch strategies…" Ethel sighed shaking her head in disbelief, but Felix wasn't listening to her anymore.
"Come on…that's right Steven feign possession, yes Silly Slytherins go right at him…and that's how you concede a goal. One hundred and ten to one hundred. No Eloise don't go at them, let them…bugger! Come on Graham catch that Qua….yes, caught it! Nice Starfish move there…" Felix was mumbling to himself loud enough for Ethel to hear him.
"It's like having surround commentary", she laughed.
Ravenclaw and Gryffindor stands cheered Hufflepuff's twelfth and thirteenth goals joining the Hufflepuff students' roars.
Slytherin tried to score a goal but Natalie flew by grabbing the Quaffle mid-air and flying to the other side of the pitch and the Slytherin hoops to single-handedly score one hundred and forty to hundred.
Ten seconds later she stole the Quaffle from Lisa who fouled her roughly. "THAT'S A FOUL!" Screamed Ethel with half the stadium.
Felix snorted.
"What? I want to win as much as anyone" Ethel shrugged impishly.
"I can see that!" Natalie scored again.
"I've noticed at least two strategy changes so far…I'm confused", Ethel told him ten minutes later.
"Yeah, and so is "I'm going to defeat you" Lisa", Felix cracked a wide, evil grin. "My guys aren't confused though. They have been training on more strategies than they can hope to count. Assuming I live through this summer, these past two years will be only but a taste of things to come", Natalie scored yet another goal raising the score to one hundred and fifty to one hundred. Lisa and the Slytherin team seemed to be lost as to how to counter the constant change-of-strategy by the Hufflepuff team. Natalie stoke the Quaffle again passing it to Eloise who pretended to go for goal only to pass it to Steven who scored one hundred and sixty to one hundred.
"Looks like Katya has found the Golden Snitch and is diving for it!" Rachel yelled above the chorus of the stands. "Her hand is stretched out and the Slytherin seeker is nowhere to be found near her! She ducks to avoid the bludger and the opportunity is gone!"
"NORBERT FOR THE LOVE OF FUCKING GOD AND MERLIN'S FART!" Felix bellowed facepalming hard while jumping up almost falling off the rails.
Natalie had also seen the replacement beater's mistake at not covering for their seeker and instantly swapped Norbert with Nate.
"Looks like Natalie's at it again with changing tactics!" Rachel commentated with no small excess enthusiasm. "Looks like Lisa's reciprocating the changes, you're looking a tad lost there dearie! Sorry Professor!" Rachel saw Professor Horsewood glancing at her disapprovingly.
"My god, she just left her chasers and goalkeeper unprotected, come on Natalie see it, see it and crash her…" Felix watched the game running things in his mind hoping his replacement team Captain would see what he saw.
Hufflepuffs made one hundred and seventy with Natalie like a demon. Soon after she made one hundred and eighty with Steven's aid.
"How do you know all this stuff?" Ethel asked him genuinely awed in his ability to see the game as he did.
"Quidditch, dueling, chest…same thing, different set of rules and number of actors, but same principle. And Lisa understands it not."
"I guess?" Ethel did not understand what he was trying to say.
"What do you see? When you look at the teams playing?"
"People on brooms going really fast, hunting after balls? I dunno…"
"See the whole board, go beyond the obvious. Eloise has the Quaffle, she can sprint for the Slytherin goal loops, she's young short with low gravity center and nimble, she could do it. But young and small is a double-edged sword and it can cut both ways. She can also become unprotected which could lead to her getting injured or lose the Quaffle and cede the advantage to Slytherin. She has five players with her and five against her. She needs to pass the ball two chasers are trying to block her straight on, and the Slytherin beater has sent the bludger her way. Steven's coming up from behind and below her and Nataly is far to the front near the Slytherin goal loops and above her. Natalie's the risk pass, but Nataly'll be alone whereas Steven's got the same problems as Eloise.
"All the while there's a third Slytherin chaser somewhere she can't see and there's a second Slytherin beater and bludger she also has no sight of. Lisa can further Eloise, maybe cause her to make a mistake or guard Natalie. She's already made the mistake of sending the second bludger at Katya. Nate has that well covered. The third chaser is between Eloise and Natalie and he has a choice, he can go for Natalie but then he'll have his back to the Quaffle and no knowledge of what's going on or he can go at Eloise and risk Natalie doing something he can't be aware of, which move possesses the smaller risk for his team. The strategy Lisa seems to be employing could have worked against risk taker Gryffindors but here she's fighting against my team and her third chaser is going after Natalie who has positioned herself right in front of the afternoon sun and that means he is practically blind; he can't even see her. Eloise has seen this and will try and send the ball above his face so that it goes up against the sun's glare. Natalie has only to see the ball and grab it and she has a clear line to the goal loops and not a single Slytherin team member can do anything about it anymore. She'll make one hundred and eighty to one hundred", Felix explained as fast as he could in two breaths moving his hands to show each actor in the stage.
Ten seconds later Eloise passed to Natalie over the Slytherin chaser's head, his hands in front of his face trying to blot out the sun from blinding him, Natalie dived for the Quaffle revealing the sun full force onto him and three seconds later she scored as Felix said she would.
"Amazing!" Ethel cried as the stands erupted in cheers over the goal. "What'd you have done differently if you were her?"
"With Nate on Katya and Nobert out of time and place? I'd send my seeker to harass Natalie by flying around her as if the Golden Snitch is there, no harm no foul. I'd position the two chasers diagonally and at different altitudes and place the third one between them with his back at Nataly, you know where approximately she is by where Eloise or Steven will pass and the sun's not blinding you. When the pass is made you try and time the second bludger at her. It could rush her into making a mistake."
"And you played all of this in your mind?"
"I played all games of years five six and seven in my mind at year five and I make adjustments and replay them after each game we've played since and compare what I had in mind before with what happened during each game and what could have been done differently and what I want different in each subsequent game after."
"Hmmm…uhm…they're all gonna lose…" Ethel laughed nervously while Eloise raised the score to one hundred and ninety to one hundred.
But Felix's attention was back at the game watching what Natalie was doing. "Curses, she's not seen Lisa's folly, Lisa's not getting demolished this year, she falls on a false sense of security, doesn't make any changes and continues to think she can defeat me come next year….yeah maybe that's for the best…." He thought to himself while cheering Hufflepuff's twentieth goal just seconds before Katya made a perpendicular freefall dive catching the Golden Snitch winning the game with three hundred and fifty to one hundred, and the Quidditch Tournament for Hufflepuff.