Gryffindor's Victory and Hagrid's Loose Lips

The Gryffindor players hurriedly grabbed Harry, who was about to float away, and pulled him down to the ground.

Watching Harry swell up like a balloon, everyone wanted to laugh, but out of consideration for his feelings, they all forced themselves to hold it in.

Harry, having been thoroughly pranked, opened his mouth wide to say something. But perhaps even his throat had swollen up, because no sound came out. He could only wheeze air.

Seeing this ridiculous sight, the players could no longer hold it in and burst out laughing. The Weasley brothers laughed the loudest, loudly praising Ye Ting as a prankster genius.

After quite a while, the laughter finally died down. Captain Oliver Wood drew his wand, intending to restore Harry to normal, but no matter what spell he used, nothing worked. When he cast "Finite Incantatem," balloon-like Harry not only failed to return to normal, but swelled several times larger. Originally, one person had been enough to keep him on the ground; now, it took ten people just to barely hold him down.

Left with no choice, they had to turn to Ye Ting, the "culprit."

Ye Ting did not act personally. Instead, he set Himari down from his shoulder.

Understanding his meaning, Himari climbed onto Harry—though the balloon was so enormous that she nearly fell off several times—then extended the claws hidden beneath her paw pads and lightly poked Harry before leaping away as if fleeing for her life.

The next moment, the spot pierced by Himari's claw immediately began to leak air. Harry himself flew wildly through the air, carried by the escaping gas like a deflating balloon. The Weasley brothers, Angelina Johnson, and Alicia Spinnet, who had been holding onto him, were dragged into the sky as well. In the end, all five of them crashed down hard, leaving the scene in utter chaos.

But to their delight, Harry spat a Golden Snitch out of his mouth. Gryffindor had won just like that, somehow defeating Slytherin by one hundred seventy points to sixty.

After the match ended, Hermione pulled Ye Ting along and hurried after Ron and Harry to discuss Harry's accident. Harry and Ron had not joined the celebration, instead going to visit Hagrid's hut.

Inside the small wooden hut, Hagrid brewed a pot of strong tea for the four of them.

"Oh, I know you two." As he poured their tea, Hagrid looked at Ye Ting and Hermione in surprise.

"Ravenclaw's genius duo, 'Mr. Popular' and 'Miss Know-It-All.'"

"Thank you for the tea." Ye Ting nodded with slight helplessness. He had grown used to such teasing titles, but Hermione still blushed a little.

Hagrid also brought them a bag of fudge. It was sweet and soft, and if roasted over the fire, it would stick to your teeth.

Before long, they began talking about the accident on the Quidditch pitch.

"It was Snape," Ron explained to everyone. "I saw him. He was casting a spell on Harry's broomstick, muttering under his breath and staring at Harry the whole time."

"I saw it too," Hermione added. "If Ron hadn't stopped Snape, Harry might still be up in the air."

"Nonsense," Hagrid said. He knew nothing about what had happened beside him in the stands.

"Why would Snape do something like that?"

Ron and Harry exchanged a glance before finally deciding to tell the truth. They described to Hagrid what had happened on Halloween Eve, as well as what they had discovered yesterday.

Hagrid set down the teapot heavily.

"How do you know about three-headed Fluffy?" he asked.

"Three-headed Fluffy?" Ron and Harry looked confused.

"Yes—it's mine—I bought it from some Greek bloke I met at an inn last year—I lent it to Dumbledore to guard—"

"What?" Harry asked eagerly.

"Enough, don't ask any more questions," Hagrid said roughly. "That's top secret, understand?"

"But Snape wants to steal it."

"Nonsense," Hagrid said again. "Snape is a Hogwarts professor. He would never do such a thing."

"Then why did he want to kill Harry?" Hermione demanded loudly. What had happened that afternoon seemed to have greatly changed her opinion of Snape.

"I can recognize a jinx when I see one. I've read all about them in books! You have to keep eye contact with them, and Snape didn't blink once. I saw it!"

"I'm sorry, but I think you were mistaken," Ye Ting said helplessly.

"When I used my spell to control Harry's broomstick, I clearly discovered that before I acted, at least two forces were already affecting the broomstick. In other words, apart from me, at least two people had cast spells on it.

"The reason Harry did not fall directly to his death was because not both of those people wanted to harm him. In fact, only one of them wanted to kill Harry, while the other had been saving him the whole time. Snape was merely one of them. Fairly speaking, you cannot judge whether his intentions were good or bad simply from his expression."

At that, Harry solemnly thanked Ye Ting, including for the spell that had inflated him into a balloon at the end.

"But Snape has always disliked Harry. Why would he want to save him?" Hermione asked in return.

That was because Snape had secretly loved Harry's mother when they were students. His concern for Harry was only because of his feelings for her.

As for why he hated Harry, it was because Harry's father had often played pranks on him back then, and had married the woman he loved most.

Ye Ting wanted very much to explain it that way, but he could not say those words aloud.

"I'm telling you that you're wrong too!" Hagrid went on angrily. "I don't know why Harry's broomstick behaved like that, but Snape could never want to kill a student! Now listen to me—all of you are meddling in something that has nothing to do with you. It's very dangerous. Forget about that big dog, forget about what it's guarding. This is between Professor Dumbledore and Nicolas Flamel—"

"Aha!" Harry said. "So this involves someone called Nicolas Flamel too, does it?"

Hagrid flew into a rage, angry at himself for letting a secret slip through a careless remark.