48, Quidditch

After leaving the hospital, Hoffa experienced the most wonderful period of his time at Hogwarts.

No one came looking for trouble with him anymore. It felt like the Soviet Union had suddenly collapsed, the Middle East had suddenly declared a ceasefire, and keyboard warriors across the universe had suddenly vanished.

The world was finally peaceful.

Argeleia no longer watched him like a hawk and picked fights with him, but she no longer spoke to him either.

Instead, whenever she saw him, she would take a detour around him and pretend not to notice him. Sometimes, she would laugh and chat with other girls at the turn of a staircase. When Hoffa passed by, she would fall silent, only continuing after he had gone far away.

Of course, Hoffa also made a point of politely avoiding her, as if an invisible border separated them. He felt that as long as she could maintain things like this, he did not mind indulging her desire to be the boss.

December arrived quietly, and Britain's weather grew colder and colder.

The sky was always a dazzling egg-white color, and one morning, the muddy grounds were covered in a shining layer of frost. The mountains around the school were gray and blanketed in ice and snow, while the lake was as cold and hard as quenched steel. Every morning, the view outside Ravenclaw Tower became a little whiter.

Without realizing it, the students around him had all put on thick scarves and gloves. After class, they rubbed their hands together in the corridors, breathing out streams of white mist.

Some older students had even ordered a kind of shapeshifting blue flame from Diagon Alley. They could keep it in their palms and knead it continuously, adjusting its temperature freely.

But Hoffa had none of those things. He had neither flames nor scarves nor gloves. No one had helped him prepare when he left the orphanage. At the time, he had thought winter clothes would be too heavy to carry, so he had come with only one bag.

Looking at it now, though, he had not thought things through. Britain was at a much higher latitude than China. He had chosen convenience for the moment, only to end up freezing when the weather turned cold.

After December began, the weather grew even colder. Thick, dark snowflakes drifted through the sky, sealing every window. The castle was much dimmer during the day than usual.

Fortunately, one morning, Miranda's owl brought Hoffa the two sweaters and scarf he had bought from a clothing shop in London.

The delivery had exhausted Miranda's chestnut-colored owl half to death, and Hoffa felt both guilty and sorry for it. He wanted to give the owl a little steaming pumpkin juice.

However, after tossing the clothes to Hoffa, the owl flew away on its own, with no intention of paying him any attention.

"Your owl really has quite the personality."

Hoffa remarked to Miranda.

"It just isn't used to eating food from strangers."

Miranda said.

As they spoke, Professor Gorshak suddenly appeared beside the Ravenclaw table. Miranda immediately lowered her head. She seemed very unwilling to meet her grandfather's eyes.

But Professor Gorshak merely glanced faintly at his granddaughter, then took out a list and had the students fill it out one by one.

It was a list collecting the names of students staying at school for Christmas. Hoffa naturally signed it without hesitation. If he did not stay at school, he would have to return to Wool's Orphanage in London.

He had no desire to go back. What surprised him was that Miranda signed the list too.

"You're not going home for the holidays? I mean, you must be from a wizarding family, right?"

"Yeah." Miranda smiled. "But now, only Grandpa and I are left in the family."

"What?"

Hoffa's mouth fell open in surprise. He had never asked Miranda about her family. "Then your parents..."

"They're both dead."

Miranda said calmly. Seeing Hoffa's expression, she smiled.

"That's normal, isn't it? I'd say a third of the students in this hall have family members who died in the world war. Besides, I was just a child when they passed away. I have no memory of them at all."

Though she said that, Hoffa still felt rather guilty. "Sorry."

Miranda's words gave him a deeper understanding of this world.

One-third.

If he remembered correctly, this body's original father, that Chinese man, had also died in World War I.

The Muggle World War I had ended in 1918, twenty years before the present.

He was eleven years old now, so this body's father had not died in the Muggle war.

Was he a wizard too? A Chinese wizard?

Conflicts among wizards never ended.

Thinking of the slogan posted in Hogsmeade, Hoffa fell into thought.

The days passed one by one, and the wind and snow gradually intensified. Most of the castle windows were shut tight, blocked by snow, leaving less and less space to see through.

Even when they looked outside, everything was white. It was so white that one could not even distinguish the lawn from the Black Lake.

The snowbound castle made Hoffa feel uneasy. The sight always gave him the feeling that he had wandered onto the set of The Shining.

Quite a few students used their wands to transform piles of snow into all sorts of bizarre shapes. They even held snowman-building competitions.

Among the first-years, Argeleia used her wand to create a fat Welsh Green Dragon. It stood more than ten meters tall and looked lifelike, drawing cheers from everyone around.

But Hoffa did not take part. Every day after class, he merely wrapped his scarf tightly and hurried through the corridors. Outside, magically controlled snowballs flew everywhere, like artillery fire over snowy Iraq. One careless step and he might be accidentally hit by classmates playing wildly.

Other than attending classes, Hoffa rarely went outside during those days. Even after buying a scarf and sweaters, he still had no desire to leave the crackling fireplace in the common room. Every day, he worked out the formula for a potion that restored magical power on paper.

Although he felt that if he asked Argeleia now, there was a good chance she would tell him.

Hoffa simply could not bring himself to do it.

On the second Sunday of December, Hoffa was studying potions in the common room while Miranda sat cross-legged not far from him, reading a leisure book.

Suddenly, a burst of noise came from the door. Argeleia, who had been playing in the snow outside, appeared. She hesitated at the entrance for a second, then sat down across from Hoffa and Miranda with an excited expression.

She shook her head, and snow from her silver hair splattered all over Hoffa's face. Hoffa hurriedly shielded his parchment.

"Something great happened. Guess what?"

Argeleia said excitedly to Miranda, deliberately raising her voice.

"The Ministry of Magic made you Minister?"

Miranda turned a page without even lifting her head, smiling.

Come to think of it, the two of them actually got along fairly well and could joke around freely.

In fact, Miranda got along well with everyone.

"Of course not. Listen, Charles Crouch has gone off on some school assignment, and he might not be back for a long time."

"Charles Crouch?"

Miranda turned another page. "What Charles Crouch? What are you even talking about?"

"The Seeker! The Seeker!"

Argeleia excitedly propped herself up on the table with her elbows.

"Crouch is the Seeker on our House team. Now that he's gone, doesn't that mean it's my turn to play? And this match is very important. The captain told me that if we can beat Slytherin, we can make it to this year's Quidditch finals."

Hoffa took out his wand and tapped the puddle in front of him that had formed from melting snow. He muttered, "Waterproof and dry."

At once, the melted snow was drawn away by his wand.

Miranda continued turning pages calmly.

"And then?"

Argeleia immediately looked displeased. "Miranda, don't tell me you're not even going to watch the Quidditch match."

Miranda muttered, "I never said I wasn't going."

"Hah. That's more like it. I'm telling you, as long as I can help our House win the House Cup, the official Seeker position next year will definitely be mine." Argeleia swung a fist, full of confidence.

Miranda asked curiously from the side, "What about Charles Crouch? Why isn't he competing in such an important match?"

"Who knows? Maybe his skills are outdated, or maybe the school has other arrangements for him." Argeleia said indifferently.

Then, as if she had only just noticed Hoffa beside Miranda, she cleared her throat, held her head high, puffed out her chest, and casually asked.

"What about you?"

It took Hoffa a moment to realize she was speaking to him. This was their first exchange since leaving the hospital a month ago.

"Uh, I'm going."

The next second.

Another chorus of shouts from a group of bratty kids came from outside the common room, and Argeleia decisively ran out to go wild again.

After she left, Miranda looked at him with a strange expression.

She adjusted her glasses.

"How strange. She actually asked whether you were going."

Hoffa shrugged and spread his parchment out on the table.

"Who knows."

Miranda looked worriedly at the white expanse outside the window. "Are you really going to watch? The snow is so heavy."

Hoffa sighed. "What else am I supposed to do? Didn't you encourage me to go cheer at the stadium before?"

The next day, in the pitch-black darkness, Hoffa felt someone pushing him. When he woke up, he saw it was his roommate William. He was changing into his morning clothes in the four-poster bed beside him.

"Hurry up, Hoffa. The match is really early!"

Hoffa stuck his head out, felt around for the alarm clock, and checked it. It was only six-thirty. Getting up at six-thirty in winter was practically murder.

He cursed Argeleia in his heart and regretted easing things with her. He rolled over, wanting to go back to sleep.

But his roommates were all awake, chattering together as they imagined the grand spectacle Ravenclaw's first match might produce.

Hoffa could hardly ignore them, so he had no choice but to roll over and sit up. He changed clothes while yawning nonstop.

A grand spectacle? Not a chance. With the heavy snow covering everything, they probably would not even be able to see a person's silhouette.

In the Great Hall, Hoffa carried his plate to the table, yawning as he scooped himself some pumpkin porridge.

There were still very few people in the hall at that time.

After a while, a blue figure sat down across from him.

It was Argeleia. She had changed into her bright blue team robes and was staring blankly at a bowl of cereal with a pale face.

It was probably her first official match, and she was still somewhat nervous.

"So you have a day like this too." Seeing no one around, Hoffa muttered as he drank porridge from his spoon. "If you're scared of embarrassing yourself, I just won't go watch."

"Shut up." She glared at Hoffa. "Just watch me beat Slytherin to a pulp."

With that, she began drinking her porridge.

A simple provocation. Hoffa thought.

The other team members gradually took their seats as well. All four House tables buzzed with discussion, and quite a few people wearing banners and face paint in their House colors sat at the dining tables. It was clear just how popular Quidditch was in this world.

After breakfast, huge numbers of students and teachers surged outside. The crowd packed shoulder to shoulder as it gathered in the stadium.

When Hoffa had read before, he had habitually imagined himself in Harry's shoes. He had also dreamed of flying in the middle of a Quidditch pitch and becoming the center of attention.

Unfortunately, fate had not been kind. Reality had played a joke on him. In this life, he had no talent for Quidditch. He could only experience it from the perspective of a bystander.

With a sharp whistle from Pario, the flying instructor.

The Quidditch players pulled their feet from the knee-deep snow with a series of crunches. They mounted their brooms and soared into the sky.

The crowd cheered, while the commentator passionately described each team's strengths and weaknesses.

Seekers were generally light and agile, and they were also the fastest fliers on the team. Just as Hoffa had expected, with goose-feather snow drifting through the sky, even the ordinary players' figures were hard to make out, let alone the smallest player of all, the Seeker.

He had to look closely just to spot Argeleia's position. Many times, he would only catch sight of her before that figure immediately vanished again.

Hoffa had watched football in his previous life and knew a thing or two about sports, but this thing was a hundred times harder to understand than football.

To put it in gaming terms, football could at least be considered a 2.5D game, complete with professional broadcasts and replays. It was like watching a League of Legends match, where all the information and exciting moments were clear at a glance.

But Quidditch was 3D. Watching it was like watching an Overwatch match, only without commentary or replays, and the motion was dizzying. Often, the audience would start cheering before Hoffa realized something exciting had happened.

But by the time he paid attention again, the exciting moment was already over.

After only a few minutes, Hoffa felt his eyes growing sore. There were too many balls on the field, all flying around everywhere. He had no idea which one he should be watching, and he could not grasp what was fun about the game at all.

To make matters worse, the golden pattern on his arm was hungry again. It began devouring magical power.

Hoffa was a little speechless. He silently stood up, walked away from the cheering students, and descended from the high stands.

The Quidditch match would not end anytime soon. He wanted to find a quiet place to meditate and recover for a while.

Come to think of it, the golden tattoo had begun absorbing magical power less and less often lately. Hoffa did not know why.

Once he left the noisy stadium, Hoffa immediately felt much more relaxed. He felt as comfortable and free as a fish returning to the sea.

Standing in the vast white snowfield, he stretched and thought that as long as he did not go too far, he could meditate nearby. Once he heard cheering, he could return.

After meditating for half an hour, the magical power devouring ended.

Hoffa shook the snow off his body. But just as he was about to return to the stadium, he saw a familiar figure emerge from the castle.

It was Joey, striding angrily down from the castle. Behind him followed Professor Gorshak.

Joey looked agitated as he shouted something at Gorshak. Afterward, he kicked aside the thick snow on the ground and stormed away from the castle in great anger.