Quidditch Begins

Sagreles glanced at the clock on the wall, then took out his pocket watch to confirm the time. Finally, he picked up his coat and left the office.

The Quidditch Cup was about to begin, and the students' enthusiasm had reached unprecedented heights. Meanwhile, he would be leaving Hogwarts for a while tomorrow morning.

Before that, however, he still needed to watch the first match at the Quidditch Pitch, then head to the Headmaster's Office for his routine talk with Dumbledore.

To be honest, he was not particularly interested in the upcoming Quidditch match. Although Professor McGonagall had specifically invited him to attend, Sagreles had already decided that if he was pressed for time, he would leave midway through.

After taking his seat in the professors' section, Sagreles looked around and found that, aside from Professor Kettleburn, the Care of Magical Creatures teacher, every other professor had come.

Dumbledore was absent as well, of course, but Sagreles guessed that he was probably in his office, using a Sneakoscope to observe every movement on the pitch...

Seated in the last row, Sagreles let his thoughts wander. This was a match between Gryffindor and Slytherin, and Madam Hooch, the referee, had once been a professional Quidditch player in her youth.

Professor McGonagall was different. During her school days, she had served as Gryffindor's Seeker and even had a trophy engraved with her name in the Trophy Room, though she had never become a professional player.

Before he knew it, the match had begun. Sagreles sat in his seat, bored out of his mind. Gryffindor did indeed have a chance of winning the championship, but it was only a chance. Slytherin's style of play was clearly unsporting, and they committed several fouls shortly after the match began.

The Golden Snitch had yet to appear, so Gryffindor's Seeker, Harry Potter, had not had a chance to play any role at all.

The score quickly reached ten to forty, and the atmosphere on the pitch grew ever more heated.

Suddenly, Harry, who had been circling the edge of the pitch, moved. He dove sharply downward, clearly having spotted the Golden Snitch.

At that moment, nearly every player on the pitch stopped moving, forgetting that they were in the middle of a match.

The spectators held their breath as well. The enormous pitch entered its quietest moment.

"Bang!"

A loud crash rang out.

Then furious shouts erupted across the pitch. Slytherin's captain, Marcus, had flown his broom straight into Harry.

Harry's slight body spun several times in midair from the impact. By the time he finally managed to steady his broom, the Golden Snitch had vanished again.

The Gryffindor players glared furiously at Marcus, while the people in the stands protested Slytherin's behavior. Amid the chaos, Madam Hooch blew her whistle and awarded Gryffindor a penalty shot...

Everything had been normal until then, but strange changes soon began to occur on the pitch.

Harry Potter began shaking violently in the air, occasionally dropping straight down for a distance before wobbling upward again, accompanied by violent jolts.

It seemed that he had lost control of his broom.

Everyone in the stands noticed the change in Harry, and some of the young wizards suspected that Marcus's earlier collision had damaged his broom.

Sagreles rubbed the wand hidden in his sleeve pocket with his fingertips. He had noticed something was wrong almost immediately.

From the professors' stand where he sat, two twisting, entangled trails of magic curled upward.

One source of magic was Snape, seated to his left and slightly ahead of him. The other was Quirrell, not far to his right!

Sagreles did not interrupt either of their spells. He wanted to see what the two of them were really trying to do. Though it was somewhat dangerous for Harry, everything remained under his control for now.

In Sagreles's view, although this was a match between Gryffindor and Slytherin, Snape would never be so deranged as to attack a student player over an ordinary House Cup match.

Quirrell, on the other hand, had been highly suspicious ever since returning to Hogwarts. Especially after that bizarre Troll invasion on Halloween, the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor wrapped in a scarf had grown increasingly strange.

He would suddenly bump into students in the corridors. The chalk dust on his lectern was always mixed with strange bits of medicinal herbs. There were even rumors around the school that he muttered to himself in front of a mirror at midnight.

Combined with some of his own suspicions, these signs allowed Sagreles to roughly reach a conclusion.

First, Quirrell's strange behavior revealed many problems. As one of the strongest people in the Wizarding World, Dumbledore should have noticed it as well. Sagreles believed that the old headmaster's deliberate silence was likely meant to see exactly what Quirrell was trying to do.

Someone worthy of Dumbledore's attention could not possibly be Quirrell himself. Therefore, behind this abnormal Quirrell, there had to be an even more shocking truth.

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The answer seemed self-evident. Perhaps, just as Sagreles had suspected, Voldemort was not dead.

The Dark Lord who had vanished for more than a decade had returned, and Quirrell was the pawn he had sent to test Hogwarts.

He felt that his guess was close to the truth, but Sagreles still had doubts.

In his view, Quirrell's string of actions after entering Hogwarts was extremely puzzling. His disguise was utterly ineffective, and his performance was abysmal.

If he had truly been bewitched by Voldemort and sent to Hogwarts on a mission, then he should have lain low and waited patiently.

After all, real venomous snakes often lurked in more hidden corners. Such a conspicuous approach would only draw everyone's attention to his presence.

Especially now, casting a spell on Harry in full view of everyone—without even considering Snape's interference, with so many professors present, how much harm could he possibly do to Harry?

So what exactly was his goal?

To make his presence known?

To draw attention?

A flash of lightning crossed Sagreles's mind.

Yes, draw attention!

He suddenly realized that if everything Quirrell had done was not the Dark Lord's command, if it had all been Quirrell's own choice, then what?

His thoughts grew clearer. Sagreles recalled Quirrell's every action and realized that perhaps his goal had never been to cause harm. It seemed that he was simply desperately trying to attract someone's attention.

Like a hostage being coerced, trying every possible way to call for help.

With that thought, Sagreles looked at Harry, who was about to be thrown from his broom, and immediately drew his wand, slashing it through the air.

"Finite Incantatem."

After the soft utterance, Harry on the pitch finally "tamed" his broom...

Below the professors' stand, Hermione stared at her wand in shock. The fire she had just set on Snape's robes had suddenly gone out.

At the same time, cries of surprise rose from the stands. Hermione peered through a gap and realized that Harry had regained control of his Flying Broomstick and had spotted the Golden Snitch once more.

Hermione let out a breath of relief. She had come here entirely because, when Harry's broom went out of control, she had seen through her binoculars that Snape was casting a spell on Harry.

She had read that this kind of sustained Dark Arts spell required the caster to keep their eyes fixed on the victim while muttering constantly. Snape's behavior had perfectly matched those conditions. She had seen it clearly through the binoculars, and not even Dumbledore could change that.

After figuring out why Harry was in danger, Hermione immediately displayed the courage of a little lion. After giving a brief explanation, she stuffed the brass binoculars into Ron's arms and hurried toward the professors' stand to create a distraction.

Honestly, if not for Sagreles's counterspell, she would likely have succeeded by now.

Hermione had only just returned to her seat, still looking confused, when an excited Ron grabbed her and vividly described what he had seen through the binoculars.

Only then did she learn that before Harry's broom returned to normal—just as she had set Snape's robes on fire—Professor Greengrass had taken out his wand, slashed it through the air at the out-of-control Harry, and everything had returned to normal.

No wonder she had vaguely heard someone chanting a spell while she was beneath the stands. Thinking about it now, it really had been Professor Greengrass's voice.

"Finite Incantatem"—she remembered that it seemed to be that spell. It sounded somewhat similar to "Finite Incantatem." Once the match was over, she would have to look it up in the library...

Sagreles had no idea that their confrontation in the stands had been witnessed from beginning to end.

After his spell was interrupted, Quirrell hurriedly fled the stands in a panic. Snape also followed behind him and left in haste.

Watching Harry Potter, now free of danger, finally catch the Golden Snitch, Sagreles rose and dusted off his robes. Amid Gryffindor's cheers of victory, he left the Quidditch Pitch.

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