There was definitely something off about that girl Luna!
One day in mid-August, the entire British Wizarding World was awash with complaints. Britain's last hope, the England team, had fallen in the quarterfinals to Transylvania, a team nobody had previously rated.
Losing the match would have been one thing. After all, Quidditch had that unfair little thing called the Golden Snitch, which made luck far too important. Even a strong team couldn't be certain of beating a weak one.
If your luck was bad enough that the Golden Snitch appeared right beside the opposing Seeker's hand, there was nothing anyone could do.
But England's defeat had been far too ugly.
Three hundred and ninety to ten!
What did that mean? It meant that even before the opposing Seeker caught the Golden Snitch, England had already been trailing by two hundred and thirty points. Never mind the other side catching it-even if England had caught the Golden Snitch first, they would still have lost on points.
Losing was one thing, but losing that badly had brought a storm of abuse down on them from all over Britain.
It was just as well that the tournament was being held on British soil. Otherwise, calls for them to swim home weren't something confined to the ordinary world.
Tris had watched the match in person. He hadn't paid much attention at first, but when Transylvania pulled ahead by a hundred and thirty to zero, he realized something was wrong.
After watching closely, he discovered that Transylvania had changed broomsticks.
Previously, they had all ridden Cleansweeps. Although those were new models too, they still fell somewhat short when almost every national team was riding Firebolts.
For this match, however, every player on the Transylvania team had switched to a Firebolt.
And so began a slaughter