The Family that Chooses You

Chapter 21: The Second Game

Harry zoomed over the pitch.  He was a lot less nervous, this being his second game.  He still did not love being the attention of so many people, it was hard to throw off his innate fear of being noticed.  He was more used to it now, thankfully.

He still loved how flying made most of his other problems seem so small.  He could fly high, hear and feel the wind, taste crisp clean air.  Everything seemed far away, totally unrelated to the moment.  He could lose himself and worry only about staying in the air, finding the Snitch, and dodging the Bludgers.

A whistle drew him back to reality and he grimaced as he looked at Snape glaring at him.

Snape was the referee of this game, somehow replacing Hooch.  No one knew why.  The common theory was that he wanted to punish Gryffindor for beating Slytherin in their game.  A theory that was proving to be correct with how many penalties the biased Potions Master was heaping on the Gryffindor.

"Flying too high?" Harry asked incredulously.  "That can't be a rule!"

"By all means Potter," Snape said silkily, "argue with me.  I would be more than happy to give the Hufflepuffs more chances at shooting the goal.  Or eject you.  Either would be fine with me."

Harry kept his mouth shut, much to Snape's disappointment, and flew off in a foul mood.  He went to Oliver.  "He can't keep doing this!"

Oliver sighed.  "Unfortunately he can since he's the ref right now."

"What am I supposed to do then?"

"Try to not fly higher than the tall hoop for now and try to find the Snitch as fast as possible.  The sooner we end this, the better it'll be.  Hopefully it'll be before the Hufflepuffs get too much of an advantage."  Oliver shrugged and smiled wanly.  "I know it's a bit unfair."

"That's like saying Hagrid's only a little tall," Harry muttered and Oliver laughed.

Harry flew off as play was resumed.  He did not feel much better talking to Oliver but to be fair, there was not much the captain could do in this situation.  They chose not to protest Snape being referee knowing it would have made things worse, believe it or not.  Instead, he had told them to just play as cleanly as possible and to do their best.

So far they have managed to maintain their lead despite Snape's best efforts.  Katie, Angelina, and Alicia had scored a few goals with Oliver blocking the majority of the Hufflepuff attempts.  Fred and George have managed to disrupt a few plays though George almost earned a penalty for "accidentally" aiming a Bludger at Snape.

Harry knew the best chance they had to win rested on him.  Outscoring the other Chasers would not be possible with Snape as their referee.  He ground his teeth as Snape blew the whistle again, rewarding the Hufflepuffs the Quaffle for an illegal pass thrown by the Gryffindor Chasers.

"Don't want me flying high?" Harry muttered to himself.  "Fine, let's fly fast then."

Harry leaned down on the broom and took off.  He flew faster than he normally would.  Not as fast as he would if he had seen the Snitch.  He had learned during practice that speed was not everything.  The faster one went, the harder it was to spot things.  The slower you were, the easier to spot but then you run the risk of not being able to close the distance swiftly.

You had to find that mix of speed and attention.  Too fast also meant you could not react in time and that was almost as bad.  It did not matter if you noticed the Snitch first if you could not react fast enough to get it.  Also a Seeker usually could not maintain a high speed the entire match.  The effort drained you and you would get tired too fast.  You could always substitute a reserve player and the higher-level teams did that often in the Leagues, but then you run the risk of having a less skilled player when you needed your starter player.