43- History of Quidditch

"Quidditch, I didn't expect this sport to become so popular." After helping Daphne deal with the noisy Malfoy, Rhys only felt that nothing was normal in the world.

"Did you know? Quidditch and Slytherin are closely related." On a whim, Rhys decided to tell the young wizards around him a story about the origin of Quidditch.

In Slytherin House, there will never be a shortage of listeners when you tell stories about Salazar Slytherin. As soon as Rhys finished speaking, he noticed several eyes directed at him, either openly or covertly.

"There is no doubt that Quidditch is the most popular sport today, but do you know that in the eleventh century when the Big Four were active, Quidditch was an extremely unpopular sport? Catching Stones, mid-air collisions...these were sports that were more widely known."

More and more people are pricking up their ears.

Several of the sports mentioned by Rhys were popular sports that once flourished in the Middle Ages but have now disappeared. Their extinction is related to their danger. For example, catching stones is an extremely violent and dangerous game. Each contestant had to tie a cauldron to his head with a leash and use the cauldron on his head to catch enchanted stones falling from a height of one hundred feet!

It is conceivable how high the casualty rate of this game was. The literal translation of the name of this game was even called "Injured Head" - people with no brain problems will not play this game.

"The birth of Quidditch is inseparable from a witch named Gertie Kidder." Rhys began to tell the little wizards the story of what happened that year.

…

"Ha! Godric, look, the broom is flying!" Salazar Slytherin drove his broom in a circle in the sky.

"What kind of broomstick is this? Oh, is it a new prop for flying? But aren't your balls hurting sitting on that!?" Godric Gryffindor took a jab at his old friend. "I think it suits to the females more" 

"Oh just shut up, will you? Don't you want to give it a try/" Slytherin was a little annoyed - Although the mana control is basic and there is flying magic to assist players in flying and playing, using this as a vehicle to play is still a nuanced idea.

"Okay, okay, do you want to come together to play Catching Stones on that thing?" Godric was eager to give it a try.

Slytherin fell silent.

He felt that a positive feedback loop seemed to be appearing in front of him: only a person with a brain defect would play catching stones. After playing catching stones, his brain would become even more damaged, and then he would want to play catching stones even more...

Slytherin decided to fulfill his duty as a friend and save Gryffindor's precarious head, so he made up a game on the spot. This game is somewhat similar to the duck-bashing game often played by Muggle children. Two people throw balls at each other, and points are deducted if they are hit.

"What's so difficult about this, we just have to watch the ball!" Godric was very excited and directly conjured a ball and hit Slytherin in the face.

The two were having fun until Godric's conjured ball accidentally fell into Gertie Kidder's vegetable patch. Gerty confiscated the offending ball and fired several curses at the two men.

Feeling justified, Salazar and Godric left in despair. But the game between the two is not over yet, they haven't had enough fun yet.

So the next day, they came back again, Godric made a new ball, and Rhys changed the rules of the game. In order to prevent what happened yesterday from happening again, he decided to change the scoring method by throwing the ball into the woods at one end of the swamp - this was the prototype of the Quaffle and the scoring ring. Later, in order to make the game more interesting, they also cast magic on two stones so that they could fly around in the sky and interfere with their throwing. This was the predecessor of the Bludger.

Since the swamp was called Quidditch, Slytherin named the sport Quidditch.

....

"This is where Quidditch comes from!" Rhys naturally left out some details.

After Rhys's story was finished, the little wizards around him started a lively discussion on this topic.

"So it's normal that we are good at playing Quidditch. After all, Lord Slytherin invented the game, and the students of Slytherin House are born to play it."

"The relationship between Lord Slytherin and Gryffindor seems to be pretty good?"

"They were good friends at first."

"What happened to the Golden Snitch?"

"I know this!"

…

"Is it recorded in medieval wizard letters again?" Daphne raised her eyebrows.

Rhys looked away, indicating that you are really good at predicting things.

When Malfoy was slapped in the face by Daphne in the Great Hall, the trend among freshmen bragging about their flying skills came to a halt. Rhys's story about the origin of Quidditch gradually spread.

In such an atmosphere, the first flying lesson for the first-year Slytherin students arrived.

The weather is clear, the wind is sunny, and the most anticipated flying lesson is about to take place.

For the new students in Slytherin, life on Thursday was very good. The only drawback was that they had to attend classes with the first year students in Gryffindor.

The person who teaches everyone flying lessons is a lady named Hooch. She has short gray hair and a pair of yellow eyes like an eagle. It is said that she was once a member of the professional Quidditch team and retired to teach at Hogwarts. Compared with other retired players, being able to teach at Hogwarts is undoubtedly an excellent job, so she is also very serious about her job.

"Okay, don't waste time!" she snapped. "Everyone stand next to a broomstick, c'mon hurry up."

Rhys glanced down at the broomstick at his feet: it was old and worn, and its branches were messy.

'Although I didn't think this game would become so popular, why haven't they progressed in the matter of props? Still, using brooms to play this game?' Rhys though: Maybe these broomsticks are comfortable and advanced.

Technology is improving!

"Stretch out your right hand, place it on the broom handle, and say 'up'!" Madam Hooch shouted from the front and gave a demonstration herself.

"up!" The little wizards followed suit.

"What? We just need to say up? But I guess it will still feel uncomfortable in the balls.." Rhys muttered.

Malfoy, who was standing next to him, laughed out loud: He finally found Rhys's weakness! Rhys seems like he has never used a broom before!

"Hey, Rhys, are you okay? Do you need me to share my experience with you?" Master Malfoy asked with a grin. Said "Up!" and Malfoy's broom immediately jumped into his hand at the command.

But there are only a few such obedient brooms. Daphne's broom just rolled on the ground, and some little wizards' brooms didn't move at all.

'Do I really need to ride this thing.... It looks dirty.' 

Unlike Malfoy, something else was going on inside Rhys' mind. 

All brooms look shabby and dirty. Hogwarts is so rich now, why doesn't it use more money? Increase the budget to update the brooms used in school flying lessons?

This is where Rhys thought it over.

Who are on the Hogwarts School Board of Directors? As an organization responsible for donating money, most of the members of the school board are from pure-blood families, otherwise, it would be difficult to cope with the constant expenses. This also makes the Hogwarts School Board of Directors have a very high proportion of people from Slytherin House.

The School's director bord is generally biased towards Slytherin House.

In their eyes, Slytherin House winning the House Cup and Quidditch Cup is a joy to see. Then it is very necessary to weaken the other three Houses as much as possible.

So how can they do that? No matter how rich the school directors were, they couldn't hire a few professional players to participate in the school competition, so they came up with the idea of ​​broomsticks used in the competition.

For most students, a broomstick is a luxury item. Except for the wealthy young children from Slytherin House, most students borrow brooms provided by the school during competitions, but there is no rule in the school rulebook to not use your own brooms!

It's like a Muggle racing competition. One group of people uses a 500-pound scooter, and another group of people uses a supercar. The person who uses the supercar must have the upper hand. As a result, the free broomsticks provided by Hogwarts have never been updated. They are all old models of Cleansweep and Comet, and the Slytherin Quidditch team uses the best-performing broomsticks.

This is one of the reasons why it is so easy for the Slytherin team to achieve results.

Mrs. Hooch was at the front of the line showing the new students how to mount a broomstick without falling off their heads.

"There are two mainstream ways of riding a broomstick: side straddle and straddle…"

Rhys eventually stopped this chain of thoughts and decided to call for the broom below him.

However, he will soon understand where the flying broomstick has achieved technological breakthroughs in the past thousand years.

The medieval flying broomstick was an ordinary sweeping broom with a levitation charm attached to it, allowing it to fly under the control of a wizard. Broomsticks thousands of years later are very different.

Rhys overestimated these new brooms and underestimated the magic power of his calling, "Up!" He simply said in a whisper.

Whoosh whoosh!

More than twenty broomsticks around him were all disturbed by him.

"!!!"

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