Broom Spasms

Watching the Quidditch game, there's plenty for me to see. The Chasers chasing the Quaffle. The Beaters beating and bludgeoning the Bludger. And the Seekers throwing petty insults at each other while keeping an eye out for the Golden Snitch.

It's both as exciting, and as dangerously stupid as I expected.

Even now, a Gryffindor Chaser is nearly knocked off their broom by one of the Slytherin Beaters beating a bludgeoning Bludger at her face, barely diving in time to avoid it. I can also feel my eye twitch as I mentally repeat myself whenever I actively think about what's going on in front of me.

But suddenly Harry dives, quickly followed by Draco. Narrowing my eyes, I think that I can just barely make out the tiniest bit of gold flying in front of them. Of course, that could just be my imagination given how small the Snitch is. But considering that they're both flying at it, I'd put good money on it actually being there.

Seriously, how do people pay attention to Seekers without magical binoculars!

The two of them are neck and neck, and I don't know which one of them I should be cheering for more. Harry is my brother, my twin. But Draco is my friend, and my Housemate. So instead of shouting either of their names in encouragement like everyone else paying attention to them are, I'll just cheer wordlessly. Sure, I generally don't like it since you're essentially just shouting, but with the crowd, it works.

But before either of them can grab it- I think- Flint, the Slytherin team captain, flies in front of them, blocking them from continuing. They both fly off course, Harry barely holding onto his broom by the looks of it and Draco not much better.

The commentator is shouting about how it's a foul, so I guess it's bad sportsmanship? I don't know. Hitting an angry blusterous bludgeoning Bludger at someone's face a few hundred feet in the air seems like it should be worse than just flying in front of someone, but what do I know?

Either way, with the excitement of the brief Snitch snatching is over with. On the bright side, the commentator's commenting is now much more interesting. On the dimmer side, it's mainly him throwing insults at the Slytherin team. On the bright side again, he's only insulting people I don't care about! Draco being as upset about Flint's stunt as Harry probably paid a part in avoiding the negativity.

But it's not long after that when something goes wrong.

Harry's broom suddenly moves. Judging by his sudden grab at the handle, it's clear that he's not the one who's making it do that. And since none of the people flying around have their wands out…

While the Gryffindor flyers try to get Harry off of his spazzing broom, I look around for anyone who might be messing with his broom. Obviously I'm going to be looking t the adults, since I doubt any of the other students would be able to do something like this without being caught pretty quickly.

It's not very productive considering how big the field is, but luckily I decide to look down and catch sight of Hermione rushing past. Obviously I follow her. I follow her all the way to one of the other towers where she knocks over Quirrell.

A quick glance shows that Harry's managed to get both hands back on the now stationary broom, already an improvement from a few seconds ago. Looking back at Hermione, I see her light a piece of bundled up robe on fire.

…

Isn't she supposed to be the nice one?

And then she rushes off as the flames begin to spread slowly along the robe. "Hey Hermione."

"Hello Misha."

She responds in an absentminded way before doing a double take and stumbling a few steps. Luckily for her she grabs onto one of the wooden supports to stop herself from falling off the edge. They really need to think more about safety for things like this.

"Misha! What are you doing here!?" She whisper shouts. Since she's trying to be sneaky, I hold up a finger to my lips and point to Harry, who's managed to get back on his broom. And that's when we finally hear people shouting about someone being on fire.

Waving for her to follow me, we leave the scene of her crime, and I hear someone ask if Professor Snape is alright.

'She lit Professor Snape on fire? I don't know if I should be impressed by her ambition, or exasperated. I can guess why she did it, based off of what she told me before the match.'

Once we're a good distance away from the tower, I turn to her, eyebrow raised in question. Knowing what I want to know, she explains.

"Hagrid, the groundskeeper, said that only powerful dark magic would be able to affect Harry's broom like that. So Ron used his binoculars to look around the stadium and saw Professor Snape saying something while staring at Harry. I checked too, and we thought that he was the one cursing his broom."

She looks down and away, a blush starting to color her cheeks. "So I thought that I would go and distract him. Since spells like that require focus, if he lost it then Harry's broom would go back to normal."

I stare at her, letting her sweat in the wake of the silence. "And you thought the best way to distract him would be setting him on fire?"

She squirms a bit, trying to think of how best she can justify her decision. What she's not expecting is my hand to clamp down on her shoulder. She looks up in surprise and sees me giving her a bright smile and a thumbs up. "I approve! Though next time, maybe light up the other side of their robe too. Maximize the chaos!"

She shies away a bit at the manic sparkle in my eyes (not that she realizes what it actually is) before giving me a confused look. "So… you don't think it was wrong? I thought you said Professor Snape isn't targeting Harry?"

Tutting while I wag a finger in front of her, I shake my head. "Professor Snape is obviously targeting Harry. He has some kind of problem with him, more so than he has with the rest of Gryffindor as a whole at least. But I don't think that he was the one cursing his broom. If you didn't notice, you also knocked over Quirrell in your rush to indulge your arsonous desires."

"Her blush deepens. "It's not like that!" She huffs out a breath to calm herself. "But what do you mean? Surely you don't think Professor Quirrell is the one who cursed Harry's broom?"

I shrug. "Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. But right after you knocked him over Harry managed to get both hands back on his broom. Either way, I'm sure we'll know by the end of the year."

I put a hand around her shoulder as I lead her up to another tower. "But that can wait. For now, let's go watch the rest of the game."

Suffice to say that nobody expected Gryffindor to win due to Harry suddenly feeling hungry, and deciding to see if the Golden Snitch is edible. Hermione lets out a giggle when I tell her my take on what happened, and I start thinking of how I should mess with Quirrell.