บท 139: The Quidditch Cup

Upon hearing the whistle, Oleandra effortlessly rose through the air, higher than the other players, in order to get a good view of the entire field. She, of course, had Cloak attached to her clothes, and while the Lethifold's flight speed was lower than that of her thoroughly modified Nimbus 2000, that's not to say it was completely useless.

It rendered her weightless from the Nimbus 2000's perspective, allowing the broom to propel her with even greater accelerations. It also improved her aerial manoeuvrability to compensate for the added speed and reduced drag, allowing her to fly through the skies unburdened, like a fish in a water.

She glanced behind her; as expected, Harry was following her. Until his team scored sixty points over the other's score, he couldn't catch the Snitch, but that didn't mean he could allow Oleandra to catch it either!

"Catch me if you can, Harry!" Oleandra said playfully, before shooting forward. She tapped her temples to activate her Mystic Eyes. The hunt was on!

Harry was surprised to find that he could barely keep up with her. From the intelligence he had received from Gryffindor's spies, she hadn't flown a broom since her first year except to occasionally help Draco train. And why was her broom so fast? They were both using Nimbus 2000s, weren't they?

Down below, the Slytherins had put in action their plan to stop the Gryffindors from scoring the sixty point lead they needed. Except, it seemed to be backfiring on them: they were so concentrated on committing fouls to stop them from scoring that the Gryffindors kept scoring penalty shots on them!

Oleandra turned her head sharply. There, a wisp of magic the right size! No, it was someone using a spell in the audience; it wasn't the Snitch. Meanwhile, the gap kept increasing. Ten-zero to Gryffindor. Twenty-Zero. Thirty-Zero. Oleandra scowled; what on earth was her team doing? Didn't they all have a top-of-the-line brooms?

Oleandra had to do something; she veered off to the ground, pretending to have seen the Snitch. She knew dives were Harry's speciality; he couldn't resist this sort of competition. However, she was actually sneaking closer to her Beaters, to get them to help her get Harry off her back. Derrick and Bole got the message; they zoomed towards Harry, eager to take his head off with their bats.

Unfortunately though, Harry was much more agile than the two heavyset Beaters; they should have tried shooting a Bludger at him instead of flailing in his direction with their bats. Instead of committing a foul, they accidentally hit each other with their bats; Slytherin's two Beaters would be out of commission for a while!

After a while, a foul finally worked in Slytherin's favour. Thirty-ten. However, this only angered the Gryffindor team even more, and they redoubled their efforts. Fourty-ten. Fifty-ten. Fifty-twenty. Sixty-twenty. Seventy-Twenty. Eighty-twenty! Oleandra looked nervously at Harry; he no longer needed to follow her as long as Slytherin didn't score immediately.

And then, Harry saw it. Or at the very least, he had pretended that he had seen the Snitch; Oleandra didn't fall for it; there was nothing magical in the direction he had shot off in. Disappointed, Harry returned to the centre of the field. Eighty-thirty! Gryffindor had lost the necessary sixty point lead, which meant Oleandra could go back on the attack again.

To her surprise, instead of biding his time, Harry, upon seeing that one of his Chasers with the Quaffle in her possession was heading towards Slytherin's goal posts, zoomed straight into Slytherin's defence, causing them to scatter to avoid being hit; he had pretended to foul them; what a dirty trick! With a clear shot at the goal, Gryffindor's female Chaser scored into the open hoop. Ninety-thirty! Gryffindor had the initiative once again! And then they scored again. Hundred-thirty!

Finally, Oleandra spotted the Snitch again; for real, this time! She dived after it; the game was as good as won, as Harry was too far behind to catch up! Suddenly, Naudhiz flared up, which meant that danger was approaching! Oleandra ducked; she had nearly received a bat to the back of the head!

"Wha—!" Fred or George exclaimed. "Do you have eyes in the back of your head?"

"Foul from George Weasley!" Madam Hooch announced. "Penalty to Slytherin!"

But who cared about penalty shots? Harry was about to win Gryffindor the Cup! The Golden Snitch had actually bolted under her and was heading in Harry's direction, behind her! Time for a little bit of acrobatics, then.

With the aid of Cloak, who had taken the form of a bodysuit under her colourful Quidditch uniform, Oleandra rapidly did a handstand on her broom, while at the same time spinning her broomstick one hundred and eighty degrees like a baton. She twisted herself back upright and leaned downwards, urging the broom into a dive.

"It looks like the Slytherin Seeker has a death wish!" Lee Jordan commentated. "At the speed she's going, either she pulls up and lets Gryffindor win, or she breaks her neck and shatters all of her bones on the ground and Gryffindor still wins!"

"Do it!" Oleandra heard Flint cry out.

As if in slow motion, Oleandra saw Harry reach out for the Snitch. There wasn't any time for any funny business; not to mention that Professor Dumbledore was also in the stands. All she needed was pure speed.

WHAM!

Harry saw a blur before his eyes. He blinked; where had the Snitch gone? Upon looking downwards, his heart sank; at the end of a large ravine in the ground was Oleandra, sitting up in a pile of sand! She was perfectly unharmed, and she was holding up the Golden Snitch triumphantly!

Thankfully, Oleandra had Cloak with her; it allowed her to pull out as much as possible out of her dive, mere instants before she broke her neck, sending her flying safely parallel to the ground into the sandy Quidditch pitch.

"NO! This isn't fair, this can't be happening!" Lee Jordan wailed. "Lousy, rotten, cheating Slytherin wins again, one hundred and eighty points to one hundred!"

The players landed in the centre of the Quidditch pitch. Oliver Wood, Gryffindor team captain as well as Keeper, was sobbing. Too bad for him, that had been his final chance to win the Cup, since this was his final year at Hogwarts.

Meanwhile, cheering erupted from every House but Gryffindor's. Apart from all the fouls from both sides, which admittedly were a very fun part of the sport, both Seekers had delivered an incredible performance, worthy of respect.

Oleandra offered her hand for Harry to shake. After a moment of hesitation, he took it, saying, "well played. That was a fun match."

It had been a fun match, after all. Perhaps Oleandra would consider rejoining the team next year. She had already won Slytherin the cup in her first year, but apart from those with Gryffindor, the matches had simply been too easy.

Up in the stands, Professor Snape had a rare genuine smile on his face. "Take that, Potter!" he was probably thinking to himself. Dumbledore handed the Slytherins their Quidditch Cup, and they all lifted it up above their heads together.