Chapter 11 Quidditch

As they entered November, the weather turned very cold.

The mountains around the school became icy grey, and the lake like chilled steel.

Every morning the ground was covered in frost.

Hagrid could be seen from the upstairs windows defrosting broomsticks on the quidditch field,

bundled up in a long, mole-skin overcoat, rabbit-fur gloves, and enormous beaver-skin boots.

The quiddish season had begun. On Saturday, Harry would be playing in his first match after weeks

of training, Gryffindinder versus Slytherin.

If Gryffindor won, they would move up into second place in the House championship.

Hardly anyone had seen Harry play because Wood had decided that, as their secret weapon,

Harry should be kept, well, secret.

But the news that he was playing, Seeker, had leaked out somehow, and Harry

didn't know which was worse, people telling him he'd be brilliant, or people telling him they'd

be running around underneath him holding a mattress. It was really lucky that Harry now had Hermani

as a friend. He didn't know how he'd have gotten through all his homework

without her. What with all the last-minute quidditch practice, Wood was making them do. She'd also

lent him quidditch through the ages, which turned out to be a very interesting read. Harry learnt

that there were 700 ways of committing a quidditch foul, and that all of them had

happened during a World Cup match in 1473, that seekers were usually the smallest and fastest

players, and that most serious quidditch accidents seemed to happen to them.

That although people rarely died playing Quidditch,

referees had been known to vanish

...