"He broke through! Cedric broke through the interference!"
"Both Seekers are now targeting the Golden Snitch! The match has come to its most thrilling moment!" To be honest, this commentator's vocabulary was pretty limited.
But he truly loved Quidditch. The atmosphere in the stands was as tense as it could get, and Ian saw Professor McGonagall even gripping the hand of the Head of Hufflepuff House next to her.
Obviously.
She had her own secret favorite in her heart.
"Could it be that Professor McGonagall is also an old fangirl of Cedric?" Ian thought about how much Professor McGonagall loved Quidditch, and the more he considered it, the more likely it seemed.
As time ticked by, second by second.
The match finally reached its climax.
"Oh! My goodness! It's still Cedric! It's him! Of course it's him! Who else could it be! He slipped past Slytherin College's interference from an insanely tricky angle and caught the Snitch!"
"Cedric Diggory! Once again, he has performed a miracle!" The commentator yelled hoarsely, while the Slytherin players and students all looked pretty grim.
But.
The outcome was set in stone.
Although they were upset, they weren't sore losers. The crowd in the stands exploded, huge yellow banners and flags soaring into the sky by magic.
"Bang~!"
Some students who weren't too skilled with magic ended up blowing up their flags, but the smoke only added to the excitement, and swarms of little badgers shrieked, trying to climb out of the stands and rush onto the field.
They definitely had a wild side, too. Cedric was hoisted into the air by a group of ecstatic students, getting treated like a hero—which made him really happy as well.
Besides the Slytherin College students feeling down, the little wizards who'd lost their bets were also bummed out. Ian glanced around and couldn't help but worry for the Hogwarts towers tonight.
"That's the gambling life."
Ian figured Snape must've bet a lot, too—of all the professors, Snape looked the unhappiest, storming off the pitch right when the match ended, his robes billowing dramatically behind him.
"Thanks to the Hufflepuff players! And thanks as well to the Slytherin players! They've brought us a marvelous, unprecedentedly fierce match!"
"Let's celebrate for Hufflepuff College and also express our regrets for Slytherin College." After the match, the deputy headmistress gave a speech that sounded unbiased, but with Professor McGonagall grinning ear to ear, you really couldn't tell if she actually felt sorry for Slytherin College.
...
After the Quidditch match, life at Hogwarts went back to normal—everyone gossiping, going to class, honestly, it all looked pretty much the same as before.
The only difference: people helping Filch and wealthier little wizards with all sorts of dirty work just to scrape together a tiny reward—living proof of how many dropped down the social ladder after those Quidditch bets.
On the bright side, Filch had been weirdly obsessed with blowing himself up lately and ending up in the infirmary every day, which luckily meant these little wizards could get some paid jobs from him.
"Guess I can count that as my good deed for the day."
Ian's prep for the final exams was nearly done, but the professors had each made personalized extra exam questions for him, so he couldn't help being a little anxious about his movements lately.
Especially after seeing Grindelwald somehow acquire a Ukrainian Iron Belly, the little wizard's end-of-term exam jitters shot through the roof.
Of course.
This anxiety wasn't from any fear of the Ukrainian Iron Belly, but because he'd seen Grindelwald magically modifying the dragon down in his underground palace one day and just casually asked—
"Is this for my final exam?"
The little wizard actually even got curious enough to walk right up and kick the glaring Ukrainian Iron Belly a few times.
However.
Grindelwald's reply killed all his fascination with the Half-blood Dragon on the spot.
"This one's for the other students."
The sly Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts smiled in a way that made Ian's skin crawl.
"As for you, I have a different exam question. Make sure you don't eat too much beforehand, or I'll take a picture of you throwing up everywhere and show it to every single one of my students."
That was basically a social suicide warning.
Ian ended up losing several nights of sleep over it.
All the way up to exam day itself,
he couldn't stop wondering: what exactly did Grindelwald want him to do for his exam?