The sight of the Second Years eagerly launching themselves onto the standardized brooms filled Sebastian with a genuine, professional anticipation. He knew these faces, not from casual hallway glances, but from the whispered legacies of his previous life—the future stars of House Quidditch, the mainstays of the Triwizard Tournament, and the ultimate purveyors of comedic disruption.
Among the crowd were the immediate contenders: Fred Weasley and George Weasley, their talent latent but undeniable; Angelina Johnson and Alicia Spinnet, Gryffindor Chasers who would one day redefine team synergy; Cedric Diggory, the young Hufflepuff whose sheer, understated excellence would eventually make him captain; Graham Montagu from Slytherin, a future Beater of ferocious efficiency; and Roger Davies, a Ravenclaw with a keen, analytical mind for flight paths.
I have a front-row seat to the genesis of greatness, Sebastian mused, watching them attempt to translate their raw, youthful energy into controlled, data-driven performance. He knew that their results would be erratic; their experience was minimal compared to the seasoned Third, Fourth, and Fifth Years. Yet, their instincts were far purer, uncorrupted by years of rote practice.
The ensuing flights were a fascinating, chaotic spectacle of near-misses and surprising successes. The Second Years were far more prone to hitting the Kinetic Dampeners—the black spheres—simply because their predictive avoidance skills were unhoned. They suffered numerous ten-second penalties.
However, when they connected with a clean path, they were breathtakingly fast, relying on audacity and lighter body weight.
The biggest revelation, as the Scoreboard ruthlessly calculated the Optimal Shortest Time, was the quiet efficiency of Cedric Diggory. The young Hufflepuff didn't fly with the flash or drama of the Gryffindors.
He flew with a precise, surgical balance, avoiding almost all contact penalties. While he lacked the sheer, aggressive acceleration of the older boys, his perfect routing and minimal penalty time allowed him to sneak into an astonishing 8th place overall.
"My word," Professor McGonagall murmured, her jaw slightly slack as she watched the final time flash for Cedric. "The boy is barely a Second Year, yet he flew with the control of a seasoned veteran. He is... unnervingly steady."
The Weasley twins, predictably, flew with the chaotic brilliance of twin hurricanes. Fred finished in 11th place, and George in 13th. They both suffered heavy penalty times, but their sheer velocity in the straightaways was so immense it compensated for their many errors.
Their results, coupled with three other older students who suffered minor disqualifications, meant that Sebastian's initial prediction held true: three Second Years had successfully muscled their way into the elite Top 14 roster for the afternoon's critical team tryouts.
"The remainder of the younger flyers performed exactly as expected," Sebastian explained to McGonagall, who was now joyously congratulating her future Captains. "They possess the talent, but they currently lack the fine-motor control necessary to consistently avoid the two-second contact penalties. However, they will certainly be the backbone of their respective House teams by next year."
Professor McGonagall, basking in the unexpected success of her Gryffindor hopefuls, looked immensely pleased. She gathered her young lions, administering praise and advice with equal vigor.
It was in this moment of collective celebration that Fred Weasley, his chest puffed out with the pride of a narrow victory, saw his chance for glory. He nudged George, whispered a rapid-fire plan that included the phrase "psychological warfare," and then shouted across the remaining crowd with the volume of a born performer.
"Professor Swann!" Fred yelled, using his most theatrical, challenging voice. "We have just experienced the brutal, unyielding nature of your Precision Metrics! We have seen the ceiling of our own youthful potential! But, sir, we must ask: Can your methods withstand the scrutiny of your own performance?"
The challenge was audacious and brilliant. The young wizards, who had been dispersing, immediately paused.
"Let's see the Master Architect fly his own course!" George added, his voice ringing with mock skepticism. "Prove to us, Professor, that this entire endeavor isn't just an exercise in setting an impossible benchmark for mere mortals! Are you capable of the Zero-Penalty Fly-Through you demand?"
The crowd, realizing the potential for either a legendary display or a highly satisfying public humiliation, erupted.
"Professor, fly the course!" "Are you afraid, Professor Swann?" "Show us the real speed! Crush us with your best score!" "We need the World Number One Seeker to demonstrate his methodology! It's educational!"
Sebastian smiled. His previous annoyance at the Weasleys vanished, replaced by a genuine appreciation for their showmanship and, more importantly, their calculated attempt to pressure him. They weren't just taunting him; they were subtly implying that if the course was so difficult that he couldn't master it, then his grading system was inherently unfair.
Ah, the little devils. They're challenging the very premise of the examination.
Sebastian raised his hands, silencing the throng with a gesture that conveyed both power and amusement.
"Afraid? My dear young friends," Sebastian chuckled, his voice clear and resonant. "Fear is merely the result of inadequate preparation. I designed this course to identify flaws, and I happen to know precisely where every structural flaw is located, because I put them there."
He paused, letting the statement hang in the air. "Very well. Since you require an empirical lesson in the Optimization of Aerial Mechanics, I shall provide one. But be warned: this is not a demonstration; this is a benchmark that will redefine your concept of speed. Do not blame me if the resulting data leads to a minor crisis of confidence."
With a casual flick of his wrist, his personal, sleek racing broom—a custom-made model that seemed to hum with contained power—shot from his office fireplace, traversed the hundred yards of lawn, and came to a clean stop beside him. Sebastian stepped onto it with an air of absolute, non-chalant ownership.
He did not stamp his foot. He did not lean down. With a barely perceptible shift of weight, the broom simply accelerated.
The flight that followed silenced the entire lake shore. It wasn't merely fast; it was a blur of calculated, seamless velocity.
Charlie Weasley, standing beside McGonagall, suddenly felt his own magnificent flight—the high-risk dive, the strain, the near-misses—seem like a child riding a bicycle.
Sebastian's traversal was smooth and impossibly tight. Where Charlie had fought the inertial effects between the hoops, Sebastian seemed to negotiate the magic itself.
The infamous Halo 11 approached. The one Charlie barely scraped through with a massive vertical pull.
Sebastian didn't slow down. He didn't pull up. As he hurtled toward the lake surface, he performed a technique no wizard present had ever seen: a Zero-G Micro-Drift.
Instead of pulling up against the gravity charm, he used a hyper-localized counter-charm to momentarily neutralize the downward inertia on the broom's nose, allowing him to pivot his entire body horizontally through the two-meter gap while maintaining almost all his entry speed.
It looked as if he had momentarily turned into a two-dimensional sheet of paper sliding through a slot, before instantly regaining his full, terrifying three-dimensional momentum and blasting across the water.
"Good heavens!" McGonagall gasped, abandoning all pretense of professorial calm.
The young wizards were paralyzed.
"He used the minimum possible airspace!" a Ravenclaw genius stammered, staring at the Scoreboard.
"He didn't touch the rim! Not even a millimeter!" Fred screamed, utterly abandoning his attempt at sarcasm. "Look at the data! Zero penalty seconds!"
Sebastian's skill wasn't just in raw speed; it was in data optimization. He flew the geometrically perfect, shortest possible path. He passed through the very center of every ring, meaning his broomstick traveled the absolute minimum distance necessary.
He hit every turn at the optimal kinetic angle, never over-banking, never under-accelerating. He treated the entire Black Lake course as a single, complex math problem that he was solving in real-time, at terrifying speeds.
The moment he flashed through Halo 36, the crowd surged forward, anticipating the result. Sebastian gently guided the broom to a hover, a calm, almost bored look on his face, as if he had merely been checking the mail.
The Scoreboard, bathed in the midday sun, flashed the final result:
1 minute, 59 seconds, and 45 hundredths.
1:59.45
A silence fell, more profound than any Sonorus Charm could impose. Charlie Weasley's personal best was 2:38. Sebastian had beaten him by nearly forty seconds—a chasm of time so vast it rendered their own efforts meaningless. He had not just won; he had delivered a crushing, mathematical certainty of his superiority.
The silence broke into an explosion of pure, desperate hysteria.
"He broke the two-minute barrier!" "It's not just flying; it's Calculus in Motion!" "The optimal path! He never once wavered from the perfect geometric line!" "We just witnessed the Apex of Aerial Human Performance!"
The young wizards descended on Sebastian like a swarm of very enthusiastic, very loud, and very disappointed locusts. They were cheering, screaming, and jumping, desperate to touch the robes of the man who had just revealed the true, unattainable ceiling of their potential.
McGonagall simply stood by the Scoreboard, smiling broadly and making no move to intervene.
Sebastian, feeling the collective, suffocating energy of a thousand awestruck teenagers, realized this was his cue. He managed, with a great, theatrical effort, to raise his voice above the din.
"Order! The morning's elimination phase is concluded! The Top 14 players, including the surprisingly astute Mr. Diggory, will convene on the Quidditch Pitch at precisely 2:00 PM for the functional skill trials!"
He emphasized the need for rest and concentration. Then, with a hasty, low bow toward Professor McGonagall, who was still trying to look stern while suppressing a joyous smile, Sebastian did what any sensible professional would do: he fled.
He didn't dare use the Floo Network from his office, as the students would simply stake out the fireplace. Instead, he executed a swift Disillusionment Charm on himself and traversed the castle, moving with the practiced stealth of a man trying to avoid both the high expectations of colleagues and the fanatical adoration of students.
He locked himself in his office, enjoyed a private, undisturbed, and hearty lunch (prepared by his house-elf who was magically summoned from his London home), and then, with the blinds drawn and a powerful Quietus Charm on the door, he indulged in a crucial one-hour power nap. The afternoon session required an entirely different kind of focus: analysis, not performance.
At the stroke of 2:00 PM, Sebastian arrived at the Quidditch pitch, looking refreshed and entirely professional. The Top 14 qualifiers from the morning's precision run were already assembled, their nervousness palpable. The morning had been about individual speed; the afternoon would be about team utility.
"Welcome," Sebastian stated, his voice calm and authoritative as he addressed the cream of the crop.
"You have proven you can fly a straight, fast line. But Quidditch is a game of chaos, control, and functional expertise. We will now assess your utility in the three core positions, regardless of the role you usually play. This prevents the bias of simply recruiting for the best Seeker or the hardest-hitting Beater."
Sebastian had prepared three highly specialized Alchemy Training Devices for the afternoon.