Fred Weasley slumped in the dizzying height of the Quidditch stadium stands, an arena built for ecstatic chaos, yet he felt profoundly, almost antiseptically, numb.
A month and a half had crawled by since that insane night—a blur of mid-May drizzle and the oppressive, velvet quiet of a secret too vast and strange to contain. He was beginning to suspect that Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder—a Muggle concept Charlie had once mentioned while dissecting a disastrous Chudley Cannons season—might actually be his current diagnosis.
His mind felt like a poorly maintained Pensieve, occasionally flashing fragments of the night: a blinding yellow aperture, a bellowing, god-like warrior with a magical sword, and the terrifying, unwavering smirk of his Defence Against the Dark Arts professor.
Even the pulsating, frantic spectacle below—the final, high-stakes match of the Inter-School Quidditch Cup—failed to ignite the usual Weasley fire in his belly. Hogwarts versus Durmstrang. Charlie versus Krum. It should have been electrifying, but Fred was shackled. He was burdened by The Knowledge.
He glanced over at the Professor's box. There, sitting in disconcerting proximity, were the two men who had orchestrated his latest, and most bizarre, traumatic experience.
First, Professor Sebastian Swann, looking immaculate, unnervingly restored, and utterly victorious. Fred still saw the ghost of the man who had stumbled out of the shattered portal: a face so comically swollen his eyes were mere slits, robes scorched and shredded, muttering something about a "damned Deng" who "hit like a rogue Troll."
Fred had spent weeks nursing a deeply malicious, yet exhilarating, theory: The Gryffindor Legacy was a massive, magical practical joke. It wasn't a gift; it was a thousand-year-old magical beating, and Sebastian Swann, the overly ambitious Slytherin, had walked right into it.
And then, Fred thought bitterly, he put a literal Magical Non-Disclosure Agreement on me!
The injustice burned hotter than a freshly brewed pepper-up potion. Sebastian hadn't just sworn him and Snape to silence; he had forced a bizarre, personalized magical contract on them, complete with a ridiculously melodramatic penalty clause involving the permanent Transfiguration of their favorite possessions into weeping garden gnomes.
It wasn't just ridiculous; it was an insult to his character. He was perfectly capable of keeping a secret—well, at least from Percy. George was another matter, and the inability to share this cosmic, foundational secret with his twin was a form of exquisite, prolonged torture.
The agony of having a shared joke of this magnitude, but being forced to keep it single-sided, felt like a fundamental violation of the Weasley twins' magical connection.
He glared at Sebastian. The professor probably just didn't want anyone to know how badly he'd been thrashed by the ancient ghost. The evidence was irrefutable: the man had clearly entered the hidden realm hoping for an easy power-up and emerged looking like a very fashionable casualty of a bar fight. Some mighty legacy, Fred snorted internally. The legacy of a swollen face.
His gaze shifted to the other figure in the box: Professor Severus Snape.
Snape, surprisingly, was Fred's new anti-hero. After Professor Robert's abrupt, well-deserved departure to Azkaban (a delightful event that Sebastian took unnerving credit for), Snape had performed a move of sheer, cold-blooded professional dedication.
Despite being famously injured—a limp that Fred now viewed with a mixture of sympathy and morbid curiosity, knowing the true perpetrator—Snape had ruthlessly claimed the Defence Against the Dark Arts post from the hands of any suitable replacement Dumbledore could find.
He taught the classes with a chilling, detached efficiency, as if teaching DADA was merely an unfortunate, temporary interruption to his true calling of brewing incredibly toxic liquids.
The man is a machine, Fred thought, a grudging admiration bubbling up. He saves my life from a rogue, mad professor, gets injured, and then takes over the job that almost killed him. Dumbledore should award him the Order of Merlin, First Class, just for sheer, unmitigated tenacity.
Fred genuinely wanted to approach Snape and offer sincere gratitude, but the moment he imagined the conversation—"Thanks for saving me from the professor who nearly burned us alive, sir, I understand you've now got his job, that's great, are you still planning to fire me for my next detention?"—he knew it would end in utter disaster. The language of mutual, near-death gratitude was simply not spoken between a Weasley and a Snape.
"Fred! Snap out of it! We need noise! Hogwarts needs to hear you!" George's voice, blessedly ignorant and loud, finally pierced his internal monologue.
Fred felt the rush of superiority again. You poor, simple, unburdened brother. You've only been involved in minor mischief. I've faced the end of the line, the final beatdown of a god, and the eternal, magical shame of an NDA.
He focused on the field, letting out a loud, slightly hysterical yell into the wind. "Charlie! Quit the scenic tour and catch that over-priced, winged walnut!"
The match had been a magnificent, brutal seesaw of momentum. Hogwarts, riding the desperate energy of a team knowing this was their final chance, had clawed their way into the finals with a precarious two-win record. Durmstrang, led by the almost mythical Seeker Viktor Krum, had been a three-win powerhouse. The tension was suffocating.
The scoreboard reflected the psychological pressure: Hogwarts 120 – Durmstrang 130.
Only ten points separated them, meaning victory hinged entirely on the Seekers. If Durmstrang caught the Snitch now, they won. If Hogwarts caught it, they needed to keep the lead above 150 points, or hold Durmstrang under their score for the remaining goals. Everything was on Charlie Weasley's shoulders.
Charlie, lean and ferociously intense, felt the wind screaming past his ears. His focus was tunnel vision. It wasn't just a Snitch; it was the perfect, dramatic conclusion to his Quidditch career—a career he was purposefully ending, having turned down every professional contract offered to him to pursue his true passion of dragonology. He wanted to leave a legacy of flawless execution.
He noticed Viktor Krum make a sudden, controlled dive. Charlie recognized the feint instantly.
The Krum Drop. The predictable panic button.
Krum was attempting his famous dive-and-pull-out, hoping to draw the Hogwarts Seeker into a reckless chase only to reveal the Snitch wasn't there, leaving Charlie exposed and high in the air.
"How deliciously simple you remain, Viktor," Charlie thought, a dry, feral smile pulling at his lips. He remembered a Muggle Studies lesson on classical military strategy: Never fall for the same diversion twice.
Instead of chasing the Durmstrang star downwards, Charlie flipped his broom, executing a daring vertical ascent, climbing at full throttle towards the upper atmosphere of the stadium. He flew as if the Snitch were a thousand feet higher, performing a final, desperate burst of speed.
Krum, already committed to his false descent, looked up, saw the red blur of Charlie shooting skyward, and his concentration fractured. Did he see something? Did I miscalculate the altitude? Krum slammed the brakes on his high-performance broom, the maneuver nearly throwing him off, and then furiously pivoted, rocketing back up in pursuit.
"You're still operating on textbook psychology, Third Year!" Charlie mentally mocked, though his heart was hammering against his ribs. This is it. The window.
Charlie needed to be the master of everything at once: tracking the actual, almost invisible Snitch, maintaining perfect air speed, and coordinating a highly volatile, two-person secret maneuver with a notoriously aggressive teammate.
He glanced down and spotted Marcus Flint, the Slytherin Captain, playing the most crucial role of his life. Marcus, seeing Charlie's signal—a subtle, specific dip of the broom handle—began his coordinated run.
Charlie executed a magnificent, tight turn, dropping his altitude just enough to ride the slipstream created by Krum's powerful, high-speed upward chase. He was now right on Krum's wing, matching the Durmstrang Seeker's speed and maintaining a tight defensive position. Critically, he ensured that his body and broom perfectly obscured Krum's vision of Marcus Flint's current position.
Just a few more seconds. Charlie's focus narrowed to a pinprick of absolute clarity. The angle… the trajectory… the shared moment of intent.
He finally saw the flicker of gold he had been tracking for minutes—the Golden Snitch was performing a tight, nervous figure-eight close to the main goalposts, hidden in the sun-drenched haze.
Charlie roared, a sound of pure tactical malice and adrenaline. The wind snatched the words from his mouth, but he knew the intent was clear:
"VIKTOR KRUM! Tell me—do you truly believe your future is determined by catching the object you anticipate seeing, or the one you tragically fail to see?"
The crowd, sensing the imminent climax, held a collective, deafening breath.
In that very instant, a black shape detached itself from the lower field—a Bludger, travelling at a truly terrifying velocity, its movement unnaturally guided.
Marcus Flint, the brute force of the Slytherin line, had performed an act of magnificent, single-minded savagery, directing the Bludger with a finesse that belied his usual crude playing style. He had aimed not to knock Krum off, but to clear a path.
Charlie, seeing the Bludger screaming towards them, executed his final, split-second maneuver. He performed a radical, immediate pitch-down, dropping his body directly out of the Bludger's path, simultaneously giving Krum a terrifying, unobstructed view of the incoming projectile.
Krum, caught entirely by surprise—his eyes locked on the space where Charlie had been, his mind prepared for a Snitch, not an airborne cannonball—had no time to react.
The Bludger, carrying the full, kinetic force of a high-speed strike, slammed into Krum with a sickening, audible CRACK.
The effect was instantaneous and devastating. Krum's broom pitched violently, the Durmstrang Seeker's body going rigid as he was driven straight off the handle, falling like a snapped thread toward the distant green pitch.
The collective shriek from the stadium was the sound of utter astonishment, quickly replaced by a cacophony of shouts, gasps, and angry protestations from the Durmstrang supporters.
Charlie, however, ignored the screaming chaos below. He reversed his sudden dive, soaring directly into the empty space where the Bludger had just been, and with a swift, predatory lunge, his outstretched hand closed around the Golden Snitch.
DROOOPPP!
The whistle blew, a high, desperate shriek that signaled the immediate end of the match. Krum's broken body hit the ground a moment later.
"Hogwarts wins!" the announcer screamed, his voice dissolving into static, trying to compete with the stadium's instant descent into joyful pandemonium.
Marcus Flint, who had watched the entire ballet of destruction, let out a roar of primal, triumphant laughter that was instantly swallowed by the chaos. He flew toward Charlie, slapping his teammate on the back with a force that nearly dislodged the Snitch. "Weasley! The perfect setup! You owe me a lifetime supply of Firewhiskey for that aim!"
Down below, the Durmstrang Headmaster, Igor Karkaroff, a man whose composure was usually as frozen as a Russian winter, had sprinted onto the field with the speed of a truly terrified parent. He reached the crumpled form of his star Seeker and cradled Krum's head.
Krum's eyes fluttered open, still glazed with shock and pain. He saw the red and gold blur of victory above him, then felt the agony of his broken ribs.
"...Snitch?" Krum mumbled, his voice weak.
Karkaroff's face was a mask of furious, defeated anguish. "The match is over, Viktor. They used a Bludger, right at the end. An illegal move, a foul tactic! But… the Snitch was caught. Hogwarts won."