"Anduin, I am still genuinely stunned by that exchange! I never expected you to be so absolutely ruthless when you finally decided to use your tongue. I've seen Travers fight, but I've never seen him so utterly devastated by mere words,"
Vivian exclaimed, her hand still pressed over her mouth as they moved away from the stadium entrance. "Did you see his face? He was literally bleeding colour from his ears; his pure-blood pride was shattered right there."
Charles, walking slightly behind them, was still visibly agitated by the near-duel. He spoke, his tone heavy with responsibility.
"I feel I must apologize to you both. It is my house's ongoing feud with Slytherin that led Travers to approach you, and I am the one who caused you this trouble. Backing me up like that, especially after the sorting, only exacerbates your already difficult position within your House."
Anduin halted, turning to face the Gryffindor prefect. His expression was not angry, but entirely composed, making his next words carry significant weight.
"Charles, you need not apologize for the actions of a bigot. Apologies are redundant when a principle is at stake. Weakness is the true original sin in the eyes of men like Travers. If we had shown any sign of backing down, it would not have ended the abuse; it would have merely invited more. You only gain strength by learning to fight back, regardless of the consequences."
He fixed Charles with a steady, unwavering gaze. "While I have no fondness for needless trouble, I do not fear it, and neither should you. As a Muggle-born wizard sorted into Slytherin, I came into this House with a full understanding of the prejudice I would face. I prepared for it. A few hot-headed pure-bloods are not enough to keep me awake at night." For Anduin, this conflict was merely a microcosm of the larger, ideological war he was preparing for.
He then turned to Vivian, his voice softening slightly, though the underlying command remained. "And you, Vivian, if any of those insufferable dolts dare to leverage this incident to cause you trouble within the common room, you tell me immediately. I will personally ensure they receive an object lesson in why leaving you alone is the superior strategic choice."
Vivian nodded, though a faint, complicated pride flickered in her eyes. "Don't worry, Anduin. Vanessa is meticulous about protecting us, and they are generally afraid of provoking her wrath. Besides," she added, lowering her voice conspiratorially, "I am the third child of the Bulstrode family. Even a minor scandal involving me would cause significant internal turbulence for their old alliances. They would not dare."
Anduin paused, looking at her with a newfound respect. He had known the Bulstrodes were an old, if somewhat diminished, Sacred Twenty-Eight family, but he hadn't realized her specific, internal standing.
Given that she was the daughter of a Squib and a Muggle, her position in the line of succession suggested that the Bulstrode numbers must be dwindling rapidly, leading to her high value despite her blood status. Her very existence was a political statement, a stark sign of a dying lineage's pragmatism. She is a fighter, a survivor, with keen political instincts, he thought. A valuable ally.
After another brief, intense exchange about the impending brutality of the match, the three separated. Charles headed toward the packed Gryffindor entrance, and Anduin and Vivian made their way to the Slytherin stands, where Vanessa, their prefect, had secured a prominent spot.
The Slytherin section of the stands was not exuberant; it was tense and gloomy, mirroring the bruised, overcast November sky above the pitch. They found Vanessa near the front railing, her dark brow furrowed as she nervously adjusted the House banner. She immediately rounded on them, her tone a weary lecture delivered through gritted teeth.
"You two caused a scene at the entrance. I heard every word," Vanessa admonished, not needing to elaborate on Travers's identity. "We need to learn to be united in this House, especially against Gryffindor. The current state of the Academy is not good. We are divided, we lose points daily, and I have absolutely no hope left for the House Cup this year. It's embarrassing."
Anduin listened, his lips curled in silent judgment. He understood her perspective—she saw herself as a political manager, tasked with maintaining a facade of stability in a house full of vipers. She mistakes sentiment for strategy, he concluded.
She wants to manage decay, not enact change. He had no intention of bending to her weak pleas for 'unity' with the likes of Travers. Such forced alliances were brittle and doomed to fail. To control these unruly 'little snakes,' one needed drastic, decisive measures, not nervous pleas.
He offered a dismissive shrug, and Vivian merely gave a bored eye roll. Vanessa, resigned to their insolence and aware that she held little real authority over students like Anduin who operated outside the standard social hierarchy, could only sigh in defeat.
As a Prefect, Vanessa felt a fierce, almost tragic obsession with winning the House Cup—a prize that had eluded Slytherin for years due to the relentless infighting exacerbated by the recent conflict. Every year, they sabotaged themselves, tearing each other down while Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff quietly collected the accolades.
The match began with Miss Rolanda Hooch's piercing whistle cutting through the damp air.
Anduin's earlier description of Quidditch as barbaric proved to be an understatement. From the very first moment, the game was less a sport and more an airborne, mass-casualty street brawl.
Upon receiving the Quaffle, the Chasers on both teams, including the Seekers, immediately ignored the goalposts. Instead of initiating an attack or a shooting sequence, the Chaser in possession would aggressively hurl the ball directly at the nearest opponent's face or body.
The absurd effect, as Anduin observed, was like watching two teams enthusiastically passing the ball back and forth, attempting to injure the recipient rather than scoring.
The Beaters were even worse. They treated the Bludgers not as defense mechanisms but as weapons of pure, tactical chaos. They weren't hitting them away from their teammates; they were deliberately pinballing the heavy iron balls between each other with vicious, calculated precision.
Gryffindor instantly formed a tight ring formation around their opponents, aiming to trap and bludgeon, while Slytherin countered by flying in a rapidly shifting triangle offensive, using their Beaters to punch holes in the Gryffindor line.
The first ten minutes were a horrifying spectacle of flying aggression. Not a single Quaffle shot was taken. Both teams were focused exclusively on mutual destruction. Several players from both sides already sported raw, bleeding gashes across their faces, and one Gryffindor Chaser was nursing a clearly broken nose.
Anduin felt a perverse, intellectual thrill. He was not interested in the game itself, but the sheer tactical ferocity and the desperate maneuvers held his attention. He was watching a real-time, three-dimensional study in high-speed, magical aggression.
Miss Hooch, utterly demoralized, finally blew her whistle and called a timeout. Professor McGonagall, standing stiffly on the sidelines, looked ready to spontaneously combust with fury. After a fierce, public warning delivered by both officials to the captains, the game grudgingly resumed.
The Chasers settled slightly, reverting to a more recognizable attack-and-defense pattern, but the Beaters continued their fierce, personal war. Fouls became the currency of the match: double-pinning, unauthorized elbowing, cloaks being violently yanked, mid-air kicking, and even one Slytherin player spitting a jet of green phlegm onto a passing Gryffindor's face.
Anduin was instantly reminded of the anarchic, violent racing game he recalled from his past life, Road Rash—only now, the stakes involved a sixty-foot drop.
The match degenerated into a bizarre cycle of whistles, penalties, and free throws. Miss Hooch's face was beet-red from the sheer exertion of constantly blowing her whistle.
After a grueling hour-and-a-half of this chaotic carnage, the casualties became critical. Slytherin lost a Beater to a definitive sending-off after a particularly egregious act of foul play, and their second Chaser was stretchered off with a suspected broken arm after a direct hit from a Bludger, leaving them with only five members on the pitch.
Gryffindor had also paid a high price: their Seeker took a nasty, unexpected fall during a dive, breaking his leg, leaving them with six members, but critically, no Seeker.
The field was now a mess of asymmetric disadvantage. Slytherin had only five players, but they retained their Seeker. Gryffindor had six, a numerical advantage, but without the single most important player on the pitch, they had no means to force a sudden victory.
In Quidditch, there were no substitutions. The match could only conclude in two ways: by the capture of the Golden Snitch or by the mutual agreement of the team captains. Given the barely contained rage emanating from both remaining captains, a friendly discussion was out of the question.
The score now reflected Gryffindor's superior Chaser numbers, despite the chaos: 280 to 110, favoring the Lions.
The situation forced a profound, cynical calculation from the remaining Slytherin Seeker. If he caught the Snitch now, he would score 150 points, raising Slytherin's total to 390. This would still be significantly less than Gryffindor's 430 (280 points plus the 150 Snitch points), resulting in a clear loss. Therefore, the Slytherin Seeker's new, overriding objective was to absolutely avoid catching the Snitch.
Gryffindor's side, realizing the tactical trap they had fallen into, immediately shifted their strategy. They ceased their aggressive scoring drives and transitioned into a heavy defensive formation, conserving their energy and focusing their six remaining players on two primary tasks: preventing Slytherin from further scoring, and critically, deploying two Chasers to deliberately and persistently interfere with the Slytherin Seeker's flight path to ensure he couldn't accidentally stumble upon the Snitch.
The strange match had reached a near-infinite tactical stalemate. Another full hour passed in this new, bizarre state. Gryffindor continued to score sporadically, pushing the score to 340 to 110, but their attacks were weary and sluggish.
Slytherin's Seeker, the key to ending the match, was now moving with deliberate, frustrating slowness—flying far above the action, occasionally feigning a sudden dive to keep the Gryffindor defense honest, but with absolutely no intention of concluding the game. The match had become an endurance test, a tactical siege of two Houses too stubborn to concede a loss.
This isn't sport, Anduin thought, leaning back in his seat, his eyes half-closed against the gloom. It's a bizarre, high-stakes game of magical chicken, a testament to pure, childish spite. And I suppose that is why these fools find it so interesting.