QUIDDITCH
brilliant or people telling him they’d be running around under-
neath him holding a mattress.
It was really lucky that Harry now had Hermione as a friend. He
didn’t know how he’d have gotten through all his homework with-
out her, what with all the last-minute Quidditch practice Wood
was making them do. She had also lent him Quidditch Through the
Ages, which turned out to be a very interesting read.
Harry learned that there were seven hundred ways of commit-
ting 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 play-
ing Quidditch, referees had been known to vanish and turn up
months later in the Sahara Desert.
Hermione had become a bit more relaxed about breaking rules
since Harry and Ron had saved her from the mountain troll, and
she was much nicer for it. The day before Harry’s first Quidditch
match the three of them were out in the freezing courtyard during
break, and she had conjured them up a bright blue fire that could
be carried around in a jam jar. They were standing with their backs
to it, getting warm, when Snape crossed the yard. Harry noticed at
once that Snape was limping. Harry, Ron, and Hermione moved
closer together to block the fire from view; they were sure it
wouldn’t be allowed. Unfortunately, something about their guilty
faces caught Snape’s eye. He limped over. He hadn’t seen the fire,
but he seemed to be looking for a reason to tell them off anyway.
“What’s that you’ve got there, Potter?”
It was Quidditch Through the Ages. Harry showed him.
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