Chapter 49: Ravenclaw's quick attack (Edited)

"Ha, he seems to care more about the team than I do!" Captain Richie joked with Tom as he leaned against the locker.

"How dare you say that, Captain!" Tom was speechless.

Richie waited for a while, and when everyone had gone inside, he pulled out a whiteboard and began going over the day's tactics for the team.

While Richie was going over the tactics, Hermione had made her way to the bleachers above the locker room. It was still a while before the game started, but the stands were already almost half full.

As soon as Hermione approached, she saw two red-haired teenage boys wandering around the Ravenclaw stands, surrounded by several Ravenclaw students. One of the red-haired boys was holding a book in his hand and talking to them, while the other was holding a box.

Hermione recognized them as the Weasley twins, Fred and George, both Gryffindors. Hermione was a little confused: what were they doing here?

"So why are you taking 5% of the profits?" A third year Ravenclaw was a bit annoyed, "It doesn't matter who wins or loses, you're always the winners."

"Because we organized it, and we need money for the fireworks we give you?" argued Fred.

The boy kept shaking his head, but ended up throwing a couple of sickles into the box. The inside of the chest was divided into two parts by a board, with a Ravenclaw flag on one side and Hufflepuff on the other, both containing a similar amount of coins.

George, for his part, wrote down in his book the boy's name and the amount of his bet. The next step was to do the same, and several of the young wizards gathered around placed their bets, and only after their names had been written down did they leave with a bouquet of fireworks. Some of the students would buy more than one if they didn't feel like it.

Hermione understood what the Weasley brothers were doing: betting, you could also bet on wrestling, which her father used to practice with his friends. But it was the first time she had seen such a thing in the magical world.

Curious, she talked to the Weasley brothers to learn about the game. She soon understood the rules, which were much simpler than in the Muggle world: it was a simple bet on the winner, with those who got it right splitting the bets of those who got it wrong in proportion to their money; of course, Fred and George would take 5% of the winnings.

And for every person who bet, Fred and George would give them a bunch of fireworks of their own. What's the point of a bunch of fireworks? Lots of little wizards bought them more.

Hermione thought about it and bet five sickles on Ravenclaw, taking a bunch of fireworks with her. After the deal, Hermione found a good spot to watch and sat down to wait for the match to start, while the Weasley brothers went back to look for more customers.

The start of the match was at eleven o'clock, and almost all the students and teachers were on the Quidditch pitch, many of them prepared, carrying snacks, banners and fireworks in hands. Once everyone took their seats, the stands were automatically raised in the air so that everyone could see the match clearly.

The two teams had already entered.

The atmosphere wasn't particularly tense, after all it was Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, if it had been Gryffindor against Slytherin there would have been a million fireworks in the sky by now.

"Contestants on brooms!"

At Mrs. Hooch's whistle, the game began.

Tom had his eyes on the Quaffle, and when he heard the whistle, he immediately rose into the air and flew towards the thrown Quaffle. His reaction was extremely quick, so several of the Hufflepuff Chasers were a little slower.

The first few seconds of the match were a great opportunity to score, as the Batters had not yet had time to interfere with the Hunters with Bludgers and the keeper was not in good shape.

Tom grabbed the Quaffle and immediately accelerated, the broom shot out and the distance between the Hufflepuff Chaser and Tom, who had been behind his broom or at the same pace as him, suddenly widened.

This second of acceleration gave him a positional advantage.

By this time, the two remaining Chasers were heading towards the goal, and the two Beaters had already taken up a favorable position and launched Bludgers towards the Hufflepuff Chasers, trying to interfere with them, only to be stopped by their Beaters.

In an instant, Tom was in front of the Hufflepuff Keeper, Kettle Byrne, and threw a strong shot, and Kettle Byrne, with a jolt, turned his body towards where he had thrown the Quaffle, but immediately froze as he realized that the Quaffle was not coming towards the goal, but towards Roger, who was a little further away.

Roger caught the Quaffle firmly and threw it in the opposite direction to Kettle Byrne, and it went in with ease.

Less than ten seconds passed before Mrs. Hooch's whistle blew.

The commentator for the Hogwarts quidditch match was Lee Jordan, from Gryffindor, a classmate and friend of Fred's. He was a standing commentator, which meant that when there was a Gryffindor match, he was unabashedly rooting for Gryffindor. But when there were no Gryffindors or Slytherins playing, he was still fairly objective, neutral and professional.

At this point, he had just stood in front of the microphone and hadn't finished his opening remarks.

"... Hufflepuff versus Ravenclaw, and this year Ravenclaw has - What? Tom Yodel, good shot, throw.... no, it's a pass! It went in! Oh my God, Ravenclaw's attack was like lightning! Hufflepuff was taken by surprise! Oh my God, that's the fastest goal I've seen since I started school!"

Jordan was about to introduce this year's record-breaking freshman, Tom, when Ravenclaw scored against Hufflepuff with a fast forward. The little wizards in the crowd didn't even react. Oliver Wood sat in the stands with a frown on his face, wondering if he would have been able to fend off the attack had he been on the pitch. The final verdict: barely.

"So, maybe it really is up to Porter." Wood rubbed his forehead.

At that moment, Ravenclaw went on the attack again and, after a series of dazzling maneuvers, drilled the Hedgehog goal again.

"There's something weird about Tom's broom..." Jordan noticed something, did Tom seem to be able to suddenly accelerate and throw the Guardian off every time?

As this sentence was spoken, more and more people discovered this feature, and the Hufflepuff side called for a pause, but in the end, Mrs. Hooch determined that this modification was not a foul.

As the match progressed, Tom was being watched more and more closely, but this also meant that the rest of the Ravenclaw Hunters had more opportunities. So Ravenclaw scored goal after goal, and by the quarter hour mark of the match the score was 80-0.