The captains’ whistles are tested—one sharp peal from Hufflepuff, another from Ravenclaw—and the chatter in the stands dips briefly before rising again.
Tobias tugged his scarf higher against the wind, watching his breath fog in the air.
Hannah bounced beside him, already halfway out of her seat despite the match not having started yet.
“Diggory’s going to *destroy* them,” she whispered fiercely, as if Ravenclaw might overhear.
Across the pitch, blue-and-bronze banners snapped in the cold breeze.
The low sun cast long shadows from the goalposts, striping the grass in alternating bars of gold and grey.
Tonks leaned over the row behind them, her hair today a violent shade of Hufflepuff yellow.
“Bet you a sickle Cedric catches it before the hour mark.” Hannah whipped around.
“*Before*?
You’re on.” Tobias said nothing.
His hands were cold, even in his pockets.
The wind carried the scent of wet grass and the faint metallic tang of the brooms being readied on the pitch below.
Then Madam Hooch strode onto the field, her whistle between her teeth, and the crowd noise swelled into proper cheering.
The teams came out onto the pitch to applause and the wind picked up.
The Hufflepuff team emerged first in tight formation, their yellow robes stark against the grey November sky.
Cedric walked a pace behind the captain, his expression calm but his fingers flexing slightly at his sides.
“Look at his grip,” Hannah murmured, nudging Tobias with her elbow.
“He’s itching to get airborne.” Madam Hooch raised her wand—a silver flare arced upward—and both teams mounted their brooms in unison.
The Ravenclaw seeker, a wiry third-year Tobias didn’t recognize, kept glancing sideways at Cedric as they rose.
“Captains!” Hooch barked.
The two seventh-years met at center pitch, shook hands with perfunctory nods, then kicked off backward to their respective sides.
Cedric was already spiraling upward before Hooch’s whistle finished echoing.
Tobias tracked his path—three tight circles, then a hover just above the highest goalpost.
The Ravenclaw seeker mirrored him across the field, lower but with sharper turns.
Then the Quaffle was in the air, and the Hufflepuff chasers moved like a single organism.
Two quick passes—Justin whooped from below as the third chaser feinted left—and the quaffle tore through Ravenclaw’s right hoop before their keeper even twitched.
The stands erupted.
Tonks nearly toppled into their row, shrieking.
Hannah’s knee knocked against Tobias’ thigh as she leaped up, her voice lost in the roar.
Cedric didn’t look down.
He was leaning forward on his broom, eyes scanning the pitch with methodical sweeps, the wind rippling his sleeves.
Hooch released the bludgers next—they shot away like gunfire—and the match began fast.
The Snitch was not visible for the first half-hour, and the scoring stayed close.
Hannah’s voice buzzed in Tobias’s ear like a live wire, narrating every feint and turnover with breathless precision.
“Hufflepuff’s running the Hawkhead formation—see how their chasers triangulate?—*yes* that’s twenty points right there—oh *bad* move by Ravenclaw’s keeper, he’s overcommitting to the left—” Her fingers dug into Tobias’s forearm whenever Hufflepuff scored, leaving crescent-shaped indents in his sleeve fabric.
Above them, Cedric carved slow arcs through the frigid air, his gaze methodical.
The Ravenclaw seeker mirrored his altitude but flew tighter patterns, zigzagging as if hoping to startle the Snitch into movement.
Once, Cedric dropped into a steep dive—the crowd gasped—only to pull up at the last second, the hem of his robes brushing the grass.
The Ravenclaw seeker didn’t follow.
“Wronski Feint,” Hannah breathed, squeezing Tobias’s arm hard enough to bruise.
“Clean execution too, look how he—*oh*!” The quaffle changed hands three times in as many seconds, a blur of yellow and bronze jerseys clashing midair.
One of the bludgers ricocheted off a Hufflepuff beater’s bat with a sound like a gong, sending the Ravenclaw chasers scattering.
The lead swung back and forth—twenty points to Hufflepuff, then ten to Ravenclaw, then even again—as the hour mark passed with no sign of gold.
Cedric circled higher now, his cheeks flushed with windburn.
The Ravenclaw seeker dogged his path but stayed half a length behind, like a shadow unsure of its shape.
Down on the pitch, the Hufflepuff keeper blocked a vicious shot with her shin, sending the quaffle spiraling into a chaser’s waiting hands.
The stands roared.
Tonks’s triumphant scream split the air behind them as Hufflepuff pulled ahead again—by ten, then fifteen, then twenty—but Tobias kept watching the seekers.
The wind carried the sound of Cedric’s broomstick creaking under a sharp turn.
The hole in Tobias’s chest ached dully in the cold, though he couldn’t say why.
The Hufflepuff lead came and went through the first hour by ten points or so.
The second hour began with Ravenclaw pulling ahead by twenty—their seeker swooping low, perhaps hoping to bait Cedric into following—but Cedric stayed high, his posture relaxed but his grip tight on the broom handle.
Tobias noticed the exact moment Cedric saw it: his shoulders tensed a fraction, his head tilted slightly to the left, his whole body coiling like a spring before release.
Then he dove.
The movement was so sudden Hannah’s knee jammed into Tobias’s thigh again as she jerked upright.
The Ravenclaw seeker reacted a heartbeat later, twisting midair to follow, but Cedric’s angle was better—cleaner—his dive straight as an arrow toward the Hufflepuff goalposts.
Wind screamed past his ears.
His robes billowed behind him like wings.
The Ravenclaw seeker, half a second behind and at a sharper angle, stretched his arm out—too late—as Cedric’s fingers closed around the Snitch with a snap audible even over the crowd’s eruption.
Cedric pulled up smoothly, the Snitch’s wings fluttering once against his palm before going still.
He didn’t falter, didn’t wobble—just arced back upward, his face breaking into a grin as the stands exploded around him.
The bench under Tobias rocked with the force of stamping feet.
Hannah shrieked beside him, her voice lost in the cacophony as she grabbed his sleeve and yanked him upright.
Below, the Hufflepuff team converged on Cedric midair—their brooms colliding in a tangle of yellow robes and wild cheers—before spiraling down to the pitch in a chaotic, laughing mass.
Students poured from the stands like water through a broken dam, their boots pounding against the wooden steps.
Hannah dragged Tobias forward by the wrist, her grip tight enough to leave marks.
“Come *on*!” she shouted over the din, though he was already moving, his breath coming sharp and cold in his throat.
They reached the edge of the team’s cluster just as Cedric dismounted, his hair wind-tangled and his cheeks flushed.
The Snitch wriggled once in his fist before he held it aloft, grinning as his teammates mobbed him—slapping his back, ruffling his hair, someone lifting him bodily off the ground for a second before he laughed and batted them away.
Across the pitch, the Ravenclaw team landed in neat formation, their faces resigned but not bitter.
Their captain clapped Cedric on the shoulder with a nod that might have been grudging respect; their seeker offered a small smile before turning to help gather the abandoned Quaffle.
The noise was deafening.
Tonks barreled past Tobias, her hair now streaked blue-and-bronze in a show of sportsmanship, and launched herself onto the pile of celebrating Hufflepuffs.
Ernie and Justin materialized beside them, breathless from running, their scarves askew.
“Told you,” Justin panted, jabbing a finger at Tobias.
“Fourth-year seeker and he *still* out-flew their entire—” Cedric looked up then, over the heads of his teammates, his eyes bright with victory.
He spotted Tobias at the edge of the crowd—hesitant, hands in pockets—and grinned wider.
The thumb came up, quick and sure, before a teammate dragged him back into the fray.
Hannah tugged Tobias forward again, her grip like a vice.
“We have to *congratulate* him,” she insisted, but Tobias shook his head, letting the crowd swallow her instead.
The Hufflepuff common room hosted the victory party that evening.
Tonks had somehow procured butterbeer—two crates of it stacked behind the sofa, bottles clinking as they passed hands—and someone had smuggled up trays of honeyed pastries from the kitchens.
The scent of cinnamon and warm sugar clung to the air, mixing with the sharp tang of broom polish still lingering on the team’s robes.
The team arrived half an hour after the match, paraded through the entrance to enormous applause.
Cedric came last, the Snitch still clutched in his fist, his hair sticking up in every direction from where his teammates had ruffled it.
The common room roared louder than Tobias had ever heard it—chants of *Diggory!
Diggory!* rising above the general din—as the team was swallowed by backslaps and offered drinks.
Tobias sat in his usual armchair, the one with the slightly frayed left armrest, and watched.
Hannah perched on the chair’s arm, her knees bumping his shoulder whenever she leaned forward to shout something at the celebrating crowd.
“You’re missing the fun,” she said, nudging him with her elbow.
He shrugged.
The noise pressed against his ears, thick and warm.
Cedric laughed at something Tonks shouted, his head thrown back, the Snitch’s wings glinting between his fingers.
Tobias sipped his butterbeer slowly.
The sweetness lingered on his tongue.
He did not need to be in the centre of the noise.
If Hollow at Hogwarts has caught your eye and you’d like to keep going, the full story lives on the usual site under TransmigratorTales, alongside my other ongoing serial.
More on the way, and I’m really glad you’re here reading this.