Saturday morning, 10:45 AM.
The Quidditch pitch stands were packed.
Red and green scarves intertwined in the wind.
Evelyn sat in the third row of the Hufflepuff stands, a yellow scarf draped loosely around her neck.
Both hands were thrust into her robe pockets, her right fingertips twirling a cylindrical metal object.
Hermione ran over from the Gryffindor stands, out of breath as she squeezed into the empty seat beside her.
“Evelyn, what on earth is that in your pocket?”
“Cheering gear.”
“What kind of cheering gear has had you grinning like that since last night?”
“You’ll find out soon.”
Evelyn gestured toward the staff stand with her chin.
Severus Snape sat in the highest row, his black robes billowing in the wind.
His gaze swept across half the pitch, locking onto Evelyn with pinpoint precision!
His left hand was pressed tightly against his temple.
Evelyn waved at him.
Snape’s temple twitched, and he jerked his face back toward the pitch.
Hermione: (ꐦ°Д°;)
“Is his head still hurting?”
“Square-dance sequelae.
It’ll probably last another couple of days.”
“I don’t want to hear the details!”
A sharp whistle blasted!
Fourteen broomsticks surged into the pitch from the tunnels at either end.
Gryffindor in red uniforms on the left, Slytherin in green on the right.
Harry flew highest on his Nimbus 2000, his eyes searching everywhere for any sign of the Golden Snitch.
Draco Malfoy followed right behind on a Nimbus 2001, chin tilted high, blonde hair blown into a tangled mess by the wind, yet still maintaining an excessively pompous posture.
Fred and George circled midfield, beaters’ bats in hand.
Fred turned to look at the Hufflepuff stands, locating Evelyn instantly.
He raised his bat, tapped the tail of his broom twice, and grinned broadly at her.
George rounded from the other side, also casting a glance her way.
Their eyes met Evelyn’s for half a second before breaking off to return to position.
Evelyn pulled the cylinder from her pocket.
It had a silver-gray metal casing, only a palm’s length, with a funnel-shaped horn at the top.
A system panel popped up with blue text: [Item Confirmation: Cursed Remix Loudspeaker (Targeted Mortification Type)]
Evelyn pressed confirm.
Seeing the speaker in her hand, Hermione practically leaped up.
“What is that?!”
“Exclusive equipment for the Hufflepuff Cheer Squad.”
“You’re the only person in the Hufflepuff Cheer Squad!”
“Quality over quantity.”
Evelyn raised the loudspeaker to her mouth and twisted the knob at the base.
The speaker hummed with a vibration, a ring of pink light igniting at its tip.
Hermione lunged over to grab it.
“Wait a second!
Tell me what it does first!”
“Plays motivational audio.”
“What kind of audio?”
“It’s fully automatic.
I don’t know either.”
Hermione: (ꐦ⊙﹏⊙;)
The loudspeaker let out its first sound.
It was Draco Malfoy’s voice, stretched and chopped into a cursed, looping remix:
“My father is a school governor!
Father!
Governor!
Fa-fa-father is a gov-gov-gov-governor!”
The sound blasted from the Hufflepuff stands with an unstoppable penetration that covered the entire pitch.
The Gryffindor stands exploded first!
The roar of hundreds of people laughing simultaneously drowned out the wind.
In the Slytherin stands, Pansy Parkinson’s face twitched three times.
Crabbe and Goyle looked at each other with blank expressions.
Mid-air, Draco Malfoy’s back visibly stiffened.
He whipped his head around toward the source of the sound.
He saw Evelyn, saw the pink-glowing loudspeaker in her hand, and saw her giving him a thumbs-up.
“Valentine!” Draco Malfoy’s roar echoed across half the pitch.
“What are you doing?!”
Evelyn raised the loudspeaker two inches higher.
The speaker switched audio sources.
“Who?
Who wants to invite you to the ball?
Who?
Who wants?
Invite?
Ball?
Want-want-want to in-in-in-invite?!”
Those were the words Draco Malfoy had said to Evelyn in the corridor the previous week.
The audio had been precisely extracted, chopped into a cursed remix, and set to a jaunty background beat of quick steps.
Draco Malfoy: (ꐦ///Д///;)
His face turned from pale to pink, and from pink to red, until his entire face became the color of a ripe tomato!
The hand gripping his broom trembled violently.
Slytherin Chaser Marcus Flint hollered at him, “Malfoy!
Watch where you’re going!”
Grit-toothed, Draco Malfoy straightened his broom, the redness spreading all the way down his neck past his collar.
The Gryffindor stands shook with laughter so loud it drowned out Lee Jordan’s commentary.
Fred and George turned in mid-air at the same time, their expressions shifting from astonishment to wild delight.
Fred held up his bat and shouted to Evelyn, “Little Evie!
Do a remix for me too!”
“Are you sure?”
“Bring it on!
I’m not scared!”
Evelyn twisted the knob.
The loudspeaker hummed twice and switched to the Gryffindor channel.
“Where do you wanna blow up today?
Wanna blow up where?
Blow up where-where-where?
Even the Ministry of Magic’s roof!
Roof!
Roo-roo-roof!”
Fred’s own voice, once cursed and remixed, sounded like a hyperactive parrot mimicking speech.
Fred froze in the air for a second before bursting into hysterical laughter, nearly flinging his bat away.
George burst out laughing right after, his broom wobbling precariously.
In the Gryffindor stands, Angelina Johnson yelled at them, “Stop laughing!
Here comes the Quaffle!”
A Quaffle came hurtling in from the side.
Tears streaming down his face from laughing so hard, Fred barely managed to swing his bat and swat the ball away.
The hit was off by forty-five degrees; the ball slammed into the roof of the Slytherin stands, bounced off, and rolled into the staff section.
Severus Snape reached out and caught the ball, his face darker than a storm cloud.
His gaze traveled across the pitch and pinned itself firmly onto the loudspeaker in Evelyn’s hand.
He stood up, his lips moving.
Too far away, Evelyn couldn’t hear what he said, but she lip-read it clearly:
“VAL—EN—TINE!”
Evelyn flashed him a peace sign.
Hermione sat huddled with her hands over her head.
“You’re done for.
You are completely done for.”
“Hermione, calm down.
This is called lively atmosphere.”
“You call this a lively atmosphere?!
Half the stadium is dying of laughter, the players are dropping the ball, and Snape looks like he wants to commit murder!”
The loudspeaker didn’t stop.
It automatically gathered every single cringe-worthy moment on the pitch, remixing and looping them in real-time.
When a Slytherin Chaser bungled a pass, the speaker immediately generated a slow-motion recap set to comical sound effects.
When the Gryffindor Keeper had his trousers lifted by a gust of wind while diving for a save, the speaker captured it with pinpoint accuracy, layering a loud whistle on top.
The error rates of players from both houses skyrocketed at a visible pace.
Draco Malfoy circled in mid-air for the fourth time, trying to fly out of the loudspeaker’s range.
Useless.
A two-hundred-meter radius meant the entire pitch was within its firing range.
He flew to the highest point, getting as far from Evelyn as possible.
The speaker locked onto his new position with pinpoint accuracy and automatically cranked up the volume by two notches.
“How dare you do this to me!
Dare!
Dare-dare-dare!
Put down that baseball bat!
Baseball bat!
Bat-bat-bat!
Put it down-down-down!”
The crowd exploded again!
Draco Malfoy let go of his broom handle with both hands and slapped them over his face.
His Nimbus 2001 lost control and began to plunge downward.
After dropping ten feet, he snapped out of it and frantically grabbed the handle again.
Draco Malfoy: (ꐦ╥﹏╥;)
Marcus Flint flew over to Draco Malfoy, grabbed him by the collar, and roared, “Malfoy!
Are you useless or what?!
If you can’t find the Snitch, get the hell down!”
“I am looking!
That crazy woman—”
“Ignore her!
Find the Golden Snitch!”
Gritting his molars, Draco Malfoy shook his head fiercely.
He looked down to scan the pitch, and when his peripheral vision brushed past the Hufflepuff stands, he saw Evelyn resting her chin in her hands, watching him.
Her expression was as earnest as someone attending an art exhibition.
The tips of his ears flushed red again, and he hastily jerked his face away.
The system panel flashed frantically at the edge of Evelyn’s vision:
[Mischief Points +90!
Reason: Draco Malfoy triggered social mortification!] [Mischief Points +60!
Reason: Quidditch match severely derailed from normal trajectory!] [Current Total: 2,680.]
Hermione peeked out at the pitch through the gaps in her fingers, then quickly buried her head back down.
“You spent three hundred points to redeem that loudspeaker, didn’t you?”
“Since when did you start caring about my points system?”
“I don’t care about the points, I care whether you’ll live to finish this term’s classes!”
“Hermione, look at the staff stand.
Hermione peeked through her fingers at the staff stand.
Professor Flitwick was indeed laughing—so hard he had slid down his chair, with only half his head sticking out.
Professor Sprout held a handkerchief over her mouth, her shoulders shaking violently.
Albus Dumbledore sat right in the center, hands steepled, his blue eyes crinkling into two thin slits of laughter.
Only Severus Snape looked capable of freezing a dragon to death.
Hermione buried her head even lower.
“Dumbledore laughing doesn’t mean you’re fine!
Snape is clearly going to hold a grudge until you graduate!”
The loudspeaker started a new round of material.
This time, it caught Lee Jordan’s commentary slip-up, turning the snippet where he called a player by the wrong name into a tongue twister.
When Lee Jordan heard it himself, his commentary microphone dropped onto the table.
He laughed so hard he collapsed over the railing of the commentary box.
Professor McGonagall, sitting beside him, pressed a hand against the back of his head while casting a complex look toward the Hufflepuff stands.
Evelyn caught that look.
She calculated her probability of losing house points this week and arrived at a reassuring number: one hundred percent.
The loudspeaker’s power indicator light flashed three times.
It was gathering the final piece of material.
“Miss Valentine, is your brain stuffed with troll snot?!
Troll!
Snot!
Sno-sno-snot!”
Severus Snape’s voice had been remixed.
The entire stadium drew in a collective sharp breath!
At the staff stand, Snape’s fingers tightened around the Quaffle he was holding.
The leather casing creaked under the pressure.
Hermione ducked straight down under her seat.
Hermione: (ꐦ⊙Д⊙;)
“Hermione, come out.”
“I don’t know you.
Starting today, I don’t know you at all!”
Snape handed the Quaffle to Madam Hooch beside him and stood up.
The hem of his robes fanned out in the wind as he looked down from the highest point of the staff stand.
His gaze cut precisely across the two-hundred-meter distance, through countless heads, through wind and noise, pinning itself onto Evelyn’s right hand holding the loudspeaker.
Evelyn felt the weight of that gaze.
She offered him a wide grin, then slipped the loudspeaker back into her pocket.
The last echoing vibration of the loudspeaker faded above the pitch.
The entire stadium went dead silent for two seconds.
Immediately after, the Gryffindor and Slytherin stands both exploded with deafening cheers and boos.
Taking advantage of the loudspeaker’s silence, Draco Malfoy finally focused his energy on searching for the Golden Snitch.
His face was still flushed, and the tips of his ears were hot enough to fry an egg.
He swooped down from high altitude toward the middle of the pitch, his broom tracing a sharp arc.
As he skimmed over the Hufflepuff stands, he shot Evelyn a glare from above.
“Evelyn Valentine!
You just wait until the match is over!”
Evelyn tilted her head up and waved at him.
“Go Draco!
That move where you almost fell off was really cool!”
Draco Malfoy’s broom gave a violent jerk, the tips of his ears turning so red they looked ready to bleed, and he dived headfirst into the clouds at the far end of the pitch.
Evelyn: (≖ω≖)
The system panel flashed golden text: [Mischief Points +70!
Reason: Draco Malfoy’s emotional fluctuation peak refreshed!]
Hermione poked half her head out from beneath the seat, and only after confirming the loudspeaker was put away did she slowly sit back up.
She dusted off her skirt and looked at Evelyn as if watching someone about to face a deadly tribulation.
“You do realize Snape is definitely thinking of a legal way to lock you up in Azkaban right now, don’t you?”
“Azkaban doesn’t take current students.”
“Are you sure about that?”
On the pitch, the match resumed its normal rhythm.
But the players’ mental states were clearly affected, pass accuracy dropping by at least thirty percent.
Marcus Flint was rattled by the lingering chaos of the loudspeaker, failing two consecutive dodges.
When Angelina Johnson caught the Quaffle, she let out a snicker and almost threw it right at her own teammate’s head.
When Fred flew over the Hufflepuff stands, he intentionally lowered his altitude.
The tail of his broom nearly brushed the heads in the third row, the wind ruffling Evelyn’s hair.
“Little Evie!” He hung upside down from his broom, head dangling as he yelled at her, “Bring that loudspeaker next match too!”
George swooped in from the other side, his bat resting across his shoulder.
“Better edit our parts out though, keep only Slytherin’s!”
“Trade secret.
No custom orders accepted.”
The brothers’ laughter was swept away by the wind, their red figures merging back into the pitch.
Evelyn leaned back into her seat and turned her gaze toward the sky.
Harry’s Nimbus 2000 was sweeping along the edges of the pitch in a wide search.
He flew fast, his broom angle rock solid.
Evelyn’s gaze moved from Harry to the staff stand.
Quirrell was sitting next to Snape, his purple turban wrapped tightly around his head.
His lips were moving—fast and faint, as if reciting something.
Evelyn reached into her robe pocket on the other side.
Her fingers closed around a smooth, round pellet.
The system panel flashed a line of small text: [Item Confirmation: 100% Hit Stink Bomb × 1 (Loaded)]
Her eyes shifted from Quirrell to Harry, then from Harry back to Quirrell.
Harry’s broom had just jolted.
Hermione saw it too, her hand abruptly grabbing Evelyn’s wrist.
“Evelyn, Harry’s broom!”
The broom jolted again—twice as violently as the first time!