Harry Potter and Dreams Lost

With the advent of autumn and the past events of Hallowe’en, comes the least anticipated portion of the year: Quidditch. It’s a game that, despite the chaos of the rules that I enjoy, is a mandatory participation grade that I feel diminishes from the whole experience.

 

I could be doing so much more right now, but here I am, in the rain, watching Gryffindor and Slytherin duke it out once more.

 

“Dreamer, what’s with you…today?” Cedric, the Quidditch nut, asks with variable concern in each word.

 

“Swadloon,” I reply, hugging the sphere of blankets covered in a waterproof barrier tighter. I took my height, added a little, then made that into the radius of the blanket sphere on me. Of course, I had to disable gravity here and there and give a few liberal applications of tentacles to make it work, but it works.

 

“T-That’s…okay.” He turns back to the game, cheering, along with everyone else when someone happens.

 

In case you don’t know, the game works like this: it doesn’t.

 

The rules were written somewhere between 50 to 2000 years ago, and there have been few amendments thereof. Like Cedric has so helpfully commented about twice now, the longest recorded game is three months. They had a game where nobody caught this snitch and didn’t think the rules needed to be revised or anything.

 

I might live for a long, long, long time, but I still want to get use out of every second that I can.

 

That also doesn't mean I won’t cause chaos and have fun.

 

If the game doesn't end until the snitch is caught, then we aren’t going to have a school year.

 

Keeping my pout upon my face, I twitch an eye, only glancing at the snitch for an infinitesimal of a moment, put a fairly powerful don’t-see-me spell on it. You know, the likes of which only another Ruler could find and maybe break.

 

With my ability to see everything all at once, though only in the stadium since everything that doesn’t involve me is typically boring, I find the twins, hard at work collecting bets.

 

“I’ll be back,” I comment, not giving Cedric the time to respond as I waddle away. My massive girth allows me to push through the bustling crowd without manipulating their muscles. Towards the back, there’s the stairs to the lower levels where the less fortunate are forced to stand.

 

It also acts as an access staircase to the restricted scaffolding area.

 

Without bracing myself, I roll down the stairs, consecutively hitting each wall as I bounce down the next several flights. I think I hit some people that tried dodging me, but the water flowing down the stairs made them slip and fall. Eh, doesn’t matter. If they couldn’t dodge a ball the size of a person, then they weren’t meant for this world long.

 

“Swadloon,” I grumble, knocking down the bowling pins in my path. I didn’t know pins could scream. You learn something new every day.

 

I think I’m in the scaffolding area. The only clues I have though are the lack of people, the ropes and crates everywhere, and the numerous crash holes from the Bludger.

 

That might be an OSHA violation.

 

Eh, who cares about children? Certainly not Magical Britain.

 

I hop from I-beam to crossbeam, balancing my perfect orb-y self along each. I eye the splint in the beam of an obvious load-bearing pole, smashing it to pieces as I pass by. That’ll teach them to take construction safety seriously.

 

Okay, I think I’m underneath the Gryffindor area now. The only clue I have to such an idea is the fact that a piece of myself that I cut off and chucked to the opposite side in the shape of a spider—a Tenta-Spider!—can see that I’m underneath the Gryffindor area, which is where I am at, near the Gryffindors.

 

Just a guess.

 

I grab an itty-bitty piece of a neutron star, and chuck it at my feet, letting entropy do the rest as I’m launched through the rafters and into the main area of the stands.

 

Despite being completely soaked, the twins look absolutely thrilled at their new money-making scheme. I’m also thrilled nobody heard my massive explosion.

 

“Oh, hey, Dreamer. Want to bet?” Fred asks, holding a bunch of tickets with bets, names, and amounts on them.

 

“Eh, too unfair. I can see each and every possible outcome and action of this game if I try hard enough. Luckily, that’s too much work, and I don’t condone that stuff. Though, my suggestion is that the game won’t end for…like, a while.” The duo blink, reading each hidden meaning within my words.

 

I can literally see them thinking. Fred is parsing each line, and George is throwing out the stuff he thinks I’m making up.

 

“Did you mess with a ball?” Fred asks, working through a conclusion.

 

“Only slightly. You know the game doesn’t end if the snitch isn’t caught. A major oversight, really. Our teams, unlike professional ones, don’t have subs that can switch in, so they’re stuck here for a while. Teachers, by school rule, have to preside entirely over a game, so they’re stuck here until the game ends as well.”

 

George beams. “So…no schoolwork?”

 

I shrug. “Sure, at the expense of the health of several people, but yeah. I can make sure they don’t die, or at least, stay that way.” Out of the corner of one of the spiders’ eyes, I spot my favorite Gryffindor girl. “See ya.” I try to salute, but, well, sphere.

 

I jump out the back of the platform, swinging tentacles around to pull myself to the top level.

 

*thud* Okay, so that was audible. Not the explosion…okay.

 

“Hey, Tori!” I wave, but, for once, she ignores me. “Tori? Is everything okay? Are the bad roommates bullying you again? Do they need to be put in the forever-box?”

 

“Huh?” Tori, looks up from her…Ew, a book. “Sorry. I didn’t see you. What did you—Are you okay?”

 

“HISS~ Get that vile thing away from me.” I point at the leather-bound book. She looks confusedly at the cover, but before she can respond, a tentacle rends space, grabs the book, and throws it into orbit. It’ll land in the library in 6-∞ business days.

 

“That…was the rules of…quidditch.” She looks up at the sky, blinking as water hits her eyes. “I—was thinking about the rules and…well, I don’t get it.”

 

“Neither do I! Isn’t it great?!”