Astoria briefly glanced upwards, trying to identify her older sister's face among the sea of green and silver scarves in the Slytherin stands, before turning her gaze towards her opponents. They were rather well built on average, except for Draco Malfoy, but she wasn't scared of them in the slightest. They were all glaring at her, as if they thought she was some sort of traitor, or something along those lines…
"For the last time, a last-minute player swap is not against the rules," an exasperated Madam Hooch told the Slytherin Captain. "Shake Johnson's hand already, or so help me…"
The two captains reluctantly reached out to each other and shook hands.
"Mount your brooms," Madam Hooch then said, before delivering a sharp high-pitched blast from her whistle.
Immediately, all fourteen players shot into the air. At the same time, all four balls were released. The first was the Golden Snitch, which only appeared as a single golden flash before it left her line of sight. Then came the two Bludgers, which had been struggling against their restraints, raring to smash someone's brains in. And finally, Madam Hooch grabbed the large Quaffle and threw it into the air.
Astoria saw her chance to help; instead of immediately zooming off to protect the goal hoops, she decided to help out her Chasers. She had bought a Nimbus 2001 with Oleandra's prize money, and Tracey had modified it for her. Astoria was extremely light, and with her Kamaitachi bloodline, the winds would naturally never impair her movements! Her broom might be on par with the Slytherins', but she was still much faster than they would ever be!
The winds accompanied her, rocketing her towards the Quaffle faster than the eye could follow. In a flash, she had grabbed it and was already halfway across the field. She easily overtook Bletchley, the Slytherin Keeper, who seemed to be having trouble wrapping his head around the fact that the Gryffindor Keeper was closer to his goals than he was!
"I've got your back!"
George Weasley had followed her and blocked a Bludger that had locked onto her. Grateful for the help, Astoria decided to repay him for his trouble by scoring a goal into the central goal hoop.
"GRYFFINDOR SCORE! It's ten-zero to Gryffindor!" Lee Jordan bellowed. "What an incredible goal by Gryffindor's own Astoria Greengrass! The last time this sort of goal happened was in the 1892 British-Irish league, when the Montrose Magpies' Keeper left his goalposts to score when all three of his team's Chasers were incapacitated. Of course, the Magpies then proceeded to lose by about 400 points, but still—"
"Jordan!" Professor McGonagall barked. "Please stick to commentating on the match at hand!"
Meanwhile, Astoria had circled back to her own goal hoops to perform her actual job, while Malfoy was giving Madam Hooch a proper bollocking for what he perceived to be an illegal goal. But Astoria had done nothing wrong; just like there were no rules that explicitly stated that dogs couldn't play basketball, so was there no rule that prevented Keepers from scoring.
In Quidditch, players were only allowed to touch the balls associated with their role. This rule mostly existed for Seekers and Beaters: no one but the Seeker could interfere with the Golden Snitch, and neither were Seekers and Beaters allowed to touch a Quaffle.
Sole exception to the rule: every player was permitted to touch a Bludger, but attempting to do such a thing on purpose wasn't really advisable unless one was armed with a bat!
However! Keepers needed to touch the Quaffle in order to prevent the opponent from scoring, so naturally, nothing was stopping them from leaving their post and going off to score! Of course, if they then lost control of the Quaffle, then nobody would be guarding the goalposts, so the tactic was considered very risky.
"If you refuse to resume play, I'll be forced to give Gryffindor a penalty shot!" Madam Hooch told Malfoy.
Malfoy's usually pale face was red with rage, but he was forced to bite down on the urge to give Madam Hooch a piece of his mind.
"Nice going," Angelina Johnson told Astoria. "But leave the scoring to us and focus on making saves from now on, okay?"
Astoria nodded dutifully in response.
The match resumed, but the Slytherin team seemed like men possessed. They became almost rabid with their plays, committing fouls left and right and centre. Crabbe and Goyle, the Slytherin beaters, seemed to have completely forgotten about the game; they kept shooting Bludgers at Astoria, even when she wasn't in possession of the Quaffle or attempting a save, which kept earning Gryffindor penalty shots due to their illegal moves.
Unfortunately for Team Gryffindor, Slytherin Keeper Miles Bletchley was no slouch at Keeping, either; he was very used to blocking penalties, due to his team's rule-bending playstyle. But even with better equipment and aggressive tactics, they could not score a single score and advance the game state, for one simple reason: Astoria was there.
"Eighty-nil for Gryffindor!" Lee Jordan hollered, after Alicia Spinnet scored a spectacular goal after a pass from Katie Bell. "They're never coming back from this one, folks!"
Above Astoria's head, Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy were still desperately searching for the Golden Snitch. At this point, it was still anyone's game; 150 points was a gamechanger.
"Warrington with the Quaffle!" bellowed Lee. "Narrowly avoids a Bludger from Fred Weasley, passes to Montague, back to Warrington, fumbles the Quaffle! Here comes Johnson, what an amazing player that girl is— wait, Warrington didn't drop the Quaffle, it was a pass to Pukey! I mean Pucey!"
The Quaffle was once against getting too close to the Gryffindor goal hoops for comfort. Astoria's wind senses tingled; with the entire team focused on stopping the Slytherins's fulgurant advance, they had failed to notice Crabbe and Goyle. It almost seemed miraculous that they had managed to coordinate with each other to such an extent using only monosyllabic grunts, but they had somehow done it.
One after the other, the two Bludgers came at her, the first from the right and the second from above. The first, Astoria managed to dodge with a sideways roll to the left, but now, the Quaffle was coming up towards her rightmost goalpost, and the second Bludger was nearly upon her. Astoria had run out of options; either she allowed Pucey to score, or…