The match against Slytherin was about to begin.
Before the match, Harry felt a bit nervous.
He had been training for almost half a year just for this day. Both his team and Professor McGonagall had high hopes for him, which brought considerable pressure.
Ron tried to cheer him up, "It's okay, you don't have to perform too well. Charlie didn't catch the Snitch in his first game and almost got his arm broken by a Bludger."
"Oh, shut up, Ron, you're making him more nervous," Hermione said.
Since today's match wasn't against Ravenclaw, she, of course, came to support her friend.
Wood approached and handed Harry a coin, "Do you know the Permanent Sticking Charm?"
"Huh?" Harry was a bit confused.
"Stick this near your ear. It'll transmit sound to your ear through your bones, or else you won't hear anyone speaking while flying at high speeds."
Harry was astonished, "Is this a Galleon token?"
"Yes, everyone on the team has one. I saved up my pocket money for this, I was even planning to buy a new broom with it. Don't lose it," Wood said as he leaned in, "I'll use it to strategize during the game, which is much better than using hand signals."
"But isn't this chea..." Harry started to object but Wood quickly covered his mouth, "Slytherin is using it too. If we don't, we'll be at a disadvantage! And the rules don't say we can't bring coins onto the field."
Harry was persuaded. He let Wood cast the Permanent Sticking Charm to adhere the coin behind his ear, hardly noticeable unless one looked closely.
"Alright, everyone listen to my commands during the game. We must beat Slytherin! Let's go!"
Harry, hearing Wood's voice through the coin, found the sound a bit strange, part of it coming through his ear and part through his bones, but he soon adapted. Picking up his Nimbus 2000, he followed his seniors onto the field.
...
Murphy wasn't very interested in Quidditch, mainly due to the strange scoring system that seemed to spoil the game.
The Seeker's role was too critical, but their pursuit lacked confrontation: two Seekers chasing an almost invisible Snitch that spectators couldn't even see – what was the point?
Why not just watch acrobatics instead?
Moreover, most of the time, the Snitch had to be searched for, so you could only watch the Seekers aimlessly fly around.
The Chasers and Beaters, who were the most confrontational, seemed irrelevant as their 10 points per goal were insignificant compared to the Seeker's 150 points.
The exciting parts weren't important, and the important parts weren't exciting. The more Murphy watched, the more frustrated he felt.
However, he still showed up at the match today, sitting in the teachers' section. He hadn't been to a game in years and was more interested in the atmosphere and observing the plot's progression, making sure Harry didn't actually get hurt.
Speaking of Harry, he spent the first half of the match basically idling in the air.
With the Snitch yet to appear, there wasn't much for him to do except narrowly avoid a collision with Slytherin's captain Flint and dodge the Bludgers.
When Slytherin finally gained a 20-point lead over Gryffindor through various means, the Snitch appeared. However, Harry's broom started malfunctioning, just like in the original story. Quirrell had cursed Harry's broom, and Hermione, mistaking Snape for the culprit trying to protect Harry, inadvertently knocked over the real perpetrator, Quirrell, thus resolving the crisis. Harry caught the Snitch, and the game ended.
Slytherin's efforts to score despite the foul play seemed rather naive under the overpowering 150 points for the Snitch.
Considering this scoring system, shouldn't the focus be on taking out the opposing Seeker first?
Seeing the plot unfold as it originally did, Murphy felt relieved.
...
Meanwhile, after the game, the friends gathered at Hagrid's hut to celebrate Harry's first match victory.
Harry and Ron were already well-acquainted with Hagrid, and Hermione and Tom, often with Murphy making wands near the hut, were also quite familiar with him. Since they belonged to different houses, it was difficult to celebrate in their dorms, so they came to the hut.
"So it was like that; I thought Flint damaged Harry's broom."
Tom, who had watched from the Slytherin stands, was unaware of the mid-match events.
He didn't care much about who won or lost. Slytherin was his house, and Harry was his friend; either way, it didn't matter much to him. He even found Flint's behavior understandable, albeit foolish.
Sigh, a bunch of Slytherin fools, really breaking the heart of a true Slytherin descendant like him.
"It was Snape!" Hermione exclaimed, "I saw it with my own eyes! He cursed Harry's broom, he wanted to kill Harry!"
"Nonsense! That's impossible, why would Snape do such a thing?" Hagrid couldn't believe a professor would harm a student.
"He hates me," Harry said. "I don't know why, but he has hated me from the beginning. And, I found out his secret... Yesterday, when I went to his office to fetch something, I saw it, his leg was injured, a big wound, bitten by the three-headed dog guarding the trapdoor!"
"How do you know about Fluffy?" Hagrid wondered.
"It must have been him who let the troll out and then went to the trapdoor to steal something. We saw it," Harry said.
The other young wizards nodded in agreement. On Halloween night, including Tom, they had seen Snape hurriedly heading upstairs, probably to the fourth-floor corridor.
"I tell you, you're wrong!" Hagrid said angrily, "Snape would never try to kill a student! You're meddling in things that don't concern you. It's dangerous. Forget about that dog and what it's guarding. It's between Dumbledore and Nicolas Flamel—"
"Aha!" Harry said, "So it involves someone named Nicolas Flamel, doesn't it?"
...
They were promptly kicked out by Hagrid.
The young wizards were about to leave when Tom asked them to go ahead, saying he had something to ask Hagrid.
"Are you hiding something from us, Tom?" Ron asked, a bit upset. "Don't you consider us your friends?"
Tom's appearance in the fourth-floor corridor and his search for Devil's Snare were mysterious; he definitely had secrets. Originally, they were just a group, but now Ron felt they were friends, and such secrecy seemed quite unfair.
Tom hesitated, then finally said, "This matter is about my own personal issues... If there's a chance, I might tell you. But right now, I still haven't figured it out..."
"You know we can help you..." Ron was still not happy.
"Come on, Ron, let's go," Hermione pulled Ron away.
"If you need help, just tell me," Harry said before leaving.
"Okay," Tom replied, adding, "Thank you."
After the three left
, Tom returned to Hagrid's hut.
Hagrid refused to open the door, "Go back, go back, I won't say anything more, off with you, go to sleep."
"Hagrid, I came to talk about something that happened fifty years ago. Do you know Tom Riddle?"
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