Cheers and noise filled the Quidditch pitch.
Lucien stood in the Ravenclaw stands, watching the Gryffindor and Slytherin teams shake hands under Madam Hooch's supervision.
With a sharp blast of her whistle, the match officially began.
All fourteen players shot into the air.
However, two figures were far faster than the rest. While the others had only risen ten or twenty metres, these two had already climbed past thirty, hovering steadily before turning their heads, clearly searching for something.
The brooms beneath them trailed blue-white streaks of lightning, standing out against the lead-grey sky.
It did not take long for the students to notice.
"Look, those two are so fast!"
"They must be the Seekers. What kind of brooms are those? Why do they leave trails?"
"Hey, let me borrow your binoculars. Mine are broken."
"Get lost. Broken? You're just jealous of my auto-tracking lenses. Go buy your own at Workshop Seven."
"I already spent all my pocket money there. Stop being stingy and let me use them."
"..."
Lucien did not use binoculars. He activated his Eye of Peering, faint vortices forming in his pupils.
At the same time, he wrote quickly in a small notebook with a quill.
"Magical dissipation too high during turns. Replace two deceleration runes with one deceleration and one lateral…"
When Harry executed a near right-angle dive that seemed to defy physics, the broom's tail no longer emitted a smooth arc of electricity but instead flickered with rapid blue particles.
The quill scratched across the page.
"Under extreme manoeuvres, magical conduction shows attenuation. Material issue? Try replacing with mithril mixed with serpent-blood crystal…"
Meanwhile, Malfoy repeatedly closed the gap on Harry, relying on the broom's explosive straight-line acceleration.
But during one of his high-speed turns, Lucien clearly saw a string of runes on the broom suddenly light up.
Another line appeared in his notebook:
"Signs of approaching overload. The braking balance module needs strengthening. Excessively abrupt speed changes will accelerate material fatigue, but this is unavoidable in actual combat…"
Suddenly, Lucien frowned.
He saw a Bludger twist at an unnatural angle in mid-air, pause briefly, then shoot straight toward Harry's back.
Dobby.
Having anticipated this, Lucien set down his quill and gripped his wand.
In an instant, the charging Bludger came to a halt.
Lucien's eyes narrowed, the dark vortices in his pupils expanding rapidly as he looked toward a certain corner of the pitch, his lips moving slightly.
Below the stands, a house-elf in a worn pillowcase was frantically waving his hands.
He was small and thin, with bat-like ears, and his bulging green eyes were almost the size of tennis balls.
Dobby had been trying to direct the Bludger at Harry Potter, but he had not intended to harm him. He only wanted Harry to leave Hogwarts, to leave this dangerous place.
But for some reason, the control that had been smooth just moments before suddenly vanished. The Bludger felt as though it had sunk into thick mud, completely unable to move.
Then, a voice sounded in Dobby's mind, distant yet as clear as a whisper beside his ear.
"Do not interrupt my observations. We will speak later."
A strange fear crept into Dobby's heart. The voice was calm, yet it carried an undeniable pressure.
As Dobby's small body began to tremble, the voice spoke again.
"Do not be afraid, Dobby. I know you wish to protect Harry, but this is not the way."
Hearing his name and intent revealed so easily, Dobby froze in shock, confusion filling his mind.
After a moment, he lowered his hands, not daring to make another move.
In the stands, after sensing the abnormal magic around the Bludger fade, Lucien put away his wand and resumed recording Harry and Malfoy's performance on their Eurus brooms.
Quidditch matches were rather "lenient." There were practically no restrictions on modified equipment. As long as a player could ride it and was willing to take the risk, it could be brought onto the field.
It did not matter whether it was produced by a professional company or made independently. As long as it was fast, everything else was secondary.
Lucien watched the two figures streaking through the air and reflected that it was all thanks to the wonders of magic.
With sufficiently strong healing spells available, riding a modified broom was not much of a problem unless it resulted in instant death.
"Merlin's beard, it's the crucial moment again!"
"The Seekers for both teams are incredibly aggressive today. They seem to be riding the same model of broom. This astonishing speed and agility, and those magnificent trails. Is this a new product from some company?"
"But since the brooms are the same, the real focus is on the two Seekers themselves. And it seems Gryffindor's Harry Potter still has the edge."
Lee Jordan's voice rang across the pitch as he excitedly analyzed the match. As always, he favored his own house, drawing cheers from Gryffindor and loud protests from Slytherin.
Lee Jordan paid no attention. He would not even listen when Professor McGonagall warned him.
If he could overwhelm the opposition in spirit and irritate them with his commentary, then what was the point of pretending to be completely fair?
Harry was about to catch the Golden Snitch.
The match was nearing its conclusion, and Lucien had gathered most of the data he needed. He put away his notebook and quill.
"...Fuu~ alright"
In the Ravenclaw stands, Lucien was about to leave and speak with the house-elf, Dobby.
Suddenly, a soft, drifting voice called out to him.
"Lucien, are those two brooms your invention as well? It feels like all the new things at school are connected to you."
The voice was quiet, almost lost in the surrounding cheers, but Lucien still heard it.
He turned around and saw a huge lion's head.
Yes, a lion's head. Not the kind one might expect, but a lifelike, oversized lion's head that seemed to be silently roaring at him.
Lucien looked at Luna's large silver eyes, then at the enormous lion-head hat she was wearing, and could not help but smile.
"Yes. What do you think of the broom's performance?"
Luna tilted her head, like a curious lion.
"Very fast. It went up with a whoosh, then shot forward, and made a swooshing sound when it turned. And that little blue-and-white tail is very pretty too."
Lucien had begun to grow used to Luna's way of speaking. He glanced at her lion-head hat again and asked,
"Luna, what about that hat…?"
Luna shook her head, causing the lion-head hat to sway, looking both odd and adorable.
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