Chapter 196: East Wind Broom, and the Bludger Back to Normal
A vast roar of cheers and shouting filled the Quidditch pitch.
Leonardo stood in the Ravenclaw stands, watching as Gryffindor and Slytherin shook hands under Madam Hooch's supervision.
Her whistle shrilled.
The match began.
Fourteen players shot into the air, brooms rising fast, cloaks snapping in the wind. But two figures were faster by far. While everyone else had barely climbed ten or twenty metres, those two had already surged past thirty, steadying themselves high above the pitch and turning their heads as they scanned the sky, searching.
The brooms beneath them dragged blue-white lightning trails through the air, stark against the leaden-grey clouds.
It did not take long for the crowd to notice.
"Oi, look at that, those two are flying insanely fast!"
"They're the Seekers, aren't they? But what broom is that? Why does it leave a trail?"
"Lend me your binoculars — mine's broke."
"Get lost. 'Broke', my foot. You just want my auto-tracking model. Go buy one from the Seventh Workshop yourself!"
"My pocket money's already gone in there. Don't be stingy, let me have a look!"
"…"
Leonardo did not bother with binoculars. He activated the Magic-Sight instead, and tiny whirlpools formed in his pupils as his vision sharpened.
He held a small notebook and a quill, jotting notes at speed.
"Magical leakage too high during turns. Swap two deceleration runes for one deceleration and one lateral stabiliser…"
When Harry pulled into a near-impossible right-angled dive, the broom's tail no longer shed smooth arcs of lightning, but a rapid flicker of blue sparks.
Leonardo's quill scratched again.
"Under extreme manoeuvres, conduction shows attenuated oscillation. Materials? Try mithril mixed with serpent-blood magic crystal…"
At the same time, Malfoy used the broom's brutal straight-line acceleration to catch Harry again and again. But on one high-speed change of direction, Leonardo saw a string of runes along the handle flare sharply.
Another line appeared in the notebook.
"Signs of approaching overload. Braking-balance module needs reinforcement. Aggressive shifting causes early material fatigue, but that is unavoidable in real matches…"
Then Leonardo frowned.
A Bludger in mid-air twisted into a stiff, unnatural angle. It paused for a fraction, as if it had been yanked by an invisible hand, then shot straight at Harry's back.
Dobby.
Leonardo, who had expected this, set down his quill and gripped his wand.
In an instant, the Bludger halted, its violent momentum snuffed out as though the air itself had turned to thick tar.
Leonardo narrowed his eyes. The dark whirlpools in his pupils expanded rapidly as he fixed his gaze on a corner beneath the stands, lips barely moving.
Below the spectators, a house-elf in a grubby old pillowcase was flailing his hands. He was short and thin, with bat-like ears and bulging green eyes nearly as large as tennis balls.
Dobby was trying to force the Bludger into Harry Potter. Not to truly injure him, but to drive him away from Hogwarts, away from a place that was becoming dangerously wrong.
But for some reason, the control that had felt so smooth a moment ago had snapped. The Bludger was stuck, as if sunk into deep mud, refusing to move no matter how he strained.
Then a voice sounded inside Dobby's head, distant and yet like a whisper right beside his ear.
"Don't interrupt my observations. We'll talk in a moment."
Fear crept up Dobby's spine. The voice was calm, but it carried a pressure that allowed no argument.
Dobby's small body began to tremble. The voice came again.
"Don't be afraid, Dobby. I know you want to protect Harry, but you don't need to do it like this."
Hearing his name and his purpose spoken aloud made Dobby jolt in shock. He stood there, wide-eyed and lost.
After a brief struggle, he lowered his hands, not daring to move further.
Up in the Ravenclaw stands, once Leonardo "saw" the strange magic on the Bludger fade away, he put his wand away and returned to his notes, continuing to record how Harry and Malfoy performed on the East Wind brooms.
Quidditch really was absurdly lax. There were practically no rules about modified equipment — modified brooms, anyway.
If you could ride it, and you dared to ride it, you could bring it onto the pitch.
It did not matter whether it was made by a professional manufacturer or something cobbled together in a shed. If it was fast, everything else was secondary.
Watching the two Seekers tear through the sky, Leonardo suspected it was simply another example of magic being magic. With healing good enough, as long as you did not smash yourself to pieces on impact, you were probably fine.
"Merlin's broomstick, it's another decisive moment!"
"Both Seekers are unbelievably quick today! They seem to be on the same model of broom. That speed, that agility, the dazzling trail, is it some new release?"
"But because the brooms are identical, the focus has to be on the two Seekers themselves. And clearly Gryffindor's Harry Potter has the edge!"
Lee Jordan's commentary rang out, loud and thrilled. As always, he favoured his own House, which delighted Gryffindor and earned furious shouting from Slytherin.
Lee did not care in the slightest. He would ignore Professor McGonagall's warnings if it pleased him. If he could crush the other side with momentum and disgust them with words, then what was the point of pretending to be fair?
Oh. Harry was nearly on the Snitch.
The match was reaching its end, and Leonardo had gathered plenty of data. He closed his notebook and put away the quill.
Leonardo was preparing to leave the Ravenclaw stands, intending to have a proper conversation with Dobby.
A soft, drifting voice called to him.
"Leonardo, are those two brooms your invention as well? It feels like every new thing at school is connected to you."
It was light enough to be almost swallowed by the cheers, but Leonardo heard it clearly.
He turned and saw a massive lion's head.
A lion's head. Not a dish, not a decoration. A huge, lifelike lion's head that looked ready to roar straight at him.
Leonardo met Luna Lovegood's silver eyes, then glanced at the enormous lion-head hat perched on her hair, and laughed.
"Yes, they're mine. What do you think of them?"
Luna tilted her head, the lion somehow looking puzzled.
"Very fast. It goes whoosh when it lifts off, then it zooms when it speeds up, and when it turns it makes a sort of shoo sound. And the little blue-and-white tail is pretty."
Leonardo was getting used to the way Luna described things. He could not help looking at that lion hat again.
"Luna, what is that hat?"
She bobbed her head, and the lion-head hat wobbled precariously, strange and oddly adorable at once.
"Oh, this. I wanted to support Gryffindor, so I sewed it myself. I wanted to do it the way you made those rabbit slippers, but we've only just started learning Transfiguration. If I can, I'd like it to roar like a real lion too. I'm just not sure what spell to use."
Leonardo found her genuinely fascinating. Most people would never even consider walking around with an enormous lion's head on their own.
"You can try a Beast Roar Charm, but you'll need to adjust it until it sounds like a lion. Or you can use a Recording Charm to capture a real lion's roar, then bind it onto the hat with a Preservation Charm. All three are covered in Basic Spell Interpretation. You can find it in the library."
Luna nodded slightly, a bright glint flashing in her pale eyes.
"Thank you. It looks like you're busy, so I won't keep you."
Then the huge lion's head disappeared into the crowd.
Leonardo left the stands and followed his Magic-Sight's guidance, tracking down where Dobby was hiding.
When he found the small house-elf wrapped in an old pillowcase, Leonardo flicked his wand and raised a Silencing barrier around them.
The moment Dobby realised Leonardo had arrived, he began to tremble and babble.
"You must be the master of that voice. Dobby tried to hurt Harry Potter. Dobby should be punished, but Hogwarts will be very dangerous this year, Harry Potter cannot stay here, but Dobby's master wants, oh no, Dobby cannot…"
Dobby's hands hung at his sides, swollen and red. The knuckles were raw and torn, as though he had been punching something hard.
Leonardo glanced at a wooden post nearby. There were stains on it, dark with blood.
This house-elf…
Leonardo tapped his wand casually. White light flowed like water around Dobby's hands, and within a few breaths, the wounds healed completely.
Dobby's eyes widened so far his already bulging green eyes looked even larger.
"Thank you, thank you for your kindness…"
He bowed again and again as he spoke.
Leonardo watched him in silence, unable to stop himself comparing Dobby to Kewby, the house-elf in Nicolas's home.
They were both house-elves, yet their clothes and the way they were treated were worlds apart.
Kewby had wages, and a collection of clothes he actually loved. Dobby had only an old pillowcase.
People should not enslave their own kind. But what about creatures that were not human?
In the wizarding world, house-elves served their families for life. They did every household task, obeyed every order, and if they disobeyed, they punished themselves.
An elf could only gain freedom by receiving clothing from their master, yet even other house-elves often treated that "freedom" as a shameful exile.
Obedience ran bone-deep in most of them, with only a rare few exceptions.
Kewby. Dobby.
"This year, Hogwarts won't become truly dangerous," Leonardo said calmly. "And if you want to help Harry, you don't need to do it by hurting him."
Dobby fidgeted, stammering as if he wanted to say something and could not dare to.
Leonardo shook his head and turned to leave. He had gathered real-match data for the East Wind brooms, and he still needed to make adjustments.
"By the way, Dobby," he added, glancing back, "if you ever want a job, a proper one with pay, you can come to me. Or you can come to Hogwarts."
"Duelling Club!"
Students clustered around the noticeboard, staring at a piece of parchment pinned to it as though it might bite.
"The first meeting is tonight. Finally, we'll learn something useful!"
"I was honestly worried my Defence grade in my O.W.L.s was going to be ruined. Last year Quirrell, this year Lockhart. What did I do to deserve this?"
"Yeah, but who's teaching it? Maybe Professor Flitwick? He was a duelling champion when he was younger. He could teach us real skills."
The most eager were the fifth-years and seventh-years. They had O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s ahead, exams that shaped the rest of their lives.
Defence mattered. A lot. But the last two years' professors had been dreadful. Last year's read from a book until he turned out to be a Dark wizard. This year's seemed to prefer storytelling and theatrical rehearsals.
Even the second-years were excited. They had been at school for more than a year and still had not properly practised Defence. It was embarrassing to admit.
In Charms, Leonardo listened as Professor Flitwick spoke at length about duelling technique.
The Duelling Club's popularity was enormous. Students had been asking questions before class even began.
When they learned Flitwick would not be running the club, many were disappointed. Charms paired naturally with duelling, after all.
Still, Flitwick cheerfully turned the lesson towards duelling.
"The most important thing in a duel is staying calm. Casting spells wildly not only ruins your own rhythm and gives your opponent openings, but it wastes magic. That does not help you last."
"Powerful spells can finish a fight in one strike, yes, but they often take time to prepare and can be interrupted. In a tight exchange, they are not always the most practical choice."
"Often, the simple spells, the fast ones, are what change everything."
He looked around. "Now then, would anyone like to come up and help me demonstrate?"
His gaze landed on Leonardo. Flitwick trusted him most.
Leonardo stood and walked to the front, then demonstrated duelling etiquette with his Head of House.
Flitwick hopped down from his stack of books and waved his wand, shifting the desk aside to clear space.
They bowed, wands in hand. Leonardo immediately cast Protego on himself, the standard opening in any serious exchange.
Flitwick's eyebrows rose. Most students did not learn Protego until the fourth or fifth year, but Leonardo was Leonardo. It was hardly surprising.
Then they traded spells back and forth, Flitwick demonstrating technique through action: a subtle change of wrist angle to mislead the line of a spell, how to read an opponent's posture, how to anticipate and dodge at the right moment.
"Thank you to Leonardo for the demonstration," Flitwick said brightly. "Now, who else would like to try?"
Hands shot up.
But the moment students stepped forward, they felt the pressure. Flitwick was clearly moving more slowly, yet they still dodged stiffly, cast stiffly, as though their brains and limbs were arguing over who was in charge.
It made the class realise just how difficult that effortless, flowing exchange had been.
Students near the front began asking Leonardo for tips immediately.
And it did not stop with Charms. Transfiguration lessons began to include duelling-adjacent ideas as well. In Herbology, a few imaginative students even asked whether you could attack someone with mandrakes, only to receive a stern warning from Professor Sprout that it could cause severe injury, though she added that if they were out of school and faced real danger, they should not hesitate.
By the time the day's lessons ended, anticipation for the Duelling Club had reached its peak.