The stadium was a vacuum of held breath as Malfoy's fingers stretched toward the fluttering gold. He was inches away, his eyes wide with a frantic, greedy light.
Then, the air itself seemed to crack.
A Bludger, moving with the velocity of a cannonball, shrieked through the gap between Malfoy and the Snitch. The sheer wind resistance of the iron ball was enough to knock Malfoy's broom off-balance. He yelped, jerking his handle to the side to avoid a shattered collarbone, and in that split second of terror, the Golden Snitch hummed and vanished into the gray-blue sky.
A collective, soul-crushing groan rose from the Slytherin stands, quickly drowned out by a tidal wave of Ravenclaw cheers.
"HARRIS! DID YOU SEE THAT?" Lee Jordan's voice was vibrating with raw adrenaline. "That wasn't just a shot; that was a sniper strike! Malfoy's soul nearly left his body!"
Derrick, the Slytherin Beater, was purple with rage. He didn't wait for the game to reset. He swung his bat with a guttural roar, sending the second Bludger screaming directly at Allen's head. It was a kill-shot, plain and simple.
Allen didn't even blink. With a subtle flick of his wrists, he leaned back into a tight, vertical somersault. The Nimbus 2001 responded with surgical precision, the Bludger whistling past his toes as he completed the loop and leveled out, looking as bored as if he were sitting in a History of Magic lecture.
The crowd went ballistic. The sheer arrogance of the maneuver was a slap in the face to every Slytherin on the pitch.
"Ravenclaw back in control!" Lee yelled, trying to talk over the noise. "Davies has the Quaffle. He's looking for the opening—he's got the lane—he's—GAH! THAT'S A FOUL! THAT'S DISGUSTING!"
In a display of pure desperation, the Slytherin Beater, Bole, didn't even bother with a Bludger. He simply hurled his heavy iron-reinforced bat across the sky. The heavy wood caught Roger Davies square in the ribs. The sound of the impact echoed even over the cheering.
Roger gasped, the Quaffle slipping from his numb fingers. Warrington scooped it up, putting his head down and charging toward the Ravenclaw goals like a runaway centaur.
"Warrington's on the break! He's clear—no, wait! HERE COMES THE RECKONING!"
Allen had already anticipated the interception. He dived from the stratosphere, intercepting a stray Bludger mid-air. He didn't just hit it; he channeled every ounce of his frustration into the swing. The iron ball struck Warrington's broom tail with a sickening crunch. The Slytherin jerked violently, the Quaffle popping into the air like a cork.
Roger, clutching his side and gasping for air, somehow found the strength to lunge. He snatched the ball, did a jagged barrel roll past the Slytherin Keeper, and slammed the Quaffle through the hoop.
"GOAL! TWENTY-ZERO! Ravenclaw is playing like they're possessed!"
The game paused as Marcus Flint signaled for a timeout. The teams drifted down to the grass. The Ravenclaws were sweating, their eyes bloodshot with intensity, while the Slytherins looked like vipers whose nests had been stepped on.
"They're falling apart," Roger panted, wiping a smear of grease and sweat from his forehead. "Cho, the Firebolt is the key. Malfoy can't track you if you're moving faster than his brain can process."
"Watch your backs," Allen warned, his voice low and dangerous. He looked at the Slytherin huddle. "They aren't playing Quidditch anymore. They're playing 'Hunt the Raven.' Bole didn't miss with that bat; he was aiming for your head. Stay high, stay fast."
Allen's words were prophetic. As soon as the whistle blew, the match descended into a brawl.
Flint didn't even pretend to go for the ball. He used his massive frame to ram Bradley, nearly sending the younger Chaser into a dead-fall. Seconds later, Bole swung his bat—not at a ball, but at the back of Roger's head. Roger managed to tuck his chin, but the wood clipped his skull, slamming his face into his own broom handle.
When Roger pulled back, blood was gushing from his nose, staining his blue jersey a dark, morbid purple.
"ENOUGH!" Madam Hooch screamed, her yellow eyes flashing with fury. She zoomed between the players, her whistle shrieking. "That was a deliberate assault! Penalty shot! And if I see another bat swing like that, I'm clearing the pitch!"
Roger didn't say a word. He didn't complain. He just wiped the blood onto his sleeve, gripped his broom, and flew to the penalty line. The stadium went deathly quiet. You could hear the wind whistling through the hoop-posts.
Whistle.
Roger didn't finesse it. He threw the Quaffle with such raw, unadulterated spite that the Slytherin Keeper barely saw the blur before it was in the net.
"THIRTY-ZERO!" Lee Jordan's voice was uncharacteristically somber. "The Eagles aren't just winning. They're enduring."
The Ravenclaw stands didn't cheer this time. They stood in a silent, chilling vigil. They remembered the speech in the common room. They saw their captain bleeding for the honor of the house, and a cold, intellectual fury began to radiate from the blue section of the stands.
Allen's jaw was set so tight it looked like stone. He gripped his bat until his knuckles turned white. If the Slytherins wanted to play dirty, he would show them that he was the master of the shadows.
Cho Chang kicked her Firebolt into overdrive. She wasn't just flying; she was teleporting. Malfoy tried to tail her, his face a mask of panicked concentration, but the Firebolt was a different species of broom.
"Davies has it again—Montague is cutting him off—HEY! HE GRABBED HIS HAIR!"
The foul was so blatant it was insulting. Montague had reached out and physically tried to yank Roger off his broom by the back of his head. Roger spun, narrowly avoiding a broken neck, but the Quaffle was lost again.
Madam Hooch was losing control. Another penalty was awarded. Forty-zero.
"Learn some manners, you bottom-feeding snakes!" Lee roared.
"JORDAN! Neutrality!"
"I am being neutral, Professor! I'm equally disgusted by all their fouls!"
Then, the turning point. Derrick, the Slytherin Beater, decided to target Cho. He sent a Bludger whistling toward her ear, laughing as she was forced to dive. He turned to his teammates, grinning like a shark—but his smile died mid-laugh.
The air around him seemed to hum.
Allen had returned the favor. He hadn't hit the Bludger at Derrick's body. He had aimed for the pivot point of the broom's handle. The iron ball struck with the force of a falling star. The wood shattered instantly, and Derrick went into a terrifying, uncontrolled spin, plummeting toward the stands like a broken kite.
The crowd screamed as Derrick barely managed to deploy a cushioning charm before hitting the ground. He had to be rescued and given a backup Comet 260, but his spirit was broken. He looked at Allen, and for the first time, there was genuine, primal fear in his eyes.
From that moment on, the pitch belonged to Allen Harris.
He didn't foul. He didn't need to. He played the game of geometry. Every Bludger he hit was calculated to force a Slytherin into a disadvantageous position, to shatter their formations, and to keep them perpetually looking over their shoulders. Bole's broom was the next to go, snapped in half by a redirected shot that Allen didn't even look at when he hit it.
When Allen accelerated toward Malfoy, the younger boy actually screamed. Draco didn't even look for the Snitch; he just turned tail and fled toward the other side of the pitch, abandoning his post entirely.
Marcus Flint, seeing his team falling apart, tried to take Allen out himself. He hit a Bludger toward Allen's face. Allen didn't even flinch. He swung his bat with a short, compact motion, sending the ball right back into the tail-end of Flint's broom. The bristles exploded in a cloud of straw, and Flint's broom began to smoke.
"Look! The Snitch!"
The gold spark was hovering twenty feet above the center circle. Allen saw it first.
"CHO! NOW!"
Allen didn't go for it. He positioned himself like a guardian deity. As Cho leaned into the Firebolt's acceleration, Allen stayed on her wing. Two Bludgers came screaming toward them—one from Bole, one from a recovering Derrick.
Crack. Crack.
Allen batted them both away without breaking his formation. He was a wall of iron and wood. Malfoy tried to dive back in, but Allen simply steered his broom into Malfoy's path, forcing the Slytherin to bank so hard he nearly fell off.
"She's got it! She's got the lead! The Firebolt is leaving them in the dust!" Lee was standing on the desk now, screaming into the megaphone. "Malfoy's trying to catch up, but it's like a turtle chasing a thunderbolt!"
Cho's hand closed around the struggling gold.
The sound that erupted from the stadium was enough to rattle the windows of the castle. It wasn't just a cheer; it was a release of a year's worth of tension.
Roger Davies didn't wait to land. He flew straight at Allen, his eyes streaming with tears that mixed with the dried blood on his face. He threw his arms around Allen's neck, burying his face in his shoulder, sobbing with a mixture of relief and pure, unadulterated joy.
The rest of the team swarmed them. They hovered in a chaotic, hugging mass, shouting themselves hoarse as they drifted down to the turf.
As their feet hit the grass, a wave of blue surged over the barricades. Thousands of hands reached for them. Professor Flitwick was sobbing openly into Hagrid's massive handkerchief, his tiny wand sparking with ribbons of gold and bronze that danced in the air like fireworks.
Across the pitch, the Slytherin team sat on their brooms in a stunned, graveyard silence. They hadn't just lost a game. They had lost their pride. They had been dismantled by a team that was smarter, faster, and—most importantly—willing to bleed for each other. The House Cup was gone, and as they looked at the celebrating Ravenclaws, they knew that the era of the Eagle had truly begun.