---
Three days passed in the blink of an eye.
Over those three days, Richie, Neville, and Seamus met up in the abandoned third-floor classroom every single night to study and brainstorm. Wendis, having been officially invited by Neville, had also joined their secret investigative squad.
Unfortunately, despite their combined efforts, the group still hadn't managed to crack the second riddle.
To make matters worse, their mission to find the home address of "lovely Freckles" had hit a massive brick wall. The publisher of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them had completely ignored the inquiry letters sent by a bunch of random eleven-year-olds. As a result, that situation was entirely stalled.
When Saturday finally arrived, the entire Hogwarts campus practically vibrated with excitement. Today was the very first official Quidditch match of the school year: Gryffindor versus Slytherin.
First thing in the morning, students eagerly rolled out of bed, rushed down to the Great Hall to inhale their breakfast, and then immediately sprinted out to the Quidditch pitch to secure the absolute best seats in the stands.
"Hurry! Hurry up!"
"Wake up! Today is the Quidditch match!"
Terry's overly enthusiastic voice echoed through the dorm room.
"Oh, Terry, please just let me sleep a little longer..." Stephen groaned miserably, pulling his blanket completely over his head. "I was up incredibly late last night listening to the upperclassmen debate magical fluctuation analysis..."
"Stephen!"
"Look at the time! How can you possibly still be sleeping at your age?!"
"Get up!!!"
"Trust me, if you miss this match, you are going to regret it for the rest of your life!"
Terry aggressively shoved his way through the velvet hangings around Stephen's bed and violently yanked the blanket completely off him.
"Whoa. You're incredibly pale," Terry blurted out instinctively, staring wide-eyed while still holding the blanket in the air.
The sudden blast of freezing morning air jolted Stephen awake. He blearily opened his eyes, saw Terry's pixelated-looking face leaning over his bed, and instantly realized what had just happened.
He frantically covered his crotch and screamed in absolute fury, "GET OUT!!!"
Right at that exact second, an arm reached through the bed curtains, clamped down firmly on Terry's shoulder, and forcefully dragged him away from Stephen's bed.
Richie hauled Terry out of the curtains and gave him a highly serious, exasperated look. "Terry, we have to respect people's privacy!"
Terry offered an incredibly awkward, sheepish laugh. Seeing Stephen's violent reaction, he finally realized he had crossed a major line. But he couldn't help it—he was just way too hyped. He had been looking forward to this day for weeks, and his impatience had gotten the better of him.
Stephen quickly threw on his clothes and angrily tied the curtains back. His face was completely dark with rage. If he hadn't made a habit of sleeping in his underwear, Terry literally would have seen everything!
"Oh... I'm really sorry, Stephen..." Terry muttered, hiding slightly behind Richie, completely terrified to make eye contact with him.
"Alright, alright. Let's just get ready and go eat breakfast," Anthony chimed in, trying to defuse the tension.
"Right, right! Let's go!" Hearing the out, Terry instantly bolted for the door.
Watching Terry sprint away in sheer panic, Richie just shook his head and laughed. "Let's go, Stephen."
Stephen let out a long, heavy sigh and gave a cold huff. "...Fine."
---
The Hogwarts Quidditch Pitch
By the time they arrived, the massive banners of the four houses were already snapping in the wind above the towering spectator stands. The early-bird students were clustered together, buzzing with excitement and chatting loudly with their friends.
Richie and the guys climbed the stairs to the Ravenclaw section and found four seats together in a row.
The eagles, however, were currently treating the spectator stands like a lecture hall. They had actually dragged a massive, standalone chalkboard to the front of their section, right near the stairs. The board was completely covered in incredibly dense, highly complex mathematical formulas and an endless series of data tables.
"The match is finally starting! All our theoretical modeling is about to be field-tested!"
"Haha! I think the 'Broomstick Aerodynamic Resonance Probability' and the 'Bludger Pseudo-Random Trajectory' theories are definitely the most hotly debated topics in the common room right now. I wonder if we'll actually get conclusive data today."
"Hard to say. We'll probably need to observe at least a few more matches to build a proper sample size."
---
Over in the Gryffindor stands, Ron and Hermione had secured a prime viewing spot.
"Those Ravenclaw guys have completely lost their minds," Ron muttered. "Why would they drag a massive chalkboard up here? Don't they realize it's totally blocking the view?"
Ron brought his hands up to his face, forming circles over his eyes like imaginary binoculars, trying to peer around the board.
Hermione completely ignored his dramatic pantomiming. She was sitting perfectly straight, fully engrossed in a dense, heavy textbook titled A History of Magical Creature Enslavement.
"Ugh..." Seeing her totally ignore him, Ron just shrugged and turned his attention back to the center of the pitch.
Down below, the two Quidditch teams were currently flying high-speed laps around the stadium, running through their final warm-up drills.
"Harry! Harry!"
Seeing Harry fly directly overhead, fully decked out in his bright scarlet Gryffindor robes, Ron immediately jumped to his feet, screaming and waving his arms wildly.
As the minutes ticked by and the sun climbed higher into the sky, the stadium completely packed out. The stands were an absolute sea of roaring, cheering students.
In the center of the professor's box, a student raised his wand, pressed it to his throat, and cast the Sonorus Charm. His magically amplified voice instantly boomed across the entire stadium.
"Welcome to the first Hogwarts Quidditch match of the season!"
"I am your commentator, Lee Jordan, and I'll be calling the action today!"
"Today's match features an absolute classic rivalry: the Gryffindor team taking on the Slytherin team!"
"And I am honored to be joined in the booth today by Professor McGonagall..."
As the commentary echoed across the pitch, the two teams finished their warm-ups and flew back down to their respective locker rooms for final preparations.
Harry landed and walked into the Gryffindor locker room. Since he was the youngest Seeker in a century, his older teammates kindly let him stand right at the front of the line with their captain, Oliver Wood, while they waited for the signal to march out.
Wood noticed Harry aggressively hyperventilating and gave a slight, knowing smile. "Nervous, Harry?"
Harry nodded frantically.
"Don't worry about it. I felt the exact same way before my first match," Wood said reassuringly.
"What happened?" Harry asked, looking at his captain with desperate curiosity.
Wood blinked, his face going completely blank. "Honestly, I don't remember. About two minutes into the game, a Bludger hit me square in the head, and I woke up in the hospital wing a week later."
"Oh."
Hearing that, Harry's face instantly twisted into an absolute mask of pure, unfiltered panic.
"Hahaha!" The rest of the team completely lost it, and the locker room erupted in laughter.
Before long, the heavy wooden doors swung open. At Wood's command, the team mounted their brooms and shot out of the tunnel, rocketing into the sky.
The sudden appearance of the scarlet and emerald teams triggered an absolute explosion of cheers from the stands.
Guided by Madam Hooch—the flying instructor and official referee for the match—the two teams flew to the very center of the pitch, hovering in a tight formation, ready to begin.
---
"It's starting!" Terry yelled, practically vibrating with excitement.
All around them in the Ravenclaw stands, the eagles simultaneously drew their quills, incredibly tense and ready to start aggressively recording data.
Sitting directly next to Richie was none other than the Ravenclaw Quidditch Captain, Razim Gideon.
Leaning in close, Razim spoke in a low voice meant only for Richie.
"Based on all the theoretical questions you posed, the house ran the data and mathematically restructured several of our core formations. The results have been absolutely staggering. Even Professor Flitwick noticed the massive improvement during our practice sessions."
"And now, everyone is constantly proposing new theories and conducting new research."
"I honestly never imagined Quidditch could be played with this level of sheer, intellectual calculation."
"And this entire paradigm shift... it's all because of you, Richie."
"I genuinely don't know how to thank you..."
Richie just stared straight ahead, a single thought screaming in his mind:
SOS.