Quidditch World Cup - Australia vs England

Chapter 4 - The Match

Normal Quidditch is intense enough. But the World Cup is fast, brutal and deadly, I saw as I sat on the edge of my seat, my Omnioculars pressed hard against my eyes.

The players zoomed past us so fast that they were just red-and-white and green-and-gold blurs, with small red and black ones passing around them that could only be the Quaffle and Bludgers. I could definitely not see the Snitch; just both Seekers keeping in key positions where they could scan for it.

England kept possession of the Quaffle for the first ten minutes of the match until the Aussie Keeper, Miller, made a great save by the tips of her fingertips. The Aussies then made spectacularly fast passes to each other across the pitch until Kelly reached the scoring area.

Throwing the Quaffle into the air, Kelly spun his broom around, smacking it with the handle so it sailed towards the goal hoops. Frisby made a lunge for the Quaffle, but it sailed through her fingers and through the right-hand post.

As the Australian fans in the crowd roared in victory, the scores changed to read AUSTRALIA - TEN, ENGLAND - ZERO. The Billywigs made a small victory lap over the crowd, once again shaped into the glittering blue kangaroo, while the phoenixes' small, sad songs of loss mingled with the boos of the English supporters.

The dominance by Australia continued throughout the match. Despite some great moves by the English side, including three fantastic goals scored by Ginny, by the time the game had gone into its fourth hour, the score was 190-40 in favour of the Aussies.

The crowd was getting ugly by that point too; security wizards had to break up multiple fights between supporters who had a little too much Firewhiskey. Luckily, the fights never got so bad that wands were drawn, which could have been bad.

Suddenly Parkin, the English Seeker, was zooming towards the left-hand side of the pitch. Williams, the Australian Seeker, saw what he was doing and was soon neck and neck with him.

Parkin pulled into a dive, heading towards the soft grass of the pitch, Williams right on his tail. Just before they were about to hit the ground, Parkin pulled sharply out of the dive, flying upwards. Williams, taken by surprise, tried to pull out too, but was too late. With a sickening thud, he hit the ground hard.

With the realisation that Parkin had been faking about seeing the Snitch, the Aussies began to boo and hurl abuse at him.

"Seeker Parkin has pulled off well-known Quidditch move, the Wronski Feint," Norm announced.

As Norm spoke, mediwizards were heading onto the pitch to help Williams. From what we could see, he seemed to be okay, but a bit dizzy. After about 10 minutes, they deemed him fit to continue.

Like most fans of Quidditch, I was familiar with the Wronski Feint. It was one of the most dangerous moves in Quidditch, which of course was why most Aussie players and fans loved it so much. Not a day went by in the local league back home when some player wasn't carted to hospital with broken limbs or concussion from the move.

Another two hours passed, and while the British made some more scores, it was obvious this game belonged to the Aussies. The score was now 250 to 60, with neither Seeker having seen the Snitch.

All of a sudden, both Seekers were once again taking off like rockets around the pitch. They zoomed around the perimeter, each one attempting to stretch their arms out and catch the Snitch, but neither making headway as the each would knock the other's hand away.

As the Seekers began to head towards the ground once again, Parkin pushed his broom just an inch ahead of Williams and just managed to close his fingers around the winged ball. As he did, he lost his grip on his broom and fell to the ground with a loud thump!

The crowd went completely insane as the numbers on the sides of the pitch now read FINAL SCORE: AUSTRALIA 250, ENGLAND 210.

Next to us in the Box, barely heard above our own cheers even with his amplified voice, Norm was still commentating.

"Australia win, with England catching the Snitch! What a result, ladies and gentlemen! They will be talking about this one for ages!"

As the Cup was bought onto the pitch to be presented to the team, we hung around in the Top Box and chatted with Harry for a bit.

By the time Ginny came into the Box from the change rooms, the kids had fallen asleep and we were all exhausted. After we had collected our winnings from Norm (Reegan with a big grin on his face) we decided to Apparate back to the camp site instead of walking.

We said goodbye to Harry and Ginny at the gate and walked towards our tent, the cool desert night air a pleasant change from the heat earlier.

As I lay in bed in our tent that night, I just felt truly lucky to have not only seen the Quidditch World Cup, but to have seen my team win.

What a great feeling it was.