Chapter 16
Harry played with a purpose. The moment the whistle blew he shot off and circled the stadium once, and then went into a spectacular dive. He heard Malfoy laugh behind him. "I won't fall for that one Potter!"
Draco was laughing no more and the stadium was completely silent when Harry pulled out of his dive, fist pumped triumphantly in the air.
No one could believe it.
Harry Potter had caught the snitch in a shade under 45 seconds. Seamus' voice boomed throughout the stunned crowd.
"Harry Potter has caught the snitch!"
The stadium erupted in cheers, even the Slytherin's were impressed.
"Hah!" came Seamus' voice again. "Not laughing now are you Malf-" his voice drained out as McGonogall once again tore the speaker away from him.
Harry was absolutely bombarded by his teammates. A Slytherin player swooped up to them and grinned.
"Brilliant catch Potter." and with that he flew off, the rest of the Slytherin's were already gone. Harry stared in stunned silence, but then cheered with the rest of the team.
"PARTY IN GRYFFINDOR TOWER TONIGHT!" boomed Seamus' voice, as he had somehow gotten the speaker back from McGonogall. The crowd cheered even louder.
The party in the Gryffindor common room went on for hours. Even some Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff came in to join the fun. Harry was bombarded with tons of pats on the back and compliments galore and was loving all of it.
This is what quidditch is all about He thought.
Harry gazed around the party and was astounded to see a beaming Fred and George running at him.
"Brilliant Harry!"
"We came as soon as we could!"
"I've never seen anything like it!" came a new voice that belonged to Lee Jordan.
"Hey!" Harry said excitedly, he hadn't seen Lee in ages. "What are you up to?"
Lee beamed at him. "I'm at Puddlemore with Oliver. I'm their new announcer! Wood wanted me to tell that he's really sorry he couldn't come, but the coach wouldn't let him. He's been promoted you know, he's now the starter for the first team!"
Finally, after nearly seven hours of partying, everyone filed out and it was only Gryffindor's left.
The next day the great hall exploded with applause when Harry walked in, and he didn't think that they could possibly still be going on about quidditch when Ron, beaming, brought him up a copy of the daily prophet.
"Read it." he said eagerly. Harry glanced down. There was a huge photograph of him triumphantly holding the snitch with a huge headline of
"Harry Potter Sets World Record For Fastest Ever Catch Of The Snitch"
Harry gaped at it unbelievably. World Record?
The article went on to say how brilliant of a quidditch player Harry was, with interviews from all kind of international quidditch stars, all giving Harry huge praise, saying that a 42 second snitch catch will never be beat and more.
The article covered the entire front page and spanned another three after that. It took Harry nearly an hour to read the whole thing. The rest of the day was full of people bursting into applause whenever they saw him, patting him on the back, until finally Harry couldn't take it anymore and asked them to stop.
The euphoria lasted all the way to Christmas break, which was when Harry came back down to earth, remembering why he and his friends were forced to stay at Hogwarts for the holidays.