The Intelligent Potter

*** Present

For the following week, the Quidditch opening ceremony was highly anticipated. For the few classes before the event, even in the OWL and NEWT classes, there were very few students actually getting work done.

Naturally, Harry and Hermione were two of the few people still working but Harry himself was really excited for the event.

On a more annoying note, he still had no idea what the first task was.

Bagman had simply said that it "tested their versatility and adapting to different tasks."

He was planning on asking Dumbledore in their session that evening, knowing that the other competitors would be informed by their respective head-teachers.

*** Evening Session w Dumbledore and Arcturus

The intensity of their sessions had increased a couple notches. Harry had never noticed it in how easily he was beat, but Arcturus had been holding back on him in all their prior training.

"You're part of the Triwizard tournament now, nobody will be holding back on you." Was Arcturus' short explanation.

Harry's goal had changed from trying to get Arcturus on the back foot and was now simply trying to get even one shot in on the older man.

Despite getting beaten even quicker than he usually did, Harry couldn't deny that he was improving quickly.

Arcturus barely duelled with one of his hands, occasionally having to bring the other up to cast a wandless shield in case Harry managed to get a sneaky spell into Arcturus' defence.

Harry's defence was improved significantly as well, despite being proficient with countering and defence, he hadn't had to defend even close to as much as Arcturus was shooting at him currently.

The Black Lord was not reserved in his attack, all of his spells were non-lethal because they were practising, and this did restrict some of his more dangerous elemental magic as well, but Harry was barely capable of defending himself against Arcturus' barrage for a few minutes, let alone a proper duel.

The Lord Black wasn't a showman, he did things quickly and efficiently.

Arcturus' wand did not move any more than he needed it to, every swipe sending multiple spells flying at Harry and every flick creating a wave of water or air.

*** Quidditch Ceremony

The tiresome Ludo Bagman was back to commentate for the opening ceremony of the Quidditch Opening Ceremony.

Despite this, Harry couldn't help but be excited about the event, it would be the first professional Quidditch match that he would have seen. After all the Quidditch he played, his first Professional Quidditch match!

After spouting about the Nimbus Broom Company for a good fifteen minutes, leaving Harry thoroughly tired with the shameless advertising happening in the tournament, Bagman moved on to talking about the teams playing.

"FOR TODAY'S EXHIBITION MATCH, WE HAVE SOME OF THE GREATEST PLAYERS TO EVER GO PRO IN THE HISTORY OF QUIDDITCH HERE TODAY! OUR FIRST EXHIBITION TEAM IS CAPTAINED BY NONE OTHER THAN THE AMERICAN BEHEMOTH JEFFREY SMITHEREENS!"

Said player streaked onto the Hogwarts Quidditch pitch, doing twirls even as he rose up to do a l.a.p of the entire pitch, blazing past the stands of all four houses. Smithereens was really a 'Behemoth', he was 6'5 and strongly built, especially for a Keeper.

"SMITHEREEN'S 7 ALSO INCLUDE BEATERS JOHNSTON AND JOHNSTON, CHASERS BALTIC, PAZZI AND GARCIA AAAAND SEEKER JAAASON ROY OF OUR VERY OWN ENGLISH QUIDDITCH TEAM!"

The seven all circled the stadium to loud cheers among the packed crowd.

"THEIR JOB WON'T BE A CAKEWALK THOUGH, BECAUSE HERE COME THEIR OPPONENTS, LED BY NEW ZEALAND SENSATION WILLIAMSON!"

"ON WILLIAMSON'S TEAM IS KEEPER RODRIGUEZ, IRISH CHASERS MULLET, TROY AAAND MORAN! MAXWELL AND HEADINGWAY ARE BEATERS FOR THE SIDE!"

Said players zoomed onto the field, dressed in blue as opposed to the red of Smithereen's 7.

The two teams flew into starting formation and Madam Hooch released all of the balls, the snitch immediately zooming off into space, with Williamson and Roy both chasing after it.

Harry noticed how much faster professional snitches were than the ones that Hogwarts used for their school matches. He could keep up with the tiny ball but he could only imagine the kind of skill needed to catch the tiny blighter.

With his Omnioculars, Harry could see Roy's eyes moving hectically, tracking every move of the snitch, with his tongue out, concentrating on catching up to the tiny little ball.

With a very sharp turn just before the goal posts, the snitch lost Roy, who nearly smashed into the large goalpost and had lost it by the time he looked around.

Williamson on the other hand, kept on the tail of the tiny golden ball, showing his class with some vicarious flying, flying right through the chaser's formations, swerving right out of the way of a pass, and ignoring several budgets sent at him by the Johnston twins, who kept on his tail, knowing that the game would be over if he caught the snitch.

Meanwhile, Pazzi and Garcia had completely run through the Irish chasers to score the first goal of the game.

Pazzi jagged around the Irish players and threw a low pass to Garcia who dived to take it and threw it hard towards the right goal from an awkward position way below the goal posts which Rodriguez could only bop onto the post and back into the goal.

Quickly Smithereen's 7 established a good lead of 110-20 points over their opponents, as Rodriguez proved unable to stop any of the opposition's attempts while Smithereen was a rock solid defence, only faltering to a truly amazing execution manoeuvre from the Irish chasers, who feinted twice to get the ball through the middle hoop.

Despite this, Williamson was still on the chase of the snitch. Roy was trying to catch up to him but it seemed only a matter of time until Williamson caught the snitch and Smithereen's 7 knew that.

Garcia sped through the opposition, swerving in many different directions and taking a hard throw to the left hoop, quickly lengthening the lead to 160-20, a full 140 points ahead of their opponents.

Garcia zigzagged through Williamson's 7 but a well placed blunger threw him off his course.

Desperately, he threw a looping high pass to Baltic who received it perfectly and just stilled for a second to take the shot, pulling his arm back for the throw and…

"WILLIAMSON CATCHES THE SNITCH!" Bagman's excited voice filled the stadium.

Baltic let out a scream of frustration, just one goal away from tying the game…

"WILLIAMSON'S 7 WIN THE HOGWARTS EXHIBITION GAME OF '93 BY JUST 10 POINTS!" Bagman exclaimed.

Williamson did a victory l.a.p, ecstatic with the win.

Meanwhile Bagman moved on to more random praising of the Nimbus company while the player's exited the field after one last victory l.a.p for WIlliamson's team.

*** The end