Rolanda Hooch's office was in a small hut beside the Quidditch Pitch.
Since Madam Hooch only taught flying lessons to first-year students, she had one of the easiest teaching schedules at Hogwarts… which meant she could spend most of her time in her office.
On the first Saturday of the school year, just after lunch, she heard a knock at the door.
"Come in!" She set down her plate, drew her wand, and gave it a small wave.
With a creak, the hut's door swung open.
Madam Hooch was surprised to see a second-year student she actually knew. Normally, the only students she could name were members of the various house Quidditch teams—but the boy in front of her was an exception.
After all, in the past ten years at Hogwarts, he was the only one who had needed to retake flying lessons in his second year.
"Is something the matter, Mr. Hart?" she asked, puzzled.
"Yes, Madam…" Jon nodded, then placed a large stack of scrolls onto a table in the room.
The office was a bit messy—dozens of broomsticks stood neatly arranged on the far side of the bed, while the rest of the furniture was haphazard and uneven.
Madam Hooch shifted her gaze to the thick stack of scrolls. "And these are?"
"These are records from Hogwarts Quidditch matches over the past twenty years," Jon explained quickly. "Some of them were written by you, and others were compiled by the captains of the house teams."
"Did Professor Sprout or Mr. Diggory ask you to bring these to me?" Madam Hooch looked even more confused.
"No, no, Madam!" Jon said quickly. "They have nothing to do with this. I collected them just out of personal interest. I've formed some ideas, and I was hoping to get your thoughts on them."
"All right, let's hear it," Madam Hooch said casually. Outside the Quidditch Pitch, she was rather easygoing.
...
Jon took out a parchment filled with numbers and began.
"I've looked into the records of the 120 Hogwarts Quidditch Cup matches from 1973 to 1993—a span of twenty years.
"In those 120 games, the average team score was 198.7 points. Deduct the 75 points for catching the Golden Snitch, and the average comes to 123.7 points—which means each team scored fewer than 13 Quaffle goals per game on average.
"In those same 120 games, the winning team caught the Golden Snitch in 109 matches, the losing team in 5 matches, and 6 matches ended in a draw.
"Of the 109 games where the winners caught the Snitch, only 13 had a victory margin of 300 points or more. The other 96 had margins under 300 points.
"This means that in 96 plus 6—102 games in total—the outcome was determined by the Seeker. If the Seeker on the winning side in those 102 matches had made a mistake and let the opponent catch the Snitch, the result would have been reversed.
"In other words, in 85% of matches, the result is decided entirely by the Seeker." Jon spoke with a serious expression.
"I'm not sure I follow, Mr. Hart," Madam Hooch said, frowning. "Are you suggesting that the Seeker's role in Quidditch is too important?"
Even so, the numbers had startled her. A Seeker determining the outcome in seventeen of every twenty matches… that was worrying.
"I'm afraid so, Madam. The capture of the Snitch almost always decides the match," Jon said, nodding gravely. "To be honest, when I first heard Quidditch's rules, I was shocked. Who came up with the idea of the Seeker? Was it some lazy prince who wanted to play Quidditch but couldn't be bothered to learn the rules?"
Madam Hooch's expression darkened slightly, as if she were mulling something over.
"In fact, the Seeker's effect on balance isn't just about points—they also determine how long a match lasts," Jon continued. "You see, spotting the Golden Snitch relies heavily on luck—"
"It's not luck at all!" Madam Hooch cut in. "An excellent Seeker and a poor Seeker show completely different skill when it comes to catching the Snitch!"
"No, no, Madam—you misunderstood me!" Jon said quickly. "I'm not saying catching the Snitch is luck. I'm saying finding it is.
"From the few Quidditch matches I've seen, it's clear that the Snitch's flight range is huge, and most of it is outside a player's line of sight. That means you can't actively search for it most of the time—you have to wait for it to enter your field of vision.
"That's why, for example, in the 1992 Gryffindor vs Hufflepuff match, Harry Potter caught the Snitch in just 2 minutes and 33 seconds—because it appeared right in front of them soon after the match began.
"But in the 1976 Gryffindor vs Slytherin match, James Potter took 4 hours, 39 minutes, and 6 seconds to end the game—the longest in twenty years—because the Snitch didn't appear in front of anyone for the first four and a half hours.
"I don't believe this difference is because Mr. Potter is vastly better than his father—it's because the length of a Quidditch match is entirely down to luck. That can cause some real problems. Imagine the crowd coming in eager to watch a high-level, intense match, only for the Snitch to appear and be caught within minutes. It would be a huge letdown."
"I suppose you have a point," Madam Hooch admitted with a small nod.
"And the Seeker is only part of it!" Jon pressed on. "I think there are other problems too. For example, Beaters and Keepers—both have far too little presence in the game.
"I've also compiled Keeper statistics. In the last 120 matches, each Keeper averaged only 3.9 saves per game. As I mentioned earlier, the average goals scored per match is 12.37—so in terms of contribution, a Keeper in a typical game doesn't even match a Chaser.
"And Keepers, as stationary targets, are easier prey for Bludgers. The three hoops make it hard for them to cover every shot—they can be tricked easily. And when an opposing Chaser charges in at high speed with the Quaffle, it's extremely difficult for the Keeper to block them. In most cases, they're beaten with ease."