Hermione snatched Hagrid's binoculars, but instead of looking at Harry, she was scanning the opposite stands for something.
"What are you looking at?" Ron asked.
"It's Snape—he's up to something." Hermione shoved the binoculars into Ron's hands, and Ron looked too.
Sure enough, he saw Snape on the opposite stands, his eyes locked on Harry while his mouth moved in a constant mutter.
"What should we do?" Ron froze up—he always did when something happened.
"Leave it to me, just watch."
With that, Hermione disappeared into the crowd, pushing and squeezing through the throng as quickly as she could toward the other side.
"Hermione!" Wayne spotted the little witch and yanked her out of the crush.
"Wayne," Hermione said urgently, "help me—Snape's jinxing Harry's broom!"
Like with anything, habits form. Hermione, without thinking, immediately turned to Wayne for help the moment she saw him. That, too, was a sign of her trust in him.
Wayne glanced over—not at Snape, but at Quirrell.
"Don't panic just yet."
He gave Hermione a quick reassurance. On the pitch, things weren't looking good for Gryffindor.
To make sure Harry wouldn't fall to his death, the Weasley twins kept trying to fly alongside him, but every time they got close, they were forced away. Without their interference, Slytherin's other players were becoming more and more brazen. Wood's face was already bruised and swollen.
Wayne's eyes darted around—Hufflepuff's stands were right next to Slytherin's. He was already sitting on the far edge, with only a few people between him and the Slytherin section, and then just beyond them was the teachers' stand.
Suddenly, he slapped his thigh and exclaimed furiously:
"Dirty! Absolutely filthy! Are Slytherin here to play Quidditch or just beat people up?"
"Lawrence, what are you going on about?" a Slytherin student glared at him.
"Oh, so we can't call out dirty play now?" Wayne shot back. "Your troll of a captain is about to shove his club down Wood's throat!"
Quite a few Hufflepuffs nodded in agreement.
Nobody liked playing Quidditch against Slytherin—they'd do anything to win.
"This is between Slytherin and Gryffindor. What's it to you?"
"Idiot! The House Cup isn't decided in one match—every single point matters. And you're asking me what it has to do with me?"
The Hufflepuffs kept nodding.
A different Slytherin lost his temper. "You filthy Mudblood—"
"Parkinson! Watch your mouth!" Cedric shot to his feet and stormed up to the boy.
"Wayne is my friend!"
Robert Parkinson—Slytherin's fifth-year prefect, and also Pansy Parkinson's cousin—glared back.
"Cedric, Marcus will teach you a lesson during the match," Parkinson sneered, shoving Cedric aside. He opened his mouth to say more, but a massive fist smashed into his face.
"On the pitch you bully Harry Potter, and off the pitch you dare hit Cedric? Do you think Hufflepuff has no one to stand up for them?"
Blood streamed from Parkinson's nose, his nasal bone twisted at a horrifying angle—clearly broken with that one punch.
"Wayne…" Cedric opened his mouth, wanting to say that Parkinson had only pushed him, not hit him.
But Wayne had already thrown the punch—there was no way he was going to help Parkinson save face now.
"You Mudblood! You dare hit me? Do you know who my father is?!"
Parkinson clutched his nose, tears of pain spilling from his eyes.
"You don't even know who your father is—go home and ask your mother!"
With that, Wayne delivered a vicious kick straight to his groin.
That lit the fuse. Other Slytherin students charged forward to help Parkinson, and there was no way Cedric and the other Hufflepuffs would just stand by while their side was outnumbered—they all piled in too.
A full-blown brawl broke out without warning.
Hermione was stunned.
Wasn't the plan to save Harry?
How did this turn into a fight?
BANG!
Wayne threw another punch, breaking another student's nose. Lee Jordan quickly noticed the commotion and his voice boomed from the commentary box.
"What's happening down there?!"
"The noble Hufflepuffs have started fighting the filthy Slytherins!"
"Oh! A beautiful left hook!"
"Lawrence has taken down another one! He's a god! A god of war!"
"No one can stop him! Fight! Oh, this is glorious!"
Lee was practically bouncing out of his seat cheering for Hufflepuff, while Professor McGonagall was so furious she nearly fainted.
"Stop! Stop right now! What do you think you're doing?!"
No one listened to her—everyone was too caught up in the heat of the fight.
Screams and shouts rang out from the stands of the two Houses. Even the Quidditch players on the pitch froze midair, staring in shock, completely forgetting they were still in the middle of a match.
Hufflepuff had the clear advantage—not because of skill, but simply because they had the numbers.
Slytherin's students barely made up two-thirds of Hufflepuff's count, and almost every Slytherin boy found himself being double-teamed by two enthusiastic Hufflepuffs.
And then there was Wayne. Just as Lee Jordan had said, he really was like a war god—charging from the south stands to the north, smashing noses with precision, then following up with a vicious low kick to make sure the opponent stayed down.
Before long, Wayne had pushed deep into enemy territory, right up near the staff stands.
Bang!
Wayne, in full battle fury, found Crabbe blocking his way.
Before Crabbe even had a chance to figure out what was happening, Wayne's wand turned into a hefty paving brick—and smack!—Crabbe was out cold.
Seeing Wayne's brutality, Malfoy's knees started shaking.
"Y-you… you've already hit Crabbe… you can't hit me too!"
"L-Lawrence, I never called you anything!"
"Of course not, Malfoy—you're my friend," Wayne said with a dazzling smile, his white teeth gleaming in the sunlight. "But I'll be borrowing your sidekick for a moment."
Before Malfoy could respond, Wayne grabbed the unconscious Crabbe and hurled him toward the stands.
"Ow!"
Quirrell, in the middle of quietly chanting an incantation, was hit squarely in the head. His turban almost slipped off as he quickly stopped casting to readjust it.
Meanwhile, Harry—still wrestling with his broom—suddenly felt it return to normal. He spotted the Golden Snitch!
Snape, too, finally exhaled in relief, only to frown and glance sideways.
Why was it so noisy over there?
"STOP! All of you, STOP!"
"Petrificus Totalus!"
"Petrificus Totalus!"
A breathless Professor McGonagall finally reached the scene of the fight. She shouted several times to no avail, then resorted to magic.
Snape, his face like a thundercloud, stepped in to help—after all, nearly all the boys from his House were lying unconscious on the ground.
"Potter! He's going into a dive!"
"Wayne! He's raising the brick! Oh—Snape's right in front of him!"
"What a pity! Why didn't he swing?!"
Lee Jordan was nearly tearing himself in half trying to keep up with both sides of the chaos, unable to decide where to look.
Harry tumbled to the ground, retching. Something shiny fell out of his mouth—it was the Golden Snitch.
In the stands, Wayne knocked Parkinson unconscious with a brick, splitting his head open. He raised both arms in victory.
Click!
A Ravenclaw with a camera captured the scene—a snapshot worthy of being called a masterpiece.
The entire stadium fell silent.
~~----------------------
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