While Loren had just "rescued" someone and drawn everyone's attention, Slytherin seized the chance to pull one back.
By the time Loren rose back over the pitch, Fred had already driven two Bludgers into position, waiting for him.
With Loren anchoring them from behind, Gryffindor's Chasers launched a reckless barrage. Slytherin's Chasers, facing the onslaught, didn't dare commit to defense. Their eyes never left Loren; the instant he so much as lifted his bat, they scattered to dodge.
In that state, Gryffindor's three Chasers scored without breaking a sweat.
When Slytherin regained possession, Captain Marcus organized his Chasers to fly in a tight cluster. Partly it was because most of their attention stayed locked on Loren so they could dodge him at any moment; partly it was to lure Gryffindor's Chasers into a scrum. As long as both sides got tangled together, Loren would hesitate and hold his swing.
Watching them play like this, Loren completely lost interest in the match. He wasn't planning to knock the three Slytherin Chasers out; he would end the game another way.
After all, a Quidditch team has only seven players. He'd already sidelined three; take out one more and it would be more than half the team. His beloved Potions professor would absolutely blow his top.
Loren crooked a finger at Fred, who was straining to herd both Bludgers. Fred let out a breath of relief, then smashed a Bludger straight to Loren.
As the Bludger came screaming in, Loren put his whole strength behind a swing and sent it toward Gryffindor's own hoops. To maximize the chance of destroying a goalpost, he even made it carve a half-arc through the air. He followed with another full-blooded swing—
Thinking they'd read his intent from the two mighty strokes, Slytherin's Chasers bolted in different directions like startled birds. But they soon realized the two Bludgers were streaking past on either side of them, one ahead and one behind, without targeting them at all.
Seeing that, the Slytherin Chasers regrouped at once, hoping to punch through Gryffindor's defense in the chaos. Even one more goal would help.
They were just about to attack when the sight before them shattered their understanding of the world.
The whole Quidditch pitch went silent, leaving only the sound of stone collapsing.
After a long moment, Lee Jordan found his voice. "Oh—Merlin—what even—Loren has just smashed three goal hoops with Bludgers! You can see it now on the screen—under the one-two strike of those Bludgers, the hoops exploded into a rain of fragments. That won't be easy to fix."
Madam Hooch whistled for time. She went to inspect the wreckage. "Can she fix them…?—She's fixed one hoop. Right, Madam Hooch has blown the whistle again to resume—huh, that whistle sounded a bit soft."
Lee grew more and more excited, and the looping replays on the floating canvas of Bludgers obliterating goalposts whipped the crowd into a frenzy. Finally, under his lead, the stands erupted in a chant: "Long live the Lion King!"
This time it wasn't just the little lions of Gryffindor and their badger friends from Hufflepuff. Even the usually rational little eagles of Ravenclaw—and the little snakes of Slytherin, who don't exactly get along with Loren—were swept up by the fever and shouted, "Long live the Lion King!"
Everyone tacitly called Loren the Lion King—not "Gryffindor's Lion King." That meant Loren had won recognition from the vast majority of Hogwarts students.
Amid the roaring cheers, Loren clearly felt a current of power separate from Hogwarts's spiritual radiance and flow into him. It wasn't authority; it felt like a blessing. Its source was the faint power students normally give off day to day.
Under that blessing, Loren sensed a tiny uptick in his own magic—almost negligible—but the efficiency of tempering his body with magic shot up markedly. Truly a world where will makes real: recognition itself is a kind of power. If this power were a few times stronger—or if the wizarding population grew tenfold—he'd be tempted to see whether faith could raise him to godhood.
While Loren savored the boon, the match went on. Slytherin's three Chasers looked at Oliver Wood, who was literally using his body to block the remaining hoop, and then, at a loss, turned hopeful eyes to Madam Hooch.
In truth, Madam Hooch was nearly out of options. Loren had already shattered one set of goalposts earlier; she'd spent a chunk of magic to repair it. This time he'd gone even harder—breaking them once and then smashing the structure again with two more hits—leaving the entire assembly in countless pieces. Fixing it would take far more magic. If not for maintaining fairness so Slytherin still had a chance to score, she would never have burned this much magic on one goal.
By now she had expended almost all her magic. Sweat plastered her hair; even her whistle had lost its bite. What little she had left barely kept her broom aloft—just enough to preserve a referee's dignity.
With no help forthcoming, Slytherin's Chasers gave up on attacking Gryffindor's hoops and just flew the Quaffle aimlessly around the pitch.
The crowd hated that; a wave of boos rolled across the stands.
And as the saying goes, hold out too long and you'll slip up. Under Fred's constant harassment, Gryffindor quickly forced turnovers and put more points on the board.
Seizing the moment, Loren signaled to the referee that he wasn't feeling well and asked to be subbed off.
Madam Hooch agreed without hesitation, hauling the chief troublemaker out of the air and sending on Gryffindor's reserve Beater, George.
The moment George took the field, he and Fred worked in perfect concert, pounding Slytherin's Chasers so they couldn't hold the Quaffle for long. With no opposing Beaters to worry about, the twins cut loose; they even split the Bludgers, each taking one, and chased Slytherin's Chasers mercilessly.
Watching the twins run wild, Loren judged the match essentially wrapped up. Gryffindor now led Slytherin by sixty, and the margin was climbing fast. Barring some disaster, Gryffindor had locked in the win. Now it was up to Wood—would he play it dark and tell Harry to delay the catch?
After a while longer, with the gap already over one hundred and fifty, Loren left the substitutes' bench. The result was settled; there was nothing left worth watching.
He slipped a concealment charm over himself, drifted up to the stands, and followed the tug of familiarity until he found Hermione.
Because Loren had been subbed off, Hermione had lost interest in the match too. She stayed put only because leaving before full time would start gossip.
Loren's sudden arrival sparked a ripple of attention nearby, but when the onlookers saw Hermione slip her hand into his, ready to lay on the sweetness, they quickly looked away. It's not every day you see Slytherin get pounded like this; that's far more entertaining than watching a couple feed everyone dog food.
Hermione hugged Loren's arm, eager for praise. "How about the surprise I prepared for you? With it, everyone can see your heroic figure on the pitch."
Loren raised his head and studied the broadcast screen. He hadn't examined it closely before; seeing it now, he realized how ingenious Hermione's idea was. The screen was essentially a giant panoramic Omnioculars—or rather, an external projection for the Omnioculars in Hermione's hands.
No wonder the canvas kept replaying Loren's movements—Hermione was the camera operator. That explained everything.
"Hermione, you're amazing. Tell me how you pulled it off. With this, we might be able to use magical notebooks to video-chat face-to-face with your parents at home before long."
Loren praised her sincerely, said the technique was really useful, and asked her for the details.
Delighted, Hermione stopped even pretending to watch the match and leaned close to whisper in his ear.
Loren listened, nodding along, slipping in compliments in the pauses. That made Hermione even happier—her effort hadn't been in vain.
In truth, careful observation had already told Loren how the projection worked, but he deliberately pretended ignorance so Hermione could explain it to him. That's one of the little pleasures between boyfriend and girlfriend. If he'd flatly said he'd figured it out at a glance, he'd have seemed wooden and inconsiderate. And with Hermione's brains, she surely knew he had already deduced her method; still, acting like he didn't and asking her about it showed he cared for her feelings—proof that she had a place in his heart.
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