The seven Gryffindor players completely abandoned pursuit of the Quaffle.
They drew tight, three Chasers forming the spearhead, two Beaters covering the flanks, the Keeper anchored at the center—rotating, flowing, knitting themselves into an airtight wall of iron.
The sole purpose of this formation was to shield their goal—and the substitute Seeker, currently engaged in that bizarre "flight training"—at its core.
Slytherin had complete control of the scarlet Quaffle.
Their captain, Marcus Flint, drove forward with the ball, executed a beautiful feint past Angelina, and took a shot!
Yet, the goal he had expected never appeared.
Another Gryffindor Chaser, Katie Bell, slid in from an impossible angle, her body seemingly weightless, arriving with pinpoint precision on the Quaffle's trajectory, effortlessly intercepting it.
She didn't even glance at Flint's position—her movement was a preprogrammed routine.
A chill ran through the Slytherin players.
No matter the angle or method of attack, they would always collide with the coordinated red web formed by the seven Gryffindor players.
Every pass, every shot, was neutralized with mechanical precision, as if the outcome had been predetermined.
The Gryffindor players' faces betrayed no tension, no excitement—only absolute focus in executing orders.
And the substitute Seeker was the strangest presence of all.
He ignored the increasingly violent clashes below, the zooming Quaffle, and even the provocations of Slytherin players streaking past him.
His eyes did not search for the golden glimmer that decided victory.
He flew silently, over and over, along a precise centimeter-perfect route in the high air—a route seemingly meaningless in actual combat.
"Look at that Gryffindor fool!"
Draco Malfoy, Slytherin's Seeker, let out a sneering laugh.
He hovered elegantly on his Nimbus 2000, golden hair fluttering in the wind.
"Is he sleepwalking up there? I bet he's even forgotten what the Golden Snitch looks like!"
His voice was low, but clear enough for nearby Slytherin players to hear, prompting approving laughter.
"He's our Slytherin spy planted inside Gryffindor!"
Even the spectators were thoroughly confused.
Gryffindor's extreme, purely defensive tactic infuriated the crowd, making them feel mocked. Booing and murmured questions began spreading through the stands.
Only one person remained unaffected.
On the coaching bench, Alan remained perfectly still.
His entire focus was absorbed by the faintly glowing "real-time tactical board" in front of him.
Symbols representing both teams' players moved rapidly across the board. Among them, a golden, irregular trajectory composed of countless tiny points stood out vividly.
It was not a product of magic.
It was pure crystallized data and logic.
By observing the Snitch's positions, hovering times, and flight paths during the first sixty minutes, Alan's massive probability model—large enough to drive any mathematician insane—ran calculations at terrifying speed inside his mind palace.
This golden trajectory represented the model's calculation:
The "most likely flight path" of the Golden Snitch over the next five minutes—a set of probabilities.
And the "training route" he had assigned to the substitute Seeker, ridiculed by everyone, ended at coordinate 117.4—the exact point of highest probability on that predicted path.
He was not merely directing a match.
He was measuring, with cold mathematics, the elusive future of the Golden Snitch.
Time flowed second by second through the wind above the pitch.
Slytherin's attacks grew increasingly frenzied, yet Gryffindor's Iron Barrel defense remained unshakable.
The tension on the field contrasted sharply with the silence off it.
And then, as the substitute Seeker, once again like a wound-up automaton, flew precisely to the coordinate Alan had set, a miracle occurred before everyone's eyes.
The elusive Golden Snitch, which had toyed with the Seekers for over seventy minutes, appeared without warning.
It shot past, buzzing, from less than a foot away in front of the substitute Seeker, as if tearing through the very fabric of space.
Its appearance was perfectly in line with Alan's script.
Not a single detail was off.
The poor substitute Seeker, barely aware of what was happening, had a completely blank mind and didn't consciously react at all.
His hands, stiff from holding a fixed posture for so long and stretched forward from extreme tension, moved purely on instinct—a reflexive, automatic motion.
It was a purely biological, instinct-driven action.
And then he felt it: his palms gripped something cold, small, metallic, and wriggling violently—the Golden Snitch.
The entire Quidditch pitch fell into a deathly silence for three full seconds.
The wind stopped.
The shouts disappeared.
Every motion froze in that instant.
Three seconds later:
A deafening, eruptive cheer burst from the Gryffindor stands, a roar powerful enough to shake the entire stadium!
No one understood.
No one could process, with their eyes or brains, how this dramatic moment—defying all common sense and overturning the laws of Quidditch—had occurred.
All they saw was their seemingly foolish, almost sleepwalking substitute Seeker winning the game for them in the most absurd, impossible way imaginable.
Only Alan knew.
Silently, he reached out and turned off the lights on the tactical board in front of him.
On that cold board, just before he pressed the switch, the final calculated result was still clearly displayed:
[At the 73rd minute of the match, the probability of capturing the target at coordinates (117.4, 85.2, 50.1) is 89.3%.]