The wind bites hard enough to make the banners snap and crack like whips. The match has been brutal from the first whistle, the kind where strategy is abandoned for sheer nerve. And Sebastian has nerve to spare.

He leans low over his broom, emerald robes whipping behind him as he dives after the Quaffle, teeth bared in a grin that borders on feral. He thrives up there.

The other team is closing in fast. Sebastian twists through narrow gaps, fearless, threading between bodies and broom handles. He snatches the Quaffle under his arm and rockets forward.

But then it happens.

A rogue Bludger slams into his broom tail with a crack loud enough to silence half the pitch. The impact sends his broom spiralling violently. Sebastian tightens his grip, fighting it, muscles burning with the struggle. For a heartbeat, it looks like he might recover, but the broom bucks again, and this time, he loses his seat.

He hangs in open air, suspended for an impossible second, eyes blazing- and then he falls.

The drop isn’t graceful. He crashes through the air and hits the ground brutally hard, with a hollow, sickening thud that echoes through the stands.

Professor Kogawa's wistle shrieks, and she's already sprinting from the sidelines, wand in hand, her expression cut from steel. Medics follow behind her, but she’s the first to kneel beside him, her voice sharp and controlled as she orders the stretcher forward.

You catch sight of Sebastian's chest heaving with staggard slowness, but he's alive.