Quidditch

The wizarding sport on flying broomsticks: seven players, three goal hoops and the Golden Snitch.

Quidditch is the fictional sport J. K. Rowling invented for the Harry Potter books, first seen in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. It is a dangerous but popular game played by witches and wizards on flying broomsticks.

Matches take place on a large oval pitch with three ring-shaped goals of different heights at each end, between two teams of seven: three Chasers, two Beaters, a Keeper and a Seeker.

Quick Facts

Contact

Full

Equipment

Quaffle
Bludgers
Snitch
Broomsticks
Clubs

Venue

Quidditch pitch

Facts from the source article.

Background

The Chasers score with the Quaffle and the Keeper defends the goals; the Beaters bat the Bludgers away from teammates and at opponents; and the Seeker hunts the Golden Snitch, whose capture earns 150 points and ends the game. Harry plays Seeker for his house team at Hogwarts, and the contest between the four houses for the Quidditch Cup, above all Gryffindor against Slytherin, runs through five of the books.

Rowling came up with the sport in a Manchester hotel room after an argument with her then-boyfriend, wanting something that would hold a society together. She says the word came from filling five pages of a notebook with words beginning with Q, and she later grew to dislike writing the matches. The last Quidditch scene in the books, in Half-Blood Prince, features commentary by Luna Lovegood.

Quidditch Through the Ages, published on 12 March 2001 for Comic Relief, tells the sport's history, and in 2014 Rowling posted Quidditch World Cup match reports on Pottermore. A real-life version is played with brooms, running instead of flying.