Can You Win a Game of Quidditch Without Catching the Snitch?

Quidditch is one of the most popular games in Harry Potter’s wizarding world. Throughout the series, we only get a glimpse at the game however, the game still managed to captivate the fans. Although we don’t have a lot of information about the game everyone knows you win by catching the Snitch, but can you win even if you don’t catch it? Does the snitch always get caught?

Technically you could win a Quidditch match even if your team doesn’t catch the Snitch. Since Quidditch is a point-based game the only thing you need to do is score enough goals to secure more points than the other team will have after the points for catching the Snitch are added up.

As we already mentioned, most fans don’t know much about Quidditch since the game wasn’t described in depth in the series. The subject of the game and its many rules is actually quite interesting. From many different possible fouls and different strategies, there are a lot of things you should know about the game. Whether you just want to learn a bit about Quidditch or you want to be sure you’ll win your next match, make sure to read this article all the way to the end.

Can a Quidditch match end without catching the Snitch? 

The main objective of the Quidditch game is to catch the Snitch. The Golden Snitch is the smallest ball used in Quidditch. It is gold and walnut-sized with small golden wings that allow it to move around the pitch.

Many different speakers have stated that the Snitch does not move constantly. Rather than that, the Snitch will move before hovering on the spot for a while and then moving to a different spot. 

Although the Snitch mostly moves extremely fast it was recorded that it may slow down at certain parts of the match as if it was wearing out after a certain time. This is a trait that only the most skilled seekers were able to take advantage of since the pattern of Snitch’s movements is unpredictable.

Once the Snitch is caught it will bring an extra one hundred and fifty points to the seeker’s team. Aside from that the moment the Snitch is caught, marks the end of the match.

It is also possible to end the match based on the mutual agreement between the captains of both teams, however, this is extremely rare since even under these circumstances one of the teams will have to lose and this is usually an unacceptable outcome for both parties.

Although there is not much information about the match in question, Oliver Wood while explaining the game to Harry mentions that one of the matches lasted around three months since the Snitch wasn’t caught and neither of the teams was willing to quit and forfeit. 

Can you win Quidditch without catching Snitch? 

Since the only known way of winning the Quidditch match is catching the Snitch or through a mutual agreement, is there another way you could win the game?

At its core, Quidditch is a point-based game. The Snitch is worth the greatest amount of points but the other method of collecting points is much easier, hence gaining fewer points. The final winner is the team with more points.

The other method of collecting the points is by scoring goals. The goals are scored by the Chasers. They can use one of many different strategies to pass the largest Quidditch ball, a Quaffle, among each other to reach the rival team’s goal. 

While the main goal of the chasers is to avoid the chasers of the opposing team, the beaters are tasked with protecting them from the Bludgers. Their main goal is to use their bats to protect the rest of the players on their team from the iron balls enchanted to fly around the pitch and to try to knock the players off their brooms.

Before scoring the goal, the chasers must figure out a way to outsmart the keeper so that they could have a clean shot at one of the three goals. The goalposts are positioned at three different heights and protected by the keeper. Managing to get a Quaffle through the posts earns the team 10 points for each scored goal. 

Because of the fact that the game is point-based, there is a chance for a team that did not manage to catch the Snitch to win.

Can you catch the Snitch and still lose? 

But how exactly could you win if your team has not caught the Snitch? As we already discussed, the Snitch earns the team the most points. The Snitch is worth one hundred and fifty points. This means that if the match went on for a sufficient amount of time, the other team would be able to score more points than the Snitch is worth.

For example, let us imagine Slytherin is playing against Gryffindor. Slytherin has scored a hundred points and Gryffindor has scored two hundred and sixty points. At this point, if the Slytherin’s seeker managed to catch the Snitch they would still lose since their total points after the points for catching the Snitch were added up would still be fewer than the number of points scored by Gryffindor.

However, this is unlikely since such high-scored points rarely occur during the matches because the speakers are usually able to catch the Snitch before such an amount of points are scored.

Another way your team could lose even if you caught the Snitch is if it was caught by another player other than the seeker. This is known as Snitchnip and is one of the many fouls in Quidditch recognized by the Department of Magical Games and Sports records.

What happens if a player other than the seeker catches the Snitch?

As it was already discussed the main objective of a Quidditch match is for a seeker to catch the Snitch before the other team’s seeker manages to do so.

To ensure this the sole purpose of the seeker is to look for the Snitch. Since the Quidditch pitch is so big and the players are not limited as to how high they can fly, this task is much harder than other tasks in the game.

Following this up, no other players are allowed to touch the Snitch at all. If such a thing happens, the referee will call the foul known as Snitchnip. Once the foul is called the team which committed the foul will have to forfeit the match.

Because of this, the common tactic in Quidditch is other players using different signals to point the seeker in the direction they saw the Snitch fly to rather than catching it themselves.

This happened during the Quidditch World Cup 2014 match between Brazil and Haiti. During the match, the Snitch flew up the sleeve of a Haitian Beater, Instead of shaking it out, the Beater took the Snitch out by hand forcing the Haitian team to be disqualified.

What happens if a chaser catches the snitch? 

Following up with the rules centered on catching the Snitch we talked about previously if a chaser caught the Snitch, his team would be forced to forfeit the match and the team would be disqualified if the match was a part of a tournament.

However, this is unlikely to happen as all three of the chasers are quite busy during the match. The chasers are tasked with trying to get the Quaffle past the rivaling team’s keeper and through the goals in order to score points for their team.

Since Quidditch matches are extremely dynamic and quick-paced, the chasers are constantly busy and least likely to be able to focus on anything else than the task they already have on their hands.