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Quidditch is very popular in the fictional world of Harry Potter. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry has four Quidditch teams, one for each house in the school. There are several professional Quidditch sides. In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry attends the Quidditch World Cup for international teams.
It has been suggested that the name "quidditch" is derived from the names of the balls: Quaffle, Bludger and Snitch, though the book Quidditch Through the Ages suggests that the game is named after Queerditch Marsh, where the earliest version of the game was played in the eleventh century.
According to Quidditch Through the Ages, Quidditch began as a simple broom-based game, with players passing a leather ball, the quaffle, which they attempted to place in goals at either ends of the pitch. Soon after, the Bludgers (see 'Rules', below) were added as charmed rocks, possibly an influence from the Scottish game Creaothceann, in which players attempted to catch falling rocks in a cauldron attached to their heads.
The addition of the Golden Snitch (see 'Rules', below) also derived from an earlier wizarding sport, in which wizards attempted to catch a Golden Snidget, a fast-moving magical bird. In 1269, the Chief of the Wizards Council, Barberous Bragge unleashed a Golden Snidget, offering 150 galleons to the player who caught the bird. A value of 150 points was later added to the bird as a tribute to this event, though in time the Golden Snidget was replaced with an enchanted ball, as the Golden Snidget became endangered.
A variant of Quidditch, Quodpot, is popular in the USA and South America.
Main Article: Rules of Quidditch
As in many games, the aim of Quidditch is to score more points than one's opponent. There are three tall goal hoops on posts at each end of the pitch, and it is into these that a large red ball, the Quaffle, must be thrown to score. Each goal is worth ten points. The three players who handle the Quaffle are known as the Chasers; the Keeper guards his or her goal hoops.
As well as the Chasers and Keeper, there are also two players per side called Beaters, who defend their team from the heavy black Bludgers with bats, and the Seeker, whose job it is to catch the tiny, winged Golden Snitch. The Seeker who catches the Snitch earns his team 150 points and ends the game, generally winning it in the process. Several fans feel this is a plot device intended by the author to make Harry Potter (a Seeker for Gryffindor house team) as singlehandedly responsible for his team's victories as possible.
Note that these teams include several players who have left Hogwarts, and do not include present players who are not mentioned by name in the books.
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