I’d been assuming that they’d abuse the existing rules—Ravenclaw and Slytherin would agree not to catch the Snitch until both teams have racked up an obscene amount of points, and then they’d deliberately engineer a tie. This would both force a rule change and allow both to win the Cup.
But you’ve pointed out a potential problem: the tie can be broken by any professor. All McGonagall has to do, once she realizes what’s going on, is promise to break the tie in favor of one side, and the other side will have no choice but to defect. Quirrel’s bound by his promise not to award house points unfairly, but maybe he could blackmail Snape into promising to maintain the tie.
I’d been assuming that they’d abuse the existing rules—Ravenclaw and Slytherin would agree not to catch the Snitch until both teams have racked up an obscene amount of points, and then they’d deliberately engineer a tie. This would both force a rule change and allow both to win the Cup.
But you’ve pointed out a potential problem: the tie can be broken by any professor. All McGonagall has to do, once she realizes what’s going on, is promise to break the tie in favor of one side, and the other side will have no choice but to defect. Quirrel’s bound by his promise not to award house points unfairly, but maybe he could blackmail Snape into promising to maintain the tie.
Only as far as anyone sees. Quirrell is not Harry and is not opposed to lying.