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Ed looked around at all the people excitedly moving towards the big stadium. The air itself was vibrating with anticipation.
“Prime seats!” said the Ministry witch at the entrance when she checked their tickets. “Top Box! Straight upstairs, Arthur, and as high as you can go.”
The stairs into the stadium were carpeted in rich purple. They clambered upward with the rest of the crowd, which slowly filtered away through doors into the stands to their left and right. Mr. Weasley’s party kept climbing, and at last they reached the top of the staircase and found themselves in a small box, set at the highest point of the stadium and situated exactly halfway between the golden goal posts. Besides him, Winry moved a little closer so that she can hold on a little to him.
Hundreds of people sat in the boxes around the long oval stadium field, which seemed to emit a golden light. Ed couldn’t see any form of light except for the golden light. At either ends of the field stood three hoops, fifty feet high. A gigantic blackboard stood opposite them with gold writing dashing across it as though an invisible giant’s hand were scrawling upon the blackboard and then wiping it off again.
All in all, it was nothing like the small-scale tournaments that Ed remembered from his days in Resembool, when he was still in school.
“Dobby?” he heard Harry say. He looked towards him to see a tiny creature sitting in the second from the last seat at the end of the row behind them. The creature, whose legs were so short that they stuck out in front of it on the chair, was wearing a tea towel draped like a toga, and it had its face hidden in its hands.
The tiny creature looked up and stretched its fingers, revealing enormous brown eyes and a nose the exact size and shape of a large tomato. Ed suddenly remembered the book Al had shown him excitedly as he explained about different creatures.
‘So, this is a house-elf…’
The creature looked to Ed a lot similar to the goblins, but instead of the grumpy look this one seemed to have a very frightened look. He also found out as the creature and Harry talked that she was a female of the species.
He had read in one book that in order to employ an elf the wizarding families had to purchase a license and once an elf becomes available that fits their need, there is a huge amount of paperwork and licensing fees as well as a magically binding contract that needed to be performed to bind the house-elf to that wizarding family. Basically, the ministry is paid to sell them a slave.
‘Wonder what the house-elves think about this.’
“House-elves is not paid, sir!” the elf said in a muffled squeak. “No, no, no. I says to Dobby, I says, go find yourself a nice family and settle down, Dobby. He is getting up to all sorts of high jinks, sir, what is unbecoming to a house-elf. You goes racketing around like this, Dobby, I says, and next thing I hear you’s up in front of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, like some common goblin.”
‘Well, guess that answers that.’
As Ed heard the conversation between the elf and Harry, he couldn’t help but feel sympathy. He had read in his father’s books about his life a s a slave. Though back then he didn’t know it was about his father. Hohenheim had written that most of the slaves there did not know about their rights and their masters have never bothered to educate them either. The more ignorant the slave was, the better it was for their owners.
At least the slaves in Xerxes could educate themselves. It seemed that the house-elves were not even given that, making them stuck in an eternal cycle of slavery.
“So that’s a house-elf?” he heard Ron muttered. “Weird things, aren’t they?”
He shook his head in disgust at their ignorance, but didn’t bother to fight. He was given the mission to protect the golden boy and nothing else. He was not overthrow a corrupt government… again.
The box filled gradually around them over the next half hour. Mr. Weasley kept shaking hands with people who were obviously very important wizards. Percy jumped to his feet so often that he looked as though he were trying to sit on a hedgehog. When a chubby man came to great them, Percy bowed so low that his glasses fell off and shattered. Ed figured he was an important person, especially when he saw how familiar everyone seemed to be with him. Listening in, he found out that the man is Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic.
“Ah, and here’s Lucius!” Suddenly everyone’s attention was on a blonde family of three, tall and slim. He noticed how they all looked too high and mighty, as if they would rather be anywhere else but here, the woman especially. She would have been nice-looking if she hadn’t been wearing a look that suggested there was a nasty smell under her nose.
“Ah, Fudge,” said the blonde man, holding out his hand as he reached the Minister of Magic. “How are you? I don’t think you’ve met my wife, Narcissa? Or our son, Draco?”
Ed watched the tense atmosphere around the Weasleys and the new family. There seems to be history amongst them, especially between the blonde boy and the golden trio.
‘Better keep an eye on that.’ He thought, dreading the thought of looking after these hormonal kids.
“Are you… Edward Elric.” The guy suddenly asked and Ed looked to find a calculating look on the blondie.
“Yeah? Who’s asking?”
“Lucius Malfoy.” He announced as if it was common knowledge. Clearly it was not. “Your Fuhrer had a lot to say about you.”
‘So that’s how you want to play.’ Ed thought.
“He’s a pretty friendly guy. If you make an impact on him, then he’ll talk about you to everyone he meets.”
“You must not have had any contact with him since you left then.” Malfoy said with a contempt look. Clearly it was a poke at the fact that Ed didn’t know him.
“Oh no, we talked just last night, actually. He met a very interesting gardener recently.” Ed almost smirked, but he kept his face mostly innocent as Malfoy’s face twisted in barely contained disdain. But if he really did talk to the Fuhrer, then he would know just how important Ed is, and any move against him can be taken as a threat to the Amestrians.
“I see.” And with an overly dramatic move, the Malfoy family moved to their seats, but not without a last look from the kid to the trio.
“Slimy gits,” he heard Ron mutter, but he was more focused on the questioning look from Hermione, filled with suspicion.
“You know the Fuhrer of your country?”
“He’s a friendly guy.” He shrugged and sat down in his seat with Al and Winry. He could hear Hermione explaining to the others what a Fuhrer is. She must have done her research on his country or something. The trio were clearly suspecting him and his gang, and too curious for their own good. But it didn’t really matter to him. All he had to do was keep them safe and mostly unharmed till the end of the year.
Shouldn’t be that hard.
(∩_∩)
The game had finished and Ed could hear the Ireland supporters cheering and singing, celebrating after their victory. Nobody in the tent felt like sleeping at all, and given the level of noise around them, Mr. Weasley agreed that they could all have one last cup of cocoa together before turning in. They were soon arguing enjoyably about the match. Even though Ed couldn’t understand most of what they said, he enjoyed the game. It was even more enjoyable to see Al get flustered when he saw the Veelas. Gramted, he was just as flustered as Al, but at least he didn’t try to jump over the box.
Winry was annoyed when the Veelas came (more at Ed than Al, which was unfair) but it soon turned to happiness when she saw the leprechauns. More specifically the leprechaun money. Honestly, sometimes Greed was right about Winry.
All talks and celebrations stopped in the tent when Ginny fell asleep right at the tiny table and spilled hot chocolate all over the floor, and Mr. Weasley insisted everyone go to bed. The girls went into the next tent, and everyone else changed their clothes and got into their beds. From the other side of the campsite, they could still hear much singing and the odd echoing bang.
In hind sight Ed should really have expected that everything would go to hell very soon.