CHAPTER THREE
✧
-: fourth year :-
── IN WHICH THEY WAIT
AWAY THE HOURS
. . .
NOW THEY HAD ARRIVED UPON THE GROUNDS for the Quidditch World Cup, they had to set up their camp for the overnight stay, and with much of the day to go before the finale actually started, Mr Weasley was convinced they could have it all done for lunchtime. He was most certainly right, but not even the stomach-churning travel through Portkey had properly awoken Emily, and all she wanted to do was take a nap and catch up on sleep. They were guided by two poorly-dressed Wizards to their campsite, and after a twenty-minute long walk through a haze of mist until they finally stumbled upon it, as though it came from nowhere, directed towards a cottage to find the site manager, a Muggle by the name of Mr Roberts.
He pointed out their plot, and there was quite some struggle for Mr Weasley to figure out the payment from it. He had some Muggle money, but unlike Wizards money which had no notes at all and such a different value, he found it rather difficult to count it out and employed Emily, Harry and Hermione's help to figure it out. Mr Roberts was rather a grump, and considerably judgemental, and apparently rather smart in figuring out that the many magical people who had come to rent areas of his campsite weren't Muggles like they pretended to be. He had to be Obliviated at least ten times a day, and it was only after they witnessed one of these magically-forced bouts of memory loss, they were given a map of the camp and sent on their way.
It was a rather nice sight, just at the bottom of a path up to the surrounding forest, which was already lined with many tents with wizards and witches ambling about without a care in the world. It was a rather odd sight, to see a mass of magical people in entirely mismatched Muggle clothing rather than their usual robes, but this was not destined to phase Mr Weasley, who wanted to abide by the Muggle security laws which meant no magic at all, and he was quick to send Hermione, Harry, Ron and Emily off to collect some water from the campsite water pump to free up some of the busyness around their camp so that the tent could be put up without their hindrance.
"Did someone say home many tickets had been sold for this thing?" Emily asked, warily glancing around what seemed like a city's worth of tents, rows and rows of them stretching as far as the eye could see.
"'Bout 100,000 seats," Ron said, his mouth full of biscuits he had nicked from the Burrow before they left. "Dunno if that's just for the public though, or if there are standing areas.... blimey, look at that slug!"
He pointed somewhere not too far along the way they walked,, and their eyes trained on what seemed to be a two-year-old boy holding a wand, laughing to himself. As they came level with him, his mother came running out of the tent, hair still in rollers. "How many times, Kevin? You don't - touch - Daddy's - wand - yecch!" She had stepped in the slug, which had been about the size of a salami.
The lot of them winced and continued on, watching as the campsite around them began to come to life; people were waking up, infinitely excited that the day had finally come and the finale of the Quidditch World Cup would take place. Here and there, adults were waking and exiting their tents to cook breakfast, many keeping a close eye on their magical children - or not, for some, for they had already seen a ministry worker chasing after two young girls - a similar age to Kevin - racing along on miniature broomsticks that flew no higher than to allow their toes to skim against the dewy grass.
They passed many different witches and wizards from all over the world. Emily was particularly interested in a group of American Witches whose tent held a banner titled 'The Salem Witches Institutes' and it was a fight for Ron, Harry and Hermione to stop her from diverting their course and dragging them over to talk to them.
"No - c'mon, how long will it take?" Emily was being dragged along by Ron's hand; he had certainly had enough of talking to numerous witches and wizards he didn't know, courtesy of his father's position in the Ministry. "I just want to ask them a few questions."
"We won't see you for the rest of the day." Ron shook his head. "Em, you know you can talk for weeks if we let you."
"I will not." She replied, indignant. "Hermione - Harry, you know I won't." Emily smiled, fluttering her eyelashes at her best friends, hoping that somehow it would work. Harry stared for a moment, but Hermione was unaffected.
"I certainly hope you're not attempting to flirt your way into this." She said disapprovingly. "You know that won't work on us," her eyes flitted towards Harry, "...well, me at least."
"I can't say I see the harm in it," Harry mumbled, and Emily's face lit up.
"I knew there was a reason you're my favourite." She hummed, slipping an arm into his. "But don't worry, I won't leave you with these two worrywarts. The Gods will look upon you in favour, I'm sure."
"And that's comforting." A certain ginger grumbled behind them.
"Well, considering all you and your apes of brothers could do was stare at the breasts of a statue yesterday, they certainly won't even glance at you." Emily-Anne spat, and turned forward.
"I thought she'd forgotten about that," Ron mumbled, but his disengaged attitude quickly turned around. "Bloody hell - is it just my eyes or has everything gone green?"
They had walked into a patch of tents that were all covered with a thick growth of clovers so that it looked as though small, oddly shaped hills had sprouted out of the earth. It was a wonderful sight to see, and Emily forgot all about the Salem Witches Institute as her gaze fell over the rolling field of green. It was almost like a sea, that went on for miles and miles only broken apart by the very tips of the tents, the lengthy spire holding flags of a similar green, white and orange; the colours of the Irish.
But their wonder at the sight was quickly disrupted by the sound of their names being called. They turned to find none other than Seamus Finnegan and Dean Thomas, who were sitting in front of one of the shamrock-covered tents. "Alright, you lot?" Seamus grinned, as the three made their way towards him. "Like the decorations?" He asked, grinning. "The Ministry's not too happy."
"I wouldn't be surprised." Emily crossed her arms, the awe of the sight still sitting in her eyes. "It looks wonderful, though." She smiled. Beside her, Ron had a particular glare on his face, eyes narrowed. He nudged Harry, nodding towards both Seamus and Dean who seemed to have forgotten about the rest of their fellow housemates and were solely focused on the muggle-born.
"Ah, why shouldn't we show our colours?" The sandy-haired woman behind Seamus, evidently his mother, asked. "You should see what the Bulgarians have got dangling all over their tents. You'll be supporting Ireland, of course?"
"Of course." Emily nodded diplomatically, Harry, Ron and Hermione all following suit.
"Are you saying with the Weasleys until term time?" Dean asked, the question directed at anyone other than Ron.
"I don't see why we wouldn't," Hermione said. "It'll only be five days until we go back, and it's just easier to get all our new supplies together rather than organising it separately. Say, have any of you heard about the new Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor?"
"C'mon, Hermione." Ron shook his head. "Can't we leave all that school shi... stuff," he amended, when Mrs Finnegan glared at him, "until after the match? It'll all I can think about here."
After the conversation died down a bit, and Harry finally got the signals Ron was throwing his way with the furtive glaring at Dean and Seamus who only seemed to focus on Emily when speaking, the four of them continued on towards the water pumps. They took a detour to the Bulgarian section of the campsite, and like the Irish had taken full ownership of the colour green, they had claimed red. Every tent was draped with moving posters of the Bulgarian team, the majority being of Viktor Krum, the Seeker and Ron's favoured player.
"Ron's got a crush." Emily sang, as the four of them left the Bulgarian sect of the campsite behind, coming to the water pump in the corner of the field, where there was a queue of wizards and witches already lining up.
"I do not." The Weasley replied, sour-faced.
"Oh yeah?" Harry challenged, "''he's unbelievable. he's a genius'." He repeated the words Ron had said just minutes before. "Sounds like a crush to me."
"If we're talking about anyone with crushes, what about the way Seamus and Dean hardly looked at anyone but Emily during the whole of that conversation?" Ron scathed. "We could've slagged off the entire Irish team and gotten away with it."
"I think Seamus's mother would have had you killed and cooked in a stew, Ronald, if that were the case," Hermione said sagely, falling into step beside her best friend. "Do you think they have a crush on you, Em?" She asked. "Seamus seems a little too... what's the word... explosive, but Dean's quite nice."
"I could care less, to be honest." Emily-Anne looked on vaguely, more interested in the ongoing ideal with an old wizard named Archie and the ministry official in front of him trying to get him to wear pinstripe pyjama bottoms beneath his flowery nightgown. Her hand reached for the silver pendant of pink gemstone that hung around her neck. "She sends signs, you know..." She hummed.
Hermione glanced back to the left-behind green campsite, and allowed Emily the presence of her own thoughts, pulling her along to join the back of the queue for the water pump. Harry and Ron were speaking quietly amongst themselves, Emily lost in thought, and not for the first time, Hermione appeared as the only sane one.
"I'm not putting them on," Archie announced and interrupted everyone. "I like a healthy breeze 'round my privates, thanks."
✧
By the time they got back to the Wealseys' tents - much slower this time, on account of the water, the group had been accosted by several more sightings of fellow Hogwarts students, and one former. Oliver Wood managed to spot them and hastily introduced Harry and Emily to his parents with a certain vigour that it came across as though he had been waiting for a lengthy period to do so. They saw Cho Chang alongside Cedric, and it appeared as if no one knew they were dating other than Emily - 'truly, you're all too wrapped up in your own heads that you miss these things', she had despaired - and when they finally arrived back it quickly became evident that it was right on time; Mr Weasley was surrounded by scattered and splintered matches in an attempt to light a fire. When he finally had gotten one lit, he had dropped it and there was a small, sooty stain on the grass below him. Hermione quickly intervened, so as to stop the poor man from setting the entire campsite ablaze.
As much as they were excited it was the day of the match, the hours seemed to drag on and on like nobody's business. Perhaps it was the fact they had been up since before dawn, or that their entertainment simply consisted of Emily reading a hefty book with no title that was practically falling apart at the seams, often making faces as she did so, and spotting people they knew amongst the hoards of wizards on the same field as them.
Ludo Bagman came by, just as Bill, Charlie and Percy had arrived with certain foodstuffs from Molly to give them and they had begun their small feast of eggs and sausages. That invoked a flurry of introductions of the Weasley clan and their friends, and to no-ones surprise at all, the man took great interest in Harry, before setting about seeing if they would bet on the game with him. Mr Weasley did - just a Galleon to Ireland to win, but Fred and George decided to put their whole savings into play - thirty-seven Galleons, fifteen Sickles, three knuts and a fake wand for Ireland to win, but Krum to get the Snitch.
"Couldn't do me a brew, could you, sweetheart?" Emily looked up, scowling at Bagman's question. Nonetheless, she stood up and made towards the small firepit, filling the kettle with just enough of their water for a cup of tea and as it boiled, set about her bag for the dried ingredients she kept on her. "I'm keeping an eye out for Barty Crouch." Ludo continued. Percy's head shot up from the hardboiled egg he was peeling. "My Bulgarian opposite number's making difficulties, and I can't understand a word he's saying. Barty'll be able to sort it out. He speaks about a hundred and fifty languages."
"Mr Crouch?" Percy cleared his throat, evidently excited. "He speaks over two hundred! Mermish and Gobbledegook and Troll..."
"Anyone can speak Troll," Fred said dismissively. "All you have to do is point and grunt. Look," simultaneously, both he and George raised an arm, directed at Emily as she spooned dried herbs into a small cotton pouch, and began to make odd, guttural noises at the back of their throats.
"Easy." George nodded.
Percy glared at them both so scathingly it was odd neither of the twins were teleported to the pits of hell instantaneously, and instead he changed his focus to stoking the fire vigorously to try and push the fire to warm quicker.
"Any news of Bertha Jorkins yet, Ludo?" Mr Weasley asked, as Bagman sat down beside them all.
"Not a dicky bird," Bagman replied, with the sensitivity of a common rat. "But she'll turn up, won't she? Poor old Bertha... memory like a leaky cauldron and no sense of direction. Lost, you take my word for it. She'll wander back into the office sometime in October, thinking it's still July."
"You don't think it might be time to send someone to look for her?" Mr Weasley suggested tentatively as Percy handed Bagman the tea prepared carefully by Emily-Anne.
"Barty Crouch keeps saying that," Bagman wrinkled his nose, "but we really can't spare anyone at the moment." He took a blind sip of his tea, not seeming to notice the teabag within was emitting a certain yellow twinge to the water. "What in the bloody fu-"
"Ludo!" Mr Weasley hissed.
"Sorry, sorry, Arthur." Bagman turned to face Emily, who was packing away her herbs. "Sweetheart, I said a cuppa, not whatever this crap is."
"Rosehip, elderflower, a few fresh mint leaves and a swirl of honey," Emily replied. "It works most well for colds, and it appears as though you're developing one." She said, sagely. Bagman stared at her.
"You didn't mention you've got one of the Lovegoods with you, Arthur," Bagman commented. "Sorry, didn't catch your name, sweet-"
"It's Emily-Anne, Redferne. Not a Lovegood." She replied. "In fact, I prefer Emily, and would appreciate it if that was all you called me."
Bagman stared at her for a moment. Percy, despite his lack of liking for the man, was turning positively pink. "I'll keep that in mind, Emily." The man said, slightly more subdued as he drank more tea. "Couldn't do me a proper cuppa, would you?" She stared at him, blankly. Hermione was tugging on the elbow of her sleeve, always one for wanting to make good first impressions. "No, no, I suppose not. Never mind, Crouch keeps suggesting that, but - ah! Speak of the devil."
And suddenly Percy had jumped to his feet with the ferocity and precision of a well-trained soldier, back straightened and all but saluting at the man just a few feet from their tent. Barty Crouch, in comparison to the scruffy Bagman in his old Wasps Quidditch Robes, was a stiff, upright, elderly man, dressed in an impeccably crisp suit and tie and he looked down at the man and his cup of tea, scathingly.
"Pull up a bit of grass, Barty," Ludo suggested brightly, patting the ground beside him.
"No, thank you, Ludo," Crouch replied, and there was a bite of impatience in his voice. "I've been looking for you everywhere. The Bulgarians are insisting we add another twelve seats to the TopBox."
"Oh is that what they're after?" Bagman looked as though a whole other world had been revealed to him. "I thought the chap was asking to borrow a pair of tweezers. Bit of a strong accent."
"Mr. Crouch!" Percy said breathlessly, sinking into a kind of half-bow that made him look like a hunchback. "Would you like a cup of tea?"
"Oh," Mr Crouch said, looking over at Percy in mild surprise."Yes - thank you, Weatherby"
Percy busied himself with making an actual cup of tea this time, whilst Fred and George choked on laughter and tea.
✧
By dusk, all pretences of this being a non-magical gathering had been dropped by the Ministry and blatant displays of magic were everywhere. Knowing the finale was coming close to beginning, they had tidied up the tent and left it all behind to wander around the campsite, where salesmen were Apparating every few feet, carrying trays and pushing carts full of extraordinary merchandise for the game.
There were luminous rosettes in the two respective colours for the teams and were squealing the names of the players, pointed green hats bedecked with dancing shamrocks, Bulgarian scarves adorned with lions that really roared, flags from both countries that played their national anthems as they were waved; there were tiny models of Firebolts that really flew, and collectable figures of famous players, which strolled across the palm of your hand, preening themselves.
"Been saving my pocket money all summer for this," Ron told them as the four of them strolled through the salesmen, buying souvenirs. Although he purchased a dancing shamrock hat and a large green rosette in obvious support of Ireland, he also bought a small figure of Viktor Krum - which certainly didn't aid the case of the teasing about his crush. The miniature Krum walked backwards and forward over Ron's hand, scowling up at the green rosette above him.
"Wow, look at these!" Harry said, as he hurried over to the cart piled high with what looked like brass binoculars, turned magical by additions of all sorts of knobs and dials.
"Omnioculars," the saleswizard announced eagerly, selecting a pair for his demonstration pitch. "You can replay action, can slow everything down - and they flash up a play-by-play breakdown if you need it. Bargain - ten Galleons each."
He pushed them towards Emily and Hermione, holding them up to the latter's eyes as zooming in on the crowd, displaying the features themselves.
"Wish I hadn't bought this now," Ron frowned, as he gestured at his dancing shamrock hat and gazed longingly at the Omnioculars.
"Four pairs," Harry said firmly to the wizard.
"No - don't bother," said Ron, going red. He was always touchy about the fact that Harry, who had inherited a small fortune from his parents, had much more money than he did.
"You really don't need to, Harry." Emily was digging around in the velvet pouch of her purse. She was sure she could make it up, and would much rather have the Omnioculars rather than the pin button with the Irish chaser, Moran, zooming around on her Firebolt, or the poster for the match in itself. "It's alright, really."
"Shush." Harry shook his head, forking out the forty Galleons for the Omnioculars and selecting out four pairs. "You won't be getting anything for Christmas," Harry told him, thrusting Omnioculars into Ron, Emily and Hermione's hands. "For about ten years, mind."
"Fair enough," Ron could agree to this, grinning.
"Thanks, Harry," Hermione said. "And I'll get us some programs, look —"
With their money bags considerably lighter, they made their way back to the tents to regroup. Bill, Charlie, and Ginny were all sporting green rosettes too, and Mr Weasley was carrying an Irish flag whilst rapidly checking his watch. As though he had predicted it, a deep, booming gong sounded somewhere beyond the woods, and at once, green and red lanterns blazed into life in the trees, lighting a path to the field.
"It's time!" Mr Weasley looked as excited as any of them. "Come on, let's go!"
Clutching their purchases, Mr Weasley in the lead, they all hurried into the wood, following the lantern-lit trail. They could hear the sounds of thousands of people moving around them, shouts and laughter, and snatches of singing in all kinds of languages. Emily was rather distracted as they walked through the wood for about twenty minutes, her eyes on the host of pixies that appeared every so often and seemed to be following them. They continued to talk and joke loudly amongst the hubbub of the crowds until at last they emerged on the other side and found themselves in the shadow of a gigantic stadium.
Her hand wrapped around Harry's forearm as the crowds jostled along, and she was certain Hermione and Ron had done the same behind them. "Seats a hundred thousand," Mr Weasley said in a repetition of his son, spotting the awestruck look on their faces as they took in the sight of the gold-encased pitch. "A Ministry task force of five hundred have been working on it all year. Muggle Repelling Charms on every inch of it. Every time Muggles have got anywhere near here all year, they've suddenly remembered an urgent appointment and had to dash away again... bless them," he added fondly with a smile, leading the way toward the nearest entrance, which was already surrounded by a swarm of shouting witches and wizards.
"Prime seats!" The Ministry witch at the entrance said when she checked the sheath of parchment, gold-edged tickets Arthur had kept on him since that very morning. "Top Box! Straight upstairs, Arthur, and as high as you can go." The stairs beneath their feet, as they made their way into the stadium, were carpeted in rich purple, and they clambered upward with the rest of the crowd, which slowly filtered away through doors into the stands to their left and right. But the Weasleys and their three additional guests continued to climb upwards, 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 goalposts. The witch was right, Emily realised as she looked out onto the pitch, prime seats indeed.
Around twenty-five-or-so purple-and-gilt chairs stood in two rows here, and the eleven of them filed into the front. A hundred thousand witches and wizards were taking their places in the seats below them, which rose in levels around the long oval field. Everything was suffused with a mysterious golden light, which seemed to come from the very stadium itself, blinding, warming and entirely wonderful. The field looked smooth as velvet from their lofty position and at either end of the field, like the Hogwarts pitch but far larger, stood three goal hoops, fifty feet high; right opposite them, almost at their eye level, was a gigantic blackboard. Gold writing kept dashing across it as though an invisible giant's hand were scrawling upon the blackboard and then wiping it off again; watching it, one could find various advertisements flashing across it in quick succession.
Emily was drawn from her wonder by Harry tapping her shoulder. "Look." He said, and when he pointed to the otherwise empty box she couldn't see for the life of her what he was pointing out. But finally, she saw a tiny creature in sitting in the second to last seat at the end of the row behind them. A house-elf, to be exact, wearing a tea towel draped like a toga and hiding its face in its hands as though terrified.
"Dobby?" Harry asked, incredulously. 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. But it wasn't Dobby at all, and it made sense; why on earth would he be at the Quidditch World Cup? As far as Emily was aware, the house-elf they made such close friends with was somewhere in the country entirely enjoying his time as a free elf.
"Did sir just call me Dobby?" squeaked the elf curiously from between its fingers. Its voice was higher even than Dobby's had been, a teeny, quivering squeak of a voice, and the pair of them suspected - though it was very hard to tell with a house-elf - that this one might just be female. Ron and Hermione spun around in their seats to look at what had taken up so much of the pair's focus; in such a place like the Quidditch stadium, what on earth could the Chaser and Seeker be distracted by?
Unlike Emily, who had met Dobby on several occasions during the course of her second year, and twice during her third whilst on late-night trips to the kitchens, neither Ron nor Hermione had met him, although they had heard a lot about him. Even Mr Weasley looked around in interest.
"Sorry," Harry told the elf, "I just thought you were someone we knew."
"But I knows Dobby too, sir!" squeaked the elf. She was shielding her face, as though blinded by light, though the Top Box was not brightly lit - only furthering the idea that Emily believed she was truly terrified.
not brightly lit. "My name is Winky, sir - and you, sir -" Her dark brown eyes widened to the size of side plates as they rested upon Harry's scar. "You is surely Harry Potter!"
"Yeah, I am," Harry confirmed, although with a little more vigour than when he was usually confronted by such a reaction.
"Dobby talks of you all the time, sir!" The house-elf reassured him, lowering her hands very slightly seemingly in a matter of respect, and looked utterly awestruck. "All of the time." She repeated.
"How is he?" Harry asked, a small smile with something of pride within it coming to his expression. "How's freedom suiting him?"
"Ah, sir," Winky began, shaking her head, "ah sir, meaning no disrespect, sir, but I is not sure you did Dobby a favour, sir, when you is setting him free."
"Why?" Harry asked, taken aback. "What's wrong with him?"
"Freedom is going to Dobby's head, sir," Winky told him sadly. "Ideas above his station, sir. Can't get another position, sir." "Why not?" said Harry. Winky lowered her voice by a half-octave and whispered, "He is wanting paying for his work, sir."
"Paying?" Harry repeated blankly.
"Why shouldn't he be paid?" Emily asked, suddenly. "Sorry - sorry, I shocked you." She quickly added, as Winky looked quite horrified at the idea and closed her fingers slightly so that her face was half-hidden again. "Sorry," she said, stretching her hand out. "Emily Redferne, another friend of Dobby's."
One of the hands darted away from the wide brown eyes to shake Emily's hand. "Thank you, miss, although you is not to worry..." Her attention returned to the matters at hand. "House-elves is not paid, sir!" she 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, it's about time he had a bit of fun," Harry said.
"House-elves is not supposed to have fun, Harry Potter," Winky said firmly. "House-elves does what they is told. I is not liking heights at all, Harry Potter" - she glanced toward the edge of the box and gulped and squeezed her eyes closed behind her hands again, "but my master sends me to the Top Box and I comes, sir."
"Why's he sent you up here, if he knows you don't like heights?" Emily asked.
"Master - master wants me to save him a seat, miss. He is very busy," Winky tilted her head toward the empty space beside her. "Winky is wishing she is back in master's tent, miss and sir, but Winky does what she is told. Winky is a good house-elf." Her eyes hid completely, it was evident that they may not get another peep out of her.
Harry and Emily turned back to the others.
"So that's a house-elf?" Ron muttered. "Weird things, aren't they?"
"Dobby was weirder," Harry replied fervently.
"He's sweet, though." Emily jabbed a finger into Harry's arm. "He spent the year trying to save your life, in case you've forgotten."
"As if I could forget that." He shook his head.
Meanwhile, Ron pulled out his Omnioculars and began to test them, staring down into the crowd on the other side of the stadium. "Wild!" he gasped, twiddling the replay knob on the side. "I can make that old bloke down there pick his nose again... and again... and again..."
"Lovely." Hermione murmured, as she skimmed eagerly through her velvet-covered, tasselled program. " 'A display from the team mascots will precede the match,' " she read aloud.
"Oh that's always worth watching," Mr Weasley confirmed. "National teams bring creatures from their native land, you know, to put on a bit of a show."
Around them, the box filled gradually around them over the next half hour. Mr Weasley kept having to shake hands with people who were obviously rather important wizards and Percy had jumped to his feet so many times to also greet them it looked as though he was attempting to sit on a hedgehog. When Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic himself, arrived, Percy bowed so low that his glasses fell off and shattered. Highly embarrassed, he repaired them with his wand and thereafter remained in his seat, throwing jealous looks at Harry, whom Cornelius Fudge had greeted like an old friend. He shook Harry's hand in a rather fatherly fashion, asked how he was, and introduced him to the wizards on either side of him.
"Harry Potter, you know," he told the Bulgarian minister loudly, who was wearing splendid robes of black velvet trimmed with gold and didn't seem to understand a word of English. "Harry Potter... oh come on now, you know who he is... the boy who survived You-Know-Who... you do know who he is - how do you not know who he is?" The Bulgarian wizard suddenly spotted Harry's scar and started gabbling loudly and excitedly, pointing at it.
"Knew we'd get there in the end," Fudge said wearily to Harry. "I'm no great shakes at languages; I need Barty Crouch for this sort of thing. Ah, I see his house-elf's saving him a seat... Good job too, these Bulgarian blighters have been trying to cadge all the best places - sorry, we haven't been introduced before." His eyes landed on Emily beside his favoured Hogwarts student, as she listened vaguely to their conversation, and held out his hand. "Cornelius Fudge."
"Emily Redferne." She replied, shaking his hand.
"Pleasure, pleasure - ah, and here's Lucius!" And that certainly was not a pleasure. Emily, Harry, Ron, and Hermione turned quickly in their seats. Edging along the second row to three still-empty seats right behind Mr Weasley were none other than the Malfoys, much to their disdain: Lucius Malfoy; his son, Draco; and a woman they supposed must be Draco's mother. His mother was blonde too; tall and slim, she would have been nice-looking if she hadn't been wearing a look that suggested there was a nasty smell under her nose. The youngest Malfoy's eyes had found Emily amongst the four teens momentarily and settled there, a certain unfamiliar look on his face as he stared.
"What are you doing to these guys, Emily?" Ron hissed, quiet enough for only her to hear. "First Seamus and Dean and now Malfoy of all people."
"Shut up, Ronald." She elbows him.
"Ah, Fudge," Mr Malfoy said in a lofty tone, 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?"
"How do you do, how do you do?" Fudge replied as he smiled and bowed to Mrs Malfoy. "And allow me to introduce you to Mr Oblansk - Obalonsk - Mr - well, he's the Bulgarian Minister of Magic, and he can't understand a word I'm saying anyway, so never mind. And let's see who else - you know Arthur Weasley, I daresay?"
It was an incredibly tense moment. Mr Weasley and Mr Malfoy looked at each other, and the onlookers could vividly remember the last time they came face to face; they had had a fight outside of Flourish and Blotts in Diagon Alley. Mr Malfoy's cold grey eyes swept over Mr Weasley, and then up and down the row.
"Good lord, Arthur," he said softly, so nobody else could hear him. "What did you have to sell to get seats in the Top Box? Surely your house wouldn't have fetched this much?"
Fudge, who wasn't listening, said, "Lucius has just given a very generous contribution to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, Arthur. He's here as my guest."
"How - how nice," Mr Weasley said, with a very strained smile. Mr Malfoy's eyes had returned to darting between Hermione, who went slightly pink, and Emily, and the both of them stared determinedly back at him. It was obvious to all there why exactly he had focused on them at all people, and why his lip curled with evident disgust like that. However, under the gaze of the Minister of Magic, he didn't dare say anything. He nodded sneeringly to Mr Weasley and continued down the line to his seats.
Draco didn't follow instantaneously. "What in the hells have you done to your hair, Redferne?" He asked, scoffing.
"It's called bleach, Malfoy. I'm sure you are your family are considerably familiar with the concept, what is it, every other Saturday to keep those roots up?"
"I don't know what you're talking about." Draco sniped in reply. He shot Emily, Harry, Ron, and Hermione one contemptuous look, then settled himself between his mother and father.
"Everyone ready?" Ludo Bagman announced as he charged into the box, his round face gleaming with excitement. "Minister - ready to go?"
"Ready when you are, Ludo," Fudge replied.
Ludo extracted his wand from his old Quidditch robes, directed it at his own throat, and said "Sonorus!" and then spoke over the roar of sound that was now filling the packed stadium; his voice echoed over them, booming into every corner of the stands. "Ladies and gentlemen . . . welcome! Welcome to the final of the four hundred and twenty-second Quidditch World Cup!"
The spectators screamed and clapped. Thousands of flags waved, adding their discordant national anthems to the racket. And, with Bagman's voice prevailing over all of them, the festivities of the four-hundred-and-twenty-second Quidditch World Cup final, began.
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