The last week of the holidays were a drag leading up to the Quidditch world cup. Lucian, whose father worked for the department of magical games and sports, managed to secure four tickets and Lucian invited her and Adrian to the world cup. Adrian, Lucian and V got very good tickets so they didn't need to stay at the camp site before the game, they just got to go to the game and leave.
V had drove to Lucian's house, making sure to park her beat up car far away from his house. She walked down the road looking around the grubby streets, the houses were small, and all in need of paint jobs. There were tattered pieces of clothing hanging out on clothing lines making V feel a bit sorry that she had ever thought Lucian was stupid. She then turned another corner down to Mildred Avenue as this was where Lucian said he had lived. The houses had the same sort of condition as the street before but as she neared house number 84, there was something she hadn't quite expected.
There were 2 iron gates that led down a driveway with sycamore trees lining it. In between the trees were various blooming flowers that reminded her of some sort of mystical land.
Just as she began to wonder how she was meant to get in with a big iron gate in the way, the gates started to automatically open. She slowly proceeded inwards feeling glad that she wore her best clothes. She had one nice pair of jeans that she managed to preserve for all her nice occasions and a green spaghetti strap singlet which she wore to show her support for Ireland.
V felt tense walking down her friend's nicely pruned driveway and kept on making sure her posture was straight. Then, when she turned she saw a grand villa standing in front of her with what looked like a house elf sweeping up leaves. The villa was painted an olive green and had a white skirting with thorny hedges surrounding the house. V's eyes widened, as she regretted ever feeling pity for Lucian, as he clearly didn't need any.
The elf then dropped her broom and walked over to her with squinted tired eyes though it was obvious that its eye sockets were huge.
"Excuse Saddy, but is Miss, Miss Black?" The house elf asked.
"Er, yes." V said sounding surprised.
"Come through, Miss." The house elf said leading her right up to the front door.
Saddy had a belt with a hoop of rings attached to it and fumbled to get a big shinning silver key to open the front door. As Saddy opened the door, V noticed that it was wearing an old tea towel with a grubby rose pattern on it.
The house elf opened the door and held it open for V as she gazed around at the very nicely furnished house. She stepped inside, thanking the elf who then backed away without a trace. There was an instant where she thought even her best clothes were no good in this household but then she looked upwards to a staircase on her right and changed her mind about this, screaming at the same time.
Lucian had hurtled right at her wearing green face paint over half his face. He banged right into her causing them to fall onto the floor while she heard the laughter of Adrian from the top of the stairs.
"Lucian Bole, why are you on top of this girl!?" An incredulous voice said from their side. Adrian had just doubled over with laughter.
V then pushed him off indignantly. "I was wondering the same thing." She said sending him a sharp glare.
"I didn't see her! Honest! I was just sliding down the hand rail and then there she was in front of me." Lucian said standing to his feet.
V looked over to see the man which must have been his dad standing in an Iris quidditch jersey but wearing a blazer and a nice pair of trousers which the shirt was tucked into. He was chuckling at his red faced son as Lucian shrugged his shoulders.
"You must be V, it's good to finally meet you." He said as V got up to shake his hand.
"It's, er, good to meet you too."
"Right then, we need to get ready and go, the game starts in a hour." he said and everyone looked over to the grandfather clock standing at the end of the hallway.
It was currently 8 o'clock in the morning and despite the early morning (which V knew the boys couldn't stand) there was an atmosphere of excitement surrounding everyone. They all followed Mr Bole into their backyard which stretched on for an eternity before you could see a row of tiny trees.
In the backyard was an empty can of coke which was odd as wizards didn't normally have muggle trash lying around.
"Gather round, all of you." Mr Bole said indicating towards the can.
V did so curiously with the same look as Adrian however Lucian looked rather ill at the sight of the can.
"Right, we've got our own personal portkey with the help of a friend in the transportation department. I want you all to grab hold of it in a count of three." Mr Bole explained.
Everyone nodded, V doing so a bit more eagerly then everyone else. She could only imagine how much it would've cost to set up a personal portkey for a one time occasion, probably more than her car.
"One." Mr Bole began, "Two and Three."
They all grabbed on and immediately experienced a violent whirling sensation. V held onto the coke can as if she would never be able to have coke again and as they spun about wildly, V looked round to see a bur of colors rushing past. "Absolutely Splendid!" V cried out while the others tried to keep their heads down.
"Let go... Now!" Mr Bole yelled and they all let go of the can.
They all went flying to the ground except for V who gracefully floated down. She looked around to find herself surrounded by tents and people either dressed in red for Bulgaria or Green for Ireland. There was a smile upon her face which seemed impossible to wipe off. She then looked to the ground to find Lucian, his father and Adrian all groaning on the ground.
"You enjoyed that?" Adrian said groaning up at V.
V then lent him her hand. "Never felt anything quite like it." She replied still beaming.
The crowd around them seemed to be heading towards a path in the forest which must have led to the stadium.
"Alright then, the game is starting soon." Mr Bole said finally standing up. "We should head towards the stadium now."
They all walked as a group, chatting excitedly about their high hopes for Ireland all the way towards the match. When they reached a clearing, V gasped at the sight in front of her. There was a huge stadium about four times the size of a muggle football stadium and about 8 times the height.
Mr Bole smirked at all the teens, shocked faces. "And, we've got great seats too." He said holding out the four tickets.
They all entered the stadium which somehow looked bigger from the inside and they all climbed quite a few steps to get to their seats but when they got to their seats they found that it was absolutely worth it. They had seats just above the top box which meant that they had an amazing view and clear commentating as well. As they waited for the match an eccentric wizard offered to paint a clover on V's cheek which would usually cost money however he claimed that she was a 'pretty witch, and an Irish supporter.'
As they waited, a wizard in a black fur robe and smooth blonde hair passed with a familiar well-dressed boy standing next to him.
"Ah, Balbus, how are you doing?" Mr Malfoy asked Lucian's father.
"Good, good, what about you?"
Mr Malfoy looked around with a sort of bored look. "All right. Your department has done a charming job with the stadium."
"Thank you, we did put quite a bit of effort into this event." Mr Bole admitted.
"And you." Mr Malfoy said suddenly putting his bored yet somehow superior gaze onto V. "You must be Vindemiatrix Black." He said snaring into his smile. "I hear that you are quite a good Chaser, except for of course when you fainted during a game. Quite... Tragic that was, I do wonder why that happened?"
V felt a bit taken aback by this comment but kept calm all the same. "Well you see, it was just the one game where Flint thought it might be a bit funny to put a couple of absolute flying boulders on the team. That seemed to give me a bit of a freight." V replied feeling quite satisfied with what she had said even if it wasn't quite the truth. Draco scoffed next to him.
"Right." Mr Malfoy said raising his eyebrows. "You are all welcome to come to our tent after the game, it is the big one with peacocks surrounding it." He said with a curt smile before walking away.
Adrian gave her an amused look. "Couple of flying boulders? Nice one..."
The build-up was truly fantastic with the fans chanting like mad and last minute stragglers like themselves filing in wearing the most intriguing costumes to show their pride. But the build-up was nothing compared to the actual match. V had never quite seen chasers fly with such speed and skill, she had certainly learnt a few things about flying for the next year. The Irish chasers had certainly pulled the game into the lead, so far into the lead that when the Bulgarian seeker, Viktor Krum, had caught the snitch the Bulgarians still didn't win the game.
On the way to the Malfoy's tent, Adrian, Lucian and V walked back with a group of Irish fans and chanted, the whole group of them arm in arm, passing around various bottles of butter beer.
"That was the game of the century!" A guy literally covered in shamrocks bellowed.
"AYYYYEEEEE!" V and the rest of the group yelled, those who were holding butter beers raised them in agreement.
Adrian then pulled Lucian and V out of the crowd when he had spotted the Malfoys tent.
The tent looked quite a bit bigger then all of the tents around it however V couldn't quite understand how they were going to fit a party with presumably quite a few people in it. However, V just went with it as Adrian and Lucian didn't seem at all fussed.
But when they entered the tent which looked as though it would sleep no more than 10 people, it magnified to a huge size. There were about 50 people or chatting or dancing around avidly inside.
V gasped while her and her friends were greeted by a man in a waiter uniform holding a platter of butter beer which they all didn't hesitate before taking.
"Looks like you found the tent all right." Someone said from behind them. They turned around to find Draco standing in some nice dress robes, something that V suspected to be unusual to wear to a world cup. "I mean of course, it's too hard to miss."
"Yea, everyone has such small tents but this is proper sized." Lucian said nodding his head with an impressed smirk.
"Have you seen the Weasley's tent?" Draco then droned on. "Father and I had a bit of a walk around and then we saw that fool, Arthur Weasley, walk into what looked like a blanket on sticks." He snickered with Lucian joining in.
V however took a long swig of the butter beer trying to look anywhere but Draco. She wasn't planning on arguing back as that was too much of a risk especially if she wanted to keep her nimbus 2001 and she didn't want to agree as that wouldn't be very loyal at all to the twins.
The tent was filled with plenty of ministry wizards and such, which made it quite amusing as they quickly got more and more dunk. Minister Fudge (who V avoided especially after calling him a peasant earlier that year) was swaying along with others trying to do an old Irish folk dance. V enjoyed staying in the shadows and watching all of these drunken antics unfold however she noticed Mr Malfoy quite suspiciously slip out of the tent.
She couldn't help but follow. She slipped out of the tent careful to be sly as she followed with a bit of distance behind him. She felt a bit tipsy, she could have sworn that she had some fire whiskey in the mix amongst all the butter beer but she stayed as strong as possible.
Mr Malfoy had a casual look about him every time someone looked his way but when no one was looking he had what V could interpret with her drunk mind as a vicious smirk.
The night was now a lot darker than before and plenty of people had subsided to their tents. There were only a few jolly stragglers who were still chanting obnoxiously. The alcohol seemed to make her more excited and childish about following Mr Malfoy in the dark.
But as she watched intently, someone's hand slapped onto her shoulder causing her to shriek and spin around.
She saw George with two green strips on each cheek grinning at her cheekily. She couldn't help but give him a hug in relief. She was worried that perhaps the minister or Mrs Malfoy would catch her snooping on Mr Malfoy. She was also very much happy to see him.
He was surprised by the sudden shot of affection from V and yelled, "Hey! How much have you had to drink tonight?"
"Too much." V replied then letting go of him and looking into his honey brown eyes. "I've missed you!" She then said in a very gleeful voice.
"Don't tell me you've had fire whiskey again..."
"Come on!" V then said tugging on George's sleeves. "I'm going to catch Mr Malfoy, I think he's doing something naughty!" V said but just like that she was slung over George's shoulder and he was walking the opposite direction.
V didn't fight to get out of his grip, it seemed that Mr Malfoy had slipped out of her head and the sound of her own giggling replaced her thoughts.
"George, George, George..." She kept on saying in a repetitive voice but it seemed that they had already arrived at the tent.
"George?" She then said in a different tone. "This isn't the Malfoy's tent..." She said with a confuddled expression.
"Well I'm not taking you there, if you want to get there you're going to have to walk there yourself." George said raising his eyebrows and folding his arms.
"It's alright here, the minister is in the Malfoy's tent and- and-" But then V burst out into uncontrollable laughter.
"What's up with her?" Fred then asked walking into sight looking slightly concerned at the sight of drunk V.
"I CALLED HIM A PEASANT!" V then yelled roaring with laughter.
"Who called who a peasant?" Another much older man said walking into the main sitting room of the tent.
"Ah, dad, this is our dear friend V." Fred explained to the man who must've been Mr Weasley.
"And from my understanding, she called old Fudge a peasant." George then explained.
"Wait," Mr Weasley then said taking a closer look at V, "Isn't this Vindemiatrix Black, daughter of..?" He said deciding it would be rude to put it like that. "You never told me you were friends with her."
"Yea well who wants their sons being friends with the daughter of a notorious mass murderer?" V said grouchily.
A girl who V recognized sober as Ginny Weasley, handed her a drink that looked like water but as V looked more closely she noticed it had a purple tint to it. V picked it up not really caring and took a big gulp of it.
Her mind which felt like it had been completely fogged up, cleared up like a sunny day. She looked around her and felt a sort of heaviness on her chest as more and more realization seemed to flood to her.
She then looked up at Mr Weasley who looked back at her with contemplation.
"I am so sorry." She began with her eyes widening, "I had no idea how drunk I was, I mean everyone was drunk-" Then she suddenly realized something, with her eyes wider than ever.
"What?" Mr Weasley asked sounding genuinely concerned.
"Those nasty people! The Malfoys!" V suddenly said. "It must have been him, getting all of his guests drunk so no one would notice him slip of and create whatever menace he's about to." V said frowning very strongly.
"Why what happened?" Mr Weasley asked sounding even more concerned.
But just then they heard screaming from outside. They all rushed out of the air to find muggles descended into the air screaming in terror with a group of cloaked people in masks pointing their wands up at them below.
"Fred, George! Take Ginny into the forest!" Mr Weasley then ordered "I'll wake everyone else!" He ordered running back into the tent.
And just like that, George grabbed V's hand. "Come on!" He yelled and they all ran into the forest leaving the screams behind them.