The stairs into the stadium were carpeted in rich purple. We clambered upward with the rest of the crowd, which slowly filtered away through doors into the stands to their left and right. The lot of us kept climbing, and at last we reached the top of the staircase and found ourselves in a small box, set at the highest point of the stadium and situated exactly halfway between the golden goal posts. About twenty purple-and-gilt chairs stood in two rows here, and I, filing into the front seats with the Weasleys, looked down upon a scene the likes of which I could never have imagined.
A hundred thousand witches and wizards were taking their places in the seats, which rose in levels around the long oval field. Everything was suffused with a mysterious golden light, which seemed to come from the stadium itself. The field looked smooth as velvet from our lofty position. At either end of the field stood three goal hoops, fifty feet high; right opposite us, almost at eye level, was a gigantic blackboard.
"Dobby?" said Harry incredulously.
I looked over to where Harry had been looking to a tiny creature looked up and stretched its fingers, revealing enormous brown eyes and a nose the exact size and shape of a large tomato. It wasn't Dobby— it was, however, unmistakably a house-elf, as Harry's friend Dobby had been. Harry had set Dobby free from his old owners, the Malfoy family during our second year at Hogwarts.
"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 I 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. Though all of us had heard a lot about Dobby from Harry, we've had never actually met him. Even Mr. Weasley looked around in interest.
"Sorry," Harry told the elf, "I just thought you were someone I 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. "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," said Harry.
"But Dobby talks of you all the time, sir!" she said, lowering her hands very slightly and looking awestruck.
"How is he?" said Harry. "How's freedom suiting him?"
"Ah, sir," said Winky, shaking her head, "ah sir, meaning no disrespect, sir, but I is not sure you did Dobby a favor, sir, when you is setting him free."
"Why?" said Harry, taken aback. "What's wrong with him?"
"Freedom is going to Dobby's head, sir," said Winky 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?" I said blankly. "Well
— why shouldn't he be paid?"
Winky looked quite horrified at the idea and gave me a judged look. She closed her fingers slightly so that her face was half-hidden again.
"House-elves is not paid, miss!" 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."
I nodded, I hadn't known that despite the fact growing up in a wizarding family. Lupin and I never had an house-elf, it wasn't a necessity. Harry continued talking to Winky until Cornelius Fudge came around. He greeted Harry and I like old friends. Quite odd that man. We had met before, and Fudge shook my and Harry's hands in a fatherly fashion, asked how we were, but only introduced Harry 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—"
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," said Fudge 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... ah, and here's Lucius!"
Harry, Ron, Hermione, and I turned quickly. Edging along the second row to three still-empty seats right behind Mr. Weasley were none other than Dobby the house-elf's former owners: Lucius Malfoy; his son, Draco; and a woman I supposed must be Draco's mother.
Draco greatly resembled his father. 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.
"Ah, Fudge," said Mr. Malfoy, 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?" said Fudge, smiling and bowing 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 a tense moment. Mr. Weasley and Mr. Malfoy looked at each other and I vividly recalled the last time they had come face-to-face: It had been in Flourish and Blotts' bookshop, and they had had a fight. Mr. Malfoy's cold gray eyes swept over Mr. Weasley, and then up and down the row.
"Good lord, Arthur," he said softly. "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," said Mr. Weasley, with a very strained smile.
Mr. Malfoy's eyes skimmed over me and he raised his brow. No question he most likely heard the news of me being Harry Potter's twin; not only did everyone now know in the month and a half we had been away from school, but Malfoy was informed of this before our holiday. He then returned to Hermione, who went slightly pink, but stared determinedly back at him. I knew exactly what was making Mr. Malfoy's lip curl like that. The Malfoys prided themselves on being purebloods; in other words, they considered anyone of Muggle descent, like Hermione, second-class. Malfoy shot a look at Harry, Ron, Hermione, and me one contemptuous look, then settled himself between his parents.
"Slimy gits," Ron muttered as we turned to face the field again. Next moment, Ludo Bagman charged into the box.
"Everyone ready?" he said, his round face gleaming like a great, excited Edam. "Minister— ready to go?"
"Ready when you are, Ludo," said Fudge comfortably.
Ludo whipped out his wand, directed it at his own throat, and said "Sonorus!" and then spoke over the roar of sound that was now filling the packed stadium; the game began.
Veela's came out to dance before the Quidditch teams came out. All the boys and men around us seemed to be in a trance— the Veela trance. Looking over at Harry then to Ron, I could tell that they were transfixed on the dancing woman.
"Ron, what are you doing?" said Hermione angrily.
Both Harry and Ron looked as if they were going to jump from the box into the Quidditch pitch.
"Harry?" I waved my hand in front of his face.
Then the music stopped and both boys looked confused out of their minds.
It was Quidditch as I had never seen it played before. Harry was pressing his Omnioculars so hard to his glasses I was sure he was going to absorb them. The speed of the players was incredible— the Chasers were throwing the Quaffle to one another so fast that Bagman only had time to say their names.
"TROY SCORES!" roared Bagman, and the stadium shuddered with a roar of applause and cheers. "Ten zero to Ireland!"
"What?" Harry yelled, looking wildly around through his Omnioculars. "But Levski's got the Quaffle!"
"Harry, if you're not going to watch at normal speed, you're going to miss things!" I shouted, as I danced with Hermione up and down, waving our arms in the air while Troy did a lap of honor around the field.
The match became still faster, but more brutal. Volkov and Vulchanov, the Bulgarian Beaters, were whacking the Bludgers as fiercely as possible at the Irish Chasers, and were starting to prevent them from using some of their best moves; twice they were forced to scatter, and then, finally, Ivanova managed to break through their ranks; dodge the Keeper, Ryan; and score Bulgaria's first goal.
"Fingers in your ears, boys!" bellowed Mr. Weasley as the veela started to dance in celebration. I watched as they all listened to Mr. Weasley; Harry even screwed his eyes closed.
One hundred thousand wizards gasped as the two Seekers, Krum and Lynch, plummeted through the center of the Chasers, so fast that it looked as though they had just jumped from airplanes without parachutes.
"They're going to crash!" screamed Hermione next to me.
She was half right— at the very last second, Viktor Krum pulled out of the dive and spiraled off. Lynch, however, hit the ground with a dull thud that could be heard throughout the stadium. A huge groan rose from the Irish seats.
"Fool!" moaned Mr. Weasley. "Krum was feinting!"
"It's time-out!" yelled Bagman's voice, "as trained mediwizards hurry onto the field to examine Aidan Lynch!"
"He'll be okay, he only got ploughed!" Charlie said reassuringly to Ginny, who was hanging over the side of the box, looking horror-struck. "Which is what Krum was after, of course!"
After fifteen more fast and furious minutes, Ireland had pulled ahead by ten more goals. They were now leading by one hundred and thirty points to ten, and the game was starting to get dirtier.
As one, the Weasley boys and Harry stuffed their fingers into their ears as the veelas came back to the field, but Hermione and I hadn't bothered. Hermione was soon tugging on Harry's arm as I laughed. He turned to look at her, and she pulled his fingers impatiently out of his ears.
"Look at the referee!" she said, giggling.
Hassan Mostafa had landed right in front of the dancing veela, and was acting very oddly indeed. He was flexing his muscles and smoothing his mustache excitedly.
"Now, we can't have that!" said Ludo Bagman, though he sounded highly amused. "Somebody slap the referee!"
A mediwizard came tearing across the field, his fingers stuffed into his own ears, and kicked Mostafa hard in the shins. Mostafa seemed to come to himself; he looked exceptionally embarrassed and had started shouting at the veela, who had stopped dancing and were looking mutinous.
Play now reached a level of ferocity beyond anything they had yet seen. The Beaters on both sides were acting without mercy: Volkov and Vulchanov in particular seemed not to care whether their clubs made contact with Bludger or human as they swung them violently through the air. Dimitrov shot straight at Moran, who had the Quaffle, nearly knocking her off her broom— a foul.
The Irish Beater Quigley swung heavily at a passing Bludger, and hit it as hard as possible toward Krum, who did not duck quickly enough. It hit him full in the face.
There was a deafening groan from the crowd; Krum's nose looked broken, there was blood everywhere, but Hassan Mostafa didn't blow his whistle. He had become distracted, one of the veela had thrown a handful of fire and set his broom tail alight.
"Time-out!" Ron said, "Ah, come on, he can't play like that, look at him—"
"Look at Lynch!" Harry yelled. For the Irish Seeker had suddenly gone into a dive, and was quite sure that this was no Wronski Feint; this was the real thing.
"He's seen the Snitch! Maisey, Maisey, look!" Harry shouted shaking my arm. "He's seen it! Look at him go!"
Half the crowd seemed to have realized what was happening; the Irish supporters rose in another great wave of green, screaming their Seeker on... but Krum was on his tail. How he could see where he was going, I had no idea; there were flecks of blood flying through the air behind him, but he was drawing level with Lynch now as the pair of them hurtled toward the ground again—
"They're going to crash!" shrieked Hermione.
"They're not!" Ron and I shouted.
"Lynch is!" yelled Harry.
And he was right— for the second time, Lynch hit the ground with tremendous force and was immediately stampeded by a horde of angry veela.
"The Snitch, where's the Snitch?" bellowed Charlie, along the row.
"He's got it— Krum's got it— it's all over!" shouted Harry.
Krum, his red robes shining with blood from his nose, was rising gently into the air, his fist held high, a glint of gold in his hand. The scoreboard was flashing BULGARIA: 160, IRELAND: 170 across the crowd, who didn't seem to have realized what had happened. Then, slowly, as though a great jumbo jet were revving up, the rumbling from the Ireland supporters grew louder and louder and erupted into screams of delight.
"IRELAND WINS!" Bagman shouted. "KRUM GETS THE SNITCH— BUT IRELAND WINS— good lord, I don't think any of us were expecting that!"
"What did he catch the Snitch for?" Ron bellowed, even as he jumped up and down, applauding with his hands over his head. "He ended it when Ireland were a hundred and sixty points ahead, the idiot!"
"He knew they were never going to catch up!" Harry shouted back over all the noise, also applauding loudly. "The Irish Chasers were too good... He wanted to end it on his terms, that's all..."
"A shame though," I sighed.
"He was very brave, wasn't he?" Hermione said, leaning forward to watch Krum land as a swarm of mediwizards blasted a path through the battling leprechauns and veela to get to him. "He looks a terrible mess."
"Fancy him, do you?" I laughed, elbowing Hermione slightly.
At last, when the Irish team had left the box to perform another lap of honor on their brooms (Aidan Lynch on the back of Connolly's, clutching hard around his waist and still grinning in a bemused sort of way), Bagman pointed his wand at his throat and muttered, "Quietus."
"They'll be talking about this one for years," he said hoarsely, "a really unexpected twist, that... shame it couldn't have lasted longer... Ah yes... yes, I owe you... how much?"
For Fred and George had just scrambled over the backs of their seats and were standing in front of Ludo Bagman with broad grins on their faces, their hands outstretched, getting the winnings that they had betted for.