A/N: Good response to the first chapter! Glad you guys are enjoying so far! Here's a Harry-centric chapter. Hope this whets some appetites.
-C
Harry had his hands in his pockets as he walked with the Ron, Hermione, and Ginny through the mass of Quidditch-goers. It was cool out, a breeze ruffling his hair as they walked to the nearest spigot. He thought of Cedric's father, the stabbing comments about the match when he'd lost his broom. As much as Harry told himself it wasn't his fault, the Dementors made it impossible, he knew a tiny part in the back of his brain agreed with Mr. Diggory, and it was galling.
"Oh, Sera!" Ginny cried beside him as they approached the queue, and a girl with a laden pot paused.
Harry recognized her—blonde hair plaited, pulled back from her face; sharp gray eyes, high cheekbones, a sort of graceful litheness about her figure—but he was taken aback by how his eyes were drawn to her jeans. She wasn't dressed strangely. Unlike many of the wizarding types, she had perfectly normal jeans and a pullover. But for a girl he'd only thought was vaguely familiar when he'd looked at her before, Harry thought not only had she become intriguingly familiar, but there was something about her legs that kept drawing his eyes, accentuated by the way her jeans hugged her body.
He felt mildly ashamed. He forced his gaze back to her face, but she was completely focused on Ginny.
"I have to make lunch," Sera said, tossing her head slightly to try to rid her face of a strand of hair. It fell right back on her face, and Ginny reached up to tuck it behind her ear before she insisted Sera set down the pot for a moment. Sera seemed annoyed, but she did, smoothing a few more hairs off her face once her hands were free. Harry could see her palms were red from the strain of the heavy pot.
"I got your note," Ginny said cheerfully. "How was the shopping?"
"Oh, it's school shopping," Sera said dully, her eyes scanning Harry, Ron, and Hermione briefly. There was something very familiar about her, not like he'd thought before, but much, much stronger, like a wave of déjà vu. "I did run into Professor Lupin, though."
"Oh, how is he?" Hermione asked earnestly. "I wish I'd got his address when he left."
Harry had wondered, too, if their werewolf teacher had landed on his feet, and he was mildly jealous when Sera said she'd seen him.
"He seemed okay," Sera said with a shrug. "He was still wearing those old robes, you know. But he bought a medium pack of quills, so he can't be totally destitute." She turned her eyes to Ginny again and said, "Anyway, I asked him again."
"You didn't," Ginny said sadly.
"Well, I thought he might tell me more," Sera said, blinking rapidly. "He's not my teacher anymore, and he asked me to call him by his first name."
"But he didn't say anything else," Ginny said, deflated.
Harry felt another wave of jealousy when she said Professor Lupin and Sera were on a first name basis, but the cryptic conversation had him too intrigued to dwell on this jealousy. What had she asked? Why hadn't he answered?
"He told me to talk to Professor Dumbledore again," Sera said, eyes down on the pot now. "But given how it went last time, I'm not hopeful."
"But you'll try?"
"I haven't got a lot of other options." Suddenly, she looked up and said, as though she hadn't had this whole conversation with Ginny, "I expect you're all supporting Ireland?"
"Yeah," Ron said happily, "and Krum."
Her lips twisted into half a smile, half a smirk, and there was something agonizingly familiar about that, as well, but she rubbed the back of her neck and said nothing. Harry knew, without knowing how, that she wanted to tell Ron one couldn't support Krum and the team he was playing against, but perhaps she was too polite to say so. When she did make her excuses and lift her pot of water to go, Harry followed her with his eyes, not trying quite as hard to control himself as his gaze tilted to her legs.
He felt ashamed again as Hermione ushered them into the queue and said, "She's grown quite a bit since June. Very pretty."
"Don't tell her that," Ginny said with a grin. "Sera gets weird about compliments. I don't think she thinks she's much to look at. She's just as pretty as the old pictures of her mum, but she doesn't see it."
"What was the surname? Fawley?" Hermione said, and Ginny nodded. "There was a Minister of Magic named Fawley."
"Her grandfather, I think," Ginny said, scratching her nose. "They're an old family. They're all related to each other. Oh, speaking of Sera, d'you know anyone who would be a good Herbology tutor? Every year, I keep expecting her to fail it. Her plants always die."
"Surely she can't be that bad," Hermione said, horrified.
"No, really," Ginny insisted. "The first day we were in Greenhouse Three, she touched three plants, and all of them were dead by dinner. Professor Sprout said she hasn't seen anything like it in years."
"Sometimes feels like every plant I touch dies," Ron grumbled under his breath, and Harry smiled. He couldn't imagine how stressful it would be, though, to have a class where everything went wrong. His closest thing was Potions, and most of that was because Snape was ridiculous with him.
They walked back to the campsite, and on the way Harry spotted Sera Fawley with Ernie Macmillan and what looked like his family, helping Mrs. Macmillan with lunch. She was a Gryffindor—he remembered that much—and he didn't recall her being particular friends with Ernie or other Hufflepuffs. He thought maybe they were cousins, and a little voice in his head suggested maybe she and Ernie were dating.
He dismissed it, because he couldn't think why she would have dated Ernie, who had always seemed a bit of a prat.
When they reached the Weasley tent, Fred and George looked up and grinned.
"You've been ages," George said, taking Ginny's pan.
"Met a few people," Ron said. "You've not got that fire started yet?"
Fred's grin widened and he said, "Dad's been having fun with the matches."
They watched Mr. Weasley, who was surrounded by splintered matches, grin and attempt to light another. He did manage to get one and was so startled, he dropped it. The flame was out before it hit the ground. Nothing like the ease Harry saw with Sera Fawley lighting the fire, and he wondered if she'd had experience with Muggle culture.
Hermione hurried to help Mr. Weasley, but even when she lit the fire, it took some maneuvering to get it hot enough for cooking. Harry took advantage of the wait while Hermione gave directions, watching Ministry workers going back and forth between the pitch and the campground, and everyone seemed to know Mr. Weasley. They all waved and greeted him as they passed. He said which person each one was as they passed for Harry and Hermione's sake. They'd only started cooking when Bill, Charlie, and Percy approached from the woods. The Weasley clan plus Hermione and Harry were well tucked into lunch when a very vibrant man passed in Wasps Quidditch robes and Mr. Weasley called out to him.
"Aha! The man of the moment! Ludo!"
Ludo Bagman, Harry realized, the man who had given Mr. Weasley the tickets. He was a vibrant man with a large belly and a squashed nose. He might have been dashing once, Harry supposed, when he was in shape and before he'd been hit with a stray Bludger, but he'd obviously let himself go.
"Ahoy there!" he called back. He seemed to bounce toward them, but his voice was winded when he reached their campsite. "Arthur, old man, what a day, eh? Could we have asked for more perfect weather? A cloudless night coming…and hardly a hiccough in the arrangements…. Not much for me to do!"
Harry raised his eyebrows as various Ministry wizards hurried to and fro, dealing with all and sundry issues. A violet fire had sprouted, sending sparks high into the air. Percy hurried to introduce himself, which prompted Mr. Weasley to introduce them all down the line, ending on Harry and Hermione. To Bagman's credit, he didn't make a huge fuss at Harry's name, but he did glance at the scar like everyone else did.
While Ludo Bagman and the twins placed large bets on the match—which Harry thought Mrs. Weasley would definitely not approve of—Ginny kept glancing over her shoulder toward where they'd passed the Macmillans, and Harry thought of moving closer and asking her what was wrong.
"Couldn't do me a brew, I suppose?" Bagman asked cheerfully. "I'm keeping an eye out for Barty Crouch. 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 said. He'd been a sour mood, not approving of Bagman, but at the mention of his boss he perked right up. "He speaks over two hundred! Mermish and Gobbledegook and Troll…"
"Anyone can speak Troll," Fred said. "All you have to do is point and grunt."
Percy shot Fred a poisonous look, but he didn't respond. He was too busy stoking the fire so they could make tea for Bagman.
Mr. Weasley drew Bagman into a conversation about the missing Bertha Jorkins. Harry listened with interest, and Bagman was just explaining what Crouch had said on the subject when he stopped short and cried, "Oh—talk of the devil! Barty!"
The suddenness was not for naught, as Crouch Apparated to their location, not walked. He was a dour man, stern and stiff, upright and elderly, with lavishly polished shoes and a lint-free suit. Harry was impressed with how Muggle the man had looked, especially in the sea of incompetently dressed witches and wizards. Apart from a few half-bloods and Muggleborns, Sera Fawley had been the only passable outfit among them.
"Pull up a bit of grass, Barty," Bagman said, patting at a spot beside him.
"No thank you, Ludo," Crouch said coldly. Harry supposed these two men raked the same coals frequently. "I've been looking for you everywhere. The Bulgarians are insisting we add another twelve seats to the Top Box."
"Oh, is that what they're after? I thought the chap was asking to borrow a pair of tweezers. Bit of a strong accent."
Percy hurried forward, in kind of an odd bow, and said, "Mr. Crouch! Would you like a cup of tea?"
Mr. Crouch regarded Percy with owlish surprise.
"Oh," he said. "Yes—thank you, Weatherby."
Fred and George choked into their cups, Percy's ears reddened as he busied about the kettle and Harry felt his stomach drop on Percy's behalf. He could be a bit of a prat, but it was obvious Crouch's opinion was important to him.
"Oh and I've been wanting a word with you too, Arthur," Crouch said. "Ali Bashir's on the warpath. He wants a word with you about your embargo on flying carpets."
They discussed the difficulties and legal complexities of travel, and then Mr. Weasley said, "I expect you'll both be glad when this is over?"
A gobsmacked Bagman replied, "Glad! Don't know when I've had more fun…. Still, it's not as though we haven't got anything to look forward to, eh, Barty? Eh? Plenty left to organize, eh?"
Harry had the sense from Crouch's stern reaction that Ludo Bagman was like a child with a secret he wasn't supposed to tell but was bursting for them all to guess.
"We agreed not to make the announcement until all the details—"
"Oh details! They've signed haven't they? They've agreed, haven't they? I bet these kids'll know soon enough anyway. I mean, it's happening at Hogwarts—"
"Ludo, we need to meet the Bulgarians, you know," Crouch said sharply, slicing through Bagman's curious hints. "Thank you for the tea, Weatherby."
He passed the untouched cup of tea back at Percy and waited for Ludo Bagman to rise and say his goodbyes before the two men Disapparated. Fred tried to get more out of Mr. Weasley about the thing Bagman said would happen at Hogwarts, but Arthur Weasley did not budge.
The conversation was largely forgotten when the time came for the match. The Weasleys and Hermione and Harry trailed after. Mr. Weasley into the wood on the edge of the campground, following a trail lit with beautiful lanterns. Harry could hear the sounds of a crowd approaching something, with laughter and music and chatting. It took about a twenty-minute trek to reach the stadium, built up from nothing with enormous gold walls.
"Seats a hundred thousand," Mr. Weasley said. "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 urgent appointments and had to dash away again…bless them."
The wizard who looked at their tickets instructed them to go straight up the stairs to the very top, and Harry was lamenting the climb, watching others go left and right to stands along the way. A box in a level below where the Weasleys were headed came visible, and he saw the Macmillans going into it, ushering Sera Fawley with them. She looked a bit out of place, and someone said her name to draw her forward. She caught Harry's eye and he smiled at her, wondering why she didn't look happy, but Ernie threw his arm around her shoulders to pull her forward and she darkened even more. If she was dating Ernie Macmillan, Harry decided, they must be rowing.
Harry had never seen anything like the extravagance of the Quidditch World Cup. Advertising everywhere, pomp and circumstance, and when the game finally kicked off, Ludo's vibrant and knowledgeable commentary put Harry's experiences with Lee Jordan to shame. He savored every minute, trying to pick up little things the players were doing well, thinking of ways to improve his own game.
Krum was incredible. Harry had never seen someone move with such grace on a broomstick, and he wondered whether he could copy the sharp moves Krum used to draw Lynch, the Irish Seeker, into dangerous dives Lynch couldn't pull out of.
The Irish Chasers, however, were not making it easy on Bulgaria. They were more like blurs of green light than people on brooms, whizzing about on their Firebolts, in perfect synchronization. The Gryffindor Chasers had always been well-synchronized, but he didn't think even with a lot of work that they could reach this level. It was almost intuitive, like mind-reading. Harry found it exhilarating.
The trophy ceremony was incredible, and Harry could imagine this as his future. The Seeker of the victorious team—maybe even the national team—and raising the beautiful cup over his head for masses of roaring fans. His toes tingled with excitement. He recalled what Oliver Wood had said to him just a few years ago: better, maybe, than Charlie Weasley, who could have played for England.
Could Harry play for England?
This was the cloud he road as he walked downstairs, following the Weasleys. He paused as he heard Ginny squeal, grabbing at someone. His eyes followed her arms as they wrapped around someone in a hug, and he realized it was Sera Fawley. Sera was pleased, smiling, but not like Ginny. Her eyes were thinking of something else, and as her gaze met Harry's, he forgot about his fantasy of playing for England for half a moment. There were only two things in his head as he looked at her eyes.
Why were those eyes so familiar to him? What was so important to her that she couldn't even properly enjoy the Quidditch Match when she was decked in Ireland's colors?
"C'mon, Gin," Bill said, and Ginny reluctantly peeled herself away from her friend.
As they continued down the steps, Harry heard Fred whisper to George, "Merlin's beard, did you realize who she was hugging?"
"Girl from school?" George said, glancing back over his shoulder. "Bloody hell, is that the Fawley girl? She's grown quite a bit over the summer."
"Grown?" Fred hissed. "Mate, I can see her curves through the pullover. She didn't have those in June."
"Do they grow that fast?"
Harry felt his cheeks go hot as he glanced over his shoulder, intensely curious and ashamed for his curiosity. He could only see her for a moment—they Macmillans were blocking his view, mostly—but he could see what Fred was talking about. The last time he remembered seeing Sera Fawley with Ginny, the two girls had identical shapes, with Sera being the slightly taller of the two: long and thin, like a birch tree. In fact, he'd mentally associated her with a silver birch without realizing: long, thin, pale, blonde, with shining gray eyes.
Now, though, she had developed some curves, not everywhere, but mostly in two spots from what he could judge. And somehow realizing that made his throat feel tighter and his palms go slightly wet. He glanced at Ginny and Hermione. If Hermione had curves, he really couldn't tell through her long, loose jumper and her relatively loose jeans. Ginny still looked like she'd done in June, long and thin, all one thickness, like a sanded-down branch. Her face maybe looked a bit older, but she'd not grown, as George had put it.
Why was it suddenly so hot? He waded through the people on the staircase, following close behind the Weasleys, telling himself it was all this proximity to so many people that was making him feel he'd stepped into a fireplace without an early dousing of Floo powder.
When he caught up to Fred and George at the bottom, they were talking about the bet they'd placed with Ludo Bagman, perhaps forgetting all about what they'd said about Sera Fawley, but Harry couldn't seem to get it out of his head.
A/N: So Harry has hormones, the match was as we all remember it, and Ginny describes her best friend for the others. Almost everyone was able to figure out who the father was (I wasn't exactly hiding it…).
Review Prompt: How do you think Sera will learn who her father is?
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Cheers!
C
