Chapter Three: All Fun and Games...
They clutched their purchases as Mr. Weasley lead the way into the wood. The sounds of thousands of people moving around them, shouts and laughter, snatches of singing, bounced off the trees and echoed around them. The atmosphere of feverish excitement was highly infectious.
The greater part of their group's enthusiasm left Hermione, Cedric and Ginny to follow at a distance. The trio trailed behind them at a leisurely pace, taking in the growing energy of the crowd and sticking close together to avoid getting separated.
"Shouldn't we wait for your father? Ack!" Hermione had to shout to be heard and narrowly avoided getting shoved aside by a particularly burly and rabid Bulgarian fan. Cedric put an arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer to his side and scowled after the burly Bulgarian.
"Nah, he'll find his way to the stadium eventually," Cedric shouted back. He felt her nod against his shoulder, and Cedric noted with no small measure of pleasure and relief that she had not pull away from him.
The crowd behind them was beginning to get more raucous and Hermione pulled away from Cedric's side, making sure to keep a firm grasp on his arm, to call over her shoulder, "Ginny!"
Ginny was beginning to have to struggle against the oncoming crowds and Hermione managed to grab hold of her jacket sleeve and pull her out from between a haggard looking old wizard and a gangly fellow in his thirties with a weathered face that was staring at Ginny, and now Hermione, with a less than innocent gleam in his eye.
Hermione met the man's lecherous gaze with a cold glare that must've looked quite dangerous because the man recoiled slightly and dropped his gaze to the ground. The girls linked their arms together tightly and Hermione pulled herself closer Cedric's side once again. She looked over at Ginny in concern, "Are you alright? He didn't try anything did he?"
Cedric's head whipped around to her so suddenly he was sure he'd cracked something. "Did who try what?" he asked, looking worried.
"Just some slimy git looking for a shag is all," Hermione said disgustedly.
"More like a threesome, the way he was looking at you," Ginny continued darkly, unable to hold back a shudder.
Cedric's arm tightened around Hermione's shoulders, all of them casting a shrewd glance at the herds of people milling around them.
"Alright, I think we're almost to the pitch, let's just stick close together. Don't get separated." Cedric said firmly.
"Aye, Captain," Hermione retorted with a cheeky grin that injected levity back into the trio.
They walked through the wood for twenty minutes, talking and laughing loudly, until at last they emerged on the other side and found themselves in the shadow of a gigantic stadium. Though they could see only a fraction of the immense gold walls surrounding the field, Hermione could tell that ten cathedrals would fit comfortably inside it. There, they found the rest of the Weasleys and Harry waiting for them.
"Magnificent, isn't it? The Ministry's been working on it all year, had quite a job of hiding this from Muggles," said Mr. Weasley, spotting the awestruck look on their faces, leading the way toward the nearest entrance, which was already surrounded by a swarm of shouting witches and wizards.
"Prime seats!" said the Ministry witch at the entrance when she checked their tickets. "Straight upstairs and as high as you can go, Arthur."
Ginny groaned at that and Cedric and Hermione couldn't help but smile at the look of dread that crossed her face.
They clambered upward with the rest of the crowd, which slowly filtered away through doors into the stands to their left and right. By the time they reached the top of the staircase the rest of the crowd had disappeared into the lower section. They all filed into the top box where about twenty purple-and-gilt chairs stood in two rows and looked down onto the scene below them in wonder.
Perched high between the goalposts, they could see a hundred thousand witches and wizards taking their places in the stands, which rose in levels around the huge, oval field. The air itself seemed suffused with a mysterious golden light that seemed to radiate from the stadium itself and the pitch looked smooth as velvet from their lofty position. Their eyes were glued, however, to the gigantic blackboard directly opposite them that had advertisements gold writing dashing across it and then disappearing.
Harry tore his eyes away from the sign and looked around to see who else was sharing the box with them. So far it was empty, except for a tiny creature sitting in the second from last seat at the end of the row behind them. The creature had its face hidden in its hands, yet those big, bat-like ears were oddly familiar to Harry.
"Dobby?" said Harry incredulously.
The tiny creature looked up and stretched its fingers, revealing enormous brown eyes and a nose the size and shape of a large tomato. It wasn't Dobby — it was, however, unmistakably a house-elf. It seemed unperturbed by Harry's exclamation however, and simply released a frightened wail as it gave the edge of the box a frightened look before hiding her eyes completely again. Harry turned back to the others.
"So that's a house-elf?" Ron muttered. "Weird, aren't they?"
"Dobby was weirder," Harry assured him.
Cedric and Hermione exchangesilent looks of incredulity, smiling slightly. The little creature was strange looking to be sure, and its behavior baffling, leaving them to wonder just what Debby was like.
Ron pulled out his Omnioculars and started testing them, staring down into the crowd on the other side of the stadium. Ginny, meanwhile, was idly skimming through the velvet-covered, tasseled program.
"'A display from the team mascots will precede the match,' what's that then?" She asked.
"Ooh that's always worth watching," said Mr. Weasley. "National teams bring creatures from their native land to put on a show before the match."
The box filled gradually around them over the next half hour. Mr. Weasley shook hands with obviously influential wizards, Percy jumping to his feet beside him so often that he looked as though he were performing some sort of bizarre dance. When Cornelius Fudge himself arrived, Percy threw a jealous look at Harry, whom Cornelius Fudge had greeted like an old friend, shaking Harry's hand in a fatherly manner and asking how he was before introducing him to the wizards on either side of him.
"Ah, there you are Lucius!" Fudge exclaimed.
Hermione stopped mid-sentence and turned her attention to Fudge, taking Cedric by surprise and prompting him to do the same. His jaw set almost defensively at the sight of the Malfoy family edging along the second row to three still-empty seats right behind the twins.
Cedric's hand went to Hermione's arm, whether in an instinctive show of protection or solidarity, she wasn't sure.
"Ah, Fudge," said Mr. Malfoy, holding out his hand as he reached the Minister of Magic. "How are you?"
"Oh, counting the minutes until someone catches that bloody snitch to be frank," he said in an undertone before clearing his throat and plastering on a smile, "Allow me to introduce you to Mr. Oblansk — Ob — Mr. — well, he's the Bulgarian Minister of Magic, and he can't understand a word I'm saying anyway, so never mind. And — you know Arthur Weasley, I daresay?"
There was a strained silence as Mr. Weasley and Mr. Malfoy fixed each other with cold glares and Harry, Ron, Ginny and Hermione vividly recalled the last time they had met face-to-face: Flourish and Blotts bookshop when they had all but dueled it out. Mr. Malfoy's cold gray eyes swept over Mr. Weasley, and then up and down the row.
"Good lord, Arthur," he said softly. "Did you have to sell your house to get seats in the Top Box? I wouldn't have thought it'd fetched this much."
Fudge, who wasn't listening simply prattled on, "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 returned to Hermione, who returned his glared coldly. His calculating gaze traveled across her face then over to Cedric, who's gray eyes had gone quite flinty, then down to where his hand was resting on Hermione's arm. They all knew exactly what was making Mr. Malfoy's lip curl like that. However, under the gaze of the Minister of Magic, Mr. Malfoy didn't dare utter a word against the blood-traitors before him. He nodded sneeringly to Mr. Weasley and continued down the line to his seats. Draco shot Harry, Ron, and Hermione a contemptuous look, then settled himself between his parents.
"Slimy gits," Ron muttered as he, Harry, Hermione and Cedric turned to face the field again.
A few minutes later Mr. Diggory appeared in the Top Box and, upon spotting his son and Hermione sitting beside each other conversing animatedly remarked quietly to Arthur, "Knew he'd end up with your lot. He seems very taken with Miss Granger, doesn't he? I don't think I've seen him quite this happy since - Well, not for some time. Not about anything other than Quidditch that is."
"Yes, and it seems the feeling is mutual," Arthur said with a small smile.
The next moment, Ludo Bagman had charged into the box to welcome the crowd rambunctiously.
The crowd screamed and clapped wildly. Thousands of flags waved in the wind, their national anthems clashing together with the rest of the racket. The huge blackboard opposite them was wiped clear of its last message and now displayed BULGARIA: 0, IRELAND: 0.
"Now, allow me to introduce — the Bulgarian National Team Mascots!"
The right-hand side of the stands, a solid block of scarlet, roared its support.
"I wonder what they've brought," said Mr. Weasley, leaning forward in his seat as he quickly polished his glassed on his robes. "Aaah! Veela!"
"What are veel — ?"
"Oh, boy," Hermione and Ginny said in unison and Mr. Diggory smiled at them amusedly from behind them.
"'Oh, boy', indeed," he said with a quiet laugh.
The boys glanced down at the pitch and saw a group of women gathered there. Cedric looked over at the three of them in confusion, "Am I missing something?"
He had his answer when the veela started dancing and every bloke around them began to act very strangely indeed. They seemed to go into a trance, smiling mindlessly, and then...
"Harry! Get down!"
Cedric's eyes snapped to Hermione in confusion and shot out of his seat along with her in alarm. Harry was standing up, one of his legs resting on the wall of the box, looking ready to take a flying leap out of the top box. Hermione had sprung out of her seat and caught him around the middle to pull him back into his seat and Cedric jumped up to help her with the now struggling boy.
Beside them, Mr. Weasley and Ginny were faced with a similar struggle with Ron, who was poised in a way that looked as though he were about to dive off of a springboard. They were having a hell of a time of it, too. Ron was struggling twice as much as Harry and had a good five inches and twenty pounds on him as well. When Ron managed to elbow Mr. Weasley in the stomach, Mr. Diggory intervened and, between the three of them, pinned Ron back into his seat.
The music stopped. Harry and Ron stopped struggling, though they still had rather vacant looks on their faces. Angry yells were filling the stadium. The crowd didn't want the veela to go.
The sudden lack of Harry's opposing momentum sent Cedric and Hermione stumbling back into a seat. Cedric fell into Hermione's chair while the girl in question landed squarely in his lap as Harry tumbled at their feet.
"How many more times are we going to end in some variation of this position today?" Cedric asked with a breathless laugh.
"I don't know, but if it keeps up, I'll be expecting dinner," Hermione replied wryly as she got off him. Cedric chuckled lightly as they helped a still dazed Harry to feet.
Ron, meanwhile, was absentmindedly picking off and shredding the shamrocks on his hat. Mr. Weasley, smiling in amusement, leaned over and tugged the hat out of his hands.
"You'll be wanting that," he said, "once Ireland's had their say."
"Huh?" said Ron, staring openmouthed at the veela, who had now lined up along one side of the field.
Hermione laughed and easily tugged Harry back into his seat beside her, "Oh, honestly."
"Oi, how come you weren't affected!" George shouted over at Cedric. Hermione looked over at him curiously as well.
Cedric looked perplexed and shrugged, "Dunno!"
"Veela don't affect those who have formed an attachment to someone!" Amos shouted with a pointed look toward Hermione.
"Three guesses who!" Ginny said archly, and there was no doubt who she was referring to.
Hermione smiled and shook her head as if to dismiss Ginny's romantic notions, yet Cedric made no attempt to deny the obvious insinuation and looked over at her seriously, "Only need one."
She looked over at him in surprise, but he only smiled and took her hand. She smiled softly back at him, that curious look back in her eye.
"And now," roared Ludo Bagman's voice, "kindly put your wands in the air...for the Irish National Team Mascots!"
A great green-and-gold comet came zooming into the stadium. The crowd oooohed and aaaaahed, as though witnessing a fireworks display. The balls of light merged, forming an immense, shimmering shamrock, which rose up into the sky and soared over the stands. Something like golden rain seemed to be falling from it —
"Excellent!" yelled Ron as the shamrock soared over them, and heavy gold coins rained from it, bouncing off their heads and seats. Squinting up at the shamrock and risking a black eye, they realized that it was actually made up of thousands of tiny bearded men with red vests, each carrying a lamp of gold or green.
"Leprechauns!" said Mr. Weasley over the tumultuous applause of the crowd, many of whom had started brawling and rummaging around under their chairs to claim the gold.
A moment later the two teams were introduced, the Quaffle was thrown and the game began.
Hours later, the scoreboard was flashing BULGARIA: 160, IRELAND: 170 across the crowd, who didn't seem to comprehend what had just happened. Then, slowly, as a storm rolling across a loch, the thunder from the Ireland supporters erupted into screams of delight.
"IRELAND WINS!" Bagman shouted, who like the Irish, seemed to be stunned by the sudden end of the match. "KRUM GETS THE SNITCH — BUT IRELAND WINS — good lord, I — I don't think anyone could have predicted this!"
"Vell, ve fought bravely," sighed a gloomy voice behind them. They looked around at the Bulgarian Minister of Magic.
"You — you speak English!" said Fudge, sounding outraged. "And you've been letting me mime everything all day!"
"Vell, it vos very funny," said the Bulgarian minister with a shrug. And with that, he turned to walk out of the box.