author's note: This is the chapter that was, originally, going to start an entire subplot, but I abandoned the idea at the last moment. If the chapter seems to be missing something, that might be it. I'd been planning it for almost a year by the time it came around to writing this chapter, and I realised...a week? before that I couldn't really explain how Clint Barton got onto the grounds of the Quidditch World Cup, and then I wondered whether movie-him was even with S.H.I.E.L.D. yet, and….

But, that was what it was going to be. Don't you think this 'fic has enough contrivances as it is?

Chapter Seventy-Eight: The Quidditch World Cup

Hermione, despite her lack of enthusiasm for quidditch, agreed to see the Quidditch World Cup for a number of reasons, among them the fact that she was friends with a bunch of quidditch maniacs, that her parents had insisted upon a respite from traveling the world (they'd been to Cornwall, Wales, and France; they deserved a break), and the fact that this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and they had prime seating.

She arrived the night before Harry did, which gave her some time to speak with Ginny. The poor girl reminded Hermione a bit of herself, first year, before The Troll Incident. Despite Ginny's passionate nature and confidence, she seemed to have trouble making friends; Hermione was aware of only one another female friend of Ginny's, some girl named "Luna", who wasn't even in the same House as Ginny. As they'd been childhood friends, Hermione assumed that "Luna" lived nearby.

But what Hermione was dying to discuss and what Ginny wanted to talk about were completely different. Ginny was already full of frenetic energy concerning the World Cup, rattling off all sorts of facts to Hermione the way that ordinarily only Hermione could rattle off information. But instead of hours dedicated to memorising textbooks, even when they were dull and boring, Ginny's database of facts were all about a subject that she considered immensely interesting, and Hermione rather dull.

If Hermione weren't best friends with Ginny's older brother, and with Ginny's crush, they likely would never have stricken up such a friendship. Then again…if Hermione weren't friends with Harry and Ron, she doubted she'd have survived the troll attack, and even had she, she'd still be the quiet wallflower in the corner, desperately memorising unimportant trivia with the fervour that gave it greater import than it could ever deserve. Once you started on hypotheticals, all standard metrics failed. Who knew how different things might have been…?

Of course, she still liked thinking about and talking about school. Her personal goal was to discover what new subjects Ginny was taking—she was starting the third year, after all. No matter which class Ginny took, Hermione could do the big sister thing and help her out a little.

But Ginny was far too fixated upon the coming quidditch match. Before Hermione had arrived, she'd known next-to nothing about it, but she'd made the mistake of asking, "Bulgaria versus Ireland, was it?" with such hesitance that Ginny must have known that Hermione was ignorant about this subject. She launched into a detailed list of the players, their past exploits, strengths, and weaknesses, pausing to note that Krum was a world-renowned Seeker despite still being school aged.

"He's not as good as Harry, though…but he's much better than Lynch. There's sort of national pride at play for all of us here in the U.K.…England got knocked out of the running early, you know, but with Ireland in the championship, it's almost as good."

She had a sort of absent, dreamy look to her, as if it mattered that Britain had lost, or about whoever this Krum was. Hermione, for once, felt completely out of her depth.

Thus, she took the direct route. "Ginny, what courses are you taking this year?" she interrupted some sort of argument concerning velocity and Firebolts to ask. Ginny gave her a horrified, wide-eyed look.

"Hermione, it's the middle of summer. We're on break. Why are you talking about school? I don't even want to think about school right now. Mum made sure I got my homework done a few weeks after school let out—you can't get anything past Mum, you know. Not only has she been to Hogwarts, but then you have everyone else…be surprised if she doesn't have all the homework assignments we're assigned for which year memorised. At least, with the constant change in professors, we don't ever have Defence homework…."

Ginny could get off-track with alarming speed.

"Ginny, you know I don't really get quidditch. I just get drawn into all the fervour that surrounds House matches…and then you, and the boys are on the team…. Besides, I've been dying to know ever since the end of last year…you could borrow some of my notes, even—"

Ginny wrinkled her nose. "I've seen your notes, Hermione. Whenever possible, they're needlessly complicated. Besides, I have a lot of other, more comprehensible people whose old notes I could borrow…that I could actually understand. Sometimes, Hermione, I wonder if you even speak English."

Hermione turned several shades of red at this. One of the drawbacks of being raised amongst so many boys was that Ginny was unjustly direct for a girl her age, and a bit less sensitive. Her assertiveness helped her to hold her own amongst her family, but pushed away prospective friends. Unfortunately for Hermione, she was used to worse behaviour. It did make her wonder what sort of person Luna was, though.

"I'll tell you what, Hermione," said Ginny, realising that she'd angered Hermione. "If you help me practice quidditch so that I can stay on this year's team, at least as reserve, I'll tell you what classes I'm taking."

She rolled her eyes as if this were quite the concession, but Hermione felt her heart beginning to race at the mere thought of taking to the air. She'd never liked flying…and she wasn't any good at it; she knew that.

"Ginny," she squeaked, sounding about five years old. "You know I can't fly"

Ginny shook her head and tossed her hair. "I've heard. That's okay, though. I'm a reserve seeker, in case anything happens to Harry, you know, which it always does. You can just throw golf balls…I've heard that's how Wood tried Harry out…."

Hermione blinked, her heart relaxing. That didn't sound too bad…but it was a bit of exertion for something she'd learn soon anyway, surely. Then again, Ginny was her friend…and Ron's little sister….

"Oh, fine, I'll help you for quidditch," she said, in her sensible, sure-I'll-check-your-homework voice. She'd resent that task less if those whose homework she was checking were stupid, or something, and needed the help.

"It's a deal," said Ginny, eyes sparkling. "And I promise I'll go easy on the quidditch talk."

Many things could be said about the Quidditch World Cup. It could be said to be noisy, and crowded, and garish. "Subtle", however, it was not. It was no wonder that poor Mr. Roberts was suspicious. Harry grit his teeth and tried not to think about the damage the Obliviators were doing to his mind. Harry was even less tolerant of mind magic than he'd been before he'd known.

It was just as well that they had had to wake up as early as they had to reach the hill that had the portkey in time to arrive at the stadium (he was fairly sure that Mr. Weasley had elected to walk rather than drive to ensure that they'd be awake, by the time that they arrived; or maybe the Car had made too much of a scene last year, and Mrs. Weasley had put her foot down); it meant that Amos Diggory's exuberance over his son's skill stung less than it might otherwise have—he was not so arrogant or cocky (anymore?), but not so much humbler that he would graciously overlook someone making light of his failure at one of the few things he was good at. That the cause of his defeat in truth lay with the dementors, and what had resulted from even that brief exposure, just rubbed salt into the wound.

At least Cedric was a decent person. As he had in Harry's second year, when Hufflepuff House had been convinced that Harry was Slytherin's Heir (how long ago that seemed!), Cedric tried to silence his dad, but he had no authority over the man. He shot Harry quite a few apologetic and embarrassed looks, and his hands stayed stuck in his jeans pockets. By contrast, Ron looked ready to shoot lightning. The reminder of how near Harry had come to losing his soul was quite enough to push him to the edge, and a lack of sleep didn't help. Harry ended up grabbing hold of his arm, and yanking him away from Mr. Diggory.

Thankfully, the portkey was set to activate soon, and Mr. Weasley had an excuse to cut through Diggory's chatter to issue instructions. This was the first time Harry had ever used a portkey, which made the instructions necessary.

A means of traveling instantaneously across great distances using a physical object? Sounded a bit too Tesseract for him. This was the third kind of wizarding transport that he had encountered, and the first after acknowledging the truth. These two facts combined to ensure that Harry, almost on a whim, but more to spite the universe, opened his seventh sense as far as he could, determined to analyse the makeup of the spell, and see if he could modify or recreate it with the other kind of magic. It wasn't as if he were doing anything else.

It really was as if he were doing something else. There was an unpleasant dangling sensation to distract him, followed by that of being compressed into himself. He thought of Hermione's mention of mundum aperio and polystate matter, as he analysed the spell despite the distraction. It was hardly as great of a distraction as the mortal peril he'd been in at the end of second year, and he'd worked through that.

Unsurprisingly, portkeys functioned by isolating their…victims, compressing them into infinitesimal pieces, and then carrying the thus-lightened load to its intended destination, to which it was attached by a sort of invisible bungee cord

Hmm. He'd have to think about this one.

They had scarce arrived, and registered themselves at the campsite with Mr. Roberts, before Cedric, still looking ashamed and humble, dragged his father away at last, before some sort of fight could break out.

They'd helped Mr. Weasley set up the tents (Hermione was of the most use, here, as she had previous experience camping; he almost forgave her for nearly strangling him in her hug yesterday). Mr. Weasley had finally finished setting up the tents, although it was a team effort. He'd set to building a fire in the firepit, and playing with a box of matches. He sent Harry, Ron, and Hermione off for water. It struck Harry as a phenomenally bad idea to leave Mr. Weasley here to set everything on fire. Muggle children were told not to play with matches, but wizard children clearly weren't.

Harry bit his cheek to keep from making some sort of comment about Ron and his dad having a tendency towards pyromania or setting things on fire in common.

They wandered the campsite, meeting friends and acquaintances—Neville, Seamus, and Oliver Wood. Unfortunately, they also came across Malfoy. Apparently, he had prime tickets, too. Just what Harry wanted, to spend the entire quidditch match with Malfoy, trying to not kill him.

-l-

The match wasn't until the next day, perhaps to give everyone time to arrive. This was when Percy, Charlie, Bill, and Sirius finally showed up. Sirius managed to look incredibly casual, as usual, which seemed to irritate those who weren't terrified of him. They might also have been reacting to his decidedly muggle apparel.

"Hey, Harry. How was your first experience with camping and portkeys, kiddo?" he said, rushing over to crush Harry into a hug. Harry didn't flinch, this time. He was surprised to find that he'd missed Sirius, even for that brief span of time. He wondered how Sirius might have reacted to Amos Diggory's bragging. Probably just as well he hadn't been there—Harry could only hold back one rash and violent individual at a time, and only he could restrain Thor. Still, it made him smile to think that Sirius would most likely have had an amount of paternal outrage at the way Diggory had been speaking.

"It was fine," Harry said, smiling back. "I don't know why you had to stay back, and miss it."

Sirius just laughed. "I have a bit of a surprise for you, is why. If you're ready, Arthur, let's go take our seats."

Only Percy seemed wary of Sirius as they wandered over to the stadium, climbing the steps upon steps leading high above the makeshift pitch. Just what happened to these temporary pitches after the World Cup was over? Did the muggle-repelling charms remain on them? Were they disassembled, and the same pitch was put together year after year at a myriad different locations? If anyone knew, it would probably be Hermione.

They made their way to the Top Box, and Harry did a double take at the unexpected glimpse of bright pink.

"Wotcher, Harry," said Tonks, sounding far too bright and chipper for the early hour. She was smiling brightly, ignoring the way the Malfoys' noses were turned up in disgust. Sirius had done some explaining, but Harry couldn't see how Tonks could possibly be related to Narcissa Malfoy—let alone Draco Malfoy.

"I did say that you'd see me again," came the hoarse voice of Remus Lupin. Harry smiled and nodded at him. "Have you had a good summer, Harry?"

"Of course," Harry said, beaming, now. It was hard not to, when he compared this last summer to every one that came before it. Sirius ran his hands through his hair in a gesture that Harry knew signified despair. Harry could feel the heat of Ron's disapproving glare without needing to turn to look.

"Professor Lupin?" asked one of the Twins, as if Remus were a mirage.

"Hello, again, Fred," said Remus, with a cordial smile. "It's always good to see a friendly face. Come in, come in, sit down, I don't think anyone will mind."

"Malfoy will," someone muttered from behind Harry. It was either Ginny or Hermione.

To Harry's lasting surprise, he didn't think of Malfoy's odious presence once during the entire game.

Perhaps that was owing to the early distraction of the Bulgarian team's mascots, a dance by a troupe of magical creatures from Bulgaria known as veelas. To all outward appearances, they were beautiful women (later on, they reverted to a more avian form, when angered, throwing fireballs and hissing; it was nasty).

All of the boys stared, as if enraptured, at that long, flowing blonde hair, each of the girls stunning in her own right, inhumanly beautiful, for human they weren't. But there was also a sort of disconnect for Harry and Ron, owing to many years of learnt self-control, perhaps, or a natural shield against the supernatural glamour of the creatures. Gods were not supposed to be vulnerable to such superficial things as inferior systems of magic. Ron gripped the seat in front of him so hard that it began to crack. He kept glancing at Hermione, but didn't seem aware of it.

Harry, feeling like Odysseus, stuffed his fingers in his ears, just in case (he was feeling some sort of pull; he wasn't immune) and shoved up an occlumency wall for good measure. A glance behind them showed that Malfoy Senior had his hand clamped tight around his son's arm, and some sort of protective bubble around his head. Not the bubblehead charm…something that blocked out noise.

Harry wondered what manner of defences you were supposed to use against veelas, and turned to Professor Lupin. He very nearly started at that feral snarl across his kindly ex-professor's face. There was something inhuman, almost, about it, teeth bared, lips drawn way back, eyes narrowed, nose crinkled, a real snarl. The sort you saw on wolves.

Then he noticed the incongruity of the scene, with all at peace about him, and Remus himself clutching a hand tight in his own, not seeming aware that he was doing so, not seeming aware that that hand was even there.

Its owner sat rigidly still, as if afraid to move a muscle. She seemed to be holding her breath. There was a vague sort of smile on her lips.

Hmm.

Professor Lupin seemed distracted, but Harry slunk down in his seat and made his way back to where Tonks and Remus were sitting, Tonks still as if she had been petrified, Remus clutching her hand so hard it turned white. Dared he to interrupt?

He shoved his fingers further into his ears, and realised that no, indeed, he daren't interrupt. He waited, instead, glancing now and then at the dancing veelas, and periodically scanning the crowd, especially those in the Top Box. The Bulgarian Minister seemed to have some sort of antidote to the veelas' hypnotic effects. Fudge's eyes held a glazed look, but he managed to stay seated. Sirius seemed to be enduring through a combination of sheer willpower and occlumency, much as Harry himself. Only Bartemius Crouch seemed unaffected; even Ludo Bagman was puffing himself up more than usual. Crouch might even have looked slightly bored. Were they sure he wasn't a particularly cunning muggle?

Harry sought for every sort of distraction he could, to resist the pull. He noticed that only the boys seemed to feel that pull, and the adults seemed less affected. The girls looked slightly disgusted, or petulant, sulking at the veelas' display of skill—or at the boys' reactions. Ginny was glaring down at them, arms crossed, muttering under her breath.

The song ceased, and Harry nearly sagged with relief. Ron's grip on the chair in front of him came away with pieces of chair attached. Remus's snarl relaxed into a neutral expression, and Sirius stopped looking mildly bored (his way of showing that he was interested in the proceedings).

"Hello, Professor Lupin," Harry said, watching as Remus jerked back into awareness.

"Harry?" he asked, sounding as if perhaps he were now seeing things. "What are you doing out of your seat?"

Harry's gaze flicked around the Top Box, where Malfoy Senior was still restraining his son, Sirius had relaxed, glancing around the crowd as Harry was, and accidentally catching his eyes. He leant back in his seat, head tilted almost straight up, towards the sun. He'd resumed seeming not to pay any attention. Oh, well.

"I just had a quick question," Harry reassured Professor Lupin with a smile. "I just wanted to know how you dealt with veelas."

That was a highly ambiguous statement, if ever there was one.

Activity in the Top Box was still building up for the match. If Harry wanted to receive his explanation it was either ask now, or wait until after the match. Who knew where his mind would be, then?

Professor Lupin hesitated, and seemed to realise that he was holding Tonks's hand. He set it aside gently, completely missing Tonks's disappointed pout.

"Ah, well, Harry, I'm sorry to say it's not something that can be taught. You'll develop a resistance, too, over time—teenagers are particularly susceptible because of hormones, and how new they are to the idea of romance."

He was speaking very quietly, although the match hadn't begun yet. He clearly realised that he was not the most popular individual in the Top Box. Bartemius Crouch seemed to quite deliberately overlook Remus as he shuffled back out of the stands. From what Harry had gathered, despite being one of the key creators of this event, Crouch was fond of neither quidditch nor heights. Which was reasonable, Harry supposed, but it would be tedious if he would keep coming in and out of the stands all game.

As it turned out, this was Crouch's last exit. The rest of the quidditch match was to be completely devoid of those kinds of distractions.

"But how?" asked Harry, into a slightly prolonged pause.

"It's nothing you can learn," Remus protested. "It's only…sure, they look and sound angelic…you would think they were the most beautiful women in the world…but I've seen pictures of what they really look like, and more than that…." He paused, as if thinking hard about what he was going to say, or how he was going to say it. "I think something about them warns me away. I think my…lycanthropy, has a sort of…feel for magical creatures. A sort of sense for them, I suppose, but not one of the usual five senses—I don't have a more developed sense of sight, or hearing, or even of smell. It's as if I have another sense that can detect magic—"

"A sort-of seventh sense," Harry interjected, in his most matter-of fact voice, taking pity on Remus foundering.

"Wh—what?" asked Remus Lupin, paling, clutching the seat upon which he sat. Tonks was staring straight ahead at the proceedings, and seemed unaware of his strange reaction.

"A seventh sense," Harry repeated, bewildered, unable to guess why Remus was behaving thus at all. He hadn't expected to provoke any sort of reaction from him. "Not hearing or sight, not taste, smell, or touch…."

"A sixth sense, then," Sirius abruptly interjected. Harry saw that Sirius's gaze was now fixed upon him, too, expression unreadable.

"Well, no," said Harry, frowning. "It's just what I'd call it—a sort of sense for magic. Even muggles have a sixth sense—some of them. It's why there are ghost stories spread across the muggle world. But that seventh sense would concern purely magical phenomena—their structure, their inherent nature…you know."

Sirius and Remus exchanged a look that Harry couldn't decipher. It was very Twins-conversing-telepathically, the sort of silent conversation that comes of knowing another person very well, usually restricted only to siblings, lovers, and close friends. He granted they fell in the last category, despite their decade at odds with one another.

He wondered just what he was missing, and why they were acting so strange. He'd expected this behaviour to stop once Sirius had been cleared, and was active in his life at long last. Instead, now both of them looked rather pale and drawn, as if trying to solve one of life's great mysteries, under penalty of death, should they fail.

Harry's brow furrowed, and he folded his arms, almost unaware that he was doing so. But he received no further clues to their strange behaviour.

"Yes, well," Remus coughed. "I suppose I'll use your term. The curse inside me recognises the inherent danger of the veela, and helps to ward away their effects. It's not something I can teach you, as you can see."

Harry found himself questioning whether most people—even most wizards, had seventh senses that they could use to analyse magic.

Maybe they didn't. Maybe that was what made Sirius and Remus suspicious, or whatever. Perhaps it was a sign of a dark wizard, or something, as parseltongue had been. It wasn't as if he'd ever mentioned this seventh sense to Ron or Hermione…perhaps it was rare, and inexplicably considered dangerous. The Wizarding World seemed to declare the randomest things dangers. Perhaps he should watch what he said more…but he liked to pretend, at least, that Sinus and Remus would accept him no matter what—as Ron would—although he had no justification for believing this, as he did with Ron.

Perhaps he should keep more of his thoughts and terms himself.

He was positively brooding by the time the match finally started, but he quickly found himself drawn in, forgetting about Professor Lupin's strange behaviour as he followed the action with his eyes (and occasionally his omnioculars, which were excellent for labeling what techniques were being used, if nothing else).

He was as surprised as anyone else at the way the match ended—and he was quite impressed with both teams, in spite of what he'd heard earlier abut the strengths and skills of each team. Krum was quite the impressive quidditch player…he wondered who was better, he or Krum, if it came right down to it….