Anyway, she hadn't missed much. The rest of the team were sitting in the common room, mostly just talking about the upcoming tournament, teams and even individuals who might be a problem — everyone but Liz and Katie had been on the team for the winter tournament, so they'd all been to at least one before, had watched recordings of duels they'd missed in their downtime. None of this was new, just rehashing shite they'd already talked about out of a combination of nervousness/excitement and just having nothing better to do at the moment.
There were a lot of teams in total, so it was hard to say for sure, but the consensus — not just from them, but also from sport magazines or whatever that'd commented on it — was that Beauxbatons's Sirius team was the favourite to top the ranking again this time. (Beauxbatons had named their duelling teams after the brightest stars in the night sky, because they were dorks like that.) The schools in any country that had a significant population of veela and lilin (Aquitania, Sicily, Illyria, Greece) always had an advantage, because they were allowed to use their natural fire magic stuff (with some limitations), but the Aquitanians had a bonus advantage in that some of their old noble families were still around — most ICW countries who were welcoming of veela/lilin citizens also tended to have killed all their nobles back in the Revolution, Aquitania was really the only exception.
Rich families had the resources to give their kids private tutoring, and old noble families tended to have weird martial traditions and shite — it was a bit silly how many Wizengamot families still taught everyone how to fight with a sword growing up — so their kids tended to do disproportionately well in the student duelling tournaments. Aquitania was a little weird, politically, in that they used to be a shitty aristocratic country like magical Britain, but had transitioned to a far more democratic system peacefully, in a slow process through the late 18th and much of the 19th Centuries. The old noble families didn't really have political power anymore (aside from some of them still being stupid wealthy), but they were still around, doing their thing. Aquitania also had a very large veela/lilin population, to the point that Beauxbatons, the primary Aquitanian school, had the single largest veela/lilin student population in all of Europe. So, yeah, they tended to do well.
(Liz noticed most of her teammates seemed to be kind of racist about veela and lilin, but she was used to that by now — magical Britain continued to be terrible.)
In particular, an Aquitanian student called Artémisia Cæciné was widely considered to be the shining star of the junior division — she was undefeated in singles matches through all four tournaments she'd been in so far, and her trio and her team were right at the top too. (She was in Beauxbatons's Sirius team, naturally.) This was her fifth and final tournament — she would have taken her Competencies just last month — and the sport magazines and such had made a big deal about her, she'd had this big profile in the issue Liz had seen, because if she kept it up she might break the record for the longest undefeated streak just this week. The standing record had been set by Cassie Lovegood back in the 70s, some commentators explicitly compared Cæciné to her, which wasn't at all intimidating. Though Cassie Lovegood wasn't also a mind mage — the talent had activated at some point between the summer and winter tournaments last year, though she hadn't used it much in fights so far, not very sportsman-like — which made her even more dangerous, nobody really doubted that she'd clear the bracket for the fifth time and break that record.
Liz and Katie didn't have to worry about facing her in singles — they'd be paired up with contestants with similar rankings, and since it was their first tournament they wouldn't be nearly high enough — but they might in teams and trios. (Hogwarts had the fancy noble family advantage and took their OWLs a year later, both their teams were high in the rankings but the junior one especially so.) If they were unlucky enough to end up in a fight with Cæciné, their strategy would be to knock her out immediately — even if not paying enough attention to the other people on her team meant they lost a person or two in the process, Cæciné was just too dangerous to leave alive (metaphorically). Liz in particular was supposed to go straight for her, since she was the only one who stood a chance of dealing with the mind magic. (She hadn't even been an active mind mage for a whole year yet, so Liz didn't expect it would be too much of a problem, but since Cæciné was so famously skilled Liz kept that thought to herself. Didn't want them to think she was just bragging or something.) There were a few other individual competitors and teams they talked about, but Cæciné and the Aquitanians were the big ones.
It occurred to Liz that, since Hogwarts was one of the highest-ranked schools, the other teams were probably having similar meetings about them. She wondered what they were saying.
Anyway, they'd been sitting talking for maybe as long as fifteen minutes before a pair of people showed up, a man and a woman. The man sharply clapped his hands as they stepped into the room, drawing their attention to them. They were wearing matching uniforms in black, blue, and red, trousers, long-sleeved shirts, and vests — the sleeves of the shirts were rather loose and billowy, looking absurdly like the sort of shite fancy poets or whatever in old paintings would wear, but Liz was used to mages dressing funny by this point. In accented but passable English, he introduced himself as Ghiţă and the woman as Noemi, they'd be showing them around. After the pair attached names to faces — Noemi had a list — Ghiţă chirped, "Good, then. I'm sure you're all hungry by now, and there is much to get to, so come come."
They were led back downstairs and into the Curtea, squeezing through alongside another team leaving for their own tour — by the chatter Liz overheard, from a German school. (She understood the language just fine, which continued to be neat.) Once they were back in the big open 'courtyard', Ghiţă directed their attention down to the floor, at the wavy arrows worked into the tiles that Liz hadn't noticed the first time through. Their group followed the arrows, she was mostly sure the opposite direction than they'd come in from.
As they passed the stand in the middle, Ghiţă turned around to walk backward, pointing over at it. "The, ah, cafeneluţa you see here, this is open to all of you. There is coffee, and tea, and snacks, and some reading material if you're bored one evening. It is all free of charge, provided by the organisers — but they can cut you off if you are misusing it. They will start running at about six in the morning and shut down shortly after midnight. If it is between meal times and you want more than the snacks here, you can ask and they will pass the request on." Spinning on his heel back forward, waving over his shoulder, "The meals you will have over this way, come."
Straight across from the stairs they'd entered by, far at the opposite end of the Curtea, there was another exit, large double doors allowing plenty of space for many people to pour through all at once. The hallway was rather plain, more of that funny blue stone, the light soft and even and uniform, seemingly shining from nowhere at all. They passed by several double-doors on either side, all of them hanging open, revealing seemingly identical hallways beyond — each of the doors had large roman numerals in gold set into the floor in front and the walls to either side, ascending as they continued down the hall. "These doors lead to the arenas," Noemi called back to them, raising her voice a little to get over the chatter of the other teams passing through the hallway. "We will see these later."
How many arenas did they have? Liz realised there were plenty of schools in the ICW — there were, what, thirty-five magical countries total in Europe, and each had at least one school, which made seventy teams at minimum but actually way more than that — so to cram all the duels they needed to get to in a week they would have multiple going on at once. Even without having full brackets with everyone in them, there were just too many people here for that to be practical, there'd actually be multiple brackets going on, it was a whole complicated thing. It looked like the numbers at the very end were XI and XII, which, Jesus, quite a set-up they had here...
They'd probably cheated, and used the wards to duplicate a single arena in expanded space. Actually building a dozen of the things, in the middle of a major muggle city, seemed too impractical — especially considering they'd only need this many whenever Romania was hosting an event like this, which probably only happened once a decade, if even that often. Duplicating them out would be difficult, yes, but not impossible, and rather easier to pull off if they didn't need it to be permanent. Liz had the feeling most of this stuff wouldn't even be here a month or two from now.
At the opposite end of the hall was another set of doors, this one leading into a rather narrower hallway — they were forced to slow down a little, the traffic in the halls bottlenecking. The minds pressing in on Liz from all directions were a bit much, but nobody was paying her any particular attention, and thankfully nobody was staring at her arse this time, so she wasn't complaining. There was a sudden change in building materials past the doors, the floor carpeted in black and blue, the walls panelled in light wood, glowing warmly in the directionless light. They were at an intersection, a hallway continuing on forward as well as left and right, signs posted to both sides. Drifting a bit to the left, their guides paused for a moment for all of them to catch up, Ghiţă pointed at one of the signs. "The hallways are numbered in order, but if you get lost there are signs at every corner. We're in B.-Three today, so we're going this way."
They continued down the hallway to the left, passing through a couple more intersections before turning to the right. Liz didn't see a sign anywhere telling them what hallway this was, but she was close enough to the wall to see the directions posted at the corner, belatedly spotting the big B with an arrow pointing ahead. This hallway was identical to the previous, but this time with doors along both sides, Ghiţă pulled one open and waved them through ahead of him. Again, Liz felt a tingle of magic as she passed through the threshold — by how close the doors were and how large the room inside, the wards must be doing something.
This was definitely a dining room. It was built the same as the hallways outside, with blue tile floors and the walls done in wood, but there were lights hanging from the ceiling — everlit candles framed by angular fixtures of dyed glass, sending chinks of coloured light at random through the room — and there were more of the magical windows along the walls like the ones in the grand staircase before. Some of the windows showed outside, what Liz assumed was a view of Jassy here and a mountain lake there, but most of them were of what had to be the arenas upstairs — there were a few people milling around, but the stages were empty, nothing going on at the moment. There were a pair of rectangular tables, made out of the same plain tan wood as the walls, flanked on either side by matching padded chairs.
There were already people here, sitting waiting at one of the tables — Liz counted seven kids and four adults, two of them in the same uniform as their guides, presumably another team and their chaperones. The guides chattered at each other in Romanian for a moment, before Ghiţă said, "Ah, this here is one of the Saxon teams, from Public Academy Bremen. Everybody say hello."
That was kind of a silly thing to ask, since nobody spoke each other's languages, but most of them spoke enough French for a quick greeting at least, and obviously just a wave was easy enough. Liz was smirking a little despite herself, amused with Ghiţă's politic translation of the Saxon school's name. From her research into schools to maybe transfer to, she knew that that "Public" in the original language was some inflection of gemeenschop — the "Public" Academies in Saxony had been founded during Grindelwald's government, as part of their educational reforms. Liz guessed just out and calling it Communal Academy Bremen, especially talking to British kids, might have been, well. Still funny.
While Ghiţă did a little spellwork, expanding the empty table out and conjuring a few extra chairs, muttering to the other guides in Romanian, Noemi turned back to their group. "During your stay, you will all be taking meals in one of these rooms here — you will find which rooms you are to go to is in your schedule for the day, which will be delivered to your room the night before. There will be three other teams with you, different teams each time, all in your division. You don't need to all sit with your teams, you may mix around as you like, get to know each other a little. What is being served that day will also be in your schedule, if you have special requests you can tell the workers at the dormitory or the coffeestand, and they can pass it on to the kitchens. There is only so much they can do, but they will try to help as they can.
"Before we start, does anyone here have anything to tell the kitchens about? restrictions, allergies?" There was a brief pause, before Brendan raised his hand. "Ah, Brendan, yes?"
"Yes. I'm Jewish."
"Ah!" Noemi chirped, smiling. She said something in a language Liz didn't recognise, just a short sentence, Brendan said something back. "Okay, this is easy, let me just..." Noemi quick jotted something down in the notebook she was carrying, then reached for her wand. "The obvious things, you know these of course, but for the more, hmm, uncertain ones, there will be..." She conjured a dish, turned it so they could see — it was mostly white, with a sort of plaited design around the rim in black and yellow. "The ones it is hard to tell, if it is safe it will be on one of these. See here?"
Brendan leaned forward a little to get a better look at the design, just for a second before standing back again. "Got it. Thanks."
Dispelling the dish with a flick of her wrist, Noemi said something else in that other language before switching back to English. "Anybody else? How about you, Elizabeth?"
Not expecting to be singled out, Liz twitched a little. "No? I don't like sweet things, I guess."
Liz didn't really expect Noemi to make a note of that, but she did anyway, letting out a little hum. "That is all?"
"Um, yes?"
"Alright. Everyone go ahead and sit down, it should only be a few more minutes for the other two teams to get here, and then we can have lunch. Keep close together, please, so you can all hear us if you have questions."
There was a little bit of a rush to seats then, closer friends aiming to end up next to each other — or to avoid sitting next to Severus, which continued to be funny. This time Liz was the one taking one for the team, Severus had slipped into one of the chairs on the end, Liz taking the one next to him. Katie followed soon after, sitting on Liz's other side, which was very much what Liz had intended to happen — she'd rather not be on the other end of their group, where she'd have to deal with people she didn't even share a language with, and if she had to be stuck between two people here she'd prefer they be Severus and Katie.
"What was that about? Did I just get mistaken for Muslim again?"
A little twitter of amusement in her head, Katie said, "That something that happens a lot, is it?"
"Well, not a lot. A couple times, in muggle Paris."
"Mm. I'm pretty sure it's this that's doing it." She gave the edge of Liz's scarf a tug.
...She still thought that was weird — she didn't even cover her hair properly, and wasn't that the whole point of the thing Muslims did? Liz was hardly an expert — she didn't even know that much about the religion she'd supposedly been raised with, to be honest — but she thought so?
"A fair number of Christians in the east have a similar practice as well," Severus said. "Christianity is rather more common among mages on the Continent, especially in the south and east, though I believe particular dietary restrictions are more limited than they can be for Jews and Muslims."
Across the table from Katie, Brendan said, "Some Jews do it too. Where did you think the Christians and the Muslims got it from?" That did make sense when Liz thought about it. She'd just never thought about it.
"That is true, though I believe the practice is somewhat rare outside of the Near East. In any case, it was not unreasonable for Noemi to ask."
Fine then, whatever. Not that she really cared if random people thought she was Muslim, or some weird kind of conservative Christian or whatever. She just thought it was weird. "Right. What are the food things Jews aren't supposed to have, anywy? I've heard about that before, you know, I just don't know anything about it."
With a flicker of confusion, Brendan's glanced at Severus, just for a second — probably thinking it was odd that she didn't know any of this, since she lived with Severus. Liz took that as confirmation that Brendan and Severus were related somehow. She had known that already, of course, his mother being a Prince and everything, but Brendan wouldn't have any reason to assume Severus was Jewish otherwise. He did hesitate for a moment, but he did explain, since it wasn't like they had anything better to talk about.
And it was a good thing he did. Sometimes their duelling practices went late, and when they did they'd send someone off to the kitchens for food — Liz had never been sent yet, but if she had one of the things she might have grabbed were these sausage buns the elves made, and apparently Jews couldn't have pork. Their dried beef sandwiches, which were excellent, were also out, because they had cheese and butter in them. (Seemed like a weird rule to her, the meat and dairy thing, but religion was often weird, so whatever.) Besides those couple rules nothing else would be a problem, since they only rarely had shellfish at Hogwarts, and they followed most of the other rules by default — not specifically so Jews could eat it, it just worked out that way. (Though the elves did keep track of certain things to do with preparation and whatever, which was specifically for Jewish students, but they hadn't even been told to, the elves just considered it basic hospitality.) Liz would have felt like an arse if she'd been sent off and came back with food one of them couldn't eat — she knew it always irritated her when people brought sweet snacks and drinks and stuff — so, noted.
Over the next several minutes, two more teams filtered into the room, first a school from Holland and then from the school in Paris. Liz noticed that a couple of the Dutch students were wearing robes — in a casual, summer style, but still robes — which were quite rare outside of Britain. (And also the eastern Mediterranean, supposedly, but theirs were different.) Then when they were told to sit the Dutch went right for the other half of their table, apparently not wanting to sit with the Saxons. Which, Liz might have expected that, honestly. Holland was a conservative country on the magical side, like Britain — not as backward as Britain, but they still had noble families and stuff, and had sided against Grindelwald's people and everything. Despite being a tiny country squeezed between Saxony and France, Revolutionary countries, they'd gotten through the war more or less unscathed...but that might have something to do with Britain posting a bunch of Hit Wizards there soon after the war started, seemingly trying to bait the Revolutionaries into giving them an excuse to join in. Liz had just started reading about this stuff recently, so she wasn't sure, but that's definitely what it sounded like to her.
(Of course, Britain got their excuse when French Revolutionaries followed a group of British mages supporting the domestic terrorists the French had been dealing with all the way into Brittany, which Britain called an invasion and blew up into a whole big thing, but whatever.)
So, yeah, given politics nonsense, it wasn't a surprise the Dutch went to sit with the British, and the French went with the Saxons. They had been on opposite sides of a vicious bloody war just a couple generations ago. Though, if they were splitting by the sides their people had been on in the Revolution, then Cynfelyn at least was sitting at the wrong table, but whatever.
Not long after the French arrived, there was a crackling shimmer of magic on the air, and then suddenly there was food on the table. Romanian food, it turned out, was a little weird. Most of it was at least sort of recognisable, even if she couldn't guess exactly what it was called. There was a soup nearby, Liz tried some of it and was immediately turned off by her first taste — it was unpleasantly sour, like something had gone off, or it had vinegar or something in it, it was weird. (She asked Severus, and apparently it was supposed to taste like that, just a thing they did in eastern Europe. Okay, then.) There was a stew-looking thing that looked fine enough, but she didn't trust it to not be nauseatingly sour, so she didn't bother. She tried to play it safe, with some beans and sausages...and then the sausages turned out so spicey they nearly brought tears to her eyes, for fuck's sake...
She figured it out, after a little bit of poking around. The sausages weren't that bad, once she got used to them — with a bit of sour cream or this odd soft salty cheese stuff to balance off the spiciness they were actually nice — and Noemi pointed out a plate of these pastry things, plăcinta, filled with cheese (different kind) and baked, which was pretty good, especially with the gravy from the beans. Katie pushed something on her plate, which looked gross to her — Liz didn't really like vegetables (because she was a child sometimes), and the thing was very green, just a little... Well, it looked like a leaf, rolled up around some kind of stuffing, didn't know what that was about. After a bit of badgering, she decided, fuck it, and it turned out surprisingly good — that was some kind of meat, and rice and eggs, and herbs and spices and shite, and she didn't know. Still bloody weird that they were stuffed leaves, but whatever.
Turned out, they had the Turks to blame for that — the name, sarmale, was a borrowing, the dish was one of the things the Ottoman Empire had left behind in eastern Europe. They were also responsible for the spices, brought up into Europe through their trade with India. It was pretty good, once she got used to it, but if there weren't plenty of sour cream and cheese around to balance it off her mouth might have been literally on fire by the time they were done.
If this was at all representative of what food was like in other places, now Liz entirely understood the jokes people made about British food being bland. She was trying not to notice how amused the locals seemed with their reactions.
Liz didn't talk much, squirrelled away on the end with Severus, the conversation she did pick up mostly just about the food and tournament stuff. A little introduction gossip, closer to where the teams met, stuff about what their schools were like. Liz could hear from here that a lot of the talk over at the other table was all in French — it seemed like the Saxons could speak it pretty well — and most of the Dutch spoke surprisingly good English. Liz guessed they were one of Britain's closest allies, but still, didn't see that coming. Smalltalk was terrible, and Liz would get annoyed very quickly being peppered with questions about Hogwarts or whatever, she was very relieved she'd gotten a spot all the way over here.
Though lunch could have been less annoying — someone pointed Liz out, and apparently the Dutch were all too familiar with the Girl Who Lived story, lots of whispering and staring, ugh. Liz was suddenly glad she hadn't put the Dutch school (there was only one, small country) on her list, if they were all going to be like this. So, not ideal, but she got through it without entirely hating the world and everyone around her, so it would have to do. Hopefully other schools weren't this stupid about it — the Saxons and the French weren't making a scene, but she didn't know if they'd even noticed...
Overall, they were in the dining room for maybe as long as an hour, their guides occasionally checking the time. Everyone had been done eating for a while, sitting and chatting aimlessly, when their guides finally got up, saying it was time to continue the tour. They didn't leave alone, Liz's team and the Saxons being led out together. They both sized each other up as they queued up to squeeze through the door — Liz noticed Brendan, Gladwin, and Cass giving the Saxons dirty looks, and she tried not to cringe at the feeling of eyes on her. The locals started leading them off, chattering along back the way they'd come. There were a couple introductions going on between the Britons and Saxons, especially Oz all smiles and shaking hands, but for the most part they kept separate.
They weren't even out of the wood-panelled, dining area place before a boy sidled up to Liz. He was about her age, she thought, or maybe a year older, but much taller than her, because bloody everybody was, dressed in very muggleish-looking slacks and tee shirt. "Lüdert Schröder," holding out a hand.
Well fine, she guessed they were doing this now. Reluctantly tolerating the handshake (didn't want to be too rude), "Liz Potter."
A shock of something cold in his head, he twitched back a little — subtle, and he was still smiling, a normal person might not notice but she was a cheater. "Oh, you're Dumbledore's girl," he muttered, in French.
She glared up at him. "I am not Dumbledore's girl. Bastard abandoned me with a shitty family and didn't once check up on me for a decade, so as far as I'm concerned he can go straight to hell."
Katie happened to be walking nearby, must have picked up enough to give a dark chuckle, undercut with a note of confusion, but Liz also caught a flash of surprise from Severus. If Liz had been thinking, she might not have responded at all — she just couldn't help it, the assumption that she was close with Dumbledore that fucking everyone made was just infuriating, especially with how fucking useless he'd been her whole life. So she hadn't been able to stop herself from going off at this random Saxon boy in perfectly fluent French, despite not having taken a single lesson in the language in her entire life, right in front of people who were completely aware of that fact. Oops?
Liz instinctively glanced toward Severus, nervous, but her attention was drawn back to Lüdert as he spoke, both hands raised defensively and his lips curling a little with a smirk. "Ah, my mistake, my mistake. I only heard— Well, you can imagine. Dumbledore isn't very popular in our country." No, Liz would guess he wasn't. "There was something about a custody hearing I saw in the papers, but they didn't publish many details — privacy concerns, you understand. I didn't hear anything about, well."
That Dumbledore had put her in an abusive home, he meant. "Yeah, apparently the French papers did the same thing. The British papers don't have any sense, of course, there was a big front-page story about it and everything."
Lüdert grimaced. "Eech, naturally. My sympathies."
"...Sure."
Despite the awkward start, a conversation got going around her smoothly enough, drawing in Katie and a couple of Lüdert's friends. Just basic polite normal person stuff, where they were from, what they did for fun, blah blah — since they were all here for a duelling tournament in the first place, there was at least one hobby they all had in common, so there was that. (Liz reached to adjust her scarf, but her hair was still held away from her skin, she must have been imagining the touch along her cheek and down her neck.) Of the three Saxons talking at them, Lüdert had the best French, and Katie's was kind of spotty — she had a very strong accent, and get caught on a word here and there, but could more or less follow along — so the conversation ended up being mostly monopolised by Lüdert and Liz. Which was a little irritating, because she'd rather not be stuck in this silly smalltalk nonsense anyway. It wasn't that bad, the Saxons seemed nice enough, and they weren't sticking their noses into her personal shite as much as random people back home tended to (because clearly the Girl Who Lived belonged to everybody, so her life was everyone else's business), but still. She could tolerate this, she guessed. Katie snarking at them every once in a while helped.
Severus's mind simmering with displeasure nearby did not help.
It took multiple reappearances of the phantom touching before it finally clicked what that was about — Liz was abruptly certain Lüdert was flirting with her. At least, she was pretty sure that was Lüdert looking at her, and he had been the one to walk up and start talking, so. Once the thought occurred to her, she tried to look in his mind to confirm it, but he smoothly pushed her mental fingers aside, and just kept chatting like nothing had happened. To be fair, nothing really had happened, it'd just been reflexive, she hadn't put that much force behind it. She was certain she could force her way in if she wanted to, but she assumed he'd be much less likely to brush that off without comment, and she didn't want to make a scene (especially with Severus right over there). Besides, it really wasn't that important that she know for certain.
Actually, now that the possibility had occurred to her, she thought she might be a little embarrassed it'd taken her so long to guess. He was being...really friendly, and in retrospect the comment about looking forward to seeing her on stage might have been a little suggestive. She could be terribly obtuse sometimes, okay, she just hadn't been looking for it. After a few seconds turning the thought over, Liz just shrugged it off — so long as he was being so subtle and polite about it, she didn't really care. The occasional brushes of that odd, warm, tingly feeling on her face or along her neck and shoulders was a bit uncomfortable, but it wasn't anything near as bad as when people kept staring at her bum, this was fine.
She was a little baffled that Lüdert was flirting with her, when Katie was right there — Liz tried not to notice, since they were on a team together and she didn't want to make it awkward, but Katie was really fit, it got distracting sometimes. But whatever.
Their group was led back into the previous hallway, led down one of the turns toward the arenas. (Arena V, though she assumed they were identical, so it hardly mattered.) There was another tingle of wards moving them around, before long they reached a waiting room of some kind — still in the blue and black and red that was everywhere down here, but the floor was carpeted, with comfortable-looking sofas and armchairs scattered about. There were more of those magical displays on the walls, showing the arenas overhead, from right by the stage... Actually, judging by the multiple angles she was getting of the same clump of teenagers led by a few people in the guides' uniforms, Liz was guessing these were all the same arena, presumably the one they were standing under right now. There was a little kitchen area over here, with cold cabinets filled with water and juice and stuff, and a single burner if they wanted to make tea or whatever — this shite they could just take, though, like with the coffee stand, they were warned there'd be consequences if they abused the privilege. The planners would try to keep them in the same arena if they had multiple duels in a row, so they didn't have to go very far, but that wouldn't always be possible, pay attention to your schedules, blah blah...
There were bathrooms in here, complete with showers, their group was split by sex so they could be shown around. Noemi was saying something about towels and soap and whatever, her counterpart presumably saying the same shite in Saxon nearby, but Liz wasn't listening — she didn't plan on using these showers anyway. They weren't quite as open as the ones in the changing rooms at the quidditch pitch, there were at least dividers between the stalls to give them some privacy, but not nearly enough for Liz, thanks. Once they were done with that, they were led up a flight of stairs onto the floor of the arena proper.
It was, in a word, big.
She was told that many professional duelling arenas were based off of old Roman amphitheatres. There was a lot of silly talk about this being due to a continuous tradition going all the way back to old gladiators or whatever, but that was nonsense — a lot of old Roman stuff had been copied during the Renaissance, most 'ancient' European magical traditions people boasted about actually came from that time. Liz wasn't an expert, but she didn't think they were that different than stadiums? There were only so many ways to seat a bunch of people to watch the same show, it kind of made sense that the same general idea would be invented more than once. Supposedly there were particulars of the old Roman style that were consciously copied (which might have something to do with all the arches and columns around), but Liz didn't know enough to tell what was old and what was modern.
The stairs led them up into a covered causeway surrounding the floor, with benches and shite against the back wall, every several metres a section was entirely enclosed — healers' stations, storage, entrances to maintenance stuff, whatever else. There wasn't a solid wall blocking them off from the arena proper, they streamed out around the pillars onto the reddish dirt. (Some kind of clay, supposedly chosen for being more or less magically-neutral and for traction.) A few stages had been built on the arena floor, elevated about Liz's head-height, made out of some kind of pale off-white, Liz couldn't see how many of them there were from here.
Looking around, it looked like the arena floor wasn't perfectly round, more of an oval, tiers of seats stretching up and out around them, everything made out of that same dark blue stone, decoration in red and gold here and there. There were different sections, the ones toward the front divided off from the others, in some areas with separate chairs, what might be tables and stuff (it was hard to tell from this angle). Probably for fancy rich people, and judges and commentators and the like, she would guess. There were more seats than Liz had expected, hundreds and hundreds, how many people did they expect to show up, exactly? No way would they ever fill up twelve of these things, Liz doubted there were enough mages in Europe for this to make any sense...
...but then, they probably didn't expect to. They just needed a bunch of them to fit in all the duels they had planned — Liz had the feeling the organisers expected the spectators to be running back and forth between the arenas too. The place was huge, but duelling was basically the biggest sport in the magical world (like football, but more violent), Liz didn't doubt they'd be able to fill one of these during big events, and she was pretty sure the other eleven were all duplicated anyway, so.
And apparently they were taking more shortcuts on the actually fitting all the duels in thing: there were eight stages in here, for singles matches, since they didn't need anything near the whole floor — the stages each had a letter on them, see this sign right here, just wait on the floor until your turn. Their guides said there was something on the wards, there would be commentators for each stage, and the amplification spells were keyed to each one, the spectators would hear only the commentary of the stage they were presently looking at, which was very neat. (She had absolutely no idea how the hell that worked, it was fascinating, Liz was temporarily distracted by runes dancing behind her eyes.) The arenas doing trios would have three stages (labelled A through C), but the team matches would be directly on the floor. There was some more babble about how the arenas were connected, how spectators would get from one to the other (assuring them that people here to watch them could theoretically catch all their matches), but Liz didn't catch most of that talk.
Partially because she didn't care that much, honestly, but partially because Severus sidled up to her, a swish of a wand surrounding them with a privacy paling. Liz guessed that's what she got for keeping to the edge of the crowd, he wouldn't have been able to isolate them so easily if she hadn't been awkwardly standing off by herself. "It appears you took it upon yourself to acquire French without my assistance."
Liz very carefully avoided thinking about any details related to that — Severus was much less nosey than she was, and didn't make a habit of watching her thoughts just because, but just in case. "Yes."
"Unless I am mistaken, you gave me your word you would not do so on your own."
"Then you are mistaken."
"Elizabeth—"
Swallowing down the nerves threatening to squeeze her throat, Liz insisted, "I promised I wouldn't try it until you said I was ready. I did not promise that I wouldn't do it without you once you did."
Severus immediately opened his mouth to respond, but then paused, a hot, sharp flash of something slicing through his head. One second passed, and then another, their Romanian guides in the near distance chattering on about something to do with the wards around the stages. Ooh, invisible spells (including mind magic) would be highlighted in real time for the audience, so they could better see what was going on, neat! Finally, Severus managed, "So you didn't. That is my mistake, Elizabeth — I could have been clearer in my intent. Subsuming such a large volume of information at once can be dangerous. I intended to be present, to help it go more smoothly and intervene in the event of a mistake."
"Then you should have said that."
"Yes, I should have. I apologise." Something in his head shifting, awkward, he cleared his throat. "I haven't noticed any obvious instability, though I haven't looked closely. Have you had any significant issues? blackouts, intrusive feelings or memories, distressing dreams, volatile magic?"
"Nope, I've been fine." (She was carefully not thinking about her over-channelling issues.)
"Very well." There was a brief pause, Severus's eyes on the guides babbling away but not really listening, cool, uneasy thoughts shifting in his head. Liz tried not to look nervous — which was bloody pointless, she didn't doubt he knew exactly what she was feeling anyway. (Though, she'd assumed Severus was able to feel people's attention on him too, so she guessed she really had no idea how much he picked up on a regular basis.) Just as their guides started waving them toward the edge of the arena floor, something about a demonstration, Severus finally spoke again. "If I learn that you have attempted apparation even once before I decide you are ready to do so unsupervised, we will be having a serious discussion about your independent study of magic."
That wasn't going to be a problem — honestly, she wasn't an idiot, she knew what splinching was. "I understand."
"Good." Severus dismissed the privacy paling with a flick of wandless fingers, and the conversation was over.
Liz let out a heavy sigh, almost shivering at the tension slipping out of her shoulders.
(She hadn't really gotten in trouble with Severus yet, she'd rather avoid that for as long as possible. It wasn't that she honestly thought he would hurt her or anything, she, just, the thought made her nervous.)
There wasn't actually a way up to the stands — the areas for competitors and for spectators were entirely separate, they'd need to go all the way back to the entrance to go from one to the other — so one of their guides conjured a flight of stairs instead, made of a sort of metal mesh, his fellows helping him expand it out and firm it up a little. The thing was a little rickety, clanging and shuddering under her boots, but it was stable enough, they gradually flowed up single file. Toward the back of the pack, by the time Liz got there the section they were being put in was almost full, people milling around and chattering. It was one of the sections Liz had spotted with separate chairs instead of rows of benches, and there really weren't enough for all of them, but there was plenty of room to stand around, so that was what they were doing.
The limited space meant they were packed rather closer together than Liz was comfortable with — she kept to the edge of the section, leaning against the railing separating this one from the benches next to it. She'd lost Katie and the others, a few Saxons getting between Liz and the rest of the team at some point while she'd been talking to Severus, but that was fine, she'd just loom over here by herself until they were leaving again. Looking around, there were rather more people up here than there were just in their two teams, perhaps by two or three times. They must have linked up with another group being given the tour, presumably the one they'd seen on the displays downstairs, but Liz hadn't been paying attention.
And also she didn't really care — too many minds buzzing around her for hours and hours without any opportunity to catch her breath for longer than the time it took to go to the loo, she was starting to get a headache. Liz could use a break. Maybe she'd read a book in bed for a bit before dinner, their rooms were warded and the team knew by now to leave her alone when she needed it...
After a couple minutes sitting around and waiting for something to happen, a pair of figures started walking across the dirt floor below, making for one of the stages. A pair of women, one tall and blonde and one shorter and black-haired, their clothes colourful against the backdrop of plain reddish-brown. Liz suspected, by the texture of the cloth, that the blonde woman was wearing denims...though they were pink, did they even make pink denims? While the pair of them, animatedly chatting with each other (though the sound didn't carry this far), sauntered off toward one of the stages, one of the local guides got their attention, his amplified voice saying they'd be given a demonstration, see how the wards worked for themselves. Some League duellists had been kind enough to help out with the tournament, so, they were about to get a show from Orsula Licitra and Cass—
Cassie Lovegood.
Liz wasn't the only person to jump at the name, whispers hissing around, which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. She was one of the most famous professional duellists in the world right now, and not just because she regularly topped events (though she did), but also running around the world hunting dragons and monsters and shite and banishing dementors and sometimes sticking her nose in bad situations, vigilante justice stuff, just generally being one of the biggest badasses in the world — Liz had read she'd once taken out an underground sex slavery outfit somewhere in Italy (Venice or Genoa, she forgot), single-handedly, because she'd had a couple weeks between events and she'd been bored! Learning their tour of the place was going to end in a show from Cassie Lovegood of all people was a hell of a thing to just drop on their heads without warning. There was a bit of shuffling, people moving to get closer to the front of their section so they could see better — and not just the British kids either, pretty much everyone — but Liz didn't want to force her way into the press, turned to sit down on top of the railing instead. Which worked well enough, she was out of the way and could see just fine from here. She didn't want to miss it, after all.
(Liz had that book co-written by Lovegood, after all, she'd learned a lot of spells from it and still flipped through it for advice. She was maybe a fan, a little bit.)
Lovegood was the blonde one, looking surprisingly normal, considering, just denims and a muggle-looking tee shirt — though, the colours were bright and weird, and where did she even get pink denims? was that something muggles did Liz just didn't know about? It was hard to tell from this distance, but guessing at scale as she climbed up the steps to the stage, Liz thought she was tall for a woman, and especially so for a pureblood. They tended to be tiny, but Liz suspected Lovegood was taller than Petunia. At least, Liz assumed she was a pureblood — her mother was an Ollivander, but the Lovegoods were Mistwalkers and nobody had any clue what the fuck went on with the Lovegoods in particular, they didn't even bother registering marriages with the Ministry. Liz was pretty sure they just didn't have any. (The Greengrasses were descended from an agricultural cult, but the Lovegoods were, ah, they were known for art and stuff these days, lots of musicians and painters and poets and shite, owned probably the biggest publisher of fiction in Britain, but their commune had some very, shall we say, enthusiastic attitudes about sex. Or so Liz had heard.) She had a sort of casual, showy sway to her gait, confident and taunting, almost daring someone to try her, but not in a cold...Slytherin-ish way, more playful, all chatting and laughing with the woman next to her, it was...
Well, Liz found herself wishing she was closer, so she could see better, let's put it that way.
(She was maybe a fan, a little bit.)
There was a design on the stages that Liz couldn't make out from here, lines sketched across in criss-crossing bands, seeming to stretch from two separate origin points — evenly spaced, the points dividing the stage into thirds along the centreline. Almost looking like sunbursts, she guessed, with the rays stretching out and overlapping, though done in blue on white. Apparently that wasn't just meant to look pretty, because Lovegood and whoever the other woman was (Liz had forgotten already, something Italian?) went right for those origin points, Lovegood coming to a stop and spinning back around to face her opposite quickly enough for her shoulder-length hair to floof around her head. One of their guides said something about how they'd be expected to give some kind of salute — Lovegood bent nearly double in an overly-exaggerated bow (complete with hand-twirling), and her opponent apparently decided to be equally silly, dipping in a curtsey, even (wandlessly) casting an illusion of a skirt to pull out. And then their impromptu announcer was—
They were shagging. Lovegood and...whoever that was, they were shagging. Liz couldn't explain, it wasn't like playing around with the bowing was particularly suggestive, she just suddenly knew. Seer thing.
Lovegood was sort of famously queer — there'd been a scandal when she'd refused a betrothal and run off back in the 70s, and another one around five years ago with her nearly getting arrested over something to do with an affair with a (married) daughter of some big-name politician in Asia somewhere, it was a whole thing (and Liz did have that picture of her and Lily snogging) — so she wasn't really surprised. Just, that was a thing to know, she guessed...
The duel itself was, of course, very impressive. The other woman was a professional as well, and it took no small amount of talent to get anywhere in the League, and Lovegood was, well, Cassie Lovegood. Liz got the very impression that they weren't so much trying to win as just show off — a lot of big flashy spells, fire and lightning, a lot of conjured animals and stuff running around. The pace was much slower than Liz would have expected, lingering to display the full effect of whatever thing they'd just done, but still impressively quick considering the absurd volume of magic they were, just, casually throwing around. Just having fun, like. Liz would even confirm in her pensieve later that they were both smiling the whole time, trading teasing barbs and laughing.
As much as it wasn't a real duel, just for the show of it, Liz still very much wanted to watch — it was Cassie Lovegood, after all. (She was maybe a fan, a little bit.) So it was a little annoying that someone came up to distract her from it. Liz didn't even notice the girl approach at first, and might have been startled when she spoke if not for the slippery, glittery sense of mind magic on the air. Unconsciously, reluctant to turn away from the stage, she glanced at the source: a girl about her age, a little older, with long pale blonde hair pulled into a complicated plait, wearing a white and blue dress with intricate stitching along the hems, patterns woven into the fabric with glittery golden thread, very fancy.
Liz knew who this was before she opened her mouth — the mind magic and the expensive dress gave it away. Despite herself, she was maybe slightly pleased that the famous Artémisia Cæciné was about as tiny as Liz herself was.
"Pardon me, are you Lady Elizabeth?" Somewhat to Liz's surprise, she spoke in smooth English, with only a mild accent. She'd expected French. As she settled in next to the railing Liz was sitting on, Liz snuck another glance that way — round, soft features, she had wide silvery eyes, abruptly reminding Liz of the creepy wandmaker.
"Ugh, none of that lady crap, I'm on holiday." There was a fluttering of amusement in the air, something to it dark and... Well, almost personal somehow, but Liz couldn't guess what that was about without intruding, and another mind mage would definitely notice that. "Just 'Liz' is fine. I'm guessing you're Cæciné."
"Artèmi. Enchantée."
Trying to watch the match, it took a moment for Liz to realise she was holding out a hand — ugh, fine... As Liz took her hand (trying to think un-perverted thoughts, she really was very pretty, all soft and delicate, and her hand was cool and smooth and ugh...), she tensed as a tingle of magic ran up her arm, the other girl's mind brushing over hers, light and warm. Not intruding at all, just, feeling her out, Liz guessed. It was very uncomfortable, but thankfully it only lasted a second, Liz dropped her hand and let out a shaky breath. "Right, not to be rude, but what do you want?" It was only after she was halfway through the sentence that she realised she was speaking in French — she'd unthinkingly repeated the enchantée (very silly, bloody nobles), and then just kept going, oops.
But that was fine, Cæciné (Artèmi, whatever) slipped right into French herself. Funnily enough, she had more of an accent on her French than her English — very southern, like Valérie's friend. "I don't want anything in particular. I simply thought I would introduce myself."
"Why?"
"I've been asking around. Hogwarts is the team to beat this time around, and I hear yours is a very promising addition. Many eyes will be on you this week, Liz."
...Despite herself, Liz thought she might be a little flattered. Saying Hogwarts was the team to beat when Artèmi herself was in Beauxbatons's famously unstoppable Sirius team was kind of ridiculous. But, on the other hand, Artèmi was at the top of the entire junior division, that she thought Liz was worth paying attention to was, well, that was nice to hear. Not that she knew what to say to any of that — she never had gotten any better at dealing with compliments — so she just went with, "I'm used to it."
"I have no doubt. Though I imagine having one's performance evaluated in a competition such as this is quite something else than the drivel displayed in the Prophet."
Liz blinked, her attention again wrenched away from the show. "You read the Prophet? I didn't think you got that on the Continent."
"We don't. My family likes to keep informed."
...Well, alright, then. "Honestly, I'd rather people be talking about me kicking arse in a duelling tournament than Girl Who Lived nonsense." Though the Light kids probably were going to be stupid about it when they got back to school, more evidence she was an evil dangerous dark witch or whatever...
"Yes, I suppose there are reasons the gods prefer not to intervene quite so dramatically."
...What?
"In any case, I imagine you won't have too much trouble this time around," Artèmi went on, blithely, as though she hadn't said anything at all remarkable just a second ago. "You won't be getting far up the rankings this time — at least in singles, and for teams and trios there are other participants to focus on."
Liz had enough presence of mind to wonder if Artèmi were trying to distract her — she was a mind mage, she'd certainly felt Liz's surprise and confusion — but she was annoyed enough with that last comment she couldn't help herself. "Is that so? I seem to recall you swept the bracket at your first tournament."
"I did, yes. You won't."
"You were even younger than I am, and you weren't a mind mage yet."
"True enough, but I was more thoroughly trained. You'll win your first few matches, but you'll be eliminated before the finals."
Liz let out a scoff. "We'll see."
"Do you know any occlumency at all?" The word wasn't immediately familiar to Liz (obviously Valérie wouldn't have known it), but it was similar enough to the English one that she figured it out after a second. "By the feel of you, I can't imagine you do."
"What does that have to do with anything?" Liz might have sounded a little defensive but, well, she was aware her mind was stupid loud — she was basically shouting in Artèmi's face right now, she hadn't been thinking about that...
"You are powerful, certainly, and I assume you must have some skill." Liz opened her mouth, bristling a little at the condescension on Artèmi's voice — though Liz didn't feel anything but a trace of playful amusement in her head, either Artèmi was hiding it or she was just teasing, but still — but she went on before Liz could get anything out. "But you don't have the discipline to get very far. You'll get angry, or distracted, or frustrated, and you'll slip."
Liz did honestly doubt that she'd clear her bracket, she was aware she wasn't that good — she was good at this stuff, but she hadn't been doing it for very long. But she could hardly admit that, especially not when Artèmi was being so annoying about it. "Wanna bet?"
Artèmi turned away from the stage, giving Liz a crooked smile, her silvery eyes seeming to glitter in the light, almost metallic. "If you'd like. What are we wagering?"
Her mouth running ahead of her, she nearly blurted out something about buying the other coffee in town on their off day, but Liz was supposed to be meeting her friends then — and that sounded almost, um, date like, and was that on purpose? Liz didn't know, she was hardly the most self-aware person in the world, and Artèmi was very pretty, she might have— Feeling annoyingly flustered all of a sudden, Liz wrenched her eyes away, forcing herself to stare down at the match, unseeing. She hoped she wasn't giving anything away, but it didn't matter if it wasn't visible, she— Ugh, now she knew how everyone else felt. "Whatever. I hope our teams do get matched up — I'm going to enjoy kicking your arse, Cæciné."
"The pleasure will be mine, Potter, I guarantee it." Oh yeah, she'd definitely caught Liz, er, getting distracted, no way in hell was the tingling amusement in her head or her voice going all low and suggestive a coincidence. "Alexis is waving for me, I should return to my teammates. Until next time, Elizabeth."
"Yeah."
Artèmi waited for a second — for what, Liz had no idea — before turning and sauntering off, slipping back through the crowd and away. Through sheer force of will, Liz kept staring down at the stage (not actually seeing anything going on down there, she was definitely putting this in the pensieve when she got home), stopping herself from turning to watch Artèmi walk away. She really was stupid pretty, that just wasn't fair. Once Liz couldn't feel the presence of Artèmi's mind anymore, she let out a sharp breath, her cheeks puffing out, rubbed at her forehead — very smooth, Liz, definitely hadn't embarrassed herself even a little bit.
Despite how flushed and uncomfortable she felt, spells flashing in her eyes and the other kids cheering at one play or another, their excited minds pressing in on her, Liz could feel herself smiling. Today had been a bit trying in various ways, sure, and she could still use a break, but she had a good feeling. A Seer thing, she thought, couldn't explain it, she just knew.
This was going to be fun.
Whooo. Wordy bitch.
I went a bit over on the description of the venue and the format, but there are reasons for that. We're not actually going to get too deep into the tournament this time — the whole thing is a hectic monstrosity, it would take ages to get through it all, and we really don't need an extended tournament arc stuck in here — but giving you all an idea of what these things look like once means I don't have to do it next time. And there will be a next time — Liz will be participating in these tournaments every winter and summer through the end of eighth year. I'm going into deep detail this first time so the next one I can go "this one is kind of like the last one, except this part is like this instead", and just move on to focus on the duelling and interpersonal shit. Since the latter isn't as interesting for this one, I thought it was more efficient this way. Of course, maybe I'm over thinking it, and I'm really just a wordy bitch, who can say.
To be honest, people in comments talking about looking forward to what my eastern Europe / Romania is going to look like I found kind of funny. Like, I don't know what kind of school trips you went on, but I only did a few — with the marching band, like a nerd — and we didn't see shit in the places we went to. We went to the venue, our hotel, and some of us ventured as far as a gas station or fast food place across the street, but we just didn't have time for anything more than that. Liz is going to spend a single afternoon wandering around the nice part of the magical enclave in Iaşi, and that's literally it. With all the duels she's going to be rushing through, she's going to simply be too exhausted for anything else.
For anyone wondering, the Cæciné in this fic is not on the same power level as she is in That Was Part of the Plan. There she was buffed to fit the different worldbuilding and to act as a foil for Lyra — here she's much closer to my original conception of her. Still talented, but not that over the top.
Right, don't think there's anything else it's imminently important to get to. This chapter was delayed due to sleep issues, and then not feeling well for a while (possibly due to prescription changes, who can say), and also one of the kittens wondering why my hands aren't giving scritches, and what is that clicky thing anyway, I must rub my face against it. Adorable little shit. Next one may or may not take as long, we'll see. See you all next time, whenever the fuck that is.