III. Put It In The Big Net
Harry, Ginny, Ron and Hermione made their way through the stadium entrance, where they were frisked briefly by security staff – an anti-Muggle charm prevented the neon-jacketed security officers from noticing their wands. Harry and Hermione explained why, and Ginny and Ron shook their heads in wonderment. Troublemakers were so easily dealt with in Quidditch, the security measure seemed silly.
"Top up your Polyjuice," said Harry quietly to Ginny. She nodded, and they both took small sips from the phials of potion they carried.
Hermione picked up a couple of free brochures, and bought a match-day programme. Ginny snorted: "You don't even know the sport, or the teams, or the players!"
"All the more reason I ought to read up on them," argued Hermione. "Besides, it'll be a nice souvenir."
"Look, Hermione, the Muggles've got food," said Ron. "I wonder where they get them from."
"Honestly, Ron, we just had lunch an hour ago..."
"It's, uh, part of the full experience, isn't it? Most everyone's got snacks. We want to blend in, don't we?"
Hermione gave him an exasperated look, but decided not to pursue the subject. In short order, Ron found the food kiosks, and they joined the queue. There were a lot of customers, but the serving staff worked quickly and the line went at a clip.
"Ginny, come here for a bit," said Harry, putting his left arm around her shoulders. He looked around quickly, drew his wand from his trouser pocket, and with their bodies shielding his wand from view, he began casting the spells Aurors used to find traces of magic, Dark and otherwise.
Ron had nearly reached the head of the line, and was eagerly scanning the menu boards. "What's 'chicken balti'," he wondered out loud to no one in particular. Hermione ignored him, her nose buried in Football Culture: The English National Identity.
"It's a chicken curry pie, mate," said the big man in front of him, turning around. "Bit of a newfangled invention, but it's not bad. Ain't you ever tried it?"
"We're from America, uh, buddy," said Ron, his faked accent slipping in and out unconvincingly. "What else is good?"
A younger man in an orange cap, apparently the big man's friend, spoke up. "I like a good old steak-and-kidney myself, and there's the cheese-and-onion pasty if y'want a veg option," he said. "Where in America did you say? You sound almost local."
"New, erm, Devon," said Ron. "My grandparents are from England, so we're here for a vacation to see where we came from. Thanks, pal."
"Oh look, Ron," said Hermione, tugging at his sleeve without looking up from her book, "it says here that this stadium is the biggest team stadium in England, with more than 70,000 seats. I'll have the cheese-and-onion," she said, almost as an afterthought.
Ron shrugged expressively, as if to say See what I mean? and asked, "So, which team are you supporting?"
The big man pointed at the logo on the scarf draped casually round his shoulders, more as a flag of allegiance than for warmth. "Ever since I were a boy," he said proudly. "Through the fat and the lean, even the 70s and the 90s. Not like them 'glory supporters' who don't even live round 'ere. S'like, the proper team spirit, innit? Like supporting yer own mates, yeah?"
"Yeah, yeah!" agreed Ron – lifelong Chudley Cannons supporter – sensing a kindred spirit, his eyes shining.
"Any luck?" whispered Ginny to Harry, who was frowning slightly.
"I'm getting a faint trace of some kind of compulsion magic," said Harry quietly. "But it's too faint. I thought the concession stands would be a good start. Getting Muggles to spend too much on things, especially food, that's a tried-and-tested trick to squeeze gold out of them. Especially popular with the Macks – I mean the United States." He looked up. "This isn't it. It's nearby – but this isn't it."
"Right, let's go somewhere else then," said Ginny. Harry made to duck out of the line, but Ginny held on to his hand, looking at the menu over Ron's shoulder. "After we get something."
Harry snickered. After all, she was a Weasley.
Armed with pies, pasties, bags of crisps and bottles of beer (a Coke for Harry), they climbed the many flights of stairs that led them to the top of the gigantic stadium, where their seats were.
All the way, Harry was casting spells to detect magic, and checking small instruments that resembled magical radars, and pretty much were – the tools of his Auror trade. Peering at a device that looked like a button-sized compass with complicated gears, he adjusted some tiny dials, and took a few steps one way, watching the arrow, and a few steps another.
"Worse," he muttered to himself.
The stands were filled with the crowds they had seen making their way to the stadium, and now that they were packed in a tight mass the atmosphere became wilder. Though the Family Stands were quieter, with children and mothers sitting sedately or at least not yelling with adult-sized lungs, the rest of the stands were a cacophony of cheers, jeers and songs. Deafening speakers boomed pop music, and sometimes the crowd sang along with a hit favourite, adding their own rude lyrics aimed at the other team.
Or even at the audience – somehow, it seemed several thousand fans could pick out four touristy-looking young people all the way across the stadium. From the Away Stand came a distant but clear chant: "You're so shit your fans are Yanks, fans are Yanks, fans are Yanks; you're so shit your fans are Yanks, how shit are ya!"
Rueful grins from the fans around them, and a lot of glances. It took Harry a moment to realise they were the ones being referenced. Ginny laughed; Hermione rolled her eyes in disapproval; grinning, Ron let them go on for a few choruses before he discreetly slid his wand out and did a Muggle-Repelling Charm. Immediately the fans went back to cursing some hapless player, and the Muggles around them stopped looking around.
"So what happens now?" asked Ginny, as players ran out onto the green grass.
Hermione looked up from her book. "They flip a coin to decide who kicks first," she said. "And then they, well, kick the ball around, and try to put it in the big net."
"Mental," grumbled Ron, again. But he seemed to change his mind when the match began, and the football began soaring back and forth. "Bloody hell, Hermione! D'you see how far they're kicking it!"
"And catching it perfectly, with their feet!" exclaimed Ginny, bouncing on her own in excitement.
From the bird's-eye view they had of the pitch, they could see the formations of red- and white-clad players running and whirling, keeping the ball roughly around the middle, first on one side, then the other. Hermione listed the rules out loud from her book, frowning slightly in concentration as her eyes darted from page to pitch, but Ron and Ginny grasped the idea quickly with their sporting instinct. Similar to Quidditch, players were not allowed to hit each other; they had to find ways to wrest the ball from their opponents using their feet, or intercept a pass.
Which suddenly happened – the ball soared from the middle of the pitch, and a lone player in the white jersey of the away team outran the defender marking him, halted the ball with an extended foot, and as it bounced, launched it over the goalkeeper's head and hands, flying twenty yards perfectly into the middle of the goal. The other team's fans jumped to their feet and cheered loudly; on this side of the pitch the red-jerseyed home fans let out disappointed shouts with nearly as much volume.
It was nothing like Quidditch, where goals came twenty times as frequently. Here, each score was a major victory to be celebrated or loss to be mourned. The game could turn on a single goal.
Ginny had to yell to make herself heard over the crowd: "This is brilliant, Harry!" She looked around. "Harry?" She caught sight of him a few yards away, picking his way through the crowded stands, head down. Ginny followed, and caught up with him on the staircase. "Did you find something?"
"There's nothing coming from the pitch, so it's not the players or the referees," said Harry, watching his Dark detector device closely. "There's hardly anything up here in the stands but faint readings, most likely residual magic left on victims. They were cursed before the kickoff – not after. Whatever it is, it must be downstairs. I'll retrace our steps."
Ginny slipped her hand into Harry's. "Lead the way."
Harry looked at her. "Don't you want to watch the game?"
"I do," said Ginny honestly. "I've never seen anything like it. It looks fun, we should do this again when you're not working. But right now – I'd rather be with you. That's what I'm here today for."
Harry grinned. "Let's go then!"
The Dark detectors were ticking, faintly but steadily.
Harry knew he was right. The source was down here, on the concourse. It was like Mavis had said – a subtle compulsion charm, not so strong as to trigger his Dark detectors more violently, but enough to get the targeted Muggle to part with their money.
"It's so weak, it has to be a single-target spell," said Harry, almost to himself. Ginny nodded along, as they circled around the huge stadium, following the indicator arrow on Harry's compass-like device. "There are more powerful charms which can work on a crowd, but they'd leave a bigger mark. I can't say for sure, but I'll bet it has something to do with the stuff they sell."
"It's not food, you said," said Ginny. She flicked the long red hair out of her eyes as she looked around.
"Or at least, not around where we bought our pies from," said Harry. "There are restaurants somewhere else... this place is huge!"
The concourse was deserted. The match had been going for just fifteen minutes, 1-0, and all eyes were on the pitch. Nobody was hungry or thirsty or needed the loo. The service staff were taking much-needed breaks in the back rooms and hidden passageways after the frenzy of the past couple of hours feeding and watering the pre-match crowd. Harry and Ginny's footsteps echoed in the cavernous space.
"Those match-day programmes?" she guessed. "Hermione bought one."
"It didn't work on her. Besides, it'd look odd even to Muggles to be walking around carrying a fistful of magazines," said Harry. "I checked the souvenir shop, it was clear." He nudged the Dark detector in his hand. "Hm. Getting stronger..."
"Harry, what's that shop sell?" asked Ginny, pointing at a small kiosk with a bright blue signboard on top, with smoked glass windows and no apparent product laid out or advertised.
He looked up. "It's a betting shop. A bookmaker's." One of his Dark detectors suddenly began ticking regularly, like a slow metronome, and Harry fumbled in his pocket for it.
Ginny tensed. "Does that man stepping out of the shop look familiar to you?"
There were two people coming out of the bookmaker's, dressed in khaki trousers and blue uniform shirts. One was a scowling square-shouldered, dark-haired woman in her thirties, lugging a holdall bag. The other, around forty-ish, looked like he had been a strong young man now gone to seed, with a paunch and a badly-trimmed beard. His round ruddy face indeed jogged at Harry's memory, but he couldn't quite place...
The man looked up, locked eyes with Ginny, and his eyebrows shot up. "Miss Weasley?" he blurted.
The woman stared at Harry. Her eyes did that familiar, annoying flick upwards to his forehead.
Out the corner of his eye, Harry saw Ginny sweep her red hair behind her ear in confusion, and realised the Polyjuice had worn off.
They all went for their wands at the same time.
Harry was fastest, but he didn't attack – his priority was to not let them get away. He laid down an Anti-Apparation Jinx: "Disapparation Inhibeo!"
The scowling woman was fast too, with reflexes born out of fending for herself out on the magical streets for years. She dropped the holdall and yelled "Impedimenta!"
Ginny had duelled Dark wizards when she was fourteen, and was besides Harry Potter's girlfriend – it takes a woman of a certain calibre to walk around with a target of that size painted on her back. She blocked the curse with a Shield Charm, and shot back a hex, sending the woman darting back into the kiosk.
The familiar-looking man tried to Apparate, winced as he felt the whole-body muscle ache that comes from trying to Apparate through a hindering Jinx slam down on him, and ducked behind the dubious shelter of a pillar.
"Ginny, get behind something!" yelled Harry, himself putting a wall corner between him and their opponents. He fished his Auror badge out of his pocket, pressed the button behind it, and said: "Harry Potter to Operations! I am duelling two suspects and need Tactical and Obliviator backup at..."
A curse blasted chunks of brick and cement inches from his face, spraying him with brick dust and splinters, and he swore.
Ron shouldered the last couple of idiotic bloody football yobs out of his way; they would have probably punched him for it but the Muggle-Repelling Charm kept them from noticing him so they just kept on cheering, thinking they had been jostled by the crowd. Now out of the stands, he ran down one flight of stairs so he was at least out of sight of any Muggles, took out his Auror badge, pressed the button at the back and barked, "Ron here, where are you Harry?"
"On the concourse, west side, near the – will you just bloody well pack it in! – near the souvenir shop. Opposition is one stroppy bitch, brunette, thirties, and I think Ludo Bagman. The place is empty but Muggles may come by any minute. I'm behind cover."
That last part was him signalling that Ginny was safe, Ron knew. Ludo Bagman?! Now there was a name from out of their schooldays. He looked up as Hermione joined him breathlessly.
"Harry, Ron, the Reaction Squad is being reserved for another tasking," said the crisp calm voice of the duty operations controller. "We're putting together a scratch force from the MLE Patrol and anyone who can come in. Keep the lid on for another ten minutes."
"What shall we do?" asked Hermione.
"Not Apparate, for starters," said Ron. "Harry will have put up an Anti-Apparation Jinx. Harry and Ginny can take care of themselves. If we want to finish this decisively, we ought to – let me think – yes, we should circle round and take them from behind."
"Just a moment," said Hermione. She rummaged in her rucksack, and extracted a flyer. "Here. There's a map of the stadium on the back of this."
They unfolded the brochure and pored over it. "Here's where we are," said Ron. "And this is where they must be. We can come up from behind them if we go down by, uh, Staircase F."
Hermione checked her watch. "Half-time is in twenty minutes – all the Muggles up there will come down to the concourse for food then."
"So let's get going," said Ron grimly. He began jogging down the stairs, slowing a fraction only just so Hermione could keep up.
"Did I hear Harry say Ludo Bagman?"
"Yeah, you did."
"Will wonders never cease. I thought Bagman was dead."
"If he hurts Harry or Ginny, I'm going to make him wish he was."
A/N: Final chapter soon. Thanks for the reviews!