Harry, Neville, Daphne made their way towards the giant stadium where the Quidditch match would start, with the four Weasleys accompanying them. Bill and Charlie spent the majority of the walk trying to convince the twins to tell why them why they had been talking about holding leaves in their mouths. Harry, who would rather they never found out, was glad that Fred and George had so much experience withholding the truth.

As they got close the entrance of the stadium that Sirius had told them to meet at, Harry could see Draco and Luna's pale hair standing out in the crowd. He groaned inwardly when he saw Weasley red hair standing opposite them. With the only Weasleys that Harry could stand walking behind him, Harry doubted that this would end well.

"What are you going to do, Weasel?" Draco was taunting, Theo and Blaise standing at his shoulders. Luna and Astoria were standing beside Blaise. "You can't use your wand during the summer."

"Neither can you, Malfoy!" Ron snarled back. "And neither can your bloody sidekicks."

Harry watched as Astoria's eyes widened at Ron's language. "Hey!" He interrupted, quickly moving to stand between Draco and Ron. "Watch your language."

"Don't tell him what to do!" Dean Thomas snapped from Ron's side. "He's not one of your mini-Death Eaters!"

Harry ignored him. "What's your problem, Weasley?"

"What's my problem?" Ron asked, his face turning red. "You're my bloody problem, Potter. You and your Death Eater friends. You-Know-Who is out there, killing people, and you're buddying up to the ones helping him."

"Woah!" Bill quickly pushed himself into the group. "That's a big accusation to make, Ron. I think you should calm down."

Ron scowled at his brother, but eventually turned away and stomped over to where Charlie, Fred and George were standing.

Dean opened his mouth, but Bill got there first. "You too, Dean."

Harry turned to Draco. "What happened?"

"He started it." Draco answered petulantly. "He started accusing me of being a Death Eater."

"Why didn't you just ignore him?" Harry asked in exasperation. "Nobody even believes Voldemort's back anyway. Look at all these people who overheard Ron's accusation, not one of them believed him."

"There you lot are." Sirius greeted them cheerfully, as he and Remus made his way towards them. "Having fun?"

"Sort of." Harry answered, glancing towards where the Weasley brothers were standing.

Sirius followed his gaze before sighing and moving towards them. "Bill, good to see you again."

"You too, Sirius." Bill shook his head. "Have you met Charlie?"

"I haven't." Sirius held out his hand to the dragon tamer. "Nice to meet you."

"You too." Charlie agreed.

"I heard that your family will be joining us in the top box." Sirius commented. "There'll be more Hogwarts students than adults at this rate."

"Did you have a nice chat?" Draco asked Harry snidely.

Harry rolled his eyes. "We did actually, didn't we, Neville? Daphne?"

"They weren't too bad." Neville agreed. "Nothing like Ron."

Daphne smiled blandly. "It was lovely."

Harry frowned at her. Why was she being so weird? Normally Daphne would have made a sarcastic comment about how surprising it was that there were Weasleys who could put together a sentence or something similar.

"I'm sure." Draco said, disbelievingly.

"You're going to have get over this Weasley hating thing." Harry told him, before turning his attention the rest of their friends. "All of you are. I gave Fred and George each a leaf as well."

Draco, Theo, and Blaise all grimaced. "Harry!"

Sirius chatted to the oldest Weasley brothers for another minute, before returning and leading them up the stairs to the Top Box. The box was small, though it managed to fit approximately twenty five seats in it – even if some of the seats looked a little squished.

"There were only supposed to twenty seats up here," Sirius told Harry in an undertone. "But Fudge seems to have realised that I'm worth sucking up to, so he invited me to join him and I told him I'd be bringing you lot – so they had to add a few more seats."

Harry smiled gratefully at Sirius. "Thanks so much, Sirius. This is great."

The view over the Quidditch Pitch was amazing and as Harry stared out over it, he imagined one day flying in a similar pitch one day. Maybe even the next World Cup – he'd be of age then.

Lord Malfoy and Cousin Narcissa were the next to arrive and then the Weasleys, who had Dean Thomas with them. There was an awkward moment when Mr. Weasley and Lord Malfoy came into contact, Harry was sure he wasn't the only person in the box who remembered their brawl in Diagon Alley two years previously, but Sirius managed to diffuse the tension.

After that Ministry Officials began arriving and Harry stood to Sirius' side, with Daphne's hand on his arm, so his godfather could introduce them. Ludo Bagman was overly familiar and boisterous enough that he reminded Harry of a house elf – and not in a good way. Minister Fudge was pompous and seemed to be trying to suck up to Sirius at the same time as boasting of his own achievements – neither of which made Harry like the man any more than he had when he'd first met him at the Malfoy's Yule Ball.

The most interesting person, in Harry's opinion, was the wizard that Fudge introduced as the Bulgarian Minister of Magic. Harry had raised an eyebrow at that since Bulgaria's Minister of Magic was also the King of Bulgaria's son and heir.

When Fudge finally turned his attention away from both the Bulgarian and Sirius, Harry stepped forward and carefully performed a Bulgarian bow. "Dobre zavaril, Prince Andrey."

The Prince looked amused as he replied in Bulgarian. "Greetings to you also, Mister Potter."

Sirius looked proud as he leaned forward to whisper in Harry's ear. "Apologise for Fudge's behaviour would you?"

Harry inclined his head respectfully towards the prince as he quickly tried to figure out the right Bulgarian words to use. "Your highness, my apologies for the poor Bulgarian."

"It is not so bad." Prince Andrey told him. "This sigurnost po-dobre than your minister's.

Harry blinked in confusion, but decided to ignore the unknown word for now. He could certainly guess what the prince had meant.

"Lord Black has wished for me to apologise also for Minister Fudge." Harry told him slowly as he worked out the words.

"Perhaps ve could speak English?" Prince Andrey suggested in a low, amused tone. "Since my English is better than your Bulgarian?"

Harry felt like an idiot. "I apologise again, your highness."

"Not at all." Prince Andrey smiled warmly. "I vas honoured by your attempt to speak my language. It is difficult language to learn, I am told."

"Yes, your highness." Harry agreed. "Though not as hard as Japanese."

"You are learning Japanese also?" Prince Andrey asked.

"Yes, sir."

"Impressive." The Prince declared, turning to Sirius. "You must be very proud?"

"I am, your highness." Sirius agreed.

"And you must be glad also." Prince Andrey told Daphne. "To be betrothed to such a vizard."

"Of course, your highness." Daphne answered, in the same bland tone she had been using all month.

"Shall ve sit?" Prince Andrey suggested. "I believe that the game vill soon begin."

They found seats in the front row just as Ludo Bagman cast an amplifying charm in his throat and began to welcome everyone.

Bagman introduced the Bulgarian team and Harry quickly began to sink into his meditative state. There was no way he wanted to be caught out by the Veelas' allure. Half the men in the box quickly began shielding their eyes, but Harry thought Sirius' advice was definitely the better one. In his half-meditative state he could feel the Veelas' allure, but it wasn't actually affecting him and, this way, he still got to see them dance. They were beautiful!

Out of the corner of his eye, Harry could see Ron and Dean Thomas both wandering towards the edge of box like zombies – or more accurately, like wizards caught in a Veela's allure. Harry tried not to feel too smug that none of his friends were making fools out of themselves the way that Ron and Dean were, but it wasn't easy

After the Veelas, came the Irish Leprechauns and this time there no way Harry was preventing himself from feeling smug as Ron Weasley scooped up handfuls of galleons. Not because Harry was rich and Ron was poor of course, he'd leave that kind of prejudice to Draco, but because he'd chosen the right Weasleys to be friends with. Fred and George hadn't even attempted to pick up any of the falling Leprechaun gold.

The game started soon after and Harry focussed his Omnioculars on Victor Krum – he'd seen the seeker play in one of the Bulgarian team's knockout matches and had been completely awed. Krum was amazing!

Krum didn't do anything at first, but then Harry hadn't expected him to – there was no point in the Bulgarian seeker showing his hand too quickly. When, after ten minutes, Krum obviously hadn't spotted the snitch yet, the seeker began doing some tricks as he flew around the field.

The first time Harry had seen Krum doing that, he'd thought that the older boy was just showing off to the possible detriment of his team. But since then, Harry had done some research and discovered that some schools of thought actually believed that doing tricks helped seekers spot the snitch. Of course the seeker had to know the tricks back to front, otherwise they wouldn't be able to keep an eye for the snitch at the same time, but the idea was that, while the seeker was doing the tricks, he was constantly looking in different directions – giving his eyes more angles to spot the snitch at.

Harry hadn't really gotten a chance to try it out yet, but he had been teaching himself some new tricks to use when he was at school.

Harry watched as Krum completed death defying stunt after death defying stunt, while lending half an ear to Bagman's commentary which, unbelievably, had yet to mention even one of them.

Then, suddenly, Krum froze staring down at the ground, before turning his broom down into a dive. The Irish seeker, Lynch, immediately dived after him, and the two seekers hurtled down towards the ground. Harry turned his Omnioculars towards where Krum was aiming, but couldn't see any sign of the snitch. Was it a feint?

The two seekers continued to race downwards and Lynch was actually gaining on Krum which, more than anything, convinced Harry that it was a feint. Halfway towards the ground, Bagman finally took notice and babbled out a few words about the seekers' dives. A few seconds later, Krum pulled up in the best Wronski Feint Harry had ever seen, and Lynch crashed to the ground.

The Irish supporters all groaned loudly, but Harry couldn't find it in himself to feel sorry for Lynch – his focus was on Krum who, instead of celebrating along with his team, supporters, and mascots, was already heading back up to look for the snitch again. When Harry grew up, he wanted to be just like Krum!

The game continued and eventually a shaky looking Lynch joined Krum back in the air. Krum, who had been using Lynch's break from the game to rest from the tricks he had been playing, immediately went back to performing death defying stunts.

As the game went on, Harry couldn't help but empathise with Krum. While the seeker was definitely better than his Irish, his teammates just weren't at the same level as the Irish. Harry had the same problem with the Ravenclaw team.

Harry knew that his friends were all supporting the Irish, they were definitely the more local team, but he was secretly hoping that the snitch would appear in time for the Bulgarians to win the game. The difference in score between the Irish and Bulgaria continued to increase though and soon the score was 140-10 to Ireland – Krum either had to catch the snitch in the next few minutes or Bulgaria had no hope of winning the game.

Less than a minute later, the Irish roared happily as one of their chasers scored yet another goal just seconds before Krum failed to duck out of the way of a bludger which hit him in the face. Harry groaned in sympathy as he saw blood begin to pour out of the seeker's nose. Ridiculously, the referee didn't even see it, he was too distracted by the fact the one of the Veelas had set his broom on fire, and so failed to hear the Bulgarian Captain's request for timeout.

Harry thought it was ironic that the Bulgarian mascots were the reason that their seeker wasn't being given the opportunity to get his nose looked at.

The Irish, taking advantage of their opponents' momentary distraction, scored again less than a minute later and Harry groaned quietly.

Suddenly, Lynch turned his broom down into a dive and, within seconds, Krum was speeding after him – blood still pouring from his nose. Harry watched excitedly as the two seekers rushed towards the ground, Krum gaining on Lynch until they were neck and neck. Then Krum pulled slightly ahead, as Lynch attempted to slow down in order to avoid hitting the ground, and within seconds Krum had pulled himself out of the dive – the snitch in his hand – and Lynch had impacted with the ground again.

Krum raised his fist, to show the beating wings of the snitch caught inside it, and the Bulgarian supporters began to scream with excitement until someone actually looked at the scoreboard, which showed the score to be 170-160 to the Irish, and the Irish shouts easily overtook the increasingly disappointed noises coming from the Bulgarians.

Harry turned to the Bulgarian Minister who was sitting beside Sirius. "My condolences on your loss, your majesty. Your team played very well – particularly your seeker."

"Thank you." Prince Andrey replied gloomily. "Ve did our best."

7-7-7

Sirius allowed Harry and his friends to hang around in the box for another few minutes, before giving Harry a pointed look. Right, they were supposed to leave straight after the game.

Harry gathered his friends up so that they could all touch the portkey Sirius had given him. "Home."

Seconds later, they were standing in the middle of the Grimmauld Place lounge.

"What an amazing game!" Theo commented, falling back on one of the couches. "I've never seen anything like it."

"I know!" Draco agreed excitedly. "Did you see how fast the chasers' passes were?"

Harry turned to Daphne, Astoria and Luna, who were still standing beside him. "Would you like a seat? I'll order us some drinks."

"Thank you." Astoria and Luna chirped together, smiling up at him.

Daphne nodded quietly as she gracefully chose a seat to sit in.

"Drinks anyone?" Harry offered loudly.

"Butterbeer, please." Theo answered.

"Same for me." Blaise agreed.

"I'll have a cranberry juice." Draco told him.

"What's a cranberry juice?" Astoria asked.

"It's a juice, made of cranberries." Draco told her with a grin. "It's great – much better than pumpkin juice."

Astoria's eyes widened in interest. "Could I try some?"

"Of course." Harry answered.

"I want to try some too." Theo and Neville said at the same time.

"You've already ordered a butterbeer." Draco slugged Theo in the arm.

Harry grinned at how hyped up his friends were – he'd never seen Draco like this before. "How about I get everyone a cranberry juice to try, as well as any other drink they want."

Blaise's eyes sparkled. "Firewhiskey?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "Any reasonable drink."

In the end, everyone agreed upon butterbeer as their second drink and, within seconds after the last order was announced, the drinks appeared on the table in the middle of the room.

"Don't you just love house elves?" Harry asked rhetorically.

Draco sipped from his cranberry juice, before returning it to the table. "Harry, did you see Moran pull a Woollongong Shimmy?"

"I'm sorry, what?" Harry asked in confusion.

"Just before their second goal," Draco explained animatedly. "Moran's high speed zigzag. It's called a Woollongong Shimmy. How do you know every seeker trick ever invented, but not even the basic chaser ones?"

Harry snorted. "You sound ridiculous saying that. But no, I didn't. I was watching Krum."

"What?" Theo asked in disbelief. "For the whole game?"

"And I think that answers Draco's question." Neville said with a grin.

"Yes, for the whole game." Harry defended. "He's amazing. Some of the tricks he pulled off…"

"What?" Draco asked after a few seconds.

"There are no words." Harry admitted. "He's incredible!"

"Seekers aren't that exciting." Theo argued. "The chasers are where the excitement's at."

Harry raised an eyebrow in disbelief. "Did you even watch Krum?"

"Of course I did." Theo returned. "I saw both dives."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Then you missed the most amazing parts. Any seeker can dive, but I doubt there are any other seekers alive who can pull as many complicated stunts as Krum."

Neville snorted. "Not every seeker can dive. Or at least not every seeker can pull out of dive. Did you see Lynch's face at the end of the game?"

"Did you see Krum's?" Blaise returned. "He had blood pouring out as if someone had left a tap running."

Harry looked towards Daphne and Astoria and saw that they were both looking rather sick. "Uh, guys, maybe we should move away from the talk of bodily fluids."

"Why?" Draco asked, before seeing where Harry was looking. "Oh, sorry, Astoria, Daphne."

"Thank you, Harry." Astoria smiled sweetly.

They stayed up talking until the early hours of the morning, before eventually retiring to their bedrooms. Sirius and Remus still hadn't returned, but that wasn't particularly surprising – after all, there supposed to be some amazing parties after the game.

Harry quickly changed out of his clothes and into a pair of pyjamas, before crawling into bed. There was no way he was going to worry about his usually nightly wandless magic practise at two in the morning.

7-7-7

It was rare for Harry to wake up after the sun had risen so he hardly ever remembered to close his curtains, which meant that Harry woke up with the sun shining on his face. He felt awful! Why had he stayed up so late again?

He lay under his covers for a few more minutes, before remembering that he had guests staying over and so needed to play host. Ten minutes later, he had pulled himself out of bed, gotten dressed, and had made his way down to the dining room for breakfast.

"Woah." Neville greeted him with a grin. "I had forgotten your hair did that."

Harry pulled a face at him, before trying to smooth down his hair. He'd been too tired to bother putting his usual potion through it.

"Did you sleep well?" Neville asked.

"Yes," Harry answered with a yawn. "Though it definitely wasn't long enough."

"Same." Neville agreed. "By the way, Harry. I don't know whether I said this yesterday, but thank you so much for inviting me to go with you."

Harry grinned. "You only told me that three times yesterday, but you're welcome."

"The Daily Prophet has arrived." Neville told him, gesturing to where it lay beside Sirius' plate along with at least ten other envelopes. "What do you think it says about last night?"

Harry picked up the newspaper and unfolded it, before freezing at the headline.

'You Know Who Returns: Hundreds Dead at Quidditch World Cup!'