Harry and the Pirates

Chapter 76

Airs Above the Ground

Harry, Dudley and their friends settled into the comfortable seats they'd been able to buy with the money from PD Enterprises, and eagerly awaited the opening of the game. The rest of the Weasleys were not far away, since Ron and Ginny had generously sprung to upgrade their tickets from the cheap seats high in the bleachers to a VIP box right next to the one Harry had reserved for himself and his friends.

The arena was huge, and Harry could hardly believe there were that many wizards and witches in the world. "How many of us are there?" he asked.

Hermione looked thoughtful. "I don't know for sure, Harry. I don't think there's a census of us, at least I've never seen any mention of one. I would guess that a lot of these people come from outside Britain, though. Bulgaria and Ireland, of course, but there's a whole subculture of people who follow the professional Quidditch teams about, making sure they never miss a game."

"Like Deadheads?" Dudley asked. The wizard-raised present looked at him blankly. "In the Muggle world, there's a musical band called the 'Grateful Dead' that travel around, doing concerts. And there are a group of hardcore fans called the 'Deadheads' who follow them from concert to concert."

"Yes, very like!" said Ron. He looked quizzically at Harry and Dudley. "Have you ever heard the Grateful Dead play?"

"No. They'd never go near Roanapur, and before we came to Hogwarts, we'd not been out of Roanapur since we were very small," Dudley explained. "You know what Roanapur's like, Ron. No Muggle musical group would dare go there to perform."

"You have a point," Ginny agreed. Harry had to agree as well. He'd seen how wild Muggle audiences could get, and figured that a Roanapur audience would be ten times worse. Roanapur audiences would also be much more heavily-armed, and have no inhibitions about storming the stage if they felt like it.

"Shh! The Minister of Magic is about to speak!" hissed Hermione. Along with the rest of the audience, Harry watched as a pompous figure in a lime-green Muggle suit and bowler hat stepped forward, pointing his wand at his throat to cast the "Sonorus" spell. Silence fell as he began to speak.

"On behalf of the wizards and witches of Great Britain, we welcome our foreign guests, as well as the two incredible teams who are about to play for the World Championship! Our best wishes to both teams...and may the odds be ever in your favor!"

A band of musicians struck up a rousing version of the Irish national anthem, and the Irish team flew onto the field, one by one, each identified by name by the announcers. Above them, a huge leprechaun figure appeared, dancing in mid-air. Showers of gold coins rained down onto the cheering spectators.

Ron grabbed a handful of them. "Money! They're giving away money!" Harry took a close look at the coins. He was very suspicious of anybody giving away free money, particularly gold coins of such size.

"Uh, Ron, I hate to pop your bubble," Harry said sadly, "but this is leprechaun gold. It's even marked that way, see?"

Sure enough, the coin he held was marked clearly as "Leprechaun Gold." Ron's face fell. Harry felt sorry for his friend. He knew that Ron hated being poor, and had been delighted to find that working for PD Enterprises had helped him begin building up wealth. The expression of disappointment on Ron's face hurt to see.

"Think about it, Ron," Hermione said kindly, laying a hand on Ron's arm. "Our wizarding currency is gold-based, isn't it? If leprechauns could create gold out of nothing, wouldn't the goblins have to either get them under control, or kill them?"

Ron thought about it. "Yeah, you're right." He sighed. "For a brief, wonderful second, I thought I had something."

"Let's just make sure," Dudley said. Pulling out his Makarov, but keeping his finger well off the trigger, he took one of the coins that had been dropped and touched it to the pistol's slide. It vanished instantly. "This pistol's not iron, but steel is close enough. Leprechaun gold vanishes when it touches iron."

"Oh! I didn't know that!" Harry could see Hermione filing away another fact in her mind. He could see uses for leprechaun gold, if he could get enough of the stuff. Of course, doing those things was one thing, but getting away with it, particularly in Roanapur, was another thing entirely. Far better, he decided, to have a reputation for square dealing and honesty. That made it much less likely that he'd be murdered.

Meanwhile, the Irish team's show had ended, and it was the turn of the Bulgarians. To roars from the crowd, the Bulgarian team came flying in, and when Viktor Krum came into view, the roars grew all but deafening. "Krum! Krum! Krum!" the crowd chanted, and Ron and Ginny chanted as loudly as everybody else. Harry was privately hoping to get a chance to meet the Bulgarians, to find out if his Russian and their Bulgarian were close enough to be mutually comprehensible.

Then the Bulgarians' mascots came on. They were beautiful women, and as they began to dance, Harry felt his mind start to spin, and he stood up, heading for the front of his box as though he was going to jump out and onto the field to be near these impossibly alluring creatures.

He wasn't the only one. Men all through the stadium were going crazy. Beside him, Dudley was getting up...until Luna sat him back down, plopped herself onto his lap facing him, and said "Look into my eyes, Dudley! Look into my eyes!" As Dudley stared into Luna's eyes, the madness seemed to pass, and he hugged Luna close. She hugged him back, giving the other girls, who were clearly slightly astonished at this, a rather smug smile. "It's all in knowing how," she explained.

Ginny apparently decided to try the same trick. She grabbed Harry by the shoulder, spun him around, and stared deep into his eyes. "Forget about those Bulgarian cows, Harry! Look at me!" As he did, he realized that whatever spell the Bulgarian mascots had cast on him was no longer operating. Is this love I'm feeling? He wondered. He knew that Dudley adored Luna, and vice-versa; had he fallen in love with Ginny?

If he had, he decided, he was happy with it. He liked Ron Weasley and his whole family, and Ginny Weasley had proven that she could handle Roanapur, which was in Harry's eyes, a sine-qua-non for anybody wanting a relationship with him. While she hadn't been personally praised and complimented by Balalaika, Harry knew she was just as brave and resourceful as her brother. He wondered if having grown up the only girl, and the youngest, in her large family had had something to do with that.

On the field, the Bulgarian mascots' act was done, and the teams had gathered. A mass of trumpets blew a triumphant fanfare, reminding Harry of the Olympic theme, and the game started. Watching the game, Harry found himself utterly absorbed.

He had thought he was familiar with Quidditch. If he hadn't been so busy with other projects, he'd have probably flown for the main Slytherin team at Hogwarts. As it was, he was reserve Seeker, and happy that way. He'd flown many times in friendly games, against the other three Houses' reserve teams, and against the main Slytherin team. The current Slytherin Captain believed in keeping his team sharp with regular hard play, and expected both his main and reserve teams to give 100% of their attention and effort to each game.

But what he was seeing at the World Cup made what he was familiar with look like the fumblings of Muggle-born firsties at Hogwarts, in their earliest lessons with Madame Hooch. What he was seeing was pure poetry in motion, and he wanted to get his own broom and learn how to do it, at least as well as the professionals were.

The others were just as rapt in the spectacle as Harry was. They hardly paid attention to the score, although the spectators cheered wildly whenever someone, on either side, made a goal. The Irish and Bulgarian Keepers had their work cut out for them, for all their teammates' dazzling competence. Harry could see how these teams had been good enough to compete for a world-level title.

After a while, it was clear that Ireland had the advantage. Harry smiled to himself. The odds had been in Ireland's favor, so he wouldn't be as rich in the event of an Irish victory as he would have had he bet on Bulgaria and the Bulgarians won, but still, he'd get some money out of this. While he wasn't as single-minded about money as Ron was, the thought of having more than he'd started out with was very nice. And that, he thought gleefully, was not even counting the profits that PD Enterprises were going to get out of the sales of soda pop at the World Cup!

When he'd been going around with his friends, Harry had been keeping an eye peeled for bottles of Coke and the other products that PD Enterprises had a monopoly on in the Wizard World of Britain. Again and again, he'd seen evidence that he and Dudley had a real hit on their hands, and he rubbed his hands together gleefully at the thought of the foreign wizards, the sheltered purebloods in particular, ordering case after case of Coke and every case putting more money in his and Dudley's pockets. Balalaika and Aunt Petunia will be so proud! He exulted.

Of course, some of it flowed right back out again. The goblins took a percentage off the top of each sale, in return for enforcing a monopoly on the sale of Muggle soft drinks in wizard restaurants and establishments. PD Enterprises also had started taking out advertisements in wizarding publications, which cost some money. They'd spent some on having Lee Jordan, an artistically-talented Gryffindor Muggleborn, create some colorful, eye-catching ads to send to the Daily Prophet, Witch Weekly, The Quibbler, and other such periodicals.

While they'd been in Roanapur over the summer, Harry and Dudley had read some books they'd found in a book stall in the Mapurao Market about success in business. They were planning to put those strategies into action over the school year. Advertising, sponsoring various activities, celebrity endorsements...all of those would ensure that the soda pop would flow, and money would pour into PD Enterprises' bank account.

Meanwhile, out on the Quidditch field, things were happening. The Bulgarian Seeker, Viktor Krum, had pushed his broom into a screaming power dive, heading straight for the ground with the Irish Seeker right behind him. At the last possible second, Krum hauled his broom up, while the Irish Seeker, not quite so quick on the uptake, plowed himself into the turf. A loud "OOOH!" went up from the crowd, as a quick time-out was called to allow the Healers to get onto the field and see to the Irishman. Meanwhile, Krum was circling above, holding up a small item that glinted gold. At the sight of this, the crowd set up a huge roar.

"Look!" yelled Dudley. "He's got the Snitch!" Sure enough, Viktor Krum had caught the Golden Snitch, ending the game and scoring 150 points for his team. It wasn't enough to overtake Ireland's lead, but nonetheless, it was a triumph.

Hermione was the first one to put everything together. "We've won our bets!" she squealed. Harry calculated quickly. Sure enough, even the long-shot bets they had placed on Krum getting the snitch while Ireland won had worked out perfectly! At hundred-to-one odds on that, the money they'd get would equal what they won on Ireland's victory.

Ron and Ginny both shouted with joy. They grabbed each other's hands and started dancing around and around, singing "We're in the money, we're in the money…" while Dudley gave Luna a hard hug and kissed her to thank her for coming up with that off-the-wall bet. Harry wanted to hug her as well.

Seeing Ron and Ginny so happy warmed Harry's heart. He was glad to help them earn money, and not just because earning money made them more loyal to him and PD Enterprises. He liked both the youngest Weasleys, and they had shown that they had the right stuff, both at Hogwarts and in Roanapur. He fully intended to become a rich man, and he wanted people around him who were loyal, trustworthy and capable.

"Does everybody have their betting slips?" Luna asked, when Dudley finally released her. "The action at the bookies' will be very thick, but once things quiet down a little, we can collect our money."

Sure enough, the whole venue was a madhouse. The Irish fans were celebrating noisily, and Harry could easily see that a lot of them had started drinking, even though it was early in the evening. He shook his head. While he could see the attraction of strong drink, he would have kept away from it even if Balalaika had not forbidden him and Dudley from indulging before their eighteenth birthdays. He'd seen too many people who had let drink make them foolish, and many of them had ended up dead. In the deadly environment of Roanapur, not to mention his position as Target-for-Today to one of the worst wizard criminals in existence, he preferred sobriety. Afterward, when Voldemort was dead, he thought he might try drinking, but that time was not yet.

After the crowds had thinned out at the bookmakers' stands, Harry and his friends went to cash in their betting slips. Sure enough, they had done quite well. Ron and Ginny both had smiles on that lighted up the whole vicinity, and Harry was very pleased at how much he'd made. The money came in drafts on Gringott's Bank, which meant that they didn't have to wander about with large bags of gold coins. Harry wasn't over-cautious, but that did seem to be tempting fate.

Hermione, being Hermione, was jittering about what her parents would think. "I'm glad to have this money, but what will my parents say when they find I've been gambling?" she said. "They'll do their nut!"

"Hermione," Ginny said, "you don't have teo tell them where you got the money. Say you got it working for PD Enterprises. They approve of that, don't they?"

"Well, yes, they do…" Hermione still looked worried. "But I don't like lying to them."

"That's a good thing, Hermione," Luna put in. "But maybe you don't have to lie to them. Just don't tell them that you have this money. You've a Gringott's account, don't you?" Hermione nodded. "Just deposit it there. The goblins won't let anybody not authorized...and that would include your parents…know that you even have an account, much less how much is in it or how you got it."

"Right, then. I'll do that. After I'm eighteen, and of legal age, I shall do as I please, but while I'm still a minor and living at home when not at school, I have to take their views into account." She winked at the Weasley siblings. "Just like you do."

"Oh, we don't think that Mum and Dad will mind what we plan to do with this money," Ginny answered. "We plan to give it to them!"

"That's a great idea!" Dudley said. "Your parents are really nice people, and from the way you talk, and things Percy's said to us over the years, they could really use a little financial boost!"

"Let's go find them!" When Harry and his friends found the Weasleys, the elder Weasleys were talking with some people from the Ministry.

"Oh! Here's our two youngest and their friends from Slytherin!" Unlike his Slytherin-distrusting wife, Arthur Weasley apparently had no problem with the House they had been Sorted into. "Barty, this is our youngest son, Ron, our daughter, Ginny, and their friends, Harry Potter, Dudley Dursley, Luna Lovegood and Hermione Granger!" The man they were talking to had expensive robes that Harry could tell were custom-designed, and was accompanied by a very nervous-looking house elf.

All the Slytherins bowed or curtsied. They knew that a senior Ministry employee was someone to treat with respect. "Sir," they chorused.

"Ginny, Hermione, Luna, Ron, Harry, and Dudley, this is Bartholomew Crouch. He's just under the Minister of Magic." So this man was second-in-command, or something like that, at the Ministry? Harry thought. He might be a useful contact!

"I'm pleased to meet all of you," Crouch said. "Particularly you, Mr. Potter. I've heard nothing but good reports of you since you came back to Britain for your schooling."

"Thank you, Mr. Crouch," Harry said. Balalaika and Aunt Petunia had drilled politeness deeply into him, but he resented the way that this person concentrated all his attention on him and ignored his friends. "My friends here are a lot of help. I couldn't do it without their support. Dudley, in particular. He's my first cousin, and we were raised as brothers by his mother, my Aunt Petunia."

"I...see." Mr. Crouch looked as though he'd bitten into an apple to find half a worm. Harry was secretly amused at his reaction. He almost certainly knew that Dudley was Muggle-born, and to a lot of purebloods, that was almost the same thing as "Muggle."

"Sir...is there something wrong with your house elf?" Hermione pointed at the little creature. Harry wasn't familiar with house-elves, but when his attention was called to it, he could see that it was worried about something. It was tugging at Mr. Crouch's cloak, and jumping from foot to foot as though it desperately needed to find a restroom.

"Winky, what's wrong with you?" Mr. Crouch's voice was full of impatience. Winky gestured frantically, and Mr. Crouch leaned down, visibly reluctant and eager to bring this to an end. Winky whispered in his ear, and Mr. Crouch straightened, his face going pale.

"Your pardon, Mr. Weasley, Mrs. Weasley, and all," he said, "but I find I've an emergency to deal with. I bid you all a very good evening." With that, he turned, following Winky through the crowds to the wooded areas on the edge of the area where the World Cup was being held.

Mr. Weasley looked after him with a puzzled expression. "I've known Bart Crouch for a long, long time," he mused, "and never have I seen him act that way."

"Maybe something came up that he has to deal with right now?" offered Ginny.

"Even if it was an emergency at work, he wouldn't have acted this way, dear." Mr. Weasley ruffled his daughter's hair. "In any case, it's nothing for you young people to concern yourselves with. Go on and have fun tonight! The celebration looks like it'll be running late!"

"Yes, go have fun," Mrs. Weasley added, "but be sure to be back in your tents at a reasonable hour!"

"Yes, Mum," Ron and Ginny chorussed.

"Yes, ma'am," Harry, Dudley, Hermione and Luna added. They turned and left, heading for where they could see some young people their own age, some of them doing a very creditable Irish jig.

"Is that Seamus Finnegan?" Luna asked. Sure enough, the Irish-born Gryffindor was dancing with the others, his face wreathed in a happy smile. The Slytherins all went over to join him, but just as they got there, they heard screams and shouts from the crowd off toward the center of the campground. It didn't sound good.

"Take cover! Into the woods!" Harry took command, and led them all toward the shelter of the trees.