"Theeeeeeeey're OFF!" said Ludo. "And it's Mullet! Troy! Moran! Dimitrov! Back to Mullet! Troy! Levski! Moran!"

I'd seen a professional quidditch game live before, so I expected fast movement, but even I was staggered by the speed at which the Quaffle was being thrown! But then again, I reminded myself, these were the 2 best teams in the world!

I watched the Irish chasers score the opening goal with a perfectly executed Hawkshead attacking formation, followed by a Porskoff ploy, and for a brief moment I imagined myself doing the same thing for England in 8 years time.

"TROY SCORES!" roared Ludo, and the stadium shuddered with a roar of applause and cheers. "Ten zero to Ireland!"

"What?" Harry yelled, looking wildly around through his Omnioculars. "But Levski's got the Quaffle!"

"Harry, if you're not going to watch at normal speed, you're going to miss things!" shouted Hermione, who was dancing up and down, waving her arms in the air while Troy did a lap of honor around the field. This was exactly the reason why I hadn't bought any myself. The leprechauns watching from the sidelines had all risen into the air again and formed the great, glittering shamrock. Across the field, the veela were watching them sulkily.

The Irish Chasers were superb. They worked as a seamless team, their movements so well coordinated that they appeared to be reading one another's minds as they positioned themselves, and the rosette on Harry's chest kept squeaking their names: "Troy — Mullet — Moran!" And within ten minutes, Ireland had scored twice more, bringing their lead to thirty-zero and causing a thunderous tide of roars and applause from the green-clad supporters. I looked at Hermione briefly and saw that she was now writing furiously on parchment.

"What are you doing?" I asked her.

"Taking notes" she replied "gonna try and use some of these moves myself eventually"

"I do have a book called the Professional Chasers Guide, you could just borrow that"

"Oh really, well I'm, really far into this now, might as well finish it"

She'd written almost a page in what looked like intense detail, so I left her to it.

The match became still faster, but more brutal. Volkov and Vulchanov, the Bulgarian Beaters, were whacking the Bludgers as fiercely as possible at the Irish Chasers, and were starting to prevent them from using some of their best moves; twice they were forced to scatter, and then, finally, Ivanova managed to break through their ranks; dodge the Keeper, Ryan; and score Bulgaria's first goal.

"Fingers in your ears!" bellowed Dad as the veela started to dance in celebration. They were making loud screeching noises, and I cringed momentarily at the discomfort of this.

"Dimitrov! Levski! Dimitrov! Ivanova — oh I say!" roared Ludo. One hundred thousand wizards gasped as the two Seekers, Krum and Lynch, plummeted through the center of the Chasers, so fast that it looked as though they had just jumped from airplanes without parachutes.

"They're going to crash!" screamed Hermione. She was half right — at the very last second, Viktor Krum pulled out of the dive and spiraled off. Lynch, however, hit the ground with a dull thud that could be heard throughout the stadium. A huge groan rose from the Irish seats. It was the Wronski Feint, and I thought of the ludicrousness of how I'd seen Mulciber do it at Hogwarts before I'd seen it in a professional game.

Fool!" moaned Dad. "Krum was feinting!"

"It's time-out!" yelled Ludo's voice, "as trained mediwizards hurry onto the field to examine Aidan Lynch!"

I looked at Krum. He was now circling high above Lynch, who was being revived by mediwizards with cups of potion. He was using the time while Lynch was revived to look for the Snitch without interference. Lynch got to his feet at last, to loud cheers from the green-clad supporters, mounted his Firebolt, and kicked back off into the air. His revival seemed to give Ireland new heart. When Mostafa blew his whistle again, the Chasers moved into action with a skill unrivaled by anything we had seen so far. After fifteen more fast and furious minutes, Ireland had pulled ahead by ten more goals. They were now leading by one hundred and thirty points to ten, and the game was starting to get dirtier.

As Mullet shot toward the goal posts yet again, clutching the Quaffle tightly under her arm, the Bulgarian Keeper, Zograf, flew out to meet her. Whatever happened was over so quickly we didn't catch it, but a scream of rage from the Irish crowd, and Mostafa's long, shrill whistle blast, told us it had been a foul.

"And Mostafa takes the Bulgarian Keeper to task for cobbing, excessive use of elbows!" Bagman informed the roaring spectators.

"And — yes, it's a penalty to Ireland!" The leprechauns, who had risen angrily into the air like a swarm of glittering hornets when Mullet had been fouled, now darted together to form the words "HA, HA, HA!" The veela on the other side of the field leapt to their feet, tossed their hair angrily, and started to dance again.

"Look at the referee!" Hermione said, giggling.

I looked at where she was pointing. Hassan Mostafa had landed right in front of the dancing veela, and was acting very oddly indeed. He was flexing his muscles and smoothing his mustache excitedly.

"Now, we can't have that!" said Ludo Bagman, though he sounded highly amused.

"Somebody slap the referee!" A mediwizard came tearing across the field, his fingers stuffed into his own ears, and kicked Mostafa hard in the shins. Mostafa seemed to come to himself; he looked exceptionally embarrassed and had started shouting at the veela, who had stopped dancing and were looking mutinous.

"And unless I'm much mistaken, Mostafa is actually attempting to send off the Bulgarian team mascots!" said Bagman's voice. "Now there's something we haven't seen before. . . . Oh this could turn nasty. . . ."

It did: The Bulgarian Beaters, Volkov and Vulchanov, landed on either side of Mostafa and began arguing furiously with him, gesticulating toward the leprechauns, who had now gleefully formed the words "HEE, HEE, HEE." Mostafa was not impressed by the Bulgarians' arguments, however; he was jabbing his finger into the air, clearly telling them to get flying again, and when they refused, he gave two short blasts on his whistle.

"Two penalties for Ireland!" shouted Bagman, and the Bulgarian crowd howled with anger. "And Volkov and Vulchanov had better get back on those brooms . . . yes . . . there they go . . . and Troy takes the Quaffle . . ."

Play now reached a level of ferocity beyond anything we had yet seen. The Beaters on both sides were acting without mercy: Volkov and Vulchanov in particular seemed not to care whether their clubs made contact with Bludger or human as they swung them violently through the air. Dimitrov shot straight at Moran, who had the Quaffle, nearly knocking her off her broom.

At this point I was beginning to wonder if Bulgaria were trying to match the record for most fouls committed in a match.

"Foul!" roared the Irish supporters as one, all standing up in a great wave of green.

"Foul!" echoed Ludo's magically magnified voice. "Dimitrov skins Moran — deliberately flying to collide there — and it's got to be another penalty — yes, there's the whistle!" The leprechauns had risen into the air again, and this time, they formed a giant hand, which was making a fuck off sign at the veela across the field. At this, the veela lost control. Instead of dancing, they launched themselves across the field and began throwing what seemed to be handfuls of fire at the leprechauns.

"And that, boys," yelled Dad over the tumult of the crowd below, "is why you should never go for looks alone!"

Ministry wizards were flooding onto the field to separate the veela and the leprechauns, but with little success; meanwhile, the pitched battle below was nothing to the one taking place above. I really hoped the match would end soon, or it had the potential to turn extremely ugly!

"Levski — Dimitrov — Moran — Troy — Mullet — Ivanova — Moran again — Moran — MORAN SCORES!"

But the cheers of the Irish supporters were barely heard over the shrieks of the veela, the blasts now issuing from the Ministry members' wands, and the furious roars of the Bulgarians. The game recommenced immediately; now Levski had the Quaffle, now Dimitrov — The Irish Beater Quigley swung heavily at a passing Bludger, and hit it as hard as possible toward Krum, who did not duck quickly enough. It hit him full in the face. There was a deafening groan from the crowd; Krum's nose looked broken, there was blood everywhere, but Hassan Mostafa didn't blow his whistle.

"Time-out! Ah, come on, he can't play like that, look at him —" called Ron.

"Look at Lynch!" Harry yelled. For the Irish Seeker had suddenly gone into a dive, and this was no Wronski Feint; this was the real thing. . . .

"He's seen the Snitch!" Harry shouted. "He's seen it! Look at him go!"

"Come on Aidan!" Amy yelled

Half the crowd seemed to have realized what was happening; the Irish supporters rose in another great wave of green, screaming their Seeker on . . . but Krum was on his tail. How he could see where he was going, I had no idea; there were flecks of blood flying through the air behind him, but he was drawing level with Lynch now as the pair of them hurtled toward the ground again —

"They're going to crash!" shrieked Hermione.

"They're not!" roared Ron.

"Lynch is!" yelled Harry.

And he was right — for the second time, Lynch hit the ground with tremendous force and was immediately stampeded by a horde of angry veela.

"The Snitch, where's the Snitch?" bellowed Charlie, along the row.

"He's got it — Krum's got it — it's all over!" shouted Harry.

He had indeed, and the scoreboard changed to read Bulgaria 160, Ireland 170.

Then, slowly, as though a great jumbo jet were revving up, the rumbling from the Ireland supporters grew louder and louder and erupted into screams of delight. "IRELAND WINS!" Bagman shouted, who like the Irish, seemed to be taken aback by the sudden end of the match.

"KRUM GETS THE SNITCH — BUT IRELAND WINS — good lord, I don't think any of us were expecting that!"

But the twins were, I thought. Looking over to them, I saw they were celebrating harder than anyone else, because they'd just won a large amount of money in addition to Ireland winning.

"What did he catch the Snitch for?" Ron bellowed, even as he jumped up and down, applauding with his hands over his head. "He ended it when Ireland were a hundred and sixty points ahead, the idiot!"

"He knew they were never going to catch up!" Harry shouted back over all the noise, also applauding loudly. "The Irish Chasers were too good. . . . He wanted to end it on his terms, that's all. . . .

"True, he couldn't have waited for his chasers to score two more, cause Lynch was already diving for the snitch!" I added

"Ireland are WORLD CHAMPIONS!" shouted Amy. "This has more than made up for England's early exit!"

I couldn't agree on that part, but I was happy for her nonetheless.

"Congratulations mate" I said, patting her on the back.

"I really needed this!" Amy added

"He was very brave, wasn't he?" Hermione said, leaning forward to watch Krum land as a swarm of mediwizards blasted a path through the battling leprechauns and veela to get to him. "He looks a terrible mess. . . ."