The stadium itself was a marvel – the walls from the outside looked to be gold, and even the stairs inside were carpeted in a rich purple. The Top Box was at the very top of the stadium, and though Hermione's calves burned by the time they got there, it was worth it – instead of wooden benches to sit on as she'd half expected, there were about two dozen purple-and-gilt chairs set up in two rows, all cushioned and looking much more comfortable than any seating had any right to be at a sports stadium.
The box was set at the high point of the stadium, exactly halfway between the golden goal posts. Across the field from the Top Box was what looked like a gigantic blackboard, with shining chalk advertisements scrawling themselves across to board.
"Best seats in the house," Draco told her with relish.
However, as Fudge led the way into the Top Box, leading them to their seats, there was a tense moment as his introductions faltered.
"—let's see who else – you know Arthur Weasley, I daresay?"
Hermione watched on with wide eyes. The last time she had seen Mr. Weasley and Lucius Malfoy come face-to-face had been in Flourish and Blotts', and there had been a physical fight. Draco seemed tense at her side too; in the front row seats, Hermione could see Harry, Ron, and the other Weasleys watching on, just as tense.
"Good lord, Arthur," Lucius said softly. "What did you have to sell to get seats in the Top Box? Surely your house wouldn't have fetched this much?"
Fudge was clearly not listening and was oblivious to the tension. "Lucius has just given a very generous contribution to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, Arthur. He and his family are here as my guests."
"How – how nice," said Mr. Weasley, with a very strained smile.
They made their way down the line of seats in the second row. Hermione paused at the end, standing next to what was undeniably a House Elf. Harry had turned around from his seat in front of them, watching Draco and Hermione, and he nodded at the House Elf when he saw Hermione's curious look at the House Elf.
"That's Mr. Crouch's House Elf, Winky," Harry said. "She's saving Mr. Crouch a seat."
Hermione blinked, then looked down at the House Elf again. The House Elf was clearly terrified to be up so high and kept wringing her hands – and she was sitting in the second-to-last seat. Hermione took her own seat – third to last, next to Draco, who sat next to his mother – and waited until Harry had turned back around to look at Draco.
"What do you think he's up to?" she asked under her breath.
Draco was startled. "Who, Potter?"
"No. Crouch," Hermione said, jerking her head toward the House Elf. "We have marked tickets – it's not like the Top Box would be oversold. And yet, Crouch has two seats? If there was one that the House Elf was sitting in, I could believe it, but she's saving an empty one?"
Draco slowly caught onto her reasoning, but he still seemed skeptical.
"So… what, he's saving two seats instead of one?" he said. "It's probably nothing, Hermione – one for him, one for his wife."
Hermione raised her eyebrows, but she let the matter drop, though she knew Mr. Crouch's wife to be dead.
"Everyone ready?" Ludo Bagman charged into the box, his round face gleaming with excitement. "Minister – ready to go?"
"Ready when you are, Ludo," Fudge said comfortably.
As Ludo whipped his wand out, touching his throat to do the Sonorus charm, Narcissa Malfoy handed out what looked like golden binoculars.
"Omnioculars," she told them, barely audibly under Ludo's booming welcome. "Excellent for watching Quidditch matches like this – they can replay particularly fast plays."
Hermione took her pair from Narcissa with thanks. The blackboard that had been displaying advertisements now showed BULGARIA: 0, IRELAND: 0.
"And now, without further ado, allow me to introduce… the Bulgarian Team Mascots!"
The right-hand of the stands, which was a solid block of scarlet, roared its approval.
"I wonder what they've brought," Mr. Weasley was saying in front of them. "Ahh – Veela!"
Hermione sat up straight, astonished. Veela?
What must have been a hundred veela were now gliding out onto the field, Hermione watching through her omnioculars. They were beautiful, preternaturally beautiful, with moon-bright skin shining and white-gold hair fanning out behind them with no wind. Music started a moment later, and the veela began to dance.
Their dance was very beautiful, mesmerizing in its deceptive simplicity, and the dancers whirling around were all stunning. Draco made a strangled noise next to her; Hermione's eyes darted to him, worried, only to find Draco shifting in his seat, wearing an expression of rapturous torture on his face as he watched. Amused, Hermione remembered Fleur's words about veela from the previous year – veela had the ability to hypnotize men and mesmerize them with their dance.
She was rather pleased to realize that though she was certainly aesthetically appreciating the beauty of the veela and their dance, she felt no pull of hypnosis at all.
"Harry, what are you doing?"
Ginny Weasley's voice called attention to Harry, who Hermione saw was standing up, one of his legs resting on the wall of the box. Next to him, Ron was frozen in a position that looked as though he were about to dive from a springboard. Both of them blinked, dazed, slowly pulling themselves back together as the veela stopped their dance.
Angry yells filled the stadium – the crowd didn't want the veela to go. As the veela lined up along one side of the stadium, Hermione wondered what the rules were regarding mascots. It hardly seemed fair to bring beings that could literally hypnotize people onto the field – but who knew if there were any rules at all?
"And now," roared Ludo Bagman's voice, "kindly put your wands in the air… for the Irish National Team Mascots!"
The next moment, what seemed to be a great green-and-gold comet came zooming into the stadium. Hermione watched their airshow with amusement, only to duck and cover her head when gold began falling from the sky.
"Excellent!" Ron yelled, when the giant shamrock soared over them, heavy gold coins raining from it. Hermione cold see from this distance that it was comprised of thousands of tiny little bearded men with red vests, each carrying a minute lamp of gold or green.
"Leprechauns!" said Mr. Weasley, over the tumultuous applause of the crowd, many of whom were still fighting and rummaging around under their chairs to retrieve the gold.
"That can't be real gold," Hermione said, sniffing. "They'd break the economy with inflation right here, right now, if it were."
"It's not," Draco drawled next to her, smirking at Ron's excitement to scoop up as many coins as he could. "It disappears after a few hours."
Hermione looked at one of the coins that had fallen into her lap. Discreetly, she put a stasis charm on it, and tucked it along with an unspelled coin into her pocket to examine later.
"And now, ladies and gentlemen, kindly welcome – the Bulgarian National Quidditch Team! I give you – Dimitrov!"
A scarlet-clad figure on a broomstick shot out onto the field in a blur, to wild applause from the Bulgarian supporters. Hermione could barely see without the Omnioculars, and she pressed them to her face to watch a second scarlet-robed player zoom out to the cry of "Ivanova!"
"Zograf! Levski! Vulchanov! Volkov! Aaaaaaand – Krum!"
"That's him," Draco said reverently. "The greatest Seeker of all time."
Hermione focused her own Omnioculars onto the last scarlet-clad blur. Krum was thin, dark, and sallow-skinned, with a large curved nose and thick black eyebrows. Perched on his broom like that, he reminded her of an overgrown bird of prey, but he was familiar to her, all too familiar, and Hermione felt mortification flood her body, her face turning bright red in realization.
"Viktor," she said, her voice weak.
Draco glanced at her. "Yeah, that's Viktor Krum."
Viktor Krum, the Seeker and Quidditch prodigy.
No wonder he'd been surprised and suspicious at seeing her creep around in the woods. He'd probably thought she was some fanatical Quidditch nut who wanted an autograph, and instead he'd found an overly-curious and Quidditch-oblivious witch looking at wards carved into wood. The mental image of Viktor looking at her in amusement, pronouncing "You know nothing about Quidditch" suddenly held much more meaning, and Hermione wanted to sink into her chair and die.
"Of course it is," Hermione said weakly. "Viktor Krum. I should have known"
Even for someone who didn't really appreciate Quidditch, the World Cup match was exciting to watch. The Irish chasers were like a well-oiled machine, trading the Quaffle back and forth rapidly. They were good, too – they scored twice quickly, then again. The Bulgarian Beaters turned to focus solely on blocking the Chasers, which finally gave Bulgaria the opportunity to get their first goal. The cheers from the crowd at each goal were insane, like a physical wave of sound, and Hermione wondered how many people would wake up tomorrow with their voices hoarse.
There was a collective gasp as the two Seekers, Krum and Lynch, plummeted through the center of the Chasers, so fast that it looked like they'd leapt from an airplane without parachutes. Hermione's heart clenched at the sight – they were going to crash—
She was only 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.
"Fool!" Mr. Weasley was yelling. "Krum was feinting!"
Hermione watched as Viktor flew idly while mediwizards hurried onto the field to examine the Irish seeker. His dark eyes were scanning the ground, searching for the Snitch without distraction. It was a good strategy, she admitted to herself – if he held the record for fastest dive, he might as well use the skill.
The Irish Seeker was revived, and play continued on, even fiercer than before.
After another fifteen minutes of furious Quidditch, Ireland had pulled ahead by ten more goals. They were leading by 130 to 10, and the game was starting to get dirtier and dirtier. Fouls were called as someone thwacked someone else with their elbows and got a penalty.
"Look at the referee," Draco said, snickering. He had one of his fingers in his ears to help him ignore the veela, who had started dancing again, and to Hermione's immense amusement, the referee had landed right in front of the dancing veela and was posturing, 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 and kicked the referee in the shins. The referee seemed to regain himself and looked exceptionally embarrassed. A moment later, he had started shouting at the veela, who had stopped dancing and were looking mutinous.
"Oh, that's not good," Hermione said, amused. "They can throw fireballs when they're mad."
"They can what?" Draco said, his head whirling to look at Hermione.
"You might get to see," Hermione said, grinning. "Especially if the leprechauns keep baiting them and the veela get even angier."
Ireland was awarded anther two penalties when the Bulgarian Beaters landed to defend the Veela, and they rose back into the air with mutinous looks. They didn't seem to care if their bats hit Bludgers or people as they swung them through the air, and one of them charged straight into an Irish Chaser and collided, knocking the Chaser nearly off her broom.
"Foul!" Ludo Bagman declared, as the referee's whistle blew, declaring another penalty.
The leprechauns rose into the air, forming a hand making a very rude sign at the veela across the field, and this time, the veela lost control, launching themselves across the field.
"Merlin's pants," Draco swore, eyes wide. "What the f—"
Long, scaly wings burst from the veela's shoulders as they threw handfuls of fire across the field at the leprechauns, faces elongating into cruel bird beaks, and Hermione found herself fascinated. She'd read the sapphic veelan romance Fleur had sent, and it was clear that the author of that romance had never actually seen a transformed veela in their life.
Ministry wizards were flooding onto the field to try and separate the veela and leprechauns; meanwhile, the Quidditch match raged on above, as fierce as ever. Fouls abounded, and the referee was clearly distracted with the veela throwing fire at him now as well.
One of the Irish Beaters swung heavily at a passing Bludger, hitting it as hard as possible toward Krum, who didn't duck quickly enough. It hit him full in the face, and there was blood everywhere, Krum's nose obviously broken. There were outraged cries for a time-out from the crowd, but the referee was trying to put his broom tail out, which had caught fire.
"Look at Lynch!" Harry yelled suddenly from in front of her.
The Irish Seeker had suddenly gone into a dive, and half the crowd seemed to realize what was happening, the Irish supporters rising in a great wave of green, but Hermione watched – already, Krum was on the Irish Seeker's tail. How he could see where he was going with blood flying from his nose, Hermione had no idea, but he was drawing level with Lynch now as the pair of them hurtled towards the ground again.
"They're going to crash!" Ginny screamed.
"They're not!" roared Ron.
"Lynch is!" yelled Harry.
Harry was right – for the second time, Lynch hit the ground with tremendous force, where he was immediately stampeded by a horde of angry veela.
"The Snitch, where's the Snitch?" bellowed one of the other Weasleys.
"He's got it – Krum's got it – it's all over!" Harry shouted.
Hermione looked up.
Viktor Krum, his red robes shining with blood from his nose, was rising gently into the air, his fist held high, a glint of gold in his hand. The scoreboard was flashing BULGARIA: 160, IRELAND: 170 across the crowd, and it took a moment for the crowd to realize that the game was over. Slowly, a sound started as a deep rumble that started and rolled through the Ireland supporters, growing louder and louder, until everyone of them were screaming in delight, waving flags and pennants.
"IRELAND WINS!" Bagman shouted. "KRUM GETS THE SNITCH – BUT IRELAND WINS – good lord, I don't any of us were expecting that!"
"What did he catch the Snitch for?" Ron demanded. "He ended it when they were a hundred and sixty points ahead, the idiot!"
Hermione didn't play Quidditch, but even she could see the logic in it – anyone could see that the Bulgarians had been losing to the Irish, and badly. Their lead was only going to get bigger and bigger, and by ending the game when he had, Viktor had kept it close and ended it on his terms, not the Irish's.
Viktor was surrounded by mediwizards on the field now, mopping him up, while his teammates were around, looking dejected and hanging their heads even as the Irish and the leprechauns roared.
The Irish performed a lap of honor, flanked by leprechauns, and the Quidditch Cup was brought into the Top Box, dazzling Hermione with a blinding white light. It'd been magically illuminated so everyone could see it, and it was handed to Cornelius Fudge.
"Let's have a really loud hand for the gallant losers – Bulgaria!" Bagman shouted.
And up the stairs came the seven defeated Bulgarian players. The crowd below was applauding appreciatively as one by one, Bagman called out each of their names, and each player shook hands with their own minister and then with Fudge. Viktor Krum, who was last in line, looked a mess. Two black eyes were blooming spectacularly on his bloody face, and he was still holding the Snitch. When Krum's name was announced, the whole stadium gave him a resounding, earsplitting roar.
Then came the Irish team, and the Bulgarian team pressed themselves to the back of the box, getting out of the way. Hermione watched as their Seeker took up the farthest position from the Irish, all the way down the back row, lingering near the last seats.
"I had said I would see you again, did I not?" his amused voice came.
Hermione's face was a brilliant red when she turned to see Viktor.
"Can you even see me?" she said haughtily. "Your eyes are practically swollen shut!"
It was an exaggeration – she could see amusement glimmer in his eyes as he regarded her, taking in her embarrassed blush.
"So," she said finally, looking at him. "Fastest dive on record."
He grinned. Even through the blood and gore, it somehow came off as rather charming.
"Yes," he said. "Though maybe new record now. That was very fast at the end."
Hermione turned pink.
"Yes, well," she said, tossing her hair. She glanced around, searching for a distraction of some sort. "Oh! Did you see the veela? They started attacking the leprechauns with fire. What kind of rules are there in place for team mascots?"
Viktor chuckled, seemingly amused. He crouched down low behind her chair to have a quiet conversation with her about the veela as the Irish team was brought in, announced, and given the Quidditch Cup to the roars of the stadium. He kindly ignored that Hermione wanted to talk about anything but the Quidditch game, despite being at a Quidditch game, and he told her about how during practices, the veela had practiced coordinating dive-bombing with fireballs in case it was needed.
He might like not talking about Quidditch for once, Hermione realized halfway through, giving him a small smile as his eyes sparkled. He probably had to talk about it all the time. Maybe talking about Magical Creatures and Transfiguration was a bit of a respite.
