A mind pressing against hers, warm and tingling and loud, Liz suddenly crashed awake, her breath catching in her throat, cringing away from—

Hermione's hand lifted away from Liz's arm, she backed off a little. Brain still catching up, it took a second for Liz to make sense of what she was looking at, the canvas ceiling set to glowing by the sun, Hermione's hair making a little frizzy halo around her head. She must have moved one of the dressers over, because Hermione was not that tall. "Sorry, Liz, you weren't waking up." She had just been talking at her, trying to verbally prod her awake, and she'd been aware that touching Liz probably wasn't a great idea, but she hadn't known what—

Liz wrenched herself out of Hermione's head, flopped over onto her back. Rubbing at her face with both hands, she took a few long, slow breaths, trying to force a bit of calm, stop her heart from pounding in her chest. "It's okay. Just startled me."

"Okay. It's two o'clock now — you wanted to make it to Ireland's match, right?"

"Yeah." Liz pushed herself up to a seat, at a little bit of an angle so she didn't hit her head on any of the beams. "I'll be out in a minute."

There was a short pause, something shifting in Hermione's head — considering asking her if she was sure she was alright, if she wouldn't rather take it easy for the rest of the afternoon — before she let out a little, barely-audible sigh, stepped back down to the floor. It turned out she had moved one of the dressers, she levitated it back to its spot before leaving the room, the door clicking closed behind her. The instant before it closed, Liz heard voices from the main room, low and masculine — Severus and Sirius, presumably.

For a moment, staring down at the patchy quilt over her legs, Liz contemplated, just, not going out there. But she really did want to see Ireland play, so she forced herself into motion. It was difficult starting off, some invisible weight seeming to drag at her limbs, but once she'd gotten moving it was easier to keep moving. She could probably just wear the same things she had this morning, it wouldn't make a difference...

Their second morning at the World Cup camp ended up being rather rough — for Liz, at least. The first day overall had been fine, pretty fun, even. Liz would admit that she was a huge fucking nerd, so just walking around the camp and looking at all the different tents and styles of dress and food and listening to foreign languages and music was just kind of neat. It wasn't a broad snapshot of the entire magical world — quidditch originated in Europe, and Secrecy had happened rather early into colonisation, so it hadn't managed to spread everywhere — but there were still people here from all kinds of places. Practically every ICW country that wasn't too tiny had a team, and so did several Arab countries, and like Turkey and Armenia and whatever. There were also a few in the Americas, solely the handful of European-dominated countries here and there — Massachusetts, Virginia, the Orange Republic (funny name), Quebec (way smaller than the muggle province), and Acadia in the northeast, two Liz was pretty sure were in Mexico somewhere, and also Brazil, which she thought was actually multiple tiny countries along the coast, but they shared one quidditch team.

The match-ups for the quarterfinals were out now, and you could definitely tell quidditch was mostly a European thing: of the eight teams playing, four were European...and one was a Mexican country that was basically all white Spanish people anyway, so kind of halfway counted. (And those four European countries included Ireland and Britain, which were technically the same country on the magical side to begin with.) The other three were pretty spread around, though. One of them was Syria, which was apparently a really cosmopolitan, highly-developed country on the magical side, and Mahas– Maharatch– Maharashtra (Jesus, that name), which by a funny coincidence happened to be the same country Padma's family was from. (They'd had a lot of dealings with Portuguese and English traders in the century before Secrecy, had more to do with Europe than much of India.) And the last was Japan, surprisingly. Japan had been doing a big isolationism thing around the time of Secrecy, and there was a whole complicated thing to do with that which wasn't important just now, but they hadn't started participating in international...stuff...really at all until after the Second World War. (Also a long story, something to do with a bunch of their traditional leadership getting accidentally killed in the American bombing, which, oops?) Their quidditch team was the newest in the League, they'd only started it in '81, and here they were at the World Cup already. And there had been other teams in the earlier matches, from the Near East, a few more in India, a couple around Malaysia and Indonesia (Liz didn't know exactly), but they'd all been eliminated.

But, the point was, the teams who were still in it, despite being disproportionately European, were still dotted all around the world — and a lot of people who'd come to support teams that'd been eliminated hadn't left, still hanging around to catch the rest of the tournament. So there were still all kinds of people at the camp. And since colonisation hadn't fucked up everyone's shite on this side, a lot of the foreign people were still really foreign.

After wandering around a bit, they'd gone up to the stadium to catch the first of the quarterfinals that morning. The place was way overdone, huge enough they'd used expansion charms to fit everyone (creating odd lensing effects looking out over the stands), thousands and thousands of people packed into too small a space, the crowd all around beating Liz over the head on the way up. But Sirius had come through big time: he'd gotten them a private box — there was a ring of them all the way around the stadium, halfway up where you could easily watch the action — and the privacy spells cut off her mind magic, it was quiet in there. Apparently he'd had to pay extra to get those spells, and had had to pull strings at the Ministry to even get one at all, rich mages all over the bloody world competing for them. Liz got the feeling he was still extracting favours from the Ministry for his false imprisonment, milking it for all it was worth, which was fair, but he'd also used Liz's name, which meant she was now obligated to meet the new Minister — not a whole big thing, just a brief conversation, maybe snap a few pictures, ugh, fine. Sounded like a pain, but it was worth it to not have literally everyone shouting in her head all the time, so she could actually watch the fucking game.

Romania absolutely slaughtered Britain, two sixty-five to ten. Pathetic.

They ended up getting lunch somewhere in the Arabic-speaking camp — most of the people here were specifically from Tunisia, she was told. Tunisia was actually kind of a big deal for European mages, since it was the country Carthage was in...or had been in, anyway, since the Romans had pretty much obliterated it, the city reduced to rubble and the residents sold into slavery and the fields salted. (The ancient Romans hadn't fucked around, apparently.) Some Carthaginian noble families had had country estates and whatever, and had managed to survive the destruction of the city — along with their books. These had been a big deal nearly a thousand years ago now, Tunisian mages of the time discovering all this old shite, they'd been part of the magical cultural renaissance that'd been going on in the Arab world at the time. All the old stuff had helped to reconstruct some early Mediterranean history (including pre-imperial Roman history that'd been lost over the centuries), lots of old magic and stuff, it was a big deal. There was an important university now on the same site Carthage had (supposedly) once existed, with a big damn museum and library and everything, so both because of ancient history and because of all that modern stuff Tunisia was one of the countries outside the ICW Europeans tended to be more familiar with.

The tents over here were more square, the walls looking relatively thin. Liz guessed it was probably pretty hot in Tunisia, and they didn't have to worry about rain as much. But, as she'd come to expect from mages just in general, the camp was very colourful. The tents, of course — some of them had what kind of looked like mosaics done on the sides, complex designs with some swirls Liz recognised as writing, but done with hundreds of little beads stitched into the fabric, glittering in the sunlight — but also the people, wearing a lot of vibrant reds and whites and blues, jewellery with bronze and gold. (Not real gold, she mostly just meant the colour.) Some of the women were kind of distracting, honestly. They weren't showing much — some were even hugging cloaks around themselves against the wind, obviously cold, because Scotland — and most even had headscarves and stuff, covering their heads but often without completely hiding their hair. (Which, Liz had thought that was the point, she didn't get it.) But, see, virtually all of the women here she saw were wearing trousers, apparently just the done thing there, and those were pretty baggy, with wide cloth belts usually layered with bronze or gold discs or beads or something wrapped around their hips...usually wrapped pretty close around, waist and hips kind of, um, it was distracting, that was all. Liz had to try not to stare, didn't want to be rude.

Liz saw a lot of repeats — on tents, in jewellery — of this one design, an open right hand, palm out, sometimes with an eye in the middle of it. What the hell was that?

Anyway, seeing all the headscarves reminded Liz of the pictures at Hermione's house, so she asked about that. Funny coincidence, Hermione had Tunisian relatives — her uncle Eugène had married a Tunisian woman. He'd converted to Islam and everything — Hermione didn't say he'd done it for her, or at least because of her, but Liz kind of assumed as much — so that part of the family was Muslim now, and Hermione had met her Aunt Samiya's family a few times. Hence, visibly Muslim people in the pictures of Hermione's relatives on the wall at her house. And Liz's curiosity was satisfied, right then.

Liz was once again reminded that she was very English, because it turned out Tunisian food was super spicy — just breathing the air in some places of the little market area they found was making her eyes water. The four of them — Sirius was sticking with them, but Dorea hadn't come — had gotten... Well, it was called kosksi, apparently — Hermione said that must be what they called couscous, but Liz didn't know what that was either. Ordering stuff was sort of complicated to begin with. Hermione spoke a tiny amount of Arabic, but really not enough to talk to anyone, but thankfully most of the people in the little market spot they found spoke French...but most of the names for things were still in Arabic, so that didn't help a lot. They'd ended up with a big bowl of stuff they were supposed to share, the base was almost like rice, except she thought they were actually maybe tiny noodles? and there were vegetables of some kind, like carrots and peas and shite (Liz didn't recognise all of them), plus lamb and scallops, which seemed like a weird combination to her, all mixed with some kind of...reddish-orangish-brownish sauce...stuff? Sirius conjured them bowls, apparently they were supposed to scoop themselves up stuff, and there was also some flatbread and whatever, it was a whole thing.

And it was seriously fucking spicy. Not just hot spicy, there were a lot of things in there, pepper and garlic and saffron and cumin, more herbs, who the fuck knew what else. It was very complex, Liz couldn't really pick shite out at all, she was mostly taking Hermione's word for what was in it. And it was also hot, of course — Liz didn't notice at first, it kind of snuck up on her. She hadn't helped herself eating faster than she probably should have — it'd been a while since breakfast, and they'd been walking around and doing stuff all morning, she'd been hungry — and she suddenly noticed her mouth was on fire, scrambling for the flatbread, for fuck's sake...

Once she washed her mouth out a little, and started taking it a more slowly, it was good, definitely. Just, kind of a lot. Some warning next time would be nice, maybe.

After lunch and wandering around a bit more, it'd been time for the afternoon game — this one was between Guadalajara (one of the Mexican ones) and Padma's home country. It turned out to be one of the lowest-scoring quidditch games Liz had ever seen. Both teams were good, obviously, zipping around like fucking crazy — the speed professional quidditch players moved around at, how quickly they reacted, formations folding and melting into each other in a blink, was absolutely insane — but they were so evenly matched that neither team could score much. And the seekers seemed to be reluctant to leave their chasers to look for the snitch, even after the bell, obviously worried that in the time it took them to hunt down the thing the other team would be able to run up the score. (Liz got that, she'd once lost a game because she'd caught the snitch an instant after Gryffindor scored one too many goals.) The match had ended up going pretty long, but it was very intense the whole way through, fast and chaotic and violent, the ecstatic cheering from the crowd growing to a point it was all but deafening.

Stretching into the evening, the teams had needed to take multiple breaks. Sirius took Liz and Hermione down to get sausage rolls to tide them over during one, until they could get out of here and get proper food — and they were selling a lot of sausage rolls and pies and whatever (alongside some less familiar stuff), because apparently magical Britain was still Britain. Guadalajara had barely managed to squeak out a win, the final score after several hours only sixty-five to fifty, meaning they'd be playing Ireland or Syria in the semifinals.

By which Liz meant they'd definitely be playing Ireland.

They'd gotten dinner that night in the Spanish camp — Liz had ended up with a really thick stew, primarily beans and some kind of meat (she didn't know if it was beef or lamb, probably lamb?), snacking on these bits of dry cured beef while just hanging around. And also wine, because apparently the Spanish were big on wine. Pretty normal stuff compared to lunch, which was a little bit of a relief, honestly — trying new things was fine, sure, but she didn't think she'd want to do that all the time — though she thought she'd maybe had a little too much wine (again). As it got later into the evening, Liz had started getting a little preoccupied, the time they'd be going to bed was coming up before too long, and she...

Well, she'd been increasingly worried that she'd unconsciously drag Hermione into one of her nightmares. And all the people around — the Spanish camp was pretty noisy, bunches of people clumped together over meals, a lot of chattering, music and dancing and shouting going on here and there, their minds a constant pressure all around — was only making Liz feel self-conscious and ever more anxious, she couldn't stop thinking about it, and getting drawn into this or that person's thoughts and feelings buffeting at her only made it harder to concentrate on not thinking about pink elephants. The wine made it a little easier, at first, since it toned down the nervousness, but just made it even harder to concentrate. And worrying about having a nightmare would make her think about the things she'd be having a nightmare about, which then had her thinking about Privet Drive, which just made her more uncomfortable, and aarrgghh...

Even while a bit sleepy from the wine, it'd taken Liz longer than it should to fall asleep, staring up at the canvas ceiling, feeling Hermione's mind under her drift away and turn diffuse and unfocused — flickering a little in odd random flashes of activity, which Liz assumed was dream stuff, but she didn't know exactly. Sleeping people's minds tended to be really fuzzy and vague from a distance, and they didn't tend to make much sense looking closely either, and she suspected looking too closely would wake Hermione up, so. She'd managed to drift off eventually, it'd just taken forever.

And apparently she could have nightmares inside Hermione's head — Liz had abruptly woken up, in the middle of the night, when Hermione startled awake. Not fully awake, the little space between the top bunk and the ceiling, dark and closed in, some part of Liz had been sure she'd been in the cupboard, she could taste the dust and Petunia's damn bleach in the air, only snapping out of it when Hermione climbed up to get her attention.

Liz had sprung up at the unexpected pressure on the bed...and smashed her head on one of the beams. Not one of her finest moments.

She wasn't sure how much Hermione had seen, exactly. She'd definitely seen some of it, since she had woken them both up, but, she hadn't asked. Liz had been too jittery, her fingers twitching and her chest pounding, frustrated and embarrassed and she didn't even know what, and it hadn't seemed wise to directly look in Hermione's head either.

And, honestly, she kind of didn't want to know. She'd rather, just, pretend it had never happened, and she couldn't do that if she knew exactly what Hermione had seen, and exactly what she thought about it.

Hermione had tried to talk about it, had stubbornly stood there on the ladder, supported by her arms folded at the foot of the bed, asking if Liz needed anything, or if she didn't want to talk to Hermione if she should go get Severus instead. (Fuck, that would be humiliating...) It'd taken way too long for Liz to get rid of her — she was certain that she hadn't convinced Hermione that she was fine, but she didn't doubt that how seriously uncomfortable she was had been really, really obvious, she thought Hermione had decided to back off to avoid making it worse. She'd felt Hermione drift back to sleep eventually, but it'd taken a while.

Liz hadn't slept much at all, after that. She'd pulled back the covers over the windows in the ceiling, showing the night sky overhead, stars turned patchy by invisible clouds. She'd just stared blankly upward, trying to calm down, to not think about Privet Drive, or what Hermione had seen, silently fuming with anger. Not at anyone or anything in particular, but sort of everything, you know, one of those moods where you hate absolutely everything for no real reason.

(Liz kind of got those a lot, honestly.)

So she wasn't in a good mood when morning came around, to put it mildly. She barely managed to get anything down at breakfast. She'd actually made breakfast herself, since she was the only one in the tent who could cook worth a damn — but her appetite just wasn't cooperating, feeling vaguely nauseous, she mostly just ended up nibbling at her bacon and idly prodding at her mushrooms. The other two could obviously tell something was wrong, Hermione's head practically burning with it, but thankfully neither of them said anything. Liz wasn't sure what she would say if they asked.

She tried to push through the day, but she didn't even manage to make it to the match that morning. They'd been wandering around the camp again, whiling away the couple hours they had until Bulgaria and Japan were up, but the crowd was too much, Liz just couldn't take it at the moment, too tired and miserable and bluh. They'd probably been out for less than half an hour before Liz asked to go back. Severus and Hermione promised to come wake her up before Ireland's game, and Liz had gone straight back to bed. As exhausted and raw as she felt, it hadn't been hard to get back to sleep — though she had taken a little bit of calming potion, hoping it'd prevent another nightmare.

And it must have worked, because she'd slept pretty well. She must have been so deep under that she hadn't been responding to Hermione talking at her — which Liz was a bit baffled by, honestly, she was usually a pretty light sleeper. It was impossible to say for sure until after she was surrounded by people again, but she thought she felt better.

She did decide to wear something else, though. Since they'd be bloody tenting, Liz hadn't been sure what the seating would be like, so she'd thought it would be best to wear trousers, just in case...which probably wasn't a great idea when she was already uncomfortable, to be honest. She hadn't worn trousers at all growing up — Vernon and Petunia had both insisted they were for boys — and afterward she, just, it wasn't what she was used to. For the most part, she only ever wore trousers when at quidditch or duelling practice, in any other context it made her feel vaguely weird and uncomfortable and self-conscious. And her first attempt at wearing shorts in public hadn't turned out well for her either, so, that didn't help.

This morning, Liz had been wearing trousers — one of the pairs she'd gotten for quidditch practice, actually — but maybe a skirt would be a better idea? Of course, since she'd been planning on wearing trousers the whole week, that was mostly what she'd packed. She did have one dress, but she was planning on wearing that in a couple days, when Daphne would be showing up, and she didn't want to get it messy. (Yes, she had planned that out, and yes, she did feel very girly and awkward, thanks for asking.) After wavering for a bit, she'd called Nilanse to bring her something from home — she hadn't been sure the silly girl would be able to get through whatever wards the Ministry had put up over the place, but nope, popped right in like it was nothing, okay then.

Nilanse could tell at a glance that she hadn't had a great day so far — apparently her hair was even more of a mess than usual. Liz considered taking a shower, but she wasn't sure there was time for that...and she'd be wrapping up her hair with her Irish scarf again, so it probably didn't matter...

Walking out into the main room, Liz was unsurprised to find Sirius here waiting with Hermione and Severus. She hadn't seen him yet today, they'd been planning to meet in their box again — she didn't actually know where his tent was, exactly, but it didn't matter so much. It looked like they'd been sitting at the table playing a card game of some kind, cups of coffee and pastries they must have picked up outside here and there. Spending so much time in with a bloody international festival going on around them seemed like a waste, but Liz guessed they'd only come back to get her, they probably hadn't been here long.

"Ah, Liz!" Slapping his cards down onto the table, Sirius popped up to his feet, grinning over at her. "And so she's awake! Go on, sit down, we got lunch for you over here..."

Taken aback by the enthusiasm, Liz was a little sceptical, but that probably wasn't fair — all three of them were familiar enough by now of what her diet was like, so it should probably be fine. There was just something about Sirius when he got all exited, grinning and practically bouncing as he moved, his mind all but sizzling with energy, that made her vaguely nervous. Anyway, she took the open seat, trying not to feel like Severus and Hermione were watching her. They weren't, at least not with their eyes, she, just— She was tired of her brain being fucked up, was all, she couldn't help the feeling everyone was thinking about how much of a mess she was, it was embarrassing.

His voice low, casual-sounding, Severus said, "If you're not feeling up to attending the match, I can copy the memory for you."

"No, it's fine. I feel a lot better, really. Though, if you want to give me a copy of the match this morning, I can look over that when I get back home. By the way, who won?"

"Bulgaria, of course," Sirius called from the kitchen area. He'd pulled something out of the stove, was just starting to saunter back toward the table, a flat platter of some kind in one hand and a glass bottle in the other. "Japan are going to be ones to watch now, they did very well for such a new team — hell, even their brooms are new." Yeah, Liz had heard about that, something to do with very restrictive trade policies still lingering from their isolationist period forcing them to make a lot of their own stuff. Most of the other teams were flying Firebolts or some other top-line broom, mostly from British companies — they had invented the things — but the Japanese used a domestic manufacturer that had only been around since the 60s. The magazines Liz had looked at said no one knew much about them, since they weren't available in the West due to the same trade nonsense, but if they could at all keep up with Firebolts they must be pretty—

Sirius set the platter down in front of her with a light clatter, and oh, it was magic pizza! Not the same kind of stuff they had in Britain, the crust a lot thinner, but definitely the same basic idea. Though, interestingly, it didn't seem to have any cheese on it, instead just meat and vegetables. There was some kind of a sauce, pale but with a curious tanish-greenish tinge to it — it didn't quite look like a cream sauce, but Liz couldn't guess what else it might be. She might have been a little cautious about something she was unfamiliar with, but she was suddenly realising just now she was very hungry. She hadn't really had breakfast at all, after all, she'd hardly eaten since yesterday evening... "Thanks."

"Sure. It should still be hot, I stuck it straight in the stove when we got back, and we haven't been here long. And this," Sirius said, setting the bottle down in front of her, "I'm not sure what it is, honestly, but Severus thought you'd like it." It seemed like Sirius was getting much better at playing nice, Liz almost couldn't pick up the faint resentment. "Supposedly it's got a lot of salt and shite, will help with the hangover. Though if you think you'll need coffee too, I can get started on that..."

Liz tried not to look surprised at the reference to a hangover she didn't actually have — she was guessing Hermione and Severus had lied about why she wasn't at the game this morning. Which was nice of them. (The fewer people who knew about Liz still getting nightmares, like a bloody baby, the better.) "No, I shouldn't need coffee." She didn't really drink it for the caffeine, she just liked it. "What is it?"

"A soft drink popular among the mages of Central Asia and the Caucasus, though it's been making it's way into the eastern Mediterranean in the last couple years." Which didn't really explain anything, but then Severus added, "The flavouring is normally a mix of nuts and herbs, often garlic." He reached forward, turned the bottle around, pointed at one of the spots on the label. There was writing on it, but Liz couldn't read it — it was all in Arabic. "This says without sugar."

"You can read Arabic?"

"A little, mostly limited to apothecary terminology. Though this label is in Caucasian Turkish, not Arabic."

"...And you can read Caucasian Turkish?" Liz wasn't even sure what language that was supposed to be. Azerbaijanis, maybe? Were they Turks?

"I asked, Elizabeth."

Oh, obviously. Never mind.

The not-pizza, whatever it was actually called — it was obviously related, but Liz was sure whatever country this was from called it something else — was pretty big, surface area -wise, but it was really thin, and Liz was really hungry all of a sudden. The spices were odd, definitely not Italian, vaguely reminding Liz of all the Romanian and Tunisian stuff, though not really the same — they'd gotten the not-pizza at the Caucasian camp, apparently, so even further away than Romania and closer to where all that shite came from. (There were multiple countries in the Caucasus, but they were all pretty tiny so they shared a quidditch team and had been put together here, despite their languages being so different they were sometimes completely unrelated, sounded confusing.) She was told the sauce was made out of a hummus base, but she honestly had no idea what that was. Really good, though, surprisingly so, she should look into that, what, some kind of spiced savoury nut butter or something...?

Anyway, she managed to polish off the not-pizza pretty quickly, which was good, because they had a game to get to. Taking the bottle with her — Liz didn't think she was a fan of the bubbles, but at least it wasn't nauseatingly sweet like the muggle stuff — they started off. The stadium wasn't too far away from their tent, thankfully — she would guess, since the British were in charge of the whole thing, they'd decided to make it easier on their own people, because of course they did. They followed the path just behind their tent, splitting the Cambrian/English and Gaelic halves of the camp, up to a nearby market area place, an open patch of land packed thick with stands selling all kinds of shite. Branded merchandise for the teams — mainly the British and Irish teams, but Liz spotted a couple stands selling Bulgarian stuff, that hadn't been there before — souvenirs and shite, and lots of food, of course. A stand selling cameras and film, complete with a heavily shaded booth behind the counter where they'd develop things for people, always had plenty of people around it, and a nearby stand selling omnioculars was very crowded. Liz had taken a look at them their first day here — they were basically magical video cameras, but there were issues getting the video out of the things in a form that could be displayed, and also they didn't record sound at all, so they were still inferior to the muggle version. And besides, Liz had a pensieve at home, so she really didn't need anything like that, she'd just been curious.

The place was seriously noisy — the people selling pennants that played nationalist songs when waved or hats that randomly recited the team members' names (which seemed like it would get old very fast) really didn't help — packed full of people more densely than the rest of the camp, enough Liz cringed against the weight of all the jumbled-together thoughts and feelings pressing down on her. But, thankfully, sucking in a thick breath through her teeth, she managed to firm herself, hold them off. It wasn't perfect, still catching a flash now and then, but at least she was keeping herself together well enough she could still follow the conversation going on around her (mostly Hermione asking Sirius about one magical cultural thing or another, Severus only offering the occasional correction). Much better than this morning, Liz would definitely be able to keep her head long enough to make it under the wards on their box, she'd be fine.

On the opposite side of the market area they reached the officials' camp, where the organisers, representatives of foreign governments, sponsors, security people, and certain select merchants were put up. These weren't actually tents, instead they'd put up little wooden houses — nice-looking, clean and everything, but not extravagant by any means, rather modestly-sized and without any obvious luxuries. (Obviously, the people here were too important to sleep in a tent — even a magical tent, which barely counted — but it was still a temporary camp, so Liz guessed they were just playing at roughing it, for fun maybe?) There were places here to report shite or make complaints or whatever, so there were always some people walking about, but most of the people here at the moment were streaming straight through, chattering excitedly about the upcoming match. Following the crowd through this section before long they came to the edge of the campgrounds, a path leading into the trees well-shaded from the sun, lined on both sides by blueish-greenish magical lanterns, colouring the shadows around.

The stadium was bloody huge, massive walls towering overhead, made of a pale stone Liz assumed was supposed to be the same marble used in the Wizengamot. (It wasn't really, she was certain it was actually some kind of anchored conjuration, or maybe an illusion over plain brick or whatever.) It was typical for quidditch to be played on open fields surrounded with a ring of stands, sort of like at Hogwarts, even the professional teams played on very similar fields — the standard professional pitch was almost twice the size of the one at Hogwarts, but similar aesthetically. Liz assumed they'd done it this way for the wards, since it was much easier to put expansion spells or whatever else on a place with solid walls. And also she'd heard that the stadium was the anchor for the wards across the entire grounds, and that was definitely easier to do with an actual solid building, with how much space the wards were projected over Liz suspected wooden stands like the ones at Hogwarts would spontaneously combust.

And the wards probably had something to do with the faint golden glow leaking out of the stadium. The colour was too pleasant not to have been done intentionally, but with how thick magic was on the air here — she could taste it on the back of her throat, herby green and a tinge of copper, it tingled — she suspected the stadium would be bleeding off energy anyway. She guessed the volume of energy going through the wards was literally too much for the stone walls to contain, so the designers had added an element to tint the inevitable sublimation into a more suitable colour. There was no way to tell for sure without doing an in-depth analysis of the environment, which Liz had neither the opportunity nor the knowledge to do, but Severus had agreed it was a plausible theory, so she was just running with it.

The path led through a big open archway into an enormous hall — easily the size of the Entrance Hall at Hogwarts, though rather plainer, gold-tinted white stone interrupted only with banners hanging high up on the walls, one for each team in the League. There were turnstyles and shite through the middle, people slowly filtering in as they proved they'd already paid their way (occasional hang-ups as people searched for their tickets or argued with the attendants for whatever reason), but their group didn't go that way, instead toward a door to the side guarded by a pair of Hit Wizards in black leather and blue cloaks. They obviously recognised them, nodding them through without a word. A marble staircase led up a single floor — there weren't any seats here, a wide gallery running all the way around the stadium, where all the concessions stands and toilets and shite were. There were a couple sections here and there that were blocked off, so the people in the boxes didn't have to mix with the poors, so the part they walked through was very quiet, only a few people around picking up snacks or bottles of wine (because of course), a few clumps hanging around chatting.

"Hey, Liz! Liz!" She twitched, looked closer at one of the groups she'd mostly just been ignoring.

"Oh, no," Hermione muttered, letting out a sigh as their foursome drifted to a stop. And Liz knew immediately without having to look what that was about: the person who'd called out to her happened to be Draco, standing with a mixed group of adults and teenagers and even little kids. Uncharacteristically for him, he didn't seem to quite be able to hide his excitement, his hand waving over his head and grinning and all but bouncing on his toes — as much as Liz wasn't particularly happy to see Draco either, she couldn't help smiling a little at the sight, it was kind of absurd.

If Liz had been on her own, or just with Hermione, she might have kept walking, but Severus was hardly likely to be so rude (he did know most of these people), so the four of them instead walked over to say hello, Liz and Hermione both reluctantly trailing a couple steps behind the men. Pansy and Theo were here and, annoyingly, Ceinwen Selwyn and Damian Rowle, and that was Morgana Yaxley and her younger brother (Liz thought so, he was in Ravenclaw), and she thought that was Ravenclaw Avery, who she was only vaguely familiar with from the duelling club. Both of the Flints were here, Camila with an Eirsley girl Liz only recognised by sight, she knew they were friends. Brendan and his sister were also here, accompanied by a distractingly familiar-looking man who had to be their father — and therefore Severus's uncle, there was a noticeable resemblance, Liz was trying not to stare — and Millie and, weirdly enough, Megan and Olivie Rivers.

She said weirdly, because she was pretty sure most of the adults were all Death Eaters, or at least knowing and willing friends of Death Eaters. Liz didn't know anything about Megan's family's politics, to be fair, but she knew Olivie's family were part of the Tugwoods — sometimes magical families got huge, so they used multiple surnames — but the Tugwoods were one of those weird religious communes, like the Mistwalkers or the Eirsleys, their politics super radical in the opposite direction. Liz didn't recognise almost any of the adults, but there weren't that many Allied Dark families, and it was just basic history, so. And that was Narcissa right there, obviously. She was a little surprised that Draco's godmother was here, with a woman Liz was pretty sure was her girlfriend — in the culture of the nobility here you were supposed to keep gay stuff in private, but maybe Irénée just didn't give a damn.

Liz could only assume Megan, Olivie, and the Eirsley girl weren't happy with their present company. Eirsley and Megan both at least looked like they wanted to be anywhere but here, so.

The conversation that followed was tedious, but thankfully Liz got to mostly avoid it, too occupied by Draco excitedly talking her ear off to get dragged into the adults' consciously polite whatever the hell. It was actually kind of funny, because Draco spent most of it on how awesome the Irish chasers were, but he was being very careful to not actually say he'd be cheering for them — a lot of British nationalists thought the Gaels shouldn't get their own team, and conflated support for the team with support for Gaelic independence, and Draco didn't want his friends' parents to look at him funny. After some talking about the upcoming match, Pansy and Theo looking very bored (neither of them liked quidditch much), Draco waved Mark over, did Liz know, he'd just gotten into the Arrows (as a reserve)! No, she hadn't heard that, that was great, congratulations, blah blah...

Even not paying that much attention, she could tell the adults' conversation was rather tense, a lot of glaring and barely-civil sniping at each other. Not really a surprise — Sirius had been on the opposite side of the war, and was barely able to play nice on the best of days. Liz was pretty sure Selwyn's mum (she thought) almost reached for her wand at one point, twitching and stopping herself at a touch on her arm from Narcissa. Sirius must be being really annoying over—

Oh, apparently Narcissa and Selwyn's mum were screwing (or had when they were younger, at least, Liz wasn't sure exactly), and Sirius had said something rather crude about them. That wasn't very nice — insult them for being crazy racist arseholes, not for that...

They managed to extract themselves from the conversation before too long, but they didn't come away alone — Draco, Millie, Megan, and surprisingly Camilla and Eirsley all wanted to come with them. While people started inviting themselves along, Draco drawn into a hushed conversation with Pansy (who did not want to come with, annoyed with Draco for so easily abandoning her), Severus gave her a flat look, one eyebrow questioningly raised. Silently asking her if she was okay with this, she guessed. After a second of hesitation, Liz just shrugged. It wasn't that many people, really, and Draco could be tedious sometimes, but he wasn't that bad — they'd just be talking about how awesome Ireland was the whole time, it would be fine. She would mostly be worried about Hermione, since she and Draco really didn't get along, but Millie and Megan would be coming along too, so she'd have someone to talk to. Not super happy about it, but it was fine.

The adults debated for a bit about letting them go — they all knew Severus, but most of them hated Sirius, and didn't trust him with their kids for five seconds — but in the end they agreed, Irénée and her girlfriend (Féliç? short for something?) sent to keep an eye on them. Which, fine, whatever, Irénée was nice enough, could they just get going already? They were going to miss the match at this rate...

The stairs the rest of the way up were made of wood, but covered with carpet a deep Wizengamot purple. Since the areas for the special people were blocked off from the rest, they didn't stop at any of the levels between the gallery and the floor the boxes were on, the staircase switchbacking its way up without any doors on any of the landings. They reached the top before too long — a bit of a climb but still shorter than it should be, with how bloody huge the stadium was, Liz assumed they'd cheated and compressed the space — the door guarded with another pair of Hit Wizards, these in the fancy purple armour of the Wizengamot's honour guard thing, whatever the hell the proper name for these blokes was. They all got a once over, Sirius confirming their identities and that they belonged up here (none of the kids had papers or tickets, and their box was in Narcissa's name), and they were let through.

Though there was a bit of a delay with Eirsley. Like Gwenfrewi, she had a heavily-enchanted knife on her, hidden at the small of her back under the cloth belt she was wearing with her dress. While mages were hardly likely to surrender their wands, the Hit Wizards were supposed to confiscate other weaponry, since bringing shite like that into a place like this was pretty suspicious. Eirsley, of course, refused to hand it over — Liz hadn't been told the particulars, but she was aware it was a religious thing. Luckily for Eirsley, her family happened to be nobility (and well-known for their quirks), and she had an impatient Sirius Black vouching for her, after a bit of arguing the Hit Wizards insisted on examining the enchantments on the knife quick before handing it back and waving her through.

Eirsley seemed flustered and jittery over the whole thing, her mind shivering and almost nauseous; as soon as they were past the Hit Wizards Camilla sidled up to link their arms, cheerfully babbling about nonsense as a distraction. With a finger in her head, she came off unexpectedly humiliated — Liz had the feeling Eirsley had felt very exposed handing over her knife like that, even for a few seconds. The best thing Liz could compare it to was being strip-searched (stop it, stupid fucked-up brain...), which was bloody weird, she didn't know what was up with that.

Not that Liz cared, of course, it wasn't her business. Honestly, a wand was way more potentially dangerous than a knife, no matter what enchantments were on it, she had no idea why the Hit Wizards had bothered...

There wasn't much to the box, just a plain room upholstered in red and purple, enclosed on three sides, the last looking out over the stadium — fucking huge, rows upon rows of seats all around rising at a much sharper angle than in pictures she'd seen of muggle stadiums, the pitch noticeably oversized, the hoops significantly higher than at Hogwarts, maybe an extra twenty feet or so? The boxes were set in a ring at about the level of the goals, theirs about halfway toward the right side. Liz was kind of hoping Syria's goals would be on this side, so she'd have a better view of Ireland's approach, but they'd see. There were a bunch of advertisements around in the form of floating banners fluttering around seemingly at random, big boards covering the concessions level way down there and other gaps in the stands strewn around, images and slogans magically displayed for a moment only to be replaced by another, most of them animated, on and on. It seemed like the banners would be a pain, intermittently blocking the view — and she guessed she hadn't been the only one to think of that, because she'd never once seen any of them drift over the boxes.

There was a table in here, to set down empty bottles or used plates or whatever else, and chairs here and there, comfortable padded armchairs that hadn't been fixed to the floor, so they could be moved around as they liked. Also, thankfully, excellent privacy spells — she could see thousands of people milling around throughout the stands, but she couldn't feel their minds at all. Just the people inside, which was more than yesterday, but it wasn't that many, she'd be fine.

Liz set her empty soda bottle down on the table and picked herself a chair, dragging it right up to the railing before sitting down. Draco, of course, came right with her, still excitedly babbling off about the Cup. So Hermione wasn't coming with them, instead moving to sit with Millie and Megan a short distance away, she shot Liz an apologetic look but she just waved her off — she was well aware Hermione and Draco didn't get on, and Draco was hardly likely to back off on his own, the stubborn little shite. Camila and Eirsley were sitting near Liz and Draco, but still huddled up together muttering about something, not quite over that little incident with the Hit Wizards yet. The adults were all together, apparently still doing the tedious getting to know a new person thing — obviously Severus and Irénée knew each other, but Féliç was new to the men and Sirius new to the women. Well, no, it felt like Severus and Féliç had met each other before, but they didn't know each other very well, at least.

Liz was positive Sirius was flirting with Féliç. She did get it — dark-haired and all little and delicate, very pretty — but, he did know they were gay, right? Like, from what Liz had caught from Draco's head over the New Year, she was pretty sure they'd been together for years...

"So, those are new."

Liz twitched, turned away from the adults' conversation at the other end of the box back toward Draco. "Huh?"

"These," he said, pointing vaguely at her face — which seemed like a very rude thing for a special fancy pureblood noble boy to do, but Liz guessed his mother wasn't here to see him break the rules at the moment. "When did you do that?"

"Oh, um." That's right, Draco wouldn't have seen the bits of metal she'd had put in her face yet, she'd forgotten. "Beginning of last month, before the duelling tournament."

"Yeah, I saw the pictures." Oh, so Draco did know about them, he just hadn't seen them in person. There was something funny going on in his head, a warm, shifting feeling she couldn't quite put her finger on. Before she could decide whether she wanted to risk peeking, he said, "Where do you even go to get something like that done? I mean, I know there are places down Knockturn, but..." He was thinking loud enough Liz caught it without trying: Knockturn wasn't the safest place for teenage girls to go wandering alone, and he doubted Severus would agree to escort her. (He was overestimating the former, but probably right about the latter.)

"I did them at the Greenwood, actually. The procedure was pretty neat, they have this big magic fire — for sterilisation, you know — and first they'd toss the things through the fire in this wicker basket, but the basket wouldn't burn, I wonder how that works..."

He was doing a pretty good job covering it, only the barest twitch at the corner of his lips and a slight dip of his eyebrows — but Liz was a mind-reading cheater, so she hadn't missed the flicker of distaste at the mention of the Greenwood. Not a surprise, she was aware the mainstream nobility didn't think much of Mistwalkers. "Why?"

"Why did I get them?" Liz shrugged. "Felt like it." She definitely wasn't about to talk with Draco about her whole tangled mess of issues to do with her body. They got on well enough these days, thanks to the quidditch team...and more recently Severus's relationship with his family, she guessed, but it was not his business. "What's it to you?"

Draco hesitated, very obviously, an odd shifty shiver in his head. "...Nothing, I suppose. I was only wondering."

"You're allowed to say you hate them, Draco." It wasn't as though Liz cared about his opinion of what she looked like anyway.

"No, I'm not saying that, it's just...different." Okay, then... "My grandmother would be so furious with me if I came home having done something like that."

Yeah, Liz didn't doubt it — she'd gotten openly irritated with him for not using Liz's full name, so. "Lucky for me I don't have one of those, I guess." There was a little flicker from Draco, a not-wince, which was silly, she hadn't meant it like that. "Severus just made sure I was being careful about infections, and warned me stuck-up purebloods would be a pain about it. No one's really been an arse to my face about it, but there have been a few letters — or so Cediny said, I didn't read them." Dark witch, blah blah, your family would be ashamed, blah blah, disgusting whore, blah. Same shite as always, not worth reading every time.

"Cediny?"

"Chief elf at Clyde Rock." Draco, looking out over the railing into the stadium as they talked, turned to give her a look, obviously surprised. Normally mages wouldn't talk about elves in public like this, she knew, but they could all go to hell. "The elves have been looking over my post ever since the custody stuff blew up, you know, a lot of people angry with me for what I did to Dumbledore."

"Well, of course," Draco drawled, sneering just a little. "They couldn't possibly admit that the great Albus Dumbledore might have ever been anything less than perfect, perish the thought. Clearly it must be your fault."

"Mm. Most of them aren't a big deal, just the usual bleating, but there have been curses and poisons and whatever. Nuisance stuff, for the most part — the dangerous ones and the occasional death threat the elves forward on to the D.L.E."

A sharp, frigid, unpleasant feeling slashing through the air, "Merlin, death threats?!"

Liz snorted. "Welcome to the life of the Girl Who Lived, Draco. It's fine, I'll feel them coming before they get anywhere close, don't worry about it." Besides, the elves also made copies of the threats and sent them to Severus (the DLE got the originals, for evidence reasons), Liz assumed he was keeping an eye on it.

Draco had already been aware that she hated all this Girl Who Lived stuff — it'd be hard to miss, considering how much distaste she always put on the phrase — but he maybe hadn't known how much shite she got over it on a semi-regular basis. For fuck's sake, she'd been getting nasty letters from strangers since first year, when it'd come out she could talk to snakes, where the hell had he been? Well, to be fair, she didn't normally talk about it, and they didn't tend to talk about personal stuff at all (they were hardly close), but still. As irritating as a topic it could be, she mostly didn't mind venting about people being idiots to a sympathetic audience, so they managed to talk about that nonsense up until the start of the match — kept the conversation going, if nothing else.

At some point Camilla and Eirsley — Lleuwen Eirsley, apparently — jumped in, Lleuwen finally recovered from whatever that was. They were a couple years older than Liz and Draco, enough that they vaguely remembered that Hallowe'en and the months immediately after it, had seen the development of the whole Girl Who Lived myth from the beginning — and also their families had very different politics, so came at it from very different angles. They had a lot to say about it, was the thing, but they both subscribed to the Lily Evans blew up the Dark Lord with some kind of ritual magic theory and thought the official story was complete shite, so Liz didn't really mind.

Draco kept getting distracted — he could overhear Sirius making an idiot of himself flirting at Féliç (a little offended on Irénée and Féliç's behalf, but the couple themselves were mostly just amused by it), but primarily because he thought Lleuwen was really pretty, and was trying not to stare. Which she was, to be fair, Liz was just subtler about it...or maybe she wasn't, she couldn't see herself and they couldn't read Draco's mind, it was hard to say. But Liz could tell him that was never going to happen: she was a couple years older than them, yes, but Lleuwen had absolutely no intention of marrying (or even screwing around) outside of her religion, or a select few closely related faiths like the Tugwoods' and the Mistwalkers', so. If Draco felt like getting a girlfriend, he should go back to his own box and find Pansy, she was practically throwing herself at him...

They'd been sitting talking for maybe ten, fifteen minutes before an intensely amplified voice rung out, loud enough Liz's chair was practically vibrating under her. Though, she was pretty sure that wasn't actually because of the volume. The organisers here had done something similar to the tournament in Romania, having multiple commentators for various languages, the stands sectioned off by language — the vibration was because the sound was being produced by the box around them, like being inside of a big speaker. It was a little loud, but the cheering of the crowd could get pretty noisy, it'd practically be necessary to hear anything the bloke was saying later. The English commentator was a man named Ludo Bagman, who Liz was vaguely familiar with as a retired professional quidditch star — the Wimbourne Wasps had topped the national league seven times during his tenure, during the 70s and early 80s, and he'd been on the British National Team for their last World Cup victory in '82 — and also as the current Director of Games and Sports (which was a silly thing to have a whole Ministry Department for, but whatever). There was a change of government going on at the moment, but Liz hadn't heard anything about him being replaced, he might actually be kept on in the new government. He was pretty popular, and it wasn't like his Department was important, so.

Supposedly, he also had serious money problems — the rumour was that he'd been taking out loans from the goblins to keep up his celebrity athlete lifestyle for over a decade now, and was having trouble keeping up with the payments. For the record, defaulting on a debt to the goblins was a fantastically terrible idea. They didn't fuck around with repossessing your assets like muggle banks — though they might also do that — instead they had a habit of taking a finger as a warning, and moving up to a hand if you didn't shape up. (Liz had been told to never, ever, ever take out a loan directly from Gringotts — not that that would ever be a concern, she was filthy rich, but good to know.) She only knew about this because his Department was also involved in planning the Triwizard Tournament, and there'd been a few funny things to do with the contracts and sponsorships and shite, Severus suspected Bagman was taking bribes. That wasn't even illegal on the magical side, and nobody would care so long as the event went smoothly, but it had tipped Severus off to keep a closer eye on things, to make sure some incompetent idiot who'd managed to bribe his way into the contract to build the stands or provide concessions or whatever didn't end up unintentionally harming the students.

(Liz had also been warned to avoid being alone with whatever security ended up being at the Triwizard events, but she kind of thought not letting herself be taken anywhere by a man armed with a deadly weapon should be fucking obvious. She realised Severus generally just assumed everyone else was an idiot, but come on.)

Anyway, the announcement from Bagman's reproduced and amplified voice that the match was about to start — simultaneously produced in who knew how many other languages and piped all over the stands — had the noise from the crowd suddenly swelling much louder, enough Liz winced. She'd never really gotten why people felt the need to cheer for things, but whatever. The Syrian team flew out first, their uniforms mostly green, with bits of black and yellow — this was news to Liz, but apparently Muslims were big on the colour green, a lot of the flags and symbols and stuff on the magical side tended to have a lot of green. (And maybe the muggle side too, she didn't know, honestly.) Bagman introduced them all, stumbling a bit over some of the Arabic names. One of them zipped along what Liz assumed was the Arabic-speaking section of the stands, flying only a couple metres away from the railings, making a gesture with both hands Liz couldn't make out from here, the crowd roaring even louder in response. She thought she picked up faint hints of a chant of some kind, but she wasn't certain, and she didn't speak Arabic anyway. Must be a particularly famous player, supposedly Syria had a chaser who was kind of a big deal over there.

And then the Irish team was coming out, seven figures in the familiar green and white uniforms swooping in a long loop around the stands — Bagman also stumbled over a couple of the Gaelic names, though he did get through them a little more smoothly than the Arabic ones. (Presumably he spoke Cambrian, so.) As the cheering of the crowd only increased, the team drifting closer to one section of the stands, quickly drawing out a shouted song Liz couldn't hear from here (and it'd likely be in Gaelic anyway), Liz felt herself grimace. Of course the teams' uniforms had to be very similar-looking — the green the Syrians were using was a few shades lighter, and their secondary colours were different, but those distinctions weren't going to be very easy to make out once they were zipping around at full speed. It was going to be even more difficult to figure out what was going on than last time.

The teams were only let to fly around egging on the crowd for a couple minutes before they were drawn to the middle of the pitch. As Bagman gave a final recitation of the stakes of the match and some reminders about the rules, the snitch was released — once it'd had enough time to get itself thoroughly lost, the bludgers were released and the quaffle was shot upward out of a fucking canon built into the ground at the centre of the pitch (honestly, professional quidditch...), the bang acting as the starting gun, the players all immediately launching into motion. The chasers (and seekers) started off flying for the quaffle, straight at each other at full speed, the quaffle actually overshot the level the players had started at, their paths arcing upward, there was at least one collision as they neared the quaffle — Liz had stood up already, leaning against the railing squinting, was that Troy? — most of the pack peeling off to avoid running into them, only two chasers left, one of the Syrians had managed to intercept one of the bludgers immediately, aimed it at the Irish chaser on the quaffle (Mullet?), but the two were so close together at that point that the Syrian had to dodge too, the quaffle reached the top of its arc and started to fall again, Mullet recovered from dodging the quaffle by sweeping in at an angle to head off the Syrian, another collision as Lynch (Aodhán Ó Loingsigh, the seeker and team captain) cut off one of the Syrian chasers, and then Aoibhínn was zipping in out of nowhere, plucked the quaffle out of the air and started racing off toward the Syrian goals at full speed, hardly more than a greenish streak...

And all of that happened within the first couple seconds, of course.

Like the previous game Liz had seen, the action was unbelievably fast — the Irish team were all on Firebolts, and Liz didn't know what the Syrians had but they must be just as good, accelerating from a dead stop to absurd speeds in a blink, turning on a sixpence, the whiplash they must be feeling, fucking hell, would need impressive arm strength just to not go flying off their brooms. Their formations were swirling around in complicated, seemingly random directions, breaking apart and reforming so smoothly it almost seemed choreographed, but far too quickly for Liz to really follow what was happening, she'd have to go over it in the pensieve later. Just a surface impression, the Irish team seemed more coordinated than the Syrians, or the British or Romanians, seeming to move as one, reacting to changing plays instantly, almost as though they knew exactly what everyone else was doing at all times. They were so well-coordinated that Liz would almost think they were communicating somehow — they couldn't be, they would have been checked for those kinds of enchantments before being let onto the pitch. They must have just planned out their plays and drilled them like fucking crazy, everyone knowing exactly what they were supposed to do in reaction to any move the Syrians made, and doing so instantly, with perfect confidence that everyone else was doing exactly what they were supposed to as well, the four players moving as one well-oiled machine.

The first goal came what had to be less than a minute into the game — a pass from Aibhínn toward Lynch, darting in at the hoops, but though he raised his hands as though reaching for the ball he never actually touched it, letting it sail past him straight to Mullet, who casually (almost mockingly) lobbed it through one of the hoops while the keeper was scrambling to catch up — and they just kept coming, the Irish gracefully dancing around the Syrians. The Syrians did manage to score now and then, but the game was drastically lopsided, the Irish making four or five to each of the Syrians'. The Irish National Team wasn't said to have the best chaser squad in the League for no good reason, after all.

Curiously, the Irish beaters were completely ignoring the quaffle game, instead targeting the Syrian beaters. Liz was familiar with the strategy, but it was a rather unconventional one — normally the goal of the beaters would be to break up the opposite chasers' formations, provide a distraction at an opportune moment, giving the chasers an edge. Focusing on the opposite beaters was a disadvantage in the short term, since their chasers were left on their own, but in the long run injuring the opposing beaters — or even removing them from play entirely, if they were lucky — could give them uncontested control of the bludgers in the late game. Even in the early game, if the beaters knew what they were doing they could keep their opposites so thoroughly occupied they couldn't cover their chasers, leaving the quaffle game uninterrupted — if you were confident in your chaser squad's ability to outplay their opponents without the assistance of a well-timed bludger now and then, it could be a good strategy, but it was a little risky.

And, well, this was Ireland, so they were definitely confident in their ability to dominate the quaffle game without the beaters' help. At first, the Syrian beaters were still trying to do their jobs, occasionally redirecting a bludger sent by one of the Irish beaters toward the chasers, but they quickly gave up, focusing instead on defending themselves and trying to hit back, devolving into a vicious flying bludger battle between the four players. The Syrian beaters were pretty good, they were all slowly accumulating hits and Liz couldn't say for sure whether either side was coming out ahead, but Connolly (Murchadh Ó Conghalaigh) and Quigley (Tadhgán Ó Coighligh) were successfully keeping the Syrian beaters away from the quaffle game, which Liz was certain was all they really wanted.

As fast and intense as the game was, it ended very abruptly. The instant the clock had run out, the bell signalling that a catch of the snitch would end the match (about an hour, she thought), Lynch pulled away from the quaffle game to hunt the thing down. Lynch was an excellent captain, as the team's coordination attested, and at least good enough of a chaser to keep up with the other three (which meant he was literally one of the best in the world), but he was a pretty mediocre seeker, so it could be a while before he managed to catch the thing — luckily for him, they were already over a hundred points ahead by that point. Also, the beaters immediately turned around to start attacking the Syrian chasers, stopping them from exploiting their 4-to-3 advantage too much. The match was vicious from that point on, a lot of collisions and fouling and bludger hits, and it took at least another ten minutes for Lynch to finally catch the damn thing, in that time the Syrians scoring five times...and the Irish even managed to score twice, despite being outnumbered. (One of those was a penalty shot, but still.) The final score ended up being 205 to 90 — Syria had actually done relatively well, compared to some of Ireland's qualifying matches, but yeah, there'd never been any other way this one was going to end.

As Ireland took a victory lap, the screaming from some sections of the stands all but deafening, Liz let out a sigh, tipped back to flop back onto her chair. "Well," she said as Draco sat back down next to her, "that was a hell of a thing."

"Yeah, you can say that again! How do they even fly that fast?!"

"Firebolts are really bloody fast — Sirius got me one for Christmas, you know — but those turns are ridiculous, they'd have to be holding on really hard. I'm more impressed with how the plays worked, you know, and it didn't look like they were signaling each other at all, they must practise all the fucking time..."

"That's not so hard, we do the same basic thing. They're just really, really good at it." Yeah, Liz guessed, but that was like comparing a pigeon with a fucking bomber plane — sure, they both fly, but the mess they'll make when they drop something on your car isn't really comparable. "And forget that, the way they fly, so light and so graceful and so, so— I mean, did you see some of the moves Mullet pulled, that woman can fly..."

At the intense simmering in Draco's head, Liz felt her lips twitch. "Yeah, I saw. Does your father know you have a crush on a muggleborn witch?" Tricia Mullet and Paul Troy were both muggleborn — you could tell because theirs were the only English names on the team. Which was a surprise, normally Irish muggleborns (who obviously mostly spoke English) would play with the British teams, she didn't know what was up with that.

Draco's face immediately went very red. "I just meant she's a really good quidditch player."

"Are you sure? I've seen pictures in magazines and stuff, she is really pretty. Just saying, I wouldn't blame you."

"Shut up, Potter." His face only growing even redder, the annoyance and embarrassment in his head was sharp enough that Liz decided to drop it. If only to avoid a pointless fight — they would have to deal with each other when they got back to school, so. But she was definitely right, and he definitely knew it. Tee hee.

(Pointing out that Narcissa had had muggleborn lovers before, including Liz's mum, so, no matter what Lucius might think about it, at least she wouldn't give a damn if he had a crush on a muggleborn who definitely wouldn't give him the time of day because of the age difference anyway, probably wouldn't make him less annoyed with her.)

As usual, they waited in the box instead of starting to head out right away — the wards in here kept it quiet, but Liz didn't want to have to deal with the press of the crowd if she didn't have to. Besides, the others still had snacks to finish off — Liz hadn't gotten any, her lunch too big and too recent — so they weren't in any rush. Their guests did leave, though, heading back toward the Malfoys' box to meet back up with their families and everyone. Draco asked if she wanted to watch the next game together too (Bulgaria and Romania), but Dorea and the Tonkses would be here for the semifinals, and hopefully the Greengrasses plus Tracey too. Draco and Tracey had very unfriendly history (by which Liz meant he'd constantly bullied her over her muggleborn mother when they'd been children), but what actually made him change his mind was the mention of the Tonkses — Draco's mum and Andi Tonks had some kind of feud, he didn't want to stumble into the middle of it, so never mind.

In retrospect, she just knew that, when Draco found out what happened very shortly after he left the box, he would badly wish he would have stalled for even a couple minutes longer. He was going to be so jealous.

There was a knock at the door — just on the frame, the door had been left open when Draco and company left — the conversation abruptly cut off as the four of them turned to look all at once. A Hit Wizard, in the fancy purple uniform of the honour guard, was leaning into the door. He quick nodded at Sirius and Severus (in that order) before looking at Liz. "Excuse me, Lady Elizabeth. There's someone here who wishes to meet with you."

Brushing off the whole Lady Elizabeth thing (mages were ridiculous), she asked, "Who?" The word came out in a baffled sort of drawl, because honestly, who would come up here to talk to her here, of all places? Well, she guessed she wasn't in public very often, but still...

"Ceallach Ó Ailbhe. I understand he's here as a representative of the Irish National Team."

Liz didn't immediately react to the name — "Ceallach" was a fairly common boy's name, and she was vaguely familiar with the Ailbhes, one of the big-name Gaelic families she'd heard mentioned several times just living at the Refuge — but at the last bit she twitched, straightening in her seat. "Oh! Um, why do they want to talk to me?"

"That's none of my concern, my lady."

Obviously, she assumed not sticking his nose in fancy people's business was a basic ask of his job, she was just saying she— Whatever. "Sorry, yeah, let him in." Liz popped up to her feet, circled around the chairs so they wouldn't be in the way.

Following along with her, Hermione asked, "What do you think this is about? You're too young for them to be trying to recruit you or something."

Liz almost had to laugh at that being the first place Hermione's brain went — honestly, she was a pretty good seeker for Hogwarts, but she was not that good. "Dunno. Publicity thing, maybe?" The first place Liz's mind went was that a rumour that she was supporting Ireland had gotten around somehow, and the Team wanted her permission to brag about it. If that was what they were asking, she didn't know what she'd say about it. She meant, she didn't really mind if people knew she was supporting Ireland — some of the more annoying British types might be annoyed with her, but they were annoyed with her about something pretty much all the time anyway — but she didn't like people throwing around her name all the time for no reason, she definitely didn't want to encourage it, so...

The man who walked in was perfectly ordinary-looking, black-haired and pale and kind of reedy, long and scrawny. She'd peg his age at maybe forty, which meant he was actually significantly older than that, and he was in one of those odd suits that professional commoners often wore — the cloth smooth and faintly reflective, glinting just a little in the light, the coat heavy and overly long, worn open over a finely-embroidered waistcoat with a slightly ruffly-looking shirt under that, complete with old-fashioned hat. Naturally, his was in the Team's colours, deep rich green with white accents, hints of gold sparkling along the buttons and woven into the waistcoat. Liz knew enough about magical culture by now to realise he was very well-dressed by their standards, somewhat less old-fashioned than Daedalus (mostly given away in the undershirt, noticeably less ruffly and without any lace at all) while not being nearly as formal (or expensive) as proper robes, but it still looked silly to Liz's eyes.

The hat whipped off his head as he stepped into the box to be tucked under his arm, he approached straight for Liz, coming to a stop at a slightly more than respectful conversational distance — which might have something to do with both Severus and Sirius's hands hovering over their wands, Liz had noticed Ailbhe's eyes flick that way. "My lady," he said, his head dipping a little in that sort-of-not-really bow thing the nobles all did. He quick threw a couple nods at the men before continuing. "My name is Ceallach Ó Ailbhe, I'm one of the managers for the National Team."

"...Okay?" Liz was aware the big quidditch teams (at least in Britain) tended to have multiple people to deal with all the money and business and publicity stuff. Supposedly, with how stupid and bureaucratic the economy on the magical side could be, it took a lot of effort to keep all that shite straight, and obviously the actual players had other things they'd rather focus on. That didn't explain why the hell he was talking to her. "And what's this about?"

"The Team has invited you to come down to the lounge and meet with them."

...Oh. Um. "Sure, I guess? I mean, we weren't doing anything else, I don't think..."

There was a bit of discussion from there, Sirius enthusiastically saying of course they didn't have anything better to do, they should definitely go. Apparently the invitation was only for Liz, though she could bring Hermione if she wanted — there were family and friends and stuff at whatever this "lounge" place was, so it was kind of full, she couldn't go dragging along too many people. (If Draco were still here, he definitely would have tried to bully his way into accompanying her.) Severus clearly wasn't so happy with the idea of Liz going off with unknown adults unsupervised, which was slightly ridiculous — there were armed guards bloody everywhere here, and even the special purple-wearing ones who'd taken oaths to defend the Wizengamot specifically (and they were dead serious about it) — and Ailbhe was using his real name and everything, honestly, nothing was going to happen. Liz could practically feel Severus come to the same conclusion, agreeing with reluctance she could feel but didn't show on his face or voice at all. They arranged to meet up at the place they'd gotten sausage rolls at the day before — not for any particular reason, it was just somewhere they were all familiar with — and Ailbhe started to lead Liz and Hermione off.

Ailbhe said it would be a little bit of a walk — each of the teams that'd qualified had their own locker rooms and stuff, underground, and the Irish team's were inconveniently halfway across the stadium. Luckily, getting there would be relatively straightforward, since the teams' rooms had stairs going up to the blocked-off areas for the fancy people in the boxes, fo facilitate the teams and managers going up to meet with sponsors or politicians or whatever. There were a fair number of stairs, and it was a bit of a maze down here, but he'd get them there and back, don't worry about it.

Just as Ailbhe finished his explanation, Hermione snagged Liz by the wrist, pulling her a couple steps further behind Ailbhe. And then her wand was in her hand, a twirl and a muttered incantation, and a privacy paling snapped into existence around them. The direct skin contact was making Hermione's mind very loud, but Liz wouldn't have needed to look to guess what Hermione wanted to talk about.

She sighed — of course Hermione would take advantage of the first time they were even halfway in private to interrogate her about last night. She guessed she should have expected something like this.

Her voice in a low whisper despite the privacy charm, Hermione said, "I'm sorry, I know this isn't a great time, but I wasn't sure what other chance we'd get. I was worried talking about it just before bed would...be unhelpful."

...Oh, well. That was considerate of her, actually. "Maybe. I was worrying about it last night, and that doesn't help."

"Right, right, I thought so." Hermione's hand squeezed around Liz's a little, seemingly reflexive, which then drew Hermione's attention to the fact that she was still holding onto her. She immediately let go, Liz felt herself relax a little as Hermione's mind dimmed. "Sorry. Do you, um, does that...happen often?"

Liz really didn't want to talk about this. But Hermione was being cautious about it, and if she was just going to obsess over it anyway, it was...probably better to get it out of the way? Ailbhe had definitely noticed they were talking about something, curiously glancing over his shoulder (the presence of the privacy paling made his thoughts fuzzier, but the feeling was distinct enough to come through), but he'd just pulled a couple steps further away, giving them more space. So. Hermione wasn't being a bitch about it, at least, Liz guessed she could...just humour her. Fine. "I don't know. A few times a month...like maybe averaging once a week? Sometimes more and sometimes less, it depends."

There was a cold shiver in Hermione's head, definitely not a pleasant feeling, but what she said was, "Oh, well, I suppose it could be worse. You do sleep okay, most of the time?"

"Yes, Hermione," she groaned, trying not to sound too irritated, "I'm fine."

"Good. I mean, it's not good, obviously, you know what I mean. And, I know you don't want to talk about this, I wasn't sure if I should say anything at all, but, I worry about you sometimes, is all."

"Yeah, I get it. It's okay." Liz had figured out years ago that worrying about people just came with giving a damn about them, which could be a pain, but that's just the way it went. As weird and confusing as actually having friends and shite still felt sometimes, it was worth it. Most of the time, anyway. But, speaking of most of the time, Liz should probably ask... She kind of didn't want to know, she didn't want to talk about this at all, the words hitching in her throat hard enough she wasn't breathing properly — which, since they happened to be going down stairs at the moment, was getting her a little out of breath. Hermione could obviously tell Liz was working up to something, not looking at her but Liz could feel her attention on her anyway (crawling on her skin like ants), with a few careful breaths she finally managed to clear her throat. "Um. How much did you see?" From what Liz remembered, they'd woken up pretty early, but...

"Not much. I remember a large, angry man, and being...very frightened, but..."

Liz grit her teeth — well, that was bad enough, wasn't it? It took a moment, in a brief silence as Hermione hesitated over whatever it was she wanted to say next, Liz silently fuming in frustration, her stomach twisting, and... She was angry with herself, Liz realised, for pushing that on Hermione, she didn't like scaring her friends — she'd already managed to completely sabotage her relationship with the first friend she'd ever had, without even realising it was happening — but she hadn't even meant to, she'd been literally asleep at the time, not that she'd meant to with Dorea either (she wasn't even certain what she'd done wrong, exactly), she was so good at fucking things up she even did it while she was unconscious...

"Liz, I...I don't really want to ask, and you can tell me to mind my own business and I'll drop it, but... Did he ever...do anything like—"

She realised where Hermione was going before she got the words out, and hard, unpleasant lurch yanking her to a stop. "No. He didn't– he—" Liz forced herself to move again, before Ailbhe could realise anything was happening, her legs rather stiff, the next few stairs coming very awkwardly. "He never touched me, not like that. You know."

"Okay. Ah, I didn't mean that like, okay," said with a bit of a sceptical drawl, "I believe you, I just meant... Sorry, I'm not handling this conversation very well, am I?"

"It's fine," Liz muttered, a little absently, distracted. Hermione had changed her mind at the last second there. She was a little frustrated with herself for flubbing this talk and making Liz uncomfortable — which was a little silly, because Liz didn't think she was doing that badly, all things considered (at least she was trying) — but she'd been about to say something else. As anxious as she was about all this, head loud and jittery, Liz picked it up without really meaning to anyway.

Something about the, the mood of the brief glimpse of a nightmare she'd gotten had given her the suspicion that Vernon had...well. She was unfortunately aware that Rita, in that article ages ago now, not giving any details about what exactly had gone on had invited people to fill in the gap themselves — people weren't so blunt as to come out and ask Liz this, but she had picked up thoughts from people wondering about it. She hadn't known that, around the time, people had speculated out loud with each other about whether Liz had been raped by her muggle uncle, because of course they had, Liz was shocked they'd had the tact to keep it out of her earshot. That was how the idea had gotten into Hermione's head, apparently.

She really didn't want to talk about this.

"Sometimes, I..." Liz sucked in a long, slow breath, released it in a shaky sigh. "I didn't know shite about sex and, whatever, so, it wasn't...it wasn't something I was worried might happen. At the time. In retrospect, I think..." Looking back on it, there'd been something...off, about Vernon ordering her to undress, the way he'd just watch and... She hadn't quite picked up on it, then, but it was just creepy in retrospect. And not just because thinking about it made her skin crawl with—

(—on her skin like wasps—)

("Don't argue, girl, just—")

(SNAP)

(—something low on her back, warmer and softer than—)

("Take off your dress."

(—his hand on her back pushing her down, the fabric of the sofa scratching—)

(—the ghost of it on the air like a bad smell, she couldn't breathe—)

Oh, for fuck's sake...

Her fingers shaking just a little, Liz reached for her bag, nearly tripping as they reached the bottom of a flight of stairs, clumsily twisting the cap off one of her calming potions. Hermione, her mind hot and squirming with guilt and something softer Liz couldn't quite put a word to, nearly offered to get it for her, but before she worked up the nerve Liz already managed it. She didn't need the whole thing, it wasn't that bad — besides, if she downed the whole thing she definitely wouldn't be in any condition to meet the Irish National Team in a few minutes here — just took a sip, cool and tingly, the lavender smooth on her tongue. A couple seconds, and the jangling of her nerves didn't entirely settle, but it was better, the echo of it fading away. She could breathe normal, at least, and her fingers had stopped shaking — this was good enough for now, she'd get a distraction soon enough.

"I'm sorry, Liz, I didn't mean to upset you, I just..."

Returning the bottle to its spot in her back, Liz sighed. "It's alright, Hermione. It's not your fault my brain's fucked up."

That was entirely not what Hermione had meant, but if Liz had decided to not hold Hermione responsible for accidentally tripping a trauma response she wasn't going to argue the point.

"But as I was saying, he didn't, but sometimes I wonder if he might have, if I didn't get away." More to the point, if she weren't a mind mage — that was a possibility she didn't want to contemplate for even a second. "If you, er, got a feeling from what you saw, that's why."

"Right, good. I mean, not good, obviously, but you—"

"Yes, Hermione, I know what you mean," Liz said, her lips twitching despite herself.

"And, you don't have to worry about a— Snape made me a shielding amulet this morning, while you were asleep." Hermione reached into a pocket to pull out the chain of a necklace, a knut-sized medallion hanging from it, just for a second before stuffing it back in. "If you are woken up in the middle of the night and you want a distraction, go ahead and wake me up — we don't have to talk about it, we can just, I don't know, play cards or something until you're ready to go back to sleep. We can talk about things, but, you know. Just keep it in mind."

"I will, thanks." Liz didn't think it likely she'd take up either offer, but, noted. "Sorry about all this, by the way..."

"Oh Liz, you don't have to apologise for this, honestly..."

As unpleasant as that whole conversation had been, she didn't really regret it. In retrospect, the understanding she came to with Hermione regarding her nightmares would be a good thing (though it would take some months for her to realise that), but the potion hadn't worn off by the time they got to the lounge. There were quite a few people there, family and friends and all, Liz probably would have been uncomfortable without the potion helping her along. It'd still been kind of awkward, especially since a lot of the talking going on (back and forth in all directions, hard to follow) had been in Gaelic, which Liz still didn't speak at all. And she definitely would have been uncomfortable with the pictures — copies had ended up in magazines, because of course they had, but it wasn't really a bad thing, so she didn't mind that much.

She would frame the one of her and Hermione with Tricia Mullet and Aibhínn Ní Mhóráin — it would end up next to the ones of Lily with Severus and Cassie Lovegood and James and Sirius winning the Hogwarts cup on her bedside table, and yes, Liz was aware she was very silly sometimes.

(Liz's face was noticeably red in that one, because Tricia and Aibhínn were very pretty, smelling all nice from the shower, and they'd been all huddled up for the picture and, yeah. At least she was pretty sure nobody had noticed at the time, and that one hadn't gotten printed.)

On the way back to meet up with Severus and Sirius, idly fingering her scarf — the team had all signed it, transfiguring it into paper, drying the ink with a charm, and then reversing the transfiguration, which was very clever — Liz couldn't help smiling to herself a little, just rolling her eyes at Hermione's smirking. She guessed there had to be some benefits to being stupidly famous.

[Romania absolutely slaughtered Britain, two sixty-five to ten] — Canonically, Transylvania beat England 390 to 10. JKR has all of the constituent countries in the UK have their own teams, which is absolutely ridiculous, considering places like India, Brazil, and the United States only have one. (But then, JKR is super racist, so what did you expect.) Instead, England, Wales, and parts of southern Scotland have a team, and Ireland and western/northern Scotland are in another — the team is for all the Gaelic-speaking areas in general, not just Ireland, but English-speakers often call all Gaels "Irish" out of ignorance (and a hint of casual racism). In my headcanon, Transylvania also isn't an independent country, but one of the regions of Romania (like irl). You probably don't remember that ages ago I mentioned that I changed the rules of quidditch, particularly how the seeker position works. To get that score, I subtracted the 150 points the snitch is worth in canon, and then added back twenty-five, the headcanon value, which all together gives us Romania beating Britain 265 to 10.

[despite their languages being so different they were sometimes completely unrelated] — Seriously, the Caucasus are absurd. For Indo–European languages, the big ones are Armenian, which is so divergent from the rest of the family that it's considered its own branch (though in a continuum with Greek and Indo–Iranian), Russian, a few isolated Greek and Persian-speaking communities, and also Ossetian which, fascinatingly, appears to be a descendant of Scythian, the same horse-archers who'd occasionally raid ancient Greece and later Rome from the east and literally inspired the Amazons. (No seriously.) And then there are some Turkish languages, from two separate branches of the family, particularly Azeri and Kumyk. And then there's Georgian, which is its own family unrelated to any other known language. And then there are two more language families that exist only in the Caucasus, completely unrelated to anything else — one family includes things like Chechen, Ingush, and Avar, the other Abkhaz and Adyghe, plus a whole bunch of other tiny languages sometimes literally only spoken in a single village in an isolated mountain valley somewhere. And then there's a fucking Mongolian language, of all things — Kalmyk, the language of the, fun fact, only natively Buddhist ethnic group in Europe. So, that's six completely distinct language families, three of them unique to the region. Reminder: the Caucasus are only about 200~250 miles wide, the region maybe ~300 miles north to south. The world is fucking wild sometimes.

Anyway, that's enough nerdery from me, holy shit. Scene went way longer and more awkwardly than anticipated, and I'm really not happy with it, but oh well. Writing has been a pain lately, due to sleep/health issues, and also a kitten medical emergency (she's fine now). I'm basically only half-conscious right now, so I might have missed shit on my proofread. Whatever, I don't care anymore at this point.

I'm gonna flop over and watch Breaking Bad until it's time to go to bed byye noowww...