Post-Match Celebrations
As soon as the whistle blew to signify the end of the game, Demelza launched the quaffle into the air in elation. She flew to the ground and sprinted to join the other chasers and the beaters, who were already celebrating in a circle. She joined them, ecstatically jumping up and down in celebration. Tom and Pieter were also there in a flash, the latter jumping onto Demelza’s back in his excitement. The rest of the squad and the support staff didn’t take long to join them. The Belgium fans were in full voice. It was incredible.
Once the initial elation had worn off, the circle they had formed turned into a line, led by Jan, as they shook hands with the England players. Despite their devastation at missing the World Cup, they were gracious in defeat as they congratulated their opponents. It was a bittersweet moment for Demelza. She was obviously overjoyed that they had won, but she had preferred it to have been any country other than an England team still feeling the effects of the war.
Thoughts of her past and of the England team were all forgotten as England trooped off the pitch and the celebrations began again. Hugs were exchanged. Someone had brought beers onto the field. The team went over to the section of their fans to thank them for their support. Jan said a few brief words to them, telling them that the team’s progress wouldn’t have been possible without them and encouraging them to show up in greater numbers and to be even louder at the World Cup itself. His speech closed with a simple statement: “Time to party!”
This was greeted with loud cheers from players and fans alike. The fans eventually left, while the players went back into the dressing room. Food and drinks had already been set up there. Some of the stadium staff had escorted the team’s family and friends into the dressing room, which was busier than Demelza had ever seen it. She grabbed a beer and a couple of slices of pizza, then went to find her parents.
“You were amazing, I’m so proud of you,” Demelza’s mum said, hugging her. Demelza returned the hug as well as she could without getting pizza sauce all over her mum’s clothes.
“I still don’t understand the sport,” her dad said, also pulling her into a hug, “but it looked like you did amazingly up there. And well done for winning.”
“Thank you,” Demelza said, beaming. She dragged her parents around the room, introducing them to the team. It wasn’t tricky to find them—every single player made an effort to seek her out and tell her how well she’d played. She also met most of the team’s partners and some of their parents, and Jan’s children even made a brief appearance. Her own parents didn’t stay for long before returning to their hotel.
Somehow, the supply of food and booze was never-ending. Demelza didn’t see who kept brining more, but she contributed to making sure that the drinks table wasn’t full for long. She had always considered herself good at holding her drink, but her first time drinking with the national team disproved that. At some point, the plan to go to a nearby muggle club was abandoned because no one was in a fit state to apparate nor wanted to walk more than an hour to go, so a stereo was brought into the dressing room and amplified. Demelza didn’t know half of the songs, but she sang until her voice was hoarse anyway, and then she sang some more.
Over the course of the evening, the team’s guests gradually trickled out. Sometime after two in the morning, it was only the squad of eleven and the coaching staff left. They gathered into a circle for one last song—their victory song. Everyone swayed in time as they sang tunelessly and out of time with each other. Jan was in tears at the conclusion of the song and hugged anyone who got close enough. Roos kept jumping up and down on the spot. Tom kept screaming, “We won! We won!” It was chaos in the room, but Demelza wouldn’t have it any other way.
The support staff appeared in the dressing room, bleary-eyed and completely sober. With a bit of spellwork, they tidied the room and vanished all of the rubbish. “I don’t wanna go,” Demelza slurred as one of them grabbed her arm. The member of support staff—Demelza didn’t see who it was—didn’t listen to her but turned on the spot and disapparated.
The sensation of being squeezed through a tube was unpleasant at the best of times but suffering that feeling when she wasn’t expecting it and when her liver was struggling to deal with the amount of alcohol in her system proved to be too much for Demelza, who fell to her knees and lost her dinner all over the hotel lawn. The team stumbled into the hotel, blissfully unaware of the funny looks the staff were sending them. Demelza and her roommate Marie staggered, arm around each other, up the two flights of stairs to their room. After some fumbling around to find the key, they made it inside. Demelza fell, still in her sweaty quidditch robes, on top her bed, and was asleep within minutes.
Demelza spent the following day with a raging hangover. Fortunately, the team had no obligations that day. It allowed her to spend it in bed, feeling terrible and drinking as much water as she thought she could keep down.
Two days after the match, they returned to Belgium. Demelza, still recovering from their post-match party, just wanted to go home, but first came their public duties. They took a portkey directly into the antechamber to the Minister’s Office, where seemingly the entire government was there to congratulate them. They had a fancy lunch with the Minister and some of his closest allies, where there was free champagne in abundance. Demelza indulged heavily while she had to listen to politicians congratulating themselves for something that they hadn’t done. She was angry—she wanted to reclaim the credit for herself and for her team—but these were important and powerful people, so she refrained. Instead, she drank more and more to drown them out.
She regretted doing so when, after lunch, they were led onto a stage in the Ministry’s Hall of Victory and there was an eruption of noise. The hall was enormous—easily big enough for a game of quidditch—and it was packed full of people celebrating their success. She groaned. She didn’t want to deal with other people right now. What were they all doing there anyway? It was a Monday. Did they not have work to do? However, because her every move was being captured by photographers, she let none of her true emotions show on her face and smiled and waved while the team walked to the centre of the stage. Jan spoke, and his speech was frequently interrupted by cheers and chanting.
Demelza ignored his speech and let her gaze wander around the room. Whenever cheers arose, she joined in, but she didn’t do so enthusiastically. She had heard hundreds of similar speeches, from the captains of various league winners or international teams, but she had never before seen the Hall of Victory—it was normally reserved for parties where politicians rubbed shoulders with the rich and snobby members of society, parties to which sportspeople were certainly not invited. It surpassed her expectations in every way imaginable. Sixteen magnificent chandeliers hung from the ceiling and every inch of the wall and ceiling was adorned with paintings, each one depicting a different event from Belgium’s magical history.
By the time that she stopped gazing around the room and tuned back into the speech, she felt stupid for being so ungrateful. These people had given up their time to come see them, and that filled her with pride. Therefore, the next time that the crowd began chanting, she threw herself into it. Her mindset now changed, the rest of the day went much better. They spent ages in the Hall of Victory, but with the crowd serenading them most of that time, time seemed to fly away.
In the evening, they took to their brooms once more. They flew around the country, through two lines of adoring fans who then joined their flight behind them. They flew from Brussels to Namur to Tournai to Bruges to Antwerp to Liège, and seemingly the country’s entire magical population came to see them. Demelza wondered how much work had gone into ensuring that no muggles could see the festivities in the skies—they weren’t exactly being subtle. She felt a bit bad for those in the south, who had so far to go to line their route, but she couldn’t bring herself to care much. It had been an exhausting few days and the 500km flight took them several hours, so she was extremely happy to end it near her house in Liège.
She hugged her teammates and wandered through the city, sweaty and still a bit drunk and clutching her broom, ignoring the odd looks she received from the muggles. When she finally made it back to her flat, the first thing that she noticed, just before she collapsed on to her bed, was that her robes from the match had been framed and hung opposite the fireplace. Above it was a plaque :
Demelza Robins
International Quidditch Debut – 24/09/2005
Belgium 430 – 420 England