Chapter Four
The morning of the Quidditch Cup we were awoken early be Molly, got dressed and went downstairs for a breakfast of porridge and blueberries.
"Why do we have to be up so early?" Ginny said, rubbing her eyes and sitting
down at the table.
"We've got a bit of a walk," said Arthur.
"Walk?" said Harry. "What, are we walking to the World Cup?"
"No, no, that's miles away," said Arthur, smiling. "We only need to walk a short way. It's just that it's very difficult for a large number of wizards to congregate without attracting Muggle attention. We have to be very careful about how we travel at the best of times, and on a huge occasion like the Quidditch World Cup the Ministry institutes secrecy measures.”
"So how does everyone get there without all the Muggles noticing?" Harry asked.
"It's been a massive organizational problem," sighed Arthur. "The trouble is, about a thousand wizards turn up at the World Cup, and of course, we just haven't got a magical site big enough to accommodate them all. There are places Muggles can't penetrate, but imagine trying to pack a thousand wizards into Diagon Alley or platform nine and three-quarters. So we had to find a nice deserted moor, and set up as many anti-Muggle precautions as possible. The whole Ministry's been working on it for months. First, of course, we have to stagger the arrivals. People with cheaper tickets have to arrive two weeks beforehand. A limited number use Muggle transport, but we can't have too many clogging up their buses and trains - remember, wizards are coming from all over the world. Some Apparate, of course, but we have to set up safe points for them to appear, well away from Muggles. I believe there's a handy wood they're using as the Apparition point. For those who don't want to Apparate, or can't, we use Portkeys. They're objects that are used to transport wizards from one spot to another at a prearranged time. You can do large groups at a time if you need to. There have been two hundred Portkeys placed at strategic points around Britain, and the nearest one to us is up at the top of Stoatshead Hill, so that's where we're headed."
Arthur pointed ahead of them, where a large black mass rose beyond the village of Ottery St. Catchpole.
“Is it just the Diggorys portkeying with us?” I asked, pulling my thick wool coat tighter around my body.
“Yes. The Lovegoods already arrived and the Prewett’s aren’t coming. Lady Diggory isn’t attending, so it’s just Amos and his son, Cedric. Do you know him?” Arthur asked.
“He’s the Hufflepuff Seeker,” Ginny said. “He’s quite good.”
We walked up to where Lord Diggory and Cedric were standing and exchanged pleasantries. When it was a minute to the portkey time, we all shuffled around to make sure that we were all touching the worn boot.
The portkey jerked, speeding us through what appeared to the human eye as a multicolored light tunnel. With another jerk, it dropped us in a grassy field and I barely managed to stay standing.
In front of us were two wizards who were embarrassingly dressed in a bizarre assortment of muggle clothes. Evidently nobody had told them that a shirt and pair of pants without a robe would suffice.
Arthur greeted one of the wizards, a man wearing a kilt and a poncho, and received directions to our campsite.
We walked until we reached the small site manager’s cottage.
"Morning!" said Arthur brightly.
"Morning," said the site manager.
"Would you be Mr. Roberts?"
"Aye, I would," said Mr. Roberts. "And who're you?"
"Weasley - one tent, booked a couple of days ago?"
"Aye," said Mr. Roberts, consulting a list tacked to the door. "You've got a space up by the wood there. Just the one night?"
"That's it," said Mr. Weasley.
"You'll be paying now, then?" said Mr. Roberts.
“How much is it?” I asked as Arthur pulled out a wad of pounds.
“Fifty pounds,” he said, glancing curiously at Arthur’s confusion. Arthur handed the wad to me at Harry’s urging.
“Sorry about my uncle. He struggles with the conversion between pounds and euros,” I explained with a smile, handing over the fifty pounds.
"You're not the first one who's had trouble with money," said Mr. Roberts, scrutinizing Arthur closely. "I had two try and pay me with great gold coins the size of hubcaps ten minutes ago."
"Did you really?" said Arthur nervously.
"Never been this crowded," he said suddenly, looking out over the misty field again. "Hundreds of pre-bookings. People usually just turn up...."
“It’s a medieval renaissance fair. Some people can get a tad too into character,” I said, fabricating a decently plausible excuse. “Somebody really should have explained that we were having such a large group but the management can be disorganized at times.”
“Ah, that would explain it,” Mr. Roberts said, nodding in satisfaction. “Here’s a map of the campsite. Have a good day!”
“Thanks. You too,” I said.
“Any problems?” another oddly dressed wizard asked as we approached the entrance to the campsite.
“I told him it was a renaissance fair. That will explain mentions of magic and other oddities without needing to obliviate him. Too many obliviations can cause permanent memory damage, especially for muggles,” I said.
“Ah yes, have a good day,” the wizard said before disapparating.
The field was filled with all sorts of tents. Many were plain cloth tents the type you would expect in the 19th century, but there were several elaborately decorated luxury tents.
“This is us,” Arthur said, coming to a stop at an empty patch of grass that had a sign labeled ‘Weasley’. “Now, who knows how to put up a tent?”
Hermione and I put up the tent with magic while Harry distracted Arthur with questions about Ludo Bagman. We entered the tent, which was the size of a modest apartment and contained a living area, a kitchen, a bathroom and three bedrooms.
“The bedrooms each have four bunks. The girls can take one room, Harry, Ron, Fred and George can take another and the I’ll bunk with the other boys once they arrive,” Arthur said.
We put our bags down in the bedroom and then the four of us volunteered to go fetch water. Arthur was way too enthusiastic about muggle camping.
“We can wander around and see what it’s like,” Hermione said. “I’ve never seen so many wixen in one place.”
“How many countries do you think are here?” Harry asked as we wandered around.
“Wizard countries are different than muggle countries. There’s only nine magical countries, each of which includes several muggle sub-countries that work like each have their own magical government equivalent. Some of them envelope an entire continent. They really should be empires, with several countries within said empire, but it's not. For example, Magical Britain, which is also known as Albion, consists of England, Scotland, Ireland, Iceland and Greenland. Which makes it really confusing to refer to it as Britain because there it is a bigger country than Muggle Britain. And that's not even getting into the whole mess that is Rome, which has five different meanings. And at big international events like this every magical country will send whatever their equivalent to the Head of International Magical Cooperation is as an official representative and maybe their Minister/Chancellor/President person, although not normally. For example, I think the Minister of Bulgaria, but they didn't sent the Minister of Scandia, where Bulgaria is, probably because he had more important things to do,” I said.
“Wait, only nine countries?” Harry asked. How did he not know this? Hermione and I had held several conversations about magical international politics in front of him.
“Yep. There’s Albion, Scandia, Slavia, Europa, Keya, Ethiopia, Ngunawal, Muisca and Anatolia. Most of these are ancient or pre colonization names since the magical world didn’t do the whole colonization and oppression thing the same way the muggle world did. Then within each magical country there are several muggle countries. Like Albion, although it’s officially just Britain since 1945, contains England, Ireland, Scotland, Iceland and Greenland. The name change to just 'Britian' is a whole thing that ties into the influence of muggle culture and the decay of magical culture, which is a legitimate issue just not as big as the pureblood supremacists make it out to be. Like how the christian holidays of Christmas, Valentine's Day and Easter took over Yule, Imbolc and Ostara. That's a point of contention especially given how Christianity is the greatest historical threat to the magical community and the entire reason European wixen formed their own hidden countries. Which is deeply ironic because of the whole Jesus thing,” I said, gesturing with my hands as I explained.
We ran into several fellow Hogwarts students and stopped to chat as we made our way to the water well. When we got back, Hermione helped Arthur to light the fire and I pulled out the food that Molly had sent with us.
Trying to cook scrambled eggs while balancing a metal pan over the fire without using magic was a new experience. Hermione wasn’t managing much better with the sausage. Luckily, Arthur didn’t notice when we used a Levitating Charm to hold the pans in place and merely kept a hand on the handle.
Our tent was on one of the main paths through the campsite and plenty of people were hurrying past. Arthur kept up a commentary on various Ministry members and other people he recognized, clearly having a blast. Bill, Charlie and Percy joined us just as we piled the food onto plates that Fred and George had conjured.
We began eating and were almost done with lunch when a man in bright yellow Quidditch robes arrived.
“Aha!” Arthur said. “The man of the moment! Ludo!”
“Ahoy there!" Bagman called happily as he walked over. “Arthur, old man. What a day, eh? What a day! Could we have asked for more perfect weather? A cloudless night coming and hardly a hiccough in the arrangements.... Not much for me to do!”
Right on cue, there was a purple explosion a couple of tent rows over and a bunch of Ministry wixen rushed by. Percy leapt up and approached Bagman with a hand outstretched.
“Ah - yes,” said Arthur, grinning, “this is my son Percy. He's just started at the Ministry, and this is Fred and George, Bill, Charlie, Ron and Ginny. And then Ginny and Ron's friends, Hermione Granger, Zo Hawk and Harry Potter. Everyone, this is Ludo Bagman, you know who he is. It’s thanks to him we’ve got such good tickets.”
“Fancy a flutter on the match, Arthur?” Bagman said eagerly, jingling what seemed to be
a large amount of gold in the pockets of his yellow-and-black robes. “I've already got Roddy Pontner betting me Bulgaria will score first - I offered him nice odds, considering Ireland's front three are the strongest I've seen in years - and little Agatha Timms has put up half shares in her eel farm on a weeklong match.”
"Oh, go on then," said Arthur. "Let's see, a Galleon on Ireland to win?"
“A Galleon?” Ludo Bagman said, deflating slightly. “Very well, very well, any other takers?”
“They're a bit young to be gambling,” said Mr. Weasley. “Molly wouldn't like it."
“I’ll put a galleon on Ireland winning as well,” I said, the same bet that I always placed on the Ravenclaw team at school.
“Well, I suppose a galleon is alright,” Arthur said as Bagman smiled at me.
“We'll bet fifty Galleons that Ireland wins but that-”
“-Victor Krum gets the snitch. Oh and a fake wand.”
Bagman was thrilled by the fake wand that the twins showed him while Percy was very offended that a Ministry representative would be so interested and Arthur looked highly concerned.
“Boys, I don’t want you betting. One galleon is alright if you want to get into the spirit, but that’s got to be nearly all of your savings,” Arthur said worriedly.
“Don't be a spoilsport, Arthur!"”boomed Ludo Bagman, rattling his pockets excitedly. “They're old enough to know what they want! You reckon Ireland will win but Krum'll get the Snitch? Not a chance, boys, not a chance. I'll give you excellent odds on that one. We'll add five Galleons for the funny wand, then, shall we.”
George cheerfully accepted the slip of parchment that Bagman handed them.
“Couldn't do me a brew, I suppose? I'm keeping an eye out for Barty Crouch. My Bulgarian opposite number's making difficulties, and I can't understand a word he's saying. Barty'll be able to sort it out. He speaks about a hundred and fifty languages,” Bagman was saying.
"Mr. Crouch?" said Percy, perking up. “He speaks over two hundred! Mermish and Gobbledegook and Troll-"
“Anyone can speak Troll. All you-”
“-have to do is point and grunt.”
“Mister Crouch really speaks two hundred languages? Is it some sort of spell or did he learn all of them?” I asked curiously.
“It’s a potion I believe. There’s a store in Diagon Alley that sells them. You have to do the potions one at a time, but it’s quite common for plenty of people to become fluent in an extra language that way. It’s not quite perfect and it’s better to learn a language as a child if you want to be fluent, but it’s very handy,” Percy said. “I can get you the name of the store if you would like.”
“Thanks. That would be amazing!” I said. I sent a questioning glance at Hermione and she nodded eagerly.
Crouch stopped by to discuss last minute changes to the Top Box and completely forgot Percy’s surname. It was quite rude, especially considering Crouch worked with Arthur and the Weasleys were a Noble House even if these Weasleys were a secondary branch of the family.
In the afternoon, we wandered through all of the vendors hawking their wares. I got a Ireland scarf and a variety of snacks for the game. After making our purchases, we walked to the stadium looming in the distance.