Lauterbrunnen
Two weeks before the Quidditch World Cup, the English national team found itself in the Ministry of Magic for their official send off to the World Cup, escorted by Seymour Mulciber and Antonin Dolohov. Though Natalie was fairly certain Dolohov was only there because he did not want to miss out on all the action.
It took them nearly an hour to make it from the Atrium of the Ministry to the floor where Tiberius’s office was because they had to stop for a photograph on every floor, and then give out autographs to whatever high-ranking Ministry official had a “son who loves Quidditch.” When the team passed through the Department of International Magical Cooperation, Evan Rosier and Zacharias Nott had pushed past Dolohov, pretended to be meeting Natalie for the first time, and asked her to autograph an assortment of ridiculous objects, ignoring the yells from Dolohov and Mulciber. Once they had flung Antonin Dolohov’s own wand at her, asking for her signature, Dolohov sent the two packing, furious that Nott had managed to nick his wand without Dolohov even noticing.
Ricky Webster and Leonard Cadwallader loved the attention, of course. The Pottingers took it all in stride, occasionally reminding everyone that the three of them were retiring from Quidditch after the World Cup — so they wanted to go out on a high note. Natalie and Dent were practically squirming with anticipation; Natalie had been waiting for, preparing for, dreaming about the World Cup for ages. She just wanted to be in Switzerland already.
“Only a one hour time difference,” Dent was muttering to her as Seymour Mulciber and Antonin Dolohov led the team out of the lift and down the corridor leading to the Minister's office. An assortment of Ministry workers popped out of office doors to stare at the team, some joining the long trail of workers and visitors who burst out of the other lifts, having followed the team throughout the entire Ministry.
“Shouldn’t be a problem,” she said, maintaining a bright smile at all the faces gawking at them.
“Don’t know why we had to tour the entire Ministry,” said Dent, also keeping up the facade of cheeriness for the fans. The crowd started clapping as Dolohov and Mulciber ushered the team into Tiberius’s outer office.
“Bloody hell,” Natalie mumbled; the clapping and cheering grew louder when they entered the outer office. Apparently a large group of people had staked out in the outer office, waiting for the team. As the Minister’s outer office was, by law, always open to visitors, these looked more like Hogwarts students and Quidditch fanatics who had camped there for hours, rather than the curious Ministry workers who tailed the team.
Pamela Selwyn sat at her usual desk, an enormous Union Jack hanging on the wall behind her. She looked less than happy with the crowd in the outer office, but waved cheerily at the team as Dolohov and Mulciber now rushed them towards the inner office.
Jack Lament stood at the door to Tiberius’s inner office, looking as eager to get to Switzerland as Natalie was. His son, Neil, along with Cato Greengrass, were beside him. Her former Slytherin teammates hurried toward her, wrapping her into a hug.
Neil clasped her hand between both of his. “Please — please don’t lose!”
“And catch the bloody Snitch,” reminded Greengrass.
“Will do,” she said before Dent pulled her away from them and she was swept into the inner office. The door quickly slammed shut behind the team, cutting off the cheers and noise from the outer office.
“Alright!” Tiberius Malfoy clapped his hands, gaining the attention of the entire team. He stood near the fireplace with Matt Lament, Head of the Department of Magical Sports and Games. Abraxas was sitting in his father’s desk chair, and immediately began pulling faces at Natalie like they were seven years old.
“We’re almost an hour behind schedule, so let’s get this moving,” said Tiberius, ignoring the fact that a teenager had just tried to sneak in through the door, only to be forced back out of the office by Dolohov. “The Cup Final, as you all already know, is being held in a tiny Swiss village-”
“Lauterbrunnen,” said Abraxas. Natalie stuck her tongue out at him, she refused to let him have all the fun of acting like a child.
“Yes, Lauterbrunnen,” the Minister of Magic waved a hand as Abraxas started mock-gagging in response to Natalie. “Seymour here was in charge of picking where you and the Finnish team will be staying-”
“Wait,” Dent piped up from beside Natalie, “we gotta stay with them?”
“It’s a bloody castle from the 1200s,” Seymour Mulciber rolled his eyes. “It’s enormous. I doubt you’ll even see each other.”
Ricky Webster was thrilled, flashing his pearly white teeth and running a hand through his blond hair. “We’re staying in a castle?”
Tiberius did not look pleased at having been interrupted so many times. “Yes, I’ve been informed it’s all very charming. The Department of Magical Law Enforcement has given the Department of Magical Sports and Games their pick of Aurors. They are responsible for your safety. Which shouldn’t be difficult, seeing as we’ve got strict security rules-”
“Is there a moat?” Ricky Webster looked like a little boy on Christmas. Natalie rolled her eyes, making Abraxas flip her off. She ran her thumb slowly over her throat in response, hearing Dolohov snicker.
“Yes,” Mulciber grinned. “And I heard there’s sharks in it.”
“That is not true,” Matt Lament assured them.
“Wicked,” Ricky whistled. “There’s a funny story about me and this super fit witch in a moat-”
Natalie groaned, “not now, Ricky.”
“No, no, I wanna hear this story!” insisted Leonard Cadwallader. Abraxas mouthed “not now Ricky” and mimed crying. Dolohov let out a choke of laughter that he quickly disguised with a cough. Dent nudged Natalie in the gut, finally connecting her and Abraxas’s displays of immaturity. He shot her a glare — so she blew him a kiss. He rolled his eyes but still blushed red. Jack Lament was trying not to laugh, while his brother, Matt, kept shifting a large pot of Floo powder between his hands and sighed like this was exactly what he expected to happen by having the entire team in one room. Tiberius looked around at them all, flustered that he did not have control over what was going on in his own office.
Dent tore his eyes away from Natalie. “Ricky, the Minister of Magic does not want to hear about your sexual exploits. And Caddy, just keep your goddamn mouth shut this entire trip, okay?”
“Right,” Jack Lament stepped forward and claimed everyone’s attention before protests could break out. Matt handed over the Floo powder and Jack began shoving little scoops of it into the team’s hands. “You’ll be Flooing into the village. The Aurors are waiting for you there. They’ll bring you to the castle. Your gear and belongings will be sent after you — no, Dent, we will not be putting the broomsticks through the Floo-”
“Thank Merlin,” Dent sighed and Natalie smirked at him. He glared back.
“Anyway,” Tiberius cleared his throat. “You should be the first to arrive. Everyone else, including myself, will be arriving closer to the match. We’ll all be staying in the village in the event any issues arise — and so will the rest of the wizarding world.”
“This has been a logistical nightmare for the entire Ministry,” Matt Lament reminded them, sending a beady look at Ricky Webster. “Especially for the Department of International Magical Cooperation. Please don’t make it any worse or Seamus Dawson will have my head.”
“And mine,” said Jack.
“And mine,” added Tiberius and he glanced over at Natalie. She gave him a nod, well aware she was under double the pressure — being the Minister’s niece and the team’s Seeker.
“And don’t forget to win,” said Mulciber with a smirk.
“And make sure Natalie catches the Snitch,” said Dolohov.
Abraxas sniggered. “Yeah, or none of you will be allowed back into the country.”
“Boys, please,” Tiberius sighed, clearly frustrated with the inability of certain people in his office to act their age. His son was married and ran an internationally renowned business. But Abraxas and Natalie were sticking their tongues out at each other. They both quickly smiled at the Minister.
Grunting impatiently, Dent pushed the two Beaters towards the fireplace. “Ricky, Caddy, go first.”
They didn’t need any further persuasion. With a brief comment about what Swiss witches looked like, Ricky dropped the Floo powder, shouted “Lauterbrunnen!” and vanished in an eruption of green flames. Caddy was quick to follow, though he stuttered over the name of the village and sigh ran through the office.
“He might need to be retrieved,” said Jack Lament. He gestured at Dent. “Best go next, see if he made it. . . .”
The Pottinger triplets — Tommy, Tucker, and Ted — had been silent the whole time, awed in the presence of the Minister of Magic. Now they collectively laughed to themselves.
Dent vanished through the fireplace and Natalie stepped up.
“I’m going next,” she insisted, wanting to go before the Pottingers.
Jack laughed, “go on.”
“Good luck, princess,” called Abraxas, finally serious about something. This was echoed by Dolohov and Mulciber. She saluted the three and grinned. Tiberius gave her a nod and a genuine smile, which she returned.
She leapt into the fireplace, dropped the Floo powder and shouted “Lauterbrunnen!”
Floo powder always made her feel like she was suffocating. She kept her eyes shut the entire time as she spun and spun and spun — until she shot out onto a hard wooden floor.
Coughing and covered in what felt like a thin powder, she heard someone step over and attempt to help her up. Her eyes blinked open to land on one of the Aurors. She ignored his outstretched hand and climbed to her feet, brushing off the fine layer of ashes that clung to her robes.
“Alright there?” he asked, not at all fazed by her ignoring his offer of assistance.
“Yeah, fine,” she said and glanced him over. He seemed rather young, and almost familiar, though he wasn’t one of the Aurors she’d met before. “I, uh, just hate Floo powder.”
The Auror smiled. “Me too.”
One by one, the Pottingers stepped out behind her (she quickly moved to put as much space between them and her). They had Flooed into a drawing room that was sparsely furnished in order to make room for whoever Flooed in. It was just as well — the room was nearly bursting with people. To her surprise, Caddy had successfully made it to Lauterbrunnen, though he looked a bit more dazed than usual.
“Everyone here?” asked Dent, looking around and nodding to himself as he eyed each of his teammates. Natalie recognized most of the Aurors, including Reginald Harlowe and Bertram Tarold. The latter sent a wink her way and she shook her head at him. Oliver Livingston, Jacob Coot, Rufus Scrimgeour, and Keefe Jameson were also present. There was one other wizard she didn’t recognize, he was tall, blond, and looked very Swiss. She assumed he was Swiss liaison or assisting Auror.
“Listen up,” the tall blond wizard spoke in unaccented English as he surveyed the troop of Quidditch players. “Your Ministry handpicked and assigned seven Aurors to serve as your team security. The Finns have their own. There are more Aurors assigned from the ICQWC for general security in the town and at the stadium. My name is Hans, I am Head of the Swiss Aurors. I’ll be around as well, to help out when needed.”
“Alright, we’ll take it from here,” Reginald Harlowe spoke up, and Hans looked relieved.
“The Minister’s being pretty strict about security here,” continued Harlowe and everybody turned to look at Natalie. She immediately dropped her gaze to the floor. “Obviously. But if you don’t do anything excessively stupid there shouldn’t be any problems.”
Ricky Webster raised his hand.
“Ricky, no,” started Dent but Harlowe continued.
“If you want to know what constitutes being excessively stupid-” (Webster’s hand lowered), “-it’s anything that involves any of you going what we’re referring to as out of bounds. If you leave the castle to go down to the village — you’re out of bounds. If you sneak off the pitch to go to the village — you’re out of bounds. To make this exceedingly clear to you lot — this means no going into the village because you saw an attractive witch and she told you what house she’s staying at.
“Now, that being said, we’ll be escorting you lot to and from the pitch for practices and the big game. Be advised — and I’m only going to say this once — there will be thousands, if not millions of people here. It’s already been a catastrophe dealing with the Muggles, we haven’t even gotten to the part where every witch in the wizarding world wants to have your babies or every wizard wants Malfoy to bat her eyelashes at them.”
Again, everyone turned to stare at Natalie, the only witch in the room. She shrugged and gave them a wry smile.
“Wait, there are witches who want to have my babies?” began Cadwallader and Dent very obviously stomped on his foot. “Ow!”
“Let’s move out,” announced Harlowe, looking more than eager to get out of the cramped space. The room broke apart, Hans leading the way.
Natalie found the Auror who had attempted to help her up grinning at her.
“I’m Alastor Moody,” he introduced himself. He had beady dark eyes with a sharp intensity in them, and she realized they overlapped at Hogwarts. He must have just graduated. “I take it you do remember me, then.”
“Ha, yeah, I do. Ravenclaw house, right?” she asked.
“Correct. Surprised you remembered. You didn’t seem to move outside of your usual group of Slytherins.”
“Yeah, not by my seventh year, no,” she said with a wince, recalling when her best friends had been in Ravenclaw. That seemed a lifetime ago.
“At least I know you’re not as much of a dunderhead as they are,” he jerked his head in the direction of Ricky Webster and Leonard Cadwallader. Bertram Tarold and Reginald Harlowe were keeping a close eye on them, though looked less than pleased about something.
Natalie had a suspicion that somewhere along the chain of command, someone had told the Aurors to keep an eye on one member of the team each, hence why there were seven of them. Ricky and Caddy were the most, well, stupid, and so the veteran Aurors kept watch over them. When she saw Rufus Scrimgeour, who couldn’t be much older than Moody, pair off with Dent, she knew this was exactly what had happened. She was just glad that now the whole team had to abide by her “Manor-Pitch-Manor” lifestyle. Now it would be Castle-Pitch-Castle.
“Don’t worry, I don’t plan on going out of bounds or anything,” she said as they slipped out of the house they’d Flooed into. It was sunset in Switzerland. The sinking sun painted the quaint little Alpian town hues of pink and gold and made the tall waterfall cascading down a nearby mountain glint with thousands of stars. It was gorgeously picturesque. Cozy houses with green shutters and identical red and brown tiled roofs lined the street. Boxes of flowers with miniature British and Finnish flags were placed between every house, though a few had Swiss flags sticking out of them as well.
“You’ll probably be thinking differently by next week,” grunted Moody.
“Well, then, I promise I won’t go out of bounds,” she said teasingly as they followed the rest of the team up the cobblestone street. The hulking stone mass of an enormous medieval castle could be seen at the far end of the village. “Why didn’t we Floo right into the castle?”
“There’s dozens of enchantments around the castle,” explained Moody. He sounded pleased to talk about how secure the castle was. “Anti-Apparation Jinxes, Muggle-Repelling Charms — though those aren’t really necessary, the Muggles more or less abandoned the village during their war when the tourism dried up. You can’t apparate, Floo, or take a portkey into the castle. The only way in and out is over the moat and through the front entrance.”
“Seems a bit. . . excessive,” she said as the castle loomed closer. The main street they headed down melted right into a dark patch of woods. They stepped onto a dirt path and the Aurors lit their wands, throwing shadows over the twisted knots of ancient oak trees. Tarold picked the creepiest tune he could think of and began to whistle it while Ricky started regaling Caddy with an overly detailed story about how he had once shagged a witch on the stump of an old pine tree. Jacob Coot and Keefe Jameson moved to listen in.
“That’s because it was built to withstand sieges,” said Moody, scowling at Coot and Jameson. “Back when there weren’t regulations and laws about this sort of thing.”
“So it’s a Muggle castle?” Natalie glanced up. The soaring parapets could just be seen through the cover of the trees. Just ahead of them, Scrimgeour seemed to be telling Dent and the Pottingers a similar version of what Moody was telling her.
“Built by Muggles, redesigned by wizards,” said Moody. His lit wand made his facial expression look manic. “Muggles built it to last through months of sieges — that’s why it’s a goddamn maze, and why there’s only one way in and out.”
Natalie laughed. “Well, what if whoever was besieging it got in? What was the plan for the people stuck inside?”
“There wasn’t one,” Moody flashed her a toothy grin. “One way in and out means you go in, and if you can’t get out — you die.”
She snorted. “That’s awfully dramatic. Almost wish we’d be under siege.”
“Oh, you will be,” Moody said, laughing when she shot him a look. “By fans, that is. Quidditch fans don’t usually have the weapons to fully besiege a castle. But with the Minister insisting on tight security, having a siege-proof castle worked out.”
“Oh,” said Natalie, eyeing Moody as they stepped off the path and into a small grassy clearing. The outline of a wooden bridge could just be seen through the darkness. Tarold’s creepy whistling had ended most other conversations amongst the team and so they hurried towards the bridge and up to the castle, Caddy muttering about how he had the “heebie-jeebies.” Dent glanced over his shoulder and looked her up and down as though making sure she was still there. She rolled her eyes and Moody snorted at this interaction, staying in pace beside her.
“Aren’t you a little. . . well, young to get an assignment like this?” Natalie asked the Auror.
Moody shrugged, but she could tell he had wondered the same question at some point. “Matt Lament personally picked the Aurors assigned to the team.” He dropped the big name as though hoping it would satisfy her.
“Why didn’t Ian Rowle assign the Aurors?” she asked as Dent slowed to fall into step beside her. “Isn’t Rowle the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement?”
Moody smiled and had a look about him as though she had just proven a theory of his correct. “He is the Head of the DMLE — but from what I heard, Rowle gave Matt pick of the lot. That’s all I really know — that and the ICWQC insisted the countries playing provide as much security for their teams as possible.”
Scrimgeour had overheard their conversation and jumped in. “Ian probably just let Matt deal with security because he’s an old codger and wants to retire as soon as he can — didn’t thrill too many people though.”
“Yeah,” Natalie hummed, distracted by the size of the castle before them. It soared up towards the dark sky, where hundreds of stars were beginning to wink down at them. She shared a look with Dent — the castle suddenly seemed much more interesting than what the Aurors were talking about. Hans opened the heavy doors with a spell. With a shiver of excitement, Natalie shot forward, dashed up a short flight of wide steps and set foot within the medieval stone fortress.