Rude Awakenings
Two days before the Quidditch World Cup, Arto Lassila, captain of the Finnish national team, was awoken by a sharp knocking on his door. He was unaware he was the last member of his team to be woken in this manner.
Mumbling swears in his native Finnish, as it had to hardly be six in the morning, he wrapped a blanket around himself and stumbled across the room. Whoever felt the need to pound on his door clearly had something urgent to tell him. Despite his grogginess, his mind started imagining all sorts of horrible things. Perhaps they hadn’t made it to the Quidditch World Cup and the past year had been a wonderful dream. Perhaps one of his teammates had been caught wandering around the town and the whole team was being disqualified. He knew Petri had been eyeing some local witches. Perhaps Mikko had finally slept with Malfoy and came to report back any interesting tidbits about the English team she’d let slip. Mikko was quickly running out of time to accomplish this, Arto was getting impatient.
Holding his breath, he pulled the door open. He caught a glimpse of the blond hair of the Swiss Auror named Hans before there was a muttering of a spell and everything went black.
Two days before the Quidditch World Cup, Eugene Dent, captain of the English national team, was awoken by someone banging on his door. He was unaware he would be the last member of his team to be woken like this.
“Bloody hell,” he mumbled to himself, rubbing his eyes and rolling out of bed. He slipped into the bathrobe that looked like their Quidditch uniform and lumbered towards the door. The heavy knocking continued, making him think there was some sort of emergency.
Mind now racing, he hurried towards the door, worried something had happened. Maybe they had been disqualified from playing in the Cup Final? Maybe Ricky and Natalie had snuck out of bounds again and gotten themselves caught. He couldn’t prove they had snuck out the other night but he knew his teammates. They were far too content with themselves at breakfast the morning after. And he knew how Ricky Webster acted after he shagged a witch. Dent had briefly wondered if Ricky and Natalie had slept together, but dismissed the thought — Malfoy would never sink that low and Ricky wouldn’t be able to keep his mouth shut about it.
With a bad feeling in his gut, he wrenched open the door. He found himself staring stupidly at Hans, the blond Swiss Auror, holding a tray of food.
“Er, what’s going on?” he asked immediately.
Hans just gave him a smile and stepped into the room. The door closed behind him.
“You slept well?” asked Hans, turning away from Dent to set the tray down on the table near the fireplace.
“Er, yeah, yeah, slept well, I suppose,” Dent said slowly.
“Good,” Hans straightened and turned to face Dent, his wand in hand.
Dent took an instinctive step backwards, looking towards the bedside table where his own wand lay before Hans muttered a spell and everything went black.
Two days before the Quidditch World Cup, Natalie woke early in the morning with a headache. A dull thud just above the back of her neck, it immediately irritated her. Rubbing her neck and muttering swears, she swung herself out of the four-poster bed and tugged on the bathrobe that looked like her Quidditch uniform. She decided to forego shoes and stay barefoot, as she only planned to head down the hall to the kitchen-dining area the team used.
Grabbing her wand from the ancient wooden table beside the bed, she flicked it and the time glowed. It wasn’t even six in the morning. The curtained windows were still dark. They weren’t practicing until noon that day, but Dent had mentioned something about going to the pitch to watch the Finns practice in the morning.
With a sigh, she tucked her wand into her pocket and stepped out into the drafty castle corridor. Despite being August, the interior of the castle was always cold. The stone floor felt smooth and cool under her bare feet as she headed down the corridor towards the cavernous dining hall.
Her headache seemed to grow with every step. She finally paused and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment.
“Up early?” she opened her eyes to find Harlowe, Tarold, Moody, and the other English Aurors strolling down the corridor. She assumed their destination was also the kitchen. Tarold gave her a grin and a wink. “Couldn’t sleep?”
“Yeah, sort of,” she shrugged and ran a hand through her loose hair. A sudden urge to see Tom Riddle flashed through her and she missed what Harlowe said next.
“What?” she asked, blinking at him in confusion. Scrimgeour and Coot laughed and the younger Aurors started ducking into the kitchen. Moody, Tarold and Harlowe remained, and she knew Tarold was staring at her bare legs. Moody evidently knew this too; he shot a disgusted look at the older, married Auror before following the others into the kitchen.
Harlowe shook his head. “Christ — I said go back to bed, you look like you’ve just seen someone drown kittens.”
“Headache,” she muttered, “what’re you lot doing up this early?”
“The Finnish Aurors invited us to have breakfast with them this morning before you lot wake up,” grunted Harlowe. It was clear he was not thrilled with this. “Something about the spirit of international magical cooperation or some bullshit.”
“Well, I think it’s nice,” Tarold said loudly, making Natalie wince. The prospect of entering the kitchen full of irritable Aurors that early in the morning did not appeal to her headache. She reckoned she could wait to eat something — or, and this sounded much better — she could sneak out and find Tom Riddle and they could go to that Mountain Skies Café before it was swamped with visitors.
“Oh, uh, okay,” she stuck her hands in her bathrobe’s pockets. “I’m gonna go back to bed. . . see you lot later.”
The Aurors muttered something (in Tarold’s case, she was fairly certain it was some flirty comment), but she turned and started heading back down the hall. A cup of coffee sounded like ambrosia — and it would be much easier to sneak out with all the Aurors having breakfast together. . . .
A door right in front of her swung open — the door to Dent’s room — and she froze, pulling her wand from her pocket on instinct.
Hans, the tall, blond Swiss Auror stepped out, carrying a tray of steaming breakfast food. She lowered her wand as Hans flinched upon sighting her.
“Uh, oops,” she said, giving him a smile.
He returned the smile, though still looked disconcerted. He quickly recovered himself. “Malfoy, what are you doing here?”
“Got hungry,” she mumbled, staring at the tray of fruit and crepes. She glanced at the closed door to Dent’s room, then looked back at Hans, head throbbing as she wondered why in the world the Swiss Auror was walking out of Dent’s room with a full plate of food.
He must have seen the question on her face. Hans gave her a much larger smile this time. “I’m delivering the team breakfast today.” He beckoned her to follow him down the hall and she began walking alongside him as he carried the tray. The scent of food made her headache sharpen.
“Dent thought it was a good idea for the team to have. . . breakfast in bed,” continued Hans.
“Dent thought that?” she frowned. That did not sound like Dent.
“Yes,” said Hans. He opened the door and handed her the mug of coffee from the tray. She accepted it with delight and took a long gulp, eager to get rid of the headache as he allowed her to step in the room before him. “Everyone is being surprisingly reasonable today. Even the English Aurors asked the Finns to eat with them.”
She lowered the mug. The coffee left a bitter-tasting film in her mouth. She ran her tongue over her teeth and cleared her throat. “The English asked the Finns to eat with them?”
Hans set the tray of food on the long table against the wall. His back was to her and her head was throbbing, but she saw him pause. He turned to her with a charming smile. It struck her as odd that Hans, head of the Swiss Aurors, would deliver them breakfast. Hadn’t he mentioned something the other day about reporting to Lars Oblinger each morning?
“They both asked to eat with the other,” he said and gestured to the mug she held. “That’s the finest roast in Switzerland. How do you like it?”
She took another sip and stared at him over the rim. She quickly decided she did not like the coffee or his smile. Both had something very pungent about them.
“It’s strong,” she said with a shrug. It wasn’t helping her headache at all.
He kept up his ridiculous smile and gave her a little bow. “Don’t drink it too fast,” he said and stepped out of the room, closing the door behind him.
There was a soft clicking sound, as though the door had been locked. Natalie froze, breath catching in her throat as her heart started pounding as quickly as her head. A shiver of panic went through her and the coffee slipped from her hand. It hit the floor at her bare feet and the mug shattered, the caramel-colored liquid of Switzerland’s finest roast splattering everywhere.
She ignored it. One hand flying to the ring around her neck, the other flying to the pocket where her wand lay, she lunged towards the door. There was a painful tugging sensation within her stomach, the world went black and she felt herself falling. She never made it to the door.