AND THEY WERE WIZARDS. (Oh my god they were wizards)

"Why is a World Class Sports Event not on TV???"

"I mean really, why? Wizards have a newspaper, a radio station, but not a television channel? It'd make so much money off of the Quidditch World Cup and they wouldn't need all this traffic control and muggle protection."

"Virgil, are you capable of going one single day without complaining about how the Wizarding World works?" Remus asked, half exasperated, half amused.

"Well no one ever seems to talk about these things even though they're so obvious!" Virgil answered matter-of-factly, "so many people want to see the World Cup but can't because they can't get tickets. And for some reason, wizards can make sticks of wood fly a hundred fifty miles an hour but are completely lost when it comes to technology, so people that can't make it that distance or don't buy tickets in time just never know what happens! It's really..."

"Impractical." Roman, Remus, Remy, Emile, Patton and Logan finished his sentence for him.

Sunlight speckled the ground through a canopy of leaves as the seven boys hiked through the wooded campsite back to their tents with more supplies. Tents around them bore so much of the Irish quidditch team colors that they might have blended in with the trees. The Quidditch World Cup was to take place the next day, but the party had had to book their campsite a week in advance. All except for Janus, who's mother afforded them more expensive seats. He was arriving to join his friends later that day, which, though he was trying to hide it, was putting Remus in a very cheery mood.

*******************

It had been a very eventful week of waiting. As promised at the end of the school year, Remy's mother and the twins' parents had bought extra tickets for Virgil, Patton and Logan, and agreed to chaperone the trip. As the campsite was owned and run by muggles, the Ministry had prohibited the use of magic, lest the muggles see something. It didn't make much difference for the boys, since they weren't allowed to use magic outside of school anyway. But for the adults, having to perform daily chores without magic was nightmarish, and would likely have been impossible without the help of Patton, Logan, Emile and Virgil.

Logan and Emile helped show the twins' parents how to set up the tent by hand, which was of course much larger on the inside than it looked on the outside. That was a bit of magic they could get away with. Virgil had single handedly got the campfire going by the time they finished. And Patton, who neglected to ask about his skills with fire, began cooking sausages for the group. The whole week turned out to be a learning experience for all the purebloods of the party, which likely explained Virgil's sudden fixation on how many things wizards didn't have or know that seemed like common sense.

If the rules would've allowed it, they'd all have likely spent their days playing quidditch. Instead, Patton introduced his friends to-

"So... it's quidditch, but on the ground, without bludgers... or a snitch... and you can't use your hands?" Asked a young girl of about nine. It had started as a simple game in a clearing they'd found near the campsite. But it turned out there were many children of varying ages around their site who were becoming increasingly bored without magic.

"Yep! Football!" Said Patton, passing the ball he had packed to the girl with a kick. The group of players had grown to over twenty now. Aging from about age seven to seventeen. It was clear some of them already knew how to play, and some had never even heard of the sport before. There were separate games going on in their clearing, with some using spare quaffles as footballs. Over that week the clearing became the unofficial designated football field. Patton volunteered his own ball for public use. (For my American readers, when I say football I don't mean America football, I mean literally everywhere else football. This one ⚽️, not this one 🏈)