Forever Yours ☞︎ Harry Potter X Reader

Fourth Year ➪ Bulgaria vs Ireland

The rest of the day until the game went on pretty uneventfully. Bill, Charlie, and Percy showed up in time for lunch, and Harry got to meet Barty Crouch -- who, to Fred and George's amusement, didn't remember Percy's name -- and Ludo Bagman, a middle-aged man with blond hair blue eyes and a broken nose. If Harry would have seen him on the street he wouldn't have believed that he is a fairly high-ranking ministry employee. He looked quite like an overgrown child, and even acted quite like one, making a bet with Fred and George on a large sum of money. They guessed that Ireland would win, but Bulgaria would catch the snitch ("Not a chance, boys, not a chance..." said Bagman).

After buying souvenirs (Harry bought Ron and Hermione Omnioculars -- Y/N refused to let him buy a pair for her because "I'll only use them once and I'm not letting you get away from getting me a bomb Christmas present"), a deep, booming gong sounded somewhere beyond the woods, and at once, green and red lanterns blazed into life in the trees, lighting a path to the field.

"It's time!" said Mr Weasley, looking as excited as any of them. "Come on, let's go!"

Clutching their purchases, Mr Weasley in the lead, they all hurried into the wood, following the lantern-lit trail. They could hear the sounds of thousands of people moving around them, shouts and laughter, snatches of singing. The atmosphere of feverish excitement was highly infectious; Harry couldn't stop grinning. They walked through the wood for twenty minutes, talking and joking loudly, until at last they emerged on the other side and found themselves in the shadow of a gigantic stadium. Though Harry could see only a fraction of the immense gold walls surrounding the field, he could tell that ten cathedrals would fit comfortably inside it.

"Seats a hundred thousand," said Mr Weasley, spotting the awestruck look on Harry's face. "Ministry task force of five hundred have been working on it all year. Muggle Repelling Charms on every inch of it. Every time Muggles have got anywhere near here all year, they've suddenly remembered urgent appointments and had to dash away again... bless them," he added fondly, leading the way toward the nearest entrance, which was already surrounded by a swarm of shouting witches and wizards.

"Prime seats!" said the Ministry witch at the entrance when she checked their tickets. "Top Box! Straight upstairs, Arthur, and as high as you can go."

The stairs into the stadium were carpeted in rich purple. They clambered upward with the rest of the crowd, which slowly filtered away through doors into the stands to their left and right. Mr Weasley's party kept climbing, and at last they reached the top of the staircase and found themselves in a small box, set at the highest point of the stadium and situated exactly halfway between the golden goal posts. About twenty purple-and-gilt chairs stood in two rows here, and Harry, filing into the front seats with the Weasleys, looked down upon a scene the likes of which he could never have imagined.

A hundred thousand witches and wizards were taking their places in the seats, which rose in levels around the long oval field. Everything was suffused with a mysterious golden light, which seemed to come from the stadium itself. The field looked smooth as velvet from their lofty position. At either end of the field stood three goal hoops, fifty feet high; right opposite them, almost at Harry's eye level, was a gigantic blackboard. Gold writing kept dashing across it as though an invisible giant's hand were scrawling upon the blackboard and then wiping it off again; watching it, Harry saw that it was flashing advertisements across the field.