Broomsticks and Bronze: A World Cup Surprise

Chapter 1

//Rachel//

Rachel groaned inwardly as her Aunt Molly piled another spoonful of salad onto her already overflowing plate. Her aunt importuned everyone she fed to eat more. Her aunt could feed an army (or the whole of camp half-blood, she thought with an inward chuckle) even when cooking for twelve people.

Rachel's father was a squib, and his sister was Molly Weasley. She had more cousins than she could count on one hand, but she got on with very few of them — Fred, George, Charlie and Bill.

Fred and George had a diverse number of pranks, and could have given the Stolls a run for their money. But gods forbid that the four meet, for she was certain the world wouldn't live to see another sunrise. Charlie and Bill were older than her, but their jobs fascinated her.

Her second-youngest cousin, Ron, had two of his friends over too. Harry Potter and Hermione Granger. Harry had a similar appearance to Percy Jackson — black hair and green eyes. But that was where the similarities ended. Harry's eyes were more similar to emeralds, while Percy's leaned towards the sea. Harry had a lightning shaped scar on his forehead. She could already imagine the jokes Percy could make about it if he found out.

And gods, not her cousin Percy. That guy was straighter than a stick, his obsession with his job could rival Chiron's will to teach.

The trio were deep in some secret discussion, while Charlie, Fred and George were talking about the quidditch world cup.

'Ireland's got to win this time. They flattened Peru in the semi-finals,' Charlie said through a mouthful of potatoes.

'Bulgaria's got Krum though,' said Fred.

'Krum's one decent player, Ireland's got seven,' Charlie said. 'I wish England had got through, though. That was embarrassing.'

'What happened?' Rachel asked them. She couldn't go absolutely clueless about the world cup, that would raise questions she wouldn't have the answer to.

'Went down to Transylvania, three hundred and ninety to ten,' Charlie said. 'Shocking performance. The rest of the UK didn't fare any better.'

Rachel knew enough about quidditch to get the gist of his words.

Aunt Molly had brought dessert — 'It's pudding!' George had said to her — home-made strawberry ice-cream. Rachel didn't know about the others, but she couldn't have possibly eaten another bite after the first serving. She was convinced that even Hogwarts feasts paled in comparison to her aunt's cooking.

'Look at the time,' her uncle said suddenly, checking his watch. 'You all really should be in bed now kids, we'll be up at the crack of dawn to get to the cup.'

They got up from the table, and Rachel asked her aunt where she was to sleep.

'You can sleep with the girls, dear, I'll be waking you all up when it's time to go.'

— — —

Rachel felt like she'd barely lain down to sleep when she was being shaken awake by her aunt.

She looked out of Ginny's room's window to see it was still dark outside. The girls got ready in silence, all too sleepy to talk, and then the three headed downstairs to the kitchen.

Her aunt was placing plates on the table, while her uncle was sitting at the table, talking to Harry, Ron and the twins. Rachel had to stifle a laugh at her uncle's clothes. The clothes were what mortals wore alright, but the combination was not the most normal one.

But she had seen people using a piece of string as a belt, so her uncle was dressed well by those standards.

'Why do we have to be up so early?' she asked, taking a seat at the table.

'We've got a bit of a walk,' her uncle said. 'Not to the world cup, no, that's miles away. We're only walking a short way, to a portkey on the top of a nearby hill.'

The morning was chaotic, to say the least. Everyone was really tired, and Aunt Molly had caught the twins trying to smuggle their Ton-Tongue Toffees out of the house.

As they set off on their journey, Harry asked Mr. Weasley just how exactly the whole thing worked. Rachel leaned in to listen too, she wasn't going to lie, she had been wondering about how much organisational chaos it could make.

She imagined the whole of Camp Jupiter and Camp Half-Blood all congregating in a single forest. First up, she hoped that didn't happen. The chaos the Mercury and Hermes kids would make... she shuddered. And add the monsters to the mix too, collecting that many demigods and legacy's could cause a full fledged war, right then and there.

Although, she remembered her uncle talking about something known as apparation once. Even though one needed to pass the test, people who didn't could still use side-along apparation. So why didn't they do that? There were enough people who could apparate to get everyone to the cup.

But clearly, that wasn't happening, Bill, Charlie and Percy were coming around midday, and since they needed a chaperone with them, Uncle Arthur was coming with them at the most ungodly hour she'd ever gone for a 'walk' at.

The sky lightened very slowly as they made their way through the village. As they began to climb Stoatshead Hill, nobody else had breath to spare for talking. She'd caught Ron when he'd nearly fallen on his face.

'Stumbled into a rabbit hole,' he muttered, face red.

Everyone else was panting for breath as they finally reached level ground.

'Rachel, how are you not out of breath yet?' Fred asked her between heavy breaths.

She shrugged. 'I've just had a lot of practice.'

It wasn't technically lying. She did have practice whenever she partook in any demigod-related activity, those always came with a lot of physical exercise. Whether it was learning to fight with Annabeth or running from the occasional monster or going through a deadly maze, she'd gotten good stamina. Not as good as demigods, but better than most mortals.

When they'd reached the portkey, the first thing Rachel noticed was that while the object was an old boot, it had a magical, blue aura around it. It was probably her clear-sightedness that allowed her to see that.

When the portkey went off, it was a total whirlwind. Suddenly, her feet slammed into the ground and Hermione nearly knocked Ginny over.

Other than her, only the two adults and the other person (Cedric, she learned his name was) were standing.

'Looks like a nice place,' Rachel commented casually.

Her uncle swirled around at her, and eyed her curiously. 'You can see the place? Due to the anti-muggle charms, I was expecting to have to pull some strings to get you in. Any idea how you can see the stadium?'

'Maybe I'm just special,' she said. Not a complete lie, but not the truth either.