Love at First Sight (Harry Potter)

The Quidditch World Cup

|ALEXANDRIA WEASLEY'S P.O.V|

My hand rose above my head to lift the flap of the tent. I bent my back as I stepped out into the evening air, the heat from inside not lasting a second against the cool summer breeze. It blew through my sweater and the zipped, black jacket that I had just put on overtop it.

Clutched in my free, left hand were the Omnioculars that Harry had purchased for me. My rucksack had been left behind atop the small, twin-sized bed that I would call my own over the duration of the Cup.

"Ready?" said my father eagerly, once I had straightened to my full height outside of the tent. I nodded, my own leg twitching with anticipation. He clapped his hands together once; the sound echoed around us, mixed in with the excited chatter of the thousands of wizards and witches who were already heading toward the stadium. "Right, let's go then."

The sun had completely set by now, and the moon had risen in its place. The white, pale light of it and that of the stars shone onto our heads as we joined the crowd.

Crowd is an understatement — this resembled more of a mob.

Witches and wizards of all ages were knocking into one another. A million conversations were happening at once, so much so that it all just sounded like a jumble of voices to my eardrums. Little children were either being dragged along by their hands by parents, or were high above us all on shoulders. One little wizard, a boy about the age of five, exchanged a cheerful wave with me as Fred pulled me past him and his family.

It was hard to see. With everyone so close together, those taller than me blocked any and everything from my line of sight. I, Hermione, and Ginny all had to trust the tallest members of our group to lead us through the quickest crowd openings. My father was exclaiming, again and again, "Wait your turn! There's no reason to press our way past, we won't get there any faster than all the rest!"

Fred and George, however, hadn't seemed to understand this bit of advice. And so, our father was left to either follow after us or get lost in the crowd. He had chosen the former, luckily.

Shouting, cheering, arguing, singing. The atmosphere of feverish excitement was highly infectious. It ate at me, to the degree that I was grinning and ready to hop up and down. The trail suddenly began to feel as long as weeks, when we had truly only been walking for twenty minutes or so. At last, we emerged on the other side and found ourselves in the dark shadow of the gigantic stadium. The walls were a shiny gold colour and its size appeared to stretch on for miles.

"Seats a hundred thousand," said my father, spotting the awestruck looks on all of our faces as we stared up at the stadium. "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 surrounded by a swarm of shouting witches and wizards.

"Prime seats!" said the Ministry witch at the entrance when she checked our tickets. My father grinned at her words, while Fred and George slapped one another's hands behind him. Hermione even let out a small, but excited squeal as she grabbed hold of my upper arm. "Top Box! Straight upstairs, Arthur, and as high as you can go."

The stairs into the stadium were carpeted in rich purple. We clambered up them with the rest of the crowd, which slowly filtered away through doors into the stands on either side of us. Finally, we reached the top of the staircase and found ourselves in a small box, set at the highest point of the stadium and situated exactly halfway between the golden goal posts. There were about twenty purple-and-gilt chairs, which stood in two rows. The lot of us filed into the very front seats, where we were able to look down upon the field.