At the beginning of the year, Allie was no one
Now she's infamous
**
Until her eleventh birthday, Allie didn't believe in magic. How could she when her mother had died when she was barely two and her father had never been around. Her life wasn't ver...
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"Ladies and gentlemen . . . Welcome! Welcome to the final of the four hundred and twenty-second Quidditch World Cup!" a voice I recognised from earlier announced. A light was shone on the top box. Emmy peered up at it through her omnioculars and handed them over to me to do the same. It was that Ludo Bagman man from before, "And now, without further ado, allow me to introduce . . . the Bulgarian National Team Mascots!"
No sooner had Ludo Bagman made the mascot announcement, what looked like a hundred people flooded the pitch. I squinted, trying to get a good look at them. Based on the fact that Ludo Bagman hadn't made a statement such as 'get those people off the pitch', I assumed they were supposed to be there. It wasn't until Emmy gave me a lend of her omnioculars that I could see they weren't any ordinary people, they were very, very beautiful women.
"Oh my god," I heard Kevin whisper excitedly from the row in front, "They're veela!"
Everyone seemed to be staring at them. Men were gawping and women were transfixed. Even the children were staring but I doubt they understood why. It took Emmy a good while of pestering for me to return her omnioculars. There was something not quite right about those women. They were incredibly pretty, too pretty. They were so beautiful it was unnatural, abnormal. They held none of the human imperfections that people fell in love with. They weren't lovable, people were merely infatuated with them. Love and infatuation are not the same thing.
I was glad when the veelas stopped dancing and the hypnotic effect they seemed to have was lifted. I seemed to be the only person who had this view. As soon as the music stopped and the veela walked off the pitch, the crowd erupted in boos. Things were even thrown down onto the pitch in protests. I could barely make out Bagman's magnified voice call out the next announcement.
"And now," Bagman's voice sounded out across the noise, "Kindly put your wands in the air . . . for the Irish National Team Mascots!"
What looked like a large firework was set off that zoomed up from the side of the pitch and into the sky where it exploded into even more fireworks, sparkling across the now dark sky forming a giant firework shamrock that spanned across the sky, the same size as the enormous quidditch pitch. The, what looked like gold rain, starting falling from the shamrock and onto the stands. It watched it fall and heard it clatter into the stands above ours. It wasn't until it reached us that I realised what it was.
"Awesome!" Emmy called and held her open hands to the sky, collecting as much of the 'gold rain' as she could, "It's gold! Gold pieces!"
She was right. It wasn't raindrops, they were coins. There were gold coins raining from the sky.
"I'd put it all back down, if I were you," Malcolm laughed as Emmy started scooping up the coins off the floor, "It's leprechaun gold."
Begrudgingly, Emmy let her hoard of gold drop between her fingers and onto the floor. The game didn't allow for her to be in a mood for long as no sooner had the leprechaun gold vanished, the players flew out onto the pitch.
