e who were obviously very important wizards. Percy
jumped to his feet so often that he looked as though he were trying to sit on a
hedgehog. When Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic himself, arrived, Percy
bowed so low that his glasses fell off and shattered. Highly embarrassed, he
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repaired them with his wand and thereafter remained in his seat, throwing jealous
looks at Harry, whom Cornelius Fudge had greeted like an old friend. They had
met before, and Fudge shook Harry's hand in a fatherly fashion, asked how he
was, and introduced him to the wizards on either side of him.
"Harry Potter, you know," he told the Bulgarian minister loudly, who was wearing
splendid robes of black velvet trimmed with gold and didn't seem to understand a
word of English. "Harry Potter ... oh come on now, you know who he is ... the boy
who survived You-Know-Who ... you do know who he is -"
The Bulgarian wizard suddenly spotted Harry's scar and started gabbling loudly
and excitedly, pointing at it.
"Knew we'd get there in the end," said Fudge wearily to Harry. "I'm no great
shakes at languages; I need Barty Crouch for this sort of thing. Ah, I see his houseelf's
saving him a seat.... Good job too, these Bulgarian blighters have been trying
to cadge all the best places ... ah, and here's Lucius!"
Harry, Ron, and Hermione turned quickly. Edging along the second row to three
still-empty seats right behind Mr. Weasley were none other than Dobby the houseelf's
former owners: Lucius Malfoy; his son, Draco; and a woman Harry supposed
must be Draco's mother.
Harry and Draco Malfoy had been enemies ever since their very first journey to
Hogwarts. A pale boy with a pointed face and white-blond hair, Draco greatly
resembled his father. His mother was blonde too; tall and slim, she would have
been nice-looking if she hadn't been wearing a look that suggested there was a
nasty smell under her nose.
"Ah, Fudge," said Mr. Malfoy, holding out his hand as he reached the Minister of
Magic. "How are you? I don't think you've met my wife, Narcissa? Or our son,
Draco?"
"How do you do, how do you do?" said Fudge, smiling and bowing to Mrs.
Malfoy. "And allow me to introduce you to Mr. Oblansk - Obalonsk - Mr. - well,
he's the Bulgarian Minister of Magic, and he can't understand a word I'm saying
anyway, so never mind. And let's see who else - you know Arthur Weasley, I
daresay?"
It was a tense moment. Mr. Weasley and Mr. Malfoy looked at each other and
Harry vividly recalled the last time they had come face-to-face: It had been in
Flourish and Blotts' bookshop, and they had had a fight. Mr. Malfoy's cold gray
eyes swept over Mr. Weasley, and then up and down the row.
"Good lord, Arthur," he said softly. "What did you have to sell to get seats in the
Top Box? Surely your house wouldn't have fetched this much?"
Fudge, who wasn't listening, said, "Lucius has just given a very generous
contribution to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, Arthur.
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He's here as my guest."
"How - how nice," said Mr. Weasley, with a very strained smile.
Mr. Malfoy's eyes had returned to Hermione, who went slightly pink, but stared
determinedly back at him. Harry knew exactly what was making Mr. Malfoy's lip
curl like that. The Malfoys prided themselves on being purebloods; in other words,
they considered anyone of Muggle descent, like Hermione, second-class.
However, under the gaze of the Minister of Magic, Mr. Malfoy didn't dare say
anything. He nodded sneeringly to Mr. Weasley and continued down the line to
his seats. Draco shot Harry, Ron, and Hermione one contemptuous look, then
settled himself between his mother and father.
"Slimy gits," Ron muttered as he, Harry, and Hermione turned to face the field
again. Next moment, Ludo Bagman charged into the box.
"Everyone ready?" he said, his round face gleaming like a great, excited Edam.
"Minister - ready to go?"
"Ready when you are, Ludo," said Fudge comfortably.
Ludo whipped out his wand, directed it at his own throat, and said "Sonorus!" and
then spoke over the roar of sound that was now filling the packed stadium; his
voice echoed over them, booming into every corner of the stands.
"Ladies and gentlemen. . . welcome! Welcome to the final of the four hundred and
twenty-second Quidditch World Cup!"
The spectators screamed and clapped. Thousands of flags waved, adding their
discordant national anthems to the racket. The huge blackboard opposite them was
wiped clear of its last message (Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans - A Risk With
Every Mouthful!) and now showed BULGARIA: 0, IRELAND: 0.
"And now, without further ado, allow me to introduce. . . the Bulgarian National
Team Mascots!"
The right-hand side of the stands, which was a solid block of scarlet, roared its
approval.
"I wonder what they've brought," said Mr. Weasley, leaning forward in his seat.
"Aaah!" He suddenly whipped off his glasses and polished them hurriedly on his
robes. "Veela!"
"What are veel -?"
But a hundred veela were now gliding out onto the field, and Harry's question was
answered for him. Veela were women. . . the most beautiful women Harry had
ever seen. . . except that they weren't - they couldn't be - human. This puzzled
Harry for a moment while he tried to guess what exactly they could be; what could
make their skin shine moon-bright like that, or their white-gold hair fan out behind
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them without wind.. . but then the music started, and Harry stopped worrying
about them not being human - in fact, he stopped worrying about anything at all.
The veela had started to dance, and Harry's mind had gone completely and
blissfully blank. All that mattered in the world was that he kept watching the
veela, because if they stopped dancing, terrible things would happen.
And as the veela danced faster and faster, wild, half-formed thoughts started
chasing through Harry's dazed mind. He wanted to do something very impressive,
right now. Jumping from the box into the stadium seemed a good idea. . . but
would it be good enough?
"Harry, what are you doing?" said Hermione's voice from a long way off.
The music stopped. Harry blinked. He was standing up, and one of his legs was
resting on the wall of the box. Next to him, Ron was frozen in an attitude that
looked as though he were about to dive from a springboard.
Angry yells were filling the stadium. The crowd didn't want the veela to go. Harry
was with them; he would, of course, be supporting Bulgaria, and he wondered
vaguely why he had a large green shamrock pinned to his chest. Ron, meanwhile,
was absentmindedly shredding the shamrocks on his hat. Mr. Weasley, smiling
slightly, leaned over to Ron and tugged the hat out of his hands.
"You'll be wanting that," he said, "once Ireland have had their say."
"Huh?" said Ron, staring openmouthed at the veela, who had now lined up along
one side of the field.
Hermione made a loud tutting noise. She reached up and pulled Harry back into
his seat. "Honestly!" she said.
"And now," roared Ludo Bagman's voice, "kindly put your wands in the air. . . for
the Irish National Team Mascots!"
Next moment, what seemed to be a great green-and-gold comet came zooming
into the stadium. It did one circuit of the stadium, then split into two smaller
comets, each hurtling toward the goal posts. A rainbow arced suddenly across the
field, connecting the two balls of light. The crowd oooohed and aaaaahed, as
though at a fireworks display. Now the rainbow faded and the balls of light
reunited and merged; they had formed a great shimmering shamrock, which rose
up into the sky and began to soar over the stands. Something like golden rain
seemed to be falling from it - "Excellent!" yelled Ron as the shamrock soared over
them, and heavy gold coins rained from it, bouncing off their heads and seats.
Squinting up at the shamrock, Harry realized that it was actually comprised of
thousands of tiny little bearded men with red vests, each carrying a minute lamp of
gold or green.
"Leprechauns!" said Mr. Weasley over the tumultuous applause of the crowd,
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many of whom were still fighting and rummaging around under their chairs to
retrieve the gold.
"There you go," Ron yelled happily, stuffing a fistful of gold coins into Harry's
hand, "for the Omnioculars! Now you've got to buy me a Christmas present, ha!"
The great shamrock dissolved, the leprechauns drifted down onto the field on the
opposite side from the veela, and settled themselves cross-legged to watch the
match.
"And now, ladies and gentlemen, kindly welcome - the Bulgarian National
Quidditch Team! I give you - Dimitrov!"
A scarlet-clad figure on a broomstick, moving so fast it was blurred, shot out onto
the field from an entrance far below, to wild applause from the Bulgarian
supporters.
"Ivanova!"
A second scarlet-robed player zoomed out.
"Zograf! Levski! Vulchanov! Volkov! Aaaaaaand - Krum!"
"That's him, that's him!" yelled Ron, following Krum with his Omnioculars. Harry
quickly focused his own.
Viktor Krum was thin, dark, and sallow-skinned, with a large curved nose and
thick black eyebrows. He looked like an overgrown bird of prey. It was hard to
believe he was only eighteen.
"And now, please greet - the Irish National Quidditch Team!" yelled Bagman.
"Presenting - Connolly! Ryan! Troy! Mullet! Moran! Quigley! Aaaaaand -
Lynch!"
Seven green blurs swept onto the field; Harry spun a small dial on the side of his
Omnioculars and slowed the players down enough to read the word "Firebolt" on
each of their brooms and see their names, embroidered in silver, upon their backs.
"And here, all the way from Egypt, our referee, acclaimed Chairwizard of the
International Association of Quidditch, Hassan Mostafa!"
A small and skinny wizard, completely bald but with a mustache to rival Uncle
Vernon's, wearing robes of pure gold to match the stadium, strode out onto the
field. A silver 