Stay - Mattheo Riddle

Sudden Coldness

With all of them now dressed up in their merchandise, they stood in the tent, waiting for the signal that the game will soon begin. Sure enough, 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 from the stores that they had visited earlier after Ludo's visit, Mr Weasley in the lead, they all hurried into the woods, 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; Kirra 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 Kirra could see only a fraction of the immense gold walls surrounding the field, she could tell that ten cathedrals would fit comfortably inside it. "Seats a hundred thousand," said Mr. Weasley. 

"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. 

Fred and George kept Kirra close between them, worried that they would lose her in the crowd. 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 goalposts.

About twenty purple-and-gilt chairs stood in two rows here, and Kirra, filing into the front seats with the Weasleys, looked down upon a scene the likes of which she 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 Kirra'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, Kirra saw that it was flashing advertisements across the field.

Hermione, meanwhile, was skimming eagerly through her velvet-covered, tasselled program. "A display from the team mascots will precede the match,' " she read aloud.

"Oh that's always worth watching," said Mr. Weasley. "National teams bring creatures from their native land, you know, to put on a bit of a show." The box filled gradually around them over the next half hour. 

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Fudge had arrived a few minutes prior and was talking to Harry and Kirra as if they were good friends, "I'm no great shakes at languages; I need Barty Crouch for this sort of thing. Ah, I see his house-elf'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!"