European Quidditch Championship

Chapter II

Luckily, Ron, Harry and Hermione were cheered up by Tonks joining them at breakfast, wearing a hairstyle just like the one of Eric Fortham, captain of English team and the only player that was sure to be on the team that day.

"You folks got yourselves ready, then?" Tonks asked, standing behind Hermione's chair and fixing her blonde Irokeze-haircut with her hands.

"Wicked!" Ron exclaimed when he saw her hair, automatically seizing to fix his hair the same way.

"Don't even bother," Hermione said, giving him a pitiful look, and Ron put down his hands, blushing slightly.

"When are we moving, Tonks? The match starts at 10 o'clock," Harry said, throwing a glance at his watch, which made him anxious to get out of his chair. "And it's eight-thirty already!"

"Don't worry, we'll be on our way as soon as Bill manages to change some more money into escudos."

"But doesn't the bank in this hotel only take Muggle money? I mean, will they take Galleons?" Amber asked curiously.

"Nope. They don't, so Bill had to Apparate to Lisabon, there's supposed to be a wizarding bank. I hope he'll be able to find it, considering he doesn't know a word of Portugese..." Tonks grinned mischievously. "You guys wait here, I have to go check things." Unfolding her wand from the waistband of her patchwork-style jeans, she left the dining hall, which was already pretty much empty.

"Oh, great," Hermione sighed, "I gotta go back to my room, I forgot my copy of 'Guide to Magical Monumenta in Portugal & Spain'."

"You gotta be kidding," Ron rolled his eyes, "we're going to watch England versus Switzerland and you're planning to read a book?"

"I'm not going to read it during the match. But the way to the stadium will probably be long, and I want to do something useful during that time."

"I'm going with you," Amber arose from her chair along with Hermione, with a grin across her face as an idea was forming in her head.

"So, now that Mr. Jumpy and Mr. Over-reacting are away, will you tell me who Malfoys are?" Amber asked when the two girls were climbing the stairs. The elevator was mysteriously disfunctioning ever since Tonks tried to call it down using her wand, the evening they arrived to the hotel.

Hermione looked at Amber and after a few seconds said: "They're a really nasty family, all three of them - or well, as far as we know, at least the father and the son are. The father is an arrested Death Eater. And their son, Draco, he goes to school with us, and he's a real... well, there' s no way to describe him well enough without using inapropriate words. He's such a ..."

"Bitch?" Amber jumped to her aid. Hermione approved the expression, and Amber continued, "And his old man... he's a Death Eater?"

"Yeap. And he's a horrible racist, just like his son. They have this wack idea of a perfect, pureblood-inhabited world and they stick to it - I suppose it's the only thing that family can be proud of, the fact that they're pureblood. And the old man, Lucius, he was one of Voldemort's most faithful people, although he used to get out of every trouble just using his name and money, but now... "

"So what did he do to get himself busted?" Amber asked immidiately.

"He... I mean," Hermione looked as though she was busted for a moment, but then composed herself, "there were some attacks on the Muggles, obviously made by wizards, and it turned out he led the attacks, only this time he forgot to clean after himself," Hermione finished, nodding in disagreement and looking to the floor.

They walked for a few minutes without saying anything before Amber broke the silence again. "Can you show me them?"

"What?! What are you talking about? Trust me, you don't want to meet Malfoys," Hermione said looking upset.

"I didn't say anything about meeting them. I was thinking more about spying them, possibly throwing an interesting curse now and then... you know," Amber grinned. Hermione wasn't so keen about the idea.

"No... it's too dangerous. You don't know these people, and we really don't need trouble right now. The match is starting in less than an hour and a half, remember?"

"As if you care about the match," Amber stiffled, "maybe you'd like to see how Wood looks in white-and-red robes, but..."

She stopped as a room maiden turned around the corner of the corridor with a pile of towels in her hands. "How convenient!" Amber noticed and dragged Hermione towards her.

"Excuse me. Do you know where's the room of Mr. Malfoy? We met him yesterday at the dinner and arranged to share a game of chess today, but he didn't show up - could you tell us the room number so we can see if he's alright?"

"I'm not allowed to... wait, you're talking about the Mr. I'm-British-I'm-The-King from room 237? He said he mustn't be bothered, but be my guest. And try to bother him. A lot," maiden said and continued down the corridor, giving them a significant look and somehow managing to turn her discman back on.

"What a popular, beloved boy!" Amber nodded, and dragged Hermione forward. "So, room number 237, if I remember correct..."

"No, stop -- wait - Amber!!!" Hermione dropped quiet when they reached the door with a golden number 237 on them. Amber peered through the keyhole.

"There's no one inside. Better watch if someone's coming," she said, extracting her wand. She muttered a spell holding her wand on the top of Hermione's head, not without Hermione's protest, and a moment later her body adjusted its color to the wall and wooden door behind her. After doing the same spell on herself, Amber pointed her wand towards the door, muttering 'Alohomora' and the door burst open, silently. There was really no one inside, and Hermione let out a gasp of relief.

"How could you do that?" she asked, "you could get expelled from your school! Didn't you say you're not allowed to do magic during summer terms?"

"We're not allowed to do magic on the territories under the jurisdiction of U.S. Ministry of Magic... and Portugal is definitely not under it." She crossed the room, obviously looking for an interesting object to curse. "Well, actually, Ministries of different countries share that kind of information, but Portugal and USA are not really on the friendly terms now. My mom works in the Department of International Co-operation and she says there's some kind of trouble with merpeople from Portugal coming to live in our seas. Oh well," she sighed cold-heartedly, "why not make an international dispute if there's ground for it?"

Hermione looked around the room, picking a copy of 'Proudly Pureblood' pamphlet which started to appear everywhere shortly after the term ended, as Hermione remembered. She had even found one in a Muggle post office. It said something about a need for the 'right people' to 'take control over the community again'. Magic or Voldemort were never mentioned, so perhaps Muggles wouldn't understand what it's about, and that was the only comfort in it... Hermione felt tears of anger and dissapointment streaming down her face again. This was just one of Voldemort's nicer faces... One that didn't show all the violence and hatred that stood behind it, but only a perfect little world where it was simpler to live only because there wasn't anything to think about... no other views except the one that was right, and therefore it was automatically yours, too.

And the most frustrating was, Hermione knew there was a part of population that Voldemort would deceive exactly by pamphlets like this. People like Black family, she thought as she lifted her eyes to Amber who was just extracting a pair of boxers out of a drawer, grinning devilishly. No, Amber's really not like them. She may be superficial and not interested in any of the things Harry, Ron and herself considered truly crucial, like fight against the evil and prejudices; but she certainly isn't like her real family.

Hermione shook the thought off as she suddendly remembered they're in Malfoy's room, but the thing that truly arose panic in her were sounds coming out of the bathroom a moment later.

"Hey - who's strangling the cat?" Amber jumped, and a pair of boxers that undoubtedly supposed to bring a severe rash to their owner fell to the floor.

"I think it's Malfoy singing," Hermione explained, a few suppressed laughs escaping her and overcoming her dread. "Obviously he is here, after all... but you finish the spell you were working on. I don't think he can hear us," she added, laughing a bit louder.

"Hermione!" Amber exclaimed dramatically, "I see you have more guts than a man may think. Indeed," she nodded in agreement, faking a British accent pretty lamely and picked the boxers from the floor. "Morbum amplifico," she murmured, and the spell was done. Also, Malfoy was done singing, and the two girls realised it was about time to leave. Cautiously they were retreatating towards the door... when Malfoy came out of the bathroom door, luckily in a green hotel housecoat. The two girls threw themselves on the floor behind a writing desk and a cabinet that stood on each side of the door. Invisibility spell was good, but not good enough to risk it. Hermione threw Amber a hateful look, and Amber responded with a glance that clearly said: "It's your fault as much as it's mine."

"What I gotta do, to make you love me..." Malfoy resumed humming, Amber and Hermione almost exploding with suppressed giggles, "what I gotta do... Mother!"

He stopped, picking the boxers from the bed. "And I told her to stop picking my clothes!" Infuriated, he marched out of the room, throwing the boxers right down to Amber's lap and slamming the door shut.

"Oh well," Amber said while they were running out of the room, "better luck next time."

They didn't stop laughing all the way to the dining hall.

***

"Hornblower proceeds the Quaffle to Johnson, Johnson dives, that Bludger was dangerous... but Johnson holds the Quaffle, proceeds to More, More returns it to Johnson, he's five feet above the Door, Johnson... THAT was risky but Johnson scores! It's fifty-zero for England, and Schmielau seems to have noticed the Snitch, he's storming down to the Swiss Door, there are still some players celebrating... is it possible that Fortham have overlooked the Snitch, but no, Schmielau slows down, it was just Fortham's ring shining in the air... Schmielau protests and the referee demands to hand it down... Fortham's not very happy, but the match has to go on, Switzerland leads the attack now..."

"That's not fair! It's his lucky ring. He can't play without it!" Ron protested, sitting on the very edge of his seat on the stadium outside a small town Leiria, waving his hand at the pitch, and many people on their side of the stand shared his opinion.

"Oh, please. No matter what kind of a star he might be, Fortham can't wear rings during the match! Plus, it's not his lucky ring, it's his look_how_much_money_I_have ring," Amber retorted.

"You're making it sound he's like Malfoy or something," Ron defended, "he's not like that! He's the best player England has had in years, and so what if he is a bit of a show-off? He deserves attention."

"Yeah. Let's watch the game, will we, please?"

"What's there to watch? Switzerland leads the attack, therefore - not gonna happen," Harry grinned carelessly.

The next moment grin sipped off his face, turning into a sulky grimace. Guido Rocca had scored right through Oliver Wood's Door.

"What's he doing?" Hermione screamed, wholly in Quidditch fever.

"He sucks. If there weren't our Beaters, he'd be dead. What's wrong with him today?" Amber was chewing her nails.

"He's just nervous; it's his first match with the national team," Harry added, frowning worriedly.

"Fortham and Schmielau are circling the field, they appear to be racing, and Ulbricht has the Quaffle again! He passes it to Rocca, Rocca goes forward, he's one on one with Wood, this is bad for the English team, Rocca shoots... and Wood Keeps it! A spectacular move, good enough to redeem his last failure, I believe..."

"Told ya," Harry leaned back into his seat, swinging his scarf in the air.

Wood made three more great defenses, and England scored another twenty points before Fortham got tired of racing with Schmielau. The Snitch was lurking very low on the English side of the pitch, which was abandoned most of the time, and Schmielau failed to notice it, completely devoted to the senseless race. Fortham, however, dived suddendly and caught the Snitch without many difficulties. The stadium was in delirium; England had not achieved a victory like this for a long time. On the way out Harry, Ron, Hermione and Amber managed to reunite with Tonks and Bill, who were sitting a few seats above them on the stand. Bill pointed discreetly to a man of about fifty-five walking nervously up and down English bench.

"See him? That's Maccius Wembley. He used to coach Brazil when they won the World Cup in 1978. Then he dissapeared... some people even thought he joined the Death Eaters, but he actually just wanted to keep out of anyone's sight. No one knows why, though... But he's a hell of a coach, only he's a bit eccentric. Whoever hired him to train English team sure knows the man."

Wembley started to furiously gesture something to Hornblower and More who had just landed after celebrating their victory by taking a flight across the pitch, and it seemed he wasn't satisfied with their game. At that point, however, the crowd had pushed Bill, Tonks, and the rest of them towards the exit, and they lost the sight of the pitch.

***

"So, now we have the three points, with scoring difference 220-10, we have a great team and only two more matches to play before the quarter finals!" Ron was calculating happily, sitting next to Tonks in a bus back to their hotel.

"Ron, try and say that louder," Hermione lifted her eyes from the book she was reading. "You do realise there are people in this bus who don't know anything about any championship going on in their country, right? And it should stay that way."

"I wonder who won the match between France and Croatia. France is better, but you never know... If Croatia had won, it would make easier for England to get to the quarter finals. I mean, all we'd have to do is defeat Croatia, play a tie or even a minor defeat against France, and we'd pass," said Harry, a bit quieter.

"Whoa, I still can't believe we'd just won the match! It's the best I've seen England playing for like, what, ten years?" Tonks contemplated, "This Wembley guy is good. Weird, but good."

They arrived at the hotel at four o'clock, and the sun was still high up on the sky. Amber and Hermione decided simultaneously to go to the beach. The hotel was built on a cliff, and right under it was a small sand beach for hotel guests exclusively.

"Ahhh...paradise," Amber said, as she and Hermione descended to the beach after changing into bathing suits in their rooms. Ron, Harry and Bill went to the hotel's videogame room, and Tonks went to the pool near the beach, to drink a cocktail or two while sunbathing.

"Oh, my God," Hermione suddendly stopped.

"What's wrong?"

"I forgot to tell Tonks or Bill about Malfoys staying at this hotel. They can't be here accidentally! I had to tell them... I bet Ron and Harry forgot it all because of the game... but I should have remembered!"

They ran immidiately to the pool to alarm Tonks, that is, Hermione ran as if it were for her life and Amber followed, not having much choice, and not getting what's it all about.

"Malfoys are at this hotel," Hermione said without an introduction when they reached Tonks' deck-chair; she didn't seem surprised at all.

"I know. But how did you find out about it? We all agreed not to tell you, and obviously Malfoys aren't the type of people that would be associating in casino or something..."

"How do you mean, 'we agreed'? Who agreed not to tell us that we'll be staying in the same hotel as Malfoys when we're supposed to be spending a carefree, sunny holidays, far away from everything?" Hermione seethed.

"Carefree? Hermione, England might be far away, but you can't be carefree with him back..." Tonks said too much before realising Amber's still right next to Hermione.

"We just wanted to save you some worries, especially when Malfoys still don't know we're here. Actually, we didn't know what they're up to, so it was very convenient that you wanted to go to the Championship and they were taking the same route..."

"You mean - we're here to spy on them?" Hermione asked, frowning but not that angry anymore. "You could have just said right away..."

"No, Bill and I are here to spy on them, and you're here to have some fun, take a break from the things."

"Yeah, continue speaking in codes, I don't mind..." Amber said ironically, looking around the beach pretending to be interested in the pigeons.

"Amber, listen," Tonks said, "there are things you need to know, but not yet. I mean it." And with that she got up from her deck-chair and left the pool.

"Let's go," Hermione leaded the way down to beach.

"Oh, come on, 'Mione, you gotta tell me what this is all about! It's about my father, right?"

"You'll find out. But right now... let's just go and have a great day on the beach, okay?"

Amber had no choice but to listen.