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ღ chapter twenty seven ( the world cup )
CLUTCHING THEIR PURCHASES, Mr. Weasley in the lead, they all hurried into the wood, 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; Jules couldn't stop grinning as she and Harry started kicking each other's shins and sprinting away from one another. 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 Jules 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," Mr. Weasley said, spotting the awestruck look on everyone's faces.
"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!" the Ministry witch said 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. 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 goal posts.
About twenty purple-and-gilt chairs stood in two rows here, and Jules, filing into the front seats with the Weasleys, looked down upon a scene the likes of which he 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 Juliet'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, Jules saw that it was flashing advertisements across the field.
She tore her eyes away from the sign and looked over his shoulder to see who else was sharing the box with them. So far it was empty, except for a tiny creature sitting in the second from last seat at the end of the row behind them.
