Chapter Text
Draco is adorable when he sleeps.
It sounds weird, but it’s true! Harry always wakes up first, and if they’re sleeping over, he likes to just sit there for a while watching Draco.
The boy wakes up shortly, though, because of the already growing noise outside the walls of their tent. As usual, he startles when he sees Harry sitting next to him, watching.
“Merlin!” he curses before his brain catches up and recognizes Harry. “Don’t do that! You scare me every time!”
Harry meows at him, grinning as best he can in this form, before leaping off the bed, shifting back into his human self to land on his feet. “But you’re so cute.”
Draco rolls his eyes, then gets up out of bed with a groan.
“Whiskers! Draco! Breakfast’s ready!” Sirius shouts from the small kitchen downstairs.
Excited, the boys quickly change out of their pyjamas and get ready for the day, before running out of their room and down the thin spiral staircase, through the sitting room to the kitchen. They come diving into their seats just as Kreacher is setting out the plates and cutlery.
“Morning! Thanks, Kreacher.”
“Good morning, Sirius. Thank you, Kreacher.”
“The young sirs are very welcome,” the crook-backed elf mumbles as he hurries to the wood stove. “Tea for any of the sirs?”
Harry hums, chewing on a slice of toast, and holds out the cup set before him. Draco nudges his over as well, then continues piling scrambled eggs on his plate. Sirius slumps into his own chair, opposite the teens, offering out his half-full cup.
“Fill ‘er up, will you, please? Mornin’, lads. You excited?”
Harry nods rapidly. “The stadium looks huge even from here, I can’t wait to see it closer.”
Kreacher fills everyone’s cups from the kettle, offering also a small box filled with assorted teas. Harry picks out his and Draco’s favourites, and drops them in the cups.
“Father said it took the Ministry almost a year to build the whole thing,” Draco says, pausing to accept the cup passed to him. “Thank you, and apparently it cost a bloody fortune.”
Sirius smiles, sipping his tea. “You boys planning on exploring before the game?”
“Yeah!” they yell almost in unison.
“I saw a stall selling candy from all over the world!” Draco says excitedly.
“I wanna buy a pair of omnioculars!” Harry chimes in. “Well, two pairs, ‘cause I wanna disassemble one and see how it works.”
“There were those acrobats over on the west side, we have to go see them!”
“And the merch stores, we need to represent properly! Which team do you wanna cheer for?”
“Ireland, obviously! They’ve got to bring it home this year! I mean, it’d just be embarrassing if they lost on their own home-turf!”
“And you think the keeper’s cute,” Harry teases.
Shoving him, Draco laughs. “Stop it! As if you’re not half-mad for that Krum guy!”
“I just think he seems like a really good seeker, from what I’ve heard on the wireless.”
“Yeah, yeah, keep telling yourself that... You’re lucky I’m not jealous.”
Harry spots Sirius just rolling his eyes fondly at their bickering.
“Alright, that’s enough. Just behave yourselves and remember to be back here by six, yeah? We’re meeting Lucius at the gate, all together.”
They continue chatting as they eat, making lists of things they saw on the way through the campgrounds yesterday and want to visit properly now that they have the chance. As soon as both of them have wolfed down their meal, they take off out into the crowd.
Harry can’t believe how many people there are; there must be thousands of them, all here for the World Cup. He can hardly believe he’s here! Sirius tried to get tickets but they sold out so fast he couldn’t manage it; they’re lucky Lucius has connections and could get seats for Harry and Sirius, too. He’ll have to remember to thank Lucius. It’s been over a year and he’s still terrified out of his wits of Harry. Sirius and Draco, and everyone else, think he’s just being awkward but he and Harry both know better. Suffice it to say, Harry has put the floo network to good use whenever they have time off from school, taking a very slight amount of sadistic pleasure in popping in unannounced and scaring the man half to death.
Hand in hand, Harry and Draco explore the campgrounds. It’s quite unlike anything Harry’s seen before. There are all sorts of magic street performers scattered around; people who have put up stalls to sell souvenirs, and others who sell more general stuff; they even spot someone with a whole load of small cages, peddling rare exotic animals of sorts. They find plenty of places selling team merch, buying up scarves in green and white as well as jerseys with player numbers on them. Obviously, Harry has to buy the seeker one, even though he doesn’t know much about Ireland’s team as a whole. Seekers support seekers, and all that. They find that candy booth Draco mentioned, too, where they buy just about one of everything, which they snack on as they explore. Harry makes mental notes on which ones they like best so they can stop by the booth on the way back and buy up a supply for themselves.
Harry buys two pairs of omnioculars for himself as planned, and a third pair which he gives to Draco before the boy can buy his own set. A few rows down from there, where an old witch has stacks of foreign books laid out on a blanket on the ground, Draco offers her a thousand galleons for her whole stock before Harry can even start looking through the titles. Of course, the witch is happy to accept the deal. While Draco writes out a Gringotts Cheque for her, Harry stuffs the laid out books into his mokeskin pouch, then holds it open wide for the witch to transfer more books from her suitcase into the pouch.
“That was totally unnecessary,” Harry laments once they move on. “It was only about a hundred-and-fifty books, you shouldn’t have offered anywhere near that much, Draco… I mean, thank you, obviously, but really? Aren’t you supposed to be the responsible one?”
Draco scoffs out a laugh. “Then it’s my responsibility to be a good boyfriend and give you hugely overpriced gifts sometimes.”
The dark-haired boy feels his cheeks flush. Boyfriend? They’ve never- That’s- They haven’t talked about anything like that before. Draco really thinks of him as his boyfriend? When he glances shyly over at the other boy, it’s obvious to see he definitely said that just to fluster Harry and make him stop arguing.
“You are my boyfriend, though,” the blond says, as if reading Harry’s mind. “For real. Kind of have been for at least a year or so.”
“Yeah. We just…never talked about it.”
“Did we need to?”
“I dunno. Maybe we should? Just…so there’s no misunderstandings and stuff.”
Draco snorts. “Yeah, probably right. You usually are. Mother will want me home right after the game, but maybe you can come over tomorrow? We’ll take a walk and… talk for a bit.”
“Yeah. That sounds good.”
“Great. For now, though, where do you wanna go next?”
*
As planned, they make their circuit at a leisurely pace before returning to their tent almost perfectly on time at just before six. Sirius stumbles in only a moment after them, his own arms laden with souvenirs and such. They crowd into the kitchen where Kreacher has a light dinner ready for them. After they eat, Draco packs his small bag up to bring with him, as he will be going directly home with his father after the game, while Kreacher is left to manage the packing up of the tent and such.
The walk to the arena is a bit of an adventure on its own; in the thick crowd, the boys have to cling to either of Sirius’ arms just to keep from getting swept away. Lucius, dressed to impress as always, awaits them at the entry gates.
“Father!” Draco shouts, breaking away from the trio to run up to the man.
With a rare smile, Lucius embraces him for a moment. “Hello, son. Did you have a good time?”
“It was great! You should’ve seen the grounds during the day, father, it was amazing!”
“I’m glad you had fun, my boy. Hello, Sirius, Harry,” he greets when the duo catches up. “Thank you for taking care of Draco, as always. I’m very glad he has such...loyal friends, in both of you.”
Harry smirks, eyes fixed on the man; he tracks a bead of nervous sweat run down his neck from behind his ear. Sirius chuckles and waves Lucius’ compliments off.
“Not at all, Lucius, anything to make the boys happy, right? And we should be thank you, really! Getting extra tickets for us was incredibly generous of you, and much appreciated.”
The blond man hums. “As you said, anything to make the boys happy. Speaking of,” he trails off as he reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulls out four silvery tickets, which he hands out between them. “I’ll lead the way to our seats, shall I?”
“Yes, please, Mister Malfoy,” Harry says flatly.
Lucius swallows thickly before turning away to do just that.
The attendant clips their tickets as they enter (Harry makes sure to tuck his and Draco’s away for safe-keeping), and the trek through the guts of the stadium starts. The stadium is absolutely massive to behold; the stairs take them up and up and up, through a series of narrow paths and finally, into what has to be some kind of V.I.P box which hangs above all the other rows upon rows of seats, just opposite the massive blackboard now showing advertisements. The box is draped in lush purple curtains, with gilded trimmings, and the inside is quiet and cool, whereas the rest of the stadium was crushingly loud and had long since grown nearly overheated from the throng of bodies. Harry of course recognizes Fudge and Crouch (though he’s never met the latter, only seen his pictures in the Prophet), and the gaggle of Weasleys, but the others are fresh faces to him. Lucius and Sirius seem content to do the mingling like proper adults, so Draco and Harry seize the opportunity to grab some seats, scooting their plush chairs even closer to the bannister.
Woah... The pitch itself looks small from so high up, as do the goal posts, but they should be at just the perfect height to watch most of the actual play. They get out their omnioculars for a lovely spot of people watching until things get started. Before long, people start taking their seats, as well; Sirius comes to sit on Harry’s other side, while Lucius is at Draco’s, and to Harry’s delight, the seat just passed Sirius, previous marked as reserved, is filled by Fudge.
“Good evening, Minister Fudge,” Harry says politely.
Of course, the Minister gives him a pursed look and a snippy greeting in return. Still a bit crabby about Harry’s book, then. He made very sure to include his and Fudge’s conversation in Dumbledore’s office, and of course, people weren’t very happy with the comments he made, nor his threats to put Harry in Azkaban. The old fool was almost thrown out of office by the public outcry of it all! He only managed to hang on by the skin of his teeth because he gave in to the demands of the public and awarded Harry his Order of Merlin, First Class, in a very public ceremony where he had to spend nearly ten minutes singing Harry praises before pinning the medal on his chest.
Next to Harry, Draco snorts, slapping a hand over his mouth to keep from laughing.
“So, Harry,” Sirius cuts in for everyone’s continued health and well-being. “Care to make a prediction? Always get it right when it’s just the wireless, let’s see what you can do in person, ey?”
Harry grins. “I don’t know, I wouldn’t want to offend our Bulgarian guests,” he says with a glance past Fudge and Crouch to the visitors from the Bulgarian equivalent of the Ministry of Magic.
The nearest of the men chuckles at that. “Not at all, not at all,” he says, his accent quite light. “All in good fun, yes? Why don’t we start things off, Minister? Let the boy see, so he can make his predictions.”
Still huffy but obviously wishing to accommodate the guests, Fudge does just that. He gets up and, using the sonorus charm, addresses the crowd. At his signal, the Irish team enters first. Harry watches their presenting closely, following them with the omnioculars. When the Bulgarian team breaks through for their presentation, his focus switches easily to them.
It’s only moments before Harry has a solid opinion on things.
“Krum is obviously a very talented seeker, very skilled, but the rest of the team just isn’t on his level. They’re individuals trying to figure out how to act like a team, with Krum taking up the majority of the room. The Irish team is a much more cohesive unit. They know each other, they know how to play together and be a team and use each others’ strengths. I’d say...Krum catches the Snitch, but Ireland wins on points alone.”
The Bulgarian official hums, stroking his chin as he considers Harry’s argument. “Very interesting... How do you see our team is not working well together?”
“Well, when the Irish came in, there was a solid half-metre between each player while they moved. No sway, no hesitation, they moved as a unit, trusting each other not to get in one another’s way. The Bulgarians, however, they were swaying and moving all over the place, half of them almost crashed into Krum when he pulled that little stunt of his. They knew their positions in the line-up, but that’s about it. I didn’t see trust. They’re all good players, sure. They just don’t know how to play together.”
Again, the official hums, considering. “Interesting observations. I will pass this on to the coaches. Perhaps they can work on it until the next World Cup, yes?”
Grinning, Harry nods. “Definitely. Just get them trusting each other, and the rest’ll come naturally.”
The Bulgarian leans across Crouch, who appears very offended but says nothing, to offer Harry his hand. Harry quickly stretches back, across an equally disgruntled Fudge, to accept the handshake.
“Apostoli Oblansk.”
“Harry Potter. Pleasure to meet you, Minister.”
The Bulgarian Minister for Magic chuckles as he sits back. “Not many your age would recognize the name, Mister Potter.”
“Suppose I’m not much like many people my age. Let me introduce you. This is Sirius Black, my guardian and godfather. This is my boyfriend, Draco Malfoy, and over there, that’s his father, Lucius.”
Oblansk greets them with a polite bow of his head. “A pleasure, truly. Perhaps we can speak more later? We are all here to watch the game, after all.”
At the Minister’s request, they return their focus to the recently started game.
It’s fascinating to watch the players move. Harry has watched, and participated in, plenty of games at Hogwarts, but this is definitely a whole other level. Compared to these people, the house teams might as well be a bunch of toddlers in the sandbox. The coordination is incredible, even in the weaker Bulgarian team. The communication between players seems to be almost on a mental level, as if they can read each others’ minds. As expected, the Irish rack up points rapidly. Their numbers on the scoreboard have a steady, and speedy, climb, while Bulgaria only just manage to squeeze a goal in to get a 10 on the board. One-twenty. One-thirty. One-forty. One-fifty. One-sixty, as Lynch, the Irish seeker, seems to spot the Snitch and darts off after it. Krum, however, is close on his tail. Another score bell; one-seventy.
Krum cuts out ahead of Lynch; the siren blares when his fist closes around the Snitch.
Harry exhales. 170 to 160; Krum caught the Snitch but the Irish won on points. Just like Harry said.
Everyone in the Box, and the rest of the stadium, applauds while the Irish take their victory lap. Once applause die down, they all start to get up to stretch their legs and so on.
“A perfect prediction,” Minister Oblansk comment as he approaches Harry and his group. “Very impressive, Mister Potter.”
Harry shakes his hand firmly when it’s offered to him once more. “Thank you, Minister. I do my best to impress.”
Oblansk chuckles. “You manage it very well.” He moves on to shake the hands of the rest of Harry’s company, everyone introducing themselves more properly now that they have the chance. “Please, come over here. I will introduce you to our team.”
Despite his insistence on cheering for Ireland, Draco seems to vibrate somewhat with excitement at the prospect, clinging to Harry’s arm as they follow Oblansk closer to the entrance. The Bulgarian team arrives first; they move down the line, all shaking hands with Crouch and Fudge before doing the same with the Bulgarian officials. Oblansk stays at the end of the line, where the team gathers at his request. He says a few things in Bulgarian to them, then turns to Harry’s group and introduces the four of them. The team shakes their hands politely, and contrary to his insistence during breakfast, Draco is the one who goes a little weak-kneed when shaking Krum’s hand.
The Irish team spills in not many minutes later; they do the same routine down the lines, and Oblansk makes a point to introduce Harry’s group to them as well, before the two teams do their own good sportsmanship handshakes. They all watch and clap as Fudge presents the trophy to the Irish captain, which he quickly brings to his team for them all to cheer over.
“It was a pleasure to meet you all,” Oblansk informs Harry and the group. “May we meet again some day.”
Then, he is raptly dragged away by his officials and the team.
“Well, I guess it’s time we split up too,” Sirius suggests. “Thanks again for the tickets, Lucius, it was very kind of you.”
Lucius waves it off with a minute gesture. “As we said, anything for the boys. Shall we get going, Draco? Your mother is eager to have you home. She wants to see you as much as possible before school starts.”
“Me too, father. Bye, Harry! Bye, Sirius!”
Harry waves, smiling as he watches the two blonds disappear into the crowd beginning to leave the box. Once they’re out of sight, he digs into his pouch.
“So. Boyfriend.”
Sirius laughs when the boy kicks him. Harry pulls their brooms from the pouch; they saddle up and dart out through the box’s curtains, setting off straight home to London as Kreacher will have packed up and headed back already as well.
They stay well above the cloud cover even in the dark. It’s amazing to fly with Sirius. He’s not exactly an expert flyer but he’s decent enough that they can play around without worry. They do loops around each other, and race for a bit, and so on. It’s...
Harry wonders if this is what it would have been like to fly with his dad.