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Hermione had held the hypothesis for several years that Quidditch, as a whole, sucked.
And the way this evening was going, she was unlikely to be refuting that any time soon.
“Alright!” roared George from a makeshift platform by the bar, holding up a small cloth bag with the air of someone auctioning off a priceless artifact. “Come pick your World Cup country!”
The crowd that had amassed in the Leaky Cauldron that night surged forward, gathering around him while Hermione sat with her back to the clamour, sipping resolutely at a glass of Gillywater.
Oblivious to her silent objection, Harry was soon slipping into the neighbouring chair, unfolding his piece of parchment. “Yes!” he cried. “Dominican Republic!”
Hermione huffed at a volume she hoped was loud enough to convey the extent of her disinterest.
“Class!” enthused Seamus, dropping into the seat opposite. “They’ve got a cracking line-up this year! I got Canada, they’ve had lousy stats lately but their new Seeker looks pretty good-”
Neville leant morosely over the table. “I’ve got Zimbabwe, but they’ve not competed for thirty years so I’ve got no idea whether they’re any good or not-”
“Dean just got Ireland,” complained Ginny, “the lucky sod. Can’t believe I got Hungary-”
“I’ve got a good feeling about Nigeria this year-”
“Where’s Talwan-”
“I think you mean Taiwan, Goyle. Merlin, anyone would think Hogwarts didn’t teach Geography-”
“Does anyone know anything about Uzbekistan's line-up?”
“Oi, Zabini, I’ve got Italy – fancy trading Vietnam with me?”
Hermione calmly slid her drink to one side and placed her head on the wooden table in its place with a grunt of dismay.
How on earth had she ended up in a group full of Quidditch fanatics?
“Hey Hermione!” called Harry, nudging her blithely. “Who did you get?”
“I’m not picking one,” she said without looking up. “I’m not interested.”
“But you’ve got to!” cried Ron, from where he was waiting to collect a country of his own. “It’s the World Cup! If you pick one of the top two teams, you get box tickets for the final!”
“I don’t want the tickets-”
“But it’s the Quidditch World Cup final, Hermione!” Ron moaned, closing his eyes as if imagining himself in the stands. “Look, if you win, I’ll buy your ticket off you-”
Hermione propped her head up again, contemplating taking up residence in a shack in the wilderness until the World Cup mania was over. The quadrennial sweepstake was an event she had only narrowly avoided in the summer of 1998 by nature of being in Australia, and she was seriously considering going back there now.
“Come on come on come on,” urged Ron, having reached the front of the queue. “Senegal, Senegal, Senegal-”
“Yes!” roared Theo, opening his parchment. “Senegal!”
Ron blinked. “Fuck. Mexico, Mexico, Mexico-” He screwed his eyes shut, plunged his hand into the bag, and then took one look at the paper he’d drawn and threw himself into a heap on the floor with a desolate wail.
Harry headed over and toed his prone form. “Who’d you get?”
Ron gave an indecipherable groan and Harry prodded him again.
“Liechtenstein,” he answered miserably.
“What’s wrong with Liechtenstein?” asked Harry, while Seamus dissolved into braying laughter.
“They’re the smallest competing country,” answered Dean. “And they’ve come dead last for eighty years in a row.”
“Maybe this could be their year?” said Hermione determinedly.
“Hermione!” Ron said, jerking upright. “Hermione, you wonderful woman, my best friend-”
“Hey,” said Harry.
“-you adoring pinnacle of kindness, you excellent witch: please draw a country. For me, please, I’ve got no hope, please, please-”
“Oh, fine,” Hermione huffed, getting irritably to her feet. “You owe me two Galleons.”
“Yes!” roared Ron, while Hermione joined the queue, cursing her taste in friends.
The pub was absolutely packed – mostly with people from her time at Hogwarts – but also with friends and partners and family members, all brought together under the excitement surrounding the first match of the World Cup season.
She supposed there was something quite nice about that. Even the Slytherins were here – Pansy and Blaise and Theo – and of course Draco Malfoy himself – sipping his drink and looking over the parchment he’d drawn with an appraising eye.
He had become a rather frequent fixture in Hermione’s life of late – he worked in her department, after all. At work he mostly kept to himself, but between their lengthy email chain and their proclivity for a Friday night wind-down at the Leaky Cauldron, it had been inevitable that they’d gotten to know one another.
The ridiculous crush she’d managed to form was rather unexpected, though.
Draco made eye contact with her for a brief moment and she span on her heel in alarm, only to plant her face straight into George’s shoulder.
“Someone’s keen,” George quipped, stepping back and offering her the bag in his place.
The small piece of parchment crinkled in her fingers as she unfurled it, trying to control her mortified facial expression, and as she headed back over to the table, several excited faces turned her way.
“Who is it, who is it-?!”
But she had to read the word on the paper several times before it sank in. “Oh-”
“What?!” cried Ron. “Please, not England, there’s no way we’re going to-”
“Bulgaria,” she said quietly, already aware of the warmth rushing once more to her cheeks. “I, er, I don’t suppose you know if…”
Ron’s mouth curved into a disbelieving grin. “If Vicky’s playing again?”
Hermione crumpled the paper up. “No-” she squeaked. And Draco immediately looked up from his table, already smirking as if he’d overheard the whole thing.
He probably had.
“Intriguing,” he laughed, and Hermione felt something in her chest tighten. “I don’t believe the Prophet ever did elaborate on what happened between the two of you-”
“He was at my brother’s wedding,” said Ron gleefully. “And she sent him packing-”
“No I didn’t!” she protested. “You chased him off!”
“Defending your territory?” Seamus joked, and both Ron and Hermione made matching disgusted expressions.
“Please never say that again,” said Ron.
“We dated for two weeks,” Hermione groaned.
“Hermione and Viktor Krum, however,” said Ron wickedly, while Hermione buried her head in her hands. “He came back to England last year just to see her. Hey, maybe you should write him a letter, tell him that if he wins you’ll give him a-”
“Please don’t finish that sentence!”
“Wait,” said Draco, sliding suddenly to his feet and approaching them both. “If you pop back into his life he’s going to be far too distracted to get the snitch.”
“Who asked you?” Ron asked, without any real malice.
Draco ignored him. “Let me buy Bulgaria off you,” he said, addressing Hermione directly. “I’ve drawn Egypt, so I’m not holding out much hope.”
“Least it’s not Liechtenstein-” muttered Ron.
“Please,” said Draco. “Ten Galleons? Twenty?”
Hermione’s heart began to thud in her chest. It would be so easy to accept, to give him the slip, to spend the Galleons on something fruity and brimming with alcohol while she pretended not to be hopelessly drawn to his eyes… but there was also a sense of mischief sparking giddily in her abdomen.
And she wanted to fuel the fireworks.
So:
“No,” she said.
He blinked.
“It’s mine.”
“You just said you didn’t care about winning-” he started.
“I said I didn’t care about getting tickets to the final,” Hermione interrupted, allowing a smug grin to part her lips. “I never said I didn’t want to win.”
Draco stared at her for a moment, his eyes glittering with something that made her heart skip.
He wasn’t used to people telling him no.
And the thought made the firework explode in her chest.
There was a fizzing silence, the small distance between them jumping like a livewire.
Then:
“Alright,” he said slowly, and his mouth curved into a grin. “Game on.”
After all the build-up, the first match of the season ended in a shocking loss for Ireland against Vietnam, which immediately dampened the mood in the pub and resulted in Hermione having to side-along Apparate both Dean and Seamus home, after the two of them drowned their mutual sorrows into a drunken stupor.
Conversely, Pansy had been overcome with such victorious delight that she had bought everyone in the vicinity a drink.
Including Ron.
(Although considering Pansy’s level of inebriation when she had begun splashing coins about, Hermione doubted that was on purpose.)
Especially for the Cup season, the Leaky had set up the largest radio Hermione had ever seen in pride of place, and over the next few days it didn’t fall silent for a moment, as game after game went on and the expectant crowd cheered and whooped and yelled.
It was all rather unpleasant for Hermione, who generally preferred ambient volume similar to that of an academic library. However after avoiding the chaos for several days, she was finally forced to put in an appearance when the first Bulgaria game against Portugal kicked off.
She arrived just as the Chad Vs New Zealand game drew to a close, but she could hear the shrieks of victory from outside, and the sound made her turn promptly on her heel, already feeling a headache coming on.
“Going somewhere?” someone asked, as her face thudded into their shoulder, and she stumbled back, cheeks flaming.
Draco.
Suddenly, her headache had disappeared.
“Home,” she said sheepishly.
“You’ve got a boyfriend to support,” he pointed out, and she rolled her eyes, defiance smouldering in her fingertips.
“Ex-boyfriend,” she insisted. “I’m single right now.”
There was a flicker of amusement across his features. “Is that so?”
“Mm.”
“In that case,” he said, savouring the words like fine wine, “why all the antics over picking Bulgaria?”
She chewed her lip. “It ended… strangely… between us. Viktor and I.”
“Mutual?”
“Not so much.”
“Ah.”
He eyed her steadily, then pressed a hand against the doorframe. “Let’s get him back, then.”
Hermione’s heart launched into double time. “What?!”
“Weasley told me you’ve been pining after him all these years.”
“I have not!”
“Who have you been pining after, then?”
Oh.
Hermione would rather tell him literally any other secret about herself. She closed her mouth abruptly, which Draco seemed to take as an admission of guilt, and he grinned.
“Thought so.”
“But we’re not… I’m not… right for him,” she said weakly, desperate for some excuse.
Draco arched a brow. “You’re both smart. Successful. Attractive.”
She paused. “What was that last one, again-?”
“Notorious,” said Draco, ignoring her. “And you were childhood sweethearts.”
Hermione felt as if her head was spinning around on a carousel while the rest of her tried to keep up. “But I… I don’t know anything about his life. About Quidditch,” she said desperately.
“Then let’s fix that,” he said. And then his hand was soft against her wrist, and she couldn’t think.
Tucked away in a secluded alcove of the Leaky Cauldron, the Quidditch commentary crackling gently, Draco’s thigh about an inch from her own… Hermione was rapidly adding side notes to her ‘Quidditch sucks’ mantra.
On the table in front of them lay an assortment of buttons, peanuts, and beermats (“I don’t think the sizing is very consistent, Draco-”), all representing the different players and features of a typical Quidditch match.
“Right,” she said, her heart still accelerating to the point of medical concern. “So Viktor’s role is the most important?”
“Yes,” Draco said, prodding at the yellow button representing the golden snitch. “You can make up for a rubbish team with a good Seeker.”
“Is that true, or are you just saying that because you’re a Seeker?”
He grinned wryly. “You caught me. Krum’s performance in the 1994 final shows it’s not true.”
“Why, what happened?”
“You were there-”
“And I didn’t have a clue how the game worked.”
He paused, brow falling into a frown. “Potter and Weasley didn’t explain?”
She reddened. “I refused to admit my confusion.”
“Oh.” He grinned. “That makes more sense.”
Starting to think that her rapid heart rate might be worthy of a nurse appointment, Hermione took a breath.
“I’m flattered you admitted it to me.”
Oh, wow.
Make it a doctor’s appointment.
She poked a beermat that Draco had explained the role of twice and yet she still wasn’t much closer to understanding. “He caught the snitch, didn’t he?”
“Yes. But his chasers hadn’t scored enough points for the one-fifty to take them into the lead.”
“Then why did he catch it?”
He paused. “I guess… a small victory is better than nothing.”
And sitting beside Draco, letting him explain to her a sport she had no interest in, in an attempt to help her win back a man she had no interest in…
She thought she understood.
At the office on Monday, Hermione was digging through her drawers for a quill when the unmistakeable sound of the entire rest of the department roaring with disappointment reached her ears. She scrambled to her feet and stuck her head into the staff room, where it seemed like every single one of her colleagues was clustered around a small radio.
She didn’t have to guess what they were listening to.
“Who lost?” she asked begrudgingly, and several people turned to her in disbelief.
“England,” said Padma. “Didn’t you hear that we were playing today?”
“I try not to hear any more about Quidditch than I absolutely have to,” said Hermione flatly, before catching sight of Draco in the corner and cringing.
“And yet you listened to me talk about it for three hours the other day?” he said.
She paused. “You’re different.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Oh?”
“Don’t! Don’t – ask me why,” she spluttered, turning on her heel to leave. He didn’t reply, but mortification bit at her tongue until she popped her head back around the corner again. “Ever.”
“Alright,” he said, amused.
A silence.
“I mean it!”
And he was laughing as she finally strode back off towards her office, wondering whether casting a tongue-tying jinx on herself in future before interacting with Draco Malfoy would possibly be able to prevent her making such a fool of herself.
Two weeks into the Quidditch season, Hermione found herself at the Leaky Cauldron with all her friends once more, wishing that she was back in the alcove with Draco.
Both Bulgaria and Draco’s team Egypt had made it through into the semi-finals, but tonight was all about Liechtenstein – the tiny team which, against all odds, had beaten Japan and made it into the second round of matches for the first time ever.
“Come on!” yelled Ron, gripping the back of Hermione’s chair so forcefully that her chest hit the table. “You can do it! You can do it-!”
“Yes!” shrieked Ginny. “Sixty to Hungary! Come on, girls!”
Hermione was so surrounded by screaming redheads that she nearly missed the flash of blond hair in the corner.
Nearly.
He was waiting for her when she approached, smirk in place and drinks in hand.
“If Bulgaria gets to the final,” he said, handing her a butterbeer, “you’ll get to see Krum face to face.”
She took a sip. “What if I don’t want to?”
“Well, I’ll go in your place, but don’t expect me to ask him out for you.”
She elbowed him, laughing. “Enough already!”
It didn’t take long before they had settled down in their alcove again, and Hermione had been half hoping that they might start to talk about their own lives, perhaps work, or family, or whether or not Draco might have a girlfriend-
Anyway.
But Draco conjured the old buttons back again, and was soon in the middle of an in-depth analysis of Viktor Krum’s Seeker tactics. And Hermione was busy trying to work out how on earth she could tell Draco she wasn’t interested in Viktor, without leaving herself open to interrogation about the true object of her affections.
She was not successful.
“Right,” she said unsteadily, “so you think that Magrev and Hodoshei were his main influences?”
“Mm,” said Draco, “you should ask him about them.”
“What? I’ve not spoken to the man in over a year, and now I should turn up and ask him what he thought of Magrev’s dipping point circle?”
“I know you’re doubtful,” said Draco, “but trust me. He’ll love it.”
“No he won’t!”
“Go on, I’ll prove it,” Draco said, sitting up straight. “I’ll be Krum. Ask me about my inspirations.”
She just gaped at him.
“Hermy-own,” said Draco, and Hermione whacked him on the arm with a beermat.
“Stop it!” she hissed, and Draco just grinned wider.
“Hermy-own?”
“Enough! Aright, fine! Er, who… what Quidditch players have… inspired you… in the past…?”
“-Viktor-”
“I thought you were Viktor?”
“No! Ask him ‘who were your main inspirations for your Seeker technique, Viktor’? Men love it when you use their name in conversations-”
“Who were your main inspirations for your Seeker technique, Viktor?” she mumbled.
“I’m so glad you asked,” said Draco primly. “I found Magrev’s snip and dive technique positively enthralling, but Hodoshei’s weaving was just incomparable. Oh, all this talking about my interests has made me realise how beautiful you look tonight. Can I kiss you?”
“What?!”
“See?!” cried Draco. “Easy.”
Hermione frowned down into her glass, swirling it with great fervour.
At that moment, there was a wail of disappointment from several tables away, and Hermione looked around to find Ron in a defeated heap on the flagstones, Ginny shrieking with triumph above him.
“You,” Hermione said, returning to her table-mate, “are impossible. Draco.”
He went pink, and Hermione chose to count that as her own win for the evening.
The news that Bulgaria had beaten Chile in the semi-finals came almost inevitably the next week, or so it seemed to Hermione.
With the flat realisation that she had a ticket to see the World Cup Final, she couldn’t help herself from wondering whether she should give it away. However, the expected owl from Ron was swiftly turned away before she could thoroughly analyse her own reasons for doing so, and so she came reluctantly to admit that she was holding onto the hope of seeing the final with Draco.
She avoided the pub that night, and at work the next day, threw herself vigorously into work in an attempt to avoid thinking about it.
‘It’ being shorthand for a variety of things including but not limited to: Quidditch, Quidditch players, and a certain Quidditch fan who was trying to help her win back an ex-boyfriend she hadn’t thought about in months.
How did this happen, again?
“Guess what?”
Ah.
It. That. Him.
“What?” said Hermione vaguely, determined not to let her usual Draco-induced-tachycardia get the best of her.
But Draco strolled inside her office and leant against the wall before dropping something atop her desk, and Hermione was immediately hyperventilating again.
A ticket to the World Cup Final.
“Egypt won?!” she gasped.
“A turn-up for the books, for sure,” he grinned. “I guess that means you and I have a date.”
Hermione needed to add ‘almost fainting’ to her list of Draco-related symptoms.
The world was definitely laughing at her, Hermione thought, as she made her way to the Portkey departure point. It was mid-June, and it was raining.
“Pissing it down,” Ron had said earlier, before tacking on a hopeful, “want me to take your place?”
Hermione had not wanted that.
But what she did want now, was an umbrella, a scarf, and a tall, blond man to appear out of thin air and profess his undying love.
Draco Malfoy apparated beside her, smiling from behind the thick-knit scarf around his neck, and she practically jumped out of her skin.
“Lovely day for it,” he remarked, and she grimaced. “I hope the box is warm.”
It wasn’t.
Although, with Draco shifting closer to her ‘for heat’, Hermione was struggling to mind.
She may have begun to exaggerate her shivering, just a little.
Until he took off his scarf and looped it around both of their shoulders.
And if Hermione hadn’t already been head over heels for him, that would definitely have done it.
The players on the pitch zoomed through the drizzle, and Draco cheered and clapped with the rest of the audience, but Hermione didn’t think she could have paid a moment of attention to it if she tried, because with the feeling of her thigh against his, and their shared warmth within the scarf, and the small, considering sounds he kept making as the Quaffle bounced to and fro… she was having a hard enough time not passing out to focus on anything much else at all.
“Did you see that?!” asked Draco, pointing out the Egyptian seeker. “A butterfly scoop, just like we talked about!”
Hermione blinked, exhaustion permeating her skin. “Draco,” she said.
“Mm?”
“I really, really hate Quidditch.”
He turned to look at her. “Oh-”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered defeatedly. “I just… I hate it.” And she was expecting indignation, but there was mirth in Draco’s eyes as he wound the scarf tighter around them both.
“Just as I thought,” he murmured, “and yet you refused to sell me the Bulgaria slip.” He smiled. “You must really hate me.”
But the laughter faded from his voice as he watched her, clearly aware of the way her throat was dry and her pulse was thudding in her veins. “I wouldn’t put it like that,” she said, so softly that she wasn’t sure he would hear.
But he was suddenly even closer than before, and Hermione’s chest ached with the desire to kiss him. “Then how would you put it?” he asked gently.
She took a deep breath. “Friendly… competition?” she suggested quietly.
“I see,” he said, and oh, she could get lost in those eyes. “Friendly.”
A bolt of arousal struck deep within her belly and she cursed herself for having such a weakness for tall men with silver eyes and a complicated history.
Oh, wait, maybe it was just Draco.
“Unless…”
His eyes flickered to hers. “Unless?”
“Friendly is a word you object to.”
He swallowed, and Hermione couldn’t take her eyes off the way his throat bobbed. “Friendly is definitely a word I object to. But…”
“But?”
“You’re here to see Krum.”
It was like someone had upended their umbrella over her head. “What?”
“You don’t like Quidditch, but you’re here to see him. I shouldn’t-”
“That’s rubbish!” she spluttered. “I’m not interested in Viktor-”
It was as if he hadn’t heard her. “Not fair of me to intercede, the two of you would be far better-”
“Draco!” she shrieked. “Listen to me!”
He froze.
“The last time I saw Viktor Krum,” she yelled, “I told him that I was attracted to you!”
Draco’s face was a picture.
No, really.
Hermione could have painted it by numbers, framed it, and stuck it up on her wall to gaze upon forever.
“You did?!” he whispered.
Someone in the next box giggled, and Hermione felt her cheeks flame. “Yes,” she said quietly. “He came over to see me, in the summer. And he asked if even after everything, we might be able to make a go of it, but I told him I couldn’t, because I already…”
Draco’s eyes were wide.
“What I mean to say is I…”
His fingertips were tight on her thigh.
“I just…”
“Hermione,” he said slowly, and then his lips were on hers, and she was kissing him with every ounce of desire in her bones.
Hermione had no idea who won the match, that day.
She had no idea who caught the snitch, or what techniques they employed.
She had no idea that Viktor Krum announced his retirement shortly after.
In fact, she barely watched the match at all.
But it definitely wasn’t a wasted ticket.
Perhaps Quidditch wasn’t so bad, after all.