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The stands were just about full, pulsing with the energy of almost 40,000 people converging on the one arena. All around them, fans were filing in to claim the last few empty seats dotted around, while down below, the pitch was mostly empty, save for a few trainers and staff milling about the edges.
Ginny wasn’t a stranger to stadiums. She had played at more than a dozen different venues across the UK. But this… this was something entirely different for Ginny. The sound, the crowds, the spread of colour that danced around as flags were held aloft and waved always filled her with a lively anticipation, a buzz of adrenalin. But being amongst the crowd, being amidst the noise, being crammed in next to fellow spectators, was something else.
Ginny and Harry had Apparated into a small lane that served as a delivery dock for some buildings not too far from the stadium. As they had made their way onto Fulham Road, they had joined the throng of people emerging from the Underground station and followed them through the gate to the stadium. There was a building sense of anticipation as they approached, and it only continued to escalate as they made their way to their seats in the West Stand and settled in while the seats surrounding them continued to fill up.
Sitting there, with her black leather jacket shielding her from the chill of the hard-backed plastic chair, and the blue Chelsea scarf Harry had bought for her draped around her neck, she took it all in. The rectangular stadium was much smaller than what she was used to, and she listened intently while Harry pointed out the captains as they emerged onto the green pitch, leaning in as he explained the traditional rivalry between the two teams.
“So which are the coaches for each team?” she asked, turning to him and gesturing to the edge of the field where the club staff were milling about.
Harry shrugged and placed his hand on her leg, rubbing it along the length of her thigh to warm her up.
“You don’t know?”
“I haven’t exactly followed football these past few years, Gin.”
“Did you ever play?”
Harry shook his head. “No, not really. We had to play it for school a handful of times, but that was it.”
“Did you ever watch it?”
“Nah, it was never on the television much. My uncle and cousin were into rugby instead. I mean, I saw enough of it on the news to—” He was interrupted by cheers erupting around them. Chants sounded across the stands (although Ginny could barely make out a word of what the collective voices were saying), as the players from both teams emerged from the tunnel and lined up on the pitch.
After just a few minutes of fanfare, the team in red, Arsenal, took the kickoff, and the ball was immediately in play, the teams alternating possession regularly as the ball soared and bounced and skimmed the grass, passing from foot to foot, travelling from one end of the pitch to the other.
Ginny lasted just under a minute and a half before she asked her first question of the match.
“So, there’s just the one ball?” Her eyes never veered from the travel of the ball as she spoke, stretching up tall to peer over the broad shoulders of the man seated in front of her.
“Yep, just the one,” Harry replied, leaning back lazily in his seat. “It’s kinda like Quidditch, in a way, but with just Chasers and Keepers.” After a beat he added, “And, you know, they have gravity.”
Ginny turned to glare at him briefly and whispered, “You’ve fallen off your broom enough times to know that we have gravity too.”
Harry’s response washed over her unnoticed, her attention focused intently ahead again. She remained transfixed by the match playing out in front of her. The game was barely five-minutes old, and she had spent every second of it so far piecing together all the elements of play as the ball travelled the length and width of the ground, in short dribbles and soaring long arches.
She had visited enough Muggle pubs in the year since she finished at Hogwarts, so it wasn’t like she had never seen football before. But half of those nights were somewhat of a hazy memory, and the other half still weren’t really the kind of evenings that lent themselves to quietly watching the screen. Here though, she was literally surrounded by it. There were what looked like two dozen players spread across the field, little figures, half wearing red, half in blue. It was obviously different to the kind of sports she grew up with. But there was an undeniable agility about the way they moved, the way they almost danced on their feet, pivoting to change direction and gathering the ball up with their feet as if it was an extension of themselves. And while their speed on foot was incomparable to what she was used to watching in the air, it afforded her the opportunity to study their movements, the way they swarmed towards each other only to spread out a moment later in seemingly arbitrary arrangements, but what her trained eye knew to be anything but random.
There was a screen – two of them actually, although she could only see one clearly – on the other side of the field that was showing a close up of the action, the vision spanning to follow the play. She glanced at it occasionally, but she had generally been more interested in the plays and movements across the whole field up to that point.
She could see enough of the screen though to notice an imbalance of sorts.
“Harry?”
“Hmm?”
“Why aren’t there any women?”
Harry paused for a beat. “Playing?”
Ginny nodded.
He leaned towards her and lowered his voice slightly. “That’s just Muggle sports. Women and men never really play together. At least not professionally.”
She turned to look at him, stunned by his explanation. “Huh? Why not?”
Harry shrugged. “Just physical differences and abilities, I guess. I think they figure the men are too rough, too quick to play with the women.”
Ginny stilled, Harry’s words failing to mollify her growing sense of confusion. What the actual fuck? No Muggle had thought to question this?
“Are you kidding?” She directed a challenging glare at him, waiting for a better explanation than the one he had already offered.
Harry shook his head and chuckled. “It’s just the way they do things, Gin.”
“I played with a fractured rib a couple of weeks ago,” she hissed. “That guy” – she jabbed her finger in the vague direction of the left half of the pitch – “just fell to the ground with a foot cramp.”
Harry laughed. “Don’t blame me!” he said, holding his hands up in defence. “I didn’t make the rules.”
“What a—”
The stadium erupted, her words lost to the thundering clash of thousands of voices roaring and feet stamping as bodies jumped from their seats. A player in blue raised his arms in cocky triumph before he was swarmed by half a dozen of his teammates.
“Oh, fuck off!” Ginny cursed, throwing her head back.
Harry paused for just a moment before he suddenly let out a loud laugh. “You didn’t even see that, did you?”
“You know I didn’t!”
Harry just continued to laugh and pointed her attention to the screen.
“You didn’t see it either…” She trailed off as the screen cut to a replay of the goal, watching as the ball skimmed past the keeper’s glove to hit the back of the net.
The scoreboard read Chelsea 1 Arsenal 0, and she silently commended herself on her choice of team and scarf, although the choice had nothing to do with performance and everything to do with the lion etched onto the scarf, and a total disregard for the weird wheely thing the red team went with. (“What even is that thing?” “It’s a cannon.” “Well, they’ve got no fucking chance then.”)
She went back to watching the action, her athletic mind analysing the way they dived to kick the ball and slid across the ground. There was a bit of a commotion when one of the referees held up a yellow card, and there were a couple of interchanges with players from the bench, but other than that the game just continued on. And then, another 15 minutes passed. She had been watching the whole time. She had studied their skilled footwork. She had appreciated the way they worked together.
But now she was pretty much done with that.
Even the spectacle of a new sport and a Muggle event wasn’t enough to hold her attention for this long, and she would have really appreciated seeing something happen right about then. It didn’t even have to be another goal. She would happily take another of those yellow card thingies, and although she’d never been one for arguing with the referee mid-game (she’d shit-talked her fair share of them post-game), she would have loved to have seen a good sledge, or Merlin, a brawl at that point would definitely have salvaged the game.
The match had been going for well over 30 minutes by that point, and the score still stood at Chelsea 1, Arsenal 0. STILL. As in, only one player had managed to score the entire time, and even then he had only done it once. One to fucking nil.
“Why is no one scoring a goal?” Her tone had lost the sense of awe that it had towards the start of the game. That tone had been replaced by one of growing impatience, with a pinch of boredom added to the mix, because… one to nil.
Harry shrugged, clearly entirely unaffected by her attitude. “That’s just football, Gin. It’s hard to get the ball past the keeper and into the net. They have one net each, not three hoops.”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t really make for an entertaining game, does it?” she asked. “I mean, they’ve been playing this whole time, and it’s still one point to nothing.”
Harry glanced for a second at the two men sitting on her other side, who happened to be paying her no mind at all, and shushed her. As in actually put his finger to his lips and told her to shush. “You’d want to be a little quieter, yeah? ’Cause I’m not sticking around to save you from the angry football mob.”
Ginny ignored him (it was an entirely empty threat – they both knew she wouldn’t need saving, and they both knew he’d do it anyway) and waited for an actual explanation as she pulled her jacket tighter across her chest.
“Their goals are only worth one point though, not ten, don’t forget,” he finally said.
“Fine. So it’s like ten to nil then. You ever seen a Quidditch game where it’s ten to nil after 40 minutes?” It was clearly a rhetorical question, and she hadn’t really expected a response from him. But still, she took his silence as confirmation that her point was irrefutable, and openly wore her smugness with pride.
“So,” Harry said after a couple more minutes of play. “How close are you to going down there and trying to kick a goal yourself?” There was mirth in his voice, like the ponce found the whole situation entertaining, despite the decided lack of entertainment.
Ginny didn’t miss a beat. “About two minutes,” she mumbled, not bothering to turn to him.
Harry laughed and draped his arm over her shoulder, pulling her closer. “You’re so adorable when you scowl,” he said, his voice laced with affectionate amusement.
She turned to him at this, and despite her best efforts to keep her face stern, a small reluctant laugh escaped her traitorous mouth. “Fuck off, Potter,” she said, pressing her hand to his chest to push him away.
He only laughed louder. “See?”
Ginny rolled her eyes and turned back to the ground. A man in blue lined up for a penalty goal, and it looked good. It looked really good as the ball arched to the left and curved back to the centre of the goal, a good couple of metres away from the keeper. Ginny slid forward in her seat. She wasn’t the only one, the buzz of anticipatory celebration sparking in those split seconds. And then the keeper dived to his right, and expertly punched the ball back towards the centre of the pitch.
“For fuck’s sake,” Ginny spat out, a background sound of collective groans echoing her sentiments.
Harry looked at her and was silent for a moment. Then his lips curled up like he was so fucking pleased with himself (he had clearly given up caring about the match long ago), and he lent in and whispered in her ear, “Adorable.”
Ginny glared at him. “Nothing happens in this game. You know it’s stupid, right?”
Harry shrugged and smiled at her.
“You don’t seem to have a problem with it,” she said. “You seem to enjoy it.”
He shrugged again. “I just like being with you. And I like it when you get annoyed and crinkle your nose.”
Ginny scrunched up her face exaggeratedly, her nose crinkling.
Harry grinned. “Just like that.”
Ginny reached up to ruffle his hair, but Harry swatted her hand away and leaned in to give her a quick kiss on the lips. They both returned their attention to the game continuing to play out on the ground below. After three more minutes of what she would hesitate to call ‘action’, Arsenal scored a lucky goal and Ginny got to her feet, starting to cheer.
“Gin, wrong team,” Harry laughed.
“Don’t really give a shit about that at this point.”
Still laughing, Harry tugged lightly on her arm and she fell back into her seat, ignoring the glare from the man in front who had turned around to look at her.
Not long afterwards, a whistle sounded and the crowd started to shift. Some got to their feet while others rummaged through bags, while the players on the pitch slowly made their way towards the tunnel.
Ginny turned to Harry, her eyebrow raised in silent question.
“It’s halftime,” he explained. “The players have a short rest and then they come back out for the second half.” Ginny ignored the snort of derisive laughter from the man in front.
“A rest? Whatever,” she said as she stood up and looked around. “I need a drink. Maybe this game will make more sense with alcohol.”
“The game makes sense, you just don’t like it.” His lips turned up with barely suppressed amusement as she rolled her eyes. “Besides,” he said, putting his hand on her arm as she tried to squeeze past him. “You can’t bring alcohol into the stands.”
Ginny looked at him, unmoving for a moment. “Are you kidding me?”
“Nope. They banned it.”
“For fuck’s sake,” she muttered, falling back into her seat. “I don’t get Muggles.”
“Trust me, most of them would prefer to be drinking right now, too. They do have snacks though, I’ll go get us something to eat,” Harry offered.
“Yes, you go do that. Now. Chop chop.”
“Always so appreciative,” Harry mocked, laughing as Ginny pushed him away playfully.
By the time he returned almost ten minutes later, the players were making their way onto the pitch again, most spectators having returned to their seats.
“Just in time,” Harry said, settling back into his seat and handing Ginny a meat pie and a bottle of water. “I’d hate to miss all the action.”
“I know you’re teasing me, but you brought me food, so I don’t care.”
“You’re hoping food will make the game more interesting?”
“Food makes everything more interesting, Harry,” she said, taking a bite of the steaming pastry. “Fuck, that’s hot.”
Ginny had held little hope of the second half of the game offering any signs of improvement. But despite her doubts, which she still argued were wholly justified, Chelsea kicked another goal before she’d even finished her last bite of the pie. This was shortly followed up by another Arsenal goal a few minutes later to even the score (“Wow, two goals in five minutes, that’s pretty much a barrage in this stupid bloody game”). The last 20 minutes of the match delivered two more yellow cards, and then a red card, which sparked a not-insignificant amount of roars and wild gesturing from both those on the pitch and in the stands, the drama going at least some way to compensate for the lack of goals in the last few minutes of the game.
By the time the final siren sounded, and no winner was declared, Ginny was only somewhat appeased by a warm and full belly, Harry’s promise of drinks at the pub, and a growing indifference towards the game.
“So,” Harry said as they slowly made their way up the concrete steps towards the exit of the stadium, her hand grasped in his. “Was that not so bad after all?”
“Sorry Harry, but no. That was still shit. But thank you for getting us tickets,” she added, her voice coated with exaggerated sweetness as she looked up at him.
Harry laughed.
“I finally got to experience Muggle sports,” she explained, “and now I know it’s crap, and not to bother again.”
“You know, I reckon you would have loved football if you were born a Muggle. It’s just that Quidditch has ruined it for you.”
“Quidditch has ruined nothing for me. And it’s a moot point, anyway, so we’ll never know if you’re right. Although I know you’re not.”
“Well, I’d much rather spend my weekends watching Quidditch anyway, so it doesn’t matter.”
“Correct answer,” she said, pausing and reaching up to kiss him briefly before they followed the sea of red and blue supporters through the gate, not sparing a backward glance at the stadium behind them.