CHAPTER THREE ─── ❛ the quidditch world cup ❜

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𝕳uffing, Madge continued to trudge up the stairs behind Fred and George, who were both wearing over the top hats with painted faces in the colours of Bulgaria and Ireland. Madge had gone for an Ireland scarf instead, deciding that she did not wish to look like a fool. After all, that was the twins' speciality, not hers.

Madge paused, to catch her breath and glare at the remaining stairs with venom in her eyes. If they were all so amazing at magic, then why in Merlin's name was there no lifts? What sort of backwards, stupid, uncultured socie...

"Are you alright?" Madge's thoughts were brought to an abrupt halt at the sound of a cheery voice from behind her. Turning, Madge smiled sheepishly at the fake brother, Charlie, who had an eyebrow cocked in confusion. "You seem a little annoyed."

"I don't like stairs." That caused the man to snort with laughter, before the pair began to walk again. "There are way too many."

Madge's hatred of stairs started when she had first gone to Hogwarts and almost fallen off of the moving staircase. Ever since then, stairs and her had a deep feud. It was also why Madge had dropped Divination and Astronomy as soon as she possibly could, hating the climb.

"Well, we are in a stadium for Quidditch." Madge pulled a face. She did know that unsurprisingly. "It does have to be tall."

"Doesn't mean we have to live in the dark ages without elevators or escalators." Charlie stifled a laugh at her huffing and whining, watching as she continued to stomp up the stairs in an upset manner. She shot him a glare as he tried to force his face back to a neutral position. "I hope I didn't offend you earlier."

"What? Thinking I was the fake brother?" Charlie asked, as Madge shook her head.

"Saying that you were the dumber one," Madge replied, turning another corner and groaning at the sight of yet more stairs. Where were these seats?

"It's okay," Charlie called back. "I have five younger siblings, so dumb is not the worse thing that I've been called. It was pretty tame to what Fred and George normally say. I was expecting worse."

"Oh, they said other things," Madge decided that it didn't hurt to chuck Fred and George under the bus a little more. Otherwise, what was her purpose in life.

"What did they say?" There was a queue up ahead, causing Madge and Charlie to come to a stop. The younger girl turned back to look at the Weasley boy, who's eyebrows were furrowed in confusion creating small wrinkles on his forehead. His nose scrunched in an adorable manner.

"I don't know," She shrugged, as Charlie's features relaxed and he rolled his eyes. "I thought you were fake so I didn't pay attention to what they were saying."

That drew a burst of laughter from him, before they began walking up the stairs again.

"So, what do you do then?" Charlie looked up at her words, both of them standing to one side as some people came back down the steps.

"I work on a dragon sanctuary." Madge stopped, spinning around to look at him with her jaw wide open, eyes glimmering. That was hands down one of the most amazing sentences that she had ever heard.

"No way, that's so cool!" Charlie laughed at her reaction, before nodding for her to start walking once more. They were holding up the people behind, who were starting to grow antsy at them.

"You like dragons?" 

"Do I like dragons?" The girl scoffed, as they finally levelled out at the highest tier of the stadium, wind ripping through their clothes and hair. It pulled at the edges of Madge's scarf, though Charlie was quick to catch it and hand it back. The girl did not notice, still babbling in awe. "Who doesn't like dragons? What's the coolest dragon that you work with?" 

Charlie came to a stop next to her, both of them leaning on the railings as they waited for the match to begin. He thought for a moment, before nodding and leaning closer to the smaller girl so that she could hear him over the crowd.

"Well, we have this Hungarian Horntail that's pretty brilliant." He admitted, before tilting his head. "But my favorite is this Welsh Green that we called Shrimp."

"Shrimp?" Madge raised her eyebrows at the name.

"We were eating shrimps on the night that she hatched out of her egg, so we call her Shrimp," Charlie explained, as Fred and George turned around and sent the pair questioning glances. "She's a softy but not so much of a shrimp now. More a very large green squid."

"No way. I bet she isn't that big." Charlie laughed once more, as Madge grinned. "How big is she?"

"Well, she's about 15ft long," Madge listened raptly. Dragons were her favorite creatures. She didn't know why, but whenever she saw one she just wanted to cuddle the giant, scaly baby. "So, she's not our biggest, not by far. Our biggest is a Ukrainian Ironbelly, called Snare. He's about 6 tonnes. We've never got close enough to get an accurate length though. He has a love for trying to barbecue whoever's closest to him."

"How did you get his weight without dying?" Madge was now intrigued, as the rest of the Weasley siblings turned away with rolled eyes. Then knew that once you got Charlie onto the topic of dragons, then there was no getting him away from that idea and Madge had just got him onto the topic.

"So we used this calculations based on..." Charlie was drowned out as brooms zoomed over their heads. Madge's focus shifted slightly, but she sent Charlie a sheepish look before turning back to the warm ups for the match.

"It's the Irish!" Fred called, as Madge and George start to cheer and whistle. Music had started up somewhere. "There's Troy!"

"And Mullet!"

"And Moran!" Madge pointed out the man, one of her favorite players, as they zipped around on their brooms. Fireworks formed a leprechaun in the sky, causing more cheers. The sound echoed around the stadium, as Madge's was mixed in with them.

Her father was the one who had first gotten her into Quidditch, taking her and her mother to games whenever he had time away from work. Madge's mother had been loving it, screaming and whistling as if she was at a football match, but both parents had agreed that they were very glad Madge was completely hopeless on a broom, otherwise they would have been very panicked.

"Here come the Bulgarians!" George managed to thunder over the chants of the crowd, pointing to the sky as the Bulgarians flew through the leprechaun and scattered the Irish players. One of the players began to do flips and tricks at the front of the team, as Madge whistled loudly.

"Who's that?" Fred, George and Madge turned to look at Ginny incredulously.

"That, sis, is the best seeker in the world!" George called, as Madge shouted down to the younger girl.

"That's Viktor Krum!" Charlie and Bill were laughing on either side of the trio, as the crowd continued to chant his name.

"Good evening!" The Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, brought the entire crowd under control as he spoke. Everyone reluctantly stopped cheering, as the minister's voice continued throughout the stadium. "As Minster for Magic, it gives me great pleasure to welcome each and everyone of you to the final of the 422nd Quidditch World Cup. Let the match, begin!"

The quaffle went up into the air, the snitch and bludgers released and suddenly everything started with a blur and raucous applause. 

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Hiya,

Do I love Charlie and Madge already? Absolutely. Also them talking about dragons is the sweetest thing in existence and I love it so dearly.

Let me know what you think,

Love Li xx