Saturday, July 19th, 2014. 6 PM.

  2014 Quidditch World Cup Stadium, Patagonian Desert, Argentina.

  As Viktor had implied, Harry's Seeker reflexes were as good as ever, if not better. Just outside Krum's private box, he cast two spells almost simultaneously. He initiated the Braking Charm and kicked forward off his footrests. The tubular Shield with the rounded front snapped up just as he reached the Illusioned doorway. His highly modified broom came to a stop in the air behind him, fortunately still inside the private box.

  The Shield took two solid impacts, eliciting a scream of pain from his left, and a very emphatic OOF! from his right. There were other impacts, but none as definitive as the first.

  As the impacts slowed him, Harry's trajectory curved toward the floor of the hallway leading away from the door. He rotated the Shield to turn him on his back, and then dismissed it. He settled to the floor as gently as a sailplane landing, facing toward the box he had just left. Wand ready in his sleeve, he began firing spells back down the hall while still sliding. There were other spells being cast through the door that still appeared closed. They had the echoing sound of magic piercing an Illusion. Kyinté and Dara were obviously on the job. If his assessment of them was correct, he was almost certain they were working from behind interlocking Shields braced on the doorframe. Nobody would be getting in that box easily.

  As he slid to a halt, Harry saw a knot of people around the box door. A couple were lying still on the ground, some standing fully visible, some partially visible, and some still fully concealed. He inferred that last from the way some of the visible people kept bumping into thin air and falling down.

  Harry scrambled to his feet, roaring in his pitiful Krum impersonation, "Goryat v ada, predateli!"

  Several of the Traitors, whom he had just urged to Burn in Hel, started pointing at him and shouting over each other. It took, in Harry's opinion, entirely too long for them to sort their selves out and start after him. They were slowed by having to maintain Shields both behind and in front of their party, guarding against both Harry's attacks, and spells coming from what now sounded like three wands, from the box door. It also didn't help that they were having to levitate along their wounded, (dead?).

  Harry backed slowly, avoiding the few spells that came close enough. Once he was sure they had their blood up, he backed a little more, then darted into a side corridor, trying to give the impression of a man fleeing in fear. The massed humans bayed like hounds as they sped up.

  Once past the corner, Harry Disillusioned himself and Apparated to just outside the box. The area appeared deserted, but that meant nothing. Harry cast a Silent Revelio. While that may not expose someone good enough, it would at least reveal if something was hidden close by.

  "It's me," Harry said softly. He didn't whisper. The sibilants in a whisper often carried farther than soft speech.

  "Slide over here. Sign is Umbridge." Ron was speaking the same way. "Countersign?"

  "Sucks." Harry felt three hands grab his robes, and he was yanked back through the Illusion.

  "Secured!" said Kyinté. "Shield up!"

  "Colloportus!" snapped Dara. Someone must have been still waiting outside, because one last spell came through the Illusion and deflected up off Kyinté's shield into the ceiling of the box. Probably a Sectumsempra, Harry thought, observing the damage

  "Sealed." confirmed Ron. "Thank the Gods Apparition into the boxes is blocked."

  The inside of the box resembled a war zone. Ignoring it for a moment, Harry awkwardly looked back over his shoulder to catch Kyinté's eye.

  "You can set me down now, Auror," Harry said. "Almost everything I do, I do better with my feet on the ground."

  The big man blinked and looked down. He hadn't even noticed, but sure enough, his grip on Harry's robes had him dangling in the air like a marionette

  "Sorry, sah," Kyinté said as he lowered Harry. "Ah nevah know mah own magnificent strength."

  "I can believe that!" Harry said sincerely. Instead of straightening the Bulgarian team robes, he just removed them. He recovered his Auror dress robes and began donning them. Ron was doing the same.

  "Ron? See if you can do something about that damned hand. It's a dead giveaway if one of the Zabini lot sees it." At the curious look from the junior Aurors, he went on. "They're the ones, or at least some of the ones behind this. They're Pure-Blood fanatics, a British family with strong Italian connections. Not historically one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight families, as far as I know. Ron?"

  Ron was shrugging his robes on. "I doubt it. Foreigners aren't far behind Muggles to most of that lot." He started examining his hand. "No idea what to do about this. Last time I tried to change my appearance, I ended up with warts."

  "Let me look at it," urged Dara. "That would be kind of in my wheelhouse, y'might say."

  Harry looked around at the destruction again, sighed, and settled for restoring the seating. As he sat down, he looked out over the pitch. He frowned.

  "Is something wrong? Why hasn't the game started yet?" Ron looked amused as he sat two seats away, giving Dara room as she started examining his hand.

  "Check your watch, Harry."

  Harry did so, and his eyes widened. It had been barely five minutes since he first came blasting through the box into the hall.

  "The team managers look like they're still exchanging greetings," Ron said.

  True enough, Lev Zograf and Charlie Baverstock had flown up between their teams for the traditional exchange. Zograf was wearing a saturnine smile as he watched the antics of Baverstock. The New Zealand coach appeared to be in high good humour, laughing and gesticulating. From the pointing and swooping motions he was making, he was talking about the Bulgarian team's spectacular entrance. The men came together, and instead of the formal handshake, clapped palms and pulled each other in to slap backs.

  ***

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  "Sportsmanship!" boomed Ginny. "At the last, that is what these games are about! Some might have been upset at the Bulgarian team's flamboyant exhibition, but Charlie Baverstock isn't one of them!" Her gaze swept over the dignitaries in the Top Box with her, where a number of sour expressions could be seen.

  "Yes, some petty, small-minded bureaucrats, (she almost spat the word), might want to rush off and make rules forbidding such displays."

  Several of the sour-faced types quietly sat back down at the disapproving looks they were getting from all about, not to mention boos and hisses coming from the overwhelming majority of the spectators.

  "Instead," continued Ginny. "They could consider it a welcome addition to the spectacle of the games! A chance for teams to compete in another arena, showing the people the depth of their skills off the pitch, as well as on!"

  One particularly sour face ignored the cheers rocking the stadium. She made her way to the central aisle beside the rostrum Ginny was commentating from. She met Ginny's smile with a stony glare, and turned to mount the steps.

  She stopped, locking eyes with the smiling Greek gentleman standing, oh, so casually, in the center of the exit from the box. The woman froze, sour expression replaced by apprehension. Mentor Metaxas raised one jet black eyebrow, inquiringly.

  The woman glanced back at Ginny, who also met her gaze.

  Ginny said, as soothingly as Sonorous would let her, "Of course, no such exhibition could, or should be allowed at the Final. Those traditions, handed down through the centuries, are sacrosanct to all Quidditch fans, AS THEY SHOULD BE!"

  The woman was very still for a moment as the crowd went mad. Cheers were echoing back from the surrounding Andes. She relaxed, gave Ginny a rueful smile and a small nod, then returned to her seat

  ***

  In the box below, Harry and Ron were grinning widely.

  Ron fumbled up his Omnioculars one-handed, looking over the teams below, who were settling onto the pitch and grounding their brooms, in anticipation of the official start of the game.

  He whistled softly. "It looks like somebody hasn't jumped on the old 'Sportsmanship' bandwagon. Dennis Moon looks mad enough to chew glass and spit decorative pendants. He's shouting at someone on the other team."

  "Probably Levski," said Dara distractedly, still bent over Ron's hand. "Moon claims Bogomil faked being cobbed last season, and got Dennis thrown out of a game."

  "How in the world can you fake receiving a cobbing?" Harry demanded.

  Dara shrugged. "As far as I know, you can't. But Moon is not famous for taking responsibility for his own actions." She looked up at Ron, a little exasperation showing in her voice. "What is this stuff, anyway?"

  "Pixie dust," he replied, not taking his focus off the pitch. "You're probably right, Dara. Levski's just standing there, looking haughty and superior. The other New Zealand Chasers are holding Moon back, and here comes Baverstock at a run."

  Dara was looking bemused. "Purple Pixie dust?"

  "Oh!" said Harry, lights coming on. "It's not purple! It's Lilac, right?"

  Ron nodded slightly, still watching the action.

  Harry went on to Dara, "See, my son discovered a new breed of Pixies. They're a lot calmer than the blue ones, actually sort of civilised. We accidentally kidnapped a few of them, and it worked out so well that we invited the lot of them to take up residence." Harry gave sort of a wincing shrug. "And I do mean, a lot of them. For the most part, though, they stay out of sight. I think they have their own things going on, and we're just sort of big, clumsy pets."

  "Pixie dust, huh?" Dara said. "I can probably work with that."

  "Brilliant," Ron said, laying the Omnioculars back down. "That'll make the Berts happy."

  "The Berts?" inquired Harry.

  Ron smiled. "Herbert and Bertram. They're real go-getters. Fancy themselves entrepreneurs. Al brought them to me. They had an idea they wanted to bounce off me, as a man of business, so to speak."

  Harry wasn't even tempted to grin. Ron was a businessman, and not bad at it either.

  "Actually, they had a few ideas. This, however, was about the dust. Pixies naturally shed the dust when they're active, the more active, the more dust. Albus says it's about a third to a half of their body weight every day."

  "That's a lot of Pixie dust," Harry said, thinking of the crowds that had turned out to watch Luna and him traverse the Passages.

  "And they can't just let it build up either. Strange things start happening if too much gathers in one spot. They have a whole, department, I guess you would call it, and it's dedicated to policing the stuff up and out of the living space. It's like Muggle garbage collection. Everyone cleans their own space, and they set it out for the dust-men. Dust-pixies, whatever. Those are also responsible for maintaining the public areas."

  "Up until now, they have just been disposing of it in running water. As magical as it is, it seemed a shame. It's not like dumping garbage, though. It actually cleans the water, and promotes microflora and microfauna growth."

  Harry did snort at the fancy words. "Luna?" he asked.

  Ron grinned. "Nah. It was Rolf. He and the Berts are thick as thieves, and he's picking up the trick of understanding them. He was the one that suggested they come to me. He knows about D&W's research department." He looked down at his hand with a touch of pride. "But Muggins here came up with one use already. It's perfect for Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes, providing..."

  He paused, then spoke to the redheaded Auror. "What do you think, Dara?'

  "Pretty sure I have a line on it," she said, still concentrating.

  Ron nodded. "If you can come up with a reliable counter-charm, or counter-jinx, I'll make sure you get credit and a percentage!" Dara gave him a quick grateful glance.

  "A percentage of what?" asked Harry.

  Ron half-closed his eyes as he thought. After a moment, he said, "Pixie Poppers! Paint Your Pals Purple!"

  "Brilliant," said Harry, and meant it.

  "Too bad we haven't gotten a look at my Beta Testers," Ron said. "I'd love to see some of the idiots that caught a faceful of the stuff!"

  Harry cocked his head and thought back to his circuit above the stadium. While he hadn't had attention to spare for anything over and above staying on his broom, he did remember seeing several flashes of bright lilac color. At the time, he had thought it was some sort of spell effect.

  The thought made him smile. Just then, Dara said firmly, "That's got it!"

  Harry looked over to see a lilac coloured ball about the size of a taw marble. It was slowly rotating, outward from the tip of Dara's wand. Ron's hand looked as good as, well, normal.

  "Brilliant!" said Harry and Ron simultaneously. Kyinté added something emphatic in his own language.

  Dara grinned unabashedly. "Weel, it prob'ly would've gone away by itself. A few days, a week or two at most. I fiddled with the Siphon spell until I could target just the dust, and up and off it came."

  "Oh, you're definitely getting a piece of the pie!" Ron enthused. "Here, let me take that." He produced a crystal vial, and Dara manouevered the ball into it. Ron sealed the vial, and watched as the ball collapsed into dust that flowed like liquid.

  "Interesting," said Ron. "Apparently the process makes the dust much finer." He eyed Dara speculatively. "Are you full or part-time as an Auror?"

  "Part-time," she replied. "I'm studyin' t' be a medi-wizard, boot it's early days, and I'm not sure I'm cut out."

  "Better and better." Ron smiled broadly. "Consider this an official job offer, then. Get with me after the Cup, if you're interested." Dara's eyes widened.

  "Hey! No fair!" Harry protested." If you get to poach her, I get to poach Kyinté!"

  He looked over at the big man. "How about it? Are you interested in a full-time British Ministry of Magic job? Good pay and benefits, even by International standards, and it's never boring." Ron rolled his eyes in acknowledgement of that last.

  Kyinté's smile was broad as well. "I shall most certainly consider it, sah. Th' promotion is slow at home. And, wi' Portkeys and all, it makes no difference where I work."

  Harry nodded, pleased. "After the Cup, then."

  Ron had retrieved his Ominoculars. "About ready to go. As they probably say around here, the Drama Llamas seem to have gotten over themselves."

  Harry groaned. Dara snorted. Kyinté raised a majestic eyebrow.

  ***

  "Ladies and Gentlemen, Witches and Wizards, Warlocks and Sorceresses, I give you the Quarter-Final Game between the National Teams of New Zealand, (a pause for the crowd to roar), and Bulgaria! (Another pause)."

  "Players! By your Brooms!" (They already were).

  "Hands OUT!" (Same).

  "Release the Balls! (A pause for the Snitch to speed out of sight).

  "BROOMS UP!"