How It All Goes Down
The Quidditch World Cup
- Through the woods next to the campground, they find a giant stadium that can seat one hundred thousand people.
- As they walk up to the top box where Mr. Weasley has seats (thanks to Ludo Bagman), Harry sees someone who looks like his friend Dobby.
- (Dobby is a house-elf who Harry meets in the second book in the series, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. House-elves are magical servants; they're bound to the oldest wizarding families, and are incredibly loyal.)
- But it's not Dobby. It's another house-elf named Winky, who works for Mr. Crouch.
- Winky is saving Mr. Crouch a seat.
- Winky and Harry have a chat about Dobby – Winky is horrified that Dobby "is wanting paying for his work" (8.20).
- It's not a house-elf thing to get paid for work.
- Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic (so, like the Prime Minister of Britain's magical community) comes into the top box with the Bulgarian Minister of Magic.
- Fudge greets Harry (whom he met during the adventures of the third book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban).
- Fudge then says hello to a family that has just come in to the top box: Lucius, Narcissa, and Draco Malfoy. This can't be good.
- The Malfoys are a very old, very rich, very anti-Muggle wizarding family.
- Draco is Harry's nemesis and the Seeker on the Slytherin House Quidditch team.
- At last, the World Cup actually begins.
- The first stage of the match is "a display from the team mascots" (8.34).
- The mascots for the Bulgarian team are veela.
- Veela look like beautiful women. They enchant every man in the stadium to forget everything else but their beauty.
- As the veela dance, Harry starts to think that "he would, of course, be supporting Bulgaria, and he wondered vaguely why he had a large green shamrock pinned to his chest" (8.64).
- Then, the Irish mascots come on the field: they're leprechauns.
- The leprechauns make gold rain down on the stands. (OK, so they're fun to root for too.)
- Ron gives Harry a handful of leprechaun gold for the Omnioculars Harry bought him.
- Then the Irish and Bulgarian teams come flying on to the Quidditch field.
- Play starts off fast and furious.
- The Irish team has a really organized offensive formation, and they're scoring one goal after another.
- But even though Ireland's score is going up and up, everyone is most impressed by the Bulgarian Seeker.
- Viktor Krum gets in some really fancy and difficult flying.
- Aidan Lynch, the Seeker on the Irish team, flies straight into the ground trying to keep up with Krum.
- Things are definitely getting tense.
- Finally, all of a sudden, as Ireland is now leading Bulgaria 170 to 10, Aidan Lynch (even though probably a little stunned) spots the Snitch.
- He and Krum fly for it, but Krum is better on a broomstick. Krum gets the Snitch.
- So the final result of this Quidditch World Cup Match is Bulgaria 160 to Ireland 170 – Ireland wins, but Bulgaria got the Snitch.
- Ludo Bagman (who's been announcing for the game) calls the final result.
- Harry, Hermione, and Ron agree that Krum had no other choice but to catch the Snitch when he did – Bulgaria was never going to catch up.
- Hermione thinks Krum "was very brave" (8.144).
- The whole stadium is cheering for Ireland and for Krum.
- As Ludo stops his announcing, Fred and George are waiting for him: they won their bet with him about the outcome of the game.