Scarlet Scarves

Chapter 1—On the Road with Roger and Lana

The dog was a solid halfway down the lane before I realized what was happening, and by then it was too late anyway. I'd fallen backward when he'd wriggled his neck out of the makeshift collar Id been holding but I picked myself up slowly, dusting the dirt off myself. I knew better than to think I could catch him.

From down by the house Roger's voice sounded. He must have heard the yelp I'd let out and the barked reply. "Goddamn it Tennessee." He shouted. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

I blushed scarlet. Roger was a year older than me, the captain of the Ravenclaw Quidditch team, and very cute. (Off limits of course because he was Lana's jerk older brother but sometimes when I stayed over at Lana's he came down to breakfast in just the long pants he wore to sleep and I couldn't help but notice he had very nice arms.) "He just got away from me." I called back.

"Well go get him for fuck's sake! We're running late as it is."

I swore to myself under my breath as I jogged down the lane. I hadn't wanted to watch the dog and the luggage—I hadn't even really wanted to go to the stupid Quidditch World Cup— and yet here I was, hunting the goddamn countryside for the mangy thing.

My best friend Lana Davies and I had found the dog three days ago in the creek bed behind her house and she had absolutely insisted we bring it home. The pup was only about a year old or so but completely untrained and not very pretty either. (He had a short, ugly tail stuck to his short, ugly body like a lump of brown play-doh and one of his ears drooped inexplicably). She hadn't thought up a name for him yet so he was simply known as 'the dog.'

I must have run for about ten minutes before I found the awful thing. It was sitting in the middle of the road scratching one of its numerous fleas and seeming to grin up at me as if this were a game of tag. He started to trot off again when he saw me but thinking quickly I unslung my knapsack and dug out my sandwich. It was only corned beef but it smelled strongly and the dog couldn't ignore it.

He trotted compliantly over just as if he were the most well-behaved show dog and let me refasten the collar to him, this time on a tighter setting. He panted corned beef breath in my face happily. I unhooked one of the straps on my knapsack and fasted it to the collar as a lead of sorts but to my infinite relief he seemed happy just to jog next to me the whole way back.

Roger and Lana were waiting for me at the pile of backpacks and sundry luggage. Roger bent down and clipped the real collar onto the dog. "What's this?" He asked me when he stood again, my knapsack strap in hand. He looked like he thought I was the biggest idiot on the face of the planet.

"Er…the strap from my bag." I explained lamely.

He handed it back to me quickly, like it was dirty or something. Lana was busy playing with her newly returned friend, letting him jump up and slobber on her jeans. "Who's a good boy? Who's a good boy?" She cooed at him.

Not you that's for damn sure, I thought at the dog sullenly.

"Well are we going or what Lana?" Roger asked grumpily. "The portkey won't wait and we were already running late before your stupid friend let go of the damn dog."

Lana looked up from coddling her new pet. "Shut the hell up Roger!" She said, punching him in the arm. "We'll make it on time."

The hike through the woods was fun, almost. Lana and I chatted as we walked about thirty yards behind Roger. Roger was a dick under normal circumstances but he was extra grumpy about being put in charge of looking after us at the Cup. It was a good deal for Lana and I, who would have had to go with a parent otherwise, but Roger could have gone with just his friends if we hadn't come. Still, the morning was the perfect end-of-summer temperature and Roger lightened up when we met a few of his friends from school on the road.

Getting to be outdoors was what I liked most about spending time at Lana's house. I'd lived my whole life in cities and hadn't even really known what to expect of the countryside when she'd invited me after first year, much less what it would be like living with a magical family. I'd learned quickly from Lana how to live outdoors—climb trees, jump over fences, catch fireflies and toads. And her family had made domestic magic seem comfortable and regular.

As we turned off the road into the forest, Jack, one of the older boys, dropped back to walk with Lana and I. "Who are you two going for?" He asked us.

"Bulgaria." Lana said instantly. Lana didn't really have an opinion on the Bulgarian team per say but Roger was a staunch Irish supporter and she knew as well as I did she was strongly pro inter-sibling strife.

"How about you?" He asked.

I shrugged. "I dunno." I said honestly. "Which one is the underdog?"

"Bulgaria." He said.

"I guess them then." This rule, of picking the underdogs I mean, was the same one I used about football games my dad took me too as well.

Jack laughed a little bit at that and said that I was funny. I'm not sure if he meant I was humorous (I wasn't trying to be) or that I was odd. "Who are you going for?" Lana asked him.

He spread his arms and grinned, "Ireland alas." He said.

We walked for a few minutes, listening to Jack enumerating the strengths and weaknesses of the key players of each team. Lana already knew most of this (she had two other brothers besides Roger) but I listened carefully. I didn't want to be the most ignorant person at the Cup.

"And then there's Krum…" Jack said, his voice dipping in reverence.

Lana cut in, "oh don't start! If anyone else mentions this Krum kid I'm going to hex myself into pieces. Basically Tennessee he's the best thing since sliced bread and that's all you need to know."

Jack laughed. "That was what I was going to say with just a few more words." He admitted.

Jack talked with us for a few more minutes and then sped up to catch his friends. "He's nice." I said when he'd left.

Lana shrugged. "Never met him before."

"What he isn't one of Roger's friends?"

"Seems far to nice to be to me." Lana said.

We reached the portkey with about fifteen minutes to spare. There were two girls from Hogwarts there from our year already waiting. They separated themselves quickly from the tired, motherly looking witch they were standing with when they saw the crowd of boys emerge from the wood.

"Tennessee Scarlet!" One of the, Allison Smilie who I knew from fifth year Charms called to me. "How the…" she seemed to cut this short as she realized her mother was standing ten feet from her. "…how are you?"

"Not bad. And you?" I asked.

"Excited as hell. You?"

They said nothing else interesting—the conversation was mostly comprised of them jealously bemoaned the fact that we were parentless for the whole weekend. I was just glad that they didn't want to talk about the actual Cup, because both of them already had large shamrocks fastened to their cloaks and one had a thick Irish accent.

"Come on you two!" Jack yelled to us. "The portkey is going to leave in a minute."

I'd never used a portkey but I'd made Lana describe the process the night before so I wouldn't look like an idiot when the time came. We all crowded around the dirty old tire and waited. Lana's elbow was in my ribs and I could smell someone's armpit.

"Roger get your…" Lana started to say but then…it was an interesting feeling. I'd been water-skiing once before and it was a similar kind of pressure except from just behind my navel instead of on my arms. The rushing feeling was similar too, except instead of lakeside property, swirling colors were howling by. The only difference was that I couldn't seem to leg go of the tire, which hadn't been a problem on my failed water-skiing adventures.

My legs went out from under me. Jack made a grab for me with his free hand but he wasn't fast enough. When we hit what seemed like half an hour later we hit suddenly and with dramatic force. "Nine thirty from Glenwood Groove," someone said.

I sat up quickly and was pleased to note that almost everyone else was on the ground too. In addition to the people who had been at Glenwood Groove were two wizards, one with a watch and the other with a roll of parchment. The one with the watch was wearing coveralls and ruffled shirt that looked like it was from a pirate movie. The other had on a very tight, very trendy pair of acid-washed jeans made for women and a rain slicker.

The one with the watch found our names on a roll and directed us about a quarter mile down the road to the campsite we'd reserved. We said goodbye to the group of boys and the two girls from our year.

Mr. and Mrs. Davies had given me the muggle money and reservations so it was me who dealt with the muggle at the gate. He seemed somewhat dazed at this point though, undoubtedly from near constant memory wipes, as he handed me my change and a map of the campsite.

The tents around our space seemed to be a mix but there were tents you could tell were strongly for one side or the other. The Irish tents, for example looked as if they'd sprung right out the grass they were such a vivid green color. It was, I joked to Lana, like chunks of the Emerald City had set down in the field, but she'd never heard of The Wizard of OZ so she didn't get it. But if the Irish tents were comparable to Emeralds, the Bulgarian ones were certainly rubies. They were explosion of scarlet with the huge national flags protruding like tumors from the side.

Because none of us were old enough to perform magic over the summer (not, I'm sure because Lana or Roger would have obeyed the rules about muggle security if they'd had a choice) we set the tents up by hand. Actually, I set the tents up while Roger wandered off to find his best friend Williams, who would be camping with us but was coming in on the ten thirty from Goathead Style, and Lana got in my way trying to help.

The tent was smaller than I imagined it would be when I got it up. "Going to be a bit cramped in there isn't it?" I asked. I was imagining a post-game high Roger and I snuggling up together in the cramped tent.

"Not with just the four of us." Lana said as we crawled through the flap. I stood up in a very cheery looking cabin-looking room complete with a sink, indoor toilet, oven and four neat bunks. "Yeah, see there are four beds."

"Right." I said. I wasn't sure that Lana would understand if I told her that not all tents were like this. Besides, I more wanted to see what was in the refrigerator.

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By the time we made it to the Stadium even Roger was in a good mood. The Ministry wizards who had been running back and forth all afternoon trying to stem the ever increasing flow of blatant magic seemed to have given up at this point. With little 'pops' carts were appearing everywhere, loaded down with merchandise. Some salesmen sold for just one team or another but most were a mixed bag.

Roger bought a model of one of the Irish seekers and a huge green shamrock pin that squeaked the names of the players. I thought I saw him take a longing glance at a full sized poster of the Bulgarian seeker but he seemed to know better than to try to buy it in front of Lana.

As for Lana herself she had already bought a Bulgarian flag and had a scarlet scarf with a roaring lion slung around her neck. When she waved her flag (which she rarely stopped) it sung the national anthem, only it did so in Bulgarian so I can't be sure what it said.

Williams bought three shamrocks and a dancing hat. He supported Ireland during the regular season and was more excited about this game than any of the rest of us. Consequently, he was much more obnoxious than usual.

Williams was the kind of teenage boy whose faults could be forgiven if only he had any charms to balance them. The dismissive way he treated everybody, the way he just said whatever popped to his head, would have been okay if he'd been handsome like Roger or funny like Jack or famous like Krum or even if he just stopped expecting everyone to be nice to him back. But he had this imperious way of just doing what he wanted.

It was, coincidentally, exactly the kind of arrogance that really, really pissed Lana off. She used to call him Kaiser Wilhelm until in third year he called me a flat-chested bookworm, who could only get a guy if I was willing to put out, to my face. Since then she prefers to call him only by obscenities.

I bought a Bulgarian scarf and the poster of Krum that Roger had been looking at. "He's cute." Lana said as the vendor rolled it up for me.

I rolled my eyes. "If you say so." I said.

Krum wasn't exactly ugly but cute was a stretch even for Lana's imagination. He had a nice, balanced face and a powerful build but he was so surly looking with his intense scowl and eyes. But Lana didn't see that. What Lana saw when she looked at Krum was a world class Quidditch player: the kind of famous that made her brother looking longingly at this poster even as he was picking up merchandise in support of the other team. She saw the respect and fame Krum had, not Krum himself.

Still, on the other hand, who was I to criticize? I had a crush on her brother, who treated me like dirt, and for no other reason except that he looked good with his shirt off. Thinking that about my best friend felt a little awkward but as we mounted the steps I forgot all about it in the buzz of the crowd. The tension and anticipation had been mounting all afternoon and it was a fever pitch by then.

We had mediocre seats, nothing spectacular but not half bad either.

"I hope they get started soon." Lana said after about five minutes of fidgeting in her seat. "I'm ready to see Krum kick some Irish ass."

"Ireland's the favorite." William broke in. "Krum is a prodigy player to be sure but he can't pull his whole team by himself."

"Want to bet on that fuck-head?" Lana asked, whipping around to face him.

"Absolutely." William said. "Ten galleons on Ireland."

"Make it twenty."

"How about you Tennessee?" William asked.

I shrugged. I didn't know enough about the two teams to make any educated guesses but I also didn't want to abandon Lana. "Uhhh…I'd go ten that Krum catches the Snitch." I offered.

"Okay." William agreed.

"Ladies and Gentlemen…welcome! Welcome to the final of the four hundred and twenty-second Quidditch World Cup!" A voice boomed over the now screaming crowd. "And now, without further ado, allow me to introduce…the Bulgarian National Team Mascots."

Lana clapped hard, waving her Bulgarian flag and stamping her feet. "Team Mascots?" I said aloud in wonder, peering down into the field where it seemed like a hundred women dressed in flowing white dresses were pouring out onto the turf. They were strangely beautiful, like they were from another planet almost or paintings of real people animated.

And then they began to dance and Roger and Williams began to act very strangely. Roger was staring down into the stands with an, odd hungry look that made a hot little spear of jealousy shoot through me. Williams was drooling a little bit.

Lana rolled her eyes. "Veela." She explained to me. "When they dance men can hear something we can't. I'm not sure what the hell the fuss is about though. They're down right weird looking if you ask me."

I looked down in interest now. I'd never heard of a spell that was danced before and I wanted to study it closer. But the veela were exiting the field (to loud protests from the men in the audience). "And now," roared the announcer, "kindly put your wands in the air…for the Irish National Team Mascots!"

I missed the first part of the Irish Mascots; I was still peering over to where the veela were, puzzling about dancing magic. In fact I only realized what was happening when a galleon struck me square on the head. I looked up and found that thousands of tiny men in green suits were flying over me in the shape of a shamrock. "Leprechauns!" I whispered aloud.

After almost six years of living in the magical world it could still surprise me. But soon the shamrock broke apart to float down to the opposite side of the field as the veela. "And now ladies and gentlemen, kindly welcome—the Bulgarian National Quidditch Team! I give you—Dimitrov!"

They whizzed out of the gate as their names were call at absolutely unsafe speeds, eliciting a huge uproar from the scarlet clad supporters. "Ivanova! Zograf! Levski! Vulchanov! Volkov! Aaaaaaand—Krum!"

On his broom Krum looked almost graceful. He handled it lazily as he made the lap around the stadium with his team, twitching it one way or another like it was smooth muscle reflex to fly.

"And now, please greet—the Irish National Quidditch Team! Presenting—Connolly! Ryan! Troy! Mullet! Moran! Quigley Aaaaand—Lynch!" Roger and Williams were cheering so loudly for their team I didn't hear the rest of the announcement.

On the field the box with the Bludgers and (presumably the Snitch though I didn't see it) was opened. "Theeeey're OFF!" The announcer shouted.

I had, of course, seen Quidditch before, everybody went to the house games, but it hardly seemed to be the same sport. The Irish Chasers were moving so quickly I could hardly follow the ball, much less what was happening.

I could make out the generalities—the Irish Chasers were clearly superior but the Bulgarian Beaters were very good too. "I hope you've got the twenty galleons you're about to owe me Lana." William said when the score was three and zero to Ireland.

But right as he said it a roar went up. The two Seekers were racing hard and fast toward the ground. I squinted hard for the Snitch but couldn't make it out. Lana grabbed my arm and dug her nails in painfully until I yelped. I took my eyes off the game for a second to see if I could dissuade her from gripping me so tightly missed what happened.

It wasn't hard to figure out though. When I turned back Krum was floating up and Lynch was a pile of green robes in the green grass surrounded by the medical staff. Lana laughed high and wicked. "Now who's laughing shithead!" She said to Williams.

"Feinting!" Roger groaned. "I can't believe he was feinting!"

When Lynch returned to the game he returned to a dirtier one. Cobbing, Stimping, Froddering, Toading—Fouls I'd never even heard of were announced and the veela and leprechauns were getting more and more nasty to each other.

I was watching the veela, who had transformed somehow into long beaked birds and were battling the leprechauns, when Lana grabbed my arm. "Oh my God! Lynch!" She shrieked.

My eyes followed the line of her arm to where Lynch had gone into a dive that looked like no feint to me. And then out of nowhere Krum seemed to be right behind him (and when had Krum's nose been broken? I wondered). Lana was gripping my arm painfully hard again but I didn't turn away as for the second time Lynch hit the ground with a sickening 'thud.'

"What happened?" William yelled, as if any of us could know yet.

But then I saw Krum's fist was thrust skyward. "Krum's got it!" I yelled back. "But who won?"

The scoreboard read Bulgaria: 160, Ireland: 170. "IRELAND WINS!" The announcer shouted but, he, like most of the crowd, seemed not to have yet wrapped his head around what had happened. "KRUM GETS THE SNITCH—BUT IRELAND WINS—good lord, I don't think any of us were expecting that!"

"Why'd he do it?" I asked as we walked back through the dark campsite, stumbling from side to side in giddy drunkenness. "If Ireland was more than one hundred and fifty points ahead why catch the Snitch?"

"Because Bulgaria was never going to catch up." Williams said snottily, jingling the gold in his pockets at Lana. "And he probably didn't want to fly around too much longer with a bloody nose."

Lana just flicked him off. She seemed surprisingly tolerant of William's ceaseless mocking, especially since she'd had to pay him twenty galleons just ten minutes earlier.

The campsite was dark but over to the side we could see a bonfire was getting started and two men were bouncing jets of magical purple fire back and forth. "That's not exactly inconspicuous." I yawned tiredly.

"Let's go check it out." Williams said. "Might be fun."

"Yeah all right. You two go back to the tent." Roger told us.

"Okay." Lana said placidly. "But if you aren't back by morning Tennessee and I aren't coming looking for you. You'll take care of your own hangovers too."

"What's up Lana?" I asked as we pushed through the tent flap.

"What do you mean?" She said.

"You just seem less…angry than I'd imagine you'd be since your team lost." I said. "And you're being really tolerant of Roger and Williams too."

She shrugged. "It was a good game." She said simply. "Besides," she added with an evil smirk, "I feel pretty smug about paying Williams with the leprechaun gold. It'll be gone by the end of the night."

"You didn't." I gaped.

She laughed. "Little fucker deserves worse."

I pulled on my pajamas and crawled into bed, thinking about the stupid things Roger was probably doing with some girl and wishing the tent weren't suddenly so cold.

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It seemed to me that I was fully awake even before the bang that woke me had finished. I sat up and cracked my head against Lana's bunk, swore twice and grasped the tender patch until it settled into a dull throb.

Sliding my feet into my sneakers I stumbled quickly out of the tent. The raucous sounds we'd been hearing all night seemed to have changed suddenly and now they were moving toward us. And someone was screaming.

My breath fogged a little in front of me as I rounded the tent corner and froze. A crowd of people were moving into the camping area: not a sinister thing on it's own but there was a queer vibe in the air that I knew meant trouble. And then I saw that high above them were floating four shapes, writhing and contorting grotesquely. One of them was the muggle who had been tending the campground gates.

I dashed back into the tent and shook Lana awake. "We've got to get out of here." I said, my voice shaking slightly. "There's trouble."

"What? What are you talking about Tennessee?" She asked drowsily but she had picked up on the fear in my voice and she was already swinging down off her bunk.

"The crowd." I explained. "They've gone nutters. They've got some muggles and they're doing something awful to them."

"What do you mean?" She asked as she put on her shoes hurriedly.

"I dunno. They're floating them over the crowd somehow." I explained as we hurried out the tent. "See." I pointed. "Think we should go try to help them out?"

Lana shook her head, suddenly ash white. She went to where the dog had been tied to one of the corner stakes and unfastened his lead. He barked a little and whined, tucking his tail between his legs. "If they're doing this to muggles they'd do it to muggle-borns too." She said, looking right at me. "We've got to get into the woods and do it quickly."

That seemed ridiculous to me. I knew of course about You-Know-Who and Death Eaters but they seemed like a long past chapter in history, not a present danger, especially not to me. I feared You-Know-Who about as much as I feared a communist nuclear missile strike.

I opened my mouth to say as much but just then one of the masked wizards blasted down a tent in his path. "Okay." I said. "Let's get to the woods."

Once we had decided to get to the woods it seemed like we couldn't get there fast enough. We started for them at a slow walk the time we made it to the first trees we were both sprinting as hard as we could. "What about your brother?" I asked as we flopped down against a wide tree stump a few hundred meters along the path to catch our breath.

"He and Williams can take care of themselves." She said. "Besides they're both pureborns, they're not in any danger."

"Are you not in any danger either Lana?" I asked.

She shrugged awkwardly.

After we caught our breath we walked a little further. Since we were on the path there was no fear of getting lost and the more distance we put between us and the screaming, we reasoned, the better.

A little way further we found a group of veela and a flock of young men surrounding them. "That's disgusting." Lana said dismissively.

It was about to voice my consent when I noticed one of them was Roger. He and William were pushing each other and flexing and generally acting like total idiots as they yelled outrageous falsehoods.

"Look!" I said, pointing. "It's Roger. Do you think we should do something?"

Lana laughed. "Why? He's already making a total ass of himself, we can hardly improve the situation."

So we sat down at the edge of the weird silver light cast by the veela and watched the stupidity unfold. People wandered by occasionally and formed groups as the clearing was big and far enough away from the commotion to feel safe.

"You weren't in any real danger." Lana said suddenly, as if to convince herself as well as me. "It isn't like the old days when You-Know-Who was around. These people are probably just drunken revelers who've had a few too many beers. They can't do any real damage."

But I couldn't help thinking about the terrified looks on the faces of the muggles floating fifty feet in the air. I shivered a little and wrapped my robe around myself tighter. "It's a shame they don't give off something useful like heat too." Lana said, gesturing to the veela.

I giggled and scooted up closer to her as if sharing body heat would make a significant difference. "At least we won't have to say 'nothing' when anyone asks us what we did this summer." I tried to joke.

Lana let the dog jump up on her lap and curl up there to warm her as she stroked it's ugly head. "Now's about as good a time as any to name this little gentleman. What do you think Tennessee?"

I considered. "The Ugliest Dog in the World?" I suggested.

She shoved my shoulder. "How about Prince Charming?"

"How about something tribal like Dog-Whose-Breath-Is-Bad."

"Or He-Who-Is-Awesome."

"Williams?"

"Cedrick Diggory." She countered, naming the handsomest boy in our school.

I was just considering how to counter that when there was a noise like a firecracker releasing and I turned my head skyward just in time to see a green skull bloom in the night sky. The group of people standing to the left of us shrieked in fear as the mouth of the skull opened and a long, evil snake slid out. "Oh fuck." I heard myself say.

"It's the Dark Mark!"

"You-Know-Who had returned!"

The clearing, which had been buzzing with the tension of being split from friends and family in a crisis, erupted. The veela were finally forgotten as people full out panicked. The dog was yelping, picking the stress up from the crowd, and leaped off of Lana's lap, running for the woods hard enough to knock him off his feet when he hit the end of his leash.

Roger and Williams hurried over to us, both of them white-faced and shaking. "We've been worried about you two." Roger said. "Where we're you?"

"Yeah you looked worried." Lana returned snottily, gesturing to the veela, but even her sarcasm had gone limp under the green skull. "And we've been hanging around here for almost an hour watching you lot make total idiots of yourselves."

We were silent until the Ministry Wizard came to tell the crowd that the 'situation' had been contained, no it was not You-Know-Who who sent the Mark nor any of his followers, just a prank and could we all return to our tents in an orderly fashion thank you very much.

"Prank! The Ministry must think we're all a bunch of idiots." Williams said as we trudged back to the tent.

"Well in your case they'd be right." Said Lana.

"I bet it was a real Death Eater as sent the Mark." Williams continued, ignoring Lana. "But the Ministry just doesn't want to tell us about it."

Maybe it was the long day or the stress but for some reason I just didn't want to listen to Williams stupid, arrogant assumptions any more. "You know who I think sent it?" I said snottily. "The alligators in the New York sewers."

But, of course, no one got the joke.

AN: Well I hope you liked this introductory chapter. Please, please, please review (constructive criticism is most helpful). Here is a taste of the next chapter.

The man in front reached Dumbledoor and shook his hand genially. They spoke for a minute and then began to move up the stairs. They moved closer and closer until they got into the lee of the building and suddenly I could hear their voices loudly.

"…into the warmth…you don't mind, Dumbledoor? Viktor has a slight head cold…" The head of Durmstrang was saying.

"Oh my God!" Lana said as the Durmstrang kids passed us. "It's him Tennessee! He's here! Viktor Krum has come to Hogwarts! I can't believe it!" She had said he was cute at the world cup. She'd grabbed my arm when she'd thought he was in trouble but it was nothing compared to what she was doing now.

Her fingers felt like they were bruising my bones they were so deep in the flesh of my arm and Lana had a look on her face I'd never seen before.

She was starstruck.