Chapter 153 — Beyond the Arrival Field

The pull came from somewhere behind my navel. For an instant my feet seemed to have stayed on the hill while the rest of me went elsewhere, dragged after an old boot which had suddenly acquired far too much importance.

Luna’s hand tightened round mine. Colour streamed past without becoming anything I could recognise, and I concentrated on keeping my fingers against the leather until the ground returned beneath us.

‘Now!’ Arthur called. I let go and bent my knees, discovering that understanding an instruction did not oblige my legs to carry it out gracefully. My heel slid, Luna stumbled against me, and between us we managed to remain standing.

Ron landed on one knee beside Harry. Hermione caught Charlie’s arm, which he offered without appearing to regard it as an unusual part of travelling, while Amos dropped the boot into a basket beside a waiting witch.

‘Fourteen?’ she asked. Arthur counted before confirming it, and she pointed us towards the marked exit. ‘Keep the landing space clear, please.’

Bill helped Ron up. Fred opened his mouth, noticed the stains on his own knees and brushed at them instead, giving his brother enough time to walk past without comment.

I kept Luna’s hand until we were beyond the circle. She checked the fastening on her shoe while I recovered the bag which had slipped down my arm.

‘How was that?’ I asked. She straightened, looking back at the basket and its thoroughly unremarkable contents.

‘I prefer arriving to travelling.’ She offered me her hand again, and I agreed that this had been a particularly good example of the difference.

Dew shone on the ropes beside our route. At another arrival point, a man checked names with a steaming mug tucked between his elbow and his coat, and warm smells drifted from the first food stalls beyond the field.

Harry asked whether we would use the same object to get home. Arthur explained that our return would be assigned from the departure area, with its own object and time.

‘Don’t take a boot because it looks familiar,’ he added. Harry assured him he had not intended to, but Arthur said we would be surprised what people tried.

We passed a row of tents and rounded a bend in the path. The stadium rose beyond the lower buildings, a vast curve of stands and supports which made the people at its feet seem briefly out of scale. Flags moved above the entrances, and Ron stopped talking halfway through a sentence.

Harry shaded his eyes. ‘We’re going in there,’ he said, following a line of steps towards seats high enough to make me want something firmer beneath me than a plank.

‘Eventually.’ I moved aside for a worker carrying a crate. ‘The match isn’t until this evening. We’ve got time to settle in first.’

Ron looked at me as though I had asked him to wait until Christmas afternoon. Then he noticed a tray being carried out of a stall and began giving the nearer parts of the occasion their fair share of attention.

The trading area was waking around us. A woman tied back a canvas front while her partner arranged food behind the counter; further along, two performers disagreed amiably about where a painted screen ought to stand. A delivery trolley waited in the clear lane behind them until someone lifted the barrier.

I looked for the gap beside the performance space. A family passed through it without crossing the people waiting for breakfast, following the path we had changed after Luna’s visit.

‘That looks better,’ she said, catching where I was looking. I watched the family reach the other side before agreeing, with rather more relief than the sight of a path ought to produce.

‘Mr Mercer!’ A man with a leather folder came towards us from the service lane. His pencil was tucked behind one ear, and he had the expression of someone already well into a working day.

‘Rupert. How are we doing?’ I stopped clear of the lane so the answer would not begin with a request to move.

‘One late delivery, one performer asking for a larger platform, and a complaint that this morning’s menu doesn’t include yesterday’s pie.’ He opened the folder while I considered which problem to ask about first.

‘Can it include yesterday’s pie?’ I asked. A kitchen solution sounded more approachable than rebuilding a stage with people gathering beside it.

‘Daniel would prefer to serve food we actually have.’ Rupert smiled, then looked past my shoulder. ‘Bill?’

Bill came forward, and they shook hands with pleased surprise. He had thought Rupert was still working at Gringotts, which prompted Rupert to explain that he now spent considerably more time finding out why deliveries had failed to arrive.

‘A change of scene,’ Bill said. Rupert replied that the difference was smaller than he might imagine, closing the folder before I introduced him to the others.

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He coordinated our work on the ground. A proposal might begin as a sketch in my notebook, but suppliers, schedules and checking whether anything had actually been delivered eventually brought it into his folder.

‘We’ve heard a little about all this,’ Arthur said. He looked towards the line of stalls, where another barrier was being opened for the trolley.

‘Oswald’s idea has kept quite a few people occupied,’ Rupert told him. I asked whether he could make that sound more reassuring, and he pointed after the trolley. ‘The delivery lane is working. Start with that.’

We walked through the area together while he explained what had changed since my last visit. A stall had moved to keep its queue clear of a turning, and the stage would stay smaller than the performer wanted so people could leave its audience without climbing through it.

The concessions had served visitors during the preparations. That had revealed what people bought and where they stood while deciding, as well as producing bills Rupert carried with him. I asked about the screens before he could begin the accounts in front of everyone.

‘One is running now,’ he said. ‘They found the fault in the other connection overnight. You can see the first beyond this row.’

Harry looked towards me at the word “screens”. I let Rupert lead us round the stalls, where a display stood above a sheltered viewing area, high enough to be seen from the benches beneath it.

It showed an empty section of the stadium. A man in a work apron crossed the picture and held up two fingers towards something outside its frame; beside us, a technician waved back before laughing at himself.

‘He can’t see you,’ I said. The technician acknowledged that with a rueful glance at his own hand and went back to inspecting the image.

Harry moved closer. ‘That’s happening now?’ He watched the man turn away and disappear beyond the edge of the picture.

‘Yes. If his colleague’s still cleaning those seats when we get inside, you can compare them.’ I waited while Harry looked back at the actual stadium above the stalls.

‘Because of what I said on the hill?’ he asked. His glance moved from the projector to my notebook, and he hesitated. I shook my head before he could suggest how long building it might have taken.

‘I didn’t have it built while we were sitting on the bank. I wanted people without seats inside to be able to watch too.’ I indicated the technician. ‘The people who understand the equipment have been making it possible.’

The man opened the side of the projector, showing us a glass receiver held in a wooden frame. Harry bent closer, careful to keep his hands outside the casing.

‘Paired with the apparatus inside,’ the technician explained. ‘That sends the picture, and this enlarges it. We’ve only got the connections fitted here; taking one home won’t make the match follow you.’

His team had supplied the enchanted apparatus and spent much of the previous day adjusting it. We had paid for the equipment and installation, agreed where the displays should go and left the internal workings to people who could identify more than the screws.

The image shivered. A second technician called from behind the screen, and the man excused himself to join her, leaving the little door in the casing open.

‘Before the match, preferably,’ I said to Rupert. He agreed with enough emphasis that I suspected the timing had already been discussed more than once.

The benches had aisles between them, and a board showed visitors where to go if this viewing area filled. There were other places to watch, though none had unlimited room. Rupert pointed them out to Arthur while the technicians made the picture steady again.

‘You’ve thought of quite a lot,’ Arthur said. I looked at the open projector, then at the stall which had moved since my last drawing.

‘We’ve had time to find some of the things I missed.’ I put my notebook away for the moment; the people correcting those things did not need me standing over their shoulders while they worked.

Beyond the display, a stern-looking man in immaculate robes spoke to a steward. He listened until the answer was finished before turning towards Rupert, with a marked plan tucked under his arm.

‘Mr Crouch. Oswald Mercer,’ Rupert said, making the introduction. Crouch shook my hand and asked whether the service route remained clear.

I showed him the turning, which he compared with his own plan. He made a small mark beside it before folding the paper again.

‘Keep it open during the evening departures as well,’ he said. ‘Deliveries must wait if the stewards need the route.’

‘That was what we agreed.’ I glanced towards the barrier, where the trolley had already passed through, and Crouch nodded before greeting Arthur.

Percy came forward to ask when he should report. Crouch consulted his watch and gave him a time, mentioning work to be completed before the visiting officials arrived. Percy thanked him; Ron watched the exchange with considerably less enthusiasm.

When Crouch had gone, Rupert handed me a revised contact sheet. Bertha Jorkins had been crossed out near the top, with the people now handling the arrangements listed below.

‘Use this version,’ he said, tapping the new names. ‘The earlier correspondence isn’t always being passed on quickly.’

I folded it with my other papers. I had questions about the accounts, but Luna shifted her weight beside me and checked the shoe which had already done enough work that morning.

‘Can we get everyone settled first?’ I asked. Rupert closed his folder and led us towards the next junction, where Amos stopped to compare plans with Arthur.

He and Cedric had arranged to stay with colleagues elsewhere on the site. Cedric promised to find Harry and me later, saying he wanted to see what the screen made of Krum.

‘You’ll have to get past Ron first,’ I told him. Ron did not deny it, though the food stall behind Cedric had acquired a competing claim on his attention.

Twelve of us followed Rupert towards the guest accommodation. A strip of open ground softened the noise from the stalls, and there was room between the tents to walk without brushing their ropes. Signs pointed back towards the main routes and the exits.

Our tent looked comfortable from outside. It did not look capable of explaining the number of people approaching it, and George turned to Fred while Rupert reached for the entrance.

‘You can sleep standing up,’ he suggested. Fred said he had intended to offer that arrangement to Percy, who told them to offer it to each other and stepped past.

Rupert opened the flap. Beyond it stood a room with a staircase, and Fred stopped so abruptly that George walked into his back.

I had seen the tent erected during the preparations. Watching everyone else discover it was considerably better than seeing it alone, especially when Harry stepped inside, looked up and turned to inspect the wall he had just passed through.

‘How much of this have you been keeping to yourself?’ he asked. I held the entrance for Luna, who looked back at the twins before coming in.

‘I did send a letter,’ I said. Behind Harry, Ron reached into his bag and patted the envelope as though making certain it was still there.