The Admiral of Hogwarts

"First class ticket." The witch at the entrance of the Ministry of Magic looked at their tickets and said, "Top box! Keep going upstairs, Miss Massachusetts, all the way to the top."

The stairs leading to the stadium were covered with crimson carpets. They went up the stairs with the crowd, and slowly the crowds dispersed into the stands on the left and right. Hugo and the others continued upwards until they stopped at the top of the stairs.

Next, the Weasley family, Sirius, and Harry walked directly to the central box, while Hugo and the others turned a corner and followed the carpet to the box next door.

This box was actually the same as the main box, with 20 gilded chairs inside. However, the location was obviously not as good as the box where the Weasley family was.

Just as Hugo and the others were seated, Kirov walked in with several ship girls who were currently working in the West Balkan Ministry of Magic.

"Senior officials from the Ministry of Magic of a small country, alchemy masters from mainland Britain, and tycoons from the United States, it's all thanks to the British Ministry of Magic for making such arrangements," Hugo muttered softly.

Their seats were arranged together with Venus's help to ensure that everyone in the room except Hugo was a ship girl.

Interestingly, they could see the Weasley family and Harry, so they all grabbed the railing of the stands and waved to each other.

Looking down at the railing, Hugo saw the wizards gradually taking their seats. The seats of the stadium surrounded the oval stadium, arranged in tiers upwards.

Everything here was shrouded in a mysterious golden light, as if the light came from the stadium itself. From their high vantage point, the arena looked as smooth as velvet.

Three Quaffle hoops stood at each end of the field, fifty feet high;

To their right, almost parallel to the top box, was a huge blackboard, on which golden letters constantly flashed, as if an invisible giant hand was writing and erasing on the blackboard.

"Are you doing advertising here?" Looking at the dazzling Nimbus 3 broom on the blackboard, Hugo subconsciously turned to Massachusetts and asked. "I feel like the advertising fee here shouldn't be cheap."

"This advertising is free because we sponsored the Irish team in the finals." Massachusetts glanced at the advertising and said. "We originally wanted to shoot an advertising short film, but there is only an old blackboard here."

"The main reason is that the British Ministry of Magic is too conservative." Indomitable suddenly popped out from the side and said. "I even specially promoted an alchemical curtain to them before, which can play animations like a big screen."

"But the Ministry of Magic rejected it because they believed it was a completely new item that had not been tested by enough time and was not suitable to appear in this place."

"On the other hand, the Chinese Ministry of Magic specifically bought 15 screens of various sizes from me this time, and is also talking to me about technology transfer in this area—"

Amidst Indomitable's complaints, the Nimbus 3 advertising on the blackboard disappeared, and the Firebolt advertising appeared immediately. No matter how you look at it, this arrangement has a strong sense of competition.

"There will be a team mascot performance before the game starts." Hermione flipped through the tassel-covered program on the box's coffee table.

"Each country will bring some mascots at this time, for example, the Russians brought ice bears last time." Sovetsky Soyuz, sitting in the back, said. "Seriously, that thing was awesome."

"But the things the two teams brought this time are not that interesting. Whether it's the Leprechauns from Ireland or the Veela from Bulgaria, they both feel a bit lacking."

"Well, aesthetics are something that can't be unified." Hugo rubbed his forehead helplessly. Obviously, Sovetsky Soyuz's aesthetics were not the same as most people's, and she might have more in common with Hagrid in this regard.

"I think we should visit the Minister of Magic now." After sitting in the box for a while, Kirov, as the Minister of Magic of the West Balkans, stood up and said, because she saw Fudge walking into the central box.

Hugo hung a first-class Order of Merlin medal on his chest and pretended to be Kirov's translator to visit the British Minister of Magic, Mr. Fudge.

"Welcome, Minister Kirov." Seeing Kirov enter the box, Fudge immediately stood up, shook her hand, and offered a welcome speech. Hugo then translated the sentence into Serbian-Croatian while being fully connected to the Admiral Network.

"I am very happy to participate in the Quidditch World Cup held in the UK this time. This is a very excellent international event—" Kirov nodded and said a series of official platitudes. Hugo then translated these things into English.

After these formalities were completed, everyone began to chat, and many of them were related to trade and other matters. After all, as an emerging force, the West Balkans now needs to develop various trades.

Because it was a diplomatic etiquette before, Kirov naturally needed a translator. In the following negotiations, Kirov could negotiate in English, and Hugo just happened to have free time to chat with the Weasley family.

Taking the opportunity to chat, Hugo also scanned the box, and found that Barty Crouch was in the box at this time, and there was no situation where the house elf was occupying the seat as in the original text.

However, according to Kirov's observation, Old Barty was still under the control of the Imperius Curse, but the caster's level was very high, and the casting method was very clever, so no one else noticed this.

In the next scene, Hugo saw Mr. Weasley and Lucius staring at each other face to face, while simultaneously taunting each other.

Fortunately, not only the Minister of Magic was staring at them at this time, but there were also a bunch of people with status in the room. Therefore, they could only provoke each other slightly with words, and then glare at each other.

Fortunately, a round guy rushed over to break the deadlock. It turned out that Ludo Bagman broke into the box at this time. Judging from his panting appearance, he should have just finished registering his bets and arrived just in time.

"Is everyone ready?" He looked at Fudge and said, his round face shining like a huge ball of cheese, "Minister—can we start?"

"Start whenever you're ready, Ludo," Fudge said affably. Although the Minister was a little upset that his subordinate almost dropped the ball at this time, it was not appropriate to say anything under the gaze of a group of big shots.

Ludo drew his wand, pointed it at his throat, and said, "Sonorus!" Then what he said sounded like thunder, resounding throughout the packed stadium. His voice echoed above their heads, loudly reaching every corner of the stands.

"Ladies and gentlemen… welcome! Welcome to the 422nd Quidditch World Cup Final!"