Chapter 21.4- Doom Days

Her introduction into the argument turned into the match that lit the fire. The three of them began debating each other about the merits and demerits of the various drinks. I was tempted to step in and offer my own opinion, but then remembered that Harry Potter had never had alcohol a day before tonight. He knew nothing of wine, vodka, or sake. He definitely didn’t know that all three lacked a certain charming simplicity of good beer, which the German Prime Minister, Sukovsky, loudly proclaimed while butting his way into the argument with all the subtlety of a bull in a china shop. Instead, I watched the debate with wide eyes as each of them made points that were dismissed or countered by the other.

Word of beer’s simplicity was shot down with claims of its tactlessness. Delacour referred to it as urine-coloured bitter water which drew a laugh from both Karpov and Kawaguchi. Delacour’s claims of wine’s sweetness and variety were tossed aside by Karpov who called it a woman’s drink before a glare from Kawaguchi forced the man to take back his words. Dumbledore cut into the argument, saying he much preferred the taste of a lemon drop in the cold evenings when Karpov claimed that there was nothing like Vodka keeping one company in a cold evening. To my surprise, all four of the debaters turned to the old man for a second before ignoring the reply in mutual agreement and returning to their debate.

“Is this your first time?” Fleur whispered in my ear.

“My first time what?” I whispered back to her, I could see that Cedric had turned to Dumbledore with questions about transfiguration while Cho was left to absently stare at the table- the dignitaries argued in rapid-fire French.

“Witnessing them argue like this” She said.

“Is it always like this?”

“Every nation has their pride, trust me. They always find something to argue about. You should see the ICW banquets. At least two duels are fought before dessert, and another six after they really get the drinks in them” She said, making me chuckle in amusement.

Speaking of dessert, I ordered a treacle tart for myself once it was clear that Fleur had finished her meal and could move on to her own next plate. She had chocolate cake, a rather large helping of it, in fact, and polished it off even faster than I managed the treacle tart. After the meal, they had moved the argument from alcohol to duelling, a matter I was rather interested in. It turned out that the present national duelling champion was a Russian and this was a fact that Karpov took no small amount of pride in. Vladimir Kasparov was his name, and Karpov had mentioned their familial tie no less than five times in the last ten minutes.

“I plan on competing at next year’s Under Seventeen tournament in Broekzele”, I say when the conversation turns to me, and Dumbledore’s head snaps in my direction so quickly that I worry for the old man’s neck.