A beige sedan pulled up in front of 86 Eastleigh Road, Southampton, Hampshire.
The owner of the house, Mr. Eric Hart, stepped out of the driver's seat. Judging from the expression on his face, he didn't look to be in the best of moods.
Next came Mrs. Judy Hart and the young Jon Hart, both wearing the weary looks of people who had just endured a long trip.
Clearly, the family's journey to the United States had been anything but enjoyable.
It all went back to a few months earlier—
For the first time in nearly thirty years, the World Cup was being hosted in an English-speaking country. Excited, Eric had booked the round-trip tickets to London and New York, hotel reservations, and final match tickets a full year in advance.
But only a few months before the tournament, the England team played disastrously in the final round of qualifiers. After a string of nightmare performances, they were eliminated by Norway—out of the World Cup entirely.
The time off had been arranged, the match tickets bought, the trip planned… and then the team was gone!
Left with no choice, Eric gritted his teeth and took his wife and son to America anyway.
What made it worse was that his most hated team—Brazil—went on to win the championship on July 17, right in front of him.
"That team doesn't even play football properly. They lack the most basic discipline," Eric complained for at least the tenth time on the drive home. "What they're doing looks more like dancing than football…"
After spending so much money, all he came home with was frustration. By any measure, the trip had been a disaster.
The three returned home in silence and opened the door.
Inside, Judy collapsed onto the sofa with a groan. "I need a few days' rest—I'm exhausted…"
But Jon's ears picked up something else—a noise, faint but distinct, coming from his room upstairs.
"I'll go check it out!" he said quickly.
...
Since no one had been living there or cleaning for a while, Jon Hart's room was covered with a thin layer of dust.
Jon looked up and immediately found the source of the noise.
More than ten owls were clustered around the window, circling impatiently. Some carried letters, others clutched packages.
They flapped their wings against the glass from time to time—that must have been the noise he heard earlier.
"Oh, I forgot!" Jon realized that before leaving for the United States, he hadn't opened his window to allow the owls to deliver mail.
He hurried over, threw open the window, and let them in.
Nearly every owl gave him a sharp peck before dropping its package.
Rubbing his stinging hand, Jon dabbed on a bit of murtlap essence and began tearing open the letters and parcels.
The first was his Hogwarts report card. He gave it a quick glance, then shoved it into a drawer without a second thought.
Most of the packages were birthday gifts from friends.
July 15 was Jon Hart's birthday. This year he had been at the Rose Bowl Stadium in Los Angeles, taking a photo with a shy young Brazilian player named Ronaldinho.
Now he had to open the late gifts and write back to his friends with apologies for the delay.
Cakes and other food, however, had gone stale in the sweltering heat. Jon piled them together, planning to take them down to the trash bin later.
Several owls, though, had already helped themselves—pecking open a box of cake and crowding around it eagerly.
The other gifts were about the same as in previous years. Jon skimmed over them and sorted them neatly into piles.
Among them was a letter from Astoria Greengrass, attached to her gift. Once again, she invited Jon to attend the Quidditch World Cup with her.
But Jon knew better. This time, a group of bored Death Eaters would cause trouble after the match, humiliating a Muggle family in public.
One of the more loyal Death Eaters would even release the Dark Mark—Voldemort's sign—over the stadium, scattering the rest in panic.
The chaos that followed would nearly get Harry Potter mistaken for Voldemort's servant and almost hit by a barrage of Stunning Spells.
With all that in mind, Jon had no desire to get involved—especially not with Astoria. What if her parents were among those Death Eaters tormenting the Muggle family?
Mrs. Longbottom had also invited Eric to bring his family along to the Quidditch World Cup a few weeks earlier, but Jon had refused.
He had no interest in getting swept up in a mob of restless wizards looking for trouble. Neither he nor his parents needed to be caught in that kind of chaos and danger.
Besides, Quidditch had never held much appeal for him anyway.
...
After finishing with the gifts, only one last piece of mail remained.
A copy of the Daily Prophet.
Jon glanced at the headline:
"Disgrace! England Becomes the First Team in the World to Begin Preparing for the 1998 Quidditch World Cup."
He read on.
Yesterday afternoon (July 20), the Quidditch World Cup opened with a match between England and Transylvania.
What was expected to be a decisive victory turned out to be the opposite. The Transylvania team, written off before the match, defeated the hosts in a landslide—390 to 10—earning the first victory of the Cup.
And so, England had the dubious honor of becoming the first team eliminated from the tournament.
Jon scanned the map on his wall, struggling to spot 'Transylvania'—a speck of a principality in northeastern Romania, barely a dot on the map.
Sure enough, whatever the World Cup, England's fate was always the same… Jon reflected.
As usual, he read through the rest of the paper.
Finally, tucked in a small corner on page six, he found something useful:
"Ms. Bertha Jorkins Still Missing
Bertha Jorkins, staff member of the Ministry of Magic's Department of Magical Games and Sports, has been missing for two months.
However, Mr. Ludovic Bagman, Head of the Department, remains optimistic…
'Jorkins simply has no sense of time. She's hopeless with time. Give her a week or two, she'll turn up,' Mr. Bagman said,' Mr. Bagman said."