It was early morning in Godric's Hollow when I awoke. I slowly opened my eyes to let them adjust to the gloomy light. It appeared to be raining. I got up, got dressed and went downstairs to eat breakfast with my mother. My father isn't in the picture, left us when I was born. Probably because of my mum and I being witches, he's a muggle you see and didn't find out about my mum being a witch until I was born, after that he ran for the hills. I sat at the table with my mum and ate breakfast having the usual morning conversation that we have. Such as, 'how did you sleep?' 'What are you doing today?' etc. After we finished I said goodbye to my mother and ventured out the door with my Siamese cat, Jasper, following behind on a short brick wall.
I was heading to my best friends house, she lives a couple houses down. I was taking a nice long stroll enjoying the crisp, fresh morning air. As I was walking along I passed the old Potter house. It stood behind a bricked fence, some of its windows boarded, tiles missing from its roof and a big chunk of the roof missing. Once a fine-looking house, the Potter Cottage was now damp, derelict and unoccupied.
I looked up at it feeling compassion for Harry Potter, I couldn't imagine what that must feel like, knowing your parents were killed by the Dark Lord. I took a deep breath and kept walking to Dakota's house, being thankful that the Dark Lord is no more. We have to go shopping for school supplies today, it's our sixth year at Hogwarts so next year will be our last.
Once I got to Dakota's house I knocked on her door.
"Dakota!" I yelled, no answer "Dakota!" I yelled again, still, no answer "Dakota Blackwood, open this door right now!" I yell in a jokingly manner. Finally, she answers.
"Sorry, Miss Betha Aldaine" she says in a jokingly snobby way "I couldn't hear you from all the way up in my room"
I laugh and walk in saying hi to her mum as we pass to go to her room. Dakota's father left her as well that's why we understand each other so much.
"You ready yet?" I ask
"Yep! All ready!" she says getting her cloak, I already have mine on so we go down to her fireplace and use the Floo Network to get to Diagonally.
"Bye, mum!" Dakota yells and we set off through the chimney making sure I leave Jasper in the care of Dakota's mum so he can play with Dakota's cat Vixen. She's a small, white Bengal.
When we get there we land in Flourish and Blots. We get up and dust ourselves off and get the books we need for this year. When we finished doing that we decide to get some new robes since we've both grown a little since last year.
After we've bought all our new school supplies we walk around and look at stuff we'd like but don't need. Then, through the crowd, I see my bestest friend in the whole wide world, other than Dakota of course, Cedric Diggory. Cedric's been my friend since I was a first year, he's just a year older, we're both in Hufflepuff you see, Dakota's in Slytherin but they all despise her because she's a Mudblood, I'm a half-blood.
"Cedric!" I yell standing on my tiptoes, because I'm short, and waving my hands in the air with a smile on my face.
"Betha!" He yells after he sees me amongst the crowd and slowly jogs toward us.
"Hey, Ced!" I say nudging his tall figure with my shoulder, we're both so close we both shorten each other's name.
"Hey, Beth!" He said in the same cheery tone I did "you coming to the Quidditch World Cup tomorrow night?" he asked.
"Yeah maybe, depends on what my mum says," I say
"Ok, well I have two spare tickets for the both of you," he said kindly
"Thanks, Ced"
"No problem, Beth," he says "anyway I've got to go, bye! hopefully, I'll see you two there!" He says running off.
"Bye!" I reply before he fully disappears into the crowd of people.
"I really wanna go to the World Cup!" Dakota says turning to me after Cedric leaves.
"Oh you just want to go so you can check out, Fred," I say laughing
"You don't even know if he'll be there!" She says in defence.
"He's a Weasley, trust me he'll be there," I say turning and walking off as I hear Dakota trying to catch up behind me.
When we've finished buying all the things we need at Diagonally we head back to my place and ask our mothers if we can go to the Quidditch World Cup.
We walk through my front door and see our mothers sitting at the dining room table with a cup of tea each. Our mothers are best friends like us, I have brown hair just like my mother but instead of inheriting her gorgeous brown eyes i got my father's dazzling blue eyes, that's the only part of my father I like. Dakota on the other hand, she has brown eyes and brown hair like her mother.
"Mum?" I ask sitting down beside her with my hands clamped together, Dakota next her mum.
"Yes, Betha?" She replies in the same tone as me
"Can, Dakota and I go to the Quidditch World Cup that's on tomorrow night? Cedric invited us, he has two spare tickets for us"
"If it's alright with, Gil. Gil is it alright?" Mum asks
"Only if it's alright with you, Anne" they both start giggling at themselves, knowing the suspense is going irritate us.
"Oh come on!" Dakota pleads, losing her patience.
"Oh alright," my mum says laughing "go get your stuff packed" she waves us off and we run upstairs.
"Hey, Jasper!" I say petting him once we get to my room. I decide to pack some black jeans with a purple singlet and a red flannelette shirt with some blue converse, as well as some pyjamas since we're only staying the night. Dakota decides to pack her usual quirky clothes, she's an oddball. She left some clothes at my house that she decided to pack, she's going to pack the rest later tonight at hers. She loves black. We finished packing some clothes and a tent in my enchanted, bottomless bag then, to pass the time, decided to just talk about what this year at Hogwarts might bring.
Once we were ready we hop down the stairs and I throw my hair back into a messy ponytail to get it out of my face. I go into the kitchen and call Cedric on the landline to tell him we're going and to ask where to meet him tomorrow. He tells me and I tell him thanks and say goodbye and hang up.
It's gotten pretty late so Dakota and Gil go home with Vixen in Dakota's arms. My mum and I decide to eat dinner and talk, we have a special relationship, my mum and I. We stay up a little later I sit in the living room reading a book and my mum cleans the kitchen with the help of a little magic of course. It's around 10:00 at night and I decide to go to bed since Cedric said we had to get up early tomorrow. How early? You ask well how does 1:30 in the morning sound.
"Goodnight, mum!" Yell walking up the stairs
"Goodnight, dear!" My mother replies and I hop into bed in the clothes I've been in for the whole day because I'm lazy.
I wake up and check the time and see that's it's exactly 1:30 am. I'm definitely not a morning person. I get up, get dressed into some jeans, a shirt and a sweater. I grab all the last minute things like toiletries and other things and pack them in my enchanted bag. I brush my hair and teeth and go downstairs to make myself a tea. Once I'm finished I put my cup in the sink and leave a note to let my mum know I've already left. I hear a soft knock on my door, answer it and see a sleepy-faced Dakota at the door, she's not a morning person either. She came in and I grabbed my wand and we left to go to Cedric's house through the Floo Network yet again since that's where he told us to meet him.
We shoot out of his chimney one at a time coughing from the dust and charcoal. Because we didn't stay long at Diagonally it's still very early in the morning which gives us plenty of time to get there and get settled. We get up off the ground clean ourselves up and walk around his house looking for any sign of Cedric or his father Amos.
"Hello, Dakota, hey, Betha," Cedric says from behind us and we turn around
"Oh hey," we both say in unison
"You ready to go?" He asks "dads waiting outside, he's excited to get to the Weasley's" he continues casually.
"The Weasley's huh!" I say wide-eyed and turn to face Dakota, she gives me a nudge in return. Cedric gives us a confused look but I just mouth 'later' to him and he nods in understanding. I pick up my bag with our stuff in it and we go outside to Amos.
"Oh hello, girls!" Amos says Amos knows us fairly well from all the times we've hung out at Cedric's with the rest of our friends.
"Hello, Mr Diggory," we say in unison again, we tend to do that a lot.
"Right! You ready to go?" Amos asks, we all nod and start hiking through the forest to meet with the Weasley's. Once we got somewhere near a hilltop we stood and waited for the Weasley's we've also been informed that Harry and Hermione will be with them. That will be nice I haven't seen them in a while.
I'm walking through the forest my feet crunching on twigs and leaves while my hands move branches out of the way of my face. I hear the sound of shoes crunching on the leaf-covered ground and turn around and see that it's Cedric in a slow jog, trying to catch up to me.
"Hey, so what was that whole Weasley and Dakota thing about, earlier on?" He asks curiously. I turn my head to look around and see that Dakota's a few steps ahead of us and decide to tell him.
"Ok, so! Dakota has the biggest crush on,Fred!" I say in a whisper with a big grin on my face.
"What? She does?" He whispers back
"Yeah-" I say
"Huh?" Dakota says and turns around to us.
"Oh nothing," Cedric and I say in unison
"I know you're lying, tell me what you guys were talking about she says fast walking towards us.
"Oh fine! I told Cedric that you like Fred"
"You what!?" She says hitting my forearm and I wince and rub the stop she hit. Cedric laughs at your silliness.
"Don't worry I won't tell anyone," he says looking at Dakota
"You better not!" She says putting her finger at him in a joking manner. The three of us laugh and continue walking when we here Amos telling us to 'get a move on.'
We stop at a tree and Amos tells us to wait because the others will be here any minute.
"Over here, Arthur! Over here, son, we've got it!" Amos yells after a long while and we see a couple figures on the other side of the hilltop.
"Amos!" Said Mr Weasley, smiling as he strode over to Amos. The rest of them followed behind him. Mr Weasley was shaking hands with Amos, who was holding a mouldy-looking old boot in his other hand.
"This is Amos Diggory, everyone," said Mr Weasley. "Works for the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. And I think you know his son, Cedric?"
"Hi," Said Cedric, looking around at them all. Though the corner of my eye I see Dakota checking out Fred, I snicker a bit and she whacks my arm again but not as hard this time. I must say, Fred and George are really good looking there just not my cup of tea.
Everybody said 'Hi' back to Cedric except Fred and George, they just nodded. I assume it's because Hufflepuff beat Gryffindor last year in Quidditch.
"Oh, and who might you two young ladies be?" Mr Weasley asked noticing our presence.
"Dakota, sir and this is Betha, we're friends of Cedric's" Dakota replied for me because I'm bad at talking to new people.
"Oh well it's very nice to meet you both," he says shaking our hands "I presume you already know my kids and Harry and Hermione of course," he says gesturing to everyone behind him
"Y-yes," I say nervous and I hear both Cedric and Dakota laugh at me, I roll my eyes because I know they're teasing me for my stutter.
"Good!" He says turning to Amos.
"Long walk, Arthur?" Amos asked.
"Not too bad," said Mr Weasley. "We live just on the other side of the village over there. You?"
"Had to get up at two, didn't we, Ced? Then we had to go to Diagonally for school supplies and for the girls. Still ... not complaining ... Quidditch World Cup, wouldn't miss it for a sackful of Galleons - and the tickets cost about that. Mind you, looks like I got off easy ..." Amos finally finished blabbing.
After Amos and Arthur finished talking and all of us finished waiting around being bored it was time to get going. Arthur quickly told Harry and Hermione what to do with the Portkey and with difficulty we huddled around and grabbed onto a bit of the old boot held out by Amos.
"Three..." muttered Arthur, one eye still on his watch, two... one..." and it happened we were jerked up our feet leaving the ground spinning as fast as we could go. Dakota and I let out a loud "WOOO" of excitement, everyone was laughing except Ginny, Harry, Hermione and Ron. They were too busy screaming in fear. We're used to it unlike them, Amos took us to places by Portkey all the time. When it was time to let go, Cedric, Arthur, Amos, Dakota and I, landed gracefully on our feet. The rest fell stomach first on the ground. It was pretty funny actually as they looked up at us in astonishment, Dakota and I let out a couple of muffled laughs.
When we all landed we helped up the less experienced. I helped up Ginny, she's a really nice young girl, I don't really know her but I've seen her plenty of times at school, in the halls. After they're all off the ground and upright we walk to where the World Cup is being held. It's not far, it's just over this big hill. Dakota and I are both so excited! We love watching Quidditch games, just never like playing them, we're very unsporty.