Okay, so this is my first Harry Potter fanfic!! Yay! Sunshinefarah and Margaritalimes convinced me to write one, and since I'm kinda stuck on my Princess Diaries Fanfiction, I figured this might be fun to try out. (My Princess Diaries story focuses on Lilly, so check that out if you're bored.) I'd also like to thank Julia for editing! (Who says this took her forever to edit. So thanks for sticking with it!) And 123me123233 for all her suggestions and wisdom. (Who by the way is writing a really cool twilight fanfic and will be uploading it soon!) And finally I'd like to thank Historygeek22, who has an Airhead fan fiction that I edited, for all her distractions which prevented me from getting upset and deleting this story. Anyway getting on with the story, this fan fiction is going to be in Hermione's perspective while she works at a camp after her first year of Wizard College. I never liked the whole Ron/Hermione pairing, so I'm going to set her up with a summer romance. Cool? It better be. :-) This is Hermione's first time at a camp, and it follows how she deals with the other counselors and kids, who can definitely be very, very annoying. I am not JK Rowling, will never claim to be, and therefore do not own any of the characters in her books presented in this story. (One more note, sorry! This chapter was really long for me, and took a long time to write, so I don't know how many more 6,000 word chapters there's going to be, but I'll try to make them of a decent length. Hopefully I'll succed at that, because my other chapters for my princess diaries fanfiction were only like 2000 words each.) So know that I've talked you to death, here's my story! ENJOY! ************************************************************************ Hermione Granger never seemed like the kind of girl who would get along with children. Maybe relatives' kids, she didn't mind watching her cousins, but certainly not strangers. But someone, somewhere, had an idiotic idea that Hermione would be excellent at dealing with kids, and nominated her to work at a camp without her knowledge or permission. And when she found out, she couldn't turn down the job, eyeing the salary they offered her. It was no ordinary camp, because Hermione herself was not normal, she was a witch. But not just a witch, a witch who had fought in a wizard war, and who had lost her parents after altering their memory. She lived with her best friend Harry in his house inherited from his dead uncle and attended a witch and wizard specialty school. Hermione was not sure what she wanted to do, but felt compelled to do something, to learn something. But summer was fast approaching and she needed a job. She was on scholarship, of course, but had nothing to use for the basic necessities, and while Harry was willing to part with some of his vast fortune, she expected more of herself. She was not the kind of girl who did things like mooch off her friends for extended periods of time. She was quite content with working, and at least working at a camp got her outside and into the sun. (Which she hoped would tan her pale ghostly skin.) The camp was special because it was a camp for wizards and witches whose parents decided they needed a true childhood experience, a break from magic while roughing it out in a cabin in the woods for eight weeks straight. Otherwise known as hell for the technologically savvy kids who grew up in a world where the only magic they did was pulling pranks on their parents. Anything from the magic world was explicitly banned; those who broke the rules were placed in suspension and put on latrine duty. Hermione was assured that no one ever broke the rules. So why had they hired Hermione, the girl who was strongest at academics, had no outdoor experience, and a fear of flying insects? They had hired her because they figured in case of an emergency she would be able to solve any magic problems quickly because of her superb magic skills and because of the large leadership role she had taken in the war. They wanted the best counselors for their program, and by someone's standards she was considered the best. However, Hermione herself feared that that she was at no place to be judged the best, or even considered good for the job she had accepted. She feared that she was in no way cut out for camp life. It had been easy to help Harry; she had known that it was the right thing to do. It was for the greater good. Her magical abilities came easily and she had fun learning little tricks and spells. Despite this, how was she going to be able to deal with kids, let alone have the patience to deal with kids? What was going to be her motivation for that? ************************************************************************ Orientation was a must for a girl who had only been to camp once in her life following a brief year of Girl Scouts. And that certainly had not been at a time where she knew she was magical, it was a normal Muggle camp with normal, and she used the word normal very carefully, children, with normal activities. Certainly not at a camp that was covered in Muggle Defense charms, and allowed owls and pet toads. She felt self-conscious at the idea of being with other college kids that had been going on camping trips their entire lives and had been counselors for years. Here she was, a girl with no experience, working right along with experts. How pathetic was that? However, she needed the cash plain and simple. That was her goal for the summer. Do whatever she could to keep the job, and maybe, just possibly, have some fun. School had worn her out, she was sick of working herself so hard that she needed coffee every morning or risk falling asleep in every class that she took. She was sick of spending her nights at her desk, not exploring the world of witchcraft and wizardry around her. This was the first time she was actually immersed in this world, which excited her to no end, and she never was able to do anything outside of her coursework. She loved school, but it was depressing how little contact she had outside of her classes. She knew it was her own fault. She had never been so great at making friends. It had certainly been a surprise that she had found Ron and Harry in their first year after such a horrible start. That time at school before she had them had seemed longer than all of her years at Hogwarts combined. So it was no surprise that being forced into an area with about seventy other staff members seemed like a horrible idea to her. They were expected to play icebreaker games, and talk to each other about their ideas for self-development! Or at least that's what the information packet had told her. The itinerary that had been supplied was filled with cheesy activities and many, many seminars about child safety, bullying, game ideas, and leadership. She was fine with the seminars, those she could take and maybe even pay attention to. The ice-breaker games and discussions freaked her out, though. Especially since they would know about her and she would only know about them. They could have read about her in the Daily Prophet or studied her in Teen Magic, Makeup, and More. She couldn't catch up on the subject of other camp counselors nor could she couldn't get familiar with them beforehand. She was going to have to jump right in and it scared her. Poising herself at the fireplace in her bedroom, Hermione inspected the room around her, hoping that she would not forget anything. Of course she could come back at any time, but it gave her comfort having everything where it should be, and having everything she could ever possibly need. Of course she wouldn't be allowed to keep everything in her cabin, but it was nice to know that she could run down to the camp office and grab her textbook on ruins, or the anklet that her aunt gave her when she was eight. (She knew that it was too expensive to wear, certainly not a very good gift for a child, but she liked having it.) Having made sure that she had everything in her bags, she grabbed her notebook off her bedside table, and checked off room inspection off of her to-do list. She was ready to face the world of mosquitoes, and a cot in a tiny, junky cabin. The camp office into which she Floo'd herself into was coated with pictures, and paintings, and artwork that had been made by past campers. Now normally she HATED the way kid's artwork looked, messy and incomprehensible, but the coziness of the cabin made it look inviting, and she found herself draw to the hand painted, pipe-cleaner butterfly on the side of the wall. "Excuse me?" Hermione quickly pulled herself out of the dazed cloud she was in and turned to see who was welcoming her. It was the camp director who had conducted her interview so many weeks ago. "I thought that you'd be coming soon! I knew it, I knew it..." The camp director was perfect at her job; Hermione had never seen that smile leave Colleen's face throughout her interviews, and other meetings the camp had set up. Just the way Colleen carried herself made Hermione feel comfortable around her. "I just can't believe school's over, and I'm actually here." As much as she had been worrying and freaking out about camp, she had always felt like camp had been far away, and even now she still didn't feel like it was summer. "Tell me about it. I've been working on camp since last summer's end, and I'm still not ready. I have to arrange the transportation lists, order food for the camp store, and get brushes for the arts cabin, and…" she trailed off. "Never mind Hermione, you don't want to hear me babble on." At that Colleen turned around and opened the door. "I can't wait until we see you later at our first meeting! Have you seen your camp area yet?" Hermione nodded yes, remembering something from the thick packet of material that had been sent, which she had read fully and completely while frantically trying to find something that would come in handy during her time at the camp. She had been placed in cabin six with a group of eight year old girls, which she figured could be either a good thing, or a bad thing. On one hand they could be younger, more innocent, and more enthusiastic about the camp activities. But on the other hand the kids could be excessively energetic, use uncontrolled magic, and really, really annoying. But at least she had younger kids, and not only younger kids, she had girls! Hermione believed that she could have possibly died with young boys. All they wanted to do was wave bugs in the air, fight among themselves, and play rough sports. Girls actually could sit still for a minute, in her experience, and liked hand clapping games! They liked braiding string! But all the string braiding in the world wasn't going fill the twelve hours from wakeup call to lights out at eight. Hermione pondered that thought as she looked around her campsite, her cabin, her fire pit. Maybe they'd give her all the answers at the training, but for now she was going to have to make due. ************************************************************************ She never imagined that there'd be this many staff at the camp. Hell, she hadn't even thought about how many kids would be attending camp. She'd never thought to ask about the normal amount of kids attending, how many kids would be in the 7-9 year old group, or even how many kids she'd oversee. She never saw a statistic in the book she was given, or even on the camp website. How could she forget to ask such a simple question? You know what else she'd never imagined? She never imagined that there'd be this many male staff members! She was sorry about judging, but in her mind she always pictured all of the staff as girls. In her memories of camp she remembered all the nice FEMALE counselors that she had. But then again, Hermione had attended Girl Scout Camp, not a typical male gathering place. And she hated to admit it, but all of the guys put her at ease a little. It was a distraction from her worries about her incompetence. All of the guys were tall, athletically built, and very, very easy on the eyes. And after closer inspection she found that they all seemed to be friendly and outgoing, catching up with their friends from the last summer. It was a nice change from all the pale, overly-confident geniuses she had contact with from school. She hoped no one would interrupt the mood they created. It was fascinating to watch. It was fascinating to see how everyone reacted with no directors around, and no outsiders. (Or so they had thought.) Hermione hoped no one would notice her hiding spot in the corner, because watching people was one of her favorite activities to do. It might seem like she was nosy, but it she didn't mean any harm by it. She loved people's stories, and she wished she could be a fly on the wall for a little bit longer. But as all good things do, it came to an end moments after she had immersed herself in one of the boys' conversations. Colleen had entered the room with her lackeys and everyone had begun to put their guard back up. The magic was gone. "Aren't you guys psyched to be back for another year at camp?" Colleen said over-enthusiastically hoping to get a reaction from her "kids." It worked. Some of the other counselors replied with plain, simple booing, while the rest cheered just as over-enthusiastically, and maybe even more enthusiastically than Colleen, if that was possible. "Now, the first thing I want you guys to do is get closer to each other." Colleen swept her eyes over the crowd of kids, meeting the eyes of those who were infringing upon her rule she had laid into place seconds before. Hermione had hoped that she'd be close enough for Colleen's wishes, but as the director's eyes lingered on Hermione for a moment too long, Hermione realized that she'd better move or face the wrath of whatever the sweet director could do to her. So instead of sitting in her place in the back of the room where she could see what everyone was doing, she had to resort to sitting on one of the picnic benches in the middle of the room, surrounded by the people she had been observing. On either side of her she had two female counselors who seemed perfectly happy to talk over Hermione. In front of her she had one of the boys she had been observing, who seemed to be falling asleep by the way he was slouching down on the bench. Not very interesting, but at least no one was trying to over-obsessively talk her to death. That would have been much, much worse. Anyone but Hermione would have fallen asleep like the boy in front of her, but she was Hermione, the girl who loved sitting through lectures each and every day. The mandatory videos and lectures that they had about the camp, and about just the general activities, made her feel like she was in her prime. She was able to stay fully focused and even take notes, which attracted much unwanted attention, because who in the world takes notes about buddy checks and time for lights out? Hermione was well aware of that fact, and didn't care that while she began eating lunch at noon the only reason some of the guys sat down next to her because of that fact. "Hey scribe, Colleen finally found someone to keep meeting notes?" Hermione never thought that anyone would take pity on her and keep her company during lunch. She thought maybe Collie might have out of sympathy, but she never thought of the boys as being the first she'd talk to. "Yea, she thought it might be a good idea to keep track of who checks their phones and who sleeps during a mandatory training session," Hermione half-joked. She didn't want care that they hadn't paid attention, but it secretly bothered her when she was the only one who did what she was told. When Ron and Harry had asked her what had been going on in charms because they didn't feel like paying attention, she had told them off and refused to even drop the slightest of hints. Teachers and leaders were there to help out students and counselors, not to provide background noise. "And your name is Ms. Secretary?" He was a dirty blonde with hair so shaggy it fell into his eyes, but not so long that you'd call him a hippie. "Hermione," she said a little bit grudgingly, because although she was upset, she'd never been approached by so many cute guys at once (There were four of them!). "Hey Hermione," the blonde continued. "I'm Spencer, that's Cameron." He paused pointing to the boy next to him. "That's Laurie." She was sure he was the one that had slept in front of her during the staff meeting. "And that's Omar." "So have you worked a camp before Hermione?" Omar asked her, hoping to ignore his pathetic peanut butter and jelly sandwich that he packed in his bag. "No, I haven't" "An after school program?" "No, I haven't done that either." "Babysitting?" Cameron asked, looking at Hermione like she had no business being at their table. Hermione wanted to come up with some witty response because Cameron was acting like a complete jerk, acting like her was above her just because he had experience with kids, but before she could whip her response back at him, Colleen came over to the table on her way to the soda machines. "Are you three being nice to Ms. Granger on her first day of camp? I hope you three are telling her about the marvelous time we have here at camp." The boys looked at each other and then back at Colleen with bright smiles they had just plastered on. "Yes, Collie. We were just talking about the very informative morning we've had," Spencer said with a sly grin, which made it easy to see that he was lying like crazy, but charmed Colleen so much that she continued on her way to the soda machine. "Wait," Spencer stopped grinning as the director disappeared from sight. "Granger? As in Hermione Granger? The girl who was the brains behind Voldemort's demise?" Hermione nodded. Here it went again. Questions about being Harry's best friend, questions about Horocruxs, questions about the rumors of Voldemort's sexuality. Everyone acted like she was a library of information about Voldemort and Harry, and they had no boundaries, keeping her occupied for hours with nonsense questions. "Really? Good job, Hermione!" Omar gave her a look of approval. Hermione nodded, face red. Especially since nobody had ever left it at a "good job". She knew that there would be all week and all summer for questions, epecially since in her experience kids asked whatever questions they wanted without regard whether the questions might make the other person feel akward or embarrased, but for now that "good job" was good enough. ************************************************************************ Hermione never, ever, ever wanted to think that the child abuse workshop she had just attended would ever come in handy. It creeped her out to think that anyone would ever do something like that and she hated the statistics that they gave. This was one thing that she tried her hardest to sleep through and it was the one thing that she did not take notes on, but it stuck with her. She guessed that that was the point, because she saw some of the previous sleeping counselors paying attention. The workshop and video were the last activities of the day; while there was a "getting-to-know-you" campfire later on, Hermione felt like it was in her best interest to go back to her campsite and sleep. That is, for a very, very long time. But before she could forget about stupid, stupid Cameron, she was interrupted by a very loud rendition of a song she'd never heard. "Everywhere we go! People wanna know. Who we are? So we tell them! We are the Pandas! The mighty, mighty pandas." No! Not the Frosted Flakes commercial! These camp songs were already annoying her! She hated how they already were flooding back from her camp days and getting stuck in her head all over again. "Hellooo, Ms. Granger! We are cabin 7, your sister cabin, and we are here to welcome you!" A skinny blonde who looked, and sounded, like a cheerleader came through the brush with a laundry basket packed to the brim. "Yea," a less cheerful girl next to her added. "I'm Suzie and that's Allie. We have all our activities together, so we figured to get you off on the right foot, we'd bring you some essentials we thought you might have forgot. Allie cheerfully passed the basket off to Hermione, which she could see contained towels, bug spray, string, scissors, a necklace, and a journal type notebook." "There's your bug spray and sun block, because while you can perform the respective charms for protection, the campers cannot, and if they see you, they will throw hissy fits until the very last day of camp." "And your lanyard, a camp staple and time consumer," Suzie pointed to her own backpack which Hermione saw was adorned with colored string. "Towels because they serve their typical purpose, and double as blankets, mats, and icepacks." "Your songbook, because as you can see we L-O-V-E to sing around here." "And finally a waterproof necklace for your money. All of us counselors buy ice-cream at multiple times a day, so it's good to carry around all day in case of a fudgesicle emergency." Hermione was touched. She, of course, hadn't brought any of that or thought to have brought any of it. So when Allie came over to hug her, Hermione hugged back. "Well we've gotta go, but we'll catch you later. We're sure Cadden will get here one of these days." Oh shoot. Hermione had forgotten about her fellow counselor. Was she supposed to have gotten her something as a welcoming present? Should she have written Cadden a letter before this? She felt guilty, like she should have thought of these things beforehand. Allie and Suzie seemed like the best of pals and they had even welcomed someone outside of their immediate cabin. Already she was screwing up. So she spent all of her attention that night cleaning up the camp site and making up her and Cadden's room. She decorated her side with a book case, which she made with a spell and a horribly placed tree, pictures of her parents tacked to the walls, and a safety lock box for her wand underneath her bed. Hermione would have done more, but the room was cramped as it was. She was just going to learn have to live without a desk and a dozen shelving units. The cabin had been provided with two beds and a dresser. (In which Hermione had taken over the bottom drawers, leaving Cadden the nice, easily available top drawers.) It was cramped, but nice. Hermione just hoped that she and Cadden would become good friends. With such little space, they could either be best friends or end up killing each other. Hermione stayed up until nine waiting for her new roommate, but she never showed up. It upset Hermione a little, but she could deal. At least she had time to spiff up the campers' room next to theirs tomorrow morning. (If she got up early enough.) Surprisingly enough, six in the morning came quickly and easily. Hermione was able to get up as soon as her alarm clock began to shrill. This prompt and easy wakeup pleased her, especially since for the first time in her life, Hermione was able to fall asleep immediately in a completely new environment. Breakfast was at seven, and she knew that if she hurried, and used a bit of magic, she could tidy up the cabin nice and quick. She moved the bunk beds around, making more efferent use of space, cleaned up the past year's gathering of spider webs and dust bunnies, and managed to run off to the showers and tidy up before she saw anyone at the morning's breakfast. She was tired. Today it was a different tired than school tired, though, this one being a more enjoyable one, but was glad she did something productive for the day, considering the rest of the day was going to be filled with mindless and pointless icebreaker activities. But as she arrived at the dining hall/lodge shortly after seven hungry from her morning's activities, she realized that she had made a mistake. NO ONE, not even Colleen, was there. This worried her, was being on time for breakfast going to ruin her already tarnished reputation? Instead of freaky note-taker, was she going to be known as goody-two shoes always on time freak? But instead of worrying about her new titles, Hermione focused on what was around her. The dining hall/lodge. Hermione had been told that the lodge only served the purpose of being a dining hall at meal times, normally serving the purpose of being a pavilion for meetings and such during the day. As she could see on the far side of the building it also served as a place to cool down, having stacks of board games, jump ropes, and books. Hermione thought that was cool, normally being the one who wanted to get out of the sun and relax with a book in a nice shady area. However, the examination of the building took only mere minutes, and she was left waiting for everyone else to show up. Eventually some kids started wandering in at 7:30, and at that time Hermione realized she had made a mistake. She could not believe that everyone was wearing pajamas. Pajamas? Was that some camp thing? Wearing your raggedy, embarrassing clothes to breakfast as some bonding moment? Never in her life had she worn pajamas in public, and she wasn't about to start then. She was not going to be like Allie in her short-shorts, so skimpy that they were barely visible under her tank top, or like Suzie in her holey sweatpants through which Hermione could see the girl's pink underwear. She was quite comfortable in her jeans and sweatshirt, ready for anything the day would throw at her. But she did mess up her hair a little bit, hoping to blend in a little better. Hermione watched the entrance while sipping her coffee slowly to look as if she still had a reason to be there, having eaten her breakfast when she first got there, and to refrain from looking like an antisocial brat. (She was just praising God that they had coffee!) And as much as she disliked the fact that no one felt that there was anybody there important enough to get dressed for, she had to admit that she liked how comfortable everyone seemed around each other. The girls were wearing sweatpants and shorts, much like Allie's and Suzie's, as well as no makeup. The boys were letting the slightly more awake girls talk to them at bullet speed, as they tried to muster up enough strength to raise their cereal to their mouths. One of the girls she hadn't met was playing with Spencer's bed hair, while another couple were muttering insults at each other for being up at such an ungodly hour. Once again, as repeated from yesterday's staff meeting, Hermione was all alone. The boys (Spencer, Laurie, Cameron, and Omar), seemed to have not seen her, and the other girls seemed to have judged Hermione too awake and perky to deal with at the hour. Which didn't surprise her too much. It wasn't like she expected to make tons of new friends the very first week she was there. Besides, she'd have Cadden and her kids soon enough, and that would take up her whole time. Watching kids 24/7 wouldn't leave very much time for socializing anyway. So as Hermione waited for Colleen to start the days activities off, she watched her fellow counselors as she had the day before, noticing some stuff she'd missed. Like Allie seemed to have a boyfriend by the way her and the guy next to her were joking around. Or that Omar obviously liked to be left alone in the morning by the way everyone was whispering if they were anywhere near him, and by the way his pals had sat on the other side of the room. Or like it seemed that the ice-breakers that were occurring all day were long and without breaks by the way most everyone had not only gotten their cereal that morning, but hidden pop tarts in their bags as well. Hermione made a note of that by running down to her cabin to grab her granola bars and water, thinking she could be leisurely because everyone was still in their pajamas. But by the time she had returned everyone was missing, the dining hall magically clean and empty. Which would not have been a problem except Hermione had no idea where everyone went, had no idea where the day's meeting would start, and had no idea of the camp's layout. If she went roaming around the grounds looking for somebody she'd probably end up dead in the woods in no time. Or even better yet, she'd get so lost and confused that she'd go to sleep in a cave and later that night find out that it was home to cougars or something. To others this might sound highly improbable, but no one knew Hermione and how clumsy she could be without her wand. She could go back and get her wand, which she had just forgotten, but what if someone came back to the lodge looking for her? What the hell was she to do? Hermione waited a good half an hour before she realized that she knew where the office was and that someone was most likely there. How was she that slow that she forgot about the office and the office manager who was paid to sit there and answer the phones, make announcements, and run the camp's finances. Had she been out of school that long that she had already lost her common sense? Glad that she had finally figured out something to do, Hermione trekked down the trail from the lodge to the office. However as she arrived at the office, she didn't just see the office manager Kelly, she saw the entire camp staff! "Nice of to finally show up Granger, we've been waiting." Cameron the jerk, as she had dubbed him after their incident yesterday during lunch, whispered at her as she entered the office. God, he was annoying! But before she could turn around and shoot a dirty look at him, she heard Colleen welcome her. "Hermione, where have you been? We've been waiting for you." She sounded irritated, and for a second Hermione thought she was in trouble. "Well I left to get something from my cabin, and by the time I came back up everyone was gone." "It's alright I suppose." Colleen sighed. "We should have told you, I forgot that I changed the location last night. Now take a seat and we'll get on with this morning's activities!" she said,taking her eyes off Hermione and back onto the rest of the goup, while regaining her normal level of enthusiasm.
Hermione took her seat, looking around to see if her roommate had arrived yet. Of course she didn't know what Cadden looked like at all, but she looked around hoping to see someone she hadn't seen yesterday. But everyone she saw seemed to be somewhat familiar even though she knew only two of the girl's names. That annoyed Hermione, how could somebody just skip out on two of the orientation days? That was so irresponsible! Was her roommate going to be like that all summer? How was Hermione suppose to trust her? So instead of focusing on what Colleen was saying, Hermione focued on all the bad things that could be wrong with Cadden and found herself dreading what the summer could be like. The pictures of her and Cadden being best friends and having the greatest summer of her life disappeared out the window. What if Hermione had to take on all the responsibilty? Was she going to have to do everything herself? Was Cadden going to even help at all or just work on her tan all summer? Wow Cadden was a loser! But before Hermione could already begin planning her revenge against Cadden, she found everyone moving aorund, seeming to pick partners. And before she could get up and realize what was going on, everyone was partnered up, and she was standing in the middle. Alone. "Hermione, you don't have a partner? We were about to go play two-man-wall-ball." "No, sorry. I suppose I could sit this one out...." "Then I guess..." Colleen looked around and then paused when she caught Spencer's eye. "Nevermind! Spence needs a partner. Go ahead Hermione!" Damn. Why did there have to be an even number?!?