It was near the end of the Golden Trios sixth year and although everyone was excited to finally be done with their OWLs, all the tension from the relationship drama was still heavy in the air, as well as the sadness at the death of Dumbledore. It could be considered the gloomiest end of year, hogwarts had ever seen. Harry isolated himself from everyone, Ron and Hermione still kept their distance from each other, and everyone else had a depressed attitude. Dean Thomas was the one student who seemed to handle it the best, always trying to raise everyone's spirits, but failing most of the time.
On the last day he gathered a bunch of Gryffindors together in the common room, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville, Katie, Seamus Lavender, Parvati, Ginny, and to be exact.
"Hey guys, I've got an idea. Since its the beginning of summer, and none of us are tied down by anything yet, how about we all go on a camping trip, just us. No adults, no other houses. Just the ten of us. What do you think?"
There was a degree of uncertainty in the room.
"Come on, it's been a rough year, and this would be a good way to get away from all the stresses of everything that has been going on this year. And I'm sure your parents can bear not seeing you for a few more days."
Harry smiled to himself at the thought.
"How long exactly do you think we'd be away?" asked Hermione.
"I think that should be left up to us when we are there. Definitely for a few days, but then we just decide when the time comes whether we've had enough."
This seamed to pique everyone's interest in it.
"Where?" asked Katie.
"Well I know of this place in Switzerland deep into the alps that a friend of the family brought us to a year ago. It is virtually untouched by civilization, but it's got natural hot springs, waterfalls, mountains, lakes, rivers, what else do you need?"
At this point everyone stood up and congratulated Dean on his fabulous idea.
"So you're all for it then."
Everyone spoke their assurance that they would be there.
"When are we leaving? Tomorrow?" asked Ginny.
Dean paused. "Sure." and everyone cheered in delight.
As soon as school was officially over, everyone packed up enough clothes for the trip. They all owed their families that they would be another several days, so they shouldn't pick them up from London.
Dean had a portkey already set up just outside the train station. So the ten of them met up at the station, said goodbye to all of the other friends that were going home and after the train left, they met about a hundred meters down past the station. There was a Swiss flag set on top of a cliff and that Dean told them was the portkey.
He pulled the flag out of the ground. "Everyone ready?" Dean asked. Everyone nodded. "Well, goodbye Hogwarts." Each hand took a part of the flag and pole and off they went with a pull on the navel. It took quite a bit longer, Harry noted, than it took to get to the Quidditch cup, but then they were going across most of Europe. Finally they found themselves standing on top of a mountain overlooking a long valley, a few kilometers in length, but only about one kilometer wide. There was a fairly large waterfall in the distance as part of a river that led into a lake slightly larger than the black lake and gave a crystal clear reflection of its mirror back to the group. No one said a word, they all just stood there and drank in the view.
After a few minutes, Dean asked "Has anyone ever been to the mountains? And Scotland doesn't count." Dean raised his hand to start.
Katie, Seamus, and Parvati raised their hands, but everyone else shook their head apologetically.
"Good. I wouldn't have it any other way. Now you see where the river meets the lake, that's where we're camping, so that's about a mile walk from here. Is everyone good with that."
They all picked up their packs and headed down the mountain. Understandably, Dean noticed that some people, most of the people who had never been to the mountains before, had trouble with this kind of hiking at first, but they were managed to not slow the crew down too much. He also noticed that others handled it very well. Katie for example was equal to himself, and he was an avid hiker. She walked in front of him for a while, giving him nowhere else to look at but her very fit butt in yoga pants. And he didn't mind at all.
It was about six o clock when they arrived at the campsite. It had a shale beach, and woods all around besides the river which trickled down beside them.
All the packs hit the ground together and there was a sort of group sigh that followed.
"Um Dean," said Parvati with a nervous giggle in her voice. "Where do we go to use the loo?"
"Right." Dean laughed and conjured some toilet paper. "Here. Sorry but the bushes is all we got."
Parvati grinned, nodded, took the toilet paper and headed into the trees. "Thanks Dean."
"Don't go too far in." Hermione called.
As Hermione turned around there were 3 tents set up, a fire going and eleven lawn chairs set up. Everyone was taking their place around the fire.
"Whoa. That was quick." she said as she took her seat between Harry and Ginny. "But I have to ask, what's with the sleeping arrangements? Why not two tents."
Dean sent her a questioning look. "I mean like one tent for the girls one for the boys?"
"Oh, well first of all there are three tents because those are real non magical tents. Meaning that what you see on the outside is what you get on the inside. Those are three person tents, meaning that in one of those tents four people are going to have to squeeze. The reason being that you cannot conjure things that are magically transformed. I can only conjure things that are not magical. Also...you know since there are no adults here, I don't think we need to worry about the different gender tents. We all just end up in the tent that we end up in. I hope that's cool with everyone."
Everyone gave their approval though Hermione wasn't so sure about it. She knew Dean came from a fairly liberal family so that would be a normal thing for him, but for her on the other hand, she was from a very conservative family and this would not go down in her family. But she never voiced any of this to the others.
For the rest of the evening the group sat around the fire and talked about the year, speaking everything they really wanted to. Harry spoke about his life as a child and some of what he was went and was going through these days with the return of Voldemort, Bellatrix, and all the other Death Eaters. Neville disclosed his experience with his parents being insane. Unfortunately nothing was mentioned about the romance drama of the year. But not everything they spoke about was deep and serious. They also spoke about the normal areas of their life like traditions and single memories. They also went over the funny happenings at Hogwarts and laughed at all the teachers. They ate hot dogs for supper, roasted over the fire, and went to bed around midnight.
Harry, Ron and, to Harry's disappointment, not Hermione, but Lavender spent the night in one of the tent. The next tent held Dean, Katie, Parvati and Seamus. And the last one held Neville, Ginny and Hermione.
Don't worry, the good stuff is coming just be patient. Keep reading.