,Disclaimer: I'm just playing around with Rowling's action figures.

This first chapter is mainly setting the scene for later chapters.

uUuUuUuUuUuUuUuUuUuUuUuUuUuUuUuUu

It had started out quite harmlessly- the suggestion, on Rosier's side, that they go camping. It had not been meant entirely seriously, but what felt like half of Slytherin house had agreed, full of pre-holiday euphoria and simultaneously rather bored.

When exactly that simple idea had turned into that of a no-magic, muggle-style camping holiday in an idyllic muggle camp site down by a lake nobody knew, although Snape rather suspected that Regulus Black, who seemed to be tiring of the pureblood mania of his household, had come up with that. And why everyone had agreed was simply impossible to understand, especially those who, just the other week, had written obscene graffiti on the stone walls of the dungeons- about Muggles. But everyone had agreed, and everyone was excited, and no one would listen to Snape's doleful 'I have a bad feeling about this'.

So one car packed full with ten boys and another containing nine girls (Bellatrix had, to general relief, refused to come) were driving dangerously along a relatively empty, winding country road. Severus Snape and Sapphire Morgana Divine, as the only holders of muggle driver's licences, had decided to act as chauffeur, because, to quote Snape: 'Well, I'm not risking my neck being driven around by those lunatics.'

They did rather seem like lunatics just now. Someone had discovered the muggle radio, and had tuned into some awful station playing rock and roll, to which the entire car (save Snape) was singing along with quite some gusto. The quality of their singing was, however, not helped by the fact that they had no idea what the words were and had never hear of rythm.

Still, it was a lovely day, the sun was shining down through the windows of the car and even Snape, loath as he would be to admit it, was soaking up some of the summer holiday atmosphere.

Even Regulus's screaming of bad Muggle lyrics -wrong bad muggle lyrics- into his ear couldn't get rid of that.

Somebody was handing out drinks and food (with difficulty- the car was meant to hold only seven passengers, so seats were being shared and laps were being sat on), and the windows had been wound down.

The girl's car, cruising along behind them, seemed less rowdy.

They had a beat-up old mini bus that had belonged to Sapphire's mad uncle (deemed insane by the pureblood Divine family because he had liked muggle technology, but he had at least taught Sapphire to drive), which held the supplies for two weeks.

Two weeks seemed like a long time, thought Snape dubiously for the thousandth time

He had voiced this opinion once, only to have it immediately squashed by the ever-enthusiastic Regulus ('It'll go by in no time, just you wait and see.) I doubt it. I really doubt it. Not with this lot behaving like four year olds.

'Are we neeeearly theeeere yeeet?'

Snape groaned. See? It starts already.

A little over three hours later, they had arrived at the camp site. The manager, an elderly, balding muggle, was not thrilled at the prospect of having nineteen teenagers ruin his main season. He told them to stay on the opposite shore of the lake and for heaven's sake keep quiet.

His daughter was quite the opposite. A cheerful, plump woman, they were barely able to get away from her long and involved account of exactly which difficulties her daughter was facing at university and why her husband's dog was so ill. But finally, they got back into the cars and drove around the shorter end of the lake, where they found a suitable spot and spilled all the equipment onto the grass.

Putting up the tents proved quite a chore. In their moment of madness they had decided not to use magic for anything, including this.

As only Severus knew how to put them up, Sapphire having only had contact with the muggle world to gain her driver's license, it was rather tiring for him.

They had three large tents for the boys and several smaller ones for the girls, tent which had been scrounged from friends and relatives or, in some cases, bought from expensive shops by the richest pureblood students. This made for an interesting mix.

Finally, after a lot of sweating and swearing, the tents were standing fairly well.

Severus stood back and surveyed the scene.

It was certainly a novel sight. Most of his house mates had never worn muggle clothing before and seemed to be feeling rather self-conscious in their shorts and t-shirts. It was rather funny to see them staring at perfectly ordinary things like matches and torches like they were utterly alien and totally weird.

And they're usually such pompous, pure-blooded know-it-alls, he thought. It's quite refreshing to see them like this.

Some of the girls had got a fire going with sticks Rosier and Wilkes had fetched out of the forest behind the camp. A few boys had already braved the muggle swimming trunks and were splashing around in the lake. Regulus, who was bouncing around like an over-enthusiastic puppy, had hitched a large green flag carrying a silver snake onto a long stick.

Snape worried for a moment over whether that was altogether advisable in an all-muggle area and in the current political climate, but then he let it drop. It was, after all, the holidays.

He'd expected to have to deal with everything himself, but apart from the tents everything seemed to be running perfectly well without him. Crabbe- slow, lumbering, fifth-year Crabbe- seemed to be in charge of the cooking. He'd taken a huge, black, cast-iron pot out of the mini van, filled it with some mysterious ingredients, and was now stirring it with a wooden spoon.

Snape decided to take a short walk around the place. Might as well see what he'd let himself into for two weeks, he reasoned.

The sparkling, glittering lake was larger than he'd thought. It wasn't so wide, but the length must have been several miles. It was lined as far as Snape could see by a beach which had sandy parts as well as pebbled areas.

The forest behind the camp was ancient and huge. You could get lost in there for days, thought Snape, looking at the distant treetops silhouetted against the blue sky.

There was a village, the manager's daughter had told them, only a few miles away, easily reachable by road, and a farm even nearer. Crabbe had mentioned going there in the mornings to get fresh milk, cream, butter and eggs, and maybe sausages and bacon.

Speaking of Crabbe, whatever he was cooking smelled pretty darned good. From where he was standing, against the fringe of the trees, Snape could see wafts of tantalisingly scented steam rising and wafting in his direction.

Strange, Crabbe had always been the thick one, the stupid one. Perhaps he had some talent hidden behind those piggy little eyes, after all.

What were the girls doing? Snape screwed up his eyes to see. They seemed to have brought all sorts of rubbish with them- deckchairs, blankets, various knick-knacks. They appeared to be decorating the tents with them and dotting chairs along the beach. Merlin, they'd even brought along soft toys, photographs, and vases to put flowers into. What was the point?

It was still light, although it was getting late in the evening and the sun was nearing the horizon.

Satisfied with the camp, Snape went to unpack his things.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

The first few days were fairly problem-free. Early in the mornings, when the air was still cold and the world was still warming up, Crabbe and a few others would walk down to the muggle farm, where they really were able to get food.

Meanwhile, a few boys would be collecting wood in the forest, whilst the girls tidied up and generally cleaned, and some braved a swim in the lake.

Sometimes, small groups would drive down into the village to fetch other things, like spare muggle batteries or blankets. Regulus had even found (in some second hand shop) and bought an ancient-looking muggle device which he could use to make the car radio even louder, so that often the music echoed right around the tents.

Around the camp fire they had laid tree trunks to use as benches. In the evenings it could get really snug, with the fire crackling and Crabbe's special hot chocolate being handed around. Joshka Parkinson had taken his guitar with him, and other instruments had also been brought.

Dolohov (who had actually already left school, but had come anyway), had bought huge amounts of paper and paints at the muggle village shop, and had already discovered a talent for watercolour painting.

Snape was interested to see how quickly his classmates got used to the routine of muggle camping life. They had certainly got used to the clothing quickly, although any muggle technology still confused them utterly. And he still admitted to being baffled as to how whole-heartedly they'd accepted the idea.

Everyone had by now realised what an excellent cook Crabbe was (he even admitted to having occasionally watched and helped the family house elves when his family was out).

The snake of Slytherin was to be found everywhere- Dolohov had painted little silver snakes all over the tents, Cecilia Turpin, who had some experience with a needle and thread, had sewn snakes onto bits of material. The snake had generally been accepted as a sort of group emblem.

There were a few happenings- Rosier, for reasons known only to him, had mistaken Crabbe's bottle of golden syrup for his admittedly similarly coloured bottle of shampoo, and after his subsequent bath in the lake he had had to endure teasing about his weirdly sticking-up hair. One of the girls, Rosalie, knocked a bottle of ink over Snape's homework. Crabbe made friends with a cat by feeding it scraps (no-one could work out why in Merlin's name he had had to call it Cuddles- it went to show how little they knew him).

But nothing huge happened, nothing even especially interesting.

That is until, on the fifth day, a second large collection of tents appeared on the opposite shore of the lake.