Chapter One: In the Beginning

This is not the beginning of my story- or at least, not the beginning of this story. . This tale begins on a warm August morning, nearly a year prior, at the mouth of a tent. The sky was navy blue, the clouds cotton wool puffs, the sun bright and hot. I lay, resting on my elbows with my sunglasses on my head, enjoying the heat of the sunshine on my lips and the thin skin of my eyelids.

Beneath the awning of the tent, my sister sheltered from the harmful UV rays. She frequently tsked at me, in my strappy top and little shorts, soaking up as much sun as I could. A trainee Healer, she was painfully sensible, from her ponytail right down to her no-nonsense shoes. It was for this reason that my father had insisted she accompany me to the World Cup, and it was for this reason that our tent was miles away from most other life forms: out here, we were "far less likely to be robbed and far more likely to be able to get some sleep." Over the past two days I had thrown many a wistful glance at the sea of tents in the distance.

My parents had given me our tickets under the façade of an early birthday present. It was the first time the Quidditch World Cup final had been held in Britain for a long time, and everyone was, understandably, very excited. However, I had little interest in Quidditch. I was not, as such, athletic and failed to entirely grasp the complex rules. Chelsea, on the other hand, was Quidditch crazy. She had been captain of the Ravenclaw squad two years in a row at school, and she went to professional matches with her sensible, stable boyfriend, Giles, almost every week. She was in her element at being able to see the final. There was no mistaking the fact that my birthday present had been for her.

And yet, I couldn't find it in my heart to be truly jealous of her. Sure, it was my seventeenth birthday and I had been hoping for something special. But I had also just spent weeks cooped up in my house, never straying further than the village shop. It felt great to be away from my house. Truth be told, I wasn't even bothered that we were camping so far away from everyone else. My close friends weren't coming, and Chelsea wasn't such awful company. She knew lots of interesting, if slightly random, things, and she was only too aware of the pains of a summer spent in our home. She had been through it herself after all. Out here in the open air I could feel the relief of home pressures; the constant watch of my overprotective father, the strain to always be on my best behaviour, the pressure to make a decision about the direction I wanted my life to take.

It was easy to be optimistic dozing in the sun, even if it went against every naturally pessimistic bone in my body. I could feel my normally pale skin tanning, my already blonde hair lightening, the excitement of the match approaching. I had received a sulky letter from my best friend, Silkie, detailing the punishment she had received for one incident of drunken behaviour two weeks previously and I felt smug that for once my life was more exciting than hers. Childish though it was, the role reversal felt strangely satisfying. She was grounded and I was pretty much free.

"Oh!" Chelsea exclaimed, agilely springing to her feet, "Newcomers!"

I opened my eyes and squinted into the distance, shielding my face from the blinding sunshine with my hand . Chelsea sighed and brushed her hand over the top of my head knocking my sunglasses, with considerable force, onto the bridge of my nose. As I rubbed my nose, I watched the two newcomers approach. There was a man and a younger boy, from what I could make out. Both wore sensible clothes; jeans and light jackets. They carried rucksacks on their backs and were exactly the sort of thing Chelsea greatly approved of. The older man even had a sensible hat to protect his face from the evil sun. As they came closer, Chelsea seemed to recognise them. She clasped her hands together and started to walk towards them, her ponytail swishing at the back of her neck as she did so.

"Freya," she whispered harshly at me over her shoulder.

I was supposed to follow her, I knew, but I was far too comfortable where I sat and pretended not to hear. She whispered again, louder this time. I sunk down to the ground, nudging my sunglasses back to the top of my head and sliding the straps of my top off my shoulders to avoid getting a tan line. I could vaguely hear her greet the newbies. I thought I even heard her apologise about me being such a lazy teenager. This, I thought, was rather uncalled for. She was still only nineteen, a teenager herself, as much as she liked to pretend otherwise.

The conversation got louder, and I could hear footfalls coming our way, gently thumping the grass. Hiking boots, I thought too myself, imagining Chelsea's glee at finding people who shared her ideas of sensibility. I received rather a shock when I was violently yanked to my feet.

As I was forced up, I tripped over my ankle, causing an ungainly crunch, and my sunglasses half fell back down from my head. Chelsea slightly dug her nails into my shoulder, reprimanding me for my rudeness, and smiled through gritted teeth at her new friends.

"Freya," she said, forced cheeriness in her tone, "You remember Mr Diggory, don't you?"

I looked up into the wide eyed, smiling face of my father's old friend, slightly alarmed by the extreme rosy colour which spread from his round cheeks to his nose. Embarrassed, I tried to pull my loose straps back over my shoulders.

"Yeah," I said, pulling my sunglasses free from my hair, "Hi."

After extricating my sunglasses, I patted my hair and was alarmed to feel quite a large amount of grass stuck in it. I started to vaguely pull at it as Mr Diggory told me how grown up I was. Good, I thought, you haven't seen me since I was eleven. I internally flinched at the memory of my eleven year old self, complete with squint teeth and short bob: not exactly my best look.

"And, of course," Chelsea continued, her nails still stuck in my shoulder; surely, by now, drawing blood, "You're still at school with Cedric."

My eyes ventured over to the younger of the two newcomers, annoyed that I hadn't immediately noticed or remembered. The tall, beautiful and obnoxious form of Cedric Diggory stood in front of me. The resident pretty-boy of my year, I had watched him soar to popularity in third year, when girls had first started to notice his good looks. I had known him before that, when he had been slightly chubby and shared my squint toothed affliction. I had barely spoken to him in years, we all but ignored each other these days. He was smiling at me now, or more likely laughing, as I rolled my pained and swelling ankle and tried to pick bits of grass from my hair. My chest filled with a familiar sense of loathing and I could feel my eyes somewhat narrow.

"Hey there, Freya," he said, chuckling slightly.

So he was laughing. Well, I'd teach him to laugh at me.

"Hi," I smiled my most false, most scathing smile, noticeably flinching as I moved my weight back onto my injured ankle. He rolled his eyes. I felt ready to pounce on him, standing there all stupid and smug and pain-free. Optimism now gone, I felt the once liberating and exciting trip becoming less desirable by the second, marred by the arrival of someone I would much rather avoid. My jaw set with my sudden sullenness.

And that's how it began. On the outskirts of a campsite in the English countryside, a boy laughed at a girl with grass in her hair and an injured ankle. Neither expected what was to follow. Nor did they expect it was the beginning of the end.