Chapter 3

Teenage dreams in a teenage circus
Running around like a clown on purpose
Who gives a damn about the family you come from?
No giving up when you're young and you want some

We Are Golden - Mika

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The forth day Hermione woke up to Luna and Ginny talking.

She untangled herself from her sleeping bag and got dressed. Then she took on her raincoat on top of the rest of her clothes.

Exiting the tent, she found Amber sitting by one of the tables they had been given when arriving at the camp. It looked like the kind you would find in a park with a bench on each of the long sides.

"Good morning," Hermione was greeted by Amber.

"Morning," Hermione answered her in reply as she sat down next to her.

"So, who's this Ron?" Amber asked Hermione with a mischievous smile.

Hermione blushed a bit.

"Um, just one of the guys we hung out with yesterday," she told, biting her lip a bit.

"Y'know, when I was at a jamboree, I had a camp boyfriend," Amber told her with a small wink.

Hermione blushed once again. "It's not like that..." she tried explaining, but Amber didn't want to listen.

"Want to help me with breakfast?" she asked Hermione while standing up from her seat.

Hermione just sat there, before she agreed to help Amber and made her way towards the makeshift benches they had made to cook on.

The rest of the troop seemed to be getting up by now and people spilled out of the tents placed around their campsite.

Some of the other scouts joined them, helping to make breakfast for them all.

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The activity they had that day mainly focused on pollution and what people alone or in a group could do to do their best to stop this.

They finished quickly, not sure how that the activity was supposed to last the whole day. They finished by lunchtime and Ginny and Lavender bribed Hermione into letting the patrol go do what they wanted.

The girls, mainly Hermione, Luna, Ginny and Lavender took the opportunity to head back to the sun. There they had lunch at the small café that was placed right by the sun.

It actually looked like a small town's centre with the large, white plastic tents placed around the scene and the sun.

They hung around there for a while, hoping their leaders hadn't seen any of the other scouts in their patrol wandering around on their own. Even though they were old enough to take care of themselves, or should be at least, they weren't supposed to walk around when they were supposed to be at activities.

"So Lavender, any of our American friends you find red, blue or both?" Ginny said, wiggling an eyebrow, making Hermione and Luna laugh.

"Oliver isn't too bad, neither is Dean," she told the rest of the girls.

Ginny eyed Lavender for a while, she didn't really know the girl, only that she was rather annoying and few of the teens in their troop seemed to like her.

"Well, at least it looked like Neville found his goddess," Ginny notified the others.

"What?" Hermione asked, she hadn't seen Neville eying any of them the day before.

Ginny made a gesture towards Luna.

"Wow, really?" Luna said in her usual dreamy voice.

Ginny nodded to her with a smile.

"Anyways, it was fun to hang out with them last night," Ginny declared and the rest of them nodded. It had been fun.

"Do you think it's okay if we stop by them tonight?" Lavender asked no one in particular.

Ginny shrugged. She probably wouldn't join Lavender anyways, even if she did go to the boys. And she didn't want to seem desperate. "Do whatever you feel like."

"I might go then," Lavender said, mostly to herself.

Ginny sent Hermione one of her looks, the one only the two of them understood.

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At first they didn't understood what was going on.

The cheering only came closer and closer, but they couldn't see any larger crowd then the usual groups of about ten people that came walking past their campsite every now and then.

Then they suddenly understood it as the French campsite next to them started cheering too.

The skies were opening up, leaving a clear blue sky in its way.

It was one of those experiences that you only have one time in your life. It was so beautiful, something they all knew they would never see again in their lives.

Hermione gave Ginny a hug and they laughed a bit, before they went back to cooking.

%&%&%&

"See, it's easy," Hermione exclaimed to the others.

Since they had finished dinner, they had all been doing a clapping game, using a cup each. When several of the others had managed to do it right too, they started switching cups, adding the move into the routine.

Ginny had finally managed to get it right, but Lavender and Luna still didn't manage it quite right yet. Seamus sat next to Hermione, laughing because of Lavender's bad try at it; he himself had been one of the first ones to get it right.

"Guys, you know it's ruining the tables, right?" Draco asked as them as he stopped y the table.

They all stopped and looked down on the table, true as it was, there were becoming small bump in the table where they had hit it hard with their cups.

"Don't worry, no one really cares," Amber told them with a smile as she heard what Draco told them.

Draco shrugged and walked away.

"I have to go to the loo," Lavender announced and was followed by a couple of the other girls in their troop as she went towards the port-a-potties placed about 200 yards away from their campsite.

"Think we should go see the American boys?" Ginny asked Hermione and Luna with a small smile.

"Sure," Hermione answered with a smile.

Luna nodded in agreement.

"Can I come too?" Seamus asked them, wanting to see if Dean was up to talk some politics with him again tonight.

"If you want to," Ginny answered him and not five minutes later they were on their way to their camp.

When they were close to the American campsite they discovered that someone had started some sport, one guy jumping over a lot of others. He was surprisingly good at it, jumping above at least four guys standing on hands and knees.

"Ginny! Hermione! This way," Ron shouted, standing behind some tents inside their campsite.

They all walked over there, and Dean found his way to them, eagerly joining in on a conversation with Seamus.

Harry and Neville came crawling out of one of the tents, standing up and greeting the girls.

"We were just wandering if you guys wanted to do something," Ginny said, addressing the boys.

"Yeah, sure," Harry answered her as he used a finger to slide his glasses further up on his nose.

"Can we please leave this place? It's getting rather crowded," Dean said, taking a moment away from his conversation with Seamus, indicating to the people who had gathered around them to watch the guy jump.

"Sure," Hermione said.

They all made their way between the tents and out to the paths that swirled between different campsites.

"What do you want to do?" Hermione asked all of them.

No one really answered, Ron and Harry just shrugged.

"Anyone know if they closed the hamster balls for the night?" Harry asked.

"No idea," Ron answered.

"I think we should go check it out," Ginny declared, eager to try them herself.

They made their way towards the centre of their sub camp, in the end discovering that they had closed down the hamster balls for the night.

"Fuck," Ron exclaimed, running a hand through his shaggy ginger hair.

"Language!" Hermione said sharply to him. She had never liked swearing, no matter who it was that did it.

Ron looked at her, one eyebrow raised. "Really?" he asked her, sounding surprised.

"Yes Ronald," she said with a huff. He had revealed the night before that his full name was Ronald, and she found it appropriate to address with by his full name as she was annoyed with him.

Harry sniggered a bit to himself, and she could see that Neville wanted to laugh, but didn't. She looked too scary for him to dare that.

"What do we do then?" Ginny asked the group, wanting to draw the attention away from Hermione and Ron.

"We could head back to our camp I guess," Seamus suggested.

They all looked around at the others, but no one said anything against the suggestion just made.

"Your camp it is then," Harry declared.

The group made their way there, Luna and Neville and Ginny talking about how the day had been, Seamus and Dean some steps behind the others talking about politics and God knows what. Hermione was talking to Ron and Harry about American high school, wanting to know how it was. Ron was constantly rolling his eyes, not really believing that Hermione was that interested in the school system in the USA.

As they reached the camp they were greeted by Amber, who wiggled her eyebrows at Hermione. She didn't respond, just ignored Amber and lead the other over to a table and they all sat down.

They all continued talking, but were soon interrupted by Neville asking a question.

"What have you done with the table?" he asked as he traced the tabletop with his fingers.

Hermione looked down and saw all the marks they had made that morning, doing their cup game.

"We have this game thingy, want to see?" Ginny said.

"Sure," the boys answered and nodded.

Luna got up and fetched cups for all of them.

"1, 2, 3," Ginny said out loud and they all started.

In the start they did it in a rather slow tempt, letting the boys see what they were doing. But as they did it, they increased the speed and in the end Hermione lost grip of her cup, falling out and making them all lose concentration.

They all started laughing.

After the laugher had died down they were approached by Lavender.

"Guys!" she squealed as she sat down by the table, squeezing in between Dean and Ginny.

Ginny rolled her eyes, Lavender was rather obvious.

"So, you want to learn how to do it?" Luna asked, her dreamy voice cutting the silence.

"We could give it a try," Harry answered for the lot of them.

Harry and Neville tried to watch Luna do it, but failed when trying to copy her. Hermione went through it step by step with Ron and Dean, both boys managing to almost do it right when they went slow. Ginny was glaring at Lavender, who seemed obvious to it, just doing the routing by herself a couple of times.

"Really, I can't do it!" Harry exclaimed loudly after a while.

"Sure you can," Hermione told him with an encouraging smile.

"I've got no beat Hermione, I couldn't play a drum if I wanted to," Harry said, sounding like he wanted to laugh of himself.

"Maybe we should play a game instead then?" Seamus suggested.

"You know any good games?" Ginny asked him. She felt like they were a bit too old to play games, even if they had seen many other scouts their age playing on the open fields around the camp.

"That's a great idea," Ron exclaimed. He hadn't totally managed to get the cup game right yet, so he really just wanted to forget about it at this moment.

"We learned some games earlier today, some Swedish scouts showed us," Harry told the lot of them.

"Turtle!" Neville exclaimed loudly.

"Sure, let's play turtle," Harry said with a nod.

Harry and Neville started getting up from the benches, and the rest of them followed their lead.

"Everyone, make a ring," Harry instructed. "Can we use your scarf Ginny? Okay then, these are the rules: We start with both our feet touching the neighbours feet, still in a ring. One of us are going to lay down the scarf, it can be outside the ring, and then the person who put it down gets to decide who shall pick it up. Then the person who's going to pick it up have to do it, but can only move one foot and once you have put your foot or arm you can't remove it from the ground. If you lose your balance and fall, or just move a hand or a foot when it's not your turn, you're out of the game."

Harry gently put the scar on the ground behind him, as far away as he could reach. "Oh, and no throwing the scarf," he added in the end. "Ron, you first."

They played for a while, and after ten minutes they were all tangled up in each other.

"I'm so glad you guys agreed to play this game," Harry said out loud as Luna was trying to get to the scarf.

"Why?"

"Because, the guys in our troops are all homophobes, this would be touching, and touching another guy is scary," Dean explained.

"Really?" Ginny asked. "This is nothing! Just a bit of fun." She had gotten over them being too old to play, it was too much fun not to do it.

"Mhm," Ron agreed with her. "But we have 14 year olds, they're the worst."

"They sure are," Harry agreed.

Then there was a small thud and an annoyed Lavender was the first one out of the game.

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"So, who's Ron?" Amber asked Ginny in a low voice. They were about to sit down by the campfire Draco had just started.

They had brought over some benches and placed them in a square around the campfire as it was getting dark.

"Ron's the red head," Ginny answered Amber in an equal low voice, not wanting anyone to hear them.

They were all taking a place on the benches, filling them up.

Hermione, who had been busy clearing everything off the tables, as to not have it all wet when they woke up, didn't get any place.

"Here, have my seat," Ron said, getting up.

"No, sit down, you're the guest," Hermione insisted.

"Ladies firs," Ron said back to her.

"No!" Hermione exclaimed.

"See, just push the bench back a bit and I'll sit down in the front." Hermione said, making them push back the bench a bit.

Hermione sat down with her knees up to her chest.

They started talking, breaking into several different conversations.

"You sure you don't want my seat?" Ron asked Hermione.

Hermione turned her head to face him.

"I'm sure, but thank you for asking," she said in a low voice.

The time went by quickly. As Ginny stood to get a sweater, since it had begun to get colder, she noticed something in the corner of her eye.

To her right sat Ron and Hermione, still in the same places, but Hermione was leaning against Ron's legs and he was, without thinking about it, playing with some of Hermione's hair.

Ginny smiled softly to herself, the two of them were rather cute.

"Sooo, guys? Tell me, where are you from?" Amber asked the boys with a one of her clever smiles.

"We're from California," Harry answered her. "But most of our troop is from Texas."

"Wow, bad planning," Amber said. "And how old are you all?"

"I'm 17," Harry was the first to answer.

"Me too," Ron added.

"I'm turning 18 in about a month," Dean told.

"I'm 17 too," Neville said.

"So you're all in High School then?"

"Yepp," Dean gave a nod.

Hermione glanced over at Amber. What was she doing? Was she trying to scare away the boys or something? Then she remembered the conversation they had that morning. It made Hermione want to drag her away from the lot of them. It seemed like Amber never knew when to shut up.

One of the other leaders came up to the campfire and said something in a low voice to Amber.

"Well look at the time! I think it's about time you boys head back to your own campsite. At least we'll be throwing our kids into their tents," Amber said out loud.

"Sure," Harry said.

The group around the campfire wasn't there for long as the British teens went to get ready to sleep and Hermione, Ginny, Luna and Lavender followed the boys to their portal.

"G'night," Harry said to the girls.

"Night," Ginny answered, but reached out and hugged Harry.

The rest of them followed the example and hugged each other before the boys left.

Ron was the last one to hug Hermione.

To Hermione, the hug was perfect. Ron was tall enough to lean his head on top of hers and she leaned her head against his chest. She could smell him, it was a kind of earthy smell, like grass and apples, and was it spearmint toothpaste?

In the end, Ron discovered the rest of them looking knowingly at him and Hermione, so he reluctantly let go of her.

"Night," he said in a low voice before the boys took off. He was thankful that it was dark outside, maybe it covered most of his blush?

A/N: Aww, hope you guys liked it! It's me celebrating having finished my oral exam^^ I might go back later and edit this chapter a bit, because I found it rather hard to write... And thanks for the lovely reviews you have all given to me! Keep them coming, because I really appreciate them :) That's all for now, so see ya in a week *waves*