Angelica was quiet as she walked back to the car, where Prue already had their sleeping bags rolled out and a card table set up with crisps and a package of sausages. She had a lot to think about.

.

The next day, Angelica woke up to find that at least half the people there were already up early, including the other children. With a grin, she wriggled from under he blanket she'd laid over her sleeping bag - both she and Prue had decided it was too hot the night before, and had been very happy to realise that light blankets had, indeed, been packed to sleep under - and crawled over to where Prue was gently snoring by the remains of the fire. "Prue!" she said quietly, shaking the woman's shoulder. "Prue, wake up! Miss Trudoe, wake up!"

Bupkis.

Angelica looked around for a few seconds before her eyes lit on the bottle of water she'd left by the fire after supper the night before. She leaned over and grabbed it. "Miss Trudoe," she wheedled, "I'll pour this on you if you don't wake up." When Prue didn't so much as grumble in her sleep, Angelica shrugged, uncapped the bottle, and poured it on the older witch's head.

It was probably a good thing that Prue's sleeping bag was waterproof, otherwise the green-eyed woman would have been much angrier. As it was, Angelica got to dig through the boot to find twine to make a small clothes' line to hang the blanket up on. By the time that was finished and she walked around the other side of the car to get some food, a small cluster of people were gathered on the ground, chattering and eating breakfast. Prue looked up from a conversation with a dimpled strawberry blonde with blue streaks in her hair when Angelica sat down.

"Hey, kiddo," she grinned. "These are the friends I was telling you about that invited us. Everyone, this is Angelica, an old student of mine."

There were murmured hellos, with a few of the more . . . exuberant women cooing over Angelica or pinching her cheeks, and soon everyone was back to eating and talking. Angelica was happy to just sit back and listen to the conversations going on around her, answering a question or two when one of the young women wanted to ask her something. This was nice, and definitely fit in to a part of why she didn't think she'd ever want to totally abandon the Muggle world, like she'd noticed some of her classmates were ready to. No talk of Houses, or gawking at her scar aside from the rare maternal 'oh you poor child, what happened?' and just the community of it.

A prime example - she'd never met any one of these women before, but they were all perfectly happy to talk to her, or ask if she'd had enough to eat, any of that. Maybe she was wrong, and the wizarding world had that too. As it was, the most united she'd seen her classmates was when Gryffindor faced Slytherin in Quidditch.

"Angelica!"

Angelica's eyes snapped open with a jerk, and suddenly the girl found herself standing up, her paper plate and half eaten sausage now covered in dirt. Drat.

Lavender stood in front of her, a grin on her face, and she was bouncing on the balls of her feet. "I've found you!" she exclaimed happily. "Come on, a few of us are going down to the stream to make flower wreaths!" She grabbed Angelica's wrist and began to pull. Angelica pulled away. She did not like people pulling on her.

"One second," she said, making up an excuse. "I have to ask Miss Trudoe first." Prue, who had obviously noticed Lavender's arrival, looked up.

"Who's this?" she asked. Angelica motioned for Lavender to walk over to Prue and introduced her. "Prue, this is Lavender, she goes to my school. Lavender, this is Miss Trudoe, an old teacher of mine."

Lavender smiled brightly. "Hello, Miss Trudoe!" she grinned. "Can Angelica come make wreathes with us, please?" The blonde girl batted her large brown eyes innocently, making Prue raise an eyebrow.

"Who's going to be there?" she asked.

"Oh, just a few of our year mates and their siblings and cousins," Lavender said casually. "Hannah Abbott is there with her little sister Isabel and her older brother Alexander. Blaise Zabini's there since his mother and stepfather are still sleeping, and so is my older cousin, Nerys Orpington and her friend Katherine MacDougal - Angelica knows her, she's a third year Ravenclaw, Morag's older sister. Morag's feeling ill, though, and had to stay home, she hasn't been well all summer."

Prue looked to Angelica, silently asking if the girl knew and was okay with being around the children Lavender named. Hiding the vindictive pleasure she felt knowing her karma spell on Morag had worked, Angelica nodded. Hannah Abbott she knew from the library - a quiet blonde who spent most of her time with Susan Bones. Blaise Zabini was a good-looking boy in Slytherin who, as far as Angelica knew, never really spoke to . . . well, anyone. Prue waved the two girls off with a small smile and a 'have fun' sent after them.

Before Angelica could even think to ask any questions - namely what not one, or two, but more than three wizarding families were doing at a small gathering of maybe a hundred people, instead of at one of the huge ones held at places like Stonehenge - Lavender had already managed to drag her through the lightly wooded area, across the field where the bonfire would be that night, and back into the trees, where maybe a dozen children were laughing and making flower circlets, in the girls' case, and the boys made wreaths of flowers and oak leaves to wear by the stream, where tall grass grew in bunches and large rocks were easily seen..

Judging by the printed t-shirts and obviously much worn jeans, at least half of them didn't live in the wizarding world. Angelica looked to Lavender nervously - she'd never been much good with people - and was relieved to see the girl standing on a large rock and clearing her throat loudly. "I brought a friend!" she yelled, crossing her arms when no one had yet looked up. They did then, and she smiled. "Everyone, this is Angelica Potter, she goes to school in the same year as Blaise and me."

" 'Blaise and I,' " a rather pretty girl with long, dark brown hair said. Angelica watched in fascination as her fingers quickly braided strands of flowers together, and then braided the braids with one another. Lavender, on the other hand, paid that no mind ad rolled her eyes.

"You're not in our year, Katherine," she said, grinning when the others laughed. Katherine's cheeks pinked a little, but she merely snorted and waved Lavender off. The Gryffindor girl huffed and pulled Angelica over to where Blaise Zabini was sitting next to Hannah Abbott. He was holding the ends of her first flower together while she weaved more into it, to Angelica's surprise. Here she'd been thinking that Chris was the only nice boy in Slytherin.

Which, now that she thought about it, was really very mean of her. Oops?

"Hello," Hannah murmured quietly, looking up from her circlet. Angelica noticed the girl's cheeks pink when she smiled at her. "I'm Hannah, and this is Blaise. It's nice to officially meet you." Hannah smiled brightly, and Angelica immediately took a liking to the girl: she seemed the sort that was always there with an ear to listen and a mint to make you go away. She smiled back.

Blaise didn't say a word, only nodded easily and plucked tall strands of grass from where they were growing up around the rock he sat on. It was a few minutes before conversation started up again - even with the non wizards, apparently newcomers must be watched - and by that time Angelica had sat herself comfortably between Lavender and Hannah, leaning against the long rock they were both using as a bench and braiding pieces of grass she'd ripped in half longwise to make them thin together.

"So what are all of you doing here?" she asked the other wizard children quietly, looking up. Blaise was the only one whose face she could see, as Lavender and Hannah were both sitting above her and the other girls were . . . Somewhere else, as was Alexander Abbott. At any rate, Blaise merely shrugged and spoke equally quietly.

"Why shouldn't we be?" he asked. "We all live close here, and it's nice to be able to celebrate with friends and family without having to worry about some reporter from the Daily Prophet showing up with a camera to dig up dirt on everyone. Can you say differently for yourself?"

Angelica raised an eyebrow, and her mouth twitched. "Yes, actually. I live as a Muggle during the hols. I'd love to see how the wizarding world celebrate." At Blaise's unimpressed look, she added, "But I see your point. And what's wrong with the Prophet? Most of the student get it, so it can't be that bad, can it?"

Blaise outright snorted, making several others look over, at which point Hannah's little sister decided that Angelica was neglecting her circlet and slid off the bench rock, where she had, it seemed, been sitting.

"You need more flowers!" she declared loudly, inspecting Angelica's long braid of grass. "And it has to be woven, not braided."

Hannah tugged on the hem of her younger sister's dress. "Isabel," she said calmly, "Be nice. Angelica can make her circlet however she likes."

The dark haired Abbot girl pouted. "No," she said stubbornly, and stalked away, likely, Angelica guessed, to pick flowers. She hid a smile by a ducking her head down so her hair hid her face and finished the thin braid. She'd weave it into a 'proper' circlet when it was done, and then she'd loop in the flowers. There were some pretty yellow ones by the water, maybe they'd look nice?

The day passed quickly, with all the children running through the trees and splashing in the water. The older ones left sometime around noon. Nerys muttered about clothes and food for around the bonfire when asked. Fortunately, to the younger set's minds, this didn't really change anything, and around four o'clock Angelica found herself being dragged into the stream by one of the Muggle girls, Juliette, when she and Lavender both agreed that they had to all take a bath in it. There was much laughing and splashing, and Angelica happily dunked Isabel under the water when the younger witch tickled her. It was all very fun, and Juliette said that bathing in streams and springs and such on Midsummer's Eve brought healing and protection.

All in all, it was fun. Right up until the boys stole their clothes. The five or so preteen girls were very uncomfortable, and likely would have waited in the bushes until one of their female relatives found them, had Samantha a boyish girl with chopped off brown hair, not gone running with her four little sisters after the boys. That lead to the rest of the girls following her, and in short order Juliette's twin brother Ethan found himself tied up with Lavender's bright pink tights and a plum shoved in his mouth.

As she walked back to Prue's car, seeing the bonfire being built up and smelling food cook, and with her finished circlet perched on her head, Angelica decided that yes, it had been a very good day. It made the coming evening that much better.