AN:
Hey Frands, back again. One of my closest friends got some really tragic news last night, and my heart is a little heavy today so I am posting this chapter a little early. I will post the next in a week.
Thanks to Katherine my beta.
I own nothing.
Chapter 40
They left the house out a back door into a small garden lined with trees on all sides. The Adewumi house, it turned out, was small and brick and square. The windows were narrow and evenly spaced, completely different from the large wide windows Mia had seen in every room she had visited.
"Coming?" Gabe asked. Mia smiled and turned back to him. They caught up with the others who had started walking into the trees. She walked side by side with Gabe while Sirius, Alec and Mr. Adewumi talked about quidditch stats and chances.
They walked for about five minutes before Mr. Adewumi came to a stop beside a large tree. "Alright team. It should be right around here somewhere. Lets split up but don't go out of sight."
Mia turned and looked around as the others started to move away from her. "So we just look for trash?" she asked Gabe.
"Yeah. Usually something small enough to be lifted."
Gabe stayed close as they wandered through the trees. They found a mars bar wrapper and an old mitten before returning to where they started. Alec met them and dropped a bucket and a three foot length of rope on top of their pile.
Mia heard footsteps in the crunching leaves and looked up in time to see a girl she remembered getting sorted into Gryffindor the year before followed by a man and a woman who looked a bit like her.
"Martha, Rony, good to see you," Mr. Adewumi said, greeting the couple as he came out of the treed and added his findings to the pile.
"Mezilion, good to see you. Have you found it yet?"
"Hard to say." They all looked down at the pile of junk. Sirius came out of the trees and added a hubcap and a pare of crusty headphones. "Ah, do you two know Sirius Black? He and his daughter are joining us for the game."
The couple had matching looks of shock, quickly smoothed out into warm smiles as they greeted Sirius and gave him their best 'so sorry for how the ministry wronged you' speech.
Two more people came out of the woods, a man carrying a hard helmet and a boy Mia though maybe a sixth year, carrying a wet cardboard box.
"Found a few more things," the man said. "How long do we have?"
"Two minutes and counting," Alec said.
"Lets spread out our finds. We may have to act quickly. It will start shining when sixty seconds remain," Mr. Adewumi started. They lined up the items so everything was in view. "Remember you need to be touching it at the end of the minute. Just a finger will do."
"Are any of them glowing?" Alec asked squinting through the gloom.
"The mitten!" Sirius said. Sure enough, the mitten started to glow a pale blue.
Alec picked up the mitten and held it out. "Gather around quick."
Mia squeezed in between Sirius and Gabe. She pinched the end of one of the mitten fingers, and Gabe grabbed the same finger a little farther up from her hand so his hand rested over hers. They all crammed their shoulders close together, everyone reaching out and cramming together, till they had a finger touching.
They stood awkwardly for a few moments.
"What time is it?"
"I can't see my watch."
"So who do you think will win?"
Suddenly Mia felt something hook behind her navel and tug. She was flying through the air, wind ripping around her. She felt Gabe on one side and Sirius on the other. It lasted longer than felt right, and for a moment she started to worry it would never end when suddenly she fell out of the sky and landed on her feet.
"Three after ten from Marlton wood," a voice rang out. Mia bent over afraid she was going to puke. She closed her eyes tight and held her breath. When it felt safe she let it out slowly.
She opened her eyes and saw Gabe laying flat on the ground holding his stomach. Gabe saw her and shook his head. "Your such a cat," he said, before getting up.
"What is that supposed to mean?" she asked.
On her other side, Sirius was on one knee a hand over his mouth. He closed his eyes for a long moment and swallowed hard before putting a hand on her shoulder and using it to stand up. "It means you always land on your feet, kid."
A man wearing a poncho and a kilt told them where to find their campsite, and they parted ways from the other families and started walking into the woods. After two miles, Sirius was looking grim, sweating and breathing hard, and they finally reached a small cabin with a man sitting in an old wooden chair outside the door. Sirius bent over breathing hard while the rest of them reached the man.
"Mr. Payne I presume?" Mr. Adewumi asked.
The old man looked at them with a bored glazed expression. "Name?"
"Adewumi."
The old man looked at a clipboard in his hand. "One tent for two nights," he said.
"That's us."
The old man looked slowly at their party as if asking how they would fit in a single tent but only told them the price. Mr. Adewumi pulled a few folded bills out of his wallet and handed them over like an expert.
The man tucked the bills into his pocket and pointed up a hill. "Half a mile down. Lot 203 on the left."
"Cheers." Mr. Adewumi said before turning and starting up the hill. Mia turned to see Sirius tucking an empty bottle back into his bag. He looked better. His skin had more color and aside from the smoke streaming out of his ears, looked well rested and normal. He caught up to Mia and Gabe and gave the old man a nod before following Alec and Mr. Adewumi. Mia tried to suppress her worry. He had barely put on any weight since being on the run, and she didn't think he had slept a whole night through since the summer had started.
As they walked up the hill they began to pass tents. Tent was the wrong word. They weren't tents but they all seemed to have a tent like bases. Canvas or brightly colored nylon. The most basic had just a few oddities, like glass windows and flower boxes, or chimneys and weather veins, while others had steeples, towers or multiple floors. One tent had a wooden front door and a slanted shingled roof.
Mia smiled wide. Gabe had told her they would be tent camping, but she'd forgotten the magical element. Wizards wouldn't camp like muggles.
When they reached an empty lot, in between a victorian orange and black tent, and an all white canvas tent stretched between two trees that looked like it would just hold one short man laying under it, Gabe and Alec reached into one of the bags and pulled out a bright blue tarp and a rolled up mess of grey fabric and short polls.
The brothers stretched out the tarp over a flat part of the ground then spread out the tent. Once it was flat Alec looked around then pulled out his wand and shot orange sparks at the tent. It popped up all at once, the polls aligning, and spikes driving the four points into the ground. It looked like a typical tent. The sort you would see in a wilderness magazine or on TV. It had been a few years since Mia had lived in the muggle world, but when she pictured a tent, this was just about what she saw. It was maybe a little taller than a normal tent, allowing someone to enter standing up, but looked utterly normal.
Alec looked at his dad who shrugged. "No point in being completely incognito given the neighbors."
Alec grinned and flicked his wand again and a porch stretched out in front of the tent, patio furniture popping up to the left of the entrance and a small bird bath in the corner. Alec levitated the bird bath out a few feet off the porch and filled it with water.
Mia and Gabe shared a grin, and they all moved to enter the tent.
Inside was a wide spacious living room, filled with overstuffed couches and a large fireplace. The furnishings were tasteful and warm like the Adewumi home had been.
"The kitchen is on the right. Sirius, you and Mia have the first room down the hall on the right if that's all right with you. I'm on the left and the boys will be straight down. We can do lunch in an hour or so if everyone wants to get settled in."
Alec was already to the door to his room and Gabe followed. Sirius pushed open the door for their room and ushered Mia inside. The room was large, with two big beds on either side covered with patchwork quilts. Sirius threw his bag on the bed closest to the door, and glass clanked inside. "Quite a lovely tent," he said brightly before flopping back on the bed. "Wake me for lunch."
Mia snorted and set her bag on the far bed. "Like you could sleep with that much pepperup potion in your system."
She saw Sirius raise a hand and point it in her direction. "Never doubt my abilities."
She shook her head in amusement and looked around the room. There was a large desk and vanity on one side with bog open windows on either side, with thin gossamer curtains letting in the morning light. She hadn't seen any windows from outside the tent but didn't let that bother her.
There were two doors on the far wall, one turned out to be a large closet with a small couch in it, and the second was an even larger bathroom with a shower and oversize tub. Mia chuckled to herself as she returned to her bag and started unpacking her things, hanging them in the closet or storing them in the bathroom. Their tickets permitted them to arrive at the camp the day before the world cup would start, while others had already been at the camp for weeks. Mr. Adewumi had told her organizing the tournament was a nightmare. He said it with a laugh as it wasn't part of his job. Adult wizards had more freedom if they could apparate, there were safe zones where they could arrive when desired, but anyone who needed portkey travel had to be scheduled out. With wizarding families coming from all over the world, it was a complex process just waiting to fail.
Both Alec and Sirius could have waited to arrive the following evening just before the start of the cup, but both of them wanted to be part of the festivities. Sirius said the camping was just as much fun as the actual game, and couldn't wait to relive it.
Mia hoped this trip would be good for him. He was so grim when he thought no one was looking, or when it started to get late, closer to night. She wasn't sure how he would do sleeping in a strange place.
She finished unpacking and sat on her bed, cracking open her notes. She was nervous about more than just Sirius's night. She wanted to talk to Alec about dreamless sleep potions and she hoped he wouldn't laugh her off thinking her a child. She didn't dare ask him about her other potions project. He wouldn't take her seriously about that. No, she needed to work on that project alone until she had something that wouldn't end in a ruined cauldron.
AN: Anyone have any guesses what her "other" potions project is yet? We have mentioned it a few times, but I know it's not very clear yet.
If you wanna learn about the young adult fantasy novel I will be publishing later this year, you can sign up to learn more at hmwrites {{dot}} com /misplacedchild