Chapter 6
Thursday 24 August
A week had gone by and I was sitting on Draco's lap in the back of a van on our way to a muggle festival. I was only happy about one of these facts.
The last week had been so blissful on the Draco front. It was as if we decided to put all the bad stuff behind us and start our relationship again. No more lies, no more playing games with each other, no more listening to other people telling us that we were bad for each other. Which they did.
I'd had a really horrible evening at rehearsal when I'd had to tell Susan that I was still with Draco. She'd looked at me as if I'd just spewed green ectoplasm out of my stomach.
"But how can you, Hermione?" she'd kept asking me. "After what happened at the barbecue."
"We cleared all that up," I'd said. "And even if it was true, I don't care 'cause it's brought us closer together."
"What do you mean if it was true?" Lavender had chimed in. "Do you think Susan would lie about something like that?"
Then the pair of them and Parvati had spent the rest of the rehearsal muttering about toxic wizards and witches who were too dumb to see through them. I think they were trying to tell me something, but, quite frankly, I didn't want to hear it.
Ron had spent the week trying to corner me when we were alone in the kitchen to tell me that we had to talk but I couldn't be bothered to go through a painful post-mortem on our hopeless attempts to be friends. It always ended up with us snogging. I didn't need to find comfort in Ron's arms anymore and I hope that didn't sound heartless.
I mean, it wasn't fair on Ron or on Draco. And now that I'd made the decision to be with Draco, properly, I felt more relaxed than I'd been in ages. I hadn't actually told Draco about what happened between me and Ron at the barbecue, there didn't seem to be much point. Not when things were going so well. What he didn't know, he couldn't get huffy about.
The only other blots on my otherwise blemish-free landscape were the thought of going to the pigging festival and Cho who was still pregnant, still not sure what to do about it and taking her frustrations out on me.
"Could you be any more in denial?" she'd said contemptuous when she'd heard that Draco and I had been seen engaged in a passionate kiss in the Odeon foyer. "He's bad news, Hermione. How can you not see it?"
"That was before," I'd insisted. "I think he comes out with those sarky comments because really he'd shy."
Cho had just snorted and pointed out that if any other girl had tried that kind of remark in my hearing I'd have had her for breakfast.
All these negative thoughts made me more determined not to go to the festival. By now I just wanted to be shot of my virginity and I thought Draco and I should stay in Derby and er, consummate our relationship away from the disapproving comments of our so-called friends. But Draco had got this romantic notion that my first time should be underneath the stars amid lots of grass and probably some slug-type creepy crawlies as well. And so here I was on my way to a festival with a bunch of condoms in my bag and at least six pairs of eyes looking daggers at me. Susan had insisted that she wasn't going to sit in the back of the van with a pointed look at me and Draco, and was sitting in front with Cho and Harry who was driving the car. Oh, and Penny, who seemed to be more surgically welded to her sister's side than ever before, and managed to squeeze onto the seat as well, (but they used an enlargement charm on the seat just so they could breathe).
In the back, Parvati was declining Justin's attempts to persuade her to sit on his lap so she wouldn't keep banging herself on bags and tent frames every time Harry changed lanes. Lavender was happily ensconced between Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnigan, while Ron and Veronique were sitting away from everybody else (well as far away as you can get in the back of a dilapididated Transit van) looking like they'd just had the mother of all arguments. Well, actually, they had just had the mother of all arguments.
They'd been the last to arrive. Ron's battered little Mini had roared outside the back of the café (being in the London muggle street) as we were packing our gear into the van. He'd uncurled himself from the driver's seat and stood there tapping his feet impatiently while Veronique scrambled over to his side of the car to get out. (It had been two months and he still hadn't got his passenger door fixed. Obviously his father wanted his son to now fix cars the muggle way ever since Ron's mother had found out that her husband was using magic on the family car.)
"Thanks for helping me," she'd snarled at him. "Get my stuff out of your stinking car."
I'd looked at Draco, but he hadn't seemed bothered by the ferocity of the argument and had carried on hauling bags into the van.
"Get it yourself," Ron was saying between gritted teeth, but he'd got her gear out of the boot anyway. As he'd gathered the bags in one hand so he could slam the boot with the other, he'd dropped a small vanity case which had burst open, spilling all Veronique's pots and potions and make-up into the road.
If I'd thought Draco had gone ballistic in the garden the other day, it was nothing on Veronique's reaction when she saw her Clinique compact get run over. She'd been like a magical creature possessed, flying at Ron, slapping him and screaming obscenities at the top of her voice. And it was such a good thing for Ron that Veronique's wand was in her bags still as she would have done some serous damage in the state in which she was looking. That was freaky in the extreme, but what was even freakier was the other people's reactions. Me and Susan, Penny, Parvati, Lavender, Dean and Seamus had all looked horrified, but Cho and Harry had just rolled their eyes while Justin had muttered, "Here we go again," under his breath.
Ron had been trying to hold Veronique off without actually hurting her and kept on telling her to calm down, but she'd just got more and more worked up.
"You make me sick. I hate you," she screeched. Ron had eventually managed to push her away and hold her at arm's length.
"I don't need this," he'd hissed. "Just stop it." Veronique went still for a moment and he'd finally let go of her and started to head towards the rest of us. But Veronique had gone for him again. "Don't you dare walk away from me!" she'd shouted, her raised wand in her hand, but Draco had managed to grab her in time.
"Come on, Ronnie," he'd said in that voice he used with me when I was being completely unreasonable. "Let's go for a walk." They'd disappeared down the street and Ron had let out a deep breath, his shoulders drooping.
"She's been a complete 'mare ever since she got up," he'd muttered at Cho who had rushed over to see if he was alright. The rest of us had just stood there gawping. The sight of Ron, surrounded by his friends, who were all trying to console him, looking utterly alone had really got to me. When I thought about it, he was the one that didn't smile anymore. Not properly. Not with that smirk and raised eyebrow that used to make me come over all- unnecessary. But I'd told myself it was useless to think of Ron as anything other than as acquaintance, I was with Draco now. And eventually the sight of Ron wouldn't affect me anymore. I just had to wean myself off him.
The atmosphere in the van hadn't got any better. We'd argued which music we were going to play, which service station to stop at and who got to sit next to the open window and we'd only been on the road for an hour.
"We could play 'I went to the festival'." I suggested brightly only to have my idea shot down with varying degrees of savagery. Ron had given me a filthy look and I knew he was remembering the time we'd gone to Paris and spent practically the whole journey saying stuff, like, "I went to the festival and I took article's of clothing belonging to Paul Daniels, brine shrimp." Those had been happier days.
Draco wrapped his arms tightly around my waist. "Well, I thought it was a good idea," he whispered in my ear. "I can't wait to get you alone in a tent."
And although I kissed his cheek and smiled at him, I wondered why the thought of losing my virginity with a boy I was really into made me feel like I was going to go into hospital for open-heart surgery.
Ron had been watching me and Draco with narrowed eyes when all of a sudden he turned to the still-fuming Veronique and stroked her cheek lightly.
"I'm sorry, Ronnie," I could hear him say. "It was my fault. I should have remembered to set the alarm clock." Veronique gave him a look that would have turned weaker wizards to stone and shifted half an inch away from him.
"Oh, come on," Ron continued softly. "I'll do anything to make it up to you."
Veronique began to look interested. "Anything?" she enquired with that cat- like smile I hated so much.
"Anything you want," Ron promised.
"Hmmm, I want that new pair of shoes we saw in Office," Veronique decided. "The cow-skin ones with the pink trim."
"I'll buy them as soon as we get back," Ron was saying and Veronique gave a little cry of happiness and flung herself at him. I thought her whole performance smacked of overkill and since when did Ron get so sappy?
Whenever he'd been on the business end of one of my hissy fits, he'd just smirked and teased me out of it. I could have doubled the contents of my wardrobe if I had known.
As Veronique was planting little kisses over every bit of Ron that she could reach, he caught my eye and then deliberately captured Veronique's mouth in a long, passionate kiss which caused Seamus to say loudly, "Hey you two, go book a room." They came up for air and Ron gave me a nasty smile. I turned my head away but not before I'd seen Veronique throw a satisfied glance at Draco who continued to squeeze me tightly. The back of this van was swiftly turning into my own private version of hell.
After we'd been travelling for three hours and I was thinking if I had to listen to Dean's copy of The Best Trance Album in The World.Ever one more time I was going to rip my ears off, Harry stopped the van.
As he opened the big, sliding door and let us out I could see we weren't in a service station car-park about to pig-out on fast food. We'd stopped in a small village complete with cricket pitch and duck pond and coach loads of American tourists who were looking at us as if we'd just landed from Mars.
"Where's the nearest KFC?" Dean asked, but Harry and Cho just smiled mysteriously.
"There's a little tea shop on the other side of the duck pond," Cho said. "But first we thought we'd take in the sheep throwing contest."
"I think I speak for all when I say, 'Huh?'" I muttered under my breath as I felt a Buffy moment coming on.
"Yeah, we saw a sign," Harry was saying. "Sheep throwing! Had to check it out."
What happened next was the freakiest thing yet. Penny stamped on Harry's foot, yelled something about cruelty to animals and stormed off in the direction of a nearby paddock (that's what you call it, right?) where there was bunting and crowds and other things that suggested that sheep were being thrown.
Susan ran after Penny, and Parvati and Lavender ran after Susan and I lay down on the ground and laughed and laughed. Every time I tried to stop I thought of Harry's look of utter shock when Penny had attacked him and started to laugh again. Draco gave me an amused glance and told me to get up but by then I was doubled over with tears streaming down my face.
"Harry's face." I kept trying to say while Harry flushed and grumbled that it wasn't that funny.
"Actually it was, honey," insisted Cho. "We thought we were being dead smart getting everybody to go to the yodel entertainment but I guess Penny called our bluff."
"Ron!" barked Veronique, sounding less than impressed. "I'm getting a hunger headache, can we find something to eat in this godforsaken hole?" And she flounced off in the direction of Ye Olde Tea Shoppe.
"Anything you say. Sweetness," Ron bit out ironically, earning him a sharp glance from Draco, before he followed Veronique.
"C'mon Herm," said Cho pulling me to my feet. It had been a while since Cho had called me Herm, and even though Draco was making "let's slope off!" motions at me, I linked arms with Cho and went off to investigate the sheep throwing.
Penny had staged a one-woman protest by the time we got there and was being recorded for posterity on the tourists' camcorders.
"You're cruel!" she was shouting at some hapless farmer who had a distressed sheep on the end of a leash.
"Penny, you're upsetting the animals," Susan said, trying to calm her down. "They're not actually throwing the sheep. Are you?" she added anxiously at a tweedy-looking muggle who seemed to be in charge.
"My dear, it's more of a sheep jumping event. There are no sheep being thrown," he insisted. "It's all under the supervision of the local vet. We've been holding this tournament for over 300 years and I've never."
"See Penny, nothing to get excited about," I said soothingly. "Sheep like jumping. Haven't you seen One Man And His Dog?"
Penny looked at me questioningly. "Do you really think so?"
"Yes," I said, managing to keep a straight face. "Can we go and get something to eat now before I start chomping on Little Woolly Lamb here."
"Oh, OK," Penny conceded, taking the hand I held out towards her. "But if I find out you've been throwing sheep I'm reporting you to the Misuse of Animals department at the Ministry of M-"
"Er-she means RSPCA." I cut in quickly assuring the confused expression of Mr Tweed. Then I quickly dragged Penny away.
Once we'd tried to fill up on cucumber sarnies from Ye Olde Tea Shoppe and watched to make sure that the sheep weren't being thrown, it was time to get back in the van, which had heated up, to furnace-like temperatures. It wasn't too long before tempers were fraying again. Veronique and Ron had had another row while we'd been doing the sheep thing so they were snarling at each other, Cho kept sniping Dean who'd produced some egg 'n' mayo sandwiches from his backpack 'cause the smell was making her feel sick, and Parvati and Lavender had a blazing domestic about which members of wizard- bands were gay or not.
I was fed up with the whole blimmin' lot of them. Draco had been all grumpy ever since I'd gone off with Cho and I was seriously contemplating jumping out at the next pit stop and hitching home or possible the night bus (opps no wizard money). Instead I dug out a book I'd taken a fancy to reading and tried to tune out the heat and aggression building up in the van.
When we finally got back on the motorway, the van gave a dramatic splutter and got slower and slower before stopping. Luckily Harry had managed to steer it onto the hard shoulder before it died altogether but we had to wait four hours in the burning afternoon sun as Harry with the help of Ron and Draco tried to fix the problem using their wands (but as they weren't engineers or anything it took a while).
The only highlight of the wait was when Justin flagged down a passing ice cream van and persuaded the driver to sell us some cold drinks.
It was six in the evening before we got started again and when we reached the festival site four hours later no one was talking, mainly because they'd fallen asleep. We got stuck in this traffic jam leading up to the main entrance and the stewards told us it would take over an hour to even get on the site.
I knew I couldn't stay in the van one minute longer. To tell you the truth I was still thinking about doing a runner and hitching a lift to the nearest train station but even I could tell that was a baaaaaaaaaad idea. I grabbed my backpack and my shoulder bag and crawled over to the door.
"I'm getting out," I announced. "I'll meet you at the campsite. I'm going to walk."
People began to stir. "But Hermione, you hate walking," Lavender pointed out.
"And you'll get lost," stated Draco with absolute certainty.
"No I won't," I said crossly. "We've already decided where we're going to pitch the tents. I've got a map and if I have to spend one more second in this van I'm going to kill someone. Probably Dean."
"What have I done?" asked Dean indignantly.
"It's not you. It's you trance tapes," I said savagely.
"I never thought I'd say this," piped up Veronique, "but I have to agree with her on that one."
My bolt for freedom didn't exactly go to plan. After ten more minutes of pointless arguing, we left Harry and Cho with the van and started walking towards the site. We walked and walked and walked until my feet were slipping around sweatily in my trainers. And Lord knows when I'd next get to have a bath. Not anytime soon that was for sure.
It was pitch dark by this time, lit only by the odd campfire and we kept tripping over people until we reached where we were going to set up camp. Or we thought it was the right place. It was hard to tell. Of course, all the tent gear was in the van so we had to wait ages for Harry and Cho who'd parked somewhere completely different. It was 1.30 in the morning before we even began to assemble the tents, which led to more sniping and swearing as we stumbled over tent posts and got told off by the hippies in the next- door tent. Eventually all the tents were pitched, which consisted of; two wizard tents (ordinary on the outside, large three room suite on the inside) and so one was for boys and one for girls, also there was two muggle two-man tents (were slightly moderated a bit inside, but only a little bit).
The only thing between me and my night in a sleeping bag was the decision about who was going to sleep where. Draco had been alright up 'til now. Thankfully he'd slept for the last bit of the journey and woken up in a good mood, which lasted long enough for him to carry my bags up a big hill for me. I might be a feminist but I'm not that much of a feminist. He was now eyeing up a two-man tent and then eyeing me up and you didn't have to be a numbers geek to do the maths. The last thing on my mind though was getting naked and horizontal with Draco, I just wanted to sleep.
It was at that last moment that Cho shunted Draco out of the way and got into the little tent. "Me and Harry are sleeping in here," she ordered in her don't-mess-with-me-voice. "Ron and Veronique are sleeping in the other green tent and then the two big tents are girls only and boys only. Goodnight!"
Draco looked annoyed so I tried to look annoyed too.
"Never mind, eh?" I said kissing him on the cheek. "I'll see you later."
He grabbed me around the waist before I could walk off and pulled me tight against him. "Tomorrow. We'll find some peace and quiet tomorrow, promise." But it didn't sound like a promise; it sounded more like a threat.
A week had gone by and I was sitting on Draco's lap in the back of a van on our way to a muggle festival. I was only happy about one of these facts.
The last week had been so blissful on the Draco front. It was as if we decided to put all the bad stuff behind us and start our relationship again. No more lies, no more playing games with each other, no more listening to other people telling us that we were bad for each other. Which they did.
I'd had a really horrible evening at rehearsal when I'd had to tell Susan that I was still with Draco. She'd looked at me as if I'd just spewed green ectoplasm out of my stomach.
"But how can you, Hermione?" she'd kept asking me. "After what happened at the barbecue."
"We cleared all that up," I'd said. "And even if it was true, I don't care 'cause it's brought us closer together."
"What do you mean if it was true?" Lavender had chimed in. "Do you think Susan would lie about something like that?"
Then the pair of them and Parvati had spent the rest of the rehearsal muttering about toxic wizards and witches who were too dumb to see through them. I think they were trying to tell me something, but, quite frankly, I didn't want to hear it.
Ron had spent the week trying to corner me when we were alone in the kitchen to tell me that we had to talk but I couldn't be bothered to go through a painful post-mortem on our hopeless attempts to be friends. It always ended up with us snogging. I didn't need to find comfort in Ron's arms anymore and I hope that didn't sound heartless.
I mean, it wasn't fair on Ron or on Draco. And now that I'd made the decision to be with Draco, properly, I felt more relaxed than I'd been in ages. I hadn't actually told Draco about what happened between me and Ron at the barbecue, there didn't seem to be much point. Not when things were going so well. What he didn't know, he couldn't get huffy about.
The only other blots on my otherwise blemish-free landscape were the thought of going to the pigging festival and Cho who was still pregnant, still not sure what to do about it and taking her frustrations out on me.
"Could you be any more in denial?" she'd said contemptuous when she'd heard that Draco and I had been seen engaged in a passionate kiss in the Odeon foyer. "He's bad news, Hermione. How can you not see it?"
"That was before," I'd insisted. "I think he comes out with those sarky comments because really he'd shy."
Cho had just snorted and pointed out that if any other girl had tried that kind of remark in my hearing I'd have had her for breakfast.
All these negative thoughts made me more determined not to go to the festival. By now I just wanted to be shot of my virginity and I thought Draco and I should stay in Derby and er, consummate our relationship away from the disapproving comments of our so-called friends. But Draco had got this romantic notion that my first time should be underneath the stars amid lots of grass and probably some slug-type creepy crawlies as well. And so here I was on my way to a festival with a bunch of condoms in my bag and at least six pairs of eyes looking daggers at me. Susan had insisted that she wasn't going to sit in the back of the van with a pointed look at me and Draco, and was sitting in front with Cho and Harry who was driving the car. Oh, and Penny, who seemed to be more surgically welded to her sister's side than ever before, and managed to squeeze onto the seat as well, (but they used an enlargement charm on the seat just so they could breathe).
In the back, Parvati was declining Justin's attempts to persuade her to sit on his lap so she wouldn't keep banging herself on bags and tent frames every time Harry changed lanes. Lavender was happily ensconced between Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnigan, while Ron and Veronique were sitting away from everybody else (well as far away as you can get in the back of a dilapididated Transit van) looking like they'd just had the mother of all arguments. Well, actually, they had just had the mother of all arguments.
They'd been the last to arrive. Ron's battered little Mini had roared outside the back of the café (being in the London muggle street) as we were packing our gear into the van. He'd uncurled himself from the driver's seat and stood there tapping his feet impatiently while Veronique scrambled over to his side of the car to get out. (It had been two months and he still hadn't got his passenger door fixed. Obviously his father wanted his son to now fix cars the muggle way ever since Ron's mother had found out that her husband was using magic on the family car.)
"Thanks for helping me," she'd snarled at him. "Get my stuff out of your stinking car."
I'd looked at Draco, but he hadn't seemed bothered by the ferocity of the argument and had carried on hauling bags into the van.
"Get it yourself," Ron was saying between gritted teeth, but he'd got her gear out of the boot anyway. As he'd gathered the bags in one hand so he could slam the boot with the other, he'd dropped a small vanity case which had burst open, spilling all Veronique's pots and potions and make-up into the road.
If I'd thought Draco had gone ballistic in the garden the other day, it was nothing on Veronique's reaction when she saw her Clinique compact get run over. She'd been like a magical creature possessed, flying at Ron, slapping him and screaming obscenities at the top of her voice. And it was such a good thing for Ron that Veronique's wand was in her bags still as she would have done some serous damage in the state in which she was looking. That was freaky in the extreme, but what was even freakier was the other people's reactions. Me and Susan, Penny, Parvati, Lavender, Dean and Seamus had all looked horrified, but Cho and Harry had just rolled their eyes while Justin had muttered, "Here we go again," under his breath.
Ron had been trying to hold Veronique off without actually hurting her and kept on telling her to calm down, but she'd just got more and more worked up.
"You make me sick. I hate you," she screeched. Ron had eventually managed to push her away and hold her at arm's length.
"I don't need this," he'd hissed. "Just stop it." Veronique went still for a moment and he'd finally let go of her and started to head towards the rest of us. But Veronique had gone for him again. "Don't you dare walk away from me!" she'd shouted, her raised wand in her hand, but Draco had managed to grab her in time.
"Come on, Ronnie," he'd said in that voice he used with me when I was being completely unreasonable. "Let's go for a walk." They'd disappeared down the street and Ron had let out a deep breath, his shoulders drooping.
"She's been a complete 'mare ever since she got up," he'd muttered at Cho who had rushed over to see if he was alright. The rest of us had just stood there gawping. The sight of Ron, surrounded by his friends, who were all trying to console him, looking utterly alone had really got to me. When I thought about it, he was the one that didn't smile anymore. Not properly. Not with that smirk and raised eyebrow that used to make me come over all- unnecessary. But I'd told myself it was useless to think of Ron as anything other than as acquaintance, I was with Draco now. And eventually the sight of Ron wouldn't affect me anymore. I just had to wean myself off him.
The atmosphere in the van hadn't got any better. We'd argued which music we were going to play, which service station to stop at and who got to sit next to the open window and we'd only been on the road for an hour.
"We could play 'I went to the festival'." I suggested brightly only to have my idea shot down with varying degrees of savagery. Ron had given me a filthy look and I knew he was remembering the time we'd gone to Paris and spent practically the whole journey saying stuff, like, "I went to the festival and I took article's of clothing belonging to Paul Daniels, brine shrimp." Those had been happier days.
Draco wrapped his arms tightly around my waist. "Well, I thought it was a good idea," he whispered in my ear. "I can't wait to get you alone in a tent."
And although I kissed his cheek and smiled at him, I wondered why the thought of losing my virginity with a boy I was really into made me feel like I was going to go into hospital for open-heart surgery.
Ron had been watching me and Draco with narrowed eyes when all of a sudden he turned to the still-fuming Veronique and stroked her cheek lightly.
"I'm sorry, Ronnie," I could hear him say. "It was my fault. I should have remembered to set the alarm clock." Veronique gave him a look that would have turned weaker wizards to stone and shifted half an inch away from him.
"Oh, come on," Ron continued softly. "I'll do anything to make it up to you."
Veronique began to look interested. "Anything?" she enquired with that cat- like smile I hated so much.
"Anything you want," Ron promised.
"Hmmm, I want that new pair of shoes we saw in Office," Veronique decided. "The cow-skin ones with the pink trim."
"I'll buy them as soon as we get back," Ron was saying and Veronique gave a little cry of happiness and flung herself at him. I thought her whole performance smacked of overkill and since when did Ron get so sappy?
Whenever he'd been on the business end of one of my hissy fits, he'd just smirked and teased me out of it. I could have doubled the contents of my wardrobe if I had known.
As Veronique was planting little kisses over every bit of Ron that she could reach, he caught my eye and then deliberately captured Veronique's mouth in a long, passionate kiss which caused Seamus to say loudly, "Hey you two, go book a room." They came up for air and Ron gave me a nasty smile. I turned my head away but not before I'd seen Veronique throw a satisfied glance at Draco who continued to squeeze me tightly. The back of this van was swiftly turning into my own private version of hell.
After we'd been travelling for three hours and I was thinking if I had to listen to Dean's copy of The Best Trance Album in The World.Ever one more time I was going to rip my ears off, Harry stopped the van.
As he opened the big, sliding door and let us out I could see we weren't in a service station car-park about to pig-out on fast food. We'd stopped in a small village complete with cricket pitch and duck pond and coach loads of American tourists who were looking at us as if we'd just landed from Mars.
"Where's the nearest KFC?" Dean asked, but Harry and Cho just smiled mysteriously.
"There's a little tea shop on the other side of the duck pond," Cho said. "But first we thought we'd take in the sheep throwing contest."
"I think I speak for all when I say, 'Huh?'" I muttered under my breath as I felt a Buffy moment coming on.
"Yeah, we saw a sign," Harry was saying. "Sheep throwing! Had to check it out."
What happened next was the freakiest thing yet. Penny stamped on Harry's foot, yelled something about cruelty to animals and stormed off in the direction of a nearby paddock (that's what you call it, right?) where there was bunting and crowds and other things that suggested that sheep were being thrown.
Susan ran after Penny, and Parvati and Lavender ran after Susan and I lay down on the ground and laughed and laughed. Every time I tried to stop I thought of Harry's look of utter shock when Penny had attacked him and started to laugh again. Draco gave me an amused glance and told me to get up but by then I was doubled over with tears streaming down my face.
"Harry's face." I kept trying to say while Harry flushed and grumbled that it wasn't that funny.
"Actually it was, honey," insisted Cho. "We thought we were being dead smart getting everybody to go to the yodel entertainment but I guess Penny called our bluff."
"Ron!" barked Veronique, sounding less than impressed. "I'm getting a hunger headache, can we find something to eat in this godforsaken hole?" And she flounced off in the direction of Ye Olde Tea Shoppe.
"Anything you say. Sweetness," Ron bit out ironically, earning him a sharp glance from Draco, before he followed Veronique.
"C'mon Herm," said Cho pulling me to my feet. It had been a while since Cho had called me Herm, and even though Draco was making "let's slope off!" motions at me, I linked arms with Cho and went off to investigate the sheep throwing.
Penny had staged a one-woman protest by the time we got there and was being recorded for posterity on the tourists' camcorders.
"You're cruel!" she was shouting at some hapless farmer who had a distressed sheep on the end of a leash.
"Penny, you're upsetting the animals," Susan said, trying to calm her down. "They're not actually throwing the sheep. Are you?" she added anxiously at a tweedy-looking muggle who seemed to be in charge.
"My dear, it's more of a sheep jumping event. There are no sheep being thrown," he insisted. "It's all under the supervision of the local vet. We've been holding this tournament for over 300 years and I've never."
"See Penny, nothing to get excited about," I said soothingly. "Sheep like jumping. Haven't you seen One Man And His Dog?"
Penny looked at me questioningly. "Do you really think so?"
"Yes," I said, managing to keep a straight face. "Can we go and get something to eat now before I start chomping on Little Woolly Lamb here."
"Oh, OK," Penny conceded, taking the hand I held out towards her. "But if I find out you've been throwing sheep I'm reporting you to the Misuse of Animals department at the Ministry of M-"
"Er-she means RSPCA." I cut in quickly assuring the confused expression of Mr Tweed. Then I quickly dragged Penny away.
Once we'd tried to fill up on cucumber sarnies from Ye Olde Tea Shoppe and watched to make sure that the sheep weren't being thrown, it was time to get back in the van, which had heated up, to furnace-like temperatures. It wasn't too long before tempers were fraying again. Veronique and Ron had had another row while we'd been doing the sheep thing so they were snarling at each other, Cho kept sniping Dean who'd produced some egg 'n' mayo sandwiches from his backpack 'cause the smell was making her feel sick, and Parvati and Lavender had a blazing domestic about which members of wizard- bands were gay or not.
I was fed up with the whole blimmin' lot of them. Draco had been all grumpy ever since I'd gone off with Cho and I was seriously contemplating jumping out at the next pit stop and hitching home or possible the night bus (opps no wizard money). Instead I dug out a book I'd taken a fancy to reading and tried to tune out the heat and aggression building up in the van.
When we finally got back on the motorway, the van gave a dramatic splutter and got slower and slower before stopping. Luckily Harry had managed to steer it onto the hard shoulder before it died altogether but we had to wait four hours in the burning afternoon sun as Harry with the help of Ron and Draco tried to fix the problem using their wands (but as they weren't engineers or anything it took a while).
The only highlight of the wait was when Justin flagged down a passing ice cream van and persuaded the driver to sell us some cold drinks.
It was six in the evening before we got started again and when we reached the festival site four hours later no one was talking, mainly because they'd fallen asleep. We got stuck in this traffic jam leading up to the main entrance and the stewards told us it would take over an hour to even get on the site.
I knew I couldn't stay in the van one minute longer. To tell you the truth I was still thinking about doing a runner and hitching a lift to the nearest train station but even I could tell that was a baaaaaaaaaad idea. I grabbed my backpack and my shoulder bag and crawled over to the door.
"I'm getting out," I announced. "I'll meet you at the campsite. I'm going to walk."
People began to stir. "But Hermione, you hate walking," Lavender pointed out.
"And you'll get lost," stated Draco with absolute certainty.
"No I won't," I said crossly. "We've already decided where we're going to pitch the tents. I've got a map and if I have to spend one more second in this van I'm going to kill someone. Probably Dean."
"What have I done?" asked Dean indignantly.
"It's not you. It's you trance tapes," I said savagely.
"I never thought I'd say this," piped up Veronique, "but I have to agree with her on that one."
My bolt for freedom didn't exactly go to plan. After ten more minutes of pointless arguing, we left Harry and Cho with the van and started walking towards the site. We walked and walked and walked until my feet were slipping around sweatily in my trainers. And Lord knows when I'd next get to have a bath. Not anytime soon that was for sure.
It was pitch dark by this time, lit only by the odd campfire and we kept tripping over people until we reached where we were going to set up camp. Or we thought it was the right place. It was hard to tell. Of course, all the tent gear was in the van so we had to wait ages for Harry and Cho who'd parked somewhere completely different. It was 1.30 in the morning before we even began to assemble the tents, which led to more sniping and swearing as we stumbled over tent posts and got told off by the hippies in the next- door tent. Eventually all the tents were pitched, which consisted of; two wizard tents (ordinary on the outside, large three room suite on the inside) and so one was for boys and one for girls, also there was two muggle two-man tents (were slightly moderated a bit inside, but only a little bit).
The only thing between me and my night in a sleeping bag was the decision about who was going to sleep where. Draco had been alright up 'til now. Thankfully he'd slept for the last bit of the journey and woken up in a good mood, which lasted long enough for him to carry my bags up a big hill for me. I might be a feminist but I'm not that much of a feminist. He was now eyeing up a two-man tent and then eyeing me up and you didn't have to be a numbers geek to do the maths. The last thing on my mind though was getting naked and horizontal with Draco, I just wanted to sleep.
It was at that last moment that Cho shunted Draco out of the way and got into the little tent. "Me and Harry are sleeping in here," she ordered in her don't-mess-with-me-voice. "Ron and Veronique are sleeping in the other green tent and then the two big tents are girls only and boys only. Goodnight!"
Draco looked annoyed so I tried to look annoyed too.
"Never mind, eh?" I said kissing him on the cheek. "I'll see you later."
He grabbed me around the waist before I could walk off and pulled me tight against him. "Tomorrow. We'll find some peace and quiet tomorrow, promise." But it didn't sound like a promise; it sounded more like a threat.