Two: The Island

At least they landed on the sand, one of the less nauseous ones said. Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Ginny were still lying on the sand. They felt sick from the flight and some of them really wanted to find a good bag to heave in. The one thing that kept them from becoming sick was the bright blue of the sky, which meant they were still on Earth. That had to be a good sign.

When they eventually got up, none of them turned an unhealthy green color and decide to relive their contents of breakfast. They all seemed to be in perfect health. Ginny, the first one to get up from her awkward dizzy state quickly performed all her basic mediwitch checks on them. (These were actually muggle methods that were used, because one of her professors from Mediwitch School convinced her that sometimes muggle methods were better. Ginny actually believed that maybe he convinced her this in case of a magical emergency.) Everyone seemed to be fine, except for Ron.

Ron could not get the dizzy feeling out of his head. When he got up he wobbled to the nearest tree and leaned on it. His head hurt badly. Ginny tried to use a charm that would heal Ron, but her wand didn't work. The spell usually shot a thin jet of white light, but her wand didn't react in any way to her magic.

Hermione noticed that she was having difficulty with her wand as well, so she said, "That's normal. If you weren't paying attention to the Portkey attendant, oh wait you came late so you didn't hear at all. She said that after using such a long Portkey, magic would not work for a few minutes to up to an hour. I think the reason for this is because of the way a Portkey is made…"

"Hermione I get it, I don't think I need any further explanation," Ginny said feeling that maybe she would get nauseous from one of Hermione's technical speeches. Although Ginny loved her a lot as a friend, Hermione does get on the annoying side when she becomes overly-enthused by her magical abilities and knowledge.

During this time, Harry had walked a little further on the beach and looked around the island. He was looking for their hotel. There was no such hotel that was given by the brochure. His gaze went far ahead and the only thing that his line of sight saw was beach, trees, and the ocean.

He came back and soon said, "I think the Portkey might have sent us to the wrong area of the island. I see no hotel of ours; in fact I don't see a wizard city. I haven't even seen any other human wizard or muggle!"

Ginny and Hermione gave Harry a worried look. They have never been to a Caribbean island and have never thought that a Portkey would send them to the wrong area. It was, after all, taken care by the Ministry. Then again, the Ministry wasn't always very accurate with the things they took care of. Trusting Hermione was another thing, maybe she just was too busy to find out much about their specific portkey. They did just pick some random portkey to travel with. "Do you guys have anything to eat? I didn't eat anything for breakfast."

"Oh Ron, I brought almost a whole kitchen worth of food for you, but it is all shrunken in boxes. And that was just for the trip TO the portkey," Ginny said searching through her bag. She found a bag of sandwiches that their Mum had packed for a surprise.

"Oh look! Mum made us some Corned Beef sandwiches. Do you want some?"

Ron groaned. He hated Corned Beef sandwiches, but he reluctantly took it. His stomach was far too grumbly. After eating the food, he felt much better and he decided to look around the island with the others. He looked at the trees, then at his feet, then toward the ocean. He then spoke.

"How can we not use magic for an hour? This is just terrible!" Ron said. He couldn't imagine anybody like Hermione or Harry living without magic. It was still very fascinating how muggles could live everyday without using even an ounce of magic. He should have paid more attention during his Muggle Studies classes. Maybe then he would have known more about the fascinating lives of muggles. It did amaze his father, and now he was starting to understand why. Maybe he should have paid attention to what his father said too. Logically, it would seem, after the Ministry was able to get a hold of their nation again, that they would improve muggle-wizard relations. He never had to live without magic and even though it had only been a few minutes, he was starting to comprehend this enthrallment.

After half of an hour, they were not able to find a single person on the island. However, Hermione said that the island was large and she believed there was an area that was uninhabited. This seemed to be the exact location of it. So far, the island looked very nice and inviting. It felt like the right spot to vacation. There was much green vegetation around the island and the water was such a lovely color of blue. Everything looked very warm and inviting, exactly the way the four of them fantasized. This looked exactly what a break from work would be imagined. Being compliments of the Ministry, they were relieved by how much the government wanted to spend on them. Even though they would never say it, it was in the back of their minds that they all knew it was well deserved.

Harry climbed a tree and brought down some unusual looking fruits for the rest of the people. Ginny was the one who was brave enough to try it first. Everyone watched her as she hesitantly took a bite out of it. When she looked up she smiled and said it tasted sweet and pink.

"How does anything taste pink?" Harry asked amazed. He believed that never in his life would he be able to understand women, but asking questions would be fine.

"It does, try it!" she said, taking another bite out of it. It was nice and juicy; she quickly wiped away a trickle of juice that seeped down the corner of her mouth. Ginny enjoyed this fruit a little too much and grinned when she took another bite out of it. It was the kind of grin that stated that 'this place is just perfect'.

Ron, who was a little angry that he could have eaten this instead of the corned beef sandwich, didn't eat it. He ate too many sandwiches and did not dare try that fruit in case he got poisoned. It did look appetizing though. He looked at his stomach and wondered how long it would be until he would actually take a bite out of it. From the looks that his sister was giving it, it appeared to be really good fruit. It looked as if he would become hungry again soon.

Hermione had inspected the fruit thoroughly and finally came to the conclusion that it did not have any poisonous substances in it. She took a bite and loved it. "This is really good! It makes you believe you're on an island in paradise!"

"The brochure did say that this is an island in paradise," Harry said and he finally took a bite out of his. "I don't see how you can call this taste pink. It doesn't make sense." He gave a confused look, which was one of the images that many fan girls adored. Even though the fruit itself was pink, it was always the type of thing that Harry would be confused over. Everything almost always had to be either black or white for him. Pink never fit into any of the categories of life.

Ginny replied, "Well it does taste pink! And I like it. What do you think this fruit is called?" She wondered if this was something she could get at one of the international wizarding food markets. Never before had she had fruit like this before. To her, it was a delicacy that was to be savored. She wasn't going to be on this island for long, and if she could take one thing back with her, she already found out what it was.

"The Palatable Pink Pesky Produce," Ron said simply.

Ginny glared at him, "I was asking Hermione, and that doesn't make sense. Why is it pesky?"

He thought about it for a bit and then came with what he thought was a smart reply, "Because Ginny, you're pesky!" He laughed at his own impressive response.

"Right Ron, that was a great answer," Harry rolled his eyes and then everybody joined in with the laughter.

"I am not familiar with this fruit. It isn't as if I studied fruits in school," Hermione said.

"I'm shocked, 'Mione! I expected you to read about this island front and back. I would think you would know absolutely everything about this!" Ginny said feigning shock.

Hermione blushed for a moment and replied, "Well, you know…work…gets in the way at times."

After this, a comfortable moment of silence fell upon the group. They all just gazed around the island. The beauty of it was so inviting, it seemed to be the perfect place to relax. They thought about their many previous adventures and felt this was what they deserved. A nice break on such a beautiful island was what all of them merited. Eventually, they all sat down on the sand and listened to the peaceful waves crash onto the island over and over again. It was just the thing to relax with.

"We should continue searching the island," Harry finally said. He got up from his sitting position and wiped the sand from his pants. It was crazy to think that so many years ago, he was stuck with the Dursleys, who never took him anywhere outside of London. Then, at the age of eleven the most wonderful thing in the world had happened; he discovered that he was a wizard. From then on, he encountered adventures he never would have dreamt before. If the Dursleys knew where he currently was, they would give him the worst possible death glares. He remembered they had once talked about going to the Caribbean, but as the war progressed, muggle transportation declined and it was almost impossible for anyone in England to fly internationally. The war affected the muggles terribly and it would probably be remembered as one of the worst mysterious events that have ever occurred in the entire history of the world. The war would probably make them all forget the fact that their used to be witch hunts, they would now be more attentive to the mysterious deaths of thousands throughout Europe.

"Hasn't it been over an hour now?" Ron asked. This brought Harry out of his daze and he smiled back.

"Yeah, it should have been. I'll check my wand," Hermione said. She took out her wand, pointed it to a nearby tree and said, "Flagrate!"

When nothing happened she tried again. After her fourth attempt, she shrugged and said, "Maybe it's longer than an hour. People do tend to round."

"That can't be right though. That is just strange," Harry said, starting to feel a little worried. The portkey did seem a little odd. He had never experienced such turbulence before. In fact, he never felt any turbulence before. However, he put this thought in the back of his mind. He knew now that he shouldn't just jump to conclusions. Jumping to conclusions always led to mistakes. Like the many times he accused Snape of betraying Dumbledore. That almost always, maybe even always, led to terrible events that Harry would rather not remember.

"I just thought of something!" Ron said.

"What?" The other three asked in unison.

"The brochure…it has a map on it. On the map, it has an arrow that will direct you to the right direction. We could have used that! Does anyone have it?"

"I think I do, it's right in my bag!" Ginny said excitedly. She once again opened her bag and looked through its contents.

"What do you not have in that bag?" Harry joked.

She took it out and hurriedly opened it. The brochure was large and had many moving pictures of happy wizards and witches. The hotel was a grand resort with many features and activities to participate in. Harry and Ron were looking forward to the Quidditch Pitch. There, you could compete with stone shaped wizards that had the skills of Oliver Wood and other great Quidditch players. Ginny and Hermione were just looking forward to the relaxation part of the vacation. She opened it eagerly and cautiously, so as not to bend the magical pictures. When she glanced up at them, her bright expression turned to a look of horror.

"What's wrong?" Ron and Hermione said in unison.

"Well, the thing is I found the map and the arrow is magically pointing to the hotel…"

"And?" Harry asked.

"The arrow is pointing towards the ocean," she said quietly and then showed the map to everybody.