The sun had barely begun to rise when Arthur Weasely came booming through the halls waking up his family. Cheerfully and motivated, he pounded at each door hollering "Up! Up! Things to do, now we can't be late!". Hermione rose tiredly but quickly, not wanting to be late. Gathering her things to bathe, she shook Ginny awake before rushing out the bedroom. The seemingly empty floor put Hermiones mind at ease- up until a figure stopped her from entering the bathroom. Fred Weasely stood tall infront of her with a sly smile on his face and an embarassingly prominent cowlick at the top of his head.
"Sorry, Fred, but can I go through?" Hermione asked politely as she tried to pretend his action wasn't deliberate.
"I've been thinking about our talk all night, Granger, and I really think you should take it into consideration," he said, to which she rolled her eyes.
"I did consider it and my answer is no. Besides, won't there be enough first years for you to torment when we go back to Hogwarts?" Hermione asked, tapping her foot hurriedly.
"Well I don't want to wait until Hogwarts, and anyways, I know for a fact that you'd be the perfect fit for the role." At this, Hermione felt quite offended. She didn't like the implication that she was some sort of a crybaby, especially after the debacle with Ron the previous day. So Hermione huffed as she pushed past him into the bathroom, shaking her head as she did so.
Fred turned and followed her into the bathroom quickly, just before she was able to close the door on him. Now the two were uncomfortably close- Hermiones nose nearly touching the boys chest. And suddenly, very aware of what he'd just done, Fred felt the same guilt as he did when he nearly fell into her. "I'm sorry!" he blurted, "I'll go now! Sorry!" at this point he had already fled down the stairs, not even turning to look at her. Hermione had barely processed the awkward encounter, but by the time she did her face was bright red, and her shower was occupied by the wonder of how he smelt so nice before he'd gotten ready.
Breakfast was short and chaotic- as everyone rushed to get ready, as well as eat and gather their things- there was very little chatter amongst the family. Hermione was unsurprisingly the first to be prepared to leave, and slowly everyone followed suit. All nine of the attendees stood by the door as Mrs Weasely inspected them with a grin.
"Oh you all have a wonderful time! And boys, please behave for your father," she gushed as she hugged each of them, Hermione and Harry included, out the door.
"And what about Ginny?" Ron asked.
"Oh what about her, Ronald? When has she ever caused a problem for your father?" Mrs Weasely asked back as she followed them all out.
"Well I could ask the same question!" Ron retorted to his mother as Ginny shoved him playfully
"Really Ron, it's barely been a year since you stole mum and dads car and you wanna ask the question!" Fred chirped, getting a scowling look in response from Mrs Weasely.
Ron blushed and walked away from the conversation, mumbling "Forgot about that," as he joined Harry and Hermione. Harry pat Rons back to ease the embarassment, while Hermione tried to hide her grin. She was still somewhat mad at Ron, despite sorting things out. So seeing him put in place wasn't that bad of a thing at this point.
With final goodbyes waved to Mrs Weasely, the nine began to walk towards nowhere in particular. Soon enough, though, they managed to get onto beaten track- with Mr Weasely at the front and Percy and Charlie at the back keeping an eye out for muggles. After about a half hour of walking, the group came to a stop at a clearing that had three paths extending from it. Hermione leaned on a rock to rest her body, while Ron and Harry sat on the ground beside her.
"If I knew I had to do this much work to get to the field I would've stayed with mum," Ron groaned.
"You're just saying that because you're tired, theres no way you'd of missed this game in the world," Harry replied as he adjusted to lean on Hermiones rock.
"Yeah you're right, but I'm still bloody tired," Ron replied. The three continued to sit in silence, before Charlie and Ginny joined them.
"The Diggorys will be here any minute so you may as well get up," Charlie said, to which Harry raised his eyebrow.
"What like Cedric Diggory?" he asked.
"Yeah and his dad too," Fred piped, as he and George joined the circle.
"His dad's got a portkey," George continued. "And they live pretty close so I guess it makes it all easier for us." Just as Harry was about to open his mouth, footsteps grew closer from ahead of the group, and slowly two figures emerged.
The twins and Charlie immediately disbanded to greet the two guests, as the younger ones stayed put in their circle. As they, Mr Weasely and Percy (who continued to act as unnecessarily posh as usual), all talked amongst themselves; Harry, Hermione, Ron and Ginny slowly rose to say hello.
Hermione knew of Cedric, but aside from watching him play Griffindoor in quidditch, she barely saw him around school. Harry and even Ron, on the other hand, had a lot more to talk about with him. As they started walking again, Hermione as well as Ginny, fell to the back of the group and talked about nothing in particular. Finally, the walk came to a halt as they reached the exit of the woodlands and found themselves in a clearing in the sky.
"We've about a minute before going," Mr Diggory stated as he pulled out a ragged boot from his bag.
"Theres no way thats the portkey," Ron mumbled to nobody in particular.
"Well they have to make them unsuspecting, otherwise who knows what those stupid muggles might do," Percy replied quietly, receiving a frustrated look from both Hermione and Harry, who didn't care for his attitude. Deciding to move on, Hermione observed as Mr Diggory set the shoe onto the ground and called everyone around it.
One by one the group held tightly onto the shoe, and after an uncomfortable moment of complete silence, Hermione felt the sensation of being pulled apart and put back together. She held tightly as her vision went blurry until she finally felt grounded on the land below. She finally opened her eyes, and after a moment of readjusting, she found herself taken aback by the presence of hundreds- probably thousands of campers. Witches and wizards were walking about preparing their tents or gathering with friends in what must have been an amazingly massive field.
The group of teens looked around in awe before being pulled back to reality by Mr Weasely, who wanted to hurry to get to their acomedation. After bidding a kind farewell to Mr Diggory and Cedric, the group followed Mr Weasely down a small path to where a tiny tent stood amongst the many others. "This is us!" he announced, before pridefully entering the domain. Hermione and Ginny shared a look as they watched everyone enter the bewitched tent, before walking in themselves.
Hermione felt at awe at the interior and looked around in amazement as she took off her bag. The inside could of been a house in itself. Finally looking away from the room, her eyes landed on Fred, who appeared to be looking at Hermione. Quickly, the boy looked away and began a conversation with George. Not too curious about this, Hermione moved on and followed Ginny to what was their room- finally feeling the excitement for the game that night.