DISCLAIMER: JKRowling owns HP-not me.
Journey to NZ.
Blurb …
Mrs Weasley decides that everyone needs a break. So when things reach breaking point, they decide to go on holiday-to the land of the long white cloud, New Zealand.
But after an incident on the local mountain, Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny find themselves landed in a local muggle school, in an attempt to blend in until their holidays over.
Will the Weasley's blend in? Will Ron ever work a cell phone? And how will Ron and Ginny react when Harry and Hermione have to kiss for drama class?
AU: Just pretend that the whole H/G thing didn't happen in HBP. Harry never fell for her, and Ginny still broke up with Dean as usual. Apart from that, everything's the same.
CHAPTER THREE: Skyline Skyrides.
The next morning, Harry woke with a start, had no idea where he was, panicked and nearly fell out of bed. After realising that he was a perfectly comfortable bed, opposite where Ron was snoring, in room 14 at Rotorua's Noveltel, Harry got out of bed, dressed, and trundled into the kitchen, when he found, Hermione, Tonks and Lupin sitting round the table, each clutching a cup of tea.
"M-m-morning!" Harry said, stifling a yawn.
"Morning." several voices replied.
"So what's down for today?" Harry asked to no one in particular.
"Er …" Lupin waved his wand and a piece of paper appeared from nowhere. He picked it off the table and said, "Well, today, we could either go to "Skyline skyrides" or "The buried village"."
"The buried village sounds fascinating!" Hermione exclaimed, grabbing the paper of lupin.
"Sounds dead boring if you ask me." Came Ron's voice, and they turned to see him, bleary-eyed and slouching into the room. "What's "Skyline skyrides"?"
"I dunno, some sort of thing on the mountain." Harry said, gesturing to the mountain that could be seen through the window.
"I think it's a kind of ride." Tonks said, reading from a muggle brochure "It says that up there are "Luges". A sort of cart thing you sit in and ride down a concrete track."
"What's so fun about that?" Ron asked
"I dunno, but the hotel lady said yesterday when we checked in that it was worth seeing." Mrs Weasley's voice said, coming in through the apartment door, with Mr Weasley behind her. "I think we should tackle that today- it should be fun!"
"Eh, might as well." Tonks said, draining her tea. "Well, we had better get ready, Remus. We'd better go-" Tonks gestured to the door and the two filed out to their room they were sharing to get changed.
"Yes. I think we'd all better get changed." Mrs Weasley said, casting an eye around the room. "I had better get those twins up-and Ginny"
"I'll wake Ginny, she's still asleep." Hermione said, and went off to the second bedroom.
"Well, lest get cracking, shall we?" Mr Weasley said, clapping his hands together.
About an hour later, Harry and the others found themselves on a bus to Skyline skyrides. Chatting people, all speaking in a strange accent, surrounded them. To Harry, it sounded a cross between British and Australian. Harry was suprised to see the locals strangly casual. Some were in dirty tracksuits, and some wern't wearing shoes. Then there were business men in suits and talking on weird devices held to their ear, while others rustled through shopping bags.
10 minutes later, they were standing in front of a large building, looking awestruck at a long cable wire, stretching all the way up the mountain, with strange box things going up and down.
"Is this the place?" Fred asked.
"Yep." Came the voice of Mr Weasley.
After finding their way through the many tourist and paying to go up in what were called "Gondolas", Harry and the others waited in line to go up to the top, where they could "luge" on specially made tracks.
"So how do these luge carts work?" Ginny asked, looking at a model of a plastic cart on wheels with a handle bar you push foreword and back.
"I don't know." Mr Weasley said, looking curiously at it, just as it was time for the Weasley's and Harry, Hermione, Lupin and Tonks to start boarding.
"Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny-you first." Mrs Weasley said, indicating the automatically opening doors, while Mr Weasley gasped at the machinery, operating the whole system.
Harry hoped in, flowed by the others, and found himself in a little cable cart on a wire with four seats to take him up to the top of the mountain.
"This is bizarre …" Ron muttered a little while later, halfway up the mountain said, looking down at the city below.
"This is certainly something." Hermione agreed, also peering out of the windows.
"Gosh this place is interesting." Harry said
"Interesting doesn't cover it mate!" Ron said, "This place is bizarre!"
"Not bizarre Ron. I'll bet if someone who lives here comes to England, they'll find it "Bizarre"-"
"Hardily Hermione." Ron protested, as they jerked to a halt at the top. "This place is totally strange! Like yesterday, when we were driving past some place that looked as if it was a fire, it smelled so bad! Then when we went away, the smell went as well-"
"Just so you know Ron," Hermione said as they piled out of the gondola and waited to the side for the others. "That was steam-not smoke. And it smelt because of the sulphur-"
"The what?" Harry and Ron said together, as Mr and Mrs Weasley, Tonks and Lupin got out of their gondola.
"Look-it's this stuff that-oh never mind." Hermione's voice trailed away, as Fred, George and some tourist came out of their Gondola, tripping over on the way out.
"That was as bad as the plane!" Fred said, tripping on the welcome mat, and grabbing onto Lupin so he wouldn't fall to the ground.
"No it wasn't! Come everyone, todays about having fun!" Mr Weasley said, looking enthusiastic, then strolling over to one to the work people and stared asking him how the Gondolas worked without magic.
"Like we need you spilling the fact that we're witches and wizards." Mrs Weasley muttered, grabbing the back of Mr Weasley's baggy, muggle golfing vest. "Just so you guys know, remember-this is an area full of muggles. So please try and blend in-"
But at that moment, they had reached the outside of the Gondola building, and were now looking at the strangest sight they had ever seen.
Tons of people-by the looks of it, all tourist, were walking around, with cameras, and some talking in either a funny accent, or a totally different language altogether. But that wasn't what was so strange-
It was the machines. There was a restaurant to their right, and to their left was a strange contraption, saying it was a "Simulator" and that you could experience either a "Roller coaster ride" (whatever that was) a "Alien chase" Or a "off road adventure".
Up ahead, they could see the luge, and people lining up to have a go. It was a long concrete path, which you rode down on the strange cart like things with handle bars.
"Ok, look. We need tickets to rid the luge-" Mrs Weasley was saying, but no one was listening. Everyone was staring at either the luge, or the "Swoop" The fastest swing in the world (Or so the sign said), or the chairlift overhead, that obviously brought you back from the bottom of the mountain, once you had luged down.
"I want to ride the luge!" Ginny yelled, and she, accompanied by Fred, George, Harry, Ron, Hermione and an enthusiastic Mr Weasley, stared running to get in line.
After 20 confusing minutes, in which they managed to get tickets from the restaurant, and get themselves helmets (And managed to put them on), they were finally able to join the line for the luge.
The trouble was getting through the barrier, because no one knew how to get the ticket to let him or her through. They finally found out when a friendly Scottish man showed them how.
"Ok, you have to pull BACK to stop." The instructor was saying, but Ron seemed to be having trouble working the steering and crashed into a local in front of him.
"It's-not-working-" Ron huffed, trying to pull the handlebars, and finding them jammed stuck.
The rest of the party wasn't having much luck either. Mr Weasley was already off, shooting down the concrete path (Not knowing how to stop), Mrs Weasley had given up and was now standing by, watching them, Lupin and Tonks were laughing, pulling themselves forward with their feet, while Hermione and Ginny crashed into Fred and George on the way down.
Harry was managing to go forward, but Ron wasn't having much luck at all.
"Stupid, useless thing!" He shouted at the Luge cart and kicked it. A voice behind them laughed and Harry turned to see two girls walking forwards, who were clearly locals. One had short, multicoloured hair (dark brown with blond streaks) and wearing pants and a t-shirt with "Drop dead, gorgeous" on it. The other girl was shorter than the first by about a head, had long mousy brown hair in a ponytail, and wearing jeans and a t-shirt with "In one ear and out the other" on it. They were laughing at them and looking sympathetic.
"Try putting the handlebars in the middle." The girl with multicoloured hair said, and moving Ron's handlebars so they were in the middle of the slot that the handlebars moved to stop and start. The cart began to move forward.
"Hey! I'm doing it!" Ron yelled happily "Harry! I'm doing it!'
"Yeah, you are!" The shorter girl with brown hair said, laughing at Ron happiness at finally mastering the luge cart. She turned and grabbed a cart of her own and pelted off down the advanced track.
"Hey! Wait for me!" The other girl yelled after her and she said "Have fun!" To Harry and Ron, grabbed her own luge and headed off after her companion.
"Maybe most people are friendly here." Harry asked, as they made their way slowly down the track.
"Maybe. That girl seemed nice." Ron said.
"Yeah. That other seemed to know what she was doing." Harry commented on how the girl with brown hair took off like a rocket down the advanced track.
"Well, they were locals; they've probably been here heaps of times." Ron said.
"Yeah, probably." Harry said.
They made their (very slow) progress down the mountain side, until they found a chair lift at the bottom, and the others all waiting for them.
"You two took your time." Hermione said.
"Slow and steady wins the race." Ron said as they got into line.
"Where on earth did you get that?" Ginny asked.
"I heard some local say it before." Ron said.
The party moved on, and somehow, Harry found himself on the chairlift (very agitated, as he was sure the whole thing would collapse) with the girl with multicoloured hair.
"Hi again!" She said. "You're the one who was having trouble getting started?"
"Uh, yeah, that would be me." Harry answered her.
"Where you from?" She asked "You sound British."
"Yeah … from England."
"Holiday?"
"Yep."
"I'm Rachel." The girl said. Harry stuck out his hand, but the girl just looked at it funny and Harry pulled it back in.
"Uh … yeah, the last time I saw someone shake hands with someone was my Grandma!" Rachel said, and Harry assumed that shaking hands wasn't exactly how you said hello in New Zealand.
"I take it that you don't shake hands here?" Harry asked.
"Nah." Rachel said, "Here it's more like "Kia ora cuz!"."
"Kia ora cuz?" Harry asked. How on earth did that classify as being "Hello"?
"Kia ora is hello in maori." Rachel explained. "And cuz is just what we say. I personaly think "Hi" is mroe understandable, but hey-that's NZ."
Once back up at the top again, Rachel went off with her friend (Who was supposedly called Jordan) and Harry met up with the rest of the Weasley's, Hermione, Lupin and Tonks.
"Ok, all those in favour of going straight back to the hotel and never going on these things again, say "Aye"!" Tonks said, collapsing onto the bench. "That was the worst!"
"No it wasn't, it was hilarious!" Lupin told her "You were going at a snails pace!"
"I like brooms better." Tonks muttered, eyes closed.
"That was fun! Can I go again?" Ginny asked
"Whoa, we should get some lunch first." Mrs Weasley said, pulling out a wizard camera, and taking a picture of Mr Weasley next to the simulator, and panicking when it emitted puffs of purplish smoke. "Damned thing! I put it onto normal last night!'
"Mum that was normal for us." Fred said, waving at a bunch of Asian tourist, all looking at them weirdly.
"But mum, I want to go again!" Ginny protested and Mr Weasley and George followed suit while Ron stayed firmly quiet.
"I'm not going on that again!" he said when asked what he wanted to do. Then, all of them could hear loud screams from around the other side of the Gondola terminal.
Almost out of natural reflex, Harry, along with Fred, George, Ron, Ginny, Lupin, Tonks and Hermione all pulled out their wands and braced themselves for an attack, but nothing came except for a lot of staring and wired looks.
"Put them away!" Mrs Weasley hissed and they all shoved their wands back in their pockets hastily, waving at the confused tourist, including Rachel and Jordan, the local girls.
"Let's find out what that was, shall we?" Mr Weasley's said hastily and they all made their way around to see a large group of people looking up at a round metal ball with people strapped inside it, being swung back and forth of a long rope and the people inside were screaming their heads off.
"What is that?" George asked.
"It's called The Sky Swing. It's a thrilling and exhilarating ride, 50 metres above ground level and reaching speeds of up to 120kph." Hermione said, sounding as if she were answering a question in class.
"How in Merlins name do you know that?" Ginny asked.
"It's on the sign." Hermione said exasperatedly.
"It looks super cool." Fred said, eyeing the screaming people inside which interest. "Can we go on it?"
"I guess." Mrs Weasley said, "But if you think I'm going on that thing, you've got another thing-"
But everyone were already running off to line up, watching the people on the ride, laughing.
"Wait! I've got to pay first!"
Once they had paid (Hermione handled the money) they all lined up in threes as the people on the ride came to a halt and looked as if they were glad to be back on the ground.
"Is it fun?" Harry asked one of them as they walked past, looking windswept.
"It's bizarre!" He said and they walked away, looking as if they had the time of their lives.
"Looks like you have something in common with muggles after all." Hermione said, as the operator beckoned Harry, Ron and Hermione to come forward for their turn. "You both say the word "Bizarre"."
Ron scowled at her and the three sat down on the three seats inside the metal ball. Harry sat on the left, with Ron in the middle and Hermione on his other side.
When the operator strapped them in, Harry started to get apprehensive and when the operator handed Ron a handle connected to a rope, Ron blurted out "What am I meant to do with this?"
"You pull it once you get to the top." The operator said, checking Hermione's seatbelt "It'll make you go. We prefer to do it this way so people can go at their own pace."
"Knowing Ron, were likely to never go." Hermione said, smirking at Ron, who was starting to turn green again and said loudly "Um … I think I'm having second thoughts about this!" but the ball had suddenly started to pull them backwards and up and Hermione gave a little shriek.
Harry wasn't that scared. He had been this high up on a broomstick before, but Hermione never had, and was now muttering "I don't like this! I really really don't like this!" and Ron's knuckles were turning pale holding onto the handle. Suddenly, they stoped moving and Harry could hear Tonks calling out "Come on Ron! Pull the handle!" and Fred and George cheering and yelling. Ginny was laughing.
"Ron?" Harry said, looking sideways at him, who wasn't looking too good. Hermione had her eyes closed and was looking as if she wanted to get off. "Ron! R-"
But Ron had suddenly jerked the handle down and Harry broke off yelling. The ball had suddenly let go and was now swooshing down the hill side with Ron yelling next to him and Hermione was screaming.
The wind was sweeping into Harry's face. They reached the other side and now Harry could see over the edge of the mountain and the city below that was Rotorua.
They swooshed back and forth, Hermione screaming all the way, until they finally came to a gradual stop at the bottom where they started.
"Enjoy that?" the operator asked as Harry got off with shaking legs and Hermione had to hold onto each of the boys' arms to hold her steady.
"That was the scariest!" Hermione said, looking as if she were about to faint.
"Hermione, you were so funny!" Ginny said, supporting her down the stairs off the platform. "You should have seen your face!"
"Ha-ha." Hermione said sarcastically, leaning against the fence blocking the "swing area".
"Ok, you three next." The operator said and Ginny leapt up the stairs, looking excited. But when she reached the top, Harry could see her pale face between Fred and George, and grasping the handle hard. Fred and George whooped and cheered all the way down and Ginny screamed, holding onto George's jacket.
"Still think it was funny?" Hermione said nastily as Ginny tripped coming back down the stairs and Harry had to catch her from falling over.
"Ha-ha." Ginny said.
Tonks, Lupin and Mr Weasley went next. Mr Weasley pulled the handle as soon as they had stoped moving and Tonks screamed even louder than hermione and Ginny put together. Lupin yelled "Get me off this thing!" and Mr Weasley looked as if were having the time of his life.
"Ok, I'm not going on that thing ever again!" Tonks said while Lupin agreed when they finally reached the ground again.
"Hey guys! Come look!" Ginny called and they all moved out of the way to the people to see a TV playing a video of Harry Ron and Hermione yelling and screaming their way down the ride. "It's you guys!"
"Look at you face Ron!" Harry teased, whacking him playfully on the arm.
"My face?" He said "Look at your's!"
After many laughs and "Look at you face!" 's, the group made their way back to where the restaurant and luge were.
"So shall we have lunch now?" Mr Weasley said, but just then, there was a huge bang from the luge line, and several people screamed and people started running.
Harry jumped in shock and spun around, pulling out his wand at the same time. But as soon as he turned, his vision was obscured by a large quantity of smoke, which sent him coughing.
"W-what's going o-on?" Ginny coughed next to him.
"I don't know!" came Fred's voice.
Suddenly Harry could see many hooded figures coming out of the smoke, all wearing black cloaks and wearing masks. And every one of them (There was al least 10) had their wand out-
"Death eaters!" Ginny squealed
"You kids get to the Gondolas!" Mr Weasley yelled, pulling out his own wand, Mrs Weasley, Lupin and Tonks all following suit as the Death eaters blasted apart the souvenir shop, while muggles ran about, screaming and yelling.
"But-" Ron began
"Don't argue! Go now! We'll meet you at the bottom!" Lupin yelled back, and Harry yelled "Come on!" to the others and grabbed a horror-struck Ginny and headed for the Gondolas, along with everyone else, almost crashing into a large group of locals questioning what was going on.
"Bad! Bad! This is very very bad!" Hermione was saying as they ran through the people.
"Yeah it is! A place full of muggles!" Fred said, jumping into a Gondola.
"Why on earth are death eaters here?" Ginny asked to no one in particular. "I didn't even know there were death eaters here!"
"I guess there are." Hermione said. "I didn't even know about them!"
"That's saying something." Ron muttered to Harry.
"I heard that, Ron." Hermione said warningly, as the Gondola took off down the mountain side as before, only this time instead of going up, they were going back down again, able to see the Rotorua city and car park below.
They remained silent for the rest of the journey down. They kept glancing up at the top, wear the smoke had risen to hover like a dark cloud over the buildings. When they stumbled out of the gondola at the bottom, they entered a scene of utter chaos.
Muggles were pushing and yelling, trying to find others, trying to get out of here, others trying to go back up because they forgot their purse-
"Let's get outside!" George yelled over the noise.
Holding onto each other, the 6 of them edged through the crowd until they reached the outside air.
All of them looked up at once and saw that the smoke could even be seen from here. People were coming down the mountain side in droves, about 10 people being fitted inside one Gondola at a time.
It remained like that for about 5 minutes, in which Harry and the others sank onto the grass outside the Gondola building, where they had a good view of the luge up top and the mountain side.
Then, a bunch of people came running out of the bush at the edge of the mountain.
"You!" One of them, a man called to them. "Are you the Weasley lot?"
"Um … yeah, I guess so!" Ron called back.
The man gave one look at his peers (There was about 20 at least) and at once, they all disapprated.
All six of them were shocked.
"Are they wizards?" Ginny asked in outrage.
"I assume so, as they disappeared." Fred answered.
They watched the scene from above for over an hour, even after most of the people had left, and I sign put up saying that "Skyline Skyrides is closed for today. We are sorry for any inconvenience." Until finally, the rest of the Weasley clan apperated next to them, along with the other wizards from before.
"Hi." Said the man that had addressed them before, and came up to talk to Harry and the others. "I'm Dan. I am head of the magical law enforcement, and that's David-" he pointed to another man with dark hair, who nodded "He's head of the auror department. All of us here." He gestured around at his fellow wizards. "Work for the ministry of magic in Wellington."
"You guys have a ministry here too?" Ron said, sounding disbelieving.
"Yes we do. It's a good thing you lot were here, or else that could have turned ugly up there. Something like this hasn't happened in years!"
"Death eaters are common here?" Harry asked.
Dan looked slightly puzzled. "Oh!" he said "You're talking about the Dark riders."
"Dark riders?" Ron asked, looking enquiringly at his dad.
"It's what they call them here, for some odd reason." Mr Weasley said, smiling slightly.
"Well, yes. Dark riders are common here. They are supporters of you-know-who." Dan said and noticed the look of recognition. "Yeah, we thought you would have heard of him. Actually, come to think of it, doesn't he-well, not really live, but he's in your area, isn't he?"
"Um, yes." Lupin answered. "Us four-" he pointed at Mr and Mrs Weasley, Tonks and then herself. "Are in the order."
"Of course." Dan replied. "So are we. Well, our duty is to just keep the Dark riders at bay."
"You lot obviously have a more important job." David said. "I mean keeping you-know-who at bay, not to mention protecting Harry potter."
Harry couldn't believe they had heard of him, even on the other side of the world, and attempted to hide behind Ron.
"Yeah, well, we'd better be going." Mrs Weasley said, shaking hands with everyone in the group and started to chivvy the others along. "Goodbye!"
"Goodbye then!" Dan called and with a wave, all of them disapprated.
A/N: I'm not sure i spelt "Disapprated" right, but all well. You know what i mean. Just so you know-Rachel is by no accounts based on me-she's based on my friend, put in by request. Rachel's friend, Jordan, isn't me either-i was just casting around for a name, and my name was the first thing to pop into my head.
I swear, the plot bunny made me do it. p