Sorry this chapter is a day late! I thought I'd have more time yesterday than I did!
One week after the holidays began, the Magical Creatures Festival that I mentioned Luna gifting me tickets for occurred. Demelza, Amy, Luna, Magda and I all met at the Burrow and travelled by Floo to the venue, which was located across several fields about 20 miles west of Norwich. Mine and Luna's dad's also joined us. It was the first time we had seen Magda outside of Hogwarts. At the last minute, I remembered the glasses that would supposedly allow me to see the mythical beings Luna believed in, another present from her.
We emerged into a small, dingy room, with a sign next to an open door that read "1994 World Festival of Magical Creatures". Yes, like the World Cup, England was hosting a second global wizarding event. It must have been a logistical nightmare for the Ministry, but hey, they managed to pull it off, credit where credit's due. It was probably the biggest achievement in Fudge's career!
"Well this is a pleasant way to greet visitors" said Demelza sarcastically. "Do they think more lowly of those who travel by floo?"
"It's anti Muggle security" Luna said. "This is an abandoned house, no Muggle would want to come near here. Look out that window!"
We did, and sure enough, we could see several fields covered with tents, paddocks, cages, and all types of displays. There were many creatures visible, and I could tell that regardless of whether or not Luna's mythical beings were here, that it should at least be a pretty interesting day!
We left the house and joined the queue at the entrance. It was separated into 3 lines, one for UK visitors, one for European, and one for the rest of the world. I wasn't sure why they were doing this, as it just meant one massive queue and 2 other much shorter ones, but we didn't have a choice in the matter. I can only guess that they wanted to know how many they had for each.
Once we'd finally gotten through the queue, we had a look at the festival map, where we could see that it was separated into different sections for creatures from different parts of the world.
"That's the part we all really want to see though!" said Luna, pointing towards the bottom right corner, marked "Strange and Mysterious".
"Speak for yourself" muttered Amy.
In the end we decided to separate, and agreed that we'd all meet back up again in a few hours to visit Luna's preferred "Strange and Mysterious" section.
Demelza, Amy and I first headed for the UK section, thinking that we'd be able to get through this pretty quickly, but that turned out to be far from the truth. As soon as we entered, we were shocked by a loud roar and a burst of flame, as none other than a Common Welsh Green Dragon appeared to our left! It was inside a massive metal barred cage and had several ropes and chains tying it down to the ground. There were a few dragon tamers milling around the outside of the cage, and I had a second surprise, which was that my brother Charlie was there, and so was Hagrid!
We ran up to them.
"Charlie, Hagrid!" I said "We weren't expecting to see you two here!"
"Hey Hagrid!" said Demelza and Amy together. Then the former turned to me and said "You know this guy?" pointing at Charlie.
"No, I've never met him before in my life, I'm just pretending" I deadpanned, rolling my eyes "Obviously I know him, he's my brother Charlie, you know, the one that works with dragons"
Demelza bit her lip, then said "oh yeah, sorry mate"
"To be fair, you do have a massive family, so it's hard to remember them all sometimes" Amy said
"Alright Ginny?" Charlie said. "Who are these 2 wonderful young ladies then?"
"Demelza Robins and Amy Bagman, my best friends. Known them since first year" I said. "So what brings you here then, Hagrid, Charlie?"
"Yeh mean you're surprised to see us?" said Hagrid "Course we were gonna be here, it's a world festival of magical creatures, it's what the 2 of us work with, why wouldn't we?"
"I'm here in preparation for a separate event involving dragons taking place in the UK this year" Charlie said "It's really nice to be back, been far too long. Very excited for the World Cup too!
"What's your predictions for the cup?" I asked
"Well, England may be the hosts, but I don't feel too confident about our chances, maybe quarter finals. Bulgaria and Ireland look strong, I'd pick one of them to win it"
England's form had improved somewhat in the most recent games, though we still weren't considered much of a threat to the best teams.
"Pretty fair assessment that" commented Demelza.
"Tell us more about this event involving dragons in the UK" said Amy
"Ah I can't I'm afraid, it's top secret, but you'll find out at Hogwarts"
"I'm very excited" said Hagrid "Been so long since the Triwizard Tournament happened!"
Then he stopped, with a look of shock on his face.
"I shouldn't have said that, hey, forget I told you!" he called as we left, but we just laughed and kept walking.
"Classic Hagrid, always letting things slip" I said
"The Triwizard Tournament, that's going to be some spectacle!" Amy said, "I never thought we'd see it in our lifetimes!"
"It was discontinued because the death rate was too high" added Demelza "I assume they've bought in extra safety measures"
"You'd hope" I said "Look, let's not tell anyone else about this, clearly we weren't supposed to know. I do love knowing things others don't though!"
"Yes, you never mention it" Demelza replied, rolling her eyes.
We spent the next couple hours exploring the various areas of the festival. Here are some of the highlights. There was a spectacular display by some Chinese creatures known as BoboFangers, who were super intelligent primates. We watched them do things such as juggling flaming torches, and perform complicated dance moves. It seemed like they were perfectly happy doing this as well, as they all screeched jovially at the end of their display. The French had bought a strange dog-snake hybrid, which was also able to transform itself to resemble a full dog or full snake. This was apparently the first time such a creature had been bought to the UK. There were also several pretty beautiful looking hippogriffs, and with no Malfoy there to cause trouble, the 3 of us and many others were able to easily interact with them.
We ate at a stall which was selling various Swedish delicacies, then, finally, it was on to the "Strange and Mysterious" section. The section had a large set of pink wooden doors at it's entrance, which were in between 2 large, wide concrete pink columns. The section name was displayed in carved black metal letters above it. A guard in purple robes was checking everyone at the entrance. You needed to have a pair of the glasses Luna gave me, and he was giving out sets to people who didn't.
Once we got inside, we saw several wooden paddocks arranged in a line on each side, but they didn't appear to have anything in them to me, or indeed any of us, except Luna and her father.
"Blibbering Humdingers!" Luna exclaimed, and dragged me over to one paddock. "There you are Ginny, they're wonderful, aren't they?"
"Mate, I can't see anything" I replied, and this was true both with and without the glasses on.
"They're right there, clearly you're not looking hard enough"
"It's a bloody empty field Luna, there's nothing to look hard for here!"
The same thing occurred at several of the other paddocks, with Demelza, Amy, Magda and my dad all failing to see any of the creatures supposedly displayed.
"It seems that we have some strugglers here" said the purple robed wizard, who looked rather like Albus Dumbledore, but obviously wasn't. "I am not Albus Dumbledore by the way, though I would forgive you for thinking otherwise"
I looked at him quizzically, raising one eyebrow.
"We know, we go to Hogwarts, he's our headmaster" I said
"I already said, I am not Albus Dumbledore. I cannot work miracles unlike him"
Everyone stared at him, even more confused.
"Some people have the sight. Others do not. Those who do not can use the glasses, but sometimes, there are those who are simply incapable of seeing. Clearly we have a few of them here. Only these 2 (he pointed at the Lovegoods) appear to have the sight"
He then walked away.
"He's right" said Xenophilius Lovegood.
"What is this, the Spiderwick Chronicles? Do I need something to spit in my eyes to see these things?" asked Dad.
"What?" said Luna, giving Dad a weird look.
"Muggle thing. Anyway, let's go home now, this section was clearly a waste of time"
"It wasn't!" cried Xenophilius
"Yes, it was, for most of us. Apologies love, but this hasn't proved any of your beliefs" Magda said.
"That's ok. The Sight is a rare gift at the end of the day" replied Luna, accepting Magda's hand. "The Glasses are supposed to help, but like the man said, for some it's just impossible"