Thursday July 14th, 1994

True to his convictions, Harry reached out to several friends about tourist ideas for the Salvatore family. A handful wrote back, giving Harry ample options to show the family around with proper tours (and hefty discounts, to boot!)

Falling through the jarring sensation of a portkey, Harry and the Salvatore family arrived at the wooden gates of a magical nature preserve in Wales. It took Harry a moment to get his bearings. When he did, he was greeted by a grinning Neville Longbottom.

"You made it!" he said, almost with a sigh of relief.

"Of course," said Harry, "thank you for getting us these passes."

Neville blushed shyly, "It was no trouble. My family is a big supporter of SCRaP-MAP so they're happy to give us a tour."

Harry blinked in confusion. "What's a scrap map?"

"SCRaP-MAP," Neville repeated, "you know-" he pointed up to the headboard of the wooden gate. Following the boy's finger, Harry looked up and read the sign there upon it.

SNOWDONIA'S CELTIC RAINFOREST PRESERVE FOR MAGICAL ANIMALS AND PLANTS

Harry stared at the sign, reading it over again and as he pieced together Neville's acronym for the preserve. "Well," he said slowly, "I suppose it's a good thing they included the region in the name." He gave Neville a weak smile. The boy, however, looked at him with innocent confusion. Rethinking the joke, he gave a headshake, "Nevermind. We should meet up with the tour guide."

"Right," said Neville, still oblivious to the joke, "follow me. I'll bring you all over to the main desk."

They started their walk over, with Harry introducing Neville to the other teens as they made their way. The group was full of animated chatter about possible creatures they'll see today as well as the places they've seen so far on their trip.

"You're going to love it here," said Neville, delighted at hearing everyone's enthusiasm. "I tried getting Hermione to come, too, but she's been busy all summer. Says she needs to catch up on something called GCSEs."

"GCSEs?!" Harry said, shock evident in his voice.

"Yes, it's some sort of muggle test. I'm not sure why she's so intent on it, but it's important to her, so I figure it's best to just support her, right?"

"I suppose so," said Harry. On the inside, he was still reeling over the idea. GCSEs are like OWLs, both of which are two years away, not to mention require entire years worth of muggle and magical schooling to prepare for! Summers aside, how will she ever have the time to pull off passing both rounds of tests?!

Hold on, Harry pondered it over, back on Easter Melly got that time turner from Hermione.

He recalled that time, of the dozens of hours they spent on a single calendar day. If Hermione has access to a time turner everyday- whether or not that includes summer, she could theoretically have more than enough time to catch up to both worlds of education.

I should write to her, let her know about the Room of Requirement. If nothing else, it could give her a place to time-turn for days worth of hours at a time away from prying eyes. Yes, I'll definitely let her know about it.


As it turns out, SCRaP-MAP is huge! The area was so big that, in order to give them a proper tour, they all had to take up brooms to explore the region. Their tour guide was patient with them, always waiting until everyone arrived in each general area before showing them the various wildlife the preserve had to offer. They were introduced to all sorts of magical plants and creatures, including some that Harry has yet to learn about in class, like afancs and asrais. The latter had to be met inside of a river cave due to dangers of the sun; while the former required distance lest they be eaten! Best yet, they got to see even more dragons! The preserve held the best territory for the common Welsh green and the ever elusive Welsh red dragons! This time there were no fights between the dragons (much to Neville's relief after hearing the others talk about the Hebrides dragons), so they got to get a closer look at the majestic creatures.

It was hours before the tour was fully done. When they had, the group dined at the best magical restaurant (by their guide's recommendation) that Wales had to offer.

Later, as darkness descended over the region, the group flew to one of Snowdonia's mountains to meet with Lily Moon and Luna Lovegood, the former of whom got them special passes for an evening of stargazing in one of Britain's dark sky zones! Lily's family owned the observatory, so it was no trouble to arrange a private seminar for them (which included an Italian-speaking astronomer, to everyone's surprise!)

Luna joined Harry and Neville for the English sector of the seminar. She was delighted to hear of the various tours they had gone on, sharing her own stories of visiting the nature preserves with her parents in her youth. Lily joined them soon after, and all four enjoyed a relaxing evening under the stars.


Friday July 15th, 1994

The next day Harry, Lily, and the Salvatore family met up with Draco at a private menagerie.

"It's not generally open to the public, you know; but the Malfoy family are patrons to this establishment, so they're happy to give all of us a tour," Draco said boastfully.

Harry and Lily exchanged amused looks over the boy's antics. The Moons, too, are patrons to the menagerie; but Lily hardly felt the need to project her family's wealth. In fact, she barely made a scene when she arrived, only giving a greeting to the doorman by name before making her way inside with the rest of the group.

Draco continued, oblivious of the exchange, "They have all sorts of wondrous creatures from around the world. My father-" his face faltered slightly, "um, he used to bring me here when I was young. It's where we bought our peacocks and abraxans."

"You have abraxans?" Laura asked, her voice full of awe.

"We do," Draco smiled gently, trying to push away from his grief. "My parents used to go flying together. I've been taking care of my father's abraxan, Oberon, this summer since he- passed."

The others caught his stutter, brief murmurs of Italian explaining for those that did not catch on. Harry gave a solemn nod to Draco. Lily approached Draco with a sad and gentle smile, "I'm sure you're doing a wonderful job with him, Malfoy. Your father would be relieved to know you are taking such good care of his Oberon."

Draco was shocked by the kind words, and the boy blinked rapidly to push back a threat of tears. "Thank you, Moon, I appreciate it. Um, I'm sure we can show everyone how interesting this place is."

"Most definitely," Lily agreed. Then she gave a sad sigh, "I love visiting here. Magical creatures are so interesting and wonderful, but I wasn't able to take Care of Magical Creatures. My family insisted I take Ancient Runes and, well, you know how hard it was to pick electives last year."

"Understandable," Draco gave a sympathetic nod, as did Harry, "I was also considering Ancient Runes, but when Professor Snape explained the scheduling conflict I chose taking COMC."

"It's really too bad," said Lily. Then she gave a slight hum, "Perhaps we ought to exchange study notes sometime? Maybe while we explore the menagerie you can tell me what you've learned of the creatures here?"

"That would be fun," said Draco, pouncing on the idea immediately. "Then we can find a day to go over ancient runes. Oh, I hear you showed Harry the Moon Observatory yesterday. The equipment must have substantial runic arrays, right?"

"It does," said Lily. "I also gave Harry and the others a small tour of Moon Manor. I think he enjoyed some of our family's designs."

"For his rebuilding project, right?" Draco asked with interest. "I showed him around Malfoy Manor this past Winter. Is he still dead set against using the main residence?-"

The two continued on with that line of conversation, with Draco making various comments at Harry's expense over his plans for the future. The boy in question rolled his eyes at the jabs. This, however, caught Marco and Enzo's attention, leading them to ask what was being discussed. The second Harry answered, however, sealed his fate. He'd forgotten that the Salvatores had their own giant expanse of a home, so it took almost no hesitation for the other teens to give their own opinion on how to build Harry's future home. He spent the next half hour having opinions piled onto him by no less than a half dozen people; and the bickering proved to be as amusing as they were exasperating.


That night Harry, Enzo, Laura, Marco, Ornella, and Massimo dressed up for a night of dancing! They bussed to the Leaky Cauldron, wandered down Diagon Alley, took a turn down Horizont Alley, and arrived at a pub called The Fountain of Fair Fortune. Under Massimo's advice, they arrived a good hour before the concert to grab a bite to eat. It was a wise call, as the tables were already near-full with fellow teens. He could see Tracey, Parvati, her sister, and a few of their friends at one table talking loudly about the upcoming music. At another table Wayne, Megan, Oliver, Mandy, and Seamus were digging into their dinners. He also spotted some familiar upper years, including a table with some of Melly's closest friends, though the girl in question was notably absent. Putting the thought aside, his group was guided to a table that was thankfully big enough for the six of them. They ordered an assortment of drinks and shareable snacks, and soon settled in for the meal.

As the minutes wore on, Corin passed by their table on the way to the loo. "Cor! Harry, good to see you!"

"Good seeing you, too, Corin. How has your summer been?"

"It's been alright. Mostly been hanging out with friends, but my family's going on holiday to America in August. Who's all this, then?" He gestured to the Salvatores.

Harry made quick work introducing everyone, then added his own curiosity, "By the way, where's Melly? She said that she was coming tonight."

"Mel?" Corin gave a blink of confusion. "She's already here- oh, right, she left a while ago to help Merton and the rest get ready for tonight. Being a proper roadie and all that." Corin gave a laugh, "Not sure how much help they really need when magic does so much; but I suppose there's more that musicians have to worry about?"

"Probably," Harry agreed. "I got to help out at her dad's studio a couple of times. It's a lot of fun."

"I'll bet. So what have you all been up to?"

"We visited a magical zoo today," Harry answered, "and yesterday we went to a magical nature preserve and dark-sky observatory."

"Hold on," Corin said suddenly, "there are magical observatories?!" At Harry's nod, Corin went wide-eyed, "Should have led with that, mate! How have I not known about this? What kind of magic do they use? Better yet, how do I contact them so I can find out?"

Harry started to laugh, "My friend's family, Lily Moon, owns it. I can get you in contact with her and find out what you can about it all."

"Bril! Yes, let's do that." The two exchanged information, Corin eagerly scratching down Lily's address on a napkin with a pen (Why does he even have a pen on him), before continuing his trek to the loo.

They enjoyed the rest of their meal amicably, though it wasn't long before the wait staff started to shrink and levitate tables away from the stage area. Now left to stand, the group started to mingle among the growing crowd; leading to no less than a dozen introductions among people in he and Corin's grades. They moved closer towards the empty stage in anticipation for the Weird Sisters' arrival, and Harry perked up when the stage was no longer empty.

"HEY MELLY!" He waved up to Melly, who was carrying a keyboard onto the stage.

"Hey, Harry!" she called back, a slight grunt in her voice. "I'll be down in a sec!"

True to form, she hopped off stage after bringing a few more items out onto the stage. "Buongiorno, tutti! How's your night going?"

"Pretty good," Harry said with a laugh in his voice.

The Salvatores each gave their own greetings, leading to more exchanges about the adventures of the last two days. The cacophony of voices grew as friends and new acquaintances continued on, the excitement of the night ramping up in volume with it.

Over the growing tide of voices, one voice boomed above the rest.

"LOVELY WITCHES AND WILD WIZARDS, ARE YOU READY TO ROCK?"

The crowd cheered with louds whoops.

"I SAID, ARE YOU READY TO ROCK?!"

"WOO!" screamed the crowd.

"THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKIN' ABOUT!" the voice, Kirley- Harry realized, cheered. "ALRIGHT THEN, GET YOUR HANDS TOGETHER FOR THE ONE- THE ONLY- WEIRD SISTERS!"

The crowd went wild as the seven members of the Weird Sisters arrived on stage. Their appearances were much more rugged than Harry's ever seen them. Their clothes were artfully torn and their faces hairy and adorned with dark eye makeup, perfectly fitting for a muggle rock stage (and perfectly unfitting the usual wizarding crowd). Exactly what this young crowd was going crazy for.

Harry could catch catcalls from the audience as the band got ready.

"MYRON, I LOVE YOU!"

"HEYYY MERTON, LOOKING SHARP!"

"HEATHCOTE, YOU'RE MY HERO!"

Harry whipped his head on hearing Melly shout out that last one. "What are you doing?"

"Psyching him out, HA!" She gestured to Barbary, where Harry could catch a look of playful exasperation behind Barbary's performing smile.

"Now that's just mean," said Harry.

"That's show biz," Melly countered. "Gotta be able to handle a little heckling once in a while."

Harry gave a snort, then considered Barbary again. "He seems to be taking it well, to me."

"Yeah, he's finally cracking that shell of his," Melly agreed. "Good on him."

At the stage, Myron clicked his fingers over his head. "Alright then, you kits and kneazles, get those feet moving, cuz it's time to DO THE HIPPOGRIFF!"

The crowd screamed with excitement. Then volume tripled as the band began to play.

For the next two hours Harry and his friends danced along to the rockin' music of the Weird Sisters. People sang to their favourites, listened raptly to new songs, and partied like there was no tomorrow.

And it-

was-

AWESOME!


AC: A cute fact. About a week after writing this chapter I came across a nature documentary about Wales and, sure enough, the very first place they showed was Snowdonia!