Chapter Text
“But it’s not just the game! It’s the camping that’s fun! Bill and Charlie went to a friendly in Egypt once – Iceland vs. Egypt – and they said it was wild. Mummies everywhere, and there was this Viking-”
“Shut up, Ronald,” Ginny interrupted. They were sat on the park in Godric’s Hollow, the sun almost set. Ron was sat on the table of one of the picnic benches, Ginny and Harry on the swings opposite. Harry was listening to Ron with wide eyes. Hermione sat cross-legged on the floor underneath a tree, half listening to their conversation, half engrossed in her book.
“Harry wants to hear it, don’t you?”
Harry looked guilty about wanting to say yes.
“But Hermione doesn’t,” Ginny reminded him. "You see Harry literally all of the time, talk about it when you're alone.”
Ron shot her a guilty look. “Sorry, Hermione.”
Hermione grinned. “It’s fine,” she assured him. “I understand the excitement. It actually sounds quite good. My dad once took me to an Arsenal game-” she ignored Ron’s snigger. “-and, even though I don’t love football, it was good hearing all the singing and everything. It really gets you into it.”
“I’ve always wanted to go to a football match,” Harry said. “When we go to the Dursleys, my Uncle Vernon usually has a game on the telly so he doesn’t have to talk to us.”
“It looks just like Quidditch, but slower,” Ron argued. “And there aren't serious injuries.”
“That’s not true,” Hermione said with a roll of her eyes. “The Arsenal goalkeeper, Petr Cech, has to wear a helmet every time he plays. He’s had so many head injuries that he’ll most likely die if he gets another.”
Ron looked marginally impressed by that. “Still, there’s no chance someone will magically disappear.”
Hermione shot him a look. “By all accounts, that should make it a better game.”
“I was thinking,” Harry interrupted, before their argument could get any worse. “That you should come to the World Cup Final too, Hermione.”
Hermione stared at him for a moment. “Me?”
He shrugged. “Well, yeah. I’d like you to come. My mum would. She says she won’t go unless you do, because it’s a once in a liftetime thing, and she thinks you’d enjoy it.”
Hermione hesitated. “I don’t know. If it’s anything like the Muggle World Cup, my parents can’t afford me a ticket to that-”
“They don’t need to!” Harry said. “My dad and Sirius bought out a whole box. We’ll have to share it with Regulus and his work friends, because he put some money in too, but there’s enough room in those boxes for fifty people.”
Hermione still looked unsure. “I wouldn’t want to be in anyone’s way.”
Harry snorted. “Did you not hear me? My mum wants you to go! She’s desperate for someone to go who’s not Quidditch mad, and all the Weasleys are Quidditch mad.”
Ginny shrugged and nodded. “It’s true, we are. Apart from mum, and she refuses to come.”
“Good,” Ron said vehemently. “She’d ruin it with worrying about everything.”
Hermione’s pocket vibrated. She picked up her phone and frowned. “Sorry, everyone, my mum’s just texted me to say I need to get back.” That was part of the reason they were sat on the park in the first place. In a magical village like Godric’s Hollow, only the outskirts were able to pick up Muggle signal. “Do you reckon your dad would give me a lift to the station, Harry?”
“Don’t be stupid,” Harry said. “It’s a two-hour train journey. You can use our Floo.”
Hermione looked hesitant. “But my parents-”
“Ring them now and let them know,” Harry said, getting to his feet. “It’ll be fine.”
Hermione rolled her eyes, but texted her mum all the same. She knew her parents were still very unsure about a lot of magical things, mostly including transportation. Use the upstairs fireplace, was the text she got back. “She says it’s fine.”
The three of them trundled back through Godric’s Hollow, Harry and Ron chatting excitedly about Quidditch. Ginny looped her arm through Hermione’s and they hung back from the boys a little, which Hermione was grateful for. She loved Ron and Harry, she had since they became reluctant friends in second year when her and Harry were put together for a potions test, but Ginny was her closest friend; the one she felt she could talk to about everything. They’d been friends before the boys had got involved, when Ginny had just started Hogwarts and Hermione had helped her find everything without the help of her overbearing brothers. Ginny, in turn, had started hexing anyone who made any untoward comments about Hermione.
“How’s things?” Ginny asked. When they go together like this, the four of them, there was little time to talk to Ginny about life. They owled all the time, but there were always things you preferred to say in person.
Hermione shrugged. “Ok,” she said. “My parents feel distant, still. Mum’s the worst. She just doesn’t really … get it. They don’t see my magic, or anything of what happens at Hogwarts, so they feel like I’m living this alternative life sometimes.”
Ginny frowned at her. “I’m sorry about that. You only turn seventeen in a year, though, so it might get better when they can see you doing magic outside school.”
Hermione smiled, despite the ugly feeling in her stomach. She always got especially anxious when she had to ask her parents about magical things. “I hope so. How’s Harry?”
Ginny snorted. “I think I’m giving up on him,” she laughed, watching Harry as he argued heatedly with Ron about who the better Seeker was. “I think it’s about time. Michael Corner asked me on a date before we finished last year, and he keeps owling me.”
“Will you go out with him?” Hermione wondered. She didn’t know much about Michael Corner – he was a Ravenclaw in her year, and he always seemed a little off with her, because she answered questions before him in lessons. Ginny had been in love with Harry since they'd first met, but Harry never showed any signs of reciprocating.
“Probably not,” Ginny said. “I don’t really know him, and he doesn’t seem very nice from his owls. He likes Quidditch, but he’s always saying something bad about the Gryffindor team.”
“Speaking of,” Hermione said, changing the subject as she sensed Ginny's unease. “Will you try out this year?”
Ginny was an excellent Quidditch player, but she was too scared of favouritism – all of her brothers, bar Percy, had been on the Gryffindor team – to do it. “Probably,” Ginny said. “Now that Wood’s gone, they’ll need to shake up their team a little.”
They were approaching the Potter house, so Hermione and Ginny jogged forward to catch up with the boys. Inside, there was a hubbub of noise. The living room – where the noise seemed to be coming from – door was closed, so they avoided that and went to the kitchen. Lily was sat on a stool at the kitchen table, eating handfuls of Muggle sweets.
“Hey kids,” she said through a mouthful of strawberry laces. Ron eyed them with disgust. Harry stole a handful for himself. Ron was still freaked out about a lot of Muggle things – even though he ate much stranger – but Harry’s mum had grown up Muggle, so he was used to a lot of them. The fact that Lily was also a Muggleborn witch was part of the reason she got along so well with Hermione. “Have you asked Hermione yet?”
“Yes,” Harry reported proudly. He looked exactly like his father, but he was his mother’s boy through and through, always trying to please her. “She’s coming, aren’t you?”
Hermione rolled her eyes. “They finally wore me down.”
Lily beamed at her. “Good! I like Quidditch, but sitting through hours of it with a bunch of boys who refuse to talk to you is not really my idea of fun.”
A crash sounded from the other room. All the voices halted suddenly, then one clear one said a spell and the noise resumed. Lily rolled her eyes.
“Those boys,” she snorted. “You would think they were the teenagers with how they act.”
It was a Friday night, which meant James Potter had his friends over. It used to be just Sirius, Remus and Peter, but after Peter stopped coming – he had a ‘very important job’ that he refused to tell anyone about – Sirius had invited his brother, who had invited his friends as well. Harry and Lily spent those nights together, watching Muggle films or going out together. Harry always said he was desperate to join the men, but Hermione could tell he enjoyed spending time with his mother. Fridays were never quiet in the Potter house, which Hermione loved. At her house, Friday night was date night for her parents, so she was usually alone in the house. She didn’t have constant Floo access either, so spending time at Harry or Ginny’s house was a rarity.
“Are you sure you don’t want to stay, Hermione?” Lily asked as she led them over to the fireplace. “We’re watching The Princess Bride tonight. Ron’s never watched it, so we’re making him. You’re welcome too, Ginny.”
“My parents would have a fit if they knew I was sleeping over at a boy’s house,” Hermione laughed. “But thank you.”
Ginny refused as well, saying she wanted the time away from Ron. Hermione hugged everyone, took a handful of Floo Powder, and vanished into the fireplace.