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Young Harry had never been more excited for a trip. At thirteen years old, this would be his first trip to America, and he was going with his best friends. Well, most of his best friends. Hermione’s parents hadn’t wanted her to leave the country with her friends, which Harry supposed he understood.
He was thrilled to go to Tennessee. He didn’t really know much about it, only that the experience in Pigeon Forge was supposed to be a wholly American experience. They would be staying in a cabin with air conditioning and a hot tub.
Harry sat in his family’s study, trying his hardest not to literally bounce off the walls. Everyone coming on the trip would be meeting at Potter Manor before going to the International Portkey Office together.
Dean was the first to arrive alongside his parents, Mary and Peter—or, as most everyone called him, Wormtail.
“I have the best idea, mate,” Dean said when he sat down next to Harry, dropping his duffle bag on the ground with a thump. “This will be the best holiday ever!”
Harry nodded along, still jittering with excitement. Ron came through the fireplace a few minutes later, holding not only his bag, but a large box that he handed to the first adult he saw. Harry’s dad, James, took it willingly.
“Mum sent me with minced meat pies for the journey,” Ron said, looking a little embarrassed. “In case the lines at the Portkey Office get long, I suppose.”
“Why haven’t you brought Molly along with you?” Dean asked, feigning earnestness when Ron approached his friends in the corner. “I thought this would be a lovely opportunity to pop the question! You wouldn’t mind that, would you, son?”
Harry and Dean laughed while Ron rolled his eyes and punched Dean on the shoulder. He was saved from having to respond when Sirius and Remus—Padfoot and Moony—walked through the fireplace with Marlene and Dorcas. They were followed closely after by Alice and Frank, with the fourth of Harry’s gang in tow.
“I couldn’t find my lucky travelling socks,” Neville explained, gesturing to his feet. “It’s good I did, though. I hear Americans walk barefoot everywhere. I’d have hated to not have the extra layer of protection my lucky socks give me.”
They all certainly had their quirks, and one of Nevilles was this enormous pair of woolen socks that he didn’t travel without. He was certain that if he went without them, it would mean trouble. His friends were just happy he let his mother wash the socks.
“Are you boys ready to go?” Lily asked as she and Regulus entered the study with the rest of the Potter luggage. Harry and his friends rushed to be the first at the fireplace. “Not so fast, Regulus will be going first, he’s got everyone’s forms with him.”
Harry’s Papa gave him a pat on the shoulder before stepping into the fire with his floo powder. One after the other followed him through until the whole travelling party was through.
“They do so look like the Marauders,” Harry heard Marlene say to the others as they waited in line.
—
James and his friends had been planning this trip for nearly the whole year. It was their school-leavers trip to America, one that Mr. and Mrs. Potter had agreed to fund—figuring, during the war, it would be safest if their trip took them out of the country. They had found the perfect cabin, picked out the most interesting excursions, and gotten all of their international travel papers in order. To say James was excited for this holiday would be a massive understatement. Things were looking to be perfect—until his parents dropped the news.
“We are so excited for you to go,” his father said. “But we’ve learned that in America, wizards don’t come of age until eighteen.”
“What’s that got to do with our trip?” James asked. His parents had interrupted his packing.
“You won’t be allowed to check into the cabin, let alone do anything while you’re there,” his mother explained. “Unless you travel with adults.”
James groaned. “Are you saying the two of you are coming?”
“As welcome to come along as you’ve just made us feel—no, we will not be joining,” said Fleamont. James wrinkled his brow in confusion. “We’ve asked Frank and Alice Longbottom to accompany you.”
James couldn’t believe it. Frank Longbottom had been a prefect when James started at Hogwarts, and was easily the strictest one there was. Any plans of having an exiting holiday were crushed with the news that they would have to bring chaperones—especially when said chaperones were literally Head Boy and Girl.
“It won’t be too bad,” Lily assured. After the chat with his parents, James had immediately floo’d back to Lily’s, where he had been with Lily and Regulus before his parents asked him home to talk. “Alice is really nice. She always kept an eye out for me in school.”
“I realize Frank and Alice are both perfectly lovely,” James said, just wanting to complain. “But how do we know they aren’t going to stick a curfew on us? What if they separate all of us who are in a relationship?”
“That seems like it would be a lot of work for a group as queer as ours,” Regulus said with a laugh. “What would they do, separate boys and girls and then have me, Sirius, and Marlene in a separate room from both?”
“That’s not the point,” James huffed as both his partners laughed.
“I’m sure we can still have a good time without them, J,” Lily said, before there was a knock at her door. “We’ll be down in a minute, Mum—“
“Sorry, darling daughter, but dinner’s not quite ready yet,” Sirius teased, opening the door and walking into the room, Remus following. “Longbottom’s coming?”
Lily and Regulus looked at James with raised eyebrows.
“Should have known you’d have owl’d Sirius before you came back,” Regulus huffed before smirking at his boyfriend.
“We’ve got to put a stop to this,” Sirius continued, ignoring his brother’s words. “How will we party American style if we are being babysat the whole time?”
“Surely they won’t be babysitting us,” Remus reasoned. “They probably want to enjoy themselves, too.”
“We’ve got to come up with a plan to lose them once we’re through the American Portkey Office,” Sirius suggested, clearly ignoring his boyfriend now as well. He sat down at Lily’s desk and pulled a legal pad from her shelf. “I’ll owl Wormy, see if he has any ideas.”
—
The cabin was huge. Harry assumed that it would be small like a cottage, but he had been way off. There were three floors and a pool in the backyard. Harry, Ron, Dean, and Neville were put together in a bedroom with Queen sized bunk beds. He and Ron had chosen to share a bunk, so that Harry and Dean were each on the top bunk while Neville and Ron got the bottom bunks. They wasted no time in unpacking all of their bags into the provided dressers and changing into their swimsuits to jump in the pool. Harry was sure one of his fathers was going to say something to them, but the boys were too quick to the backyard to hear anything.
“I know now what they mean by the American Dream,” Ron said as he tossed a ball through the hoop. They were playing a game of water basketball that Ron actually wasn’t too bad at once Harry and Dean had explained the rules to him. Despite being raised in the wizard world, Harry and Dean’s muggleborn mothers hadn’t let them grow up completely removed from muggle culture.
“I haven’t even told you lads my idea yet!” Dean said as they all settled down in their game. He looked over his shoulder toward the cabin to make sure no parents, aunts, or uncles were lingering before turning back to the others. “There are pubs here that sell moonshine! I saw in my mum’s brochure.”
“What’s moonshine?” Ron questioned, Neville nodding along in agreement.
“It’s alcohol,” Dean said. “Stronger than Firewhiskey, too!”
“We’ll never get away from our parents, and we will certainly never get into a pub,” Harry denied. “The drinking age is higher here. Even if it weren’t, we definitely don’t look eighteen.”
“That’s just it!” Dean looked toward the cabin again. “I’ve gotten an aging potion!”
“Where did you get an aging potion from?” Neville asked in a hushed tone, as if the pool were wearing a wire.
“I won it off Fred in a rather interesting game of Wizard’s Chess,” Dean bragged. The other boys looked on in envy. “All that matters is there is definitely enough for all four of us. We should do it tonight.”
“You think our parents won’t notice us walking out the front door?” Neville asked, agape. “It’s not like we can floo anywhere from here.”
“That’s why we’ll just wait until they go to bed,” Dean said, as if it were the simplest point in the world. “We can sneak out after that.”
“He’s right, I have the cloak anyways,” Harry said, finally getting on board with Dean’s plan.
“You lot are mental,” Ron said, unable to hide his grin. “But I’m in.”
“I still don’t think we’ve fully thought this through.” Neville looked ill at the thought of their barely-conceived sneak out. “But I’m not going to be the one left behind, am I? I’ll go.”
—
Lily had tried to convince the others that they would need Frank and Alice on their trip. It was an irrefutable fact that American Wizards were only considered of age when they reached eighteen—which meant for their large group of seventeen-year-olds, they’d need someone else to sign for the cabin. They wouldn’t be able to find other lodging, either, because muggle accommodations required the person checking in to be twenty-five.
Luckily for her, Regulus and Remus weren’t particularly in favor of ditching Alice and Frank either.
“It just seems pointless, considering we’re all underage,” Regulus had said. Lily and Remus had both concurred.
Lily, Remus, and Regulus hung back with Alice and Frank through the Portkey office. The others had been cordial, but were still scheming. Lily was starting to feel really annoyed at James, but tried to shake it off. She did want to have a good holiday, after all.
Once they’d gotten through to Tennessee, James pulled his hesitant partners and friend aside to update them.
“I don’t want to hear any more of this, James,” Lily said, pulling away from him slightly. “I still don’t think we should ditch them.”
“That’s what I’ve come over to tell you,” James said, looking a little ashamed of himself. “You three were right. It was a childish idea. But we came up with something better—that does not include ditching anyone in a foreign country.”
“Well?” Regulus asked. James smiled in such a way it was hard not to smile back.
“We’re just going to sneak away to get some—er, substances. While they’re checking into the cabin.”
“James, we can’t apparate here, remember?” Remus’ words reminded them all of the implications of a higher adult-turning age. “How do you plan to make it to a shop and back to the cabin before they realize you’re gone?”
“Easy, Moony, we’re going to tell them we’re off to a shop,” James said. “All we’ll have to do is hide it from them when we get to the cabin.”
“That is a plan I can endorse,” Lily said, giving James a peck on the cheek.
—
“Are we sure we even want moonshine?” Neville whispered, once again trying to talk his friends out of their scheme. “It seems like a lot of risk just for some alcohol we could have swiped from the liquor cabinets at home.”
“We wouldn’t have been able to bring it with us out of the country, Nev,” Dean said. The four boys were sitting in the living room outside their bedroom on the second floor, waiting for their parents, aunts, and uncles to make their way to bed. As it was, only Dean’s mum, Harry’s parents, and Remus and Sirius were still out in the living area below.
“Would you be quieter?” Neville whispered again, sending frantic looks over the landing edge at the visible living area where the adults were.
“They aren’t listening to us, relax,” Dean chuckled.
After another hour, the adults split off to their rooms, while Mary and Lily came up the stairs to where the boys were.
“You lot should be getting to bed,” Mary said, making a show of looking at her watch. “It’s half one.”
“Goodnight, mum,” Dean said, leading the pack into their shared bedroom. They made sure to leave the door cracked open a smidge so they could be sure their mothers had followed the other adults to bed. Once they had heard the two remaining doors close, the boys threw Harry’s invisibility cloak over themselves, crouching low to the ground so it would cover their feet. It was just a precaution, but they really didn’t want to risk being caught. “I’ll admit, it’s a little harder for us all to fit under here nowadays.”
“You can say that again,” groaned Ron, who was far and away the tallest of the four. As they crept down the stairs, Dean dug the potion bottle out of his pocket.
Once they successfully got onto the porch, they took the cloak off and huddled around Dean. He took the first gulp before passing it around to Harry, Ron, and finally Neville. Nothing happened at first, until all of a sudden Dean started sprouting more facial hair faster than they could react. Soon enough, all four of the boys were sporting beards to rival those of Hagrid and Dumbledore.
They couldn’t help but react a little loudly. They were rightly terrified to see their friends turn into grown men while still managing to look like thirteen year olds.
“Bloody Hell,” Ron said, looking at his reflection in the window. The others echoed his sentiments.
“Hurry, back inside!” Harry instructed, pulling the cloak lazily over the group. They slipped in, snuck up the stairs, and carefully closed their door before taking the cloak off again. “That was close.”
“It certainly was,” said Lily from the couch in the back of the room. Shocked at the voice, all four boys screamed as Lily did her best to contain her laughter. “What happened to you?”
“Aging potion,” Harry said with a sigh. There was no point keeping it from her now. “I suppose Fred doesn’t really know what he’s doing in the potions department.”
“I certainly could have told you that,” Lily said through laughs she could no longer keep herself from.
—
Frank and Alice didn’t think twice when the gang asked to head to a shop while they checked in. Frank and Alice had rented two SUVs at the Portkey Office, so they’d let Lily drive one of them. Marlene, Mary, and Dorcas had agreed to stay behind while the others accrued the substances.
It was easier than they thought to acquire weed and moonshine in Pigeon Forge. They’d actually been able to pick them up from the same place—a small liquor store not too far from their lodgings. James didn’t think he’d ever see again a liquor store that was connected to a smoke shop.
James found himself a little anxious on their way back to the cabin. America was very different from the UK already, and he didn’t want to get into anything they wouldn’t be able to sort out with a handshake. Luckily, they managed to get back to the cabin with the goods secured.
“What did you get from the shops?” Alice asked when they walked in. James swore under his breath as he realized how they looked carrying in the small paper bags they had.
He supposed it was easier just to be honest. The worst thing they could do was confiscate it, right?
“Moonshine and marijuana,” James sighed, earning an elbow from Sirius. “I reckon you’re going to take it?”
Alice smirked and looked over at Frank. “You underestimate us, James.”