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chapter one | summer's end

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KAYA BENNETT was sitting in her bedroom, with her friends - Maisie Stenberg, Jaeden Ezra and Milo Jontel. They were all buzzing with excitement, for the Quidditch World Cup was tomorrow, and the four and their families were all going to watch it together.

Summer had gone by way to quickly, in Kaya's opinion, and her six weeks of venturing about in the sun had ended in a blink.

Though Kaya was quite disappointed in how fast summer had gone by, she was still excited to see her friends from school, of whom she'd only seen about twice since they lived so far away. The summer fun hadn't ended quite yet.

Everyone's families had all originally gotten tickets to the Quidditch World Cup separately, not knowing that their friends had done the same. When Kaya found out, she was too excited not to bring up the idea that they could all go and see it together. She'd pestered her mother, Cherilyn Bennett, for weeks, asking repeatedly for her friends to come and stay with them and then go to the Quidditch Cup the following day. Her mum wasn't too keen on the idea, as both the kids and their families would make it an extremely large group, but she had grown tired of Kaya's nagging, and considered the thought 'the more the merrier' so she finally gave in.

Kaya had arranged for her friends and their families to sleep over, just to make it easier for them to go together. Besides, she had the largest house of all out of her friendship group, so it would've been the easiest place to stay in if they were all going to go together.

And so, with three of sleeping bags for her friends set around Kaya's bedroom, the four planned for a very exciting couple of days.

"Bloody hell, Milo," Jaeden said, looking his large stack of bags and one trunk up and down. "How long are you staying for?"

"I don't have that much," he replied. "Just a couple things to do when we're bored."

"Is one of those 'couple things' a massive version of wizard chess, like the one they used to guard that stone in our third year? 'Cos it looks like it." Kaya said, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, Milo, I can't even pack that much for Hogwarts." Maisie laughed.

"Looks like you're moving house. Good luck with that one, K." said Jaeden.

Milo rolled his eyes, and was about to retaliate, but they were interrupted by Kaya's mother, knocking on the door.

"Alright, you lot, we're all just popping out to get some food. Anything you want?"

"Loads of ice cream." said Kaya.

"I meant something filling," said Cher. "Like, a meal."

Kaya continued to stare at her mother with a pleading look on her face. Her friends sat with small smiles on their faces.

"I'll just get pizza, for tea, then. And your massive stash of ice cream,"

Kaya raised her eyebrows in surprise and immediately smiled. She hadn't had ice cream in ages.

"Thanks, mum."

"Also, Alfie's coming with us, so you'll be home alone."

Alfie was Kaya's eleven year old brother. It was his first year at Hogwarts this year, as well as Jaeden's younger brother, Jeremy, and after spending many years sulking as he watched his sister board the train, he couldn't be more excited.

Alfie and Jeremy were sharing a room and were already good friends. Kaya and Jaeden had gotten them to meet a couple times, just so they had a familiar face to start Hogwarts with. They ended up becoming really close friends.

The four exchanged glances that concerned Kaya's mother a little.

"We won't be gone too long, so don't make a mess, please." she said, looking directly at her daughter who was still smiling from the fact that she was allowed ice cream for once.

"Yeah, yeah," she said. "Alright. See you soon."

Cherilyn waved, before heading back downstairs. As soon as they heard the front door close, the four shot up immediately and headed for the kitchen. The only two purebloods of the group, Maisie and Jaeden, began opening the cupboards and shuffling through all of the muggle products they could find. Kaya's house was made up of a combination of muggle and magic things, as she was half blood. Her father, Jack, was pureblooded, and her mother, Cherilyn, was a muggleborn.

"Kaya , whats this Marmite thing, is it for humans?" Jaeden asked, holding up one of the containers.

"No, it's for extra terrestrials, that's why we keep it in the kitchen cupboard."

Jaeden and Maisie frowned.

"Of course it's for fucking humans," Kaya sighed. Milo laughed.

"What do you do with it then?" Maisie asked.

"You can have it on toast, I think some people put it in their cooking." said Kaya. "Let's go somewhere else, there's no food in the kitchen, thats why our parents have all gone out. And the last thing I want is for Jaeden to say something along the lines of 'chuck us a drink' and then Milo frisbees a glass across the room and into the wall,"

"I'm not that stupid," Milo said.

"You're not stupid, but you have absolutely zero common sense." Maisie said. Kaya And Jaeden nodded.

"What's this?" asked Jaeden.

"That's a radio."

"What does it do?"

"It- you know what, I'm not gonna bother getting into it. It'll be too much for that little brain of yours," Kaya said, tapping the top of Jaeden's head. He gave her a funny look, before shrugging.

"Who wants a game of wizard chess?" Jaeden suggested. "I expect Milo brought one, crammed into his mountain of baggage."

"Nah, you're alright. I can't be bothered to get it all out." said Milo, as they all began to walk back upstairs.

"Crikey, how much did you bring for it to be an effort to get a board game out?" Kaya asked. Milo didn't reply.

And so, after finally coming out of Kaya's room for the first time of the day, the group lasted around five minutes, before going back into hibernation, Maisie finding a half empty packet of biscuits and bringing it with her.

"So, what have you lot been doing over the summer?" Milo asked. He had been away abroad all summer, which you could already tell from his appearance. Milo's blonde hair had been lightened by the sun, and his tanned, clear skin brought out many freckles. Maisie and Kaya often wondered why barely anyone was crushing on him. Of course, they could never see themselves dating him - they were like his sisters.

"We came down here, and then went to town," said Jaeden.

"What, your parents let you come down Essex? On your own?" Milo asked.

"Yep!" He replied.

"Yeah, it was fun." Maisie said.

"We even managed to see a lot of the sights," said Kaya. "Because Jae got us totally fucking lost."

"One wrong street. I took us down one wrong street, Kaya, and you act like we ended up on the Welsh boarder."

"We were lost for ages!" Kaya retorted.

"We weren't." Mouthed Maisie to Milo, as Jaeden and Kaya continued to argue.

It was a few hours later. Cher and the rest of the parent crew had returned from their shopping trip a couple hours ago, surprised to find the place somewhat tidy, and it was half past ten at night. Everyone was in their beds, making sure they'd get enough sleep so that they would be raring to go the next day. But Kaya and her friends were to excited to be sleeping anytime soon.

"I'm just saying!" said a very-tired-but-not-willing-to-give-into-sleep Kaya, mid conversation. "While you've been off stalking Alicia all summer, I've been practicing Quidditch, meaning your team is going down!"

"One, I've not been stalking Alicia, she's just a friend," retorted Jaeden, lying on his back and staring at the ceiling. "And two, you haven't practised all summer! Even if you did, Slytherin would still beat Hufflepuff by a mile."

"Shut up, you dickhead, I'm way better than-"

"Nah, although Jaeden hasn't practised, I have, K," Milo interrupted. He, unlike everyone else, was sitting upright, leaning against the wall, though he was curled up into a ball and wrapped in several blankets. "So I'll beat you both."

"Rubbish. Can't be worse than your match against Ravenclaw."

"That wasn't a fair game-"

The group of friends carried on talking about their house teams, Maisie joining in and backing up Kaya and the Hufflepuff team every now and then, as Milo fought for the Gryffindor team and Jaeden the Slytherin, before one by one, they all slowly drifted off to sleep.

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"Wake up shit-face!"

Kaya was awoken from her slumber by a pillow bashing her face. The annoying voice of Jaeden got louder and louder until she'd become fully conscious, greeting everyone with a load groan.

"You cannot call me that in my own house!" she said.

"Well it's not your house, is it? It's your mums,"

"Yeah, but who was the one that convinced her to let you all come here?"

"Oh, come off it, you two." said Maisie, wiping her eyes. "I can't be dealing with arguing at this time in the morning."

"Fair enough," said Kaya, sitting up and pushing Jaeden over. He huffed as he landed on Milo's huge bag.

"Milo, get your shit off my side of the room!" he said.

"It's not shit, it's things to do whilst we're in our tent later when we're bored out of our minds!"

"Jaeden, there's barely room for your sleeping bag, let alone there being a designated side of the room for ya," said Kaya with a frown.

They were interrupted by a small knock on the door, and Cher's face appeared in the doorway.

"Morning, you lot," she said. The four murmured a 'morning' back. "We'll be leaving in about an hour. There's toast already downstairs, so you can go and have that whenever you want."

"Alright," Kaya said.

"Thanks, Mrs Bennett," smiled Maisie politely.

Kaya got out from under her covers, and Milo, Maisie and Jaeden stood up, having a long stretch as they did so. Jaeden yawned.

"So," he said. "What shall we do? You two girls get ready first and Milo and I'll have breakfast?"

"Yeah, alright then," said Kaya. "We can swap in, what, fifteen minutes?"

"Sounds good," said Milo. The two boys left the room, still in their baggy t-shirts and shorts, which they called their pyjamas.

"Don't eat all the toast!" Maisie called after them.