18TH AUGUST 1994 - 9:00 AM

They parted from the Weasleys who went towards a cottage that branched off from the main path. As the five of them continued on the path. Harris and Evie were having a rather heated discussion with Mr Diggory.

After a few minutes, Harris shook his head and rose his hand and it began to look a lot more like an argument. Meera noticed Cedric chuckling and nudged him. "What's so funny?"

"They're talking about tents. Specifically, how many tents and who would pay for it." Cedric explained. "Harris and Evie insist on keeping the one that they booked together and that they'll pay for it, My dad says that our one will suffice and he'll pay for it because he's the adult. The two of them aren't too pleased with that."

Meera sighed. "They could just split the cost."

"Well my dad doesn't want Harris to burn out his savings. He's been living with us during summer and so my dad kinda sees him as one of his own so he doesn't want him to feel like he should pay." Cedric shrugged.

"Well why doesn't he want Evie to pay?" Meera asked.

"Because he thinks a man shouldn't have his date pay." Cedric replied. "Considering he's paying for Harris he's also paying for Evie."

"Date?"

"Oh, come on Meera you're not that oblivious are you?" Cedric asked.

"No, I'm not. If he'd asked her out or she'd asked him out I'd know. They're still at the 'just friends' border ." Meera disagreed.

"Sometimes friendships just phase into relationships you know...things just happen. You weren't here for half of summer who knows what's changed." Cedric shrugged.

Meera wanted to disagree with him, but part of her knew he might be right. She really hadn't spent that much time with Harris and Evie this summer, Evie is her best friend, though she'd know if something had changed in her best friend's life right? "Personally, I don't think friendships can just become relationships without any sign of awkwardness Diggory, its a thin line sometimes, but a very hard one to cross."

Around 10 minutes later the five of them arrived at a slightly larger cottage and they entered it quickly. In the cottage there was a tall man with slightly greying hair. He seemed quite oblivious to the approaching party and from the Muggle money that was ordered in near piles on his desk Meera deduced that he was unaware of the true nature of this event and place.

"Diggory, one tent, booked a couple of weeks ago." Mr Diggory said curtly.

The Muggle man looked up after considering his list. "Yes...you are. Just one night, correct?"

Mr Diggory nodded and reached into his bag and retrieved a purse. It contained a lot of Muggle money which the man eyed quite greedily. Oblivious to this Mr Diggory took it out and gestured to his son.

"Hey, Ced, could you handle this. I'm not sure how this works." Mr Diggory passed the large amount of cash to his son before he could say anything. Cedric gaped at his father and looked at the money, in confusion.

"Um..." He began awkwardly. "Firstly, is there a tent under the name Smithson or Brooke? If there is can you please cancel it. They're sharing with us."

Harris and Evie glared at Cedric.

"You can't just expect me to cancel the booking last minute, boy. The space still needs to be paid for, whether your friends use it or not." He said. "Now pay for the tents and leave please. I haven't got all day."

Cedric's face reddened a little and he looked at the price and then through the money rather cluelessly.

"Just give us a minute." Meera told the man, she dragged Cedric away from the table to save him from embarassing himself any further.

"You don't remember anything I taught you, do you?" She questioned softly.

Cedric's cheeks reddened even more at her words. "Sorry." He mumbled.

"How much?" She asked Mr Payne. He showed her the price and she quickly pulled the appropriate notes from Cedric's hands and handed it to him.

"Now keep that out of sight. Before someone decides to rob you." Meera mumbled.

He nodded. "You know, I've always wondered how girls can speak without moving their lips at all."

"It takes a lot of practice." She assured him. "Now go and give that money back to your dad. Is that clear enough or do I need to make that simpler for you?"

Cedric glared at the Ravenclaw, running a hand through his hair to flatten it. She passed the money to a Muggle and then he moved down to the next in the list. "Are you Evelyn Brooke?"

"Nope that would be me. Here's the payment." Evie said quickly.

"Here is a map of the camp." Mr Payne passed a map to her and the three of them quickly exited the cottage.

"Thank you for sorting that out, Meera. I was hoping Cedric might have remembered something from his Muggle Studies class." Mr Diggory said gratefully. "Obviously not."

They reached their allocated areas fairly quickly. Harris had endured that the second tent was opposite the Diggorys and the pair began to erect their tent. Meera helped by passing any parts or tools from one of their bags.

"4 minutes and 30 seconds. That's record time!" Evie grinned.

"Where did you learn that?" Cedric asked Harris who was also beaming.

Harris smile shrunk and his eyes became a little downcast. "My parents taught me. We all used to go camping a lot during the holidays."

An awkward silence arose at the mention of the Smithsons, Harris' elderly adoptive parents who'd passed away last summer. Evie quickly nudged Harris and said. "How about we try and break our last record?"

He nodded and she smiled.

With Harris and Evie's help the Diggorys erected their tent.

"You three drop your things in your tents and join us out here. " Mr Diggory said cheerily.

The shear volume of their tent made Meera gape as she entered. What appeared to be a simple, yet sturdy canvas tent on the outside housed an open plan lounge and kitchen that seemed as spacious as the one in her apartment.

"Told you we won't need sleeping bags." Evie grinned.

"But how?" Meera asked, her eyes still examining the tent's interior.

Evie sighed and shook her head with. "Magic, silly. The possibilities are endless with magic, you should know that by now."

"Someone needs to go get water." Harris said. "We'll need to find the tap."

"I'll go." Meera volunteered.

"You sure?" Harris asked. "It could be a pretty long walk..."

"I'll go and get it, so that you guys can catch your breath from putting these tents together." Meera responded.

Meera walked out of the tent, map in one hand, kettle in the other. She squinted at the map trying to figure out which way to go and huffed when her glasses slid down her nose. 

"Need some help?" Cedric asked. He was also carrying a kettle and a map. "I'll read the map."

She nodded and they made their way through the crowd. On their way quite a few people recognised and greeted Cedric, making them stop what felt to Meera like every two minutes. Meera rolled her eyes as she waited for the Hufflepuff boy with kettle in hand at each of their pitstops.

Eventually, they made their way back to the tent, with full kettles Mr Diggory, Harris and Evie were sat outside with some food.

"What took you so long?" Mr Diggory asked. "Did you two get lost?"

"No. We just had to stop every five seconds because we ran into Cedric's friends." Meera replied, setting the kettle down.

"Did you see any of your friends Meera?" Mr Diggory asked passing her a plate with cooked eggs.

"Sure." Meera nodded, before eating hastily. She winced as she burnt her tongue and a water bottle was almost immediately placed in a hand she rose.

"I've always wondered how someone can be so smart yet such an idiot sometimes." Evie said as Meera opened and drank some of the water. "I mean how can you be academically smart if you lack basic common sense?"

"Shut up. I haven't eaten anything since I woke up which was at like 4AM." Meera protested.

After they finished eating Harris and Evie collected the dishes before taking them into the kitchen for cleaning. When Meera entered her tent she saw Harris washing and passing the dish to Evie who dried and stacked.

"Why don't we go find out and see who else is here? There's still a long time before the world cup starts." Evie suggested, after they finished.

"Cedric and I were planning on meeting with some other friends from class. Why don't you and Meera join?" Harris suggested.

"Na. I don't think that's a good idea. Meera and I might just meet with the Weasleys and Harry."

Harris nodded, smiling at Evie. She also however noticed the tiny twinge of disappointment in the Slytherin boy's eyes as the Hufflepuff girl left him and smiled.

After she and Evie were a decent distance from their tent Meera stated rather casually. "You guys have been doing an awful lot of things as a team today."

"Well it gets things done much quicker you know...it's also a lot more fun because we have things in common that we can talk about whilst working." Evie shrugged. "You and I did this whenever you came over to my place, especially if we cooked or something it's nothing special."

"Right." Meera said sceptically. Evie rolled her eyes. "Completely normal behaviou, .totally not because you want to spend more time with him."

"That's rich coming from you Meera, considering the fact that you spent the entirety of last spring pining over a boy who's two years older than you and trying to run into him in the library." Evie snapped.

"Oh, shut up about that already." Meera snapped blushing a little, as she reminisced the things she'd done to try and get the attention of Oliver Wood the Gryffindor Quidditch captain.

"Oh, look there he is! Hey Oliver!" Evie waved dragging Meera along with her.

"Hey Evie, hey Meera. How's the summer been?" Oliver asked grinning.

"Good... Went to India..." Meera blurted.

"Really? Cool, what did you do?"

"I...um...met with family, visited famous places. It was great." Meera smiled. "How about you? How's life after Hogwarts?"

"I got signed for the Puddlemere United reserve team." He replied grinning broadly.

"You're kidding!" Evie exclaimed excitedly. Oliver shook his head. "They're like my favourite Quidditch team...that's amazing! Congrats."

"Thanks." Oliver said.

"Tell us how it happened? Did you meet any of the players?" Evie asked excitedly.

Oliver began explaining how and when he got signed for the team. Meera tried not to let the surroundings distract her and really focus on what he was saying. Her attention wandered however and she noticed a woman dressed in a dark clothes, behind Oliver's tent.

Her eyes were fixed on Meera as she stood. She moved her curly hair out of the way with her left hand. For a moment Meera could have sworn she saw the woman's blue eyes, glimmer golden as she muttered something seemingly to herself.

A peculiar feeling washed over Meera and she gasped as she felt something burn intensely against the skin near her chest. She suddenly felt rather ill. A smile grew across the woman's face; it was a rather unsettling expression as she appeared rather manic or predatory even.

"You ok, Meera?" Oliver asked.

"Do you know that woman?" Meera asked, pointing behind his tent.

Oliver turned and frowned puzzledly. "What woman?"

"That one, over..." Meera cut off when she saw that there was no one there.

"Are you sure you're ok?" Evie asked.

Meera nodded and smiled to reassure her friend. "Yeah...I'm fine, just tired that's all. What were you saying Oliver?"

"Oh, I was just talking about how I got to meet Benji Williams, the seeker, so..."

Meera smiled and nodded along at appropriate times, but she was only half listening to what Oliver was saying. The burning sensation she'd felt earlier had subsided a little, but still remained and irked her. Strangely it was right below the pendant of the chain she wore at the moment, and seemed to be emanating from within...burning from inside out rather than the other way around.

Her mind buzzed with questions about the woman: who was she? where did she go? Is she just some weirdo who randomly stops and stares at people?