All's Well in Good Old, Muggle-Style Summer Camp.

Chapter 4

Harry was woken up the next morning by Flitwick. He looked excited. "Wake up, boys! Today's the glorious day we go hiking!" Harry looked at the clock. 5:00 am. An hour before they usually got up. He yawned as he sat up in bed, rubbing his eyes, his other hand searching for his glasses. Once he found them, he put them on and got up.

"Wake up, Ron," he yawned, nudging the sleepy red-head. Ron slowly woke up. When they were dressed, they walked sleepily over to the cafeteria for breakfast; most people were already there, chewing their waffles zombie-like. "Good morning, Hermione," Harry said slowly, pecking her on the top of her head.

"Good morning, Harry..." she gave him a weary smile as he sat down. Ron was sitting in his usual spot next to Luna, and Ginny was now sitting next to Terry. Hermione leaned over to her. "So I suppose this means he's officially your boyfriend," she said quietly, smirking slightly.

Ginny grinned and nodded. "He's amazing," she swooned adoringly.

They finished breakfast in silence, as everyone was so tired. They had gone to bed rather late, due to the party. They got up, and stood around Flitwick, who was the only one fully awake. "As you all already know, today we are going on a hiking trip!" he said this as though it was the best thing that could possibly be happening. "We shall be hiking through the woods over there (At this he pointed to the forest along the border of the campsite). Be sure not to stray from the group! For precaution, you will be bringing your wands, so that if you do get lost, you can send up sparks so that you can be found. Professor Sprout will be coming with us so we can identify all the different plants. And Hagrid, too, so we may identify any animals. Come, follow me!" He led them into the wood, where the sunlight became rather dappled. It reminded Harry of a happier-looking version of the Dark Forest.

They began to walk along a weathered, small, dirt path. Every now and then, Professor Sprout would let out a, "Wow! Would you look at that Pine?", or an, "oh, be sure not to touch that Poison Ivy!" Harry noticed that Hermione was logging everything the teachers said away in a little notepad she had brought along.

"This is the most boring thing I've ever had to do," Ron whispered to Harry through the corner of his mouth. "Except maybe de-gnome the garden..."

"Wow! Harry, Ron! Look at this!" Hermione beckoned them to come over. "Rosemary! That doesn't usually grow in the forest!"

Ron rolled his eyes and kept walking. Harry sighed. "Hermione, come on, lets just keep moving. See? The group is moving." But Hermione stayed put. "Hermione! Come on!" he yanked at her sleeve.

"No, Harry! This is important! Rosemary shouldn't be growing here! Weren't you paying attention in our first class of Botany?" she continued examining the plant.

"Hermione! The group is...moving..." Harry trailed off. "Oh, Hermione! We lost the group!" he took out his wand, ready to set up sparks.

"No, Harry! We need to investigate this!" she pointed at the spice.

"Come on! It's just a plant!"

"Just a plant?! This could mean something!"

"There were probably seeds blowing around from when Professor Sprout was planting them!"

Hermione glared at him and grabbed his arm. She gaped. "Harry- look! There are all kinds of things here! She pointed down a beaten path. Herbs and spices lined it. He had no idea how he could have missed it before. Hermione tugged his shirt. "We can send up sparks later, right now we need to find out where this leads to!" She pulled him down the path. After a few minutes or maybe even 20, they saw what looked like a small, old cottage.

"Hermione, you know, if this house ends up being made of candy, I'm going to have to draw the line." He hesitated, but Hermione kept trudging on. Harry's thought's trailed off to muggle stories of witches eating little children. But wait- Hermione was a witch. 'Okay, never mind', he thought.

"Seriously, Harry, what have you been reading? Hansel and Gretel?" she gave him a skeptical look.

"It could happen," Harry said darkly. Harry knew that Hermione was a brave girl, but sometimes, when it comes to bravery and things you shouldn't meddle with, you need to quit while you're ahead; for Hermione had just walked strait up to the cottage door, and hammered on it. Harry examined the wall to make sure it wasn't made of gingerbread. They jumped when they heard booming barks coming from inside the cottage. Hermione smirked and opened the door, to reveal Fang, Hagrid's dog, barking.

"Honestly Harry, it was only Hagrid's home."

Harry frowned. "Well I'm sorry I was concerned."

"Harry, were you really expecting us to run into an evil witch who would put us in cages and later eat us? Besides, I'm a witch."

Harry looked at his feet. "No..."

Hermione breathed a laugh. "Harry," she smiled at him and reached up and kissed his forehead. She wiped tears of mirth from her eyes and doubled up laughing. But when Fang ran away with his tail between his legs, Harry and Hermione questioned whether it was Hagrid's home or not.

"Let's check this place out," Harry suggested, holding Hermione's hand and leading her inside. The outside of the house may have looked old, but the inside was even worse. It was dim, dusty and very old. Hermione sneezed as they walked inside. "It looks... abandoned," Harry pointed out the obvious. "How long do you think it's been since someone lived here?"

"Long," Hermione replied vaguely. They had entered what looked like a sitting room. There were cushiony chairs and paintings of farms on the walls, which had musty, dark blue wall paper with a wooden chair rail dividing it into two halves. Harry noticed that the paintings on the wall were not moving.

"This must have been owned by a muggle," he said quietly. They made their way into the kitchen and dining room, where a small, round table with dainty, matching wooden chairs around it took up one halve, and an old fashioned icebox , stove and oven with a few wooden counter spaces took up the other. Harry was scared to look in the cabinets to see if there was moldy, rotting food in it. Luckily for him, they were empty. The last room was the bedroom, where a small wooden sleigh bed took up most of the space. The rest was taken up by a wardrobe and a tall, extremely dusty mirror. "Where do you suppose they went to the bathroom?" Harry joked. Hermione did not look amused.

"There," she pointed to an outhouse that could be seen through the window.

"This place is still in really good condition." Harry observed. "I wonder if we can use it for anything." They sat down on the bed, and Hermione put her head on Harry's shoulder.

She sighed. "Think we should find the group now that we've explored this place?"

"Yeah, I guess so." Harry stood up and kissed the top of Hermione's head. "Let's go."

They walked outside and found the original path again and sent up red sparks. About 15 minutes later, Hagrid came over. "How'd yeh loose the group? Wasn't expecting yeh to." Neither Harry nor Hermione answered. "Well, the group has pretty much ended the hike, so we might as well go back to the camp site." Once they were back, they saw Ron walking over to the hospital wing, scratching his arms. They ran up to him.

"What happened to you two?" he asked irritably.

"Got lost."

"Yeah. Right." Ron was clearly very grumpy.

"What's wrong with your arm?" Harry wondered aloud.

"Poison Ivy."

"I see."

When the angry Ron came back from the hospital wing, it seemed Madame Pomfrey had officially made his mood worse. "I can't believe it. She could have cured my rash in two seconds with magic, but now I'll have to wait days till it's gone."

"Ron, we need to tell you something." Harry wanted Ron to be the first to know about the awesome cottage.

"What," Ron heaved a sigh.

"While we were in the forest, we found this weird cottage thing, and it's...um...cool."

"That's great." There was a note of sarcasm in his voice.

"Well, do you want to see it?"

"Maybe tomorrow, when my arm feels a bit less itchy."

"Okay."

Dinner was rather silent and quick. They were in beds before Harry would have liked. The day seemed to have gone annoyingly fast. It hadn't even necessarily been a good day. Harry hoped that they would have a better chance at exploring the cottage tomorrow and also hoped that Ron wasn't mad at him or Hermione.

To be continued....!! (again)