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

Chapter 5

"So, Harry where is this hidden cottage or whatever? Hello? Harry?" Ron waved his hand in front of Harry's blank face. "Anybody home?"

"Oh, sorry! What?" Harry jerked his head up.

"Can you take me to the house thing you and Hermione found?" It was breakfast, and Harry had apparently been sleeping in it.

"Oh, Ron! Why did you let me fall asleep? Urgh, I've got eggs on my face!"

"Well you seemed pretty tired. Did you sleep okay?"

"Yeah, I just got to bed a little late. Anyway, today's Friday, right?"

"Saturday."

"Oh, okay. That means we can go right after breakfast!" Harry wolfed down his breakfast, as Ron and Hermione had already finished theirs.

Hermione looked awkward. "Do you think we'll be allowed?"

"Seriously, Hermione, as long as no teachers find out, we won't get in trouble. Besides, we never agreed to this thing or anything. I say we do whatever we want." Ron looked quite confident.

"No teachers find out about what?" said a soft voice from behind. Harry could have sworn Ron jumped 50 feet in the air.

He turned around. "Oh, L-Lupin. Nothing, really, we just wanted to...erm...pick daisies."

Lupin laughed silently. He looked tired as well. "Why wouldn't you be allowed to pick daisies?"

"Well...um...Snape told us we weren't allowed." Harry got the obvious suspicion that Lupin didn't believe a word Ron was saying.

"Ah, well I shall talk to him about that..." he drifted away; clutching a small orange cake-like thing Harry knew at once was a Pumpkin Pasty. Ha-ha-ha, his mind chortled. Looks like he isn't too keen on the rules either.

He got up. "Ron, you want to pick these daisies or what?" Deciding that that was their cue, Ron and Hermione got up. They walked through the forest until they came to the odd rosemary plant. They followed the extremely beaten path and eventually came to the cottage. They showed Ron its three rooms and outhouse. He looked delighted.

"Harry, Hermione! You know what we can do with this place?!" he continued when his saw their puzzled looks. "We can turn it into a Gryffindor hide-out!"

Hermione sighed. "Ron, you probably weren't paying attention, but Dumbledore said we weren't using houses."

"Oh, come on, Hermione! Slytherin and Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw can make some too! But we reserve this old thing! I've seen it in one issue of Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle! He went to summer camp and all the friends made bases and stuff. This is a perfect opportunity!" he rubbed his hands together.

"It's a shame you'll be separated from great old Luna!" Hermione grimaced. Ron's face fell.

"Didn't think of that."

But Ron was still quite gung-ho about his idea. He was actually planning to ask Dumbledore if the whole thing could be carried out. Amazingly enough, Dumbledore laughed and said it was a wonderful idea, therefore, eating his words. Harry, Ron and Hermione had no idea where the other bases were, but they did know that the Gryffindor one was coming out nicely. Dean had brought a television set in and was currently watching Bend it like Beckham with Seamus.

"You realize that this movie is aimed at girls, Dean, right?"

"Yeah, but not every movie has David Beckham in it! Long live Manchester United!" he punched the air spiritedly.

Seamus rolled his eyes.

"Ron, what exactly are we going to do with these things?" Ginny walked up to him and asked, her brown eyes filled with confusion.

"Annihilate the evil Slytherins!" Ron pounded his fist into his other hand. "We can play all sorts of games! We can write coded messages and sneak around at night, and plant spies and break into other bases and create diversions and- and"- his face lit up. "-And kill Malfoy!"

"Ronald!" Hermione was shocked.

"Anyway, what I mean to say is, how can you not think this will be awesome!" he walked away; making pathetic sound affects that sounded very much like he was imagining an attack on the Slytherin base.

Harry walked up to Lupin, who was reading in the corner. "I suppose you're one of the Gryffindor chaperones?"

"Yep," he said proudly, barely glancing up from his book.

"Cool."

"Yep." Harry walked away and sat down on another chair. Suddenly, a paper airplane hit him in the face.

"Ouch!" he opened the airplane. It said:

"Arryh, Het Litherinss on'td tands a hancec! Onr."

Harry rolled his eyes and walked up to Ron. "If you want to send secret messages, you'd better think of a better code than that. I didn't even need to decode it!"

Ron frowned. "I didn't think you'd be able to."

They stayed there for a long time, and eventually, Harry, Ron, Hermione and Lupin (who was still reading) were the only ones left. It was cool outside, and the sky was turning an inky blue with a tinge of pink at the horizon.

"We'd better get going," Remus said, standing up. "Before it gets pitch black."

They walked along the old path until they got back to the site. Harry could barely suppress a laugh when he saw a large campfire. Ron grinned. "Come on, guys, let's go!"

"Looks like you really getting the hang of this camping thing!" Hermione smiled cheerfully.

"Yeah!" Ron exclaimed, and put a marshmallow on a stick and began roasting it. "I suppose it's not so bad after all!"

"Want to go make some s'mores?" Harry offered.

"Sure." Hermione grinned at him. They sat next to each-other, and had lots of fun, even past all the students leaving and Ron falling asleep on the log he was sitting on. Hermione enjoyed herself making a mustache on his deeply sleeping face out of melted chocolate. Harry roasted a final marshmallow on the dying fire. He made sure it was gooey and burnt, just the way Hermione liked it, and popped it into her mouth. She giggled, swallowed, and leaned over to Harry for a nice, long snog.

* * * * * * *

* * * * * * * *

The next day Harry was woken by giggling. He stood up, and found Lavender and Parvati laughing.

"What were you two doing last night?" Lavender inquired.

"Snogging!" Parvati answered for them.

With a sudden jump of terror, Harry made sure he was still wearing all his clothes, took Hermione's hand, and ran off to the dormitories. He threw on new clothes, washed his hair, cleaned his glasses (they'd gotten dirt on them) and began a search for Ron. He found him sleeping next to the campfire, where he had been last night. "Ron! Wake up! We'll be late for classes!" He shook his best friend heavily.

"What?" Ron said groggily. "Oh, must have...fallen asleep...on th-the grass..." he yawned. "I'm off," he stood up. "Off to the showers."

That day Snape gave them an annoying sidestroke test. Harry almost failed, but managed to hang on. At lunch Harry was confused when he saw Draco sitting with a group of Ravenclaw girls.

"Hey, Ron," he nudged the red-head. "What do reckon he's doing over there?"

"Probably trying to get one of them to shag him." Ron snorted. "Stupid git."

"I hear he's dating someone," Luna said, making Harry jump, as he hadn't realized she was there. Today she wore a shirt with a stalk of broccoli on it and light-up Christmas light earrings.

"Um, Luna?" Ron said slowly. "It isn't Christmas."

"Well it's not Easter either!" she protested. "And Christmas is my favorite holiday." She smiled at him dreamily, her eyes not as poppy as usual. Ron turned scarlet.

* * * * * * *

* * * * * * * *

After all their classes were out of the way, they began renewing the old, odd cottage. They brought in tons of muggle equipment, but Hermione insisted Ron only dust; she didn't trust him with anything else. Hermione vacuumed, Harry cleaned the windows, Ron and Ginny dusted (which was actually quite a big job), and Seamus and Dean sanded the furniture. By the time they were done the cottage looked almost...clean.

"Wow, we're really making progress!" Ginny cried cheerfully. "I thought we never would with the muggle way!" She seemed very proud of herself.

Ron walked up to her seriously. "Ginevra," he began formally. "I'm afraid we're going to have to keep you naive because your boyfriend is in Ravenclaw, and we all know you will smuggle important information to him."

"What?!" Ginny yelled savagely. "Your girlfriend is in Ravenclaw! How do we know that your not smuggling information to her!"

"Because everyone knows I would never do that!" Ron seemed slightly lost for words.

"Ron, your being stupid, she'd never smuggle the dumb 'top-secret' information to him, even if it was important!" Hermione fumed.

"Well you're only saying that because you're going out with Harry!" Ron winced. "And I'd like you to know it hurt very much when you slapped me!"

"Good!" and with that, they both sat down in chairs looking as though nothing had ever happened.

* * * * * * *

* * * * * * * *

That night, the full moon shown brightly onto the meadow-- which was one of the most popular places to hang out.

"I sure hope Lupin is still allowed to take his potion," Harry said rather stupidly.

"Of course he is," Hermione said briskly. "He'd be a danger if he didn't." She snuggled into Harry's side.

"How do you think I'd look with a beard?" he wondered randomly.

"What?" she laughed out loud.

"Just wondering."

Then, all of a sudden, Ron ran up to them, panting. "Just got word from Luna!" he breathed, a mischievous grin upon his freckled face. "You won't believe who Malfoy is going out with!"

...To be continued!!