An American at Hogwarts: Book Two

Chapter Eight

A/N: When you see italics later in this chapter, it means the person is speaking in Bulgarian. I'm just writing it in English so we don't have to deal with anything getting lost in translation 😄😉

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"Alright Harry, Alexa, Hermione. Where do you reckon we should start with the tents?" asked Mr. Weasley, staring down at the bundles of camping supplies he'd brought.

"Oh, I got this," I said, stepping forward to start making sense of things. "This was like, lesson twenty-five from my aunt and uncle this summer. They said I needed to learn wilderness survival and how to set up tents and whatnot, 'just in case'. They never really gave me a good answer for in case what, but I figured it couldn't hurt to learn a new skill anyway."

Harry, Hermione, and I made fairly quick work of the tent, especially considering how often Mr. Weasley stepped in to try and help. He was doing his best, and he was so excited it was impossible to get frustrated with him, but every time he touched the mallet I got nervous.

Still, we were done in less than an hour, getting both of the two-man tents standing sturdy on our plot. I felt good as I stood back and admired my handiwork, but then I realized we had a bit of a problem: in total, there were going to be eleven of us. No way we'd all fit in just two tents.

I started looking around for the next one I needed to set up, but there were none to be found. Before I could ask, Mr. Weasley spoke up, getting down and crawling for the tent on the left.

"We'll be a bit cramped, but I think we'll all squeeze in. Come and have a look," he said, disappearing past the tent flaps. I shared a look with Harry and Hermione, then shrugged and followed Mr. Weasley.

My mouth dropped in shock as soon as I cleared the tent flaps. It was basically a small apartment, somehow hidden to fit inside the exterior of a tent.

This was the kind of wizard bs I could get behind.

I moved the rest of the way into the tent so everyone else could follow, and Harry and Hermione had basically the same reaction as me. We went next door to me, Ginny, and Hermione's tent, and it was basically the same thing, just a bit smaller.

"This is so cool," I said, turning in place to take it all in. Fred and George grinned at me.

"Wizard stuff isn't looking too bad now, is it?" asked Fred.

"Yeah yeah, whatever. I'll give you this one."

Once we'd explored both tents, Mr. Weasley sent Harry, Ron, and Hermione off in search of water, rounding the rest of us up to look for firewood. We split up when we hit the treeline, after Mr. Weasley had gotten a good description from me of exactly what to look for.

Fred, George, and I wandered off in one direction while Mr. Weasley took Ginny in the other.

"You two feeling any better?" I asked as walked along, not really looking very hard for firewood.

"Much better, especially with a few of each of our samples sitting safely in your trunk at home," said George.

"And much better after watching you turn scarlet in front of Diggory!" Fred chimed in.

"What? I did not! Where the hell are you getting that from?"

"From looking at you! Really, it was quite comical," Fred insisted.

"Oh ha ha, of course. Nice try both of you, there was barely enough light to see two feet in front of your face. You're just making things up to mess with me."

"Whatever you have to tell yourself, Lex," teased George. I slugged him in the shoulder, but he only laughed.

"So, you finally going to go for it this year?" asked Fred, continuing the conversation.