Beginners: book 1, Goblet of Fire

The Quidditch World Cup

The next day, a woman knocks at our door, with her is Ben. I watch them approach from my bedroom window and rush to put on something nice. By the time I can hear dad open the door, I'm putting on mascara.

"Hello, I'm Ms. Fletcher, this is my son, Benjamin, we live a couple of streets over," I hear while coming down the stairs. "We just wanted to welcome you and bring a little house warming gift." She's pretty, looks a lot like her son, who is standing behind her.

"Thank you, um, why don't you come in. I'll go put on a pot of tea," dad says, turning to let them through.

"Hi, I'm Liz." I shake Ms. Fletcher's hand, and smile at Ben, "hey."

"Hey," He responds, waving back.

"Do you two know each other?" Dad says from over my shoulder.

"Oh, yeah, Ben gave me directions yesterday." I take the pot pie from her hands, "thank you, this looks delicious." Dad directs them to the couch while I put it down on the counter.

"What brings you to England?" She says, I know what this really is, an interrogation.

"Work and school, we lived here until Liz was 11, then we moved to the US." I wait for the kettle to boil and bring a pot over with mugs and sugar. "Liz attends a boarding school in Scotland."

"Which one?" Shit, she sure is nosy.

"Ilvermorny College, have you heard of it? It's very small," I say, sitting next to dad.

"No," she says, taking a cup, I can see her making calculations in her head, 'not a big house, grandparents with money?' The truth is that Dad saves money to send me to school. It's assumed that wizards and witches will send their kids away, so they prepare for it. There are still families that scrape by, and some that have more money than they know what to do with. "What do you do Mr..."

"Whitnell," he says, smiling, is that a blush? "I work for the government, it's a long commute but I want Liz to have the same country experience I did." The joy of being a wizard is being able to get anywhere in minutes, as long as it has a fireplace.

We continue with this small talk for a while. Exchanging well thought out bits of information that frame us in a good light. That was Ben's younger brother, Owen, they both go to a public school in the area. Mr. Fletcher is a mechanic, owns a hand-me-down business from his father.

As they leave, Ben pulls me aside and offers to show me around town. "Sure, thanks."

"Tomorrow?"

"We're going to London, maybe Saturday?"

"Sure," he smiles.

"Okay, see you Saturday."

Diagon Alley is more than I could've dreamed of. We travel by floo network and spend the whole day buying things for school. The rest of summer flies by. Between studying and seeing Ben, it's August before I know it. I excitedly count down the days until the Quidditch cup. We take a portkey, landing hard in another field. We line up behind a bunch of other wizarding families, all with bags and tents. The campground is huge. Spanning into the horizon in all directions. It takes us a good hour to find our plot, which is already surrounded by tents that look to have been here for weeks already.

"Why don't you go look around, get us some water for tea," dad says while using his wand to lift our tent into the air. I dig through a bad to find our large copper kettle and head off in the direction I thought we came in. I try to re-trace my steps, but end up asking directions from multiple witches and wizards that seem very bored of being asked where the water is. I finally reach it, a spout sticking out of the earth, a long line trails from it. Ahead of me, there's a group of kids my age chatting. One has almost black hair, sticking up in all directions, there's a tall red-head boy and a girl with bushy brown hair. They're talking with a dark-skinned boy, who's also quite tall, and his friend. The black-haired boy turns to face me, he wears glasses and has a lightning shaped scar on his head. Harry Potter, I think, meeting his eyes.

We hold each other's gaze for a beat, then something from his conversation catches his attention, and he looks back at his friends. They pass me on their way back from the tap, and I meet his eyes again. The boy who lived, standing three feet away from me. I fill up the kettle and head back to the tent, much quicker this time, now that I know the way.

"Dad! Dad! You won't believe who I saw," I call, crouching through the flaps at the front of the tent and standing up in a much larger space.

Dad is sitting by the woodstove, getting a fire started, "who?"

"Harry Potter! I guess I'll be going to school with him this year, he was with a bunch of other students, they looked to be my age, how old is he now?" All of this comes out in a blur, even though we moved to the states, I still grew up learning about He Who Must Not Be Named and how Harry defeated him as a baby. Dad had been part of a group dedicated to fighting him, so was mom.

"He must be in your year, Lily and your mother got pregnant around the same time," there's that wistful look again.

"I wonder what he's like, must be tough," I say, sitting down at the table and laying out some lunch.

Dad spends the rest of the day meeting people. He leaves for an hour or two, he is technically working, leaving me to my own devices, which never ends well. I take some more time to explore the grounds but end up returning to the tent to read and wait.

Dad eventually returns holding some packages, "got you a little gift!"

Inside is a pair of binoculars, but not just any old binoculars, they can stop time, playback moves and reads out gameplay. "Oh, dad this is great! Thank you!" at that moment a gong sounds from the stadium and we make our way to it.