Unspoken Love

50: CAMPING

June 29th - 7am

"Did we really have to leave this bloody early?" grumbled Julia. Evidently she was not a morning person. In contrast, Lily was standing bright-eyed beside her, carrying their bags. They all decided to meet at the manor so they could get to the portkey together. Draco had bewitched it for them and informed them that it was located in the alleyway between the muggle and wizard town square.

"Yes," Rose interjected, looking slightly haggard as well but her eyes grew less glossy with every optimistic sip of the coffee that Scorpius had rounded up for them all, "The campground checkin is at 8am so I figured we could all meet at 7am, take the portkey together and then we could cook ourselves some breakfast." she shrugged, as if her plan had been entirely obvious to all of them all along.

"You can sleep once we get there, we'll wake you back up for breakfast." Scorpius said kindly, patting Julia on the shoulder. Her dark hair was frizzing around her head in braids that she'd worn overnight and last night's mascara was smudged under her eyelids. She scowled in response and allowed her girlfriend to lead her onwards towards the portkey.

"I want to sleep too." moaned Albus who had been somewhat of an early riser towards the end of his school semester, but had relapsed into his old ways of sleeping in through the morning as the summer progressed. He was nearly leaning his whole body onto Scorpius who had a strong arm slung around his shoulders.

"Bunch of whiners," Rose grumbled, exchanging looks with Scorpius who was annoyingly enough...Albus thought, looking perfectly well rested, "Albus," She snapped her fingers in front of his nose as his eyes had drooped nearly closed again, "Your friend, he's coming?"

"Er," Albus began dumbly, he was so tired that he hadn't even comprehended what she'd said to him for a few moments, "Yeah. Yeah, Parker. He's coming. He's meeting us there." Albus rubbed his eyes tiredly as Rose merely sniffed at his morning stupidity and sped up to join the other girls.

     Parker, aka Albus's new student at the shop. Scorpius had been so proud to find out that Jay had entrusted Albus with the task of training their new shop apprentice, Parker Watterson. He'd met him too, seemed like a nice enough bloke. Shy, pretty shy...but nice.

"We should set him up with Rose." Scorpius had suggested a few days prior to the smirking of Albus.

"You think they'd be a good match? I mean he's pretty...soft spoken you could say, er introverted, I guess. She's so...I don't want to say bossy but...she's bossy, Scorp." Albus had replied.

"I see it," Scorpius nodded confidently as if he'd had years of matchmaking experience, "I think they could balance each other out. He's a wizard, he's our age, he's smart, right? You said he seemed smart. He's good looking too, I think it could work."

"Good looking, eh?"

"Oi, I'm not the one who works with him everyday. Alone, in a little room with-"

"I get it," Albus rolled his eyes, "Perhaps we should invite him along this weekend."

"To camp? But he doesn't know anybody but us and maybe two days of Rose's micromanaging won't give the best impression."

"I say we let him see her how she really is. No pretending," Albus shrugged, "Plus I think she'll be relaxed. Nature sort of does that to her."

"Ok, well if the girls are okay with it then...I say ask him to come."

       The group finally made it on foot to the alleyway where Scorpius located the glowing blue sneaker that had been strewn near one of the trash cans. All five of them grasped it together and were sent uncomfortably flying up in the air, pulled up by some magical, invisible force.