There Ain't No Moonlight, After Midnight

“I’m bored.” A young girl of sixteen whined to her boyfriend, hopelessly lazing around on the couch in their tent to emphasise her boredom.

Victoria “Vicki” Hartwell knew she was being a little unreasonable, but she was still feeling very bored. Both her parents and her boyfriend’s parents were very contemporary and had allowed the two to attend the Quiddich World Cup, unaccompanied. Not many parents in the muggle world would be comfortable letting two teens pumped with hormones spend a weekend alone, but it was an even more absurd concept in the wizarding world.

Her boyfriend’s parents were the one who had suggested it. The summer holidays marked a year since Vicki and her boyfriend got together (or as Vicki always half-joked, a year since she ‘grew up’ and started wearing nice clothes and make-up and got her boyfriend to notice her) so her love interest’s parents suggested the two attend together as a nice little anniversary outing, as well as a way to celebrate that the two had been chosen as Ravenclaw prefects for the upcoming school year. Her boyfriend was also the Quiddich captain for their house, so he had a vested interest in attending too, he could really start networking if he wanted to continue playing the sport after school.
Vicki’s parents were a little more hesitant. They weren’t the conservative type, in fact they were one of the very few couples in the wizarding world who had openly been divorced, an almost unknown concept, as a good chunk of the wizarding population thought and lived like it was still the middle ages. On the same note Max Hartwell and Maureen Smith (formerly Hartwell when she was still married) were reluctant to let their only daughter at the tender age of sixteen spend some time alone away with her teen boyfriend.

Being a Ravenclaw, it wasn’t too much of a challenge to talk her parents into letting her going.
Surprisingly it was her father who relented first. They were out for dinner and got into a discussion about how conservative the wizarding world was, after an unwelcome comment was made to her father about his ten-year old divorce, as if it was a fresh event. Vicki took a swig of her Butterbeer and mentioned the contrast between magic folk and muggles: muggles let their teenagers get piercings, follow American pop culture, have boyfriends/girlfriends and show their bare midriff and yet muggles usually settle down in the late twenties or early thirties. Magic folk on the other hand supressed their children and they all usually ended up married and pregnant within six months of graduating, usually into very unhappy marriages they were too scared to leave. Max, Vicki’s father immediately blurted out that he whole heartedly supported her going to the World Cup with Roger, her boyfriend.

Maureen was a big softie who had an even softer spot for her daughter. All Vicki had to do to convince her mother to let her go was to brag about her achievements. She had gotten quite a few O.W.L.S and of course was chosen by Dumbledore himself to be the sixth year female Ravenclaw prefect for the upcoming school year. After less-than-subtly hinting she deserved a reward and had proven herself a good daughter, Maureen sighed and gave her daughter permission to go to the World Cup with Roger.

Roger had managed to secure them some pretty good tickets, and they only had to arrive two days early. In order to discreetly transport hundreds of thousands of Quiddich fans internationally without attracting Muggle attention, the price of the tickets determined how early you had to arrive and did not just affect the seat purchased. Some people in their camp had arrived two weeks earlier, and considering how bored Vicki was after one day, she felt for those poor souls who were forced to camp in the forest for two weeks.

Roger Davies frowned as he turned to face his girlfriend. He felt sorry for her. She enjoyed Quiddich, but he knew it didn’t come close to the passion he felt for the sport. They had also run into some of his Quiddich friends from school the night before, who stayed in their tent very late with their predictions for the match. Roger knew that wasn’t Vicki’s preferred plan for the night when she was nibbling his ear and had her hand strategically placed on his thigh, but his friends ended up staying the night.

They had only scattered off to their own tents twenty-minutes ago, and Vicki was already complaining she was bored.

“Go for a walk, then.” Roger suggested to her, wanting her to get out of the tent. He felt a little sorry for her, but he didn’t want her moodiness to bring him down. The Quiddich Match of the century was scheduled to start in a few hours, and he didn’t want a nagging girlfriend to spoil this for him.
Vicki sent him a half smile, as she started to feel guilty. The exact same thoughts were going through her head. She came here to watch Quiddich with Roger, it was a Quiddich themed holiday. It dawned on her she was being unreasonable, and she thought a stroll would cure her boredom.

“Do you want me to try and find you something while I’m out? I’m just going to walk around the camp, but I can see if there are villages nearby if you need something specific?” Vicki offered Roger, as she heaved herself off the couch and inched herself towards the door.

“Sure. Find some people to come swing by for a party after Ireland win.” Roger grinned to his girlfriend.

Vicki only beamed towards her boyfriend before she bounded out the tent flaps.

Victoria Hartwell and Roger Davies were two of the most popular students at Hogwarts, but it hadn’t always been that way. Roger in his earlier years was awkward looking, with shaggy hair and terrible conversation making techniques. When he joined the Quiddich Team as a Chaser a few of his older team mates took him under their wing, and by the time he was appointed captain he was suave, stylish and had the best hair out of all the boys in his year level.

Vicki had an ugly duckling story of her own. Her first few years at Hogwarts she was frumpy looking. Like her current boyfriend, she had no sense of style and was too shy to string two words together to anyone else but teachers, or her small group of friends. Unlike Roger she didn’t have a Cinderella moment, she didn’t have anyone to show her the ropes. Her big ‘transformation’ was due to good old fashioned hormones. She used to roll her eyes at her friends who giggled about boys, but halfway through fourth year she started noticing boys in her year level. This naturally led to a course of developing a sense of fashion and flattering hairstyles and make-up.

Vicki and Roger had barely conversed prior to their relationship starting. They were almost completely unaware of the other’s existence. They shared quite a few classes and would pass each other in the Ravenclaw common room but not a thought went through each of their minds upon doing so.

It was at the start of the previous summer that they conversed for the first time. A few weeks after school broke up for the summer one of the Ravenclaw girls, Mary, decided to throw a get together for the Ravenclaws about to go into fifth year.

Surprisingly it was Roger that got there before Vicki. He couldn’t help but grin at the girls who stood around whispering and casting lustful looks his way. A few of the girls in his village had been acting the same way towards him this summer, he was getting used to be regarded as handsome by girls his age, and he purposely styled his hair and wore a nice pair of jeans and button down shirt, getting a little cocky from the attention he was receiving.

He was however caught off guard when a certain girl walked in. Long shiny hair, bright eyes and a flowing flowery summer dress. His friends nudged him the second she walked in, and they all whispered exactly what he was thinking

“Damn, she got hot.”

Vicki had a lot more confidence than she used to. She had flirted with some older muggle boys around London and convinced them to buy alcohol for her, but she still held some shyness in her. She could only smile at Roger nervously as she caught him looking at her. Luckily for her Roger had taken a fancy to her and was cocky about it, approaching her as she tried to speak with Mary about what they had been up to on the holidays.

Vicki did abandon her conversation with Mary and went outside to speak with Roger, where they remained all night. Mary had a pond outside with many glowing magical creatures that inhabited it, so in the warm night Roger and Vicki abandoned the party to get to know each other better, taking a few sneaky swigs of some muggle rum that Vicki had snuck in for some liquid courage, which ended up coming in handy.

Roger remembers that night vividly and how badly he wanted to kiss her as he watched her laugh at his stupid jokes, the warm summer breeze causing her silky hair to flow behind her. He had turned into a cocky bastard (the words his own parents used) but he had found one weakness: Victoria Hartwell. He was too nervous to plant his lips onto hers, even as they said goodbye that night he couldn’t bring himself to ask her out again, he had to do it by owl three days later.

Two weeks later he got his kiss. He also got many, many more that summer. By the time the end of summer rolled around and boarding the Hogwarts Express together, they were the school’s new hottest item. Both of them knew how to bounce off each other’s personality to their advantage, and both of them knew they would be taking over Hogwarts that year. They were correct.

Roger was the charming and handsome Ravenclaw Quiddich captain, he played the popular athlete quite well. Gryffindor may have won the House Cup, but he got a lot of Ravenclaws interested in their team again, all thanks to Roger’s charm.

Vicki played the role of the sweet and supportive girlfriend. She still retained some of the shyness of her earlier teen years but she did coyly exaggerate some of it to be well liked. She was approachable by the student body, even a lot of people from other houses approached her if she could help them with something. She had also become a bit of a party girl, people enjoyed having her presence at their events, she could be the life of the party.

Although Roger and Vicki had no evil intentions of their popularity and were genuinely nice people, they did enjoy their popularity and enjoyed being Hogwarts’ power couple. They were young, attractive, in love and in the best years of their life. Any other student in their position would thrive the same way.

Vicki smoothed out the clothes she was wearing as she jumped off the couch. As it was quite early and the tail end of summer the weather was quite crisp, so she had thrown on a thin woollen top and a pair of jeans. This was rare for her, when she wasn’t wearing her Hogwarts uniform she only usually wore dresses her skirts. But she was a mini-holiday, and didn’t mind that she wearing something a bit different.

She heard Roger call out to not be out too late, but didn’t bother to respond as she ventured out into the campsite. She was in casual jeans now, but she wanted to be back well before the World Cup so she could dress-up in the outfit she had been preparing since Ireland qualified for the World Cup.