There Ain't No Moonlight, After Midnight

It finally became a time where Arthur had to call it a night and tell his children it was time to head off back to their tent. Bill and Charlie had already left not too long ago, as they wanted to kick on and party with the Irish. Percy declined to join them as he muttered something about "partying is pointless" and he didn't want to leave the minister's box as he didn't want to miss out on networking opportunities.

The remaining children who were not of age and couldn't make the decision to stay started whining when Arthur gave them a ten minute warning.

"But Dad!" Ginny whined loudly "It was anticipated that this game would last at least 12 hours. We'd still be here if that were the case"

"You make a fair point Ginny," Arthur mused, but then a grin appeared and disappeared from his face instantly "But if your mother found out I let you stay out late post-match, well, she'd have my head!"

Arthur got up and began to do his rounds of saying goodbye to those he was friendly with who were still in the box. Some of the spectators had already left, but quite a few still remained. He was glad that awful Malfoy family had headed off a while ago, he was confident that their family patriarch Lucius was drunk. Arthur thought that was irresponsible for him to get into that state on a family outing, in front of his son.

Noticing that the Weasley family was soon departing, Bagman (who had been keeping an eye on them the whole time since the match started) went bounding over to Arthur.

"Oh Arthur. Thanks for coming, thanks for coming," he repeated enthusiastically as a wide smile appeared across his boyish face "it's been an absolute blast. Did you enjoy yourselves?

Arthur took a look back at his family and saw them all chatting amongst themselves as they had been doing all night.

"Yes, we all did. Thanks for putting on a great show. However now we best be off." Arthur responded.

"Oh, well alright," Bagman said, but then quickly revealed his true motives of coming over to say goodbye "That girl that joined you that goes to your kids' school – Vicki. You can leave her with me if you like. I don't mind taking care of her, I should be able to use my networks to find her boyfriend."

Arthur stared at Bagman for a few seconds. For a reason unknown to Bagman, Arthur would decline his request. Bagman wasn't sure whether it was due to the fact Arthur saw right through his intentions or whether Arthur was just being polite. But Arthur ended up saying he could send one of his sons to help Vicki get back to her tent safely.

Trying to not look dejected Bagman shook Arthur's hand, before quickly making his way over to the Weasley family whilst Arthur was still preoccupied with politely doing his goodbye rounds.

The twins who had grown increasingly anxious about retrieving their winnings from Bagman weren't surprised as he strode over to them. Even Fred, who was spending his whole night counting his blessings that the girl he was infatuated with had chosen their company, had kept one eye on Vicki and the other one on Bagman, waiting for him to pay up.

"Ah…yes, yes. How much do I owe you?" Bagman asked the two, not even bothering to greet them again as he went straight to business.

They each jumped up from their seat (Fred patting Vicki on the shoulder as he stood up) and faced Bagman grinning, with their hands outstretched. Vicki kept an eye on the transaction as she watched Bagman place half of their winnings each into the twins hands, who quickly shoved the gold into their pockets before any outsiders could see exactly the illegal underage gambling transaction.

"If you both want to go plan what to do with this small fortune you've just acquired…I can take Vicki off your hands? I can help her find her boyfriend…" Bagman suggested, throwing up his hands in a question gesture.

Fred almost instinctively took a step to where Vicki was seated and protectively laid his hand on her shoulder. He was a little surprised but glad when he saw his twin brother do the exact same thing. Vicki was accounted for.

It was Vicki who spoke up. She had watched Bagman speak for her for half the night and she was growing tired of it. She had tried to deny in her mind that he was trying to have a pass at her. After all he was a much older respected member of the community, she thought it would be conceited for her to assume he wasn't being friendly, but flirting with someone so young. But it had gotten past a point now where she felt arrogant for assuming he was trying with her. He had been following her around all night, and no one else, and had been going out of his way to be in her company.

"I think I'm in capable hands, thanks. Besides, if I can't find Roger I can stay in their tent, at least I wouldn't be alone." Vicki brashly stated, trying to conceal her annoyance but not being able to hide it from coming out in a cool tone.

Bagman on the other hand was grinning. He wasn't aware that Vicki meant nothing by her comment about staying in the Weasley tent, but he saw it was an opportunity to perhaps get the younger girl to spend the time with him instead.

Fred's eyes narrowed at Bagman. He was watching the exchange intently and wasn't happy with where it was going. George could feel his twin's negative energy and began to feed on it himself. That was a common occurrence, Fred would brew darkly on these things, and George would back him up and let it grow.

"I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but she's quite drunk-" George piped up suddenly, and let his brother finish what he was trying to imply.

"-but please, be our guest. Spend lots of time with a drunk underage school girl in front of all of these people, and don't forget the journalists. Take her back to wherever you're staying. It's your funeral." Fred finished as he tried to stay casual, but by the end of his statement his protective grip on Vicki's shoulder was so tight she was wincing, and he had inched closer to Bagman, almost in a threatening manner, and was glowering in his direction.

Bagman switched his gaze from looking between each twin, to Vicki who was mysteriously silent. He found her very attractive and was hopefully looking to spending some alone time with her, but he wasn't willing to risk everything he had purely for a pretty face. He had come close to losing his freedom before, and Victoria Hartwell was not a good enough reason to face anything like that again.

"Well I can see she's in perfectly capable hands, so I'll bid you all farewell. There's over a dozen well reputable parties out there for me tonight." Bagman grinned as he stayed completely jovial, not rivalling the twin's cold demeanour one bit.

Both the twins and Vicki rigidly said goodbye to Bagman. George lightened up now he had his gold and due to Vicki being safe, but Fred wouldn't drop his growl.

"Alright kids, we're off for real this time. Fred, George, you're to take Vicki back to her tent and come STRAIGHT back to ours." Arthur said as he came over and put his arms around both of his sons, walking them towards the exit and sounding strict with great difficulty.

"What happens if Davies isn't there, do we then get to stay out?" George asked, and he was only half-joking.

"Then you bring her straight back to us. She can stay in Ginny and Hermione's tent." Arthur responded.

Being such a large stadium designed to hold hundreds of thousands of Quiddich fans, it took a while to reach the bottom. Luckily for Vicki and the Weasley family not too many people were leaving at this time: those who were leaving early had already done so and those who remained were staying put to party the night away.

The twins and Vicki had a head start from the rest of the family and maintained it as they quickly ran down the stairs, the rest of the family behind them lagging as they kept slow to stay together. The twins on the other hand wanted to be as quick as possible. If they could get outside the pitch quickly, they'd have more time out of their 'appropriate time to get Vicki back to her tent' time limit to enjoy.

It's not that they wanted to dispose of Vicki too quickly, that wasn't the plan at all. In fact, both of them had enjoyed Vicki's company immensely this evening. George, who had always felt fairly neutral towards the Hogwarts "it" girl finding himself too immersed in his pranks to care about Hogwarts politics. But after five years at school he met her properly tonight, and he liked her contributions to conversations they had.

Fred on the other hand, he was completely blown away by Vicki. As much as he had liked her before tonight he always knew it was very superficial. Besides their little run-in during first year, he knew nothing about it besides the fact he found her insanely pretty. For all her knew (and it should have been probable considering she was well known and popular) she would be a prissy princess with the personality of a wet blanket.

In reality she was the total opposite. She laughed a lot at every joke they made, even the inappropriate one about women and house elves when everyone around scowled at Fred for saying it. Not only did she laugh at his jokes, she contributed a few of her own as she started to sober up – namely mean comments about fellow Hogwarts students he found they had a mutual dislike of.

Now both Fred and Vicki were completely sober. Vicki was sober from the shots the American witches forced upon her and Fred's thoughts were sobered in that he knew Vicki was the full package: beautiful and his dream girl. Davies was still in the way for now, but that had the possibility of changing very soon.

As they chatted on their walk through the camp site Vicki began to grow increasingly nervous the closer they got to the tent. She had been pushing the hurt of Roger's actions to the back of her mind but it was now rushing through her mind and the unfavourable emotions were hitting her hard. She didn't know how she was going to approach Roger, should she be calm and be ready to work things out peacefully? Should she be angry and sever all ties with him instantly? Or should she go straight to bed so she could cry herself to sleep and work it all out with him tomorrow when they were more level headed?

She also had the burden of having to hide this all from the twins, as they were happily telling Vicki all about their new line of products they had been developing over the summer. The last thing that needed to happen was Vicki's insecurities rising and causing the mood to dampen.

"We're planning to start selling to Hogwarts students soon, maybe do a mail service." Fred explained.

"Then we can build some capital, have a bit of spending money for when we finish Hogwarts next school year." George added on.

Vicki was able to eventually lead the twins to her tent. It took some time, as there were hundreds of thousands of tents it took her a while to work out the correct directions to take, and they also kept bumping into people they knew from school. All of them being popular in different ways meant the pool of people who went out of their way to greet them was a lot higher.

Vicki's heart sank as the tent looked dark and unoccupied from the outside.

"He could have gone to bed?" George suggested as he felt Vicki's disappointment.

Vicki gave a sad smile and shook her head. She wasn't sure why she felt so confident he would be in there. He could be almost anywhere nearby, with absolutely anybody. There were thousands of girls in the campsite and surrounding areas who were much prettier than her, wanting to enjoy Roger's company. Pretty girls were a pence (or knut, in the magic world) a dozen, but handsome yet interesting boys like Roger don't appear too often. Besides, she'd still be in the Minister's box celebrating if Mr Weasley didn't shuffle the kids back to the tent, so why would Roger freely leave a party to return to the tent also?

Fred stayed silent as he studied Vicki's mood change. He was unaware that she had been faking positive energy since they left the stadium but now she was visibly upset he began to feel a little guilty. His master plan all night was for Vicki to be angry at Davies and break up with him. Then he would swoop in and get closer to her over the next couple of weeks, and then not too long after they went back to Hogwarts he would sweep her off her feet and convince her to go out with him.

Seeing Vicki cut-up over Roger's lack of return straightened him up a little. She was hurting, and not only was his plan likely to fail, he now realised it was wrong of him to make plans and use this to his advantage. He had no intentions of going back to admiring her from a distance and never talking to her, how could he? He had come so far tonight and actually really enjoyed her company. But he had to put his feelings for her on hold and let the chips fall. She had to run her course with Davies before he even had a shot at winning her affections.

Vicki let out a deep breath as she mentally prepared herself to enter. She decided to ignore George's suggestion that he 'may be sleeping' as she knew it was very unlikely this would be the case. She knew she had to expect to walk in and find the tent cold and empty and abandon her hope before she walked in. She finally stepped in through the flaps and felt no emotion as she flicked on a light switch (which Roger's father installed before they left London as they still couldn't use magic outside school) and found the tent deserted, except for herself and the two twins who followed her in.

She winced as she spun around to face them, expecting them to show looks of sympathy which sure enough, was etched on their faces.

"Well, thanks for walking me back here. I'll be alright. If Roger doesn't come back by tomorrow I'll just grab the portkey without him, and let him find his own way back home." Vicki softly smiled, but the two twins wouldn't have a bar of it.

"We are NOT leaving you here alone." George snapped at her.

"You heard our dear old father. If you weren't able to find Roger you were to stay in Hermione and Ginny's tent." Fred added on.

Vicki let out a loud snort at their comments, and crossed her arms in annoyance in retaliation. She may not have personally known the twins very well, but she knew blindly listening to an authority figure (in this instance their own parent) when there was a chance of getting away with something was not something they did on a regular basis.

"Sell outs." Vicki hissed, but shot them a small smile to show she was (mostly) joking.

"Sorry love, but safety first, even before a life of pranks." George responded to Vicki's insult mockingly.

"We couldn't possibly be able to live with ourselves if we left a beautiful girl by herself in a camp full of drunk men. The Irish may be celebrating but they're not the only ones on the drink tonight. Bulgarians are drinking away their sorrows. Therefore we're taking you with us." Fred added on.

Vicki raised her eyebrows at Fred's comment but then walked away speechless with a small bag as she started packing the things she'd need overnight. Fred on the other hand was horrified that he'd let slip the word 'beautiful' to describe Vicki. "Good looking" or "pretty" would be truthful but inconspicuous. "Beautiful" was a whole different ballpark.

He muttered something about 'giving her some privacy' and then scampered to outside the tent, to wait for her outside.