Chapter 278. The Cottage in the Case
23 August, Monday.
Today was the day of the Quidditch World Cup.
At dawn, on Stoatshead Hill—the hill near the Weasleys' home.
The wind was strong; Harry and Hermione instinctively wrapped their robes tighter.
"It's only six o'clock…" Harry looked at Adrian Wesson, who was straightening his cuffs, and asked, puzzled, "If we're going to the Quidditch World Cup, why not just go straight there?"
"Ah, even I know the answer to that," Adrian shrugged. "Regrettably, I don't actually know where the Quidditch World Cup is being held. But the Ministry of Magic set up a Portkey here. Once the time comes, we can use it to get there."
"Portkey?" Hermione asked. "Where?"
She looked around. The whole hilltop was bare—nothing that looked like a Portkey at all. Oh—except for a crushed fizzy-drink can lying not far away like litter, probably tossed there by some inconsiderate person.
Wait, a can?
Hermione hesitated, then hurried over and picked it up.
"Perfect," Adrian said with a glance. "That's it. This Portkey is set to activate precisely in three minutes."
Harry peered at it: a slightly faded red drinks can, a brand every Muggle would recognise, that had once held something meant to make people happy.
So this was a Portkey?
He had heard Ron say that the Ministry of Magic liked to make Portkeys look like ordinary Muggle items.
It seemed to be true.
Three minutes later, all three of them stretched out a finger at the same time and touched the faded red can.
The world spun.
When their feet hit solid ground again, Harry's knees buckled and he nearly collided with Hermione.
"Six-oh-five, from Stoatshead Hill," came a weary voice through the fog.
A wizard in a crumpled Ministry uniform looked up; the circles under his eyes were so dark it was as if someone had given him two black eyes. "Oh, it's you… er… Mr Wesson?"
He seemed to think for a moment before he remembered Adrian's name.
"Blunt?" Adrian recognised the familiar long-suffering face and stared. "Weren't you working reception in New York? Why—"
Yes, the man before them was indeed Blunt—half an acquaintance of Adrian's—the clerk at the New York Office for Incoming Foreign Personnel. Whenever Adrian went to New York, he often had to register with him.
Blunt put on a woebegone expression. "Short-staffed for the Quidditch World Cup. Volunteers summoned from all over the world. This dreadful assignment was meant for my colleague—right up until that coin came up heads seven times in a row…"
"You really are unlucky."
Adrian sounded sympathetic. Blunt did seem to lose his holidays to coin-toss games with alarming frequency.
Meanwhile, Harry and Hermione were taking in their surroundings. It looked like a stretch of marshland; aside from footprints stamped into the ground, there were no other traces of people.
Not far away, a crooked wooden sign was half-buried in the bog:
"Quidditch World Cup Campsite →"
The arrow pointed into the dense fog.
After saying goodbye to Blunt, the three of them trudged through the marsh for a long while. Ten minutes later, they finally saw something other than trees and mud.
In the distance, tents were packed tightly together; awnings of every colour swayed gently in the wind like a forest of giant toadstools.
In front of the tents stood a stone hut, and a man was there, looking around in a daze.
Adrian recognised at a glance that he was a Muggle, probably one of the campsite's regular staff.
Only, he seemed to have been hit with far too many Memory Charms; he didn't even notice when Adrian approached.
Adrian left a few banknotes as a tip for the poor man, then led Harry and Hermione into the campsite.
Plenty of witches and wizards were already moving about, and a few children were playing in mid-air on toy broomsticks.
"Hey, careful!" Adrian called up to a little rascal who whizzed over his head on a toy broomstick.
The boy grinned and waved cheerfully at Adrian, with no intention of apologising.
He stopped grinning quickly, though, because his parents had already seized a long-handled broom and were charging after him in a fury. Perhaps he was about to experience a truly well-rounded childhood…
Adrian couldn't bear to watch that heart-warming scene and took the other two deeper into the grounds.
Hermione looked around curiously. "Where are we going?"
"Find an open space," Adrian said, patting the suitcase in his hand. "I brought a tent."
Most of the prime spots had already been taken. Fortunately, at one of the best spots they ran into the Weasleys.
"You can pitch your tent next to ours," Mr Weasley said generously. "There's plenty of room. Oh, and I don't suppose you've eaten yet—Molly's made enough breakfast to go round. After we eat, we can help you put up your tent. We've just finished ours—and that was quite the ordeal."
"Is that really what 'finished' looks like…" Hermione murmured to Harry.
Harry glanced at the lopsided structure behind Mr Weasley and nodded in agreement.
It didn't look inhabitable by any stretch.
"Thank you, Mr Weasley," Adrian said with a small smile, hefting the suitcase. "But as for the tent, I have a solution."
He tossed the suitcase lightly onto a patch of open ground. It sprang open at once, a beam of white light shooting out from within.
Then the suitcase swelled and shifted like a living thing; wood grain unfurled and intertwined in the air, and the outlines of window-frames and a porch took shape.
In a matter of seconds, a neat little two-storey cottage settled solidly beside the Weasleys' tent.
There were even two ornamental pots of sunflowers by the door.
"Wow," Mr Weasley gaped. "Where did you get that?"
"I had a spare house in the Muggle world," Adrian said simply. "I brought it along, so I wouldn't have to fuss with a tent."
Hermione wore a peculiar expression—no doubt stuffing an entire house into a suitcase seemed rather more troublesome than pitching a tent.
By now, the rest of the Weasleys were poking their heads out of their tent one after another, all drawn at once to the sudden appearance of the little cottage next door.
"That's brilliant, Professor Wesson," Fred let out a whistle. "Did you put an Undetectable Extension Charm on the inside?"
"You mean the interior?" Adrian shook his head, regretful. "Alas, no. Squeezing an ordinary house into a suitcase doesn't take much effort, but if it were a house with an Undetectable Extension Charm, that would be a great deal more trouble."
Bill—the eldest Weasley, a Curse-Breaker at Gringotts—looked impressed at Adrian's explanation. "Even so, getting an entire house into a case is extraordinary."
"But it is rather conspicuous," Adrian said, rubbing his chin. "Perhaps I should swap it for an ordinary tent."
"What's wrong with this?" Ron said. "Putting up a tent is such a pain."
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