Chapter 152 — The Long Way to a Boot

Luna stepped round a muddy patch and asked Hermione whether the travel notice was something she had happened to read. Hermione said she had been checking how we were getting there, keeping to the firmer ground beside the hedge.

‘You should tell people that’s why you’re reading things,’ Luna said. ‘They might decide it would be useful to join in.’

‘I tried.’ Hermione smiled towards Ron, who chose that moment to inspect the path ahead. Beyond the trees, the sky had brightened enough for us to see across the fields.

He began telling Harry about the food and performances Arthur’s colleagues had described. I listened for things which had survived the journey from our drawings to the site, relieved to recognise several of them.

‘What sort of performances?’ Harry asked. Ron called the question forward to Arthur, who glanced back at me.

‘Oswald is better placed to explain,’ he said. ‘He’s organising the trading area. The Mercer sponsorship is the largest contribution we’ve received for the event.’

Ron stopped so abruptly that George nearly collided with him. Harry turned towards me, and Hermione’s eyebrows rose while Luna kept walking at my side, her fingers tightening briefly round mine.

‘You’re doing what?’ Ron demanded. I moved out of George’s way before answering, leaving room for the others to gather.

‘The sponsorship, and the area outside the stadium. Stalls, places to eat, entertainments.’ I looked from him to Harry. ‘I told you in the letter.’

‘What letter?’ Harry asked. Hermione shook her head beside him, and I slowed until even the twins had caught up.

‘The one addressed to Ron and the others at the Burrow. I put the guest arrangements in it.’ I was beginning to wonder whether Leo had failed to deliver it when Fred made a small noise behind us.

Ron turned. George had stopped trying to disguise his smile, and the two of them looked entirely too pleased with the conversation.

‘You took it,’ Ron said. He stepped towards George, who held up both hands as though that might establish his innocence.

‘We kept the surprise,’ Fred said. Arthur had reached the next gate; he stopped there and asked which letter we were discussing.

‘The guest invitation,’ I told him. ‘Not your travel confirmation. They should have had it before they packed.’

George reached into his bag and produced the folded envelope. I recognised my handwriting, and Ron held out his hand before either twin could explain further.

‘You said you wanted everyone to find out together,’ Fred told me. His smile had become less certain under Arthur’s gaze.

‘I wanted them to know what they’d been invited to.’ I pointed to the envelope. ‘That’s why I wrote it down and sent it in advance.’

‘It said Ron and the others,’ George offered. He looked towards his father, who had not moved from beside the gate.

‘That includes Ron reading it,’ Arthur replied. He waited until George handed it over. ‘Next time, you deliver the post when it arrives. All of it.’

George apologised, looking at Ron rather than the rest of us. Fred followed after a moment, and Arthur opened the gate while Ron examined the letter as though checking for something else the twins might have done to it.

The actual travel arrangements had reached Arthur separately. We had the booking, the route and the things we needed to bring, which kept their surprise from becoming a much worse problem. Ron was still frowning when he reached the part about meals.

‘You could have shown me this before I packed food,’ he said. He lifted the extra bag on his shoulder, directing the remark firmly at his brothers.

‘Keep the food,’ I told him. ‘We haven’t reached the site yet. You two can carry the bag for the rest of the walk, though.’

Ron handed it over before they could object. George accepted it while Fred asked whether our invitation still stood, with the cautious tone of someone hoping the answer would include breakfast.

‘There are places for all of us,’ I said. ‘Meals, somewhere to sleep and the entertainments. Exactly what I wrote.’

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They looked relieved until Ron pointed out another strap which needed adjusting. By the time we were walking again, Fred had begun a speech about the burdens of generosity, leaving George to explain why that was a poor choice of complaint.

Harry fell into step beside me. ‘I thought you were refusing to come out because you’d found something else to do with the lion,’ he said, looking at the letter over Ron’s shoulder.

‘There are other ways to make life complicated.’ I watched Arthur check the next turning. ‘I’ll be happier when I’ve seen the place working with people in it.’

‘We’ll help with the eating,’ Ron offered. I told him that part had never worried me, and he folded the letter into his own bag before either twin came near it again.

We reached the meeting place just before six. A man in a hat stood beneath a large tree with a weathered pack at his feet; he waved as Arthur came through the hedge, then picked it up to meet us.

‘There you are. I was beginning to wonder,’ he said, shaking Arthur’s hand.

‘The lower path took longer than I allowed, Amos. We still have time.’ Arthur checked the slip before introducing his friend from the Ministry, and the rest of us gathered beside them.

Something rustled overhead. Cedric swung down from a low branch, landed beside his father and brushed a fragment of bark from his sleeve.

‘You found somewhere to sit,’ I said. He glanced back at the branch, then at the damp ground beneath our feet.

‘It was dry.’ He greeted Harry, Hermione and Ron before turning to Luna, leaving Arthur pleased that we already knew one another.

The last match we had discussed with Cedric had ended with Harry in a hospital bed. He had wanted Hufflepuff’s win reconsidered after discovering why Harry fell, and Harry had told us how he had asked Madam Hooch. The result had stood; none of that seemed to matter as he and Harry fell into easy conversation beneath the tree.

‘Oswald Mercer,’ Arthur said, bringing me forward. ‘And this is Luna Lovegood.’

Amos paused over my name. ‘Mercer? The sponsorship?’ His eyes moved over my face, apparently discovering a detail the account he had heard had left out.

‘Yes,’ I said. Cedric gave a quiet laugh beside him, and I looked towards him in time to catch the smile.

‘You have been busy,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to come and see what you’ve arranged.’

‘Come hungry. Ron regards that as the essential preparation.’ Ron nodded without shame, though he had eaten considerably more breakfast than either twin.

Amos and Arthur began discussing the match as we set off towards the rising ground. Cedric explained that his father worked with magical creatures at the Ministry, and Bill asked about a colleague; soon another conversation spread across the path.

Arthur favoured Ireland but thought Krum might take the Snitch. Amos questioned whether he meant both, and Fred and George became unusually attentive as Arthur explained how the scoring could make that happen.

I left them to it when Luna began shortening her stride. She stepped carefully over a root, then adjusted the back of her shoe without quite stopping.

‘Is it rubbing?’ I asked quietly. She nodded, and I went ahead to ask Arthur how much time we had before the last climb.

He checked his watch and pointed to a dry bank where we could stop for a few minutes. Ron sat almost before we reached it, while I put down our bags and waited for Luna to loosen the fastening.

Her heel was red, though the skin had not broken. I asked whether she wanted a hand and, when she agreed, helped flatten the edge of the sock before adjusting the shoe. She rested a hand on my shoulder while I rubbed gently at the sore place above it.

‘Better?’ I asked. She put her foot down, then tried her weight on it before smiling at me.

‘Yes, thank you.’ She took a few steps along the bank while I waited, testing whether the fastening still pressed. When she came back for her bag, her stride was easier.

Ron drank from his bottle and asked whether I had walked this way on my visits to the site. I explained that the temporary staff Floo had been available during the preparations, then caught the hopeful look on his face.

‘That doesn’t give us fourteen unbooked arrivals today,’ I added. He sighed and looked towards the hill, where the path disappeared briefly behind a clump of grass.

‘Someone ought to invent a way to watch it on television,’ Harry said, stretching his legs. ‘Then you could choose how much walking came with the match.’

I thought of the apparatus being tested at the site. ‘We’ll see what you think when we get there,’ I said. He was about to ask what I meant when Arthur gave us the time and told us to pick up our things.

The final climb quietened most of the conversations. It was steep rather than long, and Amos went ahead while the rest of us kept to a pace Luna could manage comfortably. I stayed beside her, watching for the place where the path became level.

At the top, an old boot rested on a flat stone. Harry looked from it to Arthur, who checked it against the booking before nodding.

‘That’s it,’ he said. He turned the slip over, counted us and confirmed the departure: fourteen people at half past six.

‘I’d have thought someone had lost it,’ Harry said. Bill remarked that this was the general idea, then put his bag where he could take hold of it without reaching across anyone else.

Arthur explained the journey before asking us to touch the boot. There would be a sharp pull, an unpleasant sense of movement and a landing which could be awkward the first time. Harry listened closely, and I put my own bag securely over my shoulder.

‘Keep contact until we arrive,’ Arthur said. ‘Don’t try to jump away during the journey. Once your feet find the ground, bend your knees and let go when I tell you.’

Amos lifted the boot so we could arrange ourselves around it. The taller people reached over, leaving the sides and toe for the rest of us; it took some shuffling to find a place for every fingertip without trapping someone’s sleeve.

I stood beside Luna, waiting until her fingers touched the leather securely before taking her free hand. She checked my grip on the boot, then looked up at me.

‘All right?’ I asked. She squeezed my hand and said she was ready, keeping her feet clear of Charlie’s bag as he moved it closer.

Arthur inspected the circle while Amos watched the time. The breeze stirred the grass around our ankles, and for an instant the venture ahead seemed less immediate than the fact that fourteen people were trying not to tread on one another around an old boot.

Then Arthur began to count. I tightened my grip before he reached one.