Ella stumbled down the steps of the burrow with Hermione, Katie, and Ginny. Still not a morning person, Mrs. Weasley's early wakeup call had not been a good start to her morning. She was so exhausted while getting ready that she had basically put her clothes on with her eyes shut.

"Good morning, girls!" Ella's mother chimed when Ella walked into the kitchen. Unlike Ella, Margaret Ross was quite the morning person. "I hope you all slept well."

"Why do we have to be up so early?" Ginny whined while rubbing her eyes and sitting at the table. Ella took the seat in between Ginny and George, wasting no time in resting her head on his shoulder and nodding off again.

"We've got a bit of a walk," Mr. Weasley said and Ella groaned sleepily.

"Walk?" said Harry. "What, are we walking to the World Cup?"

"No, no, that's miles away," said Mr. Weasley. "We only need to walk a short way. It's just that it's very difficult for a large number of wizards to congregate without attracting Muggle attention. We have to be very careful about how we travel at the best of times, and on a huge occasion like the Quidditch World Cup —"

"Hey, sleepyhead," George said quietly to Ella, shaking his shoulder to jostle her awake, "you gotta wake up. We're leaving soon, I need to get my stuff."

"Mmm, okay," Ella mumbled sleepily, resting her head on the table after George got up.

"George!" Mrs. Weasley said sharply, startling everyone and effectively waking Ella up, for good this time.

"What?" said George, in an innocent tone that deceived nobody.

"What is in your pocket?"

"Nothing!"

"Don't you lie to me!"

Mrs. Weasley pointed her wand at George's pocket and said, "Accio!"

Several small, brightly colored objects zoomed out of George's pocket; he made a grab for them but missed and Ella rolled her eyes at him, they sped right into Mrs. Weasley's outstretched hand.

"We told you to destroy them!" said Mrs. Weasley furiously, holding up what were unmistakably more Ton-Tongue Toffees. "We told you to get rid of the lot! Empty your pockets, go on, both of you!"

The whole thing was really rather unpleasant to watch. Mrs. Weasley could be completely terrifying when she wanted to be, especially when yelling at Fred and George. Ella sat helplessly, wishing she could help the twins as Mrs. Weasley fired off summoning charms and took every Ton-Tongue Toffee that Fred and George were trying to smuggle out of the house.

"We spent six months developing those!" Fred shouted at his mother as she threw the toffees away.

"Oh a fine way to spend six months!" Mrs. Weasley shrieked. "No wonder you didn't get more O.W.L.s!"

That comment, in particular, made Ella cringe, she knew how upset Fred and George got when people brought up the whole O.W.L.s ordeal. They knew that they were intelligent and the fact that people assumed that they weren't because of their test scores infuriated the twins. All in all, the atmosphere was not very friendly as they took their departure. Mrs. Weasley was still glowering as she kissed Mr. Weasley on the cheek, though not nearly as much as the twins, who had each hoisted their rucksacks onto their backs and walked out without a word to her.

Ella, on the other hand, said goodbye to Mrs. Weasley and apologized to her for the twins behavior, and Mrs. Weasley gave her a sandwich made up of the leftovers from breakfast seeing as Ella had slept through the whole meal.

"Well have a lovely time," said Mrs. Weasley, "and behave yourselves," she called after the twins' retreating backs, but they did not look back or answer. "I'll send Bill, Charlie, Percy, and Jackson along around midday," Mrs. Weasley said to Mr. Weasley, as he, and the rest the group followed along after Fred and George.

As they walked across the field Ella sped away from her mother and Riley and caught up with Fred and George. "Have you guys gotten over your little episode yet?" Ella asked around a mouthful of her sandwich.

"Have you stopped stuffing your face yet?" Fred asked, still bitter over his fight with his mother.

George slapped his brother in the gut and sharply said, "Hey!" Fred had a tendency to snap when his temper flared, and usually, George didn't mind, but Ella was different.

But Ella was unfazed by Fred's attitude and said, "Never," as she continued to eat her breakfast. "But seriously, I am sorry about the toffees. I know how hard you guys worked on them."

"Yeah, well," George said while shrugging, "what can you do, right?"

"Just make more, I'm guessing," Ella said on a scoff. "I mean, you do have the recipe down by now. You just have to make more, right?"

Fred sighed. "Yeah, but it'll take forever. Those aren't exactly easy to make, you know."

"Well, I can help you guys if you want," Ella offered. "You know I support this company in the fullest."

"Yeah, we know," Fred said and slung his arm around Ella. "Thanks, Ella."

"And?" Ella urged, poking Fred in the side.

Fred rolled his eyes and smiled. "And I'm sorry I snapped at you."

"There it is," Ella said and continued to chat with the twins as they walked.

That is until their conversation was halted by a voice that was all too familiar to Ella, saying, "Over here, Arthur! Over here, son, we've got it!"

Two figures were silhouetted against the starry sky over the hilltop and Ella was trying to will her heart to slow down. This couldn't be happening.

"Amos!" said Mr. Weasley and Ella's will broke and her heart began pumping at a mile a minute. Mr. Weasley strode over to the man that had yelled and within seconds was shaking hands with someone that Ella had expected to never encounter again.

"This is Amos Diggory, everyone," said Mr. Weasley. "He works for the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. And I think you know his son, Cedric?"

In that moment Ella wished that she could transfigure herself into a tortoise and retract into her shell and never come out.

Cedric Diggory was an extremely handsome boy of around seventeen. He was Captain and Seeker of the Hufflepuff House Quidditch team at Hogwarts. He also happened to be Ella's ex-boyfriend.

"Hi," Cedric said, looking around at them all, his eyes lingering on Ella.

Everybody said hi back except for Fred and George, who merely nodded. They both were not fond of Cedric for obvious reasons, but they would blame in on the fact that they had not forgiven Cedric for beating the Gryffindor team in the first Quidditch match of the previous season.

"Not too bad," said Mr. Weasley. "We live just on the other side of the village there. You?"

"Had to get up at two, didn't we, Ced? I tell you, I'll be glad when he's got his Apparition test. Still...not complaining...Quidditch World Cup, wouldn't miss it for a sackful of Galleons — the tickets cost about that. Mind you, looks like I got easy…" Amos Diggory peered good-naturedly around at the three Weasley boys, Harry, Hermione, Ginny, and Ella and her family. "All these yours, Arthur?"

"Oh no, only the redheads," said Mr. Weasley. "But as I understand it, you're familiar with Miss Ella and her lot?"

"Ah, yes!" Amos said excitedly, scooping Ella into an unexpected hug. "Ella, my dear! How have you been?"

"I've been good, Mr. Diggory," Ella said uncomfortably. "And you?"

"Quite well, Ella, quite well. Thank you. And Margaret!" said Amos, moving on to Ella's mother and kissing her hand. "Looking radiant as ever. And who is this little fellow? One of yours, Margaret?" Amos said, talking about Riley hiding behind his mother's legs.

"Yes," Margaret said as she reached a hand behind her to stroke Riley's hair. "This is Riley. He just recently turned four years old, didn't you, pumpkin?" When Riley said nothing but rather clutched onto her skirt tighter, Margaret chuckled. "You'll have to excuse him, he's a bit shy."

Amos smiled at Riley nonetheless. "Well that's perfectly alright. Now, who are these ones, Arthur?"

"This is Hermione, a friend of Ron's — and Harry, another friend —"

"Merlin's beard," said Amos Diggory his eyes widening. "Harry? Harry Potter?"

"Er — yeah," said Harry, and Ella rolled her eyes. She felt very bad for Harry sometimes, well, most of the time. She couldn't imagine how frustrating it could be to have everyone and their mother gawking at her all the time.

As Mr. Diggory was babbling on about Harry Ella grabbed the twins by their ears and pulled them down to her height so she could hiss in their ears, "Did you know about this?"
"No, Ella, we swear. We had no idea!" Fred whispered as he tried to wriggle out of her surprisingly strong grasp, and quite a painful one too.

"Yeah," George agreed. "Dad said we were meeting a friend of his from work but we didn't know that it would be them."

After glowering at them for a few more seconds Ella finally sighed and let them go. "Fine, I'm sorry. I just...didn't expect to start off my morning like this."

"Believe me, neither did I," George grumbled and shot Cedric a dirty look, which Cedric saw and looked away awkwardly.

"Must be nearly time," Ella heard Mr. Weasley say, and her and the twins rejoined the rest of the group. "Do you know whether we're waiting for any more, Amos?"

"No, the Lovegoods have been there for a week already and the Fawcetts couldn't get tickets," said Mr. Diggory. "There aren't any more of us in the area, are there?"

"Not that I know of," said Mr. Weasley. "Yes, it's a minute off...We'd better get ready…"

He looked around at Harry and Hermione.

"You just need to touch the Portkey, that's all, a finger will do —"

It was difficult for everyone to get a finger to the manky old boot due to their bulky backpacks, but they somehow all crowded around the Portkey. So they stood there, all clutching an old boot in the semi-darkness...how odd it must have looked.

George glanced at his watch, it was just moments away now and he smiled at Ella. "You ready?"

She returned his smile in that challenging way that she had that made his heart soar more than she could ever know and said, "Please, Weasley, I was born ready."