After a week of boring me over the holidays, Charlie finally showed up. We agreed to meet in front of my apartment. I was startled by my book when suddenly there was a bang. A purple double-decker bus appeared and Charlie got out. He had a backpack on his back, basic jeans and a white T-shirt and looked a little sick.
'I will never take the Knight Bus again', he decided.
I smiled and gave him a hug: 'I missed you.'
'After a week?'
'Come in and I'll show you my apartment. Well dressed inconspicuously, by the way,' I complimented him. Wizards sometimes find it difficult to blend into the muggle crowd with their robes.
'Thanks, Bill, Dad and I have been studying the most commonly worn muggle clothes for a while. So you live here all alone?' he asked when we arrived on my floor.
'Completely', I confirmed.
'That must be so cool, you can just do whatever you want.'
'Yeah, but sometimes it's a little lonley.'
When we entered my apartment, Charlie looked around in surprise. Everything was quite modern. His gaze lingered on the Star Wars posters on the wall.
'Star Wars, one of my favorite movies.'
'Movies?'
'Have you never seen a movie before?' I asked incredulously.
'Well, I don't think they're very popular in the wizarding world.' That was true, Charlie probably rarely came into a muggle house.
'We'll watch one this evening. But first we'll go somewhere else.'
'To where?'
'That's a surprise, but I'm sure you'll like it.'
'Oh come on, tell me', he insisted. But I didn't reveal anything.
When I gave him a tour of the apartment with small balcony, he remarked something else: 'Is this your favorite book?' On a table lay a book called "Little women".
'No, but my father gave it as a present once, he said it was a popular girl's book. But to be honest, I didn't really like it.' Charlie chuckled at my admission.
'Put this on here, it's still warm now, but it can cool down later.' From my closet I pulled a caramel brown zip hoodie. It used to belong to my father and was nice and warm. Sometimes I put it on when I was in a "no one sees me" mood, it came almost to my knees. It was still a little too big even for Charlie. I myself pulled a black jacket over my brown-gray oversized shirt and put on my backpack, the contents of which had been enlarged. We left the apartment and walked to Slough train station, which is where I lived.
'Belle, may I ask, if you live alone, where are your parents?'
Here came a difficult part. I took a deep breath and began to speak: 'Well my father is a muggle and my mother a witch.'
'I thought you were a pure blood', Charlie cut me off immediately.
'Sorry, I shouldn't have interrupted you.'
'It does not matter. That's probably because I also tell everyone I'm a pure blood. But please don't tell anyone I lied.'
'Of course not, keep telling.'
'I never knew my parents together. When I was little I grew up with my mother in the magic world. My father deposited money. He does something with modern technology and is very rich, but therefore also has to travel a lot. As far as I can remember I have seen him 8 times, when he comes to England. Then he brings the latest technical gadgets and we go for a ride in super fast cars. Hence my interest.' About my mother, I didn't know whether to tell the truth or not. Charlie deserved the truth, but it was very sensitive to me and I hadn't told anyone besides my aunts and father. I decided to tell half the truth: 'But my mother died three years ago, in 1981.'
'Sorry, that must be bad for you... Was it because of the wizarding war? It ended that year, didn't it?'
I nodded sadly. 'My father came over and promised to do that every year from then on. He bought me the apartment and enrolled me in muggle school. My favorite aunt also came by sometimes. Although my mother didn't really like her, she had always been nice to me.'
Charlie put his arm around me. 'Do you miss her badly, your mother?'
'Very hard. She was a brilliant witch, among the best of her year when she was at Hogwarts. People said I look very much like her in appearance. But I don't think so, she was so beautiful, I could never be her equal.'
'I think you'll be even more beautiful than her.' My cheeks turned red at his compliment.

Arriving at the station I bought tickets to Llanrwst. We had to change trains in Wrexham.
'Wales? What are we going to do there?'
'Do you have any idea yet?'
"Not any' I knew he had, but he didn't dare say it because it was so high.

On the train I wanted to show Charl some of my favorite songs, but realized I only had one pair of headphones.
'Let's see how we can fix this.' Carefully so that no one saw it, I took out my wand: 'Geminio' My wand crossed the headphones from top to bottom, where I stopped in time so the plug didn't duplicate. The result was two headphones that hung together. I gave Charlie one and put the plug in my Walkman.
'Are you allowd to do magic?' he asked.
'Anywhere outside half a mile radius of home. The system is a bit stupid, don't you think?'
'Yeah, too bad Mom 's watching over us that we don't use magic.'
I put my cassette in the walkman, which had two sides with 7 songs each:

Side 1:

- Thriller ~ Michael Jackson

- Highway to hell ~ AC/DC

-Another one bites the dust ~ Queen

- Immigrant song ~ Led Zeppelin

- Eye of the tiger ~ Survivor

- Billy Jean ~ Michael Jackson

- Back in black ~ AC/DC

Side 2:

- Killer Queen ~ Queen

- Kashmir ~ Led Zeppelin

- Africa ~ Toto

- Come on Eileen ~ Dexys Midnight Runners

- Beat it ~ Michael Jackson

- You shook me all night long ~ AC/DC

- We will rock you ~ Queen

I could see from Charlie's look that we clearly didn't have the same taste in music. But he did not protest and continued to listen.

Arriving in Llanwrst it was already noon. We bought a sandwich and took the bus to Druthpel. There we walked to a mountain bike rental.
'Seriously, are we going mountain biking?' asked Charlie, a little disappointed.
'Unless, of course, you want to go there on foot', was my answer.
'Who we have here, Belle, it's been a long time', said the man behind the counter. Now it happens that I come here often, very often.
'When can I expect them back?'
'Hogh ... I will pay until this evening. If it's later I'll pay extra.'
'Say uhm Charl, you can ride a bicycle, can't you?' I asked hesitantly. I hadn't considered this at all.
'If my dad wasn't so interested in muggles, probably not', he grinned. Luckily
'You also know how shifters work?'
'Um ... that might be a bit too much.'
'Okay, in the uphill you shift to a low gear and in the downhill you shift to a high one. It's that simple.' No sooner said than done. We cycled out of the village together. On a mountain, I often had to wait for Charlie.
'Shift down Charl!' I called then. The most fun was of course driving down the slopes. I flew forward, leaving my hair to the wind.
My traveling companion, on the other hand, pulled more on his brakes. 'Arg !  A fly in my eye!' he also called twice. The whole trip was just under five and a half miles. With downwind and not too much delay about half an hour.

When we reached our destination, Charlie asked wearily, 'Did we just get through all possible muggle transports?'
'We could have taken a plane', I joked.
Before us was a thick piece of forest. 'What the hell are we doing here?'
'Remember platform 9 3/4? This is the same system. Follow me.' With my bicycle in hand, I ran towards a thick tree. And I was gone.