Chapter 6
Corinne slipped her boots on silently, knowing better than to wake her sleeping roommates before they were ready. Ella had their alarm clock set for the exact latest minute the two could roll out of bed, fix their hair, get dressed and race down for the final minutes of breakfast. Corinne had twice now been informed to stop trying to mess with their system.
She would always try to put the extra time to good use, catching up on homework from the light creeping in through their window or else squeezing her eyes shut and willing her body to let her enjoy the extra sleep with her friends. But it was no use. While the workload was picking up now, after nearly a full week of classes and homework, she couldn't force herself into writing essays so soon after waking up, the familiar warmth of the bed calling to her, tauntingly, both of them knowing she wouldn't be able to fall back asleep.
Corinne twisted the handle as she pulled the door shut, although she knew first hand how hard it was to wake her friends. She started down the stone steps, a noticeable chill seeping through her after leaving the warmth of their dormitory. It was only a few days into autumn, but it was coming in full force. Most of the trees at the edge of the forbidden forest had already turned yellow and orange, some already littering the ground.
The common room was, unsurprisingly, empty as she started out towards the staircases, the low rumble of morning chatter growing louder with every flight she descended. How Gryffindor ever won the house cups when the majority of it's student body wasn't up by 8, she would never know.
She stepped through the open doorway into the Great Hall, glancing out of habit towards her usual spot at the Gryffindor table, despite knowing it would be nearly empty. She did spot a few younger students, crowded near the front, already onto second helpings of breakfast, as well as a few scattered seventh years already pouring over textbooks in silence.
"Morning." She felt the warmth in her hand before she placed his voice, spinning with a smile as she met his gray eyes, the color dancing through them in the morning sunlight from the ceiling. "You're up early."
"I'm down early." She explained, "My roommates are apparently sick of me waking them up in the mornings, or, trying to wake them up. I've never succeeded."
He laughed, genuinely, the noise ringing over the low babble surrounding them as a few students looked up to him with matching grins. "Will you come sit with me, then?"
She nodded, thankfully, ignoring the giddy smile she could feel spreading across her face as she let him pull her towards the golden painted rows of Hufflepuffs.
"We were wondering where you were." The brunette from their Potions class spoke up. Lucas, she remembered, his eyes flickering towards Corinne before returning to Cedric with half a smirk.
"Don't send the search parties out until I'm..." He glanced at his watch, "Four minutes late, at least." He joked, looking back towards Corinne with a grin. "This is Corinne. Corinne, you know Lucas, that's Johnny, and Mark." He pointed between his friends who all shot the Gryffindor large smiles as she took a seat next to Cedric.
"It's nice to meet you guys."
"It's nice to know that anyone from Gryffindor actually has an alarm clock." Johnny smiled, elbowing Mark's arm beside him as if reminding him to laugh, only to be met with an eye roll and a bit-back smile.
"It's too early for you." Mark replied, piling another scoop of eggs onto his plate and pushing the bowl back towards the center where Cedric held it out for Corinne, each of them grabbing slices of toast and dropping it to their plates before they could notice the heat on their fingertips. Corinne picked up her knife, listening absentmindedly as Mark and Lucas argued over which of them was going to finish their Herbology paper. She dipped the end into the small jar of deep red jelly and spread a thin layer over her bread before turning to hold it out to Cedric.
"Woah!" John shoved his hand out in front of her, pushing the jar away from Cedric and back onto the table as Mark and Lucas finally looked up to the rest of the group. "She's trying to kill you, mate!" He wore half a smile as Corinne looked to the tall Hufflepuff beside her, confused.
"I'm allergic to strawberries." He explained with an eye roll at his friend's theatrics. "But I highly doubt I would keel over."
"That's a risk we can't take." Lucas butt in, grabbing the jar and spooning a huge heap of jelly onto his plate, apparently not noting the way the jar re-filled at once when he set it back against the wooden table.
"Just strawberries?" Corinne asked, feeling slightly guilty, even if it wouldn't have killed him. "Or other fruit?"
"Just strawberries, as far as I know. Although I don't think I've ever tried a pomegranate. That could be the one." Cedric teased, nudging her leg gently with his knee and starting into his breakfast.
"On second thought, Corinne, maybe toss a few strawberries into his meals. We could all use a fair shot at getting into this tournament." Mark grinned, shoving a forkful of eggs into his mouth.
"You're all going to enter?" Corinne asked, scanning over the friends as she started on her toast. Of course, it had been the center of most of the talk in Gryffindor, but not turning 17 until May, she hadn't even thought twice about it.
"I wasn't going to, but I can't let goody-goody over here have all of the school's attention." Lucas sighed, as if it was a burden to have to enter. Although, not knowing the extent of the tasks, not to mention Dumbledore's reference to previous deaths, perhaps it was.
"You?" John asked, meeting the blonde girl's eyes from Cedric's other side.
"I'm not 17 until May." Corinne explained with a shrug.
"May..." Cedric prompted, leaning his cheek against his fist as he took a sip of black coffee, his eyes locked on hers.
"You learned my name last week, you'll have to wait until next month for the birthday." She joked as his smile faltered, eyes narrowing as his friends all groaned.
"No way,"
"You're such a douchebag." They were holding back laughs, although terribly.
"You just lost me so much respect." Cedric chuckled under his breath, shaking his head.
"Don't worry, Corinne, he never had much of that to begin with." Johnny assured her.
"You cheating on us, Cor?" Taylor's familiar voice sounded off, everyone spinning in their seats to see the blonde Gryffindor, Ella behind her, tie hanging loosely around her neck, her eyes still half shut.
"I'll starve to death if I have to wait for you two to wake up." Corinne grinned, taking the last bite of her toast and shoving it towards the center of the table where it vanished from sight. "Wouldn't want you inhaling any strawberry fumes." She flung her legs to the back of the bench and smirked up to Cedric. "Thank you guys for letting me intrude on your breakfast." She stood up, throwing her bag onto her shoulder and looking towards Cedric once more, the familiar feeling of nerves settling into her stomach. She wasn't sure how she was supposed to say goodbye to him.
"I'll see you around, Corinne." He said softly, as if the Hufflepuffs weren't listening to their every word, his fingers reached up to brush against hers before he returned to his coffee. Corinne allowed her roommates to pull her back towards the Gryffindor table, both of them scarfing down the nine minute breakfast their schedule allotted for them before they had to set off for Defense Against the Dark Arts.
Corinne scanned the classroom out of habit as the three girls dropped into their usual seats near the back of the room, something they had been doing since Moody's lessons had started to grow more and more disturbing, praying that he would be more likely to call on the students closer to the front.
It had been over a week now. Over a week since Fred had been in any of their shared classes. Either of the Weasley's. Not that Corinne had been counting. Although Taylor had.
"I don't know how they do it, honestly." Taylor muttered as they passed over their homework on Moody's desk, the line growing shorter and shorter until they could sit back down.
"How who does what?" Corinne asked, getting out a blank parchment and her quill.
"The Weasleys! And Lee. They all act like class is optional. I'm sure Moody might not care, or Sprout, but how are they not flunking Potions?"
"Maybe the professors don't notice as long as one of them is there." Corinne shrugged, not wanting to think about Fred's absence from today's lesson any more than she had been the last few times.
"Or, maybe they're grateful it's finally a quiet lesson and people get their work done." Ella joked.
"Or," The new voice behind them sent the three girls jumping in their seats. "Maybe their schedule is already so full of detentions that there's no room to assign anymore." Fred shrugged, leaning carelessly in his spot next to George and Lee, who was snickering at his words.
"Or," George added, holding one finger up as if he had just thought of the idea. "Maybe their teachers don't mind if they don't show up, as long as they keep getting perfect grades on their exams."
"Like Hell." Ella bit back at the younger twin who simply offered her a smirk and a shrug, rummaging through his bag before producing a crumpled parchment from last week, a red 100 circled at the top.
"Weasley, whichever you are, if you're quite done showing off, we can begin." Moody's voice called the six of them back to attention.
"If you miss me that much during lessons, you can just say so, Baker." Fred mumbled softly, Corinne shaking her head and ignoring his words.
✵
Corinne's eyes were only half open, falling asleep in the dimly lit library aisle would be so easy. Madam Pince might not even find them.
"Hey," Cedric nudged her foot with his own, marking his spot in his own potions book. "We can go to sleep. We can finish it tomorrow."
"No," She shook her head, hoping it would wake her up a bit. "I don't want to make you come to the library after practice again. I know you're tired."
"But then I wouldn't have an excuse to see you before bed." He smirked, setting the book on the floor between them and hopping over to her side of the aisle.
She shook her head, running her finger along the sentence she had been focused on for the last five minutes, none of the words had sunk in at all, but she was sure the answer to the next question for the essay was on this page somewhere. His fingers trailed easily down her side until they reached her waist, pulling the blonde into his side with a soft smile, both of them ignoring her own book tumbling to the floor, the page long forgotten. "You look awfully tired."
Corinne blinked a few times, meeting his eyes. He didn't look tired at all, although only an hour ago he would have been riding on a broomstick a hundred feet in the air, the October wind stinging his face.
"Well, I think we should finish the essay tonight, and we can revise tomorrow. I'd like to get my potions partner a decent grade."
"Decent seems... extreme." He mumbled, their faces were close now, although she wasn't sure which of them had moved. It felt more like the library floors were simply shifting, gravity pulling them together. "I'll settle for fine. Average. Maybe even subpar."
Before she could even think of a response, his fingers had landed on her cheek, his gray eyes shining even in the dim lantern light. He watched her carefully for another second, his gaze falling to her lips before he pulled her face closer by her jaw, fingers tracing softly down her skin as he pressed his lips to hers.
All at once. She knew. The potion had worked. Because there was no way that this wasn't who she would end up with. He was everything. His lips worked against hers slowly at first, his fingers leaving her face after a few moments and finding their familiar place at her hips, pulling her onto his lap. She let each leg spread around his waist, her own fingers tracing around towards the back of his neck, pushing through his hair and swallowing down his sigh.
"You shouldn't have let me do that." He muttered, his lips barely detached from hers. "Now I'm never letting you go to sleep."
She giggled, pressing her lips back to his once more. "I'll sleep right here. I've got no pride."
"I can see Pince sweeping you out in half an hour with a broomstick." He chuckled, his fingers falling to the edges of her thighs, rubbing small circles over the fabric of her tights.
"But there are so many stairs." She whined, finally pulling herself to her feet and holding a hand out to help him up, both of them stowing their books and parchment into their bags.
"I'll walk you." He took her hand again, fingers connecting at once as he pulled her close. "You're a fall risk."
✵
It was easy to spot Cedric, even in the crowd gathered outside of the Great Hall. Even if he hadn't been towering over most of the students, Corinne had grown used to scanning for the sandy brown hair lately. Between Cedric's prefect rounds, quidditch practices and opposite class schedules, she would take any extra minutes she could steal with him.
"What are we looking at?" She asked, a grin appearing on Cedric's face as he spun to meet her.
"They just announced the other schools are coming next week. The day before Halloween. They'll announce the Champions at the Halloween feast."
He looked practically giddy at the news and Corinne felt her own face relax into a small smile. Although Dumbledore's words from the start of term feast still rang in her ears whenever the tournament was brought up, Death Toll, she was excited for him. Hogwarts was supposed to be the safest place, and Dumbledore would never have allowed the tournament here if it was truly dangerous.
"I'm sorry you can't enter." He said, softly, after they had fallen into silence for a few moments. She shook her head at once, looking back to him.
"Trust me, I'm more than alright watching you in the limelight." Corinne laughed, letting him take her hand and pull her into the Great Hall for breakfast.
"I'm dragging you with me." He grinned, scanning over the Gryffindor table for her friends. "Should I even ask if your roommates-"
"They're still asleep." Corinne shrugged, allowing Cedric to lead them towards the Hufflepuff table. She liked his friends, even if they were a bit chipper for an early morning meal. It was better than sitting alone waiting for her own roommates to roll out of bed and praying that the Weasley's wouldn't find her first. One Weasley in particular, who had been offering her nothing but cold glares and snide comments the last few weeks.
"Want to study again later? I'll have practice at night, but I can meet you before dinner? We can go to the lake before it gets too cold?" He asked as they took their seats.
"Want to? No. But I will." Corinne grinned, grabbing for a muffin as they greeted the rest of the table.
✵
"You're wearing these, they go perfectly with the dress-" Taylor wasted no time replacing the shoes in Corinne's hand with the heels she was insisting upon.
"It's just a birthday, Taylor, I wasn't even going to wear a dress." Corinne tugged the hemline of her dress down another inch, glancing at the mirror again.
"Yeah, until you found out Cedric was coming." Taylor offered her a smirk, pulling twice at the zipper along her side in vain before Ella swooped in to help.
"For once, I agree with Taylor." Ella nodded, ignoring the grin that appeared on the blonde's face. "If you've got a tall guy, you get to wear heels. That's the benefit."
"Oh, that's the benefit?" Corinne rolled her eyes through a laugh, pulling the strap over her heel and following the girls out into the stairwell.
The common room was bursting with people, conversations bouncing off one another so loudly that you could barely hear the music anymore. Corinne could spot Alicia at once, dressed in a bright pink top and dark jeans, the material of her shirt reaching just past her stomach, and Corinne would have wondered if she had been cold, if not for the close proximity of the Weasley twins, ducking down to better hear her speak.
She pulled her eyes from the sight, hoping that Taylor wouldn't spot Alicia right away and drag them over. She would want to wish the Gryffindor a happy birthday at some point during the night, though she was hoping that Fred Weasley might be far enough away by then.
"When's he coming?" Taylor's eyes were scanning over the room before returning to Corinnes.
"What?" She blinked, thinking for only a second before realizing. "Oh, I told him when it started. He should be here any minute-"
"Alicia!" Taylor spotted the brunette approaching them, a smile lighting up her face as she pulled her in for a hug. "Happy birthday! You look gorgeous-"
"Happy Birthday, Alicia." Corinne and Ella echoed once they could get a word in, Taylor launching into the day's newest gossip with their housemate when Corinne felt a warm hand land on her waist.
"Look at you," The familiar voice dropped low against her ear, her back tensing up as she spun to face Fred. "You trying to get my attention?" His eyes scanned over her black dress, the corners of his lips twisting upwards.
"Fred," Corinne spoke softly, not wanting to draw too much attention to them as she took a step back from his grip.
"You know you already have it." He went on, eyes stuck to hers before there was a rumble of excitement near the doorway, Corinne's eyes flicking away from Fred's as a grin pulled to her face.
Cedric had been stopped at once, Kenneth Towler grinning at his side as Cedric laughed easily along at something the boy had just muttered, greeting a few other Gryffindors before his eyes landed on her own.
She wasn't sure why she had been worried, or why he didn't come to every one of their parties, if this was the reception he would have received. Truthfully, it may have been different if Quidditch was in season, but from what Corinne could tell, Cedric didn't have many enemies, and she knew personally how easy he was to get along with.
"Hi," He grinned down at her, though the usual height difference that Corinne had grown so used to was diminished with Taylor's heels.
"Hi, am I okay to steal you from your welcome party?" She teased and held back a laugh as he let his eyes rolls slightly.
"Ignoring that," He slipped his fingers against her elbow, lurching them into motion back towards Ella, Taylor and Alicia, Corinne scanning the area for Fred and realizing that he had thankfully moved on. "I'm not sure I'm too thrilled with this newfound height."
"No? I could probably go at least... two inches higher-" She glanced up to the top of his hair as he shook his head.
"I like you down here." He explained, holding his hand at her chin with a soft smile.
"Cedric!" Taylor grinned, waving excitedly as if it would have been possible for him to miss the loud girl or Alicia in her bright outfit.
"Taylor, Ella." He nodded, turning to Alicia, "Happy birthday, Spinnet. I apologize for crashing-"
"Don't be ridiculous!" She cut him off with a grin. "I'm so glad you could come!" Her eyes latched onto Cedric's fingers which were twisted through Corinne's, an excited smile pulling to her lips as she glanced to Taylor.
"Are you guys together?" She asked at last, heat creeping into Corinne's cheeks at once.
"We are." Cedric nodded, tugging Corinne closer into his side, a dazzling grin appearing on his face as Corinne looked up to him, warmth flooding into her chest.
"How did I not know that, Taylor!" She shot a mocking glare to her friend, "No holding out with the good gossip!"
"It's not good gossip! I thought everyone knew. Have you not seen them flirting every potions lesson, or at lunch, or in the halls-"
Ella's laugh rang through the already loud room as Corinne shoved Taylor playfully, the blonde grabbing Ella's shoulders to steady herself.
"Come on, I'll get you a drink." Corinne dragged Cedric towards the edge of the room, thankful for the few seconds she had to control the wild flush of her cheeks.
"I'm sorry," He spoke up, reaching for two cups and sloshing some of the brown firewhiskey into each cup. "I probably should have asked before I just... I wasn't really thinking..."
Corinne's heart was hammering in her chest. Was he taking it back?
"What? No... No, that was fine." She stuttered, watching as he added more liquid to each of their cups and swirled them in each hand.
"Yeah?" His smile was closer to a smirk now as he looked down to her, offering her one of the cups. "You want to be together?"
"Well, I... I mean..." She paused as he chuckled, attempting to hide it with a sip of his cup. "What!"
"You're blushing." He answered, his eyes scanning over her face slowly, as if he was trying to memorize it.
"I'm not," She shook her head, joining into his laugh. "It's just warm in here."
"Corinne," His voice had dropped now, taking a step closer to her to still be heard over the roar of the party. "I would really love it if you'd be my girlfriend."
"Hmm," She pretended to consider for a moment, stalling with a sip of her drink, enjoying the burn as it sank down her throat. "I thought I already was. Didn't you already decide that-" She gasped as he lunged for her, stepping backwards only a second too late as his fingers wrapped around her waist, pulling her into him and trailing along the fabric of her stomach, teasingly.
"Stop! I'm going to spill my drink!" She giggled, pressing against his hips to free herself as he finally dropped her with a grin.
"Don't test me, Corinne. I doubt you run fast in those heels." He grinned, sparkling teeth flashing through his smile.
"Threatening me so soon? We only just started dating."
"Come on, let's go find your friends." He nodded deeper into the crowd, letting her lead the way, his fingers slipping back through hers again.