Coup de Foudre [Fred Weasley] [4]

⚡️ Chapter 24 ⚡️

Talking amongst themselves, Vega, Harry, Ron and Hermione arrived into the Entrance Hall after their Care of Magical Creatures class. And there, they found themselves unable to proceed further – owing to the large crowd of students that congregated there, all of them milling around a large sign that had been erected at the foot of the marble staircase while they had been out of the castle.

Due to the sheer number of students crowding, there was only one way to look to look at what the sign said, and that was to look over the heads of the others. And thus, Vega and Ron – who were taller than Harry and Hermione – stood on their tiptoes to read out the sign aloud to their friends.

TRIWIZARD TOURNAMENT
THE DELEGATIONS FROM BEAUXBATONS AND DURMSTRANG WILL BE ARRIVING AT 6 O'CLOCK ON FRIDAY THE 30TH OF OCTOBER. LESSONS WILL END HALF AN HOUR EARLY –

"Brilliant!" Harry exclaimed as Vega read the signboard. "It's Potions last thing on Friday! Snape won't have time to poison us all!" She shook her head and continued to read.

STUDENTS WILL RETURN THEIR BAGS AND BOOKS TO THEIR DORMITORIES AND ASSEMBLE IN FRONT OF THE CASTLE TO GREET OUR GUESTS BEFORE THE WELCOMING FEAST.

"Only a week away!" exclaimed Ernie Macmillan of Hufflepuff, emerging from the crowd, his eyes gleaming. "I wonder if Cedric knows?" Vega turned to look at him. "Think I'll go and tell him..."

"Cedric?" Ron asked blankly as Ernie hurried off.

"Cedric Diggory," Vega replied, looking over at her friends. "I suppose he must be thinking about entering the tournament as Hogwarts' Champion,"

"That idiot, Hogwarts' Champion?" Ron repeated as the four of them pushed their way through the chattering crowd toward the staircase to head up the stairs.

It was then that Vega realised that Cedric had not approached Harry, Ron or Hermione, or anyone else despite them being with her when they left for the Quidditch Final that day. But she felt like it would only turn Ron off further from him so the black-haired girl decided against sharing this fact.

"He's not an idiot," Hermione responded. "You just don't like him because he beat Gryffindor at Quidditch. I've heard he's a really good student – and he's a prefect," She spoke as though this settled the matter. She looked over at Vega. "And he is quite interested in Vega,"

"Huh?" Vega asked, her cheeks turning pink when she realised that Hermione had somehow figured this out. "What are you talking about? I don't think he likes me like that,"

"You would know it if you didn't run off every time that he enters the library," Hermione said, smirking at her. "He even asked me if you were upset with him,"

"What did you say?" Vega said, horrified as her cheeks only deepened further in colour.

"I just told him that you are very busy these days," Hermione answered, her smugness only deepening. "Don't worry, I put in some good words for you. He might ask you out now,"

"It's nothing like that," Vega replied hurriedly. "I don't like him in that manner – I didn't want to upset him into thinking that I was avoiding him. I mean, I am avoiding him. This makes no sense,"

"The thing is, you only like him because he's handsome," Ron said scathingly to Hermione.

"Excuse me, I don't like people just because they're handsome!" Hermione responded indignantly, which caused Ron to give a loud false cough, which sounded oddly like –

'Lockhart!'

"Do you like Cedric?" Harry asked as he and Vega walked behind the bickering Ron and Hermione. He was pretty sure that Vega had eyes for another person entirely, from what he had seen. But he felt like it would be quite wrong of him to even realise what his friends were up to in his worries.