Happily ever after? /// Cedric Diggory

6

After dinner, Cedric, Dallas, and Cameron all made their way towards the Hufflepuff Common room. There were many students sitting and chatting in the large room. Sitting at one of the tables were Evan, Rebecca, and Katherine, along with Andrew Summers, and one of the Chasers for the Hufflepuff Quidditch team, Clark Laurent . Approaching them, Cedric noticed they seemed to be playing some sort of board game, although he had never seen it before. Evan heard their approaching footsteps and smiled at Cedric, causing his heart to momentarily stop.

"Is there room for any more players? You've got three guys here trying to join the fun," Cameron said, excited at the prospect of playing against Katherine.

"Well, we actually started already but if you'd like to pick a partner to root for that would still be fun! We can discuss techniques and such," Evan answered sweetly, while turning back to look at everyone already sitting at the table. Katherine didn't seem too pleased, but everyone else looked to be fine with it so the three joined the table. Cedric pulled a chair up next to Evan and Dallas doubled up with Becca. Cameron approached Katherine's side with a chair but was met with a cold "no." Unbothered, he instead joined Andrew.

Although he knew nothing about the game, Cedric loved watching everyone interact. While Katherine was borderline rude, and the Cameron-Andrew combo resulted in the most immature and corny jokes, it was fun to see different sides to people he had never really gotten to know, even his own best friends. No matter that his favorite part was watching Evan and seeing her interact among her friends. Her dorky laugh was absolutely contagious; not only to him, but everyone at the table playing, even Katherine.

Despite the fact that he didn't fully understand, it seemed that the point of the game was to have all the color signifying your team on the board by battling players pieces by rolling a dice for territories of land. It didn't make much sense to him, but nonetheless he was having fun while Evan and him (mostly Evan of course) slowly murdered off all the other players.

It started with everyone ganging up on Cameron and Andrew after they kept trying to cheat from the get-go. They were wiped off the board within the first 10 minutes of play, as if everyone had mentally agreed to attack them first. Cedric watched as Evan built up their army quietly while everyone around battled each other. He could tell she was scheming something clever when she looked at him halfway through the game with a glimmer of mischief in her eyes and winked. Clarke continually fought Becca and Dallas, and managed to knock them out of the game, but in the end resulted in his own defeat at the hands of Katherine, who had also been relatively quiet during the beginning. Even though Katherine only lost a few pieces when defeating Clarke, Evan seemed to have immensely good luck and crushed Katherine soundly, barely losing any pieces herself.

It was funny to Cedric, because he always had the need to protect those he cared about from harm and danger, and yet here sits this tiny girl who seemed pure and innocent and yet she had slaughtered everyone in the game without a second thought. Granted, board games were a tad different than real life, but he knew she was much more courageous than one would think initially.

After the game wrapped up, everyone dispersed around the common room. Katherine left after mentioning something about an upcoming test. Evan and Becca went to lounge on the couches by the fire, with Cedric and Dallas joining them, leaving the other boys to entertain themselves. It looked to Cedric as if most of the other students had retired to their rooms, which made sense considering it was close to 12 o'clock. Cedric took a spot sitting next to Evan on the couch, content to listen quietly to her and Becca chat.

"Can you even wait for the other schools to arrive in a few days? I can not wait to find out who will be our champion! Who is it going to be for Hogwarts? Do you guys have any guesses?" Becca started, addressing everyone sitting down near them.