Backfire • Cedric Diggory [✓]

• NINE •

    The Great Hall sounded cheerful and busy like it always had, tables and seats of students reaching across each other, whispering, laughing, and even toying with their wands. Holland was trying her best to get any clues on what the first task could be, but it was hopeless. She'd even make a list, none really seeming worthy of being used in a dangerous tournament.

-Scavenger Hunt in the Forbidden Forest
-Hide and Seek in the Chamber of Secrets
-Race around Hogwarts on Hippogriffs

    Holland groans at the pathetic list she'd made, it looked no different from a to-do list of a teenage witch's slumber party.

    "What's that?" Draco asks, raising his eyebrows at the list his friend had just hidden. Holland decided not to be so vocal about her newly formed alliance with Cedric. Maybe not alliance, but she was not exactly to call him her friend. Draco scrunches his eyebrows, wondering why the girl was acting odd.

    "Potions, I've been revising this essay for ages." Holland says, hoping Draco wouldn't push the subject.

    "Weirdly protective of it, are you? Not like I could be of any help or anything." Draco rolls his eyes at Holland who had met eyes with Cedric who was waving at her. Holland must have reacted to the sight, Draco turning around to see what she'd been looking at.

    "Oh, Draco! You're so funny." She stammers, hands landing on his shoulders so he wouldn't be able to turn fully. "Why are you turning around? I'm right here!" She exclaims.

    "You're acting really bizarre. What's with you, Avery?" Draco sneers, losing patience at her nonsense.

    "What ever do you mean, Draco Lucius?" Holland purses her lips in exaggerated curiosity, bringing a cup of water to her mouth to calm her down. It took everything Holland had not to cough as water had somehow entered her lungs, none of her body parts cooperating with her.

    "Speaking of bizarre. How are your little snogging sessions with Diggory?" Draco teases, catching Holland off-guard. Holland had finally spit out the water, her recovery wasted as Draco had landed a bomb on her. Draco knew they'd kissed in detention, but not that they'd kissed another time after, then spent an hour or two talking in the kitchens past midnight that same day. "Calm down, you!" He began to quickly pat Holland's back as she lets out coughs. Holland had been jumpy, paranoid that word had gotten around about her kiss with Cedric the day before.

    "I think I should go." She says before standing to leave, really not able to handle the tension of having anybody catch on her and Cedric. She decided she'd go stay by the trees in the courtyard, sure nobody would be there.

    "You're absolutely mental! Let me take you to Madame Pompfrey." Draco insists, Holland quickly shaking her head and walking even faster. Draco looking more confused and frustrated than he'd ever been as he watches his friend make her way out of the hall.

    "Holland." A hand landed itself softly on her shoulder as the doors of the Great Hall open. She turned to see George, a boy she had spent almost two weeks not talking to. Was this it? Was he finally ready to patch things up with her? Holland smiles at him before frowning as she'd seen the same expression on his face. Of course he'd be upset, she'd basically brushed him off the last time he tried to speak to her.

    "You kissed?" Two words making Holland's heart drop. Fuck. Shite. Holland had forgotten that Fred had seen. Holland whipped to to face the other twin, looking for him and sighing as he was nowhere to be found. She hadn't seen him since the day he saw her kiss with Cedric, not giving her the chance to explain herself.

    "I swear I can explain, it sounds bad. It's bad, I know." Holland shakes her head, ready to tell him about the potion and the success of his and Fred's cinnamon chew, smiling as she knew he would be delighted to hear once she'd finished. But Holland wished she hadn't smiled so early, too early for George to understand that she was smiling because her plan had worked, and not because kissing Cedric gave her a satisfactory feeling.