DUSK; Cedric Diggory

Chapter 34

The second Cedric, Luca—followed by the two dogs, got to Ophelia, they engulfed her in a warm embrace, taking her by surprise. But honestly, what did she expect from a soft Hufflepuff boy and a...Luca?

"What were you thinking?" Cedric muffled against her hair. "And Luca, mate, she's my girlfriend, and I would like to be able to kiss her without you there hugging her, thank you very much."

Luca let go of Ophelia, his hands raising in surrender. "Chill, loverboy. Can't a guy hug his friend around here?" 

"Cedric," Ophelia whispered in between kisses, putting a finger to his mouth. "I'm ok."

"I know—but, seriously, you have no idea how worried I was last night—I..."

"Merlin!" Luca gasped. Merlin wagged his tail, licking him on the cheek at the sound of his name. "Damn Fee, there's some nasty scratches on your legs."

Ophelia had changed into her cotton shorts, the only thing she had not packed yet. The whomping willow had ripped through the mesh in her thin leggings, leaving a few large strikes across her bare skin.

"Oh yeah," Ophelia glanced down nonchalantly. Seeing the worried look on Cedric's face as he scanned her body for more injuries, she added. "They don't hurt, you can stop worrying."

"How can I stop worrying?" Cedric sighed, pulling her to sit on his lap on the grass. "Please don't disappear on me like that ever again..."

Ophelia wrapped her arms around him, pressing a kiss on the corner of his lips reassuringly. 

"So what happened?" Luca sighed. "You can kiss and have sex or whatever you do later."

"Aww, you made him blush!" Ophelia cooed, chuckling at Cedric's signature red face. "Well, I can't really say—a lot of it is Harry's business."

"That's ok, we won't force you to tell us anything."

"Well, I can leave out all the details and stuff about Harry, I suppose." Ophelia sighed. "Basically, Harry texted me to hang out at Hagrid's—I thought it would be fun, but it ended up being depressing as shit because the hippogriff was getting executed. And then Ron's rat started going crazy so we ended up at the Whomping Willow, and it's branches just swung back and forth—hence these marks." Ophelia decided to leave out the details, especially about the invisibility cloak and the knot in the trunk. "Some shit happened, saw Sirius Black—"

"SIRIUS BLACK?" Cedric gasped like he was getting all the gossip—which he was, technically. 

"Yes, Sirius Black. Keep up, will you?" Ophelia teased and continued. "We got all freaked out, obviously, since we thought he was a mass murderer and all—"

"What do you mean, you thought he was?" it was Luca's time to interrupt her.

"He's innocent, and let's just say that I want to kill all rats now." Ophelia rolled her eyes at the dramatic gasps and confused looks from the two boys. "I can't explain a lot, but just trust me, he is. Then some more shit went down and the dementors placed around the castle found us in the forbidden forest..."

"DEMENTORS?!" 

"Yeah," Ophelia shrugged like it was nothing, but her stomach skipped a beat—not in a good way—when the no faced creatures flashed in her mind. "Everyone fainted—I got a little peck—chill out Ced, I don't fancy another one of those from a dementor—more insane confidential stuff—and here we are!"

"Damn," Luca breathed, and even though Ophelia had left out the most important—and exciting, she had to admit, parts, he was still trying to wrap his mind around all that. "Potter and his friends really do know how to get themselves in major trouble at the end of the year."