honeysuckle. (cedric diggory.)

fourteen. ( the golden egg. )

ALASTOR MOODY was the last person in the entire world that Elaine Gallagher had ever expected to chase her down. Sure, she hadn't been doing that great in lessons ( her essays were quite poor, and her spell execution left a lot to be desired ), but to be fair, Defense Against the Dark Arts had never been her cup of tea. She'd only passed her OWL because of Professor Lupin's ( an absolute angel of a man ) extra help, and a lot of tutoring. Sure, she avoided Professor Moody as often as she could and tripped terribly over her words when he called on her and cringed every time he mentioned Ben or her dad — but Elaine hadn't thought she was so awful a student that Mad-Eye Moody would be chasing her down for an intervention on a Friday afternoon!

Truthfully, the very last thing she wanted to deal with was Professor Moody. She had quite a lot on her plate already, thank you very much! With February flying by, with the Golden Egg still completely un-cracked and the Second Task only a week away, and with Blake and Milo still not on speaking terms ( that was just... a whole thing on its own ) — there were several more important things on Elaine's mind than how completely incompetent she was at defending herself against the dark arts. ( Like she would ever face off against a dark wizard anyway! )

But she couldn't seem to evade her grizzled professor for long, especially as the corridors suddenly became packed with other students all conveniently going the opposite direction — causing her to get completely stuck. ( Because she was much too polite to shove anyone out of her way! ) It was almost like the entire school wanted her to suffer.

"Gallagher!" Moody's gruff bark echoed throughout the noisy corridors, and everyone abruptly stopped gossiping about their weekend plans in order to hear Elaine get her arse busted for being a complete moron.

With her best attempt at a pleasant smile, Elaine spun around and squeaked, "Lovely afternoon, Pro-Professor!"

His scarred hand clapped around her shoulder in an instant, squeezing slightly. "Come with me, girl."

Her throat closed up slightly. "Is this about my grades, s-sir? I-I swear I'm doing — I'm doing my best!"

At that, he merely glanced at her sidelong, with his electric blue eye rolling about in its socket, as he led her back to his office. Not to be dramatic, but she would much rather enjoy the frigid company of Blake and Milo than spend a single second alone with Mad-Eye Moody. Things had gotten so bad between her two friends after the Yule Ball that they hadn't spoken a single word to each other since, and the year had since slipped into a snow-covered, blustery February and the Sexy Sixth Years still couldn't sit together at dinner. She and Cedric had been sitting separately in lessons for the first time since their first year.