✓ epiphany ━━ cedric diggory

﹙ 𝐱𝐯𝐢𝐢𝐢﹚ broom envy

🖇·˚ ༘ ┊͙[ chapter eighteen ] ! ˊˎ

╰─▸ trains, school, and a new me

     WITHOUT HARDLY ENOUGH WARNING, it was the new year. Nineteen-ninety-four came with a flourish of snow that came and went, several flutes of champagne and a bursting of fireworks. I must have blinked and the winter break was over because before I knew it, Will and I were dropped off at Kings Cross and we were only one ride away from being back at Hogwarts.

     I'm yet to decide whether the time flew by so fast because that's what happens when you're having fun, but since everything else seems to be happening faster than I can keep up, I'm blaming it on time is relative.

     The week between Christmas day and New Year's Eve was just as weird as it is every year. Seven days of confusion and not really living, where someone asks what day is it? every few hours because no one can keep up.

     Nothing particularly exciting happened unless you count the few letters Cedric and I exchanged until we decided telling each other everything we wanted to would be better in person.

     Which has led to this point in time, feeling lost for the first time since my first year at Hogwarts, where Platform nine-and-three-quarters is just as daunting to me now as it was to my eleven-year-old self.

     After around ten minutes of looking for what now seemed to be my only friend ─ one out of the only two people I can deal with for a train journey as long as this one ─ I decided to board the train anyway, hoping that Ava was just later than usual and would find me at some point in the next eleven hours.

     I slumped into the window seat of an empty compartment and let my eyes fade out, the busy platform behind the glass blurring before me. I bored myself by watching the light speckles of rain trickle down the window pane, the droplets racing against each other until it briefly stopped raining and they become stagnant against the surface.

     Before I know it, the train jolted and squeaked against the tracks. Soon enough, the platform was behind us, the raindrops were sliding to the side, the train was now in motion.

     A whizz of green was all I could focus on and I don't know how long I was gazing out into the vast English landscape when a knock on the compartment door pulled me out of my reverie.

     "Someone's lonely."

     Cedric was leaning against the door frame when I looked up and found two grey eyes boring into mine. A smirk slowly slid onto his face when he knew he had got my attention.

     "Tragic, isn't it?" I said, trying my best to repress my growing smile. He didn't deserve to know that his unexpected arrival had piqued my interest.

     "Mind if I sit?" He asked, his head gently nodding to the empty bench opposite me. His hair drooped to the side, covering the tops of his eyes.

     "That depends," I replied, sitting up straighter.

     "On?" His curiousity had set in a glint in his eyes.

     "Whether you'll be missed too much by your friends."

     "They won't mind," Cedric assured me. "Speaking of friends, lost yours?"

     "Apparently so," I joked. He chuckled lightly, his head bowing as if to conceal how amused he truly was. "Spencer stayed at school and I dread to think what Ava has got up to that it has caused her to forget to meet me on the platform."