PRANKSTER [1] ↝ C. DIGGORY

forty

Clary woke up to the sounds of low snoring, unfamiliar to her ears, causing her to peel her eyes open to the dim room around her. Instead of the pillow she usually rested her head on when she slept in her bed, her head was laying on Cedric's shoulder, and the dim lighting was caused by the only windows in the Hufflepuff dormitory that were aboveground, near the ceiling, rather than the bright sunlight streaming into Gryffindor Tower as it did every morning. Everyone else in the room was sleeping, and the low snoring sounds were coming from Newt in the next bed over, drooling softly on his pillow.

She had fallen asleep. When had she fallen asleep?

She remembered going back to the Hufflepuff Common Room with Cedric at the end of the dance, and Cedric offering her a change of clothes so she didn't have to stay in that Merlin-awful dress all night. She'd opted for one of his golden yellow Quidditch jumpers and a pair of sweatpants, both of which hung loosely on her slightly-smaller frame than his. She remembered the two of them talking, though they must have accidentally fallen asleep before any of his roommates would return, and hadn't woken up when they did.

Carefully slipping out of the small bed so as not to wake Cedric, or any of the other boys sleeping in the room, for that matter, Clary slipped on her shoes and picked up her dress from where it was folded neatly on top of Cedric's dresser, quietly exiting the room, and thanking Merlin once again that she hadn't chosen to wear her noisy high heels the night before. It was still early, and the Hufflepuff Common Room was empty save for a couple second years doing homework by the fireplace, neither of which paid her any attention as she crept out of the room unnoticed.

It was a long trek from the basement up to Gryffindor Tower, one she'd made before only on the rare occasions when she, Vasantha, Cedric, and Newt had opted to hang out there, or in the kitchens rather than the library or up in the tower, and she pushed herself to keep hurrying up flight after flight of stairs and past the students heading downstairs for breakfast. She gave the Fat Lady the password, out of breath from the long upward journey, sneakily entering the common room only to stop in her tracks as she locked eyes with Vasantha, who was sitting on one of the couches doing homework.

"Well, well, well," Vas said nonchalantly, folding up the piece of parchment she'd been writing on and shutting her Astronomy book, placing her things bag into her messenger bag. "I got worried when you didn't come back last night."

"Yeah, sorry, we fell asleep," Clary apologized, causing her friend to chuckle in response.

"Come on," she said rising from the couch and slinging her bag over her shoulder, "I'm going to drop my stuff off upstairs and then let's go get something to eat. I'm starving."

"Yeah, I want to drop this dress off," Clary agreed, following Vasantha up the curving staircase to their dormitory, where Angelina and Alicia were still sleeping soundly after dancing all night at the Yule Ball.

Clary laid her black dress out on her still-made bed, untouched from the night before, and quickly changed out of Cedric's sweatpants, replacing them with a pair of jeans, though she chose to leave on the golden yellow jumper, which she found to be quite comfortable, despite being from the wrong house.

"Alright, let's go," Clary said as soon as she was ready, quickly threading the strands of her hair together back into her braid, as the bright red locks were starting to lose the curl from the night before and were in the beginning stages of becoming a frizzy mess, and she followed Vasantha back out of the dormitory and the common room, into the corridors.

The two girls wandered into the Great Hall, which was slowly starting to come alive as more and more students got out of bed and arrived for breakfast. The winter wonderland ambiance was already gone from the evening before as well as the snow falling from the ceiling, and was replaced with the usual gray stone interior, the floating candles having made a reappearance. The only thing left over was a lingering scent of pine in the room, though it had already grown quite faint. Clary took a seat across from Vasantha at the Gryffindor table, pouring herself a glass of orange juice and grabbing two pancakes from the platter in front of her.

"So how'd the rest of the night go?" Clary asked Vas, drenching the pancakes in syrup as she spoke. "I couldn't find you when we went to leave last night."

Vasantha was silent for a moment, spreading grape jelly onto her toast and avoiding Clary's eyes for a moment. "Yeah, about that..." she trailed off nervously.

"Vas, what's going on?" Clary asked, her smile fading with concern.

"Well, it was a nice night outside." Vas explained, "so George asked if I wanted to go for a walk. It got a little chilly, so he gave me his jacket to wear. Shocking, I know." she smiled softly, staring down at her plate. "And then he kissed me." she mumbled, causing Clary's jaw to drop.

"He what?" Clary gasped. "So are you two dating, was it just a quick snog, what's going on?"

"I'm not sure," she admitted, finally looking up from her plate, "We went back inside, danced a little more, then when the ball ended we walked back up to Gryffindor Tower with Fred, Angelina, and Katie. We figured you'd just left early, and I was going to tell you about it when I got back, but you were nowhere to be found." she gave Clary an accusing grin, her eyes falling on the jumper. "Care to explain?"

Clary shrugged. "Nothing much." she said. "We went back, just hung out for a while, and I guess we fell asleep. The next thing I knew, I was waking up to the sound of Newt's loud snoring."

Vasantha chuckled. "Well, I'm sure it could've been worse. So," she said, switching the subject. "How's everything going with Cedric and the tournament? Does he know what he's doing yet for the Second Task?"

Clary shook her head, popping a bite of pancake into her mouth. "He's not sure yet." she explained. "There's a couple options we're testing out these next couple weeks, to see if they work. But we've got time. It's going to be okay."

"Well, speak of the devil," Vasantha said, and Clary looked behind her to see Newt and Cedric approach their table, the former taking a seat next to his sister while the latter sat next to his girlfriend.

"Morning, roomie," Newt greeted the redhead with a cheeky grin, and Clary rolled her eyes, lobbing a small piece of her pancake at him.

"Morning," she said in response, smiling as the piece lodged itself into his hair, much to Newt's dismay. "So what about you? How'd it go with Katie last night?"

"It went well," Newt confirmed, shaking out his hair and causing the small pancake piece to fall onto the floor. "The ball was a lot of fun. That is, until I woke up this morning and went to shower only to find out someone had replaced my stuff with Frog Spawn Soap. And I'd tell a prefect about what happened, but..." he shot Cedric an accusatory glare, pouting. "...the prefect was the one who pranked me."

Clary and Vasantha burst out laughing while Cedric grinned, shrugging softly. "I needed to practice somehow. You were my first victim. You should be honored."

"The first of many, if Clary's got anything to say about it." Vasantha said, unable to keep the smile from her face as she finished her piece of toast, and Cedric poured himself a bowl of cornflakes. "Cedric Diggory becoming a prankster. Who knew?"

Newt shuddered. "So many frogs."

"It could've been worse." Cedric pointed out. "I could've distracted you while someone poured Belch Powder in your pumpkin juice, right Newt?"

Newt stayed silent for a moment, eyes staring down at the floor. "Hey, that was one time. I served my detention for that. And now, I have zero regrets, so thank you."