keegan delaney has always been a part of george weasley's life. they were never close, though they both were always there for the important moments. it's only after hogwarts when keegan gets a job in a cafè right across from weasley's wizard wheezes...
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CHAPTER EIGHT: EVERY HOLLOW THING (trigger warning: mentions of death, mental illness and panic attacks)
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DEATH AND SMALL SPACES; for as long as Keegan Delaney could remember, they were two of her biggest fears, taunting her from the precipice of her comfort zone. Never in her life did she think they would come together as one like this, but if life had taught Keegan anything in the past year, it was to expect the unexpected, hope for the best but be prepared for the worst. Cedric’s hair was a dark shade of bronze as he wandered down the narrow corridor, so achingly familiar yet foreign all the same. It stood in messy strands upon his head, the rich copper glinting off the dark marble walls and floor that pressed closer and closer with every passing second. Keegan didn’t know where they were, didn’t care to figure it out either; the only thing she could focus on was the hurried way in which Cedric was walking away from her, the space growing between them the longer she stayed standing where she was.
“Wait,” she called out, heart lurching into her throat. “Wait, Cedric, please!”
Either Cedric didn’t hear her or he just didn’t care. Instead, he seemed to pick up speed at the sound of her voice, forcing Keegan to rush after him pleadingly. Deep down, her subconscious had realised she was dreaming. It screamed for her to wake up, to separate herself from the pain of failing to catch him again. For this wasn’t the first time she dreamt of Cedric Diggory in this corridor and she knew it wouldn’t be the last. But no matter what, she just couldn’t let him go. It certainly didn’t make the idea of being so close yet so far from him hurt any less.
“Cedric, please,” she begged with all her might, voice echoing off the walls. The sound seemed to startle him as he slowed down, looking around with a frown drawing his brows together. For a moment, his eyes met hers, recognition staring back at her. Keegan grinned, hoping foolishly that he might stay, but it quickly faded as he turned and kept on walking with hunched shoulders. “No, no, no.”
She was running by then. Her lungs constricted painfully as she pushed herself closer and closer, fingertips only just hovering over the cotton material of his shirt, but she never got close enough. Cedric remained out of her reach as he always would, two halves of the same whole separated by something that neither of them were able to control. Keegan ran for hours and hours before the sound of Marlowe’s beak pecking impatiently against the window woke her up in a frenzy.
The sun was only just beginning to rise outside, the dawn washing away her nightmare with the rain that had fallen the previous night. Keegan’s breathing was heavy as she struggled to slow her fast heartbeat, the sound ringing in her ears to remind her that it was there thump, thump, thumping away against her ribcage. She couldn’t think. In the early days, her therapist (a lovely woman named Mei) had taught her a breathing exercise for when the weight pressing down on her chest got too much to handle. But the technique escaped her memory then as she pushed back her blankets, sweat sticking her shirt to her body like a second skin as she sat up to unblock her airways.
