Emerald [Cedric Diggory]

Chapter Eleven

"The Muggle village?" Maya asked him, a small smile spreading on her face. Damien nodded.

"Please take a seat." Stan said as he handed them their tickets. Maya was about to walk further into the bus, but Damien stopped her.

"We'd rather stand." he said to the conductor, even as Maya looked at him confused. Damien nodded his head towards the seats. Maya followed his gaze.

"You've got to be joking." Maya mumbled under her breath, taking in the sight before her. Instead of the usual seats, the bus seemed to have clusters of chairs around the windows- some of which had toppled over when the bus braked. The passengers grumbled under their breaths as they stood up and pulled their chairs upright again.

"Better 'old onto somethin then." the conductor advised, dropping his professional manner. "Take 'er away Ern." he called out loudly, presumably to the driver. Maya turned her attention to the front of the bus, and her brows furrowed. Ern was an old man sitting on an armchair where a driver's seat should've been. The man nodded and pulled a lever. There was another bang, and Maya was almost thrown backwards because of the sheer speed of the bus. Somehow she managed to hold onto a candle bracket embedded in the bus' wall.

Mercifully, their journey was a short one, and the two Slytherins stumbled off the bus in less than a minute.

"I had no clue that a bus ride could be that wild!" Damien exclaimed, laughing a little.

"Yeah." Maya replied with a little laugh of her own, her heart still racing. "I'm guessing that they were trying to copy Muggle transport. With chairs instead of seats!" The two Slytherins laughed.

"So what do you want to do first?" Damien asked, smiling at his best friend.

"How about some tea? Might help settle our nerves a bit." Maya suggested.

"Tea it is."

They walked into the nearest café and ordered some tea and scones. As they waited for their order, Maya bought a newspaper from a nearby newsstand.

"Look, a newspaper with pictures that don't move!" Maya exclaimed waving the newspaper in front of her best friend.

"You're unnervingly happy, you know that?" Damien said, shaking his head, but he had a smile on his face all the same.

"Excuse me for being happy at getting some distance from people who avoid me at best, or outright hate me at worst." Maya replied, her happy mood fading.

"They hate me too, you know."

"Not as much. You're a part of the Quidditch team, and far more social than I am." Maya said gloomily.

"Ah screw 'em. We didn't come all the way out here to talk about school!" Damien exclaimed, noticing the change in his best friend's mood. "What do you want to do today?"

"I saw an old cinema while coming here, maybe we could catch a film?" Maya said, already flipping to the entertainment section of the newspaper. "Here! It says that Jurassic Park is pretty good. Shall we watch that?"

"Sounds good." Damien said with a nod. "Now I suppose you must want some answers."

"Yeah. How did you think of this whole thing?" Maya asked, briefly looking up to thank the waitress who put her order in front of her.

"Lucian Bole told me about all this in exchange for picking up that parcel. The whole trip is knowledge passed down through generations of students- his words not mine." Damien said with a shrug.

"You do realize that whatever is in that parcel is probably illegal?" Maya asked him. "There's no way in hell Bole told you all that just for a simple pickup."