honeysuckle. (cedric diggory.)

ten. ( a date with a dragon. )

Elaine didn't know why she was there, but as she wandered deeper into the room and wound her way further into the forest of forgotten things, a sense of calm seemed to wash over her. A cool and collected feeling of confidence, like a deep breath of crisp winter — and she found herself breathing a little easier as curiosity pulled her deeper into the mess. It was pleasant to be lost for a little while, free from her worries and fears and anxieties.

Looking back, hours — even moments — later, Elaine couldn't, for the life of her, remember why she had picked up the rock. It was nothing; it had just been part of a discarded pile beside a stack of leather bound books on magical baking ingredients she'd flipped through ( and also contemplated taking ), but she had wanted it. Partly because it was pretty and glimmered like a fallen star, and she'd thought it would be the perfect rock to add to her rock collection. Partly because it made her feel calm, because it imparted a sense of serenity and a cloak of peace that felt like Cedric, felt like home. Partly because she truly wondered if it was lucky — if it had known she needed a little luck — and when her fingers closed around the smooth stone, she saw Cedric's smile behind closed eyes. She knew that everything was going to be okay.

Elaine didn't know why her feet carried her to the seventh floor, why the door had opened, why she had been drawn in to a room of lost objects. But she knew that she needed it — that breath of peace and that lucky rock, and as she crawled back into bed a short while later and finally closed her eyes and drifted into a dreamless slumber, she wondered if it had all been a figment of her exhausted imagination.

ELAINE AWOKE to a pair of dove gray eyes, a chorus of laughter, and the absolute screeching of her alarm clock. With a groan, she whipped her pillow over her head to snuff out all the sound — because it was too early and she was tired. Honestly, she could only have just fallen asleep, there was absolutely no way it was time to get up. But when she risked a peek out from under the edge of her pillow, Cedric's chin was still planted on the edge of her mattress, his face inches from hers and his eyes wide awake. He looked like a puppy, with his messy curls kissing his temples and slipping down over his brow, and his soft lipped, dopey smile.

She exhaled heavily, her breath unsettling a handful of hairs that had become stuck to her cheek in beds of dried drool, and then abruptly turned her head towards the ceiling. "Merlin, I'm sorry, Ceddie," she yawned. "I haven't brushed my teeth yet. That was probably gross."

Cedric merely pried the pillow out of her grip with an amused grin and slammed it against the still screeching alarm clock, as it required a very forceful hand to silence. ( Thank you, Ben. ) Mercifully, it was quiet — only to open space for Blake Barrett's nearly as annoying voice.

"Your morning breath could curdle dairy," he said, arms crossed over his navy sweater. He was already dressed? Elaine groaned again. "It could make an ogre sick to his stomach."