honeysuckle. (cedric diggory.)

fourteen. ( the golden egg. )

They'd even rung in the new year separately. ( Not like she had been hoping for a midnight kiss or anything. ) Blake had dragged Cedric to a New Year's party, and both of them staggered back in at three in the morning, giggling and absolutely plastered with faces covered in red lipsticked kisses ( which she really tried not to be upset about, because they already had enough to deal with without her being a jealous kumquat ). Milo and Elaine had spent the night staked out in front of the fireplace in their coziest pajamas, scrapbooking, painting each other's nails, and gossiping with Helga Hufflepuff. They'd rung in 1995 with a smuggled bottle of champagne and kisses on their cheeks.

Almost two months had gone by though, and things still hadn't improved. And trying to be there for both Blake and Milo, and trying to help Cedric with the Second Task had been causing her enough stress that she'd noticed her vitiligo had been spreading again, minutely pushing a hair's breadth further down her temple and across the peak of her forehead. She'd cried to Lucien about everything ( because he was extremely comforting, he had nice shoulders. To cry on. ) and she'd only felt slightly better, and a good cry usually fixed everything!

How had things gotten so messy? That was what Elaine chose to think about rather than her impending academic doom as Mad-Eye Moody towed her back to his office, clunking along and snarling at every student in his path. She would much rather fix her friendships than attempt to make something of her poor Defense marks.

What had happened was this: Blake and Milo had been in a fight even before the ball. They'd talked extensively about the dance, and Milo had been under the impression that he and Blake were going to go together. Come to find out, Blake had led him on, so obviously, Milo had been upset when he'd found out Blake had actually invited a French girl instead. Blake had claimed he'd invited the girl because he hadn't wanted to hurt Milo — which was what they had argued about at the actual ball. Their argument at the ball had bubbled into them leaving amidst a shouting match ( which neither she nor Cedric had noticed, actually ) — and their argument ended with them snogging in one of the empty corridors. ( How juicy! ) After that, things had turned glacially cold between them and not another word had been spoken.

So, basically, Elaine felt like her life was sort of falling apart. She was hopelessly, hopelessly in love with her best friend, her two other best friends hadn't spoken in over a month and a half and the four of them hadn't all been together since Christmas, she was failing Defense and Potions lessons, the Golden Egg still screamed bloody murder, and her skin was slowly turning bone white with all the crushing emotional stress and anxiety. She'd really thought her sixth year would go better than this.

All she wanted was to crawl beneath her patchwork quilt and sleep the weekend away. She also wanted her brother to tell her everything was going to be okay, and to just fix everything — because Ben Gallagher had the power to fix anything. Even broken friendships and her dreadful grades.

But what she got was Professor Moody ushering her into his creepy office, with all his auror instruments lining the walls and jars of eyeballs that followed her every movement. He gestured to a rickety chair in front of his desk, and Elaine hesitantly sat down as Moody clunked around moving books and papers that were stacked so high as to block the paned windows. Not that you would've been able to see much, because it was snowing quite fiercely outside and the world had become a wintry, white wonderland ( that Elaine longed to make snow angels in ), but he tried to allow as much weak sunlight in as he could — which was really a somewhat sweet gesture.

"Gallagher, I need you to be completely honest with me," Moody said gruffly as he finally sat down across from her.

She was silent for a long moment as she tried to tame her tongue and keep it from stumbling. The wind howled like a pack of wolves as she swallowed and slowly said, "Of course, sir."