A.N.
Chapter Song: Waiting by Sungha Jung
Sungha Jung is an amazing acoustic artist, who is my age (18), from Cheongju, South Korea and yet, despite his young age, can create such beautiful music. Very commendable.
Check him out!
Again, I've really been digging instrumentals lately for the fic. Sometimes feelings cannot be encompassed in words, and I feel that this story is losing it's ability to be explained in words. So just listen to the song, and feel the story, instead. :)
Then again, I find myself thinking, it should not be considered carrying so much as a shoulder to lean on every once in a while. The need to carry someone is not a true thought, but an inner feeling of obligation. However, this is not an obligation I should be taxed with. So I'll be here, if he needs me, and I, him- but I will not tax him with the turmoils of my mind, and he maybe do the same. I sigh, his frame relaxing and no doubt an apology poised on his tongue.
"Don't," I offer, "don't worry about it."
He nods, looking at me with a shaky smile, "So, now that whole mess is, uh," he clears his throat and rubs the drying tears away with the pads of his fingertips. "Over with, what do you want to do?"
"How about that idea of going into town?" I asked, to which Cedric gave me a concerned look.
"I thought you didn't want to."
"Don't worry about it, let's go."
"Alright, well, only town close by is the one we came through from Draco's."
My stomach twinges, but I manage a smile, "That's fine with me."
He doesn't seem to believe me, but nods anyway. "We'll leave once we both shower and change. You go ahead and use the shower in the bathroom off from the kitchen, I'll go use my dad's."
I nod, "Are the towels and everything already there?"
Cedric lets go, getting up, and nods, grabbing a pair of sweatpants, boxers, and a t-shirt from the dresser drawers beside the bed. He leaves in silence, and I grab clothes from my bag, heading towards the bathroom. I take a leak, the last time feeling like it had been forever ago, and then step into the shower.
The water gets hot quite slowly, but the wait for the hot water to kick as I lean against the wall of the shower makes me think. If Draco comes back and he wants to start dating, where can we even go from there? The school is by no means homophobic, that I can tell by Blaise's forthright behavior. Would Draco want to keep it a secret? No doubt he would lose some of his status by dating a scholarship kid, but I don't believe he really cares about that.
My hand, palm upward under the water, warms and I step under the shower head. Lathering my hair, my thoughts return to my previous train of thought. If he really likes me, like he says he does, we will work through this somehow. We'll find a way.
...
Once I am dressed, my teeth brushed, I head to Cedric's room. Watching him, then following his line of sight, I realize he's throwing darts at a dartboard on the ceiling. Laying beside him, I watch in fascination as he misses every throw, the darts sticking to the outer rings of the board.
"You're awful at this," I chuckle, looking over at him.
He shrugs, uncaring, "I suck at just about everything. I'm pretty good at soccer, though. I play for the college team."
"Really," I ask, throwing a dart, it hitting me square in the mouth. "did you play at the academy?"
He nodded, "I played Winger, still do, actually."
"That's what position I play," I grin.
We really are alike, almost too perfect for each other. I want to say it's unnerving, but it doesn't exactly feel that way. It feels more like the comfort that Narcissa talked about. I think this is the real manifestation of what she had warned me about. A business arrangement, or at least that would be what it would turn into after a certain amount of time. The love faded, replaced with convenience.
If I hadn't met Draco first, that is probably what I would have wanted. Stability, no risk, but who am I to think so? Now that I've met Draco I am willing to take risks. Shouldn't that make the reward something even better once attained?
Cedric must've noticed me spacing out because he grabbed a wallet and strung a lanyard around his neck with a student ID on it.
"Ready?" he asked, to which I nodded and pulled on my jacket from my bag.
Once we reached the street, I realized there was no car since his dad borrowed it. I looked to him to ask but he was already walking to a sign that read "BUS STOP". Well, I guess that answered that question.
He lead the way and waited with me there until a bus pulled up with a Nightingale painted across the side, he getting on and I followed behind. Sitting in the back with him, I noticed almost everyone on the bus looked like college students. After pointing it out to him, he gave me an affirming nod.
"Yeah, it's the Auror Nightingale's college shuttle. Takes you to the college, to the town nearby, and to the train station. There's bus stops all over the place, since almost every person who goes to college in the area goes there. It's one of the best schools out there. The Ministry of Education designed it themselves for future teachers and lawyers. Draco will probably end up going there too, eventually. It's a jewel in the Malfoy crown, you know, their family has gone there since the school's founding. The Malfoy line consists solely of teachers and lawyers."
I wanted to tell him not to talk about Draco, that I didn't want to think about him, but who am I kidding. I couldn't stop thinking about him if I tried, even if I wanted to, I doubt I could. Reaching a hand up, I tapped Cedric's shoulder, bringing him back from his staring off into space.
"Hey, Ced, where we going first?"
"I was thinking we could go by the bookstore, grab a couple books I need for class, if that's okay with you."
I nodded, it was reasonable enough, seeing as he was entertaining me for two days. The college bookstore I'd seen when I was in town with Draco looked really nice from the window display. Looking out the window, the time seemed to crawl as the trees filtered the light of the sun, snow falling in small spurts and melting before hitting the ground.