"THAT'S IT!" Nic exploded. "GET OUT!"
Charlie and Ella exchanged a glance, both soaking wet. They both lowered their wands, and Nic turned to watch the sleeping dragons. Minutes after the first task was done, the dragons were put to sleep to stop them from suffering. But the moment the dragons were put to sleep, Ella and Charlie already directed their wands at each other and started throwing spells at each other (it started with Ella getting even for the previous tickles, when between laughs Charlie casted aguamenti).
"Which one of us?" the two asked.
"BOTH!" Charlie frowned.
He looked at Ella, and she shrugged. Charlie already sent a letter to his mum, and Cedric was in the champion's tent, so both of them really had no better thing to do.
"I say we go and continue out epic war."
"You know what I say?" Charlie wondered, and Ella raised an eyebrow, before he directed a spell at her. She moved to the side hurriedly, and a rock turned spikey.
"The sea urchin curse?" she asked, "are we in an all out war?"
"Yes."
"Glacius!" Ella cried out, and Charlie's hand froze over before he could properly move away. "HA! How does that feel, Weasley?"
"Not great," he muttered, using bluebell flames to unfreeze it quickly. Nic shot at them both a jet of blue sparks, and they squealed as they both dodged. They ran closer to the enclosure, that was now free of people, and while Charlie used the dancing feet charm, Ella used the cheering charm, and left Charlie in hysterics.
"GREY! WEASLEY!" they both turned to see Snape walking over. "Stop at once!"
"Sorry sir!" She grinned widely, "I was practicing because you made me sit out the duel club two years ago."
"And you just reminded me why." He sighed. "Hand me your wand, Grey." She frowned, but looked down at her trusted piece of wood. "You will get it back for classes on Monday."
"But..." she looked at it sorrowfully. "It feels wrong?"
"Dueling with an adult on school ground doesn't?" He raised an eyebrow, and she sighed, handing him the wand. Her hand felt vacant and cold with the wand in another person's hand, and she shuddered a bit. Snape seemed to resist a shudder himself as he placed the wand in his pocket carefully. "I'll give it back when I see fit, Grey."
"Sure, sir," she mumbled, and Charlie shrugged as she turned to him when Snape was far enough away.
"He'll give it back soon, and then you'll be all happy again, kid." Ella nodded, sighing.
Out of the champions tent suddenly came out Crouch, followed by a still ointment covered Cedric (it turned into an orange-y color, and actually seemed quite "icky"), and Ella smiled widely, barely even looking at the golden egg in Cedric's arms (later, when she was in his dorm room, she definitely did not ignore it, and whispered "shiny" a few times while admiring it).
"Hello Handsome and Handsomer," she greeted, and Crouch fixed his posture even further.
"I do hope I am Handsomer," he winked.
"Why, of course, Barty dear. Look at Diggory with his orange painted face."
"A dragon burned my face," he objected.
"And whose fault is that?" Charlie and Ella asked creepily in sync, him stepping up to rest an arm on her shoulder.
"The Goblet of Fire's," Cedric replied certainly. The two exchanged a glance, before turning to Crouch, who nodded.
"He is not wrong," he admitted. "Care to join me for a walk, Grey?"
"Oh, Crouch, I am flattered. Do you, by any chance, speak Mermish?"
"Matter of fact, I do!" Crouch grinned proudly, and Ella smiled. "Got a matter to speak with the merepeople as it is, why don't we go together?"
"Oh, you had me at hello, sir."
The two walked off, leaving Charlie to sigh, while Cedric stared at their backs.
"Did she just leave me for a guy who is like, three times our age?" He wondered, and Charlie clasped a hand on his shoulder.
"Don't worry, Puff boy. She loves you too much to walk away for good," he shrugged. "But she did seem joyous when Crouch flirted back."
::
"Go on then," Cedric said after almost an hour of Ella hissing 'shiny' at the golden egg. The Hufflepuffs all congratulated him and brought a bit of snacks from the kitchen, but they didn't turn it into a full blown party (unlike Gryffindor, as Ella informed him the day after), and by the time Ella snuck there after even learning a few screeches in mermish from Crouch, Cedric was already getting ready to shower.
"Take off my clothes?" She wondered, and he threw the towel that was hanging on his waist until that moment. It covered Ella's face, and was very moist so she quickly tried to take it off, while Cedric was already pulling on his sweatpants.
"Open the egg." He told the girl who was laying comfortably on the bed, not getting tired of admiring the egg.
"Why would you throw your towel at me? Now I feel stinky."
"You are stinky, take a shower."
"No, I'd have to part with my egg," she whined, hugging it close to her body. Cedric laughed, shaking his head. Little droplets of water fell down from his hair, and Ella found herself mesmerized.
"It's mine," he reached out a hand. Ella sat and high-fived it, making him shake his head as she brought the hand back to the egg. "The egg." She shook her own head, still looking at the outstretched hand. "Ella."
"Cedric," she replied in the same warning tone.
"Fine, take the egg and go shower."
"But I'm comfortable on this nice bed," she whined, turning around so she'd lay on her stomach, the egg hugged to her side. "With my cute little shiny egg."
"Okay." Cedric sighed. "Okay, you don't have to get up." He walked over and picked her up, throwing her over his shoulder.
"Hey! I am the queen! Why are you being rough?" He rolled his eyes, without her seeing it, since he actually had her hanging the other way.
"Ella, I am very gentle with you, if it actually hurts, my name is Filch," Ella sulked for a moment; True, one would expect this to be a rough treatment, but Cedric actually managed to do even that gently. She once read that some Golden Retrievers are so gentle they can carry a raw egg in their mouth without damaging it; Cedric was like that, in a sense. Everything about him was positive and gentle, and she was sure that he would never intentionally do harm to anyone.
She loved him so much, it almost pained her heart at that moment.
And then he put he down and pointed at the shower. "Come on, Stinky."
She sighed, but entered the shower slowly with the egg still held close to her. Cedric turned around to face the mirror and brush through his hair.
"But open the egg before you step in!" Cedric said as he got struggled against a knot in his hair. She sighed again, and did as he said.
They regretted it almost immediately.
There was a horrible screech, and Cedric called at her to shut the "stupid thing", but Ella, who was still excited over her date with Crouch in the lake, started the faucet running and tried placing the egg under the stream.
The screech turned into a softer voice, but wasn't very understandable through the stream.
"What's that?" Cedric wondered, only understanding a few words. Ella shrugged, and closed the egg. Cedric looked at her, and she suddenly remembered she was actually naked. "Get dressed, babe. We're gonna take a bath together."
::
"Why is Boris the Bewildered guarding the door to the Prefects bathroom?" Ella asked, looking at his statue on the fifth floor.
"Fresh Pine," Cedric told the statue, before opening the door and letting Ella walk in quickly before he did. She was still hugging the egg close to herself, and he doubted she would part with it anytime soon. "I don't know, what's the problem with Boris?"
"No problem," she noted. "He also has a portrait that connects a secret passageway between the second and third floor's hallways. It saved me from being late quite a bit."
Cedric grinned at her, and then started messing around with the faucets, as Ella admired the bathroom.
It was softly lit by a giant candle-filled chandelier, and everything was made of white marble, including what looked like an empty, rectangular swimming pool sunk into the middle of the floor. Was this their idea of a bath?
There were maybe a hundred golden bath taps surrounding the whole pool-like tub, with a different jewel set in each tap. There were bath supplies on one side of the pool, such as soap, bath oil, bath powder, bath salts, shampoo, hair spray, and conditioner-- Ella didn't even know there was so many products one could use.
She barely rushed over to see the toilets (they were very opulent, much like the rest of the bathroom, with soft golden hue to the marble, and squeaky clean), and when she came back the bath was already full, and Cedric was using a new tap, that filled the room with a soft cinnamon scent, and then another one that added a soft vanilla scent. She could somewhere between the detect a coconut scent.
"Hey kid, I like you," she informed him, and he raised his eyes to her.
"Hey, kid. You're weird," she smiled, and stepped closer. He stood up and hugged her close to himself. "I missed you, El."
"I missed you so much, Ced. Even your hairy armpits." He laughed, picking her up (she was already screeching about wet clothes), and placing her inside of the bath-pool. "What the fuck!"
He laughed, before hurriedly taking off his clothes and stepping into the bath as well. Ella did the same, throwing the wet water away from the bath, and then turning to comfortably rest her back on the side of the bath.
"Go on under babe, open the egg. Let's figure it out."
The two held their breath and went under, opening the egg.
The soft voices of more than one creature filled the space underwater, and the two listened carefully.
"Come seek us where our voices sound,
We cannot sing above the ground,
And while you're searching ponder this;
We've taken what you'll sorely miss,
An hour long you'll have to look,
And to recover what we took,
But past an hour, the prospect's black,
Too late, it's gone, it won't come back."
The two emerged, and Ella locked the egg again, looking at Cedric. He seemed very deep in thoughts.
So she swum to the bath salts side and started messing with them, when Cedric finally spoke up again.
"So I'm looking for something I care about," he said slowly. "But where? And what am I dealing with?"
Ella looked to the portrait of the mermaid over her head, and then at him.
"Ced."
"Yeah?"
She pointed at the portrait, and he looked up. He seemed lost for a second, before it clicked.
"How do you know?"
"It sounds like a mermaid out of water and under water." Cedric swam over to her, and hugged her tight. "What?"
"You're a brilliant little snake!" He said in joy. "I love you."
"Oh, sure, you only love me when you need something." She rolled her eyes, hugging him close.
"Oh, you just wait for the Yule Ball." He smirked. "You won't be saying the same then."
::
As some of you may know from my profile, I was quite sick the past week, and as you surely don't, my dog also was sick, so I was also very certain she may be too old to pull through, even though she's only 10. Hahaha so young i swear
Anyway, we adopted her when she was barely three months old, so I was really having a breakdown over this idea, and the concept of my whatever sickness it was being Covid freaked my dad out beyond anything I even dreamt, so when we found out it wasn't it was quite a party for him.
Anyway, I'm having a bit of chest pains, headaches and my legs are barely functioning, and I've still got a major test that determines my whole future in a month. You guys in teenage years have no idea how much of a strong body yall have. It's all downhill from 17, and especially in your 20's.
Every year spent in the 20's prove this further.
Anyway, so idk when the next chapters will come, kinda swinging it as it goes lol, but I added a song to each chapter, most of them are age appropriate to the era, but I don't actually check most, because I'm just a nerd who listens to 60-70's folk and 70-80's rock too much, so I assume most of those songs were already released in the 90's. I throw here and there quite a bit of songs released in the 2000's, but they're almost always from an artist that's been around quite earlier (such as Michael Penn's Walter Reed- which is a brilliant piece of work even though his success is buried somewhere in the 80's or something), and here and there i'll throw in a turkish song which is a bit newer (who said benim kucuk sevgilim? me? no, i don't think i did lol, my favorite turkish song? nah)
The only songs that will be put in the story and definitely aren't from that years are Warren Zevon's (my one true love i love this man, may he rest in peace, so much it's not even funny, what a perfectly amazing human) songs from his last album, The Wind, which he worked on prior to his death and was released a few weeks before his death, on 2003.
This album is the best eulogy one could ask for, and I actually cry when I hear El Amor de Mi Vida, and I always remember how he wrote it to Annette, and how he still loved her so much even when they weren't together for a few good years at the point the album was released
Hold on, how did it become a TED talk about Warren Zevon?
Ugh.
Anyway, I'm 22 so midnight is a time in which my body falls apart, I am old and disgusting yes my bones crackle when I move or something old like that. I wanna eat a donut, and either way, it's almost eleven thirty, and it's too late to listen to politics now
So goodnight and enjoy Ella and this... rant about Warren Zevon, or whatever it was?
You're welcomed to listen to the songs I uploaded for the chapters, if I remember right I think I used mostly folk, and folk is really the peak of music from the 1950's to 1970 or so. By the way, I do believe that Opera is absolutely essential for the early 20 century, so I'm still just gonna go now bye guyssss