Ophelia threw her book bag next to Cedric and Luca under the tree next to the black lake, yawning and stretching dramatically before settling in between Cedric's legs. It was the end of a longer than usual day, with the whole fiasco with the Witch Weekly article about Hermione, Harry and Krum. She had just finished comforting Hermione in the common room, and thanked Merlin that her name was only mentioned briefly as Cedric's girlfriend.
She leaned back against Cedric's chest, the smell of her shampoo suddenly obvious to Cedric, who had put down his book to play with her hair. Ophelia sighed in relaxation and delight as he weaved his hand through her silk curls, massaging her scalp and pulling his hand through every few seconds to get rid of any knots she had.
"How was your day, love?" Cedric hummed.
"Potions was stressful," Ophelia responded. "But you know what I just realized?"
"Can't read your mind now, can we? " Luca responded sarcastically from next to them, looking up from his book.
"It's almost Spring Break!" she exclaimed excitedly. "Easter Holidays...whatever you lot call it."
"Merlin, I didn't even realize," Luca pondered, checking the date on his phone. "Just two weeks left."
"I was thinking about what we should do—technically, we've only got one more official spring break after this year, since we'll be out in the real world pretty soon..."
"Could go somewhere exotic again," Cedric laughed. "Not sure if anything could beat Greece though."
"Mmm," Ophelia murmured, sitting up to play with the grass on the ground. "Honestly...this year's been really fucking hectic, so I was thinking maybe you guys can come over to my vacation house in America for the last week of break...I could invite the twins too...that would be really fun..."
Seeing as Ophelia had sat up during her rambling, Cedric wrapped his arms around her waist to pull her back towards his chest. "I've never been to America, but I'll owl my parents as soon as possible."
"I'm down," Luca shrugged. "Where is it?"
"Lake Tahoe," Ophelia replied. "I'm not sure why we have a cabin all the way across the country, but it's the family cabin and I love the West Coast, so I'm definitely not complaining."
"Sounds good, now shut up and do your cute couple shit so I can finish this book for transfiguration."
⟠ ⟠ ⟠
"Fee!" It was Harry, who was bouncing over to her excitedly. It was Saturday and although it was Hogsmeade today she wasn't planning on going, and instead decided to just relax by herself—Cedric had gone with his Hufflepuff friends and Luca with the twins and Lee.
"Hey you," Ophelia greeted, stretching her arms out as she sat up on the couch. "What's up?"
"We're going to see Snuffles," he whispered excitedly, motioning to Hermione and Ron, who talking animatedly by the portrait. "Thought maybe you'd like to come, Merlin knows he would love some company."
"Snuffles?" Ophelia said, motioning to the empty map sticking out of his pocket. "As in..."
"Yes," Harry shushed her. "C'mon, the carriages are leaving soon."
With a grin, Ophelia rushed up to her room to throw on a hoodie, a jacket and a baseball hat before meeting the trio outside the portrait.
"So he's been in hiding with Buckbeak this whole time?" Ophelia asked as they made themselves comfortable in the carriage.
"Yup," Hermione responded, stuffing a flask of pumpkin juice for Sirius into Harry's bag. "Poor man, Sirius doesn't deserve any of this."
As they arrived at Hogsmeade, Harry and Hermione insisted on going to Gladrags Wizardwear to buy a thank you present for Dobby, and Ophelia and Ron had a lot of fun goofing around selecting the most lurid and absurd pair of socks they could find. They had found one patterned with flashing gold and silver stars, one that screamed loudly when they became too smelly, and one with a swirly rainbow pattern that Ophelia considered buying just so she could stare at it when she was high.
At half past one, they made their way up the High Street, and out toward the edge of the village. Even with all of the exploring she did with Cedric and Luca they had never been out in this direction before, to the wild countryside surrounding Hogsmeade. Turning a corner, they saw a familiar black dog waiting at the end of the lane, with newspapers in its mouth.
"Hello, Sirius," Harry said once they had reached him. Although it was a bit weird that she knew that the dog was actually Sirius, she still reached down to scratch behind his ears, and earned a lick on her palm in response. The black dog sniffed Harry's bag eagerly, wagged his tail once and began to trot away from them to a scrubby patch of ground below the mountain. Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ophelia followed him to the mountain, and hiked further up the mountain through boulders and rocks.
"When you said a Hogsmeade trip I didn't expect to be hiking," Ophelia huffed as they climbed up another stony switchback, stopping to tie her hair up.
"I didn't either," Ron breathed heavily next to her, slapping her back in encouragement. "We ought to be playing more Quidditch to get back in shape."
"I'm never in shape," Ophelia sighed, pushing away the burn in her thighs when Sirius barked at them.
At last, Sirius slipped out of sight, and they continued walking until they reached a narrow fissure in a large boulder. They squeezed into it and the end was a cool, dimly lit cave. In the corner was Buckbeak, who was tied around a rock.
"Bow," Harry murmured quietly to the three. Remembering the incident with Draco Malfoy, Ophelia quickly bent into a deep bow. After a moment, Buckbeak too bent his scaly front knees, which led Hermione to rush forward to pet him.
Sirius was now in his human form, wearing the same ragged gray robes she had last seen him with, his black hair still as long and untidy. "Chicken!" he exclaimed hoarsely, taking the bundle of chicken legs and bread from Harry.
"It's nice to see you again, Sirius," Ophelia grinned, waving to the thin man.
Sirius, who had took a drumstick had just noticed her, waving with a toothy grin back. "Ophelia, isn't it?"
"Yup," she beamed, digging in her pocket for the chocolate frogs she bought him from Honeydukes. "Thought you might want something sweet too."
"Chocolate frogs!" Sirius's grin widened, taking them from Ophelia. "Really appreciate it—see, I've been living off rats mostly. Can't steal too much food from Hogsmeade; I'd draw attention to myself."
"What're you doing here, Sirius?"
"Fufilling my duty as godfather," Sirius said, devouring the chicken bone like a dog. "Don't worry about it, I'm a very lovable stray... sometimes I get some good scraps if I put on my puppy dog face."
"I want to be on the spot. Your last letter...well, let's just say things are getting fishier. I've been stealing the paper every time someone throws one out, and by the looks of things, I'm not the only one who's getting worried."
Knowing that Harry and Sirius needed to talk by themselves, Ophelia stepped over to where Hermione was and just for safety precautions, bowed to Buckbeak again and began to pet his scaly neck when it was safe.
"Glad that Harry has someone to talk to, you know?"
"Yeah," Hermione sighed. "We've all been worried about him...with the tournament and all. How's Cedric been holding up?"
"Alright, for someone in this stupid tournament." she said. "I've been trying to take his mind off the third tournament, even though it's not actually that far away...I just rather not think about it and live in the moment in case anything happens, I suppose."
Squeezing Ophelia's hand supportively, Hermione shot her a reassuring smile. "Nothing is going to happen to Cedric... or Harry, and even though I'm worried out of my mind too, I'm sure Dumbledore and Crouch have gone through all the safety precautions...you know, since the past tournaments haven't exactly been the safest."
"I hope you're right," Ophelia said. Wanting to change the subject, she playfully nudged Hermione. "So what's the deal with you and Ron? Is Krum out of the picture already?"
Even in the dim cave Ophelia could see Hermione blush. "Nothing—you know Ron, he's always a git...nothing at all, and Viktor...haven't spoken to him much after the second task, really."
Before Ophelia could say something, Hermione suddenly asked, "You and Ced...how'd you know that..."
"That I love him?" Ophelia laughed. "You'll know when you know, Mione. Sometimes, it's right in front of you, but nothings wrong with being experimental, because you'll know he's the one if all the other ones don't feel right but it feels right with him." She smirked as she saw Hermione's eyes flicker to Ron.
"Thanks, Fee," Hermione said shyly.
"Anytime, Mione. Always available for boy troubles."
⟠ ⟠ ⟠
Talking to Sirius took longer than they had expected, not that any of them were complaining. Sirius, as a dog, of course, walked them back to Hogsmeade and said their goodbyes.
"I'm going to find Ced," Ophelia said to the trio, who decided to return to the castle. "See you at dinner!"
Texting Cedric, who was actually already with Luca, she made her way over to the Three Broomsticks. She shrugged her jacket off in her hand, scanning the bar for the messy brown hair she loved to run her hands through.
Pressing her index finger to her lips when Luca spotted her, Ophelia creeped up behind Cedric and covered his eyes with her hands, whispering in his ear. "Guess who," she breathed, sending tingles down Cedric's back.
Cedric laughed, gently taking her hands in his, placing it on his mug after feeling how cold they were. "Why are your hands so cold?" he asked after she had sat down next to him, their legs pressing together.
"Went hiking in the mountains," she said, taking a sip of Cedric's butterbeer. As the warm liquid hit the back of her throat and ran through her body, she let out a soft moan as she licked her lips in delight, a quiet one so only Cedric could hear amongst the booming crowd in the bar. His jaw clenched and hands instinctually gripped more tightly around her waist, pulling her closer to him.
"Hiking?" Luca asked, shaking the two out of their moment. "Why?"
"With Harry, Ron and Hermione...and a black dog."
"A black dog?" Cedric caught on. "You mean—"
"Yes." Ophelia hushed him. "Been living off rats, can you imagine?"
"Ohh!" Harry had trusted Ophelia enough to let Cedric and Luca know, and to him anyway, the more people that knew that Sirius was innocent, the better, as long as they kept the secret of him being an illegal animagus. Luca thought that was beyond cool anyway, and actually proposed becoming illegal animagus, but the tournament had made all of them too busy.
"You sure he doesn't now have rabies or something?"
"I'm not sure if rats have rabies, Luca."
"No, but they have lots of other diseases, and dogs have rabies."
"I'm sure Snuffles doesn't have rabies." Ophelia sighed, raising her eyebrows at Luca.
"Alright, alright." Luca said. "You know what I've been thinking of?"
"Can't read your mind now, can we?" Ophelia shot back, remembering what he had said to her yesterday.
Luca gave her a look as if to say, "really?", which earned a chuckle from Cedric. "Anyways, I was wondering...You know how there are diseases that are transmitted by animals?"
"Yes..." Cedric said warily.
"Did you know that the diseases are sexually transmitted? Means some random person fucked an animal, and then got the disease."
"That's fucking disgusting, why are you thinking about this?" Ophelia winced.
Luca put his hands up in defense. "You probably don't want to know half the shit going on in my head when I'm showering."
"Yeah, I probably don't," Ophelia said, taking another sip of Cedric's butterbeer. Luca shrugged, nodding in agreement.
Cedric too took another sip of the butterbeer, getting foam above his mouth this time. "You got something there," Ophelia said, reaching over as if to wipe the foam off. Instead, she pressed her lips against his softly, sucking the cream off with a pop before he could kiss her back.
"You did that on our first date here," Cedric said goofily.
"I did?" Ophelia scrunched her nose, thinking back. "Huh, you've got good memory."
"Only when it comes to yo—"
"One more cheesy line, Diggory," Luca said from across the table, not knowing whether he wanted to smile at his best friends or vomit at the same time. "Shit—the last carriage leaves in five minutes, let's go—pronto!"
Putting her baseball hat and jacket back on, the three of them left a few galleons for all the food they had got and began to run through the village back to the carriages, laughing and out of breath as they jumped in the last carriage just in time.