Stars in Her Eyes {Wolfstar's Daughter}

Chapter 50: Firewhiskey

The atmosphere in the Diggory house was euphoric. Several teenagers had piled in, their conversations and cheers and drunken singing populating the dimmed living room, echoing into the only slightly quieter kitchen. The music was buzzing like the alcohol coursing through the their veins and by the looks of it, the majority of the party were drinking to forget.

For the seventh and fifth years, drinking to forget exams, for everyone else, drinking to forget school in general and for the three attending champions, drinking to forget the upcoming task.

Not that Harry and Nell were drinking. The two, like most of the few fourth years attending, had decided to politely decline seeing as they would be returning home to their parents at the end of the night, parents that were all too familiar with the affects of firewhiskey. But alcohol or not, the party was certainly working its magic in relieving their stress.

Nell thought that the the parties in the Gryffindor common room got wild, but boy did the Hufflepuffs know how to party. People were dancing, or jumping haphazardly more like, sat down on every possible surface chatting, or yelling in fact to be heard over the music. From the moment she stepped in, she knew she had told a lie, there was no way any parents were supervising this.

Feeling slightly overwhelmed at first, the quartet found themselves sticking to the edges of the room, chatting amongst themselves. But it wasn't long before the boys spotted Dean across the room, who also happened to be invited, and headed off into the sea of people. That just left Nell and Hermione, less awkwardly now, remaining by a table near the corner of the room as they engaged in a conversation with a couple of sixth year Hufflepuffs about something or other.

They had been there for around half an hour and Nell couldn't help but frown slightly at the fact she hadn't seen Cedric once. But little did she know he was just as upset, if not more, at not seeing her in the crowd yet and assuming she hadn't turned up.

So you can imagine the grin on his face when he finally spotted the caramel haired girl hidden away in the corner of his living room.

"Hey, you made it" he breathed with a toothy grin, slightly out of breath from weaving his way through the jumping crowd to reach her.

They had to shout almost to even comprehend each other over the intense volume of the packed room.

"I made it" she beamed back, taking in his slightly buzzed state yet also noting he seemed to be fairly sober compared to several of the others.

Noticing the boy that had come over, Hermione looked between him and her friend with a massive grin before returning to her conversation with the two other girls. She subtly moved the three of them a few feet away in order to give the pair what little privacy one could hope to achieve in such a crowded space.

"Do you want to...." he nodded over to a door across the room which Nell assumed led out into the garden.

"Sure" she agreed, happy to get some privacy and escape the thick humid darkness of the inside.

He quickly took her hand as to not lose her in the crowd as they pushed across the room. It took him long enough to find her in the first place, he certainly wasn't going to waste anymore time finding her again. The cold air hit them in a single gust as they stepped out into the night, along with the gentle silence that came from shutting the door behind them. Following Cedric's actions, Nell sat down beside the boy on the back doorstep, folding her summer dress beneath her as she went.

"This is mental Ced" she finally spoke, laughed in fact as she nodded her head towards the door behind them and the unruly party that lay within.

He laughed, nodding his head in agreement. "Yeah well, I figured we're all stressed out with exams and the tournament, might as well let loose when we can" he explained, turning to look out into the darkness of the garden in front of them, absentmindedly picking at a tuft of grass by his feet.