ALOHOMORA | CEDRIC DIGGORY

28〝twenty-eight〞

"OHO! JUST THE TWO PEOPLE I wanted to see!" exclaimed Professor Kettleburn, his voice echoing through the empty Entrance Hall.

He wished them a very hearty "merry Christmas" and invited them to lunch, which wasn't an altogether odd arrangement. The teachers were much laxer during the holidays, Cedric noticed, and occasionally dined amongst students. Ellis, however, seemed discomforted by the news. Although she did not reject, simply asking for permission to be excused to get cleaned up.

"Of course!" said Kettleburn happily. "If you'd like to as well, Mr. Diggory, go ahead. I'll be inside."

After a quick shower, Cedric returned to the Great Hall. Professors Kettleburn and Sprout, Hagrid, and Madam Pomfrey were gathered around one end of the Hufflepuff table, whereupon a glorious banquet awaited. The Feast, indeed, as Professor Sprout had promised, did not disappoint. Mainly so that he could get an unobscured view of the door, Cedric took the seat next to his Head of House, who immediately offered him slices of roast turkey. He accepted absently: Ellis was nowhere in sight.

Consoling himself that she, like Margaery, was a girl and that she, like Margaery, was perhaps just doing something—braiding, most likely—to her hair, and that she hadn't ditched the engagement entirely, Cedric narrowly drank the cranberry sauce, mistaking the silver bowl for his goblet, and saved himself the embarrassment by spooning some onto his plate. But his inattentiveness was not to be tested again, for Ellis appeared shortly afterward, her fringe—he knew it!—plaited along her forehead while the rest of her creamy locks cascaded down the front of the her tunic, bouncing as she approached.

She glanced at the High Table and her face became downcast. Cedric followed her gaze to Professor Snape, who was glowering. When Cedric caught his eye, the Potions master turned his venomous scowl to him, just as he so commonly did nowadays. Cedric didn't fancy the prospect that he would have to survive this look throughout his remaining Potions lessons at Hogwarts.

Kettleburn hailed Ellis to sit beside him, which placed her directly opposite Cedric. In the instant that he smiled at her, many things seemed to happen at once: Filch broke into wretched, howling sobs (no doubt over the Petrified Mrs. Norris) and was being soothed by Professor Dumbledore; somebody shouted from the Slytherin table across the hall, something about an ugly sweater; Cedric swore Ellis' cheeks became faintly pink; and her plate vanished mysteriously under a mound of food.

"Eat up, won't you, dear?" purred Madam Pomfrey. "You look peaky. I'd hate to see you back in my ward so soon."

Back in her ward? So soon? Cedric's brain whirred...

Had Ellis been in the Hospital Wing again lately? Was that why she had been missing meals since their excursion to the magizoo?

"Thank you," said Ellis quietly, her face paler than before the matron had spoken and very interested in the potato she was tucking into.

But Ellis visibly improved as Kettleburn launched into a story on one of his recent visits to a dragon sanctuary in Romania (apparently, one of his ex-pupils was currently working there and had shown him around). For some reason, Hagrid looked tearful. Ellis inserted various questions about the formidable beasts over the course of the meal, until Dumbledore stood up, announcing that he would be leading some carols.

Perhaps the Headmaster reckoned it would serve to cheer Filch up; the caretaker was mopping his nose, which was brighter than the Weasley clan. Hagrid took it as a signal to tip shots of Ogdens Old Firewhiskey into all of their eggnogs—with the exception of Ellis's and Cedric's only by the interceding hand of Madam Pomfrey—then drained the remainder of the bottle into his own (gigantic) tankard.