The assembly hall in Hexley Halls was living up to both names - that is, it was a hall in which people were assembled, and it had several hexes floating about at the moment - and it was absolutely ghastly. Not just thematically, either. Too many candles flickered, ghosts swooped through the air, and near the edges of the room one could hear definite moaning. And that was only the decoration.
Mostly the decoration. Cedric cast a sidelong glance to a pair of fellow students near the wall, who had shoved their masquerade masks to one side in order to snog.
With a roll of his eyes, Cedric moved past them to the punch table. After he'd moistened his parched throat - not without trouble, given his raven mask made his already noticeable nose even longer, and thus harder to deal with wide-brimmed cups - he wondered, where had Greylock gone, anyway? The blasted boy had dragged Cedric to the party. ...It, truthfully, hadn't taken much convincing since it had been Greylock, but that made it all the worse that Cedric could no longer find the other young man.
"I should have guessed this would happen," he muttered to himself. "Greylock, as many friends as he's got… Of course he'd leave. Well, I won't let him. Not another party, school sanctioned or not. I-" Cedric stopped, and snickered to himself. "Quoth the raven, 'nevermore'."
Mostly, Cedric had been directing his rambling towards his cup of punch, so he startled when he heard a bright voice say, "'Prophet,' said I, 'thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil.'" Only luck saved her dress from the juice that sloshed out of his cup.
Cedric blinked at the girl in front of him. She was shortish, plump, with wavy brown hair and in a purple princess costume. All of the costumes tended to be fairly elaborate around here, given all of the students were by design magic-users, but the glowing magic crown with a large purple jewel in the center, at the top of her half-mask - northern hemisphere, not east or west...whatever the longitude halves were called - made it clear she was supposed to be specifically royalty, rather than just in some kind of ball gown.
"Sorry, I, ah… don't know the poem all that well." He did, though. Memorization was one of the few things he could do well, regarding the arts. What he didn't do well was discuss things, especially not poems.
The 'princess' shrugged. "That's fine. You seemed like you could use some cheering up, and when I heard the line, I just thought I'd try to continue on from there. Is the punch really as bad as all that 'nevermore'?"
Despite himself, Cedric laughed. "No, none of that. I just prefer to talk at something, if I feel I must monologue to no one. Prefer to look pathetic than unstable." The sincere smile from a moment before quickly faded into something that looked much the same, and yet did a very poor job of hiding how little the statement was 'just a joke'. "'Nevermore' was about all of...this." He gestured widely. "I do thank you for noticing, miss, but I was just thinking about leaving, actually."
The purple girl nodded. "Before you do," said with a small smile, "would you mind dancing with me?"
"Dance?" Cedric looked over the masked heads of the crowd, and saw there was a cleared area. "I suppose that makes sense," he said to himself.
As Cedric decided, he looked mostly at the girl with occasional glances to the dance floor. Her smile broadened as he took his time.
"I'm rubbish at dancing," he finally said.
She laughed lightly, and said, "That's okay!"
"I might step on your feet. In fact, I'd take that down as a very definite probability."
"I'm pretty bad myself to be honest! I only - um…" She mumbled something about not giving away identities for the masquerade.
Indicating the snogging couple by the wall with his thumb, Cedric said, "I don't believe anyone's enforcing that. Or much of anything else. How has this punch not been spiked yet?" He blinked, then squinted at his cup. "On second thought, maybe don't try the punch." He set his own glass down on the table.
Miss Princess shook her head. "It's the spirit of the thing. So, no possibly-obvious details. But for reasons, I also can't dance. Want to try anyway?"
She was grinning again, and… Cedric thought there was something familiar about the grin, actually. What an odd thing to find familiar.
At any rate, it had eaten through his defenses. "All right," he said, "That does sound amusing." Also a little nerve-wracking, in case he mucked things up too badly. With the masquerade, he probably wouldn't be found out if he stepped on the feet of one of the well-liked or rich students. Admittedly, the venn diagram of these two groups was nearly a circle, so it didn't matter which it was.
They could just pull off his mask though. Others clearly didn't show the reticence this girl did about sharing identities. By the time Cedric was having these second thoughts, though, he'd already been led to the dance floor. He looked down to see his hand held in hers, and took it back as if he'd unexpectedly seen a particularly nasty bug.
"No?" she asked, gesturing vaguely with the hand she'd been holding his with.
Shaking his head, Cedric said, "Not without warning. I'm honestly surprised that didn't bring me out of that little reverie I was having."
To the upbeat songs, they… danced, after a fashion. The most Cedric could muster was sort of wiggling his body to the beat, though he felt incredibly awkward. At least no one would recognize him at a glance.
The girl was much less reserved with her movements-her arms contorted into strange positions, she moved intentionally stiffly at times, altogether very…Common. Not that it was in good company in the room, but didn't feel like she'd grown up in Hexley Halls' primary school, or Royal Prep for that matter. Not that anyone here had come from Royal Prep, that Cedric knew of.
"It's nice to let loose, not worry about what people will think," she said to Cedric, and he startled.
"I, er… yes, definitely!" Had his face been so obvious that he was judging her, or were they simply on the same plane? Or was he reading too much into this? ...Subject change was probably a good idea. "The song just now, it's amusing, isn't it?"
The girl blinked and slowed her dancing as she listened. "Pffft," she said after a few moments, "I see what you mean. Hear? But yeah, they're supposed to hate each other, but it sounds like they're in lo~ove." She bit her lip then continued, "Which sounds rather like someone I know, really, but that definitely doesn't mean anything to you." Cedric couldn't fathom who or what she was implying.
Not long after that, Cedric was too tired both mentally and physically to be at the party any longer. "It's not just the dancing," he explained, "I'm just generally feeling rather green. The sound's part of it. And the crowd, even if I'm not actually interacting with them. Thank you for the good time, miss, but I really must go."
Despite these words, he hesitated on the actually leaving part. They looked at each other for several seconds, while Cedric tried to decide if he wanted to know this girl's name and who she really was, or not. On the one hand, while it was draining, that actually was fun. Not to mention distracting, he'd forgotten until now that when she found him he'd been moping about Greylock.
On the other hand, that still was incredibly draining. Could he even handle someone like that? Well, she had at least asked him, and waited for an affirmative answer before she dragged him anywhere.
...Of course, there's whether she would want to know who he was, too. Before and after. How would she feel that she'd spent a decent part of the evening with not a noble's spare child, but a royal sorcerer's line? True, he was destined for the castle, but one of the wings, not the throne.
Before he could decide, she asked him, "Can I hug you?"
"I believe you mean, 'may I hug you,'" he said with a lopsided grin.
The false princess's head slid into a tilt, in a way that Cedric thought implied she was rolling her eyes. "We're not in school, Ce - sss...sooo don't lecture me." Cedric, having heard and not read this, could not tell for sure that the first stuttered syllable was a soft 'c' rather than an 's'. Given this fact, it's rather reasonable that he did not cotton on to the fact that his identity had been sussed out. He did wonder at the stuttering, but that's as far as he got.
At any rate, he slowly nodded. "But be quick, I don't like it much." He lifted his arms, and the girl wrapped her arms around his chest and pressed herself into him, briefly, then stood back.
"Bye, and good night!" she said as she backed away, waving. He waved back at her, and then she was gone into the crowd.
Lucky thing that the hug had decided him against asking for her identity. He never got the chance.
The bedroom that Cedric shared would have been large enough-luxurious, even-had it been single-occupant and single-use. As things stood, however, Cedric felt somewhat cramped. His bed was pushed against one wall, his roommate's on the other side of the room, mirror to his. They each had a chest of drawers and a closet for clothes, and a desk against the outer wall, a window situated just in the middle of the two-not terribly useful as a light source, given, but it was better than fighting over who got to use the sunny desk. Not to mention, moving the furniture would probably land them in trouble, anyhow.
Cedric sat on his bed, still in the black feathered robe he wore to the masquerade but sans the mask, with a glowing ball of light floating next to him, allowing him to read in the otherwise dark room. His Familiar, Wormwood, snoozed on a perch between the desks. It wasn't supposed to be there, either-each half to each student, but there wasn't much else to do with the space (aside from slide the desks closer together, Cedric supposed), so no one paid much mind.
Quite suddenly, the door banged against the wall from the force with which it was flung open. "Hattrick!" called Greylock as he came in-incongruously slow for such an entrance, though perhaps it made sense with the boy's altogether much too extravagant peacock outfit. "What happened to you, out there?"
Greylock then paused, finally noticing how much he'd startled his roommate when he entered. The ball of light had winked out, though it left some glowy residue on the bedcovers beside Cedric, not to mention on his shoulder, face, and hair. Cedric's eyes were squinting at him above a frown, but he still clutched at his heart with one hand. A book lay at both their feet, open with cover facing up.
Cedric's eyes followed Greylock's, and noticed the book as well. "You've made me lose my spot, you lout. And it's still Cedric." He bent to pick it up, and noticed that several pages had been creased, as well. He pointedly glared at Greylock as he smoothed them out, and closed the book.
As Cedric did that, Greylock continued, "But you didn't answer my question! Where did you go? One moment, you were right there, the mysterious night to my glorious day, and then I look back-and you're gone! Like a raven into the night, I suppose."
With a grimace, Cedric replied, "As I recall, Greylock, it was you who left me. You were talking to someone, and wandered off without bothering to tell me."
This news deflated Greylock entirely, aside from the peacock tail. He pulled out Cedric's desk chair and sank into it, scrunching the feathers in the process. At least they fit his mood, now.
"Legolas' Lace. I'm sorry, Cedric. I didn't mean-"
"Stow it," Cedric interrupted. "I wasn't having much fun with you, anyhow. Parties just aren't something I much care for. Though I did have a decent time. Some girl and I danced badly. It was...surprisingly fun."
Greylock blinked, then grinned. "Good job! This is exactly the sort of thing I was hoping for! See? You can talk to more than just me and Sofia! Who was she?"
With a shrug, Cedric said, "I don't know. I left early - as you can tell, given that I'm here - and she didn't tell me when I left."
This, somehow, just made Greylock grin wider. "Oh, so we've got a mysterious admirer on our hands, have we?" He put a hand on Cedric's shoulder, and Cedric didn't shrug it off.
He did, however, roll his eyes. "I doubt that. She was just killing time with a random stranger that she...probably felt sorry for." Cedric grimaced and looked down. He didn't like having to admit that, but what else could put Greylock off the scent of intrigue?
"I see. So I get to keep you all for myself then? Oh, how horrible." Greylock grinned at this, and shook Cedric's shoulder to catch his attention again. Cedric looked up to see the grin, and raised an eyebrow but found his mouth pulling to one side in a return smile. "All right, though," Greylock continued, "I shan't drag you to to any more functions like that. But look at you, though! Such a dashing figure you cut, harbinger of darkness…and stray feathers." Greylock picked up one such feather from the bedside.
Cedric snatched the feather from Greylock and tried to dispell it away...and found he couldn't. "I think this is actually one of Wormy's," he said. "No poof." To illustrate, he snapped his fingers and the robe he wore transformed from black and covered with shiny feathers to his usual casual dressing gown-a deep plum color.
Greylock choked on a laugh. "You wore that in public?"
Crossing his arms, Cedric said, "Yes, it's comfortable. And it was charmed into a costume, so I don't see the issue."
Greylock didn't give an actual answer, just a smile and a shrug. Then, after a moment, "So, what was the mystery girl like, anyway?"
Cedric sighed and rolled his eyes. "I thought you'd come off it. Fine! Fine. She was dressed as a princess, very...purple."
Scoffing, Greylock said, "You say that like it's a bad thing."
"I wear muted tones, tasteful. She wasn't eye bleedingly bright, but… Happy. Happy colors. Makes me think of spring holidays. The big jewel she put in her crown was rather impressive, actually, it didn't look conjured at all."
Greylock nodded, but pressed, "All right, all right. But what was she like? Maybe we can figure it out, mm? Oh, don't give me that look, old boy. I don't mean to set you up on a date or anything - though that could also be quite fun."
"Nope," said Cedric with what he hoped was a tone of finality. "Don't even think about it. I do not want to date, even if-" Cedric hesitated, and glanced briefly with knitted brows at Greylock's face, then barreled quickly through his admission to the next subject, "...anyone would have me. You see, I am far too busy this year, what with my independent studies, my thesis, the upcoming NEWTs. I do not need that kind of distraction. ..Not to mention, I'm not sure I'd trust whomever you picked out for me."
"I'm not, I'm not! Though, for the record, if you and this girl were to start anything, you could hardly blame me for picking her out. She picked you out for herself. Whoever she is. We need more details before we can figure that out, though!"
Cedric huffed, but answered, "She was shorter than me. Probably barely five feet, if even that. Brown hair, shoulder length. Not straight. The hair, I mean, it wasn't straight, but it wasn't strictly curly either."
Greylock's eyebrow rose near the end of that description. "Well, that's even better luck than I'd hoped. I won't just have to 'keep an eye out,' for a slow burn to this mystery. We already know her."
Cedric startled. "We do?"
"Brain-thick. Doesn't that sound strikingly like a certain student you tutor? And by certain, don't I mean the only one?"
A blink, and then Cedric's hand rose to smack himself in the face. Of course it was Sofia. "Well. I suppose the session on Monday will be...awkward, if that's really…"
"Now you come off it. All joking aside, Either she didn't realize it was you, which is very possible, or she did and was being friendly. Friends do that sometimes. I know you don't care much for them, but there are some people who enjoy spending time together outside of class, or being forcibly assigned to live with each other."
Cedric grimaced at Greylock's attempt at reassurance. He wasn't quite sure why that all was as unsettling as the previous option. "Well. All right. Though I do want it known that usually, my roommates are less nosey." Still, he said this with a smile.
