It wasn't always this complicated for me. I didn't always have this certain addiction, and I didn't always enjoy the drags of smoke that come pumping into my lungs late in the middle of the evening. I didn't use to enjoy the choking, itchy feeling that comes to my throat whenever I take another drag at that prissy little nuclear bomb for the body they call a cigarette. I didn't always laugh when I say 'twenty years tops' with a bunch of friends, pertaining to how much longer I was going to be with this tangible world. I didn't always not care.
Once upon a time, I was a good boy. Perfect grades, perfect face, perfect life-- but it was only a matter of time before someone that perfect would break. It was only a matter of time before I would break.
My prediction, ofcourse, was exact. All the perfection and the pressure took its toll on me, and I had managed to ruin my life with a single inhale of smoke-and-drug-polluted air. That was all it took, really. I was never really strong enough to control myself from doing anything. I wasn't hard enough to protect myself from peer pressure. I wasn't like Harry Potter-- I didn't go around saving the entire wizarding world. I wasn't a Weasley-- with a family as big as London. And surely, I wasn't a Hermione Granger-- whose brilliance goes beyond certain human limits, whose talents and bravery surpass all the expectations of those who have come to prove her wrong. I was a mouse, a sissy, a Hufflepuff-- and I knew I had to prove them all wrong.
So I took a drag. And that was that.
I take one look at that rolled up piece of paper, and wonder how it was that it managed to take control of my life in the past year. Perhaps it was beyond that fateful night, when I had first inhaled that deep smell of nicotine. It was a Friday, and many of the Hufflepuff boys had managed to sneak in a couple of packs into our dorm. It was the only muggle necessity (or so we say) that we, wizards, really felt we needed. Nothing in the wizarding world could match that deep feeling of control, and complete 'coolness' I feel when smoke.
Perhaps it was by fate that at that particular Friday midnight, when I had lost all hope in all that was good, when Harry Potter's name came up from that wreched black hole they call the triwizard cup, that my life had managed to completely turn itself around. Perhaps it was by fate that nicotine came to save me from beating myself up too hard, when nicotine came and drowned me of my senses; drowned me of my pain; drowned me of everything I was, and everything I was destined to be. Perhaps my life really was meant to be turned around. I gave a whole new meaning to the idea that 'cigarettes saved my life'.
But then again, perhaps it was also by fate that at the anniversary of the beginning of my nicotine obession, I found something else that was much more fulfilling, much more addicting, and much more intriguing than the drags of smoke I had been drowning myself in. I was taking a nice, innocent smoke in one of the most unknown corners in Hogwarts-- the one that led down from Filch's office, somewhere across the sixth floor. I stood, back against the wall, in the middle of a dark corridor, praying that nobody would come in and rain on my parade (of smoke, that is). It was at that fateful day, as I twirled a little rolled up piece of paper in my fingers and lifted it up to my lips for a good drag, when Hermione Granger came up into my life.
"Cedric?" she asks, her voice full of accusation, judgement, and complete and utter disappointment.
I am a good boy. I will not get angry. I will not panic. I said to myself, like a mantra going on and on like a broken record in my head. "Oh, hello, Granger," I manage to say, the smoke coming out of my lips I as say my greeting. There was no denying it now-- perhaps I had managed to keep it a secret for a while, but surely, there had already been rumors; and the worst thing about rumors was that you'll never know what they're saying until they come up to you and ask if it's true.
But this was Granger-- she was different. She wasn't like all those other girls who put on faces. She wasn't like all those girls who kissed the very ground I stepped on, and cleaned the floor I was going to pass through. She didn't hold on to me and giggle at a far too high pitch for my comfort-- in fact, I doubted if she ever really giggled at all. She was Hermione Granger, the girl I had spent one too many worthy nights with. She was good conversation, and she actually had a brain to speak of.
For short, she was simply Hermione Granger-- because there was definately none like her.
I do not bother to lift up the stick to my lips, and instead, I let it fall limply to the ground, crushing its ignited head with the toe of my leather shoe, imaginging what it would be like if it were someone's head down there instead of a cigarette stick. Quite morbid thoughts for a goody-two-shoes like me, no? Yes, quite morbid, indeed. One would never think someone like me could actually imagine things like that.
"That was a cigarette stick, wasn't it?" she says. Honestly, for the premier witch of our age, she was pretty slow. It was very much unlike her to ask an obvious question like that. I snicker to myself, and think that maybe Little Miss Hermione Granger was losing her intelligence more and more as she hung around those bafoons she called friends. Psssh. Golden trio my beautiful arse.Did they honestly think that they had the right to do everything they wanted to do, just for the sake of the entrie wizarding community. If anything, those three were more toublemakers than heroes.
I shrug my shoulders, crushing the cigarette harder under my shoe. I knew I was going to have to pick that up later-- I wasn't stupid enough to leave evidence like that lying around Hogwarts halls.
I hear her sigh. Her voice is quivvering from the anger that was building up inside her, I could tell, and as she managed to point her finger at me, her bosom heaving heavily uncer the layers of clothes that she wore, her lips pursed, ready to burst at any moment. I brace myself for a lifetime worth of scolding and disappointment. I ready my ego, my pride for what was about to come next. I was finally going to see that motherly side of the smart Granger girl, and I was going to have a taste of the medicine that no one had bothered to give me the past year.
"I hope you know what you're doing."
I look up, looking back into her cold eyes, full of accusation; and I could imagine mine filled with guilt. I swallow hard, and listen to the beat of my heart pounding loudly against my chest-- so hard I could almost feel it pounding against my neck. I was not prepared for that. I did not think that she would just let me go and ruin my life. It wasn't Hermione Granger-- and it wasn't the medicine that I was truly looking for.
She begins to walk away, her eyes leaving mine as soon as she turns her back on me.
"What, that's it?" I call out, holding out my hands to the air, as if asking for more-- and I really did want more. I needed proof that someone cared enough to tell me off. I needed to be shown some discipline, some disappointment, and with that (I hoped), spared a little bit of respect.
She does not move from her place, and she keeps her back toward me.
"No scolding? No resentment? Disappointment?" I stare back in disbelief at the seemingly retreating figure of her back, though it truly wasn't going anywhere. I furrow my brows, trying to understand. "I just smoked a bloody cigarette in bloody Hogwarts, aren't you going to say anything else?"
Relentlessly, she half-turns to me and shakes her head, her eyes glittering with hints of tears. She moves a bit-- but only a bit. Only as much as a quarter of an inch, to remind me that we were still in a moving world, and that we couldn't stay that way for too long.
I moved toward her, slowly but steadily, wondering how my legs had managed to move after what seemed to be such a draining episode. With every passing second, I came closer and closer to her, and in a matter of seconds, I towered over her half-turned figure, her back only inches away from my chest. I breathe in, feeling the soft cotton of her sweater scraping oh so gently against mine.
"Tell me, Granger," I say, my breath tasting horridly bitter with rotten smoke. I knew she could smell it too, but she did a pretty good job hiding her discomfort.
Her voice begins with a quiver of breath-- either from the cold of the winter, or from the heat of the moment. "Tell you what?" she whispers back, not moving from her position.
I purse my lips, truly not understanding how it was that she managed to make my body work in ways that my mind can no longer control. "How you make me wish that I wasn't so idiotic," I say. She never fails to surprise me. There she was, hanging on to the speck of hope that maybe I could still turn things around; believing with all her heart that she had hope in her enough for the both of us. I had began to wonder how it was that a girl as petite as her could have faith and belief in everything that was good. It was hard to imagine how she could contain herself like that.
She no longer speaks, and a smile begins to tug at the sides of her lips. She knew she had won this one, and she knew that it was all going to be over soon. "You're welcome, Cedric," she says, finally stepping away.
I did not follow her, and call out to her. I did not ask for anything more. Though I did not really say how grateful I was to her, I was sure she knew well that I was. I may not have used the proper words to tell her what I really felt, but it wasn't as if she used words to save me from myself either. We understood each other well. And, amidst the dust and smoke that I was sure was going to haunt me, I knew everything was going to be okay.
--
The next couple of weeks were better than before. Though I was taunted by the smell of nicotine that forever lingered in our dorm, I was hopeful enough to keep myself away from it. It was a strainous task-- keeping away from an addiction-- but I had to quit cold turkey, simply because there was no other way.
But there was this one thing that made everything much easier to bear. Somehow, I had managed to give myself a new dose of some other kind of nicotine. It was a drug far more addicting than anything, and I called it Hermione Granger.