A/N: It has been some while since I last updated. Then again, I've been quite the busy girl... buying a house with my best friend, working, calling schools for the upcoming fall quarter, changing majors, becoming the understudy to my coven's high priestess, doing things with family and friends for the summer. Junk like that. But that's not what you're here to hear about. So I'll give each of the following my thanks and let you read: ChamberlinofMusic, Winter's Empire, pottersgirl91, Tate Dean, Dolphin4442, CT1994, justareader7883, Rin1507, Dramione-Fan 17, Katherine-Alexis-Tyler-'K.A.T.', Elliesmeow, and Mystic Rains.
Chapter 11 – Childish Behavior
He woke with a jolt. Another nightmare again. He could not escape the terrors of his sleep.
Sitting forward in the dusty, moth-eaten Victorian armchair, he placed his tumbler on the table beside the chipped crystal decanter. He gazed at the fireplace, which was once again in working order, but no fire was lit there. Instead, the gray light of morning was creeping in between a split in the thick, velvet curtains.
Squinting against the unpleasant brilliance, he rose from his chair and stretched with taut, tired muscles and aching bones. It was not as though he were truly that old. In fact, he was only twenty-nine, soon to be thirty in two months.
It surprised him to think of how quickly time had passed since he had reclaimed his uncle's home. Then again, the repairs and renovations to undo what the Muggles had done was not by any means easy. He was still thanking his lucky stars that he had been able to find most of the furniture in the basement or attic.
The time it had taken him to carefully strip and peel away newer wallpaper so that he could restore the old was lengthy and drawn out in and of itself. But there had been other fixtures, too. Removing furniture and toys and dishes left behind by the filthy non-magical beings, whose corpses now rotted in a trunk in his basement.
The house was once again as his uncle had liked, a manner which he, himself, had come to appreciate. Things were grand, even though they could use a good dusting.
Aged Victorian furnishings adorned each room, dispelling dust with the slightest of movement in them. Moth-eaten tapestries in an array of deep wine-colors or dark shades of gemstones obscured each and every window. Trinkets, foe glasses, family portraits, books on the Dark Arts, cursed heirlooms, and many other things were sat back in their places on shelves and mantles and hung properly on the walls once more.
He had spent the entire summer putting the house back to rights, restoring it to what it had been—or as close as it had been—when he had roamed the corridors as a child.
Yet something was still amiss.
He could not stand to enter any rooms where the portraits might speak to him. He had once loved to sit in his mother's room and listen to her enchanted painting hum soothing lullabies, but he felt sorrow at them now instead of comfort. He could not bare to gaze upon his uncle's likeness either. In fact, he had made certain to keep all photographs and paintings out of the room he was currently occupying.
He had a feeling that he would not be able to lay eyes upon the portraits of any of his family members until he had secured the final measures of his revenge, which entailed the torture and death of one Hermione Granger.
The beginning of the semester at Auror Academy had moved on as quickly as the days of summer. Hermione had barely noticed how the days became longer and the nights warmer as she poured over book after book and paper after paper. She studied tracking and disguise as well as counter curses and useful charms.
When she had not been sweating over a book or chewing nervously on her quill, she was either in class, skulking around the library, or begrudgingly following Harry, Ron, Neville, and a few other friends to the town near the academy campus. Ron confessed many times that he never seen Hermione take school quite so seriously, not even while she had attended Hogwarts.
At nights she was exhausted, but proud because her teachers praised her efforts and her classmates asked her for tips on studying or improvement.
It would seem that things had been going smoother than she ever could have anticipated, but that was not entirely true. In fact, as the summer days had dawned from spring's fresh beauty and then melted away under the heat of the sun, Hermione's irritation with her roommate grew.
He was continually picking little arguments or doing things to annoy her. His girlfriend stayed late, and this meant that Hermione had to endure many moments of Bethany fawning over her boyfriend. As if that was not enough, Cedric was careless with where he discarded clothing, books, quills, papers, and candy wrappers. And even worse than that was the fact that the silence and awkwardness between the two—or at least from Hermione's side of things—had not eased.
Ron had tried to reason with her in a macho way by declaring that Cedric was, of course, a male, so he could not be expected to keep to her girlish standards of living. Her friend proceeded to explain as he had stretched out and placed his feet up on her desk that men needed mess and chaos to feel at home and in control. His many idiotic musings and pieces of advice had only snagged at Hermione's carpet of irritation, though.
After throwing Ron and Harry out of the room, Hermione had set to work on gathering all of Cedric's things and dumping them on his bed.
Now, here she sat upon her own mattress, staring at the aesthetically mortifying mess of wrappers, broken quills, clothes, and other such debris. She glanced at the clock on the wall next to the door and huffed; she was one hour late for her study group with Chau and a few other classmates. With a fiery determination, Hermione rose in a fluster and began rifling through the books in her trunk. She was going to insure that Cedric's unruly way of living never interfered with her school habits again.
Cedric walked briskly down the corridor to his dorm, his best mates tagging along beside him and trying to persuade him to play Quidditch with them later that evening.
"I promised Bethany I would go into town with her to meet her cousin," Diggory explained for the dozenth time. "She is really looking forward to this double date thing, so I cannot let her down... Sorry, guys!"
"Jus' tell 'er ya can't," pleaded the tallest of the group. "Bethany's a great sheila, she'll understand."
"Not happening," Cedric said gravely while shaking his head, but a smile still stretched his lips. "I'll play tomorrow or next weekend."
"Just like Diggory to do as a lady requests," chastised another of his friends.
"You better get into her knickers soon for blowing us off like this," teased a blond-haired boy as he fell against the wall next to Cedric's dorm door.
"Don't talk about her like that," Diggory sighed as he opened his door slowly.
"Tomorrow, then, ya say?" confirmed the towering youth.
"Yeah, tomorrow," Cedric nodded, slipping inside.
He wandered across the room in the last waning rays of the setting sun. He dropped his school bag down beside his desk and turned to drop down on his bed, but was confronted with a mess instead.
Cedric flipped on the light upon his desk and gazed in confusion at the heap of miscellaneous things mounted on his mattress. He turned a full circle, staring at the floor as he did, before looking back at the mound.
"Granger," he grumbled, picking up a broken quill off the top of the junk and pitching it over his shoulder. He let out a yelp soon after, though, as it bounced back and stuck in the back of his leg.
Diggory bent and snatched up the quill in his fist, crunching and crumbling it even more as he glared at Hermione's neat and tidy half of the room. His eyes were slits of calculation as he reached blindly behind him and pulled out a sock from the mountain of things. Balling it up, he threw it roughly at his roommate's bed and watched as the wadded up sock hit an invisible wall and dropped to the floor.
Teeth clenched, Cedric grabbed a shirt and mimicked his previous action with the sock, only to get the same effect.
Anger was not an emotion that often bubbled over in Cedric, but this time Hermione Granger had pushed him to a new limit.
He stormed forward, intent upon scattering her belongings on her side of the room, but bounced back and landed painfully on the pile of junk she had so sweetly discarded on his bed.
Complaining as he stood, Cedric was about to turn and leave so that he could have a word with the headmaster, but a book dropped to the floor from amid the heap and caught his attention. Rage subsided quickly into amusement as he stooped to gather the leather-bound book. Turning it over in his hand, Cedric felt as though Merlin were smiling down upon him.
Grinning, Diggory placed the book on the edge of his desk and set about cleaning up his side of the room.
"I'm just glad that you made it at all," Chau assured Hermione as they approached her room. "And I would be happy to stay over for a bit and fill you in completely on everything that you missed while you were gone."
"I can promise you that I will not be late for another study period again," Hermione sighed. She was partly relieved that she had not missed her friends altogether, but slightly apprehensive as well because she did not know what awaited her inside her dorm. "Maybe we can go over that stuff tomorrow? Possibly while we have lunch in town? How does that sound?"
"Fantastic!" Chau beamed, his dark eyes sparkling as his smile spread wide to display his teeth. "See you tomorrow, then!" He waved animatedly before bounding off down the hallway to his own quarters.
Hermione sighed once more and turned, her hand resting on the handle of the door. She chewed at the inside of her bottom lip, contemplating just retreating to Harry and Ron's room and sleeping on the floor there instead of facing Cedric's wrath. Then again, she had been just as enraged earlier today as he probably was now, so he deserved what he was suffering, and she would not cower from seeing him get his just desserts.
Squaring her shoulders, Hermione opened the door abrasively and marched in with her chin jutting out. She continued to her bed, head erect, and eyes straight ahead. Sitting her bag neatly on top of her trunk, she grabbed her nightclothes and glanced quickly at Cedric's side of the room.
It was much cleaner than she had ever seen it. Everything was put away in its proper place and not a single item was littering the carpet. The trash was empty and his bed made, even though he was resting atop the covers with his nose in a book.
The anxiety that she had felt earlier ebbed away and was slowly replacing itself with relief, until she spotted something on his desk.
Her heart skipped a beat and then slammed against her breastbone as though trying to run right out of her body in embarrassment. Her palms were dampening and her ears were ringing. Her most secretive of items, a cherished and highly guarded volume lay carelessly, almost mockingly upon his workspace. How had her diary gotten there?
She was not thinking clearly; her only concern at the current moment was that the leather-bound tome return to her grasp, to her side of the room. She marched forward, set on having back what was rightfully hers; however, she forgot about her own fortifications. Hermione struck an unseen barrier and stumbled backwards, her toes and nose throbbing. She dropped her pajamas and rubbed the tip of her nose, panic now racking her body as Cedric closed his book and looked at her from the corner of his eye.
She watched nervously, her stomach roiling, as he stretched and stood. Amusement gleamed in his eyes as he sat aside his own book to pick up her journal. He fingered the little bow that tied the front flap shut, his motions and attitude as carefree as could be.
Hermione stepped forward, but paused as she remembered her boundary.
"Cedric," she spoke softly, cautiously so as not to upset him. "Please return that to me." However, he went about his business as though she had said nothing. "Cedric!" she demanded, her tone louder and bordering on anger with a hitch of nervousness. "Cedric, stop!"
He glanced up at her now and chuckled soundlessly as he stood. Stepping forward, it seemed that he might hand the book over, but instead, he just smirked at her in an all-too-aggravating manner.
"Ugh! Cedric Diggory, this is not funny in the least little bit!"
His eyes widened now, but the humor was still alight on his face. He raised a hand and cupped it to his ear as he furrowed his brow. His gesture served as a mocking reminder that she had also made the wall sound-proof so as to block out Bethany's insistent pestilence.
Hermione let her ire burst forth now like steam from a teakettle. She clenched her fists at her sides and stamped her foot like a child taking a tantrum.
Diggory snickered and shook his head as if to say that he were more mature than her, which only served to egg her on. He let his gaze drift from her cherry-red face to the diary in his hands. She deserved a little invasion of privacy for having invaded his space today, so he yanked on the ribbons and watched the bow untie.
Her heart stopped, and she thought about pleading for only a moment before the two ends of the ribbon jumped to life and began wrapping around Cedric's fingers like vicious snakes. They squeezed and yanked, turning his fingers purple as he tried to free himself. He thought for a moment that it might be like Devil's Snare, so he held still, but the ribbon continued to constrict. His fingers were now tingling and prickling sharply, so he laid the book on the ground and stepped upon it as he resumed his attempts at freeing his digits.
"Do not step on my diary!" Hermione shrieked as she banged her fist against the barrier.
The ribbon ripped from the flap of the journal and went limp. Victory was his, and he knew just how he wanted to bask in the enjoyment of it.
Diggory picked up the volume that held Hermione's deepest secrets and tried to open the book, but it snapped at him and growled, much like The Monster Book of Monsters. He stroked the spine; however, the book just snapped at him again.
He had to admit that he was impressed with all her little charms to keep the pages shrouded in privacy, but she was no match for him. He was the best in his class at countering jinxes and curses, so a few little charms by someone younger than he would surely be no match. Or so he thought as he pulled out his wand and aimed it at the leather cover.
Hermione hissed and smacked her palms against the divide in a warning for him to stop.
His eyes darted in her direction, but he paid her no mind even as she drew her own wand and aimed it at him in the fighting stance. A shower of sparks cascaded to the floor on her side of the barrier as he revealed the charms protecting her precious pages. She kicked the invisible wall and shook her head furiously as he began working his own clever removal magic.
Just as the book's last measure of protection was lifted, and he opened the cover, Hermione threw her arm out in a flourish. A loud pop like that of someone bursting a large balloon filled the room and her growl followed from behind her bared teeth. Her demeanor was almost feral as she stormed forward to snatch back her treasured possession, but he held it high above her head. She danced on tip-toes, reaching futilely for the book. He laughed and stretched higher still onto the balls of his feet as he opened the front cover again.
"June seventh nineteen ninety-eight," he began reading as she clawed at his shirt. "Dear Diary--"
"Cedric, stop this instant! That is private!"
"I will be leaving Hogwarts shortly. I wish this week would drag on forever. It is not that I enjoy the testing that much—although it is a pleasant challenge—I just do not know what I am to do about my future after graduation."
"Cedric!" Hermione barked in a high pitch as she grabbed a fist full of his hair and pulled. He winced and shifted, but still kept the diary out of her arm's length as he read on.
"I have not told anyone except for Ginny about my plans to attend the Auror Academy. I can only hope that Harry and Ron will be supportive of my endeavors, as well as my family and other friends. Ginny insures me that everything will turn out fine, but worry of their opinions is not the only thing that has me anxious."
Tears streaked down Hermione's face. She felt as though her clothes had been stripped from her, and she had been shoved in front of a spotlight. Her secrets, her deepest thoughts, her darkest desires, and her every concern was written on those pages, and he was reading them as though he were briskly scanning the morning Prophet.
"Stop!" she whimpered, but he read on, engrossed by seeing her painted as human with these emotions she expressed on the pages.
"I have a terrible gut feeling that I will not get accepted to the academy. My grades are something that I strive the hardest for, so I never could have fathomed that they would not be enough to help me get what I need most," he continued, his voice lowering as he went.
This was not the subject matter he had been expecting. He had wanted to hear embarrassing stories and see the names of her crushes with little hearts drawn around them, things that were normally supposed to be written in a girl's diary.
He closed the book and looked up at her. Her face was streaked with tears, and she hiccuped as she ripped the diary from his hand when he held it over to her. He knew now that he had taken things entirely too far. He should have handed the book over without ever opening it and simply scolded her then about invading his privacy and touching his things. His gut twisted as she spun on her heel and all but ran from the room.
His stomach let out an echoing growl as he slumped down the darkened corridor. The candles were burning low in their holders, but his hunger was of a bigger concern to him.
He had barely eaten in days. Working on the house had consumed him.
"Starving yourself, I see," called the voice of a painting down the hall. He hated to pass it, but he needed to if he were to enter the kitchen and scrounge up some food. "You look like one of those common Muggle beggars. The kind who litter the streets and sidewalks of London. Your grandfather and I did not raise you this way."
He glanced upon his grandmother's portrait and sighed. He was about to count himself mad because he had pondering arguing with her for a moment.
"Clean yourself up and get something to eat," she ordered. "Act as though you came from good, strong magical blood. No kin of mine should appear as you do."
He nodded and maintained his staggering gait as he entered the kitchen, the tisking of his grandmother's painting reverberating in the emptiness.
He opened the pantry and found nothing but empty canning supplies and rotting potion ingredients. He would have had food had he chose to keep what the Muggles had had, but instead, he had threw everything out. He wanted nothing of their taintedness to remain, even if it were sustenance.
He scooted his feet slowly and opened the refrigerator, but the only things that were in there was rotting fruit he had picked a week ago off the trees outside. Next to the fruit lay a putrid plate of meat from a meal he had scavenged a week ago, too. It had not been all that appetizing when he had eaten it freshly cooked, so he refused to even sniff it now. Of course, rat meat was not exactly a delicacy on any menu he had ever been introduced to.
He shut the door, but the chill remained around him as he meandered to the sink and gazed out into the darkness. There, from the black of the night, eyes flashed like a beacon to alert him of a possible meal. Small, round orbs that reflected the light from the kitchen chandelier.
He opened the window as silently as he could and trained his wand on the small animal. Within a second, a cat's yowling filled the thick night air. Its struggling body levitated into the window as it hissed and spat.
He could see the ribs and pelvic bone, so the cat was surely just as starved as he, but it would have to do for now. He grabbed a meat tenderizing mallet from the drawer next to the refrigerator and stepped slowly forward. He had learned his lesson about using the Killing Curse to take the life of whatever he was eating. It made the meat spoil faster and gave it a funny, almost burnt taste.
He levitated the cat to the kitchen island, next to the cutting board. His hand swung back and expertly clubbed the creature over the head, spattering blood over the island countertop and himself. All fussing ceased, so he removed his hold on the feline and aimed his wand at the fireplace instead.
"Incendio!"
Flames of brilliant, hot orange leaped from the charred bricks of the firebox and dispelled heat over the hearth.
With the fire crackling in the background, he set to work cleaning the fur from the lifeless body. There was not much meat upon the feline, but it would suffice until he was able to withdraw money from Gringott's and stock his home with needed supplies.