Chapter 11: The Ball…

Cedric had been feeling slightly dazed for the past few days, his brain wasn't functioning properly. Pain relief charms tended to do that, it was also fairly easy to be disorientated by Cho. She talked non-stop and he just couldn't hear himself think, he had been used to it before she broke up with him but, while he and Hermione had pretended to be together he had adjusted to being around people who were more … well normal.

Thinking of Hermione was something he tried to avoid doing because it made him feel very odd, it was like being homesick. He felt helpless all the time but it was 100 times worse when he thought about her. There was no sense in letting himself feel miserable all the time because there was no chance she'd think about even being friends now, after what he'd done. He always blamed himself, though it had been Cho who kissed him because he hadn't tried harder to explain and Hermione wouldn't believe him if he did.

The pain relief charms had dulled his senses and made him confused, it had been Cho that he'd wanted, hadn't it? Now he wanted Hermione back, he assumed it would pass, or rather hoped it would, because he knew full well that he no longer had any claim on her.

He had hoped he'd never come across Harry or any of the Weasley's ever again, he shuddered, now, thinking of the threats they had made. They would probably all quite like to hurt him right now and he honestly wouldn't blame them. Even Oliver had become quite icy towards him after he had found out what had happened in St Mungos. He wasn't stupid enough to believe that she actually cared for him at all, at least not in the way he thought he did for her but, still. Her face when she had seen Cho hanging round his neck seemed far too real; when he went to sleep at night it was all he could see behind his eyelids. It was torture.

Cho insisted that they both went to the ministry ball together; he had a ticket because he was a quidditch player and she had one because she had fitted the minister's wife with dress robes for the occasion. They met at the ball, she was receiving looks from several men around her, she was wearing a dress very similar to the one she had worn at the Yule ball except that this one was pink. He smiled slightly at her, though it was an incredible effort and they entered the hall, down the stairs. The hall did look very impressive, all the tables were surrounded by pale gold chair with red velvet cushions (Cho grumbled about her dress clashing with the décor), the walls were cream, decorated with gold and the floor and the stairs which sloped into the hall were dark wood, the stair carpet was also scarlet.

The effect on the whole should have looked overdone but it was just beautiful. A hall circled the ballroom with balconies on both sides so that people could look out over the dance floor or step onto exterior balconies for some fresh air.

A slow song was playing at the moment and Cho quickly found a giggling group of friends to talk to so he sat down, alone and was soon joined by Oliver and a couple of others he knew from Hogwarts.

Everyone seemed to know about their, rather messy, 'break-up'. A lot of them were on Hermione's side, they all still talked to him but most of them were marginally less friendly than they would have been in normal circumstances. At one point, Draco Malfoy walked past with Pansy Parkinson draped on his arm. Draped was really the right word for how she clung to him, as though she might dissolve or lose the ability to stand independently if she let go.

As they walked past Malfoy clapped Cedric on the shoulder

"You did the right thing, I would have done the same" he said, as if they had known each other for years "Actually, I wouldn't have gone out with Granger in the first place but the point is that you made the right decision in the end"

Pansy snorted with laughter and fluttered her eyelashes at Cedric slightly.

Cedric ignored them but his fists clenched, how did the have the audacity to insult his Hermione? They moved on but he still felt sick, of all the cowardly, sli-

'Hang on a minute' said a voice at the back of his mind; it sounded a lot like his mother's voice 'what, exactly, do you mean, your Hermione?'

'Well, I, I …just…it was well…I don't know' this voice sounded a bit like Ernie Macmillan when he had been insulted.

'Are you sure about that?' said the first voice

'It was just a slip of the tongue' said a third voice, confidently

'Oh, shut up all of you' shouted a fourth

It was at this point that Oliver Wood said something which Cedric was glad about. When 4 different voices are all talking at once in your head and none of them is your own you may feel a little confused. And a fifth voice may start to ask questions about your mental health.

Unfortunately Cedric was so busy blocking all the voices out that he didn't catch what Oliver had said and it was necessary to get Oliver to repeat what he had said.

"I said" Oliver replied exasperatedly "'look over there!'"

The Weasley clan were pouring down the steps into the ballroom, all dressed up and looking very smart. Ginny walked down the steps on Harry's arm but when she got to the bottom she looked around and, obviously not seeing whoever it was she was looking for, huffed and stomped back up the stairs. She reappeared a few seconds later dragging behind her a very self-conscious Hermione. An audible gasp spread throughout the room, almost as loud as the ones there had been for Fleur and Ginny.

She did look absolutely staggering. Wearing that beautiful little toga-style dress that she had bought in Diagon Alley that time, her hair was piled elegantly on her head and she wore sweet little gold, high-heeled sandals.

Cedric felt sharp nails dig into his arm and looked up to see Cho glowering at Hermione who was trying very hard to ignore all the stares she was getting and, so, had begun to dance with Kingsley Shacklebolt, he was talking to her quietly and she smiled at something he said. Cedric looked from Cho, who was alternating between glaring at Hermione and fluttering her eyelashes at a wizard on the next table, to Hermione, who was gliding elegantly around the dance floor and laughing at something Fred (with whom she was currently dancing) had said, and back again. He felt as though he was waking up from an incredibly deep sleep and he suddenly knew what he had to do.