Cedric stared at the ground, feeling as if all the dust that fell from gaps of weathered stone gathered and rest upon his shoulders. He could not look.
He could not bear to look.
It was as though keeping his head down was as vital as keeping his heartbeat in tow, and it was pounding; a cacophonous and thudding pulse that flooded his ears until he felt something surely loosen inside him.
"Are you alright?" someone said. It was Cho's soft voice.
"Fine," Cedric swallowed, and he looked up, forcing his mask back on. "I'm fine."
Cho nodded. If she had noticed anything, she did not mention it and instead turned back, glancing at Harry and Hedwig still in the corner.
"You know, I thought that people weren't flocking to you the way they usually do," she murmured. The smile that had graced her face disappeared as she continued their conversation, "but it seems you've still got Harry by your side — that's lucky,"
Cedric pushed down the clamped, tightness in his throat and forced a small laugh. "I suppose you can't get rid of everyone. People can be pretty insistent on staying or going... no matter what."
"Yeah," Cho nodded again. She looked almost wistful. "Yeah, I hear that."
Despite himself, Cedric felt the center of his chest douse in heat.
"I hear that people aren't surrounding you as much either," he said, quietly.
Cho's face did not change, "Yes. I think the novelty wore off after the third trial."
Cedric felt a part of him shrink back.
"I've been meaning to, er.. Look, I'm sorry that... your friends.. they've—"
"—abandoned me for the year? ... Don't be." Cho looked at him meaningfully. "Don't say 'sorry'. It isn't like that."
"Right, so they're all avoiding you because you're—... just the same as always, then?"
Cho's brow slanted.
"It isn't because of you." she said quietly, turning her head to look off into the window again. It isn't your fault; she meant.
Don't be arrogant; she could have also meant.
Half-heartedly, Cedric nodded though he knew she wouldn't see, "If you say so," and—Like Merlin's pants, it isn't, he thought.
I'm just trying to be nice! he could have also thought.
"... Don't tell me you're still blaming yourself..." Cho said.
Cedric's mouth turned dry. She was not talking about her friends.
"Don't you?"
"Of course not." Cho's eyes flashed to his, "Never."
Cedric felt his head unravel, "Then why...?" Why did you let me go?
"You broke up with me," she said. A fleeting hint; You broke up with me. "I certainly didn't agree to ending things because I blamed you."
Word for word, Cho matched his gaze, nothing particularly spiteful or affectionate in her brown eyes; only stubbornness lay within them. Straightforward stubbornness, so blunt, he could read her thoughts almost as well as she apparently read his.
"Then what do you want to hear from me? Yes?" Cedric felt surprised as the the corners of his lips bit a little too harshly into his cheek, small embers of his temper flaring out in what would otherwise be a level voice. "What would you like me to say?"
"I don't know," Cho flung her head up, long hair falling out of her bundled scarf, her breath condensing into thin mist—"Dragon's Breath," she used to call it— "I don't... know anymore."
She stared at him, a plainer expression this time, though one that was immensely more tired.
"Maybe I thought you'd be honest with me, at last," she said, "but you really do, don't you? Blame yourself, I mean—you're still holding on it even though I never asked you to."
Cedric winced. His mask slipped, like stone shifting against stone, and many things flashed through his head though for the life of him; he could not say any of it back.
The silence was enough of an answer to make Cho look off to the side, her head held low.
"Right, well... bye Ced. I'll see you around," and without another word she turned away and crossed over to the other side of the Owlery, seemingly resuming her search for an owl while more unforgivably; her question echoed inside Cedric's head, like wind-chimes on an autumn day, a blaring accusation.
Cedric felt the tightness ebb back inside his throat.
A few feet away, Hedwig gently pecked at Harry—who had been standing for an entire minute, frozen in place. Breathing quietly and wide-eyed, behind his glasses.
