A/N: This definitely exceeded my word count goal but writing it flowed really nicely and turned out so sweet. Enjoy!

Breakfast
sixteen years old

Cedric distantly heard the door to his tower creak open. He groaned as the sound disrupted him, sweet sleep slipping again out of his grasp. How many days had it been, now? Three? Four? Too many.

"Go away," he said in a low, slow moan from under his pillow. His magic, unchecked in his current state, rattled the tower causing several books to fall to the ground and the candles to flicker out leaving nothing but sparse natural light to illuminate the room. He only knew this because someone unabashedly threw his bedroom door open and the light streamed in to interrupt his dark vigil.

Cedric was too exhausted to summon up the real outrage that he felt at someone entering his chambers uninvited. He pushed up on his elbows and prepared an acerbic statement that was replaced, instead, with a fit of coughs that sent him forward, curling his spine against the world. Small hands traced calming circles against his back. He looked up, startled.

"You have...to leave…" he wheezed between fits of coughs. He wanted to shirk away from her hands, to send her out of the room so he wouldn't infect her. But he found he didn't have the strength to fight against her offered comfort.

"And you have to eat," Sofia cooed softly before taking on a more stern tone. "I have a bowl of broth here for breakfast and you're going to drink the entire thing before I leave."

"I'll get...you sick…" His breathing was starting to even out again. He managed to look Sofia in the eye, his frown the predominate feature in his sickly pale and drawn face.

"I've already had Red Rattles," she smiled patiently at him. "You can't get me sick. Now don't move for a moment while I rearrange your pillows so you can sit back and still eat."

He obliged her order. He didn't have the strength to protest her commands. Pillows successfully rearranged, she sat beside him on the bed, facing the headboard. She placed a hand on his chest and held the back of his head with her other hand, gently guiding him back into the pillows. A cool cloth appeared across his forehead and moments later he found himself slowly slurping soup from a spoon held steady by Sofia.

"It's been three days since you caught the fever," she filled the silence softly, so as to not agitate his surely aching head. "Your magic has been a bit out of control due to it. Wormwood and I only just figured out how to break into the tower so I sent for some broth immediately. It's very important that you eat it all, M-C-Cedric. You have to restore your strength."

He had only recently requested that she drop the "mister." She was his best friend. It seemed so strange to require that formality when she was so dear to him and very nearly an adult. She only agreed to the change if he would call her just Sofia, at least when they weren't in the public eye.

Like here and now.
Alone.
In his bed.

Startled by his own train of thought, Cedric tried to sit up and failed as Sofia pushed him back down.

"Stay down, please."

"You - you're in my room."

"Yes."

"You have to go."

"No. Not until you finish eating."

"It isn't, it's not - appropriate. It's not appropriate."

"Neither is you dying of starvation because I'm the only one in the castle who has had Red Rattles before." Her expression softened. "No one thinks anything untoward is going on, Cedric. The only untoward thing that could happen would be you getting worse because you sent me away and forbade me to take care of you. After everything you've done for me...Please just let me try and repay the favor."

Cedric knew, at that point, he was feverish, because Sofia was making perfect sense. He relaxed into his pillows and accepted more broth. At some point, the bowl was empty but Sofia stayed. She kept the cloth across his forehead cool and held his hand in comfort, tracing the arcane marks he was teaching her across the back of his palm with her thumb. He hadn't known care like this since he was a child under his mother's thumb. It was addicting and needed and healing in its own little way. She started to tell him a story about a scared little girl in a big new world and how she saw more good in a sorcerer than he saw in himself until the sound of Sofia's voice faded away and Cedric finally slept.