The Hell of Fourth Year.
When Dobby transported himself and Charlotte into her home, Cedric was uncertain of what he would find; like everybody else, his knowledge of Charlotte's life was extremely limited, but as he took note of his surroundings he was amazed by just how homely the place was. Cedric had expected a mansion of some kind, but he saw at once the house was nothing like that.
Dobby had transported himself and Charlotte into a wide circular room with the ceiling supported by thick wooden beams, and it looked like they had arrived in the kitchen of the building. Everything was spotlessly clean and neat Cedric recognised the kitchen sink, the cupboards and cabinets lining the walls and a cooker of some description, but he didn't recognise the function of the clear muggle appliances around the room. That made sense; judging from what Charlotte had told him, she likely had little experience with magical homes to know what was inside them.
"Thank you, Dobby," Charlotte's voice broke through his survey of the room and he turned to look at her closely, only to find the witch had bent down and was speaking to the House elf.
It surprised Cedric to find any witch or wizard speaking to a House elf in this manner; his family had a small family of House-elves, and his parents had taught him to always regard them as friends although they'd made it clear many other families didn't. Finding a witch who saw them the same way was a surprise, but even he was surprised by the open friendliness and warmth Charlotte had for the House elf in front of her.
"You and Winky can have a night off. No," she held up a finger gently, "I want to enjoy an evening with Cedric. Go on, indulge me. Please."
The House elf seemed to huff. "Okays, Missy Char," he said. "Dobby will find Winky. Can we spend time in the muggle world?"
Cedric gaped at the House elf and his surprise grew even more when he caught the knowing gaze on Charlotte's face. "Sure, just try not to spook too many people. I am not upsetting the ICW by letting you loose."
Dobby nodded and clicked his fingers and was gone.
Charlotte stood up again and she smiled at Cedric. "Would you….like some tea, or coffee?" she asked hesitantly.
Cedric shook his head to get his thoughts into gear after seeing the exchange between Charlotte and her House elf. "Er, sorry? Oh, er tea would be nice. Milk and two sugars."
Charlotte nodded and walked over to the kitchen where she made preparations to make something to drink. Cedric watched her closely, reminded of how he had seen Luna's father pottering around the kitchen of the Rookery, only the memory was joined by the memories of how some of the mothers of his friends who didn't own House-elves worked to cook. He had never imagined seeing that from Charlotte Potter before.
When the kettle was on the cooker, Cedric took a moment to look around the kitchen again. "What was with the House-elves going into the muggle world?" he asked, hoping Charlotte wasn't reckless enough to have two elves who'd cause trouble.
"What?" Charlotte was startled by the question and she blushed when she turned her head around to stare at him. "Oh, I freed Dobby from the Malfoys two years back. When I did that, he became my own House elf, and he became my little guardian angel. He'd been a major help to me over the last two years."
She turned back to the kitchen counter and kept speaking while she worked.
"During the summer, with the Quidditch World Cup, I felt terribly sorry for Winky when Barty Crouch gave her clothes. I took her on. It took me a while to let her know she wasn't a bad House elf, but when she calmed down I couldn't have found anyone better. As for the muggle world," she shot Cedric a pointed look to make it clear to him she knew what he'd been worrying about, "well, I spend a lot of my time there, and with me at Hogwarts, they don't have much to do. I'm not stupid, Cedric; I lived in the muggle world initially with a family of muggles who hated anything unusual. I know many muggles would be terrified of magic. Whenever I go into the muggle world, I always make sure my magical paraphernalia is well hidden and charmed to ensure it is never seen. I've told Dobby and Winky to never reveal themselves to muggles; one of my standing orders. But I couldn't just leave them to be bored, so I've encouraged them to explore the muggle world while keeping their heads down, but to be on call in case I need them. They've been a godsend to me this year, Cedric."
Cedric took the mug of tea in his hands when Charlotte gave it to him, thinking about what he'd just heard. He was worried and uneasy about what Charlotte had hinted her life, and the implications were obviously clear. Hearing that she had told the House-elves she owned not to draw attention to themselves reassured him, otherwise, he would have informed his father about it. In any case, from what he had seen so far, while Charlotte could be dangerous, she was not the sort of person to cause problems unnecessarily for the magical world.
"Come on," Charlotte said invitingly, although he detected a hint of nervousness in her manner; he was confused about that since Charlotte didn't have any true reason to be nervous around him, and so it took Cedric a few moments to realise she was out of her comfort zone where he was concerned as if she were worried about saying something offensive to him. And then it occurred to him that perhaps she had never had a boyfriend before. A part of him said that shouldn't/couldn't be possible since this girl was Charlotte Potter, the Girl Who Lived, but he quickly shut that voice and thought up instantly as he was quickly reminded of what he had seen in the corridor shortly before Charlotte was attacked by Susan.
He had seen the true girl who was trying to live her life, and he had seen for himself just how alone the girl was.
Her entire family had been wiped out leaving her completely by herself, her godfather had betrayed her, and from what she'd let slip she had lived in the muggle world, and she hadn't enjoyed all of it although she must have found some things worthwhile if the appliances in the kitchen were anything to say so. And when she had arrived in the magical world, instead of finding a home, all she had found was more pain. Was it any wonder she was lashing out?
A part of Cedric was surprised that he was seeing life the way Charlotte probably did, but ever since the day she'd cried in his arms which had only led to even more pain thanks to someone who should have been one of her friends and considering the things she'd done since with the way she acted during the Wand Weighing ceremony, the First Task, disowning Hogwarts, breaking off her family's pact with the Alliance, and what she had done with Weasley tonight, he had worked out Charlotte Potter was only trying to survive in a world which had caused her nothing but pain and heartbreak.
"Where are we going?" Cedric asked curiously, although truthfully it wasn't a particularly intelligent question on his part since Charlotte was heading over to the stairway.
She just smiled at him, and he went upstairs with her. As he walked upstairs after the witch, Cedric noticed more and more muggle influence in the decoration in the house (he wondered what kind of house this was, it didn't feel like any kind of house he had ever been in before). "So how long have you lived here, then?"
"Oh, two years. When I got hold of the money from the basilisk, I started looking for a property. A place I could finally call home."
Cedric frowned when he caught the sound of longing in her voice. "You have never had a home before?"
"No. Not unless you count an abusive muggle house, a foster home, and dozens of abandoned buildings in muggle London. But since the magical world has a habit of denying me anything I want, it's odd having a place to myself and for Nightstar."
Cedric flinched at the anger which had grown with each syllable. But then he listened to what Charlotte had said. An abusive muggle house. A foster home. Abandoned buildings. Merlin, what the hell happened to her? "Where exactly are we?" he changed the subject.
"West Sussex. I wanted to be as far from other people as I could, but close enough just to be on the safe side."
Cedric was left wondering about that statement until Charlotte led him upstairs and when he got a good look around his eyes widened a little bit. Above the room was what looked like a giant cog. The walls were painted a deep blue although it wasn't Ravenclaw blue, it was still both warm and comfortable at the same time. Lining the wall was a white couch with a black cat currently sleeping on it facing a long black object opposite the couch. Lining the walls were a number of photographs. Many of them were not moving, which made it clear they were muggle photographs. Cedric knew there were dozens of witches and wizards who would be offended about that, especially since Charlotte Potter was revered and they expected her to be acting like a pureblood until she was completely against muggles and their culture, but since he wasn't one of them he wasn't concerned. In any case, there were quite a few magical photographs, showing a red-headed woman with emerald green eyes who looked astonishingly like Charlotte, and a man with messy black hair and hazel eyes. They were clearly her parents, and they seemed to have more reverence than anything else. Lining half of the room were a number of shelves containing row upon row of books and knick-knacks, although Cedric didn't know what they were, so he decided just to leave them alone.
The photographs were not the only things hanging on the walls, he realised. Hanging from the walls in black frames were strange posters. One of them had some sort of creature rising from the depths of the sea, a creature with long knife-like teeth with the legend saying Jaws. Another read Star Wars which showed a group of people with the centre one wearing a whitish tunic holding something in his hands while over them was a grotesque black figure in the back.
Charlotte noticed him looking around. "One of my big passions," she explained. "When I bought this place, I wanted to decorate it, although I didn't have much of a clue about how to do it. I went into a shop in muggle London, saw the movie posters, bought a few of them - posters and films, and watched them - and I thought, why not."
Charlotte walked over to the door leading to the balcony, and she opened it up, barely shivering when she stepped out into the night air. Cedric followed her out, taking a sip of his tea. It was virtually dark outside, although there was a crescent moon in the sky, shooting light through the night, giving a cool but strangely comforting dark blue gleam through the night sky. Coupled with the cool breeze, Cedric didn't really feel cold; if there was one thing about Hogwarts which was beneficial, it was the fact one got used to cold nights.
The lack of houses nearby didn't really bother Cedric; growing up in Ottery St. Catchpole where he and his family were so close to a muggle village meant he and his parents needed to be out of sight of the muggles, and it was the same for the only other magical people nearby were the Lovegoods or the Weasleys who also lived out of sight, although Cedric sometimes wondered if Molly Weasley even understood the need for the magical world to remain secret; the woman's yells and shrieks could be heard over an impressive distance, and Cedric had sometimes asked his mother if the woman had unknowingly used her magic to amplify her voice. Her mother certainly thought he had a good point, although what would happen, Cedric, neither knew nor cared. His family and the Weasleys rarely met given how his mother and theirs didn't really get along, although that was a given since very few people actually tolerated Molly Weasley given her opinionated attitude and her inability to keep her mouth to herself.
Instead, Cedric just took a deep breath and smiled at the scent of the trees and the other plants nearby. Fresh air was something he had grown up with, and on the occasions, he had been to London, he'd been amazed no-one had died of suffocation.
"So what made you move here?" he asked.
"I was tired of London. I'd gone there after my relatives died, and while I managed to survive without a family for a while, I eventually did have to go into foster care," Charlotte paused as she took a sip from her own mug, and she noted her drink was getting cool but it wasn't a problem for now while she considered what to tell Cedric.
She had told him the truth, although when Hagrid had first met her she had been lying low after she had committed a number of cons and burglaries in the local area. Charlotte had been trying to raise the cash in preparation for her future, where she planned on travelling the world. By that point, Charlotte had decided she wanted to be a master thief, although it would have been fun if she had a nice university degree to go with it, so then if people discovered her identity they would realise she wasn't your usual criminal.
"When I found out about the magical world, Dumbledore ensured I went to one of his acolytes for the next summer instead of me going back to the foster home. He kept saying I needed protection, although he didn't go into any detail about protection from what. But after a few days of living with them, I'd had enough."
"What was wrong with them?"
"Nothing. They were nice, but they gave me the impression they would rather have wanted to do other things, and looking after me was more of a favour to the old fool. Imagine my relief when I learnt of the treasure trove I had made for myself when I killed the basilisk."
"Ahhh," Cedric said, momentarily wondering which one of Dumbledore's friends she was talking about, but he decided it made little difference now, although he could see her point of view. But at the same time, he could imagine Charlotte's relief to be finally free of that. "And once you realised you had a fortune, you instantly bought this place and got yourself those custom wands?"
"Among other things, yes," Charlotte sipped her drink, her mind momentarily wondering as she thought about the other goodies she'd gotten thanks to that basilisk. One of them was under her bed, although Cedric was never going to know that. Well, unless he looked. "Dumbledore was not happy with me going off on my own, but there was little he could do; I had the goblins place wards on this place so then Dumbledore and no-one else could track me down, and all mail is sent to a goblin mailbox, which has proven beneficial I can tell you."
"What do you mean?" Cedric asked worriedly.
"Since the First Task people have sent me cursed mail. One of them was a sterility curse."
"What?" Cedric looked at her in outraged shock.
"Don't worry; I sent a much nastier curse back as a lesson they will never forget."
"You could have told the DMLE."
"Don't trust them; especially with Bones in control."
"Why don't you trust her?"
"Do you remember when we met in the corridor and I let slip I was aware of the alliance?" At his nod, Charlotte went on. "I would have been the first to honour the alliance if they tried to look after me, but they didn't. And on top of that, after what happened with my eye any chance of getting me and the alliance together has gone down in flames. I won't have it, Cedric."
Cedric sighed as he looked at it from Charlotte's point of view. "I'm sorry," he apologised. "I shouldn't have brought it up."
"No, it's okay," Charlotte sighed, trying desperately to find something they could both do before she hit upon an idea. "Do you know anything about movies?"
"Er, no. I've heard a few muggle-borns talking about them. What are they?"
Charlotte grinned.
XXX
Cedric was definitely blown away when Charlotte pulled out a movie called Independence Day. It was apparently popular in the muggle world, and after taking a good look at the movie, as the aliens came to Earth (in truth, Cedric had never given any thought to the possibility of aliens beyond Earth, but after watching the movie, Cedric could truly imagine they did exist although it scared him they might try to conquer the Earth; he had no doubts dragons and giants could and would destroy an entire city, but what the aliens did was on a scale that made even the kind of destruction that giants and dragons would need time to devastate cities, but what the aliens did left him staggered), he could see why.
"Wow," Cedric whispered as he watched as David and Steve flew the captured alien fighter into the alien mothership. "I can see what you meant when you said this movie was popular."
"Yeah," Charlotte smiled, shifting her body. As the movement had passed, both she and Cedric had moved around until they were lying on the couch on their sides. Charlotte was trying hard not to flush as she felt his hands around her waist, but she enjoyed it nonetheless.
"Are there others like this?"
"Do you mean the plots of the movies, alien invasions?" Charlotte asked.
"Yeah."
"More than a few," Charlotte replied, trying to think of a few. "I know of a novel written a century ago which described a race of aliens who came from Mars who wanted to colonise Earth after wiping us out because their own world was dying; it's been adapted a few times, but its one of many."
Cedric shifted around, letting out a sound of surprise, making her jump. "What's wrong?" she asked, turning her neck to look him straight in the eye.
Cedric was looking at her in astonishment. "A hundred years ago? A muggle author wrote a novel about aliens invading Earth a century ago?"
Charlotte was surprised slightly by his question, stared at him for a moment. She wasn't really surprised by his reaction. One of the biggest issues she had with the Statute of Secrecy although Charlotte was one hundred and fifty per cent behind the Statute after she'd seen the reactions muggles had towards magic over the years, was that while muggles didn't know about magic outside of the obvious exceptions and the occasional blip; a spell being cast, a flying car seen over London or in other places, dragons or giants being seen, etc, it also prevented muggle culture coming into the wizarding world. Charlotte understood better than Hermione Granger and many other muggle-borns like her who believed the magical world was missing out on what was going on in the wider world, but unlike Hermione, she had actually tried to find more about magical culture. The Weird Sisters were just one of many magical pop groups. There were others out there, and there were children's stories out there, novels and short stories, but they didn't have movies even though they had mirrors although Charlotte had heard of some countries make use of them to perform the magical equivalent of TV shows.
But it was becoming increasingly clear to her the magical world's imagination didn't really stretch that far. She was surprised by that. From a muggle perspective, dragons and fairies were mythical. To a witch or a wizard, they were fact and nothing to be excited about, and she was surprised witches and wizards only wrote about adventures involving ancient wizards and creatures. There were even a few magical detectives, she had seen copies of those novels in Diagon Alley, and she had read a few of them. That was fine, but a little imagination would go a long way.
"Yeah," she replied. "The author is called HG Wells. He wrote a number of novels, although War of the Worlds is one of the most well known of his work," she went on, making a mental note to introduce this guy to not only Alice in Wonderland, but The War of the Worlds, and maybe even The Jungle Book, or White Fang.
"Wow!" Cedric gaped when the movie ended. He had been shocked by the nuclear explosion and how bright it was, and the ending of the movie, but it had certainly opened his mind. "Are there other movies in your collection?"
Charlotte chuckled at his enthusiasm. Cedric reminded her a little bit of Arthur Weasley who had interrogated her more than once about the different muggle things she had brought with her to the Burrow even if she found the man's patronising comments more than she could take, and how he dropped in comments about magical things that were supposedly better without even taking into account muggles hadn't even heard of those spells or potions, but Cedric seemed more open-minded than most.
"Of course," she smiled at him in amusement, shifting around a bit but she found herself staring into Cedric's eyes. She became lost in them for a moment before she almost looked away when her logical reasoning returned. As a little girl she had longed for a family, children and a husband although she had no intention of having the same type of life of drudgery that her aunt had lived. That was the best way to describe it, really; all Petunia had done all day every day was cook and clean (whenever Charlotte wasn't press-ganged into it) and gossiped all day. When she had begun her career as a criminal, she hadn't lost her desire for children although as she had gone through life she had been put off marriage until the idea alone had withered and rotted in her mind.
Dumbledore's latest stunts with Weasley had further killed her hopes, although she would rather be a mother than a wife, especially to someone like that.
But Cedric….Charlotte wasn't clear. She honestly didn't know if she loved the handsome guy. Sadly she had never really known what love was; the Dursleys had treated her like she was dirt, and the staff working at the foster home had either been too busy taking care of the other children or they had just seen her as yet another mouth to feed. Dumbledore could say whatever he wanted, Black and Lupin could say whatever they wished as well, she simply had no idea what love was.
However, she was good at following her instincts. Slowly, hesitantly, Charlotte leaned forwards and kissed Cedric on the lips. She felt him stiffen up and she was about to pull away in disappointment her first true kiss - the times where she'd needed to use her natural beauty while dressed like a slut to get something she either needed or wanted hadn't really involved kisses like this, but full-on snogs - was a disaster, but then she felt something incredible.
Cedric was kissing her back. Charlotte kissed back harder, but gently. Time seemed to stand still for the couple, and Charlotte was disappointed that there weren't any butterflies in her stomach, like she had read about in a really tacky romance novel but she felt that this was still an incredible event, until they pulled up for air.
Charlotte panted a little bit to breathe some air into her lungs, and she looked into Cedric's face. He was just as breathless, but there was a goofy smile on his face.
"Do you wan-want to stay, take this upstairs?" she whispered, inwardly cursing herself for saying such a pathetic pick-up line. She wondered if Cedric would even want to be with her…She shifted a little against his body, and she felt something poking into her that she had felt several times in the past.
Cedric had an erection.
She looked up at him with a smirk and shifted herself so then she rubbed against his erection which made Cedric groan in pleasure a little bit before he looked down at her in surprised lust.
"Someone definitely thinks so," she teased.
Cedric growled and she found herself in his arms kissing him for all he was worth.
XXX
Charlotte smiled as she burrowed herself into Cedric's side while he held her. There was a light sheen of sweat covering their bodies. "That was lovely," she whispered.
"Mm," Cedric smiled in agreement as he looked down at her. Charlotte's short hair was streaked with sweat, all the work which had gone into it was ruined but somehow it made her look so much sexier.
Her expression was dreamy, but she was no longer wearing those glasses which produced an illusion of Charlotte having two eyes instead of the one. Charlotte had been embarrassed about that, but Cedric reassured her. He knew what she had been through. It had horrified him what Susan had done, he had seen the blood on the floor as well as the shattered glasses Charlotte had been wearing when Susan had attacked her. And when he had seen the damage for real during that confrontation with Fleur in the Wand Weighing, he had been more upset for her than repulsed by her.
It bothered him although it didn't truly surprise him that Charlotte would have such self-esteem issues but what did surprise him the most was that she seemed embarrassed for his sake than for her own. It was clear she wanted to make a good impression for him, although he was uncertain why. But he wished she didn't feel that she needed to put on a show or something like that.
