Chapter 5
"Ok, ok, if I were a woman, and I really liked a man, what would I leave behind so that he knew to come after me?" Davies asks himself, pacing back and forth across Cedric's darkened room.
Lipstick? No, too small-minded. Hopefully Diggory has enough common sense to only sleep with women who have the decency to at least take their cosmetics with them when they leave unannounced at the crack of dawn.
Maybe a pair of glasses? That would be something meaningful and expensive enough worth putting in the effort to return to sender. But then again, if she left her glasses, then that's a dead give away that she's got no street smarts.
Underwear? Ick, disgusting.
A tampon? No, that's too on the nose.
A business card? Kinky. Kinkier than Diggory's taste suggests.
And then, just as Davies is running out of options… he sees it. A little white pearl string not the width of his finger rolled halfway under the bed.
Oh, that's excellent technique, he thinks. That way you know that Diggory cares enough to do some digging to find what you left him, and it's something that'll make a pretty reunion gift when he tracks you down. Very smart, this one.
Holding the ring of jewels in his hand, Davies starts to rack his memory. Who was wearing pearls last night?
If he's honest, he doesn't remember all too much about the party. He'd gone off fairly early with a delightful little group of Beauxbatons graduates—he always did have a thing for the French after his brief fling with Fleur Delacour—so he didn't get a good look at the other guests.
He tries to go through the faces he recognized. Amelia Bones, Hannah Abbott, Pavarti Patil, Lavender Brown…
A lot of girls from Harry's year had been there, but Diggory probably wouldn't have known any of them.
Alicia Spinnet? Katie Bell? If it wasn't a girl in Diggory's class, then he'd probably have met her from quidditch.
And then it hits him. Purple satin dress, beaded hem, black hair pulled back in a bun. The woman of Cedric's dreams.
"Shit."
The little word comes out much more audibly than Davies had intended, and he clamps his hand over his mouth in a naive attempt to keep the others from hearing. This was a cheap flat; the walls weren't that thick.
"Did you hear something?" Comes Cedric's muffled voice from the kitchen.
Please tell him it's nothing, please tell him it's nothing, please tell him it's nothing. Percy, Oliver I know I treated you terribly today, but please for the love of everything just tell him it's—
"It's probably nothing," he hears Percy reply.
Thank the lord.
"Are you positive?" Cedric asks, a hint of nervousness in his voice. "Break-ins are common around here. Mrs. 4B was talking about how her friend got mugged last week."
"Cedric, relax. We're wizards, remember? If someone steals from you, we'll track the fucker down," Oliver assures him.
A slight pause. "Ok, sorry, I'm overreacting, I know. Just-could you please not swear?"
Oh, what a sweet summer child. "Never change, Diggory, never change," Davies grins.
He rolls the pearl beads back and forth in his hand. Well maybe he could serve to change just a little bit.
Qiu was literally the worst case scenario, the last person that Cedric should have had a one-night stand with. Diggory, with all of his brains, had to have been aware that that was an awful idea.
Well, his friend probably hadn't been thinking with his brain when he'd stumbled in here with her last night, but still. Even his reproductive organs were smarter than trying a purely physical relationship with Zhang Qiu.
Davies had been her goddamn team captain for three years, he should know that better than anyone. He had watched them flitter about, had literally danced alongside them at the Yule Ball.
The Yule Ball.
Hammered and enamored as Davies had been that night, he had still been able to tell the obvious. Fuck, a dead man would have been able to tell the obvious: Cedric had fallen in love with Qiu.
But love wasn't really Qiu's style. After all, they had only been teenagers at the time. How could Diggory have expected her to sort out her feelings at an age that young? For Cedric, no big deal. That boy was an open book and didn't care who knew it. But Qiu? It was no wonder that she'd broken up with him after he tried to give her that promise ring.
Davies balls up the pearls and puts them in his pocket, reasoning that everyone will be better off if Diggory doesn't find them the way they were left. He'll talk it over with Percy and Oliver—the lying buggers—in the morning and see how they think the situation should be approached.
This little clue for Diggory is a time bomb, one that threatens to go off at any moment and ruin all of them with its destructive powers. Shit might've been an understatement. Because now Davies has a sinking feeling that they are all well and truly fucked.
