The morning dew sprinkled on top of the green grass tickles Eden's bare feet as she stands in the garden of Haywood Mansion, the early morning fog was still hovering above the ground. The sun had just started to rise and she felt a sense of cold run through to her core.
She looks down at herself, frowning at the sight of her only in her silk nightgown. How had she made it outside? Why was she outside?
She looks out across the garden, examining the long, grand fountain that wouldn't be turned on till around noon that day so fresh leaves and flower petals floated calmly on the surface. Tall trees were planted on either side of the fountain, creating two long pathways on each side as well before the land opened up to a vast open space on either side of the large home. At the end of the fountain and the trees, there was a second building on the estate that housed an indoor pool and a guest suite.
A small gasp leaves her lips as she sees a figure appear from behind the row of trees to her left.
"Cedric," she smiles softly, starting to walk forward at a slow pace but the more his form comes into her vision the faster she moves, picking up to a slight jog as a full-on grin breaks out on her face.
While she grows closer to him, Cedric smiles at her sweetly and turns his back, moving behind the trees to the open field of land behind them without a word. Eden pauses for a moment, frowning at his retreating form, 'Cedric? Where are you going?"
She follows him, trying to avoid sticks and mud puddles as she was still very much without shoes. When she comes to the other side of the tree she's transported away from her backyard and into a dark and misty graveyard. She examines her surroundings quickly, trying to figure out where the hell she is. She was placed in a large circle full of people wearing dark cloaks and masks and much to her shock, she was also now clad in a long black cloak and her wand was in her hand.
"Kill him!" A sickeningly evil rasp of a voice hisses at her and Eden looks up, meeting the eyes of an awful creature of a man. His skin gray and snake-like, his eyes dark with the evil that only hell could contain, and two slits where his nose should be.
It took Eden time to register that he was talking to her, but when she does she looks below her to see Cedric on his knees, beaten and bruised, wearing the clothes he did that night he died in the tournament. He was pleading with her, begging her for something but what was it?
"Please don't kill me, I'll do anything!" He cries.
Eden's eyes widen and her chest heaves up and down as she continues to try and register her surroundings, "Kill you? Cedric I'm not going to kill you, I would never do that!" She shrieks. Why was this happening?
"Kill him now!" The creature screams at her and Eden had never felt such fear in her life.
"NO!" Eden screams in terror as a green light shoots out from her wand despite her not muttering any spells and hits Cedric right in the chest, sending him flying across the dark graveyard and onto his back.
She stares at his body in horror. She hadn't done this. She didn't even say the spell, how could she have killed him?
There's a pounding in her head and she clasps her hands over her ears, trying to steady herself, "I'm sorry, Cedric. I'm so sorry." She cries, the pounding only increasing.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Eden sits up in her bed, her chest heaving up and down with her labored breathing, her body covered in a thin layer of sweat and dried tears on her cheeks. She swallows painfully, her throat dry.
It had been a dream. A nightmare. She was in her bedroom at Haywood Mansion and the pounding she had heard was someone at her door. She glances out her window and sighs at the sight of it chucking it down with rain for the third day this week. The clock on her nightstand read 9:03 a.m. and she groans, running her hands down her face.
"Come in, mother." She says, her voice hoarse.
Just as she suspected, Florence Haywood opens her youngest daughter's door with a disapproving look on her soft features. If it weren't for the grimaces and frowns she was always receiving from her, Eden wouldn't hesitate to say her mother was beautiful. Her long blonde hair was no doubt envied by a lot of women, especially at her age. It flowed beautifully past her shoulders and would shine golden in the sunlight, much like Clara's. Her judgemental blue eyes land on her daughter who was still in bed and she scoffs.
"Honestly, Eden, you won't get anywhere in life if you spend your whole time at home laying in bed." she flicks on the light with a wave of her hand, and Eden groans, throwing her head back down and burying her face in her pillows.
She had only managed to fall asleep at around five in the morning before she had that dreadful nightmare and now her mother was complaining that she hadn't invented a new potion before nine in the morning. "You've been home from school for a week and have hardly left your room."
It's not like I've just lost my best friend or anything. Eden bites her tongue and sits back up in bed, rubbing her tired eyes as she throws the covers off of her pale legs, "What would you like me to do, mum? I can't exactly do much if it's pouring rain every day."
"Draco and Clara have already reorganized the library." Eden hides her eye roll as she plants her feet on the cold hardwood floor of her bedroom.
"Well, isn't that just lovely for Draco and Clara?" She mutters sarcastically, pushing herself off of her bed and starting to drag her tired body toward her bathroom.
Her mother gasps, "I do not know who raised you to be so bitter but I won't stand for it." Normally Eden could take her mother's ridicule all day long and not show any effects of it but her lack of sleep since that dreadful night and the overwhelming grief she felt were making that rather difficult today, "Their friends are arriving today so I expect you to be the epitome of pleasant-"
She had heard enough. With a wave of her hand, her bathroom door slams shut in her mother's face and the lock clicks shortly after, "Insufferable girl." She hears Florence mutter before the click of her heels fade away while she is leaving her bedroom.
Eden stares at her reflection in the mirror, and the reality of another day begins.
Ever since Cedric's death and his funeral, Eden hadn't felt real. The only thing that allowed her to know she was alive was the constant pain in her chest due to the knowledge that she would never see her best friend again.
There was lots of speculation about what really happened to Cedric, some people-including her family and the majority of the wizarding world-thought it was just a tragic accident. But, Harry had insisted that night that Lord Voldemort had returned to full strength and had been the one to kill Cedric. This was also what Professor Dumbledore told all of the students at the funeral.
Eden feels a chill run up her spine at the thought of her dream and the creature she saw. He hadn't been human and she had never seen him in real life before but she had a sneaking, terrifying suspicion that she knew exactly who it was.
She turns on the cold water from her sink and splashes it onto her face, trying to rid herself of the terrifying thoughts that plagued her mind. Obviously, this was no use, but it did give some relief to her tiredness.
After returning from school, the children had been informed that due to many business meetings Draco and Narcissa would be spending the summer at Haywood Mansion while their fathers attended to more pressing matters.
More pressing matters. Eden wished she didn't know exactly what that meant, but she did. No matter how much she wanted to ignore it.
The Ministry of Magic and The Daily Prophet had made their views on the possibility of Voldemort returning very clear-they didn't believe it. But Eden knew. She knew by the vagueness of her father's summer plans and the hushed whispers behind closed doors that her mother and Narcissa would share after they thought everyone was asleep.
He was back, he had to be back. And it was only a matter of time before everyone was forced to realize it.
Deciding on how she wanted to spend her day, Eden leaves her bathroom to grab a one-piece swimsuit from her dresser. Snatching a clean towel from her bathroom and throwing an oversized sweatshirt over her suit, Eden makes her way out of her bedroom and down the hall of the second floor.
As she descends the stairs she can hear voices coming from the dining room, most likely the other occupants of her home eating breakfast. As soon as she enters the confines of their grand dining room her mom lets out a scandalized gasp.
"Eden!" The young girl stops in her tracks, standing at the opposite end of the table as her mother with wide eyes and looking around the room, expecting some awful creature to come out of the shadows based on her tones, "Where on earth are your pants?"
Sebastian stifles a laugh into his cup of tea, Clara rolls her eyes mumbling something under her breath that Eden can only assume is along the lines of 'I wish she was never born', Narcissa looks almost as appalled as her mother and Draco...well Draco can't bring himself to look up from his breakfast, his fist clenched around his fork and his eyes burning daggers into his eggs.
"Oh, please, mother." Eden sighs, walking to the table and pouring some coffee into a cup, blowing on it briefly, "They're only my legs." She lifts her sweatshirt up with one hand, revealing the rest of her swimsuit as she takes a sip of her coffee.
"Do you have no respect for yourself, dear girl?" Narcissa asks, her tone steady and calm as she looks at Eden.
The young girl simply stares at her over the edge of her mug as she finishes off her coffee in one gulp, "I'll be in the pool house if anyone needs me." Though I highly doubt you will. Their house-elf, Chauncy, holds his hand out meekly for the empty cup but Eden smiles sweetly, "I can clean this myself Chauncy, thank you."
As she walks down the length of the table toward the kitchen her sister calls after her, "Our friends will be arriving soon so please make yourself scarce."
"And your father and Lucius are coming for dinner so be on your best-" The rest of her sentence is cut off by the kitchen door closing behind her and Eden lets out a long breath.
With a simple wave of her hand, the cup she's holding is sparkling clean and she sets it on the counter. Despite most people's knowledge, Eden was very skilled at wandless magic. Not that anyone cared. Apparently, her bare legs were of more importance than her powerful abilities.
She doesn't mind the cold rain hitting her body as she walks to the pool house, she only had to slide her towel under her sweatshirt to keep it dry. The walk to the pool house is short so it isn't too long before she walks inside and the humid atmosphere greets her damp skin.
The room is large and because Eden was often the only one who took advantage of it, there were many plants both on the ground and hanging from the ceiling. It was the closest thing she had to a greenhouse at home.
The greenhouse. A place where she spent so much time with Cedric. It was where their friendship first blossomed, where they first opened up to each other. As she sheds her sweatshirt and throws her towel onto a chair, Eden slides her body into the water. She sinks down till it hits her shoulders and remembers that night at the beginning of the year where they had been so close and she had thought he was going to kiss her.
She slips below the surface, letting the water consume her body.
It felt like another lifetime, those moments with him. When in reality it had only been a couple of months. She never knew she could miss someone this much, but then again, she never thought she would lose him in this way.
She hated herself for the way she had avoided him so many times in the last months of his life, all because she had been embarrassed that he didn't like her back. Had she even liked him that way or was she just so desperate for the love that he couldn't give her?
There was nothing she could do about it now. Cedric was gone and all she had left were those memories, the memories of his touch, his laugh, his smile.
She didn't realize how long she had been underwater until her lungs screamed for air and she pushed herself back to the surface, taking in a gasping breath.
She swam laps around the pool until her fingers were wrinkly, trying to only focus on how her body glided through the water and not on her thoughts and memories.
The quietness of the pool house is temporarily interrupted as the door opens and in steps Sebastian, shaking the rain off of his umbrella before closing it. His light brown curls are damp and he runs a hand through them. Eden stands in the middle of the pool, the water up to her shoulders as she frowns at her older brother. He was dressed in an all-black suit with fancy dress shoes, his usual work attire.
Unsurprisingly, after he graduated, Bash had wasted no time in starting his job at the Ministry of Magic. Which was impeccable timing since it was practically falling apart with everyone trying to deny the fact that the most powerful dark wizard of all time had made his return.
The image of the man from her dream resurfaces in her mind and Eden shakes her head out, returning her attention to her brother in front of her, "I can't remember the last time I was in here," he looks around the large room with floor to ceiling windows, the roof entirely made of glass, "I like what you've done with the place." He nods to the various plants.
Eden mumbles a small thanks and twirls her finger on the surface of the water, creating a small ripple, "I thought you would have left for work already." She says.
"I'm about to leave now," He says, reaching into the pocket of his jacket and pulling out something wrapped in a napkin, "But I realized," He slowly unwraps the contents and sets a shiny green apple and a scone on the table off to the side, "I don't remember the last time I saw you eat. And, no offense little sis, but it's starting to show."
Eden lets out a long breath, "I'm not hungry." She doesn't remember the last time she was hungry, in fact.
"Yes, well, sometimes we have to force ourselves to do things we don't want to do because if we don't we die." He says bluntly and Eden finds herself rolling her eyes even though she knows he's right. "And you better get something in your system now because, knowing you, you will feel even less like eating at dinner tonight."
As he leaves, demanding one last time that she eats, Eden sinks below the water once again. Dinner tonight was surely going to be a nightmare.
Not only would Lucius and Francis be joining them, but Clara and Draco's friends were coming to stay for a few days so that added Blaise Zabini, Theodore Nott, and Pansy Parkinson to the list of guests. The last people she wanted to be around was that group of Slytherin's. Typically Pansy would stay at the Mansion and the boys would go to stay with Draco at Malfoy Manor so at least she wouldn't have to deal with all of them. But, since Draco was staying here this summer, all of them had to.
Eden found it quite unfair that their friends were always so welcomed and the mere mention of Hannah and Justin coming for even just a day would send her mother into an incredibly sour mood.
Yes, she would have to endure dinner tonight feeling like she could simply melt onto the floor into a puddle and they would simply call Chauncy to mop her up without a care in the world.
After some more time wallowing in the pool by herself, the rain finally stops and Eden makes her way back to the house. She enters through the door in the kitchen once again, taking a bit out of the apple Bash had brought her, the sweet yet sour taste greeting her tastebuds kindly.
"And this is the kitchen, not that you'll be standing much time in here-" Eden pauses as the door from the dining room opens and there stands Draco with Theo and Blaise standing behind him. They must have just arrived and been getting a tour of the mansion as they had never been here for maybe a dinner once before.
Eden stands there with the green apple half in her mouth, her hair still wet and messy falling past her shoulders. Although earlier she didn't mind walking into the dining room earlier with her lack of pants, she felt all too exposed now that she was standing there with only a towel over her swimsuit and three teenage boys staring right at her, almost as if they had x-ray vision (or wished they did).
"Ah, Haywood!" Theodore grins at her, "Absolutely lovely to see you." His dark blue eyes look her up and down and she pulls her towel tighter around her body.
"Theodore," she swallows, licking her lips, the taste of apple still lingering, "Blaise." She nods to the boys in greeting. Theo was wearing a shit-eating grin on his face and Blaise stood next to him, an amused smirk on his features and his hands in his pockets.
Draco almost looked angry at the sight of her, his hand still gripping the doorknob, knuckles turning white just as they did around his fork earlier at the table, "Are you going to just stand in the kitchen all day?" He snaps at her.
Eden is unfazed by his outburst, "Well, I would love to go to my room for a shower but it seems you boys are blocking my path." She gestures to the fact that they are all blocking the doorway
Draco sighs, stepping further inside of the kitchen so that he's out of the way and the other two boys follow his lead, stepping to either side of the doorway. Draco gestured for her to walk through the door with a sarcastic smile on his lips.
"Thank you," She smiles at him and walks between the boys and down the length of the large dining room, "Make yourself at home boys!"
The three boys watch her walk away and Theo tilts his head, biting his bottom lip as she rounds the corner, out of earshot, "Did she get hotter in a week?"
Draco and Blaise give him a look as if he just grew two heads, "She's grieving, you idiot." Blaise says.
Theo shrugs his shoulders simply, "She can come cry on my shoulder anytime."
Draco smacks him in the back of the head. Hard.
