AN: Sry about the long wait guys! I hope this is worth the wait! Thanks to all the reviewers, you guys keep my enthusiasm up! Ok, so maybe my love for this story helps a little…a little. ;)

-rach

Chapter Six: Some Sad Affair

Tired but I ain't sleeping
Thinking about some sad affair
And why I should be leaving

'Cause some of these thoughts
Only seem to take me out of here
These habits are so hard to break

And they're so easy to make

Cedric woke first, the light from the glaring white, over cast sky combined with screeching birds stirring him from a deep, well earned sleep. His muscles felt wrung out and his back was heavy. Shandie's chest lifted rhythmically up to crest at the arm he had draped around her. Cedric couldn't help but smirk at the thought of having exhausted her.

His ears caught the sound of the wintry wind abrasively thrashing through the trees below his window and against the house. The moments wasted slowly away as he lay there, thinking, being, trying to soak in the delicious feeling of denial and ignorance that was so easily his right then. In Cedric's mind, Cho was gone, school was gone, his parents were even gone. It was just him and Shandie living together in the countryside. He lay there planning out their entire day. First they'd take showers and get dressed, then they'd have a proper Christmas breakfast of pancakes, bacon, eggs, and his mum's apple spice cake, plenty of which was left over from last night's party. Then they'd do dishes and mess around in the kitchen for a while. After they finished cleaning he'd rustle up some proper snow clothing for his guest before finding and donning his own. They'd go out into the hills and run around for hours, playing tag, getting into snowball fights, flying. He'd show her the hills and around all the pivotal tourist stops that were marks of his childhood. Then they'd come home, laughing about their adventures and-

Her sudden stretching gave him a start as she twisted her body this way and that even with his arms around her. Finally he had no choice but to let her go from all the movement she was insisting on making.

"Do you always do that?" he chuckled, as she continued to stretch and yawn.

"Not usually this much, but let's not forget I don't always go to sleep after a full night of strenuous physical activity."

"Strenuous?" he made a face, mocking her word choice.

"Indeed." she rubbed her eyes open and leaned over him to peck his mouth softly. "Delightful too."

His hands ran through her dark, messy tresses of hair in an attempt to comb them back somewhat. "Happy Christmas." he murmured.

"Happy Christmas." she recited sincerely, smiling softly down at him. His hand brushed back more of her hair before resting on her cheek. His thumb roved back and forth over her skin absently.

"Last night was your first time, wasn't it?" he asked, already knowing the answer but asking anyway.

"Mhm." she nodded.

"It was mine too."

Shandie smiled, "Yah, I kinda figured. Well, I hoped anyway."

"What's that supposed to mean?" he cocked a playful eyebrow.

"Sweetheart, you're sixteen. I honestly hope you wouldn't have had a reason to lose your virginity any sooner than that."

He nodded thoughtfully, trying to bring the conversation back around to the original intended subject. The words seemed sticky on his tongue and proved hard to formulate.

"I just wondered…I mean I want to…make sure…"

"I don't regret last night." she helped him out. He grinned sheepishly.

"Really?"

"How could I?" she laughed softly.

"You were crying and I just"-

"Well, I'll be honest: it hurt like a bitch the first time around. But I was fine. I promise you I don't regret it." the room was quiet for a few moments as she swallowed the reality of what they'd done. "What about you?"

"I certainly don't regret it. I'm just a little overwhelmed by it is all."

Shan nodded in understanding. "I'll need to go home soon." she told him as she checked her watch.

"Why?" the frown on his face cut deep lines along his forehead as he sat up, resting back on his elbows. Discussing leaving Cedric's side in favor of her parents' made her so sick she opted instead at first to lean over him and kiss his mouth deeply. As much as he found himself addicted to her kisses, he soon pushed her away in want of an answer.

"Shan, answer me."

She frowned at him and began going around the room, picking up her clothes.

"Look, my parents are probably already worried sick. I shouldn't have even spent the night, I"-

He came to stand in front of her, halting her movements as well as her speech.

"You said you didn't regret last night."

"I don't regret sleeping with you. I just feel somewhat guilty. I mean I always let my parents know where I'm going and I just left."

"Will I see you again?" he stopped her once more as she made to turn towards the fireplace.

"I don't know." she shrugged, "We have school in a few days though, I suppose we'll see each other then, won't we?"

"That's not a few days, that's a week."

A heavy sigh fell from her lips and suddenly the floor became fascinating to stare at as she massaged her forehead. Cedric couldn't just stand there. He walked around her to his desk and opened a small drawer on the left. From the drawer he withdrew a small velvet box, dark in color and resembling one in which jewelry might be sold.

Lifting her gaze, Shan frowned once more at the sight. Her hand went out slowly when his arm extended to hand it to her.

"What"-

"I was going to give it to you tonight after everyone opened their Christmas gifts downstairs…" he shrugged and buried his hands in his pockets. The small box made an odd, almost crisp noise as it opened for the first time. Inside was a standard size, silver thimble.

"It's made of real silver. I had it made for you by a silversmith in London. I hope you like it." his features held the obvious stance of apprehension, scared that she might not accept such a gift.

Laughing lightly, the dancer before him slowly slipped her arms around him in a hug.

"Thank you." she whispered, kissing his temple.

"So, you like it?" his sideways smile was hopeful.

"I love it!" she grinned, "I can't believe you remembered." her eyes shifted back down to the opened box in her hand. "It's really beautiful. I got something for you too you know." He gave her a curious look and she dragged him along to the fireplace, grabbing a pinch of floo powder on the way.

Once they were in her room, Shan immediately went to work shifting papers around on her cluttered desk. Cedric surveyed the room. It looked like a little girl's room that had scarcely been changed since her pre-school years. Light pinks, old fashioned teddy bears in rose colored tutus, a hard wood floor, a white, iron-wrought day bed all illuminated by the weak daylight breaking through thin, white curtains. Her desk and bed were both up against the wall leaving a large amount of space free within the room. One wall was covered by mirror as well as a single dance barre. A set of shelves inlaid beside her bedroom door held dozens of thimbles, all of which seemed to have their own unique voice and story to tell.

Finally, she emerged from the chaos of her desk and produced several written/typed on parchments which had been creased two-fold at some point in their lifetimes.

"What's all this?" he took the papers she presented him with and began to study them. The first was an official document and Cedric's mouth went slack when he read the name at the top of the page: Amelia Prescott.

"It can't be…Amelia, the same Amelia I knew when I was a younger? The same Amelia who lost her father?"

"I tracked her down." Shandie explained, "She lives in Ottery-St. Catchpole. Her mother remarried two years ago and the whole family's going on brilliantly. See that letter at the bottom? I wrote to her and explained that I knew you. She wants to see you. She's missed you too."

He turned to face her and she wondered if she was imagining a slight, glossy wetness in his eyes.

"I can't believe you did this! I can't even believe…" he threw his arms around her and held her tighter than she could ever remember being held. Her feet even lifted a few inches off the ground.

"I just got the letter a few days ago, I couldn't wait to tell you." she grinned.

"You're incredible, do you know that?" he breathed, staring her dead in the eyes.

"You know, you sort of make me feel like it." she told him whole-heartedly.

"Shandie? Is that you dear? Who're you talking to?" a rickety voice with an Irish ring sounded from the other side of her white-washed door accompanied by a few soft knocks.

"That'll be my grand-da!" she murmured before pushing him over to her fireplace, "Look, you've got to go. If they find you in here in your boxers- and worse me in your boxers!"

Just after grabbing some floo powder from her mantle he turned and kissed her firmly.

"Shandie?!" her grandfather persisted.

"You've got to go!" she pushed him away with a fixed hand to his bare chest, regretting it immediately afterward because of the feelings and memories it conjured.

"Promise me you'll see me again."

"Cedric!" her harsh whisper was accompanied by an outraged glare.

"Promise!" he stood his ground.

"Fine, I promise, now go!" and with a flash of brilliant green flames, he had gone.

Sighing and running a hand over her face, Shandie made her way to her locked bedroom door. There stood her grandfather on her dad's side, fully dressed and leaning on his cane.

"Sorry Grand-da, I was just getting up."

"Have you been asleep all this time? It's Christmas Mornin'! Get yourself downstairs, we've been waitin' on yeh to open presents for hours!"

"Sorry Grand-da, I'll be right down."

"Alright, be quick though, I think your grandma got me a new flask!" he chuckled as he turned to go. Just before getting all the way around however, he stopped himself, "Say Shan?"

"Yah Grand-da?" she asked, as she rumpled up her bed as discreetly as possible, so as to make it appear slept in. At the last moment before turning around she slipped the box Cedric had given her under her pillow.

"I thought I heard voices commin' from your room."

"I…" Shan frowned as though put out before shrugging, "I honestly don't know. I must have been talking in my sleep from all the excitement. Say, you think there's any possibility of grandma getting me a flask?" she smiled wryly, being careful to change the subject as she walked from her bedroom to follow her grandfather down stairs.

A hearty laugh echoed down the hall from her grand-da. "I wouldn't be holdin' my breath Shandie love. Though just between you and me, I'll share mine with yeh when she's not looking, eh?"

Shan just smiled and rolled her eyes, "Yah, I'm starting to think the world might be better off if we were all drunk anyways."

A few days later Shan was sitting at her desk trying to understand Arithmancy. Somehow whatever had made sense while studying with Cedric was once more a confusing mess of symbols and Latin. Looking up from her book to allow her eyes a break, she soon realized there was a small brown speck in the cerulean sea of sky stretching from her open window. The "speck", which was quickly becoming an owl, was flying straight for her window with an envelope attached to its leg.

Landing on the wooden window ledge, the owl ruffled it's feathers and lazily stretched its wings while yawning and extending the leg her note was tied to towards her. Bringing her glass of water in front of the sleepy looking owl, Shandie untied her letter and proceeded to read the obviously male scrawl written there:

Dear Shan,

Make good on your promise and meet me in my room tonight around 8. Bring your broom.

-Cedric

"Bring my broom?" she frowned at the sky outside her window for a moment before realizing that he wanted to go flying. Rolling her eyes and giving a distraught groan Shan's gaze focused on the brown barn owl that had recently finished clicking and splashing its beak through (what had been) her glass of water.

"Say, you're a pretty good flyer, would you consider going in my place?" she asked the bird. He cocked his head and blinked a few times at her rhetorical question before squawking and ruffling his feathers once more.

"Yes, I suppose that's true. He probably would notice the difference between us." her sigh melted into a small smile and her eyes turned back down to the letter in her hands. "Well, I domiss him, there's no denying that."

The barn owl took a few steps sideways along her window sill, continuing to stare in her general direction while every now and then taking sideways glances around her room.

"You think I should go?" Shan asked her silent friend. A few blinks and what almost looked like a nod later, Shan cracked a smirk. "Alright, it's settled then. Tonight at eight. I guess I can find a broom around here somewhere." she cast a glance over her shoulder towards the banner of the staircase out in the hallway as she wondered if her parents might have a few laying around in a spare closet or shed. Between their muggle upbringings and dance focused jobs, Shandie was almost certain that neither of her parents flew, but she could always hope. And hell, if all else failed, she'd send the bird in her place.

The evening was still as the bright, full moon lit up the hills like morbidly cold sunlight. Shadows stretched across the snowy landscape and a bitter wind accompanied the two floating figures on their flight. Everything was unbelievably calm and detached up in the sky. The stars seemed light-years closer and the earth behind them seemed pale in comparison. Shandie could feel an absolute solitude and a delicious secrecy flying with Cedric. She loved it and at the same time was frightened by it.

"Hey, your flying's improved." he noted, with a proud look to his smiling eyes.

"Hey, you're not so afraid of the dark anymore." she smiled back softly.

"How was your Christmas?" he asked her after a moment or two of silence. His cheeks were so pale in the moonlight, they looked like porcelain. A deep breath passed through her lungs and she let it out slowly.

"It was alright. My grandparents kept getting into rows with one another, but I'm used to it. Holidays tend to be messy at my house. But you should know that." she offered him a small smirk.

He barely smiled back, "Did you get any good presents?"

"Is this small talk?" she cocked an eyebrow playfully. He looked down at his broom for a minute and chuckled.

"Yah, I think it is."

"Well, if you get to use small talk then I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to be cliché for just a minute."

He gave her an amused look, waiting for her moment of overdramatic, sappy glory.

"The only thing I cared about Christmas morning was that I'd woken up beside you and all I thought about was how good it had felt to not care for a night and just love you."

"I still can't believe we slept together." he mumbled, offering up a smile that said, 'Come on, you know you're thinking it too.'

Shan eyed him for a few tensely silent seconds before giggling lightly, "It's so true. How did that even happen?" she laughed.

"I don't know," he shrugged, "One minute we were dancing and the next, boom-down."

This sent Shandie into a fit of laughter for a good twenty seconds. The peel of her laughs sent him into uncontrollable chuckling as well as he watched her, enamored. He knew how it had happened. He'd fallen in love with her. When just watching her laugh was the best place on earth to be, how could it not have happened?

"I think,…I think somewhere in the back of our minds we knew." he turned to look at her once they'd calmed down.

"We knew?" her look was painfully obvious, like red graffiti on a white washed wall. "Would you care to elaborate on your theory Dr. Diggory?"

He could tell she wasn't taking him seriously, yet onward he trekked.

"Yah I mean, you came over and we both sort of knew you were spending the night. You can't say you didn't at least want something to happen."

His company mused on this for a moment. He had a point…

"Yah…yah I can see what your saying. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't somewhat hopeful we'd…I don't even know. Of course I wanted to get physical with you…but that hardly means I knew it would happen. I never thought we'd go anywhere serious. And I think you'll agree that this is pretty serious."

He nodded, "Maybe it's just me. I always had this feeling in the back of my mind. I knew I'd gotten in way over my head. How could I not know? Just being with you, looking at you, I knew."

She shook her head, "God, what were we thinking?"

He frowned at her, "You promised me you didn't regret this."

"It's not regret exactly, just…amazement that we didn't do something, didn't say something, didn't think to"-

"We weren't thinking. That's why it happened. That's love."

She sighed and turned her gaze upwards, staring at the stars helplessly.

"Do you realize that no matter what we do this is going to hurt us? Even if we stay together, it'll still hurt, you know that don't you? I mean, what are you planning on telling Cho? Oh sorry love, I've kind of been seeing some one and well, we had sex so it's off between you and me." she mocked him. "I mean it just doesn't work like that."

"I'd go about it a bit nicer than that." he said darkly.

"Yah I know," she sighed, "But it's the general idea. You're dumping her for me and we've slept together. Everyone in school is going to label me a tramp and you a cheating bastard. Cho and I are in the same house for Christ sakes. Her and her friends would give me hell every day until I graduate. And then what?"

"What are you saying? That you don't want this? That you're not willing to at least try?"

"I'm saying I'm scared." she admitted, "I'm saying this is going to be difficult because it's not right. But whether it's right or wrong, it's already happening."