An Unexpected Guest

My parents finally call me down and I have permission to leave my room, it was as if they grounded me for coming in after curfew, not that I have a curfew, okay I do, but it's any time before 11:00pm. I make my way down and the stairs creak under my weight, making my presence known to anyone in the house, then I smell something coming from the kitchen. It smells like one of my favorite Korean dishes that my mum makes occasionally.

"Is that bibimbap I smell?" I ask my mum, whom is standing in the living room along with my dad. She just beams a smile at me, and I smile back, hoping that it really is bibimbap. She knows I love it because of the warmth of the clay pot with the creamy yolk of the sunny side up eggs, and I also smell seaweed soup, which is what one eats on their birthday.

"Happy belated, sweetie, sorry we couldn't be here for your birthday." My dad says as he opens his arms up for a hug. I open mine up as well, and we hug each other, and I hug my mum next.

"The meal smells delicious, join me?" I ask them and the three of us walk into the kitchen, but my happy mood is simmered down a bit when I see someone; someone whom I didn't expect to see until I got back to school. He didn't attempt to hide considering his height. I froze at the doorway shocked that he was even here, but the chorus of "Surprise!" brought me back to reality and I feel a smile pulling at the corners of my lips. I even hear myself laugh as I see all of my primary school mates standing there with their arms wide and their warm smiles greeting me.

"Happy birthday Rebekah!" I hear nearly everyone in the kitchen shout. I just feel myself grinning as nearly everyone hugged me that is until I stopped at Cedric. The two of us stop and he nervously scratches the back of his neck while I look down at the floor. I look over at my parents and they're busy chatting with the adults at the party, I didn't even know that the parents were invited as well. I guess they need people to talk to as well, I'm surprised that they're not tired from their trip.

"Rebekah!" I hear a familiar voice saying, I turn around and find my Taekwondo instructor standing there with the biggest smile I have ever seen on his face, as well as his instructor in trainee, whom was one of my biggest "rivals" at the studio. I walk over to him and he wraps me up in a hug and I give him a hug as well. "You've grown so much, I can't believe you're sixteen!" He said as he hugged me again. He has basically seen me grow up, and he's like a second uncle to me. "You remember Brody, right?" He asks me as he moves away to give him room to greet me.

The boy that I used to spar with was now as tall as my instructor (Sam), and he has grown into his ears, they were pretty big when he was a kid. I noticed some changes, considering that I attended the summer sessions at the studio thanks to me going to Hogwarts. "Is this really Rebekah?" He asks Sam, and I give him a light punch on his shoulder, for him feigning to remember who I am. "Now I remember he said." The two of us dated before, but it never worked out, because he said that I kept too many secrets, and it was hard for us when I was back at Hogwarts and he was here. "Happy birthday." He adds with a smile and the two of us hug.

My parents were a little hesitant to allow the Brody and me to date, because we were really young. I just turned fourteen and he was fifteen. He was going to be my first boyfriend at the time, and I assumed that my parents thought I would date a Korean for my first boyfriend, but that is hard to do considering that Koreans are of a minority here in the United Kingdom. Brody is a brunette with rich brown eyes just like my family. He also has a great build, from all those years of Taekwondo. Of course he's more skilled at it than I am, because he's training to be an instructor, and he has always worked hard to be where he is now. Brody was a good first boyfriend, for any girl. He was such a gentleman, and still is, and he always made sure that I was home on time. My parents really liked that about him, and were a little saddened that the two of us decided to break up. It was a mutual decision, and we're still friends.

"Sam, you made it!" I hear my dad's voice say to him. Sam turns around and walks over to my dad. He seems happy to see that Brody and I are standing next to each other.

"I think they're trying to get us back together again." I hear him say, and his familiar scent filled my nose. I can't help but let out a small, somewhat forced chuckle.

"Well, we were a power couple." I say giving him a nudge. I see him run his hand through his hair and he rests his arm on my shoulder.

"Yeah, we were, weren't we?" He says and I smile at his comment. I remembered a lot of people telling us that a long distance relationship wouldn't work, and I knew he couldn't come to Hogwarts. He kept saying that he'll visit, but I told him that he can't and that it's a very closed off school. It was really hard to try to tell him and convince him that he could never visit me, but I did write to him whenever I had the chance to go to Hogsmeade, luckily I was able to go because we were dating when I was a fourth year. They were right, it was really difficult trying to keep up with the relationship. We stuck it out for half a year. The two of us never fought, considering that the majority of our relationship was basically spent apart from each other.

"Who was that guy you were talking to? And isn't he out of your league?" Brody says as he gestured towards Cedric, who is, not surprisingly, surrounded by girls. He isn't the type to go up to strangers and talk to them. He's more reserved and has a group of close friends. I scoff at his comment.

"He is, I mean was my best friend at my school." I say looking at him, and he seemed a little flustered by the amount of people surrounding him. Brody moves away from me and I turn to look at him he has this questioning look on his face.

"What do you mean was?" He asks with his arm crossed. "If it's over something stupid, I'm going to talk to him." He adds as he glares at Cedric. I roll my eyes and shake my head at him. Ever since our break up Brody has become like a protective older brother to me.

"Bekah!" Maddie says popping up in front of me. Brody looks impervious to what just happened to us, while I nearly jumped out of my skin. I put my hand over my heart trying to calm it down.

"Maddie, you nearly scared me half to death!" I say as she pulls me into a hug.

"I couldn't keep this secret from you, it was so hard!" Maddie says as the two of us are still hugging each other.

"Wait, you knew?" I ask her. She simply nods and her blonde hair moves up and down as she nods. "It's okay, I figured something was going on, my parents aren't great with surprises." I say and she giggles in response to my comment. "Maddie, do you remember Brody?" I ask her as I make room for Brody to stand next to me instead of behind me.

I watch as her expression changes as she managed to get a good look at him. "This is Brody?" Maddie says sounding shocked and her jaw was wide open. I laugh at her expression and nodded, but after the laugh fades I look over at Cedric, and he seems lonely standing by the wall by himself. A pang of guilt seizes my chest, but I do see my mum walking towards him. I bite my lip, not wanting to see how that pans out, so I switch my attention back to Brody and Maddie.

"You can't be the dorky little Maddie?" Brody asks looking at her as well. "We're all growing up." He adds with a pout and wiping away a fake tear. I lightly shake my head and let out a small laugh.

"Did I even come to your sixteenth birthday party?" I ask him, not remembering if I did or not, or if I was away at Hogwarts when he turned sixteen. I suck at remembering birthdays, but I try, I really do. Now that I have magic, I can probably enchant my physical calendar to remind me of upcoming birthdays, I just need to think of a charm that would work in such a way.

"No, you were at school." He says putting his head down and exaggerating his pout. "You owe me, you haven't been to any of my parties for…" he stops to count his fingers.

"Five years." I finish for him.

"Yeah five years." He says putting his hand down. Maddie and I let out a laugh as he just stood there giving us a reproachful look at the two of us. "You two always bullied me." He adds as he shakes his head.

"What are you talking about?!" Maddie and I said in unison, but honestly Brody is easy to tease/make fun of, the way he reacts is just priceless. "We don't bully you," Maddie adds shaking her head. Brody doesn't agree and moves on to our fellow Taekwondo buddies. I follow suit, and Maddie decides to go and mingle and maybe even find pictures of younger Uncle Nate in the house.

"You probably would be able to find some." I say as she runs off to my parents. She smiles excitedly as she makes their way to them.

"Happy birthday Rebekah!" A boy my age says as he gives me a high-five. The two of us were not close, compared to Brody and me.

"Thanks for coming," I say as he sits back down on the sofa in the living room. All of them are making themselves at home. I was one of the few girls in my class, most of them were boys. Some of them were younger than me but the majority were my age. We all grew up together with Taekwondo, and it's weird seeing them again. Some people from my class quit but I have known most of them since we were five years old.

"Of course, we haven't seen each other much since you started going to this 'fancy boarding school'," he says with air quotes around fancy boarding school. I let out a small laugh and shake my head at him. He's always been the sarcastic jokester of the class. I greeted the rest of the class, they were all happy to be at the party of one of the few girls in the class.

"Are you all here to meet my girlfriends?" I ask with one of my eyebrows raised. Nearly half of them look at one another and look back at me with a guilty expression on their face. "Well you won't be meeting them sitting here, would you?" I ask them, and their faces were priceless. There are so many people in the house, they are sure to find someone standing by themselves and hopefully have the courage to go up to a girl. Brody and Sam shake their heads at the boys that were roaming around the house now, trying to find a girl to talk to.

"I guess I should go make my rounds, I'll see you guys later." I say to them as I begin to make my way towards the kitchen area. I walk in and see Cedric talking to a group of girls, he doesn't seem to be very interested because when I walked in our eyes met for a couple of seconds. I see him excuse himself from the group of girls, and they are quite disappointed, but move on to another group of girls that are standing nearby.

"Happy birthday," Cedric says once he reaches me. The two of us stand there, not sure what to do to greet each other.

"Thanks," I say as I look around trying to find a way to escape, I really did not expect my parents to invite Cedric to my birthday party, ever. The two of us only talked to each other recently because of the Quidditch World Cup. "How was the World Cup? You know, besides the…" I trail off, not wanting to mention Death Eaters among the muggles in the room.

His face lights up, he loves Quidditch, and is one of the best seekers for Hufflepuff. He's not a petite guy, most seekers are a little smaller than the rest of the team, but not Cedric. "It was great, though I wish you were there to see it." He says looking down at the floor. Is he feeling guilty? "I do need to tell you something though, but not here." He says looking around at all the muggles in the room. My mom is chatting away with some of the adults that were invited, as well as my dad. I nod and I lead him out of the kitchen to the stairs that lead up to my room. No one is there so no one can overhear our conversation.

"What is it?" I ask him as I folded my arms as if to protect myself from whatever he's going to say.

"It's about my dad, he's…" He pauses not sure how to say what he is about to say. He even looks around to make sure that no one is listening. "He used a memory charm on me," he whispers to me and I feel my eyes go wide out of shock and terror. Why would a parent do that to a child?

"What do you mean?" I whisper back to him.

"I know you remember how I acted as if I didn't know you; he basically erased you from my memory, as if you never existed. But it wasn't strong enough, every time your name was mentioned I would have these flashbacks, but I didn't know if they were real or not." Cedric says still whispering. "Every time I told him he would do the spell again, hoping that I won't remember anything, but after seeing you at the Quidditch World Cup, twice, I 'woke up' from my memory fog or whatever it is called." He whispers the rest of the explanation. I stand there trying to figure out how this is possible. Is there really a memory charm that will only erase certain memories? I know about Obliviate but no other memory charms, or maybe I can't remember any other memory charms, and it sounds like Mr. Diggory used an advanced memory charm on his son.

"Why would he do that?" I ask him and I look at him, and he seems to be quite perplexed by the way his dad treated him as well.

"I don't know, there has to be a reason." Cedric says and I can see him trying to figure out why his dad did what he did.

"Well, he did seem to show me some hostility towards me," I say to him, as I try to put the pieces together. I remember my parents never talking about the Diggorys at all after my second year. It seemed as if we were cut off from ever being contacted by the Diggorys. I missed him, I did, but I didn't want to bring up the subject to my parents. I assumed it was a sour subject for my parents, but now it seems as if amends are being made, well with whatever happened between our parents.

"By the way, my dad has no idea I'm here." He whispers to me.

"Then, how did you get here?" I ask him. The Ministry would have found out if he used magic, especially if he apparated here, if he did I would have heard a loud snap, unless he came here before I came back from my camping trip. I don't know, all I know is that Cedric isn't seventeen yet, his birthday is during the term, so there is no way that he's seventeen, at least not yet.

"I took the train here, after I used Floo Powder to go to Diagon Alley." He whispers to me.

"That must have been a long ride." I say to him wondering which station he would have gotten on a train to arrive at my house.

"Yeah it was." He says as yawns in front of me. He takes a look at the clock in my parents' room and turns back to me. "I think I should go, my dad should be coming back from the Ministry." But he just got here, and it took him forever.

"Are you sure he will be back, after what happened at the Quidditch World Cup?" I ask him. I assume that all the people who work for the Ministry are working there overtime because of what happened at the Quidditch World Cup. I kind of want him to stay a little longer. I missed talking to him, and whenever I tried to, it was like he said, as if he didn't know me. I remember having to nearly introduce myself to him every time I saw him. His friends even thought that was weird, but dismissed it. I stopped trying after receiving that reaction from him.

"I don't know, he may or may not come home late. I don't want to risk him finding out where I am." Cedric says in his normal voice. I let out a sigh, I don't want him to get in trouble, and possibly lose this memory of us talking again. "I wonder what he has against you and your family. My mum doesn't seem to remember meeting your parents." My jaw nearly dropped to the floor, but I stopped myself.

"Your dad used the same charm on your mum?" I ask, and Cedric puts a finger on his lips to signify that I am being a bit too loud. I look around and guide him into my room. I leave the door open a crack and sit down on my bed, as he sits on my chair.

"Yeah I think so, I mentioned you to mum, and she looked at me confused by what I said. I stopped when I saw my dad come into the room." Cedric says as he explains how he figured out that his dad used the same charm on his mum. I had no idea Mr. Diggory was such a cunning man. Wasn't he a Hufflepuff, too? I think as the two of us sit in silence. "So, this is the childhood room of Ms. Rebekah Seong." I hear him getting up from my old chair and he actually takes a look around my dull room.

"It's nothing much…" I say and realize I have some pictures of me and Cedric when we were eleven. He walks over to that wall, before I can stop him.

"Oh, look it's the year after we met." He says looking at the picture on the bulletin board. My heart suddenly begins to flutter. I absent mindedly put my hand on my chest to try and calm down my heart. "I looked like such a dork back then." He says still looking at the picture.

"I looked more of a dork. I had glasses!" I say as I walk over to look at the picture with him. "Those glasses were horrible." I say to him and he laughs. I stop looking at the picture and realize that the two of us are rather close. He stands up to his full height, and I do too. I try to hide the fact that my cheeks are red, but my hair is tied up in a half up-do right now. "It's kind of warm in here, or is it just me?" I ask as I fan myself and turn my back to Cedric. What is wrong with me? He's a friend, just a friend. I think as I remember him crushing on the Ravenclaw's seeker.

Cedric turns me around to face him and he comes closer, closing the distance between the two of us. Our foreheads are nearly touching each other, and my face is definitely a deep red, considering how warm I felt. He puts his arm around my waist and my breath catches in my throat. His other hand is under my chin and he lifts my head up so that our eyes meet. I glance away, too nervous to look into his grey eyes. "Rebekah," he says quietly, but then he says my name again but it sounds a little louder and the image fades away. "You okay, you're really red." Cedric says looking at me with a concerned expression. I put my hands on my cheeks right away, and my hands feel cold compared to my cheeks.

"Yeah, I'm fine." The two of us were still standing in front of the bulletin board of pictures that she has in her room. She cleared her throat and stepped back from him a little, giving herself room to breathe. She moved her hands from cheeks and straightened up. She couldn't believe that she thought about them almost kissing. What was I thinking? She thought as she heard the creaking of the floors, indicating that someone was upstairs.

"Rebekah, are you up here? It's time to cut the ca-," Cedric and I looked at the door and saw Brody standing there looking at the two of us. He was leaning on the doorway, and had this mischievous expression. I walk over to him, and take hold of his elbow to guide him out. Cedric says that he will use the restroom before coming back down. "What was that all about?" Brody asks in a hushed sing song tone.

"Nothing, just drop it." I say squeezing his elbow, hinting that I don't want to talk about what I thought was going to happen. Rebekah, he's just a friend, he probably thinks of you as a little sister. I thought as we made our to the kitchen.

"Okay okay," he says defensively, and announces that I'm down here and ready to cut the cake. I smile as everyone cheers and claps as I make my way to the cake that has the candles shaped like the numbers one and six.

"Alright on the count of three, one…two…three…" My dad says as he's holding the camcorder to take a video of me blowing out the candles. He does this every year, whether it's a big party like this one, or a small one. I'm not much of a party person, but I guess my parents went all out because it's my sixteenth birthday. The room fills up with everyone singing "happy birthday". I smile and look at everyone around me, and when my eyes reach the doorway of the hallway to the kitchen, Cedric's standing there smiling.

"Blow out your candles, sweetie." My mum says and I snap back to reality and blow out the candles. Once they were out, everyone cheers and my parents take the melted candles off of the cake, and brings the knife out to cut the cake into pieces.