Eleven:
It was odd to see the platform when it wasn't filled to the brim with harried students and their tearful guardians, but Cedric supposed it was to be expected when he showed up almost 40 minutes early alongside his mother and father. There were only a few people about, most of them seemed to be first years who wanted to be on time, but clearly overshot it.
"So, why is it you wanted to come early again, son?" questioned his father, staring about the empty place with a slightly uncomfortable look on his face.
"Goodness, Amos." chastised his mother, looking at her husband with an exasperated expression. "We were prefects ourselves, you should remember having showing up early to direct the first years and their families."
The man only looked at her blankly, clearly not recalling before she rolled her eyes in response, reaching over to pat her child gingerly on the shoulder. "Well..." she trailed off, looking a bit unsure of what to say, as though she hadn't escorted her son to the Platform four of times before.
She simply gave him a shaky nod and a "Have fun, dear." before stepping back, motioning to her husband.
Them man simply smiled thinly, and clapped his son on the shoulder before looping arms with his wife and disappearing through the barrier leading back to King's Cross. Cedric stared after them, right hand raised in a lofty wave until they were finally gone.
Turning back, he looked across the almost empty platform save for a few overly eagre first years and their parents. Without the bright red steam engine merrily billowing puffy white clouds out of its chimney, an almost depressing feeling hung about the air.
Despite what his mother said, he did not come early to complete his prefectorial duties. If that had been the case he certainly wouldn't have shown up quite as early, most only showing 10 or 15 minutes before the train was to depart. No, the reason he was actually here he wanted to meet Jona as early as possible.
He knew that was his Prefect duties there was a possibility that he would not be able to spend as much time with his best friend as usual, being too busy making rounds up and down the train. It was a bit uncharacteristic of him as he usually did not pay much mind to whatever Jona babbled during their long arduous trips on the Hogwarts express, but for some reason he felt it necessary to speak to his friend for at least a short while before he made his way to Hogwarts, as a tradition of sorts.
In his letters Jonathan did not seem unwelcome to the idea of getting to see his friend a bit early despite the fact that they had met a couple times over summer break. In fact it had seemed to Cedric that Jona had been becoming increasingly more eager to see him as of late. Oddly invested in how Cedric had been faring. Though then again, Cedric always found it a bit odd when anyone showed the slightest interest in him.
It had been a few more moments of Cedric starting about the eerily empty platform before Jona came barrelling through the barricade, his fraternal twin, Roger following shortly after at a more leisurely pace alongside their parents.
"Cedric!" called the stocky Hufflepuff, waving as though the station was not dead empty and he was not clearly in sight. Despite this, Cedric waved back, grinning.
The twins bid their parents affectionate goodbyes and the Davies Matriarch even afforded Cedric a few soft words of congratulations at his becoming a prefect, before giving her sons each a final peck and then disappearing back through the brick barrier, her husband in tow.
Jona's "It's good to see you mate." was accompanied by a firm clap to Cedric's shoulder and a wide grin. "How've ya been since I last saw you?"
"Pretty good," nodded the taller Hufflepuff, turning to Roger. "Hey Roger."
The boy in question had seemed to resigned himself to the fate of being ignored and had begun staring listlessly in no general direction, started in slight surprise, grinning a bit bashfully.
"Oh, er hey Cedric. Congratulations on becoming a Prefect, looks like we're in this together, eh?"
"Yeah," Cedric racked his brains, trying to recall if Jona had ever mentioned that his brother had gotten a Prefect badge. He supposed he must've considering how much Jona enjoyed to talk about his life, but honestly, Cedric couldn't recall. He'd been having a hard time keeping up with trivial things such as that as of late.
"So," Jona said, interrupting the awkward silence that had spawned from Cedric becoming lost in his own thoughts. "You gotta tell me, how'd you convince your parents to not only let you stay in Diagon for a week, but also pay for it?"
Cedric frowned, scratching the back of his neck. He knew no matter what he said he was going to come out of this sounding like a spoiled idiot, Jona just wouldn't get it. "I kinda didn't... I just checked into the Leaky Cauldron."
Both of the Davies twins looked rather sceptical at this, their arms crossing in an eerie resemblance. It was Roger who spoke. "You stayed there for a week by yourself without them saying a thing? They didn't say anything about you draining money out their account?"
"No! No, I used the joint account I have with Grandpa Eldrich. And... I did eventually contact them... a few days in."
"Days?" Hissed Jona eyes wide and mouth agape. "It took you days to tell 'em? And they didn't make you come home? Mum would'a tanned us black and blue if either us tried something like tha'!"
He traced his grey eyes shamefully to the floor, the back of his neck burning hot. "Well... I may've told them I was sharing a suite with you..."
"WHAT?!" Jona's affronted shriek attracted a few curious glances from the occupants of the steadily filling platform. Roger seemed a bit confused by his brother's incredulity, but being who he was, Cedric knew that lying was one of the greatest misdeeds a Hufflepuff could commit.
"I'm sorry." he mumbled, truly meaning it. He did feel remorse in lying, but still felt it justified considering the circumstances. "I just needed a some space from them, they've been suffocating as of late, y'know with me doing so much better in school and all. I guess I'm not used to all the attention."
His best friend sighed, shaking his head. "I bet if you just told 'em that they would've let up a bit. In fact, I bet they knew it already and that was why they let you stay, not 'cause some shitty lie."
"Yeah maybe." he could only reply awkwardly, hands stuffed firmly in the pockets of his slacks eyes looking everywhere but Jona's disappointed countenance.
They paused for a moment, another awkward silence ensuing before Jona once again interrupted it.
"Well, at least you got a fashion sense over the summer."
Cedric huffed a laugh, a rude reply already on his tongue.
-0v0-
The Prefect's Compartment was more spacious than Cedric had imagined it would be. He'd always presumed it would just perhaps just be a slightly larger version of a regular compartment, but in reality it was, in fact, an entire train car with a few evenly spaced tables and soft benches. He apparently had not been the only one to think it would be this way as Roger too took in the carriage with an air of surprise.
Despite showing up to the platform far earlier than any of the other Prefects, they were not the first ones to enter the Compartment. Upon walking in they were greeted with the sight of Percy Weasley and Penelope Clearwater sitting at separate tables, doing their damnest best to ignore the other's existence. No doubt, the sting of their messy break up at the end of last term still fresh. Coldy, Clearwater simply lifted the book in her hands higher, not bothering to acknowledge the two new additions to the space, however Weasley stood from his seat, his usual sneeringly imperial expression decorating his face and swiftly walked over to shake each of their hands.
"Diggory, Davies, it's a pleasure to welcome the both of you to the Hogwarts Prefect System, take a seat wherever you'd like." His tone was snobbish as per usual, but still held a warmth that proved his words sincere.
The Compartment filled quickly after that and Cedric was happily surprised to find out that Cesaria had managed to become the female Hufflepuff Prefect of his year. In truth he was still felt somewhat bad for taking the Seeker position from her, she'd always been, at least, polite to him.
When everyone has settled into a seat, both Clearwater and Weasley had stood and introduced themselves as Headboy and Girl, launching into a long drawn out speech about how honorable and revered the Hogwarts Prefect system was and so on and so forth. Cedric honestly tuned the two of them out, by the tone of Clearwater's voice it was apparent that it was all obligatory nonsense anyway (Weasley sounded quite inspired, but that guy seemed to just take pleasure in any and all things dull).
Eventually they moved onto the topic of Prefect's responsibilities at which point Clearwater seemed to finally lose the last vestiges of her interest and gave Weasley full stage, shuffling back to her seat and opening up the heavy book from before. Weasley barely noticed her retreat and went on with his unnervingly passionate speech about rules and expectations.
"-each of you posses a power over your peers that, when abused can lead to serious consequences, for that reason, Clearwater and I have introduced a system in which every time you take points or assign a detention to another student, it will be automatically recorded in the assigned notebooks I will be passing out in a moment's time. At the end of each bi-week you will turn in your notebooks to us and we will review them. It is not our intention to give you the impression that we do not trust you, but there are occasions where people change with power in their hands."
Cedric found the system to be a pretty ingenious idea. Though he'd never personally encountered a biased prefect he'd certainly heard horror stories of Slytherin students going mad with power and mercilessly taking points from every Gryffindor in sight.
Weasley droned on and eventually passed out the small brown notebooks and dismissed the fifth year Prefects to make their rounds.
"As for the rest of you, you may remain here or return to your respective compartments if you so please. Sixth years, your rounds begin in two hours, seventh years will not begin for another four, if you need to speak to or need assistance from Penn- Clearwater or I, we will be in the compartments across from each other at the front of the train. You're all dismissed, enjoy your trip." And with a curt nod he stepped out of the train car, Clearwater following after waiting a few moments.
Cedric and Roger both agreed that they were happily surprised to find out that they would not be spending the entire trip patrolling that aisles like they had presumed they were going to have to do. Their rounds went by quite quickly, actually, having each other to speak to as the roamed up and down the halls, occasionally helping a first or second year settle their luggage or directing a couple of people towards the bathrooms. There was hardly any unruly behaviour the only instance being a lower year Gryffindor who had somehow managed to sneak a funpack from Zonko's onto the train, which Roger promptly confiscated after promising that the boy could pick it up from the Prefect's Lounge at the end of the train ride.
"Well, that wasn't so bad." commented Roger as they meandered around looking for their friends. "Glad we didn't have to break up a duel or anything like that."
Cedric had to withhold a wince at that comment. He had actually been hoping for quite the opposite. Breaking up wizarding duels no matter the age of said duelists could be rather dangerous. It would've been a nice boost to his public persona if he had managed to encounter and subdue one. In all truthfulness he'd been hoping to stumble across an inevitable Malfoy/Potter confrontation. Taking points from the Slytherin terror would surely catch Potter's eye.
"Yeah, I think most of the arguments don't start until after people start getting restless, hence why they had the youngest Prefects do their rounds first."
Roger nodded. "That makes sense, oh hey, there's Jona. I guess, I'll see you later then."
Cedric waved before closing the compartment door. "Yeah, bye."
Jona was, of course, reading yet another raunchy romance novel upon Cedric's entrance and only put it down after he seemed to find a proper stopping point.
"So," said the shorter boy, snapping the paperback closed. "How were your rounds, then? Encounter any drama?" He scooted forward in his seat, looking quite eager for Cedric's reply.
Cedric rolled his eyes, leaning back into the cushioned bench and pulling his carry on from the overhead. "Hardly. It was pretty boring outside of Roger's constant stream of commentary. I'm quite certain he talks almost as much as you."
"How rude!" clucked Jona in fake affront, chucking an empty chocolate frog box at him. "And after I went through the trouble of dragging your carry on all the way here (which is quite nice by the way where did you get it?) AND saving you a seat."
He shot Jona an unimpressed look as he rifled through his bag for his travel quill and journal. "My grandmother bought it for me, I'll have to ask her. And there's hardly anything in it, Jona. If you were dragging something it was more likely your OWN bag that you fill to the brim with trashy romance novels."
The affront on Jona's face probably wasn't faked this time around. "TRASHY? How dare you! You couldn't write a book like this if you devoted your entire life to the craft!"
"Thank Merlin for that." Murmured Cedric, flipping through his journal in search of an empty page.
"What do you write in that thing anyway?" hissed the shorter boy, clearly still hot about the previous topic.
"Just notes." was the vague answer he received.
"Of?"
He froze. What was he to say? He bought it with the intention of planning and taking note of his social and educational progression but-
He flipped past a page practically overflowing with meandering fanciful pipedreams followed by an orderly bullet list. Perhaps he shouldn't answer.
"I was hoping I'd get to encounter a fight or something, really."
Jona chuckled fixing Cedric with a knowing stare. "Way to change the subject, but alright. We're you really, though? Why would you want a fight to break out in the first place?"
He had thought it would be obvious. "To break one up."
"Oh, that's dangerous talk there, Ced. Careful, someone might confuse you for a Gryffindor."
He couldn't help but laugh at that.
The trainride continued in that manner, Jona and Cedric occasionally sharing quips as they went about their own business and for a little while Cedric could feel all of his self imposed responsibilities melt away and he could just simply enjoy himself. He realized that he maybe hadn't been paying as much mind to Jonathan as he had the previous summers. Perhaps he should remedy that.
The train stopped. The lights flickered out. A chill fell over the compartment and a sense of gloom that he'd only ever experienced in the privacy of his own mind overtook him.
He stepped towards the door, but a hand wrapped around his wrist before he could open it. He turned around and squinted through the darkness, barely making out Jona's imploring expression. He sat back down and waited.
After what could have been minutes or hours the lights flickered back on and Percy Weasley's voice filtered through the intercom, echoing down the almost silent train.
"If the Healer on board could please report to carriage three compartment seven it would be greatly appreciated. Prefects sixth year and above please report to the Prefect's Lounge, Ms. Clearwater will instruct you from there. To the rest of the student body; please remain in your compartments for the duration of the trip unless there is an immediate emergency, an upper year Prefect will be by to make sure you are accounted for. Thank you all for your cooperation."
The telltale crackle of the intercom snapped the both of them out of their respective trances and they both looked back at the other with wide eyes.
"What'dya think that was?" slurred Jonathan, a disoriented expression on his face.
Cedric shrugged, eyebrows furrowed as he glanced out the frosted window pane as the rain tapped incessantly against it. "I don't know."
-0v0-
He wasn't there, again.
Cedric wanted to scream. Why couldn't Potter just be safe for once? He had had an uneasy feeling in his gut when Weasley's voice sounded grimly over the intercom in the train, because it just somehow always ended up being Potter. Cedric didn't know what the poor boy did to deserve the rotten luck that he had, but it was getting old fast.
He stared closer at the faces of the Gryffindors in Potter's year. They seemed calm for the most part, so he could presume that the boy was not in any life threatening danger, but he still wanted to pout a bit. He'd been hoping a little that Potter might notice his new robes or prefect badge.
Silly, but still.
"Yeah, but did you hear why he's in the hospital wing?" he overheard a younger year (Ernest McMaxon or something like that) Hufflepuff, hissing in a pitiful attempt at a whisper. He knew immediately who they were discussing of course.
"No, why?"
"He fainted apparently! Heard the Reserve Healer saying it was because of Dementors."
"Dementors?" exclaimed the other younger year in astonishment and Cedric couldn't help but secretly mirror her shock. Surely the Ministry wasn't foolish enough to put those things on a train full of children.
He felt a sharp pain in his side and glanced over to see Jona rearing his arm back to elbow him again. "What?"
His friend remained unapologetic and spoke. "You've been staring at your potatoes for pretty long there, is something the matter?"
Cedric sent another glance at the Gryffindor, holding back a frown. "Not really. Just overheard someone saying there were Dementors on the train."
"Really? I s'pose that explains why it got so cold and what not, bit hard to believe the Ministry would put 'em on the Hogwarts express though."
Cedric nodded. "That's what I was thinking, I mean I get they wanna catch Black an' all, but this seems reckless. Makes me uneasy."
His unease didn't get any better after Dumbledore's announcements either. His sleep plagued with images of Potter being spirited away by hooded monsters.
A/N: Well, that's a pleasant note to end on.
I'm uh... back, if you haven't already noticed. I don't have any sort of explanation as to why exactly I haven't uploaded in ten months. Just kinda... haven't. Sorry 'bout that.
Ten month hiatus or not; feedback is always welcome.