Denying Draco

33 - Run A Mile, Diggory

After several days of not seeing Draco around, Poppy was feeling much more like herself again and her emotions had settled down. Draco had not been present in classes, which were mainly just quiet lessons studying for the NEWTs, but she had certainly noticed that Pansy appeared very quiet and red-eyed during Potions. She wondered if he was treating Pansy just as poorly as he had treated her.

With the weekend finally arriving, Ginny and Hermione decided to drag Poppy to Hogsmeade to do some shopping and pull her thoughts away from the drama at Hogwarts. She managed to purchase Christmas gifts for her family which made her feel relieved that she no longer had to worry about that now. The girls stocked up on sweets and treats at Honeydukes for their midnight dorm room chats, took a stroll through Zonko's joke shop, which cheered Poppy up greatly before they stopped for tea at Madam Puddifoot's tea shop.

After leaving the tea shop, Poppy was feeling refreshed from some quality time spent with her friends and realised how good it had been for her mind to get away from school for a while.

'Can we stop by Dervish and Banges?' Hermione asked them both. 'I want to try and find a Sneakoscope for Harry.'

'Yes, although he insists he does not need one,' Ginny laughed.

'If anyone needs a magical device that can detect enemies nearby then it's Harry,' Poppy chuckled.

The girls continued through Hogsmeade until they made it to Dervish and Banges, which was quite full with customers and a lot of Hogwarts students.

Hermione wandered off when they entered and Poppy and Ginny continued walking around studying all sorts of magical instruments and objects within the store.

'Come on, up here,' Ginny said to her. She followed Ginny upstairs to the upper level which overlooked the ground floor and she hovered behind her friend as she studied some very strange items on the shelves, laughing to herself and talking about how she'd use them on her brothers.

'You're in your element here, aren't you?' Poppy chortled.

'I certainly am!' Ginny replied, holding up a strange looking jack-in-the-box with a clown face hanging out and she waggled it at Poppy jokingly. As she did so she stepped back, laughing loudly and also bumping into someone behind her. 'Oh, sorry! Oh! Cedric? Hi!'

'Ginny, nice to see you!' The young man was very handsome with brown hair, a chiselled jawline and a warm and welcoming smile. 'Hello.' He turned to Poppy and greeted her politely.

'Hi there,' Poppy replied.

'This is Poppy Dumbledore,' Ginny told him, grinning suspiciously. 'Poppy, this is Cedric Diggory.'

'Dumbledore?' Cedric questioned, raising an eyebrow.

'Yes, Professor. Dumbledore's niece,' Ginny explained, before she turned to Poppy. 'Cedric used to go to Hogwarts.'

'Oh, I see.' Poppy found herself feeling bashful at the way Cedric was still smiling at her and she leaned against the balcony railing to steady herself. She found him very attractive and the way he was looking at her made her wonder if he was thinking the same about her.

'I'm gonna' go pay for this...' Ginny said, slowly, subtly scurrying off away from them.

'Being Professor. Dumbledore's niece must be very interesting then,' Cedric said, still smiling.

'I suppose to other people it is,' Poppy replied, shrugging softly. 'To me he's just Uncle Albus.'

'That sounds rather strange,' Cedric laughed. 'Are you new at Hogwarts? I believe I'm a few years older than you but I'd never heard of you whilst attending the school.'