In the Melancholy Moonlight

Chapter CLVI: You're My Best Friend

A/N: Hi, everyone! I'm back! I don't have any of my grades back yet, but I survived, so I think that should count for something. All jokes aside, I hope you had a great couple of weeks! Trying to write a Christmas-themed chapter while it's 107°F outside was a bit of a disconnect, so it's not the most festive chapter in the world, but I had a lot of fun writing it and I hope you all have fun reading it. See you all Saturday as I resume my normal updating schedule! Without any further ado, I'll let Henry Benjamin Furls take it away!

(Oh, and everything in italics within quotation marks is singing, everything not in italics is spoken word. Just for reference. 🥰)

(And I took one single liberty with the Queen lyrics at the end but I don't think Freddie Mercury would mind.)

(Anyway, happy reading!)

~

HENRY:

Penny Haywood kept Hufflepuff well-stocked on Dreamless Sleep Potion. Every week, the bookshelf in the corner of the common room was filled with a couple dozen doses, and every week, they disappeared. As I headed to bed after finishing my letter, I noticed that there were a couple left, but I didn't grab one. I had been alright enough without the extra help. Sure, I still had dreams I wished I didn't, but nothing I couldn't handle.

That night, though, was one of the hardest.

I'd dreamed often of losing Cedric, ever since Professor Trelawney had predicted his death when we were in third year. I hadn't believed her at the time, not really, but I'd never forgotten, either. It wasn't the type of thing anyone could forget, no matter how much they wanted to forget it. My dreams reflected my fears from time to time, and when my fears came true, my dreams reflected that, too. My dreams were a time machine, like in the Back to the Future movies Mum had showed me growing up. Sometimes they brought me back to that horrible night, when I had felt the weight of "The world will never be the same" settling on my shoulders. Sometimes they brought me back to other times, other moments, little moments of life, the little ordinary moments of life we don't appreciate until they're gone. The feeling of getting a Chocolate Frog card not already in your collection, the sound of running water after a hard Quidditch practice, the rush of getting a new spell right on the first try, the sight of the sun peeking through the clouds for the first time in a week. I'd experienced all of those moments with Cedric at one point or another, and it was those moments of mediocrity turned extraordinary by circumstance that found me most often.

But the moment that found me that night really was extraordinary. I'd known it even then.

Cedric's Muggle-born friend from St. Mungo's sent him a book of Eagles songs for guitar for Christmas, and he'd been itching for a chance to start trying to learn a couple, but he was shy and didn't want to try to learn with an audience. Apparently, Jabari had always preferred 70s Muggle music to 80s Muggle music and had gotten Cedric into it too, and that song was one of his favorites.

It was just the two of us in the dormitory that night. The other boys were off Merlin-knew-where with their dates from the Yule Ball, but I was writing a letter home and Cedric was trying to learn "Take It Easy," the book levitating in front of him as he tried to figure out the strumming pattern. He was doing alright, honest he was, but I could tell he was getting frustrated from the way he blinked hard and shook his head every time his fingers faltered.

As soon as Cedric had written to me about how much he was enjoying 70s music, I'd asked my mum to dust off her record player so I could learn at least a couple of songs. "Take It Easy" had been one of my favorite songs too. I knew it well. So the next time he got to the chorus and started to lose his confidence, I started singing softly along with his tempo.