Loverboy - ron weasley

57

tw: the mention of death

one week.

one week until the third task.

one week until briar will have to sit, watch, and wait to see if her childhood best friend, brother, and her person, fight against uncertain death.

she had heard of others dying in the tournament before. but she also heard that people have taken certain precautions to make sure that wouldn't happen this time around.

she honestly did think he could win.

harry was strong and smart. but if she's being honest, he's made it just barely the two times before. and it's no secret that dumbledore favors harry. so the extra points, even when coming in last, is pretty much in his favor and his favor only. if any of the other contestants were last but saved more than one person under the water, dumbledore would have maybe acknowledged it, but overall, wouldn't have batted an eye.

"so are you nervous?" she asked.

"a little bit, yeah." cedric answered.

"good, i would be concerned if you weren't."

he smiled and rolled his eyes playfully before going back to the textbook he was studying from.

"do you think i have a chance of winning?"

"yes." she answered without hesitation, "honestly, i think you're the only candidate who stands a chance."

"what about harry?"

"what about him?" briar turned to look at cedric straight on. "he has a pretty good chance..." he said with disbelief, "he's younger than all of us and is already wiping the floor with us."

"hush." briar held her pointer finger to his lips, "you are cedric diggory. everyone in this school is cheering for you! i'm not cheering for harry, i'm cheering for you. dumbledore is being so biased with the points, it's unfair really." she paused taking into consideration what she was going to say next, "you're better than all of them. and they all know it."

he blushed, shaking his head down back to his book. he was never the best with accepting compliments. but after all, who was?

~

it seemed as if time was never moving as fast and slow at the same time.

briar found herself sitting in classes, bored, watching the hands on the clock slowly move. counting down the time till the day everyone was anticipating.

she also found herself not realizing how quickly time was moving, she didn't even notice it when friday creeped up on her.

friday was given off to the contestants to prepare for the following days events.

briar was in the common room, in her usual chair, like most nights.

but except, this night she was reading the same page of her book over, and over, and over again.

the contents of the page just didn't seem to stick.

soon she just gave up and stared at one of the words on the page,

dead.

she didn't know why but that word stuck out to her more than any of the others did.

it's such a deep word, it can mean a lot of things.

it can be interpreted as something gone forever, a part of you lost and not found, something simple like the battery of a toy running out of juice, and a person's, animal's, thing's, anything's, heart stop beating, it's life officially over. the innocence, happiness, anger, laughter, shame, fear, and love ripped from it. never to be heard from again.

there could be more interpretations of the word, but those were the first ones that came to her mind.

digesting her thoughts, she swallowed hard and went to stand up, almost forgetting toulouse was on her lap sleeping soundly.

~

saturday.

it's saturday.

the day of the third and final task.

there was a giant pit in briar's stomach, waiting for the task to begin.

it didn't start until that night.

so she had a lot of waiting, and time to kill.

the hours droned on as they normally did, except she wasn't just waiting for the night to go to sleep.

she was waiting for the task to start.

all week briar hadn't talked to anyone besides cedric.

she spent every minute she could with him, which annoyed cho very much. but she didn't care. and even though it is clear that cedric loves cho very much, he didn't seem to mind her sudden clinginess either.

he knew she was stressed for him, and frankly he was stressed for himself too.

anytime they would have to leave eachother that week, either for classes, curfew, meals, or anything that caused them to spend time apart, they would make plans to meet up somewhere the moment they were allowed to go wherever they wanted, and see whoever they wanted.

ron obviously noticed this, he has his suspicions that there is something there. he would try to talk to her, but she would always tell him she had to be somewhere, and was busy. but she reassured him she would talk to him soon.

both briar and cedric knew that them hanging out more than usual was because of their fears for him, but they never spoke on it.

it was time.

everyone made their way down to where the final task was being held.

everyone took their seats in the stands.

cedric was down by one of the maze's openings with his father. he was patting his son's shoulder and she assumed, giving him words of encouragement.

she could feel her time was running out until he had to go into the maze.

she quickly stood from her seat and ran down towards him.

she jumped into his arms, holding onto him, terrified. the reality of the tournament finally settling into her bones.

even though the chance was low, she could loose a part of her family tonight.

she let go and looked him in the eyes, "be safe ced, i love you."

"i love you too, b." cedric replied, giving her a reassuring smile.

she lifted herself on her tippy toes and kissed his cheek, slowly walking back to the stands.

as you can tell this chapter took a darker turn from the last one lol.

i've been reading a lot of hunger games and i think i really poured that into this chapter.

i really had to put myself in briar's perspective, and think about how i would feel if someone i loved so dearly was placed into something like that. and i'm gonna have to do it again, and even more for the next chapter.

so yeah i'm sorry if i did this completely wrong.