The Secrets We Leave Behind | George Weasley

Chapter 8

She had heard a lot about Cedric Diggory's romantic history in the three months she had been attending Hogwarts and, despite not believing it to be possible, she had somehow managed to hear even more about the guy since agreeing to a date with him - but not from him of course.

After being told of her upcoming date with Cedric, Alicia seemed to take it upon herself to ensure that Vivian learned every bit of information she could dig up on the Hufflepuff. All thanks to Alicia's proclivity for gossip, Vivian suddenly knew (against her will, she might add) that his last serious relationship was with a Hufflepuff girl a year older than him, that his go to first date spot was the Three Broomsticks, that he always kissed on the first date if there was going to be a second - among countless other useless fun facts that Alicia would spout off to her every time they'd had an excuse to discuss the seeker, which had been steadily increasing as the week drew closer to Saturday.

Apparently Cedric was more of a celebrity crush to Alicia than Vivian had realized. She'd made the mistake of jokingly asking Alicia if she would be quizzed on it all only to have to quickly talk down her friend, who had jumped at the idea and quite nearly did create a quiz for her to take.

Despite Alicia's CIA level of detective work, she had somehow failed to find out perhaps the most confounding detail there was to know about Cedric Diggory. Apparently, in all the time she had spent gathering gossip on him, she had never once heard that he was incredibly and undeniably boring.

For all the excitement Vivian had built up, all the anxiety about making the perfect first impression, all the obsessing she had done over the perfect outfit, she was finding her date to be vastly uninteresting - a possibility she hadn't even considered in all her days of overthinking.

He truly seemed to have very few things on his conversational rolodex, largely dominating the conversation with quidditch talk and telling a lot of "funny" stories that all had a real you had to be there vibe. Try as she might to steer the conversation in any other direction, he was always a little too keen to turn it into another anecdote that seemed to be told more so for the purpose of braggadocio than getting to know each other as one normally does on first dates. After he somehow managed to turn her talking about her childhood pets into a discussion of his greatest primary school accomplishments, she gave up any hope of a real conversation with Cedric.

She had no idea how his personality had seemed to do such a one-eighty in the days since he had asked her on this date. It was understandably a big shock that the guy she'd had such a good time talking to just earlier that week suddenly had very little to say about anything other than himself. Apparently the extent of his interest in her only went as far as that one conversation. She'd had to put a great deal of effort into keeping a smile on her face as he droned on and on, asking her a grand total of three questions since they sat down, one of which being what she wanted to drink.

She was halfway through her second drink and painfully early in yet another one of Cedric's stories about he and his childhood friends playing quidditch when her eyes began to wander around the pub absentmindedly, envying the bar's patrons who appeared to be actually enjoying their time there. Her attention was quickly drawn towards the establishment's front door as it opened with a chime from the bell, signifying someone's entry. The corners of her mouth twitched up as the twins and Lee shoved their way into the crowded bar, avidly discussing something among themselves. She watched as Fred caught her eye, nodding his head towards her to get the other two to look to where she sat. Her blue eyes locked with amber as George's head turned and met her gaze.

She gave the boys a halfhearted wave (was it wrong that she would much rather be sitting with them right now?), feeling her cheeks heat up as George's eyes narrowed, darting between her and Cedric.