The Exchange Student - Cedric Diggory⁴

➣ 𝘾𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝟔 "𝙒𝙝𝙞𝙩𝙚 𝘾𝙝𝙧𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙢𝙖𝙨𝙚𝙨"

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The first weeks of November flowed without issue or crisis, and Nicolás finally found respite to focus on his personal advanced studies and the work sent by his Castelobruxo professors, all of this while still finding time to spend with either Cedric, Caelum, Harry or any of his friends.

He also dedicated a considerable amount of time reading Obliviating: A Guide on Memory Charms, a book he took from the Restricted Section of the Library—because, having your dad as a Hogwarts teacher had its perks, didn't it?

He wasn't sure why he chose that book, but seeing the cover gave him a hunch, and well, the whole Lockhart business from the year before was enough for his father to budge and sign the permission.

Sadly for Cedric, the Hufflepuff team's Chasers were still recovering from a pretty ugly flu by the time their match against Ravenclaw came. The match went on for almost three hours, with Ravenclaw mercilessly scoring, and Hufflepuff's Keeper, poor Alec, barely keeping up.

In the end, with all his strategies tarnished, Cedric had no other option but to rush and catch the Snitch before the other Ravenclaw Seeker, Zhang Mei, did. And he did it, catching the Snitch and finishing the match, even if it meant giving the victory to Ravenclaw.

Nicolás noted Caelum still seemed to be sleep-deprived. The dark circles around his eyes would be more noticeable some days, other days, he would be very noisy, as usual, and then, others he would be silent and almost lost in thought. And still, he didn't feel comfortable telling Nicolás what afflicted his nights and haunted his dreams.

Nicolás tried for the last two months to take it out of his mouth, but Caelum refused to explain anything beyond "It's nightmares," which is very worrying, considering Caelum hasn't had nightmares since he and his mother left Colombia to come back to the UK, years prior.

On even worse notes, it came to Nicolás' notice what Harry called 'The Hippogriff Incident,' which happened in his year's first Care of Magical Creatures with Hagrid.

According to Harry, it had been a very weird incident. One moment, he was speaking with his friends, as usual, the next, Draco Malfoy wanted to speak with him, the boy apologized for his patronizing the years before, which left a very confused Harry—almost as confused as Hermione and Ron.

Then, the class went on as normal with Hagrid, who offered Harry as tribute for Buckbeak, the Hippogriff. Harry, making use of everything Nicolás taught him back in the Cardona Magical Creature Reserve, easily presented himself to the Hippogriff, who even let him have a ride on its back.

Then, as everyone else was getting to meet the other Hippogriffs, Draco started to argue with one of his housemates, Blaise Zabini, and everything ended up with Zabini shouting insults at Buckbeak, which sent the creature on a rampage, and hurting Draco's arm.

Nicolás knew what happened later because of Dorian. As Draco was hurt, Lucius Malfoy decided to take presumptuous legal action, demanding for Buckbeak to be put down, even if Draco begged him not to—this last thing was what made Dorian even more furious towards Lucius, his godfather.

Ever since, Nicolás has been in close contact with his mother and Abu Pedro. Given that both of them had seats in the Wizengamot, and his mother was the Head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, she was making special efforts to present a convincing case for the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures, which was going just fine.

They would have to wait until the upcoming year for the final hearing, during which they would present a very easy solution: taking Buckbeak to the family reserve in Colombia. They already had a whole herd of over fifteen Hippogriffs, anyway.