"Fuck."
"Regarde où tu vas!" a drunken Frenchman barked as he stumbled backward, barely catching himself on the lip of the pavement. He'd slammed straight into a cloaked figure, tall and silent. "Jeunes stupides, ne respectant plus leurs aînés..." he muttered under his breath, casting an irritated glance over his shoulder—only to find the figure gone.
Vanished.
His brows furrowed, mind fuzzy from drink. Has it even happened? Or had the fog in his head finally caught up with his eyes?
But it didn't matter.
Beneath the worn folds of an old invisibility cloak, the figure ducked into a shadowed alley between two stone buildings, somewhere deep in the Pyrenees. The village straddled the border between France and Spain, its streets slick with drizzle and old secrets. Cedric leaned against a crumbling wall, exhaling slowly and heavy.
He pulled a strange compass from the breast pocket of his coat. Its arrow spun violently, pointing in no direction for more than a heartbeat. Not north. Not anywhere sensible. Just madness. He'd stared at the damned thing for weeks, until his eyes were ready to bleed. And yet—tonight—it was shifting.
Drawing him somewhere.
"I want you to find something for me."
Her voice whispered again in his memory. He didn't know why he'd agreed. Maybe it was the way she said it. Maybe it was the way she looked like she already knew he would.
But he'd found it. And the search hadn't involved Death Eaters or monsters, just a brutal kind of persistence that aged him ten years.
Now that he had it, the only thing left to do was find her.
He stepped out of the alley, cloak still shielding him from curious eyes, and wandered deeper into the village. The compass finally stilled. For the first time in days, it pointed firm and sure—southwest. Into the hills. Far from the stone streets and whispers of civilization.
He followed.
The climb was steep, the terrain rough, but the air thinned with purpose the higher he went. After an hour, he spotted a cottage—half-swallowed by trees and fog. No sign of life. No fire in the windows. Just stillness and the slow spin of memory.
Cedric's boots sank into soft moss as he stepped closer. The compass pulsed faintly in his hand, its glow dimming the moment he reached the threshold.
She was here.
He raised a hand to knock—but the door cracked open on its own, creaking with an eerie welcome. He stepped inside.
And there she was.
Seated at the far end of the room, dressed in clothes that didn't belong to her. Clay smudged her hands, the hem of her shirt. Her eyes met his like glass catching moonlight. Wide. Curious. Troubled.
But empty.
"Finley," he breathed.
She stood slowly, warily. Not afraid. Cautious. Like something in her couldn't quite place him, though it wanted to.
"Cedric?" she said.
Hope flickered. He stepped forward.
"You remember me?"
Finley shook her head.
"No," she admitted softly. "But I found a letter. It said your name."
The words sliced him clean. A letter. Not a memory. She didn't remember the years they spent at Hogwarts, nor did she remember herself to be someone he could call his little sister and dearest friend.
YOU ARE READING
Miss Slytherin
Fanfic"That's odd," Finley finally spoke as they arrived at the wall where they found the door last Christmas. "Shouldn't there be a door here?" She asked Draco who only smiled at her. "That's where you're wrong Evans, what we found last Christmas was t...
