YOU MAKE MY HEART SHAKE, BEND, AND BREAK BUT I CAN'T TURN AWAY!
aurora "rory" archer was a powerhouse. well, sort of. she was a fierce friend with a heart of gold and a love of music. she was also awkward, bad at potions, and... fatherless. her frie...
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APPARITION LESSONS WERE A PIECE OF CAKE compared to the stress of awaiting the third task. Actually, they ended up not being that bad. Rory got her license without any casualties when April came. As did the twins, Lee, Angelina... Marina however, splinched herself at the second to last lesson and decided to hold off her test until the next year. Cedric passed his test too. He also successfully asked Cho (who actually got along quite well with Rory, as they coexisted in Cedric's life) to be his girlfriend which made Rory very happy.
Rory came to a realization as winter melted into spring and spring melted even further into summer. She had feelings for Fred Weasley. The romantic kind. She noticed it to be true when she had a dream about their kiss at the Yule Ball every night for a week in May. Every time he entered a room she got nervous. She became more aware of what she was saying, doing, how she looked, how he was acting towards her and vise versa. Still, she kept it a secret. Only Cedric knew how she really felt. He was good at keeping her secrets. He was good at a lot of things.
Rory felt Cedric's was most skillful at an art she called "Pretending To Be Okay". To everyone, he was the confident Prince of Hufflepuff, Hogwarts champion, fighter of dragons and mermaids... but in reality he was a scared boy with immense pressure on him coming from everyone he knew. He told Rory she was the only one who wasn't constantly making him feel like he had to perform for the world. Even Cho sometimes laid it on thick, intentionally or not. As the third task approached, Rory spent nearly every day in the Hufflepuff common room with Cedric. She didn't even have time to confess her feelings to Fred even if she wanted to (which she didn't, at least not until she got some sort of confirmation he felt the same).
Copious amounts of homework, a deadly maze, and teenage hormones... what could go wrong? At least they didn't have exams to worry about like the rest of the school.
Although Rory would much rather have been sitting in the Great Hall, taking her O.W.Ls all over again than sitting in the Great Hall too sick to eat her breakfast, next to Cedric the day before the final task.
Cedric couldn't eat either. He hadn't been for days. He wasn't sleeping either. Rory could tell because she noticed dark circles growing under his eyes. Also, Cedric would often tell Rory of his dreams and for weeks, he hadn't come to her with any.
But Rory couldn't let Cedric think it was okay to not eat or sleep, especially when he needed his strength. So, she decided to practice what she preached to him so many times and suck it up.
"Ced," she sighed, swallowing a bite of toast which felt like sandpaper down her throat. "Please eat. And you've got to sleep today, take the day off of your classes. You've been working too hard. You need your strength for tomorrow."
"You're always telling me I need my strength," he cracked a smile, "You worry too much, you know that?"
"I mean it's not for no reason, is it?" She rolled her eyes.
