PRONGSLET AND THE OLYMPIAN ALLIANCE

Chapter Twelve

[12]

●▬▬▬▬▬๑۩۩๑▬▬▬▬▬●

Milo did not sleep well the evening after the Welcoming Feast, he had gone to bed without talking to Cedric or any of his friends, tucking himself under his duvet for the night. Cedric had waited up for quite some time believing that eventually, Milo would crawl into his bed and rest at the bottom for the remainder of the night, however, Milo was annoyed enough that he didn't show at all. Instead, he fell into a restless sleep, with Paden playing with his hair to try and soothe his angry owner. He knew that Cedric's intentions were not made in an ill attempt to be disrespectful, but it did hurt to hear Cedric refer to himself as a charity case. Mainly because that's what Cedric thought the people around him believed him to be.

But it was the furthest thing from the truth, no one saw Cedric as a charity case, they only cared about him. Without even asking, the boy had become part of the family, people wanted to do things for him, not because they felt like they had to but because they wanted to. It only bothered Milo as much because he thought Cedric knew that, but apparently, Cedric was still feeling plenty insecure about his parents abandoning him. His main focus was not focused on the dangers that the tournament was known for, but the prize money. He wanted to be able to support himself financially and was willing to risk his life for it. 

The problem was after hoping there wouldn't be any drama and Cedric telling him that he was paranoid, Milo thought that Cedric would see the tournament as a bad sign and not an opportunity. Perhaps the boy thought he would be safe because of Artemis' protection, however, it had shown in the past that her protecting abilities were limited. She hadn't been able to save his parents because she had focused her attention on Milo as requested and if Milo requested her to watch over Cedric, he saw a lot of things going wrong. 

Everything felt wrong about the situation, from Mad-Eye Moody taking over a teaching position to the Triwizard Tournament, it seemed like there was too much going on and it made him uneasy. As he settled himself under his covers, his stomach hurt and he couldn't tell if it was from eating so many sweets or from stress. He was going to blame it on stress because if he didn't, people were going to try to take sweets from him and he was probably going to take plenty of desserts to get him through the term. 

Milo didn't like the way Professor Moody had looked at him because, in a lot of ways, it was the same way that Dumbledore looked at him. They could probably smile at anyone else and people would see it as fine, but for Milo, he always got a cold feeling It was like he knew that they didn't like him right away, but that was alright, the feeling was mutual, at least on Dumbledore's behalf. Milo didn't know Moody well enough to pass judgement right away, but he planned on keeping himself on his toes. 

Not wanting to deal with any more of it for the rest of the night, he removed his glasses and closed his eyes, allowing Paden to soothe him to sleep. However, while he was tired, it seemed there were other plans made for him as he instantly found himself in a dream state.