AN I completely rewrote the entire chapter heeeeeeehhjkbg
THE FIRST CLASS Arden had with Cedric was Defense Against the Dark Arts. Sitting outside of the classroom, having arrived ten minutes early, she decided to practice her calligraphy on a scrap piece of parchment. As she began to dip her ink into the bottle, she felt someone sit down beside her, looking over her shoulder.
"What are you up to, Arden?" Cedric questioned, eyeing her blank parchment.
"Well, I was going to practice my writing, but seeing as though you are here, I guess I won't anymore," she replied as she began to pack up the tools.
"Please don't, it's alright. I want to watch," he smiled, resting his chin on her shoulder. Because she was faced forwards, and not in the direction of the boy, she couldn't quite see his facial expression, which made her question whether he was joking or not. Deciding the latter, Arden unpacked her ink bottle, parchment, and quill once again, and continued to write. She felt Cedric's chin relax on her shoulder, signaling he was comfortable and had no plan on moving. This made it hard for her to not blush, but, fighting the urge, she concentrated on the paper.
"Your capital 'C' looks chummy," he noted, pointing his finger at it.
"Oh yeah? Well then you-" But before she could finish speaking, Cedric wrapped his arm around her, forcing her closer, and reached his hand to clutch the quill she was holding, his hand on top of hers.
Arden froze, not really sure what to do now, now that she was in his arms, so she shut her mouth and watched.
"You have to make it smoother," He practically whispered into her ear, causing a shudder to trickle down her back. He lightly smiled as he finished the 'C', holding their current position a moment longer than necessary.
"Well," Arden slowly spoke as he unwrapped his arm, "Your grip on the quill is a bit daft." There was nothing she could come at him with regarding his perfectly composed letter or his out of character action. She liked when he held her.
"Is that it, Arden?" His voice was ethereal. It was so softly spoken, for all she knew she could be sitting next to an angel (which she was, she thought, replying to herself). It was as if -- in the current moment -- she was his marionette; his perfection was controlling her thoughts and actions. She was practically helpless.
"Yes," she managed to get out, after a brief, ongoing battle with her conscious. As she spoke, she turned her head to look at him, no longer aware of how close they exactly were. Breath hitching, the girl realized that their noses were no more than two centimeters apart. However, before either could breath again, let alone move, the bell rang. Louder than usual, she thought. The two quickly moved away from each other, returning back to their original positions of Cedric solely sitting beside her. Not peeking over to see what she was doing, not resting his chin on her shoulder, not wrapping an arm around her.
"You can put those books away," Moody growled, "You won't need them." Quickly obliging, every student in the class stuffed their books back into their bags with no complaint. "So -- straight into it. Curses. They come in many strengths and forms. Now, according to the Ministry of Magic, I am supposed to teach you what the illegal Dark curses look like, and look like alone. But Professor Dumbledore's got a higher opinion of your nerves. He reckons you can cope, and I say, the sooner you know what you're really up against, the better. How are you supposed to defend yourself against something something you've never seen?" Moody turned to face his chalkboard and messily wrote UNFORGIVABLE CURSES at the top. Arden felt like her bones had chilled. It was the year that she would be learning more in depth about curses, yet, somehow, she felt as though the first day back was a bit too soon to be learning about the most heavily punishable ones. She noticed Cedric, who was sitting next to her, became unusually still.
