Star Girl | Cedric Diggory

|*| Ninety Two |*|

"Aquila! Aquiiiiiila! Wake up!"

The green haired girl was shaken awake that morning by Alexis who was wearing a green bathrobe on her body. "You're going to be late on the first day back. I hope you didn't need a shower, because the line is like crazy right now."

The stale taste of the leaf in her mouth was all she could focus on, so, without hearing a word of what the other Slytherin had said, she nodded and got up to get ready. She walked around the room slowly, her feet dragging on the carpet for nearly twenty minutes. She had somehow managed to get ready, but the taste of the leaf was so overwhelming, she barely remembered anything.

As she walked with Alexis and Carlos to the Great Hall, she kept making weird faces due to the taste, and her friends questioned her. "Whad? Dis?" she asked, trying to make her words sound normal. "I ade a bad fruid over break. My moud hurds."

"Is there anything Madam Promfrey can do?" Carlos asked. "Should we take you to the Hospital Wing?"

"No!" she shouted, wagging her arms around for emphasis. "I'm fine. Honesd."

"If you say so," Alexis agreed. "Can you eat?"

"I can drink," she said. "Eading's hard. Hurds to chew." She felt like a two year old trying to read; the whole situation was embarrassing, and she wished to bypass the conversation, but it only got worse when chubby Professor Umbridge made her way past the group, stopping to remind them of the rules.

"Boys and girls aren't permitted to be this close," she told the three. "Mr. Blake, I'm going to have to ask you to walk on the opposite side of the corridor as these ladies. If you wouldn't mind, sir."

Carlos nodded. "My apologies professor," he said before walking over to the other side of the hallway.

Umbridge didn't leave just yet; instead she looked Alexis up and down before scowling at her. The woman was trying to find any excuse to dock Alexis house points since her disownment was made known, and Alexis had often times skipped her class, getting to notes off of Aquila who copied notes from Cedric who probably copied off of someone else.

This time, the pink professor docked 10 points for Alexis's "unruly hairstyle." Aquila was sure the woman was about to leave, but she stopped to talk to the green haired girl, and Aquila almost swallowed the mandrake leaf in shock. How was she supposed to talk to the professor while she had a lead tucked into her cheek?

"Aquila, I say, you're doing wonderfully in my class this year," the woman remarked. "I happened upon your past reports over break, and I've noticed an increase in your markings since I became your professor."

"You're an excellend profeddor, ma'am," Aquila sputtered out. "De bes' I ever had."

"My, my. Dear Merlin, what is causing you this speech problem this morning?" Umbridge asked.

"She ate a poisonous food over break, professor," Alexis explained.

"Ten points for speaking when you're not addressed, Miss Greenwall-" Umbridge scoffed "-Miss Whitman is perfectly capable of speaking for herself."

"Actually, she's not," Alexis bravely spoke up. "She can't speak properly."

"Lexi..." Aquila muttered, warning her to stop antagonizing the professor.

"That'll be ten more points," the professor said. "For your filthy, blood traitor backtalk."

Alexis was full of rage, and she would've snapped at the professor if a cloud of black smoke hadn't covered the corridor, giving them cover to run from the professor. As they ran, Aquila heard the professor shouting about those "blasted Weasley products," and the girls laughed hysterically once they were far enough away.

"Good thinking on the smoke bomb," Alexis commended Aquila, but the green haired girl furrowed her brow.

"Dat wadn't me," Aquila told her. "Maybe it wad Carlod."

"Wicked smoke bomb, Quil!" Carlos exclaimed as he dashed over to them. "You should've seen the look on Umbitch's face!"

"It wasn't her," Alexis told him. "We thought it was you."

"No, it wasn't me," he admitted.

"Den who wad it?" Aquila asked.

"How the hell should I know?" Carlos asked. "We all saw the same thing, and I didn't see anyone."

"Neither did we," Alexis said. "Looks like we've got a mystery to solve."

"We aren't some crime solvers," he said. "We're students, and our only priority should be to skip class and be reckless. Let's just see this as some good fortune and move on with our lives."

"I still wanna know who it was," she admitted. "How about you, Quil?"

Aquila shook her head. She didn't want to go on a search for their mysterious helper when her only concern was on her vendetta against Cassiopeia and ignoring Ethan. She didn't want to focus her energy into another project that really didn't matter.

Alexis sighed. "Fine. But if this person helps us out again, I'm going to look for them."

"It was probably Fred and George," Carlos guessed. "You know how they are."

"I'm meeting Fred in the library after class. I'll ask him then," she said. "But I don't think it was him."

Alexis went on with her suspicions, but neither Aquila nor Carlos listened to her. Aquila was thinking about the DA meeting, and Carlos was watching the way Alexis's hands moved when she spoke with a longing in his eyes, but his glances went unnoticed.

|*|*|*|

Aquila and Cedric entered the Room of Requirement for the meeting of the DA, and she had no idea if Hermione would buy the "poisonous fruit" lie. That Gryffindor was intelligent-too intelligent for her own good.

Cedric saw the troubled look in her eyes and placed an arm on her shoulder. "They won't find out," he reassured her.

She wanted to argue, but something inside her knew he was right. She nodded and walked into the room with her head held high, praying to Merlin that Smartypants didn't figure out her secret.

|*| lol gurl she gonna find out |*|