Star Girl | Cedric Diggory

|*| One Hundred Five |*|

Aquila arrived at the door of Nash's house about an hour after saying goodbye to her friends. Her head was dizzy from Apparating such a distance, but she shook it off quickly. She was finally done with school; no more classes, no more of that stupid house point system, and-most importantly-no more Harry Potter.

Smiling at her newfound freedom, she knocked on the door and waited for it to open. She couldn't wait to wrap her arms around Nash and tell him all about the wacky year she had. So, when the door opened, Aquila embraced him without even hesitating. Only, the body she was not wrapped around was not her brother's; it was smaller with less broad shoulders.

Aquila let go quickly, stepping back and staring at the person in the doorway. "You're not Nash," the green haired girl said plainly, her eyes widening slightly.

A woman clothed in all black with strangely large nostrils looked back at her; the look on her face was that of pure shock and confusion, but after a moment she smiled politely at the graduate. "I don't believe we've met," the woman said. "I'm Ashley."

Aquila squinted at her. She remembered hearing the name Ashely before. Maybe she heard it in the passing conversation of a group of students in a corridor-it was quite a common name-but she sensed that wasn't the case. Nevertheless, she introduced herself as Aquila and asked where Nash was at the moment.

"Oh! He told me you'd be arriving!" Ashley exclaimed. "Unfortunately, he stuck at work at the moment... I made some cupcakes for you-some in every flavor because I wasn't sure which you liked best. Come in! We did some rearranging since the last time you were here."

Aquila skeptically followed Ashley into the house, and she almost gagged at the smell-pine. Not like the nice Christmas pine smell, no sir; it was the overpowering pine smell that you only ever experience on a scenic stroll through an untouched forest at midday or inside the house of the crazy boy scout mom. Nash's house was overpowered with the odor of pine, and Aquila made a point to look around for the source of the smell when Ashley left her alone sometime later.

The walls were painted an ugly shade of purple, and this surprised her because before walking inside the house, she didn't think an ugly shade of purple could even exist. But it did. It was somewhere in between lilac and lavender with a maroon type of feel, and it did not compliment the furnishings' gray tones. And she didn't even want to talk about the strange, triangularly shaped area rug that was sitting sadly in the middle of the large living room floor.

"I love what you've done with the place," Aquila said, nearly choking as the pine invaded her nostrils.

Ashley smiled. "Nash and I had a lot of conflicting views on what the room should look like," she informed Aquila. "I wanted gray colors, but he insisted on some color-in the end, we mashed them together quite nicely."

Aquila nodded. "Quite."

They then traveled to the kitchen. At least nothing had changed since last time-the marble countertop and hardwood floors remained the same, but the fridge was now covered from top to bottom in pictures. While Ashley went to ice the cupcakes, Aquila looked over the pictures.

Some were of Nash and the rest of her family; there was Nash's graduation photo; a few pictures of Ashley were scattered across, including one of her surrounded by dogs; an image of Aquila and Nash at the Quidditch World Cup sat in the middle of a bunch of cards. Aquila squinted at the cards-"Congratulations, Newlyweds!" the cards read on the front.

She froze. Nash and Ashley were married? Married... but when was the wedding? How come she hadn't heard? She scoured the fridge for anything that could give her more information-perhaps a saved wedding invitation-but she found nothing but images of Nash and his wife smiling back at her.