honeysuckle. (cedric diggory.)

ten. ( a date with a dragon. )

EARLY DAWN had begun to awaken in a sky flushed with peach and lavender and marigold, and although her eyelids drooped with exhaustion, Elaine found that she couldn't lay down, couldn't be still. In only a few hours, the Tournament would begin in earnest, and despite the fact that she'd poured her heart and soul into making sure Cedric was as prepared as could be, he was still facing a dragon. And she was terrified. Elaine hadn't slept a wink all night, and had finally abandoned her bed in favor of mindlessly wandering the slumbering corridors in a dazed trance — which was how she found herself on the seventh floor, pacing across from the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy.

Looking back, hours — even moments — later, Elaine couldn't, for the life of her, remember what she had been thinking. She didn't know why the door opened, where the door went. All she knew was that the iron handle was cool against her feverish palm as she opened the door, and the gusty draft from within pimpled the bare skin of her legs.

She crossed her arms over the chest of one of Ben's old sweatshirts ( it was a ratty, gray thing with a Muggle football club logo on it, really she only wore it because it was almost like Ben was there to comfort her ) and tucked her hands beneath her armpits as she slipped silently inside, the door drifting shut behind her. And she was glad that it did, because immediately she was leaning back against the thick wood for balance as she craned her neck upwards, trying to soak in all the junk that was piled as high as the arched stone ceilings.

Broken furniture, old books, tattered canvases devoid of subjects, bits and baubles and dusty souvenirs, broomsticks and buttons, a rusty old tiara and an awful powdered wig — Elaine had never seen so much crap, and her jaw dropped as she found herself wandering throughout the mountains of it, piled high enough that she couldn't see their peaks. Centuries of objects, left behind and abandoned. It was a room of forgotten things and secrets; it was a place where things were meant to stay hidden. Her fingers trailed over the top of a dusty bookshelf, and she drew a smiley face beside a decades-old perfume bottle, the amber liquid within thick and cloudy. Hesitantly, she unscrewed the top of it, and her nostrils were immediately assaulted by the overpowering odor of alcohol. She grimaced and hauled her sweatshirt up over her nose as she jammed the bottle closed.