DUSK; Cedric Diggory

Chapter 52

The day after the yule ball, Ophelia was sitting alone in the courtyard—freezing, but everywhere else was too noisy for her to read her book, when Cedric ran towards her with flushed red cheeks and a wide grin.

"Fee!" Cedric exclaimed, his eyes twinkling as he helped her up from the ground. "Come with me!"

"Er..."Ophelia said in confusion, closing her book as he hurried her to the common room, telling her to change into her swimsuit. "What's the hurry?"

"You'll see."

Still confused, Ophelia changed into the first bikini she could find, wrapping a robe around her before jogging back down the stairs to meet her boyfriend outside the portrait. Cedric excitedly grabbed her hand and took her to the fifth floor prefect bathrooms, almost yelling out the password before the door magically swung open.

"Ced...You're acting weird?" 

Cedric chuckled and took of his shirt, revealing his chiseled abs from quidditch and swim trunks that hung low on his hips. Ophelia snapped out of checking him out when he pulled the golden egg they had spent hours inspecting out of his book bag, motioning for her to go in the huge prefect bath with him.

"Why do you have the egg?" Ophelia asked curiously, folding her robes neatly on the marble floor. 

"Ran into Professor Moody after Potions today," came his reply. "Not quite sure how he knows...but he told me to bring it to the bath...so I'd thought I'd give it a try."

Ophelia shrugged and jumped into the bath, the warm water massaging the goosebumps from the cold weather outside. "Alright, open it!"

Cedric dipped it in the water, and once he rose back up he opened the egg, and the familiar and terrible screeching noise rang through the high ceilings of the prefects bathroom. Although used to hearing it many times, Ophelia still put her hands to her ears, telling him to shut the egg.

"I don't understand..." Cedric muttered, inspecting it. "Moody said..."

Why would Moody tell him to go to bring the egg to the bath?

"Ced," Ophelia exclaimed brightly, waving her arms around in realization. "Try opening it in the water!"

Although a bit skeptical, the two of them took a deep breath before plunging into the water. Instead of the horrific screeching noise, there was a gurgling, and it sounded to Ophelia that there were a chorus of eerie voices singing to them from the open egg in his hands.

"Come seek us where our voices sound,

We cannot sing above the ground,And while you're searching ponder this:We've taken what you'll sorely miss,An hour long you'll have to look,And to recover what we took,But past an hour—the prospect's black,Too late, it's gone, it won't come back."

With wide eyes staring at each other, the two surfaced, the bubbles foaming around them. "Holy shit!" Ophelia gasped, clasping a hand over her mouth. "That thing can sing!"

"Come seek us where our voices sound..."

"I've forgotten it already," Ophelia admitted sheepishly as she was too surprised to actually listen to the lyrics. "Let's open it again—too bad we can't record anything underwater."

So they dived down once again, listening to the lyrics until it was trained in their brain. "Who's us?" she asked, swimming around and thinking around the bath.

"They can't use their voices above the ground..." Cedric said thoughtfully, putting the egg on the floor behind him. Ophelia swam towards him and nestled herself in front of him, her wet and scented hair distracting him from his string of thoughts as she looked up at him.