The Scars to Prove It

Snow blew all around the Tower windows as Carina, Farren, and Lee climbed slowly. Teeth chattering, Carina pulled her robes closer and skipped a few stairs to finally reach the Fat Lady.

“Scurvy Cur,” she muttered and stepped into the warmth of the common room. The group passed Ron, Harry, and Hermione who were all still conversing about Buckbeak’s trial, then Dean and Seamus playing chess. Some upperclassmen here and there, and then finally George and Fred in the corner of the room.

The three pulled chairs up to the small table, gripping hot chocolate in their hands — they had just made an after-hours trip to the kitchens.

“And you didn’t bother to get us any?” Fred joked, breaking his deep conversation with George.

“Of course we brought you some,” Farren chided. She and Carina revealed stashed thermoses they had kept in their robes. Farren rolled the can in her hands over to George, who caught it with an appreciative nod in her direction.

“Lee planned on letting you go cold and hungry, but we figured since it’s Christmas…” Carina passed her thermos to Fred, and laughed when he got a nice chocolate mustache to match George’s. “What were you guys doing that made you too busy to sneak out, anyway?”

“Just plans for the joke shop,” George mumbled between gulps.

“Plans for the joke shop? Are you guys seriously thinking about that now?” Farren asked, completely shocked. She moved behind Fred, mindlessly pulling spikes in his longer-than-usual hair

“McGonagall must have scared them more than they let on…” Lee said with a smirk.

“No, seriously,” George interrupted. “What else do you see us doing? Office work?”

“Dear God, no,” Fred groaned. He still hadn’t wiped his chocolate mustache off.

“We’re going to be brilliant at it. It’s like we’ve been training for it our whole lives.”

“You know that’s going to mean paying a heck of a lot more attention in Charms and Potions,” Farren said lightly, the reprimand lying deep in her words.

“Yeah, yeah, we’ll get on that.” Fred rolled his eyes. “Merry bloody Christmas,you stick in the mud.” He leaned far back in his chair to stare straight up into her eyes. Even he couldn’t keep from laughing; and for no other reason than it was nice to see Farren and Fred get along again, everyone else began laughing as well. Some second year boy snapped a picture of them, but they took no notice. Everything was the way it was supposed to be.



Weeks passed. Fifth year was tough. Sirius Black broke in again, this time to be scared off by Ron’s manly screams. He became quite the celebrity. Buckbeak was sentenced, but all of Gryffindor tried to forget that. Finals were approaching fast, and many scared first years were running to upperclassmen tutors.

“Okay, here’s an easy one that’s been on all the first year exams: What is the purpose of dragon dung in Herbology?” Carina rubbed at her eyes and gave a yawn as she waited for at least one of the students to answer her. What wasn’t fun with the first years was that they didn’t go into the greenhouses: it was entirely lecture that year. Cedric had a group of second years liquefying Shrivelfigs out in Greenhouse Three, the lucky bastard. He would be coming in in a few minutes anyway to pick up his books.

One little Slytherin raised her hand. “Is it for fertilizer?”

“Exactly. Professor Sprout uses it for everything, but a good second is Mooncalf dung. I think that’s enough for this week, and remember that there’s only six weeks left until finals.”

The first years grabbed their things and shuffled out of the Library quickly. Madame Pince must have been watching, because not one of them uttered a single word. Carina went about picking up the rest of the books and either setting them aside or placing them back on the shelves. The stack set aside belonged either to Cedric or herself… she could never remember which because they’d been passed back and forth so often.

“How were the first years?”

Carina spun around, her flat black hair creating an arc around her. “Dear God, Cedric, you scared me to death.”

His smile always seemed to come so easy to him. “Sorry, darling. Do you need help with those?”

“No, I think I put away all the library’s books. These are all ours…” Carina trailed off as Cedric casually wrapped an arm around her waist so he could lean over her and pick his stack up. She tensed, really unsure what to make of it until he stepped away.

“Want to take a walk around the lake? It is springtime, you know. We might see something extraordinary.”

Carina packed her bag full of her books and strung it over her shoulder. “Sure thing,” she said, giving him a sideways look. He sure was acting strangely today.

As soon as they crossed the threshold to the outdoors, Cedric spread his arms high and beamed. “You can feel nature warming up again,” he said happily, and when he dropped his arms one wound up over Carina’s shoulders.

“What is with you today? Tutoring little kids can’t have put you in this great of a mood.”

He shrugged, his smile not faltering. “I’m feeling a little inspired, I guess.”

They continued around the shore of the lake, occasionally stopping so Carina could peer at the tadpoles. Constantly, they pointed out the flora everywhere.

“Bubotuber, just there.”

“Goodness, really? I haven’t seen one of those around here in ages. Flutterby bush.”

“That’s a new one. Gurdyroot.”

“Cedric, there’s gurdyroot everywhere.”

“Hey look at that.” Cedric pointed up into a hawthorn tree, where a ball of vines was growing.

“Is that… is that mistletoe? What on earth is that doing in Scotland? Have you ever seen that here before?” Carina lowered her gaze to Cedric, who was a little pink in the cheeks.

“Just don’t question it,” he said smoothly, grinning down at her.

“Don’t question it? What kind of Herbologist would say to—”

Before she could finish her thought, Cedric’s lips were delicately pressed to hers. She stiffened, blinked, and honestly had no idea what to do. And as soon as he had kissed her, he had pulled away, looking down at her with a smile.

“Th-th…” Carina stammered, still stiff as a log, and Cedric just laughed.

“It’s okay. We can go back now if you want.”

Carina nodded hurriedly, her face quickly turning radish red.