Where'd You Go

"You're miserable," Hermione noted, settling herself onto the cushion next to me.

"Not really." I wasn't miserable by any stretch of the imagination. Upset? yes, but not miserable. In recent weeks, Cedric had taken a liking to Cho Chang. I just didn't understand the fascination. First Harry, now Cedric. Maybe there was something that the rest of the world didn't see. Either way, I was annoyed. I thought Cedric and I had bonded after the first task, regardless of our small disagreement, but he was ignoring me.

"Have you tried talking to him?" Every time I got near him, he walked the other way. I never got the opportunity to try.

"Nope." I stared into the fireplace, trying to figure out why I was being ignored.

"Maybe you should?"

"He acts like I have leprosy. I'm not trying anything." The last time we had a falling out, I was the first to talk to him. Call me prideful, but I wasn't planning on making that sacrifice again, not when I didn't do anything wrong.

"He might be just as upset as you are. You won't know until you say something." I rolled my eyes, biting off the tip of my licorice wand. There was a small mountain of sweets wrappers to my left. My teeth were probably rotting at this point.

"He's not upset. You haven't heard? He's dating Cho Chang." I took another bite of the licorice wand and opened another cauldron cake.

"I don't think he likes her. I think he's settling because you keep telling him that you're always going to choose Harry over him. How do you think that makes him feel?" I'd never thought about it that way, but my loyalty would always remain with my friends. At the end of the day, those were the people that would always be there for me.

"I'm not saying it to be rude. Harry's my best friend, and I just feel like Cedric is asking me to give up everything. I can't do that."

"Alex, has he ever actually asked you to give up everything? Or you assumed that's what he meant?" I hated when Hermione was right. She got this condescending look on her face that she probably didn't even notice she had.

"I guess you can say it was an assumption," I muttered, stuffing more sweets into my mouth. I didn't want to talk about this anymore. I wanted to sit by myself and eat until my stomach exploded.

"Just talk to him. You don't have anything to lose." She was right. I didn't have anything to lose. Cedric and I weren't dating, and if the conversation didn't go like I hoped it was going to, we weren't talking anyway. Nothing would change.

"Alright." I pushed myself from the floor, walking up to the dormitories to grab my coat. There were a ton of people in the courtyard, and I could only hope this was one of the days that Cedric decided to be outside.

"Do you want me to come with you?"

"It would probably be better if you didn't." In reality, I was pretty sure that I was going to be embarrassed, and the less people that saw that, the better. I stepped out of the portrait hole, walking down the stairs and making my way outside. There were people walking around the hallways, whispering about the second task. No one knew what it was, and Harry hadn't figured the egg out yet. He told Hermione that he knew only to shut her up, but he wasn't even close to figuring it out. Every time he opened it, it would let out a high pitched shriek that no one wanted to hear.

"Hey, Alex. Are you alright? You look a bit upset." Angelina Johnson was walking by herself, and she stopped in front of me. I knew one of the twins fancied her. I just wasn't sure which one. She was nice enough.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Have you seen Cedric by any chance?" A small smirk spread across her faced, and she nodded.

"He's sitting right outside." I wanted to asked what she found amusing, but I needed to get to Cedric if I had any hope of talking to him before I chickened out.

"Thanks." I stepped around her and onto the grass. Cedric was there like she said, but he wasn't alone. A couple of the guys from his house were sitting with him, and I suddenly didn't know if I wanted to say anything. One of the guys nudged him and pointed in my direction. I couldn't decipher the look on his face, but I was pretty sure that he didn't want to talk to me. He didn't get up and walk away though, so I guessed that was a good sign.

"Hi, Alexandria." My name didn't sound as nice coming from him as it usually did. It was obvious that he was upset with me for whatever reason.

"Hey. Can we talk?" He was contemplating, and eventually he stood up.

"Don't worry about it. We'll leave. See you back in the common room." I watched the boys walk away before turning back to Cedric. He was dreading this conversation as much as I was. I could tell.

"What did you want to talk about?"

"Why you've been avoiding me." I didn't want to beat around the bush. There wasn't a point. We were either going to be civil, or we weren't. There was no in between.

"Honestly, I don't know what's up or down with you. You act like you like me, but then you tell me that it's always going to be Harry. Do you like him too? Is that was the problem is?" I sighed, sitting down on the bench next to him.

"I love Harry, but not the way you think. I just don't want to have to choose between the two of you. Harry and I are really close. We always have been. I don't want you to get the wrong idea, but I'm also not going to change the way I interact with him to feed your ego Cedric. I like you. I can admit to that, but if you're going to make me choose between my friendship with Harry and being with you, I'm going to choose him." I probably wasn't making anything better because at the end of the day, it was still Harry.

"I don't want to make you choose, Alexandria. That's never been my intention. I'm just confused. You don't make things easy on me, you know." He was right. I hadn't made things easy on him. I'd been so busy trying to protect myself, and I'd never considered his feelings.

"I'm sorry," I said honestly, leaning my head on his shoulder. Hermione was right. This was my fault.

"It's alright. I'm happy we finally talked it out though. I was getting tired of avoiding you."

"You shouldn't have done that," I said, a small sense of bitterness settling in my stomach. Things would have been a little better if he had just acted mature about the situation. But I couldn't say that I was much better.

"I know."

"I thought we were okay after the first task. And then you ran away from me."

"I didn't run," he chuckled, putting his arm over my shoulders.

"You might as well have," I wrapped my arms around him, trying to make myself comfortable, but then something clicked in my head, "What about Cho?" He stiffened, and I thought I had my answer.

"She's a friend." He sounded hesitant, and I didn't like it. I pulled away, staring up at him.

"You don't sound sure."

"Well, I like her. She's nice." I stood up, running my fingers through my hair. That was just perfect timing. Talk about inconvenient.

"And where does that leave us?" I was starting to feel like I wasted my time. He could have told me from the beginning that he liked Cho, and I wouldn't have felt as bad as I did now.

"I don't know." At least he was honest, but that didn't mean it hurt any less.

"I have to go." And I ran.