Avenger of Blood by ElrondsScribe

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Chapter 7

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That night he dreamed of Bella.

She lay in an open casket, a ray of sunlight illuminating her still white face and making it look even whiter. At the foot of the casket stood a tall figure wrapped in shadow. Only a pair of golden eyes blazed visibly from the darkness. The eyes were fixed on Bella's face.

As Cedric watched, a tear formed in one of the eyes and fell out of sight, presumably rolling down the cheek of the shadowed face. Then another tear appeared the other eye and also fell out of sight.

"I hope this was what you wanted, leech," said a male voice from the other side of the casket, and a hugely tall figure came into the light. He was broad-shouldered and uncommonly muscular, and his copper-colored skin gleamed in the sunbeam that lit Bella's lifeless face. He was handsome, with rock-hard dark eyes and cropped dark hair.

"You didn't want her anymore, so she just faded away and died," he went on. "Is that what you wanted?"

The dream shifted, and now Bella lay comfortably nestled into the bower of a tree, on a bed of soft grass.

A third tall figure approached her. He wore a dark cloak, such as wizards were seen in. He was shorter than the other two. He held a wand in his left hand. His back was turned so that Cedric would only see the wizard's cloak, brown boots, and dark brown hair. He walked right up to her, and took one of her hands in his.

Instantly, Bella's white face flushed with color, and her eyes opened. She smiled brilliantly as she sat up. "Cedric," she said softly. "I've been waiting for you."

Cedric started awake, the dream vivid in his mind. That wizard he had seen holding Bella's hand - it had been himself. He hesitated a moment, and then groped for the lamp on his nightstand. He found it and turned it on. Then he pulled from his nightstand drawer an inkpen and a notebook which he had ended up not needing for school. He opened it and began to scribble his dream down on the first page.

Once he was finished recording the dream, he stared for a few minutes at what he had written. Then with a sigh, he put the notebook back into the drawer and turned off the lamp. It had been one of those dreams that seem prophetic or meaningful in some way when you are awake, and he did not know what to make of it.

Of course it could mean nothing at all. Cedric rather hoped it did because honestly, what could it mean? That he was himself supposed to "bring Bella to life" or something ridiculous like that? He hoped not.

I'll think about it more in the morning, he told himself, and with a significant effort he put the dream from his mind and went back to sleep.

He overslept a little that morning, so that when he did wake up he had to rush through getting ready for school. He only washed his face and did not bother with a shower, as first period was Gym and he would have to shower after that anyway. Still, he only just barely made it downstairs to eat before it was time to leave for school.

"What took you so long?" asked Jessica as they walked out to her car together.

"I slept a bit too long, I think," said Cedric. "That's weird, I don't normally miss my alarm."

"New time zone?" suggested Jessica.

"Well, I've been in the region for a while," said Cedric truthfully enough. "It really shouldn't still be like this."

Of course then Jessica wanted to know how long he had been in the States, and why he had made the move, and what his plans were after high school. She grilled him about it for almost the entire drive to school. Cedric did his best to be vague without sounding evasive, but he was fairly sure that in the latter effort he was not particularly successful. He had never been subtle; subtlety was something that Ravenclaws and Slytherins were generally known for.

The drizzle form yesterday had cleared, but the sky was still overcast and the sun hidden. The roads were still slick and wet, which prompted Cedric to drive no faster than thirty-five miles an hour. This amused Jessica to no end when she finally gave up asking awkward questions. "And I thought all boys drove fast!" she said as he pulled carefully into a narrow space in the small student parking lot.

"I'm sure I'm sorry to be such a disappointment," said Cedric cheekily, mainly so that Jessica wouldn't think he was trying to be caustic.

Gym that day was only slightly better than yesterday. Coach Clapp was continuing the tennis games from the day before, and Cedric still wasn't used to a sport where you kept both feet on the ground in addition to swinging a racket. A few of his classmates openly snickered at him, and he gritted his teeth.

"Come on, cut the crap," snapped Coach Clapp. "Let's play tennis, people."

Cedric was relieved when the ordeal was over.

Chemistry was even worse. He was tired and his mind wandered, and when he did focus on the lecture he could barely follow it. He tried to take notes, but even the notes made no sense to him. He wondered gloomily if all his subjects were going to be like this, and if he was going to make a passing grade on any of them.

On the upside, Lauren Mallory did not attempt to talk to him again after class. She seemed a bit resentful, and Cedric wondered if it had anything to do with the way he had acted around Bella the day before.

The walk to English woke him up a little, and he was in much better spirits by the time he entered the building and sat down. He was not even dampened much by the doom and gloom of 1984. What did get to him was the was people kept turning their heads to stare at him for no apparent reason other than to study him - probably has something to do with Edward Cullen, he reasoned, but the thought did not comfort him.

On the way out of school, he found himself accosted by yet another girl (what was it with all the girls here?) with sandy hair. She introduced herself as Whitney Haranhan and asked him how he liked Forks. He said, truthfully enough, that he hadn't seen much of it, but so far he liked it. Whitney, unlike Lauren and June, actually didn't seem to have much to say to him, and after a few rather random comments she said she had to get to her next class, and cleared off.

Civics was next for Cedric, of course, and Civics was the class where he had to sit next to Bella Swan. After her odd, inconsistent behavior yesterday (not to mention his dream, which he tried without success to forget entirely) he was not sure he relished that idea. He paused for a moment at the door of the Civics building, then steeled himself to go in.

The first thing he saw was that Bella had not yet arrived. He hung up his jacket on the row of hooks which was inside every building in the school, and hurried to his desk. He was in the midst of pulling out his notebook and a couple of sharpened pencils when he saw her come in out of the corner of his eye. She looked paler than usual, and weary, as if she had not slept much the night before.

Her shadowed eyes swept the room as she advanced, and in a few seconds caught sight of him. She halted momentarily, as if she had hoped she would not see him there, before walking slowly up to the desk. He dropped his eyes as she approached, and only looked up again when she sat down beside him.

"Hullo, Bella," he said cautiously.

Bella stared at him without speaking.

Cedric felt himself flush slightly. "Are you going to speak to me?"

She blinked, as if such a concept were foreign to her. "Maybe," she said.

Now is not the time to act cross. Now is the time to act sympathetic, Cedric reminded himself. "Is there any way I can help?"

"Help with what?"

"Well - " Cedric remembered just in time that he had intended to say something very much along the lines of what he had said yesterday, and he had been rebuffed yesterday. "I meant, you know, homework and stuff - "

Bella's eyebrows raised, and for once she did not look sad or broken. "You're offering to help me with my homework?" she asked quizzically.

"Er, sure," said Cedric, flushing in earnest by now, as he was fully aware of how hopelessly stupid he sounded. "You know, homework and studying."

Her lips twitched - is that a smile? "Homework and studying. Right."

"Calculus is hard, Bella," said Cedric with what he hoped was a convincing pleading look. "And I know barely anything about American government."

Bella actually giggled. "You know you're a really bad liar, right?"

Cedric sighed. He'd always been a bad liar - why did he think he'd fooled her? "Well, I thought I'd try, you know."

She was still smiling a little. "How about a movie on Friday night?"

A movie. With all the more basic Muggle activities the Ducks and the Elves had covered with him - making calls on landlines and cell phones, using the internet, operating microwaves, driving cars, etc., - there hadn't really been time for leisurely things like computer games and YouTube videos - and movies. "Sounds good to me. What's in the theater?"

"Um," Bella seemed lost. "I actually don't really know. . ." She looked apologetic. "I haven't really been keeping up with - with things like that."

Not keeping up with current movies is rather hard to do even in a small town like this. She's really been out of it, hasn't she? "We could decide when we get there," he said. "By the way, is Jessica coming?"

"Jessica?" Her brow furrowed in confusion, then cleared as she suddenly remembered. "That's right," she said. "You're living with the Stanleys, I forgot. She's going to kill me if she finds out I invited you and left her out."

Cedric was about to ask Bella what was going on between herself and Jessica, but Mr. Jefferson was just starting his lecture, so he shut up. During class, he looked on occasion at Bella, and saw that she looked in general much more like a living human girl and much less like a china doll than she had before.

Damn me and my dreams.

When the bell rang, he turned back to Bella. "Can I walk to lunch with you again?"

She gazed solemnly at him. "On one condition."

"Which is?"

"I pick the table. Period."

"Oh, right." Cedric remembered the fiasco of yesterday. "Fine by me."

Once again, Cedric felt the eyes of the other students on him as he walked with Bella to the cafeteria. If Bella, who was reportedly over-sensitive when it came to attention, felt them too, she said nothing about it. When they went into the cafeteria, though, the staring became impossible to ignore. So did the talking.

"What? No way!"

"Pay up, suckers!"

"Aw, man! First new cute boy in town since the Cullens left and he has to get snagged by Bella Swan!"

"Told you she'd hook up with him. He's Edward freaking Cullen's look-alike!"

"How long do you think it'll take them to start making out?"

"Oh gosh," said Cedric to Bella. "They think we're an item."

Bella was flushing bright scarlet, quite the contrast to her usual pallor. She seemed to be trying to hide behind Cedric's jacket. "I don't care where we sit, just as long as we're alone," she groaned.

"That'll really make it look like we're seeing each other," said Cedric, but he was not particularly inclined to sit with anyone else at the moment. After moving through the line (which was bad enough with all the stares and snickers given him and Bella by the other kids around them), he led the way to an empty table, and Bella followed him.

Bella and Cedric ate their meal mostly in silence, mostly relieved to be away from the questions and teasing they would have certainly had to deal with if they'd sat with anyone else. It was only when Cedric had finished his meal - for, predictably, he ate more quickly than Bella - that he said, "Bella, is there something going on with you and Jessica?"

"Why?" asked Bella suspiciously.

"Because she gets rather huffy whenever she mentions you."

"Oh no," groaned Bella. "She's been talking about me?"

Cedric rather tardily perceived his mistake. "A bit. But she talks a lot, and not about just you."

Bella heaved an angry sigh. "I just haven't been particularly social lately. She was offended. That's really all it is."

"Oh. I see." Cedric left it at that. He at least knew not to ask why she had not been social of late.

They soon parted ways for their next classes, Calculus for Cedric and Chemistry for Bella. Jessica did not bother to catch up with him on his way out, and he was pretty sure he could guess why.

Calculus was more bearable than he had expected, certainly more so than Chemistry had been that morning. He managed to remain focused for most of the lesson. Mr. Varner was starting to remind him a bit of Professor Lockhart from his second year at Hogwarts, what with his self-assured "I am undoubtedly the best teacher in my field that you can find and you're very lucky to have me" attitude. It was rather off-putting.

After that, he scribbled dutifully away at Civics homework until Jessica's last class let out, and then he drove her back to the house.