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Cedric tugged Bella into the cafeteria, and did not let go of her until they had reached the tall stacks of trays. It was only when he had let go that he saw a few of the others staring curiously (or in a few cases, nearly all of them boys, glaring balefully). He turned his attention back to his tray and filled it with food (how he missed the meals at Hogwarts and at Daeron's house!), noticing with pleasure that Bella was doing the same of her own accord. Then he looked around for Jessica, and saw her seated at a table with half a dozen others, Lauren Mallory among them. Oh, bollocks.

Knowing that Jessica might very well take offense if he did not eat with her, he shuffled dutifully over to the table where she was sitting. She looked around and was him approach.

"Oh, hi Cedric!" she said, waving.

"Hullo, Jess," returned Cedric, coming up to the table and sitting down next to her. He thought he saw Lauren make a face briefly, but Jessica took no notice.

"Guys, this is Cedric Montgomery," she said. "Cedric, meet Eric Yorkie, Mike Newton, Ben Cheney, Angela Weber, and Lauren Mallory."

"I've met Eric and Lauren already," said Cedric. "Nice to meet you, Ben, Mike, Angela."

"Hey, look who decided to grace us with her presence!" said Lauren rolling her eyes. Bella Swan was now coming up to the table. Jessica raised her eyebrows. "Wonder what brought this on," she muttered. "She's been eating by herself the past few months."

"She didn't have to stop now," said Lauren.

"Shh, Lauren!" hissed Cedric. "She might hear you!"

"Hey, guys," said Bella a little nervously as she came up to the table. She was smiling politely but tentatively, as if unsure how she would be received.

Sure enough, most of them stopped talking and eating and looked at her. For the first time, a flush rose in her snow-white cheeks, and her smile quickly started looking fixed and unnatural.

Angela Weber, a tall slender girl with dark hair and a kind smile, came to the rescue. "Welcome back, Bella," she said. "Have a seat."

Bella sat down - next to Angela. It was actually the only empty chair left at the table, but Cedric imagined that Bella would have taken no other seat.

There was an awkward pause.

"Awk-ward," said Cedric into the silence in an attempt to make someone giggle. No one did.

Forget lunch, thought Cedric. "Honestly, why so quiet?" he asked. "Is this a Quaker meeting?"

Most everybody at the table frowned and said, "Huh?" or "Is it a what?"

Cedric sighed. "I thought it was an American joke," he said lamely. He had first heard it from Averman.

"It is an American joke," said Mike Newton grudgingly, and that seemed to start the flow of conversation again, for of course the others had to know where the expression had originated, and that turned into a rather uninformed conversation about Quakers. After that it moved into more modern topics. Mike, Jessica, Eric, and Lauren did most of the talking; Angela and Ben and Bella said very little, except to interject once or twice. In fact, Bella said nothing at all, and seemed to be trying to make herself invisible. Cedric remembered from Jessica's stories that Bella hated attention.

He got the idea that Mike Newton rather liked Bella, and didn't appreciate the way Bella had returned to normalcy only when he, Cedric, had appeared. There also seemed to be something unresolved between Mike and Jessica; Cedric guessed they must have dated and broken up in the past. They didn't talk to each other directly if they could help it.

Ben and Angela were clearly an item, and had been for at least a year, to judge by Jessica's comments. Lauren was (now at least) the most popular girl in school, and rather a nasty clique-brat. She reminded him of Pansy Parkinson. He thought of Cho with a sudden pang of homesickness; she was popular in Ravenclaw, but she wasn't mean like Lauren.

Eventually it came time to go. As they all got up and started dumping trays, Jessica snagged Cedric. "What kind of voodoo did you do on Bella?" she hissed. "She hasn't been this energetic for months!"

That was energetic?! "I dunno," he said. "One minute she looked at me like I was a ghost and the next minute she couldn't let me leave."

Jessica looked at him doubtfully, but all she said was, "Well, good luck with your next class. What have you got?"

Cedric smiled ruefully. "Calculus, I'm afraid."

"Ugh," said Jessica, grimacing. "You don't want to be late for that, Mr. Varner will bite your head off."

"Well, I like my head where it is," said Cedric. "So I'll see you when you get out of your last period."

"Okay. Bye then," said Jessica, and Cedric dragged out his trusty map once again and set off for his last class.

Calculus was the subject that, of all his school subjects, he wasn't sure he would be all right in. He had been frankly terrified when he had first cracked open a Calculus textbook, and only the knowledge that he would be studying it in this new school made him even look at the book again. Now he was going to a real class to study it, and at the moment he rather hated Muggles for inventing it.

Mr. Varner, the Calculus teacher, made Cedric introduce himself in front of everyone else. Cedric merely stated his assumed name, his age, and his hometown before taking his signed slip from the teacher and marching off to an empty seat about the middle of the room.

Calculus was even harder than Chemistry. At least with Arithmancy, the closest equivalent in the wizarding world, you knew that you were using numbers and complex equations to predict the future. Calculus just seemed to be formulated so as to give you a headache. And of course, he could not use magic to compute the numbers that were actually numbers (and not symbols like x and y and i); his only help was a calculator and his own pencil (no quills).

His brain was in a muddle from trying to make sense of it all by the time the bell rang. Relieved, he shoved his books back into his bag and was in the process of dragging out his schedule and map when Eric Yorkie approached his desk.

"Hey Cedric!" he said. "Do you need any help finding anything?"

"Hullo again, Eric," said Cedric. "Actually, this is my last class, as I've already fulfilled my foreign language requirements, so to answer your question, no. Thanks for the offer, though."

He spent the next hour in the cafeteria studying, as there was nothing else to do until Jessica was finished with her last class. He checked the time on his cell phone, courtesy of Adam Banks, every now and then. When the hour was about up, he gathered his books for the last time that day and stuffed them into his bag. Then he went out to Jessica's car to wait.

In a few minutes she came hurrying up, and climbed into the driver's seat. "So how'd it go?" she asked as she started the car.

"It was all right," sad Cedric. "Nothing to complain of."

Jessica began backing the car out of the space. The student lot was very small and hard to get out of, and Cedric did not relish the idea of driving in and out of it on a regular basis. He debated asking Jessica to do the driving, but he did not want to lose his hard-earned driving skills, and so he made up his mind to do the driving himself.

Jessica drove him back to the office, and Cedric got out and returned his slip to the woman with red hair. "So how was your first day, honey?" she asked, much like Jessica.

"First day was all right," said Cedric, truthfully enough, with the exception of playing tennis in Gym. He walked back out to Jessica's car and climbed in.

"I can drive home from here, if you like," he said to Jessica.

"Fine with me," said Jessica, and the two promptly switched seats. Cedric drove carefully; he was still rather nervous behind the wheel. But he got them home without incident.

Mrs. Stanley was finishing dinner as they came in: that is to say, she had baked some potatoes and a cookie sheet full of rather overdone fish fillets, and prepared a bowl of very vinegary greens. When Jessica saw it, she said, "Did you bake tilapia again, Mom?"

"I certainly did," said her mother.

"It looks delicious, Mrs. Stanley," said Cedric; and it did, if only the fish did not look quite so dried out.

"Oh, I get it," said Jessica. "You're cooking to impress Cedric."

"Maybe," said Mrs. Stanley. "You're still going to eat it."

Jessica groaned.

But when Mr. Stanley had come home and it was time for dinner, everyone ate heartily, and there was really not much to complain about. Cedric only remembered to thank Mrs. Stanley for the meal after it was over and he was about to leave the kitchen to finish his homework.

"Why, you're quite welcome!" said she, smiling at him.

Cedric hauled his backpack up to his room, and the first thing he did was to pull his wand out of his backpack and put it away. Then he went over to the computer and checked his e-mail, as he had been taught by Ken Wu. In his inbox were three unread messages. The first was from Connie's e-mail address, and it had been sent the day before, in the morning. She wrote:

Hi Cedric! Check your e-mail soon, you dinosaur :) How's Muggle life?

The second e-mail was from Adam, and it had been sent about eight hours after Connie's. All it said was:

E-mail me back when you get in.

The third e-mail was from Elrond, and it had been sent just a few hours ago.

Hello Cedric!

I've been remiss in not messaging you earlier. Have you enjoyed being a Muggle so far? How do you find your studies? Have you made any friends?

Elrond

PS. Charlie is reading over my shoulder, and he wants to know if there are pretty girls there.

Cedric chuckled and began typing replies. The first and shortest one was to Adam.

Sergeant Banks,

Have arrived safely. Sorry for not messaging you sooner.

Lieutenant Diggory

The second reply was to Connie.

Velvet Hammer,

Is this soon enough for you? I am not either a dinosaur! I have a cell phone and an e-mail account, thank you very much! Muggle life is all right, considering. I think I must be doing all right pretending to be one, as no one's been looking at me funny.

Ced

Last of all came Elrond's.

To Elrond Earendilion, called the Half-Elven, Herald of Gil-Galad, Master of Rivendell, Wielder of Vilya, etc.

Howdy! I actually hadn't checked my e-mail before now, so it's not like I was waiting for your e-mail. Muggle life hasn't been too awful, all things considered. My classes are pretty hard, but I think I can muddle through them with a passing grade. I've made a few friends, but mostly everyone here stares a lot.

That reminds me! I forgot to tell Connie this, she'll probably whip my tail - apparently I look a lot like some cake-eater that used to live here up until a few months ago. A few people even mistook me for him. Isn't that weird? He belonged to a family that I've never heard of before, but I wonder if they might possibly have been wizards. Their name's Cullen.

Hiya, Charl! Yes, there are plenty of girls here. At least one is already interested in me, I think. But she's not really my type - I don't care for snobs.

Your humble servant,

Cedric of the Badger Patronus

He spent the rest of the evening struggling through his homework, and went to bed with the certainty that the next five months would fall into a routine very quickly.