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hackthis_archiveA note from the author: When I first started writing this story, I thought my biggest problems would be Viktor's dialogue and getting Viktor and Cedric together, but as I began writing, I realised that my biggest challenge was figuring out who Cedric Diggory was, and what he stood for, and what it means to be a Hufflepuff. Like most people I thought being a Hufflepuff meant you were weak or simple-minded, but upon exploration and research I've come to realise that's not it at all. Being a Hufflepuff doesn't make you a lesser being, just as being a Slytherin doesn't necessarily make you evil incarnate. There are layers to houses just as there are layers to people, so this story isn't about Viktor/Cedric as much as it's about Cedric and being a Hufflepuff and how all these things coalesce to make Viktor/Cedric possible. Right. I hope you enjoy this, I know I have.
Harry Potter
Cedric/Viktor; Cedric/Cho (NC-17)
What is Right and What is Easy
Cedric Diggory was eleven years, three months and sixteen days old when he was sorted into Hufflepuff house. Both Cedric's father and older sister had been sorted into Gryffindor, but his mother, Emma, came from a long line of Hufflepuffs, and Cedric saw nothing wrong with being sorted into "That Other House." He had no idea that people saw Hufflepuff as That House That No One Remembered, or that the students in other houses saw Hufflepuff as that place where the rejects were sent.
No one told Cedric that Hufflepuff students were seen as weak and simple-minded. No one bothered to explain that people in Hufflepuff were useless and forgotten about by the rest of the world. And if no one told that to Cedric, no one had bothered to tell the other students in Hufflepuff either.
The morning after the sorting, Cedric met up with his childhood friend, Bevan Montague, a second-year Ravenclaw, at the doors of the Great Hall. The first thing Bevan said upon taking in Cedric's black and yellow striped tie was, "Don't worry about it; my mum can get you out of there quicker than Fudge can say, 'Um'."
Bevan's mum worked in Public Relations and spent a lot of time keeping her very famous clients in, or out, of the Daily Prophet as their needs required. Sometimes Cedric's mum, who had been a very famous photojournalist before the Prophet became "a piece of tawdry loo paper" worked with her, which was how the boys had met.
Cedric laughed at the earnest nature of Bevan's offer and patted his friend on the shoulder. "You worry too much, Bevan," he said. "If they're really as bad as you think, then they should be just right for me."
Bevan looked at Cedric as though he'd professed his undying love for Brussel sprouts and shook his head. "Cedric, you don't belong in that house. They're all -- they're not your sort. I heard they're all inanely nice or thicker than crup shit."
Cedric looked over at the table of his housemates and furrowed his brow. He was sharing a room with a Scotsman, Paul, an Irishman, Padraig, Pwyll, from Wales, and a half-wizard from North London, who kept talking about something called QPR. All his housemates seemed to be of a good stock, and the Irish boy had brought Muggle pornography. It didn't move, Padraig had explained, but that meant it couldn't make embarrassing noises underneath your bed and grass you up to your parents either.
Upon first acquaintance, the boy from London, Geoffrey Stebbins, seemed quite mild-mannered, but upon further exposure it was discovered that he cursed like a Muggle and snored like the undead.
At three o'clock in the morning, Padraig had woken the entire room by shouting that if Geoffrey didn't get himself "sorted out" Padraig was going to suffocate him and take care of the problem for everyone.
Apparently that had scared the snores right out of Geoffrey, and the rest of the night had passed in peace.
Cedric thought about trading that in for the unknown and shook his head again. There was no guarantee that he would end up in Ravenclaw with Bevan if he was sorted again. "I'm down the hall, not across the country; I'm not abandoning you."
Bevan snorted. "You're throwing your best mate over for a bunch of sad saps who wouldn't know a good time if it kicked them in the shins. I never thought I'd see the day; it's your funeral, mate."
Cedric pushed dark, curling hair behind his ear and grinned. "Well, then I better have a good time before I go."
Bevan elbowed him in the ribs and pointed out a girl across the aisle staring avidly in their direction, "I think she'll help you out if you ask nicely."
*
Over his years at Hogwarts, Cedric heard a lot of falsehoods about his house. He heard that Hufflepuff was full of nymphomaniac druggies, and that they had one brain to share between the lot of them. This one was most prevalent when they were studying themselves shitless, and people had started to go delirious and attack other houses.
Cedric had heard that his house all worshipped the Dark Lord and were minions in the making; Slytherin house was just a red herring. This rumour was started after the business with Potter and Finch-Fletchley and the Chamber of Secrets.
Cedric heard that the entire house couldn't play Quidditch to save their lives and that it was only through the wonder of Merlin that they managed to win any matches whatsoever. The last one he heard from Bevan, who became a Ravenclaw beater the same year that Cedric became the Hufflepuff Seeker.
In their first match together, Bevan knocked Cedric off his broom, and Cedric lost a tooth and cracked two ribs; it hurt. A lot.
When Bevan came to visit Cedric in the infirmary, Cedric was surrounded by several of his housemates, and they all gave Bevan the look of death when he sat down on Cedric's bed as though he belonged there.
"We don't want any of your sort here," Marjorie Dixon, a third-year with dark hair and wide brown eyes snapped. "Bloody Ravenclaws always thinking everyone is inferior to them. I guess we showed you!"
Bevan visibly recoiled at the force of such vitriol. Like most people, Bevan thought all Hufflepuffs were unconscionably nice. He was wrong. And although Bevan had jet-black hair and blue eyes, and Cedric's hair was sandy-coloured and he had grey eyes, at least 50% of the people they met together mistook them for brothers. They were, indeed, that close, and a slight to one was a slight to both.
Cedric yanked his wand out from underneath his pillow and pointed it at Marjorie warningly. "Bevan is my mate, and the next person who gives out about it is going to have ants crawling out of their ears for the next hundred years."
The crowd magically dispersed after Cedric's threat, and Bevan laughed quietly to himself for several minutes as Cedric re-arranged him into some sort of comfort.
"I would laugh with you," Cedric grumbled, "but some bastard cracked my ribs and it hurts too much to laugh."
"I never thought I'd see the day where I had to be protected from a melee of rabid Hufflepuffs," Bevan said, pulling an assortment of sweets from the folds of his robes and tossing them down on the coverlet.
Cedric sorted through Peppermint Toads, Pepper Imps and Fudge Flies; he wordlessly tossed Bevan the pack of Ice Mice, which Cedric hated, and knew Bevan had bought expressly so Cedric would give them to him. "And you said Hufflepuffs were thick. We can't be that thick if I still caught the Snitch."
Bevan made a dismissive wave. "Fool's luck."
Cedric raised an eyebrow. "You're calling me a fool?"
"No, I'm calling Paul Henderson a fool. You just got lucky."
"My mum says there's no such thing as luck. She says you get what you work for."
Bevan sighed. "Brilliant, now I'll be wondering who Henderson worked over for his spot."
At this Cedric laughed, and then gasped, holding his ribs. "And you said Hufflepuff was the house with all the sexual deviants."
"Clearly I was wrong; they're actually all in my house."
Cedric sniggered. "I could've told you that; just look at you. Everyone knows that Ravenclaws are intellectual tarts, who'll shag anything."
Bevan scowled. "At least I know better than to fancy you."
Cedric gave Bevan an enormous smile. "I don't need you to fancy me when I have Marjorie protecting me."
*
In Cedric's third year, Harry Potter arrived at Hogwarts. Cedric had heard innumerable stories about the invincible Harry Potter from the time he was wee, but as far as he could tell the stories seemed much greater than the boy in question.
At the feast in the Great Hall, Cedric sat between Padraig and Geoffrey, stuffing his face with roast potatoes and chicken and regaling his mates with stories of his summer holidays. He'd spent time working with his dad on Doxy infestations and they had even travelled to Tunisia to study the Erupment.
He belched quite loudly during Padraig's discourse on the Irish Quidditch team's chances for the World Cup, and when Marjorie Dixon looked his way, he could feel his ears burning as his mates laughed. Marjorie had developed quite a bit over the summer, and Cedric was more than aware of this new maturity.
When it came time for the sorting, Cedric watched with everyone else and applauded as the first-years were sorted into their houses. When Harry Potter's name was called the usual murmuring rose to a deafening level.
Geoffrey wrinkled his nose as a disturbingly scrawny kid who looked as though he hadn't had a proper meal in his life stumbled up to the sorting hat. "What the fuck's all this about this fucking kid then, hey?"
Padraig and Cedric exchanged glances. "You want to tell him, or shall I?" Cedric scratched the back of his neck, keeping his face as neutral as possible and resolutely not looking at the Ravenclaw table where Bevan was making faces in his direction.
"It's all you," Padraig said with a sniff. "I thought he'd be taller myself."
*
In Cedric's fifth year he took his OWLs. He formed a study group with Padraig, Pauline O'Hare, the Hufflepuff Keeper, Geoffrey, and Gemma James. They made a rota where everyone studied the same subjects every week, and then, once a week, they met up and quizzed each other on various topics of interest. The week they revised Magical Creatures, Gemma showed up with a stuffed manticore and a stuffed badger.
Padraig took one look at the stuffed badger and laughed himself into a state. "Which one of these doesn't belong, so?" he asked taking in the worn state of Gemma's badger. "That's not a magical creature, that's a bloody badger."
Pauline elbowed Padraig in the ribs hard enough that he fell out of his chair and landed on his shoulder. "Show some respect," she snapped. "The badger is a useful animal, you know."
"Yeah, for digging holes," Geoffrey snorted. "Slytherin get snakes, Gryffindor get lions, Ravenclaws get eagles, and we're stuck with an animal that spends all its time underground looking for grubs."
Cedric just shook his head; his father worked in the Department for the Regulation of Magical Creatures, and he was well aware that size had nothing to do with dodginess. "You don't know what you're on about," he said. "Badgers are deadly animals."
Padraig placed his hands on the table and pushed himself upright so that his brown, spiky hair was visible over the tabletop. "Yeah, that stuffed animal looks real deadly. Oooh, my wand's shooting sparks from fear."
Cedric and Geoffrey snorted. Gemma glared at Padraig, and poked his nose with her wand. "You should be afraid, you nitwit. Edgar could eat you alive."
Padraig gave her a dubious look, and blinked when she turned her wand on the stuffed badger and said, "Animate!"
One minute the badger was lying on its side and the next it was crawling across the table, heading directly for Padraig. "Fucking hell," he exclaimed, jumping to his feet just as Edgar the Badger snapped at the place where his hand had been.
"Badgers are carnivores you know," Gemma said with a large, toothy grin. "They don't take unicorn droppings from anyone, so have some respect."
Cedric leaned back in his chair and just laughed.
*
According to his mum and dad, and most of his year, and the years below him, Cedric wasn't that hard on the eyes. He'd been called everything from 'shit hot' to 'absolutely blindingly gorgeous.' He'd been told more than once that if he ever wanted for anything all he had to do was say the word. He'd been propositioned by girls in Hufflepuff and Gryffindor, and once by a woman in Diagon Alley, when his mum was in Florish and Blotts.
It didn't go to his head.
When Cedric looked in the mirror, he just saw himself, Cedric Nicholas Diggory, who had a scar on his chin from where Bevan'd whacked him with his first broom when he was seven. His eyes were an indeterminate slate grey, and thankfully, he wasn't prone to spots. Beyond that, he felt there was nothing particular to recommend him aesthetically, but other people had always felt differently.
People looked at Cedric and assumed that he had everything that he ever wanted. They saw his friends, his smiles, and his good fortune on the Quidditch pitch and presumed that he'd never worked hard for anything, nor suffered for want of anything.
It was a common assumption that Hufflepuffs wanted for nothing, nor wanted anything in turn. That was wrong. Cedric had ambition. He didn't have a definitive idea of what he wanted, but he did want.
Cedric craved the sibling that his mother lost when he was five, and he wanted his Aunt Rosemary who'd died at the end of the war. He wanted Bevan's sanity not to be as tenuous as his father's was, and he prayed to Circe that the people he loved would survive whatever was coming in the future.
Cedric knew want, but he also knew diligence and power and adoration. He worked his arse off for every good mark and his place as Hufflepuff Captain. Cedric was not thick; he understood that he was fortunate. His fate was not that far off from that of Harry Potter's, but Cedric had his parents; they made a great amount of difference.
It only took one twist of fate to separate one person from another.
*
Cedric Diggory never thought he wanted a girlfriend. Obviously, he'd thought about girls before; he wasn't dead. His hormones were just as mad as everyone else's, but his priorities tended to lie more with his friends than with getting a leg over. He'd had more than his fair share of attention from the female of the species, and frankly, their tenacity tended to unnerve him a little. Cedric had been briefly involved with Marjorie Dixon, and she'd relieved him of his virginity before she decided she needed someone "older and more experienced."
He'd walked Gemma to a few classes in their fifth year, before they decided that they worked much better as friends considering she fancied Padraig something rotten. Cedric didn't tell her that he'd gotten further with Padraig after one particularly raucous celebration than she probably ever would.
Roger Davies, one of Bevan's mates, had made it his mission in life to treat Cedric to the full Death Eater onslaught regarding his perceived lack of interest in the girls in their year. After Cedric hexed Roger's tongue to the roof of his mouth with the Peanut Butter Toffee Stickler Hex, Roger'd left off. Bevan, strangely enough, had been extraordinarily blasé about the entire thing, and it was only at wand-point when Bevan confessed he'd been putting it to Oliver Wood that Cedric understood Bevan's silence on the matter.
Cedric didn't begrudge Bevan his interest in Wood; he was a solid Quidditch player. Bevan certainly seemed taken with him regardless of what house he flew for.
In any case, it would've been a bit hypocritical of Cedric to give out to Bevan after letting Padraig put his hands down Cedric's trousers.
The incident in question had occurred at Bevan's dad's place in Wales. Rhys Montague had conspicuously left Padraig, Cedric, Bevan and Oliver Wood alone with enough alcohol to kill a small dragon, and Cedric had woken up the next day wearing Bevan's Ravenclaw tie, no trousers, and with red handprints on his hips and a small Irish flag drawn on the inside of his thigh.
Everyone had been too sick to discuss the logistics of what had probably occurred, but Cedric didn't require a diagram.
He had also harboured something of a long-term crush on Norah Parkinson, a seventh-year Slytherin, and since she couldn't see him for the yellow-and-black Quidditch robes he wore, he'd taken to getting it where he could.
A man could have hope, that didn't make him stupid.
Cedric probably would've stayed single if it weren't for the tenacity of Cho Chang, since he only realised she fancied him after she nearly put him in hospital.
It wasn't that Cedric was blind to the years under him, everyone knew who Harry Potter was, but Cedric wasn't terribly impressed by Potter's name as much as he was impressed by his flying. Potter was good, but Cho, well, -- Potter never deliberately crashed into Cedric six times in one match.
The first two times Cedric simply'd thought she wasn't that good a flier, and he'd sailed by Bevan after the second crash and hollered, "Fuck me, where'd you find this one? She flies like it's a collision sport. It's called Quidditch, not Blatching! Fucking Ravenclaws."
Bevan hollered something back, which was probably equally derisory about Hufflepuff, but Cedric was unable to hear him for the crowds shouting and the hint of something gold hovering by the Slytherin stands. To this day Cedric didn't know if it was the Snitch or just a piece of jewellry, because when he was still ten yards away, Cho came out of nowhere and rammed into him with such force that his teeth rattled in his head.
He flew upside down for twelve seconds before he realised the ground was blue and the sky was green.
Cedric's father had always taught him to be a gentleman where women were concerned, but Quidditch was a different matter altogether, and it was clear that Cho Chang wasn't playing it feminine and coy. Cedric had a lot of respect for the female Quidditch players that he was friends with. Marjorie could smack a Quaffle like no one's business, and he'd fallen in love with Angelina Johnson for two whole weeks after she'd sent Marcus Flint to the infirmary to have all his teeth regrown, but Cedric'd flown with them for years at this point, and Cho was an unknown quantity.
The fifth time she collided with him, she actually waited around to make sure he wasn't dead, and then shot him a brilliant smile before flying off again. It was at that point that he began to realise she wasn't necessarily attacking him for the Snitch.
*
Cedric and Cho didn't date as much as she announced she fancied him, and he capitulated because he was impressed by her cheek. There was something safe about being with Cho that Cedric appreciated immensely, plus, it was easier to be with a girl who would beat the fuck out of anyone else who came sniffing around than constantly beating off passes.
To their credit Cedric's friends were as accepting of Cho as they were of any other partner, which was to say that they tolerated her because she dated Cedric. His housemates gave out the obligatory bollocks about her being a Ravenclaw, but Cedric paid them no mind. He'd spent the last five years dealing with the Hufflepuff/Ravenclaw emnity and ignored it when necessary. Of course, Bevan spoke highly of Cho because she was a Ravenclaw, and Oliver spoke highly of her because she was a good Seeker, just not as good as Potter or Cedric –- he'd capitulated on the latter after Bevan put him in a headlock.
As for Cho taking the initiative, true it wasn't the most traditional way of doing things, but Cedric never stood on ceremony for such things. People who dwelled on the traditional and "expected" only brought themselves misery, which was the exact thing he told Padraig when Padraig'd announced that he'd decided he was "all sexual" now instead of just shagging boys.
Cedric felt that anyone who needed big declarations wasn't trying to convince the other person as much as they were trying to convince themselves. It was entirely possible that Cedric believed this because his mother had only told him that she loved him three times in his life. The first time was on his sixth birthday when his pet niffler, Nero, fell down a well and Cedric jumped in after him. The second time was the day he left for his first year at Hogwarts, and the third was the day he wrote home with the news that he was the Triwizard Champion.
Cedric never felt that he needed to be told his family loved him; it was just a given, and he used the same approach in his relationship with Cho. He didn't spend his days writing Cho bad poetry or sending her flowers every other week. He remembered her birthday and was always there with an ear when she needed to vent. To Cedric that was what a real relationship was about, friendship and loyalty.
It wasn't that he didn't fancy Cho, but it wasn't a primary requisite. He'd spent his entire life being told he was pretty face; he wasn't interested in that sort of judgemental thinking anymore
*
At the start of his sixth year, Cedric had everything a sixteen year-old boy could possibly want. He was a prefect, captain of his house's Quidditch team, and he had a girlfriend who was more like a friend. He'd bested Harry Potter in the last Quidditch match of the previous year, and his father had taken him to the Quidditch World Cup where he'd met up with Cho, Padraig, Geoffrey, Bevan and Oliver Wood.
Cedric had enjoyed the match with his mates, and everyone had been quite enthralled with Viktor Krum. Even Padraig, who was so kitted out in Irish colours that he'd dyed his hair green had to admit that Krum was very good.
Of course that night there'd been that mess with Dark Mark appearing in the sky, but Cedric's father was pragmatic about the idea of there being Death Eaters around and the return of He Who Must Be Named.
They arrived home, via portkey, and outside the Diggory front door, Cedric's father took him by the elbow and said, "Don't listen to what other people say about this Volde -– You Know Who business."
Cedric blinked. His father didn't believe in saying He Who Must Not Be Named, but his mother had once hexed her husband for saying Voldemort's name in the house.
Cedric's father carried on. "There are always going to be problems in the world; people are never going to see eye to eye, that's just the way of things. But you can't fight everyone's cause. You have to pick your own battles. You have to decide what you think is right."
Cedric stared at his father, seeing the same steady grey eyes that looked back at him every morning in the bathroom mirror. "You always said the Ministry was full of fools."
Amos Diggory smirked at his son. "Yes, but I work there, it's my job to say such things. Every man has to decide for himself; would you rather be lead by fools or a dictator?"
Cedric sat up late that night, leafing through a yellowing copy of Terry Pratchett's Sourcery that his mum had bought him his first year at Hogwarts. Pratchett had gone to school with Cedric's parents, and he made money by retelling wizarding stories to Muggles. Cedric enjoyed most of his works much more than the classic wizarding stories of the Brothers' Grimm, but he couldn't focus on the words on the page. He kept thinking of what his father had said, and he wondered if those were his only two options.
*
If someone had taken Cedric aside at any point up to his sixth year and told him that he was going to find the famous Bulgarian Seeker, the famous male Bulgarian Seeker, Viktor Krum, attractive, or engaging in the least, Cedric would've pointed out two key items. One, that the Bulgarian Seeker was male -- Cedric left the male-on-male-action to Bevan and Padraig -- and two, that Cedric was never going to meet the very male Viktor Krum. So, the entire exercise was pointless and said person should stop listening to Professor Trelawney immediately because everyone knew she was a hack.
Cedric would've been wrong.
*
Cedric wasn't attracted to Viktor Krum the minute he saw him striding into the Great Hall with the rest of his class. For starters, Viktor didn't stride in with the rest of his class.
The boys from Durmstrang –- men -- those definitely looked more like men to Cedric than the boys in his year – marched in rank file, formal and severe, no smiling, no curiosity. They gave off an air of imperiousness, like the Slytherins, but without the sneering. Cedric had definitely seen this sort of entitled disdain before. Six years of people looking at him, admiring him, and then stepping back when he said he was a Hufflepuff had clued Cedric in quite nicely to the us versus them attitude, and the boys from Durmstrang projected that mentality in droves.
Cedric wondered if they were responding to something the Hogwarts students were emitting or if this was simply some form of mental segregation that he'd only mildly experienced before. Whatever it was, it made him acutely self-conscious.
Cedric prided himself on being smart enough not to judge the whole by its parts, but perhaps that was important to him because people were always judging him by what they saw. People often underestimated him, as perhaps all of Durmstrang were doing now. Except he was just as guilty as they were of judging first and thinking second.
So while the rest of his housemates muttered quietly about which one of these cavalcade of dark haired and dark-eyed boys was The Viktor Krum, Cedric kept his eyes firmly on the door. He could feel the tension of unfinished business hanging in the air around them like too much humidity on an early Scottish morning.
And then Krum walked in -- strode in -- covered in furs, and dogged by a peaked looking older man, and Geoffrey whispered in a low voice, "I thought he was taller."
Cedric kept his own council, simply taking in the long stride and glowering, but Padraig made a choking noise in his throat. "Doesn't matter to me, I'd do him anyway."
*
Cedric wasn't terribly certain he wanted to be a Triwizard champion. Of course there was the idea of the fame and the glory and the money, but Cedric didn't need the money or the attention. No, the last thing Cedric wanted was more fucking attention from anyone, but the idea of a chance to show people that he was more than a pretty face was extraordinarily tempting.
It was all well and good for people to smile at him in the hallway and think he was this nice, innocuous boy, since Cedric didn't need everyone knowing that he thought Gryffindor was full of bloody-minded idiots or that Slytherin was all bark and no bite. Cedric wasn't stupid, there was no need to alienate half the school, but Cedric was proud to be a Hufflepuff, and the idea of showing everyone that his house was not to be underestimated was not without appeal.
Originally, Cedric had only put his name in the goblet because Bevan had dared him to, and Cedric could never pass up a good dare. There were bits of him that were still smarting from the time Bevan'd dared him to talk gibberish to Snape during Potions, and Snape had countered his insolence by having him scrub the floors of the Potions lab with his toothbrush. Cedric never expected his name to be pulled out of the goblet though, and he certainly didn't expect to have to share his title with Harry bloody Potter.
If Cedric was going to do this for his house, he had no intention of being upstaged by some fourth-year Gryffindor, even if he did manage to get past the age spell. The problem now was how to bloody well win the thing, because he had no real alternative.
*
Over the next few days Cedric experienced an outpouring of support and notoriety the likes of which he'd never seen. He'd got good grades, played brilliant Quidditch, and on one occasion managed to outwit Filch when Bevan had dared him to give Mrs Norris jinxed mice, but the huge red buttons that screamed: SUPPORT CEDRIC DIGGORY: THE REAL HOGWARTS CHAMPION were something else.
Bevan had magicked all the robes of the sixth year Ravenclaws to flash Cedric's name, and Padraig and Geoffrey had made a killing by selling the buttons with the "Support Cedric" message.
The night before the weighing of the wands, Cedric sat in his room polishing his wand, and trying not to think of much of anything. He was managing miserably until Geoffrey, Paul, and Padraig came storming in, their robes one collective red glow of buttons.
"You better fucking win," Paul said, unwrapping his scarf, and huffing and puffing much more than someone of his nominal height should've been. "I put ten Galleons on you."
Geoffrey raised a slender eyebrow. His dark eyes glittering prominently against his brown skin. "Your point being what, exactly? You think he won't win?"
"My point is that I wouldn't want to be in the Triwizard Tournament. That could get you killed."
Paul made a choked noise when Padraig smacked the back of his head. "I'll thank you not to put any ideas in the boy's head. We need a calm, collected winner not some nervous, bloody-minded fourth-year."
"Yes, well, I don't want to be tall, dark and handsome, either," Paul protested. "But everyone's got their lot in life, eh Cedric?"
Geoffrey just snorted. "Seeing as you're not tall, dark, nor handsome, like myself or Cedric, or even Paddy, what exactly's your problem again?"
Cedric rolled his eyes and picked up his rucksack. "I can see how this one's going to go already," he said, smoothing out the wrinkles in his faded Tornadoes shirt. "I'll leave you ladies to it. I've got some studying to do in the library."
"You might want to take a back route or something," Geoffrey called out as Cedric packed up his stuff. "The Cedric Diggory Admirers club is camped out all over the castle."
"No rest for the wicked or the famous," Padraig slapped Cedric on the back and grinned at him.
Cedric sighed. "Wouldn't you know it?"
*
Cedric pressed himself up against the bookcase behind him and tried to get his bearings. His clothes were askew, and he felt sure he was missing a few hairs from his scalp. He could hardly remember how to breathe for all the chaos.
Cedric had been playing Quidditch since he'd been old enough to sit upright on a Cleansweep. He'd endured rain, hail, Quaffles, rocks, birds and an amorous Ravenclaw who was now his girlfriend, but nothing had prepared him for droves of third and fourth-year girls chasing him through the Hogwarts halls, calling his name and tearing at his clothes. He'd told Bevan he didn't want to be a Triwizard champion, and he'd let Bevan dare him to enter, and now look at where that'd got him -- hiding in the Restricted Section because he was brave, but he wasn't stupid.
He jumped when a book pinched his arse. "Hey now!" he protested, rubbing his backside and glaring down at a wall full of books. There was a chuckle from one corner, a shriek from another, and Cedric turned in a full circle before his eyes focused on a dark mass in an opposing corner. "Ve are hiding, yes?"
Cedric blinked as Viktor Krum stepped out of the shadows and into the mild lighting of the library. Krum was shorter than he'd appeared upon first consideration, but he was still able to make eye contact with Cedric, which few people in his year or the following year were able to do. "I'd been planning on, ah, studying," Cedric said flatly.
Contrary to numerous reports, Hufflepuffs weren't terribly nice. They were however, excellent at putting on a good façade, which most people tended to mistake for amiableness.
"Yes, I know. I was, how you say, studying also." Krum's dark hair and dark eyes should've given him a menacing look when put together with his beak-like nose, but the whole affect seemed rather alluring to Cedric. Krum had tidy facial hair, and his skin was perfectly unblemished. He shouldn't have seemed exotic, but he was. Cedric had been to Greece with his family, but he'd never been further north than Aberdeen, and Krum was not hard on the eyes in the least bit.
Thankfully, Cedric had a girlfriend, and he narrowed his eyes, taking in Krum's dark robes and empty hands. "Don't you need books for studying?"
"I study your books," Krum said simply. "You haff many books here. More than we haff. Plus, is not so cold."
Cedric nodded, but his mind darted ahead curiously. Krum, in the library, by himself, with no books, and no fellow Durmstrang students, complaining about the cold. The ordinary nature of his whinging was odd, but Cedric didn't know anything about Krum, apart from that he went to Durmstrang and flew a broom. And was the hero of the World Cup, but Cedric wasn’t starstruck. At least not enough for it to show. He hoped.
Krum cleared his throat, but Cedric said nothing further. His stomach gurgled quietly, and his left foot began to fall asleep. Krum was definitely easy on the eyes which made their staring match much more enjoyable.
Cedric had found that most people were afraid of silence, but if you didn’t have anything you wanted to say, you didn't have to pretend otherwise. Especially if you were staring at a really fit Quidditch player.
Cedric was still waiting for Padraig to realise that.
Eventually, Krum broke and rubbed his scalp. "Ve are veyying the vands tomorrow, yes?" his mouth twitched at the corners as though he were attempting to smile or put Cedric at ease, which Cedric found strangely curious.
Cedric simply nodded again. "Yes."
Krum gave Cedric a long look as though waiting for Cedric to ask him something or carry on the conversation, but Cedric had nothing he wanted to ask. Cedric was no one's screaming fan.
"I vil see you tomorrow." Krum nodded his head decisively, and Cedric shrugged.
"Until tomorrow," he said, more as a point of manners than anything else, but he was slightly stunned when Krum actually smiled, and then departed.
Cedric's heart did a weird thing in his chest after Krum left -- it beat faster.
*
After six years, Cedric had developed a system for conversing with his friends. Bevan tended to talk very quickly when he was excited and wave his hands around a lot, so he was always given a wide berth. Where Bevan talked fast, Padraig just talked a lot, and Geoffrey filled in most of the blanks with various swear words.
Cedric didn't do much of the talking, but he did a lot of the listening and a lot of the sarcasm. Cedric also excelled at noticing the mundane, and until he became Triwizard Champion, he'd considered walking through the school halls mundane.
With all the noise about the first challenge coming up, and the anti-Potter rhetoric, and the sudden emergence of the CAS (Cedric Appreciation Society), suddenly the halls weren't so mundane. However, even an idiot couldn't help but notice the appearance of Viktor Krum in the halls near the Charms class.
Cedric hadn't given much thought to the Durmstrang education while at Hogwarts, but obviously they would have to attend classes like everyone else.
Krum was completely surrounded by other Durmstrang students, eye-catching at Hogwarts by their high collars and severe demeanour. This was the first time that Cedric could study Krum, in what he assumed, was Krum's natural element. If that were the case, though, Krum looked positively miserable, or at least he did to Cedric's untrained eye.
It was entirely possible that Krum always looked that sour when people were shouting his name, and as Krum's cadre of students passed by Cedric and his mates, Cedric couldn't help but glance over at the cluster of olive-skinned boys.
He blinked when he realised Krum was watching him as well, and he exhaled sharply only to stumble when Padraig stood on his heel.
"Fucking hell, watch where you're going!" Geoffrey snapped, colliding with Bevan. "Put your fucking eyes back in your head, so."
Geoffrey smacked the back of Padraig's head as they all attempted to extricate themselves from each other, ignoring the tittering of the Hufflepuff third-years who'd all but surgically attached themselves to Cedric's heels.
"Piss off," Padraig said distractedly, staring after Krum's assemblage.
"He's really talented." Bevan cleared his throat. "Remember the World Cup?"
Cedric snorted. "Talented, huh? Is that what you're calling it now?"
"I wouldn't mind having a look at his talent," Bevan said saucily.
"Don't you have a boyfriend?" Cedric asked.
"Yes," Bevan sighed. "But he's off looking at other men's brooms."
"Next you'll be wanting to look at Krum's broom," Geoffrey retorted.
"No way. If anyone's in there, it's me," Padraig said authoritatively as they climbed the stairs to the Charms classroom.
"You wish."
Cedric caught Bevan giving him a curious look, and he shot his mate a guileless smile. "Don't you have Transfiguration right now or something?"
"Why do I get the feeling that you're trying to divert my attention away from what just -–"
Cedric never heard the rest of Bevan's question because his rucksack picked that moment to spill its contents all over the floor.
"Bollocks," Cedric said. "Go on without me, I'll be there in a second."
*
Cedric reckoned that almost being fried by a dragon was enough to keep anyone from getting a decent night's sleep regardless of how much Old Firewhiskey they'd been plied with in the previous five hours, or whether or not their girlfriend had been more than willing to put out.
Cho wasn't the coy sort, but it wasn't as though Cedric pressured her into doing anything she didn't want to. If she thought she was rewarding him for a job well done, well, Ravenclaws tended to use sex for payment more than any other house in Cedric's estimation. Cedric was no fool, but he also wasn’t tired in the least bit. When he was little and played out in the Coventry sunshine all day, his mum used to marvel at his inability to pass out early like all his playmates. Today, he'd left his heart and a good amount of his common sense somewhere in the surrounding countryside after the dragon had lost interest in his transfigured dog and gone after him.
Cedric had been thoroughly startled by the sheer size of the dragon, and the realization of how small he was in comparison, but not once had he feared for his life. Obviously if Potter hadn't given him some warning, he might've been much more disquieted than he was currently, but Cedric knew himself well. He could take on any challenge and not fall apart completely. At worst he would've been slightly more singed than he was now, but he would've muddled through because that's who he was and what he did. He shut up and got on with it, and obviously that was what had him pulling on random items in the dark and collecting his broom.
He paddled up the stairs to the Hufflepuff common room and left the dormitory quietly. Technically, he had no business out of bed at such an hour, but seeing as he was a prefect and a Triwizard Champion, he was willing to take the chance.
Hogwarts was eerily quiet so late at night, and Cedric kept waiting for Filch to materialise out of nowhere, demanding to know where he thought he was going in the middle of the night. The worst never happened though; Cedric always seemed to luck out that way, and he whistled an old Merlyn and the Warlocks tune as he made his way to the Quidditch pitch.
That particular Scottish night fell into that space between comfortably cold and bloody freezing that Cedric would never quite grow accustomed to, and the full moon hung brightly in the sky. It was a perfect night for flying, and Cedric supposed he should've expected company on this particular evening. He paused by the Hufflepuff stands to watch, shifting his broom from one hand to the other.
Eventually Krum noticed his audience of one, and Cedric watched various expressions flit across Krum's face as he swooped down closer.
The thoroughly disgruntled look on Krum's face vanished when Cedric nodded his head in greeting. "Hallo, Seed-ric."
"It's Said-ric," Cedric.
"Sad-rick?" Krum's forehead furrowed in concentration, and Cedric shook his head ruefully.
"Close enough," he said, mounting his broom and kicking off. Cedric flew around the pitch for several minutes, rolling, twisting and giving serious thought to attempting the Sloth Grip Roll or perhaps the Plumpton Pass. Of course without a Snitch such a move couldn't really be practiced, and eventually, the adrenaline coursing through Cedric's veins began to quell.
He was revising vaguely for Astronomy when he felt a tail breeze across his broom, and Krum appeared beside him. "You play Qvidditch, yes?"
Krum's visage didn't seem quite as dark under the moonlight; Cedric paused before answering. "Yeah, yes, I'm captain of my house team."
Krum seemed pleased to get an answer out of Cedric. "You are good?"
Cedric shrugged. "I'm not so bad."
"You are very, how you say, modern?" Cedric shook his head. Krum's brow furrowed again in concentration. "No, not modern, modest, yes, this word."
"I'm not playing for my country in the World Cup," Cedric pointed out, causing Krum's face to turn stormy.
"I am very proud to play for Bulgaria," he said haltingly, "but it is not everything, yes?" Krum's eyes were focussed intently on Cedric. It took Cedric a moment to realise that Krum was paying absolutely no attention to where they were flying.
"Maybe you should look where you're going," Cedric said, pointing at the hoop dead ahead. Krum glanced over inquisitively and then effortlessly performed a Sloth Grip Roll, suddenly appearing above Cedric, hanging from his broom by both hands.
Cedric wasn't the sort to be impressed by flash behaviour, but this was impressive all the same. He manoeuvred around the hoop with Krum just above him, and they circled back around easily.
"You are thinking that you should try this too?" Krum asked, eventually climbing back onto his broom and floating down to Cedric's height. "I vill help."
Cedric opened his mouth to decline and said, "All right," which was how he found himself hanging from his broom thirty seconds later with Viktor Krum flying alongside and giving him tips.
"You must hold tight -– tighter, yes, Cedric, or you vill fall -–" Krum pronounced his name effortlessly, which was exactly when Cedric lost his grip and fell.
Free falling without a broom at night was very different from free falling with a broom during a Quidditch match. For one, Cedric's legs weren't trying desperately to wrap around a piece of wood, and for two, the fact that it was well after midnight meant that there was no Madam Pomfrey standing by to mend whatever Cedric broke. Which turned out to be nothing as Krum swooped down and grabbed Cedric four feet from the ground.
Cedric stared baldly at the green Quidditch pitch below him, looking over his shoulder when Krum called his name. "You are okay, Cedric?"
Cedric's laugh was a strained, guttural noise, and he collapsed onto the ground as Krum lowered him gently. "Nothing's broken," he said, kneeling upright, and patting his face and his chest and various body parts to make certain he'd lost nothing in flight. "So yes, you could say I'm all right."
Viktor lowered himself until he was hovering scant inches off the ground. "This is good, I vould not vant you to be hurting yourself." Krum's voice dropped several octaves and Cedric's breath caught in his throat when Krum leaned closer.
Cedric hadn't snogged anyone besides Cho in an age. He hadn't snogged a boy since Padraig, and he wasn't even certain he fancied Krum, but he definitely felt something around him. Cedric shut his eyes tightly and waited for something to occur.
Nothing happened.
Eventually, Cedric opened one eye and found Krum considering him curiously, with a tiny smile on his face.
Growling crossly, Cedric leaned forward and pressed his lips against Krum's mouth. Krum's facial hair tickled slightly, and his nose bumped against Cedric's once, twice, before Cedric gripped his jaw and turned him toward a better angle. Krum apparently didn't approve of Cedric's taking the lead and shoved Cedric backwards, toppling both of them onto the grass where Cedric hit his head on a rock.
Pulling away, Cedric wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "I have a girlfriend," he said quietly.
Krum shrugged. "Ve are sharing perhaps."
It took Cedric a moment to realise that Krum wasn't asking a question.
*
Cedric never thought of himself as particularly attractive. He had more than his fair share of admirers if Padraig's whinging was anything to go by, but Cedric never sought their approval. He didn't think he was hideous with pointed teeth like Flint, but there were no Veela in his family like Fleur. Truthfully, Cedric never thought of himself as someone to get hot and bothered by.
Viktor Krum, apparently, felt differently.
That was the only explanation Cedric could muster for Viktor materialising outside his Runes classroom when he was already late. He didn't even give Cedric a chance to explain that he was late for class, he just grabbed Cedric's forearm and said, "You come with me now, yes."
The obvious thing was for Cedric to say, "No," but that answer got stuck somewhere in his throat, and he allowed himself to be pulled down the hall and into a dusty cupboard, which Cedric vaguely recalled being the plot point of one of Bevan's escapades.
There were plenty of things that Cedric could've said to put Krum off. "Wait a minute, would you," could've been a good start. "Can we get some bloody light?" would've worked too, but Krum's nose bumped his, and then there was this hot mouth pressing against his lips, and Cedric didn't really care about Runes at all.
Cedric collided with all sorts of shelving, and something poked him in the back. His nose itched from the dust, and there were a thousand reasons that this was a bad idea, but Krum's kisses were aggressive, like his Quidditch playing, and Cedric's head swam when Krum pushed him against something with no give to it. Pushing back, Cedric grabbed at Krum's uniform and began tugging on it, trying to figure out where the openings were.
"Is too much work," Krum muttered against Cedric's mouth. "Here," he said, grabbing two-handfuls of Cedric's backside and pulling him forward.
Cedric's inhaled raggedly when Krum pushed his thigh between Cedric's legs and began rubbing up against him rapidly.
Cedric's dick was much faster on the uptake than Cedric's brain, and Cedric's hands flailed for a moment before fisting themselves in Krum's spiky black hair.
Cedric and Krum didn't snog as much as they mashed their mouths together, tongues sliding against each other slickly, and Cedric gasped at how well he could feel Krum's erection despite the layers between them. Despite the positioning, his own cock certainly didn't seem to have any complaints.
"This is good, yes?"
Krum's breath was hot against Cedric's cheek, and it took Cedric a moment to find anything resemble a whole word. "Oh fuck," he sputtered. "Fuck, yes."
Krum's facial hair tickled his skin, and he could feel Krum smiling against his neck.
When Cedric came, his body spasmed hard enough that he thought he'd pulled a muscle. "We should do this again sometime," he said, gasping for breath.
Krum cleared his throat. "I am thinking tomorrow is good."
*
If Cedric didn't think of himself as attractive, he certainly didn't think of himself as aggressive either. He could be just as violent as the next man in Quidditch, but Cho tended to scare off most of his ardent admirers and he could handle everything else.
At least he thought he could until he decided he fancied Viktor Krum, but all this aggressiveness didn't bother to come with The Straight Wizard's Guide to Giving Blow Jobs, so Cedric had to do the entire business on the fly.
For some reason Cedric had always thought Krum would be barrel-chested with scrawny legs, but he was well-proportioned in every aspect of the word, and if Krum knew that Cedric had no idea what he was doing at least he wasn't being pushy about it. Of course, it probably helped that Cedric had Krum pinned against the wall of the Quidditch changing rooms and had his hand down Krum's trousers.
Cedric couldn't remember ever holding another boy's dick sober, so this was a new experience.
Common sense told him that since he had a dick all he had to do was what he liked, but that didn't seem to translate well in his head. Experience kept bringing him back to Cho, and Cedric didn't want to think about her just then, so he kissed Krum and nipped at his full lower lip.
He changed hands and speed, stroking faster or slower as Krum's noises dictated. The head of Krum's cock was just as soft as his own, and he enjoyed having his foreskin manipulated too. When Krum pushed his trousers down a bit further, Cedric slid his hand between Krum's thighs and began to fondle his balls.
In Cedric's mind it all seemed to be going well, and he kept his motions going as he got onto his knees, but just as Cedric leaned forward, Krum grunted and ejaculated just over Cedric's left ear.
The lack of warning threw Cedric off, and he collapsed forward, burying his nose in the juncture of Krum's hip and thigh, smothering his laughter against Krum's warm skin and wiry public hair. He pulled back when he felt a heavy hand on the back of his head. "This was not okay?"
Cedric just snickered and patted Krum's thigh. "Next time, it helps to give some warning when that's going to happen, all right?"
Krum smiled broadly. "Next time, yes."
*
In approximately three minutes and sixteen seconds, Cedric Diggory will find out that Viktor Krum is taking Hermione Granger to the Yule Ball. He will come by this information in the library, sitting at the Chinese Elm table halfway between the Runes and Arithmancy sections. Cedric will be chewing on a Sugarquill and listening half-heartedly to a conversation between his girlfriend, Cho Chang, and Queenie Greengrass, a fourth-year Slytherin. In the previous seventy-six minutes the girls have discussed everything from the Wyrd Sisters to the latest robes for spring, but Cedric hasn't been paying attention, because he has other things on his mind.
Cedric is focussing on the Triwizard tournament's next challenge, trying to decide how to tackle the eighteen inches of parchment he will have to write for Transfigurations, and when he'll be able to see Viktor again without drawing suspicion to either one of them. For Cedric the latter is more important than the essay or the tournament, and that is what will make this bit of gossip all the more painful.
With all the trouble Viktor and Cedric have gone to keep their assignations a secret, Cedric won't know if what he feels is jealousy or relief or sadness. He will only know that Viktor isn't just 'Krum' anymore.
Cho won't know why he suddenly excuses himself from their table at the library, and Queenie will stare after him with a guilessness that will belie whatever is happening in her mind.
Cedric knows enough Slytherins to know that very little escapes them, even when they pretend otherwise. Cedric only knows Queenie as a friend of his girlfriend; he has no opinion of her whatsoever. If they were to pass in the halls, Cedric wouldn't know her from any other student. It's not that Queenie is too plain to be acknowledged; it's hard to miss someone who looks as though they should be living underwater with hair like seaweed and piercing green eyes that look like a Glamour Charm gone wrong.
In another time, it's possible that Cedric would be dating Queenie instead of Cho. Perhaps in some other place, Cedric would be confiding in Cho and Queenie instead of shifting about in his hardback chair trying to alleviate some of the soreness in the lower half of his body –- however, this is not another place and time. This is Cedric's life, and it's growing more complicated by the moment, so, Cedric will make his excuses, kiss Cho on the cheek, and leave.
When Viktor said he would share, this was not what Cedric thought he meant.
*
It was hard to have an argument with someone when that person was constantly surrounded by his classmates and his creepy headmaster, and probably didn't even know that Cedric was vexed. It wasn't that Cedric was jealous that Viktor was seeing a girl, because Cedric simply didn't have the physical attributes to fight in such a competition. However, Cedric had been honest and Viktor had not, and that stung. He had told Viktor he had a girlfriend, and Viktor had said they would share, not bring someone else into the mess. And of all the girls at Hogwarts, Viktor had chosen one of Potter's ilk, which was just rude.
At least that was the point that Cedric tried to make to Viktor out by the Quidditch changing rooms during the Yule Ball, but there was too much foot traffic.
There were people snogging in the bushes, and Viktor was surly because Granger had apparently done a runner; Cedric just didn't need the mess, so he walked away.
That night, Cedric lay in his bed beneath golden drapes, and tried to sort out his priorities. It was all well and good to get a leg over, but he had another challenge coming up, and he had examinations, and truthfully, no boy was worth all this palaver.
Cedric had never seen Padraig get this bent out shape, and although Bevan and Oliver fought all the time, especially now that Oliver had left Hogwarts, there was no doubt of their loyalties to each other. His parents hadn't slept in the same bed since Cedric was old enough to realise what happened when people shared the same bed, but he couldn't imagine them not being together.
Cedric wasn't certain where this business with Viktor was going to take him, but he didn’t have to let it make him crazy, and it was much easier to toss off once Cedric stopped wanting to choke someone with his bare hands.
Instead, Cedric licked the palm of his left hand and thought of Viktor's mouth, the calluses on his hands, and the way that Cho always jerked him off just a little too softly. He rubbed the head of his cock, letting his thumb move the foreskin back and forth, and he thought of Cho's hairless thighs and the way Viktor always smelled like black liquorice. He thought of Viktor's hands pulling at his robes and insinuating themselves between Cedric and his trousers. Viktor tended to bite his own lip when he jerked Cedric off, and Cedric gasped softly when he came. After cleaning himself up, he rolled over and thought about playing Quidditch and the fact that what felt right wasn't always what anyone else would approve of.
Eventually, he fell asleep.
*
Viktor was slippery and smelled of salt water and something strange that Cedric couldn't really define. His cock felt the same in the grip of Cedric's hand, smooth and warm and hot, but there was something just slightly off. When Viktor snogged Cedric, Cedric's heart didn't do that quickening thing it usually did. Cedric couldn't tell if that was because he was still thinking about Cho tied up underwater or because Viktor had chosen Granger as the person he wanted to save the most. Obviously Viktor couldn't have selected Cedric since he was a champion, but Potter had chosen Weasley, and Bevan had actually given out about not being the person Cedric had chosen.
The second challenge had been over for hours, but Viktor had slits on the side of his neck like a shark, and Cedric's perception was all screwed up because he felt as though he still had that bubble on his head. Viktor was sullen because Potter had saved Granger, but Cedric didn't really care, because he was a boy and boys didn't need to talk over every trifling thing. If Cedric wanted to talk, he could go find Padraig or Geoffrey or Bevan. What Cedric really wanted was to get laid, and if Viktor didn't speak that language, then there was really going to be a problem with them going any further, full stop.
Judging by the scratch marks Viktor had left on Cedric's back this was not a problem. In fact, if the way Viktor was pushing and pulling and straddling Cedric's waist was any indication, stopping was not on his agenda at all.
Cedric didn't need to think about girlfriends or crushes or whether or not the reason he had his dick up Viktor Krum's backside was because Cho just wasn't manly enough for him. That was too much analysis, and sometimes Cedric wanted something mindless and fun, like shagging a really fit boy.
Sometimes Cedric just wanted to be wanted without all the expectations and the pressure, and Viktor had to know what that was like. It wasn't as though they discussed the matter, but who cared because Viktor Krum had a smattering of dark hair on his chest, and he seemed perfectly willing to let Cedric fuck him underneath the Hufflepuff Quidditch stand, so who was Cedric to complain?
Viktor wasn't overly hairy as someone –- everyone -– would've thought, just because he was from "The North." Cedric's thoughts of the "The North" involved ice floes in Norway and penguins sliding out the front door of the Durmstrang castle into sub-zero waters. He wasn't certain he wanted to find out otherwise, and perhaps that's what made Viktor so intriguing. Viktor definitely wasn't some great woolly mammoth, or one of Cedric's dad's "pets" that he kept in the cages out back because Cedric's mum had threatened to feed him to his Magical Menagerie if he allowed another Diricawl in the house.
Viktor wasn't Sunday teas with Cedric's nan or the stripped yellow and black jumpers that Cedric's mum bought new every school year. Being with Viktor didn't require input from Cho and Bevan; there were no Diggory expectations to be met. No father proudly bragging about the time his son beat Harry Potter to the Snitch.
This sweaty, primal fucking in the dark was something that Cedric could just have and enjoy without any strings attached.
*
The night before the third challenge, Cedric lounged about in the Hufflepuff common room with Padraig and Geoffrey. He played Gobstones with Gemma and talked over Quidditch strategy with Marjorie. He went by the Ravenclaw dormitories and played six rounds of Exploding Snap with Bevan, eating enough Cherry Red Bertie Botts to stain his tongue permanently.
After deducing that his girlfriend was nowhere to be found, Cedric made his way to the library where he found Cho pouring over her Runes assignment. After quizzing her thoroughly, and then sending her off to see Queenie, Cedric spent a few moments in the History of Magic section with Viktor talking about very little at all. The Cedric Appreciation Society was nowhere to be found and even Viktor's sycophants had decided to take a tea break.
When Cedric emerged from the stacks his mouth and chin were red with stubble burn, but the library was deserted enough that if anyone noticed they didn't say anything.
A little bit after eleven p.m., Cedric went to bed, and that was that.
*
There was a moment when Cedric was in the maze that he thought everything was going to be all right. Despite the yelling, and Fleur's screaming, Cedric honestly thought that when this was all over, he was going to go back to the Hufflepuff dormitories and find Padraig flirting with Gemma, and Geoffrey expounding on Muggle football and his beloved QPR.
Cedric thought that when all of this was over, and he'd sorted out this stupid Triwizard business that he'd never wanted a part of in the first place, that he would write his mum a letter, and tell her that he loved her. Maybe then he would go and see Cho and tell her that he was seeing Viktor too, because he owed her that much. He didn't want to lose her, but she deserved to know, because they'd always been honest.
Cedric never claimed he was perfect. He never said he was the best boyfriend ever, or the best mate ever. He didn't always make the best decisions, but he did what he could because that's who he was. Sometimes people got hurt, sometimes he got hurt, but that was just the way life was. Cedric was just as human as anyone else, and when he got to the centre of the maze and found Harry Potter there as well, Cedric was jealous and covetous and all those things that people never mention about Hufflepuffs. Cedric had wanted to be first, but his sense of fair play was stronger than anything else, and after a second, his moment of darkness vanished.
-end-
Author's Notes:
+ Morbidly enough, the title is taken from the eulogy Dumbledore gave Cedric at the end of GoF.
+ This story would not have been possible without the help of all you fabulous people who set me straight when I despaired of writing a Hufflepuff. Special thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
murklins for words of advice and veradeath for pointing me towards this fabulous essay by maniacalmuse.
+ As always this would not have been possible withoutoxoniensis and ethrosdemon, so here is to them, because they make everything possible, and at least 80% grammatically correct. You can also sacrifice your firstborns to ethrosdemon for the porn, cos Lords of Kobol know I tried to cut and run.
+ True to GoF, Cedric has been played by Robert Pattinson and Krum by Stanislav Ianevski.
The role of Bevan Montague has been played by Matthew Goode, the role of Padraig Leary has been played by Callum Blue, and David Oyelowo has been Geoffrey
Harry Potter
Cedric/Viktor; Cedric/Cho (NC-17)
Cedric Diggory was eleven years, three months and sixteen days old when he was sorted into Hufflepuff house. Both Cedric's father and older sister had been sorted into Gryffindor, but his mother, Emma, came from a long line of Hufflepuffs, and Cedric saw nothing wrong with being sorted into "That Other House." He had no idea that people saw Hufflepuff as That House That No One Remembered, or that the students in other houses saw Hufflepuff as that place where the rejects were sent.
No one told Cedric that Hufflepuff students were seen as weak and simple-minded. No one bothered to explain that people in Hufflepuff were useless and forgotten about by the rest of the world. And if no one told that to Cedric, no one had bothered to tell the other students in Hufflepuff either.
The morning after the sorting, Cedric met up with his childhood friend, Bevan Montague, a second-year Ravenclaw, at the doors of the Great Hall. The first thing Bevan said upon taking in Cedric's black and yellow striped tie was, "Don't worry about it; my mum can get you out of there quicker than Fudge can say, 'Um'."
Bevan's mum worked in Public Relations and spent a lot of time keeping her very famous clients in, or out, of the Daily Prophet as their needs required. Sometimes Cedric's mum, who had been a very famous photojournalist before the Prophet became "a piece of tawdry loo paper" worked with her, which was how the boys had met.
Cedric laughed at the earnest nature of Bevan's offer and patted his friend on the shoulder. "You worry too much, Bevan," he said. "If they're really as bad as you think, then they should be just right for me."
Bevan looked at Cedric as though he'd professed his undying love for Brussel sprouts and shook his head. "Cedric, you don't belong in that house. They're all -- they're not your sort. I heard they're all inanely nice or thicker than crup shit."
Cedric looked over at the table of his housemates and furrowed his brow. He was sharing a room with a Scotsman, Paul, an Irishman, Padraig, Pwyll, from Wales, and a half-wizard from North London, who kept talking about something called QPR. All his housemates seemed to be of a good stock, and the Irish boy had brought Muggle pornography. It didn't move, Padraig had explained, but that meant it couldn't make embarrassing noises underneath your bed and grass you up to your parents either.
Upon first acquaintance, the boy from London, Geoffrey Stebbins, seemed quite mild-mannered, but upon further exposure it was discovered that he cursed like a Muggle and snored like the undead.
At three o'clock in the morning, Padraig had woken the entire room by shouting that if Geoffrey didn't get himself "sorted out" Padraig was going to suffocate him and take care of the problem for everyone.
Apparently that had scared the snores right out of Geoffrey, and the rest of the night had passed in peace.
Cedric thought about trading that in for the unknown and shook his head again. There was no guarantee that he would end up in Ravenclaw with Bevan if he was sorted again. "I'm down the hall, not across the country; I'm not abandoning you."
Bevan snorted. "You're throwing your best mate over for a bunch of sad saps who wouldn't know a good time if it kicked them in the shins. I never thought I'd see the day; it's your funeral, mate."
Cedric pushed dark, curling hair behind his ear and grinned. "Well, then I better have a good time before I go."
Bevan elbowed him in the ribs and pointed out a girl across the aisle staring avidly in their direction, "I think she'll help you out if you ask nicely."
Over his years at Hogwarts, Cedric heard a lot of falsehoods about his house. He heard that Hufflepuff was full of nymphomaniac druggies, and that they had one brain to share between the lot of them. This one was most prevalent when they were studying themselves shitless, and people had started to go delirious and attack other houses.
Cedric had heard that his house all worshipped the Dark Lord and were minions in the making; Slytherin house was just a red herring. This rumour was started after the business with Potter and Finch-Fletchley and the Chamber of Secrets.
Cedric heard that the entire house couldn't play Quidditch to save their lives and that it was only through the wonder of Merlin that they managed to win any matches whatsoever. The last one he heard from Bevan, who became a Ravenclaw beater the same year that Cedric became the Hufflepuff Seeker.
In their first match together, Bevan knocked Cedric off his broom, and Cedric lost a tooth and cracked two ribs; it hurt. A lot.
When Bevan came to visit Cedric in the infirmary, Cedric was surrounded by several of his housemates, and they all gave Bevan the look of death when he sat down on Cedric's bed as though he belonged there.
"We don't want any of your sort here," Marjorie Dixon, a third-year with dark hair and wide brown eyes snapped. "Bloody Ravenclaws always thinking everyone is inferior to them. I guess we showed you!"
Bevan visibly recoiled at the force of such vitriol. Like most people, Bevan thought all Hufflepuffs were unconscionably nice. He was wrong. And although Bevan had jet-black hair and blue eyes, and Cedric's hair was sandy-coloured and he had grey eyes, at least 50% of the people they met together mistook them for brothers. They were, indeed, that close, and a slight to one was a slight to both.
Cedric yanked his wand out from underneath his pillow and pointed it at Marjorie warningly. "Bevan is my mate, and the next person who gives out about it is going to have ants crawling out of their ears for the next hundred years."
The crowd magically dispersed after Cedric's threat, and Bevan laughed quietly to himself for several minutes as Cedric re-arranged him into some sort of comfort.
"I would laugh with you," Cedric grumbled, "but some bastard cracked my ribs and it hurts too much to laugh."
"I never thought I'd see the day where I had to be protected from a melee of rabid Hufflepuffs," Bevan said, pulling an assortment of sweets from the folds of his robes and tossing them down on the coverlet.
Cedric sorted through Peppermint Toads, Pepper Imps and Fudge Flies; he wordlessly tossed Bevan the pack of Ice Mice, which Cedric hated, and knew Bevan had bought expressly so Cedric would give them to him. "And you said Hufflepuffs were thick. We can't be that thick if I still caught the Snitch."
Bevan made a dismissive wave. "Fool's luck."
Cedric raised an eyebrow. "You're calling me a fool?"
"No, I'm calling Paul Henderson a fool. You just got lucky."
"My mum says there's no such thing as luck. She says you get what you work for."
Bevan sighed. "Brilliant, now I'll be wondering who Henderson worked over for his spot."
At this Cedric laughed, and then gasped, holding his ribs. "And you said Hufflepuff was the house with all the sexual deviants."
"Clearly I was wrong; they're actually all in my house."
Cedric sniggered. "I could've told you that; just look at you. Everyone knows that Ravenclaws are intellectual tarts, who'll shag anything."
Bevan scowled. "At least I know better than to fancy you."
Cedric gave Bevan an enormous smile. "I don't need you to fancy me when I have Marjorie protecting me."
In Cedric's third year, Harry Potter arrived at Hogwarts. Cedric had heard innumerable stories about the invincible Harry Potter from the time he was wee, but as far as he could tell the stories seemed much greater than the boy in question.
At the feast in the Great Hall, Cedric sat between Padraig and Geoffrey, stuffing his face with roast potatoes and chicken and regaling his mates with stories of his summer holidays. He'd spent time working with his dad on Doxy infestations and they had even travelled to Tunisia to study the Erupment.
He belched quite loudly during Padraig's discourse on the Irish Quidditch team's chances for the World Cup, and when Marjorie Dixon looked his way, he could feel his ears burning as his mates laughed. Marjorie had developed quite a bit over the summer, and Cedric was more than aware of this new maturity.
When it came time for the sorting, Cedric watched with everyone else and applauded as the first-years were sorted into their houses. When Harry Potter's name was called the usual murmuring rose to a deafening level.
Geoffrey wrinkled his nose as a disturbingly scrawny kid who looked as though he hadn't had a proper meal in his life stumbled up to the sorting hat. "What the fuck's all this about this fucking kid then, hey?"
Padraig and Cedric exchanged glances. "You want to tell him, or shall I?" Cedric scratched the back of his neck, keeping his face as neutral as possible and resolutely not looking at the Ravenclaw table where Bevan was making faces in his direction.
"It's all you," Padraig said with a sniff. "I thought he'd be taller myself."
In Cedric's fifth year he took his OWLs. He formed a study group with Padraig, Pauline O'Hare, the Hufflepuff Keeper, Geoffrey, and Gemma James. They made a rota where everyone studied the same subjects every week, and then, once a week, they met up and quizzed each other on various topics of interest. The week they revised Magical Creatures, Gemma showed up with a stuffed manticore and a stuffed badger.
Padraig took one look at the stuffed badger and laughed himself into a state. "Which one of these doesn't belong, so?" he asked taking in the worn state of Gemma's badger. "That's not a magical creature, that's a bloody badger."
Pauline elbowed Padraig in the ribs hard enough that he fell out of his chair and landed on his shoulder. "Show some respect," she snapped. "The badger is a useful animal, you know."
"Yeah, for digging holes," Geoffrey snorted. "Slytherin get snakes, Gryffindor get lions, Ravenclaws get eagles, and we're stuck with an animal that spends all its time underground looking for grubs."
Cedric just shook his head; his father worked in the Department for the Regulation of Magical Creatures, and he was well aware that size had nothing to do with dodginess. "You don't know what you're on about," he said. "Badgers are deadly animals."
Padraig placed his hands on the table and pushed himself upright so that his brown, spiky hair was visible over the tabletop. "Yeah, that stuffed animal looks real deadly. Oooh, my wand's shooting sparks from fear."
Cedric and Geoffrey snorted. Gemma glared at Padraig, and poked his nose with her wand. "You should be afraid, you nitwit. Edgar could eat you alive."
Padraig gave her a dubious look, and blinked when she turned her wand on the stuffed badger and said, "Animate!"
One minute the badger was lying on its side and the next it was crawling across the table, heading directly for Padraig. "Fucking hell," he exclaimed, jumping to his feet just as Edgar the Badger snapped at the place where his hand had been.
"Badgers are carnivores you know," Gemma said with a large, toothy grin. "They don't take unicorn droppings from anyone, so have some respect."
Cedric leaned back in his chair and just laughed.
According to his mum and dad, and most of his year, and the years below him, Cedric wasn't that hard on the eyes. He'd been called everything from 'shit hot' to 'absolutely blindingly gorgeous.' He'd been told more than once that if he ever wanted for anything all he had to do was say the word. He'd been propositioned by girls in Hufflepuff and Gryffindor, and once by a woman in Diagon Alley, when his mum was in Florish and Blotts.
It didn't go to his head.
When Cedric looked in the mirror, he just saw himself, Cedric Nicholas Diggory, who had a scar on his chin from where Bevan'd whacked him with his first broom when he was seven. His eyes were an indeterminate slate grey, and thankfully, he wasn't prone to spots. Beyond that, he felt there was nothing particular to recommend him aesthetically, but other people had always felt differently.
People looked at Cedric and assumed that he had everything that he ever wanted. They saw his friends, his smiles, and his good fortune on the Quidditch pitch and presumed that he'd never worked hard for anything, nor suffered for want of anything.
It was a common assumption that Hufflepuffs wanted for nothing, nor wanted anything in turn. That was wrong. Cedric had ambition. He didn't have a definitive idea of what he wanted, but he did want.
Cedric craved the sibling that his mother lost when he was five, and he wanted his Aunt Rosemary who'd died at the end of the war. He wanted Bevan's sanity not to be as tenuous as his father's was, and he prayed to Circe that the people he loved would survive whatever was coming in the future.
Cedric knew want, but he also knew diligence and power and adoration. He worked his arse off for every good mark and his place as Hufflepuff Captain. Cedric was not thick; he understood that he was fortunate. His fate was not that far off from that of Harry Potter's, but Cedric had his parents; they made a great amount of difference.
It only took one twist of fate to separate one person from another.
Cedric Diggory never thought he wanted a girlfriend. Obviously, he'd thought about girls before; he wasn't dead. His hormones were just as mad as everyone else's, but his priorities tended to lie more with his friends than with getting a leg over. He'd had more than his fair share of attention from the female of the species, and frankly, their tenacity tended to unnerve him a little. Cedric had been briefly involved with Marjorie Dixon, and she'd relieved him of his virginity before she decided she needed someone "older and more experienced."
He'd walked Gemma to a few classes in their fifth year, before they decided that they worked much better as friends considering she fancied Padraig something rotten. Cedric didn't tell her that he'd gotten further with Padraig after one particularly raucous celebration than she probably ever would.
Roger Davies, one of Bevan's mates, had made it his mission in life to treat Cedric to the full Death Eater onslaught regarding his perceived lack of interest in the girls in their year. After Cedric hexed Roger's tongue to the roof of his mouth with the Peanut Butter Toffee Stickler Hex, Roger'd left off. Bevan, strangely enough, had been extraordinarily blasé about the entire thing, and it was only at wand-point when Bevan confessed he'd been putting it to Oliver Wood that Cedric understood Bevan's silence on the matter.
Cedric didn't begrudge Bevan his interest in Wood; he was a solid Quidditch player. Bevan certainly seemed taken with him regardless of what house he flew for.
In any case, it would've been a bit hypocritical of Cedric to give out to Bevan after letting Padraig put his hands down Cedric's trousers.
The incident in question had occurred at Bevan's dad's place in Wales. Rhys Montague had conspicuously left Padraig, Cedric, Bevan and Oliver Wood alone with enough alcohol to kill a small dragon, and Cedric had woken up the next day wearing Bevan's Ravenclaw tie, no trousers, and with red handprints on his hips and a small Irish flag drawn on the inside of his thigh.
Everyone had been too sick to discuss the logistics of what had probably occurred, but Cedric didn't require a diagram.
He had also harboured something of a long-term crush on Norah Parkinson, a seventh-year Slytherin, and since she couldn't see him for the yellow-and-black Quidditch robes he wore, he'd taken to getting it where he could.
A man could have hope, that didn't make him stupid.
Cedric probably would've stayed single if it weren't for the tenacity of Cho Chang, since he only realised she fancied him after she nearly put him in hospital.
It wasn't that Cedric was blind to the years under him, everyone knew who Harry Potter was, but Cedric wasn't terribly impressed by Potter's name as much as he was impressed by his flying. Potter was good, but Cho, well, -- Potter never deliberately crashed into Cedric six times in one match.
The first two times Cedric simply'd thought she wasn't that good a flier, and he'd sailed by Bevan after the second crash and hollered, "Fuck me, where'd you find this one? She flies like it's a collision sport. It's called Quidditch, not Blatching! Fucking Ravenclaws."
Bevan hollered something back, which was probably equally derisory about Hufflepuff, but Cedric was unable to hear him for the crowds shouting and the hint of something gold hovering by the Slytherin stands. To this day Cedric didn't know if it was the Snitch or just a piece of jewellry, because when he was still ten yards away, Cho came out of nowhere and rammed into him with such force that his teeth rattled in his head.
He flew upside down for twelve seconds before he realised the ground was blue and the sky was green.
Cedric's father had always taught him to be a gentleman where women were concerned, but Quidditch was a different matter altogether, and it was clear that Cho Chang wasn't playing it feminine and coy. Cedric had a lot of respect for the female Quidditch players that he was friends with. Marjorie could smack a Quaffle like no one's business, and he'd fallen in love with Angelina Johnson for two whole weeks after she'd sent Marcus Flint to the infirmary to have all his teeth regrown, but Cedric'd flown with them for years at this point, and Cho was an unknown quantity.
The fifth time she collided with him, she actually waited around to make sure he wasn't dead, and then shot him a brilliant smile before flying off again. It was at that point that he began to realise she wasn't necessarily attacking him for the Snitch.
Cedric and Cho didn't date as much as she announced she fancied him, and he capitulated because he was impressed by her cheek. There was something safe about being with Cho that Cedric appreciated immensely, plus, it was easier to be with a girl who would beat the fuck out of anyone else who came sniffing around than constantly beating off passes.
To their credit Cedric's friends were as accepting of Cho as they were of any other partner, which was to say that they tolerated her because she dated Cedric. His housemates gave out the obligatory bollocks about her being a Ravenclaw, but Cedric paid them no mind. He'd spent the last five years dealing with the Hufflepuff/Ravenclaw emnity and ignored it when necessary. Of course, Bevan spoke highly of Cho because she was a Ravenclaw, and Oliver spoke highly of her because she was a good Seeker, just not as good as Potter or Cedric –- he'd capitulated on the latter after Bevan put him in a headlock.
As for Cho taking the initiative, true it wasn't the most traditional way of doing things, but Cedric never stood on ceremony for such things. People who dwelled on the traditional and "expected" only brought themselves misery, which was the exact thing he told Padraig when Padraig'd announced that he'd decided he was "all sexual" now instead of just shagging boys.
Cedric felt that anyone who needed big declarations wasn't trying to convince the other person as much as they were trying to convince themselves. It was entirely possible that Cedric believed this because his mother had only told him that she loved him three times in his life. The first time was on his sixth birthday when his pet niffler, Nero, fell down a well and Cedric jumped in after him. The second time was the day he left for his first year at Hogwarts, and the third was the day he wrote home with the news that he was the Triwizard Champion.
Cedric never felt that he needed to be told his family loved him; it was just a given, and he used the same approach in his relationship with Cho. He didn't spend his days writing Cho bad poetry or sending her flowers every other week. He remembered her birthday and was always there with an ear when she needed to vent. To Cedric that was what a real relationship was about, friendship and loyalty.
It wasn't that he didn't fancy Cho, but it wasn't a primary requisite. He'd spent his entire life being told he was pretty face; he wasn't interested in that sort of judgemental thinking anymore
At the start of his sixth year, Cedric had everything a sixteen year-old boy could possibly want. He was a prefect, captain of his house's Quidditch team, and he had a girlfriend who was more like a friend. He'd bested Harry Potter in the last Quidditch match of the previous year, and his father had taken him to the Quidditch World Cup where he'd met up with Cho, Padraig, Geoffrey, Bevan and Oliver Wood.
Cedric had enjoyed the match with his mates, and everyone had been quite enthralled with Viktor Krum. Even Padraig, who was so kitted out in Irish colours that he'd dyed his hair green had to admit that Krum was very good.
Of course that night there'd been that mess with Dark Mark appearing in the sky, but Cedric's father was pragmatic about the idea of there being Death Eaters around and the return of He Who Must Be Named.
They arrived home, via portkey, and outside the Diggory front door, Cedric's father took him by the elbow and said, "Don't listen to what other people say about this Volde -– You Know Who business."
Cedric blinked. His father didn't believe in saying He Who Must Not Be Named, but his mother had once hexed her husband for saying Voldemort's name in the house.
Cedric's father carried on. "There are always going to be problems in the world; people are never going to see eye to eye, that's just the way of things. But you can't fight everyone's cause. You have to pick your own battles. You have to decide what you think is right."
Cedric stared at his father, seeing the same steady grey eyes that looked back at him every morning in the bathroom mirror. "You always said the Ministry was full of fools."
Amos Diggory smirked at his son. "Yes, but I work there, it's my job to say such things. Every man has to decide for himself; would you rather be lead by fools or a dictator?"
Cedric sat up late that night, leafing through a yellowing copy of Terry Pratchett's Sourcery that his mum had bought him his first year at Hogwarts. Pratchett had gone to school with Cedric's parents, and he made money by retelling wizarding stories to Muggles. Cedric enjoyed most of his works much more than the classic wizarding stories of the Brothers' Grimm, but he couldn't focus on the words on the page. He kept thinking of what his father had said, and he wondered if those were his only two options.
If someone had taken Cedric aside at any point up to his sixth year and told him that he was going to find the famous Bulgarian Seeker, the famous male Bulgarian Seeker, Viktor Krum, attractive, or engaging in the least, Cedric would've pointed out two key items. One, that the Bulgarian Seeker was male -- Cedric left the male-on-male-action to Bevan and Padraig -- and two, that Cedric was never going to meet the very male Viktor Krum. So, the entire exercise was pointless and said person should stop listening to Professor Trelawney immediately because everyone knew she was a hack.
Cedric would've been wrong.
Cedric wasn't attracted to Viktor Krum the minute he saw him striding into the Great Hall with the rest of his class. For starters, Viktor didn't stride in with the rest of his class.
The boys from Durmstrang –- men -- those definitely looked more like men to Cedric than the boys in his year – marched in rank file, formal and severe, no smiling, no curiosity. They gave off an air of imperiousness, like the Slytherins, but without the sneering. Cedric had definitely seen this sort of entitled disdain before. Six years of people looking at him, admiring him, and then stepping back when he said he was a Hufflepuff had clued Cedric in quite nicely to the us versus them attitude, and the boys from Durmstrang projected that mentality in droves.
Cedric wondered if they were responding to something the Hogwarts students were emitting or if this was simply some form of mental segregation that he'd only mildly experienced before. Whatever it was, it made him acutely self-conscious.
Cedric prided himself on being smart enough not to judge the whole by its parts, but perhaps that was important to him because people were always judging him by what they saw. People often underestimated him, as perhaps all of Durmstrang were doing now. Except he was just as guilty as they were of judging first and thinking second.
So while the rest of his housemates muttered quietly about which one of these cavalcade of dark haired and dark-eyed boys was The Viktor Krum, Cedric kept his eyes firmly on the door. He could feel the tension of unfinished business hanging in the air around them like too much humidity on an early Scottish morning.
And then Krum walked in -- strode in -- covered in furs, and dogged by a peaked looking older man, and Geoffrey whispered in a low voice, "I thought he was taller."
Cedric kept his own council, simply taking in the long stride and glowering, but Padraig made a choking noise in his throat. "Doesn't matter to me, I'd do him anyway."
Cedric wasn't terribly certain he wanted to be a Triwizard champion. Of course there was the idea of the fame and the glory and the money, but Cedric didn't need the money or the attention. No, the last thing Cedric wanted was more fucking attention from anyone, but the idea of a chance to show people that he was more than a pretty face was extraordinarily tempting.
It was all well and good for people to smile at him in the hallway and think he was this nice, innocuous boy, since Cedric didn't need everyone knowing that he thought Gryffindor was full of bloody-minded idiots or that Slytherin was all bark and no bite. Cedric wasn't stupid, there was no need to alienate half the school, but Cedric was proud to be a Hufflepuff, and the idea of showing everyone that his house was not to be underestimated was not without appeal.
Originally, Cedric had only put his name in the goblet because Bevan had dared him to, and Cedric could never pass up a good dare. There were bits of him that were still smarting from the time Bevan'd dared him to talk gibberish to Snape during Potions, and Snape had countered his insolence by having him scrub the floors of the Potions lab with his toothbrush. Cedric never expected his name to be pulled out of the goblet though, and he certainly didn't expect to have to share his title with Harry bloody Potter.
If Cedric was going to do this for his house, he had no intention of being upstaged by some fourth-year Gryffindor, even if he did manage to get past the age spell. The problem now was how to bloody well win the thing, because he had no real alternative.
Over the next few days Cedric experienced an outpouring of support and notoriety the likes of which he'd never seen. He'd got good grades, played brilliant Quidditch, and on one occasion managed to outwit Filch when Bevan had dared him to give Mrs Norris jinxed mice, but the huge red buttons that screamed: SUPPORT CEDRIC DIGGORY: THE REAL HOGWARTS CHAMPION were something else.
Bevan had magicked all the robes of the sixth year Ravenclaws to flash Cedric's name, and Padraig and Geoffrey had made a killing by selling the buttons with the "Support Cedric" message.
The night before the weighing of the wands, Cedric sat in his room polishing his wand, and trying not to think of much of anything. He was managing miserably until Geoffrey, Paul, and Padraig came storming in, their robes one collective red glow of buttons.
"You better fucking win," Paul said, unwrapping his scarf, and huffing and puffing much more than someone of his nominal height should've been. "I put ten Galleons on you."
Geoffrey raised a slender eyebrow. His dark eyes glittering prominently against his brown skin. "Your point being what, exactly? You think he won't win?"
"My point is that I wouldn't want to be in the Triwizard Tournament. That could get you killed."
Paul made a choked noise when Padraig smacked the back of his head. "I'll thank you not to put any ideas in the boy's head. We need a calm, collected winner not some nervous, bloody-minded fourth-year."
"Yes, well, I don't want to be tall, dark and handsome, either," Paul protested. "But everyone's got their lot in life, eh Cedric?"
Geoffrey just snorted. "Seeing as you're not tall, dark, nor handsome, like myself or Cedric, or even Paddy, what exactly's your problem again?"
Cedric rolled his eyes and picked up his rucksack. "I can see how this one's going to go already," he said, smoothing out the wrinkles in his faded Tornadoes shirt. "I'll leave you ladies to it. I've got some studying to do in the library."
"You might want to take a back route or something," Geoffrey called out as Cedric packed up his stuff. "The Cedric Diggory Admirers club is camped out all over the castle."
"No rest for the wicked or the famous," Padraig slapped Cedric on the back and grinned at him.
Cedric sighed. "Wouldn't you know it?"
Cedric pressed himself up against the bookcase behind him and tried to get his bearings. His clothes were askew, and he felt sure he was missing a few hairs from his scalp. He could hardly remember how to breathe for all the chaos.
Cedric had been playing Quidditch since he'd been old enough to sit upright on a Cleansweep. He'd endured rain, hail, Quaffles, rocks, birds and an amorous Ravenclaw who was now his girlfriend, but nothing had prepared him for droves of third and fourth-year girls chasing him through the Hogwarts halls, calling his name and tearing at his clothes. He'd told Bevan he didn't want to be a Triwizard champion, and he'd let Bevan dare him to enter, and now look at where that'd got him -- hiding in the Restricted Section because he was brave, but he wasn't stupid.
He jumped when a book pinched his arse. "Hey now!" he protested, rubbing his backside and glaring down at a wall full of books. There was a chuckle from one corner, a shriek from another, and Cedric turned in a full circle before his eyes focused on a dark mass in an opposing corner. "Ve are hiding, yes?"
Cedric blinked as Viktor Krum stepped out of the shadows and into the mild lighting of the library. Krum was shorter than he'd appeared upon first consideration, but he was still able to make eye contact with Cedric, which few people in his year or the following year were able to do. "I'd been planning on, ah, studying," Cedric said flatly.
Contrary to numerous reports, Hufflepuffs weren't terribly nice. They were however, excellent at putting on a good façade, which most people tended to mistake for amiableness.
"Yes, I know. I was, how you say, studying also." Krum's dark hair and dark eyes should've given him a menacing look when put together with his beak-like nose, but the whole affect seemed rather alluring to Cedric. Krum had tidy facial hair, and his skin was perfectly unblemished. He shouldn't have seemed exotic, but he was. Cedric had been to Greece with his family, but he'd never been further north than Aberdeen, and Krum was not hard on the eyes in the least bit.
Thankfully, Cedric had a girlfriend, and he narrowed his eyes, taking in Krum's dark robes and empty hands. "Don't you need books for studying?"
"I study your books," Krum said simply. "You haff many books here. More than we haff. Plus, is not so cold."
Cedric nodded, but his mind darted ahead curiously. Krum, in the library, by himself, with no books, and no fellow Durmstrang students, complaining about the cold. The ordinary nature of his whinging was odd, but Cedric didn't know anything about Krum, apart from that he went to Durmstrang and flew a broom. And was the hero of the World Cup, but Cedric wasn’t starstruck. At least not enough for it to show. He hoped.
Krum cleared his throat, but Cedric said nothing further. His stomach gurgled quietly, and his left foot began to fall asleep. Krum was definitely easy on the eyes which made their staring match much more enjoyable.
Cedric had found that most people were afraid of silence, but if you didn’t have anything you wanted to say, you didn't have to pretend otherwise. Especially if you were staring at a really fit Quidditch player.
Cedric was still waiting for Padraig to realise that.
Eventually, Krum broke and rubbed his scalp. "Ve are veyying the vands tomorrow, yes?" his mouth twitched at the corners as though he were attempting to smile or put Cedric at ease, which Cedric found strangely curious.
Cedric simply nodded again. "Yes."
Krum gave Cedric a long look as though waiting for Cedric to ask him something or carry on the conversation, but Cedric had nothing he wanted to ask. Cedric was no one's screaming fan.
"I vil see you tomorrow." Krum nodded his head decisively, and Cedric shrugged.
"Until tomorrow," he said, more as a point of manners than anything else, but he was slightly stunned when Krum actually smiled, and then departed.
Cedric's heart did a weird thing in his chest after Krum left -- it beat faster.
After six years, Cedric had developed a system for conversing with his friends. Bevan tended to talk very quickly when he was excited and wave his hands around a lot, so he was always given a wide berth. Where Bevan talked fast, Padraig just talked a lot, and Geoffrey filled in most of the blanks with various swear words.
Cedric didn't do much of the talking, but he did a lot of the listening and a lot of the sarcasm. Cedric also excelled at noticing the mundane, and until he became Triwizard Champion, he'd considered walking through the school halls mundane.
With all the noise about the first challenge coming up, and the anti-Potter rhetoric, and the sudden emergence of the CAS (Cedric Appreciation Society), suddenly the halls weren't so mundane. However, even an idiot couldn't help but notice the appearance of Viktor Krum in the halls near the Charms class.
Cedric hadn't given much thought to the Durmstrang education while at Hogwarts, but obviously they would have to attend classes like everyone else.
Krum was completely surrounded by other Durmstrang students, eye-catching at Hogwarts by their high collars and severe demeanour. This was the first time that Cedric could study Krum, in what he assumed, was Krum's natural element. If that were the case, though, Krum looked positively miserable, or at least he did to Cedric's untrained eye.
It was entirely possible that Krum always looked that sour when people were shouting his name, and as Krum's cadre of students passed by Cedric and his mates, Cedric couldn't help but glance over at the cluster of olive-skinned boys.
He blinked when he realised Krum was watching him as well, and he exhaled sharply only to stumble when Padraig stood on his heel.
"Fucking hell, watch where you're going!" Geoffrey snapped, colliding with Bevan. "Put your fucking eyes back in your head, so."
Geoffrey smacked the back of Padraig's head as they all attempted to extricate themselves from each other, ignoring the tittering of the Hufflepuff third-years who'd all but surgically attached themselves to Cedric's heels.
"Piss off," Padraig said distractedly, staring after Krum's assemblage.
"He's really talented." Bevan cleared his throat. "Remember the World Cup?"
Cedric snorted. "Talented, huh? Is that what you're calling it now?"
"I wouldn't mind having a look at his talent," Bevan said saucily.
"Don't you have a boyfriend?" Cedric asked.
"Yes," Bevan sighed. "But he's off looking at other men's brooms."
"Next you'll be wanting to look at Krum's broom," Geoffrey retorted.
"No way. If anyone's in there, it's me," Padraig said authoritatively as they climbed the stairs to the Charms classroom.
"You wish."
Cedric caught Bevan giving him a curious look, and he shot his mate a guileless smile. "Don't you have Transfiguration right now or something?"
"Why do I get the feeling that you're trying to divert my attention away from what just -–"
Cedric never heard the rest of Bevan's question because his rucksack picked that moment to spill its contents all over the floor.
"Bollocks," Cedric said. "Go on without me, I'll be there in a second."
Cedric reckoned that almost being fried by a dragon was enough to keep anyone from getting a decent night's sleep regardless of how much Old Firewhiskey they'd been plied with in the previous five hours, or whether or not their girlfriend had been more than willing to put out.
Cho wasn't the coy sort, but it wasn't as though Cedric pressured her into doing anything she didn't want to. If she thought she was rewarding him for a job well done, well, Ravenclaws tended to use sex for payment more than any other house in Cedric's estimation. Cedric was no fool, but he also wasn’t tired in the least bit. When he was little and played out in the Coventry sunshine all day, his mum used to marvel at his inability to pass out early like all his playmates. Today, he'd left his heart and a good amount of his common sense somewhere in the surrounding countryside after the dragon had lost interest in his transfigured dog and gone after him.
Cedric had been thoroughly startled by the sheer size of the dragon, and the realization of how small he was in comparison, but not once had he feared for his life. Obviously if Potter hadn't given him some warning, he might've been much more disquieted than he was currently, but Cedric knew himself well. He could take on any challenge and not fall apart completely. At worst he would've been slightly more singed than he was now, but he would've muddled through because that's who he was and what he did. He shut up and got on with it, and obviously that was what had him pulling on random items in the dark and collecting his broom.
He paddled up the stairs to the Hufflepuff common room and left the dormitory quietly. Technically, he had no business out of bed at such an hour, but seeing as he was a prefect and a Triwizard Champion, he was willing to take the chance.
Hogwarts was eerily quiet so late at night, and Cedric kept waiting for Filch to materialise out of nowhere, demanding to know where he thought he was going in the middle of the night. The worst never happened though; Cedric always seemed to luck out that way, and he whistled an old Merlyn and the Warlocks tune as he made his way to the Quidditch pitch.
That particular Scottish night fell into that space between comfortably cold and bloody freezing that Cedric would never quite grow accustomed to, and the full moon hung brightly in the sky. It was a perfect night for flying, and Cedric supposed he should've expected company on this particular evening. He paused by the Hufflepuff stands to watch, shifting his broom from one hand to the other.
Eventually Krum noticed his audience of one, and Cedric watched various expressions flit across Krum's face as he swooped down closer.
The thoroughly disgruntled look on Krum's face vanished when Cedric nodded his head in greeting. "Hallo, Seed-ric."
"It's Said-ric," Cedric.
"Sad-rick?" Krum's forehead furrowed in concentration, and Cedric shook his head ruefully.
"Close enough," he said, mounting his broom and kicking off. Cedric flew around the pitch for several minutes, rolling, twisting and giving serious thought to attempting the Sloth Grip Roll or perhaps the Plumpton Pass. Of course without a Snitch such a move couldn't really be practiced, and eventually, the adrenaline coursing through Cedric's veins began to quell.
He was revising vaguely for Astronomy when he felt a tail breeze across his broom, and Krum appeared beside him. "You play Qvidditch, yes?"
Krum's visage didn't seem quite as dark under the moonlight; Cedric paused before answering. "Yeah, yes, I'm captain of my house team."
Krum seemed pleased to get an answer out of Cedric. "You are good?"
Cedric shrugged. "I'm not so bad."
"You are very, how you say, modern?" Cedric shook his head. Krum's brow furrowed again in concentration. "No, not modern, modest, yes, this word."
"I'm not playing for my country in the World Cup," Cedric pointed out, causing Krum's face to turn stormy.
"I am very proud to play for Bulgaria," he said haltingly, "but it is not everything, yes?" Krum's eyes were focussed intently on Cedric. It took Cedric a moment to realise that Krum was paying absolutely no attention to where they were flying.
"Maybe you should look where you're going," Cedric said, pointing at the hoop dead ahead. Krum glanced over inquisitively and then effortlessly performed a Sloth Grip Roll, suddenly appearing above Cedric, hanging from his broom by both hands.
Cedric wasn't the sort to be impressed by flash behaviour, but this was impressive all the same. He manoeuvred around the hoop with Krum just above him, and they circled back around easily.
"You are thinking that you should try this too?" Krum asked, eventually climbing back onto his broom and floating down to Cedric's height. "I vill help."
Cedric opened his mouth to decline and said, "All right," which was how he found himself hanging from his broom thirty seconds later with Viktor Krum flying alongside and giving him tips.
"You must hold tight -– tighter, yes, Cedric, or you vill fall -–" Krum pronounced his name effortlessly, which was exactly when Cedric lost his grip and fell.
Free falling without a broom at night was very different from free falling with a broom during a Quidditch match. For one, Cedric's legs weren't trying desperately to wrap around a piece of wood, and for two, the fact that it was well after midnight meant that there was no Madam Pomfrey standing by to mend whatever Cedric broke. Which turned out to be nothing as Krum swooped down and grabbed Cedric four feet from the ground.
Cedric stared baldly at the green Quidditch pitch below him, looking over his shoulder when Krum called his name. "You are okay, Cedric?"
Cedric's laugh was a strained, guttural noise, and he collapsed onto the ground as Krum lowered him gently. "Nothing's broken," he said, kneeling upright, and patting his face and his chest and various body parts to make certain he'd lost nothing in flight. "So yes, you could say I'm all right."
Viktor lowered himself until he was hovering scant inches off the ground. "This is good, I vould not vant you to be hurting yourself." Krum's voice dropped several octaves and Cedric's breath caught in his throat when Krum leaned closer.
Cedric hadn't snogged anyone besides Cho in an age. He hadn't snogged a boy since Padraig, and he wasn't even certain he fancied Krum, but he definitely felt something around him. Cedric shut his eyes tightly and waited for something to occur.
Nothing happened.
Eventually, Cedric opened one eye and found Krum considering him curiously, with a tiny smile on his face.
Growling crossly, Cedric leaned forward and pressed his lips against Krum's mouth. Krum's facial hair tickled slightly, and his nose bumped against Cedric's once, twice, before Cedric gripped his jaw and turned him toward a better angle. Krum apparently didn't approve of Cedric's taking the lead and shoved Cedric backwards, toppling both of them onto the grass where Cedric hit his head on a rock.
Pulling away, Cedric wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "I have a girlfriend," he said quietly.
Krum shrugged. "Ve are sharing perhaps."
It took Cedric a moment to realise that Krum wasn't asking a question.
Cedric never thought of himself as particularly attractive. He had more than his fair share of admirers if Padraig's whinging was anything to go by, but Cedric never sought their approval. He didn't think he was hideous with pointed teeth like Flint, but there were no Veela in his family like Fleur. Truthfully, Cedric never thought of himself as someone to get hot and bothered by.
Viktor Krum, apparently, felt differently.
That was the only explanation Cedric could muster for Viktor materialising outside his Runes classroom when he was already late. He didn't even give Cedric a chance to explain that he was late for class, he just grabbed Cedric's forearm and said, "You come with me now, yes."
The obvious thing was for Cedric to say, "No," but that answer got stuck somewhere in his throat, and he allowed himself to be pulled down the hall and into a dusty cupboard, which Cedric vaguely recalled being the plot point of one of Bevan's escapades.
There were plenty of things that Cedric could've said to put Krum off. "Wait a minute, would you," could've been a good start. "Can we get some bloody light?" would've worked too, but Krum's nose bumped his, and then there was this hot mouth pressing against his lips, and Cedric didn't really care about Runes at all.
Cedric collided with all sorts of shelving, and something poked him in the back. His nose itched from the dust, and there were a thousand reasons that this was a bad idea, but Krum's kisses were aggressive, like his Quidditch playing, and Cedric's head swam when Krum pushed him against something with no give to it. Pushing back, Cedric grabbed at Krum's uniform and began tugging on it, trying to figure out where the openings were.
"Is too much work," Krum muttered against Cedric's mouth. "Here," he said, grabbing two-handfuls of Cedric's backside and pulling him forward.
Cedric's inhaled raggedly when Krum pushed his thigh between Cedric's legs and began rubbing up against him rapidly.
Cedric's dick was much faster on the uptake than Cedric's brain, and Cedric's hands flailed for a moment before fisting themselves in Krum's spiky black hair.
Cedric and Krum didn't snog as much as they mashed their mouths together, tongues sliding against each other slickly, and Cedric gasped at how well he could feel Krum's erection despite the layers between them. Despite the positioning, his own cock certainly didn't seem to have any complaints.
"This is good, yes?"
Krum's breath was hot against Cedric's cheek, and it took Cedric a moment to find anything resemble a whole word. "Oh fuck," he sputtered. "Fuck, yes."
Krum's facial hair tickled his skin, and he could feel Krum smiling against his neck.
When Cedric came, his body spasmed hard enough that he thought he'd pulled a muscle. "We should do this again sometime," he said, gasping for breath.
Krum cleared his throat. "I am thinking tomorrow is good."
If Cedric didn't think of himself as attractive, he certainly didn't think of himself as aggressive either. He could be just as violent as the next man in Quidditch, but Cho tended to scare off most of his ardent admirers and he could handle everything else.
At least he thought he could until he decided he fancied Viktor Krum, but all this aggressiveness didn't bother to come with The Straight Wizard's Guide to Giving Blow Jobs, so Cedric had to do the entire business on the fly.
For some reason Cedric had always thought Krum would be barrel-chested with scrawny legs, but he was well-proportioned in every aspect of the word, and if Krum knew that Cedric had no idea what he was doing at least he wasn't being pushy about it. Of course, it probably helped that Cedric had Krum pinned against the wall of the Quidditch changing rooms and had his hand down Krum's trousers.
Cedric couldn't remember ever holding another boy's dick sober, so this was a new experience.
Common sense told him that since he had a dick all he had to do was what he liked, but that didn't seem to translate well in his head. Experience kept bringing him back to Cho, and Cedric didn't want to think about her just then, so he kissed Krum and nipped at his full lower lip.
He changed hands and speed, stroking faster or slower as Krum's noises dictated. The head of Krum's cock was just as soft as his own, and he enjoyed having his foreskin manipulated too. When Krum pushed his trousers down a bit further, Cedric slid his hand between Krum's thighs and began to fondle his balls.
In Cedric's mind it all seemed to be going well, and he kept his motions going as he got onto his knees, but just as Cedric leaned forward, Krum grunted and ejaculated just over Cedric's left ear.
The lack of warning threw Cedric off, and he collapsed forward, burying his nose in the juncture of Krum's hip and thigh, smothering his laughter against Krum's warm skin and wiry public hair. He pulled back when he felt a heavy hand on the back of his head. "This was not okay?"
Cedric just snickered and patted Krum's thigh. "Next time, it helps to give some warning when that's going to happen, all right?"
Krum smiled broadly. "Next time, yes."
In approximately three minutes and sixteen seconds, Cedric Diggory will find out that Viktor Krum is taking Hermione Granger to the Yule Ball. He will come by this information in the library, sitting at the Chinese Elm table halfway between the Runes and Arithmancy sections. Cedric will be chewing on a Sugarquill and listening half-heartedly to a conversation between his girlfriend, Cho Chang, and Queenie Greengrass, a fourth-year Slytherin. In the previous seventy-six minutes the girls have discussed everything from the Wyrd Sisters to the latest robes for spring, but Cedric hasn't been paying attention, because he has other things on his mind.
Cedric is focussing on the Triwizard tournament's next challenge, trying to decide how to tackle the eighteen inches of parchment he will have to write for Transfigurations, and when he'll be able to see Viktor again without drawing suspicion to either one of them. For Cedric the latter is more important than the essay or the tournament, and that is what will make this bit of gossip all the more painful.
With all the trouble Viktor and Cedric have gone to keep their assignations a secret, Cedric won't know if what he feels is jealousy or relief or sadness. He will only know that Viktor isn't just 'Krum' anymore.
Cho won't know why he suddenly excuses himself from their table at the library, and Queenie will stare after him with a guilessness that will belie whatever is happening in her mind.
Cedric knows enough Slytherins to know that very little escapes them, even when they pretend otherwise. Cedric only knows Queenie as a friend of his girlfriend; he has no opinion of her whatsoever. If they were to pass in the halls, Cedric wouldn't know her from any other student. It's not that Queenie is too plain to be acknowledged; it's hard to miss someone who looks as though they should be living underwater with hair like seaweed and piercing green eyes that look like a Glamour Charm gone wrong.
In another time, it's possible that Cedric would be dating Queenie instead of Cho. Perhaps in some other place, Cedric would be confiding in Cho and Queenie instead of shifting about in his hardback chair trying to alleviate some of the soreness in the lower half of his body –- however, this is not another place and time. This is Cedric's life, and it's growing more complicated by the moment, so, Cedric will make his excuses, kiss Cho on the cheek, and leave.
When Viktor said he would share, this was not what Cedric thought he meant.
It was hard to have an argument with someone when that person was constantly surrounded by his classmates and his creepy headmaster, and probably didn't even know that Cedric was vexed. It wasn't that Cedric was jealous that Viktor was seeing a girl, because Cedric simply didn't have the physical attributes to fight in such a competition. However, Cedric had been honest and Viktor had not, and that stung. He had told Viktor he had a girlfriend, and Viktor had said they would share, not bring someone else into the mess. And of all the girls at Hogwarts, Viktor had chosen one of Potter's ilk, which was just rude.
At least that was the point that Cedric tried to make to Viktor out by the Quidditch changing rooms during the Yule Ball, but there was too much foot traffic.
There were people snogging in the bushes, and Viktor was surly because Granger had apparently done a runner; Cedric just didn't need the mess, so he walked away.
That night, Cedric lay in his bed beneath golden drapes, and tried to sort out his priorities. It was all well and good to get a leg over, but he had another challenge coming up, and he had examinations, and truthfully, no boy was worth all this palaver.
Cedric had never seen Padraig get this bent out shape, and although Bevan and Oliver fought all the time, especially now that Oliver had left Hogwarts, there was no doubt of their loyalties to each other. His parents hadn't slept in the same bed since Cedric was old enough to realise what happened when people shared the same bed, but he couldn't imagine them not being together.
Cedric wasn't certain where this business with Viktor was going to take him, but he didn’t have to let it make him crazy, and it was much easier to toss off once Cedric stopped wanting to choke someone with his bare hands.
Instead, Cedric licked the palm of his left hand and thought of Viktor's mouth, the calluses on his hands, and the way that Cho always jerked him off just a little too softly. He rubbed the head of his cock, letting his thumb move the foreskin back and forth, and he thought of Cho's hairless thighs and the way Viktor always smelled like black liquorice. He thought of Viktor's hands pulling at his robes and insinuating themselves between Cedric and his trousers. Viktor tended to bite his own lip when he jerked Cedric off, and Cedric gasped softly when he came. After cleaning himself up, he rolled over and thought about playing Quidditch and the fact that what felt right wasn't always what anyone else would approve of.
Eventually, he fell asleep.
Viktor was slippery and smelled of salt water and something strange that Cedric couldn't really define. His cock felt the same in the grip of Cedric's hand, smooth and warm and hot, but there was something just slightly off. When Viktor snogged Cedric, Cedric's heart didn't do that quickening thing it usually did. Cedric couldn't tell if that was because he was still thinking about Cho tied up underwater or because Viktor had chosen Granger as the person he wanted to save the most. Obviously Viktor couldn't have selected Cedric since he was a champion, but Potter had chosen Weasley, and Bevan had actually given out about not being the person Cedric had chosen.
The second challenge had been over for hours, but Viktor had slits on the side of his neck like a shark, and Cedric's perception was all screwed up because he felt as though he still had that bubble on his head. Viktor was sullen because Potter had saved Granger, but Cedric didn't really care, because he was a boy and boys didn't need to talk over every trifling thing. If Cedric wanted to talk, he could go find Padraig or Geoffrey or Bevan. What Cedric really wanted was to get laid, and if Viktor didn't speak that language, then there was really going to be a problem with them going any further, full stop.
Judging by the scratch marks Viktor had left on Cedric's back this was not a problem. In fact, if the way Viktor was pushing and pulling and straddling Cedric's waist was any indication, stopping was not on his agenda at all.
Cedric didn't need to think about girlfriends or crushes or whether or not the reason he had his dick up Viktor Krum's backside was because Cho just wasn't manly enough for him. That was too much analysis, and sometimes Cedric wanted something mindless and fun, like shagging a really fit boy.
Sometimes Cedric just wanted to be wanted without all the expectations and the pressure, and Viktor had to know what that was like. It wasn't as though they discussed the matter, but who cared because Viktor Krum had a smattering of dark hair on his chest, and he seemed perfectly willing to let Cedric fuck him underneath the Hufflepuff Quidditch stand, so who was Cedric to complain?
Viktor wasn't overly hairy as someone –- everyone -– would've thought, just because he was from "The North." Cedric's thoughts of the "The North" involved ice floes in Norway and penguins sliding out the front door of the Durmstrang castle into sub-zero waters. He wasn't certain he wanted to find out otherwise, and perhaps that's what made Viktor so intriguing. Viktor definitely wasn't some great woolly mammoth, or one of Cedric's dad's "pets" that he kept in the cages out back because Cedric's mum had threatened to feed him to his Magical Menagerie if he allowed another Diricawl in the house.
Viktor wasn't Sunday teas with Cedric's nan or the stripped yellow and black jumpers that Cedric's mum bought new every school year. Being with Viktor didn't require input from Cho and Bevan; there were no Diggory expectations to be met. No father proudly bragging about the time his son beat Harry Potter to the Snitch.
This sweaty, primal fucking in the dark was something that Cedric could just have and enjoy without any strings attached.
The night before the third challenge, Cedric lounged about in the Hufflepuff common room with Padraig and Geoffrey. He played Gobstones with Gemma and talked over Quidditch strategy with Marjorie. He went by the Ravenclaw dormitories and played six rounds of Exploding Snap with Bevan, eating enough Cherry Red Bertie Botts to stain his tongue permanently.
After deducing that his girlfriend was nowhere to be found, Cedric made his way to the library where he found Cho pouring over her Runes assignment. After quizzing her thoroughly, and then sending her off to see Queenie, Cedric spent a few moments in the History of Magic section with Viktor talking about very little at all. The Cedric Appreciation Society was nowhere to be found and even Viktor's sycophants had decided to take a tea break.
When Cedric emerged from the stacks his mouth and chin were red with stubble burn, but the library was deserted enough that if anyone noticed they didn't say anything.
A little bit after eleven p.m., Cedric went to bed, and that was that.
There was a moment when Cedric was in the maze that he thought everything was going to be all right. Despite the yelling, and Fleur's screaming, Cedric honestly thought that when this was all over, he was going to go back to the Hufflepuff dormitories and find Padraig flirting with Gemma, and Geoffrey expounding on Muggle football and his beloved QPR.
Cedric thought that when all of this was over, and he'd sorted out this stupid Triwizard business that he'd never wanted a part of in the first place, that he would write his mum a letter, and tell her that he loved her. Maybe then he would go and see Cho and tell her that he was seeing Viktor too, because he owed her that much. He didn't want to lose her, but she deserved to know, because they'd always been honest.
Cedric never claimed he was perfect. He never said he was the best boyfriend ever, or the best mate ever. He didn't always make the best decisions, but he did what he could because that's who he was. Sometimes people got hurt, sometimes he got hurt, but that was just the way life was. Cedric was just as human as anyone else, and when he got to the centre of the maze and found Harry Potter there as well, Cedric was jealous and covetous and all those things that people never mention about Hufflepuffs. Cedric had wanted to be first, but his sense of fair play was stronger than anything else, and after a second, his moment of darkness vanished.
-end-
Author's Notes:
+ Morbidly enough, the title is taken from the eulogy Dumbledore gave Cedric at the end of GoF.
+ This story would not have been possible without the help of all you fabulous people who set me straight when I despaired of writing a Hufflepuff. Special thanks to
murklins for words of advice and veradeath for pointing me towards this fabulous essay by maniacalmuse.+ As always this would not have been possible without
oxoniensis and ethrosdemon, so here is to them, because they make everything possible, and at least 80% grammatically correct. You can also sacrifice your firstborns to ethrosdemon for the porn, cos Lords of Kobol know I tried to cut and run.+ True to GoF, Cedric has been played by Robert Pattinson and Krum by Stanislav Ianevski.
The role of Bevan Montague has been played by Matthew Goode, the role of Padraig Leary has been played by Callum Blue, and David Oyelowo has been Geoffrey
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no subject
Date: 2005-10-05 06:19 pm (UTC)Terry Pratchett as a wizard! I love it.
In Cedric's mind it all seemed to be going well, and he kept his motions going as he got onto his knees, but just as Cedric leaned forward, Krum grunted and then he ejaculated just past Cedric's left ear.
Why, that's very nearly bukkake, isn't it?
it's hard to miss someone who looks as though they should be living underwater
that's it! That's Queenie exactly. *love*
And you mention penguins! But not with bukkake! Thank you for that.
Also, I really liked this. Especially as it went on and the triwizard tournament went on and we get to watch Cedric just being himself and living his life, and knowing what's going to come next gives it all an extra hint of poignancy. Lovely, sweetie.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-05 07:13 pm (UTC)*chokes*
I also thank you for that.
And the penguins, they were sweater-less, yes?
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2005-10-05 06:28 pm (UTC)Of course, we wouldn't want to disappoint the researchers at the lack of material. One fic is hardly a reference point. There should be at least, a dozen.
Or 20.
Or 50.
I think I'll pass on the movie and just keep reading this.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-11 07:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-05 06:41 pm (UTC)Wow.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-11 07:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-05 06:54 pm (UTC)And man, that was written superbly and took me down avenues I had absolutely no intention of exploring in the first place (like HP fic, especially NC-17, not to mention slash. They will always be children's books to me but damn you, you weave some fabulour fic out of them.)
You give great Diggory - and Hufflepuff owes you for the tarting up of their rep.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-11 07:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-05 07:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-11 07:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-05 07:26 pm (UTC)Remember Cedric Diggory indeed.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-11 07:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-05 07:29 pm (UTC)Um, I think this:
Cedric's inhaled raggedly when Krum pushed his thigh began Cedric's legs and began rubbing up against Cedric rapidly.
maybe between or some other b word?
no subject
Date: 2005-10-11 07:34 pm (UTC)Cedric's inhaled raggedly when Krum pushed his thigh began Cedric's legs and began rubbing up against Cedric rapidly.
maybe between or some other b word?
*sigh* Thank you for catching that. It occurs to me that I could have people beta for me all day, and by virtue of being one of my stories, there would still be some error.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-05 07:35 pm (UTC)One thing, the Oliver you keep referencing through out the piece is Oliver Wood yes? But wasn't he a seventh year in Harry's first? So wouldn't he be off somewhere else by now? Or did you mean someone else? That was just a bit confusing to me.
Anyhow, lovely. And the end was perfect.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-05 07:50 pm (UTC)According to the lexicon (http://www.hp-lexicon.org/wizards/a-z/w.html) Oliver was two years ahead of Cedric, which made him a fifth year during Harry's first year, so, uh, I did make a mistake, but not that severely.
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2005-10-05 09:30 pm (UTC)It was funny how as I was reading I'd easily forget that Cedric was never going to get the chance to come clean with Cho, or have a messy break up with Viktor, or hear his mum tell him she loved him one more time. It was too easy to get sucked into the rhythms of his life. But every once in a while, a particular sentence would remind me, and I'd sort of catch my breath and think, oh, this will all end too soon.
I liked how Cedric demonstrated his loyalty, maintaining such strong friendships, but not letting house rivalry come between him and Bevan. And how Cedric was not particularly nice or especially devoted, but was just a mostly decent guy, trying to figure stuff out. I think one of my favourite lines of his was right near the beginning:
no subject
Date: 2005-10-11 07:36 pm (UTC)Normally, when you write a story you have to worry about where to begin and where to end and how to get from A to B, but with this story, I already knew the end and just wanted to figure out how it came about. It was a novel way to write, which I enjoyed immensely.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-05 10:30 pm (UTC)This is awesome.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-11 07:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-05 10:32 pm (UTC)But in the meantime, thank you for Rhys and for Bevan and for Padraig and for Krum and for Queenie and for Cho.
And for Cedric, and for a last paragraph that made me shiver even as it made me smile.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-11 07:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2005-10-05 11:58 pm (UTC)I just finished Goblet of Fire and was surprised by how much I liked Cedric. Combine that with this story and now I just adore him.
You made Cedric so real. I loved the backstory you created. And yet there is an overwhelming sense of sadness as we know how the story is going to end eventually.
Wow! Can I be you when I grow up?
no subject
Date: 2005-10-11 07:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-06 12:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-11 07:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-06 01:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-11 07:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-06 02:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-11 07:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-06 02:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-11 07:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-06 06:34 am (UTC)Right, now that the Keysmash of Delighted Incoherency is over with, I'm going to attempt to make some sort of sense with this.
This was brilliant. And riveting. Normally I have about twelve windows open and sort of alternate between them, even when reading fic, but once I started this I didn't switch away from it once.
Cedric is such an underrated-but-wonderful character, and I don't think I've ever read a fic that's explored his character and his background in this much detail. He has a childhood, he has friends, he has a personality. I liked him before, but here I'm loving him so much that it's ridiculous.
His friends as well--especially Bevan. Cedric defending Bevan in the hospital wing was a particularly great moment; that one section sums up their friendship pretty well.
There are these random, scattered bits of foreshadowing--the "one twist of fate" line and him always seeming to luck out... Killed me dead. The last two sections were just painful, especially since the reader has gotten to know him so well by that point.
Great depiction of Hufflepuffs in general, by the way: fiercely loyal, diverse, intelligent, often aggressive. <3 badgers.
What I really look for in a fic, besides the big things (characterization, plot, description, etc.), is little details that really flesh things out and make the story come alive. Things like Terry Pratchett being a wizard, or the many theories on Hufflepuffs, or the incident in Wales, or Cedric's musings on Queenie Greengrass. The story just seems fuller with this kind of attention to detail.
Oh, and the sex (which I realize I haven't mentioned yet)? Was hot. And it was Seekers and Triwizard contestants and minor characters who rarely get any love, all at once. :D
Thanks for this. :)
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Date: 2005-10-11 07:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-06 01:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-11 07:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-06 04:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-11 07:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-06 06:58 pm (UTC)Brava!
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Date: 2005-10-11 07:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-06 08:51 pm (UTC)And good job on the Hufflepuff voice. You have now helped define my view of three Hogwarts houses (seriously, I've always known I was a Ravenclaw, but you? Have made me happy about it. *g*)
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Date: 2005-10-11 07:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-06 08:53 pm (UTC)This is the first piece of fanfiction I've read in quite a while. It was definitely worth coming back for.
*heart*
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Date: 2005-10-11 07:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-06 11:20 pm (UTC)Oh God. I knew what was coming, I knew what to expect, and *still* you got me emotionally invested in Cedric. Damn you. (In a good way, naturally).
I loved the way you got under the skin of the Hufflepuffs - the line about how people think they're all so very *nice* and yet they really aren't. I loved your Padraig. I loved your gentlemanly but steely Cedric.
And Bevan! You and your interconnected stories.
Garghh.
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Date: 2005-10-11 08:14 pm (UTC)And Bevan! You and your interconnected stories.
I confess, all my stories are connected in one way or another. Through topic or character or theme. There, you've found me out ;) Now I have to Obliviate you.
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Date: 2005-10-06 11:27 pm (UTC)You managed to do it again, you clever minx! You made me care about a character that JKR never saw fit to define, and you did it brilliantly. The last paragraph made me weep for Cedric, something our girl Jo never managed with GoF. Good job!
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Date: 2005-10-11 08:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-07 12:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-11 08:15 pm (UTC)