Fanfiction: Harry Potter: Seeking a Keeper
Title: Seeking a Keeper
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Cedric Diggory/Oliver Wood; implied Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy
Status: Complete
Warning: Unedited. Blink-and-you'll-miss-it foreshadowing for Cedric's death.
Notes: Takes place during the Prisoner of Azkaban. I probably wrote this when I'd just re-read the Hufflepuff-Gryffindor match (my copy falls open at that part because one of the pages is partially taped where it's torn) and wondered why Cedric was that upset at having caught the Snitch fair and square. You know, honour and sportsmanship aside. 8D
More notes at the bottom. Please read them if you read the fic, a lot of things will be explained. But the tl;dr is that I wrote this 6 years ago. :D
Oliver knew Cedric Diggory as much as he knew that his Seeker was snogging Slytherin’s Seeker on the side. Which was to say that Oliver didn’t know Cedric at all, and that fact didn’t seem to bother him very much. He did, however, know that Diggory was a terrific Seeker, absolutely brilliant on a broomstick, and the most likely out of all of them to play Quidditch professionally. Oliver thought that perhaps Harry would too, if he hadn’t already had the thing about worldwide popularity to worry about. But besides that, no, Oliver didn’t know anything about Diggory. He definitely wasn’t even on speaking terms with him.
So it came as a surprise when, a few days before the match, Diggory came up to him sometime after lunch, clapped his hand on his shoulder and said, “Harry’s quite an excellent Seeker, isn’t he?”
Oliver narrowed his eyes a little in suspicion, and almost immediately he wondered just how much Diggory thought he was going to tell him about their strategies when the younger Captain patted him on the shoulder and said, “Don’t worry, I’m not trying to get you to tell me anything. Just thought I’d tell you to warn Potter, I’m not as easy as Malfoy.” He laughed a bit, simply and delightfully, and Oliver wasn’t sure that he got the joke. Diggory’s laughter stopped, however when he realised Oliver wasn’t laughing, and he creased his brow a little and said, “Well, I’ll see you on the pitch, then.”
As Diggory walked away, Oliver became sure that the Hufflepuff Captain was merely trying to worry him unduly for the upcoming game. Yet, he did feel slightly worried for Harry… As he scurried off to find his Seeker, he refused to believe that maybe Diggory had succeeded.
*
“…and then he’s telling me that I should warn Potter that he is going to have some competition, and he laughs, and do you think he was laughing at us? No, Hufflepuffs aren’t that way…”
Oliver was rambling, he knew, but he couldn’t help it, and he had the sneaking suspicion that Angelina was trying her hardest not to laugh at him.
She patted his hand reassuringly. “There, there. He was merely provoking you. Although you are pretty lucky. Do you know how many students in the school would die just to get to talk to Cedric Diggory?” She sighed, eyes going slightly dreamy. “Too bad, I’ve heard he’s already got someone in mind,” she added with a wistful sigh. She glanced over to Oliver, who waved her observations away dismissively.
“I could hardly care less, Ange,” Oliver said, a little desperately. “Truth is,” he looked around the common room and dropped his voice, “I can’t stop thinking about that laugh of his.”
Angelina stopped patting his hand. “Really?” she squeaked, trying not to sound too excited.
Oliver nodded. “I keep thinking he’s got some funny plan up his sleeve that will positively squash us on Saturday.” Angelina resumed her patting, looking a little disappointed. “Makes me almost think he’s in cahoots with Flint, pulling that ridiculous stunt about the Slytherin Seeker and everything.”
Angelina gave him a sharp slap on his hand and admonished him. “Don’t you even think about it. Cedric is a perfectly decent boy.”
Oliver looked at her, skeptical. “How would you know?”
She merely smiled at him. “Of course I do.”
*
The next morning, Angelina sent an owl out to her childhood friend. It contained a very simple message.
I think Diggory’s got it for Wood.
So later that day, she wasn’t surprised when she walked out of the Great Hall early at lunch and Cho stepped out seconds later. They instinctively made for the main doors, wanting to put as much distance between themselves and the rest of the school. No point in letting two members from rivalling Quidditch teams be seen talking to each other, even if they had been friends ever since they could remember. / No point in being heard gossiping about two very appealing Quidditch Captains, especially since Roger Davies himself wasn’t half bad looking.
“So what’s this about Diggory you’re saying?” Cho said, and Angelina remembered the note she sent. Quickly, she filled her in on what Oliver had told her the night before.
“Hmm,” Cho reflected. “He isn’t one to randomly approach people to talk to them, yes, and their topic of choice was predictable, but a little surprising. Potter? He’s just finding an excuse to talk to Wood, I reckon.”
Angelina nodded, showing that she had been thinking along the same lines. “Why Wood, though? I always got the idea that he liked, well, you.” It was no secret that Cedric Diggory was unfailingly polite to Cho, and was always very gentlemanly around her.
“Oh, I expect that’s just his way of dispelling rumours. Besides, I think I scare him a little, as a Seeker.” She giggled, suddenly. “And why not Wood? They’ll make quite a stunning match, actually - both tall, dark and irritatingly good-looking.”
They shared a few very girly giggles over that. Cho wiped back the tears that had gathered from laughter and said, “So, game on Saturday?”
Her friend nodded, but only spoke when she felt she had recovered sufficiently. “Yeah,” she said. “Against Hufflepuff.” Her lips twitched again.
“Can’t wait to see all of you on the pitch,” Cho said. “I hope you beat Hufflepuff, I’ve heard that Potter is quite a good Seeker.”
Despite herself, Angelina smiled. Cho had always been competitive, and no doubt she was excited about Harry’s ability to really compete and hold his own against her.
“Oh yes, he is,” Angelina nodded. “Best Seeker we’ve had since Charlie Weasley.”
*
The next day, Angelina was making her way up from Potions after the end of school when Cho skidded to a stop in front of her, black hair a little messy from having been blown back from her face by her sheer speed. Cho dragged her to a corner and said, in an excited half-whisper, “I think you’re right about Diggory!”
Cho explained that the class she’d just had was Herbology, and the Ravenclaws took it with the Hufflepuffs. As they were extracting Bubotober Pus, Cho had taken the opportunity to lean over to whisper in Cedric’s ear, “All the best for Saturday. You might want to warn your Chasers about Gryffindor’s Keeper, I hear he’s a tough one.”
From the way Cedric’d nearly dropped his bucket of Pus and flushed a little on the neck, Cho could tell, she whispered to Angelina. “And,” she added, “He is rather cute.”
Angelina laughed and they hugged and parted. Perhaps it was time to tell Katie and Alicia.
*
So it was that later on that night in the Gryffindor common room, Angelina, Katie and Alicia could be found in a tight, giggling huddle.
“Mm, yes, definitely.”
“But how…”
“Mm, maybe we could…”
His giggling Chasers were starting to really get to him, so Oliver got up and went over.
“Discussing Quidditch strategy, are you?”
His three Chasers rapidly shoved things on top of the parchment they had been scribbling on, looked at each other, and giggled some more.
“You could say that,” Katie ventured.
“Oh?” Oliver quirked an eyebrow.
“Yeah. We’re, uh…”
“Discussing ways to lure Hufflepuff out,” Alicia filled in, looking as though she was ready to burst.
Oliver said, “Well, put those moves into good action when we practice tomorrow, then.”
His Chasers waited until he was out of earshot before bursting out into whispers again.
“Do you think he suspects anything?” Katie asked.
Angelina shook her head. “He’s too oblivious. That’s the problem, I think.”
They nodded. “Okay, so…”
*
Cedric was rather surprised to see the Gryffindor Chasers making their way straight at him before he’d even managed to get to the Great Hall before breakfast the next day. The Chasers weren’t very wide - in fact he didn’t know any fat female Quidditch players, and woe betide him if he ever dared to call a girl fat, anyway - but the determined stride in their march cleared the hallway for them.
They managed to corner Cedric, somehow.
“We need to talk,” the tallest one said.
“Now.” The shortest smiled, and he was sure that was the one that George Weasley was after.
“Please.”
“Uh. Okay.” He didn’t quite know what else to say. Frankly the three of them scared him somewhat.
They scooted him along the corridor away from his Hufflepuff friends.
“We know what’s up with Wood,” the tall one announced with no preamble. Cedric’s jaw dropped.
“We just wanted to tell you, go for it,” the middling one said.
“Definitely,” the shortest one added, her eyes twinkling. “Oliver’s gone so long without a good shag, he might be drying up.” She winked at him.
Cedric felt his face turn very, very red. “Am I that obvious?” he asked, awkwardly.
The middling one laughed. “You’re a Hufflepuff. Aw, you’re cute when you blush!”
Cedric wanted to die of embarrassment.
“Well, we’ll leave you alone now,” the tall one said.
“Good luck with Oliver! He’s a bit thick,” the middle one added.
“Be a good boy, now.” They laughed, and scarpered.
Cedric was very sure that if no Quidditch team wanted to sign on such fine Chasers, they’d do very well in a production of Macbeth. But now at least he knew he had the approval of some people…
“That’s Diggory.” Hearing his name, Cedric looked up, only to see Oliver Wood and Harry Potter standing at the other end of the corridor. “The Hufflepuff Seeker…”
Cedric didn’t stay to hear the rest. Ducking his head to pretend he never saw them, he went into the Great Hall, feeling slightly nauseous. Wood still thought of him as a Quidditch player, not as a person…
That thought accompanied him as he made his way noiselessly to the Quidditch pitch to watch Oliver and his team practice.
Well, just Oliver, really.
He fooled himself that, really, the 7th year was a tremendous Keeper and that he was watching to warn his own Chasers, but after the initial 5 minutes he gave up and concentrated solely on watching Oliver, unadulterated.
After the next hour, Cedric Diggory was pretty certain that Oliver Wood did not know that the way he swept his hair back when the wind blew it into his face was terribly fetching, or that he was cute when his face was scrunched up with concentration. If he knew that, Cedric was sure, he wouldn’t keep making it damned uncomfortable to be just standing there watching him defend a goalpost. Not that it wasn’t a good sort of uncomfortable.
So engrossed was he in the flight antics of Oliver Wood that he didn’t notice when the Gryffindor team was down on the ground until it was almost too late. He ducked behind the broomstick shed but the Chasers saw him. They didn’t rat on him though, merely winked outrageously at him.
That’s how Cedric got the lion’s courage to step out from behind the shed and say to Oliver, after Potter was gone, “You play very well.”
Cedric supposed he should have expected it that Oliver glared at him and snarked, “Spying, Diggory? I didn’t expect you to stoop so low.”
Surprised, Cedric backed off. “I wasn't - I only -”
Perhaps Oliver was too much of a gentleman to say anything nastier, because he simply walked away. That one action, however, left Cedric gasping for breath in misery.
*
The next day, Cedric searched Cho out. She had always been one of the few people he knew he could tell anything to, if he wanted, and the two of them knew it. It was something like a favour she owed him. Or he owed her. He still couldn’t figure it out. Whatever it was, Cho had the uncanny habit of being able to say exactly what mattered.
When he found her, he admired her graceful, swoopy rhythm that made her both feminine and a Seeker, and then got in step with her.
“I think I just screwed up,” Cedric announced, by way of hello. “Well, not just, really, but yeah. Screwed up.”
“Wood?” Cho asked amiably. She was used to Cedric’s habits.
Cedric thought maybe he knew, but still asked anyway. “The Gryffindor Chasers?”
Cho nodded, and he groaned. “So how many girls know?”
Cho glared at him. “Angelina told me because we’ve been friends since forever. And I think the more important question is, does he know?”
Cedric hated how she was always right.
The next day was the Quidditch match and Cedric still hadn’t figured out what he should say to Oliver. He didn’t know if the funny squirmy feelings came from the fact that today was the day they played Gryffindor, or if it was because he was going to see Oliver.
His stomach twisted as he went to the Great Hall. Maybe food will help.
If Cedric had thought going to the Great Hall would help, he was sadly disappointed. One look at the ceiling made his stomach do extra flip-flops, because of the black sky and the clouds rolling across, non-stop.
Then one brisk look at the Gryffindor table and his stomach did the extra twists and turns that had nothing to do with the upcoming Quidditch match or the weather.
He looked away quickly.
At the pitch, Cedric couldn't tell his team anything they have not heard before. He knew that as Seeker it all lay with him anyway, so he merely gave out pointers about the weather and a few about Gryffindor and what to watch for, and then they were out in the storm.
He met Wood to shake and start the match, and he tried to smile in a reconciliatory manner, but obviously Wood hadn’t forgiven his assumed espionage, because he forced a smile and his shake was more of a grasp than anything else.
They kicked off. Cedric couldn't see anything in the rain, and his only comfort was that the other Seeker probably couldn't see anything either.
He flew around and discovered that maybe this rain was good, because he couldn't barely see the other players, let alone tell them apart in the rain. That meant he couldn’t get distracted by Wood.
He flew around some more, squinting into the pouring rain and ignoring his cold, sodden robes as best as he could. He thought desperately that if this rain didn’t cease soon, they were going to be playing well into the night and nursing terrible colds soon.
Somehow he noticed Hooch waving her arms madly to try to signal a timeout. She blasted her whistle, and Cedric noticed Harry looking around, slightly lost. Cedric motioned him down, then landed, himself.
He didn’t say much to his team, because he knew they were counting on him to save them. He merely warned his Keeper to watch out for the Gryffindor Chasers’ cooperative play and left it at that.
Once they were in the air again, Cedric still couldn’t see, but it became evident that Harry could, because he started looking a lot more confident. Cedric flew around, hoping that if he covered a wide perimeter the chances that he’d be able to see the Snitch are higher.
Suddenly, in the corner of one eye, he saw gold flash. As he quickly changed course and raced towards the Snitch, eyes narrowed in concentration, he barely registered Oliver’s yell of, “Harry! Harry, behind you!” and barely noticed it when Harry started heading for the Snitch from the other direction. So it was only when he stretched his hand out and wrapped his fingers around the struggling Snitch that he realised that stadium was in uproar, but not the usual celebratory kind.
He looked from side to side, noticing that everyone was landing as fast as possible. He looked down, and with a feeling of sudden fear first saw the Dementors, then saw that Harry had fallen and was lying still on the grass.
Cedric looked at the Snitch in his hand and felt his stomach plunge. “Oh, no.”
*
Dumbledore was furious. He ordered the Dementors out and back to their positions, then conjured up a stretcher for Harry. As the Hufflepuff team stood in a row and watched the Gryffindor team trail along behind Dumbledore and the stretcher, Cedric noticed with a start that Oliver was not amongst them. He nodded to his team, who were looking awkward, standing around without knowing what to do or say.
“Good job, everyone. Get a bath, before you catch a cold.”
They nodded. Then one of them said, “Cedric, what about -”
“I’ll give up the game. Ask Wood if he wants a rematch.” He knew his team was decent enough not to feel that they had won fairly. “Now get going.”
On a hunch, he jogged off towards the Gryffindor changing room. He stepped in, and the first thing he saw was Wood sitting on the bench, robes sopping wet and his eyes staring straight ahead. He took a cautious step forward.
“Come to gloat?” His voice echoed around the room, but it was devoid of emotion.
“No, I just, uh -” Cedric stopped moving. “I just thought, maybe you want a rematch. Seeing that, uh, I only caught the Snitch because Harry fell. Not because I’m spectacular or anything.” He added the last line quietly, in quiet irony to what he’d said to Wood a few days earlier.
For a while Wood didn’t say anything, just sat there and stared straight ahead. Cedric was about to turn to go, when Wood hoarsely said, “Harry is a brilliant Seeker.”
Cedric didn’t know what to say. On an impulse he moved forward and sat down next to Oliver. “Care to tell me what’s wrong” He asks simply, heart thumping painfully.
Oliver shook his head, but he asked, “Tell me, Cedric, how hard do you push your team?”
“Enough.”
Oliver nodded for a reason that Cedric didn’t know. “How far are you willing to push them, then?”
Cedric glanced sharply at Oliver, saw the expression on his face, and knew. He considered his words before saying, “If I knew we could win by training really hard, I would make them train every day of the week. But the thing is that your team has got the talent and passion, while all we’ve got is determination and not much else, I’m afraid.” He smiled to himself. He loved his team, even if Hufflepuff hadn’t won another match since 10 years ago.
Oliver shook his head and looked up. “That’s not true,” he said, and Cedric’s stomach did funny flip-flops again as Oliver’s eyes pierced his own with a strange intensity still half-submerged in misery, and strangely, guilt. “You’re a very talented Seeker, Diggory.”
Despite the happy twists his intestines were doing, Cedric did his best not to do something silly like blush. He said quietly, “So is Harry. Don’t forget that.”
He felt like he should go, and got up to do so, but he stopped when Oliver said, softly, “Thanks, Cedric. And - don’t worry about the rematch. You won fair and square.”
Cedric nodded and went. He didn’t trust himself to speak, because he didn’t think Oliver even noticed that he’d just called him by his first name.
*
The next day Cedric ran into Oliver in the corridor outside the Great Hall.
“Uh, hi,” Oliver said, looking miserable but still trying to smile. Cedric guessed that all was forgiven, and cracked a grin back.
“Hi. How’s Harry?”
Oliver blanched and his eyes grew slightly wider. From fear? Guilt? “Getting better. Still in the infirmary, though. He’s a bit upset, though. His… his Nimbus is kind of in pieces.” Oliver winced and Cedric felt a surge of some unknown emotion in him. He nodded and said, “I understand.”
After breakfast Cedric excused himself from his housemates and made his way up to the infirmary. He pushed the door open and found that he wasn’t too surprised to see that Malfoy kid sitting at the Gryffindor Seeker’s bedside. Glancing up to see who had just walked in, Malfoy glared to see that it was Cedric, but Harry touched his hand and he upped and left, taking care to avoid Cedric’s gaze as he did so.
Cedric closed the door behind him, an amused grin on his face. “I’d heard rumours, but I wasn’t all that sure that they were true.”
Harry shot him a wary look, and then a tired smile. “Well, now you know.”
“Oli - Wood doesn’t,” Cedric said, taking the seat Malfoy had just vacated.
Harry shot him another smile, but this one was cheeky. “I’ve heard rumours about you concerning him.”
Cedric froze. Then he sighed and said, “The Chasers?”
Harry nodded. “Told me last night. They were trying to cheer me up. Said that you were interested in him, stuff like that.”
Cedric felt his face turn a funny shade of pink. “I suppose/expect all the House Quidditch teams know by now. Cho does, and I expect Malfoy does too.”
“Not yet. He can know, though. But are you going to do anything about it?”
Making a face, Cedric said, “Your house’s Chasers obviously think I should. They hunted me down and cornered me one day in an extremely busy corridor - I still don’t know how they did it, they’re not exactly very big - and all just to tell me to ‘go for it’.”
“Scary, aren’t they?” Harry chuckled a bit, but stopped when he winced. “Well, you should. He was positively tearing himself up from guilt this morning. Go, uh, offer captain-to-captain advice to him or something.”
Cedric smiled. “Speaking of which, he mentioned something about your broom. That’s why I came up here, actually. I feel bad, Harry; is there anything I can do to help?”
The boy in the bed suddenly looked very small as he shifted uncomfortably. “I’m afraid not,” he said, rather quietly. “It got blown away and hit the Whomping Willow when I fell.”
Cedric winced and scratched his neck in embarrassment. “I’m so sorry.”
Harry somehow managed to offer a grin. “Don’t be. Wasn’t your fault. I can always get a new broom. And you won, fair and square. Just do us all a favour and go after Oliver. He could do with a little bit of joy sometime soon.”
They nattered on some more, Cedric advising Harry on the best broom buys, and Harry advising Cedric a little on Wood. As Cedric decided that he’d hung around long enough, Harry suddenly said, “Oh yes. The twins know too. They send their love and blessings and promise Canary Creams at the wedding. Not,” he hastened to add, “that it’ll be wise to take them up on their offer.”
Cedric left inexplicably grinning.
*
“Alright, so now I’ve got the approval of the people who are otherwise most likely to lynch me,” Cedric said to Cho, running his hand through his hair. “Though, actually, having the approval of the Chasers was enough - they’re fully capable of hanging, drawing and quartering me all on their own, let alone lynching.”
Cho giggled and Cedric looked at her funny. She coughed and turned red, then said, “So what are you going to do?”
Exasperatedly, Cedric threw his hands up in the air and exclaimed, “I don’t know! I don’t even know much about him, except that he’s a terrific, awesome Keeper with a Muggle mum and two younger twin siblings who absolutely adore their older brother. And that they’re the reason why he deals with the Gryffindor Beaters so easily.”
Cho raised an eyebrow. “Stalk, much?”
He flushed a deep red. “Well, none of it is going to help me here! What do I do? What do I say? ‘Hey, Wood! I heard about your ability to knock sense into the Weasley twins, how’d you like to knock some sense of me, under the table, right now?”
Cho said, somehow managing to keep her face very straight, “That is a very bad pick-up line.”
Cedric groaned. “I know. I’ve never done this before. Not to girls, not to boys, and heck, I’m younger than he is. What if he thinks I’m just some annoying fanboy?” Horrified, he stopped and spun around to face Cho, and she put a reassuring palm on his shoulder.
“He doesn’t,” she said simply. “To him, you’re equals. So don’t behave like you’re inferior.”
He stared at her for a while, strangely moved by her plain words, and then nodded. “Alright then. I’ll tell him. Somehow.”
She patted his shoulder. “Good boy.”
*
The next morning at breakfast, Cho received an owl.
An epiphany! Wood is suddenly wondering why Diggory was watching our practice last Thursday, says it’s strange, Diggory looks to be the decent sort, etc. etc.. I came so close to hitting him over the head with my Charms book, but Flitwick doesn’t need to know that. But how much denser can boys get? Argh.
Angelina
Cho stifled a giggle and stuffed the parchment into her robes. She bit into her toast, thinking, Think we’ve got Herbology again…
*
Cedric was nervous. The last letter Cho had received from Angelina had read tht she had finally snapped, whapped Oliver on the head with her Transfiguration textbook (thinner than her Charms one, but still quite formidable), and exclaimed, “If you’re so concerned over it, go ask him!”
Oliver had apparently sat staring dumbly at her, and after a while Angelina had wondered if she’d brained him a little too hard. Then he eventually said, “I never thought of that,” and Angelina had been forced to reconsider if she hadn’t hit him hard enough.
This news, reported by Cho, had caused Cedric to be torn between amusement and horror. He settled for horror, figuring that there would be enough time in the future to look back and laugh. So he’d said to Cho, “What will I say? What do I tell him?”
Cho had shrugged. “The truth.”
As such he was still totally unprepared when Oliver approached him one day and stood in front of him, looking solid and uncomfortable but still managing to look incredibly hot, in Cedric’s humble opinion. He squashed the thought.
“Yes?” He said, trying to sound and look nonchalant.
“I was just wondering… Well, I was just wondering why, exactly, you were at the Quidditch pitch those nights ago. I mean, I know I thought you were spying on us, but after the - the match,” he struggled with the words, “I’m not so sure I think that anymore.”
Cedric was oddly pleased. In a way he’d managed to touch Oliver, even if it only served to make him quite confused.
“So, I was wondering if you’d tell me why you were down there.” And the way Oliver said it, with his gaze shifting slightly away from Cedric’s eyes to look elsewhere, the way he said it told Cedric that he’d really been thinking about it. Impulsively, he reached out and took Oliver’s wrist, then dragged him into a nearby classroom. When the door was closed, though, he didn’t let go.
“Has it - has it been troubling you?” He asked as quietly and neutrally as he could.
“Yeah - kind of.” Oliver didn’t look at Cedric when he said this, and Cedric suddenly remembered that he still didn’t know what to say. But before he could even open his mouth, Oliver was continuing. “Mostly, though, I keep hearing your laugh in my head.”
“What?” Cedric didn’t remember laughing that night.
“Earlier on. Before that, even. Outside the Great Hall? After lunch?”
“Oh,” Cedric’s cheeks coloured a crimson red. The first time he’d screwed up talking to Oliver, and had walked away mentally kicking himself for being such an idiot. “That’s, uh. Nice.”
Oliver shook his head vehemently. “It’s not. I mean, yes, it’s a very nice laugh. I mean -“ He stops rather lamely. “I like it. But it isn’t so nice when it keeps ringing away in your head. During lessons. All the time.”
Cedric’s jaw dropped sightly ajar. He decided he couldn’t find anything to say, and said so. “I’ve got nothing I can say.”
Oliver said, “You can start by telling me why, really, you were watching us practice.”
Cedric took a deep breath and sighed. “I wasn’t watching you guys practice,” he admits. “I was watching you.”
He watched as Oliver’s brows furrowed. “I don’t understand.”
This was going to be incredibly difficult to say. “I’ve had a major crush on you since my first year when I watched the first Gryffindor-Hufflepuff game. You guys completely trashed us but I was entranced at how well you fought and kept your cool and helped to keep your team together in the air even though you weren’t the captain. That’s really why I picked up Quidditch - in the hopes that you’d actually notice me, even as a player, a brilliant player, and not some fanboy or something. And,” he took another deep breath, “I hazard that you have.”
Oliver looked at Cedric, and Cedric is pretty sure he could learn to melt under that gaze of his. “Yeah,” he said simply. “I have.”
They stood there and it would have been awkward if not for the fact that they were grinning at each other.
“So,” Oliver said finally, “Are we going to continue standing here grinning like idiots, or would you like to go for lunch? Together,” He added as an afterthought, proffering an arm.
Cedric cut a mock-curtsy. “Why thank you,” he said, but he reached and took Oliver’s hand in his instead of accepting the arm. “I’d very much like to.”
alt;
Cedric took a deep breath and sighed. “I wasn’t watching you guys practice,” he admits. “I was watching you.”
He watched as Oliver’s brows furrowed. “I don’t understand.”
This was going to be incredibly difficult to say. Cedric flushed a dark crimson, but eventually managed to mutter out a brave, “I like you. Will you go out with me?”
He watched as realisation dawned on Oliver’s face, was fairly nonplussed as his mouth opened and closed a few times, and became fairly bemused when he finally decided on an, “Oh.”
“That’s it? Oh?”
“Well, you’ve got to understand that nobody has ever asked me out, so I’m not quite sure what to say. I’m not even sure that I’m gay,” Oliver said, rubbing the back of his neck ruefully and squinting upwards into the ceiling. “Well. Then again I’m not even sure if I like girls either.” He looked down, back into Cedric’s eyes, and Cedric was pretty sure that he could positively melt under that gaze. “But I suppose… there’s no harm in finding out.” Oliver broke into a grin, and slowly, Cedric broke into one too.
They stood there grinning like idiots at each other, until Oliver’s stomach rumbled and they both laughed.
“So,” Oliver said finally, “Are we going to continue standing here grinning like idiots, or would you like to go for lunch? Together,” He added as an afterthought, proffering an arm.
Cedric cut a mock-curtsy. “Why thank you,” he said, but he reached and took Oliver’s hand in his instead of accepting the arm. “I’d very much like to.”
---
Author's postscript:
-laughs- I don't know why this is here, really. I wrote this from 2005-2006 on foolscap paper. Apparently I wrote it in one shot because the papers are still stuck together from the original foolscap binding. There's a date somewhere where I stopped once that says I wrote it all that on the 5th of December 2005, but then the last sheet of paper has two separate end dates - 13th February 2006, and an alternate ending dated 4th November later that year.
At 5200-ish words including the alternate ending, I am shocked at how long this fic is. If you actually go back to 2006 I never wrote anything past like 500 words. This is fairly amazing for me, all the more because I'd actually forgotten that I'd even written it until I dug it out while clearing my room.
It bears saying again that this fic is unedited. I am posting it as-is, because I think it makes for hilarious posterity. In the process of typing I corrected things like grammar and made minor tweaks to the phrasing, but 98% of the text is unedited. So do note that this isn't really me who's written this, it's more like someone who would eventually become formative to who I am today :D
One last thing - the original that I wrote had a lot of tense discontinuities, because things like the Quidditch match seemed easier to write in present than in past, and then all of a sudden it segued into past tense again. Because writing in present tense is a very different feeling from writing in past, this means that a very clumsy but straightforward change of tenses makes the fic rather choppy to read :| But, like I said, posterity. Heh.
Anyway, if you've made it here, thank you for reading this. 15-year-old me thanks you especially from the bottom of her bottomless heart. ♥
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Cedric Diggory/Oliver Wood; implied Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy
Status: Complete
Warning: Unedited. Blink-and-you'll-miss-it foreshadowing for Cedric's death.
Notes: Takes place during the Prisoner of Azkaban. I probably wrote this when I'd just re-read the Hufflepuff-Gryffindor match (my copy falls open at that part because one of the pages is partially taped where it's torn) and wondered why Cedric was that upset at having caught the Snitch fair and square. You know, honour and sportsmanship aside. 8D
More notes at the bottom. Please read them if you read the fic, a lot of things will be explained. But the tl;dr is that I wrote this 6 years ago. :D
Oliver knew Cedric Diggory as much as he knew that his Seeker was snogging Slytherin’s Seeker on the side. Which was to say that Oliver didn’t know Cedric at all, and that fact didn’t seem to bother him very much. He did, however, know that Diggory was a terrific Seeker, absolutely brilliant on a broomstick, and the most likely out of all of them to play Quidditch professionally. Oliver thought that perhaps Harry would too, if he hadn’t already had the thing about worldwide popularity to worry about. But besides that, no, Oliver didn’t know anything about Diggory. He definitely wasn’t even on speaking terms with him.
So it came as a surprise when, a few days before the match, Diggory came up to him sometime after lunch, clapped his hand on his shoulder and said, “Harry’s quite an excellent Seeker, isn’t he?”
Oliver narrowed his eyes a little in suspicion, and almost immediately he wondered just how much Diggory thought he was going to tell him about their strategies when the younger Captain patted him on the shoulder and said, “Don’t worry, I’m not trying to get you to tell me anything. Just thought I’d tell you to warn Potter, I’m not as easy as Malfoy.” He laughed a bit, simply and delightfully, and Oliver wasn’t sure that he got the joke. Diggory’s laughter stopped, however when he realised Oliver wasn’t laughing, and he creased his brow a little and said, “Well, I’ll see you on the pitch, then.”
As Diggory walked away, Oliver became sure that the Hufflepuff Captain was merely trying to worry him unduly for the upcoming game. Yet, he did feel slightly worried for Harry… As he scurried off to find his Seeker, he refused to believe that maybe Diggory had succeeded.
*
“…and then he’s telling me that I should warn Potter that he is going to have some competition, and he laughs, and do you think he was laughing at us? No, Hufflepuffs aren’t that way…”
Oliver was rambling, he knew, but he couldn’t help it, and he had the sneaking suspicion that Angelina was trying her hardest not to laugh at him.
She patted his hand reassuringly. “There, there. He was merely provoking you. Although you are pretty lucky. Do you know how many students in the school would die just to get to talk to Cedric Diggory?” She sighed, eyes going slightly dreamy. “Too bad, I’ve heard he’s already got someone in mind,” she added with a wistful sigh. She glanced over to Oliver, who waved her observations away dismissively.
“I could hardly care less, Ange,” Oliver said, a little desperately. “Truth is,” he looked around the common room and dropped his voice, “I can’t stop thinking about that laugh of his.”
Angelina stopped patting his hand. “Really?” she squeaked, trying not to sound too excited.
Oliver nodded. “I keep thinking he’s got some funny plan up his sleeve that will positively squash us on Saturday.” Angelina resumed her patting, looking a little disappointed. “Makes me almost think he’s in cahoots with Flint, pulling that ridiculous stunt about the Slytherin Seeker and everything.”
Angelina gave him a sharp slap on his hand and admonished him. “Don’t you even think about it. Cedric is a perfectly decent boy.”
Oliver looked at her, skeptical. “How would you know?”
She merely smiled at him. “Of course I do.”
*
The next morning, Angelina sent an owl out to her childhood friend. It contained a very simple message.
I think Diggory’s got it for Wood.
So later that day, she wasn’t surprised when she walked out of the Great Hall early at lunch and Cho stepped out seconds later. They instinctively made for the main doors, wanting to put as much distance between themselves and the rest of the school. No point in letting two members from rivalling Quidditch teams be seen talking to each other, even if they had been friends ever since they could remember. / No point in being heard gossiping about two very appealing Quidditch Captains, especially since Roger Davies himself wasn’t half bad looking.
“So what’s this about Diggory you’re saying?” Cho said, and Angelina remembered the note she sent. Quickly, she filled her in on what Oliver had told her the night before.
“Hmm,” Cho reflected. “He isn’t one to randomly approach people to talk to them, yes, and their topic of choice was predictable, but a little surprising. Potter? He’s just finding an excuse to talk to Wood, I reckon.”
Angelina nodded, showing that she had been thinking along the same lines. “Why Wood, though? I always got the idea that he liked, well, you.” It was no secret that Cedric Diggory was unfailingly polite to Cho, and was always very gentlemanly around her.
“Oh, I expect that’s just his way of dispelling rumours. Besides, I think I scare him a little, as a Seeker.” She giggled, suddenly. “And why not Wood? They’ll make quite a stunning match, actually - both tall, dark and irritatingly good-looking.”
They shared a few very girly giggles over that. Cho wiped back the tears that had gathered from laughter and said, “So, game on Saturday?”
Her friend nodded, but only spoke when she felt she had recovered sufficiently. “Yeah,” she said. “Against Hufflepuff.” Her lips twitched again.
“Can’t wait to see all of you on the pitch,” Cho said. “I hope you beat Hufflepuff, I’ve heard that Potter is quite a good Seeker.”
Despite herself, Angelina smiled. Cho had always been competitive, and no doubt she was excited about Harry’s ability to really compete and hold his own against her.
“Oh yes, he is,” Angelina nodded. “Best Seeker we’ve had since Charlie Weasley.”
*
The next day, Angelina was making her way up from Potions after the end of school when Cho skidded to a stop in front of her, black hair a little messy from having been blown back from her face by her sheer speed. Cho dragged her to a corner and said, in an excited half-whisper, “I think you’re right about Diggory!”
Cho explained that the class she’d just had was Herbology, and the Ravenclaws took it with the Hufflepuffs. As they were extracting Bubotober Pus, Cho had taken the opportunity to lean over to whisper in Cedric’s ear, “All the best for Saturday. You might want to warn your Chasers about Gryffindor’s Keeper, I hear he’s a tough one.”
From the way Cedric’d nearly dropped his bucket of Pus and flushed a little on the neck, Cho could tell, she whispered to Angelina. “And,” she added, “He is rather cute.”
Angelina laughed and they hugged and parted. Perhaps it was time to tell Katie and Alicia.
*
So it was that later on that night in the Gryffindor common room, Angelina, Katie and Alicia could be found in a tight, giggling huddle.
“Mm, yes, definitely.”
“But how…”
“Mm, maybe we could…”
His giggling Chasers were starting to really get to him, so Oliver got up and went over.
“Discussing Quidditch strategy, are you?”
His three Chasers rapidly shoved things on top of the parchment they had been scribbling on, looked at each other, and giggled some more.
“You could say that,” Katie ventured.
“Oh?” Oliver quirked an eyebrow.
“Yeah. We’re, uh…”
“Discussing ways to lure Hufflepuff out,” Alicia filled in, looking as though she was ready to burst.
Oliver said, “Well, put those moves into good action when we practice tomorrow, then.”
His Chasers waited until he was out of earshot before bursting out into whispers again.
“Do you think he suspects anything?” Katie asked.
Angelina shook her head. “He’s too oblivious. That’s the problem, I think.”
They nodded. “Okay, so…”
*
Cedric was rather surprised to see the Gryffindor Chasers making their way straight at him before he’d even managed to get to the Great Hall before breakfast the next day. The Chasers weren’t very wide - in fact he didn’t know any fat female Quidditch players, and woe betide him if he ever dared to call a girl fat, anyway - but the determined stride in their march cleared the hallway for them.
They managed to corner Cedric, somehow.
“We need to talk,” the tallest one said.
“Now.” The shortest smiled, and he was sure that was the one that George Weasley was after.
“Please.”
“Uh. Okay.” He didn’t quite know what else to say. Frankly the three of them scared him somewhat.
They scooted him along the corridor away from his Hufflepuff friends.
“We know what’s up with Wood,” the tall one announced with no preamble. Cedric’s jaw dropped.
“We just wanted to tell you, go for it,” the middling one said.
“Definitely,” the shortest one added, her eyes twinkling. “Oliver’s gone so long without a good shag, he might be drying up.” She winked at him.
Cedric felt his face turn very, very red. “Am I that obvious?” he asked, awkwardly.
The middling one laughed. “You’re a Hufflepuff. Aw, you’re cute when you blush!”
Cedric wanted to die of embarrassment.
“Well, we’ll leave you alone now,” the tall one said.
“Good luck with Oliver! He’s a bit thick,” the middle one added.
“Be a good boy, now.” They laughed, and scarpered.
Cedric was very sure that if no Quidditch team wanted to sign on such fine Chasers, they’d do very well in a production of Macbeth. But now at least he knew he had the approval of some people…
“That’s Diggory.” Hearing his name, Cedric looked up, only to see Oliver Wood and Harry Potter standing at the other end of the corridor. “The Hufflepuff Seeker…”
Cedric didn’t stay to hear the rest. Ducking his head to pretend he never saw them, he went into the Great Hall, feeling slightly nauseous. Wood still thought of him as a Quidditch player, not as a person…
That thought accompanied him as he made his way noiselessly to the Quidditch pitch to watch Oliver and his team practice.
Well, just Oliver, really.
He fooled himself that, really, the 7th year was a tremendous Keeper and that he was watching to warn his own Chasers, but after the initial 5 minutes he gave up and concentrated solely on watching Oliver, unadulterated.
After the next hour, Cedric Diggory was pretty certain that Oliver Wood did not know that the way he swept his hair back when the wind blew it into his face was terribly fetching, or that he was cute when his face was scrunched up with concentration. If he knew that, Cedric was sure, he wouldn’t keep making it damned uncomfortable to be just standing there watching him defend a goalpost. Not that it wasn’t a good sort of uncomfortable.
So engrossed was he in the flight antics of Oliver Wood that he didn’t notice when the Gryffindor team was down on the ground until it was almost too late. He ducked behind the broomstick shed but the Chasers saw him. They didn’t rat on him though, merely winked outrageously at him.
That’s how Cedric got the lion’s courage to step out from behind the shed and say to Oliver, after Potter was gone, “You play very well.”
Cedric supposed he should have expected it that Oliver glared at him and snarked, “Spying, Diggory? I didn’t expect you to stoop so low.”
Surprised, Cedric backed off. “I wasn't - I only -”
Perhaps Oliver was too much of a gentleman to say anything nastier, because he simply walked away. That one action, however, left Cedric gasping for breath in misery.
*
The next day, Cedric searched Cho out. She had always been one of the few people he knew he could tell anything to, if he wanted, and the two of them knew it. It was something like a favour she owed him. Or he owed her. He still couldn’t figure it out. Whatever it was, Cho had the uncanny habit of being able to say exactly what mattered.
When he found her, he admired her graceful, swoopy rhythm that made her both feminine and a Seeker, and then got in step with her.
“I think I just screwed up,” Cedric announced, by way of hello. “Well, not just, really, but yeah. Screwed up.”
“Wood?” Cho asked amiably. She was used to Cedric’s habits.
Cedric thought maybe he knew, but still asked anyway. “The Gryffindor Chasers?”
Cho nodded, and he groaned. “So how many girls know?”
Cho glared at him. “Angelina told me because we’ve been friends since forever. And I think the more important question is, does he know?”
Cedric hated how she was always right.
The next day was the Quidditch match and Cedric still hadn’t figured out what he should say to Oliver. He didn’t know if the funny squirmy feelings came from the fact that today was the day they played Gryffindor, or if it was because he was going to see Oliver.
His stomach twisted as he went to the Great Hall. Maybe food will help.
If Cedric had thought going to the Great Hall would help, he was sadly disappointed. One look at the ceiling made his stomach do extra flip-flops, because of the black sky and the clouds rolling across, non-stop.
Then one brisk look at the Gryffindor table and his stomach did the extra twists and turns that had nothing to do with the upcoming Quidditch match or the weather.
He looked away quickly.
At the pitch, Cedric couldn't tell his team anything they have not heard before. He knew that as Seeker it all lay with him anyway, so he merely gave out pointers about the weather and a few about Gryffindor and what to watch for, and then they were out in the storm.
He met Wood to shake and start the match, and he tried to smile in a reconciliatory manner, but obviously Wood hadn’t forgiven his assumed espionage, because he forced a smile and his shake was more of a grasp than anything else.
They kicked off. Cedric couldn't see anything in the rain, and his only comfort was that the other Seeker probably couldn't see anything either.
He flew around and discovered that maybe this rain was good, because he couldn't barely see the other players, let alone tell them apart in the rain. That meant he couldn’t get distracted by Wood.
He flew around some more, squinting into the pouring rain and ignoring his cold, sodden robes as best as he could. He thought desperately that if this rain didn’t cease soon, they were going to be playing well into the night and nursing terrible colds soon.
Somehow he noticed Hooch waving her arms madly to try to signal a timeout. She blasted her whistle, and Cedric noticed Harry looking around, slightly lost. Cedric motioned him down, then landed, himself.
He didn’t say much to his team, because he knew they were counting on him to save them. He merely warned his Keeper to watch out for the Gryffindor Chasers’ cooperative play and left it at that.
Once they were in the air again, Cedric still couldn’t see, but it became evident that Harry could, because he started looking a lot more confident. Cedric flew around, hoping that if he covered a wide perimeter the chances that he’d be able to see the Snitch are higher.
Suddenly, in the corner of one eye, he saw gold flash. As he quickly changed course and raced towards the Snitch, eyes narrowed in concentration, he barely registered Oliver’s yell of, “Harry! Harry, behind you!” and barely noticed it when Harry started heading for the Snitch from the other direction. So it was only when he stretched his hand out and wrapped his fingers around the struggling Snitch that he realised that stadium was in uproar, but not the usual celebratory kind.
He looked from side to side, noticing that everyone was landing as fast as possible. He looked down, and with a feeling of sudden fear first saw the Dementors, then saw that Harry had fallen and was lying still on the grass.
Cedric looked at the Snitch in his hand and felt his stomach plunge. “Oh, no.”
*
Dumbledore was furious. He ordered the Dementors out and back to their positions, then conjured up a stretcher for Harry. As the Hufflepuff team stood in a row and watched the Gryffindor team trail along behind Dumbledore and the stretcher, Cedric noticed with a start that Oliver was not amongst them. He nodded to his team, who were looking awkward, standing around without knowing what to do or say.
“Good job, everyone. Get a bath, before you catch a cold.”
They nodded. Then one of them said, “Cedric, what about -”
“I’ll give up the game. Ask Wood if he wants a rematch.” He knew his team was decent enough not to feel that they had won fairly. “Now get going.”
On a hunch, he jogged off towards the Gryffindor changing room. He stepped in, and the first thing he saw was Wood sitting on the bench, robes sopping wet and his eyes staring straight ahead. He took a cautious step forward.
“Come to gloat?” His voice echoed around the room, but it was devoid of emotion.
“No, I just, uh -” Cedric stopped moving. “I just thought, maybe you want a rematch. Seeing that, uh, I only caught the Snitch because Harry fell. Not because I’m spectacular or anything.” He added the last line quietly, in quiet irony to what he’d said to Wood a few days earlier.
For a while Wood didn’t say anything, just sat there and stared straight ahead. Cedric was about to turn to go, when Wood hoarsely said, “Harry is a brilliant Seeker.”
Cedric didn’t know what to say. On an impulse he moved forward and sat down next to Oliver. “Care to tell me what’s wrong” He asks simply, heart thumping painfully.
Oliver shook his head, but he asked, “Tell me, Cedric, how hard do you push your team?”
“Enough.”
Oliver nodded for a reason that Cedric didn’t know. “How far are you willing to push them, then?”
Cedric glanced sharply at Oliver, saw the expression on his face, and knew. He considered his words before saying, “If I knew we could win by training really hard, I would make them train every day of the week. But the thing is that your team has got the talent and passion, while all we’ve got is determination and not much else, I’m afraid.” He smiled to himself. He loved his team, even if Hufflepuff hadn’t won another match since 10 years ago.
Oliver shook his head and looked up. “That’s not true,” he said, and Cedric’s stomach did funny flip-flops again as Oliver’s eyes pierced his own with a strange intensity still half-submerged in misery, and strangely, guilt. “You’re a very talented Seeker, Diggory.”
Despite the happy twists his intestines were doing, Cedric did his best not to do something silly like blush. He said quietly, “So is Harry. Don’t forget that.”
He felt like he should go, and got up to do so, but he stopped when Oliver said, softly, “Thanks, Cedric. And - don’t worry about the rematch. You won fair and square.”
Cedric nodded and went. He didn’t trust himself to speak, because he didn’t think Oliver even noticed that he’d just called him by his first name.
*
The next day Cedric ran into Oliver in the corridor outside the Great Hall.
“Uh, hi,” Oliver said, looking miserable but still trying to smile. Cedric guessed that all was forgiven, and cracked a grin back.
“Hi. How’s Harry?”
Oliver blanched and his eyes grew slightly wider. From fear? Guilt? “Getting better. Still in the infirmary, though. He’s a bit upset, though. His… his Nimbus is kind of in pieces.” Oliver winced and Cedric felt a surge of some unknown emotion in him. He nodded and said, “I understand.”
After breakfast Cedric excused himself from his housemates and made his way up to the infirmary. He pushed the door open and found that he wasn’t too surprised to see that Malfoy kid sitting at the Gryffindor Seeker’s bedside. Glancing up to see who had just walked in, Malfoy glared to see that it was Cedric, but Harry touched his hand and he upped and left, taking care to avoid Cedric’s gaze as he did so.
Cedric closed the door behind him, an amused grin on his face. “I’d heard rumours, but I wasn’t all that sure that they were true.”
Harry shot him a wary look, and then a tired smile. “Well, now you know.”
“Oli - Wood doesn’t,” Cedric said, taking the seat Malfoy had just vacated.
Harry shot him another smile, but this one was cheeky. “I’ve heard rumours about you concerning him.”
Cedric froze. Then he sighed and said, “The Chasers?”
Harry nodded. “Told me last night. They were trying to cheer me up. Said that you were interested in him, stuff like that.”
Cedric felt his face turn a funny shade of pink. “I suppose/expect all the House Quidditch teams know by now. Cho does, and I expect Malfoy does too.”
“Not yet. He can know, though. But are you going to do anything about it?”
Making a face, Cedric said, “Your house’s Chasers obviously think I should. They hunted me down and cornered me one day in an extremely busy corridor - I still don’t know how they did it, they’re not exactly very big - and all just to tell me to ‘go for it’.”
“Scary, aren’t they?” Harry chuckled a bit, but stopped when he winced. “Well, you should. He was positively tearing himself up from guilt this morning. Go, uh, offer captain-to-captain advice to him or something.”
Cedric smiled. “Speaking of which, he mentioned something about your broom. That’s why I came up here, actually. I feel bad, Harry; is there anything I can do to help?”
The boy in the bed suddenly looked very small as he shifted uncomfortably. “I’m afraid not,” he said, rather quietly. “It got blown away and hit the Whomping Willow when I fell.”
Cedric winced and scratched his neck in embarrassment. “I’m so sorry.”
Harry somehow managed to offer a grin. “Don’t be. Wasn’t your fault. I can always get a new broom. And you won, fair and square. Just do us all a favour and go after Oliver. He could do with a little bit of joy sometime soon.”
They nattered on some more, Cedric advising Harry on the best broom buys, and Harry advising Cedric a little on Wood. As Cedric decided that he’d hung around long enough, Harry suddenly said, “Oh yes. The twins know too. They send their love and blessings and promise Canary Creams at the wedding. Not,” he hastened to add, “that it’ll be wise to take them up on their offer.”
Cedric left inexplicably grinning.
*
“Alright, so now I’ve got the approval of the people who are otherwise most likely to lynch me,” Cedric said to Cho, running his hand through his hair. “Though, actually, having the approval of the Chasers was enough - they’re fully capable of hanging, drawing and quartering me all on their own, let alone lynching.”
Cho giggled and Cedric looked at her funny. She coughed and turned red, then said, “So what are you going to do?”
Exasperatedly, Cedric threw his hands up in the air and exclaimed, “I don’t know! I don’t even know much about him, except that he’s a terrific, awesome Keeper with a Muggle mum and two younger twin siblings who absolutely adore their older brother. And that they’re the reason why he deals with the Gryffindor Beaters so easily.”
Cho raised an eyebrow. “Stalk, much?”
He flushed a deep red. “Well, none of it is going to help me here! What do I do? What do I say? ‘Hey, Wood! I heard about your ability to knock sense into the Weasley twins, how’d you like to knock some sense of me, under the table, right now?”
Cho said, somehow managing to keep her face very straight, “That is a very bad pick-up line.”
Cedric groaned. “I know. I’ve never done this before. Not to girls, not to boys, and heck, I’m younger than he is. What if he thinks I’m just some annoying fanboy?” Horrified, he stopped and spun around to face Cho, and she put a reassuring palm on his shoulder.
“He doesn’t,” she said simply. “To him, you’re equals. So don’t behave like you’re inferior.”
He stared at her for a while, strangely moved by her plain words, and then nodded. “Alright then. I’ll tell him. Somehow.”
She patted his shoulder. “Good boy.”
*
The next morning at breakfast, Cho received an owl.
An epiphany! Wood is suddenly wondering why Diggory was watching our practice last Thursday, says it’s strange, Diggory looks to be the decent sort, etc. etc.. I came so close to hitting him over the head with my Charms book, but Flitwick doesn’t need to know that. But how much denser can boys get? Argh.
Angelina
Cho stifled a giggle and stuffed the parchment into her robes. She bit into her toast, thinking, Think we’ve got Herbology again…
*
Cedric was nervous. The last letter Cho had received from Angelina had read tht she had finally snapped, whapped Oliver on the head with her Transfiguration textbook (thinner than her Charms one, but still quite formidable), and exclaimed, “If you’re so concerned over it, go ask him!”
Oliver had apparently sat staring dumbly at her, and after a while Angelina had wondered if she’d brained him a little too hard. Then he eventually said, “I never thought of that,” and Angelina had been forced to reconsider if she hadn’t hit him hard enough.
This news, reported by Cho, had caused Cedric to be torn between amusement and horror. He settled for horror, figuring that there would be enough time in the future to look back and laugh. So he’d said to Cho, “What will I say? What do I tell him?”
Cho had shrugged. “The truth.”
As such he was still totally unprepared when Oliver approached him one day and stood in front of him, looking solid and uncomfortable but still managing to look incredibly hot, in Cedric’s humble opinion. He squashed the thought.
“Yes?” He said, trying to sound and look nonchalant.
“I was just wondering… Well, I was just wondering why, exactly, you were at the Quidditch pitch those nights ago. I mean, I know I thought you were spying on us, but after the - the match,” he struggled with the words, “I’m not so sure I think that anymore.”
Cedric was oddly pleased. In a way he’d managed to touch Oliver, even if it only served to make him quite confused.
“So, I was wondering if you’d tell me why you were down there.” And the way Oliver said it, with his gaze shifting slightly away from Cedric’s eyes to look elsewhere, the way he said it told Cedric that he’d really been thinking about it. Impulsively, he reached out and took Oliver’s wrist, then dragged him into a nearby classroom. When the door was closed, though, he didn’t let go.
“Has it - has it been troubling you?” He asked as quietly and neutrally as he could.
“Yeah - kind of.” Oliver didn’t look at Cedric when he said this, and Cedric suddenly remembered that he still didn’t know what to say. But before he could even open his mouth, Oliver was continuing. “Mostly, though, I keep hearing your laugh in my head.”
“What?” Cedric didn’t remember laughing that night.
“Earlier on. Before that, even. Outside the Great Hall? After lunch?”
“Oh,” Cedric’s cheeks coloured a crimson red. The first time he’d screwed up talking to Oliver, and had walked away mentally kicking himself for being such an idiot. “That’s, uh. Nice.”
Oliver shook his head vehemently. “It’s not. I mean, yes, it’s a very nice laugh. I mean -“ He stops rather lamely. “I like it. But it isn’t so nice when it keeps ringing away in your head. During lessons. All the time.”
Cedric’s jaw dropped sightly ajar. He decided he couldn’t find anything to say, and said so. “I’ve got nothing I can say.”
Oliver said, “You can start by telling me why, really, you were watching us practice.”
Cedric took a deep breath and sighed. “I wasn’t watching you guys practice,” he admits. “I was watching you.”
He watched as Oliver’s brows furrowed. “I don’t understand.”
This was going to be incredibly difficult to say. “I’ve had a major crush on you since my first year when I watched the first Gryffindor-Hufflepuff game. You guys completely trashed us but I was entranced at how well you fought and kept your cool and helped to keep your team together in the air even though you weren’t the captain. That’s really why I picked up Quidditch - in the hopes that you’d actually notice me, even as a player, a brilliant player, and not some fanboy or something. And,” he took another deep breath, “I hazard that you have.”
Oliver looked at Cedric, and Cedric is pretty sure he could learn to melt under that gaze of his. “Yeah,” he said simply. “I have.”
They stood there and it would have been awkward if not for the fact that they were grinning at each other.
“So,” Oliver said finally, “Are we going to continue standing here grinning like idiots, or would you like to go for lunch? Together,” He added as an afterthought, proffering an arm.
Cedric cut a mock-curtsy. “Why thank you,” he said, but he reached and took Oliver’s hand in his instead of accepting the arm. “I’d very much like to.”
alt;
Cedric took a deep breath and sighed. “I wasn’t watching you guys practice,” he admits. “I was watching you.”
He watched as Oliver’s brows furrowed. “I don’t understand.”
This was going to be incredibly difficult to say. Cedric flushed a dark crimson, but eventually managed to mutter out a brave, “I like you. Will you go out with me?”
He watched as realisation dawned on Oliver’s face, was fairly nonplussed as his mouth opened and closed a few times, and became fairly bemused when he finally decided on an, “Oh.”
“That’s it? Oh?”
“Well, you’ve got to understand that nobody has ever asked me out, so I’m not quite sure what to say. I’m not even sure that I’m gay,” Oliver said, rubbing the back of his neck ruefully and squinting upwards into the ceiling. “Well. Then again I’m not even sure if I like girls either.” He looked down, back into Cedric’s eyes, and Cedric was pretty sure that he could positively melt under that gaze. “But I suppose… there’s no harm in finding out.” Oliver broke into a grin, and slowly, Cedric broke into one too.
They stood there grinning like idiots at each other, until Oliver’s stomach rumbled and they both laughed.
“So,” Oliver said finally, “Are we going to continue standing here grinning like idiots, or would you like to go for lunch? Together,” He added as an afterthought, proffering an arm.
Cedric cut a mock-curtsy. “Why thank you,” he said, but he reached and took Oliver’s hand in his instead of accepting the arm. “I’d very much like to.”
---
Author's postscript:
-laughs- I don't know why this is here, really. I wrote this from 2005-2006 on foolscap paper. Apparently I wrote it in one shot because the papers are still stuck together from the original foolscap binding. There's a date somewhere where I stopped once that says I wrote it all that on the 5th of December 2005, but then the last sheet of paper has two separate end dates - 13th February 2006, and an alternate ending dated 4th November later that year.
At 5200-ish words including the alternate ending, I am shocked at how long this fic is. If you actually go back to 2006 I never wrote anything past like 500 words. This is fairly amazing for me, all the more because I'd actually forgotten that I'd even written it until I dug it out while clearing my room.
It bears saying again that this fic is unedited. I am posting it as-is, because I think it makes for hilarious posterity. In the process of typing I corrected things like grammar and made minor tweaks to the phrasing, but 98% of the text is unedited. So do note that this isn't really me who's written this, it's more like someone who would eventually become formative to who I am today :D
One last thing - the original that I wrote had a lot of tense discontinuities, because things like the Quidditch match seemed easier to write in present than in past, and then all of a sudden it segued into past tense again. Because writing in present tense is a very different feeling from writing in past, this means that a very clumsy but straightforward change of tenses makes the fic rather choppy to read :| But, like I said, posterity. Heh.
Anyway, if you've made it here, thank you for reading this. 15-year-old me thanks you especially from the bottom of her bottomless heart. ♥