Cedric was born on August 29. He inherited his mother's looks and slender figure, but a lifetime on a broom gave him broad shoulders and muscular arms and legs, and the permanently windswept look that all the girls, and some of the boys, loved.
He was an only child and so spent a lot of time with adults; thankfully, not adults that applauded precocious behaviour. He was brought up to be respectful of his elders and to play nicely with his much younger cousins, Amos being the eldest in his family and Diana having only one sister who had decided to become a wood healer and lived in seclusion somewhere in Epping Forest. One of Amos' brothers is a Squib and lives as a Muggle, but the family love him just as much and he was a big part of Cedric's life. Through him Cedric learned to be compassionate about others' misfortunes and disabilities. That uncle married late in life and had two children, one of whom he named Cedric, and both of whom were accepted at Hogwarts.
He was distantly related to the Lovegoods—the families lived near each other—and was well aware that Xenophilius' foibles were not that far removed from his father's. He knew Mrs. Lovegood a little and was very sorry when she died. His mother took part in the circle that fed Xenophilius and Luna for months after Arctura's death.
Because of his father's tendency to fly off the handle, Cedric grew up with a desperate need for balance and fair play; he knew that the only way to win a game was fair and square. Sometimes Amos would get angry at quidditch matches because Cedric would not take advantage of another player's weaknesses. "Get in there, son!" he'd scream from the stands, and Cedric would duck his head and zoom to the opposite end of the pitch, pretending he hadn't heard him. Later, when he was training at Hogwarts, he learned the value of teamwork and lost his overly precise definition of fair play. But he never once played a dirty trick on an opposing player, never even shoved the other seeker a little to get past him. He could defend himself, though, and anyone who thought he was a pushover off the pitch soon learned otherwise. Amos was very useful as a boxing coach. Diana was very useful as a foil to her husband, always reminding her son that his gentleness was an asset, not a failing, and that the voice inside him that refused a victory if he hadn't won it honestly was a voice to respect.
Cedric learned how to use the brains he was given and was lucky to have attended a primary school that encouraged experimentation and play and didn't require more memorization than it had to. He lived in one of the wizarding villages so his friends were often from wizarding families, but the habit of secrecy meant that they were able to blend in with the muggle children. Only when their parents came to school plays in peculiar mixtures of muggle outfits was there any danger of suspicion, but of course no-one did suspect. Who would? The wizarding houses all had high walls or hedges, and a copious use of the muffliato spell meant that they could practice quidditch and toss gnomes and play wizard's chess at the top of their voices without being overheard. He accepted this secrecy as part of his life as easily as he accepted the colour of his eyes.
He looked down on his father slightly because Amos often let his emotions rule him; but Cedric would turn like a mother tiger on anyone else who said this. Cedric and his mother worked together to protect his father, whose intelligence was always in danger of being subverted by his eccentricities. Cedric learned to enjoy his father's days of joy and enthusiasm and to remember them when Amos was angry or irrational. Amos was never violent or abusive, though; his anger was usually towards general issues like Ministry incompetence or wizards who risked contravening the Statute of Secrecy. Or quidditch players who got too close to his son. Amos was, as everyone saw, preternaturally proud of his son and Cedric was aware that many of his father's outbursts were grounded in nothing more than love.
With his background it was not surprising that he did so well at Hogwarts, or that he was on the team by his third year and seeker by his fifth. His muscles had served him well as a beater but his heart was never in the position; as seeker he could just be himself, working only for his own ends within the framework of a team. Unfortunately he only played three games as seeker; two of which his team lost, and one of which he felt he hadn't won fairly. Against Slytherin he caught the snitch despite the taunting he was constantly subject to from Malfoy, but only to finish a game that was dirty and underhanded and led to Slytherin's 200 points and two Hufflepuffs going to the hospital wing. He had to admit that he was simply outflown against Ravenclaw. Cho Chang was lighter and smaller than he was, and so pretty he couldn't keep track of the game. But she seemed too young to ask out that year, and the next year everything was wiped from his mind once the Triwizard Tournament was announced. Until the Yule Ball, of course.
He was a little surprised and, truth be told, upset, that he had been put in Hufflepuff and not Ravenclaw or Gryffindor. His general impression of Hufflepuffs had been that they were a bunch of genial old duffers. But it didn't take long for him to thank his stars that he was a Hufflepuff, with people who understood the value of hard work and fair play and who didn't yell at him if he didn't try and knock a pretty young girl off her broom to grab a little ball with wings. Professor Sprout guided him through his choices for third year and his NEWTs and he considered her as important to his life as his family and closest friends.
He had long thought that the best career for him was in the Department of Magical Games and Sports; the tickets to the Quidditch World Cup had been as much a networking investment as a once-in-a-lifetime treat. So when the Triwizard Tournament came to Hogwarts it seemed tailor-made for him. This, finally, was his role at Hogwarts: to bring glory to the much-maligned House of Hufflepuff, to remind them of the pride to be found in working towards a goal rather than coming to it easily, like the Ravenclaws, or hacking your way through obstacles like Gryffindors, or flattening everyone in your path, like Slytherins. It would also be the doorway to a distinguished career at the Ministry; no-one could turn him away if he was a Triwizard Champion.
Then the first task was upon him, and he was as green as the Slytherin banner. He was jealous of Harry, then: as a Gryffindor, Harry was probably full of bravado and had a hundred daring and dangerous plans in mind to get past his dragon. Harry had the knowledge that he'd beaten He Who Must Not Be Named and, if the rumours were true, attacked a Basilisk and lived to tell the tale. He also had a girlfriend to support him in that Hermione Granger—or was he the type to prefer whichever Weasley boy it was that he hung out with? Either way, it made Cedric wish he'd thought to ask Cho out at the beginning of term. He'd had a few girlfriends in the last two years or so, including a Muggle girl from his town with whom he'd had a lot of fun over the summer holidays. But in the end he'd broken up with her because he always had Cho in the back of his mind and he didn't think it was fair on Sarah. He'd had offers from a few boys in school too, one of whom had cornered him after Care of Magical Creatures in third year and kissed him behind a tree. He had been thirteen and hadn't known what to do; he wasn't attracted to the boy and stayed unattracted after the kiss. He was quite relieved about this; he supposed he just wasn't cut out to buck the conventional system. In the end he chose to continue to treat the boy just as he did everyone else at school, and learned not to be alone with the others who gave him the eye.
Cho was worth the wait; she was sweet and happy and loved to be around him as much as he loved to be around her. He taught her what the Muggle girl had taught him and they spent many happy hours together, away from the world that saw him as a hero and a champion and the savior of the Hufflepuffs. He saw himself as these things too, of course, but he doubted himself just as often as not. Cho was key to his success in the Lake; but it was the first time that he gave in to an instinct to win over the needs of others. He thought that Harry's actions in saving the others should have been his actions; he was ashamed of himself and although Cho soothed him, the feeling never went entirely away.
So it was that Cedric came to within feet of the victory of his life, and wouldn't take it. He felt again that instinct to win which had come over him in the Lake, and he felt again the sickness in his gut at the feeling of winning without his own particular brand of honour. It would not have been worth it. "Stop being noble," Harry said to him, but it wasn't that. It was the ability to live with himself afterwards if he went past this boy who had been so brave, to the point of saving his life twice. He tried to explain to Harry but of course Harry was just a Gryffindor; he only saw the goal, the victory. He didn't understand the journey was paramount to Cedric.
But then Harry offered a compromise that worked in Cedric's worldview. Together, he could be playing fair to this boy who had helped him and saved him, and still bring glory to the House of Hufflepuff and his family for ever. In that moment he loved Harry like a brother. And like brothers they went into the graveyard and Cedric saw his brother fall in the seconds before he himself fell, and his last thought was not of Cho or his mother and father, it was a blooming understanding of all that Harry had suffered in the years that Cedric had thought it was easy to be a Gryffindor.