For Delusional Musings in the June Fic Exchange! Prompts used were: (pairing) Cho/Cedric, (genre) friendship, (prompt) listen
"Ennervate!"
Cho opens her eyes onto the tip of his wand and behind it, swimming into view, his hopeful face. He watches her expectantly. "It looked like I got it that time."
"Yeah, you had it. I was really out." She begins to push herself up from the floor but he hurriedly tucks his wand away and offers her a hand before she can get up on her second elbow. "But remember, anything larger than us and you won't be able to stop it on your own, so distraction is a better bet."
Cedric heaves a sigh. "I know. I can recite Defensive Spells for Dangerous Pursuits backward and forward now."
He's trying to hide it, but she can see his rising panic in the stiffness of his mouth, the mad little laugh in his voice.
"It was really comfortable down there," she tells him, soothingly. "You do a great cushioning charm."
"I suppose that could help if I fall off any cliffs in that maze," he replies.
"Well, you could. You never know."
This is a poor thing to say. He sits back on a table, looking distressed, and doesn't say anything for a long while. "Do you think the others know?" he asks her eventually, his brow drawn together in worry. "I mean, with the other tasks, we all had some idea, but what if everyone knows what's in there and I never found out?"
"Harry would tell you," Cho replies firmly. "He did the first time."
"Maybe he's wised up a bit."
She smiles a little. "I don't know; moral fiber's done well for him."
Cedric grins faintly in response and looks down at his lap. "He's a good kid."
"Yeah," she says.
"They're all good people."
"Really?" He laughs at her surprise and she scrambles to explain. "Krum, and Delacour, they always came across a bit, erm, snooty to me."
"I think they're alright," he says. "Maybe we could've been friends, if it weren't for the tournament."
"Maybe," she says, overwhelmed with affection for wonderful friends-with-everyone Cedric Diggory.
He shakes his head. "Karkaroff and Maxime seem like they're the ones who are really intense about it. It feels a lot more cutthroat than it has to be. For a competition to promote international magical cooperation, anyway. It should be like…the House Cup." She giggles when he looks up at her and links his fingers lightly through hers. "I don't go around treating you Ravenclaws like dirt. Even though we lose to you every year."
Cho grins back at him. "If the House Cup had dragons, maybe we'd lose to you more often."
When they kiss it starts out like the other times, chaste and chivalrously sweet, their hands lightly entwined. As the seconds and minutes move by they grow bolder. Caught up in the emptiness of the classroom, he wraps an arm around her waist, she pulls aside his collar to kiss his neck.
He pulls back, holding her hands, pressing a final impulsive kiss to her lips as he goes. "I want to wait until the Tournament is over. And then it'll be perfect, mark my words."
"Are we just waiting until your parents leave?" she asks playfully. She is buzzing, every nerve singing in harmony and it's hard to be serious again. "So your Dad won't be winking at you all through breakfast?" Cedric rolls his eyes as she puts on a deep voice. "'That's my boy.'"
"I'm so sorry about him," he mumbles.
"No, it's alright." Cho smoothes out his hair with a tender hand and gives him a kind smile. "He just loves you."
He replies with a strained grin. "He's probably been bragging about me to everyone in the castle since breakfast. 'My Ced , he beat Harry Potter in Quidditch last year, you know!'"
"Does he really tell people about that?"
"Hasn't shut up about it since it happened. The tournament's made it worse."
As she watches him pull out his wand and tensely fiddle with it again, she finds herself wondering. "Why did you put your name in the Goblet?"
He slowly turns to look back up at her. "Hm?"
"If you don't mind me asking, that is," she says quickly, hoping it's not too personal a thing. "It's just… You don't seem like you're very comfortable with, you know, glory."
Cedric looks thoughtful for a little while beside her.
"I think I would be, if I deserved it," he says. "What bothers me about how Dad goes on about that Quidditch match is that the Dementors didn't get to me as much, and it wasn't fair. But I like to win on my own merit." He laughs a little. "Who doesn't, yeah?"
"Yeah, I get it," says Cho. She is a Seeker too, after all.
His arm leans against her shoulder, warming her straight through. "To be honest," he says, "I really didn't think I'd get picked."
"Did you want to be?" she asks.
He shrugs. "I just put my name in because I could. After my birthday everyone kept asking me if I would enter, and saying they thought I could do it. Going up there and going right into that line with all those people watching, well, it made me feel really cool."
She laughs at the silly grin he gives her. "You're very cool."
"And now that I'm in it I figure I should just do my best," he says, puffing his chest out a bit in determination. "I'd like to win if I can. And Merlin knows Hufflepuff needs it."
"You know how the Goblet of Fire works," she says to him seriously. "It picks the person with the best shot at doing it. You're more than capable."
He nods, his kind eyes fixed to hers. "Thanks."
This might be the most she's ever heard him say about his thoughts. Usually they talk about her, or about other things, and he never seems to find himself important. It's like he's lit something in her now. She just wants to listen to everything this boy she might someday come to love has to say.
She can't wait for this tournament to be over, for all the stress to be gone and summer to begin. She can't wait to hear everything about him.