It was lonely and cold in the seventh floor corridor. I tugged my scarf a little tighter around my throat and hugged myself. I wished I had worn more than my newest sweater from Mrs. Weasley today, but then again, I didn't know I was going to be walking around the freezing castle when I woke up this morning.

I finally reached the section of wall I had been looking for. I was very far away from any classes, in the most remote spot of the seventh floor, maybe the whole school. 'And that's precisely why Sarlanda put the Head Dorms here,' I thought, with both bitterness and admiration. 'Because no one will come snooping.'

I pulled out the Marauder's Map from my pocket. I quickly found my dot, standing alone. The wall my dot was nearest to had a staircase on the outside of it, leading up to a balcony and the Head Dorms. But there was a wall between me and the outside staircase.

Sighing, I put the Map back away and pulled out my wand. "Revelio!" I said, pointing my wand at the wall. But nothing happened. Frowning, I took a step forward and set my hand on the wall.

But my hand went straight through.

Laughing slightly, I walked through the wall and into the snowy, even colder air outside. It was snowing quite heavily. I looked behind me, and the wall was still there. I put my hand through it to make sure I would still be able to go back through later. Sarlanda was so freaking brilliant it wasn't even funny.

The staircase was rather long and steep, and when I finally got to the top, I was freezing and ready to get warm for fear of provoking an asthma attack. I found the balcony to be covered and dry. There were two doors, each with a small, brass nameplate on them. The right one read, "Sarlanda Malfoy, Head Girl" and the left said, "Cedric Diggory, Head Boy." 'I still can't believe I've never been up here before,' I thought to myself as I knocked on Cedric's door. I thought for a moment he hadn't heard me, or that he had been among the many students who still hadn't come back. But then I heard shuffling inside, and his voice. His lovely voice.

"Who's calling?" he asked gruffly.

"It's Jennifer," I said, my teeth clattering slightly.

"Hang on just a sec, Jen." A few seconds later, the door opened, and my face turned redder than my hair.

Cedric was standing there shirtless, with his hair in disarray, zipping up his jeans. My eyes couldn't help but drift down to his chest, where he was indeed still well-toned, but the scars from the previous summer where very white against his skin.

"Sorry about this, I was about to take a shower…" he said, inviting me in. He shut the door behind me and pulled me into a hug. He was so warm.

"I can come back later, I just wanted to see you—"

"Nonsense. I wanted to talk to you anyways. If you can wait about ten minutes, I'll be done by then…"

"Sure," I said with a small smile, and he kissed my forehead. Then he walked to the back of the room and into what I assumed was the bathroom.

I let out a sigh that I daresay was happy. I hadn't seen him the entire Christmas break, and actually a little more than that, because I had left early due to circumstances beyond my control. With all the things that were going wrong in the wizarding world these days, it felt wonderful just to be back in his arms, hearing his alluring voice, being warmed by his arms, taking in that scent…

I snapped myself out of my daydream. I looked around the room to keep myself occupied. The walls were decorated with yellow and black Hufflepuff banners, and the wall above his desk had several pictures tapped on it. I maneuvered around his bed to go take a closer look. They were moving black-and-whites like most of the photographs in the wizarding world. There was one of a very young Cedric, maybe six or seven, at a Quidditch match with his father. The next one was him at age eleven, holding up his Hogwarts letter with pride. Next was a picture taken in probably second or third year of himself, Colin Parker, and Jared Hood, all grinning. Cedric was missing several teeth. Then finally, there was a picture from just last year, Cedric age seventeen and wearing very nice dress robes, spinning a nervous girl in a tight dress who kept tripping. I chuckled as I watched myself fail at dancing, with Cedric just laughing at me good-naturedly.

My eyes trailed down to the desk, which was very neat. In fact, there wasn't anything on it except for a small book, a quill, and an inkpot. Curious, I took the book up carefully and sat down on the edge of his bed. The inside front page read, "Property of Cedric Amos Diggory." I stopped there, contemplating continuing on.

'This is wrong,' said the small voice in the back of my head. 'You're really going to invade Cedric's privacy?'

'It'll be just a peak,' I assured myself.

'Curiosity killed the cat.'

'Yeah, yeah, and I'm the cat,' I retorted, mentally rolling my eyes. And I opened to the last entry he had been working on.

It looked like it was about three pages of Cedric's small, cramped, but fairly neat handwriting. I glanced around just to make sure I really was alone before continuing. I heard the sound of a shower starting, and I began reading.

"12/31/1995

It's finally the last day of the year. It seems hardly possible that half my last year at Hogwarts is over. It's exciting, but also sad. I'm not sure if I'm ready to leave at the end of June.

I finally got back from home this morning. It's been really tense at home with us being under protection and everything. Dad seems to be holding up with doing his work for the Order at the Ministry, but Mum's been a bit of a wreck. She's been worrying a lot, and they won't let her even go shopping. It's a wonder they let her out to garden before it started snowing.

I worry about them a lot, especially Dad. But I think I worry about Jennifer the most."

I stopped and bit my lip. The shower was still running, and I knew there wasn't any chance Sarlanda would be in her room next door, because she wasn't back yet. I continued reading.

"Pretty much everything has been going wrong for her. The wizarding world is against her and Harry, she's extremely stressed about classes, especially Transfiguration, she's had to completely reform and train her Quidditch team, and then there's Umbridge. I've seen the scars on Jen's hand, and I swear every month they get deeper and deeper. In all honesty, it makes me sick. How could someone be so cruel? I guess that's a question for Umbridge.

Speaking of Jen, I need to talk to her. I think she's back, so I'll go find her later. But I don't think she'll take it well."

"Take what well?" I muttered to myself. I checked that the shower was still running. It was.

"I just don't know how to tell her. How do you tell a girl who would rather read a book than kiss you that you dream about her every night? How could she fathom that a guy like me, who's supposed to be this pure, perfect role model, wants to go wank every time she smiles at me, or touches my hand? How—"

I stopped right there, stunned. The water had just shut off, and I didn't want to read any further. I set the journal back down on the desk and left promptly, making sure the door closed behind me. Outside, it was blizzarding. I walked as fast as I could down the stairs, tears of confusion and hurt freezing to my face.

'I told you so,' said that cheeky voice in my head.

As I've stated, this is sort of a spin-off of ATSOHP. It's what could have happened, but I didn't really think it would. So this story came into being.

Yes, yes, Cedric = Metrosexual sex freak. But not that extreme xD

Reviews?