Hey everyone. This story was brought to you by Madame Pomfrey's Fun Fitness, and Herbology Hangout on Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Also for The Nautical Ship Challenge on the Golden Snitch Forum. For Madame Pomfrey's Fun Fitness I wrote for the Triceps Extension Bar AU prompt of Soulmate!AU. For Herbology Hangout I wrote for Soulmate!AU. I was sorted into Pukwudgie in Ilvermorny on the Golden Snitch Forum. For The Nautical Ship Challenge I wrote for the Implausible Canon ship of Cedric Diggory/Harry Potter aka H.M.S Tale of Two Seekers for 15 points. Warning for mentions of bullying, slight homophobic tones also. Word Count without Author's Note is 1,288 words. I hope you all enjoy the first chapter of A Tale of Two Seekers.
Cedric Diggory's jaw fell open when he saw the reserve Seeker they'd just hired to play for the Chuddley Canons when he was injured. The man well muscled man stood not to far away observing Cedric as though seeing someone he hadn't seen for a while. If Cedric had to be honest with himself the man did look familiar. With his dark hair and green eyes behind glasses. He caught sight of a familiar feature right near the other man's collar. It was small. Almost unnoticeable but definitely there matching the one on the same spot on Cedric. The small Snitch like shape looming up at Cedric from the other man's neck. He was told from a young age that it was a birth mark but that didn't seem to make sense now. Two people didn't have the same birth mark.
"It's a birth mark," the other man told Cedric. "I'm sure you get this all the time but I think I know you. Did you go to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry?"
"I did," Cedric told the other man confusedly.
"What house were you in? If you don't mind me asking you."
That was a rather odd question most of his fans and the other members of the team knew he'd been Hufflepuff during his Hogwarts years. But then again this man had just started on the team.
"I was a Hufflepuff," Cedric leaned closer seeing something familiar in the other man's face as well. Just peeking out under a dense tuft of raven black hair was a shape Cedric had definitely seen before. The night he almost won the Triwizard Tournament. The night he let his long time crush Harry Potter take the trophy, which was really a portkey, and get taken to that graveyard. "Harry Potter?"
"How do you know that?" Harry asked sounding puzzeled at how this stranger that look familiar knew his name. He also noticed that the man had the same birth mark he did.
"I'm Cedric Diggory. We were in the Triwizard Tournament together."
Harry's eyes widened in shock. He almost didn't recognize Cedric Diggory as the same boy who'd gone into the maze with him and the other Triwizard Tournament competitors. The bronze hair that had been shaggy at that point in time was closely cropped and styled to perfection. The hazel eyes that sparkled with recognition were the same though. Cedric had grown more muscular as time went on. A fact that Harry noticed when he first walked over to the man, even though he didn't recognize him.
"So...It looks like I'm your reserve Seeker," Harry stated trying to break the ice with something other than the question on his mind.
"Yeah. Looks like it." Cedric took in a deep breathe steeling himself to ask the question that had first come to his mind upon seeing the Snitch shape on the other's man neck. "Harry - stop me if I'm coming off to forward...Have you had that Snitch shape for as long as you can remember?"
Harry was taken aback. "Get out of my head," he exclaimed nervously. "I was just about to ask you the same thing." He drug a hand through raven black hair a nervous habit he had from a young age and thought about the question. "Yes. I have had it all of my life." He then remembered something Dudley and his friend having said mockingly about the mark. Something along the lines of 'I pity whoever gets stuck with the freak for their soulmate.'. "Has anyone ever mentioned the word soulmate in connection with your mark?"
Cedric shook his head. But then he remembered the look that had crossed his father's face when he saw the mark upon Harry's neck when he'd returned from the graveyard during his, Cedric's, last year of Hogwarts. His father had looked shocked, upset, and happy all at the same time. "Why do you ask?"
"My cousin, whose a Muggle, Duddley mentioned something about it when we were younger," Harry supplied wanting to get to know more about Cedric and his growing up years. "The exact words escape me now. But it was something along the lines of being sorry for whoever got stuck with me as their soulmate." Harry shook his head clearing the bad thoughts from it. "But that..."
At this point Ron walked up and looked between the two men, his face turning quickly between the two. Eyes widening in recognition he motioned someone over to them and it wasn't long until Ron's soulmate Luna came into view.
"Harry's found his soulmate," Ron exclaimed gleefully.
"Oh," Luna sighed airily, "has he? That's wonderful. Perhaps we go on a double date with them."
Ron nodded and before anyone could stop him made plans for the four of them to meet up at the Leaky Cauldron for dinner that night. Without so much as an 'if that's alright with you' for either Harry or Cedric.
"This great," Ron exclaimed. "I know you were upset that it didn't quite work out between you and Ginny but now that you've found the person you're destine for..."
"Ron," Luna put a hand on his shoulder, "I think they just discovered what they are to each other. You should have given them time to let it sink."
"Let it sink in later. You'll come to dinner with us later. Right guys?"
Cedric looked at Harry who had an attractive shade of pink crawling up his cheeks at Ron's antics. Then again Cedric had always founds himself attracted to Harry Potter, even when he was dating Cho Chang. He'd always sought out Harry before kissing Cho and wishing it was younger Seeker's lips against his own. "What do you think?" he asked Harry breaking himself from his own thoughts before they went to other things he'd thought about doing to the younger man when he was with Cho.
"If it's alright with you it's alright with me," Harry told Cedric with a smile.
"Then we'll meet you there," Cedric told Ron and Luna as he smiled over at his soulmate.
Meanwhile unbeknownst to Cedric or Harry someone, or two someones as it was, were sitting a little way up the locker room with Fred Weasley. As Ginny Weasley and her soulmate Colin Creevy talked with Fred and George she couldn't help overhear the commotion Ron was making over Harry. It was then that the word soulmate reached her ears. Her and Harry hadn't worked out because of that dratted word. An idea came to her mind. She quickly leaned over and whispered to Colin, "You said you needed a story for the tabloid you work for, right, Colin?"
Colin nodded. "You have one for me?"
"It's unfolding right behind you. Do you have you your camera on hand?"
"Never leave home without it."
Ginny pointed him over towards where Harry Potter was now in the embrace of Cedric Diggory. Their matching soulmate marks touching slightly. Even though Harry had broken her heart and she'd found her soulmate in Colin she still found herself attracted to The Boy Who Lived.
A bright flash went off as Colin clicked the picture and disapparated from the scene. A headline already formulating in his head. One that he hoped to Merlin that Ginny would like. Harry Potter: The Boy Who Came Out of the Closet? He liked the sound of that headline and he knew his editor would love it too.
I hope you all enjoyed the first chapter of A Tale of Two Seekers.