Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, or any of its related indicia. I'm just a writer who loves what J.K. did...most of the time, at least.
Author's Note: This was originally written for my best friend Lindsey on her birthday. (Holla, Linds!) It's got my first-ever heavy duty romance scene, and it's also special because it's slash. So, if you don't like either of those, please turn away now. Anyway, I then adapted this to work into the Reviews Lounge's Halloween challenge, and I think the mood was really meant to be set during Halloween anyway. It was the something missing that I was searching for when I wrote this, the instigation for the piece.
In any event, please review! :)
It was in all the papers, not just the Daily Prophet. But when he read the article, he knew he needed answers, so he fire-called the first Gryffindors he could think of: the twins. George answered. He was surprisingly serious - or perhaps not surprisingly, perhaps even twins could feel grief - and told Oliver what he needed to know: that it really did happen, that Harry wasn't lying, that You-Know-Who was back.
That Cedric - his Cedric - was dead. No more. No more "chance meetings" in Hogsmeade. No more sneaking into the Castle to be with him. No more shirking off practices to watch him in the Tasks.
He'd gotten into so much trouble for that. He'd been neglecting practices to find time with Cedric that in May his coach laid down an ultimatum: come to every practice and game from here on out, or get kicked off the team. So he went, stealing as much time as he could from the rest of his life to spend with Cedric - or as much time as he had, being involved in the Tasks. He always apologized for not being there more often, apologized for graduating a year before Cedric, apologized for circumstances he couldn't control and for not going to be able to be there for the Third Task.
He was just a reserve player, nobody important, he'd always say. Cedric would always tell him to stop saying that, that he was somebody important, to look at all the championships Gryffindor had won with him on the team. And of course he understood that Oliver couldn't afford to lose his job, lose the one thing he was good at.
Well, he was good at something else, too, Cedric always said, but now he wasn't going to get to do that ever again. He just couldn't imagine it.
He still can't, halfway through his fifth pint in some cloudy pub in Muggle London somewhere - he didn't know where the Bus had let him off, didn't really care, just knew he needed to go somewhere to drink.
It all still feels like some horrible, horrible trick, some prank the twins'd pull. On days like this - on Halloween, Halloween that Cedric had loved, because it was a time to be somebody else for a change, someone who wasn't a Triwizard Champion, someone who wasn't Cedric on the surface but was underneath the costume - Oliver couldn't, wouldn't take it.
It was days like these that made Cedric so happy - Christmas, Quidditch matches, Boxing Day, his birthday, Easter, St. Patrick's Day, Oliver's birthday, St. David's Day, Guy Fawkes Day. Halloween.
And it was days like these that Oliver came to the pub. Drinking to forget, he drinks to remember.
"C'mon, Ollie, it's Halloween. You can't study on Halloween."
"No, Ced."
"Just for a little bit? Ten minutes, tops. C'mon, Ollie! Please?"
It was those damned eyes that kept making him give in. Give in to that whim, to that voice whispering from somewhere below his brain to just lean in and kiss him for all you're worth even though you've got N.E.W.T.s to study for.
He bit his lip for a moment longer, then relinquished it and everything to those eyes, those eyes slowly darkening and shutting. Leaned in on the couch of the Prefects' Study, slipping his left arm behind to grip that beautiful ass, his right flung up to entangle itself into that blond hair he'd let go wild. Tilted just to the right and kissed him. Light at first, just lips brushing lips, as if they were trying to remember how this all went. Then a little deeper, mouths pouring into one another, Oliver's tongue lightly pressing entrance into his lover, ready to begin the slow dance of seduction.
And dance they did. Tongues meeting in a frenzied fury, the light taste of peppermint wrapping itself around Oliver's tongue. But just as the music of their souls began to sing, Oliver pulled back. Cedric moaned, eyes opening to half-mast, looking for all the world like he'd been slipped a Lust Potion. His potion was Oliver, attentive Oliver who had already anticipated his lover's discontent and suckled on Cedric's sweet spot on the right side of his beck. Cedric mewled in pleasure, almost purring in delight as Oliver made his skin jump and slide.
Oliver moved up Cedric's jawline, up to the tender earlobe, nipping lightly, marking his lover for his own.
"You're so fucking hot, Ced. And you're mine," he whispered.
Cedric shivered and moaned again, falling back into the couch cushions as Oliver pushed him slowly, sensually back. They met again to war with their mouths, Oliver's hands busily unbuttoning Cedric's shirt, letting himself have a peek at what he was about to bring to an arching, screaming pleasure. The shirt slid off, revealing those bronzed, broad shoulders. Oliver could not resist running his left hand up and down the now bare back, reveling at the muscle he found with each caress.
He broke again from Cedric's mouth and again Cedric moaned his displeasure. Again Oliver silenced him, this time by sliding his body down so he could lick the nipples of his lover, slowly bringing them to taut arousal. Cedric moaned at the first, deeper with the second, but when Oliver began to suck one lightly, he couldn't restrain the fiery groan any longer.
With the grace and ferocity of a lover ready to return the favor, Cedric grabbed Oliver's chin, lifted it, and entrapped that enthralling mouth with his own, his tongue thrusting in without preamble. Here Oliver finally moaned; here he had uncovered his lover's passion fully.
Cedric's submissiveness was gone in an instant. His fingers had Oliver's shirt undone and up over his head within seconds - and as it went flying, Cedric pushed Oliver up and back onto the opposite end of the couch so that he was lying atop him, staring directly into the love-fogged eyes of his lover.
"You ready?" Cedric asked, his tenor husky.
"You ready?" the woman asks, snapping her gum. Oliver glances up into the unfocused face of his sister, Karalyn. He nods and she helps him to his unsteady feet, leading him out of the pub, setting some money on the counter with a nod to the bartender, helping him into the street.
He knows she knows why he's here, and he knows she used the family clock and a little of their Mum's skill with Divination to find him. He knows that he's going to vomit just as she Side-Along Disapparates him back to their childhood home, and he promptly does into the begonias his Mum never bothers to weed.
He knows she'll lead him past Mum's concerned eyes to his room, his childhood room left untouched since last week, when it was his and Cedric's anniversary. He knows he'll break down and she'll hold him, rocking him slowly, silently, as always.
He knows she knows she can't be the one he wants so desperately to be there, but she can be the one he needs right now, and so she is.
So they sit, Oliver mourning, Karalyn rocking, neither bothering to speak the useless words that grief slings carelessly to whomever will listen. Slowly, the sobs subside.
Karalyn gives him a final hug and tucks him in, just like Ced does after they make love. She kisses him on the forehead, just above where Ced's tender lips always touched him, gently, just before they drifted off together. She doesn't wish him a useless good night, just as Ced never does, because he knows they've already had one because they're together.
The door shuts gently. Oliver watches the moonlit window for a glimpse of his Seeker, hopes without shame for him to fly up on his broom and say that it was all staged, that it never happened, that he was okay and Harry was mistaken and You-Know-Who's still gone.
But he has practice tomorrow. He must Keep for a whole game, and he must sleep. He must sleep because in his sleep he has a chance to see Cedric again, to talk with him again, but never to hold him - just when he reaches for him, the dream always ends and he always wakes up. Alone.
So tonight, as usual, just before he succumbs to the alcohol's luring promises of dreams, he pretends to smell peppermint wafting in from the open window.
And this time, just before the darkness takes him, just before his vision dies, just before it all, he smells -
Author's Note: Yes, I left out the last word on purpose...consider it my Halloween trick! Muahahaha! Anyway, please review - this is another turn in my writing that I don't usually take (romance scenes) and it might be a little classic, maybe, but I like what came out of it. Thanks again for reading, and please do read the Reviews Lounge collection of Halloween stories, "Something Wicked this Way Comes."