A/N- ~Gasp!~ This actually isn't angsty! ::the horror:: Well, actually some weird people will think it is.
Summary: At the end of Harry's third year, Draco, Cho, and Cedric [the seekers of the three losing Quidditch teams], gather together at the Astronomy Tower the last night of school. They talk of seemingly meaningless things, but as one delves deeper into their words, one may discover the twisted friendship and similar ideas that all 'losers' share.
A/N 2- Yea, I really don't know how to explain it, as you can see. This is one of those rare fics of mine that is simply in third person. No POVs this time. No angst either, as I mentioned earlier. I muct be losing my mind. ^-^
A/n 3- Before anyone emails me and asks [don't ask, but a lot of people find out my email] me what the title means, think about it. All three characters are the so called losers. A loser is also sometimes called a hero of no one, or nobody's hero. Get it? Good!
A/N 4- DANG! The first sentence is an alliteration, accidental, mind you.
A/N 5- Sick of me yet? ^-^ I'm just fixing a few spelling errors.
By PikaCheeka
Silently, she slipped up the staircase and slid around the corner, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dim. She was in the Astronomy Tower, strictly off limits to all students without supervision. The reasons were obvious, for the walls were low and there was no real protection. It was said that long ago two students got into a fight and one knocked the other over the edge, killing him. But that was a long time ago, she thought to herself as she wrapped her cloak tighter around her. For a summer evening, it was surprisingly chilly, only about fifty.
"First!" she laughed to herself once she realized that she was entirely alone. She lowered the hood of her cloak and shook her short black hair free, pulling the sides back with tiny silver clips. The same clips she wore every Quidditch game for good luck, for they had a miniature Snitch attached to them, not that were any help that year.
"Only ten of eleven...I thought it was later..." she muttered. Talking to herself was strangely comforting in the darkness. She was short and lithe, with tan skin and short cropped hair with fluffy bangs. Both of her parents had come from China, although she had been born in Britain, but only because her parents wanted her to attend Hogwarts. And Hogwarts preferred to pick students from at least the same continent.
She sighed and leaned against the short wall, her broom handy in case she slipped, and waited, flicking her head around at every sound.
Several minutes passed before Cedric arrived. He waltzed in humming and swinging his own broom. "Hello, Cho." He said calmly, looking around. "Pity Gryffindor won again this year, eh?" He, like Cho, was in his fourth year and the seeker of his house's team.
Cho shrugged. "I suppose there's always next year..."
Cedric nodded slowly and looked down over the grounds. His perfectly parted brown hair shone in the faint moonlight and seemed to darken his face, giving him an odd complexion. He was British, as was his family. Although he, unlike Cho, was a half-blood, his father being a wizard and his mother being a muggle veterinarian for livestock.
"Well, "he said after a moment. "I guess this is my last chance to fly my broom for a while..."
"Brooms are allowed over the summer." Cho said quickly.
"Yea, but...I live on a farm, and last time I tried it I spooked the horses. They all jumped the fence and we lost one. My mum and da weren't exactly pleased, especially since that was her favorite horse."
She laughed then, swinging her feet. "All I have is a cat! Horses frighten me!"
Cedric laughed as well. "Bit hard for me to be afraid of them!"
Suddenly Cho whipped around. "How long have you been here?" she looked at the shadows at the far side of the room.
Draco sighed and stepped forward. "Long enough. Before you were here anyway...Slytherin room is easy to get away from. Just say I'm going to go kill someone and everyone jumps out of the way and shuts their mouths..." he said dryly, leaning over the wall and glaring out into the night.
Cedric laughed again. "What if you said you were to kill Snape?"
"Same thing." Draco smirked faintly. He looked even paler than normal in the moonlight, his skin almost transparent. His hair and eyes shone silver as well, giving him an eerie look, although his eyebrows seemed to darken from the shadows of his hair and appeared black. "Nobody cares much about us Slytherins, not even ourselves..."
"Aw, come on Draco! We all lost the cup!" Cho sighed, his pessimism catching onto her.
"It's all rigged." He said, ignoring her. He was the purest of purebloods, one of a long line, exceeding over two thousand years, of Malfoys [mainly French with some Irish and Scottish], and slightly caught up in himself.
"What do you mean?" Cedric, eager for mysteries, leaned forward. One of his favorite things was listen to his mother at home trying to figure out why an animal she treated that day had claw marks, usually from a dragon of sorts, but what could he say? Besides, he enjoyed letting people be mystified.
"Isn't it funny?" Draco turned to them again. "That the year Harry comes to our school, they kick the seeker off the Gryffindor team? So suddenly there's a space for him?"
"Yea..." Cho said. "I remember in my first year the Gryffindor Seeker! She's a sixth year now, right? She was really good."
"Then why did they kick her off the team?" Cedric asked.
"It's all a filthy conspiracy." Draco laughed suddenly, cutting it off with a shark intake of breath. "I'm glad he won." He said bitterly after a moment. "'Cause this is when the losers hang out, and that would be hell if he had anything to do with us."
"True...even if you did win, he would be mad up here, wouldn't he? I mean, doesn't he like me?" Cho said slowly. "Cedric and I have been together a long time, but I don't think he knows that."
"He'd be pissed, as I would be if one of you won and I would be here with him. I'd stay in the Slytherin room. I'd rather kill Snape."
"I'd help!" Cedric said brightly.
Draco smirked again.
"What's up with his Firebolt anyway? Anyone know how he got that?" Cedric added after a moment.
"Bet he stole it. He's not exactly rich. Damn it, if he hadn't bought the last one my father would have gotten it for me." the pale boy frowned.
"Must be nice to be so rich..." Cho sighed unhappily. "My grandparents, whom I live with half the time, lived through World War II and believe in saving every knut and sickle for something 'worthwhile'."
"Define worthwhile." Cedric snickered.
"O, you know, food and clothing..." Cho said, waving her hand and rolling her eyes.
"Food?" Draco stopped and looked at her. "My father doesn't really eat."
"I didn't know guys could have eating disorders..." Cedric looked confused.
"No, it's not that. He just doesn't eat much, runs in the family I guess."
"No wonder you're a seeker! Wasn't he one too? I mean, seekers have to be small..." Cho grinned. "I think that's half the reason I'm one."
"Cho, face it, you are a good flyer. It's me..." Cedric laughed. "Look! I must be the biggest seeker in centuries! I'm five foot eight!"
Draco suddenly jumped on the wall and spat over the edge.
Cho looked confused.
"Mrs. Norris on the balcony down there." He hissed, jumping to the floor again.
"I think Mrs. Norris was the Potions teacher a while ago before Snape, and got turned into a cat." laughed Cedric.
"Naw...she was the headmaster." The pale boy said dryly. "They're no better, all from the damn Gryffindor house."
"It's a bit obvious anyway." Cho sighed. "The Gryffindors are the heroes, the Ravenclaws are the boring geniuses, The Hufflepuffs are the wimps and the Slytherins are the stupid jerks."
"That about sums it up." Cedric said calmly.
"Although we all know that really the Gryffindors are scum, the Ravenclaws are geniuses, but not boring, the Hufflepuffs are the kind at heart and the Slytherins are the ambitious and cunning." Draco sneered. "O yes! Harry Potter, the great Harry Potter is a Gryffindor! All bow down and worship him!"
"Yea, he's nice, and yea, he killed You-Know-Who...but he doesn't even remember it! And who knows if he's even dead? Maybe he just faked it. Maybe he's still out there. Maybe Harry's just a..." Cedric trailed off.
"A false hero. A scam. A conspiracy." Draco said darkly, his eyes narrowing to slits and his voice softening to a hiss.
"You sound like a parseltongue yourself." Cho suddenly pointed out.
He frowned. "I never said I wasn't. I just don't want to attract attention to myself like Potter."
"They call you arrogant, don't they?" Cedric said.
Draco self-consciously ran his hand through his hair, causing the odd spikes to fall over his eyes in a new way. "Arrogant and wealthy and snotty and stupid and hot and full of myself and self-pitying and narcissus and self-centered and prejudice and racist and full of hate and anger and evil and uselessness. The definition of Malfoy according to the rest of the world."
Cho smiled. "Flirty and arrogant and too smart for her own good is the simple definition of Chang."
"Ah, I won't even go there with mine...full of fluff and stupid and weak..." Cedric shrugged.
Draco coughed. "Definition of Potter! Wonderful! Brilliant! Strong! Powerful! Kind! Loving! Caring! And shall we pull out Professor Wordness's Thesaurus for more?" He raised his hands over his head. "Come one, come all! And see the magnificent Potter!" Then he spat again. "I hate that kid. I hope he comes to a nasty death, a pathetic one. Maybe he'll get run over by a trolley."
Cho and Cedric started to laugh and then caught themselves. "Draco..." Cho smirked. "Be nice now..."
"Nice? What the hell is nice? I never heard the word before!" he burst into malicious laughter and flicked his wand at the sky. "Avada Kedarva! Kill the star! The one we call Potter!"
A burst of green light shot forth from his wand and vanished into the night. Even Draco looked taken aback.
"You're lucky no one heard you..." Cho whispered after a moment.
"You're lucky nothing happened..." Cedric winced.
"Naw, the star is light-years away, wait a few minutes." He collapsed onto the wall and watched intently.
"You wouldn't really kill him, would you?" she looked worried, her brown eyes wide with concern.
"No. That's for Voldemort." Draco said softly. "He's going to kill all of us someday."
"What?" Cedric gasped.
"Death Eaters as well. They'll get to be competition."
Cho and Cedric had both heard the phrase 'Death Eater' and were a bit less concerned than one who hadn't would have been.
"You won't join up with him, would you? If he was still out there?"
"I don't want to be anyone's slave." Draco sighed. "I just want to be myself."
Cho nodded. "I sometimes want to be a seeker for the team of China, but I don't want to have a coach yelling at me the rest of my life..."
"I suppose...if you're a not a hero, then what you do doesn't matter." Draco said softly.
"No, I don't think so..." Cedric sighed. "Once we graduate, nobody will even remember us..."
"Unless we kill Mrs. Norris." Cho laughed.
"Or Snape!" Cedric added.
"Or Potter!" Draco muttered to himself. They didn't hear him though.
"You know..." Cedric said after a few minutes. "Sometimes I'm jealous. I sometimes want to be famous, I want everyone to know my name and love me. But I guess it will never happen..."
"Don't bet on that." Cho smiled.
Draco was ignoring them by this point. He was watching the star, which had silently imploded millions of miles away and was already fading to nothing. Cho suddenly glanced over at him and realized with a shock how helpless he seemed. So young and innocent, yet something in his eyes was harder and colder and deeper than anything she had ever seen in the eyes of anyone.
"I guess we should get going soon..." Cedric sighed after a few minutes of silence.
"Just one last ride, eh?" Cho smirked, hefting her broom into the air and leaping onto it.
Cedric laughed. "Let's not go chasing after any unicorns now, right?" he mounted his own broom. "You coming, Draco?"
"I'll be there in a minute..." he slowly tied his boots up again, all the while watching the star, or what was left of it.
"You did kill the star, didn't you?" Cho said calmly, squinting up at the sky.
Draco shrugged.
"You're a third year, right?" Cedric yawned.
"Yes...Harry's year..." Draco sighed, picking up his own broom and running his hand up and down the shaft a few times.
"You should stay back somehow..." Cho grinned. "Escape..."
"Or skip a year, you get good grades, right?" Cedric added after her.
"Yes...though if that was how it worked, Hermione would skip a year too. And I can't stand her either." He grinned, leaping onto his broom last.
"I've never met someone as anti-social as you." Cho laughed. "And people have the nerve to call you a flirt!"
"Flirt?" Draco stared, he quickly winked and burst into laughter. "I think I'd kill myself if I found out I was a flirt."
"Better kill yourself now...winking at my girlfriend." Cedric frowned.
"Sarcasm." Draco said calmly. "Now, are we going or not? I'm impatient you know! The virtues of a Slytherin!"
"Don't even go there!" Cho laughed, pulling her hair into a short ponytail.
Seconds later, the three vanished off into the night, skimming over the Forbidden Forest. Nobody's heroes, as they called themselves. Useless.
Funny how one puts themself down.