A/N: This is so far from my best work that it's almost laughable, but I've barely written for Harry Potter in so long that I felt the need to sit down and write something, anything. Having claimed Fleur and Cedric for the Happily Never After Challenge on the HPFC forum, this is what came out. I read Deathly Hallows in the space of two days last weekend, and it's inspired me to write more fic, so some better stuff will hopefully be coming soon.
These Accidents of Faith and Nature
Sometimes, Cedric Diggory hates himself.
He traces Fleur's curves, smooth and supple, with his fingers. In the dark, she looks different, not less beautiful but less-intimidating, her features dulled by the shadows they try so hard to hide in.
In the daylight, there's nothing to this – they're both champions and if they stand a little too close and embrace a little too longer, who cares, it's all fodder for the gossip magazines and there's no truth in it, right? Right. One of the things he's learning is that there's a difference between emotion and attachment because he rides high on one and doesn't feel the other.
--
Here's the thing: Fleur understands in a way that Cho cannot; she's seen these things too, heard the screams in her head at night and felt the heat of the dragon's breath against the back of her neck.
Cho represents safety, security, the familiar, all the things that he craved once. The Tournament has changed him in ways he could not have imagined, making him less about the whole and more about the sum of the parts. Every fibre of his being wants to win, and it's still not enough.
Sometimes, he thinks it was all coming to this anyway. He's smart and rich and good at Quidditch and all the girls like him and he can't be perfect, right? Right. Sometimes he wishes his life wasn't laid out in straight lines in front of him, that for once, the answers were multiple choice. This is the trajectory of his life, he knows that now, up and up and up and then down-down-down the lies and the secrets and the shame spinning together in treacherous webs, spinning out of control.
He sighs, his body snapping to attention, trapped in Fleur's arms.
--
Cho paints him a picture and he smothers her in kisses to hide the lie in his eyes. The crevices of his mind hold hidden back corridors and the grass behind the Beauxbatons carriage and sometimes he thinks this would be easy if he could feel something other than numbness, even shame. He recognises the picture too well – once, he found sanctuary in the parks and museums he took Cho, and now it's all about deceit and concealment and hiding away. The sad part is, when his body is twisted around Fleur's, Cedric doesn't know which one he prefers more.
Sometime after he's come to terms with this, he'll tear the picture over a fire, and have to look away before it burns.
Ruining things doesn't always allow them to be mended. Cedric knows that all too well.
--
They both knew it would end.
The only thing was, neither of them predicted how.