Through Thick and Thin: chapter 1-First encounters and apologies.
"Harry! Wake up; you're going to miss breakfast!" Ron said awakening Harry. Harry sat up in his bed, sweeping his fingers through his black locks.
"How'd you sleep Ron?" harry asked blearily.
"I slept rather well, and yourself? You look terrible." Ron expressed to Harry. Because his hair was a rats nest, I look like someone casted a mini-tornado through it, his skin looked a little feeble, and it was clammy when he shook him awake.
"Well, thanks for your brilliant assessment Ron. I had another nightmare. And I had to stay up late last night writing my two parchments on werewolves Snape assigned yesterday." Harry told him about the nightmare of peter Pettigrew and other figures in it.
"Wow, that's got to s-suck." Ron said while looking quite uneasy. He was sort of unsure of what to say.
"Well, it's not fun. Let's get to breakfast." He sighed and they walked to breakfast.
On their way down harry was trudging along behind Ron by a couple of steps. Harry was reading todays Daily Prophet edition, occasionally glancing up to see where he was going and as he was reading an article about Sirius black, his godfather, though at the time didn't know this, it was about the danger he was to the muggle world and the wizarding world. He was reading so intently he accidently bumped into someone.
"Oh, sorry I didn't see you…" his voice trailed off when he seen who he was looking at.
"S'okay potter. Good luck today in the match." Cedric said in a velvety voice. It was Cedric Diggory. He was also the hufflepuff prefect. 'Mr. Popular' as everyone proclaimed him to be, he was also the hufflepuff seeker for Quidditch. Harry's rival. His gray eyes looked like an abyss of gray storm clouds, his brown short wavy locks of hair glinting in the light of the grand staircase, although it wasn't much. But it shined.
"Oh, y-you too Diggory." He smiled and waved, as he was slowly starting down towards the great hall, thinking about the upcoming Quidditch match that was coming up. He sort of forgot that they had a match against hufflepuff. So he started walking bit more boldly. Then Ron and him we're entering the great hall heading towards the Gryffindor table. Hermione was already situated with a book in hand and had a toast and an egg on her plate.
She looked up and said "good morning," she said cheerfully.
"How are you Hermione?" Ron asked while piling his plate full with food. Hermione looked at Ron rather annoyed at his constant eating.
"Oh, I'm just fine… and you two boys?" Hermione asked.
"We'll I had a good sleep. Can't say the same for harry though." Ron said absentmindedly. While some of the others glanced over at harry, and a couple from the other tables.
"Keep it down Ron!" harry hissed at Ron.
"Blimey harry, it's nothing to worry about." Ron whispered.
"Why what is it? Did you have another nightmare?" Hermione probed.
Harry nodded and said "The exact same one I've been having for a while now. But I don't want to discuss it here alright? I have Quidditch today and I don't want to think about it."
"Alright, alright." Hermione surrendered.
Harry started thinking about how good cedric is at Quidditch. He's agile, steady and swift. Kind of cute to. Harry thought quietly. Wait, What? Merlin's beard I need more sleep and fewer nightmares.
That night while waiting for the match to start Oliver was going over the game plan, harry was listening intently. He was explaining the pros and cons and the strategy he had. Once Oliver was finished they all started toward the field. Harry looked outside and seen the rain coming down really hard, it was a thunderstorm, although it didn't matter. The game was still on so they were going to play in this weather anyway. He looked to his right and seen cedric, he was wearing his uniform for Quidditch, harry observed the black and yellow fabric. Harry was jumping like a little kid who just gotten a gigantic bag of goodies. He was thrilled to be playing a game again.
"Good luck, out there team, and remember the game plan!" he shouted out to the rest of the team. He put his hand over Harrys shoulder and said "and potter, Diggory's good, but you're better. Good luck!" he smiled and flew off on his broom. Harry gripped his broom and hopped on; he could hear the crowd cheering on cedric as cedric flew out into the storm. Harry flew off quite fast and then he heard the crowd cheering for him. He smiled and waved at them. Then a bludger started coming toward him so fast he barely made it away from it. One of his beaters got it to hit the end of the opposing team.
After about twenty minutes his eye caught Cedric chasing the Golden Snitch around the stands as harry flew faster and faster to catch up, Cedric started speeding into the sky, harry was on his tail, then when he busted through a cloud it started getting freezing cold and cedric stopped in his trail and started his fall back down. Harry saw his chance and chased after the Snitch, he was close and then he noticed the front end of his broom starting to get a frost that sparkled in the lightning. Suddenly an umbrella flew past his head nearly hitting him he balanced back out. He started towards the Snitch accelerating as fast as he can. And he thought he saw something. No he knew he seen something fly by.
It was a Dementor, the things that protect the school. It was a horrible encounter on the Hogwarts express and professor Lupin wasn't here to save him this time, so he knew he didn't want another encounter with these creatures. And as he realized this a dementor stopped in his path and started to do something freaky. He fell off his broom and started falling, twisting and turning as he fell through the grey storm clouds at a rapid rate and as he fell through the last clouds Dumbledore casted Arresto momentum to slow his rapid descent. He then blacked out.
Harry awoke in the hospital wing, and there was somebody sitting on the next bed, it was nearing nightfall, and Madame Pomfrey was tending to another boy. Cedric looked at harry and said "Oh, hi harry err, how are you? I was wondering when you were going to wake up. I wanted to apologize, I seen a dementor and I should've warned you but I was too scared. And I shouldn't have caught the snitch, when it came back down-" he was cut off by harry.
"Wait you knew?" harry demanded
"well yeah sort of, but like I said I was sorry and I was scared so I started to fall. I'm sorry harry." He sounded adequately remorseful, his grey tantalizing eyes were full of regret.
"Its okay cedric, I guess I'm fine now. Stupid dementor anyway." He smiled
Cedric smiled, but very vaguely. "so, I guess I should be going." Just before he turned to leave harry grabbed his arm and cedric was taken by surprise. "what?"
"err, d-do you want to s-stay here for a bit and talk? I'll be rather bored." He stuttered an offer to cedric.
"I guess I could." He smiled at harry and went to sit on the other bed.
Madame Pomfrey escorted the other boy to his dorm, so it was just cedric and harry in the infirmiry They talked for three hours. Harry learned that Cedric was only doing all the perfect student/prefect stunt to make his dad proud and harry told him about not liking all the attention because of Sirius Black 'mass murderer' coming for him and all. But while they talked, Harry was admiring Cedric's looks and thought well blokes can check out other blokes, right? Because he's just goodlooking is all, I don't want to do anything with him, it's just that he would be a catch for any girl. Just because you had the urge to kiss him earlier doesn't mean anything. Nothing at all. harry was deep in thought and almost forgot that bloke sitting across from him. And said "wait, what?" coming out of his daze.
"I said, 'So you're not the boastful type, yeah?' " cedric asked perplexed
"Pretty much, yeah." Harry said.
"We'll its pretty late and I shouldn't be going now, and you get some sleep harry. He touched harrys forearm questionably. He winked and turned to leave.
"Wait, what was that for?" harry called after him.
Cedric just shrugged and said "what was what?" he raised an eyebrow "Goodnight harry." He retreated from the room leaving harry to wonder what just happened.
The next day harry woke up and seen the lot of his friends standing over him.
Ron announced "he doesn't look to good…"
Fred just said "let's toss you from the astronomy tower and see how you look."
"probably right side better than he normally does." Harry quipped dazedly.
They all started laughing.
"so how are ya feelin?" George asked
"Quite brilliant actually." Harry said, recalling the events of his hours spent with cedric, though he asked even though he knew "so how'd it go? Like who won?"
"Err, harry no one blames you. But it was hufflepuff-" Hermione started to say but was cut off by Ron.
"-yeah that stupid Hufflepuff seeker caught the snitch… but it isn't your fault harry. And when you fell of your broom it fell and broke in half." Ron stated holding up Harry's nimbus 2000, it was split in half, and it was scratched and holes put in it. It also had a peculiar twist that somehow got put into it.
"Merlin's beard it got wrecked didn't it?" harry sighed knowing he had to go get a new broom.
"Yeah, it did." George said sort of smirking.
"well, does someone want to give me my clothes so I could change?" harry requested.
"oh, here you go." Hermione handed him a black long-sleeved fleece, and a sort of colorless grey pant's that bore a resemblance to Cedric's startlingly grey stormy eyes. Once he was changed he slipped on his Gryffindor robe and they headed to breakfast. When they got to the Gryffindor table in the great hall. he felt a lot of eyes fixed on him when he walked by, but not with disgust. Well from Slytherin of course. Probably wishing he'd died that yesterday. Harry looked back and seen Cedric and his group staring at his back along with some other people from the Ravenclaw table as well. They looked away quickly and started to fork their eggs and bacon into their mouths. Cedric was nibbling on some toast.
When harry sat down he just started eating his breakfast.
And that was the last time Cedric paid any attention to Harry for the rest of his third year at Hogwarts.