Written for the True Colours competition on HPFC. The prompt shall be revealed at the end of the next chapter.

Disclaimer: Don't own HP.

Footnote 1 - Paraphased quote by George Bernard Shaw.

To avoid any confusion that I'm sure will stem from this let's just say that this came from the idea that Hogwarts wasn't exactly renowned for giving its (preteen) students The Talk (just imagine Snape's reaction... :D May write a oneshot about that)

Adonis and the Fay

Home.

The one place where he'd finally be able to have some peace just for the Easter hols right?

Wrong.

"Cedric, m'boy?" His father's jovial voice rang through the house as the Ministry worker exited the fireplace in his private study.

The grandfather clock in the hallway chimed nine.

In the living room Cedric started, twisting his reclining form, and moving to shove the book in his shaking hands under the pillow that had been between his back and the stiff armrest. It was a book of Greek myths; his father didn't appreciate him reading such things ('fanatical bedtime stories' he'd called them). Amos Diggory would prefer it if his thirteen year old son read up on the Ministry to scour for future employment opportunities – Cedric was surprised (but still rather pleased) that he hadn't drawn up a list of stuffy, dilapidated tomes as thick as his head for his reading pleasure.

Then he caught sight of the enchanted cover (Quidditch: and Everything a Teenage Wizard Should Know about It, by Gwenog Bevan) and Cedric's tense muscles softened, threatening to deposit him in a heap onto the wooden floor. He was suddenly very glad that he'd had the foresight to enchant the book's cover after he'd purchased it in Hogsmeade.

"I'm in here, father." Cedric hurriedly swung his legs off the sofa cushion and crossed one ankle over the other as he set his sockclad feet onto the floor. His father, dressed in his Ministry worker uniform, strode in the room at that moment, a closed mouth smile quirking his lips at the sight of his son. The wrinkles around his mouth stretched. Then he saw what he was reading and Amos' smile faded, though the wrinkles remained, seeming even more prominent than before.

Cedric swallowed, bracing himself for another lecture on hardworking men and their occupations. (One clue: not on a broomstick chasing after a golden winged ball, whatever the weather.) What he got instead was a long suffering sigh before his father trod across the room to the crackling fireplace, removing his spectacles from his eyes.

Amos lifted his head and stared silently at the large, nonmagical family portrait hanging above the mantle, the stained, stubby fingers of one hand drumming out a frantic, rhythm-less beat, while the other rubbed at the lens of his spectacles with the folds of his nondescript robes. Then he murmured something unintelligible to Cedric's ears before making his way to the cabinet where the drinks – his drinks, to be more precise – were kept.

Cedric tensed, his narrowing eyes tracking his father's every movement, his every twitch. He noted the slumped posture of his father's rounded, but usually straight, shoulders, though his thoughts lingered on the conservatively dressed, smiling facsimile of his mother that hung above the fireplace.

That portrait was three years old and that was the happiest he could recall seeing Marianna Diggory née Davies. She had less wrinkles in the portrait too.

He wondered when she was coming home. Letters every week weren't enough when he was at Hogwarts and/or she was on one of her trips; he missed her smile, a smile that promised warmth and security - things he'd never received from his father (and never before had he truly sympathised with his neighbour, Luna).

Now, he loved his father – who was perfectly fine in small doses (as in miniscule) – but sometimes he didn't even like him. And he was afraid that today would turn into one of those times.

The chink of glass against glass broke him from his thoughts. His father was indulging in one of his favourite pastimes: drinking. As if the smoking wasn't enough…

Just thinking of the foul smelling cigar smoke made Cedric's throat itch. He coughed into his fist, forgetting his father's presence.

"Well?" The acerbic baritone made the young boy wince. The one thing he was never to do when his father decided to have a little drink was draw his attention and Cedric had already done it.

Wonderful.

Just wonderful.

It was truly the Dirigible plum on top of a great week.

Great month even.

Cedric lifted his eyes to his father's scowling face as he stood slowly, knees knocking together slightly. "Pardon?"

"Get home alright, did ya?" Amos took a swig of the amber liquid in his tumbler, not even flinching as the liquid burned its way down his throat.

Cedric resisted the urge to say, "Well, I'm here aren't I?" Though he wished he wasn't. (It was no wonder his mother was often elsewhere.) "Y-yes, sir."

Another swig, deeper this time. Cedric took a step backwards. "F-floo not too much trouble?" Said with a slight drawl.

"No." A brief pause. "I can't wait till Luna starts next year, then we can go home together." No more travelling home alone only to be welcomed by an empty house (such as he had been today) because of his parent's erratic work schedules or the unreliability of Wizarding international transport.

Apparently that was the wrong thing to say. The wavering scowl on his father's face deepened as he turned to pour more alcohol into his tumbler.

Ire stirred in Cedric's stomach like a smouldering fire. "Something wrong with the Lovegoods, father?" His mother had happened to be quite good friends with Luna's late mother before her… passing.

Amos half turned his upper body away from the cabinet and towards Cedric, a thick eyebrow visibly twitching from underneath his straggly, thinning brown locks. Cedric studied the profile of his father's face, watching as the corner of his lip – just visible beneath his scrubby beard – curled ever so slightly. He placed the rim of the tumbler to his lips and drank heartily.

"Oohh nooo, nothing." Not even five minutes in and he was already elongating and slurring his words. Not good.

"O…kay then." Cedric took another surreptitious step backwards, book still held precariously in his shaking grasp. Every fibre of his being was screaming at him to get out. He really didn't want to be subject to his father's drunken ramblings about life. Or his embarrassing platitudes. Not again…

His father took a step towards him, stumbling slightly. Another bad sign. Just how did he – a practised drinker – get drunk so fast anyway? That firewhiskey must have been strong.

"Now, now, m'boy. Not sooo fast." He hiccupped. "How's school? Tell me your studies are going well." A jumbled rush of words.

Swallowing to try and dispel the growing tightness in his throat, Cedric decided not to disappoint him any further than he apparently already had done. "My studies are going well."

"G-good, good… Any lucky witch caught your eye?" Cedric suppressed a groan, which only became harder to do with his father's next words. "Any Valentines?"

He rolled his eyes and grunted before he could stop himself.

Yes! He wanted to snap, enough to fill a bloody satchel! He still didn't quite understand why. Especially not after the names he'd been called when fellow students, particularly the Weasley Twins, had found out about his newfound popularity with the ladies.

Those being: Adonis, pretty boy, and even Narcissus (but that last one was in no way his fault – he'd only wanted to understand his newfound popularity for himself. Once again: not his fault he'd been caught staring at his reflection in a spoon. And he would not send himself a Valentine's Day card – let alone five!).

But he didn't say that. He didn't say any of that; no need to add fuel to the flame. (And he could already feel a migraine coming on if the pain behind his eyes was any indicate.)

Yet it was too late for that it seemed as his father seemed to take his eye roll, half suppressed grunt, and consequential silence as bitter dissent. The older man gave a hearty bark of surprised laughter. Cedric swore he could even see tears glinting in his squinty hazel eyes.

"Ohhh, my booyy! Come, come." He gestured to Cedric who remained motionless. "Come. I 'ave a lil-little thing t-to show to you." Amos reached into his dark, heavy outer coat's inner pockets.

Please don't let it be what he thought it was. Cedric crossed the fingers of his free hand tightly…

And suppressed yet another groan as his father took out The Photograph. He didn't know how he was going to survive the migraine that was surely coming on. "Look 'ere, Cedric. This i-is me as a-a boy." Oh he knew. Oh did he know… "Just a few years o-older than you I-I was." And in Hufflepuff too. Oh, he could just jump from the joy of it all. He dearly hoped his father wasn't going down the same route that he had last time The Photograph had been taken out.

He closed his eyes in dread (he still had 'scars' from the last time), still motionless. That didn't stop his father shoving The Photograph under his nose though. "And wasn't I like you?"

Cedric's eyes snapped open, wider than they had ever been before. What? He stared at the youthful face of his father, smiling at him primly from among a group of his peers. There was only one house not accounted for. Slytherin.

"Can you not," his father drawled, "see the similarities between us, my son?" His father's face hadn't been so round in his youth or blotched in colour; his complexion wasn't ruddy like it was now. In fact it looked like it was paler than Cedric's own. His face seemed to be softer than Cedric's; his jaw and cheekbones weren't that sharp in comparison.

And Cedric supposed that if his father's brown hair hadn't been combed, parted, and slicked with oil it could have been the same sort of thick texture as his own, if not quite length…

Yet if he was asked Cedric would have to say he resembled his mother more, though it wasn't significantly so. He had her grey eyes, yes, her smile, and her hair colour (sort of; hers was more red than auburn while his was reddish brown) but that was it.

If he had to say anything at all he would say that he didn't particularly resemble either one of his parents.

He was just... himself.

While he'd been lost within his musings his father had started rambling about something or another… Slightly better than last time, when he'd been home for the summer.

The stench of his father's breath made Cedric want to be sick. Sadly not an option as he was currently being held around the shoulders in an almost death grip by his aforementioned parent who was on a tirade about some backhanded compliment a pureblood colleague of his had made in passing.

"Noo, but look. Look!" Amos brandished a sepia photograph in front of his eyes, only slurring slightly. "Your father was the best lookin' 'alfblood 'ogwarts ever saw! It was the muggle gene in 'im I tell yeh! There was no inbreeding in 'im. No, Sir!" Only a hiccup ceased his speech as he released his wide eyed son (who deigned to mention that his paternal grandmother had been a Bulstrode - one of the Old pureblood families - before her marriage).

Referring to himself in third person… Must it be said? Not good. "Your father was a dish. D'you 'ear me, boy?" Amos' voice wavered slightly yet on he went. Like a man on a mission.

Cedric had had to resist the urge to smack his forehead with his palm many times during his father's rant. He was sure muggles had a word for that.

Amos eventually winded down but most certainly not in a good way. He was crying now; fat, pitiful tears tracing the creases and contours of his face. "And look at me now!" A sob rose in his throat. It appeared as if the alcohol's hold on him was lessening though his emotions still seemed frazzled and delicate. "Look at what I've become! Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime 'tis wasted on children1." He swallowed. "You better not let this 'appen to you, Cedric. A fine lad like you; you will find yourself a nice witch and hold on tight. D'ya 'ear?"

He broke off with a sad mumble; "Everyday she's gone I miss your mother. Every day." He repeated those words as he slumped down onto the sofa. He shifted so that he lay on his side and brought his knees up to his chest. He wrapped his arms around his legs as Cedric hesitantly stepped towards him. Cedric reached out and patted his father's shoulder awkwardly.

"…Every day… Every day…"

Cedric sucked in a breath, the words of the memory echoing in his head. You find yourself a nice witch and hold on tight…

It seemed that beneath all the boasting words and assurances his father really did care for his sense of wellbeing, if not happiness. And that included getting himself a nice witch and not wasting his youth… whatever that meant.

He looked to his father who had now abandoned the tumbler altogether; he was drinking straight out of the bottle, alcohol dribbling down his beard as he sat, slouched on the sofa that Cedric had previously vacated.

"…I…I'll be upstairs." Cedric spoke softly. With a slight nod his father dismissed him, blurry eyes blinking at his feet that were squeezed into the finest boots of dragon leather.

Cedric wasted no time in exiting. He resolutely avoided making eye contact with the enigma that was his reflection in the hallway mirror. And when his long legs took him to the curving staircase he took them two at a time up to his room.

He dived inside, door slamming behind him, and collapsed on his bed, still in his clothes. The pulsing in his head ceased slightly, and after a moment of simply lying there among the bed covers he sighed and got ready for bed.

After going about his nightly ritual of ablutions he sank into the soft expanse of his bed. Nudging away all thoughts of his father downstairs he pondered briefly on his problem: why had his peers started calling him Adonis (among other synonymous but more commonly recognised names)?

He knew someone who he could ask. And she wouldn't lie to him; she was actually notorious for her brazen truth around these parts.

He'd see her tomorrow.