Cedric spent much of his time in his room, sulking. If he didn't have nightmares about You-Know-Who, then he had them about losing Maddie, and he really didn't know which was worse. As far as he was concerned, from the sound of her letters, she was already lost.

The night before, he had dreamt that she had run off to be with Harry again, but then she was murdered by You-Know-Who. As Cedric held her lifeless body in his arms, begging Harry to do something to revive her, You-Know-Who finished off Harry, leaving Cedric with nothing to do but sob. He awoke in a cold sweat, screaming yet again, with the visions of the wand in his face, the sinister voice saying the words.

Kill the spare.

His mother came in then, begging him to go back to sleep, but his father was markedly absent.

Cedric fell asleep again after being forced to drink more potion. When he awoke the next morning, both of his parents were gone, but he found a note from his mother on the kitchen table: Cedric, your father had to go into work early and I had a few errands to run. We'll be back later. Mum.

He went to the cupboard, found a box of cereal, and poured himself some, sitting down at the table and staring at his breakfast. He wasn't terribly hungry; besides, his mind was in fifty different places and the bowl before him was not one. It wasn't until he was halfway through that he realized he forgot to pour the milk. Those days, it seemed he'd forget his head if it wasn't attached.

When he was finished eating, his mind flashed to his friends, whom he hadn't spoken to in weeks. With his parents gone, he stole up the stairs to find his letters from his friends that his father had hidden again. If his father had simply stuck them back into his briefcase, he'd never find them…

But then, in the second drawer of his dad's sock drawer, he found them all, held together by some twine. Greedily he took them out of the drawer and headed down to the breakfast table yet again. It took nearly half an hour to read them all. From just the two days since his argument with his father, three more letters had arrived, one from Joseph and two more from Christopher O'Malley.

Though his friends expressed concern over him and Christopher O'Malley made many requests to talk to him, Cho's letter made Cedric roll his eyes. She was asking about how he was feeling and said that she couldn't stop thinking about him. The parchment smelled strongly of perfume.

He was a little surprised when, a short while later, there was a rap on the window. It seemed a little late for the post…

But the tan owl outside the window wasn't from the post office. It was Olive—Maddie's bird.

Cedric scrambled to the window, opened it, and took the note from the bird. It took off without giving him a second glance.

The note from Maddie was just that: a note. No envelope, no long messages, no salutation or valediction, nothing but four words written on the scrap of parchment:

Please talk to me.

His heart… It was as though it had shattered into a million pieces. Apparently, she had given up hope that he'd respond, and did he blame her? As much as he loved her, he had certainly been a lousy boyfriend lately.

No, not just lately. He would never forgive himself for wanting to keep their love a secret and for cheating on her. He wondered whether Maddie and Cho were even still affected by it.

Cedric went looking for some parchment and a quill. When he finally found one, he scrawled a quick note in response to hers: Be here by eleven o'clock.

He stole into his parents' room yet again, finding his father's owl, Leo, in his cage. Leo squawked loudly when Cedric entered. The owl and the boy were not too fond of one another, though that may have been in part due to the creature's age and disconcerted appearance. One of the bird's wings was much shorter than the other and his feathers were slightly geographical. Cedric wondered whether he would survive the journey, even if it was just a round trip next door. Still, it was worth a shot.

He suddenly remembered how little he liked his father's bird when he tried to take it out of the cage. It bit him sharply on the finger before he had a decent grip on the stupid thing. He gritted his teeth, grabbed it with one hand, and stuck it under his arm. Leo flapped his wings, squawked loudly, and clamped his beak down repeatedly on Cedric's arm in protest. When they went down the stairs, Cedric forced the window open and tried to shove Leo out of it, but the bird continued to protest violently.

"Come on," Cedric snapped. "This is important. Take that next door—take that to Braiden." He didn't imagine that Leo would recognize Maddie's name, but he was scared that the letter would end up in Braiden Lewis's hands and not his daughter's. He finally succeeded on shoving the owl out the window, letting out a groan as he did so. Why his father had adopted such a violent bird was beyond him.

Cedric watched as Leo flapped haphazardly, crossing his fingers. If the letter even got next door, it'd be a miracle. Luckily, though, Leo made the journey there in one piece—and even got the note to the proper recipient, as evidenced by the way he fell awkwardly in through Maddie's open bedroom window. Cedric ducked away from the window then, changing out of his pajamas into some normal clothes and sitting down at the table again. He was there in time to see Leo swoop back into the house—who decided it was time for an air attack on Cedric's head.

"Get—the hell—away from me," he snapped, watching the bird disappear up the stairs. God, we have to kill that stupid thing.

With the bird gone, he could finally focus on what was at hand. First, though, he shut the window, feeling a cool breeze, then resumed his spot at the table. He kept his eyes on the clock, unable to keep still. There was no way of knowing if Maddie was even going to show up—although Merlin knew he wanted her to—but he kept waiting regardless. If his father found out about this, they'd both be in some deep trouble.

But that thought was pushed from his mind and his heart nearly beat out of his chest when, at precisely eleven o'clock, there was a knock at the door.

Maddie.

He hadn't seen her in nearly two weeks. He therefore walked to the door on shaky legs, his heart hammering inside his chest. Before he opened the door, he looked in the mirror beside the entranceway, checking to see if he looked alright. To his great surprise, he looked like he hadn't slept in weeks, then wondered if he was presentable enough for her. What are you doing? It's just Maddie. She's known you for almost ten years now.

But the problem was that it wasn't just Maddie; it was that she was Maddie, and that his heart started hammering wildly in his chest when he saw her, and he felt so much more at ease around her, and he wanted nothing more than to spend every possible second with her.

He finally opened the door. Tears nearly sprang to his eyes when he saw her, partly due to the sad look in her own eyes but also because she was there. She looked almost as though she was afraid to touch him, so he practically leapt forward and took her in his arms, pulling her into the house as he embraced her. "Baby." He wanted to kiss her senseless, standing right there, but all he had the energy to do was say, "I've missed you…"

Maddie broke out of his grasp at that. "Then why haven't you tried to talk to me?" Now her voice matched her eyes: full of hurt.

He looked down at her, suddenly remembering what he had to do, and felt his heart shatter into two pieces. "Can we talk?" he asked as he shut the door.

"You're not going to tell me you don't love me anymore, are you?"

"What?" Then he suddenly realized what she meant: he hadn't contacted her at all in nearly two weeks, and back in November when he completely ruined their relationship, he had said something very similar to bring up Cho to her. "Oh, Merlin, no, sweetheart. No, I would never. It's just…" He didn't want to say it. Not now, not when he was finally looking at her, face to face, instead of in his photograph. "Do you want to sit down?"

"Oh—sure."

He laced his fingers with hers and led her up the stairs to his bedroom, sitting her down on his bed. Unable to wait any longer, he sat down next to her and took her chin in his hand, gently pushing his lips against hers. She folded against him, and before he could realize what was happening, they were kissing passionately. She placed her hands on his neck and he put one hand on the small of her back, the other between her shoulder blades. He had not kissed her in so long that now, he was not in a big hurry to end it. But then he remembered what he had brought her here for.

He finally placed the last kiss on her lips and said, "I've missed doing that so much, you know. I haven't stopped loving you."

"I haven't, either."

"Please remember that, okay? That I love you?"

"Why? What's going on?"

He avoided eye contact with her, instead taking one of her small hands in his and squeezing it. "Look, the reason that I haven't talked to you is that I don't have permission to. My parents don't want me to leave the house because of You Know Who. I'm not allowed to leave."

"I'm not, either," she said, and it took a moment for him to fully grasp what she was saying: by being in his presence, she was breaking the rules. If she was caught, she wouldn't just be punished for seeing him, but also because she had left the safety of her home.

"And my dad…well… My dad and I had a fight, see. We were talking about—about you and me being together. And he said that if we didn't break up…that I wouldn't be his son anymore."

She was listening attentively to what he was saying, apparently understanding what he was saying. This was evidenced by the horrified look on her face. A wizard disowning his child was almost unheard of; it was perhaps the biggest insult in the entire wizarding world, and not something to be taken lightly.

"So what you're saying is…"

He didn't want to say it. But what choice did they have? "That for the time being…we can't be together."

Tears slipped out of her eyes, but she nodded all the same. "I kind of expected that."

"But that doesn't mean that I don't love you," he clarified quickly. "Maddie, listen to me." He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it, placing his other hand on the nape of her neck. "I'm only doing this to protect you. I know that your parents have forbidden you from seeing me, too. I don't want you to get into any trouble on my behalf. I'm not worth that."

She was still crying even after this speech. Time for one last approach.

"At the very least, we can be together while we're at Hogwarts. Nothing is stopping us there."

"It just felt like a dream."

Maddie had spoken quietly, but Cedric had heard her loud and clear.

"What feels like a dream?"

"Felt. Our…you…me…" She struggled for a moment with what to say, but she took a deep breath at long last and came out with, "What we had felt like a dream. I never wanted to wake up…but it feels like I just have." Fresh tears sprang to her eyes at the conclusion of this speech.

Seeing how much she was hurting, he stood up and turned away (seeing her in pain broke his heart), staring at the floor where it was illuminated from his open window. "It's my fault, baby."

"Cedric, don't say that…"

"It is my fault. Look, Mad, if I hadn't told you that I fancied you two years ago… If I had just let you live your life, this wouldn't be happening. Your parents wouldn't be looking at you like you were a…" He couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence. As he thought about all the times he stared into her eyes (the windows to her soul), there was no way he could match this description—this horrible description, the one he feared people at school had about her—with someone so pure and innocent. There was no way that he could say the word that was in his mind—not about her—so he just continued, "And my dad wouldn't be keeping me under house arrest… This wouldn't be…"

"Cedric," she said to interrupt him. He finally looked at her; his already broken heart was made even worse when he saw that tears were still running down her face. He sat down next to her, tilting her head down and pulling her close to him. He kissed her forehead, wanting to calm her down some, but also desperate for the way that she usually made him feel: unbelievably happy. Before he could say anything, she said, "That's one way to look at it, but if you hadn't said anything, we wouldn't be here now."

"That's what I'm saying," he said sadly.

"No, I mean, we wouldn't be here. With each other. We would have never fallen in love with each other. We'd still be wondering if we were meant to only be friends. We probably would have settled for someone else…and we'd probably be so unhappy."

There was definitely truth to the statement—and Cedric definitely had to say that being in love with Maddie was perhaps the most amazing feeling he had ever felt in his life. But was it worth putting her into so much trouble?

He took one of her hands in his, squeezing it gently. "I will fight for you."

"What?"

"I don't want anyone else. I just want you. And yeah, maybe feelings change and there's a chance that one day, none of this will have mattered, but right now, in this moment, I want you and I love you, and I will fight to have you."

"You will…"

"No matter what you think, you're not just some girl who grew up next door to me. You are so much more than that to me."

They were kissing again, and no matter how many electric sparks Cedric could feel on his lips—no matter how safe Maddie felt in his embrace—no matter how close the two of them got to each other, both was positive that kissing was much nicer when neither party was crying.

But it was hard to not be kissing (or crying) when they hadn't seen each other in nearly a fortnight.

How were they so compatible? How could such simple contact with one another bring so much joy? How did they—two childhood best friends—end up here? And how was it that it just felt exactly right?

Cedric was still desperate for more when Maddie stopped him, asking, "Are you sure I was your first?"

"I beg your pardon?" His hands had been holding her face while they were kissing, but they fell to his lap when she had this outburst.

"Your first kiss? Because you're a little too good at it for me to believe that."

He smiled at her, though he knew their time together was going to be short. "I'm sure. I wanted to save it, for someone who was really important to me. And honestly, when we first kissed—you know how people say that it's something really amazing, that there are fireworks and it's really exhilarating? And that's how you know that they're someone special?"

"You felt that?" she guessed.

He nodded. "I don't know if you remember, but before we kissed the first time, I said I didn't know if I wanted to date you, not because I wasn't sure how I felt about you, but because I thought it'd be complicated. But after that, I knew. I knew that you were worth it."

"Maybe it's a good thing you admitted how you felt after all, then."

Cedric wanted to nod, but instead he held Maddie's neck in one hand and her hand in the other, capturing her top lip between both of his, just as they had been discussing. His stomach gave a familiar twinge, but it wasn't painful. It was a pleasant feeling, and he could feel every sense come alive as he held Maddie's hand—and as he connected of her in such an intimate way.

"It definitely was," he said when they finally separated. "Because I love you, Mad."

"I love you, too, Cedric."

Even though he didn't want to bring it back up, he had to get back to why he had brought her here. "I don't ever want you to forget that. Do not ever forget that I love you, that you mean the world to me… That kissing you feels like heaven, and that you are the most amazing woman in the world. Even if we can't see each other for the rest of summer, I love you, baby."

"Oh, right." Tears were forming in her big green eyes again, and Cedric squeezed her hand especially tight.

"I know things look bleak right now," he said, "but I promise you, even if I have to wait until the first of September to tell you again, I will not stop loving you while we're apart. And this is killing me to tell you just as much as I'm sure it hurts to hear, but we just…can't be together right now. And I promise I will not stop loving you because you are my heaven and I…"

"Cedric Amos Diggory, what in the hell is going on?"

Cedric looked up and saw, in horror, his father standing in the doorway.

"Dad," Cedric gasped in shock, jumping up off his bed. "Dad, I can explain…"

"You take your hands off of that girl right now."

Cedric looked down and realized that when he stood up, he had pulled Maddie with him from his failure to let go of her hand. He dropped it as though electrocuted, then threw his hands up like he was under arrest. "Dad, I promise you, it's not what it looks like…"

Amos ignored him, pointing a finger at Maddie, who stared back at him unblinkingly. "You know, Braiden—your father, and someone I respect very much—told me yesterday that his daughter was to never come near my son ever again. And what a surprise it'll be for me to tell him what's going on."

"Dad, don't you dare tell him anything—she didn't do anything wrong, it was all my doing…"

Amos wasn't listening to it, instead glowering at Maddie, whose cheeks were glistening from her tears. "You," he said in a voice barely above a whisper but ten times colder, "get out of my house right now."

She stared at the ground and darted out of the room around him. Cedric followed after her, shoving his way past his father, calling, "Maddie, wait…"

The door slammed shut behind her.

Cedric stared after it for a moment, then turned around and went directly back up the stairs.

"Where do you think you're going, young man?" his father asked, following closely behind him.

"Somewhere far away from you," Cedric spat vehemently.

"Do you not understand what's going on? Do you not get it?" Cedric had opened the door to his bedroom at this point. He wanted to slam the door violently but, hearing that his father was still following after him, left it open as he sat down on his bed. "You want to see what's being written in the Prophet? Fine. Have a nice, good look at it!"

His father pulled the paper out of a pocket of his work clothes (Cedric suddenly remembered his mother's note; he had gone into work early that day, so he must have come home early as well), shoving it at his son. Cedric snatched it out of his father's hand, looking to see what was written there.

TRIWIZARD CHAMPION AND GIRLFRIEND MOST POPULAR WARLOCKS

HAVE BEEN M.I.A. SINCE HARRY POTTER'S OUTLANDISH STATEMENTS

CHRISTOPHER O'MALLEY

Jul. 10, 1995

All four champions from the Triwizard Tournament have gone into a kind of seclusion following co-winner Harry Potter (14)'s announcement that He Who Must Not Be Named has returned. Unfortunately, that means the wizard world's it couple, Cedric Diggory, 17, and Maddie Lewis, 13, have also been missing in action.

Ace reporter Christopher O'Malley had just one moment with Diggory on Tuesday morning, who gave O'Malley the time of day just to tell him, "It's too early to say just yet what might happen in the future. I must ask that you respect our privacy from now on." He refused to make a comment on anything else happening in the wizarding world.

Friends of the couple disagree, as evidenced by comment from Diggory's best friend Joseph Dawson, 17: "He may say that it's all fun and games now, but most of us think that they're probably a lot more serious than they let on." But when asked just what nature the relationship might be, Dawson's only comment was, "They might be engaged as we speak. But I wouldn't know. Cedric's been really secretive all summer."

If only Diggory, Potter's co-winner in the Tournament, would realize that witches everywhere just can't get enough of the grey eyed Adonis, he might not be so secretive. The six foot one chiseled soon-to-be Hogwarts seventh year, who was sorted into Hufflepuff at the age of eleven, has certainly caught the attention of adolescent witches across Britain. From his tall, muscular frame to his eloquent speech, Diggory has stolen some hearts…including that of girlfriend Maddie Lewis.

MADDIE LEWIS: INNOCENT GIRLFRIEND OR SECRET SEDUCTRESS?

What strikes Diggory fans everywhere is that his leading lady is a month shy of fourteen, a respectable difference of his seventeen years…

Cedric stopped reading at this point, unable to think much else besides the fact that it seemed like Christopher O'Malley was in love with him, too. This explained Joseph's letter from yesterday, then, that he didn't speak to any reporters.

"That's not the only one, either," his father said, his arms folded over his chest, as Cedric lowered the paper. "I've got loads more if you're interested. Why in the name of Merlin would you speak to a reporter?"

"How the hell was I supposed to speak to a reporter if I haven't left the house all summer?"

"Haven't left the house? Then explain what she was doing here."

"She happens to have a name, Dad, and in case it slipped your notice, Maddie was here. I wasn't at her house at all."

"Then how did she know to come here? Just stopped by for a visit despite her father's wishes?"

Cedric stood up and pulled back his sleeve, showing all the scars from Leo's bites and his talons scraping Cedric's flesh. "I took your bloody bird and sent her a letter. You know, those things my friends have been sending to me that you've been keeping for yourself? What were you planning on doing with them, kindling a fire?"

"That's enough! For Merlin's sake, Cedric, you can stop acting like I'm doing some great injustice against you!"

"Well, you are! Can't you just forget about all of this and let me be happy for five minutes? Is that too much to ask?"

"When you sneak around behind my back and deliberately disobey me by bringing your little girlfriend into this house after I forbade you from seeing her…"

"You know what? I brought her over here to break up with her, just like you told me to do! And now when I do that, I'm still in trouble? I don't understand what I have to do to please you anymore!"

Amos froze. "You broke up with her?" he said hopefully.

Cedric nodded, though his face was still screwed up in distaste. "If you had walked in about five seconds earlier, you might have heard me say that we couldn't be together. Unless you've got selective hearing, too."

From the way Cedric turned back to his bed and sat down on it, glaring at the floor, he was done with the conversation. With that, Amos turned and left the room, feeling horribly surprised at this little development. As much as he wanted his son to stop acting so disobedient and maybe just mature a little bit, he wasn't actually expecting Cedric to go out and sever ties with her entirely.

Well…it's for the better. You know that.

He still couldn't help but feel a little unnerved by what had just happened.


Sorry that this chapter sucks and is probably heartbreaking but still isn't as heartbreaking as I had intended I'm sorry— On the bright side, it is almost April, which means that (hopefully) my schedule is clearing up!

I've included some links on my profile to outside websites (besides FanFiction, I mean) where you can reach me. I had something I was going to say here and now I forgot and I'm sad with myself. :( Oh um please note that the next chapter may have references to sex. Not between our two favorite characters and nothing too explicit, but I really haven't decided yet if I'll include it or not. The next chapter is also going to be super long, so if it takes me a while to put it up, it's probably just because it's taking a long time to write. Or I don't have time. Either, or. Please review!

- Hatter of Madness