A/N : I know that the next chapter of this story wasn't due for another two days, but I had some time to myself over the last few hours and I suddenly got a lot of inspiration for where to take this story. Thanks for viewing. Hugs.

Harry had been staring at himself in the mirror of the first floor boy's bathroom for the best part of 10 minutes.

Lessons had started, he should be in Potions with Professor Snape, but

A. He hadn't stopped crying until a few minutes ago

B. He sat next to Cedric in potions.

Once Harry had calmed down enough, splashed the ice cold water onto his face enough to numb the red puffy skin around his eyes he'd taken to staring blankly into the mirror, watching the red flush gradually fade from his face.

The horizontal crack that ran jaggedly down the entire mirror from right to left divided his face into two parts, each side perfect symmetrical apart from the jagged scar that ran down his forehead on one side. It was two shades of skin darker than the rest of his peach-pale face and it stood out starkly under the bright glaring lights in the bathroom.

Harry sighed, and then hiccupped.

Harry grimaced against the deep stab of pain he felt as his inner voice repeated the boy's name again and again.

He'd only known him two days, why did he feel like he knew everything about him?

They'd barely spoken, barely even spent any real time together.

Well, Harry admitted.

They had spent time together, but Harry had been unconscious for the entire time.

Harry wondered idly what Cedric had done in the hours that he'd been sat with Harry. Had he sat next to him and watched him sleep? Read a book?
Or had he indeed gone to bed and come back before Harry had woken up.

No, he hadn't slept, that much Harry was sure of, no one could have slept and looked that tired. Had he sat there and planned how to ask Harry if it would be okay to lie about Hannah?

It felt like there was a heavy chain attached to Harry Cedric was pulling on it, Harry was constantly connected to him and Cedric was always somewhere in his brain, tugging gently to constantly make him think about him.
It was stupid.
There was no good reason that Harry had become this attached to someone in two days. It was foolish. Totally, totally foolish.

Harry balled his fists, pushing indignation, anger and sadness away from the front of his mind.

Maybe it wasn't a chain connecting Harry to Cedric. Perhaps it was a chain to imprison Harry, forcibly keep him from getting away from him. It must be the latter if Cedric would do this to him.

Harry sighed and resigned himself, in a snap decision to go to Potions.

He'd pretend to be totally fine.

He did it before when Ron had shot him down, and he would do it again this time with Cedric.
He'd work on gradually sawing through the thick metal of the emotional chain that attached him, and eventually, he would be freed again, just like he was from Ron.

Harry fixed his glasses on his nose, forced himself to smile into the mirror, then turned and left the bathroom.

Harry arrived to Potions twenty minutes late.

As he opened the door, Professor Snape turned and with a sneer, deducted 20 points from Gryffindor. A point for each minute, he said.

As he silently walked to his seat, every set of eyes in the room followed him.

From the back of the class, Ron and Hermione gave him confused, quizzical looks, but he simply shook his head and mouthed the word "later" to them.

When he reached the desk in front of his own, he saw Cedric for the first time.

Harry had been trying to avoid looking for, or at the boy.

But, as soon as Harry's eyes took in the Copper hair of Cedric's head that was bent low over his parchment, Harry felt the stab of pain again and the chain attached to his heart received a particularly hard tug.

He didn't look at Cedric as he sat down, opened his bag and pulled out some parchment, a quill and a bottle of ink.
He was glad that the lesson was not a practical, the room was silent aside from the scratching of Quills and Harry didn't have any reason to look at or communicate with the boy next to him.

He'd written roughly six lines of notes about a potion that Egyptian wizards use to turn Sand into water when a small, perfectly folded paper plane came to rest next to him.
He looked up.

Snape was bent over another student's work, muttering quietly to her and pointing to something she'd written, so Harry quickly unfolded the note and began to read :

Harry,

What the hell happened to you? Are you okay? Ron and I heard a horrible rumour about you being there when Hannah got hurt? Why were you in the medical wing all night? Tell us everything.

Hermione.

As soon as Harry had finished reading the words, they began to fade from the enchanted paper.
Harry thought about how much to tell them.

Should he tell them that Cedric was there?
No, he promised he wouldn't.

Harry looked up to check that Snape wasn't anywhere near again, and began to write a message back to them;

Ron&Hermione,

Saw Pansy in a hallway last night, interrupted something and she hit me. Next minute heard scream from hallway and found Hannah's body. Fainted and McGonagall took me to M.B. Woke up early and went for a walk. Talk later.

Harry.

It was a short response, but it was as close to the truth as he could get without mentioning couldn't help himself, he glanced up at Cedric's face for a split second.

Cedric eyes were looking down, at the note.

He'd been reading every word as soon as Harry wrote it. His eyes that were usually such a bright and shining grey were now the dull, dead colour of a thick, malevolent rain cloud.

His cherry red lips were pressed into a tight line and for a moment, Harry thought that it looked that Cedric was close to tears.

But then, Harry was looking back at the paper aeroplane, watching as it refolded itself and then threw itself away from the desk, and then began to glide swiftly and stealthily back to the couple that had sent it.

Over the next ten minutes of quiet working, Harry became aware of the closeness of Cedric's body to his own. The skin of Cedric's arm was pressing gently against his own. Cedric must have been sat right on the edge of his seat, and leaning far across into Harry's half of the table.

Harry could actually feel Cedric's body moving closer to him, infinitesimal amounts of movement every couple of seconds or so.

Less than a minute later, Harry nearly fell of his chair when in shock when Cedric's whispered voice ghosted onto his ear from less than a inch away.

The feeling of Cedric's cool breath on his cheek sent a shiver up Harry's spine, and his heart began to beat extremely hard and fast in response.

"Meet me tonight by the lake after dinner. I promise.." Cedric brushed his lips against the skin of Harry's neck just the slightest amount, and then he spoke again, his voice so quiet that no one apart from Harry could even tell he was speaking, " I will explain everything to you."

As he moved his face away, his hand gripped Harry's own hand for less than a second, then he sat back on the centre of his own chair, and went back to his own work.

Harry felt like he'd just fallen into a parallel universe. Completely confused, the warmth that the almost kiss on his neck and brief handhold had caused lingered and made the skin on his arms pucker into goosebumps.

Harry didn't write another word for the entire lesson. Harry's brain seemed to be glitching, unable to think of anything else except the way his body had responded to Cedric and the feel of Cedric's lips on his skin. He simply sat, and stared at his parchment.

A ghost of Cedric followed Harry around for the rest of the day, completely and utterly destroying his ability to concentrate on anything in the rest of his lessons. Professor McGonagall smiled encouragingly at him as he unsuccessfully managed to transfigure his teacup into a saucer. She clearly thought his distraction was shock from Hannah's death and she marked him high despite his failed attempt.

He ate nothing at lunch, instead putting five pieces of chewing gum into his mouth. His stomach was in too many knots and the peppermint soothed his nerves a little bit as he left the warmth of the Great Hall and headed out in the direction of the lake.

There was never really any doubt that Harry would go to see Cedric, even though Ron and Hermione had told Harry that Cedric would probably just be going to cause more trouble. (They had eventually weaselled out of Harry the full version of what had happened, and despite the guilt that Harry felt for going back on his word to Cedric, he'd made Ron and Hermione both swear on their families that they would not breathe a word to anyone else.)

The chain around Harry's heart was almost dragging him towards the expanse of cold, black water that gave nothing away about the strange creatures that lurked within it.

Going too near the edge of the lake made Harry nervous, but he'd spent plenty of hot, lazy days in summer nearby to it, enjoying the cool breeze that came off of it's onyx surface.

The sun had almost completely dropped below the line of the forbidden forest, and almost all the sunlight had faded from the sky. Harry shivered uncomfortably in the near darkness.

Where was Cedric?

Harry couldn't see a thing, the half-light was rapidly fading into pitch blackand he was half scared that he'd walk into the lake without realising, but this worry was cut off when a hand gently wrapped around his waist and hugged him.

Harry jumped and struggled for a moment, but at the sound of Cedric's voice, he relaxed.

"I wanted to make sure we wouldn't be disturbed." Cedric said as he released Harry.

Harry didn't say anything, he didn't know where to direct his words. It was pitch black now, and Harry's eyes were useless. Cedric spoke from behind him.

"Harry, the reason I asked you to cover for me wasn't because I didn't want to be gossiped about."

Harry snorted, disbelieving.

Silence. More Silence.

Even more silence.

Suddenly Harry was moving.

Cedric had grabbed his arm and had pulled him into a tight hug.

Harry gasped slightly as Cedric hugged him closer to his body.

"I'll show you why, then." he said.

Harry felt an electric shock pass through his body as Cedric muttered a spell that Harry didn't recognise.

Harry's vision shifted out of focus and then back in again, and suddenly he could see every single detail of their surroundings perfectly, everything the same bright shade of emerald.

Magical night-vision. Cool.

Cedric looked both astonishingly beautiful and disturbingly creepy now.

The green tinge make his skin look luminescent in the darkness, and his eyes sparkled like they were on fire with black flames.

Suddenly, Harry wanted to scream.

Not because Harry was shocked by the magic or by the look of Cedric's ghostly body in the greeny darkness.

It was because of what Cedric was holding.

He was standing perfectly still, his eyes fixed on Harry, and in his hand was a long, wickedly sharp looking knife.

Cedric raised his knife hand above his head. From this distance, Cedric could easily get a deep slash in Harry's stomach.

Harry's whole body tensed in fear and his heart seemed to be trying to climb into his throat.

"This." Cedric said, "is why."

The knife came down, and Harry waited.

No deep pain came. There was nothing, it was silent around him.

Harry realised he'd shut his eyes when Cedric had brought the knife down.

He opened one eye and looked at Cedric.

Cedric was standing completely still again, the knife hand now back by his side, empty.
His other hand was held out towards Harry, palm upwards, as if reaching out towards him.

Harry could see the pale-green skin of his wrist and forearm, and for a moment Harry wondered if there had really been a knife at all.

But then, Cedric's wrist opened.

Blood began to well and run freely down his arm, merging into a small stream of black liquid and dripping down to his elbow then cascading to the ground.

"Cedric!" Harry shouted, stepping forward and reaching out towards the boy.

"Wait." He said, moving his wrist away from Harry's hands and holding it up next to his head as if he were going to wave.

Even as Harry watched, the flow of blood began to slow down and the deep cut that must have severed tendons and muscle, began to heal.

The blood and cut were completely gone in under a minute, the only evidence of it ever existing was the small trickle of blood that remained on Cedric's wrist and elbow. There wasn't even a scar.

Harry looked from Cedric's wrist back to Cedric's face.

He was smiling.

"Cedric.. I-"
"Have you worked it out, Harry?" Cedric asked.

Harry just stared at him, as dumbstruck as if Cedric had just slapped him.

"Pale skin all year round...The speed I used in potions class...My healing abilities..."

Cedric was nonchalantly ticking things off on his fingers, as casually as if discussing a list of things he bought on a shopping trip. As casually as if he hadn't just slashed his own wrist open, and smiled as the blood cascaded down his arm.

Harry shook his head. " I don't know what you're saying to me, Cedric.

Cedric made a frustrated sound.

"Harry." Cedric sounded annoyed and amused at the same time as he closed the gap between them and whispered into his ear.

"Bram Stoker got his inspiration from one of my ancestors"

A light clicked on in Harry's head.

He staggered backwards a few steps.

"You're a vampire?" Harry asked incredulously.

Cedric smiled and clapped his hands together.

"half Vampire." Cedric admitted.

"My father was a vampire, my mother a human." He motioned to his mouth. "No fangs, I don't need or want to drink blood." Cedric laughed at Harry's expression. " I don't explode in the sunlight, and I actually rather love a bit of Garlic in my food every now and again."
Harry gulped.
He should be scared. He should run away, and not look back.

So this is why he doesn't want anyone to know he was there.

Hannah got her throat ripped out. And Cedric is a vampire!#

Okay, half vampire.

"I was with you when Hannah died, Harry." Cedric said, as if he'd read Harry's mind.

"You know that I couldn't have murdered Hannah, but if it got out that I was with you and Hannah had died in that way... It might mean that I become suspect number one and the gossip at school would soon get to the ministry."

Harry nodded, finally understanding the conversation he'd heard between Cedric and McGonagall in the Sick bay.

"I hope this doesn't affect us,Harry." Cedric's voice was pained. His voice shook with vulnerability, and in that moment any fear Harry had felt at the word vampire faded away.

There was no way that Cedric could kill anyone. Harry didn't know how he knew, he just knew that Cedric wasn't that kind of person. And if Cedric didn't need to drink blood what did Harry have to be afraid of?

The chain attached to Harry's heart gave a little tug, reminding him that he hadn't spoke.

"There is an us?" Harry asked.

His heart was beating way too fast. If Cedric spoke, Harry wasn't sure he'd even be able to hear it over the sound of his heart slamming against his ribcage.

Harry was suddenly moving again. Cedric was pulling Harry towards his body, impossibly fast, lifting Harry's head and lowering his own in the same instant.

When Cedric's lips pressed against Harry's, every cell in Harry's body flared with heat, like he'd been suddenly set alight.

The kiss was gentle at first, but a moment later Cedric pressed his lips harder against Harry's, and then he withdrew and whispered into Harry's ear.

"Do you want there to be?"