I've changed a few things more that happened in the books for this chapter. Mostly involving Jay and Cedric.
"Jay!" He frowned, pushing away the annoying hands on his head. Opening his eyes, Jay squinted up at Cedric, who was leaning over him. He tried to get up, but Cedric was holding him down.
"Dude, get off me." He said, sitting up.
"Are you alright?" Cedric asked, frowning at him. Jay blinked at him until his vision cleared some.
"What the hell?" He looked up at the stairs.
"Come with me, Mr. Winchester." McGonagall spoke up, stepping up behind Cedric. Jay watched her.
"Where?" He asked, rolling his eyes and standing up, putting a hand on Cedric's shoulder when he swayed slightly and his vision blurred again. "I'm fine."
"I see." McGonagall said, glancing at his head. Jay reached up and touched the back of his head, grimacing at the pounding in his skull. His fingers came back bloody.
"Well," he said when his stomach rolled, "concussion I guess."
"Which is why you will follow me to the hospital wing." Jay sighed and did follow her when she started away. Cedric walked beside him, staying close in case he wavered again.
"What happened?" He asked after a minute. Jay shrugged and looked after McGonagall.
"I don't know. That stair case doesn't seem to like me much." Cedric frowned at him.
"What?" Jay just shrugged again.
He was fine, just a concussion and some bruises. Madam Pomphrey fixed him up in only a couple of minutes. The next morning at breakfast, he looked over at Cedric when he dropped down in the seat opposite him.
"Where's Hayden?" He asked. Cedric shrugged.
"He said he wasn't feeling well. He was actually acting sort of odd yesterday, too."
"Odd how?"
"Quiet, I guess." Jay stared at Cedric.
"Dude, Hayden is always quiet." Cedric rolled his eyes.
"More than usual then." He said. Jay shrugged a little and went back to his meal. Actually he had noticed it a little too. Even though he and Hayden were friends, he still didn't talk to him nearly as much as Hermione or Cedric, though.
He was right when he said that Hayden was quiet a lot. He was a bit on the shy side and Jay always thought that Cedric was the only reason that Hayden had even talked to either of them on the train ride to Hogwarts.
He wondered how they had become friends, but Cedric was possibly the nicest guy that Jay had ever met. He was good natured and out going and Jay was positive that it was impossible for anyone to dislike Cedric.
Well, maybe not anyone. The only people he knew of that did were people like Malfoy and his friends. Then again, they seemed to hate anyone who wasn't in Slytherin. Jay was still convinced that Cedric could charm Snape into switching his house to Gryffindor if he wanted.
Maybe Hayden didn't want to hang out with them anymore because of the hate Jay was still getting for hiding who he was. Cedric was good at smoothing things over, and Hermione was standing by his side.
Hermione herself was getting a little bit of her own hate, though. She was the smartest first year there, and Jay had to admit that at times she came off as a little bit of a know it all, but she was a great friend. All in all, he would say he was pretty lucky that he'd met them both first.
Flying practice went off without a hitch. They had been paired with the Ravenclaws for it, something that Jay was grateful for. He felt sort of sorry for Cedric and Hayden, who were paired with the Slytherins for theirs.
When he came down to dinner that night, though, he noticed he way that several of the people at the Hufflepuff table who had never really been overly friendly with Cedric were talking to him now, and as he came in, he saw Malfoy walking away from Cedric looking angrier than he had ever been.
"What's going on?" Jay asked when Cedric and Hayden sat down across from them. Cedric, to his surprise, actually colored and looked down.
"It's nothing." He mumbled.
"Nothing, right." Hayden snorted. Cedric shrugged.
"It's not a big deal." He said, looking thoroughly embarrassed for some reason.
"What's not a big deal?" Jay asked, talking to Hayden this time because he wasn't sure if Cedric was actually going to tell him.
"He got a spot on the Quidditch team." Hayden announced, but in a low voice so that Jay and Hermione were the only ones who heard. Jay's eyes widened.
"What? How?" Again, Cedric didn't answer, but Hayden told them both the story of how Malfoy had somehow grabbed something of Cedric's and flew off with it, prompting Cedric to give chase.
"Wow." Jay said, looking over at Cedric, impressed. Cedric was almost as adamant about the rules as Hermione, though for different reasons. It surprised him that he'd do something like that, even more so than the fact that Cedric had ended up getting a spot on the Quidditch team when he'd gone after Malfoy.
"So, you break the rules, and end up getting rewarded?" Hermione asked incredulously. Jay put a hand on Hermione's elbow under the table though and gave her a look, basically telling her to shut up.
Cedric simply shrugged, not answering her, but Jay wondered what it was that Malfoy had gotten from him that made him do it. Jay didn't know much about Cedric's home life, but he did know his father was a little strict. It was probably something big.
When someone from Cedric's house passed by and patted him on the shoulder again, congratulating him, Cedric mumbled another thank you and then excused himself almost instantly.
That was another thing that Jay noticed about Cedric. Compliments or praise seemed to embarrass him more than anything. It was odd, considering the fact that Cedric was just as smart as Hermione.
"I'll see you guys later." Jay said, getting up and following Cedric out of the great hall. He searched for a while and was going to give up, figuring that Cedric went back to his own common room when he finally spotted him outside, near the lake.
"Hey." He said, walking closer and sitting down. Cedric had his knees pulled up and his arms wrapped around them. He looked over at Jay and gave a small smile.
"Hey."
"You want to be alone?" Jay asked after a moment. "I mean, I could..." He gestured back to the castle.
"No, it's fine." Cedric was holding what looked like a small snow globe in his hands with a picture in the center of it. He offered it to Jay. The picture in the center was of a woman with the same color hair as Cedric holding a small child, who was obviously Cedric.
"My mum." Cedric said, taking it back, and looking at the picture for a moment. "She died when I was little."
"Sorry." Cedric shrugged.
"I barely remember her." Jay nodded and they both fell silent. He figured he could at least be there. After all, he knew what it was like to grow up without a mother. Not that he had ever complained, and he didn't remember his own mom at all.
"Malfoy said something?" Jay asked after a few minutes.
"I know I shouldn't let him get to me." Cedric shifted a little uncomfortably. "He knows how she died, though. My family's pureblood after all." Anger spiked up in Jay and his dislike for Malfoy grew.
"Ass." He growled. Jay had grown up in public schools; it wasn't like he hadn't met kids like that before. Still, most kids, even eleven year old bullies, didn't make fun of another person's tragedies.
"Yes." Cedric smiled at him. Jay smiled back at him and scooted slightly closer before turning back to the lake.
Jay knew that Cedric wasn't exactly comfortable after that with the attention he would be getting with being on the team, but even he admitted that the expression on Malfoy's face when he found out was worth it.
"You shouldn't be like that." Hermione said once when they were sitting in the common room doing homework. "He did break the rules." Jay sighed.
"Hermione, he had good reason." He didn't elaborate and he wouldn't. He would never tell what Cedric had told him, but he didn't want Hermione to go lecturing him when he'd only done it because Malfoy had insulted his mother's memory. "And Malfoy is an ass. He deserves to get that smirk slapped off his face."
"Oh, fine." She gave a sigh of her own. "Don't curse, Jay."
"It's your own fault." Hermione lectured at breakfast the day before Halloween as Jay banged his head on the table a few times.
"Hermione, no lectures." Cedric spoke up, sitting down across from them. "I would think spending the night with Snape would be enough punishment."
"Well, if you hadn't cursed in class-"
"Hermione, please don't go all McGonagall on me. I get it, I'm an idiot. Could we please not talk about it anymore?" Having detention the day before Halloween wasn't going to be fun.
Really, Hermione was partially right. He'd been surprised, though, he couldn't help it. He'd been working next to Ron Weasely and Malfoy had thought it was a funny idea to throw things into the boy's cauldron whenever Snape turned his back, though Jay figured that maybe Snape knew and just didn't do anything about it.
When Ron's potion had exploded, he'd been a little startled and maybe he'd let out a string of curses that would have had his dad red-faced when some of the burning liquid had splashed onto his arms.
He may have directed some of those towards Malfoy as well. So, now not only had he spent some time in the hospital wing but he also would be spending the night in the dungeons with Snape. So, yeah, he really didn't see the need for lectures.
Jay stretched outside of Snape's office. It was late and he had spent far too much time scrubbing cauldrons. He was about to start walking again when he heard a crash from inside the bathroom.
Frowning, Jay pushed the door open and froze. The thing in the bathroom was huge, and he wasn't sure what it was. Ugly, though, with a club in hand. Jay was about to run in the other direction when he saw something else on the other side of the bathroom.
Snape was lying unconscious on the ground, blood matting his dark hair. The thing was standing over him, holding the club high.
"Damn." Jay breathed, getting out his wand. Looking around, he grabbed a hold of the small metal trash can to the side and flung it as hard as he could, hitting the thing in the back. Jay swallowed when the thing turned around, confused and focused its eyes on him.
"I am so screwed." He whispered as he backed up, gripping his wand in one hand.
