Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter etc. etc. etc. You know the drill.
Gryffindor won the match. It was a close thing, though; Harry and Cho saw the Snitch at the same instant, and it was only thanks to Harry's superior broomstick that he managed to get to it first. At the devastated look on Cho's face Harry suddenly got the insane urge to drop the Snitch and offer to forfeit the match, but before he could open his mouth the Gryffindor team was descending on him, yelling congratulations and slapping him on the back, and Cho was flying over to join her disappointed teammates.
Harry changed slowly, ignoring the twins' excited yells and nodding dumbly when Angelina praised his excellent flying. None of his teammates seemed to notice the mood he was in; they were too busy celebrating.
When Harry left the changing rooms he saw that Cho was just coming out as well, and finally managed to throw off his excited teammates by pretending to stop and tie his shoe. "Party in the common room!" Fred yelled over his shoulder as they walked away. Harry nodded to show that he'd understood, and as soon as the others were out of earshot he stood and started walking over to Cho, though he had no idea what he'd say.
He was only halfway there, however, when he saw Cedric coming down from the stands. As Harry watched he walked over to Cho and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, whispering something into her ear. Her face relaxed into a pretty smile as Cedric continued to talk to her, and Harry felt something in his gut begin to boil. They walked from the pitch arm in arm, and Harry, not wanting to see more, turned on his heel and strode back to the castle, thinking that if only he'd had his wand in his hand he might have hexed Cedric then and there.
He entered the Gryffindor common room to find a raucous party already in full swing, but for once Harry didn't feel like celebrating their Quidditch victory. Instead he grabbed a butterbeer and went to join Ron, who was sitting morosely in a corner. Neither of them spoke; Harry lifted the butterbeer to his mouth and took one long swallow. Ron simply stared into his cup as if he would have liked to drown himself in it.
"What is wrong with the two of you?" Fred had come up behind them and was leaning over the back of Ron's chair. "We won the bloody match, now you should be celebrating!"
"We only won because Harry got the Snitch before I could muck it up too badly. I'm rubbish," Ron moaned, burying his face in his hands. "What was I thinking, trying to play Quidditch? I'm going to resign from the team…"
"You'll do no such thing!" Angelina had heard; she was now standing behind them as well, wearing a scowl that would do Oliver Wood proud. "I signed you on as Keeper, didn't I? You could be a ruddy great player with a bit of training up, if you'd stop feeling sorry for yourself for five contiguous seconds," she snarled. "I want to see you at the next Quidditch practice and that's final." With that she turned her back on them and stalked away.
Harry and Ron looked at each other. "Bugger if I know what she's so upset about," Ron said. "You'd think she'd be glad to be rid of me…"
"You're not rubbish," Harry said firmly. "You just need more practice, that's all—"
"Oh yeah? Then why are you looking so miserable? You thought I was horrible too, didn't you?"
"No, I—" Harry groaned. He did not want to tell Ron about what was really upsetting him. "I'm still thinking of that article, that's all," he lied. "Malfoy kept talking about it before the game."
Skeeter's latest had been an account of Sirius's family history that had gone into far more detail than Harry wanted to know. In addition to an exhaustive description of the Black family's association with the Dark Arts, there had been several accounts of Sirius's childhood that Harry was sure his godfather would never have been willing to discuss with a reporter, especially Rita Skeeter.
"I never wanted you to find out that way," Sirius had moaned with his face in his hands.
"I didn't want to either," Harry had replied quietly. It seemed as if every new article Skeeter came out with drove them a little further apart.
After that, it seemed, there hadn't been anything more to say. They had both known the contents of the rest of the article: some statistic saying that those who had been abused as children were much more likely to become abusers themselves. Malfoy had been incessantly quoting it all week.
"That little git." To Harry's relief, Ron's miserable brooding was driven straight out of his head by his hatred of Malfoy. "I'd like to get ahold of him and—" he made a violent gesture.
As Ron continued to fantasize about things to do to Malfoy, Harry felt a momentary twinge of guilt for the lie. Though it was true he was still angry about the article, it had nothing to do with Harry's feeling of misery after the game.
"…and then I'm going to lure Malfoy off to the Shrieking Shack when no one else is around, and when I get him alone I'm going to get ahold of his head and…"
Harry nodded and laughed automatically, but somehow he couldn't stop thinking about Cho Chang.
The first Hogsmeade weekend of the year came hard on the heels of the first Quidditch match, and the Gryffindor team wasted no excuse to continue celebrating their victory. Harry openly joined them for the first time in his Hogwarts career, and remembered with gratitude how Sirius had signed his permission form.
He, Ron, and Hermione had been to Zonko's and Honeydukes and were just finishing up a drink of warm butterbeer in the Three Broomsticks when Harry looked up and saw Cedric Diggory making his way toward them through the crowd.
"Harry," he said, looking left and right as he reached the table. "Can I have a word?"
Harry did not want to see Cedric, did not want to talk to him, did not want to think about the fact that Cho fancied him. But then he remembered their conversation in the Owlery, and wondered whether Cedric had found out something about Skeeter. With that thought in mind he excused himself and followed Cedric outside.
They walked side by side down the main street of Hogsmeade. It was a bitingly chilly day, and there was almost no one else outside. Now that he had Harry alone, however, Cedric seemed oddly reluctant to talk. He kept glancing from side to side as though afraid there was someone who would overhear, and several times he opened his mouth and abruptly snapped it shut again.
Harry, who was admittedly feeling less than charitable toward Cedric at the moment, found himself quickly losing patience at having been dragged out of the warm pub only to watch Cedric make up his mind whether or not he wanted to start talking. Finally, Harry stepped in front of him at the mouth of a deserted alley and forced them to come to a halt.
"What is it you wanted to talk to me about?" he asked. "Did you find out anything about Skeeter?"
"I have an idea," said Cedric, looking relieved as they stepped into the alley to get out of the wind. He leaned in close to Harry, as though making sure that no one would overhear even though Harry was sure that they were quite alone now. "If she's not using an invisibility cloak, it's possible that she's—"
"Potter! I want a word with you!"
They both started, and Cedric leapt away from Harry as though he had been burned. Harry, turning toward the sound of the voice, saw Professor Moody standing in the mouth of the alley.
"What about, sir?" Harry asked, turning away from Cedric and inwardly cursing Moody's timing. Why did so many people suddenly want to talk to him on this particular day?
"Just need to talk to you about your Defense classes, you're not in trouble. You mind, Diggory?"
"I'm sorry, Cedric, I'll—"
"No, that's okay," Cedric said, backing away. "I'll talk to you later, Harry." With that he turned away and continued down the alley at a fast, jerky walk.
Moody stumped toward him, his magical eye whizzing around so fast watching it made Harry feel slightly ill. "You've been doing well in your Defense classes, Potter," he said, before Harry could open his mouth to ask. He grabbed Harry's elbow and ushered him back out onto the street. "But you need to start using your brains, boy."
"I don't—"
"CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" Harry jumped, as did everyone else who was out on the street. "Think about what you're doing, running down dark alleys with someone you don't know you can trust!"
"Cedric?" said Harry incredulously. "We were just talking about— about the Quidditch World Cup."
"Hmph. And what if someone had been waiting in there to jump the both of you, eh? CONSTANT VIGILANCE!"
Moody left him off at the Three Broomsticks, giving him one last glare with his normal eye. Harry stomped inside, fuming, to rejoin Ron and Hermione. It wasn't like he tried to be reckless or went looking for trouble; trouble usually found him. But if the alternative was being that paranoid, Harry thought that he would take the trouble.
First Sirius, now Moody, he thought, sitting down and glaring into his butterbeer. You'd think I was a naughty child with no sense of self-preservation.
Harry meant to continue their interrupted conversation, but every time he saw Cedric during the week that followed he was arm-in-arm with Cho Chang, who looked radiantly happy. Whenever Harry saw them together he felt a surge of hot anger begin to boil up from his gut, and forced himself to turn away before he did anything stupid.
Neither Ron nor Hermione seemed to notice anything amiss. Ron was still bemoaning his poor Keeping performance, and Hermione was inclined to assume that Harry's dismal mood was due primarily to his anger with Skeeter, an assumption which Harry made no effort to correct. On top of everything else his scar had started to prickle again, and though he'd told both Dumbledore and Sirius neither of them had been able to offer any more helpful advice than they had the last time.
To Harry's credit, he did make one last-ditch effort to find out Cedric's theory about Skeeter, figuring he owed at least that much to Sirius and Lupin. The next weekend after their aborted conversation, he watched the Hufflepuff table all through breakfast. The minute that Cedric got up, Harry excused himself and followed.
Cedric's stride was quite a bit longer than Harry's, and he was already out of sight by the time Harry reached the hallway he'd turned into after leaving the Great Hall. Harry, fearing that he'd lost him after all, had a fleeting moment of panic, but then saw the hem of Cedric's robes trailing out of a concealed niche in the hallway ahead of him.
Harry breathed a sigh of relief and stepped forward, opening his mouth to say hello, when a girlish giggle brought him to a halt. Tiptoeing now, Harry came closer and saw that Cedric wasn't alone after all; Cho was with him, her back against the wall as the two of them snogged.
Harry, fuming, turned away and didn't bother trying to talk to Cedric anymore after that. He was only guessing, Harry thought savagely as he stabbed at his baked potato the next day. He didn't really know anything.
A/N: I'm losing my taste for long author notes, so I'll keep this pretty concise. Yes, Harry doesn't have very good judgment where crushes are involved. And that level of paranoia is just like Moody, isn't it?
Given the way things are now I think it would be better to just make Sunday morning/early afternoon my regular update time, rather than Saturday night. Saturday there's just too much competition for my attention.