The school year seemed to run by in a blur, and before anyone realized it, it was already mid-June. That meant that the final task of the Triwizard Tournament was just days away, and Cedric was growing more and more nervous as the date approached.
Of course, he knew that the final task was simply a maze. But what lay inside the maze was anyone's guess. He didn't dare assume that the last task was simply just a labyrinth to see how fast the champions could get to the other side; there must have been something inside of it that made it so dangerous, so terrifying.
As the rest of his friends started to study for their end of year exams, he focused instead on the maze, seeing as he was excused from these tests. He was determined to win this thing, if not for himself than for Maddie. He wanted to make sure that she could be proud of him. With him and Harry currently tied for first place, he had to make sure that he got to the end of the maze before the other Hogwarts champion did. And if he won, the first thing he was going to do was treat Maddie to a romantic evening out.
Sure, maybe it was just a fit of jealousy that had driven him to this determination. If he hadn't been competing against Harry, would he have been so determined to win, or would he just have acted as though this was as mindless a task as tying his shoes?
When it came to Maddie, she was spending nearly every second with her nose in a book, trying to cram in last minute information before her exams. Cedric sat with her in silence in the common room one day; she was sitting on the sofa, her legs pulled up close to her chest and leaning her back against Cedric's side. Cedric was grinning to himself as she started to mumble to herself about all of the information that she supposedly didn't know.
After a few minutes of this, he said, "Mad, if there's anything in that book that you don't know, then I'm actually impressed."
"Well, what if Professor Flitwick includes something on a charm that I haven't studied?"
"You're going to do some serious damage to yourself if you keep this up," he teased, a smile plastered on his face. "I don't think you've slept at all this week. Besides, third year isn't that important. You can repeat it a couple of times."
She sat up perfectly straight. "That isn't funny, Cedric!"
"You're going to do just fine, darling," he said with a laugh, pushing her open book gently into her lap. "And if you don't, then you know what to improve on next year."
"But..."
"You worry too much," he said in a whisper, staring into her eyes so deeply that it felt like he was staring into a mirror; he saw so much of himself reflected back at him when he looked at her, as though he saw just what it was about her that made him so happy. She stared back at him, and, feeling that the moment was right, he leaned in and kissed her for a few moments.
When they separated, he went back to staring at her, feeling a very, very good emotion wash over him. Was this the moment that everyone spoke about, the magical moment when somebody realized that they were in love? Was this what it felt like to love somebody?
"Maddie, I..."
She was looking at him so expectantly that he momentarily became tongue tied. For a moment, he thought about what he was going to say. He didn't want this moment to be wrong at all, not in the slightest...was this the right moment?
"I know you're going to do well in all your exams."
You are an idiot, Cedric.
"You do?"
"Absolutely. You're an intelligent young woman. You'll do just fine."
"Cedric, I..."
"Yes?"
She looked as though she, too, had fallen victim to being so tongue tied, because it took her a minute to muster out, "I—I'll be seeing you around."
He nodded. "Right. See you around."
Maddie shoved the book back in her bag, making an excuse about somewhere she had to be. As she stood up, he followed suit, handing her the bag so that she could put it across her shoulders. With that, she left the common room.
As she ascended the stairs into the girls' dormitories, she mentally cursed herself for what she had just done. Maddie had been preparing to tell Cedric that she loved him, but became so overcome with anxiety that she simply excused herself from the room. Would she ever get over this anxiety and just come out with what she had to say? Or would the two of them never overcome the obstacle? It wasn't just anxiety about saying the words for the first time to him; it was the anxiety that the moment or the feeling was completely wrong.
Her mother had not been lying when she told her that relationships were complicated.
The day before the final task, the school was abuzz with talk about the Triwizard Tournament, and as the task drew closer and closer, Cedric could feel his sense of confidence diminish greatly. The more he thought about it, the more nervous he grew, but the problem with that was that he couldn't just not think about the task.
He didn't want to say that he was nervous, but there was no other way to describe how he was feeling. Suppose he got halfway through the maze and he forgot every spell that he had ever learned? Or if he knew all the spells that he needed, but he forgot how to speak, so he couldn't say the incantation? Or—this was the worst thought yet—he was attacked by something, so even though he knew the spell and could say the incantation, he didn't get a chance to?
You're getting ahead of yourself. Everything is going to be okay.
At dinner that night, he couldn't bring himself to eat much of anything. While he did pick at his food for a few solid minutes, it was probably only about a fifth of what was laid out before him. The thought crossed his mind that the sooner that this tournament was over, the better. Of course, he felt great after each task was over, but doing it struck a kind of fear in him that he had never felt before.
"You nervous?" John asked once Cedric forcefully pushed his plate away from him. Joseph looked up in alarm as well.
"A bit," he said, sitting on his hands so as to hide how much they were sweating. For once, he was grateful that Maddie wasn't sitting and eating with them; he didn't want her to know that, for once, he just could not put on a brave face even for her sake.
"You did fine in the first two tasks," Joseph said.
"I know. I don't know what's different about this one."
"I think you're going to do fine," John said, and before anyone knew what was happening, he was giving advice the same way that Joseph usually did. "You know what else I think? I also think that maybe you should focus on something during the task that keeps you at ease...maybe that will help you get through it."
Cedric nodded, already having something in mind. He looked down at the end of the table that all of Hufflepuff house sat at, finding Maddie sandwiched between Sierra and Amber. Sitting opposite them were her other two friends, Allison and Boo. The five of them were all laughing and talking with broad smiles on their faces, and Maddie turned her head toward Amber; the way that she was seated made it easier for Cedric to see her face, and he watched her for a few moments, wondering how in the world he would have ever thought that somebody else was right for him. And added onto that, he wondered how in the world somebody like him could have ever managed to find himself with someone like her. She was so beautiful, made even more so beautiful by how focused and happy she seemed being in conversation with her friends.
She was what he was going to focus on in the final task the next day. After all, he had entered himself in the tournament in the first place for Maddie's sake. Cedric had to win, if only because of her. And if he was going to win, he didn't have any room to be nervous.
As he and his friends exited the Great Hall and prepared to go to sleep, he thought again about how beautiful Maddie had looked at dinner, and in Hogsmeade, and on the docks following the Second Task, and at the Yule Ball... Maddie was the most beautiful woman that he had ever met.
After changing into his pajamas, Cedric sat down on the edge of his bed, glancing over at the picture that he had taken out of his trunk and put up on his bedside table following his reconcile with Maddie. He watched as the picture version of Maddie looked around the platform in wonder, but then he watched as her eyes fell on the image of himself. She looked at his counterpart with such a shy smile on her face and with such a look of wonder in her eyes that he wondered whether she had cared this much for him even then. He wondered just how long it had been that she had felt these feelings for him, and why it had taken him so long to notice.
As he drifted into an uneasy sleep, he thought some more about the idea of him possibly loving her. He wasn't sure what it felt like, but his father had said that it was the most amazing feeling in the world. He felt so at ease and peaceful with Maddie, sure...but was it the most amazing feeling in the world?
He figured that after the task that was to befall him the next day, the second he held Maddie in his arms with the Triwizard Cup in one hand and ran the other through her hair, he would know for sure. He could imagine himself looking her in the eye right before he kissed her and saying the three words that he was sure any girl was dying to hear from her boyfriend...
And if you don't realize you love her?
He somehow didn't figure that that would happen.
Harry, on the other hand, felt no nervousness about the final task, but he felt like an idiot for everything that had happened that school year.
For once in his life, he had a beautiful girl who seemed to care about him wholeheartedly, and he had let her go without a fight, because her lying, cheating, disloyal excuse of an ex-boyfriend had wanted to be her friend.
Where would they be at that moment if Harry hadn't let Maddie go? Would they still be together? Or were they doomed to failure from the start? Was it a losing battle, dating Maddie Lewis? Trying to sort out his feelings for her was definitely where he had failed. Why in the world did he think that her being friends with Cedric had anything to do with how she was going to behave? Just because Cedric didn't know what a good thing he had before him didn't mean that Maddie was the same way.
If there was any consolation, it was that she finally had gotten her greatest wish: she and Cedric were dating again, and this time, everyone knew how they felt about each other. And it seemed that this time, Cedric was determined to treat her the way that she ought to have been treated. And that was really all he had ever wanted from this relationship.
Harry was able to rest easy that night with the knowledge that, even if it wasn't with him, Maddie Lewis was happy.
Cedric, however, was only able to sleep until about one thirty in the morning, and at two, he decided that the likelihood of him falling asleep anytime soon was next to none. At that, he stepped out of bed and down the stairs to the common room, hoping to clear his head. Maybe just walking around would be able to bring out the sleep deprivation lurking within him and send him running back to sleep...
He found, to his surprise, that he was not alone in the common room. As he stepped into the room, he registered a figure sitting cross legged on the sofa before the fire, and as he stepped farther and farther into the room, he realized he recognized the figure as...
"Maddie?" he asked. She turned toward the sound of his voice, the shock on her face apparent, both from the fact that she wasn't alone and from who her visitor was. "What are you doing out of bed, sweetheart?"
"I could ask you the same question," she said before turning back to the fire.
Cedric could feel himself flush red. "Couldn't sleep."
"Me, either."
"Mind if I sit with you, then?"
She moved over to create room for him on the sofa and he sat down next to her, putting an arm around her shoulders. She leaned back into his chest, draping one of her arms around his waist. He kissed the top of her head, staring into the fire with her. Cedric carefully brushed a few strands of hair out of her face before he cleared his throat to speak again.
"You really should at least try to go back to sleep, Mad."
"You're one to talk. You're the one who needs sleep. You've got the tournament tomorrow. Don't you have to be all rested for it?"
"I do."
He didn't know what else to say to this. Instead, he looked down at his blue flannel pajamas and then over at his girlfriend. He couldn't see her face, but he imagined that she was as lovely as ever, even when exhausted. She had to be exhausted; it was two o'clock in the morning, after all.
"Aren't you cold?" he asked when he saw how scantily clad she was. It wasn't like she was running around the common room in her underwear (God forbid), but the thin T-shirt and cotton pajama bottoms did little to protect her from the cold.
"Not with the fire going, I'm not."
"Well, you are a bit warm," he said, rubbing her arm with one of his hands. "But as long as we're sitting here, don't you think you should go back to your dorm and get a blanket or something?"
She shook her head. "No. There's...something we need to talk about."
He sat up straighter, turning to look at her profile with his heart pounding something crazy. She, too, turned to face him. Everything was okay between them, right? She wouldn't just break up with him the night before the most important day of his life?
"Is...is everything alright, Mad?"
Maddie started to nod, but then she froze, deep in thought. "With us? Yes. In general? Well..."
"Does this have anything to do with why you're not sleeping?" Cedric asked, slowly feeling his heartbeat return to normal with the knowledge that they, at least, were still okay.
"I've just been thinking...well, we've been through a lot this year."
He nodded. "More than I like."
"And what we've been through has made me, well...it's been making me think a bit. About our relationship."
His normal heartbeat disappeared as quickly as it came. With this simple statement, he could feel his heartbeat start to pick up speed again, and he hid a hand as he clenched it into a fist. She said that everything was alright between them, so what did this mean?
Before he had a chance to interrupt, she continued, "Cedric, I'm just going to be honest with you. I'm downright terrified about the task tomorrow."
He frowned, obviously not understanding what she was getting at. "Why are you terrified?"
"I'm terrified for you. I'm scared that you'll be hurt, that something will happen to you..."
"Maddie, I'm going to be fine."
He said this more to calm her down than because he believed it, but he wanted to believe it more than anything else in the world. He wanted to believe that nothing was going to happen to him, but there was just a pressing feeling of nervousness. Truth be told, he knew exactly where Maddie was coming from with this statement.
"But in the off chance that you aren't, there's something I want you to know."
"What is it?"
She turned to look at him, and he could see, behind her glasses, that her beautiful green eyes were dilating. According to something he had read once, when a girl saw somebody that she was attracted to, her eyes would begin to dilate. It could have been the dark, since he knew that that was how eyes worked—they did what hers were doing to take in more light. But at the same time, she was looking at him like he put the stars in the sky, like he made the sun shine, like that was why the beautiful green was diminishing and the center, the black, was growing.
Finally, she said a phrase that rendered him immobile for a few seconds, even finding himself unable to breathe, the words captivating him as much as she did:
"I love you."
Cedric stared into Maddie's emerald eyes, seeing the flames from the fire dancing on the lenses of her glasses. A similar flame was burning inside of him as he looked at the girl before him, and he couldn't describe the feeling that was coming over him: it was like when he was in the Black Lake and the grindylow attacked, pulling him—or attempting to pull him—to the bottom of their depths and he had no choice but to let them. The only difference here was that it wasn't a sinking feeling he was experiencing; it was like he was floating, like he was flying. It was as though he was riding his broomstick and the grindylow could fly, pulling him through the air as he stared into Maddie's eyes, feeling as though he could look straight into her soul.
It was then that he realized that the magical feeling that everybody wanted to know about, the moment that basically defined his existence and attached himself to the girl before him, started to wash over him, and he finally found words to muster out...
"I love you, too."
As the words rolled out of his mouth, he realized that nothing he had ever said before that moment had ever felt so right. It felt so natural to be telling Maddie that he loved her, because it finally hit him that he did. He loved her...he loved everything about her.
He loved how tired she sounded when she first woke up in the morning, her voice matching her stunning, yet simultaneously sleep deprived, face; he loved how vulnerable she could seem at times, so that he had a chance to protect and shelter her; he loved how small she was so that whenever he hugged her, she was completely enveloped by him; he loved everything there was to love about her.
He loved her.
And then, because it just felt so natural, he cupped her chin in his hand and looked her over. He wanted to memorize how she looked in that moment. He memorized the way her blonde curls framed her ashy face, the way that her eyes seemed so wide despite the fact that they always were, the way her lips were slightly parted. He focused on those lips lastly, then dropped his hand down to the small of her back, pulling her gently closer to him. She was practically sitting in his lap when she wrapped her arms around his neck.
Finally, with her in his lap and him in her embrace, he tilted his head to the right, shutting his eyes as he leaned in as close as possible to her, gently pushing his lips onto hers so that her top lip was captured between both of his. Instantly, he could feel so many sparks on his lips that he never wanted to let her go. It was as though he finally had his eyes opened to just how perfect she really was—despite the fact that his eyes were closed, so as to focus more on the feeling that she gave him. She was so warm and her skin was so soft that he pushed himself harder into their embrace, and he slowly opened his mouth slightly, breathing in just the smallest breath so that he literally took her breath away.
At that moment, they separated, and Maddie rested her head against the crook of Cedric's arm. He stared down at her, not aware of the smile on his face until she pointed it out, putting her hands on his face: "Your smile was what made me fall in love with you."
"Good," he whispered back, "because you make me smile."
Maddie's hands fell into her lap again, but Cedric held one of them within his grasp and squeezed it gently, then said to her, "Merlin, I wish I would have told you that earlier."
"That I make you smile?"
"That I love you."
She started to blush, a similar smile creeping onto her face. "You really love me." It came out as a statement, but it sounded as incredulous as a question.
He nodded back at her. "I really love you."
Now that they had said it to each other once, it was as though neither of them could just say those three words to each other enough. Cedric could just not see an end in sight to their love...and they had only just declared it to each other. He could feel so many memories come flooding back to him just thinking about the word: love.
Usually, these thoughts brought back the feelings that he felt at the moment that the memory was made. Now, he felt all different kinds of emotions. First, there was the memory of when Maddie had said, as a little girl, that she wanted to marry Fred Weasley, and now he felt an overwhelming sense of jealousy. Next came the memory of when their parents had joked that they would end up married one day, and though he didn't know if there was a marriage in their future, in that moment, it didn't matter: he loved her. And then, there was the last memory of when his first Hogwarts letter arrived, and Maddie had declared then what she had just said now...
"This isn't the first time you said you loved me, you know," he told her. She looked at him quizzically, and he kissed the end of her nose before he said, "You said it to me when you were eight years old."
She laughed, apparently remembering the memory. "And you said I didn't really love you."
"If only I knew then what I know now."
"And what do you know now?"
"That I'm lucky I'm in love with my best friend."
"In that case...I'm pretty lucky, too."
Tears started to fill her eyes, but for once, he could see that they were happy tears, and he couldn't help but smile broader, kissing her quickly once more with the smile still on his face. "Honey, I just wanted to say that I'm sorry," he said, tilting her head up to him by pushing up on her chin.
"For?"
"For everything that happened this year that shouldn't have happened. For thinking that we needed to stay a secret. For not defending you in front of my friends. For entering the Tournament. For thinking that there was somebody in this world I could love more than you. For cheating on you. And for not realizing any sooner that all I want to do is love you."
"I forgive you for all of that."
"You shouldn't. You never should have forgiven me for all that I did this year. But..." He stopped, placing a hand on her shoulder once he saw that she was opening her mouth to interrupt. "But I'm so grateful that you did. And sweetheart, I promise you that this time around, I'm going to prove that you're the only woman in this world for me. I promise."
"Because you love me?"
"Because I love you. And you love me."
With that, they started to kiss again and again, giving each other multiple little pecks on the lips. Their lips would meet for a second or two, then they would break apart and do it all over again. Cedric could feel himself just growing dizzy by Maddie's love and affection, and for the first time in his life, he could say that he was in love. He was in love with Maddie Stefani Lewis, and if he was to take the way that she kissed him with more intensity each time at face value, he would wager that she was just as in love with him.
When they first declared their love for each other, he had forgotten that it was two o'clock in the morning, and he had held her face in one hand as they continued to kiss, using only the light of the fire before them to illuminate the room and each other's faces. But before long, Maddie was leaning against him so that her head was rested on his chest. Her eyes were shut; her breathing was slow.
"Are you awake, honey?" he asked after a few minutes of silence.
"Yes," she breathed out.
"We need to go to sleep."
"Yes, we do."
"I love you, Maddie."
"I love you, Cedric."
He kissed the top of her head, resting his own eyes, too. Before he realized what had happened, they were both laying down on their sides on the sofa, their bodies pressed into one another, though they weren't facing each other. Maddie was laying on the outside, facing the fire, and Cedric had his top arm wrapped tightly, protectively around her waist. He used the other arm as a sort of pillow, resting his ear on his forearm as he whispered sweet nothings into her ear.
After a little while, she was asleep. He was just going to let her rest for a few minutes, then send her back up to bed...but his eyes were growing heavy, too...
When he finally fell asleep (for good) that night, he had pulled Maddie's small body into his, breathing in her scent every time he took a slow breath. The world started to go black, and for the first time in almost a month, he felt absolutely no nervousness about the final task. He felt absolutely ready to tackle it head on, because now he had the most amazing girl in the school on his side. When he emerged from that maze victorious, he was going to do everything possible to prove his love to her.
I was on time for once! :D I feel like this is a chapter you wouldn't want me to be late with posting, too, considering what happened in it. The chapter I've been awaiting longest is next. However, even though I have plans to upload it on the second (yes, Super Bowl Sunday for all of us Americans...hey, the 49ers aren't going to the Super Bowl so I frankly don't care), you're going to have to bear with me if it's the third. Like I've said, I'm going out of town this weekend. I will probably not have Internet access (at least, not on a computer), so please, please, please bear with me. This whole 'leaving town' thing was entirely out of my control.
After this, there are only four chapters left. The final chapter is going to be very light, I feel, in comparison to the next three, but that's kind of how the actual Harry Potter series goes. Also, I know in this chapter they kind of jumped from 'I don't know if I love you' to 'I love you so much' in like seconds, but to be frank with you, that's kind of how real teen love works. Alright, I'll hopefully be updating this on the second, and if not, deal. Reviews are appreciated.
- Hatter of Madness