Harry crashed through short-stopped brambles and little twigs caught in the grass, the dirt path below him snaking into a thicket that led back to the grey Hogwarts towers, poking against a bright sky. In front, Cedric stood motionless at the top of the hill, facing him.

He opened his mouth as if to speak but the wind washed over the words, sifting too, through the tufts of his brown hair.

"What?" Harry said. Cedric came closer.

"Are you curious?" he asked, again. Harry felt his heart drop into a bottomless chasm.

"What do you mean?"

But even he knew that his voice sounded unusually high; more than anything it was as if, in this very moment, Cedric could exactly read his mind and it made Harry fear that he had thought everything out loud.

Are you curious? Cedric said.

He had left it unfinished.

Are you curious about me and Cho?

They had departed from the Owlery briskly.

Hedwig had barely launched into the air before Cedric came, asking keenly, if they could go.

Outside the tower, the descent was no longer doused in that warm, dreamy sunlight and Cedric's face betrayed neither a smile nor a frown—he only walked at a pace fast enough to leave his friend stumbling after, while he retreated inside his own head, brooding; weighing the last ten minutes in the measures of his heartrate and wondering to himself whether Cho had liked Harry for a while, or all along.

And perhaps, the worry lined his face.

It was unsettling that he could barely read his own emotions: Cedric wouldn't even look directly at Harry, instead, he let his impulsiveness drift in the air between them; a question unfinished and yet not needing the rest of the words to convey intent, and yet here he was—inwardly floundering.
Looking for excuses because he could not even understand his own intent.

"You were there," Cedric started, filling the silence. His fingers reached to smooth down the back of his neck. "It was... erm..."

"A bit stiff?"

A small laugh, "Uncomfortable, yeah."

"It was... well yes, you aren't wrong," Harry admitted, casually. They continued to walk—together this time—as he spoke, bordering the edge of the hill. "It was sort-of unbelievable that you still remembered her mum's birthday."

Cedric gave an embarrassed laugh, despite it all.

He agreed.

Cho's face in particular was memorable. Her eyes lit up in soft surprise before something more clumsy had set in.

"We've been friends a long time," he said, blinking into a ray of sunlight that hit his face. "She tends to forget things when Quidditch starts up."

"... I didn't know," said Harry, and he waited, watching as the small smile faded on Cedric's face.

This was strange.

He thought all of this, as undoubtedly strange.

When Cedric had turned to him, face hardened atop the hill, he had asked, "Are you curious?" while looking like he didn't want answer to the question at all.

It left Harry feeling uneasy; like he was facing a knife that spun so fast, you wouldn't know if it would even stab you.

"I overheard a bit," he confessed, for it felt wrong not to, "When you were talking by the window… I-I couldn't help catching some parts."

Cedric blanched, though his stride never faltered, "How much?"

"Just the end, I suppose… About you, erm, 'blaming yourself,'" Harry said, almost inaudibly. Cedric gave a slow nod.

The wind picked up around them and tension as thin as fish-wire wound with the lure to walk almost faster—Cedric's long legs giving in to gravity as he dashed down the slope, the red sweater fluttering from the crook of his elbow—Harry struggled to follow, still trying to piece together the fragments of conversation he had unwittingly eavesdropped, trying to figure out what he had missed. But abruptly, they stopped: Cedric came to a halt at the bottom of the hill and nearly caused Harry to crash into him, a second time—

"Would you like to know?" he said, spinning around, "About how we broke up?"

"What?" Harry took a step back, "No!"

"Don't fib—"

"—I am not fibbing." said Harry, lying louder. The woodland around them began to stir; birds and animals skittered through the forest floor, calling to each other, browned leaves skipping from the backs of their feet. It suddenly felt wrong for him to raise his voice here.

"I just…" Harry's brow furrowed. "You worry me. For a while now, you look like you're troubled by something and it makes me nervous somehow… how quiet you are about it,"

Cedric did not reply. He looked like he was doing the equivalent of acrobatic calculations inside his head, which only spurred on Harry's rambling.

"You keep asking about… Is it Cho? Are you worried or—something rather—about her?" he said carefully. "Because, I get it if you do, I—I get it."

"Am I worried about Cho?" Cedric echoed, the mist raised from his eyes as something seemingly clicked. He let a hand that cupped his chin, fall to the side. "Somewhat… yeah, somewhat… I have to ask, do—do you…?"

"Yes?"

Cedric looked slightly strained, "Do you like her? Cho."

"I'm sorry?"

Harry twisted forward, taken aback, only to find that Cedric was already looking; regarding him with a wary expression on his face.

"I… I said, do you—… No, sorry. That was stupid. Forget I said…forget it," Cedric's gaze flickered, as he stumbled through his sentence, not knowing where to look, where to rest. "I didn't say anything."

At once, Harry felt something lurch from inside him, frantic and simmering, trying to match Cedric's sincerity.

"No," he said.

"Sorry?"

"No, I don't think I like her,"

"You don't?"

Harry felt Cedric stare, the colour rising to his cheeks and he forced his gaze away, staring hard into the gnarled neck of a tree, twenty feet ahead.

"That is... well… I don't know," he mumbled, "I don't know whether I do or not."

The question itself was strange to hear, just out and bare, unhidden between them; and the fact that it was Cedric asking, made Harry feel even more peculiar.

"Why?" he said, almost as if he didn't believe it.

Vexed, Harry let loose a string of words he would soon regret.

"Well, why did you break up with her?"

The breeze piled a little heavier, picking up discarded leaves and tacking them to Harry's jeans, while the greys of Cedrics eyes almost seemed to glaze over in response—looking into a different set of surroundings—thickening into an opaque tangle of smoke and darkness that coiled and melted into glimpses of a pale body that lapsed through cracked tombstones. Harry had scarcely searched the face in front of him before he, in moments, grasped an answer; and Cedric had changed, falling from the world and now back into the boy who had sat curled up in the dark corner of an old drawing room.

"I didn't want to, really," he whispered, as soon the wind dissipated. "It was only that… too much changed. Too much has changed since last year, too much has—... it's different now, isn't it? It was different, all of.. everything, as soon as we came back."

All the 'firsts' came back to him, those first nights, the first dreamings; the first time he ever felt the contents of his mind press onto his skin and puncture through, like he only a thing made of soft cloth.

Two round faces—his parent's faces—flashed in his mind's eye, of when they first found him—cradled in his own sweat, vomit on his bedroom floor. There was the frame of Evan's hulking body, shaking over his bound body in the bed, and Hidiyah who trembled as she took his face into her scarred hands; the first time they visited the hospital wing. And then there was Cho, the alarm—the fright on her face when he first had screamed at her—the sound she made when she dropped her wand, how it sank into the carpet, its end pooling in a light that was just too green and… ah.

A summer day.

Cedric had stuck a palm against his forehead like he was nursing another a headache, but in actuality, he couldn't bear to face it. He couldn't face her.

The words were coming out of his mouth and yet he had no courage to bear her teary, brown eyes.

"My parents, they don't have the luxury of being able to leave me," he said, softly. The darkness faded and it was if, he himself, returned to the land of the living, "but Cho, my friends… Back then, when the world changed, I thought it would be fairer to them if they were to just leave me—even if they didn't see it as an opportunity at the time."

"And Cho did?"

"I asked her to. I asked her to… And she was, or, still is… angry about it, ha, she's still very…" Cedric cast his gaze downward, "I always thought that it was because I had made the choice without talking to her, but I was wrong—"

"I certainly didn't agree to ending things because I blamed you."

"I'm the only one blaming myself. It didn't matter that it was 'fair' or that she'd be safer—I'd already made the choice for her."

The brief image Cho's tired face, and her flat voice toward the end. Glassy eyes that stared out the tower window, welling—….

Cedric shook his head, his voice was now low and small and barely noticeable.

"I'd apologize again, but it'd just make things worse—!" he gave a little laugh here, but it sounded more his throat had choked up, "And I still can't help feeling that… that she deserves better than me, right now—I can't shake that."

For what it was worth his chest, though unravelled, felt like a much lighter load on his body.

It was a rare sensation, to feel so unburdened, and to feel like he was not burdensome.

"Yeah," said Harry. Cedric peeked at him and saw memories—different to his, but only by arrangement and trifles—he watched them replay inside Harry's head: a ghostly pallid body, skin writhing raw against rope. A leg injury that bled through his robes, the smell of caustic chemical and burning bile at the back of your throat; a sallow hand, overgrown fingernails that scratched and burned—all of it streamed out, connecting to his own.

They looked back at each other, in acknowledgement.

Both pained and comforted in the recognition of their own reflections.

"Yeah, I understand," said Harry, finally. You could almost hear how his heart clenched in his voice, but the sound of it became buried in another fleeting stir of wind and scuttling leaves.

"Of course you do," Cedric said. He did not smile but affection lay plain on his face, "Of course, you do."

I'm glad that someone does. I'm glad that you do.

Fresh sunlight came down, streaming, panes of brightness that cast shadow long against the brae. The fog had seemingly dissolved to the ground, and whatever makeshift forest surrounded them turned into a sea of ardent green and ochre.

There was more to be said but not really.

Truthfully it could not be said in the traditional way of words, rather Harry and Cedric could say anything or nothing at all and still bask in this unnamed feeling that emanated, just by being near the other.

Harry began to frown, "I'm so sorry," he said, unexpectedly.
"It was an awful thing to ask you that… insensitive."

"I did promise to tell you," said Cedric, but Harry shook his head with vigour.

"That's no excuse," and then hesitantly, "Still. I didn't actually think that you… I thought she—"

"—broke up with me?"

"Yes."

Cedric gave a glum smile, "She would've never left me, otherwise."

"Hm…"

"Mm."

"… Do you miss her?"

Cedric inhaled sharply, dumbfounded by the question.

"Oh, erm—! You, you don't have to say,"

"No, no. I want to, it's just… I think, I do, sometimes. I miss how she made me feel. How it felt to be together," he scratched his face, looking far, across to where the grove grew even thinner. "Though I suppose, that's not the same as missing her."

"I don't think that makes your feelings any less."

"It doesn't make what I did any right either."

They stayed quiet a while, soaking in the growth of uninterrupted sound from the woods and wallowing in that nameless feeling; comfort, affection, trust—call it what you want—it was all that and more.

Then Harry had a thought.

"Are you pleased to know that I'm not pining for your ex-girlfriend now?" he said. He was teasing, of course, an attempt to try and lighten the mood and yet; he was half-not.

In Cedric's case, he paused as if to seriously consider it.

"Yes." he said, finally. A certain mirth splayed out on his face. "Very."

"Oh."

Cedric looked up, "We should go. At least while the wind's still lively," and he turned to Harry, concerned, "You still have training later, don't you? Angelina and Ron won't happy if you miss another."

"How'd you figure that?"

"When we waited for you, Ron was very clear about it last night."

Harry snorted, "It's all he's cared about lately," and they walked on. He was pleased that everything had categorically returned back to ordinary, and felt even more thrilled that Cedric seemed to unwind; his gait and expression were now looser compared what he had left the Owlery with. But as they rounded closer to the wooden bridge, walking across the knoll that wound down to Hagrid's hut, the clock tower's low peal ringing as another hour hit—

Harry felt a slight disquiet persist at the back of his head.

When he turned to speak to his friend about it, the wind abruptly picked up again and blew away all the brown hair from Cedric's eyes and forehead, in a similar bursting fashion that they had encountered by Owlery window. This time, however, Cedric erupted with sudden laughter: his sweater billowed around his waist and the sleeves and neckline of his shirt were loose and rippling like sails against his fair skin.

Harry watched, mesmerized, as Cedric laughed. His arms were out, as if to embrace the whole sky without care and then—as if he had thought of something better to do—Cedric turned to him with a familiar, wide grin.

It was the kind that pulled his eyes into crescents, his face ignited with earnest and brilliance in the rush of air, surrounded by the shades of a distant scanting emerald canopy and a heavens full of sun; warm and dreamlike.

Cedric reached out—and Harry felt delighted that he did so—latching an arm around his neck; Harry, in return, gripping around his waist. Together, they squeezed, laughing, half-screaming until the roar of the gale had died down and all around had become calm once more.

"Merlin! Someone's really got it in for us—!" Cedric cried, out of breath. He threw his head back and clutched at his aching sides, cheeks rosy and windswept, sweat sticking small baby hairs to his forehead; and the remnants of the pure elation he had just experienced, lingered on the curve of his lip.

Harry felt his heart beat wildly from the look of him alone, and he could not stop thinking about Cedric's sudden laughter, how it rang—a deep and clear melody—and the way his figure surrendered, honest to the chaos of air swirling around him. Cedric had grinned, fresh-faced, reaching out for him so naturally and Harry felt disquiet that lay in his head, strengthen... it began to dig and gnaw.

All the questions that he had avoided for 'later' simmered inside him and as he swallowed, staring, pumped with adrenaline and wonder for his friend, while a feeling of foreboding came crashing right through. He had not asked why.

He had not asked Cedric why he felt glad that Harry would not pursue Cho, for there were only be two answers to that question.

It doesn't matter, Harry thought forcefully, it wouldn't matter which one it is, what would be important is—hm?

At an inkling he looked up, just as he felt the weight of Cedric's arm on his shoulders again, pulling him in until their sides pressed against each other.

"Alright?" Cedric said, he gave another boyish smile. Harry felt his heart leap.

"Alright," he lied.

Perhaps the answer would matter a little more than he could admit.