Title: Loyalty
Author: Ashanta
Rating: PG
Summary: For some strange, unexplainable reason, I had the desire to write a Justin/Cedric story. As in, that "curly haired kid, Justin Finch- Fletchley" having some kind of innocent boy-crush on the all around good- guy and crush-worthy Cedric Diggory, and Cedric being his usual sweet, kind self about the entire matter, not wanting to hurt Justin's feelings, and thus...this thing evolved. Or mutated. Whichever.
Pairing: Cedric/Justin
Setting: PoA time-span, perhaps GoF later
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Chapter Five: Misconceptions
Hannah Abbot was determined to figure out what in the world was going on with Justin Finch-Fletchley when he returned from his break between classes with the most dazed look on his face yet. Granted, it wasn't anything different from the looks she and Susan had when they passed Roger Davies or Cedric Diggory in the corridor, but Justin was a guy. Surely, they didn't get all giggly and flustered like she did.
After the last class of the day, she decided not to corner Justin himself, but go straight to Ernie. He was Justin's best friend; surely Justin would tell him what was going on with him, wouldn't he?
She found Ernie just outside the library talking to Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas of Gryffindor. She greeted them all brightly, and then asked them if she could pull Ernie aside to talk to him for a moment. Dean and Seamus nodded and continued their conversation with each other as they walked down the opposite end of the corridor, away from the library.
"All right, Ernie, you are going to tell me right now; what's up with Justin?" she asked without pretence once Dean and Seamus were out of hearing range.
"What?" Ernie asked, caught of guard.
"Don't tell me you haven't noticed he's been acting really funny lately," she said, waggling an accusatory finger at him. "He's gone three whole days without chatting us up for more than five minutes once. It's not right; I think something's up."
"Hannah, now really..."
"And I reckon you know something about it and that's why you've been keeping so quiet around me too. In fact," she said suspiciously, "the both of you have been acting a right bit weird lately..." And then, it hit Hannah right in the face as if she had just lost a massive game of Exploding Snap. She gasped and then put her hands to her mouth.
"Yes, and you'll do well not to tell anyone," Ernie said sternly, slightly annoyed that Hannah had figured it out, but at least secure in the fact that he still didn't betray Justin by outright telling her about him and Cedric. "Justin's already going through enough on his end keeping it a secret, he doesn't need you blabbing it to everyone."
"Oh, no, no, I won't!" Hannah said sincerely. "I promise. You can trust me--"
"Not even Susan, Hannah," warned Ernie.
"No, no, not even Susan." Hannah replied earnestly. Oh, why hadn't she seen it earlier? Justin and Ernie were always around each other and there were times with Hannah didn't necessarily feel like she was really as close to Justin or Ernie as they were to one another. She had always assumed it was just because she was the girl of the group, but there may have been more truth to that statement than what she had previously thought of before. "Well...how long?" she whispered.
"Well, now, Hannah, is that really any of your business? Just be glad you squeezed that much out of me," Ernie said defensively, and Hannah immediately felt sorry; she shouldn't have pried that much. They were probably just starting out after all and Ernie didn't want to jinx anything. "And don't mention it to Justin that you know, either. Poor bloke might very well die of embarrassment."
"No, of course not," Hannah said in a hushed whisper, her blonde pigtails nearly trembling in the excitement of it all. "Not a word."
"Good."
She sighed lightly as she and Ernie walked towards the Great Hall which was being set up for dinner. "Really, though, I still think it's rather cute," Hannah said wistfully.
"Oh, Hannah, now, really," Ernie said exasperatedly as they headed down towards the kitchens and to the Hufflepuff common room. "Honestly, some people..." She giggled in response and followed him down the stairs.
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Zacharias Smith rolled out of his four poster bed and headed out towards the bathroom, dully noting he would never again in his life drink that much water before going to sleep. After he washed and hands and dried them, he headed back towards his bed when he realized he'd left his good set of quills in the common room. With his luck, they would probably already be gone; they were rather expensive quills and he'd seen Wayne Hopkins eyeing them earlier when Zacharias had been working on his Ancient Runes essay.
It had to be a little bit after one when he went down into the common room to search for his quills, and heard hushed talking. What anyone would be doing up this late on a Monday night--now Tuesday morning--was beyond him, but he figured it was none of his business and simply proceeded forward to search for his things. He was making his way around the back of the cellar-like common room when he suddenly heard Diggory's voice.
"Ever since after the game with Ravenclaw, I've been feeling a bit differently..."
Zacharias straightened up. Could Cedric possibly be talking about the new Ravenclaw seeker, Cho Chang? Well, she was pretty, Zacharias admitted to himself. And presumably was bright, considering she was in Ravenclaw--not that there weren't bright Hufflepuffs as well.
"I mean," Cedric went on, "of course there's the slight age difference..." Chang was a year younger than Cedric...surely that wasn't really much, though, was it?
"Well, you could always work around that, couldn't you?" another voice asked, a younger boy. Zacharias wondered faintly why Diggory was telling all this to some second or third year, by the sounds of it, instead of addressing him.
"I guess I could," Zacharias heard Diggory reply with a smile in his voice. He then spotted his quills on the side table and quickly picked them up, leaving brusquely back to his dormitory without a backwards glance. He was rather sure he had walked in on something he wasn't supposed to hear anyway, and it would be best if he just put it to the back of his head.
Still, Zacharias thought as he pushed open the hangings to his four-poster bed, he couldn't help but feel slightly perturbed at the fact that Diggory wasn't sharing any of this information with him. He'd always thought this was because Diggory was more of the quiet type, but clearly he had no problem talking to this mysterious third year.
Finally, Zacharias pushed the idea out of his head, figuring Diggory's business was just that--his own--and closed his eyes and soon after fell sleep.
