Chronology
by Mad Maudlin
for HowNovel and the Not At TWH Ficlet-A-Thon
1. It was September when Zacharias first saw Cedric. They collided in the boy's corridor on his very first night at school and Cedric stopped for just a half-step to apologize before bounding off after his friends.
It was October when Zacharias heard Cedric's name: the first years had been all abuzz about Harry Potter, but an older girl had scoffed and said that Gryffindor wasn't the only House with a great new Seeker. She had tried to point to Cedric, but he was all the way on other end of the table and Zacharias hadn't seen anything at all.
It was November when Zacharias finally sorted out who Cedric was, which was also the day he first saw Cedric play. The game had been long and ended in a very narrow loss, but everyone in Hufflepuff agreed that they had played well at any rate and that should be celebrated. Zacharias had spent the whole game taking the piss out of Ernie for being so enthusiastic and Justin for being so clueless, but as the party wound down he made his way over to Cedric and tried to have a conversation.
"You, er, it was a pretty good game today."
"Oh, yeah, thanks."
"You fly pretty well."
"Well, I do my best."
"I reckon we can beat, er, Gryffindor, you know, next match. If you fly that way again."
"We'll have to see.
Afterwards Zacharias decided that was the stupidest conversation he'd ever had, and likely would ever have, though he was only twelve. Complimenting people was stupid; it was easier to just take the piss.
2. It was September when Zacharias tried out for the Quidditch team. He tried out for Beater but Cedric took him aside just before tryouts and said that maybe Chasing would be more up his alley. "You're still a bit small to Beat yet," Cedric had said, "but you're really agile and you've got a great seat—better balance flying one-handed, you know." Zacharias had mumbled something stupid and tried out for Chaser, and tried not to think about Cedric complimenting his seat. He made the reserves.
It was November when Pearse took a Bludger to the ribs, in their very first match of the season. She spent a week in the hospital wing and swore off Quidditch for life. Marchbuck told Zacharias herself that he would be the replacement, but Cedric was standing near her the whole time, and the next evening at practice it was Cedric who helped him with his overlarge uniform and his finicky locker. Zacharias thanked him, but Cedric said only that it was nothing.
And it was February when Zacharias lay awake a half a night before his first-ever match, telling himself that he wasn't going to drop the Quaffle or fly into Marchbuck, and if he did it wouldn't really matter, and he should stop being so stupid. He stumbled down to breakfast early that morning, and Cedric sat down right beside him and patted him on the shoulder and said, "I think we're going to fly well today. I've just got this feeling, you know?" Zacharias had nodded and shoveled down oatmeal, and when they were standing on the pitch in ankle-deep snow he reminded himself of Cedric's hunch, and flew.
3. It was November when they played Cedric's first match as captain, with just two days' notice, in the rain. Before the match he told them all just to fly their best, because he knew they weren't really prepared but, win or lose, they would give it their all. Zacharias gripped his broom and didn't say the sixteen sarcastic things that leapt into his head, and when they launched themselves into the gale he was thinking of how Cedric would look to the school if they lost.
When Cedric caught the Snitch there was a single perfect minute of raucous celebration in the middle of the pitch, thumping arms and screeches and hugs. And for a moment Zacharias found himself shoved up against Cedric's chest, arms looped around each other, and as Cedric grinned through the rain Zacharias felt his heart thump in a way that had very little to do with the thrill of the match. But then the Dementors' chill broken through the rain, and they realized what the Gryffindors' shrieking meant, and the next thing he knew Zacharias was trudging back to the castle through mud while Cedric argued with Madame Hooch about a forfeit.
Then it was January, their first practice after the hols, and most of the team went back to the castle to shower, but Cedric stayed behind and so, after a minute, did Zacharias. He would've told anyone who asked that walking all that was to get clean was stupid and he didn't want to stink up his uniform and mind your own business anyway. That was the first time he'd seen another boy wank: except it wasn't another boy, it was Cedric, and Zacharias didn't see all of him, just a flesh-pale stripe where the curtain didn't all the way cover the cubicle. Zacharias heard nothing but the fall of water and harsh, irregular breathing, which only noisy because Cedric was getting over a bit of a cold and his nose sort of rumbled when he inhaled. It took him a minute to put together the snuffly gasps and the shifting body—a half a buttock here, and elbow there—and realize what was going on, and he was surprised for half a minute before telling himself how stupid he was for believing his mum when she said that sort of thing would make him blind. Zacharias didn't say anything at the time, just sneaked out as quietly as he could, but he went to be early that night and several nights after, to make sure no one was going to walk in on him.
And when it was February they lost badly to Slytherin and all hope of the cup. The rest of the team sort of shuffled out sullenly, but Cedric hung back looking pensieve and cold. Zacharias hung back too. "We didn't fly that badly," he tried to say.
Cedric smiled weakly. "Who are you and what've you done with Smith?"
"What?"
"You haven't said anything nasty for almost an hour." Cedric finally shrugged off his robes and tossed them into his locker with a clump. "I reckoned you'd be at it the moment we landed, telling everyone how we flew like...like..."
"Like a flock of Confunded turkeys?"
"Yeah."
He'd been holding that one back, actually, until the captain was out of earshot. He picked at his wrist guards and shrugged. "Maybe I didn't feel like it."
Cedric peeled off his t-shirt. "Yeah. Don't feel like doing much myself, you know."
Zacharias concentrated hard on his gear and wondered why he hadn't gotten better at compliments since he was twelve. "Myers was, erm, less horrific than usual," he offered.
Cedric laughed. "Yeah, there's that."
"You played well."
"Oh—well, not well enough, obviously."
Zacharias shook his head. "Malfoy's stupid anyway. He's crap without that fancy broom."
"A good Seeker plays around the broom."
Cedric pulled on a vest and Zacharias took off his robes. Cedric would be heading back to the castle and probably to the prefect's bath now; no reason to linger after the last match of the season, even one this short and weird and wrong. Everything about the season was weird, and most of it was stupid, and Zacharias didn't see how it was fair for Cedric to blame himself for that. "You are a good Seeker," Zacharias said, and flushed for sounding so whiny and urgent and stupid.
Cedric looked at him sort of askance. "Thanks," he said earnestly.
"Really."
Cedric looked at him sort of funny, and Zacharias had a sudden vision: he would wrap his arms around Cedric's neck and kiss him, sort of softly, and Cedric would put his hands on Zacharias' hips and just sort of hold him there, and Cedric wouldn't go back to the castle; Cedric would go into the showers down here and Zacharias would follow, and he wasn't exactly sure what happened next because he had a feeling his wanking fantasies were probably wrong in very key places. But they would be together. He could be with Cedric.
Cedric cracked a smile and tugged his jumper over his head. "Thanks, Smith," he said briskly. "It's good of your to hang about cheering up a grumpy old git like me."
And Cedric walked out with his cloak on his arm. "It's nothing," Zacharias called after, but he knew that it wasn't.
4. It was September when he learned there would be no Quidditch, and somehow the Triwizard business didn't seem like it made up for it at all.
It was October when the champions' named came out of the Goblet, and Zacharias had never disliked Harry Potter more.
It was November when they all got to watch the First Task; Zacharias sat with Justin and Ernie again, and while he said Krum was clumsy and Delacouer was stupid, he didn't say anything until Cedric got away, and he didn't stay to watch Potter at all.
It was December when Zacharias took his name off the list to stay over Christmas, after he found out about Cedric and Chang.
It was January when he spent a torturous two and a half weeks allegedly dating Hannah Abbot, though from his perspective it was more like she talked a lot and groped him in the common room. He wasn't even sure why he was doing it, and when Justin asked why they'd broken up Zacharias said that she was stupid.
It was February when Zacharias watched Cedric pull Chang out of the lake: he helped her get to her feet, held her hand the last few steps to the shore and held her through the blankets as they both dried off. Zacharias didn't wait for the end of that task, either; he went back to his dormitory and made a long list of all the reasosn Chang was stupid, but threw it away when he realized most of them were just as true about himself.
And then it was June, and all over.
5. It was July when Zacharias found out he was to be Quidditch captain. His mum and dad congratulated him; he announced that the whole thing was stupid and went to his room.
It was September when Zacharias found the plaque in the Hufflepuff locker rooms: Cedric Diggory 1977-1995. There wasn't a pithy little quote or symbolic engraving, but it still made him angry, so he covered it with a towel. The rest of the team got angry when he said it was stupid, but he wouldn't let them take the towel down.
It was November when they played their first game, and Zacharias at sixteen wasn't much better with words than he had been at twelve, so he told the team that win or lose, he knew they'd fly their best, and that he had a feeling they'd do well. They lost to Ravenclaw, but it was a very near thing, and they all agreed their play was worthy of celebration. Only Zacharias hung back and thought about all the reasons his individual players were completely stupid, and didn't look at the towel.
But in February they beat Gryffindor—badly—and even if Summerby missed the Snitch they played as well as they could and this time, finally, it all worked out, and they didn't even need any Dementors. They celebrated all night in the common room, and a little first-year girl said Zacharias had been brilliant before she turned scarlet and ran away; he thought about it and decided she wasn't all that stupid. And the next morning before anyone else even thought about getting up, he went out to the locker room and took the towel off the wall. Cedric Diggory 1977-1995. There wasn't much else to say.