The next morning, Christine decided not to carry a bag anymore. Instead, she stowed her books into her robe and hand carried a few, afraid that the same situation would take place in light of the recent one. Daisy Brown sat beside her and queried about her being related to Cedric's now mended nose. She kept quiet, curtly asking Daisy to mind where she stuck her nose. She saw Cedric sitting at the Hufflepuff table talking to a few friends, trying hard to ignore the girls around him, making wild attempts to flirt, then he looked at her in the face. Feeling ashamed, she looked down at her lap and decided to escape the extremely awkward situation. She left the great hall for the library, seeing that there was enough time to return an overdue book. She was approaching the library doors when a familiar grip took hold of her right arm. She stumbled on her robes and looked around, expecting to see a Slytherin scowling horrible remarks about her mixed blood. Instead she saw the suave face of Cedric, looking at her incredulously.

" I cant believe you. I have never met a person like you, honestly,"

" Well you have got to live with it, for another three years, that's it," she said through gritted teeth. So he was going to tell her off? For all the things she did. For hand carrying her books and skipping dinner the previous night.

" You are overly swelled with pride for a person in Gryffindor!" he remarked

"So you are implying that I should be in Slytherin!" she snarled.

" No you are just so PROUD."

Christine closed her eyes and took a deep breath. " I tried, looking for you…. Yesterday night… At the Hospital wing….Pomfrey said you weren't there…." She choked out, defeating her pride.

They glared at each other, his deep gray eyes boring deep into her brown hazel eyes. She tried to shove his hand off like the previous day, but he remained a firm grip. Now it was starting to hurt a bit. Then she slapped him, clean across his handsome face. She was slightly shocked at her actions towards him, but who cares? She had done it before to many people…too many people… His grip released and cruel red streaks started to take shape on his suave face.

"You didn't want to let me go…" she said softly before turning around to walk away.

" Detention" Cedric said in an even softer voice.

"What!"

"DETENTION!" he said in a loud voice, "For assaulting a prefect,"

She gave an involuntary snort and said in an equally loud voice, " You can't give me detention for defending myself! You were holding me against my wishes."

"I don't care. Lines it shall be. You shall hand me a hundred lines of I shall not assault a prefect and hand it to me by Monday. It must be neat and written with your best handwriting," He said calmly and strode away.

This time, he had won, won against the grouch of Hogwarts. Christine was infuriated and went back to her dormitory. She flung her books on her bed and started on her lines. She didn't want to lose. She wasn't the losing type. Especially not to a pretty boy like Diggory. Then a brilliant idea struck her.

The next morning she went up to Cedric who was sitting at the Hufflepuff table with a group of his friends laughing. I hate it, more importantly I hate him, especially the way he laughs she thought to herself. She went up to him, scattering the group of girls trying to get his attention, and slammed the piece of parchment on the table next to his plate of toast. She arched her eyebrows at his reaction of shock, but this arch was accompanied with a satisfied look in her eyes and a sly grin. He examined the piece of parchment only after she walked away.

" Girl troubles Ced?"

"What's that? A love note?"

"Not a bad choice. She definitely looks better than those girls" his friend indicated, nodding towards the girls trying to get his attention.

"Wait… WAIT…." He shouted after Christine.

"What now Diggory?" she said in a tart voice over the Gryffindor table.

"Your lines. You have added except Cedric Diggory. IN SMALL FONT!"

"I don't have time for pretty boys like you," she stood up and strode out of the hall, with the usual stares by boys of other houses.

He caught up and said, "This will not do. You will either RE-WRITE, or be reported to Professor Mcgonagoll."

"Fine," she snapped, snatching the parchment out of his hands, and began tapping each of the except for Cedric Diggory lines with her wand, vanishing them.

"You can't do that!"

" Take it or leave it!" she said, shoving the parchment back into his hands and leaving for the Charms classroom.

Tammy from Ravenclaw caught up with her and walked to her to their next class, talking about her issues with Cedric.

" It's nothing Tammy. I just don't like him." She said curtly and heading for a corner seat in the classroom.

There were no afternoon lessons that day after morning as it was a Saturday so Christine decided to do her homework by the lake, after all, it was a nice and cold day, and being sadistic at times, Christine loved the cold. She settled herself under the large mahogany tree by the quidditch pitch and noticed that the Hufflepuff quidditch team were practicing for their next game against gryffindor and darling Cedric was there. Then she realized one of her Ravenclaw classmates, Cho Chang, was sitting at the posts, watching Cedric play. Christine smirked and carried on with her theory work on Transfiguration and Charms, and then proceded on Transfiguring things around here, like the avid blue mushrooms around here into mouses. She finished all her work by the end of an hour and a half. Just then, she caught sight of someone tall and yellow moving towards her from the corner of her eye. It was Cedric.

Something tainted in red appeared in full view infront of her face. Recognizing it as her previously white handkerchief, she snatched it and proceeded on transfiguring the mice back into toadstools.

" Sorry I could not return it sooner," he muttered, seating himself by Christine, sweaty in spite of the cold weather.

Still ignoring him, Christine decided to agitate the giant squid. She got up and started moving towards the edge of the lake, feeling his eyes on her. 3 squishy and pink tentacles emerged from the surface, lazily flicking themselves. It gave her enough time. She pulled out her wand and was almost going to hex them to stick together when…

"Expelliarmus!"

She heard a plop and realized her wand fell into the lake. She swung around and glared at him, shocked and angry.

"You cant hurt it, its innocent!"

"The hex was only going to last for three hours!" she said loudly and angrily, "Now my wand is in the lake!" , pointing at the floating piece of wood. Casting another look of detest at Cedric, she took off her outer robe and stockings.

"What are you doing…." Asked Cedric uncertainly.

"You nitwit," she hissed, "I'm going to retrieve my friggin wand thanks to you,"

Before he could stop her she plunged into the icy water and grabbed the floating lump of wood. She scrambled onto land, ignoring the gentlemanly hand offered by Cedric. Though she was in a sadistic state of hexing a harmless ancient squid to the point that she wasn't afraid of the cold, she was cold after she got up. Her fingers were frozen to the extent that she could not feel her fingertips at all and neither could she move them according to her will. Pointing her wand at her fingers (with much difficulty, still ignoring Cedric's requests to help her), she muttered a simple spell which "defrosted" her fingers. He draped his outer robe across her shoulders despite her chattering protests. He gathered her books and steered her towards the hospital wing.

"I'm fine. I don't need Pomfrey. All I need is a hot shower," she muttered, trying to walk in the direction of her dormitory.

He then pulled her back, looking her directly in the face, inches away from her. After a few seconds of awkwardness, he said "You need Madam Pomfrey, we don't want you falling ill. Anyway I could have helped you easily get your wand out and we could all just avoid this situation," he said, sounding slightly annoyed.

"I don't need your help," she muttered.

He was stronger because technically, he was a boy, he was two years older, and he was taller. Ignoring her protests that she was fine was ironic to her loud sneezes, causing him to pull her by the arm faster towards the hospital wing.

"What in the blazes happened to Miss Lin!" cried Madam Pomfrey as she dragged Christine a bit more forcefully than Cedric had to the nearest bed.

Forcing a large cup of pepper-up potion down her throat (much to Christine's dislike), steam emereged from her ears.

"You have to stay in the hospital for…One or two nights…" and at that point, Christine made a noise like an angry cat and aimed a look of pure daggers at Cedric, "OR I can give you a bottle of pepper-up to take every hour for a day instead of making you stay here." .Of course, Christine took the option of going back with a bottle of potion.

"Now you boy," said Madam Pomfrey indicating Cedric, "Make sure she rests well, or she will have a nasty bout of flu and she will have to spend a week in here."

She then quickly dried Christine's clothes with her wand and told her to take a long hot bath. Cedric walked out behind Christine who had a bottle of potion in her hand. She walked back to her dormitory, only to find that Cedric was still following her.

"Why are you stalking me?"

"One, because you still have my quidditch robes draped around you. Two, because I want to make sure you wont head to the library and overwork yourself as usual."

"I do not overwork myself!" she retorted, taking off his yellow robes which were stained a revolting green at certain places due to the algae stuck on her robes and handing it to him. Handing, not shoving.

He noticed the difference and raised his eyebrows.

"Now you can stop following me…And go back to your dormitory or something…" she said, voice softening before she turned around and muttered the password to the Fat Lady.

She didn't even say thanks, but he didn't mind, the not-shoving-the-robes-into-his-hands part was good enough for him.