Hogwart's collection of quidditch supplies are kept in a storage closet outside Madam Hooch's office. Harry's been in there dozens of times, usually when it was his turn to put the balls away after quidditch practice. He figures anyone in the school is free to use them whenever they want. It's not like they're kept under lock and key.
He figured incorrectly- a fact which Professor Snape takes great pleasure in informing him of. The school's jumbled assortment of quaffles and old broomsticks are only permitted for use during official quidditch practices and games, and not, quote: "Whenever the Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw seekers feel like it."
"I guess we can just fly around the grounds," Cedric says. "It's a nice enough day for it."
It's the last Sunday in February, and a reminder that spring is on the horizon. The three of them made the right call postponing their post-second task celebration to today. Yesterday's rain and muggy skies have cleared to a calm, picturesque blue. A chilly wind blows in from the mountains, but Harry's school robes and Hungarian Horntail sweater should be enough to stave off the cold.
"I've got a basketball in my dorm we could use," Cho says.
Harry nods, "That could work."
"Wait here, I'll run and get it." Cho says. Her shiny, black hair streams behind her as she dashes up the stairs. She hops over the trick step with ease, and effortlessly dodges Peeves' attempt to ambush her at the top of the staircase. Harry's struck again by how graceful she is. On her broomstick and on the ground, she moves with such poise and elegance.
"Err… Harry, what's a basketball?" Cedric asks.
"It's like a quaffle except orange. Muggles use it to play basketball, though you probably gathered that from the name."
"Muggles sure do have a lot of sports, don't they?" he says, "I've heard of tennis before, and football, and American football- which Kaz says is nothing like football and more like a sport called rugby. But basketball's a new one for me."
Harry smiles, and a pleasant warmth radiates in his chest. Cedric's cluelessness about the muggle world is oddly charming- plus that floppy hair and those damn dimples. This boy is too endearing for his own good.
"Cedric, have you ever considered taking a muggle studies course?"
"Yeah. I was going to take it originally, but err… my Dad thought I should take something more challenging."
"What did you take instead?"
"Arithmancy, which turned out to be pretty easy actually. I probably would've had a harder time in muggle studies."
Harry scrunches his nose in disbelief. The one time Hermione tried explaining arithmancy to him, he left the conversation needing a nap. All those numbers and symbols in her textbook make his head spin.
Cedric tilts his head and casts him a smile, seemingly reading his thoughts. "Really, it's not so difficult once you know the formulas."
"Of course you'd say that. You think it's easy because you're ridiculously brilliant." Harry winces. He'd meant to call him smart, not brilliant.
"You're brilliant too, Harry, and I'm sure you could handle arithmancy if-"
"Think fast!" Cho appears suddenly on the bottom step. She lobs the ball at a bewildered Cedric who catches it with his impeccable seeker instincts.
With their broomsticks hoisted over their shoulders, they head out the main doors and down to the quidditch pitch. Cho walks beside him, standing closer than what's probably necessary for such a wide walkway. Her gaze flicks between him and Cedric, who's a few steps in front of them, smiling and dribbling the basketball on the brick paver path.
"I can see why the muggles like this so much. This is kind of fun," he calls back to them.
He and Cho share a smile, and he wonders if she's thinking the same thing, that the way Cedric stares at the ordinary basketball in utter fascination is kind of adorable.
"Pass it here, Cedric," Cho says, and he does. "Let me show you guys a trick my Dad taught me."
Cho tosses the ball into the air- just above her head. Then she catches it on the tip of her right index finger. He and Cedric laugh and applaud as it spins around and around like a mad top on her fingernail.
"How'd you do that?" Cedric asks. He takes the ball and mimics her movements, but he only gets it to spin for a fraction of a second before it teeters off his finger and onto the path.
"You have to spin it a little when you toss it," Cho says.
He tries again, following her advice. He flails his arm wildly to keep the ball balanced before it falls. He gives it another try, and another, and another where he gets it to last several seconds, using his free hand to keep it spinning. On his sixth and seventh attempts he's so at ease he looks like he's been doing this for years.
Then Cedric passes the ball to him. Harry grips it between his fingers like it's a fragile piece of pottery. This can only end badly. But Cedric and Cho each shoot him an encouraging grin. So he tosses the ball. It balances on his outstretched finger for the barest of moments before falling and bonking him on the nose. Hard enough to sting for one painful second, but thankfully his glasses are still in one piece. Cho and Cedric laugh, but there's no malice to it, and he finds after the shock's worn off he's laughing along with them.
"And that's about how well it went the first time I tried," Cho says. "We can't all be as talented as Cedric here."
"Oh please, it was more luck than it was talent," Cedric says.
"Why don't you give it another go?" Cho says. Cedric nods in encouragement.
He's preparing to toss the ball when Hagrid appears in front of them on the path heading in the opposite direction. There's small, leafy bits stuck to his jacket and beard, and over his shoulder he's carrying what must be the world's largest pair of gardening shears.
"Afternoon Hagrid!" He says.
"Hello Harry! What are you kids getting up to today?"
"We're headed down to the Quidditch pitch to-"
"No!" Hagrid shouts with such urgency Harry flinches and nearly drops the basketball. "No, You can't be flying around the quidditch pitch."
"Why not?" He asks.
"It's um... there's something in there you shouldn't be seeing yet."
"But what-"
"I can't say anymore than that right now, just promise me you'll stay away. You too, Diggory."
"Alright Hagrid, we'll keep away from the pitch," Cedric says.
"Good. I'm sorry for being so harsh, but I promise it'll all make sense soon enough." Hagrid casts them a toothy grin and heads on his way.
"I wonder what that was about?" Harry asks once he's sure Hagrid's out of earshot. Is this another rule he isn't aware of? No, Hagrid would have said so if it were the case. Snape might like to rain on their fun for his own amusement, but never Hagrid.
Cedric shrugs, "Maybe Hagrid hasn't kept the pitch maintained? He's been so busy with his lessons and all the Triwizard tournament preparations, I don't know where he'd find the time."
"It could have something to do with the next task?" Cho suggests. "Maybe that's the thing he doesn't want you to see yet."
"You might be onto something, and considering you were right about yesterday too..." Cedric says, "got any theories on what it might be?"
Cho purses her lips, "Hmm… judging by those shears I'd bet he's growing something, but I'm not sure what."
With the quidditch pitch now off-limits, the three of them brainstorm an alternate location to fly. Cho suggests above the courtyard, but Cedric shakes his head and reminds her if they aren't careful they might drop the basketball onto someone's unsuspecting head. Considering it's the first nice day of the year, it's bound to be crowded. With all those people milling about, someone will notice them. Perhaps one of Cedric or Cho's friends will see them flying around and wave, then they'll call them over for a quick chat, which will turn into a lengthy chat, and then the day won't be about the three of them anymore.
Harry doesn't want to share them with the rest of the castle today. It's selfish, but he misses them. There's this sort of energy when it's the three of them together. One he can't quite describe, but it's different from what he has with his other friends. After all, it's not like he cares when Ron plays wizard chess with Dean or Neville, or when Hermione spends an evening with her arithmancy study group for reasons other than studying. He's been looking forward to this since they planned it yesterday. Hell, he's been looking forward to this since they parted ways after the Yule Ball. It's been a whole two months since their last adventure, and they're well overdue for another.
"What about the lake?" He suggests. "If we drop the basketball the worst that'll happen is we disturb the merfolk, and frankly they deserve it after yesterday."
They start with a warm-up exercise. Cedric's suggestion, since they're all a bit rusty. They hover above the lake in a triangle formation, passing the ball between them. A simple, stationary game of catch.
It doesn't last long. They're seekers, they get antsy when they're forced to stay still. Harry tosses the basketball to Cho's right, and she swerves to catch it. She in turn throws it far above Cedric's head, and he soars upwards to retrieve it. And so it goes. They're showing off- doing steep dives and loop-the-loops, waiting until the last possible second to make a mad dash for the ball. But they never miss. It's a show of just how in sync they are. Like they're a team of chasers instead of three people who are usually rivals. They always know just where to be to make a catch.
The game reaches its climax when Cedric tosses the ball high into the air. Harry waits for it to hit its peak, and only when it starts to fall does he dive after it. He speeds faster and faster, the cool wind streaking through his hair, heading nose-first towards the water. With inches to spare, he catches the ball and pulls back up before he takes another dip in the lake.
"Way to go, Harry!"
"That was incredible!"
Harry looks up. Cho smiles and applauds while Cedric sticks his fingers in his mouth and lets loose a shrill whistle. An ear to ear grin stretches across Harry's face. Their praise and attention leave him feeling flushed and quite pleased with himself.
Harry passes the ball back to Cho, who in turn passes it to Cedric, and so forth and so on. The friendly competition and escalating acrobatics between them naturally dwindles down. Instead they fly in slow, lazy circles while they share stories about their lives.
"When I first tried out for the Hufflepuff quidditch team, I wanted to play chaser. I would've been happy in any position, but since there were three spots open, I figured it was my best shot at getting on the team."
"My Dad was one of the only muggles allowed at the quidditch world cup. Mum had to pull a bunch of strings with her ministry connections to make it happen. You should have seen the hat he had to wear so all the anti-muggle magic wouldn't affect him. It looked like it was made out of tinfoil."
"I almost got expelled during my first flying lesson. Madam Hooch had to take one of my classmates to the hospital wing, and told us no one was allowed off the ground. Well… you can probably guess what I did next."
"I never would have pegged myself as a seeker. I didn't think I had the build for it. So I was thoroughly baffled when our Captain announced I'd made seeker. When I asked him why he picked me, he said it was because I'm a particularly good finder."
"We had to leave right after the match ended, Dad had work the next morning. I was disappointed we didn't get to stick around for the celebration, but in hindsight it was definitely for the best. If those Death Eaters had known he was there… it could've been him instead of that poor muggle family."
"Professor McGonagall caught me, of course. She dragged me away and I was terrified she was about to kick me out. Imagine my surprise when she offered me a spot on the Gryffindor quidditch team instead. You wouldn't know it, but she's got a soft spot for quidditch."
They carry on like this the rest of the afternoon. Swapping anecdotes, telling jokes, talking about anything and everything, having more fun than Harry's had in weeks. Until the sun dips beneath the distant, snow-capped mountains, and his fingers grow stiff from the cold.
"We should probably head in," Cedric says. He checks his watch. "It's nearly time for dinner. Dunno about you but I'm starved."
"Race you back to the main entrance," Cho says. She gets a head start, but he and Cedric are on her tail in no time. They're neck and neck. Cedric gets the lead, then him, then Cho. In the end it's too close to call, but they're too busy smiling and laughing to declare a winner anyway.
"Thanks for today," Cho says to both of them, "This was fun!"
"Yeah, we should do this more often," Cedric says.
"Same time next week?" He suggests.
Cho nods, "Works for me."
"Looking forward to it." Cedric says. He opens the main doors and motions for them to enter.
"Wait, before we go in," Harry holds out his Firebolt, "Either of you want a go?"
Cho shakes her head, "Oh no, I couldn't possibly."
"That's alright, I appreciate the offer though."
"Really?" He'd been expecting one of them to ask. Why else were they casting him those admiring looks all day long? "I'm happy to share it with you if you want."
"I'll keep that in mind next year when Hufflepuff plays Gryffindor," Cedric winks at him.
"Alright, most of the time I'm happy to share it with you guys."
The Great Hall is noisy with the usual dinner rush. The three of them bid each other farewell and head off to their respective tables, getting absorbed back into their groups of friends. He takes a seat across from Fred and George, who were hunched over whispering about something before he joins them.
"Hey Harry! Did you have a good afternoon?" Fred asks.
He smiles, "Yeah, it was nice."
On Friday afternoon Hedwig drops a letter on Harry's plate.
Be at stile at end of road out of Hogsmeade (past Dervish and Banges) at two o'clock on Saturday afternoon. Bring as much food as you can.
So Sirius is in Hogsmeade. Harry's furious he did something so risky, but he can't lie, he's so looking forward to seeing him after several months of separation.
He's also thankful for the distraction, because all week he's been lost reminiscing about last Sunday afternoon with Cho and Cedric. In Divination he swears he sees the silhouette of a man and a woman on a broomstick in his crystal ball. At mealtimes or while studying in the common room he'll suddenly remember something funny one of them said and smile. He's pretty sure Ron and Hermione have noticed his spaciness. Neither have commented, but he can sense a conversation is looming on the horizon.
Come Saturday morning, Harry is determined not to think about how much he's looking forward to flying with Cedric and Cho tomorrow. He talks with Neville on the way to breakfast. He loads his pockets with pastries and sausages to bring to Sirius. He discusses plans with Ron and Hermione as they head back up to Gryffindor tower.
"Hey Harry! Going on a picnic?" Cedric asks. Cho is at his side, grinning at him.
"Uh… something like that," he hides his overflowing bag of food behind his back.
"We'll catch up with you later, Harry," Hermione casts him a funny glance, like she knows something he doesn't. She takes Ron by the elbow, and they head up the stairs to Gryffindor tower.
"So… what are you guys up to?" He asks.
"We were looking for you, actually," Cho says."Got any plans this afternoon in Hogsmeade?"
"Cho and I are heading to Three Broomsticks to listen to this afternoon's Quidditch match," Cedric says. "Wimborne at Holyhead. Should be a good game. Did you want to join us?"
"Sorry, I've already got plans," he says. His godfather comes first. No questions about it. Though, he wishes he could be more specific to them about what he's doing and who he's meeting. Sirius would like them, he thinks. And they would like him too- once they realize he's not a mad Death Eater who killed 13 people. Maybe someday in a kinder and more forgiving future, the three of them could meet.
"Then you're ok with me and Cedric hanging out, just the two of us?" Cho says.
"Of course. Why wouldn't I be?"
"We just don't want you to feel left out or anything," Cedric says.
"It's alright. You two have fun," he says. They asked him to come along. They made it clear they wanted him to be there. That's enough for him. "Though... if you're not doing anything this morning, I'm free until about one o'clock."
"I'm going shopping for make up with a few of my friends." Cho says. "You're welcome to join us, but I'm not sure how much fun you'd have."
"And I wish I could do something with you, but I've got to take my apparition test," Cedric says.
"Oh, good luck!" Cho says.
"Thanks, I'm going to need it. So far I haven't managed to do it once without splinching myself."
Harry gives him an encouraging smile, though he's not sure what the apparition test is or what splinching means. He'll have to ask Ron and Hermione about it later.
"Well, see you tomorrow then," he says. They wave at him before heading into the Great Hall.
"Have a fun chat with your girlfriend, Potter?" Malfoy says. He's wearing his signature shit-eating grin and holding a rolled up magazine. Pansy and her gang of Slytherin girls snicker behind him.
"Yeah, we were talking about what a nice ferret you make," he says. Draco shoots him an annoyed glare, but the tips of his ears go red.
"So it's true then, you and Cho are going out?" Pansy asks.
"Not that it's any of your business, but no."
Pansy casts Draco a thin, shifty smile, "See, I told you they weren't dating. It's the rumors about him and Cedric that are true."
"Huh, I never would've thought Diggory chased after his own team," Draco says, "and even if he did, I figured he'd have better taste."
"Malfoy," he says, barely able to mask his frustration, "as much as I love these chats where you dangle information over my head, can we skip to the part where you tell me what's going on?"
Draco tosses the magazine at him. "You ought to give it a read. Show it to your mudblood friend Granger too. Bet she'll get a kick out of it."
Harry tightens his grip on the bag, thinking about his wand in his pocket. While it would be incredibly cathartic to hit them with a bat bogey hex, half the staff is seated within view in the Great Hall. So he turns his attention to the magazine- Witch Weekly. He flips through the glossy pages, unsure what's waiting for him. It's probably not the cake recipe advertised on the cover. And there it is in the center pages, an article with a large picture of him and Hermione he doesn't remember taking, and two smaller ones of Krum and Cedric.
Love Conquers All- The Real Prize of the Triwizard Tournament.
A boy like no other, perhaps- yet a boy suffering all the usual pangs of adolescence, writes Rita Skeeter. Deprived of love since the tragic demise of his parents, fourteen-year-old Harry Potter thought he had found solace in Muggle-born Hermione Granger. Little did he know that he would shortly be suffering yet another emotional blow in a life already littered with personal loss.
Miss Granger, a plain but ambitious girl, seems to have a taste for famous wizards that Harry alone cannot satisfy. Since the arrival at Hogwarts of Viktor Krum, Bulgarian Seeker and hero of the last World Quidditch Cup, Miss Granger has been toying with both boys' affections. Krum, who is openly smitten with the devious Miss Granger, has already invited her to visit him in Bulgaria over the summer holidays, and insists that he has "never felt this way about any other girl."
However, it might not be Miss Granger's doubtful natural charms that have captured these unfortunate boys' interest.
"She's really ugly," says Pansy Parkinson, a pretty and vivacious fourth-year student, "but she'd be well up to making a Love Potion, she's quite brainy. I think that's how she's doing it. "
Love Potions are, of course, banned at Hogwarts, and no doubt Albus Dumbledore will want to investigate these claims.
Harry Potter's well-wishers can rest easy, however, as he appears not to have given up on finding true love at Hogwarts. This gentle boy- who confessed he hasn't even kissed anyone yet- is taking steps to open up his heart to someone new. He's been spotted lately with fellow classmate Sho Chang, a girl one year his junior and the daughter of controversial Wizengamot member Jinghua Chang.
"She's quite popular. A lot of boys like her," says Parkinson, "but she's got a huge ego. She fancies herself a quidditch star when she can barely stay on her broomstick."
Or perhaps this traumatic heartbreak with Miss Granger has turned The Boy Who Lived off from the fairer sex. At the school's Yule Ball, Harry shared a dance with fellow Triwizard Tournament competitor Cedric Diggory. By all indications the pair appear to be quite close. Could this be the beginnings of a romance between the two- or is this a cruel attempt on Diggory's part to sabotage his competition?
Harry sighs and shakes his head. The Slytherins would think this would get a rise out of him. He's not sure what to make of it really. Like he and Hermione would ever... or to think kind-hearted Cedric would do something so... she couldn't even bother to get Cho's name right. No one's going to believe this garbage.