Cedric stood on the Quidditch pitch with the rest of his team, waiting. It was a rule that he had made—other team might be slower to the start line, but his team worked like well-oiled clockwork, and they would always be on the pitch five minutes earlier. They knew their plays inside and out, and five minutes before the beginning of a game was not the time to rehash it. His players would already be jittery and anxious, and heaping on a complex lecture on plays would get them nowhere. Instead, he only said that as long as they kept to the plays they had worked on for months, all would go well.
They were confident words, from a confident captain, and his team had accepted them. And why wouldn't they? Cedric had captained them through a victory against the legendarily undefeatable Gryffindor Quidditch team already, with Harry Potter falling to the ground while Cedric caught the Snitch. It was only their second game, but Hufflepuff was, for the first time in years, leading the tournament.
The stands were dotted in canary yellow and royal blue, and dozens of flags waved in the air. More than one, to Cedric's embarrassment, were blazoned with his name, while the Ravenclaw banners tended to be more discreet. It was their first match of the year, and with Roger Davies an unknown quantity as captain, there was little surprise there.
Motion from the other end of the pitch caught his eye. The Ravenclaw Quidditch Team strode forwards to the starting circle. Cedric recognized about half the team—Randolph Burrow was back as a Chaser, Jason Samuels as a Beater, and Grant Page as their Keeper. It was a very male team, with one notable exception.
She was tiny compared to the men, her dark hair tied up and out of the way. Her robes marked her as a Seeker, and the small lettering on her chest read Chang. She met his eyes, looked him over in challenge, and her lips tilted in a small, impish smile that Cedric felt hitting him like a sledgehammer.
Her smile wasn't a joyful one, nor a happy one—it was a predatory look of anticipation, an expression that said that she had seen him, weighed him, and that she wasn't the least bit impressed with him. Cedric had almost a foot on her, and yet he felt as if he was looking up at her rather than down at her.
Cedric had never believed in love at first sight. He did now.
"Captains, shake hands," he heard Madam Hooch say, and he turned away from the girl to shove his hand towards Davies, who clasped it with perfunctory politeness before turning away. He'd have to wait until after the match to find out more about her. "Brooms."
He swung one leg over his Cleansweep Six, knowing that his teammates would be doing the same. Together, they all rose into the air—the Keepers streaked off to their positions, the Beaters fell back behind the rest of their teams, and the Chasers hovered in a circle around Madam Hooch, waiting for the Quaffle to be thrown. His heart thudded with anticipation, and one look across from him showed that Chang was intent on the action below.
He wanted to ask her full name. He didn't.
Madam Hooch kicked the box on the ground. The Bludgers came storming out in search of a victim, the Golden Snitch only a quickly disappearing hint of gold and silver wings, and then, only then, did Madam Hooch throw the Quaffle into the air. Stretton, one of the Ravenclaw Chasers, won the handoff—then the game began.
He couldn't pay as much attention to the rest of the team as he wanted. As a Seeker, his role was to look for the Snitch, and he could hardly search for the Snitch if he was yelling at his teammates. He had to trust that his Chasers knew their plays, that his Beaters would deflect the Bludgers back against the Ravenclaw team, and that his Keeper would defend their hoops. And he did trust them, whirling off to look for the Snitch fifteen feet above the rest of the action.
Chang marked him and followed him. Her broom wasn't as fast as his, but she was lighter and nimbler. They didn't talk, but he couldn't help looking behind him, tracking her in the skies. She moved as if she was born for the air, changing speed and direction almost as if she were a Snitch herself. He had to remind himself to ignore her—she could follow him if she wanted, but he had a Snitch to catch.
She was unignorable. She haunted him, not just in body but in his mind, and when he finally spotted the Snitch hovering close to the ground near the Ravenclaw hoops, Ravenclaw was a hundred-and-twenty points ahead. A hundred-and-twenty points, but if Cedric caught the Snitch now, it would still be a Hufflepuff win. A narrow win, but a win was still a win.
He dove, relying on his weight, gravity, and the speed of his broom to carry him to the ground faster than Chang could follow. She spotted the Snitch almost as soon as he moved, and she dove too—but her descent was steeper, almost a ninety-degree descent designed to bring her first to the ground and then to streak across the pitch, and in a moment of blinding clarity Cedric realized his error.
He might be heavier. He might have a faster broom. A-squared plus B-squared might equal C-squared, and he might have less of a distance to travel in very real terms, but Chang had guts. Chang wasn't afraid of a nose-down dive, and when she pulled herself upright only three feet above the ground and streaked across the pitch to the Snitch, he knew that he couldn't make it in time. He had hesitated too long to watch that insane dive.
Chang grinned at him, just at him, waving up at him with a hint of gold and silver wings struggling in her hand. Ravenclaw had flattened Hufflepuff, two hundred and seventy points in the lead.
And Cedric Diggory was in love.