Without rounds to give her a reason, Hermione didn't see Cedric again to speak to until Sunday. They were forced to content themselves with notes -- a lot of notes, in fact. Mostly these consisted of a few lines jotted down back and forth on the same piece of parchment, which they passed in a ridiculous number of ways. It became a game, and the running conversation was sometimes sweet, sometimes silly, and sometimes skirted the edge of ribald. The once-removed nature of notes let them write things she didn't think they'd be able to say face to face . . . at least not without blushing terribly.
What do you want for your birthday?, she wrote to him on Thursday morning, slipping the note into his pocket when she passed him in the hall. And just so you know -- I don't take your locket off, even in the bath.
The parchment appeared magically in front of her at lunch. Not even in the bath? That provides some interesting mental images, you know, Granger. Oh, to be that locket! As for my birthday -- do you want the clean or the not-so-clean version of what I want?
Beneath that, she scribbled, You are a naughty boy. I need suggestions not suggestive wisecracks, Mr. Diggory. I'm not really very good at thinking up clever and creative presents. Unlike you. I'm afraid I'm too practical.
To which he answered, I like you practical. And we won't comment on my varying degrees of naughtiness, but I'm glad you liked my presents. As for what I want . . . a picture. Of you. I have none.
A picture of her? She tried to avoid cameras . . . at least to be in front of them. She didn't think she photographed well and the only recent pictures she had all showed her ducking her head or raising a hand to ward off the camera lens. But if he wanted a picture, a picture was what he'd get, so she pulled Colin Creevey aside and asked if he'd be willing to take a few pictures of her 'for a friend.' Colin said he'd be happy to, and they set out for the cloister at sunset where he proceeded to pose her like a doll, telling her what to do and snapping almost two dozen shots. "It usually takes a roll of film to get one or two good ones," he explained, "even with Wizarding photographs." On Saturday, he brought her three. "These are the best of the lot." She thanked him profusely and took them all. To her surprise, she looked halfway decent. Colin had come a long way from that shutter-happy first year.
On Sunday, she took her books, and Harry and Ron, upstairs to the new Common Room to study. After more than a week, it was no longer a curiosity and not as heavily frequented -- and Slytherin remained conspicuously absent.
She was reading over Ron's essay, making corrections, when the sound of Cedric's clumping walk made all three of them look up. He sat down in the fourth chair at the table where they worked, beside Harry and across from her. "Hey, Ced," Harry greeted him. Ron just nodded, and Hermione's face burned hot. Cedric's own face wore high color, but he wasn't outright blushing.
"This is probably a useless question but I'll ask anyway. Any of you friends with anybody in Slytherin?"
"You're kidding, right?" Ron asked.
"Actually -- no. In order for this Common Room idea to work, we really do need representation from all four Houses. Otherwise it just makes the House divide that much more obvious and works against us. It's exactly the story the Sorting Hat warned us about."
"You took that Sorting Hat song seriously?" Harry asked him.
"I did. And so should you. We need Slytherin -- or at least some of them."
"Why? Who wants anything to do with that pack of liars and wankers?"
Under the table, Hermione kicked Harry. Hard. "Ow!" Harry said, clearly uncomprehending as to why she'd kicked him.
Cedric, however, shot her a glance. "You're forgetting two members of the Order are from Slytherin, Harry." He spoke softly.
"I don't trust Snape --!"
"Dumbledore does."
"Dumbledore can go hang." Then, abruptly, he remembered the other Slytherin member of the Order, and his face flushed to rival Hermione's of a moment ago. "And, well, what I said doesn't apply to your mum."
"You know, I'm not fond of the House any more than you." Cedric's voice was hard, although he was clearly trying to keep both his cool and his perspective. "My point still stands that we need at least some of them to reach across the divide. But they won't cross unless we reach first."
Before he could say more, a hush spread over the room and they all looked around. Standing in one of the entrances was a short, squat figure. Umbridge. Everyone stared at her as no teacher yet had come to the Common Room to the best of Hermione's knowledge. "Madam Toad," Cedric muttered, which won a spurt of giggles from Ron and Harry. Normally Hermione would have taken issue with a student -- especially the Head Boy -- making fun of a teacher. But Umbridge didn't count.
The woman entered only a few steps into the room and looked all around before spotting the four of them on the far side below the Gryffindor crest tapestry. Cedric, Hermione noticed, made no attempt to distance himself, and the smile Umbridge gave them made Hermione's skin crawl. But the woman said nothing and withdrew just a moment later. "Good riddance," Harry said, but Cedric's expression was worried.
Without thinking, Hermione reached across the table to lay a hand on his. He glanced at her. "She can't do anything," she said. "Dumbledore gave you permission. And you can't think she wouldn't have heard about the room, Ced."
"No, I was counting on it, actually." He squeezed her hand briefly, then removed his from beneath it and sat back. Conversation had resumed, sputtering to life around them like a choked engine. "I'm just worried because she didn't try to do something about it right now."
"Why?" Harry asked, dumbfounded. "Isn't that a good thing? It means she can't think of a reason to shut it down."
"Can't think of one yet. If she'd tried now, it would've been a knee-jerk reaction -- not very well-considered, and easier to block. She's going off to think of something better, and it'll put me on the defensive." He shook his head. "Nobody wins wars like that."
"You're really scary sometimes, mate," Ron told him. "But he's right, you know." Ron spoke to Harry and Hermione. "In chess, if you're forced to play defensively, that's a bad sign. Well, unless you let the other fellow put you in that position on purpose so he thinks you're on the run, but really you're not, and you turn the tables and . . . " Ron trailed off as the rest of them laughed at him, even Cedric.
"You may just have given me an idea," he said to Ron. "Thanks."
"Any time," Ron replied, managing to look both stunned at the praise and rather pleased with himself.
Cedric remained with them for a while, studying too, and Harry and Ron seemed to regard him as a potential source for easy answers as much as Hermione -- but he didn't co-operate. "Look it up," he told one or the other several times. "Try the index." Finally, they stopped pestering him.
After he left, Hermione realized he'd slipped a parchment note into one of her books. Pulling it out, she opened it:
Poppet,
Lunch tomorrow? Same window? Miss talking to you in the flesh.
--Ced
Ron had leaned over to glance at it, too -- more in idle curiosity than anything -- before she slapped it to her chest to hide the words. "He calls you poppet?" Ron asked -- quite loudly.
Harry looked up. "Poppet?"
Both of them burst out laughing. "Shut it," she hissed, shoving the parchment into a pocket of her robe. So of course they insisted on calling her 'poppet' for the rest of the evening.
Cedric had left the Common Room intending to drop into his own room before heading down to his office for evening report. He was stopped by a rather hesitant voice behind him. "Mr. Diggory?"
The use of an honorific surprised him a bit. Only the teachers called him 'Mr. Diggory' -- or Hermione when she was teasing him. Turning on his crutches, he found the tiny first year with the black curls looking up at him. Rose Something-with-a-Z. He was reminded of Ron's amusing, if not very polite "midgets" from the Welcome Feast. He kept his smile firmly in check when he said, "You can call me Cedric, Rose. It is Rose, right?"
She had piercing blue eyes and now they went wide in astonishment. "You know my name?"
"I remember it from when you were sorted. It's a pretty name." He didn't tell her that he only remembered because he'd seen her earlier on the train platform and she'd been the last one called. It was sometimes useful if people thought he knew more than he did. "May I help you with something?"
She looked down at the toes of her patent-leather shoes. "I have a problem, and wasn't sure who to go to. I tried talking to Hannah but she didn't seem to understand -- not trying to get her in trouble, though -- and, ah, when you talked to us in the common room the other night, you, ah, didn't sound so scary."
The grin was getting harder to suppress. "I'm not scary, I promise. And I wouldn't assume you were trying to get anybody into trouble. What's wrong?" She was glancing around, as if unsure whether she wanted to talk in the hallway. "Come back in the Common Room," he told her. It hadn't been very full and he found them a corner away from other students; she sat down in a big wing chair while he settled on a green couch. She was so small her feet didn't touch the floor. "So, what's the problem?"
"I'm Jewish."
His eyebrows went up. Being Jewish was a problem? But she went on before he could ask her to clarify. "Next Wednesday-week is one of the High Holy Days -- Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. I'd like to take the day off from classes, but, well -- I have a test in Transfigurations. I'd make up any work, of course, but, ah . . . " she trailed off.
"Did you talk to McGonagall?"
"No!"
"Why not?"
"She's scary!"
He resisted laughing and tried to look at it from her perspective. McGonagall was strict, and severe in her methods and appearance. That she was also a marshmallow underneath was something one learned only over time. He hadn't been scared of her his first year because he'd known about her from his parents, especially his mother. Reaching for his crutches, he got to his feet. "Come on, Rose."
"Where are we going?"
"To talk to Professor McGonagall."
"No!"
"Trust me, all right?"
She didn't reply, just stared at him with those big blue eyes. But she followed as he left the Common Room for the tower that housed McGonagall's office and private apartments. On the way, he asked, "So tell me about Yom Kippur. What do you do? Besides not go to class?" He winked at her.
"Well, it depends on whether one's observant or not, Reform, Conservative or Orthodox . . . " She trailed off. "Do you know anything about Judaism?"
"I'm afraid not -- begging your pardon."
"No need to apologize. Most people here don't. I'm used to it. I'm not really practicing or it might be rather hard to keep kosher. My mother was worried about it. My father -- well, he's not Jewish. He went here."
"So your mother's a Muggle?"
"Oh, no. She's a witch -- or we call ourselves the Mecubalim. She was born in Israel and went to Harba de Mosheh -- that's the school there. It's much older than any school in Europe." And Cedric let her chatter, using his slowness at getting around (and exaggerating it a bit) to draw her out so she could relax as they walked. She'd apparently decided that his age and height notwithstanding -- and unlike McGonagall -- he was innocuous. The fact he was terribly curious and kept asking her questions probably helped. As with Chinese or Ojibway magic, the Hebrew version seemed to be built on very different precepts. By the time they reached McGonagall's office, he'd learned about Yom Kippur, the Superior Creatures, how her parents had met, what the letters of her name -- Rose -- meant in the Kabbalah, what her mother thought of England (too cold and bad food), and that Israeli chocolate was better than Swiss. In her opinion. It poured out of her in roughly that order of tangential ramble. She was utterly charming.
Reaching the professor's door, she fell silent, as if suddenly remembering why they were there. He gave her a smile. "Trust me," he said again, and knocked with his crutch.
It took some minutes before McGonagall, dressed in a nightgown and cap, opened it. "Mr. Diggory? What on earth -- is there an emergency?"
"We seem to have a small problem that you might be able to solve." He winked at her over Rose's head, so the girl couldn't see.
McGonagall's eyebrow went up, but he thought she might have got the message. "By all means," she said. "Come in. What's this problem?"
Cedric glanced at Rose, but she seemed too terrified to speak, and he wondered how she could be so loquacious one minute and then mute as a fish the next. Yet shepherding the little ones was part of his job. "Next Wednesday is the Jewish Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. It's customary to spend the day in reflection on one's actions for the year," he glanced at the girl, to make sure he wasn't making a botch of the explanation. From the mass of random details she'd given him, he'd tried to boil it down to the essentials. "Rose has a test in your class and was wondering if she might have an extension. She'd make it up either Wednesday evening after sunset, when the holiday is over, or the next day, at your convenience."
He stopped there to gauge McGonagall's reaction. She appeared mostly confused and gave him a look that said, When did you become the expert? He took it in his stride, not wanting to explain he'd had a crash course on the whole subject in the past fifteen minutes, along with a lot of other things.
"I've never heard of Yom Kippur. Is this a . . . religious holiday?" McGonagall asked -- of Rose, not Cedric. It was her subtle way of telling him he'd done his job, now stop playing father figure.
Rose coughed. "Ah, yes and no. I mean, it is; it's a High Holy Day. But I'm not religious."
"So why do you wish to observe a religious holiday if you're not religious?" An edge had crept into McGonagall's voice.
"Because I'm a Jew," Rose explained. "My mother observes it."
"But you just said you're not a Jew."
"No! I said I'm not religious. Of course I'm a Jew!" Rose sounded both irritated and frightened and threw him a half-accusatory look.
"We observe Christmas," Cedric pointed out.
"It's become a secular holiday, Mr. Diggory." McGonagall shot him a quelling glance. "And it'sconnected to Yule, which is a traditional holiday of ours. It's not about Christianity."
"It's part of our culture. This is part of her culture."
"I don't see the parallel. We exchange presents and eat rather a lot. A 'Day of Atonement' sounds like it serves a religious function to me." She looked back at Rose over the top of her square spectacles. "I must wonder if Miss Zeller has studied."
Rose appeared somewhere between furious and ready to cry and Cedric tugged at the back of his hair. McGonagall wasn't unreasonable normally, but she'd been teaching a long time and was quite good at smelling rats -- even when there weren't any present. "Things can . . . drift," he said, struggling for a way to close the gap. "What started as one thing becomes another. Would it be so bad if we did make a day to ask forgiveness of people we'd hurt in the past year? Forgiveness doesn't have to be about God. And Rose's mother was born in Tel Aviv; she grew up with these holidays. When she came here, she still kept them -- just as I'd keep Christmas if I moved to Israel. But my neighbors might assume I was Christian because, to them, Christmas is connected to Christianity even if it's not for me. For me, it's connected to home."
He just looked at her, willing her to understand. She, in turn, looked between him and Rose, and her expression softened. "You chose your advocate well, Miss Zeller. You may be excused from classes on Wednesday. But I will expect you in my classroom Thursday after your final lesson before supper to make up your exam."
"Yes, professor. Thank you."
"You're welcome." She watched Rose scuttle out, but set a hand on Cedric's forearm before he could follow. "You're sure she's not just having us both on?"
"If so, she just gave me the best set of unconnected facts that all make sense when you put them together. I think she's on the level."
McGonagall nodded. "I'll trust your assessment, Mr. Diggory."
In the hall outside McGonagall's office, Cedric got his reward -- a full body hug that took him by surprise and almost knocked him over, despite her small size. "I'll get you a whole box of Israeli chocolates!" she promised. He just laughed.
The next day, Hermione met Cedric in the appointed place beneath the Butterfly Woman, and almost before she was seated he had her by the waist, pulling her into an eager kiss. Startled by his fervor, she let him direct things and wasn't sure she had oxygen left by the time he let her go. They pressed foreheads together, giggling quietly and trying to recover enough sense to speak.
"I've been thinking," he said finally. "We should be seen together a bit more."
"I thought we were going to wait until Hogsmeade?"
"To go public, yes. But we can't just . . . show up there together. It'll look quite suspicious. We need to be seen together before that -- not as a couple."
"You're disturbingly devious for an honest, trustworthy Hufflepuff, you know that? Was 'be seen together' why you came to our table in the Common Room yesterday?"
"Not entirely -- but somewhat. You were with Harry and Ron. And whatever Scott says, I do devious very well." He grinned at her.
"All right, so we'll . . . be seen together more, but with other people around?"
"Exactly."
"It's not going to fool Cho."
He frowned and looked away. "Probably not."
She hesitated, then blurted out, "Cedric -- you should talk to her. Harry said she told him she broke up with you. You told me you were going to break up with her."
His frown deepened. "I was. I planned to go for a walk with her after lunch -- do it in private. She caught me in the Great Hall while I was eating. Things . . . didn't go so well. That wasn't how I meant it to happen."
"You should still talk to her. Tell her the truth. Don't leave her to make assumptions and wonder."
"Tell her what? That I fell in love with another girl?"
The startled expression on his face said he hadn't intended to admit that yet. She wondered if she should ask if he meant it, but chickened out. "Tell her that you tried, but after a summer apart it just wasn't there anymore."
"It wasn't there because of you."
"Is that the truth? Or did . . . this" -- she gestured between their bodies -- "happen because it wasn't there with her? If you'd felt about her the way you feel about me, there wouldn't have been a 'me,' would there? Or should I worry every time you talk to Violet or Hannah or Mary or any other girl?"
She could see him chew that over. Boys could be remarkably thick at times. "I suppose not." Then he looked back at her, gray eyes steady. "But this -- what we've got -- is special." He laughed softly. "You make me feel like I've been hit by the Hogwarts Express."
Blushing, she ran a hand down his arm beneath his robes. "Likewise," she whispered. "I never thought I'd find anybody like you. Or if I did, that you'd look twice at me."
He lifted her chin. "Don't put yourself down like that," he said against her mouth. "I don't like it. You're insulting my girlfriend." It made her laugh through his kisses, then she settled down in his arms, resting her head on his shoulder. It felt safe there, which surprised her. Too independent, she'd never thought of herself as the sort of girl to need a boy's arms to feel safe, but she thought it less that she was a girl and he a boy, and more that she had someone she knew she could count on, someone she came first for. He'd said he'd fallen in love with her, and she thought she might have fallen in love with him too. If she wasn't precisely experienced with relationships, this one seemed to have traveled several miles past mere infatuation already.
She saw him again on Wednesday, his birthday, when she returned to doing rounds. He was a bit late to arrive for report and showed up in the prefects' lounge wearing a ridiculous paper crown on his head with 18 charmed to blink all around the circumference like the magical version of a scrolling message board. He was laughing with Peter, who'd come with him. Hufflepuff had clearly been using his birthday as an excuse for a party; Peter had cake icing on his chin and didn't seem aware of it. The other prefects gave Cedric a bit of a hard time and she watched, smiling, waiting for everybody else to leave. She wanted a few moments alone with him.
Finally the others departed, except for Peter, who lagged behind to be sure everybody was gone, then glanced from her to Cedric. "I'll tell them you'll be back in a bit," he said and left them.
She pulled a package from inside her robes, offering it to him. "Not nearly as clever as yours, I'm afraid."
He sat down on a couch and took the present; she sat beside him. Unable to resist, she plucked off the crown. "You have a penchant for wearing the most ridiculous things on your head. Raccoons, blinking crowns -- I dread to think what you'll do with paper hats from Christmas crackers."
"Oh, I love those," he said as he undid the paper -- quickly but more neatly than she had with hers. Inside were the pictures Colin had taken, set in frames that she'd found for them. His smile widened as he examined them. "They're good."
"I didn't break the camera anyway."
"Like I told you on Monday -- stop insulting my girlfriend."
"Cedric! I have terrible hair." She didn't mention the teeth, as she'd rather managed to fix those.
He just looked at her. "What's wrong with your hair?"
She blinked at him. Was he blind? "It's completely uncontrollable!"
He grinned. "I like it. But if you hate it so much, why not just cut it short?"
Her mouth opened and shut; she'd honestly never thought about that. "I don't want to." She just wanted it to lie sleek and glossy like Cho's.
"Then don't." He shrugged, unconcerned, and leaned over to kiss her. "Thank you," he said, holding up the pictures. The kiss thrilled her not because it was passionate or tender but because it was simple and affectionately offhand -- the kind of kiss given to someone who'd been kissed before and would be kissed again. And in that moment, she finally, truly felt like his girlfriend. Comfortable. She laid her head on his shoulder and he wrapped an arm around her. They just sat that way for a few minutes, not speaking. He was examining the top picture in the pile: the one of her smiling and waving at the camera, looking (she thought) a bit goofy, but it was the happiest of the photos Colin had made.
Finally he let her go. "I should get back."
"Me too."
She stood and waited for him to get to his feet. He'd slipped the pictures into the book bag he carried everywhere now even when he wasn't going to class, and she set the crown back on his head, found herself laughing at him. "What?" he asked.
"You. You're just . . . a very silly man sometimes."
"Monday you called me devious, today you call me silly -- doesn't sound as if you like me much, Granger."
Reaching up, she wrapped an arm around his neck and pulled his head down to kiss him soundly. His crown fell off and she caught it, putting it back when she was finished. "There. Does that convince you I like you?"
"I don't know. I could stand some more convincing."
Swatting his arm, she said, "Go! Shoo!"
Laughing, he started off, then glanced back. "Tomorrow. Meet me in the library after dinner, all right?"
She frowned. "After dinner in the library's a bit busy. I don't think we could trust that our table wouldn't be occupied --"
"I didn't mean there. I meant just . . . in the library. To study together."
She remembered what he'd said about being seen together sometimes, but she'd thought he'd meant with other people like Harry and Ron, or his friends. "Should we be alone -- ?"
"We'll sit on opposite sides of the table and behave ourselves."
It made her smile. "You? Behave yourself? I'll believe it when I see it."
In fact, he did behave. And the two of them orchestrated a few more casual public appearances over the weekend. After the second, Katie Bell and Angelina Johnson both approached her to ask (with a bit of envy) what was up with Cedric Diggory? "He's friends with Harry," she replied. "He's been helping me with Transfigurations." It wasn't a lie; he had been helping her, but she giggled to herself after they departed.
Yet these covert games lost fascination on Monday when she overheard a conversation between three Ravenclaw fifth years sitting across the aisle from her in Arithmancy.
"-- a bit of a joke. Can't believe Dumbledore picked him for Head Boy over Roger. For that matter, I couldn't believe his name came out of the Goblet last year. The fact Potter could tie with him makes it clear how feeble he is. Now he's Head Boy and we have to take him seriously? Not when he comes up with stupid stuff like a Hogwarts Common Room. Even Violet manages to make excuses not to hang out in there. He's embarrassing."
"Diggory got Head Boy out of pity, plain and simple," said a second boy.
"I don't know," said a third, looking dubious. "Everyone was cheering him on last year."
"That's cause Potter was the other option," said boy two. "I'll take Diggory above Potter."
"What I don't understand," said the first boy, "is why people fawn over him. He's only popular because he's handsome. He's not that clever, and he's not particularly nice unless you suck up to him. He wasn't even all that great a Quidditch player -- just got lucky that one time against Gryffindor."
The second boy laughed. "Yeah, and we smashed Hufflepuff in the next match. He had dismal strategy and it took Cho so long to catch the Snitch only because she was making cow eyes at him."
The arrival of Professor Vector cut off further discussion, but what Hermione had heard upset her so much she had a difficult time concentrating. She recognized envy and House prejudice for what it was, yet their cavalier dismissal of the Common Room idea worried her because after the first few days, the number of people who frequented it had dipped. Nor had she ever seen Violet there. If Hermione had never heard Violet speak ill of Cedric, the Head Girl had been . . . scarce in his company of late.
What bothered Hemione most, however, was that she'd failed to notice these small signs, perhaps due to her infatuation and her pride in what Cedric had accomplished. Now, she wondered if he'd missed the signs too? Should she say anything to him, or did he have enough on his mind without hearing the snarky gossip of jealous Ravenclaw boys? Even in the short time she'd known him, she'd come to realize that Cedric wilted in the face of genuine animosity. He might struggle to ignore it, but others' dislike of him hurt. She who'd never been popular had learned young not to care so much.
So she watched for small incidents, and what she saw disturbed her. Hufflepuff continued to frequent the Common Room, but other House participation was minimal. What had begun as a grand idea had suddenly become a bit poncy. Nor did the aspersions stop with the Common Room. People began to make fun of Cedric himself in new, far more vicious ways. Once, she even spotted a Slytherin boy walking behind him down the hall, mimicking his drag-footed stride. Yet rather than rebuke him for the complete crassness, other students (and not just Slytherins) laughed behind their hands. She'd wanted to stomp over there and give the boy what-for but Ron had held her back -- and done it himself.
One morning when she arrived especially early for breakfast because she had work to do in the library, she found Zacharias Smith -- of all people -- ripping down a handful of bills that had been Stuck to the Great Hall doors. She saw the last before he got to it: a cartoonish sketch of Cedric with the crutches clutching a bottle in a bag, like a drunk. "What is this?" she demanded.
"What does it look like? I'm getting this shit down before Cedric sees it."
"No! Give them to me! I'll take them to Dumbledore, or at least to Professor Sprout!"
Smith turned to glare at her from under a lock of blond hair. "And what're they going to do? We don't know who's making them, so we just get them down before he sees them."
"This has happened more than once?"
"Fourth time," Smith said, balling up the parchment. "I come down early every morning," he admitted. "It's easier since Ced goes swimming."
Appalled, Hermione asked, "He doesn't know?"
Smith glared again. "Like he needs to know this? Get your head out of your arse, Granger. Slytherin's turned his Common Room idea into a running joke, and it's not just Slytherin -- Ravenclaw and even you people talk about him like he's off his face half the time." Sneering, he added, "Why don't you ask the Weasley twins? They get mileage out of it."
Her jaw dropped, and yet -- remembering how they'd made fun of Cedric last year -- she couldn't say she was surprised. She'd just hoped that in the wake of everything since, they'd stopped taking every opportunity to put him down. She was deeply disturbed that fellow students felt so free to ridicule the Head Boy in such a public way. It was almost as shocking as Zacharias Smith appointing himself to be Cedric's personal watchdog. Turning on her heel, she headed off. "Hey Granger!" Smith called after and she turned. "Don't tell Cedric." It was more of an order than a request, but she nodded.
Later that same evening, she hunted down the twins, who were consulting with Lee Jordan in the common room over their latest test results. "I want a word with you."
"Oooo," they answered, George adding, "We haven't been testing on anybody else, Hermione -- just us."
"This isn't about that! Zacharias Smith told me what you've been doing to Cedric. How could you! And after . . . after everything he did for Harry!" With Lee there, she couldn't discuss the Order. But Fred and George simply appeared puzzled and glanced to Lee, who shrugged. "People are making fun of him," she scolded, "and you're doing it too!"
Comprehension suddenly dawned on their faces. "Hermione," Fred began, "We're not doing anything to Diggory --"
"-- that we haven't been doing for six years," George finished.
"We can't let up on him now," Fred concluded and George nodded.
"Why?!" Hermione demanded, and her obvious upset drew the attention of Harry and Ron, who ambled over along with Ginny.
"Why what?" Ron asked.
"Diggory's catching dragon dung," Fred told his brother. "Or didn't you notice?"
"That Common Room idea -- it didn't go over so well," Lee agreed. "Well, at first it did."
"What changed?" Harry asked.
"Dunno, mate," George said.
"Cho!' Hermione snapped.
"No," Harry said quietly. "Cho won't go herself, but she still thinks the idea's golden. She's angry with Ced, but that doesn't have anything to do with stopping Voldemort. She believes us. And she's been encouraging Ravenclaws to go."
"It's true," Ginny added. "Michael said Cho's not saying anything bad about him as Head Boy."
"Just about me," Hermione said.
"Well?" Lee asked, half-laughing. "You stole her boyfriend." At Hermione's open mouth, he held up a hand to forestall her explosion. "Come on, Hermione. Half the school's just waiting for the two of you to stop playing games."
"Diggory's not a bad actor," Fred observed.
"Yeah, but Hermione here's never going to play Lady Macbeth, you know?"
She was aghast. Harry leapt in. "Who is starting this stuff , then? Two weeks ago, the Common Room was full."
"We don't know."
"Malfoy, I bet," Ron said.
"Probably," George agreed.
"He's not clever enough to start it," Harry sneered.
Hermione started to disagree, then reconsidered. Much as she hated him, if she were honest, she had to admit that Draco wasn't a bad student, but not a particularly exceptional one either. Nor was he brave. He got by on an inflated sense of his own worth, his family's reputation, and a keen nose for opportunity. He didn't plan things; he took advantage of them. She didn't think him capable of a methodical plan to undermine Cedric, and was reminded of Umbridge's appearance in the Common Room a week before. "It's Umbridge," she said now.
"Umbridge hasn't said anything about him that I've heard," George told her.
"Or me," Fred agreed.
"That's because she's not saying anything in public -- she's sitting behind the scenes, encouraging people to make fun of him and the Common Room too, and telling Slytherin not to go."
The others squirmed uncomfortably. "Hermione," Ron said, "Ced's a good bloke, but he's barking mad if he thinks Slytherin's ever going to set foot in that Common Room. Umbridge doesn't have to tell them anything; they're not going to do it."
"And we don't want them there," the twins added in unison.
"You know he's right!" she insisted.
"Don't know anything of the kind," George said.
"He's hitting the happy juice a bit too much, if you asked me," Fred agreed.
She stamped her foot and felt all the blood flood her face. "Stop making those sorts of jokes! They're not funny. They're cruel."
Ginny put an arm around her to calm her down. "They didn't mean it like that," she said.
"They still make fun of him when half the school's making fun of him!" Then to Fred and George, "I'd think you two might have the decency to stop!"
Fred just shook his head but George explained -- with uncharacteristic seriousness -- "If we stop, Hermione, it looks like we think they're right. Would look that way to Diggory too. So we give him the same hell we've always given him."
"And he gives us the two-fingered salute, same as he always did," Fred added.
"And, well, if we've --"
"-- switched out a few Canary Creams --"
"-- with a few select puddings at lunch --"
"-- it made Diggory laugh."
"He didn't even give us detention," George finished.
"Made us banish the molted feathers, though," Fred added after a moment.
Hermione stared at them. She'd somehow missed that completely, and felt a wholly irrational rush of affection for the two, however frustrating they could be -- or however questionable their antics.
"Smith's got his knickers in a twist over nothing," Lee added.
"Still think Diggory's a bit of a straight-laced prat," Fred and George said together, as if unable to confess to actually liking their classmate.
Satisfied for the moment, Hermione drifted away with Harry and Ron. This new underhanded sally from Umbridge reminded her of another topic she needed to broach with Harry. "I was wondering," she said to him when they were ensconced on the far side of the Gryffindor common room looking up potions, "whether you'd thought any more about Defense Against the Dark Arts . . . "
Cedric was well aware of what was happening. He knew his House was trying to protect him but it was all rather hard to miss, and like Hermione, he'd reached the conclusion that Umbridge probably lay behind it, which made it all the more imperative that he win the support of at least a few Slytherins. He and Umbridge were locked in a life-or-death struggle like an eagle with a poison viper in its talons. If he lost his bid to make the Common Room succeed, he may as well hand in his badge now; he'd never get his authority back.
He wasn't going to lose.
Dumbledore intercepted him after his last class on Thursday. "You have an invitation to dinner at the Three Broomsticks," the Headmaster told him. "I was asked to pass it along. Six sharp."
"In Hogsmeade? But --"
"You are of age," Dumbledore reminded him. "And while it isn't our habit to allow even seventh years to wander off and on the grounds casually -- especially not in these days -- there are exceptions. Have a good evening, Mr. Diggory." He started to walk away. "Oh, I nearly forgot. Your escort to the village will meet you outside the gate."
Hurrying up to his rooms, Cedric left his school robes behind and fetched out plain black ones. He didn't think it wise to call attention to himself as a student this evening. Esiban wasn't happy at not being released from his cage, and in a fit of remorse, Cedric decided to bring him along. "Now you behave yourself," he warned the raccoon, "or I'll have to spell you and I know you don't like that." Esiban scampered up his arm to drape himself over Cedric's shoulders.
Students were already drifting towards dinner in the Great Hall but his current persona non grata status made it possible for him to duck out without anybody feeling a need to talk to him. It was a bit of a hike from the castle to the main gate, past the Whomping Willow and Hagrid's hut. After a long day and the stress of the past week especially, he decided to use the chair and Locomotor charm, however much he might disdain the charm normally. There was little point in exhausting himself.
As it turned out, his escort was waiting about halfway up the lane. "Remus!" he said, smiling as the other man came forward to grip his hands. "It's good to see you."
"And you. But you look tired, Cedric," he said honestly. At least he didn't linger on that, having noticed the raccoon. "Well, who are you?"
"This is Esiban."
"I don't think I've ever seen a raccoon outside photos -- it is a raccoon, isn't it?" Cedric nodded. "Did you have him when I was teaching here?"
"Yes, but he's nocturnal." Cedric pulled him down from where he was draped around Cedric's shoulders and set him on his lap. "You can stroke him, just hold your hand out low and let him sniff you first."
Man and raccoon greeted each other. "You're quite something," Lupin said to Esiban as Cedric fished out the sweets he kept tucked away in a pocket, handing one to Lupin, who offered it up. Esiban accepted it and scampered back to Cedric's shoulders.
"You're his friend now," Cedric said. "You fed him." Chuckling, Lupin paced beside him as he motored along. "What's this about?" Cedric asked.
"We'll explain when you get there. Suffice to say we didn't trust an owl." Lupin eyed him. "How's Defense Against the Dark Arts going?"
"Absolutely worthless. I really wish you'd stayed."
"Not possible," Lupin said, shaking his head.
"You were our best teacher, hands down," Cedric told him. "And that's not just my opinion. Everybody liked you."
"Not everybody." His voice was dull, then he smiled. "But I thank you all the same for the kind words."
They talked then of inconsequential things as they made their way out of the school grounds and up the road into Hogsmeade. Cedric pondered whether to tell Lupin about Harry's half-formed plan to study Defense Against the Dark Arts privately, but decided not to. Nonetheless, at one point he did say, "I wish you were nearer. There's so much I need to learn before taking NEWTs. Your help was the only thing that got me through OWLs with an O."
Lupin shook his head. "Half your problem," he told him, "is that you don't trust yourself enough. You're better than you think you are."
"I've no special talent --"
"I didn't say it was your best subject. I said you're better than you think you are. In any case, before you leave tonight, we have a few things to show you -- spells you should know, as much for Order business as anything."
As they'd nearly reached the Three Broomsticks, Cedric expanded his crutches, stopping the chair to get out and collapse it. Esiban clung to his shoulders. "You're being very mysterious about who 'we' are, you know," he said to Lupin, who smiled.
"Not intentionally. I assumed Dumbledore had told you." He gestured towards the door, waving it open for Cedric to enter.
Waiting inside near the bar with Rosmerta was a tall woman in regal purple. "Mother!"
She came to embrace him. "Come upstairs. Rosmerta has reserved a private room for us."
They went up and dinner was served almost immediately. Cedric gave Esiban a small platter with potatoes, bread and vegetables, and ordered him to stay out of trouble. Coming back to the table, he sat down between Lupin and his mother. "So what is this about?" he asked her.
But she just pulled her wand and said, "Pay attention." Then pointing it into the air above them, she said, "Muffliato!" The very air around the table dulled. It didn't take much for him to recognize the spell that Dumbledore had used in St. Mungo's -- the spell he'd wanted to learn. It was followed by a small flick that undid it. "Now," she said. "You try." Pulling his own wand he made an attempt, but knew he'd botched it even before he'd finished. "No --" his mother said, "you didn't follow the wand motion. Attend."
It took five more tries before she was satisfied with the result, and he was reminded of why he disliked learning spells from her. She was even more of a perfectionist than he. Lupin had watched, reaching over only once to correct his wrist action. It had been rather more complicated than it looked.
"Now," his mother said when an acceptable Silencing spell was in place, "Umbridge. And this Common Room of yours." She cut her pork into neat bites. "You sent me an owl to ask both how to encourage Syltherin's participation, and also to learn if I knew anything useful about Dolores.
"The latter first. She was at Hogwarts' in my parents' day and despite being sorted into Slytherin, she's no pureblood -- although her Muggle ancestry is far enough back, she tried to pass herself off as one. I'm unsure if her school years overlapped with Tom Riddle's, but I believe they did. She would have been a fifth, sixth or seventh year when he first arrived, however."
"You think she may have been taken in by him?"
"Hard to know. Quite possibly. He was clever and handsome and adept at using it to flatter, and as I'll explain, she's especially susceptible to that."
"Wouldn't that make her more inclined to want to see an end to him?"
"Or more determined never to hear about him again at all," Lupin suggested quietly.
"Exactly," his mother agreed. "For Fudge, the survival of the Dark Lord means a challenge he's ill-prepared to meet. Fudge is a bumbling incompetent."
Although he'd heard her opinion on Fudge before, Cedric snorted in amusement, as did Lupin. She took a bite of her meal, which she'd heretofore mostly forgotten.
"For Dolores, all this represents an opportunity, as well as an unhappy reminder. As you've gathered, she's far more cunning than Fudge. Nonetheless, she knows herself neither charismatic nor physically commanding enough for independent power. She recognized early that she'd need a puppet in order to make herself l'éminence grise. Fudge is her puppet." She looked him in the eye. "Avoid a direct confrontation with her, Cedric. She's been at this fifty years longer than you. Hubris won't serve you."
"I've been avoiding a confrontation, mother."
She nodded in approval. "Now -- as for her achilles heel. Dolores has certain blindnesses. The first is that, like many in my House, she dislikes Muggle-borns, considers them automatically of lesser ability. As this is not an attitude that Fudge especially shares, nor one of which the Ministry approves, she's become adept at hiding it. That said, she is inclined to underestimate half-bloods and Muggle-borns. Your father's Muggle ancestry is too distant for it to grant you advantage."
"But Harry -- and Hermione."
"Precisely. She sees Harry as a threat for his fame. For himself, however, she isn't inclined to take him seriously. And from what I've heard of how he plays right into her hands" -- her eyebrows hopped -- "she might not need to."
"Mother," Cedric protested even as Remus said, "Harry's under a lot of pressure, Lucy."
"And far too inclined to let his emotions run away with him. I don't dislike him, Remus, but I could wish he might control his temper a bit better."
"He's fifteen, mum."
"Even so. I did not make those mistakes at fifteen, and neither did you."
Cedric dropped it. There wasn't any point in arguing with her about some things.
"Hermione may be of more use to you," she was saying. "She isn't famous, and is Muggle-born. Dolores will view her as an idle threat and an accessory. She won't be watching her so closely as you. Therefore, use yourself as the decoy and let Hermione spearhead any actions."
Cedric resisted smiling. His mother made all this sound like some sort of spy adventure.
"Now, the second thing about which she can't see clearly involves non-humans and half-breeds -- though I'm not sure how much use that will be. Still, I mention it; knowledge is always valuable. As with Muggle-borns but even more so, she regards non-humans as unworthy of serious consideration. Her run-ins with goblins have caused the Ministry no little embarrassment in the past and her prsent anti-werewolf legistlation . . . " She shot Lupin a glance. "Let's just say it borders on inhumane, not merely repressive.
"The final thing . . . " She paused and folded her hands together, chin resting on them as she watched him. "She has a weakness for the flattery of handsome young men, the more clean-cut, the better. I understand her current favorite at the Ministry is Percy Weasley, but the Ministry -- and Percy -- are rather a long distance away from Hogwarts."
Cedric almost choked on his bite of potatoes and even Lupin coughed. "Mum!" Cedric said. "I can't . . . flatter that creature -- even if she'd believe it."
"There are many ways to use your attractiveness, Cedric, but you'd be a fool to ignore it. It's a pity you made it clear to Fudge so early that you oppose him. Otherwise, you might have been able to manipulate her quite handily."
"I couldn't have done anything but oppose Fudge! I couldn't betray Harry."
"Of course you couldn't," she snapped, annoyed with him, "because you wear your heart on your sleeve. Nonetheless, I think it still possible to gain some advantage. No, be quiet and listen," she said before he could get his mouth open. "You'll need to walk a fine line between offering temptation and depriving her of what she wants."
Lupin stared at her with his mouth caught mid-chew and Cedric himself had no idea how to react; his face felt frozen. She glanced between them both and threw up her hands. "Oh, please, gentlemen, may we dispense with the prudery? Cedric, you're as bad as your father -- no, worse, I fear. Now listen to me -- you're an extraordinarily attractive boy with the kind of charm that appeals to women of all ages. I may be your mother, but I'm hardly blind to your effect on women. Molly Weasley practically simpers when she talks about you."
"Lucy!" Lupin said.
"It's not an insult, Remus. I quite like Molly. She's very sensible most of the time. Nonetheless." She looked back at Cedric. "Don't flirt with Umbridge; it won't work. And avoid blatant rejection that might humiliate her. Instead, flirt around Umbridge. Show her your charms and let her wish." She leaned over the table to hold his eyes. "You want to render her unable to think clearly around you. That puts the control in your hands. Understand?"
He scratched the back of his head, trying to process what she'd just suggested. A part of him -- the cold part -- recognized it to be very clever. Heaven knew he'd flirted before, but never with anyone he hadn't genuinely liked as a person and he wasn't sure how he felt about using his looks as a lure on somebody he despised.
And that was the difference between them. He was feeling; she wasn't. She was thinking. What made it all the more disturbing was that this might actually work. He'd seen Umbridge staring at him, but had assumed it to do with her plotting to bring him low. Now her staring took on a whole new cast and he felt dirtied. What was the woman imagining? Did she have fantasies?
He couldn't even bear to think on that.
Reading his distress in his face, his mother reached across the table to grip his chin. "Look at me." He did. Her expression was much softer now, perhaps even a bit regretful. "You do not have to do this, Cedric. It was only a suggestion."
And that was the woman who'd held him at night, sang him to sleep, spelled his cuts and bruises away, and taught him all she knew. Yet the other woman -- the one who'd just suggested he play Umbridge -- that was his mother too. It wasn't that these were two different personalities, but that his mother had two sides, and one of them scared him a bit -- more than a bit, if he were honest. He loved her, he admired her, and he feared her. He knew absolutely that she'd lay down her life for him -- and that she'd kill for him. She was beautiful and terrible and brilliant, and quite possibly the only one able to teach him how to fight Umbridge because she was the only one who really understood the lengths to which Umbridge would go. "I could do this?" he asked.
"You're my son," she replied, as if that should answer his question.
Lupin snorted where he sat with arms crossed, his dinner forgotten. Cedric didn't think he approved, but he also wouldn't intervene.
"What about --" Cedric cut himself off. Yet the cat would be out of the bag in two days. "What about Hermione?" Lupin snorted again, although this time, it sounded suspiciously like a suppressed laugh.
His mother's eyes hooded slightly. "Oh, I think Hermione might understand. Besides, who do you think I expect you to flirt with in Dolores' vicinity? Professor McGonagall?"
"I'll think about it," he said.
She shrugged. "As I said, it was merely a suggestion, Cedric. You asked for suggestions. That one would grant you the greatest results with the least danger to yourself."
No doubt. It just wasn't something he felt able to ethically stomach.
He decided to change the subject. "What about getting Slytherin to come to the Common Room?"
She shook her head. "My dear son -- in order to convince Slytherin to join your cause, you have to stop thinking like a Hufflepuff." She looked up. "I read your letter with the gist of what you told your house. Very touching. And nothing Slytherin cares much about. You know better. Try again. Why should Slytherin join you?"
He glared at her. She wasn't giving him an answer, but requiring him to think about it. "I don't know."
"And that's your problem," she said. He continued to glare and she amended after a moment, "Well, part of your problem. Draco is the other part. But that is to your advantage, son of mine."
"I'm not interested in that advantage."
"Don't be idiotic. They won't follow you for some moral mirage of 'school unity.' They'll follow you if it's a practical necessity. If the Dark Lord wins, no one wins, and believe it or not, some in my House are perfectly capable of recognizing that. Yet Slytherin is isolated and forced to follow whoever has the greatest power -- because if they don't, that power might be turned against them. Do you think the likes of Blaise Zabini enjoys being beholden to Draco? Whatever status Lucius holds among Death Eaters, Draco is not his father. He's weak, his ambitions unformed and short-sighted. Yet he reigns in Slytherin because he is a Malfoy. Some may genuinely like him, but I'd wager more don't.
"And that is what your Common Room offers Slytherin. A chance for enough outside support to challenge a leader they feel unworthy and forced on them."
She leaned in further, pushing aside her mostly untouched meal. "But understand -- my House will not betray itself. I was shunned because I dared to cross the line, and it was viewed as a betrayal. No more than Hufflepuff will Slytherin accept that. Learn from my mistake, Cedric. If you attempt to divide Slytherin by wooing a few, you'll unify them further against you.
"Instead, offer them an alternative -- a path to get the leader they want. A true leader."
"Mother, I'm not in that House. I'd never have been sorted into that House."
"I didn't mean you. You are Head Boy and no longer belong exclusively to any House. I meant a better leader from within. As I said, do not attempt to divide Slytherin. Instead throw your support behind a different leader. After all, the only person who can take down a Malfoy is another Malfoy."
He sat back, understanding her finally.
"Stop running from that half of you," she said. "You are my son, and I was the elder of my generation, daughter of the elder -- not Lucius. You are the heir -- not Draco. Whatever surname you took from your father, you are a Malfoy, Cedric. Son of Lucretia Aurelia Malfoy.
"And you're the only one who can dethrone Draco."
Notes: Thanks to Itay Avatalyon for all the info on Jewish magic; I made Rose's mum from Tel Aviv for you, m'dear; and to Mara Greengrass, for reading over Rose's section quickly when I needed it.