Wednesday was, if possible, even wetter than Tuesday. Cedric found this to be a blessing in disguise. Getting to and from Herbology bordered on miserable for him, but the downpour brought a rise in the number of those who suddenly remembered there was a school Common Room. He began to wonder if he'd need any incentive besides the bad Scottish weather, which he could pretty much count on. Nonetheless, and after a bit of thought, he decided to try Hermione's suggestion and wrote to his mother, asking if she could send him the Triwizard Cup.
He also dragged out the little black journal Lupin had given him. He used it to talk to himself about two things -- life on the crutches, and what he felt for Granger. He'd decided at the outset he shouldn't write anything in it about the Order, in part because he couldn't. It was quite impossible for him to write a word that was more than allusive. The Fidelius Charm Dumbledore had cast prevented it, and to experience the restriction, not just read about it in a textbook, felt strange. In any case, the journal was for him, for the things he had on his mind that he wasn't sure how or where else to express. So he filled it with his anger and his fears, his longing and his passion. He wasn't loquacious verbally and often kept his less appealing emotions to himself, but a quill in his hand freed his tongue, so to speak.
Wednesday, he found himself writing the question Harry had asked him on Monday:
How do I know if I'm in love?
Putting down the quill, he stared at the question and wondered if he could know yet? Despite his romantic streak, he was skeptical of love at first sight, thinking such 'love' really just lust prettied up a bit. He knew lust perfectly well. Love, though, eluded him. Certainly he loved his parents, and he loved Esiban, but despite his popularity, he'd always felt isolated at Hogwarts and wondered if he could even say he loved his friends? He was fond of them, enjoyed their company, cared about them, certainly -- but did he love them?
When it came down to it, he thought he might be a bit of a cold fish for a Hufflepuff.
Yet what he felt for Hermione was creating a category all its own. Did that make it love, or just very intense infatuation? The feeling wasn't easing either, now that things were public. He'd thought that being free to see and speak to her at meals and between classes might reduce the time he spent daydreaming. Instead, his fancy had increased. Umbridge wanted people to think him addicted to Abdoleo, but his real addiction was Hermione.
He didn't think that counted as love, though -- just obsession.
It might have helped if he knew whether his parents were in love with each other, but he'd never been sure. He knew there was a story behind their marriage -- a scandal, really -- but they'd never told it to him when he'd asked as a boy, and after a while, he'd stopped asking. He'd sometimes envied his friends their parents who clearly adored one another -- including the Weasleys. Yet life in his house hadn't been unhappy or unpleasant. If he wasn't sure whether his parents loved each other, they certainly didn't hate each other. They got along, and supported one another. His mother wouldn't have been able to study in Florence as a young woman had his father not been willing to follow her there at the expense of starting his own career, not to mention she'd had no place to go when she'd turned her back on her family, except to Amos Diggory's side. He'd been her champion and her sanctuary.
But was that love on his part, or just adoration? And did his mother love his father, or was it only gratitude? It was confusing, and Cedric had grown up trying not to think about it too much. The only thing he knew for sure was that he never wanted to marry a woman merely from gratitude or guilt -- but found it ironic that he'd stayed with Cho so long for just those reasons. Children learned what they lived. Perhaps what his parents had worked for them, but it wasn't what he needed.
He needed to be in love with a girl. He just didn't know if he'd recognize it when he found it.
Picking up the quill again, he hesitated, then began to answer his own question -- not in narrative form, but in lines of feeling and impression. His mother used brush and color to speak. Cedric didn't have that talent, but he still saw the world in imagery and symbol, so he painted in words.
Skin-thrill in touch. Heart-catch and breath held.
Watch her lips as she drops words, eat them and her mouth both.
There lies all of her for me to taste.
She hides in my heart, peeks out and surprises me.
I dream of futures in kaleidoscope senses.
Soft conversations and the smell of rain,
warm hearth-fire nights and summer sun
caught in leaves and brown hair.
Laughter and whispers and soft sighs from her hands on me.
Want lies heavy between my legs. Love lies somewhere else.
The intangible Real. My body knows only a wall-shadow of that truth,
but in the shadow is the Form of Beauty.
He looked down at it. Maybe not very good verse -- he wasn't entirely sure how to judge -- but he thought he had his answer all the same, and wrote the poem's last line:
I am in love with Helen's daughter.
Closing the journal, he put it away in his desk and left his rooms for supper. Hermione was waiting for him outside the Great Hall and hurried to meet him when she saw him coming down the corridor, her robes and wild hair flying. It made him smile. The face of Helen's daughter wouldn't launch a thousand ships, but that was just fine with him. When she hugged him, she fit against his side and she knew how to talk to him. He liked her stubborn chin and her bushy hair and the dusting of brown freckles on her nose. Most of all, he liked her eyes; they were beautiful and warm. And yes, maybe this was what love felt like, tucked away underneath everything else.
She pulled his head down to kiss him quickly, whispering, "We're meeting at eight," against his mouth. "Seventh floor opposite the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy."
"'We' who?" he whispered back as she let him go. He had to admit he rather enjoyed this manner of passing on covert information.
"You know -- 'we' we."
Feeling light-hearted, he just laughed at her. "Clear as mud, Granger."
She made a moue of annoyance. "You know what I mean. Tell Ed, Scott and Peter, please."
Ah, her Dark Arts class. "As my lady commands." And he laughed again when she swatted at him.
The place of their meeting turned out to interest Cedric more than the lesson -- a room he'd never seen after seven years in the castle, fitted out to order for their needs just by wishing it. Powerful magic indeed. "This room could be anything?" he asked Harry as he clomped around the perimeter, examining things while they awaited the arrival of everyone.
"That's what Dobby said -- the 'Room of Requirement.'"
"How do you create it?"
Harry told him. Cedric wasn't sure what he could do with the knowledge, but just learning such a room existed was well worth putting up with such wheel-spinning as a formal vote to elect Harry leader, and giving the group a name. He'd been forced to bite his tongue to keep from laughing aloud when Scott had semi-seriously suggested the name "It."
"It?" Hermione had asked him, dumbfounded.
"Well, that's what it'll get called, won't it? May as well just name it that and be done with it."
Hermione's grossly offended expression left Cedric and his mates in near hysterics, and even Harry was grinning. But Cedric thought it probably a good thing not to take it all quite so seriously, at least when it came to the trappings. What they were here to do was quite serious enough, and he supported Harry when the boy suggested practicing Expelliarmus first. He didn't really need it personally, but the best way to survive a fight was to avoid having one in the first place. "There's something to be said," he told them quietly, "for disarming your opponent and then running like hell."
"Yeah, I'd call it being a coward," one of the twins shot back. "Like you in the graveyard last June."
"Fred!" Hermione snapped, and even Ron and Ginny looked a bit taken aback. Several of the Hufflepuffs bristled visibly.
Stung (because he still felt badly for having left Harry), Cedric retorted, "I'd call it common sense when the person you're facing is fifty years older than you and the most powerful dark wizard in recent history. I'd rather live to fight another day than die because I'm stupid."
"Who're you calling stupid, Diggory?" asked the other twin, George apparently.
Harry stepped between them. "Stop it. Cedric has a point -- why do you think I suggested practicing that spell? And remember, I told him to go back. We might not have made it out without Dumbledore. If I'd gone and left him, they'd just have killed him. They wanted me alive, at least for a while."
Fred and George backed down, but appeared a bit mulish about it. They still hadn't forgotten that Cedric had come back without Harry at first. Ron may have forgiven him once he'd understood the logic of it, but it was just one more in the laundry list of things the twins resented Cedric for. They might be on the same side and all in the Order, but that didn't mean they had to like each other.
Cedric paired himself with Scott first, then traded off with Ed and Peter. He had the fastest reactions, Scott the most powerful magic, but Ed the Chaser was the most precise at aiming. Poor Peter came out the worst with each of them, but valiantly kept trying. At least he managed to get Scott once because the latter was too busy flirting with Alicia Spinnet.
"That was a dirty trick!" Scott howled when he picked himself up from the floor where the spell had landed him.
Cedric, Ed and Peter just laughed. "The Death Eaters won't wait for you to stop making eyes at the girls," Ed told him, although Ed was, himself, spending rather a lot of time glancing over at Susan Bones paired with Hannah Abbot.
Cedric was doing his best not to watch Hermione paired with Ron, and be jealous. It made sense for her to practice with someone from her own year. Cedric could probably disarm her before she could get her wand up and while no Death Eater would grant her quarter, it wouldn't do any good to break her confidence by being overmatched immediately. His Granger might be brilliant, but she was more deliberate than speedy. They'd work on that, but later, when no one else was watching.
The lesson overran the time allotted, but when Harry blew his whistle for the last time and called a halt, the faces in the room appeared mostly pleased. As Harry sent off students in twos and threes, Cedric said goodnight to his former denmates and crossed to join Hermione, who was bickering with Ron over how many times they'd each disarmed the other. She slipped an arm around Cedric's waist almost absently and without pause in her debate. He quite liked that, even if it were hard for him to return the gesture. Harry joined them too, and Cedric asked, "Are they always like this?" Ron and Hermione had got into some ridiculous debate on Sunday, too, that had lasted twenty minutes.
"Now you know why I get headaches," Harry replied. "Come on, we need to get back."
"And you two've got rounds to do," Cedric reminded Ron and Hermione, then noticed the parchment Harry had been carrying around. "What is that?"
Harry grinned and held it up, showing a map of Hogwarts -- a magical map. Cedric gaped and took it from him, staring at it while he balanced on one crutch. "This is amazing!" Maybe not quite on a par with the Room of Requirement itself, but still quite impressive. "Where did you get this?"
"Long story. You won't confiscate it, will you?"
The question reminded Cedric that he held not just a fascinating magical object, but quite an illegal one for a student. "I should." Harry's lips parted in surprise. "But I won't. It's far too useful. Besides, I'd like to know how this was made. It's showing . . . is this everybody?"
"Yup."
"But we're not on here."
Harry took the map back and looked at it. "We're not, are we? Huh. That's interesting. The room blocks it?"
"Apparently." Cedric leaned over to look at it again. "Do you know who made it?"
"My dad," Harry said proudly. "When he was a student here. Well, my dad and Sirius and Lupin and . . . Pettigrew, too, though I don't know how much he contributed." Harry flipped it closed so Cedric could see the title: The Marauder's Map. "That's what they called themselves, the Marauders."
"Remus helped make this?" Cedric had to stifle a laugh. "And they did it as students?" He, Remus and Sirius were going to have a little chat, maybe over Christmas break. He wanted the whole story, including the directions for creating one. Contraband or not, he was captivated.
Hermione seemed to find his curiosity amusing, and he suspected she hadn't turned it in for exactly the same reasons he wasn't going to -- it was far too impressive, not to mention useful. "I need this to get up here without being seen," he said. "I'm not exactly speedy these days."
Harry glanced at Hermione. "Well, next lesson, we'll all come together, all right?" Cedric nodded.
Hermione was amazed at how quickly she and Cedric developed their little habits and idiosyncracies over the next few weeks. They saw each other off and on during a day as regularly as clockwork in pre-agreed places: their particular corner of the courtyard, the base of the main staircase to the Gryffindor Tower, the prefects' lounge, beneath the Butterfly Woman in the library . . . Some might have found their predictability boring, but it comforted her. Their lives had quite enough excitement in other respects and she liked having something, and someone, she could count on. Yet as wrapped up in Cedric as she became, she struggled not to forget her other friends, and he seemed to be attempting the same. She wanted him in her life, not compartmentalized from it. So she spent time with the Four Musketeers (as she was coming to think of them), and he spent time with her, Ron and Harry, or even her, Ginny and Michael Corner. Being with another couple was a bit easier, although Cedric and Michael didn't have a lot in common beyond Quidditch, and Cedric didn't want to talk about Quidditch these days -- a difficult thing as most of the castle was abuzz with the first match approaching: the infamous clash between Slytherin and Gryffindor. Hermione heard so much about it from Harry and Ron, she was glad to escape to Cedric who didn't want to discuss it endlessly.
A few days after they made their relationship public, she wrote her mother a long letter, telling her all about him. Her mother wrote back with a mix of maternal excitement and carefully couched questions. The questions made Hermione smile. Her parents had been a bit alarmed by her date to the Yule Ball with Viktor Krum -- three years her senior and famous. They hadn't realized 'Krum' wasn't Viktor, who had no interest in taking advantage of a star-struck girl even if Hermione had been one. Cedric seemed to worry them less, although he was still old enough that there were 'concerns.' "You'll love him," she promised in a return letter.
Despite their public inseparability, they stole private time here and there -- preferably sitting down as it freed his hands, although she wasn't sure having his hands free was always a good thing. It wasn't that he tried touching forbidden places -- Cedric was too much the gentleman -- but that he was very good at completely unraveling her just by touching the skin she showed in public. He taught her how sensitive her hands could be, the insides of her elbows, and the nape of her neck, and made her shiver just from running a forefinger along the rim of her ear.
Yet for all that, the physical never completely took over. She'd worried at first that it might, yet they still discussed class work, Wizarding politics, the D.A., Umbridge's possible plans, and the spells in the books he sometimes fetched from the Restricted Section and shared with her as they sat side-by-side at a quiet table with parchment strewn all around them. "Look at this one," or "What do you think would happen if we combined that with this?" Cedric, she learned, was more of a theorist than memorizer, and maybe that was why Harry's map had fascinated him so. He convinced her to bring it with her once for a lunch date beneath the Butterfly Woman, and spent more time playing with the map than snuggling with her. She didn't mind. His fierce curiosity was part of why she loved him.
And she did. She'd been thinking about it ever since his slip of the tongue in the library, and realized that what she felt had grown far beyond infatuation. When one met one's alter ego, wasn't love inevitable? That was how she looked at it anyway. It was completely logical that she'd fall head over heels for Cedric Diggory.
The only taboo topic in these library intellectual free-for-alls was the matter of house-elves. She'd stopped knitting hats because she assumed he knew what he was talking about when he'd said she couldn't free them because she wasn't their mistress. And a lack of time had kept her from going down to the kitchens as he'd suggested -- but she doubted anything the elves there told her would matter, as elves were magically bound to their masters and couldn't speak ill of them. A compelled expression of contentment meant nothing.
Yet Hermione fully intended to take Cedric's advice to talk to an elf.
His elf.
Ron had said the Diggorys had one, which made Cedric the elf's master and he could order her to be honest. If, as Ron claimed, the elf doted on Cedric -- and Hermione had a hard time imagining Ced cruel to anybody or anything -- Hermione remembered how Amos Diggory had treated the house-elf Winky and doubted the Diggorys' elf would be as fond of the father as of the son.
She intended to hear the unvarnished truth -- and for Cedric to hear it too. Perhaps that would convince him.
Friday morning of their third week together, not long before Halloween, Hermione came downstairs for breakfast with Ron and Harry only to find a large crowd hanging about staring at the wall in the main entrance near the stairs down to the kitchens. What on earth?
The three of them approached and Hermione spotted Angelina at the back of the crowd. "What's going on?"
Angelina pointed at the wall. "A new painting arrived last night."
As the interior walls of the castle were covered in paintings, a new one didn't seem like it would merit such intense interest. "So?" Harry asked from beside Hermione.
"It's a real painting," Angelina said, as if that explained it, "not another portrait." She grinned and winked. "There's only one living painter of that calibre in England and I do believe Hermione here knows her model."
Alicia Spinnet leaned over to add, "Might know him well enough to say whether that tattoo is real or not."
"Tattoo?" Curious and keen to escape their teasing, Hermione squeezed through the crowd -- which parted to let her -- until she found herself before a framed canvas at least six feet tall if it were an inch.
It displayed the naked torso of a young man from his jawline down to the top U-curve of his hip bones, and the skill of the painter had rendered sublime what might otherwise have bordered on indecent. A twisted, gold torque encircled his neck and the fine muscles of chest and stomach were highlighted by the twining tattoo of a ram-horned snake. He stood in a forest clearing beside a misty pond, and if his face weren't shown, the sun had cast his shadow over the water behind him to reveal that his head wore a pair of seven-tined antlers.
"Cernunnos," she breathed out. The Green Man, Stag-Horned, master of the forest and the hunt, but also the Summer Sacrifice, dying and rising again. The painting cast him young and beautiful and virile, set against gold sunlight and rich, summer colors. In the bottom right corner was the artist's name: Lucretia.
Master Painter indeed. Hermione had no artist's eye, but even she could tell this picture's quality eclipsed virtually everything else in the castle.
Except it didn't move, or not appreciably. A faint wind rustled the leaves of the oak trees around him, and even as she watched, three cranes landed in the bullrushes framing the pond while a pair of badgers hid in the bole of an old tree. Yet the young god was still, caught in the green amber of sun-dappling. "What does it mean?" she asked no one in particular.
"That's what the painting will reveal," said an alto voice behind her and turning, she came face-to-face with the artist, dressed not in her customary purple but in robes of vivid, forest green, as if she sought to match her artwork. Or declare her House.
"How will the painting reveal it?" Hermione asked. "It doesn't move." People around were watching them both. "And how will it end?"
Mrs. Diggory turned from the painting to her. Her eyes were very pale blue and amused. "Do you read the end of the novel before its beginning?"
Hermione blinked. In fact, she didn't read novels at all. There was so much to learn, and fiction -- even Wizarding fiction -- seemed a bit of a waste of time. But she didn't want to say so. "I suppose I just like to know the scope of things," she replied carefully. "How they'll turn out."
Mrs. Diggory's eyes crinkled, though the smile never reached her mouth. "Permit the artist a bit of mystery, Hermione. The glory is as much in the unfolding as in the final denouement. You will know the full story by summer solstice."
"Mum?"
The crowd had parted again, this time to admit Cedric. He made his awkward way over and mother and son exchanged a kiss on the cheek, then he turned to see the painting, head tilted just so . . .
And the obvious struck Hermione like the proverbial ton of bricks. Alicia had been right. "It's you," she muttered, amazed and slightly . . . put off. His own mother had turned him into a fertility symbol? Wasn't that a bit obscene?
Except nothing this exquisite could be obscene. It celebrated youth and fertility, certainly, but painted by the hand of a proud mother aware of her son's beauty, not lustful after it. It was erotic, but holy, not lurid or lewd. If Lucy Diggory was guilty of anything, it was of enough hubris to turn her mortal child into a god.
And indeed, face flaming, he said, "It's not me. It's not a portrait."
Mrs. Diggory had drawn back, slipping the hood of her green robes over her hair, and the rest of the crowd was listening in with almost prurient interest. "I meant you were the model," Hermione clarified softly. She didn't mean to embarrass him in public, but it was so beautiful . . . he was so beautiful.
"I modeled for the sketches, yes," he said, no longer looking at it, or her. "That doesn't make it me. It's the Hunter." And turning, he would have left except yet a third person had arrived on the scene.
"Hem, hem." Dolores Umbridge was elbowing her way through. "What is this?" She stopped in front of the painting, a bit slack-jawed as she gaped up at it.
Abruptly, she turned on the crowd of students. "Shoo! Shoo! What are you doing, standing around staring at this filth? Good heavens! I can't believe the Headmaster would allow such a thing to be hung in a school!" Spinning back, mouth still agape, she reached up to yank the painting off the wall --
-- but it wouldn't budge. Almost hissing in fury, Umbridge pulled her wand and muttered a spell. The painting still couldn't be moved, and Hermione recalled the portrait of Mrs. Black at 12 Grimmauld Place. Students had begun to snigger at Umbridge's increasingly frantic attempts to remove it.
"I said go!" Umbridge snarled, turning on them. Some of her curls had been loosened by her efforts and one half-covered her beady little eyes -- which came to rest squarely on Cedric. "What do you know of this?" she demanded.
He shrugged. "Nothing, professor. Honestly -- it came as a surprise to me too." Hermione didn't think it an especially welcome surprise, either.
Umbridge's eyes narrowed but Mrs. Diggory stepped out from where she'd concealed herself behind Hermione, and lowered her hood. Students who'd begun to scatter paused, recognizing a dramatic moment like the climax to a play. "My hand set it there, Dolores. Only mine can remove it."
Umbridge trembled with rage. "Get it down. Now. I won't have pornography in my school!"
"Your school? And it's art, Dolores. Not pornography. But you never were very good at art appreciation, were you? I've seen your collection of decorative cat plates."
Suppressed squeals of hysteria greeted that and Hermione was biting her lips, having been told about the plates by Harry. Cedric, amazingly, appeared as calm as his mother.
Drawing herself up to her full (and unimpressive) height, Umbridge said, "I order you to -- "
"You have no authority over me." The words were an alto whip to Umbridge's slightly girly whine. "The painting is a gift. I will not remove it."
Stepping past Umbridge, Lucy -- Lucretia -- Diggory pulled her wand and swept it over the surface of the painting.
The whole scene changed. The near-naked god disappeared, leaving the clearing quiet and empty but for the animals. Turning back to those watching, she said in a raised voice. "The painting has now been set. It will tell its story between All Hallow's Eve and Summer Solstice, but the final scene will appear on the 24th of June."
Hermione heard Cedric draw a ragged breath.
24th June had been the day his whole life had changed, and his mother had done that on purpose. She no more than her son would have forgotten the date, and looking up at Cedric's stark face, Hermione wondered how his mother could wound him that way, turn his tragedy into the climax of a story?
Spinning on her heel, Mrs. Diggory started to depart through the scattered clumps of watching students -- then paused. "Oh, I nearly forgot." And she pulled a package of moderate size from beneath her robes. It was wrapped in black velvet. "This is yours," she said to Cedric.
Balanced on his crutches as he was, he obviously couldn't take it, but Hermione caught his mother's nod and stepped forward to collect it for him, the velvet falling away a bit as she accepted it. A faint blue glow and a hint of crystal and silver told her what it was.
The Triwizard Cup. Breath hissing in, she uncovered it completely and held it up.
Awed silence blanketed the hall as everybody stared. After a moment, Hermione tucked the velvet back around it and returned to Cedric's side as Mrs. Diggory walked away, her green robes billowing slightly -- a queen exeunt the stage. Hermione heard a whoosh behind and turned in time to see Umbridge Levitate her own cloak over the painting to conceal it. Then she turned to glare at everybody still standing there, Cedric -- the model -- in particular, before marching away . . . or waddling really.
As soon as both women were gone, the buzz of chatter began, although subdued in Cedric's vicinity. "Are you sure your mother's a painter?" Hermione asked under her breath, even as Ron and Harry joined them. "I would've guessed an actress -- or a director. I'd swear she'd staged that whole thing, except she couldn't have known Professor Umbridge would show up."
"That was bloody brilliant," Ron agreed.
"You'd be surprised what she can orchestrate. Let's go to breakfast," Cedric said and headed for the Great Hall. But before he got far from the painting, he lifted a hand almost absently. The cloak went flying to sag into a puddled heap on the floor. "Whoops," he said.
Hermione tucked the Cup under her right arm and let her left hand tangle in the back of his robes. Lucy Diggory wasn't the only one with a flare for drama when he forgot to be embarrassed.
Cedric was, in fact, torn between pride and pain -- and anger, too -- rather than embarrassment.
His mother had made those sketches the summer before last -- when he'd been whole, when movement hadn't had to be planned out in advance . . . how to get from here to there even when it was just across a room. He'd been free and strong. When he'd told Hermione the painting wasn't him, he hadn't meant only because it wasn't a portrait. He would never again be that boy who'd stood -- without assistance -- for his outline to be caught in charcoal. Unlike the god, he was mortal, and marred.
Yet while it might not be a portrait, it was still a transparent allusion. The painting had not, originally, been meant for Hogwarts, and this was his mother's revenge on the Ministry for what they'd done to him. She never moved quickly, his mother -- but when she did, it was devastating, and he wondered what story her painting would tell. He doubted it was the obvious one she'd intended of the Summer King and the seasons, and she must have been working in a frenzy since July or August. Her paintings usually took a year or more, like Ragnarok, her masterpiece. But this she'd produced in only three months, and even if she'd had some of the layers completed in advance, he wondered if she'd slept.
Hermione didn't leave him once they were in the Hall, but sat at the Hufflepuff table, the Triwizard Cup, still covered, on the bench beside her. He saw several of his Housemates glance at it, but no one asked to see it. No one said much of anything, in fact, as if unsure what to say. Even Scott's wisecracking was silenced.
Cedric managed to finish half his eggs and bacon before his appetite deserted him completely, and he put down his fork. Leaning in to Hermione, he whispered, "Let's get out of here." They had perhaps half an hour before their first classes and he couldn't bear the stares anymore.
Nodding, she followed him from the Hall, still carrying the Cup, and they slipped into the alcove with the lift that took them up to the fifth floor where he led her down to his room.
They hadn't been alone in here, even the outer chamber, since they'd begun publicly seeing each other. It wasn't wise. Just at the moment, though, he didn't care, and sank down on the sofa. She settled beside him after setting the Cup on his desk. "I don't know what to think," she confessed after a moment. "I mean on the one hand, that whole thing was quite brilliant. But I can't believe she did that to you. She's your mother."
He closed his eyes, not sure how to explain. "She loves me," he said softly.
Hermione coughed skeptically. "If that's how she shows her love -- "
"It is. Don't judge her, Granger."
"I'm not . . . well, all right, I suppose I am a bit. But it hurt you, embarrassed you, showing you half-nude like that in front of everybody" -- and that made him smile because it was the least of his worries -- "and then setting the story to finish on . . . that day."
"That's the point."
"Well, yes, but -- "
"This is her revenge. Or her vengeance, really. There's nothing Umbridge can do to stop it now, and with my mother's status as an artist, Umbridge doesn't dare attack her. She'll probably try to keep the painting covered up, but it won't stay that way -- you watch. I'll never have to uncover it again."
"But . . . I mean . . . aren't you a bit . . . embarrassed?"
He cracked an eye to look at her. "Of what?"
"Being . . . er -- please tell me you didn't sit for that in the nude!"
He laughed at her. "My mother's an artist, Granger. She can fill in the gaps without me stripping, but I don't really care about that anyway." He shrugged. Perhaps it was the effect of growing up surrounded by art, but his modesty had never extended to his body. "I just don't . . . I don't like to see it. It's how I was. Not how I am now."
And the hard frown on her face eased, as if she finally understood. "You're beautiful, Cedric."
"Was, maybe. Not anymore. Now I'm damaged and defective."
"Nonsense!" And reaching out almost hesitantly, her hand stroked his chest through his robes and shirt, up and down, up and down. Then she pushed up his sweater and began to undo the buttons. He didn't stop her, just watched, curious as to how far she'd go. This seemed uncharacteristically forward for his Granger, but her face was determined. Getting half the front open, she paused to loosen his tie, then undid the rest and parted the fabric, bending to kiss his bared skin. He shivered once and let his head fall back. "You are beautiful," she whispered again, "just like you are." Her tongue traced wet and hot from one clavicle down diagonally across his sternum, curling over his stomach and stopping just above the waistband of his trousers. It was, he knew, the pattern of the serpent from the painting, and he watched her from under half-lowered lids. Lifting her head again, face very pink and shy, she whispered, "You're beautiful and I love you . . . just the way you are."
He shuddered again as if her words were molten, searing him. Closing his eyes, he reached out to pull her to him, holding her tight and finding her mouth by feel. "I love you too," he whispered back, voice intense, "I love you too." And he kissed her as she buttoned up his shirt and adjusted his tie, taking care of him because that was how Hermione showed her devotion.
He felt all right now. He might not have the life he'd expected, but that life hadn't had Hermione in it. If he were his mother's Cernunnos, then Granger was his Cerridwen, the Green Lady, mistress of divine knowledge brewed in her cauldron. "I love you," he said yet again, repeating it like an incantation that could bind her to him forever.
He'd said he loved her. He'd said it three times, in fact, as if repetition added force, or he feared she hadn't heard him the first time.
Hermione lived that Friday in a glittering cloud. Even Ron and Harry noticed. "What's wrong with you?" Ron asked her after lunch.
"Nothing," she said, suppressing a ridiculous, private giggle. Had it been Harry alone, she might have confessed, but Ron would want to argue about it, and Hermione was in no mood to argue with Ron. Right now, she just wanted to be in love, not defend her right to the feeling.
Cedric wasn't at lunch. Worried as to why, Hermione caught Scott to inquire where he was. "Eating with his mum," Scott replied, which made sense. If her mother had a reason to visit Hogwarts, Hermione wouldn't have missed lunch with her either. Still, she was disappointed. Now she wouldn't see him until supper, and maybe he wouldn't even be there.
But he was waiting for her in his usual spot near the lift in the entrance hall, and when she ran to meet him, throwing her arms around him (without knocking him over), she blurted in his ear, "Love you."
"Love you, too," he replied, grinning like a fool. "Thought about it all day."
"Me too," she replied even as he was drawing her further into the alcove, getting the lift door open and pulling her inside. "Where are we going?" she asked.
"Nowhere." The door slid shut and he pushed her against the back of the lift, kissing her hard, tongue stroking hers. There was a handrail there that dug into her lower back but it gave him something to hold onto as he leaned against her and she felt his whole body in a way she rarely could. She liked it, and arched more firmly against him, which got the rail out of her back but dragged a funny sound from his throat. He drew away. "We should go to dinner." Though he hadn't seemed that interested just a moment ago. She followed him out of the lift and he glanced back at her over his shoulder, face alight. When they parted for their respective tables, he said, "I'll see you after in the Common Room."
Mrs. Diggory, however, caught Hermione as she was exiting the Great Hall. "If I may have a word with you?" she asked politely. Hermione nodded and tried to conceal her nerves. There weren't many adults who outright intimidated her, but Lucy Diggory was among them. "Let's walk," Mrs. Diggory said and led Hermione out of the castle into the night air.
Once they were clear of the castle, she turned to face Hermione. The evening was cold and the moon at quarter, so the only real light fell from the castle windows above them. "How is my son adjusting this year?"
Hermione blinked. "Shouldn't you ask him?"
She smiled. "And you think he would tell me the truth?"
"Why wouldn't he?" Hermione was suspicious and reluctant to give up anything.
Mrs. Diggory began walking again. "Tell me. If you had been wounded as Cedric was, would you tell your father you were having trouble adjusting?"
Frowning, Hermione didn't reply at first but when Mrs. Diggory raised her eyebrows, she had to shake her head. "Probably not."
"And why not?"
"I wouldn't want him to worry."
Mrs. Diggory smiled. "Exactly. But parents worry about their children anyway, and sometimes we worry more when we're not told anything. What we imagine is worse than the truth. I try not to smother him. He's an adult now. Nonetheless -- how is he?"
Should she answer that, she wondered? Although Mrs. Diggory didn't seem to be inquiring in the same way Mrs. Weasley would have, after having brought that painting here for public display, her professed concern for Cedric's feelings felt hypocritical. Hermione might have said something -- almost did -- but feared angering her new boyfriend's mother. "He doesn't talk much about it," she said finally, which was true.
Mrs. Diggory eyed her. "And you're afraid to tell me and betray his confidences?"
Hermione shook her head. "No -- he really doesn't talk much about his feelings." She shrugged. "He's a boy."
"How do you think he's adjusting?"
She felt more comfortable answering that as it involved only what she thought. "He doesn't want to be pitied, or to worry people -- like you said. I think there are things he doesn't talk about. A few weeks ago as we were leaving his office, his right leg collapsed on him -- some sort of spasm. I've never seen that happen before, but from the way he reacted, I don't think it was the first time. He didn't want me to fetch Madam Pomfrey, either -- said it would pass in a few minutes, and it did."
"But you fetched Madam Pomfrey anyway?"
"Yes, of course." And Hermione caught Mrs. Diggory smile before turning her head away and she thought the other woman approved. "Boys can't be trusted to be sensible about such things."
"No, they usually can't," Mrs. Diggory agreed. "Cedric is more sensible than most -- I made sure of it -- but he hates to be a burden. You'll have to keep an eye on him, Hermione. Handle him matter-of-factly and he'll respond best. If he thinks he's inconveniencing anybody, he'll grow stubborn."
Hermione nodded, relieved that she'd guessed rightly that day in Hogsmeade when he'd been so frustrated and depressed. "Has he always been like that? Even as a child?"
"Always," Mrs. Diggory replied. "He was the sweetest boy I've ever known -- and I don't say that as his mother. It's in his nature, that gentleness, so he's learned to keep his distance from most people in order to avoid being hurt." She stopped walking again; they weren't far from Hagrid's darkened hut and it was so dim out here, it was difficult to see. All Hermione could really make out of the woman beside her was a glisten from her eyes and the moonlight in her dark blond hair. "Be careful with my son, Hermione Granger. He's let you inside the gates."
Perhaps Hermione should have expected such a warning, but she'd been lulled by Mrs. Diggory's apparent wish to talk about how Cedric was adjusting. "I don't intend to hurt him," she answered -- a bit hotly because she felt cornered.
Cedric's mother only smiled, or Hermione thought she did. "You misunderstand me. That wasn't a threat; had I meant to threaten you, I'd have been much clearer about it. I know you don't intend to hurt him. That was advice on how to avoid doing so. My son seems tougher than he is; he's learned to wear armor. I taught him. Beneath that, however, he's easily wounded. A bit of honest commentary from you could feel to him like a personal attack, yet he'll rarely confront you about it. Cedric runs from conflict, at least with anyone he cares about. He'll give in rather than fight with you -- but then resent you afterwards. The only way to make him fight is to make him angry enough to lash out. He hates conflict, but he does have a temper. You may need to use it sometimes."
Hermione could only stand there, blinking stupidly. She hadn't expected Cedric's mother to tell her how to manage him. Was that granting her blessing? Hermione supposed so. It put a little courage into her. "If you know how sensitive he is, then why did you put him on display like that in the Entrance Hall? It hurt him."
"That didn't hurt him," his mother replied. "He's been my model before. It annoyed him because he didn't know I meant to do it, but as the lines of communication in and out of the castle are being watched, I had no way to forewarn him. I had to put up the painting at night and as soon as I arrived -- before Dolores Umbridge could think of a way to prevent me from doing so. I already spoke with Cedric about it at lunch."
"Oh." Mrs. Diggory's actions appeared somewhat different after an explanation. "But it did still hurt him. He looked at that painting and saw himself before. He thinks he's ugly now."
That caused his mother to give her a sharp look. "And do you intend to let him continue to think so?"
Surprised again, Hermione blinked. "No! I told him he wasn't! But the painting reminds him -- makes him angry."
"He needs to be angry. Remember what I just told you. Anger is what gives him strength. I love my son, but I know his faults. His desire to avoid making anybody upset with him saps his potential. That painting is here as much to goad him as for any other purpose. I want him angry, Hermione. He needs it to fight back, or the Ministry will eat him alive." She tilted her head. "Learn when to protect him -- and when not to. I can't watch over him just now, and not only because he'd resent it. As I said, we can't trust that messages in and out of the castle aren't being read. In fact, you should assume they are. That means I need someone here who can look after Cedric, including by prodding him when he needs it."
It was a compliment and a rebuke and an assignment all in one, and Hermione bowed her head. "Yes, Mrs. Diggory."
"A second bit of advice -- when it comes to plots, seek Cedric's help. You're a clever girl but that meeting in the Hog's Head was just this side of idiotic. Dolores Umbridge is crueler than you can imagine, and craftier. Fudge didn't send her here to tangle with Dumbledore for no reason. The worst thing you could possibly do is underestimate her -- and you've been doing so."
Eyes downcast but angry now herself, Hermione said, "I was just trying --"
"I know what you were trying to do. Trying is noble, but useless. Succeed, don't try."
Hermione glared, unused to being told off so bluntly, except by Snape. Even McGonagall wasn't that rudely honest. Yet unlike Snape's scolding, there was no edge of malice in this, and the fact that Mrs. Diggory had just confided in her how to take care of Cedric made it clear she didn't dislike Hermione.
"So ask my son's advice," Mrs. Diggory finished now. "You need his bent mind as much as he needs your strength."
With Hermione gone off somewhere with his mother -- and what was that about? -- Cedric felt at loose ends; it was the first evening he hadn't spent with Granger since they'd begun publicly seeing each other. Finally, he retreated to the Hufflepuff common room. Scott looked up when he arrived. "Well hullo, stranger!"
"What?" Cedric replied, a bit guilty. "I still come here."
Grinning, Scott just shook his head and returned to his text. Cedric joined his friends in 'their' corner of the common room, plopping down on the couch beside Ed. "You come once in a blue moon," Ed said.
"Yeah," Peter added. "You and Hermione are glued at the hip now."
He looked between all three of them. "I still do stuff with you! I make a point of it!"
"As long as she's there too, sure."
"I thought you liked her!""
"We do," Ed assured him. "She's good for you. But you're not sleeping here anymore, and maybe we'd like to see you without her sometimes? Some things can't be talked about with her around."
"Yeah, like Scott's latest conquest," Peter added slyly -- which got the two-fingered salute from Scott.
Feeling duly chastised, Cedric sat up. "Who is it this time?"
Cedric stayed in the common room for the rest of the evening until nine, when he needed to leave for evening report. Making his way upstairs, he found Blaise Zabini, of all people, standing in front of his mother's now-quiescent painting. Zabini had probably been on the way down to the dungeons for the evening and he started visibly when Cedric reached the top of the short staircase. (Ascending stairs, he was usually quieter than when he was walking -- there was less foot drag.)
For a moment, the two of them regarded each other carefully across the distance. "Your mother's name is Lucretia?" Zabini asked.
"Yes."
"Someone" -- he didn't specify who -- "told me she was in Slytherin House."
"She was."
Cedric watched Zabini ponder that. Name and House told the other boy that Cedric's mother was likely a pureblood. But, "You're no pureblood."
"No, I'm not."
"Mongrel," he spat. "And your mother's a blood traitor."
"I might be less of a mongrel than you, Zabini."
With a hiss, the other boy jerked his head up. "Don't insult me."
"My father's great-grandfather married a Muggleborn witch, it's true," Cedric said, crossing the distance so that he stood between Zabini and the painting. "That's . . . four generations back for me. Before that? Cornish pureblood. And my mother can count her lineage into the 1600s. What about you?" He smiled faintly. "I know about the matrilineal Bantu. I actually bothered to look it up, unlike most of your House. You count lineage only by mothers. Should I ask how pure your father was?"
"Shut your mouth, Diggory, or I'll shut it for you.'
"Royalty marries as they need to in Tanzania, and you're no pureblood by European definitions -- you just pretend to be. By Bantu definitions, I'm as pure as you are -- maybe more so."
Zabini leaned in so that his face was only a few inches from Cedric's. "Then that makes you the blood-traitor, doesn't it? Dirtying yourself with that piece of mudblood filth? Is she really such a good fuck?"
Cedric came within a breath of losing his temper, but he wouldn't let Zabini take control of this chance encounter -- too much rode on it. "Wouldn't you like to know?" he asked, then changed the subject. "Did you think about what I said in the library a few weeks ago?"
"You said several things -- none of which made much sense. Why should I remember any of it?"
"You're as curious as your cat, Zabini. I bet you've been thinking about it ever since."
"Don't flatter yourself."
Cedric ignored that. "You've been thinking about it, wondering if you could do it -- replace Malfoy." He paused, then added, "I may be able to help you."
Zabini laughed, deep and derisive. "How could you possibly help me, Diggory?"
"Malfoy keeps his power because the House lets him, and people in other Houses acknowledge him. What if those other Houses stopped acknowledging him and looked to someone else as the voice of Slytherin? I know you have your own posse there , as does Malfoy, but there are those who follow whoever looks strongest. Slytherin doesn't think enough about using external influence, and like I said before, that's a shame. Malfoy hasn't made himself popular outside; he's consistently abused his powers as a prefect. You know how many complaints I have about him? No one not in Slytherin likes him, and I'd wager a good portion of Slytherin doesn't either." Tipping his head, Cedric gave Zabini his best smile, the one his mates teased him raised female blood pressure. Zabini's pupils widened slightly; he wasn't completely indifferent. "What if the Head Boy asked Zabini's opinion when it came to Slytherin, not Malfoy the prefect's?"
"All that'd do is make me a pariah in-House, you fool. No one crosses the Malfoys."
"Except another Malfoy. Or a Black, or a Lestrange, or --"
"Point taken, but none of those families have students at Hogwarts."
"But they do. There's another Malfoy here."
And that riveted Zabini's attention, but only momentarily. "Stop playing games, Diggory. There are no Malfoys at Hogwarts besides Draco, or they'd be in Slytherin and firmly in Draco's corner."
"Not necessarily," Cedric replied. "The other Malfoy is no friend to Draco. He might help you. For a favor."
"Ah, a favor." And Zabini relaxed; things were sounding familiar to him now. "I wonder what that could be? But the real question is what Malfoy in his right mind would send you to play middle man?"
Still smiling, Cedric let the silence lengthen until Zabini began to twitch slightly in anticipation. Then Cedric just pointed to his mother's signature at the base of the painting. "I'm the other Malfoy, Blaise."
And he walked away, headed for the alcove lift. He didn't tell Zabini what he wanted, not yet.
"So once you activate it -- "
"The story unfolds at the preset pace, yes."
"How many images are in one painting?"
Mrs. Diggory shrugged. "It varies, depending. How many chapters are in a book, or scenes in a play? Ragnarok had thirty-seven -- the most I've ever done. Daphnis and Chloe had only eighteen."
"How many are in The Summer King?"
"Ah-ah. That would be telling, clever girl."
Hermione huffed out, but grinned.
When she and Cedric's mother had returned from their walk, Cedric had been nowhere to be found. "Oh, he's in the common room," Ernie MacMillan had informed Hermione when they'd chanced on him. "Do you want me to go and fetch him?"
"No," Mrs. Diggory had replied, "He should spend time with his House."
So Hermione had spent her evening with Cedric's mother instead, and was surprised to discover she rather liked Lucy Diggory. The older woman was witty and interesting, and Hermione had always got on well with adults anyway. Mrs. Diggory explained Wizarding art to her, quite ready to talk about what she did and how it worked, and Hermione followed her about the castle, listening to the history of various portraits and how the process of magical painting worked.
"We still mix our paints from raw bases -- no acrylics or premixed oils. Part of the magic lies in the paint composition. We must distill the essence of the subject for a portrait, or brew the animation needed for a true painting. Then charms and transfiguration give the final its form and movement. Additional scenes can be added to or detracted from it, as well."
"So a portrait contains a copy of the personality, while a painting tells a story?" Hermione asked.
"Essentially, yes. Once in a while, there may be some blending, but that is the primary distinction."
"What was the image we saw this morning? The one of the god himself? When you set the painting, he disappeared."
"What you saw before I set it is called the lead image. All paintings have one. When you see them in a gallery, it's the lead image on display. Passing your wand or hand over the painting will reveal the story in full, like your Muggle cinema."
"But initially, it's slower?"
"Exactly. The initial unveiling of a story has a set period. It cannot be altered or rushed. After that, however, the story can be made to unfold either quickly or slowly."
When nine o'clock passed, Hermione bid Mrs. Diggory good night and went to perform rounds. She was in possession of a sketch or three and an invitation to the London gallery where Mrs. Diggory had promised to show her around personally. "I like your mum," she told Cedric when she arrived for report -- late as usual.
His eyebrow went up. "Should my ears have been burning?"
She laughed and dropped down in his lap where he sat in his wheelchair behind the desk. "Perhaps a bit. But believe it or not, you vain creature, we do have things to talk about besides you."
"Oh, really? Such as?"
"Dentistry, artwork, growing up in London. . . . she grew up there, too, you know."
"Yes, Granger, I know." She thought him suppressing a grin, and his hand rested on her thigh atop her robes, rubbing lightly. Reaching up with his other hand, he tangled fingers in her hair, pulling her face towards him. "Now shut up and kiss me. I barely got to see you all day; I feel deprived." Laughing, she did as he ordered. However mad the rest of her life was becoming between Umbridge and Voldemort, it felt good to have this part of it stay happy and uncomplicated.
As she was leaving, crossing the Main Entrance headed for the stairs up to the Gryffindor Tower, she spotted Professor Umbridge standing in front of the painting with its now-empty forest clearing, staring at it with great intensity, as if willing it to give up its secrets. At the sound of Hermione's steps, the woman turned. "Hem, hem. What are you doing out and about at this hour, Miss Granger?"
"I'm a prefect, professor. I was finishing report."
Hands on hips, eyes narrow, Umbridge studied her. "Report this late? I do believe you report to Mr. Diggory, do you not?"
But even as she asked, both Cedric and Violet came down the hall behind Hermione and Umbridge fixed her attention on them. "Are all of your prefects so tardy with their reports? It's been more than half an hour since everyone below a fifth year was to be in their common rooms."
Cedric opened his mouth to reply but Violet beat him to it. "It usually takes twenty to thirty minutes to walk each prefect's quarter of the castle," she explained, voice brisk. That she'd come to their defense startled Hermione. If she'd wanted Cedric's reputation to sink further, all she'd needed to do was remain silent. Glancing at her watch, she said, "Hermione's not especially late. We specified to all the prefects on the train that we'd like them to be done before ten, but she's well inside that."
And faced by their united front, Umbridge pulled in her chin. "Very well, but I think it more appropriate in the future if all female prefects report to the Head Girl, while all boys report to the Head Boy. That's how we did it in my day."
"Professor Umbridge -- " Cedric began, face startled. Making the change Umbridge had suggested would not only deprive the two of them of their time at a day's end, but it would force Cedric to interact daily with Draco Malfoy.
"I don't find it very appropriate, Mr. Diggory, for a girl to be alone with an older boy so late in the evening in his private office, do you?"
Cedric straightened slightly. "Actually, most prefects finish rounds and report about the same time, give or take the early birds or stragglers -- and who that is varies from night to night."
Umbridge glanced from Hermione to him. "But Miss Granger is your girlfriend, is she not? And it seems to me she was the last to leave tonight -- and quite alone. Curious coincidence."
"My door is kept open and Violet's office is right across the lounge," Cedric pointed out, trying not to look affronted. What he said was true, but it was also true that Hermione was always late on purpose, they usually pushed the door as close to as could be without actually latching it, and Cedric's Silencing spell came in very handy.
But Violet was frowning, too. "The current report schedule works and the prefects are used to it. I created it, and I'd rather not change it."
"Oh, but it wouldn't be so much of a change, would it?" Umbridge asked sweetly. "Just a matter of which office each stops by." The smile widened. "Yes, I think this change overdue. Please see it implemented and inform all prefects. We'll have no more girls in boys' offices or boys in girls' offices so late in the evening. Now off to bed, all three of you." And she watched while they went their separate ways, Cedric to the lift, and Hermione and Violet to the staircases leading up to their respective towers. There was no chance to say anything to each other, and Hermione fumed all the way upstairs. Was there no end to that woman's meddling?
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Notes on the Various Mythical References: Just a quick reminder of the conversation back in Chapter 6: not only is Helen the name of Hermione's mother, but in Greek myth, 'Hermione' was the daughter of Menelaus and Helen of Sparta. (Although better known to us as Helen of Troy, she really came from Sparta.) Lucy's reference to Cedric's 'bent mind' is Odyssean ('Bent-Minded' is Odysseus' epithet in Homer), and the allusions in Cedric's poem to reality and shadows reference Plato. Cernunnos is the Celtic fertility-vegetation-hunt deity, who apparently predates the coming of the Romans, although this deity type is found frequently among Indo-European peoples. One of the dying-and-rising gods, consort of the Great Mother, Cernunnos is born at mid-winter and dies at mid-summer. He's sometimes conflated with Herne(/Cerne) the Hunter of Windsor Forest, who's Protector of the Realm, and occasionally associated with Cerridwen, the witch mother of Taliesin who keeps a cauldron in which she brews divine wisdom. The Grail of legend is thought perhaps to have been a later transmutation/Christianizing of Cerridwen's cauldron.