Cedric G. C. Diggory 1995 - 96

His name was now burned into the interior wall of the wardrobe, the only one there with a date in the 1900s. Putting away his wand and closing the spell book that Dumbledore had brought him months ago, he smiled faintly. Official Hogwarts' records would show Adrian Pucey as this year's Head Boy, as he'd held the office when it had ended.

But the wardrobe would show it had been Cedric.

A pounding on the door interrupted his thoughts, and Cedric wheeled his chair back, then went to answer. His mates stood on the other side, along with Susan and Hermione. "Get your robes on," Scott told him. "You're going to be late."

"It's just a party," Cedric replied, snatching his school robes off the back of the settee out from under Esiban, who'd been curled up on them. He turned them inside out to match his classmates'. "Whoever gets to a party on time?"

Unobtrusively, Peter offered Cedric a hand to grip while he stood to don the robe so he didn't have to fetch his crutches. Cedric wondered who'd originally come up with the idea of turning robes inside out, but it had been a tradition now for decades. Seventh years attended the Leaving Ball dressed like that. Unlike the Triwizard Yule Ball, the Leaving Ball was neither a dance nor a formal, despite its name. It was largely an excuse for seventh years to get together one last time, share stories and eat a lot. Girlfriends and boyfriends were allowed but not required or even expected to attend; Susan would be going with Ed and Hermione with Cedric, but Peter was attending alone -- and so was Scott.

It seemed the great Casanova of Hufflepuff had finally met his match -- a woman who'd run off with his heart in her (clumsy) grip. Scott couldn't put together three sentences without Tonks' name creeping in. Cedric, Ed and Peter had all agreed that they wouldn't take the mickey out of him too badly -- no matter how absolutely hysterical they found this turn of events.

They all left Cedric's room. Peter was the last one out and closed the door, and they walked down to pile into the lift, which was a bit tightly packed with Cedric in the chair, Hermione in his lap, plus Scott, Peter, Ed and Susan. Cedric couldn't see what floor had been punched and didn't realize it wasn't the ground floor when he wheeled out behind the others. When he did recognize the hallway as that of the third-floor, he stopped the chair. "Aren't we going to the Great Hall?"

"No," Ed replied, but offered nothing else, leading the way.

"Where are we going then?" Cedric asked. The Leaving Ball was always in the Great Hall.

"You didn't hear Violet moved it? Just follow me."

That sounded suspicious, especially as nobody else seemed surprised. Maybe there had been an announcement of the change of place posted on the house notice boards where he wouldn't have seen it. So he followed. It wasn't until they were nearly there that he recognized where they were headed: the Common Room.

The Hogwarts Common Room.

Ed had stopped just outside the door, turning to grin broadly and make an 'after you' gesture to Cedric. "I thought it was closed," Cedric said.

"Not any more," Peter replied, practically bouncing on the balls of his feet. All of them, in fact, were smiling with varying degrees of delight. He wheeled past them into the room that had been his brainchild, his one significant contribution to Hogwarts.

It looked the way it had before it had been closed, although the study tables had been moved to the edges of the room to hold the food, leaving space for people to congregate. There was no crowd waiting to shout in surprise or otherwise embarrass Cedric, and he was glad of that. Several people who'd arrived already turned at his entrance and waved, but nothing more. Adrian Pucey had seen him enter too, and Cedric caught him sneer slightly before turning away. No doubt he hadn't wanted to hold the ball here; Violet must have twisted his arm.

In fact, at his arrival she broke off her conversation with another girl from her house and came over to -- uncharacteristically for her -- bend and embrace him. "I'm glad you're back," she said.

"Thanks for doing this," he told her sincerely as she drew away.

She shrugged with one shoulder. "It seemed like the logical place; the Great Hall was always too big for such a small party." And she was right. With only eight to ten students from each house, and even allowing for the third who had come with pupils from other years, there weren't a lot of people. The Common Room was precisely the sort of venue suited to a party like this. "Did you bring the Cup back?" she asked.

"What cup?"

"That Cup." Peter reached over Cedric's shoulder from behind to place the Triwizard Cup in his lap. Cedric looked around; Peter must have picked it up off the desk as they'd left Cedric's room. He ran his palm along the cool of the silver and crystal. It had cost him so much.

Rolling over to the empty plinth where it had once been, he pulled out his wand to Levitate it back into place. "There," he said to himself before returning to his friends.

Several professors dropped by that evening to wish the seventh years well, including McGonagall who made sure to speak to Cedric. Nothing was said about his temporary expulsion or the reason for it. McGonagall did mention that she'd heard from Paolo Sweeney, but they hadn't discussed Cedric beyond Sweeney saying he'd probably get a letter off to Cedric a week or two after receiving his NEWT results.

"Lovely. NEWTs never arrive until well into August," he muttered after McGonagall had moved on. "I can worry my way through the summer."

"I'm sure you did fine, Cedric." Hermione squeezed his shoulder. She wore his pearls tonight with a pretty blue-and-tan top, and sat in a chair as close as the sloped wheels of his own chair would allow -- which wasn't as close as he'd have liked.

"Come and sit on my lap," he said, tugging at her hand. "And doing 'fine' isn't enough. I'll have to have been brilliant for Sweeney to be interested, and frankly, I doubt it. I'm going to be looking for other jobs, trust me."

"And Ron tells me I'm a pessimist." She glared at him and resisted his pull. "The room is full of people, Cedric; sitting on your lap is a bit intimate, don't you think?"

"I'm pretty sure they've all heard by now that we've been a lot more intimate than just you sitting on my lap." He rather enjoyed the way blood flamed in her cheeks, and she touched the pearls at her neck, running fingertips over them. "Come on," he wheedled. "I'm not going to run from this, or let anybody think I'm putting distance between us now."

"Coming with you at all hardly constitutes 'running' or 'putting distance.'"

"Yeah, well, I don't want them thinking it's just for show. Come here." And he tugged harder until she finally gave in, got out of her chair, and settled in his lap.

"I'm not crushing your legs, am I?"

"You're not that heavy, poppet." And he pulled her back to rest against him. It felt good to hold her; he hadn't had many chances since their return. They'd behaved themselves. Then again, with the prospect of the whole of summer ahead to visit back and forth, stealing privacy for snogging (or other things) didn't seem so critical.

The formal, castle-bound part of the Leaving Ball drew to a close at curfew when the younger students headed back to their house common rooms (or to prefect duties in Hermione's case). But for seventh years, it was tradition for them all to trundle down to the Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade where the noisier and considerably less sober part of the party took place. The only rules were that they had to be in the castle by sunrise, they could bring no alcohol back with them (Filch always checked), and Madam Rosmerta gave out no room keys. Most of the students would sleep through the next day until time for the Leaving Feast.

There was a surprise visit from the Weasley twins, who showed up to celebrate with their former classmates and brought fireworks. This year, the party seemed wilder than usual. They'd all seen the articles in The Daily Prophet; they knew Voldemort was back and a second war loomed. In the face of such gravity, time for play was precious. Yet Cedric's heart wasn't in it. A little after two in the morning, he left the pub, transformed, and flew back to the castle. That was a bit tricky at night, as eagle vision might be better than human eyesight in daylight, but not after dark. The moon was out but even so, when he came down to the lawn just outside the castle entrance, he miscalculated where the ground was and nearly crashed into it before resuming human form. He wound up on his arse in a tangle of inside-out robes. At least no one was there to see.

Or so he thought until he heard feet hurry over and Harry suddenly appeared out from under his cloak. "Cedric? Are you all right?" He leaned over Cedric, then abruptly drew back, nose scrunched up. "Are you drunk?"

Sitting up, Cedric let himself laugh a little. "No -- a bit tipsy, but not drunk. I no doubt smell like a pub, though, because that's where we were. It's just that as an eagle, I don't see as well in the dark. I sort of missed the ground." That won a thin smile from Harry as Cedric pushed himself to his feet on the crutches with Harry's assistance. "But what are you doing out here? And be glad I'm not Head Boy anymore."

Harry tilted his head sideways, expression skeptical, or what of his expression Cedric could see in the dark. "You wouldn't report me," he said with a degree of certainty that Cedric found annoying because he was right. Cedric wouldn't have reported him even if he were Head Boy.

"Are you still angry with me?" he asked.

"Eh?" Harry appeared genuinely confused. "Angry with you about what?

"You said it was my fault the Death Eaters took Ginny."

Harry's whole expression crumpled. "None of it was your fault, Ced. You were just trying to keep me from being a bigger idiot than I already was. I was the one who put people in danger, not you. I was the one who let Voldemort trick me."

Which was true. But Harry looked as if he'd already beaten himself up quite thoroughly about that and didn't need to be kicked when he was down. "Harry," Cedric said softly, "Voldemort has been fooling people for fifty years. One of his own Death Eaters tricked Dumbledore for months on end, posing as Moody -- who Dumbledore knew pretty well. Dumbledore's over 150, and you're only 15. I think you can cut yourself some slack."

"TELL THAT TO SIRIUS!" Harry bellowed, his face twisted up into something Cedric thought was grief as much as rage. "But you can't, can you? BECAUSE HE'S DEAD. AND IT'S MY FAULT. He came to rescue me and I got him killed!"

Cedric honestly wasn't sure how to reply. If he lied or made less of it or gave Harry platitudes, the other boy wouldn't be taken in. Harry was no fool. But to Cedric's mind, there was plenty of blame to go around. If Cedric had been paying closer attention to Harry and less to sneaking around in broom cupboards with Hermione, he might have realized the boy was lying about his Occlumency lessons. For that matter, Cedric still wasn't sure why Dumbledore hadn't just told Harry the truth in the first place about Voldemort being able to enter his mind and trick him. That would have been incentive enough for Cedric to stay in the lessons, in Harry's shoes.

But perhaps not enough for Harry. Harry had a different temperament, and was three years younger. At that age, he still thought he could take on the whole world. Sometime between 15 and 18 you realized you couldn't, Cedric thought. Then again, if he'd really grown up so much, he'd have gone directly to his mother as soon as Ed, Scott and Peter had come to tell him what had happened with Harry, Hermione and Umbridge. Instead, he'd fled the Three Broomsticks because he'd known his mother would stop him. He'd arrogantly thought he alone could make Harry listen.

Now, though, Cedric had an inkling of how to respond to Harry's pain. "Let's walk," he said. "If Filch is watching from a window, we'll both be in trouble -- you for being out here and me for letting you."

Harry's expression remained sullen, but he followed Cedric towards the greenhouses. Summer night noises surrounded them and Cedric had to be extra careful in the dark not to trip over something with his crutches.

"You going to try and talk some sense into me?" Harry asked.

Cedric smiled where Harry couldn't see. "I don't know. Do you want me to?"

Harry only frowned by way of reply, and Cedric thought he did want somebody to do that, probably in equal measure to wanting somebody he could blame for it all so he could stop blaming himself. Guilt ate at a person like acid.

"Actually, I was going to tell you something," Cedric said now, "but first, I need your word you won't tell another soul -- not even Ron. Not without Hermione's permission. In fact, I probably shouldn't be telling you without her permission; we agreed we wouldn't tell anybody who didn't already know. But I hope she'll forgive me."

Now Harry appeared downright curious, which was quite an improvement. "What's so secret?"

They'd reached the set of stones halfway between the castle and greenhouses that Cedric had been aiming for. He lowered himself to sit on the grass, pulling out his flask of Abdoleo. His legs were killing him now that the alcohol was wearing off. It had been a long day. "Have a seat," he said to Harry, who joined him, settling down cross-legged in front of him, his cloak draped over his knees. Harry wore a light sweater. Even at the height of summer, Scotland nights weren't warm.

"Hermione was pregnant," Cedric said, deciding not to beat around the bush. "She miscarried." Harry's jaw nearly hit his ankles. "It's a long story, but essentially that painting my mother made? It did things even she wasn't aware of." Briefly the anger flared up inside him again but he beat it down. "It caused us to forget a few essential spells at key moments." His smile was wry. "The curse Dolohov hit her with caused her to miscarry." Harry was still looking gobsmacked. "If I hadn't been there -- if she hadn't seen me and cried out -- Dolohov might not have noticed her. Or she might've been able to duck if she hadn't been paying more attention to me. I got my own child killed, Harry."

After a very long pause during which Harry shifted about uncomfortably, he finally asked, tentatively, "Would you have wanted to keep it, though?" The moonlight flashed off his glasses.

"I don't know," Cedric replied. "These sorts of questions only seem easy until you have to answer them. Real life isn't hypothetical.

"It's not the same as you losing Sirius, and I'm not trying to compare the two. Nor do I want you to add this to the weight you're already carrying. It's not yours to carry. The truth is I feel very ambivalent about the whole thing. We were saved from having to make a really awful decision, you know? So I'm enormously relieved. But I'm also a little sad. It's hard to sort out." Harry nodded cautiously and Cedric continued, "I thought I should tell you. I feel guilty because my decision to go into the Department of Mysteries ended up making her lose our baby -- even if it wasn't a baby we wanted or planned to have and might not have kept. Just like you went there to try to save Sirius from being killed, only to have him wind up falling through that veil."

They sat in silence for a while. Harry didn't offer Cedric condolences, and Cedric left Harry to his own thoughts. It was a comfortable silence and Cedric thought he might have drifted off for a bit with his back against the stone because he started awake when Harry said abruptly, "I'm going to have to kill him."

Thinking he must have misheard, Cedric asked, "What? Kill who?"

"Voldemort."

Cedric shook his head, struggling to wake up. "Kill Voldemort? I'm sure half the Wizarding World would like to kill Voldemort, but -- "

"It has to be me, Cedric. That's what the prophecy was about, the one that broke? The one that Voldemort wanted? He heard part of it before, but only part. He didn't hear the most important part, the part he thought would tell him how to kill me."

Cedric bent forward. "How do you know what it said, if it broke?"

"Dumbledore heard it. He was the one the prophecy was given to, and the one who gave it? It was Trelawney -- years ago. She really does have the power of prophecy, but most of what comes out of her mouth is rubbish." Cedric nodded. "She gave me a prophecy once too, in my third year -- about Peter Pettigrew, the one who really betrayed my parents. I didn't know she'd given this other to Dumbledore years before in the Hog's Head. Half of it was overheard, but not the last half."

He took a deep breath and went on. "Basically, it foretold my birth -- or really, just the birth of a baby at the end of July who'd have the power to kill Voldemort. But there were two babies born at the end of July who could've fulfilled the prophecy -- me and Neville Longbottom."

"Neville?"

"Yeah, it could have been Neville, Cedric, but Voldemort decided for some reason I was the threat, so he went after me and my parents. The prophecy said, 'the Dark Lord will make him his equal.'" Harry rubbed his scar, then took another breath and plunged on, as if needing to get this out. "But whoever overheard Trelawney got caught, and didn't hear that part of the prophecy, so Voldemort didn't know that if he tried to attack me, he'd give me some of his own power. And he didn't hear the rest of the prophecy: 'He will have power the Dark Lord knows not . . . and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives.'"

Cedric just sat and blinked, taking it all in. Harry would have to be the one to kill Voldemort. Nobody else could do it.

What must it be like to bear such a burden?

It wasn't the prediction that he'd have to kill somebody in order to survive that Cedric thought must be the hardest part. Cedric -- who'd barely been able to kill the fish he'd caught in the lake as a child -- wouldn't hesitate to kill Voldemort. That thing Cedric had seen in the graveyard barely deserved the label 'human,' and he'd take the weight off Harry's shoulders if he could.

But he couldn't. According to the prophecy, only Harry could do it, and if something happened to Harry, the entire Wizarding World was buggered.

And that was the burden Cedric pitied him for -- to bear that sort of responsibility, to be "the one," especially when he'd not been given a choice. For a little while the previous year, Cedric had lived a taste of that. He'd been the one chosen to represent Hogwarts. Yes, Harry had been chosen too, but that had been a fluke. It was Cedric who'd borne the brunt of the school's hopes and expectations, especially at first. And he'd had absolutely no idea what that would be like when he'd put his name in the Goblet, or he'd never have done so. He hadn't slept well all year, not only on the nights before tasks, and he'd been given more than a few sleeping droughts by Madam Pomfrey. Some days he'd walked about the halls bent-shouldered from the weight of it all.

Yet Harry had been there too, and once Cedric had got used to the idea, having a partner-rival of sorts had helped -- had helped enormously, in fact. So now, he leaned forward to pat Harry's forearm. "You may be the only one who can kill him, Harry, but you're not the only one who'll face him. You've got Ron and Hermione -- and you've got me. You've got a lot of people who'll support you, and not just in some melodramatic sense of laying down their lives for you."

Removing his hand, he went on, "You know after you'd told me about the dragons last year, I don't think I slept three hours in a row. I was bloody terrified. I was throwing up in the toilet the morning of the First Task. I had to face the dragon alone, but it was Ed and Peter and Scott who came into the toilet that morning, cleaned me up and got me dressed and took me out there. At the time, I thought I was all alone and I was so jealous of you when Hermione showed up in the tent. But looking back now, I see I wasn't. It's not a small thing to clean up your mate's spew, you know?" He smiled slightly, and won a small answering smile from Harry.

"So I suppose I'm saying I'll be there to clean up yours, if that's what you need -- kind of like a big brother, yeah?"

"I never had a big brother," Harry said. "Well, obviously."

"I never had a little brother. Always wanted one."

"Yeah, me too -- wanting a brother I mean. Ron's like a brother; he's my best mate but . . . "

"He's your age. It's not the same."

"Right. Sometimes you need to talk to somebody older. You've been there all year when I needed to talk. Rather like . . . like Sirius."

"I'm not trying to take his place, Harry."

"I know. I didn't expect you were. But Ron has more than one older brother."

"So he does."

"And Sirius was more . . . he was my dad's age. He was like an uncle. You're like a brother."

"There are brothers born, and brothers made -- that's what the Ojibway say. Here." Impulsively, he pulled his wand. "You've heard of blood brothers, right?"

Harry appeared startled, but nodded. "Well, the Muggle sort, yeah. Is it different in the Wizarding world?"

Cedric nodded. "It's a binding vow. We've fought together twice now. You saved my life and I saved yours. That's enough to make it, if you want." Then he added, "It's not a small thing." He felt compelled to be honest. "It's really not a small thing."

Harry hesitated only a moment before nodding once, decisively. "I want to."

Taking his wand and feeling a bit rash, Cedric whispered a sharpening spell, then drew it lightly over his palm, opening a long, shallow scratch. Blood welled black in the moonlight and now Harry seemed startled, even put off that it involved real blood. Only belatedly did Cedric recall that Voldemort had used Harry's own to resurrect himself last year, but before Cedric could tell Harry to forget it, Harry pulled his own wand, then hesitated. "Uh, don't know that spell."

"Give me your hand; I'll be careful." His eyes met Harry's in the dark. "This isn't the sort of magic Voldemort used, Harry."

Nodding, Harry held out his left hand for Cedric to draw the wand lightly over the skin, opening a matching shallow cut. Harry didn't even flinch. Then Cedric gripped Harry's cut hand in his own. "I vow," Cedric said, "to be loyal to you as if you and I were born from the same womb. Your blood is my blood from this day forward."

Harry licked his lips and repeated it: "I vow to be loyal to you as if you and I were born from the same womb. Your blood is my blood from this day forward."

Cedric could feel the tingle of the spell flow up his arm and sweep all through him, making him gasp. "Wow," Harry muttered, mouth a little open.

"It's a very old magic -- binding."

"Like with the Goblet of Fire?"

"Yeah, sort of."

"So then you're . . . like family."

"Not 'like,' Harry. I am family. I'm your brother now, the same as if we'd been born so."

They paused a moment; the darkness and silence both a witness to and a protection from the tenderness of the exchange. Cedric began to worry if perhaps he'd been too forward, if emotion had made him push Harry into something Harry hadn't wanted -- until he suddenly found himself with an armful of boy who clung tightly for a few minutes. "Thank you," Harry whispered before jumping to his feet and running back to the castle, as if embarrassed by his own outburst.

Entering the castle a few minutes later, Cedric was startled by a soft voice off to one side. "That was a noble thing you did, Cedric, and a brave one, to bind yourself to Harry Potter."

A wand ignited, showing Dumbledore's face, unusually grave.

"How did you know?" Cedric asked. "Do you hear everything?"

Dumbledore's smile was faint. "I wasn't eavesdropping, no, but invoking such an ancient magic inside the castle grounds disturbed the wards. It woke me. I came to investigate who it had involved when Harry came dashing through the front door, looking as if somebody had given him the world."

"But he was wearing his cloak. How do you know what he looked like . . . "

Dumbledore just tilted his head as if to say, 'Come now.'

"I hope I didn't push him into it."

"Cedric, the magic of a blood vow doesn't lie solely in the blood and the words said. Like the forbidden curses, the ones speaking the vows must mean them. It was your sincerity, and Harry's, that activated the magic."

Abruptly Dumbledore extinguished the light. "I'm glad that Harry has such a heart as yours behind him." Cedric could hear him walking away. His voice drifted back, "Good night, Cedric."

"Ron's really upset."

Cedric looked up from his journal as Hermione let herself back into their compartment on the Hogwarts Express. She'd been in the one next door with Harry and Ron, Neville and Luna and Ginny while Cedric had waited, writing and watching the Scottish highlands slip away behind them. This might be his last trip on the Hogwarts Express, but he felt less melancholy than he'd expected. He wasn't wearing his robes -- hadn't put them on that morning, although some seventh years had. He didn't feel like a student anymore. There were things he'd miss about Hogwarts -- the prefects' bath not least -- but it was the people he'd been tied to. That phase of his life was over, but he felt oddly content in it being so, ready to move on.

"Why's he upset?" he asked now, puzzled.

"That whole business with the blood brother thing, Ced." She settled down across from him. "He feels as if you're taking his place. First you started going out with me, and now Harry."

"I'm not going out with Harry."

She pursed her lips to resist laughing. "You know what I mean."

"It's not the same."

"You try telling him that."

"Fine, I will. Tell him I want to talk to him."

She sighed grandly and muttered, "I feel like an owl," but rose to exit the compartment again.

Technically, they were sharing with Ed and Susan. The train was simply too crowded for two students to have a compartment to themselves, even if one was the ex-Head Boy. But they'd worked out an agreement so that Cedric and Hermione would find another compartment to spend some time in, and Ed and Susan would do the same, thereby allowing each couple a bit of privacy.

Unfortunately, he and Hermione seemed to be spending theirs mediating a minor spat between Harry and Ron.

It must have taken some convincing by Hermione, because a good five minutes passed before the compartment door opened to admit a sour-faced Ron Weasley. He plopped down in the corner furthest from Cedric. "What?" he said, surly.

"I'm not taking your place, you know."

"What makes you think I think you are?" Ron asked, as if Cedric were an arrogant prat even to suggest it, but then he immediately went on, "It's not like you waltzed in and took up all Hermione's time and told her to stop sharing her notes with me, or started being Harry's confidant and made him your blood brother. Nah, that's not trying to take my place at all, is it?"

Cedric bit his tongue at Ron's morose if exaggerated summation. "Does Harry matter more to you than Charlie?"

Ron blinked and wiped his overlong red fringe out of his face. "What sort of question is that?"

"Just answer it."

"I can't answer that! It's not a fair question. Charlie's my brother. Harry's my best mate."

"Exactly," Cedric said.

Ron blinked at him a moment, then something behind his eyes shifted, and Cedric knew he'd got the point. "I'm not taking your place, Ron. Nobody could. Just like Charlie couldn't take Harry's for you, or the reverse."

Still sullen, Ron said, "You asked Hermione out."

And there, finally, it was bared between them. "So I did. I'm not going to apologize for getting there before you. I didn't even know you were interested then." Ron continued to glare. "What? You think I should back off now? It's a little late for that. I love her."

Finally, Ron dropped his eyes. "Yeah, I know." It was, Cedric thought, an odd sort of blessing. Getting to his feet, Ron shuffled out.

"She still needs you too," Cedric said before the door could shut. "I won't be there next year. You and Harry have to watch over her. Don't tell her I said that."

Ron poked his head back around the edge of the compartment door. "She's pretty good at taking care of herself."

"I know. I'm still allowed to worry."

Ron just nodded once and the door shut. Before Hermione could come back in, however, Cedric heard a commotion in the aisle outside and grabbed his crutches, pushing to his feet to make his way out and see what was afoot.

Three . . . slugs were rolling about on the aisle's red carpet. "What the devil?"

Hermione had a hand over her mouth to hide a laugh, but the rest of the people standing about in the hallway -- all from the D.A., Cedric noted -- weren't being so polite. "It's Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle," Hermione told him. "They tried to gang up on Harry -- they just didn't realize whose compartment they were standing in front of when they did it."

Cedric looked up, grinning at his (former) housemates -- Ernie and Justin and Hannah, Scott and Peter. Neville was there too, wand still out, looking triumphant, as was Luna. Ed and Susan were coming back, but they seemed only confused. "Why are giant slugs on the train?" Ed asked.

Everyone else burst out laughing, even Cedric.

Cedric and Hermione finally got actual time alone an hour or two later, after the trolley lady had been in. At a hint from Cedric, Ed took Susan visiting again and left Cedric and Hermione the compartment for snogging, which they lost no time in doing, to Esiban's annoyance since it meant Cedric's lap wasn't available to him. But mostly, Cedric just wanted to hold her, her head tucked under his chin, her small body pressed to his chest. Since seeing her fall in the Department of Mysteries, he hadn't been able to get enough of that. Now, she seemed satisfied to let him wrap her up in his arms and stroke her hair with the hand still bandaged from his oath. She stroked his shoulder and chest atop his shirt. His heart beat slow and content in time with the chugging of the train, and the compartment swayed in a comfortable rhythm he'd grown used to. For a little while, they just breathed. Finally, she spoke in a soft voice. "Why did you tell Harry about the miscarriage?"

So Harry had said something to her; Cedric had meant to tell her himself first, but hadn't had a chance. "He was feeling guilty over Sirius. It was the only thing I could think of to break through the wall he'd built. I know I should have asked you first; I'm sorry."

She shook her head against his shoulder. "I'm not angry, just . . . surprised. He asked if I wanted to talk about it -- which is a bit odd for Harry."

"Did you?"

"No." She shifted, as if uncomfortable, then said, "I keep thinking I should feel worse about losing the baby, but I don't. I just wasn't ready."

"I know. And there's no rule about how you should feel, Hermione. I'm still not sure how I feel."

She was quiet again for a while, then asked, "Would you have wanted us to keep it?"

"Not if you didn't want to."

Pulling away, she looked him in the eye. "I'm asking what you would have wanted."

"I would've wanted to do what --"

"No. Stop that," she said, hands gripping his shoulders to shake him gently. "You are far, far too inclined to modify what you want to please other people, Cedric Diggory. If you keep doing that, you'll just wind up unhappy and resentful of people. I'm asking what you would have wanted, just you."

Uncomfortable and uncertain what to say, he shifted his gaze away from her. "I didn't want a baby. Not yet. My father lost his job and I haven't got one yet. How could I afford to raise a child? I'm not ready to be completely responsible for another human being like that. But that sounds so . . . selfish. And the weird part is that I don't know if I could have given it up. Which makes absolutely no sense, does it? I didn't want it, but I wouldn't have wanted you to get rid of it either. Yet there's a difference between wanting something and just not wanting to give it up. Not wanting to give it up is selfish too, isn't it?"

She pressed her forehead to his. "You worry too much about being selfish. You're not, all right? You're not. You're just being honest." She pulled back to look at him again, running thumbs down his cheeks. "That's all I wanted was for you to be honest. I thought you were feeling worse about this than me. I got tired of you telling me what you thought I wanted to hear. I need to tell you something too. I don't think it was the curse that made me miscarry."

He blinked at her. "No?"

"I didn't remember at first, but when I did . . . Well, my tummy was hurting even before I was hit by that curse, and I felt wet down there -- thought I'd had a little accident or something. Now I realize I'd already started to bleed. So it had to have happened before I was cursed."

"What did it then?"

"I think it happened when your mother burned the painting. It was all bound up together -- the baby and the painting -- so when she burned the painting, when she stopped the magic, that took the baby too." Cedric felt his mouth go dry as the pieces finally fell together. Of course. "It had to be done, Cedric," she told him, as if reading his upset in his face. "It would've killed you. Your mother didn't know I was pregnant."

But Cedric wasn't so sure of that.

He'd assumed she'd realized what was happening to Hermione in the Department of Mysteries because she'd been through miscarriages herself. But what if she'd known Hermione hadn't just lost her virginity on Beltane? What if she'd known the painting would've made her pregnant and that burning it would cause her to lose the baby? Had she traded the life of his unborn child for his without asking him?

Recognizing that she might have done that made him angry. She'd created the painting to protect him, she'd said. And she'd burned it to save him. Yet she hadn't asked him either time, nor told him the full consequences. She'd just done it because she thought it best, as if he were eight, not eighteen. Even if he didn't think himself ready yet to be a father, he wasn't a child and didn't like being treated as if he were.

He swallowed these suspicions; Hermione didn't need to know them. But he was going to have a little chat with his mother after they were home. Now, he pulled her back against him and she turned her mouth up to his even as her hand slid down from his chest over his belly to the front of his trousers, rubbing firmly.

"Hermione -- "

"We have" -- he could feel her shift to raise her arm and see her watch -- "at least fifteen minutes before Susan and Ed come back. And I won't get to see you for a whole week after today."

"Oh, torture."

"It will be. I don't know how I'm going to make it through next year."

"Don't talk about next year yet. We still have the whole summer. And you did promise to take me to the cinema, among other things." He returned to the kiss as her hand returned to the front of his trousers. He slipped his own up her thigh beneath her school skirt -- which he suspected she hadn't worn just to be proper. "You might want to lock the door, just in case," he said. They might not be allowed to have intercourse yet, but there were other things to do and he doubted it would take fifteen minutes.

Disembarking was a madhouse, as always, but on this his last time, everything seemed more intense, the goodbyes and promises to write more urgent. If he hadn't felt sad or nostalgic on the train, he did now. Some faces he knew he'd see again, and soon -- Ed, Peter and Scott, for instance. Others, he didn't know that he'd ever see again. Roger Davies shook his hand and said laughingly, "Someday I'll be able to tell my kids I went to school with Cedric Diggory."

He gripped Roger's hand in return. "And I'll be able to tell mine I went to school with Roger Davies."

Davies' smile was wry. "Somehow, I suspect it won't be as significant."

"Don't doubt yourself, Roger."

Violet came to say goodbye as well. As she also shook his hand, she passed something into it, then bent to kiss his cheek where he sat in his chair, and whispered, "Dumbledore told me to give you that. He found it in Umbridge's desk."

And she walked away. Cedric looked down at what he held, shiny gold with the Hogwarts crest:

H.B.
Diggory

His badge. Smiling, he pocketed it. Hermione had come back from saying her goodbyes and walked beside him as they made for the portal that exited from platform 9¾. Students passed through as the conductor indicated it was safe to do so. Getting Cedric through in a wheelchair with a raccoon on his lap was a little more complicated, but finally he was waved past.

He didn't immediately see his parents until Hermione pointed to them, busy talking to her own mother and father. "At least they get along," he said and she nodded. With their parents momentarily occupied, they went to say goodbye to Harry, who stood amid a circle of red-haired Weasleys and several members of the Order -- Lupin, Tonks with her bright pink hair, and Moody wearing his funny bowler hat. Scott, Cedric noted, was standing a little way behind, trying to appear nonchalant as he struggled to catch Tonks' eye.

It appeared that the Order members were ganging up on a heavyset man with a walrus mustache, a needle-thin woman with permed hair, and an even more heavy-set boy with slanted, lazy eyes. "Who're they?" Cedric whispered to Harry as he rolled up beside him. Esiban climbed up onto his shoulder to nose Harry, who rubbed the raccoon's ears.

"It's my Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon," Harry whispered back, "and my cousin Dudley."

Moody, Lupin, Tonks and Arthur Weasley appeared to be giving the mustachioed man the what-for, which Cedric found hugely amusing. Hermione had told him all about Harry's uncle, and he nearly laughed aloud when the elder Dursley attempted to stand up to Moody's threat with, "And do I look like the kind of man who can be intimidated?" -- only to have Moody show him his magical eye. Dursley leapt backwards straight into a luggage trolley, knocking suitcases flying and earning curses from an attendant.

"Yes," Moody said, "I'd have to say you do, Dursley."

Biting his lip, Cedric waited as Moody turned to Harry. "So, Potter . . . give us a shout if you need us. If we don't hear from you for three days in a row, we'll send someone along . . . " The tall, thin woman practically whined at that. Moody gripped Harry's shoulder. "Bye, then, Potter."

"Take care, Harry," Lupin added. "Keep in touch."

"Harry, we'll have you away from there as soon as we can," Mrs. Weasley whispered as she hugged him.

Cedric gripped Harry's hand. "Write. Or I'll fly over to check on you."

He moved back to let Ron in. "We'll see you soon, mate," Ron said as Hermione added, "Really soon, Harry. We promise."

As he left the small circle, Cedric made certain to pass Dudley Dursley where he stood behind his parents, trying to look inconspicuous -- a difficult task for somebody who must weigh over 15 stone. If Cedric didn't normally bother with schoolyard intimidation games, he suspected that was all this whale of a boy understood. "You and your gang harass Harry," he warned the boy, "and you'll answer to me."

"Who are you, crip?" Dudley asked, almost sneering. "And what is that?" He pointed a finger in Esiban's face.

Cedric rolled backwards. "That is a raccoon -- and I'd move your finger. Holding a hand over his head is an aggressive gesture." As if to prove Cedric's point, Esiban growled at Dudley, who jerked away. "As for who I am, I was the Head Boy and Triwizard Champion. I may be in a wheelchair, but I'm pretty sure I could still hex the bollocks off the likes of you."

He rolled away then, Hermione scurrying to join him. "Did you have to engage in the pissing contest too?"

Cedric shrugged. "Moody put the fear of his wand into Mr. Mustache. I figured maybe the younger version needed a talking to as well, just in case he thought none of that applies to him."

She sighed. "Men. It's all about 'my wand is bigger than yours.'"

He smiled. "Yeah, sometimes it is, poppet." His grin turned wicked. "And I don't recall you ever complaining about the size of my, er, wand."

She flushed scarlet. "You're awful."

"You like me awful."

"I just like you. God knows why."

"It's my charming smile and winsome personality, of course." Still grinning, he sent himself out in front of her with a firm push of his arms, headed towards their parents. "Come on, Granger. It's time to go home."

= THE END =

Again, reviews are adored. If you have read this novel all the way to the end, and enjoyed it (or even if you havent' enjoyed it) ... consider paying the piper. A novel of this size takes a lot of time not just to write, but to edit and make presentable. If this were a print novel, you'd be shelling out at least $7.99 for a pocket paperback of this size, or $16.00 for a trade paperback. Hitting "Review this story/chapter" is a lot easier than driving to a bookstore, not to mention cheaper. *grin*

Please continue on to the next part for information on the SEQUEL -- Dulce et decorum est -- as well as some end notes about the writing of this, the myth of the Summer King, et. all. The last part is all Cedric's poetry found in the novel, collected in one entry.