Disclaimer: So how about those airplane peanuts?

A/N: Yay, another chapter. Enjoy the end of your winter breaks and the long depressing stretch ahead called January. Blegh, I hate January. Anyway, thanks for reading! Please review!

Thanks to:

Ale: Thanks! That's really flattering, I'm glad to know you think my writing is that good. And don't worry about being sugar high. It happens to all of us, so yay.

Mysticdark1: Thanks for reviewing! And yes, I've joined. Thanks for the add!

katy-ducky: Thanks for the review! I'm glad you liked it.

tropicaltoadfly: Thanks. Yes, Kate may have a little thing for Cedric, but she'll never admit it. He he. -evil grin-

Iris Knotwise: Hehe, thanks! I actually got the idea for the whole chocolate fight from my friend-who specializes in romantic comedy situations-except it was ice cream. And in her version the boy swept the girl up in his arms and...well, you get the point.

faith08: Thanks for the fav!

Boni: Thanks, if I need more Spanish help, I'll ask you. I was using one of those free translation websites, and they're not always accurate. So thanks for the offer.

RobynLesko: Thanks for the fav!

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Someone Like You

Chapter Six - His Shoelaces

"If I loved you less, maybe I could talk about it more." -Emma

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Kate slept good that night, and no aftertaste of the previous night stayed with her. In her right mind she decided she disliked Cedric again. No look-inside-of-him things popped up in her head.

Cedric was likewise–expect he never hated Kate–that he was no longer lingering over the night before and the humorous things that had taken place. He had fallen asleep the previous night smiling, remembering the look on Kate's face when he'd pushed chocolate on the back of her neck. It was hilarious.

Kate had managed to make herself angry about having to serve detention with Cedric again. She thought about it all day, feeling sorry for herself, wishing it wasn't her who had to spend the evening with the "self-proclaimed genius", as she put it.

At breakfast, Kate told her friends the tale of the night before as she munched down blueberry pancakes and hash browns. Harry listened intently, hardly nibbling his food as Kate reminisced. He found himself being insanely jealous of Cedric, wishing it was him who got to spend the evening with Kate. He deserved it more than Cedric, anyway. Kate didn't like Cedric anyway, and Cedric seemed to always get what he wanted...

Then Harry realized he had zoned out on Kate's voice, and he tuned back in promptly.

"...then he told me we had had a good fight. Really! The nerve of that boy! It's really intoxicating. And I mean that in a bad way." Kate told them.

Angelina, on her left, laughed. "Sounds like you've gotten him into quite a bit of trouble."

Kate nodded. "Yes, I have."

"Well, on behalf of all the supporters of our dear Harry here, thank you for bringing a hurt onto Diggory's–ahem–reputation." Fred reinforced.

Kate laughed. "Thanks. I think I've rather done a good job." She then turned to Harry at her right, and asked, "So, have you got anything on the first task yet?"

Harry shook his head. "But Hagrid wants to see me tonight. It might have something to do with the first task, but I'm not sure."

Kate nodded in understanding. "I see. Well, if anyone's gonna leak secrets to you about the tournament, it'd be Hagrid. He cares a bundle about you, Harry."

"Yeah, Hagrid's a very good person." Harry added. But he found himself not wanting to talk about Hagrid. He wanted to talk about Kate, and to Kate...

Harry swallowed down his strange feelings and tried to eat his breakfast. But he found himself not hungry at all.

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Kate left breakfast early again and spent the rest of the morning reading Pride and Prejudice in the common room. The next time she looked at her watch, it was 11:58, two minutes until she was supposed to be at Professor McGonagall's for detention. Panicking, she jumped up, taking her book along with her, and ran out of the room.

Kate reached Professor McGonagall's office five minutes late. Cedric was already there, and Professor McGonagall was sitting impatiently behind her desk.

"Er...sorry I'm late, Professor," Kate said breathlessly as she ran into the office. She looked from Cedric, who was sitting in a chair by the desk, to Professor McGonagall, and then back to Cedric, who gave her an uncertain look.

"Miss Lowe, it is not a wise choice to arrive late to detention. But fortunately for you, since I'm getting tired of giving you detention, I'll let it slip." Professor McGonagall told her.

Kate sat down cautiously in the seat next to Cedric, not daring to say anything.

"Today I have chosen your punishment a little more carefully, so hopefully you can't make another mess like last night's debacle." she told them.

Kate and Cedric exchanged smirks.

"So this afternoon, you will be working in the greenhouses. You are to dehead and water all the plants. I trust from your herbology classes you know how to do this. So without further ado, please go straight there and get to work. Please try not to cause any problems." She instructed them.

Cedric and Kate stood. "Right, Professor," they said in unison.

"Good afternoon," Professor said, dismissing them.

The two frustrated students left her office hastily. This time, Kate took the lead, walking a few paces ahead of Cedric and walking quickly to make sure that distance was kept.

"Kate," Cedric called out to her. Kate, to her own disgust, stopped in her tracks and turned around.

"Yes?" Kate sighed.

Cedric reached her side. They began walking again, at a slower pace.

"I have to say I'm sorry for this. It's my fault, you know, starting the whole food fight thing." he apologized.

"That's okay. Don't, er, worry about it," Kate replied uncertainly.

"I 'spose we're even now." Cedric sniggered, looking down at her.

Kate couldn't help but smile. "Yes, the score is tied. I hope you aren't going to make any more attempts for detention."

Cedric smirked. "Yeah, right. I won't if you won't."

"Okay, it's a deal." Kate told him.

Kate looked up into his face. He wore a quirky and satisfied smile. It was nice. Then her gaze traveled to the floor, and she stared at her shoes. Black and rather uncomfortable, she remarked to herself. Then she looked at his shoes, black as well. She noticed the laces had become untied on both shoes, and they nicked the ground with rhythmic precision.

"Your shoes are untied." She remarked slowly, looking up at him.

Cedric raised his eyebrows, looking from his shoes to Kate. "Oh, er, yeah. That happens a lot. Can't get the bloody things to stay tied." He told her.

Kate gave him a skeptical look. "Why don't you double tie them?" she asked.

"I do." He answered strongly. "Nothing seems to work. They always managed to come untied again."

Kate smiled, looking at their shoes again as they exited through the main doors and began the trek across the lawn to the greenhouses.

She looked back up at him. "Do you do the twisty thing?" she asked.

Cedric sniggered. "The twisty thing? There are many twisty things in tying shoes. Which one?" he asked.

"You know, the twisty thing like this." Kate told him, gesturing with her fingers, tracing imaginary circles with them and then pushing them together.

Cedric laughed out loud then. "I'm supposed to get which twisty thing you mean by that?"

Kate shrugged. "I did my best. You were the one who missed it," she mocked.

"This is a very strange conversation." Cedric remarked earnestly, laughing. Kate couldn't help laughing either. They were talking about shoelaces, of all things. Shoelaces. It was very strange, and somewhat deluding in the fact that it distracted them from remembering how they were going to detention.

Cedric eyed the book under Kate's arm. "Are you planning on doing some reading?" he asked quizzically.

Kate remembered the book. She looked at it briefly, then said, "Oh, uh, yeah. I was reading it, and then realized I was late, so I just brought it. I didn't have time to put it away."

"I see." Cedric said comprehensively. "What is it?"

Kate blushed, reluctantly showing it to him. "Er...Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen."

"Ah, yes, Austen, notorious for engaging romances, am I right?" Cedric smirked.

"You...you've read it?" Kate asked skeptically.

"Oh, no. But my mother...she's a romantic. Always trying to get me to read them." Cedric reminisced. "You read any others besides that one?"

Kate shook her head. "No. I've only read Pride and Prejudice. But it very well may be my favorite book. You should really give it a read sometime."

Cedric laughed. "That's not my type of book."

"So what is your type of book?" Kate asked mockingly.

Cedric thought on it for a moment. "A good murder mystery, that's what I like."

Kate sniggered. "Yeah, those are good, too."

They reached the greenhouses. They entered, and while Cedric looked around for gloves, Kate set her book down on one of the dusty tables.

Cedric located the garden gloves. He walked over to Kate, and handed her a pair.

After putting them on, Kate asked, "So, where do we start?"

"I'll start on this end of the room. You go on the other side, then we can meet in the middle." Cedric suggested.

"Alright." Kate agreed, walking over to the other side of the room. She felt a sudden sinking feeling inside of her, realizing she wouldn't get to talk to him anymore. But then her mind came into power, and she asked her self, what would we talk about anyway? Shoelaces?

Kate quickly got to work, deheading and watering the plants. It seemed to go by very quickly, and before she new it, her and Cedric met in the middle of the room.

"Well, that didn't take long." Cedric sighed.

"That's all we have to do?" Kate asked unsurely. "It seems like Professor McGonagall would've given us a harsher punishment on account it was double detention."

Cedric shrugged. "That's all she told us. So I guess we are done."

"Well, great. I really should be going. I wonder if Harry's talked to Hagrid yet. He was hoping for...nevermind." Kate trailed off.

"Well, okay. So long. I'll put away the gloves." Cedric offered.

"Thank you. I'll see you around." Kate said, rushed, as she handed him her gloves and rushed out of the greenhouse.

Cedric put away the gloves, then began to leave. Then he noticed Kate's book lying on one of the musky tables. She had left it. Cedric picked it up, deciding to return it to her later.

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Kate sat amidst her friends at dinner that evening. Harry had not visited Hagrid yet. Kate chastised Harry humorously that he should not leave her hanging in suspense like this.

"How was detention?" Harry asked, finding himself eager to know.

"Oh, just fine. It went really fast, luckily. We just had to dehead and water the plants in the greenhouse." Kate told him.

"Oh, yeah, you and Diggory." Angelina remarked, listening in on their conversation.

Kate nodded. "Yeah. You know his shoelaces don't stay tied? It's really distracting..." Kate told them. She didn't add they were almost distracting in a good way. They were such a good conversation starter. But she wasn't sure why she wanted to start conversations with him, anyway.

Then everyone around her was giving her the same strange look; Harry, Ron, Hermione, Fred, George, and Angelina.

"What?" Kate asked.

"His...shoelaces? Why the bloody hell do you care about his shoelaces?" George asked.

Kate examined her own mind. Why did she care? She couldn't even answer that question. They were just shoelaces, anyway.

"Hullo, Kate," she heard a voice behind her say. She reluctantly recognized it, and she turned to greet Cedric as he stood there, smiling faintly.

"Oh, er, hi, Cedric," Kate said uncertainly, feeling every eye around her on them. She noticed the familiar book in his hands, and the shock filled her that she had left it behind in the greenhouses.

"You left this behind." Cedric told her, holding the book out to her.

Kate took the book gently. "Oh, thanks for bringing it."

"Well, I'll see you in class on Monday." he said.

Kate nodded. "Right. See you."

Cedric walked away. Kate turned around again, settling the book into her lap. She faintly heard the scuffle of his shoelaces against the stone floor as he walked back over to the Hufflepuffs.

Angelina was grinning at her. "You're madly red." she told Kate mischievously.

Kate looked at her, appalled. "What?"

"It's because of him, isn't it?" Angelina accused.

Kate shook her head quickly. "Oh, God, no, not because of him! It's because all of you were staring at us like some fantastic spectacle."

Angelina laughed. "Right."

"Kate, how could you? Fraternizing with the enemy..." Fred trailed off.

"What? Fraternizing? First of all, it's not fraternizing when he brings me a book. Second of all, I terribly dislike him. Yes, he is so..." Kate couldn't manage to find the word she was looking for. She didn't rightly know why she disliked him. She wasn't quite sure if she even did anymore. It was confusing her quite a bit.

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Kate didn't fall asleep very quickly that night. She kept hearing the click of those shoelaces against the stone floor. They were strangly hypnotizing and fascinating. She could somehow still hear his words. Can't get the bloody things to stay tied. Why couldn't she get over it? There was nothing there. Cedric was just a bloke. And a vain bloke at that. He probably had a mirror in his pocket at all times so he could look at himself whenever he wanted to.

But as Kate slipped in and out of an insomniac state, her mind kept going back to those shoelaces and his voice. His shoelaces. What did they mean to her? Somehow, deep down inside, she knew they meant something more. She just couldn't figure out what that was.

Get over it, she told herself. After all, they're just shoelaces.

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Fascinating new thing
You delight me
And I know you're speaking of me

Fascinating new thing
Get beside me,
I want you to love me

I'm surprised that you've never been told before
That you're lovely and you're perfect
And that somebody wants you

Fascinating new thing
The scene-makin'
Want a temporary savior

Fascinating new thing
Don't betray them
By becoming familiar

I'm surprised that you've never been told before
That you're lovely and you're perfect
And that somebody wants you

I'm surprised that you've never been told before
That you're priceless and you're precious
Even when you are not new.

F.N.T. - Semisonic

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A/N: Well there you go! Hope you liked it. Things are actually going somewhere now, yay. I would write more for the next chapter right now, but my sex slave(hehe, j/k) Tim wants me to watch his Fraggle Rock and Aqua Teen Hunger Force DVDs with him. So please review! Much love, my homefries!