Sorry for leaving you hanging. (: Here ya go.


Cedric Diggory, age eight, was your example of a 'perfect child'—never got into trouble, always did what he was told, and was very well behaved. Today, however, was an exception.

Tired of his parents arguing, Cedric went outside the house—without permission—and down by a lake, just staring out at it. He hated it when his parents argued in front of him. It got old very quickly, and half of the time, their arguments didn't mean anything. There usually was no real reason for arguing about anything. Today, however, was different.

He wasn't sure how it got started, but soon, his parents were yelling at each other. When Dad slapped Mum across the face, he had had enough, and simply up and left. He wasn't going to sit around and watch them kill each other.

Suddenly he was quite aware of someone behind him. He supposed it was one of his parents, but, instead, it was a little girl, no older than five. He had seen her once—her parents lived next door, and her father worked with his—but his mind was a blank. He couldn't place a name to her face. She was smiling, wearing a butterfly T-shirt. Her short blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she was barefoot. She was also very dirty.

"Hi," she said timidly.

"Hello," he said back, not sure what she wanted.

"Can I sit here?" she asked, pointing to the empty space next to him. Cedric moved over to make room for her. He had no idea who she was, but she seemed to want to talk to him very badly, from the way she acted.

"I'm sorry," he said suddenly, "I don't mean to sound rude, but...who are you?"

"Maddie Stefani Lewis," she recited. "And I know who you are."

"Do you?" he asked, already forgetting the girl's name. Suddenly, it came back to him: Maddie. Unusual.

"Daddy works with your daddy, doesn't he?" she said. He noticed she had a slight lisp on words that had a 'd'.

"Yes," he said. "So...Maddie. Is that short for something?"

"No," she said, "just Maddie. Grandma pretty much has a fit every time she sees me. Says my name should be Madeline, or Madison." She had said 'grandma', 'should', 'Madeline', and 'Madison', but they all came out sounding like 'gramma', 'shoul', 'Madseline', and 'Masison'. Cedric could barely understand her. The only word with a 'd' in it she had pronounced correctly was her own name.

"Oh," he said, trying to understand what she had just said.

"You're Cedr..." He could tell she was having great difficulty saying it.

"Yes, I'm Cedric," he interrupted. "You don't have to call me that, though," he added, knowing she'd have a hard time every time she tried to say his name.

"Ceddie," she announced after a moment of thought.

"What?"

"Well, I can pronounce that," she said. "Why are you out here all alone?"

He sighed. "It's a long story," he said. "Most of it would go over your head."

"I'm smart for my age," she reasoned.

He laughed. "I'm sure you are," he said, "but I don't really understand much of it myself." Suddenly, he straightened. "Do your parents know where you are?"

"Nope!" she announced proudly. "For all they know, I could be dead," she finished happily.

Oh, great, Cedric thought. "Well you don't want them to think that, do you?"

"No," she said, still in her cheery voice. Cedric stood.

"Come on," he said. She stood up as well. Suddenly, she grabbed his hand. "What are you—?" he started, but she cut him off.

"Mummy always says that I should hold her hand when we're walking somewhere. I think it works here, too, doesn't it?"

Cedric was shocked. This little girl speech was like his mother's, other than when she lisped occasionally. "How old did you say you were?" he asked.

"I didn't," she said, "but I just turned four last month."

Cedric was even more shocked than he originally was. He couldn't remember talking the way she did when he was four. "Well, for a four-year-old, you have an excellent vocabulary," he said.

"Grandma always says children should be seen and not heard," she said, starting to lose some of cheerful disposition.

"Well, that's rubbish," he said. "How else are we..."

"Exactly," she finished, almost as if she read his mind. For a moment, he was worried she was reading his mind, but immediately thought how silly that seemed. He suddenly became aware of his parents with Maddie's mum. She was in tears, and his parents looked worried as well. It suddenly dawned on him that they realized their children were missing, as neither had told their parents where they would be or when they would be back. "Oh, crap," Cedric muttered.

Right at that moment, his father looked up and yelled at the top of his lungs, "CEDRIC AMOS DIGGORY! WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?!"

"Uh...nowhere," Cedric lied. He could tell he was going to get the riot act.

"Don't ever do that again," he could hear Maddie's mum saying, holding her daughter in her arms. "Understand me?"

"Yes, Mummy," Maddie recited as if she had been doing this her whole life.

"And tell Mummy where you're going and make sure you have an adult with—ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?!"

"Yes, Mummy," she said, but it didn't sound like she was. Cedric couldn't help but smile.

It was now his father's turn to yell. "DON'T GIVE ME THAT LOOK!" Cedric was snapped back to reality. His father was now talking with Maddie's mum. "I'm so sorry to have bothered you, Katie, really..."

"It's no problem," the woman called Katie said. "I understand. I'm terribly sorry to have bothered you. Come on, sweetie...."

That was possibly the day that Maddie Lewis fell in love with Cedric Diggory.


That was a truly crappy ending. I got bored with this chapter after a while. Okay, I need a suggestion. Next chapter should I skip ahead to when they officially become an 'item', or should I do the Quidditch World Cup? Either way I'm going to do both, if I do the Cup first I'd just put it in as a flashback, but flashbacks bore me haha. (:

Please review. If you don't feel like reviewing tell me what your favorite store in the mall is.