To Bedlam and Partway Back

NOTE: WARNINGS FOR UNDERAGE SLASH

Rating: M

The slash is really light, but it's the beginning of change, so things will gradually pick up from here, just to let you know.

Disclaimer: I own none of these characters

Chapter Four

Harry and Cedric were alone in the Hufflepuff Fifth-Year's boys' dorm, behind their screened room. They were undressing and getting ready for breakfast, and Cedric had Harry's newly charmed robes. In the girls' Third-Year dorm, he was sure Hannah and Susan were helping Hermione with hers as well.

"Here," he said, handing a set of black robes to Harry. The younger boy finished buttoning his oxford white, and then took the robes with uncomprehending eyes.

"But I already have robes-"

"These are new ones," Cedric explained, shaking them out for him to see. Harry's eyes widened at the sight. Instead of the red-gold braid about the hem, there were just two strips of yellow and black velvet piping to stand apart from the cotton of the standard robe. The crest was also different; instead of the familiar badger on a silver shield, the one Harry would wear was a crimson rose held up by a badger's sharp claws, rearing on a yellow-back chequered field.

"Helga Hufflepuff's personal crest," Cedric explained, draping them over Harry's shoulders. "That marks you as not a Sorted Hufflepuff, but rather an adopted one. Or acquired."

"Acquired, eh?" Harry asked, smirking mischievously. "How so?"

Cedric blinked, slightly disarmed. By Merlin, was the boy flirting with him? He turned a light pink. "W-well, there is that Bond," he stammered out.

Harry hummed, turning away slightly to thread his hands through his robe-sleeves, making the older teen feel as though he'd failed some kind of hidden test. Cedric wanted to ground his teeth in annoyance. He wasn't a Gryffindor, he didn't have the bollocks they did- then a thought occurred to him. Didn't it take bollocks to stand up to Pomfrey and Dumbledore like that yesterday? And didn't it take bollocks to stand up in the name of family, no matter what anyone else said against you? He felt a smile growing on his lips. Maybe they all had a little Gryffindor inside of them.

Harry caught the end of his smile and cocked his head inquisitively at him. "Cedric?"

"Well, apart from the Bond, there's also this," Cedric said, and then gave the boy no time to retreat before tipping his chin up and kissing him. He could feel Harry's startled eyes staring straight at him, but he resolutely kept his eyes closed. He didn't deepen the kiss, merely kept his lips pressed against Harry's for a good five seconds, before puling back. Then he opened his eyes, and was immediately arrested by dazzling green.

"Cedric," Harry whispered.

The blond bit his lip. "Was that too much? Too fast?"

Harry abruptly burst out laughing, and the best part was that he leaned right into Cedric's embrace, not even needing to consciously think about it. He let his fringe flop into his eyes before peeking up through long black strands. "I rather liked it," he shyly admitted, and then darted away out to the commons.

Cedric's eyes widened at his words. "Harry-!" Not even bothering to hide his grin, he grabbed his tie and shot out after him.

Hermione heard feet running down the staircase and turned, eyes wide. Harry shot past her in a whirl of yellow-lined robes. His outstretched hand nabbed her by the wrist and yanked her down the stair after him.

'Hey, Susan, Hannah," he calmly greeted, and then dragged Hermione down with him.

"Ha-Ha-Harry!" she screeched as she stumbled down the stairs. "Harry Potter, let go of me this instant!"

Susan and Hannah were still frozen on the stair when Cedric Diggory came thundering down, a contagious grin on his lips. "Hello girls," he said with a jaunty wave, and then took the stairs down three or four at a time, leaving the Third-Years shaking with laughter behind him.

"Harrrryyyy-!" Hermione squealed as Harry swung her about the common room. The Hufflepuffs that were already down there watched them with an indulgent eye. When Cedric appeared at the foot of the stairwell, the good feeling only grew stronger.

"'Mione, you've got to protect my virtue from this beast," Harry chirped, thrusting his friend before him.

"Beast, eh, am I?" Cedric asked with a roguish laugh. He winked at the girl standing between them, and then shot out and grabbed the boy behind her. Harry squeaked. He might be faster and more unpredictable on a broom, but Cedric would win on the ground. "Got you now."

Harry flailed as a strong arm wrapped about his midriff from behind, but he was laughing more than fighting with the older boy. "Bloody cheat," he sulked, turning his face upwards to look at the blond. Hermione couldn't help but smile. Harry hadn't looked this carefree since they'd met him at Diagon Alley this year. Cedric spun him around and caught his lips up with his own. Hermione cheeped and pinked.

Cedric pulled him close, back to chest. "Are you ready," Harry asked her, "to face the music? As Ernie said yesterday, it isn't going to be pleasant."

He gulped. "Gryffindor isn't going to be pleasant."

Cedric's arms tightened around him.

Hermione let out a huff that sounded uncannily like Molly Weasley. "I wouldn't have come to get you yesterday if I hadn't been sure," she said.

Within the teasing depths of his eyes, there was a nugget of vulnerability and genuine gratitude.

The Hufflepuffs, as the earliest up, were pretty much the first into the Great Hall for breakfast. It was odd to see the entire house traipse into the hall altogether, but as there wasn't a large audience at six-thirty in the morning, it wasn't of much concern to anyone. Nobody really noticed at first, even as the other students began trickling in, since all the heads were bowed together, shoulders pressed against shoulders. Hems and sleeves bore only yellow and jet piping, even though two bore stripes instead of braids. Suddenly someone realised that a bushy, brown head and a messy black mop didn't belong there.

"Is that Potter?" came the whispers.

"That's Granger, isn't it?"

"What's happening?"

"What are they doing at the Hufflepuff table?"

McGonagall looked stunned. Obviously she hadn't been informed, but as the Gryffindor Head-of-House, she ought to have been more concerned in the first place anyway. Dumbledore's thin lips were pressed into a barely visible line. Just then Poppy Pomfrey came wailing into the Great Hall about how Harry Potter had disappeared from her infirmary overnight.

Cedric sighed. "He's right here, Madam, in perfectly good health."

At once all eyes turned to the Hufflepuff table. At first they were confused, because there wasn't a red-and-gold stripe in sight, but then they were stunned by a familiar face clad in unfamiliar robes. Gasps erupted all over the hall. But Cedric wasn't done yet. "And as his magical guardian, I would like to inform you that he will no longer be requiring your medical services."

Shocked exclamations emerged from all parts of the hall.

"Mr. Diggory, that is quite enough," Dumbledore stated firmly. "You have no right to-"

"I have every right, Headmaster," Cedric rebutted calmly. "And when you separated my Bonded and I last night, you spat in the face of centuries of tradition."

"Bonded?"

"Merlin, he can't mean a Pledgeship Bond?"

"They Bonded last night?"

"And the headmaster separated them?"

Dumbledore's bright blue eyes darted all over the place as the Pureblood and Halfblood speculation ran rampant. The ennobled ones looked absolutely furious. For once Malfoy was not alone when he slammed his fist onto his table and snapped, "My father will hear of this!"

Cedric looked at his buffed nails mildly. "Oh my," he said, "did I do that?" He tilted his head sideways over his shoulder to indicate the ruckus that was currently running at full throttle behind him. His mind turned back to his previous thoughts, and, well, maybe they all had a little Slytherin inside them too.

Hermione was staring at him with wide eyes, but Herbie, who knew him better, threw his head back and laughed.

Of course Ron had to stir up an ant's nest outside the hall after breakfast. "H-Harry? Hermione? Just what's going on?" Behind stood the stupefied Gryffindor Quidditch team and the rest of the Weasley clan. "You're wearing duffer colours-"

Harry sighed, and rocked idly back on his heels. "Oh, you shouldn't have said that," he murmured, leaning against Cedric's side.

But it wasn't the Hufflepuffs themselves that spoke up, although Herbie certainly looked threatening. Rather it was Hermione who stepped up to the plate, her small hands clenching and unclenching within the folds of her new robes.

"What's going on?" she mimicked, her voice higher pitched than usual in her anger. "What's going on? You dare to ask?"

Ron looked nonplussed, while those in the Quidditch team that were magically raised wouldn't meet her eyes. Percy looked like he didn't want to be there at all, and had been dragged there under wandpoint by one of his brothers. Oliver Wood was conspicuously absent, and he hadn't even been at breakfast. In the ruckus, no one noticed Marcus Flint's absence, either. Their little brouhaha had amassed a crowd behind and around them.

"What's going on?" she shrieked at him. "Sure, care about Harry now, after your star Seeker's left the team, left the House, left you!"

Malfoy had to admit that the Muggleborn witch had a fairly good sneer on her when she was really riled up, and even Snape was mildly impressed.

"You cared more about the match, your precious Cup, the damn broomstick, than him, never mind that he'd just had a run in with Dementors and fell nearly a hundred and fifty feet!"

Herbie's eyebrows were in danger of disappearing into his hairline. She'd pretty much managed to rip them all a new one. The twins were trying to slink away now, but the crowd hemming them in wouldn't let them.

"Of course your bloody game would be more important than someone's life, wouldn't it?" she screeched. "Merlin forbid you to ever understand anything like that!"

She locked elbows with Harry and was about to march off, when Ron tried to intercept them again. "'Mione-"

But that was as far as he got before she whirled about and slapped him right across the face. "You don't care about anything," she snapped, her hazel eyes suddenly welling up in tears, "so I don't see why we should care about you!" She stormed off, pulling Harry with her, as the crowd parted for the two of them, and the group of Hufflepuffs that followed.

"Hermione," Harry tried, his arm oddly twisted as she dragged him down corridor after corridor. "Hermione, wait!"

"What!" she burst out, and when she did look up her face was wet with tears. Glancing about them, he hurriedly tugged them into an abandoned classroom.

"Hermione, please, look at me," he said. He didn't notice when Cedric and Herbie followed them into the classroom, and then cast every sort of privacy spell they could on the door. He bit his lip when she wouldn't stop crying. "Hermione, I'm really sorry about that, you don't have to choose-"

"Oh don't be silly of course I do!" she wailed, flinging her arms around him and nearly clobbering him with a hug. Herbie choked back a laugh at the shocked look on Harry's face under Cedric's glare. "I always knew he was a pillock, ever since First-Year. I was just hoping that he'd change…and he hasn't! Oh, Harry, I did fancy him, but he wasn't-"

"He wasn't- isn't- worth half what you are," he finished, petting her bushy brown head comfortingly.

"I would have realised, eventually," she sobbed. "I don't think I could ever stand being with him if you weren't between us as a sort of buffer."

"Hermione, I swear, you're the only Third-Year who'd ever use those sort of words while crying," Harry joked, still trying to comfort her. She let out a wet sort of chuckle. He patted her on the back. "Are you feeling better?"

"Yeah, better enough to let go of my- boyfriend?" Cedric teased, and Harry went redder than a Weasley, causing Hermione to let out a wet giggle.

"B-boyfriend?" he stammered, looking fearfully at Cedric.

Herbie let out a cajoling laugh and clapped Cedric on the shoulder so hard he almost pitched forward. "Yep, boyfriend," he agreed casually. "Ceddy here's the strong, silent, serious type, so-"

'Ceddy' reached out and smacked him upside of the head. "I wasn't asking for your opinion there, Herbie," he said dryly.

Hermione managed to sputter out a laugh from Harry's blushing face.

Then Cedric dug into his robes for two pieces of parchment. "Oh, before I forget- Sprout handed these to me earlier. Your timetables have been rescheduled to be with the Hufflepuffs in your year, so you don't have to worry about anything like that."

"Thanks," Harry said, shyly accepting his and Hermione's from the blond. It seemed like any public declarations sapped away what was left of his Gryffindor courage. Cedric was a little sorry to see his teasing face go, but an abashed Harry was an adorable Harry, nonetheless. Going by the ribbing Herbie was giving him with his elbow, the Keeper had also noticed that.

"Stupid git," he muttered out of the corner of his mouth. Thankfully, neither adopted 'Puff heard him, although Herbie feigned a swoon. The two younger years merely looked at him as if he were insane.

"He's certainly inbred enough for it," Cedric deadpanned, and Harry just stared at him, nonplussed, while Hermione giggled.

"What's first on your schedule?" Cedric asked, changing the subject.

The two heads bobbed down simultaneously. Harry let out a cheerful laugh and locked elbows with his friend. "We've actually got a free period! I've never had one first period before. But then after that it's Divination." He rolled his eyes at the very thought of it. Hermione huffed and rolled her eyes as well.

The two upperclassmen goggled at them. "Why in blazes would you take a ridiculous class like that?" Herbie said bluntly. "Everyone knows she's a bloody fraud. Did she try to tell you someone was going to die again? I swear, the bint does that every year, and s'far as I know, no one's ever kicked the bucket."

"She keeps seeing the Grim in my cup," Harry revealed.

Herbie rolled his eyes. "She needs to change her glasses," he retorted. Then he peered over at Harry. "Speaking of which, why are you still wearing yours? You don't need them, you know."

Harry glanced quickly at the older Seeker. "Cedric's already mentioned that," he said slowly. "But why do so many people in the wizarding world still wear them?"

"Usually the lenses are charmed, or at least they have magical properties imbued in the glass. I don't know what Trelawney can see through hers, but I;m guessing that's Dumbledore and McGonagall's excuse." The blond glowered darkly at their mention. Then his expression cleared and he smiled at Harry. "I've already sent an owl to the apothecary at Diagon. They should send over a vial of their Opticus Potion tomorrow.

Harry smiled back, not quite as shyly as he had previously. "Thanks, Cedric. You have to tell me how much it cost though, and I'll pay you back for it."

Cedric blinked, and burst out laughing. "No, you really don't have to. It's a gift, so don't worry about it, alright?"

"No, Cedric, it's okay," the boy insisted. "I'll pay you back. You don't need to-"

"But I want to," Cedric said steely. The two of them glared at each other, neither quite willing to back down. Of course Herbie had mercy on Harry and slapped the older boy on the side of the head.

"You," he said to Cedric, "stop being so hard-headed. And you," this time he looked straight at Harry with his pale blue eyes, "have got to learn to be dependant. As much as I think it's a colossal jok- ow!-" as Cedric elbowed him "-Ced's your guardian now, which means he's responsible for your physical and emotional well-being and all that other rubbish. He'll pay for your tuition now, your school books, whatever amenities you require, any healthcare that you need, your allowance-"

"You make him sound like a sugar daddy," Hermione slipped in a little evilly, and Herbie crowed with laughter as the other two turned crimson.

Then her hazel eyes brightened and she turned to Harry eagerly. "But that means you can go to Hogsmeade now!" she exclaimed. "As long as Cedric signs your form." The two Third-Years turned wide, appealing eyes to the blond, who was starting to look trapped.

"Of course I'll sign it," he agreed hastily. Herbie began snickering and said something that sounded like, "whipped," but when Cedric shot him a dark look, he silenced immediately.

"Thanks, Cedric," Harry said, smiling at him beatifically, or at least until Herbie said, "So, first date's Saturday then?"

And then he turned redder than the scarlet rose on his breast.

A full adoption only occurs when the entire house is in unanimous consensus. There is no other alternative. Of course the person in question must be willing, which explains how the Gryffindors most likely wouldn't be able to get those two back. There is no such thing as a Re-Sorting.

Also, I'm going to tumble up the timeline a little, simply because I can't quite remember all the fine little details of what happened when. Cheating, yes, but it's fanfiction, so it's warranted (o: Cheers.