Disclaimer: I own not the Harry Potter characters. However, Evelyn, Myra, Michelle, Daniel, Jake, Adam, and Steve are mine. But only them.
"He's jealous, it's cute!"
I looked to Myra over the top of my book. "What are you talking about?"
Myra looked to Michelle and Daniel for support but it didn't come. Tsking, she looked back to me. "Cedric obviously. That's why he keeps kissing you like that. He's jealous!"
"So, in order for Evie to get the make-out of her life," Michelle said (of course she had told the other two and she had caught me at again), "her boyfriend has to be jealous?"
"No that's not what I mean at all! But – isn't it obvious?"
Daniel smirked. "Obviously not."
Myra huffed again. "You three are so clueless. Evie, you've been spending a lot of time with Harry, haven't you?"
"Oh don't start," I said. "That's ridiculous! Why would he be jealous of a fifteen-year-old boy?"
"Why were you jealous of Cho?"
". . . . That's not the same!"
"But isn't it? Cedric cares about you, Evie. And it doesn't matter that Harry's two years younger than you. He's still a boy just as Cho was still a girl . . . competition."
"Harry's a sweet kid, almost like a little brother to me. There is no competition."
"Not in Cedric's eyes," Daniel said.
"Oh not you too!"
"Well . . . Harry is only two years younger than you and older women are a big thing nowadays. He's got this mysterious personality to him, a tormented soul begging to be fixed (you can't tell me that's not sexy). Plus, he is quite attractive, what with that wild black hair and those smoldering green eyes."
"Smoldering?"
"Not to mention, he's famous."
"That's shallow thinking. Why would I want to date Harry just because he's cute and famous?"
"I'm not saying you would. But that's what a lot of people see when they see Harry. Handsome, Mysterious, and Famous. Tall, Dark, and Handsome."
"Well if you're so into him, why don't you date him?"
Daniel grinned. "Hmm, tempting but younger guys aren't my thing."
"I'm fairly sure he has a thing for Cho Chang though," Michelle said, scoffing. "All the good that'll do him."
My mouth had fallen open. "Chang? He's got a thing for Chang."
"Jealous?" Daniel said, smirking.
I frowned at him. "Of course not. Just worried. I heard she's been crying on and off about what could have happened to Cedric. I would hate for her to pass on that drama on him, like he hasn't already got enough of his own."
My three friends looked at each other. "Do you talk to Cedric about Harry a lot?" Myra asked.
"No – well, not unless he brings it up. I try to keep him updated so he knows what's going on."
"Maybe you should – well," Michelle said. "Maybe, if Cedric brings up Harry, you kinda brush it off? He's testing you don't, you realize. He wants to see how much you think about Harry."
"That's dumb!"
"Yes," Daniel sighed, "but who can truly understand the workings of a guys mind."
The girls and I looked at him. "I thought that was your area of expertise," Michelle said.
"It is – but you've got to learn you can't always rely on me to give you the information you search for."
"Please, Daniel, all of this is giving me a headache," I said.
"Okay. For the past, what, six years, Cedric has always been the deviously handsome boy that we've come to know and love, right? And for the past six years, the girls he has dated have gone with him for a while, because he was so cute, and then he was forced to ditch them because they were so shallow. Now, he's found someone that he's been able to talk to as just himself, who cares about something besides his good looks and he's worried because of these past experiences."
"I would never do that to him."
"But he doesn't know that, especially not if you talk about Harry all the time."
I fell silent, looking at my hands. This was bad. I didn't – I didn't want Cedric to think I was shallow and would leave him for someone famous. I – I loved him.
"But it is cute," Myra said. "He cares about you so much, he's scared to lose you. I think that's sweet."
"Now you just got to let him know he's not going to lose you," Michelle said.
"Which means," Daniel said, looking up at me, "that our lovely Miss Evelyn here needs to stop being so scared and tell him she loves him."
"You still haven't said anything?" Myra cried.
"He knows I do," I said.
My friends looked at me expectantly. Michelle smiled sadly. "Well, you need to tell him."
"You know, keeping a low profile doesn't mean you have twenty owls come to your table and it certainly doesn't mean you do interviews in the Quibbler."
Harry grinned up at me. He was leaning against the wall, waiting for me. "I wanted to see what you thought," he said.
"Well, it is a very good interview," I told him. "And it was awfully smart of you to use the Quibbler to get the word out."
"I was going to ask Cedric to come but I wasn't really sure he'd want to talk about it." Harry suddenly turned red. "Plus, I felt kind of guilty."
"Guilty? Why?'
"Well – I, er, I sort of had a date with Cho the day I did this interview." His goofy smile turned into a frown. He kicked the wall gently with his foot. "It might have been pointless though. All she wanted to talk about was Cedric. The whole time. I think I might have mentioned once to her that Cedric, you know, had a girlfriend now but she just brushed it off. I don't think she likes you very much."
"You don't say."
"But then she got all, I don't know, moody when I told her that I was going to meet up with Hermione. I didn't tell her about the interview so I think she thought I was going on a date with Hermione which is crazy."
I hesitated. "If you like Cho, you should try asking her out again. Maybe you could explain the interview?"
"Maybe." Harry brightened. "I've got to get to class but we are having another meeting there soon. See you then?"
"Definitely." As he hurried off. I saw Cedric standing further down the hallway, looking upset. He smiled though, when he saw I had noticed him but it didn't reach his eyes.
I was hurting him, I realized, no matter how unintentional it was.
And I had to find some way to fix it.
A/N: Hope you liked it. See you next time.