A/N: Canon never explicitly gives Cedric Diggory's blood status, other than excluding him as Muggle-born since both his parents are magical. For the narrative purpose of this series, I've chosen to make the Diggorys a pure-blooded family.
Chapter 12: Much Ado About Hufflepuff
Draco headed back to Hogwarts with not a Knut to his name. His stomach was still warm from the Butterbeer he'd drank, and he was in high spirits. Things had gone well enough for Crabbe and Millicent that they held hands.
Their group was among the last to return to the castle, and Draco was already exhausted when he took a seat in the Great Hall for the Halloween feast. Upon return to the dungeons afterward, Draco's eyelids drooped and his eyes watered from the force of his yawns. He barely made it through brushing his teeth and changing into his pyjamas before he'd curled up into a warm cocoon and drifted off.
Someone shook Draco by the shoulder. He groaned and tried to bat the hand away.
"You have to get up," Goyle said.
"What for?" Draco pulled his blanket over his head.
"We have to go back to the Great Hall."
"Why?"
"Dunno."
Just then, another voice added to the mix. "All right, Goyle, Malfoy, let's go."
"What's this about?" Draco crossly asked Pucey.
"I don't know." Pucey stood beside Goyle. "Just get up, will you? I swear, it's easier to herd cats than convince the lot of you back upstairs."
Grumpy and not fully awake, Draco slipped his shoes on and followed Goyle. They found Crabbe up in the Great Hall already, standing with Nott and Blaise.
"Any word what this is about?" Goyle asked.
Crabbe, Nott, and Blaise all shook their heads, but it didn't matter. The Great Hall, now full, had fallen quiet as Dumbledore moved away from the professors and prefects.
"The teachers and I need to conduct a thorough search of the castle," he told them all in a calm, carrying voice. "I'm afraid that, for your own safety, you will have to spend the night here."
"Our safety?" someone whispered nearby, followed by a shush.
"I want the prefects to stand guard over the entrances to the Hall," Dumbledore continued, glancing back at them, "and I am leaving the Head Boy and Girl in charge."
More whispers broke out while Dumbledore dipped his head toward Prefect Weasley—well, Head Boy Weasley now—and Hazel Selwyn. Both of them nodded, Weasley puffing up in the chest and Hazel looking very serious.
"Oh—yes," Dumbledore spoke again, extracting his wand from his robes. "You'll be needing. . ."
The house tables moved off to the side of the Hall, replaced by hundreds of sleeping bags.
"Sleep well," Dumbledore bade them before departing into the Entrance Hall.
Draco sighed and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. "Should we might as well find a spot, then?"
Even though the tables were no longer in place, everyone gravitated toward their house's respective regions of the Great Hall. Draco led the other boys over toward a corner near where the High Table usually sat.
"Try and get some rest, won't you?" Ellie Selwyn told them when she reached their spot in prefect patrol.
"What's this about?" Nott asked. "Dumbledore didn't say anything to you?"
"Sirius Black might be in the castle," Ellie said.
Draco's stomach dropped. "What?"
Ellie nodded. "I don't know much more than that, sorry to say."
That didn't turn out to matter, because the Gryffindors were more than happy to fill in the blanks. It spread like wildfire that not only had Sirius broken into the castle, he'd tried to get into the Gryffindor common room. The portrait that hid it had been slashed to shreds.
While Crabbe, Goyle, and Blaise discussed this with a great degree of spook, Nott gently poked Draco in the arm. "Bit of déjà vu, isn't it?"
Draco furrowed his brow.
"You know, having to hide out while our living quarters are searched for Sirius," Nott continued. "And sleeping under the stars."
"I wish it was as warm now as it was in summer," Draco said. "And I think my terrace was a lot softer than this floor."
"Yeah," Nott agreed.
Students moved about, all talking excitedly to each other. Two of those students were Justin Finch-Fletchley and Ernie Macmillan, who plopped down unceremoniously between Draco and Goyle. Ernie was alight with excitement, although Justin mirrored Draco's awkwardness. They hadn't spoken since the Boggart incident.
"People are talking about how Black got into the school," Ernie breathlessly whispered to Draco. "Not a lot are talking about why."
Draco hummed, and Crabbe and Goyle grew interested.
"You lot heard it was Gryffindor Tower he tried to get into, right?" Ernie added. "Black's certainly acting like he's got his eye set on a certain Gryffindor."
"What did I tell you?" Draco asked with a scoff as Nott started to listen in. "If he can break out of Azkaban, he can break into Hogwarts."
"What's all this?" Nott asked.
As best he could recall the train conversation, Draco laid out everything their compartment had discussed regarding the matter. Nott's eyebrows sat high on his forehead. Even Blaise clearly listened about how whatever was hidden in the castle their first year might have been located in the Chamber of Secrets—and that that was how Potter knew where it was, and about the Basilisk, and all that.
They didn't have a chance to say much more about the entire business before Head Boy Weasley was shouting over all the chatter: "The lights are going out now! I want everyone in their sleeping bags, and no more talking!"
"Damn," Ernie whispered. "Well—that's us. We'll catch you about it another time."
He and Justin departed. Other students moved about similarly, ceasing their visits and tucking into the sleeping bags Dumbledore had provided.
"So how do you reckon that all fits in with what your father told us?" Nott whispered to Draco.
"Sirius is looking to finish the job, obviously," Draco replied. "And like it always goes with Potter, we're the ones that have to suffer."
Quidditch practice the following evening hadn't been cancelled, nor had the match against Gryffindor next weekend. Draco wished that Sirius had managed to get a hold of Potter. That would definitely settle his nerves, to have no opposition for the Snitch.
The weather turned to absolute rubbish. Ravenclaw's offered practice slot on Tuesday left Draco soaked to the bone, and Slytherin's normal slot on Wednesday did no differently. When Flint leaned down over Draco at lunch on Thursday to tell him about a team meeting following afternoon lessons, he sincerely hoped these issues would be addressed.
The rest of the team sat up by the big fireplace when Draco returned to the common room.
"Oi," Flint said as greeting. "All right, so I sincerely doubt it's escaped any of your notice that the weather conditions are about the furthest thing from ideal to play in this weekend."
"Mhm," Draco agreed with the rest of the team.
Flint's teeth appeared as he started toward a grin. "You'll recall, Malfoy, we'd discussed how bad weather can make injuries flare up."
"Yes," Draco said, "but Madam Pomfrey knows the weather doesn't affect this, and I'm nearly healed up anyway. She'd never sign off on anything like that."
"She doesn't need to." Flint's grin fully manifested. "Diggory was more than willing to play his team on short notice. Really nice boy, that one. Anything he could do to help."
Draco laughed then, more out of relief than anything else. He really hadn't wanted to play this weekend and potentially compromise the first step he would take toward his Firebolt. More time to practice was always to Draco's benefit as well.
"So we aren't due on the field until after Christmas holidays now," Flint said. "It'll be colder, but that's all right. I'd rather deal with frost than that nasty bollocks currently happening outside."
Flint went off to find Oliver Wood about it, and the next morning at breakfast made it right clear just what the Gryffindor team thought. They all cast nasty looks at Draco, Potter especially.
"Look at him," Draco told Pansy when Potter came in the Great Hall for dinner with Weasley and Granger. "I bet you he's so upset that Wood didn't think of a way first to get out of playing this Saturday. I wonder if he would have agreed to postpone, if Flint asked?"
Pansy scoffed. "You would think so, if they care as much about winning as we do!"
"At least they get to stay on their high Hippogriff about it all. Watch this." Draco released as loud of a sigh as he could, gazing with an emphatic wistfulness at the rain-blasted windows. "If only my arm was feeling a bit better!"
Out the corner of Draco's gaze, Potter and Weasley made an about-turn back toward the Slytherin table. Granger grabbed both of them by the necks of their cloaks and forced them to carry on for the Gryffindor table. Once they'd properly faced away, Draco lapsed into snorting laughter with Pansy.
"All's fair on the Quidditch pitch," Pansy happily said while pouring gravy over her mash. "The sooner they realize that, the sooner they'll be on even footing with us."
"Exactly."
The weather was so terrible come morning that Draco felt seasick if he looked out of the dormitory window. The lake churned so greatly that sometimes the waves' low points opened brief view of the sky and grounds. A few times, the waves gathered such steam in bashing up against the school that the windows seemed like they might give.
"Don't worry about that," Cyril Meakin said when Nott poked his head out for the nearest prefect. "It's all magically reinforced. The dungeons have never flooded."
They headed to breakfast. While Pansy and Millicent doubled back afterward to the dungeons to put an extra layer on, Draco went ahead to the pitch with Crabbe and Goyle to secure their seating. Goyle held his umbrella over Draco in the stands, while Draco used his wand to dry off where they would sit. Crabbe budged down a little to share Millicent's umbrella with her, while Pansy shrunk in with Draco and Goyle.
"Can you believe this?" She wrapped her robes tighter around herself, teeth chattering. "I really hope the match doesn't last very long."
"I think there's a better chance of the storm clearing off than a short match," Draco said.
Red dots walked out onto the field from one end of the pitch, and yellow the other. Potter kept lower than Diggory in the sky as they started their individual patrols for the Snitch. Draco wagered Potter only did that as response to the weather, that going any higher would catch him in a draught he wasn't heavy enough to counter. That Potter struggled pleased Draco, although not as much as when Diggory shot off.
With a gasp of excitement, Draco rose from his seat. His lips parted as he stared unblinking at Diggory. There—a golden glint! Potter kicked off in a sprint toward it, but his split-second delay might have cost him—
The world seemed to speed up and slow down at the same time. All the yelling in the stands turned suddenly very quiet. Draco lowered himself back toward his seat, wondering if he was about to faint because of the strange, faraway feeling in his head.
Lightning streaked across the sky. Black pillars stood on the pitch below. The hair on the back of Draco's neck stood up, and he took a deep lungful of air before trying the technique he'd used to pass the Dementors on the way into Hogsmeade. Like that, sound returned, and the world resumed moving at regular speed.
"Oh!" Pansy cried.
Draco refocused on the game just in time to see a mass land in the middle of the Dementors. They attempted to swarm, but sudden silver broke the day like a crack of sunlight. Draco had to blink against it. When his eyes had adjusted, the Dementors were gone. Both the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff Quidditch teams flocked down to the pitch.
Madam Hooch blew her whistle.
"Oh, thank god," Pansy said, standing. "That's the match. Let's get inside."
Draco had hardly stepped into the common room when his name was called. Once again, the rest of the Quidditch team sat up by the biggest fireplace. Standing, Flint beckoned Draco over.
"Well, that went better than we could have expected," Flint said, looking around them. "It's nice to see Potter can be beaten. The fall was a bit dramatic, though."
"Was that Potter?" Draco scoffed derisively, then sat up straighter with realization. "Madam Hooch called the match for Hufflepuff?"
"Diggory caught the Snitch."
Draco's mouth fell open. Potter had actually lost a Quidditch match.
"We shouldn't get too comfortable with Gryffindor yet," Montague said as if he'd read Draco's gleeful mind. "That was only a technicality. The Dementors won't ever show up at a match again, you can bet on Dumbledore's life."
"Technicality or not, the Snitch was Diggory's." Draco leapt up. "Potter waited too long."
"That's why Madam Hooch called it for Hufflepuff." Flint was grinning in full. "Diggory offered a rematch, but he caught it fair and square."
"He really is such a nice bloke," Bole said with a smirk.
"Top fellow," Derrick agreed.
It was admittedly strange to celebrate a Hufflepuff victory. The mood in the Great Hall was subdued at dinner, which only made Draco like that Hufflepuff won even more. Draco sat with the Slytherin Quidditch team closest to the Entrance Hall doors. They could see the Gryffindor team across the way, with one glaring absence.
"Hey, Weasley!" Draco called when he and Granger sulked in past the Slytherin table. "Where's Potter? Is he too embarrassed to show his face?"
Weasley turned toward Draco, expression dark. Granger grabbed the back of his robe.
"He's not worth it, Ron," she said as the rest of the Slytherin team laughed.
"That's right, Weasley." Draco popped the last bite of his roll into his mouth. "Move along. Shoo."
"Fuck you," he shot at Draco, which made the team positively howl with delight.
Their celebrations moved from the Great Hall to the common room. Draco stayed up well past midnight, and was annoyed come morning to see that he'd barely slept past half-seven. He closed his eyes again briefly before jolting upright.
It had reached Draco's ear by night's end that Potter was in the hospital wing. With a flourish, Draco threw his blanket off and dressed. If he snuck in, he might manage to talk to Potter for a minute before Madam Pomfrey dragged him away to deal with his bandages.
Draco had gone through the hospital wing door enough times this term to know how to avoid making it squeak. He grimaced anyway as he poked his head through and scanned the floor. It was dark, Madam Pomfrey's office door was shut, and a set of curtains were closed around a bed. No noise came from within.
After slipping through the agape door, Draco very carefully set it back in place. He paused to listen, and then took cautious steps over toward the curtain. Draco hooked it on a finger, doing his best not to rustle it.
Potter laid curled up on his side, wrapped up the same way Draco liked to sleep. The sheets and pillow looked rather rustled, as if Potter had tossed and turned a lot before finally drifting off. His messy hair resembled a splotch of ink. Potter's mouth was slightly agape, and his shoulder gently rose and fell.
One arm escaped his blanket cocoon, extended toward a pile of twigs on the bedside table. Draco squinted at it, and then his eyes went wide as he spotted some golden lettering among it all: Nimbus 2000.
"What're you doing?"
Draco's insides flushed cold. He let the curtain fall as he turned to face Madam Pomfrey's office. Although he did his best to appear innocent, he knew that hard look to the matron's gaze all too well.
"I was curious who was laying in my bed," Draco replied in a carrying whisper.
Madam Pomfrey raised an eyebrow. "Your bed?"
Draco shrugged. "It starts to feel that way after spending enough nights here."
With a sigh, Madam Pomfrey beckoned Draco over. "We'll deal with your bandages in my office today."
Draco followed Madam Pomfrey into her office. He took a seat, rolled up the right sleeve of his jumper, and extended his arm the same way he had done many times before.
Madam Pomfrey unwrapped Draco's forearm. With a wave of her wand, the residual salve from yesterday dissipated.
"Hold it out straight, palm down," Madam Pomfrey told him.
Draco did, along with his left to use as reference. They'd been feeling rather similar for the last week.
"How does it feel?" Madam Pomfrey asked.
"Good."
"Palms up."
Draco turned his hands over.
Madam Pomfrey regarded Draco's right forearm. "And now? How's it feel?"
"Good," Draco said.
"Good as in no difference?"
"No difference," Draco confirmed.
Madam Pomfrey pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes as she assessed Draco's arm. With a hum, she took his forearm in her hands and pressed her fingertips into the muscle as she turned it about. Draco's heart picked up in a hopeful rap against his rib cage.
"No difference at all?" she asked.
Draco shook his head.
"Well," Madam Pomfrey said in a final sort of tone. "I suppose today might be the day, then."
"Actually?"
"If it's no longer necessary, then there's no point in me wrapping you back up," Madam Pomfrey replied. "I don't feel any knots in your muscle, nor do I see any pull when you turn your arms around."
"So. . ." Draco sat up straighter, hopeful. "I can go?"
"Yes." She turned stern: "But if anything changes, you are to come back immediately."
"I will," Draco promised.
It felt very strange to roll his sleeve down without having to accommodate any bandages. Draco rushed for the hospital wing exit, only remembering a few steps outside of it that he'd intended to try for another peek into Potter's bed. Maybe he would have been awake by then, and Draco could get in a proper visit—ask about his broomstick, or the Dementors, or how Potter felt to have lost a Quidditch match. . .
"All right?"
Draco nearly fell down the dungeon stairs from being startled. He steadied himself with the handrail. Sitting in the same window as when they'd crossed paths before was Justin Finch-Fletchley.
Justin leaned sideways out of the stone frame to better peer at Draco. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."
"You didn't," Draco said. "I just didn't realize you were there."
"Been to the hospital wing already, have you?"
With a smile coming on, Draco backtracked to the window. "Look at this."
He rolled up his sleeve to show Justin the lack of bandages.
Justin's eyebrows popped up. "About time, huh?"
"Yes." Draco folded his arms and leaned his shoulder against the wall. "I was getting rather tired of them."
"Were you?" Justin mused in a teasing way. "Winding the Gryffindors up hadn't seemed to get old yet."
"That never will." Draco smirked as Justin snorted. "They take everything so seriously. Besides, when things like this happen, you have to find the silver lining. It can't be a complete waste of time, you know?"
"Like getting out of Quidditch matches?"
"I'll have you know," Draco said in a playfully-haughty tone, making Justin laugh, "that wasn't actually my idea. Flint went ahead and did it. Diggory agreed to play—which was to Hufflepuff's benefit, was it not?"
A warm smile remained on Justin's face. "I guess I can't argue that."
"Congratulations, by the way." Draco lifted his chin. "I know the rest of the castle was pretty quiet about it last night at dinner, but the Slytherin common room was alive until the wee hours."
"Oh, so was Hufflepuff's," Justin said. "But—you know—with Potter in the hospital wing, we were trying to be respectful."
Draco scoffed. "Forget Gryffindor. Forget Potter. Diggory was going to get the Snitch first either way. Potter was too far away. He never would have caught up."
"We know." Justin ran his fingers back through his hair on the way to folding his hands behind his head. A couple of the curls bounced back to lay against his forehead. "That's Cedric, though. He's almost too nice for his own good."
"I suppose we can't all be arseholes," Draco mused.
"Hey, at least you admit it."
Draco nonchalantly shrugged, grinning when Justin laughed. "Sometimes you have to wonder about people like Diggory, though. Is he really like that all the time?"
"As far as I know him, yeah." A touch of colour came up into Justin's cheekbones in a way Draco thought he might recognize. "Mind, he's a fifth-year, so I don't talk to him much. Only if he's doing prefect duty, really."
Draco hummed. "Boy like that, I'd get in trouble on purpose."
"Er—what do you mean?"
Justin's forced-casual tone told Draco that he knew exactly what he meant. "He isn't exactly hard to look at, is he?"
"Er. . ." The colour in Justin's face deepened and he looked out the window. "I don't know."
"Just me, then," Draco said, although the opposite was pretty clear. When Justin didn't respond, Draco decided to let off. He pushed off the wall with his shoulder. "I suppose I ought to carry on. I wanted to try and get the Arithmancy homework finished before breakfast."
"Oh—good luck. And see you," Justin hastily added.
"See you."
That Gryffindor had lost their match fully sunk in on Draco by Monday morning. Potter had proven himself beatable and lost his broomstick, which would only further destroy the illusion of his prowess. Potter was made furious at breakfast by Draco entertaining his friends with dramatic retellings of how Cedric Diggory caught the Snitch. Draco wondered if it pissed Potter off more that some Hufflepuffs passing by also seemed to enjoy it.
Even more than Potter, Weasley absolutely vibrated with loathing. He'd gone stiff during Care of Magical Creatures first thing on Monday morning, and was brick red by the end of the day. He seemed almost fine at Tuesday breakfast, but had returned to surly by the time their Potions class queued in the dungeon corridor.
"The Dementors really aren't that bad," Draco was saying to the other Slytherins in a carrying voice. "You just have to not let them get to you. Honestly, any half-decent wizard could manage it."
Granger had to hold Weasley back again, for Snape had chosen that moment to appear. Smirking, Draco followed on the tail of his robes into the classroom.
Their class was set to brew Calming Draughts. Draco quickly had his preliminary solution roiling, so took to throwing the hood of his cloak up and wiggling his fingers menacingly at Potter across the dungeon. It succeeded not only in fumbling up Potter, but Weasley as well. As Draco's friends caught up, they started to snicker.
Snape seemed deaf to them, although the Gryffindors certainly weren't. Draco faced his workstation as Snape passed, and then swivelled back toward Potter and Weasley. As soon as he did, something wet and hefty collided with his face. He let out a grunt of surprise, and would have fallen off his stool had his lower back not collided with the table edge.
The Gryffindors' laughter ended as abruptly as it began, the dungeon falling dead silent. Draco wiped slime off his face, grimacing at the taste that had snuck past his lips. He straightened in his seat as he joined the rest of the class in watching Snape.
He'd taken to a slow, predatory pace around the Gryffindor half of the classroom, letting his gaze linger over each of their workstations. Snape stopped beside Weasley, who'd gone pale.
Snape hummed. "I only see nine crocodile hearts on this side of the classroom."
Weasley said nothing.
"There also aren't any putrid, yellow clouds rolling out of your cauldron, so you didn't add it an hour early by mistake," Snape continued. "Where has your crocodile heart gone, Weasley?"
Weasley's chin dipped closer to his chest.
"Weasley?" Snape prodded him in a cold tone. "Answer my question."
"Over there," Weasley quietly mumbled with a twitch of his hand in Draco's direction.
Snape regarded the crocodile heart on the floor. "And how exactly did it get over there?"
A long silence stretched, growing louder with each passing second until Weasley finally replied. "I threw it."
"You threw it," Snape repeated. "Tell me, Weasley. Which crocodile species are native to Britain?"
"Er. . ." Weasley glanced at Granger, who gave an infinitesimal shake of the head. "None?"
"Correct," Snape said. "Which crocodile species are native to Continental Europe?"
Weasley glanced at Granger again. "None?"
"Correct." Snape's tone turned colder yet. "Where in the world are crocodiles native—? Put down your hand, Miss Granger."
Since Snape's question didn't call for a simple yes or no answer, Weasley was stumped.
"I don't know," he eventually admitted.
"They live along the equator," Snape said, and Draco had the feeling from his tone that what he was about to say might show up on their exam. "Had you cared enough to look, you would have noticed that these particular hearts only have three chambers, indicative of a western Sobekian crocodile. Is this sufficient information for you to provide an answer for its origin, Weasley?"
Weasley sat up a little straighter. "Egypt."
The corner of Snape's mouth twitched. "I wasn't aware that Egypt was in Western Africa. Is this a recent development?"
The Slytherins all snickered.
Weasley refused to wilt. "The Egyptian wizards worshipped a god named Sobek. He had the head of a crocodile."
Even Potter and Granger looked surprised that Weasley could provide this information.
"The western Sobekian crocodile lives in the Senegal River," Snape said. "In Western Africa, approximately three-thousand miles south of here. That's how far these crocodile hearts had to travel, in order to be used as instructive material for you to brew a Calming Draught. And yet, there yours lays, Weasley, on the cold, dirty floor of my classroom. How utterly disrespectful.
"Pick it up." Snape's upper lip curled as a sneer fully manifested. "With such an aim you took at Malfoy, Weasley, you must fancy yourself in league with Gryffindor's Chasers. For the disruption you've caused this classroom and the inability to properly handle the ingredients I've provided you, I would say that removing the fifty points Gryffindor managed to scrape in Saturday's Quidditch match ought to suffice."
A hushed gasp passed through the Gryffindors.
Snape looked around imperiously at the rest of the class. "Well? Carry on, before your crocodile hearts are all wasted as well."