Shipping A2 - They Were Roommates

Trope A1 - Soul Marks

Spring E1 - Weaving

Summer D1 - Riot/Protest

Garden List (Prompt) - Chores (Crying/Sobbing)

Firework List (Prompt) - Medium (Evergreen)

Harvest List (Prompt) - Actions & Behavior (Crying/Sobbing)

Stacked With: FPC; BAON; ToS; StL; Star; Fence; Shower; ER; T3; Ship; TrB; SpB; SuB; Garden; Fire; Harvest

Challenge(s): Old Shoes (Y); Mark It Up (Y); Long Haul (Y); The Real MC; Eating Cake (Y); Lunar Era (Y); Hold the Mayo (Y); Disabled (Y); Ethnic & Present (Y); Rian-Russo Inversion (Y); Neurodivergent (Y); Gryffindor MC; Hufflepuff MC; Magical MC (x2) (Yx1); Red Lights; Red Wave (Y); Missing Rainbow

Primary & Secondary Bonus Challenge(s): Car in a Tutu; Larger than Life; Second Verse (Spinning Plates; Unwanted Advice; Sneeze Weasel; Teat Juice; Not a Lamp; Persistence Still); Chorus (Tomorrow's Shade; Machismo; Pear-Shaped)

Tertiary & Generic Bonus Challenge(s): T3 (Thimble)

Warning(s): Conflict between student and teachers

Word Count: over 3500

Author's Note: Some dates will be shuffled around for plot purposes

~o0o~

Cedric cracked open one eye to find himself in a hospital bed. He groaned and pressed his hand to his forehead. He felt like the time he got kicked in the head by his cow Daisy. It was a good thing wixen had tougher bones than Muggles or that might've killed him. If he'd been hit in the head with a bludger it might have explained everything, but he hadn't even been able to play the game, had he?

Someone was weeping.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

"Well, I'm just fine," said Madam Pomfrey, stepping around the curtain. Her face was dry and her expression was stern, but slightly concerned. "You gave everyone a fright, Mr. Diggory. The way you were screaming, you would've thought you'd lost a limb."

"Who's crying?" he asked. He couldn't stand when people cried, it broke his heart. "Are they alright?"

"Hello?" a girl's voice called.

"Hello," he said, looking around.

Madam Pomfrey gave him a funny look and he knew he did something wrong. It was the same look Dad gave him when he tried on his mother's shoes and jewelry. Sure enough, she drew her wand and scanned him, then lit up the tip to check his eyes.

"Hello?" the girl called. "Hello?"

"Did you hit your head, Mr. Diggory?" Madam Pomfrey asked.

"Er… no ma'am," he said.

She hummed. "I'd like to keep you through the night and perhaps all day tomorrow, just to be sure you'll be alright."

Dammit. If he fell behind in classes he'd never hear the end of it from his dad.

"Oh, no! I can't miss class!" said the girl who he was beginning to suspect was in his head.

Cedric kept quiet until Madam Pomfrey brought him some pillows so he could sit up and eat dinner. A platter of food appeared on the tray and the curtain was moved so that Madam Pomfrey could see him from her office. In the bed next to his was a girl. He recognized her. What was her name? She was friends with Harry Potter. Like Justin Finch-Fletchly and Colin Creevey, she had been petrified by the monster stalking the school. There was another girl in a bed. Penelope, was her name, he was sure. He didn't know two had been petrified.

"Hello?" he thought.

"Oh! Thank goodness. I thought I was alone!" the girl laughed in relief. "Where are we? I can't see anything. I can't feel anything… Are we dead? Did I die?"

"I promise you're not dead," said Cedric, eating his dinner to keep from speaking out loud. "You're in my head. So, really, I think I might have gone mad."

The voice was silent for a long moment. Cedric blinked and furrowed his brow as he lost vision in his right eye. He was about to call for Madam Pomfrey when the girl spoke again.

"Oh! The hospital wing!" she breathed.

Could she breathe if she didn't have lungs? Or was her lack of lungs why she sounded so breathless?

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Hermione Granger," she said.

He turned to the girl in the bed next to his.

"There I am!" said Hermione. "Oh… oh my! I didn't know this was possible. I'm so sorry for intruding… er… what's your name?"

"Cedric Haled Diggory. Or Haled Cedric Diggory if you ask my mum. She and my dad argued on what to call me, so he calls me Cedric and she calls me Haled. Everyone at school calls me Cedric cause that's how my name was announced at the Sorting Hat Ceremony. You can call me whatever you're comfortable with."

He was rambling. He had kicked the chatterbox habit by his second year, but there was no filter in your own head.

"Why are you in my head?" he asked.

"I wish I knew. Thank goodness Penelope had a mirror or we both might be dead from that Basilisk!"

"Basilisk…" he whispered out loud. "What's that?"

"Oh, perhaps the teachers are keeping it quiet. I discovered that the creature in the Chamber is a Basilisk. It's a snake, born from a toad hatching an egg laid by a rooster. It's all on the paper that was in my hand. I'm sure they would have found it."

Cedric glanced at Madam Pomfrey's office door and slid his tray back before easing out of the hospital bed. He crept over to Hermione, her eyes were wide with shock and her brown skin seemed almost grey. Perhaps grey wasn't right… she looked like the old photographs of his great-grandparents, washed out. Faded, ashen. There was a mirror in the hand raised up.

"Probably strange seeing yourself like this," he thought.

"No, I'm a triplet and my sister and I are identical. Our brother looks similar to us, too."

Cedric glanced back at Madam Pomfrey to make sure she wasn't coming before touching Hermione's hand at her side. She was stiff and cold, like a statue, and her hand was small. He pried her fingers open the best he could and worked free a piece of paper. He sat back on his bed and unfurled it. Marked on a piece of paper was a drawing of a snake with a feathered ridge around its head. He read the inscription of the basilisk and thought that sounded plausible.

"How did you figure it out?" he asked.

"Well, basilisks are basically immortal," she said. "They just keep getting bigger. Like lobsters. They'd be a good choice if you want to keep something indefinitely and still keep it hidden. And then I thought a snake would make sense because Harry has been hearing voices."

"I can relate to that."

"Voices before every attack, then. A voice no one else can hear. He's a parselmouth, so if this thing is a snake, it makes sense as to why he's the only one who can hear it. And then the spiders in the entire castle have disappeared. I remembered Professor Sprout complaining that her entire stock of spiders for the carnivorous plants had escaped. And it's getting around by the pipes. No one has looked directly at it, which is why we're all petrified and not dead."

It all added up. Cedric jumped to his feet. This was huge!

"Mr. Diggory, get back in bed!" Madam Pomfrey ordered.

"No time! I have to speak to Professor Dumbledore!" he said and took off at a run.

"He's at dinner and really I must insist—"

"Dinner, thanks!" He ran all the way to the Great Hall.

He was still in his Quidditch robes, though his shoes had been removed. Even in the spring, the stones were cold on his bare feet. He burst into the Great Hall where all eyes turned on him. Hermione was quiet in his head, but he still couldn't see out of his right eye and the hearing in his right ear had gone fuzzy and knew that must mean she was watching and listening.

"Ced, you alright?" asked Aiden.

Brushing him off, Cedric approached the teacher's table.

"I know what's in the Chamber of Secrets," he announced a bit louder than he intended.

Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. Snape scoffed disbelievingly, and Professor McGonagall just looked stern.

"If this is a prank, Mr. Diggory," she warned.

"No, of course not!" he said. "It's a Basilisk. Hermione Granger told me!"

Professor McGonagall looked furious rather than relieved that the mystery had been solved.

"That's quite enough!"

"No, I'm telling the truth! Look here," he took out the paper. "This was in her hand!"

"YOU PUT YOUR HANDS ON AN UNCONSCIOUS STUDENT?!"

That got the attention of the entire hall. Cedric felt as if he had been slapped by the implication.

"I could hear her, she asked me to—"

"That's quite enough, Mr. Diggory."

"But Harry is—"

"Don't you dare blame this on Mr. Potter. I know what you Hufflepuffs are saying about him and I will not have you causing a panic in the school for some sick joke!"

"Minerva," said Professor Sprout. "Cedric's a good student."

"Clearly not! He is making a spectacle!"

"LISTEN TO ME!" Cedric snapped, then stepped back at the furious look in her eye. "I'm sorry, ma'am. But please—"

He held out the paper again. Professor McGonagall swatted it aside and stood up.

"A hundred points from Hufflepuff, Mr. Diggory! A week's detention, and I will be writing home to your parents about your behavior!"

Hufflepuff groaned in disappointment as the topaz marbles steadily rose up into the upper chamber of the hour glasses in the corner of the hall. Cedric watched the page on the Basilisk sink into the stewed prunes on the table.

"Minerva!" said Professor Sprout, standing up. "I understand you are upset about Miss Granger, and as Deputy Headmistress you have every right to dole out punishment, but Cedric is still in my house. At least allow me to assign his detention and write the letter home."

Madam Pomfrey stepped up to the table, puffing from her rush to follow him.

"I'm telling the truth!" Cedric insisted. "I wouldn't lie!"

"Young man, you're not in a right state of mind," Madam Pomfrey scolded. "Get back to the hospital wing this instant!"

"Please, listen to me!" He looked at Dumbledore. "Sir?"

Dumbledore smiled and Cedric felt a pit in his stomach.

"You are a very caring boy," he said. "It is my understanding that you have had a difficult morning and it is very easy to confuse ideas with the truth when you are befuddled. I'm sure you want to help, but this is not the way to do it. Please be assured that we as teachers are doing everything we can to figure out what's behind these attacks."

"But I just—"

"Go on back to the hospital wing and get some rest."

"Make sure Miss Granger is protected," said Professor McGonagall.

All the respect Cedric had for the teachers before him crumbled. Even his admiration for Professor Sprout. She didn't defend him… she thought Professor McGonagall was right, she was just embarrassed that one of her own House would cause trouble.

Tears burned in his eyes and he heard the whispers as he was pulled out of the hall. A quick glance and he could see judgment and jeers. They all knew him. His friends would come to his defense, right?

Once everyone calmed down and gave his words some thought, they'd see he (well, Hermione) was right and would act accordingly.

Madam Pomfrey sat him down in a new bed farther away from the petrified students.

"Stay put while I get you some pajamas and a calming draught," she said brusquely.

"But—"

"Not another word. I'm keeping you through tomorrow."

Great. Just… great. Cedric leaned back against the headboard and crossed his arms over his chest. He had always been trustworthy. Teachers had never had any trouble believing him before…

"Are you okay?" Hermione asked.

It would have been easy to blame her for his current situation, but not logical. She had wanted help and for some reason he was given the ability to help her and it wasn't taken seriously. He gained his full vision and hearing back.

"I'm sorry…"

"It's not your fault," he assured her. "It's just… it's not fair! Why don't they trust me?"

"They're big and we're small, they're always right and we're always wrong," said Hermione.

And then he had a flash of a memory. It wasn't his own, but he was small and a pinchy-faced man was sneering down at him.

"You're nothing but trouble. It does not matter who started this fight, you should know better than to behave this way. You are expelled, Miss Granger!"

Cedric blinked rapidly. He felt embarrassment and anger.

"Was that you?" he whispered.

"Yes. I didn't think I could share memories. After all, my brain is still in my body, how could I possibly access my hippocampus?"

"You have a sea horse?!" He pictured the half-horse half-fish creature. He had the fortune of seeing one when he was very small at a magic circus. It was being rehabilitated and he got to watch them release it into the sea.

"Er, no, I mean… that would be a wonderful thing to have, but I mean the hippocampus in the temporal lobe of the brain. The front bit."

"Oh… I'm more familiar with the anatomy of farm animals. Horses, sheep, cows, chickens."

"Here you are," said Madam Pomfrey, drawing a curtain. "And get some sleep."

"Yeah… alright." He swung his legs over the side of the bed and paused. "Er… you're not watching, right?"

"Watching what?" she asked. "It's dark in here."

He took that to mean that she could only access his vision and hearing when she was concentrating. Still, he quickly changed into the pajamas and went into the loo to brush his teeth and wash his face.

He worked his jaw and stared at himself in the mirror.

"Are you sure I haven't gone mad?" he thought. "Look at me, do you see a mad man?"

"I don't think the person speaking to you in your head is the best one to answer that question."

Even so, the vision in his right eye went fuzzy and he wasn't sure if it was real or if his mind was playing tricks on him, but he swore it went from dark grey to brown.

"Oh!" Hermione gasped. "I remember you. I got lost on the first day. I can remember everything I ever hear or read, but I get turned around so easily. My sister Paulina can navigate her way out of anything. Especially trouble. Anyway, I was lost and you showed me the way, even though it made you late to class."

He remembered that now. Hermione had looked so distressed and close to tears. Sometimes it was easier to show the way than give a verbal direction.

"I remember, too," he said.

She retreated back into his head. He sighed and carded his fingers through his hair before exiting the bathroom. He lay down in the hospital bed and curled up. Being dismissed so completely like that hurt. It hurt even more that Professor McGonagall would insinuate he had behaved inappropriately towards another student. He had always stopped the guys acting creepy towards girls. He hadn't quite figured out how to stop girls acting creepy towards guys, but that would probably take another girl to achieve.

"Did you see how they looked at me?" he asked.

"Yes. I understand what you're feeling. It's not a good one."

"At least cousin Luna will back me up."

"You have a cousin here?"

"That's right. Luna Lovegood. She's a first year. Ravenclaw. Completely mad, but in the best possible way. Eccentric, but down to earth when it matters. She's not immediately my cousin but…" He tried to picture the family tree. "She is… okay, well, her dad's father and my dad's mother were cousins. So she is my… second cousin?"

"Third cousin," Hermione corrected. "You have a shared Great-Great Grandparent."

"Yes, that's right. Thank you."

Cedric fidgeted with a loose thread on his pajamas. Hermione was quiet and he wondered if she had her own thoughts she was keeping to herself. She didn't quite seem to know exactly what was going on in his head unless he was purposely speaking to her. Though, if thoughts were mainly in abstract form as concepts rather than like the words from a book, it might be difficult to decipher unless you were trained to like a legilimens.

"Cedric?"

"Yes?"

"I know it's making things difficult for you, but I'm actually glad I'm not alone or… or somewhere else. I think it'd be terrifying to be trapped within my own mind, seeing and feeling what was happening around me and being powerless to react."

The corner of his mouth twitched. "Well, until the mandrakes are ready in June, we'll be stuck together for at least a few months. Unless this connection is temporary."

"Of course," she said. "I promise to maintain your privacy to the best of my abilities."

"Thank you very much, I appreciate that. Unfortunately, I worry McGonagall might get me expelled."

"I think, short of murder, it's very difficult to get expelled from Hogwarts," Hermione teased. "You should get some rest, I'll be quiet."

"Tell me a story," he said.

"A story?"

"Yeah, you said you remember everything you ever read. So tell me a story."

Hermione was quiet for a long moment. Cedric wondered if she was going to pretend to be gone when finally she spoke up again.

"Can you see the moon?"

The moon? Cedric rolled onto his back and sure enough, through the tall windows of the hospital wing, he could see a full moon shining down.

"Those shadows that most people see as a face weren't always there. Long ago, the moon was a smooth, silver disk. Back then, when the world was new and what we know had not yet taken form, there was a woman named Hina. Hina was a master weaver, making the finest cloth from tree bark. People from all over loved this cloth so much that she was constantly working to fill her orders.

"And yet," she continued, "nobody appreciated Hina for her work. Her sons, all named Maui, took her hard work for granted and were always tearing the nice clothes she made them. From hunting, fighting, their adventures, or even just general carelessness. Evidently, they thought her clothes made fine napkins, too."

Cedric grinned and settled down, resting his head into the cool pillow.

"Poor Hina's youngest son, Maui-a-kalana, was always getting into trouble! Of course, most demigod children tend to find trouble. Finally, Hina had enough. She packed up her gourd and set off to find somewhere new to live. Somewhere where she will be appreciated and loved."

Cedric grew sleepy listening to the tale of the trees on the moon, but when Hermione finished he had questions.

"Did you make that up?" he asked.

"No, my Dad's from New Zealand. He's Maori. His grandma was Hawaiian, so he has a lot of stories. He always wanted to make sure we knew our roots."

He hummed softly. "Will you tell me all of them? Not tonight but… even when you're woken up will you still talk to me?"

"Of course. Will you still talk to me?"

"Of course I will," he assured her and dozed off.

Cedric jolted awake and lifted his head blearily. What time was it? Where was he? He heard the sound of a curtain toppling over and sat up to see someone kneeling over one of the petrification victims.

Cedric toppled out of bed and grabbed his wand.

"Lumos!"

The tip lit up and the dark figure leaning over Hermione's body flinched.

"OI, YOU!" Cedric shouted.

They threw something at him, which he swatted aside.

"Expelliarmus!"

The figure took off running. Cedric started to give chase and tripped over the fallen curtain rack when the torch lights lit up to full brightness and Madam Pomfrey intercepted him.

"Mr. Diggory!" she scolded. "What's all the ruckus?"

Cedric looked around her and huffed in agitation. The corridor was pitch black, whoever was in here would be able to escape easy.

"Someone was in here," he said. "I swear it. Hermione— I saw someone by Hermione."

Hermione. He turned and hurried over to her bedside. The vision went out in his right eye again.

"See? She's fine," said Madam Pomfrey after checking her over. "There was no one here, go back to bed."

Cedric felt like a child again when his dad didn't believe him about the scary thing in his wardrobe. It wasn't until Mum was putting away his sheets and discovered there was a boggart that they finally believed him.

"Thank you," said Hermione. "I don't know what they were going to do to me, but I know you saved my life."

He didn't answer and just returned to his bed, his foot hitting something. He stooped and picked up what it was, finding a dilapidated journal.

"Madam Pomfrey?"

"Now what?" she snapped and he backed up.

"Er… I just…" he hid the journal behind his back. "May I have another blanket?"

She softened just slightly and flicked her wand, sending a blanket over to him from the cabinet by her office.

"Not another peep out of you tonight, understand?" she said.

"Yes, ma'am."

He sat down on his bed and waited until she was in her office and the torches dimmed back down before opening the journal. It was blank, but on the back was the name Tom Marvolo Riddle.

"That looks like the diary Harry found," said Hermione. "It was stolen back. He wrote in it and it answered him back. It told him Hagrid was behind the creature, but I don't think that's true. Hagrid had a giant spider, I wasn't bitten. Clearly it's a snake."

"So the diary is possessed?"

Whatever it was, it was dark magic. However… if he could get it to reveal to him the location of the Chamber of Secrets.

"If we can find out where it is, I can kill the Basilisk with a rooster," said Cedric. "And then we'll have our proof."

"Well, normally now is when I tell you that's a terrible idea and we shouldn't do it," said Hermione. "However, I fear the teachers aren't going to do anything about it. At least… not until they can unpetrify us and can tell them what we saw was a Basilisk."

Cedric stashed the journal under his pillow and laid down. He couldn't fall back to sleep and just stared at the door of the hospital wing until morning.