Thirty-Four:
It was the first time Cedric had slept-in in literal years. Astounding, really. Especially when considering he was still in his stiff, uncomfortable dress robes from the previous night.
He sat up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and glanced blearily around the sunlit room. A tempus charm revealed that it was nearly an hour past noon.
"Afternoon." He greeted Jona gruffly. Jona did not seem to have fared much better, though he did at least manage to change into pajamas. Cedric could not recall if the boy had been there when he'd returned to the dormitory last night. "Late night?"
"Got here before you." Jona replied, closing the book that was in his lap. "Dunno how much earlier, though. I had to drag Ava back to her dorm. She spent the whole night trying to drink and dance away her sapphic angst."
Cedric could vaguely recall seeing the two on the dancefloor, they'd both seemed to be enjoying themselves at the time. "You both have fun?"
"Yeah." Jona nodded, rifling around under his covers for something. "It was all very dramatic. Saw lots of romantic awakenings and betrayals. Makes me want to write something. Though, it's unfortunate that I missed your confrontation with Chang."
"How could you possibly know about that?!" Cedric exclaimed, on his feet before he could even think. Admittedly he didn't cut a very impressive figure with his rumpled dress robes and comical bedhead.
"Ah, so you did confront her." Intoned the other boy calmly, still searching for something on his bed. "I knew you wouldn't be able to resist. You looked like you were practically dissociating the whole night." At this point he'd torn his bed sheets from the mattress, throwing his pillows onto the floor in the process.
"Here it is!" exclaimed the shorter boy after finally locating whatever it was under his bed, hiding it behind his back for whatever reason. Cedric was tempted to ask, but there were some slightly more pressing matters at hand.
"So word hasn't gotten out about our... encounter? You just inferred this? You don't think other people caught on to my poor mood do you?"
"Probably not." replied Jona, settling back onto his now sheetless mattress. "Most folks were too preoccupied with themselves. And these days you always look a little blank. I could only tell because I know what to look for."
Cedric didn't like the implication that his expression was generally blank. That could be potentially unsettling to the masses. He'd need to practice his expressions more often.
Jona spoke up again, his tone a little bit less careless this time. "Anyway, I've got something I need to talk to you about."
Cedric blinked a bit confused, but nodded. "Uh sure, what's this ab-"
"Think fast!"
A blur of red came hurling towards Cedric's face, but years of training as a Seeker made for an easy catch.
"The Hell is-" He froze at the sight of the bundle of fabric in his hands, before desperately checking the preservation charms, breathing a sigh of relief when he realized they were intact.
"Oh for fuck's sake." He looked up to see Jona staring exasperatedly back at him. His expression dimmed even further at Cedric's confusion. "Cedric. Your initial reaction to me finding a shirt that you stole from another student should not be you checking to see if the preservation charms are intact."
"Well, it's..." Cedric wasn't really sure why he felt like he should be defending himself. "The smell-"
"THE SMELL, HE SAYS!" Booms Jona, on his feet, hands raised above him as if begging some uncaring deity for an explanation. "THE SMELL!" He crosses the space between their beds to stand in front of a still seated Cedric.
"Cedric, that's fucking crazy." He stated very seriously. "It was sticking out from under one of your pillows. Are you telling me you, what- ? You sniff it every night?!"
Cedric suspected that it would not be in his best interest to answer that question honestly. Unfortunately his friend seemed to be able to infer the truth from his guilty expression.
"Oh Merlin, you actually do ."
"It helps me fall asleep!"
Jona let out a rather inhuman screech in response. "YOU- !" He stomped a foot, before seemingly forcing himself to calm down, frustration slipping from his face, replaced with a sad sort of exhaustion. "I've let this go on for too long, clearly. I thought you would figure it out yourself, eventually, but this... repression isn't healthy."
Cedric was not really sure what to say in response to this, unsure of what Jona was really even implying. Clearly Jona could see Cedric's confusion judging by the mounting frustration on his face.
"How-" the shorter boy heaved a great sigh before plopping down on the bed next to Cedric, his posture world-weary. "How often do you...?" He does a lewd motion with one of his hands, determinedly refusing to make eye-contact with his friend.
"You're not asking what I think you are, are you?"
Jona glared, but nodded. "I am. Just-" another sigh as he buried his face in his hands. "How often do you jerk off, Cedric?"
"I do not want to have this conversation with you." Was Cedric's rapid, but firm response, still immensely confused and disturbed by the direction this talk had turned.
"Believe me, I don't either." he groaned. "But you aren't figuring it out yourself, someone has to do it and I don't trust your parents not to fuck it up."
Cedric stood, rather offended at this point. "It's not as though I don't- Jona, I don't need The Talk I'm fucking seventeen! I know how sex works!"
"I know that !" Jona snapped, now back on his feet as well. "My concern is you are not taking care of your... needs often enough, which is what is leading to this repressed fucking behaviour! Let me phrase it like this; how often are you using the Temperance Charm?"
Admittedly, Cedric did prefer this framing of the question much more to the prior. Telling someone how often he doesn't jerk off is somehow far less uncomfortable to tell them how often he does .
"Since third year or so I generally keep it up for about two months at a time."
"TWO MONTHS ?!" Exclaimed Jona. Cedric felt rather indignant at this reaction, it's not like the other boy was any better.
"Our health textbook said it's safe to keep up for up to three months! And it's not like you're using it any less!"
"You- I-" Jona shakes his head jerkily, reaching out and grabbing Cedric by the shoulders. "I'm asexual you fucking idiot! It may be physically safe to maintain the spell for that long, but there's... mental aspects that aren't being addressed!"
Cedric batted away his friends hands with an irritated growl. "I already told you that I thought I may be asexual as well! Why can't you accept that?!"
"BECAUSE OF THIS!" Jone boomed, snatching Harry's shirt off of the bed and waving it in Cedric's face like some sort of demented matador. "THIS IS THE BEHAVIOR OF A FUCKING PERVERT, CEDRIC!"
"FUCK YOU!" Cedric found himself yelling back. Never in his life had anyone ever accused him of being a pervert. It was especially hurtful that his best friend of all people was calling him this.
Jona seemed to suddenly lose steam, sighing for the umpteenth time as he dropped the shirt back onto the bed.
"I'm sorry. That was uncalled for-"
"You're damn right it was!" snapped Cedric, crossing his arms. He wanted to stay angry, but Jona did look genuinely apologetic. "Just- ...what is your point with this little lecture?"
The shorter boy paused at this, his expression pensive as he collected his thoughts. After a moment he finally replied. "I am sorry for making light of your belief that you may be asexual. That was unfair of me."
Cedric was not quite ready to forgive yet, so he simply nodded at which point Jona continued.
"But, please. I know this is a very weird and creepy request for me to make, but this is really important: don't use the Temperance Charm for the next two weeks and then tell me what you think of Harry by the end of it."
"I get what you're implying." Cedric admitted, feeling like the conversation was finally coming together. "But, my... my feelings for Harry aren't like that."
"Maybe they aren't." Jona acknowledged. "But, if you really have been using that spell for as long as you say, you've been seriously neglecting a large aspect of romantic attraction. Will you please just try?"
"I..." Cedric looked down at his best friend's big pleading eyes. Jona hardly ever asked him for anything. It was certainly a weird request, but Cedric supposed if it assuaged his friend's concerns he could oblige. Even if he was still rather pissed at being called a pervert.
"Fine. How hard could it be?"
-0v0-
Okay, so maybe Cedric really was a bit of a pervert.
He was currently sitting in bed, staring unblinkingly down at what should be a rather innocuous photo of Harry. It was one of Cedric's favorites, he always tended to like the ones of Harry playing Quidditch. Generally, they evoked a happy, jovial sort of feeling seeing Harry flying freely through the air. But now...
His eyes greedily stared at the way Harry's thighs straddled the broom. The way his hands wrapped around the handle. The way the chill wind painted his cheeks a bright pink.
Cedric could help but groan at the sight. He felt like a dog, begging for scraps under the dining room table. He was quite literally salivating at the sight.
Suffice to say; he'd rubbed himself raw within a matter of days.
It was also, immensely apparent that Jona was fully aware of Cedric's dilemma by the way he seemed to determinedly avoid their dorm. There were even a couple evenings where Jona seemingly slept somewhere else, having never returned to their dormitory. As a Prefect, and friend, Cedric probably should have been concerned, but he found himself a little too… preoccupied to care.
"How does anyone accomplish anything?" Cedric found himself questioning as he sat between Jona and one of the two Weasley twins in Charms. Biting at his left thumb, a nasty habit he had thought he'd rid himself of years ago. He found himself completely unable to focus on anything but Harry ever since he'd lifted the temperance charm. His every waking (and sleeping for that matter) thought was fixated on the boy. It did not bode well for his grades or even his chances at the tournament if he allowed it to continue.
"If you're referring to what I think you are," began Jona dryly as he struggled to prune the razor-sharp leaves of the Asper Horrere Vine with the thick, dragon hide gloves impeding his small motor skills. "then, I wouldn't have a clue, Cedric. But I suspect your… reactions are perhaps more severe than the average person given the fact that you've been depriving yourself."
Cedric nodded absently, barely registering his own vine slicing a clean line down his right arm, too busy thinking about the delicate curve of Potter's neck and how supple it would feel under his teeth. "Yeah, I think so too."
"You're gonna lose a hand at this rate, mate." Commented the nearest Weasley twin as they wrenched Cedric's bleeding hand back from the plant. "Dial it in, Puff Prince." Said the other one, moving to Cedric's other side as Jona scooted away. "What's the deal? Worried about the next task?"
It genuinely took Cedric a moment to register what the two were even talking about before he eventually remembered the existence of the second task and shrugged. Too distracted to keep up his facade he answered with unusual honesty. "No, not really."
The two red-heads leaned around their Hufflepuff captive to glance at each other with matching looks of faux-amazement. In unison they let out a low whistle.
"Confident, isn't he Fred?"
"Bit too confident if I do say so myself, George."
"Man can't even prune a plant, but apparently he's got the Triwizard Tournament in hand."
"Is it skill?"
"Or stupidity?"
"Mettle?"
"Or mediocrity?"
Cedric had tuned them out milliseconds after they'd begun their dialogue, his mind once again on Harry. He allowed himself to wonder if Harry would ever reciprocate his affections at all. Cedric was a reasonably attractive individual who received romantic confessions on a semi-regular basis from both males and females. Surely if anyone would have a chance it's him, right?
The image of Harry avoiding his gaze throughout the Yule Ball flashed through his mind.
Maybe not.
There had to be something he could do to win him back, though. Harry struck Cedric as a forgiving person. Especially considering he let a traitorous little worm like the youngest Weasley boy back into his life. Speaking of Weasleys… his eyes refocused to see the two red heads shoving themselves into his personal space, their words little more than static in Cedric's discordant mind.
"What's your little brother's name?"
They were caught off by Cedric's question, judging by their slack jawed expressions, however they recovered their usual foxlike disposition rather quickly.
"Rrrrronald~" said the one on the right, rolling the 'R' ostentatiously.
"Ronald Billuis Weasley~" elaborated the one on the left with equally pretentious intonation and flourishing hand movements.
Cedric nodded mind fixed on how Harry had looked sitting slumped next to 'Ronald' at that table throughout the entire Yule Ball. He wished he could've been in Weasley's place. He wished he hadn't erred the way he had. That he could've made Harry happy. Or at the very least not have caused his misery.
"How're he and Harry doing?"
They again leaned around him again, sending each other equally befuddled looks, peering back at Cedric mistrustfully.
"They're fine…" said one.
"Quite swell," said the other.
"What's it to you?"
"You'd better not be trying to find intel to use against Harry."
Cedric frowned, irritated at the implication. It was frustrating how hardly anyone ever seemed to be able to understand Cedric's line of reasoning. He found that commonfolk often made him feel like he was speaking a foreign language. "Of course not. I want to know how he got Harry to like him again."
"Astoundingly," interrupted Jona after finally wrangling his vine into a passably pruned configuration, a silent observer throughout this whole encounter. "You are somehow more reptilian off the spell."
"What spell?" questioned the twins in unison.
"No spell." Cedric responded immediately, annoyed at the change in topic. "How do I get Harry to forgive me for asking Chang to the ball?"
"Ah, yes." Said the one on the right who was now basically hanging off Cedric's arm, wand poking pointlessly at Cedric's combative vine. "What's with you and her anyway?"
"You've not spoken a word to one another since the ball." Agreed the other, now also haranguing Cedric's Herbology project. "People have been talking~"
Cedric was getting rather frustrated at the lack of information. "That's irrelevant. Answer my question!" he snapped.
"Alright I think that's enough of this." Jona interrupted again like a tired child-minder. Prying the twins off of Cedric and ushering them back to their own seats.
"Cedric, I recant my challenge." He stated lowly, a little while later as they left the greenhouses, his tone mournful. "Get back on the spell tonight before you completely ruin your reputation."
"I can't now." Cedric replied, prompting a sorrowful moan from Jona. "This has been a revelation. I need to fix my relationship with him. I need to explore it furth-:
"Diggory!" Both boys jumped at the authoritative bark from the other side of the grounds. Moody was limping in their direction, his good eye fixed on Cedric while his magic one zipped around. "With me!"
Cedric was grateful for the excuse to part from Jona. Not particularly fond of discussing his masturbatory habits in detail. Moody clamped a gnarled hand over Cedric's shoulder as soon as he was in grabbing range, dragging the Hufflepuff towards a thicket of trees on the edge of the forbidden forest.
As soon as the man had ascertained that there were no eavesdroppers around, he leaned close, tone serious. "What happened between you and Potter?"
The questioning immediately put Cedric on edge. He didn't like the concept of people being able to see the rift between him and Harry without him telling them. If people were asking Cedric questions did that mean they were talking to Harry about it too? Giving him ideas? Trying to sway him away from Cedric?
Perish the thought.
"What's it to you?" he snapped irritably.
It was somewhat hard to read such a disfigured face, especially in the shadows of the Forbidden Forest's treeline, but Cedric could tell the man was annoyed.
"Didn't we have a deal, boy? A common goal? Or are you such a fair-weather friend that you don't care about Potter's safety anymore?"
Cedric only barely resisted the urge to draw his wand on a Hogwarts faculty member. "How dare you?" His voice came out guttural and cold. Moody leaned back the slightest bit at the sound of it.
"Then what happened, boy?! I'm trying to help you! Did Potter do something? Or was it you?! If you still care for the boy's safety you'll need to be close to him to protect him. You still want that, don't you?"
"Of course I still want that!" Cedric had raised his hands to fist at his hair, his frustration with the entire situation taking over. "You can't imagine how I feel right now! He's- I-"
He let out a sigh and took a moment to compose himself. Moody thankfully seemed to understand and waited patiently for Cedric to continue.
His tone was much more level when he spoke again. "I made a mistake. I found out that Cho Chang was planning to ask him to the ball so I..." He heaved a regretful sigh.
"I didn't want them going together. He could do better than her."
When he looked up from where he'd been glaring at the ground he was met with an expression that could only be described as gobsmacked, no matter how ill suited it looked on the grizzled warrior's face.
They stared at one another for a moment before Moody finally spoke. "That's... so stupid."
Cedric sort of half shrugged half nodded in response. He was not the biggest fan of acknowledging his mistakes.
"Do you even like the girl?" the professor's expression remained stunned, seemingly genuinely astonished by Cedric's idiocy.
"You see- well... no, not really at all."
Moody blinked his one good eye and then nodded. "Right. I- We're not going to address this any longer. You clearly regret your decision."
Understatement of the century. "Very much sir, yes."
"Now, we need to figure out a way to mend things so that we can get back to helping him with the tournament. Thankfully I have the perfect solution. Have you figured out the egg clue yet?"
"Yes, sir."
Cedric had finally figured it out after he'd nearly melted the thing by putting it in the fireplace. In his defense, his logic had been that dragons are creatures that breathe fire and often did so to incubate their eggs, so setting it aflame seemed like a reasonable conclusion to make. But, as soon as he'd noticed the metal warping from the heat he'd quickly doused it in water, at which point he'd heard the angelic mermish singing. It had been rather easy to figure out from there.
"Then perhaps a hint would be the perfect peace offering? With how much time the boy has been spending in the library, I suspect he still hasn't cracked the code."
"That's-" Cedric honestly felt stupid for not thinking of it earlier. It was the perfect olive branch. If Cedric could show Harry that he could be useful to him then surely he would be able to work his way back into his good graces.
His mind was working a mile a minute as he thought of how much he could work this to his advantage. He'd need to do it in a way that would make Harry depend on him. If he proved himself indispensable it would be much harder to fall out of the boy's good graces.
Maybe he could be somewhat vague about it so that Harry would have to come ask him questions.
Perhaps he could even have Harry meet him at a predetermined place to give him the clue. Cedric had desperately missed his alone time with the boy, this would be the perfect excuse.
No, that wouldn't work. He scoffed at his stupidity, biting his already rather gnawed on thumbnail in frustration. Harry would never be willing to be alone with Cedric with their relationship as it currently is. Cedric would have to offer something upf-
"Finish your sentence, boy." Growled Moody in an exasperated tone, jolting Cedric from his thoughts. "And stop pacing! Do you do that in front of other people often? You look deranged."
Cedric thought that was rather rich coming from the man that looked like a walking nightmare. "Rude." Cedric's tone was far too short to address a professor, but he couldn't bring himself to care with so much on his mind. "And I don't recall exactly what I was saying. I was planning. Are we done here? I've a lot to think about."
"I can see that." responded the professor drily. "I'll leave you to it."
With that he limped off muttering about mad Hufflepuffs as he made his way towards the castle.
Cedric simply rolled his eyes and went back to plotting.
A/N: Thanks for reading.