Chapter Text
Harry gazed out at the bright blue sky above Hogwarts, the balmy day unrecognisable for early October. It was not often in Scotland that there were days like this, where the sun beat down fiercely, and the waves of the lake were the only respite in sight. The Sunday afternoon was a blessing; after getting back into the swing of school and classes after being away for several weeks, the professors seem to have thought it the perfect time to set them true mountains of homework. The parchment piles in the Gryffindor common room could already light the fires for the whole castle for a week, he thought, lips twitching at the mental image of Snape's fourteen inch assignment on doxies going up in sweet-smelling smoke.
Harry shook his head, ridding himself of academic thoughts like so many flies. He thought back to his previous year, and the discoveries he had made. This time last year had been very different, and not only weather wise, although perhaps that was due to the Dementors. It almost seemed like this year, Hogwarts was trying to make up for the previous October’s cold drizzle and foul temperatures.
Hermione had a book balanced in her lap, and habitually pushed an errant curl behind her ear, only for it to fall back into her face whenever she turned a page. He noted the title of her book as something to do with Arithmancy, the gold, wheel-looking symbol on the book’s cover catching the light and dazzling him for a second. He blinked back sharply and rubbed his eye under his glasses, only making it worse. When he looked up, Ron gave a bark of laughter at the wonky glasses on Harry’s nose and smears of grass around his left eye.
Laughing, Harry pulled his glasses off and rubbed furiously with his sleeve, ignoring Hermione’s tutting. The waves of the Black Lake in the background gave entirely no energy to the trio. This was very much a day for relaxing.
Shame no-one else seemed to think so.
There was a violent splash, water sprayed over the group, and Hermione and Ron cried out, the latter in shock, the former in despair. Frantically, Hermione searched for her wand to cast a drying spell over the water-speckled book. It was strange - Harry mused, completely unperturbed by the water splash - that despite how knowledgeable and intelligent Hermione was, she tended to panic very easily. He imagined it would be something that she would develop as she grew older, the ability not only to plan for exceptional circumstances, but to also to be more swift and reactive in her decisions.
The grass blew gently over Harry’s nose as he lay sprawled in the grass, the sounds of Fred, George, and Ron bellowing at each other in the shallow waves and Hermione muttering 'wand, wand, wand', as she searched the pockets of her robes, oblivious to the wand laying as an impromptu bookmark in the tome in front of her.
Harry sat and stretched, his restlessness getting the better of him. He plucked the wand from the book and twirled it in his hand until Hermione's eyes flicked up at the movement and she snatched it with a huff; before heading to the shore. His feet took him past Ron and the twins, where he waved and laughed at the string of seaweed clinging to George's face and neck, before moving on. He cast a soft Aguamenti over his scalp, letting the cool water soak his hair and face. It was very hot today. He aimed for the cool Entrance Hall of Hogwarts, his bare feet slapping against the smooth stone. Oh, he’d forgotten to grab his shoes. They were probably still laying by Hermione. Maybe the twins had got a hold of them, and were filling them full of weeds and other obscure items from the lake. Ron would be valiantly trying to grab them, and was probably getting his head dunked in the lake. Repeatedly.
Still, he was trying, though the more Harry thought about it, it was probably the chance to fight the twins that was driving him more than his defense of Harry. He shook his head quickly. Ron was a good friend, a fair friend. Fair-weather friend, his traitorous mind whispered.
The doors of the Great Hall passed him by as he continued his slow meander of the corridors. It wasn’t often that he got to do this anymore; he’d had more spare time in his second year when he was being ostracised by half the school to explore and discover parts of the school he’d not known about. The Marauder’s Map had been invaluable since last year, but at the same time, it had been rewarding to find parts of the school himself. More often than not, he’d gotten himself lost on purpose, wandering the halls for hours before he consented to find himself on the map. Unbeknownst to him, a part of his mind had been marking the paths he had taken, evaluating them for efficiency and speed for the next time he needed to get somewhere in a hurry.
As such, he vaguely recognised the corridor he was in as being somewhere between the third and fourth floors, and that, if he continued in a straight line then headed left, he would get to an old mosaic of Archimedes that led to the Hospital wing, from which he could take the tapestry of the Kentish Monarch to the second floor and come out at the grand staircase. However, if he went forward and right… he had no idea what he might find. It might be more walls, maybe a sconce. Knowing Hogwarts like he did though, it might not be. He had a good feeling about this.
Harry made his way through the dimly lit corridor, his hand held out in front so he wouldn’t bump into anything. His bare feet had dried by this point, and the cold stone of the corridor was beginning to make his toes feel numb. The tips of his fingers skated along the rough wall to his left, before breaking away as he moved round to avoid a set of dusty armour, pike and shield in gauntleted hand.
Around the next corner, he could hear a noise faintly, a kind of soft breathy panting. Was there an animal here? Or a person?
Harry hesitated in the gloom, his mind stuttering to a halt. He was suddenly nervous that he was going to stumble upon something he didn’t want to see. He’d heard Seamus and Dean complaining enough times in the tower that the two were constantly being interrupted in broom closets and empty classrooms when they ran off to snog. He really didn’t want to be that guy.
As he crept closer, the quiet noise cut off sharply, and he stopped still.
“H-Hey, is… is anyone there?” Harry called softly. “Hello?”
There was a short silence.
“Ah, am I interrupting? Uh, I’m sorry…” He took two quick steps backwards, not wanting to see any poor couple caught in flagrante delicto, then spun on numb feet to walk away. There was a sudden, sharp noise behind him, like heavy something falling over, and abruptly, a person’s voice came from behind. It was deep, and probably male, but muffled like it was behind a door. Harry had an awful mental image of Seamus and Dean caught in a compromising position behind the door of a broom closet and shook his head violently to rid the thought.
“Hello? It's uh, it's okay! I wasn’t really doing anything-” The voice, whilst deep, cracked with nervousness. Harry raised a disbelieving eyebrow at the wall in front of him. He wasn’t quite sure why he hadn’t left yet, but he felt like he was waiting for something. And then, from behind him, footsteps. He turned to look.
The man – for he looked quite mature – was tall and broad. His large hands were raised in front of him, and his face was red. His robes proclaimed him a Hufflepuff, and suddenly, Harry recognised the half-shadowed features. It was Cedric Diggory, who he’d played and lost against last year, and who he’d met only a couple of weeks ago on the way to the Quidditch World Cup.
“C-Cedric?”
“Wait, who-?” Cedric came a little more out of the gloom, his eyes squinting in the dark, “Harry?”
“Are you, uh- busy?” Harry stuttered, his eyes darting everywhere but Cedric’s disheveled form, “I was just wandering around, I didn’t mean to… disturb you.”
“Ah, no!” Cedric’s narrowed eyes widened, and his face screwed up in embarrassment, “No, no, no, Harry- that’s not, uh- not what it looked like, it was- I- he just- misunderstood...” His voice, which had gone high and tight, trailed off.
“He?” Harry was suddenly confused. Was Cedric trying to throw him off? He hadn’t seen or heard anyone else in the corridor, and no-one had run past him. “Was someone else up here?”
Cedric’s still outstretched hands raised and laid themselves across his eyes. He scrubbed fiercely at his face before locking his fingers together and wiping them up his forehead, pushing his hair up and away from his eyes in sweaty spikes until he looked slightly deranged. Harry shifted nervously.
“When- uh,” Cedric’s voice was weak and hoarse, “When did you get up here…?”
“Only a couple of minutes ago!” Harry stammered hastily, trying to reassure him, “Really!”
With those words, Cedric’s eyes shut tight and he groaned deeply, stumbling to the closest wall and sliding down against it. He half-collapsed into a heap, knees bent up to his chest, his hands still covering most of his furiously red face from Harry’s view. Harry got the feeling those were not the words Cedric had wanted to hear.
“Cedric…?” Harry took a short step towards the crumpled figure, hand clenching uncertainly by his side. Despite the rather bizarre nature of this meeting and Cedric's behaviour, he didn't feel the need to leave anymore. Something was going on with the older boy - though what, he had no clue. Harry couldn't help but jump a little as Cedric’s hands moved, abruptly uncovering his mortified expression. They widened, taking in the flinch, before softening with apology. Cedric unfurled himself with careful movements, before flashing a sincere, remorseful half-smile. He patted the floor next to him, his palm tap-tap, tapping on the stone.
“Hey, it’s okay, Harry. I'm sorry. Do you want to sit? I- owe you an explanation.”
There was a moment of pause, where Harry remained cold and standing in the corridor. This was Cedric, this was the boy who had smiled and offered him a hand, had defended him to his own father not 6 weeks before, had humbly minimised his own victory in the face of fairness. Harry remembered a dim memory of last year, of being in the Hospital Wing following the dementor attack at the Hufflepuff quidditch game, and hearing Fred and George speak about Cedric's attempt to argue a rematch. The chances of this being a trap, of being some attempt to get him alone and attack him was, as Hermione might put it, infinitesimal. Cedric was a Hufflepuff, and more importantly, he was a good guy. He wasn't going to hurt him.
In the dark, unlit corner of a forgotten corridor in one of Hogwarts' many forgotten corridors, Harry shuffled forward on bare feet. Cedric smiled.