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Ron Weasley knew who Cedric Diggory was. Of course he did. Everyone knew who Cedric Diggory was.
He was the Seeker and captain of the Hufflepuff Quidditch team.
The guy with the most charming smile anyone had ever seen. (And that included Gilderoy Lockhart, who had won the Witch Weekly’s Most Charming Smile Award five times.)
The one everyone at Hogwarts (including Ron himself) had had a crush on at one point or another.
The point was… Ron knew who Cedric was.
He had watched Cedric from afar, like so many others had. And that was enough. Sure, he had daydreamed a few times about how he might go about asking Cedric out or what it would be like to kiss him.
But Ron was also aware that there were two things you had to know about Cedric Diggory:
Firstly, Cedric Diggory was possibly the most perfect human on earth.
And secondly, Cedric Diggory had so far rejected everyone who had dared to ask him out. (Obviously, Cedric had always rejected them in the nicest way possible, but still… Ron would rather continue to admire him from afar then try and get his heart broken.)
There was one flaw in the plan to continue watching Cedric from afar though. Ron had never considered the possibility that Cedric might approach him.
So when Ron was flying around the Quidditch pitch on Harry’s Firebolt one evening, the last thing he expected to see was Cedric Diggory walking onto the pitch, mounting his broom and flying straight towards Ron.
“Hey there! Nice flying! You’re Ron, right? Ron Weasley?”
Ron couldn’t make his mouth form a single word, so he just nodded instead. What was happening? Cedric Diggory was talking to him. Cedric Diggory knew his name. Cedric Diggory had just complimented his flying skills. He could feel his ears heat up and knew from experience that his face and his ears were probably redder than his hair right now.
“Are you going to try out for the Quidditch team next year? Wood is a seventh year now, so Gryffindor will need a new Keeper next year, right?” Their brooms were side by side now. They were so close that Ron could’ve easily reached out to touch Cedric.
“You’ve got the build for it, too,” Cedric said, his eyes moving up and down Ron’s body.
Ron felt like he was dreaming. This couldn’t be real, right? Maybe Fred and George had slipped him some sort of potion again. Yes, that was definitely more plausible than Cedric Diggory just appearing on the Quidditch pitch (which wasn’t booked for this evening, Ron had checked), flying up to him, complimenting him and smiling at him like that.
And by Merlin, Cedric’s smile was even more stunning up close. Actually, everything about Cedric was more stunning up close.
“Well… anyway…” Cedric continued, his eyes still focussed on Ron. “I was just planning to shoot some hoops – I’m not really good at it but I still like doing it sometimes. If you’d like, we could practise together?”
“I… well… yeah, sure!” Ron stammered.
Cedric beamed. “Great! I’ll go and get a Quaffle and you can get your gloves in the meantime!”
Ron hesitated. If you made the Quidditch team, you got a whole kit, with robes, protectors for your arms and legs and gloves, but Ron wasn’t on the Quidditch team yet and equipment like that was expensive.
Noticing his hesitation, Cedric only seemed to need a moment to understand Ron’s problem. “I’ve got a second pair of gloves you could use if you want to. They were a gift from my grandma, but they are way too big for me. They probably won’t fit you well either, but you’ve got big hands and gloves that are a little too big are better than no gloves, right?”
All Ron could do was nod again.
On the outside, he tried to remain calm, returning Cedric’s smile and following him to land on the ground, where Cedric had left his bag.
On the inside however, Ron was completely freaked out. He wasn’t a bad Keeper – he had been playing for years with Charlie, Fred, George (and lately Harry) – but he wasn’t as good as Wood either. And Cedric was a fantastic flier. He was Hufflepuff’s Quidditch captain, for Merlin’s sake!
Ron knew this evening could only end in embarrassment.
Meanwhile, Cedric had found the gloves in his bag. “They’re brand new, so the leather’s probably still a little stiff…” he said apologetically.
Ron stared down at the gloves, his mind jumping to something else that might be stiff right now, if he wasn’t so nervous.
“Thanks,” Ron mumbled.
When Cedric handed him the gloves, their fingers brushed for a second. Ron felt a shiver run down his spine at the touch.
He put the gloves on. They were a little too big, just as Cedric had said.
Cedric suddenly grabbed his hand, pulling it upwards in front of his face and running his fingers over the glove. Ron could barely repress a shudder at the sensation.
“They fit you much better than they’ll ever fit me. You should keep them. Give it a little bit of time and you’ll grow into them.”
“You don’t need to… If I make the Gryffindor team, I’ll get my own gloves!” Ron wasn’t completely sure about his ability to become Gryffindor’s new Keeper of course, but he wasn’t going to tell Cedric that.
“But you’ll need some to practise until then, won’t you?” Cedric was smiling at him again. Ron was pretty sure that his ears were redder than a tomato. “And when you make the team and get your own gloves, you can give these ones back to me.”
And seeing as Cedric had once again managed to reduce Ron’s vocabulary to that of a Flobberworm, he couldn’t do anything but nod.
Surprisingly, the evening wasn’t a disaster at all. Because while Cedric was without a doubt a great Seeker, his skills as a Chaser were… only slightly better than Ron’s at brewing potions.
If you’d asked Ron a week before, he would’ve sworn that Cedric Diggory couldn’t possibly be anything less than perfect, especially when it came to Quidditch. Frustratingly enough, the realisation that there was something Cedric wasn’t good at made him even more endearing.
Cedric, even though he didn’t manage to score a lot of goals, never stopped smiling.
Ron couldn’t stop smiling either. And if he was smiling because of Cedric (and not all the times he had managed to catch the Quaffle tonight) then… Well… nobody needed to know, right?
They were just leaving the Quidditch pitch to return to the castle when it suddenly started to rain. And not just a few drops either – Cedric and Ron were drenched within seconds.
Laughing, they ran the rest of the way side by side.
They entered the Entrance Hall dripping and still chuckling.
Before they parted ways – Cedric down the stairs to where the Hufflepuff Common Room was located and Ron up the stairs to the Gryffindor tower – Cedric threw his arm around Ron’s shoulder. “We should definitely do this again sometime. That is… if you want to?”
Ron was – again – at a loss for words. But who could blame him, with Cedric standing so close to him? Any anyway, there was only one answer to Cedric’s question and Ron didn’t need words for that.
He nodded enthusiastically and Cedric’s smile at his response lit up the whole room.