Dream to Me

Friday, 25 November 1994

Cedric woke up with a grin on his face. He’d made it through the first task and, better yet, Harry wasn’t avoiding him anymore.

He got dressed and made his way up to breakfast, thinking about getting to see Harry again when he literally ran into him as he rounded the corner.

“Oof,” Harry grunted as he ran straight into someone’s chest, he took a step back and looked up into familiar gray eyes, “morning,” he said, matching Cedric’s grin.

“Morning,” Cedric greeted, “how’d you sleep?”

“Good,” Harry responded, expending considerable energy to focus on the conversation rather than dragging Cedric into the nearest dark corner, “you?”

“Good,” Cedric said, staring at Harry, entirely checked out from his surroundings.

“Me too,” Hermione said, appearing over Harry’s shoulder, rolling her eyes, “we all slept good, let’s get out of the hallway now.”

Cedric shook his head, trying to physically clear his mind, “morning, Hermione,” he greeted, “see you two later.”

He then had to physically stop himself from skipping to the Hufflepuff table.

Hermione looked at Harry and let out a long-suffering sigh before grabbing him by the front of his robes and dragging him into the Great Hall, “get it together, Potter,” she muttered, “you look like a lovesick puppy.”

“Trying, Granger,” Harry muttered back, “it’s not going well.”

“I noticed.”

“I’m sure you did.”

Hermione then unceremoniously shoved Harry onto the bench at the Gryffindor table before calmly climbing into the seat next to him and filling her plate.

“What’s gotten into you two?” Fred asked, looking between the pair in amusement.

“Harry saw Cedric and lost all rational thought,” Hermione explained.

“Ah,” Fred said, nodding his head seriously, “I see.”

“Have I mentioned recently that I hate all of you?” Harry said conversationally.

“Oi!” George exclaimed, “I did nothing.”

“Not you, George, everyone else.”

“It’s never George,” Fred muttered, “sometimes I hate that you can tell us apart.”

“I don’t,” George said with a smile, “as long as it means he hates you and never hates me, I’m good with it.”

“It’s too early for whatever is happening here,” Ron said approaching the table, “I don’t even know what you’re talking about, but I can tell by the look on George’s face that it’s too early for whatever it is.”

“Oh, Ronnie,” George said with a sigh, “you wound me.”

“I’ll actually wound you if you keep calling me Ronnie.”

“That’s an empty threat and you know it,” George said, pointing his fork at his younger brother, “Harry would retaliate immediately, not to mention Fred and Ginny.”

“I get it,” Ron said, raising his hands in surrender, “I’m outnumbered.”

“Good boy,” George said, patting Ron’s head and turning back to his breakfast.

“Now that that’s over,” Ron said, side eying his older brother, “what’d I miss?”

“Harry mooning over Diggory,” Fred informed him.

“So, nothing new,” Ron said, filling his own plate.

“Au contraire, Ronnie,” George said, “so much is new.”

Ron turned to Harry for an explanation but found his friend staring dreamy eyed at the Hufflepuff table and decided he’d be more likely to get an explanation out of his water goblet, so he turned back to the rest of the table, “what’s new?”

Fred made a rather obscene mock display involving kissing noises and wandering hands while George simply said, “they kissed.”

“Again,” Hermione added, “they kissed on Halloween which I don’t think anyone ever told you because you were being a massive prat, by the way, and then Harry was Harry and avoided him for a month, but they kissed again last night, and it appears the avoidance is over.”

“Ah,” Ron said, “sorry again about the whole massive prat thing.”

“Apology accepted,” Harry said, tuning back into the conversation, “Hermione pretty much covered it."

"So, are you two dating now?” Ron asked.

“Good question,” Harry responded, “I’ll get back to you when I figure that out.”

“Alright,” Ron agreed easily while Hermione looked like she was questioning, yet again, why she’d chosen two boys for best friends.

“Good morning,” Parvati greeted as she and Lavender approached the table, followed closely by Seamus and Dean, “how’re you doing today, Harry?”

“Great,” Harry said, smiling up at her, “glad the task is over and that we have a break before the next one, how are you lot?”

Harry allowed himself to relax in the chatter of the Gryffindor table until they had to get up and head to class. He glanced back toward the Hufflepuff table on the way out and found Cedric already looking his way, he shot him a smile and then turned to follow Seamus out of the Hall.

“Cedric,” Gabriel Truman said, smacking him upside the head, “Earth to Cedric.”

“Ouch, Truman,” Cedric said, rubbing the back of his head, “what?”

“Why are you staring at Potter like he hung the moon?”

“Great question,” Cedric responded, “what explanation is going to satisfy you?”

“The one that includes why you’re staring at Potter like he hung the moon while also maybe touching on why you’ve been entirely out of sorts for the last month.”

“We kissed,” Cedric whispered, “after the champions were announced and then everyone turned on Harry and he sort of withdrew so we weren’t really talking and then we talked after the task and kissed again and now we’re good.”

“Are you dating?”

“I’m honestly not sure,” Cedric said, “I’ll get back to you when I figure that out.”

* * *

Saturday, 3 December 1994

For the next week it seemed that every time Cedric turned a corner Harry was there. School was busy, between trying to figure out the clues in their eggs, all the homework that builds up at the end of term, and everything else that comes up in a day, all they’d had time for was pulling each other into random corners and closets and behind portraits and tapestries.

Finally, the weekend had come, and Cedric didn’t have anything he needed to get done. He was on his way up to the owlery to send Harry a note to ask if he was free to hang out when he seemed to appear out of thin air down the hallway.

“Cedric,” he greeted with a smile, “busy?”

“No?” Cedric said, trying to figure out where Harry had just come from.

“C’mon then,” he said, stepping up next to Cedric and throwing a piece of fabric over his head, “follow me.”

“What is happening right now?”

“Trade secret,” Harry said, leading Cedric through the halls and up the grand staircase to a portrait where he whispered, “this password is absurd.”

Harry glanced around and made sure no one was looking before opening the portrait just enough for them to slip through. Cedric followed Harry down the staircase, still trying to figure out what, exactly, was going on.

They exited at the boathouse and Cedric was momentarily thrown before he remembered that Hogwarts was, itself, magical.

Despite the chill outside, the boathouse was warm, and no one would brave the trek down here through the ice and snow and, if Cedric had to guess, there were maybe three people in the entire school who knew about that particular passageway.

“How do you know where all these passages are?” Cedric said and then quickly interrupted Harry as he started speaking, “and if you say ‘trade secret,’ I’m going to scream.”

“Alright,” Harry said with a sigh, though the corners of his mouth had twitched up into a smile, “this is an invisibility cloak, it was my dad’s, Dumbledore gave it to me my first Christmas here at school.”

“So that’s how you appear out of nowhere,” Cedric said with a laugh, “but it doesn’t explain how you know where all these passages are and, now that I think about it, how you can find me anywhere at any time.”

Harry pulled out a piece of ratty parchment, “this.”

“What is that?”

“Marauder’s Map.”

“What is the Marauder’s Map?”

“Good question,” Harry said, holding his wand up to the parchment before he got a mischievous glint in his eye and looking up at Cedric, “the twins found it and gave it to me, I want to see if you can figure out how to open it.”

Cedric shook his head but pulled out his wand to comply, he thought for a moment before pointing his wand and saying “Revelio.”

Messr. Moony thinks Messr. Diggory can do better.

Messr. Wormtail asks why Messr. Diggory thinks he can reveal our secrets.

Messr. Padfoot echoes Messr. Wormtail and also asks Messr. Diggory what he thinks he’s doing.

Messr. Prongs asks Messr. Prongslet if he really thinks Messr. Diggory can figure this out.

“Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs?” Cedric asked, looking up at Harry with one eyebrow raised, “and who or what is Prongslet?”

“That’d be me,” Harry said with a grin.

“So, your dad is Prongs and the other three are…?”

“What fun would it be if I told you?”

“Cheeky,” Cedric said with a smile, “alright, I know that Professor Lupin was one of your parent’s best friends and I know he’s a werewolf so I’m going to have to guess he’s Moony.”

“Right in one, Diggory,” Harry said, grinning, “two to go.”

“Well one has to be Sirius Black and the other Peter Pettigrew, right? I don’t know much about your dad, but I do know that those two were his close friends. but I don’t know which is which.”

“Close enough,” Harry said, his smile turning soft, “Sirius is Padfoot.”

“So, Pettigrew was Wormtail?”

“Is Wormtail,” Harry said, his smile turning into a sneer, “long story.”

“Tell me when you’re ready,” Cedric said, reaching out to intertwine his fingers with Harry’s, “so how do you open the map?”

Harry’s smile returned and he squeezed Cedric’s hand and said, “you give up?”

“I’m being teased by a piece of parchment. Yes, I give up.”

“Alright,” Harry said with an easy smile, “I solemnly swear I am up to no good.”

Cedric watched as ink spread across the parchment, “Messers Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs are proud to present the Marauder’s Map,” he whispered.

Harry’s smile turned soft as he unfolded the map and showed Cedric how it tracked every person in the castle and pointed out all the different passageways and how the passwords appeared.

“This is incredible,” Cedric breathed out, “does this show every bit of the castle?”

“Everywhere they were able to physically map,” Harry said, “there are some places they didn’t find or couldn’t get to that aren’t on the map that I know of but I didn’t get the chance to ask how it worked, hopefully I’ll get a chance to ask one of them soon.”

Cedric decided to ignore how the wording of that statement indicated that Harry would be seeing either a werewolf, a mass murderer, or a dead man soon and instead asked, “what else have you found?”

“Well,” Harry said, moving the map until it showed the second-floor girl’s bathroom, “the Chamber of Secrets for one, the entrance is through here. But I have to think it was just one of the entrances because there’s no shot Salazar Slytherin was sliding down a pipe to get to the Chamber. Also,” he said, moving the map to the dungeons, “the only common room they didn’t map was Slytherin, but I’ve been in there and could map at least the common room.”

“When were you in the Slytherin common room?”

“Second year,” Harry replied, flipping through the map, “with Ron, polyjuiced as Crabbe and Goyle.”

“What?”

“Hm,” Harry asked, looking up, “what’s wrong?”

“Why were you polyjuiced as Crabbe and Goyle?”

“Wanted to see if Malfoy was the Heir of Slytherin and we couldn’t think of a better way to figure it out.”

“Where did you get Polyjuice?”

“Hermione brewed it,” Harry said with a shrug, “in the second-floor girls bathroom, actually. Which is kind of funny when you think about it.”

“She brewed Polyjuice as a second year?”

“Yeah, tasted like shit.”

“That’s incredibly impressive,” Cedric said shaking his head at how casually Harry was telling an utterly insane story, “and how do you know how to get into the Chamber?”

“Had to get in to kill the basilisk.”

“Right,” Cedric said, drawing out the word, “basilisk?”

“Yup,” Harry said, popping the p, “that’s what was petrifying everyone.”

“Your life is insane.”

“Indeed.”

Cedric decided he’d get the full story another day, not wanting to push Harry to tell him too much if he wasn’t ready, “so is this what you wanted to talk to me about today?”

“No,” Harry said, folding the map up and whispering, “mischief managed,” before putting it back in his pocket, “I wanted to ask if we were dating.”

Cedric choked on air for a second, still not quite used to Harry’s straightforward, no-nonsense approach to … everything, “good question,” he said, deciding to just follow Harry’s lead, “do you want us to be dating?”

“I think so,” Harry said.

That threw Cedric off, “think so?”

“Yeah,” Harry said with a shrug, not meeting Cedric’s eye, “I’ve never dated anyone before, neither have Ron or Hermione so I don’t really know what it means, but I think I want us to be dating, what would that mean to you?”

Cedric let out a sigh of relief that Harry’s apprehension wasn’t because of Cedric but rather because he didn’t have any experience with dating. He thought for a moment before responding, appreciating that Harry was being vulnerable with him and wanting to give him a proper answer, “I don’t like the kind of dating that means nothing,” he started, “if we were to date, I’d want it to mean that we’re committed to each other and not going to date other people. I know you don’t have a lot of your life that you’re able to keep private so I’d be alright keeping us a secret until you’re ready for people to know, but I’d want to be able to tell my parents and my closest friends, people I can trust to keep my secrets.”

Harry nodded and bit his lower lip, thinking through Cedric’s answer, “that all sounds good to me,” he said after a minute, “you’re right that I don’t have much I get to keep private, and I’d want to keep this quiet. Everything in my life just gets blown out of proportion and I don’t want something that makes me happy to be destroyed by everyone else’s opinions on it.”

“That makes sense,” Cedric said easily, reaching out to run his thumb across Harry’s cheek. Harry leaned into the touch and took a deep breath before finally looking up and meeting Cedric’s eye.

“So, we’re dating, then?” he asked.

“We’re dating,” Cedric responded with a soft smile.

Harry grinned in response before burrowing his head against Cedric’s chest. Cedric wrapped his arms around Harry and pressed a kiss to the side of his head, pressing his nose into Harry’s mess of curls. Harry wrapped his arms around Cedric’s waist and pulled him impossibly closer, entirely content in Cedric’s arms.

“Who are you taking to the Yule Ball?” Cedric asked after a few minutes.

“I’m not sure yet,” Harry murmured, his voice muffled with his face pressed against Cedric, “you?”

“I’m going with Cho, have you thought of asking Hermione?”

“She already has a date, apparently,” Harry responded with a sigh, “I have no clue who though, she won’t tell me.”

“It’s not you or Ron?”

“It’s not me and I’m fairly certain Ron hasn’t realized that Hermione is a girl yet, so no.”

Cedric let out a laugh at that, “what other girls are in your year?”

“For Gryffindors it’s just Hermione, Parvati, and Lavender,” Harry said, “I might see if Parvati wants to go as friends, we’ve gotten closer this year.”

“That’s a good idea,” Cedric said, running his fingers through Harry’s hair, “maybe Padma would go with Ron?”

“Genius,” Harry said with a smile, “though that leaves us with the problem of me being utterly incapable of dancing.”

“I’d say I could teach you but I’m also horrific, I’m relying on Cho to make us look good.”

Harry laughed and tightened his hold on Cedric, “then it’s probably a good thing we can’t dance together in public, it’d be an embarrassment.”

“Doesn’t mean we can’t dance in private, though,” Cedric said, pressing a kiss to the top of Harry’s head, “we can always sneak away from the ball and have a dance just us two.”

“I’d love that,” Harry said, leaning his head back to capture Cedric’s lips in a proper kiss.

Cedric sighed into the touch and moved one of his hands to cup Harry’s cheek, kissing him back.

Harry broke away first and pressed a soft kiss to Cedric’s cheek before taking a step back, “alright, I need to get back to the tower and either do homework or robe the Patils into going to the Ball with Ron and me.”

“Sounds like a great day you’ve got planned,” Cedric said with a laugh, “I’ll follow you back up, you’ve got to show me more of these passages sometime.”

“I will,” Harry promised, grinning, “the twins and I have even found a few that aren’t on the map. Honestly, sometimes it’s like the castle responds when I need a quick route somewhere. A passage will appear and then when I go back to where I swore it was, it’s disappeared.”

“That’s odd,” Cedric said, “though Hogwarts is thousands of years old and magical so what’s to say she’s not also sentient.”

“So long as she keeps helping me avoid being late, she can be whatever she wants,” Harry said with a laugh, reaching out for Cedric’s hand to lead him back up the passage to the Grand Staircase.

As they reached the back of the portrait, Harry rocked up onto his toes to give Cedric one last kiss before throwing the Cloak over his shoulders and slipping back into the hallway.

Cedric just stood in the dark for a minute, smiling before he too slipped back into the hallway and carried on with his day.

* * *

Sunday, 25 December 1994

Harry stood in front of the mirror in his bottle green dress robes, feeling more put together than he’d ever been … if it weren’t for his inability to make his hair do anything but stick up in all directions at all times. He ran a comb through his hair one more time before sighing and giving up, this was as good as it was getting.

Neville, Seamus, and Dean were all dressed and ready to go but Ron was staring at his robes in undisguised horror.

A quick severing charm took off most of the lace but there was nothing they could do about the strange paisley maroon pattern of the velvet. Once he was dressed, they headed downstairs to find the girls. Hermione was nowhere to be seen but they found Ginny, Parvati, Lavender, who was going with Seamus, Padma, and Dean’s date, one of Padma’s roommates named Lisa.

“Shall we head down,” Harry said before bowing with overexaggerated flourish and holding his arm out for Parvati.

“Lead the way good sir,” she responded, easily matching Harry’s dramatics.

Padma rolled her eyes before grabbing Ron’s arm and dragging him along behind her cousin and sister.

Lavender looked at Seamus with one eyebrow raised until he followed Harry’s lead and held his arm out for her to take, Dean and Neville followed suit and soon their whole group was headed down the stairs.

Harry and Parvati broke off from their friends and headed toward where McGonagall was corralling the champions.

“See you lot later,” Harry called over his shoulder as everyone else entered the Great Hall.

“Has Hermione told you who she’s going with yet?” Parvati asked.

“I was just about to ask you the same thing,” Harry said as they approached the champions. He nearly lost consciousness when he saw Cedric in his dress robes but was saved by Parvati digging her elbow into his ribs and shooting him an amused glance.

“Who’s that?” Cho asked, gesturing toward the stairs with a nod.

Harry and Parvati turned around and both their jaws dropped rather comedically in sync, “Hermione?” Parvati breathed out.

“Whoa,” Harry said, “still doesn’t answer the question of who her date …” he trailed off, finally noticing who was waiting at the bottom of the stairs.

“Is that Krum?” Parvati whisper yelled in Harry’s ear, elbowing him repeatedly in the side.

“Yes and you’ve officially broken three of my ribs.”

“You’re fine.”

“Whatever you say, dear.”

“You’re on thin ice, Potter,” Parvati said with a laugh, “tell your best friend she’s hot and get in line.”

“You look great, Hermione,” Harry said with a grin as Hermione and Krum approached.

“Thanks!” Hermione said, matching Harry’s grin, “you two look great as well.”

“Thanks,” Parvati said, “you know who else Harry thinks looks great?”

“How about I break a couple of your ribs, Patil?”

“Diggory,” she said, ignoring Harry’s threat and grinning at Hermione.

Hermione looked over Parvati’s shoulder to where Cedric was standing with Cho, doing a rather poor job of hiding the fact that he was checking Harry out, “I think the feeling’s mutual.”

Harry just glared at her.

“I’m missing something,” Parvati said, looking between Cedric, Harry, and Hermione for a minute before she gasped and stared directly at Harry who just stared back. After a moment, Parvati nodded as if she’d gotten all her answers, “good for you,” she said, smirking at Harry.

“I’ll kill both of you and I won’t even hesitate.”

“That’s not very Gryffindor Golden Boy of you,” Parvati said, while Hermione tried to hide her laugh behind a cough.

“You three,” McGonagall sighed, “get in line.”

Harry saluted her before pulling Parvati into line behind Cedric and Cho and Hermione gave her a thumbs up before joining Krum. McGonagall just rolled her eyes and thought, once again, about how nice retirement might be. There were no Potters in retirement.

The champions marched into the hall and up to the Head Table where Harry was forced to make conversation with Percy Weasley about his boss before he was forced into the opening dance which went about as well as it could’ve. Once the dance was over, Parvati just patted Harry on the shoulder and said, “see you later, Harry, I’m going to find my sister.”

“See ya, Patil,” he said, happy she knew him well enough to know he wasn’t going to dance more than he had to.

Eventually, Harry made his way over to Ron who was sulking at a table staring at Hermione and Krum. Harry could sense an all-out brawl between his two best friends coming from a mile away and found himself hoping he’d at least be clear of the blast radius.

Eventually, Cedric made his way over, “Harry,” he greeted with a smile, “can you come outside with me, there’s something I need to talk to you about.”

“Smooth,” Harry said, grinning up at Cedric, “sure, lead the way.”

As they made their way out of the hall, Cedric leaned down and whispered in Harry’s ear, “I figured out the egg.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, you’ve gotta take a bath with it.”

“Take a bath with it?”

“Yeah, take it in the bath and mull things over in the hot water.”

“Of all the ways to pass along that information, you chose the one that wasn’t just mildly suggestive but edged on seductive?”

“Yup,” Cedric said with a bright grin, “I’ll even tell you the password to the prefect’s bathroom if it’s not on that little map of yours.”

“My savior,” Harry said with a laugh, “now where are we going?”

“This way,” Cedric said, pulling Harry by the arm up the Grand Staircase and toward the portrait of Percival Pratt that hid the shortcut to the boathouse. He looked over his shoulder to make sure no one was watching before whispering the password and dragging Harry behind him.

When they headed back through the portrait hole a half hour later, looking distinctly disheveled, neither of them thought to listen for anyone walking by and, as such, stepped into the hallway right in front of Albus Dumbledore.

“Ah, hello,” he greeted, smiling as if nothing were amiss, “Merry Christmas, boys.”

Cedric was staring at his shoes, so Harry was the only one who saw the wink Dumbledore sent his way, Harry just grinned at the Headmaster, and called “Merry Christmas, sir!” over his shoulder as he dragged Cedric back down the stairs toward the Great Hall.

“That was so embarrassing!” Cedric said.

“Embarrassed of me, pretty boy?” Harry said with a teasing tone.

“Embarrassed to be caught coming out of the wall by the Headmaster, actually.”

“He winked at me when you were busy staring at your feet,” Harry said with a laugh, “I think we’re fine.”

“You are so his favorite.”

Harry wasn’t sure whether being Dumbledore’s favorite was actually a good thing, but he decided that now wasn’t the time to voice that opinion.

“Let’s go back inside,” he said instead, shoving Cedric toward the doors and running a hand through his hair. As they approached, he saw Ron and Hermione coming out of the hall, both looking entirely pissed, “I’ve gotta get involved in this or they’re going to level the castle,” Harry said, shooting an apologetic glance toward Cedric, “see you later?”

“See you later,” Cedric said with a soft smile before he shot a worried look at Ron and Hermione and ducked back into the Great Hall.

“Alright,” Harry muttered to himself, “time to avoid World War III.”

After Ron and Hermione were done shouting at each other, Harry followed Ron into the courtyard where he heard several enlightening conversations and saw a giant beetle before they headed back inside and called it a night.

Harry was nearly asleep when he heard someone shuffle into their dorm humming, he poked his head out and saw Neville grinning from ear to ear, “Nev,” he whispered, “have a good night?”

“It was great,” Neville whispered back with a massive smile, “goodnight, Haz. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas, Nev,” Harry responded before pulling his curtains shut and falling asleep with a smile on his face.