You Have My Heart So Don't Hurt Me
Wednesday, 8 February 1995
Cedric smiled to himself as he saw Harry turn the corner, “hey, Potter,” he greeted with a grin and a wink.
“Diggory,” Harry responded, rolling his eyes with a slight smile, “what can I do for you?”
“Do you have plans for this weekend?”
“I do not, why?”
“It’s a Hogsmeade weekend.”
Harry looked around the hallway to see who all was listening before turning back to Cedric and simply saying, “and?”
“And,” Cedric said, drawing out the word, “do you want to go with me?”
Harry just stared at Cedric for a moment before saying, “sure?”
“Alright,” Cedric said, grinning hard, “I’ll let Krum and Fleur know you’re joining us.”
“You are the worst person I’ve ever met.”
“That just can’t be true,” Cedric said with a pout.
“Alright fine,” Harry said, folding immediately, “it’s a boldfaced lie.”
“We’ll have lunch with Krum and Fleur and then we can do our own thing, how’s that sound?”
“Sounds perfect, Ced,” Harry said, not noticing he’d used the nickname until he saw the soft smile on Cedric’s face. He started to backtrack but was cut off by Cedric saying, “no, I like it. Now I just need to come up with one for you.”
Harry ducked his head to hide his blush and scuffed one of his toes against the ground, he was trying to come up with something, anything to say in response but was saved by the sound of the bell letting them know class started in 5 minutes.
Cedric reached out and squeezed Harry’s arm, “see you later, Potter.”
“Later, Ced.”
* * *
Saturday, 11 February 1995
“Hazza,” Cedric suggested as they walked down toward the gate to meet Viktor and Fleur.
“Meh,” Harry said, shrugging one shoulder.
“Haz?”
“That’s what Nev calls me, and it sounds odd when others use it, Ginny uses it some but I don’t know.”
“This would be easier if you had a full name that wasn’t Harry, there’d be more options for nicknames.”
“You know,” Harry said, “I’m honestly not sure if Harry is my full name, I’ve never seen my birth certificate or any records with my name on it so who knows. I didn’t even know my middle name was James until my Hogwarts letter came.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Cedric said, even though the situation made zero sense to him whatsoever, “what about H?”
“That works.”
“Oh wait,” Cedric said with a grin, “I know what I’m going to call you.”
“And what’s that, Pretty Boy?”
“You walked right into this one by calling me that,” he said, laughing, “you shall henceforth be known as Lover Boy.”
“That’s awful,” Harry said, laughing as well.
“Don’t care, Lover Boy.”
“Quit.”
“Shant,” Cedric said with a shrug, sending his most charming grin toward Harry as they approached the gate, “if you won’t let me call you Haz, you’re officially Lover Boy.”
“Call me whatever you want, Diggory but I’m officially ignoring you.”
“That won’t last long.”
Harry made a show of fully turning his back on Cedric as he walked toward Viktor and Fleur, “good morning,” he greeted, “ready to go?”
“Good morning,” Fleur greeted with a smile, linking her arm with Harry’s, “lead the way.”
“Good morning,” Viktor echoed, “how are you two today?”
“I’m great,” Harry said, “I don’t know who else you could possibly be talking about, though.”
Viktor looked between Cedric and Harry in confusion until Cedric threw him a bone and said, “he’s decided he’s ignoring me because he doesn’t like his new nickname.”
“And what might that be?” Fleur said.
“Shut it, Diggory,” Harry said, turning to glare at Cedric.
“You lasted 90 whole seconds ignoring me,” Cedric said with a self-satisfied grin, “I think that’s a new record.”
Harry, being an incredibly mature individual, simply stuck out his tongue in response.
“You two are good friends, non?” Fleur asked, looking between the two in amusement.
“You could say that,” Cedric said, raising an eyebrow at Harry.
Fleur took one look at Harry’s blush and understood immediately.
Viktor just looked even more confused.
“Wanna tell them, H?”
“Go for it, Pretty Boy.”
“We’re dating,” Cedric informed their fellow champions with a proud smile.
“I knew it,” Fleur said with a grin, “you two make a fine couple.”
“Wait,” Viktor said holding up a hand and looking at Harry, “so there really is nothing going on between you and Hermione?”
Harry just stared at Viktor before looking to Cedric for help. Cedric, the total arse, just laughed.
Harry looked back to Viktor, realizing he wasn’t going to get any help from his boyfriend, and shook his head, “no there is not and never will be anything going on between me and Hermione, she’s like my sister.”
Viktor let out a sigh of relief and Harry decided now was not the time to tell him that Ron and Hermione were on a years-long crash course toward one another.
“Alright, Ced, now that I’m done ignoring you,” Harry said as he led Fleur up the path toward the village, “where are we going?”
“If we go to the Broomsticks now it won’t be too busy, everyone will go shopping first.”
Harry found he was rather glad that Cedric had suggested making friends with their fellow champions. After a quick minute where they made sure that they’d all figured out the clue in the egg and come up with some sort of plan (Harry thanked Merlin for Neville’s herbology obsession and Dobby’s willingness to steal from Snape’s storeroom), they’d spent their lunch just chatting. Fleur asked question after question until she had the whole story of how Harry and Cedric had gotten together, they all grilled Viktor on what playing in a professional league was like, Fleur talked about what it was like to have creature heritage, and they talked about their families and school years.
When they parted ways late in the afternoon, Cedric led Harry back to the school and down to the boathouse which had become “their spot,” no one ever used it outside of the boats bringing the first years to the castle and taking the seventh years away.
Cedric stepped into the building and headed straight for the corner of the room where he grabbed a picnic basket he’d stashed at some point. He held it up to Harry with a smile and said, “Happy Valentine’s Day.”
Harry couldn’t stop the grin that spread across his face for anything, “Happy Valentine’s, Ced.”
They spent the rest of the afternoon and into the evening sitting in the boathouse, listening as the waves the wind created on the lake crashed into the outer wall, and talked about anything and everything.
* * *
Friday, 24 February 1995
The Second Task was nearly as absurd as the first.
Granted, nothing would really beat dragons, but stashing people at the bottom of the lake for hours and then sending them to find them with no real monitoring system outside of the merpeople was simply ridiculous.
Harry had gotten to the center of the mer-village first but had waited to make sure that everyone was rescued. Cedric hadn’t truly conceptualized how little Harry trusted adults until he saw him breaking the surface with both Ron and Gabrielle Delacour.
Cedric didn’t get a chance to get Harry alone, however, until later that night when they met at the top of the Grand Staircase to take the shortcut down to the boathouse. Once they were in the relative safety and privacy of their spot, Cedric turned to Harry and asked, “did you really think they’d have left our people at the bottom of the lake once the hour was up?”
“I had no reason to believe otherwise,” Harry said, “and I’ve learned the hard way that I shouldn’t assume the adults have picked the safest option.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well for one they didn’t even make sure we could all swim before staging a task at the bottom of the lake.”
“Wait do you mean…?”
“I can’t swim,” Harry confirmed, “it was the Gillyweed. That was part of why finding a solution was so difficult for me because a simple bubblehead wouldn’t fix the fact that I can’t actually swim. With the Gillyweed, there was some instinctual knowledge of how to swim but even if there weren’t, the fins make it easier to figure out what to do as long as you know the general motions.”
“You were never taught how to swim?”
“Who was going to teach me?” Harry said with a derisive laugh.
“Does your cousin know how to swim?”
“I think so,” Harry said, “I remember him going to swimming lessons in the summers when we were young, but I never went.”
“Harry…” Cedric started before trailing off. Harry just looked at him, waiting for the question. He took a deep breath and seemed to steel himself before he looked straight into Harry’s eyes and asked, “how bad is it at home?”
“Bad.”
“I’ll get you out of there, I promise.”
Harry held onto that promise like a lifeline. Sirius had promised the same thing, so had Fred, George, and Ron, but something about the way Cedric said it made Harry believe it.
Maybe he should’ve remained cynical.