Love's a twisted bitch

Cedric stalked into the great hall, and it was obvious that he was not in the greatest of moods. Rings circled the underside of his grey eyes and when Ernie tried to pass him the Daily Prophet when he sat down, Cedric shoved it back at him with a growl. He viciously shook cereal into his bowl and splashed the milk from the pitcher onto the cereal. Cedric jammed his spoon into the cereal and shoved the cereal down his throat. The rest of the Hufflepuffs watched him with wide eyes as Cedric ate his food violently.


The truth was that Cedric hadn’t gotten any sleep the night before. The images that Jackson had provoked in his mind had kept him awake the whole damn night. That, and the thought of facing a dragon didn’t help at all. The first time Cedric had fallen asleep, a picture of Harry on his knees and taking Cedric’s length in his mouth, invaded his mind. Another erotic picture of Harry writhing and panting on the sheets, moaning his name in that sultry heavenly voice as he thrusted- Cedric woke up to the post-orgasmic satisfactory feeling and wet sheets. Cedric had grimaced and cleaned it with a cleaning spell. He would fall asleep again and suddenly the image of a dragon spitting fire invaded his mind and Cedric would bolt awake with cold sweat on his forehead.

Cedric had hated fire ever since he had watched his mother be burned to death.
He was around 3, crushed in his father’s arms where they crouched inside the closet. He could remember his father’s head hunched over his own, his father’s tears sliding down onto the boy’s head. He could hear a heart wrenching shriek and could feel his father almost get to his feet before seeming to remember something and crouching back down. His father clutched him even tighter, to the point where the 3 year old boy couldn’t breathe. Cedric had twisted around until he could see what was going on. He could remember tall dark hooded figures crowded around a writhing figure on the ground. His mother shrieked in pain as she writhed in apparent agony on the ground. She breathed heavily as a tall pale man strode into the middle of the circle formed around the woman who staggered to her feet in defiance. Cedric couldn’t see his face but the man’s voice had sent shivers down his back.

“where’s that pathetic husband and little brat of yours?”

“Why should you care Voldemort?” Cedric’s mother spat at the man. She was suddenly thrown into the air and crashed into the wall of the bedroom. Cracks indicated she had broken a few of her bones.

“I have no need of them,” the man flapped his long spider like hand carelessly, “I just thought that killing them in front of you and watching your face would be entertaining.”

“why-why you” his mother stuttered angrily through her pain.

“But since they aren’t here, I guess burning will have to do.” The man strode of the circle of hooded figures. The group followed suit but the last one turned around and aimed his wand at the room. Fire erupted out of the wand’s tip and ignited the whole room on fire. Cedric could feel his father throw himself out of the closet and run to where his wife was attached to the wall.
“Am-amos. Hah, I told you they wouldn’t find you.” The woman’s face was weary and drawn in pain, but a peaceful look had descended on her face as she struggled to raise her head, “Love-love you and Ced-“ her head suddenly dropped.

“no-no” Cedric’s father stuttered as he dropped the boy like a stone and ran over to his dead wife. Cedric cringed away from the flames that were licking at his chubby ankles as the little boy staggered unsteadily on his feet and hobbled to his father who was desperately trying to tear his dead wife from the wall, ignorant of the flames threatening to consume them all. The little boy shrieked as a tongue of flame found its way up his pants.

A feminine hand descending onto his shoulder wrenched Cedric out of the memory. Cedric could feel a sharp pain in his hand and he looked down to see that he had clenched the spoon so tightly in his hand that his hand had turned white from the lack of circulation. Relaxing his hand and wincing as the blood suddenly flew into his hand, Cedric looked up to see Cho Chang looking down at him in worry, her fine delicate brow furrowed in confusion. Cedric could spy Harry watching them avidly out of the corner of his eye. Knowing that Cho was Harry’s object of affection, Cedric looked Cho over, trying to discern what Harry liked about her. Her face wasn’t that great. Oh ok, it might be slightly attractive, Cedric suspected that his dislike of anyone that Harry might have the slightest crush on was interfering with his judgment. He did admit that she had amazing hair, a long straight silky sheet of raven black hair that swayed slightly with her every movement.

“are you alright? I’ve been calling you for the past 5 minutes. I was wondering when we could work for our Potions project.”

Cho looked at him with concern in her brown eyes which made Cedric sick. I don’t want your eyes looking at me like that Cho, I want his to be. Cedric noticed that her hand was still on his shoulder, and Harry seemed to notice as well since his eyes were downcast for a second right before he turned to talk to Hermione, watching Cho out of the corner of his eyes as Cedric was watching him. Cedric suddenly grinned, he had found his meal ticket.

“I’m just fine, how about 12:30 today?”

- - - - - - - - - -
Cedric sighed as Cho rattled on, “So we add powdered chimera tooth and then-“. He watched uninterestingly as the potion bubbled a frothed a violent violet in the black cauldron. Dragons, how the hell was he was supposed to handle THAT. Cedric gritted his teeth as fire invaded his mind and focused on Cho’s hand stirring her wand in the half finished potion as she muttered with a furrowed brow at the potions book that Cedric held open for her. Her hands were small and delicately fine boned, you would never have guessed that they belonged to a seeker. Harry’s hands were small but strong, their grip displaying their hidden strength that Cedric would remember when he shook hands with him. Harry’s small hand has almost disappeared in Cedric’s larger steady ones but his firm grip made up for it. Cedric looked down at his own hands, they were long fingered with strong palms which made them surprisingly graceful which made them adept for palming the snitch out of the air. He turned them over to reveal callused fingertips that he could imagine running over Harry’s smooth soft skin. His reverie was broken by Cho’s voice “Hey Cedric, could you pass me the salamander blood?”

“yeah sure” Cedric fetched the small bottle of blood and tossed it at the girl who easily caught it out of the air. Cho gave him a reproachful look that reminded him greatly of Harry’s best friend Hermione Granger.

“It would have been our hides if I wasn’t a seeker and couldn’t catch that bottle and it broke all over the floor. You know the professor and his potion ingredients.” Cho sniffed and went back to the potion.

“that big old bat that’s been locked up in these dungeons for 5 centuries? He probably has enough supplies to last him his whole life.” Cedric snapped

“Would that dimwitted metaphor be intended for me Mr. Diggory?” Cedric whirled around at the sound of the soft and deadly voice of the Potions Master. Snape leaned against the door frame, his hot onyx gaze boring into Cedric like a drill. Cedric always had the uncanny feeling that Snape was reading his mind so he swallowed, trying to empty his mind of any thought. Snape’s eyes narrowed and he turned around and stalked out of the door, his black robes billowing around his powerful frame.
Cedric sighed in relief.

“Cedric, see I told you!” Cho scolded as she wiped her brow with her sleeve, “Now HAND me two measures of werewolves blood. And hand it to me, not throw it.”
Cedric went to go do as she asked, grimacing at the unnaturally thick blood in the rather intricately carved glass bottle. He frowned, wondering why Snape would put werewolve’s blood in such a lavish bottle. Cedric furrowed his brow as he noticed carvings in the glass. It looked like an R and an L intertwined together. As he went to pick up the bottle, he hissed in pain as the bottle sparked at the touch of his fingers.

“Fuck, what the hell?” Cedric turned over his hands to show burned and blistering fingertips. Cho, who had looked up at Cedric’s exclamation of pain, shrieked, “Cedric what are you doing? That’s the professor’s private supplies! Those are his most treasured potion ingredients! The werewolf’s blood is over THERE!”

“thanks for asking if I’m okay or not,” Cedric muttered but not before he cast a panicked look at the bottle when he noticed the mahogany chest standing open behind it, beautiful bottles with only god knows what in them. He peered closer at the bottles and watched in interest as something silver and translucent, floated around in a test tube like bottle.

“Cedric, get away from there now,” Cho said panicked, “I hear the Professor coming.”

Cedric threw himself away from the counter and bolted for the other counter, where the student supplies sat. He could hear Snape’s footsteps stop at the door as he measured out the blood with shaking hands, too nervous to notice that this blood was thinner than the other werewolf’s blood.

“Mr. Diggory,” the said 17 year old boy could hear the deadly voice right behind him, “let me see your hands.”

“Why would you need to?” Cedric sounded a lot surer of himself than he felt as he was surprised by how steady his voice was. He could see Cho watching him as she nibbled nervously on one hand.

“Miss Chang, I suggest you get back to your potion.” The professor said without turning around, Cho gave a start then turned around, her hands also shaking as she stirred the blood into the potion.

“your hands Mr. Diggory.”

Cedric uttered one last prayer before he held out his trembling hands. The professor’s surprisingly gentle and graceful hands, grasped his wrists as they pulled the hands closer to himself for his perusal. But their grip grew almost painful as Snape turned the hands over to reveal the singed fingertips. Cedric winced as Snape prodded the burns violently with his finger. Sending Cedric a death glare that made the boy cringe, Snape waved his wand and the burns disappeared. The professor stood up, obviously furious.

“Detention, the whole Saturday for lack of disrespect for people’s belongings.” The potions master spat.

Saturday? Cedric’s stomach twisted, that was the hogsmeade day and he was hoping to see Harry somewhere around. Snape’s eyes narrowed and he stalked out of the room again. Cedric sighed in despair as he avoided the sympathetic glance that Cho sent him. Then he frowned, neither of the times that the professor had seen him, had he docked any points. That made Cedric dread his detention, that meant that it could only be the worst punishment that the professor could conjure up.


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i just realized that since Cho and Cedric aren't in the same year, they wouldn't be doing a project together, but just work with me here