Crush
Minisinoo

7. Crush

Harry chose to sleep in on Sunday rather than go down to breakfast and possibly run into Cho, but deciding what to do about lunch was more difficult.  "You have to eat sometime," Ron pointed out before leaving for the Great Hall himself.  Harry opted to arrive late as Sunday lunch usually amounted to sandwiches one could assemble from an array of cold meats and cheese, and soup when it was chilly, as that day had turned out to be.  Harry didn't see Cho, so either she'd been and gone already as he'd hoped, or she hadn't come down at all -- perhaps as eager to avoid him as he was to avoid her.

A body settled on the bench beside him where he sat alone at the long Gryffindor table, and he looked over to find Cedric.  "I can't stay long," Cedric said.  "I, er, have somewhere I have to be."

Harry resisted smirking.  "Hermione told me you have detention."

Cedric's cheeks turned bright red, but he changed the subject.  "How did yesterday go?"

Now it was Harry's turn to blush.  "Pretty much a disaster," Harry admitted.  "Why didn't you warn me that tea shop was so . . . frilly?"

Cedric's eyebrows went up.  "I think I did, last week.  Didn't you listen?"

"We walked in and I said that -- it was frilly -- and Cho thought I was criticizing her taste."

"Well, you were, weren't you?"  Cedric seemed amused.

"I didn't want her to know that!  Anyway, we ordered tea and tried to talk, but she left her hand lying on the tabletop like, urm, she wanted me to, ah -- "

"Hold it?"

"Yeah.  And there were other couples in there, and some of them were kissing in public!  And I didn't know what to say to her, and . . . "

Harry trailed off, realising that Cedric seemed to be struggling not to laugh.  "You think this is funny.  God, you're as bad as Ron!"

Cedric mastered his expression.  "I don't think it's funny -- not in the way you mean.  Your reaction sounds pretty much the same as mine the first time I saw the place."  He elbowed Harry, but gently.  "I'm probably better at hiding it, though."  He leaned over a little so he could see Harry's face.  "Why did you have trouble talking to her?  You told me that in the library, it was easy to talk to her."

"It was -- then," Harry admitted.  "But yesterday, it felt like we ran out of things to say, or maybe I just felt pressured with all the kissing.  But we don't share any of the same classes . . . "

"What about Quidditch?"

"She's been following Quidditch all her life, so she knows the team histories and players and I felt like an idiot."

"I doubt Cho thinks you're an idiot, Harry, just that you weren't raised a wizard."

"I know.  She even said that -- sort of.  I still felt that way."

"You don't feel that way with me or Ron.  Well, I don't think you do."

"You're different; you're mates.  I can ask you things.  She's -- "

"You want to impress her."

"Yeah.  But I'm not a good student like she is, and I don't know Quidditch as well as she does.  I don't know anything really."

"Bollocks!"  Cedric appeared surprisingly annoyed.  "Harry, for two weeks now I've watched you hold your own in duelling club, beating students two years older than you.  And you're a fantastic Seeker.  So what if you don't know all the team histories?  You've an instinct for flying and that's not something one can memorize from a book."  Leaning in close, Cedric added softly, "You and I both know you're at least twice the flyer Cho is."  He leaned back.  "So don't try to hand me rubbish about not knowing anything.  You know quite a lot of things worth knowing."

Looking up, Harry met Cedric's eyes, and the other boy's sincerity was all right there, naked and raw.  Harry felt buoyed, heart swelling.  "Thanks," he said.  "Just . . . thanks, Ced."  Even if he knew his friend was trying to make him feel better, he'd needed the reassurance.

After a suspended moment, Cedric looked away, checking his watch.  "I've got to go soon, but is that all that happened?  You didn't hold her hand in the tea shop when she wanted you to?"

Harry sighed out and rubbed at his scar.  "I wish that's all it was.  I could tell she was peeved at me by the time we left, so I told her we could visit any store she wanted.  She went to the quill shop, then Dervish & Banges, then the wizardwear store for robes, then another store for clothes.  I was so bored, and I'm sure she could tell.  Then she just wanted to walk up and down the street or sit on a bench, like we were . . . on parade.  I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do -- whether I should hold her hand or just talk to her, or . . . what."

"She was showing you off."

Baffled, Harry just blinked.  "Why?"

"Well, it's sort of a compliment, Harry.  She wanted to be seen with you."

Harry frowned, feeling both foolish and resentful at once.  "She wanted to be seen with the Chosen One, is that it?  I don't like being stared at."

Cedric had folded his hands on the table and now bent over them almost as if praying, brows drawn and clearly puzzling something through.  Finally he said, "I don't think it's that, not like you mean."  He turned his head to study Harry.  "Haven't you ever liked somebody enough that you just wanted to be seen with them?  Wanted everybody to know you were with them?"

Put that way, it did strike Harry differently.  "Er, yeah.  But I don't like being stared at.  It . . . makes me nervous."

Cedric smiled.  "I know," he said.  "I don't particularly like it either, I reckon I'm just used to it."

"She did it with you, too?"

"She did, but I meant in general.  I get stared at a lot."  Harry supposed Cedric probably did; certainly some of the Gryffindor girls liked to stare at him.  Turning to look at Harry again, Cedric's smile turned lopsided.  "I don't think she means it in a status climbing way, if that's what worries you.  She doesn't really need that, you know."  Which was true; Cho was far more popular than Harry.  "She's proud to be seen with you; that's not something to knock, yeah?"

Harry nodded, a bit uncertainly, then more firmly.  "I reckon it's not."  Cedric rose as Harry blurted out, "So things might not have gone as badly as I thought?  At the tea shop?"

Looking down, Cedric said, "Well, if she was walking up and down the High Street with you after the tea shop, then I'd say she was probably still happy to be with you.  But it's not just whether she was happy, Harry.  Dates are a two-way street, you know.  Did you have a good time?"

And that brought Harry up short.  He'd been thinking so much about how to please Cho and whether he'd failed, he hadn't thought much about whether he'd liked it.  He'd just assumed the chance to spend time with Cho would make him happy, like it had in the library that evening.  But he wasn't sure he could say it had.  As he'd told Cedric, he'd been bored -- or intimidated -- by most of what she'd seemed to enjoy, and by the end of the day, the dizzying effect of just being in her company had worn away.

He wasn't certain he was quite ready to admit that yet, however, so he said, "I suppose I did."

"All right then," Cedric replied.  "Sometimes you have to work things out, find your feet.  Not every friendship -- or whatever -- just . . . happens without effort."

"Ours did.  Mine with Ron did, and Hermione . . . " He trailed off, thinking.  Certainly he and Ron hadn't started out as friends with Hermione.  "All right, I'll grant sometimes you do have to get to know the real person."

"Exactly.  And truth is, Harry -- yours and my friendship didn't just happen, either.  When your name first came out of the Goblet, I really did think you'd put it in, you know.  I didn't know you then.  I had to get to know you to realise you wouldn't do that.  And you told me this summer that last year, you thought I was just a useless pretty boy without enough brains to fill an eggcup."

Harry turned scarlet.  "Well, er -- I was jealous, that's all.  You beat me to asking Cho to the Ball and I didn't know then . . . " He trailed off, unwilling to mention Cedric's preferences even in the nearly empty Great Hall.  "You're not, you know -- either useless or stupid."

Head tilted, Cedric just smiled.  "Sometimes unexpected people turn out to be good friends, and people we thought we'd like . . . they aren't so interesting once we find out more.  Give Cho a chance, yeah?"  He turned for the hall doors.  "I have to run or I'll be late."

And he jogged away.  Harry glanced down at his watch; it was five past one.  Cedric wasn't just going to be late, he already was late, and Harry pondered what Cedric had said whilst finishing his sandwich, then went looking for Ron, found him nervously working on his broom up in their dormitory.  Harry started to say something encouraging about the coming game on Saturday, but bit his tongue.  Ron was anxious enough.  "Do you think maybe it's just harder to be friends with girls than boys?"

Ron stopped polishing and looked at Harry.  "What are you talking about?"

"Well, with Hermione, remember?  We didn't like her at first.  Now she's . . . Hermione.  So maybe it takes more time with girls?"

Ron continued to stare.  "I'm still not following you, mate."

"Cho."

"What about Cho?"

Harry wanted to ask if Ron had heard anything Harry had said the day before when they'd come back from Hogsmeade.  "We didn't have a lot to talk about!"

"So you said -- and I told you, it's not all about talk.  You just . . . go out."

"And do what?"

"I don't know.  You hold hands, maybe snog some."

"And then what?"

"Well, Harry, if you don't know that . . . " Ron trailed off, laughing in embarrassment.

"That's not what I meant!" Harry said, feeling foolish because, in fact, he really wasn't sure about the rest of it.

The Dursleys hadn't cared if he knew the facts of life, and the whole threat of Voldemort had occupied most of his attention otherwise.  Harry was well aware he didn't know what to do with a girl in general, never mind anything intimate.  There had been one rather awkward conversation with Mr. Weasley the summer before last.  'I know your father's not around to have this talk, Harry,' the older man had said, 'but I've had it now with six sons, and I don't mind having it with an adopted seventh.'  He'd smiled kindly, and been bluntly informative, but Harry had been so embarrassed that he didn't have a father to tell him those things that he hadn't made much of the opportunity.  So Harry knew the mechanics of sex, but how to get from here to there with a girl completely eluded him.  Perhaps he should ask Sirius.  Or for that matter Cedric probably knew more about the process of seduction than Harry did, which made Harry wonder exactly how far Cedric had gone with Cho, and how pathetic Harry looked by contrast.

"What I meant," Harry said now, "is that there's got to be more to it than snogging.  I mean, aren't you supposed to have fun together?"

"I expect the snogging part is pretty fun," Ron pointed out.

"Besides that, you cheeky git."

"Well, yeah, but it . . . just happens, doesn't it?  Maybe sometimes you have to get to know somebody, like, er, like with Hermione.  But then it happens.  The friendship part.  You look over at the person one day and realise you like them, like hanging out with them, they're easy to be with."

"What if they're not easy to be with?" Harry asked.  "What if it feels like work all the time?"

Ron shrugged.  "Then I don't reckon it's somebody you really want to spend time with, yeah?"

Ron, Harry thought, had a talent for stating the oft-overlooked obvious -- and not in a dim way, but in a getting down to brass tacks way.  "Yeah," Harry said now.  "Maybe not."

That same Sunday afternoon -- literally between one step and the next -- Harry looked over, as Ron had said, and realised it wasn't Cho he wanted to spend time with.  It was Cedric.

He was crossing the Pitch behind Angelina with the rest of Gryffindor's team even as Hufflepuff ended their practise, all straggling out behind their Captain.  Cedric was grinning in that way he had, all white teeth and joy, and nature conspired with circumstance to send a ray of sunlight between the clouds right onto him.  It caught in his eyes, turning them from steel to quicksilver.

After all their time together, Harry thought he should have been more prepared, but his step hitched and he let out a choked sound, finally seeing what he'd known intellectually for ages.  Cedric Diggory was striking.

Not handsome, not fit, not rather attractive.  Striking.  Art carved in flesh and bone.  Exertion and chill air had pinked his cheeks, and sweat made his dark hair darker.  He had height and breadth, a straight jaw, prominent chin, and deep-set eyes that glinted with intelligence.  If the brows above were a bit heavy and his nose canted left (he'd told Harry he'd broken it as a boy) . . . well, those things made him interesting, not merely insipid.

Of course he picked that moment to turn his head and catch Harry staring, but instead of being embarrassed, he just grinned as they passed each other, stepping sideways to elbow Harry playfully.  "Work hard, Potter.  You're going to have to outfly me on Saturday."

The good-natured jibe drew cat-calls from the rest of Harry's team.  "Keep dreaming, Diggory!" and, "There won't be any Dementors this time to help you out!" and, "Harry could get to the Snitch before you with his eyes closed!"

Harry just blushed, too confused by the new feelings to have wit to reply.

Did this familiar flailing vertigo, this staccato tap-tap of his heart against his ribcage, did it mean he had a . . . a crush on Cedric?  It certainly felt the same as what he'd suffered for Cho, but Cedric was a boy.  And if Cedric fancied boys, well, Harry didn't.  Or at least, Harry hadn't.  Harry couldn't, therefore, fancy Cedric.

Could he?

For the next few days, whenever he saw Cedric, he had to struggle not to stare.  It must have been obvious, because after supper on Wednesday, Cedric actually pulled him aside to ask, "Have I done something to upset you?  You know I was kidding on the Pitch on Sunday, right?"

"Oh, uh . . . yeah.  I mean, yeah, I know you were kidding, not yeah, you did something to upset me, because, er, you didn't.  Do anything, I mean.  I'm just . . . a little nervous.  About the game."  Not about the fact Cedric was standing rather close, bending over slightly to look him in the eye.  That couldn't be the reason for his sweaty palms and fast breathing, or the flush that he knew must be staining his neck and ears.

Cedric stared at him for a moment more, which only raised Harry's blood pressure further, then he said, "Okay," and went on his way.  Harry breathed out in relief, even as he felt like a complete moron.  He and Cedric had been friends -- good friends -- for months.  How had this happened all of a sudden?  Moreover, why had it happened?  If one of them was going to get a bad crush on the other, shouldn't it be Cedric on him?

And that made him wonder.  Had Cedric ever suffered a crush on him?  Hermione had implied it, but Harry had no experience in these things and Cedric had always acted like a friend and only a friend.  Any extra concern he displayed could easily be explained by the fact Harry was probably the first real friend Cedric had ever had, one who knew all his secrets.  Besides, Cedric had said he fancied Oliver Wood.

That next Saturday, however, he didn't let Cedric catch the Snitch out of friendship.  Cedric was agile, and wicked fast at hairpin turns, to be sure -- but he was also too big to be a Seeker and Harry's Firebolt could fly rings around his old Cleansweep Five.  Yet for the second time in a competition with Gryffindor, Cedric Diggory caught the Snitch right under Harry Potter's nose.

Because Harry had been watching him, not the little golden ball.

The entire Gryffindor team waffled between angry, baffled and disappointed.  How could they have lost to Hufflepuff again?  It hadn't even been bad weather, and they'd been racking up goals against the Hufflepuff Keeper.  Unfortunately, the Hufflepuff Chasers had been doing the same with an anxious Ron, so it had turned into a high scoring game on both sides.  Gryffindor had needed Harry to catch the Snitch and end it.

And Harry had failed them.  He didn't even have an excuse, he'd just failed -- because he'd been unable to stop watching Cedric long enough to locate the Snitch.

Fortunately, nobody on the team seemed to realise where the problem lay.  "It's okay, mate," Ron said, although his face was crestfallen, and Angelina patted his shoulder, hiding disappointment to remind him, "Everybody has an off day."  She also pointed out that Hufflepuff had improved loads since Diggory had taken over as Captain.

"Diggory, Diggory," George snapped.  "What's so ruddy special about Diggory?  He's just a poncy, pretty-faced swot.  You wait and see, even Slytherin could take down his team."

"Oh, just brill, George!" Angelina snapped back.  "That makes me feel ever so much better!  Even Slytherin could beat them, but not us!"

"He didn't mean it like that!" Fred tried to intervene for his brother.  "He just meant -- "

"Diggory and his team got lucky today.  That's all," George finished.  "He doesn't have any real talent."

"Stop it!" Harry heard himself shouting.  "Just stop it!  All of you!  Do you think Cedric is over in the Hufflepuff changing room, making fun of us because they beat us today?  He's not like that!  He flew better than me -- it's that simple.  Stop trying to make excuses for the plain truth."

And picking up his broom and Quidditch robes, he stalked out, heading back to the castle to shower instead of doing so in the changing rooms.  He was angry at himself, not at Cedric.  Cedric had played hard, but fair, and after he'd caught the Snitch, the look he'd shot Harry had been almost apologetic.  "Good game, Harry," he'd said afterwards.

But Harry hadn't played a good game.  He'd been distracted, and it annoyed him.  He'd wanted to show Cedric what he could do, wanted to impress him.  But he hadn't.  He'd acted like a . . . a silly schoolgirl.

Unable to face anybody in the castle the same as he'd been unable to stay with his team, he headed down to the lakeshore where he sat, broom beside him, head in hands.  It was here that Hermione found him.  She was carrying three Cornish pasties and a bottle of Butterbeer.  "Eat," she told him matter-of-factly, sitting down next to him.

Grateful because he was really hungry, he devoured all three pasties in quick succession; Hermione didn't speak again until he was finished.  Banishing his empty Butterbeer bottle, she said, "Are you going to sit out here all night, or come in and take off those sweaty clothes?"

"Are they laughing at me up at the castle?"

"No, not especially.  Hufflepuff is very happy, of course.  Cedric was looking for you earlier.  He asked me and Ron where you went.  Ron was rather rude, the berk, but Cedric said he just wanted to congratulate you again on a game well-flown."

"No, he didn't.  He knows I played badly.  He knows better than anybody -- or should."

Hermione eyed him sidewise.  "Well, perhaps he does, but I think he's feeling a bit guilty for catching it right under your nose like that.  He is your friend.  In fact, maybe he's even wondering if you let him win?"

Harry sighed.  "I didn't.  I just . . . wasn't looking at the Snitch."

"Harry, it was right in front of you."

"I know."

"So what were you looking at?  Cho Chang in the Ravenclaw stands?"

"No," Harry admitted.  He wished it had been Cho.  Life would be less complicated.  "I wasn't looking at Cho.  I reckon I was just . . . out of it today -- thinking about Sirius's trial."  And while he did sometimes worry about the trial, that hadn't been his problem today.

"Well, that's understandable," Hermione said.  "You're sure you weren't distracted by Cho?"

His laugh was bitter.  "No.  No -- of that, at least, I'm sure."  

8. Falling Out


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