The Boy I Love -HEDRIC (2)

23.(CH) yes to the second part

Out of pure emotion Harry scribbled a answer:

Why not Christmas?

Something tells me you'll be busy that day. 

How? Busy with what?

Harry used to spend the holidays at Hogwarts, along with Ron. 

Well, in any case, he could invite Ron too, right? 

But Sirius didn't say why and found it hard to explain how he got his freedom. It turned out to be part of a deal, where he agreed to not claim his innocence in any publicity channels, such as newspapers, nor cause a stir. Due to his illegal status as an Animagus, they would recognize half of his sentence and he would be entitled to compensation.

I know it doesn't sound like the best deal, Pup, but we did it! 

Christmas had come earlier that year and Harry couldn’t stop talking about it.

CEDRIC

XXXVII

The picture in the newspaper on Monday was the four champions.

With their torn outfits and awkward expressions on the front page.

A long article regarding their love lives, focused on Harry and his very special friend. Skeeter must not have found out Hermione's name yet. If she knew, she would have written it —even if it was misspelled. 

To the rest of the student population, her identity was quite clear.

Harry didn't seem to mind.

Or take it seriously either, thinking that no one would believe such a thing.

Cedric wasn't so sure that it didn't sound admissible or possible in the least. He was also outraged that the newspaper was full of irrelevant news or false ones like that article. Since when did it look more like a gossip magazine? Why didn't anyone write about the Death Eaters that had attacked at the World Cup? All that matter had been ignored, and on the occasions that he had read about it, they had never confirmed how it could probably be related to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. 

It seemed to Cedric that this quasi-sports event had something to do with him too.

Whether it was to hide his dark movements… 

XXXVIII

As Harry had anticipated, people spent a whole week talking about the first task. Sometimes someone would come up to ask Cedric if he had any news about the second one or to say how amazing he had been. He could see in the halls that they weren't looking down on Harry like they used to, and that Gryffindors had finally come to their senses and decided to support Harry. 

Cedric ran into Zacharias one day.

Well, maybe it was too generous to put it that way.

He saw him from afar, talking to his Slytherin friends. Zacharias seemed quite animated, engrossed in conversation. Cedric didn't mean to stare, but he was glad to see him doing well. If he had to be honest, the whole situation was still sad. 

When Zacharias became aware, Cedric waved at him as well as the other boys.

A prefect with whom he had exchanged a few sentences twice.

Zacharias nodded and held a thumbs up. 

They were fine, it was true.