PARALLEL {Cedric Diggory | Harry Potter}

Forty Eight

Harry's confusion morphed to realisation, "No, absolutely not."

"I told you he'd take it well." Hermione quipped from behind him.

"No," Harry continued, exasperated, "if you think I'm gonna let everyone risk their lives for me, I..."

"Never done that before, have we?" Ron chuckled dryly as Cedric wrapped an arm around Lori's waist, both of them leaning back on the wall.

"No, no, this is different! I mean taking that, becoming me, no!" he gestured to the hip flask.

"Well, none of us really fancy it, mate." George said.

"Yeah, imagine if something went wrong and we ended up a scrawny, specky git forever!" Fred added.

After a moment of lighthearted chuckling, Moody rounded on Harry, "Everyone here is of age, Potter. They've all agreed to take the risk."

From the back of the room, Mundungus coughed up, "Technically, I've been coerced. Mundungus Fletcher, Mr Potter. Always been a huge admirer."

"Nip it, Mundungus! All right, Granger, as discussed." Hermione brushed past Harry, sharply pulling some of his hair out as she went, "Straight in there, if you please."

Bubbles started to spout from Moody's hip flask as he swirled it with a wide grin, looking up to all of them, "For those of you who haven't taken Polyjuice Potion before, fair warning: it tastes like goblin piss."

Cedric pressed a kiss to Lori's cheek as he, and the other six volunteers, moved to the middle of the room.

"Have a lot of experiences with that, do you, Mad-Eye?" George chuckled, before coughing slightly, "Just trying to diffuse the tension."

Shooting down a couple of inches, George's skin bubbled as he passed the flask to Fred, before both twins were at the same height, groaning as black overtook the red of their hair.

Mundungus was the only one who grew taller once he drank, handing the Potion to Fleur, then to Cedric, who lost the most height, then to Ron and Hermione.

Moody smiled triumphantly as the seven of them finished groaning, staring at an additional seven copies of Harry.

"Wow," the twins said in unison, "we're identical!"

"Not yet, you're not." Moody grunted, throwing a bag of clothes at the floor, several red tees spilling out over the carpet as eight clones moved to dress.

Cedric, or Harry as he now looked, smirked at Lori when she turned as he pulled some trousers on, "It's nothing you haven't seen before, love."

Fixing her eyes in the wall, she chuckled, "You forget you're not you. I don't want to a half naked Harry, thank you very much."

Moody called over everyone, "Right, them. We'll be pairing off. Each Potter will have a protector. Mundungus, stick tight to me. I wanna keep an eye on you. As for Harry..."

"Yes?" all eight of them asked.

"The real Harry. Where the devil are you, anyway?"

"Here." he stumbled forward.

"You'll ride with Hagrid. The rest of you know your partners."

A few minutes later and sixteen people, half of them identical in every fashion, walked out into the street, splitting off into pairs and climbing onto Thestrals, motorbikes and brooms.

Hermione timidly wrapped her arms around Lori as she climbed onto the Thestral behind her, pressing Harry's glasses further up Harry's nose. Lori shot a look to the closest broomstick, where the Harry she knew was Cedric hovered beside Kingsley.