THE NEXT DAY. HUFFLEPUFF VS SLYTHERIN:
"And welcome, to the Slytherin Versus Hufflepuff Quidditch match! The first of the year!" The announcer bellowed through the speaker. The crowd cheered loudly. "They'll be out in just a moment!" He continued.
"Ced!" Y/n smiled from behind him. He turned.
"What are you doing here?"
"What do you mean?" Her smile faltered a bit.
"You've been ignoring me all week and still hanging out with those 5 Slytherins."
"Cedric, why aren't you getting it yet?" She sighed annoyedly at his behaviour and turned to go to the stands and meet her two friends.
She went back up to Daphne.
"Where's Pansy?"
"Wishing Theo good luck. How cute they are." Daphne said sighing in awe.
Y/n groaned quietly. Cedric just needed to get over the fact that she's friends with her friends and just move on. Then finally their relationship will go smoothly.
Pansy quickly made her way beside her friends happily.
"And now the two teams are making their way out. The captains are now shaking hands, and.. they're off!"
Draco flew to the air quickly. Cedric was the Hufflepuff's seeker. And he wasn't going to lose the Snitch to him.
Draco looked around. His friends Theo and Blaise had scored a lot of points and it had only been the first 5 minutes of the game. They were now on 60 points while Hufflepuff was on 20. Draco smiled at the fact that his and his friends' plan had worked.
He circled the field and he finally spotted the snitch near one of the hoops where Blaise and Theo were flying around. He quickly sped up and Cedric had noticed his increase of speed, and followed him. The two sped to the hoop but the snitch quickly moved up. Draco stopped abruptly and turned along with Cedric, chasing the snitch.
"YEAH! GO DRACO!" Blaise screamed as Draco gained on the snitch. Draco finally caught the snitch in his hands, turning away from Cedric, showing the crowd he caught it.
"And Draco Malfoy has caught the snitch!"
Theo and Blaise immediately flew up to him and patted him on the back, but not before Cedric turned around, his broom banging into Blaise's side, almost having him fall. Theo and Draco caught Blaise's upper arm.
"You have a problem mate?" Blaise bellowed from behind him. But Cedric ignored as he flew down slowly. The three boys all flew beside him.
"What are they doing?" Daphne muttered standing along with the rest of the crowd to see their interaction.
"It seems as though Malfoy, Zabini and Nott, the infamous trio are having a chat with Hufflepuff's seeker, good guy Cedric Diggory. And it doesn't look very nice." The announcer commentated
"Why don't you go down now so we can deal with this with our fists? Since you have such a problem." Theo offered.
"No, go back to your dirty dungeons where you came from." Cedric spat. They all were nearly close to the ground.
Draco grabbed the back of Cedric's uniform as they were close to the ground and threw him off his broom. Cedric stumbled back but regained his footing.
"What was that for?!" Cedric demanded, pushing Draco back.
"Why'd you push him?" Draco said pointing to Blaise. "All because you lost?" He spat as he pushed Cedric back.
Pansy had quickly run down, and Y/n and Daphne had no choice but to follow her.
Cedric didn't answer as he went to punch Draco. Draco's nose started bleeding as he regained himself quickly and punched Cedric, harder.
"Hit him hard!" Theo had yelled.
"You've got some nerve!" Draco spat out blood when he spoke. Cedric was about to attack him back when Y/n came in, facing Cedric.
"Stop, look at yourself." She told Cedric sternly as she put her arms on his shoulders pushing him away. Cedric tried going through her but had blurry vision due to being punched.
"Go, Cedric." She told him and pushed him away. He scowled and his team pulled him away.
She looked back at Theo, Blaise then Draco. Draco looked livid.
"Control your boyfriend, y/l/n." He spat at her.
"You're the one who shoved him off his broom! You could have just left him alone!" Y/n said back throwing her arms in front of her, motioning them to no where in particular.
"He nearly killed Blaise and you're defending him." He stepped towards her. He looked angry.
Theo, Pansy, Blaise and Daphne quickly dragged their two friends away from the crowd who started booing at not seeing this interaction anymore. They were all now under the stands.
"I'm not defending him."
"You are!"
"I don't care what you think I'm doing! You shouldn't care either! But you could have gotten yourself or others killed or injured!" She yelled.
He chuckled and stepped towards her, pointing his finger to her. "You think that Diggory can kill me? Then you're delusional!" He yelled down on her. Some blood splattered on her face and he finally seemed to pay attention and actually study her face. She closed her eyes out of disgust.
His face seemed to drop from angry to a bit startled.
She opened her eyes. She too, had studied his face and the words from his book flowed into her mind as she surveyed his broken face. Before she said she could never imagine him spilling out words like that but when she looked inside his eyes, deeper, she could imagine him doing it. She felt guilty.
Some of the splattered blood had dropped down her face.
Draco stopped and felt his face with his gloved hand. He removed it and saw his glove covered in blood, and his face started dripping blood on his uniform. He took off his glove and saw that his hand was already bruised from punching Cedric.
Draco spaced out when looking at the blood and bruises on his hand and knuckles. He was in a daze. He looked back up at her. She had drops of his blood on her face. Like he injured her.
Draco tightened his hand into a fist and turned around, almost growling through his clenched teeth.
"Come on. Cheer up, me and Blaise owe you 10 Galleons." Theo said putting his hand on Draco's back and leading him out, almost forcefully.
"Sorry, y/l/n." Blaise told her sincerely, nodding to the girls and left to catch up with his friends.
"Let's get you cleaned up.." Daphne said as Pansy took y/n's hand and led them inside the castle to Pansy and Daphne's Slytherin dorm.
THE NEXT DAY
Y/n entered the Hufflepuff Common room and went straight to Cedric's room. She found Cedric laying on his bed, bandaged. She sat on his bed and rubbed his arm.
"Hey.. are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. Thank you for coming." He smiled faintly and she smiled back.
The two spent the whole afternoon together reading and talking to each other. The topic of her Slytherin friends never came up and she was happy. They seemed to be getting along so well and he was so sweet to her. It was nearly dinner and Cedric assured her that his friends would get him his dinner, so she left to go have hers.
Y/n went towards the Slytherin table and saw only Draco there.
"Hi." She nodded and looked at her food immediately.
"Are you okay? From yesterday?" He ignored her greeting, getting straight to the point. He had been really worried all night, and he couldn't sleep well with the image of her face covered in his blood in his mind. What if it had been her own blood by his hands?
He remembered being so enraged in that moment, it took him everything to just restrain himself from yelling more at her; instead he clenched his fist to feel the pain increase.
She looked up and they made deep eye contact. Well, for her it felt like it, even though it was just a second. Every time she looked at him since she'd read those pages from his book she felt guilty. Just imagine it; someone reading your feelings, your words, something that they want to keep private. And then someone comes along and reads it, and they have absolutely no idea. It's.. betraying.
"Yes, I'm okay." She said nearly emotionless, before she brought her head back down to her food and ate.
The two didn't exchange anymore words as their friends came and sat down.
A few days flew by and since then the girls hadn't sat with the guys since. It was now five days later and Y/n was just getting ready for breakfast.
MALFOY MANOR; THE DAY BEFORE
Lucius Malfoy paced his and Narcissa's room nervously. He thought up a list of pros and cons.
He had already published it to the Daily Prophet and the whole of Hogwarts would soon come to find out what Cedric did, tomorrow morning.
The pros were that y/n and her lovely family would be free of a lying and bad guy.. the cons were.. finding out that your boyfriend did do something bad. Which is basically a pro!
"Okay that's enough." Lucius muttered and went to wash his face. This was his son. He was doing it for his son. Malfoy's always get what they want. And he owed a nice thing or two to the y/l/n family anyway.
But maybe he should have been an adult about this and told y/n's parents instead?
"Nah." He muttered and went outside where he saw his wife looking at him blankly. Lucius looked at her nervously as he walked passed her to sit on their bed.
"Lucius!"
"Ah! What?" He jumped, shrieking. She looked at him blankly again.
"I don't know what that look means but; didn't you want this for our son? Come on now." Lucius sighed.
"Cheating our way into having our son get what he wants is not what we should be doing anymore."
"It's not cheating, love.. it's just a step in the right direction. Those children will never know.." He trailed off hopefully. She sighed, giving up and went to sit next to him, taking out her book.
"So.. when does it release?" She asked quietly, looking at her book.
"Tomorrow.. morning." He said slowly.
"Alright." She said simply.
"I love you." He told her in hopes to make her less irritated at him. She sighed and turned to him, closing her book between her index finger.
"I love you," She pecked him on the lips. "I guess." She finished and with that she turned the lights off, hiding Lucius' annoyed expression.
The next morning the Malfoy couple woke up early as they usually do, embracing each other and went down to have breakfast.
"This is just positively horrible." Narcissa stated while overlooking the Daily Prophet on the table.
"Same reaction here. I'm like a saviour now. I should do this more often." Lucius stated from beside her, eating a piece from her food.
"Maybe you shouldn't." She said while moving her plate closer to him so that he could have some more.
"It could be like a side job-"
"-No." She interrupted.
He sighed dramatically.
HOGWARTS, THAT MORNING:
Y/n skipped down to break fast feeling in a very good mood and she didn't know why, but she wasn't complaining. As she arrived the owls all flowed in and as she walked to the end of the Slytherin table where her friends sat. She put her hand in the air for her owl to land on. She grabbed the newspaper and her two letters, and quickly gave a treat to her bird from her pocket, even giving it a kiss on it's head before it flew away, smiling.
She sat down and quickly filled her plate while reading her mail, muttering a good morning to her friends. A letter from her mother, father, and the Daily Prophet; her favourite. Oh, Cedric was on the cover! She smiled and read what it was about.
Cedric Diggory & Cho Chang together in Hogsmeade
Cedric Diggory and Cho Chang, (who did not come to repeat her last year at Hogwarts' Witchcraft and Wizardry) are caught in Hogsmeade kissing and being very touchy!
Why may this be anything special?
Of course we all know the very famous good boy Cedric Diggory is dating the very beautifully known y/n y/l/n, and had no shame in hiding it until recently.
Could this be why?
"Well.." Blaise coughed awkwardly, closing the newspaper as he joined his friends in looking down the table at y/n.
Draco stared wide eyed at the paper and then look from Cedric to y/n, his eyes staying on her.
Cedric's face was red and he didn't dare look at y/n.
Draco couldn't quite explain it.. she didn't look upset, she looked like she was in shock; like she didn't know what was happening.
Her friends had tried talking to her but she didn't hear anything. Her ears were ringing loudly and all the whispers and conversations muffled; creating a distant buzz.
Y/n stood up, grabbed her things shakily, holding them gently in her hands but the thing was, she didn't even know if she was holding anything. She couldn't feel anything. She felt numb. She grabbed her plate, and the two letters she had yet to read and walked out, trying not to fall over from her blurred vision. She felt the conversation in the great hall grow louder with each step she took away.
She knew her friends followed close behind but they hadn't tried talking to her, giving her space. They wanted to make sure she was okay and didn't do anything dangerous. They turned the corner and suddenly the plate dropped from y/n's hand onto the floor. The sound pierced the silence of the cold halls. It felt so heavy in her hands, she felt weak. She fell to the floor and cried, feeling her friends' arms around her.
Sometimes, people just needed a cry.
Draco, Theo and Blaise flinched at the noise of the plate shattering but still stood behind the corner listening. Her cries echoed everywhere and he knew; he knew that these cries would replay in his mind when he would see her again. They peaked the corner and saw the three on the floor.
Pansy and Daphne would never explain it, as they didn't know how. Whenever someone cried, they just cried with them. When their best friend cried, they would cry with her. It was only a teary-eyed cry though; seeing someone you love at their worst moment wasn't ideal.
"We should go, this is private." Blaise whispered seriously and they immediately walked away. They would never speak of this again.