Cedric Diggory sat at the table in the Hufflepuff common room, his Divination homework spread out before him, struggling through a chart for the upcoming month that was due the next day. He was struggling with an aspect of Mercury in the eighth house - or was it Mars? He bloody couldn't tell and he was getting frustrated and was so close to just writing in any random thing to get the assignment over with... Honestly, he'd only kept on with Divination as a lark, fill up a block of his required schedule and, ironically, to have one class that would hopefully not have any huge bearing on his future. He was running his fingers through the glossary for the meaning of the placement of Mercury in the radix axis when Ernie MacMillan appeared at his elbow.
"Hi Ernie," Cedric murmured.
"Mornin' Cedric," Ernie said, his voice very official and only just keeping a containment on his excitement.
When Ernie wasn't satisfied with a greeting, Cedric paused his finger on the page where he'd stopped reading and looked up, half turning in his seat toward Ernie. "What's on, Ern?" he asked.
"Are you putting your name in the Goblet of Fire, Ced?"
Cedric nodded, "Yeah."
"When are you putting your name in the Goblet of Fire?" Ernie asked.
"When I wrap up this bit of homework," Cedric answered.
Ernie nodded, but he didn't go away. He just stood there, rocking on the balls of his feet up to his toes and back, the energy in him palpable. Cedric stared up at him expectantly. "You... need something else, Ernie?"
"No, I just want to be sure to be 'round when you go up to put in your name!" Ernie said, excitedly. "I want to be able to say I was there! You're going to be real famous and the true. hero of Hufflepuff House when you win."
"I don't know about all that."
"Sure yer will!" Ernie said, nodding, "Sure yer will!" He grinned.
"Alright. Well, it'll be a minute before I go," he said, gesturing at the homework.
"No, you take your time!" Ernie said.
But still he hovered.
Cedric stared at him, then looked at the homework, and slowly turned about to face the table again. Ernie was still standing there. Cedric bent over the parchment and books, eyes down, but he could feel Ernie's presence as prominently as if the fourth year was standing on top of him. After a couple minutes of this, he couldn't take anymore and he gathered up his things quickly.
"You finished already?" Ernie asked.
"No, I'm going to go finish in my room, I reckon," Cedric said, then, making an excuse, "It's, er, noisy out here."
"Right, right," Ernie nodded.
To Cedric's dismay, Ernie actually started to follow him down the hall to the sixth years' dormitory. He stopped at the door and looked at Ernie, "I'll tell ya what MacMillan, I'll let you know when I go up to put my name in, alright?"
"Brilliant," Ernie said.
Cedric stepped into his dorm and shut the door quickly before Ernie could follow him in or something and he jabbed his wand at the lock so it clicked loudly and stepped back from the door shaking his head. "Bloody hell," Cedric muttered, and he chucked his books down on his desk. He sat down, realized he'd lost his place, and sighed, trying to find which line he'd been on.
There came a frantic banging on the door.
"Ernie, I swear to Merlin's buttock that I'll let you know when I --" but when he opened the door it wasn't Ernie MacMillan, it was Herbert Fleet. "Oh good it's you. Get in here." Cedric yanked Fleet through the door and closed it again.
"What's up with locking the dorm?" Herbert complained.
"Sorry, I didn't know if Ernie was going to come traipsing in if I left it undone. I had a time shaking him."
Herbert said, "The Weasley twins tried at putting their names in the Goblet."
Cedric, who had turned back to his desk and attempted yet again at finding what line he was on looked up and lost his place yet again. "What? They aren't old enough?"
Herbert snickered. "They took aging potion."
"Oh for Helga's sake."
Herbert was grinning, "They took one step over the age line and BLAM-O, they're on their arses with beards down-to-there hangin' off their faces. Had to go to Pomfrey and everything to get it removed. Dumbledore really had their ticket, let me tell you. Funniest damned thing I ever saw. The lil shits finally got themselves bit in the arse."
Cedric laughed distractedly.
"So..." Herbert said, "When are you putting your name in?"
Cedric sighed.
"What?"
"I should just go do it and get it over with before I go mental with everyone asking." Cedric grabbed his parchment, tore off a bit, scribbled out his name hurriedly.
"Sorry?" Herbert asked, "Are you not the bloke that's been walkin' 'round this castle blubbing up a storm about the tournament?"
"Yes, yeah, I know, I'm sorry, I'm frustrated. This damned Divination assignment's got me buggered."
"The chart for this week? Me too. I haven't even started it."
"I just did this morning."
"You know I'm just going to make a load of rubbish up."
"Yeah, I suppose I will, too. I started doing it seriously, but it keeps talking about the death of something, but in like the change of something - pretty sure it's about my parents divorce, you know, in context, and you know Trelawney's going to turn it into some omen about the stupid grim the other day and bleedin' Roger Davies - I swear if he says somethin' about it again to me I'm going to strangle the bloke."
Herbert laughed. "Oh I know. He's so spooked about that. Poor Rog. It must really suck believing in all that divination rubbish."
Cedric knocked his book closed and pushed the chart aside. "C'mon, let's go. I gotta get Ernie before we go - he wants to witness the moment I drop the parchment in the cup... We can do that and by then it ought to be just about time to go out and meet up with Oliver Kent -- assuming that letter you showed me isn't a sick prank!" Cedric said.
"It's not!" Herbert laughed. "That's actually why I've come to get you."
Cedric grinned. "Forgive me if I hold out my hopes 'til it's real and he's shaking my hand."
"Soon you'll see," Herbert said.
Cedric reached into his trunk for his Kent number jumper from his trunk. "Anyone else put their names in?"
"The whole of the Durmstrang lot," Herbert answered. "Krum was first, then the others one by one came by. I don't reckon they've got much chance though. Everyone knows Krum's favored to win." Herbert paused as Cedric raised an eyebrow, "Out of Durmstrang, I mean. Not overall. Brain over brawn and all that, what we talked about before. His bicep versus your hair, et cetera."
Cedric laughed and the pair of them went off in search of Ernie MacMillan.
"So where've you been all morning anyhow?" Ron asked Hermione. He was following after Harry, who was picking his way down the path that cut across the grounds toward Hagrid's hut at the edge of the forest. Hermione trailed along, carrying the clinking box of badges she'd made. "Trying to recruit more people into spew?"
"Honestly Ronald, it's S.P.E.W.," she answered. "And no, for your information, I was not recruiting anybody. I was in the library."
"You're the only person who could do homework willingly on a Saturday!" Ron grumbled, "And a holiday, no less! It's Halloween, Hermione! Didn't you get the notice? You ought to be enjoying it, taking a bit of relaxation."
"What do you think it is we're doing right now?" Hermione asked.
Harry spoke up, "Reckon Hagrid will be pleased to see us? I miss seeing him when we're not running from our lives from the Skrewts."
"I missed him, too, but I do hope he hasn't gone and made those rock cakes of his," Ron answered. "I'll bet we're the only ones that actually eat his rock cakes."
"Do you?" Harry asked. "I stopped after I chipped my tooth on one last term. I feel terrible. He goes through all the trouble of making them for us. But they're just so hard..."
"I reckon he makes them with cement and that's why they're so hard," Ron said.
"Sometimes he forgets the baking powder," Hermione intoned. "That's why they're good sometimes and other times not so. The baking powder makes a very big difference in the fluffiness of the cake."
"Yeah well, we ought to get him a sign," Ron said, "So he won't forget it. Big bold letters. OI DON'T FORGET THE BAKING POWDER!"
"I like them very much when he remembers the baking powder," Harry offered. "I don't want him to think we don't appreciate him. That's why I always stick them in my robes pockets when he isn't watching."
"Probably gets distracted by some magical creature or another," Ron laughed.
"It's rather endearing, isn't it?" Hermione asked.
"What? Hard rock cakes?" Ron asked.
Harry said, "I think it is. Very endearing."
Ron continued, "Sort of like Hermione's bushy hair."
"What about my hair?" she demanded.
"I mean most of the girls, they do all this frilly, goofy stuff with their hair yeah? Trying so hard to be pretty and all and they just look like they knotted themselves up and they take absolute ages to do it all, too, and all they do is go about fretting about their looks and how horrible it is when the rain or the wind knocks it about... bloody hell, the way they go on. But you're endearing on account that you don't do all that, you know?" Ron said pragmatically. "You just let it go all over whatever way it wants. Just like Harry's does."
Hermione stopped in her tracks. The two boys kept walking on and Hermione frowned as she grabbed a bit of her hair and looked at it as it flowed over her palm.
Harry was looking at Ron with a raised eyebrow.
"I'm just saying," Ron was still going on, seeing the warning look on Harry's face. "It's refreshing that it doesn't matter what a fright it is, you're good to go just like it is, 'Mione! Endearing."
Hermione dropped the handful of locks in her hand and shook her head, setting her jaw. She didn't answer, but hurried to catch them up, feeling frustrated and annoyed. She thought about the book she'd gotten from the library with that morning, about how she'd stood flushing as Madam Pince had clucked and checked the book out. It was stuck under the pillow on her bed in the dormitory now so that, hopefully, none of the other girls in the room would see it and make fun or, worse, try at doing a makeover like Lavender Brown had so many times tried to talk her into allowing to happen.
Accio Beauty: Potions, Charms, and Tips for Witches Who Wish To Look Their Best.
She'd have to look up a hair charm or potion or something that could save her from it looking a fright, as Ron accused her of. She wondered what was so frightful about it? She didn't think it looked bad... Sure, maybe it was a bit puffy but - wasn't half the beauty products out there about adding volume into hair? So why try to take it out only to put it back in? She couldn't understand. And honestly, who had time to brush it a hundred times a day like Pavarti Patil sat about doing every night before plaiting it for bed?
The boys were talking away about something else - Godric knew what - and Hermione stared at her shoes, scuffed, as she watched and half listened. They were talking about having heard that Viktor Krum was using the pitch for training that day, and speculating who Krum might have got to replace Oliver Kent now that his father had fired the greatest seeker in the world as Ron kept calling him. "Not that Krum isn't absolutely brilliant of course, but he's only perfecting the classic moves Kent came up with ages ago..."
She wondered what had them talking about Krum - startled by the fact that she'd sort of half thought of him being in the library, as though she'd somehow called him to mind. But she saw quickly why they were on about the quidditch star - he was flying his broom stick in laps in the air over the pitch.
"I mean there's no denying he's brilliant," Ron rambled on, "I wish I could fly even half as good as that -- but I'd never, not on that old dung sweeper I've got now --"
They were nearing Hagrid's now and came to the split in the path where the way to the pitch broke off from the way to Hagrid's. Nearing the end of their walk across the grounds, Ron and Harry suddenly broke into a run across the grass. Hermione hugged the box of badges to her chest and sighed as she stared after the boys, walking gingerly so she wouldn't fall down as the path grew steeper.
She wasn't far down the pathway to Hagrid's when heard laughter coming from behind her and she turned back and saw Herbert Fleet and Cedric Diggory just turning toward the pitch, broomsticks flung over their shoulders, wearing matching number jerseys she recognized as being the Chudley Cannons - Ron's team. They were talking excitedly as they went by, and Hermione watched them duck through the door of the locker rooms at the pitch.
She wondered what they were up to and whether they knew Krum was already on the pitch? Maybe that's why they were headed to the pitch, to go and try at flying with the star player. If Harry and Ron weren't so thick, they probably would have gone and done the same thing, she thought. Her eyes turned back to watch them as they came up on Hagrid's pumpkin patch at the end of the path, bent down and winded and laughing at each other.
Gods, she thought. Why did they have to be so thick for?