The Exchange Student - Cedric Diggory⁴

➣ 𝘾𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝟕 "𝙃𝙖𝙧𝙧𝙮 𝙋𝙤𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙧"

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Third year; first term; September - December 1991

There were two things that kept Nicolás the most excited about the start of the school year. First, he had decided to take on the Apparition training, after his success on the Animagus training. And secondly, this was the year Harry Potter would finally start at Hogwarts.

Nicolás and Caelum had quite the tormented past with Harry. Not directly with Harry, but more likely, with the situations around the boy.

He had been born the morning of July 31st of the year 1980, when Nicolás Caelum a few months short of turning three years old each, that December.

The first thing they noticed, was how Aunt Lily had gotten fat. Like, each visit, her belly would be bigger, and rounder, and the small boys were left perplexed and without explanation.

When they started to ask, their parents tried to explain to them that it was because a baby was growing inside Aunt Lily's stomach. But that didn't make sense, why would she want to grow up a baby in her stomach? Weren't there more comfortable places to grow a baby? And how on God's evergreen Earth had she gotten the baby to be inside her belly?

And of course, when debating all the endless possibilities, their still small and infantile minds came to the most logical and fool-proof conclusion... Aunt Lily had eaten the baby!

And then, suddenly, the baby was out! And it was the most beautiful baby they had ever seen —the only one, mind you—, with his messy hair, like Uncle James, and his gorgeous emerald eyes, like Aunt Lily, challenging Caelum's silver ones for the most beautiful.

The night they met him, they had sworn to protect him, to take care of him, so Aunt Lily wouldn't eat him again, but that oath was broken the night they left the U.K., as they never again saw little Harry.

Nicolás knows his parents and Aunt María had taken periodical trips (almost religiously, one of them would go at least once every two or three months) to Hogwarts. They wanted to know where Harry was, but Albus Dumbledore, the school's headmaster, always refused to disclose that information.

He always reassured them that Harry was fine and that he was happy where he was, growing up just perfectly cared for. And that he was kept there because of his own well-being. But they didn't trust that, not when they all had met, at least once, Lily's sister, Petunia.

Nothing worked, no matter how much they traveled, how many letters they tried to send Harry, to locate him, it seemed like the house he lived in was simply hidden or didn't exist.

And so, the years passed, with Nicolás and Caelum sporadically sitting on the worn bench by the lake to cry for hours, remembering Harry and dreaming about how Harry would be. But now it was different because Harry was starting Hogwarts!

The first letters of the year that Nicolás sent were to Caelum. Asking about some potions incident, in which Caelum's cauldron exploded, and about Harry, because the doubt was eating him alive.

And the response didn't disappoint, with a wide smile, Nicolás read Caelum's words.

"But yes, Harry's here! And he was sorted in Gryffindor!!! God, he's adorable, I almost melted when I met him, you'll probably die when you do... He's so small, I swear, the first years are normally small, but he was just a smol bean. And he wears these round spectacles that make him look like a little baby owl. And those are the same Uncle James used to wear!... I swear he's like a rejuvenated photograph of Uncle James with his tanned skin but with Aunt Lily's eyes."