glow. // cedric diggory

09.5

CHAPTER NINE (CEDRIC'S POV)

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Cedric was pacing around the Hufflepuff locker room before the game began with only one thing on his mind.

Will she even bother to show up?

He had been obsessing over the thought that maybe she wasn't interested in showing up to the first match--as irrelevant a fear as it was--and that she hated him perhaps too much.

"Mate, sit down," Keegan Knotter, one of the Hufflepuff Chasers, said. "You're making us all nervous with all that pacing of yours."

"Yeah," Richard Brenner, the Keeper, agreed. "I'm sure she'll come, Ced. When has she ever not?"

"I don't know," Cedric sighed. "I just don't know if she'll even care enough to come. She doesn't like me, and my only job is to win the game for us."

Minnie laughed. "Cedric, you're making this a bigger deal than it is. She's already told me and Jada that she's coming. Don't worry about it."

Cedric stopped and leaned against his broom. "We'd better win this one, you guys," he said. "I know I'm not the only one that wants this win. We need to show Slytherin that we train harder than they ever will."

The whole team nodded, and for the next few minutes, they reviewed plays.

Finally, a horn sounded, announcing that it was time for the game to start. The team walked out of the locker room, Cedric in the front. He led the Hufflepuff team out onto the pitch and made his way to the middle as the rest of his teammates mounted their brooms.

Sticking a hand out to Marcus Flint, he smiled. "Good luck."

"Good luck to you as well. You'll need it," Flint sneered.

Cedric never did like him very much.

They shook hands and then Madam Hooch, the flying teacher, blew her whistle. It was time to begin.

For a good while, Cedric hovered high up, trying to get a decent vantage point to find the Snitch. Malfoy, the young Slytherin Seeker, was right behind him, clearly trying to copy his movement.

When the Snitch was nowhere to be seen for a long time, Cedric let his eyes drift to where the stands were as he lowered himself to where he could see distinct faces.

His eyes locked on the person he had hoped would be there the most. Ellie Campbell was sitting in the audience with Francesca Hill and Florence Abrahams, her two best friends.

He still couldn't get over how perfect she was. The perfect student, the perfect daughter, all in all, the perfect girl. He couldn't help but imagine what he'd give to be her boyfriend. If there ever came a day where she'd give him a chance.

That thought was cut short, though, the second he saw the Snitch dash right in front of her. He chased after it as fast as he could go and eventually caught it. His heart was racing and he had hoped Ellie saw that. 

He had just won the first game for Hufflepuff. Cedric heard Lee Jordan shouting about it from the announcer's booth but was barely paying attention to a word he was saying.

As the stands started to clear out and the teams made their way back to their respective locker rooms, Cedric hurried to put his broom away and made a dash for the showers, not bothering to change just yet as he stuck his head under the warm stream for a quick second, drying it with a towel.

"Cedric, mate, where're you going?" Morgan Chedsey asked. "We're about to go to the tent."

"I'm going to go find Ellie," Cedric said as he jogged out of the room without another word.

"Let's hope to Helga he confesses his feelings tonight," Minnie laughed. "Maybe when he walks into the tent with her, they'll be dating."

"You're delusional, Min," Valerie Jackson said, shaking her head. "She hates him."

"Ten Galleons says she won't for much longer," Minnie replied.

"You're on."

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After arguing with her about what team she was supporting during the game, Cedric managed to convince her to come back to the tent with him to say congratulations to the team. It wasn't really why he was there--he had just wanted to see her, but it gave him a chance to be around her for longer, even if he was just in the same room as Ellie.

Most of the time Ellie spent was with the girls on the team while Cedric reviewed the game with the boys, but he was hardly paying attention himself.

"Ced, are you hearing this?" Morgan asked, gesturing to a stats sheet that compared the first games of each player to their most recent. "This growth is unbelievable. And for those of us who started when that other guy was Captain, we've completely grown. Our efficiency in everything we do just skyrocketed during the years you became Captain-"

"He's not listening," Keegan said, rolling his eyes.

Cedric, who was leaning against the snack table, was, in fact, not paying attention. Instead, his eyes were on Ellie, who was laughing at a joke one of the girls had told, a habit of his that he hadn't let go of for as long as he could remember.

"Mate, go talk to her," Richard urged. "Tell her how you feel. I bet you one day she'll find it out and be even more startled if you didn't say anything beforehand."

"Richard's right, Cedric," Morgan agreed. "Plus, she might respond positively. I wouldn't rule that out just yet."

"You're joking," Cedric scoffed. "Have you seen the way she talks to me? Or about me? She hates me, and it's so incredibly obvious that if I were to say anything, she'd completely cut me out of her life, as if I'm not already hanging on by a thread."

Much to his dismay, Cedric had already had this very same conversation with the team more than once. They were always together, so the six other players had taken immediate notice of the way their prized Seeker would act when around her.

"Then maybe you'll have to settle for what you have with her right now," Richard told him with a frown. "Which sucks."

"Yeah. It does," Cedric muttered, knowing that he should talk to her anyway.

He was brave enough to be a competitor in the Triwizard Champion but wasn't brave enough to talk to the girl he liked.

How ironic was that?

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AUTHOR'S CORNER

I lowkey love writing from Cedric's pov. Just me?

Anyways, here's a shortened version of c9 from Cedric's pov. We might have learned some interesting stuff about what he thinks of Ellie in this one 🤭 (actually I have an unpublished 1.5 chapter, also his pov, so if you guys wanna see that, just reply here ------>)

Love you all to the moon and to Saturn! Thanks for reading!