glow. // cedric diggory

28

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

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When Ellie woke up the morning of February 14th to snow falling outside her window, everything was blissfully peaceful for a moment. Then, her conversation with Cedric from dinner a few nights ago came rushing back. Ever since he had told her that he had no special plans for Valentine's Day, she'd been a little upset and tried to make it known.

Eleanor Campbell was never a girl known to be super emotional about these kinds of things, but he knew how much she loved. It was her favorite holiday in the whole entire world, and he knew that. He knew how much she dreamed of grand gestures of love and adoration. And yet, he had nothing planned.

She rolled over, turning her back on the window. The fresh white snow was too pure for her to infect with her bitter mood first thing in the morning.

That was when she noticed a pile of items on her dresser. She furrowed her eyebrows and sat up, rubbing the sleep from her squinty eyes to try and see what it was. Eventually she just decided to stand up and walk over. She noticed that on the bottom of the pile was a long sleeve yellow and black jersey. On the back of it was Cedric's last name and jersey number emboldened. It was one of his spare uniforms.

Ellie picked it up and smiled a little sadly. When she grabbed the jersey, a letter fell off the top. She tore open the envelope carefully and read the contents of it.

E,

I know you might be a little sad that I don't have plans for today. In fact, I know you are. Why else would you have given me the cold shoulder this whole week? Anyways, I just wanted to apologize. Please come to my game. I promise it'll be so worth it. As you've probably already seen, I've left a spare jersey for you to wear. It's long sleeved because I know how cold you get. Anyways, please do come. And if you choose to after all, I hope you'll wear it. It would mean a lot to me.

Love,
Cedric

Ellie couldn't help but smile at the words inked onto the paper. She made the quick decision that she would go to his game, but when she glanced at the clock, she realized she had to hurry. She put the letter in a small memory box that she hid inside one of the bottom drawers of her dresser.

She quickly changed into the jersey before brushing through her hair and racing out of the common room. It was deserted, which could only mean the game was moments from starting. When she reached the stands, she found Flora and Frankie both standing outside the entrance, as if they had been waiting for someone.

"Hey, Ellie!" Flora called out. "Nice to see you're still alive."

"You too," Ellie replied, her nose scrunching up with skepticism. "Shouldn't you guys be in the stands already?"

"We wanted to wait for you," responded Frankie with a smile. "We always sit together at these games. Oh, and also, happy Valentine's Day!" She produced a box of chocolates from behind her back. The tag on the ribbon said it was from her and Flora.

Ellie frowned. "I left your gifts in my dorm. I'm sorry; I didn't think to bring them to the game."

"You didn't have to," Flora said assuredly. "Now, come on. We have to hurry."

"Why?"

"The game's about to start!"

Both of Ellie's best friends grabbed her by the hand and started pulling her quickly out to the Quidditch pitch. When they got there, Ellie could already see the teams doing their pregame warmups and hurried to get seats somewhere. About two minutes after they had gotten there, Lee Jordan began his pregame announcements.

"Ladies and gentleman, welcome to the Valentine's Day Quidditch Game! Not a very harmonious name, I know, but it's all we could think of." The crowd chuckled lowly. "Anyways, today's two lucky teams that were selected to play are Hufflepuff and Gryffindor! That's two of Hogwarts' best players, going head to head for the victory--Cedric Diggory and Harry Potter!" Cheers erupted from the stands at the sound of the Seekers' names. 

Madam Hooch came out, explained her expectations for this game (though she didn't have many notes as both Gryffindor and Hufflepuff usually played pretty fairly when it came to Quidditch, unlike Slytherin), gave a brief overview of the rules, wished everyone a happy Valentine's Day, and then it began.

The game went on as usual: Lee cracking jokes (Slytherin house was catching strays despite them not even being on the field), fights almost breaking out, etc., and eventually, after a ton of effort from Cedric to beat Harry, he caught the Snitch, winning Hufflepuff the Valentine's Day Quidditch Game.

Ellie was ecstatic of course, and she was so happy that she had decided to come. When the team left the field to head up to the tent, she squeezed out of the crowd and followed them, where she noticed Cedric waiting for her.

She couldn't help the squeal of excitement that left her as she sprinted towards him. His arms were outstretched to catch her as she jumped into him, wrapping her legs around his waist and burying her face in the crook of his neck. "Oh Merlin, Ced, you have no idea how proud of you I am!" she exclaimed, grabbing his face between her hands and pressing a kiss to his lips.

Cedric's fingers mindlessly trailed along the backs of Ellie's thighs, drawing shapes and everything of the sort on the skin. "Told you it'd be worth coming to watch," he told her with a smirk.

Ellie rolled her eyes but couldn't bite back the smile that ghosted her lips before she kissed him again.

"Get a room!" a voice exclaimed. Keegan Knotter had stepped outside to grab his broom when he noticed the two. "Goodness gracious. Have you no decency?"

Ellie blushed bright red and smiled sheepishly. "Sorry," she laughed, tapping Cedric's hand to let him know to put her down. He did just that, but his arm stayed wrapped around her shoulders as he pulled her into him, pressing his lips to the top of her head softly.

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AUTHOR'S CORNER

Sorry for the super late update. I don't like this chapter very much, but it's fine. I'll try to make up for it next chapter. Readjusting to school has been a little stressful, but it's slowing down. That being said, my schedule is still pretty tight. Any free time I have goes towards this book or another project that's in the works, but otherwise, I'm very busy.

I can't promise that updates will come any quicker or more frequently, but I assure you, I'm trying to finish this book without rushing it as best as possible. If I had to give a rough estimate about how many chapters there are left for me to write, I'd say somewhere around 5-10.

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