The Best Year (A Cedric Diggory Fanfic) {HIATUS}

Chapter Ten: The Beast Within

The Best Year

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Chapter Ten: The Beast Within

Friday, November 27th

I had counted five hundred and seventy two golden embellished cloves, on the ceiling of my four poster bed. It was the morning of the first task, and my mind was everywhere else, but where it needed to be. I had to focus.

Checking the time, my small alarm clock read seven am. I had to hurry up. If I was going to prolong my exit of the Quarters any longer, I would run the risk of seeing Oliver at breakfast. I was rather pleased with myself, that I had managed to avoid him for the last few weeks, with the exception of Quidditch practice. I knew that we eventually had to talk about it, but right now, I enjoyed the fact we both acted as though it never happened. Many times I thought about why I accidentally said Cedric's name, and night after night I hadn't come up with an answer. Cedric was very attractive, however I didn't like him. He had feelings for Cho, and I wasn't going to play the position of the evil home wrecker. Adam and I had a long conversation that night, surprisingly not about my possible feelings for Cedric – Just on how to handle Oliver. I was quite rattled by the whole situation, and I doubted we were still together after Halloween.

Why? WHY! Why was that brown eyed charmer on my mind? I didn't have the mentality to think about Oliver at that moment, I had no reason to. It was the morning of the first task and I was postponing my awaking for as long as possible. I knew I couldn't do it for very much longer since the Champions needed to be at the pitch around eight. Cedric would come knocking at my door soon enough. Today would be one of those long days that ended around midnight. The plan was to escape the Gryffindor celebrations as early as possible, and hope that Cedric wouldn't bring home Cho to... exhibit how much he appreciated her company.

Tap. Tap. Tap. I glanced over to the window, where on the ledge sat a rather large barn owl. Tied to its leg was a parcel of some, wrapped in crumpled brown paper. The body ratio to the parcel it was carrying, was rather large, so I was surprised that such a aerodynamic creature could carry the item.

Counting to three, I rolled off my bed as gracefully as possible, to let the owl in. It swooped down onto my bed, allowing me to approach it, and untie the parcel from around it's leg. Curious to see what it was, I ripped open the packaging and tossed it aside. It seemed to be a cloak, in the colour scheme of red and black. This must be the uniform for the first task. I quickly stripped down and put it on. The outfit, although warm was very light; The Hogwarts emblem was plastered across the last hand side, and as I turned around in the mirror, I noticed across the back was my surname embroidered in golden thread.

"Morning Cedric," I said half heartedly, as I grabbed an apple from our never ending fruit basket.

"Morning, ready for today?" He asked.

"Cedric, honestly, I don't want to talk about the task." I said, "If we don't know it now, we aren't going to, in an hour."

"I know," he said. "I just read Men Who Love Dragons Too Much last night, and got a real good quote from it."

"And what would that be?" I asked.