saving the spare // cedric diggory

chapter 6

Jasmine

I watch Cedric as he shuffles through the doors of the Great Hall, noticing he hadn't taken a single bite of food in his time there. He turns his head towards me for a split second and then practically runs out of the Hall. 

He'd walked in, a blonde boy grabbed his arm, and they started talking. Cedric looked like he was about to explode as he walked out the door.

"Draco Malfoy," says Hermione, pointing to the blonde boy. "That's the boy you're looking at, right?"

"That's his real name?" I ask, gawking at him in disbelief. 

"A fitting name for the slimy brat he is," Hermione continues, going back to whatever book she was reading. "It sounds evil, doesn't it? It's latin for a dragon or serpent."

"I guess," I say, unsure of what to say. I came to appreciate Hermione's little blurbs of information, helping me find out more about the students in our year. "He's a bully?"

"Yeah. A real daddy's boy," she says with a sigh. "He's done loads of stuff to Harry, Ron, and I over the years. We ignore him when we can, though. A bit of a prat."

She looks up at me with a sudden frown. "You don't...fancy him, do you?"

I roll my eyes, laughing at her suspicious tone. Not him. But... "I'm not really into blondes. Unless you..."

It was her turn to roll her eyes and laugh as well. "Anyone but Malfoy."

"Well," I continue, curious to see if she knows, "what do you think Cedric was doing with him, anyway?"

Hermione scoffs, closing her book to focus on our conversation. "Cedric's ego is higher than a muggle skyscraper," she says simply. "He probably took another of Malfoy's bets or something. They're something of mortal enemies, you know."

"So they make bets with each other...to feed their egos or what?" I respond, my head pounding with the new information. Cedric? High ego? No. That's not him.

She shrugged. "They're just rivals, that's what they do from time to time. They're not friends, that's for sure." She pauses, leaning over to punch Ron in the arm for trying to take some of her eggs and I stifle a laugh.

"Cedric's been nothing but nice to me," I murmur, more to myself than to Hermione.

She shoots me a worried glance, hastily fixing her curly brown hair into a long ponytail before classes. "I don't claim to know him well, Jasmine, so don't trust me on this. He could be a good person for all I know. I forgot you've been spending time with him. I...didn't mean to insult him."

The Great Hall begins to clear out and my mind runs crazy with the possibility of Cedric taking a bet. Did it have to do with me? I practically snort at the idea. No, shut up, Jasmine, not everything's about yourself. Of course it's not about me.

"Well if you want my opinion," calls Ron from across the table, ruffling his own ginger hair, "I'd say Cedric's got issues. There's darkness in him, alright."

"Divination expert now, are we, Ron?" Hermione says bitterly, grabbing her bookcase and pens as she sat up. They start to bicker back and forth, and I tune them out. Something about a divination class from the year before; I didn't really want to know what that was all about.

"I'm just saying," Ron sputters, "not all Hufflepuffs are rainbows and unicorns."

I stare at the doors of the Great Hall where Cedric had left from earlier, wondering if Ron was right. If Hermione was right.

Is there more to Cedric Diggory?