Pairing: Cedric/Harry.

Rating: R.

Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended. Characters owned by J.K. Rowling.

Summary: Cedric confronts Harry in the prefects' bathroom... about Cho. WARNINGS: MAJOR GOF SPOILERS.

Author's Notes: I'm ecstatic at having done this pairing, as I'm rather obsessed with Cedric "Hufflepuff Hottiepants" Diggory. (Hey, I gotta support my house...!) Anyway, with the fourth book kept in mind, the title should definitely speak for itself. I hope I did all right with Cedric's character and with the dynamics of his and Harry's pseudo-friendship-thing. *proudly bears a "Support Cedric Diggory!" badge* I did mess with what happened in the canon text of the book (originally, Harry leaves the Prefects' bathroom seconds after Moaning Myrtle does), so my apologies for that.
Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns 'em; I just own their leashes.

//...// denotes thought
*...* denotes emphasis

//We've taken what you'll sorely miss.//

Harry restlessly swirled his hand around in the froth that rested on the surface of the water like a thick soapy tundra. What could *that* be? Well, several things, Harry was reckoning. //I'd miss Hogwarts, but they couldn't possibly take that. I'd miss Hedwig, of course, I always have her as company... my Firebolt... Ron and Hermione, most definitely. But I'd also miss air if I didn't have it to breathe... is that what the egg was talking about? Argh... it's nearly too cryptic!//

"Harry?"

Startled, Harry's body lurched in the pleasantly warm water of the bathtub, and he panicked for a moment, thinking that he'd been caught where he shouldn't have been, but looked over to see Cedric Diggory standing tentatively by the door of the Prefects' bathroom. Harry blinked at the older boy, who managed a slight wave and an earnest smile.

"Uh, Harry... sorry if I scared you. Hi."

"Er... hi, Cedric." Harry's body relaxed, but only minutely. He hadn't expected anyone to show up at such a late hour in such a private place, especially Cedric. "Should I leave?" he ventured.

"No, no!" Cedric blustered, waving his hand again. "I -- well -- want a chance to talk to you a bit, iif you don't mind..."

Harry stared at the seventh-year Hufflepuff, who was obviously not trying to waver underneath his confused stare. The last time he'd seen Cedric looking so apprehensive was shortly before he'd gone out to face his Welsh dragon in the first Triwizard task a few months ago. The golden egg, Harry's winning from that first task and his clue to the second, sat next to Harry on the tiled rim of the bath, reminding Harry once again that it had been Cedric who told him at Christmas to take the bath he was currently soaking in. That presented a new thought.

"If it's about the second task--" Harry started, but Cedric adamantly shook his head.

"No, it isn't -- it's about... Cho."

At the mention of Diggory's girlfriend and Harry's crush, Harry's stomach did a funny flip-flop. With a surge of panic, his eyes swept over Cedric's handsome face, trying to find any hints of anger.

"Y-Yes?"

Harry could have kicked himself for letting his voice squeak. But Cedric didn't appear to notice, stepping forward into the light mist of the room and raising his hands to undo the clasp of his Hufflepuff-sealed black work robe. Harry watched in apprehension as Cedric hung it on one of the ornate gold hooks on the wall next to Harry's dressing gown, which was luckily hiding the shimmery, sheer folds his Invisibility Cloak. When Cedric stripped off the sweater vest, tie, and then the crisp white button-up shirt that was underneath the robe, Harry was belatedly struck with the realization that Cedric... was going to be *joining* him in the bath. It was a shock that struck him in the stomach like a physical blow, and he whipped his head forward nervously, not wanting Cedric to think that Harry was fascinated with his undressing.

Nudity. That didn't bother Harry too much, at least, it hadn't really, before, among his friends in his dorm room. They often went to the showers in groups, horsing around in the evenings or yawning tiredly in the mornings. But this was highly different than the communal showers of the Gryffindor boys' room. This was one-on-one, and they'd be facing each other, in the bathtub where they wouldn't be focused on bathing themselves, but rather the talk Cedric wanted to have with Harry.

About *Cho.*

Oh, God.

Harry didn't know if he could do this.

He forced himself not to look up as, quite near him, Cedric stepped into the bathtub, sliding into the water in one long length of perfect pale skin and sending the water and bubbles around Harry into a protest of motion.

With even only his peripheral vision, Harry knew that he was seeing a sight that half the girls and even a few of the boys at Hogwarts, especially as of late, would die to see (the spying Moaning Myrtle again came to mind). Cedric *was* rather pretty, not in an effeminate way nor even in an overly masculine and chiseled way, but in a wholesome, glowingly handsome sort of way, and his body -- well. Harry was three years behind Cedric, but even if he hadn't been, his own skinny, short body that seemed to be all feet and hands could never have compared. Yet Cedric wasn't a huge hulk of a boy like Viktor Krum was. He was small and slim enough to be an effective Seeker, muscular enough to be considered muscular (very unlike Harry), and graceful enough to have the complete control over his body that Harry sometimes didn't have.

Cedric uttered a little sigh of contentment as the water and foam lapped at his chest, and this time, Harry looked. Cedric caught his eye and gave a grin.

"You should *definitely* be a Prefect, Harry."

Harry managed a feeble grin back. "This almost has me sold," he admitted.

Settling himself into a leaning position against the edge of the bath, Cedric closed his eyes. "Nothing quite like surviving a particularly rough Quidditch match and spending the rest of the evening soaking away the fatigue. It's really great."

With nothing to say surfacing in his buzzing mind, Harry didn't reply to that. He frankly didn't want to instigate the conversation Cedric had come to have.

"How did you know I was here?" he found himself asking with a degree of suspicion not unlike the type Cedric had demonstrated when Harry had told him about the dragons involved in the first task.

"I didn't... but..." Cedric opened his eyes and looked directly at Harry, who had to steel himself in order to keep a straight face. His opinion of Cedric wavered back and forth with every passing moment, and it was difficult to keep the opinion off his face. "I've been checking in here every night since I told you, after the Yule Ball. I've been meaning to... to try and find you by yourself... and talk to you."

Cho. Harry drew in a sharp, silent breath. Cedric was really serious. His feelings for Cho must have been equally serious, if he wanted to lecture Harry about liking her. He remained silent. He wasn't going to ask for a lecture.

Cedric gave a small laugh. "Uh... you must really hate me as of late."

That pretty much caught Harry's exact line of thought, but that also sort of hurt. It wasn't as if Harry shot Cedric death-looks in the corridors, and he didn't *actually* hate Cedric with the kind of hate he reserved for Draco Malfoy, for Peter Pettigrew, for Voldemort. It was a much pettier hate, that was really more on the jealousy side of things.

"No. I don't," Harry replied flatly, put off because of what Cedric assumed, but also because it *was* true.

The dark-haired boy gave a tiny smile. "Heh... you're... you're *nice*, you know that? It's okay, though." He diverted his eyes, and his voice softened. "I'd certainly have something against me. I mean... I walk in the halls every day holding hands with the girl you like. I gave you your first Quidditch defeat since you were a first-year." He shook his head. "I didn't believe you when you said you didn't put your name in the Goblet."

Harry sat there, feeling completely off-center at being so well-spotted. Every single thing Cedric had said was something that had been gnawing at Harry like an annoying pet that followed him everywhere.

"So..." Cedric's eyes flickered hesitantly back up to Harry's. "I mean, if you do hate me... I see why."

"Well, I don't," Harry informed him coolly. "Feel better?"

Again, Cedric grinned, but it was rather uneasily. "Sort of... well, I mean, that's not what I wanted to say to you, but yes, actually, I'd really rather not have you hate me. Harry, I'm -- I'm glad we're... friends."

At that word, Harry could have reeled back in surprise, and he blinked at Cedric disbelievingly. He was swinging back and forth like a pendulum between a liking for Cedric and a jealousy of him, and was surprised that Cedric was being so nice. After all, Cedric had just as much of a right to hate Harry as Cedric claimed Harry had a right to hate him. Even if it hadn't been on purpose, Harry was stealing Cedric's limelight, forcing Cedric to share the title of the Champion of Hogwarts, competing against him for the Triwizard Cup. After all, the staggering majority of Hufflepuff (and Slytherin... and Ravenclaw) hated him for stealing Cedric's glory.

Harry cleared his throat nervously. "Er... me too..." He trailed off, but then picked up on something else Cedric had said immediately. "Cedric... you know... I didn't put my name in the Goblet. There's no way I could have."

Harry met Cedric's eyes directly. They were a rich, velvety shade of gray-blue, and surprisingly much deeper than Harry would have thought, from the pretty-boy image Cedric maintained. Something flickered in those eyes.

"I believe you."

Relief was sweet upon Harry's tense limbs. "Thanks."

Odd-handedly, Cedric added, "Cho believes you, too."

Cho. That name. It made Harry flush quite a bit darker than his skin was already from only the warm water. The Golden Snitch that was fluttering around in Harry's stomach was knocking against his insides so hard that Harry was unsure of whether he was flushing because he liked Cho or because Cedric knew he liked Cho.

"Does she?" he whispered. He hadn't meant to whisper, but his voice was suddenly gone.

Cedric nodded. "I know why you like her, Harry. I like her a lot too." Harry fidgeted in pure nerves. Talking about another boy's girlfriend was not something he wanted to do, especially with that other boy. Cedric shifted in the water, sitting forward a bit more attentively, as if physically leaning in deeper into the conversation. "She's a brilliant Seeker, she's... well... very, very pretty. She's nice, and so cool, smart as the dickens, and she has a sense of humour you wouldn't believe..."

Harry's heart gave a pang. He... he didn't know her that well. Not for lack of wanting, though. The boy across from him shrugged his toned white shoulders.

"She *is* great. I don't know what she's doing with me."

With a firm jaw, Cedric braved Harry's aghast stare. What did he *mean*?! Cedric was one of the most popular boys in school, especially among the girls, was the star of Hufflepuff, and, well, he had more than two "very"'s in front of the "pretty" label on his forehead. After a few moments of Harry's intense stare, Cedric's eyes darkened and fell away again. Now, his voice was a whisper, too.

"I don't know what I'm doing with her, either."

Shock was a pretty mild term to describe what Harry was sitting in. It was as hot and surrounding and physical as the bath water, but nowhere near as comforting, and much easier to pull himself from.

"Are you *mad*?" he blurted.

"Sometimes, I think I must be," confided Cedric softly. "Who am I... *what* am I... to not want to be with Cho Chang?"

He looked back up at Harry significantly, as a teacher would when expecting an answer from a student.

//Mad,// was the first thing that came to Harry's mind, and his jaw worked as he looked at Cedric's face. There was something odd flitting over it, something specific in Cedric's eyes that Harry was having trouble pinpointing. Then, in a blinding flash, the word came to Harry like an insight straight from the Sorting Hat.

"Gay?" he managed.

Cedric's eyes squeezed shut, closing off the part of his soul that he'd bared.

//Oh my God.//

The silence that descended over the two boys in the bath was phenomenal. Disbelief washed over Harry in nauseating waves. It was not a nausea borne of disgust, or fright, or any other negative sort of reaction to the word, or the implication, or to Cedric himself... but it was surprise in its rawest, most confusing and disorienting form, much like the rather sick feeling he'd gotten upon finding out that he was a wizard. Wholly unbelievable.

Cedric's whisper was soft like a wind on the water. "Do you hate me now?"

Harry's mouth worked without his voice working with it several times before he got it to function again.

"No, of course I don't."

Cedric peeked at him in a very timid fashion.

"I'm really glad."

Harry's jaw was slack again, and he glanced down at the shimmery, lazy floating bubbles on the water, blinking and trying to rearrange this new information into his shambled mind.

"Then why are you..." he began. He couldn't finish. He didn't know if he had a right to ask.

But Cedric shook his head, mouth a straight line. "Do you remember my dad, Harry?" //Amos Diggory.// Harry nodded, understanding slowly dawning. At his nod, Cedric nodded too. "He'd... be so disappointed in me."

Those words conjured up a powerful feeling of sympathy in Harry's heart. Now, he was vividly recalling Mr. Diggory's broad, boasting grin, the fierce pride he'd displayed in Cedric, the no-nonsense attitude he'd showcased at the World Quidditch Cup in dealing with Winky. He really seemed to be the "shoot first, ask questions later" type. With the memory of Cedric and his dad at the Cup, it was like a piece of a puzzle sliding into its proper place, and he understood, truly understood, why Cedric wanted so much to do well, to be the Triwizard Champion.

"I know you know," spoke up Cedric softly, with no small amount of pain threaded through his voice, "how it is to be singled out, to have excellence expected from you when you feel unprepared. When you feel different. To be expected to deliver, when you just... can't imagine how." He managed a bitter smile. "My parents want me to find a nice girl. Marry her. Give them grandchildren. And I know..." he shrugged helplessly, "I can't do that. Even with Cho, I'd never be who I really am. And -- and Cho! I do love her, Harry. She's my best friend. My absolute best friend... the most important person in my life, I'd say. But I can't love her like... like she deserves. Like marriage would dictate."

Harry's mind spun with Cedric's words. "Does she know?"

Quickly, Cedric shook his head.

"Then... then why..." Dammit, his voice was cracking again. Cedric was looking at him curiously. He forced his voice to be steady. "Why do *I* know?"

"I'm leaving Hogwarts after this year," Cedric said deliberately. "Cho isn't."

Breathing picking up alarmingly, Harry stared, dazed, at the handsome, winning boy who'd just confided so much in him. Was he saying what it sounded like he was saying?

"Cedric... I..."

Cedric swallowed. "She really does think you're an amazing Seeker."

Harry choked. "Cedric," he repeated. This was impossible. Cedric was telling him that he shouldn't lose heart, or more importantly, Cho's heart? That there was a chance? Instead of the happy hope he should have been feeling, Harry felt distinctly disturbed, heart reaching out much more for Cedric than for Cho. With all he and Cedric had been through together recently, Cedric was so much more of a real, complete person than Cho Chang was. So, Cho was pretty, and a good Seeker. So was Cedric. Cedric had a heart, too.

At the look on Harry's face, Cedric quickly said, "I -- I know. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to... say it like that. I don't like anything at all being handed to me..."

Harry nodded numbly. Cedric understood that, and Harry knew it, from trying to share tips about the tasks with him. Neither of them wanted help, but neither of them wanted to be left at a lower advantage than anyone else.

Cedric sighed, looking worried. "I just wanted to tell you. I thought..."

The uncomfortable silence was creeping back.

"What?" pressed Harry quietly.

"I thought it would make you happy," the boy murmured. Harry's hands fidgeted in the water.

"Cedric?" he questioned. Cedric looked up at him. "Why?"

"Why?" repeated Cedric in soft tones.

"Why are you... being so nice to me?" Cedric broke into a bemused expression, Harry fumbled for the phrase Cedric had used. "I'd certainly have something against me."

At this, Cedric only smiled.

"I like you."

Harry's cheeks tingled with their blush, and a few traces of guilt for ever dismissing Cedric as a pretty boy with enough brains to fill an egg-cup started tugging at his heart. Cedric coloured too, much more drastically than he had when his name had been called as the Hogwarts Champion.

"A lot," he added in a tiny voice. Harry swallowed, wondering if he'd heard right, and assumed he had when Cedric's eyes widened slightly and he coughed and said, "I'll leave you to your thinking now."

Cedric climbed quickly out of the tub, and Harry was treated to the exquisite sight of the lean muscles and flawless skin of his entire, shiny-wet, naked backside. Harry's mind could not have been more jumbled than it was at that moment, and without the structure imposed upon him by his normal reactions and opinions, he found himself admiring the beauty that was Cedric without regard -- none whatsoever -- to Cho Chang. Cedric padded, gloriously nude, over to his clothing, fumbling with the garments in his obvious embarrassment, but still bending and walking with a certain amount of confidence. Cedric was definitely one of those people who was just made to walk around all day without clothing, because covering up a body like that was practically sinful. Harry sat for a moment in the lukewarm water, eyes glued to the sight.

Then, he scrambled up and out of the tub, nearly slipping on the tile.

"Cedric," he said desperately, and Cedric turned, mouth falling open a little at Harry's approaching naked figure. Harry was very much aware that there were still soap bubbles sliding down his body from all the foam that had gathered on his body in the hour or two he'd spent in the bath, and that Cedric was following their winding trails down his skin with eyes that were *so* much prettier than his face or his body, because they were windows to his *soul*, and he found that he liked being regarded that way by his friendly rival. "You really want me to try and date Cho when you're gone?"

Cedric swallowed visibly, cream-coloured throat working. "I thought *you* wanted to."

//Mad,// Harry thought again.

"What do *you* want?"

Cedric's black and yellow tie slithered unawares from the pile of clothing in his arms. He stared at Harry still, eyes slowly returning upwards to meet Harry's.

"I... I don't..."

Steeling himself again, Harry stood on his tiptoes, leaned in, and after a bittersweet moment of hesitance, pressed his lips onto Cedric's gingerly. Cedric stood, stunned from a response, but his mouth still burned with taste and sensation under Harry's, and Harry jerked back again, not knowing where the sudden urge to kiss Cedric had come from, but knowing that the surprise on Cedric's face was scaring him. Had he misread Cedric's words somehow?

Then, in a flutter of fabric, Cedric had dropped his clothing onto their feet, wrapped two strong, developed arms around Harry, whirled him around and pressed him against the wall, and had covered Harry's lips with his much more experienced ones. Something sweet previously hidden inside Harry was beginning to peek out from the wreckage of his thoughts, and he melted almost completely in Cedric's arms, responding to the kiss with a deepening need. Their bodies, slippery and very naked, were sliding deliciously one against the other, and Cedric's tongue was gently, tentatively sliding into his mouth, and *that* was far more delicious than Harry could have imagined.

It was amazing how he'd thought his mind could never be more of a disorganized clutter, and then along came Cedric Diggory, pulling out all the drawers and all the doors once again, and freeing him from the structure of his life.

//I can give him this. I want him to be happy...//

When they pulled apart, gasping for breath, Cedric's mouth moved along Harry's lips still, along his cheek and nose and ear, leaving Harry completely winded and panting for breath.

"Why..." Cedric whispered against him, voice thick.

"I like you," whispered Harry in reply, slipping fingers into Cedric's short dark locks, then melting again into his passionate, sensitive lips. Yes. Right now, he could give Cedric this... this kiss. This night. They could forget who they were, and what was expected of them, and allow themselves this relief and companionship. And maybe after the Triwizard Tournament was over, and their imposed rivalry had blown over, and Cedric left Hogwarts and was no longer attached to Cho... they could share more.