Just Like Magic (Cedric Diggory and Hermione Granger Fan fiction)

Chapter 39: Christmas

In the days that followed, I wasn't exactly the best of company. I stayed more to myself-choosing to read rather than converse with Harry. I was utterly, and completely heartbroken. Though I tried my best to hide my tears, I knew Harry noticed. We noticed everything about each other. Maybe that's what Cedric was seeing as romantic but in reality he was my first friend. Harry was kind enough not to say anything about my crying or the fact that I tried to leave clues whenever we moved to another place. One such example was leaving my red scarf that I had worn the day they left to a nearby tree. I wasn't getting much sleep and my eyes were red from crying. Harry just simply took my hand to let me know he was there for me.

One night when Harry was patrolling outside, I turned the radio on and let music fill the empty tent. I half expected Harry to storm in and tell me how much the radio annoyed him but he simple entered and stared at me.

"It's a Muggle station." I answered.

I smiled a small tiny smile and Harry did as well. We listened for a while before Harry held out his hand. I looked up at him, my eyes filled with uncertainty, before I allowed him to pull me to my feet. I trusted Harry. He stepped forward and gently removed the locket from my neck and I felt the heavy weight being lifted over my heart. I wasn't sure exactly what he was doing but I let myself release a loaded sigh. He tossed it to the ground and I looked at it before turning my eyes back on Harry. He smiled and then simply began to dance. It was awkward and shy at first but I began to let myself go after awhile.

Afterall we were only teenagers who had this life thrusted upon them. We often forgot about that. In that moment, that dance, we forgot everything. We were just Harry and Hermione, as it always was. Even now when everyone had left us, we remained... to finish the mission. I knew then that I didn't regret staying with Harry. I would always stay on his side, no matter the situation, no matter the danger, I would remain here, with him: always. I knew this attempt at dancing was not to comfort me but to rid myself of the disappointment of Cedric's abandonment. And he was seeking me out to rid his disappointment in Ron. By dancing with me, Harry was letting me know that I could be happy and smile without Cedric. Something I had forgot in my time with him. I had let him become my everything and here Harry was showing me there was so much more. But I couldn't help the fact I love Cedric.

When the music stopped and the static took its place, Harry pressed his face in my shoulder. He then moved away and for a moment we stayed fixed with our eyes on each other. My eyes dropped to Harry's mouth ever so quickly, before I gulped and sighed anticipating something could change our lives. But Harry just stood there and the moment passed. I noticed it then, what Cedric had seen all along. There is something more here and if times were different and we both weren't in love with other people, maybe something could've happened. I was left with bittersweet sadness of what could've been. But that was not the way of world and so I turned away and simply walked out of the tent.
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The chill in the air sent chills right down to my very bones. I was wrapped tightly in a blanket and seated outside the tent by a wind-whipped fire, going back and forth between Tales of Beedle the Bard and Spellman's Syllabary. I heard shuffling inside the tent and then Harry's excited voice.

"Hermione." He slipped through the flap and handed me the Snitch. "You were right. It's like you said. Snitches have flesh memories. But I didn't catch the first Snitch with my hand. I almost swallowed it."

I looked at the tiny golden ball and watched as the words vanished on the orb. "'I open at the close?'"

"What do you reckon it means?"

"I don't know." I shrugged and then gathered the book that Dumbledore had given me. "But look I've found something as well..." I pointed the top of the title page to a small drawing of a triangular eye. "I thought it was a picture of an eye, but now I don't think it is. It isn't a rune and it's not in Spellman's Syllabary either. And its been inked in-somebody drew it-it isn't part of the book."