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The Lioness And The Badgers	By : sawahhaych Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Hermione/Cedric Views: 7550 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter (Although I am British I am unfortunately not the amazing JK Rowling!). I do not make any money from the writing of this fic.

Chapter List
- 8
- 9
- 10
Cedric and I spend every spare moment of the next week in the disused classroom, Cedric practices whilst I go through books and generally cheer him on, We talk as much as possible deciding that he will probably need to be able to do these spells with a lot of distraction but Cedric is still worried.

Cedric has been silent most of this evening, I have had to carry both sides of the conversation. I am worried about him, this is not like him at all, his casting is off, the animals he is creating are worse than my half hedgehog half pincushion, his posture is hunched and his movements slow. Cedric doesn’t slouch when standing, he stands tall and confident, the boy standing before me is almost a mockery of the Cedric I have come to know.

“I don’t know if I can do this.” Cedric admits, head hanging, wand dangling from one hand whilst his other runs through his hair, gripping it occasionally like he is trying to pull it out.

I look up from the book I was reading, seeing his face almost makes me cry, he looks so helpless and lost. I toss the book to the side and go to stand directly in front of him. Reaching out I gently touch his chin and lift it up so he meets my eyes. “You can do this.” I say firmly, emphasising the word 'can'. “The cup chose you, the whole of Hogwarts is behind you and we all believe in you Cedric.”

Cedric smiles sadly before taking my hand resting on his chin, he holds it gently between our bodies. “Sorry...”

I shake my head at him and have to stoop again to catch his eye, which once again has strayed to the floor. “Cedric, look at me.” I straighten as he does, looking deep into his shining grey eyes. “You do not need to apologize, you are scared and that's fine but don’t for a second even entertain the notion that you cannot do this.”

He smiles more this time and squeezes my fingers gently before slowly bringing my hand up towards his face, gently he places a kiss on my knuckles. “Thank you Hermione.” He says with a sad smile.

I feel my face go scarlet and turn so my hair covers my face, Cedric releases my hand so it slides off his, making contact right until my longest finger falls off his. When I turn back Cedric is once again in the middle of the room tuning all the tables and chairs into various objects and animals, back straight.

-xXx-

Turing to the call of my name at breakfast the next morning I come face to face with Cedric's closest friends, as it is a weekend and the Gryffindor table is almost empty they all come to sit by me. “Got your note Granger.” Maxine O'Flaherty says holding up said note as she falls into the seat next to me.

“Hi.” I offer after setting down my spoon and waving awkwardly to the Hufflepuff's.

Maxine seems to be the ringleader at the moment so introduces everyone. “Call me Max.” She comments eyeing the parchment on the table in front of us which I had addressed to Maxine. “This is Luke.” She says gesturing to the boy with wild light brown hair in front of me. “Tony and Will.” Again she gestures to the other two boys present, Tony with shockingly black hair considering his colouring and Will who has the bluest eyes I think I have ever seen.

As we finish introductions Cedric appears behind me, he sits to my left as Max is on my right. “What’s this all about Granger?” Cedric asks eyeing his friends wearily and reaching for a slice of toast.

I turn to Cedric. “I know you are worried about being prepared and I think I have a way for you to practice.”

Cedric says nothing but motions for me to go on, a curious look on his face.

“Okay, so you're worried about the crowd distracting you, we need a crowd for you to practice.” I say decisively.

Cedric finished chewing a bite of toast. “I agree, but this isn't exactly a crowd.” Cedric comments.

I smile at him. “This is just the start, I want to get as many of your house mates as possible, I will ask the Gryffindor's to come and someone will need to ask the Ravenclaws because I don’t really know anyone in the house.” I start.

“I can ask Cho.” Cedric agrees nodding.

Cho Chang... pretty, intelligent and Harry has a thing for her... apparently so does Cedric. I squash my disappointment down and carry on. “We can use the Quidditch pitch since it isn’t being used this year, get loads of people seated, use megaphones or something to up the noise and I was thinking of getting as many desks and things down to the pitch that you can practice on.”

Luke is the one who speaks up this time. “Sounds good, we can do some spells to make it seem like there are more people and there's a classroom on fourth floor used for storage, its got loads of desks and things, we can shrink them to move them easily.”

I turn back to Cedric. “There is also one other thing I would like to try to make it more real.”

Cedric nods at me to carry on whilst taking another bite of toast.

“I was thinking of asking Harry to hover on his broom above the pitch and shoot some low level spells at you, maybe squirt water at you or something?” I ask.

Tony answers whilst Cedric seems to be digesting the plan, and his breakfast. “It's perfect.” He announces. “It's exactly what we do for Quidditch, remember Malc's first game?” He asks the Hufflepuff's who nod at him. “Stage fright or whatever you want to call it, he just needed practice, we did something similar for him.”

Cedric grins at me. “Genius as usual Miss Granger.” He says with a wink.

-xXx-

The next morning I am down at the Quidditch pitch surrounded by half of Cedric's house enlarging previously shrunken furniture and placing it randomly around the pitch.

“I think that's the lot.” Tony says dumping out a bag of tiny tables. “Shall we?” He asks pointing his wand at them.

I nod and between the two of us we enlarge them all back to size whilst Luke and Will levitate them around to different parts of the pitch.

“Thank you, by the way.” Tony comments studying the ground.

I furrow my brows. “For what?” I ask

Tony looks at me and smiles. “Yesterday, before you told us about this plan Cedric was... I don’t want to say depressed but it was almost like it, and you came up with all this.” He says gesturing around us. “And it helped him, Cedric right now needs to be doing stuff all the time to both keep his mind off the tournament and to prepare for it, this seems to have done both.”

“I'm just trying to help.” I say blushing.

“Well you are.” Tony says. “And in case he doesn’t say it, know that the rest of this house... hell from the turn out today the rest of the school, are really grateful to you.”

Harry suddenly lands next to me so I don’t need to reply to Tony, not that I would know what to say, hopping off his broom Harry says. “Looks good from up there.”

“Thanks again Harry, for doing this.” I say pulling him in for a hug.

“Gotta make sure Hogwart's wins.” He says matter of factly. “Plus is seems to mean a lot to my best friend too.” Harry winks, I roll my eyes at him, he knows I like Cedric even though I haven't told him, I like to hope that it is just because he is my best friend but I know better from the looks the Hufflepuff's have been giving me and I am not quite sure what to think about that so I try not to.

“EVERYONE OFF THE PITCH!” Luke yells down to us from the stands, signalling it is time.

I grin at Harry who once again mounts his broom, before I run off to the stands, which are pretty full. All of Hufflepuff are of course present as are almost all of Gryffindor and Ravenclaw, there is no sign of any Slytherin students amongst the rest of us.

The crowd is quiet as Cedric makes his way onto the pitch looking a little sheepish in front of all the spectators, I don’t get it, it must be just the same as when he is in a Quidditch match but for some reason he says it is different.

Cedric waves at everyone, we cheer in response as he gets himself ready, he holds his hand up to signal Harry to start.

Any misgivings I had about this not being real enough are eradicated as Cedric gets into his stride, he is able to ignore all of us as we shout and scream as loud as we can, he weaves and rolls between obstacles whilst casting, not paying any of us the least bit of attention. I have tasked some of the students to shout derogatory things too, to ensure that we are covering all the bases. We wave our arms, jump and generally try to make as big a nuisance of ourselves as possible but this does not faze him.

After only a couple of minutes the field is covered in dogs, cats, horses, sheep, cows and hundreds upon hundreds of birds. He shoots ropes out of his wand at some targets to catch them whilst hiding behind others from the water Harry is constantly casting at him, occasionally shaking his head to rid his hair of the excess water.

Cedric lasts for an hour before he holds his hands up to call a stop to the practice. A cheer, louder than possible from the crowd, erupts accompanied by claps and whistles. Cedric bows to us all, doing a full circle before shouting 'thank you' and falling to the floor comically. I watch the accelerated rise and fall of his chest as I make my way down towards him.

Luke and Max get there before me, helping him up off the floor and are in the middle of praising him unashamedly. “That was fucking ace man!” Luke says clapping him on the back which almost knocks the exhausted Cedric over.

I hold out a towel to him. “That was really good.” I says with a smile.

Cedric grins back at me. “Fucking hard work is what it was.” He comments taking the towel to dry his hair and face. I laugh as he takes the towel away form his hair which is sticking up in every direction. “Are you laughing at me Granger?” He asks with an evil look in his eye.

“I believe I am Diggory.” I shoot back raising my eyebrows in a 'what you gonna do about it' look... What he does about it is grabs me in a huge bear hug, his robes still soaking wet, before rubbing the wet towel over my hair too.

I shoot Cedric a dark look. “Not so funny now is it Granger?” He asks waving the towel around triumphantly.

I look down at the floor for a second for effect before tilting my head up to meet his eyes. “If that is how you want to play Diggory...” I don’t finish the sentence, pull out my wand and cast the spell Harry has been casting all day. The cold water hits Cedric square in the face. He wipes the water off with the towel before dropping it to the floor.

“You really, really, shouldn’t have done that.”

I watch with wide eyes as Cedric slowly and deliberately raises his wand before I screech 'no' and run for the nearest cover I can find.
- 8
- 9
- 10
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The Lioness And The Badgers