Chapter Text
Cedric didn’t realize he was shaking until someone tried to hand him his broom back.
“No,” he said automatically, voice hoarse. His fingers were numb, refusing to close around the handle. Rain still soaked his hair, trickled down the back of his neck, but he barely felt it. His eyes were fixed on the stretcher disappearing toward the castle doors.
Harry Potter—still, pale, unmoving.
“Cedric.”
He looked up. Madam Hooch hovered nearby, whistle clenched in her hand, her expression tight with concern and something else Cedric didn’t like at all. Calculation.
“The Healers have him,” she said briskly. “He’ll be taken to the Hospital Wing.”
Cedric swallowed. “Is he—”
“We don’t know yet.”
That should have been enough to stop everything.
It wasn’t.
The crowd buzzed uncertainly, rain hissing against the stands. Players hovered midair, unsure, brooms wobbling as they waited for instruction. Cedric could feel the match hanging there, unfinished, like a sentence no one wanted to complete.
Madam Hooch straightened. “The Dementors have been removed. The game will resume.”
Cedric stared at her.
“Resume?” he echoed.
She frowned. “Diggory—”
“That’s not fair,” he said, louder than he meant to. His chest felt tight, too tight, like there wasn’t enough air left in the pitch. “Their Seeker’s been taken to the Hospital Wing. He didn’t just fall off his broom, he—he passed out.”
Madam Hooch’s lips thinned. “Accidents happen in Quidditch.”
Cedric felt something sharp and angry twist in his stomach.
“That wasn’t an accident,” he said. “Those Dementors—someone let them too close. The match should be stopped.”
Around them, murmurs rippled. Cedric could feel eyes on his back—Hufflepuffs watching him, Gryffindors watching the empty sky where Harry should have been.
Professor McGonagall had appeared now, her mouth a thin line, her eyes flicking toward the castle. For just a second, Cedric thought she might agree.
Instead, she said, “Mr. Diggory, the rules are clear. If a Seeker is incapacitated, the match may continue.”
Rules.
The word landed wrong.
Cedric clenched his jaw. He wanted to ask her if rules mattered more than a fourteen-year-old boy who’d fallen thirty feet out of the air. He wanted to ask if winning mattered more than Harry’s breathing, his heartbeat, whether he’d wake up at all.
But Cedric Diggory was good. Polite. A Captain.
So he nodded.
“Fine,” he said quietly.
He mounted his broom again, hands steady now only because they had to be. The whistle blew. The players scattered back into motion, as if nothing had happened, as if there wasn’t a Harry-shaped absence carved straight through the center of the sky.
Cedric rose automatically, scanning for gold.
And hated every second of it.
Without Harry, the pitch felt wrong. Empty. Cedric kept glancing instinctively toward the spot where Harry usually flew—low and fast, reckless arcs that made Cedric’s heart stutter even when he told himself it was just nerves.
He should be here, Cedric thought. He should be arguing with Wood or pretending he’s fine or grinning like he didn’t just scare everyone half to death.
The Snitch flashed near the Ravenclaw stands, bright and obvious, almost mocking.
Cedric chased it.
Wind tore at his robes as he dove, rain blurring his vision. His mind refused to focus. Every dip of his broom reminded him of Harry falling—arms slack, glasses gone, body turning helplessly in the air.
His grip tightened.
This isn’t how it’s supposed to go.
The Snitch darted left. Cedric followed, jaw clenched, frustration burning hot behind his ribs. He wanted the match over. Wanted it done. Wanted to get off the pitch and back to the castle and to the Hospital Wing where Harry was—
Where Harry is, he corrected fiercely. Alive.
He caught the Snitch in a sharp, angry grab.
The whistle shrieked. The crowd erupted.
Cedric barely heard it.
He landed hard, boots sinking into mud, the Snitch fluttering uselessly in his fist. Someone clapped him on the shoulder. Someone else cheered his name.
He didn’t look up.
Winning felt hollow. Wrong.
As the teams dismounted, Cedric handed the Snitch to Madam Hooch without a word and turned immediately toward the castle. His teammates called after him, confused, but Cedric didn’t slow.
Inside, away from the rain and the noise and the rules, his chest finally loosened enough for the guilt to sink in.
If I hadn’t been watching him—
No. That wasn’t right.
If I hadn’t been fast enough—
Also wrong.
Cedric pressed his palm briefly to the stone wall, steadying himself. He had made the right choice. He knew that, knew it as surely as he knew the feel of a broom beneath his hands.
Still, the image wouldn’t leave him—Harry’s limp weight, the cold of his skin, the way his head had lolled against Cedric’s shoulder.
Cedric took a breath and started for the Hospital Wing.
He didn’t know why the thought of Harry lying alone in a white bed hurt as much as it did.
He only knew he needed to see him. To make sure he was breathing. To make sure his chest rose and fell.
The game was over.
Whatever this was—this worry, this pull, this quiet ache in his chest—it wasn’t.