Grey

"Grey"

When she was sixteen years old, my mum fell in love. She really shouldn't have, but she did. She was rather invisible - she played for the house Quidditch team for Hufflepuff, but no-one ever noticed her out of the canary-yellow robes. But he noticed her. He noticed her and because of that, my mother fell in love. He was unremarkable himself, or so my mother says. He was tall and very enthusiastic and he had grey eyes that mum wishes I inherited, although now I'm glad that I didn't. After she graduated from Hogwarts, they spent the summer together. And then they parted company. No one ever told me why.

She didn't want to tell him about me. He was already married to someone else by the time I was born. But she loved him and so she sent him a letter and she told him all about me. He visited when I was little, at least that's what she tells me, but I don't remember it at all. I do remember the owls that arrived on my birthdays for a while, the cards he sent me. He sent me cards but he never sent her anything. I didn't know him, but she loved him. She loved him but he never wrote her.

The cards had stopped coming by the time I was eleven. I was accepted to Hogwarts the summer before my eleventh birthday, and mum and I went to London, for shopping. They had wizard-things to buy in Hogsmeade, where we lived, and I didn't understand why we had to go on the trip. But it had to be Diagon Alley, mum insisted, and so we went. I still wish we hadn't gone. Because we ran into him there, right in the ice cream parlour in the wizarding part of London. I'd never seen mum like that before. Her eyes lit up when she saw him; she crossed the room in almost a run, forgetting about me. She looked at him and she was so suddenly happy, it almost hurt to look at her. He just looked embarrassed.

"Sofia" he said. "It's been a long time."

"Yes. It has" she beamed at him, not noticing how he kept shifting from foot to foot, casting nervous glances out to the street. I had never seen her so happy. It was beautiful. And I knew then who the man had to be.

Something made mum remember me, and she returned to where she had left me. She took me by the hand, bringing me to the man. "Amos..." she said. "Amos, this is your...this is Oliver."

He looked even more embarrassed than ever. "Hello Oliver."

"Hello Sir," I said gravely and shook his extended hand.

Mum started to say something, but she was interrupted by someone. Two someones - a tall, pretty woman and a boy who had inherited his father's grey eyes.

"Sybil!" the man said, breathing a sigh of relief. "Sybil, you remember Sofia Wood."

A dark look crossed her face. "Yes, of course. Hello, Sofia." She reached out and put her hand on her husband's arm for a moment. "Amos...Amos, we need to go. It's getting late."

"Yes. It was nice running into you, Sofia," he said, obviously lying. And he took the boy's hand in one of his and his wife's hand in the other, and all three walked away.

"Come along, Oliver," my mum said in a tired voice, and she led me out of the ice cream parlour. She didn't seem sad, mum. In fact, she was still smiling. It was years before I understood how it was possible for her to not have been sad at that moment, watching him leave with his family.

When I was sixteen years old, I fell in love. I really shouldn't have, but I did. I played Quidditch on the Gryffindor team, and even though people recognised me out of the crimson robes, they always acted as though I was still wearing them. I liked Quidditch. People listened when I talked about Quidditch, of course, I wasn't invisible talking about Quidditch. But he was different, he noticed me. He noticed me, and because of that, I fell in love. He was rather unremarkable himself, just one in a series of red-haired brothers and sister. He was tall and often too serious and absolutely wonderful. I was in love him.

I never told him. Instead, he told me a truth of his own...that he had fallen in love. Percy had fallen in love with Amos Diggory's son. With the tall handsome son who had inherited his father's grey eyes. Percy confessed everything, told me his secrets, told me the only things he'd ever kept from me. Even that he thought he was going crazy, that he knew he was obsessed when I started reminding him of Cedric...when he decided we had the same nose and chin and eyebrows, even. And that that was the moment he decided he had to tell someone, anyone.

I left his side right after that admission and crossed our dormitory room, opened a window and leaned out into the fresh night air, hoping it would clear my mind. He was the only one who ever noticed the almost non-existent family resemblance.

The strangest part was...I wasn't sad. I remember laying in bed and wondering why, and remembering mum in the ice cream parlour and how she wasn't sad either. Because she still loved Amos, despite everything. And I still loved Percy.

He didn't tell anyone else about Cedric, about their relationship. I avoided Cedric as I always did, afraid like always that he would remember that day we first met in Diagon Alley, that he would remember the dark look of his mother's face and the rapture of mine. According to Percy, they were very happy. He told me because he had to tell someone, he told me because I was his best friend, he told me because he had no idea that I loved him.

At the end of the year, we graduated from Hogwarts. I turned eighteen. Like my mother, I was offered a job to play Quidditch for Puddlemere United; unlike my mother I got the chance to accept the job. I kept in touch with Percy and saw the events of the Triwizard Tournament through his eyes in a flurry of letters. The owls always arrived early in the morning carrying the long letters that Percy sat up all night writing, his love and concern for Cedric showing in every carefully-scripted word.

This morning, an owl came. The letter was not from Percy. It was from my mother, and it was only three sentences long. Dear Oliver, I received some disturbing news this morning. Cedric Diggory has been killed. I thought you should know, love Mum.