The Diggory Papers

The Diggory Papers.

Cedric Siggory

As edited & arranged by Miranda Charity Weasley.

First Published 2074 by Lovegood & Boot, London.

Editor's Preface: As every child knows, the murder of Cedric Diggory in the summer of 1994 heralded the beginning of the Second War against the Dark Lord Voldemort. In death, Cedric was hailed as a model student and national hero, a self-effacing yet brilliant young man who died defending the honour of his school and the life of his comrade. Cedric Diggory, however, did not die on that night in June 1994. If these memoirs are to be believed, he survived the Killing Curse cast by Peter Pettigrew and fled to Pago Pago.

It is a matter of public record that Cedric was Hogwarts Champion in the Triwizard Tournament alongside Harry Potter, Seeker and Captain for his House Quidditch team and recipient of nine OWLs, but little more was previously known about him. The discovery of this manuscript in a Little Whinging sale-room sheds a new light on his life and on those of his friends and contemporaries, the Golden Generation who fought Voldemort to a standstill and ushered in a period of peace all too few of them lived to enjoy. Despite the sometimes incredible content of this memoir, its authenticity is almost unquestionable and the author's explanation speaks for itself. From the style, it seems probable that he dictated the whole thing either to his quill or to a close friend. The editor's role has been limited to correcting Mr Diggory's grammar, introducing consistency into his bizarre rendering of some names and adding historical footnotes. Whilst his grasp of history after his 'death' is somewhat shaky, he is first-class on Quidditch of all eras.

In what appears to have been a fit of extreme paranoia coupled with a desire to protect reputations, the front of the box of parchment which comprises the manuscript is labelled as follows:

"To be opened after the deaths of:
Cedric Diggory

Harry Potter

Chang Cho Li

Fleur Delacour

Viktor Krum

Professor Albus P.B.W. Dumbledore

Professor Pomona Sprout

And you'd better be damn sure Lord Voldemort really IS dead."

This command is backed up by an extremely unusual lock which no key can fit and no known charm can unlock. Fortunately for posterity, the box itself was not quite so well-protected.

x*x*x*x*x*x*x*x*x*x*x*x*x*x*x*x*x*x*x*x*x*x*x*x*x*x*x*x*x*x*x*x*x*x*x*x*x*x*x*x

I suppose this is a good time to tell the truth. I'm an old man now, I've had a long life well away from England and after sixty years it's likely that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is properly dead this time. The news here, such as it is, said Potter killed him in 1998. Potter 'killed' him in 1981 as well; see how much that helped us. Anyway, nobody and nothing can touch me now, so it can't hurt to tell the real story about the 83^rd Triwizard Tournament, the return of the greatest Dark Lord the world has ever seen [right before my eyes] and more ducking, playing dead and running like hell than anyone would expect of a Triwizard Champion. I wonder what Potter did with my share of the cash anyway. Probably gave it all to starving orphans or something, the honourable little twit. But I digress.

Nobody was more surprised that I when I was selected as Hogwarts Champion. Everyone knew I only had two talents; Charms and flying, to which I'd quite like to add charming the flighty. In that subject, my record is long and distinguished. For academic references, consult Beauxbatons' classes of 1994 to 1996 and don't be surprised when they pronounce my name 'Sade Reek'. Sounds ridiculous, but I can tell you it's not nearly as bad when it's coming from a Veela(1) with legs up to...

Got a bit distracted again there. That's somewhere in the middle of the story, anyway. It starts with me ending up in Hufflepuff to the great irritation of the family's hordes of Ravenclaw [or should that be ravening?] bookworms. I don't really know how that happened; I've never worked hard if I could avoid it, equality is for people with no chance of being on top on their own merits and as for loyalty, well, you can ask the aforementioned Beauxbatons classes about that. Most likely it's because I asked the Hat not to make me a Slytherin, for the very sensible reason that I thought my mother would kill me. Ravenclaw and Gryffindor were right out, leaving the Duffers' House with an unexpected infusion of style. I suppose you can at least call me true - to mine own self, the main chance and the pursuit of life, liberty and women(2).

That's not really too relevant either, though. The short version of the next few years is that I made a few friends of the sort who can detect success a mile away and follow it around like [and often with] a bad smell, got into the House Quidditch team in my fourth year and got very good very quickly at cramming, plagiarism, divining the content of exams and brown-nosing the more susceptible Professors. The first was nasty but essential; the others saved me having to do too much of it. Incidentally, the only exam you couldn't hope to predict was Divination. Funny, that. You might almost think the Stick Insect was a complete fraud. I should know; one fake can always recognise another(3).

I first noticed Potter's existence when I beat him in the opening Quidditch match of my fifth year. As far as I know I'm the only Seeker ever to defeat him, which my father was quite ridiculously proud of. OK, most of the things I'm proud of he never knew about, but did the officious old fool have to latch on to one Quidditch game as the high point of his life? He wasn't even there. It was after that game, though, that I first found out how much fun being a House hero can be. Before then I was reasonably popular with the younger Hufflepuffs, but for one night everyone wanted to know me. Even the seventh-years, so busy and self-important they normally didn't seem to notice the rest of the school, lined up to shake my hand and tell me what a fine fellow I was. All rubbish; if we'd lost it would have been 'well tried, Diggory, now go away'. The girls' reactions were surprising though, innocent as I was. Ever since, I've been relying on what I learned that night; most women will melt in the presence of six foot of victorious Quidditch player and if the effect doesn't last too long there's always more where they came from.

The rest of that year I spent basking in my newfound glory as star player, trying not to get killed by a particularly vicious Slytherin team [glory's no use to a headless corpse] and conning all sorts of people into doing my work for me. Stebbins, for example, could never resist demonstrating how brilliant he was at essays and as long as I put up with his sarcasm he corrected everything I wrote. In return, I let him hang around with me, introduced him to one of the Fawcetts [the young one, I think] and occasionally deigned to play Gobstones with him.

When the OWLs came round, I worked just about hard enough, made up Divination practicals with the best of them and generally kept my head down until the last day, when a celebratory foray into Hogsmeade ended with seven of us scattering into the night to escape McGonagall out for her evening constitutional. That could have put a dampener on things; fortunately Harald Ostmann was large, slow and daft enough not to let on who he was with. I probably should have felt a wave of gratitude for his self-sacrificing nobility, but if anyone's daft enough to face McGonagall for my benefit he deserves whatever he gets.

Mostly, I enjoyed that year, nearly as much as I did the majority of the next, when I wasn't fleeing enraged Veela, hiding from merpeople, dodging dragons or being murdered by dead Dark Lords. I even got to see the World Cup, though that might have been more fun if I hadn't spent the party afterwards being marched over by three dozen Death Eaters whilst I played dead for all I was worth.

¹ This presumably refers to the celebrated Fleur Weasley, née Delacour. In fact she was one quarter Veela, the Beauxbatons champion in the Triwizard Tournament and, after her marriage to William Weasley, one of the foremost heroines of the Second War. As far as any of her surviving relatives can remember, she never mentioned having met Cedric Diggory.

² The manuscript is peppered with such quotations, both magical and Muggle, often inaccurate. Evidently the influence of Diggory's Ravenclaw family is making itself felt. It is possible that some of his long career abroad was spent among Muggles.

³ It is strange that Diggory refers to Professor Sybil Trelawney as 'a fraud'. The Seer is, of course, best known for receiving the Potter Revelations, as her three prophecies regarding the Second War are generally known. Perhaps Diggory was not a great believer in Divination or Prophecy.