The Diggory Papers

The Diggory Papers.

Cedric Diggory

As edited & arranged by Miranda C. Weasley.

I grew to hate Yenaro's bloody Voricide incredibly quickly. I can't describe how weird it is to have no sex drive at all, and I feel almost sorry for the poor sods who go their whole lives feeling like that. Only almost, because I don't have much pity in me and I wouldn't waste it on the likes of Granger(1) and Madam Pince if I did. It was like there was a connection broken somewhere between my balls and brain; I knew there was some sort of message coming in but I couldn't read it. At least Tap's foul brew worked for impressing Fleur, but not quite as well as I'd hoped, and it came within an ace of making me look the biggest fool since Humphrey Belcher. Thank Merlin for Snape, and you can tell it was bad because I wouldn't be beholden to Snape for all the gold in Gringott's. I'm getting ahead of myself, though.

For a couple of days, the plan seemed to be working pretty well. I spent a lot of time with Fleur, talking about anything and nothing - I even told her how I'd found out about the dragons, and she admitted that Maxime had told her a day earlier. We usually walked the (less visible) parts of the grounds in the evenings, which gave me an undeserved reputation for diligent egg-studying. Fleur told me horror-stories about her father's attitude to all young men, foreigners and 'modern ideas' (in that order) but I thought she was exaggerating at least a bit, so I wasn't too bothered. If I'd paid close attention, I might not be dead now. We didn't talk about the Tournament - I don't think either of us was quite sure the other was a) trustworthy or b) going to be any use, but we actually had more in common than you might think - boredom, ambition and a powerful desire not to actually die for the greater glory of the Head and Governors. Sadly, it looked at first as if she was about as attracted to me as my Voricided libido was to her. Not very. The cheerful anecdotes she told me about putting down unwelcome suitors sounded worryingly like veiled warnings - I never thought that, after so long, dealing with drooling blokes would be more like a game, or a hazard of daily life, like dodging deadlines for everyone else.

By Wednesday night, though, I was running out of time and the number of girls queueing up to get their hands on me was well into the thirties, ranging from Moaning Myrtle via Hufflepuff's entire fourth year (who came and asked me in a body, saying I could pick whichever one I wanted as long as I gave the others a dance) to a terrified first-year who fainted before I got a chance to answer and was lugged off by her admiring friends. I screwed up my courage (my courage was screwed up all right, in more ways than one) and raised the topic of the Ball.

"What do you think of this?" 'This' was a notice from Sprout, Maxime, McGonagall and Flitwick offering dancing lessons to any fifth-year or above in need. Fleur, of course, replied that she'd learned to dance at her mother's knee (work that one out sometime) and certainly had no need of anything 'Ogwarts teachers had to tell her.

"And how about your partner?" I added. "Is he as good?" I knew, or at least was reasonably sure, that there was no partner as yet - Davies would have told the world if he'd asked her but was being uncharacteristically nervous and the Boy Hero was out of favour because he'd had one too many 'better ideas' about tackling the dragon. I thought I'd better check, though, because I couldn't be sure and I didn't want to find out when I asked her myself that some French git had got there first.

"Quelle partenaire?" Well, that was good news. I had some piece of outrageous flattery up my sleeve, but saved it on the grounds that it was too cheesy. Instead, I asked in my floweriest French (which is pretty ornate, because Mother made me read French and Swedish(2) novels to 'keep up my languages') if she would do me the very great honour of accompanying me to the Ball, then went on to how I was regretted to present such a sorry contrast to her unmatched beauty - I liked that bit, it doesn't do to act aware of your own looks - etcetera. Not too many cetera, just enough.

She seemed flattered, but more shocked than anything else. Her first words were along the lines of 'it's very kind but...' and my heart sank. Her objections turned out to be along the lines of 'everyone sure to disapprove', 'what about the Opening?', 'not safe', 'what if they find out about us working together?' and so on, all of which was undeniably true if not quite the point. I did my best to come up with answers, piously invoking international friendship, precedent(3), the strength of my feelings, hang the Opening Dance because Potter made the numbers all wrong anyway and other such rubbish, but it was a losing game. The best I could manage was that she really was sorry to turn me down, which I take as one of the best compliments I ever had from anyone (well, she gave me a better one later, but that was under duress, sort of(4)), along with Dumbledore's completely untrue speech in my memory, which I heard about many years after the fact and laughed myself sick over before getting drunk for a week.

By this time it was long past my curfew (nobody dared curfew Fleur, they'd just have got a torrent of outraged French and an aristocratic sneer for their pains) so I slunk off, defeated, back to the Cellar. Unfortunately, Filch was scrubbing the floor in the Entrance Hall and leapt on me (figuratively, thank Merlin) to demand what in Salazar's stinking drawers I thought I was doing out of the castle at this hour other than making trouble for him, and so ad infinitum. Panicked and in a very bad mood, I invoked the names of the Triwizard committee, Sprout, Sous-Ministre Delacour (I'd never met him, but neither had Filch), the Floo Regulatory Board and anyone else I could think of. Spell-shocked, the insanitary old coot gave up and let me get to bed - Sprout would back me up and the rest would ignore a mere Squib caretaker.

In the morning, I got up as a man on a mission. Specifically, a mission to get myself a date before my admirers gave up on me and every girl above fourth year was taken. I nearly finished before I'd started, as Pansy Parkinson (she of the unfortunate face and very nice tits) cornered me by Lakshmibai the Lascivious on the way to Runes. Her very best seductive act was pretty convincing and might just have worked out of sheer brass neck and even sheerer blouse, but Malferret (as the Weasley twins dubbed him in a rare moment of insight) showed up and dragged her off in a fit of pique. I think I heard the words 'betrothal', 'appearances' and 'half-blood' in there somewhere, which really got my goat as even some lunatic like Caradoc Crabbe(5) couldn't fairly call me a half-blood. Betrothal, well, I don't think that covers attending balls, but Malfoys and the like don't live in the same century as everyone else.

In Runes I very gently sounded out Tap, who would do in a pinch - safe, nice, would do anything for me and if she didn't look great you wouldn't kick her out of bed either. Stebbins, though, had had other ideas and asked her out in History the previous day. She said he'd been trying to work up the courage to ask her out for ages - no wonder he signed up for History where they could have nice long uninterrupted chats and bond over Goblin Rebellions. Ben should have been a Ravenclaw anyway, Merlin knows where the Hat got Hufflepuff from. Disgusted by her oh-so-sweet new romance, I went back to glaring at Book VI of the Cambridge Runes Course and trying to work out what the blazes dipthongisation was, before Fan-Ten got round to setting us the oral exam we'd been due since the third week of term.

I spent my free going through the school in my head, thinking who I should actually ask to the Ball now Plan A had let me down. Pansy was obviously right out, because you don't upset Malfoys and live, the seventh year might as well not have existed except the brainless beauty Elspeth who, as Head Girl, was stuck with Ozzy whether she liked it or not and my year were a depressingly monogamous lot; nearly all the girls were paired off, complete boilers or Natasha Krelsky. I wasn't particularly upset to realise that my original idea was about right. Cho Chang or bust - except even the bust had gone off with bloody Malfoy. I went to lunch then, thinking Cho would be easy to find, but she wasn't - I don't know where she went all the time, but she could give vanishing lessons to the castle ghosts.

For a change, I didn't run into her in the Owlery. Instead, I was on my way up to Transfiguration when I ran into her going the other way. I decided on the spot not to bother with any smarm and just said 'Hi Cho, d'you want to come to the Ball with me?' with the best imitation of trying-not-to-look-nervous I could do. It worked; before I could blink she was wrapped around me, hanging on for grim death, and if McGonagall hadn't shown up at that moment I don't know if we'd ever have got to Transfiguration (not that I'd have minded that). Unfortunately, the sight of Cameron tartan has an instant effect, which in my case meant swinging Cho neatly into a doorway and turning around with an innocent expression. Still, the knowledge that Cho was so enthusiastic about me kept me warm through Alexandra Sutton's attempts at human Transfiguration, despite the truly awful beard she gave me. Luckily for me, McGonagall was in what passed for a good mood and got rid of it for me. She wasn't so generous to the Weasley twin who aimed his Hair-Switching Spell rather low and would up with a Brazilian-waxed skull. I was never to look at Angelina Johnson in the same way again.

With asking Cho to the ball so publicly came an instant steady girlfriend, something I'd not had since I was a snotty fourth-year (for lack of inclination, not inability to find one). With something interesting to distract her, like choosing a dress, Cho wasn't very high-maintenance at first, and the odd hour was all we ever got to spend together before one of her friends dragged her off to look at fabric samples or something. I almost thought they were doing it on purpose, and whether they were or not I'd made no more progress than a few snogs by Christmas Eve. OK, so under the influence of Voricide I couldn't really go that much further, but still, not exactly great form, especially when Cho was clearly panting for me. The only black mark against us was that Potter apparently asked her to the ball on the last day of term, thoroughly tongue-tied and clearly heartbroken when she said no. I was expecting her to be cruel about this and had plenty of damning with faint praise ready, but she felt sorry for the little berk and said she might have accepted if I'd not got round to asking her myself. I muttered mutinously at this, which got her all heated up. She grabbed me by the back of my robes, pushed me into a corner of the corridor and... Nearly Headless Nick drifted along. Damn all ghosts and Gryffindors to an eternity in Snape's dungeons.

I decided to spend the first week of holiday making a concerted attack on the golden egg, and asked both Fleur and Cho (separately, never mentioning the other) to help. Just opening the egg was less than no use, but both my lovely ladies had a theory - Cho's was that it must be encrypted somehow, Fleur's that the conditions had to be changed. Between research with the two of them - and sadly it really was research - it wasn't much of a break. Within four days I'd tried every Revealing Charm I knew, dug up enough on code-breaking to encrypt the entire library, boiled, fried and even poached (back from Peeves, who'd nicked it) the blasted egg without any result at all. On Thursday Fleur had the idea that cooling it might work, but our stacked Freezing Charms went ever-so-slightly wrong and exploded. Fleur was quick enough to Disillusion herself before Moody came along with blood in his eye, but I wasn't. Grimacing at my soot-covered robes, winked outrageously, then told me to have a bath 'and take that egg with you, you might learn something new'. I marked his advice, and decided to take my clue for a soak some other time. Moody had no business knowing the Tournament clues, but he was more than paranoid enough to find out anyway.

When he'd gone, Fleur came out from under her Disillusionment (I don't think Moody even suspected her presence) and said she too would take the advice. I was tempted to say we could take it together, but instead made non-committal noises, playing on Moody's erratic reputation to stop her taking it too seriously. After all, I didn't want her to get the drop on me for no good reason - getting to have a bath with her, by the way, would have been a good reason. She did say, to my annoyance, that I should repay my debt of honour (her exact words) to Potter by passing this news on to him; I changed the subject and thought no more of it for a while.

Christmas morning came and went in a haze of Ball-related daydreams for most of the school - presents, cake and eggnog seemed to be on hold until the evening or even Boxing Day(7). I was more excited than I let on; official Hogwarts knees-ups were rare, especially ones where even McGonagall was heard to admit we could 'let our hair down'. With that end in mind, an unholy alliance of Hufflepuffs and Slytherins (the Weasley twins were under constant watch to stop them getting up to anything) had produced a triple whammy of Firewhiskey, Incertior and that compressed-hangover stuff that ought to be illegal(8). Robbie Ogden explained that he'd had an idea, and had only spiked the drinks nobody not in the know would ever ask for - Muggle orange juice and the Gillywater that went in something called a Clean Fang(9) were the two I remember. It was a pretty good idea, were it not for one fifth-year who'd been introduced to cocktails over the summer. That made it a great idea.

It was Tap who brought everything crashing down at lunch, by the simple expedient of asking how I was getting on with her horrible potion. In a flash of horrible memory, I remembered her saying that it took a fortnight for a dose to completely wear off. It had only been, let me see, ten days. Oh shit. I had my wand at her neck in no time flat and only just managed to convert the gesture to a joking threat in time. Rather than threaten like a Dark Wizard in a bad novel, I begged her to get me an antidote before the Ball. Looking terribly guilty, she rushed off.

Again, I was reduced to pacing the corridors and waiting, waiting for news. I polished my broom (my actual broom, you pervert, I didn't have a choice with that bloody potion in me), ironed my dress robes, dug out Mother's family signet ring - she was a Bragge, of the old political dynasty, and it was worth a small fortune, put it back, put it on again, dropped my cloak-pin down the sink, Summoned it back and got a chunk of the plumbing too... by five-thirty I was a nervous wreck fit only for the Hog's Head or the International Confederation. Eventually, Tap rushed into my dorm (and how she even got into the Hufflepuff Common Room I didn't know) babbling about getting expelled for burgling Snape's office. I didn't care about that, my eyes were locked on the vial of pink stuff in her hand.

It tasted absolutely foul, but as soon as the aftertaste faded I felt a massive grin spread across my face as the parts (speaking metaphorically) I'd hardly noticed missing most of the time slotted back into place. Tap echoed my smile with one that could have got her arrested in some countries but left quickly, muttering about lost time. She certainly made up for enough of it that night. Restored to my usual self, cloak-pins and signet rings were no obstacles at all, and I was ready to pick Cho up from West Tower with time to spare. I showed off just a little by beating Paracelsus at his own game - years of Ingolfr finally paid off when a quote from the Saga of Brolth Blackwand got me into the oak-panelled Ravenclaw quarters - they didn't have a Common Room so much as a library with lots of little carrels and a bunch of leather chairs by the fire. Cho was on her way down as I entered and she looked like a million Galleons in a midnight-blue robe with silver trim and whew! she'd better not let McGonagall see that neckline.

The Ball opened, as we'd been warned, with the Champions' Dance. Potter was with an Indian girl I didn't know, Fleur with Roger Davies (damn his eyes) and Krum... well, I didn't think I'd ever seen her before, but there was no mistaking Granger's grating whine even if it did come from what looked like a very young but at least potentially drop-dead-gourgeous socialite. I suppose you can do anything with enough Sleekeazy's and Glamour Charms, even make Granger clean up OK. What Krum was doing with her is anybody's guess - maybe he wanted someone who'd be so grateful she wouldn't expect him to talk, dance or otherwise make himself at all pleasant. It partly explained why Potter was looking so grim though; I'd have taken Pratsil(10) or whatever her name was over Granger any day, but there's no accounting for taste. Cho, incidentally, couldn't dance a step, so I actually got to lead for a change - younger girls tend to take charge and drag you where they want to go.

Cho was claimed for the next song by a plump German called Blowitz and went happily enough, so I let the fourth-years have their dances. When the last one let me go, I looked around for Fleur or Cho and saw both over by the trestle tables serving as a bar. Fleur was still trapped by Roger Davies and I decided to leave her for the moment, but Cho was alone, talking to one of the hired caterers. She was talking about her holidays, I think (he was young and handsome and I'd gone off with a bunch of my fans, so I couldn't complain) and finished, "... and they aren't like the real thing, of course, but I'll have another of those Clean Fangs please."