A Change in Fate || Cedric Diggory [1]

Chapter 40: The Hog's Head

"I can't believe you made me go in there."

"What? Every couple at Hogwarts has been there."

"If you ever drag me into Madam Puddifoot's again, you are dead, Cedric Diggory."

Cedric grinned in amusement at Analeigh's words and swung their interlocked hands playfully. The two of them had just finished having a light lunch at the tea shop on the first trip of the year to Hogsmeade.

"It wasn't that bad," Cedric tried as they strolled down the icy path. November was just coming to an end, but snow had come early and blanketed the wizarding village's roofs and roads. "The tea was good."

"I couldn't taste it over the unnecessarily strong perfume in that place," Analeigh shuddered. "A small part of me thinks you purposely took me there to get back at me."

"Why would I ever want to get back at you? Certainly not because you're cutting our date short at the last minute so we can meet up with Harry and the others."

Analeigh shrunk back sheepishly at the sarcasm dripping from his voice.

"There's no other time or day we can do this!" she defended. Cedric sighed and dropped the act.

"I know, I was just kidding. But we better go on a proper date on the next Hogsmeade trip," he pouted. "Now, where did you say we were going?"

"Oh, a more... private place."

"Sounds suggestive," Cedric wiggled his eyebrows, leaning closer to Analeigh's face. "Is it dark in there?"

"Not like that," Analeigh said, hitting his arm scoldingly.

"Merlin, woman, you didn't have to hit so hard," Cedric rubbed his arm even though she barely put any force into the hit. "Can you just tell me where this meet up will be? You told Alden but you didn't even tell me."

"Because I'm not currently on a date with Alden, so he needs to know how to get to the location on his own," Analeigh deadpanned.

"If you ever go on a date with Alden, I'm cursing you both," Cedric said, making Analeigh laugh under her breath. "Just tell me where we're going already!"

"It's just some place that not a lot of people would go to in Hogsmeade... you know, so we can talk about you-know-what more freely. I'm not telling you until we get there because I'm sure you'd just throw an even bigger fit about cutting this date short."

"Fine," Cedric huffed childishly. For a while, the only noise they made came from their shoes crunching on the snow-covered grounds. Then, Cedric spoke up again but in a lowered voice, sounding slightly hesitant. "Look... is this really a good idea? As much as I want to do it, Umbridge is watching everyone like a hawk nowadays. If she found out that the Head Boy and a bunch of prefects were rebelling against her...."

"Honestly, I wasn't sure if it was a good idea at first, either," Analeigh admitted quietly. "Dad told me to not do anything this year that would get me into trouble, but, well, this is for a good cause. We need to learn how to defend ourselves. We got through that tournament, and now we need to take a step further because a certain toad at school isn't going to teach us how to do that."

Cedric pursed his lips; he did want to fight back and learn real magic because Umbridge was horrible and not letting them do anything worthwhile. Still, he couldn't help but feel reluctant about it because if Umbridge found out, well, he wasn't sure what she'd do to them at this rate. He recalled how Amos also told him before they left Platform 9 3/4 to focus on his academics since it was his last year at school and that the Order would take care of what was happening outside the walls of the castle. Cedric knew his father was only trying to protect him from the brewing war, but he couldn't ignore that everything that had to do with it was slowly but surely seeping into Hogwarts.