All At Once by electronicquillster
Chapter Notes: This story is dedicated to quite a few people: Anna Fantasium and Abi Joybelle for being supremely excited every time I mention it (and the latter for helping me iron out as many wrinkles as possible) - To Jenna the Vault for pushing me to get Katie out of the library - For my NEWT Romance class for letting me play along with them and putting up with my insanity during the spring semester - To Ashley and Patrick and EmDab for putting up with my nervous anxiety over putting this up - To all my readers who will be angry that I am putting up yet ANOTHER new story when I haven't updated any of my WIPs lately...
Enjoy!
O.W.L.s, O.W.L.s, O.W.L.s, O.W.L.s! Katie couldn’t take the studying any more! Three paper cuts had been her limit for today. She’d also broken the tips of two of her best quills with all of the furious scribbling. Her fingers were stained with ink, and her body had the overall feeling of stuffiness from too much time in the library. She wasn’t meant for flipping pages and collecting notes at a table in a stale, quiet room. No, Katie wasn’t fully alive unless she was out on the Quidditch pitch, flying about freely in the air. And if she didn’t get out there soon, she was going to start screaming hexes at everyone who blinked, and there was no way she could explain it away as merely studying the practical methods for casting spells.
She threw her books and parchment into a messy pile and shoved the pile into her bag.
“Where-?” her friend Leanne started.
“Quidditch field,” Katie cut off. Her tone explained everything.
She loved Hogwarts, but, at this moment, every stone of the castle felt like a device for cruel confinement. She walked as quickly as she could down the corridors and up the staircases to Gryffindor Tower and her dormitory. Running could get her in trouble with Filch, and she couldn’t risk her freedom. She tossed her bag onto the ground by her trunk and grabbed her broom.
After an eternity, she was finally able to burst out of the heavy doors and out onto the lush, green, rolling lawn, spreading out enticingly from the castle. Katie inhaled deeply, slowly filling her lungs with the early summer air. The sun warmed her face, and she smiled brightly, trotting off leisurely past the lake and to the Quidditch Pitch.
Katie dearly missed having Quidditch in her life over the past year at Hogwarts. The Triwizard Tournament was definitely exciting, but it still didn’t compare to getting to go out and train and compete with her team. She missed that. It would do her good to whiz around the pitch for a while. Flying didn’t clear her mind, but it did help her to organize her thoughts - thoughts which had been nothing more than a lumpy jumble lately with all of the studying and stress.
When she finally made it to the field, she took a step back, letting her jaw drop at the sight before her.
The lovely pitch, her pitch, was seemingly overgrown with thick, monstrous hedges. How could this be? The one thing she needed to relax her mind had been ruined. What’s another disappointment, Katie? She asked herself with a sigh. She rarely got the things she wanted most anyway. She heaved a great sigh that turned into a great gasp as someone flung their hands over her eyes from behind her.
“Guess who,” he whispered in her ear.
She grinned but elbowed him in the stomach anyway, making him groan and release her.
“Katie!” he exclaimed in agony.
“Cedric!” She mimicked. “It’s no more than you deserve for nearly scaring me out of my skin, you prat!”
He straightened up, laughing, “I suppose you’re right about that.”
His laugh was contagious, and Katie joined in. “Stop looking so smug.”
“I can’t help it, I haven’t been able to surprise you so well in ages. It was worth the bruise I’ll have on my poor stomach.”
Katie rolled her eyes at him.
“What’ve they done to the pitch?” she asked after a moment, sounding like a little girl who has denied a treat.
“Like it?” Cedric asked.
“Hardly.”
“Me neither. We found out about three weeks ago that the final task is a maze. There are supposed to be all sorts of things to face inside of it, but there’s no way to tell what any of them will be,” he explained, striding forward to the edge of the maze. “I’ve been out here a lot trying to figure out the layout of the maze-”
“Cheating?” Katie interrupted in a teasing tone.
“It’s not cheating,” Cedric protested. She raised an eyebrow at him to contradict. “They didn’t say we weren’t allowed to memorize the course. They showed us where it was, so they shouldn’t expect anything less,” he explained in defense. “Doesn’t matter anyway. It didn’t take long for me to learn that the hedges move around.”
“What? They move?” Katie asked, all astonishment at how hard this task would be if the walls kept moving.
“Yeah. I got lost a couple of times because of it, and then the hedges got too tall for me to look over anymore, so I’ve been watching them from the stands. The center stays the same, but the deeper in you go, the more the hedges migrate from one spot to another, except the border. You want to see?”
“I came out to fly, not plant-watch.”
“Pity we couldn’t fly over the bloody thing to have a look at it,” Cedric replied, his tone dripping with excessive sarcasm.
Katie whacked his leg with her broom, before mounting it. “Coming up?” she asked, sliding forward on the handle to make room for him behind.
“Sure, I’ll be your knowledgeable tour guide.” Cedric took his place behind her, holding onto her shoulders.
“I’m rolling my eyes at you again.”
“Good.”
At Katie’s signal, they both kicked off the ground, rising above the walls of the maze next to them. Katie began a wide circle above the border of the maze.
“This is the broom you won at that Ministry picnic two summers ago, isn’t it?” Cedric asked. Their fathers, Mr Diggory and Mr Bell, both worked at the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Cedric and Katie had known each other since they were quite young because of the many times their families attended and stuck together at Ministry parties.
“Yes. You remember that?” she asked, looking over her shoulder for a second, a smile on her face.
“Of course I remember that. I wanted the broom, but yours was the name on the ticket they pulled out for the raffle.” He clutched one hand to his heart and leaned forward so he could see the tragic expression on his face.
She laughed.
“It pains me to think of it, even now.”
“Even now, with the broom you saved up for and got last summer, which is a better broom than this one?” she scoffed.
“Oh, right,” he smirked, “it is.”
“Fat lot of good it’s been for you this year.”
He only shrugged. “There’s nothing futile about owning a great broom. Hey, why don’t we land in the middle and try to find our way out?” Cedric suggested. “I’m sure we can escape by supper, and if not, we’ve got your broom, so we can just fly out.”
Katie thought for a moment, then began a swift descent into the heart of the maze. “Sounds perfect. I’m in need of a good adventure. Besides, I hardly see you around, Mr Champion, who is too busy for anything but the tournament.”
They hit the ground with a light thud. Cedric held out his hand, silently offering to carry the broom. “Indeed, I am much too busy,” he answered in a lofty tone, barely keeping a straight face. “Legend speaks, however, of a girl who has been chained to her books, consumed with flipping pages, and-”
“Oh, stuff it,” Katie laughed, shoving Cedric as they began their course through the hedges.
“I’ve missed you, Katie.” Cedric said, pausing for a moment.
She genuinely smiled at him, looking up into his face. “It’s good to spend time with you again.”
He smiled back, and it gave Katie a warm feeling. How had she forgotten what a good friend Cedric was?
“Which way?” he asked. “Right or left?”
“I suppose it doesn’t matter if the hedges move?”
“Nope,” Cedric answered on a laugh.
“Then let’s go left.”
Cedric and Katie embarked on their path, not really knowing, even after half an hour, if they were going in quite the right direction. They only ran into a couple of dead ends, and they made sure to keep track of which way was north, checking with the directional charm now and then. After maybe an hour, a hedge on their right decided to move in their way, instantaneously blocking their path and nearly engulfing them in its thick, leafy shrubbery.
“Well, now that we’ve dodged death by hedge...” Katie didn’t finish the thought. She merely shook her head at Cedric. They spent a few moments pulling leaves out of their hair and clothes.
“Look at this.” Cedric stopped to examine a small patch of the hedge where there were tiny white blossoms sprouting into delicate flowers in front of their eyes.
Katie gasped. “How pretty.” It was a simple reaction, but that’s really how she felt.
“I’ve never seen flowers on the hedges before,” Cedric remarked. He plucked one of the flowers and held it out to Katie.
Katie smirked, raising an eyebrow. “Do you think I’m really going to accept a flower from a dangerous hedge, taken against the will of the plant?”
“Worst case scenario: you grow an extra nose because it has cursed pollen,” he said as he tucked it behind her ear.
“Cedric!” She swatted him away and laughed, but she was smiling and she didn’t remove the flower.
“Can you imagine the kind of superior smelling you’d get with an extra nose?”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“One of my many charms.” He shrugged, smirking down at her. She shook her head and laughed at him, and their eyes caught each other. They caught and held, and it was a different feeling between them at that moment, one that brought a blush to Katie’s cheeks, and had she not averted her eyes immediately, she would’ve noticed Cedric start to grow a little red as well.
He coughed and then they both began walking again. Cedric struck up their conversation again, not wanting any of .... whatever he had felt a moment before to make things stiff between them. “I’m pretty sure the deathly hedges will be the least of my worries in the task, though,” he said, as if they had been discussing this already.
Cedric explained that he was sure that the maze would be full of obstacles, after all, moving plants alone were no match for the previous danger of a dragon or having to survive underwater. Katie mentioned he might even come across some Devil’s Snare, making a good point that if he was only concentrating on non-leafy obstacles and merely continuing to find his way in the mayhem, it might creep up on him unawares. Cedric was glad Katie mentioned it, and she made a good point because, while these hedges had clusters of four leaves on a sprig, he remembered Professor Sprout showing them the Devil’s Snare with the five leaf clusters, and it had a similar look to these hedges. It was probably a related plant - hedges that move, vines that try to grasp and suffocate you.
“What would you be most afraid of meeting in this maze?” Katie asked.
“I’m not sure,” he said after a moment, thinking of the many creatures he’d learned about from his Care of Magical Creatures books. “Hopefully nothing to top a dragon. But we do live in a wondrous magical world with all sorts of beasts.”
Katie shuddered. “Too right. Do you remember the Streeler our dads brought back from Africa two years ago?”
“Bleh, yes, that thing was disgusting.” Mr Bell and Mr Diggory had been sent to Africa to retrieve some Streelers to deal with a particularly nasty flare of the Horklump population in Ireland at that time. The giant snail’s only appealing factor was that it changed colors every hour, but it really didn’t combat the less than desirable sliminess of it.
They talked about the more memorable creatures their fathers had worked with in their department at the Ministry, and when that topic had run its course, Katie sighed and then asked something else.
“What’s your biggest fear?”
Cedric looked over at her again, and then began thinking. What was he more afraid of than anything else in this world? No creature or plant came to his mind.
“Honestly?” He finally began. He saw Katie nod her head, letting him know she was listening and wouldn’t discount his answer. Cedric stopped, and so did she, turning to face him. “It’s that I’ll let everyone down.”
For a moment, Katie didn’t say anything. Then she put a hand on his arm and smiled warmly at him. “Cedric, everyone believes in you, and they know you won’t let them down because you haven’t ever given them a reason to doubt their faith in you.”
He turned to face her as well, touched by her words. He locked eyes with her again.
“You won’t let everyone down.”
Katie was mere inches away from him, and he let his head descend to capture her mouth in a kiss. His lips moved hesitantly at first, waiting for her to let him know this was alright. She began to respond, and one of her arms moved up to wrap around his neck. He placed a hand on the small of her back, pulling her closer and holding her sweetly. Their other hands found each other and entwined. Every part of Cedric felt electric while he kissed Katie.
Then Katie stopped the kiss, but she kept her eyes closed, and she didn’t move away from Cedric. She rested her forehead against his while they both caught their breath. Cedric moved his hand up and down her back, waiting for her to do or say something, but it was still a few long moments before she did.
“Cedric...”
He could tell what that apprehensive tone in her voice meant without her explaining it. “I know.” He sighed. He knew what she was worried about, and, yes, he was worried about it, too. Cho Chang. “Katie, I really like you.”
“But are you going to do anything about it?”
After a moment’s pause, he squeezed her hand and asked her what his heart needed to know. “Should I?”
“I can’t tell you,” she said simply.
The hedges to their right moved again, startling them away from each other, but their way out of the maze was opened up. Katie kissed him on the cheek, her lips lingering close to his as she pulled away again. She reached for her broom and said something about seeing him later before leaving. She wasn’t running away, she simply knew what he did: the moment was over, and it was better for her to leave him to his thoughts. He headed up to the bleachers again, needing to think about the maze and the possible dangers the task would present him with, but more concerned now about the maze of emotions in his heart. He had to make a choice: Katie or Cho.