All my life my father has bragged about my accomplishments; although I have told him many times that I don’t like this, he continues to do it. It seems as though nothing I say matters, unless it deals with being the best at a certain thing. I have tried many times to sit down and talk to him, but it’s like he doesn’t want to listen to anything I say.
As I sit on my bed waiting to leave for the Quidditch World Cup, I try to think of a way to tell my father to stop. I have never been one to talk back to him, and the last thing I want to do is make him upset, but it’s frustrating always trying to be the best at something. It’s good, I guess, that my father pushes me to do well in life, but there is no need for a person to be perfect in every single thing they do. For one, it’s impossible; no one can be perfect at everything, not even me. Secondly, I don’t want to be perfect at everything. I want to be like a normal teenager: able to make mistakes and learn from them on my own. I feel as though my father doesn’t want me to do these things; he wants me to be flawless and to not have to learn from the bad choices that I make. It’s like I can’t afford to make a bad choice, or my father is on my back the moment he hears of it.
I hear the patter of footsteps on the carpeted hallway floor, and I know that my father is ready to leave. I quickly grab the things I know I’m going to need, which isn’t much, and head for my bedroom door. Taking one last look at my room, I open the door and am standing face to face with my father.
“Cedric, are you ready, my boy?” he asks. “We have to be at the Portkey in twenty minutes, so we have to leave as soon as possible.”
“Yeah, Dad, I’m ready,” I reply, stepping into the hall and closing my door. “Let’s go.”
My father nods towards the stairs, and I set off walking in front of him. My mind travels back to my earlier thoughts, and I glance back at my father. He smiles at me, and I smile back. There’s no way I can try to talk to him right now. He’s too excited for the game, and I don’t want to be the reason why he doesn’t enjoy himself. It’s not like he’d listen anyway, but to even bring up the subject may be disastrous. I knew that if he didn’t want to listen to me I might snap. No one would think it possible, but . . . things do happen.
“Where exactly is the Portkey?” I ask as I open the front door.
“Stoatshead Hill. We’re meeting the Weasleys, Harry Potter, and Hermione Granger there,” my father replied as he nudged me out onto the front step.
I nodded, and we began our walk. It was possibly the quietest walk I have ever been on. My father spoke a few times about a previous Quidditch game that was between Hufflepuff and Gryffindor. I knew that it would be brought up again when we finally reached Stoatshead Hill, there was no way around that. Harry would be there, and then he would think that I had gone home and bragged to my father about beating the “famous Harry Potter”. It didn’t happen like that at all. As soon as I got home from Hogwarts at the end of term last year, my father had asked me about any Quidditch games we had played. I told him about Hufflepuff beating Gryffindor, and he became excited. I knew then that he would brag to anyone he met about how his son beat Harry Potter.
I am tired of always having to explain to people what really happened at the Quidditch game. No one liked to remember that there were Dementors all around Hogwarts at the time, and even though they weren’t supposed to go near the students, they did. It caught Harry off guard, and he fell from his broom. It was a win by default, but no one, especially my father, wanted to believe that. They all thought it was the most amazing thing that could happen, Cedric Diggory beating Harry Potter.
The sight of the large hill in front of me snapped me from my thoughts. We were close enough to see the outlines of the Weasleys, Harry, and Hermione, which meant that the bragging would start soon, and then I would have to try and explain everything to Harry. The trip there was going to be awful, and I had a feeling it was going to be because of my father.
Choose Your Own Adventure by TCole
Story Notes:
In order to stick to my original plot plan, the prologue doesn't follow GoF completely. Some things are different.
Disclaimer: Any characters you recognize are JK Rowlings, not mine. The title of this story is "Choose Your Own Adventure" by Powerspace, along with the two small quotes I have in the summary.
Chapter Notes: Thanks to Jenna and Emma for betaing this for me. I'm going to be rewriting this soon with the suggestions Jenna gave me, although I did fix the errors she told me about. =D
Chapter Endnotes: So, what do you think? Horrible? All right? Please review! =D I'll love you forever. lol.