Rancid mist churned across the field.
Stones stood out from the darkness like the broken fingers of some starved demon clawing out of the Great Pit of Tartarus. He tried to run, but his body refused to do as it was told. The smoke clenched around him, pinning him, smothering him. A deformed figure stepped toward him, wrapped in fog and shadow, uttering cryptic gibberish into the barren sky. Green lightning exploded. Then: darkness. Nothing.
Cedric's eyes snapped open. He gasped cool, clean air, and searched the room for familiarity. The curtain of his four-poster was drawn, but he instantly recognized the earthy smell of The Cellar. He heard a muted tocking; his breathing slowed as he reached under his pillow and wrapped his fingers around smooth brass.
He slipped the antique pocketwatch out of its hideaway, holding it up with the chain draped over his chest. In the flickering light of the dormitory's candles, he saw that it was just passed midnight. He turned the watch over, traced his fingertips across the three letters etched into the back in graceful script.
ICD. Isaac Cerdic Diggory. His father's father, for whom he had quite nearly been named. A fortuitous typographical error by a junior Healer at St. Mungo's had saved him from that fate. He couldn't help smiling at that first stroke of luck, and it was almost enough to stifle the irrational terror of his nightmare. Almost.
Cedric climbed out of bed, dressed in his nearest set of clothes, slid into his shoes. He left the dormitory without waking his classmates, made his way out to the common room, and passed undetected by the pair of sixth-years snogging by the fire. He headed up the staircase, muttering obfuscatus as he tapped himself on the top of the head with his wand. He shook off the sensation of raw egg dribbling through his hair, and was soon out in the corridor, heading toward the Entrance Hall.
Given the overabundance of portraits throughout the Castle, Cedric had always been amazed at the ease with which one could sneak about the school after hours. Of course, he had never done so with malicious intentions, so perhaps he had not yet tested the limits of the Castle's defenses. Now he crossed the Entrance Hall beyond the empty Great Hall and passed out into the pleasant darkness of the courtyard.
The night air cleared his head in an instant, and made the fear upon his waking seem absurd. He wandered along the covered walkway to the right of the doors, wondering absently about the figure from his dream. He did not suspect that it was an actual person, but rather some subconscious expression of his inadequacies. That the dream was a manifestation of his fear of being destroyed by his own shortcomings.
He had made the mistake earlier in the year of asking Professor Trelawney her opinion on the matter. Naturally, she had promptly pronounced that he was going to die, drawing down on him a level of attention he would have sooner done without. He had, however, discovered that he now belonged to an exclusive club of students whose deaths Trelawney had, wrongly, prophesied. In any year the group might include seven to ten members, who referred to themselves with morbid humor as The Walking Dead.
Cedric was abruptly drawn out of his own thoughts by the sound of sniffling. He looked down the arched walkway, and in an irregular patch of moonlight, he saw a small girl sitting on the corner of the corridor. Cedric could see only that she had dark hair as she looked out over the grounds, and though she didn't seem to be crying, she was the only person around. Unless, Cedric mused, remembering a tale his mother had told him in his youth, there was someone running around Hogwarts with an invisibility cloak.
He headed to her quietly, meaning only to make sure she was okay. He'd only come out here to clear his head in the first place, and that was just about done; a couple more minutes in the fresh air and silver moonlight would be more than enough for him to head back inside. She gave no indication that she heard him approaching. He stopped a few feet away, and leaned on the stone balustrade to take in the imposing mountains.
"I didn't mean to be out after hours," she said. Her voice was soft and thoroughly Scottish, and though Cedric would never admit it to anyone, the sound of it in all that silence made him jump. She yawned, wiped at her eyes, and turned to him. He could tell she couldn't quite make him out, but she knew generally where he was. She looked him in the face when she explained, "I couldn't get into the Tower."
Cedric caught a glimpse of her blue-and-bronze necktie hanging loose as she turned back to the landscape. He remembered his Disillusionment Charm and released it; the air felt closer, swaddling him gently as the Charm dissipated. The girl glanced back to him, and he saw a small smile flicker across her mouth. From this close, in this light, he could see that she was pretty in a way that implied that she would someday be quite beautiful.
He could feel himself blushing, and was grateful for the darkness.
"I'm not a prefect," he told her.
She didn't answer, and it was several long seconds before she spoke. "We were up in the Library working on our Transfiguration essays until Madam Pince sent us back to the dormitory for the night. By the time we got to the Tower, I was too tired to think straight, so I couldn't answer the eagle's riddle." She sighed, shifted, and crossed her arms.
"Charlotte is such a bloody wanker sometimes," she muttered to herself.
Cedric choked back a laugh and said nothing, but nodded sympathetically. It didn't seem to bother the girl that this stranger might not know who Charlotte was as she said, "she laughed at me, wouldn't shut up to let me think. After the eagle refused to let me in, Charlotte said I'd stand a better chance of getting into the Dufferpuff dormitory."
"Hey," Cedric said, feigning umbrage. "I'm in Hufflepuff."
"Then clearly," the girl answered without hesitation, "my friend is an idiot."
This time he did laugh, and the girl smiled at him. He glanced away toward the Lake as the Giant Squid broke the surface, gleaming under the moonlight. Cedric had heard a rumor once that the squid was actually Godric Gryffindor in his animagus form, and it was just the sort of nonsensical story, he thought, that the Weasley Twins would invent.
"Two more students were attacked," the girl said suddenly, bringing Cedric back from his thoughts again. "A Gryffindor and a Ravenclaw."
Cedric nodded. Professor Sprout had told the house that evening that two Muggle-born students had both been Petrified, and that the assailant had yet to be caught. She had warned them against traveling alone, encouraged them to report anything suspicious, and appealed to them to watch out for all of their fellow students. Cedric had not been particularly concerned with his own safety; his family was pure-blooded for centuries.
That had made him angry. He felt no right to be spared the fear that other students suffered simply because of the conditions of his birth. And while he might not worry about himself, he made up for it by worrying about his friends. He was one of eleven fourth-year Hufflepuffs, only three of whom came from more than a few generations of wizards. Four of his classmates were Muggle-born, and one first-year Hufflepuff had already been attacked. Cedric wondered briefly if this girl, sitting here alone in the dark, was Muggle-born, or if she was just friends with someone who was, before realizing it didn't matter. She had every right to be afraid.
"Is it like being asleep, do you think?" She asked, perhaps a bit too hopefully. Then more ghastly scenarios took over, and her eyes went wide in the silver light. "Or do you still know what's going on the whole time?" She hugged herself tighter as she watched the countryside. "Do you think you're just frozen solid like a statue, complete awake, and completely helpless?" She shivered.
That seemed to be the worst of it to her: the helplessness. And Cedric understood that. "I think," he said, "that Professor Dumbledore is going to figure this all out before anyone else gets hurt. And I think that Madam Promfrey is going to heal everyone who's already been attacked." He moved closer to the girl for comfort; "That's what I think."
She didn't move away, and she didn't look back at him. She just unfolded her arms, setting her palms on the ground as she sniffled again. She didn't even seem aware of it.
"Can I tell you a secret?" Cedric asked, deciding on a whim that he might somehow be able to help this girl in a way that might help himself.
She didn't look at him, but she considered the offer carefully. "I guess so."
He took a long breath, then told her, "I have these nightmares. Horrible, bizarre things that wake me up in the middle of the night." He tried to find words to express the terror he'd felt just ten short minutes ago, and realized that he couldn't really remember that terror. He wasn't sure, but he thought it usually took longer than this to shake the worst of those dreams; and then he thought maybe this girl had something to do with it.
"I don't really know what's so scary about them," he finally admitted, adding only, "I think I die in them. But I always feel the same: terrified, and completely helpless."
The girl with the dark hair, who was pretty and would someday be beautiful, turned to look at Cedric. Her eyes soft; she seemed to appreciate that he understood, that he felt what she felt, and knew that kind of fear in the same way that she did. If she was going to cry, Cedric though, it would be now. But she didn't, and Cedric admired her strength.
She flashed him a weak smile instead. "I'm just petrified of getting…Petrified."
Halfway through the last word, she seemed struck by some fantastic humor. She broke out laughing, tried to stop herself, and of course wound up laughing at herself even harder. The sound of it rang so perfectly to Cedric's ear that he couldn't help laughing along with her, and the more she failed to keep quiet, the harder he laughed. They both wound up doubled over on the cobblestones in an irregular patch of moonlight, clutching at their stomachs as they laughed at the madness of their own fears.
When the greatest fits of hilarity had passed, Cedric stood and helped the girl to her feet. "Let's get back inside," he said with a broad smile, and she nodded her agreement with a wide grin of her own. He cast fresh Disillusionment Charms over them both, and they headed across the courtyard and through the tall double doors side-by-side, like old friends. Cedric walked with the girl into the Grand Staircase, meaning to accompany her all the way to Ravenclaw Tower without ever really deciding to do it.
"I'm Cedric Diggory," he told her as they turned a corner up another flight of stairs.
She glanced at him sidelong with a small grin. "I know. You're the Seeker on your House Quidditch team. You're not bad"
Cedric nodded once more, and thought it unremarkable that this girl should know who he was. He wondered if she'd known him the moment he showed up in the courtyard, but decided that didn't really matter much either.
The girl extended a small hand to him as they turned another corner. "Cho Chang."
Cedric took her hand, and blushed again. "Pleasure to meet you."
Can't Fight the Moonlight by anthonyjfuchs
Story Notes:
This story started out as my response to the "Secrets" Weekly Drabble Challenge, and grew from there. The title is borrowed from a Leann Rimes song, not because I'm particularly fond of the song, but because it fits the story.