9 YEARS LATER

Cedric, surprisingly, was extremely accident prone.

I'd assumed that being as athletic as he was, Cedric would be less accident prone. But it was the opposite. It was as if he became a walking accident magnet the moment he stopped playing Quidditch regularly. Once he'd left Hogwarts after his seventh year it wasn't rare for him to be involved in minor accidents. But never had he been taken to the hospital because of the accidents and never had I been owled at work to come as his next of kin.

Just reading the letter had sent a cold chill down my spine. Penning a quick owl for Mrs Diggory, I apologised to my boss and left work early to go and see Cedric. Apparating quickly into St Mungo's, I headed over to the reception desk, anxiously waiting for someone to come and see me.

"Can I help you?" a woman asked once she'd finished talking to someone else.

"I'm looking for Cedric Diggory," I said, hand flexing nervously around my wand. "I received a letter from the on call healer at the time – what room is he in?"

"Oh," she drew the word out, rifling through some papers, "Mr Diggory is in room 102."

Thanking her for her help I set off in the direction of the room, walking quickly, weaving between the people loitering in the corridor. Once I was outside of the room I reached out to take a hold of the doorknob and stopped, taking a deep breath to steady my nerves. Whatever was wrong I'd need to be able to handle it with a cool mind. Only when I had managed to calm myself a little did I push the door open and scanned the room to find Cedric lying on the bed, looking … fine.

"Cedric?" I asked cautiously, stepping into the room and approaching the bed. "Where's your healer?"

"He's stepped out for a minute," he answered, sitting up to lean against the pillows. I frowned slightly; he was still dressed in his work suit.

"What happened?" I pushed the thought aside, coming to a stop beside the bed and reaching a hand out to smooth some of his hair back from his head. It was a nervous habit of mine. He took my hand in his, squeezing it once and looking up at me with a soft smile.

"I just got into an accident at work," he reassured me and I snatched my hand away from him. He was hiding something from me.

"Really?" I raised an eyebrow. "First of all, you work at the ministry, what accident could you get into that needs you to come to St. Mungo's? And secondly, they wouldn't have owled me. Speaking of owls, why am I listed as your next of kin?"

"Should you not be?" he asked innocently and I rolled my eyes. How could he still joke in this situation?

"We're not kin Cedric." I gave him a look, "Besides I'm rubbish in these situations. It's a good thing I told your mum, she'll know what to do."

Cedric's eyes widened, catching me by surprise. "You told my mum?"

"Yeah she's probably on her way now." I crossed my arms, wondering why he was dragging this situation out for longer. A small part of me was worried that it was really bad news and that he was wondering how to break the news to me. "So you should probably tell me what the healer said to you or what the healer thinks is going on so I have time to get a hold of myself."

"Do you want the truth?" He asked cautiously, making my heart plummet. But I nodded anyway.

He reached out to take my hand, pulling on it to make me sit down on the bed. Looking down at our interlinked hands, he let out a deep breath before looking up into my eyes with a nervous smile.

"Cedric," I prompted quietly.

"They think it could be terminal." His words confirmed my worst fears. My mouth parted as I struggled to get the words out but he smiled, squeezing my hand. "Don't worry it's a potentially life long condition."

"You're saying that so casually," I wondered aloud before clearing my throat. "You said they think didn't you, they don't know? Well how are they going to find out?"

"It all depends on one question," he said letting out a deep breath.

My mind whirled, trying to understand all of this. Merlin, where was Mrs Diggory when you needed her? I needed her here to help me through this, to help Cedric through this.

"What is the question?" I asked, maybe there was something that we could do? We could make some changes to his lifestyle that would ease his suffering? Just because it was a lifelong condition didn't mean it needed to shorten his life –

"Will you marry me?"

My thoughts screeched to a halt as I looked into his eyes in shock. "What?"

"Will you marry me?" he repeated sincerely.

"Wait a minute." I pulled my hand out of his, rising to my feet and looking down at him. "I thought you'd been declared terminally ill -"

Sensing my rising anger he had the nerve to smile apologetically. "I'm sorry."

"Oh you will be." Taking the pillow from behind him I smacked him across the face with it. Hard. "Do you have any idea how worried I was? Merlin, Cedric, I was so scared! If you ever do something like that again then I'm going to kill you myself!"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he said using his arms to shield his face from the pillow I was still hitting him with. I dropped the pillow into his lap, giving him the chance to explain himself. "I wanted it to be something you'd never forget -"

"Well you certainly did that," I mutter dryly, crossing my arms.

"Didn't you realise something was up when you heard the room number?" He smiled sheepishly at my unamused expression. Why would I care about room number in that situation? "You still haven't answered me though."

I sat down beside him again, swatting his shoulders. "Merlin you're annoying. Isn't it obvious?"

He leaned in to kiss me with a grin, pulling away at the sound of the door opening. With a sigh he pressed his forehead against my shoulder. "Mum's standing in the doorway and I have no idea how to explain this to her."

"Well this was your bright idea, you deal with the fall out."

I rose from the bed, ready to leave Cedric to deal with the tongue lashing he was going to get from his mother once he'd explained the situation to her. He tried to take a hold of my hand to stop me but I moved out of his reach.

"You're the one that owled her," he protested.

"And you're the one that concocted this situation up." I reminded him on my way out of the room.

I passed a rather confused looking Mrs Diggory who briefly greeted me as she made her way into the room. Cedric eyed his mother warily before looking back at me in time to see the kiss I blew him on my way out.

Merlin, I should have known.