I really don't even know where these things come from.

"I don't support this."

"Support what?"

"The cheating." Her voice is dripping with disapproval. It sits on his shoulder and scolds him.

"It isn't cheating. Everyone else knows. If everyone else knows then it isn't cheating. It's... conformity."

"But everyone else knows because they cheated. So you're conforming to cheating."

He cracks. "Look, I didn't ask for him to tell me! What do you want me to do, forget about the dragons and go into the first task utterly blind? Do you want me to win?"

"No." She's matter of fact. He stops everything for a few seconds. Walking. Thinking. Breathing.

"Right. Of course you don't."

She should probably apologize but she doesn't. Apologizing would imply that she really does want him to win, and she has obligations to someone else.

"Look... I want you to do well. I want you to succeed. But you know... Harry, he's..."

"Yeah, I know."

"He's my best friend."

"I know."

The silence butts its way between them and rears its ugly head. She reaches out and takes his hand.

"Do you have a plan?"

He turns and smiles at her. The silence backs away from his teeth and runs off to separate another couple. He takes her hand in both of his. "How do I know you won't run off and tell Potter?"

"Don't you trust me?"

He throws her words right back in her face. "No."

She has to fight not to smile. "Then what kind of relationship is this?"

A secret one.

And more importantly, one that won't last.

He doesn't answer because he doesn't know these answers yet. Instead he kisses her, his lips making promises he won't be able to keep.

But don't hold that against him. He doesn't know his fate.

"So Viktor Krum, huh?"

She won't let him get to her. "Cho Chang, eh?"

He looks around and then slides into the seat next to her, hissing. "You were the one who said we had to keep this a secret."

She doesn't even look up from her book. "I know. And you were the one who sought me out to talk about Viktor."

He flounders and then snaps his mouth shut. Then he stomps out of the library so loudly Madam Pince shoots daggers at him.

Viktor comes to see her shortly after that. He weighs her down with praise and she focuses entirely on him and tries not to envision Cho Chang with tentacles growing out of her face.

The night of the Yule Ball, Harry stares at Cho Chang, she stares at him, and Ron stares at her. She and Ron get into a huge fight and she realizes that she had wanted him to ask her, too. She's an awfully selfish person, to have two boys and still want another.

But she doesn't have two boys, she argues. She has Viktor and Cho Chang has him. He isn't hers. And Ron certainly isn't hers.

When did things get so complicated?

"Has he figured the egg out yet?"

They're speaking again, she figures. At the very least he's speaking to her. She turns her nose up at him.

"I'm not at liberty to discuss Harry's progress with you."

"What about Viktor? Has he figured it out?"

His tone berates her. She stays silent. "And what about me, huh? You're certainly playing the odds aren't you? You've got a foot in with every victor except Fleur-"

"Is that what you think this is?"

"Well then what is it?"

She wants to cry. He's being so mean and she's too upset to realize that it's because he's hurt.

"Never mind, Cedric. I have work to do, excuse me."

"Hermione-"

She doesn't hear over the pounding in her ears.

"Congratulations."

He still has a grin on his face and it's contagious. She managed to intercept him on his way to the Hufflepuff Common Room and he pulls her behind a tapestry to hug her tightly to him. She allows herself a moment of weakness and tucks her head into his chest.

Then she pulls away.

"Congratulations," she repeats. He laughs and twirls a strand of her hair in between his fingers.

"Thank you." He reaches down to kiss her and she lets him, because she's missed him and because she's missed this. But she pulls herself away soon after.

"I can't... do this anymore, Ced."

"Do what?" He's so happy and she feels terrible for telling him this now, but she's here and if she doesn't do it she never will.

"This. Do us. Not anymore."

His hand tightens subconsciously on her hair. She loosens it and holds his hand in hers, to comfort him and to hold herself up.

"I'm sorry Ced, but I can't... you're dating Cho. And it's not fair to you, to me or to Cho if we keep this up."

That was her. Always the voice of reason.

"Hermione... I've been dating Cho for a few months already. What... what's really going on?" She looks away and he turns her head back to him. "Hermione!"

Tears are brimming in her eyes as she drops them to the floor. "I just... when I found out I was being taken for the Task I thought... I thought I was being taken for you."

He leans back from her a little.

"I woke up in Viktor's arms and I just... I can't do this anymore, Cedric. I'm sorry."

She waits for him to argue.

He doesn't.

She walks away quickly to block the sound of his silence.

She doesn't sleep the night before the Third Task.

It's almost as if she's the one participating in it. Her overactive brain comes up with a million and one situations where he could get hurt or killed. Sometimes, just to be cruel, it will add in Harry and Viktor to the mix and then, because she wouldn't want to leave someone out, Fleur is thrown in there too. They dance before her eyes and they're imprinted on the back of her eyelids, visions of terrible things and Merlin why did she say goodbye to him?

She has a half a mind to go and see him but she doesn't know how to get into the Hufflepuff Common Room and someone would see her and he needs to rest and he wouldn't need to see her anyway and, and...

She doesn't have enough room in her brain to worry about all the people she has to worry about.

She waits.

The thing about the Third Task is that it isn't quite the same as the First or the Second. The First Task was exciting because you were so involved- you got to witness the dragons and the champions. The second task still had that level of excitement to it, waiting to see the champions and who was most important to them.

But the Third Task is more subdued. It's a lot quieter. People seem more scared. Who knows what's in that maze.

They sit there and wait.

Wait for what?

Certainly not for this.

The first thing she notices is Harry. She's rather glad she did- it reminds her, later on, that he is her friend and her number one priority. It reminds her that friends come before anything else.

So there's Harry, lying on the ground, clutching the Triwizard Cup and...

Oh no.

Oh god no.

Face down in the grass eating dirt and holding him holding him and he's not moving he's motionless and he's not moving and Harry is holding him and no no no no no.

Dumbledore is there but she can't hear what they're saying. She's in the stands and she's clutching Ron and she would fall except he's holding her up. All around her the stands speak, the words on fire, burning her ears. He's dead! He's dead! Cedric Diggory! Dead!

What's happened? What's wrong with him? Diggory's Dead!

Diggory's dead.

Diggory's dead.

Somewhere in the stands, Cho Chang falls.

Hermione is better composed.

Her heart drops through her feet but she stays standing.

Brain dead.

"Remember Cedric. Remember, if the time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right, and what is easy, remember what happened to a boy who was good, and kind, and brave, because he strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort. Remember Cedric Diggory."

That last paragraph is a quote straight out of GoF. Seriously, I can't make that shit up.