~*~Fearless: Love Causes It~*~
by Hatter of Madness

After being happily for four years, all Amos and Lucy Diggory had to present their marriage was their small son, Cedric. They were a wizarding family, as Amos and Lucy had met at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. By the time he was eight years old, he was a bit reserved but very polite. He was very wondrous and thought a lot to himself. It worried his parents that, even though they lived very close to three wizard families, all of which had children around his age, he had no desire to make friends.

One day, in the small kitchen, Cedric could hear his mother and another woman's voice and arrived to investigate. "Oh, hello honey," his mother said when he entered the room. "You know Katie, don't you?"

Katie Lewis, or, as Cedric called her, Mrs. Next Door, was the wife of one of his father's friends, Braiden. Katie was a Muggleborn witch, meaning that her parents had no magical ability whatsoever. Her husband, however, hailed from a line of pureblood wizards that went back for centuries. According to Lucy, they had one daughter a few years younger than Cedric.

"How do you do, Mrs. Lewis," he said politely.

"I've always liked your son," Katie said, smiling politely at Lucy. "I'm well. How are you?"

"Well, Mum and Dad told me I came from a stork, but—"

Sensing danger, Lucy interjected, "You were saying, Katie?"

Smile slightly faded, she said, "Yes. It's about Maddie."

"And what about her?" Lucy said, getting out her wand and using the summoning charm to get a coffee pot across the room. "Would you like some coffee, Katie?"

"No, thanks, trying to cut down," Lucy said, clasping her hands together. "Anyway. About Maddie."

"Who's Maddie?" Cedric asked.

"Katie's daughter," his mother said.

"I didn't know you had a daughter, Katie," he said.

"Don't be silly, of course you do," Lucy said. "She's Braiden's daughter, too, remember? Your father and I talk about her sometimes… How old is she again, Katie?"

"Just turned four," Katie said, smiling slightly.

Lucy sighed. She turned back to her neighbor. "I remember those days. Probably the best time, remember that. I wish…" She shook her head, off topic. "Anyway. You were saying?"

"Well, I figured it was about time for me to go back to work."

"Good for you!" Lucy said, smiling as she poured some coffee into a mug for herself.

Katie blushed scarlet. "Yes, well, the only problem is, what with Bray working at the Ministry all the time, we don't have anyone to watch Maddie. I mean…my mother, but you know how she feels about magic." Joan, Katie's mother, was a Muggle. She disapproved strongly of magic, and thought that since both Katie's husband and daughter had vibrant green eyes and were magic that they were pure evil. "And then there's Molly, but I wouldn't feel right giving her another child to care for. Xenophilius either. I'm a bit concerned for his own daughter, really."

"Ah," Lucy said, already suspecting what Katie wanted.

"I hate to ask," Katie said, biting her lip nervously, "but…well, I need someone to watch her…"

"It's no trouble," Lucy assured. "You know how Amos and I feel about her." She smiled warmly at her. "And we have Cedric, too. She won't be all alone."

She sighed in relief. "Thank you," she said. "I wasn't sure what I would do…" Checking her watch, she said, "I'd better go. Bray's about to leave for work…"

"Take care," Lucy said, stirring her coffee. With a faint pop, Katie Disapparated. Lucy took a drink of her coffee, then looked at her son. "You will help Mummy, won't you?"

"I'm not that young anymore, Mum," Cedric said. "You don't have to talk in the third person anymore. And what do you mean, help you? Help you with what?"

"With babysitting," she said, adding some cream to her coffee with her wand.

"Babysitting?"

"Yes, dear," she said, stirring her coffee again. "You heard Mrs. Lewis, she needs someone to watch her daughter. I agreed to do it for her. Just trying to be neighborly."

There was a poignant silence. "Mum?" She glanced up. "May I have some coffee?"

"No." She took another drink. He started to leave the room. "Oh—Cedric? A word?"

He turned. "What?"

"I think this will be good for you."

He stared at her. "How?"

"Well, it's difficult for you to talk to children, isn't it? Maybe this will help your social skills. That's why I wanted you to help me. Can you do that? Please? For me?"

He looked at her for a moment in thought. "I suppose. Sure."

She grinned. "Thank you."

He nodded, thought for a moment, and said, "Mum?" She raised her eyebrows in question. "Can we get a dog?"

She frowned. "Absolutely not."

Cedric was in his room, looking out the window and trying to figure out where exactly clouds came from. He had just turned eight years old. Lost in his thoughts, he could clearly his mother's voice carry up the stairs again. "There were once three brothers who were traveling along a lonely, winding road at twilight. In time…"

Going down the stairs, he saw his mother sitting beside a very little girl on their sofa, looking at his copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard. They looked up as he entered the room; the little girl turned away, embarrassed. "Hello, Cedric," his mother said, smiling. "Would you like to join us? We were reading the Tale of the Three Brothers."

He hesitantly sat in the armchair across the room. "However, these brothers were learned in the magical arts, and so they simply waved their wands and made a bridge appear across the treacherous water." She continued telling the story; Cedric barely listened, too busy watching the little girl sitting on his couch. She was staring at the text, but she had to be too young to know how to read yet.

"Do you like that story?" Lucy asked when it was done. The little girl turned away again, still embarrassed. She looked up at her son. "Cedric…this is Maddie, Katie's daughter?" She looked down at the blonde girl. "Can you say hello?"

Maddie glanced up, said, "Hi," and turned away again.

"Just shy," she assured her son. She started to stand up. "You look pretty today, don't you, Miss Maddie?"

The little girl smiled, embarrassed, her cheeks turning a brighter red than usual. She had on pink Mary Jane shoes, with black tights, a pink skirt and black shirt, and a pink jacket. Her blonde hair was pinned out of her face with a butterfly clip.

"Doesn't she?" she asked her son. He said nothing. "I said, doesn't she look nice today, Cedric?"

Suddenly afraid, he started nodding his head. "Yeah—yes, she does, Mum."

She narrowed her eyes. "Cedric, may I have a word with you? Privately?" Cedric sighed, rising to his feet as his mother moved off the couch. Maddie hid her face as Cedric passed. Safely in the kitchen, Lucy said sharply, "Cedric, you're supposed to be helping me!"

"With what?" Cedric said impatiently.

"Maddie's shy. She needs a little help coming out of her shell. Please don't fight with me. Maybe she'll get along with you better if…" She smiled mischievously. "Come."

"Mum?" Cedric said, cautiously, but followed her anyway. "What are you…"

"Maddie, sweetie," Lucy said, entering the room again. The little girl looked up. "Do you mind if I leave you alone with Cedric?" She looked at her feet and shook her head. "Okay. Cedric," she hissed, "please." She left the room.

Maddie looked up to see if Cedric was looking at her, and, seeing he was, made an odd sound, sort of like a cat being sat on, and looked away again.

"You don't have to be afraid of me," Cedric said calmly. She stared at him with vivid green eyes. "I don't bite."

"I'm not afraid." It was the most she had said since he had first laid eyes on her.

"No?" he asked curiously. "Then why did you hide from me?"

She blushed scarlet again. "I don't know you."

"You can't say that anymore," he said, then extended his hand. "Cedric. Cedric Diggory."

"I can't say that," she said with a lisp.

"Why?"

She pulled her lips back, revealing an overbite. "I have a lisp," she said, still lisping. "Mummy says that when I lose my baby teeth it should go away but Daddy doesn't think so. He says I might have to see this Muggle person that deals with teeth."

Cedric blinked, lowering his hand. "Oh."

She grabbed his hand and shook it. "I'm Maddie."

"So I've heard." He took his hand back slowly.

She fidgeted. It was hard to believe that just a few minutes earlier, she could not even look Cedric in the eye without getting nervous. "I don't really look that pretty today, really," she said, pulling on the fabric of her skirt. "Mummy still picks my clothes. I hate this. If I dressed myself…" She stopped talking.

"I think I liked you better when you didn't talk."

"I think I liked you better when I thought you'd bite."

"Gee, thanks."

"I'm only joking." She smiled. "I do like you."

Now his turn to be embarrassed, he said, "Uh…do you want to take your jumper off? We're indoors. You don't need it."

She took it off. He reached out to take it, but she grinned and said, "Watch this." In a few moments, the jacket shot off the couch past Cedric, forcing him to jump out of the way, as it flew on the coatrack. She laughed. He looked at her.

"Are you trying to take me out, or what?"

"Mummy says I'm not allowed to do that," she said suddenly, looking embarrassed again. "But of course, as long as they think it's accidental magic…"

He stared at her. "How do you do that?"

"Well, I'm not supposed to…"

"Can you teach me?"

There were some things that people could not go through without becoming close to one another. As it turned out, teaching someone how to 'accidentally' send a jumper around the room using magic was one. After a while, there was a knock at the door. Lucy appeared at the foot of the stairs and allowed Maddie's mother in the house. "Come on, sweetie," she said, "it's almost time for supper."

Maddie stood. "Oh—Mrs. Diggory, have you seen my jumper?"

"Yes, dear, it was on the cat," she said in an odd voice, as a very cross looking black cat ran out of the room quickly, her jacket discarded on the floor. The two children glanced at one another and tried to hide giggles.

"Bye," she said politely to Lucy. "Bye, Ceddie," she said, turning to her new friend and smiling.

He frowned. "What?" he said curiously. "What did you call me?"

Without explaining, amidst a fit of giggles, she grabbed her mother's hand as they left.

Yay, version number...FOUR of this story! :P I think I'm finally getting it how I originally wanted everything. So. Yay. Stories are good. Anyway. I first got this idea three years ago already. o.o Maybe two. Yeah...yeah, it was two. I published it on my original FanFiction account, TohruROX2221, under the names Four Walls and Love's Keen Sting. I hated them both. xP So I rewrote it here under the name Fearless, and didn't like that one either. So. Hopefully here is the final draft of this story! Oh, and please help me come up with a better summary. I suck at them. Really, really, really badly. Please review.

- Hatter of Madness