This Was Hard To Write - Blog Posts

"I don't usually kiss my friends" -Cedric Diggory to Harry Potter

In the afternoon he approached Harry, who was standing with Ron and Hermione, and asked to speak in private. They headed for the gardens since the weather was still nice and it was the perfect location to discuss such a difficult matter to bring up in the first place.

"I don't usually do that kind of thing," was what came out of Cedric.

Harry tilted his head curiously. “What do you mean?”

"Kissing my friends."

His direct answer made Harry look away instantly. “Neither do I. I’ve never…”

"Was that your first kiss?"

"Did you notice?" he muttered, embarrassed.

It wasn't that Cedric had thought of it for any particular reason other than the suspicion that if someone had kissed the famous Harry Potter, he supposed it’d be known. And that Harry was, after all, younger than him and had never expressed any interest before.

"I wasn't sure," he admitted, not wanting to make him self-conscious. Cedric wasn't an expert by any means. “But it was good.”

That may not have been part of what he had planned to say.

“I kind of only got kissed by a Dementor once, so that was a big improvement.”

Cedric laughed at the joke, blushing.

That was Harry's way of agreeing too.

He wanted to tell him how he felt…

He wanted to tell him that he wouldn't mind kissing him right then and there again.

But he couldn't do it. If Harry didn't feel the same way, he wasn't sure they would manage to stay friends the same way. And even if Harry liked him too in that way, it might not be enough.

"I wouldn't want what happened to turn things weird between us. I think I misunderstood the situation… I'm sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable.”

Apologizing was something he was good at.

The detail was that it was not in relation to kissing him.

“You didn’t.”

“Really?” Cedric questioned, remembering how he himself would say something similar when it wasn't completely true. “You can tell me.”

“No, it was fine. It didn’t bother me."

It hadn't bothered him.

What could Cedric say to that?

"That wasn't your first, was it?" Harry asked.

“No, it wasn’t.”

But it was the best.

"I didn't know you had dated someone before.”

"Oh, I've never dated anyone. Those were disastrous occasions,” he blurted out, suddenly realizing that it might sound bad. “Not that this was.”

Maybe it was, in the sense that he was messed up on the inside.

Ao3: Always Yours