midnight rain taylor swift ♥︎ ⇄ ◁◁ 𝚰𝚰 ▷▷ ↻ ⁰⁰'²⁵ ━━●━━───── ⁰²'⁰⁸

Cedric Diggory was the kind of boy who could make even the dullest corridors of Hogwarts seem brighter, a living embodiment of golden-hour sunshine. Polite, charming, effortlessly perfect. He was the Hufflepuff Quidditch captain, a prefect with a reputation untarnished by even the faintest whisper of scandal. Everyone adored him. How could they not?

You, however, were nothing like him. Reserved, and happiest when buried in the pages of a book, you lived in the quieter corners of the castle. You came from a pure-blood family with a name that turned heads, but you didn’t care for all that. Distance, after all, was safer when it came to boys like Cedric.

But Cedric didn’t seem to care about distance. Friendly as ever, he had decided, for reasons beyond your understanding, to strike up a conversation with you. It happened during History of Magic of all places, Professor Binns droning on about Goblin Rebellions while the rest of the class teetered on the edge of sleep. You, engrossed in your notes, barely noticed him until his chair scraped the floor as he sat beside you.

“You’re really good at this, aren’t you?” His voice was low, polite, a hum that carried over the scratch of your quill. You glanced at him, startled, and found his dark hair falling into his eyes, catching the faint glow of candlelight. “Typical Ravenclaw,” he added, with a small, knowing smile.

It was such a simple observation, but it hit differently coming from him. Cedric Diggory, golden boy of Hogwarts, noticing you.

You blinked, caught between the words on your parchment and the way his presence seemed to fold over you like a warm cloak. For a fleeting, ridiculous moment, you wondered what it would feel like to brush that stray lock of hair from his face, to let your fingertips linger just a little too long.

The thought startled you as much as Cedric's grin when your eyes met his.