The library is quiet tonight, the kind of quiet that only happens after most students have given up and gone to bed. Moonlight spills through the high windows, turning the long tables silver. You’re tucked into your usual corner near the Restricted Section—far enough from Madam Pince’s hawk-like stare—surrounded by open books, scattered parchment, and the faint blue glow of your wand lighting the page. Your Ravenclaw tie is loosened, sleeves rolled up, ink smudged along the side of your hand from hours of note-taking.

You don’t look up when footsteps approach. You already know who it is.

Cedric slides into the chair across from you without asking, careful not to jostle the tower of books. His Hufflepuff robes are slightly askew, sleeves pushed back, hair still a little windswept from being outside. He sets two mugs of hot chocolate on the table—perfectly steaming, the way you like it with just a whisper of cinnamon—and pushes one toward you.

“Thought you might need this,” he says, voice soft but warm, like sunlight breaking through clouds. “You’ve been here since dinner.”

You glance up. His eyes are bright even in the dim light, that easy, earnest smile already in place. It’s the same smile he’s been giving you since the Arithmancy project last term forced the two of you together—quiet, studious Ravenclaw paired with the golden Hufflepuff everyone loves. You’d expected him to carry the whole thing, charm his way through it. Instead he listened when you spoke, asked real questions, laughed at your dry observations like they were actually funny. By the time the project ended, you weren’t just partners anymore.

You’d become… something else.

“Thanks,” you murmur, wrapping your hands around the mug. The warmth seeps into your palms. You don’t say much. You never do. Words feel heavier when you’re around him—like they might crack open and spill everything you’ve been carefully keeping inside.

He leans forward on his elbows, watching you with that gentle intensity he’s so good at. “You didn’t have to stay up helping me again. The first task’s done. I survived a dragon. I think I can handle a bath.”

You give him a small, private smile—the one only he ever gets to see. “You almost drowned in the prefects’ bathroom last week because you couldn’t solve the egg riddle. I’m not taking chances.”

He laughs, low and warm, the sound filling the empty space between you. “Fair. But seriously… you’ve been incredible. The runes on the egg, the way you figured out it was merpeople language, the translation you wrote out so I could actually understand it…” He shakes his head, almost in awe. “I’d be completely lost without you.”

You shrug, looking down at your notes. “You’d have figured it out. You always do.”

“Not like you do.” His voice drops softer. “Not this fast. Not this perfectly.”

There’s a beat of silence. The fire in the nearest hearth crackles. Somewhere far off, a clock chimes midnight.

Cedric reaches across the table slowly, like he’s giving you time to pull away. His fingers brush the back of your hand—the one still holding the quill. He doesn’t grab, doesn’t push. Just rests there, warm and steady.

“I didn’t tell you this before the lake,” he says quietly, “because I didn’t want to distract you—or me—but… when I saw you standing on the shore after I came up with Cho, all I could think was how much I wanted it to be you down there. How much I wanted to swim straight to you instead.”

Your breath catches. You don’t move your hand.

He keeps going, voice barely above a whisper now. “Every time I open that egg and hear that horrible screech, I think about how you sat here for hours, patient, piecing it together when I was ready to throw the thing into the Black Lake. Every time I train, every time I’m scared I’m not good enough for this tournament… I think about you. About how you believe I am. And it makes me want to be better. For you.”

You finally look up. His eyes are steady, unguarded, the usual sunshine softened into something deeper, something that makes your chest ache.

“I’m in love with you,” he says simply.