The Portkey

"Arthur! No need to keep looking! We found it!"

A middle-aged man in a gray-brown traveling cloak emerged from the morning mist, a large bag on his back.

"Amos, long time no see!" Mr. Weasley went over to him happily and shook his hand. "Kids, this is Amos Diggory, my colleague at the Ministry."

Clara's heart skipped a beat when she heard the name "Diggory." She instinctively looked around-Amos Diggory had come alone. She breathed a quiet sigh of relief, unable to tell whether she was glad or disappointed.

She thought she was probably too sleepy, sleepy enough to have developed some unrealistic expectation.

The leaves overhead suddenly rustled.

Before Clara could look up, a figure flipped down through the branches above her. Morning dew and bits of leaves came down with him, his robes flapping in the wind as he landed steadily in front of her.

Cedric Diggory descended from the sky, landing squarely less than two steps away from her.

Clara froze.

"Hi, good morning, Clara Albert."

He had called her by her full name.

But they barely knew each other.

A tsunami swept through Clara's brain in a fraction of a second. Why does he know my full name? No, we've been in the same house for four years. It's not strange that he knows it. It's on the common room sign-in sheet and the class schedules. Of course he knows my name.

But why did he use that tone? That "I've known you for ages" tone?

"G-good morning," she stammered again. "Diggory."

She lowered her head, missing the flash of disappointment in Cedric's eyes.

She didn't remember him.

More precisely, she didn't seem to have gone back, at least not to this point. Cedric was a little sad, but also a little relieved.

If she had come back to this point too, would she have looked at him and thought he'd died as well, then gotten angry and scolded him? Still, it was good like this, without so many memories. She could have an easy, smooth fifth year and then get good results on her OWLs.

"Kids! It's time to go touch the Portkey!" Mr. Weasley called out. Clara looked up and smiled at Cedric, then ran ahead to find Rowle.

Cedric stood where he was, watching her retreating figure as she fled. His lips moved, and he smiled silently.

"Oh, poor heartbroken Diggory~"

A hand suddenly landed on his left shoulder.

"Poor Diggory~"

Another hand landed on his right shoulder.

Cedric turned his head. Fred and George Weasley had him sandwiched between them, their identical faces wearing identical wicked grins. They had clearly witnessed the whole thing-from him calling Clara by her full name to her brushing him off with "Diggory" and fleeing in a panic—and found something extremely amusing in it.

"I bet three Galleons," Fred said in a theatrically mournful voice, "he'll sigh at the moon tonight."

"I bet five," George added in an even more exaggeratedly mournful voice, "he'll sigh at least twenty times."

"And toss and turn."

"Unable to sleep all night."

"He might even write a poem."

"'Oh, Clara Albert-'"

"All right, all right." Torn between laughter and exasperation, Cedric brushed their hands away. "Why don't you go work on that sweet that makes people's tongues grow longer? I think your brother's still looking to settle the score with you."

"Changing the subject," Fred said, shaking his head with a look of disappointment. "What a clumsy tactic."

"But understandable," George said earnestly, patting Cedric on the shoulder. "After all, the girl brushed you off with a 'Diggory.' I'd want to change the subject too."

Cedric decided to ignore them and headed toward the clearing. The twins, of course, weren't going to let him off that easily. They followed one on each side, like two tails he couldn't shake.

"Seriously, I thought Cho Chang was more your type," Fred teased. "That's what everyone's been saying, anyway."

Cedric paused.

He wanted to say he didn't like Clara and that they had misunderstood. He also wanted to say that he really had had a crush on Cho Chang, though it didn't matter anymore.

He had more important things to do, like trying to tell the headmaster and then stopping Voldemort's return? Or saving Clara, though she probably wouldn't get involved again this time.

"That's true," Cedric said. "I did have a crush on Cho Chang. For a long time."

The Weasley brothers were clearly taken aback by his honesty. Fred recovered first, poked him in the shoulder, and pointed at Clara's retreating figure.

"I'm just a little curious about her. I only found out today that we're in the same house, and we've barely even spoken. Come on, if we don't leave now, we really will have to walk to the campsite." Cedric pointed toward the top of the hill. Mr. Weasley and his father had already found the Portkey and were waving to them.

Clara had already reached the hilltop and was standing beside Rowle and Ginny, her amber eyes looking in Cedric's direction.

"Say, when did you get so close to Diggory?" Rowle leaned over to whisper in her ear, a gossipy smile on her face.

"Uh... Rowle, I have to say, I'm surprised too." Clara's ears were a little red. She still had no idea what was going on.

"I think this is a good opportunity, Lyla. Actually, the tickets Dad originally got weren't this good, and we were supposed to go two days early. But then Dad said he'd helped Mr. Diggory with some work before, so Mr. Diggory got him a few extra good tickets, and that's why we're leaving today."

Clara was a little surprised. But she soon had no time to dwell on it, because Mr. Weasley was herding them toward the Portkey like a flock of ducks.

"All right, kids, ready? Remember, everyone needs at least one finger on the Portkey! I hope no one gets left behind, all right?"

Rowle grabbed Clara's hand and squeezed into the crowd of redheads.

Clara caught a familiar scent drifting over from her left.

Cedar. Very faint, mixed with the scent of plants in the morning mist and a hint of broom polish. She had smelled it many times in the Hufflepuff Common Room. She didn't have to think to know who it was.

Cedric crouched down on her left.

Clara's spine felt as though it had been hit with Petrificus Totalus, and her whole body went rigid. She stared at the index finger she had placed on the boot, finding it a little hard to breathe.

"Hi," Cedric's voice came from her left, casually gentle. "Don't be nervous. It'll be quick."

Clara turned her head to check that he was talking to her.

Cedric's gray-blue eyes met hers, smiling. One hand rested on his knee, while the other had already reached out to touch the Portkey.

"Thank you..."

Clara's voice was very quiet, instantly swallowed up by the dizziness that followed the Portkey's activation.

A force hooked her by the navel, as though a giant invisible hand had picked her up and thrown her into a rapidly spinning drum. Wind roared in her ears. She closed her eyes, kept her finger pressed tightly to the old boot, and bit down on her lower lip.

Merlin, I never want to use a Portkey again in my life.

That was the first thought that came into Clara's head after she landed on her back and rolled three times across the grass.

She lay on her back in the wet grass, her hair scattered across her face and a blade of grass she'd picked up somewhere still in her mouth.

She turned her head and saw Rowle, the Weasley children, Harry, and Hermione lying around her, all of them dazed from the fall.

"Merlin's stinky socks! I told you something would go wrong with so many people using a Portkey together!" Rowle tried to get up, but the dizziness from the Portkey was obviously still in effect. In the end, she collapsed on the ground and gave up.

Clara heard groans rising and falling around her. Fred and George were piled on top of each other, using the last of their strength to blame each other. Ron's foot was caught in the strap of Harry's bag, and the two of them were fumbling to untangle it. Ginny and Hermione were farther away, and Clara couldn't see them, but the scene was definitely a mess.

Then Clara realized something was wrong.

She braced herself against the grass and slowly sat up, her gaze sweeping over the "battlefield" of sprawled bodies—the redheads, the brown-haired ones, the blond ones. Every one of them was an underage wizard.

Mr. Weasley wasn't among them. Neither was Mr. Diggory. Nor was Mr Collins.

Cedric Diggory wasn't there either.

Clara's heart suddenly skipped a beat. She instinctively looked around, her fingers unconsciously tightening around the robes over her knees. Where did he go? He touched the Portkey with us, so he should have been transported here with us. Did he fall? Could he have been transported somewhere else? Portkeys do malfunction sometimes. Mr. Weasley said so-

"Oh, kids! Doesn't the grass smell wonderful?"

An excited voice came from the sky behind her. Clara whipped her head around.

Four people were slowly descending from the sky in an extraordinarily graceful manner. Mr. Weasley's clothes billowed high in the wind, and he wore the smile of someone whose prank had succeeded. Mr Collins had both hands in his pockets and was looking down as he said something to Amos Diggory. Both men looked delighted, as though discussing how their coffee had tasted that morning. And the fourth person-

Cedric, holding the strap of the bag on his back with one hand and letting the other swing at his side, was grinning and looked extremely happy.

Clara swore they had done it on purpose.

The four of them had obviously known all along that the Portkey would turn into a violent spin dryer. They had used some unknown spell to fly over in comfort and had enjoyed the spectacle of a bunch of children landing sprawled on the grass from midair.

"Dad!" Rowle's voice exploded beside Clara. She had caught on too, and scrambled to her feet, pointing at Mr Collins as he landed gracefully, her face full of betrayed fury. "You knew we'd fall like that?!"

Mr Collins landed on both feet, brushed some nonexistent dust off his robes, and gave his daughter a completely undisguised smile. "Darling, it's a rite of passage every wizard has to go through."

Clara didn't pay much attention to their bickering, because a hand appeared in front of her.

Its fingers were long and slender, its knuckles well-defined, and a thin layer of calluses covered its palm, probably from years of practicing Quidditch.

"Hey, did you hurt yourself?" The boy's distinctive voice rang out, a hint of mischief in its final note.

"Obviously." Clara didn't refuse. She used his hand to pull herself up, then, a little helplessly, straightened her appearance, which was already as bad as it could possibly get. "So, you knew we'd fall like that?"

The boy lowered his head with a smile.

"Actually, I was going to warn you. But my dad said this was the full experience for someone taking a Portkey for the first time, and I didn't think I had the right to deprive you of that pleasure."

Clara raised an eyebrow and said nothing more.

She really wanted to remark that apparently he called a fall like that a pleasure.

"Come on, let's go see the Quidditch campsite. Soon you won't be upset about taking a fall."