This piece can be read as slash or as friendship, your choice in what you bring into your reading.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter
Oliver's not a fan of the Daily Prophet, only subscribes for appearances' sake and usually flips right to the sports section (and the comics, if he's feeling young enough), so he doesn't find out until later that Cedric Diggory is dead.
He's just returned from a team practice when the news arrives with a package from Fred and George, and even then he finds it hard to believe. The letter babbles on about how they've been doing, their year at Hogwarts, their family, the team, and almost everything else except for the Triwizard tournament, which is odd because their previous letters had been filled with news. Only the twins, Oliver thinks, could talk about Harry for three paragraphs without mentioning the fact that the boy has been risking his life all year long in some competition.
Then, at the end of the page, a scribbled paragraph that seems almost added in as an afterthought explains the package. We're going to open up a joke shop, it says, don't ask where we got the money from, because we're not sure we can rightly explain it ourselves. We figured you might need a laugh, though, since he was your friend. Enclosed with the note are some canary creams, a few trick wands, and other objects Oliver is almost afraid to touch, though at the moment the words take all his attention. Since he was your friend.
He's not sure who they mean, only scared to discover it might be family, might be a Weasley, might be--well, anyone but Diggory, who never even crosses his mind as he paws through the papers he'd so casually tossed aside this very morning. He hadn't known Diggory well, had never actually referred to him as Cedric, had never really looked at the Hufflepuff before the game that had changed his opinion of the boy forever (had changed everything forever).
---
'It's those bloody dementors' fault,' he thinks as he lets the water falling from the showerhead gather in his cupped hands. With a savage gesture he splashes it across his face, dragging his palms down across his skin in an effort to wipe out the anger. It doesn't work. 'Stupid dementors, stupid Diggory, stupid Potter, always the basket case when we need him. Stupid everything.'
The sound of footsteps echo from the lockers, but Oliver ignores them, furiously scrubbing at the mud caked under his nails. The calm voice that radiates from beyond the curtain sounds heavier than it normally does, exhausted. "You know, if you're trying to drown yourself, the lake might be a better option."
Oliver slams a fist into the tiled wall. "Shut it, Diggory. You have what you wanted."
A sigh sounds from the other side, then a wooden creak. The aging chairs, intended for the purpose of a seat for those waiting for a shower, really needed to be replaced. He can practically picture Diggory, balanced precariously on one, holding half his weight off to ensure it doesn't collapse. The picture is comical, but interrupted by the airy "I wouldn't be too sure of that."
Oliver pauses, then turns off the water before leaning partially out of the shower. "What was that you said?"
Cool grey eyes consider his sopping form., the expression carefully blank. "Hufflepuff, believe it or not, is not the house of dimwits. It is, however, the house of fairness. I'm offering a rematch. The next sunny day, no dementors, our teams at their finest, a good referee. The match wasn't fair, and we're not going to take a victory that wasn't ours."
Oliver reaches for a towel, and then, with it securely wrapped around him, steps out onto the cool tile floor. He can do the right thing, he realizes. He can deny the rematch and let Hufflepuff have its victory, poor conditions or not. The boy standing before him did catch the Snitch, after all. Or he can do the other thing (the cowardly thing, his Gryffindor side whispers), the thing his competitive side screams for. He can agree to the rematch and flatten Hufflepuff, because their team is pathetic compared to Gryffindor. He has a choice.
Cedric taps his foot expectantly, and Oliver looks up at the sound. "It wasn't a fair match," he reiterates. "You would have flattened us under any normal circumstances."
Oliver nods and rethinks the game, tries to remember the positions everyone had been in when it had all fallen to pieces, tries to recall his calculations and what he had seen through the rain. He spends a few moments contemplating the distances between Harry, Cedric, and the snitch, and then, oddly enough, contemplating Cedric himself. What would the Golden Boy, the pretty boy, the Quidditch captain goody two-shoes teacher's pet do if he was faced with this decision? And with a lurch of something that isn't quite sadness because it's flavored with too much guilt, he realizes that Diggory wouldn't have even needed to think, because he would have given them the victory (if Oliver had been noble enough to offer a rematch, that is).
With that thought in mind and the faint taste of shame on his tongue, he chooses, and the Hufflepuff leaves the locker room with a nod of thanks.
And there is no rematch the next day, or the day after that, or in the weeks that follow as the Hufflepuffs celebrate their victory and the Gryffindors glower. Oliver Wood has made the decision that could cost them the Cup, they mutter to themselves as he passes by. But the Hufflepuffs look at him with new respect. "Wood's a good man," they say to their fellows. "As fair as a Hufflepuff." Stupid. Honorable. Ignorant. Noble. The castle can't seem to make up its mind.
He's not sure what to think of this regard, or of Diggory's warm smile as they pass each other in the hallways, so he does something unusual. In complete defiance of everything that makes him Gryffindor, he sticks his head in the proverbial sand and pretends that nothing has changed, pretends that his stomach doesn't drop months later like it did the first time he mounted a broom when Cedric Diggory congratulates him on Gryffindor's winning the Quidditch Cup, pretends that he doesn't sometimes see Diggory looking at him from across the Great Hall (pretends that he wasn't looking at Diggory first).
Everything has changed, and he's almost glad he's graduating, because the boy's knowing smile is almost too much to bear.
---
He reads the last paragraph again, smiling at the sentiment. Since he was your friend (though you didn't really know him the Gryffindor side admits) and thus you must miss him. Not Since he was so special you almost gave up your dream for him, not Since you never really stopped thinking about him. Simple, in a way that nothing about Cedric was. Cedric, he says to himself. Too bad the Gryffindor courage had never extended to anything as simple as a name.
Stupid. Honorable. Ignorant. Noble. The wizarding community begins to whisper about the boy who died, and Oliver feels almost honored to have things said about the Hufflepuff that were once said about himself. It feels as if maybe Cedric had learned something from him, too, even though the opposite is far more true.
He leans heavily on the counter, in one hand the note and the other the edge of the table. His fingers brush something, and with a squawk a rubber chicken appears from one of the wands. He can't help but throw his head back and laugh, appreciating the Weasley twins' pranking skills now that they aren't aimed at him. He's struck with the thought that the wizarding world will need laughs, even now (especially now).
Weeks later, as the first newspapers about 'Daft Dumbledore' and 'Crazy Potter' begin to come out, Oliver cancels his subscription to the Daily Prophet and, in response to anyone asking his opinion, says "I would trust 'Crazy Harry' with my life." Puddlemere's team captain is enraged, the reporters lap it up, sporting magazines wonder if the response will cost him his career, and he doesn't even care, because it's what Cedric would have done. Cedric (and every other Hufflepuff the world has overlooked) would have stood by Harry. And so does he.
After all, it's a simple choice between what is right, and what is easy. And that (along with warm, knowing smiles) is something Oliver Wood will never forget.