Chapter Text
There it was.
For a moment, Cedric thought he'd imagined it, but no --
There was a spot in the tapestry that wasn't solid.
He'd found it quite by accident earlier that day whilst cleaning the drawing room under the direction of Mrs. Weasley. The room itself was like an overgrown copse with its impressions of dust and rot, shadows and mossy green fabric. There was wealth here, to be certain, but it was overripe, stalked by death and madness. He'd been looking at the Black family tree stitched in gold on the faded wall tapestry when the house's owner had joined him.
Sirius Black.
Not a murderer at all. Cedric was still getting used to that fact. He thought most of the others were as well, except Remus Lupin, Ron and Hermione, who'd known all along. And Harry, of course. But Harry wasn't here, still living in the home of his awful relatives for another week by the order of Professor McGonagall. Together with Alastor Moody -- the real Alastor Moody -- she now led their little resistance. The Order of the Phoenix. That's what the adults were calling it. The original Order had been Dumbledore's brainchild in the previous war, revived here, now, in the wake of his death and Voldemort's resurrection. Most of its members (like Cedric and his parents) were new, as less than half of the original group had survived the first war.
Sometimes Cedric wondered how many would live to see the end of this one.
In any case, Sirius Black -- still a wanted man as far as the Ministry was concerned -- had offered up his family home as a sort of 'headquarters.' Sirius's father had made it Unplottable and fenced it in with wards, rendering it especially valuable for the Order . . . providing they could Scourgify the place of Doxies, Boggarts, dangerous dark items and other random dead things.
That was how Cedric, the Weasley kids, and Hermione Granger now spent their days: detoxing everything. Even Cedric and the twins, despite being seventh years and of age, weren't allowed into actual Order meetings. McGonagall had been firm on that point, backed up by Molly Weasley and Cedric's mum -- although Cedric had the impression not all the adults agreed. For now, however, nobody was arguing as Number 12 Grimmauld Place needed a small army to make it habitable, and impressing the kids into house-elf service was convenient.
That morning three days after Harry's birthday, Mrs. Weasley had declared the upstairs clean and had herded them all into the cavernous drawing room after breakfast to exterminate the Doxies in the curtains. Having had his fill of the little black-haired pests, Cedric had dawdled over the tapestry, then had turned to talk to Sirius, leaning his hand against the cloth all unthinking. Yet it hadn't been Sirius who'd protested. Instead a wizened, ugly old house-elf called Kreacher had streaked across the drawing room floor to tackle Cedric, knocking him away from the wall. "No hand of a Blood Traitor shall touch the lineage of Black!"
"Kreacher, let the lad go!" Sirius had snapped, and the elf had immediately obeyed, albeit snarling under his breath.
It had all happened so quickly, Cedric hadn't been certain he'd really felt the emptiness beneath his fingers or just thought he had. So he'd come back after dinner to investigate when Kreacher wasn't likely to interfere. That nobody else was around either, he didn't examine too closely. The rest of the residents were still in the dining room having afters.
With a furtive glance over his shoulder, Cedric tried to remember where his hand had been resting earlier. It required feeling around a bit, but there it was -- a hollow like a hidden compartment directly behind a particular name: Regulus Black. Reaching right through the fabric as if it weren't there, he touched something flat. A book?
"What are you doing?"
Startled, Cedric jumped and spun . . . and found himself holding the book he'd felt in the hidden spot. "Er, just . . . collecting this. I left it here earlier."
The girl -- the youngest Weasley named Ginny -- appeared sceptical. "A book?"
"Yeah." He held it up, only now seeing it for himself. It bore no title, the cover just plain brown leather with gilded parchment edges. At least being hidden by magic, it showed no dust to give him away.
Ginny's eyes narrowed. "Is that a diary?"
"Er, yes. Mine," he lied.
"I thought you were headed to the loo?"
Nervous, he jiggled on his feet. "I was -- am. I remembered I'd left this in here."
Her expression was extremely dubious. "Why are you lying? That's not yours." And before he could do anything, she'd swooped forward to snag it right out of his grip. "That's the Black family crest embossed on the cover; I've cleaned enough things around here, I'd recognize it in my sleep."
And she was right. Impressed lightly into the leather was a crest with two stars above, a chevron between, and an upright sword below. "What is this really?" she demanded, voice rising. "Where did you get it and why are you lying about it?" Pulling her wand, she held it levelled at him.
He raised both empty hands. "Ginny, put that down -- "
"Are you in league with them? The Death Eaters? You let Voldemort have Harry, and Dumbledore was found dead in your office!"
Her voice was getting louder, and Cedric no longer felt guilty and mildly annoyed; he was downright worried. "Shhh! Lower your voice." He kept his hands raised. "And stop leaping to ridiculous conclusions. Or don't you believe Moody's own report? And Harry's? I didn't let Voldemort have Harry and I didn't kill Dumbledore!"
The tip of her wand wavered. "Well -- but maybe you're in league with them -- the Death Eaters."
He resisted rolling his eyes, but understood scepticism. Ginny wasn't the only one who harboured doubts about him. Several in the Order gave him suspicious glances; it wasn't a time just now when trust was given easily. "Fudge and his Aurors interrogated me; they know exactly what I did, and didn't do." Well, to a point. No matter how many times he'd been asked, or who'd demanded to know, he'd never told anybody who it was had come back from the future to save him -- except the person who'd come back to save him.
Now, Ginny lowered the wand and sighed. "Sorry, I just -- "
"It's all right. I understand." Then reaching out, he snatched back the diary before she could think to secrete or grip it harder.
"Hey! That's -- "
"It was hidden in the wall; I want to know why whoever put it there went to such trouble to conceal it."
Her eyes narrowed. "Diaries can be dangerous; you should burn it."
He was aghast. "Absolutely not! We don't know what's in it -- it could be critical."
"It could possess you!"
"I doubt it." He started to make light of it, then saw how her chin trembled and the amusement fell off his face. "Ginny, it'll be fine. I'm not going to be reckless about it."
"Then why don't you just go right now and give it to one of the adults?"
He opened his mouth, but realized he had no good answer, or none he was willing to confess to. "I'm curious, all right?" Looking down at the diary, he turned it in his hands. "It might be nothing at all, just personal observations, but I'm afraid if I give it to Sirius, he'll throw it out along with the other family rubbish. And if I give it to your mum, she'll give it to Professor McGonagall, and then we'll never find out what's in it."
"But the adults would know," Ginny pointed out. "And that's who really needs to, yeah?"
He glanced up at her, unsure how to explain his interest beyond, "I like figuring out things."
"Fooling around with unknown books you found in a house full of dark magic is a really stupid thing to do, Diggory."
With arms folded and pointed chin raised, she reminded him of her mother. He resisted smiling. "Your caution is noted. But aren't you just, well, a little bit curious about everything they're not telling us?"
She sighed and Cedric recognized it for a concession. Turning, she headed out. "I ought to tell Professor McGonagall right now."
"But you won't," he called after her.
"Fine, I won't."
Cedric shoved the diary in a pocket of his robes, then glanced back again at the tapestry and the name it had been hidden behind. Regulus Black. He hadn't told Ginny his real reason for not wanting to give it up. He suspected it had belonged to Sirius' younger brother -- a Death Eater who'd turned on Voldemort. The diary might contain secrets they needed to know, secrets Harry needed to know. And ever since the Triwizard Tournament, Cedric no longer trusted the adults to see to Harry's safety. That was now Cedric's personal mission.