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roonilwazlibimagines · 8 months

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all too well - c.d x female reader

Blurb: literally just all too well by taylor swift; young reader x older cedric Word Count: 14.7k Warnings: cedric's an ass, i did a lot of editing but i haven't looked at this in like a year A/N: what if i told you i started this the week after red (tv) release #oopsies #iwasnevergoingtoproofreadthisagainsoifiguredishouldjustpostit #ihaveinspiraitontowrite #howdowefeelaboutfratboyregulus #howdowefeelaboutmeselfprojecting

Masterlist

An Upstate Escape

It was my first year of Hogwarts when I first saw Cedric Diggory and, even if I didn’t necessarily believe it, the first thought that came to my mind was that one day he would be mine. It was a far stretch because while I was in my first year he was in his last and ready to graduate from Hogwarts. But it didn’t matter because really, it was just a silly schoolgirl crush.

Cedric Diggory was the golden boy. Quite literally. He had all the best attributes of a great Hufflepuff: he was Head Boy and captain of Hufflepuff’s Quidditch team, he was top of his year academically, and while he managed to accomplish all of that, he competed in the Triwizard Tournament and won.

This reputation definitely didn’t help my crush. It only made me want him more. Subconsciously, I think it made me feel that if I ever was to have a chance with him I needed to be just as golden as him. So I became the golden girl. I was top of my class academically, I was head girl and I already had a job as a junior healer lined up for me after Hogwarts. Cedric had his own reputation and now I had mine. It crossed my mind, one random afternoon during my last few days of Hogwarts that I finally felt like I was on the same level as Cedric Diggory.

Not that I had seen him since my last day of my first year. But I was still aware that he was golden. He was a famous Quidditch player which was one of the few things I lacked in comparison to him. Quidditch was never my strong suit, but I was happy to watch the game and I knew I would turn back into my first year old self if I ever got to see him play again.

He seemed untouchable now, with his elite status, but for some reason, I just knew that someday our paths would cross again.

And they did. The week after I had finished Hogwarts. I was out celebrating with my friends at a pub in Diagon Alley and even in the dark light I could recognise the familiar golden brown curls at the bar and I suddenly decided that I was thirsty. Offering to buy the next round I made my way up to the bar, pulling my skirt down and fixing my hair as I did so. I stood right next to him and leant over the bench so the bartender could hear me, forcing myself not to look at him.

I could feel his eyes on me and it gave me a confidence boost that I didn’t need. When I finished my order I stood back up straight, pretending to let my eyes search the room before landing on the man beside me.

“Hi,” he smirked, angling his body to face me. He was sitting on a stool and I had to look up at him.

“Hi,” I responded, smiling up at him and tucking a strand of hair behind my ear, “Cedric Diggory, right?” The words escaped my mouth before I could think them through. Great. He was probably going to think I was some crazy fan who stalked him.

“You’re a fan?” Of course. He cocked an eyebrow at me as he took a sip of his drink and I chuckled.

“Sort of.” I was already slightly tipsy and feeling a bit too confident as I continued, “I was in my first year of Hogwarts when you graduated.” He nodded slowly and I wondered if he was doing the maths in his head.

“And you’ve been keeping up with me ever since?” There was a teasing glint in his eye as he went back to smirking and I laughed again.

“Something like that,” I mumbled, just as my drinks were placed in front of me. Both of our eyes fell on them and when I went to grab them he spoke again.

“So, you know who I am, tell me,” he paused, “what’s your name, pretty girl?” I almost dropped the drinks at his words and I think he noticed because he let out a low chuckle that was hard to hear with the music playing so loud.

When I told him my name he repeated it as if he was testing it out in his mouth and he smiled as if he enjoyed the new taste. I smiled up at him, suddenly unsure what was going to happen next and fearing that this would be the last time I spoke to Cedric Diggory.

“Well,” he thankfully continued, repeating my name once more, “I usually come here after Quidditch practice so maybe I’ll see you around?” He repeated his actions; lifting an eyebrow at me and sipping whatever was in his drink.

Smirking, I replied, “maybe you will,” and I walked away, my heart pounding as I tried to hide the grin on my face.

I didn’t want to be distracted by Cedric Diggory the whole night so I made a conscious effort not to look back at the bar, but it was torture. When we finished our round of drinks I allowed myself to glance back over to the bar and even if I wanted to turn away the second I saw Cedric Diggory already looking at me I forced myself to keep eye contact and gave him a flirty smile.

He seemed to like it because he smiled back and winked at me before downing his drink. I turned back around and let myself enjoy the way my heart fluttered.

~~~

The morning after I realised that I was in a trap. Firstly I wasn’t sure when Cedric had Quidditch practice, but that was an easy fix, surely one of my friends who were into Quidditch would know. The second issue was what did I do once I found out? Did I go there after his next Quidditch practice or would that seem too desperate? But if I didn’t go straight away and waited then I ran the risk of him finding someone else to flirt with. Then, of course, the self doubt crept in and for a few seconds I wondered if he even meant that he wanted to see me again. He was a famous Quidditch player. Surely he could have any girl he wanted.

I didn’t like chasing, there was too much thinking involved. But then I just had to remember how golden he still looked with his hair done perfectly and his eyes still gleaming and his confident demeanour and suddenly, I decided not to think too hard about it and went to find out when their next practice was.

The Quidditch season was ending soon meaning his team was practising religiously to ensure they had a prime opportunity to make it to the finals. I pretended to be interested when my friend told me all this hoping that when it would, undoubtedly, be brought up in conversation with Cedric I wouldn’t look like a complete fool. They figured out I was asking this for help with a boy but I didn’t tell them who it was. Not that I was embarrassed by Cedric or my crush on him, but I didn’t want to look like an idiot if nothing came out of it.

They trained Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays according to my friend and so I decided that Friday would be the best night to go. It was about a week since I first saw him so it didn’t look like I had rushed to find him and going out on a Friday night out was normal so it wouldn’t seem like I showed up just for him.

~~~

I realised I got there probably a bit too early because there was barely anyone in there. It was dark and the music was just starting to get louder. I sat myself on one of the stools at the bar, hoping that he would eventually show. I got a drink to calm my nerves and hopefully give me some confidence and I sipped it slowly so it wouldn’t immediately go to my head.

As I ordered a second drink I heard someone call my name and my head immediately snapped to find someone taking the seat next to me.

“Cedric,” I smiled, noticing that there were a few more people now in the pub.

“I’m glad you made it,” he smiled and I decided to act coy.

“Me too, did you have practice today?” I queried, thanking the bartender as I started sipping my new drink.

“I did, it was bloody horrendous today,” he mumbled before ordering a drink for himself.

“You must be training to get into the finals,” I commented, feeling proud of myself for relaying the information I had learnt last week.

“Yeah,” he sighed, his hands resting on his thighs, “we are. Are you a Quidditch fan?” I tensed up not exactly knowing what my next move should be. I wasn’t, but would he lose interest in me if I told him that?

“Of the sorts.” I went with, but immediately regretted it when I realised it made me sound lame. No one says that. He only nodded before taking a sip of his drink.

“So, tell me, what do you do?” I subconsciously sat up a bit straighter, proud to tell anyone my current occupation.

“I’m just starting as a junior healer at St. Mungo’s.” He gave me a surprised look and replied, “impressive.” I hoped it was. Surely a soon to be healer was on a similar level as a professional Quidditch player, right?

We spent the rest of the night talking and getting to know each other. He even gave me his personal insight into some of the tasks he had to do at the Triwizard Tournament and the whole night I was hanging onto each and every word that left his mouth. I was in awe of the man who really lived up to his reputation and was nothing short of golden and I was happy to hear all about him.

When it started getting late and the music seemed to die down I started to fear what would happen next.

“It has been lovely talking to you,” he said before finishing the drink in his hand, “I would love to keep this conversation going but maybe next time we could talk over dinner instead of drinks?” It took everything I had not to start squealing and shouting ‘yes!’. I instead cleared my throat to give me some time to relax before replying, “that sounds great.”

~~~

So the next week we were at a new restaurant outside Diagon Alley and Cedric was telling me about his training routine for his upcoming Quidditch game next week. It was a restaurant I had never heard of and there was barely anyone inside at this late hour, but I wondered if the few people in there could tell that I was completely enamoured by him and the way he spoke.

That night, despite the small crowd, I got a message from my friend alerting me of the ‘breaking news’ that Cedric Diggory had been spotted with a girl and could potentially be off the market.

‘Remember when you used to have a crush on him?’

For some reason I felt like I wasn’t meant to tell her that the mystery girl was me. Had Cedric told anyone? We had organised another dinner, this time at his house and I wondered if these locations had been specifically chosen to prevent the media from finding out more.

‘Worst news of my life’ I responded, hoping the conversation would end there.

After a few more dinners - which were never explicitly called ‘dates’, but I was confident were - Cedric said, “I really like talking to you.”

We were in another empty restaurant outside Diagon Alley and I beamed at him.

“I really like talking to you,” I giggled and he let out a breathy chuckle.

“You know,” he paused, “I’ve never met anyone like you.” My heart was pounding as I hung on his every word. “It feels like I’ve known you forever, you’re so mature for your age.” I wasn’t sure what to say but I thought it was a nice compliment so I looked down, hoping it came off as bashful. “Do you maybe want to come watch my game this weekend?”

He said I could bring a few of my friends and I, of course, accepted. I couldn’t remember if I had any plans that weekend, but I was more than happy to cancel them because going to the game would mean that people would see me.

The media knew that Cedric was seeing the same girl a couple of nights each week, but they didn’t know who the girl was, but going to his Quidditch game would make it official.

I hadn’t spoken about this with Cedric because I was scared he was going to think I was using him for fame or money or whatever it was, but it was obvious he wanted the same thing and had never been happier.

~~~

“Cedric Diggory?” One of my friends asked as I told them about how I had seen him that night we went out and how we had been meeting up since meaning I was the girl in that article.

“Yeah,” I said, “he was in his last year when we started, he is a professional Quidditch player?” I asked, dumbfounded that they were asking about him as if they didn’t know him.

“I know who he is,” they rolled their eyes at me, “he’s just kinda old.” They shrugged and I felt hot at the comment. I wanted to ask what the big deal was. We both enjoyed hanging out with each other, we were both adults. There was nothing wrong. But before I could speak another one of my friends chimed in.

“So are you like,” they paused, “dating?” We hadn’t said. The answer was therefore no, but I felt foolish telling them that. They were making this out to be a much bigger deal than it originally was and I was sad because I was no longer excited about asking them to the game.

“Well, we haven’t said we are officially dating,” I spoke slowly, “but surely he doesn’t ask every girl he meets to come to his Quidditch games, right?” They shrugged in response and I wished that, whether they believed it or not, they would have agreed with me.

~~~

I had bought his team's scarf and had my hair tied up in a scrunchie with his team's colours and we were sitting at the top of the stadium where Cedric had bought our tickets. I cheered for him when he came out and I cheered for him when he caught the snitch and they won the game. I was feeling giddy for him and for some reason I had never felt so nervous when I waited for him to come out of the locker rooms.

“Congratulations,” I smiled when he came out, his teammates trailing behind him.

“You stayed back.” One of his teammates nudged him in the side before chuckling and walking away but my focus was entirely on him.

“Of course,” I chuckled, bouncing on my heels.

“Thanks,” he mumbled and brought me in for a hug, pressing the faintest kiss to the top of my head. I felt his chest rise and fall and I wondered if he was exhausted after a long match.

“Listen,” he started, “we’re going out to celebrate tonight, but maybe tomorrow we can go out and do our own celebrating?” He pulled back and rose his eyebrow suggestively at me.

“Sounds good,” I whispered and feeling bold I leant in and pressed a kiss to his cheek, “see you then.” I started walking past him, heading over to my friends who had given us our space.

I heard one of his friends laugh and ask, “was that your girlfriend, Ced?” but I was too far away to hear his reply. I wondered if he would make it official tomorrow night.

He would have to, right? We had been to dinner countless times and he had kissed me in front of his teammates. Well maybe it wasn’t a proper kiss, but it was something. He asked me to his game and he still wanted to see me afterwards so surely I wasn’t naive to think that he would ask me to be his girlfriend, right?

Well maybe I was naive enough to think that he would, because he didn’t.

We were back at his house and he was talking so quickly I could barely keep up, but I didn’t want him to think I was uninterested so I kept an interested look on my face.

“And then I was sure that I was going to be hit by the bludger, but as you saw I moved away just in time, but then I wasn’t sure where the snitch went and I was sure the other seeker was just about to grab it, but-” I reacted at all of the right places, but for some reason my heart was in my throat.

I knew we had only been talking for a short while, but I had feelings for Cedric Diggory and I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with myself if he didn’t reciprocate them.

I was so caught up in my thoughts that I barely noticed when he stopped talking, until he took a bite of his food and pointed at me before saying, “That’s cute.”

He was referring to his team's scarf that I had foolishly worn to dinner. I wasn’t sure why I wore it again. I had bought it just for the match and if I was being honest it was out of my budget. Apparently Quidditch merchandise is not in a financially struggling junior healer in training’s price range. I guess I just didn’t want it to be a waste of money.

“Thanks,” I looked down at my food, “I’ve had it for ages.” I mumbled, not really wanting him to know that I bought it just for the match.

He kept telling me stories about the team, what they got up to last night celebrating and when his next match would be.

“It’s nice, just to be in private, don’t you think?” he asked after finishing a story about his friend who got so drunk that night he spliced himself.

“You must get a lot of unwanted attention in public.” I took a sip of the water and he leant back on the bench across from me. I was weary of this conversation. Nothing had come from the media about me being at his game. Apparently they didn’t stay for the players to come out at the end of the game, so Cedric Diggory was still taken by some mystery girl.

I wasn’t sure why I was so caught up on this, I guess a part of me wanted to be public so it would feel real.

“Yeah, it gets hard sometimes,” he sighed, “you think you’re living a normal life but then it’s on the front page of the newspaper and suddenly everyone has an opinion.”

I guess it made sense. He obviously wanted to take things slow because of this privacy issue, but I was certain that one day we would take the next step.

And I was feeling pretty confident about it too when I was standing in his doorway, ready to apparate back home when he called out my name and grabbed onto my waist, bringing me closer to him and pressing his lips against mine. I smiled into the kiss and brought my hands onto his chest to steady myself from the sudden movement. He pulled away and I knew I was smiling like an idiot.

“See you next week?” he asked, and I beamed.

“Of course.”

When I got home I realised that I had left my scarf at his house but that was the least of my concerns because all I could focus on was the feeling of him on my lips and the excitement of a new relationship beginning and all I could do was close my eyes and focus on my breathing so I didn’t pass out.

The First Crack in The Glass

Cedric and I had been going out for over a month now and we were settling into our relationship. If that’s what we were calling it. I was unsure because we had never spoken about it explicitly. It did frustrate me, but I was so happy to be with him and I didn’t want to push him in a direction he didn’t want to go in, so I tried not to think about it.

I hoped that he would extend that favour to me as well. Cedric had invited me to one of the training sessions and it was here where the media finally got the winning shot of Cedric walking over to me sitting in the stands. It didn’t take long before people found out it was me and even though Cedric hadn’t brought it up, I wondered if he was as happy as I was that our love was there for the world to see.

Since our relationship had received a bit of attention from the media, we now had most of our dates at his house. Now that people knew we were together, media outlets seemed to be following our every move and it was frustrating having to use back exits and going out in inconspicuous clothing. I didn’t think Cedric really liked all the attention our relationship was getting. He would always get quiet when there were people waiting outside to take our photos and I would always find papers with our photo on them torn up in his bin.

Which I was noticing a lot more now that we were spending more time at his house.

But I wasn’t complaining about it because it gave us plenty of opportunities to make out.

Cedric’s lips were soft and his touch was sure. Sometimes it made me feel a bit insecure because he obviously had experience whereas I had only had a few pathetic ‘pecks’ during school.

But I had other things to worry about. Sometimes Cedric would get a bit handsy and I’d have to awkwardly make an excuse and remove myself from the situation. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy his touch, he was obviously skilled and I enjoyed it thoroughly, but I just wasn’t ready to take it to the next step.

I hadn’t done anything like that with another person and while it had crossed my mind that I wouldn’t mind doing it with Cedric, I just wasn’t ready to give that up when I wasn’t even sure if we were officially dating.

Tonight I was meeting his friends for the first time. They mainly consisted of the people he played Quidditch with as well as a few others who were in his year at Hogwarts. It was a celebration for his team who had made it to the finals and even though I still needed it explicitly said, the fact that he had chosen me to accompany him made me feel like we were official.

“You look divine,” Cedric murmured, making his way over to me and placing his hands on my hips. He brought his head down to mine and he pressed a kiss to the outside of my ear making me giggle.

“Thanks,” I mumbled, “I’m not going to lie, I’m a little nervous.” He pulled away from me. We were outside his doorway, my arms were wrapped around my chest in the cool night air and I was glad that his porch light was dim because I could barely see his face and I hoped it was the same for him.

“Why?” His eyebrow furrowed in confusion and put a hand on my upper arm.

“I don’t know,” I murmured, trying not to meet his gaze, “it’s just nerve wracking meeting new people.” He didn’t respond and so I continued. “I really want to make a good impression on your friends, you know? They’re obviously important to you and I don’t want them to hate me.” “Why would they hate you?” I wasn’t entirely sure. For a moment I reflected on it. They were the same age as Cedric. I had just left school. I didn’t think that we would have much in common and I guess a part of me understood how people perceived my relationship with Cedric in regards to our age gap. I didn’t want to tell him this though.

“I don’t know,” I mumbled and he brought a hand under my chin so I would look up at him.

“Hey,” his voice was just above a whisper, “there’s a reason I’m bringing you tonight, don’t doubt yourself, okay?” He brought his head closer to mine and placed a kiss on my forehead and I felt my heart flutter. Obviously he liked me enough if there was a reason he was bringing me tonight.

My fears were unfortunately confirmed at the party. Cedric had kindly introduced me to all of his friends and I was holding on, probably a little too tightly, to his arm. We were at someone's house and it was loud and dark and I could smell the alcohol and some other foul odour that I had a suspicion was drugs.

“She just finished Hogwarts, but she’s already a junior healer.” He sounded so proud that I didn’t have the heart to tell him that technically I wasn’t a junior healer yet. And all of his friends sounded impressed and I liked that.

However, once he had introduced me to everyone, he got called over by one of his teammates and turning to me he quickly mumbled a, “I’ll be right back,” and left me by myself.

I went to go over to his friends from Hogwarts, surely we would have some common ground because we went to the same school. We did. Kind of. Most of the teachers they had had either retired or left by the time I had started and I was getting lost in their stories. Not that it was their fault. They welcomed me in and they included me in conversation, but there was so much history between them and I didn’t have enough time to catch up.

I excused myself and went to the bathroom, hoping that along the way I would find Cedric and he would rescue me.

I found him on my way to the bathroom and changed trajectory so I was walking over to him. He was sitting in a lounge and there was a small space next to him.

“Hey.” He sat up as I made my way over and I squished myself onto the empty space next to him. I brought my hands around his arm once more and he smiled down at me before going back to the conversation with his teammates. They didn’t include me as much as his friends from Hogwarts did and when he was talking he was using so many hand actions that my hands got shaken away from his and they were now resting awkwardly in my lap.

He was facing away from me and I was glad because I didn’t want him to see me overreacting about this.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” I mumbled and it made me even sadder when Cedric didn’t even acknowledge me leaving.

I was slightly panicked when I realised I didn’t even know where the bathroom was, but I was even more terrified when I found it and realised that I could potentially walk in on anything. I locked the door behind me and I looked at myself in the mirror and frowned. I didn’t even know why I was so upset.

I put it down to just being overwhelmed. I was in a new environment with new people who I wanted to impress so I could impress my boyfriend, who wasn’t actually welcoming me into his friend group, who also isn’t actually my boyfriend, and who probably wants to have sex with me even though I’m not ready yet.

So maybe I did know why I was so upset.

I focused on my breathing and splashed some cold water on my face before opening the door and going out to face round two.

I didn’t get very far because as I left I bumped into Ginny Weasley. She apologised and I apologised and when we both regained our composure she smiled brightly at me.

“Hey, your Cedric’s girlfriend, yeah?” I was so shocked about running into someone and being known as Cedric’s girlfriend that I immediately replied with a, ‘yes.’

“You went to Hogwarts, right? I think you were a few years below me?” I was shocked that she remembered and had to swallow before I answered.

“Yeah I did, we were a couple years apart.” She was so famous in the Quidditch world that even I knew who she was. “Congratulations on your team getting through.” She didn’t play on the same team as Cedric but Cedric had told me that her team had gone through as well. I guess they were here also celebrating.

“Thank you,” she beamed, “so excited to be able to play in the finals.” After that I excused myself and told her that I had to find Cedric, but really all I wanted was to go home.

I kept replaying the conversation with Ginny as I made my way back to Cedric. I wasn’t entirely sure where he was because I wasn’t even sure how I found the bathroom.

People were shouting and bumping into me but all I could do was dig my nails into my hand as I recalled how I had foolishly said I was Cedric’s girlfriend.

But then I heard Cedric’s laugh and when I saw him his head had fallen back and he had a hand on his abdomen and I smiled.

I was definitely overreacting.

I went back to the seat beside Cedric, but he barely acknowledged my return. I decided that if I wasn’t going to be explicitly included in the conversation then I was still going to support Cedric. So I sat there and looked pretty and laughed at the right times and listened to every single word that they said so next time I would be able to join in.

Halfway through a conversation Cedric excused himself to go to the bathroom and I felt my breath get caught in my throat when I realised I would be left alone with his friends.

“So, has Cedric gone soft?” One of them asked me as soon as Cedric was out of ear shot. I was so shocked at being addressed that I stared at them with my mouth open for a second before I let out a laugh.

“I don’t want to embarrass him.” They all laughed at that.

“You don’t have to,” one of them said.

“We can do that.” I found myself laughing as well. Maybe this wasn’t too bad.

They kept telling me embarrassing stories about Cedric and when he came back he had a look of confusion seeing us all laughing together.

“What are you guys talking about?” he asked, laughing awkwardly, obviously feeling left out of our laughter.

“We were just reliving that time you fell of your broom when that reporter came and-”

“Don’t remind me,” he winced and for the first time that night I felt relaxed.

With Cedric back the conversation returned to one which I was no longer a part of and part of me was sad that we were no longer bonding. But before I knew it the party was over and Cedric was apparating us back to his place.

I hadn’t stayed the night at his place, yet, but I was feeling giddy after the party and was hoping that he would offer tonight.

“Did you talk to Ginny Weasley tonight?” he queried. His back was towards me but I could tell that the bubbly persona he had had with his friends was suddenly gone.

“What?” I was so shocked about the sudden change in his demeanour that that was all I could get out. “Yeah I did,” I corrected myself, my eyebrows furrowing in confusion and my arms instinctively wrapping across my chest. “Why?” We were in the kitchen, he was facing the bench and I was facing his back.

“Did you tell her we were boyfriend and girlfriend?” He finally turned around to raise an eyebrow at me accusingly and I was left standing at him dumbfounded.

“What?” This time my voice was shrill and I almost let out a chuckle at the ridiculous question.

“She came up to me and said something about how cute my girlfriend was and I was just wondering if you were telling people that we were dating?” I was so dumbstruck that all I could do was blink at him.

“So we aren’t dating?” I squinted my eyes at him, my mouth still hanging open in shock.

“Well, no,” he mumbled and I finally let out a laugh. I felt so foolish. I wanted to cry.

“So why’d you bring me out tonight then?” I gave him an incredulous look and he rolled his eyes which only made me even angrier.

“Don’t do that,” he grunted, turning away from me again.

“Do what?” I took a step closer to him.

“Get all upset and emotional about it,” he winced as if me showing any emotion disgusted him.

“About the fact that we act like a couple but you won’t make it official?”

“Look,” he paused, bringing his hands out in front of him, his palms facing me, “I don’t want to fight with you about this.”

“Well what are we, Cedric?” I was practically shouting now but I didn’t care. “You can’t expect me to go on like this if you won’t put a label on us.”

“We were doing fine before all of this, why do we need to complicate things?” I just stared at him. My mouth slightly agape, wondering if maybe I really was complicating things. I hadn’t really had a boyfriend before, is this what it was like?

“Cedric,” I begged, “we go out all the time, we make out on your couch almost every night, you invite me to your parties but then ignore me the whole night, and then when I-”

“Hang on,” he interrupted, “ignore you?” He finally turned to me and I shrunk under his intense gaze. I had seen Cedric angry before. When paparazzi followed us out of a restaurant, when he didn’t catch the snitch or lost a game. But that was an angry quiet. His jaw would visibly tense and his fingers would turn white as he dug his nails into his palm and he wouldn’t say anything to me until he had calmed down, which sometimes took days. No matter how much I tried to speak to him, he remained quiet. I was used to it. But this? I was not.

“Well, yeah,” I mumbled, suddenly not as confident as I was only seconds ago.

“Explain,” he challenged.

“You introduced me to your friends but then you left me by myself and I have nothing in common with them and then when I do go find you you ignored me the whole time and-”

“I was just talking to my friends!” he exclaimed, “is that such a fucking crime?” I think it was the first time I had heard him swear and I wished that I had never brought this up.

“It’s not, but I just, I wasn’t included in the conversation and I just felt-”

“You were in the conversation, you were laughing and they were telling you stories about me, I don’t know what the fuck you’re going on about.” I felt my bottom lip tremble, not used to being on the receiving end of such harsh words. But I took a deep breath and swallowed before continuing.

“Okay, fine, whatever,” I didn’t want to fight, I had a feeling he’d win, “but I need to know where I stand with you.” My voice was weak and he brought his hands up to run a hand through his hair before he continued.

“I don’t know,” he sounded frustrated, “I guess all my previous relationships have been physical and-”

He continued but I didn’t process a single word he said after that. Of course he wanted to be physical. Intimacy was such an important part of a relationship and I had been depriving him of that.

“I haven’t done anything before,” I spoke slowly, playing with my hands in front of my abdomen. He let out a sigh and came closer to me, grabbing my fidgeting hands in his own.

“Well don’t feel pressured to do anything, but I just think it would maybe help us become more real, you know?” I didn’t know because I had never done it. When I didn’t respond he just continued. “Look, let’s just call it a night, you can think about it and you can stay over here.” He leaned over to press a kiss to the top of my head. “I’m sorry for yelling.”

I just let him hold me close to him, my body limp as he put a hand on the curve of my spin and led me to his bedroom where he let me borrow some of his clothes.

I didn’t really want to spend the night with him anymore but it was what I wanted mere minutes ago and I couldn’t be bothered to fight it.

I thought the first time I would sleep in the same bed with him I would have the best sleep of my life. I would feel comfortable and safe. He’d have an arm around my waist and we’d either be facing each other and watching the other until the first person fell asleep, or my back would be towards him and I’d feel him breath in and out. It was neither of those things.

I was on my back, staring at the ceiling unable to fall asleep. It was a big thing to be willing to give up a part of myself for Cedric. I kept tossing and turning, hoping that sleep would find me, but it never did.

All I wanted was to get some peace and so I decided that I was willing to give that part of myself up and suddenly I was able to fall asleep.

~~~

“I’m ready,” I had told him as I sat across from him at breakfast.

“You’re ready?” He raised an eyebrow at me and I nodded.

“To you know,” I paused, “have sex.” I hated how weak my voice got as I said those last two words.

“Excellent,” he beamed, sitting up a bit straighter.

“But, do you think maybe we could take it slow?” I asked, “I kinda want my first time to be special.” It sounded silly, I knew that. But it was a lot of him to ask that I give this up for him and I was hoping that he would be able to do this one thing for me.

He let out a laugh and I wasn’t sure if I should have been offended or not.

“It’s not a big deal,” he said with his breakfast in his mouth, “your first time,” he added, “don’t put too much pressure on it.”

I wanted to tell him that to me, my first time was important, but I was scared it would turn into a fight like last night so I let it go.

I was a nervous wreck ever since that conversation. I wasn’t sure how to dress, I didn’t know what underwear and bra to wear. Did I eat beforehand? Surely I wasn’t meant to have a full bladder. I had all of these questions and really no one to ask. I wanted to ask my friends but they were still unsure about my relationship with Cedric and I wanted to ask Cedric but I feared he would think I was stupid and I wanted to prove to him that I was ready and mature enough to do this, so I figured it out myself.

It didn’t really matter what I wore because it was off me within seconds. Cedric made a comment that my lingerie was cute, but then he took it off so that didn’t really matter either. It didn’t matter that I went in with an empty stomach either because by the end of it I had lost my appetite. But my mouth was dry and I desperately needed a drink of water. Cedric offered to get me one when I was lying naked on top of his bed sheets.

My bottom lip was trembling and my chest was heaving but I knew I couldn’t cry. Cedric took it slow but it was all so quick it felt like it was over within minutes.

I was on my back the whole time, my hands briefly going out to touch Cedric’s shoulders as he leaned over me to grunt in my ear.

Maybe I was naive to think that my first time would be romantic and special and about my pleasure, maybe that just wasn’t how sex worked. Cedric obviously had a lot more experience than me and so he would know better.

But still, I just felt like there was a piece of me missing. And I knew it was stupid because I knew that virginity was just a social construct, but I had a feeling I was no longer the same person I was this morning when I woke up.

“Here you go, baby,” Cedric hummed, passing me my glass of water as I sat up and started sipping it. He got back on the bed and I placed my glass on a tissue on his bedside table.

“Thanks,” I mumbled, copying his actions and lying back down. I brought the bed sheet up to my neck.

“That was amazing,” he seemed dazed and I noticed it was the first time I had seen his hair in a mess. I figured that if he looked like he had reached euphoria then I should as well and so I agreed with him. “Was it good enough for your first time?” He gave me a lazy smirk as he came closer to me and held my body close to his.

“Yeah,” my voice came out shaky and he only chuckled in response.

“Good,” he hummed, “only the best for my girlfriend.” His arms snaked around my waist as he brought me closer to him. I laid there, still. I couldn’t move. There were too many emotions that I had never felt before and all I wanted was to have a shower, get dressed and go home. But I let him hold me close to him because at least now we were officially boyfriend and girlfriend.

Are You Real?

We had been seeing each other for just over two months and we were officially a couple now. After that night things did get better. Cedric was inviting me to stay overnight at his house often and he was starting to introduce me to his friends as his girlfriend.

The biggest shock for me was when he asked me to meet his family. I thought that was pretty serious and so I happily said yes.

I was nervous again, about meeting new people, but I didn’t want to accidentally make him angry by reminding him of the last time I was nervous about meeting people close to him.

“Don’t be so nervous,” he had chastised anyway. We were standing in front of his parents' door and I wasn’t sure if I was shivering from the nerves or the cold.

“I’m not,” I had whined, my eyebrows furrowing together as I defended myself.

“You are,” he chuckled, pulling me closer to him and wrapping my coat tighter around my body, “don’t be.” He pressed a kiss to the top of my head and we were walking into his childhood house.

“Cedric!” His father had cried out, hurrying over to give him a hug. I stood a little awkwardly behind him until his mother came up.

“And you must be his new girlfriend,” I introduced myself and she brought me in for a hug.

They were leading us into the living room and I couldn’t help but look at everything we passed as I took in his house. It was big. Bigger than any house I had ever lived in and probably even bigger than the house Cedric currently lived in.

I followed Cedric in and sat down next to him in the lounge in the living room and his dad sat in front of us. His mother went to go get us drinks while Cedric and his father caught up.

I held onto his arm, smiling the whole time and laughing at the appropriate times, fearing the moment the attention would be brought upon myself.

“So, tell me, how did you two meet?” His mother sat next to her husband and I opened my mouth to talk.

“We met in Diagon Alley,” Cedric beat me to it and I went back to smiling at them.

“Oh, that’s so sweet,” she replied, “and what do you do?” She turned to address me and I went to tell her about how excited I was to start as a junior healer.

“She’s starting as a junior healer soon,” Cedric had answered for me.

“Wow,” they both exclaimed, “that’s impressive.”

“It is,” Cedric replied, placing a hand on my knee, “it’s no surprise though, she was top of her class and head girl,” he paused, “my perfect girl.” I stared at him a bit dumbfounded, blinking rapidly, trying to figure out what to say next. We had expressed ways we admired the other, but these were some of the most heartfelt words I had ever heard Cedric say about me.

“You’re too kind,” I mumbled as his parents watched our interaction. He beamed down at me and I gave him a nervous smile.

“We’ve never seen Cedric so infatuated with someone before,” his dad teased and I could hear his mum coo. Cedric chuckled.

“Please, I don’t need you guys embarrassing me.” He let his head fall for a moment and I laughed.

“He does that enough himself.” I looked over at him and we shared another smile.

When we eventually made our way over to the dinner table I passed a photo frame of a young Cedric, he would have only been around five or six, with a broom in his hand. It was much bigger than him and in the other he had a fake golden snitch in his hand. His teeth were crooked and his eyes were crinkled from his beaming smile. I couldn’t help but stop and smile as I looked up at it.

“We always knew he would be a Quidditch star,” his mum said. I turned around and smiled at her and continued walking to the dining room.

“Mum,” Cedric complained.

“Well we did, I’m sure you were riding a broom before you could walk properly.” I laughed as I sat down at the table.

“Well, he wasn’t always good,” his dad chimed in and Cedric groaned. “There was the time you flew into our fence.”

“Oh,” his mum laughed, “and the time you lost control and broke the door.”

“I was a child.” Cedric tried to defend himself but he could barely be heard over the laughter.

He was smiling, nonetheless and as I turned over to look at him I was sure that I could see the same smile as the little boy in the photo frame. Still bright, eyes still wrinkled, but maybe straighter teeth.

And he was mine.

I wasn't sure what it was, but I suddenly felt silly about how infatuated I was with him before all of this. Maybe he was just as golden as I had always pictured him to be, but he was still human and somehow, that made me love him even more.

I had already planned that Cedric would have to meet my parents after he so graciously let me meet his and I hoped that it would go just as smoothly as it had with Cedric’s. His parents were so kind and welcoming and there was never an awkward silence which I really appreciated.

He didn’t appear nervous at all and I feared I was carrying it for both of us, but his calm disposition made me feel better.

I had a feeling it could be a little more rocky compared to meeting his because of the letter my parents had sent me when I asked them if I could bring him over. Even though I hadn’t really considered it, apparently our age gap was a bit of an issue for them and they had outlined how concerned they were for me in this relationship. I assured them that Cedric was nothing short of a gentleman and promised them that when they met him they would change their mind immediately.

I didn’t want to tell Cedric this because, really, we hadn’t had the age gap conversation and part of me was scared that if we had it he would doubt himself and call this whole thing off.

They gave me a hug when I entered and Cedric walked in and gave my dad a handshake and my mum a hug and I watched anxiously.

“And you must be Cedric,” my mum said, looking him up and down. They were both smiling but there was an awkward tension in the air which didn’t seem to bother Cedric.

“The one and only,” he joked and I eased up when I remembered how comfortable Cedric was in front of new people.

We were ushered in and found ourselves in a similar position to the one at Cedric’s house except this time, the heat - thankfully - wasn’t on myself.

“You have a lovely house,” he had commented as we walked through and I gave his hand a squeeze.

“Oh,” my parents seemed surprised, “thank you.”

“So, you’re a Quidditch star?” My dad asked when we were finally sitting down.

“Not a star,” he looked bashful and I thought it was cute, “just someone who plays sport.”

“Well you’re very good at it.” It looked like it pained my father to admit it, but Cedric kept his confident demeanour.

“Thank you,” he smiled sheepishly, “I’ve been playing ever since I can remember. Are you a big fan of Quidditch?” I was holding onto Cedric’s arm, looking between him and my dad as they conversed.

“Yeah,” my dad nodded, “but not of your team.”

“Dad.” I gave him a warning look, but he shrugged. Cedric just laughed.

“Hey,” Cedric turned to me, “a man's team is important.” I shook my head but when my father told him his team he continued. “I could get you tickets to their next game if you want?” He perked up at that and soon they were planning to go to a game together.

It seemed my dad had warmed up to Cedric and even though I was a bit weary he would give him a hard time, I was glad they had found common ground. My mum, on the other hand, still had a tight lipped smile as she studied Cedric.

“Well I better start dinner.” She stood up but before she could leave Cedric chimed in.

“Can I help you at all?” She paused and slowly turned around, her head slightly turned to the side.

“No thank you, Cedric,” she paused, “you’re our guest. She gave him a genuine smile and I let out a sigh of relief. They were both warming up to him and that was all I ever wanted.

When we finally made our way over to the dining room, Cedric pulled my chair out for me and I saw my parents share a look as my whole body suddenly turned warm.

Cedric kept the conversation going all night, telling stories about his games and asking my parents questions about themselves and about me, which I was very embarrassed about, but was glad they were getting along.

I was completely enamoured by how confident he was. If I didn’t know any better, you could tell me that he had known my parents his whole life and I would have believed you. He knew just how to charm them and somehow, I was falling even more in love with him.

I stayed back when Cedric left to spend some time with my family and once he did so my parents let out a sigh.

“He seems nice,” my mum commented.

“He’s a nice guy,” my dad said at the same time. I hummed in content. He definitely was.

I never really understood what people meant when they said their relationship was in the ‘honeymoon phase’. Wasn’t your whole relationship meant to feel like a honeymoon? I thought Cedric’s and I would. We had met the other’s family, and both times were successful. We had finally been intimate together, and I was starting to get used to it. He introduced me as his girlfriend all the time and when he wasn't busy training for the finals, we were spending every second we could together.

He had confided in me about his past relationships as well. Girls who were just in it for the fame and the money and I was glad I never brought up how stressed I was about our secretive relationship when we first started dating.

“But you’re different,” he said, “I can picture a future with you.”

I think I finally understood what the phrase picture perfect meant. Everything between Cedric and I was going so well, we just fit together so well. Everything was falling into place and I was convinced we were matching puzzle pieces.

We still hadn’t said ‘I love you’ to the other, but I knew the feelings were there for me and I was sure the feelings were there for him.

But it all started to go downhill on a random Tuesday night.

When I went over Cedric was in a bit of a mood. It was one of his quiet angry moods. I didn’t like when he was in them, but it wasn’t something new to me. I tried to be as pleasing as I could so as not to disturb him anymore.

“How was your day?” He only grunted in response, sitting at the coffee table with a hot mug of tea in his hand. I went over to the kitchen to make myself one.

“What’s wrong?” I tried to keep my voice light but I mustn’t have done a good job at it.

“Nothing,” he grumbled and I held back a sigh.

“You just seem a bit upset s’all,” I mumbled, pouring the water from the kettle into the mug that I always used at his house, “just want to help.”

“Well it is your fault,” he mumbled it so low under his breath I wasn’t even sure I heard him correctly.

“What?” I went to sit next to him and he ran a hand through his hair before passing the newspaper over at me.

There was a picture of me clinging to his arm from a night out with his friends only last week on the front page and a headline making a dig of our age gap in black, bold letters.

“Oh,” I mumbled, my eyes scanning the article to find some not nice comments about myself.

“Yeah, oh,” he scoffed and I turned to him with my eyebrows furrowed.

“You’re making this sound like it’s my fault.”

“Well if you weren’t being so clingy that night,” he mumbled. I wanted to tell him that me being ‘clingy’ probably had nothing to do with the article. If I wasn’t so ‘clingy’ they still would have said horrible things. And most of the horrible things were about me, so really, why was he so upset?

“What’s that meant to mean?” He rolled his eyes and let out a frustrated groan.

“Look, I know you’re not used to being in the spotlight but now you are and every single move you make is important, it reflects on me and it reflects on my career.”

“All I did was hold onto your arm.” It came out more like a question as I tried to wrap my head around what we were actually fighting about.

“Which makes you seem childish,” he explained as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. He pointed to the comment about our age gap to prove his point and I sat back in the chair next to him.

My instinct was to reply, ‘well I am a child.’ But I wasn’t. I was seventeen now. I was an adult.

“Sorry,” I said sarcastically, “next time I’ll let them take a picture of me when I’m working.” He made an odd noise between a groan and a grunt and ran a hand through his hair so it was sticking up in odd places.

“You’re always like this,” he groaned.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re always so clingy and when I bring it up you get all defensive. You did that night of the party as well.” My whole body got hot. Was I really that clingy? I didn’t think I was.

I was speechless.

“Look, I’m sorry,” he sighed, “I’ve got my game coming up this weekend and I’m stressed and you’re not used to this.” Cedric had his semifinal match this weekend to determine whether his team made it into the final so I understood that times were tough.

I didn’t say anything back and when Cedric finally looked over at me he scooted his chair closer to me and wrapped an arm around me.

I wanted to shove it off but I didn’t know how he would react. He was red and angry only a second ago. I couldn’t believe it only took him seconds to calm down.

He was humming as he started tracing patterns on my arm with his thumb but I was too lost in my own thoughts to notice what he was humming or drawing.

I was too focused on the article in front of me. I was smiling up at him in the picture. He was looking over my head. I looked bright and radiant. That was the night he had introduced me to everyone as his girlfriend. He had practically shown me off as if he was proud of the person I was and I wished that I could go back to that person because all I wanted to do now was hide.

~~~

Cedric said he didn’t want me to come to his semi finals match.

“What?” We were at his house again. His game was the next day and this afternoon when I apparated over to his house I thought that I would have to find that scarf I left over so I could wear it to his game.

“I’ll be too nervous if you’re there watching me.” I thought he was making no sense, but I didn’t really want to fight with him before such a big game.

“But I want to cheer you on.”

“You can,” he paused, “from home.” I sighed. It seemed ever since that article Cedric and I hadn’t stopped fighting. We fought when the restaurant got our take out order wrong (because I should’ve checked it before leaving with it), we fought when I told him I wasn’t in the mood for sex (because I had been acting distant lately) and we fought whenever we went out of the house (because there was always something I did wrong).

And I was getting sick of it so I got my bag and shrugged my shoulders.

“Fine, if that’s what you really want.” He opened his mouth to say something but I apparated away before he could get a word in. “Good luck, Cedric.”

I wanted to cry as soon as I got home, but I wouldn’t allow myself to. Allowing myself to cry was almost like admitting that there was something wrong in our relationship. Which there wasn’t. We were having sex now. Things were different.

~~~

I watched him play his stupid game on the lounge in my pyjamas. I didn’t even have my stupid scarf. I still cheered for him, even though it wasn't doing them any good because they were losing. Badly.

I was tense the whole time. I didn’t think Cedric would react very well to losing the semi-finals. Especially when they got thrashed.

I debated going over to see him, but I decided I didn’t want to deal with him in a shitty mood so I apparated to his house bright and early the next day.

“He’s the reason we fucking lost.” I was standing outside his front door, but I could hear him yell.

“Mate, I know,” I heard a second voice, “but you have to calm down.” I stupidly let myself in.

“No, I’ve been training my ass off this whole season, how is it fair that we all suffer because of his stupidity?”

“It’s not, but-”

“No, I don’t care.” I had never heard his voice so loud. I was frozen standing on the other side of his door. They were in the kitchen, but I wasn’t brave enough to make myself known. “I want him off the team.”

“Mate, you can’t-”

“He can’t even play.” I heard him hit something and I involuntarily jumped. I didn’t think I made much noise, but maybe I did because they stopped talking and walked out of the kitchen to find me standing foolishly in front of his door.

I made eye contact with Cedric. My whole body was tense and hot in the worst ways possible and I wanted to walk straight back outside his door and forget this ever happened.

“You need to calm down mate.” His teammate nodded at me in acknowledgement, before patting a hand on Cedric’s back. “I’ll talk to you later.” He said goodbye to me and walked outside, before apparating away.

I didn’t know what to say. I stood there in silence before Cedric sighed.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said. I didn’t either. He walked back into the kitchen, hitting the table and making me flinch again.

Part of me wanted him to come over and kiss the top of my head and apologise to me just like he did whenever we fought. Part of me didn’t want him to come near me ever again.

My heart was racing. I was frozen on the spot. I hoped once Cedric and I were intimate things would change and I guess in some strange way I had gotten my wish. I guess I should’ve been more specific.

The Breaking Point

Almost at the end of three months since I had first met Cedric Diggory it was my birthday. I was very excited and I had told Cedric numerous times.

“I’ve always loved my birthday.” I had mentioned to him when we were in bed one night. He hummed in response and I turned to face him. I was lying on my side and staring up at him while he had his back resting against the headboard.

“Hello,” I chuckled, noticing that he wasn’t present. His eyes briefly turned to me before going back to staring straight ahead.

“Sorry love, what were you saying?” He had been like this since his team lost the semifinals and I was trying not to get frustrated. He hadn’t had an outburst of anger since that day I walked in on him yelling at his teammate, but for some reason I felt like I had a false sense of security.

“Just that I was excited for my birthday,” I shrugged, turning onto my back. I suddenly didn’t want to have this conversation.

“And I’m excited that you’re excited,” he smirked down at me before moving his body so he was lying on his side and looking at me. I giggled and playfully rolled my eyes.

“I’m excited to introduce you as my boyfriend to all my friends,” I mumbled, giving him a cheesy grin. He beamed at me and moved his head to press a kiss to my cheek. Most of my friends hadn’t really shown any desire to meet Cedric, they still had their concerns but I was certain as soon as they met him they would change their mind.

“Wouldn’t want it any other way.”

But apparently there was another way. I didn’t have a massive party in his defence. It was just my family and my friends and him. If he was here. But we were only an hour into the party and he still had plenty of time to show up.

We were out in a pub in Diagon Alley, the same one where I had met Cedric. I had had a few drinks but I didn’t want to forget my birthday so I was waiting a while before I had my next.

My friends were around me, dancing and laughing and I tried not to think about how excited I was to introduce them to Cedric.

“Where’s your boy toy?” One of them had laughed when they arrived. I chuckled, trying not to let anything have an effect on me.

“He’s just running a bit late, he will be here soon.” I didn’t know if he would actually be here soon, but it was what I kept telling myself.

Surely he hadn’t forgotten, I had been speaking about it for the past two weeks. I’m sure that something had come up, he wouldn’t just not show up.

Two hours into the party the fear crept in that he wouldn’t show up.

“Where’s Cedric?” My dad had asked and I thought it was funny how even though it was my birthday everyone was concerned with Cedric Diggory. So maybe my thoughts were turning a bit sour. I guess that happens when your boyfriend is late to your birthday party with no explanation.

“Just running a bit late.” I couldn’t count on both hands how many times I had said that in the past hour. He gave me a sympathetic look and I smiled back at him in response, trying to convince him everything was fine. I was feeling bad enough for myself, I didn’t need anyone else to do so as well.

I was a little embarrassed. I knew my dad was warming up to Cedric, they got along quite well. Part of me worried about how distraught my dad would be if Cedric didn’t show up (because he was going to show up). But the other part of me was too focused on how distraught I was that he wasn’t here yet.

My eye was kept on the door for the whole night. I thought that maybe if I imagined him walking in with that charming smile and his golden hair styled to perfection that it might actually happen.

It didn’t. We were now three hours into my party and I wasn’t sure that Cedric was going to show. The only word that kept replaying through my mind was why? A few times I caught someone’s eye when I finally stopped staring at the door and they gave me a sympathetic smile. I was sad that Cedric didn’t show and everyone knowing that he didn’t show felt even worse. I excused myself to go to the bathroom but it seemed everyone was trying to have fun for me and I wasn’t sure if anyone heard.

The bathroom was empty and I walked over to the sink. My hands were shaking as I turned on the tap and I thought that I was being stupid. It was my birthday. I had had plenty of birthdays without a boyfriend and while this time I actually did have one - he just didn’t show up - I told myself that this wasn’t any different.

But it was. He didn’t show up. I tried to tell myself that something had happened. He wasn’t the type of person to do this. But surely he would have sent an owl or a patronus or something. I let the cool water fall into my hands and I flicked them up so some of it would cool my face down.

I took a look at myself in the mirror and frowned. The last time I looked at myself in this mirror I was a completely different person. I hadn’t even met Cedric Diggory. I was still a virgin. Suddenly I felt like I was going to throw up and not wanting to be even more embarrassed on my birthday, my body settled for a few tears streaming down my face.

I let out a harsh sob and brought my hands up to my face. My palms were cool on my cheeks but the warm flow of tears prevented me from embracing it.

I stood there, crying for a minute until I heard the door open and I quickly pulled my hands away from my face and brought them back under the sink hoping that whoever walked in would think I was just washing my hands.

“Hey,” I heard a familiar voice and then I heard them say my name. I turned around to see Ginny Weasley, looking as stunning as ever. “What’s wrong?” The smile on her face disappeared as she saw my swollen cheeks and she started walking closer to me.

“Nothing,” I smiled. I wanted to say more. I wanted to tell her that Cedric was what was wrong. I wanted to tell her that I was stupid for ever thinking that I had a chance with the golden boy because I was starting to realise the golden boy doesn’t exist. But I had only spoken to her, like, once before so I didn’t think it was appropriate.

She stared at me for a moment, seemingly unsure what to do. I gave her a small smile but she only frowned.

“You were crying.” It sounded more like a question and when she raised an eyebrow at me I almost told her everything.

“You know what’s even worse?” I didn’t deny it. “It’s my birthday.” I let out a laugh trying to make an awkward situation better but I don’t think it had the effect I wanted it to. Her eyes widened and she took a step over to me. She put a hand out as if she was going to reach for my shoulder and I gave her a tiny nod before she placed an arm around me.

“Where’s Cedric? I’ll go get him, yeah?” I knew she meant well but that only made me start crying again and I think she realised that he was the reason I was crying and so she pulled me closer towards her. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled and the conversation ended. She started stroking my back and when I calmed down she let out a deep breath before continuing.

“You’re so young,” she mumbled, “this is only going to be a small part of your life, yeah? Enjoy your birthday.” I gave her a tight lipped smile and pulled away from her.

“Thank you,” I looked at her, “I really appreciate it.” She smiled at me and I wiped my eyes before I walked out of the bathroom.

I was going to enjoy my birthday whether a certain someone was here or not.

I had a few more drinks, suddenly not caring anymore whether or not I remembered this night.

I was near tears when everyone sang happy birthday. My eyes were glued to the door no matter how badly I wanted to look away.

I was surrounded by the people I loved yet I felt so alone and upset. I sighed when I blew out the candles. There was only one wish on my mind.

I was on my second slice of cake when one of my friends sat down next to me.

“It’s your birthday,” they slurred, “it’s supposed to be fun.” I mustered up my most convincing smile.

“I am having fun.” I wasn’t.

He should have been here.

I’m pretty sure everyone else was thinking the same thing but they were polite enough not to bring it up.

I’m pretty sure my friend was thinking the same thing, but they didn’t say either. They picked up a spoon and took a bite of my cake. We sat there, not talking, just enjoying the cake. It was saying a lot that this was the best part of my night.

I was sure everyone gave me an extra longer hug when they left and the pats on my back felt more sympathetic than celebratory but I tried not to linger on it.

That night I went to my bedroom and got into my comfiest pyjamas. There was an owl at my window when I hopped into bed and I already knew who it was from.

It was rolled up and for a moment I contemplated just ripping it to shreds without even reading it and when I opened it I wished I had.

I’m sorry I didn’t show,

Cedric xx

That was it?

I gave the owl a treat and ripped the note in half and in half again and in half again until I was sure that it could never be put back together. I was feeling a similar way. I started crying. I guess it’s not really a birthday if you don’t cry, right? I threw the crumpled paper in my bin and sat on my bedroom floor.

For a brief moment I wondered if it was my fault. It seemed all of the stupid fights we had been having had arose as a result of me, and maybe this one was the same. I wondered what it was. Whether it would appear too childish for Cedric to appear at a birthday party, or whether I would be too clingy throughout the night.

If it wasn’t for the amount of alcohol I had consumed I was sure I wouldn’t have gotten an ounce of sleep. But I woke up the next morning as well rested as I could have been and I got ready and apparated to Cedric’s house immediately.

I wasn’t sure what I planned on doing. I wanted to remember all of the good times Cedric and I had but they seemed so far away. Oddly enough they were before the first time we had sex which I only agreed to in hopes that things would get better.

I felt helpless. I wanted to go back to those picture perfect days, but I knew that there was nothing I could do to get back there. But I guess I hoped that we could work from where we currently were and get somewhere even better.

The Reeling

Standing in front of Cedric’s door I realised that this was a horrible idea. Surely Cedric and I could just go past this and maybe even just pretend it didn’t happen.

Part of me was scared that the reason he didn’t show up was because of something I’d done. For some reason I thought that maybe if I proved that I was willing to fight for our relationship, we’d unlock a new part of our relationship. Like when we finally had sex. Except this time it would unlock something even better.

I knocked on the door and let out a shaky breath.

He opened it almost instantly and he gave me a nervous smile. I let myself in and he shut the door behind me.

“Did you have fun last night, darling?” I turned back to face him and stared at him dumbly.

“You didn’t come.” I responded and he let out a sigh and walked over to me, grabbing my hand in his.

“I’m so sorry, darling.” He only rarely called me darling and I suddenly hated the way it sounded in his mouth. “I was just upset about not making it to finals and-” I took a step back from him.

“You should’ve been there.” He looked down and I sniffled when I felt the tears start to fall down my cheeks.

“I should have.” We stayed like that for a moment. My hands in his. Tears streaming down my face while he continued to stare at our hands. I thought I would be the one who would have trouble with this. I really wanted him to just look at me.

“Darling,” he paused, “I think we should break up.” My whole body went hot.

“No,” I mumbled, trying to pretend that I didn’t hear what I thought I did. How did we get here? I came here so we could make up, not to break up.

“Yes,” he replied, almost pleading with me.

“I can get over you not coming to my birthday.” I was begging and I hated myself for it. The tears had stopped but I would much rather them than whatever this was.

“It’s not about that.”

“Then what is it?” He took a deep breath as if it pained him to say this but I was sure that I was in much more pain. “I’ll do anything, just name it, I’ll do anything for you. We can make it work.” The worst part was that I meant it.

“Don’t say that,” he sighed.

“It’s true. I’m not angry,” I sobbed, “I can’t let you go.”

“You have to.” I wanted to scream. I wanted to throw my body on the floor or hit something. I already felt like a fool but I was ready to make myself look even worse and throw a tantrum right there and then.

“We’re just not going to work out.” He gave me an apologetic look, but it only made me mad.

“Why?” He blinked at me, his eyes saying that he hated me for making him say it.

“Look,” he went to reach out for me again but I pulled away, “maybe if we were closer in age, I just-” I let out a dry laugh cutting him off and felt the tears start up again. I was no longer sad. I was angry now. I had given so much of myself to Cedric and it was all for nothing. All for him to just throw it all back in my face.

“You said I was mature for my age.” I hated that I felt the need to defend myself. I was embarrassed. What a horrible thing to say. I wanted the world to swallow me up and forget that Cedric Diggory was ever an important person in my life.

“You were-you are,” he corrected himself, “but you’re still so young and-”

“But we had sex.” He gave me a look that said I was only proving his point and I wanted nothing more than to shrink into the ground beneath me.

“I’m sorry.”

“So you’re just going to throw away everything we worked towards?” He put a hand on my shoulder but I only stood there, frozen in place, not knowing what my life had just turned into.

I shoved it off and started walking to his door.

“Hang on,” he followed me, “wait.” But I didn’t. I walked out his door and slammed it behind me. I thought he was being selfish. That he was taking the easy route. He was being childish, real adults would have talked it out, but he just ran away from his issues.

I felt helpless. I wondered if I had done things differently if we’d still be together. Maybe if I didn’t make such a big deal about having sex he wouldn’t have thought I was childish. Maybe if I was more confident when we were out with his friends he wouldn’t have thought I was so clingy. Maybe we still would’ve been together.

The Remembering

I apparated straight home and went right into my bedroom. I shut the door behind me and contemplated falling against it dramatically, but it felt more right to go jump on my bed and so I did that. The tears didn’t stop and I didn’t leave my room until the next morning.

I felt so used. I was right when I was upset in the bathroom on my birthday. I was a different person and while I knew eventually this change would come, I felt that it had been forced to come early by my relationship with Cedric and it made me feel dirty. I wanted to shower to get rid of it but that didn’t help. I wanted to go on a walk to get my mind off of it but that didn’t work either. I tried to eat to cleanse my body from it but it seemed that I was stuck with this change. I was never going to get back the person that I was before him.

I didn’t realise how much I had been relying on him until I didn’t have him. I suddenly felt like a child again. Not knowing how to make my own decisions, forever unsure about what I was doing and feeling so lost and alone.

It seemed that everyone knew that our relationship had ended and I was happy because I didn’t have to tell them. I wasn’t happy, however, that they found out by a tabloid headline barely a week after Cedric had broken up with me. He was out with a model, only a year older than me, a hand on her lower back and her face close to his chest and I decided to rip that up into pieces as well.

It felt so surreal that at times I thought that I would see Cedric again until I remembered what had happened and I was enveloped by a sinking feeling. It was a self made hell everytime I remembered what had happened and I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to think about him again without feeling this way.

I was also stuck remembering all of the good times and conveniently forgetting the bad. I’d remember when we used to go out and he’d pay for dinner. Or when it was just the two of us at his house and he’d make me my favourite foods, dancing in his kitchen while we waited for it to cook. And when it was just us in bed and he’d trace patterns on my back and make me guess what he was drawing.

And I would sob even harder because I wanted to go back to those times.

But then I’d remember how he wouldn’t speak to me once the paparazzi found out where we were. Or when we would scream and fight in the kitchen and I’d be sick from it. And when I’d spend the night and we’d be on the edge of each side of the bed, our backs facing the other, refusing to be the first one to speak.

I self indulgently let myself cry and cry and cry some more for at least a week until my parents called my friends for support. Time went so slowly feeling sorry for yourself in your bedroom, that I was shocked to hear that it had been a week when my friends told me I needed to stop feeling sorry for myself.

A month later there was a charity Quidditch game that I was watching with my dad. He went to turn it off as soon as the familiar head of golden curls appeared on screen for an interview but I stopped him before he could.

“Is it true that you’ve broken up?” They were quick to mention my name as soon as the niceties were taken care of.

Just the sight of him made my heart ache. All of the memories came flooding back, the good and the bad and remembering them together felt like I was in a whole new hell.

Cedric stared at the reporter dumbfounded until he suddenly found his voice. “The match tonight is for a very important cause and I think we should focus on that.”

“People are saying that you took advantage of her because of her age, what do you say about that?” I snorted at the question.

“I think people should focus on the match tonight and the important cause it is for.” He let out an awkward chuckle but the reporter was relentless.

“Do you miss her?” Cedric shook his head and must have looked over to his manager before he was pulled away from the screen.

I felt happy that I was still affecting his life a month after our relationship because he was still affecting mine but I was sad that he didn’t seem phased by it. I was sure that if I was asked in an interview about Cedric I would start crying immediately. But then again, I was the one who was broken up with.

I still wondered if I had done things differently if I’d still have him in my life. It was a sour taste. I had spent so much time with those thoughts that I was starting to get sick of them, but the more time I spent on them, the more things I remembered that made me wonder if he would have stayed if I had done them differently.

During the match I realised that he still had my fucking scarf. The one that I had spent my hard earned money on only to wear one time. I wondered if he knew he had it. I was sure he did. I kinda hoped he did. I hoped he kept it as a reminder of me. I wanted so desperately to forget him, but I didn’t want him to forget me and I didn’t think that was asking too much.

Thirteen Years Gone

I continued to feel foolish. I remembered the first time we went out, the first time I came back to his house. Everything just seemed to fit into place and I had naively imagined a life of marriage and children. Probably little quidditch players who were just as bright as their father. At least I could laugh at it now. I was only just a child myself.

It took months before I could go about my day without him crossing my mind and it took years and plenty of relationships until I realised what they were truly meant to be like.

I mourned the loss of our picture perfect beginnings, the way he always made me feel safe and at home. The way he used to hold me at night after I had given myself to him over and over again.

It took months before I could even go back to Diagon Alley without thinking of him. And even now, when I walked past, it was more that I was able to push aside the thought of him rather than completely disregard him.

I thought that as time went on I would forget about it. That I would forget about him. And sure, I distracted myself and I eventually thought about him less and less, but my memories were as vivid as ever. The way he would look at me, his eyes crinkled, a piece of his hair covering his forehead, as if I was the only thing that mattered in his world. The way he would hold onto my hips when we hugged, his fingers drumming into the flesh of my side as I buried my face in his chest, thinking that I could stay there for eternity. But now they were all scars that I wore that changed the way I lived and thought, and even though it eventually got easier to forget him, I never forgot them.

#cedric diggory #cedric diggory imagine #cedric diggory blurb #cedric diggory angst #harry potter #harry potter imagine #harry potter blurb #harry potter angst #cd #cdi #cda

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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year

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Solving the Moderator's Trilemma with Federation

The classic trilemma goes: “Fast, cheap or good, pick any two.” The Moderator’s Trilemma goes, “Large, diverse userbase; centralized platforms; don’t anger users — pick any two.” The Moderator’s Trilemma is introduced in “Moderating the Fediverse: Content Moderation on Distributed Social Media,” a superb paper from Alan Rozenshtein of U of Minnesota Law, forthcoming in the journal Free Speech Law, available as a prepub on SSRN:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4213674#maincontent

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/04/pick-all-three/#agonism

Rozenshtein proposes a solution (of sorts) to the Moderator’s Trilemma: federation. De-siloing social media, breaking it out of centralized walled gardens and recomposing it as a bunch of small servers run by a diversity of operators with a diversity of content moderation approaches. The Fediverse, in other words.

In Albert Hirschman’s classic treatise Exit, Voice, and Loyalty, stakeholders in an institution who are dissatisfied with its direction have two choices: voice (arguing for changes) or exit (going elsewhere). Rozenshtein argues that Fediverse users (especially users of Mastodon, the most popular part of the Fediverse) have more voice and more “freedom of exit”:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit,_Voice,_and_Loyalty

Large platforms — think Twitter, Facebook, etc — are very unresponsive to users. Most famously, Facebook polled its users on whether they wanted to be spied on. Faced with overwhelming opposition to commercial surveillance, Facebook ignored the poll result and cranked the surveillance dial up to a million:

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/facebook-ignores-minimal-user-vote-adopts-new-privacy-policy-flna1c7559683

A decade later, Musk performed the same stunt, asking users whether they wanted him to fuck all the way off from the company, then ignored the vox populi, which, in this instance, was not vox Dei:

https://apnews.com/article/elon-musk-twitter-inc-technology-business-8dac8ae023444ef9c37ca1d8fe1c14df

Facebook, Twitter and other walled gardens are designed to be sticky-traps, relying on high switching costs to keep users locked within their garden walls which are really prison walls. Internal memos from the companies reveal that this strategy is deliberate, designed to keep users from defecting even as the service degrades:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

By contrast, the Fediverse is designed for ease of exit. With one click, users can export the list of the accounts they follow, block and mute, as well as the accounts that follow them. With one more click, users can import that data into any other Fediverse server and be back up and running with almost no cost or hassle:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/23/semipermeable-membranes/

Last month, “Nathan,” the volunteer operator of mastodon.lol, announced that he was pulling the plug on the server because he was sick of his users’ arguments about the new Harry Potter game. Many commentators pointed to this as a mark against federated social media, “You can’t rely on random, thin-skinned volunteer sysops for your online social life!”

https://mastodon.lol/@nathan/109836633022272265

But the mastodon.lol saga demonstrates the strength of federated social media, not its weakness. After all, 450 million Twitter users are also at the mercy of a thin-skinned sysop — but when he enshittifies his platform, they can’t just export their data and re-establish their social lives elsewhere in two clicks:

Mastodon.lol shows us how, if you don’t like your host’s content moderation policies, you can exercise voice — even to the extent of making him so upset that he shuts off his server — and where voice fails, exit steps in to fill the gap, providing a soft landing for users who find the moderation policies untenable:

https://doctorow.medium.com/twiddler-1b5c9690cce6

Traditionally, centralization has been posed as beneficial to content moderation. As Rozenshtein writes, a company that can “enclose” its users and lock them in has an incentive to invest in better user experience, while companies whose users can easily migrate to rivals are less invested in those users.

And centralized platforms are more nimble. The operators of centralized systems can add hundreds of knobs and sliders to their back end and twiddle them at will. They act unilaterally, without having to convince other members of a federation to back their changes.

Centralized platforms claim that their most powerful benefit to users is extensive content moderation. As Tarleton Gillespie writes, “Moderation is central to what platforms do, not peripheral… [it] is, in many ways, the commodity that platforms offer”:

https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300261431/custodians-of-the-internet/

Centralized systems claim that their enclosure keeps users safe — from bad code and bad people. Though Rozenshtein doesn’t say so, it’s important to note that this claim is wildly oversold. Platforms routinely fail at preventing abuse:

https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/sexual-assault-harassment-bullying-trans-students-say-targeted-school-rcna7803

And they also fail at blocking malicious code:

https://www.scmagazine.com/news/threats/apple-bugs-ios-macos_new_class

But even where platforms do act to “keep users safe,” they fail, thanks to the Moderator’s Trilemma. Setting speech standards for millions or even billions of users is an impossible task. Some users will always feel like speech is being underblocked — while others will feel it’s overblocked (and both will be right!):

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/07/right-or-left-you-should-be-worried-about-big-tech-censorship

And platforms play very fast and loose with their definition of “malicious code” — as when Apple blocked OG App, an Instagram ad-blocker that gave you a simple feed consisting of just the posts from the people you followed:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/05/battery-vampire/#drained

To resolve the Moderator’s Trilemma, we need to embrace subsidiarity: “decisions should be made at the lowest organizational level capable of making such decisions.”

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/07/full-stack-luddites/#subsidiarity

For Rozenshtein, “content-moderation subsidiarity devolves decisions to the individual instances that make up the overall network.” The fact that users can leave a server and set up somewhere else means that when a user gets pissed off enough about a moderation policy, they don’t have to choose between leaving social media or tolerating the policy — they can simply choose another server that’s part of the same federation.

Rozenshtein asks whether Reddit is an example of this, because moderators of individual subreddits are given broad latitude to set their own policies and anyone can fork a subreddit into a competing community with different moderation norms. But Reddit’s devolution is a matter of policy, not architecture — subreddits exist at the sufferance of Reddit’s owners (and Reddit is poised to go public, meaning those owners will include activist investors and large institutions that might not care about your little community). You might be happy about Reddit banning /r_TheDonald, but if they can ban that subreddit, they can ban any subreddit. Policy works well, but fails badly.

By moving subsidiarity into technical architecture, rather than human policy, the fediverse can move from antagonism (the “zero-sum destructiveness” that dominates current online debate) to agonism, where your opponent isn’t an enemy — they are a “political adversary”:

https://www.yalelawjournal.org/article/the-administrative-agon

Here, Rozenshtein cites Aymeric Mansoux and Roel Roscam Abbing’s “Seven Theses On The Fediverse And The Becoming Of Floss”:

https://test.roelof.info/seven-theses.html

For this to happen, different ideologies must be allowed to materialize via different channels and platforms. An important prerequisite is that the goal of political consensus must be abandoned and replaced with conflictual consensus…

So your chosen Mastodon server “may have rules that are far more restrictive than those of the major social media platforms.” But the whole Fediverse “is substantially more speech protective than are any of the major social media platforms, since no user or content can be permanently banned from the network and anyone is free to start an instance that communicates both with the major Mastodon instances and the peripheral, shunned instances.”

A good case-study here is Gab, a Fediverse server by and for far-right cranks, conspiratorialists and white nationalists. Most Fediverse servers have defederated (that is, blocked) Gab, but Gab is still there, and Gab has actually defederated from many of the remaining servers, leaving its users to speak freely — but only to people who want to hear what they have to say.

This is true meaning of “freedom of speech isn’t freedom of reach.” Willing listeners aren’t blocked from willing speakers — but you don’t have the right to be heard by people who don’t want to talk to you:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/10/e2e/#the-censors-pen

Fediverse servers are (thus far) nonprofits or hobbyist sites, and don’t have the same incentives to drive “engagement” to maximize the opportunties to show advertisements. Fediverse applications are frequently designed to be antiviral — that is, to prevent spectacular spreads of information across the system.

It’s possible — likely, even — that future Fediverse servers will be operated by commercial operators seeking to maximize attention in order to maximize revenue — but the users of these servers will still have the freedom of exit that they enjoy on today’s Jeffersonian volunteer-run servers — and so commercial servers will have to either curb their worst impulses or lose their users to better systems.

I’ll note here that this is a progressive story of the benefits of competition — not the capitalist’s fetishization of competition for its own sake, but rather, competition as a means of disciplining capital. It can be readily complemented by discipline through regulation — for example, extending today’s burgeoning crop of data-protection laws to require servers to furnish users with exports of their follow/follower data so they can go elsewhere.

There’s another dimension to decentralized content moderation that exit and voice don’t address — moderating “harmful” content. Some kinds of harm can be mitigated through exit — if a server tolerates hate speech or harassment, you can go elsewhere, preferably somewhere that blocks your previous server.

But there are other kinds of speech that must not exist — either because they are illegal or because they enact harms that can’t be mitigated by going elsewhere (or both). The most spectacular version of this is Child Sex Abuse Material (CSAM), a modern term-of-art to replace the more familiar “child porn.”

Rozenshtein says there are “reasons for optimism” when it comes to the Fediverse’s ability to police this content, though as he unpacked this idea, I found it much weaker than his other material. Rozenshtein proposes that Fediverse hosts could avail themselves of PhotoDNA, Microsoft’s automated scanning tool, to block and purge themselves of CSAM, while noting that this is “hardly foolproof.”

If automated scanning fails, Rozenshtein allows that this could cause “greater consolidation” of Mastodon servers to create the economies of scale to pay for more active, human moderation, which he compares to the consolidation of email that arose as a result of the spam-wars. But the spam-wars have been catastrophic for email as a federated system and produced all kinds of opportunities for mischief by the big players:

https://doctorow.medium.com/dead-letters-73924aa19f9d

Rozenshtein: “There is a tradeoff between a vibrant and diverse communication system and the degree of centralized control that would be necessary to ensure 100% filtering of content. The question, as yet unknown, is how stark that tradeoff is.”

The situation is much simpler when it comes to servers hosted by moderators who are complicit in illegal conduct: “the Fediverse may live in the cloud, its servers, moderators, and users are physically located in nations whose governments are more than capable of enforcing local law.” That is, people who operate “rogue” servers dedicated to facilitating assassination, CSAM, or what-have-you will be arrested, and their servers will be seized.

Fair enough! But of course, this butts up against one of the Fediverse’s shortcomings: it isn’t particularly useful for promoting illegal speech that should be legal, like the communications of sex workers who were purged from the internet en masse following the passage of SESTA/FOSTA. When sex workers tried to establish a new home in the fediverse on a server called Switter, it was effectively crushed.

This simply reinforces the idea that code is no substitute for law, and while code can interpret bad law as damage and route around it, it can only do so for a short while. The best use of speech-enabling code isn’t to avoid the unjust suppression of speech — it’s to organize resistance to that injustice, including, if necessary, the replacement of the governments that enacted it:

https://onezero.medium.com/rubber-hoses-fd685385dcd4

Rozenshtein briefly addresses the question of “filter bubbles,” and notes that there is compelling research that filter bubbles don’t really exist, or at least, aren’t as important to our political lives as once thought:

https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/nor-2021-0002

Rozenshtein closes by addressing the role policy can play in encouraging the Fediverse. First, he proposes that governments could host their own servers and use them for official communications, as the EU Commission did following Musk’s Twitter takeover:

https://social.network.europa.eu

He endorses interoperability mandates which would required dominant platforms to connect to the fediverse (facilitating their users’ departure), like the ones in the EU’s DSA and DMA, and proposed in US legislation like the ACCESS Act:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/04/eu-digital-markets-acts-interoperability-rule-addresses-important-need-raises

To get a sense of how that would work, check out “Interoperable Facebook,” a video and essay I put together with EFF to act as a kind of “design fiction,” in the form of a user manual for a federated, interoperable Facebook:

https://www.eff.org/interoperablefacebook

He points out that this kind of mandatory interop is a preferable alternative to the unconstitutional (and unworkable!) speech bans proposed by Florida and Texas, which limit the ability of platforms to moderate speech. Indeed, this is an either-or proposition — under the terms proposed by Florida and Texas, the Fediverse couldn’t operate.

This is likewise true of proposals to eliminate Section 230, the law that immunizes platforms from federal liability for most criminal speech acts committed by their users. While this law is incorrectly smeared as a gift to Big Tech, it is most needed by small services that can’t possibly afford to monitor everything their users say:

https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/23/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-decency-act/

One more recommendation from Rozenshtein: treat interop mandates as an alternative (or adjunct) to antitrust enforcement. Competition agencies could weigh interoperability with the Fediverse by big platforms to determine whether to enforce against them, and enforcement orders could include mandates to interoperate with the Fediverse. This is a much faster remedy than break-ups, which Rozenshtein is dubious of because they are “legally risky” and “controversial.”

To this, I’d add that even for people who would welcome break-ups (like me!) they are sloooow. The breakup of AT&T took 69 years. By contrast, interop remedies would give relief to users right now:

https://onezero.medium.com/jam-to-day-46b74d5b1da4

On Tue (Mar 7), I’m doing a remote talk for TU Wien.

On Mar 9, you can catch me in person in Austin at the UT School of Design and Creative Technologies, and remotely at U Manitoba’s Ethics of Emerging Tech Lecture.

On Mar 10, Rebecca Giblin and I kick off the SXSW reading series.

[Image ID: A trilemma Venn diagram, showing three ovoids in a triangular form, which intersect at their tips, but not in the middle. The ovoids are labeled 'Avoid angering users,' 'Diverse userbase,' 'Centralized platforms.' In the center of the ovoids is the Mastodon mascot. The background is composed of dead Twitter birds on their backs with exes for eyes.]

#pluralistic #cda #cda230 #section 230 #content moderation #federation #intermediary liability #mastodon #fediverse #protocols not platforms #activitypub #moderator's trilemma #agonism #subsidiary

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