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“Kill the spare!”
“Avada Kadavra!”
“No!”
That was the last thing Cedric heard before he saw the green flash and felt someone’s body slam into his. As he and the body tumbled behind one of the many graves, Cedric hit his head on a rock and his vision went black.
He must have fainted for a moment, because when he came to, it was to the feeling of the other body being lifted off him. Through his blurry vision he could see the red champion uniform of one Harry James Potter. Harry Potter, who had taken the hit of the killing curse for him. Harry Potter, who was now dead.
Merlin, Cedric was going to be sick.
“Hurry up!” the hissing voice from earlier said angrily. “And I might forgive you for taking this from me!”
The voice was answered by a squeaky whimper, likely of the man who had cast the curse, who had killed Harry Potter, and a silent, raspy “My apologies, my lord”.
And Cedric’s vision blackened again. His body felt heavy, and he for sure had a concussion, but it was better than being dead. Which Harry was. He felt tears prickling in the corner of his eyes as he blinked them back open. The first sound he registered this time was a scream.
He could only barely look past the giant stone of the grave he was laying behind, but he had a clear view of the grave they had landed in front of earlier, the one with the statue. The one with the depiction of Death himself. How ironic, Cedric thought, that Death was the one he would see when Harry was right in his grasp.
Then he blinked, because Harry was in Death’s grasp. The statue’s grasp, that is. Pinned against the statue’s chest by the giant scythe, Harry Potter wore a pained expression and Cedric realised that the Gryffindor had been the one screaming as a short man resembling a rat cut his arm open. The rat man walked over to a giant cauldron with a knife now covered in Harry’s blood, dripping the red substance into it.
Harry had stopped screaming, and now looked on at the cauldron, horror now filling his expression. Cedric could only look on in horror too, because something now took form, growing out of the black container, pale and almost resembling a snake, until a monster-like man stepped out of it, the cauldron transfiguring into the clothes he wore.
Cedric tried keeping awake, but his likely concussion made unconsciousness tug at him, and he fainted again.
And again, he awoke to screaming and witnessed Harry writhing on the ground as the snake-man cast “Crucio!” on him repeatedly. The snake-man’s voice had clearly been the hissing one from earlier, and it made Cedric’s whole body shiver. The man then, to Cedric’s growing horror, challenged Harry to a duel. He even forced Harry to bow, as common duelling practice required. Cedric did not hear anything else, his hearing giving out. But he could see the light from the wands as they hit in midair, then creating a dome of light around the two.
He could see the whispery silhouettes of people coming out from the tip of the man’s wand, one resembling Harry greatly, and a woman whispering to Harry gently. Harry’s parents, he realised, recalling a photo his mother had shown him. These people, Harry’s parents, an old man, and another woman, they must have been the last people that man killed. Which made the man You-Know-Who.
Harry was duelling You-Know-Who.
The ghost flew at the Dark Lord and the people surrounding them that Cedric only now noticed. Death Eaters. It created enough of a distraction for Harry to run, and he ran towards Cedric, he then realised. Cedric felt Harry’s hand grip at the back of his uniform, and saw his other hand, with the wand, reach out against where the cup had gone.
It was a nauseating feeling, using a portkey when one was half unconscious, battling a concussion. They were thrown onto the ground again, Cedric on his back and Harry halfway on top of him.
He only realised they were back at the quidditch grounds of Hogwarts when he heard the school's marching band nauseatingly loud. He couldn’t see, his eyes refusing to open. He felt someone cling to him and knew it was still Harry.
Someone tried dragging Harry off Cedric, but Harry only yelled “No!” and clung tighter, head burrowing against Cedric’s chest. They seemed to be giving up, because what Cedric in his state of half-unconsciousness heard, was Dumbledore’s gentle voice next to them instead.
“Harry, what happened?”
“He’s back! He’s back!” Harry cried anguished. “Voldemort’s back! I couldn’t- I couldn’t just leave him there!”
The last part obviously referred to Cedric, and he suddenly realised that he must’ve appeared dead. Harry might think he’s dead, and if he does it, surely everyone else might perceive it that way too. It was ridiculous, Harry had been the one hit by the curse. Which did make Cedric wonder, how was Harry alive? Was this all just a fever dream?
His head thudded as if to remind him of his head wound, and he shoved those thoughts away. No, this was all real.
“That’s my son!” someone yelled, someone Cedric immediately recognised as his father. “That’s my boy!”
He sounded so sad, crying and screaming, and he was suddenly next to them, and Harry was pulled away from him, and Harry was yelling, and the music had stopped what felt like ages ago. The audience had broken into a gossiping chatter, several people also crying and someone screamed when they realised Cedric was dead. But he wasn’t! Harry was hurt, was hit, they should be focusing on him! Not Cedric, who was believed to be dead, but was alive!
His father gripped his hand, still sobbing, and Cedric had to use all his strength to squeeze it gently, just to give a sign he lived. And at once Amos Diggory fell silent, only small hiccups escaping his throat, before… “Son?”
Cedric managed, somehow, to blink his eyes open, turning his head slightly towards his father. He could see Dumbledore too, both equally surprised.
“Hi,” Cedric croaked, and everyone immediately spurred into action.
The chatter in the audience grew louder as Dumbledore called for Madam Pomfrey, and suddenly everyone was moving and the lights seemed brighter, and Cedric felt himself get lifted off the ground on something that he later realised was a stretcher. But in between everything he felt and heard and saw, everything that made him feel like his head would split open, he could only think of one thing, one person that he couldn’t see.
“Harry,” he tried saying, but no one seemed to hear him. “Harry!” he tried again, voice still so silent. Dumbledore saw it, heard him, and nodded. He instructed Cedric be brought to the hospital wing, before moving over to some of the other professors. He said something, and they rushed away, likely, hopefully, to find Harry and professor Moody that Cedric only just now realised was gone, too.
His vision blacked out again, and everything faded into nothing.
The next time he could open his eyes, it was to much less pain, which he felt immediately grateful for. He was not sure at first if he was dead, but when he registered the ceiling of the hospital wing, he realised that could not be the case. He was alive, and then he remembered why he was and immediately tried sitting up. Apparently, that was much too fast, as he had to lay back down when his head felt ready to split open.
“Take it easy, now, sweetheart,” a familiar voice said to his right, and when Cedric could open his eyes again (though he was not sure when he had closed them again), he saw his mother’s smiling face. Next to her sat his father, his face grim, but smiling too.
“Your mother is quite right,” a voice said on his left, and Cedric turned his head, carefully this time, to see the headmaster stand next to his bed. “It’s been quite the ordeal you’ve had to endure”
“Harry?” Cedric asked when he felt he could talk again, albeit hoarsely. His mother helped him sit up, and handed him a glass of water, to which he was extremely grateful for. He smiled at her, before downing the glass of water, his throat feeling like he had spent years in a warm desert.
He turned to Dumbledore again, and from his now upright position, he could also see the bed next to his from behind Dumbledore. Dumbledore smiled gently and moved to the side so that Cedric could have a better look.
In the bed was Harry, sleeping. His head, arm and leg were all bandaged, the one on his arm stained slightly red. It needed to be swapped, Cedric noted. Harry was asleep, and he had multiple cuts and bruises all over his face and bandaged chest. He must’ve broken some ribs, or something. Other than all of that, he looked peaceful and pain-free.
Next to Harry’s bed, in a chair, sat someone Cedric recognised as Professor Lupin, who looked over at him, smiling gently, before focusing back on Harry, or rather the huge black dog that laid at the end of the bed. Odd, Cedric thought. Both that there was a dog at Harry’s bed, and that Madam Pomfrey had even allowed it inside the wing.
The dog’s head rested on its paws, and its eyes looked strangely sad. Lupin reached out a hand to pat the dog on its head, though it didn’t seem to help much.
“What-” he started, then coughed. He felt as if he needed to throw up, and his mother seemed to notice as she summoned a bucket and patted his back as he heaved into it.
She refilled his water when he was done, and he gratefully took a sip.
“I suggest you be careful, though the concussion is minor. Madam Pomfrey would have my head were you to get more ill due to me,” Dumbledore hummed, his voice silent, which Cedric felt eternally grateful for. “No, I am just here to check in on you both, and to assure you that the culprit of what happened to you, the one that sent you away, has been caught. Professor Moody, as it turns out, was not Alastor Moody at all. Regrettably a huge mistake on my part, but luckily the real Alastor has been recovered, and no one is dead. All is well, though you and Harry both will have to stay here for a couple of days. I will come back to talk to you about what happened later, as I am sure so will your friends, once it is not the dead of the night. Now I will leave you to your rest, goodnight”
Cedric just blinked. Dumbledore, sparing no more words, turned around and left, smiling at Lupin and the dog as he did so.
Cedric turned again to blink confusedly at his parents, hoping to convey his questions without words. Like what exactly had happened when they came back from the graveyard.
“The cup was a portkey,” Amos told him. “When you touched it, it sent you somewhere. We don’t know what happened there, but when you came back… You were so still, and the Potter boy kept clinging to you. Everyone thought you were dead. Potter kept talking some nonsense about… You-Know-Who being back,” his father sneered slightly at this. “And then he was taken away by Moody, who Dumbledore later told us was really Barty Crouch Jr., and then we found you were alive. They immediately brought you here”
His mother, whose eyes had narrowed at the harsh words towards Harry, finished off with “And then he sent for me. I came as fast as I could. You’ve been asleep for two days now. You have some minor cuts and lacerations, though the worst one is by far your head, from which you’ve gained a minor concussion. But you’re alive, and I have quite the feeling that Harry Potter,” at this, she sent a pointed glance towards Amos. “is the one we must thank for this. But we are just glad you’re alright, or, as alright you can be after all this”
She carded her fingers through his hair soothingly, before placing her hand gently on his cheek. Cedric was glad to feel his mother’s warmth. Violet Diggory was truly a warm person inside and out. He smiled tiredly.
He heard the scraping of a chair, and immediately missed the warmth when Violet’s hand slipped off his face as he turned around to Harry’s bed yet again.
Lupin came to stand by his bed, his weight resting on the cane Cedric remembered him sometimes using when he was teaching at Hogwarts.
“Sorry for interrupting,” he started, smiling at both Cedric and his parents. “But I, too, must thank you, Mr. Diggory. Harry was briefly awake earlier, and he made it sound like you helped him a great deal too, for which w… I am eternally grateful”
The pause and the way Lupin’s eyes flickered to the dog on the bed, whose head was now lifted as it watched them intently, with eyes more human than that of a dog, made Cedric think that Lupin did not just mean himself. That Lupin truly was about to say we and refer to the dog as well.
Somehow Cedric managed to find his voice. “I just did what anyone would do, sir,” he croaked, taking another sip of water for his parched throat. “And I’m not sure I was too much help at the end. I- I couldn’t do anything to protect him in,” he coughed again. “at the graveyard”
“But you still did something, you still helped him,” Lupin insisted. He never lost his smile, the gentle one that made every student feel safe talking to him, the smile that invited students to talk to him should they need anything. It was still comforting, even after knowing he’s a werewolf. When finding out, Cedric was, of course, surprised, but he never minded. He knew others did, but Lupin had still been professor Lupin, and Cedric did not believe the man would ever hurt anyone intentionally. He felt certain of it now. “No one blames you for what happened at the graveyard, no matter what happened there. You were both wounded, facing something much more powerful than you, and you still made it back alive. You helped each other, and that’s all you really could do in that situation. So please, you mustn’t blame yourself”
Cerdic hesitated a little before saying the next part. He had to tell someone, it was important, so why not Lupin. “Did you know he…” he glanced over at Harry. The dog seemed attentive, almost freakishly so. “You-Know-Who told the man who brought him back, one resembling a rat…” Lupin inhaled sharply at that. Cedric chose not to pay it much mind. “He told the man ‘Kill the spare’, and I think he was talking about me. And the man intended to do it”
“What do you mean by that,” Lupin’s voice was but a whisper, and his features seemed to tighten. Cedric’s mother had taken her son’s hand and squeezed it tightly in shock and worry.
“I mean that he cast the curse, sir, and he meant it to hit me. And it would have, but Harry pushed me out of the way. I hit my head when we hit the ground behind one of the graves,” he recalled, and his mother’s grip grew progressively stronger. The dog seemed angry. “I think Harry thought I was dead. The Death Eaters might’ve believed it too, because none of them did anything to me. I think they thought we were both dead, but only Harry got hit. He got hit by the curse, so how is he alive?” Cedric needed to choke back tears here. Obviously, he was glad the younger was still alive, but he couldn’t possibly fathom how. “Especially after what happened after, too! They, they used the cruciatus curse on him, they cut his arm, he had to duel You-Know-Who! How did he survive any of it?”
The dog growled from its place on the bed. Cedric even thought he saw it flinch at the mention of the torture Unforgivable.
Violet Diggory gasped, the hand not holding Cedric’s flying to her mouth in shock. Amos, too, seemed too stunned to speak.
Lupin’s eyes were wide in horror, and he whipped around to look at Harry.
“I must say, I don’t know,” Lupin whispered, eyes fixed on Harry. “Maybe of the same reason as he survived the first, whatever that may be”
“Love,” a small and weak voice said, and they all watched Harry’s eyes blink open. The dog’s head turned to Harry quicker than Cedric had ever seen a dog move. “I asked Dumbledore my first year after… and he said it was my mother’s love for me when she sacrificed herself”
Harry struggled a bit as he sat up, groaning in pain. Which was understandable, of course. He moved back on the bed, so as to rest against the headboard. It was only then he seemed to notice the dog at the end of the bed, for his eyes widened in surprise, then he smiled gently. The dog nudged itself closer to Harry, resting against his feet.
Harry looked up at Lupin, though a little worriedly. “You brought him here? Won’t he.. What about..”
“You are more important to him,” Lupin explained. “He was worried for you, rightfully so. Besides, it is the middle of the night, and we got full permission and guaranteed protection from Dumbledore for the duration of his visit”
“I’m glad, then,” Harry beamed. His smile was absolutely beautiful, Cedric thought.
The dog then seemed to question Harry with a tilt of his head, which okay, weird? Harry’s expression then turned dark, again.
“I’m confused,” Cedric’s mouth moved before his thoughts could catch up.
The three by Harry’s bed turned to look at him, like they had momentarily forgotten he was there. Cedric felt his face slightly flush under the attention.
“About what?” Lupin asked gently.
“The- the graveyard, the tournament, but right now, mostly the dog?” Cedric explained, vaguely gesturing to Harry’s bed. “How was it even allowed in here? Why are you talking to it like it’s, uhm… please don’t take offence to it, but you’re acting like it’s human?”
“Because it, he, is,” his mother said suddenly. The dog tilted its head, eyes moving to Violet.
“That’s my godfather. You can’t tell anyone,” Harry said urgently.
Amos’ eyes narrowed suspiciously, but Violet only waved her hand dismissively before he could say anything. “Don’t worry, dear, we won’t,” she said, smiling her warm smile again.
“How did you know, though?” Lupin asked warily. “Do you know who?”
“I don’t, but I can make a guess,” Violet explained. “And anyway, he hasn’t been acting much like a dog more than a human the entire time we have been here. But it’s mostly his eyes, quite the shade of gray, aren’t they?”
Suddenly the dog was gone, and in its place stood Sirius Black.
Cedric felt his hand instinctively go towards where his wand usually was, though he came up empty. His father already had his own aimed at the criminal.
“Don’t be silly, put the wand down,” Violet chided them. Cedric could only focus on the panic that had taken place in Harry’s eyes, though, so he barely noticed when his mother let go of his hand to pull down Amos’ arm.
“He’s a criminal,” Amos fumed.
“I’m not,” Black said, settling down at the edge of the hospital bed again, trying to look at ease, though his shoulders were still tense.
“You killed people. Twelve muggles, and-”
“He didn’t,” Harry shot in, glaring at Cedric’s father. “He was framed. Pettigrew is still alive, and he’s the one who did all that. I know, I saw him. A year ago and two days ago”
“The man with the rat face,” Cedric remembered suddenly. “That was him, wasn’t it? Peter Pettigrew?”
Lupin nodded gravely, hand slightly shaking on his cane. Cedric saw Black’s eyes flitting towards the man, before non-verbally summoning the chair from the other side of the bed. Lupin smiled at him, before sitting down slowly.
“I had always wondered,” Cedric’s mother said thoughtfully.
“What do you mean?” Cedric questioned.
“Well, he,” her eyes flickered over to Black. “You never seemed quite the type to do anything like that. I remember from school, as little as we interacted, you and James Potter were always attached at the hip. That was not the look of a relationship that would turn out that badly. That, and during the extended family gatherings over the years, they way you acted then. The rumours later on that you’d been thrown out. You never wanted anything to do with that family or their ideals. Why would you become a Death Eater was beyond me”
Violet shrugged. Harry made a surprised noise.
“Family? Are you-” he started.
Black only nodded, smiling gently over at the woman. “Glad someone believed in me, then. Thank you, Violet”
Cedrid was beyond confused and nauseous to continue processing this information. So he didn’t, instead finally feeling like he could give in to the sleep tugging at him. Now that he knew he wasn’t in a room with a mass murderer, that is. Just an assumed one. Somehow, Cedric wasn’t sure if that was any better. The man had unrightfully spent twelve years in Azkaban, escaped as the first ever, and been hunted ever since. That could not be very well on anyone’s mental stability. But Harry seemed to trust him, and if he did, Cedric saw no reason not to.
Cedric didn’t know when his body had said enough and he’d fallen asleep, but when he woke up, it was to the sun gleaming through the windows, effectively blinding him. He closed his eyes again to shield them from the sunlight, until he felt ready to open them again, Blinking, as if to help him adjust a little more, he turned towards Harry’s bed to find it empty.
Why was it empty?
Cedric had just now woken up, and if he was still here, Harry definitely should still be here. He was even more hurt than Cedric was.
“You both should stay here for the rest of the day, if I had any say,” Madam Pomfrey tutted, and Cedric only then realised he’d said it aloud, not to mention just now realised that she was there. “But Dumbledore thought you both well enough to join the feast in a couple of hours, and said to release you when you awoke. Madness, I would think, but what do I know?”
She was clearly frustrated, but what could Cedric do but drink the strengthening potion she had handed him? She gave him his clothes too, and set up a screen for when he was ready to change and leave.
He was grateful to dress in familiar clothing, as he tugged off the hospital gown and pulled on his robes. Before he left, he went to inform Madam Pomfrey, who showed a box filled with sweets and ‘get well’-cards that he’d apparently gotten while unconscious. She’d thought it a mess, and gathered them up for him.
The halls of the Castle were quite empty when he walked towards the cellar and the Hufflepuff common rooms. Everyone must’ve gone outside to spend the last days at Hogwarts in the warm sun. Cedric had half the mind to join them, but he stuttered to a halt when he saw who was waiting outside the entrance to the common room.
“Harry,” Cedric said, and Harry’s head shot up to look at him, expression almost panicked. “What are you do- I mean, all your friends must be outside, so-”
“I, uh,” Harry pushed off the wall he was leaning against, turning to face him fully. “I wanted to apologise”
Cedric blinked. Then blinked again.
“For what?”
Harry looked back at Cedric almost confusedly, or maybe exasperatedly. “For, I don’t know, everything?” he said, walking a few steps closer. “For insisting you take the cup with me, ending up with you at the graveyard? For getting you into trouble? For not being able to save you when we first got there? For almost having you killed?”
Cedric blanched at that, because what?
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“If it hadn’t been for me, you’d have never been in danger!” Harry insisted through gritted teeth, expression turning dark as he moved his eyes away from Cedric towards the floor. “Hadn’t I been in the Tournament, you could’ve won fairly. It wouldn’t have been rigged as a death trap. Krum wouldn’t have been imperiused and he wouldn’t have attacked you. All of you would have been safe. The real danger was only because I was there. I keep putting everyone around me in danger, and I am so sorry”
“None of that was your fault,” was the only thing Cedric could think of saying.
“But it was! Crouch was after me and dragged you lot into it, and-”
Trying to keep Harry from spiraling and blaming himself again, because that was just ridiculous, Cedric dropped the box he was carrying and grabbed Harry’s shoulders. Harry stared up at him in shock. Cedric decided to ignore the way Harry had flinched. They had gone through a lot recently, after all. Harry more than the others.
“No, you listen to me. It was not your fault,” he pressed, talking slowly as if that could make him listen better. “You did not want any of that, did you? You did not want anyone to get hurt, did you?” Harry shook his head, never removing his gaze from Cedric. “No, so don’t even start. You didn’t know who Crouch was, and he didn’t exactly make it all that obvious either. When even Dumbledore didn’t know, how could any of us? And besides, we didn’t know that the cup was a portkey, that it would take us to that place. And what if you hadn’t reached the cup with me? What if I or the others got there first? We’d be dead. The only reason I wasn’t, was because of you”
Harry opened his mouth to protest. “I did nothing, I couldn’t save you! You got hurt, I thought you were dead!”
“You took on the killing curse for me. I almost died, and you took the hit! I was only alive because of you! You should have been dead, but because you’re so damn amazing, we somehow both survived! We wouldn’t have gotten out if it wasn’t for you!”
Cedric only then realised he was yelling. He was breathing heavily, too, so he closed his eyes and took deep breaths to calm himself. It wouldn’t do good to get angry now, but it was just so infuriating hearing Harry’s quite self-deprecating words. Harry had gotten a killing curse to his chest, then gotten tortured, before only narrowly getting them both out. Cedric had always known Harry Potter was amazing, but by goodness…
The world had it out for Harry, had been since he was born. Cedric couldn’t possibly imagine what he had gone through in his life, from almost getting murdered and losing his parents, to coming to Hogwarts where he was hated and revered so interchangeably it was ridiculous. Then also getting attacked every year? Voldemort, basilisks, dementors, presumably Sirius Black (though Cedric now knew otherwise, there must’ve been a time Harry really did think the man had had it out for him), and now dragons and acromantulas and whatnot.
For Harry then to blame himself? Beautiful, courageous, unlucky as hell Harry Potter to hate himself to this extent? Cedric never wanted to be a contributor to that, and he decided right then and there that he would do his part so that maybe Harry would never need to feel that the world was resting on his shoulders alone.
“Cedric, I-” was the only thing Harry managed to get out before he broke down, chest heaving with barely constrained sobs. “I’m sorry, I-”
And what else could Cedric do, but pull him into a hug, trying to comfort him the best he could? His was clearly days worth of trying to keep it together, but he was only fourteen. He was a kid! Cedric too, admittedly, but he at least had two more years worth of experience.
“Don’t apologise,” Cedric whispered gently, and was very glad everyone else was outside, so the corridor was abandoned other than the two of them. “Please don’t. You did good. You’re alive. And a five hundred galleons richer, too”
Harry laughed wetly at the admittedly poor joke, but it was a laugh. Cedric deemed himself content with that.
“Thank you,” Harry muttered against Cedric’s shoulder. His voice was almost timidly quiet, but Cedric heard him anyway.
Cedric deigned not to answer, not feeling like he did enough to help either, but just squeezed Harry a little harder, before pulling back.
“It’s not long until the feast,” he said, voice embarrassingly thick with emotion. “We should get ready. Want me to walk you to Gryffindor tower?”
Harry smiled gently, and oh wow, it was a smile that would haunt Cedric’s every dream from here on out.
“No, thanks though,” he said, wiping across his cheeks to dry his tears. “I’ll see you at the feast”
And with that he was gone, Cedric finding himself looking after the younger’s retreating figure.
And right there and then, he promised himself he would do whatever he could to get closer to the boy the next year, maybe even having the honour of being Harry Potter’s friend. Yeah, that sounded nice. This unbelievable boy who Cedric owed his life.
He didn't think that sounded too bad.