Chapter Text
The roar of the crowd consumed any last shred of rational thought Harry had left.
The hard ground irritated the cuts on his shins. His head pounded. His stomach hurt. Everything hurt. Cedric’s body was cold underneath his fingertips.
It should have been him. The thought reverberated through his mind, echoing over and over again. It should have been him. The child who once thwarted Voldemort as a toddler dead by his own hand. His story would have been completed.
He rubbed the fabric of Cedric’s shirt between his thumb and forefinger. It was silky, lightweight—the kind of expensive stuff that’s good for exercise. The kind of thing a father buys his son.
Hands gripped his shoulders, pulling him backwards. A voice reached him, “Harry, you need to let go of him.”
“No!” he screamed, or maybe he sobbed. Either way his voice was drowned out by the marching band’s celebratory tune. His fingers dug impossibly deeper into Cedric’s tattered shirt. His once bold yellow and black stripes were dulled by dirt and blood.
Words floated over his head, heavy and deep, but he couldn’t hear them.
This time when he was pulled away, it wasn’t by hands, but by the familiar tug of magic on his back. He struggled against it, holding on to the shirt as though letting go would kill him. And maybe it would. “No! No!” He screamed, but the words were hoarse and crackling, as though the last remains of a once glorious fire dying alone in the night. “He wants his father! He needs his father! Get his father!”
He sobbed, and his grip loosened enough on the shirt for the magic to overtake him. Someone grabbed him roughly. He thrashed in their hold, landing a kick on what felt like a shin.
“You brat!” his captor sneered. Harry had just enough time to think that he recognized that sneer—yes, he knew it quite well, didn’t he?—before the sting of a spell hit him between his shoulder blades, and he knew no more.