trans_9 | Spared [Open]

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Spared [Open]

"Reducto!"

Cedric had found a spot in the grass of this strange city's park from which to work on his spellcasting, starting with some target practice. He'd pushed back the sleeves of his plantsuit as far as was possible and made long movements with his wand, alternating between creating fast streams of bubbles and shooting them down. The almost childish game of bubble-popping was a simple diversion from the stream of thoughts that was flowng just as fast, one that hadn't stopped since the moment he realized he was alive: I'm about to die. It was hard to comprehend, when it seemed like his life had been going so well just hours ago.

Yet these Ohm had thrown everything off balance. Cedric had gone straight to Stacy to ask for his memories restored, as he'd never rest until he knew the truth of what happened. It had been just as hard to remember as that unicorn princess had predicted. Sure, the curse that was meant to kill him had been thrown off by another attack, but he'd heard awful yells. Harry's. When the sedation had worn off and he'd opened his eyes, he'd had to struggle not to scream.

That was what had happened to disrupt the course of history. For now, he had been given days, weeks, maybe months or a year or two to live, that long until he left this crew behind and met his fate. People had talked about their worlds being restored after the war. The Ohm were supposed had something that would fix things as they were meant to be, and 'meant to be' was his death. If he didn't die during the war, he'd be meeting his end immediately afterward. Time couldn't be changed, not even with a Time Turner. It had to happen.

Cedric was living on borrowed time. No one knew how long it would be until they won. They were going to win, he was sure. A small selfish part of him hoped that it would last a while, that he would have time to finish his unfinished business and learn more, but that was unfair. He couldn't allow the needless deaths to hang over his conscience any longer than necessary. The countless innocents killed during the Ohm's attack needed to live, not him. Billions of lives resurrected in exchange for his death, that was fair. He was the spare, not them. No matter what his father said or the Goblet decided, he wasn't special in the eyes of the universe, was he? He was just...

The spare who had been temporarily spared. A bubble waiting to be popped. Pop, pop, pop went the bubbles as his wand moved more precisely. If this was all the life he had left, he might as well do it right.

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Cedric bit his lip. Yes, he remembered. That had always seemed odd, come to think of it, but the tales of old Moody's paranoia had kept the suspicion at bay most of the time.

He thought back on his memories of the impostor. Some of the memories were unsettling, yes, but they had been good lessons. But there was more...he remembered one particular memory and puzzled over it.

"He was always there during the tournament. Caught up with you the day you told me about the dragons. Then he told me how to solve the egg puzzle. All that and he was working with the Death Eaters...so...that's how the portkey happened?"

Yes, the pieces were starting to come together. And he didn't like the finished puzzle at all.

Harry was slightly impressed that he put the pieces back together that quickly, but then Cedric was no dummy.

"Disguised as Moody, Crouch confunded the Goblet of Fire to put my name in it. Every step of the way, he was working to get me through the Tournament to that portkey."

Now he was at the part that was more painful to talk about.

"You were--the one who--that night in the cemetery, he was one of Voldemort's followers. The one I told you about. Pettigrew. And Voldemort was there with him. After he--after he cursed you, Pettigrew used my blood in a spell, a very dark spell that--"

The grass-shredding got a little more pronounced.

"That was the night Voldemort returned."

Cedric had never liked to hear Lord Voldemort's name. He was usually the type to wince away from it, but...if he was already a dead man, what was there to fear in a name anymore? A chilled resignation had started to settle over him. His worries were now for his family and friends.

And Voldemort's return was incredibly terrible news. His heart twisted in his chest as he thought about those childhood days on his father's lap, right after the bad man was gone.

'He won't come back, right Daddy?'

'No, Ced. It's all right. You're safe now. You'll grow up just fine.'

But it wasn't fine. Knowing what he knew about the Death Eaters from before, it was just about impossible that he was the only one to die. "I'm sorry. I should've moved, should've grabbed the cup. But I didn't, they got you. And now this. More people died, didn't they?"

"It's not your fault," Harry said immediately, looking up from the pile of shredded grass in front of him. "Neither of us knew what happened, how to react. Not until it was too late."

Though he had no idea Cedric was thinking about the same thing, Harry wished he could tell Cedric that his family was alright but the truth was he didn't know what had happened to them. He'd been on the run for so long.

Looking thoughtful, he rubbed his bristly chin.

"Voldemort's spent the last few years gathering followers and rising again to power in secret. He sprung his Death Eaters free of Azkaban and has been recruiting new ones. The Ministry fell just this year. They took too long to even believe he was back."

It sounded like the world had fallen apart right after he'd gone. Cedric wanted to worry about his bereaved parents, or Cho, or anyone he'd known, but it was clear that the problems were so much worse.

"They didn't believe you?" That seemed strange. People had always respected Harry for the most part. Were they closing their ears to the truth? And if Voldemort wasn't back, then how else...

"Didn't anyone wonder how I...you know, how I died?" It was still strange, to talk about the inevitability of his own demise. But there were more important things than him.

This was where Harry looked distinctly irritated.

"They had theories," he said with a distinct sour note to his voice. "The ones that weren't so bad were the ones where they reckoned there was some sort of accident and I made up stories about dark wizards rather than tell the truth about it. Those were the nice rumors."

He paused to take in a deep breath and try to keep himself calm, even as the bile rose up in his throat the memory of that year.

"Then there were the rumors I'd gone off my nut and was somehow responsible."

All of them had been insulting to both Harry and to Cedric's memory.

Cedric couldn't believe his ears. He'd expect stupid rumors like those from the Slytherins (that tournament had been the only time they'd supported Hufflepuff, and it was really just to spite Harry) but for the Ministry to spread things around?

Though he supposed people did like to hear nonsense, after everything with tragic Harry and his ruined love affair with Hermione Granger. Sometimes he'd wished he could confiscate that rubbish. Cedric shook his head, then locked eyes with Harry. His face was wearier than he'd known, but just as sincere.

"No, you wouldn't lie. And that wasn't you who attacked me, that was Krum. You saved me. I would've had some things to say about all this," he huffed. But there was still more he didn't know.

"What'd it take for them to finally catch on?"

"Oh, nothing less than Voldemort himself showing up at the Ministry of Magic," Harry said, unknowingly gesturing with the hand that had the words "I must not tell lies" faintly scarred into it.

Cedric did not look happy about this. At all. The Ministry fell---You Know Who had been there---and the look of horror on his face meant that he must have just realized something.

"My father worked there! If they killed---"

No. No. He really didn't want to think about that terrifying possibility. But Harry was so busy, he wouldn't know. Knowing there was nothing he could do at the moment, and that his parents could have, perhaps, been spared as well by this ship, he paused to calm himself.

"Right. So. That leaves us at fear and war. And what..."

Cedric's eyes had caught a flicker of something moments earlier, when Harry was talking, and now he searched for it again. It was something faint, but curiosity had him leaning a bit to peer at it. He couldn't read it from this angle and distance, but it looked like angry knife or claw lines.

"What attacked your hand?"

Harry paused for a moment, realizing that Cedric had seen the scar there, and then relented and turned his hand around again so he could read the words written there.

I must not tell lies.

"We had a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher sent by the Ministry the year after--after the Triwizard Cup. I told the truth about what had happened to you. She didn't like it."

There were a few moments of silence while Cedric looked at Harry's hand, then his face. To have that marked on him for being the only honest person in the room, when he could have lied and spared himself the trouble.

"She'd prefer to let them think I dropped dead some other way. Eaten by that spider, maybe." And the longer people believed those lies, the longer they were in danger. Cedric inhaled sharply, though he spared a slight smile for Harry's courage and loyalty. He was a good man.

"Thanks. You know...for standing up for me. But some people believed you, right? It.."

He had a fleeting thought that came out before he could stop it.

"I know it sounds awful, but I hope Cho did. I don't need her thinking I got eaten by a spider, that's just awful."

The ridiculous mental image was doing a fairly decent job of keeping him from the despair he knew he still hadn't fully accepted.

Harry felt guilt roil around in the pit of his stomach at the thought of Cho. His tongue felt thick in his mouth. As much as he wanted to be honest, he decided that now wasn't the time to tell him about them dating, however brief and conflicted it'd been.

So he settled for: "She did. We had a group meeting in secret to learn real Defense Against the Dark Arts since Umbridge wouldn't teach it and kept insisting we didn't need it. She risked a lot to be part of it like we all did."

Harry tried to remember exactly what she had said. "She said was willing to go up against the Ministry, to be ready to fight, because of what had happened to you. And she was there at the battle at Hogwarts where we made our last stand. I know that's...that's a scary thought, that she was fighting, but it was fight or die, and she fought. Last I saw her, during the break Voldemort gave us to take care of our dead, before I went to face him, she was still alive."

He remembered that she'd been one of the faces he'd seen in the Great Hall.

Cedric was worried about her, yes, but he felt a surge of pride upon hearing what she did. What they all did. "I knew she could. She's always been braver than she let on. I'm just sorry I had to leave her."

He felt stirrings of guilt at that thought, so he'd push right past those and focus on the positives. Few as they were. The lot of them were wonderful fighters, all taking on the darkness because they didn't want any more innocent people to die.

He sorely wished he could help them. Then, silently, he realised that he could. By fighting in this war, in the here and now, to give their world a chance to right itself. That was his calling.

"You're great people, all of you, brave and strong. You're a good man, Harry, you know that?"

Yeah, hammer those nails in further, Cedric.

Not now, Harry though. Not now.

He would tell him about Cho. Just...eventually. For now, they had to focus on this new war and there were more important things to say.

One of them was something he'd wanted to say ever since Cedric died.

"And you weren't a 'spare,' Cedric. That's what's wrong with people like Voldemort and the Death Eaters--that they could see people like you that way. But I didn't. The rest of the school didn't. At the end of the year, Dumbledore said we had to remember you, that we'd have a choice to make between what was right and what was easy and that we should remember you when we made it. In the end, that's what we were all fighting for--for you and for everyone else who'd been killed, who'd had their families ripped apart, who'd had their lives ruined by Voldemort and the Death Eaters."

He nodded to himself, as if content with what he had said, with how it'd come out. For once.

"And I'm glad I'll have the chance to know you better now. I always thought I should have liked to have known you better."

He'd always wondered if he hadn't died that night in the graveyard if they'd have become friends after.

"How'd you read my mind?"

The only response Harry received for some time after that whisper was silence. How many people could say that they knew how they were going to be remembered after they died? Cedric did, and he couldn't help but feel...touched. Overwhelmed. He was painfully aware of everything: his death, the loss and pain that followed, and the brighter things. Support, solidarity. Oh, his death was still painful, but in the grand scheme of things? It wasn't so meaningless---he wasn't so meaningless---after all. Cedric pressed a hand against his chest, feeling his heart thud so furiously that he thought it might slip out.

When he finally looked up again, that hand found Harry's shoulder and squeezed for a moment. Cedric was smiling.

"You've got yourself a deal. And that includes one fair Quidditch match. I've heard the Sensoriums can draw everything up for us."

"I think that sounds absolutely brilliant," Harry declared. "And I also think that of all things to survive the end of the world, Quidditch is definitely one of the things I'd put at the top of the list, quite honestly."

They could both smile about Quidditch. Cedric had that to be thankful for. He laughed.

"I wholeheartedly agree. 'Course, it'd just be us unless these things can make up a team, but that's no issue. I just want to fly again."

That sounded like a fantastic idea in his opinion. It had been entirely too long---he'd been so busy learning and practicing spells on top of prefect duties and schoolwork that he hadn't really had time to fly all last year.

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