~*~Facing Fears~*~
by Hatter of Madness

It always started the same way.

Voices. Dark, cold, sinister voices.

I want to kill, the colder of the two would say, though nothing was visible but blackness. Let me do it, let me finish off our friend. I want to kill him. I want to destroy him. Let me. Let me kill him.

You are weak, the other voice would add. You can't. Tell me what it is you want.

Kill.

Kill who?

Kill the spare!

And then, a single light would appear, illuminating nothing but the blackness. But from out of nowhere, a cauldron would appear, and smoke would come billowing out of it, and—

Voldemort rose up, out of the cauldron, yelling, "Kill the spare!" over and over again, and at long last, his evil mousy assistant would appear from behind him, wand out…

"Avada Kedavra!"

A jet of green light would appear—

But before anything else could happen, Cedric was awake and in bed in a cold sweat, screaming at the top of his lungs.

On that particular night, his mother and father came running in, his mother trying to calm him and his father there, it seemed, to make sure Cedric wasn't actually being murdered. His father held his wand in hand, the tip illuminated, apparently ready to attack who- or whatever was harming his son.

"Cedric, it's okay," his mother said, wiping sweat off his brow with a hand as gentle as her voice. "It's alright now. Go back to sleep."

Cedric was breathing so hard that he was sure he was going to hyperventilate. Before his mother could do anymore, he was up out bed, hands behind his head and his arms extended to form two v's at his sides. He was pacing the room, trying to push all thoughts from his mind. He closed his eyes; even the posters of the Irish Quidditch team or pictures of his school friends on the walls reminded him of what he had seen.

"I don't want to go back to sleep," he finally said, with a completely dry mouth. It seemed that all of his body's liquids were on his forehead in perspiration. He sounded oddly childlike with this outburst, but he didn't care. Sleep meant nightmares, nightmares that he didn't want.

"Cedric, you need to sleep."

"I don't want to go back to sleep!" he repeated, shouting at his poor mother. He had turned on his heel so fast and was suddenly rigid, hands at his sides once again. His skin was stretched too tight over his white knuckles, his hands clenched into fists. "Okay? I don't want to sleep! I don't want to have nightmares anymore! I didn't sign up for this! I don't want this!"

Realizing what he did from the look on his parents' faces, he leaned against the wall and slid down to the floor, resting his head on his knees and covering the top of his head with his arms, groaning as he did so. God, if those nightmares didn't stop soon, he was going to go insane.

"Amos, go downstairs and get the potion that Katie made," Lucy said quietly. Amos nodded and left the room and Lucy crouched on the floor next to her son. "Cedric, I know what you're going through…"

"No, you don't Mum!" Cedric snapped his head up to attention, his eyes bloodshot and the sweat on his forehead mixing in with his hair. "You weren't there, you didn't see what I saw that night! You've never had a dark wizard wanting to kill you before!"

"Alright, so I don't know," she said as calmly as though he had whispered it to her. "But I understand that this isn't easy on you. Your father and I just want to help you."

"By keeping me locked inside all day? By not letting me talk to my friends? Dad won't even let me see my girlfriend!"

"Cedric." Her voice was so stern that it immediately silenced him. When she spoke again, she sounded oddly sad. "We're just trying to do what's best for you right now."

"And what's best for me is keeping me away from people that I love and care about?"

"We're just trying to shelter you from the rest of the world right now."

"I'm almost eighteen bloody years old, Mum!" He jumped up off the ground, walking toward his bedroom door. "I need to go for a walk."

"Cedric, please stay in the house. It's dangerous out there." She was standing now, too, but even though Lucy was tall, Cedric easily towered over her.

"I don't care! I don't care!"

"Cedric, stop yelling at your mother."

Amos' voice made both of them jump, both at its suddenness and its calmness. How long he had been standing in the doorway was anyone's guess. In one hand, he held a large goblet full of the purple potion that Madam Pomfrey had forced Cedric to take following the Third Task of the Triwizard Tournament. It put him to sleep quickly and easily, and made sure that he didn't have any dreams—therefore eliminating the risk of a nightmare. Katie Lewis, the next door neighbor, was a Healer and was therefore skilled in making potions. She had offered to reproduce the tonic—with a touch of hostility in doing so.

"I'm going back to sleep," Amos said, "and the two of you should, too."

With that, he left the room. Lucy started to follow, but stopped just inside the doorway, turning back to her son, who was now sitting in his bed again. "Are you alright, dear?"

"No."

Lucy came to sit on the edge of Cedric's bed, grabbing the goblet off his bedside table and trying to hand it to him. "Wait," he ordered.

She lowered it slightly, still holding it tightly to avoid dropping it. "Mum, please tell me the real reason you and Dad won't let me leave. Why you won't let me talk to my friends."

"It's to protect—"

"Yeah, maybe you're trying to protect me, but Dad sure as hell isn't. He doesn't want me talking to Maddie, does he?"

It had been nearly ten days since Cedric had even seen his girlfriend, let alone spoken to her. He wondered for a moment how she was holding out—if she had been so troubled by what had happened that night, too. The more he thought about it, the more his heart ached for her—for her presence, her safety, her happiness. His heart really went out to Harry, though. Sure, Cedric had seen everything that had happened that night, but Harry lived it.

Lucy sighed, staring down at the ground sadly, then looked back up at her son. "Your father can be difficult at times…"

"Yeah, I know that."

"Cedric, please try to be reasonable. Go back to sleep." She handed him the goblet, then stood up and kissed his forehead. "I'm so worried about you, you know. Just go back to sleep. I love you."

"Love you, Mum," he said, and—seeing that she was waiting for him to take a drink—drank most of the potion in one gulp. Quickly, sleep threatened to claim him, and so he set the goblet on the bedside table before he could drop it on the floor.

Just as the concoction promised, he did not have another dream that night.

The following morning, Cedric was awoken from a deep sleep by the smell of breakfast down the stairs. He stretched, looked over at his watch on the bedside table—it was half nine in the morning—and then sat up in bed. The goblet that he had set down the night before was gone, but he could see a framed photo of him and Maddie on his table. His friend, John, had taken it, but he couldn't recall the moment. All that mattered was that they were staring at each other lovingly, their fingers intertwined. Even though the picture moved, they did not look out into the real world, they were so focused on each other. Tears sprang to his eyes, which he dried quickly. God, he missed her.

He went down the stairs quietly, feeling very rested for the first time since he had returned home from school. The night before had been the first night that his parents had been able to coax him into drinking the potion, though he did have to admit it was very kind of Katie to make it for them. He hoped that she was forcing some into her daughter as well.

He paused on the stairs when he heard what his parents were discussing.

"I'm worried about him, Amos."

"You're saying that like I'm not worried, too, Lucy…"

"You have a funny way of showing that you're worried, Amos."

"I'm his father, Lucy, of course I'm concerned about…"

"Would you put down the paper and look at me!"

There was a crinkling of the paper, but there was some hesitation around it. Tired of his parents' petty argument, Cedric finally stepped into the room as his father was about to snap back at his mother.

"Good morning," Cedric said awkwardly. They both looked up in surprise.

"Good morning, dear," his mother said, jumping up to hug him and leading him to the table. She had been bending over backwards as of late to make sure that his every need was catered to, it seemed. "I made you breakfast, sweetheart…"

"Not hungry." Both of his parents were staring at him as he pushed the blue plastic plate away from him. He looked up at his father and said, "The paper say anything else about me? Or are they tired of writing about Harry and me nonstop?"

Amos immediately went white. "How did you know about that?"

Cedric laughed, though he wasn't amused in the slightest, then said, "You two can try all you want, but I hear you whispering about me. Think I've lost my mind, have you?"

"That's not what we think at all…" Lucy started, but Amos interrupted her.

"When it comes to these nightmares and things? No—but I'll admit I think you might be a bit too old to be screaming over a nightmare."

"Yeah, you try to have a demented man try to kill you in your sleep!" Cedric snapped. "And tell me how you like it!"

"Cedric, stop it," Lucy spat, but not long after, Amos had seated (and silenced) her with just his voice.

"When it comes to your—ahem—love interests, however…"

There was silence for a few moments as the sheer power of Amos' words settled on the family. Lucy pretended that he hadn't spoken by staring at her blue mug of coffee as though it had just spoken to her. Cedric's mouth had dropped open in surprise, the anger clear everywhere else on his face. Amos, however, looked like he had said too much, though he and Cedric were staring each other down like they were sworn nemeses.

"You think I've lost my mind because I'm in love?" Cedric finally asked, the sentence coming out as more of a statement than a question.

"If that's what you like to call this relationship, then yes."

"Yeah, how much longer are you going to keep me locked up in the house like a prisoner?"

"Until you finally come to your senses and break up with your…girlfriend."

"You know, it's a little hard to do that when you won't let me see her. You know I haven't seen her since King's Cross?"

"I'm just trying to end this nonsense once and for all!"

"Nonsense?" Cedric was out of his chair (knocking it to the floor, he rose so fast) and had crossed the room to his father in seconds. "I don't know what your problem with my girlfriend is, but I love her more than anything else in the world, and nothing you say is going to change that fact!"

"My problem? You want to know my problem?"

"Yes, of course I do!"

"My problem is the fact that she's thirteen years old, for starters. My problem is that the two of you—and her especially—are too young to even grasp what love is. And my problem is that you're not mature enough for a relationship."

"I am almost eighteen years old!"

"Then maybe it's about time you started acting like it, Ced!"

"Yeah? And maybe it's time you started treating me like I was! I can't stay in the house forever, Dad! And why in the world would you not let me talk to my friends? I know my friends have been writing to me, Dad, so let me see their letters!"

"Yes, your friends have been writing to you, and yes, I have their letters!"

The mug that Lucy had been holding in a white hand suddenly dropped off the table toward the floor. However, ever since Cedric had returned home for the school year, both she and her husband had gotten into the habit of having their wands ever present, and so she broke the mug's fall with a call of, "Aresto Momentum!" She immediately set the mug back on the table and cleaned up the mess on the floor ("Scourgify!"), but the sudden outburst had caught her family's attention, and so they stopped arguing long enough to look at her. In the quiet, she finally asked, "What in the world are you talking about, Amos? You've been keeping his mail?"

"For his own good!"

"How in the world is that helping him?"

"He doesn't need to know what's going on in the world…"

With his parents distracted, Cedric ducked out of the room again, bounding up the stairs and tearing into his parents' bedroom. There, at the foot of the bed, was his father's briefcase. He snatched it up, fell onto a corner of the bed, and tore through it. Eventually, his fingers fell on a stack of parchment that was bound together. Letters.

They all had his name on them, and by looking at the handwriting, he could determine who each was from. There were three or four from Joseph…one from Eleanor…two from John…one from someone with feminine handwriting (was that Cho?)…no less than five from Christopher O'Malley with the Daily Prophet…

He went to set his father's briefcase back on the floor, but it slipped out of his grasp and fell on its side. Out fell pieces of ripped up parchment, which he dropped to the floor and picked up quickly, trying to stuff it back into the briefcase before his father could come to investigate the noise. But he found that they were more letters addressed to him when he saw the valediction on one…

Love always, Maddie.

All of the torn up letters were from Maddie—who lived next door and apparently had resorted to writing him letters in order to communicate to him.

He found all of the pieces of the pale pink parchment (where she got such colors were beyond him) that the valediction belonged to, piecing them together on the floor to read what else was written…

6 July, 1995

Dear Cedric,

You haven't responded to a single one of my letters in the past week, so I don't know why I'm even bothering to write this one. I'm starting to think that they haven't been getting to you.

I just want to be sure that everything is okay with you. I've been worried sick lately, and I went to your house today, but your father

He trembled with rage, but continued reading.

your father answered and demanded that I leave.

I'm not cross with you for not answering me, because I know that you can't have an easy life at the moment. But I miss you something terrible, and even though I have reason to believe that you haven't seen these letters at all, I'm starting to get worried over whether you still care about me. If you see this at all, could you send a response back? I really want to catch up, but it's a little difficult with this setup.

I just want you to know that you're always in my thoughts. I haven't been able to stop thinking about you for so long. I l-

This part was smudged out, but it appeared to say 'I love you', and the smudge appeared to be too big to come from one of Maddie's delicate fingers. It had to be his father.

Just please write me back so that I know that you still love me.

Love always, Maddie.

He grabbed all of the other ripped up parchment from the briefcase, finding that all of the letters from Maddie had been opened—even though it was perfectly possible to destroy them whilst still in their envelopes. His father had read all of her letters, but simply set aside the ones from anyone else.

Cedric stood, knocking all of the other letters that sat in his lap onto the floor. He went down the stairs at a brisk pace, finding his parents still arguing in the kitchen.

"You're treating him like he's some prisoner in Azkaban!"

"And you haven't exactly been letting him have free reign, either, Lucy!"

"That's different. I'm worried about what would happen if…"

"What is this?" Cedric snapped, walking up to his father and thrusting all the ripped up parchment onto the table. "What the bloody hell is this?"

His father adjusted his glasses, picked up a scrap of one of the letters, and examined it. Calmly, he lowered it, saying to his son, "I see you've found the collection."

"You've been reading my letters from my girlfriend?"

"You're not missing much, they're basically all the same. She's a very melodramatic girl, this one…"

"Why wouldn't you tell me she's at least been writing to me? You know that she thinks I don't love her anymore? Do you know that?"

"Oh, and what a shame that is!" his father said in mock horror.

"Shut the hell up!"

"Cedric! Do not speak to your father that way!" Lucy cried, snapping out of her stupor.

"Why have you been intercepting my mail?" Cedric asked, ignoring his mother.

"To protect you from what's happening with You-Know-Who!"

"You're afraid my friends are writing about her, aren't you? That maybe they're trying to pass her mail along?"

"That has nothing to do with it—"

"Then why are all of Maddie's letters ripped up? Why did you read all of them? Why would you let her think that I don't love her?"

"Because you don't love her!"

"You don't understand!" Cedric had never shouted louder in his entire life. He was sure that he was going to break the window panes or the glass in his father's spectacles, what with how loud he was shouting. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see his mother recoil at the sound of his voice, but it was too late to stop talking now. Forced to continue, he snapped, "Don't you remember going through this, too? Don't you remember what it's like to love someone for the first time in your life?"

"You can't love someone as young as she is!"

"Don't you remember what you said when I was nine years old? Because I remember. I remember quite clearly that you said that we'd probably end up married one day. And now that I'm actually in a relationship with her—you're angry with me!"

"You were nine years old! Of course I'd say something like that when you were young! I never expected you to take it seriously!" Suddenly, the full weight of what Cedric had just said hit Amos full force, and the color drained from his face. "Don't tell me now that you want to marry her…"

"Well, there's only one other option for this relationship," Cedric said hotly, though he honestly had never considered the matter.

"That's it!" Amos snapped, grabbed the Daily Prophet off the table, raised it above his head (Cedric braced himself, fearing for a wild moment that his father would strike him with it), and threw it down on the floor. "That's it! Since you're so convinced that you're in love with this girl, and because of this argument—you're grounded!"

Cedric could feel his blood turn to ice in his veins. "You can't do that!"

"Why not? Give me one good reason why I can't!"

"Because you…" He struggled for an answer, realizing that he really didn't have one. "Because…because I…"

Amos smirked, feeling as though he had won. Lucy, however, was finally on her feet, running up to her husband and placing a hand on his arm. "Amos, maybe you should reconsider this. He's been through a lot lately and this won't help him with…"

"If he insists on being in a relationship with a child and on acting like a child himself, then doesn't he deserve to be treated like a child?"

"This is ridiculous," Cedric muttered under his breath.

His father, hearing him, rounded on him. "What was that?"

"I said this is ridiculous!" he shouted, feeling braver than he had felt in his entire life. "I don't understand what your problem is, but I love Maddie! I love her," he repeated, crossing his arms over his chest when his father opened his mouth to interrupt. "And nothing you say is going to change that!" Changing tactics and hoping to subdue him, he said in a calmer voice, "Look, Dad, I get it that it makes you uncomfortable, but right now, I think that we need each other more than ever. I mean, with You-Know-Who to worry about, and the new school year, and the possibility of a war… We need someone to comfort us, to keep us company. And regardless of whether or not I'm in a relationship with her, she's my best friend. You're just keeping me away from my best friend. Can't you understand that?"

His father seemed to be thinking it over. His mother stood watching, waiting for a response, powerless over her husband's decision. Their breakfast sat waiting on the table, completely forgotten by the little family.

Finally, Amos opened his mouth to speak—but what he said made Cedric's skin crawl. "I say two weeks should be a sufficient punishment, wouldn't you?"

"You've got to be kidding me," Cedric groaned, turning away from his father.

Amos narrowed his eyes at him. "Are you happy, Cedric?"

Surprising the three of them, Cedric turned back to his father just as quickly as he had turned away from him. Though he kept his voice quiet, there was a bit of an edge to it as he said, "Yes…with her."

His parents both stood rooted to the spot. Lucy was watching Amos, as though waiting for a reaction, but Amos seemed to have a million gears turning in his head. At long last, he delivered an ultimatum, which made Cedric want to start screaming at him all over again:

"That's it. If you don't break up with her in the next few days, then you can consider yourself fatherless. I will disown you if you don't break up with her."

Amos left the room at that point, going up the stairs to his bedroom, Lucy following hot on his heels, begging him to reconsider this decision. Cedric stared at where his father had stood, feeling more conflicted than he had ever felt in his life.

At long last, he reached onto the table, grabbing all of the ripped up parchment, and went into his bedroom. To prove a point, he slammed the door as he entered, hoping that it made his father cringe. He sat down on the floor, dropping all of the ripped up parchment on the ground and trying to form a coherent letter out of pieces of blue parchment. When he finally did, he sat back to read what it was that Maddie had been trying to tell him just the day before. There was a smudge in the middle of it again, but he assumed that this also must have read 'I love you'.

9 July, 1995

Dear Cedric,

I'm starting to get extremely worried, not just about you but also about how you might be feeling. Please, Cedric, if you see this, write me back. I've missed you so much and I just don't understand why you haven't made a single attempt to contact me. We haven't seen each other in so long that I would do anything to bring us closer again.

If I've done anything to make you this upset, I'd really like to know what it is so that I can apologize to you. I didn't mean to upset you by anything I've done or said in the past. I really didn't; I love you too much to purposely hurt you. But the fact that I have to write letters to you when I live next door breaks my heart; I'd much rather see you in person, but apparently I don't have that privilege.

Obviously, though, I've done something to upset you. Please, Cedric, please let me know what that is.

I love you,

Maddie

P.S.: I know you haven't been reading the Daily Prophet, but I've wanted to warn you that there's a new reporter who's taken over for Rita Skeeter. His name is Christopher O'Malley, and he's dreadful. He's written all sorts of crazy stories, like that you've gone to Switzerland to live in exile. Though with the way I haven't heard from you, I'm almost starting to believe it myself.

When he finished reading the letter, tears were pressing at his eyes and he wiped them away furiously. She thinks I don't love her anymore.

He thought about what had happened downstairs. He could hear his parents arguing across the hall, and suddenly felt as though he had no energy to get up. Using what was left of it, he reached under his pillow, where a folded up picture was at. Unfolding it, the first thing he saw was a beautiful, flawless smile. Maddie's picture in hand, he curled up into a ball on the ground and stared at it.

He felt oddly childlike, but at the same time, he just wanted to stay like this. It was like Maddie had said: they hadn't seen each other in so long that he was now desperate for anything that made him feel close to her. Her picture would have to suffice.

He just couldn't shake the thoughts from his mind. He loved Maddie more than anything else in the world, but by the same token, he feared that his father was serious: if Cedric didn't break up with her, then Amos was going to disown him.

Hello all. :)

The start of this story has been in the works for roughly two weeks now. I wanted everything to be perfect so that I won't have to have three or four rewrites like I did with Fearless. If you've stuck around since I last updated Fearless, hello! If you're new to this story, I strongly encourage you to go read my other story, Fearless: Love Causes It, first. Otherwise, you'll probably be a little confused.

And you'll have time to do so. I'm going to be super busy for the rest of this month—even more so than I was towards the end of Fearless—so you probably can't expect another update until April. I was going to postpone the posting of this story, but I did promise it on March 15 and there was no way of telling everyone otherwise. I'm super sorry about this delay, but what can you do?

Hopefully, I can update this in a timely manner, and I just want to thank you all for the continued support on Fearless, which has received about 1,500 hits since I last updated. Please be sure to review! :)

- Hatter of Madness