Cedric's death always struck me as a very overlooked tragedy; I guess GoF was so long ago, and so many terrible things happened after it that it tends to get overlooked now. As I'm always looking to explore new facets, I re-read the end of GoF, concentrating on the 1.1 pages on Harry's conversation with Cedric's parents. I made myself cry again.
Samantha Diggory screams once. In the midst of all the madness, of the discordant cries and shrieks of panic around her, she screams only once, long and shrill and desperate.And then she stops, and there are no more cries. Her son is goneand that is that, the world has fallen away and she stands alone in the black.
Amos cries, keening unceasingly until she wants to turn and strike him. His noisy tears grate on her aching silence; her hands, her heart and soul tremble and all Amos can do is cry.
They put Cedric in a hastily appointed room in the castle, and Samantha says her goodbyes there, after Amos has overwhelmed himself with tears and has to leave the room.
Samantha says goodbye to her little boy, to her own little mirror there cold on the table. His skin is already cool under her fingertips as she traces his face, across the handsome contours so achingly similar to her own, changed so little from the child he had been.
She wonders what he would have looked like as a man, what life might have held for him. Her bright, handsome boy would have been great; it was in him to be great, to stand up and shine. Cedric was a good boy. Her mind reels over the tenses, her son is past and there's no present tense to be had for him but "Cedric Diggory is dead."
It is all just gone, wiped away so casually. A few tears slide down her cheeks, lament for all that was so quickly stolen away. A lifetime of one hundred thousand possibilities, swept away in a thoughtless flare of green.
Harry looks so young and lost when he speaks to them…speaks to her, Amos is beside himself, doesn't hear a word.
Quick, she learns. It doesn't really make anything better, that he died quickly, easily. The words choke her, even in thought. He'd won, she rationalises, trying to speak to Amos. He must have been happy, at least. She hopes he was.
All her thoughts seem so short, detached. There is a horrifying serenity about her now, because nothing matters at all, not anymore, not without Ced.
A tiny fragment of her heart breaks again for the lost little boy across from her, looking nearly as adrift as she feels. She doesn't know this child, but she reaches for him, just a touch on his shoulder as she looks down (he's so small). There's some admonishment for him, she barely hears it.
He tries to press the money at her, and she shies away, hands clutched to her chest. I couldn't, she hears herself say…you keep it. The metallic rain of shifting gold sinks to the depths of her stomach; her baby died for this glory.
And then she goes home and the world falls back into reality; it's all wrong, changed, ugly, but it's reality. It's a warring world, one without Cedric (he would've been brave, helpful, a hero, but instead he's just the first victim), and she tries.
Samantha Diggory only screams once, on the Quidditch pitch when a world crashes around her feet and a new one rises up, a new one without her son. She screams long and shrill and desperate.
It is grief beyond tears, but her heart cries silently.