Title: Trophy
Rating: T for language
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Harry Potter franchise.
Summary: Harry refuses to accept his title as Triwizard Champion, knowing that it belonged to someone far more worthy.
Author's note: I wrote this before I read Deathly Hallows, so some details aren't accurate according to the book.
Everyone treated Harry like the champion, but he knew that wasn't right. Cedric would always deserve that title. From the instant his name was spat out of the Goblet of Fire to the last second life had been in his eyes, he had been the champion. And just because he was dead didn't mean he wasn't any more.
Part of the reason Harry gave Fred and George the prize money was because he didn't feel that he deserved it. If Cedric couldn't have it, Harry couldn't either. Ron and Hermione were sure that it was Harry's way of dealing with grief, to keep Cedric alive forever by considering him the champion. But they were wrong. Harry's way of dealing with grief was to pretend all day nothing had happened, and dream every night about those horrible two seconds in the graveyard when the ever-present, ever-joyful light left Cedric's eyes.
Malfoy spread rumours that it was because Harry was in love with Cedric, which somehow turned into the two of them becoming intimate in the maze when Fleur and Krum were in different areas, but Harry couldn't be bothered to defend himself. This resulted in Hermione and Ron informing some, re-assuring others, that Harry was straight and had harboured no secret interest in Cedric at all.
Harry maintained that he wasn't the winner and, regardless of how many times Hermione said he was just saying that to keep Cedric alive forever by having his name carved into glass, he knew that the reason he believed it was because Cedric had actually won. Hermione kept going on about the five stages of grief and preparing Ron for the second (anger), but when it was the beginning of their 7th year and he was still at the first (denial), she began to worry. Then she realised that it was Sirius and Dumbledore's deaths preventing him from moving on from the first stage, at which point Harry informed her that the five stages of grief are a load of bullshit and if she actually took the time to listen to him instead of psychoanalysing him, she'd realise that there wasn't some deep and meaningful reason why he said Cedric was the winner, it was simply because he had won. Ron admitted that just because a Quidditch player died didn't mean any records related to them didn't exist, to which Hermione retorted that Cedric died before he returned from the maze so he just didn't win, Ron pointed out that it was the first to touch the Cup who won and for all they knew it could have been Cedric, the two began to argue about the nature of the Triwizard Tournament, and Harry left the room, unnoticed.
Neither knew that every year, on the anniversary of Cedric's death, Harry would go to the Trophy Room and stand in front of the Cup, wishing it said CEDRIC DIGGORY, HOGWARTS, not HARRY POTTER, HOGWARTS. He didn't deserve to win. He'd had enough recognition, enough publicity and victories, it had been Cedric's turn. He wasn't having trouble with accepting that Cedric was gone, he hated the fact that people regarded him as the victor when it hadn't been him, it had been the Hufflepuff 7th year who'd grabbed the handle of the Cup a millisecond before Harry had. Cedric deserved the recognition.
And so, on his last visit in his 7th year, Harry removed the Cup and removed his name, replacing it with Cedric's. And, as a huge weight lifted off his shoulders, he began to think that maybe, just maybe, it was time to move on.