Disclaimer - I do not own Harry Potter. It belongs to the amazing JK Rowling. No copyright infringement or money making scheme intended. This is purely for reading enjoyment.
A/N My first Harry Potter story. A one shot for the moment. Dependant on how my other story writing is going. Please let me know what you think. Please read and review. If any of my Homeland readers are reading, I'm not giving up on those stories. Hopefully I will have either a F&S or TLG update for you...possibly both, tomorrow.
Quotes from GoF and a shout out to OotP.
This takes place 19 years after the final battle and 22 years after Cedric's death.
Magic can be wonderful in the right hands and terrible in the wrong hands. Amos Diggory knew that all too well. Some days it felt like 22 years, every painful second and other days it still felt like yesterday when his heart was ripped out by Voldemort.
Looking at the tributes to his son, Amos knew he had to act. He would not actually find out about this place for another couple of months. He thought about that day so long ago, yet which was still to happen. Time would scramble your brain if you let it. It was strange standing here on the spot where his son's life had been so cruelly and coldly ended, the same spot where Harry Potter had saved his.
"I WANTED TO DIE!", Amos screamed at the unknown man who had just saved his life. He had wanted it to end, had gone to fight when he heard Voldemort was there. He had known he had neither the skill nor the ruthlesness to seek the revenge his broken heart craved. He would settle for facing the bastard, for dieing and joining his son. Now this man had deprived him of what he wanted more than anything. For it to end, to feel nothing ever again.
The man had taken hold of Amos and apparated somewhere. Amos did not much care where. Amos lay himself down on the ground, grasping in the darkness for comfort that would never come. Weeping at the thought of facing another day, anger suddenly took over. He turned towards the man standing in the darkness, whose face he could not see for the hood of his robe covered him well, "I DIDN'T NEED YOUR HELP, DIDN'T WANT YOUR HELP", he shouted at the man. "YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!", he screamed, "you don't understand", he finished weakly breaking into sobs.
The man stepped out of the darkness, looking at Amos and lowering his hood said, "tell me Mr Diggory, what is it that I do not understand?"
Amos looked up at the sound of the voice, stunned he found himself looking at Harry Potter.
"But...but how?", he asked after few moments of silence, his anger replaced by shock.
"Time is the strangest of magic, Mr Diggory", Harry replied.
Amos struggled to comprehend the situation. Here in front of him stood Harry Potter, but not as he knew him. He was older, with eyes older still that spoke of a man who had lived a thousand horrors in his young life.
"I...I wanted to die", he repeated weakly, pleadingly, wishing he would be allowed this one thing.
"Look behind you", Harry replied.
Amos could not retort for even in his mind it sounded feeble. If there were one person who could understand Amos's pain, it was the young man standing in front of him. Amos turned around and breathed in sharply, the cold air piercing his lungs. He was standing at a grave, the name on the headstone read, "Tom Riddle", but that was not what caught his eye. Off to the side of Tom Riddle's grave was a memorial and it was covered with tributes, "Cedric Diggory, Immortal", read the inscription at the top,"beloved son and friend", it continued.
Amos looked up at Harry and asked, "why did you save me?"
"It's not your time. You don't die today. You have so much left to give", Harry replies.
Amos couldn't have understood this if he wanted to and responds, "did Dumbledore teach you to speak in riddles?"
Harry smiled at that and replied, "I get that all the time now. I don't mean to, I guess he just rubbed off on me."
"I don't have anything to give. I have nothing", Amos responds defeatedly.
Harry looks at Amos with kindness and sympathy in his eyes and says, "People to this day think I am being modest when I tell them I wouldn't have survived the war without Ron, Hermione and other friends. I don't know why it is so hard for them to accept it for what it is, honesty. There were times when I felt like giving up, when it seemed like a lost cause. We're all human Mr Diggory. I know what it's like to be the one left behind, to feel like your heart has been ripped out.
"How, how do yo keep going?", Amos asked, wanting the misery to end.
"You let those that care about you help you. You wake up to the fact that you're not alone and you don't have to be", Harry answers kindly.
Looking again at the memorial to his son, Amos asks "why did you bring me here?"
Harry responds, "because you need a reason to live". Seeing Amos's puzzled look, Harry sits down next to him and continues, "this memorial is already impressive but in my time it is even more so. In 100 years time when Voldemort's name is spoken, it won't be with fear as he wished, for no one will fear him any longer. It will be with disgust and anger at the pain and misery he caused so many. In 100 years time when the name Cedric Diggory is spoken, it will be with love and kindness, a name passed down through generations, of a young man taken from us too soon. In 1000 years time, Voldemort will be insignificant, a footnote in history but Cedric Diggory will live on. I think it is very clear the sort of man Cedric was."
Amos could not have spoken if he had wanted to, but Harry wasn't finished anyway, "I can't pretend to have known Cedric all that well in School, but I saw the way his friends were with him. I saw Hufflepuff House's collective broken heart in the aftermath of his death. Fame breeds mistruths Mr Diggory. People have it in their heads that everyone fought because of me. I know this not to be the case. There are those who would have fought anyway, whether it be because they felt it was the right thing to do or because they lost family in the first war. There are those who stood up because life robbed them of their childhood much too early, because they lost their housemate in the most horrible way. Those hufflepuffs stood up for Cedric, Mr Diggory, not me. Dumbledore always said that Voldemort's biggest fault was to ignore that which he could not understand. He could never understand that love is the most powerful magic of all. Here is the evidence in front of you. Your son is loved and will be loved for a very long time."
Amos stepped closer to the memorial and saw tributes, more than he could have ever imagined. Many names he recognised, some he did not.
"He's her son too."
Amos whipped round to look at Harry, to look into those eyes that said so much. Shame engulffed him. He was not alone, he did not have to be. Cedric would never have wanted him to leave his mother on her own to deal with the grief of losing her son and her husband.
He looked back at the memorial and took in the full inscription. He stopped at a quote from Dumbledore about his boy.
"Remember Cedric. Remember, if the time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right and what is easy, remember what happend to a boy who was good, and kind, and brave, because he strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort. Remember Cedric Diggory."
"How? How do I forget", Amos asked Harry.
"You don't", Harry tells him simply.
"Then what do I do?", Amos whispers searching for the answer.
Harry does not answer. Amos sees that Harry is no longer sitting beside him. He looks up to see Harry standing with his hand outstreched. Amos understood...he took the hand being offered to him.
Back in the present Amos understood the truth of what he had been told. Cedric's memorial was covered with tributes from all over the wizarding world. He had found a purpose, found that he and his wife were not alone. So many people affected during the war. So much pain and loss. They came together to fight through the wreckage Voldemort had left behind him, to find away to keep going. They leaned on each other.
The time was approaching and he didn't know excatlly how to warn Harry. That was the problem with time, knowing what information you could share and who you could share it with, without making the situation worse. He had to figure it out though as he owed Harry Potter his life. Oh to be sure, Harry would never call in the life debt, but Amos Diggory was a man of principle. He would not stand by and do nothing. He would not allow the boy who had dragged the wizarding world out of the darkness and into the light, to suffer the loss he had. His Cedric would expect nothing less of him.