A Solace In The Silence

Part One

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by Grace

A/N: This is just...strange. I can never tell exactly how dumb what I write is, so I'm asking everybody – R/R? Please? Tell me, should I continue this? I'd kind of like to, I have plans for it... Um, well, sorry to all you Cho/Harry shippers... I hope you like this. I REALLY hope you like this. Thank you so much for reading it! And I hope I don't confuse anybody. Just telling you right now, it's from two different POV's, and there are BIG spoilers from GoF in here. Thanks again...

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Do you ever just feel so cut off from your life? Like you're running on empty and waiting to crash? I do. Quite often. It isn't a pleasant sensation, to say the least.

That's the feeling I enjoyed one particular Saturday morning in June. I was depressed, and with good reason. You-Know-Who was back, my boss and idol was murdered, and I was being held partially accountable.

I woke up early, even for me, and layed in bed considering all this. I don't know exactly how long it was, but it was long enough for me to come to a few conclusions. The first, that I couldn't go on like this. I felt as though I was living in a dream, an extended state of shock. I can't operate that way. So, I needed to make what was happening around me seem real. I needed closure.

My second conclusion, then, was that I needed to visit Mr. Crouch's grave. Kind of a morbid solution to my problem, I thought, but desperate times call for desperate measures. I hadn't seen it at all; maybe seeing it would give me the perspective I needed to go on.

I rolled out of bed, happy with my decision, and pulled on some clothes. Downstairs, I discovered that my mother was also awake and fixing breakfast. I gave her a kiss on the cheek and informed her of my destination. She shot me one of those disapproving, concerned-mother looks.

"Percy," she said gently, "it doesn't do any good to dwell on it, sweetheart."

"I know, Mum." I had suspected this attitude from her. "It's just that, well, I'm trying to move on by doing this, do you see?"

She nodded, but she didn't. I could tell. However, she knows me well enough to know that I was going to do this whether or not she liked it, and so she contented herself with offering me some breakfast before I went. I declined. I was afraid if I had any, I'd throw up on the gravestone.

"Well, at least take an umbrella with you," she said, getting a black one from the hall closet. I looked out the window.

"Mum, it's going to be a gorgeous day. I don't need an umbrella."

"It's going to rain, Percy, I can feel it. Just take the umbrella. You'll thank me later."

I took it. You don't argue with my mother's premonitions.

As I headed out, I looked back at her. "Mum?" I said. She turned.

"Don't tell the others where I've gone, will you? They'll just worry and tiptoe around me even more than usual."

She gave me that look again, but nodded.

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I couldn't do it. I couldn't go on like this. I especially couldn't sleep in a hotel five minutes away from the graveyard where they buried Cedric. It wasn't going to happen. How could my parents expect me to do this?

They love me, I know they do. They even tried to be supportive of me after Cedric's death, but they just didn't understand how deeply connected we'd been. Sure, we were boyfriend and girlfriend, but we were more than that. We loved each other. OK, that didn't sound great. I'm only fifteen, and I know that. What I mean is, we loved each other as friends, not as... lovers, or whatever.

But like I said, my parents didn't understand that. Their marriage was arranged. They're fond of each other, certainly, but as relationships go, theirs is little more than civil. They didn't understand how their daughter could care that deeply about someone of the opposite sex, even if it wasn't in a romantic sense. Therefore, they didn't understand what a great loss this was for me.

So, naturally, they felt bad about whisking me off to go to a week of business dinners at Ministry headquarters five days after I came home from my fifth year at Hogwarts. Did that prevent them from going? Of course not, and I wouldn't have wanted it to. Father needed to be at these. They were essential to his career. Key people would be there. It was of immense importance that Wong Li Chang, his wife Lita, and their daughter, Cho, be there to mingle with the bigwigs. So basically, my father was going to attend seven days of all-day meetings concerning Ministry security and operations; at night, my mother and I would get all dressed up and go with him to Headquarters, where we'd get to eat and dance and impress rich people. What fun.

To their credit, they did understand that I was shaken up from my previous year and the last thing I wanted to do was mingle. So, they shipped me off on the Friday before the meetings started and took me shopping and out to nice restaurants that day. It was their intention to also do so on Saturday and Sunday, to cushion the blow of the following week. That was all well and good. I appreciated the thought, even though it didn't make the pain lesson one bit.

But then, they booked us up in a hotel practically next door to Cedric's grave, which I hadn't visited yet. And they expected me to sleep there. For nine days! Nope, nuh-uh, not gonna happen.

They wouldn't move. They said it was the closest to the meeting place, that they'd take me to the graveyard at some point during the week if I wanted, that it was just a stone and I really shouldn't be so upset, that this was the only hotel for miles anyway... and they wouldn't move.

So I didn't sleep at all Friday night. On Saturday morning I got dressed quickly and snuck out, then walked to the cemetery.

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The cemetery for royalty and political heros in the magical world is called Friedlich Ruhen, which means Peaceful Rest in German. It is referred to by that name because the Minister of Magic who founded the cemetary back in 1228 was of German heritage, and quite proud of it. He was also a little empty upstairs, if you ask me, because Peaceful Rest is the dumbest name I've ever heard of for a cemetery. It sounds like a Muggle nursing home or something. When I'm Minister of Magic, my first act will be to change that confounded name to something better. What, I'm not sure.

Anyway, I left The Burrow that Saturday not exactly sure where to Apparate to. I mean, I didn't want to just appear in the middle of a cemetary. That's just... too strange. I decided to Apparate in front of the Enchanted Gardens hotel, because I knew it was near Friedlich Ruhen. I knew that because my family had stayed there when I was about five, and I remember being creeped out by the graves nearby. I think I had nightmares about it, until Dad took me up there and showed me there wasn't really anything to be afraid of. Just a bunch of stones with inscriptions. I never imagined one of them would hold some kind of meaning for me. Most likely, a lot of them will hold some meaning for me in the years to come.

Anyhow, I Apparated in front of the hotel still carrying my silly umbrella. It wasn't really embarrassing, though, because few people were out on the streets at this hour (it must have been about 6:30) on a Saturday. The sun was shining brightly, the grass was a brilliant green in honor of the dawn of summer, flowers were blooming everywhere, and yet sadness seemed to hang in the air. Perhaps it was because everything was so quiet.

I could see the iron arch marking the entrance to the graveyard ahead of me, and I quickened my pace to reach it. It seemed as though the gravestones were everywhere, for miles and miles... and not a person in sight. Wait, yes there was.

A small girl, or at least, she seemed small to me, was kneeling in front of a grave. She looked very upset, and I stepped away quickly so as not to disturb her.

Now. Mr. Crouch's grave... where would they have put it? The Crouches were an old wizarding family, all covered in political glory, with the exception of Barty Crouch Jr., and his uncle Frederick, who had died in the military very young and had been distinguished there.

Knowing this, the large group of graves that was the Crouches was relatively easy to find. Within fifteen minutes, I was standing in front of my former employer's tomb.

I've seen several Muggle movies, since my father is infatuated with their way of life, and in all of them, when they go to pay their respects to the dead, they talk to the grave as though they were having a one-sided conversation with the dead person. I always found that a little odd, but I had never had experience with dead people before, so I decided to give it a try.

Maybe it was because I was never that close to Mr. Crouch, no matter what I led my family to believe. Maybe it was because I was only nineteen and too much in shock of the entire situation to form a sensible sentence. All I know is, I stood there staring at the hard granite, into which was simply inscribed Bartemius Crouch, Sr., and I was at a complete loss for words. And then it began to rain.

I stood there for a minute, thinking to myself that mothers must be born with a sixth sense. Letting the cool drops wash over me, making my hair stand up straight and completely soaking my clothes. I felt a kind of sense of peace, finality, and I knew that I would go home and be my bossy, disapproving self again, whether this was a good or bad thing. Then I put the umbrella up and began slowly to leave, not wanting to just disappear in the middle of a bunch of graves either.

On my way out, I noticed the girl I had seen earlier was huddled up and beginning to walk slowly away; she looked like she'd just lost her best friend. I hurried to catch up with her, but as I did, I chanced a look at the place where she'd been standing. The gravestone read Cedric Diggory: Les le meilleur dans tout de nous. Oh, dear. That girl was probably one of his Hogwarts friends, and therefore not as young as she looked. I ran faster.

"Excuse me?" I said, finally catching her. She stopped and gave me a strange look. "Um...yes?"

"Get under the umbrella with me, would you? It's big enough for the both of us." When she hesitated, I added, "You look cold." Well, there's an astute observation from The Great Percy.

She slowly stepped under the umbrella with me, looking, I thought, a little more cheerful in spite of herself. "Allow me to escourt you home," I said, feeling very much like an idiot but too disconnected from the situation to care. "Where to?"

"We're – my family is – staying at the Enchanted Gardens."

"Oh, good, we won't have to go too far then."

I directed our steps toward the hotel. All the while, the mysterious girl remained dangerously close to me under our shelter, and we stayed silent. When I stole a few glances at her, I noticed she looked hardly aware of anything around her, including me. Her expression was one of absolute melancholy.

As I let her off in front of the building, I was about to Disapparate when she turned around and gave me the first look of true recognition I had seen on her face. "Thank you, I mean, I'm sorry, I'm just a little...upset, you know, forgetting my manners. What's your name, anyway?"

I was a little taken aback, and I barely managed to answer, "Percy Weasley, at your service."

"Cho Chang," she replied, giving me a half smile and shaking my hand. "Nice to meet you."

"Pleasure's all mine."