She was there, yet she wasn't.
She could see it all, hear it all, feel - she knew that his eyes were closed, hair was combed; knew that everyone assembled there at the small ceremony was sobbing; choking on rasped breaths, gasps lots in the grief; knew that the emptiness all throughout her was far too real, her fingers were numb without his pressed against them.
At the same time, she was not aware of it, of any of it - of the roof of thunderous gray clouds that hung low above their heads; of the freshly dug hole in the earth, the black headstone with his name on it in shining gold letters; of the cruel, brutal reality of it all, of this nightmarish world about her that she could not wake up from.
A withering old wizard who looked extraordinarily like him - his great-grandfather - stood at his head, by his side many sorrowful words that did not, could not penetrate the roaring in her ears; the loud, rushing, wail-filled, monstrous, deafening roaring that had not ceased since she first saw his empty eyes (and his great-grandfather that conducted the funeral had those same eyes, same features; looked too much like a life he would never have).
As she watched, she felt some kind of hot, sick anger ignite within her: like being truly deaf, it was as though all her other senses were heightened, so that she could smell the purity of his heart; hear it struggle for a beat; taste his lips like he had just placed them upon hers; feel his cold cheeks, nose beneath her fingertips. She was absorbing everyone else's grief, letting it fill her, but not quite subdue her, a gunshot that left a bleeding wound, but not a fatal one, and this man talking about his great-grandson was not mourning, his words were meaningless, fake, fake, fake...
She wanted him to grieve, to cry, at the very least to be solemn: anything that would lodge another bullet in her. And while all the bullets seemed to miss, it felt like they all went straight through her heart.
The man finished with something about final good-byes and stepped away. No one came any closer; no one would ever be close to him again: They were worlds apart now.
Cho glanced upwards, and all around her, the sky was still inky gray, yet no rain fell, came crashing down upon her, a fragment of the roof at a time, shattered pieces of her life with him.
If only it would storm.
Finally, the tears came, fast and hard and hot and without warning, streaming down her face as she walked to Cedric's body and bent over it, clutching his lifeless, unresponsive hand, rubbing his white, white knuckles with her thumb; gently tickling his palm using the tips of her fingers, like she used to, and curling them up beneath his. Her make-up left long black lined beneath her eyes.
Cho leaned over Cedric, hesitating at the sight of his closed eyelids, hiding that once deep, mysterious gray, so full of life and promise and hope and kindness and all the love she almost wished he'd never given her because it was making it hurt even worse.
But before she could change her mind, she kissed him one last time, sweet and slow: No reaction. No sparks. No sudden gasping for air as though he had suddenly come back to life, as though her touch had revived him. He remained as cold as he would be if he had been frozen solid.
He wasn't coming back.
With yet another choked breath, she lifted her face just enough to be able to see every bump and crater of his own. Her blackened tears dripped steadily off her chin and rained down on his cheeks, a drizzle compared to storm inside her, taking over her, becoming her; she brushed her lips against his forehead, pushing his hair back as she did so, the lightest caress.
She took one long look at his face and walked away. Forever.
The coffin was closed and so was her life, and Cedric was lowered into the ground, into the dark, buried underneath dirt and grief and tears - black tears; rain that never fell.
A/N: I was watching GoF this weekend and this popped up in my head... Thoughts?
Disclaimer: All recognized characters are property of J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros. and everyone else associated with them, not me. I'm not making any money off this (even though I REALLY need an iPod touch).