Cedric woke suddenly in cold sweat, choking on his own breath, a stream of images flashing in and out of his head.

Blood dripped down a limp hand. A tombstone wrapped in rope. Dug up graves with empty coffins and Death Eaters that encircled with their warped, smiling masks. Then a green light, glowing stronger and stronger until he swore that his whole body burned. The light all too bright, the glow, the searing heat; all of that brought him back to Grimmauld, where he lay hunched over the bed, clinging at his throat in an effort to muffle the coughs and the gagging, as his eyes watered and his chest heaved.

Cedric clenched at the blankets until his breath came easier—waiting for when his heart no longer seized, and his body was empty of the fit—the small whine that built in his mind eventually fading, as he heard the twins rolling around in their beds. Sweating and nauseous, he wiped the drool away and gulped down a cup of water he kept on his nightstand, breathing—in, out—shaky.

Forcing himself focus, Cedric drifted to the window, watching the grey sky and the fogged outline of terraced buildings and chimney tops; some smoking but most empty, their windows curtained off and rooms shrouded in that early morning darkness. The world was still, mostly asleep. But Cedric could hardly do the same now.

While the scent of lavender incense lulled him, it was not enough to call him back to bed, the thought of falling back into night terrors too uneasy for Cedric; too possible of a possibility. Instead he took his now empty cup and crept out the bedroom door, and made his descent downstairs.

As he stepped, almost fumbling in the dim light, Cedric became acutely aware of how his chest ached and how his head was strewn in a mess but thank god; he couldn't remember much of the nightmare. The dreams, though almost daily, eluded him every single time. Even the remnants that flashed through his head were gone, having slipped away in a matter of minutes, far beyond his reach. He could only guess that he was in the graveyard again, or some form of it; though it would be too hard to tell on days like this.

Cedric rubbed his neck. There was only one thing on his mind; last night.

He could still remember the way his insides churned, how the words, the conversation they had with Sirius, Remus, Tonks and Bill; roped around him until he couldn't breathe, stuffed, taut and cornered. No one else at the table seemed to feel the same. He didn't even need to look, to know that Fred and George were out-of-their-minds excited. That their brother Ron would be a little bit less so but still shining, still more eager than hesitant, and Hermione would be the exact same; fascinated, and—based on what McGonagall's told him—probably already calculating and hypothesizing about the weapon as they continued talking. But Harry?

Cedric sighed aloud.
Harry was… a lot calmer than Cedric thought he'd be.

When they owled each other, he had always read a sense of frantic in Harry's letters. Disappointment when there wasn't much Cedric could report on, and that slight loneliness, when he'd would write 'Hermione and Ron haven't been able to write to me this week'. Of course it was just a slight, an assumption of an echo; Cedric never knew whether he read it for sure. But when Harry arrived last night—when he, Fred and George listened in to Harry's reunion with Ron and Hermione behind the door—he confirmed it—

There was a hard edge to Harry's voice when he began to yell, like his words were serrated, splintering wood and melting cauldrons, there was seething. Like a fire in his gut. Like every word was spat with smoke and lapping magma; like Harry's head was curled with gunpowder and some kind of festered rot. It happened again in the staircase. The way he stalked off, like a switch flipped at the back of his neck. And how his eyes glazed yet burnt brighter, his face twisted, and everything about him felt coiled and tight. Cedric was half-afraid that he'd be smacked as soon as he turned Harry around back then. It was unsettling, intense.

And yet Cedric just couldn't leave him alone.

The little voice of reason would scratch at the back of his head, and it spoke even now, asking 'Why?'

'Why are you so attached?'

And maybe it seemed so obvious to some wandering passerby, but Cedric knew better than to lean on the excuse; he knew that it was something beyond the promises he made that night, past the graveyard and past the infirmary.

In the last few months, yes, he had read frantic, he had read loneliness and a specific sort of yearning in Harry's letters. But there was also something… soft, in the writing. Wisping like perfume, there was someone behind the words, who would send lavender flowers and incense, someone beside Cedric's own parents; who would ask about his dreams and well-being. Last night, it was Harry's hand that comforted him. It was Harry's quiet voice that asked if he was alright, that noticed that he was even being weird. And that stupid question...

He even worries about things like that.

Cedric shook his head. He was no longer angry, yet he still couldn't fathom why, why, Harry would ask that of all things?

There was a veil. A light that shone so brightly behind Harry's figure that it hid his face. The Boy Who Lived. Yet he was just, Harry. And from what Cedric's seen… there was simply, much, much more to him.

Cedric continued down the stairs, stepping through and murmuring to himself absentmindedly when he caught the attention of one particular person who had heard his footsteps. Before he could turn the corner, a hand tugged onto Cedrci's arm and promptly whipped him right around.

"H-hey!" a familiar voice said. Cedric found himself facing a slightly sleepy Harry, still in his pajamas, no glasses on his face and with a rather glorious bedhead.

"Oh!" Cedric gasped, lowering an arm that instinctively covered his bare chest, "You're not Mrs Weasley!"

"Oh er—... Sorry to disappoint you?"

"No, I-.. is something wrong?" Cedric watched as Harry fidgeted. It looked like it was hard for him to look at his face.

"Look I'm…" he started, "I just wanted to apologize for last night. I'm really sorry."

Huh?

"Huh?"

"When I asked if you regretted lying to the Prophet, I.. I'm sorry, I didn't know that it would offend you."

"Oh!" Cedric said, "Right, that…" He took a moment to think, "Yeah, why did you ask that?"

And at Cedric's question, Harry looked a little pained. He fidgeted again, looking away and back again.

"Can we talk in the kitchen?" Harry said. "I'll—I'll make pancakes."

Cedric opened his mouth slightly, surprised. He couldn't help the smile that crept up.

"Let me just… let me get a shirt," he said and he rushed up the stairs, throwing on the first thing he could snag from a still unpacked suitcase. Going back down, he felt a little disappointed when he saw the Harry had tamed his bedhead, the hair patted down and smoothed. But Harry only needed to smile for Cedric to forget; the prospect of a sweet breakfast putting a skip in his step as he followed Harry downstairs.

The pan sizzled as Harry scooped some batter in.

"Didn't I say I was cooking?" he asked, grabbing a spatula off the rack. Beside him Cedric cracked another egg into a second bowl of pancake mix.

"I like to help. Especially if it's a meal I'm eating." Cedric replied.

"No wonder you were sorted into Hufflepuff,"

"Is that discrimination?" Cedric mused, he began to mix the batter. "I feel like it is.."

"I meant it as a compliment though—"

Cedric gasped, "I didn't know you could do that!"
In response, Harry gave a particularly hard stare that made Cedric erupt in laughter.

"Really though, you never seem to take any of my compliments well!" he said, "Or is it just because they're compliments from me?"

"'Course not, I just…" Harry flipped the pancake. He heard Cedric say 'nice' when it landed and sizzled on the pan. "People just don't normally compliment me on stuff like my hair or say ... the other things that you've said." 'Or do the other things that you've done,' he wanted to add but he held his tongue.

"I'm sure you'll get used to it," Cedric said.

"You're not gonna keep complimenting my hair, are you?"

Harry then, suddenly groaned at Cedric grinned at him; a mischievous smile complete with a half-raised eyebrow as he tried his best to cackle but in quietest manner possible.

"I don't think they'll hear you if you go full Malfoy," Harry sighed, looking up. Cedric scooped another ladle-full of pancake in.

"Well even the walls have ears here, Harry," said Cedric, cautiously. Mrs Black's piercing shrieks suddenly rushed back into both of their memories.

"How long have you been here?" Harry asked, stacking another pancake on the plate. "You don't seem as used to her screams as the others did."

"I came the morning I got your last letter. So maybe three, four days before last night?"

"And you didn't write to me?"

"Well before I could even ask, Sirius came out of his Animagus form to say that you'd be at Grimmauld soon,"

Harry stopped, surprised, "Sirius revealed himself to you on your first day?"

"Well I don't think he could've kept it up for very long."

"But you weren't surprised? That Sirius Black transfigured right in front of your eyes?" Cedric scraped the bowl for one last ladle-full of batter.

"Oh no—I definitely was. The adorable Snuffles that I've been petting the entire day was actually an full-grown adult man—I was pretty horrified! But Mr Weasley explained things really quickly, and I know now that he isn't really a mass murderer, it was the one who..."

Cedric paused, and for a brief second he froze, ladle mid-air. Harry waited until Cedric shrugged it off, carefully scooping the last of the mix into the pan. His hands were trembling.

"It was the man who killed me, in the graveyard." Cedric said quietly and Harry let his own voice drop as well.

"Have you been having nightmares recently?" he asked.

"Had one this morning actually. It's why I woke up so early,"

"Do you remember...?"

"No, no… I don't really absorb anything, mentally but my body... I still physically er—react."

Harry flipped the last pancake, before turning off the stove. He moved away from the oven and leant against the kitchen counter, closer to Cedric, facing out towards the dining table.

"Before—way back in the infirmary—you said that you were knocked out." Harry said. "You were unconscious, and you had an out-of-body experience… Why are you now saying now that Peter killed you?"

Cedric gave a heavy sigh. He bent over, leaning against the kitchen counter as well but facing away from Harry, toward the window.

"I don't know. It's just… a feeling I have. Or that I used to have, when I remembered my dreams. There was one in particular, actually, I-.. I had it a lot before you, er, started sending me the lavender. But it wasn't bad or scary or anything—" he crossed his arms— "That's why I remember it so well. It was just.. just really strange."

"Can I ask what it was about?" Harry asked. Cedric threw his head back and took a sharp breath.

"Uh well... it was still in the graveyard—they all are, in some form or another—and you were fighting V-... You-Know-Who."

"Yeah?"

"And in the dream, when you're fighting Him, it's always in slow motion. Like its blurred to the background, everything… the spells, the ground, you, the Death Eaters and Him. The only people that moved normally were the erm, ghosts from his wand; the old Muggle man, Bertha Jorkins, and your parents. They were the only vivid or real presences."

"They'd say things, progressively. Like in the first one dream, or first version of this dream I had, it was the old man who would say that I was so young—too young to die—"

Harry clenched his jaw.

He agreed.

"And in the second, it was Bertha. She'd say stuff about how Barty was alive, and how you Harry, were really wringing You-Know-Who's neck in the fight," Cedric chuckled.

"And my parents?" Harry asked. Cedric's smile faded away. "Did they say anything?"

"Well your dad didn't talk to me, he was busy with you. But your mum…"

"Yeah?" Harry said, and he looked at Cedric earnestly. "What did she say?"

"Only that I needed to go back. That she'd... get me to go home with you as well."

Harry's eyes widened a little, "So she brought you—?"

"I... I don't…" Cedric scratched his head. "I don't think so. If this dream was real... if it happened... I don't think that those ghosts could be any more than echoes of all those lives that He took. It wouldn't make any sense otherwise."

"Right,"

"But it's not like those people weren't your parents, Harry." Cedric added quickly. "They were for sure, I just don't know if my resurrection—if that's what it was—was entirely your mums doing. They... we didn't seem to have any real power besides being able to distract Him, otherwise we would've helped you, right?"

Cedric was right. There was no way of knowing and even then, the ghosts that Harry encountered in Hogwarts—Peeves, Headless Nick—they were bereft of magic, just presences in the halls. Even if all those souls were trapped in Voldemort's wand, it wouldn't have been likely for them to retain any wizard power to restore Cedric's life. And again, even then, a wizard able to attempt necromancy would be a stretch.

Cedric noticed Harry noddong glumly, "Look I'm just spouting things," he said hastily, "It could be that they were victims of really dark, really advanced or really ancient magic. I'm more likely to be wrong!"

Harry gave a meek smile.

"Did… Did she say anything else? My mum? In your dream?" he asked. Cedric hesitated. Harry looked straight into his eyes, and saw the grey caught in conflict, in turmoil.

"Please?" he asked.

"It seemed like she wanted me to take care of you, if I could," Cedric said finally, and he closed his eyes like he was preparing for something. "Your mum told me to keep you safe."

Harry felt himself break into a cynical sort of smile, "I doubt that would happen, even with you at my back Cedric."

"Well, I told her I was going to try, it was all she asked," Cedric replied and he looked down at his hands. They were entwined again, the knuckles digging into each gap between his fingers. "I figured I owe you that much, and her as well if she did… bring me back."

Harry thought for a moment.

"Are all your dreams about that night, Cedric? Are they always about...death?"

"Yes," Cedric breathed out, and he sat back, hands pressed against the counter and expression resigned. "Every single one that I can remember, even the ones that are a little different—they're basically tattooed to my memory at this point—the voice, telling the man to kill me. The green light. The darkness. Sometimes I'm in a coffinless grave, like I've been buried alive. Sometimes you're the one that dies... Erm, it gets worse if I go any further than that…"

"I'm sorry, I didn't want to—"

"It's fine. I need to…" he took a breath, "I do need to talk about it, I think, and I would gladly do so with you but,"

"Not right now?" Harry asked. Cedric crossed his arms.

"No," he smiled sadly, "...not right now."

Harry didn't know why, but his chest began to ache when he saw Cedric's smile. The back molars of his teeth grinded against each other, and he clenched his fists and and his jaw—there was an urge to comfort, an urge to mend and to grab and to heal, but he didn't know the words; didn't know what actions would fix the hurt that bled out of Cedric's every movement.
Ever since Harry met him, Cedric had been always a confident person. He was kind and humble and handsome and all those other praises and things that people would say—but what Harry understood most of all, was that Cedric Diggory was a self-assured person. The entire air around him, the allure, the pull that his presence seemed to command; it was all founded and precariously balanced on the way Cedric seemed almost so… effortless.

As if the way he did things, the way he would approach and be approached, as if it was all in his nature to be kinder, to be stronger, to be better. And Harry had to admit, it had always comforted him, this self-assuredness.
If he fell in the tournament, Cedric would have surely replaced him. He even would've fitted better to the tale of bravery and courage that everyone was trying to spin around them, when Harry was alone in the infirmary, Cedric was there; forging a bond, founding the campaign.

He had Cedric as another Boy Who Lied, someone willing to face all the backlash and shame, simply because the truth was more important, and because he wouldn't willingly leave Harry alone. These things came about because it was Cedric doing the pushing. And all of it was seemingly rewarded, or at least could be traced back to that moment when he was miraculously resurrected, when he pulled away from death's three minutes in and started breathing—in that moment, Cedric had become the only other person that survived Voldemort; seemingly proving, to at least Harry and those in the Order, that he was the universe's other favourite person. A storybook hero, Hogwarts blessed Champion.

But it wasn't true.
Cedric wasn't an upgraded Harry. He wasn't a fairytale prince or a baby born from the stars and favoured by some god. He's just a boy—

Three years older?

Yes.

Strong, and good, and noble?

Of course.

But he's just a boy, just like Harry.

A boy waging war against a world that he can't fit into anymore, pitted against the most feared wizard alive—under the heat of the media, voted class dunce on international parchment; already put through enough danger once, before being potentially endangered again—how could you not be afraid in such shoes?

Cedric didn't have the time to get used to it, no in the the way Harry and his friends had. And even then, Ron and Hermione still refused to use Voldemort's real name.
Cedric had been thrust into a life he didn't ask for, just like Harry. Plagued by nightmares, having already died once before becoming more likely than most teenage boys his age to die again; just before his life could even start.

How could you bear that?

Harry hugged his arms, "You know how I asked you last night, whether you regretted being with me?"

"Yes?"

"I thought—I really did and I still do now—I thought that maybe you were regretting everything. That maybe you were second-guessing your role in this." Harry said, gesturing around the house. Cedric looked at him intently.

"Why do you think that?" he asked, gentle.

"Because you're scared, aren't you?" Harry said, and it wasn't really a question nor an accusation. Rather it came out, an accurate measure of the truth. So blunt and straightforward that Cedric didn't know how to reply, taking only a moment, but still a moment too long of silence to consider how he should answer.

"Of course… I'm afraid." he admitted.

Finally.

Harry thought back to the image of Cedric's pale face, the nail marks on his palms. The way he was out-of-focus, shaken. He thought about what kind of dreams Cedric was having— being buried alive, killed over and over again. There were red scratches on his neck and arms this morning, and his grey eyes suffocated any undesirable emotion; Cedric put on a mask that hid and covered and guarded like high walls around his heart.

Harry couldn't bear it.

"Then, why do you try so hard to hide it?" he asked, and Cedric's face dropped a little. "Why do you insist that you're fine? Why do you tell me 'later' when we're talking now?"

"I-"

"If you regret it, it's as easy as telling the Prophet that I bewitched you into saying everything. You could easily wash your hands of this entire mess, Dumbledore would even help you!"

"Harry.."

"But if you look at me like you did last night, if you get angry that I'm making these assumptions and if you truly don't regret anything then tell me what's wrong!"

He stood up properly, bare feet on the kitchen tile, "We're taking on the world, and you're just 'fine' about it? You've told me that you've been getting nightmares for months and yet the only thing I can do is send you flowers to smell; you won't tell me anything! I-.. I just want to help you," Harry's mouth went dry, his hands—previously coiled— now loose, "We're a team now, a-aren't we? Aren't we friends?"

There was a brief silence that crashed upon the two. And as it dragged longer and longer, Harry grew nervous, unable to read the expression of Cedric's face. He suddenly thought that maybe he was too loud. And maybe he went too far, and maybe this wasn't the best way to go about it with Cedric, he should've been more considerate! Why isn't Hermione and Ron here at times like th-Whumpf!

Cedric body suddenly slumped over and collided with Harry's own, arms wrapping around his torso, the full extent of his body weight leaning against him.

"Are you alright?!" Harry asked, panicky.

"Yeah," he heard him say.

"I didn't… Did I go too far?"

"I'm hugging you, mate." Oh, "I'm grateful."

"You are?"

"You said we're friends—" Oh. Harry blushed. Before he could figure out why or get another word in, he felt Cedric squeeze him.

"Let me speak clearly; I don't regret anything," he said, "—even if I knew properly what I was getting myself into, I would've still talked to you at the infirmary. I would've still told the Prophet the same things, I would've still told everyone else the same, exact things…"

"O-Okay."

"And yeah, I am scared. Terrified. 'Pissing my pants,' as any normal person would say," Cedric said, and Harry wrapped his arms around and pressed his hands against his back.

"I'm scared of what's coming. How it'll affect my family, my friends. The nightmares and telling people, especially you, about them."

"What?! Why?"

"Most people don't believe us right now. Even the ones who say they do, like my parents," Cedric said, and it was the first time Harry had heard him sound so bitter. "I'm just so used to worried faces, Harry. Cho, my parents. Everytime I bring up my nightmares, they look like they want to send me off to St Mungos."

And then he paused, "But you believe me. You always do. I thought you'd think I was crazy, if I talked about your mum or dying."

"'Course I'd believe you," said Harry, comfortingly. "You can tell me things more often you know. And you can go into as much detail as you'd like, I'd probably prefer that."

"I want to, but I don't know how," Cedric sighed again, and his body slunk even further against Harry. "It's difficult."

"Then why don't we start now?" Harry suggested. "Maybe the pancakes could help?"

Cedric began to laugh. Harry could feel his body thrown into it, jerking as it bubbled outside him.

"Hermione and Ron say that food has always helped me!" said Harry said.

"Of course! Of course!" Cedric offered and Harry leant in and glowered so he couldn't see, "But you might be right… Maybe a meal and a friend would help."

As he settled down, both laughter and body quieting, Harry took advantage of the lightened silence, "You know, it's okay if it's difficult and if you're scared, and even if you ever regret it," he said, kind, soft. "Just tell me. If you'd be alright with it, talk to me. We only have each other right in these bizarre circumstances. I want to be here for you."

Cedric let go and straightened with a tight expression, crumpled, as if he was about to cry. No anger, no stress. Just an uneven sort of smile pushing his cheeks, his eyes bright and his hands no longer entwined in that nervous habit.

"Thank you," he whispered, like if he said it too loud, someone would steal it away from him. He let out a small breath that he never realized he was holding until now.

Harry offered his hand, and Cedric grasped it, "Promise yeah? No hiding."

"If we have these pancake talks more often, then I agree," Cedric said.

Harry laughed.

"It's a deal!"