Harry stepped through the door of Grimmauld Place feeling as though the bones inside his legs could sink into the floor. He could feel his body pining for a bed, felt his shoulders sag and his spine hunch over, and yet, anyone within a fifteen foot radius could feel the sharp contrast of his spirit; a look of undeniable satisfaction, dancing upon his features. When Harry walked forward he, quite simply, sprung; bright and light-footed in the first few paces before abruptly, a certain excitement overtook him and he galloped through the hallway—past Mrs Black's fits behind the curtain—and rushing to the warm glow of the kitchen where, in a stroke of luck, everyone could be found; The Weasleys, Sirius, Lupin, Hermione, and surprisingly, Madeye.
Lunch was about to be served as a cauldron gurgled in the fireplace and a kettle bubbled steam. At the dinner table, Fred and George had already begun to dig in while Moody was but a few seconds away from a sip of his flask. But the clatter of plates, the light conversation exchanged in the air, soon came to a halt as Harry burst in; the room almost hitching it's own breath while Harry's heart, quite frankly, swelled with the familiar sights and sensations around him—he had never felt so glad to be in Grimmauld.
Gone was the Ministry's basement dungeon. Gone were it's dark marble halls and a jury bench stacked with those cold faces who peered and stared straight into his very being. The cold touch of the courtroom's iron chair, the sight of Dumbledore's back from his whirlwind entrance to his whirlwind exit, gone was the tittering voice of that toad-like woman; the sting of Lucius Malfoy's post-trial jabs.
All the awfulness melted away as Harry faced all that he could call close to a family, his eyes taking in his friends—who were both half-surprised and anticipating—whose presence were a simple and joyous answer to all the prayers he had whispered today.
"Cleared," he said, a big grin spread across his face as he took off his coat and threw it toward the hanger, hooking it on perfectly, "I'm cleared of all charges!"
Almost immediately a ruckus ensued; Lupin stood up so suddenly that his chair fell over while Ginny let out a loud gleeful squeal, one that caused Crookshanks—who had been sunbathing—to snap and straighten defensively on the windowsill.
Sirius, meanwhile, ran over and scooped Harry into a hug that lifted his feet a few inches from the ground. And soon as he was set down, Hermione and Ron promptly crashed into it as well, their arms clamped around Harry so tightly that he could barely hug back. Instead he let the bubbly feeling in his heart swell and watched Fred and George conjure two small stream of fireworks, that lit the kitchen in trails of purple and orange smoke, fizzing and swimming around his head in a dizzy spin of sparkling flame.
Amidst the celebration Mrs Weasley made her way toward Mr Weasley, who had come through the kitchen doorway mumbling about '..how nervous I was until Dumbledore arrived… Harry was being tried by a full court!' But as everyone around gathered around Harry, their smiles wide and hands in the air… for the moment Mr Weasley seemed just as, if not more, relieved than the rest of the room.
"I knew it!" yelled Ron, punching the air. "You always get away with stuff!"
"They were bound to clear you," said Hermione, who had looked positively faint with anxiety when Harry had entered the kitchen and was now holding a shaking hand over her eyes. "There was no case against you, none at all..."
"Everyone seems quite relieved, though, considering they all knew I'd get off," said Harry, smiling. With Mr Weasley's arm around her shoulders, Mrs. Weasley wiped her face on her apron while, Fred, George, and Ginny were doing a kind of war dance to a chant that went "He got off, he got off, he got off—"
"That's enough, settle down!" shouted Mr. Weasley, though he too was smiling. "Listen, Sirius, Lucius Malfoy was at the Ministry—"
"What?" said Sirius sharply. His grip around Harry tensed.
"He got off, he got off, he got off—"
"Be quiet, you three! Yes, we saw him talking to Fudge on level nine, then they went up to Fudge's office together. Dumbledore ought to know."
"Absolutely," said Sirius. "We'll tell him, don't worry."
"Well, I'd better get going, there's a vomiting toilet in Bethnal Green waiting for me. Molly, I'll be late, I'm covering for Tonks, but Kingsley might be dropping in for dinner—"
"He got off, he got off, he got off—"
"That's enough—Fred—George—Ginny!" said Mrs. Weasley, as Mr. Weasley left the kitchen. "Harry dear, come and sit down, have some lunch, you hardly ate breakfast…"
Admittedly, Harry remembered eating an entire bowl of baked beans that morning but could hardly argue when he caught sight of a pie—that suspiciously looked like treacle tart—baking golden in the oven. Sitting down beside Moody, Harry felt his hand clap his shoulder from behind.
"Congratulations boy, 'm glad they saw the nonsense in punishing you for a bit of self-defense…"
"Indeed. I'm glad that you're going back to Hogwarts," said Lupin to Harry. He walked by with a plate on one hand and the other ruffling through his hair.
"Thank you—" he replied breathlessly, glad to find that Lupin's fingers had seemingly gone back to being human, and unable to put off what he assumed was a ridiculously large grin on his face— "Is Cedric around? I wanted to tell him the good news as well..."
"Oh dear, I think he's upstairs," said Mrs Weasley, putting a hand to her cheek, "He did say he was going to finish the drawing room today."
"I'll go and get him," said Harry.
As he left the kitchen's pleasantry, the glow and the clattering of plates and chatter put behind his back; Harry felt the weariness settle once more, down into his bones. His inner brightness did not waver at all, but as he made his way up the stairs in the hallway, past the stuffed elf-heads, he became glad to be on his own again; climbing step with the half-mind to get Cedric, tell him the news and then promptly fall into bed and deal with everything later. But as Harry approached the first landing, a very sharp and rather brusque series of noises jolted his drifting mind wide awake.
First, there was clattering; a thudding that hit hard against the floor as if someone had run across with heavy boots, the way Dudley would very intentionally step into the staircase when Harry inhabited the Dursley's broom cupboard all those years ago. Then, thump!
It was very hefty, very noticeable thump! as if something dense had been shoved against the wall.
Harry waited, holding his breath.
Silence.
Completely unsettling and distilling the air that hung before.
"Hello?" he said, calling out to the empty staircase. There was no answer.
From below the stairs he could still hear chatter from the kitchen. There was the sound of Ron laughing—no doubt at something Ginny or Hermione had said—and a 'ding!' as the oven's timer chimed. Nobody had stepped out into the hallway, or even seemed to notice the loud noises from above.
Everything seemed normal.
Perhaps he had imagined it, out of his tired state. Perhaps there was an utterly mundane and logical reason that Harry had yet to have thought. But there was little Harry could do to shake off this sudden feeling of anxiety. It washed over him and curled like mist, the type that vagued distant shadows on plains and fields during foggy mornings. Not knowing what to do, Harry cautiously made his way up a few more steps until—
CRACK!
A guttural shout rang out alongside a quick burst of red light, that flashed through the banister of the third floor. At once, Harry darted up the stairs, quickening his pace and climbing two, then three steps at the time; his gut tightening as he sprinted forward and his head crystallized with the fear that something was very, very wrong. Rounding the staircase, Harry realized he was heading for the drawing-room and as soon as he could reach, he twisted the knob and threw his shoulder into the panel, flinging the door open.
"Cedric!" he called. But there was only one person in the room, a lot larger and stooped over than how Cedric usually looked. Before he could call out once more, the figure turned it's head and a familiar, sneering face suddenly made all the air vanish from Harry's lungs. He stumbled back and drew his wand, feeling as though he was falling through the floor, "Pettigrew?!"
Moody had said that no one besides those Dumbledore trusted could enter and yet Peter Pettigrew was here; staring at the walls with cold eyes and a spindly smile. He looked almost exactly the same as he did that night in the graveyard—albeit, strangely bigger and more menacing—the same tattered tartan suit and cloak, both of his hands still visibly flesh, and in the same arm as Harry recalled all those months ago; he held a bundle of cloth close to his chest. When it wriggled, familiar arrows of ice shot through Harry's heart.
No, no, no, no. It couldn't be.
A small head poked out, the snatches of it's upper torso pale and parched, the lines of blue veins visible even from where Harry stood. And as he took a sharp breath; that weak, terrible voice rasped the words that he had been trying to banish from the back of his mind for so long,
"Kill the spare!"
A green light pooled at the end of Peter's wand but it didn't point at Harry, instead the floorboards began to groan as Peter moved toward a corner in the room where someone else had been cowering, hidden against the farthest wall.
"Don't come any closer! I'm warning you!" a familiar voice cried.
Harry felt as though someone had just punched him in the stomach, and watched as Cedric stood in the corner, jutting out his wand with both hands, but with eyes so wide and fraught with terror that his entire body shook; wracked and twitching, heaving as though every breath that passed through was thick and choked the chest.
"Riddik- I, ha… Riddiku-!"
He was hyperventilating, unable to get the spell out, unable to get past the cold that gripped his entire being, the blinding fear of the visage; this large, malicious man with a face that—in Cedric's mind, seemingly—morphed in and out of proportion.
He hadn't noticed Harry, hadn't noticed that the door had flung open or that there was a real person in the doorway trying to shout at him. Actually as soon as Peter Pettigrew's form manifested, squirming his way out of the desk like a dead body from a coffin; Cedric began to forget what was real. He forgot what he was doing, instantaneously gripped by sheer terror that he had blindly cast Expelliarmus! while trying to run away. As he stood, face slack and completely at the mercy of the tremors that shot through his body, his mind flashed and began projecting, pulling out visions entirely suspect to 'reality', memories and memories of the dreams that had always slipped him by. Cedric's body began to seize up and the room's walls began to melt down, the house and then the street outside bleached white, and then the floor spiraling down down down before suddenly he could smell dirt; and suddenly he could feel cold night air pricking goosebumps into his skin, and suddenly he could see the distant mountain range and an old crumbling house on a hill far far away and suddenly, he could hear the grate of iron on stone, the scent of sulfur and decay and suddenly, and suddenly, and suddenly, and suddenly—it was the graveyard, the graveyard, THE GRaVEyARD, the graveyard; the tombstones, the Death Eaters, his nightmares —and it was as if Cedric had never left at all, like he was still stuck in the final task, trapped in the moment when the green light soared across the darkness—the sweat, the dirt, the grime dripping and burning him like candle-wax; the light growing bigger and bigger as his own screams seared into his mind and he knew it would only be moments until his world would burn emerald fire and turn cold and dark, and then he would be dead again and then—
Harry's voice came bellowing in Cedric's ear.
"GET OUT OF THERE!" he screamed.
Cedric snapped out of his vision, suddenly back in Grimmauld's drawing-room; the olive-green walls surrounding and wooden planks underneath his feet. His eyes darted around just in time to watch as Harry rushed through, throwing himself in front and pointed his own wand forward. At once, Pettigrew and Voldemort vanished into a swirl of other horrible faces, maws, and half-formed bodies while Harry readily raised his arm, his wand radiating vibrant white. Behind him, Cedric felt his knees buckle and he lurched forward, as if his body turned to stone.
As he fell, he could've sworn that a chorus of angels serenaded him as he dropped lower, down down down, singing and promising—all while the ground rushed forward to greet him. He could barely discern something shadowy and dark hovering in the room, as if a person-shaped hole had torn itself into reality. But bit by bit his sight and hearing faded, the song around him muffled and the sight Harry's back dimming. Cedric could only make out Harry thrusting a torrent of white light against the desk before promptly, he hit the drawing-room's hard wooden floor.
Frantically, Harry wiped the sweaty hair away from Cedric's forehead—feeling for a bruise, a bump—while holding his upper body up with the other arm. Unable to tear away from Cedric's pale face, he waited as several footsteps pounded up the second-floor stairs before they stopped at the doorway.
Lupin ran inside the room, panting, "What happened?"
"The desk—" Harry said, suddenly realizing how dry his throat had become, "It-...The boggart became Pettigrew! It became him before he, he—"
"Say no more, son," grunted Moody, who limped over, glass eye whirling around while his real one focused intensely on Cedric. "You get rid of the thing?"
"I did…" he said breathing heavily, watching as Moody bent over to examine Cedric, "He couldn't even say Riddikulus, he couldn't cast the spell—"
"S'what happens when yer scared, Potter," said Moody.
"Harry, let's get him off the floor, yes?" beckoned Sirius from behind. Harry looped his arms around Cedric's waist as Lupin and Sirius took his legs, lifting him onto a nearby couch.
"He's fainted?" Lupin said, as they moved him.
"Most likely," said Moody, he began sifting through a leather pouch hanging at his belt. The sound of clinking bottles and flasks jingled in the silent room. Harry knelt by Cedric as he groaned, his fingers digging into and grabbing a fistful of exposed coach foam.
Moody finally took out a vial that seemed to have some sort of plant growing inside—a cluster of tiny, blue flowers—before he held it, uncorked, underneath Cedric's nose, "Might be a bit feverish, but just let him smell some of this and he'll come to."
A few seconds passed before, like he said, Cedric's eyes fluttered open and Harry let out a sigh of relief. But as soon as the moment passed, he leapt out of the way, Cedric suddenly jerked upright—his legs kicking out as he bent forward, arms flailing.
Swiftly, Moody snatched the vial away, "Breathe boy, breathe!" he said as Cedric clutched at his throat, eyes bulging, his lips pressed closed.
"We need to hold him down!" cried Sirius but before they could get close to Cedric's thrashing limbs, Harry almost immediately lunged forward, reaching over to Cedric with the butt of his wand and pushing upward in a quick and concise strike that jammed against his stomach.
At the impact of the blow, Cedric made a sudden gasp for air before a fit of coughs gurgled out of his throat.
Something throbbed as if shattered glass had been rubbed in between his eyes and his breath felt thick in his chest, like the air was too much to squeeze inside his lungs. Harry held Cedric upright while he choked on his own spit, feeling so short-winded that his own arms loosened beyond his control; his legs also too heavy to move. It didn't even feel like his body was his own, the sudden sensation of utter uselessness slowly seeping into him like a state of shock.
Desperately, Cedric tried to scramble to his feet, his hand blindly sifting for the solid arm of the couch, but something abruptly pulled him down by the hem of his shirt while Harry's torso—which he had unwittingly clung to—stiffened against his attempts to stand.
"Let go," Harry said. His voice sounded like the room was underwater, "You're in no state right now to get up, let go."
Cedric tried to ignore him, tried to tell Harry that he was fine, and even when the words couldn't come out—his throat too dry—he made another attempt to stand up again. But as soon as Cedric stood vertical, weight balanced in one foot, he felt the room swivel and his mind slosh like he was being tossed around inside a corked bottle. Immediately, he succumbed to the feeling of lead lining his body and crumpled back into Harry's arms, closing his eyes once more to try and get rid of the dizziness.
"Catch your breath Cedric," someone pleaded. Panting and feeling the sweat on his nape, Cedric obediently sunk into the couch and began to take deep, shaky gulps of air, pressing his forehead against Harry's shoulder as he caught his breath; the distant whine fading as proper sound returned to his ears.
"Here Potter," someone else said, once Cedric stilled. A familiar scent drifted around him again. It helped his eyes—heavy as they were—open red and watery. Cedric lifted his head up and squinted past Harry's shoulder; vision yet to sharpen or register but still flinching from the brightness of the windows.
"Still here?" said Moody's voice.
Cedric felt Harry's warm hand on his back, comforting as the afternoon light gleamed brighter.
"Still here," he replied, wheezing.
Harry felt Cedric's head slump back into his shoulder. He looked exhausted; his breaths a little too shallow while his hair stayed slick with sweat. Glancing back, Harry watched as Moody made his way to the desk with a grimace while Sirius and Lupin stood by, their brows furrowed and hands at the ready for another fit.
Peter Pettigrew's sinister face slithered into Harry's head. He cursed under his breath and tightened his grip, whispering an apology in Cedric's ear with burning eyes, and a deep knot of discomfort plunged into his stomach as he realized that the twisted, hulking and evil boggart-form of Peter is what he sees in his dreams.
Harry swallowed, biting his tongue as the thudding, the flash of red light and shouts replayed in the back of his mind. He felt Cedric, with as much strength as he could muster, squeeze back.