Thank you to those of you who have so kindly reviewed this for me; every review means a huge amount, particularly on a fic like this which gets so few in comparison to more 'mainstream' fics like I Did Nothing. As with the previous chapter, this took a while to write so thank you for your patience, those of you who are still with me! Please review; reviews make my day, my week and give me mojo to continue with writing.

As with the previous chapters, this is dark and potentially triggering. It's a strange sensation to sift through the brokenness of characters like this, but what you've got here is a heart-felt look at the shards of glass that are left behind in the wake of tragedy.

Try not to cut yourself.

Chapter 4: A Little Less Good

The good die young, they reckon. That's what they tell me at least. It's of precious little comfort though. I'd give anything to have my boy back. My son. My boy. My child. What's the point of being good if it means you don't even make it to graduation? If your life is thrown away before you've ever had a chance to shine? The good die young and it's supposed to be a consolation. How in Merlin's name is it meant to be any consolation whatsoever? What good is it to me that my boy was stolen from me? Nothing they say can bring him back and their false platitudes and inane condolences are useless.

You don't expect to have to bury your own child.

The good die young.

What does that say about Harry Potter, then?

I wanted to hate the boy you know. I wanted to hate him for not being the spare. For being the one they cared about. For not just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. For coming back alive when my precious boy was dead. I wanted so badly to hate him. But I couldn't. Potter didn't kill Cedric. He didn't kill my brave, beautiful son. Those monsters killed my son. And I can't hate the boy who brought my sons body back to me. I can't hate the boy who looked me in the eye and told me that he couldn't leave my child's body in that place.

My son. My boy. My boy.

My son. The spare.

Without Harry Potter, he wouldn't have been the spare. He'd have won the tournament, he'd have got the prize money and he'd have come home. Screw the money. He'd have come home. I would still have my boy. I wouldn't be sat here, in my dear Cedric's room still unchanged over a year later, drinking fire whiskey on my own trying not to think of the boy who didn't kill my son. Kill the spare, they said. My child, my boy, my joy and my pride reduced to those two careless words. That complete dismissal of his intelligence, his spark, his talents and his abilities. Killed simply because he wasn't Harry Potter.

My son. My boy. My boy.

I was so angry for so long. I was furious in my heart-break. I wanted to rage, I wanted to scream, I wanted to bellow. But I couldn't hate the Potter boy. I couldn't be angry at him. In the minutes that became hours that became days… I couldn't hate him. Even when I wanted to. What made it worse was I couldn't do anything about those responsible, those I was truly furious with.

I couldn't do anything about the Ministry even when they closed down all lines of communication and refused to accept the blatantly obvious truth. It was as plain as your nose on your face that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had returned, but they refused to see sense. Instead they wasted their time spreading propaganda and lies about the 'tragic accident' and my son's death. We all knew that it was no accident. There's only one curse that kills like that. One curse with its flash of green light. What accident causes that?

I couldn't do anything about Dumbledore, even though he'd had a Death Eater walking around his school for a whole year, even though he was meant to be close friends with the man that Death Eater was impersonating, even though he is meant to be infallible. Without that, none of this would have happened, Harry Potter would never have been in that thrice damned tournament and my boy would have been working towards graduating Hogwarts right now with a fine career and future ahead of him.

I couldn't do anything about the Death Eaters who stole my son from me in his prime. Those hidden behind masks, even when we all know who they are. There was nothing I could do about any of the things that mattered. And so I did nothing. I sank into a bottle of fire whiskey and let it carry me away somewhere a little less painful, a little less real, a little less… sharp.

The good die young, so they say.

Does it still count when you take your life by your own hand? Are the false platitudes still mouthed when it was your own choice and your own wand? Or are eyes just averted instead? The silence left to grow until it is uncomfortable and tight, nobody sure what can be said, what can be done, because what can be done when a child throws their life away? The death of the young is always accompanied by the terrible silences, the discomfort, the uncertainly of what to say next. But this isn't going to go away, this isn't going to fade into the distance for everyone but the immediate friends and family, because the Boy Who Lived is now the Boy Who Died. The Boy Who Killed Himself.

When my boy was killed, it was amazing how friends, family and colleagues all disappeared from our lives once the obligatory consoling messages and hearty stews had been dispensed with. Our grief was so pervasive that it was as if might infect others and drag them down to our level, it might rub off on them. I felt like screaming that the house wasn't infectious for Merlin's sake. That Cedric had been murdered and it was so very much more dangerous for them to not realise that the Dark Lord was back, that the nightmare had returned, that my boy was only ever going to be the first. The first in a line that is going to be horrifically long before this is over. And Cedric was killed. The Potter boy…

My boy. My son. My boy.

He offered us the prize money, you know. Said that we should have it. That Cedric deserved it. Said that Cedric was brave, honourable and loyal to the end, that we should be proud of him. As if we could ever not be proud of our precious boy. As if that even needed saying. Cedric's shade protected him at the last, asked him to bring his body back to us, and the boy did it. He brought my son's body back to me so that we could see him a final time before we buried him, kiss his brow and close his eyes as if he were merely sleeping and not gone forever. In the face of death, the child had enough compassion and respect to bring my boy home to me. That's more than most adults could boast. He didn't just turn and run. He didn't just save himself. He brought my boy's lifeless body back to me and he offered us the prize money.

What use was the prize money, though? What use was the prize money when my pride and joy was lying lifeless on the floor in front of me? What could I do with the money? It wouldn't bring Cedric back. It couldn't bring my boy back to me. No amount of Galleons in the world could bring my boy back to me. It couldn't turn back time. Of course Cedric would have done the same if it had been the other round. If he'd have been standing in front of young Potter's relatives it would have been the first thing he did. Of course I know that. I wouldn't have had my boy any other way. The good die young.

War takes indiscriminately. The good, the bad, the ugly. My Cedric was just the first shot.

I stopped drinking eight months after my boy was killed. I looked into my wife's eyes and saw my reflection gazing back at me. A man I didn't know. A man I didn't want to know. A man so lost in his own grief and misery that he had forgotten what was still there for him, who was still standing by his side. I threw the bottles out. Smashed them on the ground outside and cried not only for Cedric, but also for my wife who had lost not only her son but also her husband. I took in deep gasping breaths as her arms wound their way around me, holding me with the same gentleness she always has, the lines of grief no less stark on her face than on my own.

I find myself reaching for the bottle of fire whiskey now for the third night in a row though, as I stare into the embers of a fire that is slowly burning out. The fire reflects my heart right now. Once aflame and blazing with pride, energy and passion… now reduced to the lingering embers and ashes of what was once, now past. My hand shakes slightly as I top up my glass, staring greedily into the amber liquid that became my haven and then the route to my own destruction. After everything that happened, after losing my boy, after so much pain and grief and heartache that the boy who came home from that graveyard was not my son… Potter is dead. By his own wand, his own hand, his own choice.

I want to scream, I want to scream to the heavens and beyond that if Potter wanted to die so badly then why didn't he do it in the graveyard!? Why did the wrong boy come home from that place? Why would the child who survived throw away the chance that he had been offered? The chance that my precious boy didn't have. I want to howl, to scream, to rage and yet that would be unfair and so instead I refill my glass and gaze down into its amber depths. My Cedric had so much more to offer, so much that was stolen from him that day. But so did Potter. Cedric's chances were stolen from him by an evil beyond most of our comprehension. Potter though… he threw them away himself.

Potter threw himself away.

What's good in such a waste? Where is the good in that? What good could come from such waste?

How alone must that child have felt to take his own life in such a desperate manner? He didn't have the comfort of a bottle of fire whiskey to drown himself in. He had nothing except his grief, his guilt, his fear and the expectations that our world laid on his shoulders. The Chosen One they started calling him. But who did he have to cry to? Whose shoulder was made wet with his tears? Whose ear heard his fears and his pain? Who did he turn to when all the world turned to him as the saviour, the last hope? I know my boy would have been able to come home to me or go to Pomona or any one of the friends he had surrounding him during the tournament. The girlfriend even. But who could Potter turn to?

Did he have anyone? Or did he push everyone so far away in his anger and his self-hatred that when it came down to the last, he had no one to turn to at all? In the very bottom of the bottles of fire whiskey, on the darkest of days in the wake of my Cedric's death my thoughts turned to joining my boy. Whose wouldn't? With a lifetime of experience behind me, with all of the jagged cracks and tears of the past in my repertoire, as an adult with people all around me, I wanted to give in. I was so tempted sometimes. So very tempted. And yet, I could imagine what my dear boy would say to me. How disappointed he'd be that I left his mother on her own. What did Potter have to imagine? Who did he have to turn to?

The good die young they say… so why was nobody watching when two of the best where taken from us? Why was nobody there to stop it?

Why was my boy allowed to die in a derelict graveyard, surrounded by mocking faces hidden behind masks?

Why was the Boy-Who-Lived left to take his own life, drain his lifeblood away in pain, fear, guilt and helpless despair?

If the young who die were so good, why was nobody watching out for them?

The good die young they say…