Chapter 18: The Funeral
A/N: Since I haven't updated in a while, this is a long chapter for you. Sad… But good. The next chapter will be the last so enjoy! Oh yeah, and if you want to hear Cedric's funeral from a different point of view, read my fic "Where the Wild Flowers Grow." Holly has a cameo appearance in that fic.
"What's going on?" Holly muttered when she opened her eyes again. Dumbledore was by her side, but the usual smile was gone from his eyes.
"Holly," he said, quietly. "You have been asleep for two days."
"Two days?" Holly said, groggily and dazed. Dumbledore nodded.
"And a lot has happened in that short amount of time."
"What do you mean?" Holly asked. "Where's Harry?"
"Alive and well," Dumbledore assured her. "However…"
"Cedric…" Holly interrupted. "I saw him. He was lying there as if he were…" she couldn't finish.
"He was," Dumbledore finished for her. "And sadly, he still is."
"He isn't," Holly said, shaking her head. "He isn't."
"Holly…" Dumbledore closed his eyes, exasperated. To his surprise, Holly started to sing and tears began to glisten in her eyes.
"Isn't it… rich? Are we a… pair? Me here at last on the ground, you in mid-air… Send in the clowns…" Dumbledore nodded
"Desiree Armfeldt, A Little Night Music, scene six, second act." Holly looked at him. "Don't look so surprised, Miss Phillips, I happen to enjoy the Muggle theater." She smiled weakly.
"Cedric took me to that play, you know," she whispered. "He…"
"I know," Dumbledore nodded. "I know."
"What happened?" Holly asked.
"Harry knows about you," Dumbledore sighed. "But he will not tell anyone." Holly nodded.
"So he's accepted it? He wouldn't believe it at first…"
"He still doesn't quite believe it," Dumbledore nodded. "But he does know."
"So no one else knows? Other than Sirius and Remus and you and Harry? Well, of course, there's also…" Dumbledore nodded.
"No one else knows," he whispered, interrupting her. He continued to tell Holly about the other things that had happened that night. About the spy at Hogwarts turning out to be Barty Crouch Junior, about the duel between Harry and Voldemort, about how Krum had been under the Imperious Curse.
"But Remus, he…" Holly frowned, still confused.
"We found him unconscious by the lake. He was the one who told us you were in grave danger," Dumbledore said. "But soon after, Harry arrived back home, clasping Cedric's body in one of his hands and the Triwizard Cup in the other."
"And where was I?" Holly asked. "How did I get here?"
"You didn't fall far away from Cedric's body. Harry had managed to throw your arm around his shoulder."
"And Remus?" Holly said again, remembering how he had betrayed her.
"Holly, you know Remus Lupin would never do anything to harm you if he could help it. He is still suffering the aftereffects of a particularly strong Imperious Curse."
"Oh." Holly muttered. There was a short silence. "And… And Cedric? What about Cedric?" Holly finally asked, her stomach churning again at the mention of his name.
"His funeral's today," Dumbledore said, quietly. "You're free to go if you wish." Holly nodded.
"I'd like to see him…" Though she knew if she saw him again, the nausea would return full force. It would make it real, it would make it all final. But she had to see him. Dumbledore nodded.
"I'll speak to Madame Pomfrey," he said. He stood up but before he left, he looked at Holly intently.
"What were you told by Larkin?" Holly looked surprised he knew. He explained. "Lupin told us." Holly nodded.
"He said my parents didn't love me…" Dumbledore smiled and for a moment, the twinkle returned to his jaded blue eyes.
"They weren't fighting about you, Holly," he said, quietly. "That, I know for a fact. Your father had a note. It was the real reason Larkin went to Azkaban, as well as first degree murder."
"First degree?" Holly gaped.
"The authorities figured Larkin knew his colleague was going to turn him in as a Death Eater. They argued about it in his office. Larkin probably tried to persuade Jason not to tell. He probably used every ounce of begging, wheedling and blackmail he could. Probably even threatened your life and your mother's." Dumbledore waited for a reaction, but Holly's emotionless mask was in place. He continued. "Larkin liked your father, Holly, many people did. He probably didn't want to kill him, it was probably a last resort. But we are pretty sure he planned it. If Jason didn't agree to not turn him in, which would be most likely because of Jason's stubbornness, Larkin knew the only way to get rid of him was to kill him. I just thought you should know that your father wasn't accidentally pushed, as the public was told, he was murdered." Holly was silent for a moment, absorbing this information. Suddenly, she frowned, the memories of that night coming back to her.
"Professor…" she said, her brow furrowed in thought. "Shouldn't I be dead right now?" Dumbledore smiled weakly and nodded.
"You should. Were it not for Peter Pettigrew."
"What?" Holly's eyes widened in shock.
"Harry told me about it when he was willing to speak," Dumbledore explained. "Before anyone else could harm you, he stunned you."
"Why didn't he…"
"Well, there are two reasons that I can see…" Dumbledore said, frowning as well now. "The first is pretty obvious. He knew that Lord Voldemort would need you alive, not dead."
"Why does he need…"
"And so he stunned you and Voldemort told the others to back away from you and that you wouldn't be any more trouble," Dumbledore interrupted, not ready to answer the question Holly was about to voice. "The second reason is a little less obvious. Last year, Harry saved Peter Pettigrew's life."
"Oh…" Holly nodded. Dumbledore smiled.
"Pettigrew was in his debt."
"I see."
"But it has not been fully repaid yet," Dumbledore continued. Holly nodded, understanding.
"No debt is ever fully repaid," she whispered. For some reason, Cedric came to mind again and she felt indebted to him severely. He had saved her life by the lake that day. And she never had the chance to repay him. Dumbledore understood her silence.
"I should be going." Dumbledore sighed and finally left Holly all alone.
Holly looked around the room and smiled weakly, remembering the day Moody (or Crouch) had hit her with a Positive Celsius curse and sent her here and then how she had broken her arm in the hall.
"Twice in one day, hm? You sure are accident prone, Miss Phillips." Madame Pomfrey said, shaking her head.
"I know, I know, but can you mend it?" Holly asked. Madame Pomfrey looked horrified.
"Of course I can mend it! What kind of a silly question is that!"
"Great," said Cedric. "Then we can eat."
Good old Cedric… He didn't deserve that. He didn't deserve to… To die.
The sentence startled Holly. Cedric had died. He was dead. Dead. One syllable, full of so much sorrow. Her throat tightened around the lump of pain that began to form.
"Cedric…" she choked. She smiled weakly, remembering the play they had seen and continued to sing. "Isn't it bliss? Don't you approve? One who keeps tearing around, one who can't move… Where are the clowns? Send in the clowns."
She laughed weakly at how ironic that song fit her situation.
The day was clear and sky was blue with white fluffy clouds moving softly above them. Holly walked up slowly and sat down in one of the chairs. Next to her, she noticed, was a girl with long black hair and dark blue robes. Her head was in her hands and Holly could hear the small noises she made as she grieved.
Tentatively, the red-haired Gryffindor slid her arm around the Ravenclaw's shoulders. The girl looked up at Holly and gave her a weak smile through bloodshot eyes.
"I… I can't believe it, Holly…" she whispered. Holly nodded, understanding. "He's… He's gone and he's not coming back… He's not going to kiss me goodbye this time. He left without a word, not a single word, and he's gone, gone for good…"
"I know, I know," Holly whispered, as she let Cho sob into her shoulder. She tried her best to comfort her as her own heart was breaking. But she had done her crying. Before she had left to come to the funeral, Holly had let out all the tears in the hospital wing until she felt dehydrated.
"It's not fair…" she heard Cho mutter into her shoulder. "It's just not… fair. He didn't deserve this, he didn't…" Holly nodded.
"Are you going to give the eulogy?" she asked. Cho looked up at her, her mouth partly open.
"I… I was, but I don't think I can—"
"Go up there, Cho. You'll do better than I ever could," Holly urged. She smiled, weakly, but appreciatively none the less. As the pastor took the stand, Holly noticed someone else slide into the seat next to her. She looked and saw her brother, staring straight ahead of him. She smiled, wanly.
"I'm glad you came," she said. "Cedric would have wanted you here." He just grunted in reply. Holly had the feeling he was angry with her and she didn't blame him.
"Ladies and gentlemen, friends and family," the preacher began. "We are gathered here today to mourn the passing of Cedric Amos Diggory…"
A distinct sob from Mrs. Diggory could be heard.
The preacher droned on but all Holly could hear was Desiree, singing her wonderful song, on that stage Cedric had taken her to.
Just when I'd stopped opening doors, finally knowing the one that I wanted was yours… Making my entrance again with my usual flare… Sure of my lines, no one is there…
Holly was sure of her lines, alright.
But who was there to listen to them?
Choking back a sob, she felt something resting on her shoulder and something furry brushed her neck. She looked over to see her younger brother, emerald eyes torn with sorrows of the past and future, staring at the preacher as he spoke and leaning his head on her shoulder. Holly smiled weakly and put a sisterly arm around him. She held him close to her.
When the preacher was finished and had introduced Cho to deliver the eulogy, there was hesitation from the Ravenclaw. But with a reassuring glance from Holly, the young girl rose in her dark blue robes and approached the stand.
"Cedric was… Cedric was a great friend…" she said in a shaking near whisper, though her voice was louder thanks to the Sonorous charm. "He and I, we were really great friends. He always made me laugh. I remember being worried about him in the Tournament and he'd actually laugh at me and assure me he would be fine. He would never fail to assuage my fears. God, I'll miss him…" Cho looked down and wiped her eyes with her right hand. She looked up again and her voice was quivering more noticeably now. "I-I'm sorry, I just… Maybe Holly should… No." She held herself up, tall and proud. She wasn't going to let herself cry, not here, not now. She was going to do this, if not for Cedric, then for herself.
"He deserves… Much more than what he… What he was given. I think we can all agree on that… Well! Anyway… I did prepare a speech for this, it's just…" Cho smiled, despite the situation. "Well, Cedric always had a knack for getting me flustered and I could never be organized whenever he…" she stopped, suddenly and her smile disappeared. She rustled her papers. "Let me see, where was I? Oh yes. He deserved much more than what he was given, as we all deserved to see him happily seize the Triwizard Cup or gracefully accept his defeat. He deserved to graduate, he deserved to get married, he deserved to have kids, he deserved to have a life! He deserved to live and… And now he can't because… Because he was ripped away from it, ripped away from all of the warmth and love he thought he knew…" Cho was faltering again. Holly sighed, quietly. The poor girl, Holly thought, Poor me! Cho continued.
"God, he was such a great guy, wasn't he?" she whispered with a small laugh. "I can't even compose myself, I'm sorry. I could have done a better job at this, it's just… Well, he was Cedric. And he always used to make me smile…" Cho hesitated and Holly saw her mumble something, but couldn't make it out. "I think that's all I have to say," she said. "Or else I think I might burst into tears right here. Thank you."
People clapped slowly without much rhythm, appreciating the courage it took Cho to go up and do that; the courage that the rest of them didn't have. She stepped down from the stage and took her seat. Holly gave her a warm, reassuring smile, as she tightened her grip around Harry. Damn it was hard being the sturdy one who couldn't cry. Holly laughed at the irony.
"I don't think I have anything left in me to cry. Two years ago, I wouldn't have done anything…" she muttered to herself. "And now, I feel like… I feel like all forms of emotion I had ever felt in the past two years are gone again, like they've been ripped out of my body. Like I've lost a piece of my soul…"
"Where have you been, Holly?" Holly was startled and looked around for who had asked the question when she realized it had come from the fourteen-year-old boy resting his head on her shoulder. "Where have you been?"
"I couldn't tell you, Harry, I wasn't allowed," she whispered to him. "It was dangerous, I—"
"All these years I thought I was alone…" Harry muttered, staring ahead of him, a confused expression on his face. "All those years… I thought it was just me, that I had no one else in the world but the Durselys. And then I found out I was a wizard. And then, I had something, I had someone. I wasn't alone anymore; I had Ron and Hermione. And I would never be alone as long as I had them…
"But I was wrong. I was alone. I had no parents, no relatives except for the ones who hated me. I had nothing. Nothing but Ron and Hermione, who I've kind of adopted as my brother and sister. But they aren't really my brother and sister. They didn't really understand what it was like to be me everyday, going through life knowing that someone out there wants you dead, that someone out there hates you more than you hate yourself, that someone out there killed your parents…" Harry trailed off. There was silence as they listened to the birds chirp and people mumbling to each other and paying their last respects.
"You hate yourself Harry?" Holly whispered, finally. Harry said nothing. "You have someone, you know. You're not alone." Harry looked up at her with a weak smile.
"I know," he said. "Not anymore."
Holly felt the emotion filling up the hole inside her heart that Cedric's absence had created. The emptiness was siphoning off slowly through her love for her little brother. Her baby brother. The one she had tried to soothe in her three-year-old arms all those years ago…
"I never knew you hated yourself, Harry…" Holly repeated, quietly, trying to get him to talk about it.
"I hate what I am, not who I am. I hate being… being the subject of Voldemort's insanity. I hate being the reason my mother died, I hate bringing my close friends into this without meaning to, I hate… I hate all the stress. I hate being what I am."
"But it's who you are that really counts, isn't it?" Holly asked him with a smile. "It's what you do that matters. And if you hate what you are, all that matters is what you do about it. You can't change what you are, Harry, just as you can't change who you are. Who you are is something you have become, something that is still changing. But what you are, what you are is… it's something special."
"What I am is something I was born with. A curse, that's what I am."
"But who you are is a living, breathing, loving young man that I will never let out of my sight again," Holly promised him. "You don't have to hate what you are, you know."
"I know," he mumbled. He then looked up at her with a true smile. "But I don't, not anymore. Because now I have someone who knows exactly how it feels like."
"You're not alone, Harry," Holly said, pulling him into a hug.
"And neither are you," he whispered.
Holly eventually had to get up out of her seat and pay her last respects to Cedric. Last respects… It sounded so final. She didn't intend on giving her last respects, merely paying him respect face to face for the last time. She would continue to respect and admire him for the rest of her life.
As she approached the coffin, she fingered a long twig from an ebony tree. She looked down at Cedric's stone-cold face, his eyes closed now, and tried to smile, but couldn't. There was nothing at all amusing about this.
"Hi," she said, as if actually speaking to him. Only this time, he didn't smile in return. She sighed, giving into her sorrow.
"I'm sorry, Cedric," she whispered. "I'm sorry I never told you… I never told you. How much I really do love you, Cedric, I was just too stupid to realize it. Please, forgive me. Forgive me for letting you go. I'll miss you…" Holly sighed, staring down at the body of the man she had fallen so deeply in love with. She remembered what he had said to her when they had stood by the lake two days ago.
"Once someone stumbles into that hole in the heart that people call love, I don't think they can ever climb out again, not even after the person they fell in love with is gone. Not even after they both die. It's one of the few things in life that always lasts, I think, and sometimes that's a good thing and sometimes it isn't. But Holly, you were the first person I ever truly loved and I will never forget that. Never. I'll always be in love with you, Holly, but I know now that it was never meant to be."
Holly wondered a thought that terrified her. What if Cedric was right? What if she never fell out of love with him? What if she continued to love him for the rest of her life? What pain would that cause her?
But then, she thought another thought, with a smile.
Was that such a bad thing?
"Don't you love farce?" Holly sung with a forced laugh. "My fault I fear. I thought that you'd want what I want… Sorry, my dear. But where are the clowns? Quick, send in the clowns… Don't bother they're here…" Holly sighed and shook her head. She then remembered the twig in her hands and looked back at Cedric.
"I bet you know what this is for, huh?" she said. "I bet you'd have done the same thing… Well, here we go…" Holly touched the tip of her wand to the twig and it blossomed into a lovely white rose. She laid it gently by his side. "There. Our token of friendship, of respect, of trust… and of forgiveness. Please, Cedric. Forgive me."
Holly turned away from Cedric's body and ran right into Erin.
"Hi, Holly…" Erin muttered, quietly. "I wanted to say… I'm sorry for the way I treated you. You really made Cedric happy, and… well, when my friends are happy, I'm happy. Thank you, Holly. Thank you for being his friend. And thank you for being my friend."
"I always will be your friend, Erin," Holly smiled, weakly. "You can always count on me for anything."
Holly was about to go back to Hogwarts, when she was stopped by two young men.
"Holly," they both said together.
"Drew, Ryan…" she greeted them with a nod.
"We had to hold Erin up… She couldn't look at him without losing her balance…" said Drew.
"I understand…" Holly nodded. "I feel the same way." Ryan gave her a thankful smile.
"No doubt Erin has probably already said this, but thank you."
"You are always welcome," Holly whispered.
Ready to finally go home, Holly noticed a familiar face. He gave her a weak, diffident wave. She approached him, unsure of her emotions on seeing him under these sad circumstances.
"What have you been up to?"
"Not much…" he muttered. "I have an internship with a sports writer for the Daily Prophet starting next month, though…"
"That's great, Oliver." The young man smiled at her. It was an awkward situation.
"Cedric told me that… You two had grown very… close…" The way he said the word made Holly flinch. Close. And yet both of them had wanted to be closer.
"Yeah…" she sighed. "I should have… I should have taken him, Oliver. I should have hugged him and told him that everything would be alright because I'm here now to comfort him when he's sad, to laugh with him when he jokes, to celebrate with him when he succeeds and to reassure him when he fails… I should have told him all that when I had the chance. I could have hugged him and kissed him and let him whisper in my hair and hold my hand… I could have done everything… But I was stupid. I was dead stupid and I didn't. I didn't, Oliver! I never told him!"
The tears that had been threatening to fall began to sting her eyes as her emotions came back to her in a tidal wave. She found herself collapsing in Oliver's arms and just crying, crying until it all came out. He tried his best to comfort her, but it wasn't one of his strong points.
"Relax, Holly," he reassured her. "Everything will be OK. I promise, things will all turn out OK…"
Isn't it rich? Isn't it queer? Losing my timing this late in my career? And where are the clowns? There ought to be clowns. Well, maybe next year…