Diagon Alley was bustling with people, but the atmosphere was not nearly as cheerful as it had been on most of the occasions during which Harry had visited before. He kept his hood up and his head down as he trudged through the accumulated grit that clung to the base of the curb. The uneven cobblestones made his stride unsteady, but his momentum kept him upright, and he studiously avoided the close-knit clutches of wizards and witches scurrying to and fro between shops.

The bright, flashing colors in the window displays of Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes made him smile briefly, and a tendril of warmth caressed his heart. Even in these terribly dark times, someone was working to keep people hopeful and cheerful, and Harry couldn't help admiring Fred and George. Hope was such a fragile thing, but if you lost it, you had nothing. Voldemort had returned in force, Albus Dumbledore was dead, Dementors were breeding and sucking the cheer out of even the muggles, who had no idea anything was wrong, and he, Harry Potter, had left Hogwarts to do what he'd always known he'd one day have to do – find the center of Voldemort's power, destroy it, and then destroy him. But as he stood outside the leaded-glass window of the Stationary Shop, he felt as though his shoulders were bowed under an enormous weight. He had only a few clues to go off of, and even those were terribly confusing. Who was R.A.B.? Where were Draco Malfoy and (his fist clenched involuntarily) Professor Snape? What had been the cause of the fiery display at Dumbledore's funeral?

And more importantly, he thought irritably as he lifted his head to glance down the twisting street, where was Hermione? She'd promised to meet him here today, said she'd found a book that might, if they could translate it, provide them with some crucial information about the creation (and destruction) of Horcruxes. The wind took his hood and lifted it off his head, blowing his hair back and exposing his scar for a brief moment. It also snatched the door of Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes from the hand of a startled witch, who let out a squawk as it banged forcefully against the wall. Her robes fluttered and Harry saw a hint of red hair.

Molly Weasley.

Suddenly terrified of being discovered and fussed over, he turned and fled back toward the Leaky Cauldron. He dodged around a toppled cage that contained a wildly fluttering owl and jumped over a young girl chasing after an escaped piece of paper, rounded a street lamp, and ran smack into an older, pinched-looking witch carrying a small cauldron filled with odds and ends. They went down in a tangle, and Harry, mortified, quickly began scooping up quills and glass vials and a small box of silver charms.

"I'm so sorry," he panted, out of breath. "I'll get that for you…."

The witch, however, did not move. She was staring at him in a mildly horrified manner, the tightness around her mouth suggesting resignation. His frantic movements slowed to a stop, and he stared back. Her hair was a graying shade of goldenrod, her eyes dark blue. She had been pretty once, that was obvious, but worry and frown lines creased her face, which looked mildly sunken. He swallowed and offered her cauldron back to her.

She looked from him to it, and back to him again. "Harry Potter," she said quietly, with the air of one who'd known it all along.

Harry felt a sinking feeling deep in his stomach. "Please, miss," he said quietly. "I'm very sorry for barging into you like that. You're not hurt, are you?" She said nothing, and he blinked, peering through his glasses. Now that he thought about it, she looked really familiar…

The wind tossled a few stray hairs and her face slammed into place. "Mrs. Diggory!" he breathed. His throat seemed to close up, a thousand old terrors and pains rushing back to him. "I'm so sorry," he repeated, but this time, it wasn't about knocking her down.

Her face softened. "Nonsense," she said quietly, picking herself up with grace and brushing herself off. "You've nothing to be sorry about, Harry." She glanced around, and he stood also, and this time when he offered her her cauldron back, she accepted. "Why don't you come along for a cup of tea?" she offered, a bit furtively, and Harry frowned.

"I… yeah, sure," he acquiesced, and fell in beside her as she turned and took one of the narrow, winding alleys that branched off of Diagon. She walked briskly, but in silence, sensible shoes clicking on the cobblestones. She did not look at Harry, though he knew he was a sight – since leaving the Dursley's, and Hogwarts, he'd lost weight, and with it some of the baby roundness that remained in his face. He'd been shaving more often too, and his skin was taking on the traditional texture of an adult. His hair was longer and even more unruly, since he hadn't had time to get it cut, and his robes were dirty and getting a little threadbare. He looked more like his father than ever, but haunted, much like the woman who now strode along beside him.

They turned again, onto another main thoroughfare, and Mrs. Diggory directed him to a large shop with segmented windows of opaque glass. 'The Wren's Roost' it said, and the door swung open silently to admit them.

It was a homey little place with rustic-looking furnishings and a variety of strange and interesting birdhouses displayed in every nook and cranny. Singing birds fluttered from wall to wall, never dipping too far below the ceiling, and the woman carrying a tray of tea to a couple of wizards sitting at a table covered in books was thin and frail. Mrs. Diggory carried her cauldron to a small table tucked away far from the door, behind the stairs leading up to the second story, and Harry followed her, avoiding the gazes of the other patrons.

"Please sit down," Mrs. Diggory instructed him, gracefully taking her seat and tucking the cauldron under the table. Harry obeyed. "Would you like some tea?"

"I'm fine, thanks," Harry told her, squirming a little at her politesse. The Diggorys had never blamed him for the death of their son, Cedric, but even so, he feared they might at any moment change their minds. He would not be able to protest in that instance – guilt for Cedric's fate consumed him when he allowed himself to think about it. He still had nightmares in which he did nothing but stare down at Cedric's body, his thoughts playing on infinite loop - i Cedric's not there, he's gone away… Cedric's not there, he's gone away… Cedric's not… he's gone away…Cedric… /i

It was enough to drive anyone batty. Understandably, he hadn't been sleeping well.

"I hear you've left Hogwarts," Mrs. Diggory said quietly, startling him out of what had promised to be an extremely depressing train of thought.

"I… er… yes," Harry stammered, trying to recover. "I mean… where did you hear? Term hasn't even started yet."

"I try to keep up with what's going on with you," she said quietly. "Things have been very difficult since… You-Know-Who returned. Everyone's afraid. Some people say you're no better than the Death Eaters, and some say you're the hero who will save us all."

Harry looked up at her. "And what do you say?" he wondered, hastily adding, "ma'am."

"I know better," Mrs. Diggory told him, pausing to accept a mug of steaming tea from the frail woman. "I think you're a lot of things, Harry Potter. A boy, lost, wondering where to go next… a young man, angry, but lacking a target close at hand… whether you're a hero or a charlatan, and that I think you are not, you are the only hope I see for any of us, Mister Potter," she said gravely, sipping her tea. "Amos and I have not lost faith in you. I can't imagine how hard your task must be, but we know that you'll find a way to do it."

Harry felt very, very small. "Thank you," he managed, "I don't deserve that, I don't think, but thank you."

"I think you deserve it," Mrs. Diggory said with quiet confidence. "My son thought you deserved it."

Harry got the leaden feeling in his stomach that always came when someone mentioned Cedric. "I wish I didn't deserve it," he said harshly. "If I'd been just a little selfish, he'd still be alive."

Mrs. Diggory eyed him for a long moment, then carefully set down her cup of tea. "In this world," she said clearly, in a tone that forced him to put aside his mild childish fit and focus on her, "there are many things that are not fair. Innocent people die young, and terrible evil survives to an old age. Those who are strong and steady still fall short of the mark, and terrible things happen to those who have only ever done good. Evil is powerful, Mister Potter," she said sharply. "Evil lusts and grasps and takes whatever it can get to inflate itself. Evil feeds so voraciously that it will even feed upon itself, and when good men are afraid, the shadows grow i strong /i ." She paused and straightened, folding her hands on the table. "And we are all afraid. But we cannot allow our fear to cow us. Even if we suffer terribly, we must stand up and continue on. Only with perseverance, courage, and love can we even hope to defeat something so powerful." Her fingers fluttered to her nose, pressing there lightly, as if to hold in a sniffle. "You see, you can't lose," she told him, voice wavering a little. "You can't forget that what you're fighting for is a world in which people can be happy."

Harry swallowed. "I'll do my best," he offered, but she shook her head.

"Happiness is a very rare thing," she told him. "Did you know that Cedric stuttered?"

Blindsided by the sudden change of subject, Harry managed to shake his head.

"No? Well, not since he was a very little boy. You obviously didn't know him then. He had such a terrible time talking to people," she confessed, eyes flicking downward as she shifted in her seat. "He was a shy child, and very small for his age. There were some unkind children in the neighborhood. Amos and I worked very hard to instill in him a sense of pride in himself," she said intensely, "so that he knew that we would love him no matter what, but he was always so concerned with pleasing us or making us angry. We didn't know how to give him confidence."

Harry contrasted this picture with the Cedric Diggory he'd briefly known. "What happened?" he wondered.

She wrung her hands. "Well, Amos started taking him out to do… things boys do. Fishing, swimming, hiking, climbing. None of it really seemed to interest him, until his aunt, my sister, bought him a broom for his eighth birthday." She smiled faintly. "He loved that broom SO much. He spent hours every day flying, practicing stunts that nearly gave me heart attacks. He'd throw things and swoop down to get them… one year, I lost nearly all my earrings. He didn't play much with others, but he'd obviously found something that he loved. Amos and I bought him books about Quidditch and he became… a little obsessed," she confessed with a tiny chuckle. "And then… and then he turned eleven and he went off to Hogwarts. Obviously he couldn't have a broom that year, but he tagged along with the Hufflepuff Quidditch team all year. He studied their moves, begged them for tips, and generally harassed them at every turn. And the next year, he tried out for the team and he made chaser…" Her eyes shimmered faintly. "He was so proud. SO proud. He wrote home, just brimming with excitement. He was so happy to be a Chaser, he said, but what he really wanted was to be a Seeker, and he was going to work hard to get faster so he could do that."

Harry felt himself becoming lost in this story, picturing handsome Cedric Diggory as an awkward child, working furiously for something he loved so much, just as Harry had always loved it.

"When he came home over summer break," Mrs. Diggory told him, "he found any odd job the neighbors would let him have, and he used to help an elderly witch named Mrs. Brumple, who ran a small tea shop like this one. She was too old to clean well and her eyes weren't very good, but she was very fond of him. He worked every single break until he had nearly enough money for a good broom, and for his fourteenth birthday, Amos and I pitched in the rest to help him buy it. By then, his stutter was completely gone, he had friends, he was doing well in school, and that was the year he finally made Seeker." A single tear spilled down her cheek. She produced a handkerchief and blotted it away. "We were so proud of him. So… very proud. He made team captain, and then… the Triwizard Tournament, selected to represent the entire school, Amos nearly had a fit, he was so happy, and of course we were worried, but…"

Harry looked away.

She shook her head. "He worked so hard for everything he achieved, my Cedric did, but he was always so modest about it. He wrote us letters all during the Tournament." She looked suddenly back up at Harry. "You needn't worry, Harry," she said more softly. "He told us what was going on. At first, he was as doubtful as everyone else, but Cedric had a knack for seeing the good in people, and he came around to you. I still have…" She trailed off, and Harry's eyebrows drew together.

"Mrs. Diggory?" he prompted carefully when it seemed she'd forgotten all about him.

"Oh!" She exclaimed, laughing brokenly. "I'm sorry, Harry. I'm afraid I've had a very stressful day." She calmed and looked into the distance, fingertips absently stroking her teacup. "Life can be so strange sometimes, can't it? Sometimes you wonder what's holding you up anymore. Then you realize… there's something in you…" She stood up abruptly, reached into her robes, and withdrew a folded, battered piece of parchment. "I want you to have this," she told Harry quickly, setting it in front of him. "I don't need it anymore. I'm supposed to run a few more errands and I need to get home in time to make dinner for myself and Amos. I hope I see you again someday," she told him, offering him a wry, thin smile. "We want the ones we love to be happy, Harry. Happy, and safe. When you feel like you might despair, please remember that. It's worth sacrificing anything to see our loved ones smile." She gathered her cauldron and retreated quickly, leaving Harry sitting by himself with a cup of swiftly-cooling tea and the battered bit of parchment.

Slowly, feeling as though he was moving his hand through molasses, he reached for it and unfolded it. i

Dear Mum,

I can't come see you today because I've still got Arithmancy homework to do and Maddy is pestering me to help him with his CoMC essay. I hope you and dad are comfortable over there with the other spectators. The third task's in two days and I'm a little nervous, but I feel better and better about this Tournament all the time. I don't know what possessed me to help Harry with the egg… I'm sure I probably threw away my shot at first place… but I feel really RIGHT about what I did. I've never really bothered much with Harry Potter before, but I don't know. I don't want you and dad to hate him, Mum. I believe he didn't put his name in the Goblet now. He's too much of an honest person to do a thing like that, and he helped me with the dragons, so I know he's trying to be fair. And there's something about him, something that's just… noble, and good, and winning. If his age group had been allowed to participate, it's probably his name that would have been picked out of the Goblet, and I'm not sure I would have really minded.

But I'm in this tournament now, and I'm going to do my best with it. I feel like the competition's really down to me and Harry, and in terms of points, it sort of is. But I feel good about competing with him. When I play him in Quidditch, I feel good then, too, because I know I'm up against the best opponent and I'm going to have to do my best. Whatever comes in two days, I'm going to give it everything I have, and maybe I will end up with the trophy.

I don't know how to describe to you what it feels like to go up against someone who could really challenge you, someone you don't hate. It's exhilaration, like I'm being tested, or stretched, and I know that even if I lose, I'll come out of it bigger and better and knowing more about myself. So I'm excited about the third task, and about running through it with Potter, or against Potter. When we're working so hard, and we're against each other but we're really on the same side (against Fleur and Victor, for the good name of Hogwarts), I feel like an immortal, like there's something inside me…

… Something inside me that can never really die. Some triumphant part that's going to live forever. And I think you'll see it, when it comes down to the end. I just want to make you and Dad proud of me. I know you've been worrying about how dangerous the tasks are, but I don't want you to worry, all right? I'm going to win. Even if I lose, I'm going to win, because I've done things nobody else could ever dream of doing and I'll always have that for the rest of my life.

Maddy's pestering me now, and it's getting sort of late. I'll never stay awake through class tomorrow morning if I don't break it off. You'll see me in a couple days at the third task. Love to you, and to Dad too.

Love, Cedric /i

Harry sat in utter stillness for a long moment, not really seeing the parchment in front of him. The words i "something that will never die" /i repeated over and over in his head, drowning out the whispers of guilt and the groans of a heartache he hadn't really let himself acknowledge. Numbly, he stood up and left the tea shop, retracing his path to Diagon Alley without really seeing the cobblestones he set his feet upon.

He snapped out of his haze when his arm was seized by a mildly pretty witch with a blizzard of windblown brown curls. "Harry!" Hermione chastised. "Where have you been? I've been up and down this road for nearly half an hour!"

He blinked. "I saw Diggory's mum," he said, and Hermione's face softened.

"Oh, Harry. I'm sorry. How is she doing?" She began to tug him back toward the Leaky Cauldron, where they could go over her research in peace.

"She's grieving," Harry said, following in her wake. "But I think she'll be okay." His fingers clenched around the parchment.

i Something that will never die… /i

"They're having the pea soup again," Hermione complained as she led him through the brick wall. "But the veal is all right today. I've got loads to tell you, Harry, you won't BELIEVE what I've found out…"

Harry saw the flash of grim knowledge in Hermione's eyes and couldn't hold back a smile. Hermione was so formidable when she took something into her head. No bit of knowledge could hide from her. She was a terror.

He loved her. He felt good about the fact that, despite the situation, being surrounded by books using her brains to help her friends made Hermione very happy.

i "We are fighting for a world in which the ones we love can be happy," /i Mrs. Diggory had told him, not in those precise words, but it had been what she'd been trying to tell him with her stories of Cedric. He let Hermione drag him into the Leaky Cauldron, which was bustling but quiet like the streets outside, and upstairs to a room where they could sit on the dusty covers of an ancient four-poster bed and pour over what she'd found.

And he felt oddly better, as though something that had been missing had just clunked into place and the clockworks of his heart were now running smoothly. It wasn't about revenge, or about his parents dying. It wasn't about killing Snape in the name of Dumbledore or yanking Draco Malfoy kicking and screaming from the arms of evil. It wasn't about being a hero. It was about fighting for the people who were still alive, so that they could live in happiness, without suffering or fear. It was about giving everything he had for the people he loved. It wasn't about him, the Boy Who Lived, the only one prophesied to defeat Voldemort. It was about Hermione's superior head-toss as she stabbed her finger into a particularly important illustration. It was about Ron's smug smile as he sat in state over his chess board. It was about Dean and Seamus laughing as they chased Dean's uncooperative family owl through the common room, about Neville's cherished collection of candy wrappers, bits of string, tissues, and other odds and ends entrusted to him by his mother during the few moments they had together. It was about Ginny's annoyed affection as she fended off her overprotective brothers.

It was about life, not death. And it was time for him to start living, instead of dying every day and every hour.

"Harry?" Hermione prodded, eyeing him as if he'd gone nutters. "Did something happen? You look really…."

He smiled. "Sorry. Distracted."

She shook her head, an odd smile quirking her lips. "No… happy."

Harry smiled and tucked Cedric's last letter to his family into the front pocket of his leather satchel. "I don't know," he told her. "I just feel better than I have in a long time. I can tell, Hermione… there's hope at the end of this."

She smiled. "I know, Harry. But I'm glad to see you back to yourself again. You've been really very dour for a very long time."

"I have," he agreed. "I'm sorry."

"Well," she allowed. "There's a lot to be dour about."

He shook his head. "Maybe," he said, "but we've still got a chance as long as we're alive, right? So let's hear about those Horcruxes."

Hermione laughed quietly, infected by Harry's good humor, and offered him the book.

FINIS