There and Back Again
A/N: This was for a Lazarus challenge at a Cedric/Cho community I'm in. I hope you guys like it:)
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine.
"Avada Kedavra!"
Cedric felt a peculiar sensation, as if he were being lifted up and pushed through a silky, cloth-like material. And then, there was nothing.
He opened his eyes and was met with something so new and disturbing, it would have knocked him over, except he found himself unable to do so. There was no color to describe what was around him, it was just nothingness. A nothing color, if such a thing existed. An omnipotent voice whispered around him, and he was a little glad, for he felt very alone in a place full of… well, nothing.
"Who are you?" it asked. He couldn't tell if the speaker was male or female, or where the speaker was, for the voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once.
"Er… Cedric. Cedric Diggory. Where am I?"
"Behind the veil," the voice said, void of emotion.
"What is that supposed to mean?" he asked, wanting nothing more than to get out of this place, having not remembered anything from the moment he entered with Harry into the graveyard. Everything else was a little fuzzy. Was he hallucinating? Was it part of the tournament? "Am I dead or something?"
"You are," the voice told him simply, and Cedric froze, gaping.
What?
It had only been a joke, really, he hadn't believed he had really died. At first, he thought he was under some kind of curse, but that couldn't have been right. There had been a flash of green light, reminiscent of Moody's classes, and then… those words. Avada Kedavra.
Shock silenced his tongue. What about his life? His mum, his dad? Cho? What about them? He never even got to say good-bye. He was far too young to die, far too in love to die, far too loved to die.
"A-Are you serious?" he choked, feeling as if he were on the verge of tears—and it took a lot to get Cedric on the verge of tears.
"Yes," the no-nonsense voice told him. "You are dead. You are here because someone killed you. But you were not to die that night."
"I wasn't?" Cedric asked blatantly.
"No. Not that night."
"Why do you keep calling it that night? It was just a few minutes ago, wasn't it? I mean it's not like it's been days since it happened," he snorted.
"Time here goes slower than it does on earth."
"You mean…?"
"Much time has already passed for your mortal friends."
Cedric didn't like the sound of this, for many reasons. First, this meant he could have been gone days, weeks, months, even years, and he couldn't contact his family in any way, tell them that he loved them and that he wanted nothing more than to be with them. He couldn't tell them he would gladly give up anything he had to be with them another day, another hour, anything. Especially Cho.
She would be heartbroken.
He could remember every inch of her lightly tanned face, with her dark, almond shaped eyes, and hair that had an inhuman glow. The way their hands seemed to fit so perfectly together, and the way their lips touched each others in a way that made each time something new, something precious. And it was all gone.
"S-So I can never see them a-again?"
"You can."
"Can I?" Cedric asked, eyes wide, excitement making his heart leap.
"It was not your time. You were not to die that night."
"Yes, I know that, but how?"
"It was not your time."
"How, how do I see them again? I know that I wasn't supposed to die yet, but how do I see them again? Magic?"
"Not your time…"
Cedric was losing his patience. But before he could reply to the voice, a rough force shoved him up. Shouting in surprise, he tried to move out of the way, but the force pushed him relentlessly. It pushed and shoved him around (he wasn't sure if he was going up, down, left or right) until he felt a familiar rustle of cloth around him, and found himself face-first in the grass.
"It was not your time…"Cedric brushed his clothes, his Triwizard outfit mucky and slightly bloody, though the movement did nothing. Despite the fact that he had ended up in some alternate universe, he felt extremely glad to be able to feel again, for the nothingness of the place--where had it been, behind the veil? …At any rate, the nothingness had been unnerving, and he didn't think he would have been able to stand it another second. But he was happy to note that he was feeling quite sore, and he could see, in the dim moonlight, grays, greens and browns, and feel cool wind nipping at his face.
He grinned, somehow hoping that strange encounter had been some sort of bizarre dream, and that he had gotten knocked out at the graveyard or something, as he marched his way up to the castle. Before he reached the door, a girl, broom tucked under her arm, ducked out of the castle, running hastily toward the Quidditch Pitch.
There was something strangely familiar about her long, raven-black hair. Cedric jogged silently after her. The girl hopped on her broom and in her clutched hand, a stolen Snitch shot out, and she chased after it, giving it some space, zipping to it, catching it, letting it go free. She continued this until she let it out of her vision and searched for it. Cedric crouched, hiding in the stands. She looked older now, more mature, a look that made her look all the more beautiful. Despite his best judgment, and forgetting his place and the time that had passed, Cedric stood.
"Cho!" he called, grinning from the stands.
The girl stared at him for a long moment, before falling off her broom in a dead faint.