A/n: Hello! New update at last! In regards to a few reviews: I realize its kind of fast and/or weird for Cedric and Harry to be such fast friends, but I personally feel like they just had a super tramuatic experience, and they are the only two who went through it, so it feels like they have a special bond. I'm quite sure Cedric was a fifth year in POA, and so a sixth year in OotP, and therefore a seventh year in this story. I'm quite sure, but I could be wrong. To find out about what happens to Cho, I'm sorry to tell you that you have to waitfor a little while longer. Lastly, I think Cedric mightcome off as whimpy in my story, but I'm coming from the perspective that Harry's life has been rough and horrible and therefore he might be "tougher" and Cedric is new ot thisterror thing, so its really eating him up. Ok,I think that's all I have to say. Leave me a review:)

Chapter 8

It was the strangest feeling in the world: being in two places at once.

There he was, dressed in a lovely, but rather starched black tuxedo, standing stock still among the others. He could feel the sensation of the tuxedo tightly on him. But yet, there he was, laying down, with his eyes closed, in that chestnut colored box. He could see everyone's faces as if he were looking up at them from that box.

Confused, Cedric turned to the person beside him. "What's going on?" he whispered, oddly feeling the need for quiet.

She said nothing and kept her hands over her face. A split second later, Cedric realized she was crying, and he didn't understand why. She made a choked sobbing noise, and the wind suddenly blew her hair across her hands and face. The wind stopped as suddenly as it had come, leaving Cedric even more confused.

He should have guessed it right away. He should've been able to understand almost immediately - if not by that point - exactly what was happening. Everyone was dressed in the same starched black as himself. Flowers - lots of flowers - all around. Then a balding man, holding an open book across his palms. He was speaking slowly and sombrely, and Cedric could hear him, but he could not understand what he was saying. No words seemed to recognizable, although Cedric was quite sure the man was speaking English.

Cedric still saw that view where he could see everyone looking down at him, as he lay on his back in that large box. He suddenly became panicked. His vision was fading. He waves his arms around - or at least, he tried. Nothing happened: he did not move. He felt himself choking, gasping for air.

'I'm dying! I've been shot...' He thought desperately, trying to get someone's attention. Then all was black.

Cedric dressed in the starched black suit took a panicked breath, and patted his chest. He felt fine. He wasn't dying... shot? He didn't understand. He looked at the people around him, trying to grasp what had just happened.

There was his mother, across from him, across from the box, and the deep hole in the ground beside the box. She was also dressed in black, and ... crying? His father gently patted her shoulder and wiped his eyes with a light blue hanky that looked well-used. His parents were crying...

Everyone was upset, it seemed. If they were not crying, they were stony faced or looking thoroughly depressed. He saw people he recognized from school and other areas of his life... and then one word came to mind, like it had been on the tip of his tongue and just now made sense: mourners.

'You are dead.' A menacing voice from no where struck into his mind.

"No!" Cedric said out loud - or was it in his head? He couldn't tell.

The girl beside him took her hands off her face. Her face, normally more plae, was red from crying for who knows how long. She had pretty almond shaped eyes, had they not still been gushing salty tears.

"Cho!" Cedric exclaimed.

"Why'd it have to happen? Oh Ced... why'd you have to die..." she sobbed and recovered her face with her hands. The tall man beside Cho, who appeared to be her father, placed a comforting arm around Cho's shaking shoulders.

"Wha - ?" Cedric tried to speak, and still wasn't sure he was merely thinking about what to say or if he was actually saying it. At that moment, the balding man's voice became frighteningly and startlingly clear. It sadly through the air and across the short space of dirt and grass to reach Cedric.

"... in a freak accident, that no one could have predicted. We must always remember him in our hearts and minds, and know that he is a better place now. And so shall it be, we lay to rest, Cedric Amos Diggory." the balding man - a priest - gestured slowly to two wizards on his right.

"No! Stop!" Cedric shouted, to no avail. No one seemed to hear him or notice him. He could see himself in that large wooden box - a casket - but he knew he was alive, standing there, beside a grieving Cho. "What are you doing? I'm right here!" Cedric waved his arms frantically.

The two wizards garbbed the handles on the coffin and slowly lowered it into the ground. As they did so, the horrible sounds of the sobbing mourners rose several notches. The noise escalated to a deafening noise of crying and grieving and heart break. Above all the broken voices, though, Cho Chang was by far the loudest.

"Oh, Cedric... Cedric... Cedric..." she kept saying his name, and only after a few times it was deeply unnerving. The tears spilled down her cheeks like an over zealous waterfall, looking more as if she had her face under running water than actual tears coming out of her body.

"CHO!" Cedric yelled as loud as he possibly could, and this time knew for sure his voice was working and he had just used it.

She didn't acknowledge, nor did anyone else.

Cedric immediately reached out to grab her shoulder, but he couldn't. It was as though one or both of them were holograms: his hand zipped right through her, as she were made of air. He punched his own chest, sure he was made of substance, and tried again. Again, his hand fell through her like nothing was really there.

'I'm a ghost!' Cedric thought.

Terrified at his situation, Cedric took a stumbling step away from Cho, towards his own grave. He looked down and to his horror, saw there was still no lid on the casket. He shouted out, no audible words really, just in shock at what he was really looking down at and hoping someone would hear him. Couldn't they see him?

He stared down at himself, laying there in the casket, wearing the same clothes he'd worn at the Final Task of the Tournament, his skin a deadly pale-blue color, his eyes shut. He was dead.

"No!" Cedric yelled and looked around panickedly at the mourners. No was seeing him, no one was hearing him. "I'm here! I'm alive! Here!" And yet nothing happened.

Cedric sank to his knees on the grass and dirt beside his grave, and felt tears sting his eyes. The hospital... Harry... the newspaper... it'd all been a horrible, merciless dream. The tears broke like a dam and fell down his cheeks. It'd all been a dream... he really was dead... he was never coming back... he would live forever as a silent ghost that no one sees...

The mourners had their eyes transfixed on the grave, and time seemed to slow to a stop. The sobs grew quieter, until they were barely audible, as if someone had turned down the volume. Cedric could only hear himself crying.

He reluctantly turned his gaze back to the shallow grave, not really giving a thought to how strange it was that the grave was so shallow and that the lid to his coffin had not yet been put on. When the body - his body - suddenly twitched, Cedric's cries stopped like ice in his throat. The body sat up, the eyes still shut, and Cedric was becoming more terrified than he had ever been in his life.

Cedric jumped up and stumbled back as though he been scalded severely, and the dead Cedric turned its head to face the real Cedric. It's eyes snapped open, and they were that sickening, deadly red that haunted Cedric's dreams. They stared at him, practically boring holes into him. Its mouth contorted into a pale grim line.

"KILL THE SPARE..." That ultimately terrifying ice cold voice rang out, cutting fear deep into Cedric's soul. The scenery was different before Cedric could even blink. It twisted like a menacing whirlpool, and Cedric was there, in the graveyard...

A hooded figure moved towards him... wand out... Cho was standing there, right behind him, he was sure, wailing, "He's dead! He's dead..."

The wand was raised...

"Avada Kedavra!"

"I'M ALIVE!"

Cedric was blot upright in his bed, sweating profusely. His heart was pounding madly in his chest, and the images were fresh in his mind, racing wildly out of control. He saw his belongings around him, and realized he was back in his room. Everything was alright. It had just been another nightmare. The worst one yet by a long shot, but just a nightmare nonetheless.

His breathing was slowly becoming more regulated. He slowly lay back down, trying to further calm himself down. The moment his head had touched the pillow, he heard thumping and knew it was his parents coming to see what had caused his fear-filled shout. Both of them were light sleepers and seemed even lighter sleepers after what happened at the Tournament, so it was no surprise that they were rushing down to his room.

Cedric flipped onto his side so they couldn't see his face from the door, and just at the right moment. He snapped his eyes shut as his father opened the door. He by no means wanted his mother to know he was awake, for then she would be fussing over him too much and Cedric would feel more like two than seventeen.

"Cedric?" his father asked in a semi-whisper.

"Honey, are you alright?" Mrs. Diggory sounded very worried, and it was an easy guess as to who had heard the shout.

Cedric kept his eyes shut, fighting the urge to open them, and forced himself to breath slowly and steadily as if he really were asleep. He continued to feign sleep until he heard his door click shut.

"I told you I didn't hear anything..." Mr. Diggory's retreating voice said. "Maybe you were dreaming."

"I know what I heard, Amos. I was not dreaming..."

Cedric listened until the words to faint to make out, and the murmur of their voices had turned to silence. He breathed a sigh of relief, and wondered what to do next.

He was never going to get any sleep at this rate. In fact, he was quite certain that tonight he didn't even want to try. Frustratedly, he flipped on his bedside lamp and grabbed a random book from his bedside stack for nights such as these. It didn't take long to realize reading was quite pointless. He couldn't concentrate even a little bit, he'd forgotten what he'd just read, and was beginning to think he'd read the same line seven or eight times at least.

He shut the book and tossed it on the floor. So he wasn't going to read, and he wasn't going to sleep. He glanced at the clock, and it read 1:47 a.m. He heaved a sigh.

It was going to be a long night.

A/n: This is sort of another shorter chapter, but I'm kind of lacking inspiration in regards to this story and I'm having trouble figuring out what to next (and how to do it). Anyways, please leave me a review and let me know what you think. Just remember, as always, no swearing, and preferably no flames. Thank you!