Chapter 30 - Cedric Diggory


Charlie opened his eyes and let out a raw yell. Lizzie had been out of line from Voldemort's wand, so it came as an intense shock to see her keeled over and lifeless on the ground in front of him. His hands shook when he placed them on her body, and it was impossible to suppress the panic erupting from his chest.

Shock washed over the crowd. Voldemort was doubled over with his back turned, attempting to compose himself from a painful blow he didn't expect. When he turned to see Lizzie's body instead of Charlie's, he roared in an astonishing amount of fury for someone who despised her to such an intense degree. The silence charm broke to cries of disbelief and despair. Hermione's legs buckled out from under her, Ron froze in shock, and an already feeble Remus looked like life left his eyes entirely.

Voldemort paced with apprehension and pointed the wand again at Charlie. This time he hesitated, was this enough to protect them? Was this enough to kill him if he tried to kill them? He had no anchor left to take the gamble and lowered his wand in frustration. This time his ears rang, and his world moved slow as he feverishly debated and curbed his instinct to slaughter everyone in sight.

Voldemort clenched fists with resolve. "String her up," he said coldly, ordering two death eaters. Charlie lunged at them as they dragged her body by her feet, face to the stone across the courtyard, and he took a hard blow for the effort to maintain her dignity. "The others go to Azkaban to await execution; I won't be administering it."

Charlie watched in trembling rage as they hung her body from the entrance arch. Voldemort stared up at it with a mixture of both disappointment and triumph.

"Azalea Potter is dead. You all have the opportunity to pledge yourself to the wizard order, or await execution in prison. I will offer clemency for this battle to anyone of at least half blood status, in honor of your fallen messiah."

"It doesn't matter she's gone," Neville croaked. His voice shook and his face was wet and numb. "Her heart beat for all of us...she resisted you her entire life. You took everything from her and she refused to let you take us. We won't bow to you, to any of you. Her death is not in vain." Voldemort raised his eyebrows at the bravery and gall Neville had to defy him. He was shoved to the center of the courtyard by the death eater who detained him. Voldemort towered over him with reproach and satisfaction.

"Hogwarts will no longer have houses, all students will belong to the house of my ancestors. Slytherin. But, I think we can still find use of this old hat..." he said in a sinister tone.

The hat was affixed to Neville's head, and screams erupted at the sight of flames erupt down his head and body. "I won't ask twice for your pledges," Voldemort said with authority to the onlookers.

A shadow of something airborne passed ominously overhead, and a moment later, a thestral landed gracefully in the courtyard.


Lizzie could hear a freight train grow louder in her ears until the sound felt like an explosion and a crack deep in her eardrums. When she opened her eyes she was lying flat on her back as it rushed by. She laid idle and motionless as the endless cargo containers disappeared into the distance. She sat up and looked around when the air went still, fixing a stare at a figure walking toward her.

She almost didn't recognize him. He was younger, but the aura about him was the same. Lizzie stood up and glared with unmasked reproach back at Dumbledore who sighed with heavy remorse.

"I'm sorry," he said, and held his breath for a response. Lizzie shook her head and tried to keep her blood from boiling by walking the other direction. He didn't follow but shouted after her. "You're not dead," he said and it stopped her in her tracks. She frowned at her feet and then stared out over the tracks at a girl crumpled into a pathetic position, sobbing hysterically. Large red blotches covered the familiar face. How much she'd longed to have been dead in that moment all those years ago, flattened on the tracks like the worthless garbage she considered herself to be.

"You raised me to die, and now you're telling me I'm not dead?" Lizzie asked as Dumbledore strode to meet her side. He reached for her hand, clasped it in his, and planted a kiss on her knuckles.

"No. I didn't know how exactly this would pan out. I was wrong about a lot of things," he said. "To say I'm impressed by what you were able to accomplish would be the understatement of a century."

"Serving a purpose is all I'm good for," Lizzie muttered bitterly. Dumbledore gave her a sad look.

"You told me once that all you sought in life was purpose," he said.

"That only meant I had no interest in power," Lizzie replied.

"Your resilience for someone who did not seek power was and remains to be astonishing," he said quietly, almost to himself.

"You didn't protect me in an effort to cultivate that. I didn't deserve that," she said.

"No. You didn't deserve any of this, Lizzie. I... I was wrong about you. I misinterpreted what power you'd have in the prophecy, I misjudged your family's protections, I deprived you of love and decency, I endangered you, subjected you to cruelty... I raised you for this and this alone and expected you die... the only retribution being that it would send you home to your family and restore our world for the greater good."

"I didn't anticipate that you would not only welcome death and sacrifice yourself, but that you would become what I sought to be, the master of it," he explained. "The Hallows are yours," he said with a trace of envy in his tone.

"He has the elder wand," Lizzie said dismissively.

"If I'm not mistaken, that allegiance is still not with him... Draco disarmed me that night, not Severus," Dumbledore said. Lizzie frowned in contemplation.

"You said I'm not dead?" She asked.

"A wand won't kill its master," Dumbledore replied. "But you're in crossroads, Lizzie. You can pass to the other side if you'd like. That's the wonder of being a master of something, master of death, you can willfully choose your end," he elaborated.

"Why was he not able to kill me with anothers wand, then?" Lizzie asked. Dumbledore's eyebrows raised in thoughtful consideration.

"When he restored his body the night in the graveyard, he used your blood. Your... protected blood. A blood ward doesn't expire in adulthood, Lizzie. That was a lie. I set it to expire to limit the time you'd be in that house, so that you could face him once ready. That stayed alive through Petunia until you were of age, but then it stayed alive through him indefinitely when he took your blood..." Lizzie contemplated this for several silent moments.

"If I choose not to die, am I still a horcrux?" Lizzie asked. Dumbledore smiled.

"No. You were astonishingly gifted at separating yourself from that peice of him, despite his possession. It manifested not just as a split personality, but a split person entirely. See, I think Voldemort finally satisfied his debt for killing that little girl in the orphanage all those years prior when he killed your mother. None of the others did, and I think you've discovered why. You then satisfied his debts to the others he killed when it possessed you to take the lives of those girls in Surrey, all of whom related to and of the required equal value to the ones he killed. The only one left unsatisfied was the split soul he made in you. It tried to take your life, it possessed your relatives to do the same, and to survive, you conjured something separate. Your magic turned inward, creating a dark twin, and you broke that off to preserve yourself. I don't think you could have done that without the power your mother's love left you with..."

"That was the power you had that he did not. Love. She held onto you through the veil of death. Her and the horcrux saved you from the obscurial, and that horcrux is what is lying in the courtyard now. You're free. He killed it. He satisfied that final debt, and now you both are equals."

"If he's mortal, anyone can kill him," she said, watching a passenger train slow to a stop in front of them.

"That's true. Your sacrifice, like your mother's, would spare the others death as well, but only from him. But you can live a free life and end this, all the while never having anything to fear about returning here... it is up to you," he said. "I've done many wrongs in this world. I've harmed those who have mattered most. But you have my everlasting admiration, and are never expected to ever forgive me. I'm sorry, Lizzie."

Lizzie looked at him with swimming eyes and then up at the train.

Through the window she saw a face, he was laughing the contagious laugh she could hear clearly even out of earshot, talking to someone she couldn't see from this angle. He stopped and glanced out at her. His crooked smile fell and he stared both apprehensively and longingly at her for long moment.

Lizzie stood up and rushed toward the door of the train, hoisted herself onto the first step and into the cabin. Cedric met her at the end of the hall, closing the door to the cabin he was just in behind him before letting her fall into his arms.

"Hey, Lizzie," he whispered. He wrapped his arms tight around her shoulders and rested a hand on the back of her head.

"Are they in there?" Lizzie asked in a cracked voice, muffled by pressing her face desperately into his shirt just so she could hear his heart. He was warm, she could touch him, he kissed the top of her head and cradled it in his arms lovingly.

"Liz, you have to go back," he said quietly.

"Are they in there?" She asked again, panic over the decision she had to make sweeping over her suddenly. He pushed her forward by the shoulders to look at her face. His eyes were bright but remarkably sad. He nodded to answer her question, but grounded her in place by the shoulders when she tried to move around him.

"Ced, I really want to see them," she said with a sudden urge to sob. He nodded apologetically but then shook his head.

"No, I don't think you should. Lizzie you need to go back," he said sadly. She watched him with swimming eyes and shook her head.

"No," she said. His lip trembled as he kissed her forehead.

"They need you, you can end it. They're doomed without you... you have to go back," he said.

"No, no, no, no, no," she said, mostly to herself. "You said 'see you soon,' you said..."

"We didn't think you would have this choice..." he responded sadly. Her face was contorting around tears and he held her cheek in his hand supportively.

"You know how you always went back? Even when it was cruel and unfathomable? Even when you would have rather died? You went back because every time you looked at Ron, or Hermione, or Ginny, or thought about the people you loved hurt because you didn't sacrifice that safety? Because you didn't take the hit?" He asked, she knew he was referring to her uncle.

"Always the martyr," she whispered bitterly.

"No Lizzie, you did that because she would have, because what your mother did to save you gave you not only the ability to still love through soul-killing adversity, but also unwavering resolve to do whatever was needed to protect the people you loved. They're up there at the castle, and this sacrifice might make him unable to kill them, but no matter his mortality, you're the only one who can kill him...you're the only one who should," Cedric said. He was fighting back tears.

"No. I want - you - I want to see - them. I belong with my - family. I - deserve - to - be - with - my - family..." she was sobbing and gasping for a breath in a chest that felt crushed by the decision and he held her as tightly as he could.

"You do, you deserve that. You deserve more than that..." he whispered into the top of her head. "But if you see them, if you hold them again, you won't go back... and none of us will have the heart to make you."

The train engine made a noise. "Lizzie, you have to go, love, you have to go," he pled urgently.

"You don't understand, I'm free. I'm not in pain. I've never not been in pain. I don't want to... I want to be here with you. I love you. I've MISSED you, I belong here..." she panted through the tears.

"We are always going to be here, Lizzie. We are on this train the minute you're ready to board it. You have nothing to fear returning here. But he has everything to fear. He has nobody, his soul can't go on. You can end this... for Ron, for Hermione... for Ginny, Charlie..." Lizzie looked at him with a twinge of shame, feeling like she'd betrayed him for moving on. He shook his head at her silent apology.

"Remus and Teddy, his baby needs a mother, Lizzie," Cedric added. Lizzie cried harder at that.

"They love you. They all love you. You are right, you deserve a family, and someone earthside can give you one. He loves you, his family loves you. You can rebuild everything you lost..." Cedric was swallowing sobs of his own. "And we'll be here when you're ready. We'll all be here. Right here on this train..."

Lizzie hummed the train sang sofly in a cracked voice as the tears streamed relentlessly. The train was about to the leave the station. His hands tightened on Lizzie's shoulders and he gave her a long and meaningful kiss on the head before walking her toward the door.

Lizzie turned around abruptly. He caught her eyes and stared. He didn't say anything, he just put his index finger on her heart and it said everything for him. Lizzie nodded, pulled his face down toward hers and kissed him. Then, as the train started to move, she stepped off. It picked up some speed and she picked up her pace beside it. Lizzie reached up and grasped his fingers for a brief moment before it rolled him away out of reach. She glipsed her mother's smile back from her seat in the compartment Cedric wouldn't let her enter, and then she blew a kiss in Lizzie's direction. Lizzie reached up to catch the invisible gesture. When she opened her palm, a lily began to form in her hand.

Lizzie didn't have tears left. Her heart throbbed no matter how right she knew he was. "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others. It is not self-seeking..." she whispered, remembering the Bible verses she loved and hunted for when reading it, collecting them like tiny beacons of light in a church that kept them in the dark.

"It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease..." she said with absolute determination, and wiped the tears from her face with her sleeve. "See you soon," she whispered as the train disappeared.