Hello! This piece was kind of a random burst of inspiration for me, and truthfully I can't exactly remember why I decided it needed to be written. But it's here. Everything about Mrs. Diggory's background has been made up for the purposes of this fic (her occupation, her Welsh background, even her first name are all things I had to decide), and let me tell you it was an interesting experience building this character into a world that had already been formed around her. Many thanks to the Ginny Lovers Discord for listening to my thoughts and for giving this piece a read through. I hope you all enjoy it, and thanks for reading!
-RayWritesThings
The Ground
She'd never thought it would be this way. A mother burying her son. Not once the war had ended. How could Cedric be dead in a time of peace? How could she be expected to watch him go into the ground?
Carys remained in a quiet daze several days after the tournament, only emerging in moments of acute grief. She knew young Harry Potter was attempting to be kind when he offered the money, could see the crushing weight of guilt on his shoulders, but everything in her had revolted at the idea of putting a price on Cedric's loss.
The other two champions had visited with them as well, each expressing their sincerest apologies for what had happened. The French girl, Fleur she thought, had even spoken of her plans to remain in England to improve her mastery of the language.
"I weesh I could 'ave practiced eet with your son. We did not 'ave nearly enough time to get to know each ozzer."
The Durmstrang boy had said the same thing. That Cedric had mentioned he played on the school team once, and that he wished he had asked him to fly together sometime. "Potter could have joined us. Made it a Seeker's tournament."
Amos had tried to explain what an honor that was, that a professional like Viktor Krum would have liked to play with their boy. All Carys kept hearing was the wasted time, wasted opportunities. She listened to the Headmaster's speech about friendships forged and thought it couldn't be further from the truth.
They went home to an empty nest, though not in the way they had thought it might be. Every little thing in the house reminded her of her son. The photos and old drawings on the wall, the Hufflepuff banners, the summer clothes still sitting in his dresser. She couldn't take two steps without feeling as though she wanted to curl up and vanish.
Amos took some days off to arrange the funeral. She knew she could have done it, should have been helping him, yet she couldn't think about it without thinking of his body which had been turned over to them only that morning, stiff and cold and eyes wide with shock. He looked the opposite of at peace.
Carys maintained the wake all the same that night, her nostrils filled with the scent of sweet herbs and her tongue coated with sweet wine. Her cousins from Bangor sat with her. Amos came and went; this wasn't his tradition, and she knew he wasn't quite sure where he fit. But he let them get on with it.
The girl Cedric had been writing to her about all school year, Cho Chang, came to the funeral. "I hope you don't mind. Cedric always said he wanted me to meet you. I just… I need to say goodbye."
"That's alright, dear," Carys told her, voice shaking.
"I'm not ready to," the girl admitted, her eyes screwed up in an effort not to cry which she was soon to lose.
"That's alright, too. Neither am I," she confessed. She never would be.
Carys stood by Amos' side as words were spoken, words she hardly heard. She leant into him so that it looked as though he was supporting her, so that no one would know the shaking of his shoulders was all his own. Amos was proud even through his tears, and he would not want anyone thinking lesser of him, not even in the midst of their great tragedy.
Cedric was laid to rest and soon would be covered over. Separated from them forever. She placed a silver Sickel on the gravedigger's shovel and tucked her black-gloved hands back into her pockets, trudging down the hill before he was completely swallowed up into the Earth.
The Weasley family's old owl arrived with gingerbread after. Carys didn't know where Molly could have learned the custom, but it brought a lump to her throat all the same. Her neighbor of sorts had included a short note offering her deepest condolences and asking to be informed if there was anything to be done.
She asked that an owl be sent rather than a Floo call, which felt odd. Perhaps their funds were low for Floo powder again. Carys wished she could bring herself to care more than just the vague thought she gave it.
She hardly cared for anything. The nature of her research work – magical plants, though in recent years she had branched into cross-breeding with Muggle ones. Only Cedric and Arthur Weasley had ever known, and now only two would keep the secret – had made her already something of a recluse, and now with the time off she retreated further into her shell. Amos returned to work, and they hardly spoke at all when he was home. She didn't know why. They were husband and wife; they ought to be able to get through this together.
The Weasleys were oddly quiet that summer. Usually she could hear the far-off shouts of the boys through her open kitchen window in the summers. They were always careful not to fly over the trees — she had been sure Molly and Arthur had drilled it into them how important it was not to be seen. She wondered now if they had told the children not to be heard, either. Carys wasn't sure if she should be offended or grateful; she didn't know how hearing a bunch of boys having fun at Quidditch might affect her.
When Cedric had gotten old enough to fly on his own, Carys had encouraged him to head over to the Weasleys' pitch to play with the other children, but Amos had said it just wouldn't do. Cedric was going to be a Hufflepuff like the two of them, after all, and that Charlie Weasley didn't need to know his tactics before they ever faced off at school.
It all seemed so silly now. They could've all been such friends. What was the point of these competitions in the end? What good had it done?
Perhaps Amos was thinking of the empty pitch, too, for one morning he quietly murmured into the tea she had placed in front of him, "I never should have done it."
Carys stilled. "Done what?"
"Told him to do it. Encouraged him. He wrote me about the Tournament, you know." Amos raised his sad eyes to her at last, and there were gray whiskers in his beard she couldn't remember having been there before. "I told him he'd make a brilliant champion. I should have told him to be safe."
His voice broke on the last word, and she rushed forward, her own tea forgotten. "You couldn't have known—"
"Couldn't I? The stories all said people died in the damned thing. I was just too proud."
"Of course you were proud. He was- he—" Neither of them were capable of saying his name aloud, she realized with a chill. Another unspeakable name within their walls. "He was the most wonderful boy. Of course you were proud of him. Any father should be proud of his son."
"I just wish they'd tell us what happened," he moaned, his head resting in his hands. "There was Dumbledore saying, and then Fudge is telling everyone at work he's wrong and all those stories about Harry Potter now." He gestured down at the paper he had spread onto the table. "What if- what if—"
"I don't think he had anything to do with it," Carys said, and her husband's mouth snapped shut. "He brought our son home to us."
"Yes, but, Carys—"
"Why would he bring back proof of his own crime? And you remember how he looked when he came to see us."
"Guilty," Amos pointed out.
"Because he saw it happen." Again, she thought to herself. Though it wasn't a guarantee a boy could remember something like that from such a young age. "Because they were becoming friends."
Cedric had written to her about the younger boy, how he had given up the advantage in the First Task by letting Cedric know about the dragons ahead of time, how Cedric had wanted to repay him, how she shouldn't mention this to Amos because Amos wouldn't be able to resist bringing up that old Quidditch match, bless him.
She wished he were here to smile with discomfort as Amos carried proudly on. He would look at her, and she would shake her head just slightly to indicate they ought to just let it be, and they would share a private grin. She could see it so clearly in her mind's eye, but it would only ever exist in her head now.
"I don't want to see what they're saying about that boy," Carys decided, turning and sweeping from the room.
Amos obliged her, and there were no copies of the Prophet to be found for the next few weeks.
She did her best to keep herself busy the morning of September 1st. Carys felt the emptiness in their lives even more now that they had no reason to go to King's Cross station. It was meant to be his final year; he should have made Head Boy, should've been captaining his team, should've been studying for his N.E.W.T.s
She made the trek up to the hill on which they'd buried him. "Oh, Ced," she whispered to the unmoving stone and the dirt below it. It barely looked fresh anymore. "Everything's so… so wrong in the world. I don't think it'll ever be right again."
A part of her knew he wouldn't wish for her to live this way. But she'd never meant to live past her own son. No mother ever did.
The weeks dragged on. She received an invitation from the Bangor cousins to come back home for a while. She said nothing of it to Amos, both wanting him to beg her to stay and tell her to go. It was terrible being in the house, and yet going back to Wales would only mean she was running away. It would poison the good memories of her childhood and the trips she had taken out there bringing Cedric with her as a boy.
He'd still been a boy, of age or not.
It was a late, grey morning when Amos forgot his lunch. Carys noticed with a start that the calendar had already been flipped to October. She hadn't noticed the days growing shorter. That was a sign, probably, that she'd been tucked away in the house for too long. So she grabbed up the wrapped sandwiches and the apple from the orchard that spanned the hills between their home and the Weasley Burrow and sent herself spinning through the Floo.
It wasn't strictly regulation for her to go through the Floo, not being an employee herself. But she would be in and out.
Carys rode the lift to Level 4 and got off, making her way through the office with its rows of cubicles. Amos' was near the end, but two voices caught her attention and she paused.
"...talking about Diggory's boy like that. He really must be deranged."
"And Umbridge set him straight?"
"From what I hear. As if Amos needs people speculating about the way his son died. Accidents happen."
Carys remained rooted to the spot. Accidents? What on Earth was accidental about her son's murder?
"Carys?"
Amos must have stepped out for some business, for she turned and saw him standing down the aisle, staring at her. Two heads poked out of the cubicle she had stopped near, faces going slack with surprise.
"What are you doing here, love?"
"Lunch." She held the bag aloft with the mechanical lift of an arm. Her mind was still racing.
Amos hurried to her and took it with a kiss to her cheek. "Thank you. Look, why don't you head home. We'll go out somewhere for dinner. Somewhere nice."
She nodded, not really paying attention, and left the office in a daze. What had she just heard?
Carys had the presence of mind to grab a copy of the Prophet off the stand as she walked back through the Atrium, and the headline made her stomach clench.
High Inquisitor Silences Potter's Lies
The article went on to detail a verbal altercation between Dolores Umbridge, who appeared to be a teacher as well as whatever a High Inquisitor was, and Harry Potter in which she claimed his account of Cedric's death was incorrect. Cedric had died in an accident, not been murdered to her view. The Prophet touted her words as fact.
Carys' calm snapped.
Rather than home, she took another trip in the Floo to the Daily Prophet's offices, striding into the lobby with her head held high.
"Good day, ma'am, how can I assist you?" The desk witch asked, quailing when Carys slapped the paper down between them.
"You can help me by pointing me towards whoever wrote this tripe. A 'tragic accident'?"
"I'm sorry, ma'am, I'm not sure I can help you with that request."
"Then get me Barnabus Cuffe. He's in charge, isn't he? Tell him Mrs. Diggory would like to have some words with him about her son."
The desk witch's face paled, and she waved a wand at a little box before speaking into it. "Mr. Cuffe, there is a Mrs. Diggory here to see you."
By the time Cuffe shuffled out into the lobby, a number of reporters had stuck their heads in and remained there, gawking at her. Carys didn't care. In fact, she hoped they listened if only to teach them a lesson on printing the truth.
"Mrs. Diggory, what an unexpected surprise. We can head back into my office and—"
"I don't think we will. This concerns every last person at this paper." She squared her hips, doing her best to channel Molly the few times she had seen her hard at work disciplining the twins that had been in Cedric's year. They still were. "I don't care what you may have heard, I don't care what you may have been told. If it came from the new teacher or the Minister for Magic himself!"
They all jumped.
She drew in a breath, willing her voice not to shake. "My son was not taken from me by some accident. I did not sit up the whole night before the burial staring at his beautiful face marred by the Killing Curse, for you to print in your rag of a paper that he passed away by some silly mistake! He was murdered. And I'm inclined to believe the witness to that murder."
Some of the reporters were still gaping at her while others fidgeted or looked away, shamefaced. Cuffe looked at a total loss for words.
"Now maybe that's too much for you to believe. But if I see my son's name in print again without my permission, you'll think of today as a friendly little chat compared to what I will do to protect his legacy. Cedric is not some political plaything. He was a boy. He was my boy, and if no one will help find his killer—" her breath caught and her throat closed up. Her voice sounded strangled and unnatural to her ears. "—then just leave my son alone!"
She left the office in a thunderous silence. It was just as silent at home. In the stillness, she was shocked at a wetness that rolled down her cheek.
A tear. The first she had cried since the night he had died.
Carys let it fall, then another, then a sob was ripped out of her lungs and her throat, unsticking the block that had been in her head and her heart. She sank to her knees, feeling weak and feeling light all at the same time as the weight of it all finally spilled out of her. It was out there, wasn't just hers to carry anymore.
The sun had set by the time she stood on shaky legs like a newborn foal. Carys staggered to the bedroom throwing things haphazardly into a travel bag. Clothes, toiletries, one of Cedric's scarves, a bit of dirt summoned from the hill into a pouch — all of it went into one big pile.
"Carys!" Amos' shout sounded more like a bellow in the midst of her blessedly clear head.
She stepped out into the sitting room. "Yes, Amos?"
"What's this about you storming the Prophet? I had Fudge in my office this afternoon. Fudge! Seemed to think I couldn't keep a handle on my hysterical wife— now what's that?"
She looked down at the bag slung over her shoulder. "I'm leaving."
"Now?"
"Yes." She hadn't known it would be right now, but she supposed that was for the best. "You and the Minister won't need to worry about your hysterical wife anymore."
He grimaced. "Carys, you know I didn't mean—"
"I don't know what you mean. And you don't know what I mean. I think we haven't for a very long time, but without- without Cedric, it's become all the more apparent."
He had flinched the way others did when You-Know-Who's name was spoken. Her son's killer. Both were forbidden now in this house.
He stared at her, shoulders slowly dragging down. "You really are going?"
"Can you honestly say it would change anything if I didn't?"
His silence was the answer. Carys walked forward until she drew level with him. She leaned up on her toes and kissed his cheek. "Try to be well."
Two tears slid down his nose as he nodded, and she went past him out the door.
She looked out over the darkened hills of Devon, seeing in her mind's eye the homes of their neighbors. She thought of Molly and the brothers she had lost to a war they had fought to end, Xeno and the wife who had been taken from him in an accident. Cedric, who had fallen to a spell used in war, but who had not been a fighter. Was there to be more loss in this place?
Carys gripped her wand and turned on the spot, disappearing with a crack! She was squeezed from all sides, there was no room to breathe, and then suddenly there was.
She took a great gulp of the air, felt it settle in her lungs like an old friend. She was home.
It didn't change any of the facts. She was childless, her marriage had crumbled and the Ministry saw fit to ignore all that pain. But it was time to keep living the way Cedric would have wanted, and she could think of nowhere and no way else to do it. On her own ground.