(GoF) CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT: I Never Said Thank You for That

The sprint to the Portkey seemed to last an eternity. All around them, witches and wizards were shouting, waving their wands, and casting spells. Ellie, who had been rendered far too weak to run, clung to Fred as he half-carried, half-dragged her across the battlefield toward the Portkey, which Harry had already reached.

"Don't let them escape!" Voldemort was shrieking, but Ellie's shield was keeping all of them safe, even Harry, who was close enough to her now…

But would it keep Cedric safe? And for how long?

"We don't know that they'll kill him," Fred told her softly. They were mere feet from the Portkey now. "Maybe they'll just capture him—give us a chance to—"

A nice thought, isn't it? asked Aleks in her head. You know, it's funny—even now, your little boyfriend doesn't seem to take me seriously.

And with that, he used Cedric's own wand to kill him.

Ellie's scream pierced not only the air of the graveyard, but, seconds later, the air of Hogwarts, too.

They were gone.

They were gone, and Cedric was still there—still in that dark, cold, haunting graveyard—surrounded by Death Eaters and even Voldemort himself.

Dead.

"El," Fred whispered. "El, you have to stop screaming. El, listen—"

Was she still screaming? She couldn't hear herself. She couldn't feel anything anymore, either. Was Fred touching her? Was Harry? She felt so much pain that she felt numb—as if all of her nerve endings had been burned away.

"Harry?" said another familiar voice. "Ellie? What is the meaning of this?"

It was Dumbledore. Dumbledore, who was supposed to be the strongest wizard of their time. Dumbledore, who could have protected Cedric, had he only been there…

"It's Cedric," said Harry. He sounded dazed—lost—perhaps uncertain whether the words he was saying were even true. "He's gone."

"Gone?" repeated another voice. McGonagall. "But what—surely—oh, Ellie, please, stop screaming—"

And at that, Ellie did stop screaming.

She stopped breathing, too.


This is what I want. I want you to go.

How many times had she heard Cedric say those words since she lost consciousness? How long had she spent picturing that handsome face in its final moments—those eyes that had seemed to mature tenfold since the last time she had seen them? How long had Ellie been out?

"Too long," whispered Fred, and her eyes flew open.

They weren't at Hogwarts. It looked more like a hospital—though a magical hospital that more resembled the hospital wing at Hogwarts than the ones she had grown up with. It was just the two of them. Judging from the scruff on his face and the bags under his eyes, it had been more than a few days since the ordeal.

And the pain...

She had never felt anything like it. It was worse than it had been in the graveyard. It was a lingering, stabbing, throbbing ache that made her feel as if her entire being might implode at any moment.

But she was alive. Unlike Cedric.

"Where are we?" she whispered, ignoring for now the fact that Fred had just read her mind again.

"St. Mungo's."

She could have guessed as much, she supposed. Focus. Ignore the pain. She had been here once before, the last time overuse of her shield had caused her to pass out, but she hadn't actually woken up that time until she was back at the comfort of the Burrow.

She wished she was there now.

"How long has it been?" she asked him.

"A week."

A week? The last time, it had only been two days.

She closed her eyes and pressed her fingers to her temples. He seemed keenly aware of her pain, yet completely uncertain of how to make it better for her.

"They've let you off the hook for your exams," he offered, as if this knowledge might somehow help. "Dumbledore reckons if you managed to hold your own against a horde of Death Eaters and—"

"I didn't," she interrupted darkly.

He blinked. "Didn't what?"

"Didn't hold my own. I was worthless against them. We all were. If not for whatever Harry managed to pull off…" She frowned. "Where is he?"

"He's back at school. He's okay. After we got back, Barty Crouch, Jr.—he'd been disguised as Moody all year—he tried his hand at doing what You-Know-Who didn't manage. Didn't quite manage it, though, before Dumbledore and the others barged into stop him. Or so the story goes."

Barty Crouch, Jr. had been disguised as Mad-Eye Moody all year? The man who had helped both Harry and Ellie—even taught Ellie to practice her Imperius resistance—was actually the son of the Ministry official who had supposedly gone off the rails?

"I thought his son was dead," Ellie said, confused and disgusted.

"You and the rest of the wizarding community. Apparently he body swapped with his own mum, and it was her they buried, Polyjuiced as him."

"That's disgusting."

"That's Death Eaters for you."

"So… he was working with Aleks?" Focus on the questions. Not on the pain.

"So it would seem. Aleks was in charge of you, and Crouch was in charge of Harry. Lucky for us, they both failed."

Had they, though? Ellie felt weaker than she had in her entire life; Aleks had succeeded in at least that much. And Cedric…

This is what I want. I want you to go.

You're going to change the world, Ellie.

"Hey," Fred said softly. Her eyes had welled with tears again. He reached out a tentative hand to cup her cheek. She tried not to flinch, but she couldn't help it.

How could she let him touch her with Cedric so recently deceased?

Was he there now—watching them—hating seeing them together the way he always had when he was alive?

Fred, as always, seemed to sense her hesitation. He lowered his hand, looking disappointed. "I just… I want you to know how glad I am you're okay, El."

She knew. She knew because she had felt it, too, that night—the fear of losing him—particularly in that single instant where he had offered to take Cedric's place.

Why hadn't she? Granted, more than one of them might have been lost without the protection of her shield. But at least if she had been the one to stay behind, she wouldn't have had to lose either of them.

"I'm glad you're okay, too," she told him quietly. "I just can't believe he's not."


Over the next few days, Ellie's pain slowly lessened. She tried to focus on her series of different visitors, of which there were many. George came several times; Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny came together twice; even Dean, Seamus, and Neville came once. Ellie clocked Neville's forlorn expression when he came to see her and knew that he must have gone to see his own parents, too.

Even Sirius showed up once, in his dog form, at Molly's side. As soon as she saw him, she sent him away. It was too risky. She'd see him soon enough—though the decision of where to go that summer wasn't one she was ready to make just yet.

Three days after she woke up, shortly before she was officially cleared to return to Hogwarts for the last few days before the summer holiday, she received two very unexpected visitors: Cedric's parents.

As soon as she saw them, she dropped Fred's hands like they were made of fire. The last thing they needed was to see her canoodling with the boy she had left their son for.

She had met his father, of course, the previous summer. She recalled that he had, according to Cedric, warned him against dating her.

You were right, she wanted to scream at him. If only he'd stayed away, maybe he'd still be alive.

"Ellie," said Mrs. Diggory, whose big, brown eyes—it was Amos he had gotten his eyes from, not his mother—were already brimming with tears. "I'm so sorry for what happened to you."

"So…" Ellie could hardly get the question out. "So sorry for me?"

"They said you were hit with dozens of curses in that graveyard," explained Amos. He didn't sound quite as sympathetic as his wife, but even he didn't sound quite as angry as she felt she deserved. "Absorbed them all into your shield to protect your friends—which is why you were out cold for so long."

She didn't want to talk about all the curses she'd been hit with in the graveyard. She didn't want anyone thinking of her as a heroine when she had let Cedric die. "You shouldn't be sorry for me. I'm sorry for you. He was far too young to die. He deserved so much better."

Mrs. Diggory burst into tears at that, and Amos wrapped his arms around her, looking grim. "He did. But according to Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore, he died a hero—which I know meant the world to him."

"He did," Ellie promised him. "He died saving us—all of us. If not for him, we never would have made it out of there."

Mrs. Diggory sobbed even harder at that as Amos cleared his throat, looking a bit uncomfortable. "He talked about you often, you know. He always liked that band of yours, but last summer, when he saw you at the Cup… Well, he was quite taken with you. The day he wrote to us telling us you were an item, he seemed… over the moon."

Ellie felt herself stiffen at that, moving almost unconsciously away from Fred, who was wearing a pained expression on his face.

"He did tell us, later," added Mrs. Diggory, mopping her eyes with a tissue, "that you had been blackmailed into it. It broke his heart, of course, but he knew it wasn't your fault. You know that, right?"

Why were they being so nice to her? She didn't deserve any of this. She deserved to be crucified for her actions, not… consoled.

"I did care about him," she told them weakly. "I even…" She glanced nervously at Fred, then said, against her better judgment, "I wanted him, too… in that way. I just… I was already in love with someone else." Someone I wanted more.

She was really starting to loathe herself.

"We understand," Mrs. Diggory promised her. "We want you to be happy, Ellie—that's what he would want, I'm sure."

Was that it, she couldn't help but wonder? Had they come here just to… wish her well?

"There is something, though," said Amos. "A request we'd make of you… if you're willing."

"Anything," she said immediately.

"The memorial is scheduled for tomorrow," said Mrs. Diggory. "Just a tribute, as it were. Albus will say some words. We just… we thought it might be nice if you performed something. You know… your band. He always liked them so much."

She stiffened again at that, this time to a fully upright position. She felt Fred's gaze on her, but she ignored it. They wanted her to perform? Sure, Cedric had once been a fan of the Weasleys, but that was before they performed an entire Yule Ball set dedicated to her love for another guy.

"I'm… really not sure that's what he would want," she said carefully.

"If it's something you're not up for—emotionally or physically—then of course we don't want you to feel pressured," Mrs. Diggory told her. "But, if your only concern is for what Cedric would want… I hope that you'll trust us on this one. We knew him better than anyone, after all. We raised him."

She still didn't like it. No matter how much Cedric had come around in the end—no matter how good of a friend he had started to become to her—he had also clearly maintained some degree of feelings for her. Didn't that mean performing at his memorial with another guy would be an insult to his memory?

It didn't matter, she decided as she stared into the watery eyes of Mrs. Diggory.

She would do this for his family, if not for him.


"Are you sure about this?"

Ellie was back at Hogwarts, standing on the Great Hall stage she'd performed at many times by then, surrounded by her faithful band. It had taken a lot to get her there—the physical pain alone was still almost too much to bear, and the mental anguish even more so—but she had done it. If not for Cedric, then for his grieving parents.

She hadn't had it in her to write an original. Neville had offered to help, but she had no idea where she would even start. Instead, she had curled up on the couch with Fred—whom she still hadn't let herself kiss since the ordeal at the graveyard—and gone through every Muggle song they could think of until finally they chose the one that fit the most: Hear You Me by Jimmy Eat World.

"I have to be," she told Fred. And she stepped onto the stage.

The gentle strumming of the acoustic guitar came from Fred. She didn't have it in her to both play and sing; all she could handle were the soft, gentle words that so accurately fit for Cedric. The main lyrics that had convinced her were I never said thank you for that—which went for all the many, wonderful attributes about him, from his kindness to his bravery. But it was the final bridge that brought her to tears:

"And if you were with me tonight, I'd sing to you just one more time a song for a heart so big, God wouldn't let it live."

And with that, she said goodbye to Cedric Diggory forever.


If you haven't heard Hear You Me, I highly recommend you give it a listen. Super sad stuff. I know this was a sad chapter, but at least Cedric went down even more heroically than before, right? Will Ellie and Fred find a way to cope with the heartbreak? Stay tuned for the final chapter in GOF, and don't forget to review and follow!