Chapter Text
Harry opened his eyes into the stark whiteness of his personal Purgatory, his body once again void of any feeling whatsoever. This time though he did not force himself up, he did not go running around searching for a way out, for a bargain to strike. He stayed lying there staring up at the shifting light, at the planes of it moving in an endless pattern, feeling nothing. Nothing at all.
“Well… this is it, isn’t it?” he whispered into the silence. “The end of it all.”
The light did not answer. It didn’t have to.
Harry sighed, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes to push the unshed tears back inside, to calm down his frantically beating heart, to steady his ragged breath. And when he pulled the hands off his eyes and opened them up into the light, his surroundings were all the same, nothing had changed and nothing ever would, Harry knew.
And that was fine.
It was alright really.
It didn’t matter.
Because-
Because this was how it was supposed to be right from the start. This was where he was supposed to end up, wasn’t it? He had known that. He had-
He hadn’t fulfilled his mission though.
He failed to kill Voldermort, failed to fulfill the prophecy, failed to-
“We never really did have a deal, did we?” he spoke, his voice hushed. “You don’t care about the prophecy, do you? Perhaps it wasn't even- I wasn’t even-” He couldn’t finish the sentence. “My time just… it ran out. My time has truly ran out now, hasn’t it? And this-”
Harry paused when a sudden burst of song caressed his ears - a song that seemed familiar on some unconscious level, but a song that he couldn’t have identified no matter how hard he tried. He frowned, pushed himself up and turned his head towards it.
And then, there it was again. Something that didn't belong in this place. Something he’d seen before. Big and imposing, its saturated colours clashing strongly with the stark white background - a big lump of a blanket thrown haphazardly over something. Something substantial. Something different.
Ah.
Harry reached out a hand, grasping at the blanket. He pulled it down from whatever it was hiding and revealed a big dark wooden box covered in intricate carvings - a host of sparrows sat in-between lush leaves, ruffling their feathers, shuffling along the branch, opening their beaks repeatedly, their song startlingly loud in this silent sterile place.
When Harry reached out to caress the box with his fingertips, in awe of feeling the raw surface of it, the sparrows startled and took flight. They exploded out of the box in a stream of feathers and leaves and wood chips that ruffled his hair, that twirled around his clothes. He closed his eyes against the onslaught and when he finally dared to open them again, his surroundings were nothing like before.
The stark whiteness was gone. He was standing inside a room covered in rich wood reminiscent of the wood ordaining the box from just a few moments ago. The sparrows were still there, flitting through the ceiling, resting on the beams supporting the triangle roof up above, the beams twisted into what looked like a robust crown of a tree, the leaves wooden, wooden as everything else in it - acorns and chestnuts, caterpillars frozen in place, spiders with wooden nets so delicate Harry would be afraid to breathe too heavily as to not destroy them.
Harry’s eyes followed a sparkle of fireflies fly around the ceiling and then descend down onto a big conifer tree on the side - a tree decorated in nothing but their light.
And then there was bright laughter ringing through the room. It forced Harry to finally turn around. There was a family sitting close to a big fireplace - a small boy in yellow pajamas, not older than three years perhaps, sprawled in a pile of wrapping paper, his arms extended up above his head as he held up a potion kit, the kit obscuring his face; an older couple sitting on the couch close to him and a younger one sitting at a dining table near the wide glass door leading to a clearing covered in a thick layers of snow. He recognized one of them almost instantly. It was a much younger version of Amos Diggory. Which meant the child must have certainly been-
“Oh,” Harry breathed. “It’s the-”
“Rickie, dear,” Cedric’s grandma spoke up, leaning to catch his attention. “I think you missed one.”
Cedric let the hand with the potion kit fall down, its content clattering inside of it. “Missed one?” he asked, his gray eyes straying to scan the room. They passed over Harry as if he wasn’t even there.
“Where?” Cedric wondered.
Harry walked in closer, crouching down in front of him to peer into that face full of curiosity and wonder.
“Hmm, I don’t know,” Cedric’s grandma mused. “I think the house elves might have hidden it too well this year.”
Cedric stood up at that. The wrapping paper crinkled as he walked over it, turning in a circle to scan his surroundings with a very serious look on his face.
“You gotta look more carefully, Rickie,” his grandpa added, his head jerking in the direction of the tree in the far corner.
“Oh hush, dear, you’re going to spoil all the fun!” his grandma spoke, slapping her husband’s arm.
Cedric was already rushing over to the tree. Harry moved out of the way even though he wouldn't really be an obstacle to him and watched as Cedric started to rummage through the tree, exclaiming in excitement when his fingers bumped into a small oblong box nestled deep within.
He pulled it out.
With a wave of his grandma’s wand, the box exploded in size, clattering from Cedric’s hands to the floor where it grew and grew, until it was over a meter long at least.
“Ah,” Harry noted knowingly, walking in closer to watch Cedric’s tiny hand shake as he tore into the wrapping paper, as he uncovered the box, as he pried it open with his fingertips, as he revealed the practice broom.
“It’s a broom!” Cedric exclaimed, turning over to his grandma with a big smile on his face. “Just like the one Cho has!”
Harry’s smile widened to mirror his. “Would you look at that,” he whispered.
Cedric reached into the box and pulled the broom up, staring at it with wide amazed eyes. “It’s a broom,” he repeated. He looked over at his grandma again, squeezing the broom close to his chest. “Can I try it out? Right now?”
“Of course, Rickie,” his grandma said, getting up from the couch. She brought out her wand and pointed it up at the ceiling. Harry watched in silent amazement as the ceiling contorted, the branches intertwined in a tight weave moved, creating a safely contained maze full of long wide passages, the sparrows flitting to and fro in excitement, the fireflies filling them up with light.
“Go right ahead, dear,” she said motioning to Cedric, whose eyes were glued to the ceiling in the same kind of amazement Harry felt on his own face.
“Mother, really?” Mr. Diggory spoke up, peering up the ceiling as well. “He can just fly around the room for a bit, it’s not like-”
“Oh, nonsense, Amos,” Cedric’s grandma said, waving her hand in her son’s direction. “Where’s the fun in that?”
“It’s called a practice broom for a reason,” Mr. Diggory argued. “It won’t go that high up.”
“Then we might as well help it,” Cedric’s grandpa said, rising up from the couch as well. He instructed Cedric to mount his broom and hold on tightly. And then he lifted the broom up with Cedric on it, raising it up above his waist where the safety measures would stop the broom from progressing any higher, and then with a rush of strength, he propelled it up into the ceiling.
Cedric squealed.
Harry expected the broom to sink back down, the safety measures kicking in, but just as it reached the peak above their heads, Cedric’s grandma moved her wand again and the nearest branch sprung up underneath it to fool the broom's safety mechanism. The broom shuddered, evaluating the situation and then apparently decided a branch below could well indeed be the ground it was designed to hover above and stayed floating in place.
Cedric looked down at them, his face beaming.
“Go on,” his grandpa said, lifting his hand to mimic a simple flight pattern. “Just like you did on Cho’s broom last week.”
Cedric nodded. He looked up, gripped the handle tighter, tucked his feet in more securely and then leaned into it to guide the broom forward into the nearest tunnel made out of entwined branches. The sparkle of fireflies followed behind him, flying in quickly to act as guide lights for Cedric. He followed them through the tunnels, his speed careful and measured, his forehead scrunched up in concentration.
“Let me just-” his grandma spoke from beside Harry, her wand waving up to the ceiling again.
“Mother,” Mr. Diggory let out a warning, but it was too late. The ceiling expanded again, the tunnels contorting into a maze of spirals, the sparrows taking flight to join Cedric’s mad rush through them, their song spurting him to gain speed, the fireflies barely able to keep up the pace with him.
Cedric’s wild laughter joined in on their song, ringing in through the ceiling, raining down on them, setting their faces alight. And Harry couldn’t help but join them, laughing merilly.
“That’s a real nice one, Rickie,” he whispered to himself, his cheeks hurting from how wide his smile was, his eyes watery as he watched Cedric zoom around the ceiling. “A real-”
And then a stray ray of light caught his eye. It was filtering in through the tall glass door at the right side, but… the weird thing was: he could see through the glass door, he could see the snowy clearing bathed in darkness, but the light coming in through the crack in the door was bright and warm and it was in such a dissonance with what he was seeing that he couldn’t help but approach it.
“What do we have here?” he wondered, stepping through. He landed in the same clearing he saw through the glass door, but instead of it being covered by snow it was full of ripe strawberries, the summer sun warm, the wind gentle.
Up above, on similar practice brooms, hovered three children - Cedric, Cho and Mic. They were all older now, closer to ten or eleven perhaps.
“A stray one got in, Rickie,” Harry tutted, not unkindly, surveying the fraying edges of the stray memory glued to the original one Harry just left.
The children were chasing a slow practice snitch, their brooms barely above the treetops, but high enough for the conversations to be too far away for Harry’s ears were this the actual world. Since this was a condensed memory though, the sound carried in better than it usually would.
Cho caught the snitch, laughing in delight. Cedric and Mic stopped near her.
“You guys, I don’t wanna play anymore,” Mic complained, kicking his legs around. “I keep losing. It sucks.”
“We’ll give you a head start this time,” Cho said, holding out the practice snitch.
“I don’t wanna,” Mic pouted, leaning back on his broom. He rode it up and started to roll into a lazy loop until he was hanging upside down, looking down to the ground below.
Cho sighed. “So what do you wanna do?”
“We can see who can stay upside down longer,” Cedric proposed, rolling over as well.
Cho laughed. “Okay.” And followed suit.
They hung there giggling for a couple of moments, swinging around like monkeys, trying to kick each other off the brooms by sticking their feet into each other’s bristles. The practice brooms, albeit bigger than Cedric’s previous broom, were stabilized enough as to not let that happen though.
“This sucks,” Mic said again, pulling himself up to hug his broom. “Everything sucks.” His voice carried down to Harry.
Cho pulled herself up higher as well, looking over at him over the handle. “It’s gonna be fine, you know.”
“It’s not,” Mic muttered. “You’re gonna go to Ravenclaw and he’s gonna go to Hufflepuff and I will be stuck in-between. Or worse, sorted into bloody Gryffindor.”
“Gryffindor can’t be that bad,” Cedric reasoned, swinging himself up to sit on his broom. “It’s got all the Weasleys in and the Weasleys are fun.”
“Weasleys are fun when you can watch their pranks from afar, not when they have direct access to pranking you.”
“He’s got a point,” Cho noted. “Just go to Slytherin then.”
“Don’t wanna,” Mic said. “Slytherin is too much work.”
“Doesn’t your family usually do Slytherin?” Cedric wondered.
“Maybe like… by a small margin?” Mic said. “We’re too versatile, my mom says, we just choose anything really. It’s not a big deal.”
“Let’s just all do Ravenclaw then,” Cho proposed.
“There’s no way Ced will do Ravenclaw.”
Cedric pursed his lips. “There is no way Cho would do Hufflepuff,” he countered.
“You know I can’t,” she huffed. “My mom-”
“ My dad ,” Cedric said pointedly.
“Well, I can’t be in both now, can I?” Mic wailed.
Cho and Cedric gave him solemn looks.
“Stupid Hogwarts with its stupid houses,” Mic muttered.
“Myea,” Cho and Cedric agreed, their brooms moving slowly in an uneven circle around Mic, who just hung there silently.
“Ravenclaw is too much work,” he muttered after a while.
“So is Hufflepuff,” Cho reasoned.
“Not for me it wouldn’t be,” Mic said. “For Ced, sure, but my parents don’t care either way. I hear Hufflepuffs- I mean they-”
“They’re particularly good finders.” Cho giggled. “Not sure that’s for you. You suck at finding the snitch no matter how much head start we give you.”
“Oh, shut up. You made that up!” Mic seethed. “ Good finders? Nobody says that.” He reached over to grab Cho’s toy broomstick by its bristles, pulling at it. “Bet you charmed the snitch anyway.”
“We did,” Cedric answered solemnly. He grabbed Mic’s broom, held on to it, creating a long train, with Cho’s broom being the locomotive and them acting as passive carts.
“Besides,” Cho spoke up as she dragged them around the tree tops in tight loops. So tight they collided with each other at times, laughing. “Aren’t Hufflepuffs supposed to be hard workers? That’s literally what you don’t wanna be.”
“And Ravenclaws are supposed to be smart,” Mic huffed. “Being smart is tiring. You have to read all these books and stuff.”
“True,” Cho said.
“So not true,” Cedric argued. “It’s about… being smart about stuff. And you are smart about stuff.”
Mic snorted.
“You are though,” Cho joined in. “Slytherin-smart even. It’s uncanny.”
“We should just make our own house.” Mic sighed. “Or better yet, merge the four houses into one large house. No more division. Done.”
“See?” Cedric said. “That’s smart.”
“Super smart,” Cho agreed.
Mic let go of her broom, shook off Cedric and finally climbed up on his broom properly again. “Let’s just play with the practice snitch again. I don’t wanna talk about this anymore.”
Cho sighed and brought up the snitch. She did not let go of it though, forcing Mic to look at her. “Hufflepuff,” she said, nodding at him. “Hufflepuff makes the most sense for you.”
“Cho…” Cedric spoke up.
“No.” She shook her head. “You can stay at the dorm together. Keep an eye on each other. You wouldn’t be able to do that with me, they’d split us into different dormitories. Boys and girls, remember?”
Mic did not answer. He reached over to steal the snitch from her hand and released it into the air, zooming right after it. “Thirty second head start!” he yelled.
Harry didn’t get to find out if he caught the snitch or not, because the hook in his navel tore him out of the memory and threw him back into present time. Much to Harry’s own surprise.
_
Harry came to lying on a bed in the Hospital Wing, staring right up into Cedric’s face. It was so reminiscent of the last time they saw each other, so similar to it, that Harry was tempted to turn his head to make sure they were no longer in the Caeriw estate. But no. There were no Inferi screeching their way, no Order member scrambling around, no Voldemort. It was just him lying in a bed, Cedric pulling away to sit at a nearby chair, the empty Hogwarts’ Hospital Wing a gentle soothing presence at the back of it all.
Harry sagged back into the pillow. “Huh?” he managed. “How?”
“Dumbledore stopped by when you fell over. Gave me these,” Cedric said, lifting his hand to show him one of the long ornamental vials Dumbledore kept in the huge case in his office. “Said the tears still work? It took you quite a long time to wake up anyway though.”
Harry sighed, pressing his hand against his face. “Didn’t think I would anymore.”
“It’s been progressing, true, but not that fast. I don’t think you've reached the limit yet,” Cedric reasoned. “Was it the White Place again?”
“Kinda.” Harry let the hand fall down on the mattress beside his body. “Not fully.”
“Oh?”
He pushed himself up, giving Cedric a weak smile. “Turns out I had a gift packed up in the corner of my mind to keep me…” from going mad “...entertained.”
“Ah, I see,” Cedric noted, staring down at the vial in his hand, not acknowledging what Harry was obviously hinting at.
“Myea,” Harry prompted.
Cedric looked away, his hands playing with the empty vial.
“Did he… say anything? Dumbledore?” Harry tried again.
Cedric frowned. “Like what?”
“I don’t know.”
“He didn’t share the location of Voldemort's hideout if that’s what you’re curious about.”
Harry pursed his lips. “He probably wouldn’t have even if I did ask him again. I fucked up last time. I didn’t succeed and so he probably thinks, I'm not the-
Cedric shrugged. “Well, you came back anyway and so the deal you made with the White Place obviously proves you are.”
“Don’t think there was ever a deal at all,” Harry admitted. “Not with a place like that. It’s… it’s- how long did it take me to wake up, you said?”
Cedric still didn’t look at him, his jaw working as he studied the lineup of beds in the far corner. “Too long. Way too long.”
Harry sighed, leaning forward. “Rickie, are you angry with me?”
“I don’t know, Haz.”
“It all comes back to the Caeriw estate again, doesn’t it, huh?”
“The worst thing is I kinda get it, you know? If I had an opportunity like that I would have taken it myself as well. I just wish…” He shook his head. “I just wish you had called me. Or if not me, fine, but maybe called somebody from the Order, you know? Literally anyone. To back you up. There’s a strength in numbers, you know? We almost-” He squeezed the vial. “We almost didn’t make it in time.”
“How did you…?”
“Moody,” Cedric said.
“Ah, and Riddle?”
Cedric didn’t ask him how come he didn’t know what happened. He kinda did have the memories of young Harry waking up, but they were muddled by the chaos of it all and he didn’t feel like digging in deep enough to find the answers.
“Apparated away after he sent a hoard of Inferi at us.”
“Oh, and-”
“Everybody’s fine, Haz, don’t worry.”
“What… what about the elves in the kitchens? I haven’t-”
Cedric looked over at him then. “Ah, Cappi and Kinni?”
“Oh, I… didn’t know that’s what their names were. I just… they helped me find him, helped me find you back in… when was that? Last year? I don’t even know anymore.”
“I took them in,” Cedric said. “They joined in with my ancestral home. Plenty of magic for them to enjoy for years to come.”
“Ah.”
Cedric nodded.
The silence stretched.
“You’re a good guy, you know,” Harry said to disturb it.
Cedric didn’t reply to that though. And so Harry decided to push harder. “I couldn’t have chosen a more worthy champion to leave behind in my stead.”
“Is this one of your tricks again?” Cedric reeled back. “Trying to lull me into some kind of a secure feeling while you sneak out back to fight the Dark forces all by yourself again?”
“Nah.” Harry laughed. “I think… I think I’ll leave that to you after all. Even if I did want to, I… I think I’m not-”
Cedric looked over at him. “I am not the Chosen one. Isn’t that what you keep insisting on?”
“I wonder… you might be.”
“Those seer abilities coming back to you?”
“Yeah actually.” He leaned back, pressing his forefinger against his own forehead. “The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches…”
“Haz….”
“And the Dark Lord will mark him as a spare, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not…”
“Haz, stop it.”
“Unafraid of toil-"
“Stop it!” Cedric jumped off the chair, pacing in front of the bed. “Stop it, please. How can you joke at a time like this?”
“I’m not joking though.”
“Well, fuck that,” Cedric said. “What do you want from me? What do you want me to do, Haz? Just... you tell me not to grab the cup, I do it. You tell me to help you save people, I do it. You tell me to collect the horcruxes, I do it. I did everything you asked of me!”
“I just-”
“You just what? Now you want me to kill Voldemort? Is that it? How am I supposed to do that, I can’t even- that’s not a one-man job, for Merlin’s sake!”
“You cou-”
“Why do people always expect these impossible things from me? I try… I try so hard to please them all, I choose Hufflepuff, I become the Quidditch captain, I become the Head Boy, the Triwizard champion,... and yet none of it is enough, i just... unafraid of toil you say? I hate it. I hate it so much. Will people just stop demanding shit from me? Will you just... will you just accept that I don’t want this? I don’t want to go on a stupid single-man suicide mission just for the glory of it . I don’t want it.”
“What do you want then?”
“I want you to say you’ll fight this. I want you to say you will talk to the healer and that you will-” He left that sentence unfinished, pausing in front of him to stare him down, his face torn. “That we will…” He waved his hands, unsure.
“Rickie…”
“Haz,” Cedric pleaded.
“Just leave it be,” Harry reasoned. “Just move on. Forget about me. Focus on yourself. Focus on-”
“Forget about you?” Cedric stared at him, shaking his head in disbelief. “How can I just move on… after all this? How can I…? Ever since I met you back at the World’s Cup, Haz, ever since then I keep waiting for you to pop back into my life, to appear back in this body. My life is fragmented into these months clumped together where I scramble up to make sure the life you saved is worth it and all the while I- I hope to hear a call that you got back and then… and then you’re here and it’s always just a glimpse of you, short and turbulent and it leaves me… wanting ,” he breathed, pressing his hand against his chest.
“Rickie…”
“And I- I always tell myself I’m gonna make the most out of it. I am going to make the most out of every fragile moment we get.” His mouth turned down, his hand clenching the front of his shirt. “And then… and then I never do. It runs out so fast, Haz. It runs out on us saving each other, saving other people, fighting and arguing about stupid shit, about crucial shit… over and over and over , time slipping away, the windows shortening, I- Haz, how is this- how can you want me to just move on? There is nothing to- not anymore.”
Harry opened his mouth, closed it, shook his head. “It wasn’t supposed to… I didn’t mean to-”
“Didn't mean to what …?”
“I didn’t save your life only to claim it for myself.”
“That’s not something you get to choose though, is it?”
“Just… choose somebody else.”
Cedric laughed, his hands flying up in disbelief. “Like who?”
“I don’t know… Cho.”
“Haz.”
“Or Mic, I don’t know.”
Cedric gave him a look.
“Literally anybody else.”
“There is nobody else. Nobody who compares to you…”
“You say that now, but if you… if you just give it time, if you just-”
Cedric snorted. He shook his head.
“Somebody… somebody more substantial than me,” Harry continued. “Somebody who will be there for you more than for an hour every three months. Somebody you won’t have to keep waiting for.”
“I know, I… I get what you’re saying. I get it. And I know even if we’d never work out, I know it’s not the end of the world. I know that. But… just to lay it out there: I would, you know… wait for you.”
“How can I ask you to keep waiting for me?” he wondered in a hushed voice. “These windows you speak of, I am running out of them, Rickie. Soon there will be none left. Soon I won’t even-”
“Why would that change anything? Why would the fleetingness of life change anything, Haz? Life’s been fleeting all long.”
“Ah, damn, Rickie…I-”
“Can’t you… can’t you at least try? Please?” Cedric said. “I don’t even care if it’s… not even for me. This… I didn’t mean for it to spiral into this. I just- This is not about me, okay? Not about you fighting to stay with me . I want you to stay here for yourself. For yourself, Merlin .”
Harry watched him. “For myself, you say? I don’t even know who that is anymore.” He looked down at his hands, wiggling his fingers.
“A fucking hazard, that’s what you are. I can’t-”
Harry laughed. “A hazard, you say?”
“Shut up, just shut up, Merlin, I-” Cedric turned around, pressing his hands against his face, letting his fingers travel up into his hair, down to the back of his neck where they intertwined shakily. He bowed forward, his shoulders coming up. “Ugh, I’m tired. I’m so tired of all of this, seriously…”
Harry watched him try and fail to breathe through it.
“You know,” he said slowly. “There is this thing I heard of, great for when feeling tired and frustrated.”
Cedric lifted his head. “Huh, is there?”
“Yeah, heard it can do wonders.”
“Wonders, you say? I could use a wonder.”
Harry spread his arms.
Cedric’s eyebrows rose. He pursed his lips against a smile. “Using my own strategies against me, huh, Potter?”
Harry gave him a sheepish shrug.
“Merlin.” Cedric turned away, rubbing at his eyes. “I can't with you.”
“Just come here, Rickie... come on,” Harry said, beckoning him in. He even scooted to the side for good measure to create more space for Cedric.
“Honestly,” Cedric muttered, but did not fight it any longer. He crawled over and plopped on top of Harry, letting him encircle him in a loose hug. “You’re giving me mixed signals, you know?”
They just breathed together for a couple of moments, their breaths too erratic to sync completely, their voices silent.
“There's just no beating the martyrdom out of you, is there?” Cedric whispered, his hair tickling Harry’s nose. “Unbreakable circle, that one.”
“What.” Harry asked, patting his back. “No, I-“ he paused. “I mean… well .”
“Yes, I'm glad you noticed. You're just doing the same thing all over again, you moron,” Cedric said. “People travel back in time to do things differently, you know. You didn’t get the memo, did you?”
“Well, but I’m not-”
“ Guess I'll die then . That’s pretty much it, isn’t it?”
“Well…”
Cedric sighed. He brought up his hand to rub at his eyes. “I just don't get it.”
“You don't?” Harry snorted, pinching his shoulder softly. “May I remind you of the third task where you volunteered to grab the fucking cup to die for me?”
“I didn't grab it though, did I?” Cedric said, flopping his arm back over Harry’s torso.
“That’s just because I told you not to. You-”
“Because I, look, years ago I would have probably said I didn’t grab it, because I was a coward.”
Harry opened his mouth.
“But I just- I just really wanted to live, you know? To keep on living for a bit longer. There’s just so much-”
“Rickie…”
Cedric lifted his head to look at him. “I mean, don't you want to? Live?”
“I-”
“I know you said you have nobody else to live for,” Cedric said, bracing his chin with his hands so it wouldn’t dig into Harry’s chest. “And that’s… a bit hurtful, I guess, but fine.”
“Rickie… I’m s-”
“But that's not how life works though, is it? It’s not something you're supposed to do for others.”
“Um.”
“Is there nothing you enjoy anymore? Things that feel impossible to let go of? Things you wanna do over and over again. Things that are so amazing you’d want to experience them again? That you-”
“Things.” Harry shook his head, looking up at the ceiling. “I was never really one to-”
“I mean like... flying a broom or like… stuff you never did, but you really want to try before you die, you know?” Cedric hummed. “I mean, I know you did the most fantastical stuff in your youth, but like… isn't there something more still? How can you just… decide you’re done?”
“I tried, Rickie, after the war… I tried to do stuff to have fun, but I just…” Harry shrugged. “None of the things were fun anymore.”
“None of them at all?” Cedric wondered.
“Is that so hard to believe?”
“Come on, you went out to fly and it was no fun? At all?”
“I just…” Harry mulled it over for a moment. “I lost the Nimbus to the Whomping Willow and then Sirius gave me the Firebolt and I lost that too during the… one of the- and then Hedwig died and I just… I couldn't really enjoy it much anymore, not really. I just kept thinking back to-”
“Wait, what?” Cedric pushed himself off him. “You didn’t get a new broom after that? But… future brooms?!”
“I guess I- I just used an old... I think the last time I rode a broom it was probably at Weasley’s. I don't... know, huh.”
“Huhh?”
“I just... I’m telling you it kinda lost its appeal.”
“Lost its appeal,” Cedric repeated. “You know what? No.” He slapped his chest, grabbed at the front of his shirt and tried to pull him up like that. “Get up. Get up right now.”
“Huh, what?”
Cedric waved his hand in the direction of the window and Harry could tell there was some magic going on, but it was wandless and nonverbal and he didn’t-
“Rickie, what?”
“You could have fucking ridden futuristic brooms, Potter, and you didn’t. Blasphemy.”
“You sound like Oliver Wood... well, the young version of him anyway. Or well…” Harry squinted. “Possibly the future version of him as well now. I’m not sure.”
“And you sound like a... Merlin, I’m so annoyed with you,” Cedric seethed, climbing off the bed. He pulled Harry up with him.
“What about dragons?” Harry asked, following.
“What about them?
“Would that count? I rode a dragon once. Or maybe twice? I can’t quite recall…”
Cedric pulled him over to the window. “It doesn’t.” He let go of him then, opening it wide.
“What about hippogriffs, do those count?” Harry wondered. “How about thestrals? Or centaurs? This one time, I-”
Cedric shook his head in disbelief. And then there was a loud whooshing sound and two school brooms sailed right into his waiting hands.
Harry’s grin widened. He leaned in, his voice growing more hushed. “I rode a couple of guys back in my days as well,” he whispered. “Would that count?”
Cedric spluttered, pressing one of the brooms against his chest. “Just- just get on, Merlin .”
Harry laughed, mounting the broom. “Okay. How about a flying car? A flying motorbike?”
Cedrick stayed silent as he mounted his broom. He guided it carefully through the window and then flew out of the castle into the crisp morning air.
“That was all before the war though, wasn't it?” he wondered when Harry joined him outside. “How about after?”
Harry took a deep breath in, the fresh spring air soothing. He looked around the Hogwarts’ grounds laid out in front of them, at the Forbidden Forest stretching out behind, at the vast endless sky up above. “Hmm, just the guys then I guess,” he said, distracted.
Cedric gave him a seething look. “Well… was that any good?”
“Err, well, sure... it wasn't a dragon though.”
“Honestly… I can’t with you.”
They drifted through the air, their feet catching on the tops of the conifer trees of the Forbidden Forest. Harry swung his legs around, kicking idly at one of the tree tops.
“Funny,” he noted, watching the movement of it.
“Hmm?”
“You gave me a broom memory, remember? The first one you got. It’s all I can think of right now. Weirdly enough.”
“Ah, yea… I love that one.”
“Yeah, I-” Harry squinted into the distance. “I had a broom like that once. My parents got it for me when I was one year old, could you believe that? I- I mean, I don’t remember, but I found a photo of it once, found a letter… to Sirius. Found it in his room after he died.”
“Ah, yeah, it's pretty common among wizarding children, true, a practice broom like that.” Cedric shook his head. “The sticking charm on that thing for a one year old though, that must have been a mess. Your parents probably steered that thing for you, you know that, right? Nobody’s that skilled. Not even the great Harry Potter.”
Harry laughed. “Yeah, no, I guess not.” He pulled at the broom then, flipping it over to hang upside down. Looked over at Cedric with a grin.
Cedric frowned, looking confused for a second. “I- I’m not gonna win that one,” he said, but followed suit.
They hang there for a bit, staring over at the Hogwards castle, at the towers balancing precariously over the cloudy skies.
“I forgot… I think,” Harry whispered.
“Forgot?”
“How much fun it is, flying…” he admitted. “I feel like... I just- it got buried underneath all the shit that I went through and I just couldn't dig it out again, the good feeling of it, you know?”
“Yeah, I get that.”
“But I think… I think perhaps…”
Cedric just kept looking at him, the morning sun glowing through the curtain of his brown hair, painting it golden.
“I think perhaps I could grow to like it again if-” Harry looked away, clenching his jaw shut. He climbed back on the broom. “You win,” he said, defeated.
Cedric swung up as well, guided his broom closer, looked over at him with the kindest of smiles. “You're allowed to want things for yourself, Haz, you know?”
Harry couldn’t look at him. He shook his head, his shoulders sagging. “Not in this situation, I’m not,” he said, propelling his broom forward to lead it back to the castle.
He wasn’t fast enough to escape Cedric’s silent plea though. “Don't grab that cup, Haz,” he called after him. “Don't grab it just yet.”
