chemistry

chapter 1

The crowd roared, confirming someone had returned. I hopped onto my feet hoping to see if it was him. Hoping he was alright. Hoping he'd won.
I pushed past the crowd trying to see his beautiful face once again.

And then,
a scream.

An
ear -
splitting
scream.
A cry.

My whole world flipped upside down. I resumed pushing through the now stunned and silent crowd soon reaching the front, now staring straight at the scene that lay before me.

Two boys.

One alive and crying.

The other, still and lifeless.

A cry of terror arose from my throat as I ran forward. However, before I could reach him someone had caught me in their arms. I looked up to see George Weasley's blurred face, trying to hold me tight.

He held me as I fell to the floor,
screaming,
crying,
grieving.

I had just lost my best friend. As Cedric Diggory,
had returned dead.

𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊 end of flashback 𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊
(TW: self-harm mentions)

I awoke screaming and sweaty.
Another dream about that night. I can't keep up with this anymore.
I lost my best friend to that stupid tournament. I warned him what would happen if he entered. I warned him...

Sighing, I get up and go to my bathroom to wash my face. It was only two weeks till I went back to Hogwarts and I was getting worried that they wouldn't stop. They wouldn't go away.
The nightmares.
The memories.
The visions of his grey, lifeless face...

I turned on the tap and ran the water, splashing it all over my face, not caring that it was going everywhere.

I still didn't feel good so I decided to take a cold shower to try and drown all my troubles away.
I couldn't be bothered to change out of my pyjamas, and they were all damp anyways from sweat, water and tears, so I decided to just leave them on.

I climbed in and turned on the knob to the coldest setting. The water caressed my face engulfing my body and turning it to ice, and just when I could physically no longer stand the cold, I changed the temperature to its hottest setting. Burning my skin, stinging it.
The pain distracted me from my thoughts, temporarily at least.
I looked down at my bright red arm, and then decided I'd been in long enough.
I switched off the shower, got out and collapsed to the cold floor.
I just laid there for a while, letting my body cool down, tears slipping out of my eyes.

I felt hopeless.
I felt lost.
This was never going to improve.
It was never going to go away.

How could it? And the upcoming year would not help. Back to the sympathetic stares and people asking if I'm alright all the time, making me feel even more pathetic.

And that's not even the worst part. The worst part was that I smiled and covered it up by laughing and nodding and saying I'm alright which drained me. 

I had to do that for a week after he died and then when the summer holidays came around, I was finally free. Free to rest and grieve in peace.

God. It exhausted the hell out of me faking it for a week.
Let alone the whole year.

I sighed.
I feel like a soggy puddle of clothes, tears and grief.

"Shut up y/n," I whisper to myself, "you're being pathetic again."

I pick myself off the floor and peel the damp clothes from my skin until I'm left in just my underwear. I wrap myself in a towel and soon take them off too.
I don't want to get up and go back to sleep but I'm tired and I need the energy for tomorrow morning.

Walking back to my bedroom, I stop at my wardrobe and enter.
My wardrobe is one of my favourite places in the entirety of the universe.

It's a large walk-in one where I would spend hours looking at my clothes and putting together outfits to wear on future occasions.
It's also a great place to lock myself away when I want to hide from the world.

That's what Cedric and I used to do when we were very little and wanted some peace. My parents usually threw a lot of parties whenever they got the chance to and since our mothers were friends, Cedric and his family would always be invited to come along.

However, these parties weren't the kind two kids would enjoy very much. So we snuck away from the snooty poshness of the tea party that was happening downstairs and lock ourselves in my closet for hours playing all different types of games we'd make up.

Being in here now just makes me feel...closer to him.

I tried to push those thoughts away and out of my mind by distracting myself with finding some spare pyjamas or even old clothes that I hadn't already packed up for Hogwarts.

It took some digging around but eventually, I found a spare pair of pyjamas. Just a plain black tank top with some blue checkered bottoms.

Actually, these were quite nice. I don't know why I didn't pack them.
I slipped them on and they felt very comfortable and fit me quite perfectly.

I walked back over to my bed and patted it down before I got in.
Soaked.

I ended up stripping my bedsheets off and replacing them before going back into my wardrobe to retrieve the blanket.

The blanket.

Amos Diggory was far too devastated at the loss of his son to keep a lot of Cedric's stuff, and of course, I stepped in. I took them off his hands and kept them for myself. It was mostly just hoodies, clothes, his aftershave, a couple of miscellaneous and other random things.
But one of my favourite things I was given, was his blanket.

Not his home one, of course, but the one he used at Hogwarts.

It still smelled like him, and that was the greatest comfort it could bring me.
I wrapped it tight around my body and pretended he was hugging me to sleep, which was something he used to do for me as kids whenever I couldn't sleep or felt upset.

I was starting to feel pretty warm with the way I'd wrapped myself up so I poked my arm out to lower my body temperature. But I couldn't help look at it.
I stared at the scars left there from almost years ago, and some more recently.

I stuck my arm back in the blanket, not wanting to face the painful memories. I guess I'll just have to boil tonight.
I had been clean for so long. It had been almost a year.
Cedric helped me through it.
He kept me happy and told me that I didn't deserve pain.
But then he ended up being the one who brought the most...

"Stop it!" I cried at myself, "shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!"

I rolled over to the other side, looking straight at my alarm clock.

4:37 AM.

Great.

( 20/12/21 - 1205 words )

Thanks for reading the first chapter of my book :0
This is actually the second harry fanfic I've made on here.
Tbh I haven't even finished the first one but the writing and plot I created when I first made it was appalling and I was getting bored so I wanted a fresh new start.
hope you enjoyed and continue to keep reading