Found AIAOY 4

Chapter 22

Nearly twenty-four hours after the third task had started, Rebecca stirred.  She tried to rouse herself from the darkness her mind had dropped down into, finding it hard to put together the sight of the Hospital Wing around her as where she was--where she had been taken afterwards.

"Mr Diggory!"  Madam Pomfrey cried.  "I think not!  Get back into-"  Cedric ignored the healer, abandoning his bed to cross the room despite the weakness his body was still reeling from.

Rebecca was in the middle of movement and noise, everyone speaking at once and everyone asking her so many overlapping questions the sound washed over her ears without meaning.  The only respite, one that everyone in attendance was thankful for as well, was that Fred snoozed on--His head resting against Rebecca's leg and his hand still in hers.

"Rebecca," Cedric began, his hand grabbing onto the foot of her bed and holding himself up.  "Rebecca, I was gone."  He took a breath and closed his eyes a moment, remembering the darkness and the pull towards something further.  "I was moving on and y-you stopped it.  You brought me back."  Amos wiped at his face as Cedric so blatantly talked about what had happened.  "And now I'm here.  I'm alive again--because of you."

Rebecca's head lay back slightly on her pillow, it required more effort than she had to hold it up much further.  "I didn't know it would work, honestly."  

"How do I even begin to thank you?"  Cedric asked as honest as she had been.  "You gave me my life back.  I'm alive, that's not something that can just be thank-you-ed about."

Rebecca's eyes moved slowly from Cedric as he was led back to his bed by Madam Pomfrey, pausing over the concerned faces of Molly, Sirius, and McGonagall.  Between her friends, Harry raised her hand to his cheek and closed his eyes.  "I am, too.  Alive, I mean."

Rebecca looked down to Fred, brushing her hand over the top of his sleeping head gently so that his hair didn't cover his face.  The adults were swept into conversation with Madam Pomfrey and the children around the bed gave them a feigned-privacy.  Fred moved slightly, thinking it was Molly trying to comfort him again.  "Fred?"  Rebecca asked softly.

His eyes shot open at the sound of her voice, the sound he had been trying to hold onto.  Fred stood up and looked at Rebecca carefully, his eyes flitting over her face in its entirety.  He leaned forward and kissed her quickly, pulling back only to kiss her again a second after.

Sirius and Molly shared a small smile that disappeared moments later.

"What the hell did you do?"  Fred demanded, his tone angry.  The sweetness that had flooded him alongside his relief at seeing her awake was running from the fear that was growing in Fred and making itself known.  "W-why would you do that?  You-"

"Are you okay?"  Rebecca asked Harry, turning her head away from Fred and giving him a chance to placate himself.

Harry's jaw dropped.  "Am I okay?"  Harry stood from his chair and wrapped his arms around Rebecca, laying his muddy, dirty self beside her because any distance between them was too much.  "If you are, then I am."

Rebecca nodded and closed her eyes as a relief of her own covered her.  Her body hurt and her exhaustion was so extreme she had to muster her strength to just raise her hand--which she did to cup Fred's cheek.

Cedric let his head finally fall against his pillow as his mother had been wishing he would.  His body hurt as hers did, moreso perhaps.  But he didn't dare complain.  With every muscle, ligament, and fibre of his being protesting even the slightest of movements, he was reminded that he was alive.  

Harry spoke quietly and quickly, wanting to tell Rebecca everything before she ended up asleep again.  "It was Barty Crouch Junior, and Moody wasn't really Moody."  Harry continued when Rebecca's hand rubbed on his back, prompting him forward.  "It was Polyjuice he'd used, Crouch I mean.  He's back to Azkaban now."