Amelia Merlin

Part Eighty Three: It was only a stunning curse

"What the hell do you mean? What did I do?" Cedric shouted at her as Amelia knelt beside the limp body of a child. "I saved you!"

"He wasn't going to kill me!" she yelled back. "He's a child for fuck sakes!"

"That is no ordinary child, Amelia. That is something else. Didn't you feel the evil surrounding him? He would've killed you!" he was still shouting but she didn't care what he had to say. She pushed the hair off of the boy's eyes to see that they were wide open.

"Oh please don't be dead. Please, please don't be dead." her vision blurred and she felt tears rushing down the tracks of her face like freight trains. He had to be alive. If he was dead than her only connection to Akkedis was dead, then there was no chance of her ever finding Kalishterya. He had to be alive.

There was also a strange, almost maternal instinct that told her it was wrong to have this child die in front of her. Amelia pressed her ear to his chest and heard nothing. There was no heart beat.

"Is he alive?" Cedric said, fear flooding his voice.

"No." her voice came out much harsher than she expected it to.

Cedric ran his fingers through his hair. "Fuck! I only hit him with a stunning curse! I swear, Amelia! I never wanted to actually hurt him!"

She closed the eyes of the dark haired boy and scooted backwards, away from him, but she didn't stand up. "I know you weren't trying to kill him. You're not a murderer Cedric."

"I'm so sorry." tears were going down his face too. "I didn't know it was going to kill him. I just wanted him to get away from you. There was something so wrong about him. I didn't want him to hurt you."

"I know." Amelia stood up and put her own feelings about the situation aside. Right now she needed to focus on Cedric, he had just killed somebody, after all. She wrapped her small arms around him and rested her heard on his heart, like she was checking to make sure it was still beating. "It's not your fault. I don't even think that boy is human. He might have something where he can't handle magic."

She was lying, but Cedric seemed to be feeling reassured so she didn't care.

"What do we do with him?" he asked and pulled out of her embrace.

Amelia suddenly wanted him to leave. She could deal with the body on her own but everything in her wanted Cedric to go away. "I'll take care of it. You go down to the Quidditch match or something."

"Somebody is going to notice he's missing. They'll come looking for us." he said, panic rising in his voice again.

"I don't think so." Amelia said. "Just go to the Quidditch match and I'll take care of it."

"No." he shook his head. "I did this. I should take care of it."

"Cedric, you're in no state to be dealing with this right now. You need to go away and let me handle it." she said as forcefully as she could, putting everything she had behind the words. And it worked, Cedric nodded and walked towards the door. "And Cedric?" she called out after him, he turned to look at her. "Don't think about this again, just forget it happened."

He nodded and left the Room of Beautiful Things. Amelia took a deep breath. And another. And then another. And then she was ready to get to work. She turned to look at the boy, his life-less body on the floor.

Okay. She was in a room where anything she wanted she could pretty much get. Okay, so she just needed to think logically about what to do. For some reason all she could think of was to get rid of the body. That's what they always did in the books so it had to be a pretty reasonable step number one. Amelia closed her eyes and wished for a grave to appear that she could bury this child in.

When she opened her eyes, to her amazement a small pit had appeared with a pile of dirt beside it. Amelia quickly dragged the body to the hole and lowered him in as best she could. Then she raised her hand and the pile of dirt lifted up and into the hole, covering the child.

"I feel like I should say a few words." she said quietly to herself. "It seems like the right thing to do." Deep breath, "I didn't know you particularly well. And I think you've had a part to play in all the terrible things that have happened to me and the people around me." Deep breath, "But I don't think I should speak ill of the dead so we're going to ignore that stuff. So evilness aside, you were an amazing person. You had a certain magic about you that made me want to hold you in my arms and protect you from everything. You were amazing and I'm sure somebody out there must have loved you very much."

Amelia hadn't realized it but she was sobbing. Big, heaving sobs that racked through her body and made it hard to breathe. She had just buried a child. She had lifted his tiny body into the ground and buried him. No one was at this shitty little funeral except for her and she didn't even know him. Amelia felt sick. Genuinely ill, she had to run to a vase that was standing nearby and throw up into it.

Amelia sat on the floor, wiped her mouth of vomit and continued to cry. She let the sadness consume her for a moment. Not only was this child dead, but he was her only connection to Akkedis. Amelia now had nothing to go off of. She was back at square one. Kalishterya was farther away than ever before and there was nothing she could do. Nothing good had come of the situation at hand.

But dwelling on it was not going to help either. So Amelia pulled herself up off the floor and walked out of the Room of Beautiful Things. She wiped her eyes and went to the Gryffindor Common room. Before she entered, Amelia took another deep breath.

"Life goes on, Amelia." She told herself. "And so do you."

When she walked in, the festivities were overwhelming. While Amelia had been burying the boy, Gryffindor had won the Quidditch match. It felt strange being in there, with everyone so happy. But she pushed her feelings to the side and decided to enjoy the here and now.

"Amelia!" Lavender squealed and ran over to her, gave her a huge hug and handed her a butterbeer. "How was your date, with Cedric?" she waggled her eyebrows suggestively.

"It was fine!" Amelia laughed and took the butterbeer. "Tell me about the match!"

But before Lavender could say anything, a red headed boy ran over to her. "Amelia!"Fred called out.

"Fred!" she replied and laughed lightly.

"Did you see that win?" he picked her up and swung her around. "We were absolutely incredible out there. I mean come on! Ravenclaw was pathetic! We are the best Quidditch team this school has ever seen!" he yelled and the whole room cheered. Fred swooped down and kissed her on the cheek before running off to brag more about his amazing skills.

"I can't believe you missed that match!" Dean yelled over the noise of the room. "It was the best thing I've ever seen." Then he and Seamus went into great detail about everything that had happened over the course of the match. At one point they even acted out a scenario. They also had a chugging competition with butterbeer that was oddly amusing to watch. Seamus won and Dean demanded a rematch. They were so full of life, so over the top loud and obnoxious.Amelia was grateful that they were, it meant she just had to sit there and say nothing.

Someone tapped on her shoulder and she turned around to see Parvati. "Are you alright, Amelia?" she said quietly.

"Yeah, no I'm fine!" she insisted. "Really! I'm totally fine."