The Half-Blood Black

Chapter Thirty-Seven✨

Dumbledore stands in front of the room of Hogwarts students, he clears his throat. I swallow hard and look at the black drapes in the great hall. It's a cold and gloomy day outside. The exact opposite of Cedric.

He was light in this dark world.

"Today we acknowledge a really terrible loss. Cedric Diggory was as you all know, exceptionally hard working, intricately fair minded. And most importantly a fierce, fierce friend. I think therefore you have the right to know exactly how he died. You see, Cedric Diggory was murdered by Lord Voldemort. The ministry of magic does not wish me to tell you this. But not to do so I think would be an insult to his memory."

I sob. Harry tightens his grip around my shoulders. I hand him a tissue and he crumples it in his hand.

"Now the pain we all feel at this dreadful loss reminds me, reminds us that while we may come from different places and speak in different tongues, our hearts beat as one. In light of recent events the bonds of friendship we made this year will be more important than ever. Remember that and Cedric Diggory will not have died in vain. You remember that, and we'll celebrate a boy who was kind and honest and brave and true right to the very end."

I let out another sob and then I hear students around us getting up and leaving. Soon there is nobody and I openly let myself cry.

"How did you let that happen?" I ask Harry over and over. He sits next to me silently and then shakes his head.

"It was Voldemort. He said to kill the spare and neither of us knew what was happening until ..." Harry says handing me another tissue.

"He's gone."

I sob until I can't breath and my head hurts and I never remember crying so much before in my life. Harry eventually lifts me up and carries me into the common room. I walk myself into the dormitory and come face to face with Cho, her sister sitting on her bed with the same faces we have.

We stare at each other, both puffy eyed and red faced, and she starts crying at the same time I do. She wraps her arms around my waist and I put mine around her neck after a moment and we just cry and cry.

"I'm so sorry," she sobs. "He loved you he really did. And I was jealous. So jealous. Cedric really did love you."

I cry more and she keeps talking.

"He would always go on about how you called him Ced and it was only right from you and - and - and how you would listen to everything he said and I was so jealous, Lyra. So so jealous. And I'm just - just - just so sorry!"

The last thing I want to do right now is to listen to Cho cry over petty nonsense. But Cedric would have done the same. If the roles were reversed, Cedric would have held anyone, anywhere, at any time. He would have let them cry for as long and as hard as they wanted to. 

So for him, for my Ced, I let her cry. 

When she's done, her sister walks her out, talking about going home soon. The silence engulfs me once more, so I lay in bed in my funeral clothing, closing the drapes around me. I reach into my pocket and take out the sleeping potion that Madame Pomfrey gave me at the request of Severus Snape. 

I reach under my pillow and pull out his Hufflepuff scarf. It was an accident that he gave me this. I would have returned the next day, or maybe a few days later with the clean laundry. It was never meant to be mine. 

I tip the potion back into my mouth. 

-

I stare at the common room as I pull my jacket on over my sweatshirt. I lift up my chest and swing my bag onto my shoulder. My boots make the familiar clicking noise on the ground and I look out the window at the rain pelting down.

"Here," a familiar voice says coming up next to me and taking the other end of my chest. "Let me help you."

I look up an over at Draco Malfoy as he smiles at me. "What do you want?"

"I was just offering some help. I was hoping that you would write to me this summer." He clears his throat. "Maybe you could come visit the Manor?"

I scuff. "You have got to be fucking kidding me."

He blushes and lowers his head. I roll my eyes and jerk my trunk away, setting it down with the pile of them. Apparently they will be at the Platform when we get off the train.

"I'll see you next year if avoiding you becomes impossible." I sneer. "Goodbye, Draco Malfoy."

"Lyra--"

I walk away before he can speak and flip the hood of my sweatshirt up. I can't deal with him anymore, this is the last time I walk away feeling like shit.

"I'm sorry about Cedric!" He says down the hall, his voice echoing. "If it means anything."

"Don't you DARE say his name!" I turn around yelling. "Don't you fucking dare. You know exactly who killed him. Your father was there. He let it happen. And if you were there you would have let it happen too. Voldemort killed Cedric Diggory, quite possibly the only kind hearted person left in this world. The only one who would help another person without asking for something in return. So don't you DARE think you can say his name."

Silence.

"There's no proof my father was there."

"That's all you have to say? You're a coward and a phoney, Draco Malfoy. You don't have a single vein in your body that doesn't run with the most vile of blood. You are rotten to your very core and I hope you burn along with the rest of them."

I leave him in the hallway, along with the remains of the girl I was before the final task. The girl who took any friend she could, who gave up her chance at a new start for the Order, who had one good person in her life. I leave her behind to dance all the night with the ghost of Cedric Diggory, to study with the memory of a kind Draco Malfoy, to whisper with her 'brother' Harry Potter. 

I look up at Hogwarts as I step into the boat and start to float away. Soon I will be on the train and on my way home.I give one last look at the castle, the lights dark inside from mourning.

Then I say goodbye to that girl, and I begin to live my life as he wanted.