Star-Crossed Triwizard Champions

introduction : 1 year anniversary of the triwizard tournament

Even a year after the lock is cut, it still smells like the person it was attached too. Bright flushed cheeks, molten hazel eyes, a familiar sweetness, like honey fresh from the comb.
The velvety hair looked exactly the way it smelled. Warm honey with brighter blond undertones, as if it was always in a pool of sunlight, and silky soft with a slight curl.

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The day Cedric had died, Harry didn't know what to do. His heart hadn't processed the fact that the most prominent person in his life had slipped away in a matter of seconds. He had been so hazily exhausted after Voldemort's rebirth that he was barely aware of his arms lifting up the crumpled figure of a lost loved one. Despite the fog engulfing his mind, he still felt the warmth in Cedric's body, the electricity of their touch not yet lost. Harry threw himself toward the triwizard cup, a disguised port key, and felt his legs go numb as a flash of colors whirled around him and his departed love.

Before the crowd noticed the return of the two reigning champions, the events that had taken place from his first touch of the golden cup to the present finally hit Harry with a breath-taking force. Dropping Cedric from sheer heartbreak, he shortly after dropped down over his love and let out a ragged sob. He stroked Cedric's cheek for the last time, thinking, it doesn't feel right, stroking a once bright, permanently blushed cheek. It shouldn't be pale. It's never been pale. It shouldn't have been him.

The boys' abrupt arrival had been somewhat discreet, not that it had been planned that way, or even planned at all, and Harry's head seemed to be spinning. Nothing else mattered besides the fact that the tournament would never have it's rightful champion. He deserved to win, he thought. Cedric Diggory, the true champion, will never be able to receive his winnings. Or celebrate with his father, his best friend. His hand dragged away from Cedric's unattractively pale cheek, and with his head still spinning, unable to think, Harry pushed his hand down in the pocket of his robe until he felt the knife that his godfather Sirius had given him last Christmas to aid him in the second challenge. He pulled out the blade and reached for Cedric's rich, honey toned hair. Without looking, he grabbed a random handful and cut close to the scalp.

As the world around him started to fade back in, Harry heard the voices of the tournament's judges and a handful of concerned audience members rushing into the center of the maze to see what had happened to the returned champions. Before they got any closer, Harry realized what he had just done, and shoved the knife and wad of hair into the hidden pockets of his robe.

From the front of the rumoring crowd, a voice could be heard, just as he spotted the plumage of raven hair fallen next to the golden cup. "Harry! He's here, he's looks injured, and Cedric-"

That was when he caught sight of the other champion, lying with his hazel eyes wide open, lifeless beneath Harry.

The crowd seemed to have noticed too, made obvious by the collective gasp of fear and confusion. Many remembered Dumbledore's assurance in this moment, his promise of a safer tournament than ever before. What had happened to the broken boy laying torn up on the ground, over the corpse of the predicted winner? What had caused the most talented contestant to become a lifeless corpse, and the feeble 4th year to survive?

Harry could tell what the crowd was thinking, and he happened to be wondering the same things. His mind couldn't wander, he couldn't focus on anything else, the little remaining space occupied by the devastating pain of what had happened. The first tear rolled down Harry's cheek, hot as it fell slowly onto Cedric's still chest.

I love him, he thought.

Before his impending collapse from suffering and exhaustion, a terrible thought of finality dawned on him.

Loved.