Little Talks | Fred Weasley x Cedric Diggory

Fourteen.

"I want to leave."

"What do you mean?"

"I changed my mind. There's nothing left for me here. I want to leave."

His eyes are red, the skin underneath bloated. Looking deep into his dilated pupils, one can see the perpetually increasing levels of desperation, calling out, begging to be heard. Tousled hair covers his head, with the appearance of someone recently awoken from slumber. The color of his skin is much paler than the expected hue, the recent development in his life having caused his features to become more gaunt, seeming to age him.

Processing the meaning of Cedric's disappearance was gut-wrenching. He had been so prepared to exit the memory and instantly be greeted by that ghostly figure. It would have proven all the dissenting witnesses wrong, would prove that he wasn't going mad at all, that they had somehow been missing something so pitifully obvious. That was not the case.

He searched around the office, checking every cabinet, anything that had any possibility of being used as concealment. He checked once more. Nothing. It was theorized that Cedric had just been frightened by the events of the previous week. Shell-shocked, staying hidden out of fear, never wanting to be discovered by another person again. The investigations into all the crevices of the space made that theory irrefutably false.

Overwhelmed by so many confusing emotions at once, Fred broke down. Just laid against the nearest wall, legs sprawled out on the floor, and rested his head against the wall. The tears progressed from silent drips down his cheeks to something uncontrollable. They grew so high in numbers that vision began to become impaired, and a burning sensation corrupted the boy. He proceeded to hyperventilate, inundated by a massive feeling of loss, as though someone had come and torn a chunk away from his body, as though one of his appendages was removed, a concrete piece of him stolen away and promised never to be returned.

Rational thought became available again a time later. That's when it all started making sense. This cascade of emotions had not dulled his intelligence. He thought about specific events from the past week. The looks of skepticism from the onlookers when he had attempted to introduce them to his ghostly companion. George checking his face, reacting in absolute horror when the severity of his sleep deprivation became known. Forced to spend nights in the hospital wing, mind manipulated by the Sleeping Draught, experiencing a genuine, healthy sleep, free from nightmares, for the first time in months, every day for a week straight. Cedric being absent from this present meeting, thought to be in hiding, revealed to be the contrary.

None of it had been real. Absolutely none of it.

Just the memories and everything that had long since happened in the past. Every conversation was almost entirely a fragment of his imagination, a portrait of his subconscious, projecting its thoughts, making them feel real through Cedric. The only thing that attached those conversations to the physical world was the words that were spoken. They had to come from somewhere. It wasn't the air communicating with him. It was a deep exemplification of himself, telling him things both enjoyable and difficult to hear.

None of those words had been of Cedric's creation. The hallucinogenic projection generated by Fred had only been their host, a method of deliverance, a twisted messenger, luring the victim in with false pretenses and hopeful promises.

Fred became addicted to those words. Injected them into his bloodstream like a drug, giving his free spirit up, ready to be controlled by an outside force. His actions became dictated by what would make that projection happy. Examples were clear. He kissed Katie because the ghost had persuaded him to move on more quickly than he was prepared to. He stayed at Hogwarts because the mere presence of Cedric in his ghostly form was enough to keep him there, despite everything else giving him a million reasons to leave. Hearing those words every week was the only reason he had needed to remain latched to this now bitterly nostalgic location.