The Potion Princess

Cedric

The hall is swamped in mourning.

The banners are drenched in a black, and the candles and fireplaces remain unlit, but above them, sun is streaming through openings of the cloud covered ceiling.  They had been asked to raise their glasses to Diggory and they did, the scrape of benches breaking up the deafening silence as they rise as one.  The students of Hogwarts and the visiting schools drink to Cedric and the memory that he had left behind, but it is not enough.  Nothing will ever be enough.

Emmeline grasps onto her hand as they stand, fingers hidden away in the folds of their robes where no one can see.  At the Gryffindor table, she can see George staring down into his glass.  Ron has his arm around Hermione again, who has tears streaming down her face.  Over at the Ravenclaw table, Cho is  crying, like she has been constantly since it happened, but Clary was staring up at Dumbledore, cheeks burning and eyes blazing, like she's ready to take up arms right that very minute.  When she meets eyes with Fred, he tips his glass towards her, and she raises hers, just a tiny bit. 

They are silent as they eat dinner, all the food bland and dry and not at all like an end of the year feast, but it doesn't matter.  Once you're touched by grief, even in a round about way, things tend to turn to dust.

Fred pulls her off to the side as the students pour out of the great hall and down their separate corridors.  She expects him to talk, but he only jerks his head down the hallway, tugging her along behind them to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.  George is waiting for them when they get there.

They sit in a circle on the same ratty blanket that they did on that first day of term so long ago.  The memory hits her like a punch to the stomach, and she settles down on the cold floor feeling like she's underwater.  There is no wild laughter or smiling faces or the feeling that everything you wanted is spread out in front of you if only you had the nerve to take it.  Now she looks around and sees three kids with pale faces and chewed finger nails and the aura that comes when a child finally understands what it means to grow up.  Audra stares at the sink, the one that Harry and Ron opened up to reveal the chamber of secretes behind it.  It's still there, cracked and half hanging off the wall.  Somehow, there is still water dripping from the faucet. 

"It's starting again, isn't it?"  George asked.  His hands were shaking.  Audra pretended not to see.  "Just like last time, it's all going to start again."

"Only now we're the ones fighting."  Fred mutters dully.  "We're always in the thick of things, our family, and it's only gotten worse since Ron became friends with Harry."

It wasn't fair, but it was true.  Yesterday, they were still just kids, never mind that they had come of age, but today they've suddenly turned into soldiers in the blink of an eye.  There's no question that she will fight.  Fred's right when he said that being friends with Harry puts them on the murder list, so the Weasley's don't have a choice, haven't had one since Ron sat down in the same compartment with Harry four years ago.   Audra will follow the twins to hell and back if she thought it would protect them, and it seems like that's exactly where they're all going to have to go.  It seems like a sick twist of fate, that things would fall apart as soon as she had thought it was all falling into place, but she watched her happy ending deteriorate before her eyes.   Images of the joke shop and dinners with the Weasley twins were becoming clouded by the promise of death and torture and pain. 

"He'll want you to join him."  Fred stared at her, eyes wide like it was something he had never thought of before.  "What are you going to do?"

"I'm not going to join.  I'm fighting with you, with Harry."  There was never any question of turning her back on them.  "You heard Dumbledore.  It's time to stand together."

"He'll kill you."  It was not a question.  "He'll kill you just like he did Diggory."

Audra smiled, a mouthful of broken glass.  "He can try."

They did not look convinced, but Audra didn't care.  They had no idea what she could do, the power that's always thrumming in her veins if she would just want to reach for it.  It is dark, and gritty, and belongs more to the world of dark alleys and fist fights and illegal trading than the one she had been living, but its still there waiting just below the surface, waiting for the day she decides to use it.  There are powers, unimaginable, things that no decent person would ever consider using.  Things that the twins never even dreamed of.

"I feel like we should have done something more.  About Diggory."  She'd never really spoken to him, but it suddenly seems to be the height of injustice that a boy so bright and kind and good was destroyed by the swipe of a wand and the muttering of the spell, when all of the rest of them get to go home for the summer and just try to forget the image of his body in the grass.  All he got was a bunch of glasses raised toward the ceiling and a collective oath that they will all break over the years, no matter how hard they will try to walk the path of righteousness.  Sometimes, Audra knows, you do things that you've never dreamed of in order to survive.

A bottle of firewhiskey was conjured out of thin air.  George snatched it before it could fall to the ground, unscrewing the bottle and throwing back a long gulp.  "To Diggory."  

Fred took it next, grimacing when the whiskey hit the back of his throat.  "To Diggory."

Audra grabbed hold of it when it was passed to her, the glass smooth and warm under her fingers.  She drains the rest of it, and throws the empty bottle at the wall just to hear it shatter.  The glass broke, raining down over them and glinting in the sunlight.  Pieces of it were stuck in her hair, shining like diamonds.   "To Cedric Diggory."

"We'll keep you safe, if it comes down to it."  Fred said later, after the firewhiskey had finally been cleaned up and George had made his way back to the common room.  "He's not going to hurt you."

Audra let herself lean into him, felt his hand cover hers.  "You can't know that."

"I do."  He was angry at her for not seeing it, for wanting to fight when he thinks she should run, for still caring about her parents even though they put her in this mess.  He's angry that she wants to protect him, that she said they wouldn't be able to see much of each other this summer, angry at the truth of their situation- that from now on, the two of them together is like putting a target on their backs.  "They'll have to kill me before they hurt you."

They were inches away from each other.  It would be so easy to lean in, to let herself have just this one moment, but she pulls away.  "You can't promise that."   She thinks of Emmeline, who's in love with Clary and can't do anything about it without getting one of them killed.  She thinks of Diggory, who was supposed to start an internship at the ministry this summer, and is now getting a tombstone instead.  And then she looks at Fred, who she was going to leave sitting on this stupid blanket in a flooding bathroom, drunk and lost and alone.  "We can't promise each other anything  at all."