what is beyond love? I will meet you there.
cedric diggory
goblet of fire
extended summary inside!
beautiful cover by the wonderful @c4merag1rl !!
UPDATE 3/27: new epilogue added!! <3
The gleaming, golden letters seemed to make a mockery of her — they laughed at the gaping sorrow that swallowed her ravaged heart. Look, they seemed to say, with their false, malicious glint. Look. You couldn't save him.
She was trembling uncontrollably as she traced the name on the headstone before her, tears welling up thick enough to blind, empty cries caught in her barbed throat. No, she wanted to shout. No. This isn't real — he couldn't be gone. Nothing bad ever happened to a boy so beautiful and pure.
HERE LIES, IN ETERNAL PEACE, CEDRIC AMOS DIGGORY
His voice filled her head, deafening deafening deafening — Why didn't you save me, Elaine? You've known all along something bad would happen, why didn't you do something? I'm gone, and it's your fault. I'm gone because of you. You could have saved me!
"No!" she screamed, her voice raw and mangled and tortured. There was blood falling all around her as the dead skies began to weep red. She couldn't breathe as it pounded against her skin, her heart, her soul. "No, Cedric! This isn't real! Nothing bad will happen, I won't let it! I swear!"
She pitched forwards against the stone as the sobs shook her, as the blood fell, as her world fell apart. Behind her, the vines with their thorns and dying flowers snapped, the onyx crow let out a single, murderous caw, and the stony voice of Death rasped, "I am coming."
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ELAINE BOLTED awake with tears staining her cheeks and a scream caught in her throat. In the darkness, her chest heaved as she tried to catch her breath and soothe her terror-filled heart, and she curled herself into a tiny ball around her stuffed bumblebee. With her sweaty face buried in Sunny's fluffy side, she dared let loose a muffled sob as her delicate frame was wracked with fright.
It was just a nightmare, she told herself, sniffling and exhaling slowly. She hauled another deep breath into her aching lungs. It wasn't real.
There was soft firelight leaking in beneath the cracks in the doorframe; pale moonlight slipped through the shuttered windows. Slumbering plants waved their sleepy limbs, caught up in their own pleasant dreams of summer winds. Her quilt was tangled at the foot of her bed, kicked away by her feverish legs; the skirt of her Cinderella nightgown was tangled around her knobby knees. Daisy Atherton was snuggled in the bed on her right, mumbling about purple penguins in polka-dotted pajamas, and Maggie Macmillan was snoring quietly on her left. She knew where she was. There was light. She wasn't alone.
Elaine uncurled her taut limbs and grabbed for the lucky rock on her bedside table, allowing her eyes to drift shut as its gentle, soothing waves washed her fear away. No blood on her fingers. She took several deep breaths before she reopened her teary eyes and slipped her rock into the pocket of her nightgown.
