Months had gone by and Elle and Fred were as happy as could be, as she was so appreciative to have him back in her life. She needed him. She was also able to speak to Cedric and his friends over the last few months and she rekindle a friendship with them, even Cedric, but she understood it would never be the same. He still sometimes acted awkward around her, like he was unsure how to act around her, and it was incredibly awkward between Cedric and Fred still, so Elle was sure to keep them separate. They didnt hang out often as Fred whisked her away most nights to her dorm, but they were able to make small talk and smile at each other in the halls, and have study dates in the library like old times and life felt like it was finally getting back on track, slowly but surely with her and her Hufflepuff friends.
Cedric was a best friend to her, she knew he added so much value and support in her life that she was so grateful that they were trying to move past everything that happened between the two. Dylan and Ian also came around to her again, Ian apologizing for how he reacted and Dylan having the ability to pretend it never happened and was grateful to have Elle around without feeling guilty or that he was betraying Cedric. She meant a lot to him.
Today was the final task for the Triwizard tournament and all the students of Hogwarts were buzzing with excitement to watch who would win. Elle was walking down with Jackson, George and Fred, planning to meet their other friends who went early to save a seat. They walked into the arena to see a large maze was set up and when her eyes scanned the stands, she saw her friends. Dylan gave her a large goofy wave as she let Fred grab her hand and lead her into the stands to sit beside them.
"Hey Ellie." Dylan and Ian waved as Elle sat in-between Dylan and Fred, with Luke and Olivia on the other side of Ian.
"Where's Gigi and Lee?" George hummed out, looking down the aisle, "They'll be here soon, Gigi forgot her jacket."
"Have you guys spoken to Cedric?" Elle asked the Hufflepuffs as they all nodded, "Already gave him our good luck charms, you?" Ian asked as she shook her head, "Not yet, I was going to go now. Save my spot?"
Fred nodded at her, letting her stand and dip down to give his cheek a kiss before squeezing Dylan's shoulder and walking away from her friends.
She entered the champions' tent, soon spotting Cedric pacing in his little area and she made eye contact with him, visibly seeing his shoulders drop.
"Oh thank god you are here, my nerves have been all over the place." Cedric hummed as she shut the curtain behind her, sitting on the chair across from his cot.
"You'll be great Cedric, you know it, You are so smart and a talented wizard." Elle comforted him as he nodded, looking like he was deep in thought, "What're you thinking about now?"
"Hm?" Cedric asked, finally looking up at her, "How'd you know I was deep in thought?"
"Your eyebrows raise and you get this look in your eye," Elle told him as he let out a huff at her statement, knowing he wasn't able to hide anything from her.
"If anything happens to me, I need you to take care of Ian and Dylan, okay? Liv will be fine, she has Luke, but for those boys, my brothers, we only have each other, especially Dylan, okay?"
"Don't talk like that Cedric, you'll be okay, I know it." Elle nodded at him with an encouraging smile.
"Thanks..." Cedric muttered out, giving her a small smile before they went into silence again. Elle was able to see how deep in thought Cedric was and knew something else was on his mind.
"Come on Cedric, spill it."
"I need to tell you something." Cedric quickly muttered out as she raised her eyebrows to encourage him to continue.
Cedric took a deep breath in before quickly saying, like word vomit, "I'm in love with you..."
"...what?" Elle quietly said.
"I'm really sorry, uhm, if thats weird for you to hear but I needed you to uh, hear it. Probably not good timing, I know that, but it's just-" Cedric began to ramble.
"What are you doing Cedric...? What do you expect me to say to that..." Elle whispered out as he shook his head, knowing he messed up, "I just needed you to know... in case..."
"Oh...I, um, I cant... you have no idea-" Elle began to ramble, as she thought they were finally over this.
"Don't do that." Cedric cut her off, knowing what she was going to say next.
"-what your friendship means to me." She finished her sentence
"Come on, I don't want to do that, we can't do that, this, again. I want to be more than that and I can't, I can't keep being your friend, just your friend." Cedric muttered out, not being able to look her in the eye.
Elle felt her heart plummet as she looked at the boy in front of her, thinking they were right back where they started as she had to once again, tell Cedric she didnt have feelings for him, at least not like that.
"I'm sorry Cedric, I'm with Fred." Elle shook her head as he nodded with a bittersweet smile on his face, "I know, but I needed to tell you in case anything happens to me out there. I love you, and I have never loved someone as much as I did you. Even if I don't make it out of the maze, I need you to know that, okay? I know Fred makes you happy, but I needed you to know how I felt because you are the best person I've ever met, and I mean it."
"Don't say that," Elle's voice broke as she said it, reaching over to grab Cedric's hands as a single tear escaped her eye, "Even though I don't have feelings for you like that, I still love you. You are one of my best friends and I couldn't imagine losing you."
"And you won't," Cedric smiled through his glum, bad feeling that was deeply rooted in him before reaching up and wiping her tear away, "And I know thats how you feel about me, you're one of my best friends too Ellie."
"You will do great out there. Please promise you will come back to us?... to me?" Elle pleaded as a few more stray tears fell onto her cheeks as he nodded, looking at her with such love that anyone else that would have seen it would have known that Elle was Cedric's great love story, even if he wasn't hers.
"I promise."
Elle gave Cedric one last big hug before taking a step back, "Goodluck Cedric, I love you."
"Love you too Ellie, I'll look for you in the stands, and when I win, I expect you to be cheering the loudest."
"I will." Elle said before walking out of his room, quickly stopping in at Harry's room as he was getting a big hug from Hermione as Ron paced nervously, "Goodluck Harry, you'll do great." Elle encouraged as he let go of Hermione, giving Elle a nervous smile and nod.
"Thats what we've been telling him." Hermione smiled sadly at her friend before Dumbeldores voice yelled out, "Attention champions, please say your goodbyes to friends and families and have them go take their seats as the third task is about to start."
Elle waited for Hermione and Ron to exit the tent as she wrapped an arm around each of their shoulders, "Where are you guys sitting?"
"Up by Neville and Dean." Ron pointed up at the other fourth years.
"Have fun and try not to worry too much, okay? Harry will be fine. I'll see you guys later." Elle told the younger kids before walking back up to where her friends were sitting, seeing that Lee and Gigi had now joined them.
The group was quiet as they watched Dumbledore and Moody converse with the champions by the maze. Elle felt Fred grab her hand in comfort as their contained hands rested in her lap. She made eye contact with him to see his gentle smile comfort her.
Fred signalled with a nod of his head to look beside her so she followed his gaze to see Dylan nervously shifting around. Elle looped her arm through his as he physically soothed at her touch. He didnt take his eyes off of Cedric as he gripped her knee, giving it a nervous squeeze.
"Earlier today, Professor Moody placed the Triwizard cup deep within the maze. Only he knows its exact position. Now, as Mr.Diggory and Mr.Potter are tied for the first position, they will be the first ones to enter the maze. Followed by Mr.Krum, and then Miss. Delacour. The first person to touch the cup will be the winner," Dumbledore began to speak, "I've instructed the staff to patrol the perimeter, should at any point, a contestant wish to withdraw from the task, he or she need only to send up red sparks with their wands. Contestants, gather around. Quickly! In the maze, you'll find no dragons or creatures of the deep. Instead, you'll face something even more challenging. You see, people change in the maze. Oh, find the cup if you can, but be very wary, you could just lose yourself along the way. Champions, prepare yourselves!"
Elle nervously tapped her leg as she watched Cedric's Father wish him one last bit of good luck before Dumbledore spoke up again, "On the count of three. One."
A loud cannon went off, causing Cedric and Harry to run in as Dumebldore started yelling at Filch for setting it off early, making the group let out small giggles at the only comedic relief they would get that night.
Krum ran in shortly after followed by Delacour, causing the crowd to get bored and begin to murmur quietly.
"Did you see that?" Luke jumped up as he pointed at red sparks that shot up, the entire crowd went quiet as they waited to see who was coming out, and Elle tensed again when she realized it wasn't Cedric or even Harry. It was Fleur.
Fleur looked traumatized as her fellow classmates flocked to her, draping a big coat around her as she cried into her little sister's side, making her imagine what could be out there.
The crowd stayed eerily quiet as they watched Fleur recover from the maze and Elle even fluttered her eyes shut as she laid her head against Fred's shoulder as this task was truly boring.
Some more time went on before they heard a loud cry as the sound of two bodies landed on the ground with a thud. Elle's eyes sprung open as everyone in the stands stood, trying to get a better look.
At first, it looked like Harry was leaning over Cedric's injured body as Dumbledore, Professor Moddy, Professor McGonagall and Professor Snape crowded around them as Harry let out loud sobs.
"He's back, he's back. Voldemorts back." Harry cried as the entire crowd let out an audible gasp at the name before overhearing Dumbledore tell Professor McGonagall to clear out the stadium as a boy had been killed.
Cedric.
Cedric had been killed.
"Let me through! Thats my son! My boy!" Amos Diggory cried as he was held back by Arthur Weasley as the realization started to hit the crowd. Cedric Diggory had just been killed.
Once the realization hit the group of friends, Olivia dropped to her knees in sobs and Luke held her close as chaos erupted. Everyone around Elle began to move as she felt herself stay still. Everyone wanted to get out of the stadium in fear of Voldemort coming here but Elle simply didnt care about that. All she could think about was that Cedric was dead. She turned her head to look at Dylan and the look on his face was enough to crush her indefinitely. That was a look she would never forget.
She couldn't even react as Ian ran past the group and down to where Cedric's body was. Dylan finally looked away from Cedrics' body to look at Elle with such grief and horror on his face as he had tears falling down his face with sobs flowing out of him and Elle knew she had to be there for him. She couldn't help the tears that ran down her face as Fred, George and Jackson watched in complete shock, not knowing what they could do to help their friends.
"Babe?" Fred asked as Elle had now spaced out, now staring at Cedric's lifeless body as Dumbledore yelled around him. Elle finally looked at Fred and blurted out, "He told me he loved me and I broke his heart right before he went into the maze. This is my fault."
"It's not your fault Elle, Cedric loved you with everything in him so you may not have loved him how he wanted to but he knows you love him." Fred tried to comfort her as she shook her head in despair, turning to look at Dylan again as he goes to take off towards Cedric's body, causing her to follow closely behind, the shock finally passing as she began to come to terms with what happened.
She had lost Cedric. Amos lost his son, and Dylan lost the only source of brotherhood and family he's ever had. He still had Ian, but things would be different.
She stopped beside Dylan as they watched Dumbledore instruct Moody to lead a trembling Harry away as Amos cried over Cedric's body. She watched as Jackson followed her down and ran towards Ian who had begun to fight against Professor Snape to try to get to Cedric.
Jackson gently grabbed Ian, holding him back as he didnt want him to do something to the Profesor he would later regret, instead, letting Ian turn and sob into his shoulder.
Dylan and Elle stood side by side as they looked at Cedric. Their world came crashing down around them as they knew he was gone, and he would never be coming back to them. It only made Elle feel guilty over what happened to their relationship the last few months and she let their beautiful friendship plummet.
She should never have tried to move on from Fred with Cedric as she knew, deep down, she would never have gotten over Fred.
Elle heard her name being called but felt too numb to look and see who it was as her eyes were stuck on watching Amos sob over his loss as Dumbledore tried to pull him away as Professor McGonagall began to yell around them.
Elle felt arms wrap around her in a hug as she turned to see her older brother, someone she needed to feel the comfort from as she collapsed in his arms, feeling her knees buckle below her as she let out the most devastating sob Nathan and Fred had heard, making Nathan's heartbreak for his little sister.
Dylan looked around him as he saw everyone closest to Cedric being comforted by loved ones, making it even harder for him to realize that he truly had no one now. Cedric would have been the one to comfort him if he was grieving over anyone else in other circumstances, and that made it more real.
He would never have that again, he had lost his person. Dylan watched as they moved his body away from all the students, and they took away his brother.
Amos Diggory watched as Dylan sobbed, knowing he was mourning a loss just as big as his and brought him in for a hug that he desperately needed, both Amos and Dylan seeking the comfort they may have needed from Cedric if he were still here, making the loss just as heartbreaking.
It was hard for Fred to watch her mourn another guy. It was hard for him to understand how she was feeling right now, but that wouldn't stop him from holding her close that night and letting her seek the comfort she so desperately needed from him as she grieved. Fred may not have fully understand their friendship, relationship, whatever you want to call it, and he may have had his issues with Cedric himself, but he was able to realize that Hogwarts lost a good man, and Elle lost someone close to her, and for that, he was sorry. He would do what he could to help Elle, and if that meant he would hold her while she cried over Cedric, then he would do simply that. Whatever she needed, because what he felt about the matter and about Cedric didn't matter now, all the mattered was Elle.