𝚜𝚝𝚘𝚕𝚎𝚗 𝚍𝚊𝚗𝚌𝚎. fred weasley

𝚡𝚡𝚡. 𝚕𝚘𝚜𝚝 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚐𝚛𝚎𝚢

✦✧✦

     There's a moment between the shouts and excitement where there's just silence. It's almost as though everything is in slow motion, like the world is caked in honey and everyone is sifting through the thick substance slowly. Voices turn to muted bass pounding at the back of Cress's skull and the colors in front of her have a tint on them. It's like they're dulling, the life steadily leaving the green shine of the grass, the yellow turning burnt instead of vibrant. Perspiration collects at the back of her neck and hands clamp down on her, suffocating.

     The hands feel like ropes made of steel that have been burned in one hundred-degree temperatures for hours. It contrasts with the cooling chill of the hands Cress clutches at like a lifeline.

     They've told her to let go, to pry her hands from the body resting underneath her hands. But Cress won't relent, can't let go because he made a promise.

     Her eyes squint open, just a tad. She's worn out and exhausted and her heart beating on her ribcage. In front of her, the dirty coal of Harry Potter's hair covers her sight and she remembers, for a moment, where they are.

     The third task. The uneasy feeling in her body from earlier before, the one that made it feel like she was walking through mud, each step harder as she sank down into oblivion. The laughter she faked with her friends, the tears she cried leading up to this night, the night stars shining, reminding her of the here and now, of the then. She spares a glance up and they glitter down at her, almost mocking.

     Cress shakes her head. She's wading through the honey and everything feels heavy. Her hand does not release its grip, even though her fingers are growing cold and her heart is cracking at the seams with each passing breath that she takes — breaths that she can't feel him mimic.

     "He wanted me to bring him back," Harry mumbles, to her or to Dumbledore, who wants them both to let go of him. "He wanted me to bring him back to his parents. . . To his sister. . ."

     Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

     Her vision tunnels on Harry Potter. There are tears caked in with the dirt on his face, blood smeared across his cheek. His cheeks are hollowed in, his mouth turned down in a frown that Cress thinks will never go away. His hair is askew, and his glasses crooked, eyes so bright and so green that Cress feels like she's looking at a firefly, and he looks so, so heartbroken, so much like a child who had to go through hell and back before he truly knew what hell was.

     Harry's forcefully taken away from her and it jostles the calm peace the three of them had been in and she almost screams. She opens her mouth and she wants to shout at them to be considerate because Cedric is tired and he's injured and they need to take him to the hospital wing so Madam Pomfrey can check on him, but no one listens.

     Because everyone is screaming.

     Faintly, in the distant, she can hear Amos.

     The wail that breaks out of him shatters the illusion. The world is not swaying in honey anymore, but it's been doused by ice cold water, icy and biting. Cress stares ahead and she hears the screams of him, the broken screams of a father who lost something precious, hears her mother's cries, the cries of a mother who lost the life she made, and something inside of her — breaks.