Don't You Dare

So he told her. With a faltering voice, and distant, haunted eyes, he told her. They were perhaps a foot apart - the closest together they'd ever been, now that she thought about it - but they might as well have been on the other side of the planet. And as the spaces between each word stretched like elastic bands, she, who had always been talkative, found herself with nothing to say.

"And then I grabbed his arm and - I Summoned the Portkey, and I - we - were going back, and then we landed." A shudder passed over his face. "That's the end of it."

"Thank you," she said. Stupid. Fool. Idiot. He's just told you about how he dueled You-Know-Who and watched Cedric be murdered, and all you can think of to say is, "Thank you"? What a brilliant, sensitive conversationalist you are, Cho. "For telling me, I mean. And - thank you."

Silence. Now he was staring fixedly at his hands; with a start, she realized that in the fifteen minutes they'd been talking - she couldn't really call it a conversation - they'd never once made eye contact.

If this was a novel, she thought, we'd both know exactly what to say. We'd be having an articulate, meaningful conversation right now, then maybe sob a little and part friends. But this isn't a novel. And I have no idea what needs to be said, much less what I should say.

Literary creations have it too easy.

Well, here goes nothing.

"Do you blame yourself?"

The answer, when it came, was so quiet she had to strain in order to hear it. "Of course."

"Why? Did you owl You-Know-Who before the third task and ask him to kill Cedric?"

His face became rigid. "That's not funny."

Oh, good job, Cho. "I'm sorry. You're right, that wasn't funny. It's just - "

He looked at her quizzically. "Just what?"

"Well, I know this sounds a bit odd and rather off topic, but - well, have you ever noticed that the Forces of Darkness seem to be incapable of laughing at themselves?"

"Er - "

"Sorry," she said again with a rather rueful smile. "I told you that it would sound off topic. Anyway, I was thinking the other day - why can't they laugh at themselves? They're supposed to be all-powerful, so why aren't they capable of doing something as simple as being self-deprecating?

"But then I thought - that's the job of the Light, isn't it? Because the Dark is all just an illusion, really, it's all based on fraud and fakery and... well, illusion, and all the Light really has to do is take away the illusion, because once the fear is gone we're only fighting a group of people in swooshy black cloaks who like to give each other silly-looking tattoos and - " She ground to a halt. "And I sound like a complete idiot, don't I?"

"Actually," he said with a sort of sad half-grin, "that makes a lot more sense than anything else I've heard on the subject."

"Thanks," she said, feeling absurdly flattered. "But the point - well, the point before I got totally derailed, anyway - is that I don't think being completely serious about this all the time is healthy."

"It is serious."

"Of course. And I do take it seriously, Harry. I couldn't possibly do anything but take it seriously. You-Know-Who coming back, and Cedric dying..." Her voice trailed off. It took her a moment to continue. "But then - you move on, you know? I might be frightened of You-Know-Who, because I'd be an idiot not to, but that doesn't mean that I should devote every minute of my time to worrying about what he might do. It's the same with Cedric, really. Well, not exactly the same, obviously, but... you get the point. I'm sorry," she said for what seemed like the hundredth time since the conversation had started, "I seem to be babbling more than I normally do."

"That's all right." That sad half-smile again. "You're entitled."

"The thing is," she began again, "I was sad about Cedric, just like I would be upset if anyone I cared about had died. I won't bother to pretend that his death didn't affect me at all, because it did affect me, and frankly, I wouldn't like what that said about my personality if I didn't care at all. But just because I was sad and upset, and just because I miss him, doesn't mean that I'm totally incapacitated with grief. It doesn't mean that I cry my eyes out every night, or do any other kind of absurd thing that 'grieving widows' are supposed to do. I can still smile. I can still laugh. And for Hecate's sake stop blaming yourself, Harry, because you aren't responsible, You-Know-Who is the only one who's to blame, and don't you dare feel guilty about what he's done because I don't blame you and your friends obviously don't blame you and if Cedric were here he wouldn't blame you and nobody who would ever bother to look past what that idiot Skeeter woman wrote blames you and I know that I'm babbling again but I don't really care because you're blaming yourself and you shouldn't, you shouldn't ever think that you were responsible for anything that wasn't your fault and don't you dare talk about how you're responsible, Harry, don't you dare, don't you dare, don't you dare." There were tears on her face. When had she started crying? She couldn't remember. "It's fine to grieve, but we still have to live. To live, d'you hear me? There's just no point to still being alive if you're so caught up in what you could have done or might have done or should have done you don't remember what you can do."

She fell silent, her eloquence spent. Harry said nothing at first, his eyes tightly shut, his shoulders shaking, his entire body tensed as if to ward off a blow. But then he opened his eyes and, in a surprisingly calm voice that was marred only slightly by the occasional quiver, "Dumbledore told me once that you shouldn't dwell on dreams and - and forget to live."

What could she say to that? "He was right."

Harry sighed. "I guess so."

They sat in silence for awhile. Not the stilted, uncomfortable silence of before, but the silence of two exhausted people who have just fought their way through a blizzard and need time to rest. Perhaps it is a blizzard, at that. Cold and wet and nearly freezes you to death, but at least there's cocoa at the end. She chuckled.

"What?" he asked quizzically.

Her mouth quirked. "Nothing. Just a thought." Then, "Is every conversation we have going to be like this?"

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, I don't know. Crying. Babbling emotional outbursts. Things like that."

"Maybe. Probably not." He looked her in the eye for the first time. "I'd rather if they weren't, though."

"Yeah." She reached over and took his hand. He tensed slightly, but didn't pull away. "I'd like that, too."

Not an end, she decided as they stood and went their separate ways. Not even an end to the conversation; it wasn't the beginning, exactly, but definitely not the end. More like the middle. An exhausting, satisfying, frustrating, wonderful middle of things.

It wasn't much, but perhaps - perhaps - it would be enough.