Winter

秋天

She had been so very happy that day. Everyone had been. It was all so exciting; the feeling in her stomach, the rush that coursed through her veins, the heightened sights and smells. Everything and everyone was wonderful, fresh and beautiful. Her largest worry was that he would be injured by a Blast-Ended Skrewt. It's funny how human beings place such great importance on all the silly little things in life. Like winning and loosing. Oh, if only. If only she had known beforehand, well, then maybe she would have told him something more then just "good luck". Or, if only he had been hexed, or had a spell backfired. If only he had made a wrong turn and reached the cup a few seconds later. If only...if only he hadn't...

There was a gasp and then a sob. She fought as the tear rolled down her cheek. She was strong, she wouldn't cry. She couldn't cry. Yet here she was, crying. "Why?" she choked, "Why, why, why?" Her vision blurred as she looked up at her ceiling, the endless sea of white. It was so...so...empty. She clung tightly to her sheets.

It was hard to see what was going on. She was seated between Roger Davies and Marietta Edgecomb in the stands, borrowing Alicia Spinnet's omnioculars every few minutes in attempt to see if anything new was happening down on the pitch. Much to their disappointment, from where they sat they could barely see anything, even with the omnioculars. This, however, did not keep Roger from shouting lewd comments at Krum whenever sparks flew above the hedges.

"Ladies first, you big, overgrown...Bulgarian bundimun!" Cho and Katie Bell giggled quietly as a particularly sour-looking Durmstrang student advanced on Roger. "Hey there chap. Oh no, no, I didn't mean that. I'm just simply encouraging fair play. Err, not that your champion isn't playing fair--" Roger was spared when Sheila Fawcett yanked on the advancing student's robe under the pretenses of wanting to be taught how to say 'whipped little sod' in Balgarski.

Cho was not sure how much time had passed, but suddenly Krum and Fleur were outside of the maze. Both seemed to be injured, and it was quite clear that they were out of the game. A deafening roar of cheers drowned out the muttering and crying students of Durmstrang and Beauxbatons. Alicia gave a loud whoop and pulled Cho and Mariettainto a hug. "Go Hogwarts!" they all cheered. Cho turned her grin into a tiny smile and "Go Cedric!" escaped her lips in an exhilarated whisper. She looked down at the pitch. It would only be a few more minutes of her life and this would all be over- all of this fantastic energy would be diverted into celebrating the new Triwizard champion.

But the energy waned....and then there was only silence.

She would never forget that awful, mind numbing silence.

"Oi, what's going on?" cried a Weasley twin. Everyone fidgeted. Over an hour had passed now. Where were Cedric and Harry? She glanced nervously at the people around her. Alicia and Angelina Johnson were exchanging confused looks. The Weasley twins were jabbering back and forth at each other in an awkward manner. She could hardly see them, five little black dots, but the panel of judges was moving slowly towards the entrance of the maze. She could make out Dumbledore's long silvery beard among them.

She spun around in confusion, and her gaze fell upon the youngest Weasley boy and the bushy haired Gryffindor girl. They were pale. The girl sighed wearily and Ron- at least she thought that was his name- reached for her hand, his expression stony, his eyes never moving from the pitch. The silence was killing them. They were Harry Potter's friends, she thought, and they knew of all the horrors that he had faced at Hogwarts. She had never seen them so scared before.

And that's when her stomach began to churn-- Right then and there, when she looked into the eyes of the two Gryffindors. It was a sickening feeling. Before she had been worried, but this was something more. Something burned inside of her. Fear.

冬天

"Let me see him!" she screamed and kicked, but Roger held her back. "Let go! Let go of me!" she cried through her sobs. Roger's grasp felt weak, but the second she tried to pull away, he held tight. Marietta rushed in front to Roger's aid, trying to calm the hysterical Cho while working through her own shock. Cho slowed in her kicking and stared at Marietta, whose drained faced and slumping posture must have mirrored her own. She looked like her knees were ready to give in.

"He's not..." Cho asked quietly. "He's not...he can't be," she pleaded. Being embraced by her friend was the last thing that she could remember before slumping to the ground from shock and fatigue.

They decided not to bury him. Instead the Diggorys had the body cremated, and planned on spreading the ashes in the park along the Otter River where Cedric had played as child. It seemed appropriate enough. They had decided against the Hogwarts grounds to spare his friends of any more pain, though there was talk of putting up a memorial plaque. She was just grateful that they hadn't buried the body.

The thought of Cedric, six feet below the earth, his body, his hair, his beautiful smile...rotting. The shoulders that she had rested her head upon, the hair that she had played with, the lips that she had kissed...decaying; it was just all too much to take. Yet in the days immediately following his death, she had summoned that image many times. Each time, the bile would rise in her throat, and she would burst into tears, cradling a stuffed bear close to her body.

Why? How? How could someone so wonderful just be taken from the world? Someone who never held a grudge, or said anything terrible, or hated anyone. Why was someone with such great potential for life the one singled out as the first victim? At times she wished that someone else had died. Krum. Fleur. Why not the likes of Flint or Malfoy? Of course, after these thoughts crossed her mind, she would dissolve back into tears, hating herself for saying a thing like that. No one deserved to die. No one else should have to feel the pain she was going through. That the Diggorys were going through.

She often wondered what his last moments were like. She hoped that it--death--had been quick. Even though she didn't want him to have felt any pain, she knew that her hopes were somewhat in vain. The killing curse had been his end, and certainly something so awful could not be forgiving to its victims. Still, she could hope.

She often also wondered what went through the mind of Harry Potter. Was his grief as great as hers? Surely, it was different, but was it worse? What would he have to live with, the only person to witness the last few seconds of Cedric's life? What was it like to watch someone's life be taken from them? Whenever she cried and thought of Cedric's death, she inevitably thought of Harry, the kind and quiet boy who had to witness something so horrible. At first, she had blamed him; her Cedric was dead because of Harry, he had led Cedric to his death. Quickly however, she realized that it had been but an accident, a slip up in the fabrics of destiny that had put Cedric there to be murdered, to die at a time when he shouldn't have. To place the blame upon Potter was wrong, for the guilt of Cedric's death surely hung over his head by his own means. If...if he could cope, she would find ways to deal with her grief too.

It made it easier, the summer did. Being at home, away from Hogwarts, she could pretend that nothing had changed. Or at least, she could try. Cedric's death seemed to have very little effect on the wizarding world. For the first few weeks, there were patronizing articles in the Daily Prophet and interviews with school friends, but they never once mentioned He Who Must Not Be Named. The death itself was treated as an accident, a tragic one, but still an accident. Any indication that it might have been otherwise, that it had been murder, was met with backlash.

She was never once mentioned in those articles, something that made her half thankful and half disappointed. Surely, she had meant something to him in his short life...she had given him something. Maybe not love, but loyalty and affection when he needed it most. She had resigned herself already to never truly knowing whether she had loved Cedric or not. It had been too early to tell, he had been taken from her too soon. She would never be able to gauge it against future relationships, because the thought of what could have been would always linger in her mind.

She couldn't carry on like this, though. Everyday, she cried. Everyday she thought of him. And as the summer waned, her strength faded too. She knew what she would have to face when she returned to Hogwarts, but she had to face it. She would mourn again, perhaps with her fellow students, or perhaps silently in her dorm at night. She would divide herself into little pieces and spread them among many people, hoping, wishing to never be hurt again. Not all those seeds would flower. There would be whispers in the hallways, and rumors on the grounds, but not all about her. She would find others who shared her grief, but would act too soon upon hope and restlessness.

And then the whispering in the hallway would die down, and then the tears would come less easily at night, but the pain would still be there. And then the pain would fade and her thoughts would stray to the whys and what ifs. And then slowly, over time, she would stop thinking about him daily. It would be something that she would just stop and ponder over one day...when did her thoughts stop straying to him? It's not that she had forgotten him...but the sorrow had been replaced with happier memories...the memories that she had associated things with before his death. When she saw flowers, she wouldn't think of the red roses at his service, but of the times when she was young and had picked daisies with her mother. When she saw books, she wouldn't think of the hours spent in the library helping him learn spells for the tournament, but of her father's dusty tomes in his study. When she flew...she would smile. Flying reminded her of Cedric, but not of his death. Flying reminded her of his life.

"Qiu...Qiu..." her mother rapped softly at the door. The door creaked open slowly and a beam of light from the hallway shone on her bed. A trail of tears still rested on her porcelain cheeks, and she had kicked off most of her sheets, goose bumps rising ever so slightly across her skin. Yet she seemed to have at least found some peace in sleep. The tiny woman in the bathrobe glided over and sat down next to her daughter. She pulled the sheets back over and pushed a few hairs away from her daughter's face gently. Cupping Cho's face with her hands, she whispered in Mandarin, smiling, "Autumn may turn into winter my child, but spring always follows. It's just a matter of time before the rains come to wash it all away."

Cho smiled in her sleep. Spring would follow.

春天

For Sascha