2A/N: A little one-shot inspired by Harry's death, when he ends up at King's Cross Station. This is my imagining of where Cedric ended up when he died. Constructive criticism/reviews would be great, as I'm very nervous on how this one turned out.I don't own Harry Potter.
/ /
"We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown."
- The Love-Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot
/ /
"Kill the spare."
A graveyard, a flash of green, then silence.
An elbow struck his side. Cedric opened his eyes.
The throng of people (were they even people anymore, in death?) around him swayed back-and-forth, back-and-forth, back-and-forth with the tide, hollow flotsam in an ocean. The water reached Cedric's waist. He looked at the horizon, knowing that was where he had to go. Further and further, until the seawater reaches his chest, then his neck, and the sea steals him completely.
The vast ocean was taken straight from a children's book, parts being wild and free and full of rage, rage, rage (quite ready for pirate ships and adventures), while other parts lay completely calm. Still enough to hear the water lapping on a shore somewhere far, far away that Cedric could not see.
If he ignored the white-tipped waves crashing against his side, and the ship wreckage of a crowd around him, it would've looked a holiday maker's postcard. There was something – something in the water, the seagulls' shrill shrieks as they darted in and out of the clouds, the tendrils of auburn seaweed that Cedric just knew was the hair of a curious mermaid, the very specific smell of sea salt – that just screamed childhood. Had he been there before?
"I WON'T!"
The voice startled Cedric from his thoughts. He didn't hesitate in splashing through the water, not towards the horizon, but towards the echoing voice, and the sound of water lapping against the shore that was so-so-so familiar.
The crowd did not part for him. Once or twice, he bumped shoulders with people he knew – he once knew. His grandmother, with her kind eyes and long dress, lapping around her knees but remaining perfectly dry. A distant great-aunt. People who shared his long limbs and dark hair and easy smile. A young boy holding a red balloon, swaying in the breeze, waved at Cedric as he walked past. He did not look sad to have left the real world behind.
Cedric waved back.
A sliver of sand eventually appeared. Wading through the waves, Cedric saw that he was no longer alone.
An old man limped behind him, slicing through the water with his walking stick.
A plump woman a little ways behind the man – had Cedric read about her in the papers? The one that had gone missing? Bertha someone?
A young woman behind them, with vibrant, out of place red hair.
A young bespectacled man ended the procession. He reminded Cedric of someone. Someone important.
Cedric stepped onto the golden sand. He remembered now, his summers upon summers spent on that very beach. The home of mermaids and pirates and treasure. Cornwall.
Gold began to take over his vision – not like the last time, with a quick flash of Killing Curse green, but slowly and steadily, from the grains of sand at his feet, to every inch of sky above him. Cedric was left standing once again in front of Harry Potter.
He had one last request to make.