Loss

[lokifan_import]

Title: Loss
Word count: ~350
Characters/pairings: Cedric, Cho, Harry (gen with background Cho/Harry)
Rating: G
Summary: “Some shadow of me was recalled before my body was cold, and now this shadow remains.”
Warnings: angst
Disclaimer: The boys belong to JKR, even though I’m often much nicer to them than she is.
Author’s Notes: This was written for sortinghatdrabs; the prompt was my love is gone, and the characters were Cedric, Cho and Harry. I won, in a super-close competition, which was nice.

I wrote this little ficlet about death about four hours before Mum called to say my granny had died. Also, I went to the local artsy pub’s cabaret last night, and the first two poems were about a: being a gran and b: death. I hate irony.






I didn’t choose to be a ghost; no longing for life or fear of death kept me hanging back. But some shadow of me was recalled before my body was cold, and now this shadow remains.

So I think, anyway. But I wasn’t a Ravenclaw, and I can’t ask Professor Dumbledore or one of the Hogwarts ghosts about it: neither the living nor the dead can see me.

Death scooped out my insides, gauged out my soul. It doesn’t hurt, though. It doesn’t much of anything.

I went to find my parents, when I first died. I wanted to check they were okay – well, of course they weren’t. I don’t know what I wanted. But I’m an only child, and the responsible type. So I went.

Mum was sobbing. She was on their bed, face-down in the pillows so that all I could hear were the half-smothered sounds of her grief. Her body heaved and arched with each cry – as if it were physical agony, as if she were doing some hard and painful work. Like giving birth.

Dad sat downstairs in the kitchen. The sound of Mum crying filtered through the ceiling but he barely seemed to notice. His skin looked as thin and pale as old parchment, like it’d crumble under your hand. He looked ten years older, and his robes hung off him.

I backed away in lack of horror. I should’ve been screaming inside, but I felt nothing at all – not even the compassion I’d have felt for strangers. Just a vague emptiness, like fog had replaced my heart.

I didn’t want to be there any more, watching my parents suffer and being impervious to it. I went back to Hogwarts.

Things are already beginning to move on without me. I still want emotion back, so I watch my friends, and Cho; the only people who seem to remember me.

Tonight Cho kissed Harry Potter under mistletoe. Her skin was glowing in the candlelight, and her face was wet with tears. I felt nothing at all.

My love is gone. So is everything else.

Comments

[kuri-taichou.livejournal.com]

This is beautiful.

[lokifan]

Thank you! Weird little thing, but I like it.