And then he dies [Mort au Nom de l'Amour - Translation]

Like a Proust madeleine, Amortentia brings him back to the past.

Firstly, he’s suprised. Confused about this known smell however hard to grasp. He breathes again. Slower and deeper. Maybe he knows that he knows it, inside of him. But he cannot admits it to himself. It would be too much. Hope and deception at the same time are really hurtful ; like salt on open wounds that never stop to bleed. But he can’t help himself but trying to identify the different fragrances of the potion : broomstick polish, fresh air and a fruity perfume.

Secondly, memories stun him hardly. The most horrible ones first : his sudden death, his not less sudden but brief resurrection, and all the times he must have seen that something was wrong in this bloody tournament. And then regrets ; the useless arguments, the plans for a futur that will never happen, all of the words that Harry didn’t have the time to say.

Then, the bittersweet reminiscence of daily moments together. A recollection of a life which will never be fixed. Harry thinks about the black and yellow quidditch jersey secretly kept in his school trunk. And Harry suddenly needs to bury his head in it to smell the vestige of Cedric’s presence : trying to merge with what survived to Cedric, what materially keeps him here : nearly nothing, actually.

Harry imagines far too clearly the meterialization of the ancient Hufflepuff’s seeker’s figure ; solid and comforting. He was a Triwizard champion. He was a considerate and lovely boyfriend. He was a brilliant wizard. He was killed though. Killed because he entered Harry’s life like some others before and after him, and probably many others in the future.

Tears burn his eyes but he doesn’t even give every appearance of moving. He hears Hermione saying him to get away from the potion, but he’s not capable of. He can’t take himself away of this familiar perfume who was the only one ever able to make him feeling at ease. This perfume from the only one person who ever said to Harry he loved him.

He recollects the confidenses, the things he never confessed to anyone and that Cedric made him saying so easly. Things he no longer said to anyone since.

And suddenly, Harry’s frightened. He’s frightened because he knows that he’ll always been inhabited by Cedric’s ghost. And he has no intention of driving him away, owning to the fact that he has no intention of someday loving someone as he loved Cedric. As he still loves him. Never mind ; even if he wanted to, he propably couldn’t.

~

So when, two years later, he gets out of Snape’s pensieve, he feels relieved. He actually can dying. He have to exactly. His friends shouldn’t suffer of the possibility that they could have saved him ; He just has no other choice. Right ?

~

The resurrection stone in his hand, he smiles at a ghost whom he’s the only one capable of seeing.

“You’re waiting for me over there, aren't you?”

The ghost smiles back.

“Of course I am,” he answers with a lovely indulgent look which always made Harry falling deeper and deeper in love each time he has saw it during his living time.

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

~

While he faces Voldemort, Harry couldn’t even think about his imminent death because his head is full of Cedric. While Dumbledore gives him the detailed explanations about what made his life such a living hell since its beginning, Harry can’t manage to feel concerned about that and can only think to Cedric.

“Dear Harry, I am under the impression that you aren’t exactly with me. Am I correct?”

Dumbledore gives him a perspicacious look above his half-moon spectacles, as he always did. And this familiar view spreads a pleasant heat through Harry’s stomac. “It’s possible,” he thoughts.

Harry doesn’t answer, so Dombledore continues :

“You don’t want to go back.”

It wasn’t a question but Harry still answers :

“Not for the world,”

And then he dies.