Giving it up meant going back to being the ordinary Cedric Diggory he had been before.
Could he still make it further in the Triwizard Tournament?
But what if he did not give it up?
Sooner or later, this noise would drive him mad.
At last, he understood.
True strength was not about harnessing a beast he could not control at all.
True strength was having absolute confidence in the sword already in his hand.
What he needed was not more savage power, but a clearer head and a more resolute heart.
Cedric raised his head and looked at Moaning Myrtle.
Every pained, twisted line on his face relaxed at that moment, turning into a relieved, utterly sincere smile.
"Thank you, Myrtle."
"Really, thank you."
Moaning Myrtle was a little overwhelmed by his sudden sincerity, and a faint "blush" actually appeared on her pearly-white ghostly cheeks.
She waved a hand shyly, plunged headfirst into a nearby tap, and vanished.
Cedric sat beside the bath and closed his eyes.
He no longer tried to fight or suppress the noise in his head through willpower.
He learned to ignore it.
Just as he would ignore the irritating wind outside the window or an irrelevant conversation in the distance.
He accepted its presence without letting it control him.
Something remarkable happened.
When he stopped fixating on control, that savage power seemed instead to lose its target, gradually becoming a little more docile.
The noise remained, but it was no longer a sharp needle piercing his brain. Instead, it became a tolerable, constant background hum.
He had been reborn.
That night, with an unprecedented sense of ease and joy, he wrote Cho Chang a long letter, sharing his joy in it.
During these days when he could not go near her.
He had been