Dream or Reality?

A few words before we begin

[A short guide to reading this story]

Cedric × Clara

Original female lead; the original couple is split up. If that bothers you, proceed with caution.

In this version, Cedric had a crush on Cho early on, but the two were never together.

A happy ending for everyone.

The aim is for everyone to survive.

If you're okay with everything so far,

please keep reading~

Thank you to everyone who clicked on this story~

Love you all!

The final task of the Goblet of Fire was held on the Quidditch Pitch.

A winding maze had been magically grown on the once-level grass. Black mist shrouded it, hiding its end from view.

The four Champions emerged surrounded by a crowd, and cheers rose and fell across the stands. Clara was among the spectators.

Her name was Clara Albert, one of the ordinary fifth-year Hufflepuff students at Hogwarts. She came from a Muggle family, was neither pretty nor plain, her grades were neither high nor low, and she was neither good nor bad at Quidditch. She had never accomplished any amazing feats at school.

If she had to name anything unconventional about herself, there was perhaps only one thing: she had been secretly in love with Cedric Diggory for five whole years, ever since their first year.

Oh, no, there was one more thing. She had asked Cedric to the Yule Ball.

Of course, Diggory had smiled and turned her down in a very gentle voice. "Sorry, Miss Albert. Thank you for asking, but I've already asked Cho Chang."

She had smiled and said it was all right. Then, according to her friend Rowle Collins, she had been in a daze for three whole days.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the final task of the Triwizard Tournament is about to begin!"

The referee was Mr. Bagman from the Ministry of Magic, and his booming voice pulled her out of her memories. Clara jerked her head up and saw Cedric standing with his father in front of the maze entrance, his back straight. He glanced back toward the stands, probably looking for Cho Chang, then turned and walked into the thick black mist.

The maze swallowed the four figures like a giant beast. Flashes and crackles came from within as they cast spells, though Clara was sitting too far away to see clearly.

Waiting was the longest thing in the world, or so Clara thought.

After about thirty minutes, or perhaps longer, a burst of red sparks shot out of the maze, and Krum was immediately transported out. Before long, Fleur Delacour also appeared outside the maze.

Clara thought they had probably been eliminated.

The Hogwarts students began to cheer, because whether it was Potter or Diggory, Hogwarts had already won this year's Triwizard Tournament.

Soon, Harry Potter and Cedric appeared on the grass, one lying on his back and the other facedown, with a blue cup beside them. Clara could feel the stands beneath her feet nearly collapsing from all the stamping. Clara felt she should have been happy, but for some reason, she had a bad feeling.

Why weren't they getting up?

Why was her heart beating so hard?

Headmaster Dumbledore and a number of Ministry of Magic officials gathered around them. They seemed to say something, and a commotion swept through the crowd.

"Diggory's dead!"

The world seemed to fall silent in an instant. Clara followed the crowd toward the maze. The people around her seemed to be crying and shouting, but it was as if a Muffliato spell had been cast on her ears. She couldn't hear a thing.

She saw Cedric lying there with his eyes open, those beautiful gray-blue eyes staring motionlessly at the sky.

She stared at that face, the face she had secretly watched since she was eleven. Now all its usual warmth and liveliness were gone.

Everything suddenly went black before her eyes.

Then she woke up.

More precisely, she was awakened by a knocking at the door.

"Clara! Clara Albert, if you don't get up now, breakfast will be gone!" It was Rowle's voice, accompanied by thumping on the door, full of the liveliness unique to the Hufflepuff Common Room.

Clara jolted upright in bed.

She looked around. Pale green light from the water filtered through the round windows, and the dormitory was filled with that familiar scent of earth and grass. Her roommate, Cersei Bones, was brushing her hair in front of the mirror and jumped at the noise.

"Did you have a nightmare?" Cersei turned to look at her, her expression calm.

This didn't look like a school where someone had died. Clara frowned.

"I..." she began, her voice terribly hoarse. "What's the date today?"

"June twenty-fourth," Cersei said, looking at her strangely. "Oh, Merlin! Today's the day of the Goblet of Fire final. Are you still half asleep?"

Clara's heart suddenly sank, but before she could think further, a great, illogical relief washed over her like a tide. It was a dream. Everything just now had been a dream. Cedric was still alive, the final hadn't begun, and none of it had happened yet.

She practically jumped out of bed. Her hands shook as she washed up, and she got her buttons wrong twice while dressing. Rowle was waiting for her in the common room and paused when she saw her come out. "Lyla, why do you look so pale?"

"It's nothing. I had a nightmare." Clara didn't want her friend to worry, so she forced a smile.

As soon as she finished speaking, a commotion came from the passage to the boys' dormitories. Clara turned and saw Cedric enter the common room surrounded by several boys. Perhaps out of relief after the nightmare, her body reacted before her brain did.

"Good morning, Cedric."

She and Cedric weren't particularly close. Aside from the Yule Ball, they had hardly interacted.

Cedric seemed a little surprised, but he quickly recovered and smiled at her. "Good morning, Albert."

Clara watched his retreating figure as he left the common room. Her heart was still beating fast, and she felt an emotion she couldn't quite describe.

That was just a dream, Clara, just a dream, she reassured herself. Look, he's alive and well. If nothing else, you have to trust Dumbledore, don't you?

The weather on June twenty-fourth was unbelievably good, just as it had been in the dream.

Clara was distracted all morning. Rowle took her to the Great Hall for breakfast, where she stared blankly at the golden-red Pumpkin Juice on the long table. Rowle talked to her, and she murmured replies, but her gaze kept drifting of its own accord to the other end of the Hufflepuff table. Cedric was sitting there, surrounded by a group of younger students. She didn't know what he was saying, but the people around him burst into laughter.

Clara tightened her grip on her fork until her knuckles turned white. The images from the dream were so clear that she could still see those dull gray-blue eyes whenever she closed her own. She had never had such a real dream, so real that it was like some kind of prophecy.

"Lyla, you're going to poke so many holes in your fried egg it'll look like a sieve." Rowle waved a hand in front of her face. "What's wrong with you? You've looked like you've seen a ghost ever since you got up."

Clara put down her fork and hesitated. "Rowle, do you believe dreams can predict the future?"

"Huh? What did you dream about?"

Clara opened her mouth, then swallowed her words.

What was she supposed to say? That she had dreamed Cedric Diggory died? Tonight? In the final task of the Triwizard Tournament? It sounded like the ravings of a girl sick with unrequited love.

"It's nothing, just a nightmare." In the end, she shook her head and stood up. "I'm going to get some air."

As she left the Great Hall, she happened to see Cedric get up from the long table as well. He was wearing a dark blue sweater today that made his eyes look especially beautiful. Clara stood beside a pillar in the corridor, watching him walk past, talking and laughing with a few friends. Her feet suddenly stopped, as if nailed to the spot.

"Cedric."

The moment the word left her mouth, she startled herself. Cedric stopped and looked back at her, and his friends turned around curiously as well.

Clara's palms were slick with sweat. She could feel her face burning, but she still forced herself to step forward. "The third task is a maze, right?"

She regretted it as soon as she said it. Articles had been published in the newspapers, and everyone knew that. She looked as if she were grasping for something to say.

Luckily, Cedric was gentle by nature. He probably hadn't expected this younger schoolmate, who hardly ever spoke to him, to suddenly take an interest in the tournament. After his initial surprise, he quickly gave her his trademark gentle smile. "Yes, Albert. Is something wrong?"

"You..." Clara took a deep breath. "Be careful."

The smile on Cedric's lips widened, and he nodded earnestly. "Thanks, I will."

Clara stood there, watching his tall figure disappear at the end of the corridor.

She had said it. That made her feel a little more at ease. Maybe this could change something; maybe the ending in her dream wouldn't happen.

As it turned out, her relief had been entirely unfounded.

That evening, as she sat in the stands at the Quidditch Pitch and watched Mr. Bagman announce the start of the task in his booming voice, that familiar unease came rushing back. Everything was exactly as it had been in her dream: the maze shrouded in black mist, Amos Diggory patting Cedric on the shoulder, and Cedric's glance back at the stands.

Clara clenched the robes in her lap.

The wait was still long. Krum was transported out, Fleur was eliminated, and the Hogwarts students began to cheer. Then Harry and Cedric appeared on the grass at the same time.

One was lying on his back, the other facedown.

Clara's blood froze in that instant. She heard screams, heard cries, heard Dumbledore's voice cutting through the chaos of the crowd, all the sounds mingling together. She didn't know how she got down from the stands. She only knew that when her feet touched the grass, the dew on the blades soaked her shoes.

"Diggory's dead!"

Someone was shouting.

No, that wasn't right. She had spoken to him that morning. She had even told him to be careful. She had said it.

But when she pushed through the crowd and saw Cedric lying on the grass, everything was exactly as it had been in her dream. His gray-blue eyes were open, staring motionlessly at the June night sky. The face that had smiled at her that morning was now utterly expressionless.

There was chaos all around her. Someone was shouting a name, someone was crying, and someone was demanding to know why. Then she heard Harry Potter's voice, hoarse, terrified, broken, and halting:

"...He's back... he's back..."

Everything suddenly went black before Clara's eyes.

Just as in the dream, darkness swept over her.