#becAUSE man that word u wrote about cedric having his own nightmares got me

[dyncstes-a]

i left my heart with you.

a drabble for @sparekilled because idk man i ❤ angst . also because you liked my permanent starter call.

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they say only the participant of a traumatic event would experience the aftermath of the death that hasn’t yet claimed them — and yet hans has never failed to wake up night after night with sweats cloaking up his body and shivers running down his spine at the sight of a still cedric underneath potter . it’s a repeating tragedy when he’s ripped again to this reality still shaken from a nightmare that seems so real . in his nightmare , dumbledore gives a depressing eulogy that leaves blackness dotting across his eyes at the space where he does not cry . in his nightmare , he does not accept cedric’s death . he watches almost all of everybody mourns , but as he steps to give his apology to a grieving amos , all he does is steals cedric’s tie to hook around his arm . hidden , sacred — his .

the reality is , again and again he will thank fate , that cedric hasn’t died . the curse that’s marred his body is impure , deadly even , but not impossibly lethal . that doesn’t mean the hufflepuff’s comatose state was any better . mcgonagall keeps him on a leash from constantly visiting cedric , which is a pain , but — hans recognises later — a necessary evil . he’s still granted visits , however , when dumbledore seizes him one day as he’s argued up and down to let the bloody school free him so he’s to go to st. mungo’s ——— dumbledore seems understandable enough , in an annoying way as though he’s picked apart hans’ mind when he wasn’t looking and could know of all of these wrestling emotions boiling and curling , and lets hans go . but not without a few promises and rules .

( he’s to help organise any future school event personally and without complaint. )

any other occasion , the rules would look like a special kind of burden . but the thought that something may happen to cedric when he isn’t there to make sure everything runs smoothly ? hans shivers . accepts the terms . a month and fifteen days later , cedric wakes up .

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he swallows those nightmares like he eats his secrets ——— he keeps it inside , proper and filed , named and dated , but never to anyone . some days , this makes him sick . some days , this makes him stronger . most days , when he does get to visit cedric , he doesn’t truly visit cedric at all . the diggorys are an usual occupant around their youngest’s member’s ward , and while hans’ chest aches and pleas for him to just sit — not much , he just wants to see that the other is breathing — next to cedric’s lying form , he doesn’t . hans is usually good with parents , he knows , and , perhaps , if he asks properly , he may have a time alone with cedric even if it’s just for five minutes , but — how selfish can he be  ?

cedric’s family aren’t like his own . they care , they weep , they mourn and they pray . they deserve all the time they would get with their son , and hans is willing to give it to them . ( it feels like he’s swallowing nails when he sees them there just as he’s about to enter the ward , because he knows he’s not worthy to be among such kind people ; because he knows , compared to them , his own grieve means nothing . ) he doesn’t like it , but he’s willing . so he sits dutifully where mediwizards pass through , and he reads all he can about curses and cures and ‘how to be a good friend’ , and he harasses the staff for cedric’s state and questions and medicines . 

and hans gets into lots of arguments — he’s bitter and sad and manic most of the time , and sometimes when one of the matrons makes his blood boil , he could almost hear cedric’s pleading , soft voice hushing his demons away . it doesn’t command hans to stop , but merely assures hans that cedric is , in fact , okay . one of the evening when he’s bent over a book , mrs. diggory spots him , recognises . “you’re one of cedric’s friend , aren’t you ? hans, right ?” and , for a moment , hans feels like words were a foreign language to him .

he’s given a little more than sufficient access after that , rotating with the diggorys whenever he’s there so that the pair of parents could take a short trip home to bathe and rest . in the end , it works out . this awkward arrangement . there were also other visits . hufflepuffs , mostly . hans doesn’t interrupt those visits too whenever they come and he’s coincidentally there to make sure cedric isn’t decaying away ——— well , all except for cho . he glares most of the time she’s there . she pointedly makes all of her visits appropriately short , and perhaps he’s been with the diggorys too much , but hans thinks he may have experienced just a tinge of guilt . he scrubs them away like another file of his depression ; ready to be ignored and left to dust .

the routine changes a bit when cedric finally wakes up . he does so when hans is in the middle of a class , and it sends hans frantic and unable to focus during advance potions which makes snape glowers , which in return makes hans glowers back — and , perhaps it’s the green-silver bowtie that’s embed around his neck , but thankfully all snape does is roll his eyes and pretends hans doesn’t exist for the remaining time until the class is excused . when he’s finally , finally , allowed to be at st. mungo’s , with dumbledore trailing behind , hans finds himself stopping when he spots the diggorys and harry potter and cho-fucking-chang already crowding the ward.

hans waits and waits and waits at the hall ( he reads the charts and listens to the mediwizards ramble medical terms that he’s come to know over the month cedric wasn’t waking up ) , and he swears he could taste glasses down his tongue when dumbledore emerges requesting all of the hogwarts students returning — visiting hour is over , after all — and hans is there , dumbfounded , because he hadn’t even gotten the chance to see cedric yet ( he hadn’t wanted to share his moments with other people. he can’t. dear lord , please allow him this . ) and — and how could it ? but hans swallows the thick bile at the back of his throat , his shoes ready to follow when mrs. diggory calls . 

“he wants to see you.”

hans tells himself he isn’t crying when he parts the curtain hiding cedric from public view as he steps into the small area of the ward . with a hazy flicker of grey eyes landing on him , it seems like all of the nightmares he’s buried in his hollowed stomach disappears . he breathes , comes forward and track a gloveless finger down the other’s pulse — closing his eyes when they beat . cedric is watching him , smiling maybe . hans can’t really tell . the prince sits , face painful from trying to hide his own grin too much and he croaks ,

❛   thank you.   ❜

i love you.

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cedric doesn’t take the final exams that year . he could , and hans has been willing to help him without him even asking , but the mediwizard hadn’t advised the youngest of diggory to do so . hans harasses the nurse some more for information , because it’s odd that they’ve denied a student of education and hans isn’t quite himself if he’s not suspicious : only to find out two weeks into cedric’s recovery that the dark-haired man might be suffering more than just physical pain .

hans begins reading more into post traumatic stress disorder . 

the wizarding kind still kindly calls it “battle fatigues” and hans gets books on those too . there were many attempted cures , he’s discovered , both magical and muggle kinds — but ptsd has never been a tangible thing . nothing completely goes away . ( and something in hans knows this , because he might be experiencing it too — been experiencing it his whole life — but he makes note on the herbs and medications and procedures , anyway . he has to . he can’t stand feeling helpless . ) he never tells cedric this . but he talks to the mediwizard often , now being in a much better term once cedric’s civilised their relationship , to ensure the proper treatment’s taken .

a month after cedric wakes up , st. mungo finally grants him a date to be released . summer comes .

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summer is hard for hans . in order for him to be granted visits to london so he could sneak to the wizarding world requires him exerting extra efforts in obeying father’s commands . but he doesn’t want to complaint . not if it means he gets to see cedric twice in a week . thankfully , brothers weren’t particularly around much , so the abuse has only been limited to jabs and their usual mock and perhaps a pinch or two along hans’ ribs until hans cries .

he still doesn’t tell cedric this . he knows it weighs on the hufflepuff that hans isn’t willing to share his pain when he’s generously welcomed hans to know every bits of him that he could expose . but — it’s harder now . cedric isn’t well , and hans hates dropping burden that he’s well adapted to carry on his own . things still get better however . he tells cedric more — not about the nightmare , not about the jobs that father has him do just to grant him these little time where he could lie down and share the moment with the other boy . but he opens up more about his mother that never truly comes out from her room . about where he’s travelled as a child . about how his family hates the wizarding kind so very much , they tear hans’ first robe when hans keeps wearing it the first time he comes home from hogwarts — which was why hans never wear those much , and he’s owned only three in his life .

cedric is patient and kind through it all : through hans , his own pain , his parents’ fussing and his many friends’ visits . and — slowly — he gets better with time . hans wishes he could say he’s there most of the time when the hufflepuff makes a huge progress , but that would be a lie . cedric still insist the prince does more than he gives himself credit for , and — as they lie on the bed watching the rain drops and hans having just finishes cedric off with his palm covered in the other’s cum — hans tells cedric he loves him . not because he’s just given a handjob rather successfully , or that because he’s felt it’s necessary since it’s something people who were dating tended to confess to one another , but simply because he think he has loved cedric for a while now . 

and , he admits quietly when he’s cleaning the other’s remnants off with a tissue , it’s good to love somebody who loves you back .

cedric doesn’t seem like he’s disagreeing .

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in the end , with all of hans’ fear of not wanting his heart getting broken by another , he ends up being the one who breaks cedric’s heart . it’s february 12 — two days before valentine’s — and people cowering in fear of things that cannot be stopped any longer , that hans packs his suitcases and shoves them into his trunk . some have already branded him a coward with a glare and cussed words — but what are little jabs compared to father’s order who does not wish to send hans to fight against a kind that once deserts their family ?

blood is thicker than water . right ?

cedric stands there , tall and looming , and the warmth in his grey eyes are fading into this kind of sadness that hans knows will haunt him along with the not-corpse that the other nearly was the year before . ( under potter . unmoving . eyes open . amos screeching . his own lungs , not breathing . ) cedric doesn’t ask him to stay — or maybe he did , hans isn’t sure now — but he certainly doesn’t beg . had hans’ answer changes if he had ? the prince doesn’t know. but certainly , as he leaves , nobody will ever find out .

he still asks cedric to stay alive . ( what’s the point ? would hans be able to see him again ? probably not . but stay alive anyway , my darling. ) because apart of him will , if the other does . and this , hans is okay with .

( his heart has never been his , anyway . )

(( and he rather it being with cedric than anybody else. ))

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the nightmares get worse after he parts . a month with his health declining , father eventually hires a psychologist for hans to talk to . he tells this doctor — doctor larsen — about his findings of PTSD and how he might have them , might , but he doesn’t like to acknowledge it . it takes months and months before hans is finally willing to work through his problems , and gently , his demons doesn’t suffer twice as bad .

he gets letters from cho here and there , telling him cedric is alive . barely , and consistently fighting — but amazingly alive . when he begins on not writing back ( ‘sometimes it’s better to leave the past behind’ says doctor larsen , again and again and again ) , and brothers drown his owl , cho stops sending more . the year goes on .

hans doesn’t think he’s any better , but the nightmares , he judges , are quieter .

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hans stops thinking about his lifeless body until he steps back into the wizarding world after the war ends to handle his family’s accounts at gringotts . he doesn’t tell father , but it has been his long-time planning to create a new business that none of his family could touch ; that could be entirely his , and his alone . and he’s been corresponding with mcgonagall about retaking his NEWT’s exam and taking a few names who could very well help him in re-establishing his family’s name here , with him as the head of the house . and he will make his family’s future better . 

(and he will not be father.)

he doesn’t take into account that he might , after all , bump into cedric. but he does anyway . and it’s seemingly like the years lost between them has been regained , and not a moment has passed with hans standing a parallel to the other’s body . hans feels his heart beats , loud and fast and thundering , and all he could think is—

there you are.