The thing against which he had been fighting on and off ever since he had come out of the maze was threatening to overpower him. He could feel a burning, prickling feeling in the inner corners of his eyes. He blinked and stared up at the ceiling.

“It wasn’t your fault, Harry,” Mrs. Weasley whispered.

“I told him to take the cup with me,” said Harry.

Now the burning feeling was in his throat too. He wished Ron would look away.

Mrs. Weasley set the potion down on the bedside cabinet, bent down, and put her arms around Harry. He had no memory of ever being hugged like this, as though by a mother. The full weight of everything he had seen that night seemed to fall in upon him as Mrs. Weasley held him to her. His mother’s face, his father’s voice, the sight of Cedric, dead on the ground all started spinning in his head until he could hardly bear it, until he was screwing up his face against the howl of misery fighting to get out of him.

There was a loud slamming noise, and Mrs. Weasley and Harry broke apart. Hermione was standing by the window. She was holding something tight in her hand.

“Sorry,” she whispered.

“Your potion, Harry,” said Mrs. Weasley quickly, wiping her eyes on the back of her hand.

Harry drank it in one gulp. The effect was instantaneous. Heavy, irresistible waves of dreamless sleep broke over him; he fell back onto his pillows and thought no more.

Chapter 37

CHAPTER 37

The Beginning

When he looked back, even a month later, Harry found he had only scattered memories of the next few days. It was as though he had been through too much to take in any more. The recollections he did have were very painful. The worst, perhaps, was the meeting with the Diggorys that took place the following morning.

They did not blame him for what had happened; on the contrary, both thanked him for returning Cedric’s body to them. Mr. Diggory sobbed through most of the interview. Mrs. Diggory’s grief seemed to be beyond tears.

“He suffered very little then,” she said, when Harry had told her how Cedric had died. “And after all, Amos . . . he died just when he’d won the tournament. He must have been happy.”

When they got to their feet, she looked down at Harry and said, “You look after yourself, now.”

Harry seized the sack of gold on the bedside table.

“You take this,” he muttered to her. “It should’ve been Cedric’s, he got there first, you take it—”

But she backed away from him.

“Oh no, it’s yours, dear, I couldn’t . . . you keep it.”

• • •