I wrote this ages before Deathly Hallows came out. I've tried to clean it up a bit but otherwise I haven't really changed the story because what would be the point. I just wanted to present a fanfiction that merges two different universes but shows how the rules of both worlds can coexist in a single story.
Also note: This story is based on the rules of the Highlander TV series, not the Movie.
I was just an ordinary wizard, going to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The Goblet of Fire chose me to represent Hogwarts in the Triwizard tournament. There I got in the way of Lord Voldemort and paid with my life. But that's not how it ended.
A raven came into my life and taught me of a new world. One as secretive and dangerous as the one I was raised in. The world of the Immortals.
I can never die unless someone takes my head and with it, my knowledge and power. But if that ever happens, it could be the end of the Wizarding World. So now I must fight to survive until the day when there are only two of us left.
In the end, there can be only one.
I am Cedric Diggory. I am The Hogwarts Champion.
Post Merged: December 24, 2010, 04:36:16 PM
June 27, 1995
"Kill the spare."
"Avada Kedavra!"
A flash of green light filled my vision and then there was nothing.
Many people imagine death to be a dark void. Oblivion. But to be more accurate, death is literally nothing. No darkness, just blank nothingness. Awareness of time and space are gone and memories of what you were doing prior to death, vanished.
Darkness did fill my vision. But it wasn't until I took that first breath, finding myself in a box buried several feet below the ground.
A floodgate of memories rushed my mind, sending me into a panic as I pounded on the lid of the coffin.
Harry Potter had stood beside me, wand drawn and frightened as we tried to find something to explain why we had been pulled hundreds of miles away from the maze. We had just completed the final challenge of the Tri-wizard Tournament and decided to split the prize. The cup was a port key, this much I knew. But who set it up and why was another matter.
Then, I heard those words and suddenly, it didn't matter why. Winning the tournament and bringing honor and glory to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry meant absolutely nothing. Being the Seeker for House Hufflepuff's Quidditch team and unwilling to accept an accidental win against Gryffindor meant nothing. My interest in Cho Chang, seeker of the Ravenclaw team meant nothing. Nothing matters to the dead.
Now something mattered. It mattered that I had been killed and it mattered that I was now, suddenly, alive. Alive and trapped in a wooden box, sealed and buried.
I pounded the lid of the coffin, screaming for my mother, my father, anyone. My hands ached and the warmth and stench of blood spread over my robes. Then I suffocated and nothing mattered again.
Again, I came back to life. The pain in my hands was gone and the cuts healed. The smell of dried blood filled the small space.
What's going on? I kept asking myself as I screamed and pounded at the lid.
Each time I died, injured and bloody, I came back healed and with a new supply of energy that burned up as quickly as it came.
Was this some new curse? I wondered. Some awful curse that not even Professor "Mad-Eye" Moody new about?
It would certainly be an effective curse. Causing someone to live and die repeatedly for eons so that all they knew was the tomb in which they were trapped. It made the Killing Curse a silent blessing in comparison.
So it seemed that the son of Amos Diggory, Champion of Hogwarts, Seeker and Wizard, would remain in this coffin, doomed to live and die buried beneath the soil where no one would be the wiser.
For many nights I lay there, taking deep breaths, hoping for a quicker death each time. Death by suffocation is not a pleasant way to spend the final hours. Your head aches, slowly at first. Over the minutes, which seemed like hours, the head ache grows into a pounding, rhythmic throb, like sound of a roaring dragon. The body spasms and shutters and finally there is nothing. And this is the way it went every time I came back to life.
The Killing Curse was a blessing in comparison.
After the first few nights I finally stopped fighting. I was nowhere near as strong as I needed to be to break through this coffin. And even if I could get the lid to budge, there was probably six feet of dirt to dig through.
Most of the richer families in the Wizarding world had above ground mausoleums to bury their dead. But the Diggory family traditionally buried its members at a cemetery in Ottery St. Catchpole, the town where our family has lived for twelve generations. In my more coherent state I realized that this was where I had been buried. Not that this did anything to help my situation.
And I was just about to accept the circumstances, when something happened. It was a feeling, like something pulling at my brain. It felt very much like the feeling of walking through a port key, or the sudden jolt of apparation. At first I thought it was just another headache coming on, or dizziness from the lack of air. But the feeling came every time I came back to life and it didn't go away.
In my weakening state I could barely hear the sound of metal scraping against the soil above. My heart pounded as I soon heard the voices of whoever was trying to get to me.
"How long has he been down here?" Someone asked. The voice was muffled, but I could recognize the words and that it was a woman who had spoken them.
"The tombstone says he was buried two days ago." A second voice replied. A man this time. "You should be careful, he's probably freaking out."
"Don't worry so much and help me get him out of there."
"Leave me alone!" I screamed. "Go away! I don't want your help!"
I didn't understand why I was so frightened. After all, these people were trying to free me weren't they? Getting out of here was a good thing. But fear was all I knew and I wanted to remain in this coffin. It was what I knew, it was…a comfort zone.
Metal scraped against the lid. There was a sensation of movement as the coffin was lifted and placed back on solid ground. Then a loud scrape of more metal and someone pried the lid open. Air rushed into the open space and I screamed. I kicked and flailed about wildly, barely aware of the people who tried to restrain my arms and keep me from harming them.
"I told you he'd be frightened," a man said.
I looked at the taller, brown haired man and the feeling died away. A second person, a woman with hair the color of the moon, grabbed my shoulders and looked into my eyes.
"Calm down," she said, soothing. "We're not here to hurt you."
"Go to hell!" I screamed. I tried to push her away, but the man held my arms down.
"Amanda, it's no good." The man said. "He's just a kid. This whole thing is screwing with his mind."
"I know what I'm doing Adam. Hold him still."
The woman named Amanda reached for a broad sword, which she had used to pry the lid open.
"What are you going to do?" Adam asked.
"We need to get him somewhere safe."
I tried to kick at her, but she stepped out of my reach and thrust the sword into my stomach. After dying of suffocation so many times, stabbing was an almost welcome change of pace.
When I came back again I was in a bed.
My wrists were held in a metal shackles, connected by a chain that went around one of the posts. I briefly flashed back to a conversation between my father and Arthur Weasley about the devices Muggle law enforcers used. Handcuffs I believe they were called.
The room was empty accept for a table, two chairs, a dresser, a second bed and Muggle devices I had no name for. The curtains were drawn and a lamp on the desk dimly lit the room.
I graciously took a deep breath, filling my lungs with warm, fresh air. When my lungs were satisfied I realized that my stomach was also empty. How long had it been since my last meal anyway?
That strange pulling feeling from earlier came back, along with a sense of nausea and danger. I wanted to run but I could barely sit up. My wand was probably sitting on the mantle of my parent's living room right now, so magic was out of the question.
The door flew open and the man from the cemetery came in, back first. He had two white paper bags in one hand, a large plastic bag in his teeth and several beverage cups in some sort of strange holding device that he held with the other hand. The feeling died away just as it had before.
He placed the bags and the cups on the table and took the remaining bag out of his mouth. When he went to close the door he glanced outside.
"Where the hell did she go?" He muttered.
He wore a white sweater beneath an old trench coat. He seemed very thin, with dark wavy hair and a big, angular nose. His accent was hard to place, though he probably traveled long enough to pick up many different tongues.
"Damn it, Amanda, I could have used your help."
"Well someone had to leave his sword in the backseat," Amanda replied. She came in, a misshapen object into his arms, stopping to kiss Adam on the cheek. "Not a good place for it to be if you get challenged."
"Mine's on me as always," Adam said. He placed the item gently on the chair, and I realized it was an old blanket wrapped around a sword. "This is a little something I picked up at a shop in Bristol."
"Well, someone is awake," Amanda said, when she saw me. She shrugged off her overcoat and rested it on one of the chairs at the table. She then sat down on the bed beside me. "My name is Amanda Montrose. This is Adam Pierce."
"Hey," Adam said as he took a set of keys from his pocket. "Listen, I want to let you out of those cuffs. But we can't let you hurt us and you can't go running."
I swallowed nervously. Then I smelled the food in the bags and remembered how desperately hungry I was.
"You saved me from the grave," I said, my voice trembling. "I owe you my life."
Adam undid the handcuffs and I stared longingly at the food. Amanda went into one of the bags and pulled out a white container.
"I hope you like burgers and fries. There was a-"
The minute she opened it I grabbed it and started eating. I barely tasted the beef, bread and vegetables as each mouthful spent barely a second in my mouth. The melted cheese was exquisite and the ketchup and onions felt like a massage to my throat as they traveled to my stomach.
"Hey, eat it slowly," Adam said, patting my back as I coughed. "Easy there."
Amanda snickered as she took a sip from one of the cups.
"Sorry," I apologized, embarrassed at my behavior. "It's been…"
"Ah, I was like that once," Amanda said. I couldn't tell if she was being serious or not. Her smile was somewhere between warm, friendly, and mischievous and her tone was like that of a nostalgic parent.
Adam sent her a sideways glance as he sat down in the other chair.
"Maybe we should ask for his name first before we try to bore him to death," he said, taking a burger out of one of the other containers. He waited patiently while I started on the chips.
"Cedric." I said when I was finished. "My name is Cedric Diggory."
"It's a pleasure to meet you," Amanda replied, as if there was nothing strange about all of this. "How old are you Cedric?"
"Seventeen. I had to be in order to join the Tri-Wizard tournament."
Amanda sent a confused glance in Adam's direction. Adam's eyes widened for so short a second that I didn't register at first.
"You're not…you don't know about wizards?" I asked, returning the glance.
"What? You mean like, hocus pocus, abra kadabra?" She asked. "Yeah I was a stage magician once in-what's wrong?"
I shuttered. The memory flashed. As Amanda placed a hand on my shoulder I lowered my head into my hands, suddenly very dizzy.
"Kill the spare," a shrill, wicked voice ordered.
"Avada Kedavra!"
"I was killed," I uttered, shaking violently. "He killed me with…with the curse."
"What curse?" Amanda asked.
I explained everything I knew about the Three Unforgivable Curses. I told them about Hogwarts and my family. When I was finished Adam was staring at me thoughtfully. Amanda handed me one of the cups and told me to drink.
"The lack of fluids and oxygen must be affecting you still," she said, patting me on the shoulder. To Adam she said, "We may have to wait until all eight cylinders are functioning again before breaking the news to him."
Adam had been quiet the entire time I spoke. He seemed to be remembering something of his own when Amanda spoke to him.
"Actually…Hogwarts is real."
"What?"
Adam slurped his cola before trying to explain himself to explain himself. I was equally as confused as Amanda. He looked from me to her and back and then just shrugged.
"Well, this is as good a time as any. About a thousand years ago I met one of your kind while traveling in Scotland," Adam said, nodding to me as he said "your kind". "I was traveling by horse through a particularly dangerous area, when several bandits mugged me and left me for dead. Fortunately I was only unconscious, and a kind stranger took me into his home at a castle in Edinburgh.
"I don't think he had ever seen one of our kind before. But when he witnessed the Quickening healing my wounds I was shocked that he didn't have me tried as a witch and burned. In fact he managed to surprise me by demonstrating his own kind of magic, with a wand.
"Then he introduced himself as Godric Gryffindor."
"I'm surrounded by nut cases," Amanda muttered, rolling her eyes.
Adam ignored her. I was both confused and fascinated by what I was hearing and he held my attention.
"He introduced me to his partners, Helena Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw and Salazar Slytherin. They were trying to start a school for their kind. They felt it was best if wizards and witches had a safe place to learn and master their special abilities, and to function in the society that was slowly separating from what you call the Muggles.
"The school had only been up and running for a few years and they were always looking for help. They even offered to pay me a little if I had any talents to offer. Of course all I had at the time was my four thousand years of life and my experiences with a sword. So I joined their staff as one of the first teachers of Muggle Studies and taught swordsmanship on the side."
"Are you…" I tried to find the right words. "What are you?"
"Well, that's where the big part comes." Adam said, leaning forward. "To sum it up Cedric, you're one of us. You are an Immortal."
For some reason it didn't shock me as much as it should have. Several days of suffering in a grave must have shielded me for this. Strange to think that in this world, there were things that even a Wizard would find surprising.
Post Merged: December 24, 2010, 04:49:26 PM
"Immortal?" I asked. I knew what the word meant, but the concept itself was strange. "So I'll never die?"
"Well, you'll die, just not permanently," Adam explained. He looked to Amanda. "You want to help me out here?"
"Not at all Professor," Amanda said, sarcastically. She leaned back on the bed, putting her arms behind her head. "This is a show I usually have to pay to see."
"Oh come on Amanda. You can be a little more open minded than that."
"I've seen what happens when one of us gets caught up in fantasy Adam. Remember what happened to Richie?"
Adam shook his head, flustered.
"But I am a wizard," I said. "Like my mother and father were before me. And no offense, Ms. Montrose, but you're the ones telling me that I'll live forever. I doubt you go advertising it to the muggle world."
"What on Earth is a Muggle?"
"Non magical people." Adam explained for me. "Normally that counts as our kind. Accept some of their magic doesn't affect us."
I looked at him curiously.
"But you said you were one of the first teachers at Hogwarts. Why is it I've never heard of Immortals before now? For that matter why don't they teach us about you?"
"That's another thing I had a hand in," Adam sat back. "I spent fifty years teaching Muggle Studies at Hogwarts. In that time Godric and Salazar had an explosive argument that nearly destroyed them both. It was mutually agreed that Salazar must leave before someone innocent suffered.
"In spite of their parting ways, Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff agreed that they still wanted a fourth to represent the Slytherin. Godric said that I possessed many of the qualities inherent to the Slytherin household, and that he was thankful for the years of loyal service I put into the school.
"After what seemed like too short a time, Rowena passed on and the Ravenclaw house was passed to her successor, followed shortly by the death of Helena. Godric and I remained close friends until it became obvious to many of the school's alumni that I was not getting any older. So it was once again, mutually decided, that the head of Slytherin must again leave Hogwarts.
"Before I left, Godric and I had a long discussion about the future of our two unique races. The founders had spent long hours working on spells and charms that would hide the castle from muggle sight. But much to their surprise, the magic didn't prevent me from seeing it, no matter how powerful the spells. And it didn't help that there was now a group of muggles who were dedicated to studying and recording the lives of Immortals."
"The Watchers," Amanda added, though it was clear she still didn't believe any of Adam's story.
"Right. And Godric feared what would happen if the muggle world ever discovered the truth of wizards, witches, and magic. If other Immortals led the Watchers to Hogwarts the consequences might have been disastrous. So I made a pact with Godric, to help keep Hogwarts off the Watcher's radar as long as I lived. And in mutual good faith, Godric decreed that none of the professors in Hogwarts would ever teach their students about Immortals."
"Wow," was all I could say. How else did you respond when a footnote just got crammed into the history of your world? I finished my soda and after thinking on what Adam had told me, I tossed the cup in the trash.
"And this is where things get tricky," Adam said. "Because you are in a position to be a great danger to everything you know and love."
I didn't understand at first. Then I thought about the pact and how Adam had spent nearly a thousand years keeping muggles from discovering wizards. It was all a lot to take in one night, so much in fact that all I wanted to do was go to sleep and never wake up.
"What am I supposed to do?" I asked.
"That's where I come in," Amanda spoke up. "That is if Gandalf here is finished."
Adam went back to finishing his soda. He winked at me as Amanda removed the sword from her trench coat. It was wiped clean, but it was definitely the one she used to kill me.
"Adam and I have both been in the Game for a long time now. But we didn't get this old by playing Dungeons and Dragons twenty-four, seven. If you want to survive you'll have to learn to use this."
She stepped away from the furniture, presumably for more room and held the handle out, gesturing for me to take it.
I glanced at Adam, nervously. He nodded. I went to where Amanda was standing and reached for the hilt. It was heavier than I expected and it fell from my hand.
"That'll get you killed," Adam remarked.
"We agreed it was my turn," Amanda said. Though I didn't recall any such agreement taking place, Amanda's tone invited no argument.
"Sorry."
"But yes, Cedric, dropping your sword is not going to get you very far."
"You'll have to bare with me," I said, awkwardly. "We didn't find too much use for swords in Hogwarts."
"Well that's what you get when my curriculum recommendations get tossed out the window."
"Adam!"
"Sorry."
"All right," Amanda said, picking up her sword and returning it to its place. "You need some rest and then we have to get out of here. Take this into the bathroom."
Amanda handed me the plastic bag that Adam brought in with the food.
"I had to guess at your clothing size since all you're wearing is those robes. I know you take all this wizard stuff seriously, but those won't get you far in the mortal world. Not unless you want to go into a convent for eternity. Get cleaned up. See what fits you and when we've all had a few hours to rest we'll get out of here."
I took a good whiff of myself for the first time that day. A mixture of aged blood, sweat and soil nearly gagged me. It was a wonder I didn't notice it at first, or that they didn't toss me in the bathroom first chance they had.
"Do you have a particular place in mind?" I heard Adam ask.
Amanda's tone seemed to drop a few pegs as she considered her response. I set to figuring out the knobs on the shower, so as not to tip them off.
"I really don't to tell you the truth. There's no place in the whole UK that's safe for a new immortal. And I'll need a good deal of time to train him."
"Why not let me do it?" Adam asked.
"He needs to learn to fight Methos. He doesn't need you to encourage his delusions."
Methos? I thought.
I fidgeted with the knobs until I figured out how to get comfortably warm water to come out of the faucet. Most of the conversation was drowned out over the sound of the water.
My head spun with questions that I would need them to answer. There were also questions they couldn't answer. Would I ever see my family again? Did the pact Adam-Methos?-made with Godric Gryffindor prevent me from ever having contact with other witches and wizards? After all, being an Immortal didn't stop me from being a wizard. Shouldn't I still be among them the way Adam and Amanda were still parts of the muggle world?
When my hair and body was as clean as it would get, I turned the water off and managed to catch the last half of their conversation. It sounded pretty heated.
"-the Ahriman prophecy no one listens. But then I tell you people what actually happens and you treat me like I'm grandpa at the nursing home, just rambling nonsense."
"It's not about believing you Methos. This is about a life at stake. I didn't survive by chasing around wild fantasies all my life. And it's not like you've always had the best of common sense with so called legends. Hell, you were ready to kill me over Rebecca's necklace just to save your precious-"
"Don't you dare bring her into this. You only wanted to pawn them off to the highest bidder."
I opened the bathroom door slowly. Amanda smiled and Adam sobered up and looked away. I felt like a kid walking in on his parent's argument.
"Should I step out of the room?" I asked.
"Of course not sweetheart." Amanda noted my appearance and smiled. "Do you like the clothes?"
I was wearing a gray sweater and a pair of jeans. Hufflepuff had plenty of muggle-born students sorted each year, so I became an expert on muggle clothing.
"Yes, thank you."
Adam seemed to sense my awkwardness.
"We get into little arguments like that all the time," he explained, putting his arm around Amanda. "Just a disagreement that's all."
"I understand," I said.
"All right Cedric," Amanda said, pushing Adam's arm away. "This is one of the things we were discussing. And now that it's out in the open I think we should leave it to you to decide."
"Decide what?"
"You need a mentor Cedric. Someone to teach you what you need to know to survive as a mortal. That includes fighting with a sword and blending with mortal society. Adam here has far more experience than I do and he's better with a sword."
"You're asking me to choose between the two of you?"
"Immortals rarely have more than one mentor at the same time," Adam explained. "But I'll understand if you'd rather take Amanda over me. My goal in life is to hide below the radar and avoid trouble at all costs, which is how I've survived so long. But Amanda has pulled herself out of tighter situations than I've been in because she doesn't hide. She can definitely teach you the tricks of surviving in the mortal world."
I sat down on the bed and thought about this. I wasn't getting any sleep tonight.
"Before I make my decision," I said, finally. "I need to ask someone a lot of questions. And I think you're the only one who can answer them, Methos. Amanda, is that okay?"
"That's fine with me," Amanda answered. "But don't take too long. Tomorrow at noon I catch my plane and if you don't meet me at the airport, I'll assume you've made your decision."
I nodded to show I understood. I put my old shoes on and secured my clothing in the bag.
"Come on," Adam said, gesturing to the door. "I have a feeling I'm gonna need a beer soon."
