No one's POV
"No point, Mr Crouch." Mr Diggory called after him.
"There's no one else there."
But Mr Crouch did not seem prepared to take his word for it.
They could hear him moving around, the rustling of leaves as he pushed the bushes aside, searching.
"Bit embarrassing." Mr Diggory said grimly, looking down at Winky's unconscious form.
"Barty Crouch's house-elf...I mean to say..."
"Come off it, Amos." Mr Weasley said quietly.
"You don't seriously think it was the elf? The Dark Mark's a wizards sign, it requires a wand."
"Yeah." Mr Diggory said.
"And she had a wand."
"What?" Mr Weasley asked.
"Here, look." Mr Diggory said as he held up a wand and showed it to Mr Weasley.
"Had it in her hand, so that's clause three of the Code of Wand Use broken for a start, No non-human creature is permitted to carry or use a wand."
Just then there was another pop, and Ludo Bagman Apparated right next to Mr Weasley.
He looked breathless and disoriented, he spun on the spot goggling upwards at the Emerald green skull.
"The Dark Mark!" He panted, almost trampling Winky as he turned enquiringly to his colleagues.
"Who did it? Did you get them? Barty! What's going on?"
Mr Crouch had returned empty handed.
His face was still ghostly white, and his hands and his toothbrush moustache were both twitching.
"Where have you been, Barty?" Bagman asked.
"Why weren't you are the match? Your elf was saving a seat, too - Gulping gargoyles!"
Bagman just noticed Winky laying at his feet.
"What happened to her?"
"I have been busy, Ludo." Mr Crouch said, still talking in the same jerky fashion, barely moving his lips.
"And my elf has been stunned."
"Stunned? By you lot, you mean? But why -?"
Comprehension dawned suddenly on Bagman's round, shiny face as he looked up at the skull, down at Winky and then at Mr Crouch.
"No!" He said.
"Winky? Conjure the Dark Mark? She wouldn't know how! She'd need a wand for a start!"
"And she had one." Mr Diggory said.
"I found her holding one, Ludo, if it's all right with you, Mr Crouch, I think we should hear what she's got to say for herself."
Crouch gave no sign that he had heard Mr Diggory, but Mr Diggory seemed to take his silence for assent.
He raised his own wand, pointing it at Winky.
"Rennervate!"
Winky stirred feebly, her great brown eyes opened and she blinked several times in a bemused sort of way.
Watched by the silent wizards, she raised herself shakily into a sitting position.
She caught sight of Mr Diggory's feet, and slowly, tremulously, raised her eyes to stare at his face, then, more slowly still, she looked up into the sky.
Harry could see the floating skull reflected twice in her enormous, glassy eyes.
She gave a gasp, looking wildly around the crowded clearing and burst into terrified sobs.
"Elf!" Mr Diggory said sternly.
"Do you know who I am? I'm a member of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical creatures!"
Winky began to rock backwards and forwards on the ground, her breath coming in sharp bursts.
Harry looked at the elf with pity before his eye hardened.
"As you see, elf, the Dark Mark was conjured here a short while ago." Mr Diggory said.
"And you were discovered moments later, right beneath it! An explanation, if you please!"
"I - I - I is not doing it, sir!" Winky gasped.
"I is not knowing how, sir!"
"You were found with a wand in your hand!" Mr Diggory barked brandishing it in front of her.
And as the wand caught the green light that was filling the clearing from the skull above, Harry recognised it.
"That wand is mine." Harry said looking at it.
"Everyone in the clearing looked at him.
"Excuse me?" Mr Diggory asked, incredulously.
"That's my wand." Harry said evenly.
"I dropped it."
"You dropped it?" Mr Diggory repeated in disbelief.
"Is this a confession? You threw it aside after you conjured the Mark?"
"Amos, think about who you're talking to!" Mr Weasley said very angrily.
"Is Harry Potter likely to conjure the Dark Mark?"
"Er - of course not." Mr Diggory mumbled.
"Sorry...carried away...."
"I didn't drop it there anyway." Harry said, pointing towards the trees beneath the skull.
"I missed it right after we got into the wood."
"So." Mr Diggory said, his eyes hardening as he turned to look at Winky again, cowering at his feet.
"You found this wand, eh, elf? And you picked it up and thought you'd have some fun with it, did you?"
"I is not doing magic with it, sir!" Winky squealed, tears streaming down the sides of her squashed and bulbous nose.
"I is...I is...I is just picking it up, sir! I is not making the Dark Mark, sir, I is not knowing how!"
"The voice that cast the Mark was a humans, Winky's voice is too squeaky to have been the one." Harry said growing more annoyed by the second.
"Well, we'll soon see." Mr Diggory growled, looking unimpressed.
"There's a simple way of discovering the last spell a wand performed, elf, did you know that?"
Winky trembled and shook her head frantically, her ears flapping, as Mr Diggory raised his own wand again, and placed it tip to tip with Harry's.
"Prior Incantato!" Mr Diggory roared.
Harry heard the others gasp, horrified, as a gigantic serpant-tongued skull erupted from the point where the two wands met, but it was a mere shadow of the green skull high above them, it looked as though it was made of thick grey smoke: the ghost of a spell.
"Deletrius!" Mr Diggory shouted, and the smokey skull vanished in a wisp of smoke.
"So." Mr Diggory said with a kind of savage triumph, looking down upon Winky, who was still shaking convulsively.
"I is not doing it!" She squealed, her eyes rolling in terror.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
That's it for this chapter
Drop a comment on what you thought of it
THATS ALL FOR NOW
PEACE OUT Y'ALL
YOU ARE READING
Harry Potter: The ghouls awakening
FanfictionHarry's time with the Dursleys before his first year is horrid to say the least. This takes place when Harry is seven years old and had used accidental magic. The Dursleys were outraged so they forced Harry to the basement and chained him to a chair...
