An American at Hogwarts: Book Two

Chapter Thirteen

Bill was the one to finally take a deep breath and explain to me. Apparently it was the mark used by Voldemort and his followers. The people we'd been fighting were wearing the same uniforms as his followers from the old days, called Death Eaters. Bill didn't have much more information than that, but I knew I could at least get more information from Mr. Weasley when we got back.

Apparently we'd been fighting a bunch of people who hated muggles, muggle-borns, and anything else that didn't count as pure-blood wizarding.

I didn't really know that much about Voldemort or his supporters, or the days when he was still powerful. But based on the reactions I was getting from everybody else, and based on the horrors that mob had put the muggles through, this was some seriously bad news.

"Come on, we need to go back to the tent in case the others try to find us," Bill said finally, motioning for us to follow him. He and Charlie disapparated, and I grabbed Percy's arm so we could do the same.

Suddenly, we were back at our campsite. No one else was back yet, and the Dark Mark was still hovering ominously in the night sky.

"Ana, I know we can't fly, but do a couple scans for me and make sure the... Death Eaters... really left. I don't want them sneaking up on us from a different angle."

Ana did a few scans, but there was nothing ominous coming from the dark. I took a few deep breaths, but I didn't relax as I stood with the three Weasley brothers, just waiting for something to happen.

"That was pretty impressive, Alexa," Bill said, breaking the tense silence from all of us staring into the dark.

"Thanks, Bill. And thanks for the save earlier."

"Not a problem."

"What was that thing you were flying around with?" asked Charlie.

I took a deep breath and gave Bill and Charlie the quickest explanation I could of my dad, who he was, and what we did. Even Percy didn't know the whole story, since I never told him about my arc reactor. They all looked fascinated, but before they could ask me any questions, the twins and Ginny emerged from the woods with a growing crowd of other wizards, looking worried.

"Thank God you're all alright!" cried Ginny, rushing forward and wrapping Bill in a big hug before moving on to the rest of us. The twins came up to me and both wrapped me in a far more exhausted version of Ginny's hug.

"You and your superhero reflex," George said, rolling his eyes. I could tell the twins were pretty worried about me, so I squeezed them back extra tight.

"What can I say? It runs in my blood."

Once we'd all calmed down a bit, knowing the others were safe, our attention turned to the four members of our party who were still missing.

"Where are Harry, Ron, and Hermione?" asked Percy, looking at the twins.

"We lost them in the woods pretty early on," said Fred sadly. "We looked around a bit to try to find them again, but we couldn't."

"I'm sure they're fine," said Bill, clapping a hand on his younger brother's shoulder. "And I'm sure dad is too. Let's just go wait inside the tent, I'm sure they'll be along shortly. It's getting a little crowded out here."

I looked around and saw exactly what he meant. Now that the danger had mostly passed, wizards were flooding back out of the woods. Most of them were clearly in shock, staring around at the now-ruined camp ground. Most of them couldn't go back to their own tents, so they just stood there, dazed.

"Good idea," I agreed. "Besides, now that things have calmed down a little, we should try to take care of these injuries."

I made sure to be the last one into the tent. I used the last remaining functionality of my suit to have Ana stand lookout for us, in case something started happening or someone showed up. I didn't want to be completely blind to the outside world while we were in this tent.