Harry Potter and the Altered Destinies

Chapter 65: The Hidden Minion

Following his son's form, father and son embraced as they knelt on the cold ground of the grass that was underneath them. "Are you okay?" Percy muttered into the hug, Harry being the only one to hear it.

"No," Harry muttered as he felt the exhaustion trying to claw its way into his brain and take over. "Gri-Grindelwald...he's back," Harry muttered, feeling hysteria hit him suddenly as he started to cry so he didn't laugh instead.

The face of Cornelius Fudge appeared upside down over Harry; it looked white, appalled.

"My God — Diggory!" it whispered. "Dumbledore — he's dead!" The words were repeated, the shadowy figures pressing in on them gasped it to those around them . . . and then others shouted it — screeched it — into the night — "He's dead!" "He's dead!"

"Cedric Diggory! Dead!"

"We found his body in the maze, seems like the Killing Curse," he muttered to Dumbledore, but Harry heard everything.

The crowd around them jostled, fighting to get closer, pressing darkly in on him — "What's happened?" "What's wrong with him?" "Diggory's dead!"

"He'll need to go to the hospital wing!" Fudge was saying loudly. "He's ill, he's injured — Dumbledore, Diggory's parents, they're here, they're in the stands. . . ."

"I'll take Harry, Dumbledore, I'll take him —"

"No, I would prefer —"

"Dumbledore, Amos Diggory's running . . . he's coming over. . . . Don't you think you should tell him — before he sees — ?"

"I can try and help," Harry heard his father say, almost reluctantly. "I'll have Sirius and Remus meet you in the wing, stay with Harry as he calms down."

"Are you sure?" Dumbledore asked.

"Not really, but I want to do something," Harry distantly heard his father say.

"Harry, stay here —"

Girls were screaming, sobbing hysterically. . . . The scene flickered oddly before Harry's eyes. . . .

"It's all right, son, I've got you . . . come on . . . hospital wing . . ."

"Dumbledore said stay," said Harry thickly, the pounding in his scar making him feel as though he was about to throw up; his vision was blurring worse than ever.

"You need to lie down. . . . Come on now. . . ." Someone larger and stronger than he was half pulling, half carrying him through the frightened crowd. Harry heard people gasping, screaming, and shouting as the man supporting him pushed a path through them, taking him back to the castle. Across the lawn, past the lake and the Durmstrang ship, Harry heard nothing but the heavy breathing of the man helping him walk.

"What happened, Harry?" the man asked at last as he lifted Harry up the stone steps. Clunk. Clunk. Clunk. It was Mad-Eye Moody.

"They....they killed Cedric?"

Clunk. Clunk. Clunk. Up the marble stairs . . . "Was the Dark Lord there? What happened?"

"Killed Cedric . . . they killed Cedric. . . ."

"And then?"

Clunk. Clunk. Clunk. Along the corridor . . . "Cedric's dead?"

"Come on, has he returned?"

"Why...when did Cedric die?"

"Did you duel with the Dark Lord?"

Harry stayed silent, his mind stuck on the news he just heard. His friend from the first year was now dead...