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☄. *. ⋆chapter one. *. ⋆࿐
a night to remember ...*:･*
:･for all the wrong reasons!
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"what if the world dies with the sunrise?
baby it's all right we'll be up all night
what if we're unmade when the stars fade?
keep me going 'til the night turns into the day"
"Jem, there was absolutely no fucking reason for you to buy this death-trap!"
Hope yelped as the rusty old fiat panda careened over yet another pothole in the country lane. When Jem had offered to provide transportation to the World Cup, Hope had agreed, expecting a portkey or broomsticks or even a magic fucking carpet! What she'd not been expecting was for her idiotic godbrother to suddenly decide he wanted to become a muggle.
"The brochure said to try to blend in, Hope!" Jem took a hand off the wheel to chuck the dog-eared brochure at her. "And I only got my license last month - I don't want to get out of practice already."
Hope cast her eyes to the roof of the car, sending a quick prayer up to anyone that would listen. "Merlin be good! Please let me see Krum play before I die - you can kill me off after the game - just let me survive this one journey!"
"Don't be so dramatic! You'll put me off." Jem's laugh was cut short as the tires bounced over another bump in the dirt road. "Venus doesn't think my driving's that bad, do you Venus?"
At the lack of response, the two blondes glanced at the back seats to find Venus slumped against a window, eyes shut and mouth hanging slightly open as she slept.
"How in Merlin's name is she sleeping through this? Hey! Eyes on the road, Jem!"
Jem yelped as the World Cup brochure hit him in the side of the head. "If you'd refrain from injuring the driver, you might have a better chance of making it to the World Cup in one piece!"
Hope huffed, her hair turning dark purple as she stared at the fields of sheep they were passing at a ridiculous speed. In the distance, she could just about make out the slight shimmer on the horizon that marked the edges of the magic shielding charms that masked what lay beyond.
"Thank fuck, we're almost there," she muttered.
"There's no need to be so crass," Jem smirked, an impish eyebrow raised tauntingly. "People might start thinking you're a bit of a witch-bitch, sweet Hope."
"Don't think for one second that being my god-brother makes you exempt from my wrath," Hope grinned wickedly, hair turning a vibrant shade of crimson. "My cousin Fleur taught me a wicked hex that turns your feet into hands, and your hands into feet."
"You know, I think I'm going to let Venus call shotgun on the way back," Jem glanced back at the snoring girl with a fond chuckle. "You'd never think the absolute demon she is on the pitch was the same person."
"Don't be fooled," Hope propped her feet up on the windshield, ignoring Jem's irritated glare. "All these naps she takes make her twice as volatile when she's awake."
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After a bemusing experience with the campsite coordinator (despite his progress in terms of muggle affairs, Jem still hadn't quite figured out how to manage their money), the slightly disgruntled trio made their way to their tiny plot of land. A crooked wooden picket had been hammered into the ground, reading Lupus. Muttering an obscenity, Hope kicked the sign over, unfolded her camping chair, and delved into her copy of The Quibbler.
"You know I love your Uncle, Hope - but the only good thing about the Quibbler is the crossword section," Jem squinted at her. "And the coupon section too, on a good day."
"You're just reading it the wrong way." Hope flipped the magazine upside down and smiled to herself. (Much better, she thought.) "Now fuck off and leave me to my literature."
Shaking his head, Jem hoisted their tent off of his shoulders and began to rummage around for his wand, only to jump back when the canvas and sticks flew up into position by themselves. Whirling around on his heel he pointed a baffled finger at Venus, who was lazily twirling her wand between her fingers, the chipped gold paint on her nails flashing under the midday sun.
"Isn't little Venus Hawthorne a little too young to be using magic outside of school?"
Venus stretched upwards into a particularly long yawn, scratching the back of her neck with the tip of her wand. "Come off it, Jem. I turn 17 next month. Besides, how's the ministry going to track little old me in a field of hundreds and thousands of witches and wizards?"
Jem grinned at the younger girl, tucking his wand into his back pocket and lifting his and Hope's bags. The pink haired girl sat on her chair completely unbothered by her surroundings. He followed Venus into their tent, ducking down to avoid knocking his head on the entrance pole.
"Home, sweet home."
The extension charm that came with the tent had worked miracles. The main compartment of the tent had become a living room, fully equipped with a campfire style fireplace, ottomans, futons and vibrant tapestries that covered the walls. The only pieces of actual furniture were a vast bookshelf and a circular wooden table. The first of the attached compartments contained a vast brass bathtub (so that was why the bag had been so fucking heavy!). The second had a far lower ceiling, charmed in a similar way to the Great Hall back at Hogwarts to reflect the sky above. The floor was covered in quilts, cushions and blankets with enough room to fit up to eight people.
The space was quite quaint compared to other charmed tents on the market, but it was nonetheless more than habitable enough for the weekend.
"I think this tent might be nicer that my actual house," Jem chuckled, tossing the bags down in a corner.
"Yeah, but that's because your dad's booby trapped the whole place. I tripped on a garden gnome last year - next thing I know, I'm trapped in a steel net!"
Jem rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, Alastor Moody sure knew how to throw a garden party. "Sorry about that, V. You know how he gets. They call him Mad-Eye for a reason, I suppose."
He watched as Venus chucked her bag into the bedroom, before she fished out two compacts and a brush. Flipping her curls over her shoulder she looked up at him through her lashes, tired eyes and pretty smile causing his breath to catch slightly. Was this a good time to mention his never-ending, slightly inhibiting, very invested crush on Venus Hawthorne - yeah, probably not.
"Red or green?"
Clearing his throat, Jem raked a hand through his platinum blonde hair and narrows his eyes. All he could do was hope that he'd caught enough sun that summer to hide the flush on his cheeks. "Sorry, what?"
"Red or green?" Venus asked again, walking over to him and showing him the compacts. "Who've you got your money on? Ireland or Bulgaria? We gotta show our support!"
"I bet Margo Lovegood that Ireland would win the match, but Krum would catch the snitch," he grinned toothily. "If I'm right, I get to keep the tent."
"Does Hope know you're gambling with her mother?" Venus laughed, dipping her brush in the green and nudging Jem to the ground. "Now sit still or you'll get a wonky "I"."
Jem bit his tongue between his teeth as Venus leaned in, eyebrows creased in concentration, painting away and on his face and neck.
"So who are you supporting? I know Hope's green for sure."
"I promised I'd support Bulgaria," she grimaced. "My cousin Milo goes to Durmstrang - he's friends with Krum, apparently - he said they'd get enough shit, what with the Final being held in England and all so he asked me to put some red in the crows."
"What a claim to fame," Jem admired his new face paint in the mirror of the compact. "Go on, then. Let me do yours."
Jem smiled to himself as he painted scarlet makeup over Venus' closed eyes. One day I'll tell her, he thought to himself, maybe New Year's Eve - that's always a fun time.
"Looks like that O.W.L. in muggle art didn't pay off," Venus laughed as she looked in the mirror.
The pair headed back outside to paint Hope's face, only to find her surrounded by a group of familiar faces.
"No you twits, I can't grow a cock! Now fuck off!"
Jem and Venus looked at each other in alarm as Hope began to chase down the Weasley twins, rolled up Quibbler in hand, hair flowing bright red behind her as she ran.
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Venus and Jem had managed to cook up what Hope assumed were supposed to be pancakes when she stumbled back onto their pitch.
"What in the name of merlin are those?"
The pair looked up in genuine confusion, before looking down at their concoction in disappointment.
"They're pancakes," Venus smiled. "But we didn't have any eggs, or any sugar. But they're still good, I swear!" The girl's eyes were round, sparkling with excitement, and Hope couldn't do anything but join her friends around the campfire.
Jem was the first to take a bite. At first, his face morphed into one of disgust, but upon noticing Venus' hopeful gaze he quickly began to hum in appreciation. "Mmh, these are delicious!"
Hope fake gagged behind Venus' back, quickly tossing her full plate into an adjacent pitch. "Oh, yeah Venus! Scrumptious."
"Thank you," she giggled, toying with her own plate, but not actually putting any in her mouth. "Milo says this is how they make them over at Durmstrang. It's too time consuming to get fresh poultry up to their castle, so they have to..."
Hope tuned out of her friend's rambling - Jem would do enough listening for the both of them. Her hair had reverted back to her typical blonde and pink combination. On her race to murder the notorious Weasley twins she'd met her cousin Luna, who was happily batting away some invisible force she claimed was responsible for making her eyesight deteriorate.
Then she'd stumbled into the Weasley family. It was nice to see Harry, she supposed. The first time she'd properly spoken to the boy was the year before - it turned out her dad had pretty quickly become Harry Potter's favourite teacher. Oh, and she supposed that sharing the harrowing experience of almost being eaten by a swarm of dementors on a mission to save Sirius Black was pretty instrumental in their blossoming friendship too.
Last, but certainly not least she'd run into the one and only Cedric Diggory. At the start of her fifth year, Hope had developed a tiny insignificant crush on her Quidditch captain, Cassian Warrington. Of course, being a year older than her, Cass had only ever thought of Hope as Jem's little friend who had a knack for batting down bludgers - and that had marked the beginning of what Venus had appropriately named Hope's mighty mission to shag as many quidditch players as she physically can.
So far she'd managed to snag her ex-teammate Marcus Flint, her new teammate and Ronan Carrow. Then she'd branched out to other houses: Su Li and Fionn O'Malley (a gorgeous pair of Ravenclaw chasers) had come next. By that point, voices had started circulating around Hogwarts, which was particularly embarrassing given that her father had been the DADA professor at the time.
Just after Easter, when news of her not-so-secret escapade to the Room of Requirement with two members of Ravenclaw house had broken out, a group of third year Slytherin boys had called her a half breed slag in the Potions' corridor and Hope had had no choice but to curse them all till they ran crying to the Hospital Wing. She'd expected Remus to be terribly disappointed of her (on all accounts), but the man had simply given her a tired smile, a kiss on the forehead, and told her that there was nothing to be sorry for - her body was her own, and as long as she was safe and happy, what she decided to do with her body was her decision alone.
Maybe it was her dad's pep talk that had given her enough courage to truly say fuck it! and hook up with Gryffindor team captain Oliver Wood after he'd won the Quidditch Cup at the end of the year. The look on Cassian's face when she'd waltzed into the common room at 3am (clad in the Gryffindor keeper's jersey no less) had been worth the heat she'd gotten off the rest of Slytherin house for sleeping with the enemy.
Venus had been joking when she'd suggested Cedric Diggory as the last player on her mission - but as soon as Hope had set eyes on the Hufflepuff seeker setting up his tent 14 pitches over, she knew she was up for the challenge.
"So I saw Diggory today," she mentioned as Venus finished detailing her plans for an eggless, flourless cake. Jem sat before her, paying rapt attention to her words, barely remembering to blink. Whipped, Hope laughed internally. "He's only 14 tents down."
"You counted them?" Jem looked away long enough to cast Hope an amused smirk, to which she glanced pointedly at an oblivious Venus with a raised eyebrow. "You actually counted the tents?"
"Diggory's pretty enough to warrant that sort of attention," Venus wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. "He sat across from me in Herbology last year. Sprout had to move me because I wouldn't get any work done. It's a miracle I managed to do the exam paper."
"Venus, we all know you passed Herbology for all the wrong reasons," Jem scoffed. It was a known fact that Venus was a little too knowledgeable about the properties of certain plants. "I won't lie to you two. I'm pretty sure Diggory's got me breathless too."
"Exactly! The thing is though..." Hope put on her most charming smile and took a deep breath. "He's sharing a tent with his dad right, which isn't exactly ideal-"
"If you're about to ask us to bugger off so you can fuck Diggory in our tent," Jem started but refused to finish sentence.
"Oh don't be such a grouch, Jem!" Venus shoved his arm with a grin. "We'll be out of your hair, Hope. But no more than a couple hours!"
Hope gave her best friend a shit eating grin, her hair turning a vibrant pink. "Give me an hour tops and I promise you can come back in."
Jem let his head fall into his hands in resignation. "Kicked out of my own home. There will be no fornication anywhere near my sleeping bag!"
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"Do you turn into a harpy when you get angry too?"
Hope slapped Venus' arm, an amused smile playing on her lips. "You know full well I haven't inherited a single fucking smidge of the Veela gene."
"I'm not too sure about that," Jem muttered. Venus removed her hands from his eyes and he smiled up at her in thanks. In truth, he was slightly too infatuated with her to have been affected by the Veela performance on pitch, but it wasn't the time, nor the place to tell her that. "I reckon I've seen you turn into a harpy a fair few times."
Whatever harsh remark Hope was getting ready to spit out died in her throat as someone slid into the empty seat beside her.
"I hope you don't mind, but I swapped seats with the lady sat here earlier," Cedric Diggory gave Hope a heart stopping smile. Not to be crass, but she was relatively sure a puddle was beginning to form on the seat beneath her. "Harry told me he bought you a wicked pair of omnioculars!"
Ignoring Venus' incessant giggling and Jem's raised eyebrow, Hope put on her brightest smile and turned her hair a leprechaun green. "Early birthday present," she shouted over the noise of the crowd. "I'm guessing we're rooting for Ireland?"
"Of course!" Cedric leaned over her to greet her companions. "You must be Jem?"
"Jem Moody." The boys shook hands. "And unlike this twit right here," - he pointed up at Venus who was proudly adding more red paint to her face - "I'm supporting Ireland too."
"Hi Venus," Cedric laughed at the girl standing up on Jem's seat, waving a Bulgarian flag in the air. To make matters worse, they were surrounded by a sea of green-clad supporters. "Brave move, painting your face red."
"I am here to support the man, the myth, the legend VIKTOR KRUM in my cousin's stead!" Jem grabbed Venus' legs to stop her from tumbling down into the crowd below. "Ooh, thank you Jem - you're a gem!"
Jem caught Cedric's eye and shrugged. "There's a half empty bottle of firewhiskey under her chair - help yourself."
Before Cedric could say anything, Jem had pulled the firewhiskey out and taken a deep swig straight from the bottle. He passed it over to Venus who took another shot from the cap and resumed her passionate chant of support as the Bulgarian team flew out onto the pitch.
"Ignore dumb and dumber," Hope passed Cedric a fresh bottle of butterbeer. "What do you think about the game, Ced?"
A couple hours later, Hope Lupin was snuggling into Cedric Diggory's side, cocooned in his Hufflepuff scarf, as he narrated the game to her from behind her omnioculars.
Beside them, Venus was hysterically laughing on Jem's lap, camera in one hand and an almost empty bottle in the other.
"If Krum doesn't catch that fucking snitch, I swear to Merlin I'll break his nose a third time!" Jem shouted in exasperation as the Bulgarian seeker flew around the pitch, nose streaming with blood.
"Hey! Don't be rude to Krum!" Venus drunkenly knocked Jem over the head with her bottle. "He's doing his best!"
"He best hurry up, or I'll be giving aunt Margo my new car!"
"That's not necessarily a bad thing..."
When the game ended, Venus and Jem tumbled down the steps, racing through the green and red tents that circled the pitch. Hope and Cedric had no doubt disappeared off to the Lupin pitch, and her tent-mates had no intention of being anywhere near the loved-up pair anytime soon.
"You know, I think we might end up sleeping in the car tonight," Venus shouted in Jem's ear as they danced their way through a crowd of angry Bulgarian musicians.
"That's a shame. I wanted to fall asleep under that enchanted ceiling in the bedroom," Jem frowned, lips pouted in a sulk. He spun Venus around as the music picked up, narrowly avoiding a rather flustered looking Percy Weasley. "Oh look, a Weasley in the wild."
Venus shushed him, running in the opposite direction from the ex Head Boy. Jem almost tripped over a wayward tent pole as they barreled into Irish territory. Suddenly, the remaining red paint on the younger girl's face began to draw a great deal of attention.
"Oops," Venus grinned. "I did so want to do some stargazing - I heard Venus is particularly bright tonight. Where's the car? I think I left a blunt on the back seat."
"You know something - I think I'm a little bit too drunk to remember," Jem muttered, squinting around in various directions. "Oh well. At least we'll get our stargazing done out in the fresh air."
"I learnt a charm that turns your wand into a telescope," Venus suggested, pinching one of Jem's cheeks when he tried to wipe red paint off her nose. "Vanya forgot her telescope one too many times, and I'm pretty sure Sinastra was ready to kick her out the class for good."
"We won't be needing a telescope." The glowing light from countless campfires lit up his face with a warm, orange glow. Venus hadn't noticed earlier, but the platinum blonde he'd dyed his hair really did bring out his eyes - and those tattoos she could see peeking out the top of his shirt; those were definitely new too. "Why do I need to go searching up in the great, starry night when I have my very own Venus right here on Earth?"
Blood instantly pooled in Venus' cheeks. Her trade-mark nonchalant, care-free attitude was gone with the wind as she stared up at her friend. Maybe it was the drunken haze she found herself in, but had he gotten prettier over the holiday?
Before she could say anything, a clamor of voices echoed behind them, and the pair spun around immediately.
"I suppose the Bulgarians are rather sore losers," Jem chuckled rubbing the back of his neck. "Maybe we should go hunting for the car before-"
A dull ringing began to sound off in Venus' ears. Her vision blurred and all she could focus on was the thudding beat of her own heart. The dark spots in her vision began to turn into flickers of firelight, which turned into flashes of red and green light she knew all too well. As soon as it had started, it was all over and she was once again aware of the still jovial crowd of Irish supporters. Jem's babbling filled her ears, and the rough skin of his palm in her hand grounded her back from wherever she'd just been sent.
"That's not the Bulgarians."
"What? Venus, the fuck are you on about?"
"We need to go!" Venus grabbed onto Jem's shoulders and stared up at him, eyes wide. "We need to find Hope, and we need to run."
"Find Hope? Venus!-"
A shrill scream tore through the Irish music and everyone around them fell silent for a second - before the stampede started.
Venus wasn't quite sure as to when exactly she'd lost Jem to the crowd of witches and wizards fleeing the campsite. Instead, she stood frozen as a group of newcomers advanced towards her - above them, a group of (what she assumed) were muggles levitated through the sky, screaming for their lives.
The masks they wore - she'd seen them before. She'd seen the silver skull replicas, scattered throughout her grandmother's house. She'd seen them in old newspapers. She'd seen them in her History of Magic textbooks.
Deatheaters.
Her breath caught in her throat and for some stupid reason, the only thought Venus could muster was how much she wanted a fucking blem.
"Hey! HEY! Get down!"
Venus blinked. The death eaters were only of yards away from her now. All those who surrounded her were older wizards, firing spells at the menacing group. She blinked again and a tan, slightly scarred face framed with bright red hair was shouting in her face.
"Weasley..." she whispered, noticing the freckles and the blue eyes. Suddenly, as if a pail of ice cold water had been thrown over her, she snapped out of her daze and yanked her wand out of her hair. "Shit. Fuck. Stupefy!"
She was fighting now. The sixteen year old somehow managed to keep up with the group of red headed wizards around her, firing stunning charm, after disarming charm, after shielding charm. If she didn't get an O in her DADA O.W.L. she swore to Merlin she'd March right down to the Office of Education and curse Mafalda silly.
Blocking a particularly vicious stinging hex, couldn't help but notice a strangely hesitant masked figure. If they hadn't been wearing a mask, Venus could have sworn they were staring right at her.
A cry to her right drew her attention. The man who'd snapped her out of her trance was clutching his arm as it began to gush blood. Swearing, she raised her wand to block the onslaught of curses aimed at the fallen man. In hindsight, she would have been better off casting a protego charm over the both of them, but she was still drunk, and disorientated, and-
The flash of red light hit her straight in the chest, and she braced herself to be knocked unconscious, except her body didn't shut down as expected. Instead, she stumbled back a step and instantly pain blossomed from her chest to the very extremities of her body. She crumpled to the floor, writhing in the worst pain she'd ever experienced - worse than when Milo had accidentally shoved her out of a tree and she'd broken her leg, worse than when she'd taken a blusher to the chest last year, worse than when she'd fallen down the Hogwarts staircases in first year.
By the time the white hot pain had begun to fade, and the world around her began to come back into focus, the deatheaters were long gone.
"Percy! Boys! Get her back to the tent," she heard a man shout. "I need to find your brothers and sister!"
"Percy Weasley?" She muttered, half delirious. "Merlin, please tell me I'm not going to die in the arms of Percy fucking Weasley."
Two voices chuckled, whilst a third began to splutter. "Wrong brother, I'm afraid. You're not going to die, we'll keep you safe."
As the burning pain almost completely subsided, a dull ache settled in her bones and her eyelids grew heavy. She was lifted up into a pair of burly arms, and as they bang to move she stared up at the sky.
The ghastly glowing dark mark hung in the sky and for a brief second, the same symbol flashed through her vision - painted on several different skies over several different years. Beside it, almost mocking her, was Venus - barely visible behind the green glow, but there all the same.
"Hey look," she managed to mutter, words slurring as she fell in and out of consciousness. "Jem was right. Don't need a telescope."
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Hope Lupin was fairly positive she'd pissed off the entirety of the population of the tent she was in - not that she really cared.
"Please sit down, Hope - and maybe don't smoke inside a flammable tent-
"Shut the fuck up, Cedric."
Cedric opened his mouth as if to say something else, but apparently decided he'd be better off keeping quiet. Hope's eyes softened a fraction and she resumed her pacing, putting her cigarette back between her lips. Catching Fred Weasley's line of sight she tugged Cedric's green jersey further down her bare thighs and gave him the finger.
She'd been nestled between pillows and sleeping bags with a very handsome Quidditch player between her legs when she'd heard the first of the screams. She'd had just enough time to tug on a sweater and socks - and grabbed her wand - before Diggory was pulling her through the screaming rabble in search of safety.
By some miracle, they'd managed to cross paths with Fred, George and Ginny Weasley who'd dragged the pair back to their tent once the worst of it had passed, preexisting petty feuds forgotten in the midst of all the panic. Hope had been kicking and screaming, wanting to search for Venus and Jem, as well as her cousin Luna who she knew had been camping there for a week.
Thankfully, Amos Diggory had appeared at the entrance of the tent not too long after they'd hurtled inside, Xenophilius and Luna Lovegood in tow, which managed to mildly placate Hope. But there were still people she cared about unaccounted for and she hated every second of it. She'd barely registered that the sentiment was shared amongst the red heads of the group; Fred and George whispered frantically amongst themselves, casting wide eyed glances at the tent door every time the wind rustled the flap open. Ginny had taken refuge in Luna's arm, trembling slightly but doing her best to keep her face steady and brave.
The 13 year old girl looked far more out together than Hope, whose hair had unconsciously turned a dark grey. She threw the but of her third cigarette into the coal pit and immediately lit up another one, ignoring her Uncle's disapproving stare.
After twenty minutes, Percy Weasley came stumbling in, glasses askew and pyjama bottoms soiled with mud. He held the flap open and in came two other gingers, one bleeding profusely from his arm, and the other - the other was carrying Venus!
"Venus!" She bounced forward as the man with the gang earring helped her best friend down onto a bed roll. "What the fuck happened! Are you ok? What happened to her? Where's Jem?"
Venus opened an eye and muttered something under her breath, shaking slightly. "She got hit an unforgivable," the man said. Fred and George were crowing the bleeding man, and Ginny was holding onto the speaking man's sleeve. More Weasleys, Venus understood.
"An unforgiv- you mean the cruciatus curse?" Hope stoked Venus' curls back, caressing her cheek with the back of her hand. The girl groaned and leant into her touch. "Oh, it'll be ok, Venus. It's all over now."
"No, no," Hope could make out, though her friend's words were jumbled and stuttered. "It's only just begun - I saw - I saw -"
Hope looked up at Amos Diggory who seemed to be frozen in shock. Her uncle Xeno and Luna were busy shaking some sort of strange cluster of branches around the corners of the room, and the younger Weasley's were frantically trying to stop their brother's bleeding.
Hope glanced around the room quickly, dashing to the pile of snacks in the corner and coming back with a bar of caramel chocolate. "Here," she whispered. "Dad always says chocolate can fix you up, even if you're at the brink of death."
Venus opened her other eye and looked down at the offered treat, before shaking her head and nodding at Hope's other hand. She looked down at her half finished cigarette and let out a shaky laugh.
"For fuck's sake, V!" Hope put the cigarette between her friend's outstretched fingers. "Knock yourself out!"
"Where are the others?" Cedric asked the eldest of the ginger brothers. "I saw Ron and Harry from a distance - they were too far to reach."
"Our dad ran off to find them," the bleeding man said, wincing as Ginny tied a tourniquet around his bicep. "Sent us back to get - Venus, is it? - back to safety. It's my fault - if I hadn't been hit she wouldn't have-"
"It's no one's fault but the fuckers who decided tonight was the night to terrorise a campsite of unsuspecting wizards," Cedric grumbled, rubbing a hand over his father's shoulder.
"I'm Bill, by the way," the man with the gang earring announced as he searched through an apothecary's case. "Bill Weasley. That's my brother Charlie bleeding out at the dining table. You probably know the rest of the family from Hogwarts."
"Hope. Hope Lupin," Hope grunted.
"You're Remus and Margo's daughter?" Bill asked. "You two must be in the same year as the twins, then."
"Except they're snakes," George piped up from across the room, but his tone was playful enough to not cause any offence. "Wicked Quidditch players, but snakes all the same."
"Fuck off, Weasley!" Hope glanced around the room and realised she might have been a little too vague as to how she addressed her insult. "This is Venus Hawthorne, by the way. And you probably already know Cedric and Amos - and my Uncle Xenophilius and his daughter Luna."
Venus began to cough, sitting back on her elbows as she inhaled once more. "Pleasure."
Bill Weasley let out a gruff laugh, patting the recovering girl on the head. "Glad to see you're starting to feel better. I was starting to think you'd gone mental on the way here - chatting about telescopes and flashing lights."
Suddenly Venus clamped onto Hope's arm. "I lost Jem!" She cried out, wincing and rubbing at her chest. "I lost Jem, Hope."
"It's ok," Hope tried to soothe her. "We'll find Jem; but we've got to get you better first."
Bill began to wipe the dirt and the remnants of red face paint from her face with a wet cloth. He'd moved onto her hands by the time the next swarm of people entered the tent.
Arthur Weasley smiled tiredly as he counted all his children, safe and relatively sound. Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger and Harry Potter stumbled in behind him. The last figure to limp in had Hope swearing in relief. The only damage Jem Moody had come by was a busted lip and a sprained ankle.
"Merlin!" Jem practically fell to his knees next to Hope and pressed his palms against Venus' cheeks. "I'm so sorry. We got separated and I didn't - why is she smoking?"
Hope wrapped an arm around her godbrother, opening another arm for Harry to step into. Though they'd really only met the year before, she'd found she'd grown rather attached to to the boy-who-lived."
"What happened out there, dad?" Charlie asked. "Did they catch whoever cast the mark?"
"No," Mr Weasley frowned. "We found Barty Crouch's house elf holding Harry's wand, but we have no idea who actually conjured the mark."
The older boys shouted their astonishment, and Harry began to explain the events of the night, reaching the point where he'd been knocked unconscious.
"That's when I found him," Jem piped up, much to Hope's surprise. "I ran back to look for Venus - and Hope - next thing I know, I trip over Harry, twist my ankle, and this man up ahead was casting the spell-"
"Morsmorde."
Harry and Jem stared down at Venus in shock as she uttered the word. "Yeah, exactly." Jem frowned. "How did you know?"
"It's the spell they cast to summon the mark," Venus said as if it was obvious. "I thought everyone knew that."
"I think it might just be your psychopathically pureblood obsessed grandmother, V," Hope whispered. "How did they find you?"
"Crouch blamed Harry and I for the curse," Jem continued, looking rather pissed off.
"Because of course the old git assumed that the boy who vanquished the dark lord, and the son of the most celebrated auror in the country would have put the dark mark in the sky," Mr Weasley almost shouted. He ran a hand across his face in exasperation.
"You must be James Moody then?" Bill reached out to shake his hand.
"It's just Jem."
"Ah," Bill glanced down at Venus who had finished her cigarette and was now anxiously running her hands up and down her legs. "That explains it. We thought she'd lost her necklace or something. Kept on muttering something about losing a gem. Thought the damn cruciatus had messed with her mind."
Jem looked horrified. "The cruciatus?"
Before he could carry on, Ron Weasley looked up in confusion. "I don't understand what the big deal is. It's just a symbol!"
"But it's his symbol, Ron," Hermione Granger insisted. "I read about it in The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts."
"It hasn't been seen in 13 years," Mr Weasley continued. "So you see - people panicked."
"They used to cast it above houses they'd killed in," Jem whispered, his eyes glassy. He'd only been 4 when he'd come back from his Aunt Andromeda's to find his home cast in the eerie green glow. "It was everyone's worst fear."
Hope clutched at her godbrother's free hand with an iron grip. Whatever had just happened - Venus was right - this was only the beginning.