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chapter twenty-two | the dark mark
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"AH, NO, I DON'T BELIEVE IT... I've lost my wand!"
"Are you taking the piss?!" Maddie exclaimed, as Harry desperately patted all of his pockets.
She joined Ron and Hermione in shining a light on the ground — they looked all around, but Harry's wand was nowhere to be seen.
"Maybe it's back in the tent," said Ron.
"Maybe it fell out of your pocket when we were running?" Hermione suggested anxiously.
"Yeah," said Harry. "Maybe..."
A rustling noise nearby made all four of them jump, and Maddie sped around to see a house elf wriggling it's way through the bushes nearby. As it grew closer, the young Jordan could only recognise it as the house elf she had seen Harry talking to during the game — Winky, she thought her name was.
Winky was moving very strangely — it was as though someone invisible were trying to hold her back.
"There is bad wizards about!" she squeaked distractedly as she leaned forward and labored to keep running. "People high — high in the air! Winky is getting out of the way!"
"Can't blame her," said Maddie, as the four watched her disappear into the trees on the other side of the path.
"What's up with her?" said Ron. "Why can't she run properly?"
"Bet she didn't ask permission to hide," said Harry.
"I wouldn't either, if I were a house elf," Maddie exclaimed, exchanging a glance with Ron. "What kind of bullshit's that?"
"You know, house-elves get a very raw deal!" said Hermione indignantly. "It's slavery, that's what it is! That Mr. Crouch made her go up to the top of the stadium, and she was terrified, and he's got her bewitched so she can't even run when they start trampling tents! Why doesn't anyone do something about it?"
"Well, the elves are happy, aren't they?" Ron said. "You heard old Winky back at the match — 'House-elves is not supposed to have fun' — that's what she likes, being bossed around..."
"It's people like you, Ron," Hermione began hotly. "Who prop up rotten and unjust systems, just because they're too lazy to—"
Another loud bang echoed from the edge of the wood.
"Let's just keep moving, shall we?" said Ron.
Maddie was happy to do as Ron said — the sooner she got out and found Lee, the better.
They followed the dark path deeper into the wood, still keeping an eye out for the Weasley siblings and Lee. As they continued on, they passed many goblins and veela surrounded by gold they must've won by betting, as well as a small amount of wizards attempting (and failing) to charm the veela in front of them.
Maddie noticed Ron's face go oddly slack at one point, as he himself stared at the veela, and so she gave him another gentle thump to the knee, like she did back at the game, so that he'd focus and continue walking.
"The state of you," she told him, and Harry let out a laugh.
"Honestly!" Hermione agreed.
By the time the sounds of the veela and their admirers had faded completely, they were in the very heart of the wood. They seemed to be alone now — everything was much quieter.
Harry looked around. "I reckon we can just wait here, you know. We'll hear anyone coming a mile off."
"No," Maddie said. "We need to find Lee—"
The words had hardly left her mouth, when Ludo Bagman emerged from behind a tree right ahead of them. He looked very white and strained.
"Who's that?" he said, blinking down at them, trying to make out their faces. "What are you doing in here, all alone?"
They looked at one another, surprised.
"Well — there's a sort of riot going on," said Ron, a frown on his face.
Bagman stared at him.
"What?"
"At the campsite... some people have got hold of a family of Muggles..."
Bagman swore loudly, and disapparated immediately.
"Not exactly on top of things, Mr. Bagman, is he?" said Hermione, frowning.
"He was a great Beater, though," said Ron, leading the way off the path into a small clearing, and sitting down on a patch of dry grass at the foot of a tree. "The Wimbourne Wasps won the league three times in a row while he was with them."
"Right... I don't think that means he can stop a fucking riot though, Ron," Maddie said, giving him a weird look.
"I never said that," Ron responded, before taking his small figure of Krum out of his pocket, setting it down on the ground, and watching it walk around.
Maddie fiddled with some small twigs that she'd somehow picked up without even realising — she broke them up into tiny pieces as she listened out for any noise. The campsite seemed much quieter. Perhaps the riot was over...
"I hope the others are okay," said Hermione after a while.
Maddie began thinking again of her dad, all by himself... and Lee — what if he'd separated from the Weasleys to look for her? A sickly feeling began to bubble in her stomach, yet again.
"They'll be fine," Ron said, after glancing Maddie's way and noticing her furrowed eyebrows as she stared at the floor.
She nodded, forcing a smile. "Yeah," she said, before looking back at the ground.
"Imagine if your dad catches Lucius Malfoy," said Harry, sitting down next to Ron and watching the small figure of Krum slouching over the fallen leaves. "He's always said he'd like to get something on him."
"That'd wipe the smirk off old Draco's face, all right," said Ron.
"Those poor Muggles, though," said Hermione nervously. "What if they can't get them down?"
"They will," said Ron reassuringly. "They'll find a way."
"Mad, though, to do something like that when the whole Ministry of Magic's out here tonight!" said Hermione. "I mean, how do they expect to get away with it? Do you think they've been drinking, or are they just—"
But she broke off abruptly and looked over her shoulder. Maddie looked up to see why she'd gone quiet. Harry and Ron looked quickly around too. It sounded as though someone was staggering toward their clearing. They waited, listening to the sounds of the uneven steps behind the dark trees. But the footsteps came to a sudden halt.
"Hello?" called Harry.
Maddie shot him a stern glance.
"Are you stupid?!" she hissed through her teeth. "That could be anyone! That could be one of those—"
But Harry shushed her, and stood up, peering around the trees.
"Who's there?" he said.
Maddie dropped her head into her hands and shook it. Harry's a fucking idiot.
And then, without warning, the silence was broken by a voice unlike any they had heard in the wood — and it uttered, not a panicked shout, but what sounded like a spell.
"MORSMORDRE!"
And something vast, green, and glittering erupted from the patch of darkness. It flew up over the treetops and into the sky.
"What the—?" gasped Ron as he sprang to his feet again, staring up at the thing that had appeared. Maddie joined him.
It was a colossal skull, comprised of what looked like emerald stars, with a serpent protruding from its mouth like a tongue. As they watched, it rose higher and higher, blazing in a haze of greenish smoke, etched against the black sky like a new constellation.
Maddie's heart dropped to her feet.
Suddenly, the wood all around them erupted with screams.
"Who's there?" Harry called again.
"Harry, shut the fuck up!" Maddie spat, as Hermione seized the collar of his jacket and tugged him backwards.
"What's the matter?" Harry said, startled to see their faces so terrified.
"It's the Dark Mark, Harry!" Hermione said through a shaky voice, pulling him as hard as she could. "It's You-Know-Who's sign!"
"Voldemort's?"
"Harry, come on!"
Ron hurriedly scooped up his miniature Krum, and the four of them started across the clearing — but before they had taken a few hurried steps, a series of popping noises announced the arrival of twenty wizards, appearing from thin air, surrounding them.
Maddie's eyes squinted in the darkness — she couldn't quite see who they were — or at least, not before she was pulled to the ground as Harry shouted,
"DUCK!"
"STUPEFY!" roared the many voices. The was a blinding series of flashes, and Maddie let out a yelp of horror. She kept her head low, not risking to lift it to see what was happening around her.
"Stop!" yelled a voice she recognized. "STOP! That's my son!"
Maddie raised her head slightly once the spells had stopped being shot, and saw Mr. Weasley striding towards them, looking terrified.
"Ron — Harry," he said, with a shaky voice. "Hermione — Maddie — are you all right?"
"Out of the way, Arthur," said a cold, curt voice.
It was Mr. Crouch. He and the other Ministry wizards were closing in on them. Harry got to his feet to face them, and so Maddie slowly joined him. Mr. Crouch's face was taut with rage.
"Which of you did it?" he snapped, his sharp eyes darting between them. "Which of you conjured the Dark Mark?"
"Are you joking?!" Maddie spoke first, but was cut off by Harry.
"We didn't do that!" said Harry, gesturing up at the skull.
"We didn't do anything!" said Ron, who was rubbing his elbow and looking indignantly at his father. "What did you want to attack us for?"
"Do not lie, sir!" shouted Mr. Crouch. His wand pointed directly at Ron, and his eyes were popping — he looked slightly mad. Maddie looked at him as if he were. "You have been discovered at the scene of the crime!"
"Barty," whispered a witch in a long woolen dressing gown. "They're kids, Barty, they'd never have been able to—"
"Where did the Mark come from, you four?" said Mr. Weasley quickly.
"Over there," said Hermione shakily, pointing at the place where they had heard the voice. "There was someone behind the trees... they shouted words — an incantation—"
"Oh, stood over there, did they?" said Mr. Crouch, turning his popping eyes on Hermione now, disbelief etched all over his face. "Said an incantation, did they? You seem very well informed about how that Mark is summoned, missy—"
"Well, no fucking shit it was summoned with an incantation—" Maddie began.
Ron, who was already standing in front of her, a little to the right, moved in slightly so that the back of his left shoulder was now directly in front of her — in order for him to look over it and shush her.
"I'm just saying, what else would it have been?" Maddie retorted. "A little song and dance in the woods to summon it? A fancy little ritual? Please,"
Thankfully, none of the Ministry wizards apart from Mr. Crouch seemed to think it at all likely that Maddie, Harry, Ron, or Hermione had conjured the skull. In fact, at Hermione's words, they had all raised their wands again and were pointing in the direction she had indicated, squinting through the dark trees.
"We're too late," said the witch in the woolen dressing gown, shaking her head. "They'll have Disapparated."
"I don't think so," said a wizard with a scrubby brown beard. "Our Stunners went right through those trees... there's a good chance we got them..."
"Amos, be careful!" said a few of the wizards warningly as the man squared his shoulders, raised his wand, marched across the clearing, and disappeared into the darkness. Hermione watched him vanish with her hands over her mouth.
A few seconds later, they heard the man shout.
"Yes! We got them! There's someone here! Unconscious! It's — but — blimey..."
"You've got someone?" shouted Mr. Crouch, sounding highly disbelieving. "Who? Who is it?"
They heard snapping twigs, the rustling of leaves, and then crunching footsteps as the man reemerged from behind the trees. He was carrying a tiny, limp figure in his arms. Maddie tilted her head and squinted her eyes in an attempt to make out what exactly it was he was carrying — but as he drew closer, it became more and more clear that he had found a house elf. And not just any house elf, either — it was Winky.
Mr. Crouch did not move or speak as the wizard deposited his elf on the ground at his feet. The other Ministry wizards were all staring at him. For a few seconds Crouch remained transfixed, his eyes blazing in his white face as he stared down at Winky. Then he appeared to come to life again.
"This — cannot — be," he said jerkily. "No—"
He moved quickly around the man who had brought the house elf back and strode off toward the place where he had found Winky.
"No point, Mr. Crouch," The man 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 and the rustling of leaves as he pushed the bushes aside, searching.
"Bit embarrassing," The man said grimly, looking down at Winky's unconscious form. "Barty Crouch's house-elf... I mean to say..."
Maddie peered over from behind Ron's shoulder, looking at Winky with confusion. He turned his head to meet her eyes and they exchanged uneasy glances.
"Come off it, Amos," said Mr. Weasley quietly, "You don't seriously think it was the elf? The Dark Mark's a wizard's sign. It requires a wand."
"Yeah," said the man. "And she had a wand."
"What?" said Mr. Weasley.
"Here, look." The man 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. Looking breathless and disorientated, he spun on the spot, goggling upward at the emerald-green skull.
"The Dark Mark!" he panted, almost trampling Winky as he turned inquiringly 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 mustache were both twitching.
"Where have you been, Barty?" said Bagman. "Why weren't you at the match? Your elf was saving you a seat too—" Bagman jumped upon noticing Winky lying at his feet. "What happened to her?"
"I have been busy, Ludo," said Mr. Crouch, 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 — 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!"
Maddie was starting to get more irritated and bored by the second. She did not give two shits whether or not the elf conjured up the Dark Mark — at least, not right at this second, anyway. She wanted to find Lee, she wanted to know that her brother was okay. And she wanted to find her Dad, too — who knew where he could've ended up? All this Ministry business, she didn't care about (at least, not right at this second).
Once Winky had awoken, Maddie watched the situation unfold before her — the elf denied conjuring the Dark Mark (of course) and it took a few good seconds of eyeing up the wand Winky had been carrying for Harry to speak up in surprise at the fact that the wand was his.
Hermione defended Winky after the elf stated she'd 'just picked it up' and exclaimed how the voice who had summoned the dark mark sounded nothing like the elf. Maddie backed her on this one, as did Harry and Ron.
But the elf was still found guilty — for when they discovered the last spell used on Harry's wand was indeed the incantation to summon the Dark Mark, Winky was to be presented with clothes — freeing her from Mr Crouch as punishment, no matter how hard she pleaded or cried, or how hard Hermione and the others tried to persuade Mr Crouch otherwise.
"Come on, you four," Mr. Weasley said quietly. But Hermione didn't seem to want to move — her eyes were still upon the sobbing elf.
"Hermione!" Mr. Weasley said, more urgently. She turned and followed Maddie, Ron and Harry out of the clearing and off through the trees.
Maddie couldn't have been more glad to be out of the situation.
"What's going to happen to Winky?" said Hermione, the moment they had left the clearing.
"I don't know," said Mr. Weasley.
"The way they were treating her!" said Hermione furiously. "Mr. Diggory, calling her 'elf' all the time..."
"Who's Mr Diggory?" Maddie asked.
"The man who found Winky," Harry explained. Maddie let out a small 'ohhhh!' as Hermione continued her rant.
"And Mr. Crouch! He knows she didn't do it and he's still going to sack her! He didn't care how frightened she'd been, or how upset she was — it was like she wasn't even human!"
"Well, she's not," said Ron.
Hermione rounded on him.
"That doesn't mean she hasn't got feelings, Ron. It's disgusting the way—"
"Hermione, I agree with you," said Mr. Weasley quickly, beckoning her on, "but now is not the time to discuss elf rights. I want to get back to the tent as fast as we can. What happened to the others?"
"We lost them in the dark," said Ron.
"Did you not find them, yet?" Maddie asked Mr Weasley, her worry for her older brother building, yet again.
"He'll be fine," Ron reassured her, feeling slightly weird at the sight of Maddie worrying. When did Maddie Jordan worry? "It's Lee we're talking about. Plus, he's with the others,"
Maddie forced a smile at Ron's attempt of comforting her, but she couldn't say she was put at much ease.
"Dad, why was everyone so uptight about that skull thing?"
"I'll explain everything back at the tent," said Mr. Weasley tensely.
But when they reached the edge of the wood, their progress was impeded. A large crowd of frightened-looking witches and wizards was congregated there, and when they saw Mr. Weasley coming toward them, many of them surged forward.
"What's going on in there?"
"Who conjured it?"
"Arthur — it's not — Him?"
"Of course it's not Him," said Mr. Weasley impatiently. "We don't know who it was — it looks like they Disapparated. Now excuse me, please, I want to get to bed."
He led Harry, Ron, and Hermione through the crowd and back into the campsite. All was quiet now — there was no sign of the masked wizards, though several ruined tents were still smoking.
One of Ron's older brothers poked his head out of the boys' tent.
"Dad, what's going on?" he called through the dark. "Fred, George, and Ginny got back okay with Lee, but the others—"
Maddie let out a sigh of relief.
"I've got them here," said Mr. Weasley, bending down and entering the tent. Harry, Ron, Maddie and Hermione entered after him.
Maddie had never been more relieved to see her stupid big brother.
"You fucking idiot!" was Lee's greeting as he rushed over to Maddie, scanning her to ensure she was unhurt.
"Me?!" Maddie retorted. "You, more like!"
"I'm not the one who vanished! One minute you were there, and the next..." the boy trailed off.
"Yeah, I meant to do that," Maddie said sarcastically. "Just disappeared into thin air. One hundred percent my idea,"
The rest of the Weasleys joined the group shortly after, with an eruption of different explanations of what had happened when they split.
It was whilst the Weasley twins were exaggerating their own story when Maddie felt a nudge on her shoulder. She turned to look at Ron, who grinned, nodded towards her brother, and simply said,
"Told you he'd be fine,"
"Shove off, Ginge,"
But Maddie still couldn't help but wear a small smile on her face.