Mr. Weasley woke us up with a start. Hermione, Ginny, and I barely had enough time to put coats on before we were ushered out of our tent to where Harry, Ron, Fred, and George were waiting for us. At the same moment, Bill, Charlie, and Percy emerged from the boys' tent, fully dressed, with their sleeves rolled up and their wands out.
"We're going to help the Ministry!" Mr. Weasley shouted over all the noise, rolling up his own sleeves. "You lot— get into the woods, and stick together. I'll come and fetch you when we've sorted this out!"
Bill, Charlie, and Percy were already sprinting away toward the oncoming marchers; Mr. Weasley tore after them. Ministry wizards were dashing from every direction toward the source of the trouble. The crowd beneath the Roberts family was coming ever closer.
"C'mon," said Fred, grabbing my and Ginny's hands and starting to pull us toward the wood. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and George followed. We all looked back as we reached the trees. The crowd beneath the Roberts family was larger than ever; I could see the Ministry wizards trying to get through it to the hooded wizards in the center, but they were having great difficulty. It looked as though they were scared to perform any spell that might make the Roberts family fall.
The colored lanterns that had lit the path to the stadium had been extinguished. Dark figures were blundering through the trees; children were crying; anxious shouts and panicked voices were reverberating around them in the cold night air. Fred let go of my hand, allowing me to run by myself. I was being pushed hither and thither by people whose faces he could not see. Then I heard Ron yell with pain.
"What happened?" said Hermione anxiously, stopping so abruptly that Harry walked into her. "Ron, where are you? Oh this is stupid— lumos!"
She illuminated her wand and directed its narrow beam across the path. Ron was lying sprawled on the ground.
"Tripped over a tree root," he said angrily, getting to his feet again
"Well, with feet that size, hard not to," said a drawling voice from behind us.
Harry, Ron, Hermione, and I turned sharply. Draco Malfoy was standing alone nearby, leaning against a tree, looking utterly relaxed. His arms folded, he seemed to have been watching the scene at the campsite through a gap in the trees. Ron told Malfoy to do something that I knew he would never have dared say in front of Mrs. Weasley.
"Language, Weasley," said Malfoy, his pale eyes glittering. "Hadn't you better be hurrying along, now? You wouldn't like her spotted, would you?"
He nodded at Hermione, and at the same moment, a blast like a bomb sounded from the campsite, and a flash of green light momentarily lit the trees around them.
"What's that supposed to mean?" said Hermione defiantly.
"Granger, they're after Muggles," said Malfoy. "D'you want to be showing off your knickers in midair? Because if you do, hang around— they're moving this way, and it would give us all a laugh."
"Hermione's a witch," Harry snarled.
"Have it your own way, Potter," said Malfoy, grinning maliciously. "If you think they can't spot a Mudblood, stay where you are.
"You watch your mouth!" I shouted.
"Never mind, Maisey," said Hermione quickly, seizing my arm to restrain me as I took a step toward Malfoy.
Malfoy chuckled softly at the screams.
"Scare easily, don't they?" he said lazily. "I suppose your daddy told you all to hide? What's he up to— trying to rescue the Muggles?"
"Where're your parents?" I said, my temper rising higher and higher as he spoke. "Out there wearing masks, are they?"
Malfoy turned his face to me, still smiling.
"Well... if they were, I wouldn't be likely to tell you, would I, Potter?"
"Oh come on," said Hermione, with a disgusted look at Malfoy, "let's go and find the others."
"Keep that big bushy head down, Granger," sneered Malfoy.
"Come on," Hermione repeated, and she pulled Harry and Ron up the path again as I followed.
"I'll bet you anything his dad is one of that masked lot!" said Ron hotly.
"Well, with any luck, the Ministry will catch him!" said Hermione fervently. "Oh, I can't believe this. Where have the others got to?"
Fred, George, and Ginny were nowhere to be seen, though the path was packed with plenty of other people, all looking nervously over our shoulders toward the commotion back at the campsite.
A huddle of teenagers in pajamas was arguing vociferously a little way along the path. When they saw Harry, Ron, and Hermione, a girl with thick curly hair turned and said quickly, "Où est Madame Maxime? Nous l'avons perdue —"
"French? Do you speak English?" I said softly.
"Oh..." The girl who had spoken turned her back on us, and as we walked on we distinctly heard her say, " 'Ogwarts."
"Beauxbatons," muttered Hermione.
"Sorry?" said Harry.
"They must go to Beauxbatons," said Hermione. "You know, Beauxbatons Academy of Magic. I read about it in An Appraisal of Magical Education in Europe."
"Of course you did," Harry said.
"Fred and George can't have gone that far," said Ron, pulling out his wand, lighting it like Hermione's, and squinting up the path. I followed suit, but Harry managed to lose his wand.
"Maybe it's back in the tent," I said.
"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 us jump. Winky the house-elf was fighting her way out of a clump of bushes nearby. She was moving in a most peculiar fashion, apparently with great difficulty; 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!"
And she disappeared into the trees on the other side of the path, panting and squeaking as she fought the force that was restraining her.
"What's up with her?" said Ron, looking curiously after Winky. "Why can't she run properly?"
"Bet she didn't ask permission to hide," said Harry.
"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 —?"
Another loud bang echoed from the edge of the wood.
"Let's just keep moving, shall we?" said Ron, and I saw him glance edgily at Hermione. Hermione was in more danger than we were.
We followed the dark path deeper into the wood, still keeping an eye out for Fred, George, and Ginny. We passed a group of goblins who were cackling over a sack of gold that they had undoubtedly won betting on the match, and who seemed quite unperturbed by the trouble at the campsite. Farther still along the path, we walked into a patch of silvery light, and when we looked through the trees, we saw three tall veelas standing in a clearing, surrounded by a gaggle of young wizards, all of whom were talking very loudly.
"I pull down about a hundred sacks of Galleons a year!" one of them shouted. "I'm a dragon killer for the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures."
"No, you're not!" yelled his friend. "You're a dishwasher at the Leaky Cauldron... but I'm a vampire hunter, I've killed about ninety so far—"
A third young wizard, whose pimples were visible even by the dim, silvery light of the veela, now cut in, "I'm about to become the youngest ever Minister of Magic, I am."
I laughed at their stupidity and went to get tell Ron, but Ron's face had gone oddly slack, and next second Ron was yelling, "Did I tell you I've invented a broomstick that'll reach Jupiter?"
"Honestly!" said Hermione, and she and I grabbed Ron firmly by the arms, wheeled him around, and marched him away. By the time the sounds of the veela and their admirers had faded completely, we were in the very heart of the wood. We seemed to be alone now; everything was much quieter.
"I reckon we can just wait here, you know. We'll hear anyone coming a mile off," Harry said, looking around.
Even by the feeble light of our three wands, I could see that a great change had come over Bagman. He no longer looked buoyant and rosy-faced; there was no more spring in his step. He looked very white and strained.
"Who's that?" he said, blinking down at us, trying to make out our faces. "What are you doing in here, all alone?"
We looked at one another, surprised.
"Well— there's a sort of riot going on," said Ron.
Bagman stared at him.
"What?"
"At the campsite," I whispered, "some people have got hold of a family of Muggles—"
Bagman swore loudly.
"Damn them!" he said, looking quite distracted, and without another word, he Disapparated with a small pop!
"Not exactly on top of things, Mr. Bagman, is he?" said Hermione, frowning.
"I hope the others are okay," I said after a while.
"They'll be fine," said Ron.
"Imagine if your dad catches Lucius Malfoy," said Harry, sitting down next to Ron. "He's always said he'd like to get something on him."
"That'd wipe the smirk off Draco Malfoy'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. Harry, Ron, and I looked quickly around too. It sounded as though someone was staggering toward our clearing. We waited, listening to the sounds of the uneven steps behind the dark trees. But the footsteps came to a sudden halt.
"Hello?" called Harry.
There was silence. I got to my feet and peered around the tree. It was too dark to see very far, but I could sense somebody standing just beyond the range of my vision.
"Who's there?" I said.
And then, without warning, the silence was rent by a voice unlike any we 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 my eyes had been struggling to penetrate; 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.
For a split second, I thought it was another leprechaun formation. Then I realized that it was a colossal skull, comprised of what looked like emerald stars, with a serpent protruding from its mouth like a tongue. As we watched, it rose higher and higher, blazing in a haze of greenish smoke, etched against the black sky like a new constellation.
Suddenly, the wood all around us erupted with screams. I gasped and ran back to the group, grabbing Harry's arm.
"Who's there?" Harry called.
"Harry, come on, move!" I whispered harshly at him.
"What's the matter?" Harry said, startled to see her face so white and terrified
"It's the Dark Mark, Harry!" Hermione moaned, grabbing onto Harry and helping me pull him. He wasn't moving. "You-Know-Who's sign!"
"Voldemort's —?"
"Harry, come on!"
Harry turned and the four of us started across the clearing— but before we had taken a few hurried steps, a series of popping noises announced the arrival of twenty wizards, appearing from thin air, surrounding us.
I whirled around, and in an instant, I registered one fact: Each of these wizards had their wands out, and every wand was pointing right at me, Harry, Ron, and Hermione.
"DUCK!" Harry yelled and tackled me to the ground, managing to knock over Ron and Hermione in the process.
"STUPEFY!" roared twenty voices— there was a blinding series of flashes and I felt the hair on his head ripple as though a powerful wind had swept the clearing. Turning my head, I saw jets of fiery red light flying over us from the wizards' wands, crossing one another, bouncing off tree trunks, rebounding into the darkness—
"Stop!" yelled a voice I recognized. "STOP! That's my son!
The wizard in front of him had lowered his wand. He rolled over and saw Mr. Weasley striding toward us, looking terrified.
"Ron— Harry" — his voice sounded shaky — "Hermione— Maisey— 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 us. Harry got to his feet to face us, helping us up. 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?"
"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 was still pointing directly at Ron, and his eyes were popping— he looked slightly mad. "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," I said 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 me now, disbelief etched all over his face. "Said an incantation, did they? You seem very well informed about how that Mark is summoned, missy—"
But none of the Ministry wizards apart from Mr. Crouch seemed to think it remotely likely that Harry, Ron, Hermione, or I had conjured the skull; on the contrary, at my words, they had all raised their wands again and were pointing in the direction I 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. It was Amos Diggory, Cedric's father. "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 Mr. Diggory 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, we heard Mr. Diggory 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?"
We heard snapping twigs, the rustling of leaves, and then crunching footsteps as Mr. Diggory reemerged from behind the trees. He was carrying a tiny, limp figure in his arms. I recognized the tea towel at once. It was Winky.