Grindelwald's Burden (Books 1-7)

67. The Graveyard

Y/n felt his feet slam into the ground before his, Harry and Cedric's legs gave way, and they fell forward, his hand let go of the Triwizard Cup at last. He raised his head.

"Where are we?" Harry said.

Cedric shook his head. He got up, pulled Harry to his feet, and they looked around.

"Nowhere good, that is for certain..." Y/n said as Cedric helped him up next. "Thank you."

They had left the Hogwarts grounds completely, they had obviously traveled miles... perhaps hundreds of miles... for even the mountains surrounding the castle were gone. They were standing instead in a dark and overgrown graveyard. The black outline of a small church was visible beyond a large yew tree to their right. A hill rose above them to their left. Y/n could just make out the outline of a fine old house on the hillside.

Cedric looked down at the Triwizard Cup and then up at Y/n and Harry.

"Did anyone tell you the cup was a Portkey?" he asked.

"Nope." said Harry looking around the graveyard. It was completely silent and slightly eerie. "Is this supposed to be part of the task?"

"No...I do not think so." Y/n said nervously.

"Wands out, d'you reckon?" Cedric asked also nervous.

"Yeah." said Harry, glad that Cedric had made the suggestion rather than him.

They pulled out their wands. Harry kept looking around him. He had, yet again, the strange feeling that they were being watched.

"Someone's coming." he said suddenly.

Squinting tensely through the darkness, they watched the figure drawing nearer, walking steadily toward them between the graves. Y/n couldn't make out a face, but from the way it was walking and holding its arms, he could tell that it was carrying something. Whoever it was, he was short, and wearing a hooded cloak pulled up over his head to obscure his face. And several paces nearer, the gap between them closing all the time... Y/n saw that the thing in the person's arms looked like a baby...or was it merely a bundle of robes?

Harry lowered his wand slightly and glanced sideways at Y/n. Y/n shot him a confused but cautious look. Then both turned back to watch the approaching figure.

It stopped beside a towering marble headstone, only six feet from them. For a second. Harry, Y/n and Cedric and the short figure simply looked at one another.

And then, without warning, Harry's scar exploded with pain. He dropped his wand as it slipped from his fingers and he put his hands over his face, his knees buckled, he was on the ground.

"What have you done to him!" Y/n said raising his wand to the figure.

From far away, he heard a high, cold voice say. "Kill the spare and bind the other...."

A swishing noise and a second voice, which screeched the words to the night. "Avada Kedavra!"

A blast of green light blazed past Y/n's eyes, and he heard something heavy fall to the ground beside him. He turned his head to see Cedric was lying spread-eagled on the ground beside him.

He was dead.

"No..." Y/n said in despair. For a second that contained an eternity, Y/n stared into Cedric's face, at his open gray eyes, blank and expressionless as the windows of a deserted house, at his half-open mouth, which looked slightly surprised. And then, before his mind had accepted what he was seeing, he could hear Harry groaning and turned to see his friend being pulled up into the air.

"Leave him alone!" Y/n shouted angrily raising his wand.

The short man in the cloak had put down his bundle, his wand now turned to Y/n and he summoned ropes from his wand that quickly ensnared themselves around Y/n.