A Hogwarts Legend: Chaos Begins [4] (SLOW UPDATES)

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven - "All's fair in love and fanfiction."

My hair stops blowing about. I raise my head a little higher. The wizard in front of me has lowered his wand. I roll over and see Mr Weasley striding towards us, looking terrified.

"Ron - Harry - Emily -" his voice sounds shaky, "- Hermione - Elinor - are you all right?"

"Out of the way, Arthur," says a cold, curt voice.

It's Mr Crouch. He and the other Ministry wizards are closing in on us. I get to my feet to face them. Mr Crouch's face is taut with rage.

"Which of you did it?" he snaps, his sharp eyes darting between us. "Which of you conjured the Dark Mark?"

"We didn't do that!" says Harry, getting to his feet and gesturing up at the skull.

"We didn't do anything!" says Ron, who's rubbing his elbow, and looking indignantly at his father. "What did you want to attack us for?"

"Do not lie, sir!" shouts Mr Crouch. His wand is still pointing directly at Ron, and his eyes are popping - he looks slightly mad. "You have been discovered at the scene of the crime!"

"Barty," whispers a witch in a long woollen dressing-gown, "they're kids, Barry, they'd never have been able to -"

"Where did the Mark come from, you three?" says Mr Weasley quickly.

"Over there," says Elinor, pointing at the place where we heard the voice, "there was someone behind the trees ... they shouted words - an incantation -"

"Oh, stood over there, did they?" says Mr Crouch, turning his popping eyes on Elinor 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 seem to think it remotely likely that Harry, Ron, Hermione, Elinor or I have conjured the skull; on the contrary, at Elinor's words, they've raised all their wands again, and are pointing in the direction she indicated, squinting through the dark trees.

"We're too late," says the witch in the woollen dressing-gown, shaking her head. "They'll have Disapparated."

"I don't think so," says a wizard with a scrubby brown beard. It's Amos Diggory, Cedric's dad. "Our Stunners went right through those trees ... there's a good chance we got them ..."

"Amos, be careful!" says a few of the wizards warningly, as Mr Diggory squares his shoulders, raises his wand, marches across the clearing and disappears into the darkness. Hermione watches him vanish with her hands over her mouth.

A few seconds later, we hear Mr Diggory shout.

"Yes! We got them! There's someone here! Unconscious! It's - but - blimey ..."

"You've got someone?" shouts Mr Crouch, sounding highly disbelieving. "Who? Who is it?"

We hear snapping twigs, the rustling of leaves, and then crunching footsteps as Mr Diggory re-emerges from behind the trees. He's carrying a tiny, limp figure on his arms. I recognise the tea-towel at once. It's Winky.

Mr Crouch doesn't move or speak as Mr Diggory deposits Mr Crouch's elf on the ground at his feet. The other Ministry wizards are all staring at Mr Crouch. For a few seconds Crouch remains transfixed, his eyes blazing in his white face as he stares down at Winky. Then he appears to come to life again.

"This - cannot - be," he says jerkily. "No -"

He moves quickly around Mr Diggory and strides off towards the place where he found Diggory.