If Only//Harry Potter [4]

24

The world seemed to spin as they returned to the beginning of the maze. The crowd cheered as they saw someone had won, and the crowd cheered even more when they recognised the two Hogwarts Champions had returned. 

But what they hadn't noticed was that Autumn was there, and she was crying profusely. She clutched onto Cedric and kept muttering, we finally had a chance. Harry was crying as well, but the shock of everything kept him from doing anything else. Autumn felt as if she couldn't breathe. This was all her fault. First Cayden, then Cedric: both her fault.

Someone tried to pull Autumn away, but she clutched onto him even tighter. "No!"

"What's happened?" Dumbledore turned Harry around, pulling him away from Autumn and Cedric's body. 

"He's back. He's back. Voldemort's back. Cedric, he asked me to bring his body back. I couldn't leave him, not there." Harry crumbled to the ground, crying even more than before.

Dumbledore tried to comfort Harry while someone dragged Autumn away from Cedric.

"No! NO! Leave me alone!" Autumn cried out and scrambled to get back to Cedric, but someone held her away.

"It's all right, Harry. It's all right. He's home. You, Autumn, and Cedric are." Dumbledore took the time to look at Autumn as well. The normal sparkle in her grey eyes have dimmed out and looked dull. Her face was covered in sweat, dirt, blood, and tears. Her clothes were all tattered and ripped. 

"Let me through. Let me through! That's my son! That's my boy! It's my boy!" 

Autumn cried even harder when she heard Amos, Cedric's father, call out to his only son. Who was now dead because she had failed to save him.

Moody lifted Harry and held him around the neck, carefully holding him back. Autumn noticed this and went hysterical. 

"No! Leave him alone! I know what you've done!" When Autumn tried to stand up, someone held her down. "Stop! Let me go!" She shrieked, her voice barely detectable over Amos' screams.

Hermione and Ron made their way down to Autumn. The professor who arms' were wrapped around Autumn's suddenly released and she gasped for air. All that did was remind her of when she was held back at the cemetery, just to watch as Harry got hit by the Cruciatus Curse.

"W-We have to get Harry." Autumn said quickly. Her knees shook with every second she stood.

"No, he's okay. He's with Professor Moody." Hermione reasoned, trying to calm Autumn.

"That's not Moody, Hermione!" Autumn said.

"You mean—"

"Moody's the one with the potion, he's been trying to kill Harry!" Autumn shouted.

Professor McGonagall walked over quickly and spoke with urgence. "Could you repeat that, Miss Grey?"

"Moody." She panted. "Harry's not safe. Get Moody."

McGonagall took no time to ask how Autumn knew this, she just walked over to Dumbledore and in just a minute or two, they were off.

>>>

Harry held his arm carefully as Moody walked him back to his office. Moody closed the door behind him and forced Harry to sit down on a stool.

He sat, still shaking from what had happened. He was so close to dying. And because he 

"Are you all right, Potter?"

Harry nodded.

"Does it hurt? That?" Moody placed a hand on Harry's shoulder, making him feel safe yet uncomfortable. 

"Not so much now." Harry said honestly, looking at the cut Moody was referencing. 

"Perhaps I'd better take a look at it." Moody said opening the sleeves to see Harry's wound. 

"The cup was a Portkey." Harry said, his voice shaking nearly as much as he was. "Someone had bewitched it." 

"What was it like? What was he like?" Moody's voice sounded unusual.

"Who?" Harry asked, furrowing his eyebrows together.

"The Dark Lord. What was it like to stand in his presence?"

"I don't know." Harry answered honestly. "It was like I'd fallen into one of my dreams. . .into one of my nightmares." 

"Were there others? In the graveyard, were there others?" Moody asked, walking away quickly as if he were trying to find something.

"I. . ." Harry paused for a moment. A thought had struck him. "I don't think I said anything about a graveyard, Professor." Harry slowly turned to face him again.

The two stared at each other as Harry slowly pieced somethings together.

"'Marvelous creatures, dragons, aren't they?'" Moody mocked as he took a change of tone. "Did you think that miserable oaf would've led you into the woods. . . if I hadn't suggested it? Do you think Cedric Diggory would've told you to open the egg underwater. . . if I hadn't told him first myself? Did you think Neville Longbottom, the witless wonder. . . could've provided you with gillyweed if I hadn't given him the book. . . that led him straight to it?" 

"It was you from the beginning." Harry said, suddenly understanding what had happened. "You put my name in the Goblet of Fire. You bewitched Krum, but you—"

"'But— But—'" Moody mocked again. "You won because I made it so, Potter. You ended up in that graveyard tonight because it was meant to be so. And now the deed is done. The blood that runs through these veins runs within the Dark Lord. Imagine how he will reward me when he learns. . . that l have once and for all. . . silenced the great Harry Potter." 

Moody grinned with a murderous smile as he raised his wand.