Brutal. | Fred Weasley

ten!

Hitting the ground sends all of them sprawling to the floor. Aurelia lays, exhausted and face down for a moment before rolling herself over to stare up at the sky. The screaming coming from all around her feels too far away, as though she's deep underwater.

Fleur is the first person she sees, the white-blonde hair unmistakable. "Aurelia!" she cries desperately. "What— how— are you okay?"

"No," she replies bluntly, her voice quiet. "No, I'm not." Madame Maxime helps her sit up unsteadily. Albus Dumbledore is hunched over Harry, who looks dazed. She tries to get her bearings. She's outside of a large maze on what she assumes must be a Quidditch pitch, judging by the large golden hoops at either end. The entire crowd is trying to push forward. Cornelius Fudge shoves his way to the front.

"What's going on? What's happened?"

Aurelia holds her head as it pounds with the noise. "Will someone please shut them up?" She's not sure where the exhaustion comes from, but suddenly everything is too much.

"My God— Diggory!" Fudge mutters. "Dumbledore— he's dead!"

The word seems to spread through the crowd. "Make them stop," Aurelia says again, leaning her weight onto Fleur's shoulder. Dumbledore picks Harry from the ground and sets him on his feet unsteadily. People were pushing and shoving, trying to get closer. It's dark and it's just getting darker, the sensation of too many people pushing closer overwhelming her.

"Good God, is that Peter Pettigrew?" Fudge asks loudly, looking beside Aurelia.

"'s Wormtail," she mutters tiredly. "He killed Cedric." As her tiredness wears on, the Full Body Bind is wearing off. Suddenly, he's transforming into a rat and trying to scamper away. People are screaming as he tries to worm his way into the crowd, but Aurelia finds her wand in the grass and, with her last bit of energy, conjures a cage around him. "He's a traitorous, lying, cowardly rat," she exclaims angrily. "He killed Cedric Diggory."

"Dumbledore, Amos Diggory's running... he's coming over..." Just as he says that, Cedric splutters loudly, coughing relentlessly. Aurelia shoots to his side as he sits up.

"Cedric?" she whispers, her eyes wide. "Are you— how are you—?"

"I don't..." he mutters, dazed. "I don't know. You. I think it was you."

Fudge is looking between the two of them rapidly. Dumbledore is trying to dispel the crowd and Harry is being dragged across the field with Mad-Eye Moody. Aurelia watches him go nervously. Dumbledore is soon checking on Cedric with Aurelia, sending her weird looks. She lurches to her feet and takes a few steps in the direction that Moody took Harry, her gut telling her that something weird is going on, especially as her mind clears and she registers that Dumbledore had told him to stay.

"Dumbledore... said..." she mutters as Fleur arrives at her arm again. Madame Maxime begins leading her away from the crowd that she had just been angrily talking about.