New Romantics | Hermione Granger Book IV

|22| Chapter Twenty-Two

T W E N T Y  T W O 

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"I don't know if anybody is going to ask us anything, word might not have travelled about what happened yet but keep your mouths shut. Don't say anything, we, well, I don't need to stick my neck out more than I already have tonight, the Ministry hate me enough as it is,"

Saffron nodded at Sage's instructions and when they made it back to the campsite, several people asked if they had any idea about what had gone. They did what they were told and kept their mouths shut until they were met by a familiar face.

"Ron!" It was Mr. Weasley, who ran forward from the dark, taking his son into his arms. He soon turned to Sage

"Sage, it wasn't..."

"Not now," Sage said to him simply, looking out of the corner of her eye to see several onlookers listening in on their conversation. "Not here," She paused. "Are Noah and the others at your tent or did Sirius take them back?"

"Sirius took them back," Mr. Weasley answered, upping his stride in order to make it to the tent sooner to find out what had happened. "They were exhausted, poor Rachel collapsed while they were running away,"

Saffron feigned her best-horrified expression, trying to look like she was shocked by what she was hearing for Mr. Weasley and Ron's benefits alone, as the others all knew about their Clairvoyance. Knowing that Rachel and Rowan's experiences in the Grey were almost exclusively conjoined, it came as no shock to them to hear of the confirmation that Rachel too had collapsed. Saffron also knew that Rowan was still holding in exactly what he wanted to tell Saffron earlier.

There was a chilling silence as they made their way back to the Weasley tent. Many tents still had smoke coming out of them and some areas were burnt down completely. Saffron also noticed that many areas that did have tents were gone completely which told her that some people have vacated the site completely in order to get out of harm's way.

Once back, they were spotted by Charlie who was poking his head out of the larger tent that belonged to the boys.

"Did you find them?" Charlie called out to him, noticing only his father at first, hence speaking directly to him.

"They're all okay," Mr. Weasley told him, leading the others to the entrance of the tent and entering it. He was followed by Saffron, Rowan, Hermione, Harry, Ron and finally Sage.

The Weasleys in the tent all appeared to have gone through quite an ordeal too. Bill was holding a bedsheet to his arm which was stained by blood. Charlie's shirt was ripped. Percy's nose was running with blood. Fred, George and Ginny were unscathed but visibly still in shock by the whole ordeal.

"Did they get them, Sage?" Arthur asked the woman now that they were within the confines of the tent. "The person who conjured the Mark?"

"Unfortunately, no," Sage responded. "By the time we got there, all we found were these five and then later found Barty Crouch's house-elf holding Ron's wand. But clearly, a house-elf didn't put that thing in the sky,"

"What?" said Mr. Weasley, Bill, Charlie, and Percy together.

"Ron wand?" said Fred, looking at Ron as though that was the most interesting thing to ever happen to him.

"Mr. Crouch's elf?"  gawked Percy.

Sage told the whole story to the Weasleys, with a little bit of help from the other five, all of whom explained how they had gotten to the position that they were in when they heard the curse go off into the air. Percy looked as though he wanted to interject at several occasions when Sage talked about Mr. Crouch but his father's look managed to make him suppress the defences he was going to come up with for Crouch.