Author's Note: Italics indicates the characters speaking in French

Disclaimer: The world and characters were all created by J.K. Rowling

Chapter 1:

Silence. That was the first thing the boy noticed as he slowly became aware of his surroundings. A silence only broken by the crackling of fire. Lifting his head, the boy took in the deserted remains of the campgrounds burning around him. Why was he lying on the ground? As he adjusted his glasses and tried to recall what had happened, he became aware of a dull throbbing coming from his forehead. Raising his hand, he felt a warm stickiness and quickly pulled back his hand, glancing at it. Blood. Instantly, he remembered. Masked men had attacked the campgrounds where he and his friends had been residing after the Quidditch World Cup. He had been woken up by Mr. Weasley who told him to flee with his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. As soon as they had left their tents, they got caught up in the stampede of people fleeing the campgrounds. Harry remembered getting separated from Ron and Hermione as the terrified mob fled towards the forest. While trying to work his way in the direction that Ron and Hermione had gone, Harry had been knocked over and trampled on by the mass of people, leading to the situation in which he now found himself.

Groaning slightly, he stood up and surveyed his surroundings once more. He was just at the edge of the forest bordering the campgrounds. Glancing towards the forest, Harry wondered where his friends had gone and what had happened to Bill, Charlie, Percy, and Mr. Weasley who had all gone to help out the Ministry. He spun around as footsteps and laughter reached his ears, interrupting his musings. After quickly hiding behind the remains of a huge tent, he slowly peeked out.

There, about twenty meters away from Harry, was a group of masked men who he recognized as the ones responsible for the destruction of everything in sight. As he watched, one of them raised his wand shouted a spell.

"MORSMORDRE!"

A green light erupted from the wand and shot into the clear night sky. As his eyes adjusted to the sudden burst of light, Harry gaped at the colossal emerald skull painted on the star filled canvas. As he continued to stare at the image with a sense of foreboding, the image of a snake, painted in the same eerie green light, slowly slithered from the mouth like a tongue with a life of its own. The group's laughter faded as they all looked up at the ghastly image in the sky.

Suddenly, the group quieted as one of the men said something and pointed a few meters to Harry's left. Looking where the man pointed, Harry noticed a small girl standing there staring at the green light with wide, fear-filled blue eyes. Turning back towards the masked men, he saw that they had begun to move towards the silver-haired girl. He quickly reached for his wand, only to find that it was not in his pocket. Clueless as to what to do, Harry could only watch as the men got closer and closer to the girl. Twenty meters became fifteen. As one of the men kicked the remains of a tent out of his way, the girl became aware that she was not alone. Yet, she did not run. Standing there, paralyzed by fright, she did the only thing she could think of. She screamed. As she screamed in fear, something clicked in Harry and before he realized it, he was sprinting across the small distance between him and the girl. Startled by his sudden appearance, the masked men reflexively shot a series of curses at him. Ducking his head as red and green lights flashed past him, Harry barely slowed down as he picked up the girl by the waist, her body bent into a U-shape by the momentum of his run. Veering towards forest and the safety of the trees, he continued to run, the ominous lights flying past him only spurring him on. As he got closer to the trees, he saw figures running towards him. With a great sense of relief, he realized that the figures were Mr. Weasley along with his elder sons as well as a shorter black-haired man.

"Keep running Harry! Get to the trees!" Shouted Mr. Weasley as he ran past him, shooting jets of red light towards the oncoming masked men.

Seeing the figures charging towards them, the masked men quickly Disapparated away in a series of loud cracks. Meanwhile, Harry stumbled into the cover of the trees, still carrying the silver-haired girl. Ron and Hermione were instantly by his side, soon followed by the Weasley twins and Ginny.

"Harry, mate, what happened to you? Why is your forehead covered in blood?" asked Ron with a worried expression.

"Oh I can't believe this! How did we get split up?! How did you manage to run into the Death Eaters? Did you see who cast the Dark Mark?" said a frantic Hermione, "Are you hurt anywhere? And who is—"

"Wait, Death Eaters? The Dark Mark?" interrupted Harry. "What are Death Eaters? What is this Dark Mark?"

"It's what You-Know-Who's supporters called themselves, and the Dark Mark is their sign," said Bill as he returned from chasing the Death Eater. "And why do you have a little girl in your arms? She can't be more than 8 years-old."

"Oh, her…? I saw the Death Eaters approaching her and I just instinctively grabbed her and ran." Harry replied as he gently set the girl on her feet.

The girl simply stared at all of them mutely with wide, blue eyes, still in shock of what had. As Harry opened his mouth to ask for her name, a worried voice cut through his thoughts.

"Gabrielle!"

"Fleur!" the small girl finally exited her shocked state, running towards a tall, willowy witch with silver hair.

Embracing her younger sister tightly, Fleur looked down at her with warmth in her eyes. As Harry looked at her, he finally noticed her breathtaking beauty, not unlike that of the veela from the World Cup. However, even with the striking resemblance to the veela mascots, his mind did not go blank as it had prior. Instead, he still retained full control of himself and only saw before him a woman whose beauty seemed to be from a dream. As Fleur looked up and surveyed the group standing before her, her quizzical glance quickly became one of distaste and disgust as she looked to Harry's left. Glancing to his left, Harry saw Ron ogling the sisters with a dazed expression on his face. Quickly jabbing his friend in the side with his elbow, Harry turned back to the silvery blonde witch. As his emerald green eyes met her deep blue eyes he suddenly forgot what he had been about to say. A slightly accented voice quickly brought his attention back to the present.

"Fleur! Gabrielle!" the short, black haired man from earlier jogged up to them. "We have to go now, your mother is really worried."

Glancing once more at the messy black haired boy with glasses who had most likely saved her sister from something terrible, she simply said "Zank you."

With that, she turned on her heels and followed the man who was presumably her father, gently pulling her sister behind her. As they disappeared into the forest, the Weasleys all turned to Harry and started talking at the same time.

"Blimey Harry, saving some veela?" questioned Fred and George in a somewhat awed voice.

"You look terrible…" murmured a worried looking Ginny.

"So what happened to you?" inquired Charlie as he clapped Harry on the shoulder, causing him to wince in pain.

"You hurt anywhere mate?" asked Ron.

"Oh, Harry, I have your wand," said Hermione as she handed Harry back his wand who gratefully pocketed it, "It fell out of your jacket earlier while at the stadium so I picked it up."

"Okay, there aren't any Portkeys available at the moment," announced Mr. Weasley as he approached them, preventing Harry from answering the slew of questions. "So you lot just rest here for a bit. We should be able to get a Portkey back in a few hours."

After cleaning the blood and dirt off of his face, Harry gingerly lowered his body to the ground, still sore from being trampled on earlier, and leaned back against the trunk of a tree along with Ron and Hermione. Staring through a gap in the treetops at the Dark Mark still glistening ominously in the night sky, he reflected on the hectic activities of the past twenty-four hours. An evening that had started with a fun and exciting Quidditch game had suddenly turned into a scene straight from a nightmare. As he finally realized just how much he had gone through over the duration of that hectic night, he closed his eyes. Before long, his exhaustion crept up on him and he soon entered a dreamless slumber.