AN: Good morning and happy Tuesday everyone. I hope you all had a good vacation and relaxed. Since summer is officially over I will not be going up to the cabin as much and will be able to post for all of my stories more including a new one that I'm planning. So today is September 8, 2015 and this is the first chapter today. Once again anything you recognize is JK Rowling's and anything you don't is mine.
Ron POV
"What the —" I gasped staring at the skull that was forming in the sky. Luna shrieked at the top of her lungs while Sirius, in dog form, tried to calm her down. Hermione on the other hand took one look at the mark and promptly fainted.
"HERMIONE!" Harry and I yelled at the same time running over to her. I shook her shoulders while Harry lightly slapped her cheek. Her head only lolled from side to side. Damn it! Why did she have to get sick like this now?!
"Come on we have to get her up," Luna said, her whole body shaking. Sirius nodded and woofed but kept glancing at the mark in the sky. If I didn't know better I would think that Sirius looked close to tears but he was a dog.
"I'll do it," I said carefully pulling her into my arms. The moment she was in my arms there was the sound of pops all around the clearing. Wizards circled the clearing and all their wands were pointed at us. But why would they point it at us?
"DUCK!" Harry yelled and tackled Luna to the clearing floor. Sirius made his dog body as flat as possible while I covered Hermione's body with my own.
"STUPEFY!" roared twenty voices - there was a blinding series of flashes and I felt the hair on my head ripple as though a powerful wind had swept the clearing. Raising my head a fraction of an inch I saw jets of fiery red light flying over everyone in the clearing from the wizards' wands, crossing one another, bouncing off tree trunks, rebounding into the darkness-
"Stop!" A voice yelled, dad. "STOP! That's my son!"
"HERMIONE!" Lupin yelled, jumping over a bush and ran straight towards us. He dropped to his knees and touched her cheek. The moment their skin touched Hermione's color changed, she was no longer the deathly pale color. Her eyes flickered and she gasped. My eyes widened in shock. What the hell just happened?
"Remus?" She whispered her eyes sparkling.
"I'm here," he said, pulling her into his arms. "I'm here."
Hermione POV
"Ron - Harry" Mr. Weasley's voice sounded shaky. His eyes flicked to Remus and I. A frown crossed his face. "Hermione - are you all right?"
I opened my mouth to respond but a rude voice cut me off . "Out of the way, Arthur."
It was Mr. Crouch. He and the other Ministry wizards were closing in on them.
Harry got to his feet. I tried to as well but Remus' arms were unyielding but the moment he spotted Sirius his eyes bugged.
"Which of you did it?" Mr. Crouch snapped, his sharp eyes darting around. Luna was clutching Sirius to her while Ron and Harry both had confused looks on their faces. "Which of you conjured the Dark Mark?"
"We didn't do that!" Harry, gesturing up at the skull.
"We didn't do anything!" Ron said, who was rubbing his elbow and looking indignantly at his father.
"What did you want to attack us for?" Luna asked, tears glittering in her eyes. One slowly trailed down her cheek and Sirius licked it off. Remus was staring at Sirius with unconcealed shock.
"Do not lie, sir!" Mr. Crouch shouted. His wand was still pointing directly at Ron, and his eyes were popping - he looked slightly mad. I shook in fear and Remus pulled me closer to his firm chest. "You have been discovered at the scene of the crime!"
"Barty," whispered a witch in a long woolen dressing gown, "they're kids, Barty, they'd never have been able to —"
"Where did the Mark come from, you three?" Mr. Weasley asked quickly.
"Over there," I said shakily, pointing at the place where the voice had come from. "There was someone behind the trees. . . they shouted words – an incantation -"
"Oh, stood over there, did they?" Mr. Crouch said, turning his popping eyes on me now, disbelief etched all over his face. Remus was shaking and I somehow knew it was with anger. "Said an incantation, did they? You seem very well informed about how that Mark is summoned, missy -"
Remus growled but I placed my hand on his arm to help control his anger. He let out a heavy breath and I could feel his body slowly relaxing.
But none of the Ministry wizards apart from Mr. Crouch seemed to think it remotely likely that Harry, Ron, Luna or I had conjured the skull; on the contrary, at my words, they had all raised their wands again and were pointing in the direction she had indicated, squinting through the dark trees.
"We're too late," said the witch in the woolen dressing gown, shaking her head. "They'll have Disapparated."
"I don't think so," said a wizard with a scrubby brown beard. It was Amos Diggory, Cedric's father. "Our Stunners went right through those trees. . . . There's a good chance we got them. . ."
"Amos, be careful!" said a few of the wizards warningly as Mr. Diggory squared his shoulders, raised his wand, marched across the clearing, and disappeared into the darkness. I watched him vanish with my hands over my mouth. What if he got hurt? What if something was really back there? What if —
Mr. Diggory shouted and a tremor raced through my body. Remus rubbed his hand against my arm but it wasn't calming me like usual.
"Yes! We got them! There's someone here! Unconscious! It's - but - blimey. .."
"You've got someone?" shouted Mr. Crouch, sounding highly disbelieving. "Who? Who is it?"
I heard snapping twigs, the rustling of leaves, and then crunching footsteps as Mr. Diggory reemerged from behind the trees. He was carrying a tiny, limp figure in his arms. I recognized the tea towel at once. It was Winky the house elf.
AN: Please Review! It helps so much more than you realize. Reviews make me happy and when I'm happy I think about the story more. The more I think about it the more I create new twists and turns for the story and I end up updating more. Which in the end makes everyone happy.
