They wove their way through the underground labyrinth of the Ministry and made the short journey home in a fugue of bewilderment and grief. Luna had no memory at all of collecting her wand from the security desk until she was sitting with Ginny and Lavender in the grove and she suddenly realized her wand was back in her pocket.
"Now there will be nothing to look forward to but the last Triwizard task next month. I suppose it'll be good to get used to being back at Hogwarts again," Ginny sighed from her usual perch in the boughs of the biggest tree in the grove.
"Hey, we don't know that we'll have to go back to Hogwarts. It does seem more likely than any of us could have imagined a few days ago, though. Do you reckon Mr. Dumbledore really meant it when he said he'd pay all of our fees?" Lavender fretted. After the hearing, Aberforth had returned to Hogsmeade without paying a visit to the Circle. Luna assumed he did not fancy stewing in others' anguish in addition to his own, and she did not blame him. The chapter house was full of girls crying and mothers frantically trying to figure out how to re-enroll their daughters at Hogwarts if it came to that.
"He'd better. He promised," Ginny balled her hand into a fist and landed a shaky blow to one of the flimsy branches. All the talk of Hogwarts had put her in an even fouler mood than the others. It was why she had grabbed Luna and Lavender by the sleeve and dragged them outside to escape the blubbering brigade, as she called them.
"It feels different. Gin, does yours feel different?" Luna murmured.
"Well it's not like he made an unbreakable vow or something. He promised in the heat of the moment," Lavender reasoned, "He could back out. Or the Ministry could find some way to prevent someone else from paying the fees on our behalf. They can write the laws to say whatever they want, can't they?"
"Do you think they'd do that?" Ginny apparently had not considered this possibility. She stopped punching the tree and instead began yanking out some of its budding green leaves and shredding them between her fingers.
"Ginny, can I see your wand?"
"I think they could. But they also seemed pretty eager to get their filthy paws on the money, so maybe they wouldn't care where it came from. Anyway, my mum would say that it's no use worrying about something when you can't…"
"Gin, your wand!" Luna spoke louder.
"Yeah? What about it?"
"Can I see it? Mine feels...different. I think...well, I don't know what I think just yet."
Ginny climbed down from the tree, negotiating the branches with the deftness of a monkey even in her agitated state. Lavender moved closer so all three could peer at the wand together.
"It looks the same to me."
"No, I know, but does it feel different? Mine feels...weird when I hold it in my hand. I think those guards must have done something to it when they took it away at the hearing."
"I guess it does feel a little...I don't know, heavier, I guess? Or denser or something."
"Yes, that's just it! It feels denser, doesn't it?" Luna took Ginny's yew wand in one hand, keeping her own pine one in the other. Ginny's was speckled with minute particles of green buds from the tree, which were still stuck to her hands and clothes like confetti and gave her a pleasantly earthy smell.
"What could they have done to it?" Lavender breathed.
"The surface of the wood looks exactly the same. Not a scratch or a seam. They couldn't have put something inside it, could they?" Ginny was an avid student of wandlore, with a good deal more diligence than Luna, who had more intuition and a flair for improvisation. If the Ministry had left a single physical trace of their tampering, Ginny would have been the one to find it.
"Nah, I reckon they must have enchanted it."
"But why only yours and Ginny's? If they wanted to enchant us or track us or curse us or who knows what, they could have done it to all of our wands, no?" Lavender said.
"Yeah. It's obvious why they'd want to mess with Luna's wand. She's important. But why me?" Ginny added.
"I've been thinking. Ever since the very beginning of the hearing. Well, before that, really." Luna stumbled to form a coherent sentence as her speech raced to catch up to her thoughts. What she was trying to say was that something, or rather several things, had bothered her at the hearing. She felt them like little needles pricking her mind. She had been mulling over it now for several hours, slowly turning each piece of the puzzle round and round, piecing it together even as she struggled to wrap her mind round the whole of it. Luna felt close now, so close that her thoughts were razor sharp and her speech was incoherent in equal measure. It seemed to her a twisted irony that these should be so precisely inversely proportional: the more pressing the thought, the more she struggled to communicate it.
"The guards, they made such a big deal about writing down the core, the length...you know, all the details of each wand. And Gin, they only took yours because you didn't know who had made it. And they took mine because I had made it myself. So if they already know all that stuff about our wands... why do they need to know who made them?"
"So they didn't take my wand because I got it from Ollivander's? Why would that be?" Lavender retrieved her own wand and compared it with Ginny's and Luna's. The handcrafted wands had always felt lighter and flimsier, which Luna had attributed to her own amateur craftsmanship. Lavender's wand still felt heavier than the other two and was certainly smoother and more expertly carved, but the difference in weight was less noticeable than it had been before.
"I think...Lav, do you remember when Fudge was reading the charges against you? He asked you to confirm that you had cast all those spells with your cedar wand. Confirming that you used this wand was important."
"Yeah, he asked us all that. So?"
"So maybe that's how they knew you were doing the magic!"
It was quiet while Ginny and Lavender considered this, but at that moment Luna seized on the final piece of the puzzle. She cried out, startling the others into nearly dropping their wands.
"Did you notice for the spells we cast on our trip to Whitby, they said you cast the silver tongue charm twice? But you didn't do it twice. I was borrowing your wand that day because mine was still on the fritz. But they couldn't tell the difference between you using your wand and me using your wand. The wand was the evidence."
"Could that be it? That's the Trace," Ginny let out a long, low whistle.
"They're just...tracking people's wands somehow? Every witch and wizard in Britain?" Lavender asked.
"That's why they took our wands, Gin! They needed to check they had had the Trace put on them. I'd bet you a million galleons."
"You can put really, really powerful enchantments on wands. There are whole chapters about it in that wandlore book Aberforth got you. In the olden days if you were caught committing a crime, as part of your punishment they would put enchantments on your wand limiting the type of magic you could do. Like if you were charged with arson, your wand would be enchanted so you could never do spells having anything to do with fire," Ginny was speaking a mile a minute, and Luna half expected her to start reciting the book from memory, page numbers and all.
"It does make sense...Luna, you know they would have given anything to charge you with underage magic. But they couldn't because you made your own wand! They must have spent months trying to figure out how you were doing it," Lavender said.
"The Ministry must have some kind of agreement with Ollivander's and all of the big name wandmakers to put the enchantment on every new wand," Luna mused.
"But wait! I just used my wand to boil the water for tea! Do they know that now? Could I get in trouble again?" Lavender frowned at her cedar wand as if it had betrayed her.
"We can't use these wands to do any more magic," Luna declared, "Gin, get ready."
"Why?"
"The wandlore circle is about to get a whole lot bigger."
The three girls sprang into action. Lavender ran to the chapter house to tell the others about their discovery, Ginny went to pore over The Most Magic and Mysterious Art of Wandlore and Science of Wandmaking, and Luna wrote a letter to Aberforth. They stayed up late into the night, with Luna, Ginny, and Tonks leading the effort to coordinate a system for crafting temporary wands for the rest of the girls until they could learn enough about wandlore to create their own.
Luna barely touched her wand all night. It lay dormant on a table like a toy a toddler grows tired of. Finally when it was time to turn into bed, she held the sloppy, dear old thing in her hands for the last time. She couldn't bear to snap it. It was her friend and ally, and it couldn't help that it had been turned into a Ministry spy. She put it in the box under her bed along with her old rowan wand. Luna gazed at them for a moment, thinking of all that had changed since she had so lovingly hewed them with her own hands.
Then she shut the box and put it away.
The crush of bodies in the heat of the summer sun was overwhelming, and the droning cacophony of the music and humming chatter of the crowd thrummed like there was a swarm of bees in the stands. Luna could feel all of the noises and excitement enveloping her, throbbing in time to her pulse. She closed her eyes and brought her fingers to her temples, seeking out the reassuring flutter of her own blood pounding in her veins.
"And off they go! Mr. Diggory and Mr. Potter have earned the right to enter the maze first, followed closely by Mr. Krum. And finally, last but certainly not least is the charming Ms. Delacour."
Hearing Ludo Bagman's magically-amplified voice transported Luna back to a different crush of bodies in a different set of stands, a similar swell of chatter and music under an even hotter summer sun that had set just before disaster struck. She could almost hear the whirring of the broomsticks and the chants of Irish drinking songs.
No, that was nearly a year ago now. You're at Hogwarts, and everything is fine. Listen to the beat of your heart. There it is. Ba-boom. Ba-boom. Ba-boom.
"Can you smell smoke?" Luna had just managed to slow her heart rate when her nostrils widened and her eyes flew open.
"I can't smell anything. I can't see anything either! Who in Morgana's name thought this would be a good idea for a task when none of us can bloody see anything? Couldn't they have made the maze see-through or like a one-way mirror or something?" Ginny grumbled, squinting into her rusted old binoculars. She had regretted not having a pair of her own at the Quidditch World Cup, so had wrestled these from the clutches of the ghoul in the Weasleys' attic. But it had apparently all been for naught, though she still determinedly held them to her face, pressing so tightly that Luna was sure she would have marks in her skin by the end of the day.
"I can smell it too, but I think that's just the meat and stuff from the food stalls," Lavender patted Luna's hand.
"Mm, I could do with a good meat pie," Ginny said.
"It's probably too early to have our sandwiches, but would you like one of the flapjacks?" Lavender fished in the hamper they had packed and offered Ginny and Luna each a piece of cake. They knew the food stalls would be much too expensive and had planned accordingly.
Luna nibbled her flapjack in embarrassed silence. The months of nightmares, tears, and agitation were a testament that the other girls were just as haunted as she was by what they had endured at the Quidditch World Cup. So why didn't they seem phased by this? She knew logically that this was a completely separate event, miles and miles away from the moor of the Death Eater attacks, and that she ought to be having fun. But she could not convince her jumpy heart, tensed muscles, or rumbling stomach otherwise. Had the others figured out some trick for trapping the fear in their dreams and memories where it belonged?
"You look bored already. Shall I distract you?" Lavender offered. By "bored," Luna knew that she really meant "anxious," but she appreciated the polite fiction.
"Yes, please," Luna said.
"So, er, where has your dad gone again?"
"All over. So far he's been to Spain, France, and Portugal and now he's in Germany. He says Albania is next. He says he's having a great time. I wish I could have gone with him." Instead of coming here, was the second half of the thought which Luna did not allow herself to speak aloud, for Mr. Weasley had been kind enough to offer her a ticket, just like for the Quidditch World Cup...
"He'll be back soon, won't he?"
"I dunno. He said he wants to see what there is to see. He might stay longer than he plans, or he could end up going to more places than he expects. I don't remember him even saying he wanted to go to Albania before he left, so go figure." Luna puffed out her cheeks and tried to expel the flashbacks like she exhaled the air through her pursed lips.
"When did you last get a letter from him again? I remember he wrote such beautiful descriptions of Spain. What does he say about Germany?"
"A week or so ago. He mostly writes about all the research he's doing. Not sure whether that means the libraries in Germany are better, or if he just doesn't think it's as pretty." Luna's breath was finally beginning to steady, although it was still quite shallow. Lavender must have noticed, for she laughed much too loudly at Luna's weak joke.
"He says maybe we can take another trip together, once I'm a little further along with my wandlore research," Luna added, warming to her theme.
"So something to look forward to," Lavender said soothingly.
"Yes, exactly," Luna agreed. She felt much better for having had conversation and a little something to eat. She sat up, rubbed at the crick in her neck, and peered closely at her surroundings for the first time.
"Should we take bets? That's what everyone else is doing to stay entertained." Ginny noticed Luna stretching and finally peeled her eyes from the binoculars.
"I assume you aren't betting on Harry?" Luna said with a knowing smile.
"Are you kidding? Krum all the way. Ron hates to admit it but I think even he's secretly expecting Krum to win in the end, too."
"I hope Fleur wins. Everyone keeps going on and on about how pretty she is, but I'm sure she can kick butt, too!" Lavender said. Luna agreed with these sentiments of female empowerment in principle, but she still suspected it would be difficult to be in close contact with Fleur without getting distracted by her beauty. If she only had a fraction of the raw magnetism of the full-blooded veela at the Quidditch World Cup, Luna didn't blame Bagman and the rest of them for being overwhelmed in her presence.
"She's not been doing well in the competition so far, has she though?" Ginny pointed out.
"Well maybe that's just because…" Lavender began hotly, but Luna interrupted her.
"Look, something's happening!" The other two turned just in time to see the last of the red sparks fade from the sky.
"It appears one of our contestants is in distress!" Bagman's soothing voice boomed out, "The gallant members of our patrol force are responding to the situation as we speak. We ask that you remain in your seats and do not interfere with their work."
A small group of spectators rose from the stands and rushed towards the maze in an attempt to catch a glimpse at whatever drama was undoubtedly unfolding within.
"Ladies and gentlemen, please curb your curiosity and return to your seats! I said get away from there, you idiots…" Bagman must have forgotten he was still under the effects of the amplifying charm, because there was none of the charismatic silkiness in his voice now.
Uniformed guards wearing Ministry plum appeared to usher the rogue spectators back to their seats. Luna idly wondered if the guards who had taken her wand at the Ministry hearing were among them.
A few minutes later, the crowd surged to its feet again when Fleur Delacour was carried out of the maze in the gamekeeper Hagrid's arms.
"Budge up, out of th' way," he grumbled, shoving past the waves of people clamoring to get a view of the fallen champion.
"Where is Madam Pomfrey? Poppy, she needs the Hospital Wing!" The clipped Scottish tones of Professor McGonagall were unmistakable as she bustled through the crowd and summoned a stretcher for Fleur with her wand.
"Really, how frightfully rude. They're all blocking the way just to get a look at her! She isn't even conscious," Lavender tutted.
"Can you blame them? They haven't given us anything else to look at but our own shoes and a bunch of bushes all bloody day," Ginny said. She remained in her seat but still craned her neck to get a look at Fleur.
Luna had been right; looking at Fleur felt like staring directly into the sun, even in her muddied and weak state. She looked so fragile, particularly with the strange vines wrapped around her slim frame. Luna might have thought she was dead, but when she looked closely, she could see that Fleur's eyes were fluttering and her chest was rising and falling ever so slightly.
"Dumblydore, wot 'az 'appened to 'er?" shrieked an immensely tall woman who Luna knew to be the headmistress of Beauxbatons. Professor Dumbledore patted her on the forearm, which was the nearest part of her he could reach, before leading her towards the castle in the wake of her fallen pupil. A quite horrifying looking man with a peg leg and a magical eye, who Luna assumed had to be the famous Mad Eye Moody, hobbled after them.
"It appears Ms. Delacour has fallen prey to one of the menacing monsters of the maze! As we all know, the Triwizard Tournament is not for the faint of heart. But remember, we still have three champions in play!"
Bagman had recovered his hosting persona somewhat. There wasn't much for him to narrate for several minutes, but he maintained a constant stream of inane chatter nonetheless. Once or twice the bushes of the maze rippled as if in a breeze, although there was no wind on that muggy late June day. Much was made of this by both Bagman and Ginny with her binoculars, but nothing else seemed to happen.
They sat. Nothing happened. They waited.
And then something happened.
One moment the raised dais near the entrance of the maze was empty and the next it was not. They had appeared out of thin air, with no telltale pop or crack. Luna was turned away getting another slice of cake. She heard the gasps first. Then she heard the scream.
"Run! It's him! Run!"
It took several moments for Luna to process the vision that had materialized in front of her. For one, there was a small crowd of people, not the lone champion they were all expecting to emerge victorious from the maze. Harry and Cedric were there, but Viktor Krum was not. There was a short, filthy man whose arm was wrapped tightly in his sleeve, dripping blood. There was also a tall, pale man in a rough-spun robe. His bare feet were splattered with the other man's blood.
"And now, it looks like Harry and Cedric have returned, Triwizard Cup in hand! Two winners! This is quite unprecedented! But who is this with them?" Bagman shouted. Luna had barely noticed the trophy but there it was, in all its glowing glory. They each had a hand on it, not just Harry and Cedric but the others too, which was odd.
Then Harry screamed again. This time it was a wordless cry of agony. He fell to his knees, still clutching the Triwizard cup in one hand and gripping Cedric's shirt with the other. The small man was pointing a wand at him with a shaking hand, but Luna could not hear the incantation he uttered.
"Is this part of the task? Really, I ought to have been told. This is deeply unprofessional, I must say, I know not everyone is a consummate professional as I am, but…" Bagman, ever the consummate professional, had forgotten that his voice was still magically amplified again.
"It's…" Harry tried again, much quieter this time. His voice sounded strangled, as if he were fighting very hard to choke out even a single word.
A few people shifted in their seats, but no one moved. After well over an hour of sitting and quite literally watching the grass grow, this was far too entertaining. Most of them believed Bagman when he said this was part of the task, some scheme contrived so the grand finale took place in front of the bored, dissatisfied crowd.
"Ah, dear Harry." The pale man tutted and patted Harry's head fondly. His voice was soft and strangely raspy. It sounded simultaneously like the voice of a very young child and a very old man. He was not yelling or projecting his voice, so Luna had no idea how she could hear him from the stands, but she could. He had the raw charisma of the great orators Professor McGonagall taught them about, of someone confident in his own power.
"I'm afraid you're not used to this," the pale man continued, "But your adoring fans no longer hang on your every word!" He didn't sound apologetic at all. He sounded like he was relishing watching Harry struggle in vain to be heard.
"Silencio." Harry went quiet. His hands flew to his throat, letting go of both the cup and Cedric, who slumped to the ground as if Harry had been the only thing holding him upright.
"What do you think the task is? Does Harry have to speak to us in code or something?" Ginny was on the edge of her seat with her binoculars pressed so tightly to her face that Luna worried she would cut off her own circulation.
"What's wrong with him? Cedric, I mean. It looks like he's passed out," Luna pointed at Diggory. His head was lolling strangely on the ground.
"Can he breathe with his face in the dirt like that?"
But hardly anyone was paying attention to Cedric, because the pale man was speaking again.
"Thank you for that magnificent introduction, Mr. Bagman. And you are right, in a way. This is part of a task - but not one for this inane tournament of yours. No, this is a task that I started nearly fourteen years ago. And now I come before you all to finish what I started." He inclined his head slightly in an old-fashioned little bow, apparently expecting applause.
The crowd waited.
"I said that I've come to finish what I started," he repeated, enunciating the words like he was talking to a group of children. That lost him the crowd's goodwill. They did not appreciate being condescended to, especially not when the pale man's appearance had seemed to promise something intriguing. But he was just standing there talking at them about something they did not understand, and there was no bombast or spectacle in sight.
"Who are you? Is this part of the task?" It was a man in the front row who had gone to the trouble of purchasing the exorbitantly expensive special edition Triwizard Tournament binoculars for the occasion.
"Let the champions do their task!" Another heckler from the crowd cried.
"You imbeciles!" You are a witness to history and you dare to be ungrateful!?"
"Ladies and gentlemen, I have confirmed that this is in fact not part of the task. Please leave the commentating to me, dear fellow. To the folks in the stands, we ask you to remain in your seats while the guards escort these gentlemen off the premises," Bagman was straining to keep his voice from cracking.
"Avada kedavra!" A flash of green light shot out of the pale man's wand and briefly illuminated Ludo Bagman. His body fell to the ground in a lifeless heap.
The crowd screamed with one voice and jumped to their feet as one. Tense anticipation had turned to pandemonium in the blink of an eye, but Luna remained frozen in her seat. Not again. This can't be happening. This must be a bad dream. Soon I'll wake up and be back at the Circle.
"I think you will find it wise to return to your seats." Suddenly the stands were encircled by cloaked figures in midnight black robes and bone white masks. Death Eaters. They knocked the Ministry guards to the ground and disarmed most of them, although there were a few flashes of menacing green light as well.
"Ah, yes, our guest of honor returns. Just in time! Hello, Dumbledore. There is no use fighting, for you are quite surrounded."
A ring of masked figures closed in on Dumbledore and pointed their wands at him and the peg-legged man beside him as they returned from the castle.
"Alastor!" he cried, turning to grip Moody's arm.
But the man with the false eye already had his wand raised, and it was pointing directly at Dumbledore's heart.
"Finally you see. You are betrayed," the pale man murmured. His lips kissed the edges of the words, savoring the ecstasy of them.
"There's something about the way he talks," Ginny whispered, "I think I know him." Luna said nothing. She was completely disconnected from her body, and did not feel Lavender's hand squeeze hers. Her lips were parted slightly, mouthing wordlessly, trying to convince herself she was reading about this tragedy in one of her father's books and not living it.
The Death Eaters made quick work of the great Albus Dumbledore. They took his wand and gave it to the pale man, for some reason. His arms were bound with magical chains.
"Now our audience is assembled, we shall begin. Perhaps when you purchased your tickets, you thought you would be witnessing a minor historical event, the subject of tomorrow's headlines and a footnote in the history books. But little did you know that you would be witnessing the single greatest event of the past century. Or, rather, the two greatest events. A rise and a fall. A rebirth and a death. The end of the Boy Who Lived and the beginning of the Dark Lord, in my new body."
The crowd erupted in a torrent of gasps, sobs, and the whoops and laughter of the Death Eaters.
"Yes, it is I. Did I not tell you that you were in for a treat today?"
"No!" shrieked Ginny. She jumped to her feet and aimed her wand at the pale man - the man who had called himself the Dark Lord.
"Confringo!"
The man deflected the curse with his wand, as easy as swatting away a fly.
"It is such a pity when stupid people insist on doing stupid things. But it can't be helped, can it? Avada kedavra!"
"Ginny, no!" Luna snapped out of her trance and dove at Ginny's ankles, tackling her. They both fell hard against the wooden planks of the stands, and Luna heard one of Ginny's bones crack beneath her. There was a shout and a thud as someone in the row behind them fell, struck by the Killing Curse intended for her Ginny.
Ginny's rebellion broke the spell of hopeless passivity that had descended on them all. More and more people surged to their feet, took out their wands, and fought back.
"You should be rejoicing, you fools! How dare you!" The Dark Lord shrieked. The Death Eaters all converged on the dais to shoot curses into the crowd. More and more bodies fell to the ground.
Lavender, Ginny, and Luna crouched low in the stands, for Ginny could barely move with her broken ankle. Luna still half expected to wake up sweating and sobbing in her bed in Devon, but the nightmare stretched on and on.
"We have to fight back," Ginny said through her sobs of pain and frustration. She tried to wriggle so she could aim her wand in the direction of the Dark Lord and the Death Eaters.
"No, Gin, it's pointless. All they're doing is slaughtering them!" Luna cried. And it was true.
"So what do we do?" Lavender asked.
"Let me think!" Luna tried to steady her breathing, but her thudding heartbeat wouldn't slow.
"Where's Harry, is he still alive?" she finally asked.
They rolled over as quietly they could and squinted in the direction of the maze. Harry had been forgotten after his public execution did not go to plan. He had managed to wriggle several feet away from the dais, but he was still within spitting distance of the Dark Lord and his arms were still bound. Cedric lay where he had fallen, and a small corner of Luna's mind realized that he was dead. He must have been dead from the very beginning.
"We couldn't get to him." Lavender sighed.
"What about Dumbledore?" Luna persisted. The Dark Lord must have devised this entire scheme just to taunt his old mentor and rival. If it hadn't been for the shock of Moody's betrayal, Luna suspected that Albus Dumbledore could have taken down the Dark Lord and his entire army of Death Eaters in one fell swoop.
Like Harry, Dumbledore had been left bound and gagged. He lay on his side at the edge of the clearing.
"We have to try." Ginny said. They crawled on their bellies through the stands, Ginny wincing every time she had to drag her limp ankle behind her.
They inched as close as they dared, for Mad Eye Moody was still nearby, trying to prevent people from fleeing towards the castle.
"What do we do? They took his wand and he's been silenced, too," Lavender panted.
"I bet he can do nonverbal magic. And if anyone can do wandless magic, it's him," Luna said.
"What? Wandless magic, like blood magic? His hands are bound! We don't even know what curse they used on those chains," Lavender said.
"No, not blood magic. But if we can get a wand sort of close to him...I dunno, it's the only thing I can think of," Luna shrugged.
"It's worth a shot. Ugh, sorry, mate," Ginny grimaced, prying a wand out of the stiff grip of a dead man lying nearby.
"Wingardium leviosa," Luna whispered. She was still getting used to her new wand, which she had made quickly in the rush of crafting in the weeks after the Ministry hearing.
The dead man's wand trembled and nearly fell as it jerked shakily towards Dumbledore's prone figure. Dumbledore eventually noticed it, and Luna watched as his eyes followed its path and then met her gaze. His eyes widened, but she hadn't the faintest idea what he was trying to communicate. She was trying to concentrate on navigating the tangle of bodies and Death Eaters while keeping the floating wand low to the ground.
When it was several feet away from him, the wand suddenly dropped to the ground.
"Damn!" Ginny swore, loud enough to make Moody look. He ran to grab the wand, but Dumbledore was faster. He gathered all his strength, rocked on his side and lunged as close to the wand as he could get. His eyes were squeezed shut and his lips strained as if trying to utter an incantation.
The maze burst into flames. Clouds of noxious smoke rose into the sky as the fire spread with unnatural speed, licking at the robes of the Death Eaters and consuming the body of Cedric Diggory whole. The Death Eaters panicked and jumped back, spraying themselves and the fire with water, but to no avail. The fire climbed their bodies like grasping ivy and clung on stubbornly despite all their shrieks and attempts to quench it.
Most of the spectators took advantage of the distraction and fled towards the castle. A few ran to rescue Harry, Dumbledore, and the bodies of the fallen. Ginny aimed a particularly well-aimed hex at Moody, and would have kept at it if Luna and Lavender hadn't picked her up and dragged her towards the castle.
But up ahead, the crowd was slowing down. They were being pushed inexorably back, towards the Death Eaters and the hungry flames. A wall of wizards and witches in plum Ministry uniforms blocked their way.
"No!" Lavender screamed. There was nowhere to run.
A Ministry witch pointed her wand at Luna's temple.
"Obliviate!"
