Chapter Fifty Seven
Shadows and Hedgerows
0o0
Astoria blinked stupidly in the direction of the oncoming sound, working hard to disengage her fingers from the fabric of Draco's shirt. Whoever had just shouted was very near at hand; just behind the doors to the Great Hall and still half obscured by wood, if she had to guess. She could certainly hear the muffled conversation approaching, but she could not yet see the people having it, leaving just enough time to move away from Draco if she could make sense of her limbs.
She brought her hands up and broke Draco's grip. He sniffed stiffly and slouched back against the wall, perhaps trying to process the fact that Astoria had just molested him in broad daylight.
"We'll get better seats if we go down now," babbled Tracey's recognizable voice, still many feet away. Next moment, her willowy limbs came into view as she backed up through the doorway and into sight. "Of course, some of the parents are probably already waiting there—oh, and I should find Astoria first!"
"Would you?" drawled a second, more controlled voice, laced with such self-amusement that it could only belong to Blaise Zabini. Tracey took a slinky step backwards and sure enough, half of Blaise's face appeared behind her. "That would really put the cherry on my sundae, now that you mention it."
Astoria tilted her head, so distracted by Blaise's leering use of the words "cherry" and "sundae" that she was no longer consumed by thoughts of being discovered alone with Draco.
"Oh!" cried Tracey, feeling the weight of Astoria's intense scrutiny. "Ria! You're already here!"
Astoria stared back at Tracey mutely, trying to process this change in dynamic, surprisingly detached from the painfully obvious way that Draco's tussled hair seemed to stand out like a sore thumb in the corner of her eye.
Ironically, perhaps because of her dull-witted pause, neither Blaise nor Tracey seemed to immediately notice that anything was amiss. Guilty people startle more, thought Astoria. Still, she wished Draco would smarten up his crooked tie...
"I think we're heading down," breathed Tracey. "Are you coming?"
It was as though Tracey was speaking to her over the stretch of a very great distance. Astoria could hear her well enough, but her attention was irrationally focused on Blaise, whose smug eyes were dancing punishingly back at her, provoking a tug of anger up Astoria's spine.
"Yeah," Astoria returned dully, feeling as though she had no choice. It was not as though Tracey really needed Astoria to walk her down to the pitch, but Blaise's leer was enough to make the hairs on the back of her neck prickle. "Sure."
Better to go down early than lose track of them, Astoria decided, scrambling to think of where Fred and George might be likely to turn up in the stands. There was nothing she could do to change the outcome of the tournament, but if Blaise was planning to do something rude, Astoria had a hunch that he might get it out of the way faster if she was there to witness it.
It was the day that just wouldn't end. Astoria threaded her arm through Tracey's, trying to fake enthusiasm. In truth, she had already gone over the limit of her daily tolerance for catastrophe; but if the world was so determined to drown her in a sea of unnecessary attacks and misfortunes, she might as well try to tread water a little longer.
Draco ran an absent hand through his hair and the vaguely dazed look on his face began to give way to flickering triumph. He pushed away from the wall and Astoria forced herself to refrain from watching him too closely.
"There's a sport!" drawled Blaise, clapping Draco on the back.
Astoria tightened her grip on Tracey's pale forearm but the clammy sensation of foreign skin rubbing against the inside of her elbow was not as soothing as she had hoped it would be.
Outside, the lawn was growing steadily darker and somehow hotter. The blustery afternoon had managed to keep the heat at bay, but any remnants of a cheerful breeze had tapered off, leaving behind a sweaty, charged atmosphere. Halfway down the front steps, Astoria was already resisting the urge to pant.
"Where's Maudlin?" asked Tracey brightly, striking out for the path and dragging Astoria along with her.
"Choking down his dinner," volunteered Draco behind them smugly. "He's so bloody drunk he can't stand up straight."
Blaise snickered but Astoria did not turn around. Up ahead on the path, Ginny Weasley was walking with Fleur Delacour's little sister, Gabrielle. Both of them were wearing matching berets and giggling excitedly. A new thought struck her—perhaps Ginny might know where her brothers were hiding? But how could Astoria ask about them without drawing unwanted attention to herself or the twins?
"Blaise touched my leg at dinner!" breathed Tracey giddily, leaning close to whisper into Astoria's ear. "Beneath the table! He left his hand there the whole time!"
I was all Astoria could do to keep from pulling a sick scowl. This news—if it could even be called news—did not please her at all.
All paranoid narcissism aside, Astoria had a terrible feeling that Blaise's new, predatory energy was the byproduct of a desire to make Astoria suffer for hitting him earlier. The sudden turn around in his behavior was suspicious, after all—shouldn't he still be glowering at her? And making a move on Tracey certainly seemed like the sort of conniving thing that Blaise might do for fun.
But even if Astoria was correct in thinking this way, it seemed frustratingly impossible for her to suggest the idea to Tracey without offending her. What exactly did Astoria propose to insinuate? That Blaise might only be paying attention to her in order to annoy Astoria? Surely that would sound terribly vain, even to someone with Tracey's dramatic sensibilities?
Astoria tensely contemplated her options, certain that it would be an easier topic to broach if only she had done something truly villainous—but as it was, she stood accusing of nothing worse than knuckle-checking Blaise with a fan. Hardly a capitol offense. In front of his mother, though...
Astoria craned her head just far enough to peek back at Blaise and was rewarded by the cruel angle of his repressed smile. As though drawn to her gaze by magnets, Blaise's eyes snapped over Draco's shoulder onto hers and his cocky leer deepened.
"Sounds creepy to me," Astoria sneered as she turned back around, hoping to plant a seed of doubt in Tracey's mind without having to thoroughly explain herself. "God, it's hot out here..."
"Are you kidding?" demanded Tracey a little tartly. "It's not creepy! It's fantastic!"
"Oh, what are you talking about?" sneered Astoria carelessly. "He's weird, Trace!"
"Not really," Tracey shot back, her tone ringing with a wavering warning that Astoria was bothering her.
There was an awkward pause. Astoria's free fingers crept up to pull at the front of her dress, exposing her skin to the non-existent breeze. The mixture of heat and tension was making it hard for her to breathe...
"You've seen him with his mother," Astoria muttered defensively. "She practically licks his ear whenever she talks to him—it's freakish. Can you even imagine what they must be like when they're alone together?"
"So what if he's close with his mum?" snapped Tracey defensively. "I think it's nice! Not everyone has to hate their family, you know!"
"I know that," Astoria shot back, irrationally stung by the light, but throughly implied, insinuation that she didn't know what a normal family was like. "I'm only saying—"
"Yeah, I know what you're saying," Tracey bristled, yanking her arm sideways in order to relinquish it from Astoria's grasp, "and it's a bit rich, if you ask me!"
"What's that supposed to mean?" demanded Astoria, surprised that Tracey had wrenched way from her. It was not normally in keeping with Tracey's spirit to get so worked up.
"Nothing!" Tracey snapped, but her mouth continued to work mutely, hesitating, gripped with a desire to utter something more dire.
"What?" Astoria pressed, becoming a little angry herself.
"I just don't see what's so wrong with Blaise!" returned Tracey accusingly. "I mean, Maudlin's too drunk to watch the Task, but you think he's ok!"
Tracey's hand shot up and for a sick, jazzy moment, Astoria was afraid that she might try to jab her in the chest with it. Instead, Tracey ticked up a finger, clearly keeping some kind of a tally.
"And there's also Draco! He terrorizes people for sport—including your friends—but you say he's all right, so I guess I should just suck it up?"
"Huh?" Astoria grunted, thoroughly taken aback. It was on her mind to mention that Draco did not tend to inappropriately simper over or stroke his mother in public but this was not the point that Tracey was trying to make, nor was she finished speaking.
"Basically, anyone who is obsessed with you is fine, no matter how shitty they are!" Tracey shot stingingly. "Is that it, have I got the measure of it?"
There was too much truth in this to be entirely ignored but Astoria had never been confronted by the idea so directly and she soon found that she had no idea how to defend herself. What was worse, it was also beginning to occur to her—with a corresponding twist of dread—that Tracey's aggravation seemed a little too precise and thought-out to be entirely spontaneous.
"And I don't really care if your aunt doesn't like the Zabinis, either!" Tracey sniffed, covering all her bases. "That doesn't make them weird or freakish in my book!"
Clearly Astoria had gone about this is the wrong way. She shouldn't have tried blindly insulting Blaise; it had only given Tracey the wiggle room she needed to make any argument against him seem unfounded or ridiculous.
"Tracey, that's not what I'm talking about," Astoria managed tightly, terrified by how rapidly their conversation was spiraling out of control.
"Your aunt has never been that nice to me, you know!" Tracey sneered haltingly, her eyes very bright and almost frighteningly reckless. "Why should I avoid Blaise just because his mum probably dated someone that Belladonna fancied in school? It's not like I owe her anything!"
Astoria sucked in a breath, unable to think of anything clever to say. They had slipped so far away from where they had started that Astoria could sense the argument she had been trying to make withdrawing from view.
"Stop it!" Tracey hissed shrilly, premeditating Astoria's thoughts and punctuating her point by stomping her foot down on the grassy turf. "Why does everything always have to be about you? I don't care that you don't like Blaise, so just shut up about him!"
The burn in Astoria's cheeks reached boiling point.
"What are you two on about?" called Blaise, casually cutting in from somewhere over Astoria's shoulder.
A few feet ahead, Draco and Blaise had come to a standstill. Several first year Hufflepuffs had wriggled past them when Tracey had stopped to stomp about and as a result, they were now separated from the boys by a rapidly-gathering river of traffic.
"Nothing!" Tracey called back cheerfully, her eyes still uncharacteristically furious and fixated on Astoria. "Be right there!"
"Are you kidding me?" Astoria sneered, hating Tracy's display of false brightness even more than she mistrusted Blaise.
"Nope!" spat Tracey doggedly, pronouncing the 'p' with such force that the letter popped off her lips like a pressurized cork of syllabic annoyance. "And, quite frankly, if this is how you're going to act, I'd rather watch the task with them!"
"Fine," Astoria challenged coldly. "Go ahead."
In truth, Astoria was more embarrassed than angry but Tracey's sniffing (and possibly merited) resentment was so intimidating that she could see no way of backtracking. Instead, a hard and cruel urge to have the last word was beginning to bubble up in her chest, overshadowing any desire to apologize.
"Why are you being like this?" Tracey hissed, exasperation coloring her tone with bitter annoyance. "Are you jealous? Is that it?"
"Jealous?" Astoria repeated incredulously, beginning to wonder if Tracey had lost her mind. "I don't want anything to do with Blaise! He's your stupid obsession, not mine!"
"Yeah," Tracey bit back, squaring her shoulders in preparation for a row. "But I've got him and all you've got are those Weasley twins—who, by the way, are nowhere to be seen!"
Astoria's mouth actually fell open. Was she serious? Fine. Let Blaise have her then. They deserved each other...
"Forget this!" Astoria snarled, peeling away from Tracey and striking out toward the pathless lawn.
They would certainly see how Tracey felt when Blaise used her and cast her aside like an old Droobles wrapper, wouldn't they? It would be her own fault, the silly cow, and Astoria would be sure to tell her so...
"Astoria!" exclaimed Tracey petulantly, thoroughly annoyed by the turn things had just taken.
"I'll meet you down there!" Astoria called back begrudgingly, unable to entirely bring herself, even in her anger, to ditch Tracey completely.
Tracey blinked, looking hurt.
"Sure," she finally muttered dispassionately. "If you want. I guess I don't really care!"
Painfully aware of the fact that they were all essentially going in the same direction, Astoria forced herself to stop walking in order to avoid trailing in Tracey's wake. Feeling particularly stupid as the rest of the crowd continued to move around her, she bent her head and pretended to fix the straps on her dress.
Draco watched Astoria stealthily as Tracey gave up and strode back across the lawn and Astoria, for her part, did her best to pretend not to notice when Tracey gave Blaise a playful push forward. She waited for all three of them to continue safely down the path before properly lifting her head again.
'I guess I don't really care', Astoria mouthed back at their retreating forms, parroting Tracey's words into vacant air. What a stupid thing to say, she obviously did care...
Composure only partly regained, Astoria cautiously directed her thoughts back to the most pressing scheme at hand; she needed to find Fred and George.
Pushing herself up onto her tip-toes, she attempted to survey the crowd. By an unexpected twist of fortuitous fate, (perhaps the universe was finally pitying her desperation?) it was only a matter of seconds before she spotted a shock of red hair against a patch of darkening trees near the entrance to the quidditch pitch.
Elated, Astoria struck out toward it, anxious to catch up before the twins could somehow slip away and become lost again in the shadowy thicket of vegetation they were currently crouching in. It had been hard enough to find them once, she didn't want to do it twice—and come to think of it, why were they hiding in the woods, anyway?
Far too late, Astoria was almost upon them when she finally noticed the awkward tick of Fred's body language. She could not quite hear his voice, but there was definitely something stealthy and nervous about how he was moving; huddled and secretive in a way that suggested criminal intent.
Her eyes had barely processed this pre-warning before they picked up something else; an unexplained scuttling in the underbrush, the rattle of low-hanging branches. Goblins.
"Fred!" Astoria called out, going out of her way to announce her presence before she broke past the wall of trees.
Fred Weasley's shoulders lurched with an guilty, electric jolt. "Hey," he called back stiffly, his expression betraying an almost painful level of discomfort.
Behind Fred, two sets of hostile, glittering eyes peered back at her, almost entirely hidden in the shade of a newly-green oak tree.
Astoria's vision swam in subtle, panicky twitches as she searched the shrouded ground, fearful of an ambush, but there were only two little bodies to be found.
A littler taller than the scraggly shrubs and about a fist shorter than Fred's waist, both goblins were dressed in dark suits made from velvet in the exact shade of early evening, identifiable only by their glistening, fairy-tale eyes.
"We're just going over some last minute details," declared Fred, feigning robustness. "Looking over the books, you know. You two remember Astoria?"
One of the shadowy goblins shifted but neither nodded or gave any other visible sign of recognition.
"This one," the goblin muttered, pointing to something in his hands. Astoria strained and was able to make out the outline of her familiar gambling notebook. "Ragnuk wishes for you to collect his payment first."
"Ok," Fred agreed warily. "If he loses his bet, we'll run him down."
"Not if," the tiny Goblin murmured dangerously, "when."
Astoria stared through the gloom at the book until, at length, she was able to discern Karkoroff's name under the tip of a dangerously long fingernail.
"I was going to mention that myself," Astoria joined in. "I don't know if you know this or not, but Karkaroff isn't just betting against Ragnuk. He's also got a wager against Hodrod."
Astoria turned her eyes toward the Goblins, thankful that Fred and George were already up to speed on this. "He's got money on two champions; Cedric and Krum—I think he must be planning to collect his gold and bail before the winning side can catch up with him and make him pay."
"What proof do you have of this?" demanded the taller of the two goblins sharply.
"None," Astoria admitted lamely, unable to entirely work her theory into words and just a little annoyed to be put on the spot by someone who clearly already agreed with her. Why else would they demand that Karkaroff pay first? They already knew he was bad business. "Nothing but circumstance and speculation. Maybe he's broke?"
Or maybe he thinks something is going to go wrong with the task, Astoria privately added. There didn't seem to be any way around this possibility, after all. It would certainly explain why Karkoroff had risked such a bizarre plan as betting on two different champions through two different goblins.
Without guidance, Astoria's thoughts shifted like oil in water, pushing her subconscious toward a new pattern recognition.
He's evening out his odds, Astoria realized, surprised by the clarity of her sudden conviction. No matter how he cuts it, Karkaroff is going to owe someone money before the night is out. His method only makes sense if he's going to run away...
But what could possibly be frightening enough to induce Karkaroff into fleeing the country? Or make him desperate enough to risk his kneecaps for pocket money?
Bagman's round, boyish face floated back into Astoria's memory, bringing with it his uncanny warning about Karkoroff at the Yule Ball: A spot of trouble with his left arm...
"We'll keep an eye on him," said Fred bracingly, casting Astoria a glance that was made up of equal parts worry and wonder.
"More than one eye, if you please" the shorter goblin wheezed, turning his narrow face back toward his friend.
For several harrowing seconds, the two goblins prattled on in gobbledegook. Their words were too fast for Astoria to attempt to follow, but their tone was so obviously unpleasant that she didn't really need to.
Rather than trying to interrupt, Astoria seized the built-in intermission to study the shorter and more menacing of the two creatures. The more she looked at him, the more convinced she was that she had seen him before. Even in shadow, he greatly resembled Ragnuk's treasurer; the goblin who had been so hesitant to hand over their winnings in the Hogs Head after the Second Task...
"You will see to it that the Northern Headmaster pays you," repeated the treasurer-goblin in cruel English, reaching some kind of conclusion with his partner. "Ragnuk is firm about this."
"Fine," Astoria bit back cuttingly, speaking before Fred and George could get a word in. "If Ragnuk is firm, consider it handled."
"Oh yes?" the goblin-treasurer leered, his tone immensely patronizing, perhaps amused by the idea that Astoria thought she was capable of threatening anyone, least of all a fully grown wizard. "How do you plan to hold him if he should decide to outrun you?"
"I don't know," Astoria snapped, searching wildly into the dusty corners of her brain for what little Gobbledegook she had ever managed to absorb from Theodore's father's books. "We'll floaxak whis rogs."
Astoria eyed the goblins closely, waiting to see how they would react to this. Truthfully, 'Floaxak whis rogs' was nothing more than a caption beside a particularly brutal illustration in Ug The Unclean's biography. Not only was she a little uncertain as to what the phrase actually meant, she was even less sure how it was pronounced.
Still, the quotation itself, penned into the book by hand—presumably by Mr. Nott—appeared next to a scene of medieval torture and the smudged black ink of his lettering had the air of a personal commentary about it. Doodled into a speech bubble above the head of a pointing spectator, Astoria had long ago taken it to mean something comically violent: 'Break his legs!'
Sure enough, Ragnuk's goblins exchanged tight, tense glances and she knew that she had struck home—or close enough to it to be worrisome. Goblins, secretive and nearly dependent on the ignorance and blood-prejudice of wizards, almost always had an uncanny tendency to become unsettled by her pathetic attempts to communicate in gobbledegook. In this respect, Ragnuk's goons did not appear to be any different. Even if her threat was unfounded, it had done what Astoria had hoped it might do; she had robbed Ragnuk's henchmen of their ability to speak in their mother tongue without the fear of being understood.
Astoria held the treasurer's gaze, willing herself to appear confidently neutral. The goblins had no way of knowing how much she had already managed to decipher in their speech (in truth, almost nothing), but she did not intend to let them know that.
"Will you?" the Treasurer needled.
Astoria hunted for another pre-built sentence, this time one she knew well.
"Kerd dis raxaw," she returned. Gold is law. Anyone who knew anything about history might recognize this phrase but it fit their current situation well enough to make the treasurer's expression flicker with annoyance and give way to retreat.
"Very well," he said, snapping the ledger shut. "Make yourselves useful. Remember, Ragnuk will be spectating."
Sensing that they were being dismissed, Astoria reached for Fred's shirtsleeve, surprised to find that he was already groping about in the darkness for her arm.
Curiously uncomfortable with the idea of turning around and exposing her back to the goblins in the gloom, Astoria tripped several times, goose-stepping over tree limbs in her haste to reclaim the dwindling light of the wide open lawn as quickly as possible.
"What did you say to him?" asked Fred the moment they were out of the woods. "In goblin-talk, I mean? It sounded nasty..."
"I'm not sure," Astoria admitted in a low voice, conscious of the crowd that they were rejoining. "A line that I read in a book once. All gobbledegook sounds hard like that—it's guttural."
"Quick thinking!" George whistled, covertly drying his clammy hands on the front of his pants. "I thought he was going to follow us into the stadium for a minute."
Astoria and the twins exchanged delirious looks, half-giddy with relief to have escaped the shadows at any cost, even if their reprieve would only last as long as the duration of the Task.
The lawn became progressively more congested as they pushed closer to the maze. By the time they reached the mouth of the stadium, lines of people—some standing in single file and still others packed together into bands as thick as snaking rivers in areal photographs—were stretching up the hill like the roots of a mythological tree.
Astoria led the way into the crowd, casually turfing first years out of her way, taking only a little more time to nod respectfully at adult spectators before shoving past them as well.
"It's a mad house down here," frowned Fred, observing what was undoubtedly the most chaotic Task organization to date. "Don't they have someone managing this?"
"Yeah," muttered George in an undertone, sucking in his stomach to avoid being poked by a rogue walking stick. "Hagrid. Reckon he snuck off to Hogsmeade after lunch for a pick me up? Looks like more people than last time though, to be honest."
Astoria laughed breathlessly. She took three big steps backward to avoid being trampled and bumped lightly into someone else behind her.
Her mood was still as tense and nervy as a frayed piano string and fighting with Tracey before her run-in with the goblins had done her no favors. The last place she wanted to be now was packed elbow to elbow between foreign bodies. The heat and the noise were overwhelming. Unable to move either forward or backward, Astoria found herself fighting down a quivering, unreliable desire to cackle.
This, Astoria reflected lightheadedly, was the euphoria that came before a nervous breakdown; the disconnect from reason that not only allowed but encouraged people under its spell to step over precipices or thrust open car doors at top speed on the highway...
"Astoria!" snapped a flat, unforgiving voice. "Get off! You're on my shoes!"
Pivoting, Astoria found herself inches away from Pansy Parkinson's puckered grimace.
Blinking disconnectedly, Astoria shifted her feet away from the tips of Pansy's now smudged white penny loafers, reflecting as she did so on how very much the shoes made Pansy's feet look like horse hooves.
Far more frightening than scuffed footwear, however, was the entire collection of slouching Slytherins lingering behind Pansy, all driven half wild with boredom by the jammed lines. From Astoria's current position, Alec, Draco, Blaise and Tracey were all visible but Maudlin, no doubt sleeping off his woes in the carriage, was mercifully absent.
Tracey pulled a long string of gum out of her mouth before accidentally locking eyes with Astoria and turning pink again.
"There should be a line for students," Draco was complaining to Blaise, sneering in the direction of Augusta Longbottom's stuffed-vulture hat. "This is ridiculous..."
"Ugh!" Pansy exclaimed, buffering out the dirt that Astoria had tracked onto her. "God, it's bad enough that you're such a mess—do you have to take me down with you?"
"What's her problem?" asked Fred, peering down at Pansy curiously, his posture oddly suggestive of an amateur gardener discovering his first gnome.
At the same moment, Draco finally caught sight of them and his loud complaining tapered out mid-sentence.
"Nothing, lets just find Karkaroff," muttered Astoria uncomfortably, angling her body away from the cluster of Slytherins. It was a rare day that she dragged the twins into this sort of scene and she did not imagine it would do anything for her mood. "Maybe we should just split up?"
"You mean go our separate ways for the Task and pray we ever see you again?" returned Fred hotly. "I don't think so!"
"Karkaroff is over there," George whispered back, indicating a cluster of judges milling about near a table close to the bandstand. "Maybe we can get seats that look down on him?"
"Doubtful," Astoria murmured, surveying the already groaning stands. "That's where the best view is. It'll be all filled up by the time we get there."
"I'll go alone," George volunteered stoutly. "I can probably sneak onto the edge of a bench without drawing notice."
"We stick together!" insisted Fred.
"I don't know," Astoria mused slowly, appreciating the advantage of what George was suggesting. "It won't look as weird if only one of us goes. Honestly, if Karkaroff really is planning on running, it'll probably be better if he doesn't know that we're tailing him."
"I saw you creeping around in the woods," declared Pansy, her voice nearly as loud and rude as Draco's had been.
It was a moment before Astoria understood what Pansy meant.
"Did you?" she cut back challengingly, for once in her life caring less than nothing about what Pansy thought and unwilling to take so much as an ounce of her lip.
"Mhmm," Pansy smirked, her voice raising to such an unnecessary octave that Astoria could only assume she was trying to make sure Draco would be able to overhear them. "What were you doing talking to goblins, anyway?"
"What can I say?" Astoria bit back, shrugging recklessly. "I have friends in low places."
Pansy wrinkled her nose. "Cassandra would have a fit if she knew one of the Sisters was sneaking around with half-breeds."
"Think so?" Astoria snapped. "Well, why don't you just run along and tell her what you saw while you were spying on me?"
"I wasn't spying," shot Pansy correctively, disliking the insinuation that she cared enough about Astoria to follow her around. "I was standing in line and I saw you. It's not my fault you're such a psycho that you can't make it through an event without hunting down weirdos. What was that gibberish you were saying, anyway? It sounded mental."
"We were just talking about breaking legs," Astoria leered threateningly. This was a crazy, not to mention dangerous, thing to say but the stunned look on Pansy's face more than made up for the risk.
"Yeah," jumped in George, elbowing Astoria in the ribs rather wickedly. "It's been simply ages since they've crippled anyone. Dangerous lot. Really unhinged. You know, I think it's possible they might attack someone here tonight?"
For a moment, Pansy's face had the simple, shocked quality of a child; her mouth fell open to form a perfect oval. Then, her eyes narrowed and fixated on someone in the middle distance.
"Nott! Hey, Nott!" shrieked Pansy, catching Theo, who was working his way into the throng, by his robe hood. "You're creepy, you'll know—what does 'rogs' mean in goblin?"
A few feet away, Padma Patil and Lisa Turpin came to an awkward standstill, leaving Astoria to ponder the stunning possibility that Theo might have been walking down to the Task with them.
"Rogs?" repeated Theodore, his love of scholastic trivia somehow allowing him to overlook how out of character Pansy's inquiry was. "It translates to 'legs'. Why?"
Pansy's face twisted, charged with a hint of actual alarm. George smothered an awed laugh with his fist.
"I'll be sure to mention you were asking so many questions," Astoria finished coldly, seizing George by the shirt front and tugging him back around.
"You didn't seriously threaten to break Karkaroff's legs?" wheezed George, wiping actual tears of laughter from his bottom lashes.
"Of course not," Astoria answered primly, not quite daring to meet his eyes.
"Right," George heaved, still chuckling. "Well, I'm going to slip ahead to keep track of Karkaroff. You two try to stay in sight."
A somber silence settled as Astoria and Fred watched George go. The crowd lurched and shifted, urging them along in his wake but he was soon out of sight.
"You lied. You knew what you were saying," said Fred at last, his tone curiously devoid anger. "To that goblin, I mean."
"Not really," Astoria stuttered, panicked by the idea that Fred might think she had promised his services as a hit-man against his will.
"You certainly guessed your meaning well enough," muttered Fred, a look of stiff determination transforming his face. "It's ok, Astoria, really. I'm not mad. What I am is tired of being poor. You have no idea what it's like."
"What does that mean?" Astoria warbled, cold all over.
"I know, I know," scoffed Fred in an impatient undertone, backtracking somewhat. "You've got your own problems, but your parents have always managed to send you to school in new robes, haven't they? It might not seem like a big deal, but all the little things, they add up—make you who you are. I might have shit for grades, and my dream career probably seems dumb to people, but I'm done having no voice of my own. George might not have it in him, but I really will break Karkaroff's legs if it comes to it. I just thought you should know."
Astoria shot Fred a swift glance. It was a loathsome thing to hear this possibility voiced out-loud, but a part of her was almost relieved to know that Fred at least, like herself, had a perfectly clear understanding of just how dreadful their night might become.
Afraid of opening her mouth and saying the wrong thing, Astoria simply nodded, feeling hollow and miserable but somehow much less lonely.
It was somehow better to share the weight of this truth—and in the right light, it wasn't exactly hard to console herself with the idea that Karkaroff was the very worst type of person: materialistic, cruel, prone to playing favorites with the expectation of personal gain. If she was forced to hand anyone over to Ragnuk, she was glad that it was him.
The restless crowd continued to push closer to the stadium. With every yard Astoria tripped forward, the spaces between limbs and shoulders seemed to tighten and contract. By the time they had made it through the gate, it was becoming abundantly clear that Astoria would need to take Fred and duck into a more obscure line if she wanted to avoid sitting anywhere near Pansy or Blaise.
As it was, Theodore was separated from her by only a few rustling elbows, and he kept shooting Astoria curious, needy glances. Coupled with the fact that she could feel Draco's nosy gaze on the back of her head, the time to slip away seemed to be the present.
"Hey!" breathed Theodore, seizing the opportunity to push through a gap between bodies before Astoria could find enough space to wriggle forward.
"Oh, hi..." returned Astoria shiftily, ignoring Fred's grumble of annoyance.
"What's going on?" asked Theodore suspiciously, unable to overlook Astoria's subconscious urge to lean away from him. "You seem weird. Did something happen?"
"Uhuh—I mean no, everything's fine," Astoria rambled distractedly.
There were only three main staircases that allowed access to the stands and the press of spectators surging up them was already so thick that Astoria was beginning to fear any chance of escape had already been lost. Unlike the Second Task, where seating had been coveted close to the lake's surface, the most advantageous view of the maze seemed to be from up high.
The benches reflected this. They were filling up from the top downward—methodically, perhaps to avoid a public trampling—and by all accounts, it seemed as though she and George would end up wedged into the same row as the Slytherins no matter what they did...
Astoria took the thickly carpeted steps two at time, praying that she would not trip in her haste and that the rest would lag behind far enough to be forced into a different aisle.
"What was Pansy yammering on about?" demanded Theo, thoroughly missing the subtle clues that Astoria was throwing at him, outstripping Padma in his haste to keep up with her. "Why was she asking about goblins?"
"Beats me," Astoria shrugged evasively. "Look, I think Fred and I are going to sit over this way..."
Astoria attempted to make a move toward the next-over staircase but it was already too late. There were too many people in the way. Stymied by a wall of flesh and at risk of being stepped on, Astoria backtracked, bouncing painfully off of the nearest railing.
There was nothing else for it; they were going to have march in formation. The heat of Fred's self-conscious glare burned into Astoria's back as she shuffled down the only available row behind Theodore.
"This is rubbish!" Fred hissed, shooting Draco Malfoy a very significant look as he settled in three seats away. To Astoria's displeasure, although not necessarily surprise, Draco met Fred's glare as though he had been expecting it.
"What was that, Weasley?" Draco called across Blaise and Tracey, guessing by Fred's body language that he was being discussed. "Did you want to get back out and sit somewhere else?"
Astoria reached down and swiftly pinched the side of Fred's knee to keep him from retorting.
"Ladies and gentlemen, the third and final task of the Triwizard Tournament is about to begin!" declared Ludo Bagman's magically magnified voice from the judges table.
The soft thunder of excited voices and rusting feet began to die down. Fairy lights that Astoria had not even noticed during their climb dimmed to a subtle glimmer along the carpeted stairways, forcing the navy blue sky above to pop into greater, star-pricked relief.
Out on the lawn, the champions had begun to assemble. Astoria located Harry, who was easily the shortest, without effort. Four Hogwarts teachers stood guard behind him like silent patrolmen, all wearing badges on their hats and robes.
In case there's trouble, Astoria guessed, studying the teachers grim faces. Dumbledore had clearly assigned protectors to circle the maze...
"Let me remind you how the points currently stand!" Bagman went on, rattling off the standing line-up with great charisma.
"What's the matter, Weasley?" needled Draco softly, mistaking Fred's look of lingering pain—the result of Astoria's pinch—for irritation and seeking to provoke him further. "Goblin got your tongue?"
Several things happened all at once. Fred tensed up and made to leap from his seat, Theodore stiffened at Draco's choice of wording and Bagman declared, "On my whistle, Harry and Cedric! Three— Two— One!"
The shrill blast of Bagman's whistle sent Harry sprinting into the maze and the vast majority of the stands sprung to their feet in a wave of enthusiastic applause.
"Don't!" Astoria hissed somewhere near Fred's ear, feeling his anger-tight shoulder flex beneath her fingers. "Not now—the Task!"
Fred's red nostrils flared but he fell back into his seat. Astoria chanced a glance at Draco and was surprised to find that he was not snickering or smirking triumphantly; he was staring sidelong at the hand Astoria had left on Fred's shoulder, his expression so forcibly disdainful that it seemed to express as much insecurity as it did annoyance.
Oh God.
"Psst," hissed Theodore tersely in her other ear. "What did he mean by that? Pansy just said something really weird a minute ago, too—why does everyone keep talking about Goblins?"
"With that lot, who knows?" Astoria attempted scathingly, knowing in her heart of hearts that this was neither the time nor the place to fill Theodore in or make any grand confessions.
Theo shifted with unnecessary twitchiness, giving Astoria the sense that, much like Tracey's earlier flashes of anger, he was grappling with an idea that had been bothering him for some time.
"You're not actually messed up with that lot, are you? I mean, I know people sometimes say you are—but it's not true. You know how idiotic that would be, right?"
How was it that Theodore, so sharp with facts and figures, could be so willfully ignorant of what was happening in real-life, directly underneath his nose? Thinking dizzyingly of the dozen or more times since the First Task that her association with the goblins had been sinisterly hinted at in his presence, Astoria made a dumb face and scoffed again.
Bagman let out his third whistle shriek; everyone was in the maze.
"Astoria?" demanded Theodore tensely, not at all soothed by her response.
"Will you belt up?" snapped Fred. "I'm trying to spectate."
Astoria flinched. While she could appreciate the fact that Fred did not know Theodore well enough to trust him—and was therefore perfectly sane to be unnerved by his line of interrogation—the sight of anyone hollering at Theodore was supremely uncomfortable.
"Did you come down here with Padma?" asked Astoria, desperate to switch gears.
"I don't know," said Theodore, stalling the way he always did whenever Padma's name was mentioned. "Not really. She spotted me on the lawn and followed me."
"She followed you?" Astoria smirked, feeling as though this was the first truly good thing she had heard all day.
"Well, I mean, the crowd was only going in one direction," Theodore countered irritably.
A sudden blaze of dragon-red sparks shot up near the center of the maze and continued to hover like a silent firework above the ink-dark leaves.
"What is that?" asked Astoria sharply, turning to Fred for answers.
"Someone's hurt," Fred muttered. "Damn these tasks where you can't see anything!"
"It'll be alright," said Theo mildly, pointing toward a dark figure hurtling toward the only entrance in the hedgerow. "See, one of the teachers is going in for them now."
"Yeah," said Astoria, distracted by the awkward, clunky gait of the person who had entered the maze. "That looked like Moody..."
"Probably was," Theodore shrugged. "He's cracked, no doubt about it, but he was still an Auror once."
Astoria shot Fred a sly, longing look, wishing she had thought to tell him about seeing Moody on the evening that Barty Crouch had successfully invaded the grounds.
Tracey and Blaise were both giggling on the other side of Fred but the sound no longer had the power to reach her. Something was wrong—something deeper, vaguer and undeniably worse than red sparks; something she could not put her finger on.
Astoria had been stumbling into bits and pieces of it for months, of course, unable to tape the hints together into anything resembling a bigger picture. The crowning jewel was Harry's improbable role as a Champion, but this was by no means the only worrisome thing she had run into in the process of snooping for secrets that might give her leverage against the goblins.
Karkaroff's going to run... A spot of trouble with his left arm...
If Professor Trelwaney had actually been capable of foreseeing the future, Astoria had a hunch that it would feel something like this. It was the worst sense of foreboding she had ever had in her life, as though her subconscious mind had already worked out the puzzle and the rest of her decidedly more capable conscious was lagging frustratingly behind.
Astoria's finger's scrabbled against her knees and tightened into a tense ball in her lap. She closed her eyes and tried to breathe evenly, wondering if she was going to be suddenly and violently ill. Stop it. You're just nervous. Stop it, stop it, stop it.
When was the last time she had eaten anything?
A second set of red sparks went up and Astoria's eyes opened again in order to follow the plume of color into the sky with silent horror. All around her, the stands seemed to hush and then come alive again with low, anxious chatter. Two champions down. That had never happened during either of the previous Tasks.
A sinister whooshing sound echoed out from somewhere deep in the maze. As if in answer, a cloud of leaves rose up from the center of the hedges, swirling like the green eye of an atom bomb.
"Merlin," Fred muttered, looking green himself. "What's going on in there?"
Astoria shook her head mutely, her thoughts fixated on Moody's lurching jog.
Come to think of it, Moody's late night stroll wasn't the only suspicious behavior she could charge him with. He had also let slip about the location and specifics of the Second Task while Astoria was within earshot, visible to him with his magically enhanced eye.
Finally managing to regulate her rapid breathing into something of a controlled pant, Astoria unclenched her hands, feeling slightly lightheaded.
If someone had put Harry's name into the Goblet with truly murderous intent, they were on their last Task. Why would Moody have gone out of his way to make sure that Astoria knew the details about the Second Task? Think.
Because Harry didn't have a plan and he wanted you to give him one. He wants to keep Harry safe. It's Death Eaters he hates.
But if that were true, Moody must surely have guessed—and to be fair, it wouldn't have been hard—that Astoria and the twins were gambling high, giving them enough of a motive to break the rules in order to assist Harry.
On the other hand, if it was Death Eaters and their children that he truly disdained, why hadn't he turned Astoria in after the Second Task? He could have had his cake and eaten it too; Harry safe, Astoria expelled.
Clearly he didn't really care about Astoria and the twin's crimes as long as they were willing to help Harry at any cost. To keep him alive, surely? Or to put him as far into the maze as possible and then go in after him alone...
A violent sucking sound cracked open directly front of the stadium. Two bodies materialized in mid-air and slammed down onto the grass.
"What was that?" shot Theodore, actually getting to his feet in order to look down.
A dull murmuring filled Astoria's ears while people left, right and center craned to get a better look. Between the elbows of the students in front of her, Astoria spotted the glimmering Triwizard cup laying on the grass, cupped by Harry's very pale and surprisingly scratched hand.
"What's going on?" demanded Fred, a note of panic creeping into his voice. "I can't see!"
"Potter and Diggory are back," answered Theodore with a frown, his significant height advantage rendering him the clearest view.
"Why are you frowning?" begged Astoria, about three seconds away from climbing onto her seat if she had to.
"Well..." Theodore hesitated.
"What?"
"Potter looks like he's crying..."
"Really?" drawled Draco ecstatically. "Potter's crying?"
Astoria could hear Dumbledore far below, his voice loud and thick with concern: "Harry! Harry!"
People were jostling now, confused and unhappy, straining to catch sight of their friends.
Fudge's voice joined Dumbledore's on the field. Even from a great distance he sounded the exact opposite of soothing—more like appalled.
"Honestly," sneered Draco, seeming to make up his mind on the spot that the whole incident was a farce. "What won't this school do for a bit of publicity? I suppose precious Potter's feigning injuries?"
Pansy had just begun to laugh when a low, hysterical scream in the first row caused Draco's look of snide self-assurance to flicker.
"What's wrong with him?" pleaded Ernie Macmillian three rungs down. "Why won't Cedric move?"
"Diggory's dead!"
Pandemonium was breaking out, unchecked by teachers or prefects. More than one person seemed to be crying. All around was a blur of movement and yet there didn't seem to be enough space to stand up straight.
Astoria twisted about wildly, trying to decide what to do with herself and was rewarded with a swift blow to the head. Someone in the row above her was trying to climb over her seat.
"What do you mean he's dead!?"
"That's what Fudge just said!"
"Come on!" hissed Fred urgently, white as a sheet from his nose to his feet. "We have to find George!"
The subtext of this was obvious: Karkaroff had lost his bet and George was alone and in need of insistence. Still, the prospect of moving was much easier said than done, especially now that the audience had been thrown into a panic.
Singularly dedicated to his task, Fred began to fight the throng of students for access to the aisle, pushing and poking his way through. Astoria followed dizzily in his wake, fighting the urge to squeeze her eyes shut every step of the way.
Surely Cedric wasn't actually dead? He must have been knocked out by a rogue obstacle in the maze—Madame Pomfrey would be able put him right...
But Cedric still wasn't moving, his stiff body paying no heed to the battery of medi-wizards and teachers crowding about him.
Astoria stumbled on the edge of unexpected carpeting; they had reached the stairway.
Another bloodless wail, this time more gut wrenching and animalistic. Astoria's blood became ice.
"Merlin," breathed Fred, looking positively sick. "That's Amos Diggory. Blimey, I reckon Cedric is dead..."
A sharp, unseen shove from the left sent Astoria teetering backwards in her unsteady dress shoes. Had Pansy just hit her to sneak past? It was hard to tell—her eyes didn't seem to be working properly.
Someone else—not Fred—corrected her fall with their shoulder. They were almost to the ground but where was Fred? She had lost sight of him! Had he slipped off down a vacated row in order to reach the judges table more quickly?
Astoria pivoted about in a panic, determined to backtrack. The shoulder behind her suddenly became a wall, intentionally corralling her forward onto the grass.
"Astoria, what are you doing?" The shoulder belonged to Draco, who was looking far less certain and much more panicky than he had a moment previously.
Where had he come from? Astoria's mind struggled with the logistics of this, almost certain that he was supposed to be in front of her.
"I have to get to Fred," Astoria muttered.
"Are you mental?" Draco sneered. "Something just killed a student and you're trying to run toward the maze it's hiding in?"
Astoria could see how—from a less desperate point of view—Draco made something of a fair point. At the moment, however, nothing short of immediate violence seemed capable of toppling her desperate desire to relocate the twins. What if Ragnuk found them before Astoria could? Or worse—what if Karkaroff put up a fight?
Without pausing to think, Astoria ducked around Draco, angling for a gap between two old ladies
"Astoria!" Draco called after her with sharp irritation.
There was no time to lose. Thankfully, with a final and awkward shimmy, Astoria managed to break through the edge of the crowd and gain the un-loitered turf.
Blood pounded in her ears as she dodged the last of the sobbing children and ashen-faced ministry wizards. She broke out into a run. Where would Karkaroff have gone to avoid detection? Behind the stands perhaps?
She came to a breathless stop next to the abandoned judges table, eyeing the junction where the stadium ended and the hedgerows began. Miles of pruned shrubbery slid smoothly onward into a midnight-black wilderness; a nighttime filled with rotten, unseen teeth.
The thunder of the mob behind her was beginning to fade, replaced by the hitch of her uneven breathing as it hit the air like a siren. Left or right? Which way seemed more likely to offer protection for an illicit transaction?
"What are you doing, Greengrass!" snarled Draco, causing Astoria to jolt out of concentration. "I don't care what kind of Gryffindor pissing contest you're trying to win! This is moronic!"
He broke off looking pale, out of breath and unusually livid. Eyelashes fluttering unsurely, Draco's eyes darted toward the maze, somehow drained off all his heat by its ominous vastness.
The circle of mist that seemed to enshroud the hedges was undoubtedly thicker here; cooling Astoria's cheeks and clinging creepily the hem of her dress.
Slowly, as though he had to think about it, Draco stumbled forward a few stunted steps. He felt about, trying to catch hold of her without having to take his eyes off the hedgerow, trying futilely to drag her away from it's towering shadow.
"What are you doing?" Astoria objected, fighting down alarm as she danced away from him.
"Stopping you from getting yourself killed!" spat Draco intolerantly, his voice warbling with poorly concealed but very genuine fear. "You do realize something in that maze just ate a student?"
"There's no monster, Malfoy!" Astoria retorted wildly, stepping away from his insistent limbs, positively strangling on her own frustration. "I think Moody killed Cedric—now Fred and George have both gotten themselves separated and I have to find Karkaroff!"
"What the hell are you talking about?" Draco spat, so confused by this unexpected mess of ideas that he could only manage a half-sneer. "You sound unhinged!"
Astoria yanked away from him and nearly toppled over a second time.
"Moody didn't kill Diggory!" Draco yelled on recklessly, his tone infused with an unexplainable panic as Astoria pulled him still further away from crowd. "Even if he did, all you're doing is making yourself look suspicious by running into the dark!"
Astoria tucked in her elbows and twisted away from him.
Already past the outermost limits of his usual courage, Draco hissed with displeasure and swung in front of her, thoroughly blocking the way this time.
The irrational fear flickering beneath his scowl was both infectious and telling. Suddenly feeling as though she could not entirely put it past Draco to attempt to hex her into submission, Astoria inched her hand toward her dress pockets—forgetting how uselessly shallow and wand-less they were—when the sight of a figure in the gloom behind him made her stiffen up with wordless horror.
Mad-Eye Moody himself was standing less than ten feet away, positioned with impossible, chilling stillness in the middle of the channel between the maze and the woods. The light, or lack thereof, played fickly with every culvert and ditch in his gaunt face, casting his eyes into such petrifying shadow that Astoria momentarily forgot how to breathe. How long had he been listening?
Paralyzed from the neck down, Astoria just barely managed to force out two or three hiccuping gulps before finally persuading her trembling lips to open. A gasping, child-like sob tumbled out and Draco's head snapped around with skittish swiftness.
Astoria clawed at her pockets, the tips of her fingers scrabbling against nothing but her ivory fan and—irony of ironies—the cold metal surface of the lucky coin she had inadvertently stolen from Draco that afternoon.
"Hnng!" Draco winced reflexively, shocking away from Moody with such violence that Astoria's head bounced against the flat wooden paneling on the corner of the stadium.
Astoria's thoughts flashed vaguely to the goblin hoard she had spent all year evading, embracing the idea with a queer sense of yearning, painfully aware of how remote and unarmed she was. Let Ragnuk come and break my kneecaps, she prayed soundlessly. Anything but this.
It was the longest moment of Astoria's life. Moody tilted his head, surveying them with something close to sadistic pleasure. Never before had Astoria faced such a situation, wherein the possibility of her death seemed not just possible but more than probable. The Quidditch World Cup had been frightening, but even at the time, Astoria had been able to recognize the relative safety of the woods she was hiding in. None of the Death Eaters had really been looking for people like herself; she knew that others had faced much worse that evening.
Her run in with Sirius Black, although harrowing, had nothing on this either because Black had given her some semblance of a choice: 'Move aside or I'll gut you'. Moody's eyes promised no such mercy. This was 'move aside so I can gut you quicker' and that tiny alteration made all the difference in the world.
Draco, his breathing suddenly so staggered that each intake struck Astoria in the chest, remained frozen, fixated on the place where Moody glowed cruelly in the dark. Astoria, for her part, found her disjointed thoughts slipping away from the goblins in order to fixate on Malfoy.
Almost every semblance of her better self was slipping into desperation. Cowardly people were rarely the type that she looked up to or admired, but they did have an uncanny habit of surviving. If Astoria was honest with herself (and being caught wand-less in the dark seemed to have had that effect on her), they were officially in Draco's hands. She had a hunch that he would barter much more prettily than Astoria could.
"Professor Moody," Draco finally managed, employing a tone that Astoria had previously understood him only to use in his father's company, so lacking in the familiar hint of insolence that it was very nearly jarring. "Something's happened on the other side of the stadium. Professor Dumbledore is looking for you."
Astoria's eyes spun down the length of the maze, cottoning onto the thread of Draco's logic with a surge of hope.
How much time had elapsed since Harry had Apparated out of thin air with Cedric's body? Five minutes? Maybe ten? Moody, who had been patrolling the maze for the Task, was only just officially returning now. Draco's attempt to normalize the situation and act as though there was no reason for them to suspect Moody at all opened up a possibility that he might pass them over in favor of whatever course of action he was already hurrying back to.
It was a swifter stroke of self preservation than Astoria might have managed, at any rate. Her legs were shaking so badly that she was beginning to bounce and dip. She fought to control her face.
"Really? Is that so?" leered Moody, sounding utterly relaxed and very unlike himself. "Funny thing, you going out of your way. You don't like Dumbledore much, do you boy?"
"I—" Draco floundered resentfully, unsure how baldly he dared to lie.
Moody let out a dirty sounding laugh and smiled with all of his crooked teeth; a wicked, degenerative leer that caused Draco's sentence to end in a shivery gust.
"You're a bad liar, Malfoy," said Moody softly. "Bad liars don't last long. Just ask your father."
"Yeah, maybe I will," Draco sneered back feebly, his shoulder jerking into Astoria's chest reflexively; once, twice, three times, too cowardly to shield her with anything more than half of his body but somehow still instinctually inclined to try. "My father's here tonight. He's looking for me."
It was as near a threat as Draco dared to make. Astoria wished he would take out his wand but his hand was still tensed into a fist near his pocket, no doubt afraid that any obvious move to withdraw it would provoke an outright attack.
"Oh, I highly doubt that. In fact, I know better," Moody cackled, his face transformed by a sudden rush of insanity. "He's too busy groveling at the hem of his true master to defend his son. With any luck, our Lord will make him pay for his cowardice. Yes, with any luck, you're father is on his knees."
"What are you talking about?" sneered Draco nasally, unable to pretend he didn't notice how much closer Moody had edged toward them.
"Tonight, the Dark Lord rises again!" hissed Moody, all feverish excitement, towering over them and looking properly insane. "The New Order has begun! And with it will come the fall, yes, the fall of all those who defected—those who turned their backs on his suffering and contented themselves to return to the world!"
"You're insane!" whimpered Draco desperately, shoving back against Astoria so hard that she could hardly draw breath—not that she was likely to slip away from him to reclaim it. One of Draco's shoulders was not much by way of protection, but it was infinitely more reassuring than having him run away or attempt to duck behind her and Astoria was half-inclined to never yell at him again out of gratitude if they survived.
"No, I'm alive—as I haven't been in years," frothed Moody manically. "You'll soon see. Your father is learning his lesson tonight, boy. Perhaps I should teach you yours?"
The tip of Moody's wand was inches away from Draco's chest when a loud bang—a teacher emitting sparks to reclaim order?—made his head jerk up again.
Astoria listened through the flurry of Draco's hyperventilation for more clues, certain that Moody would leave them be if he perceived the threat of oncoming security.
"No time, I see," Moody murmured, the look of preoccupation melting off his face as he rotated his head. "The New Order as begun and if there is any justice in this world, this is where your family will belong in it—"
Moody leaned past Draco's quivering jaw to hover in front Astoria, who promptly squeezed her eyes shut, certain he was going to curse her until her nose was as shattered as his own. She was too surprised to be properly disgusted when he licked her face instead.
Draco's body tensed, trapped in a violent a tar-pit of loathing, disgusted by what he was witnessing but too afraid to bring up his arm to shove Moody and make it stop.
Astoria flinched harder still when Moody let out a sharp laugh, her mind withdrawing, skittering into a place so deep that there did not seem to be any words to describe her fear. Moody's foul breath gusted across her face, chilling the track of his unwanted saliva. Then, just as suddenly, it was was gone.
It was a long moment before she dared open her eyes; she could hear Moody stumping away across the lawn, could hear the crickets in the tall grass; everything a blur of sensation that had no chance of properly reaching of her.
After a long beat, the spell finally broke when Malfoy let out a sound of shivery disgust. Astoria opened her eyes in time to watch him shake out his limbs, perhaps hoping to free himself of Moody's lingering essence.
"I'm sorry," Astoria breathed, no longer entirely certain of what she was saying, only relatively sure that Draco had been trying to pull her back before something disastrous happened and that she had not listened. "I don't—I didn't think about—"
Draco let out a whine akin to the type that a toddler without language skills might make to voice dissatisfaction before Astoria's vision was obscured by his sleeve.
Startled, Astoria was close to panicking again before it dawned on her that he was trying to wipe her face. Too stunned to object, Astoria allowed him to pat her off, only remembering to move away after he'd made four or five swipes and was beginning to hurt her more than help.
"Fucking hell!" he finally snarled. "And the Ministry let him teach at a school?"
"Draco," Astoria muttered gravely, alive to a newer and even more frightening possibility, fighting instinctually against the implication that came with it. The Dark Lord has risen again! "I'm not sure that was Moody."
A strangled cry behind the stands made Draco stutter and jolt. Heart in her throat, Astoria turned toward it, certain it had belonged to Fred.
0o0
Ok, this took entirely too long and for that I apologize. I'm trying to finish up my final semester right now and it's really stolen the wind out of my sails as far as time goes (there is a light at the end of the tunnel, though. I just super need it to be May!). There's a little bit of goblin plot to finish up in the next chapter, plus some morning-after recovery as far as Voldemort goes (I'll probably chuck Cedric's memorial in) but the next post should have everyone heading home for summer and tie up most loose ends at the same time (the Tracey fight will be resolved before break)!
Hopefully you'll also excuse the Moody-Crouch Super-Villain moment. I typically lean away from poorly contrived scenes where the bad guy gives himself away on purpose, but I think an argument can be made in this case! I've always pictured Crouch as a true zealot and with Voldemort reborn, his plot has technically reached fruition. Honestly, I don't think he was ever really planning on leaving the grounds before Dumbledore caught up with him. If that was the case, he would have taken Harry down to the woods to kill him like his father. Instead, he practically marches Harry as deep into the hornet nest as he can by dragging him back to the castle. The man's clearly willing to go back to Azkaban in return for recognition of killing Harry (of course, Fudge has Crouch sucked dry before he can give himself away to the world, but that is neither here nor there) so he seems more than capable of harassing some other students along the way!
As for scheduling, my plan is to post on Wednesday of next week. If I get it done before that, I'll upload it sooner because I know this was a long wait!
Reviews are always the best!