Chapter 4 - The Dark Mark and Hermione's House-Elf Rage

Out of the bushes came the house-elf, Winky. She had been in the Top Box during the Quidditch World Cup. Right now though, she was acting stranger than she had then as she struggled and whined about bad wizards before being drug off back through the bushes.

"What's up with her," Ron asked as they looked after her cries. "Why can't she run properly?"

"Bet she didn't ask permission to hide," Harry answered. Hermione was deeply angered by how house-elves acted, and in a time like this it pained her to see a little creature like that torn between following orders and doing what it naturally knew was a good thing to do by getting away from the danger.

"You know, house-elves get a very raw deal! It's slavery, that's what it is! That Mr. Crouch made her go up to the top of the stadium, and she was terrified, and he's got her bewitched so she can't ever run when they start trampling tents! Why doesn't anyone do something about it?"

"Well, the elves are happy, aren't they?" Ron had said the wrong thing totally as Hermione's fear from before was replaced with a sudden righteous bout of rage. "You heard old Winky back in the match... 'House-elves is no supposed to have fun'... that's what she likes, being bossed around..."

"It's people like you, Ron, who prop up rotten and unjust systems, just because they're too lazy to–," Hermione started to snarl before Ron realized that this was the wrong place, wrong time for something like this when a blast came from the camp grounds.

"Let's just keep moving, shall we?" Hermione knew why he wanted to keep moving and it wasn't because he didn't want to fight with her. She didn't need to see the look on his face to know that he was worried about the attackers in masks getting her like Malfoy had said. They continued through the woods, Hermione still feeling a bit angry about the whole house-elf thing, but not saying another word on the matter. They were losing hope on finding the twins and Ginny when they ran into something Ron and Harry found funny despite the current state of things. There were three boys trying to impress the veela by telling them all sorts of outlandish things.

"Honestly!" Hermione had seen enough of this stupidity over these veela women and she thought Harry and Ron had had a good enough laugh as she grabbed them both up and made them keep moving in search of Ron's siblings before the two of them started doing something stupid along with those other three boys. Hermione and them went a ways further before stopping and deciding to wait there, running into Bagman while they were there. He was there only a short while as he looked more frightened than the three of them put together. "Not exactly on top of things, Mr. Bagman, is he?" Hermione frowned as she looked at the two boys.

"He was a great Beater, though," Ron sighed as he shrugged and they stared off into the forest. They had been waiting for a while as it got rather quiet, which to Hermione was worse than hearing the screams because at least then she had some idea of what was going on.

"I hope the others are okay," she sighed to break the silence.

"They'll be fine," Ron assured her.

"Imagine if your dad catches Lucius Malfoy," Harry said as he sat down next to Ron. Hermione could tell that Harry was trying to change the subject to something a little hopeful as things began to look bleak. "He's always said he's like to get something on him."

"That'd wipe the smirk off old Draco's face, all right," Ron said with dignified anger.

"Those poor Muggles, though," Hermione thought aloud. "What if they can't get them down?" She didn't mean to, but she wondered how horrible it must be to be up in the air like that. Then, without warning, a vision of her, her mom, and dad popped into her head. Spinning in circles sixty feet above their front lawn just as they little child had done over the tents. Hermione whimpered and Ron looked over at her quickly as Harry looked at Ron in a worried way.

"They will," he said reassuringly. "They'll find a way."

"Mad, though, to do something like that when the whole Ministry of Magic's out here tonight!" Hermione was trying desperately to convince herself that the Ministry would save the Roberts's and that nothing like that could ever happen to her family. "I mean how do you expect to get away with it? Do you think they've been drinking, or are they just–," Hermione was still trying to come up with a way to make it unlikely that they would attack her family like that as an image of her mother hanging upside-down came back to mind, but that wasn't why she had stopped. There were footsteps drawing near the clearing where they sat waiting.

"Hello?" Harry stood up and looked about as he called, but they still didn't see anyone, or hear them move again. "Who's there?" Sudden, there was a shout of a spell and Hermione sank down to avoid it if it came flying through the air at them.

"MORSMORDRE!"

"What the–?" Ron had jumped to his feet with the gasp of words as a green, glittering light shot up through and above the trees. Fear pulsated in the air with screams as Hermione felt a chill take over her body. The Dark Mark, the sign of Voldemort, was flying high over them in the skies.

"Harry, come on, move!" Hermione seized Harry by the collar of his shirt and began tugging him away as he continued to question whoever had cast the spell. Hermione didn't want to be anywhere near that area as she tried to pull Harry along, his questions ending when he asked her what was the matter with her. "It's the Dark Mark, Harry! You-Know-Who's sign!" Hermione didn't want to stop and answer his questions as she feared that they would get her and she would suffer the same thing the Muggles were suffering just as Malfoy had said.

"Voldemort's–?"

"Harry, come on!" Hermione couldn't believe that he kept asking questions instead of moving. He knew what Voldemort was, why wasn't he moving! She just wanted to move, get away from the clearing that they had been sitting in, but there would be no such thing happening as twenty of the adult wizards Apparated to that spot. Hermione shrieked as she began extremely jarred by their sudden appearance, but she calmed some as she realized that they were with the Ministry. Everything from there became a blur as Harry yelled at her and Ron.

"DUCK!"

"STUPEFY!" Twenty voices had shouted and cast a spell right at where Hermione, Ron, and Harry had been standing as they now lay on the ground covering themselves for safety from the curses.

"Stop! STOP! That's my son!" Hermione was relieved to hear Mr. Weasley tell the wizards to call everything to a stop. "Ron – Harry – Hermione – are you all right?" The kids didn't have time to answer as Mr. Weasley was told quite rudely to get out of the way by Mr. Crouch who began asking them which one of them had conjured the Dark Mark.

"We didn't do that," Harry protested as he gestured up to the skull that had a snake protruding from its mouth.

"We didn't do anything! What did you want to attack us for?" Ron's question didn't go over too well with Mr. Crouch as he began calling Ron a liar and asking where the Dark Mark came from. A witch with the group of adults tried to show the truth in what Ron was saying, but Mr. Crouch wasn't going to hear anyone's sense making as he questioned the Golden Trio about where the Dark Mark came from then. Mr. Weasley then gave into Crouch's questioning and asking them the same, yet in a slightly nicer way.

"Over there," Hermione said a bit timidly and shakily as she was still quite worked up over what happened only a few minutes ago. "There was someone behind the trees... they shouted words – an incantation–"

"Oh, stood over there, did they?" Mr. Crouch rounded on the already horrified Hermione, scaring her further as he continued to yell at her. "Said an incantation, did they? You seem very well informed about how that Mark is summoned, missy–" Hermione went wide eyed as he continued to yell at her, fear shivering up and down her spine as his eyes bulged with each new word.

"We're too late," said the same witch that had tried to make reasoning earlier. "They'll have Disapparated."

"I don't think so," Amos Diggory, Cedric's father, said as he came forward. "Our Stunners went right through those trees... There's a good chance we got them..."

"Amos, be careful!" Hermione gasped and clapped her hands to her mouth as the wizards and witches yelled to him while he went over into the trees where Hermione had pointed earlier.

"Yes! We got them! There's someone here! Unconscious! It's– but– blimey..."

"You've got someone?" Mr. Crouch quit trying to stare Hermione down and turned in the direction of Amos's voice as he called after him in disbelief. "Who? Who is it?" Diggory appeared a few minutes later carrying Mr. Crouch's elf, Winky. "This – cannot – be," Crouch stuttered.

"No point, Mr. Crouch," Mr. Diggory said as Crouch went over to the trees and bushes where Amos had just returned from. "There's no one else there." Hermione looked from Winky to the trees, waiting for Crouch to return. 'That hadn't sounded like Winky who had cast that spell' Hermione thought as Amos spoke again, joined by Mr. Weasley.

"What?" Mr. Weasley's surprised and slightly confused question had brought Hermione back to the conversation as she looked to Amos who was holding a wand that Hermione faintly recognized.

"Here, look," Amos said as he held the wand out. "Had it in her hand. So that's clause three of the Code of Wand Use broken, for a start. No non-human creature is permitted to carry or use a wand." Hermione looked down at Winky as Bagman appeared again, stepping on her some as he stumbled about. She stood listening to what he had to say about the elf saving Crouch's seat in the Top Box while Crouch was in fact absent the whole time. After a few minutes, something dawned on Bagman as he looked from Winky to Crouch.

"No! Winky? Conjure the Dark Mark? She wouldn't know how! She'd need a wand, for a start!" Amos presented the evidence again, and then woke Winky from her unconscious state. Hermione stood there quietly listening to the interrogation of the frightened little house-elf, fighting back tears and protests all the while. The wand was then identified as Harry's which confirmed Hermione's recognition on it, but the interrogation of the elf continued, Harry's identification only making the questioning of Winky fiercer. The elf whimpered and trembled so that it pained Hermione to see it. Hermione couldn't stand it any longer as she heard Winky really start crying.

"It wasn't her! Winky's got a squeaky little voice, and the voice we heard doing the incantation was much deeper!" Hermione suddenly regretted her outburst as everyone turned to her and stared at her while she looked to Harry and Ron for support, Harry finally coming to her rescue.

"No. It definitely didn't sound like an elf."

"Yeah, it was a human voice," Ron chimed in as he realized that Hermione was in need when she and Harry looked at him for support.

"Well, we'll soon see," Amos growled. "There's a simple way of discovering the last spell a wand performed, elf, did you know that?" Hermione's eyes filled with tears as she bit down on her lip when Winky trembled before Amos as he raised his wand and put it point-to-point with Harry's. "Prior Incantato!" Hermione gasped and shuddered as she closed her eyes when the Dark Mark appeared from the end of Harry's wand. Hermione stood back watching in terror as Amos continued to shout at the shaking elf as she tried to claim her innocence. To Hermione's slight relief, Mr. Weasley came to the aid of Winky, followed by Winky's own master, Mr. Crouch. Hermione was starting to feel thankful for Mr. Crouch's sudden save of Winky, but he got back onto Hermione's bad side when he finished the way he did.

"Winky has behaved tonight in a manner I would not have believed possible. I told her to remain in the tent. I told her to stay there while I went to sort out the trouble. And I find that she disobeyed me. This means clothes." To Hermione, this felt like watching an execution.

"No!" Hermione swallowed hard as Winky shrieked at Mr. Crouch while throwing herself upon his feet. "No, master! Not clothes, not clothes!" Hermione was dying inside and she could keep quiet no longer.

"But she was frightened! Your elf's scared of heights, and those wizards in masks were levitating people! You can't blame here for wanting to get out of their way!" Hermione's words fell on deaf ears though as Crouch stepped away from Winky and continued to his dismissal of her while looking at Hermione with a harsh expression.

"I have no use for a house-elf who disobeys me. I have no use for a servant who forgets what is due to her master, and to her master's reputation." Hermione wanted to curse Mr. Crouch as she glared at him while Mr. Weasley began to speak. Hermione stared at Crouch still more furiously as Amos handed Harry his wand and Mr. Weasley tried to get the three of them to leave.

"Hermione!" Mr. Weasley's words were demanding and they finally made Hermione turn away as she took one last look at the sobbing elf.

"What's going to happen to Winky?" Hermione was so worried about the little elf as they made their way back to the campsite.

"I don't know," Mr. Weasley answered.

"The way they were treating her! Mr. Diggory, calling her 'elf' all the time... and Mr. Crouch! He knows she didn't do it and he's still going to sack her! He didn't care how frightened she's been, or how upset she was – it was like she wasn't even human!" Hermione had dropped her sorrow filled tone for a furious one.

"Well, she's not," Ron said, not really thinking about what he had said. Hermione's eyes bulged as she turned on Ron.

"That doesn't mean she hasn't got feelings, Ron. It's disgusting the way–"

"Hermione, I agree with you," Mr. Weasley said quickly, trying to avoid a fight between his son and Hermione, "but now is not the time to discuss elf rights. I want to get back to the tent as fast as we can. What happened to the others?"

"We lost them in the dark," Ron answered. "Dad, why was everyone so uptight about that skull thing?" Hermione looked at Ron with more annoyance now because what he had just asked proved that he didn't listen to her. 'I explained that to Harry, Ron! I told you that it's the sign of Voldemort!' Mr. Weasley and the Golden Trio made it back to the tents with only a minor hold up of wizards and witches asking about what happened and if Voldemort had returned, Hermione doing a good job of keeping quiet about the outrageous actions of Mr. Crouch, at least until she got back to the tent. When they got back there, Percy began speaking his mind on what he thought about Mr. Crouch doing to Winky and it only made Hermione even more mad.

"Well, Mr. Crouch is quite right to get rid of an elf like that! Running away when he'd expressly told her not to... embarrassing him in front of the whole Ministry... how would that have looked, if she'd been brought up in front of the Department for the Regulation and Control–"

"She didn't do anything – she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time," Hermione exploded, much to everyone's surprise.

"Hermione, a wizard in Mr. Crouch's position can't afford a house-elf who's going to run amok with a wand!"

"She didn't run amok! She just picked it up off the ground!" Hermione was growing angrier with Percy by the minute and he had seemed to have recovered from his shock of her outburst because he too was now getting angry. Hermione and Percy were now in a stare off as Ron asked what the Mark had been. "I told you, it's You-Know-Who's symbol, Ron," Hermione shouted before anyone could say anything. "I read about it in The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts."

"And it hasn't been seen for thirteen years. Of course people panicked... it was almost like seeing You-Know-Who back again." Mr. Weasley further continued to explain the meaning of the Mark as Ron asked more and more questions; Hermione was starting to grow tired of being in the presence of everyone. She wanted to be alone right now, but there was no hope of that with all the Weasley's and Harry talking about the Dark Mark and its meaning.

"But if they were Death Eaters, why did they Disapparate when they saw the Dark Mark," Ron asked, still bewildered. "They'd been pleased to see it, wouldn't they?"

"Use your brains, Ron," Bill said. "If they really were Death Eaters, they worked very hard to keep out of Azkaban when You-Know-Who lost power, and told all sorts of lies about him forcing them to kill and torture people. I bet they'd be even more frightened than the rest of us to see him come back. They denied they'd ever being involved with him when he lost his powers, and went back to their daily lives... I don't reckon he'd be over-pleased with them, do you?"

"So... whoever conjured the Dark Mark...," Hermione began slowly in hopes of stopping the conversation once and for all, "were they doing it to show support for the Death Eaters, or to scare them away?"

"Your guess is as good as ours, Hermione," Mr. Weasley answered. "But I tell you this... it was only the Death Eaters who ever knew how to conjure it. I'd be very surprised if the person who did it hadn't been a Death Eater once, even if they're not now..." Then to Hermione's relief, Mr. Weasley said something she had been waiting to hear since they came back to the campsite. "Listen, it's very late, and if your mother hears what's happened she'll be worried sick. We'll get a few more hours sleep and then try and get an early Portkey out of here." Hermione got up gratefully and went into her tent, taking off her coat and crawling into bed under the covers, finally feeling a little bit safe for the first time that night since she had been awoken.