A/N: I wrote this chapter immediately after posting the last, so double update!

It took devastatingly little time for George's prophecy to come to fruition, and it started with a dead body.

In the beginning, there was very little to distinguish the third task from the second task other than technicalities. They'd swapped staring at a lake for staring at some hedges, and save for a few rumblings - the flash of a spell beaming up above the tops of the hedges, the rustle of leaves as the hedges seemed to fight back against the champions, and even an odd scream or two - there wasn't a whole lot to actually watch. It seemed the dragons from the first task were an act that wouldn't really be followed as far as audience entertainment went.

That being said, it wasn't a bad night. Not at first. Summer was well and truly setting in, a pleasant breeze weaving its way throughout the crowd while they all chatted and excitedly waited to see who would be their victor. Completely abandoning any pretence of Beauxbatons loyalty, Marilyn sat with the Gryffidors - one stripe of crimson face paint lining her right cheekbone, and a similar one of glittery gold mirroring it on the left.

There were murmurs of excitement when Fleur was rescued from the maze, mostly from the Hogwarts and Durmstrang students, knowing that one contender was out. Those murmurs halved when Krum was taken out next, although the Hogwarts students made up for it by doubling in volume.

"He really doesn't look well," Hermione commented with an anxious frown, nodding in Viktor's direction as the teachers convened around him.

She was right - though she usually was…recent events notwithstanding. Krum's face was a greyish white, and even from here they could see the sheen of sweat coating his brow as he turned his head back and forth depending on which teacher spoke to him, his eyes glazed over and almost dazed looking.

"He's fine, he's Viktor Krum," Ron grumbled.

Once he might've said that like it was a compliment, but tonight it sounded distinctly begrudging.

"I'm sure it's nothing," Marilyn chimed in "Look - he's sitting down, they're not even taking him to the hospital wing. The maze is designed to freak them out a bit, it looks like it succeeded."

Hermione didn't look convinced, but Marilyn couldn't much blame her because she wasn't either. Nerves were all well and good, but Krum's were made of steel. And he looked frazzled.

Conversation quickly picked back up again, though, any worry replaced by excitement now that the odds of the champion being from Hogwarts was a certainty, and that champion being Harry had just doubled.

A long time seemed to pass after Krum was pulled out. Too long, Marilyn thought. Surely the maze wasn't so deadly that there'd be such a big gap between Krum being pulled out and a victor proving triumphant? She could've sworn that the maze looked stiller, too - there didn't seem to be as much happening beyond the odd rustle here and there. A glance towards Hermione found her frowning thoughtfully at it, and Marilyn knew she wasn't the only one who was confused.

"D'you reckon we're sitting here literally watching grass grow?" Ron commented from the other side of Hermione "Does a great big hedge count as grass?"

"Watching leaves grow doesn't have the same ring to it, does it?" Marilyn replied and he snorted.

"It won't be long now," Hermione shook her head.

And, as usual, she was proven right not one full minute later when Harry materialised in the middle of the lawn before the hedge, huddled over the cup and…and something she couldn't make out. The Hogwarts band immediately kicked up and those in the audience began to cheer - none more so than the section Marilyn sat with, throwing up their hands and grinning at each other.

"So much for Beauxbatons superiority, eh?" Fred turned to call up to her with a grin.

"You can't go on like that when I've got this crap on my face," she pointed to the Gryffindor colours emblazoned across her cheeks pointedly "Although I'd like to see Harry try to go en pointe on a broom."

"So would I," Fred shrugged with a grin "It'd be a right laugh."

She snickered, shaking her head - and then stopped when a scream broke through the revelry. Given that they were a castle full of teenagers, people screamed all the time. Shrieks, whoops, hollers. A school was the worst place to have a migraine. But this was different. This was a gut-wrenching cry of pure horror. Everybody else sensed it too, immediately turning to the source and finding Fleur near the front, her hands clapped over her mouth as she doubled over, staring at Harry in horror. It was Cedric he was leaning over - from this angle she could see his legs sprawled out. Was he hurt?

Dumbledore ran to him as the crowd quietened, all peering over each other's heads to try and work out what was going on as the band abruptly stopped. Just in time for them to hear what Harry was shouting at Dumbledore.

"He's back! He's back!" Harry was sobbing, his voice ragged "Voldemort's back!"

Everything around Marilyn seemed to halt. She was in her body, and then she wasn't. The night was, if not a normal one, then certainly a good one…and then it absolutely was not. She wasn't sure when it was that she rose to her feet, only that she was suddenly standing on legs she could not quite feel, watching as Dumbledore, followed quickly by Fudge, ran to Harry who continued to kneel over Cedric's prone form, recognisable to her only because of his black and yellow top. Was he unconscious? What was…?

"Cedric…he asked me to bring his body back. I couldn't leave him - not there."

The silence was only noticeable when she realised she could hear every word Harry was saying - although it took longer to make sense of them than it did to understand them. Body? But surely that…no. She tried to stumble back, but the bench she'd been sitting on knocked into the backs of her knees and almost sent her off-balance. She regained her footing quickly, and her eyes never left the scene unfolding all the while. Hermione was similarly motionless beside her.

Dumbledore was taking Harry's face in hand, speaking to him in low intent tones as Fudge rushed back to the members of staff who'd slowly begun moving forward.

"Keep everybody in their seats!" he ordered loudly, lowering his voice to continue "A boy's just been killed."

It wasn't low enough. Most gathered heard him, and it gave them permission to believe what they were seeing. The effect was immediate, like a spell of paralysis had been broken, but nobody seemed quite sure what to do now that they'd remembered they could move. Until a voice broke through the stunned murmurs.

"Let me through - let me through!" a middle-aged man was running down from the stands "Let me through…that's my son!"

And just like that, the murmurs were silenced again.

"That's my boy!" Cedric's father continued to cry out "It's my boy…"

He finally pushed through all of the adults who had gathered around the scene, falling to his knees beside Cedric. Beside Cedric's body. He took it in for a moment that seemed to stretch on forever, and then he let out a heart-wrenching wail that could have only been brought forth by pure, agonising grief.

Something tightened in Marilyn's chest, her throat constricting, and the next time she blinked, tears began to spill down her cheeks. Harry was being dragged back from Cedric by Moody, fighting him all the way, and Hermione and Ron began to nudge their way down the stands to try and go to their friend, but Moody was already marching him away. Marilyn stayed where she was, rooted dumbly to the spot. The teachers began to communicate in hushed whispers, no doubt trying to navigate how to move forward as the students of all three schools continued to stare in horror.

The more time ticked on without this being some terrible mistake - some elaborate hoax, some hallucination, anything but something real - the more she struggled to grapple with it. This couldn't be real. It couldn't be. Could it? They'd said that the tournament was dangerous, but…it was for show. The danger wasn't real. The…the teachers would step in if something went really wrong, and the people who had died had done so centuries ago when things were…and Harry had said…He'd said that Vol- no. No, no, no. No.

McGonagall was calling out that all students had to go to their respective dormitories - announcing which rows should leave and when, so that nobody would be trampled in their exit - but Marilyn could barely register what was being said, and only started moving when she was herded out by the people around her leaving, too. Later, when she found herself curled up in her bunk in the Beauxbatons carriage, she wouldn't be able to recall the walk there.

The atmosphere of stunned disbelief carried on to the next morning. Fleur's eyes were swollen and red-rimmed, having arguably known Cedric the best out of the Beauxbatons students, having bonded with him over the course of the tournament. They all got ready for the day in silence, speaking only when necessary - and only then in hushed murmurs - all of them looking shaken. The loudest voice was that of Madame Maxime, who came to announce to them all in a booming voice that they were to gather in the Great Hall.

She was relieved to find that students of all three schools mixed together in the hall rather than being forced to sit strictly school by school, and she moved swiftly towards Gryffindor table where George - god bless him - had saved her a space. All at the table looked utterly numb, but none looked so traumatised as Harry. He stared ahead almost unseeingly, his eyes bloodshot and his face still scratched from whatever horrors he'd faced the night before. His shouts from afterwards hadn't finished ringing through her mind.

"He's back! Voldemort's back!"

Judging by the looks that kept being shot his way, she wasn't alone in that. No food appeared on the tables as was usually the case, but for that she was relieved. The sight of it alone would only turn her stomach - as the thought already had.

Once everybody was seated, Dumbledore wasted no time in standing and beginning to speak, his voice clear and sorrowful.

"Today, we acknowledge…a really terrible loss," he began "Cedric Diggory was, as you all know, exceptionally hard-working, infinitely fair-minded, and most importantly…a fierce, fierce friend."

A girl over at Gryffindor table - the one Cedric had attended the Yule Ball with - bowed her head and began to sob. Marilyn lowered her gaze, listening to Dumbledore as he continued.

"Now I think, therefore, you have the right to know exactly how he died. You see, Cedric was murdered by Lord Voldemort," that sent a rumble through the hall, but a subdued one - most of them had heard Harry the night before, and those who didn't had been told of what he'd said by their friends "The Ministry of Magic does not wish me to tell you this. But not to do so, I think, would be an insult to his memory."

Marilyn's hands were clasped before her on the table, the nail of the index finger on her right hand scratching back and forth across the back of her left hand. It was beginning to leave an angry red mark, but she couldn't make herself stop. The burning scraping feeling it left behind was the only thing that had her sure this was real, grounding her. He was back. He was back. This meant…Well. It meant so much that her brain couldn't even conjure a definitive end to that sentence beyond cold, hard terror.

"Now, the pain we all feel at this dreadful loss reminds me - reminds us - that while we might come from different places, and speak in different tongues, our hearts beat as one. In light of recent events, the bonds of friendship we've made this year will be more important than ever. Remember that, and Cedric Diggory will not have died in vain."

George's hand fell to her wrist, grabbing her attention. Marilyn turned her head and looked up at his face, finding that his eyes were not on her but on something across the room. He glanced towards her, making sure he had her focus, and then he nodded towards whatever it was he'd been looking at.

It didn't take long for her eyes to land on what he was trying to bring to her attention. Thanks to his hair, Draco always stood out where he sat at Slytherin table. Now he stood out even more, though, for while everybody else looked shell-shocked or at least somewhat solemn, their heads bowed or looking to Dumbledore with tear-filled eyes, Draco did neither. No, Draco sat like it was any other breakfast in the hall, chatting boredly to Crabbe and Goyle, not a hint of sorrow on his face.

Marilyn stared in disbelief - and then was annoyed at herself for her own disbelief. Until her annoyance for him took over once he turned to Crabbe, made a comment, snickered and smirked at his own joke, and then turned his gaze to the rest of the table. When he found them all listening to Dumbledore, he rolled his eyes and went back to chatting to his cronies.

"You remember that," Dumbledore continued "And we'll celebrate a boy who was kind, and honest, and brave, and true right to the very end."

Lowering her gaze once again to the table, Marilyn stared at George's hand where he remained gently lying upon her wrist, a faint sense of nausea welling up within her. A tear narrowly avoided hitting his hand, and she wiped furiously at her face with the sleeve of her robes. He had told her so.

A/N: When I was refreshing my memory of the books (because it's been a while and I can't justify taking the time to reread them at the moment) and saw that Draco spends Cedric's memorial feast/Dumbledore's speech chatting and generally not giving a shit, I knew that this would be the breaking point for Marilyn. In fact, I'm damn relieved that I decided to make this a big full length thing that's going to follow all of the books, because I have no clue how I could have resolved it otherwise.

The movies are different - and I approach these fics coming from a mix of the movies and the books, honestly depending on what suits the plot most and what is most interesting for this story/Draco's arc. In the movies during Dumbledore's speech, he's difficult to spot but he is in the background of a few shots, and during them he's listening and looking pretty solemn. I get why they did that - having him being a prick in the background would detract from the emotion of the moment, and it would feel unresolved if it's not addressed or avenged in some way, so it's fine, it's understandable, I get it.

But as things stand, I feel like the books are a more true-to-character depiction of how he'd be during something like this, at least during this stage of his character development, and I wrote this spin-off in the first place so that Marilyn would know him in the years when he was a real shit, and as nasty as he is at this stage in the movies, he's worse in the books. Sooo…the shitty behaviour route is the one we're going for.