She felt a little bad not staying with her parents for the entire holidays, but going to the Quidditch Wold Cup really was a once in a lifetime opportunity, even if she wasn't particularly interested in the game itself. And it was good to get back to magic, her parents really were very supportive but she wasn't allowed to practice spells outside Hogwarts so she couldn't properly show them what she was learning, and even if she could she wasn't sure they'd quite understand; some things just don't translate.
It was amazing to see so much magic all at once, wizarding families from all around the globe in the same place. The stadium was incredible too and seated a hundred thousand, she didn't even care that the Malfoy's were there, the atmosphere was just too incredible. She didn't like the Veela; anything that could have that much power over hormone ridden males was dangerous, and since she was friends with two such males, they were doubly dangerous.
Victor Krum was hot. Wait, no he wasn't. He was thin, dark and sallow-skinned, with a large curved nose and thick black eyebrows. It was hard to believe he was only 18. And already on a national team, impressive. The game itself was a blur of scarlet and green and brutality that really had no place in a sport.
She and Ginny had been fast asleep when Mr Weasley woke them. It was obvious that something was very wrong, the whole atmosphere had changed and she could hear screams and the sound of people running. Throwing a coat on over her nightclothes she dashed outside and was met by a horrible sight; there was a crowd of hooded figures, their faces masked, marching across the campsite. High above them, floating along in mid-air, four struggling figures were being contorted into grotesque shapes. Two of the figures were very small. Her stomach turned. It was Mr Roberts, the campsite manager and his family. They quickly headed towards the woods, Ron fell, Malfoy was there.
"Granger, they're after muggles." Said Malfoy, and her blood ran cold, whether it was fear or disgust she couldn't tell.
"I'll bet you anything his Dad is one of that masked lot." Said Ron hotly.
"Well, with any luck, the Ministry catch him!" Said Hermione fervently, hating Malfoy and hating that she might be putting her friends in more danger, then, at the arrival of Winky she was struck by the injustice of the house elves as they settled further in the woods and waited.
Was what was happening at the campsite the beginning of something sinister? Hermione had a feeling that it might be, a group of wizards openly attacking muggles right under the nose of the Ministry of Magic was definitely not a good thing.
Suddenly it sounded as though someone was staggering toward their clearing. They waited, listening to the sounds of the uneven steps behind the dark trees. But the footsteps came to a sudden halt.
"Hello?" called Harry.
There was silence. Harry got to his feet and peered around the tree, but he didn't appear to see anything.
"Who's there?" he said.
And then, without warning, the silence was rent by a voice unlike any they had heard in the wood; and it uttered, not a panicked shout, but what sounded like a spell.
"MORSMORDRE!"
And something vast, green, and glittering erupted from the patch of darkness; it flew up over the treetops and into the sky.
"What the -?" gasped Ron as he sprang to his feet again, staring up at the thing that had appeared.
For a split second, Hermione thought it was another leprechaun formation. Then she realized that it was a colossal skull, comprised of what looked like emerald stars, with a serpent protruding from its mouth like a tongue. As they watched, it rose higher and higher, blazing in a haze of greenish smoke, etched against the black sky like a new constellation.
The Dark Mark. His mark. She looked at Harry fearfully, gripping her wand, suddenly half expecting to see You-Know-Who materialise before her and try to finish him off. She had to get him away from there, she had to keep Harry safe.
"Who's there?" he called again.
"Harry, come on, move!" Hermione seized the collar of his jacket and tugged him backward.
"What's the matter?" Harry said.
"It's the Dark Mark, Harry!" She moaned, pulling him as hard as she could. "You-Know-Who's sign!"
"Voldemort's - ?"
"Harry, come on!"
Ron was hurriedly scooping up his miniature Krum - the three of them started across the clearing - but before they had taken a few hurried steps, a series of popping noises announced the arrival of twenty wizards, appearing from thin air, surrounding them.
Oh God please not the hooded figures, please, please, please.
Each of these wizards had his wand out, and every wand was pointing right at herself, Ron, and Harry.
"DUCK!" Harry yelled.
He seized her and Ron and pulled them down onto the ground. It was moments like this, when Harry seemed instinctively to know what to do that she could see the great wizard he was to become.
"STUPEFY!" roared twenty voices - there was a blinding series of flashes and Hermione felt the hair on her head ripple as though a powerful wind had swept the clearing. Jets of fiery red light were flying over them from the wizards' wands, crossing one another, bouncing off tree trunks, rebounding into the darkness -
"Stop!" yelled a voice. "STOP! That's my son!"
Oh thank heaven Mr Weasley was there. Mr Crouch tried to interrogate them but none of the Ministry wizards apart from him seemed to think it remotely likely that Harry, Ron, or Hermione had conjured the skull. In fact he seemed quite mad. Nearly as mad as Snape had been on the night they rescued Sirius, but where Snape had been furious in his madness, Crouch was twitchy in his. It was a rather strange comparison to make.
And then they were interrogating Winky. And she had Harry's wand. What on earth was going on?
"You dropped it?" repeated Mr. Diggory in disbelief. "Is this a confession? You threw it aside after you conjured the Mark?" He asked Harry.
"Amos, think who you're talking to!" said Mr. Weasley, very angrily. "Is Harry Potter likely to conjure the Dark Mark?"
"Er - of course not," mumbled Mr. Diggory. "Sorry...carried away..."
She didn't much like Mr Diggory. He didn't seem to mean any harm but he was rather proud and self-important. People whose mouths were faster than their brains were really quite irritating and the way he was speaking to that poor crying house elf was unacceptable.
"It wasn't her!" said Hermione. She was very nervous, speaking up in front of all these Ministry wizards, yet determined all the same, she just couldn't cope with injustice. "Winky's got a squeaky little voice, and the voice we heard doing the incantation was much deeper!" She looked around at Harry and Ron, appealing for their support. "It didn't sound anything like Winky, did it?"
"No," said Harry, shaking his head. "It definitely didn't sound like an elf."
"Yeah, it was a human voice," said Ron, and she felt a strong surge of warmth and affection for her boys, instantly backing her up in front of so many important people.
Then she gasped, horrified, as a gigantic serpent-tongued skull erupted from the point where Mr Diggory had cast prior incantato, but it was a mere shadow of the green skull high above them; it looked as though it were made of thick gray smoke: the ghost of a spell. Harry's wand had created the Dark Mark, this was very, very bad.
"She might have picked it up anywhere...Winky?" Mr Weasley said kindly, turning to the elf, but she flinched as though he too was shouting at her. "Where exactly did you find Harry's wand?"
"I - I is finding it...finding it there, sir..." she whispered, "there...in the trees, sir."
"You see, Amos?" said Mr. Weasley. "Whoever conjured the Mark could have Disapparated right after they'd done it, leaving Harry's wand behind. A clever thing to do, not using their own wand, which could have betrayed them. And Winky here had the misfortune to come across the wand moments later and pick it up."
Hermione felt a huge rush of affection for Mr Weasley, who loved muggles and was kind to house elves even though he was a pureblood and had been taught differently.
"M-m-master..." Winky stammered, looking up at Mr. Crouch, her eyes brimming with tears.
Mr. Crouch stared back, his face somehow sharpened, each line upon it more deeply etched. There was no pity in his gaze.
"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." He said slowly.
"No!" shrieked Winky, prostrating herself at Mr. Crouch's feet. "No, master! Not clothes, not clothes!"
"But she was frightened!" Hermione burst out angrily, glaring at Mr. Crouch. "Your elf's scared of heights, and those wizards in masks were levitating people! You can't blame her for wanting to get out of their way!"
"I have no use for a house-elf who disobeys me," he said coldly. "I have no use for a servant who forgets what is due to her master, and to her master's reputation."
Winky was crying so hard that her sobs echoed around the clearing. There was a very nasty silence, which was ended by Mr. Weasley, who said quietly, "Well, I think I'll take my lot back to the tent, if nobody's got any objections. Amos, that wand's told us all it can - if Harry could have it back, please -"
"Come on, you three," He said. But she didn't want to move; her eyes were still upon the sobbing elf. "Hermione!" Mr. Weasley said, more urgently. She reluctantly turned and followed Harry and Ron out of the clearing and off through the trees.
"What's going to happen to Winky?" said Hermione, the moment they had left the clearing.
"I don't know," said Mr. Weasley.
"The way they were treating her!" She said furiously. "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'd been, or how upset she was - it was like she wasn't even human!"
"Well, she's not," said Ron..
"That doesn't mean she hasn't got feelings, Ron. It's disgusting the way -"
"Hermione, I agree with you," said Mr. Weasley quickly, beckoning her on, "but now is not the time to discuss elf rights. I want to get back to the tent as fast as we can."
It wasn't until they were safely back in the tent, they'd exchanged stories with the other Weasleys and she'd taken in their various injuries that she realised how much danger they might have been in. It was a worrying thought. Death Eaters. Harming muggles for fun. The Dark Mark. Suddenly she longed for Hogwarts so much it felt like an ache inside her. It was true that her few years there hadn't been particularly carefree but there was a certain sense of security there, a feeling of safeness and old magic that always settled her when she tuned in.
"So...whoever conjured the Dark Mark..." she said slowly, "were they doing it to show support for the Death Eaters, or to scare them away?"
"Your guess is as good as ours, Hermione," said Mr. Weasley. "But I'll 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..."
Her brain felt fuzzy and confused as they went to back to their tent and she slipped into an uneasy sleep, more eager than ever to get back to her school.
So here's another chapter :)
Text in italics from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K Rowling.