Kathryn Winchester and the Goblet of Fire
by Lady Dawson
Chapter Four: Flight into the Woods
It was late at night when Kat finally laid her head down to go to sleep after much celebrating. Faith, although put out, decided that she was going to celebrate Krum's victory while the others were celebrating Ireland's. When the night started getting late, however, they were forced into their tent by their mother and Kat reluctantly lay down, curling up on her bed.
She couldn't stop thinking about Cedric and the way that he had looked at her, smiled at her. Her heart fluttered every time that she thought about it, but she shook her head, knowing that there was no way that a guy that handsome was ever going to be interested in a girl like her.
While she and Faith might be twins, there was one big difference between them. Kat was the quieter twin, never outgoing, never overconfident. Potions, Charms? Those she could do, but when it came to boys, she ended up just falling on her feet.
Burying her head into her pillow, Kat decided to mull this over later, when she was alone in her room, and closed her eyes, drifting off to sleep much faster than she anticipated. Perhaps she was more tired than she had originally thought.
But her sleep was interrupted not even a few hours later. Screams and people running ripped her from her sleep and Kat sat straight up in bed, wondering what was happening.
"Faith?" she called sleepily, jumping down from her bunk, but her sister was still sound asleep. "Faith, wake up! Come on, there's something going on!" The dark-haired twin still refused to be roused and Kat shook her hard before finally resorting to slapping her across the cheek in order to get her up.
Sitting up straight, Faith looked at her, still half-asleep, and her hand moved to her mistreated cheek, giving her a wounded look. "What was that for?" she complained. "All you had to do was shake me, there's no need for—"
"Shh!" Kat hissed as she grabbed her jacket, moving over to the tent door and pulling it open, revealing the entire campsite in chaos. Her heart leaped into her throat as she saw a family of Muggles being lifted up into the sky. "What on earth is going on?"
"Oh, my god," Faith gasped when she reached Kat. "Come on, we need to get out of here."
"No arguments here," Kat agreed as they raced out of the tent and headed towards the other one, which only contained Gilbert and Matthew. "What are you two doing here? Where are Mom and Willard?" she added, looking around. "Don't you know there's an emergency going on?"
"They're not after us," Matthew said, casting a dark look at the twins sourly. "They're only after Muggles."
"Yeah, so if I were you two, I'd start running before they catch that foul, tainted blood of yours running around here," Gilbert added, chortling. "I'll be surprised if they can't smell it; smells like garbage."
Faith barred her teeth, about to retort, but Kat held her back. "We're getting out of here, are you coming or not?" she demanded.
Gilbert smiled. "We're not."
Shaking her head, Faith grabbed Kat and pulled her out. "Suit yourself," she muttered as they left. "I'm not exactly liking leaving them here either, but I'm not exactly opting for getting ourselves killed for them," she explained to Kat, who nodded, but looked back guiltily at the tent. "Besides, we'd probably have to drag them out kicking and screaming and that's just going to get us killed."
"And what if they're right, anyway?" Kat asked in a small voice. "What if we are in more danger than they are?"
Apparently, Faith had not considered this, because she immediately began moving faster towards the woods. "Well, then, we're going to have to fight," she answered. "Where's your wand?"
"I don't have one," Kat said fearfully. Faith turned to stare at her. "It broke in the car accident with Dad . . . I was gonna get a new one when we went to get our school stuff."
Faith uttered a curse as she pulled Kat closer to her. "Don't worry, sis, I'll protect you," she promised her. Kat swallowed; it wasn't that she didn't trust Faith on that front. It was just that she didn't exactly like being vulnerable in a crisis like this.
And running around the woods, with dark wizards going around, without even a wand to defend herself was her description of vulnerable.
Racing through the woods, the twins kept a lookout for any familiar faces—or even friendly ones, but Kat couldn't see anybody, not in this dark wood in the dead of night.
Finally, Faith slowed down and they moved into a brisk, but slower walk as they began to hear voices throughout the woods.
"Not a good time to be running around, is it, Faithy?"
Kat glanced around to see a blond boy leaning unconcernedly against one of the trees, a gleeful look on his face as he watched them, a smirk playing across his face. Immediately, she took a dislike to him, not sure what it was about him that just made her skin crawl.
"Shove off, Malfoy," Faith growled at him, her expression practically murderous as she pushed Kat ahead of her. "Why don't you do us all a favour and drop off the planet? Then at least we'll be free of your complete idiocy and utter repulsion."
Malfoy laughed then. "Just wait around here, Carlyle . . . if you want to get yourself killed, anyway." His eyes lingered on Kat for a minute before turning away from her.
"Who's that?" Kat wanted to know the moment that they were out of hearing range.
"Draco Malfoy," Faith said darkly. Clearly, from the look on her face, she didn't think much of him. "For lack of a better term, he's the prince of Slytherin house and a complete snob. You know how bad Mom and everybody else is?"
"Yeah . . ."
"They've got nothing on the Malfoys. Piece of advice, just avoid him at all times. The less that you're involved with that creep, the better." She sent a loathing look behind her and continued on ahead. "Man, what could any of those thugs possibly have been thinking?"
"No kidding, most of them worked pretty hard to keep themselves out of Azkaban," Kat agreed. "Seems pretty stupid to start up with this stuff again. I mean, if I was a Death Eater who didn't land in Azkaban, I would keep as far away from this stuff as I could."
"Faith, Kat!" a familiar voice yelled and Kat looked around to see the Weasley twins with Ginny running towards them, their red hair very evident even in the weak light. She breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing them there, grateful to find someone familiar in here.
All of them looked very shaken and afraid as they joined up with the sisters. "Any idea what's going on?" Faith asked them, but all three of them shook their heads.
"No, Dad went with Bill, Charlie, and Percy to help sort everything out," Fred explained. "We lost Harry, Ron, and Hermione, you two haven't seen them, have you?"
"The only person we've seen is Malfoy," Faith grumbled. "We should stick together, might be safer that way."
Maybe it was the seriousness of the situation, but Fred and George definitely were not in the mood to spout poetry and other such flattery as the five walked together in the woods, sticking so close together that there was barely even room to walk without tripping.
It felt like forever as they walked around the woods before everything seemed quieter than it had seemed before. After much deliberations, the group finally decided to go back to see if it was safe. Although the campsite was half-destroyed and there were people standing fearfully around, it was clear that the danger was over.
"Thank goodness," Faith said in relief, but Kat's attention had been focused on something else.
"Faith, look!" she exclaimed, pointing towards the sky, where the skull and snake was evident. Her heart almost stopped upon seeing it; that was the mark of Lord Voldemort, the sign his followers shot up into the sky whenever they killed. If the look on her sister's face was anything to judge by, Faith had absolutely no idea what the symbol meant, even though she guessed that it probably was not good.
"What is that?"
Kat suppressed a sigh, not wanting to be the one to explain this. "It's the Dark Mark," she explained. "Voldemort's mark." She ignored the flinch that came from all four of them. "Whenever his followers killed people, they would always send that symbol up into the sky." Everyone stared at her. "Dad told me," she said uncomfortably. Even now, almost two months after her father's death, she felt uncomfortable talking about him.
"Fred, George, Ginny!" a voice yelled just as Fred opened his mouth to say something. Another redhead who looked like he could be a rock star was heading towards them. "Thank goodness you're all right," he exclaimed as he hugged Ginny tightly. "Where are the others?"
"We got separated," George explained. The man frowned in worry, but cast a quick glance towards the sky.
"Dad went in there with some of the others from the Ministry," he said gravely. "He'll find them if they're still in there. Come on, let's get back to the tent," he said fiercely, pushing them ahead of him. "You girls, too," he added to Kat and Faith.
Kat followed them as they were herded into the Weasley tent. The redheaded rock star turned out to be the eldest Weasley brother Bill and upon arriving at their tent, she found out that there were two more brothers, Charlie and Percy.
Sitting down in one of the chairs, Kat pulled her knees up against her and hugged herself, praying to whatever higher power was listening that there was no one hurt. Don't let anybody be hurt, she thought desperately. Let them be fine. Please, just let all of this be just a way of shaking us up and nobody was actually—
Looking up as Mr. Weasley entered the tent with the missing teens, Kat released a small breath of relief.
"Did you get them, Dad?" Bill asked, sounding worried. "The person who conjured the Mark?"
"No. We found Barty Crouch's elf holding Harry's wand, but we're none the wiser about who actually conjured the Mark." Everyone was stunned upon this revelation, including Kat, and a series of exclamations went out across the tent before Mr. Weasley started to explain the events of the evening.
By the time that they were done, Kat was sure that her mouth was hanging open, awestruck. "How could they possibly think that a house-elf could have conjured that Mark?" she asked incredulously. Everyone looked at her and she blushed, but ploughed on. "I mean, for one thing, where would she have even learned how to conjure it? It's supposed to be a very specific spell and only Voldemort's followers know how to summon it," she said, ignoring the flinch that went around the tent.
"Be that as it may, Mr. Crouch was quite right to get rid of an elf like that!" Percy said indignantly. "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 u pin front of the Department for the Regulation and Control—"
"She didn't do anything!" Hermione said, sounding angry as she shot a furious look at Percy. Kat blinked in surprise; Hermione and Percy seemed like they were two people who would get along very well. "She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time!"
"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!"
Putting two fingers in her mouth, Kat let out an ear-piercing whistle, causing everyone to jump and wince. Faith, however, had plugged her ears the second before she had done it.
"You remembered," Kat said brightly.
"After seeing Matt and Gil squeal like a couple of suckling pigs every time you do that, how could I possibly forget?" Faith countered as she lowered her hands away from her ears.
Kat smiled, but sobered as she looked at Percy and Hermione. "All right, enough, the both of you. This evening has been stressful enough without arguing about house-elf rights," she said tiredly. It felt like hours since she had lain down in that bed. "Not that I don't agree with you," she added quickly as Hermione sent her a furious look.
"Look, can someone explain what that skull thing was?" Ron wanted to know. "It wasn't hurting anyone. . . . Why's it such a big deal?"
"I told you, Ronald, it's You-Know-Who's symbol," Hermione said impatiently. "I read about it in The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts."
"And it hasn't been seen for thirteen years," Mr. Weasley said. "Of course people panicked . . . it was almost like seeing You-Know-Who back again."
Seeing that the youngest redheaded brother still didn't get it, Kat explained, "Voldemort and his followers sent the Dark Mark into the sky whenever they killed. It was the symbol of terror and fear. Imagine if you came home to find that symbol over your house, knowing that the moment that you set foot inside, everyone that you knew and loved was gone. Just like that, in one second, they had been ripped away from you."
"I thought your dad was a Quidditch player," George said, sounding impressed. "Where'd you learn all this stuff?"
"He was a Quidditch player and then he became an Auror when he couldn't play anymore," Kat explained. "Besides, Dad thought that forgetting history means that we're doomed to repeat it, so he taught me pretty much everything he knew about the days of Voldemort."
"Didn't help us catch the Death Eaters, whoever conjured it," Bill said. "It scared them off the moment that they saw it, Disapparated before we could unmask any of them. We got the Muggles down before they fell, though."
"Why did they take off when they saw the Dark Mark? Wouldn't they have been pleased to see it?"
"Use your brains, Ron," his eldest brother said tiredly. "If they were Death Eaters, they've worked hard to stay out of Azkaban when You-Know-Who fell, told all sorts of lies about forcing them to kill and torture people. They're probably more frightened of him coming back than the rest of us. Denying they'd ever been involved with him, going 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 said softly, "were they doing it to show support for the Death Eaters or to scare them away?"
The only person who could answer that, thought Kat, was the person who conjured it.