Hello, all! So sorry for not updating in, well, forever, but real life is persistent and my muse refuses to cooperate sometimes. To make up for it, this chapter is about 1,000 words longer than usual – over 3K. Sorry if that bothers anyone.

Thanks to AliasGrace625 for reviewing the last chapter! Thanks a bunch!

I must've fallen asleep at some point, my fantasies turning into dreams, because the next thing I'm aware of is the sounds of screaming and Hermione shaking me awake.

"Orissa, wake up! You have to hurry – the camp is on fire!"

.

Hermione's words take a moment to sink into my sleep-ridden brain, but once I realize what she's said I sit bolt upright, my head hitting the top of the tent. "What?!"

Her brown eyes are brimming with tears. "There are people out there, Ori..."

I've been said to have a clear head under pressure, and it was certainly coming in handy now.

"Come on," I command, "We need to get out. Now. Ginny, wake up!" I hurry over to the redhead, roughly yanking her up and out of bed.

"Hey!"

"Sorry, but we're under fire," I explain bluntly, throwing her coat at her before shrugging on my own. "Literally."

"What?!" Ginny yells before Hermione steps closer to give a brief explanation.

I lead the way out the tent, the sight of the world outside making me stop in my tracks.

The camp was on fire – but spells were also flying overhead. People in black cloaks and hoods marched through the campground. People dangled by their ankles above the crowd – I recognized them, sickeningly, as the muggle, his wife, and their two children.

Merlin, children.

A hand on my shoulder makes me startle, and out of pure instinct I whirl around and punch the owner of said hand.

"Agh! Ori!" Harry shouts, clutching at his mouth.

"Sorry!" I squeak. "Did I hurt you?"

"A bit." He removes his hand to reveal two split and bloody lips. "It doesn't matter. Come on!"

He drags me over to where Mr. Weasley was gathering everyone together.

"Harry, Ori, there you are! I was getting worried. We need to split up," he explains hurriedly. "Bill, Charlie, you're coming with me. Fred, George, get your sister out, by any means necessary. Ron, Harry, Hermione, Orissa, go through the forest. Everyone, meet back at the boot as soon as you can!"

Multiple calls of "yes sir!" were heard as we all ran in different directions. I sprint behind Ron, Harry, and Hermione, every sense on high alert as we plunge into the trees.

"Ori, can you shift into your dog form?" Hermione pants as we reach a small clearing.

I shake my head. "No. I need my wand – it's not safe out there unarmed."

"That might be the smartest idea you've ever had, Black," a silky-smooth voice drawls behind us.

Almost simultaneously, the four of us spin around to point our wands at Draco Malfoy, who was leaning against a tree nearby.

"Better be careful, Granger," he warns, shifting his attention to Hermione. "I hear they're hunting muggles out there."

"Hermione's a witch!" Ron protests hotly. "She's better than you'll ever be, Malfoy."

"Is that so?" the blond wizard asks.

"It is," I confirm. I take one half-step towards him. "Ron, Harry, Hermione, keep moving."

"But, Ori-"

"I'll be right after you."

"Mr. Weasley said-"

"I know what he said. Go!" I bark.

They scurry off, and I lean back against a tree. "Malfoy."

"Black," he sneers, glancing at my hand. "I see you ran to Daddy over the summer."

"And what if I did?" I challenge. "It's not like the Ministry will ever find me – you know how guarded the Ancient Houses are."

"I do," he agrees smoothly. "Which is why I might just keep an eye on you this year. You step out of line, and I'll be more than happy to report to Father."

"Who's running to Daddy now?" I mock. "Real brave, Malfoy."

"Don't mock me, Black." Malfoy takes a step closer to me. "You do good to not talk back to your superiors."

"I hope you don't mean you," I laugh, pushing off the tree and drawing my wand, hexing him with a boils hex, followed by a swelling hex.

"You better watch yourself, you prick," I warn, looking him in the eye. "You've got quite the talent for pissing people off...it's quite annoying, to be honest."

Malfoy tries to reply, but all I hear is a bunch of garbling forced past puffy, swollen lips. He storms off, and I shake my head; the Malfoys belonged to a world of politics and intrigue that I would never enter, even in my wildest dreams.

I walk off in the other direction, stopping in the long shadow of a tree and taking a deep breath. I relax my shoulders and call on the information in a far corner of my brain, closing my eyes as my body shifts and mutates.

When my eyes open again, the ground is a lot closer than it had been. The world looks muted, as if someone had decided to blot out all the bright colors. My sense of smell is multiplied by a hundred, as was my hearing.

I was an Animagus – illegally, of course. I was a medium-sized dog covered in smooth black fur; I think I looked a bit like a Black Labrador, but with slightly longer fur.

This was another thing I shared with my father – he was a slightly larger, bear-like, shaggy black dog Animagus.

I shake my coat out and take off through the woods, the screams of terror piercing my ears as the smell of smoke assaulted my nose.

I reach the edge of the woods and shift back into a human, running forward and plunging into the crowd of people. "Harry! Ron! Hermione!"

The only reply I get is a harsh shove by a mother running past, clinging to a small child.

"Harry! Ron! Hermione!" I try again, ducking under a taller wizard's arm. Still nothing.

"Harry! Ron! Hermione!" I howl, my heart jumping into my throat. What if they were dead? What if the people in the black cloaks had killed The Boy-Who-Lived and Hermione, just like Malfoy had said?

What if my best friends were dead?

"Harry!" I scream, my throat burning as smoke started to flood my lungs. My eyes stung, my heart was pounding, where was my focus-?

"Orissa!" A familiar voice hollers, and relief floods my system as Harry grabs my arm. I lunge forward and wrap my arms around him.

"I thought you were dead," I gasp. His arms tighten around me and squeeze for a slight moment before letting go.

I step back and look at him, and then Ron and Hermione. "Everyone okay?"

"Yeah," Hermione nods. "Are you?"

"I'm fine," I assure her. "Come on, we need to find Mr. Weasley."

We shove our way back through the crowd, pushing and shoving our way back to the portkey field where we'd entered that morning.

We bump into the rest of the Weasley clan soon enough, and Mr. Weasley looks immensely relieved. "Is everyone alright?"

"Yes sir," we all chorus.

"Does everyone have their wands with them?" he demands.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione all nod, but as I search my pockets and turn up nothing but spare change, a feeling of dread washes over me. "Uh..."

"Ori? What is it?"

"I don't have my wand," I say in a rush. "Where is it?"

"Where did you last have it, Orissa?" Mr. Weasley asks urgently.

I quickly think back over the night's events. "The forest," I decide. "I confronted Malfoy, and-" I cut myself off.

"And?" Mr. Weasley pushes. "Did he steal it?"

"No." I shake my head. "I hexed him with my own wand. I...I must've dropped it...while I was running."

Mr. Weasley seems to accept this. "It shouldn't be a problem if no one has it. Just stay close to someone with a wand, and do not, under any circumstances, wander off by yourself. Understood?"

I nod and shuffle closer to Harry as the group starts moving again.

"What really happened in the forest?" my godbrother asks.

"I had to shift," I report under my breath. "In the forest. I hexed Malfoy, ran, shifted, ran some more, shifted back, then found you."

"You might've dropped it when you shifted," he suggests. "But, like Mr. Weasley said, as long as no one has it, it should be fine."

I nod, moving away from Harry and letting myself fall to the back of the group, keeping one eye behind us as we made our way through the crowd.

A flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye makes me turn my head. I watch a little girl - six or seven, at the most - run across an open stretch of grass, her dress fluttering as she moved.

For some reason, I simply stand and watch as she runs, tracking her movement through the field and idly wondering where her parents were.

And then the night is shattered by a shout and a brilliant flash of green. Time seems to slow to a crawl. The light fades, and I spot a tiny little figure lying on the grass: it's the little girl, her eyes wide open and staring, her jaw slack.

She's dead. A child...dead. Killed, by whatever that spell was, by whoever had cast it.

"Ori!" Harry's voice breaks me from my thoughts. "Keep moving!"

I open my mouth, close it, and shake my head, lurching forward into a run.

Shoving all thoughts of the death – murder – I'd just witnessed out of my mind, I keep pace with the group, making sure not to fall behind again because the camp was still on fire, and there were people in black cloaks-

"STUPEFY!"

"DUCK!"

Speak of the devil.

At Harry's shout, I dive to the ground as an orange beam flies overhead. I hear everyone return fire, and I loudly curse my inability to keep track of my wand. Heir to an Ancient and Noble House, my foot.

Once the attackers were all taken down, no one seems to have much of a plan beyond 'run in the other direction', but as we near the forest, I skid to a stop. "What is that?"

"What is what, Ori?" Hermione asks absently.

"That – everyone, be quiet!" I holler, and as the noise around me fades, another sound becomes more prominent.

"There is bad wizards, Master – Winky must flee – please, Master!"

"It's only a House-Elf," Mr. Weasley sighs in relief.

I quietly watch the House-Elf, Winky, run – she was running oddly, as if she was straining against something.

"She was in the stands with us," Harry comments. "Didn't seem to like it much."

"Why do you think she can't leave?" I wonder aloud. "She seems like she wants to."

"She probably hasn't been allowed to flee," Ron says with a shrug. "Leaving would be defying orders."

Behind him, Hermione scoffs in disgust. "House-Elves are treated really horribly, you know that? It's no better than better than slavery!"

"But House-Elves are born to serve, 'Mione," I argue as we begin moving again. "That's all they do in life."

She just gives me a nasty look and sniffs before falling silent. I sigh and bump her shoulder gently. "Sorry."

"Thank you. It's not your fault, though," she sighs.

I can't say anything to that, so I just shrug and go back to watching the destruction around us. The mob at the center of the campsite had thinned out a bit, but people were still frantic and there was still a bit of a crowd.

Our little posse is mainly quiet until Ron speaks up.

"What do you think is going on – ah!"

"What!" I spin around, peering through the wand-lit darkness at where Ron's voice had come from. "Ron?"

"'M okay," he mutters, and after a soft incantation, a third wand is lit, showing an Ireland scarf wrapped around his leg. "Just tripped, that's all."

"Why must your feet be so huge?" I ask him irritably. I look up and around for his dad and find the bunch of redheads nowhere. "Great, now we've lost everyone."

"I think they went that way," Hermione suggests, diffusing the tension between Ron and I before it could escalate. She's pointing off towards a grove of trees, a little more out of the way of the main stream of traffic and half-hidden in the darkness.

I nod and lead the way over to it, leaning against a tree to catch my breath. "What now?"

I can practically see the gears turning in Hermione's head as she, ever the planner, decides on a course of action.

"Well," she starts, "we should probably find Mr. Weasley, that would be best-" She trails off and seems to focus on something past me. "What's that?"

"What's what?" I follow her gaze and stop mid-turn – I could hear something moving through the trees.

"Everyone be quiet," Harry commands, and all noise ceased. We could all be overreacting here. It might just be a bear.

Yeah, and my father and Snape would host a tea party together. I knew something was wrong here – I just didn't know what, yet.

My suspicions are confirmed when the noise becomes clearer – those are definitely footsteps, but they stop before I can see who they belong to.

Then there's a rustling sound and a beat of silence, followed by a loud shout; it was a word, a spell, but not one I recognized.

"MORSMORDRE!"

The night is suddenly bathed in an eerie green light; hanging in the sky above us was a symbol of some sort. It was a skull with its jaw hanging wide open, a serpent slithering out of the skull's mouth. The entire thing is glowing a brilliant green, reminding me slightly of the Northern Lights.

I soon realize that the appearance of the symbol had greatly changed the atmosphere of the campsite – people were screaming, sobbing, running every which way – in short, everything had gone to hell. Again.

"No," Hermione breathes behind me. She sounds like she's about to cry, and her eyes listen as she stares up at the symbol.

"What is that?" I ask her gently.

"That's the Dark Mark," she whimpers. "His mark."

"Voldemort's," Harry whispers.

No sooner does he say the words, then there's a loud crack signaling Apparation, and twenty-odd wizards suddenly appear, surrounding the four of us. Every single newcomer had a wand out – and point straight at us.

"HIT THE DECK!" I roar, diving behind a tree as a barrage of light flies past.

"Stop!" A familiar voice calls. "Stop! That's my son!"

Mr. Weasley appears at the edge of the grove, his three eldest sons behind him, looking furious and terrified at the same time. I just hoped he wasn't mad at us.

"Ron, Harry, Hermione, Orissa," he asks, voice trembling just a little, "are you alright?"

"Yeah, Dad," Ron confirms. "Just scraped."

"Move out of the way, Arthur," a new voice interrupts, dragging my attention to a man standing behind Ron's dad. He's tall-ish, with a ramrod straight back; he's wearing a sharp black suit and perfectly polished shoes.

"Mr. Crouch," Mr. Weasley greets.

"Mr. Weasley," he returns coolly, then fixes his gaze on the four of us. "Which one of you was it? Which one you cast the Dark Mark?"

"We didn't do anything!" I protest.

"Do not lie!" Mr. Crouch yells, moving his wand so that it was pointed at me. He looked like he was being strangled; his eyes were bulging, his face was a vibrant red, and his thin handlebar mustache quivered like a small animal. "One of you did it! One of you is supporting You-Know-Who!"

"Where did the Dark Mark come from, kids?" Mr. Weasley asks quickly before I can protest.

"Over there." Hermione points off into the darkness, towards where we'd heard the footsteps. "There was an incantation-"

"Stood over there, did he? There was an incantation, was there? You seem to know a lot about the darkest of spells, miss!" Crouch accuses.

I let out a derisive scoff. So yeah, the spell had an incantation – that was basic spellcraft knowledge. Every single spell ever had words attached to it – that much was basic eleven-year-old knowledge. It didn't, by any stretch of the imagination, mean that Hermione was the next dark wizard.

"Calm down, Barty," a man with a scruffy beard says. He was Amos Diggory – Cedric's father. "I'll go check."

"Be careful, Amos," another wizard warns, but Diggory just squares his shoulders and marches into the trees.

"I've found something!" his voice calls a moment later. "Yes, I've found – wait – but it can't be…"

"What have you found, Amos?" Crouch asks. "Bring them out!"

Diggory emerges from the trees, a small figure held in his arms. For a second I think it's a child – and wouldn't that be horrifying? – but no. It's Winky.

"But – but that's not possible!" Crouch sputters. "The Dark Mark is a wizard's sign! It requires a wand!"

"She did have a wand," Diggory admits, pulling out a long, thin piece of wood; it was black, barely visible against the night, but I recognized it right away.

"That's mine!" I blurt out, taking a step back as twenty pairs of eyes and more than one wand was focused on me. "But I didn't cast it!"

"A likely story!" Crouch scoffs. "I should have known it would be you! A Black, just like your family, murdering muggles left and right as you please-"

"I did not!" I yell, stretching to my full height. I knew Crouch held power, but I didn't particularly care. He could be the Minister of Magic for all I cared – come to think of it, I had a bone to pick with Fudge too.

"I dropped my wand earlier," I continue. "I was in the forest just after the start of the attack. I haven't had it since."

"And besides," Mr. Weasley says, jumping into the conversation, "Orissa is – and always has been – closely tied to Harry Potter. What reason would she possibly have to cast the Dark Mark?"

Most of the wizards and witches back off at this, but Crouch is persistent. "You could be spy for them – trying to please your father, I'd imagine-"

"Barty, stop." Diggory lays a hand on his colleague's arm. "She's just a girl."

Crouch desists, but I can feel his eyes on me.

"The question still remains, however, how this elf got this wand. And even if this is the wand that cast the spell," a witch I don't know interjects.

Diggory nods. "There is an easy way to find out if this is the wand." Drawing his own wand, Diggory points it at mine. "Priori Incantato!"

A ghost-like mist erupts from the end of my wand and, sure enough, forms a snake-tongued skull, an exact miniature of the one hanging above us.

"That settles that, then," I drawl, breaking the stunned silence that had come over all of us.

Diggory nods. "Only one question left." He points his own wand at Winky. "Ennervate!"

The House-Elf gasps and sits upright, cowering once she sees the wizards towering over her.

"Where did you get this wand, elf?" Crouch demands, gesturing to where Diggory held up my wand.

"Winky is finding it, M-Master," she whimpers. "Over in the trees."

"See?" Mr. Weasley asks. "She simply was in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"But she must've seen something," Diggory argues.

Crouch nods. "What did you see?" he demands of his elf, who avoids his gaze.

"Winky is…seeing nothing Master."

"That's it, then," I cut in. "She didn't cast it, I didn't cast it, and you don't know who did. Can I have my wand back now?"

Diggory nods and hands it back, and I twirl the wood between my fingers once before pocketing it and giving Crouch a smug look.

"We really must be going," Mr. Weasley says politely, in that "I'm so sorry for my child's rudeness" tone that adults often used around me. "Good day, gentlemen." He hurries us away, and I realize that we're heading back towards the portkey field.

We find the old boot soon enough, and Bill splits off to talk to Mr. Roberts – someone must've gotten him free and to safety. The oldest Weasley boy returns after a minute, looking pleased.

"Portkey leaves in under a minute," he reports. "We were just in time. Everyone grab on, now."

I kneel down and grab the edge of the boot. Hermione does the same next to me, while Harry simply sits down and Ron lies on his stomach. Fred and George flop bonelessly down and grab onto the toe of the boot, leaving Ginny, Percy, Charlie, Bill and Mr. Weasley to grab where they could.

"Three…two…one…now!" Mr. Weasley shouts, and I close my eyes as the world dissolves around me.