Chapter Nine

Harry felt his head pounding, which he took as a good sign; it meant that he was alive. Hermione and Ron where right next to him, he worked out as Hermione dragged him to his feet.

"What is that?" Ron asked, to afraid to be of much use.

Harry shook his head, "It's not good. It was his sign, Voldemort's."

Ron flinched at the name and grew angry, "I bet your friend Malfoy and his family are right in the middle of it all." he spat.

Harry rounded on him, "What? What makes you think that?"

"Stay where you are!" A voice shouted towards them.

"We weren't moving!" Hermione shouted back.

Half a dozen or so figures started to move towards them, one, a man with a rather large set of ears, at the front, pointing his wand directly at the three children. There were several blasts of red light that shot past the three children as they ducked to the ground.

"Stupify!" Lily shouted from behind Harry, sending the shot of red light at the man, narrowly missing Harry's ear, sending the man crumbling to the ground.

She rushed forward and pushed Harry behind her, not taking her wand off the others.

"Mrs Snape!" A voice said, Mr Crouch stepped forward, "What are you doing?"

"He was pointing his wand at my son!" Lily spat back, she could feel her blood rushing though her neck.

"He was a Ministry official!" Mr Crouch snapped.

"Then I suggest the 'Ministry official' doesn't point his wand at my son!" Lily told him, her wand still not lowered.

"Your son is at the scene of the crime!" Mr Crouch said, stepping forward again, "I assume you still remember what that is!" he said, pointing to the sky.

"It wasn't us!" Harry said, "I don't even have my wand. I lost it."

Mr Crouch all but rolled his eyes, "Of course you did."

Lily glared at him.

"Can you at least tell us what you saw?" Mr Crouch demanded, trying to look at the three children over Lily.

"Not much," Hermione said honestly, "We were just trying to get away from it all. That thing, in the sky, it came from over there though." She pointed to where they had seen the figures moving and the spell coming from.

"We saw a person, not close enough to actually see much, just that it was someone, you know. They said something and then ran off." Ron said.

Harry and Hermione nodded in agreement.

A couple of the Aurors went and had a look, it wasn't long before they called Mr Crouch over. Lily followed, keeping Ron, Hermione and Harry close behind her.

Lying in the dirt, huddled behind a bush was a small trembling house elf, clutching a wand.

"Winky?" Harry asked, he went to move forward but Lily put an arm out to stop him. Mr Crouch's face had grown even darker and he was glaring at Winky.

"She must a' been stunned." One of the Aurors said, "What's she doin' with a wand?"

Mr Crouch let out an awkward cough, "Well lets find out shall we." he pointed his own wand to Winky's chest and her large eyes slowly fluttered open.

"I is sorry Master." Winky said, in a dazed voice, "I is sorry."

Mr Crouch looked at her with nothing but fury and disgust, "I told you, I ordered you, to stay put in the tent!"

"There was fire sir! Peoples' was setting tents on fire!" Winky said, tears brimming in her eyes.

"Mr Crouch, there was a lot going on!" Lily spat at him, "She could have burned if she'd stayed."

Mr Crouch looked at her and glared, "Thank you Mrs Snape, but disciplining my house elf is not your business thank you. Winky where did you get the wand?"

"I founds it." Winky sobbed.

"It's mine." Harry said, stepping forward slightly.

Mr Crouch rolled his eyes, "The one you 'lost'?"

Harry nodded and bit his tongue rather than snap back a reply, it wasn't going to help the situation right now. Mr Crouch snatched the wand roughly from Winky and pointed it tip to tip with his own. He muttered something under his breath and a smaller image of the Dark Mark hovered between the two wands.

"Well, this is the wand that cast the Dark Mark; a spell which is completely illegal!" Mr Crouch glared at Harry. Several of the other Ministry workers took a step closer to Harry and Lily raised her wand slightly again.

"You can't really think that my son is a Death Eater?" Lily growled at them.

Mr Crouch looked between Lily and Harry and shook his head, "Of course not. But it wasn't my elf either!"

"It wasn't." Hermione said, "Was it? It was definitely someone who was, well, adult sized that we saw. They probably just dropped the wand and Winky found it."

Mr Crouch glared down at Winky, "I am not pleased Winky. This is completely unacceptable. This means clothes."

Winky's large eyes grew even wider and large tears dropped onto her dirty pillowcase-dress, "No Sir! Please Sir!" she begged, "I was scareded Sir!"

"That is no excuse for disobeying a direct order. We will deal with this later." Mr Crouch said.

"The fire Sir!" Winky sobbed, "I was staying still, in the tent as I was told but the fire!"

Mr Crouch glared down at her, as though his gaze could make her sink into the ground and out of his sight, "I said we'd talk about this LATER!" he boomed.

Winky nodded and wiped her nose and sniffled quietly.

"You're being horrible!" Hermione shouted, "She was terrified! People were setting fire to the tents!"

"And who are you exactly?" Mr Crouch hissed at her, "Who do you think you are to chastise me?"

Hermione felt her cheeks flush with anger, "Someone who cares about people!"

"It's been a long night." Lily said, calming the scene, "And there is still work to be done."

Mr Crouch nodded, "Stay here." he ordered everyone.

Mr Crouch marched off into the trees and left the group, standing rather awkwardly.

"What a horrible, nasty..." Hermione fumed.

"Do not talk bad about Master Crouch!" Winky said, pulling herself to her feet and glaring at Hermione, "He is a good Master!"

"RON!" Mr Weasley shouted, the Aurors rounded on him and he put his hands up for a moment before they lowered their wands.

"Oh, Arthur it's just you." one of them said.

Arthur gave him a nod and went over to Ron, "Are you OK?"

Ron nodded and tried to look like he wasn't bothered by what was going on even though his face was deathly white and his hands were shaking slightly.

Mr Crouch returned after a few minutes and stroked his chin, "Ah Arthur. I suggest you get your children home."

"Did you find anything?" Lily asked.

Mr Crouch shook his head, "Of course not. I would have told you. There will be a more thorough check of the area of course."

He nodded his head and several of the Aurors moved into the trees.

"You too Mrs Snape, the officials will take care of things here." Mr Crouch said with a very dismissing nod.

Lily nodded back and took Harry's hand, leading him and Hermione away from where the Aurors were setting up an area to search. Arthur followed with Ron.

"You all all right?" Arthur asked.

Lily turned to Harry, who nodded.

"Yeah, yeah I think so." Harry said, he wasn't, not really. His head was still throbbing and he felt shaky, "It wasn't me Mum." he said making sure his wand was still in his pocket.

"I know that Harry." Lily soothed, "I never thought it was you."

"We should get the kids home." Mr Weasley said.

"I'll take Hermione." Lily said, "Get her home to her parents tomorrow morning."

"Oh, she was going to stay with us for the rest of the holidays." Mr Weasley explained.

"My parents are in France." Hermione said, "We go every year it's just I wanted to come here instead this year."

"Up to you, where do you want to stay?" Lily asked, "You're more than welcome to stay with us."

Hermione nodded, "If that's OK?"

Lily nodded, "Of course."

"Ok then." Mr Weasley smiled, "Not long left of the holidays anyway and you'll have more room at Grimmauld place."

Hermione nodded, she wanted her own room and space rather than being constantly surrounded by Weasleys, especially Ginny who wouldn't stop talking about Harry.

"Where's Danica?" Harry asked.

"She's with Narcissa and Lucius, they took her away as soon as we knew something was going on." Lily assured him, "Come on let's get home."

Harry nodded and they parted ways from the Weasley's, as Mr Weasley wanted to meet up with the rest of his children in the forest before heading back to the tent, and made their way to the edge of the woods.

Harry took a deep breath at the destruction before him. At least half of the tents had been burned or knocked over and there was litter thrown all over the ground. Harry followed his mother to where their tent had been.

It was, thankfully, intact and Lily quickly went in to grab Danica's and her things. Harry popped quickly into the Weasley's tent and grabbed his own things. Their tent was mostly all right as well, the Malfoy's however had been completely burned down and was now smouldering ashes.

Lily gripped tightly to his and Hermione's hands and led them through the crowds of people waiting to be allowed to disapparate.

There was a large crowd of wizards and witches in various stages of dress and packed belongings waiting to leave.

Lily, Harry and Hermione joined the back of the queue and waited.

"Will everyone calm down! If you push me once more, sir, you are going to end up on your ass, got it? Good."

Lily peered round the line of people in front of her to see Nikka directing people into the trees, telling an angry looking wizard in what looked like a Halloween sailors costume to stop pushing.

Lily gave her a small smile and a wave. Nikka spotted her and asked one of the others to take over for a second.

"Hey," Nikka said, coming over and giving Lily a hug, "I was hoping to see you, make sure you're OK?"

Lily nodded, "As OK as we can be under the circumstances. I thought you weren't going to make it here."

Nikka nodded, "They pulled everyone possible in when everything kicked off. I knew you were here and volunteered. They're OK, Mr Roberts and his family, that little girl can't have been older that Danica." she shook her head, trying to rid herself of the memory of the scared child, "All healed up now though and they won't remember a thing."

"Did you catch them?" Lily asked.

Nikka shrugged, "Not really. A couple of kids, just out of Hogwarts kinda thing but I think they were cursed to be honest. It was organised, Lily. They had counter spells ready and knew exactly when to get out of there so they wouldn't be caught."

Lily pulled Harry in tighter to her side, "Yeah, I got that feeling as well."

Nikka looked down the queue, "Come with me."

"We wouldn't want to push." Lily said, but she was already following Nikka down the line of people to the front.

Nikka waved her wand over a clip board and pointed them into the forest and slightly to the right. Harry could hear a few shouts of complaint from people who had been waiting but he didn't care; he just wanted to be able to get home and see his little sister.

He wasn't really surprised when the horrible feeling of apparation left him to see that he wasn't actually at Grimmauld place but the Malfoy Manor house.

Lucius came quickly into the room and took a deep breath of relief at the sight of them. Narcissa was quick on his heals and gave Lily a huge hug. She hadn't even changed from her slightly dirty nightdress.

She moved over to Harry and looked him over before giving him a hug, "You're all right, thank the gods you are all right."

Harry nodded and forced himself to smile.

Narcissa straightened up and smoothed her hair, "Danica is just upstairs."

Lily nodded, "Thank you so much, we need to be quick, word will have reached Severus by now I'm sure and he'll need to know we're OK."

Narcissa nodded and lead them up to Draco's bedroom. She knocked softly on the door and pushed it open. There was, what the Malfoy's considered, a camp bed on the floor by Draco's king size four poster but it was empty.

Danica was curled up in Draco's arms, struggling with a fitful sleep. Draco was clinging onto her, like she was melt into nothing if he let go, wide awake.

He sat up slightly as his mother moved into the room, followed by Harry and Lily, Hermione hanging back a little.

"You're OK!" He smiled, gently waking Danica.

She turned her face towards him at his movement and he pointed to Lily's out stretched arms.

"MUMMY!" She shouted with tear filled eyes. She jumped up from the bed and ran to her mother.

Narcissa had moved over to Draco's bed and kissed his forehead tenderly before taking them out the room. They said a quick goodbye and disapparated out.