At lunch, I was shocked to find Mum and Bill sitting at the Gryffindor table alongside Harry and Ron.
"Mum! Bill! What brings you here?!" I said, sitting down with Demelza, Amy and Magda opposite them, with the twins joining us too.
"We've come to watch the third task, supporting Harry of course!" said Bill
"This is Magda by the way" I indicated her to them. Magda had met Dad before, when she attended the magical creatures festival with us and Luna the previous summer, but had yet to meet either Mum or Bill. "Magda, this is my Mum and oldest brother Bill"
Magda shook hands with them both, then asked Bill "Are you the one that works in Egypt? It's just that there's so many of you that Ginny's talked about that it's difficult to keep track, no offence"
Bill laughed.
"Don't worry, no offence taken" he said, "yes I am the one that works in Egypt." They went off into an in depth conversation about Bill's job, so I turned my attention away.
"How are you two, Demelza, Amy?" asked Mum "I am so sorry about your uncle" she said to Amy
"Don't worry, he deserves it, the scamming bastard" Amy said viciously. Mum stared at her, shocked that she'd talk about a close relative like that. "It's my worst fear come true, sure, but to be honest I'm not too afraid anymore because I'll be moving in with Demelza this summer, at least until Ludo gets out. Even then, I'm not sure I want to live with him again now that he's a convicted criminal"
"Yes, said Demelza, "I owled my parents asking right after the news broke, and they agreed right away. It'll be good to have an extra person in the house. I'm an only child technically, but I love Amy and Ginny like sisters so having one of them to live with will be wonderful. They're sorting out the legal stuff for it at the moment"
"That's so sweet of you dear" Mum said "Honestly, I couldn't ask for a better best friend for my only daughter"
"Nor could I" I said, giving Demelza's leg a squeeze, and she nodded to me in appreciation. Amy draped her arm over Demelza's shoulders for her own show of appreciation, and Demelza nodded to her too.
"Thanks guys" she said
Hermione arrived at that point.
"Are you going to tell us — ?" began Harry.
Hermione shook her head warningly and glanced at Mrs. Weasley.
"Hello, Hermione," said Mrs. Weasley, much more stiffly than usual.
"Hello," said Hermione, her smile faltering at the cold expression on Mrs. Weasley's face.
Harry looked between them, then said, "Mrs. Weasley, you didn't believe that rubbish Rita Skeeter wrote in Witch Weekly, did you? Because Hermione's never been my girlfriend"
"Yeah!" I said "It's always been me"
"And always will be" Harry added.
To further emphasise this, we kissed for several seconds.
"No, of course I didn't believe it" Mum said
But she became considerably warmer toward Hermione after that.
And so, that evening the third task arrived. Demelza, Amy, Magda, Luna, Ron, Hermione and I headed down to the Quidditch Pitch with Mum and Bill.
"You know what I don't understand?" said Bill
"What?" Mum said
"What exactly are we going to be watching tonight? As far as I'm aware we won't be able to see much of what's going on within the maze itself"
"That's a fair point" said Demelza
"There's at least the flying hedgeswimmers" Luna said, "they'll give us a spectacle"
"Don't ask" I said to Mum, seeing the look on her face.
It unfortunately turned out that Bill was right. The hedges towered above the stands, meaning we couldn't see anything that was happening inside.
"I guess the champions could take clues from the crowd if we could see what was going on" Amy said
We watched as Dumbledore announced the scores heading into the task, with the champions then being released one by one, Harry was first, followed by Cedric, Krum and Delacour.
"You know that Delacour girl is pretty damn attractive" Bill whispered to me as she entered the maze "might try and get in her good books if you know what I mean"
"Merlin, please don't" I replied. "She's part veela, they're always so stuck up"
I kinda regretted my words when we saw her being removed from the maze, unconscious. At least it wasn't Harry, I thought.
"Oh god" said Mum "What do you think happened to her?"
"Weirdly, it doesn't look like she's suffered any sort of creature attack" Hermione said
"You can tell from here?" asked Ron
"It would be obvious. Rather, it looks like she's just been stunned by a spell"
We spent some time wondering why this could be the case, eventually deciding that one of the other champions must have cheated and attacked her. We could only hope it wasn't Harry. Eventually, red sparks were sent up, and Viktor Krum's stunned form was also removed from the maze.
"Ok something weird is going on" I said "surely there's no way such obvious cheating is happening"
"I agree" said Ron
"Me too" added Hermione
"No one can see what's happening in there" Demelza reminded us, "so it could be happening"
Only Harry and Cedric were left now. Time passed. The hedges rippled in the breeze, as did the hair of us girls. An hour, an hour and a half, two hours. People began to grow restless.
"Bloody hell, this maze must be ridiculously complicated" Amy said at hour two and a half.
After three hours since the task began, a Hufflepuff third year stood up and said "what's going on? Someone should go into the maze, maybe both Potter and Diggory have been incapacitated!"
"There hasn't been any red sparks!" a Ravenclaw fourth year replied
"Maybe they can't reach their wands! Don't you think someone ought to check?"
There were shouts of agreement. Dumbledore announced that he and the teachers would shortly commence a search of the maze. But no sooner had these words left his mouth, then there was a flash of blue light, and Harry appeared alongside the Triwizard Cup at the maze entrance. He was clinging very tightly to an unmoving Cedric. Dumbledore and Fudge crouched down beside them, followed by a small group. After a short pause, some of them turned around and began shouting something to the crowd that made time feel as though it had stood still.
"He's dead!" "He's dead!"
"Cedric Diggory! Dead!"