Julie Stone was a regular girl; she lived in an orphanage, had some friends, and every now and then would bang her head against the wall due to stress. . . . Normal!
Anyway, all her life Julie never seemed to quite fit in. She loved it, but her life...
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𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐡𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐝
────── *•. ⚡︎ .•*──────
Her body slammed to the ground, her knees hitting the moist grass and it took everything in her not to yelp. She hastily grabbed the cloak and made sure to put it safely around herself. Looking up she found a whole stadium of people looking at her — fine, they were looking at Harry but who cared? She did notice however, Harry's green eyes narrowed at the spot her foot had been not long ago. He frowned and tried to reach out for something — the cloak, Hermione assumed — but didn't find anything as Hermione had already moved back. Harry shook his head, passing what he saw as still being high from all the pain he was in not too long ago due to the Cruciatus curse.
The whole stadium was cheering, that is until screams could be heard as they watched Harry grabbing onto Cedric's limp body and the Cup. Hermione watched as Dumbledore came rushing to them, for a moment glancing in her direction only to then seize Harry's shoulders and turn him over.
"Harry! Harry!"
Harry let go of the cup and loosen his grip on Cedric as he was snapped out of his daze. His free hand seized Dumbledore's wrist, the latter's face swimming in and out of focus.
"He's back," Hermione heard Harry whisper, "He's back. Voldemort."
"What's going on? What's happened?" Hermione watched as Fudge's face popped in, in front of Harry's as he stood a few feet away from her.
"My God — Diggory!" Fudge whispered covering his mouth with his hand, "Dumbledore — he's dead!"
"He's not! He's not dead," said Harry frantically as he shook his head, "There was another curse you just need to wake him,"
Hermione's eyes found Dumbledore's from behind the cloak and she saw as he nodded, moving his gaze to Cedric's body and rating his wand. "Rennervate!" he said and abruptly Cedric jolted into a sitting position gasping for air, looking around in utter confusion.
At the sight of the Hufflepuff being alright, Hermione let out a breath she didn't know she was holding in. She swiftly stood up as the place started to get chaotic and walked through the crowd, hidden behind the cloak, making her way out of the pitch. Soon enough her feet had dragged her along to the Gryffindor Tower and after putting Harry's cloak back in his trunk she sank into a sofa in the common room.
Knees up to her chest, her arms around them, Hermione gazed at the fire numbly. She allowed her mind to stray away, revisiting the events of that night. She hadn't even noticed her eyes were pooling with tears, some of them already streaming down her face. She was numb. She knew for a fact that Cedric hadn't died and that Harry was fine to some extent but that horrid night served as a reality check for the curly-haired girl. This world. . . . wasn't a fantasy anymore. It wasn't some fantastic story she read in a book or watched in a movie. It wasn't fiction anymore, it was real. A real-world and real people in it who were in danger. A world on the brink of war.
