Burnt

Chapter 8

Sirius came back to his senses to yells from most of the kids around him, Harry was bent practically double with a hand covering his scar. He was clearly in a lot of pain and above them shone the Dark Mark. Fred and George both stood in front of the group, wands pointing at the line of trees, presumably where the spell was cast.

Hermione and Ron also stood with their backs to the group, desperately trying to see past the shade of the trees, the darkness of the night was only slightly brightened by the sickly green light of the Dark Mark, the snake moving constantly, but never leaving the mouth of the skull.

Ginny was crouched in front of Harry, who looked terrified as well as pained. She was trying to both calm him down and explain to her where and how he was hurting. Harry wasn't responding to her, his breathing uneven, and he almost looked like he was trying to stop himself from throwing up.

"What happened?" Sirius asked, approaching Ginny and Harry. He would decide after that if he needed to focus on defending the kids or helping Harry.

"We were all waiting rather quietly for you to finish, but then there was clearly someone in the trees, so George tried to get them to say who they were, but then they cast the Dark Mark into the sky. I don't know why, but Harry then bent over saying his scar hurt. He's really pale." Ginny said, her own face looking sickly pale in the green light.

"Humanum revelio." Sirius muttered, it was, after all, the safest way to figure out if they were in immediate danger. There were only the 8 of them in the vicinity, so for now he needed to work on getting Harry healthy. "You can all relax, whoever that was isn't here anymore."

"Are you sure? Should we move?" Hermione asked, giving Sirius a brief glance over her shoulder, but she kept trying to scan the edge of the trees.

"You can't avoid that spell, not even if you're under the Potter invisibility cloak, which is also pretty good at rejecting spells." Sirius said. "And it's best to stay put for three reasons; one, it will help to show that nobody has died, two, it will make it easier for Remus and the aurors to find us, and three, I know we're safe here, moving means I don't know."

"So we're safe?" Fred asked, keeping his wand trained on the trees.

"For now. Hopefully Moony will come before anything goes wrong, but someone is probably going to have to stay behind to talk to the newspapers. No way will they let this go, I'll stay to explain, I'm an adult, you kids need to get home and get somewhere that you feel safe." Sirius said, his tone making it obvious that there was no point in arguing.

"We're almost 17, we're not kids." George tried to argue, but if he was being honest he didn't want to talk to the papers anyway, but he knew he didn't want to be called a kid.

"And you're still younger than 17, and you don't know what kind of terror settles into people when they see that mark in the sky. Besides, I doubt your mother isn't terrified." Sirius said, his voice a forced calm, in truth the symbol above them was terrifying him, there was only one time during the war when he had been forced to enter a terrible scene that didn't have a Dark Mark above. This would be the first time he saw it without a death underneath it.

It was more than possible that it was an escaped Death Eater who felt that the lack of a Dark Mark over... That house those years ago needed to be fixed, so they cast one over Harry. He wasn't going to tell anyone about it though.

"Harry, can you look at me?" Sirius asked, his voice soft and kind, it was the same tone he had used to talk to Regulus when he was the one who had been hurt by their parents, or in a panic, or ill.

Harry's face was definitely paler than it was when he was well, his eyes looked almost too big to match his face, and he winced even in the pale light of the Dark Mark.