NIGHTMARE ₁, Harry Potter °

xxii. 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘶𝘮

VERITASERUM

— ( chapter twenty-two. ) —

Harry felt himself slam flat into the ground; his face was pressed into grass; the smell of it filled his nostrils. He had closed his eyes while the Portkey transported him, and he kept them closed now. He did not move. All the breath seemed to have been knocked out of him; his head was swimming so badly he felt as though the ground beneath him were swaying like the deck of a ship. To hold himself steady, he tightened his hold on the two things he was still clutching: the smooth, cold handle of the Triwizard Cup and Cedric's body. He felt as though he would slide away into the blackness gathering at the edges of his brain if he let go of either of them. Shock and exhaustion kept him on the ground, breathing in the smell of the grass, waiting... waiting for someone to do something... something to happen... and all the while, his scar burned dully on his forehead...

A torrent of sound deafened and confused him; there were voices everywhere, footsteps, screams.... He remained where he was, his face screwed up against the noise, as though it were a nightmare that would pass....

Aurora got to her feet with Hermione, the latter clapping her hands over her mouth in shock.

Then a pair of hands seized him roughly and turned him over.

"Harry! Harry!"

He opened his eyes.

He was looking up at the starry sky, and Albus Dumbledore was crouched over him. The dark shadows of a crowd of people pressed in around them, pushing nearer; Harry felt the ground beneath his head reverberating with their footsteps.

He had come back to the edge of the maze. He could see the stands rising above him, the shapes of people moving in them, the stars above.

Harry let go of the cup, but he clutched Cedric to him even more tightly. He raised his free hand and seized Dumbledore's wrist, while Dumbledore's face swam in and out of focus.

"He's back," Harry whispered. "He's back. Voldemort. "

"What's going on? What's happened?"

The face of Cornelius Fudge appeared upside down over Harry; he looked white, appalled.

"My God - Diggory!" He whispered. "Dumbledore - he's dead!"

The words were repeated, the shadowy figures pressing in on them gasped it to those around them. . . and then others shouted it - screeched it - into the night - "He's dead!" "He's dead!" "Cedric Diggory! Dead!"

They reached Aurora and Hermione with a sickening jolt, the former gripping onto Hermione wrist.

"Harry, let go of him," he heard Fudge's voice say, and he felt fingers trying to pry him from Cedric's limp body, but Harry wouldn't let him go. Then Dumbledore's face, which was still blurred and misted, came closer.