Stay - Mattheo Riddle

Chapter 118

Kirra whirled around, and in an instant, he registered one fact: Each of these wizards had his wand out, and every wand was pointing right at herself, Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

Without pausing to think, she yelled, "DUCK!" She seized the other three and pulled them down onto the ground.

"STUPEFY !" roared twenty voices — there was a blinding series of flashes and Kirra felt the hair on her head ripple as though a powerful wind had swept the clearing. 

Raising her head a fraction of an inch she saw jets of fiery red light flying over them from the wizards' wands, crossing one another, bouncing off tree trunks, rebounding into the darkness —"Stop!" yelled a voice she recognized. 

"STOP! That's my son!" Kirra's hair stopped blowing about. She raised her head a little higher. The wizard in front of her had lowered his wand. She rolled over and saw Mr. Weasley striding toward them, looking terrified.

"Ron — Harry" — his voice sounded shaky — "Kirra - Hermione —are you all right?"

"Out of the way, Arthur," said a cold, curt voice. It was Mr. Crouch. He and the other Ministry wizards were closing in on them. Kirra got to her feet to face them. Mr. Crouch's face was taut with rage.

"Which of you did it?" he snapped, his sharp eyes darting between them. "Which of you conjured the Dark Mark?"

"We didn't do that!" said Kirra, gesturing up at the skull.

"We didn't do anything!" said Ron, who was rubbing his elbow and looking indignantly at his father. "What did you want to attack us for?"

"Do not lie, sir!" shouted Mr. Crouch. His wand was still pointing directly at Ron, and his eyes were popping — he looked slightly mad. Kirra stood in front of ron protectively, clutching her wand at her side, giving the man a warning scowl

"You have been discovered at the scene of the crime!"

"Barty," whispered a witch in a long woolen dressing gown, "they're kids, Barty, they'd never have been able to —"

"Where did the Mark come from, you four?" said Mr. Weasley quickly

"Over there," said Hermione shakily, pointing at the place where they had heard the voice. "There was someone behind the trees . . . they shouted words — an incantation —" 

"Oh, stood over there, did they?" said Mr. Crouch, turning his popping eyes on Hermione now, disbelief etched all over his face. "Said an incantation, did they? You seem very well informed about how that Mark is summoned, missy —"

But none of the Ministry wizards apart from Mr. Crouch seemed to think it remotely likely that Harry, Ron, or Hermione had conjured the skull; and all of them had known it wouldn't have been Kirra Potter, after all, almost everyone knew of Emily Barnes who had been one of the best wizards in the order.

On the contrary, at Hermione's words, they had all raised their wands again and were pointing in the direction she had indicated, squinting through the dark trees. "We're too late," said the witch in the woolen dressing gown, shaking her head. 

"They'll have Disapparated."

"I don't think so," said a wizard with a scrubby brown beard. It was Amos Diggory, Cedric's father. "Our Stunners went right through those trees. . . . There's a good chance we got them. . . ."

"Amos, be careful!" said a few of the wizards warningly as Mr.Diggory squared his shoulders, raised his wand, marched across the clearing, and disappeared into the darkness. Hermione watched him vanish with her hands over her mouth.