meant to be

♦ 005 ♦

The Goblet of Fire

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

But Lynn broke off abruptly and looked over her shoulder.

Harry, Ron and Hermione looked quickly around too. It sounded as though someone was staggering toward their clearing. They waited, listening to the sounds of the uneven steps behind the dark trees. But the footsteps came to a sudden halt.

"Hello?" called Harry.

There was silence. Lynn got to her feet and peered around the tree. It was too dark to see very far, but she could sense somebody standing just beyond the range of her vision.

"Who's there?" Lynn said.

And then, without warning, the silence was rent by a voice unlike any they had heard in the wood, and it uttered, not a panicked shout, but what sounded like a spell.

"MORSMORDRE!"

And something vast, green, and glittering erupted from the patch of darkness Lynn's eyes had been struggling to penetrate. It flew up over the treetops and into the sky.

"What the. . . .?" gasped Ron as he sprang to his feet again, staring up at the thing that had appeared.

"Oh shit," Lynn said, starting at the colossal skull, comprised of what looked like emerald stars, with a serpent protruding from its mouth like a tongue. As they watched, it rose higher and higher, blazing in a haze of greenish smoke, etched against the black sky like a new constellation. Suddenly, the wood all around them erupted with screams.

"Who's there?" Harry called again.

"Harry, come on, move!" Hermione had seized the collar of his jacket and was tugging him backward.

"What's the matter?" Harry said, startled to see her face so white and terrified.

"It's the Dark Mark, Harry!" Lynn said, pulling him away as hard as she could. "You-Know-Who's sign!"

"Voldemort's. . . .?"

"Harry, come on!"

Harry turned, Ron was hurriedly scooping up his miniature Krum, the four of them started across the clearing, but before they had taken a few hurried steps, a series of popping noises announced the arrival of twenty wizards, appearing from thin air, surrounding them.

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

Without pausing to think, she yelled, "DUCK!"

She seized the other three and pulled them down onto the ground, smashing her left cheekbone into a sharp rock. She yelled in pain as she shut her eyes.

"STUPEFY!" roared twenty voices. There was a blinding series of flashes and Lynn 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 he recognized. "STOP! That's my son!"

Lynn's curly 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, "Lynn, Hermione. . . . are you all right?"

"Out of the way, Arthur," said a cold, curt voice.