Coup de Foudre [Fred Weasley] [4]

⚡️ Chapter 71 ⚡️

As soon as Vega's fingers touched the cup, she felt a familiar yet unexpected jerk somewhere behind her navel and her feet left the ground. She could not unclench the hand that was holding onto the Triwizard Cup – and it continued to pull her onward in a howl of wind and swirling colour. However, there was little relief in her that she wasn't alone because Harry and Cedric were still on her sides.

Then, all of a sudden, Vega felt her feet slam into a new ground, and she could not help but let out a cry of pain as her injured leg gave out beneath her and she crumbled to the ground. She let go of the Triwizard Cup as Harry, too, fell with a thud next to her. Vega didn't hear the audience cheering.

"What's going on?" Vega grunted as she tried to look around the darkness that they had landed in but her head was spinning too much. "Where are we? This isn't the castle, is it?

Cedric shook his head no and got up quickly, coming over to help Vega and Harry onto their feet since they were unable to on her own. The three of them all looked around, trying to make sense of the place that they had reached for some reason. It hadn't been in Bagman's instructions earlier.

Instead, they had left the Hogwarts grounds completely; they had very obviously travelled miles – perhaps hundreds of miles – for even the mountains surrounding the castle were gone.

They were standing instead in a dark and overgrown graveyard; the black outline of a small church was visible beyond a large yew tree to their right. And a hill rose above them to their left. Upon the hill, Vega could just make out the outline of a fine old house on the hillside. She didn't understand.

Where are we?

On the other hand, Cedric looked down at the Triwizard Cup, and then up at Vega and Harry before questioning, "Did anyone tell you the cup was a Portkey?"

"No," Vega answered quietly, her eyes frantically moving all over the graveyard, feeling extremely tense and suspicious. "But... it doesn't feel right at all..." She felt like they were being watched.

"Bagman didn't mention it either, did he?" Harry asked as the three of them continued to look for a clue in the dark graveyard – eerily silent. "But is this supposed to be part of the task?"

"I dunno," Cedric said. He sounded slightly nervous. "Wands out, do you reckon?"

"Yes, yes," Vega replied quickly and the three of them pulled out their wands, holding them in front of themselves. "We need to find a way back – do any of you recognise this place?"

"Someone's coming," Harry said suddenly.

Squinting tensely through the darkness, they watched the figure drawing nearer, walking steadily toward them between the graves. Vega couldn't make out a face, but from the way it was walking and holding its arms, he could tell that it was carrying something. Her was going in a flight of fear.

Who... is that?

Whoever it was, he was short, and wearing a hooded cloak pulled up over his head to obscure his face. And – several paces nearer, the gap between them closing all the time – Vega finally noticed that the thing in the person's arms looked quite like a baby... or was it merely a bundle of robes?

Vega was stuck in her place, her wand still in mid-air and she stole a glance at her companions to make sure that they had seen this as well, and they seemed to have as they glanced back at her.

The three of them returned back to watch the approaching figure.

It had stopped beside a towering marble headstone, only six feet from them.