Harry Potter: The ghouls awakening

Chapter 85

No one's POV

They had sat down in silence as they tried to collect themselves.

"Those poor muggles." Hermione said nervously.

"What if they can't get them down?"

"I'm sure they'll find a way." Kyle said reassuringly as he glanced over at Harry.

"Mad, though, to do something like that when the whole Ministry of Magics out here tonight!" Hermione said.

"I mean, how do they expect to get away with it? Do you think they've been drinking, or are they just–"

She stopped speaking abruptly and looked over her shoulder.

The others looked quickly around them as well.

It sounded as though someone was staggering towards the clearing.

They waited, listening to the sounds of the uneven steps behind the dark trees but the footsteps came to a sudden halt.

"Hello?" Jessie called.

Thete was silence, Harry got to his feet and peered around the tree.

It was too dark to see very far, bit he could sense somebody was standing beyond the range of his vision.

"Who's there?" He said with a firm tone.

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.

"MORSMORDE!"

And something vast, green and glittering erupted from the patch of darkness.

Harry shielded his eye as the green item flew up over the treetops and into the sky.

Harry paused knowing he had heard that spell before as his eye widened when he heard a gasp.

Turning his head to see Jessie and Daphne rise to their feet staring up at what had appeared.

Harry looked at the sky and his suspicions were correct.

It was the sign of Voldemort, a Dark Mark, and 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.

Harry could understand why before he looked to see if the person was still there but they were gone.

Harry returned to the others just as a series of popping noises announce the arrival of twenty wizards.

He registered one fact: each of these wizards had his wand out, and every wand was pointing right at the five.

"DUCK!" He yelled as he seized Daphne and Jessie while Kyle did the same for Hermione and Ron as he pushed them to the ground.

"STUPEFY!" Roared twenty voices and there was a blinding series of flashes.

Raising his head a fraction of an inch Harry saw jets of fiery red light flying over them from the wizards' wands, crossing each other, bouncing off tree trunks, rebounding into the darkness.

"Stop!" Yelled a voice Harry recognised.

"STOP! That's my son!"

Harry raised his head a bit higher.

The wizard in front of him had lowered his wand.

He rolled over and saw Mr Weasley striding towards them, looking terrified.

"Ron – Harry – Jessie – Kyle – Daphne – Hermione are you all right?" He asked and his voice sounded shakey.

"Out of the way, Arthur." A cold, Curt voice said.

It was Mr Crouch.

He and the other Ministry wizards were closing in on them.

Harry got to his feet to face them, Mr Crouch's face was taut with rage.

"Who of you did it?" He snapped, his sharp eyes darting between them.

"Which of you conjured the Dark Mark?"

"Are you daft? We didn't do it." Harry snapped back.

"Do not lie, sir!" Mr Crouch shouted.

His wand was still pointing directly at Harry, and his eyes were popping – he looked as if he had gone slightly mad.

"You were discovered at the scene of the crime!"

"Barty." Whispered a witch in a long woollen dressing-gown.

"They're kids, Barty, they'd never have been able to-"

"Where did the Mark come from, you three?" Mr Weasley asked quickly.

"Over there." Hermione said 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?" Mr Crouch said, 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, Kyle, Jessie, Daphne, Hermione or Ron had conjured the skull, 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.

"It's too late, they've disapparated before you arrived." Harry said.

"I don't think so." A wizard said with a scrubby brown beard said.

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!" A few wizards said 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.

A few seconds later, they heard him shout.

"Yes! We got them! There's someone here! Unconscious! It's...but...blimey..."

"You've got someone?" Mr Crouch shouted, sounding highly disbelieving.

"Who? Who is it?"
They heard snapping twigs, the rustling of leaves, and then crunching footsteps as Mr Diggory re-emerged from behind the trees.

He was carrying a tiny, limp figure in his arms.

Harry recognised the tea-towel at once, it was Winky.

Mr Crouch did not move or speak as Mr Diggory deposited Mr Crouch's elf on the ground at his feet.

The other Ministry wizards were all staring at Me Crouch.

For a few seconds Crouch remained transfixed, his eyes blazing in his white face as he stared down at Winky.

Then he appeared to come to life again.

"This – cannot – be." He said jerkily.

"No –"

He moved quickly around Mr Diggory and strode off towards the place where he had found Winky.

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