Honey Bee

Chapter 43

I felt myself slam flat into the ground; my face was pressed into grass; the smell of it filled my nostrils.

I had closed my eyes while the Portkey transported me, and I kept them closed now. I did not move. All the breath seemed to have been knocked out of me but my sobs were load and clear; my head was swimming so badly I felt as though the ground beneath me were swaying like the deck of a ship.

To hold myself steady, he tightened my hold on Harrys arm. I felt as though I would slide away into the blackness gathering at the edges of my brain if I let go. Shock and exhaustion kept me on the ground, breathing in the smell of the grass, waiting . . . waiting for someone to do something . . . something to happen . . . and all the while, my scar burned dully on my heart. . . .

A torrent of sound deafened and confused me; there were voices everywhere, footsteps, screams. ... i remained where we were, my face screwed up against the noise, as though it were a nightmare that would pass. . . .

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

"Melissa! Melissa!" I opened my eyes.

I was looking up at the starry sky, and Professor McGonagall was crouched over me. The dark shadows of a crowd of people pressed in around them, pushing nearer; I felt the ground beneath my head reverberating with their footsteps.

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

I let go of Harrys arm. I raised one of my hands and seized McGonagall's wrist, while the world around me 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 me; it looked white, appalled. "My God - Diggory!" it 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!"

"Harry, let go of him," I heard Fudge's voice say.

"Harry, you can't help him now. It's over. Let go." McGonagall sat me up and I screamed in pain, my whole leg felt like it was on fire.

"He wanted me to bring him back," Harry muttered - it seemed important to explain this. "He wanted me to bring him back to his parents. ..."

"That's right. Harry . . . just let go now. . . ."

Dumbledore bent down, and with extraordinary strength for a man so old and thin, raised Harry from the ground and set -him on his feet. Harry swayed. His head was pounding.

The crowd around us jostled, fighting to get closer, pressing darkly in on him - "What's happened?" "What's wrong with them?" "Diggorys dead!"

"They'll need to go to the hospital wing!" Fudge was saying loudly. "They're ill, injured - Dumbledore, Diggory's parents, they're here, they're in the stands. ..."

"I'll take Harry and Melissa, Dumbledore, I'll take them -"

"No, I would prefer-"

"Dumbledore, Amos Diggorys running . . . he's coming over. . . . Don't you think you should tell him - before he sees - ?"

"Harry, Melissa stay here -" I pulled myself up and grabbed onto Harry's arm heavily sobbing.

Girls were screaming, sobbing hysterically.... The scene flickered oddly before my own eyes. . . .