The Girl Who Hid | ✓

|55| Little Hangleton Cemetery

Looking around, I noticed we had left the Hogwarts grounds completely; we had obviously traveled miles— perhaps hundreds of miles— for even the mountains surrounding the castle were gone. We 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. A hill rose above them to our left. I could just make out the outline of a fine old house on the hillside.

Cedric looked down at the Triwizard Cup and then up at Harry and me.

"Did anyone tell you the cup was a Portkey?" he asked.

"Nope," Harry answered.

"Is this supposed to be part of the task?" I said.

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

All three of us pulled out our wands. I kept looking around us. I still had a strange feeling of being watched.

"Someone's coming," Harry said suddenly.

Squinting tensely through the darkness, we watched the figure drawing nearer, walking steadily toward them between the graves. I couldn't make out a face, but from the way it was walking and holding its arms, I could tell that it was carrying something. Whoever it was, they were short, and wearing a hooded cloak pulled up over their head to obscure their face. And— several paces nearer, the gap between us closing all the time— I saw that the thing in the person's arms looked like a baby... or was it merely a bundle of robes?

Harry lowered his wand slightly and glanced sideways at Cedric. Cedric shot us a quizzical look. We turned back to watch the approaching figure.

It stopped beside a towering marble headstone, only six feet from us. For a second, Harry, Cedric, and I and the short figure simply looked at one another.

And then, without warning, my scar exploded with pain. It was agony such as I had never felt in all my life; my wand slipped from my fingers as I put my hands over my collarbone; my knees buckled; I was on the ground and through blurred eyes could see nothing at all; my chest was about to split open. From my side, I could hear Harry in pain as well.

"Harry?" Cedric said. "Maisey? What's wong?"

From far away, above my head, I heard a high, cold voice say, "Kill the spare."

A swishing noise and a second voice, which screeched the words to the night: "Avada Kedavra!"

A blast of green light blazed through my eyelids, and I heard something heavy fall to the ground; the pain in my scar reached such a pitch that I gagged, and then it diminished. My chest didn't feel like it was being torn open anymore and I looked over at Harry and then past him I saw...

Cedric was lying spread-eagled on the ground beside him. He was dead.

For a second that contained an eternity, I stared into Cedric's face, at his open gray eyes, blank and expressionless as the windows of a deserted house, at his half-open mouth, which looked slightly surprised. And then, before my mind had accepted what I was seeing, before I could feel anything but numb disbelief, I felt myself being pulled to my feet by my arm.

The short man in the cloak had put down his bundle, lit his wand, and was dragging us toward the marble headstone. I saw the name upon it flickering in the wandlight before I was forced around and slammed against it.

TOM RIDDLE

The cloaked man was now conjuring tight cords around Harry and me, tying us from neck to ankles to the headstone. I could hear shallow, fast breathing from the depths of the hood; I felt Harry struggle, and the sound of getting slapped.