Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
chapter twenty five / mosmorde
They didn't exactly find their friends in the most desirable position. Around twenty panic-filled minutes later, they stumbled across Harry, Hermione, and Ron at the center of a circle of Ministry men, all with their wands pointed at the teenagers.
"Stop!" yelled Mr. Weasley, who stumbled out of the wood from the opposite direction. "STOP! That's my son!"
The three teenagers in the center of the Ministry men looked up warily as the stream of red light slowed to a stop. Cassie stumbled in after Mr. Weasley, throwing her arms around her three friends, only pulling away when a sharp hand tugged her shoulder back. She let out a strangled sound of confusion and fell back, rubbing her injury as Barty Crouch stared her down.
"What did you do?" the man accused to her – not the other three, directly to her. She gaped at him, experiencing an extreme loss for words.
"What are you talking about, Crouch?" Mr. Weasley demanded, stepping in between the girl and Crouch.
"It was her – I know it!" Crouch said fiercely, glaring at Cassie. "You know who her father is, Arthur, you can't–"
"My father is Remus Lupin!" Cassie exclaimed, scrambling to a stand. "Are you implying that I.. I cast that!?"
"Of course not, Cassie," Mr. Weasley said kindly, but Barty Crouch's loud sound of disagreement said otherwise. He lowered his voice and leaned in, speaking to Mr. Weasley in a hushed (yet still completely coherent to the rest of the group) voice.
"You know I didn't mean that father, Weasley," he hissed, glancing over his shoulder at Cassie. He continued back to his whispered conversation with Mr. Weasley while Harry, Ron, and Hermione walked slowly towards Cassie.
She immediately took them into her arms and they all exhaled a collective sigh of relief.
"When we turned around and you were gone, and then Winky was acting all strange and wonky – and then we still couldn't find Harry's wand—" Hermione rambled, breathing heavily, until Cassie stopped her.
"It's alright, Hermione; I found Cedric," she explained, gesturing to the boy conversing with his father. Her eyes flickered to the figure in the sky, and she immediately knew it had something to do with Dark Magic. "Do—do any of you guys know what that thing is?"
But before any of them could answer, Amos Diggory shouted at them from where he had moved to with his wand drawn. "We got them! There's someone here! Unconscious – oh, it's – blimey!"
