"Hello?" called Harry.
There was silence. I got to my feet and peered around the tree. It was too dark to see very far, but I could sense somebody standing just beyond the range of my vision.
"Who's there?" I said.
And then, without warning, the silence was rent by a voice unlike any we had heard in the wood; and it uttered, not a panicked shout, but what sounded like a spell.
"MORSMORDRE!"
And something vast, green, and glittering erupted from the patch of darkness my eyes had been struggling to penetrate; it flew up over the treetops and into the sky.
"What the —?" gasped Ron as he sprang to his feet again, staring up at the thing that had appeared.
For a split second, I thought it was another leprechaun formation. Then I realized that it was a colossal skull, comprised of what looked like emerald stars, with a serpent protruding from its mouth like a tongue. As we watched, 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 us erupted with screams. I gasped and ran back to the group, grabbing Harry's arm.
See AlsoCan you craft spells in wizard101?Intelligent agents for electronic commerceWarhammer Fantasy: A Dynasty of Dynamic Alcoholism"Who's there?" Harry called.
"Harry, come on, move!" I whispered harshly at him.
"What's the matter?" Harry said, startled to see her face so white and terrified
"It's the Dark Mark, Harry!" Hermione moaned, grabbing onto Harry and helping me pull him. He wasn't moving. "You-Know-Who's sign!"
"Voldemort's —?"
"Harry, come on!"
Harry turned and the four of us started across the clearing— but before we had taken a few hurried steps, a series of popping noises announced the arrival of twenty wizards, appearing from thin air, surrounding us.
I whirled around, and in an instant, I registered one fact: Each of these wizards had their wands out, and every wand was pointing right at me, Harry, Ron, and Hermione.
"DUCK!" Harry yelled and tackled me to the ground, managing to knock over Ron and Hermione in the process.
"STUPEFY!" roared twenty voices— there was a blinding series of flashes and I felt the hair on his head ripple as though a powerful wind had swept the clearing. Turning my head, I saw jets of fiery red light flying over us from the wizards' wands, crossing one another, bouncing off tree trunks, rebounding into the darkness—
"Stop!" yelled a voice I recognized. "STOP! That's my son!
The wizard in front of him had lowered his wand. He rolled over and saw Mr. Weasley striding toward us, looking terrified.
"Ron— Harry" — his voice sounded shaky — "Hermione— Maisey— are you all right?"
"Out of the way, Arthur," said a cold, curt voice.
It was Mr. Crouch. He and the other Ministry wizards were closing in on us. Harry got to his feet to face us, helping us up. Mr. Crouch's face was taut with rage.
"Which of you did it?" he snapped, his sharp eyes darting between them. "Which of you conjured the Dark Mark?"
"We didn't do that!" said Harry, gesturing up at the skull.
"We didn't do anything!" said Ron, who was rubbing his elbow and looking indignantly at his father. "What did you want to attack us for?"
"Do not lie, sir!" shouted Mr. Crouch. His wand was still pointing directly at Ron, and his eyes were popping— he looked slightly mad. "You have been discovered at the scene of the crime!"
"Barty," whispered a witch in a long woolen dressing gown, "they're kids, Barty, they'd never have been able to—"
"Where did the Mark come from, you four?" said Mr. Weasley quickly.
"Over there," I 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?" said Mr. Crouch, turning his popping eyes on me 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, Ron, Hermione, or I had conjured the skull; on the contrary, at my words, they had all raised their wands again and were pointing in the direction I had indicated, squinting through the dark trees.
"We're too late," said the witch in the woolen dressing gown, shaking her head. "They'll have Disapparated."
"I don't think so," said a wizard with a scrubby brown beard. 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!" said a few of the wizards 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, we heard Mr. Diggory shout.
"Yes! We got them! There's someone here! Unconscious! It's— but— blimey..."
"You've got someone?" shouted Mr. Crouch, sounding highly disbelieving. "Who? Who is it?"
We heard snapping twigs, the rustling of leaves, and then crunching footsteps as Mr. Diggory reemerged from behind the trees. He was carrying a tiny, limp figure in his arms. I recognized the tea towel at once. It was Winky.
