Together [HP]

Mr Diggory moved his mouth and took a step back.

"Elf, someone conjured the Dark Mark here just now." James walked in front of Shining and stared at her, "After a while, we found you, just under the mark! What do you think? What's going on?"

"I, I, I didn't, sir!" gasped Winky, "I don't know how to change, sir!"

"You were found with a wand in your hand!" growled Mr. Diggory, waving the wand in Winky's face.James gave him a hard look, and he flinched back.

That's when Harry said, "Yeah, that's mine!" he said.

Everyone in the clearing turned to look at him.

"Excuse me, what did you say?" asked Mr. Diggory in disbelief.

"That's my wand!" said Harry, "I lost it!"

"You lost it?" Mr. Diggory repeated suspiciously. "Are you confessing? You lost your wand when you conjured the Mark?"

"Amos, think who you're talking to!" Mr. Weasley said angrily, "Could it be that Harry Potter will conjure the Dark Mark?"

"Oh, of course not," muttered Mr. Diggory vaguely, "I'm sorry . . . I'm out of my head . . . "

"I didn't leave it there," Harry pointed his thumb towards the bushes under the skeleton. "As soon as we walked into the woods, my wand disappeared."

"So," said Mr. Diggory, turning his gaze back to Winky, curled up at his feet, his eyes hardening, "you were the one who found this wand, didn't you, goblin? You picked it up." , thought I could have some fun with it, didn't I?"

"Enough, Diggory." James said angrily, "If you can't control your emotions, I'm going to let you go."

Then he turned his head, "Winky, give me an explanation, why do you have Harry's wand? Have you ever used it to perform magic?"

"I didn't cast a spell on it, sir!" shrieked Winky, tears streaming down the sides of her squashed bulbous nose like a stream, "I... I... I just picked it up Get up, sir! I haven't conjured the Dark Mark, sir, I don't know how!"

"It wasn't her!" said Hermione, looking very nervous in front of so many Ministry of Magic officials, but she didn't flinch, "Winky spoke in a high-pitched voice, much lower than the spellcaster we heard just now! She turned to Harry and Ron, asking for their approval. "It doesn't sound like Winky's voice at all, does it?"

"Yes," said Harry, nodding his head, "that voice was definitely not that of an elf."

"Yeah, it was a human voice," said Ron.

"Well," James pulled out his wand before Digory could speak again, "there's an easy way for us to know if it's the wand that cast the spell. Do you know, elf? "

Winky trembled all over, shook her head desperately, and flapped her ears.James raised his own wand and docked it with Harry's.

"Flashback Curse!" James yelled.

Jacqueline gasped, and her hand was held by Yuna's cold hand. At the same time, they saw a horrific skeleton with a snake spit out from the place where the two wands joined, but this It was just the shadow of the green skeleton above their heads.It seemed to be made of thick gray smoke: a magical phantom.

"Vanished!" James yelled, and the skeleton made of smoke turned into a wisp of smoke and disappeared.

"How do you say that?" Mr. Diggory put on a cruelly smug expression, looked at Winky under his feet, and then looked up at James.Winky was still shaking violently.

"Not me!" she screamed, rolling her eyeballs in horror. "Not me, not me, I don't know how! I'm a good elf, I don't fiddle with wands, I don't know how!"

"This can only prove that it was the wand that cast the spell." James frowned. "Until we learn more about the situation, we can't draw any conclusions."

"But she was caught red-handed, the little goblin!" roared Mr. Diggory, "with this criminal wand in her hand!"

"Amos," said Mr. Weasley loudly, "come to think of it . . . the wizards who can cast that spell are just a handful . . . where did she learn it?"

"Perhaps Diggory is hinting," said Mr. Crouch, with icy anger in every syllable, "that I regularly teach my servants the Dark Mark?"

There was a very oppressive silence.Mr. Diggory seemed frightened. "Mr. Crouch... no... definitely not..."

"By now, you've accused, in almost obvious language, of the two men in this clearing who are the least likely to conjure that mark!" Mr. Crouch roared, "Harry Potter , and me! I suppose you're familiar with the boy's history, Amos?"

"Of course, everyone knows..." muttered Mr. Diggory, looking terrified.

"I'm sure you remember that throughout my long career there has been much evidence that I have always loathed and hated the Dark Arts, and all who practice them, don't you?" cried Mr. Crouch, his eyes rolling Protrude.

"Mr. Crouch, I, I in no way suggested that you had anything to do with it!" murmured Amos Diggory again, his face flushed behind his brown beard.

"You're accusing me of my elf, Diggory!" cried Mr. Crouch, "where else would she learn such magic?"

"She, she may have learned it by accident from elsewhere."

"That's right, Amos," said James, "maybe she picked it up by accident somewhere else... Winky?" He turned kindly to the elf, but she recoiled in terror, as if he were yelling at her too. "Where the hell did you find Harry's wand?"

Winky twisted the welt of the tea towel she was wearing so hard that her fingers unscrewed it so hard that the welt came loose.

"I, I found it there, sir..." she whispered, "in the woods, sir..."

"Understood, Amos?" said Mr. Weasley. "Whoever conjured up the mark, whoever they were, phantom moved away when they were done and dropped Harry's wand. Clever thing they did." , not using his own wand, so as not to reveal himself. A moment later, the hapless Winky caught sight of the wand, and picked it up."

"So she was only a few steps away from the real criminal?" said Mr. Diggory impatiently. "Did you see anyone, goblin?"

Winky trembled more than before.Her two light-bulb eyes looked from Mr. Diggory to Ludo Bagman and then to Mr. Crouch.Then she took a deep breath and said, "I don't see anybody, sir...nobody..."

"James," said Mr. Crouch stiffly, "I am fully aware that according to the usual procedure, you are going to bring Winky to your department for interrogation, but I still ask your permission to deal with her."

"I don't think it's a good idea." James frowned. "She might not know anything about it."

"You can rest assured that she will be punished," Mr. Crouch added coldly.

"Lord, Lord, Master..." Winky looked up at Mr. Crouch, stammering with tears in her eyes, "Lord, Lord, Master, please, please, please..."

Mr. Crouch stared at her, his face hardened, every line stood out, and there was no pity in his eyes.

"I was shocked by Winky's behavior tonight," he said slowly. "I told her to stay in the tent. I told her to stay there and I went to deal with the disturbance. I found out that she defied me. That's it." Means, clothes!"

"No!" Twinkle screamed, throwing himself at Mr. Crouch's feet. "No, master! No clothes, no clothes!"

Jacqueline knew that the only way to free a house-elf was to give him decent clothes.

Winky clutched her tea towel tightly and wept at Mr. Crouch's feet in a pathetic way.

"She was terrified!" said Hermione indignantly, glaring at Mr. Crouch fiercely, "Your house-elf has a fear of heights, and those masked wizards are hanging people in the air! She can be forgiven for wanting to escape them, and you can't blame her!"

Mr. Crouch took a step back, out of the grip of the elf.He looked down at Winky as if she were some filthy rot, staining his polished shoes.

"I don't need a house-elf who disobeys my orders," he said coldly, looking at Hermione. "I don't need a servant who forgets to obey his master and protect his master's honor."

Winky cried so sadly that her cries echoed in the clearing.

There was another very embarrassing silence, and finally Yuna said word by word, "This farce should also end." She looked at everyone around her coldly, "We have wasted too much here. The Death Eaters will obviously not be stupid enough to stay here and wait for us." She looked at Diggory, "Or I need to prove to Mr Diggory that I am not a Death Eater and how much I hate them to get out of here."

Digory took a step back in fright, wiping the sweat from his brow frequently.

"You... no, no, I don't think so, Ms. Graham."

Yuna held Jacqueline's hand tightly, "Then I'm leaving." She turned to look at Hermione, "I think you three should leave here as soon as possible."

Mr. Weasley said softly: "Well, if there is no objection, I will take my men back to the tent. Amos, the wand has told us all it knows, if you can bring it Give it back to Harry, please..."

Mr Diggory handed Harry the wand, and Harry pocketed it.

"Come on, you three," whispered Mr. Weasley.

But Hermione seemed unwilling to move, her eyes still resting on the weeping elf.

"Hermione!" Jacqueline looked at her and nodded at her.Hermione turned and followed Harry and Ron out of the clearing and through the woods.

Yuna walked in the front. She looked like she was full of fire and needed the night wind to quench her fire.James and Mr. Weasley walked at the back, and the two were still discussing quietly.

"I don't know," Jacqueline replied directly once they left the clearing. "I don't know what will happen to Winky in the future."

"I didn't say anything," said Hermione.

"You don't need it," Jacqueline replied.

"How they treated her like that!" said Hermione angrily. "Mr. Diggory keeps calling her a 'goblin'...and Mr. Crouch! He's going to fire her when he knows she didn't do it." He doesn't care how scared and sad she is, he doesn't treat her as a human being at all!"

"Well, she's not human after all," said Ron.

Hermione immediately turned to attack him.

"That doesn't mean she doesn't have feelings, Ron. It's disgusting that they're like that, and..."

"She should be punished for doing something wrong." Jacqueline looked up at Yuna in front of her, "Although if it was in our house, we would praise Noam, because he knows that survival is the most valuable. But, it's because we know how loyal he is."

"Someone should protect their rights!" Hermione stopped where she was and looked at them angrily, "Am I the only one who thinks this is wrong?"

"Why don't you go?" James and Mr. Weasley said behind them. "Go on. If you meet Death Eaters, it will be a lot of fun."

"Hermione doesn't think Winky should be punished, Dad," said Ron.

"Hermione, I agree with you," Mr. Weasley said quickly, motioning her to move on, "but this is not the time to discuss the rights of elves. I hope we get back to the tent as soon as possible. How are the others?" ?”

"We got separated from them in the dark," said Ron. "Daddy, why is everyone so nervous about that skeleton?"

"I'll explain to you when I get back to the tent," said Mr. Weasley anxiously.

But when they reached the edge of the wood, they encountered obstacles.A large crowd of terrified-looking wizards had gathered there, many pushing forward when they saw Mr. Weasley walking towards them.

"What's going on over there?"

"Who made that mark?"

"Arthur, could it be, him?"

"Of course it wasn't him," said Mr. Weasley impatiently. "We don't know who it is, it looks like they've Disapparated. Now, please get out of the way, please, I want to go back to sleep."

They made their way through the crowd and returned to camp.Now everything is quiet, there are no shadows of those masked wizards anymore, only a few destroyed tents are still smoking.

Charlie poked his head out of the boys' tent.

"Dad, what's the matter?" he called out in the dark. "Fred, George, and Ginny are all back safe and sound, but they..."

"I brought them all back," said Mr. Weasley. "Would you like to come in for a cup of coffee, Ms Graham?"

Yuna stopped in front and turned to look at them, her expression was obviously unwilling.

"I'm freezing," James said, then looked at his arm in the light of the fire. "It looks like there's a few holes left."

"Just for a while." After Yuna finished speaking, she fired a spell into the sky, and a badge with a blue background lit up in the sky.

"This will let Norm know where we are." Jacqueline explained to Hermione while bending over into the tent, "He may have gone somewhere to hide."

Bill was sitting at the small dining table, with a sheet covering his arm, from where blood was bubbling.Charlie's shirt was torn wide, and Percy showed off his bleeding nose.Fred, George and Ginny appeared to be safe, but in shock.

"Good evening, Ms. Graham, Mr. Harris, and Jacqueline. Did you catch 'em, Dad?" Bill began, "The ones who conjured that sign?"

"No," said Mr. Weasley, "we found Barty Crouch's house-elf holding Harry's wand, but we have no idea who conjured the sign."

"What?" Bill, Charlie, and Percy asked in unison.

"Harry's wand?" said Fred.

"Mr. Crouch's house-elf?" asked Percy, in shock.

So they hurriedly told everyone what happened in the woods.When they finished, Percy was gasping for breath.

"Mr. Crouch should, I say, get rid of such a house-elf!" he said. "She ran away when she was clearly told to stay still...and embarrassing Master in front of so many Ministry officials." ...if she is taken to the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures for interrogation, that's too..."

"She didn't do anything, she just shouldn't be in that place at that time!" Hermione snapped back at Percy, surprising Percy.Hermione had always been on good terms with Percy, better than anyone else in fact.

"Hermione, a wizard in Mr. Crouch's shoes, can't afford to have his house-elf running around with a wand!" said Percy, returning to normalcy, pompously.

"She's not running around!" cried Hermione, "she just picked her wand off the ground!"

"She shouldn't have picked up that wand." Jacqueline took a sip of the warm milk, and Hermione immediately turned to stare at her. "Don't look at me like that, Hermione. It's against the rules."

"Okay, okay, can someone explain what that skeleton is?" said Ron impatiently. "It didn't hurt anyone...why is everyone making such a fuss?"

"Let me tell you, it's You-Know-Who's symbol, Ron," Hermione replied before the others, "I read about it in The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts."

"Haven't seen it in 13 years," James said, frowning. "People are naturally nervous...it's almost like seeing You-Know-Who again."

"I don't understand," said Ron, frowning. "I mean...after all, it's just a shadow in midair..."

"Ron, You-Know-Who and his followers display the Dark Mark in the air every time they kill someone," said Mr. Weasley. "The terror it brings...you don't know, you're too young. You Imagine you come home and find the Dark Mark hovering over your house, you know what you'll see when you go in..." Mr. Weasley shuddered, "This is what everyone fears the most... It is the most frightening..."

A moment's silence followed.Bill removed the sheet from his arm, inspected the wound, and said, "Well, whoever conjured that mark did us a disservice tonight. The Death Eaters ran away as soon as they saw it. They Disapparating one by one, we hadn't gotten close enough to remove the masks on their faces. However, we caught the Bells and kept them from falling to the ground. Now their memories are being altered."

"Death Eaters?" Harry asked. "What are Death Eaters?"

"This is what followers of the mysterious man call themselves." Yuna said, "Some people turned to the Ministry of Magic after that man lost power, saying they were bewitched."

"We have no way of proving it was them, Ms Graham," said Mr Weasley. "It's possible, though," he said resignedly.

"Yeah, I guess so!" said Ron suddenly, "Dad, we met Draco Malfoy in the woods, and he actually pretty much told us that his dad was one of those masked lunatics! We all know that the Malfoy family used to have a lot of friendship with You-Know-Who!"

"You can't just accuse a pure-blood wizard without evidence." Yuna said softly.

"What more evidence is needed!" Ron exclaimed, "Draco is almost going to tell us, Professor Graham, you know..."

"I know them better than you, Ron Weasley." Yuna looked at Ron and said word by word.

The camp was quiet for a while, and an elf with big ears dragged Jacqueline and their box and ran over panting.Seeing him, Yuna pulled Jacqueline up and said goodbye.

"Thank you for your hospitality, Arthur." James put down the coffee in his hand, "It seems that we should go back, have a good sleep, and go back tomorrow after getting the portkey. Maybe I will talk to you in a few days," He looked at Charlie, "About that."

"No problem, no problem." Arthur lowered his voice, "It's not a good memory for her."

"I can understand." James nodded, "but she was too...I can't believe it, if something happened to her..."

Arthur patted James on the shoulder understandingly, and James said goodbye to the people in the tent and disappeared.