Upon hearing the screams from the camp, Harry Potter quickly dressed and rushed out with Ron.
He saw Ginny, dressed in a white dressing gown, run frantically from the next tent, calling out, "Hermione's not in bed, and her wand isn't here either — where did she go?"
"All of you — into the woods, quickly! Stay together, don't scatter! We're here to help the Ministry keep order — we'll keep an eye out for her!" Mr. Weasley's voice cut through the noise as he rolled up his sleeves.
Harry saw Bill, Charlie, and Percy following close behind, all neatly dressed with their wands already out, ready to help their father manage the chaos.
There was no time to lose. Fred grabbed Ginny's hand and dragged her — still craning her neck to look for Hermione — into the trees. Harry and Ron followed at their heels.
The woods were already packed with wizards. Some were in dressing gowns, bleary-eyed and utterly bewildered; others were decked out in Irish colours, wearing clusters of shamrock ornaments, and looked thoroughly terrified. Whatever clothes they wore, whatever team they'd supported, it no longer mattered. They pressed together in the dark like a scattered flock, craning their necks toward the light from the burning camp, buzzing with panic and confusion.
In the chaos, Harry and Ron became separated from Fred and the others after only a few turns. To make matters worse, Harry's wand had vanished entirely.
"Lumos." Ron raised his wand, letting the thin beam of light sweep across the ground, trying to help Harry locate it. But Harry searched and searched and found nothing.
"Did it fall out while you were running?" Ron asked, frowning.
"Most likely," Harry said, his frustration evident.
A helpless, vulnerable feeling washed over him. He understood, for the first time, exactly what Draco had meant when he'd nagged him about keeping his wand safe. Those lectures, which had seemed tedious at the time, were proving rather painfully correct.
But it was too late for regret. A deafening explosion erupted from somewhere at the edge of the trees, and the night sky seemed to shudder.
"Harry, let's just keep moving," Ron said nervously.
Harry agreed. This was not a safe place to linger. Reluctantly, he set aside any further thought of finding the wand and walked deeper into the dark with Ron, hoping to stumble across George, Fred, and Ginny — and harbouring a faint hope of finding Hermione, who had disappeared entirely.
They passed a group of goblins who seemed entirely unbothered by the chaos, chattering amongst themselves with cheerful indifference. Then they passed a cluster of Veela, around whom a small crowd of young wizards had predictably gathered, competing loudly to impress them with increasingly implausible stories about their own achievements.
"Come on, Ron." Harry dragged his friend away before he could slow down, and they pressed deeper into the woods until the sounds of the explosions fell to a distant murmur.
In the quiet, two voices became suddenly clear — a boy and a girl, coming from behind a dense thicket.
"Ow — be gentle..." the girl breathed, her voice tight with pain.
"Alright..." The boy's voice was careful, slightly tense.
"No, it hurts too much..." The girl gave a soft gasp. Harry recognised it as Hermione's voice.
"Just hold on a moment — it'll be over soon..." The boy's voice sounded like Draco's, though Harry wasn't entirely certain; he had never heard Draco speak quite so gently before. His voice was usually cooler, more contained.
But who else would Hermione be this close to, besides that Slytherin boy?
"What are they doing?" Ron had also caught a vague sense of their identities. He stared at Harry with wide eyes.
"I have no idea," Harry mouthed back. They exchanged a look that was full of identical, very poorly suppressed curiosity, then crept forward and peered through the bushes —
It was indeed Hermione. She was perched on a large rock, wrapped in a slightly rumpled black suit jacket that was clearly not her own.
She looked nothing like herself tonight — none of her usual brisk authority, none of her composure. She looked, frankly, rather fragile.
Draco knelt before her in his black shirt, sleeves casually rolled to the elbow. One hand cradled her bare ankle; the other rested against the instep, moving it gently, slowly, in careful rotation.
The girl looked on the verge of tears. Draco glanced up at her pained expression, then looked back down, murmuring, "Good girl... nearly done now..."
Harry and Ron stared at each other as though they had collectively seen a ghost.
Hermione — who that very morning had been banging on their tent door like a second Mrs. Weasley, threatening to confiscate their broomsticks if they didn't finish their holiday homework — had apparently become an entirely different person. A soft and obedient "good girl," at that.
Draco was genuinely courageous, Harry thought. A few months ago, Hermione had punched him hard enough that Harry and Ron had winced on his behalf. And he was voluntarily getting close to her again?
Remarkably, however, the girl who hated being patronised didn't seem to object to this in the slightest. She gave a small, pitiful "mm" in response, her voice still trembling with unshed tears.
Harry and Ron exchanged a deeply meaningful silent look — when a quiet click broke the stillness. The soft sound of a joint returning to its proper place.
"There. That should do it — the dislocation's corrected." Draco set her foot carefully on his knee, his voice relaxing into something almost warm. "Try moving it a little. Can you rotate your ankle?"
Hermione tested it tentatively. It moved freely.
"You're brilliant, Draco!" she said, sniffing, unable to keep the admiration from her voice.
"Don't walk on it any more than necessary for the next few days. It still needs rest." Draco looked relieved. He reached down and helped her back into her sock and shoe, his hands still steady and careful.
Hermione sat quietly, watching him. When he finished and glanced up, there was a note of concern in his voice: "What is it? You look dazed — are you feeling unwell?"
"No," she managed. In the moonlight, Harry could clearly see the blush spreading across Hermione's face.
"We thought you were getting up to something..." Ron stepped out from behind the bushes, wand raised, his voice carrying an unmistakable note of disappointment. Harry followed, empty-handed.
"Harry! Ron! Thank goodness — you're alright!" Hermione exclaimed with genuine relief. Then her expression shifted to suspicion. "What exactly did you think we were doing?"
"Nothing, just — you know — this and that —" Ron said, suddenly very interested in the middle distance.
A faint blush crossed Draco's face. He was a boy too, and he had a reasonably accurate idea of what sort of nonsense boys their age were prone to imagining.
He composed himself quickly and fixed Harry with a sharp look. "What are you doing here? Harry — where's your wand?"
"Lost it," Harry said, his expression darkening.
"Are you related to Longbottom?" Draco asked, with some severity.
Neville had misplaced several wands the previous term.
"No," Harry said, slightly nettled.
"You need to stop keeping your wand in your back trouser pocket," Draco said firmly. "It's practically an open invitation. You may as well put up a sign."
Harry had been regretting the loss for some time. "I'll take your advice," he said quietly, "if I ever find it again."
Hermione, who had recovered somewhat, suddenly straightened. "Where's Ginny? Is she alright?"
"Fine — George and Fred are with her —" Ron said.
Then they heard it: unsteady footsteps somewhere behind the dark thicket, drawing closer with an uneven, stumbling gait.
Harry opened his mouth, but Draco raised one finger to his lips.
On a night like this, one didn't announce oneself before knowing whether the approaching figure was friend or foe.
Without warning, a man's voice cut through the silence — a shout, a spell — "Morsmordre!"
Then a vast, luminous skull erupted from the darkness, a serpent writhing from its mouth. It surged above the treetops, blazed into the sky, and tore a wave of screaming from the surrounding woods.
Draco's face went the colour of chalk.
He knew what it was, of course. The Dark Mark. A rush of dark memory from his past life crashed over him, cold and disorienting, and a wave of terror made the ground seem unsteady beneath his feet.
The Dark Mark had appeared on the night of the Quidditch World Cup — he had known this. But in his previous life he had only glimpsed it distantly from the tree line. He hadn't known, then, what it truly meant. He had thought it looked, in some terrible way, impressive.
Now the experience was altogether different. Especially with the very real possibility of a Death Eater somewhere nearby.
He forced down the fear and moved quickly to position himself in front of the rock where Hermione sat. He raised his wand, his grip tight, its tip trained on the dark thicket from which the spell had been cast — watching for movement, for another curse, for any sign of a Death Eater breaking from the shadows.
But the enormous light rising from the skull slowly confirmed what he'd suspected: the place was empty now. Whoever had cast it was gone.
"What was that?" Ron stared upward, pointing at the sky, his voice caught somewhere between wonder and alarm.
"What's happening?" Harry asked, completely at a loss.
"That's the Dark Mark — the Dark Lord's symbol! I read about it in The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts!" Hermione said, her face pale. She pushed herself up from the rock and hopped twice on one foot, catching Draco's sleeve. "It's not safe here. We need to go."
"Yes. Now." Draco was already moving. He had barely finished speaking when roughly twenty wizards dropped from the sky and surrounded them. Wands were raised —
"Get down!" Draco shouted. Without pausing to check on Harry and Ron, he grabbed Hermione and pulled her hard to the ground.
He turned as he fell, taking the impact on his own back, then rolled, positioning himself over her on the grass.
It was over in a heartbeat — instinct, not calculation.
"Stupefy!" About twenty voices rang out simultaneously, half a second later.
Hermione's breath stopped.
Everything had happened too fast. Before she could form a coherent thought, Draco had pulled her down and wrapped his arms tightly around her.
The world spun.
She found herself on the cool grass, held fast against him. Above his cedar-scented shoulder, she watched a blaze of red light streak through the air.
Stunners crisscrossed above them, struck tree trunks, and scattered back into the dark — blazing, furious, close enough to feel as heat.
She couldn't imagine what would have happened if Draco hadn't moved as quickly as he had. She might have been hit.
In a sense, she had been hit — she'd been hit hard by him.
By the flickering red light and the cold moonlight falling through the canopy, she could see a loose strand of hair across his furrowed brow. She could hear his breathing — hard and fast — and see that the colour had left his face entirely.
His expression was not its usual composed mask. But the set of his jaw was resolute.
Neither of them moved until the last incantation died away. Her hands gripped the back of his shirt, trembling. His hand was braced beneath the back of her head; the other was at her waist. He held the position carefully, despite a slight, involuntary shaking she could feel running through him.
She could feel that trembling. She could feel his heartbeat — rapid and hard, drumming through his shirt against her.
He was like a warm cedar-scented shield wrapped so tightly around her that every detail of him was vivid.
"Draco..." she said softly, as if saying his name might anchor her. The feeling came again — that deep, inescapable pull toward him, both frightening and entirely beyond her control.
What was she supposed to do with this? In the most terrifying moment she'd experienced, his arms had brought her the closest thing to peace she could imagine. She pressed herself into his arms, and he held on. This boy — who treated her like a sister — was the only safe place she could find in the chaos. With him here, neither the Stunners overhead nor the hard ground could reach her. He had shielded her with his own body. Again.
Why would he do that?
She called his name between uneven breaths and felt, somehow, even more helpless than before.
"I'm here... don't be frightened," he said, low and quick. He turned his head to check on her — and found her already turning toward him.
Their faces were very close. She saw his grey eyes — wide, and anxious, scanning her face as if afraid she might suddenly disappear. And she knew there was something in her own eyes that she couldn't quite name: something that had risen from her hammering heartbeat and worked its way all the way up.
In that moment, she found she could not look away. It was as if his gaze had caught something in her that could not be pulled free.
One second stretched. Their breath mingled in the narrow space between them.
If either of them had moved — just slightly — their lips would have touched. She parted hers, blinking in slow confusion, and felt the hand behind her head tighten.
Draco tilted his face, barely, involuntarily.
Inches apart. The faint, warm scent of her hair and the warmth of her breath against him — he was on the very edge of losing composure entirely.
The Dark Mark had nearly ceased to exist for him. There was only one thought in his mind: she was close, and if she were any closer —
"Stop!" Mr. Weasley's voice rang out from somewhere to the left, ragged with terror. "Stop — that's my son!"
The Ministry wizards lowered their wands and cautiously advanced.
Hermione came back to herself. She turned her head and saw Harry and Ron some distance away, helping each other to their feet and appearing, mercifully, uninjured.
The shout had cut through Draco like cold water. He closed his eyes briefly, then pulled back — away from her bright eyes, her cloud-soft cheek, her lips that had been nearly within reach.
He drew a breath, blinked, and stood. He pulled her carefully to her feet alongside him.
The Dark Mark blazing above the trees dragged him back to reality. The worry returned, and with it, the familiar weight of dread.
Draco knew what was coming next for him, specifically.
Sure enough, Barty Crouch strode forward, sharp-eyed, his gaze sweeping across the four of them. "Who did this? Who conjured the Dark Mark?"
"We didn't!" "We didn't do anything!" — Harry and Ron, furious and bewildered.
Hermione watched Ron glare at Mr. Weasley. "Why did you attack us?"
"Don't try to talk your way out of this!" Crouch said sharply, rounding on Harry and Ron — the only wizard among those present still pointing his wand directly. Then his protuberant eyes found their target, and his voice rose to an accusatory peak. "Aha! A Malfoy! I've found you at last! It was you — you conjured the Dark Mark!"
Hermione was utterly taken aback. Mr. Crouch's wand was practically pressing against Draco's face. Draco turned his head aside with cold deliberateness, clearly not intending to dignify the accusation with a response.
Mr. Weasley hesitated, clearly mindful of his long-standing difficulties with Lucius Malfoy. But he stepped forward. "He's just a boy —"
"Arthur, stay out of this —" Crouch didn't even glance at him, advancing on Draco.
Hermione's eyes went wide with disbelief.
"It wasn't him!" She stepped in front of Draco, clasping his hand firmly, and turned to face Mr. Crouch directly. "He did nothing. The only thing he did was shield me from your Stunners." She kept her voice even, though her eyes were burning. "Someone was behind those trees — we all heard a voice, then a spell."
"He was found at the scene!" Crouch's expression didn't shift. His gaze slid to Hermione at last, heavy with suspicion. "And you seem very well informed about how the Mark was cast, Miss —"
Hermione didn't flinch. She stood her ground in front of Draco, lips pressed together, her wand held down but not put away.
Harry, Ron, and even Mr. Weasley stood motionless, watching the standoff.
"Please, Barty — they're children!" A witch in a long woollen dressing gown, square-jawed and wearing a monocle, looked at Hermione with her thick eyebrows raised. "I know this girl. She's a classmate of my niece — and she's Muggle-born! She'd have no knowledge of such magic, and children of their age couldn't cast the Mark regardless!"
The other Ministry wizards seemed to share her view. Wands swung away from the four of them and pointed instead toward the thicket Hermione had indicated.
"Too late," the witch said, squinting through her monocle. "Whoever it was has Disapparated."
"I'm not so sure of that," said a red-faced wizard with a short brown beard, stepping forward. "Our Stunners passed directly through that thicket — we may well have hit someone..."
Draco recognised him as Amos Diggory — Cedric's father. He looked vigorous and capable, with no trace of the devastation that had broken him during the Triwizard Tournament in Draco's past life.
Mr. Diggory crossed the clearing, disappeared into the shadows, and emerged a moment later holding aloft a far more pitiful suspect: a house-elf.
"That's Winky — from the Crouch household," nearby wizards murmured to one another. "Top-floor suite at the stadium."
The accusation immediately ricocheted. Crouch's ferocious attention shifted away from Draco at last. He stared at Winky for a long moment, then went pale and pushed past into the bushes himself, as though searching for something else — or someone.
He returned empty-handed.
"She had a wand," Mr. Diggory said, holding it up for the assembled witches and wizards to see. "And this is the wand that cast the Dark Mark."
The moment Crouch's wand was no longer directed at Draco, Hermione released a slow breath. She turned to look at the boy behind her and gave him a quiet, reassuring smile.
His expression was pale and stricken as he stared back at her, his lips parting as though he meant to say something. She had just moved to close the small distance between them when Harry cried out — it was the very wand he had lost.
Amidst the heated debate that followed, the Ministry officials pieced together a fragmented picture: someone had stolen Harry's wand, used it to cast the Dark Mark, and discarded it into the undergrowth. Poor Winky had simply been in the wrong place, and had picked it up.