r?" he said.
Dimly, he could tell that something was wrong. The noises in the campsite had
changed. The singing had stopped. He could hear screams, and the sound of
people running. He slipped down from the bunk and reached for his clothes, but
Mr. Weasley, who had pulled on his jeans over his own pajamas, said, "No time,
Harry - just grab a jacket and get outside - quickly!"
Harry did as he was told and hurried out of the tent, Ron at his heels.
By the light of the few fires that were still burning, he could see people running
away into the woods, fleeing something that was moving across the field toward
them, something that was emitting odd flashes of light and noises like gunfire.
Loud jeering, roars of laughter, and drunken yells were drifting toward them; then
came a burst of strong green light, which illuminated the scene.
A crowd of wizards, tightly packed and moving together with wands pointing
straight upward, was marching slowly across the field. Harry squinted at them. . . .
They didn't seem to have faces. . . . Then he realized that their heads were hooded
and their faces masked. High above them, floating along in midair, four struggling
figures were being contorted into grotesque shapes. It was as though the masked
wizards on the ground were puppeteers, and the people above them were
marionettes operated by invisible strings that rose from the wands into the air.
Two of the figures were very small.
More wizards were joining the marching group, laughing and pointing up at the
floating bodies. Tents crumpled and fell as the marching crowd swelled. Once or
twice Harry saw one of the marchers blast a tent out of his way with his wand.
Several caught fire. The screaming grew louder.
The floating people were suddenly illuminated as they passed over a burning tent
and Harry recognized one of them: Mr. Roberts, the campsite manager. The other
three looked as though they might be his wife and children. One of the marchers
below flipped Mrs. Roberts upside down with his wand; her nightdress fell down
to reveal voluminous drawers and she struggled to cover herself up as the crowd
below her screeched and hooted with glee.
"That's sick," Ron muttered, watching the smallest Muggle child, who had begun
to spin like a top, sixty feet above the ground, his head flopping limply from side
to side. "That is really sick. . . ."
Hermione and Ginny came hurrying toward them, pulling coats over their
nightdresses, with Mr. Weasley right behind them. At the same moment, Bill,
Charlie, and Percy emerged from the boys' tent, fully dressed, with their sleeves
rolled up and their wands out.
"We're going to help the Ministry!" Mr. Weasley shouted over all the noise,
rolling up his own sleeves. "You lot - get into the woods, and stick together. I'll
come and fetch you when we've sorted this out!"
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Bill, Charlie, and Percy were already sprinting away toward the oncoming
marchers; Mr. Weasley tore after them. Ministry wizards were dashing from every
direction toward the source of the trouble. The crowd beneath the Roberts family
was coming ever closer.
"C'mon," said Fred, grabbing Ginny's hand and starting to pull her toward the
wood. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and George followed. They all looked back as they
reached the trees. The crowd beneath the Roberts family was larger than ever; they
could see the Ministry wizards trying to get through it to the hooded wizards in the
center, but they were having great difficulty. It looked as though they were scared
to perform any spell that might make the Roberts family fall.
The colored lanterns that had lit the path to the stadium had been extinguished.
Dark figures were blundering through the trees; children were crying; anxious
shouts and panicked voices were reverberating around them in the cold night air.
Harry felt himself being pushed hither and thither by people whose faces he could
not see. Then he heard Ron yell with pain.
"What happened?" said Hermione anxiously, stopping so abruptly that Harry
walked into her. "Ron, where are you? Oh this is stupid - lumos!"
She illuminated her wand and directed its narrow beam across the path. Ron was
lying sprawled on the ground.
"Tripped over a tree root," he said angrily, getting to his feet again.
"Well, with feet that size, hard not to," said a drawling voice from behind them.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione turned sharply. Draco Malfoy was standing alone
nearby, leaning against a tree, looking utterly relaxed. His arms folded, he seemed
to have been watching the scene at the campsite through a gap in the trees.
Ron told Malfoy to do something that Harry knew he would never have dared say
in front of Mrs. Weasley.
"Language, Weasley," said Malfoy, his pale eyes glittering. "Hadn't you better be
hurrying along, now? You wouldn't like her spotted, would you?"
He nodded at Hermione, and at the same moment, a blast like a bomb sounded
from the campsite, and a flash of green light momentarily lit the trees around
them.
"What's that supposed to mean?" said Hermione defiantly. "Granger, they're after
Muggles, "said Malfoy. "D'you want to be showing off your knickers in midair?
Because if you do, hang around. . . they're moving this way, and it would give us
all a laugh."
"Hermione's a witch," Harry snarled.
"Have it your own way, Potter," said Malfoy, grinning maliciously. "If you think
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they can't spot a Mudblood, stay where you are."
"You watch your mouth!" shouted Ron. Everybody present knew that "Mudblood"
was a very offensive term for a witch or wizard of Muggle parentage.
"Never mind, Ron," said Hermione quickly, seizing Ron's arm to restrain him as
he took a step toward Malfoy.
There came a bang from the other side of the trees that was louder than anything
they had heard. Several people nearby screamed. Malfoy chuckled softly.
"Scare easily, don't they?" he said lazily. "I suppose your daddy told you all to
hide? What's he up to - trying to rescue the Muggles?"
"Where're your parents?" said Harry, his temper rising. "Out there wearing masks,
are they?"
Malfoy turned his face to Harry, still smiling.
"Well. . . if they were, I wouldn't be likely to tell you, would I, Potter?"
"Oh come on," said Hermione, with a disgusted look at Malfoy, "let's go and find
the others."
"Keep that big bushy head down, Granger," sneered Malfoy.
"Come on," Hermione repeated, and she pulled Harry and Ron up the path again.
"I'll bet you anything his dad is one of that masked lot!" said Ron hotly.
"Well, with any luck, the Ministry will catch him!" said Hermione fervently. "Oh I
can't believe this. Where have the others got to?"
Fred, George, and Ginny were nowhere to be seen, though the path was packed
with plenty of other people, all looking nervously over their shoulders toward the
commotion back at the campsite. A huddle of teenagers in pajamas was arguing
vociferously a little way along the path. When they saw Harry, Ron, and
Hermione, a girl with thick curly hair turned and said quickly, "Oü est Madame
Maxime? Nous l'avons perdue -"
"Er - what?" said Ron.
"Oh. . ." The girl who had spoken turned her back on him, and as they walked on
they distinctly heard her say, "Ogwarts."
"Beauxbatons," muttered Hermione.
"Sorry?" said Harry.
"They must go to Beauxbatons," said Hermione. "You know... Beauxbatons
Academy of Magic. . . I read about it in An Appraisal ofMagical Education in
Europe."
80
"Oh. . . yeah. . . right," said Harry.
"Fred and George can't have gone that far," said Ron, pulling out his wand,
lighting it like Hermione's, and squinting up the path. Harry dug in the pockets of
his jacket for his own wand - but it wasn't there. The only thing he could find was
his Omnioculars.
"Ah, no, I don't believe it. . . I've lost my wand!"
"You're kidding!"
Ron and Hermione raised their wands high enough to spread the narrow beams of
light farther on the ground; Harry looked all around him, but his wand was
nowhere to be seen.
"Maybe it's back in the tent," said Ron.
"Maybe it fell out of your pocket when we were running?" Hermione suggested
anxiously.
"Yeah," said Harry, "maybe. .
He usually kept his wand with him at all times in the wizarding world, and finding
himself without it in the midst of a scene like this made him feel very vulnerable.
A rustling noise nearby made all three of them jump. Winky the house-elf was
fighting her way out of a clump of bushes nearby. She was moving in a most
peculiar fashion, apparently with great difficulty; it was as though someone
invisible were trying to hold her back.
"There is bad wizards about!" she squeaked distractedly as she leaned forward and
labored to keep running. "People high - high in the air! Winky is getting out of the
way!"
And she disappeared into the trees on the other side of the path, panting and
squeaking as she fought the force that was restraining her.
"What's up with her?" said Ron, looking curiously after Winky. "Why can't she
run properly?"
"Bet she didn't ask permission to hide," said Harry. He was thinking of Dobby:
Every time he had tried to do something the Malfoys wouldn't like, the house-elf
had been forced to start beating himself up.
"You know, house-elves get a very raw deal!" said Hermione indignantly. "It's
slavery, that's what it is! That Mr. Crouch made her go up to the top of the
stadium, and she was terrified, and he's got her bewitched so she can't even run
when they start trampling tents! Why doesn't anyone do something about it?"
"Well, the elves are happy, aren't they?" Ron said. "You heard old Winky back at
the match.. . 'House-elves is not supposed to have fun'. . . that's what she likes,
81
being bossed around. . . ."
"It's people like you, Ron," Hermione began hotly, "who prop up rotten and unjust
systems, just because they're too lazy to -"
Another loud bang echoed from the edge of the wood.
"Let's just keep moving, shall we?" 