Chapter 37

“PROTEGO!”

A shimmering blue dome formed around the four, the red jetted spells thrown their way bouncing off and into the nearby tree trunks or missing them completely and just flying off into the darkness. She was panting as the protection spell dropped, the Ministry personal around her stunned into silence.

“Stop!” shouted a voice Atlas knew to be Mr Weasley, “STOP! That’s my son!”

Atlas let out a groan and tucked her wand back into her pocket. Now she was sure to be put back on the underaged wizards’ list, she’d raised her wand at Ministry officials.

“Ron – Harry–” Arthur began as the three got up from the floor and Atlas recomposed herself, “–Hermione – Atlas, are you alright?”

“Fine…” Atlas waved off and let out a grunt when Hermione rushed to hug her, her entire body shaking. “I got a bit lost…”

“Idiot…”

“Out of the way, Arthur,” ordered a cold and curt voice. Atlas recognised him as Barty Crouch and groaned even more. Not only had she raised her wand at Ministry officials, she’d raised her wand at a Head of Department. “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!” Harry said, gesturing up at the skull as Atlas rubbed up and down Hermione’s arm reassuringly.

“We didn’t do anything!” Ron continued, rubbing his elbow and looking indignantly at his father. “What did you want to attack us for?”

“Do not lie, sir!” Crouch cried. 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!”

“Hold on, Barty!” A voice tried and moved forward into the light illuminating from the few wands still up in the air. It was Amos Diggory. Atlas let out an audible sigh of relief, “Atlas, my girl! What are you doing out here!?”

“Mr Diggory, sir, I was running through the woods, trying to find Harry, Ron and Hermione. I’m sorry I raised my wand at you, I just didn’t want my friends to get hit by so many stunners,” she sighed and he clapped her shoulder assuringly.

“Not to worry, that was quite an impressive Protection Charm, fighting off twenty of us at once,” he complimented to ease her nerves. It worked and she visibly eased up, smiling slightly. “Now, you three–” he directed his attention to the teens behind Atlas, “Where did the Mark come from?”

“Over there,” Hermione voiced shakily and Atlas slid her hand down the length of Hermione’s arm to hold her hand as she used her other to point through the trees. “There was someone behind the trees…they shouted words – an incantation -“

“Oh, stood over there, did they?” Crouch jeered, turning his popping eyes on Hermione now, disbelief etched all over his face. “Said an incantation, did they? You seem very well informed about how that Mark is summoned, missy -“

Most weren’t even listening to Crouch anymore, every wand pointed in the direction Hermione had pointed. “We’re too late,” a witch in a woollen dressing gown said, shaking her head. “They’ll have Disapparated.”

“I don’t think so,” Amos disagreed, stroking his stubble thoughtfully. “Our Stunners went right through those trees…There’s a good chance we got them…”

“Be careful, Mr Diggory,” Atlas warned, watching with furrowed brows as her best friends father wandered off into the darkness in the direction of a potential Deatheater.

A few seconds later, a shout erupted from within the shadows. “Yes! We got them! There’s someone here! Unconscious! It’s – but – blimey…”

“You’ve got someone?” Crouch shouted, sounding highly disbelieving. “Who? Who is it?”

They 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. It was a house-elf, one Atlas had never seen. She watched in silence as Mr Diggory placed the elf in what looked to be a tea-towel at Crouch’s feet, the man quite pale.

“This – cannot – be,” he said jerkily. “No -“

In denial, Crouch moved swiftly around Amos and back to where Hermione had pointed. Atlas moved forward to kneel and pull the elf onto its back, placing her ear against its much smaller frame to see if it was still alive. She really did hope so, while elves were actually quite adept in the ways of wandless magic, their bodies were considerably fragile and if the little elf had been hit with more than two stunners, Atlas was afraid it might not wake up.

“No point, Mr Crouch,” Amos called after him as the man rustled through the fallen leaves and pushed the bushes aside to see if anyone was hiding behind them, searching. “There’s no one else there Mr Crouch.”

“Bit embarrassing,” Mr Diggory muttered grimly and Atlas looked up to him to see he was staring down at the elf. “Barty Crouch’s house-elf…I mean to say…”

“Oh sir, you don’t really think — er –“

“Winky…” Harry whispered and Atlas smiled thankfully toward him.

“You don’t really think Winky here conjured the Dark Mark. It’s a wizards sign, sir, requires a wand to cast,” she told and Amos nodded gravely.

“Yeah, and she had a wand.”

“What?” Mr Weasley asked breathlessly.

“Here, look.” Amos held up a wand and showed it to Mr Weasley. “Had it in her hand. So that’s clause three of the Code of Wand Use broken, for a start. No non-human creature is permitted to carry or use a wand.”

It looked familiar to Atlas and so she squinted her eyes to get a better look, “Hey…isn’t that–“

Just then there was another pop and Ludo Bagman Apparated right next to Mr Weasley. Looking breathless and disorientated, he spun on the spot, staring pale-faced up at the green skull in the sky, no longer looking boyish and rosy.

“The Dark Mark!” he panted, almost trampling Winky as he turned inquiringly to his colleagues, Atlas had to quickly manoeuvre the elf out of the way, bumping into Hermione’s legs. “Who did it? Did you get them? What’s going on?”

“Are you alright?” Hermione asked shakily as she too crouched down to look over Winky. Atlas nodded with a barely disguised grimace, her arm was starting to hurt.

“Where have you been, Barty?” Ludo asked and Atlas turned to see Barty had returned from his search empty-handed and ghostly-looking. “Why weren’t you at the match? Your elf was saving you a seat too – gulping gargoyles!” he’d just noticed Atlas crouched down beside Winky. “What happened to her, Atlas?”

“I have been busy, Ludo,” Crouch told with a hardly held quiver to his voice. “And my elf has been stunned.”

“Stunned? By you lot, you mean? But why -?” Comprehension dawned suddenly on Ludo’s round, shiny face; he looked up at the skull, down at Atlas and Winky, and then at Mr Crouch. “No!” he said. “Winky? Conjure the Dark Mark? She wouldn’t know how! She’d need a wand, for a start!”

“And she had one,” Amos interrupted, “I found her holding one, Ludo. If it’s all right with you, Mr Crouch, I think we should hear what she’s got to say for herself.”

Crouch gave no reply so Amos did it anyway, pointing his wand down at Winky, “Ennervate!“

Winky stirred feebly. Her great brown eyes opened and she blinked several times in a stricken sort of way, staring straight into Atlas’s own brown eyes. Watched by the silent wizards, she raised herself shakily into a sitting position, Atlas helping her the entire way.

The little elf reminded her of Fobbo when she’d first found him, scared, unsure and claiming to be obliviated. He’d said he knew nothing of his past, not a thing, the only reason Atlas had known his name was because when she’d found him in the Forbidden Forest, he’d had a name tag around his neck. Suddenly, Winky broke out into terrified sobs and clutched onto Atlas’s shirt, looking around wildly like a frightened animal.

“Elf!” Amos said sternly. “Do you know who I am? I’m a member of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures!”

Winky began to rock backwards and forward in Atlas’s lap, her breath coming in sharp bursts. “How about I try, Mr Diggory. She’s clearly quite frightened–“

“And she should be!” Amos said coldly, “the Dark Mark was conjured a short while ago and she was discovered moments later, right beneath it! An explanation, if you please!”

“I – I – I is not doing it, sir!” Winky gasped. “I is not knowing how, sir!”

“You were found with a wand in your hand!” Mr Diggory continued, brandishing it in front of her. And as the wand caught the green light that was filling the clearing from the skull above, Atlas recognised it. It was Harry’s.

“Hey – that’s mine!”

Everyone in the clearing turned to look at Harry.

“Excuse me?” Mr Diggory said, incredulously.

“That’s my wand!” Harry pressed. “I dropped it!”

“You dropped it?” Amos repeated disbelievingly. “Is this a confession? You threw it aside after you conjured the Mark?”

“Amos, think who you’re talking to!” Mr Weasley said, very angrily. “Is Harry Potter likely to conjure the Dark Mark?”

“Er – of course not,” Amos mumbled and Atlas let out an exasperated sigh. “Sorry…carried away…”

“I didn’t drop it there, anyway,” Harry said, jerking his thumb toward the trees beneath the skull. “I missed it right after we got into the wood.”

“So,” Amos began but Atlas swiftly shut him down.

“Winky,” She started as kindly as she could, Amos made a noise of offence in the back of his throat, clearly not liking the fact he’d been interrupted, even if it was by a family friend. “Did you do anything with Harry’s wand?”

“I is not doing magic with it, miss!” Winky squealed, tears streaming down the sides of her squashed and bulbous nose. “I is…I is…I is just picking it up, miss! I is not making the Dark Mark, miss, I is not knowing how!”

“It wasn’t her!” Hermione urged. She looked very nervous, speaking up in front of all these Ministry wizards, yet determined all the same. A blossom of respect bloomed in Atlas’s heart because of this as she stared up at Hermione’s convinced face. “Winky’s got a squeaky little voice, and the voice we heard doing the incantation was much deeper!” She looked around at Harry and Ron, appealing for their support. “It didn’t sound anything like Winky, did it?”

“No,” Harry said, shaking his head. “It definitely didn’t sound like an elf.”

“Yeah, it was a human voice,” Ron agreed.

“Well, we’ll soon see,” Amos growled, looking unimpressed. “There’s a simple way of discovering the last spell a wand performed, elf, did you know that?”

Winky trembled and shook her head frantically, her ears flapping, as Mr Diggory raised his own wand again and placed it tip to tip with Harry’s. Atlas tried her best to calm the little elf down, she could hear her heart pounding from where she sat.

“Prior Incantato!” Mr Diggory yelled.

A gigantic serpent-tongued skull erupted from the point where the two wands met, but it was a mere shadow of the green skull high above them; it looked as though it were made of thick grey smoke: the ghost of a spell.

“Deletrius!” Amos finished, the mirage diffusing into the air as he turned to look down on Winky with something like savage triumph, Atlas furrowed her brows up at him, looking disapproving. “So?”

“That doesn’t mean anything, sir,” Atlas implored, standing up and shielding Winky from view as she stared into his eyes, pleadingly. “Winky, could you please tell me where you found the wand?”

“I – I is finding it…finding it there, miss…” she whispered, “there…in the trees, miss.”

“You see, Mr Diggory?” Atlas tried, crossing her arms, “Anyone could have used Harry’s wand and cast it aside, Disapparating before anyone could find them. Winky here was only in the wrong place at the wrong time…” she finished, placing her hand on the head of the elf who seemed to flinch as if she were about to be struck.

“Precisely as she says, Amos,” Mr Weasley agreed, walking forward and clapping a hand over her shoulder. His encouragement of the claim seemed to work as some of the wizards surrounding them muttered amongst themselves. “A clever thing to do, not using their own wand, which could have betrayed them and come on, Amos. Think about it…precious few wizards know how to do that spell…Where would she have learned it?”

“Perhaps Amos is suggesting,” Crouch gritted, burning cold anger in every syllable, “that I routinely teach my servants to conjure the Dark Mark?”

There was a deeply unpleasant silence. Amos looked horrified. “Mr Crouch…not…not at all.”

“You have now come very close to accusing the two people in this clearing who are least likely to conjure that Mark!” Crouch barked. “Harry Potter – and myself. I suppose you are familiar with the boy’s story, Amos?”

“Of course – everyone knows -” Amos muttered, looking incredibly uncomfortable. Atlas grimaced, this was not how she’d wanted it to go.

“And I trust you remember the many proofs I have given, over a long career, that I despise and detest the Dark Arts and those who practice them?” Crouch shouted, his eyes bulging again.

“Mr Crouch, I – I never suggested you had anything to do with it!” Amos muttered again, now reddening behind his scrubby brown beard.

“If you accuse my elf, you accuse me, Diggory!” Crouch shouted and a heavy silence blanketed them, no one daring to make a sound, not even Ludo, the usual instigator of all chats Atlas had ever witnessed him engaging in.

So, to draw the tension away from the two feuding adults, she crouched down in front of Winky again, taking the little elf’s hands in hers and smiling, “Winky, did you see anyone out there with you? The real culprit?”

Trembling worse than ever, Winky’s eyes darted from Amos, to Ludo and onto Crouch, before finally settling back to Atlas, “I is seeing no one, kind miss…no one…”

“Alright…” Atlas smiled, placing a hand on her bald head and standing up again, swaying on her feet. Harry rushed over and held her steady, his hand quickly finding itself coated in the blood seeping down her arm. He went wide-eyed and looked up at her fearfully. “Just a scratch.”

“Amos,” Crouch said curtly, “I am fully aware that, in the ordinary course of events, you would want to take Winky into your department for questioning. I ask you, however, to allow me to deal with her. You may rest assured that she will be punished,” he added coldly.

“M-m-master…” Winky stammered, looking up at Mr Crouch, her eyes brimming with tears. “M-m-master, p-p-please…”

Mr Crouch stared back, his face somehow sharpened, each line upon it more deeply etched. There was no pity in his gaze.

“Winky has behaved tonight in a manner I would not have believed possible,” he said slowly. “I told her to remain in the tent. I told her to stay there while I went to sort out the trouble. And I find that she disobeyed me. This means clothes.”

“No!” Winky shrieked, prostrating herself at Crouch’s feet. Atlas startled at this and stretched out her hand to comfort the elf only to be held back by Mr Weasley, the man stood with a sorry look on his face. “No, master! Not clothes, not clothes!”

Clothes were presented to an elf if they were to be discharged, left to run free and most – those who had been conditioned to accept the lives of slaves – would protest to it. Like Winky who had begun sobbing into the ground.

“But she was frightened!” Hermione suddenly burst. “Your elf’s scared of heights, and those wizards in masks were levitating people! You can’t blame her for wanting to get out of their way!”

“I have no use for a house-elf who disobeys me,” he said coldly, looking over at Hermione. “I have no use for a servant who forgets what is due to her master, and to her master’s reputation.”

Sobbing echoed around the clearing, the only sound there was in the very nasty silence, which was ended by Mr Weasley, who muttered quietly, “Well, I think I’ll take my lot back to the tent, if nobody’s got any objections. Amos, that wand’s told us all it can – if Harry could have it back, please -“

Amos handed Harry his wand wordlessly and the boy took it, still holding onto Atlas who was now rewrapping the cloth she’d ripped from her shirt around the bloody gash.

“Come on, you four,” Mr Weasley ordered quietly but Hermione didn’t move, still staring upon the sobbing elf. Atlas moved forward and gently took her hand, pulling her away without any protest.

“What’s going to happen to Winky?” Hermione asked the moment they had left the clearing.

“I don’t know,” Mr Weasley muttered.

“The way they were treating her!” Hermione began furiously. “Mr Diggory, calling her ‘elf’ all the time…and Mr Crouch! He knows she didn’t do it and he’s still going to sack her! He didn’t care how frightened she’d been, or how upset she was – it was like she wasn’t even human!”

“Well, she’s not,” Ron shrugged and Atlas sent him a disgruntled look. Hermione rounded on him.

“That doesn’t mean she hasn’t got feelings, Ron. It’s disgusting the way –“

“Hermione, I agree with you,” Mr Weasley said quickly, beckoning her and Atlas on, “but now is not the time to discuss elf rights. I want to get back to the tent as fast as we can. What happened to the others?”

“We lost them in the dark,” said Ron. “Dad, why was everyone–?”

“Altas!?” Atlas turned to see Bella, soot smeared across her face, bounding over to her, a limp in her step and cut across her cheekbone. On instinct, Atlas ran over to her, abandoning the Weasley’s and gripping onto Bella’s shoulders, looking her over. “I was so worried! I didn’t know where you were and–!”

“What are you doing running around!? You have no magic! How could you ever hope to protect yourself from dozens of Deatheaters! You tell me I’m brain dead yet you hang around fields full of murderers! Do you not have any survival instincts in you!?” Atlas quick fired, noticing a shallow cut in the girls calve. “Merlin, did you try and fight them!?”

“No!” Bella shouted back. It was as if the roles were reversed. As if Atlas was the 25-year-old scolding her younger 14-year-old sister for being so reckless and not the other way around as it usually was. Granted, Atlas did have a rather large gash in her arm but that was irrelevant at the moment. “Of course I didn’t! And look at you! Your arm is covered in blood!”

“Is that really so surprising!?”

“What are you two bickering about?” It was Charlie, Bella turned to look up at him in exasperation, Atlas just grumbling with her head in her hands. “Bella! What happened to you!”

“The idiot was probably stumbling right past the Deatheaters the entire time,” Atlas muttered. “You know, I’ve never got that about you. You’re a rabble-rouser, an idiot and could probably rival Fred and George in the prankster department and yet you scold me for getting into trouble or accidentally hurting myself.”

“It’s called double-standards mixed with a little bit of hypocrisy you mutt,” Bella hissed, punching Atlas’s injury-free arm. “Merlin, Minerva’s going to want you home straight away but I have to stay with Charlie.”

“Why can’t she come with us?” Charlie asked as he guided them back over to the Weasley tent.

“Because, as I said, Minerva will want her back in Hogsmeade,” Bella sighed and Atlas frowned, unwrapping the binding around her arm and burning it to a crisp after muttering a spell under her breath and whisking her wand in its general direction. “She’s not supposed to be walking about too much either, recovering from her wounds and such. We’ll probably leave in a moment.”

“Well that’s a bit pants isn’t it?” He muttered, pulling back the entrance of the tent, halting the conversations inside, “I’ll get you another Henley, Atlas. They look good on you.”

“Thanks, Charlie,” Atlas smiled and moved to sit down, Bella plopping herself diagonally from her. “Roll up your pant leg Bella, Madam Pomfrey’s taught me a thing or two cause I’ve been through a thing or two.”

Bella obliged and Atlas pulled out her wand, murmuring a healing charm under her breath, the woman’s skin steadily stitching itself back together. She aimed the wand to the woman’s face now, whispering the same thing until not a scar remained. Charlie soon came back with another shirt and a damp towel, a bucket of water being set at her feet by Hermione.

“Come on, let me clean you up.”

“Like you did my broken nose, my first Quidditch match?” Atlas grinned and Hermione rolled her eyes.

“Yes, exactly like the time I wiped the blood away from your broken nose,” She huffed and Atlas rolled up her sleeve, revealing the gruesome gash in her arm. There was still a piece of wood stuck in the opening so Atlas gritted her teeth and pulled it out in a swift movement, the blood beginning to pour again, “Oh Jesus, Atlas! You could have been more gentle!”

“Sorry,” Atlas smiled sheepishly as Hermione repeated the spell Atlas had done on Bella’s wound, the squib herself sat staring at the two of them smugly. Hermione hadn’t noticed but Atlas sure had and had sent her a warning glare as a result. Warm dampness graced her healed skin and Atlas glanced down to see Hermione expertly cleaning the blood from her arm.

“So, are you excited to meet Mrs Weasley?”

“Oh, uh…Hermione, I’m not coming with you,” Atlas told quietly and Hermione blinked back her surprise, momentarily looking up at Atlas before resuming the cleaning.

“I see…when will you be leaving?”

“Probably when you’ve finished and I’ve put on a new shirt,” Atlas smiled and Hermione bit her lip in thought. “What is it?”

“You’ll be alone again, won’t you?”

“Don’t worry about that, I’ll be alright, being alone doesn’t bother me,” Atlas assured but when Hermione didn’t respond Atlas brung up her hand to pinch the girl’s cheek gently. “Why are you so glum, Mi?”

“You told me, during our first Herbology study session, you said…if you ever found yourself alone again, you didn’t think you’d like it anymore,” She muttered, tossing the blood ridden cloth back into the bucket and looking up at Atlas who was staring at her with a look Hermione would later decipher as purely adoring.

“I’ll be ok, Hermione,” Atlas reassured softly and placed a kiss on her forehead, caressing her cheek gently a moment before she stood and grabbed her new shirt. “I need to get changed and I suspect–” she glanced over at Bella who was glancing down at her watch habitually, “–I won’t be seeing you until the term starts once I leave this tent.”

“Ok. Take care, Atty.”

“I’ll see you, Mi,” Atlas smiled with a little wave and moved over to Harry and Ron, clapping the former on the shoulder, “I’m off…see you at school.”

“You’re not coming to the Burrow?” Harry asked.

“Nah, need to get home really. Tell your mum I adore her sweater, Ron,” Atlas smiled, nudging his shoulder with her fist. Ginny was already fast asleep and Mr Weasley was too busy conversing with Bill, Charlie and Percy so Atlas didn’t disturb them. Instead, turning to look over at Bella who was stood at the tent exit.

“We’ll get going then,” Bella muttered and Atlas nodded, taking off her shirt and walking out after Bella, the unnerving warmth of the air from the fires wafting at her bare body. She quickly pulled on her new shirt and turned to Bella.

“Let’s go.”