Chapter Text
Harry was practically jumping out of his skin. It was the first real Quidditch game he’s ever seen, and it was on a whole other level than what they did at Hogwarts. All were riding firebolt grade brooms, all in perfect formations and exhibiting the highest skill in their field. It really made the games at Hogwarts look like what they were — child’s play.
He was somewhat disappointed it didn’t last longer. He really hoped to have days of Quidditch game to look forward to. Going to sleep and waking up during a game. Not that he would’ve gotten much sleep in that case.
Still, it was an empty feeling that filled his chest at the thought that now, they’d just return to the Burrow tomorrow. All the campsite would be gone like it never was, serving the magical community for only a few stolen hours.
At least, going back to the Burrow was much better than returning to the Dursleys.
Harry shifted again, away from a snoring Ron. He didn’t really get how Ron could sleep, Harry still couldn’t shake off the excitement of watching Krum catch the snitch. Harry wondered if he could pull such a faint off himself. Probably .
Because he wasn’t asleep, he could clearly hear the commotion outside.
At first Harry didn’t think much of it. People had been walking around the campsite all night, so he didn’t think much of a slightly rowdier group.
But then there was a scream.
Not a scream of excitement, but one of terror.
Then more screams followed.
“Ron,” Harry said, turning to shake Ron.
The redhead mumbled something and Harry shook him harder.
“Ron, something’s wrong!”
Ron woke up then, looking up at Harry in confusion until another scream sounded.
He bolted from his bed, him and Harry taking their shoes and cloaks and running outside the tent where the other Weasleys were converging, wearing cloaks over their pyjamas. The girls were just getting out of their own tent, looking around wildly.
Outside their tent it was pandemonium. Witches and wizards were running towards the forest screaming and shouting. Parts of the campgrounds were on fire. Faceless wizards wearing dark masks and hoods cast spells every which way, laughing and jeering. Others chased after them, trying to fight them off.
At that moment Bill, the tall and well-toned eldest Weasley brother, came back from around the neighboring tent to their somewhat hidden spot between their tents. His face was grim and pale.
“There’s an attack, people are shouting about Death Eaters,” he said, and Mrs. Weasley gasped, “we need to leave,”
“We need to help,” Mr. Weasley said, “Bill, Charlie, Percy, and I will go help, Molly—”
“I’ll watch the tent,” Mrs. Weasley interjected. “Merlin help us, Death Eaters…”
“Fred, George, take yourselves and the others to the forest and hide,” Mr. Weasley continued.
“It’ll be fine, mum,” Charlie said.
“Be careful, would you,” Mrs. Weasley urged.
“Of course, dear,” Mr. Weasley assured before leaving with his three oldest sons.
They were all silent for a moment. Harry looked over to Ron and Hermione in the ensuing silence, both as pale and shaky as he felt.
“Come on,” George said.
“We shouldn’t wait around,” Fred continued.
Harry hugged his cloak around himself tightly as he followed the Weasleys with Hermione. Ginny was sticking close to George’s side. Their group huddled close together as they made their way past the tents to avoid the spells flying everywhere.
Once they cleared out from the main tents area, Harry froze.
Across the field a group of the dark cloaked figures were jeering and laughing at a muggle family suspended in the air above their heads. The muggles were hanging upside down and the women’s nightdress fell over her head, showing her underpants.
Harry felt sick in his stomach, he felt a chill crawl over him.
“That’s sick,” he heard Ron say somewhere. And Harry couldn’t agree more. Couldn’t get his eyes to move away from the horrid display, even as Fred urged them to keep moving.
Someone ran into him then, knocking him down, almost making him stumble over Mr. Crouch’s house elf, who scurried away with a squeak.
“Sorry, I—” the other wizard stopped talking, “Potter?” he whispered.
He was a weedy boy of Harry’s age, tall and gaunt, with dark brown hair reaching his chin.
“Nott?” Harry said, recognising the Slytherin. He was in his year, and even took Care with him, not that Harry had ever had a conversation with him before.
Nott turned towards the laughing and jeering crowd and his face soured.
“We need to get to the forest, who are you here with?” Nott said.
“With—” Harry spun around, but couldn't see the Weasleys anywhere. They were lost among the crowd making their way to the forest. Sodding hell.
A stray curse flew their way and Harry ducked aside, pulling on Nott’s arm to drag him towards the forest. Even though Nott was taller, he came easily. Harry couldn’t help noting his wrist was almost as thin as Harry’s. One of the hooded wizards laughed after them, deep and hearty, like he was having fun , as he sent another curse towards them, singing the grass not far from where they had stood just a moment ago.
“They’re all mad,” Nott said, panting, “fucking mental,”
Harry laughed joylessly in surprise, he honestly didn’t expect Nott to be against attacks on muggles.
“Can’t argue with you there,” Harry said honestly.
They made it past the treeline and could see bright lights of spells flying every which way. People shouting and screaming scrambling to move away. Harry looked down to find a ravine concealed by the underbrush.
“There,” he hissed, pulling Nott down with him.
They were both silent, catching their breaths and listening to the mess around them.
Harry took the time to glance over at Nott. His fingers were white around the yellow handle of his wand , but his face showed no signs of stress, just seemed displeased and a little peaky. He was handsome, Harry noticed absently, and would probably be more so if he filled up a bit. He, too, was wearing a dark cloak and a haphazardly buttoned gray robe covering silver and blue pyjamas.
Why would a pure-blood Slytherin not get enough food?
“Bill Weasley called them Death Eaters,” Harry whispered.
“I think they are,” Nott said, his voice sounded blank, like he didn’t know what emotion to voice, so he chose none.
“What are those?”
Nott turned to him in surprise, his eyes wide.
“You don’t know?”
“I wasn’t really raised in the wizarding world,” Harry hissed.
“You we—” Nott stopped himself, shaking his head, “they were the Dark Lord’s followers in the last war,”
“Oh,”
Oh . This was so much worse than just some sick blood purists. They were the sick blood purists.
Harry and Nott were silent for a moment longer.
“What did you mean by—” Harry shushed Nott mid sentence as he heard footsteps approaching. They were light, slow and measured, not like the people who have been running by until now.
Harry peeked out from the ravine to see a wizard in a tattered dark cloak, his only distinguishable features being long, unkempt blond hair. Nott joined him to look as the wizard raised a wand high — Harry’s wand — it was the same fine white grained wand Harry knew as an extension of himself. A quick search though his pockets, showed that, indeed, he didn’t have his wand on him.
Harry barely had time to panic before the wizard cast a spell.
“ Morsmordre ,” he said quietly, and quickly, like he didn’t wish to be heard.
Harry's wand shot green light into the sky, creating a skull with a snake coming out of its mouth made of green smoke.
Nott gasped next to him and the screams in the forest got louder and closer.
The wizard then dropped Harry’s wand and ran off farther into the woods. Harry needed his wand back, but he was still not sure how good of an idea it’d be to leave his hiding spot. Not as more footsteps came closer.
His wand twitched, and as Harry instinctively reached his hand towards it, his wand happily leaped into his hand.
Next to him, Nott was looking at him with an expression Harry didn’t know how to read.
“It’s my wand, he stole it,” Harry explained.
Nott shook his head and opened his mouth, then seemed to regret it, shaking his head again.
“He cast the Dark Lord’s mark,” he explained, “we can’t be found here,”
Harry wanted to ask Nott more. How could he seemingly despise the Death Eaters and still revere Voldemort with the same title his followers use for him?
Harry wholeheartedly agreed with the latter statement, though. He could ask more later.
They walked slowly down the ravine and farther into the woods. Leaves cracked under their feet and the sounds of exclamation sounded somewhere behind them, angry and accusing — like an argument. Some of the voices were distantly familiar while others weren’t. It didn’t sound like spells were still flying around at least.
Nott grabbed Harry’s shoulder, stopping him in his tracks.
“You can’t be found out to have the Dark Mark cast with your wand,” he said.
“Wait, there's a way to show which spells a wand cast?”
Nott nodded solemnly.
“And is there a way to delete it?”
“ Deletrius ,” Nott cast over Harry’s wand. “That should do it,”
Harry nodded, smiling at Nott.
“Thanks,”
Nott nodded back, blank expression still in place.
Then a thought crossed his mind, one he ignored all night.
“Wait, what about the trace, wouldn’t—?” he asked, pointing at Nott’s wand.
Nott shook his head.
“The trace can only tell the time and approximate location a spell was cast, since there are so many adult wizards here, no one could tell if an underage wizard cast anything,”
That… sounded as useless as the ministry was, honestly. It also explained why Dobby could get Harry in trouble before second year. It also meant that Harry could, hypothetically, cast freely at the Burrow.
“How do you know that?”
Nott looked away.
“Just something I picked up,”
They remained silent for another moment. The distant augment coming closer to them.
“Should you look for your parents?” Harry asked.
Nott frowned.
“I don’t mind staying away for a bit longer,” he said, “my father won’t worry. Do you need to find… whoever you’re here with?”
Harry smiled at Nott’s hesitance over his words, the phrasing was, well, considerate . Not something Harry expected from anyone rooming with Malfoy. But at the back of his mind, Nott’s words struck him as familiar. Relatives that won’t worry about him, his thin form, his mask of indifference — it painted a picture Harry was all too familiar with.
“Probably,” Harry said instead, “Mrs. Weasley is likely to be livid if she finds out the twins lost me,”
Nott’s lips ticked upwards in something Harry would almost call a smile.
“Who cast the mark?” a familiar voice asked, closer, looking back, Harry saw Minister Cornelius Fudge speaking to another man, tall, with gray hair parted neatly, Bartemius Crouch, Percy’s boss.
“It's likely a prank,” the man said.
“A prank?” Mr. Weasley asked, coming over, “that’s too far for a prank,”
“Come off it, Arthur,” Fudge said, “it could be some youth messing around, it’s not like anyone was hurt,”
“So what was the group over there?” Bill asked, crossing his arms.
“They will be investigated, of course,” Fudge said, looking around the small forest clearing.
Harry glanced over to Nott, who shook his head. He pointed left and the two moved farther away to not emerge from hiding where the mark was cast.
“Fudge is full of shit, it’s no prank,” Harry whispered.
Nott’s lips ticked upward again.
“That isn’t new, Crouch isn’t much better,”
Harry had to agree. The guy had his poor elf save a seat for him the whole game and he didn’t even attend for a single second.
“And the Dark Mark can’t be cast by someone who isn’t a Death Eater,” Nott added quietly.
“Why?”
“Because it's not a regular spell,” Nott answered.
Harry wanted to ask more, but a man approached them. He was tall, gaunt and pale. He looked like an older Nott with the same dark hair and pale skin, but his face was even more severe. He wore a dark cloak and robes — not pyjamas like everyone else. He walked slowly, looking around dispassionately at the ministry people still running around with no clear aim to their actions. His measured steps seemed to imply he knew exactly where they were.
Nott left their hiding spot and Harry followed him, instinct urging him to not let Nott face the wizard, who Harry assumed was his father, alone.
The older wizard’s cold eyes turned to Harry and Nott then. Nott was frozen in his place, his face had the same unimpressed expression his father’s did, but his knuckles were white over his wand hilt.
“Theodore,” Mr. Nott said, walking towards them, he glanced at Harry, his brows furrowed until his eyes landed on Harry’s forehead, “Mr. Potter,” he said, and his expression didn’t change, but his tone was drawn out — mocking.
Harry tightened his fists.
“Mr. Nott, I presume,” Harry said.
Mr. Nott’s eye twitched. Nott next to Harry somehow tensed even further.
“It’s unbefitting of a child to speak with such familiarity to your elders,” Mr. Nott responded.
Harry shrugged.
“If you say so,”
Mr. Nott glared at him icily and Harry glared back, holding his gaze.
“Father,” Nott said, clearing his throat and stepping forward, ending Harry and Mr. Nott’s staring contest, “are we leaving?”
“Yes,” Mr. Nott said, his glare turning to his son, “I didn’t think you were friendly with Mr. Potter,”
“I’m not,”
Harry glanced at Nott junior again, back rigid, eyes not straying away from his father but not looking him in the eyes either. Too familiar .
Like Mr. Nott was a threat.
Said threat nodded.
“Come along then, Theodore,” he said, turning and striding away, not waiting for his son.
“Yes, father,” Nott said in a resigned tone Harry knew well, “yes, Uncle Vernon,”
Nott glanced back at Harry for a moment before walking after his father.
“See you at school,” Harry called after him.
Nott froze for half a second before he kept walking after his father. He made no other move to show that he heard Harry at all. Honestly, Harry wasn’t sure what made him say it, but it felt right. He was almost convinced Theodore Nott lived in a way not dissimilar to how Harry lived at the Dursleys. He always thought he was the only one whose family hated him at Hogwarts, but it seems he wasn’t. That Nott was like that too.
And Nott didn’t seem like he agreed with the attacking wizards, even if his father might be one of them. Neither did he ever make fun of Harry and his friends the way Malfoy and his cronies often did.
“Harry!”
Harry turned to see Bill walking towards him, glancing around.
“What are you doing here, I thought you were supposed to be with Fred and George?” Bill asked, followed quickly by, “are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Harry said, smiling, “I got separated from everyone in the chaos,”
Bill nodded, apparently Harry’s smile was believable enough.
“Let’s find everyone else,”
Harry had no argument with that.
---
They found the rest of the Weasleys and Hermione right outside the forest. They all looked pale and rattled, but otherwise unharmed.
Mrs. Weasley was shouting at Fred and George.
“How could you lose him?!” she shouted, “You-Know-Who’s mark in the sky and you lost Harry, how—!?”
“Harry!” Ron called once he saw him, pointing at his direction.
Mrs. Weasley spun around to where Ron was pointing and rushed over, grabbing Harry’s shoulders and looking him over.
“Are you hurt at all? Where were you?”
“I was hiding in the forest until I heard Bill and Mr. Weasley,” Harry said, “I got separated from everyone, but I’m fine,”
“Oh, thank Merlin,” Mrs. Weasley breathed out, squeezing Harry in a tight hug.
Mr. Weasley and Charlie walked out toward them from the forest.
“They’ll set up portkeys for everyone to take home early next morning,” Mr. Weasley said, “for now the aurors are patrolling the grounds and its safe to return to the tents,”
“What will happen to the muggles?” Harry asked, the image of the dangling, screaming muggles made his stomach squirm. He was glad he had no food in him to throw up.
Mr. Weasley looked at him with a little surprise.
“You saw it?”
“It was hard not to,” Ron said in disgust.
“Well,” Mr. Weasley cleared his throat, “They’ll likely obliviate them and send them back to their lives,”
Harry frowned. Somehow he was expecting something else. He shook his head, there was no reason to expect something else. He didn’t even know what else could be done for them.
Harry nodded.
As they walked back to the tent, he, Ron and Hermione trailed behind the rest of the Weasleys. Ginny kept glancing back at them, but made no move to join them.
“What actually happened?” Ron asked, “did you see the—” he pointed upwards, indicating the Dark Mark.
“What even was that?” Hermione asked.
“It was the Dark Mark,” Harry said, even if he only learned of it too.
Hermione gasped.
“ Recent History of Magical Britain said You-Know-Who and his followers left a mark over where they killed, was that it?”
“I think so,” Ron said, “never saw it before though,”
Harry nodded. Nott did say it wasn’t a regular spell, whatever that meant. And it’s not like Voldemort’s followers had been active in the past few years. Until now. Trewlany did say the dark lord would rise last year, didn’t she… and with Harry’s dream…
Harry shook his head.
“So they really were You-Know-Who’s followers then,” Hermione said, her voice shaking a little.
Ron nodded somberly.
Harry wanted to tell them he saw the wizard that cast it. He wanted to tell them about Nott, too, that he found another wizard like him . Who knew what it was like to live with people who hated you.
But he couldn’t with the other Weasleys so close. With Nott’s father being one of these Death Eaters, and Nott himself being a Slytherin it would just make everyone more worried.
Harry knew that if he told Hermione he had seen the wizard who cast the mark, she’d demand he tell someone. Harry was reluctant to do so, after all, it was cast with his wand. It’s not like he knew who the wizard was anyway, it wouldn’t help him be apprehended, just get Harry unwanted attention.
Hermione turned to Harry again.
“They didn’t see you did they?” she asked.
Harry shook his head.
“No, nothing much happened,” Harry answered, “I got knocked down by someone and lost you, so I ran into the woods and hid there until Bill came to find me,”
Ron and Hermione looked relieved. Maybe he’d tell Sirius about all of this, he was likely to know more. Maybe he could tell Ron and Hermione when they were alone, where he could ask them to keep quiet.
But later.
“Well, we ran into Malfoy who was being a git like usual,” Ron informed him, “he was also running into the forest, threatening Hermione…”
Harry let himself float along with the Weasleys, and get angry at Malfoy on Hermione’s behalf, but at the back of his mind, he could only think about Nott’s expression when speaking to his father. About how he said ‘yes, father,’.
---
Once they were back at their tents for the rest of the night, Harry still couldn’t find sleep. Or maybe sleep couldn’t find him.
Ron snored like nothing happened in his bed, but Harry couldn’t see himself falling asleep tonight. First, the Quidditch game and then the attack… and Nott and the Dark Mark…
His mind was just too restless.
He wished he could talk to someone about it. Sirius was far away and he still hadn’t heard from him over his concerning dream about Voldemort. His concerns about Voldemrot just kept piling up.
“Ron?” Harry whispered, hoping to be able to talk to run alone, that everyone was asleep and out of earshot.
Ron groaned.
“Are Death Eaters attacking again?” he asked, still half-asleep.
Harry couldn’t help the breathless laughter that escaped him.
“No,” he confessed, “but I didn’t tell you everything about the attack,”
Ron rolled over to look at Harry on the cot next to his bed. He rubbed the sleep away from his eyes as he waited for Harry to speak.
Harry swallowed.
“When I was separated I lost my wand,” he said, “and I saw the wizard who cast the mark, he used my wand,”
“Bloody hell, but then—?!”
Harry shook his head, shushing Ron so he’d quiet down.
“I also ran into Theodore Nott, you know?”
Ron nodded.
“Well, he cast a spell to delete my wand history so no one would know,”
“That’s…” Ron said slowly, “nice of him,”
Harry breathed a silent laugh.
“You don’t have to sound so suspicious,” he whispered to Ron, “he was running away like I was. And he didn’t seem to approve of the attackers,”
“That’s interesting,”
“Why?”
“Last I heard his father was one of You-Know-Who’s followers,” Ron said quietly, “he got off like Malfoy’s dad, claimed to have been forced into service,”
Harry found that doubtful. He would bet quite a few galleons from his trust vault that Malfoy’s dad was among the attacking wizards, just like Nott’s father.
“Well, he seems more decent than Malfoy,” Harry said.
“Not a high bar,” Ron murmured, “but—”
“Don’t worry,” Harry assured him, “it’s not like I plan on telling him anything that could be used against me,”
Although Harry had the distinct sense Nott wouldn’t use anything he told him against him. He wasn't sure what gave him this feeling, but he just knew it, deep down. Maybe it was because he knew Nott would understand Harry, understand his childhood, in a way Ron and Hermione just couldn’t. Or, at least, he hoped he would.
“It’s mad, isn’t it,” Ron sighed, rolling over to his back, “Death Eaters and You-Know-Who,”
“Yeah, I don’t know how you can sleep,”
“Not sure how you could sleep now, mate,” Ron said, “that someone stole your wand in the middle of all of this…”
Harry laughed.
“I don’t think I got a wink tonight at all,”
Ron laughed quietly too.
“Up for a game of wizard chess?”
“Sure,” Harry said. He’d rather lose at chess than try to dream tonight.
---
The day after Ron and Harry were groggy as they hadn't gone back to sleep at all. It wasn’t too different from the other Weasleys though, who all got little to no sleep. They looked like a horde of redheaded undead packing up their tent and heading back to the Burrow via another portkey.
As they passed Mr. Robert, the muggle who owned the land, he looked a little off. Mr. Weasley assured Harry that it’s a temporary result of memory modification and that Mr. Robert and his family would be fine.
Harry wasn’t sure he believed him.
Back at the Burrow, there was still no response from Sirius, and therefore no chance Harry could write to him about his ever piling concerns. The prophet was quick to publish an article about last night, though they condemned the ministry’s lax security that allowed the attack to happen at all. The article went further into the effects it would have on Magical Britain's international image and the rumors about deaths that didn’t happen.
Ron, Hermione and Harry quickly excused themselves from the breakfast table to hole up in Ron’s room. Where Harry filled Ron and Hermione in on the dream about Voldemort and how he wrote about it to Sirius. Hermione still thought he should tell Dumbledore, but he convinced her they’d wait and see if he has another dream like it.
Not that he really wanted to bother Dumbledore with any of this.
He also told Hermione everything he had told Ron last night.
“I don’t get it,” Hermione said, “why would Nott help you?”
“Maybe he’s hoping Harry would return the favor at some point,” Ron offered.
“What kind of favor would he even want?” Harry asked, because he couldn't very well explain that he didn’t think Nott would ever come to ask for that favor. He didn’t think Ron and Hermione would consider his gut feeling good enough evidence.
“Don’t know,” Ron said with a shrug.
“You should be careful though, Harry,” Hermione said, “I don’t like it that someone like him knows anything you don’t want found out,”
“I’ll be careful,” Harry said. Not that it ever really helped him.
He didn’t ask for trouble to come his way. At least, he usually didn’t. Not that he thought there was anything to be careful about. At least not from Nott.
Harry was more concerned with the blond wizard who cast the Dark Mark and the dream that set his scar aflame with pain. A dream that was too real to be just a dream. That dream along with this attack and Trewlany’s words from last year: “ The Dark Lord will rise again with his servant's aid, greater and more terrible than ever he was,”
Harry felt a chill running through him even though the late August sun was as warm as ever outside Ron’s bedroom window.