The Auror who interviewed him was a broad woman named Proudfoot with a Dicto-Quill and an expression that shifted a couple of times in ways she clearly hadn't intended.
"You took down 4 of them," she said, looking up from her notes.
"Only got 2 though," he grumbled.
"You're fourteen."
"Fourth year," Blake agreed.
She looked at him for a long moment. "We're going to need your wand for logging-"
"You can log it here," Blake said. "I'm not handing my wand over in a campsite full of Death Eaters."
Another pause. Then she nodded and did it there.
"Solid work tonight," she said, standing. "Seriously."
Blake nodded and looked back at Connor, and then someone nearby gasped, and he looked up.
In the sky, far away over the trees - green, cold, hanging there in the night sky, eclipsing all the other stars, was a skull, with a serpent curling from its mouth.
The Dark Mark.
Blake went still.
Every Auror in the vicinity turned toward it at once. Apparition cracks split the air in quick succession, Proudfoot included, and inside of ten seconds the campsite was emptied of anyone official.
He stood there and looked at it.
The Death Eaters were running before that appeared, he thought carefully. They fled before it went up. Which means they weren't the ones who cast it. Which means someone else did, or something else happened, and Voldemort-
He stopped himself.
He wasn't here tonight. This lot were playing hooligan. Whatever that Mark means, he wasn't here in person.
Probably.
He exhaled through his nose.
"Let's check the tent," he said to Zabini.
/
The tent was untouched, thank Merlin. Carol had the flap open before they'd reached it, and she covered the distance in about two steps.
"I'm fine," Blake said, before she could speak.
She held his face in both hands and looked at him, which was somehow worse than anything she could have said. Then she pulled him in.
Over her shoulder, he could see Connor adjusting his jacket with the specific casualness of someone who has absolutely nothing to hide and is not in any discomfort whatsoever. Blake met his eyes. Connor gave him a look. Blake gave him one back.
Later.
"Tracey," Blake said, when Carol let go. "Everyone okay?"
"Fine," Tracey said. She was pale but steady, and her parents were behind her. "What happened?"
"It's handled," Blake said, trying his best to sound reassuring to the kind Davis couple. He turned to Zabini, who had appeared at his shoulder. "Greengrasses?"
"Fine," Zabini said. "Mum's with them. I checked before I came to find you."
A pause.
"Daphne's fine," Zabini added, with a specific neutrality.
Blake nodded. "Let's go."
/
The Greengrass tent had come through without a scratch. Cyrus and Daphne were outside when they arrived, and drawn, which Blake suspected was exactly how the pair had spent the last twenty minutes. Celia and Astoria and Maria were inside.
Everyone was fine.
Blake did a sweep of the perimeter anyway. No signs of attack, no damage, nothing to suggest they'd been targeted at all.
They didn't come, some part of his mind noted, very quietly. Not accusatory. Just a fact.
Zabini came. Zabini heard it from wherever he was and came.
Astoria, the reasonable part of him said back. There's a sick child here. Of course they stayed.
He finished the sweep and turned back.
"Did they come near you?" he asked.
"No," Cyrus said. "We heard the commotion, naturally-"
"But no one approached directly?"
"No."
Blake nodded, and swallowed. "Good."
"Are you okay?" Daphne asked, scanning his face.
"Yeah," he said, trying to smile.
He didn't look at Daphne any longer than was natural. He found a reasonable explanation and put it somewhere sensible and left it there.
Astoria. Obviously. Don't be an idiot about this.
But an ugly, quiet voice from the back of his mind argued back. Cyrus and Celia are both competent enough to watch Astoria, and no one came near. Why didn't she come to help?
Shut up, he told himself. You're overthinking this. It's not that deep.
He almost believed himself.
/
The Winky business came out in the chaos of people re-emerging. A Ministry elf found wand-in-hand near where the Mark had been cast - Hermione furious about it in a way that suggested she had a lot of feelings she hadn't fully processed yet, Harry and Ron looking at each other in the manner of people who have learned not to get in the way of this particular mood.
They found the Golden Trio and the Weasleys near the edge of the campsite, and the retelling that followed was more enthusiastic than Blake had been prepared for.
"You got one of them?" Fred said.
"Four," Zabini said.
"I only got 2, technically."
"That's four Death Eaters," George said, looking at Blake with what could only be described as professional respect, while also ignoring him. "By a single third year."
"Two," he corrected again. "And anyway, the Aurors got the rest," Blake said.
"But you got 4," Ron said. "That's-"
"Completely unhinged," Harry said, grinning. "Well done, mate. Seriously."
"Connor helped," Blake said.
Connor, who had been very carefully not rotating his shoulder for the last twenty minutes, smiled with entirely too much brightness for someone in his position. "Barely anything."
Blake was about to chide him again when he overheard something that made his blood freeze entirely.
He looked at Charlotte, who was standing away from the Gryffindor group, with the other Slytherins.
She'd heard it too. She'd gone completely still - all of the warmth gone out of her at once, like someone had turned something off.
Then she turned and walked away quickly, and didn't look at anyone on her way out.
Tracey started to move. Daphne put a hand on her arm.
"Give her a minute," she said quietly.
Tracey stopped, jaw tight, and nodded.
Zabini bowed his head, and an uncomfortable silence befell the entire group as Blake joined them.
"I don't suppose I heard that wrong?" he said quietly.
"It's not your fault, Blake," Tracey said quickly.
Zabini sighed.
"But you heard right anyway. The woman you captured was Violet Rosier - Charlotte's mother."
/
His mother was waiting for him.
He'd been working out how to explain this for the entire walk back and hadn't gotten very far, so he just started talking.
It went, broadly, as badly as he'd expected.
By the third minute her face had moved through concern and into something worse. By the fifth she had her arms crossed in the way that meant she wasn't going to shout because she was past shouting.
"You walked toward them," she said.
"Yes."
"On purpose."
"Mum-"
"Blake." He shut up immediately.
"I know why. I'm not stupid. But I need to speak to someone - McGonagall, or Dumbledore, or-"
"Dumbledore," Blake said immediately.
McGonagall would tell her everything. Accurately and fairly and in full detail. Absolutely not.
"I'll arrange it. Before the term starts. He'll answer your questions properly, I promise."
Carol looked at him, reading his face.
"You promise me," she said.
"I promise," he said.
She pulled him in again, and said nothing for a moment, and Blake let her.
Over her shoulder, through the gap in the tent, the sky was empty. The Dark Mark was gone. Just stars, clear and normal, as if nothing had happened at all.
AN: If you would like to view up to 20 more bonus chapters on all my fics so far including this one, and would also like to support me, please visit my P@TR30N, at pa tr eon.com / GhidorahWriter (remove the spaces).
Thanks for reading and make sure ADD to your COLLECTION and VOTE with POWER STONES! Once we hit 100, I'll release a BONUS chapter!