F O R T Y - F O U R

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[warning: this chapter is going to contain some very heavy violence and torture, and there will be mentions of blood as well. please read with caution when going ahead if you are sensitive or are triggered by these]

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Harry and Adeline came crashing down hard to the ground, the Triwizard Cup flying out of their hands and across the grass. It took the two a few seconds to come to their senses, but as Adeline helped Harry off the ground, both of them quickly realized that there was

Instead of being faced with the cheering crowd of students like they expected, Adeline and Harry found themselves standing in a dark and eerie graveyard that neither of them recognized.

"They didn't say anything about us having to do more after we grabbed the cup," Adeline whispered nervously, staring around the graveyard with that same uneasy feeling she had when facing Viktor Krum. "Why are we here?"

Harry shook his head, just as confused as Adeline was. Suddenly, he found himself hit with a wave of deja vu, and he muttered, "I...I've been here before. In a dream."

Adeline whipped around to face him. "What do you mean?"

Kneeling down to look at a gravestone, Harry read the name etched in it and the realization of why they might be there smacked him in the face. "Adeline, we need to get out of here! Now!"

Before Adeline could even react and ask why, Harry let out a cry of pain and doubled over as he clutched his forehead. "You need to go! Take the cup and go!"

"I'm not leaving you here, Harry!" Adeline yelled as she tried to help Harry off the ground.

In the midst of all of his pain, Harry caught sight of Pettigrew in the distance, and the fear inside of him seemed to explode. "Then hide!" Harry pleaded, pushing Adeline off of him. "Get away from me and hide! Don't let them know you're here!"

There were a lot of questions running through Adeline's mind as she ran and hid behind one of the tall gravestones standing near the glowing Triwizard Cup. She wanted to know why the Cup had transported them to a strange graveyard kilometers away from Hogwarts. She wanted to know why Harry seemed to recognize this place. She wanted to know why Harry seemed to recognize the strange man in the tunnel carrying a cloth bundle in his arms.

The biggest question running through Adeline's mind – and one she hoped not to be true – was whether the man that seemed to terrify Harry so much had seen her in the graveyard.

Carefully, Adeline barely peeked her head out to see what was going on. She found Harry trapped against a tall angel statue and the man from before standing over a dark cauldron. She could barely make out what was happening. All Adeline could see was this man performing some sort of dark ritual that would make even the Professors at Hogwarts shake with fear.

Suddenly, the man backed away from the cauldron as it burst into flames. A white form suddenly took a human-like form and was covered in long, billowing dark robes. His head was smooth and bald, and even from the distance away, Adeline could see this man had two small slits instead of a nose. To her horror, Adeline recognized him from the descriptions from the darkest sections of her wizarding history textbooks.

Lord Voldemort had risen again.

Adeline could barely move. A part of her wanted to run to Harry and summon the cup so they could go back to Hogwarts. But she was so stricken with fear that she didn't even want to try.

After reveling in his new form, Voldemort summoned his loyal followers using Pettigrew's Dark Mark. Voldemort, however, did not greet the Death Eaters happily. Despite them coming immediately to Voldemort's side, he was furious with the fact that not a single one of them there had tried to find him or stayed loyal to him over the past

There was one in particular that showed up who infuriated Voldemort at the mere sight of him.

"How dare you come here?" Voldemort hissed, stopping in front of a certain Death Eater who's curled goatee was poking out the bottom of his mask. "How dare you come here after you betrayed your fellow Death Eaters and denounced me the way you did? You are a coward, Karkaroff."

"Please, Lord Voldemort, I beg you–"

"Avada Kervada!"

Pressing her back against the grave stone, Adeline's hand clapped over her mouth, and she had to bite her tongue to keep herself from letting out a scream of horror. Adeline had never liked Headmaster Karkaroff, but to see him murdered in front of her was just so horrifying.

Before he turned his attention to the young boy who had defeated him so many years before –the "guest of honor" – Voldemort pulled Pettigrew off to the side and, with an almost maniacal look in his eyes, proclaimed, "Take care of the girl, Wormtail."

Adeline heard this from her position behind the gravestone. Paralyzed with fear, she didn't think to grab out her wand and do something. Maybe she could have cast a spell to distract the Death Eaters and save Harry. Maybe she could have cast the Disillusionment Charm and hide herself.

But Adeline was frozen, and all she could do when Pettigrew found her crouched behind the gravestone was stare wide-eyed up at him and silently plead to whatever higher power was out to let her live to escape the graveyard.

"I won't kill you," Pettigrew whispered in a tone of voice that made Adeline's skin crawl, leaning down so he could leer into her face. "No, no...I won't kill you. I'll just make sure you wish you were dead."

He held his wand out in front of him, and before Adeline could even react, Pettigrew said "Crucio!"

Despite her best efforts, Adeline let out a scream that echoed across the graveyard, making more than a few of the Death Eaters sneer and chuckle under their hoods. Harry's heart dropped in his chest. With him being tortured by Pettigrew and Voldemort rising in front of his eyes, Harry had almost forgotten that Adeline had been hiding in that graveyard.

Despite Adeline's screams of pain and the fact he cast the spell multiple times on her, this torture didn't seem to be enough for Pettigrew. Pettigrew reached into his tattered jacket pocket and grabbed out a small dagger that he held The silver blade glinted in the moonlight, and for a split-second, Adeline's heart stopped in her chest.

And then he struck.

With one hard slash, Pettigrew struck the knife across her face. Adeline screamed as the blade went through her eye, and while she could barely think through the pain, there was one thing she was sure of: There was no coming back from this injury.

Pettigrew had blinded Adeline in her right eye.

Adeline's cries were enough to let Pettigrew know that his job was done, and he left her lying behind the gravestone, fading in and out of consciousness.

Harry could hear her screams from where he was trapped, but despite a part of him wanting so desperately to run over and help her, he was still faced with Lord Voldemort standing in front of him, who was now forcing him to the ground in order to duel.

After being tortured by Lord Voldemort, Harry managed to dive behind the tall statue from before, ignoring Lord Voldemort's screams to come out and fight him so he could see "the light leave his eyes."

Harry contemplated for a moment whether to just give up. He was fourteen years old and was faced with fighting one of the most powerful dark wizards of all time. He stood no chance against Voldemort.

Then he caught sight of Adeline's figure lying eerily still a distance away from him. For a moment, unable to see her clearly in the darkness, Harry feared the worst. But when he saw her chest barely rising and falling, Harry found himself filled with a new determination to get them back to Hogwarts alive.

Adeline could barely even comprehend the epic battle between Harry and Voldemort taking place nearby. Her mind had nearly gone blank from the shock. Voldemort was back again. She had witnessed Karkaroff's murder. A strange man nicknamed 'Wormtail' had tortured her.

She could no longer see out of her right eye.

When the connection between Voldemort and Harry's wands broke, Harry ran over to Adeline, who was still lying on the grass. Crouching protectively over Adeline's body and grabbing onto her arm, Harry desperately summoned the Portkey over to him and grabbed onto the handle, sending the two flying back to Hogwarts.

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Adeline's body landed on the ground with a hard thud with Harry still clutching on tight, crying as the realization of what happened in the graveyard hit him. Hogwarts was cheering excitedly at the sight of both of their Champions with the Triwizard Cup, despite it being thrown carelessly to the side and the state Adeline and Harry were in. No one noticed Harry sobbing or the fact that Adeline was barely moving. No one noticed Adeline's golden hair ribbon that now had blood spatter all over it.

No one seemed to realize that something was incredibly wrong.

Harry sobbed even harder when he finally noticed her in the light and saw all the blood on Adeline's face, and Professor Dumbledore couldn't even pull him off of Adeline's body.

"He's back! He's back! Voldemort's back!" Harry managed to yell in pained voice once Professor Dumbledore was crouched in front of him. "I told her to go but she wouldn't! Adeline wouldn't leave me there! And...and they tortured her!"

"Merlin's beard," Professor Flitwick said in a horrified voice, ushering for Professor McGonagall to come closer. "She's missing an eye!"

Madam Pomfrey, who had already been jogging over to see what was going on, began to run at top speed when she heard Professor Flitwick's exclamation. Word quickly spread throughout the Hogwarts stands, and the celebration that was taking place before had quickly ceased as the realization of what happened set in with many of the students.

At that same time, nearly half of the attending Weasley family was trying to hold back one of their members.

"Let me go!" George bellowed, straining against his mum's and Fred's grips on him. "I need to see her!"

"George! You can't!" Mrs. Weasley pleaded, gesturing for her husband to come over and help make sure George didn't bolt down the stands and towards Adeline lying on the grass. "She needs to be taken to a hospital wing! You don't want to see her like this!"

"No, I need to see Addie please–"

Not being held back by anyone, Adeline's three best friends had managed to push their way to the front of the crowd. Estelle was sobbing, the Ravenclaw-themed face paint her and her friends had spent so long on was now streaked and messy from tears. She held on tight to Melanie, who was crying just as hard and wondering if she had listened to that gut feeling earlier that day, Adeline wouldn't be in this position. Ophelia had her arms wrapped them both, but had yet to cry. She was just shell-shocked and was staring down at the situation, still not able to process how something like this could have even happened.

"We need to get her to the hospital wing," Professor Dumbledore hissed to Professor McGonagall, who was helping Madam Pomfrey clear a path through the crowd of students. "Get the other Heads and take the students back to their houses."

Slowly, as she was floated away from the maze and towards the hospital wing. Adeline's consciousness began to fade away entirely, and everything turned to black.

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