It was impossible to see over the mass of taller bodies, but there were unmistakable neon slashes of spellfire coming from deeper within the pitch. Sirius steered their group away from the commotion and the crowds damming up the exit, the area so tightly packed that an escape from one of the exits would cost several elbows to the face and more time than was safe to linger.
Cutting through an empty stretch of the pitch, Sirius brought them over to a door marked as staff only. Inside was a locker room - the baskets of towels and belongings strewn across the floor as the room shook and knocked dust onto their faces. Sirius threw up several spells in quick succession over the door as Mr. Weasley counted heads.
"Is anyone hurt?" - "What's happening?" -"There's anti-apparition jinxes up." Everyone began to talk over each other.
"Everyone, listen up!" Sirius shouted over their talking. The panicked, shaking nerves from before had entirely disappeared from Sirius and he regarded them all calmly. "We don't know what's happening, so we need to stay calm and assume anything. We can't stay here for long. First, we need to find another way out, then get the children somewhere safe -"
On cue, the stadium shuddered with another great boom. It was ear-wrenching, filling up the entirety of the room, rattling into his bones. It tore through the stadium, shaking the construction and causing another great tidal wave of noise as the entire structure shuddered. Debris scattered across them as the ceiling buckled. A dozen protego charms erupted from their wands as, only seconds after the great rumbling noises began, the roof began to crash down on top of them.
"Harry," Sirius yelled, pulling Harry against his side. "Can you use the -" he tapped his fingers, miming the bite of a dog. The lights flickered dramatically, as the room shook and more rubble collided off the thick shield. The swinging light fixture threw off the shadows as it bounced light across the room. But Harry pulled with all his might, ripping the light out of its flimsy hold. Slinging it over them, he threw them to the first place he could find, landing with a heavy crash a few yards outside the arena hidden in a cusp of trees.
"The fuck?" Charlie groaned as they clambered on unsteady feet.
"No time," Sirius ordered. "Harry?"
Harry leaned all his weight against his godfather.
"Too many," he panted. He'd moved a dozen people with barely any shadow in the middle of the day and now he was exhausted. His friends crowded around, murmurs of concern bounced off his ears as he fought to remain conscious.
"Kiddo? C'mon, Harry love, stay with me," Sirius shook him. His face swam in and out of Harry's vision. The few glimpses he could catch revealed a face of terror and worry.
"S'ok," he reached out to pat Sirius' face. His heavy arm barely got anywhere, but the gleam of his horcrux ring glinted off the fading sunlight and Harry remembered the minimal amount of spare energy he had stored there.
Focusing his mind on the power within, Umbridge's life force buzzed across his skin like static electricity, breathing energy back into him as though he'd been dumped in an ice bath.
"I can't do that again," he told Sirius, moving out of his grasp as he was able to hold his weight. "I'm running on fumes now. No more necromancy." He could certainly use a nap, but so long as he didn't do anything strenuous he would be fine until they figured out a way out of there.
"Okay. Don't worry about that, you did perfectly."
"Sirius!" Mr. Weasley's voice shook in horror. He pointed behind them, over to the sea of tents. Raised high into the sky was the smokey green figure of a snake pouring out of a skull.
"What's that?" Harry asked.
Sirius had gone beyond pale, hard eyes set into an angry grimace.
"The Dark Mark. The mark of Voldemort."
"What's that beneath it?" Hermione asked. There was a row of dots in the sky beneath the Mark, floating and shifting as they were struck by bolts of spellfire.
Bill pulled out the binoculars they'd used to watch the game and took a look. He cursed like a sailor, handing them without word to Sirius.
"People," he said after a long moment. "I think one of them's the muggle who checked us into the campsite. At least two children."
Harry tried to exude the same calmness that Sirius did, but he couldn't stop the shiver of terror that crashed over him. Luna grabbed his hand in a death grip, their sweaty palms clutched firmly together.
"What are we going to do?" Ginny asked in a whisper.
"If they only threw up an anti-apparition jinx, then the range should not be far, correct?" Mr. Weasley asked.
"No more than five kilometers," Bill agreed. "If they were smart, they would have centered it at the campsite, to encapsulate that and the stadium, so if we head west away from the camp, we should reach the limit much faster."
"West it is. Bill, Charlie, Arthur - we'll take point around the kids -" Sirius was interrupted once again by a great burst of screaming metal and chaos as the stadium began to completely collapse in on itself, one of the towers tipping over to crash into another section.
They could only watch in horror as the stadium imploded. It fell to the earth in a pile of steel and tarp and screams. Even as the several-story tall structure fractured into booming cracks of rubble and dust, shaking the earth with its deafening sounds, louder still were the screams echoing from inside.
Harry felt little wisps of air flicker and stop - hundreds of small matches extinguishing, leaving the area quiet despite the cacophonous noise.
Heartbeats, life forces.
Time stood still as the wrenching noises ceased and the rubble settled.
"We have to get moving, or we'll get trampled again, come on now!" Sirius ordered. The majority of the people who had escaped had been making their way toward the safety of the woods, and after the stunned moment spent watching the arena crumble into ash, they began to sprint in their direction as one. Quickly, they would be trapped in the stampede again.
"But there's people trapped in there!" Luna yelled. "We have to go rescue them!"
"We can't until we're certain it's safe," Sirius insisted. "It could be a trap. It's too dangerous!" He grabbed them both, tucking them under his arms, and dragged them away deeper into the trees.
.....
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