0793 AT THE SHORE

Splash!

Bryan burst from the water, bringing Harry, Ron, Hermione, Gabrielle, Winky, and old Barty Crouch Sr. as they landed on the platform where the champions had previously dove from. His gaze turned toward the long table draped with golden cloth, surrounded by a sea of black figures.

The crowd had grown considerably since the crisis began, with new arrivals continuing to stream in as word of the disaster spread throughout the wizarding community. Ministry officials, Aurors, faculty members, students, and concerned parents all mingled together in a chaotic grouping.

At the center of this turbulent gathering, Dumbledore stood engaged in what appeared to be an increasingly heated discussion with Fudge. The Minister's face had taken on a shade of red that showed his rising agitation and panic. His appearance was disheveled, with his bowler hat sitting awry and his robes showed signs of sweat and nervous drenched.

Behind Fudge stood Dolores Umbridge's toadlike face in an expression of calculated concern that didn't quite mask the gleam of political opportunity in her small, dark eyes. Her pink cardigan seemed almost obscenely cheerful against the seriousness of the situation.

Beside her, the figure of grim-faced Amelia Bones and the most recently arrived figure of Sirius's superior Rufus Scrimgeour could be seen.

The entire Hogwarts faculty had gathered on the shoreline. Before Bryan's appearance, Professor McGonagall had been standing like a statue carved from worry and desperation, staring blankly at the shimmering water surface. Her face had taken on a pale ting that made her look as though she had been carved from snow.

Beside her, Professor Snape's normal pale complexion had taken on an almost ghostly tone, and his eyes held depths of emotion that he rarely allowed others to glimpse. The way his fingers gripped his wand showed that he was fighting every instinct to dive into the lake himself and search for the missing students.

On the grassy shore of the lake, Madame Maxime tried to provide comfort to her star student. Fleur sat collapsed on the soft grass, her appearance was completely destroyed by hours of anguished weeping. Her silvery hair hung in disheveled strands around her face.

Her head was buried in her arms, which were wrapped tightly around her knees in a defensive posture. Her shoulders shook with constant, violent sobs.

In another section of the crowd, Ludo Bagman was performing his own version of damage control as he accompanied the only pair of champions who had successfully completed the second task.

Cedric Diggory and Cho Chang stood pressed tightly together, their arms intertwined not in romantic affection but in the kind of mutual support that comes from joint trauma and confusion.

Their faces had identical expressions of bewildered fear, as though they couldn't quite understand how a competition that had begun with such promise and excitement had devolved into a nightmare of missing students and potential tragedy.

Krum maintained his usual stoic demeanor as he stood with his Durmstrang schoolmates, but even his emotional control showed signs of cracking under the pressure of the unfolding crisis. The group of young men, all possessing the robust builds and confident air typical of their harsh northern school, now seemed diminished and helpless in the face of circumstances beyond their control or understanding.

Their usually fierce expressions had been replaced by looks of blank incredulity as they stared at the water's surface.

About thirty Aurors from the Ministry of Magic had appeared here. Many were familiar faces from when they had accompanied him in tracking down the perpetrator of Hermione's attack. As Bryan came ashore, these people were still searching up and down the lakeside, not giving up on finding the missing children.

The air was thick with panic. Almost everyone's face showed bewildered helplessness in the face of disaster, not knowing what to do or how to cope.

The large screen erected by the shore had gone black. The goblins had cut the broadcast when the accident occurred, and they had all gathered beneath the thick iron poles supporting the screen, discussing in low voices.

The moment Bryan's feet touched the platform, the relative calm that had settled over the crowd shattered like glass struck by a hammer. Many people began rushing toward him simultaneously.

After receiving Madame Maxime's reminder, she lifted her tear-stained face, staring blankly at Bryan and the group of people at his feet. Suddenly, she let out a shriek so piercing that even Madame Maxime, who was right beside her, showed a pained expression.

"You found her, didn't you?" Fleur cried out, her voice breaking with emotions. "Is she hurt? Is she still alive? Please, please tell me she's still alive!"

As she shouted her desperate questions, she rushed toward Bryan's side. This time, there were no coquettish glances or attempts at flirtation. Instead, she threw herself onto Gabrielle checking for signs of life while her eyes took in every detail of her sister's appearance.

Gabrielle's cheeks had taken on a bluish tinge due to her recent submersion in the cold lake water, and her face was limp with unconsciousness. The sight of these changes sent panic through Fleur's already distraught system, and she began crying with breathless intensity.

Dumbledore was the second to arrive. Every wrinkle on his face carried cold anger. His blue eyes met Bryan's calm gaze for a moment, then looked down at Harry on the ground, imperceptibly breathing a sigh of relief. But when he saw Barty and Winky, the intense light in Dumbledore's eyes flickered once, and he remained silent without asking anything.

Professor McGonagall arrived at the scene as the third member of what was rapidly becoming a crowd of concerned adults surrounding the returned party.

"You found them, Bryan!" she exclaimed, her voice carrying a mixture of overwhelming relief and lingering anxiety that spoke to the emotional roller coaster she had been enduring since the crisis began. "Where were they? What happened to them? Are they truly safe?"

Her sharp eyes moved across the figures lying on the platform, taking in every detail. She saw her Gryffindor students—Harry, Ron, and Hermione—and felt her heart clench with a mixture of joy and continued worry as she noted their unconscious state and the physical signs of whatever ordeal they had endured.

But it was the sight of Barty Crouch's obviously body that proved too much for her to handle. The gruesome wound on his neck, the unnatural angle of his limbs, the unmistakable stillness that marked him as beyond any help—all of these details combined to create a shock so deep that Professor McGonagall's body went completely limp.

Only the quick reflexes and steady strength of Professor Snape, who had been following closely behind her, prevented her from collapsing to the ground.

Professor Snape himself, despite his efforts to maintain his stoic demeanor, was clearly struggling with his own emotional response to the scene in front of him. His eyes had immediately sought out Harry's body among the rescued party, and as he confirmed that the boy was apparently unharmed, the darkness in his gaze was dissipating with despair faintly emerging.

The arrival of the Ministry officials created the next wave of chaos and confusion as their presence brought with it all the political implications and bureaucratic complications that had been building since the crisis began.

Fudge's voice, when he finally managed to find his words, came out as shrill and strangled as a chicken being prepared for Sunday dinner. His face, already flushed with agitation, seemed to take on an even deeper shade of red as he pointed with his trembling finger at Barty Crouch's lifeless body.

"My God, look, it's Barty!" He exclaimed, his voice cracking with a combination of shock, fear, and the realization of how complicated this discovery would make his already precarious political position. "Good heavens, this is Barty! What on earth happened to him??"

All the Ministry people knew who that was. They didn't need Fudge to tell them. Everyone—including Umbridge, including Amelia and Scrimgeour and other officials managing important departments—their expressions of shock were identical!

The Durmstrang students, meanwhile, were engaged in their own form of desperate confirmation as they searched the figures for any sign of their missing headmaster.

Their repeated examinations of the rescued party only confirmed what they had been desperately hoping was not true: Hogwarts' Professor Watson had not brought their Headmaster Igor Karkaroff back from whatever fate had befallen him in the depths of the lake.

Perhaps they knew exactly what Karkaroff's disappearance meant, or perhaps they were simply unwilling to believe that their Headmaster could have finally met his end in the depths of a Scottish lake.

Many people were now speaking to Bryan simultaneously, their voices creating symphony of questions, demands, accusations, and pleas for information.

Some spoke with excitement born of relief at seeing the missing students returned; others with fear as they contemplated the implications of Barty Crouch's death and Igor Karkaroff's absence.

The constant chatter seemed to serve as a form of emotional release for people who had been forced to maintain composure during hours of uncertainty, as though only by filling the air with words could they somehow ward off the terrible possibilities that silence might allow to take root in their minds.

Into this chaos, Sirius and Remus arrived with all the breathless urgency of men who had been running at full speed along the lakeside. Their apparent desperation to reach the scene was entirely convincing, and their performance of arriving as concerned relatives outsiders who had rushed upon hearing news of the crisis was flawless.

Many people in the crowd noticed their arrival, but given the general chaos and the focus on the returned students, few paid them any particular attention. Dumbledore, however, was not among those who failed to notice their presence.

Finally, recognizing that the situation required his direct intervention to prevent it from spiraling completely out of control, Dumbledore stepped forward. His voice, when he spoke, resounded easily over the noise of the crowd without requiring him to raise it.

"Where did you find them, Bryan?"

No matter what, the show must go on.

Bryan understood immediately that this was his cue to begin the performance that they had been preparing for.

"I discovered them in a dark crevice at the very bottom of the lake," Bryan said calmly. "I don't know how they ended up there, or what circumstances led to their situation."

He gestured toward them lying on the platform. "I conducted a thorough examination of all the individuals involved. As you can clearly see, Mr. Crouch is unfortunately dead, but the others are alive."

"Alive? Really, Bryan? Are you certain?"

Professor McGonagall's voice trembled, while Fleur, who had been crying endlessly while holding Gabrielle with a look of absolute grief, also stopped her tears.

"I am completely certain," Bryan replied.

He turned to look at the several people on the ground and snapped his fingers with a crisp sound. Along with an invisible wave of magical power sweeping over them, orange-yellow runic patterns briefly flashed across the chest areas of their athletic wear, and then—

Gasp!

A series of sharp intakes of breath. The chests of the children on the ground immediately showed obvious rise and fall, and then, amid everyone's exclamations, one after another opened their bewildered eyes.

The contrast between their current location and their last conscious memories was disorienting. The dark, terrible graveyard where they had faced death and witnessed horrors beyond imagination formed a contrast to the sunny, gentle-breezed shore of the Black Lake where they now found themselves surrounded by concerned faces and voices speaking their names with relief and love.

The newly revived children all looked confused, but after a few moments of silence, almost simultaneously, Harry, Ron, and Hermione sprang up from the ground, while Gabrielle was fiercely embraced by Fleur the moment she opened her eyes, unable to make any movement.

Harry was trembling violently. Unlike Hermione and Ron, who felt primarily awkward and confused about their surroundings and the many solemn faces staring at them with such obvious concern, Harry's attention was focused completely and completely on Ron and Hermione—his two best friends who had been dead just moments before.

Harry bit his lip tightly, but this couldn't stop his tears from streaming down. He raised both hands, his trembling fingertips approaching their cheeks slowly, afraid it was all just a dream.

"Hey, mate, what's wrong with you?" Ron asked in bewildered confusion.

Ron's confusion was understandable, as his memories of recent events were fragmented and unclear, while Hermione had already recalled the fact that she seemed to have died. She hadn't died—could it be that she and Ron hadn't been hit by the Killing Curse? But what about Gabrielle? She had seen Gabrielle die under the Killing Curse. And Mr. Crouch... was still dead.

"You saved us, didn't you, Harry?" Hermione asked through her own tears. "You brought us back somehow, didn't you? That's incredible, Harry, but how did you manage it?"

Harry didn't answer any questions. He looked at those two faces that had regained life, so familiar to him, remembering the moment they were struck by the curse. What despair that had been—his world seemed to collapse in that instant.

"Ow! Mmph!" Ron and Hermione both exclaimed simultaneously as Harry suddenly pulled them into an embrace so fierce and desperate that it threatened to cut off their air supply.

The three faces, which had shed much of their childish softness over the course of their adventures but still retained the essential innocence of youth, pressed together under the gaze of every person present.

Bryan's expression became gentle. Dumbledore also wiped his moist eyes, and Professor McGonagall had abandoned all pretense of maintaining her stern, professional demeanor and was now weeping openly.

Remus and Sirius, despite their need to maintain the pretense of being concerned relatives who had only recently arrived at the scene, were deeply moved by the familiar looking scene in front of them.

Under the observation of so many people, Harry maintained his desperate grip on Ron and Hermione for two full minutes, until Ron uncomfortably shifted a few times.

"This is rather embarrassing, mate," Ron finally whispered, his voice carrying just enough humor to lighten the mood without diminishing the genuine emotion of the moment. "Maybe you haven't noticed, but there aren't just the three of us here. We've got quite an audience, and some of them are starting to look like they're taking notes for the Daily Prophet."

His gentle teasing had exactly the effect he had intended. Harry's grip loosened slightly, and for the first time since awakening, he seemed to become aware of their surroundings and the many people who were watching their reunion.

Harry laughed, bubbles coming from his nose, but he didn't wipe them. He just looked at Ron and Hermione, his face full of happiness and contentment.

Everyone could see that these children had experienced terrible ordeals. But what exactly? Had what Cliodna, who had been taken away earlier, said about Voldemort's return been true?

"Good children."

Professor McGonagall said through tears, covering her mouth emotionally. She couldn't bear to disturb these children who had narrowly escaped death, but she was very concerned about their health.

"You all need rest. Go get examined, go to the hospital wing."

Professor McGonagall's voice finally calmed Harry down. He grasped Ron and Hermione's hands tightly, blew his nose hard, and then turned his face toward Professor Dumbledore and Professor Watson. His gaze lingered on Professor Watson for a moment, remembering the words he had heard after returning to the lake bottom.

"Voldemort has returned, Professor Dumbledore!"

Harry said, looking at Professor Dumbledore. His words were like a cold wind passing through, instantly silencing the commotion on the lakeshore.

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