~A/N~ My thanks to TyrannicPuppy and Halt CPM for going over this chapter.

The portkey transported Harry to the edge of the maze. He was back where he had started, with the hordes of people screaming in the stands and the great looming hedge of the maze casting a shadow over him. He was back and he was alive, he had survived the graveyard, done the unthinkable and escaped Voldemort, but then why—

Why did it feel like he was still there? Still writhing on the ground from the pain and wanting to die.

His face was pressed against the grass and there was so much noise hammering against his ears. He wanted it all to just go away. He couldn't breathe, couldn't move, couldn't feel—he just wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere but here where hands were roughly shaking his body and shouts of "Harry! Harry!" surrounded him.

Someone lifted him off the ground and asked him questions that he couldn't make out. He felt like he was underwater and everyone around him was blurry, moving in slow motion, and speaking a language he couldn't understand.

"Harry… are you … all … right?" It was Dumbledore holding him straight up, preventing him from collapsing.

"What's... wrong... with … the boy?" Cornelius Fudge looked at him with a curious expression.

"I'll take … him," a gruff voice spoke up and Harry strained his ears, but all he caught were snippets of "needs… healing" and "he's… delirious."

Then somebody else was grabbing him, dragging him along and Harry felt a shiver run through him. The cold hands felt repulsive on his skin and laughter rang through his ears: "I can touch him now."

Harry struggled against the tight hold. Where was he being taken? Where was he going? Harry wanted to not care. He wanted to shut his eyes and sleep, to stop fighting the drowsiness. But he couldn't do that yet. There was still something… something he needed to remember, something he had to let the others know.

He needed to be in the clear, he needed comfort and warmth to drive away the icy touch of Voldemort's hand on his scar. He needed to be safe. He needed—

"Hermione," he croaked.

"Don't worry, lad." It was that same gruff voice. Harry blinked blearily to find himself looking up at Mad Eye Moody's mechanical eye. "I'll take you to her."

But...Harry struggled to turn his head and look behind him at the stands which they were getting further and further away from. Was Hermione not there? Where was she, then—

"Harry!" Amongst the shouting and music and chatter, a certain voice rang out. Harry felt like he was emerging from the water, the world relenting its unceasing spinning and settling around him. He knew that voice.

It came again. "Harry!"

"You're going the wrong way," he spoke, clearer now.

Moody grunted and said nothing, gripping Harry's arm with even more force.

"Let go of me." He was speaking normally now. Hermione's shouts were growing softer and panic started growing inside of him.

No response.

"I said," Harry tightened his hold on his wand. Even delirious, he had never released his hold. "Let go."

He saw a glint in Moody's eye and his mouth rising into a sneer and that was all he needed to kick the man in his bad leg, escape his hold, and knock him out with a loud, "Stupefy!"

There was a hush as the crowd in the stands turned eerily silent before exploding into chatter once again.

"What on earth is that boy doing?" Fudge said, aghast, as he struggled to keep up with Dumbledore's long stride. "I told you there was something wrong with him, Dumbledore! Look, he's attacked a professor!"

"Harry, I need you to explain to me what is going on." The headmaster's expression was grave.

Moody hadn't managed to take Harry far. They were still on the Quidditch field and as soon as Harry had stunned Moody, Dumbledore, members of the ministry, various professors, and even a few people from the stands had rushed over.

One of them was Hermione.

The relief he felt upon seeing her was insurmountable. Harry trembingly lowered the wand that he had still been pointing anxiously at the crowd and let out a sigh. The energy he had procured upon sensing danger fled his body and he swayed on his feet before crumpling to the ground, just in time for Hermione to catch him.

"Is that really what matters right now?" Hermione said shrilly, glaring at the adults. "Look at him—he's in no state to be interrogated! He needs a healer!"

She held Harry tighter in her arms and he rested his head against her shoulder, shutting his eyes and taking a shaky breath. The cries in his head screaming at him that there was still a death eater out there, the instinct to get up and fight, the images of gouged eyes and severed heads that were cycling through his vision… finally receded.

He focused on the strand of bushy brown hair tickling his cheek, the tight hold of her arms around him, the familiar, comforting scent of his best friend. For the first time since escaping the graveyard, he allowed himself to accept that the ordeal was truly over. He was safe.

Hermione wasn't done yet. "If you want an explanation, ask Professor Moody what he was doing dragging Harry away from public sight when he was half unconscious. And certainly not in the direction of the healer's tent!"

Dumbledore appeared pensive. "You make a valid point, Miss Granger. That is not something that the Alastor Moody I know of would do."

"You can't be serious, Dumbledore! Not letting the boy get away with this, are you?"

"Regardless,"—Dumbledore ignored Fudge—"I still need to hear what happened from you."

The puzzle pieces came together then. Everything Voldemort had said about the faithful servant at Hogwarts, the uneasy feeling he had this year as if someone was always watching him from the shadows… he had been there the whole time, hadn't he? And no one, not the minister, not the headmaster, not all the professors had noticed.

"What happened?" Harry didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "What happened is that the Triwizard Cup was a portkey that transported me to the graveyard Voldemort chose as his site of resurrection."

There were gasps in the crowd and Fudge exclaimed: "Preposterous!"

"What happened is that my blood was used to create his new body. Do you know what that means, Headmaster?" Harry asked. "I was tortured with the Cruciatus while his horde of Death Eaters laughed. How did so many of them escape Azkaban, I wonder, Minister?"

"The boy isn't in his right mind, Dumbledore."

Dumbledore was silent. Unmoving.

"It could have all been avoided, you know." Harry stared at the man he had once so respected with red eyes, trembling with resentment and a bone aching sadness. "If one of you had simply decided that putting a fourteen year old boy into a death tournament was wrong. If my life was worth more than being bait. Instead you gave Voldemort everything he wanted on a silver platter. A lamb for slaughter." His voice shook as he remembered lying there, limp on the ground, and Hermione squeezed his hand tightly.

He glanced over at Moody's unconscious form and laughed hysterically. "You don't need to believe me. You'll know soon enough."

And so they did.

The crowd around him grew louder and chaotic as they watched Alastor Moody twitch and convulse and transform into…

"Barty Crouch!" Fudge exclaimed. "What in the world is he doing here?"

Dumbledore stepped forward with fury in his eyes and started barking orders to Professor McGonagall and Snape. The crowd around them had grown even larger, more people wearing the Ministry's insignia surrounding them. Fudge was no longer bumbling about and seemed a bit pressured as his contemporaries, especially a woman with a hawk like nose and silver streaked hair, started questioning him.

All of it was no concern to Harry. His vision was growing blurry again, his head dizzy. The smallest of triggers—a blonde head here, beady little eyes there—brought back the memories of the graveyard and the reality of what he had done. What he had become.

Murderer. The wind of that evening seemed to whisper to him.

Harry let go of Hermione and retched into the grass, emptying his stomach until there was nothing left, but the sickening pit inside him only grew.

He was dirty and bloody and bruised. "I'm filthy," he said, pushing Hermione's hand away as she tried to wipe his face with a handkerchief and patted his back soothingly.

The only response he received was a teary, "Oh, Harry," before he was pulled back into her arms.

He stayed there as Dumbledore, looking more enraged than Harry had ever seen him, questioned Barty Junior under Veritaserum. As the death eater exposed how he had cheated Azkaban, how he had put Harry's name in the Goblet and manipulated events under everyone's noses, and how he had been the pivotal player in bringing about Voldemort's return… Harry was silent, but his anger simmered under the surface.

This was the man directly behind his suffering in the graveyard, the man who had made it possible for Voldemort to return. Seeing him smirk in triumph and boast about his plans succeeding infuriated Harry until all he could see was red, all he could hear was his obnoxious laughter ringing in his ears, and all he could feel was that same mind numbing hatred that had seemed to have found a home rooted deep inside his heart.

"This is madness!" Fudge spluttered. "The man is clearly out of his mind and—and—colluding with whatever cock and bull story Potter devised! We can't take a word of what he's said seriously."

The hawk nosed woman shot Fudge an unimpressed look. "He is under Veritaserum. He is telling us the truth, Minister."

"The truth of a mad man, Amelia!"

"Mad!" Crouch let out an insane laugh. "Mad, am I? We'll see! We'll see who's mad, now that the Dark Lord has returned, with me at his side! I, his most loyal servant. I, who delivered Harry Potter under the nose of the great Albus Dumbledore right to his doorstep! I, who ensured his resurrection! He will place me by his side and grant me the highest of titles, the greatest of rewards!"

"Don't believe me, do you? Proof that the Dark Lord has returned!" He shook his bound hands until the sleeve of one fell down, exposing the dark mark: a snake that was black as night and slithering on his left arm. "The Ministry used this to hunt us down, but it is once again our mark of pride. Our connection to the Dark Lord. Why don't you show them too, Potter? Show them how the Dark Lord has marked you as well, how you carry the sign of his resurrection. We carry twin marks, you and I."

Harry's heart went cold. He had shown no one his wound—even that detail of his suffering had been planned in advance? Was he just a puppet in the end? A doll for others to toss around and carve as they willed?

No one spoke as Harry let go of Hermione and stood up. He walked up to Crouch and slowly lifted his sleeve to reveal the snake that had been carved into his skin with Wormtail's knife.

"Twin marks?" Before anyone could stop him, he had raised his wand and slashed exactly where the inky Dark Mark began on Crouch's proudly exposed arm. "Not quite."

There were gasps in the crowd and people started shouting but they were all drowned out by Crouch's high pitched scream that seemed to echo into the night.

"What—what have you done?" the man half sobbed, half screamed, holding his stump of an arm against his chest.

"Not so different from the rat, now, are you? When your dear Dark Lord comes for you,"— Harry smiled maniacally through the furious tears blinding his eyes—"at least now you'll know what reward to ask for."

The turbulent waves of hatred in his heart settled down—satisfied for now—and Harry finally gave in to the exhaustion rampaging his body, welcoming the blackness to overtake him as he fell over and fainted.

When Harry appeared outside the maze, collapsing to the ground and not moving, the blood in Hermione's veins felt like they had frozen, as if her heart itself had stopped beating.

She shot up from her seat in the stands and elbowed her way through the throng of people, struggling to keep an eye on him the whole time.

Someone's hat blocked her view and when she could see again, he was gone from the spot. Panic grew in her chest. "Harry!"

Then she saw him being carried like a sack by Mad Eye Moody, away from the Quidditch Pitch. Where was he taking him? If Harry was injured, the healer's tent was the opposite way—

"Harry!" she shouted, louder now, running towards him.

By the time she reached him, she was confronted with a wild eyed Harry standing above the unconscious form of Moody. Other people had come forward too, encircling Moody and buzzing with noise. And Harry, his wand was still raised towards the crowd, his eyes shifting nervously between everyone, his back hunched in a defensive posture. He reminded Hermione of a trapped animal, bearing its teeth.

She broke through the circle, not caring that she had just shoved aside the Minister of Magic, and watched as Harry's whole being seemed to relax when she appeared. He swayed towards the ground and Hermione caught him before he could truly fall, taking him into her arms.

When Moody was discovered to be Crouch and questioned, she felt Harry tremble and was stunned at the pure fury she saw in his eyes.

When Harry cut off Crouch's arm containing the Dark Mark, everyone screamed, but Hermione was quiet. Numb. She wondered if she was the only one who had seen the helplessness in Harry's face, the vulnerability.

He didn't look like a "vicious brute!" as Fudge later claimed.

He looked like a boy, lost, and with nothing left to lose.

"Will he be okay?" Hermione asked anxiously, after Madam Pomfrey was finally done with healing Harry. "Why is he still not waking up?"

"I've fixed all the external wounds I could, but the mental trauma he's suffered tonight will not be as easy. He's been tortured with the cruciatus—more times than I can identify. His body has also been overworked beyond what it can handle." She looked worriedly at the infirmary bed where Harry lay, twitching and murmuring in his sleep. "I expect that he will wake several times throughout the next few hours, but he might not be in his right mind. If you can't handle that Miss Granger—"

"I'm not leaving him!" Hermione said fiercely.

Madam Pomfrey gave her the first smile of that evening and replied, "I had expected as much."

The first time Harry woke up, he shot up in bed, looking wildly around at the white curtains surrounding the bed as if he expected something to jump out of them.

"Harry," Hermione said softly, careful not to startle him.

"Hermione," he grasped her hand as if reaching for a lifeline. "Hermione, he's dead."

"Who is?"

"Wormtail. Peter Pettigrew. I killed him, Hermione."

Hermione went still, but showed no change in her outward expression.

"I didn't mean it, not really. He was in the way—I was trying to escape and get to the cup—and he was going to try and stop me. So I used the bubblehead charm—the new one that I experimented with—and I left him behind. I think I assumed that he would break free of it quickly like Flitwick had, but when I looked back he was burning. Melting." Harry was babbling. "And do you know the worst part? I didn't even feel sorry. I was glad—glad that he died. Glad that it was painful."

He looked at her as if expecting her to accuse him, as if waiting for some terrible blow. But all Hermione could find in herself to say was, "I'm glad too."

When he froze in surprise, she scoffed. "What, did you think I would want him alive? He's the reason your parents were murdered. He's the reason Sirius spent twelve years in Azkaban, not to mention all those poor muggles he killed. The reason why you grew up without a family. You gave him a chance last year and what was the result? He ran off to Voldemort and crawled on his knees to be traitorous, murdering scum. Wormtail deserved to die and pay for his crimes long ago."

"He deserved it," Harry murmured and fell back to sleep.

The second time he woke up, he was calmer; the solemnity in his expression unnerved her.

"Lucius Malfoy," he said quietly.

"What about him?"

"I cut off his head." Harry held up his wand hand in wonder. "I knew what I was doing this time. I pretended I was back in the Room of Requirement, practicing. That he was just another dummy. But when his head rolled on the ground and I saw the blood trickling down his neck and into the grass, I couldn't lie to myself anymore."

"And if you hadn't?"

"Hadn't what?"

"Hadn't killed him. What would have happened then?"

His expression morphed into one of pain; Hermione hated to see it on him but she forced herself to wait for his answer.

"He would have stopped me from reaching the cup by cutting off an arm or leg. He threatened to break my bones too, actually. Then he would have taken my limp body back to Voldemort and they would toss me around like a doll again. And then I would die."

"And what did I tell you before you went into that maze?"

Harry scrunched up his face in concentration, trying to remember. "You told me… to survive. No matter what."

"That's right. You survived, Harry. That's all that matters, do you understand?" Harry nodded his head hesitantly, but Hermione wasn't done yet.

"Lucius Malfoy was no ordinary Death Eater. His power and influence in the Ministry ensured that many, many others escaped from punishment scot free. He worked directly under Voldemort to spread chaos and propaganda from within during the first war, and I have no doubt that if you hadn't killed him, he would have done the same again. By killing him, you robbed Voldemort of a weapon he sorely needed. By killing him, you gave justice to a man who would probably always slither his way out of the legal system. A man with more blood on his hands than I could possibly know."

"I wasn't thinking of all that when I killed him." Harry frowned. "But I suppose it's for the best he died. He would have killed more people if I hadn't."

"You had no choice, Harry." Hermione said, trying to keep her voice from shaking.

He seemed to accept that fact and went back to sleep.

The third time he woke up, he seemed angry. He looked at Hermione with reddened eyes and clenched his hands into fists at his side.

"Why are you trying to excuse what I've done?" he said. "I heard what people were screaming before I fainted. They called me a brute—a monster."

"For cutting off Crouch's hand? After all he's done! After he was responsible for this whole predicament in the first place! He's the reason you were sent to that graveyard, he's the reason Voldemort is back! Whoever points their finger at you instead of him is just deflecting blame for not knowing what he was doing right under their noses!" Hermione stood up from her chair. "That's not even mentioning that he was already sentenced to life in Azkaban!"

"I hated him," Harry whispered. "I still do—all of them."

"I hate them too," she answered, venom in her voice as she thought of the people who had reduced Harry to this broken state. "It's only human to hate monsters like them, Harry."

The word 'monster' seemed to jolt him back to his senses. He stared at her so earnestly she wanted to cry.

"If I'm not a monster, then… what am I?"

He looked so small then, so scared of her answer. Hermione dug her nails into her palm, fighting back her tears, but in the end her bottom lip still trembled when she replied:

"You're a boy, Harry. A boy thrust into a war with no choice but to survive." She reached out and gathered him in her arms, hugging him tightly. "You were strong and brave in a situation you had no control over. You did nothing wrong."

He said nothing but the tears she felt on her shirt were answer enough.

~A/N~ The art by Arishatistic for this chapter is based on the ending scene (link in profile).

As you can see, the events of the graveyard have definitely had an impact, especially on Harry's mental state, and it won't be easy for him from here on out. Hermione, however, will be by his side throughout it all. That was never in doubt.