Chapter One
The Dark Lord Ascending
The two men appeared out of nowhere, a few yards apart in the narrow, moonlit
lane. For a second they stood quite still, wands directed at each other's chests; then,
recognizing each other, they stowed their wands beneath their cloaks and started walking
briskly in the same direction.
"News?" asked the taller of the two.
"The best," replied Severus Snape.
The lane was bordered on the left by wild, low-growing brambles, on the right by a high,
neatly manicured hedge. The men's long cloaks flapped around their ankles as they
marched.
"Thought I might be late," said Yaxley, his blunt features sliding in and out of sight as
the branches of overhanging trees broke the moonlight. "It was a little trickier than I
expected. But I hope he will be satisfied. You sound confident that your reception will be
good?"
Snape nodded, but did not elaborate. They turned right, into a wide driveway that led
off the lane. The high hedge curved into them, running off into the distance beyond the
pair of imposing wrought-iron gates barring the men’s way. Neither of them broke step:
In silence both raised their left arms in a kind of salute and passed straight through, as
though the dark metal was smoke.
The yew hedges muffled the sound of the men’s footsteps. There was a rustle
somewhere to their right: Yaxley drew his wand again pointing it over his companion’s
head, but the source of the noise proved to be nothing more than a pure-white peacock,
strutting majestically along the top of the hedge.
“He always did himself well, Lucius. Peacocks …” Yaxley thrust his wand back
under his cloak with a snort.
A handsome manor house grew out of the darkness at the end of the straight drive,
lights glinting in the diamond paned downstairs windows. Somewhere in the dark garden
beyond the hedge a fountain was playing. Gravel crackled beneath their feet as Snape and
Yaxley sped toward the front door, which swung inward at their approach, though
nobody had visibly opened it.
The hallway was large, dimly lit, and sumptuously decorated, with a magnificent
carpet covering most of the stone floor. The eyes of the pale-faced portraits on the wall
followed Snape and Yaxley as they strode past. The two men halted at a heavy wooden
door leading into the next room, hesitated for the space of a heartbeat, then Snape turned
the bronze handle.
The drawing room was full of silent people, sitting at a long and ornate table. The
room’s usual furniture had been pushed carelessly up against the walls. Illumination
came from a roaring fire beneath a handsome marble mantelpiece surmounted by a gilded
mirror. Snape and Yaxley lingered for a moment on the threshold. As their eyes grew
accustomed to the lack of light, they were drawn upward to the strangest feature of the
scene: an apparently unconscious human figure hanging upside down over the table,
revolving slowly as if suspended by an invisible rope, and reflected in the mirror and in
the bare, polished surface of the table below. None of the people seated underneath this
singular sight were looking at it except for a pale young man sitting almost directly below
it. He seemed unable to prevent himself from glancing upward every minute or so.
“Yaxley. Snape,” said a high, clear voice from the head of the table. “You are
very nearly late.”
The speaker was seated directly in front of the fireplace, so that it was difficult, at
first, for the new arrivals to make out more than his silhouette. As they drew nearer,
however, his face shone through the gloom, hairless, snakelike, with slits for nostrils and
gleaming red eyes whose pupils were vertical. He was so pale that he seemed to emit a
pearly glow.
“Severus, here,” said Voldemort, indicating the seat on his immediate right.
“Yaxley – beside Dolohov.”
The two men took their allotted places. Most of the eyes around the table
followed Snape, and it was to him that Voldemort spoke first.
“So?”
“My Lord, the Order of the Phoenix intends to move Harry Potter from his current
place of safety on Saturday next, at nightfall.”
The interest around the table sharpened palpably: Some stiffened, others fidgeted,
all gazing at Snape and Voldemort.
“Saturday … at nightfall,” repeated Voldemort. His red eyes fastened upon
Snape’s black ones with such intensity that some of the watchers looked away, apparently
fearful that they themselves would be scorched by the ferocity of the gaze. Snape,
however, looked calmly back into Voldemort’s face and, after a moment or two,
Voldemort’s lipless mouth curved into something like a smile.
“Good. Very good. And this information comes –“
“ – from the source we discussed,” said Snape.
“My Lord.”
Yaxley had leaned forward to look down the long table at Voldemort and Snape.
All faces turned to him.
“My Lord, I have heard differently.”
Yaxley waited, but Voldemort did not speak, so he went on, “Dawlish, the Auror,
let slip that Potter will not be moved until the thirtieth, the night before the boy turns
seventeen.”
Snape was smiling.
“My source told me that there are plans to lay a false trail; this must be it. No
doubt a Confundus Charm has been placed upon Dawlish. It would not be the first time;
he is known to be susceptible.”
“I assure you, my Lord, Dawlish seemed quite certain,” said Yaxley.
“If he has been Confunded, naturally he is certain,” said Snape. “I assure you,
Yaxley, the Auror Office will play no further part in the protection of Harry Potter. The
Order believes that we have infiltrated the Ministry.”
“The Order’s got one thing right, then, eh?” said a squat man sitting a short
distance from Yaxley; he gave a wheezy giggle that was echoed here and there along the
table.
Voldemort did not laugh. His gaze had wandered upward to the body revolving
slowly overhead, and he seemed to be lost in thought.
“My Lord,” Yaxley went on, “Dawlish believes an entire party of Aurors will be
used to transfer the boy –“
Voldemort held up a large white hand, and Yaxley subsided at once, watching
resentfully as Voldemort turned back to Snape.
“Where are they going to hide the boy next?”
“At the home of one of the Order,” said Snape. “The place, according to the
source, has been given every protection that the Order and Ministry together could
provide. I think that there is little chance of taking him once he is there, my Lord, unless,
of course, the Ministry has fallen before next Saturday, which might give us the
opportunity to discover and undo enough of the enchantments to break through the rest.”
“Well, Yaxley?” Voldemort called down the table, the firelight glinting strangely
in his red eyes. “Will the Ministry have fallen by next Saturday?”
Once again, all heads turned. Yaxley squared his shoulders.
“My Lord, I have good news on that score. I have – with difficulty, and after great
effort – succeeded in placing an Imperius Curse upon Pius Thicknesse.”
Many of those sitting around Yaxley looked impressed; his neighbor, Dolohov, a
man with a long, twisted face, clapped him on the back.
“It is a start,” said Voldemort. “But Thicknesse is only one man. Scrimgeour must
be surrounded by our people before I act. One failed attempt on the Minister’s life will
set me back a long way.”
“Yes – my Lord, that is true – but you know, as Head of the Department of
Magical Law Enforcement, Thicknesse has regular contact not only with the Minister
himself, but also with the Heads of all the other Ministry departments. It will, I think, be
easy now that we have such a high-ranking official under our control, to subjugate the
others, and then they can all work together to bring Scrimgeour down.”
“As long as our friend Thicknesse is not discovered before he has converted the
rest,” said Voldemort. “At any rate, it remains unlikely that the Ministry will be mine
before next Saturday. If we cannot touch the boy at his destination, then it must be done
while he travels.”
“We are at an advantage there, my Lord,” said Yaxley, who seemed determined to
receive some portion of approval. “We now have several people planted within the
Department of Magical Transport. If Potter Apparates or uses the Floo Network, we shall
know immediately.”
“He will not do either,” said Snape. “The Order is eschewing any form of
transport that is controlled or regulated by the Ministry; they mistrust everything to do
with the place.”
“All the better,” said Voldemort. “He will have to move in the open. Easier to
take, by far.”
Again, Voldemort looked up at the slowly revolving body as he went on, “I shall
attend to the boy in person. There have been too many mistakes where Harry Potter is
concerned. Some of them have been my own. That Potter lives is due more to my errors
than to his triumphs.”
The company around the table watched Voldemort apprehensively, each of them,
by his or her expression, afraid that they might be blamed for Harry Potter’s continued
existence. Voldemort, however, seemed to be speaking more to himself than to any of
them, still addressing the unconscious body above him.
“I have been careless, and so have been thwarted by luck and chance, those
wreckers of all but the best-laid plans. But I know better now. I understand those things
that I did not understand before. I must be the one to kill Harry Potter, and I shall be.”
At these words, seemingly in response to them, a sudden wail sounded, a terrible,
drawn-out cry of misery and pain. Many of those at the table looked downward, startled,
for the sound had seemed to issue from below their feet.
“Wormtail,” said Voldemort, with no change in his quiet, thoughtful tone, and
without removing his eyes from the revolving body above, “have I not spoken to you
about keeping our prisoner quiet?”
“Yes, m-my Lord,” gasped a small man halfway down the table, who had been
sitting so low in his chair that it appeared, at first glance, to be unoccupied. Now he
scrambled from his seat and scurried from the room, leaving nothing behind him but a
curious gleam of silver.
“As I was saying,” continued Voldemort, looking again at the tense faces of his
followers, “I understand better now. I shall need, for instance, to borrow a wand from one
of you before I go to kill Potter.”
The faces around him displayed nothing but shock; he might have announced that
he wanted to borrow one of their arms.
“No volunteers?” said Voldemort. “Let’s see … Lucius, I see no reason for you to
have a wand anymore.”
Lucius Malfoy looked up. His skin appeared yellowish and waxy in the firelight,
and his eyes were sunken and shadowed. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse.
“My Lord?”
“Your wand, Lucius. I require your wand.”
“I …”
Malfoy glanced sideways at his wife. She was staring straight ahead, quite as pale
as he was, her long blonde hair hanging down her back, but beneath the table her slim
fingers closed briefly on his wrist. At her touch, Malfoy put his hand into his robes,
withdrew a wand, and passed it along to Voldemort, who held it up in front of his red
eyes, examining it closely.
“What is it?”
“Elm, my Lord,” whispered Malfoy.
“And the core?”
“Dragon – dragon heartstring.”
“Good,” said Voldemort. He drew out his wand and compared the lengths. Lucius
Malfoy made an involuntary movement; for a fraction of a second, it seemed he expected
to receive Voldemort’s wand in exchange for his own. The gesture was not missed by
Voldemort, whose eyes widened maliciously.
“Give you my wand, Lucius? My wand?”
Some of the throng sniggered.
“I have given you your liberty, Lucius, is that not enough for you? But I have
noticed that you and your family seem less than happy of late … What is it about my
presence in your home that displaces you, Lucius?”
“Nothing – nothing, my Lord!”
“Such lies Lucius … “
The soft voice seemed to hiss on even after the cruel mouth had stopped moving.
One or two of the wizards barely repressed a shudder as the hissing grew louder;
something heavy could be heard sliding across the floor beneath the table.
The huge snake emerged to climb slowly up Voldemort’s chair. It rose, seemingly
endlessly, and came to rest across Voldemort’s shoulders: its neck the thickness of a
man’s thigh; its eyes, with their vertical slits for pupils, unblinking. Voldemort stroked
the creature absently with long thin fingers, still looking at Lucius Malfoy.
“Why do the Malfoys look so unhappy with their lot? Is my return, my rise to
power, not the very thing they professed to desire for so many years?”
“Of course, my Lord,” said Lucius Malfoy. His hand shook as he wiped sweat
from his upper lip. “We did desire it – we do.”
To Malfoy’s left, his wife made an odd, stiff nod, her eyes averted from
Voldemort and the snake. To his right, his son, Draco, who had been gazing up at the
inert body overhead, glanced quickly at Voldemort and away again, terrified to make eye
contact.
“My Lord,” said a dark woman halfway down the table, her voice constricted with
emotion, “it is an honor to have you here, in our family’s house. There can be no higher
pleasure.”
She sat beside her sister, as unlike her in looks, with her dark hair and heavily
lidded eyes, as she was in bearing and demeanor; where Narcissa sat rigid and impassive,
Bellatrix leaned toward Voldemort, for mere words could not demonstrate her longing for
closeness.
“No higher pleasure,” repeated Voldemort, his head tilted a little to one side as he
considered Bellatrix. “That means a great deal, Bellatrix, from you.”
Her face flooded with color; her eyes welled with tears of delight.
“My Lord knows I speak nothing but the truth!”
“No higher pleasure … even compared with the happy event that, I hear, has
taken place in your family this week?”
She stared at him, her lips parted, evidently confused.
“I don’t know what you mean, my Lord.”
“I’m talking about your niece, Bellatrix. And yours, Lucius and Narcissa. She has
just married the werewolf, Remus Lupin. You must be so proud.”
There was an eruption of jeering laughter from around the table. Many leaned
forward to exchange gleeful looks; a few thumped the table with their fists. The giant
snake, disliking the disturbance, opened its mouth wide and hissed angrily, but the Death
Eaters did not hear it, so jubilant were they at Bellatrix and the Malfoys’ humiliation.
Bellatrix’s face, so recently flushed wit happiness, had turned an ugly, blotchy red.
“She is no niece of ours, my Lord,” she cried over the outpouring of mirth. “We –
Narcissa and I – have never set eyes on our sister since she married the Mudblood. This
brat has nothing to do with either of us, nor any beast she marries.”
“What say you, Draco?” asked Voldemort, and though his voice was quiet, it
carried clearly through the catcalls and jeers. “Will you babysit the cubs?”
The hilarity mounted; Draco Malfoy looked in terror at his father, who was
staring down into his own lap, then caught his mother’s eye. She shook her head almost
imperceptibly, then resumed her own deadpan stare at the opposite wall.
“Enough,” said Voldemort, stroking the angry snake. “Enough.”
And the laughter died at once.
“Many of our oldest family trees become a little diseased over time,” he said as
Bellatrix gazed at him, breathless and imploring, “You must prune yours, must you not,
to keep it healthy? Cut away those parts that threaten the health of the rest.”
“Yes, my Lord,” whispered Bellatrix, and her eyes swam with tears of gratitude
again. “At the first chance!”
“You shall have it,” said Voldemort. “And in your family, so in the world … we
shall cut away the canker that infects us until only those of the true blood remain …”
Voldemort raised Lucius Malfoy’s wand, pointed it directly at the slowly
revolving figure suspended over the table, and gave it a tiny flick. The figure came to life
with a groan and began to struggle against invisible bonds.
“Do you recognize our guest, Severus?” asked Voldemort.
Snape raised his eyes to the upside down face. All of the Death Eaters were
looking up at the captive now, as though they had been given permission to show
curiosity. As she revolved to face the firelight, the woman said in a cracked and terrified
voice, “Severus! Help me!”
“Ah, yes,” said Snape as the prisoner turned slowly away again.
“And you, Draco?” asked Voldemort, stroking the snake’s snout with his wandfree
hand. Draco shook his head jerkily. Now that the woman had woken, he seemed
unable to look at her anymore.
“But you would not have taken her classes,” said Voldemort. “For those of you
who do not know, we are joined here tonight by Charity Burbage who, until recently,
taught at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”
There were small noises of comprehension around the table. A broad, hunched
woman with pointed teeth cackled.
“Yes … Professor Burbage taught the children of witches and wizards all about
Muggles … how they are not so different from us … “
One of the Death Eaters spat on the floor. Charity Burbage revolved to face Snape
again.
“Severus … please … please … “
“Silence,” said Voldemort, with another twitch of Malfoy’s wand, and Charity fell
silent as if gagged. “Not content with corrupting and polluting the minds of Wizarding
children, last week Professor Burbage wrote an impassioned defense of Mudbloods in the
Daily Prophet. Wizards, she says, must accept these thieves of their knowledge and
magic. The dwindling of the purebloods is, says Professor Burbage, a most desirable
circumstance … She would have us all mate with Muggles … or, no doubt, werewolves
… “
Nobody laughed this time. There was no mistaking the anger and contempt in
Voldemort’s voice. For the third time, Charity Burbage revolved to face Snape. Tears
were pouring from her eyes into her hair. Snape looked back at her, quite impassive, as
she turned slowly away from him again.
“Avada Kedavra”
The flash of green light illuminated every corner of the room. Charity fell, with a
resounding crash, onto the table below, which trembled and creaked. Several of the Death
Eaters leapt back in their chairs. Draco fell out of his onto the floor.
“Dinner, Nagini,” said Voldemort softly, and the great snake swayed and slithered
from his shoulders onto the polished wood.
Chapter Two
In Memorandum
Harry was bleeding. Clutching his right hand in his left and swearing under his
breath, he shouldered open his bedroom door. There was a crunch of breaking china. He
had trodden on a cup of cold tea that had been sitting on the floor outside his bedroom
door.
"What the --?"
He looked around, the landing of number four, Privet Drive, was deserted.
Possibly the cup of tea was Dudley's idea of a clever booby trap. Keeping his bleeding
hand elevated, Harry scraped the fragments of cup together with the other hand and threw
them into the already crammed bin just visible inside his bedroom door. Then he tramped
across to the bathroom to run his finger under the tap.
It was stupid, pointless, irritating beyond belief that he still had four days left of
being unable to perform magic…but he had to admit to himself that this jagged cut in his
finger would have defeated him. He had never learned how to repair wounds, and now he
came to think of it – particularly in light of his immediate plans – this seemed a serious
flaw in his magical education. Making a mental note to ask Hermione how it was done,
he used a large wad of toilet paper to mop up as much of the tea as he could before
returning to his bedroom and slamming the door behind him.
Harry had spent the morning completely emptying his school trunk for the first
time since he had packed it six years ago. At the start of the intervening school years, he
had merely skimmed off the topmost three quarters of the contents and replaced or
updated them, leaving a layer of general debris at the bottom – old quills, desiccated
beetle eyes, single socks that no longer fit. Minutes previously, Harry had plunged his
hand into this mulch, experienced a stabbing pain in the fourth finger of his right hand,
and withdrawn it to see a lot of blood.
He now proceeded a little more cautiously. Kneeling down beside the trunk again,
he groped around in the bottom and, after retrieving an old badge that flickered feebly
between SUPPORT CEDRIC DIGGORY and POTTER STINKS, a cracked and worn-out
Sneakoscope, and a gold locket inside which a note signed R.A.B. had been hidden, he
finally discovered the sharp edge that had done the damage. He recognized it at once. It
was a two-inch-long fragment of the enchanted mirror that his dead godfather, Sirius, had
given him. Harry laid it aside and felt cautiously around the trunk for the rest, but nothing
more remained of his godfather's last gift except powdered glass, which clung to the
deepest layer of debris like glittering grit.
Harry sat up and examined the jagged piece on which he had cut himself, seeing
nothing but his own bright green eye reflected back at him. Then he placed the fragment
on top of that morning's Daily prophet, which lay unread on the bed, and attempted to
stem the sudden upsurge of bitter memories, the stabs of regret and of longing the
discovery of the broken mirror had occasioned, by attacking the rest of the rubbish in the
trunk.
It took another hour to empty it completely, throw away the useless items, and
sort the remainder in piles according to whether or not he would need them from now on.
His school and Quidditch robes, cauldron, parchment, quills, and most of his textbooks
were piled in a corner, to be left behind. He wondered what his aunt and uncle would do
with them; burn them in the dead of night, probably, as if they were evidence of some
dreadful crime. His Muggle clothing, Invisibility Cloak, potion-making kit, certain books,
the photograph album Hagrid had once given him, a stack of letters, and his wand had
been repacked into an old rucksack. In a front pocket were the Marauder's Map and the
locket with the note signed R.A.B. inside it. The locket was accorded this place of honor
not because it was valuable – in all usual senses it was worthless – but because of what it
had cost to attain it.
This left a sizable stack of newspapers sitting on his desk beside his snowy owl,
Hedwig: one for each of the days Harry had spent at Privet Drive this summer.
He got up off the floor, stretched, and moved across to his desk. Hedwig made no
movement as he began to flick through newspapers, throwing them into the rubbish pile
one by one. The owl was asleep or else faking; she was angry with Harry about the
limited amount of time she was allowed out of her cage at the moment.
As he neared the bottom of the pile of newspapers, Harry slowed down, searching
for one particular issue that he knew had arrived shortly after he had returned to Privet
Drive for the summer; he remembered that there had been a small mention on the front
about the resignation of Charity Burbage, the Muggle Studies teacher at Hogwarts. At
last he found it. Turning to page ten, he sank into his desk chair and reread the article he
had been looking for.
ALBUS DUMBLEDORE REMEMBERED
By Elphias Doge
I met Albus Dumbledore at the age of eleven, on our first day at Hogwarts. Our
mutual attraction was undoubtedly due to the fact that we both felt ourselves to be
outsiders. I had contracted dragon pox shortly before arriving at school, and while
I was no longer contagious, my pock-marked visage and greenish hue did not
encourage many to approach me. For his part, Albus had arrived at Hogwarts
under the burden of unwanted notoriety. Scarcely a year previously, his father,
Percival, had been convicted of a savage and well-publicized attack upon three
young Muggles.
Albus never attempted to deny that his father (who was to die in Azkaban) had
committed this crime; on the contrary, when I plucked up courage to ask him, he
assured me that he knew his father to be guilty. Beyond that, Dumbledore refused
to speak of the sad business, though many attempted to make him do so. Some,
indeed, were disposed to praise his father's action and assumed that Albus too was
a Muggle-hater. They could not have been more mistaken: As anybody who knew
Albus would attest, he never revealed the remotest anti-Muggle tendency. Indeed,
his determined support for Muggle rights gained him many enemies in subsequent
years.
In a matter of months, however, Albus's own fame had begun to eclipse that
of his father. By the end of his first year he would never again be known as the
son of a Muggle-hater, but as nothing more or less than the most brilliant student
ever seen at the school. Those of us who were privileged to be his friends
benefited from his example, not to mention his help and encouragement, with
which he was always generous. He confessed to me later in life that he knew even
then that his greatest pleasure lay in teaching.
He not only won every prize of note that the school offered, he was soon in
regular correspondence with the most notable magical names of the day, including
Nicolas Flamel, the celebrated alchemist; Bathilda Bagshot, the noted historian;
and Adalbert Waffling, the magical theoretician. Several of his papers found their
way into learned publications such as Transfiguration Today, Challenges in
Charming, and The Practical Potioneer. Dumbledore's future career seemed
likely to be meteoric, and the only question that remained was when he would
become Minister of Magic. Though it was often predicted in later years that he
was on the point of taking the job, however, he never had Ministerial ambitions.
Three years after we had started at Hogwarts, Albus's brother, Aberforth,
arrived at school. They were not alike: Aberforth was never bookish and, unlike
Albus, preferred to settle arguments by dueling rather than through reasoned
discussion. However, it is quite wrong to suggest, as some have, that the brothers
were not friends. They rubbed along as comfortably as two such different boys
could do. In fairness to Aberforth, it must be admitted that living in Albus's
shadow cannot have been an altogether comfortable experience. Being continually
outshone was an occupational hazard of being his friend and cannot have been
any more pleasurable as a brother. When Albus and I left Hogwarts we intended
to take the then-traditional tour of the world together, visiting and observing
foreign wizards, before pursuing our separate careers. However, tragedy
intervened. On the very eve of our trip, Albus's mother, Kendra, died, leaving
Albus the head, and sole breadwinner, of the family. I postponed my departure
long enough to pay my respects at Kendra's funeral, then left for what was now to
be a solitary journey. With a younger brother and sister to care for, and little gold
left to them, there could no longer be any question of Albus accompanying me.
That was the period of our lives when we had least contact. I wrote to Albus,
describing, perhaps insensitively, the wonders of my journey, from narrow
escapes from chimaeras in Greece to the experiments of the Egyptian alchemists.
His letters told me little of his day-to-day life, which I guessed to be frustratingly
dull for such a brilliant wizard. Immersed in my own experiences, it was with
horror that I heard, toward the end of my year's travels, that another tragedy had
struck the Dumbledores: the death of his sister, Ariana.
Though Ariana had been in poor health for a long time, the blow, coming so
soon after the loss of their mother, had a profound effect on both of her brothers.
All those closest to Albus – and I count myself one of that lucky number – agree
that Ariana's death, and Albus's feeling of personal responsibility for it (though, of
course, he was guiltless), left their mark upon him forevermore.
I returned home to find a young man who had experienced a much older
person's suffering. Albus was more reserved than before, and much less lighthearted.
To add to his misery, the loss of Ariana had led, not to a renewed
closeness between Albus and Aberforth, but to an estrangement. (In time this
would lift – in later years they reestablished, if not a close relationship, then
certainly a cordial one.) However, he rarely spoke of his parents or of Ariana from
then on, and his friends learned not to mention them.
Other quills will describe the triumphs of the following years. Dumbledore's
innumerable contributions to the store of Wizarding knowledge, including his
discovery of the twelve uses of dragon's blood, will benefit generations to come,
as will the wisdom he displayed in the many judgments while Chief Warlock of
the Wizengamot. They say, still, that no Wizarding duel ever matched that
between Dumbledore and Grindelwald in 1945. Those who witnessed it have
written of the terror and the awe they felt as they watched these two extraordinary
wizards to battle. Dumbledore's triumph, and its consequences for the Wizarding
world, are considered a turning point in magical history to match the introduction
of the International Statute of Secrecy or the downfall of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-
Named.
Albus Dumbledore was never proud or vain; he could find something to value
in anyone, however apparently insignificant or wretched, and I believe that his
early losses endowed him with great humanity and sympathy. I shall miss his
friendship more than I can say, but my loss is nothing compared to the Wizarding
world's. That he was the most inspiring and best loved of all Hogwarts
headmasters cannot be in question. He died as he lived: working always for the
greater good and, to his last hour, as willing to stretch out a hand to a small boy
with dragon pox as he was on the day I met him.
Harry finished reading, but continued to gaze at the picture accompanying the
obituary. Dumbledore was wearing his familiar, kindly smile, but as he peered over the
top of his half-moon spectacles, he gave the impression, even in newsprint, of X-raying
Harry, whose sadness mingled with a sense of humiliation.
He had thought he knew Dumbledore quite well, but ever since reading this
obituary he had been forced to recognize that he had barely known him at all. Never once
had he imagined Dumbledore's childhood or youth; it was as though he had sprung into
being as Harry had known him, venerable and silver-haired and old. The idea of a
teenage Dumbledore was simply odd, like trying to imagine a stupid Hermione or a
friendly Blast-Ended Skrewt.
He had never thought to ask Dumbledore about his past. No doubt it would have
felt strange, impertinent even, but after all it had been common knowledge that
Dumbledore had taken part in that legendary duel with Grindelwald, and Harry had not
thought to ask Dumbledore what that had been like, nor about any of his other famous
achievements. No, they had always discussed Harry, Harry's past, Harry's future, Harry's
plans… and it seemed to Harry now, despite the fact that his future was so dangerous and
so uncertain, that he had missed irreplaceable opportunities when he had failed to ask
Dumbledore more about himself, even though the only personal question he had ever
asked his headmaster was also the only one he suspected that Dumbledore had not
answered honestly:
"What do you see when you look in the mirror?"
"I? I see myself holding a pair of thick, woolen socks."
After several minutes' thought, Harry tore the obituary out of the Prophet, folded
it carefully, and tucked it inside the first volume of Practical Defensive Magic and its
Use against the Dark Arts. Then he threw the rest of the newspaper onto the rubbish pile
and turned to face the room. It was much tidier. The only things left out of place were
today's Daily Prophet, still lying on the bed, and on top of it, the piece of broken mirror.
Harry moved across the room, slid the mirror fragment off today's Prophet, and
unfolded the newspaper. He had merely glanced at the headline when he had taken the
rolled-up paper from the delivery owl early that morning and thrown it aside, after noting
that it said nothing about Voldemort. Harry was sure that the Ministry was leaning on the
Prophet to suppress news about Voldemort. It was only now, therefore, that he saw what
he had missed.
Across the bottom half of the front page a smaller headline was set over a picture
of Dumbledore striding along, looking harried:
DUMBLEDORE – THE TRUTH AT LAST?
Coming next week, the shocking story of the flawed genius considered by many
to be the greatest wizard of his generation. Striping away the popular image of
serene, silver-bearded wisdom, Rita Skeeter reveals the disturbed childhood, the
lawless youth, the life-long feuds, and the guilty secrets that Dumbledore carried
to his grave, WHY was the man tipped to be the Minister of Magic content to
remain a mere headmaster? WHAT was the real purpose of the secret
organization known as the Order of the Phoenix? HOW did Dumbledore really
meet his end?
The answers to these and many more questions are explored in the
explosive new biography, The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore, by Rita Skeeter,
exclusively interviewed by Berry Braithwaite, page 13, inside.
Harry ripped open the paper and found page thirteen. The article was topped with
a picture showing another familiar face: a woman wearing jeweled glasses with
elaborately curled blonde hair, her teeth bared in what was clearly supposed to be a
winning smile, wiggling her fingers up at him. Doing his best to ignore this nauseating
image, Harry read on.
In person, Rita Skeeter is much warmer and softer than her famously
ferocious quill-portraits might suggest. Greeting me in the hallway of her cozy
home, she leads me straight into the kitchen for a cup of tea, a slice of pound cake
and, it goes without saying, a steaming vat of freshest gossip.
"Well, of course, Dumbledore is a biographer's dream," says Skeeter. "Such a
long, full life. I'm sure my book will be the first of very, very many."
Skeeter was certainly quick off the mark. Her nine-hundred-page book was
completed in a mere four weeks after Dumbledore's mysterious death in June. I
ask her how she managed this superfast feat.
"Oh, when you've been a journalist as long as I have, working to a deadline is
second nature. I knew that the Wizarding world was clamoring for the full story
and I wanted to be the first to meet that need."
I mention the recent, widely publicized remarks of Elphias Doge, Special
Advisor to the Wizengamot and longstanding friend of Albus Dumbledore's, that
"Skeeter's book contains less fact than a Chocolate Frog card."
Skeeter throws back her head and laughs.
"Darling Dodgy! I remember interviewing him a few years back about
merpeople rights, bless him. Completely gaga, seemed to think we were sitting at
the bottom of Lake Windermere, kept telling me to watch out for trout."
And yet Elphias Doge's accusations of inaccuracy have been echoed in many
places. Does Skeeter really feel that four short weeks have been enough to gain a
full picture of Dumbledore's long and extraordinary life?
"Oh, my dear," beams Skeeter, rapping me affectionately across the knuckles,
"you know as well as I do how much information can be generated by a fat bag of
Galleons, a refusal to hear the word 'no,' and a nice sharp Quick-Quotes Quill!
People were queuing to dish the dirt on Dumbledore anyway. Not everyone
thought he was so wonderful, you know – he trod on an awful lot of important
toes. But old Dodgy Doge can get off his high hippogriff, because I've had access
to a source most journalists would swap their wands for, one who has never
spoken in public before and who was close to Dumbledore during the most
turbulent and disturbing phase of his youth."
The advance publicity for Skeeter's biography has certainly suggested that
there will be shocks in store for those who believe Dumbledore to have led a
blameless life. What were the biggest surprises she uncovered, I ask?
"Now, come off it. Betty, I'm not giving away all the highlights before
anybody's bought the book!" laughs Skeeter. "But I can promise that anybody
who still thinks Dumbledore was white as his beard is in for a rude awakening!
Let's just say that nobody hearing him rage against You-Know-Who would have
dreamed that he dabbled in the Dark Arts himself in his youth! And for a wizard
who spent his later years pleading for tolerance, he wasn't exactly broad-minded
when he was younger! Yes, Albus Dumbledore had an extremely murky past, not
to mention that very fishy family, which he worked so hard to keep hushed up."
I ask whether Skeeter is referring to Dumbledore's brother, Aberforth, whose
conviction by the Wizengamot for misuse of magic caused a minor scandal fifteen
years ago.
"Oh, Aberforth is just the tip of the dung heap,” laughs Skeeter. "No, no, I'm
talking about much worse than a brother with a fondness for fiddling about with
goats, worse even than the Muggle-maiming father – Dumbledore couldn't keep
either of them quiet anyway, they were both charged by the Wizengamot. No, it's
the mother and the sister that intrigued me, and a little digging uncovered a
positive nest of nastiness – but, as I say, you'll have to wait for chapters nine to
twelve for full details. All I can say now is, it's no wonder Dumbledore never
talked about how his nose got broken."
Family skeletons notwithstanding, does Skeeter deny the brilliance that led to
Dumbledore's many magical discoveries?
"He had brains," she concedes, "although many now question whether he
could really take full credit for all of his supposed achievements. As I reveal in
chapter sixteen, Ivor Dillonsby claims he had already discovered eight uses of
dragon's blood when Dumbledore 'borrowed' his papers."
But the importance of some of Dumbledore's achievements cannot, I venture,
be denied. What of his famous defeat of Grindelwald?
"Oh, now, I'm glad you mentioned Grindelwald," says Skeeter with such a
tantalizing smile. "I'm afraid those who go dewy-eyed over Dumbledore's
spectacular victory must brace themselves for a bombshell – or perhaps a
Dungbomb. Very dirty business indeed. All I'll say is, don't be so sure that there
really was a spectacular duel of legend. After they've read my book, people may
be forced to conclude that Grindelwald simply conjured a white handkerchief
from the end of his wand and came quietly!"
Skeeter refuses to give any more away on this intriguing subject, so we turn
instead to the relationship that will undoubtedly fascinate her readers more than
any other.
"Oh yes," says Skeeter, nodding briskly, "I devote an entire chapter to the
whole Potter-Dumbledore relationship. It's been called unhealthy, even sinister.
Again, your readers will have to buy my book for the whole story, but there is no
question that Dumbledore took an unnatural interest in Potter from the word go.
Whether that was really in the boy's best interests – well, we'll see. It's certainly
an open secret that Potter has had a most troubled adolescence."
I ask whether Skeeter is still in touch with Harry Potter, whom she so
famously interviewed last year: a breakthrough piece in which Potter spoke
exclusively of his conviction that You-Know-Who had returned.
"Oh, yes, we've developed a closer bond," says Skeeter. "Poor Potter has few
real friends, and we met at one of the most testing moments of his life – the
Triwizard Tournament. I am probably one of the only people alive who can say
that they know the real Harry Potter."
Which leads us neatly to the many rumors still circulating about Dumbledore's
final hours. Does Skeeter believe that Potter was there when Dumbledore died?
"Well, I don't want to say too much – it's all in the book – but eyewitnesses
inside Hogwarts castle saw Potter running away from the scene moments after
Dumbledore fell, jumped, or was pushed. Potter later gave evidence against
Severus Snape, a man against whom he has a notorious grudge. Is everything as it
seems? That is for the Wizarding community to decide – once they've read my
book."
On that intriguing note, I take my leave. There can be no doubt that Skeeter
has quilled an instant bestseller. Dumbledore's legion of admirers, meanwhile,
may well be trembling at what is soon to emerge about their hero.
Harry reached the bottom of the article, but continued to stare blankly at the page.
Revulsion and fury rose in him like vomit; he balled up the newspaper and threw it, with
all his force, at the wall, where it joined the rest of the rubbish heaped around his
overflowing bin.
He began to stride blindly around the room, opening empty drawers and picking
up books only to replace them on the same piles, barely conscious of what he was doing,
as random phrases from Rita's article echoed in his head: An entire chapter to the whole
Potter-Dumbledore relationship ... It's been called unhealthy, even sinister ... He dabbled
in the Dark Arts himself in his youth ... I've had access to a source most journalists would
swap their wands for...
"Lies!" Harry bellowed, and through the window he saw the next-door neighbor,
who had paused to restart his lawn mower, look up nervously.
Harry sat down hard on the bed. The broken bit of mirror danced away from him;
he picked it up and turned it over in his fingers, thinking, thinking of Dumbledore and the
lies with which Rita Skeeter was defaming him ...
A flash of brightest blue. Harry froze, his cut finger slipping on the jagged edge of
the mirror again. He had imagined it, he must have done. He glanced over his shoulder,
but the wall was a sickly peach color of Aunt Petunia's choosing: There was nothing blue
there for the mirror to reflect. He peered into the mirror fragment again, and saw nothing
but his own bright green eye looking back at him.
He had imagined it, there was no other explanation; imagined it, because he had
been thinking of his dead headmaster. If anything was certain, it was that the bright blue
eyes of Albus Dumbledore would never pierce him again.
Chapter Three
The Dursleys Departing
The sound of the front door slamming echoed up the stairs and a voice roared,
“Oh! You!”
Sixteen years of being addressed thus left Harry in no doubt when his uncle was
calling, nevertheless, he did not immediately respond. He was still at the narrow fragment
in which, for a split second, he had thought he saw Dumbledore’s eye. It was not until his
uncle bellowed, “BOY!” that Harry got slowly out of bed and headed for the bedroom
door, pausing to add the piece of broken mirror to the rucksack filled with things he
would be taking with him.
“You took you time!” roared Vernon Dursley when Harry appeared at the top of
the stairs, “Get down here. I want a word!”
Harry strolled downstairs, his hands deep in his pants pockets. When he searched
the living room he found all three Dursleys. They were dressed for packing; Uncle
Vernon in an old ripped-up jacket and Dudley, Harry’s, large, blond, muscular cousin, in
his leather jacket.
“Yes?” asked Harry.
“Sit down!” said Uncle Vernon. Harry raised his eyebrows. “Please!” added
Uncle Vernon, wincing slightly as though the word was sharp in his throat.
Harry sat. He though he knew what was coming. His uncle began to pace up and down,
Aunt Petunia and Dudley, following his movement with anxious expressions. Finally, his
large purple face crumpled with concentration. Uncle Vernon stopped in front of Harry
and spoke.
"I've changed my mind,” he said.
"What a surprise," said Harry.
"Don't you take that tone—" began Aunt Petunia in a shrill voice, but Vernon
Dursley waved her down
"It's all a lot of claptrap,” said Uncle Vernon, glaring at Harry with piggy little
eyes. "I've decided I don't believe a word of it. We’re staying put, we’re not going
anywhere.”
Harry looked up at his uncle and felt a mixture of exasperation and amusement.
Vernon Dursley had been changing his mind every twenty four hours for the past four
weeks, packing and unpacking and repacking the car with every change of heart. Harry’s
favorite moment had been the one when Uncle Vernon, unaware the Dudley had added
his dumbbells to his case since the last time it been repacked, had attempted to hoist it
back into the boot and collapsed with a yelp of pain and much swearing.
“According to you,” Vernon Dursley said, now resuming his pacing up and down
the living room, “we – Petunia, Dudley, and I – are in danger. From – from –“
“Some of ‘my lot’ right?” said Harry
“Well I don’t believe it,” repeated Uncle Vernon, coming to a halt in front of
Harry again. "I was awake half the night thinking it all over, and I believe it's a plot to get
the house."
"The house?" repeated Harry. "What house?"
"This house!" shrieked Uncle Vernon, the vein his forehead starting to pulse.
"Our house! House prices are skyrocketing around here! You want us out of the way and
then you're going to do a bit of hocus pocus and before we know it the deeds will be in
your name and –"
“Are you out of your mind?" demanded Harry. "A plot to get this house? Are you
actually as stupid as you look?"
"Don't you dare --!" squealed Aunt Petunia, but again Vernon waved her
down. Slights on his personal appearance were it seemed as nothing to the danger he had
spotted.
"Just in case you've forgotten," said Harry, "I've already got a house my godfather
left me one. So why would I want this one? All the happy memories?"
There was silence. Harry thought he had rather impressed his uncle with this
argument.
"You claim," said Uncle Vernon, starting to pace yet again, "that this Lord Thing
–"
"—Voldemort," said Harry impatiently, "and we've been through this about a
hundred times already. This isn't a claim, it's fact. Dumbledore told you last year, and
Kingsley and Mr. Weasley –"
Vernon Dursley hunched his shoulders angrily, and Harry guessed that his uncle
was attempting to ward off recollections of the unannounced visit, a few days into Harry's
summer holidays, of two fully grown wizards. The arrival on the doorstep of Kingsley
Shacklebolt and Arthur Weasley had come as a most unpleasant shock to the Dursleys.
Harry had to admit, however that as Mr. Weasley had once demolished half of the living
room, his reappearance could not have been expected to delight Uncle Vernon.
"—Kingsley and Mr. Weasley explained it all as well," Harry pressed on
remorselessly, "Once I'm seventeen, the protective charm that keeps me safe will break,
and that exposes you as well as me. The Order is sure Voldemort will target you,
whether to torture you to try and find out where I am, or because he thinks by holding
you hostage I'd come and try to rescue you."
Uncle Vernon's and Harry's eyes met. Harry was sure that in that instant they were
both wondering the same thing. Then Uncle Vernon walked on and Harry resumed,
"You've got to go into hiding and the Order wants to help. You're being offered serious
protection, the best there is."
Uncle Vernon said nothing but continued to pace up and down. Outside the sun
hung low over the privet hedges. The next door neighbor's lawn mower stalled again.
"I thought there was a Ministry of Magic?" asked Vernon Dursley abruptly.
"There is," said Harry, surprised.
"Well, then, why can't they protect us? It seems to me that, as innocent victims, guilty of
nothing more than harboring a marked man, we ought to qualify for government
protection!"
Harry laughed; he could not help himself. It was so very typical of his uncle to put
his hopes in the establishment, even within this world that he despised and mistrusted.
"You heard what Mr. Weasley and Kingsley said," Harry replied.
"We think the Ministry has been infiltrated."
Uncle Vernon strode back to the fireplace and back breathing so strongly that his
great black mustache rippled his face still purple with concentration.
"All right," he said. Stopping in front of Harry get again. "All right, let's say for
the sake of argument we accept this protection. I still don't see why we can't have that
Kingsley bloke."
Harry managed not to roll his eyes, but with difficulty. This question had also
been addressed half a dozen times.
"As I've told you," he said through gritted teeth, "Kingsley is protecting the Mug
– I mean, your Prime Minister."
"Exactly – he's the best!" said Uncle Vernon, pointing at the blank television
screen. The Dursleys had spotted Kingsley on the news, walking along the Muggle Prime
Minister as he visited a hospital. This, and the fact that Kingsley had mastered the knack
of dressing like a Muggle, not to mention a certain reassuring something in his slow, deep
voice, had caused the Dursleys to take to Kingsley in a way that they had certainly not
done with any other wizard, although it was true that they had never seen him with
earring in.
"Well, he's taken,” said Harry. "But Hestia Jones and Dedalus Diggle are more
than up to the job –"
"If we'd even seen CVs…" began Uncle Vernon, but Harry lost patience. Getting
to his feet, he advanced on his uncle, not pointing at the TV set himself.
"These accidents aren't accidents – the crashed and explosions and derailments
and whatever else has happened since we last watched the news. People are disappearing
and dying and he's behind it – Voldemort. I've told you this over and over again, he kills
Muggles for fun. Even the fogs – they're caused by dementors, and if you can't remember
what they are, ask your son!"
Dudley's hands jerked upward to tower his mouth. With his parents' and Harry's
eyes upon him, he slowly lowered them again and asked, "There are… more of them?"
"More?" laughed Harry. "More than the two that attacked us, you mean? Of course there
are hundreds, maybe thousands by this time, seeing as they feed off fear and despair—"
"All right, all right blustered," blustered Vernon Dursley. "You've made your
point –"
"I hope so," said Harry, "because once I'm seventeen, all of them – Death Eaters,
elementors, maybe even Inferi – which means dead bodies enchanted by a Dark wizard –
will be able to find you and will certainly attack you. And if you remember the last time
you tried to outrun wizards, I think you'll agree you need help."
There was a brief silence in which the distant echo of Hagrid smashing down a
wooden front door seemed to reverberate through the intervening years. Aunt Petunia
was looking at Uncle Vernon; Dudley was staring at Harry. Finally Uncle Vernon
blurted out, "But what about my work? What about Dudley's school? I don't suppose
those things matter to a bunch of layabout wizards –"
"Don't you understand?" shouted Harry. "They will torture and kill you like they
did my parents!"
"Dad," said Dudley in a loud voice, "Dad – I'm going with these Order people."
"Dudley," said Harry, "for the first time in your life, you're talking sense."
He knew the battle was won. If Dudley was frightened enough to accept the Order's help,
his parents would accompany him. There could be no question of being separated from
their Duddykins. Harry glanced at the carriage clock on the mantelpiece.
"They'll be here in about five minutes, he said, and when one of the Dursleys
replied, he left the room. The prospect of parting—probably forever – from his aunt,
uncle, and cousin was one that he was able to contemplate quite cheerfully but there was
nevertheless a certain awkwardness in the air. What did you say to one another at the end
of sixteen years' solid dislike?
Back in his bedroom, Harry fiddled aimlessly with his rucksack then poked a
couple of owl nuts through the bats of Hedwig's cage. They fell with dull thuds to the
bottom where she ignored them.
"We're leaving soon, really soon," Harry told her. "And then you'll be able to fly
again."
The doorbell rang. Harry hesitated, then headed back out of his room and
downstairs. It was too much to expect Hestia and Dedalus to cope with the Dursleys on
their own.
"Harry Potter!" squeaked an excited voice, the moment Harry had opened the
door; a small man in a mauve top hat that was sweeping him a deep bow. "An honor as
ever!"
"Thanks, Dedalus," said Harry, bestowing a small and embarrassed smile upon
the dark haired Hestia. "It's really good of you to do this… They're through here, my aunt
and uncle and cousin…"
"Good day to you, Harry Potter's relatives!" said Dedalus happily striding into the
living room. The Dursleys did not look at all happy to be addressed thus; Harry half
expected another change of mind. Dudley shrank neared to his mother at the sight of the
witch and wizard.
"I see you are packed and ready. Excellent! The plan, as Harry has told you, is a
simple one," said Dedalus, pulling an immense pocket watch out of his waistcoat and
examining it. "We shall be leaving before Harry does. Due to the danger of using magic
in your house –Harry being still underage it could provide the Ministry with an excuse to
arrest him – we shall be driving, say, ten miles or so before Disapparating to the safe
location we have picked out for you. You know how to drive, I take it?" He asked Uncle
Vernon politely.
"Know how to –? Of course I ruddy well know how to drive!" spluttered Uncle
Vernon.
"Very clever of you, sir, very clever. I personally would be utterly bamboozled by
all those buttons and knobs," said Dedalus. He was clearly under the impression that he
was flattering Vernon Dursley, who was visibly losing confidence in the plan with every
word Dedalus spoke.
"Can't even drive," he muttered under his breath, his mustache rippling
indignantly, but fortunately neither Dedalus nor Hestia seemed to hear him.
"You, Harry," Dedalus continued, "will wait here for your guard. There has been
a little change in the arrangements –"
“What d'you mean?" said Harry at once. "I thought Mad-Eye was going to come
and take me by Side Along-Apparition?"
"Can't do it," said Hestia tersely, "Mad-Eye will explain."
The Dursleys, who had listened to all of this with looks of utter incomprehension
on their faces, jumped as a loud voice screeched, "Hurry up!" Harry looked all around the
room before realizing the voice had issued from Dedalus's pocket watch.
"Quite right, were operating to a very tight schedule," said Dedalus nodding at his
watch and tucking it back into his waist coat. "We are attempting to time your departure
from the house with your family's Disapparition, Harry thus the charm breaks the
moment you all head for safety." He turned to the Dursleys, "Well, are we all packed and
ready to go?"
None of them answered him. Uncle Vernon was still staring appalled at the bulge
in Dedalus's waistcoat pocket.
"Perhaps we should wait outside in the hall, Dedalus," murmured Hestia. She
clearly felt that it would be tactless for them to remain the room while Harry and the
Dursleys exchanged loving, possibly tearful farewells.
"There's no need," Harry muttered, but Uncle Vernon made any further
explanation unnecessary by saying loudly,
"Well, this is good-bye then boy."
He swung his right arm upward to shake Harry's hand, but at the last moment
seemed unable to face it, and merely closed his fist and began swinging it backward and
forward like a metronome.
"Ready, Duddy?" asked Petunia, fussily checking the clasp of her handbag so as
to avoid looking at Harry altogether.
Dudley did not answer but stood there with his mouth slightly ajar, reminding
Harry a little of the giant, Grawp.
"Come along, then," said Uncle Vernon.
He had already reached the living room door when Dudley mumbled, "I don't
understand."
"What don't you understand, popkin?" asked Petunia looking up at her son.
Dudley raised a large, hamlike hand to point at Harry.
"Why isn't he coming with us?
Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia froze when they stood staring at Dudley as
though he had just expressed a desire to become a ballerina.
"What?" said Uncle Vernon loudly.
"Why isn't he coming too?" asked Dudley.
"Well, he—doesn't want to," said Uncle Vernon, turning to glare at Harry and
adding, "You don't want to, do you?"
"Not in the slightest," said Harry.
"There you are," Uncle Vernon told Dudley. "Now come on we're off."
He marched out of the room. They heard the front door open, but Dudley did not
move and after a few faltering steps Aunt Petunia stopped too.
"What now?" barked Uncle Vernon, reappearing in the doorway.
It seemed that Dudley was struggling with concepts too difficult to put into words.
After several moments of apparently painful internal struggle he said, "But where's he
going to go?"
Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon looked at each other. It was clear that Dudley
was frightening them. Hestia Jones broke the silence.
"But… surely you know where your nephew is going?" she asked looking
bewildered.
"Certainly we know," said Vernon Dursley. "He's off with some of your lot, isn't
he? Right, Dudley, let's get in the car, you heard the man, we're in a hurry.
Again, Vernon Dursley marched as far as the front door, but Dudley did not
follow.
"Off with some of our lot?"
Hestia looked outraged. Harry had met this attitude before Witches and wizards
seemed stunned that his closed living relatives took so little interest in the famous Harry
Potter.
"It's fine," Harry assured her. "It doesn't matter, honestly."
"Doesn't matter?" repeated Hestia, her voice rising considerably.
"Don't these people realize what you've been through? What danger you are in?
The unique position you hold in the hearts of the anti Voldemort movement?"
"Er –no, they don't," said Harry. "They think I'm a waste of space, actually but I'm
used to –"
"I don't think you're a waste of space"
If Harry had not seen Dudley's lips move, he might not have believed it. As it was,
he stared at Dudley for several seconds before accepting that it must have been his cousin
who had spoken; for one thing, Dudley had turned red. Harry was embarrassed and
astonished himself.
"Well... er… thanks, Dudley."
Again, Dudley appeared to grapple with thoughts too unwieldy for expression
before mumbling, "You saved my life,"
"Not really," said Harry. "It was your soul the dementor would have taken…"
He looked curiously at his cousin. They had had virtually no contact during this
summer or last, as Harry had come back to Privet Drive so briefly and kept to his room so
much. It now dawned on Harry, however, that the cup of cold tea on which he had
trodden that morning might not have been a booby trap at all. Although rather touched he
was nevertheless quite relieved that Dudley appeared to have exhausted his ability to
express his feelings. After opening his mouth once or twice more, Dudley subsided into
scarlet-faced silence.
Aunt Petunia burst into tears. Hestia Jones gave her an approving look that
changed to outrage as Aunt Petunia ran forward and embraced Dudley rather than Harry.
"S-so sweet, Dudders…" she sobbed into his massive chest. "S-such a lovely b-boy… ssaying
thank you…"
"But he hasn't said thank you at all!" said Hestia indignantly. "He only said he
didn't think Harry was a waste of space!"
"Yea but coming from Dudley that's like 'I love you,'" said Harry, torn between
annoyance and a desire to laugh as Aunt Petunia continued to clutch at Dudley as if he
had just saved Harry from a burning building.
"Are we going or not?" roared Uncle Vernon, reappearing yet again at the living
room door. "I thought we were on a tight schedule!"
"Yes –yes, we are," said Dedalus Diggle, who had been watching these exchanged
with an air of bemusement and now seemed to pull himself together. "We really must be
off. Harry –"
He tripped forward and wrung Harry's hand with both of his own.
"—good luck. I hope we meet again. The hopes of the Wizarding world rest upon
your shoulders."
"Oh," said Harry, "right. Thanks."
"Farwell, Harry," said Hestia also clasping his hand. "Our thoughts go with you."
"I hope everything's okay," said Harry with a glance toward Aunt Petunia and
Dudley.
"Oh I'm sure we shall end up the best of chums," said Diggle slightly, waving his
hat as he left the room. Hestia followed him.
Dudley gently released himself from his mother's clutches and walked toward
Harry who had to repress an urge to threaten him with magic. Then Dudley held out his
large, pink hand.
"Blimey, Dudley," said Harry over Aunt Petunia's renewed sobs, "did the
dementors blow a different personality into you?"
"Dunno," muttered Dudley, "See you, Harry."
"Yea …" said Harry, raking Dudley's hand and shaking it. "Maybe. Take care,
Big D."
Dudley nearly smiled. They lumbered from the room. Harry heard his heavy
footfalls on the graveled drive, and then a car door slammed.
Aunt Petunia whose face had been buried in her handkerchief looked around at
the sound. She did not seem to have expected to find herself alone with Harry. Hastily
stowing her wet handkerchief into her pocket, she said, "Well – good-bye" and marched
towards the door without looking at him.
"Good-bye" said Harry.
She stopped and looked back. For a moment Harry had the strangest feeling that
she wanted to say something to him; She gave him an odd, tremulous look and seemed to
teeter on the edge of speech, but then, with a little of her head, she hustled out of the
room after he husband and son.
Chapter Four
The Seven Potters
Harry ran back upstairs to his bedroom, arriving at the window just in time to see
the Dursleys' car swinging out of the drive and off up the road. Dedalus’s top hat was
visible between Aunt Petunia and Dudley in the backseat. The car turned right at the end
of Privet Drive, its windows burned scarlet for a moment in the now setting sun, and then
it was gone.
Harry picked up Hedwig’s cage, his Firebolt, and his rucksack, gave his
unnaturally tidy bedroom one last sweeping look, and then made his ungainly way back
downstairs to the hall, where he deposited cage, broomstick, and bag near the foot of the
stairs. The light was fading rapidly, the hall full of shadows in the evening light. It felt
most strange to stand here in the silence and know that he was about to leave the house
for the last time. Long ago, when he had been left alone while the Dursleys went out to
enjoy themselves, the hours of solitude had been a rare treat. Pausing only to sneak
something tasty from the fridge, he had rushed upstairs to play on Dudley’s computer, or
put on the television and flicked through the channels to his heart’s content. It gave him
an odd, empty feeling remembering those times; it was like remembering a younger
brother whom he had lost.
“Don’t you want to take a last look at the place?” he asked Hedwig, who was still
sulking with her head under her wing. “We’ll never be here again. Don’t you want to
remember all the good times? I mean, look at this doormat. What memories … Dudley
sobbed on it after I saved him from the dementors … Turns out he was grateful after all,
can you believe it? … And last summer, Dumbledore walked through that front door … “
Harry lost the thread of his thoughts for a moment and Hedwig did nothing to
help him retrieve it, but continued to sit with her head under her wing. Harry turned his
back on the front door.
“And under here, Hedwig” – Harry pulled open a door under the stairs – “is where
I used to sleep! You never knew me then – Blimey, it’s small, I’d forgotten … “
Harry looked around at the stacked shoes and umbrellas remembering how he
used to wake every morning looking up at the underside of the staircase, which was more
often than not adorned with a spider or two. Those had been the days before he had
known anything about his true identity; before he had found out how his parents had died
or why such strange things often happened around him. But Harry could still remember
the dreams that had dogged him, even in those days: confused dreams involving flashes
of green light and once – Uncle Vernon had nearly crashed the car when Harry had
recounted it – a flying motorbike …
There was a sudden, deafening roar from somewhere nearby. Harry straightened
up with a jerk and smacked the top of his head on the low door frame. Pausing only to
employ a few of Uncle Vernon’s choicest swear words, he staggered back into the
kitchen, clutching his head and staring out of the window into the back garden.
The darkness seemed to be rippling, the air itself quivering. Then, one by one,
figures began to pop into sight as their Disillusionment Charms lifted. Dominating the
scene was Hagrid, wearing a helmet and goggles and sitting astride an enormous
motorbike with a black sidecar attached. All around him other people were dismounting
from brooms and, in two cases, skeletal, black winged horses.
Wrenching open the back door, Harry hurtled into their midst. There was a
general cry of greeting as Hermione flung her arms around him, Ron clapped him on the
back, and Hagrid said, “All righ’, Harry? Ready fer the off?”
“Definitely,” said Harry, beaming around at them all. “But I wasn’t expecting this
many of you!”
“Change of plan,” growled Mad-Eye, who was holding two enormous bulging
sacks, and whose magical eye was spinning from darkening sky to house to garden with
dizzying rapidity. “Let’s get undercover before we talk you through it.”
Harry led them all back into the kitchen where, laughing and chattering, they
settled on chairs, sat themselves upon Aunt Petunia’s gleaming work surfaces, or leaned
up against her spotless appliances; Ron, long and lanky; Hermione, her bushy hair tied
back in a long plait; Fred and George, grinning identically; Bill, badly scarred and longhaired;
Mr. Weasley, kind-faced, balding, his spectacles a little awry; Mad-Eye, battleworn,
one-legged, his bright blue magical eye whizzing in its socket; Tonks, whose short
hair was her favorite shade of bright pink; Lupin, grayer, more lined; Fleur, slender and
beautiful, with her long silvery blonde hair; Kingsley, bald and broad-shouldered; Hagrid,
with his wild hair and beard, standing hunchbacked to avoid hitting his head on the
ceiling; and Mundungus Fletcher, small, dirty, and hangdog, with his droopy beady
hound’s eyes and matted hair. Harry’s heart seemed to expand and glow at the sight: He
felt incredibly fond of all of them, even Mundungus, whom he had tried to strangle the
last time they had met.
“Kingsley, I thought you were looking after the Muggle Prime Minister?” he
called across the room.
“He can get along without me for one night,” said Kingsley, “You’re more
important.”
“Harry, guess what?” said Tonks from her perch on top of the washing machine,
and she wiggled her left hand at him; a ring glistened there.
“You got married?” Harry yelped, looking from her to Lupin.
“I’m sorry you couldn’t be there, Harry, it was very quiet.”
“That’s brilliant, congrat –“
“All right, all right, we’ll have time for a cozy catch-up later,” roared Moody over
the hubbub, and silence fell in the kitchen. Moody dropped his sacks at his feet and
turned to Harry. “As Dedalus probably told you, we had to abandon Plan A. Pius
Thicknesse has gone over, which gives us a big problem. He’s made it an imprisonable
offense to connect this house to the Floo Network, place a Portkey here, or Apparate in or
out. All done in the name of your protection, to prevent You-Know-Who getting in at you.
Absolutely pointless, seeing as your mother’s charm does that already. What he’s really
done is to stop you getting out of here safely.”
“Second problem: You’re underage, which means you’ve still got the Trace on
you.”
“I don’t –“
“The Trace, the Trace!” said Mad-Eye impatiently. “The charm that detects
magical activity around under-seventeens, the way the Ministry finds out about underage
magic! If you, or anyone around you, casts a spell to get you out of here, Thicknesse is
going to know about it, and so will the Death Eaters.”
“We can’t wait for the Trace to break, because the moment you turn seventeen
you’ll lose all the protection your mother gave you. In short, Pius Thicknesse thinks he’s
got you cornered good and proper.”
Harry could not help but agree with the unknown Thicknesse.
“So what are we going to do?”
“We’re going to use the only means of transport left to us, the only ones the Trace
can’t detect, because we don’t need to cast spells to use them: brooms, thestrals, and
Hagrid’s motorbike.”
Harry could see flaws in this plan; however, he held his tongue to give Mad-Eye
the chance to address them.
“Now, your mother’s charm will only break under two conditions: when you
come of age, or” – Moody gestured around the pristine kitchen – “you no longer call this
place home. You and your aunt and uncle are going your separate ways tonight, in the
full understanding that you’re never going to live together again, correct?”
Harry nodded.
“So this time, when you leave, there’ll be no going back, and the charm will break
the moment you get outside its range. We’re choosing to break it early, because the
alternative is waiting for You-Know-Who to come and seize you the moment you turn
seventeen.
“The one thing we’ve got on our side is that You-Know-Who doesn’t know we’re
moving you tonight. We’ve leaked a fake trail to the Ministry: They think you’re not
leaving until the thirtieth. However, this is You-Know-Who we’re dealing with, so we
can’t rely on him getting the date wrong; he’s bound to have a couple of Death Eaters
patrolling the skies in this general area, just in case. So, we’ve given a dozen different
houses every protection we can throw at them. They all look like they could be the place
we’re going to hide you, they’ve all got some connection with the Order: my house,
Kingsley’s place, Molly’s Auntie Muriel’s – you get the idea.”
“Yeah,” said Harry, not entirely truthfully, because he could still spot a gaping
hole in the plan.
“You’ll be going to Tonks’s parents. Once you’re within the boundaries of the
protective enchantments we’ve put on their house you’ll be able to use a Portkey to the
Burrow. Any questions?”
“Er – yes,” said Harry. “Maybe they won’t know which of the twelve secure
houses I’m heading for at first, but won’t it be sort of obvious once” – he performed a
quick headcount – “fourteen of us fly off toward Tonks’s parents?”
“Ah,” said Moody, “I forgot to mention the key point. Fourteen of us won’t be
flying to Tonks’s parents. There will be seven Harry Potters moving through the skies
tonight, each of them with a companion, each pair heading for a different safe house.”
From inside his cloak Moody now withdrew a flask of what looked like mud.
There was no need for him to say another word; Harry understood the rest of the plan
immediately.
“No!” he said loudly, his voice ringing through the kitchen. “No way!”
“I told them you’d take it like this,” said Hermione with a hint of complacency.
“If you think I’m going to let six people risk their lives -- !”
“—because it’s the first time for all of us,” said Ron.
“This is different, pretending to be me –“
“Well, none of us really fancy it, Harry,” said Fred earnestly. “Imagine if
something went wrong and we were stuck as specky, scrawny gits forever.”
Harry did not smile.
“You can’t do it if I don’t cooperate, you need me to give you some hair.”
“Well, that’s the plan scuppered,” said George. “Obviously there’s no chance at
all of us getting a bit of your hair unless you cooperate.”
“Yeah, thirteen of us against one bloke who’s not allowed to use magic; we’ve
got no chance,” said Fred.
“Funny,” said Harry, “really amusing.”
“If it has to come to force, then it will,” growled Moody, his magical eye now
quivering a little in its socket as he glared at Harry. “Everyone here’s overage, Potter, and
they’re all prepared to take the risk.”
Mundungus shrugged and grimaced; the magical eye swerved sideways to glance
at him out of the side of Moody’s head.
“Let’s have no more arguments. Time’s wearing on. I want a few of your hairs,
boy, now.”
“But this is mad, there’s no need –“
“No need!” snarled Moody. “With You-Know-Who out there and half the
Ministry on his side? Potter, if we’re lucky he’ll have swallowed the fake bait and he’ll
be planning to ambush you on the thirtieth, but he’d be mad not to have a Death Eater or
two keeping an eye out, it’s what I’d do. They might not be able to get at you or this
house while your mother’s charm holds, but it’s about to break and they know the rough
position of the place. Our only chance is to use decoys. Even You-Know-Who can’t split
himself into seven.”
Harry caught Hermione’s eye and looked away at once.
“So, Potter – some of your hair, if you please.”
Harry glanced at Ron, who grimaced at him in a just-do-it sort of way.
“Now!” barked Moody.
With all of their eyes upon him, Harry reached up to the top of his head, grabbed
a hank of hair, and pulled.
“Good,” said Moody, limping forward as he pulled the stopper out of the flask of
potion. “Straight in here, if you please.”
Harry dropped the hair into the mudlike liquid. The moment it made contact with
its surface, the potion began to froth and smoke, then, all at once, it turned a clear, bright
gold.
“Ooh, you look much tastier than Crabbe and Goyle, Harry,” said Hermione,
before catching sight of Ron’s raised eyebrows, blushing slightly, and saying, “Oh, you
know what I mean – Goyle’s potion tasted like bogies.”
“Right then, fake Potters line up over here, please,” said Moody.
Ron, Hermione, Fred, George, and Fleur lined up in front of Aunt Petunia’s
gleaming sink.
“We’re one short,” said Lupin.
“Here,” said Hagrid gruffly, and he lifted Mundungus by the scruff of the neck
and dropped him down beside Fleur, who wrinkled her nose pointedly and moved along
to stand between Fred and George instead.
“I’m a soldier, I’d sooner be a protector,” said Mundungus.
“Shut it,” growled Moody. “As I’ve already told you, you spineless worm, any
Death Eaters we run into will be aiming to capture Potter, not kill him. Dumbledore
always said You-Know-Who would want to finish Potter in person. It’ll be the protectors
who have got the most to worry about, the Death Eaters’ll want to kill them.”
Mundungus did not look particularly reassured, but Moody was already pulling
half a dozen eggcup-sized glasses from inside his cloak, which he handed out, before
pouring a little Polyjuice Potion into each one.
“Altogether, then … “
Ron, Hermione, Fred, George, Fleur, and Mundungus drank. All of them gasped
and grimaced as the potion hit their throats; At once, their features began to bubble and
distort like hot wax. Hermione and Mundungus were shooting upward; Ron, Fred, and
George were shrinking; their hair was darkening, Hermione’s and Fleur’s appearing to
shoot backward into their skulls.
Moody, quite unconcerned, was now loosening the ties of the large sacks he had
brought with him. When he straightened up again, there were six Harry Potters gasping
and panting in front of him.
Fred and George turned to each other and said together, “Wow – we’re identical!”
“I dunno, though, I think I’m still better-looking,” said Fred, examining his
reflection in the kettle.
“Bah,” said Fleur, checking herself in the microwave door, “Bill, don’t look at me
– I’m ‘ideous.”
“Those whose clothes are a bit roomy, I’ve got smaller here,” said Moody,
indicating the first sack, “and vice versa. Don’t forget the glasses, there’s six pairs in the
side pocket. And when you’re dressed, there’s luggage in the other sack.”
The real Harry thought that this might just be the most bizarre thing he had ever
seen, and he had seen some extremely odd things. He watched as his six doppelgangers
rummaged in the sacks, pulling out sets of clothes, putting on glasses, stuffing their own
things away. He felt like asking them to show a little more respect for privacy as they all
began stripping off with impunity, clearly more at ease with displaying his body than
they would have been with their own.
“I knew Ginny was lying about that tattoo,” said Ron, looking down at his bare
chest.
“Harry, your eyesight really is awful,” said Hermione, as she put on glasses.
Once dressed, the fake Harrys took rucksacks and owl cages, each containing a
stuffed snowy owl, from the second sack.
“Good,” said Moody, as at last seven dressed, bespectacled, and luggage-laden
Harrys faced him. “The pairs will be as follows: Mundungus will be traveling with me,
by broom –“
“Why’m I with you?” grunted the Harry nearest the back door.
“Because you’re the one that needs watching,” growled Moody, and sure enough,
his magical eye did not waver from Mundungus as he continued, “Arthur and Fred –“
“I’m George,” said the twin at whom Moody was pointing. “Can’t you even tell
us apart when we’re Harry?”
“Sorry, George –“
“I’m only yanking your wand, I’m Fred really –“
“Enough messing around!” snarled Moody. “The other one – George or Fred or
whoever you are – you’re with Remus. Miss Delacour –“
“I’m taking Fleur on a thestral,” said Bill. “She’s not that fond of brooms.”
Fleur walked over to stand beside him, giving him a soppy, slavish look that
Harry hoped with all his heart would never appear on his face again.
“Miss Granger with Kingsley, again by thestral –“
Hermione looked reassured as she answered Kingsley’s smile; Harry knew that
Hermione too lacked confidence on a broomstick.
“Which leaves you and me, Ron!” said Tonks brightly, knocking over a mug tree
as she waved at him.
Ron did not look quite as pleased as Hermione.
“An’ you’re with me, Harry. That all righ’?” said Hagrid, looking a little anxious.
“We’ll be on the bike, brooms an’ thestrals can’t take me weight, see. Not a lot o’ room
on the seat with me on it, though, so you’ll be in the sidecar.”
“That’s great,” said Harry, not altogether truthfully.
“We think the Death Eaters will expect you to be on a broom,” said Moody, who
seemed to guess how Harry was feeling. “Snape’s had plenty of time to tell them
everything about you he’s never mentioned before, so if we do run into any Death Eaters,
we’re betting they’ll choose one of the Potters who looks at home on a broomstick. All
right then,” he went on, tying up the sack with the fake Potters’ clothes in it and leading
the way back to the door, “I make it three minutes until we’re supposed to leave. No
point locking the back door, it won’t keep the Death Eaters out when they come looking.
Come on …”
Harry hurried to gather his rucksack, Firebolt, and Hedwig’s cage and followed
the group to the dark back garden.
On every side broomsticks were leaping into hands; Hermione had already been
helped up onto a great black thestral by Kingsley, Fleur onto the other by Bill. Hagrid
was standing ready beside the motorbike, goggles on.
“Is this it? Is this Sirius’s bike?”
“The very same,” said Hagrid, beaming down at Harry. “An’ the last time yeh
was on it, Harry, I could fit yeh in one hand!”
Harry could not help but feel a little humiliated as he got into the sidecar. It
placed him several feet below everybody else: Ron smirked at the sight of him sitting
there like a child in a bumper car. Harry stuffed his rucksack and broomstick down by his
feet and rammed Hedwig’s cage between his knees. He was extremely uncomfortable.
“Arthur’s done a bit o’ tinkerin’,” said Hagrid, quite oblivious to Harry’s
discomfort. He settled himself astride the motorcycle, which creaked slightly and sank
inches into the ground. “It’s got a few tricks up its sleeves now. Tha’ one was my idea.”
He pointed a thick finger at a purple button near the speedometer.
"Please be careful, Hagrid." said Mr. Weasley, who was standing beside them,
holding his broomstick. "I'm still not sure that was advisable and it's certainly only to be
used in emergencies."
"All right, then." said Moody. "Everyone ready, please. I want us all to leave at
exactly the same time or the whole point of the diversion's lost."
Everybody motioned their heads.
"Hold tight now, Ron," said Tonks, and Harry saw Ron throw a forcing, guilty look at
Lupin before placing his hands on each side of her waist. Hagrid kicked the motorbike
into life: It roared like a dragon, and the sidecar began to vibrate.
“Good luck, everyone,” shouted Moody. “See you all in about an hour at the
Burrow. On the count of three. One … two .. THREE.”
There was a great roar from the motorbike, and Harry felt the sidecar give a nasty
lurch. He was rising through the air fast, his eyes watering slightly, hair whipped back off
his face. Around him brooms were soaring upward too; the long black tail of a thestral
flicked past. His legs, jammed into the sidecar by Hedwig’s cage and his rucksack, were
already sore and starting to go numb. So great was his discomfort that he almost forgot to
take a last glimpse of number four Privet Drive. By the time he looked over the edge of
the sidecar he could no longer tell which one it was.
And then, out of nowhere, out of nothing, they were surrounded. At least thirty
hooded figures, suspended in midair, formed a vast circle in the middle of which the
Order members had risen, oblivious –
Screams, a blaze of green light on every side: Hagrid gave a yell and the
motorbike rolled over. Harry lost any sense of where they were. Streetlights above him,
yells around him, he was clinging to the sidecar for dear life. Hedwig's cage, the Firebolt,
and his rucksack slipped from beneath his knees –
"No – HELP!"
The broomstick spun too, but he just managed to seize the strap of his rucksack
and the top of the cage as the motorbike swung the right way up again. A second's relief,
and then another burst of green light. The owl screeched and fell to the floor of the cage.
"No – NO!"
The motorbike zoomed forward; Harry glimpsed hooded Death Eaters scattering
as Hagrid blasted through their circle.
"Hedwig – Hedwig –"
But the owl lay motionless and pathetic as a toy on the floor of her cage. He could
not take it in, and his terror for the others was paramount. He glanced over his shoulder
and saw a mass of people moving, flares of green light, two pairs of people on brooms
soaring off into the distance, but he could not tell who they were –
"Hagrid, we've got to go back, we've got to go back!" he yelled over the
thunderous roar of the engine, pulling out his wand, ramming Hedwig's cage into the
floor, refusing to believe that she was dead. "Hagrid, TURN AROUND!"
"My job's ter get you there safe, Harry!" bellow Hagrid, and he opened the throttle.
"Stop – STOP!" Harry shouted, but as he looked back again two jets of green light flew
past his left ear: Four Death Eaters had broken away from the circle and were pursuing
them, aiming for Hagrid's broad back. Hagrid swerved, but the Death Eaters were
keeping up with the bike; more curses shot after them, and Harry had to sink low into the
sidecar to avoid them. Wriggling around he cried, "Stupefy!" and a red bolt of light shot
from his own wand, cleaving a gap between the four pursuing Death Eaters as they
scattered to avoid it.
"Hold on, Harry, this'll do for 'em!" roared Hagrid, and Harry looked up just in
time to see Hagrid slamming a thick finger into a green button near the fuel gauge.
A wall, a solid black wall, erupted out of the exhaust pipe. Craning his neck, Harry saw it
expand into being in midair. Three of the Death Eaters swerved and avoided it, but the
fourth was not so lucky; He vanished from view and then dropped like a boulder from
behind it, his broomstick broken into pieces. One of his fellows slowed up to save him,
but they and the airborne wall were swallowed by darkness as Hagrid leaned low over the
handlebars and sped up.
More Killing Curses flew past Harry's head from the two remaining Death Eaters'
wands; they were aiming for Hagrid. Harry responded with further Stunning Spells: Red
and green collided in midair in a shower of multicolored sparks, and Harry thought
wildly of fireworks, and the Muggles below who would have no idea what was
happening –
"Here we go again, Harry, hold on!" yelled Hagrid, and he jabbed at a second
button. This time a great net burst from the bike's exhaust, but the Death Eaters were
ready for it. Not only did they swerve to avoid it, but the companion who had slowed to
save their unconscious friend had caught up. He bloomed suddenly out of the darkness
and now three of them were pursuing the motorbike, all shooting curses after it.
"This'll do it, Harry, hold on tight!" yelled Hagrid, and Harry saw him slam his
whole hand onto the purple button beside the speedometer.
With an unmistakable bellowing roar, dragon fire burst from the exhaust, whitehot
and blue, and the motorbike shot forward like a bullet with a sound of wrenching
metal. Harry saw the Death Eaters swerve out of sight to avoid the deadly trail of flame,
and at the same time felt the sidecar sway ominously: Its metal connections to the bike
had splintered with the force of acceleration.
"It's all righ', Harry!" bellowed Hagrid, now thrown flat onto the back by the
surge of speed; nobody was steering now, and the sidecar was starting to twist violently
in the bike's slipstream.
"I'm on it, Harry, don' worry!" Hagrid yelled, and from inside his jacket pocket he
pulled his flowery pink umbrella.
"Hagrid! No! Let me!"
"REPARO!"
There was a deafening bang and the sidecar broke away from the bike completely.
Harry sped forward, propelled by the impetus of the bike's flight, then the sidecar began
to lose height –
In desperation Harry pointed his wand at the sidecar and shouted, "Wingardium
Leviosa!"
The sidecar rose like a cork, unsteerable but at least still airborne. He had but a
split second's relief, however, as more curses streaked past him: The three Death Eaters
were closing in.
"I'm comin', Harry!" Hagrid yelled from out of the darkness, but Harry could feel
the sidecar beginning to sink again: Crouching as low as he could, he pointed at the
middle of the oncoming figures and yelled, "Impedimenta!"
The jinx hit the middle Death Eater in the chest; For a moment the man was
absurdly spread-eagled in midair as though he had hit an invisible barrier: One of his
fellows almost collided with him –
Then the sidecar began to fall in earnest, and the remaining Death Eater shot a
curse so close to Harry that he had to duck below the rim of the car, knocking out a tooth
on the edge of his seat –
"I'm comin', Harry, I'm comin'!"
A huge hand seized the back of Harry's robes and hoisted him out of the
plummeting sidecar; Harry pulled his rucksack with him as he dragged himself onto the
motorbike's seat and found himself back-to-back with Hagrid. As they soared upward,
away from the two remaining Death Eaters, Harry spat blood out of his mouth, pointed
his wand at the falling sidecar, and yelled, "Confringo!"
He knew a dreadful, gut-wrenching pang for Hedwig as it exploded; the Death
Eater nearest it was blasted off his broom and fell from sight; his companion fell back
and vanished.
"Harry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," moaned Hagrid, "I shouldn'ta tried ter repair it
meself – yeh've got no room –"
"It's not a problem, just keep flying!" Harry shouted back, as two more Death
Eaters emerged out of the darkness, drawing closer.
As the curses came shooting across the intervening space again, Hagrid swerved
and zigzagged: Harry knew that Hagrid did not dare use the dragon-fire button again,
with Harry seated so insecurely. Harry sent Stunning Spell after Stunning Spell back at
their pursuers, barely holding them off. He shot another blocking jinx at them: The
closest Death Eater swerved to avoid it and his hood slipped, and by the red light of his
next Stunning Spell, Harry saw the strangely blank face of Stanley Shunpike – Stan –
"Expelliarmus!" Harry yelled.
"That's him, it's him, it's the real one!"
The hooded Death Eater's shout reached Harry even above the thunder of the
motorbike's engine: Next moment, both pursuers had fallen back and disappeared from
view.
"Harry, what's happened?" bellowed Hagrid. "Where've they gone?"
"I don't know!"
But Harry was afraid: The hooded Death Eater had shouted, "It's the real one!";
how had he known? He gazed around at the apparently empty darkness and felt its
menace. Where were they?
He clambered around on the seat to face forward and seized hold of the back of
Hagrid's jacket.
"Hagrid, do the dragon-fire thing again, let's get out of here!"
"Hold on tight, then, Harry!"
There was a deafening, screeching roar again and the white-blue fire shot from the
exhaust: Harry felt himself slipping backwards off what little of the seat he had. Hagrid
flung backward upon him, barely maintaining his grip on the handlebars –
"I think we've lost 'em Harry, I think we've done it!" yelled Hagrid.
But Harry was not convinced; Fear lapped at him as he looked left and right for
pursuers he was sure would come. . . . Why had they fallen back? One of them had still
had a wand. . . . It's him. . . it's the real one. . . . They had said it right after he had tried to
Disarm Stan. . . .
"We're nearly there, Harry, we've nearly made it!" shouted Hagrid.
Harry felt the bike drop a little, though the lights down on the ground still seemed
remote as stars.
Then the scar on his forehead burned like fire: as a Death Eater appeared on either
side of the bike, two Killing Curses missed Harry by millimeters, cast from behind –
And then Harry saw him. Voldemort was flying like smoke on the wind, without
broomstick or thestral to hold him, his snake-like face gleaming out of the blackness, his
white fingers raising his wand again –
Hagrid let out a bellow of fear and steered the motorbike into a vertical dive.
Clinging on for dear life, Harry sent Stunning Spells flying at random into the whirling
night. He saw a body fly past him and knew he had hit one of them, but then he heard a
bang and saw sparks from the engine; the motorbike spiraled through the air, completely
out of control –
Green jets of light shot past them again. Harry had no idea which way was up,
which down: His scar was still burning; he expected to die at any second. A hooded
figure on a broomstick was feet from him, he saw it raise its arm –
"NO!"
With a shout of fury Hagrid launched himself off the bike at the Death Eater; to
his horror, Harry saw both Hagrid and the Death Eater, falling out of sight, their
combined weight too much for the broomstick –
Barely gripping the plummeting bike with his knees, Harry heard Voldemort
scream, "Mine!"
It was over: He could not see or hear where Voldemort was; he glimpsed another
Death Eater swooping out of the way and heard, "Avada –"
As the pain from Harry's scar forced his eyes shut, his wand acted of its own
accord. He felt it drag his hand around like some great magnet, saw a spurt of golden fire
through his half-closed eyelids, heard a crack and a scream of fury. The remaining Death
Eater yelled; Voldemort screamed, "NO!" Somehow, Harry found his nose an inch from
the dragon-fire button. He punched it with his wand-free hand and the bike shot more
flames into the air, hurtling straight toward the ground.
"Hagrid!" Harry called, holding on to the bike for dear life. "Hagrid – Accio
Hagrid!"
The motorbike sped up, sucked towards the earth. Face level with the handlebars,
Harry could see nothing but distant lights growing nearer and nearer: He was going to
crash and there was nothing he could do about it. Behind him came another scream,
"Your wand, Selwyn, give me your wand!"
He felt Voldemort before he saw him. Looking sideways, he stared into the red
eyes and was sure they would be the last thing he ever saw: Voldemort preparing to curse
him once more –
And then Voldemort vanished. Harry looked down and saw Hagrid spread-eagled
on the ground below him. He pulled hard at the handlebars to avoid hitting him, groped
for the brake, but with an earsplitting, ground trembling crash, he smashed into a muddy
pond.
Chapter Five
Fallen Warrior
"Hagrid?"
Harry struggled to raise himself out of the debris of metal and leather that
surrounded him; his hands sank into inches of muddy water as he tried to stand. He could
not understand where Voldemort had gone and expected him to swoop out of the
darkness at any moment. Something hot and wet was trickling down his chin and from
his forehead. He crawled out of the pond and stumbled toward the great dark mass on the
ground that was Hagrid.
"Hagrid? Hagrid, talk to me –"
But the dark mass did not stir.
"Who's there? Is it Potter? Are you Harry Potter?"
Harry did not recognize the man's voice. Then a woman shouted. "They've
crashed. Ted! Crashed in the garden!"
Harry's head was swimming.
"Hagrid," he repeated stupidly, and his knees buckled.
The next thing he knew, he was lying on his back on what felt like cushions, with
a burning sensation in his ribs and right arm. His missing tooth had been regrown. The
scar on his forehead was still throbbing.
"Hagrid?"
He opened his eyes and saw that he was lying on a sofa in an unfamiliar, lamplit
sitting room. His rucksack lay on the floor a short distance away, wet and muddy. A fairhaired,
big-bellied man was watching Harry anxiously.
"Hagrid's fine, son," said the man, "the wife's seeing to him now. How are you
feeling? Anything else broken? I've fixed your ribs, your tooth, and your arm. I'm Ted, by
the way, Ted Tonks – Dora's father."
Harry sat up too quickly. Lights popped in front of his eyes and he felt sick and
giddy.
"Voldemort –"
"Easy, now," said Ted Tonks, placing a hand on Harry's shoulder and pushing him
back against the cushions. "That was a nasty crash you just had. What happened,
anyway? Something go wrong with the bike? Arthur Weasley overstretch himself again,
him and his Muggle contraptions?"
"No," said Harry, as his scar pulsed like an open wound. "Death Eaters, loads of
them – we were chased –"
"Death Eaters?" said Ted sharply. "What d'you mean, Death Eaters? I thought
they didn't know you were being moved tonight, I thought –"
"They knew," said Harry.
Ted Tonks looked up at the ceiling as though he could see through it to the sky
above.
"Well, we know our protective charms hold, then, don't we? They shouldn't be
able to get within a hundred yards of the place in any direction."
Now Harry understood why Voldemort had vanished; it had been at the point
when the motorbike crossed the barrier of the Order's charms. He only hoped they would
continue to work: He imagined Voldemort, a hundred yards above them as they spoke,
looking for a way to penetrate what Harry visualized as a great transparent bubble.
He swung his legs off the sofa; he needed to see Hagrid with his own eyes before
he would believe that he was alive. He had barely stood up, however, when a door
opened and Hagrid squeezed through it, his face covered in mud and blood, limping a
little but miraculously alive.
"Harry!"
Knocking over two delicate tables and an aspidistra, he covered the floor between
them in two strides and pulled Harry into a hug that nearly cracked his newly repaired
ribs. "Blimey, Harry, how did yeh get out o' that? I thought we were both goners."
"Yeah, me too. I can't believe –"
Harry broke off. He had just noticed the woman who had entered the room behind
Hagrid.
"You!" he shouted, and he thrust his hand into his pocket, but it was empty.
"Your wand's here, son," said Ted, tapping it on Harry's arm. "It fell right beside
you, I picked it up…And that's my wife you're shouting at."
"Oh, I'm – I'm sorry."
As she moved forward into the room, Mrs. Tonks's resemblance to her sister
Bellatrix became much less pronounced: Her hair was a light’s oft brown and her eyes
were wider and kinder. Nevertheless, she looked a little haughty after Harry's
exclamation.
"What happened to our daughter?" she asked. "Hagrid said you were ambushed;
where is Nymphadora?"
"I don't know," said Harry. "We don't know what happened to anyone else."
She and Ted exchanged looks. A mixture of fear and guilt gripped Harry at the
sight of their expressions, if any of the others had died, it was his fault, all his fault. He
had consented to the plan, given them his hair . . .
"The Portkey," he said, remembering all of a sudden. "We've got to get back to
the Burrow and find out – then we'll be able to send you word, or – or Tonks will, once
she's –"
"Dora'll be ok, 'Dromeda," said Ted. "She knows her stuff, she's been in plenty of
tight spots with the Aurors. The Portkey's through here," he added to Harry. "It's
supposed to leave in three minutes, if you want to take it."
"Yeah, we do," said Harry. He seized his rucksack, swung it onto his shoulders. "I
–"
He looked at Mrs. Tonks, wanting to apologize for the state of fear in which he
left her and for which he felt so terribly responsible, but no words occurred to him that he
did not seem hollow and insincere.
"I'll tell Tonks – Dora – to send word, when she . . . Thanks for patching us up,
thanks for everything, I –"
He was glad to leave the room and follow Ted Tonks along a short hallway and
into a bedroom. Hagrid came after them, bending low to avoid hitting his head on the
door lintel.
"There you go, son. That's the Portkey."
Mr. Tonks was pointing to a small, silver-backed hairbrush lying on the dressing
table.
"Thanks," said Harry, reaching out to place a finger on it, ready to leave.
"Wait a moment," said Hagrid, looking around. "Harry, where's Hedwig?"
"She . . . she got hit," said Harry.
The realization crashed over him: He felt ashamed of himself as the tears stung
his eyes. The owl had been his companion, his one great link with the magical world
whenever he had been forced to return to the Dursleys.
Hagrid reached out a great hand and patted him painfully on the shoulder.
"Never mind," he said gruffly, "Never mind. She had a great old life –"
"Hagrid!" said Ted Tonks warningly, as the hairbrush glowed bright blue, and
Hagrid only just got his forefinger to it in time.
With a jerk behind the navel as though an invisible hook and line had dragged
him forward, Harry was pulled into nothingness, spinning uncontrollably, his finger glued
to the Portkey as he and Hagrid hurtled away from Mr. Tonks. Second later, Harry's feet
slammed onto hard ground and he fell onto his hands and knees in the yard of the Burrow.
He heard screams. Throwing aside the no longer glowing hairbrush, Harry stood up,
swaying slightly, and saw Mrs. Weasley and Ginny running down the steps by the back
door as Hagrid, who had also collapsed on landing, clambered laboriously to his feet.
"Harry? You are the real Harry? What happened? Where are the others?" cried
Mrs. Weasley.
"What d'you mean? Isn't anyone else back?" Harry panted.
The answer was clearly etched in Mrs. Weasley's pale face.
"The Death Eaters were waiting for us," Harry told her, "We were surrounded the
moment we took off – they knew it was tonight – I don't know what happened to anyone
else, four of them chased us, it was all we could do to get away, and then Voldemort
caught up with us –"
He could hear the self-justifying note in his voice, the plea for her to understand
why he did not know what had happened to her sons, but –
"Thank goodness you're all right," she said, pulling him into a hug he did not feel
he deserved.
"Haven't go' any brandy, have yeh, Molly?" asked Hagrid a little shakily, "Fer
medicinal purposes?"
She could have summoned it by magic, but as she hurried back toward the
crooked house, Harry knew that she wanted to hide her face. He turned to Ginny and she
answered his unspoken plea for information at once.
"Ron and Tonks should have been back first, but they missed their Portkey, it
came back without them," she said, pointing at a rusty oil can lying on the ground nearby.
"And that one," she pointed at an ancient sneaker, "should have been Dad and Fred's,
they were supposed to be second. You and Hagrid were third and," she checked her
watch, "if they made it, George and Lupin aught to be back in about a minute."
Mrs. Weasley reappeared carrying a bottle of brandy, which she handed to Hagrid.
He uncorked it and drank it straight down in one.
"Mum!" shouted Ginny pointing to a spot several feet away.
A blue light had appeared in the darkness: It grew larger and brighter, and Lupin
and George appeared, spinning and then falling. Harry knew immediately that there was
something wrong: Lupin was supporting George, who was unconscious and whose face
was covered in blood.
Harry ran forward and seized George's legs. Together, he and Lupin carried
George into the house and through the kitchen to the living room, where they laid him on
the sofa. As the lamplight fell across George's head, Ginny gasped and Harry's stomach
lurched: One of George's ears was missing. The side of his head and neck were drenched
in wet, shockingly scarlet blood.
No sooner had Mrs. Weasley bent over her son that Lupin grabbed Harry by the
upper arm and dragged him, none too gently, back into the kitchen, where Hagrid was
still attempting to ease his bulk through the back door.
"Oi!" said Hagrid indignantly, "Le' go of him! Le' go of Harry!"
Lupin ignored him.
"What creature sat in the corner the first time that Harry Potter visited my office
at Hogwarts?" he said, giving Harry a small shake. "Answer me!"
"A – a grindylow in a tank, wasn't it?"
Lupin released Harry and fell back against a kitchen cupboard.
"Wha' was tha' about?" roared Hagrid.
"I'm sorry, Harry, but I had to check," said Lupin tersely. "We've been betrayed.
Voldemort knew that you were being moved tonight and the only people who could have
told him were directly involved in the plan. You might have been an impostor."
"So why aren' you checkin' me?" panted Hagrid, still struggling with the door.
"You're half-giant," said Lupin, looking up at Hagrid. "The Polyjuice Potion is
designed for human use only."
"None of the Order would have told Voldemort we were moving tonight," said
Harry. The idea was dreadful to him, he could not believe it of any of them. "Voldemort
only caught up with me toward the end, he didn't know which one I was in the beginning.
If he'd been in on the plan he'd have known from the start I was the one with Hagrid."
"Voldemort caught up with you?" said Lupin sharply. "What happened? How did
you escape?"
Harry explained how the Death Eaters pursuing them had seemed to recognize
him as the true Harry, how they had abandoned the chase, how they must have
summoned Voldemort, who had appeared just before he and Hagrid had reached the
sanctuary of Tonks's parents.
"They recognized you? But how? What had you done?"
"I . . ." Harry tried to remember; the whole journey seemed like a blur of panic
and confusion. "I saw Stan Shunpike . . . . You know, the bloke who was the conductor
on the Knight Bus? And I tried to Disarm him instead of – well, he doesn't know what
he's doing, does he? He must be Imperiused!"
Lupin looked aghast.
"Harry, the time for Disarming is past! These people are trying to capture and kill
you! At least Stun if you aren't prepared to kill!"
"We were hundreds of feet up! Stan's not himself, and if I Stunned him and he'd
fallen, he'd have died the same as if I'd used Avada Kedavra! Expelliarmus saved me
from Voldemort two years ago," Harry added defiantly. Lupin was reminding him of the
sneering Hufflepuff Zacharias Smith, who had jeered at Harry for wanting to teach
Dumbledore's Army how to Disarm.
"Yes, Harry," said Lupin with painful restraint, "and a great number of Death
Eaters witnessed that happening! Forgive me, but it was a very unusual move then, under
the imminent threat of death. Repeating it tonight in front of Death Eaters who either
witnessed or heard about the first occasion was close to suicidal!"
"So you think I should have killed Stan Shunpike?" said Harry angrily.
"Of course not," said Lupin, "but the Death Eaters – frankly, most people! –
would have expected you to attack back! Expelliarmus is a useful spell, Harry, but the
Death Eaters seem to think it is your signature move, and I urge you not to let it become
so!"
Lupin was making Harry feel idiotic, and yet there was still a grain of defiance
inside him.
"I won't blast people out of my way just because they're there," said Harry, "That's
Voldemort's job."
Lupin's retort was lost: Finally succeeding in squeezing through the door, Hagrid
staggered to a chair and sat down; it collapsed beneath him. Ignoring his mingled oaths
and apologies, Harry addressed Lupin again.
"Will George be okay?"
All Lupin's frustration with Harry seemed to drain away at the question.
"I think so, although there's no chance of replacing his ear, not when it's been
cursed off –"
There was a scuffling from outside. Lupin dived for the back door; Harry leapt
over Hagrid's legs and sprinted into the yard.
Two figures had appeared in the yard, and as Harry ran toward them he realized
they were Hermione, now returning to her normal appearance, and Kingsley, both
clutching a bent coat hanger, Hermione flung herself into Harry's arms, but Kingsley
showed no pleasure at the sight of any of them. Over Hermione's shoulder Harry saw him
raise his wand and point it at Lupin's chest.
"The last words Albus Dumbledore spoke to the pair of us!"
"'Harry is the best hope we have. Trust him,'" said Lupin calmly.
Kingsley turned his wand on Harry, but Lupin said, "It's him, I've checked!"
"All right, all right!" said Kingsley, stowing his wand back beneath his cloak,
"But somebody betrayed us! They knew, they knew it was tonight!"
"So it seems," replied Lupin, "but apparently they did not realize that there would
be seven Harrys."
"Small comfort!" snarled Kingsley. "Who else is back?"
"Only Harry, Hagrid, George, and me."
Hermione stifled a little moan behind her hand.
"What happened to you?" Lupin asked Kingsley.
"Followed by five, injured two, might've killed one," Kingsley reeled off, "and we
saw You-Know-Who as well, he joined the chase halfway through but vanished pretty
quickly. Remus, he can –"
"Fly," supplied Harry. "I saw him too, he came after Hagrid and me."
"So that's why he left, to follow you!" said Kingsley, "I couldn't understand why
he'd vanished. But what made him change targets?"
"Harry behaved a little too kindly to Stan Shunpike," said Lupin.
"Stan?" repeated Hermione. "But I thought he was in Azkaban?"
Kingsley let out a mirthless laugh.
"Hermione, there's obviously been a mass breakout which the Ministry has
hushed up. Travers's hood fell off when I cursed him, he's supposed to be inside too. But
what happened to you, Remus? Where's George?"
"He lost an ear," said Lupin.
"lost an -- ?" repeated Hermione in a high voice.
"Snape's work," said Lupin.
"Snape?" shouted Harry. "You didn't say –"
"He lost his hood during the chase. Sectumsempra was always a specialty of
Snape's. I wish I could say I'd paid him back in kind, but it was all I could do to keep
George on the broom after he was injured, he was losing so much blood."
Silence fell between the four of them as they looked up at the sky. There was no
sign of movement; the stars stared back, unblinking, indifferent, unobscured by flying
friends. Where was Ron? Where were Fred and Mr. Weasley? Where were Bill, Fleur,
Tonks, Mad-Eye, and Mundungus?
"Harry, give us a hand!" called Hagrid hoarsely from the door, in which he was
stuck again. Glad of something to do, Harry pulled him free, the headed through the
empty kitchen and back into the sitting room, where Mrs. Weasley and Ginny were still
tending to George. Mrs. Weasley had staunched his bleeding now, and by the lamplight
Harry saw a clean gaping hole where George's ear had been.
"How is he?"
Mrs. Weasley looked around and said, "I can't make it grow back, not when it's
been removed by Dark Magic. But it could've been so much worse . . . . He's alive."
"Yeah," said Harry. "Thank God."
"Did I hear someone else in the yard?" Ginny asked.
"Hermione and Kingsley," said Harry.
"Thank goodness," Ginny whispered. They looked at each other; Harry wanted to
hug her, hold on to her; he did not even care much that Mrs. Weasley was there, but
before he could act on the impulse, there was a great crash from the kitchen.
"I'll prove who I am, Kingsley, after I've seen my son, now back off if you know
what's good for you!"
Harry had never heard Mr. Weasley shout like that before. He burst into the living
room, his bald patch gleaming with sweat, his spectacles askew, Fred right behind him,
both pale but uninjured.
"Arthur!" sobbed Mrs. Weasley. "Oh thank goodness!"
"How is he?"
Mr. Weasley dropped to his knees beside George. For the first time since Harry
had known him, Fred seemed to be lost for words. He gaped over the back of the sofa at
his twin's wound as if he could not believe what he was seeing.
Perhaps roused by the sound of Fred and their father's arrival, George stirred.
"How do you feel, Georgie?" whispered Mrs. Weasley.
George's fingers groped for the side of his head.
"Saintlike," he murmured.
"What's wrong with him?" croaked Fred, looking terrified. "Is his mind affected?"
"Saintlike," repeated George, opening his eyes and looking up at his brother.
"You see. . . I'm holy. Holey, Fred, geddit?"
Mrs. Weasley sobbed harder than ever. Color flooded Fred's pale face.
"Pathetic," he told George. "Pathetic! With the whole wide world of ear-related
humor before you, you go for holey?"
"Ah well," said George, grinning at his tear-soaked mother. "You'll be able to tell
us apart now, anyway, Mum."
He looked around.
"Hi, Harry – you are Harry, right?"
"Yeah, I am," said Harry, moving closer to the sofa.
"Well, at least we got you back okay," said George. "Why aren't Ron and Bill
huddled round my sickbed?"
"They're not back yet, George," said Mrs. Weasley. George's grin faded. Harry
glanced at Ginny and motioned to her to accompany him back outside. As they walked
through the kitchen she said in a low voice.
"Ron and Tonks should be back by now. They didn't have a long journey; Auntie
Muriel's not that far from here."
Harry said nothing. He had been trying to keep fear at bay ever since reaching the
Burrow, but now it enveloped him, seeming to crawl over his skin, throbbing in his chest,
clogging his throat. As they walked down the back steps into the dark yard, Ginny took
his hand.
Kingsley was striding backward and forward, glancing up at the sky every time he
turned. Harry was reminded of Uncle Vernon pacing the living room a million years ago.
Hagrid, Hermione, and Lupin stood shoulder to shoulder, gazing upward in silence. None
of them looked around when Harry and Ginny joined their silent vigil.
The minutes stretched into what might as well have been years. The slightest
breath of wind made them all jump and turn toward the whispering bush or tree in the
hope that one of the missing Order members might leap unscathed from its leaves –
And then a broom materialized directly above them and streaked toward the
ground –
"It's them!" screamed Hermione.
Tonks landed in a long skid that sent earth and pebbles everywhere.
"Remus!" Tonks cried as she staggered off the broom into Lupin's arms. His face
was set and white: He seemed unable to speak, Ron tripped dazedly toward Harry and
Hermione.
"You're okay," he mumbled, before Hermione flew at him and hugged him tightly.
"I thought – I thought –"
"'M all right," said Ron, patting her on the back. "'M fine."
"Ron was great," said Tonks warmly, relinquishing her hold on Lupin.
"Wonderful. Stunned one of the Death Eaters, straight to the head, and when you're
aiming at a moving target from a flying broom –"
"You did?" said Hermione, gazing up at Ron with her arms still around his neck.
"Always the tone of surprise," he said a little grumpily, breaking free. "Are we the
last back?"
"No," said Ginny, "we're still waiting for Bill and Fleur and Mad-Eye and
Mundungus. I'm going to tell Mum and Dad you're okay, Ron –"
She ran back inside.
"So what kept you? What happened?" Lupin sounded almost angry at Tonks.
"Bellatrix," said Tonks. "She wants me quite as much as she wants Harry, Remus,
She tried very hard to kill me. I just wish I'd got her, I owe Bellatrix. But we definitely
injured Rodolphus . . . . Then we got to Ron's Auntie Muriel's and we missed our Portkey
and she was fussing over us –"
A muscle was jumping in Lupin's jaw. He nodded, but seemed unable to say
anything else.
"So what happened to you lot?" Tonks asked, turning to Harry, Hermione, and
Kingsley.
They recounted the stories of their own journeys, but all the time the continued
absence of Bill, Fleur, Mad-Eye, and Mundungus seemed to lie upon them like a frost, its
icy bite harder and harder to ignore.
"I'm going to have to get back to Downing Street, I should have been there an
hour ago," said Kingsley finally, after a last sweeping gaze at the sky. "Let me know
when they're back,."
Lupin nodded. With a wave to the others, Kingsley walked away into the darkness
toward the gate. Harry thought he heard the faintest pop as Kingsley Disapparated just
beyond the Burrow's boundaries.
Mr. And Mrs. Weasley came racing down the back steps, Ginny behind them.
Both parents hugged Ron before turning to Lupin and Tonks.
"Thank you," said Mrs. Weasley, "for our sons."
"Don't be silly, Molly," said Tonks at once.
"How's George?" asked Lupin.
"What's wrong with him?" piped up Ron.
"He's lost –"
But the end of Mrs. Weasley's sentence was drowned in a general outcry. A
thestral had just soared into sight and landed a few feet from them. Bill and Fleur slid
from its back, windswept but unhurt.
"Bill! Thank God, thank God –"
Mrs. Weasley ran forward, but the hug Bill bestowed upon her was perfunctory.
Looking directly at his father, he said, "Mad-Eye's dead."
Nobody spoke, nobody moved. Harry felt as though something inside him was
falling, falling through the earth, leaving him forever.
"We saw it," said Bill; Fleur nodded, tear tracks glittering on her cheeks in the
light from the kitchen window. "It happened just after we broke out of the circle: Mad-
Eye and Dung were close by us, they were heading north too. Voldemort – he can fly –
went straight for them. Dung panicked, I heard him cry out, Mad-Eye tried to stop him,
but he Disapparated. Voldemort's curse hit Mad-Eye full in the face, he fell backward off
his broom and – there was nothing we could do, nothing, we had half a dozen of them on
our own tail –"
Bill's voice broke.
"Of course you couldn't have done anything," said Lupin.
They all stood looking at each other. Harry could not quite comprehend it. Mad-
Eye dead; it could not be . . . . Mad-Eye, so tough, so brave, the consummate survivor . . .
At last it seemed to dawn on everyone, though nobody said it, that there was no
point of waiting in the yard anymore, and in silence they followed Mr. And Mrs. Weasley
back into the Burrow, and into the living room, where Fred and George were laughing
together.
"What's wrong?" said Fred, scanning their faces as they entered, "What's
happened? Who's --?"
"Mad-Eye," said Mr. Weasley, "Dead."
The twins' grins turned to grimaces of shock. Nobody seemed to know what to do.
Tonks was crying silently into a handkerchief: She had been close to Mad-Eye, Harry
knew, his favorite and his protégée at the Ministry of Magic. Hagrid, who had sat down
on the floor in the corner where he had most space, was dabbing at his eyes with his
tablecloth-sized handkerchief.
Bill walked over to the sideboard and pulled out a bottle of fire-whisky and some
glasses.
"Here," he said, and with a wave of his wand, eh sent twelve full glasses soaring
through the room to each of them, holding the thirteenth aloft. "Mad-Eye."
"Mad-Eye," they all said, and drank.
"Mad-Eye," echoed Hagrid, a little late, with a hiccup. The firewhisky seared
Harry's throat. It seemed to burn feeling back into him, dispelling the numbness and
sense of unreality firing him with something that was like courage.
"So Mundungus disappeared?" said Lupin, who had drained his own glass in one.
The atmosphere changed at once. Everybody looked tense, watching Lupin, both
wanting him to go on, it seemed to Harry, and slightly afraid of what they might hear.
"I know what you're thinking," said Bill, "and I wondered that too, on the way
back here, because they seemed to be expecting us, didn't they? But Mundungus can't
have betrayed us. They didn't know there would be seven Harrys, that confused them the
moment we appeared, and in case you've forgotten, it was Mundungus who suggested
that little bit of skullduggery. Why wouldn't he have told them the essential point? I think
Dung panicked, it's as simple as that. He didn't want to come in the first place, but Mad-
Eye made him, and You-Know-Who went straight for them. It was enough to make
anyone panic."
"You-Know-Who acted exactly as Mad-Eye expected him to," sniffed Tonks.
"Mad-Eye said he'd expect the real Harry to be with the toughest, most skilled Aurors. He
chased Mad-Eye first, and when Mundungus gave them away he switched to
Kingsley. . . . "
"Yes, and zat eez all very good," snapped Fleur, "but still eet does not explain 'ow
zey know we were moving 'Arry tonight, does eet? Somebody must 'ave been careless.
Somebody let slip ze date to an outsider. It is ze only explanation for zem knowing ze
date but not ze 'ole plan."
She glared around at them all, tear tracks still etched on her beautiful face, silently
daring any of them to contradict her. Nobody did. The only sound to break the silence
was that of Hagrid hiccupping from behind his handkerchief. Harry glanced at Hagrid,
who had just risked his own life to save Harry's – Hagrid, whom he loved, whom he
trusted, who had once been tricked into giving Voldemort crucial information in
exchange for a dragon's egg. . . .
"No," Harry said aloud, and they all looked at him, surprised: The firewhisky
seemed to have amplified his voice. "I mean . . . if somebody made a mistake," Harry
went on, "and let something slip, I know they didn't mean to do it. It's not their fault," he
repeated, again a little louder than he would usually have spoken. "We've got to trust each
other. I trust all of you, I don't think anyone in this room would ever sell me to
Voldemort."
More silence followed his words. They were all looking at him; Harry felt a little
hot again, and drank some more firewhisky for something to do. As he drank, he thought
of Mad-Eye. Mad-Eye had always been scathing about Dumbledore's willingness to trust
people.
"Well said, Harry," said Fred unexpectedly.
"Year, 'ear, 'ear," said George, with half a glance at Fred, the corner of whose
mouth twitched.
Lupin was wearing an odd expression as he looked at Harry. It was close to
pitying.
"You think I'm a fool?" demanded Harry.
"No, I think you're like James," said Lupin, "who would have regarded it as the
height of dishonor to mistrust his friends."
Harry knew what Lupin was getting at: that his father had been betrayed by his
friend Peter Pettigrew. He felt irrationally angry. He wanted to argue, but Lupin had
turned away from him, set down his glass upon a side table, and addressed Bill, "There's
work to do. I can ask Kingsley whether –"
"No," said Bill at once, "I'll do it, I'll come."
"Where are you going?" said Tonks and Fleur together.
"Mad-Eye's body," said Lupin. "We need to recover it."
"Can't it -- ?" began Mrs. Weasley with an appealing look at Bill.
"Wait?" said Bill, "Not unless you'd rather the Death Eaters took it?"
Nobody spoke. Lupin and Bill said good bye and left.
The rest of them now dropped into chairs, all except for Harry, who remained
standing. The suddenness and completeness of death was with them like a presence.
"I've got to go too," said Harry.
Ten pairs of startled eyes looked at him.
"Don't be silly, Harry," said Mrs. Weasley, "What are you talking about?"
"I can't stay here."
He rubbed his forehead; it was prickling again, he had not hurt like this for more
than a year.
"You're all in danger while I'm here. I don't want –"
"But don't be so silly!" said Mrs. Weasley. "The whole point of tonight was to get
you here safely, and thank goodness it worked. And Fleur's agreed to get married here
rather than in France, we've arranged everything so that we can all stay together and look
after you –"
She did not understand; she was making him feel worse, not better.
"If Voldemort finds out I'm here –"
"But why should he?" asked Mrs. Weasley.
"There are a dozen places you might be now, Harry," said Mr. Weasley. "He's got
no way of knowing which safe house you're in."
"It's not me I'm worried for!" said Harry.
"We know that," said Mr. Weasley quietly, but it would make our efforts tonight
seem rather pointless if you left."
"Yer not goin' anywhere," growled Hagrid. "Blimey, Harry, after all we wen'
through ter get you here?"
"Yeah, what about my bleeding ear?" said George, hoisting himself up on his
cushions.
"I know that –"
"Mad-Eye wouldn't want –"
"I KNOW!" Harry bellowed.
He felt beleaguered and blackmailed: Did they think he did not know what they
had done for him, didn't they understand that it was for precisely that reason that he
wanted to go now, before they had to suffer any more on his behalf? There was a long
and awkward silence in which his scar continued to prickle and throb, and which was
broken at last by Mrs. Weasley.
"Where's Hedwig, Harry?" she said coaxingly. "We can put her up with
Pidwidgeon and give her something to eat."
His insides clenched like a fist. He could not tell her the truth. He drank the last of
his firewhisky to avoid answering.
"Wait till it gets out yeh did it again, Harry," said Hagrid. "Escaped him, fought
him off when he was right on top of yeh!"
"It wasn't me," said Harry flatly. "It was my wand. My wand acted of its own
accord."
After a few moments, Hermione said gently, "But that's impossible, Harry. You
mean that you did magic without meaning to; you reacted instinctively."
"No," said Harry. "The bike was falling, I couldn't have told you where
Voldemort was, but my wand spun in my hand and found him and shot a spell at him, and
it wasn't even a spell I recognized. I've never made gold flames appear before."
"Often," said Mr. Weasley, "when you're in a pressured situation you can produce
magic you never dreamed of. Small children often find, before they're trained –"
"It wasn't like that," said Harry through gritted teeth. His scar was burning. He felt
angry and frustrated; he hated the idea that they were all imagining him to have power to
match Voldemort's.
No one said anything. He knew that they did not believe him. Now that he came
to think of it, he had never heard of a wand performing magic on its own before.
His scar seared with pain, it was all he could do not to moan aloud. Muttering
about fresh air, he set down his glass and left the room.
As he crossed the yard, the great skeletal thestral looked up – rustled its enormous
batlike wings, then resumed its grazing. Harry stopped at the gate into the garden, staring
out at its overgrown plants, rubbing his pounding forehead and thinking of Dumbledore.
Dumbledore would have believed him, he knew it. Dumbledore would have
known how and why Harry's wand had acted independently, because Dumbledore always
had the answers; he had known about wands, had explained to Harry the strange
connection that existed between his wand and Voldemort's . . . . But Dumbledore, like
Mad-Eye, like Sirius, like his parents, like his poor owl, all were gone where Harry could
never talk to them again. He felt a burning in his throat that had nothing to do with
firewhisky. . . .
And then, out of nowhere, the pain in his scar peaked. As he clutched his forehead
and closed his eyes, a voice screamed inside his head.
"You told me the problem would be solved by using another's wand!"
And into his mind burst the vision of an emaciated old man lying in rags upon a
stone floor, screaming, a horrible drawn-out scream, a scream of unendurable agony. . . .
"No! No! I beg you, I beg you. . . ."
"You lied to Lord Voldemort, Ollivander!"
"I did not. . . . I swear I did not. . . ."
"You sought to help Potter, to help him escape me!"
"I swear I did not. . . . I believed a different wand would work. . . ."
"Explain, then, what happened. Lucius's wand is destroyed!"
"I cannot understand. . . . The connection . . . exists only . . between your two
wands. . . ."
"Lies!"
"Please . . . I beg you. . . ."
And Harry saw the white hand raise its wand and felt Voldemort's surge of
vicious anger, saw the frail old main on the floor writhe in agony –
"Harry?"
It was over as quickly as it had come: Harry stood shaking in the darkness,
clutching the gate into the garden, his heart racing, his scar still tingling. It was several
moments before he realized that Ron and Hermione were at his side.
"Harry, come back in the house," Hermione whispered, "You aren't still thinking
of leaving?"
"Yeah, you've got to stay, mate," said Ron, thumping Harry on the back.
"Are you all right?" Hermione asked, close enough now to look into Harry's face.
"You look awful!"
"Well," said Harry shakily, "I probably look better than Ollivander. . . ."
When he had finished telling them what he had seen, Ron looked appalled, but
Hermione downright terrified.
"But it was supposed to have stopped! Your scar – it wasn't supposed to do this
anymore! You mustn't let that connection open up again – Dumbledore wanted you to
close your mind!"
When he did not reply, she gripped his arm.
"Harry, he's taking over the Ministry and the newspapers and half the Wizarding
world! Don't let him inside your head too!"
Chapter Six
The Ghoul in Pajamas
The shock of losing Mad-Eye hung over the house in the days that followed;
Harry kept expecting to see him stumping in through the back door like the other Order
members, who passed in and out to relay news. Harry felt that nothing but action would
assuage his feelings of guilt and grief and that he ought to set out on his mission to find
and destroy Horcruxes as soon as possible.
“Well, you can’t do anything about the” – Ron mouthed the word Horcruxes –
“till you’re seventeen. You’ve still got the Trace on you. And we can plan here as well as
anywhere, can’t we? Or,” he dropped his voice to a whisper, “d’you reckon you already
know where the You-Know-Whats are?”
“No,” Harry admitted.
“I think Hermione’s been doing a bit of research,” said Ron. “She said she was
saving it for when you got here.”
They were sitting at the breakfast table; Mr. Weasley and Bill had just left for
work. Mrs. Weasley had gone upstairs to wake Hermione and Ginny, while Fleur had
drifted off to take a bath.
“The Trace’ll break on the thirty-first,” said Harry. “That means I only need to
stay here four days. Then I can –“
“Five days,” Ron corrected him firmly. “We’ve got to stay for the wedding.
They’ll kill us if we miss it.”
Harry understood “they” to mean Fleur and Mrs. Weasley.
“It’s one extra day,” said Ron, when Harry looked mutinous.
“Don’t they realize how important –?”
“’Course they don’t,” said Ron. “They haven’t got a clue. And now you mention
it, I wanted to talk to you about that.”
Ron glanced toward the door into the hall to check that Mrs. Weasley was not
returning yet, then leaned in closer to Harry.
“Mum’s been trying to get it out of Hermione and me. What we’re off to do.
She’ll try you next, so brace yourself. Dad and Lupin’ve both asked as well, but when we
said Dumbledore told you not to tell anyone except us, they dropped it. Not Mum, though.
She’s determined.”
Ron’s prediction came true within hours. Shortly before lunch, Mrs. Weasley
detached Harry from the others by asking him to help identify a lone man’s sock that she
thought might have come out of his rucksack. Once she had him cornered in the tiny
scullery off the kitchen, she started.
“Ron and Hermione seem to think that the three of you are dropping out of
Hogwarts,” she began in a light, casual tone.
“Oh,” said Harry. “Well, yeah. We are.”
The mangle turned of its own accord in a corner, wringing out what looked like
one of Mr. Weasley’s vests.
“May I ask why you are abandoning your education?” said Mrs. Weasley.
“Well, Dumbledore left me . . . stuff to do,” mumbled Harry. “Ron and Hermione
know about it, and they want to come too.”
“What sort of ‘stuff’?”
“I’m sorry, I can’t –“
“Well, frankly, I think Arthur and I have a right to know, and I’m sure Mr. And
Mrs. Granger would agree!” said Mrs. Weasley. Harry had been afraid of the “concerned
parent” attack. He forced himself to look directly into her eyes, noticing as he did so that
they were precisely the same shade of brown as Ginny’s. This did not help.
“Dumbledore didn’t want anyone else to know, Mrs. Weasley. I’m sorry. Ron and
Hermione don’t have to come, it’s their choice –“
“I don’t see that you have to go either!” she snapped, dropping all pretense now.
“You’re barely of age, any of you! It’s utter nonsense, if Dumbledore needed work doing,
he had the whole Order at his command! Harry, you must have misunderstood him.
Probably he was telling you something he wanted done, and you took it to mean that he
wanted you–“
“I didn’t misunderstand,” said Harry flatly. “It’s got to be me.”
He handed her back the single sock he was supposed to be identifying, which was
patterned with golden bulrushes.
“And that’s not mine. I don’t support Puddlemere United.”
“Oh, of course not,” said Mrs. Weasley with a sudden and rather unnerving return
to her casual tone. “I should have realized. Well, Harry, while we’ve still got you here,
you won’t mind helping with the preparations for Bill and Fleur’s wedding, will you?
There’s still so much to do.”
“No – I – of course not,” said Harry, disconcerted by this sudden change of
subject.
“Sweet of you,” she replied, and she smiled as she left the scullery.
From that moment on, Mrs. Weasley kept Harry, Ron and Hermione so busy with
preparations for the wedding that they hardly had any time to think. The kindest
explanation of this behavior would have been that Mrs. Weasley wanted to distract them
all from thoughts of Mad-Eye and the terrors of their recent journey. After two days of
nonstop cutlery cleaning, of color-matching favors, ribbons, and flowers, of de-gnoming
the garden and helping Mrs. Weasley cook vast batches of canapés, however, Harry
started to suspect her of a different motive. All the jobs she handed out seemed to keep
him, Ron, and Hermione away from one another; he had not had a chance to speak to the
two of them alone since the first night, when he had told them about Voldemort torturing
Ollivander.
“I think Mum thinks that if she can stop the three of you getting together and
planning, she’ll be able to delay you leaving,” Ginny told Harry in an undertone, as they
laid the table for dinner on the third night of his stay.
“And then what does she think’s going to happen?” Harry muttered. “Someone
else might kill off Voldemort while she’s holding us here making vol-au-vents?”
He had spoken without thinking, and saw Ginny’s face whiten.
“So it’s true?” she said. “That’s what you’re trying to do?”
“I – not – I was joking,” said Harry evasively.
They stared at each other, and there was something more than shock in Ginny’s
expression. Suddenly Harry became aware that this was the first time that he had been
alone with her since those stolen hours in secluded corners of the Hogwarts grounds. He
was sure she was remembering them too. Both of them jumped as the door opened, and
Mr. Weasley, Kingsley, and Bill walked in.
They were often joined by other Order members for dinner now, because the
Burrow had replaced number twelve, Grimmauld Place as the headquarters. Mr. Weasley
had explained that after the death of Dumbledore, their Secret-Keeper, each of the people
to whom Dumbledore had confided Grimmauld Place’s location had become a Secret-
Keeper in turn.
“And as there are around twenty of us, that greatly dilutes the power of the
Fidelius Charm. Twenty times as many opportunities for the Death Eaters to get the
secret out of somebody. We can’t expect it to hold much longer.”
“But surely Snape will have told the Death Eaters the address by now?” asked
Harry.
“Well, Mad-Eye set up a couple of curses against Snape in case he turns up there
again. We hope they’ll be strong enough both to keep him out and to bind his tongue if he
tries to talk about the place, but we can’t be sure. It would have been insane to keep using
the place as headquarters now that its protection has become so shaky.”
The kitchen was so crowded that evening it was difficult to maneuver knives and
forks. Harry found himself crammed beside Ginny; the unsaid things that had just passed
between them made him wish they had been separated by a few more people. He was
trying so hard to avoid brushing her arm he could barely cut his chicken.
“No news about Mad-Eye?” Harry asked Bill.
“Nothing,” replied Bill.
They had not been able to hold a funeral for Moody, because Bill and Lupin had
failed to recover his body. It had been difficult to know where he might have fallen, given
the darkness and the confusion of the battle.
“The Daily Prophet hasn’t said a word about him dying or about finding the
body,” Bill went on. “But that doesn’t mean much. It’s keeping a lot quiet these days.”
“And they still haven’t called a hearing about all the underage magic I used
escaping the Death Eaters?” Harry called across the table to Mr. Weasley, who shook his
head.
“Because they know I had no choice or because they don’t want me to tell the
world Voldemort attacked me?”
“The latter, I think. Scrimgeour doesn’t want to admit that You-Know-Who is as
powerful as he is, nor that Azkaban’s seen a mass breakout.”
“Yeah, why tell the public the truth?” said Harry, clenching his knife so tightly
that the faint scars on the back of his right hand stood out, white against his skin: I must
not tell lies.
“Isn’t anyone at the Ministry prepared to stand up to him?” asked Ron angrily.
“Of course, Ron, but people are terrified,” Mr. Weasley replied, “terrified that
they will be next to disappear, their children the next to be attacked! There are nasty
rumors going around; I for one don’t believe the Muggle Studies professor at Hogwarts
resigned. She hasn’t been seen for weeks now. Meanwhile Scrimgeour remains shut up in
his office all day; I just hope he’s working on a plan.”
There was a pause in which Mrs. Weasley magicked the empty plates onto the
work surface and served apple tart.
“We must decide ‘ow you will be disguised, ‘Arry,” said Fleur, once everyone
had pudding. “For ze wedding,” she added, when he looked confused. “Of course, none
of our guests are Death Eaters, but we cannot guarantee zat zey will not let something
slip after zey ‘ave ‘ad champagne.”
From this, Harry gathered that she still suspected Hagrid.
“Yes, good point,” said Mrs. Weasley from the top of the table where she sat,
spectacles perched on the end of her nose, scanning an immense list of jobs that she had
scribbled on a very long piece of parchment. “Now, Ron, have you cleaned out your
room yet?”
“Why?” exclaimed Ron, slamming his spoon down and glaring at his mother.
“Why does my room have to be cleaned out? Harry and I are fine with it the way it is!”
“We are holding your brother’s wedding here in a few days’ time, young man –“
“And are they getting married in my bedroom?” asked Ron furiously. “No! So
why in the name of Merlin’s saggy left –“
“Don’t talk to your mother like that,” said Mr. Weasley firmly. “And do as you’re
told.”
Ron scowled at both his parents, then picked up his spoon and attacked the last
few mouthfuls of his apple tart.
“I can help, some of it’s my mess.” Harry told Ron, but Mrs. Weasley cut across
him.
“No, Harry, dear, I’d much rather you helped Arthur much out the chickens, and
Hermione, I’d be ever so grateful if you’d change the sheets for Monsieur and Madame
Delacour; you know they’re arriving at eleven tomorrow morning.”
But as it turned out, there was very little to do for the chickens. “There’s no need
to, er, mention it to Molly,” Mr. Weasley told Harry, blocking his access to the coop, “but,
er, Ted Tonks sent me most of what was left of Sirius’s bike and, er, I’m hiding – that’s
to say, keeping – it in here. Fantastic stuff: There’s an exhaust gaskin, as I believe it’s
called, the most magnificent battery, and it’ll be a great opportunity to find out how
brakes work. I’m going to try and put it all back together again when Molly’s not – I
mean, when I’ve got time.”
When they returned to the house, Mrs. Weasley was nowhere to be seen, so Harry
slipped upstairs to Ron’s attic bedroom.
“I’m doing it, I’m doing – ! Oh, it’s you,” said Ron in relief, as Harry entered the
room. Ron lay back down on the bed, which he had evidently just vacated. The room was
just as messy as it had been all week; the only chance was that Hermione was now sitting
in the far corner, her fluffy ginger cat, Crookshanks, at her feet, sorting books, some of
which Harry recognized as his own, into two enormous piles.
“Hi, Harry,” she said, as he sat down on his camp bed.
“And how did you manage to get away?”
“Oh, Ron’s mum forgot that she asked Ginny and me to change the sheets
yesterday,” said Hermione. She threw Numerology and Grammatica onto one pile and
The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts onto the other.
“We were just talking about Mad-Eye,” Ron told Harry. “I reckon he might have
survived.”
“But Bill saw him hit by the Killing Curse,” said Harry.
“Yeah, but Bill was under attack too,” said Ron. “How can he be sure what he
saw?”
“Even if the Killing Curse missed, Mad-Eye still fell about a thousand feet,” said
Hermione, now weight Quidditch Teams of Britain and Ireland in her hand.
“He could have used a Shield Charm –“
“Fleur said his wand was blasted out of his hand,” said Harry.
“Well, all right, if you want him to be dead,” said Ron grumpily, punching his
pillow into a more comfortable shape.
“Of course we don’t want him to be dead!” said Hermione, looking shocked. “It’s
dreadful that he’s dead! But we’re being realistic!”
For the first time, Harry imagined Mad-Eye’s body, broken as Dumbledore’s had
been, yet with that one eye still whizzing in its socket. He felt a stab of revulsion mixed
with a bizarre desire to laugh.
“The Death Eaters probably tidied up after themselves, that’s why no one’s found
him,” said Ron wisely.
“Yeah,” said Harry. “Like Barty Crouch, turned into a bone and buried in
Hagrid’s front garden. They probably transfigured Moody and stuffed him –“
“Don’t!” squealed Hermione. Startled, Harry looked over just in time to see her
burst into tears over her copy of Spellman’s Syllabary.
“Oh no,” said Harry, struggling to get up from the old camp bed. “Hermione, I
wasn’t trying to upset –“
But with a great creaking of rusty bedsprings, Ron bounded off the bed and got
there first. One arm around Hermione, he fished in his jeans pocket and withdrew a
revolting-looking handkerchief that he had used to clean out the oven earlier. Hastily
pulling out his wand, he pointed it at the rag and said, “Tergeo.”
The wand siphoned off most of the grease. Looking rather pleased with himself,
Ron handed the slightly smoking handkerchief to Hermione.
“Oh . . . thanks, Ron. . . . I’m sorry. . . .” She blew her nose and hiccupped. “It’s
just so awf-ful, isn’t it? R-right after Dumbledore . . . I j-just n-never imagined Mad-Eye
dying, somehow, he seemed so tough!”
“Yeah, I know,” said Ron, giving her a squeeze. “But you know what he’d say to
us if he was here?”
“’C-constant vigilance,’” said Hermione, mopping her eyes.
“That’s right,” said Ron, nodding. “He’d tell us to learn from what happened to
him. And what I’ve learned is not to trust that cowardly little squit, Mundungus.”
Hermione gave a shaky laugh and leaned forward to pick up two more books. A
second later, Ron had snatched his arm back from around her shoulders; she had dropped
The Monster of Monsters on his foot. The book had broken free from its restraining belt
and snapped viciously at Ron’s ankle.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Hermione cried as Harry wrenched the book from Ron’s
leg and retied it shit.
“What are you doing with all those books anyway?” Ron asked, limping back to
his bed.
“Just trying to decide which ones to take with us,” said Hermione, “When we’re
looking for the Horcruxes.”
“Oh, of course,” said Ron, clapping a hand to his forehead. “I forgot we’ll be
hunting down Voldemort in a mobile library.”
“Ha ha,” said Hermione, looking down at Spellman’s Syllabary. “I wonder . . .
will we need to translate runes? It’s possible. . . . I think we’d better take it, to be safe.”
She dropped the syllabary onto the larger of the two piles and picked up Hogwarts,
A History.
“Listen,” said Harry.
He had sat up straight. Ron and Hermione looked at him with similar mixtures of
resignation and defiance.
“I know you said after Dumbledore’s funeral that you wanted to come with me,”
Harry began.
“Here he goes,” Ron said to Hermione, rolling his eyes.
“As we knew he would,” he sighed, turning back to the books. “You know, I
think I will take Hogwarts, A History. Even if we’re not going back there, I don’t think
I’d feel right if I didn’t have it with –“
“Listen!” said Harry again.
“No, Harry, you listen,” said Hermione. “We’re coming with you. That was
decided months ago – years, really.”
“But –“
“Shut up,” Ron advised him.
“– are you sure you’ve thought this through?” Harry persisted.
“Let’s see,” said Hermione, slamming Travels with Trolls onto the discarded pile
with a rather fierce look. “I’ve been packing for days, so we’re ready to leave at a
moment’s notice, which for your information has included doing some pretty difficult
magic, not to mention smuggling Mad-Eye’s whole stock of Polyjuice Potion right under
Ron’s mum’s nose.
“I’ve also modified my parents’ memories so that they’re convinced they’re really
called Wendell and Monica Wilkins, and that their life’s ambition is to move to Australia,
which they have now done. That’s to make it more difficult for Voldemort to track them
down and interrogate them about me – or you, because unfortunately, I’ve told them quite
a bit about you.
“Assuming I survive our hunt for the Horcruxes, I’ll find Mum and Dad and lift
the enchantment. If I don’t – well, I think I’ve cast a good enough charm to keep them
safe and happy. Wendell and Monica Wilkins don’t know that they’ve got a daughter,
you see.”
Hermione’s eyes were swimming with tears again. Ron got back off the bed, put
his arm around her once more, and frowned at Harry as though reproaching him for lack
of tact. Harry could not think of anything to say, not least because it was highly unusual
for Ron to be teaching anyone else tact.
“I – Hermione, I’m sorry – I didn’t –“
“Didn’t realize that Ron and I know perfectly well what might happen if we come
with you? Well, we do. Ron, show Harry what you’ve done.”
“Nah, he’s just eaten,” said Ron.
“Go on, he needs to know!”
“Oh, all right. Harry, come here.”
For the second time Ron withdrew his arm from around Hermione and stumped
over to the door.
“C’mon.”
“Why?” Harry asked, following Ron out of the room onto the tiny landing.
“Descendo,” muttered Ron, pointing his wand at the low ceiling. A hatch opened
right over their heads and a ladder slid down to their feet. A horrible, half-sucking, halfmoaning
sound came out of the square hole, along with an unpleasant smell like open
drains.
“That’s your ghoul, isn’t it?” asked Harry, who had never actually met the
creature that sometimes disrupted the nightly silence.
“Yeah, it is,” said Ron, climbing the ladder. “Come and have a look at him.”
Harry followed Ron up the few short steps into the tiny attic space. His head and
shoulders were in the room before he caught sight of the creature curled up a few feet
from him, fast asleep in the gloom with its large mouth wide open.
“But it . . . it looks . . . do ghouls normally wear pajamas?”
“No,” said Ron. “Nor have they usually got red hair or that number of pustules.”
Harry contemplated the thing, slightly revolted. It was human in shape and size,
and was wearing what, now that Harry’s eyes became used to the darkness, was clearly
an old pair of Ron’s pajamas. He was also sure that ghouls were generally rather slimy
and bald, rather than distinctly hairy and covered in angry purple blisters.
“He’s me, see?” said Ron.
“No,” said Harry. “I don’t.”
“I’ll explain it back in my room, the smell’s getting to me,” said Ron. They
climbed back down the ladder, which Ron returned to the ceiling, and rejoined Hermione,
who was still sorting books.
“Once we’ve left, the ghoul’s going to come and live down here in my room,”
said Ron. “I think he’s really looking forward to it – well, it’s hard to tell, because all he
can do is moan and drool – but he nods a lot when you mention it. Anyway, he’s going to
be me with spattergroit. Good, eh?”
Harry merely looked his confusion.
“It is!” said Ron, clearly frustrated that Harry had not grasped the brilliance of the
plan. “Look, when we three don’t turn up at Hogwarts again, everyone’s going to think
Hermione and I must be with you, right? Which means the Death Eaters will go straight
for our families to see if they’ve got information on where you are.”
“But hopefully it’ll look like I’ve gone away with Mum and Dad; a lot of Muggleborns
are talking about going into hiding at the moment,” said Hermione.
“We can’t hide my whole family, it’ll look too fishy and they can’t all leave their
jobs,” said Ron. “So we’re going to put out the story that I’m seriously ill with
spattergroit, which is why I can’t go back to school. If anyone comes calling to
investigate, Mum or Dad can show them the ghoul in my bed, covered in pustules.
Spattergroit’s really contagious, so they’re not going to want to go near him. It won’t
matter that he can’t say anything, either, because apparently you can’t once the fungus
has spread to your uvula.”
“And your mum and dad are in on this plan?” asked Harry.
“Dad is. He helped Fred and George transform the ghoul. Mum . . . well, you’ve
seen what she’s like. She won’t accept we’re going till we’re gone.”
There was silence in the room, broken only by gentle thuds as Hermione
continued to throw books onto one pile or the other. Ron sat watching her, and Harry
looked from one to the other, unable to say anything. The measure they had taken to
protect their families made him realize, more than anything else could have done, that
they really were going to come with him and that they knew exactly how dangerous that
would be. He wanted to tell them what that meant to him, but he simply could not find
words important enough.
Through the silence came the muffled sounds of Mrs. Weasley shouting from four
floors below.
“Ginny’s probably left a speck of dust on a poxy napkin ring,” said Ron. “I dunno
why the Delacours have got to come two days before the wedding.”
“Fleur’s sister’s a bridesmaid, she needs to be here for the rehearsal, and she’s too
young to come on her own,” said Hermione, as she pored indecisively over Break with a
Banshee.
“Well, guests aren’t going to help Mum’s stress levels,” said Ron.
“What we really need to decide,” said Hermione, tossing Defensive Magical
Theory into the bin without a second glance and picking up An Appraisal of Magical
Education in Europe, “is where we’re going after we leave here. I know you said you
wanted to go to Godric’s Hollow first, Harry, and I understand why, but . . . well . . .
shouldn’t we make the Horcruxes our priority?”
“If we knew where any of the Horcruxes were, I’d agree with you,” said Harry,
who did not believe that Hermione really understood his desire to return to Godric’s
Hollow. His parents’ graves were only part of the attraction: He had a strong, though
inexplicable, feeling that the place held answers for him. Perhaps it was simply because it
was there that he had survived Voldemort’s Killing Curse; now that he was facing the
challenge of repeating the feat, Harry was drawn to the place where it had happened,
wanting to understand.
“Don’t you think there’s a possibility that Voldemort’s keeping a watch on
Godric’s Hollow?” Hermione asked. “He might expect you to go back and visit your
parents’ graves once you’re free to go wherever you like?”
This had not occurred to Harry. While he struggled to find a counterargument,
Ron spoke up, evidently following his own train of thought.
“This R.A.B. person,” he said. “You know, the one who stole the real locket?”
Hermione nodded.
“He said in his note he was going to destroy it, didn’t he?”
Harry dragged his rucksack toward him and pulled out the fake Horcrux in which
R.A.B.’s note was still folded.
“’I have stolen the real Horcrux and intend to destroy it as soon as I can.’” Harry
read out.
“Well, what if he did finish it off?” said Ron.
“Or she.” Interposed Hermione.
“Whichever,” said Ron. “it’d be one less for us to do!”
“Yes, but we’re still going to have to try and trace the real locket, aren’t we?” said
Hermione, “to find out whether or not it’s destroyed.”
“And once we get hold of it, how do you destroy a Horcrux?” asked Ron.
“Well,” said Hermione, “I’ve been researching that.”
“How?” asked Harry. “I didn’t think there were any books on Horcruxes in the
library?”
“There weren’t,” said Hermione, who had turned pink. “Dumbledore removed
them all, but he – he didn’t destroy them.”
Ron sat up straight, wide-eyed.
“How in the name of Merlin’s pants have you managed to get your hands on those
Horcrux books?”
“It – it wasn’t stealing!” said Hermione, looking from Harry to Ron with a kind of
desperation. “They were still library books, even if Dumbledore had taken them off the
shelves. Anyway, if he really didn’t want anyone to get at them, I’m sure he would have
made it much harder to –“
“Get to the point!” said Ron.
“Well . . . it was easy,” said Hermione in a small voice. “I just did a Summoning
Charm. You know – Accio. And – they zoomed out of Dumbledore’s study window right
into the girls’ dormitory.”
“But when did you do this?” Harry asked, regarding Hermione with a mixture of
admiration and incredulity.
“Just after his – Dumbledore’s – funeral,” said Hermione in an even smaller voice.
“Right after we agreed we’d leave school and go and look for the Horcruxes. When I
went back upstairs to get my things it – it just occurred to me that the more we knew
about them, the better it would be . . . and I was alone in there . . . so I tried . . . and it
worked. They flew straight in through the open window and I – I packed them.”
She swallowed and then said imploringly, “I can’t believe Dumbledore would
have been angry, it’s not as though we’re going to use the information to make a Horcrux,
is it?”
“Can you hear us complaining?” said Ron. “Where are these books anyway?”
Hermione rummaged for a moment and then extracted from the pile a large
volume, bound in faded black leather. She looked a little nauseated and held it as gingerly
as if it were something recently dead.
“This is the one that gives explicit instructions on how to make a Horcrux. Secrets
of the Darkest Art – it’s a horrible book, really awful, full of evil magic. I wonder when
Dumbledore removed it from the library. . . . if he didn’t do it until he was headmaster, I
bet Voldemort got all the instruction he needed from here.”
“Why did he have to ask Slughorn how to make a Horcrux, then, if he’d already
read that?” asked Ron.
“He only approached Slughorn to find out what would happen if you split your
soul into seven,” said Harry. “Dumbledore was sure Riddle already knew how to make a
Horcrux by the time he asked Slughorn about them. I think you’re right, Hermione, that
could easily have been where he got the information.”
“And the more I’ve read about them,” said Hermione, “the more horrible they
seem, and the less I can believe that he actually made six. It warns in this book how
unstable you make the rest of your soul by ripping it, and that’s just by making one
Horcrux!”
Harry remembered what Dumbledore had said about Voldemort moving beyond
“usual evil.”
“Isn’t there any way of putting yourself back together?” Ron asked.
“Yes,” said Hermione with a hollow smile, “but it would be excruciatingly
painful.”
“Why? How do you do it?” asked Harry.
“Remorse,” said Hermione. “You’ve got to really feel what you’ve done. There’s
a footnote. Apparently the pain of it can destroy you. I can’t see Voldemort attempting it
somehow, can you?”
“No,” said Ron, before Harry could answer. “So does it say how to destroy
Horcruxes in that book?”
“Yes,” said Hermione, now turning the fragile pages as if examining rotting
entrails, “because it warns Dark wizards how strong they have to make the enchantments
on them. From all that I’ve read, what Harry did to Riddle’s diary was one of the few
really foolproof ways of destroying a Horcrux.”
“What, stabbing it with a basilisk fang?” asked Harry.
“Oh well, lucky we’ve got such a large supply of basilisk fangs, then,” said Ron.
“I was wondering what we were going to do with them.”
“It doesn’t have to be a basilisk fang,” said Hermione patiently. “It has to be
something so destructive that the Horcrux can’t repair itself. Basilisk venom only has one
antidote, and it’s incredibly rare –“
“– phoenix tears,” said Harry, nodding.
“Exactly,” said Hermione. “Our problem is that there are very few substances as
destructive as basilisk venom, and they’re all dangerous to carry around with you. That’s
a problem we’re going to have to solve, though, because ripping, smashing, or crushing a
Horcrux won’t do the trick. You’ve got to put it beyond magical repair.”
“But even if we wreck the thing it lives in,” said Ron, “why can’t the bit of soul in
it just go and live in something else?”
“Because a Horcrux is the complete opposite of a human being.”
Seeing that Harry and Ron looked thoroughly confused, Hermione hurried on.
“Look, if I picked up a sword right now, Ron, and ran you through with it, I wouldn’t
damage your soul at all.”
”Which would be a real comfort to me, I’m sure,” said Ron. Harry laughed.
“It should be, actually! But my point is that whatever happens to your body, your
soul will survive, untouched,” said Hermione. “But it’s the other way round with a
Horcrux. The fragment of soul inside it depends on its container, its enchanted body, for
survival. It can’t exist without it.”
“That diary sort of died when I stabbed it,” said Harry, remembering ink pouring
like blood from the punctured pages, and the screams of the piece of Voldemort’s soul as
it vanished.
“And once the diary was properly destroyed, the bit of soul trapped in it could no
longer exist. Ginny tried to get rid of the diary before you did, flushing it away, but
obviously it came back good as new.”
“Hang on,” said Ron, frowning. “The bit of soul in that diary was possessing
Ginny, wasn’t it? How does that work, then?”
“While the magical container is still intact, the bit of soul inside it can flit in and
out of someone if they get too close to the object. I don’t mean holding it for too long, it’s
nothing to do with touching it,” she added before Ron could speak. “I mean close
emotionally. Ginny poured her heart out into that diary, she made herself incredibly
vulnerable. You’re in trouble if you get too fond of or dependent on the Horcrux.”
“I wonder how Dumbledore destroyed the ring?” said Harry. “Why didn’t I ask
him? I never really . . .”
His voice trailed away: He was thinking of all the things he should have asked
Dumbledore, and of how, since the headmaster had died, it seemed to Harry that he had
wasted so many opportunities when Dumbledore had been alive, to find out more . . . to
find out everything. . . .
The silence was shattered as the bedroom door flew open with a wall-shaking
crash. Hermione shrieked and dropped Secrets of the Darkest Art; Crookshanks streaked
under the bed, hissing indignantly; Ron jumped off the bed, skidded on a discarded
Chocolate Frog wrapper, and smacked his head on the opposite wall; and Harry
instinctively dived for his wand before realizing that he was looking up at Mrs. Weasley,
whose hair was disheveled and whose face was contorted with rage.
“I’m so sorry to break up this cozy little gathering,” she said, her voice trembling.
“I’m sure you all need your rest . . . but there are wedding presents stacked in my room
that need sorting out and I was under the impression that you had agreed to help.”
“Oh yes,” said Hermione, looking terrified as she leapt to her feet, sending books
flying in every direction. “we will . . . we’re sorry . . .”
With an anguished look at Harry and Ron, Hermione hurried out of the room after
Mrs. Weasley.
“it’s like being a house-elf,” complained Ron in an undertone, still massaging his
head as he and Harry followed. “Except without the job satisfaction. The sooner this
wedding’s over, the happier, I’ll be.”
“Yeah,” said Harry, “then we’ll have nothing to do except find Horcruxes. . . .
It’ll be like a holiday, won’t it?”
Ron started to laugh, but at the sight of the enormous pile of wedding presents
waiting for them in Mrs. Weasley’s room, stopped quite abruptly.
The Delacours arrived the following morning at eleven o’ clock. Harry, Ron,
Hermione and Ginny were feeling quite resentful toward Fleur’s family by this time; and
it was with ill grace that Ron stumped back upstairs to put on matching socks, and Harry
attempted to flatten his hair. Once they had all been deemed smart enough, they trooped
out into the sunny backyard to await the visitors.
Harry had never seen the place looking so tidy. The rusty cauldrons and old
Wellington boots that usually littered the steps by the back door were gone, replaced by
two new Flutterby bushes standing either side of the door in large pots; though there was
no breeze, the leaves waved lazily, giving an attractive rippling effect. The chickens had
been shut away, the yard had been swept, and the nearby garden had been pruned,
plucked, and generally spruced up, although Harry, who liked it in its overgrown state,
thought that it looked rather forlorn without its usual contingent of capering gnomes.
He had lost track of how many security enchantments had been placed upon the
Burrow by both the Order and the Ministry; all he knew was that it was no longer
possible for anybody to travel by magic directly into the place. Mr. Weasley had
therefore gone to meet the Delacours on top of a nearby hill, where they were to arrive by
Portkey. The first sound of their approach was an unusually high-pitched laugh, which
turned out to be coming from Mr. Weasley, who appeared at the gate moments later,
laden with luggage and leading a beautiful blonde woman in long, leaf green robes, who
could be Fleur’s mother.
“Maman!” cried Fleur, rushing forward to embrace her. “Papa!”
Monsieur Delacour was nowhere near as attractive as his wife; he was a head
shorter and extremely plumb, with a little, pointed black beard. However, he looked
good-natured. Bouncing towards Mrs. Weasley on high-heeled boots, he kissed her twice
on each cheek, leaving her flustered.
“You ‘ave been so much trouble,” he said in a deep voice. “Fleur tells us you ‘ave
been working very ‘ard.”
“Oh, it’s been nothing, nothing!” trilled Mrs. Weasley. “No trouble at all!”
Ron relieved his feelings by aiming a kick at a gnome who was peering out from
behind one of the new Flutterby bushes.
“Dear lady!” said Monsieur Delacour, still holding Mrs. Weasley’s hand between
his own two plump ones and beaming. “We are most honored at the approaching union of
our two families! Let me present my wife, Apolline.”
Madame Delacour glided forward and stooped to kiss Mrs. Weasley too.
“Enchantée,” she said. “Your ‘usband ‘as been telling us such amusing stories!”
Mr. Weasley gave a maniacal laugh; Mrs. Weasley threw him a look, upon which
he became immediately silent and assumed an expression appropriate to the sickbed of a
close friend.
“And, of course, you ‘ave met my leetle daughter, Gabrielle!” said Monsieur
Delacour. Gabrielle was Fleur in miniature; eleven years old, with waist-length hair of
pure, silvery blonde, she gave Mrs. Weasley a dazzling smile and hugged her, then threw
Harry a glowing look, batting her eyelashes. Ginny cleared her throat loudly.
“Well, come in, do!” said Mrs. Weasley brightly, and she ushered the Delacours
into the house, with many “No, please!”s and “After you!”s and “Not at all!”s.
The Delacours, it soon transpired, were helpful, pleasant guests. They were
pleased with everything and keen to assist with the preparations for the wedding.
Monsieur Delacour pronounced everything from the seating plan to the bridesmaids’
shoes “Charmant!” Madame Delacour was most accomplished at household spells and
had the oven properly cleaned in a trice; Gabrielle followed her elder sister around, trying
to assist in any way she could and jabbering away in rapid French.
On the downside, the Burrow was not built to accommodate so many people. Mr.
and Mrs. Weasley were now sleeping in the sitting room, having shouted down Monsieur
and Madame Delacour’s protests and insisted they take their bedroom. Gabrielle was
sleeping with Fleur in Percy’s old room, and Bill would be sharing with Charlie, his best
man, once Charlie arrived from Romania. Opportunities to make plans together became
virtually nonexistent, and it was in desperation that Harry, Ron and Hermione took to
volunteering to feed the chickens just to escape the overcrowded house.
“But she still won’t leave us alone!” snarled Ron, and their second attempt at a
meeting in the yard was foiled by the appearance of Mrs. Weasley carrying a large basket
of laundry in her arms.
“Oh, good, you’ve fed the chickens,” she called as she approached them. “We’d
better shut them away again before the men arrive tomorrow . . . to put up the tent for the
wedding,” she explained, pausing to lean against the henhouse. She looked exhausted.
“Millamant’s Magic Marquees . . . they’re very good. Bill’s escorting them. . . . You’d
better stay inside while they’re here, Harry. I must say it does complicate organizing a
wedding, having all these security spells around the place.”
“I’m sorry,” said Harry humbly.
“Oh, don’t be silly, dear!” said Mrs. Weasley at once. “I didn’t mean – well, your
safety’s much more important! Actually, I’ve been wanting to ask you how you want to
celebrate your birthday, Harry. Seventeen, after all, it’s an important day. . . .”
“I don’t want a fuss,” said Harry quickly, envisaging the additional strain this
would put on them all. “Really, Mrs. Weasley, just a normal dinner would be fine. . . . It’s
the day before the wedding. . . .”
“Oh, well, if you’re sure, dear. I’ll invite Remus and Tonks, shall I? And how
about Hagrid?”
“That’d be great,” said Harry. “But please, don’t go to loads of trouble.”
“Not at all, not at all . . . It’s no trouble. . . .”
She looked at him, a long, searching look, then smiled a little sadly, straightened
up, and walked away. Harry watched as she waved her wand near the washing line, and
the damp clothes rose into the air to hang themselves up, and suddenly he felt a great
wave of remorse for the inconvenience and the pain he was giving her.
Chapter Seven
The Will of Albus Dumbledore
He was walking along a mountain road in the cool blue light of dawn. Far below,
swathed in mist, was the shadow of a small town. Was the man he sought down there, the
man he needed so badly he could think of little else, the man who held the answer, the
answer to his problem...?
"Oi, wake up."
Harry opened his eyes. He was lying again on the camp bed in Ron's dingy attic
room. The sun had not yet risen and the room was still shadowy. Pigwidgeon was asleep
with his head under his tiny wing. The scar on Harry's forehead was prickling.
"You were muttering in your sleep."
"Was I?"
"Yeah. 'Gregorovitch.' You kept saying 'Gregorovitch.'"
Harry was not wearing his glasses; Ron's face appeared slightly blurred.
"Who's Gregorovitch?"
"I dunno, do I?" You were the one saying it."
Harry rubbed his forehead, thinking. He had a vague idea he had heard the name
before, but he could not think where.
"I think Voldemort's looking for him."
"Poor bloke," said Ron fervently.
Harry sat up, still rubbing his scar, now wide awake. He tried to remember
exactly what he had seen in the dream, but all that came back was a mountainous horizon
and the outline of the little village cradled in a deep valley.
"I think he's abroad."
"Who, Gregorovitch?"
"Voldemort. I think he's somewhere abroad, looking for Gregorovitch. It didn't
look like anywhere in Britain."
"You reckon you were seeing into his mind again?"
Ron sounded worried.
"Do me a favor and don't tell Hermione," said Harry. "Although how she expects
me to stop seeing stuff in my sleep..."
He gazed up at little Pigwidgeon's cage, thinking...Why was the name
"Gregorovitch" familiar?
"I think," he said slowly, "he's got something to do with Quidditch. There's some
connection, but I can't--I can't think what it is."
"Quidditch?" said Ron. "Sure you're not thinking of Gorgovitch?"
"Who?"
"Dragomir Gorgovitch, Chaser, transferred to the Chudley Cannons for a record
fee two years ago. Record holder for most Quaffle drops in a season."
"No," said Harry. "I'm definitely not thinking of Gorgovitch."
"I try not to either," said Ron. "Well, happy birthday anyway."
"Wow -- that's right, I forgot! I'm seventeen!"
Harry seized the wand lying beside his camp bed, pointed it at the cluttered desk
where he had left his glasses, and said, "Accio Glasses!" Although they were only around
a foot away, there was something immensely satisfying about seeing them zoom toward
him, at least until they poked him in the eye.
"Slick," snorted Ron.
Reveling in the removal of his Trace, Harry sent Ron's possessions flying around
the room, causing Pigwidgeon to wake up and flutter excitedly around his cage. Harry
also tried tying the laces of his trainers by magic (the resultant knot took several minutes
to untie by hand) and, purely for the pleasure of it, turned the orange robes on Ron's
Chudley Cannons posters bright blue.
"I'd do your fly by hand, though," Ron advised Harry, sniggering when Harry
immediately checked it. "Here's your present. Unwrap it up here, it's not for my mother's
eyes."
"A book?" said Harry as he took the rectangular parcel. "Bit of a departure from
tradition, isn't it?"
"This isn't your average book," said Ron. "It'd pure gold: Twelve Fail-Safe Ways
to Charm Witches. Explains everything you need to know about girls. If only I'd had this
last year I'd have known exactly how to get rid of Lavender and I would've known how to
get going with... Well, Fred and George gave me a copy, and I've learned a lot. You'd be
surprised, it's not all about wandwork, either."
When they arrived in the kitchen they found a pile of presents waiting on the table.
Bill and Monsieur Delacour were finishing their breakfasts, while Mrs. Weasley stood
chatting to them over the frying pan.
"Arthur told me to wish you a happy seventeenth, Harry," said Mrs. Weasley,
beaming at him. "He had to leave early for work, but he'll be back for dinner. That's our
present on top."
Harry sat down, took the square parcel she had indicated, and unwrapped it.
Inside was a watch very like the one Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had given Ron for his
seventeenth; it was gold, with stars circling around the race instead of hands.
"It's traditional to give a wizard a watch when he comes of age," said Mrs.
Weasley, watching him anxiously from beside the cooker. "I'm afraid that one isn't new
like Ron's, it was actually my brother Fabian's and he wasn't terribly careful with his
possessions, it's a bit dented on the back, but--"
The rest of her speech was lost; Harry had got up and hugged her. He tried to put
a lot of unsaid things into the hug and perhaps she understood them, because she patted
his cheek clumsily when he released her, then waved her wand in a slightly random way,
causing half a pack of bacon to flop out of the frying pan onto the floor.
"Happy birthday, Harry!" said Hermione, hurrying into the kitchen and adding her
own present to the top of the pile. "It's not much, but I hope you like it. What did you get
him?" she added to Ron, who seemed not to hear her.
"Come on, then, open Hermione's!" said Ron.
She had bought him a new Sneakoscope. The other packages contained an
enchanted razor from Bill and Fleur ("Ah yes, zis will give you ze smoothest shave you
will ever 'ave," Monsieur Delacour assured him, "but you must tell it clearly what you
want...ozzerwise you might find you 'ave a leetle less hair zan you would like..."),
chocolates from the Delacours, and an enormous box of the latest Weasleys' Wizard
Wheezes merchandise from Fred and George.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione did not linger at the table, as the arrival of Madame
Delacour, Fleur, and Gabrielle made the kitchen uncomfortably crowded.
"I'll pack these for you," Hermione said brightly, taking Harry's presents out of his
arms as the three of them headed back upstairs. "I'm nearly done, I'm just waiting for the
rest of your underpants to come out of the wash, Ron--"
Ron's splutter was interrupted by the opening of a door on the first-floor landing.
"Harry, will you come in here a moment?"
It was Ginny. Ron came to an abrupt halt, but Hermione took him by the elbow
and tugged him on up the stairs. Feeling nervous, Harry followed Ginny into her room.
He had never been inside it before. It was small, but bright. There was a large
poster of the Wizarding band the Weird Sisters on one wall, and a picture of Gwenog
Jones, Captain of the all-witch Quidditch team the Holyhead Harpies, on the other. A
desk stood facing the open window, which looked out over the orchard where he and
Ginny had once played a two-a-side Quidditch with Ron and Hermione, and which now
housed a large, pearly white marquee. The golden flag on top was level with Ginny's
window.
Ginny looked up into Harry's face, took a deep breath, and said, "Happy
seventeenth."
"Yeah...thanks."
She was looking at him steadily; he however, found it difficult to look back at her;
it was like gazing into a brilliant light.
"Nice view," he said feebly, pointing toward with window.
She ignored this. He could not blame her.
"I couldn't think what to get you," she said.
"You didn't have to get me anything."
She disregarded this too.
"I didn't know what would be useful. Nothing too big, because you wouldn't be
able to take it with you."
He chanced a glance at her. She was not tearful; that was one of the many
wonderful things about Ginny, she was rarely weepy. He had sometimes thought that
having six brothers must have toughened her up.
She took a step closer to him.
"So then I thought, I'd like you to have something to remember me by, you know,
if you meet some veela when you're off doing whatever you're doing."
"I think dating opportunities are going to be pretty thin on the ground, to be
honest."
"There's the silver lining I've been looking for," she whispered, and then she was
kissing him as she had never kissed him before, and Harry was kissing her back, and it
was blissful oblivion better than firewhisky; she was the only real thing in the world,
Ginny, the feel of her, one hand at her back and one in her long, sweet-smelling hair--
The door banged open behind them and they jumped apart.
"Oh," said Ron pointedly. "Sorry."
"Ron!" Hermione was just behind him, slight out of breath. There was a strained
silence, then Ginny had said in a flat little voice,
"Well, happy birthday anyway, Harry."
Ron's ears were scarlet; Hermione looked nervous. Harry wanted to slam the door
in their faces, but it felt as though a cold draft had entered the room when the door
opened, and his shining moment had popped like a soap bubble. All the reasons for
ending his relationship with Ginny, for staying well away from her, seemed to have slunk
inside the room with Ron, and all happy forgetfulness was gone.
He looked at Ginny, wanting to say something, though he hardly knew what, but
she had turned her back on him. He thought that she might have succumbed, for once, to
tears. He could not do anything to comfort her in front of Ron.
"I'll see you later," he said, and followed the other two out of the bedroom.
Ron marched downstairs, though the still-crowded kitchen and into the yard, and
Harry kept pace with him all the way, Hermione trotting along behind them looking
scared.
Once he reached the seclusion of the freshly mown lawn, Ron rounded on Harry.
"You ditched her. What are you doing now, messing her around?"
"I'm not messing her around," said Harry, as Hermione caught up with them.
"Ron--"
But Ron held up a hand to silence her.
"She was really cut up when you ended it--"
"So was I. You know why I stopped it, and it wasn't because I wanted to."
"Yeah, but you go snogging her now and she's just going to get her hopes up
again--"
"She's not an idiot, she knows it can't happen, she's not expecting us to--to end up
married, or--"
As he said it, a vivid picture formed in Harry's mind of Ginny in a white dress,
marrying a tall, faceless, and unpleasant stranger.
In one spiraling moment it seemed to hit him: Her future was free and
unencumbered, whereas his...he could see nothing but Voldemort ahead.
"If you keep groping her every chance you get--"
"It won't happen again," said Harry harshly. The day was cloudless, but he felt as
though the sun had gone in. "Okay?"
Ron looked half resentful, half sheepish; he rocked backward and forward on his
feet for a moment, then said, "Right then, well, that's...yeah."
Ginny did not seek another one-to-one meeting with Harry for the rest of the day,
nor by any look or gesture did she show that they had shared more than polite
conversation in her room. Nevertheless, Charlie's arrival came as a relief to Harry. It
provided a distraction, watching Mrs. Weasley force Charlie into a chair, raise her wand
threateningly, and announce that he was about to get a proper haircut.
As Harry's birthday dinner would have stretched the Burrow's kitchen to breaking
point even before the arrival of Charlie, Lupin, Tonks, and Hagrid, several tables were
placed end to end in the garden. Fred and George bewitched a number of purple lanterns
all emblazoned with a large number 17, to hang in midair over the guests. Thanks to Mrs.
Weasley's ministrations, George's wound was neat and clean, but Harry was not yet used
to the dark hole in the side of his head, despite the twins' many jokes about it.
Hermione made purple and gold streamers erupt from the end of her wand and
drape themselves artistically over the trees and bushes.
"Nice," said Ron, as with one final flourish of her wand, Hermione
turned the leaves on the crabapple tree to gold. "You've really got an eye for that sort of
thing."
"Thank you, Ron!" said Hermione, looking both pleased and a little confused.
Harry turned away, smiling to himself. He had a funny notion that he would find a
chapter on compliments when he found time to peruse his copy of Twelve Fail-Safe
Ways to Charm Witches; he caught Ginny's eye and grinned at her before remembering
his promise to Ron and hurriedly striking up a conversation with Monsieur Delacour.
"Out of the way, out of the way!" sang Mrs. Weasley, coming through the gate
with what appeared to be a giant, beach-ball-sized Snitch floating in front of her. Seconds
later Harry realized that it was his birthday cake, which Mrs. Weasley was suspending
with her wand, rather than risk carrying it over the uneven ground. When the cake had
finally landed in the middle of the table, Harry said,
"That looks amazing, Mrs. Weasley."
"Oh, it's nothing, dear," she said fondly. Over her shoulder, Ron gave Harry the
thumbs-up and mouthed, Good one.
By seven o'clock all the guests had arrived, led into the house by Fred and George,
who had waited for them at the end of the lane. Hagrid had honored the occasion by
wearing his best, and horrible, hairy brown suit. Although Lupin smiled as he shook
Harry's hand, Harry thought he looked rather unhappy. It was all very odd; Tonks, beside
him, looked simply radiant.
"Happy birthday, Harry," she said, hugging him tightly.
"Seventeen, eh!" said Hagrid as he accepted a bucket-sized glass of wine from
Fred. "Six years ter the day since we met, Harry, d'yeh remember it?"
"Vaguely," said Harry, grinning up at him. "Didn't you smash down the front door,
give Dudley a pig's tail, and tell me I was a wizard?"
"I forge' the details," Hagrid chortled. "All righ', Ron, Hermione?"
"We're fine," said Hermione. "How are you?"
"Ar, not bad. Bin busy, we got some newborn unicorns. I'll show yeh when yeh
get back--" Harry avoided Ron's and Hermione's gazes as Hagrid rummaged in his pocket.
"Here. Harry -- couldn't think what ter get teh, but then I remembered this." He pulled out
a small, slightly furry drawstring pouch with a long string, evidently intended to be worn
around the neck. "Mokeskin. Hide anythin' in there an' no one but the owner can get it out.
They're rare, them."
"Hagrid, thanks!"
"'S'nothin'," said Hagrid with a wave of a dustbin-lid-sized hand. "An' there's
Charlie! Always liked him -- hey! Charlie!"
Charlie approached, running his hand slightly ruefully over his new, brutally short
haircut. He was shorter than Ron, thickset, with a number of burns and scratches up his
muscley arms.
"Hi, Hagrid, how's it going?"
"Bin meanin' ter write fer ages. How's Norbert doin'?"
"Norbert?" Charlie laughed. "The Norwegian Ridgeback? We call her Norberta
now."
"Wha -- Norbert's a girl?"
"Oh yeah," said Charlie.
"How can you tell?" asked Hermione.
"They're a lot more vicious," said Charlie. He looked over his shoulder and
dropped his voice. "Wish Dad would hurry up and get here. Mum's getting edgy."
They all looked over at Mrs. Weasley. She was trying to talk to Madame Delacour
while glancing repeatedly at the gate.
"I think we'd better start without Arthur," she called to the garden at large after a
moment or two. "He must have been held up at -- oh!"
They all saw it at the same time: a streak of light that came flying across the yard
and onto the table, where it resolved itself into a bright silver weasel, which stood on its
hind legs and spoke with Mr. Weasley's voice.
"Minister of Magic coming with me."
The Patronus dissolved into thin air, leaving Fleur's family peering in
astonishment at the place where it had vanished.
"We shouldn't be here," said Lupin at once. "Harry -- I'm sorry -- I'll explain some
other time--"
He seized Tonks’s wrist and pulled her away; they reached the fence, climbed
over it, and vanished from sight. Mrs. Weasley looked bewildered.
"The Minister -- but why--? I don't understand--"
But there was no time to discuss the matter; a second later, Mr. Weasley had
appeared out of thin air at the gate, accompanied by Rufus Scrimgeour, instantly
recognizable by his mane of grizzled hair.
The two newcomers marched across the yard toward the garden and the lantern-lit
table, where everybody sat in silence, watching them draw closer. As Scrimgeour came
within range of the lantern light. Harry saw that he looked much older than the last time
that had met, scraggy and grim.
"Sorry to intrude," said Scrimgeour, as he limped to a halt before the table.
"Especially as I can see that I am gate-crashing a party."
His eyes lingered for a moment on the giant Snitch cake.
"Many happy returns."
"Thanks," said Harry.
"I require a private word with you," Scrimgeour went on. "Also with Mr. Ronald
Weasley and Miss Hermione Granger."
"Us?" said Ron, sounding surprised. "Why us?"
"I shall tell you that when we are somewhere more private," said Scrimgeour. "Is
there such a place?' he demanded of Mr. Weasley.
"Yes, of course," said Mr. Weasley, who looked nervous. "The, er, sitting room,
why don't you use that?"
"You can lead the way," Scrimgeour said to Ron. "There will be no need for you
to accompany us, Arthur."
Harry saw Mr. Weasley exchange a worried look with Mrs. Weasley as he, Ron,
and Hermione stood up. As they led the way back to the house in silence, Harry knew
that the other two were thinking the same as he was; Scrimgeour must, somehow, had
learned that the three of them were planning to drop out of Hogwarts.
Scrimgeour did not speak as they all passed through the messed kitchen and into
the Burrow's sitting room. Although the garden had been full of soft golden evening light,
it was already dark in here; Harry flicked his wand at the oil lamps as he entered and they
illuminated the shabby but cozy room. Scrimgeour sat himself in the sagging armchair
that Mr. Weasley normally occupied, leaving Harry, Ron, and Hermione to squeeze side
by side onto the sofa. Once they had done so, Scrimgeour spoke.
"I have some questions for the three of you, and I think it will be best if we do it
individually. If you two" -- he pointed at Harry and Hermione -- "can wait upstairs, I will
start with Ronald."
"We're not going anywhere," said Harry, while Hermione nodded vigorously.
"You can speak to us together, or not at all."
Scrimgeour gave Harry a cold, appraising look. Harry had the impression that the
Minister was wondering whether it was worthwhile opening hostilities this early.
"Very well then, together," he said, shrugging. He cleared his throat. "I am here,
as I'm sure you know, because of Albus Dumbledore's will."
Harry, Ron, and Hermione looked at one another.
"A surprise, apparently! You were not aware then that Dumbledore had left you
anything?"
"A-all of us?" said Ron, "Me and Hermione too?"
"Yes, all of --"
But Harry interrupted.
"Dumbledore died over a month ago. Why has it taken this long to give us what
he left us?"
"Isn't it obvious?" said Hermione, before Scrimgeour could answer. "They wanted
to examine whatever he's left us. You had no right to do that!" she said, and her voice
trembled slightly.
"I had every right," said Scrimgeour dismissively. "The Decree for Justifiable
Confiscation gives the Ministry the power the confiscate the contents of a will--"
"That law was created to stop wizards passing on Dark artifacts," said Hermione,
"and the Ministry is supposed to have powerful evidence that the deceased's possessions
are illegal before seizing them! Are you telling me that you thought Dumbledore was
trying to pass us something cursed?"
"Are you planning to follow a career in Magical Law, Miss Granger?" asked
Scrimgeour.
"No, I'm not," retorted Hermione. "I'm hoping to do some good in the world!"
Ron laughed. Scrimgeour's eyes flickered toward him and away again as Harry
spoke.
"So why have you decided to let us have our things now? Can't think of a pretext
to keep them?"
"No, it'll be because thirty-one days are up," said Hermione at once. "They can't
keep the objects longer than that unless they can prove they're dangerous. Right?"
"Would you say you were close to Dumbledore, Ronald?" asked Scrimgeour,
ignoring Hermione. Ron looked startled.
"Me? Not -- not really... It was always Harry who..."
Ron looked around at Harry and Hermione, to see Hermione giving him a stoptalking-
now! sort of look, but the damage was done; Scrimgeour looked as though he had
heard exactly what he had expected, and wanted, to hear. He swooped like a bird of prey
upon Ron's answer.
"If you were not very close to Dumbledore, how do you account for the fact that
he remembered you in his will? He made exceptionally few personal bequests. The vast
majority of his possessions -- his private library, his magical instruments, and other
personal effects -- were left to Hogwarts. Why do you think you were singled out?"
"I...dunno," said Ron. "I...when I say we weren't close...I mean, I think he liked
me..."
"You're being modest, Ron," said Hermione. "Dumbledore was very fond of you."
This was stretching the truth to breaking point; as far as Harry knew, Ron and
Dumbledore had never been alone together, and direct contact between them had been
negligible. However, Scrimgeour did not seem to be listening. He put his hand inside his
cloak and drew out a drawstring pouch much larger than the one Hagrid had given Harry.
From it, he removed a scroll of parchment which he unrolled and read aloud.
"'The Last Will and Testament of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore'...
Yes, here we are... 'To Ronald Bilius Weasley, I leave my Deluminator, in the hope that
he will remember me when he uses it.'"
Scrimgeour took from the bag an object that Harry had seen before: It looked
something like a silver cigarette lighter, but it had, he knew, the power to suck all light
from a place, and restore it, with a simple click. Scrimgeour leaned forward and passed
the Deluminator to Ron, who took it and turned it over in the fingers looking stunned.
"That is a valuable object," said Scrimgeour, watching Ron. "It may even be
unique. Certainly it is of Dumbledore's own design. Why would he have left you and item
so rare?"
Ron shook his head, looking bewildered.
"Dumbledore must have taught thousands of students," Scrimgeour persevered.
"Yet the only ones he remembered in his will are you three. Why is that? To what use did
he think you would put to the Deluminator, Mr. Weasley?"
"Put out lights, I s'pose," mumbled Ron. "What else could I do with it?"
Evidently Scrimgeour had no suggestions. After squinting at Ron for a moment or
tow, he turned back to Dumbledore's will.
"'To Miss Hermione Jean Granger, I leave my copy of The Tales of Beedle the
Bard, in the hope that she will find it entertaining and instructive.'"
Scrimgeour now pulled out of the bag a small book that looked as ancient as the
copy of Secrets of the Darkest Art upstairs. Its binding was stained and peeling in places.
Hermione took it from Scrimgeour without a word. She held the book in her lap and
gazed at it. Harry saw that the title was in runes; he had never learned to read them. As he
looked, a tear splashed onto the embossed symbols.
"Why do you think Dumbledore left you that book, Miss Granger?" asked
Scrimgeour.
"He... he knew I liked books," said Hermione in a thick voice, mopping her eyes
with her sleeve.
"But why that particular book?"
"I don't know. He must have thought I'd enjoy it."
"Did you ever discuss codes, or any means of passing secret messages, with
Dumbledore?"
"No, I didn't," said Hermione, still wiping her eyes on her sleeve. "And if the
Ministry hasn't found any hidden codes in this book in thirty-one days, I doubt that I
will."
She suppressed a sob. They were wedged together so tightly that Ron had
difficulty extracting his arm to put it around Hermione's shoulders. Scrimgeour turned
back to the will.
"'To Harry James Potter,'" he read, and Harry's insides contracted with a sudden
excitement, "'I leave the Snitch he caught in his first Quidditch match at Hogwarts, as a
reminder of the rewards of perseverance and skill.'"
As Scrimgeour pulled out the tiny, walnut-sized golden ball, its silver wings
fluttered rather feebly, and Harry could not help feeling a definite sense of anticlimax.
"Why did Dumbledore leave you this Snitch?" asked Scrimgeour.
"No idea," said Harry. "For the reasons you just read out, I suppose... to remind
me what you can get if you... persevere and whatever it was."
"You think this a mere symbolic keepsake, then?"
"I suppose so," said Harry. "What else could it be?"
"I'm asking the questions," said Scrimgeour, shifting his chair a little closer to the
sofa. Dusk was really falling outside now; the marquee beyond the windows towered
ghostly white over the hedge.
"I notice that your birthday cake is in the shape of a Snitch," Scrimgeour said to
Harry. "Why is that?"
Hermione laughed derisively.
"Oh, it can't be a reference to the fact Harry's a great Seeker, that's way too
obvious," she said. "There must be a secret message from Dumbledore hidden in the
icing!"
"I don't think there's anything hidden in the icing," said Scrimgeour, "but a Snitch
would be a very good hiding place for a small object. You know why, I'm sure?"
Harry shrugged, Hermione, however, answered: Harry thought that answering
questions correctly was such a deeply ingrained habit she could not suppress the urge.
"Because Snitches have flesh memories," she said.
"What?" said Harry and Ron together; both considered Hermione's Quidditch
knowledge negligible.
"Correct," said Scrimgeour. "A Snitch is not touched by bare skin before it is
released, not even by the maker, who wears gloves. It carries an enchantment by which it
can identify the first human to lay hands upon it, in case of a disputed capture. This
Snitch" -- he held up the tiny golden ball -- "will remember your touch, Potter.
It occurs to me that Dumbledore, who had prodigious magical skill, whatever his
other faults, might have enchanted this Snitch so that it will open only for you."
Harry's heart was beating rather fast. He was sure that Scrimgeour was right. How
could he avoid taking the Snitch with his bare hand in front of the Minister?
"You don't say anything," said Scrimgeour. "Perhaps you already know what the
Snitch contains?"
"No," said Harry, still wondering how he could appear to touch the Snitch without
really doing so. If only he knew Legilimency, really knew it, and could read Hermione's
mind; he could practically hear her brain whizzing beside him.
"Take it," said Scrimgeour quietly.
Harry met the Minister's yellow eyes and knew he had no option but to obey. He
held out his hand, and Scrimgeour leaned forward again and place the Snitch, slowly and
deliberately, into Harry's palm.
Nothing happened. As Harry's fingers closed around the Snitch, its tired wings
fluttered and were still. Scrimgeour, Ron, and Hermione continued to gaze avidly at the
now partially concealed ball, as if still hoping it might transform in some way.
"That was dramatic," said Harry coolly. Both Ron and Hermione laughed.
"That's all, then, is it?" asked Hermione, making to raise herself off the sofa.
"Not quite," said Scrimgeour, who looked bad tempered now. "Dumbledore left
you a second bequest, Potter."
"What is it?" asked Harry, excitement rekindling.
Scrimgeour did not bother to read from the will this time.
"The sword of Godric Gryffindor," he said. Hermione and Ron both stiffened.
Harry looked around for a sign of the ruby-encrusted hilt, but Scrimgeour did not pull the
sword from the leather pouch, which in any case looked much too small to contain it.
"So where is it?" Harry asked suspiciously.
"Unfortunately," said Scrimgeour, "that sword was not Dumbledore's to give
away. The sword of Godric Gryffindor is an important historical artifact, and as such,
belongs--"
"It belongs to Harry!" said Hermione hotly. "It chose him, he was the one who
found it, it came to him out of the Sorting Hat--"
"According to reliable historical sources, the sword may present itself to any
worthy Gryffindor," said Scrimgeour. "That does not make it the exclusive property of
Mr. Potter, whatever Dumbledore may have decided." Scrimgeour scratched his badly
shaven cheek, scrutinizing Harry. "Why do you think--?"
"--Dumbledore wanted to give me the sword?" said Harry, struggling to keep his
temper. "Maybe he thought it would look nice on my wall."
"This is not a joke, Potter!" growled Scrimgeour. "Was it because Dumbledore
believed that only the sword of Godric Gryffindor could defeat the Heir of Slytherin? Did
he wish to give you that sword, Potter, because he believed, as do many, that you are the
one destined to destroy He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?"
"Interesting theory," said Harry. "Has anyone ever tried sticking a sword in
Voldemort? Maybe the Ministry should put some people onto that, instead of wasting
their time stripping down Deluminators or covering up breakouts from Azkaban. So this
is what you've been doing, Minister, shut up in your office, trying to break open a Snitch?
People are dying – I was nearly one of them – Voldemort chased me across three
countries, he killed Mad-Eye Moody, but there's no word about any of that from the
Ministry, has there? And you still expect us to cooperate with you!"
"You go too far!" shouted Scrimgeour, standing up: Harry jumped to his feet too.
Scrimgeour limped toward Harry and jabbed him hard in the chest with the point of his
wand; It singed a hole in Harry's T-shirt like a lit cigarette.
"Oi!" said Ron, jumping up and raising his own wand, but Harry said,
"No! D'you want to give him an excuse to arrest us?"
"Remembered you're not at school, have you?" said Scrimgeour breathing hard
into Harry's face. "Remembered that I am not Dumbledore, who forgave your insolence
and insubordination? You may wear that scar like a crown, Potter, but it is not up to a
seventeen-year-old boy to tell me how to do my job! It's time you learned some respect!"
"It's time you earned it." said Harry.
The floor trembled; there was a sound of running footsteps, then the door to the
sitting room burst open and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley ran in.
"We --- we thought we heard --" began Mr. Weasley, looking thoroughly alarmed
at the sight of Harry and the Minister virtually nose to nose.
"—raised voices," panted Mrs. Weasley.
Scrimgeour took a couple of steps back from Harry, glancing at the hole he had
made in Harry's T-shirt. He seemed to regret his loss of temper.
"It – it was nothing," he growled. "I … regret your attitude," he said, looking
Harry full in the face once more. "You seem to think that the Ministry does not desire
what you – what Dumbledore – desired. We ought to work together."
"I don't like your methods, Minister," said Harry. "Remember?"
For the second time, he raised his right fist and displayed to Scrimgeour the scar
that still showed white on the back of it, spelling I must not tell lies . Scrimgeour's
expression hardened. He turned away without another word and limped from the room.
Mrs. Weasley hurried after him; Harry heard her stop at the back door. After a minute or
so she called, "He's gone!"
What did he want?" Mr. Weasley asked, looking around at Harry, Ron, and
Hermione as Mrs. Weasley came hurrying back to them.
"To give us what Dumbledore left us," said Harry. "They've only just released the
content of his will."
Outside in the garden, over the dinner tables, the three objects Scrimgeour had
given them were passed from hand to hand. Everyone exclaimed over the Deluminator
and The Tales of Beedle the Bard and lamented the fact that Scrimgeour had refused to
pass on the sword, but none of them could offer any suggestion as to why Dumbledore
would have left Harry an old Snitch. As Mr. Weasley examined the Deluminator for the
third of fourth time, Mrs. Weasley said tentatively, "Harry, dear, everyone's awfully
hungry we didn't like to start without you… Shall I serve dinner now?"
They all ate rather hurriedly and then after a hasty chorus of "Happy Birthday"
and much gulping of cake, the party broke up. Hagrid, who was invited to the wedding
the following day, but was far too bulky to sleep in the overstretched Burrow, left to set
up a tent for himself in a neighboring field.
"Meet us upstairs," Harry whispered to Hermione, while they helped Mrs.
Weasley restore the garden to its normal state. "After everyone's gone to bed."
Up in the attic room, Ron examined his Deluminator, and Harry filled Hagrid's
mokeskin purse, not with gold, but with those items he most prized, apparently worthless
though some of them were the Marauder's Map, the shard of Sirius's enchanted mirror,
and R.A.B.'s locket. He pulled the string tight and slipped the purse around his neck, then
sat holding the old Snitch and watching its wings flutter feebly. At last, Hermione tapped
on the door and tiptoed inside.
"Muffiato," she whispered, waving her wand in the direction of the stairs.
"Thought you didn't approve of that spell?" said Ron.
"Times change," said Hermione. "Now, show us that Deluminator."
Ron obliged at once. Holding I up in front of him, he clicked it. The solitary lamp
they had lit went out at once.
"The thing is," whispered Hermione through the dark, "we could have achieved
that with Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder."
There was a small click, and the ball of light from the lamp flew back to the
ceiling and illuminated them all once more.
"Still, it's cool," said Ron, a little defensively. "And from what they said,
Dumbledore invented it himself!"
"I know but, surely he wouldn't have singled you out in his will just to help us
turn out the lights!"
"D'you think he knew the Ministry would confiscate his will and examine
everything he'd left us?" asked Harry.
"Definitely," said Hermione. "He couldn't tell us in the will why he was leaving
us these things, but that will doesn't explain…"
"… why he couldn't have given us a hint when he was alive?" asked Ron.
"Well, exactly," said Hermione, now flicking through The Tales of Beedle the
Bard. "If these things are important enough to pass on right under the nose of the
Ministry, you'd think he'd have left us know why… unless he thought it was obvious?"
"Thought wrong, then, didn't he?" said Ron. "I always said he was mental.
Brilliant and everything, but cracked. Leaving Harry an old Snitch – what the hell was
that about?"
"I've no idea," said Hermione. "When Scrimgeour made you take it, Harry, I was
so sure that something was going to happen!"
"Yeah, well," said Harry, his pulse quickened as he raised the Snitch in his fingers.
"I wasn't going to try too hard in front of Scrimgeour was I?"
"What do you mean?" asked Hermione.
"The Snitch I caught in my first ever Quidditch match?" said Harry. "Don't you
remember?"
Hermione looked simply bemused. Ron, however, gasped, pointing frantically
from Harry to the Snitch and back again until he found his voice.
"That was the one you nearly swallowed!"
"Exactly," said Harry, and with his heart beating fast, he pressed his mouth to the
Snitch.
It did not open. Frustration and bitter disappointment welled up inside him: He
lowered the golden sphere, but then Hermione cried out.
"Writing! There's writing on it, quick, look!"
He nearly dropped the Snitch in surprise and excitement. Hermione was quite right.
Engraved upon the smooth golden surface, where seconds before there had been nothing,
were five words written in the thin, slanted handwriting that Harry recognized as
Dumbledore's
I open at the close.
He had barely read them when the words vanished again.
"I open at the close…." What's that supposed to mean?"
Hermione and Ron shook their heads, looking blank.
"I open at the close… at the close… I open at the close…"
But no matter how often they repeated the words, with many different inflections,
they were unable to wring any more meaning from them.
"And the sword," said Ron finally, when they had at last abandoned their attempts
to divine meaning in the Snitch's inscription.
"Why did he want Harry to have the sword?"
"And why couldn't he just have told me?" Harry said quietly. "I was there, it was
right there on the wall of his office during all our talks last year! If he wanted me to have
it, why didn't he just give it to me then?"
He felt as thought he were sitting in an examination with a question he ought to
have been able to answer in front of him, his brain slow and unresponsive. Was there
something he had missed in the long talks with Dumbledore last year? Ought he to know
what it all meant? Had Dumbledore expected him to understand?
"And as for this book." Said Hermione, "The Tales of Beedle the Bard … I've
never even heard of them!"
"You've never heard of The Tales of Beedle the Bard?" said Ron incredulously.
"You're kidding, right?"
"No, I'm not," said Hermione in surprise. "Do you know them then?"
"Well, of course I do!"
Harry looked up, diverted. The circumstance of Ron having read a book that
Hermione had not was unprecedented. Ron, however, looked bemused by their surprise.
"Oh come on! All the old kids' stories are supposed to be Beedle's aren't they?
'The Fountain of Fair Fortune' … 'The Wizard and the Hopping Pot'… 'Babbitty Rabbitty
and her Cackling Stump'…"
"Excuse me?" said Hermione giggling. "What was the last one?"
"Come off it!" said Ron, looking in disbelief from Harry to Hermione. "You
must've heard of Babbitty Rabbitty –"
"Ron, you know full well Harry and I were brought up by Muggles!" said
Hermione. "We didn't hear stories like that when we were little, we heard 'Snow White
and the Seven Dwarves' and 'Cinderella' –"
"What's that, an illness?" asked Ron.
"So these are children's stories?" asked Hermione, bending against over the runes.
"Yeah." Said Ron uncertainly. "I mean, just what you hear, you know, that all
these old stories came from Beedle. I dunno what they're like in the original versions."
"But I wonder why Dumbledore thought I should read them?"
Something cracked downstairs.
"Probably just Charlie, now Mum's asleep, sneaking off to regrow his hair," said
Ron nervously.
"All the same, we should get to bed," whispered Hermione. "It wouldn't do to
oversleep tomorrow."
"No," agreed Ron. "A brutal triple murder by the bridegroom's mother might put a
bit of damper on the wedding. I'll get the light."
And he clicked the Deluminator once more as Hermione left the room.
Chapter Eight
The Wedding
Three o’clock on the following afternoon found Harry, Ron, Fred and George
standing outside the great white marquee in the orchard, awaiting the arrival of the
wedding guests. Harry had taken a large dose of Polyjuice Potion and was now the
double of a redheaded Muggle boy from the local village, Ottery St. Catchpole, from
whom Fred had stolen hairs using a Summoning Charm. The plan was to introduce
Harry as “Cousin Barny” and trust to the great number of Weasley relatives to
camouflage him.
All four of them were clutching seating plans, so that they could help show people
to the right seats. A host of white-robed waiters had arrived an hour earlier, along with a
golden jacketed band, and all of these wizards were currently sitting a short distance
away under a tree. Harry could see a blue haze of pipe smoke issuing from the spot.
Behind Harry, the entrance to the marquee revealed rows and rows of fragile golden
chairs set on either side of a long purple carpet. The supporting poles were entwined with
white and gold flowers. Fred and George had fastened an enormous bunch of golden
balloons over the exact point where Bill and Fleur would shortly become husband and
wife. Outside, butterflies and bees were hovering lazily over the grass and hedgerow.
Harry was rather uncomfortable. The Muggle boy whose appearance he was affecting
was slightly fatter than him and his dress robes felt hot and tight in the full glare of a
summer’s day.
“When I get married,” said Fred, tugging at the collar of his own robes, “I won’t
be bothering with any of this nonsense. You can all wear what you like, and I’ll put a full
Body Bird Curse on Mum until it’s all over.”
“She wasn’t too bad this morning, considering,” said George. “Cried a bit about
Percy not being here, but who wants him. Oh blimey, brace yourselves, here they come,
look.”
Brightly colored figures were appearing, one by one out of nowhere at the distant
boundary of the yard. Within minutes a procession had formed, which began to snake its
way up through the garden toward the marquee. Exotic flowers and bewitched birds
fluttered on the witches’ hats, while precious gems glittered from many of the wizards’
cravats; a hum of excited chatter grew louder and louder, drowning the sound of the bees
as the crowd approached the tent.
“Excellent, I think I see a few veela cousins,” said George, craning his neck for a
better look. “They’ll need help understanding our English customs, I’ll look after
them….”
“Not so fast, Your Holeyness,” said Fred, and darting past the gaggle of middleaged
witches heading for the procession, he said, “Here – permetiez moi to assister
vous,” to a pair of pretty French girls, who giggled and allowed him to escort them inside.
George was left to deal with the middle-aged witches and Ron took charge of Mr.
Weasley’s old Ministry-colleague Perkins, while a rather deaf old couple fell to Harry’s
lot.
“Wotcher,” said a familiar voice as he came out of the marquee again and found
Tonks and Lupin at the front of the queue. She had turned blonde for the occasion.
“Arthur told us you were the one with the curly hair. Sorry about last night,” she added
in a whisper as Harry led them up the aisle. “The Ministry’s being very anti-werewolf at
the museum and we thought our presence might not do you any favors.”
“It’s fine, I understand,” said Harry, speaking more to Lupin than Tonks. Lupin
gave him a swift smile, but as they turned away Harry saw Lupin’s face fall again into
lines of misery. He did not understand it, but there was no time to dwell on the matter.
Hagrid was causing a certain amount of disruption. Having misunderstood Fred’s
directions as he had sat himself, not upon the magically enlarged and reinforced seat set
aside for him in the back row, but on five sets that now resembled a large pile of golden
matchsticks.
While Mr. Weasley repaired the damage and Hagrid shouted apologies to
anybody who would listen, Harry hurried back to the entrance to find Ron face-to-face
with a most eccentric-looking wizard. Slightly cross-eyed, with shoulder-length white
hair the texture of candyfloss, he wore a cap whose tassel dangled in front of his nose and
robes of an eye-watering shade of egg-yolk yellow. An odd symbol, rather like a
triangular eye, glistened from a golden chain around his neck.
“Xenophilius Lovegood,” he said, extending a hand to Harry, “my daughter and I
live just over the hill, so kind of the good Weasleys to invite us. But I think you know
my Luna?” he added to Ron.
“Yes,” said Ron. “Isn’t she with you?”
“She lingered in that charming little garden to say hello to the gnomes, such a
glorious infestation! How few wizards realize just how much we can learn from the wise
little gnomes – or, to give them their correct name, the Gernumbli gardensi.”
“Ours do know a lot of excellent swear words,” said Ron, “but I think Fred and
George taught them those.”
He led a party of warlocks into the marquee as Luna rushed up.
“Hello, Harry!” she said.
“Er – my name’s Barry,” said Harry, flummoxed.
“Oh, have you changed that too?” she asked brightly.
“How did you know -?”
“Oh, just your expression,” she said.
Like her father, Luna was wearing bright yellow robes, which she had
accessorized with a large sunflower in her hair. Once you get over the brightness of it all,
the general effect was quite pleasant. At least there were no radishes dangling from her
ears.
Xenophilius, who was deep in conversation with an acquaintance, had missed the
exchange between Luna and Harry. Biding the wizard farewell, he turned to his daughter,
who held up her finger and said, “Daddy, look – one of the gnomes actually bit me.”
“How wonderful! Gnome saliva is enormously beneficial.” Said Mr. Lovegood,
seizing Luna’s outstretched fingers and examining the bleeding puncture marks. “Luna,
my love, if you should feel any burgeoning talent today – perhaps an unexpected urge to
sing opera or to declaims in Mermish – do not repress it! You may have been gifted by
the Gernumblies!”
Ron, passing them in the opposite direction let out a loud snort.
“Ron can laugh,” said Luna serenely as Harry led her and Xenophilius toward
their seats, “but my father has done a lot of research on Gernumbli magic.”
“Really?” said Harry, who had long since decided not to challenge Luna or her
father’s peculiar views. “Are you sure you don’t want to put anything on that bite,
though?”
“Oh, it’s fine,” said Luna, sucking her finger in a dreamy fashion and looking
Harry up and down. “You look smart. I told Daddy most people would probably wear
dress robes, but he believes you ought to wear sun colors to a wedding, for luck, you
know.”
As she drifted off after her father, Ron reappeared with an elderly witch clutching
his arm. Her beaky nose, red-rimmed eyes, and leathery pink hat gave her the look of a
bad-tempered flamingo.
“…and your hair’s much too long, Ronald, for a moment I thought you were
Ginevra. Merlin’s beard, what is Xenophilius Lovegood wearing? He looks like an
omelet. And who are you?” she barked at Harry.
“Oh yeah, Auntie Muriel, this is our cousin Barny.”
“Another Weasley? You breed like gnomes. Isn’t Harry Potter here? I was
hoping to meet him. I thought he was a friend of yours, Ronald, or have you merely been
boasting?”
“No – he couldn’t come –“
“Hmm. Made an excuse, did he? Not as gormless as he looks in press
photographs, then. I’ve just been instructing the bride on how best to wear my tiara,” she
shouted at Harry. “Goblin-made, you know, and been in my family for centuries. She’s a
good-looking girl, but still – French. Well, well, find me a good seat, Ronald, I am a
hundred and seven and I ought not to be on my feet too long.”
Ron gave Harry a meaningful look as he passed and did not reappear for some
time. When next they met at the entrance, Harry had shown a dozen more people to their
places. The Marquee was nearly full now and for the first time there was no queue
outside.
“Nightmare, Muriel is,” said Ron, mopping his forehead on his sleeve. “She used
to come for Christmas every year, then, thank God, she took offense because Fred and
George set off a Dungbomb under her chair at diner. Dad always says she’ll have written
them out of her will – like they care, they’re going to end up richer than anyone in the
family, rate they’re going… Wow,” he added, blinking rather rapidly as Hermione came
hurrying toward them. “You look great!”
“Always the tone of surprise,” said Hermione, though she smiled. She was
wearing a floaty, lilac-colored dress with matching high heels; her hair was sleek and
shiny. “Your Great-Aunt Muriel doesn’t agree, I just met her upstairs while she was
giving Fleur the tiara. She said, ‘Oh dear, is this the Muggle-born?’ and then, ‘Bad
posture and skinny ankles.’”
“Don’t take it personally, she’s rude to everyone,” said Ron.
“Talking about Muriel?” inquired George, reemerging from the marquee with
Fred. “Yeah, she’s just told me my ears are lopsided. Old bat. I wish old Uncle Bilius
was still with us, though; he was a right laugh at weddings.”
“Wasn’t he the one who saw a Grim and died twenty-four hours later?” asked
Hermione.
“Well, yeah, he went a bit odd toward the end,” conceded George.
“But before he went loopy he was the life and soul of the party,” said Fred. “He
used to down an entire bottle of firewhisky, then run onto the dance floor, hoist up his
robes, and start pulling bunches of flowers out of his –“
“Yes, he sounds a real charmer,” said Hermione, while Harry roared with laughter.
“Never married, for some reason,” said Ron.
“You amaze me,” said Hermione.
They were all laughing so much that none of them noticed the latecomer, a darkhaired
young man with a large, curved nose and thick black eyebrows, until he held out
his invitation to Ron and said, with his eyes on Hermione, “You look vunderful.”
“Viktor!” she shrieked, and dropped her small beaded bag, which made a loud
thump quite disproportionate to its size. As she scrambled, blushing, to pick it up, she
said “I didn’t know you were – goodness – it’s lovely to see – how are you?”
Ron’s ears had turned bright red again. After glancing at Krum’s invitation as if
he did not believe a word of it, he said, much too loudly, “how come you’re here?”
“Fleur invited me,” said Krum, eyebrows raised.
Harry, who had no grudge against Krum, shook hands; then feeling that it would
be prudent to remove Krum from Ron’s vicinity, offered to show him his seat.
“Your friend is not pleased to see me,” said Krum, as they entered the now
packed marquee. “Or is he a relative?” he added with a glance at Harry’s red curly hair.
“Cousin.” Harry muttered, but Krum was not really listening. His appearance was
causing a stir, particularly amongst the veela cousins: He was, after all, a famous
Quidditch player. While people were still craning their necks to get a good look at him,
Ron, Hermione, Fred, and George came hurrying down the aisle.
“Time to sit down,” Fred told Harry, “or we’re going to get run over by the
bride.”
Harry, Ron and Hermione took their seats in the second row behind Fred and
George. Hermione looked rather pink and Ron’s ears were still scarlet. After a few
moments he muttered to Harry, “Did you see he’s grown a stupid little beard?”
Harry gave a noncommittal grunt.
A sense of jittery anticipation had filled the warm tent, the general murmuring
broken by occasional spurts of excited laughter. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley strolled up the
aisle, smiling and waving at relatives; Mrs. Weasley was wearing a brand-new set of
amethyst colored robes with a matching hat.
A moment later Bill and Charlie stood up at the front of the marquee, both
wearing dress robes, with larger white roses in their buttonholes; Fred wolf-whistled and
there was an outbreak of giggling from the veela cousins. Then the crowd fell silent as
music swelled from what seemed to be the golden balloons.
“Ooooh!” said Hermione, swiveling around in her seat to look at the entrance.
A great collective sigh issued from the assembled witches and wizards as
Monsieur Delacour and Fleur came walking up the aisle, Fleur gliding, Monsieur
Delacour bouncing and beaming. Fleur was wearing a very simple white dress and
seemed to be emitting a strong, silvery glow. While her radiance usually dimmed
everyone else by comparison, today it beautified everybody it fell upon. Ginny and
Gabrielle, both wearing golden dresses, looked even prettier than usual and once Fleur
had reached for him, Bill did not look as though he had ever met Fenrit Greyback.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said a slightly singsong voice, and with a slight shock,
Harry saw the same small, tufty-hired wizard who had presided at Dumbledore’s funeral,
now standing in front of Bill and Fleur. “We are gathered here today to celebrate the
union of two faithful souls…”
“Yes, my tiara set off the whole thing nicely,” said Auntie Muriel in a rather
carrying whisper. “But I must say, Ginevra’s dress is far too low cut.”
Ginny glanced around, grinning, winked at Harry, then quickly faced the front
again. Harry’s mind wandered a long way from the marquee, back to the afternoons
spent alone with Ginny in lonely parts of the school grounds. They seemed so long ago;
they had always seemed too good to be true, as though he had been stealing shining hours
from a normal person’s life, a person without a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead….
“Do you, William Arthur, take Fleur Isabelle…?”
In the front row, Mrs. Weasley and Madame Delacour were both sobbing quietly
into scraps of lace. Trumpetlike sounds from the back of the marquee told everyone that
Hagrid had taken out one of his own tablecloth-sized handkerchiefs. Hermione turned
around and beamed at Harry; her eyes too were full of tears.
“…then I declare you bonded for life.”
The tufty-haired wizard waved his hand high over the heads of Bill and Fleur and
a shower of silver stars fell upon them, spiraling around their now entwined figures. As
Fred and George led a round of applause, the golden balloons overhead burst. Birds of
paradise and tiny golden bells flew and floated out of them, adding their songs and
chimes to the din.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” called the tufty-haired wizard. “If you would please
stand up!”
They all did so, Auntie Muriel grumbling audibly; he waved his wand again. The
scars on which they had been sitting rose gracefully into the air as the canvas walls of the
marquee vanished, so that they stood beneath a canopy supported by golden poles, with a
glorious view of the sunlit orchard and surrounding countryside. Next, a pool of molten
gold spread from the center of the tent to form a gleaming dance floor; the hovering
chairs grouped themselves around small, white-clothed tables, which all floated
gracefully back to earth round it, and the golden-jacketed hand trooped toward a podium.
“Smooth,” said Ron approvingly as the waiters popped up on all sides, some
hearing silver trays of pumpkin juice, butterbeer, and firewhisky, others tottering piles of
tarts and sandwiches.
“We should go and congratulate them!” said Hermione, standing on tiptoe to see
the place where Bill and Fleur had vanished amid a crowd of well-wishers.
“We’ll have time later,” shrugged Ron, snatching three butterbeers from a passing
tray and handing one to Harry. “Hermione, cop hold, let’s grab a table…. Not there!
Nowhere near Muriel –“
Ron led the way across the empty dance floor, glancing left and right as he went;
Harry felt sure that he was keeping an eye out for Krum. By the time they had reached
the other side of the marquee, most of the tables were occupied: The emptiest was the one
where Luna sat alone.
“All right if we join you?” asked Ron.
“Oh yes,” she said happily. “Daddy’s just gone to give Bill and Fleur our
present.”
“What is it, a lifetime’s supply of Gurdyroots?” asked Ron.
Hermione aimed a kick at him under the table, but caught Harry instead. Eyes
watering in pain, Harry lost track of the conversation for a few moments.
The band had begun to play, Bill and Fleur took to the dance floor first, to great
applause; after a while, Mr. Weasley led Madame Delacour onto the floor, followed by
Mr. Weasley and Fleur’s father.
“I like this song,” said Luna, swaying in time to the waltzlike tune, and a few
seconds later she stood up and glided onto the dance floor, where she revolved on the
spot, quite alone, eyes closed and waving her arms.
“She’s great isn’t she?” said Ron admiringly. “Always good value.”
But the smile vanished from his face at once: Viktor Krum had dropped into
Luna’s vacant seat. Hermione looked pleasurably flustered but this time Krum had not
come to compliment her. With a scowl on his face he said, “Who is that man in the
yellow?”
“That’s Xenophilius Lovegood, he’s the father of a friend of ours,” said Ron. His
pugnacious tone indicated that they were not about to laugh at Xenophilius, despite the
clear provocation. “Come and dance,” he added abruptly to Hermione.
She looked taken aback, but pleased too, and got up. They vanished together into
the growing throng on the dance floor.
“Ah, they are together now?” asked Krum, momentarily distracted.
“Er – sort of,” said Harry.
“Who are you?” Krum asked.
“Barny Weasley.”
They shook hands.
“You, Barny – you know this man Lovegood well?”
“No, I only met him today. Why?”
Krum glowered over the top of his drink, watching Xenophilius, who was chatting
to several warlocks on the other side of the dance floor.
“Because,” said Krum, “If he vus not a guest of Fleur’s I vould dud him, here and
now, for veering that filthy sign upon his chest.”
“Sign?” said Harry, looking over at Xenophilius too. The strange triangular eye
was gleaming on his chest. “Why? What’s wrong with it?”
“Grindelvald. That is Grindelvald’s sign.”
“Grindelwald… the Dark wizard Dumbledore defeated?”
“Exactly.”
Krum’s jaw muscles worked as if he were chewing, then he said, “Grindelvald
killed many people, my grandfather, for instance. Of course, he vos never powerful in
this country, they said he feared Dumbledore – and rightly, seeing how he vos finished.
But this” – he pointed a finger at Xenophilius – “this is his symbol, I recognized it at
vunce: Grindelvald carved it into a vall at Durmstrang ver he vos a pupil there. Some
idiots copied it onto their books and clothes thinking to shock, make themselves
impressive – until those of us who had lost family members to Grindelvald taught them
better.”
Krum cracked his knuckles menacingly and glowered at Xenophilius. Harry felt
perplexed. It seemed incredibly unlikely that Luna’s father was a supporter of the Dark
Arts, and nobody else in the tent seemed to have recognized the triangular, finlike shape.
“Are you – er – quite sure it’s Grindelwald’s -?”
“I am not mistaken,” said Krum coldly. “I walked past that sign for several years,
I know it vell.”
“Well, there’s a chance,” said Harry, “that Xenophilius doesn’t actually know
what the symbol means, the Lovegoods are quite… unusual. He could have easily picked
it up somewhere and think it’s a cross section of the head of a Crumple-Horned Snorkack
or something.”
“The cross section of a vot?”
“Well, I don’t know what they are, but apparently he and his daughter go on
holiday looking for them….”
Harry felt he was doing a bad job explaining Luna and her father.
“That’s her,” he said, pointing at Luna, who was still dancing alone, waving her
arms around her head like someone attempting to beat off midges.
“Vy is she doing that?” asked Krum.
“Probably trying to get rid of a Wrackspurt,” said Harry, who recognized the
symptoms.
Krum did not seem to know whether or not Harry was making fun of him. He
drew his hand from inside his robe and tapped it menacingly on his thighs; sparks flew
out of the end.
“Gregorovitch!” said Harry loudly, and Krum started, but Harry was too excited
to care; the memory had come back to him at the sight of Krum’s wand: Ollivander
taking it and examining it carefully before the Triwizard Tournament.
“Vot about him?” asked Krum suspiciously.
“He’s a wandmaker!”
“I know that,” said Krum.
“He made your wand! That’s why I thought – Quidditch –“
Krum was looking more and more suspicious.
“How do you know Gregorovitch made my wand?”
“I…I read it somewhere, I think,” said Harry. “In a – a fan magazine,” he
improvised wildly and Krum looked mollified.
“I had not realized I ever discussed my vand with fans,” he said.
“So… er… where is Gregorowitch these days?”
Krum looked puzzled.
“He retired several years ago. I was one of the last to purchase a Gregorovitch
vand. They are the best –although I know, of course, that your Britons set much store by
Ollivander.”
Harry did not answer. He pretended to watch the dancers, like Krum, but he was
thinking hard. So Voldemort was looking for a celebrated wandmaker and Harry did not
have to search far for a reason. It was surely because of what Harry’ wand had done on
the night that Voldemort pursued him across the skies. The holly and phoenix feather
wand had conquered the borrowed wand, some thing that Ollivander had not anticipated
or understood. Would Gregorowitch know better? Was he truly more skilled than
Ollivander, did he know secrets of wands that Ollivander did not?
“This girl is very nice-looking,” Krum said, recalling Harry to his surroundings.
Krum was pointing at Ginny, who had just joined Luna. “She is also a relative of yours?”
“Yeah,” said Harry, suddenly irritated, “and she’s seeing someone. Jealous type.
Big bloke. You wouldn’t want to cross him.”
Krum grunted.
“Vot,” he said, draining his goblet and getting to his feet again, “is the point of
being an international Quidditch player if all the good-looking girls are taken?”
And he strode off leaving Harry to take a sandwich from a passing waiter and
make his way around the edge of the crowded dance floor. He wanted to find Ron, to tell
him about Gregorovitch, but he was dancing with Hermione out in the middle of the floor.
Harry leaned up against one of the golden pillars and watched Ginny, who was now
dancing with Fred and George’s friend Lee Jordan, trying not to feel resentful about the
promise he had given Ron.
He had never been to a wedding before, so he could not judge how Wizarding
celebrations differed from Muggle ones, though he was pretty sure that the latter would
not involve a wedding cake topped with two model phoenixes that took flight when the
cake was cut, or bottles of champagne that floated unsupported through the crowd. As
the evening drew in, and moths began to swoop under the canopy, now lit with floating
golden lanterns, the revelry became more and more uncontained. Fred and George had
long since disappeared into the darkness with a pair of Fleur’s cousins; Charlie, Hagrid,
and a squat wizard in a purple porkpie hat were singing “Odo the Hero” in the corner.
Wandering through the crowd so as to escape a drunken uncle of Ron’s who
seemed unsure whether or not Harry was his son, Harry spotted an old wizard sitting
alone at a table. His cloud of white hair made him look rather like an aged dandelion
clock and was topped by a moth-eaten fez. He was vaguely familiar: Racking his brains,
Harry suddenly realized that this was Elphias Doge, member of the Order of the Phoenix
and the writer of Dumbledore’s obituary.
Harry approached him.
“May I sit down?”
“Of course, of course,” said Doge; he had a rather high-pitched, wheezy voice.
Harry leaned in.
“Mr. Doge, I’m Harry Potter.”
Doge gasped.
“My dear boy! Arthur told me you were here, disguised…. I am so glad, so
honored!”
In a flutter of nervous pleasure Doge poured Harry a goblet of champagne.
“I thought of writing to you,” he whispered, “after Dumbledore… the shock…
and for you, I am sure…”
Doge’s tiny eyes filled with sudden tears.
“I saw the obituary you wrote for the Daily Prophet,” said Harry. “I didn’t realize
you knew Professor Dumbledore so well.”
“As well as anyone,” said Doge, dabbing his eyes with a napkin. “Certainly I
knew him longest, if you don’t count Aberforth – and somehow, people never do seem to
count Aberforth.”
“Speaking of the Daily Prophet… I don’t know whether you saw, Mr. Doge -?”
“Oh, please call me Elphias, dear boy.”
“Elphias, I don’t know whether you saw the interview Rita Skeeter gave about
Dumbledore?”
Doge’s face flooded with angry color.
“Oh yes, Harry, I saw it. That woman, or vulture might be a more accurate term,
positively pestered me to talk to her, I am ashamed to say that I became rather rude,
called her an interfering trout, which resulted, as you my have seen, in aspersions cast
upon my sanity.”
“Well, in that interview,” Harry went on, “Rita Skeeter hinted that Professor
Dumbledore was involved in the Dark Arts when he was young.”
“Don’t believe a word of it!” said Doge at once. “Not a word, Harry! Let nothing
tarnish your memories of Albus Dumbledore!”
Harry looked into Doge’s earnest, pained face, and felt, not reassured, but
frustrated. Did Doge really think it was that easy, that Harry could simply choose not to
believe? Didn’t Doge understand Harry’s need to be sure, to know everything?”
Perhaps Doge suspected Harry’s feelings, for he looked concerned and hurried on,
“Harry, Rita Skeeter is a dreadful –“
But he was interrupted by a shrill cackle.
“Rita Skeeter? Oh, I love her, always read her!”
Harry and Doge looked up to see Auntie Muriel standing there, the plumes
dancing on her hair, a goblet of champagne in her hand. “She’s written a book about
Dumbledore, you know!”
“Hello, Muriel,” said Doge, “Yes, we were just discussing –“
“You there! Give me your chair, I’m a hundred and seven!”
Another redheaded Weasley cousin jumped off his seat, looking alarmed, and
Auntie Muriel swung it around with surprising strength and plopped herself down upon it
between Doge and Harry.
“Hello again, Barry or whatever your name is,” she said to Harry, “Now what
were you saying about Rita Skeeter, Elphias? You know, she’s written a biography of
Dumbledore? I can’t wait to read it. I must remember to place an order at Flourish and
Blotts!”
Doge looked stiff and solemn at this but Auntie Muriel drained her goblet and
clicked her bony fingers at a passing waiter for a replacement. She took another large
gulp of champagne, belched and then said, “There’s no need to look like a pair of stuffed
frogs! Before he became so respected and respectable and all that tosh, there were some
mighty funny rumors about Albus!”
“Ill-informed sniping,” said Doge, turning radish-colored again.
“You would say that, Elphias,” cackled Auntie Muriel. “I noticed how you skated
over the sticky patches in that obituary of yours!”
“I’m sorry you think so,” said Doge, more coldly still. “I assure you I was writing
from the heart.”
“Oh, we all know you worshipped Dumbledore; I daresay you’ll still think he was
a saint even if it does turn out that he did away with his Squib sister!”
“Muriel!” exclaimed Doge.
A chill that had nothing to do with the iced champagne was stealing through
Harry’s chest.
“What do you mean?” he asked Muriel. “Who said his sister was a Squib? I
thought she was ill?”
“Thought wrong, then, didn’t you, Barry!” said Auntie Muriel, looking delighted
at the effect she had produced. “Anyway, how could you expect to know anything about
it! IT all happened years and years before you were even thought of, my dear, and the
truth is that those of us who were alive then never knew what really happened. That’s
why I can’t wait to find out what Skeeter’s unearthed! Dumbledore kept that sister of his
quiet for a long time!”
“Untrue!” wheezed Doge, “Absolutely untrue!”
“He never told me his sister as a Squib,” said Harry, without thinking, still cold
inside.
“And why on earth would he tell you?” screeched Muriel, swaying a little in her
seat as she attempted to focus upon Harry.
“The reason Albus never spoke about Ariana,” began Elphias in a voice stiff with
emotion, “is, I should have thought, quite clear. He was so devastated by her death –“
“Why did nobody ever see her, Elphias?” squawked Muriel, “Why did half of us
never even know she existed, until they carried the coffin out of the house and held a
funeral for her? Where was saintly Albus while Ariana was locked in the cellar? Off
being brilliant at Hogwarts, and never mind what was going on in his own house!”
“What d’you mean, locked in the cellar?” asked Harry. “What is this?”
Doge looked wretched. Auntie Muriel cackled again and answered Harry.
“Dumbledore’s mother was a terrifying woman, simply terrifying. Muggle-born,
though I heard she pretended otherwise-“
“She never pretended anything of the sort! Kendra was a fine woman,” whispered
Doge miserably, but Auntie Muriel ignored him.
“- proud and very domineering, the sort of witch who would have been mortified
to produce a Squib-“
“Ariana was not a Squib!” wheezed Doge.
“So you say, Elphias, but explain, then, why she never attended Hogwarts!” said
Auntie Muriel. She turned back to Harry. “In our day, Squibs were often hushed up,
thought to take it to the extreme of actually imprisoning a little girl in the house and
pretending she didn’t exist –“
“I tell you, that’s not what happened!” said Doge, but Auntie Muriel
steamrollered on, still addressing Harry.
Squibs were usually shipped off to Muggle schools and encouraged to integrate
into the Muggle community… much kinder than trying to find them a place in the
Wizarding world, where they must always be second class, but naturally Kendra
Dumbledore wouldn’t have dreamed of letting her daughter go to a Muggle school –“
“Ariana was delicate!” said Doge desperately. “Her health was always too poor to
permit her –“
“- to permit her to leave the house?” cackled Muriel. “And yet she was never
taken to St. Mungo’s and no Healer was ever summoned to see her!”
“Really, Muriel, how can you possibly know whether –“
“For your information, Elphias, my cousin Lancelot was a Healer at St. Mungo’s
at the time, and he told my family in strictest confidence that Ariana had never been seen
there. All most suspicious, Lancelot thought!”
Doge looked to be on the verge of tears. Auntie Muriel, who seemed to be
enjoying herself hugely, snapped her fingers for more champagne. Numbly Harry
thought of how the Dursleys had once shut him up, locked him away, kept him out of
sight, all for the crime of being a wizard. Had Dumbledore’s sister suffered the same fate
in reverse: imprisoned for her lack of magic? And had Dumbledore truly left her to her
fate while he went off to Hogwarts to prove himself brilliant and talented?
“Now, if Kendra hadn’t died first,” Muriel resumed, “I’d have said that it was she
who finished off Ariana –“
“How can you, Muriel!” groaned Doge. “A mother kill her own daughter? Think
what you’re saying!”
“If the mother in question was capable of imprisoning her daughter for years on
end, why not?” shrugged Auntie Muriel. “But as I say, it doesn’t fit, because Kendra died
before Ariana – of what, nobody ever seemed sure-“
“Yes, Ariana might have made a desperate bid for freedom and killed Kendra in
the struggle,” said Auntie Muriel thoughtfully. “Shake your head all you like, Elphias.
You were at Ariana’s funeral, were you not?”
“Yes I was,” said Doge, through trembling lips,” and a more desperately sad
occasion I cannot remember. Albus was heartbroken-“
“His heart wasn’t the only thing. Didn’t Aberforth break Albus’ nose halfway
through the service?”
If Doge had looked horrified before this, it was nothing to how he looked now.
Muriel might have stabbed him. She cackled loudly and took another swig of champagne,
which dribbled down her chin.
“How do you -?” croaked Doge.
“My mother was friendly with old Bathilda Bagshot,” said Auntie Muriel happily.
“Bathilda described the whole thing to mother while I was listening at the door. A
coffin-side brawl. The way Bathilda told it, Aberforth shouted that it was all Albus’ fault
that Ariana was dead and then punched him in the face. According to Bathilda, Albus did
not even defend himself, and that’s odd enough in itself. Albus could have destroyed
Aberforth in a duel with both hands tied behind his back.
Muriel swigged yet more champagne. The recitation of those old scandals
seemed to elate her as much as they horrified Doge. Harry did not know what to think,
what to believe. He wanted the truth and yet all Doge did was sit there and bleat feebly
that Ariana had been ill. Harry could hardly believe that Dumbledore would not have
intervened if such cruelty was happening inside his own house, and yet there was
undoubtedly something odd about the story.
“And I’ll tell you something else,” Muriel said, hiccupping slightly as she lowered
her goblet. “I think Bathilda has spilled the beans to Rita Skeeter. All those hints in
Skeeter’s interview about an important source close to the Dumbledores – goodness
knows she was there all through the Ariana business, and it would fit!”
“Bathilda, would never talk to Rita Skeeter!” whispered Doge.
“Bathilda Bagshot?” Harry said. “The author of A History of Magic?”
The name was printed on the front of one of Harry’s textbooks, though admittedly
not one of the ones he had read more attentively.
“Yes,” said Doge, clutching at Harry’s question like a drowning man at a life heir.
“A most gifted magical historian and an old friend of Albus’s.”
“Quite gaga these days, I’ve heard,” said Auntie Muriel cheerfully.
“If that is so, it is even more dishonorable for Skeeter to have taken advantage of
her,” said Doge, “and no reliance can be placed on anything Bathilda may have said!”
“Oh, there are ways of bringing back memories, and I’m sure Rita Skeeter knows
them all,” said Auntie Muriel “But even if Bathilda’s completely cuckoo, I’m sure she’d
still have old photographs, maybe even letters. She knew the Dumbledores for years….
Well worth a trip to Godric’s Hollow, I’d have thought.”
Harry, who had been taking a sip of butterbeer, choked. Doge banged him on the
back as Harry coughed, looking at Auntie Muriel through streaming eyes. Once he had
control of his voice again, he asked, “Bathilda Bagshot lives in Godric’s Hollow?”
“Oh yes, she’s been there forever! The Dumbledores moved there after Percival
was imprisoned, and she was their neighbor.”
“The Dumbledores lived in Godric’s Hollows?”
“Yes, Barry, that’s what I just said,” said Auntie Muriel testily.
Harry felt drained, empty. Never once, in six years, had Dumbledore told Harry
that they had both lived and lost loved ones in Godric’s Hollow. Why? Were Lily and
James buried close to Dumbledore’s mother and sister? Had Dumbledore visited their
graves, perhaps walked past Lily’s and James’s to do so? And he had never once told
Harry … never bothered to say…
And why it was so important, Harry could not explain even to himself, yet he felt
it had been tantamount to a lie not to tell him that they had this place and these
experiences in common. He stared ahead of him, barely noticing what was going on
around him, and did not realize that Hermione had appeared out of the crowd until she
drew up a chair beside him.
“I simply can’t dance anymore,” she panted, slipping of one of her shoes and
rubbing the sole of her foot. “Ron’s gone looking to find more butterbeers. It’s a bit odd.
I’ve just seen Viktor storming away from Luna’s father, it looked like they’d been
arguing –“ She dropped her voice, staring at him. “Harry, are you okay?”
Harry did not know where to begin, but it did not matter, at that moment,
something large and silver came falling through the canopy over the dance floor.
Graceful and gleaming, the lynx landed lightly in the middle of the astonished dancers.
Heads turned, as those nearest it froze absurdly in mid-dance. Then the Patronus’s mouth
opened wide and it spoke in the loud, deep, slow voice of Kingsley Shacklebolt.
“The Ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming.”
Chapter Nine
A Place to Hide
Everything seemed fuzzy, slow. Harry and Hermione jumped to their feet and
drew their wands. Many people were only just realizing that something strange had
happened; heads were still turning toward the silver cat as it vanished. Silence spread
outward in cold ripples from the place where the Patronus had landed. Then somebody
screamed.
Harry and Hermione threw themselves into the panicking crowd. Guests were
sprinting in all directions; many were Disapparating; the protective enchantments around
the Burrow had broken.
“Ron!” Hermione cried. “Ron, where are you?”
As they pushed their way across the dance floor, Harry saw cloaked and masked
figures appearing in the crowd; then he saw Lupin and Tonks, their wands raised, and
heard both of them shout, “Protego!”, a cry that was echoed on all sides –
“Ron! Ron!” Hermione called, half sobbing as she and Harry were buffered by
terrified guests: Harry seized her hand to make sure they weren’t separated as a streak of
light whizzed over their heads, whether a protective charm or something more sinister he
did not know –
And then Ron was there. He caught hold of Hermione’s free arm, and Harry felt
her turn on the spot; sight and sound were extinguished as darkness pressed in upon him;
all he could feel was Hermione’s hand as he was squeezed through space and time, away
from the Burrow, away from the descending Death Eaters, away, perhaps, from
Voldemort himself. . . .
“Where are we?” said Ron’s voice.
Harry opened his eyes. For a moment he thought they had not left the wedding
after all; They still seemed to be surrounded by people.
“Tottenham Court Road,” panted Hermione. “Walk, just walk, we need to find
somewhere for you to change.”
Harry did as she asked. They half walked, half ran up the wide dark street
thronged with late-night revelers and lined with closed shops, stars twinkling above them.
A double-decker bus rumbled by and a group of merry pub-goers ogled them as they
passed; Harry and Ron were still wearing dress robes.
“Hermione, we haven’t got anything to change into,” Ron told her, as a young
woman burst into raucous giggles at the sight of him.
“Why didn’t I make sure I had the Invisibility Cloak with me?” said Harry,
inwardly cursing his own stupidity. “All last year I kept it on me and –“
“It’s okay, I’ve got the Cloak, I’ve got clothes for both of you,” said Hermione,
“Just try and act naturally until – this will do.”
She led them down a side street, then into the shelter of a shadowy alleyway.
“When you say you’ve got the Cloak, and clothes . . .” said Harry, frowning at
Hermione, who was carrying nothing except her small beaded handbag, in which she was
now rummaging.
“Yes, they’re here,” said Hermione, and to Harry and Ron’s utter astonishment,
she pulled out a pair of jeans, a sweatshirt, some maroon socks, and finally the silvery
Invisibility Cloak.
“How the ruddy hell – ?”
“Undetectable Extension Charm,” said Hermione. “Tricky, but I think I’ve done it
okay; anyway, I managed to fit everything we need in here.” She gave the fragile-looking
bag a little shake and it echoed like a cargo hold as a number of heavy objects rolled
around inside it. “Oh, damn, that’ll be the books,” she said, peering into it, “and I had
them all stacked by subject. . . . Oh well. . . . Harry, you’d better take the Invisibility
Cloak. Ron, hurry up and change. . . .”
“When did you do all this?” Harry asked as Ron stripped off his robes.
“I told you at the Burrow, I’ve had the essentials packed for days, you know, in
case we needed to make a quick getaway. I packed your rucksack this morning, Harry,
after you changed, and put it in here. . . . I just had a feeling. . . .”
“You’re amazing, you are,” said Ron, handing her his bundled-up robes.
“Thank you,” said Hermione, managing a small smile as she pushed the robes into
the bag. “Please, Harry, get that Cloak on!”
Harry threw his Invisibility Cloak around his shoulders and pulled it up over his
head, vanishing from sight. He was only just beginning to appreciate what had happened.
“The others – everybody at the wedding –“
“We can’t worry about that now,” whispered Hermione. “It’s you they’re after,
Harry, and we’ll just put everyone in even more danger by going back.”
“She’s right,” said Ron, who seemed to know that Harry was about to argue, even
if he could not see his face. “Most of the Order was there, they’ll look after everyone.”
Harry nodded, then remembered that they could not see him, and said, “Yeah.”
But he thought of Ginny, and fear bubbled like acid in his stomach.
“Come on, I think we ought to keep moving,” said Hermione.
They moved back up the side street and onto the main road again, where a group
of men on the opposite side was singing and weaving across the pavement.
“Just as a matter of interest, why Tottenham Court Road?” Ron asked Hermione.
“I’ve no idea, it just popped into my head, but I’m sure we’re safer out in the
Muggle world, it’s not where they’ll expect us to be.”
“True,” said Ron, looking around, “but don’t you feel a bit – exposed?”
“Where else is there?” asked Hermione, cringing as the men on the other side of
the road started wolf-whistling at her. “We can hardly book rooms at the Leaky Cauldron,
can we? And Grimmauld Place is out if Snape can get in there. . . . I suppose we could try
my parents’ home, though I think there’s a chance they might check there. . . . Oh, I wish
they’d shut up!”
“All right, darling?” the drunkest of the men on the other pavement was yelling.
“Fancy a drink? Ditch ginger and come and have a pint!”
“Let’s sit down somewhere,” Hermione said hastily as Ron opened his mouth to
shout back across the road. “Look, this will do, in here!”
It was a small and shabby all-night café. A light layer of grease lay on all the
Formica-topped tables, but it was at least empty. Harry slipped into a booth first and Ron
sat next to him opposite Hermione, who had her back to the entrance and did not like it:
She glanced over her shoulder so frequently she appeared to have a twitch. Harry did not
like being stationary; walking had given the illusion that they had a goal. Beneath the
Cloak he could feel the last vestiges of Polyjuice leaving him, his hands returning to their
usual length and shape. He pulled his glasses out of his pocket and put them on again.
After a minute or two, Ron said, “You know, we’re not far from the Leaky
Cauldron here, it’s only in Charing Cross –“
“Ron, we can’t!” said Hermione at once.
“Not to stay there, but to find out what’s going on!”
“We know what’s going on! Voldemort’s taken over the Ministry, what else do
we need to know?”
“Okay, okay, it was just an idea!”
They relapsed into a prickly silence. The gum-chewing waitress shuffled over and
Hermione ordered two cappuccinos: As Harry was invisible, it would have looked odd to
order him one. A pair of burly workmen entered the café and squeezed into the next
booth. Hermione dropped her voice to a whisper.
“I say we find a quiet place to Disapparate and head for the countryside. Once
we’re there, we could send a message to the Order.”
“Can you do that talking Patronus thing, then?” asked Ron.
“I’ve been practicing and I think so,” said Hermione.
“Well, as long as it doesn’t get them into trouble, though they might’ve been
arrested already. God, that’s revolting,” Ron added after one sip of the foamy, grayish
coffee. The waitress had heard; she shot Ron a nasty look as she shuffled off to take the
new customers’ orders. The larger of the two workmen, who was blond and quite huge,
now that Harry came to look at him, waved her away. She stared, affronted.
“Let’s get going, then, I don’t want to drink this muck,” said Ron. “Hermione,
have you got Muggle money to pay for this?”
“Yes, I took out all my Building Society savings before I came to the Burrow. I’ll
bet all the change is at the bottom,” sighed Hermione, reaching for her beaded bag.
The two workmen made identical movements, and Harry mirrored them without
conscious thought: All three of them drew their wands. Ron, a few seconds late in
realizing what was going on, lunged across the table, pushing Hermione sideways onto
her bench. The force of the Death Eaters’ spells shattered the tiled wall where Ron’s head
had just been, as Harry, still invisible, yelled, “Stupefy!”
The great blond Death Eater was hit in the face by a jet of red light: He slumped
sideways, unconscious. His companion, unable to see who had cast the spell, fired
another at Ron: Shining black ropes flew from his wand-tip and bound Ron head to foot –
the waitress screamed and ran for the door – Harry sent another Stunning Spell at the
Death Eater with the twisted face who had tied up Ron, but the spell missed, rebounded
on the window, and hit the waitress, who collapsed in front of the door.
“Expulso!” bellowed the Death Eater, and the table behind which Harry was
standing blew up: The force of the explosion slammed him into the wall and he felt his
wand leave his hand as the Cloak slipped off him.
“Petrificus Totalus!” screamed Hermione from out of sight, and the Death Eater
fell forward like a statue to land with a crunching thud on the mess of broken china, table,
and coffee. Hermione crawled out from underneath the bench, shaking bits of glass
ashtray out of her hair and trembling all over.
“D-diffindo,” she said, pointing her wand at Ron, who roared in pain as she
slashed open the knee of his jeans, leaving a deep cut. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Ron, my hand’s
shaking! Diffindo!”
The severed ropes fell away. Ron got to his feet, shaking his arms to regain
feeling in them. Harry picked up his wand and climbed over all the debris to where the
large blond Death Eater was sprawled across the bench.
“I should’ve recognized him, he was there the night Dumbledore died,” he said.
He turned over the darker Death Eater with his foot; the man’s eyes moved rapidly
between Harry, Ron and Hermione.
“That’s Dolohov,” said Ron. “I recognize him from the old wanted posters. I think
the big one’s Thorfinn Rowle.”
“Never mind what they’re called!” said Hermione a little hysterically. “How did
they find us? What are we going to do?”
Somehow her panic seemed to clear Harry’s head.
“Lock the door,” he told her, “and Ron, turn out the lights.”
He looked down at the paralyzed Dolohov, thinking fast as the lock clicked and
Ron used the Deluminator to plunge the café into darkness. Harry could hear the men
who had jeered at Hermione earlier, yelling at another girl in the distance.
“What are we going to do with them?” Ron whispered to Harry through the dark;
then, even more quietly, “Kill them? They’d kill us. They had a good go just now.”
Hermione shuddered and took a step backward. Harry shook his head.
“We just need to wipe their memories,” said Harry. “It’s better like that, it’ll
throw them off the scent. If we killed them it’d be obvious we were here.”
“You’re the boss,” said Ron, sounding profoundly relieved. “But I’ve never down
a Memory Charm.”
“Nor have I,” said Hermione, “but I know the theory.”
She took a deep, calming breath, then pointed her wand at Dolohov’s forehead
and said, “Obliviate.”
At once, Dolohov’s eyes became unfocused and dreamy.
“Brilliant!” said Harry, clapping her on the back. “Take care of the other one and
the waitress while Ron and I clear up.”
“Clear up?” said Ron, looking around at the partly destroyed café. “Why?”
“Don’t you think they might wonder what’s happened if they wake up and find
themselves in a place that looks like it’s just been bombed?”
“Oh right, yeah . . .”
Ron struggled for a moment before managing to extract his wand from his pocket.
“It’s no wonder I can’t get it out, Hermione, you packed my old jeans, they’re
tight.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” hissed Hermione, and as she dragged the waitress out of sight
of the windows, Harry heard her mutter a suggestion as to where Ron could stick his
wand instead.
Once the café was restored to its previous condition, they heaved the Death Eaters
back into their booth and propped them up facing each other. “But how did they find us?”
Hermione asked, looking from one inert man to the other. “How did they know where we
were?”
She turned to Harry.
“You – you don’t think you’ve still got your Trace on you, do you, Harry?”
“He can’t have,” said Ron. “The Trace breaks at seventeen, that’s Wizarding law,
you can’t put it on an adult.”
“As far as you know,” said Hermione. “What if the Death Eaters have found a
way to put it on a seventeen-year-old?”
“But Harry hasn’t been near a Death Eater in the last twenty-four hours. Who’s
supposed to have put a Trace back on him?”
Hermione did not reply. Harry felt contaminated, tainted: Was that really how the
Death Eaters had found them?
“If I can’t use magic, and you can’t use magic near me, without us giving away
our position – “ he began.
“We’re not splitting up!” said Hermione firmly.
“We need a safe place to hide,” said Ron. “Give us time to think things through.”
“Grimmauld Place,” said Harry.
The other two gaped.
“Don’t be silly, Harry, Snape can get in there!”
“Ron’s dad said they’ve put up jinxes against him – and even if they haven’t
worked,” he pressed on as Hermione began to argue “so what? I swear, I’d like nothing
better than to meet Snape!”
“But –“
“Hermione, where else is there? It’s the best chance we’ve got. Snape’s only one
Death Eater. If I’ve still got the Trace on me, we’ll have whole crowds of them on us
wherever else we go.”
She could not argue, though she looked as if she would have liked to. While she
unlocked the café door, Ron clicked the Deluminator to release the café’s light. Then, on
Harry’s count of three, they reversed the spells upon their three victims, and before the
waitress or either of the Death Eaters could do more than stir sleepily, Harry, Ron and
Hermione had turned on the spot and vanished into the compressing darkness once more.
Seconds later Harry’s lungs expanded gratefully and he opened his eyes: They
were now standing in the middle of a familiar small and shabby square. Tall, dilapidated
houses looked down on them from every side. Number twelve was visible to them, for
they had been told of its existence by Dumbledore, its Secret-Keeper, and they rushed
toward it, checking every few yards that they were not being followed or observed. They
raced up the stone steps, and Harry tapped the front door once with his wand. They heard
a series of metallic clicks and the clatter of a chain, then the door swung open with a
creak and they hurried over the threshold.
As Harry closed the door behind them, the old-fashioned gas lamps sprang into
life, casting flickering light along the length of the hallway. It looked just as Harry
remembered it: eerie, cobwebbed, the outlines of the house-elf heads on the wall
throwing odd shadows up the staircase. Long dark curtains concealed the portrait of
Sirius’s mother. The only thing that was out of place was the troll’s leg umbrella stand,
which was lying on its side as if Tonks had just knocked it over again.
“I think somebody’s been in here,” Hermione whispered, pointing toward it.
“That could’ve happened as the Order left,” Ron murmured back.
“So where are these jinxes they put up against Snape?” Harry asked.
“Maybe they’re only activated if he shows up?” suggested Ron.
Yet they remained close together on the doormat, backs against the door, scared
to move farther into the house.
“Well, we can’t stay here forever,” said Harry, and he took a step forward.
“Severus Snape?”
Mad-Eye Moody’s voice whispered out of the darkness, making all three of them
jump back in fright. “We’re not Snape!” croaked Harry, before something whooshed over
him like cold air and his tongue curled backward on itself, making it impossible to speak.
Before he had time to feel inside his mouth, however, his tongue had unraveled again.
The other two seemed to have experienced the same unpleasant sensation. Ron
was making retching noises; Hermione stammered, “That m-must have b-been the TTongue-
Tying Curse Mad-Eye set up for Snape!”
Gingerly Harry took another step forward. Something shifted in the shadows at
the end of the hall, and before any of them could say another word, a figure had risen up
out of the carpet, tall, dust-colored, and terrible; Hermione screamed and so did Mrs.
Black, her curtains flying open; the gray figure was gliding toward them, faster and faster,
its waist-length hair and beard streaming behind it, its face sunken, fleshless, with empty
eye sockets: Horribly familiar, dreadfully altered, it raised a wasted arm, pointing at
Harry.
“No!” Harry shouted, and though he had raised his wand no spell occurred to him.
“No! It wasn’t us! We didn’t kill you –“
On the word kill, the figure exploded in a great cloud of dust: Coughing, his eyes
watering, Harry looked around to see Hermione crouched on the floor by the door with
her arms over her head, and Ron, who was shaking from head to foot, patting her
clumsily on the shoulder and saying, “It’s all r-right. . . . It’s g-gone. . . .”
Dust swirled around Harry like mist, catching the blue gaslight, as Mrs. Black
continued to scream.
“Mudbloods, filth, stains of dishonor, taint of shame on the house of my fathers –“
“SHUT UP!” Harry bellowed, directing his wand at her, and with a bang and a
burst of red sparks, the curtains swung shut again, silencing her.
“That . . . that was . . . “ Hermione whimpered, as Ron helped her to her feet.
“Yeah,” said Harry, “but it wasn’t really him, was it? Just something to scare
Snape.”
Had it worked, Harry wondered, or had Snape already blasted the horror-figure
aside as casually as he had killed the real Dumbledore? Nerves still tingling, he led the
other two up the hall, half-expecting some new terror to reveal itself, but nothing moved
except for a mouse skittering along the skirting board.
“Before we go any farther, I think we’d better check,” whispered Hermione, and
she raised her wand and said, “Homenum revelio.”
Nothing happened.
“Well, you’ve just had a big shock,” said Ron kindly. “What was that supposed to
do?”
“It did what I meant it to do!” said Hermione rather crossly. “That was a spell to
reveal human presence, and there’s nobody here except us!”
“And old Dusty,” said Ron, glancing at the patch of carpet from which the corpsefigure
had risen.
“Let’s go up,” said Hermione with a frightened look at the same spot, and she led
the way up the creaking stairs to the drawing room on the first floor.
Hermione waved her wand to ignite the old gas lamps, then, shivering slightly in
the drafty room, she perched on the sofa, her arms wrapped tightly around her. Ron
crossed to the window and moved the heavy velvet curtains aside an inch.
“Can’t see anyone out there,” he reported. “And you’d think, if Harry still had a
Trace on him, they’d have followed us here. I know they can’t get in the house, but –
what’s up, Harry?”
Harry had given a cry of pain: His scar had burned against as something flashed
across his mind like a bright light on water. He saw a large shadow and felt a fury that
was not his own pound through his body, violent and brief as an electric shock.
“What did you see?” Ron asked, advancing on Harry. “Did you see him at my
place?”
“No, I just felt anger – he’s really angry –“
“But that could be at the Burrow,” said Ron loudly. “What else? Didn’t you see
anything? Was he cursing someone?”
“No, I just felt anger – I couldn’t tell –“
Harry felt badgered, confused, and Hermione did not help as she said in a
frightened voice, “Your scar, again? But what’s going on? I thought that connection had
closed!”
“It did, for a while,” muttered Harry; his scar was still painful, which made it hard
to concentrate. “I – I think it’s started opening again whenever he loses control, that’s
how it used to –“
“But then you’ve got to close your mind!” said Hermione shrilly. “Harry,
Dumbledore didn’t want you to use that connection, he wanted you to shut it down, that’s
why you were supposed to use Occlumency! Otherwise Voldemort can plant false images
in your mind, remember –“
“Yeah, I do remember, thanks,” said Harry through gritted teeth; he did not need
Hermione to tell him that Voldemort had once used this selfsame connection between
them to lead him into a trap, nor that it had resulted in Sirius’s death. He wished that he
had not told them what he had seen and felt; it made Voldemort more threatening, as
though he were pressing against the window of the room, and still the pain in his scar was
building and he fought it: It was like resisting the urge to be sick.
He turned his back on Ron and Hermione, pretending to examine the old tapestry
of the Black family tree on the wall. Then Hermione shrieked: Harry drew his wand again
and spun around to see a silver Patronus soar through the drawing room window and land
upon the floor in front of them, where it solidified into the weasel that spoke with the
voice of Ron’s father.
“Family safe, do not reply, we are being watched.”
The Patronus dissolved into nothingness. Ron let out a noise between a whimper
and a groan and dropped onto the sofa: Hermione joined him, gripping his arm.
“They’re all right, they’re all right!” she whispered, and Ron half laughed and
hugged her.
“Harry,” he said over Hermione’s shoulder, “I –“
“It’s not a problem,” said Harry, sickened by the pain in his head. “It’s your
family, ‘course you were worried. I’d feel the same way.” He thought of Ginny. “I do feel
the same way.”
The pain in his scar was reaching a peak, burning as it had back in the garden of
the Burrow. Faintly he heard Hermione say “I don’t want to be on my own. Could we use
the sleeping bags I’ve brought and camp in here tonight?”
He heard Ron agree. He could not fight the pain much longer. He had to succumb.
“Bathroom,” he muttered, and he left the room as fast as he could without running.
He barely made it: Bolting the door behind him with trembling hands, he grasped
his pounding head and fell to the floor, then in an explosion of agony, he felt the rage that
did not belong to him possess his soul, saw a long room lit only by firelight, and the giant
blond Death Eater on the floor, screaming and writhing, and a slighter figure standing
over him, wand outstretched, while Harry spoke in a high, cold, merciless voice.
“More, Rowle, or shall we end it and feed you to Nagini? Lord Voldemort is not
sure that he will forgive this time. . . . You called me back for this, to tell me that Harry
Potter has escaped again? Draco, give Rowle another taste of our displeasure. . . . Do it,
or feel my wrath yourself!”
A log fell in the fire: Flames reared, their light darting across a terrified, pointed
white face – with a sense of emerging from deep water, Harry drew heaving breaths and
opened his eyes.
He was spread-eagled on the cold black marble floor, his nose inches from one of
the silver serpent tails that supported the large bathtub. He sat up. Malfoy’s gaunt,
petrified face seemed burned on the inside of his eyes. Harry felt sickened by what he had
seen, by the use to which Draco was now being put by Voldemort.
There was a sharp rap on the door, and Harry jumped as Hermione’s voice rang
out.
“Harry, do you want your toothbrush? I’ve got it here.”
“Yeah, great, thanks,” he said, fighting to keep his voice casual as he stood up to
let her in.
Chapter Ten
Kreacher’s Tale
Harry woke early next morning, wrapped in a sleeping bag on the drawing room
floor. A chink of sky was visible between the heavy curtains. It was the cool, clear blue
of watered ink, somewhere between night and dawn, and everything was quiet except for
Ron and Hermione’s slow, deep breathing. Harry glanced over at the dark shapes they
made on the floor beside him. Ron had had a fit of gallantry and insisted that Hermione
sleep on the cushions from the sofa, so that her silhouette was raised above his. Her arm
curved to the floor, her fingers inches from Ron’s. Harry wondered whether they had
fallen asleep holding hands. The idea made him feel strangely lonely.
He looked up at the shadowy ceiling, the cobwebbed chandelier. Less than
twenty-four house ago, he had been standing in the sunlight at the entrance to the
marquee, waiting to show in wedding guests. It seemed a lifetime away. What was going
to happen now? He lay on the floor and he thought of the Horcruxes, of the daunting
complex mission Dumbledore had left him… Dumbledore…
The grief that had possessed him since Dumbledore’s death felt different now.
The accusations he had heard from Muriel at the wedding seemed to have nested in his
brain like diseased things, infecting his memories of the wizard he had idolized. Could
Dumbledore have let such things happen? Had he been like Dudley, content to watch
neglect and abuse as long as it did not affect him? Could he have turned his back on a
sister who was being imprisoned and hidden?
Harry thought of Godric’s Hollow, of graves Dumbledore had never mentioned
there; he thought of mysterious objects left without explanation in Dumbledore’s will,
and resentment swelled in the darkness. Why hadn’t Dumbledore told him? Why hadn’t
he explained? Had Dumbledore actually cared about Harry at all? Or had Harry been
nothing more than a tool to be polished and honed, but not trusted, never confided in?
Harry could not stand lying there with nothing but bitter thoughts for company.
Desperate for something to do, for distraction, he slipped out of his sleeping bad, picked
up his wand, and crept out of the room. On the landing he whispered, “Lumos,” and
started to climb the stairs by wandlight.
On the second landing was the bedroom in which he and Ron had slept last time
they had been here; he glanced into it. The wardrobe doors stood open and the bedclothes
had been ripped back. Harry remembered the overturned troll leg downstairs. Somebody
had searched the house since the Order had left. Snape? Or perhaps Mundungus, who had
pilfered plenty from this house both before and after Sirius died? Harry’s gaze wandered
to the portrait that sometimes contained Phineas Nigellus Black, Sirius’s great-great
grandfather, but it was empty, showing nothing but a stretch of muddy backdrop. Phineas
Nigellus was evidently spending the night in the headmaster’s study at Hogwarts.
Harry continued up the stairs until he reached the topmost landing where there
were only two doors. The one facing him bore a nameplate reading Sirius. Harry had
never entered his godfather’s bedroom before. He pushed open the door, holding his
wand high to cast light as widely as possible. The room was spacious and must once have
been handsome. There was a large bed with a carved wooden headboard, a tall window
obscured by long velvet curtains and a chandelier thickly coated in dust with candle
scrubs still resting in its sockets, solid wax banging in frostlike drips. A fine film of dust
covered the pictures on the walls and the bed’s headboard; a spiders web stretched
between the chandelier and the top of the large wooden wardrobe, and as Harry moved
deeper into the room, he head a scurrying of disturbed mice.
The teenage Sirius had plastered the walls with so many posters and pictures that
little of the wall’s silvery-gray silk was visible. Harry could only assume that Sirius’s
parents had been unable to remove the Permanent Sticking Charm that kept them on the
wall because he was sure they would not have appreciated their eldest son’s taste in
decoration. Sirius seemed to have long gone out of his way to annoy his parents. There
were several large Gryffindor banners, faded scarlet and gold just to underline his
difference from all the rest of the Slytherin family. There were many pictures of Muggle
motorcycles, and also (Harry had to admire Sirius’s nerve) several posters of bikini-clad
Muggle girls. Harry could tell that they were Muggles because they remained quite
stationary within their pictures, faded smiles and glazed eyes frozen on the paper. This
was in contrast the only Wizarding photograph on the walls which was a picture of four
Hogwarts students standing arm in arm, laughing at the camera.
With a leap of pleasure, Harry recognized his father, his untidy black hair stuck
up at the back like Harry’s, and he too wore glasses. Beside him was Sirius, carelessly
handsome, his slightly arrogant face so much younger and happier than Harry had ever
seen it alive. To Sirius’s right stood Pettigrew, more than a head shorter, plump and
watery-eyed, flushed with pleasure at his inclusion in this coolest of gangs, with the
much-admired rebels that James and Sirius had been. On James’s left was Lupin, even
then a little shabby-looking, but he had the same air of delighted surprise at finding
himself liked and included or was it simply because Harry knew how it had been, that he
saw these things in the picture? He tried to take it from the wall; it was his now, after all,
Sirius had left him everything, but it would not budge. Sirius had taken no chances in
preventing his parents from redecorating his room.
Harry looked around at the floor. The sky outside was growing brightest. A shaft
of light revealed bits of paper, books, and small objects scattered over the carpet.
Evidently Sirius’s bedroom had been reached too, although its contents seemed to have
been judged mostly, if not entirely, worthless. A few of the books had been shaken
roughly enough to part company with the covers and sundry pages littered the floor.
Harry bent down, picked up a few of the pieces of paper, and examined them. He
recognized one as a part of an old edition of A History of Magic, by Bathilda Bagshot,
and another as belonging to a motorcycle maintenance manual. The third was
handwritten and crumpled. He smoothed it out.
Dear Padfoot,
Thank you, thank you, for Harry’s birthday present! It was his favorite by
far. One year old and already zooming along on a toy broomstick, he looked so pleased
with himself. I’m enclosing a picture so you can see. You know it only rises about two feet
off the ground but he nearly killed the cat and he smashed a horrible vase Petunia sent
me for Christmas (no complaints there). Of course James thought it was so funny, says
he’s going to be a great Quidditch player but we’ve had to pack away all the ornaments
and make sure we don’t take our eyes off him when he gets going.
We had a very quiet birthday tea, just us and old Bathilda who has always been
sweet to us and who dotes on Garry. We were so sorry you couldn’t come, but the
Order’s got to come first, and Harry’s not old enough to know it’s his birthday anyway!
James is getting a bit frustrated shut up here, he tries not to show it but I can tell – also
Dumbledore’s still got his Invisibility Cloak, so no chance of little excursions. If you
could visit, it would cheer him up so much. Wormy was here last weekend. I thought he
seemed down, but that was probably the next about the McKinnons; I cried all evening
when I heard.
Bathilda drops in most days, she’s a fascinating old thing with the most amazing
stories about Dumbledore. I’m not sure he’d be pleased if he knew! I don’t know how
much to believe, actually because it seems incredible that Dumbledore
Harry’s extremities seemed to have gone numb. He stood quite still, holding the
miraculous paper in his nerveless fingers while inside him a kind of quiet eruptions sent
joy and grief thundering its equal measure through his veins. Lurching to the bed, he sat
down.
He read the letter again, but could not take in any more meaning than he had done
the first time, and was reduced to staring at the handwriting itself. She had made her “g”s
the same way he did. He searched through the letter for every one of them, and each felt
like a friendly little wave glimpsed from behind a veil. The letter was an incredible
treasure, proof that Lily Potter had lived, really lived, that her warm hand had once
moved across this parchment, tracing ink into these letters, these words, words about him,
Harry, her son.
Impatiently brushing away the wetness in his eyes, he reread the letter, this time
concentrating on the meaning. It was like listening to a half-remembered voice.
They had a cat… perhaps it had perished, like his parents at Godric’s Hollow… or
else fled when there was nobody left to feed it… Sirius had bought him his first
broomstick… His parents had known Bathilda Bagshot; had Dumbledore introduced
them? Dumbledore’s still got his Invisibility Cloak… there was something funny there…
Harry paused, pondering his mother’s words. Why had Dumbledore taken
James’s Invisibility Cloak? Harry distinctly remembered his headmaster telling him years
before, “I don’t need a cloak to become invisible” Perhaps some less gifted Order
member had needed its assistance, and Dumbledore had acted as a carrier? Harry passed
on…
Wormy was here… Pettigrew, the traitor, had seemed “down” had he? Was he
aware that he was seeing James and Lily alive for the last time?
And finally Bathilda again, who told incredible stories about Dumbledore. It
seems incredible that Dumbledore ---
That Dumbledore what? But there were any number of things that would seem
incredible about Dumbledore; that he had once received bottom marks in a
Transfiguration test, for instance or had taken up goat charming like Aberforth…
Harry got to his feet and scanned the floor: Perhaps the rest of the letter was here
somewhere. He seized papers, treating them in his eagerness, with as little consideration
as the original searcher, he pulled open drawers, shook out books, stood on a chair to run
his hand over the top of the wardrobe, and crawled under the bed and armchair.
At last, lying facedown on the floor, he spotted what looked like a torn piece of
paper under the chest of drawers. When he pulled it out, it proved to be most of the
photograph that Lily had described in her letter. A black-haired baby was zooming in and
out of the picture on a tiny broom, roaring with laughter, and a pair of legs that must have
belonged to James was chasing after him. Harry tucked the photograph into his pocket
with Lily’s letter and continued to look for the second sheet.
After another quarter of an hour, however he was forced to conclude that the rest
of his mother’s letter was gone. Had it simply been lost in the sixteen years that had
elapsed since it had been written, or had it been taken by whoever had searched the
room? Harry read the first sheet again, this time looking for clues as to what might have
made the second sheet valuable. His toy broomstick could hardly be considered
interesting to the Death Eaters… The only potentially useful thing he could see her was
possible information on Dumbledore. It seems incredible that Dumbledore – what?
“Harry? Harry? Harry!”
“I’m here!” he called, “What’s happened?”
There was a clatter of footsteps outside the door, and Hermione burst inside.
“We woke up and didn’t know where you were!” she said breathlessly. She turned
and shouted over her shoulder, “Ron! I’ve found him”
Ron’s annoyed voice echoed distantly from several floors below.
“Good! Tell him from me he’s a git!”
“Harry don’t just disappear, please, we were terrified! Why did you come up here
anyway?” She gazed around the ransacked room. “What have you been doing?”
“Look what I’ve just found”
He held out his mother’s letter. Hermione took it out and read it while Harry
watched her. When she reached the end of the page she looked up at him.
“Oh Harry…”
“And there’s this too”
He handed her the torn photograph, and Hermione smiled at the baby zooming in
and out of sight on the toy broom.
“I’ve been looking for the rest of the letter,” Harry said, “but it’s not here.”
Hermione glanced around.
“Did you make all this mess, or was some of it done when you got here?”
“Someone had searched before me,” said Harry.
“I thought so. Every room I looked into on the way up had been disturbed. What
were they after, do you think?”
“Information on the Order, if it was Snape.”
“But you’d think he’d already have all he needed. I mean was in the Order, wasn’t
he?”
“Well then,” said Harry, keen to discuss his theory, “what about information on
Dumbledore? The second page of the letter, for instance. You know this Bathilda my
mum mentions, you know who she is?”
“Who?”
“Bathilda Bagshot, the author of –“
“A History of Magic,” said Hermione, looking interested. “So your parents knew
her? She was an incredible magic historian.”
“And she’s still alive,” said Harry, “and she lives in Godric’s Hollow. Ron’s
Auntie Muriel was talking about her at the wedding. She knew Dumbledore’s family too.
Be pretty interesting to talk to, wouldn’t she?” There was a little too much understanding
in the smile Hermione gave him for Harry’s liking. He took back the letter and the
photograph and tucked them inside the pouch around his neck, so as not to have to look at
her and give himself away. “I understand why you’d love to talk to her about your mum
and dad, and Dumbledore too,” said Hermione. “But that wouldn’t really help us in our
search for the Horcruxes, would it?” Harry did not answer, and she rushed on, “Harry, I
know you really want to go to Godric’s Hollow, but I’m scared. I’m scared at how easily
those Death Eaters found us yesterday. It just makes me feel more than ever that we
ought to avoid the place where your parents are buried, I’m sure they’d be expecting you
to visit it.”
“It’s not just that,” Harry said, still avoiding looking at her, “Muriel said stuff
about Dumbledore at the wedding. I want to know the truth…”
He told Hermione everything that Muriel had told him. When he had finished,
Hermione said, “Of course, I can see why that’s upset you, Harry –“
“I’m not upset,” he lied, “I’d just like to know whether or not it’s true or –“
“Harry do you really think you’ll get the truth from a malicious old woman like
Muriel, or from Rita Skeeter? How can you believe them? You knew Dumbledore!”
“I thought I did,” he muttered.
“But you know how much truth there was in everything Rita wrote about you!
Doge is right, how can you let these people tarnish your memories of Dumbledore?”
He looked away, trying not to betray the resentment he felt. There it was again:
Choose what to believe. He wanted the truth. Why was everybody so determined that he
should not get it?
“Shall we go down to the kitchen?” Hermione suggested after a little pause. “Find
something for breakfast?”
He agreed, but grudgingly, and followed her out onto the landing and past the
second door that led off it. There were deep scratch marks in the paintwork below a small
sign that he had not noticed in the dark. He passed at the top of the stairs to read it. It was
a pompous little sign, neatly lettered by hand the sort of thing that Percy Weasley might
have stuck on his bedroom door.
Do Not Enter
Without the Express Permission of
Regulus Arcturus Black
Excitement trickled through Harry, but he was not immediately sure why. He read the
sign again. Hermione was already a flight of stairs below him.
“Hermione,” he said, and he was surprised that his voice was so calm. “Come
back up here.”
“What’s the matter?”
“R.A.B. I think I’ve found him.”
There was a gasp, and then Hermione ran back up the stairs.
“In your mum’s letter? But I didn’t see –“
Harry shook his head, pointing at Regulus’s sign. She read it, then clutched
Harry’s arm so tightly that he winced.
“Sirius’s brother?” she whispered.
“He was a Death Eater,” said Harry. “Sirius told me about him, he joined up when
he was really young and then got cold feet and tried to leave – so they killed him.”
“That fits!” gasped Hermione. “If he was a Death Eater he had access to
Voldemort, and if he became disenchanted, then he would have wanted to bring
Voldemort down!”
She released Harry, leaned over the banister, and screamed, “Ron! RON! Get up
here, quick!”
Ron appeared, panting, a minute later, his wand ready in his hand.
“What’s up? If it’s massive spiders again I want breakfast before I –“
He frowned at the sign on Regulus’s door, in which Hermione was silently
pointing.
“What? That was Sirius’s brother, wasn’t it? Regulus Arcturus … Regulus …
R.A.B.! The locket – you don’t reckon -- ?”
“Let’s find out,” said Harry. He pushed the door: It was locked. Hermione pointed
her wand at the handle and said, “Alohamora.” There was a click, and the door swung
open.
They moved over the threshold together, gazing around. Regulus’s bedroom was
slightly smaller than Sirius’s, though it had the same sense of former grandeur. Whereas
Sirius had sought to advertise his diffidence from the rest of the family, Regulus had
striven to emphasize the opposite. The Slytherin colors of emerald and silver were
everywhere, draping the bed, the walls, and the windows. The Black family crest was
painstakingly painted over the bed, along with its motto, TOUJOURS PUR. Beneath this
was a collection of yellow newspaper cuttings, all stuck together to make a ragged
collage. Hermione crossed the room to examine them.
“They’re all about Voldemort,” she said. “Regulus seems to have been a fan for a
few years before he joined the Death Eaters …”
A little puff of dust rose from the bedcovers as she sat down to read the clippings.
Harry, meanwhile, had noticed another photograph: a Hogwarts Quidditch team was
smiling and waving out of the frame. He moved closer and saw the snakes emblazoned
on their chests: Slytherins. Regulus was instantly recognizable as the boy sitting in the
middle of the front row: He had the same dark hair and slightly haughty look of his
brother, though he was smaller, slighter, and rather less handsome than Sirius had been.
“He played Seeker,” said Harry.
“What?” said Hermione vaguely; she was still immersed in Voldemort’s press
clippings.
“He’s sitting in the middle of the front row, that’s where the Seeker … Never
mind,” said Harry, realizing that nobody was listening. Ron was on his hands and knees,
searching under the wardrobe. Harry looked around the room for likely hiding places and
approached the desk. Yet again, somebody had searched before them. The drawers’
contents had been turned over recently, the dust disturbed, but there was nothing of value
there: old quills, out-of-date textbooks that bore evidence of being roughly handled, a
recently smashed ink bottle, its sticky residue covering the contents of the drawer.
“There’s an easier way,” said Hermione, as Harry wiped his inky fingers on his
jeans. She raised her wand and said, “Accio Locket!”
Nothing happened. Ron, who had been searching the folds of the faded curtains,
looked disappointed.
“Is that it, then? It’s not here?”
“Oh, it could still be here, but under counter-enchantments,” said Hermione.
“Charms to prevent it from being summoned magically, you know.”
“Like Voldemort put on the stone basin in the cave,” said Harry, remembering
how he had been unable to Summon the fake locket.
“How are we supposed to find it then?” asked Ron.
“We search manually,” said Hermione.
“That’s a good idea,” said Ron, rolling his eyes, and he resumed his examination
of the curtains.
They combed every inch of the room for more than an hour, but were forced,
finally, to conclude that the locket was not there.
The sun had risen now; its light dazzled them even through the grimy landing
windows.
“It could be somewhere else in the house, though,” said Hermione in a rallying
tone as they walked back downstairs. As Harry and Ron had become more discouraged,
she seemed to have become more determined. “Whether he’d manage to destroy it or not,
he’d want to keep it hidden from Voldemort, wouldn’t he? Remember all those awful
things we had to get rid of when we were here last time? That clock that shot bolts at
everyone and those old robes that tried to strangle Ron; Regulus might have put them
there to protect the locket’s hiding place, even though we didn’t realize it at … at … “
Harry and Ron looked at her. She was standing with one foot in midair, with the
dumbstruck look of one who had just been Obliviated: her eyes had even drifted out of
focus.
“… at the time,” she finished in a whisper.
“Something wrong?” asked Ron.
“There was a locket.”
“What?” said Harry and Ron together.
“In the cabinet in the drawing room. Nobody could open it. And we … we … “
Harry felt as though a brick had slid down through his chest into his stomach. He
remembered. He had even handled the thing as they passed it around, each trying in turn
to pry it open. It had been tossed into a sack of rubbish, along with the snuffbox of
Wartcap powder and the music box that had made everyone sleepy …”
“Kreacher nicked loads of things back from us,” said Harry. It was the only
chance, the only slender hope left to them, and he was going to cling to it until forced to
let go. “He had a whole stash of stuff in his cupboard in the kitchen. C’mon.”
He ran down the stairs taking two steps at a time, the other two thundering along
in his wake. They made so much noise that they woke the portrait of Sirius’s mother as
they passed through the hall.
“Filth! Mudbloods! Scum!” she screamed after them as they dashed down into the
basement kitchen and slammed the door behind them. Harry ran the length of the room,
skidded to a halt at the door of Kreacher’s cupboard, and wrenched it open. There was the
nest of dirty old blankets in which the house-elf had once slept, but they were not longer
glittering with the trinkets Kreacher had salvaged. The only thing there was an old copy
of Nature’s Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy. Refusing to believe his eyes, Harry
snatched up the blankets and shook them. A dead mouse fell out and rolled dismally
across the floor. Ron groaned as he threw himself into a kitchen chair; Hermione closed
her eyes.
“It’s not over yet,” said Harry, and he raised his voice and called, “Kreacher!”
There was a loud crack and the house elf that Harry had so reluctantly inherited
from Sirius appeared out of nowhere in front of the cold and empty fireplace: tiny, half
human-sized, his pale skin hanging off him in folds, white hair sprouting copiously from
his batlike ears. He was still wearing the filthy rag in which they had first met him, and
the contemptuous look he bent upon Harry showed that his attitude to his change of
ownership had altered no more than his outfit.
“Master,” croaked Kreacher in his bullfrog’s voice, and he bowed low; muttering
to his knees, “back in my Mistress’s old house with the blood-traitor Weasley and the
Mudblood –“
“I forbid you to call anyone ‘blood traitor’ or ‘Mudblood,’” growled Harry. He
would have found Kreacher, with his snoutlike nose and bloodshot eyes, a distinctively
unlovable object even if the elf had not betrayed Sirius to Voldemort.
“I’ve got a question for you,” said Harry, his heart beating rather fast as he looked
down at the elf, “and I order you to answer it truthfully. Understand?”
“Yes, Master,” said Kreacher, bowing low again. Harry saw his lips moving
soundlessly, undoubtedly framing the insults he was now forbidden to utter.
“Two years ago,” said Harry, his heart now hammering against his ribs, “there
was a big gold locket in the drawing room upstairs. We threw it out. Did you steal it
back?”
There was a moment’s silence, during which Kreacher straightened up to look
Harry full in the face. Then he said, “Yes.”
“Where is it now?” asked Harry jubilantly as Ron and Hermione looked gleeful.
Kreacher closed his eyes as though he could not bear to see their reactions to his
next word.
“Gone.”
“Gone?” echoed Harry, elation floating out of him, “What do you mean, it’s
gone?”
The elf shivered. He swayed.
“Kreacher,” said Harry fiercely, “I order you –“
“Mundungus Fletcher,” croaked the elf, his eyes still tight shut. “Mundungus
Fletcher stole it all; Miss Bella’s and Miss Cissy’s pictures, my Mistress’s gloves, the
Order of Merlin, First Class, the goblets with the family crest, and – and – “
Kreacher was gulping for air: His hollow chest was rising and falling rapidly, then
his eyes flew open and he uttered a bloodcurdling scream.
“—and the locket, Master Regulus’s locket. Kreacher did wrong, Kreacher failed
in his orders!”
Harry reacted instinctively: As Kreacher lunged for the poker standing in the grate,
he launched himself upon the elf, flattening him. Hermione’s scream mingled with
Kreacher’s but Harry bellowed louder than both of them: “Kreacher, I order you to stay
still!”
He felt the elf freeze and released him. Kreacher lay flat on the cold stone floor,
tears gushing from his sagging eyes.
“Harry, let him up!” Hermione whispered.
“So he can beat himself up with the poker?” snorted Harry, kneeling beside the elf.
“I don’t think so. Right. Kreacher, I want the truth: How do you know Mundungus
Fletcher stole the locket?”
“Kreacher saw him!” gasped the elf as tears poured over his snout and into his
mouth full of graying teeth. “Kreacher saw him coming out of Kreacher’s cupboard with
his hands full of Kreacher’s treasures. Kreacher told the sneak thief to stop, but
Mundungus Fletcher laughed and r-ran … “
“You called the locket ‘Master Regulus’s,’” said Harry. “Why? Where did it
come from? What did Regulus have to do with it? Kreacher, sit up and tell me everything
you know about that locket, and everything Regulus had to do with it!”
The elf sat up, curled into a ball, placed his wet face between his knees, and began
to rock backward and forward. When he spoke, his voice was muffled but quite distinct
in the silent, echoing kitchen.
“Master Sirius ran away, good riddance, for he was a bad boy and broke my
Mistress’s heart with his lawless ways. But Master Regulus had proper order; he knew
what was due to the name of Black and the dignity of his pure blood. For years he talked
of the Dark Lord, who was going to bring the wizards out of hiding to rule the Muggles
and the Muggle-borns … and when he was sixteen years old, Master Regulus joined the
Dark Lord. So proud, so proud, so happy to serve …
And one day, a year after he joined, Master Regulus came down to the kitchen to
see Kreacher. Master Regulus always liked Kreacher. And Master Regulus said … he
said …”
The old elf rocked faster than ever.
“… he said that the Dark Lord required an elf.”
“Voldemort needed an elf?” Harry repeated, looking around at Ron and Hermione,
who looked just as puzzled as he did.
“Oh yes,” moaned Kreacher. “And Master Regulus had volunteered Kreacher. It
was an honor, said Master Regulus, an honor for him and for Kreacher, who must be sure
to do whatever the Dark Lord ordered him to do … and then to c-come home.”
Kreacher rocked still faster, his breath coming in sobs.
“So Kreacher went to the Dark Lord. The Dark Lord did not tell Kreacher what
they were to do, but took Kreacher with him to a cave beside the sea. And beyond the
cave was a cavern, and in the cavern was a great black lake … “
The hairs on the back of Harry’s neck stood up. Kreacher’s croaking voice
seemed to come to him from across the dark water. He saw what had happened as clearly
as though he had been present.
“… There was a boat …”
Of course there had been a boat; Harry knew the boat, ghostly green and tiny,
bewitched so as to carry one wizard and one victim toward the island in the center. This,
then, was how Voldemort had tested the defenses surrounding the Horcrux, by borrowing
a disposable creature, a house-elf…
“There was a b-basin full of potion on the island. The D-Dark Lord made
Kreacher drink it …”
The elf quaked from head to foot.
“Kreacher drank, and as he drank he saw terrible thing … Kreacher’s insides
burned … Kreacher cried for Master Regulus to save him, he cried for his Mistress Black,
but the Dark Lord only laughed … He made Kreacher drink all the potion … He dropped
a locket into the empty basin … He filled it with more potion.”
“And then the Dark Lord sailed away, leaving Kreacher on the island … “
Harry could see it happening. He watched Voldemort’s white, snakelike face
vanishing into darkness, those red eyes fixed pitilessly on the thrashing elf whose death
would occur within minutes, whenever he succumbed to the desperate thirst that the
burning poison caused its victim … But here, Harry’s imagination could go no further,
for he could not see how Kreacher had escaped.
“Kreacher needed water, he crawled to the island’s edge and he drank from the
black lake … and hands, dead hands, came out of the water and dragged Kreacher under
the surface … “
“How did you get away?” Harry asked, and he was not surprised to hear himself
whispering.
Kreacher raised his ugly head and looked Harry with his great, bloodshot eyes.
“Master Regulus told Kreacher to come back,” he said.
“I know – but how did you escape the Inferi?”
Kreacher did not seem to understand.
“Master Regulus told Kreacher to come back,” he repeated.
“I know, but – “
“Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it, Harry?” said Ron. “He Disapparated!”
“But … you couldn’t Apparate in and out of that cave,” said Harry, “otherwise
Dumbledore – “
“Elf magic isn’t like wizard’s magic, is it?” said Ron, “I mean, they can Apparate
and Disapparate in and out of Hogwarts when we can’t.”
There was a silence as Harry digested this. How could Voldemort have made such
a mistake? But even as he thought this, Hermione spoke, and her voice was icy.
“Of course, Voldemort would have considered the ways of house-elves far
beneath his notice … It would never have occurred to him that they might have magic
that he didn’t.”
“The house-elf’s highest law is his Master’s bidding,” intoned Kreacher.
“Kreacher was told to come home, so Kreacher came home … “
“Well, then, you did what you were told, didn’t you?” said Hermione kindly.
“You didn’t disobey orders at all!”
Kreacher shook his head, rocking as fast as ever.
“So what happened when you got back?” Harry asked. “What did Regulus say
when you told him what happened?”
“Master Regulus was very worried, very worried,” croaked Kreacher. “Master
Regulus told Kreacher to stay hidden and not to leave the house. And then … it was a
little while later … Master Regulus came to find Kreacher in his cupboard one night, and
Master Regulus was strange, not as he usually was, disturbed in his mind, Kreacher could
tell … and he asked Kreacher to take him to the cave, the cave where Kreacher had gone
with the Dark Lord … “
And so they had set off. Harry could visualize them quite clearly, the frightened
old elf and the thin, dark Seeker who had so resembled Sirius … Kreacher knew how to
open the concealed entrance to the underground cavern, knew how to raise the tiny boat:
this time it was his beloved Regulus who sailed with him to the island with its basin of
poison …
“And he made you drink the poison?” said Harry, disgusted.
But Kreacher shook his head and wept. Hermione’s hands leapt to her mouth: She
seemed to have understood something.
“M-Master Regulus took from his pocket a locket like the one the Dark Lord
had,” said Kreacher, tears pouring down either side of his snoutlike nose. “And he told
Kreacher to take it and, when the basin was empty, to switch the lockets …”
Kreacher’s sobs came in great rasps now; Harry had to concentrate hard to
understand him.
“And he order – Kreacher to leave – without him. And he told Kreacher – to go
home – and never to tell my Mistress – what he had done – but to destroy – the first
locket. And he drank – all the potion – and Kreacher swapped the lockets – and watched
… as Master Regulus … was dragged beneath the water … and … “
“Oh, Kreacher!” wailed Hermione, who was crying. She dropped to her knees
beside the elf and tried to hug him. At once he was on his feet, cringing away from her,
quite obviously repulsed.
“The Mudblood touched Kreacher, he will not allow it, what would his Mistress
say?”
“I told you not to call her ‘Mudblood’!” snarled Harry, but the elf was already
punishing himself. He fell to the ground and banged his forehead on the floor.
“Stop him – stop him!” Hermione cried. “Oh, don’t you see now how sick it is,
the way they’ve got to obey?”
“Kreacher – stop, stop!” shouted Harry.
The elf lay on the floor, panting and shivering, green mucus glistening around his
snot, a bruise already blooming on his pallid forehead where he had struck himself, his
eyes swollen and bloodshot and swimming in tears. Harry had never seen anything so
pitiful.
“So you brought the locket home,” he said relentlessly, for he was determined to
know the full story. “And you tried to destroy it?”
“Nothing Kreacher did made any mark upon it,” moaned the elf. “Kreacher tried
everything, everything he knew, but nothing, nothing would work … So many powerful
spells upon the casing, Kreacher was sure the way to destroy it was to get inside it, but it
would not open … Kreacher punished himself, he tried again, he punished himself, he
tried again. Kreacher failed to obey orders, Kreacher could not destroy the locket! And
his mistress was mad with grief, because Master Regulus had disappeared and Kreacher
could not tell her what had happened, no, because Master Regulus had f-f-forbidden him
to tell any of the f-f-family what happened in the c-cave …”
Kreacher began to sob so hard that there were no more coherent words. Tears
flowed down Hermione’s cheeks as she watched Kreacher, but she did not dare touch
him again. Even Ron, who was no fan of Kreacher’s, looked troubled. Harry sat back on
his heels and shook his head, trying to clear it.
“I don’t understand you, Kreacher,” he said finally. “Voldemort tried to kill you,
Regulus died to bring Voldemort down, but you were still happy to betray Sirius to
Voldemort? You were happy to go to Narcissa and Bellatrix, and pass information to
Voldemort through them … “
“Harry, Kreacher doesn’t think like that,” said Hermione, wiping her eyes on the
back of her hand. “He’s a slave; house-elves are used to bad, even brutal treatment; what
Voldemort did to Kreacher wasn’t that far out of the common way. What do wizard wars
mean to an elf like Kreacher? He’s loyal to people who are kind to him, and Mrs. Black
must have been, and Regulus certainly was, so he served them willingly and parroted
their beliefs. I know what you’re going to say,” she went on as Harry began to protest,
“that Regulus changed his mind … but he doesn’t seem to have explained that to
Kreacher, does he?” And I think I know why. Kreacher and Regulus’s family were all
safest if they kept to the old pure-blood line. Regulus was trying to protect them all.”
“Sirius – “
“Sirius was horrible to Kreacher, Harry, and it’s no good looking like that, you
know it’s true. Kreacher had been alone for such a long time when Sirius came to live
here, and he was probably starving for a bit of affection. I’m sure ‘Miss Cissy’ and ‘Miss
Bella’ were perfectly lovely to Kreacher when he turned up, so he did them a favor and
told them everything they wanted to know. I’ve said all along that wizards would pay for
how they treat house-elves. Well, Voldemort did … and so did Sirius.”
Harry had no retort. As he watched Kreacher sobbing on the floor, he
remembered what Dumbledore had said to him, mere hours after Sirius’s death: I do not
think Sirius ever saw Kreacher as a being with feelings as acute as a human’s …
“Kreacher,” said Harry after a while, “when you feel up to it, er … please sit up.”
It was several minutes before Kreacher hiccupped himself into silence. Then he
pushed himself into a sitting position again, rubbing his knuckles into his eyes like a
small child.
“Kreacher, I am going to ask you to do something,” said Harry. He glanced at
Hermione for assistance. He wanted to give the order kindly, but at the same time, he
could not pretend that it was not an order. However, the change in his tone seemed to
have gained her approval: She smiled encouragingly.
“Kreacher, I want you, please, to go and find Mundungus Fletcher. We need to
find out where the locket – where Master Regulus’s locket it. It’s really important. We
want to finish the work Master Regulus started, we want to – er – ensure that he didn’t
die in vain.”
Kreacher dropped his fists and looked up at Harry.
“Find Mundungus Fletcher?” he croaked.
And bring him here, to Grimmauld Place,” said Harry. “Do you think you could
do that for us?”
As Kreacher nodded and got to his feet, Harry had a sudden inspiration. He pulled
out Hagrid’s purse and took out the fake Horcrux, the substitute locket in which Regulus
had placed the note to Voldemort.
“Kreacher, I’d, er, like you to have this,” he said, pressing the locket into the elf’s
hand. “This belonged to Regulus and I’m sure he’d want you to have it as a token of
gratitude for what you—“
“Overkill, mate,” said Ron as the elf took one look at the locket, let out a howl of
shock and misery, and threw himself back onto the ground.
It took them nearly half an hour to calm down Kreacher, who was so overcome to
be presented with a Black family heirloom for his very own that he was too weak at the
knees to stand properly. When finally he was able to totter a few steps they all
accompanied him to his cupboard, watched him tuck up the locket safely in his dirty
blankets, and assured him that they would make its protection their first priority while he
was away. He then made two low bows to Harry and Ron, and even gave a funny little
spasm in Hermione’s direction that might have been an attempt at a respectful salute,
before Disapparating with the usual loud crack.
Chapter Eleven
The Bribe
If Kreacher could escape a lake full of Inferi, Harry was confident that the capture
of Mundungus would take a few hours at most, and he prowled the house all morning in a
state of high anticipation. However, Kreacher did not return that morning or even that
afternoon. By nightfall, Harry felt discouraged and anxious, and a supper composed
largely of moldy bread, upon which Hermione had tried a variety of unsuccessful
Transfigurations, did nothing to help.
Kreacher did not return the following day, nor the day after that. However, two
cloaked men had appeared in the square outside number twelve, and they remained there
into the night, gazing in the direction of the house that they could not see.
“Death Eaters, for sure,” said Ron, as he, Harry, and Hermione watched from the
drawing room windows. “Reckon they know we’re in here?”
“I don’t think so,” said Hermione, though she looked frightened, “or they’d have
sent Snape in after us, wouldn’t they?”
“D’you reckon he’s been in here and has his tongue tied by Moody’s curse?”
asked Ron.
“Yes,” said Hermione, “otherwise he’d have been able to tell that lot how to get in,
wouldn’t he? But they’re probably watching to see whether we turn up. They know that
Harry owns the house, after all.”
“How do they --?” began Harry.
“Wizarding wills are examined by the Ministry, remember? They’ll know Sirius
left you the place.”
The presence of the Death Eaters outside increased the ominous mood inside
number twelve. They had not heard a word form anyone beyond Grimmauld Place since
Mr. Weasley’s Patronus, and the strain was starting to tell. Restless and irritable, Ron had
developed an annoying habit of playing with the Deluminator in his pocket; This
particularly infuriated Hermione, who was whiling away the wait for Kreacher by
studying The Tales of Beedle the Bard and did not appreciate the way the lights kept
flashing on and off.
“Will you stop it!” she cried on the third evening of Kreacher’s absence, as all the
light was sucked from the drawing room yet again.
“Sorry, sorry!” said Ron, clicking the Deluminator and restoring the lights. “I
don’t know I’m doing it!”
“Well, can’t you find something useful to occupy yourself?”
“What, like reading kids’ stories?”
“Dumbledore left me this book, Ron –”
“—and he left me the Deluminator, maybe I’m supposed to use it!”
Unable to stand the bickering, Harry slipped out of the room unnoticed by either
of them. He headed downstairs toward the kitchen, which he kept visiting because he was
sure that was where Kreacher was most likely to reappear. Halfway down the flight of
stairs into the hall, however, he heard a tap on the front door, then metallic clicks and the
grinding of the chain.
Every nerve in his body seemed to tauten: He pulled out his wand, moved into the
shadows beside the decapitated elf heads, and waited. The door opened: He saw a
glimpse of the lamplit square outside, and a cloaked figure edged into the hall and closed
the door behind it. The intruder took a step forward, and Moody’s voice asked, “Severus
Snape?” Then the dust figure rose from the end of the hall and rushed him, raising its
dead hand.
“It was not I who killed you, Albus,” said a quiet voice.
The jinx broke: The dust-figure exploded again, and it was impossible to make
out the newcomer through the dense gray cloud it left behind.
Harry pointed the wand into the middle of it.
“Don’t move!”
He had forgotten the portrait of Mrs. Black: At the sound of his yell, the curtains
hiding her flew open and she began to scream, “Mudbloods and filth dishonoring my
house –”
Ron and Hermione came crashing down the stairs behind Harry, wands pointing,
like his, at the unknown man now standing with his arms raised in the hall below.
“Hold your fire, it’s me, Remus!”
“Oh, thank goodness,” said Hermione weakly, pointing her wand at Mrs. Black
instead; with a bang, the curtains swished shut again and silence fell. Ron too lowered his
wand, but Harry did not.
“Show yourself!” he called back.
Lupin moved forward into the lamplight, hands still held high in a gesture of
surrender.
“I am Remus John Lupin, werewolf, sometimes known as Moony, one of the four
creators of the Marauder’s Map, married to Nymphadora, usually known as Tonks, and I
taught you how to produce a Patronus, Harry, which takes the form of a stag.”
“Oh, all right,” said Harry, lowering his wand, “but I had to check, didn’t I?”
“Speaking as your ex-Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, I quite agree that
you had to check. Ron, Hermione, you shouldn’t be so quick to lower your defenses.”
They ran down the stairs towards him. Wrapped in a thick black traveling cloak,
he looked exhausted, but pleased to see them.
“No sign of Severus, then?” he asked.
“No,” said Harry. “What’s going on? Is everyone okay?’
“Yes,” said Lupin, “but we’re all being watched. There are a couple of Death
Eaters in the square outside –”
“We know –”
“I had to Apparate very precisely onto the top step outside the front door to be
sure that they would not see me. They can’t know you’re in here or I’m sure they’d have
more people out there; they’re staking out everywhere that’s got any connection with you,
Harry. Let’s go downstairs, there’s a lot to tell you, and I want to know what happened
after you left the Burrow.”
They descended into the kitchen, where Hermione pointed her wand at the grate.
A fire sprang up instantly: It gave the illusion of coziness to the stark stone walls and
glistened off the long wooden table. Lupin pulled a few butterbeers from beneath his
traveling cloak and they sat down.
“I’d have been here three days ago but I needed to shake off the Death Eater
tailing me,” said Lupin. “So, you came straight here after the wedding?”
“No,” said Harry, “only after we ran into a couple of Death Eaters in a café on
Tottenham Court Road.”
Lupin slopped most of his butterbeer down his front.
“What?”
They explained what had happened; when they had finished, Lupin looked aghast.
“But how did they find you so quickly? It’s impossible to track anyone who
Apparates, unless you grab hold of them as they disappear.”
“And it doesn’t seem likely they were just strolling down Tottenham Court Road
at the time, does it?” said Harry.
“We wondered,” said Hermione tentatively, “whether Harry could still have the
Trace on him?”
“Impossible,” said Lupin. Ron looked smug, and Harry felt hugely relieved.
“Apart from anything else, they’d know for sure Harry was here if he still had the Trace
on him, wouldn’t they? But I can’t see how they could have tracked you to Tottenham
Court Road, that’s worrying, really worrying.”
He looked disturbed, but as far as Harry was concerned, that question could wait.
“Tell us what happened after we left, we haven’t heard a thing since Ron’s dad
told us the family was safe.”
“Well, Kingsley saved us,” said Lupin. “Thanks to his warning most of the
wedding guests were able to Disapparate before they arrived.”
“Were they Death Eaters or Ministry people?” interjected Hermione.
“A mixture; but to all intents and purposes they’re the same thing now,” said
Lupin. “There were about a dozen of them, but they didn’t know you were there, Harry.
Arthur heard a rumor that they tried to torture your whereabouts out of Scrimgeour before
they killed him; if it’s true, he didn’t give you away.”
Harry looked at Ron and Hermione; their expressions reflected the mingled shock
and gratitude he felt. He had never liked Scrimgeour much, but if what Lupin said was
true, the man’s final act had been to try to protect Harry.
“The Death Eaters searched the Burrow from top to bottom,” Lupin went on.
“They found the ghoul, but didn’t want to get too close – and then they interrogated those
of us who remained for hours. They were trying to get information on you, Harry, but of
course nobody apart from the Order knew that you had been there.
“At the same time that they were smashing up the wedding, more Death Eaters
were forcing their way into every Order-connected house in the country. No deaths,” he
added quickly, forestalling the question, “but they were rough. They burned down
Dedalus Diggle’s house, but as you know he wasn’t there, and they used the Cruciarus
Curse on Tonks’s family. Again, trying to find out where you went after you visited them.
They’re all right – shaken, obviously, but otherwise okay.”
“The Death Eaters got through all those protective charms?”
Harry asked, remembering how effective these had been on the night he had
crashed in Tonks’s parents’ garden.
“What you’ve got to realize, Harry, is that the Death Eaters have got the full
might of the Ministry on their side now,” said Lupin. “They’ve got the power to perform
brutal spells without fear of identification or arrest. They managed to penetrate every
defensive spell we’d cast against them, and once inside, they were completely open about
why they’d come.”
“And are they bothering to give an excuse for torturing Harry’s whereabouts out
of people?” asked Hermione, an edge to her voice.
“Well,” Lupin said. He hesitated, then pulled out a folded copy of the Daily
Prophet.
“Here,” he said, pushing it across the table to Harry, “you’ll know sooner or later
anyway. That’s their pretext for going after you.”
Harry smoothed out the paper. A huge photograph of his own face filled the front
page. He read the headline over it:
WANTED FOR QUESTIONING ABOUT
THE DEATH OF ALBUS DUMBLEDORE
Ron and Hermione gave roars of outrage, but Harry said nothing. He pushed the
newspaper away; he did not want to read anymore: He knew what it would say. Nobody
but those who had been on top of the tower when Dumbledore died knew who had really
killed him and, as Rita Skeeter had already told the Wizarding world, Harry had been
seen running from the place moments after Dumbledore had fallen.
“I’m sorry, Harry,” Lupin said.
“So Death Eaters have taken over the Daily Prophet too?” asked Hermione
furiously.
Lupin nodded.
“But surely people realize what’s going on?”
“The coup has been smooth and virtually silent,” said Lupin.
“The official version of Scrimgeour’s murder is that he resigned; he has been
replaced by Pius Thicknesse, who is under the Imperius Curse.”
“Why didn’t Voldemort declare himself Minister of Magic?” asked Ron.
Lupin laughed.
“He doesn’t need to, Ron. Effectively, he is the Minister, but why should he sit
behind a desk at the Ministry? His puppet, Thicknesse, is taking care of everyday
business, leaving Voldemort free to extend his power beyond the Ministry.
“Naturally many people have deduced what has happened: There has been such a
dramatic change in Ministry policy in the last few days, and many are whispering that
Voldemort must be behind it. However, that is the point: They whisper. They daren’t
confide in each other, not knowing whom to trust; they are scared to speak out, in case
their suspicions are true and their families are targeted. Yes, Voldemort is playing a very
clever game. Declaring himself might have provoked open rebellion: Remaining masked
has created confusion, uncertainty, and fear.”
“And this dramatic change in Ministry policy,” said Harry, “involves warning the
Wizarding world against me instead of Voldemort?”
“That’s certainly a part of it,” said Lupin, “and it is a masterstroke. Now that
Dumbledore is dead, you – the Boy Who Lived – were sure to be the symbol and rallying
point for any resistance to Voldemort. But by suggesting that you had a hand in the old
hat’s death, Voldemort has not only set a price upon your head, but sown doubt and fear
amongst many who would have defended you.
“Meanwhile, the Ministry has started moving against Muggle-borns.”
Lupin pointed at the Daily Prophet.
“Look at page two.”
Hermione turned the pages with much the same expression of distaste she had
when handling Secrets of the Darkest Art.
“Muggle-born Register!” she read aloud. “‘The Ministry of Magic is undertaking
a survey of so-called “Muggle-borns” the better to understand how they came to possess
magical secrets.
“‘Recent research undertaken by the Department of Mysteries reveals that magic
can only be passed from person to person when Wizards reproduce. Where no proven
Wizarding ancestry exists, therefore, the so-called Muggle-born is likely to have obtained
magical power by theft or force.
“‘The Ministry is determined to root out such usurpers of magical power, and to
this end has issued an invitation to every so-called Muggle-born to present themselves for
interview by the newly appointed Muggle-born Registration Commission.’”
“People won’t let this happen,” said Ron.
“It is happening, Ron,” said Lupin. “Muggle-borns are being rounded up as we
speak.”
“But how are they supposed to have ‘stolen’ magic?” said Ron. “It’s mental, if
you could steal magic there wouldn’t be any Squibs, would there?”
“I know,” said Lupin. “Nevertheless, unless you can prove that you have at least
one close Wizarding relative, you are now deemed to have obtained your magical power
illegally and must suffer the punishment.”
Ron glanced at Hermione, then said, “What if purebloods and halfbloods swear a
Muggle-born’s part of their family? I’ll tell everyone Hermione’s my cousin –”
Hermione covered Ron’s hand with hers and squeezed it.
“Thank you, Ron, but I couldn’t let you –”
“You won’t have a choice,” said Ron fiercely, gripping her hand back. “I’ll teach
you my family tree so you can answer questions on it.”
Hermione gave a shaky laugh.
“Ron, as we’re on the run with Harry Potter, the most wanted person in the
country, I don’t think it matters. If I was going back to school it would be different.
What’s Voldemort planning for Hogwarts?” she asked Lupin.
“Attendance is now compulsory for every young witch and wizard,” he replied.
“That was announced yesterday. It’s a change, because it was never obligatory before. Of
course, nearly every witch and wizard in Britain has been educated at Hogwarts, but their
parents had the right to teach them at home or send them abroad if they preferred. This
way, Voldemort will have the whole Wizarding population under his eye from a young
age. And it’s also another way of weeding out Muggle-borns, because students must be
given Blood Status – meaning that they have proven to the Ministry that they are of
Wizard descent – before they are allowed to attend.”
Harry felt sickened and angry: At this moment, excited eleven-year-olds would be
poring over stacks of newly purchased spell-books, unaware that they would never see
Hogwarts, perhaps never see their families again either.
“It’s . . . it’s . . .” he muttered, struggling to find words that did justice to the
horror of his thoughts, but Lupin said quietly,
“I know.”
Lupin hesitated.
I’ll understand if you can’t confirm this, Harry, but the Order is under the
impression that Dumbledore left you a mission.”
“He did,” Harry replied, “and Ron and Hermione are in on it and they’re coming
with me.”
“Can you confide in me what the mission is?”
Harry looked into the prematurely lined face, framed in thick but graying hair,
and wished that he could return a different answer.
“I can’t, Remus, I’m sorry. If Dumbledore didn’t tell you I don’t think I can.”
“I thought you’d say that,” said Lupin, looking disappointed. “But I might still be
of some use to you. You know what I am and what I can do. I could come with you to
provide protection. There would be no need to tell me exactly what you were up to.”
Harry hesitated. It was a very tempting offer, though how they would be able to
keep their mission secret from Lupin if he were with them all the time he could not
imagine.
Hermione, however, looked puzzled.
“But what about Tonks?” she asked.
“What about her?” said Lupin.
“Well,” said Hermione, frowning, “you’re married! How does she feel about you
going away with us?”
“Tonks will be perfectly safe,” said Lupin, “She’ll be at her parents’ house.”
There was something strange in Lupin’s tone, it was almost cold. There was also
something odd in the idea of Tonks remaining hidden at her parents’ house; she was, after
all, a member of the Order and, as far as Harry knew, was likely to want to be in the thick
of the action.
“Remus,” said Hermione tentatively, “is everything all right . . . you know . . .
between you and – ”
“Everything is fine, thank you,” said Lupin pointedly.
Hermione turned pink. There was another pause, an awkward and embarrassed
one, and then Lupin said, with an air of forcing himself to admit something unpleasant,
“Tonks is going to have a baby.”
“Oh, how wonderful!” squealed Hermione.
“Excellent!” said Ron enthusiastically.
“Congratulations,” said Harry.
Lupin gave an artificial smile that was more like a grimace, then said, “So . . . do
you accept my offer? Will three become four? I cannot believe that Dumbledore would
have disapproved, he appointed me your Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, after all.
And I must tell you that I believe we are facing magic many of us have never
encountered or imagined.”
Ron and Hermione both looked at Harry.
“Just – just to be clear,” he said. “You want to leave Tonks at her parents’ house
and come away with us?”
“She’ll be perfectly safe there, they’ll look after her,” said Lupin. He spoke with a
finality bordering on indifference: “Harry, I’m sure James would have wanted me to stick
with you.”
“Well,” said Harry slowly, “I’m not. I’m pretty sure my father would have wanted
to know why you aren’t sticking with your own kid, actually.”
Lupin’s face drained of color. The temperature in the kitchen might have dropped
ten degrees. Ron stared around the room as though he had been bidden to memorize it,
while Hermione’s eyes swiveled backward and forward from Harry to Lupin.
“You don’t understand,” said Lupin at last.
“Explain, then,” said Harry.
Lupin swallowed.
“I – I made a grave mistake in marrying Tonks. I did it against my better
judgment and have regretted it very much every since.”
“I see,” said Harry, “so you’re just going to dump her and the kid and run off with
us?”
Lupin sprang to his feet: His chair toppled over backward, and he glared at them
so fiercely that Harry saw, for the first time ever, she shadow of the wolf upon his human
face.
“Don’t you understand what I’ve done to my wife and my unborn child? I should
never have married her, I’ve made her an outcast!”
Lupin kicked aside the chair he had overturned.
“You have only ever seen me amongst the Order, or under Dumbledore’s
protection at Hogwarts! You don’t know how most of the Wizarding world sees creatures
like me! When they know of my affliction, they can barely talk to me! Don’t you see
what I’ve done?
Even her own family is disgusted by our marriage, what parents want their only
daughter to marry a werewolf? And the child – the child – ”
Lupin actually seized handfuls of his own hair; he looked quite deranged.
“My kind don’t usually breed! It will be like me, I am convinced of it – how can I
forgive myself, when I knowingly risked passing on my own condition to an innocent
child? And if, by some miracle, it is not like me, then it will be better off, a hundred times
so, without a father of whom it must always be ashamed!”
“Remus!” whispered Hermione, tears in her eyes. “Don’t say that – how could
any child be ashamed of you?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Hermione,” said Harry. “I’d be pretty ashamed of him.”
Harry did not know where his rage was coming from, but it had propelled him to
his feet too. Lupin looked as though Harry had hit him.
“If the new regime thinks Muggle-borns are bad,” Harry said, “what will they do
to a half-werewolf whose father’s in the Order? My father died trying to protect my
mother and me, and you reckon he’d tell you to abandon your kid to go on an adventure
with us?”
“How – how dare you?” said Lupin. “This is not about a desire for – for danger or
personal glory – how dare you suggest such a – ”
“I think you’re feeling a bit of a daredevil,” Harry said, “You fancy stepping into
Sirius’s shoes –”
“Harry, no!” Hermione begged him, but he continued to glare into Lupin’s livid
face.
“I’d never have believed this,” Harry said. “The man who taught me to fight
dementors – a coward.”
Lupin drew his wand so fast that Harry had barely reached for his own; there was
a loud bang and he felt himself flying backward as if punched; as he slammed into the
kitchen wall and slid to the floor, he glimpsed the tail of Lupin’s cloak disappearing
around the door.
“Remus, Remus, come back!” Hermione cried, but Lupin did not respond. A
moment later they heard the front door slam.
“Harry!” wailed Hermione. “How could you?”
“It was easy,” said Harry. He stood up, he could feel a lump swelling where his
head had hit the wall. He was still so full of anger he was shaking.
“Don’t look at me like that!” he snapped at Hermione.
“Don’t you start on her!” snarled Ron.
“No – no – we mustn’t fight!” said Hermione, launching herself between them.
“You shouldn’t have said that stuff to Lupin,” Ron told Harry.
“He had it coming to him,” said Harry. Broken images were racing each other
through his mind: Sirius falling through the veil; Dumbledore suspended, broken, in
midair; a flash of green light and his mother’s voice, begging for mercy . . .
“Parents,” said Harry, “shouldn’t leave their kids unless – unless they’ve got to.”
“Harry –“ said Hermione, stretching out a consoling hand, but he shrugged it off
and walked away, his eyes on the fire Hermione had conjured. He had once spoken to
Lupin out of that fireplace, seeking reassurance about James, and Lupin had consoled
him. Now Lupin’s tortured white face seemed to swim in the air before him. He felt a
sickening surge of remorse. Neither Ron nor Hermione spoke, but Harry felt sure that
they were looking at each other behind his back, communicating silently.
He turned around and caught them turning hurriedly away form each other.
“I know I shouldn’t have called him a coward.”
“No, you shouldn’t,” said Ron at once.
“But he’s acting like one.”
“All the same . . .” said Hermione.
“I know,” said Harry. “But if it makes him go back to Tonks, it’ll be worth it,
won’t it?”
He could not keep the plea out of his voice. Hermione looked sympathetic, Ron
uncertain. Harry looked down at his feet, thinking of his father. Would James have
backed Harry in what he had said to Lupin, or would he have been angry at how his son
had treated his old friend?
The silent kitchen seemed to hum with the shock of the recent scene and with Ron
and Hermione’s unspoken reproaches. The Daily Prophet Lupin had brought was still
lying on the table, Harry’s own face staring up at the ceiling from the front page. He
walked over to it and sat down, opened the paper at random, and pretended to read. He
could not take in the words; his mind was still too full of the encounter with Lupin. He
was sure that Ron and Hermione had resumed their silent communications on the other
side of the Prophet. He turned a page loudly, and Dumbledore’s name leapt out at him. It
was a moment or two before he took in the meaning of the photograph, which showed a
family group. Beneath the photograph were the words: The Dumbledore family, left to
right: Albus; Percival, holding newborn Ariana; Kendra, and Aberforth.
His attention caught, Harry examined the picture more carefully. Dumbledore’s
father, Percival, was a good-looking man with eyes that seemed to twinkle even in this
faded old photograph. The baby, Ariana, was a little longer than a loaf of bread and no
more distinctive-looking. The mother, Kendra, had jet black hair pulled into a high bun.
Her face had a carved quality about it. Harry thought of photos of Native Americans he’d
seen as he studied her dark eyes, high cheekbones, and straight nose, formally composed
above a high-necked silk gown. Albus and Aberforth wore matching lacy collared jackets
and had identical, shoulder-length hairstyles. Albus looked several years older, but
otherwise the two boys looked very alike, for this was before Albus’s nose had been
broken and before he started wearing glasses.
The family looked quite happy and normal, smiling serenely up out of the
newspaper. Baby Ariana’s arm waved vaguely out of her shawl. Harry looked above the
picture and saw the headline:
EXCLUSIVE EXTRACT FROM UPCOMING
BIOGRAPHY OF ALBUS DUMBLEDORE
by Rita Skeeter
Thinking it could hardly make him feel any worse than he already did, Harry
began to read:
Proud and haughty, Kendra Dumbledore could not bear to remain in Mould-on-the-
Wold after her husband Percival’s well-publicized arrest and imprisonment in
Azkaban. She therefore decided to uproot the family and relocate to Godric’s Hollow,
the village that was later to gain fame as the scene of Harry Potter’s strange escape
from You-Know-Who.
Like Mould-on-the-Wold, Godric’s Hollow was home to a number of Wizarding
families, but as Kendra knew none of them, she would be spared the curiosity about
her husband’s crime she had faced in her former village. By repeatedly rebuffing the
friendly advances of her new Wizarding neighbors, she soon ensured that her family
was left well alone.
“Slammed the door in my face when I went around to welcome her with a batch
of homemade Cauldron Cakes,” says Bathilda Bagshot. “The first year they were
there I only ever saw the two boys. Wouldn’t have known there was a daughter if I
hadn’t been picking Plangentines by moonlight the winter after they moved in, and
saw Kendra leading Ariana out into the back garden. Walked her round the lawn once,
keeping a firm grip on her, then took her back inside. Didn’t know what to make of
it.”
It seems that Kendra thought the move to Godric’s Hollow was the perfect
opportunity to hide Ariana once and for all, something she had probably been
planning for years. The timing was significant. Ariana was barely seven years old
when she vanished from sight, and seven is the age by which most experts agree that
magic will have revealed itself, if present. Nobody now alive remembers Ariana ever
demonstrating even the slightest sign of magical ability. It seems clear, therefore, that
Kendra made a decision to hide her daughter’s existence rather than suffer the shame
of admitting that she had produced a Squib. Moving away from the friends and
neighbors who knew Ariana would, of course, make imprisoning her all the easier.
The tiny number of people who henceforth knew of Ariana’s existence could be
counted upon to keep the secret, including her two brothers, who had deflected
awkward questions with the answer their mother had taught them. “My sister is too
frail for school.”
Next week: Albus Dumbledore at Hogwarts – the Prizes and the Pretense.
Harry had been wrong: What he had read had indeed made him feel worse. He
looked back at the photograph of the apparently happy family. Was it true? How could he
find out? He wanted to go to Godric’s Hollow, even if Bathilda was in no fit state to talk
to him: he wanted to visit the place where he and Dumbledore had both lost loved ones.
He was in the process of lowering the newspaper, to ask Ron’s and Hermione’s opinions,
when a deafening crack echoed around the kitchen.
For the first time in three days Harry had forgotten all about Kreacher. His
immediate thought was that Lupin had burst back into the room, and for a split second, he
did not take in the mass of struggling limbs that had appeared out of thin air right beside
his chair. He hurried to his feet as Kreacher disentangled himself and, bowing low to
Harry, croaked, “Kreacher has returned with the thief Mundungus Fletcher, Master.”
Mundungus scrambled up and pulled out his wand; Hermione, however, was too
quick for him.
“Expelliarmus!”
Mundungus’s wand soared into the air, and Hermione caught it. Wild-eyed,
Mundungus dived for the stairs. Ron rugby-tackled him and Mundungus hit the stone
floor with a muffled crunch.
“What?” he bellowed, writhing in his attempts to free himself from Ron’s grip.
“Wha’ve I done? Setting a bleedin’ ‘house-elf on me, what are you playing at, wha’ve I
done, lemme go, lemme go, of – ”
“You’re not in much of a position to make threats,” said Harry. He threw aside
the newspaper, crossed the kitchen in a few strides, and dropped to his knees beside
Mundungus, who stopped struggling and looked terrified. Ron got up, panting, and
watched as Harry pointed his wand deliberately at Mundungus’s nose. Mundungus stank
of stale sweat and tobacco smoke. His hair was matted and his robes stained.
“Kreacher apologizes for the delay in bringing the thief, Master,” croaked the elf.
“Fletcher knows how to avoid capture, has many hidey-holes and accomplices.
Nevertheless, Kreacher cornered the thief in the end.”
“You’ve done really well, Kreacher,” said Harry, and the elf bowed low.
“Right, we’ve got a few questions for you,” Harry told Mundungus, who shouted
at once.
“I panicked, okay? I never wanted to come along, no offense, mate, but I never
volunteered to die for you, an’ that was bleedin’ You-Know-Who come flying at me,
anyone woulda got outta there. I said all along I didn’t wanna do it –”
“For your information, none of the rest of us Disapparated,” said Hermione.
“Well, you’re a bunch of bleedin’ ‘eroes then, aren’t you, but I never pretended I
was up for killing meself –”
“We’re not interested in why you ran out on Mad-Eye,” said Harry, moving his
wand a little closer to Mundungus’s baggy, bloodshot eyes. “We already knew you were
an unreliable bit of scum.”
“Well then, why the ‘ell am I being ‘unted down by ‘ouse-elves? Or is this about
them goblets again? I ain’t got none of ‘em left, or you could ‘ave ‘em –”
“It’s not about the goblets either, although you’re getting warmer,” said Harry.
“Shut up and listen.”
It felt wonderful to have something to do, someone of whom he could demand
some small portion of truth. Harry’s wand was now so close to the bridge of
Mundungus’s nose that Mundungus had gone cross-eyed trying to keep it in view.
“When you cleaned out this house of anything valuable,” Harry began, but
Mundungus interrupted him again.
“Sirius never cared about any of the junk –”
There was the sound of pattering fee, a blaze of shining copper, an echoing clang,
and a shriek of agony; Kreacher had taken a run at Mundungus and hit him over the head
with a saucepan.
“Call ‘im off, call ‘im off, ‘e should be locked up!” screamed Mundungus,
cowering as Kreacher raised the heavy-bottomed pan again.
“Kreacher, no!” shouted Harry.
Kreacher’s thin arms trembled with the weight of the pan, still held aloft.
“Perhaps just one more, Master Harry, for luck?”
Ron laughed.
“We need him conscious, Kreacher, but if he needs persuading, you can do the
honors,” said Harry.
“Thank you very much, Master,” said Kreacher with a bow, and he retreated a
short distance, his great pale eyes still fixed upon Mundungus with loathing.
“When you stripped this house of all the valuables you could find,” Harry began
again, “you took a bunch of stuff from the kitchen cupboard. There was a locket there.”
Harry’s mouth was suddenly dry: He could sense Ron and Hermione’s tension and
excitement too. “What did you do with it?”
“Why?” asked Mundungus. “Is it valuable?”
“You’ve still got it!” cried Hermione.
“No, he hasn’t,” said Ron shrewdly. “He’s wondering whether he should have
asked more money for it.”
“More?” said Mundungus. “That wouldn’t have been effing difficult . . .bleedin’
gave it away, di’n’ I? No choice.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was selling in Diagon Alley and she come up to me and asks if I’ve got a
license for trading in magical artifacts. Bleedin’ snoop. She was gonna fine me, but she
took a fancy to the locket an’ told me she’d take it and let me off that time, and to fink
meself lucky.”
“Who was this woman?” asked Harry.
“I dunno, some Ministry hag.”
Mundungus considered for a moment, brow wrinkled.
“Little woman. Bow on top of ‘er head.”
He frowned and then added, “Looked like a toad.”
Harry dropped his wand: It hit Mundungus on the nose and shot red sparks into
his eyebrows, which ignited.
“Aquamenti!” screamed Hermione, and a jet of water streamed from her wand,
engulfing a spluttering and choking Mundungus.
Harry looked up and saw his own shock reflected in Ron’s and Hermione’s faces.
The scars on the back of his right hand seemed to be tingling again.
Chapter Twelve
Magic is Might
As August wore on, the square of unkempt grass in the middle of Grimmauld
Place shriveled in the sun until it was brittle and brown. The inhabitants of number
twelve were never seen by anyone in the surrounding houses, and nor was number twelve
itself. The muggles who lived in Grimmauld Place had long since accepted the amusing
mistake in the numbering that had caused number eleven to sit beside number thirteen.
And yet the square was now attracting a trickle of visitors who seemed to find the
anomaly most intriguing. Barely a day passed without one or two people arriving in
Grimmauld Place with no other purpose, or so it seemed, than to lean against the railings
facing numbers eleven and thirteen, watching the join between the two houses. The
lurkers were never the same two days running, although they all seemed to share a dislike
for normal clothing. Most of the Londoners who passed them were used to eccentric
dressers and took little notice, though occasionally one of them might glance back,
wondering why anyone would wear cloaks in this heat.
The watchers seemed to be gleaning little satisfaction from their vigil.
Occasionally one of them started forward excitedly, as if they had seen something
interesting at last, only to fall back looking disappointed.
On the first day of September there were more people lurking in the square than
ever before. Half a dozen men in long cloaks stood silent and watchful, gazing as ever at
houses eleven and thirteen, but the thing for which they were waiting still appeared
elusive. As evening drew in, bringing with it an unexpected gust of chilly rain for the first
time in weeks, there occurred one of those inexplicable moments when they appeared to
have seen something interesting. The man with the twisted face pointed and his closest
companion, a podgy, pallid man, started forward, but a moment later they had relaxed
into their previous state of inactivity, looking frustrated and disappointed.
Meanwhile, inside number twelve, Harry had just entered the hall. He had nearly
lost his balance as he Apparated onto the top step just outside the front door, and thought
that the Death Eaters might have caught a glimpse of his momentarily exposed elbow.
Shutting the front door carefully behind him, he pulled off the Invisibility Cloak, draped
it over his arm, and hurried along the gloomy hallway toward the door that led to the
basement, a stolen copy of the Daily Prophet clutched in his hand.
The usual low whisper of “Severus Snape” greeted him, the chill wind swept him,
and his tongue rolled up for a moment.
“I didn’t kill you,” he said, once it had unrolled, then held his breath as the dusty
jinx-figure exploded. He waited until he was halfway down the stairs to the kitchen, out
of earshot of Mrs. Black and clear of the dust cloud, before calling, “I’ve got news, and
you won’t like it.”
The kitchen was almost unrecognizable. Every surface now shone; Copper pots
and pans had been burnished to a rosy glow; the wooden tabletop gleamed; the goblets
and plates already laid for dinner glinted in the light from a merrily blazing fire, on which
a cauldron was simmering. Nothing in the room, however, was more dramatically
different than the house-elf who now came hurrying toward Harry, dressed in a snowywhite
towel, his ear hair as clean and fluffy as cotton wool, Regulus’s locket bouncing on
his thin chest.
“Shoes off, if you please, Master Harry, and hands washed before dinner,”
croaked Kreacher, seizing the Invisibility Cloak and slouching off to hang it on a hook on
the wall, beside a number of old-fashioned robes that had been freshly laundered.
“What’s happened?” Ron asked apprehensively. He are Hermione had been
pouring over a sheaf of scribbled notes and hand drawn maps that littered the end of the
long kitchen table, but now they watched Harry as he strode toward them and threw down
the newspaper on top of their scattered parchment.
A large picture of a familiar, hook-nosed, black-haired man stared up at them all,
beneath a headline that read:
SEVERUS SNAPE CONFIRMED AS HOGWARTS HEADMASTER
“No!” said Ron and Hermione loudly.
Hermione was quickest; she snatched up the newspaper and began to read the
accompanying story out loud.
“Severus Snape, long-standing Potions master at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft
and wizardry, was today appointed headmaster in the most important of several staffing
changes at the ancient school. Following the resignation of the previous Muggle Studies
teacher, Alecto Carrow will take over the post while her brother, Amycus, fills the
position of Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.”
“ ‘I welcome the opportunity to uphold our finest Wizarding traditions and values
–‘ Like committing murder and cutting off people’s ears, I suppose! Snape, headmaster!
Snape in Dumbledore’s study – Merlin’s pants!” she shrieked, making both Harry and
Ron jump. She leapt up from the table and hurtled from the room, shouting as she went,
“I’ll be back in a minute!”
“’Merlin’s pants’?” repeated Ron, looking amused. “She must be upset.” He
pulled the newspaper toward him and perused the article about Snape.
“The other teachers won’t stand for this, McGonagall and Flitwick and Sprout all
know the truth, they know how Dumbledore died. They won’t accept Snape as
headmaster. And who are these Carrows?”
“Death Eaters,” said Harry. “There are pictures of them inside. They were at the
top of the tower when Snape killed Dumbledore, so it’s all friends together. And,” Harry
went on bitterly, drawing up a chair, “I can’t see that the other teachers have got any
choice but to stay. If the Ministry and Voldemort are behind Snape it’ll be a choice
between staying and teaching, or a nice few years in Azkaban – and that’s if they’re
lucky. I reckon they’ll stay to try and protect the students.”
Kreacher came bustling to the table with a large curcen in his hands, and ladled
out soup into pristine bowls, whistling between his teeth as he did so.
“Thanks, Kreacher,” said Harry, flipping over the Prophet so as not to have to
look at Snape’s face. “Well, at least we know exactly where Snape is now.”
He began to spoon soup into his mouth. The quality of Kreacher’s cooking had
improved dramatically ever since he had been given Regulus’s locket: Today’s French
onion was as good as Harry had ever tasted.
“There are still a load of Death Eaters watching this house,” he told Ron as he ate,
“more than usual. It’s like they’re hoping we’ll march out carrying our school trunks and
head off for the Hogwarts Express.”
Ron glanced at his watch.
“I’ve been thinking about that all day. It left nearly six hours ago. Weird, not
being on it, isn’t it?”
In his mind’s eye Harry seemed to see the scarlet steam engine as he and Ron had
once followed it by air, shimmering between fields and hills, a rippling scarlet caterpillar.
He was sure Ginny, Neville, and Luna were sitting together at this moment, perhaps
wondering where he, Ron, and Hermione were, or debating how best to undermine
Snape’s new regime.
“They nearly saw me coming back in just now,” Harry said, “I landed badly on
the top step, and the Cloak slipped.”
“I do that every time. Oh, here she is,” Ron added, craning around in his seat to
watch Hermione reentering the kitchen. “And what in the name of Merlin’s most baggy
Y Fronts was that about?”
“I remembered this,” Hermione panted.
She was carrying a large, framed picture, which she now lowered to the floor
before seizing her small, beaded bag from the kitchen sideboard. Opening it, she
proceeded to force the painting inside and despite the fact that it was patently too large to
fit inside the tiny bag, within a few seconds it had vanished, like so much ease, into the
bag’s capacious depths.
“Phineas Nigellus,” Hermione explained as she threw the bag onto the kitchen
table with the usual sonorous, clanking crash.
“Sorry?” said Ron, but Harry understood. The painted image of Phineas Nigellus
Black was able to travel between his portrait in Grimmauld Place and the one that hung in
the headmaster’s office at Hogwarts: the circular cower-top room where Snape was no
doubt sitting right now, in triumphant possession of Dumbledore’s collection of delicate,
silver magical instruments, the stone Pensieve, the Sorting Hat and, unless it ad been
moved elsewhere, the sword of Gryffindor.
“Snape could send Phineas Nigellus to look inside this house for him,” Hermione
explained to Ron as she resumed her seat. “But let him try it now, all Phineas Nigellus
will be able to see is the inside of my handbag.”
“Good thinking!” said Ron, looking impressed.
“Thank you,” smiled Hermione, pulling her soup toward her. “So, Harry, what
else happened today?”
“Nothing,” said Harry. “Watched the Ministry entrance for seven hours. No sign
of her. Saw your dad though, Ron. He looks fine.”
Ron nodded his appreciation of this news. The had agreed that it was far too
dangerous to try and communicate with Mr. Weasley while he walked in and out of the
Ministry, because he was always surrounded by other Ministry workers. It was, however,
reassuring to catch these glimpses of him, even if he did look very strained and anxious.
“Dad always told us most Ministry people use the Floo Network to get to work,”
Ron said. “That’s why we haven’t seen Umbridge, she’d never walk, she’d think she’s
too important.”
“And what about that funny old witch and that little wizard in the navy robes?”
Hermione asked.
“Oh yeah, the bloke from Magical Maintenance,” said Ron.
“How do you know he works for Magical Maintenance?” Hermione asked, her
soupspoon suspended in midair.
“Dad said everyone from Magical Maintenance wears navy blue robes.”
“But you never told us that!”
Hermione dropped her spoon and pulled toward her the sheaf of notes and maps
that she and Ron had been examining when Harry had entered the kitchen.
“There’s nothing in here about navy blue robes, nothing!” she said, flipping
feverishly through the pages.
“Well, dies it really matter?”
“Ron, it all matters! If we’re going to get into the Ministry and not give ourselves
away when they’re bound to be on the lookout for intruders, every little detail matters!
We’ve been over and over this, I mean, what’s the point of all these reconnaissance trips
if you aren’t even bothering to tell us –“
“Blimey, Hermione, I forget one little thing – “
“You do realize, don’t you, that there’s probably no more dangerous place in the
whole world for us to be right now than the Ministry of –“
“I think we should do it tomorrow,” said Harry.
Hermione stopped dead, her jaw hanging; Ron choked a little over his soup.
“Tomorrow?” repeated Hermione. “You aren’t serious, Harry?”
“I am,” said Harry. “I don’t think we’re going to be much better prepared than we
are now even if we skulk around the Ministry entrance for another month. The longer we
put it off, the farther away that locket could be. There’s already a good chance Umbridge
has chucked it away; the thing doesn’t open.”
“Unless,” said Ron, “she’s found a way of opening it and she’s now possessed.”
“Wouldn’t make any difference to her, she was so evil in the first place,” Harry
shrugged.
Hermione was biting her lip, deep in thought.
“We know everything important,” Harry went on, addressing Hermione. “We
know they’ve stopped Apparition in and out of the Ministry; We know only the most
senior Ministry members are allowed to connect their homes to the Floo Network now,
because Ron heard those two Unspeakables complaining about it. And we know roughly
where Umbridge’s office is, because of what you heard the bearded bloke saying to his
mate –“
“’I’ll be up on level one, Dolores wants to see me,’” Hermione recited
immediately.
“Exactly,” said Harry. “And we know you get in using those funny coins, or
tokens, or whatever they are, because I saw that witch borrowing one from her friend – “
“But we haven’t got any!”
“If the plan works, we will have,” Harry continued calmly.
“I don’t know, Harry, I don’t know … There are an awful lot of things that could
go wrong, so much relies on chance … “
That’ll be true even if we spend another three months preparing,” said Harry. “It’s
time to act.”
He could tell from Ron’s and Hermione’s faces that they were scared; he was not
particularly confident himself, and yet he was sure the time had come to put their plan
into operation.
They had spent the previous four weeks taking it in turns to don the Invisibility
Cloak and spy on the official entrance to the Ministry, which Ron, thanks to Mr. Weasley,
had known since childhood. They had tailed Ministry workers on their way in,
eavesdropped on their conversations, and learned by careful observation which of them
could be relied upon to appear, alone, at the same time every day. Occasionally there had
been a chance to sneak a Daily Prophet out of somebody’s briefcase. Slowly they had
built up the sketchy maps and notes now stacked in front of Hermione.
“All right,” said Ron slowly, “let’s say we go for it tomorrow … I think it should
just be me and Harry.”
“Oh, don’t start that again!” sighed Hermione. “I thought we’d settled this.”
“It’s one thing hanging around the entrances under the Cloak, but this is different.
Hermione,” Ron jabbed a finger at a copy of the Daily Prophet dated ten days previously.
“You’re on the list of Muggle-borns who didn’t present themselves for interrogation!”
“And you’re supposed to be dying of spattergroit at the Burrow! If anyone
shouldn’t go, it’s Harry, he’s got a ten-thousand-Galleon price on his head – “
“Fine, I’ll stay here,” said Harry. “Let me know if you ever defeat Voldemort,
won’t you?”
As Ron and Hermione laughed, pain shot through the scar on Harry’s forehead.
His hand jumped to it. He saw Hermione’s eyes narrow, and he tried to pass off the
movement by brushing his hair out of his eyes.
“Well, if all three of us go we’ll have to Disapparate separately,” Ron was saying.
“We can’t all fit under the Cloak anymore.”
Harry’s scar was becoming more and more painful. He stood up. At once,
Kreacher hurried forward.
“Master has not finished his soup, would master prefer the savory stew, or else the
treacle tart to which Master is so partial?”
“Thanks, Kreacher, but I’ll be back in a minute – er – bathroom.”
Aware that Hermione was watching him suspiciously, Harry hurried up the stairs
to the hall and then to the first landing, where he dashed into the bathroom and bolted the
door again. Grunting with pain, he slumped over the black basin with its taps in the form
of open-mouthed serpents and closed his eyes ….
He was gliding along a twilit street. The buildings on either side of him had high,
timbered gables; they looked like gingerbread houses. He approached one of them, then
saw the whiteness of his own long-fingered hand against the door. He knocked. He felt a
mounting excitement …
The door opened: A laughing woman stood there. Her face fell as she looked into
Harry’s face: humor gone, terror replacing it ….
“Gregorovitch?” said a high, cold voice.
She shook her head: She was trying to close the door. A white hand held it steady,
prevented her shutting him out …
“I want Gregorovitch.”
“Er wohnt hier nicht mehr!” she cried, shaking her head. “He no live here! He no
live here! I know him not!”
Abandoning the attempt to close the door, she began to back away down the dark
hall, and Harry followed, gliding toward her, and his long-fingered hand had drawn his
wand.
“where is he?”
“Das weiff ich nicht! He move! I know not, I know not!”
He raised his hand. She screamed. Two young children came running into the hall.
She tried to shield them with her arms. There was a flash of green light –
“Harry! HARRY!”
He opened his eyes; he had sunk to the floor. Hermione was pounding on the door
again.
“Harry, open up!”
He had shouted out, he knew it. He got up and unbolted the door; Hermione
toppled inside at once, regained her balance, and looked around suspiciously. Ron was
right behind her, looking unnerved as he pointed his wand into the corners of the chilly
bathroom.
“What were you doing?” asked Hermione sternly.
“What d’you think I was doing?” asked Harry with feeble bravado.
“You were yelling your head off!” said Ron.
“Oh yeah … I must’ve dozed off or – “
“Harry, please don’t insult our intelligence,” said Hermione, taking deep breaths.
“We know your scar hurt downstairs, and you’re white as a sheet.”
Harry sat down on the edge of the bath.
“Fine. I’ve just seen Voldemort murdering a woman. By now he’s probably killed
her whole family. And he didn’t need to. It was Cedric all over again, they were just there
… “
“Harry, you aren’t supposed to let this happen anymore!” Hermione cried, her
voice echoing through the bathroom. “Dumbledore wanted you to use Occlumency! HE
thought the connection was dangerous – Voldemort can use it, Harry! What good is it to
watch him kill and torture, how can it help?”
“Because it means I know what he’s doing,” said Harry.
“So you’re not even going to try to shut him out?”
“Hermione, I can’t. You know I’m lousy at Occlumency. I never got the hang of
it.”
“You never really tried!” she said hotly. “I don’t get it, Harry – do you like having
this special connection or relationship or what – whatever – “
She faltered under the look he gave her as he stood up.
“Like it?” he said quietly. “Would you like it?”
“I – no – I’m sorry, Harry. I just didn’t mean – “
“I hate it, I hate the fact that he can get inside me, that I have to watch him when
he’s most dangerous. But I’m going to use it.”
“Dumbledore –“
“Forget Dumbledore. This is my choice, nobody else’s. I want to know why he’s
after Gregorovitch.”
“Who?”
“He’s a foreign wandmaker,” said Harry. “He made Krum’s wand and Krum
reckons he’s brilliant.”
“But according to you,” said Ron, “Voldemort’s got Ollivander locked up
somewhere. If he’s already got a wandmaker, what does he need another one for?”
“Maybe he agrees with Krum, maybe he thinks Gregorovitch is better … or else
he thinks Gregorovitch will be able to explain what my wand did when he was chasing
me, because Ollivander didn’t know.”
Harry glanced into the cracked, dusty mirror and saw Ron and Hermione
exchanging skeptical looks behind his back.
“Harry, you keep talking about what your wand did,” said Hermione, “but you
made it happen! Why are you so determined not to take responsibility for your own
power?”
“Because I know it wasn’t me! And so does Voldemort, Hermione! We both
know what really happened!”
They glared at each other; Harry knew that he had not convinced Hermione and
that she was marshaling counterarguments, against both his theory on his wand and the
fact that he was permitting himself to see into Voldemort’s mind. To his relief, Ron
intervened.
“Drop it,” he advised her. “It’s up to him. And if we’re going to the Ministry
tomorrow, don’t you reckon we should go over the plan?”
Reluctantly, as the other two could tell, Hermione let the matter rest, though
Harry was quite sure she would attack again at the first opportunity. In the meantime,
they returned to the basement kitchen, where Kreacher served them all stew and treacle
tart.
They did not get to bed until late that night, after spending hours going over and
over their plan until they could recite it, word perfect, to each other. Harry, who was now
sleeping in Sirius’s room, lay in bed with his wandlight trained on the old photograph of
his father, Sirius, Lupin, and Pettigrew, and muttered the plan to himself for another ten
minutes. As he extinguished his wand, however, he was thinking not of Polyjuice Potion,
Puking Pastilles, or the navy blue robes of Magical Maintenance; he though of
Gregorovitch the wandmaker, and how long he could hope to remain hidden while
Voldemort sought him so determinedly.
Dawn seemed to follow midnight with indecent haste.
“You look terrible,” was Ron’s greeting as he entered the room to wake Harry.
“Not for long,” said Harry, yawning.
They found Hermione downstairs in the kitchen. She was being served coffee and
hot rolls by Kreacher and wearing the slightly manic expression that Harry associated
with exam review.
“Robes,” she said under her breath, acknowledging their presence with a nervous
nod and continuing to poke around in her beaded bag, “Polyjuice Potion … Invisibiliity
Cloak … Decoy Detonators … You should each take a couple just in case … Puking
Pastilles, Nosebleed Norgat, Extendable Ears …”
They gulped down their breakfast, then set off upstairs, Kreacher bowing them
out and promising to have a steak-and-kidney pie ready for them when they returned.
“Bless him,” said Ron fondly, “and when you think I used to fantasize about
cutting off his head and sticking it on the wall.”
They made their way onto the front step with immense caution. They could see a
couple of puffy-eyed Death Eaters watching the house from across the misty square.
Hermione Disapparated with Ron first, then came back for Harry.
After the usual brief spell of darkness and near suffocation, Harry found himself
in the tiny alleyway where the first phase of their plan was scheduled to take place. It was
as yet deserted, except for a couple of large bins; the first Ministry workers did not
usually appear here until at least eight o’clock.
“Right then,” said Hermione, checking her watch. “she ought to be here in about
five minutes. When I’ve Stunned her –“
“Hermione, we know,” said Ron sternly. “And I thought we were supposed to
open the door before she got here?”
Hermione squealed.
“I nearly forgot! Stand back –“
She pointed her wand at the padlocked and heavily graffitied fire door beside
them, which burst open with a crash. The dark corridor behind it led, as they knew from
their careful scouting trips, into an empty theater. Hermione pulled the door back toward
her, to make it look as thought it was still closed.
“And now,” she said, turning, back to face the other two in the alleyway, “we put
on the Cloak again –“
“—and we wait,” Ron finished, throwing it over Hermione’s head like a blanket
over a birdcage and rolling his eyes at Harry.
Little more than a minute later, there was a tiny pop and a little Ministry witch
with flyaway gray hair Apparated feet from them, blinking a little in the sudden
brightness: the sun had just come out from behind a cloud. She barely had time to enjoy
the unexpected warmth, however, before Hermione’s silent Stunning Spell hit her in the
chest and she toppled over.
“Nicely done, Hermione,” said Ron, emerging behind a bin beside the theater
door as Harry took off the Invisibility Cloak. Together they carried the little witch into
the dark passageway that led backstage. Hermione plucked a few hairs from the witch’s
head and added them to a flask of muddy Polyjuice Potion she had taken from the beaded
bag. Ron was rummaging through the little witch’s handbag.
“She’s Mafalda Hopkirk,” he said, reading a small card that identified their victim
as an assistant in the Improper Use of Magic Office. “You’d better take this, Hermione,
and here are the tokens.”
He passed her several small golden coins, all embossed with the letters M.O.M.,
which he had taken from the witch’s purse.
Hermione drank the Polyjuice Potion, which was now a pleasant heliotrope color,
and within seconds stood before them, the double of Mafalda Hopkirk. As she removed
Mafalda’s spectacles and put them on, Harry checked his watch.
“We’re running late, Mr. Magical Maintenance will be here any second.”
They hurried to close the door on the real Mafalda; Harry and Ron threw the
Invisibility Cloak over themselves but Hermione remained in view, waiting. Seconds
later there was another pop, and a small, ferrety looking wizard appeared before them.
“Oh, hello, Mafalda.”
“Hello!” said Hermione in a quavery voice, “How are you today?”
“Not so good, actually,” replied the little wizard, who looked thoroughly
downcast.
As Hermione and the wizard headed for the main road, Harry and Ron crept along
behind them.
“I’m sorry to hear you’re under the weather,” said Hermione, talking firmly over
the little wizard and he tried to expound upon his problems; it was essential to stop him
from reaching the street. “Here, have a sweet.”
“Eh? Oh, no thanks –“
“I insist!” said Hermione aggressively, shaking the bag of pastilles in his face.
Looking rather alarmed, the little wizard took one.
The effect was instantaneous. The moment the pastille touched his tongue, the
little wizard started vomiting so hard that he did not even notice as Hermione yanked a
handful of hairs from the top of his head.
“Oh dear!” she said, as he splattered the alley with sick. “Perhaps you’d better
take the day off!”
“No – no!” He choked and retched, trying to continue on his way despite being
unable to walk straight. “I must – today – must go – “
“But that’s just silly!” said Hermione, alarmed. “You can’t go to work in this state
– I think you ought to go to St. Mungo’s and get them to sort you out.”
The wizard had collapsed, heaving, onto all fours, still trying to crawl toward the
main street.
“You simply can’t go to work like this!” cried Hermione.
At last he seemed to accept the truth of her words. Using a reposed Hermione to
claw his way back into a standing position, he turned on the spot and vanished, leaving
nothing behind but the bag Ron had snatched from his hand as he went and some flying
chunks of vomit.
“Urgh,” said Hermione, holding up the skirt of her robe to avoid the puddles of
sick. “It would have made much less mess to Stun him too.”
“Yeah,” said Ron, emerging from under the cloak holding the wizard’s bag, “but I
still think a whole pile of unconscious bodies would have drawn more attention. Keen on
his job, though, isn’t he? Chuck us the hair and the potion, then.”
Within two minutes, Ron stood before them, as small and ferrety as the sick
wizard, and wearing the navy blue robes that had been folded in his bag.
“Weird he wasn’t wearing them today, wasn’t it, seeing how much he wanted to
go? Anyway, I’m Reg Cattermole, according to the label in the back.”
“Now wait here,” Hermione told Harry, who was still under the Invisibility Cloak,
“and we’ll be back with some hairs for you.”
He had to wait ten minutes, but it seemed much longer to Harry, skulking alone in
the sick-splattered alleyway beside the door concealing the Stunned Mafalda. Finally Ron
and Hermione reappeared.
“We don’t know who he is,” Hermione said, passing Harry several curly black
hairs, “but he’s gone home with a dreadful nosebleed! Here, he’s pretty tall, you’ll need
bigger robes …”
She pulled out a set of the old robes Kreacher had laundered for them, and Harry
retired to take the potion and change.
Once the painful transformation was complete he was more than six feet tall and,
from what he could tell from his well-muscled arms, powerfully built. He also had a
beard. Stowing the Invisibility Cloak and his glasses inside his new robes, he rejoined the
other two.
“Blimey, that’s scary,” said Ron, looking up at Harry, who now towered over him.
“Take one of Mafalda’s tokens,” Hermione told Harry, “and let’s go, it’s nearly
nine.”
They stepped out of the alleyway together. Fifty yards along the crowded
pavement there were spiked black railings flanking two flights of stairs, one labeled
GENTLEMEN, the other LADIES.
“See you in a moment, then,” said Hermione nervously, and she tottered off down
the steps to LADIES. Harry and Ron joined a number of oddly dressed men descending
into what appeared to be an ordinary underground public toilet, tiled in grimy black and
white.
“Morning, Reg!” called another wizard in navy blue robes as he let himself into a
cubicle by inserting his golden token into a slot in the door. “Blooming pain in the bum,
this, eh? Forcing us all to get to work this way! Who are they expecting to turn up, Harry
Potter?”
The wizard roared with laughter at his own wit. Ron gave a forced chuckle.
“Yeah,” he said, “stupid, isn’t it?”
And he and Harry let themselves into adjoining cubicles.
To Harry’s left and right came the sound of flushing. He crouched down and
peered through the gap at the bottom of the cubicle, just in time to see a pair of booted
feet climbing into the toilet next door. He looked left and saw Ron blinking at him.
“We have to flush ourselves in?” he whispered.
“Looks like it,” Harry whispered back; his voice came out deep and gravelly.
They both stood up. Feeling exceptionally foolish, Harry clambered into the toilet.
He knew at once that he had done the right thing; thought he appeared to be
standing in water, his shoes, feet, and robes remained quite dry. He reached up, pulled the
chain, and next moment had zoomed down a short chute, emerging out of a fireplace into
the Ministry of Magic.
He got up clumsily; there was a lot more of his body than he was accustomed to.
The great Atrium seemed darker than Harry remembered it. Previously a golden fountain
had filled the center of the hall, casting shimmering spots of light over the polished
wooden floor and walls. Now a gigantic statue of black stone dominated the scene. It was
rather frightening, this vast sculpture of a witch and a wizard sitting on ornately carved
thrones, looking down at the Ministry workers toppling out of fireplaces below them.
Engraved in foot-high letters at the base of the statue were the words MAGIC IS MIGHT.
Harry received a heavy blow on the back of the legs. Another wizard had just
flown out of the fireplace behind him.
“Out of the way, can’t y – oh, sorry, Runcorn.”
Clearly frightened, the balding wizard hurried away. Apparently the man who
Harry was impersonating, Runcorn, was intimidating.
“Psst!” said a voice, and he looked around to see a whispy little witch and the
ferrety wizard from Magical Maintenance gesturing to him from over beside the statue.
Harry hastened to join them.
“You got in all right, then?” Hermione whispered to Harry.
“No, he’s still stuck in the hog,” said Ron.
“Oh, very funny … It’s horrible, isn’t it?” she said to Harry, who was staring up
at the statue. “Have you seen what they’re sitting on?”
Harry looked more closely and realized that what he had thought were
decoratively carved thrones were actually mounds of carved humans: hundreds and
hundreds of naked bodies, men, women, and children, all with rather stupid, ugly faces,
twisted and pressed together to support the weight of the handsomely robed wizards.
“Muggles,” whispered Hermione, “In their rightful place. Come on, let’s get
going.”
They joined the stream of witches and wizards moving toward the golden gates at
the end of the hall, looking around as surreptitiously as possible, but there was no sign of
the distinctive figure of Dolores Umbridge. They passed through the gates and into a
smaller hall, where queues were forming in front of twenty golden grilles housing as
many lifts. They had barely joined the nearest one when a voice said, “Cattermole!”
They looked around: Harry’s stomach turned over. One of the Death Eaters who
had witnessed Dumbledore’s death was striding toward them. The Ministry workers
beside them fell silent, their eyes downcast; Harry could feel fear rippling through them.
The man’s scowling, slightly brutish face was somehow at odds with his magnificent,
sweeping robes, which were embroidered with much gold thread. Someone in the crowd
around the lifts called sycophantically, “Morning, Yaxley!” Yaxley ignored them.
“I requested somebody from Magical Maintenance to sort out my office,
Cattermole. It’s still raining in there.”
Ron looked around as though hoping somebody else would intervene, but nobody
spoke.
“Raining … in your office? That’s – that’s not good, is it?”
Ron gave a nervous laugh. Yaxley’s eyes widened.
“You think it’s funny, Cattermole, do you?”
A pair of witches broke away from the queue for the lift and bustled off.
“No,” said Ron, “no, of course –“
“You realize that I am on my way downstairs to interrogate your wife,
Cattermole? In fact, I’m quite surprised you’re not down there holding her hand while
she waits. Already given her up as a bad job, have you? Probably wise. Be sure and
marry a pureblood next time.”
Hermione had let out a little squeak of horror. Yaxley looked at her. She cough
feebly and turned away.
“I – I –“ stammered Ron.
“But if my wife were accused of being a Mudblood,” said Yaxley, “—not that any
woman I married would ever be mistaken for such filth – and the Head of Department of
Magical Law Enforcement needed a job doing, I would make it my priority to do this job,
Cattermole. Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” whispered Ron.
“Then attend to it, Cattermole, and if my office is not completely dry within an
hour, your wife’s Blood Status will be in even greater doubt than it is now.”
The golden grille before them clattered open. With a nod and unpleasant smile to
Harry, who was evidently expected to appreciate this treatment of Cattermole, Yaxley
swept away toward another lift. Harry, Ron, and Hermione entered theirs, but nobody
followed them: It was as if they were infectious. The grilles shut with a clang and the lift
began to move upward.
“What am I going to do?” Ron asked the other two at once; he looked stricken. “If
I don’t turn up, my wife … I mean, Cattermole’s wife – “
“We’ll come with you, we should stick together –“ began Harry, but Ron shook
his head feverishly.
“That’s mental, we haven’t got much time. You two find Umbridge, I’ll go and
sort out Yaxley’s office – but how do I stop a raining?”
“Try Finite Incantatem,” said Hermione at once, “that should stop the rain if it’s a
hex or curse; if it doesn’t something’s gone wrong with an Atmospheric Charm, which
will be more difficult to fix, so as an interim measure try Impervius to protect his
belongings – “
“Say it again, slowly – “ said Ron, searching his pockets desperately for a quill,
but at that moment the lift juddered to a halt. A disembodied female voice said, “Level
four, Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, incorporating
Beast, Being, and Spirit Divisions, Goblin Liaison Office, and Pest Advisory Bureau,”
and the grilles slid open again, admitting a couple of wizards and several pale violet
paper airplanes that fluttered around the lamp in the ceiling of the lift.
“Morning, Albert,” said a bushily whiskered man, smiling at Harry. He glanced
over at Ron and Hermione as the lift creaked upward once more; Hermione was now
whispering frantic instructions to Ron. The wizard leaned toward Harry, leering, and
muttering “Dirk Cresswell, eh? From Goblin Liaison? Nice one, Albert. I’m pretty
confident I’ll get his job now!”
He winked. Harry smiled back, hoping that this would suffice. The lift stopped;
the grilles opened once more.
“Level two, Department of Magical Law Enforcement, including the Improper
Use of Magic Office, Auror Headquarters, and Wizengamot Administration Services,”
said the disembodied witch’s voice.
Harry saw Hermione give Ron a little push and he hurried out of the lift, followed
by the other wizards, leaving Harry and Hermione alone. The moment the golden door
had closed Hermione said, very fast, “Actually, Harry, I think I’d better go after him, I
don’t think he knows what he’s doing and if he gets caught the whole thing – “
“Level one, Minister of Magic and Support Staff.”
The golden grilles slid apart again and Hermione gasped. Four people stood
before them, two of them deep in conversation: a long-haired wizard wearing magnificent
robes of black and gold, and a squat, toadlike witch wearing a velvet bow in her short
hair and clutching a clipboard to her chest.
Chapter Thirteen
The Muggle-Born Registration Commission
“Ah, Mafalda!” said Umbridge, looking at Hermione. “Travers sent you, did he?”
“Y-yes,” squeaked Hermione.
“God, you’ll do perfectly well.” Umbridge spoke to the wizard in black and gold.
“That’s that problem solved. Minister, if Mafalda can be spared for record-keeping we
shall be able to start straightaway.” She consulted her clipboard. “Ten people today and
one of them the wife of a Ministry employee! Tut, tut… even here, in the heart of the
Ministry!” She stepped into the lift besides Hermione, as did the two wizards who had
been listening to Umbridge’s conversation with the Minister. “We’ll go straight down,
Mafalda, you’ll find everything you need in the courtroom. Good morning, Albert, aren’t
you getting out?”
“Yes, of course,” said Harry in Runcorn’s deep voice.
Harry stepped out of the life. The golden grilles clanged shut behind him.
Glancing over his shoulder, Harry saw Hermione’s anxious face sinking back out of sight,
a tall wizard on either side of her, Umbridge’s velvet hair-bow level with her shoulder.
“What brings you here, Runcorn?” asked the new Minister of Magic. His long
black hair and beard were streaked with silver and a great overhanging forehead
shadowed his glinting eyes, putting Harry in the mind of a crab looking out from beneath
a rock.
“Needed a quick word with,” Harry hesitated for a fraction of a second, “Arthur
Weasley. Someone said he was up on level one.”
“Ah,” said Plum Thicknesse. “Has he been caught having contact with an
Undesirable?”
“No,” said Harry, his throat dry. “No, nothing like that.”
“Ah, well. It’s only a matter of time,” said Thicknesse. “If you ask me, the blood
traitors are as bad as the Mudbloods. Good day, Runcorn.”
“Good day, Minister.”
Harry watched Thicknesse march away along the thickly carpeted corridor. The
moment the Minister had passed out of sight, Harry tugged the Invisibility Cloak out
from under his heavy black cloak, threw it over himself, and set off along the corridor in
the opposite direction. Runcorn was so tall that Harry was forced to stoop to make sure
his big feet were hidden.
Panic pulsed in the pit of his stomach. As he passed gleaming wooden door after
gleaming wooden door, each bearing a small plaque with the owner’s name and
occupation upon it, the might of the Ministry, its complexity, its impenetrability, seemed
to force itself upon him so that the plan he had been carefully concocting with Ron and
Hermione over the past four weeks seemed laughably childish. They had concentrated all
their efforts on getting inside without being detected: They had not given a moment’s
thought to what they would do if they were forced to separate. Now Hermione was stuck
in court proceedings, which would undoubtedly last hours; Ron was struggling to do
magic that Harry was sure was beyond him, a woman’s liberty possibly depending on the
outcome, and he, Harry, was wandering around on the top floor when he knew perfectly
well that his quarry had just gone down in the lift.
He stopped walking, leaned against a wall, and tried to decide what to do. The
silence pressed upon him: There was no bustling or talk or swift footsteps here the
purple-carpeted corridors were as hushed as though the Muffliato charm had been cast
over the place.
Her office must be up here, Harry thought.
It seemed most unlikely that Umbridge would keep her jewelry in her office, but
on the other hand it seemed foolish not to search it to make sure. He therefore set off
along the corridor again, passing nobody but a frowning wizard who was murmuring
instructions to a quill that floated in front of him, scribbling on a trail of parchment.
Now paying attention to the names on the doors, Harry turned a corner. Halfway
along the next corridor he emerged into a wide, open space where a dozen witches and
wizards sat in rows at small desks not unlike school desks, though much more highly
polished and free from graffiti. Harry paused to watch them, for the effect was quite
mesmerizing. They were all waving and twiddling their wands in unison, and squares of
colored paper were flying in every direction like little pink kites. After a few seconds,
Harry realized that there was a rhythm to the proceedings, that the papers all formed the
same pattern and after a few more seconds he realized what he was watching was the
creation of pamphlets – that the paper squares were pages, which, when assembled,
folded and magicked into place, fell into neat stacks beside each witch or wizard.
Harry crept closer, although the workers were so intent on what they were doing
that he doubted they would notice a carpet-muffled footstep, and he slid a completed
pamphlet from the pile beside a young witch. He examined it beneath the Invisibility
Cloak. Its pink cover was emblazoned with a golden title:
Mudbloods
and the Dangers They Pose to
a Peaceful Pure-Blood Society
Beneath the title was a picture of a red rose with a simpering face in the middle of
its petals, being strangled by a green weed with fangs and a scowl. There was no author’s
name upon the pamphlet, but again, the scars on the back of his right hand seemed to
tingle as he examined it. Then the young witch beside him confirmed his suspicion as she
said, still waving and twirling her wand, “Will the old hag be interrogating Mudbloods all
day, does anyone know?”
“Careful,” said the wizard beside her, glancing around nervously; one of his pages
slipped and fell to the floor.
“What, has she got magic ears as well as an eye, now?”
The witch glanced toward the shining mahogany door facing the space full of
pamphlet-makers; Harry looked too, and the rage reared in him like a snake. Where there
might have been a peephole on a Muggle front door, a large, round eye with a bright blue
iris had been set into the wood – an eye that was shockingly familiar to anybody who had
known Alastor Moody.
For a split second Harry forgot where he was and what he was doing there: He
even forgot that he was invisible. He strode straight over to the door to examine the eye.
It was not moving. It gazed blindly upward, frozen. The plaque beneath it read:
Dolores Umbridge
Senior Undersecretary to the Minister
Below that a slightly shinier new plaque read:
Head of the Muggle-Born
Registration Commission
Harry looked back at the dozen pamphlet-makers: Though they were intent upon
their work, he could hardly suppose that they would not notice if the door of an empty
office opened in front of them. He therefore withdrew from an inner pocket an odd object
with little waving legs and a rubber-bulbed horn for a body. Crouching down beneath the
Cloak, he placed the Decoy Detonator on the ground.
It scuttled away at once through the legs of the witches and wizards in front of
him. A few moments later, during which Harry waited with his hand upon the doorknob,
there came a loud bang and a great deal of acrid smoke billowed from a corner. The
young witch in the front row shrieked: Pink pages flew everywhere as she and her
fellows jumped up, looking around for the source of the commotion. Harry turned the
doorknob, stepped into Umbridge’s office, and closed the door behind him.
He felt he had stepped back in time. The room was exactly like Umbridge’s office
at Hogwarts: Lace draperies, doilies and dried flowers covered every surface. The walls
bore the same ornamental plates, each featuring a highly colored, beribboned kitten,
gamboling and frisking with sickening cuteness. The desk was covered with a flouncy,
flowered cloth. Behind Mad-eye’s eye, a telescopic attachment enabled Umbridge to spy
on the workers on the other side of the door. Harry took a look through it and saw that
they were all still gathered around the Decoy Detonator. He wrenched the telescope out
of the door, leaving a hole behind, pulled the magical eyeball out of it, and placed it in his
pocket. The he turned to face the room again, raised his wand, and murmured, “Accio
Locker.”
Nothing happened, but he had not expected it to; no doubt Umbridge knew all
about protective charms and spells. He therefore hurried behind her desk and began
pulling open all the drawers. He saw quills and notebooks and Spellotape; enchanted
paper clips that coiled snakelike from their drawer and had be beaten back; a fussy little
lace box full of spare hair bows and clips; but no sign of a locket.
There was a filing cabinet behind the desk: Harry set to searching it. Like Filch’s
filing cabinet at Hogwarts, it was full of folders, each labeled with a name. It was not
until Harry reached the bottommost drawer that he saw something to distract him from
the search: Mr. Weasley’s file.
He pulled it out and opened it.
Arthur Weasley
Blood Status: Pureblood, but with unacceptable pro-Muggle
leanings. Known member of the Order of the
Phoenix.
Family: Wife (pureblood), seven children, two
youngest at Hogwarts. NB: Youngest son
currently at home, seriously ill, Ministry
inspectors have confirmed.
Security Status: TRACKED. All movements are being
monitored. Strong likelihood Undesirable No.
1 will contact (has stayed with Weasley
family previously)
“Undesirable Number One,” Harry muttered under his breath as he replaced Mr.
Weasley’s folder and shut the drawer. He had an idea he knew who that was, and sure
enough, as he straightened up and glanced around the office for fresh hiding places he
saw a poster of himself on the wall, with the words UNDESIRABLE NO. 1 emblazoned
across his chest. A little pink note was stuck to it with a picture of a kitten in the corner.
Harry moved across to read it and saw that Umbridge had written, “To be punished.”
Angrier than ever, he proceeded to grope in the bottoms of the vases and baskets
of dried flowers, but was not at all surprised that the locket was not there. He gave the
office one last sweeping look, and his heart skipped a beat. Dumbledore was staring at
him from a small rectangular mirror, propped up on a bookcase beside the desk.
Harry crossed the room at a run and snatched it up, but realized that the moment
he touched it that it was not a mirror at all. Dumbledore was smiling wistfully out of the
front cover of a glossy book. Harry had not immediately noticed the curly green writing
across his hat – The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore – nor the slightly smaller writing
across his chest: “by Rita Skeeter, bestselling author of Armando Dippet: Master or
Moron?”
Harry opened the book at random and saw a full-page photograph of two teenage
boys, both laughing immoderately with their arms around each other’s shoulders.
Dumbledore, now with elbow-length hair, had grown a tiny wispy beard that recalled the
one on Krum’s chin that had so annoyed Ron. The boy who roared in silent amusement
beside Dumbledore had a gleeful, wild look about him. His golden hair fell in curls to his
shoulders. Harry wondered whether it was a young Doge, but before he could check the
caption, the door of the office opened.
If Thicknesse had not been looking over his shoulder as he entered, Harry would
not have had time to pull the Invisibility Cloak over himself. As it was, he thought
Thicknesse might have caught a glimpse of movement, because for a moment or two he
remained quite still, staring curiously at the place where Harry had just vanished. Perhaps
deciding that that all he had seen was Dumbledore scratching his nose on the front of the
book, for Harry had hastily replaced it upon the shelf. Thicknesse finally walked to the
desk and pointed his wand at the quill standing ready in the ink pot. It sprang out and
began scribbling a note to Umbridge. Very slowly, hardly daring to breathe, Harry
backed out of the office into the open area beyond.
The pamphlet-makers were still clustered around the remains of the Decoy
Detonator, which continued to hoot feebly as it smoked. Harry hurried off up the corridor
as the young witch said, “I bet it sneaked up here from Experimental Charms, they’re so
careless, remember that poisonous duck?”
Speeding back toward the lifts, Harry reviewed his options. It had never been
likely that the locket was here at the Ministry, and there was no hope of bewitching its
whereabouts out of Umbridge while she was sitting in a crowded court. Their priority
now had to be to leave the Ministry before they were exposed, and try again another day.
The first thing to do was to find Ron, and then they could work out a way of extracting
Hermione from the courtroom.
The lift was empty when it arrived. Harry jumped in and pulled off the Invisibility
Cloak as it started its descent. To his enormous relief, when it rattled to a halt at level two,
a soaking-wet and wild-eyed Ron got in.
“M-morning,” he stammered to Harry as the lift set off again.
“Ron, it’s me, Harry!”
“Harry! Blimey, I forgot what you looked like – why isn’t Hermione with you?”
“She had to go down to the courtrooms with Umbridge, she couldn’t refuse, and –
“
But before Harry could finish the lift had stopped again. The doors opened and
Mr. Weasley walked inside, talking to an elderly witch whose blonde hair was teased so
high it resembled an anthill.
“… I quite understand what you’re saying, Wakanda, but I’m afraid I cannot be
party to – “
Mr. Weasley broke off; he had noticed Harry. It was very strange to have Mr.
Weasley glare at him with that much dislike. The lift doors closed and the four of them
trundled downward once more.
“Oh hello, Reg,” said Mr. Weasley, looking around at the sound of steady
dripping from Ron’s robes. “Isn’t your wife in for questioning today? Er – what’s
happened to you? Why are you so wet?”
“Yaxley’s office is raining,” said Ron. He addressed Mr. Weasley’s shoulder, and
Harry felt sure he was scared that his father might recognize him if they looked directly
into each other’s eyes. “I couldn’t stop it, so they’ve sent me to get Bernie – Pillsworth, I
think they said –“
“Yes, a lot of offices have been raining lately,” said Mr. Weasley. “Did you try
Meterolojinx Recanto? It worked for Bletchley.”
“Meteolojinx Recanto?” whispered Ron. “No, I didn’t. Thanks, D – I mean,
thanks, Arthur.”
The lift doors opened; the old witch with the anthill hair left, and Ron darted past
her out of sight. Harry made to follow him, but found his path blocked as Percy Weasley
strode into the lift, his nose buried in some papers he was reading.
Not until the doors had clanged shut again did Percy realize he was in a lit with
his father. He glanced up, saw Mr. Weasley, turned radish red, and left the lift the
moment the doors opened again. For the second time, Harry tried to get out, but this time
found his way blocked by Mr. Weasley’s arm.
“One moment, Runcorn.”
The lift doors closed and as they clanked down another floor, Mr. Weasley said,
“I hear you had information about Dirk Cresswell.”
Harry had the impression that Mr. Weasley’s anger was no less because of the
brush with Percy. He decided his best chance was to act stupid.
“Sorry?” he said.
“Don’t pretend, Runcorn,” said Mr. Weasley fiercely. “You tracked down the
wizard who faked his family tree, didn’t you?”
“I – so what if I did?” said Harry.
“So Dirk Cresswell is ten times the wizard you are,” said Mr. Weasley quietly, as
the lift sank ever lower. “And if he survives Azkaban, you’ll have to answer to him, not
to mention his wife, his sons, and his friends –“
“Arthur,” Harry interrupted, “you know you’re being tracked, don’t you?”
“Is that a threat, Runcorn?” said Mr. Weasley loudly.
“No,” said Harry, “it’s a fact! They’re watching your every move –“
The lift doors opened. They had reached the Atrium. Mr. Weasley gave Harry a
scathing look and swept from the lift. Harry stood there, shaken. He wished he was
impersonating somebody other than Runcorn…. The lift doors clanged shut.
Harry pulled out the Invisibility Cloak and put it back on. He would try to
extricate Hermione on his own while Ron was dealing with the raining office. When the
doors opened, he stepped out into a torch-lit stone passageway quite different from the
wood-paneled and carpeted corridors above. As the left rattled away again, Harry
shivered slightly, looking toward the distant black door that marked the entrance to the
Department of Mysteries.
He set off, his destination not the black door, but the doorway he remembered on
the left hand side, which opened onto the flight of stairs down to the court chambers. His
mind grappled with possibilities as he crept down them: He still had a couple of Decoy
Detonators, but perhaps it would be better to simply knock on the courtroom door, enter
as Runcorn, and ask for a quick word with Mafalda? Of course, he did not know whether
Runcorn was sufficiently important to get away with this, and even if he managed it,
Hermione’s non-reappearance might trigger a search before they were clear of the
Ministry….
Lost in thought, he did not immediately register the unnatural chill that was
creeping over him, as if he were descending into fog. It was becoming colder and colder
with every step he took; a cold that reached right down his throat and tore at his lungs.
And then he felt that stealing sense of despair, or hopelessness, filling him, expanding
inside him….
Dementors, he thought.
And as he reached the foot of the stairs and turned to his right he saw a dreadful
scene. The dark passage outside the courtrooms was packed with tall, black-hooded
figures, their faces completely hidden, their ragged breathing the only sound in the place.
The petrified Muggle-borns brought in for questioning sat huddled and shivering on hard
wooden benches. Most of them were hiding their faces in their hands, perhaps in an
instinctive attempt to shield themselves from the dementors’ greedy mouths. Some were
accompanied by families, others sat alone. The dementors were gliding up and down in
front of them, and the cold, and the hopelessness, and the despair of the place laid
themselves upon Harry like a curse….
Fight it, he told himself, but he knew that he could not conjure a Patronus here
without revealing himself instantly. So he moved forward as silently as he could, and
with every step he took numbness seemed to steal over his brain, but he forced himself to
think of Hermione and of Ron, who needed him.
Moving through the towering black figures was terrifying: The eyeless faces
hidden beneath their hoods turned as he passed, and he felt sure that they sensed him,
sensed, perhaps, a human presence that still had some hope, some resilience….
And then, abruptly and shockingly amid the frozen silence, one of the dungeon
doors on the left of the corridor was flung open and screams echoed out of it.
“No, no, I’m half-blood, I’m half-blood, I tell you! My father was a wizard, he
was, look him up, Arkie Alderton, he’s a well known broomstick designer, look him up, I
tell you – get your hands off me, get your hands off –“
“This is your final warning,” said Umbridge’s soft voice, magically magnified so
that it sounded clearly over the man’s desperate screams. “If you struggle, you will be
subjected to the Dementor’s Kiss.”
The man’s screams subsided, but dry sobs echoed through the corridor.
“Take him away,” said Umbridge.
Two dementors appeared in the doorway of the courtroom, their rotting, scabbed
hands clutching the upper arms of a wizard who appeared to be fainting. They glided
away down the corridor with him, and the darkness they trailed behind them swallowed
him from sight.
“Next – Mary Cattermole,” called Umbridge.
A small woman stood up; she was trembling from head to foot. Her dark hair was
smoothed back into a bun and she wore long plain robes. Her face was completely
bloodless. As she passed the dementors, Harry saw her shudder.
He did it instinctively, without any sort of plan, because he hated the sight of her
walking alone into the dungeon: As the door began to swing closed, he slipped into the
courtroom behind her.
It was not the same room in which he had once been interrogated for improper use
of magic. This one was much smaller, though the ceiling was quite as high it gave the
claustrophobic sense of being stuck at the bottom of a deep well.
There were more dementors in here, casting their freezing aura over the place;
they stood like faceless sentinels in the corners farthest from the high, raised platform.
Here, behind a balustrade, sat Umbridge, with Yaxley on one side of her, and Hermione,
quite as white-faced as Mrs. Cattermole, on the other. At the foot of the platform, a bightsilver,
long-haired cat prowled up and down, up and down, and Harry realized that it was
there to protect the prosecutors from the despair that emanated from the dementors: That
was for the accused to feel, not the accusers.
“Sit down,” said Umbridge in her soft, silky voice.
Mrs. Cattermole stumbled to the single seat in the middle of the floor beneath the
raised platform. The moment she had sat down, chains clinked out of the arms of the
chair and bound her there.
“You are Mary Elizabeth Cattermole?” asked Umbridge.
Mrs. Cattermole gave a single, shaky nod.
“Married to Reginald Cattermole of the Magical Maintenance Department?”
Mrs. Cattermole burst into tears.
“I don’t know where he is, he was supposed to meet me here!”
Umbridge ignored her.
“Mother to Maisie, Ellie and Alfred Cattermole?”
Mrs. Cattermole sobbed harder than ever.
“They’re frightened, they think that I might not come home –“
“Spare us,” spat Yaxley. “The brats of Mudbloods do not stir our sympathies.”
Mrs. Cattermole’s sobs masked Harry’s footsteps as he made his way carefully
toward the steps that led up to the raised platform. The moment he had passed the place
where the Patronus cat patrolled, he felt the change in temperature: It was warm and
comfortable here. The Patronus, he was sure, was Umbridge’s, and it glowed brightly
because she was so happy here, in her element, upholding the twisted laws she had
helped to write. Slowly and very carefully he edged his way along the platform behind
Umbridge, Yaxley, and Hermione, taking a seat behind the latter. He was worried about
making Hermione jump. He thought of casting the Muffliato charm upon Umbridge and
Yaxley, but even murmuring the word might cause Hermione alarm. Then Umbridge
raised her voice to address Mrs. Cattermole, and Harry seized his chance.
“I’m behind you,” he whispered into Hermione’s ear.
As he had expected, she jumped so violently she nearly overturned the bottle of
ink with which she was supposed to be recording the interview, but both Umbridge and
Yaxley were concentrating upon Mrs. Cattermole, and this went unnoticed.
“A wand was taken from you upon your arrival at the Ministry today, Mrs.
Cattermole,” Umbridge was saying. “Eight-and-three-quarter inches, cherry, unicorn-hair
core. Do you recognize the description?”
Mrs. Cattermole nodded, mopping her eyes on her sleeve.
“Could you please tell us from which witch or wizard you took that wand?”
“T-took?” sobbed Mrs. Cattermole. “I didn’t t-take it from anybody. I b-bought it
when I was eleven years old. It – it – it – chose me.”
She cried harder than ever.
Umbridge laughed a soft girlish laugh that made Harry want to attack her. She
leaned forward over the barrier, the better to observe her victim, and something gold
swung forward too, and dangled over the void: the locket.
Hermione had seen it; she let out a little squeak, but Umbridge and Yaxley, still
intent upon their prey, were deaf to everything else.
“No,” said Umbridge, “no, I don’t think so, Mrs. Cattermole. Wands only choose
witches or wizards. You are not a witch. I have your responses to the questionnaire that
was sent to you here – Mafalda, pass them to me.”
Umbridge held out a small hand: She looked so toadlike at that moment that
Harry was quite surprised not to see webs between the stubby fingers. Hermione’s hands
were shaking with shock. She fumbled in a pile of documents balanced on the chair
beside her, finally withdrawing a sheaf of parchment with Mrs. Cattermole’s name on it.
“That’s – that’s pretty, Dolores,” she said, pointing at the pendant gleaming in the
ruffled folds of Umbridge’s blouse.
“What?” snapped Umbridge, glancing down. “Oh yes – an old family heirloom,”
she said, patting the locket lying on her large bosom. “The S stands for Selwyn…. I am
related to the Selwyns…. Indeed, there are few pure-blood families to whom I am not
related. …A pity,” she continued in a louder voice, flicking through Mrs. Cattermole’s
questionnaire, “that the same cannot be said for you. ‘Parents professions:
greengrocers’.”
Yaxley laughed jeeringly. Below, the fluffy silver cat patrolled up and down, and
the dementors stood waiting in the corners.
It was Umbridge’s lie that brought the blood surging into Harry’s brain and
obliterated his sense of caution – that the locket she had taken as a bribe from a petty
criminal was being used to bolster her own pure-blood credentials. He raised his wand,
not even troubling to keep it concealed beneath the Invisibility Cloak, and said,
“Stupefy!”
There was a flash of red light; Umbridge crumpled and her forehead hit the edge
of the balustrade: Mrs. Cattermole’s papers slid off her lap onto the floor and, down
below, the prowling silver cat vanished. Ice-cold air hit them like an oncoming wind:
Yaxley, confused, looked around for the source of the trouble and saw Harry’s
disembodied hand and wand pointing at him. He tried to draw his own wand, but too late:
“Stupefy!”
Yaxley slid to the ground to lie curled on the floor.
“Harry!”
“Hermione, if you think I was going to sit here and let her pretend –“
“Harry, Mrs. Cattermole!”
Harry whirled around, throwing off the Invisibility Cloak; down below, the
dementors had moved out of their corners; they were gliding toward the woman chained
to the chair: Whether because the Patronus had vanished or because they sensed that their
masters were no longer in control, they seemed to have abandoned restraint. Mrs.
Cattermole let out a terrible scream of fear as a slimy, scabbed hand grasped her chin and
forced her face back.
“EXPECTO PATRONUM!”
The silver stag soared from the tip of Harry’s wand and leaped toward the
dementors, which fell back and melted into the dark shadows again. The stag’s light,
more powerful and more warming than the cat’s protection, filled the whole dungeon as it
cantered around the room.
“Get the Horcrux,” Harry told Hermione.
He ran back down the steps, stuffing the Invisibility Cloak into his back, and
approached Mrs. Cattermole.
“You?” she whispered, gazing into his face. “But – but Reg said you were the one
who submitted my name for questioning!”
“Did I?” muttered Harry, tugging at the chains binding her arms, “Well, I’ve had
a change of heart. Diffindo!” Nothing happened. “Hermione, how do I get rid of these
chains?”
“Wait, I’m trying something up here –“
“Hermione, we’re surrounded by dementors!”
“I know that, Harry, but if she wakes up and the locket’s gone – I need to
duplicate it – Geminio! There… That should fool her….”
Hermione came running downstairs.
“Let’s see…. Relashio!”
The chains clinked and withdrew into the arms of the chair. Mrs. Cattermole
looked just as frightened as ever before.
“I don’t understand,” she whispered.
“You’re going to leave here with us,” said Harry, pulling her to her feet. “Go
home, grab your children, and get out, get out of the country if you’ve got to. Disguise
yourselves and run. You’ve seen how it is, you won’t get anything like a fair hearing
here.”
“Harry,” said Hermione, “how are we going to get out of here with all those
dementors outside the door?”
“Patronuses,” said Harry, pointing his wand at his own. The stag slowed and
walked, still gleaming brightly, toward the door. “As many as we can muster; do yours,
Hermione.”
“Expec – Expecto patronum,” said Hermione. Nothing happened.
“It’s the only spell she ever has trouble with,” Harry told a completely bemused
Mrs. Cattermole. “Bit unfortunate, really… Come on Hermione….”
‘Expecto patronum!”
A silver otter burst from the end of Hermione’s wand and swam gracefully
through the air to join the stag.
“C’mon,” said Harry, and he led Hermione and Mrs. Cattermole to the door.
When the Patronuses glided out of the dungeon there were cries of shock from the
people waiting outside. Harry looked around; the dementors were falling back on both
sides of them, melding into the darkness, scattering before the silver creatures.
“It’s been decided that you should all go home and go into hiding with your
families,” Harry told the waiting Muggle-born, who were dazzled by the light of the
Patronuses and still cowering slightly. “Go abroad if you can. Just get well away from the
Ministry. That’s the – er – new official position. Now, if you’ll just follow the Patronuses,
you’ll be able to leave the Atrium.”
They managed to get up the stone stops without being intercepted, but as they
approached the lifts Harry started to have misgivings. If they emerged into the Atrium
with a silver stag, and otter soaring alongside it, and twenty or so people, half of them
accused Muggle-borns, he could not help feeling that they would attract unwanted
attention. He had just reached this unwelcome conclusion when the lift clanged to a halt
in front of them.
“Reg!” screamed Mrs. Cattermole, and she threw herself into Ron’s arms.
“Runcorn let me out, he attacked Umbridge and Yaxley, and he’s told all of us to leave
the country. I think we’d better do it, Reg, I really do, let’s hurry home and fetch the
children and – why are you so wet?”
“Water,” muttered Ron, disengaging himself. “Harry, they know there are
intruders inside the Ministry, something about a hole in Umbridge’s office door. I reckon
we’ve got five minutes if that –“
Hermione’s Patronus vanished with a pop as she turned a horror struck face to
Harry.
“Harry, if we’re trapped here – !”
“We won’t be if we move fast,” said Harry. He addressed the silent group behind
them, who were all gawping at him.
“Who’s got wands?”
About half of them raised their hands.
“Okay, all of you who haven’t got wands need to attach yourself to somebody
who has. We’ll need to be fast before they stop us. Come on.”
They managed to cram themselves into two lifts. Harry’s Patronus stood sentinel
before the golden grilles as they shut and the lifts began to rise.
“Level eight,” said the witch’s cool voice, “Atrium.”
Harry knew at once that they were in trouble. The Atrium was full of people
moving from fireplace to fireplace, sealing them off.
“Harry!” squeaked Hermione. “What are we going to – ?”
“STOP!” Harry thundered, and the powerful voice of Runcorn echoed through the
Atrium: The wizards sealing the fireplaces froze. “Follow me,” he whispered to the group
of terrified Muggle-borns, who moved forward in a huddle, shepherded by Ron and
Hermione.
“What’s up, Albert?” said the same balding wizard who had followed Harry out
of the fireplace earlier. He looked nervous.
“This lot need to leave before you seal the exits,” said Harry with all the authority
he could muster.
The group of wizards in front of him looked at one another.
“We’ve been told to seal all exits and not let anyone –“
“Are you contradicting me?” Harry blustered. “Would you like me to have your
family tree examined, like I had Dirk Cresswell’s?”
“Sorry!” gasped the balding wizard, backing away. “I didn’t mean nothing, Albert,
but I thought… I thought they were in for questioning and…”
“Their blood is pure,” said Harry, and his deep voice echoed impressively through
the hall. “Purer than many of yours, I daresay. Off you go,” he boomed to the Muggleborns,
who scurried forward into the fireplaces and began to vanish in pairs. The Ministry
wizards hung back, some looking confused, others scared and fearful. Then:
“Mary!”
Mrs. Cattermole looked over her shoulder. The real Reg Cattermole, no longer
vomiting but pale and wan, had just come running out of a lift.
“R- Reg?”
She looked from her husband to Ron, who swore loudly.
The balding wizard gaped, his head turning ludicrously from one Reg Cattermole
to the other.
“Hey – what’s going on? What is this?”
“Seal the exit! SEAL IT!”
Yaxley had burst out of another lift and was running toward the group beside the
fireplaces, into which all of the Muggle-borns but Mrs. Cattermole had now vanished. As
the balding wizard lifted his wand, Harry raised an enormous fist and punched him,
sending him flying through the air.
“He’s been helping Muggle-borns escape, Yaxley!” Harry shouted.
The balding wizard’s colleagues set up and uproar, under cover of which Ron
grabbed Mrs. Cattermole, pulled her into the still-open fireplace, and disappeared.
Confused, Yaxley looked from Harry to the punched wizard, while the real Reg
Cattermole screamed, “My wife! Who was that with my wife? What’s going on?”
Harry saw Yaxley’s head turn, saw an inkling of truth dawn on that brutish face.
“Come on!” Harry shouted at Hermione; he seized her hand and they jumped into
the fireplace together as Yaxley’s curse sailed over Harry’s head. They spun for a few
seconds before shooting up out of a toilet into a cubicle. Harry flung open the door: Ron
was standing there beside the sinks, still wrestling with Mrs. Cattermole.
“Reg, I don’t understand –“
“Let go, I’m not your husband, you’ve got to go home!”
There was a noise in the cubicle behind them; Harry looked around; Yaxley had
just appeared.
“LET’S GO!” Harry yelled. He seized Hermione by the hand and Ron by the arm
and turned on the stop.
Darkness engulfed them, along with the sensation of compressing hands, but
something was wrong…. Hermione’s hand seemed to be sliding out of his grip….
He wondered whether he was going to suffocate; he could not breathe or see and
the only solid things in the world were Ron’s arm and Hermione’s fingers, which were
slowly slipping away….
And then he saw the door to number twelve, Grimmauld Place, with its serpent
door knocker, but before he could draw breath, there was a scream and a flash of purple
light: Hermione’s hand was suddenly vicelike upon his and everything went dark again.
Chapter Fourteen
The Thief
Harry opened his eyes and was dazzled by gold and green; he had no idea what
had happened, he only knew that he was lying on what seemed to be leaves and twigs.
Struggling to draw breath into lungs that felt flattened, he blinked and realized that the
gaudy glare was sunlight streaming through a canopy of leaves far above him. Then an
object twitched close to his face. He pushed himself onto his hands and knees, ready to
face some small, fierce creature, but saw that the object was Ron’s foot. Looking around,
Harry saw that they and Hermione were lying on a forest floor, apparently alone.
Harry’s first thought was of the Forbidden Forest, and for a moment, even though
he knew how foolish and dangerous it would be for them to appear in the grounds of
Hogwarts, his heart leapt at the thought of sneaking through the trees to Hagrid’s hut.
However, in the few moments it took for Ron to give a low groan and Harry to start
crawling toward him, he realized that this was not the Forbidden Forest; The trees looked
younger, they were more widely spaced, the ground clearer.
He met Hermione, also on her hands and knees, at Ron’s head. The moment his
eyes fell upon Ron, all other concerns fled Harry’s mind, for blood drenched the whole of
Ron’s left side and his face stood out, grayish-white, against the leaf-strewn earth. The
Polyjuice Potion was wearing off now: Ron was halfway between Cattermole and himself
in appearance, his hair turning redder and redder as his face drained of the little color it
had left.
“What’s happened to him?”
“Splinched,” said Hermione, her fingers already busy at Ron’s sleeve, where the
blood was wettest and darkest.
Harry watched, horrified, as she tore open Ron’s short. He had always thought of
Splinching as something comical, but this . . . His insides crawled unpleasantly as
Hermione laid bare Ron’s upper arm, where a great chunk of flesh was missing, scooped
cleanly away as though by a knife.
“Harry, quickly, in my bag, there’s a small bottle labeled ‘Essence of Dittany’– “
“Bag – right –“
Harry sped to the place where Hermione had landed, seized the tiny beaded bag,
and thrust his hand inside it. At once, object after object began presenting itself to his
touch: He felt the leather spines of books, woolly sleeves of jumpers, heels of shoes –
“Quickly!”
He grabbed his wand from the ground and pointed it into the depths of the
magical bag.
“Accio Dittany!”
A small brown bottle zoomed out of the bag; he caught it and hastened back to
Hermione and Ron, whose eyes were now half-closed, strips of white eyeball all that
were visible between his lids.
“He’s fainted,” said Hermione, who was also rather pale; she no longer looked
like Mafalda, though her hair was still gray in places. “Unstopper it for me, Harry, my
hands are shaking.”
Harry wrenched the stopper off the little bottle, Hermione took it and poured three
drops of the potion onto the bleeding wound. Greenish smoke billowed upward and when
it had cleared, Harry saw that the bleeding had stopped. The wound now looked several
days old; new skin stretched over what had just been open flesh.
“Wow,” said Harry.
“It’s all I feel safe doing,” said Hermione shakily. “There are spells that would put
him completely right, but I daren’t try in case I do them wrong and cause more
damage. . . . He’s lost so much blood already. . . .”
“How did he get hurt? I mean” – Harry shook his head, trying to clear it, to make
sense of whatever had just taken place – “why are we here? I thought we were going back
to Grimmauld Place?”
Hermione took a deep breath. She looked close to tears.
“Harry, I don’t think we’re going to be able to go back there.”
“What d’you – ?”
“As we Disapparated, Yaxley caught hold of me and I couldn’t get rid of him, he
was too strong, and he was still holding on when we arrived at Grimmauld Place, and
then – well, I think he must have seen the door, and thought we were stopping there, so
he slackened his grip and I managed to sake him off and I brought us here instead!”
“But then, where’s he? Hang on. . . . You don’t mean he’s at Grimmauld Place?
He can’t get in there?”
Her eyes sparkled with unshed tears as she nodded.
“Harry, I think he can. I – I forced him to let go with a Revulsion Jinx, but I’d
already taken him inside the Fidelius Charm’s protection. Since Dumbledore died, we’re
Secret-Keepers, so I’ve given him the secret, haven’t I?”
There was no pretending; Harry was sure she was right. It was a serious blow. If
Yaxley could now get inside the house, there was no way that they could return. Even
now, he could be bringing other Death Eaters in there by Apparition. Gloomy and
oppressive though the house was, it had been their one safe refuge; even, now that
Kreacher was so much happier and friendlier, a kind of home. With a twinge of regret
that had nothing to do with food, Harry imagined the house-elf busying himself over the
steak-and-kidney pie that Harry, Ron, and Hermione would never eat.
“Harry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!”
“Don’t be stupid, it wasn’t your fault! If anything, it was mine. . . .”
Harry put his hand in his pocket and drew out Mad-Eye’s eye. Hermione recoiled,
looking horrified.
“Umbridge had stuck it to her office door, to spy on people. I couldn’t leave it
there . . . but that’s how they knew there were intruders.”
Before Hermione could answer, Ron groaned and opened his eyes. He was still
gray and his face glistened with sweat.
“How d’you feel?” Hermione whispered.
“Lousy,” croaked Ron, wincing as he felt his injured arm. “Where are we?”
“In the woods where they held the Quidditch World Cup,” said Hermione. “I
wanted somewhere enclosed, undercover, and this was –“
“– the first place you thought of,” Harry finished for her, glancing around at the
apparently deserted glade. He could not help remembering what had happened the last
time they had Apparated to the first place Hermione had thought of – how Death Eaters
had found them within minutes. Had it been Legilimency? Did Voldemort or his
henchmen know, even now, where Hermione had taken them?
“D’you reckon we should move on?” Ron asked Harry, and Harry could tell by
the look on Ron’s face that he was thinking the same.
“I dunno.”
Ron still looked pale and clammy. He had made no attempt to sit up and it looked
as though he was too weak to do so. The prospect of moving him was daunting.
“Let’s stay here for now,” Harry said.
Looking relieved, Hermione sprang to her feet.
“Where are you going?” asked Ron.
“If we’re staying, we should put some protective enchantments around the place,”
she replied, and raising her wand, she began to walk in a wide circle around Harry and
Ron, murmuring incantations as she went. Harry saw little disturbances in the
surrounding air: It was as if Hermione had cast a heat haze upon their clearing.
“Salvio Hexia . . . Protego Totalum . . . Repello Muggletum . . . Muffliato . . . You
could get out the tent, Harry. . . .”
“Tent?”
“In the bag!”
“In the . . . of course,” said Harry.
He did not bother to grope inside it this time, but used another Summoning Charm.
The tent emerged in a lumpy mass of canvas, ropes, and poles. Harry recognized it, partly
because of the smell of cats, as the same tent in which they had slept on the night of the
Quidditch World Cup.
“I thought this belonged to that bloke Perkins at the Ministry?” he asked, starting
to disentangle the pent pegs.
“Apparently he didn’t want it back, his lumbago’s so bad,” said Hermione, now
performing complicated figure-of-eight movements with her wand. “so Ron’s dad said I
could borrow it. Erecto!” she added, pointing her wand at the misshapen canvas, which in
one fluid motion rose into the air and settled, fully constructed, onto the ground before
Harry, out of whose startled hands a tent peg soared, to land with a final thud at the end
of a guy rope.
“Cave Inimicum,” Hermione finished with a skyward flourish. “That’s as much as
I can do. At the very least, we should know they’re coming; I can’t guarantee it will keep
out Vol –“
“Don’t say the name!” Ron cut across her, his voice harsh.
Harry and Hermione looked at each other.
“I’m sorry,” Ron said, moaning a little as he raised himself to look at them, “but it
feels like a – a jinx or something. Can’t we call him You-Know-Who – please?”
“Dumbledore said fear of a name –“ began Harry.
“In case you hadn’t noticed, mate, calling You-Know-Who by his name didn’t do
Dumbledore much good in the end,” Ron snapped back. “Just – just show You-Know-
Who some respect, will you?”
“Respect?” Harry repeated, but Hermione shot him a warning look; apparently he
was not to argue with Ron while the latter was in such a weakened condition.
Harry and Hermione half carried, half dragged Ron through the entrance of the
tent. The interior was exactly as Harry remembered it; a small flat, complete with
bathroom and tiny kitchen. He shoved aside an old armchair and lowered Ron carefully
onto the lower berth of a bunk bed. Even this very short journey had turned Ron whiter
still, and once they had settled him on the mattress he closed his eyes again and did not
speak for a while.
“I’ll make some tea,” said Hermione breathlessly, pulling kettle and mugs from
the depths of her bag and heading toward the kitchen.
Harry found the hot drink as welcome as the firewhisky had been on the night that
Mad-Eye had died; it seemed to burn away a little of the fear fluttering in his chest. After
a minute or two, Ron broke the silence.
“What d’you reckon happened to the Cattermoles?”
“With any luck, they’ll have got away,” said Hermione, clutching her hot mug for
comfort. “As long as Mr. Cattermole had his wits about him, he’ll have transported Mrs.
Cattermole by Side-Along-Apparition and they’ll be fleeing the country right now with
their children. That’s what Harry told her to do.”
“Blimey, I hope they escaped,” said Ron, leaning back on his pillows. The tea
seemed to be doing him good; a little of his color had returned. “I didn’t get the feeling
Reg Cattermole was all that quick-witted, though, the way everyone was talking to me
when I was him. God, I hope they made it. . . . If they both end up in Azkaban because of
us . . .”
Harry looked over at Hermione and the question he had been about to ask – about
whether Mrs. Cattermole’s lack of a wand would prevent her Apparating alongside her
husband – died in his throat. Hermione was watching Ron fret over the fate of the
Cattermoles, and there was such tenderness in her expression that Harry felt almost as if
he had surprised her in the act of kissing him.
“So, have you got it?” Harry asked her, partly to remind her that he was there.
“Got – got what?” she said with a little start.
“What did we just go through all that for? The locket! Where’s the locket?”
“You got it?” shouted Ron, raising himself a little higher on his pillows. “No one
tells me anything! Blimey, you could have mentioned it!”
“Well, we were running for our lives from the Death Eaters, weren’t we?” said
Hermione. “Here.”
And she pulled the locket out of the pocket of her robes and handed it to Ron.
It was as large as a chicken’s egg. An ornate letter S, inlaid with many small green
stones, glinted dully in the diffused light shining through the tent’s canvas roof.
“There isn’t any chance someone’s destroyed it since Kreacher had it?” asked
Ron hopefully. “I mean, are we sure it’s still a Horcrux?”
“I think so,” said Hermione, taking it back from him and looking at it closely.
“There’d be some sign of damage if it had been magically destroyed.”
She passed it to Harry, who turned it over in his fingers. The thing looked perfect,
pristine. He remembered the mangled remains of the diary, and how the stone in the
Horcrux ring had been cracked open when Dumbledore destroyed it.
“I reckon Kreacher’s right,” said Harry. “We’re going to have to work out how to
open this thing before we can destroy it.”
Sudden awareness of what he was holding, of what lived behind the little golden
doors, hit Harry as he spoke. Even after all their efforts to find it, he felt a violent urge to
fling the locket from him. Mastering himself again, he tried to prise the locket apart with
his fingers, then attempted the charm Hermione had used to open Regulus’s bedroom
door. Neither worked. He handed the locket back to Ron and Hermione, each of whom
did their best, but were no more successful at opening it than he had been.
“Can you feel it, though?” Ron asked in a hushed voice, as he held it tight in his
clenched fist.
“What d’you mean?”
Ron passed the Horcrux to Harry. After a moment or two, Harry thought he knew
what Ron meant. Was it his own blood pulsing through his veins that he could feel, or
was it something beating inside the locket, like a tiny metal heart?
“What are we going to do with it?” Hermione asked.
“Keep it safe till we work out how to destroy it.” Harry replied, and, little though
he wanted to, he hung the chain around his own neck, dropping the locket out of sight
beneath his robes, where it rested against his chest beside the pouch Hagrid had given
him.
“I think we should take it in turns to keep watch outside the tent,” he added to
Hermione, standing up and stretching. “And we’ll need to think about some food as well.
You stay there,” he added sharply, as Ron attempted to sit up and turned a nasty shade of
green.
With the Sneakoscope Hermione had given Harry for his birthday set carefully
upon the table in the tent, Harry and Hermione spent the rest of the day sharing the role
of lookout. However, the Sneakoscope remained silent and still upon its point all day, and
whether because of the protective enchantments and Muggle-repelling charms Hermione
had spread around them, or because people rarely ventured this way, their patch of wood
remained deserted, apart from occasional birds and squirrels. Evening brought no change;
Harry lit his wand as he swapped places with Hermione at ten o’clock, and looked out
upon a deserted scene, noting the bats fluttering high above him across the single patch of
starry sky visible from their protected clearing.
He felt hungry now, and a little light-headed. Hermione had not packed any food
in her magical bag, as she had assumed that they would be returning to Grimmauld Place
that night, so they had had nothing to eat except some wild mushrooms that Hermione
had collected from amongst the nearest trees and stewed in a Billycan. After a couple of
mouthfuls Ron had pushed his portion away, looking queasy; Harry had only persevered
so as to not hurt Hermione’s feelings.
The surrounding silence was broken by odd rustlings and what sounded like
crackings of twigs: Harry thought that they were caused by animals rather than people,
yet he kept his wand held tight at the ready. His insides, already uncomfortable due to
their inadequate helping of rubbery mushrooms, tingled with unease.
He had though that he would feel elated if they managed to steal back the Horcrux,
but somehow he did not; all he felt as he sat looking out at the darkness, of which his
wand lit only a tiny part, was worry about what would happen next. It was as though he
had been hurtling toward this point for weeks, months, maybe even years, but how he had
come to an abrupt halt, run out of road.
There were other Horcruxes out there somewhere, but he did not have the faintest
idea where they could be. He did not even know what all of them were. Meanwhile he
was at a loss to know how to destroy the only one that they had found, the Horcrux that
currently lay against the bare flesh of his chest. Curiously, it had not taken heat from his
body, but lay so cold against his skin it might just have emerged from icy water. From
time to time Harry thought, or perhaps imagined, that he could feel the tiny heartbeat
ticking irregularly alongside his own. Nameless forebodings crept upon him as he sat
there in the dark. He tried to resist them, push them away, yet they came at him
relentlessly. Neither can live while the other survives. Ron and Hermione, now talking
softly behind him in the tent, could walk away if they wanted to: He could not. And it
seemed to Harry as he sat there trying to master his own fear and exhaustion, that the
Horcrux against his chest was ticking away the time he had left. . . . Stupid idea, he told
himself, don’t think that. . . .
His scar was starting to prickle again. He was afraid that he was making it happen
by having these thoughts, and tried to direct them into another channel. He thought of
poor Kreacher, who had expected them home and had received Yaxley instead. Would
the elf keep silent or would he tell the Death Eater everything he knew? Harry wanted to
believe that Kreacher had changed towards him in the past month, that he would be loyal
now, but who knew what would happen? What if the Death Eaters tortured the elf? Sick
images swarmed into Harry’s head and he tried to push these away too, for there was
nothing he could do for Kreacher: He and Hermione had already decided against trying to
summon him; what if someone from the Ministry came too? They could not count on
elfish Apparition being free from the same flaw that had taken Yaxley to Grimmauld
Place on the hem of Hermione’s sleeve.
Harry’s scar was burning now. He thought that there was so much they did not
know: Lupin had been right about magic they had never encountered or imagined. Why
hadn’t Dumbledore explained more? Had he thought that there would be time; that he
would live for years, for centuries perhaps, like his friend Nicolas Flamel? If so, he had
been wrong. . . . Snape had seen to that. . . . Snape, the sleeping snake, who had struck at
the top of the tower . . .
And Dumbledore had fallen . . . fallen . . .
“Give it to me, Gregorovitch.”
Harry’s voice was high, clear, and cold, his wand held in front of him by a longfingered
white hand. The man at whom he was pointing was suspended upside down in
midair, though there were no ropes holding him; he swung there, invisibly and eerily
bound, his limbs wrapped about him, his terrified face, on a level with Harry’s ruddy due
to the blood that had rushed to his head. He had pure-white hair and a thick, bushy beard:
a trussed-up Father Christmas.
“I have it not, I have it no more! It was, many years ago, stolen from me!”
“Do not lie to Lord Voldemort, Gregorovitch. He knows. . . . He always knows.”
The hanging man’s pupils were wide, dilated with fear, and they seemed to swell,
bigger and bigger until their blackness swallowed Harry whole –
And how Harry was hurrying along a dark corridor in stout little Gregorovitch’s
wake as he held a lantern aloft: Gregorovitch burst into the room at the end of the passage
and his lantern illuminated what looked like a workshop; wood shavings and gold
gleamed in the swinging pool of light, and there on the window ledge sat perched, like a
giant bird, a young man with golden hair. In the split second that the lantern’s light
illuminated him, Harry saw the delight upon his handsome face, then the intruder shot a
Stunning Spell from his wand and jumped neatly backward out of the window with a
crow of laughter.
And Harry was hurtling back out of those wide, tunnellike pupils and
Gregorovitch’s face was stricken with terror.
“Who was the thief, Gregorovitch?” said the high cold voice.
“I do not know, I never knew, a young man – no – please – PLEASE!”
A scream that went on and on and then a burst of green light –
“Harry!”
He opened his eyes, panting, his forehead throbbing. He had passed out against
the side of the tent, had slid sideways down the canvas, and was sprawled on the ground.
He looked up at Hermione, whose bushy hair obscured the tiny patch of sky visible
through the dark branches high above them.
“Dream,” he said, sitting up quickly and attempting to meet Hermione’s glower
with a look of innocence. “Must’ve dozed off, sorry.”
“I know it was your scar! I can tell by the look on your face! You were looking
into Vol –“
“Don’t say his name!” came Ron’s angry voice from the depths of the tent.
“Fine,” retorted Hermione, “You-Know-Who’s mind, then!”
“I didn’t mean it to happen!” Harry said. “It was a dream! Can you control what
you dream about, Hermione?”
“If you just learned to apply Occlumency –“
But Harry was not interested in being told off; he wanted to discuss what he had
just seen.
“He’s found Gregorovitch, Hermione, and I think he’s killed him, but before he
killed him he read Gregorovitch’s mind and I saw –“
“I think I’d better take over the watch if you’re so tired you’re falling sleep,” said
Hermione coldly.
“I can finish the watch!”
“No, you’re obviously exhausted. Go and lie down.”
She dropped down in the mouth of the tent, looking stubborn. Angry, but wishing
to avoid a row, Harry ducked back inside.
Ron’s still-pale face was poking out from the lower bunk; Harry climbed into the
one above him, lay down, and looked up at the dark canvas ceiling. After several
moments, Ron spoke in a voice so low that it would not carry to Hermione, huddle in the
entrance.
“What’s You-Know-Who doing?”
Harry screwed up his eyes in the effort to remember every detail, then whispered
into the darkness.
“He found Gregorovitch. He had him tied up, he was torturing him.”
“How’s Gregorovitch supposed to make him a new wand if he’s tied up?”
“I dunno. . . . It’s weird, isn’t it?”
Harry closed his eyes, thinking of all that he had seen and heard. The more he
recalled, the less sense it made. . . . Voldemort had said nothing about Harry’s wand,
nothing about the twin cores, nothing about Gregorovitch making a new and more
powerful wand to beat Harry’s. . . .
“He wanted something from Gregorovitch,” Harry said, eyes still closed tight.
“He asked him to hand it over, but Gregorovitch said it had been stolen from him . . . and
then . . . then . . .”
He remembered how he, as Voldemort, had seemed to hurtle through
Gregorovitch’s eyes, into his memories. . . .
“He read Gregorovitch’s mind, and I saw this young bloke perched on a
windowsill, and he fired a curse at Gregorovitch and jumped out of sight. He stole it, he
stole whatever You-Know-Who’s after. And I . . . I think I’ve seen him somewhere. . . .”
Harry wished he could have another glimpse of the laughing boy’s face. The theft
had happened many years ago, according to Gregorovitch. Why did the young thief look
familiar?
The noises of the surrounding woods were muffled inside the tent; all Harry could
hear was Ron’s breathing. After a while, Ron whispered, “Couldn’t you see what the
thief was holding?”
“No . . . it must’ve been something small.”
“Harry?”
The wooden slats of Ron’s bunk creaked as he repositioned himself in bed.
“Harry, you don’t reckon You-Know-Who’s after something else to turn into a
Horcrux?”
“I don’t know,” said Harry slowly. “Maybe. But wouldn’t it be dangerous for him
to make another one? Didn’t Hermione say he had pushed his soul to the limit already?”
“Yeah, but maybe he doesn’t know that.”
“Yeah . . .maybe,” said Harry.
He had been sure that Voldemort had been looking for a way around the problem
of the twin cores, sure that Voldemort sought a solution from the old wandmaker . . . and
yet he had killed him, apparently without asking him a single question about wandlore.
What was Voldemort trying to find? Why, with the Ministry of Magic and the
Wizarding world at his feet, was he far away, intent on the pursuit of an object that
Gregorovitch had once owned, and which had been stolen by the unknown thief?
Harry could still see the blond-haired youth’s face; it was merry, wild; there was a
Fred and George-ish air of triumphant trickery about him. He had soared from the
windowsill like a bird, and Harry had seen him before, but he could not think where. . . .
With Gregorovitch dead, it was the merry-faced thief who was in danger now, and
it was on him that Harry’s thoughts dwelled, as Ron’s snores began to rumble from the
lower bunk and as he himself drifted slowly into sleep once more.
Chapter Fifteen
The Goblin’s Revenge
Early next morning, before the other two were awake, Harry left the tent to search
the woods around them for the oldest, most gnarled, and resilient-looking tree he could
find. There in its shadows he buried Mad-Eye Moody's eye and marked the spot by
gouging a small cross in the bark with his wand. It was not much, but Harry felt that
Mad-Eye would have much preferred this to being stuck on Dolores Umbridge's door.
Then he returned to the tent to wait for the others to wake, and discuss what they were
going to do next.
Harry and Hermione felt that it was best not to stay anywhere too long, and Ron
agreed, wit the sole proviso that their next move took them within reach of a bacon
sandwich. Hermione therefore removed the enchantments she had placed around the
clearing, while Harry and Ron obliterated all the marks and impressions on the ground
that might show they had camped there. Then they Disapparated to the outskirts of a
small market town.
Once they had pitched the tent in the shelter of a small copse of trees and
surrounded it with freshly cast defensive enchantments. Harry ventured out under the
Invisibility Cloak to find sustenance. This, however, did not go as planned. He had barely
entered the town when an unnatural chill, a descending mist, and a sudden darkening of
the skies made him freeze where he stood.
"But you can make a brilliant Patronus!" protested Ron, when Harry arrived back at the
tent empty handed, out of breath, and mouthing the single word, dementors.
"I couldn't . . . make one." he panted, clutching the stitch in his side. "Wouldn't . . .
come."
Their expressions of consternation and disappointment made Harry feel ashamed. It had
been a nightmarish experience, seeing the dementors gliding out of the must in the
distance and realizing, as the paralyzing cold choked his lungs and a distant screaming
filled his ears, that he was not going to be able to protect himself. It had taken all Harry's
willpower to uproot himself from the spot and run, leaving the eyeless dementors to glide
amongst the Muggles who might not be able to see them, but would assuredly feel the
despair they cast wherever they went.
"So we still haven't got any food."
"Shut up, Ron," snapped Hermione. "Harry, what happened? Why do you think
you couldn't make your Patronus? You managed perfectly yesterday!"
"I don't know."
He sat low in one of Perkins's old armchairs, feeling more humiliated by the
moment. He was afraid that something had gone wrong inside him. Yesterday seemed a
long time ago: Today me might have been thirteen years old again, the only one who
collapsed on the Hogwarts Express.
Ron kicked a chair leg.
"What?" he snarled at Hermione. "I'm starving! All I've had since I bled half to
death is a couple of toadstools!"
"You go and fight your way through the dementors, then," said Harry, stung.
"I would, but my arm's in a sling, in case you hadn't noticed!"
"That's convenient."
"And what's that supposed to — ?"
"Of course!" cried Hermione, clapping a hand to her forehead and startling both
of them into silence. "Harry, give me the locket! Come on," she said impatiently, clicking
her fingers at him when he did not react," to Horcrux, Harry, you're still wearing it!"
She held out her hands, and Harry lifted the golden chain over his head. The
moment it parted contact with Harry's skin he free and oddly light. He had not even
realized that he was clammy or that there was a heavy weight pressing on his stomach
until both sensations lifted.
"Better?" asked Hermione.
"Yeah, loads better!"
"Harry," she said, crouching down in front of him and using the kind of voice he
associated with visiting the very sick, "you don't think you've been possessed, do you?"
"What? No!" he said defensively, "I remember everything we've done while I've
bee wearing it. I wouldn't know what I'd done if I'd been possessed, would I? Ginny told
me there were times when she couldn't remember anything."
"Hmm," said Hermione, looking down at the heavy locket. "Well, maybe we
ought not to wear it. We can just keep it in the tent."
"We are not leaving that Horcrux lying around," Harry stated firmly. "If we lose it,
if it gets stolen—"
"Oh, all right, all right," said Hermione, and she placed it around her own neck
and tucked it out of sight down the front of her shirt. "But we'll take turns wearing it, so
nobody keeps it on too long."
"Great," said Ron irritably, "and now we've sorted that out, can we please get
some food?"
"Fine, but we'll go somewhere else to find it," said Hermione with half a glance at
Harry. "There's no point staying where we know dementors are swooping around."
In the end they settled down for the night in a far flung field belonging to a lonely
farm, from which they had managed to obtain eggs and bread.
"It's not stealing, is it?" asked Hermione in a troubled voice, as they devoured
scrambled eggs on toast. "Not if I left some money under the chicken coo?"
Ron rolled his eyes and said, with his cheeks bulging, "Er-my-nee, 'oo worry 'oo
much. 'Elax!"
And, indeed, it was much easier to relax when they were comfortably well fed.
The argument about the dementors was forgotten in laughter that night, and Harry felt
cheerful, even hopeful, as he took the first of the three night watches.
This was their first encounter with the fact that a full stomach meant good spirits,
an empty one, bickering and gloom. Harry was least surprised by this, because be had
suffered periods of near starvation at the Dursleys’. Hermione bore up reasonably well on
those nights when they managed to scavenge nothing but berries or stale biscuits, her
temper perhaps a little shorter than usual and her silences dour. Ron, however, had
always been used to three delicious meals a day, courtesy of his mother or of the
Hogwarts house-elves, and hunger made him both unreasonable and irascible. Whenever
lack of food coincided with Ron's turn to wear the Horcrux, he became downright
unpleasant.
"So where next?" was his constant refrain. He did not seem to have any ideas
himself, but expected Harry and Hermione to come up with plans while he sat and
brooded over the low food supplies. Accordingly Harry and Hermione spent fruitless
hours trying to decide where they might find the other Horcruxes, and how to destroy the
one they already got, their conversations becoming increasingly repetitive as they got no
new information.
As Dumbledore had told Harry that be believed Voldemort had hidden the
Horcruxes in places important to him, they kept reciting, in a sort of dreary litany, those
locations they knew that Voldemort had lived or visited. The orphanage where he had
been born and raised: Hogwarts, where he had been educated; Borgin and Burks, where
he had worked after completing school; then Albania, where he had spent his years of
exile: These formed the basis of their speculations.
"Yeah, let's go to Albania. Shouldn't take more than an afternoon to search an
entire country," said Ron sarcastically.
"There can't be anything there. He'd already made five of his Horcruxes before he
went into exile, and Dumbledore was certain the snake is the sixth," said Hermione. "We
know the snake's not in Albania, it's usually with Vol—"
"Didn't I ask you to stop say that?"
"Fine! The snake is usually with You-Know-Who—happy?"
"Not particularly."
"I can't see him hiding anything at Borgin and Burkes." said Harry, who had made
this point many times before, but said it again simply to break the nasty silence. "Borgin
and Burke were experts at Dark objects, they would've recognized a Horcrux
straightaway."
Ron yawned pointedly. Repressing a strong urge to throw something at him,
Harry plowed on, "I still reckon he might have hidden something at Hogwarts."
Hermione sighed.
"But Dumbledore would have found it, Harry!"
Harry repeated the argument he kept bringing out in favor of this theory.
"Dumbledore said in front of me that he never assumed he knew all of Hogwart's
secrets. I'm telling you, if there was one place Vol—"
"Oi!"
"YOU-KNOW-WHO, then!" Harry shouted, goaded past endurance. "If there was
one place that was really important to You-Know-Who, it was Hogwarts!"
"Oh, come on," scoffed Ron. "His school?"
"Yeah, his school! It was his first real home, the place that meant he was special:
it meant everything to him, and even after he left—"
"This is You-Know-Who we're talking about, right? Not you?" inquired Ron. He
was tugging at the chain of the Horcrux around his neck; Harry was visited by a desire to
seize it and throttle him.
"You told us that You-Know-Who asked Dumbledore to give him a job after he
left," said Hermione.
"That's right," said Harry.
"And Dumbledore thought he only wanted to come back to try and find something,
probably another founder's object, to make into another Horcrux?"
“Yeah,” said Harry.
“But he didn’t get the job, did he?” said Hermione. “So he never got the chance to
find a founder’s object there and hide it in the school!”
“Okay, then,” said Harry, defeated. “Forget Hogwarts.”
Without any other leads, they traveled into London and, hidden beneath the
Invisibility Cloak, search for the orphanage in which Voldemort had been raised.
Hermione stole into a library and discovered from their records that the place had been
demolished many years before. They visited its site and found a tower block of offices.
“We could try digging in to foundations?” Hermione suggested halfheartedly.
“He wouldn’t have hidden a Horcrux here,” Harry said. He had known it all along.
The orphanage had been the place Voldemort had been determined to escape; he would
never have hidden a part of his soul there. Dumbledore had shown Harry that Voldemort
sought grandeur or mystique in his hiding places; this dismal gray corner of London was
as far removed as you could imagine from Hogwarts of the Ministry or a building like
Gringotts, the Wizarding banks, with its gilded doors and marble floors.
Even without any new idea, they continued to move through the countryside,
pitching the tent in a different place each night for security. Every morning they made
sure that they had removed all clues to their presence, then set off to find another lonely
and secluded spot, traveling by Apparition to more woods, to the shadowy crevices of
cliffs, to purple moors, gorse-covered mountainsides, and once a sheltered and pebbly
cove. Every twelve hours or so they passed the Horcrux between them as though they
were playing some perverse, slow-motion game of pass-the-parcel, where they dreaded
the music stopping because the reward was twelve hours of increased fear and anxiety.
Harry’s scare kept prickling. It happened most often, he noticed, when he was
wearing the Horcrux. Sometimes he could not stop himself reacting to the pain.
“What? What did you see?” demanded Ron, whenever he noticed Harry wince.
“A face,” muttered Harry, every time. “The same face. The thief who stole from
Gregorovitch.”
And Ron would turn away, making no effort to hide his disappointment. Harry
knew that Ron was hoping to bear news of his family or the rest of the Order of the
Phoenix, but after all, he, Harry, was not a television aerial; he could only see what
Voldemort was thinking at the time, not tune in to whatever took his fancy. Apparently
Voldemort was dwelling endlessly on the unknown youth with the gleeful face, whose
name and whereabouts, Harry felt sure, Voldemort knew no better than he did. As
Harry’s scar continued to burn and the merry, blond-haired boy swam tantalizingly in his
memory, he learned to suppress any sign of pain or discomfort, for the other two showed
nothing but impatience at the mention of the thief. He could not entirely blame them,
when they were so desperate for a lean on the Horcruxes.
As the days stretched into weeks, Harry began to suspect that Ron and Hermione
were having conversations without, and about, him. Several times they stopped talking
abruptly when Harry entered the tent, and twice he came accidentally upon them, huddled
a little distance away, heads together and talking fast; both times they fell silent when
they realized he was approaching them and hastened to appear busy collecting wood or
water.
Harry could not help wondering whether they had only agreed to come on what
now felt like a pointless and rambling journey because they thought he had some secret
plan that they would learn in due course. Ton was making no effort to hide his bad mood,
and Harry was starting to fear that Hermione too was disappointed by his poor leadership.
In desperation he tried to think of further Horcrux locations, but the only one that
continued to occur to him was Hogwarts, and as neither of the others thought this at all
likely, he stopped suggesting it.
Autumn rolled over the countryside as they moved through it. They were now
pitching the tent on mulches of fallen leaves. Natural mists joined those cast by the
dementors; wind and rain added to their troubles. The fact that Hermione was getting
better at identifying edible fungi could not altogether compensate for their continuing
isolation, the lack of other people’s company, or their total ignorance of what was going
on in the war against Voldemort.
“My mother,” said Ron on night, as they sat in the tent on a riverbank in Wales,
“can make good food appear out of thin air.”
He prodded moodily at the lumps of charred gray fish on his plate. Harry glanced
automatically at Ron’s neck and saw, as he has expected, the golden chain of the Horcrux
glinting there. He managed to fight down the impulse to swear at Ron, whose attitude
would, he knew, improve slightly when the time came to take off the locket.
“Your mother can’t produce food out of thin air,” said Hermione. “no one can.
Food is the first of the five Principal Exceptions to Gamp’s Law of Elemental
Transfigura—”
“Oh, speak English, can’t you?” Ron said, prising a fish out from between his
teeth.
“It’s impossible to make good food out of nothing! You can Summon it if you
know where it is, you can transform it, you can increase the quantity if you’ve already got
some—”
“Well, don’t bother increasing this, it’s disgusting,” said Ron.
“Harry caught the fish and I did my best with it! I notice I’m always the one who
ends up sorting out the food, because I’m a girl, I suppose!”
“No, it’s because you’re supposed to be the best at magic!” shot back Ron.
Hermione jumped up and bits of roast pike slid off her tin plate onto the floor.
“You can do the cooking tomorrow, Ron, you can find the ingredients and try and
charm them into something worth eating, and I’ll sit here and pull faces and moan and
you can see you—”
“Shut up!,” said Harry, leaping to his feet and holding up both hands. “Shut up
now!”
Hermione looked outraged.
“How can you side with him, he hardly ever does the cook—”
“Hermione, be quiet, I can hear someone!”
He was listening hard, his hands still raised, warning them not to talk. Then, over
the rush and gush of the dark river beside them, he heard voices again. He looked around
at the Sneakoscope. It was not moving.
“You cast the Muffliato charm over us, right?” he whispered to Hermione.
“I did everything,” she whispered back, “Muffliato, Muggle-Repelling and
Disillusionment Charms, all of it. They shouldn’t be able to hear of see us, whoever they
are.”
Heavy scuffing and scraping noises, plus the sound of dislodged stones and twigs,
told them that several people were clambering down the steep, wooded slope that
descended to the narrow bank where they had pitched the tent. They drew their wands,
waiting. The enchantments they had cast around themselves ought to be sufficient, in the
near total darkness, to shield them from the notice of Muggles and normal witches and
wizards. If these were Death Eaters, then perhaps their defenses were about to be tested
by Dark Magic for the first time.
The voices became louder but no more intelligible as the group of men reached
the bank. Harry estimated that their owners were fewer than twenty feet away, but the
cascading river made it impossible to tell for sure. Hermione snatched up the beaded bag
and started to rummage; after a moment she drew out three Extendible Ears and threw
one each to Harry and Ron, who hastily inserted the ends of the flesh-colored strings into
their ears and fed the other ends out of the tent entrance.
Within seconds Harry heard a weary male voice.
“There ought to be a few salmon in here, or d’you reckon it’s too early in the
season? Accio Salmon!”
There were several distinct splashes and then the slapping sounds of fish against
flesh. Somebody grunted appreciatively. Harry pressed the Extendable ear deeper into his
own: Over the murmur of the river he could make out more voices, but they were not
speaking English or any human language he had ever heard. It was a rough and
unmelodious tongue, a string of rattling, guttural noises, and there seemed to be two
speakers, one with a slightly lower, slower voice than the other.
A fire danced into life on the other side of the canvas, large shadows passed
between tent and flames. The delicious smell of baking salmon wafted tantalizingly in
their direction. Then came the clinking of cutlery on plates, and the first man spoke again.
“Here, Griphook, Gornuk.”
Goblins! Hermione mouthed at Harry, who nodded.
“Thank you,” said the goblins together in English.
“So, you three have been on the run how long?” asked a new, mellow, and
pleasant voice; it was vaguely familiar to Harry, who pictured a round-bellied, cheerfulfaced
man.
“Six weeks . . . Seven . . . I forget,” said the tired man. “Met up with Griphook in
the first couple of days and joined forces with Gornuk not long after. Nice to have a but
of company.” There was a pause, while knives scraped plates and tin mugs were picked
up and replaced on the ground. “What made you leave, Ted?” continued the man.
“Knew they were coming for me,” replied mellow-voiced Ted, and Harry
suddenly knew who he was: Tonks’s father. “Heard Death Eaters were in the area last
week and decided I’d better run for it. Refused to register as a Muggle-born on principle,
see, so I knew it was a matter of time, knew I’d have to leave in the end. My wife should
be okay, she’s pure-blood. And then I net Dean here, what, a few days ago, son?”
“Yeah,” said another voice, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione stared at each other,
silent but besides themselves with excitement, sure they recognized the voice of Dean
Thomas, their fellow Gryffindor.
“Muggle-born, eh?” asked the first man.
“Not sure ,” said Dean. “My dad left my mum when I was a kid. I’ve got no proof
he was a wizard, though.”
There was silence for a while, except for the sounds of munching; then Ted spoke
again.
“I’ve got to say, Dirk, I’m surprised to run into you. Pleased, but surprised. Word
was that you’d been caught.”
“I was,” said Dirk. “I was halfway to Azkaban when I made a break for it.
Stunned Dawlish, and nicked his broom. It was easier than you’d think; I don’t reckon
he’s quite right at the moment .Might be Confunded. If so, I’d like to shake the hand of
the witch or wizard who did it, probably saved my life.”
There was another pause in which the fire crackled and the river rushed on. The
Ted said, “And where do you two fit in? I, er, had the impression the goblins were for
You-Know-Who, on the whole.”
“You had a false impression,” said the higher-voiced of the goblins. “We take no
sides. This is a wizards’ war.”
“How come you’re in hiding, then?”
“I deemed in prudent,” said the deeper-voiced goblin. “Having refused what I
considered an impertinent request, I could see that my person safety was in jeopardy.”
“What did they ask you to do?” asked Ted.
“Duties ill-befitting the dignity of my race,” replied the goblin, his voice rougher
and less human as he said it. “I am not a house-elf.”
“What about you, Griphook?”
“Similar reasons,” said the higher voiced goblin. “Gringotts is no longer under the
sole control of my race. I recognize no Wizarding master.”
He added something under his breath in Gobbledegook, and Gornuk laughed.
“What’s the joke?” asked Dean.
“He said,” replied Dirk, “that there are things wizards don’t recognize, either.”
There was a short pause.
“I don’t get it,” said Dean.
“I had my small revenge before I left,,” said Griphook in English.
“Good man—goblin, I should say,” amended Ted hastily. “Didn’t manage to lock
a Death Eater up in one of the old high-security vaults, I suppose?”
“If I had, the sword would not have helped him break out,” replied Griphook.
Gornuk laughed again and even Dirk gave a dry chuckle.
“Dean and I are still missing something here,” said Ted.
“So is Severus Snape, though he does not know it,” said Griphook, and the two
goblins roared with malicious laughter. Inside the tent Harry’s breathing was shallow
with excitement: He and Hermione stared at each other, listening as hard as they could.
“Didn’t you hear about that, Ted?” asked Dirk. “About the kids who tried to steal
Gryffindor’s sword out of Snape’s office at Hogwarts?”
An electric current seemed to course through Harry, jangling his every nerve as he
stood rooted to the spot.
“Never heard a word,” said Ted, “Not in the Prophet, was it?”
“Hardly,” chortled Dirk. “Griphook here told me, he heard about it from Bill
Weasley who works for the bank. One of the kids who tried to take the sword was Bill’s
younger sister.”
Harry glanced toward Hermione and Ron, both of whom were clutching the
Extendable Ears as tightly as lifelines.
“She and a couple of friends got into Snape’s office and smashed open the glass
case where he was apparently keeping the sword. Snape caught them as they were trying
to smuggle it down the staircase.
“Ah, God bless ‘em,” said Ted. “What did they think, that they’d be able to use
the sword on You-Know-Who? Or on Snape himself?
“Well, whatever they thought they were going to do with it, Snape decided the
sword wasn’t safe where it was,” said Dirk. “Couple of days later, once he’d got the sayso
from You-Know-Who, I imagine, he sent it down to London to be kept in Gringotts
instead.”
The goblins started to laugh again.
“I’m still not seeing the joke,” said Ted.
“It’s a fake,” rasped Griphook.
“The sword of Gryffindor!”
“Oh yes. It is a copy—en excellent copy, it is true—but it was Wizard-made. The
original was forged centuries ago by goblins and had certain properties only goblin-made
armor possesses. Wherever the genuine sword of Gryffindor is, it is not in a vault at
Gringotts bank.”
“I see,” said Ted. “And I take it you didn’t bother telling the Death Eaters this/’
“I saw no reason to trouble them with the information,” said Griphook smugly,
and now Ted and Dean joined in Gornuk and Dirk’s laughter.
Inside the tent, Harry closed his eyes, willing someone to ask the question he
needed answered, and after a minute that seemed ten, Dean obliged: he was (Harry
remembered with a jolt) an ex-boyfriend of Ginny’s too.
“What happened to Ginny and all the others? The ones who tried to steal it?”
“Oh, they were punished, and cruelly,” said Griphook indifferently.
“They’re okay, though?” asked Ted quickly, “I mean, the Weasleys don’t need
any more of their kids injured, do they?”
“They suffered no serious injury, as far as I am aware,” said Griphook.
“Lucky for them,” said Ted. “With Snape’s track record I suppose we should just
be glad they’re still alive.”
“You believe that story, then, do you, Ted?” asked Dirk.” You believe Snape
killed Dumbledore?
“Course I do,” said Ted. “You’re not going to sit there and tell me you think
Potter had anything to do with it?”
“Hard to know what to believe these days,” muttered Dirk.
“I know Harry Potter,” said Dean. “And I reckon he’s the real thing—the Chosen
One, or whatever you want to call it.”
“Yeah, there’s a lot would like to believe he’s that, son,” said Dirk, “me included.
But where is he? Run for it, by the looks of things. You’d think if he knew anything we
don’t, or had anything special going for him, he’d be out there now fighting, rallying
resistance, instead of hiding. And you know, the Prophet made a pretty good case against
him—”
“The Prophet?” scoffed Ted. “You deserve to be lied to if you’re still reading that
much, Dirk. You want the facts, try the Quibbler.”
There was a sudden explosion of choking and retching, plus a good deal of
thumping, by the sound of it. Dirk had swallowed a fish bone. At last he sputtered, “The
Quibbler? That lunatic rag of Xeno Lovegood’s?”
“It’s not so lunatic these days,” said Ted. “You want to give it a look, Xeno is
printing all the stuff the Prophet’s ignoring, not a single mention of Crumple-Horned
Snorkacks in the last issue. How long they’ll let him get with it, mind, I don’t know. But
Xeno says, front page of every issue, that any wizard who’s against You-Know-Who
ought to make helping Harry Potter their number-one priority.”
“Hard to help a boy who’s vanished off the face of the earth,” said Dirk.
“Listen, the fact that they haven’t caught him yet’s one hell of an achievement,”
said Ted. “I’d take tips from him gladly; it’s what we’re trying to do, stay free, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, well, you’ve got a point there,” said Dirk heavily. “With the whole of the
Ministry and all their informers looking for him, I’d have expected him to be caught by
now. Mind, who’s to say they haven’t already caught and killed him without publicizing
it?”
“Ah, don’t say that, Dirk,” murmured Ted.
There was a long pause filled with more clattering of knives and forks. When they
spoke again it was to discuss whether they ought to sleep on the back or retreat back up
the wooded slope. Deciding the trees would give better cover, they extinguished their fire,
then clambered back up the incline, their voices fading away.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione reeled in the Extendable Ears. Harry, who had found
the need to remain silent increasingly difficult the longer they eavesdropped, now found
himself unable to say more then, “Ginny—the sword—”
“I know!” said Hermione.
She lunged for the tiny beaded bag, this time sinking her arm in it right up to the
armpit.
“Here . . . we . . . are . . .” she said between gritted teeth, and she pulled at
something that was evidently in the depths of the bag. Slowly the edge of an ornate
picture frame came into sight. Harry hurried to help her. As they lifted the empty portrait
of Phineas Nigellus free of Hermione’s bag, she kept her wand pointing at it, ready to
cast a spell at any moment.
“If somebody swapped the real sword for the face while it was in Dumbledore’s
office,” she panted, as they propped the painting against the side of the tent, “Phineas
Nigellus would have seen it happen, he hangs right beside the case!”
“Unless he was asleep,” said Harry, but he still held his breath as Hermione knelt
down in front of the empty canvas, her wand directed at its center, cleared her throat, then
said:
“Er—Phineas? Phineas Nigellus?”
Nothing happened.
“Phineas Nigellus?” said Hermione again. “Professor Black? Please could we talk
to you? Please?”
“’Please’ always helps,” said a cold, snide voice, and Phineas Nigellus slid into
his portrait. At one, Hermione cried:
“Obscura!”
A black blindfold appeared over Phineas Nigellus’s clever, dark eyes, causing
him to bump into the frame and shriek with pain.
“What—how dare—what are you—?”
“I’m very sorry, Professor Black,” said Hermione, “but it’s a necessary
precaution!”
“remove this foul addition at once! Remove it, I say! You are ruining a great work
of art! Where am I? What is going on?”
“Never mind where we are,” said Harry, and Phineas Nigellus froze, abandoning
his attempts to peel off the painted blindfold.
“Can that possible be the voice of the elusive Mr. Potter?”
“Maybe,” said Harry, knowing that this would keep Phineas Nigellus’s interest.
“We’ve got a couple of questions to ask you—about the sword of Gryffindor.”
“Ah,” said Phineas Nigellus, now turning his head this way and that in an effort to
catch sight of Harry, “yes. That silly girl acted most unwisely there—”
“Shut up about my sister,” said Ron roughly, Phineas Nigellus raised supercilious
eyebrows.
“Who else is here?” he asked, turning his head from side to side. “Your tone
displeases me! The girl and her friends were foolhardily in the extreme. Thieving from
the headmaster.”
“They weren’t thieving,” said Harry. “That sword isn’t Snape’s.”
“It belongs to Professor Snape’s school,” said Phineas Nigellus. “Exactly what
claim did the Weasley girl have upon it? She deserved her punishment, as did the idiot
Longbottom and the Lovegood oddity!”
“Neville is not an idiot and Luna is not an oddity!” said Hermione.
“Where am I?” repeated Phineas Nigellus, starting to wrestle with the blindfold
again. “Where have you brought me? Why have you removed me from the house of my
forebears?”
“never mind that! How did Snape punish Ginny, Neville, and Luna?” asked Harry
urgently.
“Professor Snape sent them into the Forbidden Forest, to do some work for the
oaf, Hagrid.”
“Hagrid’s not an oaf!” said Hermione shrilly.
“And Snape might’ve though that was a punishment,” said Harry, “buy Ginny,
Neville, and Luna probably had a good laugh with Hagrid. The Forbidden Forest . . .
they’ve faced plenty worse than the Forbidden Forest, big deal!”
He felt relieved; he had been imagining horrors, the Cruciatus Curse at the very
least.
“What we really wanted to know, Professor Black, is whether anyone else has, um,
taken out the sword at all? Maybe it’s been taken away for cleaning—or something!”
Phineas Nigellus paused again in his struggles to free his eyes and sniggered.
“Muggle-born,” he said, “Goblin-made armor does not require cleaning, simple
girl. Goblin’s silver repels mundane dirt, imbibing only that which strengthens it.”
“Don’t call Hermione simple,” said Harry.
“I grow weary of contradiction,” said Phineas Nigellus. “perhaps it is time for me
to return to the headmaster’s office.?”
Still blindfolded, he began groping the side of his frame, trying to feel his way out
of his picture and back into the one at Hogwarts. Harry had a sudden inspiration.
“Dumbledore! Can’t you bring us Dumbledore?”
“I beg your pardon?” asked Phineas Nigellus.
“Professor Dumbledore’s portrait—couldn’t you bring him along, here, into
yours?”
Phineas Nigellus turned his face in the direction of Harry’s voice.
“Evidently it is not only Muggle-borns who are ignorant, Potter. The portraits of
Hogwarts may commune with each other, but they cannot travel outside of the castle
except to visit a painting of themselves elsewhere. Dumbledore cannot come here with
me, and after the treatment I have received at your hands, I can assure you that I will not
be making a return visit!”
Slightly crestfallen, Harry watched Phineas redouble his attempts to leave his
frame.
“Professor Black,” said Hermione, “couldn’t you just tell us, please, when was the
last time the sword was taken out of its case? Before Ginny took it out, I mean?”
Phineas snorted impatiently.
“I believe that the last time I saw the sword of Gryffindor leave its case was when
Professor Dumbledore used it to break open a ring.”
Hermione whipped around to look at Harry. Neither of them dared say more in
front of Phineas Nigellus, who had at least managed to locate the exit.
“Well, good night to you,” he said a little waspishly, and he began to move out of
sight again. Only the edge of his hat brim remained in view when Harry gave a sudden
shout.
“Wait! Have you told Snape you saw this?”
Phineas Nigellus stuck his blindfolded head back into the picture.
“Professor Snape has more important things on his mind that the many
eccentricities of Albus Dumbledore. Good-bye, Potter!”
And with that, he vanished completely, leaving behind him nothing but his murky
backdrop.
“Harry!” Hermione cried.
“I know!” Harry shouted. Unable to contain himself, he punched the air; it was
more than he had dared to hope for. He strode up and down the tent, feeling that he could
have run a mile; he did not even feel hungry anymore. Hermione was squashing Phineas
Nigellus’s back into the beaded bag; when she had fastened the clasp she threw the bag
aside and raised a shining face to Harry.
“The sword can destroy Horcruxes! Goblin-made blades imbibe only that which
strengthens them—Harry, that sword’s impregnated with basilisk venom!”
“And Dumbledore didn’t five it to me because he still needed it, he wanted to use
it on the locket—”
“—and he must have realized they wouldn’t let you have it if he put it in his
will—”
“—so he made a copy—”
“—and put a fake in the glass case—”
“—and he left the real one—where?”
They gazed at east other Harry felt that the answer was dangling invisibly in the
air above them, tantalizingly close. Why hadn’t Dumbledore told him? Or had he, in fact,
told Harry, but Harry had not realized it at the time?”
“Think!” whispered Hermione. “Think! Where would he have left it?”
“Not at Hogwarts,” said Harry, resuming his pacing.
“Somewhere in Hogsmeade?” suggested Hermione.
“The Shrieking Shack?” said Harry. “Nobody ever goes in there.”
“But Snape knows how to get in, wouldn’t that be a bit risky?”
“Dumbledore trusted Snape,” Harry reminded her.
“Not enough to tell him that he had swapped the swords,” said Hermione.
“Yeah, you’re right!” said Harry, and he felt even more cheered at the thought
that Dumbledore had had some reservations, however faint, about Snape’s
trustworthiness. “So, would he have hidden the sword well away from Hogsmeade, then?
What d’you reckon, Ron? Ron?”
Harry looked around. For one bewildered moment he thought that Ron had left
the tent, then realized that Ron was lying in the shadow of a bunk, looking stony.
“Oh, remembered me, have you?” he said.
“What?”
Ron snorted as he stared up at the underside of the upper bunk.
“You two carry on. Don’t let me spoil your fun.”
Perplexed, Harry looked to Hermione for help, but she shook her head, apparently
as nonplussed as he was.
“What’s the problem?” asked Harry.
“Problem? There’s no problem,” said Ron, still refusing to look at Harry. “Not
according to you, anyways.”
There were several plunks on the canvas over their heads. It had started to rain.
“Well, you’ve obviously got a problem,” said Harry. “Spit it out, will you?”
Ron swung his long legs off the bed and sat up. He looked mean, unlike himself.
“All right, I’ll spit it out. Don’t expect me to skip up and down the tent because
there’s some other damn thing we’ve got to find. Just add it to the list of stuff you don’t
know.”
“I don’t know?” repeated Harry. “I don’t know?”
Plunk, plunk, plunk. The rain was falling harder and heavier; it pattered on the
leaf-strewn bank all around them and into the river chattering through the dark. Dread
doused Harry’s jubilation; Ron was saying exactly what he had suspected and feared him
to be thinking.
“It’s not like I’m not having the time of my life here,” said Ron, “you know, with
my arm mangled and nothing to eat and freezing my backside off every night. I just
hoped, you know, after we’d been running round a few weeks, we’d have achieved
something.”
“Ron,” Hermione said, but in such a quiet voice that Ron could pretend not to
have heard it over the loud tattoo the rain was beating on the tent.
“I thought you knew what you’d signed up for,” said Harry.
“Yeah, I thought I did too.”
“So what part of it isn’t living up to your expectations?” asked Harry. Anger was
coming to his defense now. “Did you think we’d be staying in five-star hotels? Finding a
Horcrux every other day? Did you think you’d be back to Mummy by Christmas?”
“We thought you knew what you were doing!” shouted Ron, standing up, and his
words Harry like scalding knives. “We thought Dumbledore had told you what to do, we
thought you had a real plan!”
“Ron!” said Hermione, this time clearly audible over the rain thundering on the
tent roof, but again, he ignored her.
“Well, sorry to let you down,” said Harry, his voice quite calm even though he
felt hollow, inadequate. “I’ve been straight with you from the start. I told you everything
Dumbledore told me. And in the case you haven’t noticed, we’ve found one Horcrux—”
“Yeah, and we’re about as near getting rid of it as we are to finding the rest of
them—nowhere effing near in other words.”
“take off the locket, Ron,” Hermione said, her voice unusually high. “Please take
it off. You wouldn’t be talking like this if you hadn’t been wearing it all day.”
“Yeah, he would,” said Harry, who did not want excuses made for Ron. “D’you
think I haven’t noticed the two of you whispering behind my back? D’you think I didn’t
guess you were thinking this stuff?
“Harry, we weren’t—”
“Don’t lie!” Ron hurled at her. “You said it too, you said you were disappointed,
you said you’d thought he had a bit more to go on than—”
“I didn’t say it like that—Harry, I didn’t!” she cried.
The rain was pounding the tent, tears were pouring down Hermione’s face, and
the excitement of a few minutes before had vanished as if it had never been, a short-lived
firework that had flared and died, leaving everything dark, wet, and cold. The sword of
Gryffindor was hidden they knew not where, and their were three teenagers in a tent
whose only achievement was not, yet, to be dead.
“So why are you still here?” Harry asked Ron.
“Search me,” said Ron.
“Go home then,” said Harry.
“Yeah, maybe I will!” shouted Ron, and he took several steps toward Harry, who
did not back away. “Didn’t you hear what they said about my sister? But you don’t give a
rat’s fart, do you, it’s only the Forbidden Forest, Harry I’ve-Faced-Worse Potter doesn’t
care what happened to her in there—well, I do, all right, giant spiders and mental stuff—”
“I was only saying—she was with the others, they were with Hagrid—”
“Yeah, I get it, you don’t care! And what about the rest of my family, ‘the
Weasleys don’t need another kid injured,’ did you hear that?” “Yeah, I—”
“Not bothered what it meant, though?”
“Ron!” said Hermione, forcing her way between them. “I don’t think it means
anything new has happened, anything we don’t know about; think, Ron, Bill’s already
scared, plenty of people must have seen that George has lost an ear by now, and you’re
supposed to be on your deathbed with spattergroit, I’m sure that’s all he meant—”
“Oh, you’re sure, are you? Right then, well, I won’t bother myself about them.
It’s all right for you, isn’t it, with your parents safely out of the way—”
“My parents are dead!” Harry bellowed.
“And mine could be going the same way!” yelled Ron.
“Then GO!” roared Harry. “Go back to them, pretend you’re got over your
spattergroit and Mummy’ll be able to feed you up and—”
Ron made a sudden movement: Harry reacted, but before either wand was clear of
its owner’s pocket, Hermione had raised her own.
“Prestego!” she cried, and an invisible shield expanded between her and Harry on
the one side and Ron on the other; all of them were forced backward a few steps by the
strength of the spell, and Harry and Ron glared from either side of the transparent barrier
as though they were seeing each other clearly for the first time. Harry felt a corrosive
hatred toward Ron: Something had broken between them.
“Leave the Horcrux,” Harry said.
Ron wrenched the chain from over his head and cast the locket into a nearby chair.
He turned to Hermione.
“What are you doing?”
“What do you mean?”
“Are you staying, or what?”
“I . . .” She looked anguished. “Yes—yes, I’m staying. Ron, we said we’d go with
Harry, we said we’d help—”
“I get it. You choose him.”
“Ron, no—please—come back, come back!”
She was impeded by her own Shield Charm; by the time she had removed it he
had already stormed into the night. Harry stood quite still and silent, listening to her
sobbing and calling Ron’s name amongst the trees.
After a few minutes she returned, her sopping hair plastered to her face.
“He’s g-g-gone! Disapparated!”
She threw herself into a chair, curled up, and started to cry.
Harry felt dazed. He stooped, picked up the Horcrux, and placed it around his
own neck. He dragged blankets off Ron’s bunk and threw them over Hermione. Then he
climbed onto his own bed and stared up at the dark canvas roof, listening to the pounding
of the rain.
Chapter Sixteen
Godric’s Hollow
When Harry woke the following day it was several seconds before he
remembered what had happened. Then he hoped childishly, that it had been a dream, that
Ron was still there and had never left. Yet by turning his head on his pillow he could see
Ron's deserted bunk. It was like a dead body in the way it seems to draw his eyes. Harry
jumped down from his own bed, keeping his eyes averted from Ron's. Hermione, who
was already busy in the kitchen, did not wish Harry good morning, but turned
her face away quickly as he went by. He's gone, Harry told himself. He's gone. He had to
keep thinking it as he washed and dressed as though repetition would dull the shock of it.
He's gone and he's not coming back. And that was the simple truth of it, Harry knew,
because their protective enchantments meant that it would be impossible, once they
vacated this spot, for Ron to find them again. He and Hermione ate breakfast in silence.
Hermione's eyes were puffy and red; she looked as if she had not slept. They packed up
their things, Hermione dawdling. Harry knew why she wanted to spin out their time on
the riverbank; several times he saw her look up eagerly, and he was sure she had deluded
herself into thinking that she heard footsteps through the heavy rain, but no red-haired
figure appeared between the trees. Every time Harry imitated her, looked around ( for he
could not help hoping a little, himself) and saw nothing but rain-swept woods, another
little parcel of fury exploded inside him. He could hear Ron saying, "We thought you
knew what you were doing!", and he resumed packing with a hard knot in the pit of his
stomach.
The muddy river beside them was rising rapidly and would soon spill over onto their
bank. They had lingered a good hour after they would usually have departed their
campsite. Finally having entirely repacked the beaded bag three times, Hermione seemed
unable to find any more reasons to delay: She and Harry gasped hands and Disapparated,
reappearing on a windswept heather-covered hillside. The instant they arrived, Hermione
dropped Harry's hand and walked away from him, finally sitting down on a large rock,
her face on her knees, shaking with what he knew were sobs. He watched her, supposing
that he ought to go and comfort her, but something kept him rooted to the spot.
Everything inside him felt cold and tight: Again he saw the contemptuous expression on
Ron's face. Harry strode off through the heather, walking in a large circle with the
distraught Hermione at its center, casting the spell she usually performed to ensure their
protection.
They did not discuss Ron at all over the next few days. Harry was determined never to
mention his name again and Hermione seemed to know that it was no use forcing the
issue, although sometimes at night when she thought he was sleeping, he would hear her
crying. Meanwhile Harry had started bringing out the Marauder's map and examining it
by wandlight. He was waiting for the moment when Ron's labeled dot would reappear in
the corridors of Hogwarts, proving that he had returned to the comfortable castle,
protected by his status of pureblood. However, Ron did not appear on the map and after a
while Harry found himself taking it out simply to stare at Ginny's name in the girl's
dormitory, wondering whether the intensity with which he gazed at it might break into
her sleep, that she would somehow know he was thinking about her, hoping that she was
all right.
By day, hey devoted themselves to trying to determine the possible locations of
Gryffindor's sword, but the more they talked about the places in which Dumbledore
might have hidden it, the more desperate and far-fetched their speculation became.
Cudgel his brains though he might, Harry could not remember Dumbledore ever
mentioning a place in which he might hide something. There were moments when he did
not know whether he was angrier with Ron or with Dumbledore. We thought you knew
what you were doing ...We thought Dumbledore had told you what to do ... We thought
you had a real plan!
He could not hide it from himself: Ron had been right. Dumbledore had left him
with virtually nothing. They had discovered one Horcrux, but they had no means of
destroying it: The others were as unattainable as they had ever been. Hopelessness
threatened to engulf him. He was staggered now to think of his own presumption in
accepting his friends' offers to accompany him on this meandering, pointless journey. he
knew nothing, he had no ideas, and he was constantly, painfully on the alert for any
indications that Hermione too was about to tell him that she had had enough. That she
was leaving.
They were spending many evenings in near silence and Hermione took to bringing out
Phineas Nigellus's portrait and propping it up in a chair, as though he might fill part of
the gaping hole left by Ron's departure. Despite his previous assertion that he would
never visit them again, Phineas Nigellus did not seem able to resist the chance to find out
more about what Harry was up to and consented to reappear, blindfolded, every few days
of so. Harry was even glad to see him, because he was company, albeit of a snide and
taunting kind. They relished any news about what was happening at Hogwarts, though
Phineas Nigellus was not an ideal informer. He venerated Snape, the first Slytherin
headmaster since he himself had controlled the school, and they had to be careful not to
criticize or ask impertinent questions about Snape, or Phineas Nigellus would instantly
leave his painting.
However, he did let drop certain snippets. Snape seemed to be facing a constant,
low level of mutiny from a hard core of students. Ginny had been banned from going into
Hogsmeade. Snape had reinstated Umbridge's old decree forbidding gatherings of three
or more students or any unofficial student societies. From all of these things, Harry
deduced that Ginny, and probably Neville and Luna along with her, had been doing their
best to continue Dumbledore's Army. This scant news made Harry want to see Ginny so
badly it felt like a stomachache; but it also made him think of Ron again, and of
Dumbledore, and of Hogwarts itself, which he missed nearly as much as his ex-girlfriend.
Indeed, as Phineas Niggellus talked about Snape's crackdown, Harry experienced a split
second of madness when he imagined simply going back to school to join the
destabilization of Snape’s regime: Being fed and having a soft bad, and other people
being in charge, seemed the most wonderful prospect in the world at this moment. But
then he remembered that he was Undesirable Number One, that there was a ten-thousand
Galleon price on his head, and that to walk into Hogwarts these days was just as
dangerous as walking into the Ministry of Magic. Indeed, Phineas Nigellus inadvertently
emphasized this fact my slipping in leading questions about Harry and
Hermione's whereabouts. Hermione shoved him back inside the beaded bag every time
he did this, and Phineas Nigellus invariably refused to reappear for several days after
these unceremonious good-byes.
The weather grew colder and colder. They did not dare remain in any area too
long, so rather than staying in the south of England, where a hard ground frost was the
worst of their worries, they continued to meander up and down the country, braving a
mountainside, where sleet pounded the tent; a wide, flat marsh, where the tent was
flooded with chill water; and a tiny island in the middle of a Scottish loch, where snow
half buried the tent in the night. They had already spotted Christmas Trees twinkling
from several sitting room windows before there came an evening when Harry resolved to
suggest again, what seemed to him the only unexplored avenue left to them. They had
just eaten an unusually good meal: Hermione had been to a supermarket under the
Invisibility Cloak (scrupulously dropping the money into an open till as she left), and
Harry thought that she might be more persuadable than usual on a stomach full of
spaghetti Bolognese and tinned pears.
He had also had the foresight to suggest that they take a few hours’ break from
wearing the Horcrux, which was hanging over the end of the bunk beside him.
“Hermione?”
“Hmm?” She was curled up in one of the sagging armchairs with The Tales of
Beedle the Bard. He could not imagine how much more she could get out of the book,
which was not, after all, very long, but evidently she was still deciphering something in it,
because Spellman’s Syllabary lay open on the arm of the chair.
Harry cleared his throat. He felt exactly as he had done on the occasion, several
years previously, when he had asked Professor McGonagall whether he could go into
Hogsmeade, despite the fact that he had not persuaded the Dursleys to sign his
permission slip.
“Hermione, I’ve been thinking, and –“
“Harry, could you help me with something?”
Apparently she had not been listening to him. She leaned forward and held out
The Tales of Beedle the Bard.
“Look at that symbol,” she said, pointing to the top of a page. Above what Harry
assumed was the title of the story (being unable to read runes, he could not be sure), there
was a picture of what looked like a triangular eye, its pupil crossed with a vertical line.
“I never took Ancient Runes, Hermione.”
“I know that; but it isn’t a rune and it’s not in the syllabary, either. All along I
thought it was a picture of an eye, but I don’t think it is! It’s been inked in, look,
somebody’s drawn it there, it isn’t really part of the book. Think, have you ever seen it
before?”
“No . . . No, wait a moment.” Harry looked closer. “Isn’t it the same symbol
Luna’s dad was wearing round his neck?”
“Well, that’s what I thought too!”
“Then it’s Grindelwald’s mark.”
She stared at him, openmouthed.
“What?”
“Krum told me . . .”
He recounted the story that Viktor Krum had told him at the wedding. Hermione
looked astonished.
“Grindelwald’s mark?”
She looked from Harry to the weird symbol and back again. “I’ve never heard that
Grindelwald had a mark. There’s no mention of it in anything I’ve ever read about him.”
“Well, like I say, Krum reckoned that symbol was carved on a wall at Durmstrang,
and Grindelwald put it there.”
She fell back into the old armchair, frowning.
“That’s very odd. If it’s a symbol of Dark Magic, what’s it doing in a book of
children’s stories?”
“Yeah, it is weird,” said Harry. “And you’d think Scrimgeour would have
recognized it. He was Minister, he ought to have been expert on Dark stuff.”
“I know. . . . Perhaps he thought it was an eye, just like I did. All the other stories
have little pictures over the titles.”
She did not speak, but continued to pore over the strange mark. Harry tried again.
“Hermione?”
“Hmm?”
“I’ve been thinking. I – I want to go to Godric’s Hollow.”
She looked up at him, but her eyes were unfocused, and he was sure she was still
thinking about the mysterious mark on the book.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I’ve been wondering that too. I really think we’ll have to.”
“Did you hear me right?” he asked.
“Of course I did. You want to go to Godric’s Hollow. I agree. I think we should. I
mean, I can’t think of anywhere else it could be either. It’ll be dangerous, but the more I
think about it, the more likely it seems it’s there.”
“Er – what’s there?” asked Harry.
At that, she looked just as bewildered as he felt.
“Well, the sword, Harry! Dumbledore must have known you’d want to go back
there, and I mean, Godric’s Hollow is Godric Gryffindor’s birthplace –“
“Really? Gryffindor came from Godric’s Hollow?”
“Harry, did you ever even open A History of Magic?”
“Erm,” he said, smiling for what felt like the first time in months: The muscles in
his face felt oddly stiff. “I might’ve opened it, you know, when I bought it . . . just the
once. . . .”
“Well, as the village is named after him I’d have thought you might have made
the connection,” said Hermione. She sounded much more like her old self than she had
done of late; Harry half expected her to announce that she was off to the library. “There’s
a bit about the village in A History of Magic, wait . . .”
She opened the beaded bag and rummaged for a while, finally extracting her copy
of their old school textbook, A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot, which she thumbed
through until finding the page she wanted.
“’Upon the signature of the International Statute of Secrecy in 1689, wizards went
into hiding for good. It was natural, perhaps, that they formed their own small
communities within a community. Many small villages and hamlets attracted several
magical families, who banded together for mutual support and protection. The villages of
Tinworsh in Cornwall, Upper Flagley in Yorkshire, and Ottery St. Catchpole on the south
coast of England were notable homes to knots of Wizarding families who lived alongside
tolerant and sometimes Confunded Muggles. Most celebrated of these half-magical
dwelling places is, perhaps, Godric’s Hollow, the West Country village where the great
wizard Godric Gryffindor was born, and where Bowman Wright, Wizarding smith, forged
the first Golden Snitch. The graveyard is full of the names of ancient magical families,
and this accounts, no doubt, for the stories of hauntings that have dogged the little
church beside it for many centuries.’
“You and your parents aren’t mentioned.” Hermione said, closing the book,
“because Professor Bagshot doesn’t cover anything later than the end of the nineteenth
century. But you see? Godric’s Hollow, Godric Gryffindor, Gryffindor’s sword; don’t
you think Dumbledore would have expected you to make the connection?”
“Oh yeah . . .”
Harry did not want to admit that he had not been thinking about the sword at all
when he suggested they go to Godric’s Hollow. For him, the lore of the village lay in his
parents’ graves, the house where he had narrowly escaped death, and in the person of
Bathilda Bagshot.
“Remember what Muriel said?” he asked eventually.
“Who?”
“You know,” he hesitated. He did not want to say Ron’s name. “Ginny’s greataunt.
At the wedding. The one who said you had skinny ankles.”
“Oh,” said Hermione. It was a sticky moment: Harry knew that she had sensed
Ron’s name in the offing. He rushed on:
“She said Bathilda Bagshot still lived in Godric’s Hollow.”
“Bathilda Bagshot,” murmured Hermione, running her index finger over
Bathilda’s embossed name on the front cover of A History of Magic. “Well, I suppose –“
She gasped so dramatically that Harry’s insides turned over; he drew his wand,
looking around at the entrance, half expecting to see a hand forcing its way through the
entrance flap, but there was nothing there.
“What?” he said, half angry, half relieved. “What did you do that for? I thought
you’d seen a Death Eater unzipping the tent, at least –“
“Harry, what if Bathilda’s got the sword? What if Dumbledore entrusted it to
her?”
Harry considered this possibility. Bathilda would be an extremely old woman by
now, and according to Muriel, she was “gaga.” Was it likely that Dumbledore would
have hidden the sword of Gryffindor with her? If so, Harry felt that Dumbledore had left
a great deal to chance: Dumbledore had never revealed that he had replaced the sword
with a fake, nor had he so much as mentioned a friendship with Bathilda. Now, however,
was not the moment to cast doubt on Hermione’s theory, not when she was so
surprisingly willing to fall in with Harry’s dearest wish.
“Yeah, he might have done! So, are we going to go to Godric’s Hollow?”
“Yes, but we’ll have to think it through carefully, Harry.” She was sitting up now,
and Harry could tell that the prospect of having a plan again had lifted her mood as much
as his. “We’ll need to practice Disapparating together under the Invisibility Cloak for a
start, and perhaps Disillusionment Charms would be sensible too, unless you think we
should go the whole hog and use Polyjuice Potion? In that case we’ll need to collect hair
from somebody. I actually think we’d better do that, Harry, the thicker our disguises the
better. . . .”
Harry let her talk, nodding and agreeing whenever there was a pause, but his mind
had left the conversation. For the first time since he had discovered that the sword in
Gringotts was a fake, he felt excited.
He was about to go home, about to return to the place where he had had a family.
It was in Godric’s Hollow that, but for Voldemort, he would have grown up and spent
every school holiday. He could have invited friends to his house. . . . He might even have
had brothers and sisters. . . . It would have been his mother who had made his
seventeenth birthday cake. The life he had lost had hardly ever seemed so real to him as
at this moment, when he knew he was about to see the place where it had been taken
from him. After Hermione had gone to bed that night, Harry quietly extracted his
rucksack from Hermione’s beaded bag, and from inside it, the photograph album Hagrid
had given him so long ago. For the first time in months, he perused the old pictures of his
parents, smiling and waving up at him from the images, which were all he had left of
them now.
Harry would gladly have set out for Godric’s Hollow the following day, but
Hermione had other ideas. Convinced as she was that Voldemort would expect Harry to
return to the scene of his parents’ deaths, she was determined that they would set off only
after they had ensured that they had the best disguises possible. It was therefore a full
week later – once they had surreptitiously obtained hairs from innocent Muggles who
were Christmas shopping, and had practiced Apparating and Disapparating while
underneath the Invisibility Cloak together – that Hermione agreed to make the journey.
They were to Apparate to the village under cover of darkness, so it was late
afternoon when they finally swallowed Polyjuice Potion, Harry transforming into a
balding, middle-aged Muggle man, Hermione into his small and rather mousy wife. The
beaded bag containing all of their possessions (apart from the Horcrux, which Harry was
wearing around his neck) was tucked into an inside pocket of Hermione’s buttoned-up
coat. Harry lowered the Invisibility Cloak over them, then they turned into the
suffocating darkness once again.
Heart beating in his throat, Harry opened his eyes. They were standing hand in
hand in a snowy lane under a dark blue sky, in which the night’s first stars were already
glimmering feebly. Cottages stood on either side of the narrow road, Christmas
decorations twinkling in their windows. A short way ahead of them, a glow of golden
streetlights indicated the center of the village.
“All this snow!” Hermione whispered beneath the cloak. “Why didn’t we think of
snow? After all our precautions, we’ll leave prints! We’ll just have to get rid of them –
you go in front, I’ll do it –“
Harry did not want to enter the village like a pantomime horse, trying to keep
themselves concealed while magically covering their traces.
“Let’s take off the Cloak,” said Harry, and when she looked frightened, “Oh,
come on, we don’t look like us and there’s no one around.”
He stowed the Cloak under his jacket and they made their way forward
unhampered, the icy air stinging their faces as they passed more cottages. Any one of
them might have been the one in which James and Lily had once lived or where Bathilda
lived now. Harry gazed at the front doors, their snow-burdened roofs, and their front
porches, wondering whether he remembered any of them, knowing deep inside that it was
impossible, that he had been little more than a year old when he had left this place forever.
He was not even sure whether he would be able to see the cottage at all; he did not know
what happened when the subjects of a Fidelius Charm died. Then the little lane along
which they were walking curved to the left and the heart of the village, a small square,
was revealed to them.
Strung all around with colored lights, there was what looked like a war memorial
in the middle, partly obscured by a windblown Christmas tree. There were several shops,
a post office, a pub, and a little church whose stained-glass windows were glowing jewelbright
across the square.
The snow here had become impacted: It was hard and slippery where people had
trodden on it all day. Villagers were crisscrossing in front of them, their figures briefly
illuminated by streetlamps. They heard a snatch of laughter and pop music as the pub
door opened and closed; then they heard a carol start up inside the little church.
“Harry, I think it’s Christmas Eve!” said Hermione.
“Is it?”
He had lost track of the date; they had not seen a newspaper for weeks.
“I’m sure it is,” said Hermione, her eyes upon the church. “They . . . they’ll be in
there, won’t they? Your mum and dad? I can see the graveyard behind it.”
Harry felt a thrill of something that was beyond excitement, more like fear. Now
that he was so near, he wondered whether he wanted to see after all. Perhaps Hermione
knew how he was feeling, because she reached for his hand and took the lead for the first
time, pulling him forward. Halfway across the square, however, she stopped dead.
“Harry, look!”
She was pointing at the war memorial. As they had passed it, it had transformed.
Instead of an obelisk covered in names, there was a statue of three people: a man with
untidy hair and glasses, a woman with long hair and a kind, pretty face, and a baby boy
sitting in his mother’s arms. Snow lay upon all their heads, like fluffy white caps.
Harry drew closer, gazing up into his parents’ faces. He had never imagined that
there would be a statue. . . . How strange it was to see himself represented in stone, a
happy baby without a scar on his forehead. . . .
“C’mon,” said Harry, when he had looked his fill, and they turned again toward
the church. As they crossed the road, he glanced over his shoulder; the statue had turned
back into the war memorial.
The singing grew louder as they approached the church. It made Harry’s throat
constrict, it reminded him so forcefully of Hogwarts, of Peeves bellowing rude versions
of carols from inside suits of armor, of the Great Hall’s twelve Christmas trees, of
Dumbledore wearing a bonnet he had won in a cracker, of Ron in a hand-knitted
sweater. . . .
There was a kissing gate at the entrance to the graveyard. Hermione pushed it
open as quietly as possible and they edged through it. On either side of the slippery path
to the church doors, the snow lay deep and untouched. They moved off through the snow,
carving deep trenches behind them as they walked around the building, keeping to the
shadows beneath the brilliant windows.
Behind the church, row upon row of snowy tombstones protruded from a blanket
of pale blue that was flecked with dazzling red, gold, and green wherever the reflections
from the stained glass hit the snow. Keeping his hand closed tightly on the wand in his
jacket pocket, Harry moved toward the nearest grave.
“Look at this, it’s an Abbott, could be some long-lost relation of Hannah’s!”
“Keep your voice down,” Hermione begged him.
They waded deeper and deeper into the graveyard, gouging dark tracks into the
snow behind them, stooping to peer at the words on old headstones, every now and then
squinting into the surrounding darkness to make absolutely sure that they were
unaccompanied.
“Harry, here!”
Hermione was two rows of tombstones away; he had to wade back to her, his
heart positively banging in his chest.
“Is it – ?”
“No, but look!”
She pointed to the dark stone. Harry stooped down and saw , upon the frozen,
lichen-spotted granite, the words Kendra Dumbledore and, a short way down her dates of
birth and death, and Her Daughter Ariana. There was also a quotation:
Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
So Rita Skeeter and Muriel had got some of their facts right. The Dumbledore
family had indeed lived here, and part of it had died here.
Seeing the grave was worse than hearing about it. Harry could not help thinking
that he and Dumbledore both had deep roots in this graveyard, and that Dumbledore
ought to have told him so, yet he had never thought to share the connection. They could
have visited the place together; for a moment Harry imagined coming here with
Dumbledore, of what a bond that would have been, of how much it would have meant to
him. But it seemed that to Dumbledore, the fact that their families lay side by side in the
same graveyard had been an unimportant coincidence, irrelevant, perhaps, to the job he
wanted Harry to do.
Hermione was looking at Harry, and he was glad that his face was hidden in
shadow. He read the words on the tombstone again. Where your treasure is, there will
your heart be also. He did not understand what these words meant. Surely Dumbledore
had chosen them, as the eldest member of the family once his mother had died.
“Are you sure he never mentioned – ?” Hermione began.
“No,” said Harry curtly, then, “let’s keep looking,” and he turned away, wishing
he had not seen the stone: He did not want his excited trepidation tainted with resentment.
“Here!” cried Hermione again a few moments later from out of the darkness. “Oh
no, sorry! I thought it said Potter.”
She was rubbing at a crumbling, mossy stone, gazing down at it, a little frown on
her face.
“Harry, come back a moment.”
He did not want to be sidetracked again, and only grudgingly made his way back
through the snow toward her.
“What?”
“Look at this!”
The grave was extremely old, weathered so that Harry could hardly make out the
name. Hermione showed him the symbol beneath it.
“Harry, that’s the mark in the book!”
He peered at the place she indicated: The stone was so worn that it was hard to
make out what was engraved there, though there did seem to be a triangular mark beneath
the nearly illegible name.
“Yeah . . . it could be. . . .”
Hermione lit her wand and pointed it at the name on the headstone.
“It says Ig – Ignotus, I think. . . .”
“I’m going to keep looking for my parents, all right?” Harry told her, a slight edge
to his voice, and he set off again, leaving her crouched beside the old grave.
Every now and then he recognized a surname that, like Abbott, he had met at
Hogwarts. Sometimes there were several generations of the same Wizarding family
represented in the graveyard: Harry could tell from the dates that it had either died out, or
the current members had moved away from Godric’s Hollow. Deeper and deeper
amongst the graves he went, and every time he reached a new headstone he felt a little
lurch of apprehension and anticipation.
The darkness and the silence seemed to become, all of a sudden, much deeper.
Harry looked around, worried, thinking of dementors, then realized that the carols had
finished, that the chatter and flurry of churchgoers were fading away as they made their
way back into the square. Somebody inside the church had just turned off the lights.
Then Hermione’s voice came out of the blackness for the third time, sharp and
clear from a few yards away.
“Harry, they’re here . . . right here.”
And he knew by her tone that it was his mother and father this time: He moved
toward her, feeling as if something heavy were pressing on his chest, the same sensation
he had had right after Dumbledore had died, a grief that had actually weighed on his heart
and lungs.
The headstone was only two rows behind Kendra and Ariana’s. It was made of
white marble, just like Dumbledore’s tomb, and this made it easy to read, as it seemed to
shine in the dark. Harry did not need to kneel or even approach very close to it to make
out the words engraved upon it.
JAMES POTTER LILY POTTER
BORN 27 MARCH 1960 BORN 30 JANUARY 1960
DIED 31 OCTOBER 1981 DIED 31 OCTOBER 1981
The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
Harry read the words slowly, as though he would have only one chance to take in
their meaning, and he read the last of them aloud.
“’The last enemy that shall be defeated is death’ . . .” A horrible thought came to
him, and with a kind of panic. “Isn’t that a Death Eater idea? Why is that there?”
“It doesn’t mean defeating death in the way the Death Eaters mean it, Harry,” said
Hermione, her voice gentle. “It means . . . you know . . . living beyond death. Living after
death.”
But they were not living, thought Harry. They were gone. The empty words could
not disguise the fact that his parents’ moldering remains lay beneath snow and stone,
indifferent, unknowing. And tears came before he could stop them, boiling hot then
instantly freezing on his face, and what was the point in wiping them off or pretending?
He let them fall, his lips pressed hard together, looking down at the thick snow hiding
from his eyes the place where the last of Lily and James lay, bones now, surely, or dust,
not knowing or caring that their living son stood so near, his heart still beating, alive
because of their sacrifice and close to wishing, at this moment, that he was sleeping under
the snow with them.
Hermione had taken his hand again and was gripping it tightly. He could not look
at her, but returned the pressure, now taking deep, sharp gulps of the night air, trying to
steady himself, trying to regain control. He should have brought something o give them,
and he had not thought of it, and every plant in the graveyard was leafless and frozen. But
Hermione raised her wand, moved it in a circle through the air, and a wreath of Christmas
roses blossomed before them. Harry caught it and laid it on his parents’ grave.
As soon as he stood up he wanted to leave: He did not think he could stand
another moment there. He put his arm around Hermione’s shoulders, and she put hers
around his waist, and they turned in silence and walked away through the snow, past
Dumbledore’s mother and sister, back toward the dark church and the out-of-sight kissing
gate.
Chapter Seventeen
Bathilda’s Secret
"Harry, stop."
"What's wrong?"
They had only just reached the grave of the unknown Abbott.
"There's someone there. Someone watching us. I can tell. There, over by the bushes."
They stood quite still, holding on to each other, gazing at the dense black boundary of the
graveyard. Harry could not see anything.
"Are you sure?"
"I saw something move. I could have sworn I did..."
She broke from him to free her wand arm.
"We look like Muggles," Harry pointed out.
"Muggles who've just been laying flowers on your parents' grave? Harry, I'm sure there's
someone over there!"
Harry thought of A History of Magic; the graveyard was supposed to be haunted; what if
--? But then he heard a rustle and saw a little eddy of dislodged snow in the bush to
which Hermione had pointed. Ghosts could not move snow.
"It's a cat," said Harry, after a second or two, "or a bird. If it was a Death Eater we'd be
dead by now. But let's get out of here, and we can put the Cloak back on."
They glanced back repeatedly as they made their way out of the graveyard. Harry, who
did not feel as sanguine as he had pretended when reassuring Hermione, was glad to
reach the gate and the slippery pavement. They pulled the Invisibility Cloak back over
themselves. The pub was fuller than before. Many voices inside it were now singing the
carol that they had heard as they approached the church. For a moment, Harry considered
suggesting they take refuge inside it, but before he could say anything Hermione
murmured, "Let's go this way," and pulled him down the dark street leading out of the
village in the opposite direction from which they had entered. Harry could make out the
point where the cottages ended and the lane turned into open country again. They walked
as quickly as they dared, past more windows sparkling with multicolored lights, the
outlines of Christmas trees dark through the curtains.
"How are we going to find Bathilda's house?" asked Hermione, who was shivering a little
and kept glancing back over her shoulder. "Harry? What do you think? Harry?"
She tugged at this arm, but Harry was not paying attention. He was looking toward the
dark mass that stood at the very end of this row of houses. Next moment he sped up,
dragging Hermione along with him, she slipped a little on the ice.
"Harry --"
"Look ... Look at it, Hermione ..."
"I don't ... oh!"
He could see it; the Fidelius Charm must have died with James and Lily. The hedge had
grown wild in the sixteen years since Hagrid had taken Harry from the rubble that lay
scattered amongst the waist-high grass. Most of the cottage was still standing, though
entirely covered in the dark ivy and snow, but the right side of the top floor had been
blown apart; that, Harry was sure, was where the curse had backfired. He and Hermione
stood at the gate, gazing up at the wreck of what must once have been a cottage just like
those that flanked it.
"I wonder why nobody's ever rebuilt it?" whispered Hermione.
"Maybe you can't rebuild it?" Harry replied. "Maybe it's like the injuries from Dark
Magic and you can't repair the damage?"
He slipped a hand from beneath the Cloak and grasped the snowy and thickly rusted gate,
not wishing to open it, but simply so he'd some part of the house.
"You're not going to go inside? It looks unsafe, it might -- oh, Harry, look!"
His touch on the gate seemed to have done it. A sign had risen out of the ground in front
of them, up thorough the tangles of nettles and weeds, like some bizarre, fast-growing
flower, and in golden letters upon the wood it said:
On this spot, on this night of 31 October 1981,
Lily and James Potter lost their lives.
Their son, Harry, remains the only wizard
ever to have survived the Killing Curse.
This house, invisible to Muggles, has been left
in its ruined state as a monument to the Potters
and as a reminder of the violence
that tore apart their family.
And all around these neatly lettered words, scribbles had been added by other witches
and wizards who had come to see the place where the Boy Who Lived had escaped.
Some had merely signed their names in Everlasting Ink; others had carved their initials
into the wood, still others had left messages. The most recent of these, shining brightly
over sixteen years' worth of magical graffiti, all said similar things.
Good luck, Harry, wherever you are.
If you read this, Harry, we're all behind you!
Long live Harry Potter.
"They shouldn't have written on the sign!" said Hermione, indignant.
But Harry beamed at her.
"It's brilliant. I'm glad they did. I ..."
He broke off. A heavily muffled figure was hobbling up the lane toward them, silhouetted
by the bright lights in the distant square. Harry thought, though it was hard to judge, that
the figure was a woman. She was moving slowly, possibly frightened of slipping on the
snowy ground. Her stoop, her stoutness, her shuffling gait all gave an impression of
extreme age. They watched in silence as she drew nearer. Harry was waiting to see
whether she would turn into any of the cottages she was passing, but he knew
instinctively that she would not. At last she came to a halt a few yards from them and
simply stood there in the middle of the frozen road, facing them.
He did not need Hermione's pinch to his arm. There was next to no chance that this
woman was a Muggle: She was standing there gazing at a house that ought to have been
completely invisible to her, if she was not a witch. Even assuming that she was a witch,
however, it was odd behavior to come out on a night this cold, simply to look at an old
ruin. By all the rules of normal magic, meanwhile, she ought not to be able to see
Hermione and him at all. Nevertheless, Harry had the strangest feeling that she knew that
they were there, and also who they were. Just as he had reached this uneasy conclusion,
she raised a gloved hand and beckoned.
Hermione moved closer to him under the Cloak, her arm pressed against his.
"How does she know?"
He shook his head. The woman beckoned again, more vigorously. Harry could think of
many reasons not to obey the summons, and yet his suspicions about her identity were
growing stronger every moment that they stood facing each other in the deserted street.
Was it possible that she had been waiting for them all these long months? That
Dumbledore had told her to wait, and that Harry would come in the end? Was it not likely
that it was she who had moved in the shadows in the graveyard and had followed them to
this spot? Even her ability to sense them suggested some Dumbledore-ish power that he
had never encountered before.
Finally Harry spoke, causing Hermione to gasp and jump.
"Are you Bathilda?"
The muffled figure nodded and beckoned again.
Beneath the Cloak Harry and Hermione looked at each other. Harry raised his eyebrows;
Hermione gave a tiny, nervous nod.
They stepped toward the woman and , at once, she turned and hobbled off back the way
they had come. Leading them past several houses, she turned in at a gate. They followed
her up the front path through a garden nearly as overgrown as the one they had just left.
She fumbled for a moment with a key at the front door, then opened it and stepped back
to let them pass.
She smelled bad, or perhaps it was her house; Harry wrinkled his nose as they sidled past
her and pulled off the Cloak. Now that he was beside her, he realized how tiny she was;
bowed down with age, she came barely level with his chest. She closed the door behind
them, her knuckles blue and mottled against the peeling paint, then turned and peered into
Harry's face. Her eyes were thick with cataracts and sunken into folds of transparent skin,
and her whole face was dotted with broken veins and liver spots. He wondered whether
she could make him out at all; even if she could, it was the balding Muggle whose
identity he had stolen that she would see.
The odor of old age, of dust, of unwashed clothes and stale food intensified as the
unwound a moth-eaten black shawl, revealing a head of scant white hair through which
the scalp showed clearly.
"Bathilda?" Harry repeated.
She nodded again. Harry became aware of the locket against his skin; the thing inside it
that sometimes ticked or beat had woken; he could feel it pulsing through the cold gold.
Did it know, could it sense, that the thing that would destroy it was near?
Bathilda shuffled past them, pushing Hermione aside as though she had not seen her, and
vanished into what seemed to be a sitting room.
"Harry, I'm not sure about this," breathed Hermione.
"Look at the size of her, I think we could overpower her if we had to," said Harry. "Listen,
I should have told you, I knew she wasn't all there. Muriel called her 'gaga.'"
"Come!" called Bathilda from the next room.
Hermione jumped and clutched Harry's arm.
"It's okay," said Harry reassuringly, and he led the way into the sitting room.
Bathilda was tottering around the place lighting candles, but it was still very dark, not to
mention extremely dirty. Thick dust crunched beneath their feet, and Harry's nose
detected, underneath the dank and mildewed smell, something worse, like meat gone bad.
He wondered when was the last time anyone had been inside Bathilda's house to check
whether she was coping. She seemed to have forgotten that she could do magic, too, for
she lit the candles clumsily by hand, her trailing lace cuff in constant danger of catching
fire.
"Let me do that," offered Harry, and he took the matches from her. She stood watching
him as he finished lighting the candle stubs that stood on saucers around the room,
perched precariously on stacks of books and on side tables crammed with cracked and
moldy cups.
The last surface on which Harry spotted a candle was a bow-fronted chest of drawers on
which there stood a large number of photographs. When the flame danced into life, its
reflection wavered on their dusty glass and silver. He saw a few tiny movements from the
pictures. As Bathilda fumbled with logs for the fire, he muttered "Tergeo": The dust
vanished from the photographs, and he saw at once that half a dozen were missing from
the largest and most ornate frames. He wondered whether Bathilda or somebody else had
removed them. Then the sight of a photograph near the back of the collection caught his
eye, and he snatched it up.
It was the golden-haired, merry-faced thief, the young man who had perched on
Gregorovitch's windowsill, smiling lazily up at Harry out of the silver frame. And it came
to Harry instantly where he had seen the boy before: in The Life and Lies of Albus
Dumbledore, arm in arm with the teenage Dumbledore, and that must be where all the
missing photographs were: in Rita's book.
"Mrs. -- Miss -- Bagshot?" he said, and his voice shook slightly. "Who is this?"
Bathilda was standing in the middle of the room watching Hermione light the fire for her.
"Miss Bagshot?" Harry repeated, and he advanced with the picture in his hands as the
flames burst into life in the fireplace. Bathilda looked up at his voice, and the Horcrux
beat faster upon his chest.
"Who is this person?" Harry asked her, pushing the picture forward.
She peered at it solemnly, then up at Harry.
"Do you know who this is?" he repeated in a much slower and louder voice than usual.
"This man? Do you know him? What's he called?"
Bathilda merely looked vague. Harry felt an awful frustration. How had Rita Skeeter
unlocked Bathilda's memories?
"Who is this man?" he repeated loudly.
"Harry, what area you doing?" asked Hermione.
"This picture. Hermione, it's the thief, the thief who stole from Gregorovitch! Please!" he
said to Bathilda. "Who is this?"
But she only stared at him.
"Why did you ask us to come with you, Mrs. - Miss -- Bagshot?" asked Hermione,
raising her own voice. "Was there something you wanted to tell us?"
Giving no sign that she had heard Hermione, Bathilda now shuffled a few steps closer to
Harry. With a little jerk of her head she looked back into the hall.
"You want us to leave?" he asked.
She repeated the gesture, this time pointing firstly at him, then at herself, then at the
ceiling.
"Oh, right... Hermione, I think she wants me to go upstairs with her."
"All right," said Hermione, "let's go."
But when Hermione moved, Bathilda shook her head with surprising vigor, once more
pointing first at Harry, then to herself.
"She wants me to go with her, alone."
"Why?" asked Hermione, and her voice rang out sharp and clear in the candlelit room, the
old lady shook her head a little at the loud noise.
"Maybe Dumbledore told her to give the sword to me, and only to me?"
"Do you really think she knows who you are?"
"Yes," said Harry, looking down into the milky eyes fixed upon his own. "I think she
does."
"Well, okay then, but be quick, Harry."
"Lead the way," Harry told Bathilda.
She seemed to understand, because she shuffled around him toward the door. Harry
glanced back at Hermione with a reassuring smile, but he was not sure she had seen it;
she stood hugging herself in the midst of the candlelit squalor, looking toward the
bookcase. As Harry walked out of the room, unseen by both Hermione and Bathilda, he
slipped the silver-framed photograph of the unknown thief inside his jacket.
The stairs were steep and narrow; Harry was half tempted to place his hands on stout
Bathilda's backside to ensure that she did not topple over backward on top of him, which
seemed only too likely. Slowly, wheezing a little, she climbed to the upper landing,
turned immediately right, and led him into a low-ceilinged bedroom.
It was pitch-black and smelled horrible: Harry had just made out a chamber pot
protruding from under the bed before Bathilda closed the door and even that was
swallowed by the darkness.
"Lumos," said Harry, and his wand ignited. He gave a start: Bathilda had moved close to
him in those few seconds of darkness, and he had not heard her approach.
"You are Potter?" she whispered.
"Yes, I am."
She nodded slowly, solemnly. Harry felt the Horcrux beating fast, faster than his own
heart; It was an unpleasant, agitating sensation.
"Have you got anything for me?" Harry asked, but she seemed distracted by his lit wandtip.
"Have you got anything for me?" he repeated.
Then she closed her eyes and several things happened at once: Harry's scar prickled
painfully; the Horcrux twitched so that the front of his sweater actually moved; the dark,
fetid room dissolved momentarily. He felt a leap of joy and spoke in a high, cold voice:
Hold him!
Harry swayed where he stood: The dark, foul-smelling room seemed to close around him
again; he did not know what had just happened.
"Have you got anything for me?" he asked for a third time, much louder.
"Over here," she whispered, pointing to the corner. Harry raised his wand and saw the
outline of a cluttered dressing table beneath the curtained window.
This time she did not lead him. Harry edged between her and the unmade bed, his wand
raised. He did not want to look away from her.
"What is it?" he asked as he reached the dressing table, which was heaped high with what
looked and smelled like dirty laundry.
"There," she said, pointing at the shapeless mass.
And in the instant that he looked away, his eyes taking the tangled mess for a sword hilt,
a ruby, she moved weirdly: He saw it out of the corner of his eye; panic made him turn
and horror paralyzed him as he saw the old body collapsing and the great snake pouring
from the place where her neck had been.
The snake struck as he raised his wand: The force of the bite to his forearm sent the wand
spinning up toward the ceiling; its light swung dizzyingly around the room and was
extinguished; Then a powerful blow from the tail to his midriff knocked the breath out of
him: He fell backward onto the dressing table, into the mound of filthy clothing --
He rolled sideways, narrowly avoiding the snake's tail, which thrashed down upon the
table where he had been a second earlier. Fragments of the glass surface rained upon him
as he hit the floor. From below he heard Hermione call, "Harry?"
He could not get enough breath into his lungs to call back: Then a heavy smooth mass
smashed him to the floor and he felt it slide over him, powerful, muscular --
"No!" he gasped, pinned to the floor.
"Yes," whispered the voice. "Yesss... hold you ... hold you ..."
"Accio ... Accio Wand ..."
But nothing happened and he needed his hands to try to force the snake from him as it
coiled itself around his torso, squeezing the air from him, pressing the Horcrux hard into
his chest, a circle of ice that throbbed with life, inches from his own frantic heart, and his
brain was flooding with cold, white light, all thought obliterated, his own breath drowned,
distant footsteps, everything going...
A metal heart was banging outside his chest, and now he was flying, flying with triumph
in his heart, without need of broomstick or thestral...
He was abruptly awake in the sour-smelling darkness; Nagini had released him. He
scrambled up and saw the snake outlined against the landing light: It struck, and
Hermione dived aside with a shriek; her deflected curse hit the curtained window, which
shattered. Frozen air filled the room as Harry ducked to avoid another shower of broken
glass and his foot slipped on a pencil-like something -- his wand --
He bent and snatched it up, but now the room was full of the snake, its tail thrashing;
Hermione was nowhere to be seen and for a moment Harry thought the worst, but then
there was a loud bang and a flash of red light, and the snake flew into the air, smacking
Harry hard in the face as it went, coil after heavy coil rising up to the ceiling. Harry
raised his wand, but as he did so, his scar seared more painfully, more powerfully than it
had done in years.
"He's coming! Hermione, he's coming!"
As he yelled the snake fell, hissing wildly. Everything was chaos: It smashed shelves
from the wall, and splintered china flew everywhere as Harry jumped over the bed and
seized the dark shape he knew to be Hermione --
She shrieked with pain as he pulled her back across the bed: The snake reared again, but
Harry knew that worse than the snake was coming, was perhaps already at the gate, his
head was going to split open with the pain from his scar --
The snake lunged as he took a running leap, dragging Hermione with him; as it struck,
Hermione screamed, "Confringo!" and her spell flew around the room, exploding the
wardrobe mirror and ricocheting back at them, bouncing from floor to ceiling; Harry felt
the heat of it sear the back of his hand. Glass cut his cheek as, pulling Hermione with him,
he leapt from bed to broken dressing table and then straight out of the smashed window
into nothingness, her scream reverberating through the night as they twisted in midair ...
And then his scar burst open and he was Voldemort and he was running across the fetid
bedroom, his long white hands clutching at the windowsill as he glimpsed the bald man
and the little woman twist and vanish, and he screamed with rage, a scream that mingled
with the girl's, that echoed across the dark gardens over the church bells ringing in
Christmas Day...
And his scream was Harry's scream, his pain was Harry's pain... that it could happen here,
where it had happened before... here, within sight of that house where he had come so
close to knowing what it was to die ... to die ... the pain was so terrible ... ripped from his
body ... But if he had no body, why did his head hurt so badly; if he was dead, how cold
he feel so unbearably, didn't pain cease with death, didn't it go ...
The night wet and windy, two children dressed as pumpkins waddling across the square
and the shop windows covered in paper spiders, all the tawdry Muggle trappings of a
world in which they did not believe ... And he was gliding along, that sense of purpose
and power and rightness in him that he always knew on these occasions ... Not anger ...
that was for weaker souls than he ... but triumph, yes ... He had waited for this, he had
hoped for it ...
"Nice costume, mister!"
He saw the small boy's smile falter as he ran near enough to see beneath the hood of the
cloak, saw the fear cloud his pained face: Then the child turned and ran away ... Beneath
the robe he fingered the handle of his wand ... One simple movement and the child would
never reach his mother ... but unnecessary, quite unnecessary ...
And along a new and darker street he moved, and now his destination was in sight at last,
the Fidelius Charm broken, though they did not know it yet ... And he made less noise
than the dead leaves slithering along the pavement as he drew level with the dark hedge,
and steered over it ...
They had not drawn the curtains; he saw them quite clearly in their little sitting room, the
tall black-haired man in his glasses, making puffs of colored smoke erupt from his wand
for the amusement of the small black-haired boy in his blue pajamas. The child was
laughing and trying to catch the smoke, to grab it in his small fist ...
A door opened and the mother entered, saying words he cold not hear, her long dark-red
hair falling over her face. Now the father scooped up the son and handed him to the
mother. He threw his wand down upon the sofa and stretched, yawning...
The gate creaked a little as he pushed it open, but James Potter did not hear. His white
hand pulled out the wand beneath his cloak and pointed it at the door, which burst open...
He was over the threshold as James came sprinting into the hall. It was easy, too easy, he
had not even picked up his wand ...
"Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off!"
Hold him off, without a wand in his hand! ... He laughed before casting the curse ...
"Avada Kedavra!"
The green light filled the cramped hallway, it lit the pram pushed against the wall, it
made the banisters glow like lighting rods, and James Potter fell like a marionette whose
strings were cut ...
He could hear her screaming from the upper floor, trapped, but as long as she was
sensible, she, at least, had nothing to fear ... He climbed the steps, listening with faint
amusement to her attempts to barricade herself in ... She had no wand upon her either ...
How stupid they were, and how trusting, thinking that their safety lay in friends, that
weapons could be discarded even for moments...
He forced the door open, cast aside the chair and boxes hastily piled against it with one
lazy wave of his wand ... and there she stood, the child in her arms. At the sight of him,
she dropped her son into the crib behind her and threw her arms wide, as if this would
help, as if in shielding him from sight she hoped to be chosen instead ...
"Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!"
"Stand aside, you silly girl... stand aside, now."
"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead --"
"This is my last warning --"
"Not Harry! Please ... have mercy ... have mercy ... Not Harry! Not Harry! Please -- I'll
do anything ..."
"Stand aside. Stand aside, girl!"
He could have forced her away from the crib, but it seemed more prudent to finish them
all ...
The green light flashed around the room and she dropped like her husband. The child had
not cried all this time. He could stand, clutching the bars of his crib, and he looked up
into the intruder's face with a kind of bright interest, perhaps thinking that it was his
father who hid beneath the cloak, making more pretty lights, and his mother would pop
up any moment, laughing --
He pointed the wand very carefully into the boy's face: He wanted to see it happen, the
destruction of this one, inexplicable danger. The child began to cry: It had seen that he
was not James. He did not like it crying, he had never been able to stomach the small
ones whining in the orphanage --
"Avada Kedavra!"
And then he broke. He was nothing, nothing but pain and terror, and he must hide himself,
not here in the rubble of the ruined house, where the child was trapped screaming, but far
away ... far away ...
"No," he moaned.
The snake rustled on the filthy, cluttered floor, and he had killed the boy, and yet he was
the boy ...
"No..."
And now he stood at the broken window of Bathilda's house, immersed in memories of
his greatest loss, and at his feet the great snake slithered over broken china and glass... He
looked down and saw something... something incredible...
"No..."
"Harry, it's all right, you're all right!"
He stooped down and picked up the smashed photograph. There he was, the unknown
thief, the thief he was seeking...
"No... I dropped it... I dropped it ..."
"Harry, it's okay, wake up, wake up!"
He was Harry... Harry, not Voldemort ... and the thing that was rustling was not a snake ...
He opened his eyes.
"Harry," Hermione whispered. "Do you feel all -- all right?"
"Yes," he lied.
He was in the tent, lying on one of the lower bunks beneath a heap of blankets. He could
tell that it was almost dawn by the stillness and quality of the cold, flat light beyond the
canvas ceiling. He was drenched in sweat; he could feel it on the sheets and blankets.
"We got away."
"Yes," said Hermione. "I had to use a Hover Charm to get you into your bunk. I couldn't
lift you. You've been ... Well, you haven't been quite ..."
There were purple shadows under her brown eyes and he noticed a small sponge in her
hand: She had been wiping his face.
"You've been ill," she finished. "Quite ill."
"How long ago did we leave?"
"Hours ago. It's nearly morning."
"And I've been... what, unconscious?"
"Not exactly," said Hermione uncomfortably. "You've been shouting and moaning and ...
things," she added in a tone that made Harry feel uneasy. What had he done? Screamed
curses like Voldemort, cried like the baby in the crib?
"I couldn't get the Horcrux off you," Hermione said, and he knew she wanted to change
the subject. "It was stuck, stuck to your chest. You've got a mark; I'm sorry, I had to use a
Severing Charm to get it away. The snake hit you too, but I've cleaned the wound and put
some dittany on it ..."
He pulled the sweaty T-shirt he was wearing away from himself and looked down. There
was a scarlet oval over his heart where the locket had burned him. He could also see the
half healed puncture marks to his forearm.
"Where've you put the Horcrux?"
"In my bag. I think we should keep it off for a while."
He lay back on his pillows and looked into her pinched gray face.
"We shouldn't have gone to Godric's Hollow. It's my fault, it's all my fault. Hermione, I'm
sorry."
"It's not you fault. I wanted to go too; I really thought Dumbledore might have left the
sword there for you."
"Yeah, well ... we got that wrong, didn't we?"
"What happened, Harry? What happened when she took you upstairs? Was the snake
hiding somewhere? Did it just come out and kill her and attack you?"
"No." he said. "She was the snake ... or the snake was her ... all along."
"W-what?"
He closed his eyes. He could still smell Bathilda's house on him; it made the whole thing
horribly vivid.
"Bathilda must've been dead a while. The snake was ... was inside her. You-Know-Who
put it there in Godric's Hollow, to wait. You were right. He knew I'd go back."
"The snake was inside her?"
He opened his eyes again. Hermione looked revolted, nauseated.
"Lupin said there would be magic we'd never imagined." Harry said. "She didn't want to
talk in front of you, because it was Parseltongue, all Parseltongue, and I didn't realize,
but of course I could understand her. Once we were up in the room, the snake sent a
message to You-Know-Who, I heard it happen inside my head, I felt him get excited, he
said to keep me there ... and then ..."
He remembered the snake coming out of Bathilda's neck: Hermione did not need to know
the details.
"...she changed, changed into the snake, and attacked."
He looked down at the puncture marks.
"It wasn't supposed to kill me, just keep me there till You-Know-Who came."
If he had only managed to kill the snake, it would have been worth it, all of it ... Sick at
heart, he sat up and threw back the covers.
"Harry, no, I'm sure you ought to rest!"
"You're the one who needs sleep. No offense, but you look terrible. I'm fine. I'll keep
watch for a while. Where's my wand?"
She did not answer, she merely looked at him.
"Where's my wand, Hermione?"
She was biting her lip, and tears swam in her eyes.
"Harry ..."
"Where's my wand?"
She reached down beside the bed and held it out to him.
The holly and phoenix wand was nearly severed in two. One fragile strand of phoenix
feather kept both pieces hanging together. The wood had splintered apart completely.
Harry took it into his hands as though it was a living thing that had suffered a terrible
injury. He could not think properly: Everything was a blur of panic and fear. Then he
held out the want to Hermione.
"Mend it. Please."
"Harry, I don't think, when it's broken like this --"
"Please, Hermione, try!"
"R-Reparo."
The dangling half of the wand resealed itself. Harry held it up.
"Lumos!"
The wand sparked feebly, then went out. Harry pointed it at Hermione.
"Expelliarmus!"
Hermione's wand gave a little jerk, but did not leave her hand. The feeble attempt at
magic was too much for Harry's wand, which split into two again. He stared at it, aghast,
unable to take in what he was seeing ... the wand that had survived so much ...
"Harry." Hermione whispered so quietly he could hardly hear her. "I'm so, so sorry. I
think it was me. As we were leaving, you know, the snake was coming for us, and so I
cast a Blasting Curse, and it rebounded everywhere, and it must have -- must have hit --"
"It was an accident." said Harry mechanically. He felt empty, stunned. "We'll -- we'll find
a way to repair it."
"Harry, I don't think we're going to be able to," said Hermione, the ears trickling down
her face. "Remember ... remember Ron? When he broke his wand, crashing the car? It
was never the same again, he had to get a new one."
Harry thought of Ollivander, kidnapped and held hostage by Voldemort; of Gregorovitch,
who was dead. How was he supposed to find himself a new wand?
"Well," he said, in a falsely matter-of-fact voice, "well, I'll just borrow yours for now,
then. While I keep watch."
Her face glazed with tears, Hermione handed over her wand, and he left her sitting beside
his bed, desiring nothing more than to get away from her.
Chapter Eighteen
The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore
The sun was coming up: The pure, colorless vastness of the sky stretched over
him, indifferent to him and his suffering. Harry sat down in the tent entrance and took a
deep breath of clean air. Simply to be alive to watch the sun rise over the sparkling snowy
hillside ought to have been the greatest treasure on earth, yet he could not appreciate it:
His senses had been spiked by the calamity of losing his want. He looked out over a
valley blanketed in snow, distant church bells chiming through the glittering silence.
Without realizing it, he was digging his fingers into his arms as if he were trying
to resist physical pain. He had spilled his own blood more times than he could count; he
had lost all bones in his right arm once; this journey had already given him scars to his
chest and forearm to join those on his hand and forehead, but never, until this moment,
had he felt himself to be fatally weakened, vulnerable, and naked, as though the best part
of his magical power had been torn from him. He knew exactly what Hermione would
say if he expressed any of this: The wand is only as good as the wizard. But she was
wrong, his case was different. She had not felt the wand spin like the needle of a compass
and shoot golden flames at his enemy. He had lost the protection of the twin cores, and
only now that it was gone did he realize how much he had been counting on it.
He pulled the pieces of the broken wand out of his pocket and, without looking at
them, tucked them away in Hagrid’s pouch around his neck. The pouch was now too full
of broken and useless objects to take any more. Harry’s hand brushed the old Snitch
through the mokeskin and for a moment he had to fight the temptation to pull it out and
throw it away. Impenetrable, unhelpful, useless, like everything else Dumbledore had left
behind ---
And his fury at Dumbledore broke over him now like lava, scorching him inside,
wiping out every other feeling. Out of sheer desperation they had talked themselves into
believing that Godric’s Hollow held answers, convinced themselves that they were
supposed to go back, that it was all part of some secret path laid out for them by
Dumbledore: but there was no map, no plan. Dumbledore had left them to grope in the
darkness, to wrestle with unknown and undreamed-of terrors, alone and unaided: Nothing
was explained, nothing was given freely, they had no sword, and now, Harry had no
wand. And he had dropped the photograph of the thief, and it would surely be easy now
for Voldemort to find out who he was . . .
Voldemort had all the information now . . .
“Harry?”
Hermione looked frightened that he might curse her with her own wand. Her face
streaked with tears, she crouched down beside him, two cups of tea trembling in her
hands and something bulky under her arm.
“Thanks,” he said, taking one of the cups.
“Do you mind if I talk to you?”
“No,” he said because he did not want to hurt her feelings.
“Harry, you wanted to know who that man in the picture was. Well . . . I’ve got
the book.”
Timidly she pushed it onto his lap, a pristine copy of The Life and Lies of Albus
Dumbledore.
“Where --- how --- ?”
“It was in Bathilda’s sitting room, just lying there. . . . This note was sticking out
of the top of it.”
Hermione read the few lines of spiky, acid-green writing aloud.
“ ‘Dear Bally, Thanks for your help. Here’s a copy of the book, hope you like it.
You said everything, even if you don’t remember it. Rita.’ I think it must have arrived
while the real Bathilda was alive, but perhaps she wasn’t in any fit state to read it?”
“No, she probably wasn’t.”
Harry looked down upon Dumbledore’s face and experienced a surge of savage
pleasure: Now he would know if all the things that Dumbledore had never thought it
worth telling him, whether Dumbledore wanted him to or not.
“You’re still really angry at me, aren’t you?” said Hermione; he looked up to see
fresh tears leaking out of her eyes, and knew that his anger must have shown in his face.
“No,” he said quietly. “No, Hermione, I know it was an accident. You were trying
to get us out of there alive, and you were incredible. I’d be dead if you hadn’t been there
to help me.”
He tried to return her watery smile, then turned his attention to the book. Its spine
was stiff; it had clearly never been opened before. He riffled through the pages, looking
for photographs. He came across the one he sought almost at once, the young
Dumbledore and his handsome companion, roaring with laughter at some long-forgotten
joke. Harry dropped his eyes to the caption.
Albus Dumbledore, shortly after his mother’s death,
With his friend Gellert Grindelwald.
Harry gaped at the last word for several long moments. Grindelwald. His friend
Grindelwald. He looked sideways at Hermione, who was still contemplating the name as
though she could not believe her eyes. Slowly she looked up at Harry.
“Grindelwald!”
Ignoring the remainder of the photographs, Harry searched the pages around them
for a recurrence of that fatal name. He soon discovered it and read greedily, but became
lost: It was necessary to go farther back to make sense of it all, and eventually he found
himself at the start of a chapter entitled “The Greater Good.” Together, he and Hermione
started to read:
Now approaching his eighteenth birthday, Dumbledore left Hogwarts in a blaze
of glory --- Head Boy, Prefect, Winner of the Barnabus Finkley Prize for
Exceptional Spell-Casting, British Youth Representative to the Wizengamot,
Gold Medal-Winner for Ground-Breaking Contribution to the International
Alchemical Conference in Cairo. Dumbledore intended, next, to take a Grand
Tour with Elphias “Dogbreath” Doge, the dim-witted but devoted sidekick he
had picked up at school.
The two young men were staying at the Leaky Cauldron in London,
preparing to depart for Greece the following morning, when an owl arrived
bearing news of Dumbledore’s mother’s death. “Dogbreath” Doge, who refused
to be interviewed for this book, has given the public his own sentimental
version of what happened next. He represents Kendra’s death as a tragic blow,
and Dumbledore’s decision to give up his expedition as an act of noble selfsacrifice.
Certainly Dumbledore returned to Godric’s Hollow at once, supposedly to
“care” for his younger brother and sister. But how much care did he actually
give them?
“He were a head case, that Aberforth,” said Enid Smeek, whose family lived
on the outskirts of Godric’s Hollow at that time. “Ran wild. ‘Course, with his
mum and dad gone you’d have felt sorry for him, only he kept chucking goat
dung at my head. I don’t think Albus was fussed about him. I never saw them
together, anyway.”
So what was Albus doing, if not comforting his wild young brother? The
answer, it seems, is ensuring the continued imprisonment of his sister. For
though her first jailer had died, there was no change in the pitiful condition of
Ariana Dumbledore. Her very existence continued to be known only to those
few outsiders who, like “Dogbreath” Doge, could be counted upon to believe in
the story of her “ill health.”
Another such easily satisfied friend of the family was Bathilda Bagshot, the
celebrated magical historian who has lived in Godric’s Hollow for many years.
Kendra, of course, had rebuffed Bathilda when she first attempted to welcome
the family to the village. Several years later, however, the author sent an owl to
Albus at Hogwarts, having been favorably impressed by his paper on transspecies
transformation in Transfiguration Today. This initial contract led to
acquaintance with the entire Dumbledore family. At the time of Kendra’s death,
Bathilda was the only person in Godric’s Hollow who was on speaking terms
with Dumbledore’s mother.
Unfortunately, the brilliance that Bathilda exhibited earlier in her life has
now dimmed. “The fire’s lit, but the cauldron’s empty,” as Ivor Dillonsby put it
to me, or, in Enid Smeek’s slightly earthier phrase, “She’s nutty as squirrel
poo.” Nevertheless, a combination of tried-and-tested reporting techniques
enabled me to extract enough nuggets of hard fact to string together the whole
scandalous story.
Like the rest of the Wizarding world, Bathilda puts Kendra’s premature death
down to a backfiring charm, a story repeated by Albus and Aberforth in later
years. Bathilda also parrots the family line on Ariana, calling her “frail” and
“delicate.” On one subject, however, Bathilda is well worth the effort I put into
procuring Veritaserum, for she, and she alone, knows the full story of the bestkept
secret of Albus Dumbledore’s life. Now revealed for the first time, it calls
into question everything that his admirers believed of Dumbledore: his
supposed hatred of the Dark Arts, his opposition into the oppression of Muggles,
even his devotion to his own family.
The very same summer that Dumbledore went home to Godric’s Hollow,
now an orphan and head of the family, Bathilda Bagshot agreed to accept into
her home her great-nephew, Gellert Grindelwald.
The name of Grindelwald is justly famous: In a list of Most Dangerous Dark
Wizards of All Time, he would miss out on the top spot only because YouKnow-
Who arrived, a generation later, to steal his crown. As Grindelwald never
extended his campaign of terror to Britain, however, the details of his rise to
power are not widely known here.
Educated at Durmstrang, a school famous even then for its unfortunate
tolerance of the Dark Arts, Grindelwald showed himself quite as precociously
brilliant as Dumbledore. Rather than channel his abilities into the attainment of
awards and prizes, however, Gellert Grindelwald devoted himself no other
pursuits. At sixteen years old, even Durmstrang felt it could no longer turn a
blind eye to the twisted experiments of Gellert Grindelwald, and he was
expelled.
Hitherto, all that has been known of Grindelwald’s next movements is that he
“traveled around for some months.” It can now be revealed that Grindelwald
chose to visit his great-aunt in Godric’s Hollow, and that there, intensely
shocking though it will be for many to hear it, he struck up a close friendship
with none other than Albus Dumbledore.
“He seemed a charming boy to me,” babbles Bathilda, “whatever he became
later. Naturally I introduced him to poor Albus, who was missing the company
of lads his own age. The boys took to each other at once.”
They certainly did. Bathilda shows me a letter, kept by her that Albus
Dumbledore sent Gellert Grindelwald in the dead of night.
“Yes, even after they’d spent all day in discussion --- both such brilliant
young boys, they got on like a cauldron on fire --- I’d sometimes hear an owl
tapping at Gellert’s bedroom window, delivering a letter from Albus! An idea
would have struck him and he had to let Gellert know immediately!”
And what ideas they were. Profoundly shocking though Albus Dumbledore’s
fans will find it, here are the thoughts of their seventeen-year-old hero, as
relayed to his new best friend. (A copy of the original letter may be seen on
page 463.)
Gellert ---
Your point about Wizard dominance being FOR THE MUGGLES’
OWN GOOD --- this, I think, is the crucial point. Yes, we have been given
power and yes, that power gives us the right to rule, but it also gives us
responsibilities over the ruled. We must stress this point, it will be the
foundation stone upon which we build. Where we are opposed, as we
surely will be, this must be the basis of all our counterarguments. We seize
control FOR THE GREATER GOOD. And from this it follows that where
we meet resistance, we must use only the force that is necessary and no
more. (This was your mistake at Durmstrang! But I do not complain,
because if you had not been expelled, we would never have met.)
Albus
Astonished and appalled though his many admirers will be, this letter
constitutes the Statute of Secrecy and establishing Wizard rule over Muggles.
What a blow for those who have always portrayed Dumbledore as the Muggleborns’
greatest champion! How hollow those speeches promoting Muggle rights
seem in the light of this damning new evidence! How despicable does Albus
Dumbledore appear, busy plotting his rise to power when he should have been
mourning his mother and caring for his sister!
No doubt those determined to keep Dumbledore on his crumbling pedestal
will bleat that he did not, after all, put his plans into action, that he must have
suffered a change of heart, that he came to his senses. However, the truth seems
altogether more shocking.
Barely two months into their great new friendship, Dumbledore and
Grindelwald parted, never to see each other again until they met for their
legendary duel (for more, see chapter 22). What caused this abrupt rupture? Had
Dumbledore come to his senses? Had he told Grindelwald he wanted no more
part in his plans? Alas, no.
“It was poor little Ariana dying, I think, that did it,” says Bathilda. “It came
as an awful shock. Gellert was there in the house when it happened, and he
came back to my house all of a dither, told me he wanted to go home the next
day. Terribly distressed, you know. So I arranged a Portkey and that was the last
I saw of him.
“Albus was beside himself at Ariana’s death. It was so dreadful for those two
brothers. They had lost everybody except for each other. No wonder tempers
ran a little high. Aberforth blamed Albus, you know, as people will under these
dreadful circumstances. But Aberforth always talked a little madly, poor boy.
All the same, breaking Albus’s nose at the funeral was not decent. It would have
destroyed Kendra to see her sons fighting like that, across her daughter’s body.
A shame Gellert could not have stayed for the funeral. . . . He would have been
a comfort to Albus, at least. . . .
This dreadful coffin-side brawl, known only to those few who attended
Ariana Dumbledore’s funeral, raises several questions. Why exactly did
Aberforth Dumbledore blame Albus for his sister’s death? Was it, as “Batty”
pretends, a mere effusion of grief? Or could there have been some more
concrete reason for his fury? Grindelwald, expelled from Durmstrang for the
near-fatal attacks upon fellow students, fled the country hours after the girl’s
death, and Albus (out of shame or fear?) never saw him again, not until forced
to do so by the pleas of the Wizarding world.
Neither Dumbledore nor Grindelwald ever seems to have referred to this
brief boyhood friendship in later life. However, there can be no doubt that
Dumbledore delayed, for some five years of turmoil, fatalities, and
disappearances, his attack upon Gellert Grindelwald. Was it lingering affection
for the man or fear of exposure as his once best friend that caused Dumbledore
to hesitate? Was it only reluctantly that Dumbledore set out to capture the man
he was once so delighted he had met?
And how did the mysterious Ariana die? Was she the inadvertent victim of
some Dark rite? Did she stumble across something she ought not to have done,
as the two young men sat practicing for their attempt at glory and domination?
Is it possible that Ariana Dumbledore was the first person to die “for the greater
good”?
The chapter ended here and Harry looked up. Hermione had reached the bottom
of the page before him. She tugged the book out of Harry’s hands, looking a little
alarmed by his expression, and closed it without looking at it, as though hiding something
indecent.
“Harry ---”
But he shook his head. Some inner certainty had crashed down inside him; it was
exactly as he had felt after Ron left. He had trusted Dumbledore, believed him the
embodiment of goodness and wisdom. All was ashes: How much more could he lose?
Ron, Dumbledore, the phoenix wand . . .
“Harry.” She seemed to have heard his thoughts. "Listen to me. It --- it doesn't
make a very nice reading ---"
"Yeah, you could say that ---"
"--- but don't forget, Harry, this is Rita Skeeter writing."
"You did read that letter to Grindelwald, didn't you?"
"Yes, I --- I did." She hesitated, looking upset, cradling her tea in her cold hands.
"I think that's the worst bit. I know Bathilda thought it was all just talk, but 'For the
Greater Good' became Grindelwald's slogan, his justification for all the atrocities he
committed later. And . . . from that . . . it looks like Dumbledore gave him the idea. They
say 'For the Greater Good' was even carved over the entrance to Nurmengard."
"What's Nurmengard?"
"The prison Grindelwald had built to hold his opponents. He ended up in there
himself, once Dumbledore had caught him. Anyway, it's --- it’s an awful thought that
Dumbledore's ideas helped Grindelwald rise to power. But on the other hand, even Rita
can't pretend that they knew each other for more than a few months one summer when
they were both really young, and ---"
"I thought you'd say that," said Harry. He did not want to let his anger spill out at
her, but it was hard to keep his voice steady. "I thought you'd say 'They were young.'
They were the same age as we are now. And here we are, risking our lives to fight the
Dark Arts, and there he was, in a huddle with his new best friend, plotting their rise to
power over the Muggles."
His temper would not remain in check much longer: He stood up and walked
around, trying to work some of it off.
"I'm not trying to defend what Dumbledore wrote," said Hermione. "All that 'right
to rule' rubbish, it's 'Magic Is Might' all over again. But Harry, his mother had just died,
he was stuck alone in the house ---"
"Alone? He wasn't alone! He had his brother and sister for company, his Squib
sister he was keeping locked up ---"
"I don't believe it," said Hermione. She stood up too. "Whatever was wrong with that
girl, I don't think she was a Squib. The Dumbledore we knew would never, ever have
allowed---"
"The Dumbledore we thought we knew didn't want to conquer Muggles by force!"
Harry shouted, his voice echoing across the empty hilltop, and several blackbirds rose
into the air, squawking and spiraling against the pearly sky.
"He changed, Harry, he changed! It's as simple as that! Maybe he did believe
these things when he was seventeen, but the whole of the rest of his life was devoted to
fighting the Dark Arts! Dumbledore was the one who stopped Grindelwald, the one who
always voted for Muggle protection and Muggle born rights, who fought You-Know-
Who from the start, and who died trying to bring him down!"
Rita's book lay on the ground between them, so that the face of Albus
Dumbledore smiled dolefully at both.
"Harry, I'm sorry, but I think the real reason you're so angry is that Dumbledore
never told you any of this himself."
"Maybe I am!" Harry bellowed, and he flung his arms over his head, hardly
knowing whether he was trying to hold in his anger or protect himself from the weight of
his own disillusionment. "Look what he asked from me, Hermione! Risk your life, Harry!
And again! And again! And don't expect me to explain everything, just trust me blindly,
trust that I know what I'm doing, trust me even though I don't trust you! Never the whole
truth! Never!"
His voice cracked with the strain, and they stood looking at each other in the
whiteness and emptiness, and Harry felt they were as insignificant as insects beneath that
wide sky.
"He loved you," Hermione whispered. "I know he loved you."
Harry dropped his arms.
"I don't know who he loved, Hermione, but it was never me. This isn't love, the
mess he's left me in. He shared a damn sight more of what he was really thinking with
Gellert Grindelwald than he ever shared with me."
Harry picked up Hermione's wand, which he had dropped in the snow, and sat
back down in the entrance of the tent.
"Thanks for the tea. I'll finish the watch. You get back in the warm."
She hesitated, but recognized the dismissal. She picked up the book and then walked
back past him into the tent, but as she did so, she brushed the top of his head lightly with
her hand. He closed his eyes at her touch, and hated himself for wishing that what she
said was true: that Dumbledore had really cared.
Chapter Nineteen
The Silver Doe
It was snowing by the time Hermione took over the watch at midnight. Harry's
dreams were confused and disturbing: Nagini wove in and out of them, first through a
wreath of Christmas roses. He woke repeatedly, panicky, convinced that somebody had
called out to him in the distance, imagining that the wind whipping around the tent was
footsteps or voices.
Finally he got up in the darkness and joined Hermione, who was huddled in the
entrance to the tent reading A History of Magic by the light of her wand. The snow was
falling thickly, and she greeted with relief his suggestion of packing up early and moving
on.
"We'll somewhere more sheltered," she agreed, shivering as she pulled on a
sweatshirt over her pajamas. "I kept thinking I could hear people moving outside. I even
though I saw somebody one or twice."
Harry paused in the act of pulling on a jumper and glanced at the silent,
motionless Sneakoscope on the table.
"I'm sure I imagined it," said Hermione, looking nervous. "The snow the dark, it
plays tricks on your eyes.... But perhaps we ought to Disapparate under the Invisibility
Cloak, just in case?"
Half an hour later, with the tent packed, Harry wearing the Horcrux, and
Hermione clutching the beaded bag, they Disapparated. The usual tightness engulfed
them; Harry's feet parted company with the snowy ground, then slammed hard onto what
felt like frozen earth covered in leaves.
"Where are we?" he asked, peering around at the fresh mass of trees as Hermione
opened the beaded bag and began tugging out the tent poles.
"The Forest of Dean," she said, "I came camping here once with my mum and
dad."
Here too snow lay on the trees all around and it was bitterly cold, but they were at
least protected from the wind. They spent most of the day inside the tent, huddled for
warmth around the useful bright blue flames that Hermione was adept at producing, and
which could be scooped up and carried in a jar. Harry felt as though he was recuperating
from some brief but severe, an impression reinforced by Hermione's solicitousness. That
afternoon fresh flakes drifted down upon them, so that even their sheltered clearing had a
fresh dusting of powdery snow.
After two nights of little sleep, Harry's senses seemed more alert than usual.
Their escape from Godric's Hollow had been so narrow that Voldemort seemed somehow
closer than before, more threatening. As darkness drove in again Harry refused
Hermione's offer to keep watch and told her to go to bed.
Harry moved an old cushion into the tent mouth and sat down, wearing all the
sweaters he owned but even so, still shivery. The darkness deepened with the passing
hours until it was virtually impenetrable. He was on the point of taking out the
Marauder's Map, so as to watch Ginny's dot for a while, before he remembered that it was
the Christmas holidays and that she would be back at the Burrow.
Every tiny movement seemed magnified in the vastness of the forest. Harry knew
that it must be full of living creatures, but he wished they would all remain still and silent
so that he could separate their innocent scurryings and prowlings from noises that might
proclaim other, sinister movements. He remembered the sound of a cloak slithering over
dead leaves many years ago, and at once thought he heard it again before mentally
shaking himself. Their protective enchantments had worked for weeks; why should they
break now? And yet he could no throw off the feeling that something was different
tonight.
Several times he jerked upright, his neck aching because he had fallen asleep,
slumped at an awkward angle against the side of the tent. The night reached such a depth
of velvety blackness that he might have been suspended in limbo between Disapparation
and Apparation. He had just held a hand in front of his face to see whether he could
make out his fingers when it happened.
A bright silver light appeared right ahead of him, moving through the trees.
Whatever the source, it was moving soundlessly. The light seemed simply to drift toward
him.
He jumped to his feet, his voice frozen in his throat, and raised Hermione's wand.
He screwed up his eyes as the light became blinding, the trees in front of it pitch black in
silhouette, and still the thing came closer....
And then the source of the light stepped out from behind an oak. It was a silver
white doe, moon-bright and dazzling, picking her way over the ground, still silent, and
leaving no hoofprints in the fine powdering of snow. She stepped toward him, her
beautiful head with its wide, long-lashed eyes held high.
Harry stared at the creature, filled with wonder, not at her strangeness, but her
inexplicable familiarity. He felt that he had been waiting for her to come, but that he had
forgotten, until this moment, that they had arranged to meet. His impulse to shout for
Hermione, which had been so strong a moment ago, had gone. He knew, he would have
staked his life on it, that she had come for him, and him alone.
They gazed at each other for several long moments and then she turned and
walked away.
"No," he said, and his voice was cracked with lack of use. "Come back!"
She continued to step deliberately through the trees, and soon he brightness was
striped by their thick black trunks. For one trembling second he hesitated. Caution
murmured it could be a trick, a lure, a trap. But instinct, overwhelming instinct, told him
that this was not Dark Magic. He set off in pursuit.
Snow crunched beneath his feet, but the doe made no noise as she passed through
the trees, for she was nothing but light. Deeper and deeper into the forest she led him,
and Harry walked quickly, sure that when she stopped, she would allow him to approach
her properly. And then she would speak and the voice would tell him what he needed to
know.
At last she came to a halt. She turned her beautiful head toward him once more,
and he broke into a run, a question burning in him, but as he opened his lips to ask it, she
vanished.
Though the darkness had swallowed her whole, her burnished image was still
imprinted on his retinas; it obscured his vision, brightening when he lowered his eyelids,
disorienting him. Now fear came: Her presence had meant safety.
"Lumos!" he whispered, and the wand-tip ignited.
The imprint of the doe faded away with every blink of his eyes as he stood there,
listening to the sounds of the forest, to distant crackles of twigs, soft swishes of snow.
Was he about to be attacked? Had she enticed him into an ambush? Was he imagining
that somebody stood beyond the reach of the wandlight, watching him?
He held the wand higher. Nobody ran out at him, no flash of green light burst
from behind a tree. Why, then, had she led him to this spot?
Something gleamed in the light of the wand, and Harry spun about, but all that
was there was a small, frozen pool, its black, cracked surface glittering as he raised his
wand higher to examine it.
He moved forward rather cautiously and looked down. The ice reflected his
distorted shadow and the beam of wandlight, but deep below the thick, misty gray
carapace, something else glinted. A great silver cross...
His heart skipped into his mouth: He dropped to his knees at the pool's edge and
angled the wand so as to flood the bottom of the pool with as much light as possible. A
glint of deep red...It was a sword with glittering rubies in its hilt....The sword of
Gryffindor was lying at the bottom of the forest pool.
Barely breathing, he stared down at it. How was this possible? How could it
have come to be lying in a forest pool, this close to the place where they were camping?
Had some unknown magic drawn Hermione to this spot, or was the doe, which he had
taken to be a Patronus, some kind of guardian of the pool? Or had the sword been put
into the pool after they had arrived, precisely because they were here? In which case,
where was the person who wanted to pass it to Harry? Again he directed the wand at the
surrounding trees and bushes, searching for a human outline, for the glint of an eye, but
he could not see anyone there. All the same, a little more fear leavened his exhilaration
as he returned his attention to the sword reposing upon the bottom of the frozen pool.
He pointed the wand at the silvery shape and murmured, "Accio Sword."
It did not stir. He had not expected it to. If it had been that easy the sword would
have lain on the ground for him to pick up, not in the depths of a frozen pool. He set off
around the circle of ice, thinking hard about the last time the sword had delivered itself to
him. He had been in terrible danger then, and had asked for help.
"Help," he murmured, but the sword remained upon the pool bottom, indifferent,
motionless.
What was it, Harry asked himself (walking again), that Dumbledore had told him
the last time he had retrieved the sword? Only a true Gryffindor could have pulled that
out of the hat. And what were the qualities that defined a Gryffindor? A small voice
inside Harry's head answered him: Their daring nerve and chivalry set Gryffindor apart.
Harry stopped walking and let out a long sigh, his smoky breath dispersing
rapidly upon the frozen air. He knew what he had to do. If he was honest with himself,
he had thought it might come to this from the moment he had spotted the sword through
the ice.
He glanced around at the surrounding trees again, but was convinced now that
nobody was going to attack him. They had had their chance as he walked alone through
the forest, had had plenty of opportunity as he examined the pool. The only reason to
delay at this point was because the immediate prospect was so deeply uninviting.
With fumbling fingers Harry started to remove his many layers of clothing.
Where "chivalry" entered into this, he thought ruefully, he was not entirely sure, unless it
counted as chivalrous that he was not calling for Hermione to do it in his stead.
An owl hooted somewhere as he stripped off, and he thought with a pang of
Hedwig. He was shivering now, his teeth chattering horribly, and yet he continued to
strip off until at last he stood there in his underwear, barefooted in the snow. He placed
the pouch containing his wand, his mother's letter, the shard of Sirius's mirror, and the old
Snitch on top of his clothes, then he pointed Hermione's wand at the ice.
"Diffindo."
It cracked with a sound like a bullet in the silence. The surface of the pool broke
and chunks of dark ice rocked on the ruffled water. As far as Harry could judge, it was
not deep, but to retrieve the sword he would have to submerge himself completely.
Contemplating the task ahead would not make it easier or the water warmer. He
stepped to the pool's edge and placed Hermione's wand on the ground still lit. Then,
trying not to imagine how much colder he was about to become or how violently he
would soon be shivering, he jumped.
Every pore of his body screamed in protest. The very air in his lungs seemed to
freeze solid as he was submerged to his shoulders in the frozen water. He could hardly
breathe: trembling so violently the water lapped over the edges of the pool, he felt for the
blade with his numb feet. He only wanted to dive once.
Harry put off the moment of total submersion from second to second, gasping and
shaking, until he told himself that it must be done, gathered all his courage, and dived.
The cold was agony: It attacked him like fire. His brain itself seemed to have
frozen as he pushed through the dark water to the bottom and reached out, groping for the
sword. His fingers closed around the hilt; he pulled it upward.
Then something closed tight around his neck. He thought of water weeds, though
nothing had brushed him as he dived, and raised his hand to free himself. It was not
weed: The chain of the Horcrux had tightened and was slowly constricting his windpipe.
Harry kicked out wildly, trying to push himself back to the surface, but merely
propelled himself into the rocky side of the pool. Thrashing, suffocating, he scrabbled at
the strangling chain, his frozen fingers unable to loosen it, and now little lights were
popping inside his head, and he was going to drown, there was nothing left, nothing he
could do, and the arms that closed around his chest were surely Death's....
Choking and retching, soaking and colder than he had ever been in his life, he
came to facedown in the snow. Somewhere, close by, another person was panting and
coughing and staggering around, as she had come when the snake attacked....Yet it did
not sound like her, not with those deep coughs, no judging by the weight of the
footsteps....
Harry had no strength to lift his head and see his savior's identity. All he could do
was raise a shaking hand to his throat and feel the place where the locket had cut tightly
into his flesh. It was gone. Someone had cut him free. Then a panting voice spoke from
over his head.
"Are -- you -- mental?"
Nothing but the shock of hearing that voice could have given Harry the strength to
get up. Shivering violently, he staggered to his feet. There before him stood Ron, fully
dressed but drenched to the skin, his hair plastered to his face, the sword of Gryffindor in
one hand and the Horcrux dangling from its broken chain in the other.
"Why the hell," panted Ron, holding up the Horcrux, which swung backward and
forward on its shortened chain in some parody of hypnosis, "didn't you take the thing off
before you dived?"
Harry could not answer. The silver doe was nothing, nothing compared with
Ron's reappearance; he could not believe it. Shuddering with cold, he caught up the pile
of clothes still lying at the water's edge and began to pull them on. As he dragged
sweater after sweater over his head, Harry stared at Ron, half expecting him to have
disappeared every time he lost sight of him, and yet he had to be real: He had just dived
into the pool, he had saved Harry's life.
"It was y-you?" Harry said at last, his teeth chattering, his voice weaker than usual
due to his near-strangulation.
"Well, yeah," said Ron, looking slightly confused.
"Y-you cast that doe?"
"What? No, of course not! I thought it was you doing it!"
"My Patronus is a stag."
"Oh yeah. I thought it looked different. No antlers."
Harry put Hagrid's pouch back around his neck, pulled on a final sweater, stooped
to pick up Hermione's wand, and faced Ron again.
"How come you're here?"
Apparently Ron had hoped that this point would come up later, if at all.
"Well, I've -- you know -- I've come back. If --" He cleared his throat. "You
know. You still want me."
There was a pause, in which the subject of Ron's departure seemed to rise like a
wall between them. Yet he was here. He had returned. He had just saved Harry's life.
Ron looked down at his hands. He seemed momentarily surprised to see the
things he was holding.
"Oh yeah, I got it out," he said, rather unnecessarily, holding up the sword for
Harry's inspection. "That's why you jumped in, right?"
"Yeah," said Harry. "But I don't understand. How did you get here? How did
you find us?"
"Long story," said Ron. "I've been looking for you for hours, it's a big forest, isn't
it? And I was just thinking I'd have to go kip under a tree and wait for morning when I
saw that dear coming and you following."
"You didn't see anyone else?"
"No," said Ron. "I --"
But he hesitated, glancing at two trees growing close together some yards away.
"I did think I saw something move over there, but I was running to the pool at the
time, because you'd gone in and you hadn't come up, so I wasn't going to make a detour
to -- hey!"
Harry was already hurrying to the place that Ron had indicated. The two oaks
grew close together; there was a gap of only a few inches between the trunks at eye level,
an ideal place to see but not be seen. The ground around the roots, however, was free of
snow, and Harry could see no sign of footprints. He walked back to where Ron stood
waiting, still holding the sword and the Horcrux.
"Anything there?" Ron asked.
"No," said Harry.
"So how did the sword get in that pool?"
"Whoever cast the Patronus must have put it there."
They both looked at the ornate silver sword, its rubied hilt glinting a little in the
light from Hermione's wand.
"You reckon this is the real one?" asked Ron.
"One way to find out, isn't there?" said Harry.
The Horcrux was still swinging from Ron's hand. The locket was twitching
slightly. Harry knew that the thing inside it was agitated again. It had sensed the
presence of the sword and had tried to kill Harry rather than let him possess it. Now was
not the time for long discussions; now was the moment to destroy once and for all. Harry
looked around, holding Hermione's wand high, and saw the place: a flattish rock lying in
the shadow of a sycamore tree.
"Come here." he said and he led the way, brushed snow from the rock's surface,
and held out his hand for the Horcrux. When Ron offered the sword, however, Harry
shook his head.
"No you should do it."
"Me?" said Ron, looking shocked. "Why?"
"Because you got the sword out of the pool. I think it's supposed to be you."
He was not being kind or generous. As certainly as he had known that the doe
was benign, he knew that Ron had to be the one to wield the sword. Dumbledore had at
least taught Harry something about certain kinds of magic, of the incalculable power of
certain acts.
"I'm going to open it," said Harry, "and you will stab it. Straightaway okay?
Because whatever's in there will put up a fight. The bit of Riddle in the Diary tried to kill
me."
"How are you going to open it?" asked Ron. He looked terrified
"I'm going to ask it to open, using Parseltongue," said Harry. The answer came so
readily to his lips that thought that he had always known it deep down: Perhaps it had
taken his recent encounter with Nagini to make him realize it. He looked at the
serpentine S, inlaid with glittering green stones: It was easy to visualize it as a miniscule
snake, curled upon the cold rock.
"No!" said Ron. "Don't open it! I'm serious!"
"Why not?" asked Harry. "Let's get rid of the damn thing, it's been months --"
"I can't, Harry, I'm serious -- you do it --"
"But why?"
"Because that thing's bad for me!" said Ron, backing away from the locket on the
rock. "I can't handle it! I'm not making excuses, for what I was like, but it affects me
worse than it affects you and Hermione, it made me think stuff -- stuff that I was thinking
anyway, but it made everything worse. I can't explain it, and then I'd take it off and I'd
get my head straight again, and then I'd have to put the effing thing back on -- I can't do it
Harry!"
He had backed away, the sword dragging at his side, shaking his head.
"You can do it," said Harry, "you can! You've just got the sword, I know it's
supposed to be you who uses it. Please just get rid of it Ron."
The sound of his name seemed to act like a stimulant. Ron swallowed, then still
breathing hard through his long nose, moved back toward the rock.
"Tell me when," he croaked.
"On three," said Harry, looking back down at the locket and narrowing his eyes,
concentrating on the letter S, imagining a serpent, while the contents of the locket rattled
like a trapped cockroach. It would have been easy to pity it, except that the cut around
Harry's neck still burned.
"One . . . two . . . three . . .open."
The last word came as a hiss and a snarl and the golden doors of the locket swung
wide open with a little click.
Behind both of the glass windows within blinked a living eye, dark and handsome
as Tom Riddle's eyes had been before he turned them scarlet and slit-pupiled
"Stab," said Harry, holding the locket steady on the rock.
Ron raised the sword in his shaking hands: The point dangled over the frantically
swiveling eyes, and Harry gripped the locket tightly, bracing himself, already imagining
blood pouring from the empty windows.
Then a voice hissed from out the Horcrux.
"I have seen your heart, and it is mine."
"Don't listen to it!" Harry said harshly. "Stab it!"
"I have seen your dreams, Ronald Weasley, and I have seen your fears. All you
desire is possible, but all that you dread is also possible...."
"Stab!" shouted Harry, his voice echoed off the surrounding trees, the sword point
trembled, and Ron gazed down into Riddle's eyes.
"Least loved, always, by the mother who craved a daughter . . . Least loved, now,
by the girl who prefers your friend . . . Second best, always, eternally overshadowed . . ."
"Ron, stab it now!" Harry bellowed: He could feel the locket quivering in the grip and
was scared of what was coming. Ron raised the sword still higher, and as he did so,
Riddle's eyes gleamed scarlet.
Out of the locket's two windows, out of the eyes, there bloomed like two grotesque
bubbles, the heads of Harry and Hermione, weirdly distorted.
Ron yelled in shock and backed away as the figures blossomed out of the locket, first
chests, then waists, then legs, until they stood in the locket, side by side like trees with a
common root, swaying over Ron and the real Harry, who had snatched his fingers away
from the locket as it burned, suddenly, white-hot.
"Ron!" he shouted, but the Riddle-Harry was now speaking with Voldemort's voice and
Ron was gazing, mesmerized, into its face.
"Why return? We were better without you, happier without you, glad of your absence....
We laughed at your stupidity, your cowardice, your presumption--"
"Presumption!" echoed the Riddle-Hermione, who was more beautiful and yet more
terrible than the real Hermione: She swayed, cackling, before Ron, who looked horrified,
yet transfixed, the sword hanging pointlessly at his side. "Who could look at you, who
would ever look at you, beside Harry Potter? What have you ever done, compared with
the Chosen One? What are you, compared with the Boy Who Lived?"
"Ron, stab it, STAB IT!" Harry yelled, but Ron did not move. His eyes were wide, and
the Riddle-Harry and the Riddle-Hermione were reflected in them, their hair swirling like
flames, their eyes shining red, their voices lifted in an evil duet.
"Your mother confessed," sneered Riddle-Harry, while Riddle-Hermione jeered, "that she
would have preferred me as a son, would be glad to exchange..."
"Who wouldn't prefer him, what woman would take you, you are nothing, nothing,
nothing to him," crooned Riddle-Hermione, and she stretched like a snake and entwined
herself around Riddle-Harry, wrapping him in a close embrace: Their lips met.
On the ground in front of them, Ron's face filled with anguish. he raised the sword high,
his arms shaking.
"Do it, Ron!" Harry yelled.
Ron looked toward him, and Harry thought he saw a trace of scarlet in his eyes.
"Ron --?"
The sword flashed, plunged: Harry threw himself out of the way, there as a clang of metal
and a long, drawn-out scream. Harry whirled around, slipping in the snow, wand held
ready to defend himself, but there was nothing to fight.
The monstrous versions of himself and Hermione were gone: There was only Ron,
standing there with the sword held slackly in his hand, looking down at the shattered
remains of the locket on the flat rock.
Slowly, Harry walked back to him, hardly knowing what to say or do. Ron was breathing
heavily: His eyes were no longer red at all, but their normal blue: they were also wet.
Harry stooped, pretending he had not seen, and picked up the broken Horcrux. Ron had
pierced the glass in both windows: Riddle's eyes were gone, and the stained silk lining of
the locket was smoking slightly. The thing that had lived in the Horcrux had vanished;
torturing Ron had been its final act. The sword clanged as Ron dropped it. He had sunk to
his knees, his head in his arms. He was shaking, but not, Harry realized, from cold. Harry
crammed the broken locket into his pocket, knelt down beside Ron, and placed a hand
cautiously on his shoulder. He took it as a good sign that Ron did not throw it off.
"After you left," he said in a low voice, grateful for the fact that Ron's face was hidden,
"she cried for a week. Probably longer, only she didn't want me to see. There were loads
of nights when we never even spoke to each other. With you gone..."
He could not finish; it was now that Ron was here again that Harry fully realized how
much his absence had cost them.
"She's like my sister," he went on. "I love her like a sister and I reckon that she feels the
same way about me. It's always been like that. I thought you knew."
Ron did not respond, but turned his face away from Harry and wiped his nose noisily on
his sleeve. Harry got to his feet again and walked to where Ron's enormous rucksack lay
yards away, discarded as Ron had run toward the pool to save Harry from drowning. He
hoisted it onto his own back and walked back to Ron, who clambered to his feet as Harry
approached, eyes bloodshot but otherwise composed.
"I'm sorry," he said in a thick voice. "I'm sorry I left. I know I was a -- a --"
He looked around at the darkness, as if hoping a bad enough word would swoop down
upon him and claim him.
"You've sort of made up for it tonight," said Harry. "Getting the sword. Finishing off the
Horcrux. Saving my life."
"That makes me sound a lot cooler than I was," Ron mumbled.
"Stuff like that always sounds cooler than it really was" said Harry. "I've been trying to
tell you that for years."
Simultaneously they walked forward and hugged, Harry gripping the still-sopping back
of Ron's jacket.
"And now," said Harry as they broke apart, "all we've got to do is find that tent again."
But it was not difficult. Though the walk through the dark forest with the doe had seemed
lengthy, with Ron by his side, the journey back seemed to take a surprisingly short time.
Harry could not wait to wake Hermione, and it was with quickening excitement that he
entered the tent, Ron lagging a little behind him.
It was gloriously warm after the pool and the forest, the only illumination the bluebell
flames still shimmering in a bowl on the floor. Hermione was fast asleep, curled up under
her blankets, and did not move until Harry had said her name several times.
"Hermione!"
She stirred, then sat up quickly, pushing her hair out of her face.
"What's wrong? Harry? Are you all right?"
"It's okay, everything's fine. More than fine, I'm great. There's someone here."
"What do you mean? Who --?"
She saw Ron, who stood there holding the sword and dripping onto the threadbare carpet.
Harry backed into a shadowy corner, slipped off Ron's rucksack, and attempted to blend
in with the canvas.
Hermione slid out of her bunk and moved like a sleepwalker toward Ron, her eyes upon
his pale face. She stopped right in front of him, her lips slightly parted, her eyes wide.
Ron gave a weak hopeful smile and half raised his arms.
Hermione launched herself forward and started punching every inch of him that she could
reach.
"Ouch -- ow -- gerroff! What the --? Hermione -- OW!"
"You -- complete -- arse -- Ronald -- Weasley!"
She punctuated every word with a blow: Ron backed away, shielding his head as
Hermione advanced.
"You -- crawl -- back -- here -- after -- weeks -- and -- weeks -- oh, where's my wand?"
She looked as though ready to wrestle it out of Harry's hands and he reacted instinctively.
"Protego!"
The invisible shield erupted between Ron and Hermione. The force of it knocked her
backward onto the floor. Spitting hair out of her mouth, she lept up again.
"Hermione!" said Harry. "Calm --"
"I will not calm down!" she screamed. Never before had he seen her lose control like this;
she looked quite demented. "Give me back my wand! Give it back to me!"
"Hermione, will you please --"
"Don't you tell me what do, Harry Potter!" she screeched. "Don't you dare! Give it back
now! And YOU!"
She was pointing at Ron in dire accusation: It was like a malediction, and Harry could not
blame Ron for retreating several steps.
"I cam running after you! I called you! I begged you to come back"
"I know," Ron said, "Hermione, I'm sorry, I'm really --"
"Oh, you're sorry!"
She laughed a high-pitched, out-of-control sound; Ron looked at Harry for help, but
Harry merely grimaced his helplessness.
"You came back after weeks -- weeks -- and you think it's all going to be all right if you
just say sorry?"
"Well, what else can I say?" Ron shouted, and Harry was glad that Ron was fighting back.
"Oh, I don't know!" yelled Hermione with awful sarcasm. "Rack your brains, Ron, that
should only take a couple of seconds --"
"Hermione," interjected Harry, who considered this a low blow, "he just saved my --"
"I don't care!" she screamed. "I don't care what he's done! Weeks and weeks, we could
have been dead for all he knew --"
"I knew you weren't dead!" bellowed Ron, drowning her voice for the first time, and
approaching as close as he could with the Shield Charm between them. "Harry's all over
the Prophet, all over the radio, they're looking for you everywhere, all these rumors and
mental stories, I knew I'd hear straight off if you were dead, you don't know what it's
been like --"
"What it's been like for you??
Her voice was not so shrill only bats would be able to hear it soon, but she had reached a
level of indignation that rendered her temporarily speechless, and Ron seized his
opportunity.
"I wanted to come back the minute I'd Disapparated, but I walked straight into a gang of
Snatchers, Hermione, and I couldn't go anywhere!"
"A gang of what?" asked Harry, as Hermione threw herself down into a chair with her
arms and legs crossed so tightly it seemed unlikely that she would unravel them for
several years.
"Snatchers," said Ron. "They're everywhere -- gangs trying to earn gold by rounding up
Muggle-borns and blood traitors, there's a reward from the Ministry for everyone
captured. I was on my own and I look like I might be school age; they got really excited,
thought I was a Muggle-born in hiding. I had to talk fast to get out of being dragged to
the Ministry."
"What did you say to them?"
"Told them I was Stan Shunpike. First person I could think of."
"And they believed that?"
"They weren't the brightest. One of them was definitely part troll, the smell of him...."
Ron glanced at Hermione, clearly hopeful she might soften at this small instance of
humor, but her expression remained stony above her tightly knotted limbs.
"Anyway, they had a row about whether I was Stan or not. It was a bit pathetic to be
honest, but there were still five of them and only one of me, and they'd taken my wand.
Then two of them got into a fight and while the others were distracted I managed to hit
the one holding me in the stomach, grabbed his wand, Disarmed the bloke holding mine,
and Disapparated. I didn't do it so well. Splinched myself again" -- Ron held up his right
hand to show two missing fingernails: Hermione raised her eyebrows coldly -- "and I
came out miles from where you were. By the time I got back to that bit of riverbank
where we'd been ... you were gone."
"Gosh, what a gripping story," Hermione said in the lofty voice she adopted when
wishing to wound. "You must have been simply terrified. Meanwhile we went to Godric's
Hollow and, let's think, what happened there, Harry? Oh yes, You-Know-Who's snake
turned up, it nearly killed both of us, and then You-Know-Who himself arrived and
missed us by about a second."
"What?" Ron said, gaping from her to Harry, but Hermione ignored him.
"Imagine losing fingernails, Harry! That really puts our sufferings into perspective,
doesn't it?"
"Hermione," said Harry quietly, "Ron just saved my life."
She appeared not to have heard him.
"One thing I would like to know, though," she said, fixing her eyes on a spot a foot over
Ron's head. "How exactly did you find us tonight? That's important. Once we know, we'll
be able to make sure we're not visited by anyone else we don't want to see."
Ron glared at her, then pulled a small silver object from his jeans pocket.
"This."
She had to look at Ron to see what he was showing them.
"The Deluminator?" she asked, so surprised she forgot to look cold and fierce.
"It doesn't just turn the lights on and off," said Ron. "I don't know how it works or why it
happened then and not any other time, because I've been wanting to come back ever since
I left. But I was listening to the radio really early on Christmas morning and I heard ... I
heard you."
He was looking at Hermione.
"You heard me on the radio?" she asked incredulously.
"No, I heard you coming out of my pocket. Your voice," he held up the Deluminator
again, "came out of this."
"And what exactly did I say?" asked Hermione, her tone somewhere between skepticism
and curiosity.
"My name. 'Ron.' And you said ... something about a wand...."
Hermione turned a fiery shade of scarlet. Harry remembered: it had been the first time
Won's name had been said aloud by either of them since the day he had left; Hermione
had mentioned it when talking about repairing Harry's wand.
"So I took it out," Ron went on, looking at the Deluminator, "and it didn't seem different
or anything, but I was sure I'd heard you. So I clicked it. And the light went out in my
room, but another light appeared right outside the window."
Ron raised his empty hand and pointed in front of him, his eyes focused on something
neither Harry nor Hermione could see.
"It was a ball of light, kind of pulsing, and bluish, like that light you get around a Portkey,
you know?"
"Yeah," said Harry and Hermione together automatically.
"I knew this was it," said Ron. "I grabbed my stuff and packed it, then I put on my
rucksack and went out into the garden.
"The little ball of light was hovering there, waiting for me, and when I came out it
bobbed along a bit and I followed it behind the shed and then it ... well, it went inside
me."
"Sorry?" said Harry, sure he had not heard correctly.
"It sort of floated toward me," said Ron, illustrating the movement with his free index
finger, "right to my chest, and then -- it just went straight through. It was here," he
touched a point close to his heard, "I could feel it, it was hot. And once it was inside me, I
knew what I was supposed to do. I knew it would take me where I needed to go. So I
Disapparated and came out on the side of a hill. There was snow everywhere...."
"We were there," said Harry. "We spent two nights there, and the second night I kept
thinking I could hear someone moving around in the dark and calling out!"
"Yeah, well, that would've been me," said Ron. "Your protective spells work, anyway,
because I couldn't see you and I couldn't hear you. I was sure you were around, though,
so in the end I got in my sleeping bag and waited for one of you to appear. I thought
you'd have to show yourselves when you packed up the tent."
"No, actually," said Hermione. "We've been Disapparating under the Invisibility Cloak as
an extra precaution. And we left really early, because as Harry says, we'd heard
somebody blundering around."
"Well, I stayed on that hill all day," said Ron. "I kept hoping you'd appear. But when it
started to get dark I knew I must have missed you, so I clicked the Deluminator again, the
blue light came out and went inside me, and I Disapparated and arrived here in these
woods. I still couldn't see you, so I just had to hope one of you would show yourselves in
the end -- and Harry did. Well, I saw the doe first, obviously."
"You saw the what?" said Hermione sharply.
They explained what had happened and as the story of the silver doe and the sword in the
pool unfolded, Hermione frowned form one to the other of them, concentrating so hard
she forgot to keep her limbs locked together.
"But it must have been a Patronus!" she said. "Couldn't you see who was casting it?
Didn't you see anyone? And it led you to the sword! I can't believe this! Then what
happened?"
Ron explained how he had watched Harry jump into the pool, and had waited for him to
resurface; how he had realized that something was wrong, dived in, and saved Harry,
then returned for the sword. He got as far as the opening of the locket, then hesitated, and
Harry cut in.
"-- and Ron stabbed it with the sword."
"And ... and it went? Just like that?" she whispered.
"Well, it -- it screamed," said Harry with half a glance at Ron. "Here."
He threw the locket into her lap; gingerly she picked it up and examined its punctured
windows.
Deciding that it was at last safe to do so, Harry removed the Shield Charm with a wave of
Hermione's wand and turned to Ron.
"Did you just say now that you got away from the snatchers with a spare wand?"
"What?" said Ron, who had been watching Hermione examining the locket. "Oh -- oh
yeah."
He tugged open a buckle on his rucksack and pulled a short dark wand out of his pocket.
"Here, I figured it's always handy to have a backup."
"You were right," said Harry, holding out his hand. "Mine's broken."
"You're kidding?" Ron said, but at that moment Hermione got to her feet, and he looked
apprehensive again.
Hermione put the vanquished Horcrux into the beaded bag, then climbed back into her
bed and settled down without another word.
Ron passed Harry the new wand.
"About the best you could hope for, I think," murmured Harry.
"Yeah," said Ron. "Could've been worse. Remember those birds she set on me?"
"I still haven't ruled it out," came Hermione's muffled voice from beneath her blankets,
but Harry saw Ron smiling slightly as he pulled his maroon pajamas out of his rucksack.
Chapter Twenty
Xenophilius Lovegood
Harry had not expected Hermione's anger to abate over night and was
therefore unsurprised that she communicated mainly by dirty looks and
pointed silences the next morning. Ron responded by maintaining an
unnaturally somber demeanor in her presence as an outward sign of continuing
remorse. In fact, when all three of them were together Harry felt like the
only non-mourner at a poorly attended funeral. During those few moments he
spent alone with Harry, however (collecting water and searching the
undergrowth for mushrooms). Ron became shamelessly cheery.
"Someone helped us," he kept saying, "Someone sent that doe, Someone's on
our side, One Horcrux down, mate!"
Bolstered by the destruction of the locket they set to debating the possible
locations of the other Horcruxes and even though they had discussed the
matter so often before. Harry felt optimistic, certain that more
breakthroughs would succeed the first. Hermione's sulkiness could not mar
his buoyant spirits; The sudden upswing in their fortunes, the appearance of
the mysterious due, the recovery of Gryffindor’s sword, and above all, Ron's
return made Harry so happy that it was quite difficult to maintain a
straight face.
Late in the afternoon he and Ron escaped Hermione's baleful presence again
and under the pretense of scouring the bare hedges for nonexistent
blackberries, they continued their ongoing exchange of news. Harry had
finally managed to tell Ron the whole story of his and Hermione's various
wanderings, right up to the full story of what had happened at Godric's
Hollow; Ron was now filling Harry in on everything he had discovered about
the wider Wizarding world during his weeks away.
"... and how did you find out about the Taboo?" he asked Harry after
explaining the many desperate attempts of Muggle-borns to evade the
Ministry."
"The what?"
"You and Hermione have stopped saying You-Know-Who's name!"
"Oh, yeah, Well, it's just a bad habit we've slipped into," said Harry. "But
I haven't got a problem calling him V ---"
"NO!" roared Ron, causing Harry to jump into the hedge and Hermione (nose
buried in a book at the tent entrance) to scowl over at them. "Sorry," said
Ron, wrenching Harry back out of the brambles, "but the name's been jinxed,
Harry, that's how they track people! Using his name breaks protective
enchantments, it causes some kind of magical disturbance --- it's how they
found us in Tottenham Court Road!"
"Because we used his *name*?"
"Exactly! You've got to give them credit, it makes sense. It was only people
who were serious about standing up to him, like Dumbledore, who even dared
use it. Now they've put a Taboo on it, anyone who says it is trackable ---
quick-and-easy way to find Order members! They nearly got Kingsley ---"
"You're kidding?"
"Yeah, a bunch of Death Eaters cornered him, Bill said but he fought his way
out. He's on the run now just like us." Ron scratched his chin
thoughtfully with
the end of his wand. "You don't reckon Kingsley could have sent that doe?"
"His Patronus is a lynx, we saw it at the wedding, remember?"
"Oh yeah..."
They moved farther along the hedge, away from the tent and Hermione.
"Harry... you don't reckon it could've been Dumbledore?"
"Dumbledore what?"
Ron looked a little embarrassed, but said in a low voice, "Dumbledore ... the
doe? I mean," Ron was watching Harry out of the corners of his eyes, "he had
the real sword last, didn't he?
Harry did not laugh at Ron, because he understood too well the longing
behind the question. The idea that Dumbledore had managed to come back to
them, that he was watching over them, would have inexpressibly comforting.
He shook his head.
"Dumbledore’s dead," he said. "I saw it happen, I saw the body. He's
definitely gone. Anyway his Patronus was a phoenix, not a doe"
"Patronuses can change, though can't they?" said Ron, "Tonks’s changed
didn't it?"
Yeah, but if Dumbledore was alive, why wouldn't he show himself? Why
wouldn't he just hand us the sword?
"Search me," said Ron. "Same reason he didn't give it to you while he was
alive? Same reason he left you an old Snitch and Hermione a book of kid's
stories?"
"Which is what?" asked Harry, turning to look Ron full in the face desperate
for the answer.
"I dunno," said Ron. "Sometimes I've thought, when I've been a bit hacked
off, he was having a laugh or --- or he just wanted to make it more
difficult, But I don't think so, not anymore. He knew what he was doing when
he gave me the Deluminator, didn't he? He -- well," Ron's ears turned bright
red and he became engrossed in a tuft of grass at his feet, which he prodded
with his toe, "he must've known I'd run out on you."
"No," Harry corrected him. "He must've known you'd always want to come
back."
Ron looked grateful, but still awkward. Partly to change the subject, Harry
said, "Speaking of Dumbledore, have you heard what Skeeter wrote about him?"
"Oh yeah," said Ron at once, "people are talking about it quite a lot.
'Course, if things were different it'd be huge news, Dumbledore being pals
with Grindelwald, but now it's just something to laugh about for people who
didn't like Dumbledore, and a bit of a slap in the face for everyone who
thought he was such a good bloke. I don't know that it's such a big deal,
though. He was really young when they --"
"Our age," said Harry, just as he had retorted to Hermione, and something in
his face seemed to decide Ron against pursuing the subject.
A large spider sat in the middle of a frosted web in the brambles. Harry
took aim at it with the wand Ron had given him the previous night, which
Hermione had since condescended to examine, and had decided was made of
blackthorn.
"*Engorgio*"
"The spider gave a little shiver, bouncing slightly in the web. Harry tried
again. This time the spider grew slightly larger.
"Stop that," said Ron sharply, " I'm sorry I said Dumbledore was young,
okay?"
Harry had forgotten Ron's hatred of spiders.
"Sorry --- *Reducio*"
The spider did not shrink. Harry looked down at the blackthorn wand. Every
minor spell he had cast with it so far that day had seemed less powerful
than those he had produced with his phoenix wand. The new one felt
intrusively unfamiliar, like having somebody else's hand sewn to the end of
his arm.
"You just need to practice," said Hermione, who had approached them
noiselessly from behind and had stood watching anxiously as Harry tried to
enlarge and reduce the spider. "It’s all a matter of confidence Harry."
He knew why she wanted it to be all right; She still felt guilty about
breaking his wand. He bit back the retort that sprung to his lips, that she
could take the blackthorn wand if she thought it made no difference, and he
would have hers instead. Keen for them all to be friends again, however, he
agreed; but when Ron gave Hermione a tentative smile, she stalked off and
vanished behind her book once more.
All three of them returned to the tent when darkness fell, and Harry took
first watch. Sitting in the entrance, he tried to make the blackthorn wand
levitate small stones at his feet; but his magic still seemed clumsier and
less powerful than it had done before. Hermione was lying on her bunk
reading, while Ron, after many nervous glances up at her, had taken a small
wooden wireless out of his rucksack and started to try to tune it.
"There's this one program," he told Harry in a low voice, "that tells the
news like it really is. All the others are on You-Know-Who's side and are
following the Ministry line, but this one ... you wait till you hear it, it's
great. Only they can't do it every night, they have to keep changing
locations in case they're raided and you need a password to tune in ...
Trouble is, I missed the last one..."
He drummed lightly on the top of the radio with his wand muttering random
words under his breath. He threw Hermione many covert glances, plainly
fearing an angry outburst, but for all the notice she took of him he might
not have been there. For ten minutes or so Ron tapped and muttered, Hermione
turned the pages of her book, and Harry continued to practice with the
blackthorn wand.
Finally Hermione climbed down from her bunk. Ron ceased his tapping at once.
"If it's annoying you, I'll stop!" he told Hermione nervously.
Hermione did not deign to respond, but approached Harry.
"We need to talk," she said.
He looked at the book still clutched in her hand. It was * The Life and Lies
of Albus Dumbledore.*
"What?" he said apprehensively. It flew through his mind that there was a
chapter on him in there; he was not sure he felt up to hearing Rita's
version of his relationship with Dumbledore. Hermione's answer however, was
completely unexpected.
"I want to go and see Xenophilius Lovegood."
He stared at her.
"Sorry?"
“Xenophilius Lovegood, Luna’s father. I want to go and talk to him!”
“er – why?”
She took a deep breath, as though bracing herself, and said, “It’s that mark, the
mark in Beedle the Bard. Look at this!”
She thrust The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore under Harry’s unwilling eyes
and saw a photograph of the original letter that Dumbledore had written Grindelwald,
with Dumbledore’s familiar thin, slanting handwriting. He hated seeing absolute proof
that Dumbledore really had written those words, that they had not been Rita’s invention.
“The signature,” said Hermione. “Look at the signature, Harry!”
He obeyed. For a moment he had no idea what she was talking about, but, looking
more closely with the aid of his lit wand, he saw that Dumbledore had replaced the A of
Albus with a tiny version of the same triangular mark inscribed upon The Tales of Beedle
the Bard.
“Er – what are you -- ?” said Ron tentatively, but Hermione quelled him with a
look and turned back to Harry.
“It keeps cropping up, doesn’t it?” she said. “I know Viktor said it was
Grindelwald’s mark, but it was definitely on that old grave in Godric’s Hollow, and the
dates on the headstone were long before Grindelwald came along! And now this! Well,
we can’t ask Dumbledore or Grindelwald what it means – I don’t even know whether
Grindelwald’s still alive – but we can ask Mr. Lovegood. He was wearing the symbol at
the wedding. I’m sure this is important, Harry!”
Harry did not answer immediately. He looked into her intense, eager face and
then out into the surrounding darkness, thinking. After a long pause he said, “Hermione,
we don’t need another Godric’s Hollow. We talked ourselves into going there, and –”
“But it keeps appearing, Harry! Dumbledore left me The Tales of Beedle the Bard,
how do you know we’re not supposed to find out about the sign?”
“Here we go again!” Harry felt slightly exasperated. “We keep trying to convince
ourselves Dumbledore left us secret signs and clues –“
“The Deluminator turned out to be pretty useful,” piped up Ron. “I think
Hermione’s right, I think we ought to go and see Lovegood.”
Harry threw him a dark look. He was quite sure that Ron’s support of Hermione
had little to do with a desire to know the meaning of the triangular rune.
“It won’t be like Godric’s Hollow,” Ron added, “Lovegood’s on your side, Harry,
The Quibbler’s been for you all along, it keeps telling everyone they’ve got to help you!”
“I’m sure this is important!” said Hermione earnestly.
“But don’t you think if it was, Dumbledore would have told me about it before he
died?”
“Maybe . . . maybe it’s something you need to find out for yourself,” said
Hermione with a faint air of clutching at straws.
“Yeah,” said Ron sycophantically, “that makes sense.”
“No, it doesn’t,” snapped Hermione, “but I still think we ought to talk to Mr.
Lovegood. A symbol that links Dumbledore, Grindelwald, and Godric’s Hollow? Harry,
I’m sure we ought to know about this!”
“I think we should vote on it,” said Ron. “Those in favor of going to see Love
good –”
His hand flew into the air before Hermione’s. Her lips quivered suspiciously as
she raised her own.
“Outvoted, Harry, sorry,” said Ron, clapping him on the back.
“Fine,” said Harry, half amused, half irritated. “Only, once we’ve seen Lovegood,
let’s try and look for some more Horcruxes, shall we? Where do the Lovegood’s live,
anyway? Do either of you know?
“Yeah, they’re not far from my place,” said Ron. “I dunno exactly where, but
Mum and Dad always point toward the hills whenever they mention them. Shouldn’t be
hard to find.”
When Hermione had returned to her bunk, Harry lowered his voice.
“You only agreed to try and get back in her good books.”
“All’s fair in love and war,” said Ron brightly, “and this is a bit of both. Cheer up,
it’s the Christmas holidays, Luna’ll be home!”
They had an excellent view of the village of Ottery St. Catchopole from the
breezy hillside to which they Disapparated next morning. From their high vantage point
the village looked like a collection of toy houses in the great slanting shafts of sunlight
stretching to earth in the breaks between clouds. They stood for a minute or two looking
toward the Burrow, their hands shadowing their eyes, but all they could make out were
the high hedges and trees of the orchard, which afforded the crooked little house
protection from Muggle eyes.
“It’s weird, being this near, but not going to visit,” said Ron.
“Well, it’s not like you haven’t just seen them. You were there for Christmas,”
said Hermione coldly.
“I wasn’t at the Burrow!” said Ron with an incredulous laugh. “Do you think I
was going to go back there and tell them all I’d walked out on you? Yeah, Fred and
George would’ve been great about it. And Ginny, she’d have been really understanding.”
“But where have you been, then?” asked Hermione, surprised.
“Bill and Fleur’s new place. Shell cottage. Bill’s always been decent to me. He –
he wasn’t impressed when he heard what I’d done, but he didn’t go on about it. He knew
I was really sorry. None of the rest of the family know I was there. Bill told Mum he and
Fleur weren’t going home for Christmas because they wanted to spend it alone. You
know, first holiday after they were married. I don’t think Fleur minded. You know how
much she hates Celestina Warbeck.”
Ron turned his back on the Burrow.
“Let’s try up here,” he said, leading the way over the top of the hill.
They walked for a few hours, Harry, at Hermione’s insistence, hidden beneath the
Invisibility Cloak. The cluster of low hills appeared to be uninhabited apart from one
small cottage, which seemed deserted.
“Do you think it’s theirs, and they’ve gone away for Christmas?” said Hermione,
peering through the window at a neat little kitchen with geraniums on the windowsill.
Ron snorted.
“Listen, I’ve got a feeling you’d be able to tell who lived there if you looked
through the Lovegoods’ window. Let’s try the next lot of hills.”
So they Disapparated a few miles farther north.
“Aha!” shouted Ron, as the wind whipped their hair and clothes. Ron was
pointing upward, toward the top of the hill on which they had appeared, where a most
strange-looking house rose vertically against the sky, a great black cylinder with a
ghostly moon hanging behind it in the afternoon sky. “That’s got to be Luna’s house,
who else would live in a place like that? It looks like a giant rook!”
“It’s nothing like a bird,” said Hermione, frowning at the tower.
“I was talking about a chess rook,” said Ron. “A castle to you.”
Ron’s legs were the longest and he reached the top of the hill first. When Harry
and Hermione caught up with him, panting and clutching stitches in their sides, they
found him grinning broadly.
“It’s theirs,” said Ron. “Look.”
Three hand-painted signs had been tacked to a broke-down gate. The first read,
THE QUIBBLER. EDITOR, X. LOVEGOOD
the second,
PICK YOUR OWN MISTLETOE
the third,
KEEP OFF THE DIRIGIBLE PLUMS
The gate creaked as they opened it. The zigzagging path leading to the front door
was overgrown with a variety of odd plants, including a bush covered in orange
radishlike fruit Luna sometimes wore as earrings. Harry thought he recognized a
Snargaluff and gave the wizened stump a wide berth. Two aged crab apple trees, bent
with the wind, stripped of leaves but still heavy with berry-sized red fruits and bushy
crowns of white beaded mistletoe, stood sentinel on either side of the front door. A little
owl with a slightly flattened hawklike head peered down at them from one of the
branches.
“You’d better take off the Invisibility Cloak, Harry,” said Hermione. “It’s you Mr.
Lovegood wants to help, not us.”
He did as she suggested, handing her the Cloak to stow in the beaded bag. She
then rapped three times on the thick black door, which was studded with iron nails and
bore a knocker shaped like an eagle.
Barely ten seconds passed, then the door was flung open and there stood
Xenophilius Lovegood, barefoot and wearing what appeared to be a stained
nightshirt. His long white candyfloss hair was dirty and unkempt. Xenophilius
had been positively dapper at Bill and Fleur's wedding by comparison.
"What? What is it? Who are you? What do you want?" he cried in a
high-pitched, querulous voice, looking first at Hermione, then at Ron, and
finally at Harry, upon which his mouth fell open in a perfect, comical O.
"Hello, Mr. Lovegood," said Harry, holding out his hand, "I'm Harry,
Harry Potter."
Xenophilius did not take Harry's hand, although the eye that was not
pointing inward at his nose slid straight to the scar on Harry's forehead.
"Would it be okay if we came in?" asked Harry. "There's something we'd
like to ask you."
"I . . . I'm not sure that's advisable," whispered Xenophilius, He
swallowed and cast a quick look around the garden. "Rather a shock . . . My
word . . . I . . . I'm afraid I don't really think I ought to ---"
"It wont take long" said Harry, slightly disappointed by this
less-than-warm welcome.
"I --- oh, all right then. Come in, quickly, Quickly!"
They were barely over the threshold when Xenophilius slammed the door
shut behind them, They were standing in the most peculiar kitchen Harry had
ever seen. The room was perfectly circular, so that he felt like being
inside a giant pepper pot. Everything was curved to fit the walls - the
stove, the sink, and the cupboards - and all of it had been painted with
flowers, insects, and birds in bright primary colors. Harry thought he
recognized Luna's styles. The effect in such and enclosed space, was
slightly overwhelming.
In the middle of the floor, a wrought-iron spiral staircase ld to the
upper levels. There was a great deal of clattering and banging coming from
overhead: Harry wondered what Luna could be doing.
"You'd better come up." said Xenophilius, still looking extremely
uncomfortable, and he led the way.
The room above seemed to be a combination of living room and workplace,
and as such, was even more cluttered than the kitchen. Though much smaller
and entirely round, the room somewhat resembled the Room of Requirement on
the unforgettable occasion that it had transformed itself into a gigantic
labyrinth comprised of centuries of hidden objects. There were piles upon
piles of books and papers on every surface. Delicately made models of
creatures Harry did not recognize, all flapping wings or snapping jaws, hung
from the ceiling.
Luna was not there: The thing that was making such a racket was a wooden
object covered in magically turning cogs and wheels, It looked like the
bizarre offspring of a workbench and a set of shelves, but after a moment
Harry deduced that it was an old-fashioned printing press, due to the fact
that it was churning out Quibblers.
"Excuse me," said Xenophilius, and he strode over to the machine, seized
grubbily tablecloth from beneath an immense number of books and papers,
which all tumbled onto the floor, and threw it over the press, somewhat
muffling the loud bangs and clatters. He then faced Harry.
"Why have you come here?"
Before Harry could speak, however, Hermione let out a small cry of shock.
"Mr. Lovegood - what's that?"
See was pointing at an enormous, gray spiral horn, not unlike that of a
unicorn, which had been mounted on the wall, protruding several feet into
the room.
"It is the horn of a Crumple-Horned Snorkack," said Xenophilius.
"No it isn't!" said Hermione.
"Hermione," muttered Harry, embarrassed, "now's not the moment -"
"But Harry, it's an Erumpent horn! It's a Class B Tradeable Material and
it's an extraordinary dangerous thing to have in a house!"
"How'd you know it's an Erumpent horn?" asked Ron, edging away from the
horn as fast as he could, given the extreme clutter of the room.
"There's a description in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them! Mr.
Lovegood, you need to get rid of it straightaway, don't you know it can
explode at the slightest touch?"
"The Crumple Horned Snorkack" said Xenophilius very clearly, a mulish
look upon his face, “is a shy and highly magical creature, and it's horn -"
"Mr. Lovegood. I recognize the grooved markings around the base, that's
an Erumpent horn and it's incredibly dangerous - I don't know where you got
it-"
"I bought it," said Xenophilius dogmatically. "Two weeks ago, from a
delightful young wizard who knew my interest in the exquisite Snorkack. A
Christmas surprise for my Luna. Now," he said, turning to Harry, "why
exactly have you come here, Mr. Potter?"
"We need some help," said Harry, before Hermione could start again.
"Ah," said Xenophilius, "Help, Hmm."
His good eye moved again to Harry's scar. He seemed simultaneously
terrified and mesmerized.
"Yes. The thing is ... helping Harry Potter ... rather dangerous..."
"Aren't you the one who keeps telling everyone it's their first duty to
help Harry?" said Ron. "In that magazine of yours?"
Xenophilius glanced behind him at the concealed printing press, still
banging and clattering beneath the tablecloth.
"Er - yes, I have expressed that view. however -"
"That's for everyone else to do, not you personally?" said Ron.
Xenophilius did not answer. He kept swallowing, his eyes darting between
the three of them. Harry had the impression that he was undergoing some
painful internal struggle.
"Where's Luna?" asked Hermione. "Let's see what she thinks."
Xenophilius gulped. He seemed to be steeling himself. Finally he said in
a shaky voice difficult to hear over the noise of the printing press, "Luna
is down at the stream, fishing for Freshwater Plimpies. She...she will like
to see you. I'll go and call her and then - yes, very well. I shall try to
help you."
He disappeared down the spiral staircase and they heard the front open
and close. They looked at each other.
"Cowardly old wart," said Ron. "Luna's got ten times his guts."
"He's probably worried about what'll happen to them if the Death Eaters
find out I was here" said Harry.
"Well, I agree with Ron, " said Hermione, "Awful old hypocrite, telling
everyone else to help you and trying to worm our of it himself. And for
heaven's sake keep away from that horn."
Harry crossed to the window on the far side of the room. He could see a
stream, a thin, glittering ribbon lying far below them at the base of the
hill. They were very high up; a bird fluttered past the window as he stared
in the direction of the Burrow, now invisible beyond another line of hills.
Ginny was over there somewhere. They were closer to each other today than
they had been since Bill and Fleur's wedding, but she could have no idea he
was gazing toward her now, thinking of her. He suppose he ought to be glad
of it; anyone he came into contact with was in danger, Xenophilius's attitude
proved that.
he turned away from the windows and his gaze fell upon another peculiar
object standing upon the cluttered, curved slide board; a stone but of a
beautiful but austere-looking witch wearing a most bizarre-looking
headdress. Two objects that resembled golden ear trumpets curved out from
the sides. A tiny pair of glittering blue wing was stuck to a leather strap
that ran over the top of her head, while one of the orange radishes had been
stuck to a second strap around her forehead.
"Look at this," said Harry.
"Fetching," said Ron. "Surprised he didn't hear that to the wedding."
They heard the front door close, and a moment later Xenophilius climbed
back up the spiral staircase into the room, his thin legs now encase in
Wellington boots, bearing a tray of ill-assorted teacups and a steaming
teapot.
"Ah, you have spotted my pet invention," he said, shoving the tray into
Hermione's arms and joining Harry at the statue's side.
"Modeled, fittingly enough, upon the head of the beautiful Rowens Ravenclaw,
'Wit beyond measure is a man's greatest treasure!'"
He indicated the objects like ear trumpets.
"These are the Wrackpurt siphons - to remove all sources of distraction
from the thinker's immediate area. Here, "he pointed out the tiny wings, "a
billywig propeller, to induce an elevated frame of mind. Finally, "he
pointed to the orange radish, "the dirigible Plum, so as to enhance the
ability to accept the extraordinary."
Xenophilius strode back to the tea tray, which Hermione had managed to
balance precariously on one of the cluttered side tables.
"May I offer you all an infusion of Gurdyroots?" said Xenophilius. "We
make it ourselves." As he started to pour out the drink, which was as deeply
purple as beetroot juice, he added, "Luna is down beyond Bottom Bridge, she
is most excited that you are here She ought not to be too long, she has
caught nearly enough Plumpies to make soup for all of us. Do sit down and
help yourselves to sugar.
"Now," he remove a tottering pile of papers from an armchair and sat
down, his Wellingtoned legs crossed, "how may I help you, Mr. Potter?"
"Well," said Harry, glancing at Hermione, who nodded encouragingly,
"it's about that symbol you were wearing around your neck at Bill and
Fleur's wedding, Mr. Lovegood. We wondered what it meant."
Xenophilius raised his eyebrows.
"Are you referring to the sign of the Deathly Hallows?"
Chapter Twenty-One
The Tale of the Three Brothers
Harry turned to look at Ron and Hermione. Neither of them seemed to have
understood what Xenophilius had said either.
"The Deathly Hallows?"
"That's right," said Xenophilius. "You haven't heard of them? I'm not surprised.
Very, very few wizards believe. Witness that knuckle-headed young man at your
brother's wedding," he nodded at Ron, "who attacked me for sporting the symbol of a
well-known Dark wizard! Such ignorance. There is nothing Dark about the Hallows – at
least not in that crude sense. One simply uses the symbol to reveal oneself to other
believers, in the hope that they might help one with the Quest."
He stirred several lumps of sugar into his Gurdyroot infusion and drank some.
"I'm sorry," said Harry, "I still don't really understand."
To be polite, he took a sip from his cup too, and almost gagged: The stuff was
quite disgusting, as though someone had liquidized bogey-flavored Every Flavor Beans.
"Well, you see, believers seek the Deathly Hallows," said Xenophilius, smacking
his lips in apparent appreciation of the Gurdyroot infusion.
"But what are the Deathly Hallows?" asked Hermione.
Xenophilius set aside his empty teacup.
"I assume that you are familiar with 'The Tale of the Three Brothers'?"
Harry said, "No," but Ron and Hermione both said, "Yes." Xenophilius nodded
gravely.
"Well, well, Mr. Potter, the whole thing starts with 'The Tale of the Three
Brothers' . . . I have a copy somewhere . . ."
He glanced vaguely around the room, at the piles of parchment and books, but
Hermione said, "I've got a copy, Mr. Lovegood, I've got it right here."
And she pulled out The Tales of Beedle the Bard from the small, beaded bag.
"The original?" inquired Xenophilius sharply, and when she nodded, he said,
"Well then, why don't you read it out aloud? Much the best way to make sure we all
understand."
"Er. . . all right," said Hermione nervously. She opened the book, and Harry saw
that the symbol they were investigating headed the top of the page as she gave a little
cough, and began to read.
"'There were once three brothers who were traveling along a lonely, winding road
at twilight –'"
"Midnight, our mum always told us," said Ron, who had stretched out, arms
behind his head, to listen. Hermione shot him a look of annoyance.
"Sorry, I just think it's a bit spookier if it's midnight!" said Ron.
"Yeah, because we really need a bit more fear in our lives," said Harry before he
could stop himself. Xenophilius did not seem to be paying much attention, but was
staring out of the window at the sky. "Go on, Hermione."
"In time, the brothers reached a river too deep to wade through and too
dangerous to swim across. However, these brothers were learned in the magical arts, and
so they simply waved their wands and made a bridge appear across the treacherous
water. They were halfway across it when they found their path blocked by a hooded
figure.
"'And Death spoke to them –'"
"Sorry," interjected Harry, "but Death spoke to them?"
"It's a fairy tale, Harry!"
"Right, sorry. Go on."
"'And Death spoke to them. He was angry that he had been cheated out of the
three new victims, for travelers usually drowned in the river. But Death was cunning. He
pretended to congratulate the three brothers upon their magic, and said that each had
earned a prize for having been clever enough to evade him.
"'So the oldest brother, who was a combative man, asked for a wand more
powerful than any in existence: a wand that must always win duels for its owner, a wand
worthy of a wizard who had conquered Death! So Death crossed to an elder tree on the
banks of the river, fashioned a wand from a branch that hung there, and gave it to the
oldest brother.
"'Then the second brother, who was an arrogant man, decided that he wanted to
humiliate Death still further, and asked for the power to recall others from Death. So
Death picked up a stone from the riverbank and gave it to the second brother, and told
him that the stone would have the power to bring back the dead.
"'And then Death asked the third and youngest brother what he would like. The
youngest brother was the humblest and also the wisest of the brothers, and he did not
trust Death. So he asked for something that would enable him to go forth from that place
without being followed by Death. And Death, most unwillingly, handed over his own
Cloak of Invisibility.'"
"Death's got an Invisibility Cloak?" Harry interrupted again.
"So he can sneak up on people," said Ron. "Sometimes he gets bored of running at
them, flapping his arms and shrieking . . . sorry, Hermione."
"'Then Death stood aside and allowed the three brothers to continue on their way,
and they did so talking with wonder of the adventure they had had and admiring Death's
gifts.
"'In due course the brothers separated, each for his own destination.
"'The first brother traveled on for a week more, and reaching a distant village,
sought out a fellow wizard with whom he had a quarrel. Naturally, with the Elder Wand
as his weapon, he could not fail to win the duel that followed. Leaving his enemy dead
upon the floor the oldest brother proceeded to an inn, where he boasted loudly of the
powerful wand he had snatched from Death himself, and of how it made him invincible.
"'That very night, another wizard crept upon the oldest brother as he lay, winesodden
upon his bed. The thief took the wand and for good measure, slit the oldest
brother's throat.
"'And so Death took the first brother for his own.
"'Meanwhile, the second brother journeyed to his own home, where he lived alone.
Here he took out the stone that had the power to recall the dead, and turned it thrice in
his hand. To his amazement and his delight, the figure of the girl he had once hoped to
marry, before her untimely death, appeared at once before him.
"'Yet she was sad and cold, separated from him as by a veil. Though she had
returned to the mortal world, she did not truly belong there and suffered. Finally the
second brother, driven mad with hopeless longing, killed himself so as to truly join her.
"'And so Death took the second brother from his own.
"'But though Death searched for the third brother for many years, he was never
able to find him. It was only when he had attained a great age that the youngest brother
finally took off the Cloak of Invisibility and gave it to his son. And the he greeted Death
as an old friend, and went with him gladly, and, equals, they departed this life.'"
Hermione closed the book. It was a moment or two before Xenophilius seemed to
realize that she had stopped reading; then he withdrew his gaze from the window and
said: "Well, there you are."
"Sorry?" said Hermione, sounding confused.
"Those are the Deathly Hallows," said Xenophilius.
He picked up a quill from a packed table at his elbow, and pulled a torn piece of
parchment from between more books.
"The Elder Wand," he said, and drew a straight vertical line upon the parchment.
"The Resurrection Stone," he said, and added a circle on top of the line. "The Cloak of
Invisibility," he finished, enclosing both line and circle in a triangle, to make the symbols
that so intrigued Hermione. "Together," he said, "the Deathly Hallows."
"But there's no mention of the words 'Deathly Hallows' in the story," said
Hermione.
"Well, of course not," said Xenophilius, maddeningly smug. "That is a children's
tale, told to amuse rather than to instruct. Those of us who understand these matters,
however, recognize that the ancient story refers to three objects, or Hallows, which, if
united, will make the possessor master of Death."
There was a short silence in which Xenophilius glanced out of the window.
Already the sun was low in the sky.
"Luna ought to have enough Plimpies soon," he said quietly.
"When you say 'master of Death' –"said Ron.
"Master," said Xenophilius, waving an airy hand. "Conqueror. Vanquisher.
Whichever term you prefer."
"But then . . . do you mean . . ." said Hermione slowly, and Harry could tell that
she was trying to keep any trace of skepticism out of her voice, "that you believe these
objects – these Hallows – really exist?"
Xenophilius raised his eyebrows again.
"Well, of course."
"But," said Hermione, and Harry could hear her restraint starting to crack, "Mr.
Lovegood, how can you possibly believe – ?"
"Luna has told me all about you, young lady," said Xenophilius. "You are, I
gather, not unintelligent, but painfully limited. Narrow. Close-minded."
"Perhaps you ought to try on the hat, Hermione," said Ron, nodding toward the
ludicrous headdress. His voice shook with the strain of not laughing.
"Mr. Lovegood," Hermione began again, "We all know that there are such things
as Invisibility Cloaks. They are rare, but they exist. But –"
"Ah, but the Third Hallow is a true Cloak of Invisibility, Miss Granger! I mean to
say, it is not a traveling cloak imbued with a Disillusionment Charm, or carrying a
Bedazzling Hex, or else woven from Demiguise hair, which will hide one initially but
fade with the years until it turns opaque. We are talking about a cloak that really and truly
renders the wearer completely invisible, and endures eternally, giving constant and
impenetrable concealment, no matter what spells are cast at it. How many cloaks have
you ever seen like that, Miss Granger?"
Hermione opened her mouth to answer, then closed it again, looking more
confused than ever. She, Harry and Ron glanced at one another, and Harry knew that they
were all thinking the same thing. It so happened that a cloak exactly like the one
Xenophilius had just described was in the room with them at that very moment.
"Exactly," said Xenophilius, as if he had defeated them all in reasoned argument.
"None of you have ever seen such a thing. The possessor would be immeasurably rich,
would he not?"
He glanced out of the window again. The sky was now tinged with the faintest
trace of pink.
"All right," said Hermione, disconcerted. "Say the Cloak existed. . . what about
that stone, Mr. Lovegood? The thing you call the Resurrection Stone?"
"What of it?"
"Well, how can that be real?"
"Prove that is not," said Xenophilius.
Hermione looked outraged.
"But that's – I'm sorry, but that's completely ridiculous! How can I possibly prove
it doesn't exist? Do you expect me to get hold of – of all the pebbles in the world and test
them? I mean, you could claim that anything's real if the only basis for believing in it is
that nobody's proved it doesn't exist!"
"Yes, you could," said Xenophilius. "I am glad to see that you are opening your
mind a little."
"So the Elder Wand," said Harry quickly, before Hermione could retort, "you
think that exists too?"
"Oh, well, in that case there is endless evidence," said Xenophilius. "The Elder
Wand is the Hallow that is most easily traced, because of the way in which it passes from
hand to hand."
"Which is what?" asked Harry.
"Which is that the possessor of the wand must capture it from its previous owner,
if he is to be truly master of it," said Xenophilius. "Surely you have heard of the way the
wand came to Egbert the Egregious, after his slaughter of Emeric the Evil? Of how
Godelot died in his own cellar after his son, Hereward, took the wand from him? Of the
dreadful Loxias, who took the wand from Baraabas Deverill, whom he had killed? The
bloody trail of the Elder Wand is splattered across the pages of Wizarding history."
Harry glanced at Hermione. She was frowning at Xenophilius, but she did not
contradict him.
"So where do you think the Elder Wand is now?" asked Ron.
"Alas, who knows?" said Xenophilius, as he gazed out of the window. "Who
knows where the Elder Wand lies hidden? The trail goes cold with Arcus and Livius.
Who can say which of them really defeated Loxias, and which took the wand? And who
can say who may have defeated them? History, alas, does not tell us."
There was a pause. Finally Hermione asked stiffly, "Mr. Lovegood, does the
Peverell family have anything to do with the Deathly Hallows?"
Xenophilius looked taken aback as something shifted in Harry's memory, but he
could not locate it. Peverell. . . he had heard that name before. . .
"But you have been misleading me, young woman!" said Xenophilius, now sitting
up much straighter in his chair and goggling at Hermione. "I thought you were new to the
Hallows Quest! Many of us Questers believe that the Peverells have everything –
everything! – to do with the Hallows!"
"Who are the Peverells?" asked Ron.
"That was the name on the grave with the mark on it, in Godric's Hollow," said
Hermione, still watching Xenophilius. "Ignotus Peverell."
"Exactly!" said Xenophilius, his forefinger raised pedantically. "The sign of the
Death Hallows on Ignotus's grave is conclusive proof!"
"Of what?" asked Ron.
"Why, that the three brothers in the story were actually the three Peverell brothers,
Antioch, Cadmus and Ignotus! That they were the original owners of the Hallows!"
With another glance at the window he got to his feet, picked up the tray, and
headed for the spiral staircase.
"You will stay for dinner?" he called, as he vanished downstairs again.
"Everybody always requests our recipe for Freshwater Plimply soup."
"Probably to show the Poisoning Department at St. Mungo's," said Ron under his
breath.
Harry waited until they could hear Xenophilius moving about in the kitchen
downstairs before speaking.
"What do you think?" he asked Hermione.
"Oh, Harry," she said wearily, "it's a pile of utter rubbish. This can't be what the
sign really means. This must just be his weird take on it. What a waste of time."
"I s'pose this is the man who brought us Crumple-Horned Snorkacks," said Ron.
"You didn't believe it either?" Harry asked him.
"Nah, that story's just one of those things you tell kids to teach them lessons, isn't
it? 'Don't go looking for trouble, don't go pick fights, don't go messing around with stuff
that's best left alone! Just keep your head down, mind your own business, and you'll be
okay. Come to think of it," Ron added, "maybe that story's why elder wands are supposed
to be unlucky."
"What are you talking about?"
"One of those superstitions, isn't it? 'May-born witches will marry Muggles.' 'Jinx
by twilight, undone by midnight.' 'Wand of cider, never prosper.' You must have heard
them. My mum's full of them."
"Harry and I were raised by Muggles," Hermione reminded him. "We were taught
different superstitions." She sighed deeply as a rather pungent smell drifted up from the
kitchen. The one good thing about her exasperation with Xenophilius was that it seemed
to have made her forget that she was annoyed at Ron. "I think you're right," she told him.
"It's just a morality tale, it's obvious which gift is best, which one you'd choose –"
The three of them spoke at the same time: Hermione said, "the Cloak," Ron said,
"the wand," and Harry said, "the stone."
They looked at each other, half surprised, half amused.
"You're supposed to say the Cloak," Ron told Hermione, "but you wouldn't need
to be invisible if you had the wand. An unbeatable wand, Hermione, come on!"
"We've already got an Invisibility Cloak," said Harry, "And it's helped us rather a lot, in
case you hadn't noticed!" said Hermione. "Whereas the wand would be bound to attract
trouble--"
"Only if you shouted about it," argued Ron. "Only if you were prat enough to go dancing
around waving it over your head, and singing, 'I've got an unbeatable want, come and
have a go if you think you're hard enough.' As long as you kept your trap shut --"
-Yes, but could you keep your trap shut?" said Hermione, looking skeptical. "You know
the only true thing he said to us was that there have been stories about extra-powerful
wands for hundreds of years."
"There have?" asked Harry.
Hermione looked exasperated: The expression was so endearingly familiar that Harry and
Ron grinned at each other.
"The Deathstick, the Wand of Destiny, they crop up under different names through the
centuries, usually in the possession of some Dark wizard who’s boasting about them.
Professor Binns mentioned some of them, but -- oh it's all nonsense. Wands are only as
powerful as the wizards who use them. Some wizards just like to boast that theirs are
bigger and better than other people's"
"But how do you know," said Harry, "that those wants -- the Deathstick, and the Wand of
Destiny -- aren't the same want, surfacing over the centuries under different names?"
"What if they're all really the Elder Wand, made by Death?" said Ron.
Harry laughed: The strange idea that had occurred to him was after all, ridiculous. His
wand, he reminded himself, had been of holly, not elder, and it had been made by
Ollivander, whatever it had done that night Voldemort had pursued him across the skies
and if it had been unbeatable, how could it have been broken?
"So why would you take the stone?" Ron asked him.
"Well, if you could bring people back, we could have Sirius...Mad-
Eye...Dumbledore...my parents..."
Neither Ron nor Hermione smiled.
"But according to Beedle the Bard, they wouldn't want to come back, would they?" said
Harry, thinking about the tail they had just heard. "I don't suppose there have been loads
of other stories about a stone that can raise the dead, have there?: he asked Hermione.
"No," she replied sadly. "I don't think anyone except Mr. Lovegood could kid themselves
that's possible. Beedle probably took the idea from the Sorcerer's Stone; you know,
instead of a stone to make you immortal, a stone to reverse death."
The smell from the kitchen was getting stronger. It was something like burning
underpants. Harry wondered whether it would be possible to eat enough of whatever
Xenophilius was cooking to spare his feelings.
"What about the Cloak, though?" said Ron slowly. "Don't you realize, he's right? I've got
so used to Harry's Cloak and how good it is, I never stopped to think. I've never heard of
one like Harry's. It's infallible. We've never been spotted under it --"
"Of course not -- we're invisible when we're under it, Ron!"
"But all the stuff he said about other cloaks, and they're not exactly ten a Knut, you know,
is true! It's never occurred to me before but I've heard stuff about charms wearing off
cloaks when they get old, or them being ripped apart by spells so they've got holes,
Harry's was owned by his dad, so it's not exactly new, is it, but it's just ... perfect!"
"Yes, all right, but Ron, the stone..."
As they argued in whispers, Harry moved around the room, only half listening. Reaching
the spiral stair, he raised his eyes absently to the next level and was distracted at once.
His own face was looking back at him from the ceiling of the room above. After a
moment's bewilderment, he realized that it was not a mirror, but a painting. Curious, he
began to clime the stairs.
"Harry, what are you doing? I don't think you should look around when he's not here!"
But Harry had already reached the next level. Luna had decorated her bedroom ceiling
with five beautifully painted faces: Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and Neville. They
were not moving as the portraits at Hogwarts moved, but there was a certain magic about
them all the same. Harry thought they breathed. What appeared to be a fine golden chains
wove around the pictures linking them together, but after examining them for a minute or
so, Harry realized that the chains were actually one work repeated a thousand times in
golden ink: friends... friends... friends...
Harry felt a great rush of affection for Luna. He looked around the room. There was a
large photograph beside the bed, of a young Luna and a woman who looked very like her.
They were hugging. Luna looked rather better-groomed in this picture than Harry had
ever seen her in life. The picture was dusty. This struck Harry as slightly odd. He stared
around. Something was wrong. The pale blue carpet was also thick with dust. There were
no clothes in the wardrobe, whose doors stood ajar. The bed had a cold, unfriendly look,
as though it had not been slept in for weeks. A single cobweb stretched over the nearest
window across the blood red sky.
"What's wrong?" Hermione asked as Harry descended the staircase, but before he could
respond, Xenophilius reached the top of the stairs from the kitchen, now holding a tray
laden with bowls.
"Mr. Lovegood," said Harry. "Where's Luna?"
"Excuse me?"
"Where's Luna?"
Xenophilius halted on the top step.
"I -- I've already told you. She is down at the Botions Bridge fishing for Plimpies."
"So why have you only laid that tray for four?"
Xenophilius tried to speak, but no sound came out. The only noise was the continued
chugging of the printing press, and a slight rattle from the tray as Xenophilius's hands
shook.
"I don't think Luna's been here for weeks." said Harry. "Her clothes are gone, her bed
hasn't been slept in. Where is she? and why do you keep looking out of the window?"
Xenophilius dropped the tray. The bowls bounced and smashed Harry, Ron, and
Hermione drew their wands. Xenophilius froze his hand about to enter his pocket. At that
moment the printing press have a huge bank and numerous Quibblers came streaming
across the floor from underneath the tablecloth, the press fell silent at last. Hermione
stooped down and picked up one of the magazines, her wand still pointing at Mr.
Lovegood.
"Harry, look at this" He strode over to her as quickly as he could through all the clutter.
The front of the Quibbler carried his own picture, emblazoned with the words
"Undesirable Number One" and captioned with the reward money.
"The Quibbler's going for a new angle, then?: Harry asked coldly, his mind working very
fast. "Is that what you were doing when you went into the garden, Mr. Lovegood?
Sending an owl to the Ministry?
Xenophilius licked his lips
"They took my Luna," he whispered, "Because of what I've been writing. They took my
Luna and I don't know where she is, what they've done to her. But they might give her
back to me if I -- If I--"
"Hand over Harry?" Hermione finished for him.
"No deal." said Ron flatly. "Get out of the way, we're leaving."
Xenophilius looked ghastly, a century old, his lips drawn back into a dreadful leer.
"They will be here any moment. I must save Luna. I cannot lose Luna. You must not
leave."
He spread his arms in front of the staircase, and Harry had a sudden vision of his mother
doing the same thing in front of his crib.
"Don't make us hurt you," Harry said. "Get out of the way, Mr. Lovegood."
"HARRY!" Hermione screamed.
Figures on broomsticks were flying past the windows. As the three of them looked away
from him. Xenophilius drew his wand. Harry realized their mistake just in time. He
launched himself sideways, shoving Ron and Hermione out of harm's way as
Xenophilius's Stunning Spell soared across the room and hit the Erumpent horn.
There was a colossal explosion. The sound of it seemed to blow the room apart.
Fragments of wood and paper and rubble flew in all directions, along with an
impenetrable cloud of thick white dust. Harry flew through the air, then crashed to the
floor, unable to see as debris rained upon him, his arms over his head. He heard
Hermione's scream, Ron's yell, and a series of sickening metallic thuds which told him
that Xenophilius had been blasted off his feet and fallen backward down the spiral stairs.
Half buried in rubble, Harry tried to raise himself. He could barely breathe or see for dust.
Half of the ceiling had fall in and the end of Luna's bead was hanging through the hole.
The bust of Rowena Ravenclaw lay beside him with half its face missing fragments of
torn parchment were floating through the air, and most of the printing press lay on its side,
blocking the top of the staircase to the kitchen. Then another white shape moved close by,
and Hermione, coated in dust like a second statue, pressed his finger to her lips.
The door downstairs crashed open.
"Didn't I tell you there was no need to hurry, Travers?" said a rough voice. "Didn't I tell
you this nutter was just raving as usual?" There was a bang and a scream of pain from
Xenophilius.
"No...no...upstairs...Potter!"
"I told you last week Lovegood, we weren't coming back for anything less than some
solid information! Remember last week? When you wanted to swap your daughter for
that stupid bleeding headdress? And the week before" -- Another bang, another squeal --
"When you thought we'd give her back if you offered us proof there are Cumple" -- Bang
-- "Headed"--bang--"Snorkacks?"
"No -- no -- I beg of you!" sobbed Xenophilius. "It really is Potter, Really!"
"And now it turns out you only called us here to try and blow us up!" roared the Death
Eater, and there was a volley of bangs interspersed with squeals of agony from
Xenophilius.
"The place looks like it's about to fall in, Selwyn," said a cool second voice, echoing up
the mangled staircase. "The stairs are completely blocked. Could try clearing it? Might
bring the place down."
"You lying piece of filth." shouted the wizard named Selwyn.
"You have never seen Potter in your life, have you? Thought you'd lure us here to kill us,
did you? And you think you'll get your girl back like this?"
"I swear...I swear...Potter's upstairs!"
"Homenum revelio." said the voice at the foot of the stairs. Harry heard Hermione gasp,
and he had the odd sensation something was swooping low over him, immersing his body
in its shadow.
"There's someone up there all right, Selwyn," said the second man sharply.
"It's Potter, I tell you, it's Potter!" sobbed Xenophilius. "Please...please...give me Luna,
just let me have Luna..."
"You can have your little girl, Lovegood," said Selwyn, "if you get up those stairs and
bring me down Harry Potter. But if this is a plot, if it's a trick, if you've got an accomplice
waiting up there to ambush us, we'll see if we can spare a bit of your daughter for you to
bury."
Xenophilius gave a wail of fear and despair. There were scurryings and scrapings.
Xenophilius was trying to get through the debris on the stairs.
"Come on," Harry whispered, "we've got to get out of here."
He started to dig himself out under cover of all the noise Xenophilius was making on the
staircase. Ron was buried the deepest. Harry and Hermione climbed, as quietly as they
could, over all the wreckage to where he lay, trying to prise a heavy chest of drawers off
his legs. While Xenophilius banging and scraping drew nearer and nearer, Hermione
managed to free Ron with the use of a Hover Charm.
"All right." breathed Hermione, as the broken printing press blocking the top of the stairs
begin to tremble. Xenophilius was feet away from them. She was still white with dust.
"Do you trust me Harry?"
Harry nodded.
"Okay then." Hermione whispered. "give me the invisibility Cloak. Ron, you're going to
put it on."
"Me? But Harry --"
"Please, Ron! Harry, hold on tight to my hand, Ron grab my shoulder."
Harry held out his left hand. Ron vanished beneath the Cloak. The printing press blocking
the stairs was vibrating. Xenophilius was trying to shift it using a Hover Charm. Harry
did not know what Hermione was waiting for.
"Hold tight" she whispered. "Hold tight...any second..."
Xenophilius's paper-white face appeared over the top of the sideboard.
"Obliviate!" cried Hermione, pointing her want first into his face then at the floor beneath
them. "Deprimo!"
She had blasted a hole in the sitting room floor. They fell like boulders. Harry still
holding onto her hand for dear life, there was a scream from below, and he glimpsed two
men trying to get out of the way as vast quantities of rubble and broken furniture rained
all around them from the shattered ceiling. Hermione twisted in midair and thundering of
the collapsing house rang in Harry's ears as she dragged him once more into darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Deathly Hallows
Harry fell, panting, onto grass and scrambled up at once. They seemed to have
landed in the corner of a field at dusk; Hermione was already running in a circle around
them, waving her wand.
“Protego Totalum…Salvio Hexia…”
“That treacherous old bleeder.” Ron panted, emerging from beneath the
Invisibility Cloak and throwing it to Harry. “Hermione you’re a genius, a total genius. I
can’t believe we got out of that.”
“Cave Inimicum…Didn’t I say it was an Frumpent horn, didn’t I tell him? And
now his house has been blown apart!”
“Serves him right,” said Ron, examining his torn jeans and the cuts to his legs,
“What’d you reckon they’ll do to him?”
“Oh I hope they don’t kill him!” groaned Hermione, “That’s why I wanted the
Death Eaters to get a glimpse of Harry before we left, so they knew Xenophilius hadn’t
been lying!”
“Why hide me though?” asked Ron.
“You’re supposed to be in bed with spattergrolt, Ron! They’ve kidnapped Luna
because her father supported Harry! What would happen to your family if they knew
you’re with him?”
“But what about your mum and dad?”
“They’re in Australia,” said Hermione, “They should be all right. They don’t
know anything.”
“You’re a genius,” Ron repeated, looking awed.
Yeah, you are, Hermione,” agreed Harry fervently. “I don’t know what we’d do
without you.”
She beamed, but became solemn at once.
“What about Luna?”
“Well, if they’re telling the truth and she’s still Alive ---“ began Ron.
“Don’t say that, don’t say it!” squealed Hermione. “She must be alive, she must!”
“Then she’ll be in Azkaban, I expect,” said Ron. “Whether she survives the place,
though…Loads don’t…”
“She will,” said Harry. He could not bear to contemplate the alternative. “She’s
tough, Luna, much tougher than you’d think. She’s probably teaching all the inmates
about Wrackspurts and Nargles.”
“I hope you’re right,” said Hermione. She passed a hand over her eyes. “I’d feel
so sorry for Xenophilius if ---“
“---if he hadn’t just tried to sell us to the Death Eaters, yeah,” said Ron.
They put up the tent and retreated inside it, where Ron made them tea. After their
narrow escape, the chilly, musty old place felt like home: safe, familiar, and friendly.
“Oh, why did we go there?” groaned Hermione after a few minutes’ silence.
“Harry, you were right, it was Godric’s Hollow all over again, a complete waste of time!
The Deathly Hallows…such rubbish…although actually,” a sudden thought seemed to
have struck her, “he might have made it all up, mightn’t he? He probably doesn’t believe
in the Deathly Hallows at all, he just wanted to keep us talking until the Death Eaters
arrived!”
“I don’t think so,” said Ron. “It’s a damn sight harder making stuff up when
you’re under stress than you’d think. I found that out when the Snatchers caught me. It
was much easier pretending to be Stan, because I knew a bit about him, than inventing a
whole new person. Old Lovegood was under loads of pressure, trying to make sure we
stayed put. I reckon he told us the truth, or what he thinks is the truth, just to keep us
talking.”
“Well, I don’t suppose it matters,” sighed Hermione. “Even if he was being
honest, I never heard such a lot of nonsense in all my life.”
“Hang on, though,” said Ron. “The Chamber of Secrets was supposed to be a
myth, wasn’t it?”
“But the Deathly Hallows can’t exist, Ron!”
“You keep saying that, but one of them can,” said Ron. “Harry’s Invisibility
Cloak ---“
“The Tale of the Three Brothers’ is a story,” said Hermione firmly. “A story about
how humans are frightened of death. If surviving was as simple as hiding under the
Invisibility Cloak, we’d have everything we need already!”
“I don’t know. We could do with an unbeatable wand,” said Harry, turning the
blackthorn wand he so disliked over in his fingers.
“There’s no such thing, Harry!”
“You said there have been loads of wands --- the Deathstick and whatever they
were called ---“
“All right, even if you want to kid yourself the Elder Wand’s real, what about the
Resurrection Stone?” Her fingers sketched quotation marks around the name, and her
tone dripped sarcasm. “No magic can raise the dead, and that’s that!”
“When my wand connected with You-Know-Who’s, it made my mum and dad
appear…and Cedric…”
“But they weren’t really back from the dead, were they?” said Hermione. “Those
kind of ---of pale imitations aren’t the same as truly bringing someone back to life.”
“But she, the girl in the tale, didn’t really come back, did she? The story says that
once people are dead, they belong with the dead. But the second brother still got to see
her and talk to her, didn’t he? He even lived with her for a while…”
He saw concern and something less easily definable in Hermione’s expression.
Then, as she glanced at Ron, Harry realized that it was fear: He had scared her with his
talk of living with dead people.
“So that Peverell bloke who’s buried in Godric’s Hollow,” he said hastily, trying
to sound robustly sane, “you don’t know anything about him, then?”
“No,” she replied, looking relieved at the change of subject. “I looked him up
after I saw the mark on his grave; if he’d been anyone famous or done anything important,
I’m sure he’d be in one of our books. The only place I’ve managed to find the name
‘Peverell’ Is Nature’s Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy. I borrowed it from Kreacher,”
she explained as Ron raised his eyebrows. “It lists the pure-blood families that are now
extinct in the male line. Apparently the Peverells were one of the earliest families to
vanish.”
“Extinct in the male line?” repeated Ron.
“It means the name died out,” said Hermione, “centuries ago, in the case of the
Peverells. They could still have descendents, though, they’d just be called something
different.”
And then it came to Harry in one shining piece, the memory that had stirred at the
sound of the name “Peverell”: a filthy old man brandishing an ugly ring in the face of a
Ministry official, and he cried aloud, “Marvolo Gaunt!”
“Sorry said Ron and Hermione together.
“Marvolo Gaunt! You-Know-Who’s grandfather! In the Pensieve! With
Dumbledore! Marvolo Gaunt said he was descended from the Peverells!”
Ron and Hermione looked bewildered.
“The ring, the ring that became the Horcrux, Marvolo Gaunt said it had the
Peverell coat of arms on it! I saw him waving it in the bloke from the Ministry’s face, he
nearly shoved it up his nose!”
“The Peverell coat of arms?” said Hermione sharply. “Could you see what it
looked like?”
“Not really,” said Harry, trying to remember. “There was nothing fancy on there,
as far as I could see; maybe a few scratches. I only ever saw it really close up after it had
been cracked open.”
Harry saw Hermione’s comprehension in the sudden widening of her eyes. Ron
was looking from one to the other, astonished.
“Blimey…You reckon it was this sign again? The sign of the Hallows?
“Why not said Harry excitedly, “Marvolo Gaunt was an ignorant old git who lived
like a pig, all he cared about was his ancestry. If that ring had been passed down through
the centuries, he might not have known what it really was. There were no books in that
house, and trust me, he wasn’t the type to read fairy tales to his kids. He’d have loved to
think the scratches on the stone were a coat of arms, because as far as he was concerned,
having pure blood made you practically royal.”
“Yes…and that’s all very interesting,” said Hermione cautiously, “but Harry, if
you’re thinking what I think you’re think ---“
“Well, why not? Why not? said Harry, abandoning caution. “It was a stone,
wasn’t it?” He looked at Ron for support. “What if it was the Resurrection Stone?”
Ron’s mouth fell open.
“Blimey --- but would it still work if Dumbledore broke --- ?”
“Work? Work? Ron, it never worked! There’s no such thing as a Resurrection
Stone!”
Hermione leapt to her feet, looking exasperated and angry. Harry you’re trying to
fit everything into the Hallows story ---“
“Fit everything in?” he repeated. “Hermione, it fits of its own accord! I know the
sign of the Deathly Hallows was on that stone! Gaunt said he was descended from the
Peverells!”
“A minute ago you told us you never saw the mark on the stone properly!”
“Where’d you reckon the ring is now?” Ron asked Harry. “What did Dumbledore
do with it after he broke it open?”
“But Harry’s imagination was racing ahead, far beyond Ron and Hermione’s…
Three objects, or Hallows, which, if united, will make the possessor master of
Death…Master…Conqueror…Vanquisher…The last enemy that shall be destroyed is
death…
And he saw himself, possessor of the Hallows, facing Voldemort, whose
Horcruxes were no match…Neither can live while the other survives…Was this the
answer? Hallows versus Horcruxes? Was there a way after all, to ensure that he was the
one who triumphed? If he were the master of the Deathly Hallows, would he be safe?
“Harry?”
But he scarcely heard Hermione: He had pulled out his Invisibility Cloak and was
running it through his fingers, the cloth supple as water, light as air. He had never seen
anything to equal it in his nearly seven years in the Wizarding world. The Cloak was
exactly what Xenophilius had described: A cloak that really and truly renders the wearer
completely invisible, and endures eternally, giving constant and impenetrable
concealment, no matter what spells are cast at it…
And then, with a gasp, he remembered—
“Dumbledore had my Cloak the night my parents died!”
His voice shook and he could feel the color in his face, but he did not care.
“My mum told Sirius that Dumbledore borrowed the Cloak! This is why! He
wanted to examine it, because he thought it was the third Hallow! Ignotus Peverell is
buried in Godric’s Hollow…” Harry was walking blindly around the tent, feeling as
though great new vistas of truth were opening all around him. “He’s my ancestor. I’m
descended from the third brother! It all makes sense!”
“He felt armed in certainty, in his belief in the Hallows, as if the mere idea of
possessing them was giving him protection, and he felt joyous as he turned back to the
other two.
“Harry,” said Hermione again, but he was busy undoing the pouch around his
neck, his fingers shaking hard.
“Read it,” he told her, pushing his mother’s letter into her hand. “Read it!
Dumbledore had the Cloak, Hermione! Why else would he want it? He didn’t need a
Cloak, he could perform a Disillusionment Charm so powerful that he made himself
completely invisible without one!”
Something fell to the floor and rolled, glittering, under a chair: He had dislodged
the Snitch when he pulled out the letter. He stooped to pick it up, and then the newly
tapped spring of fabulous discoveries threw him another gift, and shock and wonder
erupted inside him so that he shouted out.
“IT’S IN HERE! He left me the ring – it’s in the Snitch!”
“You --- you reckon?”
He could not understand why Ron looked taken aback. It was so obvious, so clear
to Harry. Everything fit, everything…His Cloak was the third Hallow, and when he
discovered how to open the Snitch he would have the second, and then all he needed to
do was find the first Hallow, the Elder Wand, and then ---
But it was as though a curtain fell on a lit stage: All his excitement, all his hope
and happiness were extinguished at a stroke, and he stood alone in the darkness, and the
glorious spell was broken.
“That’s what he’s after.”
The change in his voice made Ron and Hermione look even more scared.
“You-Know-Who’s after the Elder Wand.”
He turned his back on their strained, incredulous faces. He knew it was the truth.
It all made sense, Voldemort was not seeking a new wand; he was seeking an old wand, a
very old wand indeed. Harry walked to the entrance of the tent, forgetting about Ron and
Hermione as he looked out into the night, thinking…
Voldemort had been raised in a Muggle orphanage. Nobody could have told him
The Tales of Beedle the Bard when he was a child, any more than Harry had heard them.
Hardly any wizards believed in the Deathly Hallows. Was it likely that Voldemort knew
about them?
Harry gazed into the darkness…If Voldemort had known about the Deathly
Hallows, surely he would have sought them, done anything to possess them: three objects
that made the possessor master of Death? If he had known about the Deathly Hallows, he
might not have needed Horcruxes in the first place. Didn’t the simple fact that he had
taken a Hallow, and turned it into a Horcrux, demonstrate that he did not know this last
great Wizarding secret?
Which meant that Voldemort sought the Elder Wand without realizing its full
power, without understanding that it was one of three…for the wand was the Hallow that
could not be hidden, whose existence was best known…The bloody trail of the Elder
Wand is splattered across the pages of Wizarding history…
Harry watched the cloudy sky, curves of smoke-gray and silver sliding over the
face of the white moon. He felt lightheaded with amazement at his discoveries.
He turned back into the tent. It was a shock to see Ron and Hermione standing
exactly where he had left them, Hermione still holding Lily’s letter, Ron at her side
looking slightly anxious. Didn’t they realize how far they had traveled in the last few
minutes?
“This is it?” Harry said, trying to bring them inside the glow of his own
astonished certainty, “This explains everything. The Deathly Hallows are real and I’ve
got one --- maybe two ---“
He held up the Snitch.
“--- and You-Know-Who’s chasing the third, but he doesn’t realize…he just
thinks it’s a powerful wand ---“
“Harry,” said Hermione, moving across to him and handing him back Lily’s letter,
“I’m sorry, but I think you’ve got this wrong, all wrong.”
“But don’t you see? It all fits ---“
“Not, it doesn’t,” she said. “It doesn’t. Harry, you’re just getting carried away.
Please,” she said as she started to speak, “please just answer me this: If the Deathly
Hallows really existed, and Dumbledore knew about them, knew that the person who
possessed all of them would be master of Death --- Harry, why wouldn’t he have told
you? Why?”
He had his answer ready.
“But you said it, Hermione! You’ve got to find out about them for yourself! It’s a
Quest!”
“But I only said that to try and persuade you to come to the Lovegoods’!” cried
Hermione in exasperation. “I didn’t really believe it!”
Harry took no notice.
“Dumbledore usually let me find out stuff for myself. He let me try my strength,
take risks. This feels like the kind of thing he’d do.”
“Harry, this isn’t a game, this isn’t practice! This is the real thing, and
Dumbledore left you very clear instructions: Find and destroy the Horcruxes! That
symbol doesn’t mean anything, forget the Deathly Hallows, we can’t afford to get
sidetracked ---“
Harry was barely listening to her. He was turning the Snitch over and over in his
hands, half expecting it to break open, to reveal the Resurrection Stone, to prove to
Hermione that he was right, that the Deathly Hallows were real.
She appealed to Ron.
“You don’t believe in this, do you?”
Harry looked up, Ron hesitated.
“I dunno…I mean…bits of it sort of fit together,” said Ron awkwardly, “But
when you look at the whole thing…” He took a deep breath. “I think we’re supposed to
get rid of Horcruxes, Harry. That’s what Dumbledore told us to do. Maybe…maybe we
should forget about this Hallows business.”
“Thank you, Ron,” said Hermione. “I’ll take first watch.”
And she strode past Harry and sat down in the tent entrance bringing the action to
a fierce full stop.
But Harry hardly slept that night. The idea of the Deathly Hallows had taken
possession of him, and he could not rest while agitating thoughts whirled through his
mind: the wand, the stone, and the Cloak, if he could just possess them all…
I open at the close…But what was the close? Why couldn’t he have the stone
now? If only he had the stone, he could ask Dumbledore these questions in person…and
Harry murmured words to the Snitch in the darkness, trying everything, even
Parseltongue, but the golden ball would not open…
And the wand, the Elder Wand, where was that hidden? Where was Voldemort
searching now? Harry wished his scar would burn and show him Voldemort’s thoughts,
because for the first time ever, he and Voldemort were united in wanting the very same
thing…Hermione would not like that idea, of course…But then, she did not
believe….Xenophilius had been right, in a way…Limited, Narrow, Close-minded. The
truth was that she was scared of the idea of the Deathly Hallows, especially of the
Resurrection Stone…and Harry pressed his mouth again to the Snitch, kissing it, nearly
swallowing it, but the cold medal did not yield…
It was nearly dawn when he remembered Luna, alone in a cell in Azkaban,
surrounded by dementors, and he suddenly felt ashamed of himself. He had forgotten all
about her in his feverish contemplation of the Hallows. If only they could rescue her, but
dementors in those numbers would be virtually unassailable. Now he came to think about
it, he had not tried casting a Patronus with the blackthorn wand…He must try that in the
morning…
If only there was a way of getting a better wand…
And desire for the Elder Wand, the Deathstick, unbeatable, invincible, swallowed
him once more…
They packed up the tent next morning and moved on through a dreary shower of
rain. The downpour pursued them to the coast, where they pitched the tent that night, and
persisted through the whole week, through sodden landscapes that Harry found bleak and
depressing. He could think only of the Deathly Hallows. It was as though a flame had
been lit inside him that nothing, not Hermione’s flat disbelief nor Ron’s persistent doubts,
could extinguish. And yet the fiercer the longing for the Hallows burned inside him, the
less joyful it made him. He blamed Ron and Hermione: Their determined indifference
was as bad as the relentless rain for dampening his spirits, but neither could erode his
certainty, which remained absolute. Harry’s belief in and longing for the Hallows
consumed him so much that he felt isolated from the other two and their obsession with
the Horcruxes.
“Obsession?” said Hermione in a low fierce voice, when Harry was careless
enough to use the word one evening, after Hermione had told him off for his lack of
interest in locating more Horcruxes. “We’re not the one with an obsession, Harry! We’re
the ones trying to do what Dumbledore wanted us to do!”
But he was impervious to the veiled criticism. Dumbledore had left the sign of the
Hallows for Hermione to decipher, and he had also, Harry remained convinced of it, left
the Resurrection Stone hidden in the golden Snitch. Neither can live while the other
survives…master of Death…Why didn’t Ron and Hermione understand?
“’The last enemy shall be destroyed is death,’” Harry quoted calmly.
“I thought it was You-Know-Who we were supposed to be fighting?” Hermione
retorted, and Harry gave up on her.
Even the mystery of the silver doe, which the other two insisted on discussing,
seemed less important to Harry now, a vaguely interesting sideshow. The only other thing
that mattered to him was that his scar had begun to prickle again, although he did all he
could to hide this fact from the other two. He sought solitude whenever it happened, but
was disappointed by what he saw. The visions he and Voldemort were sharing had
changed in quality; they had become blurred, shifting as though they were moving in and
out of focus. Harry was just able to make out the indistinct features of an object that
looked like a skull, and something like a mountain that was more shadow than substance.
Used to images sharp as reality, Harry was disconcerted by the change. He was worried
that the connection between himself and Voldemort had been damaged, a connection that
he both feared and, whatever he had told Hermione, prized. Somehow Harry connected
these unsatisfying, vague images with the destruction of his wand, as if it was the
blackthorn wand’s fault that he could no longer see into Voldemort’s mind as well as
before.
As the weeks crept on, Harry could not help but notice, even through his new selfabsorption,
that Ron seemed to be taking charge. Perhaps because he was determined to
make up for having walked out on them, perhaps because Harry’s descent into
listlessness galvanized his dormant leadership qualities, Ron was the one now
encouraging and exhorting the other two into action.
“Three Horcruxes left,” he kept saying. “We need a plan of action, come on!
Where haven’t we looked? Let’s go through it again. The orphanage…”
Diagon Alley, Hogwarts, the Riddle House, Borgin and Burkes, Albania, every
place that they knew Tom Riddle had ever lived or worked, visited or murdered, Ron and
Hermione raked over them again, Harry joining in only to stop Hermione pestering him.
He would have been happy to sit alone in silence, trying to read Voldemort’s thoughts, to
find out more about the Elder Wand, but Ron insisted on journeying to ever more
unlikely places simply, Harry was aware, to keep them moving.
“You never know,” was Ron’s constant refrain. “Upper Flagley is a Wizarding
village, he might’ve wanted to live there. Let’s go and have a poke around.”
These frequent forays into Wizarding territory brought them within occasional
sight of Snatchers.
“Some of them are supposed to be as bad as Death Eaters,” said Ron. “The lot that
got me were a bit pathetic, but Bill recons some of them are really dangerous. They said
on Potterwatch ---“
“On what?” said Harry.
“Potterwatch, didn’t I tell you that’s what it was called? The program I keep
trying to get on the radio, the only one that tells the truth about what’s going on! Nearly
all of the programs are following You-Know-Who’s line, all except Potterwatch, I really
want you to hear it, but it’s tricky tuning in…”
Ron spent evening after evening using his wand to beat out various rhythms on
top of the wireless while the dials whirled. Occasionally they would catch snatches of
advice on how to treat dragonpox, and once a few bars of “A Cauldron Full of Hot,
Strong Love.” While he taped, Ron continued to try to hit on the correct password,
muttering strings of random words under his breath.
“They’re normally something to do with the Order,” he told them. “Bill had a real
knack for guessing them. I’m bound to get one in the end…”
“But not until March did luck favor Ron at last. Harry was sitting in the tent
entrance, on guard duty, staring idly at a clump of grape hyacinths that had forced their
way through the chilly ground, when Ron shouted excitedly from inside the tent.
“I’ve got it, I’ve got it! Password was ‘Albus’! Get in here, Harry.”
Roused for the first time in days from his contemplation of the Deathly Hallows,
Harry hurried back inside the tent to find Ron and Hermione kneeling on the floor beside
the little radio. Hermione, who had been polishing the sword of Gryffindor just for
something to do, was sitting open-mouthed, staring at the tiny speaker, from which a
most familiar voice was issuing.
“…apologize for our temporary absence from the airwaves, which was due to a
number of house calls in our area by those charming Death Eaters.”
“But that’s Lee Jordan!” said Hermione.
“I know!” beamed Ron. “Cool, eh?”
“…now found ourselves another secure location,” Lee was saying, and I’m
pleased to tell you that two of our regular contributors have joined me here this evening.
Evening, boys!”
“Hi.”
“Evening, River.”
“’River’” that’s Lee,” Ron explained. “They’ve all got code names, but you can
usually tell ---“
“Shh!” said Hermione.
“But before we hear from Royal and Romulus,” Lee went on, “let’s take a
moment to report those deaths that the Wizarding Wireless Network News and Daily
Prophet don’t think important enough to mention. It is with great regret that we inform
our listeners of the murders of Ted Tonks and Dirk Cresswell.”
Harry felt a sick, swooping in his belly. He, Ron, and Hermione gazed at one
another in horror.
“A goblin by the name of Gornuk was also killed. It is believed that Muggle-born
Dean Thomas and a second goblin, both believed to have been traveling with Tonks,
Cresswell, and Gornuk, may have escaped. If Dean is listening, or if anyone has any
knowledge of his whereabouts, his parents and sisters are desperate for news.
“Meanwhile, in Gaddley, a Muggle family of five has been found dead in their
home. Muggle authorities are attributing their deaths to a gas leak, but members of the
Order of the Phoenix inform me that it was the Killing Curse --- more evidence, as if it
were needed, of the fact that Muggle slaughter is becoming little more than a recreational
sport under the new regime.
“Finally, we regret to inform our listeners that the remains of Bathilda Bagshot
have been discovered in Godric’s Hollow. The evidence is that she died several months
ago. The Order of the Phoenix informs us that her body showed unmistakable signs of
injuries inflicted by Dark Magic.
“Listeners, I’d like to invite you now to join us in a minute’s silence in memory of
Ted Tonks, Dirk Cresswell, Bathilda Bagshot, Gornuk, and the unnamed, but no less
regretted, Muggles murdered by the Death Eaters.”
Silence fell, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione did not speak. Half of Harry yearned
to hear more, half of him was afraid of what might come next. It was the first time he had
felt fully connected to the outside world for a long time.
“Thank you,” said Lee’s voice. “And now we can return to regular contributor
Royal, for an update on how the new Wizarding order is affecting the Muggle world.”
“Thanks, River,” said an unmistakable voice, deep, measured, reassuring.
“Kingsley!” burst out Ron.
“We know!” said Hermione, hushing him.
“Muggles remain ignorant of the source of their suffering as they continue to
sustain heavy casualties,” said Kingsley. “However, we continue to hear truly
inspirational stories of wizards and witches risking their own safety to protect Muggle
friends and neighbors, often without the Muggles’ knowledge. I’d like to appeal to all our
listeners to emulate their example, perhaps by casting a protective charm over any
Muggle dwellings in your street. Many lives could be saved if such simple measures are
taken.”
“And what would you say, Royal, to those listeners who reply that in these
dangerous times, it should be ‘Wizards first’? asked Lee.
“I’d say that it’s one short step from ‘Wizards first’ to ‘Purebloods first,’ and then
to ‘Death Eaters,’” replied Kingsley. “We’re all human, aren’t we? Every human life is
worth the same, and worth saving.”
“Excellently put, Royal, and you’ve got my vote for Minister of Magic if we ever
get out of this mess,” said Lee. “And now, over to Romulus for our popular feature ‘Pals
of Potter.’”
“Thanks, River,” said another very familiar voice. Ron started to speak, but
Hermione forestalled him in a whisper.
“We know it’s Lupin!”
“Romulus, do you maintain, as you have every time you’ve appeared on our
program, that Harry Potter is still alive?”
“I do,” said Lupin firmly. “There is no doubt at all in my mind that his death
would be proclaimed as widely as possible by the Death Eaters if it had happened,
because it would strike a deadly blow at the morale of those resisting the new regime.
‘The Boy Who Lived’ remains a symbol of everything for which we are fighting: the
triumph of good, the power of innocence, the need to keep resisting.”
A mixture of gratitude and shame welled up in Harry. Had Lupin forgiven him,
then, for the terrible things he had said when they had last met?
“And what would you say to Harry if you knew he was listening, Romulus?”
“I’d tell him we’re all with him in spirit,” said Lupin, then hesitated slightly,
“And I’d tell him to follow his instincts, which are good and nearly always right.”
Harry looked at Hermione, whose eyes were full of tears.
“Nearly always right,” she repeated.
“Oh, didn’t I tell you?” said Ron in surprise. “Bill told me Lupin’s living with
Tonks again! And apparently she’s getting pretty big too…”
“…and our usual update on those friends of Harry Potter’s who are suffering for
their allegiance?” Lee was saying.
“Well, as regular listeners will know, several of the more outspoken supporters of
Harry Potter have now been imprisoned, including Xenophilius Lovegood, erstwhile
editor of The Quibbler,” said Lupin.
“At least he’s still alive!” muttered Ron.
“We have also heard within the last few hours that Rubeus Hagrid” – all three of
them gasped, and so nearly missed the rest of the sentence -- “well-known gamekeeper at
Hogwarts School, has narrowly escaped arrest within the grounds of Hogwarts, where he
is rumored to have hosted a ‘Support Harry Potter’ party in his house. However, Hagrid
was not taken into custody, and is, we believe, on the run.”
“I suppose it helps, when escaping from Death Eaters, if you’ve got a sixteenfoot-
high half brother?” asked Lee.
“It would tend to give you an edge,” agreed Lupin gravely. “May I just add that
while we here at Potterwatch applaud Hagrid’s spirit, we would urge even the most
devoted of Harry’s supporters against following Hagrid’s lead. ‘Support Harry Potter’
parties are unwise in the present climate.”
“Indeed they are, Romulus,” said Lee, “so we suggest that you continue to show
your devotion to the man with the lightning scar by listening to Potterwatch! And now
let’s move to news concerning the wizard who is proving just as elusive as Harry Potter.
We like to refer to him as the Chief Death Eater, and here to give his views on some of
the more insane rumors circulating about him, I’d like to introduce a new correspondent.
Rodent?”
“’Rodent’?” said yet another familiar voice, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione cried
out together:
“Fred!”
“No – is it George?”
“It’s Fred, I think,” said Ron, leaning in closer, as whichever twin it was said,
“I’m not being ‘Rodent,’ no way, I told you I wanted to be ‘Rapier’!”
“Oh, all right then, ‘Rapier,’ could you please give us your take on the various
stories we’ve been hearing about the Chief Death Eater?”
“Yes, River, I can,” said Fred. “As our listeners will know, unless they’ve taken
refuge at the bottom of a garden pond or somewhere similar, You-Know-Who’s strategy
of remaining in the shadows is creating a nice little climate of panic. Mind you, if all the
alleged sightings of him are genuine, we must have a good nineteen You-Know-Whos
running around the place.”
“Which suits him, of course,” said Kingsley. “The air of mystery is creating more
terror than actually showing himself.”
“Agreed,” said Fred. “So, people, let’s try and calm down a bit. Things are bad
enough without inventing stuff as well. For instance, this new idea that You-Know-Who
can kill people with a single glance from his eyes. That’s a basilisk, listeners. One simple
test: Check whether the thing that’s glaring at you has got legs. If it has, it’s safe to look
into its eyes, although if it really is You-Know-Who, that’s still likely to be the last thing
you ever do.”
For the first time in weeks and weeks, Harry was laughing: He could feel the
weight of tension leaving him.
“And the rumors that he keeps being sighted abroad?” asked Lee.
“Well, who wouldn’t want a nice little holiday after all the hard work he’s been
putting in?” asked Fred. “Point is, people, don’t get lulled into a false sense of security,
thinking he’s out of the country. Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t, but the fact remains he can
move faster than Severus Snape confronted with shampoo when he wants to, so don’t
count on him being a long way away if you’re planning to take any risks. I never thought
I’d hear myself say it, but safety first!”
“Thank you very much for those wise words, Rapier,” said Lee. ”Listeners, that
brings us to the end of another Potterwatch. We don’t know when it will be possible to
broadcast again, but you can be sure we shall be back. Keep twiddling those dials: The
next password will be ‘Mad-Eye.’ Keep each other safe: Keep faith. Good night.”
The radio’s dial twirled and the lights behind the tuning panel went out. Harry,
Ron, and Hermione were still beaming. Hearing familiar, friendly voices was an
extraordinary tonic; Harry had become so used to their isolation he had nearly forgotten
that other people were resisting Voldemort. It was like waking from a long sleep.
“Good, eh?” said Ron happily.
“Brilliant,” said Harry.
“It’s so brave of them,” sighed Hermione admiringly. “If they were found …”
“Well, they keep on the move, don’t they?” said Ron. “Like us.”
“But did you hear what Fred said?” asked Harry excitedly; now the broadcast was
over, his thoughts turned around toward his all consuming obsession. “He’s abroad! He’s
still looking for the Wand, I knew it!”
“Harry—“
“Come on, Hermione, why are you so determined not to admit it? Vol –“
“HARRY, NO!”
“—demort’s after the Elder Wand!”
“The name’s Taboo!” Ron bellowed, leaping to his feet as a loud crack sounded
outside the tent. “I told you, Harry, I told you, we can’t say it anymore – we’ve got to put
the protection back around us – quickly – it’s how they find –“
But Ron stopped talking, and Harry knew why. The Sneakoscope on the table had
lit up and begun to spin; they could hear voices coming nearer and nearer: rough, excited
voices. Ron pulled the Deluminator out of his pocket and clicked it: Their lamps went out.
“Come out of there with your hands up!” came a rasping voice through the
darkness. “We know you’re in there! You’ve got half a dozen wands pointing at you and
we don’t care who we curse!”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Malfoy Manor
Harry looked around at the other two, now mere outlines in the darkness. He saw
Hermione point her wand, set toward the outside, but into his face; there was a bang, a
burst of white light, and he buckled in agony, unable to see. He could feel his face
swelling rapidly under his hands as heavy footfalls surrounded him.
"Get up, vermin."
Unknown hands dragged Harry roughly off the ground, before he could stop them,
someone had rummaged through his pockets and removed the blackthorn wand. Harry
clutched at his excruciatingly painful face, which felt unrecognizable beneath his fingers,
tight, swollen, and puffy as though he had suffered some violent allergic reaction. His
eyes had been reduced to slits through which he could barely see; his glasses fell off as he
was bundled out of the tent: all he could make out were the blurred shapes of four or five
people wrestling Ron and Hermione outside too.
"Get -- off - her!" Ron shouted. There was the unmistakable sound of knuckles
hitting flesh: Ron grunted in pain and Hermione screamed, "No! Leave him alone, leave
him alone!"
"Your boyfriend's going to have worse than that done to him if he's on my list,"
said the horribly familiar, rasping voice. "Delicious girl... what a treat . . . I do enjoy the
softness of the skin. . . ."
Harry's stomach turned over. He knew who this was, Fenrit Greyback, the
werewolf who was permitted to wear Death Eater robes in return for his hired savagery.
"Search the tent!" said another voice.
Harry was thrown face down onto the ground. A thud told him that Ron had been
cast down beside him. They could hear footsteps and crashes; the men were pushing over
chairs inside the tent as they searched.
"Now, let's see who we've got," said Greyback's gloating voice from overhead,
and Harry was rolled over onto his back. A beam of wand light fell onto his face and
Greyback laughed.
"I'll be needing butterbeer to wash this one down. What happened to you, ugly?"
Harry did not answer immediately.
"I said," repeated Greyback, and Harry received a blow to the diaphragm that
made him double over in pain. "what happened to you?"
"Stung." Harry muttered. "Been Stung."
"Yeah, looks like it." said a second voice.
"What’s your name?" snarled Greyback.
"Dudley." said Harry.
"And your first name?"
"I -- Vernon. Vernon Dudley."
"Check the list, Scabior." said Greyback, and Harry head him move sideways to
look down at Ron, instead. "And what about you, ginger?"
"Stan Shunpike." said Ron.
"Like 'ell you are." said the man called Scabior. "We know Stan Shunpike, 'e's put
a bit of work our way."
There was another thud.
"I'b Bardy," said Ron, and Harry could tell that his mouth was full of blood.
"Bardy Weasley."
"A Weasley?" rasped Greyback. "So you're related to blood traitors even if you're
not a Mudblood. And lastly, your pretty little friend . . ." The relish in his voice made
Harry's flesh crawl.
"Easy, Greyback." said Scabior over the jeering of the others.
"Oh, I'm not going to bite just yet. We'll see if she’s a bit quicker at remembering
her name than Barny. Who are you, girly?
"Penelope Clearwater." said Hermione. She sounded terrified, but convincing.
"What's your blood status?"
"Half-Blood." said Hermione.
"Easy enough to check," said Scabior. "But the 'ole lot of 'em look like they could
still be 'ogwarts age -"
"We'b lebt," said Ron.
"Left, 'ave you, ginger?" said Scabior. "And you decided to go camping? And you
thought, just for a laugh, you'd use the Dark Lords name?"
"Nod a laugh," said Ron. "Aggiden."
"Accident?" There was more jeering laughter.
"You know who used to like using the Dark Lord's name, Weasley?" growled
Greyback, "The Order of the Phoenix. Mean anything to you?"
"Doh."
"Well, they don't show the Dark Lord proper respect, so the name's been Tabooed.
A few Order members have been tracked that way. We'll see. Bind them up with the
other two prisoners!"
Someone yanked Harry up by the hair, dragged him a short way, pushed him
down into a sitting position, then started binding him back-to-back with other people.
Harry was still half blind, barely able to see anything through his puffed-up eyes. When
at last the man tying then had walked away, Harry whispered to the other prisoners.
"Anyone still got a wand?"
"No." Said Ron and Hermione from either side of him.
"This is all my fault. I said the name. I'm sorry -"
"Harry?"
It was a new, but familiar voice. and it came from directly behind Harry, from the
person tied to Hermione's left.
"Dean?"
"It is you! If they find out who they've got -! They're Snatchers, they're only
looking for truants to sell for gold -"
"Not a bad little haul for one night." Greyback was saying, as a pair of hobnailed
boots marched close by Harry and they heard more crashes from inside the tent. "A
Mudblood, a runaway goblin, and these truants. You checked their names on the list yet,
Scabior?" he roared.
"Yeah. There's no Vernon Dudley un 'ere, Greyback."
"Interesting," said Greyback. "That's interesting."
He crouched down beside Harry, who saw, through the infinitesimal gap left
between his swollen eyelids, a face covered in matted gray hair and whiskers, with
pointed brown teeth and sores in the corners of his mouth. Greyback smelled as he had
done at the top of the tower where Dumbledore had died: of dirt, sweat, and blood.
"So you aren't wanted, then, Vernon? Or are you on that list under a different
name? What house were you in at Hogwarts?"
"Slytherin," said Harry automatically.
"Funny 'ow they all thinks we wants to 'ear that." leered Scabior out of the
shadows. "But none of 'em can tell us where the common room is."
"It's in the dungeons." said Harry clearly. "You enter through the wall. It's full of
skulls and stuff and its under the lake, so the light's all green,"
There was a short pause.
"Well, well, looks like we really 'ave caught a little Slytherin." said Scabior.
"Good for you, Vernon, 'cause there ain't a lot of Mudblood Slytherins. Who's your
father?"
"He works at the Ministry," Harry lied. He knew that his whole story would
collapse with the smallest investigation, but on the other hand, he only had until his face
regained its usual appearance before the game was up in any case. "Department of
Magical Accidents and Catastrophes."
"You know what, Greyback," said Scabior. "I think there is a Dudley in there."
Harry could barely breathe: Could luck, sheer luck, get them safely out of this?
"Well, well." said Greyback, and Harry could hear the tiniest note of trepidation
in that callous voice, and knew that Greyback was wondering whether he had just indeed
just attacked and bound the son of a Ministry Official. Harry's heart was pounding against
the ropes around his ribs; he would not have been surprised to know that Greyback could
see it. "If you're telling the truth, ugly, you've got nothing to fear from a trip to the
Ministry. I expect your father'll reward us just for picking you up."
"But," said Harry, his mouth bone dry, "if you just let us -"
"Hey!" came a shout from inside the tent. "Look at this. Greyback!"
A dark figure came bustling toward them, and Harry saw a glint of silver to the
light of their wands. They had found Gryffindor's sword.
"Ve-e-ery nice," said Greyback appreciatively, taking it from his companion. "Oh,
very nice indeed. Looks goblin-made, that. Where did you get something like this?"
"It's my father's," Harry lied, hoping against hope that it was too dark for
Greyback to see the name etched just below the hilt. "We borrowed it to cut firewood -"
"'ang on a minute, Greyback! Look at this, in the Prophet!"
As Scabior said it, Harry's scar, which was stretched tight across his distended
forehead, burned savagely. More clearly than he could make out anything around him, he
saw a towering building, a grim fortress, jet-black and forbidding: Voldemort's thoughts
had suddenly become Razor-Sharp again; he was gliding toward the gigantic building
with a sense of calmly euphoric purpose . . .
So close . . . So close . . .
With a huge effort of will Harry closed his mind to Voldemort's thoughts, pulling himself
back to where he sat, tied to Ron, Hermione, Dean, and Griphook in the darkness,
listening to Greyback and Scabior.
"'Hermione Granger," Scabior was saying, "the Mudblood who is known to be traveling
with 'arry Potter."
Harry's scar burned in the silence, but he made a supreme effort to keep himself
present, nor to slip into Voldemort's mind. He heard the creak of Greyback's boots as he
crouched down, in front of Hermione.
"you know what, little girly? This picture looks a hell of a lot like you."
"It isn't! It isn't me!"
Hermione's terrified squeak was as good as a confession.
"... known to be traveling with Harry Potter," repeated Greyback quietly.
A stillness had settled over the scene. Harry's scar was Exquisitely painful, but he
struggled with all his strength against the pull of Voldemort's thoughts. It had never been
so important to remain in his own right mind.
"Well, this changed things, doesn't it?" whispered Greyback. Nobody spoke:
Harry sensed the gang of Snatchers watching, frozen, and felt Hermione's arm trembling
against his. Greyback got up and took a couple of steps to where Harry sat, crouching
down again to stare closely at his misshapen features.
"What's that on your forehead, Vernon?" he asked softly, his breath foul in
Harry's nostrils as he pressed a filthy finger to the taught scar.
"Don't touch it! Harry yelled; he could not stop himself, he thought he might be
sick from the pain of it.
"I thought you wore glasses, Potter?" breathed Greyback.
"I found glasses!" yelped one of the Snatchers skulking in the background. "There
was glasses in the tent, Greyback, wait -"
And seconds later Harry's glasses had been rammed back onto his face. The
Snatchers were closing in now, peering at him.
"It Is!" rasped Greyback. "We've caught Potter!"
They all took several steps backward, stunned by what they had done. Harry, still
fighting to remain present in his own splitting head, could think of nothing to say.
Fragmented visions were breaking across the surface of his mind -
--He was hiding around the high walls of the black fortress--
No, he was Harry, tied up and wandless, in grave danger--
--looking up, up to the topmost window, the highest tower--
He was Harry, and they were discussing his fate in low voices--
--Time to fly . . .
". . . To the Ministry?"
"To hell with the Ministry." growled Greyback. "They'll take the credit, and we
won't get a look in. I say we take him straight to You-Know-Who."
"Will you summon 'im? 'ere?" said Scabior, sounding awed, terrified.
"No," snarled Greyback, "I haven't got -- they say he's using the Malfoy's place as
a base. We'll take the boy there."
Harry thought he knew why Greyback was not calling Voldemort. The werewolf
might be allowed to wear Death Eater robes when they wanted to use him, but only
Voldemort's inner circle were branded with the Dark Mark: Greyback had not been
granted this highest honor.
Harry’s scar seared again –
– and he rose into the night, flying straight up to the windows at the very top of
the tower –
“. . . completely sure it’s him? ‘Cause if it ain’t, Greyback, we’re dead.”
“Who’s in charge here?” roared Greyback, covering his moment of inadequacy. “I
say that’s Potter, and him plus his wand, that’s two hundred thousand Galleons right
there! But if you’re too gutless to come along, any of you, it’s all for me, and with any
luck, I’ll get the girl thrown in!”
– The window was the merest slit in the black rock, not big enough for a man to
enter. . . . A skeletal figure was just visible through it, curled beneath a blanket. . . . Dead,
or sleeping . . . ?
“All right!” said Scabior. “All right, we’re in! And what about the rest of ‘em,
Greyback, what’ll we do with ‘em?”
“Might as well take the lot. We’ve got two Mudbloods, that’s another ten
Galleons. Give me the sword as well. If they’re rubies, that’s another small fortune right
there.”
The prisoners were dragged to their feet. Harry could hear Hermione’s breathing,
fast and terrified.
“Grab hold and make it tight. I’ll do Potter!” said Greyback, seizing a fistful of
Harry’s hair; Harry could feel his long yellow nails scratching his scalp. “On three! One –
two – three –“
They Disapparated, pulling the prisoners with them. Harry struggled, trying to
throw off Greyback’s hand, but it was hopeless: Ron and Hermione were squeezed tightly
against him on either side; he could not separate from the group, and as the breath was
squeezed out of him his scar seared more painfully still –
– as he forced himself through the slit of a window like a snake and landed,
lightly as vapor inside the cell-like room –
The prisoners lurched into one another as they landed in a country lane. Harry’s
eyes, still puffy, took a moment to acclimatize, then he saw a pair of wrought-iron gates
at the foot of what looked like a long drive. He experienced the tiniest trickle of relief.
The worst had not happened yet: Voldemort was not here. He was, Harry knew, for he
was fighting to resist the vision, in some strange, fortresslike place, at the top of a tower.
How long it would take Voldemort to get to this place, once he knew that Harry was here,
was another matter. . . .
One of the Snatchers strode to the gates and shook them.
“How do we get in? They’re locked, Greyback, I can’t – blimey!”
He whipped his hands away in fright. The iron was contorting, twisting itself out
of the abstract furls and coils into a frightening face, which spoke in a clanging, echoing
voice. “State your purpose!”
“We’ve got Potter!” Greyback roared triumphantly. “We’ve captured Harry
Potter!”
The gates swung open.
“Come on!” said Greyback to his men, and the prisoners were shunted through the
gates and up the drive, between high hedges that muffled their footsteps. Harry saw a
ghostly white shape above him, and realized it was an albino peacock. He stumbled and
was dragged onto his feet by Greyback; now he was staggering along sideways, tied
back-to-back to the four other prisoner. Closing his puffy eyes, he allowed the pain in his
scar to overcome him for a moment, wanting to know what Voldemort was doing,
whether he knew yet that Harry was caught. . . .
The emaciated figure stirred beneath its thin blanket and rolled over toward him,
eyes opening in a skull of a face. . . . The frail man sat up, great sunken eyes fixed upon
him, upon Voldemort, and then he smiled. Most of his teeth were gone. . . .
“So, you have come. I thought you would . . . one day. But your journey was
pointless. I never had it.”
“You lie!”
As Voldemort’s anger throbbed inside him, Harry’s scar threatened to burst with
pain, and he wrenched his mind back to his own body, fighting to remain present as the
prisoners were pushed over gravel.
Light spilled out over all of them.
“What is this?” said a woman’s cold voice.
“We’re here to see He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named!” rasped Greyback.
“Who are you?”
“You know me!” There was resentment in the werewolf’s voice. “Fenrit
Greyback! We’ve caught Harry Potter!”
Greyback seized Harry and dragged him around to face the light, forcing the other
prisoners to shuffle around too.
“I know ‘es swollen, ma’am, but it’s ‘im!” piped up Scabior. “If you look a bit
closer, you’ll see ‘is scar. And this ‘ere, see the girl? The Mudblood who’s been traveling
around with ‘im, ma’am. There’s no doubt it’s ‘im, and we’ve got ‘is wand as well! ‘Ere,
ma’am –“
Through his puffy eyelids Harry saw Narcissa Malfoy scrutinizing his swollen
face. Scabior thrust the blackthorn wand at her. She raised her eyebrows.
“Bring them in,” she said.
Harry and the others were shoved and kicked up broad stone steps into a hallway
lined with portraits.
“Follow me,” said Narcissa, leading the way across the hall. “My son, Draco, is
home for his Easter holidays. If that is Harry Potter, he will know.”
The drawing room dazzled after the darkness outside; even with his eyes almost
closed Harry could make out the wide proportions of the room. A crystal chandelier hung
from the ceiling, more portraits against the dark purple walls. Two figures rose from
chairs in front of an ornate marble fireplace as the prisoners were forced into the room by
the Snatchers.
“What is this?”
The dreadfully familiar, drawling voice of Lucius Malfoy fell on Harry’s ears. He
was panicking now. He could see no way out, and it was easier, as his fear mounted, to
block out Voldemort’s thoughts, though his scar was still burning.
“They say they’ve got Potter,” said Narcissa’s cold voice. “Draco, come here.”
Harry did not dare look directly at Draco, but saw him obliquely; a figure slightly
taller than he was, rising from an armchair, his face a pale and pointed blur beneath
white-blond hair.
Greyback forced the prisoners to turn again so as to place Harry directly beneath
the chandelier.
“Well, boy?” rasped the werewolf.
Harry was facing a mirror over the fireplace, a great gilded thing in an intricately
scrolled frame. Through the slits of his eyes he saw his own reflection for the first time
since leaving Grimmauld Place.
His face was huge, shiny, and pink, every feature distorted by Hermione’s jinx.
His black hair reached his shoulders and there was a dark shadow around his jaw. Had he
not known that it was he who stood there, he would have wondered who was wearing his
glasses. He resolved not to speak, for his voice was sure to give him away; yet he still
avoided eye contact with Draco as the latter approached.
“Well, Draco?” said Lucius Malfoy. He sounded avid. “Is it? Is it Harry Potter?”
“I can’t – I can’t be sure,” said Draco. He was keeping his distance from
Greyback, and seemed as scared of looking at Harry as Harry was of looking at him.
“But look at him carefully, look! Come closer!”
Harry had never heard Lucius Malfoy so excited.
“Draco, if we are the ones who hand Potter over to the Dark Lord, everything will
be forgiv –“
“Now, we won’t be forgetting who actually caught him, I hope Mr. Malfoy?” said
Greyback menacingly.
“Of course not, of course not!” said Lucius impatiently. He approached Harry
himself, came so close that Harry could see the usually languid, pale face in sharp detail
even through his swollen eyes. With his face a puffy mask, Harry felt as though he was
peering out from between the bars of a cage.
“What did you do to him?” Lucius asked Greyback. “How did he get into this
state?”
“That wasn’t us.”
“Looks more like a Stinging Jinx to me,” said Lucius.
His gray eyes raked Harry’s forehead.
“There’s something there,” he whispered. “it could be the scar, stretched
tight. . . .” Draco, come here, look properly! What do you think?”
Harry saw Draco’s face up close now, right beside his father’s. They were
extraordinarily alike, except that while his father looked beside himself with excitement,
Draco’s expression was full of reluctance, even fear.
“I don’t know,” he said, and he walked away toward the fireplace where his
mother stood watching.
“We had better be certain, Lucius,” Narcissa called to her husband in her cold,
clear voice. “Completely sure that it is Potter, before we summon the Dark Lord . . . They
say this is his” – she was looking closely at the blackthorn wand – “but it does not
resemble Ollivander’s description. . . . If we are mistaken, if we call the Dark Lord here
for nothing . . . Remember what he did to Rowle and Dolohov?”
“What about the Mudblood, then?” growled Greyback. Harry was nearly thrown
off his feet as the Snatchers forced the prisoners to swivel around again, so that the light
fell on Hermione instead.
“Wait,” said Narcissa sharply. “Yes – yes, she was in Madam Malkin’s with
Potter! I saw her picture in the Prophet! Look, Draco, isn’t it the Granger girl?”
“I . . . maybe . . . yeah.”
“But then, that’s the Weasley boy!” shouted Lucius, striding around the bound
prisoners to face Ron. “It’s them, Potter’s friends – Draco, look at him, isn’t it Arthur
Weasley’s son, what’s his name – ?”
“Yeah,” said Draco again, his back to the prisoners. “It could be.”
The drawing room door opened behind Harry. A woman spoke, and the sound of
the voice wound Harry’s fear to an even higher pitch.
“What is this? What’s happened, Cissy?”
Bellatrix Lestrange walked slowly around the prisoners, and stopped on Harry’s
right, staring at Hermione through her heavily lidded eyes,
“But surely,” she said quietly, “this is the Mudblood girl? This is Grander?”
“Yes, yes, it’s Granger!” cried Lucius, “And beside her, we think, Potter! Potter
and his friends, caught at last!”
“Potter?” shrieked Bellatrix, and she backed away, the better to take in Harry.
“Are you sure? Well then, the Dark Lord must be informed at once!”
She dragged back her left sleeve: Harry saw the Dark Mark burned into the flesh
of her arm, and knew that she was about to touch it, to summon her beloved master–
“I was about to call him!” said Lucius, and his hand actually closed upon
Bellatrix’s wrist, preventing her from touching the Mark. “I shall summon him, Bella.
Potter has been brought to my house, and it is therefore upon my authority –“
“Your authority!” she sneered, attempting to wrench her hand from his grasp.
“You lost your authority when you lost your wand, Lucius! How dare you! Take your
hands off me!”
“This is nothing to do with you, you did not capture the boy –“
“Begging your pardon, Mr. Malfoy,” interjected Greyback, “but it’s us that caught
Potter, and it’s us that’ll be claiming the gold –“
“Gold!” laughed Bellatrix, still attempting to throw off her brother-in-law, her
free hand groping in her pocket for her wand. “Take your gold, filthy scavenger, what do
I want with gold? I seek only the honor of his – of –“
She stopped struggling, her dark eyes fixed upon something Harry could not see.
Jubilant at her capitulation, Lucius threw her hand from him and ripped up his own sleeve
–
“STOP!” shrieked Bellatrix, “Do not touch it, we shall all perish if the Dark Lord
comes now!”
Lucius froze, his index finger hovering over his own Mark. Bellatrix strode out of
Harry’s limited line of vision.
“What is that?” he heard her say.
“Sword,” grunted an out-of-sight Snatcher.
“Give it to me.”
“It’s not yours, missus, it’s mine, I reckon I found it.”
There was a bang and a flash of red light; Harry knew that the Snatcher had been
Stunned. There was a roar of anger from his fellows: Scabior drew his wand.
“What d’you think you’re playing at, woman?”
“Stupefy!” she screamed, ”Stupefy!”
They were no match for her, even thought there were four of them against one of
her: She was a witch, as Harry knew, with prodigious skill and no conscience. They fell
where they stood, all except Greyback, who had been forced into a kneeling position, his
arms outstretched. Out of the corners of his eyes Harry saw Bellatrix bearing down upon
the werewolf, the sword of Gryffindor gripped tightly in her hand, her face waxen.
“Where did you get this sword?” she whispered to Greyback as she pulled his
wand out of his unresisting grip.
“How dare you?” he snarled, his mouth the only thing that could move as he was
forced to gaze up at her. He bared his pointed teeth. “Release me, woman!”
“Where did you find this sword?” she repeated, brandishing it in his face, “Snape
sent it to my vault in Gringotts!”
“It was in their tent,” rasped Greyback. “Release me, I say!”
She waved her wand, and the werewolf sprang to his feet, but appeared too wary
to approach her. He prowled behind an armchair, his filthy curved nails clutching its back.
“Draco, move this scum outside,” said Bellatrix, indicating the unconscious men.
“If you haven’t got the guts to finish them, then leave them in the courtyard for me.”
“Don’t you dare speak to Draco like –“ said Narcissa furiously, but Bellatrix
screamed.
“Be quiet! The situation is graver than you can possibly imagine, Cissy! We have
a very serious problem!”
She stood, panting slightly, looking down at the sword, examining its hilt. Then
she turned to look at the silent prisoners.
“If it is indeed Potter, he must not be harmed,” she muttered, more to herself than
to the others. “The Dark Lord wishes to dispose of Potter himself. . . . But if he finds
out . . . I must . . . I must know. . . .”
She turned back to her sister again.
“The prisoners must be placed in the cellar, while I think what to do!”
“This is my house, Bella, you don’t give orders in my –“
“Do it! You have no idea of the danger we’re in!” shrieked Bellatrix. She looked
frightening, mad; a thin stream of fire issued from her wand and burned a hole in the
carpet.
Narcissa hesitated for a moment, then addressed the werewolf.
“Take these prisoners down to the cellar, Greyback.”
“Wait,” said Bellatrix sharply. “All except. . . . except for the Mudblood.”
Greyback gave a grunt of pleasure.
“No!” shouted Ron. “You can have me, keep me!”
Bellatrix hit him across the face: the blow echoed around the room.
“If she dies under questioning, I’ll take you next,” she said. “Blood traitor is next
to Mudblood in my book. Take them downstairs, Greyback, and make sure they are
secure, but do nothing more to them – yet.”
She threw Greyback’s wand back to him, then took a short silver knife from under
her robes. She cut Hermione free from the other prisoners, then dragged her by the hair
into the middle of the room, while Greyback forced the rest of them to shuffle across to
another door, into a dark passageway, his wand held out in front of him, projecting an
invisible and irresistible force.
“Reckon she’ll let me have a bit of the girl when she’s finished with her?”
Greyback crooned as he forced them along the corridor. “I’d say I’ll get a bite or two,
wouldn’t you, ginger?”
Harry could feel Ron shaking. They were forced down a steep flight of stairs, still
tied back-to-back and in danger of slipping and breaking their necks at any moment. At
the bottom was a heavy door. Greyback unlocked it with a tap of his wand, then forced
them into a dank and musty room and left them in total darkness. The echoing bang of the
slammed cellar door had not died away before there was a terrible, drawn out scream
from directly above them.
“HERMIONE!” Ron bellowed, and he started to writhe and struggle against the
ropes tying them together, so that Harry staggered. “HERMIONE!”
“Be quiet!” Harry said. “Shut up. Ron, we need to work out a way –“
“HERMIONE! HERMIONE!”
“We need a plan, stop yelling – we need to get these ropes off –“
“Harry?” came a whisper through the darkness. “Ron? Is that you?”
Ron stopped shouting. There was a sound of movement close by them, then Harry
saw a shadow moving closer.
“Harry? Ron?”
“Luna?”
“Yes, it’s me! Oh no, I didn’t want you to be caught!”
“Luna, can you help us get these ropes off?” said Harry.
“Oh yes, I expect so. . . . There’s an old nail we use if we need to break
anything. . . . Just a moment . . .”
Hermione screamed again from overhead, and they could hear Bellatrix
screaming too, but her words were inaudible, for Ron shouted again, “HERMIONE!
HERMIONE!”
“Mr. Ollivander?” Harry could hear Luna saying. “Mr. Ollivander, have you got
the nail? If you just move over a little bit . . . I think it was beside the water jug.”
She was back within seconds.
“You’ll need to stay still,” she said.
Harry could feel her digging at the rope’s tough fibers to work the knots free.
From upstairs they heard Bellatrix’s voice.
“I’m going to ask you again! Where did you get this sword? Where?”
“We found it – we found it – PLEASE!” Hermione screamed again; Ron
struggled harder than ever, and the rusty nail slipped onto Harry’s wrist.
“Ron, please stay still!” Luna whispered. “I can’t see what I’m doing –“
“My pocket!” said Ron, “In my pocket, there’s a Deluminator, and it’s full of
light!”
A few seconds later, there was a click, and the luminescent spheres the
Deluminator had sucked from the lamps in the tent flew into the cellar: Unable to rejoin
their sources, they simply hung there, like tiny suns, flooding the underground room with
light. Harry saw Luna, all eyes in her white face, and the motionless figure of Ollivander
the wandmaker, curled up on the floor in the corner. Craning around, he caught sight of
their fellow prisoners: Dean and Griphook the goblin, who seemed barely conscious, kept
standing by the ropes that bound him to the humans.
“Oh, that’s much easier, thanks, Ron,” said Luna, and she began hacking at their
bindings again. “Hello, Dean!”
From above came Bellatrix’s voice.
“You’re lying, filthy Mudblood, and I know it! You have been inside my vault at
Gringotts! Tell the truth, tell the truth!”
Another terrible scream–
“HERMIONE!”
“What else did you take? What else have you got? Tel me the truth or, I swear, I
shall run you through with this knife!”
“There!”
Harry felt the ropes fall away and turned, rubbing his wrists, to see Ron running
around the cellar, looking up at the low ceiling, searching for a trapdoor. Dean, his face
bruised and bloody, said “Thanks” to Luna and stood there, shivering, but Griphook sank
onto the cellar floor, looking groggy and disoriented, many welts across his swarthy face.
Ron was now trying to Disapparate without a wand.
“There’s no way out, Ron,” said Luna, watching his fruitless efforts. “The cellar
is completely escape-proof. I tried, at first. Mr. Ollivander has been here for a long time,
he’s tried everything.”
Hermione was screaming again: The sound went through Harry like physical pain.
Barely conscious of the fierce prickling of his scar, he too started to run around the cellar,
feeling the walls for he hardly knew what, knowing in his heart that it was useless.
“What else did you take, what else? ANSWER ME! CRUCIO!”
Hermione’s screams echoed off the walls upstairs, Ron was half sobbing as he
pounded the walls with his fists, and Harry in utter desperation seized Hagrid’s pouch
from around his neck and groped inside it: He pulled out Dumbledore’s Snitch and shook
it, hoping for he did not know what – nothing happened – he waved the broken halves of
the phoenix wand, but they were lifeless – the mirror fragment fell sparkling to the floor,
and he saw a gleam of brightest blue –
Dumbledore’s eye was gazing at him out of the mirror.
“Help us!” he yelled at it in mad desperation. “We’re in the cellar of Malfoy
Manor, help us!”
The eye blinked and was gone.
Harry was not even sure that it had really been there. He tilted the shard of mirror
this way and that, and saw nothing reflected there but the walls and ceiling of their prison,
and upstairs Hermione was screaming worse than ever, and next to him Ron was
bellowing, “HERMIONE! HERMIONE!”
“How did you get into my vault?” they heard Bellatrix scream. “Did that dirty
little goblin in the cellar help you?”
“We only met him tonight!” Hermione sobbed. “We’ve never been inside your
vault. . . . It isn’t the real sword! It’s a copy, just a copy!”
“A copy?” screeched Bellatrix. “Oh, a likely story!”
“But we can find out easily!” came Lucius’s voice. “Draco, fetch the goblin, he
can tell us whether the sword is real or not!”
Harry dashed across the cellar to where Griphook was huddled on the floor.
“Griphook,” he whispered into the goblin’s pointed ear, “you must tell them that
sword’s a fake, they mustn’t know it’s the real one, Griphook, please –“
He could hear someone scuttling own the cellar steps; next moment, Draco’s
shaking voice spoke from behind the door.
“Stand back. Line up against the back wall. Don’t try anything, or I’ll kill you!”
They did as they were bidden; as the lock turned, Ron clicked the Deluminator
and the lights whisked back into his pocket, restoring the cellar’s darkness. The door flew
open; Malfoy marched inside, wand held out in front of him, pale and determined. He
seized the little goblin by the arm and backed out again, dragging Griphook with him.
The door slammed shut and at the same moment a loud crack echoed inside the cellar.
Ron clicked the Deluminator. Three balls of light flew back into the air from his
pocket, revealing Dobby the house-elf, who had just Apparated into their midst.
“DOB – !”
Harry hit Ron on the arm to stop him shouting, and Ron looked terrified at his
mistake. Footsteps crossed the ceiling overhead: Draco marching Griphook to Bellatrix.
Dobby’s enormous, tennis-ball shaped eyes were wide; he was trembling from his
feet to the tips of his ears. He was back in the home of his old masters, and it was clear
that he was petrified.
“Harry Potter,” he squeaked in the tiniest quiver of a voice, “Dobby has come to
rescue you.”
“But how did you – ?”
An awful scream drowned Harry’s words: Hermione was being tortured again. He
cut to the essentials.
“You can Disapparate out of this cellar?” he asked Dobby, who nodded, his ears
flapping.
“And you can take humans with you?”
Dobby nodded again.
“Right. Dobby, I want you to grab Luna, Dean, and Mr. Ollivander, and take them
– take them to –“
“Bill and Fleur’s,” said Ron. “Shell Cottage on the outskirts of Tinworth!”
The elf nodded for a third time.
“And then come back,” said Harry. “Can you do that, Dobby?”
“Of course, Harry Potter,” whispered the little elf. He hurried over to Mr.
Ollivander, who appeared to be barely conscious. He took one of the wandmaker’s hands
in his own, then held out the other to Luna and Dean, neither of whom moved.
“Harry, we want to help you!” Luna whispered.
“We can’t leave you here,” said Dean.
“Go, both of you! We’ll see you at Bill and Fleur’s.”
As Harry spoke, his scar burned worse than ever, and for a few seconds he looked
down, not upon the wandmaker, but on another man who was just as old, just as thin, but
laughing scornfully.
“Kill me, then. Voldemort, I welcome death! But my death will not bring you what
you seek. . . . There is so much you do not understand. . .”
He felt Voldemort’s fury, but as Hermione screamed again he shut it out,
returning to the cellar and the horror of his own present.
“Go!” Harry beseeched to Luna and Dean. “Go! We’ll follow, just go!”
They caught hold of the elf’s outstretched fingers. There was another loud crack,
and Dobby, Luna, Dean, and Ollivander vanished.
“What was that?” shouted Lucius Malfoy from over their heads. “Did you hear
that? What was that noise in the cellar?”
Harry and Ron stared at each other.
“Draco – no, call Wormtail! Make him go and check!”
Footsteps crossed the room overhead, then there was silence. Harry knew that the
people in the drawing room were listening for more noises from the cellar.
“We’re going to have to try and tackle him,” he whispered to Ron. They had no
choice: The moment anyone entered the room and saw the absence of three prisoners,
they were lost. “Leave the lights on,” Harry added, and as they heard someone
descending the steps outside the door, they backed against the wall on either side of it.
“Stand back,” came Wormtail’s voice. “Stand away from the door. I’m coming
in.”
The door flew open. For a split second Wormtail gazed into the apparently empty cellar,
ablaze with light from the three miniature suns floating in midair. Then Harry and Ron
launched themselves upon him. Ron seized Wormtail’s wand arm and forced it upwards.
Harry slapped a hand to his mouth, muffling his voice. Silently they struggled:
Wormtail’s wand emitted sparks; his silver hand closed around Harry’s throat.
“What is it, Wormtail?” called Lucius Malfoy from above.
“Nothing!” Ron called back, in a passable imitation of Wormtail’s wheezy voice.
“All fine!”
Harry could barely breathe.
“You’re going to kill me?” Harry choked, attempting to prise off the metal fingers.
“After I saved your life? You owe me, Wormtail!”
The silver fingers slackened. Harry had not expected it: He wrenched himself free,
astonished, keeping his hand over Wormtail’s mouth. He saw the ratlike man’s small
watery eyes widen with fear and surprise: He seemed just as shocked as Harry at what his
hand had done, at the tiny, merciful impulse it had betrayed, and he continued to struggle
more powerfully, as though to undo that moment of weakness.
“And we’ll have that,” whispered Ron, tugging Wormtail’s wand from his other
hand.
Wandless, helpless, Pettigrew’s pupils dilated in terror. His eyes had slid from
Harry’s face to something else. His own silver fingers were moving inexorably toward
his own throat.
“No –“
Without pausing to think, Harry tried to drag back the hand, but there was no
stopping it. The silver tool that Voldemort had given his most cowardly servant had
turned upon its disarmed and useless owner; Pettigrew was reaping his reward for his
hesitation, his moment of pity; he was being strangled before their eyes.
“No!”
Ron had released Wormtail too, and together he and Harry tried to pull the
crushing metal fingers from around Wormtail’s throat, but it was no use. Pettigrew was
turning blue.
“Relashio!” said Ron, pointing the wand at the silver hand, but nothing happened;
Pettigrew dropped to his knees, and at the same moment, Hermione gave a dreadful
scream from overhead. Wormtail’s eyes rolled upward in his purple face; he gave a last
twitch, and was still.
Harry and Ron looked at each other, then leaving Wormtail’s body on the floor
behind them, ran up the stairs and back into the shadowy passageway leading to the
drawing room. Cautiously they crept along it until they reached the drawing room door,
which was ajar. Now they had a clear view of Bellatrix looking down at Griphook, who
was holding Gryffindor’s sword in his long-fingered hands. Hermione was lying at
Bellatrix’s feet. She was barely stirring.
“Well?” Bellatrix said to Griphook. “Is it the true sword?”
Harry waited, holding his breath, fighting against the prickling of his scar.
“No,” said Griphook. “It is a fake.”
“Are you sure?” panted Bellatrix. “Quite sure?”
“Yes,” said the goblin.
Relief broke across her face, all tension drained from it.
“Good,” she said, and with a casual flick of her wand she slashed another deep cut
into the goblin’s face, and he dropped with a yell at her feet. She kicked him aside. “And
now,” she said in a voice that burst with triumph, “we call the Dark Lord!”
And she pushed back her sleeve and touched her forefinger to the Dark Mark.
At once, Harry’s scar felt as though it had split open again. His true surroundings
vanished: He was Voldemort, and the skeletal wizard before him was laughing
toothlessly at him; he was enraged at the summons he felt – he had warned them, he had
told them to summon him for nothing less than Potter. If they were mistaken . . .
“Kill me, then!” demanded the old man. “You will not win, you cannot win! That
wand will never, ever be yours –“
And Voldemort’s fury broke: A burst of green light filled the prison room and the
frail old body was lifted from its hard bed and then fell back, lifeless, and Voldemort
returned to the window, his wrath barely controllable. . . . They would suffer his
retribution if they had no good reason for calling him back. . . .
“And I think,” said Bellatrix’s voice, “we can dispose of the Mudblood. Greyback,
take her if you want her.”
“NOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
Ron had burst into the drawing room; Bellatrix looked around, shocked; she
turned her wand to face Ron instead –
“Expelliarmus!” he roared, pointing Wormtail’s wand at Bellatrix, and hers flew
into the air and was caught by Harry, who had sprinted after Ron. Lucius, Narcissa,
Draco and Greyback wheeled about; Harry yelled, “Stupefy!” and Lucius Malfoy
collapsed onto the hearth. Jets of light flew from Draco’s, Narcissa’s, and Greyback’s
wands; Harry threw himself to the floor, rolling behind a sofa to avoid them.
“STOP OR SHE DIES!
Panting, Harry peered around the edge of the sofa. Bellatrix was supporting
Hermione, who seemed to be unconscious, and was holding her short silver knife to
Hermione’s throat.
“Drop your wands,” she whispered. “Drop them, or we’ll see exactly how filthy
her blood is!”
Ron stood rigid, clutching Wormtail’s wand. Harry straightened up, still holding
Bellatrix’s.
“I said, drop them!” she screeched, pressing the blade into Hermione’s throat:
Harry saw beads of blood appear there.
“All right!” he shouted, and he dropped Bellatrix’s wand onto the floor at his feet,
Ron did the same with Wormtail’s. Both raised their hands to shoulder height.
“Good!” she leered. “Draco, pick them up! The Dark Lord is coming, Harry
Potter! Your death approaches!”
Harry knew it; his scar was bursting with the pain of it, and he could feel
Voldemort flying through the sky from far away, over a dark and stormy sea, and soon he
would be close enough to Apparate to them, and Harry could see no way out.
“Now,” said Bellatrix softly, as Draco hurried back to her with the wands. “Cissy,
I think we ought to tie these little heroes up again, while Greyback takes care of Miss
Mudblood. I am sure the Dark Lord will not begrudge you the girl, Greyback, after what
you have done tonight.”
At the last word there was a peculiar grinding noise from above. All of them
looked upward in time to see the crystal chandelier tremble; then, with a creak and an
ominous jingling, it began to fall. Bellatrix was directly beneath it; dropping Hermione,
she threw herself aside with a scream. The chandelier crashed to the floor in an explosion
of crystal and chains, falling on top of Hermione and the goblin, who still clutched the
sword of Gryffindor. Glittering shards of crystal flew in all directions; Draco doubled
over, his hands covering his bloody face.
As Ron ran to pull Hermione out of the wreckage, Harry took the chance: He
leapt over an armchair and wrested the three wands from Draco’s grip, pointed all of
them at Greyback, and yelled, “Stupefy!” The werewolf was lifted off his feet by the
triple spell, flew up to the ceiling and then smashed to the ground.
As Narcissa dragged Draco out of the way of further harm, Bellatrix sprang to her
feet, her hair flying as she brandished the silver knife; but Narcissa had directed her wand
at the doorway.
“Dobby!” she screamed and even Bellatrix froze. “You! You dropped the
chandelier – ?”
The tiny elf trotted into the room, his shaking finger pointing at his old mistress.
“You must not hurt Harry Potter,” he squeaked.
“Kill him, Cissy!” shrieked Bellatrix, but there was another loud crack, and
Narcissa’s wand too flew into the air and landed on the other side of the room.
“You dirty little monkey!” bawled Bellatrix. “How dare you take a witch’s wand,
how dare you defy your masters?”
“Dobby has no master!” squealed the elf. “Dobby is a free elf, and Dobby has
come to save Harry Potter and his friends!”
Harry’s scar was blinding him with pain. Dimly he knew that they had moments,
seconds before Voldemort was with them.
“Ron, catch – and GO!” he yelled, throwing one of the wands to him; then he bent
down to tug Griphook out from under the chandelier. Hoisting the groaning goblin, who
still clung to the sword, over one shoulder, Harry seized Dobby’s hand and spun on the
spot to Disapparate.
As he turned into darkness he caught one last view of the drawing room of the
pale, frozen figures of Narcissa and Draco, of the streak of red that was Ron’s hair, and a
blue of flying silver, as Bellatrix’s knife flew across the room at the place where he was
vanishing –
Bill and Fleur’s . . . Shell Cottage . . . Bill and Fleur’s . . .
He had disappeared into the unknown; all he could do was repeat the name of the
destination and hope that it would suffice to take him there. The pain in his forehead
pierced him, and the weight of the goblin bore down upon him; he could feel the blade of
Gryffindor’s sword bumping against his back: Dobby’s hand jerked in his; he wondered
whether the elf was trying to take charge, to pull them in the right direction, and tried, by
squeezing the fingers, to indicate that that was fine with them. . . .
And then they hit solid earth and smelled salty air. Harry fell to his knees,
relinquished Dobby’s hand, and attempted to lower Griphook gently to the ground.
“Are you all right?” he said as the goblin stirred, but Griphook merely whimpered.
Harry squinted around through the darkness. There seemed to be a cottage a short
way away under the wide starry sky, and he thought he saw movement outside it.
“Dobby, is this Shell Cottage?” he whispered, clutching the two wands he had
brought from the Malfoys’, ready to fight if he needed to. “Have we come to the right
place? Dobby?”
He looked around. The little elf stood feet from him.
“DOBBY!”
The elf swayed slightly, stars reflected in his wide, shining eyes. Together, he and
Harry looked down at the silver hilt of the knife protruding from the elf’s heaving chest.
“Dobby – no – HELP!” Harry bellowed toward the cottage, toward the people
moving there. “HELP!”
He did not know or care whether they were wizards or Muggles, friends or foes;
all he cared about was that a dark stain was spreading across Dobby’s front, and that he
had stretched out his own arms to Harry with a look of supplication. Harry caught him
and laid him sideways on the cool grass.
“Dobby, no, don’t die, don’t die –“
The elf’s eyes found him, and his lips trembled with the effort to form words.
“Harry . . . Potter . . .”
And then with a little shudder the elf became quite still, and his eyes were nothing
more than great glassy orbs, sprinkled with light from the stars they could not see.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
The Wandmaker
It was like sinking into an old nightmare; for an instant Harry knelt again beside
Dumbledore’s body at the foot of the tallest tower at Hogwarts, but in reality he was
staring at a tiny body curled upon the grass, pierced by Bellatrix’s silver knife. Harry’s
voice was still saying, “Dobby…Dobby…” even though he knew that the elf had gone
where he could not call him back.
After a minute or so he realized that they had, after all, come to the right place, for
here were Bill and Fleur, Dean and Luna, gathering around him as he knelt over the elf.
“Hermione,” he said suddenly. “Where is she?”
“Ron’s taken her inside,” said Bill. “She’ll be all right.” Harry looked back down at
Dobby. He stretched out a hand and pulled the sharp blade from the elf’s body, then
dragged off his own jacket and covered Dobby in it like a blanket.
The sea was rushing against the rock somewhere nearby; Harry listened to it
while the others talked, discussing matters in which he could take no interest, making
decisions, Dean carried the injured Griphook into the house, Fleur hurrying with them;
now Bill was really knowing what he was saying. As he did so, he gazed down at the
tiny body, and his scar prickled and burned, and in one part of his mind, viewed as if
from the wrong end of a long telescope, he saw Voldemort punishing those they had left
behind at the Malfoy Manor. His rage was dreadful and yet Harry’s grief for Dobby
seemed to diminish it, so that it became a distant storm that reached Harry from across a
vast, silent ocean.
“I want to do it properly,” were the first words of which Harry was fully
conscious of speaking. “Not by magic. Have you got a spade?” And shortly afterward he
had set to work, alone, digging the grave in the place that Bill had shown him at the end
of the garden, between bushes. He dug with a kind of fury, relishing the manual work,
glorying in the non-magic of it, for every drop of his sweat and every blister felt like a
gift to the elf who had saved their lives.
His scar burned, but he was master of the pain, he felt it, yet was apart from it.
He had learned control at last, learned to shut his mind to Voldemort, the very thing
Dumbledore had wanted him to learn from Snape. Just as Voldemort had not been able
to possess Harry while Harry was consumed with grief for Sirius, so his thoughts could
not penetrate Harry now while he mourned Dobby. Grief, it seemed, drove Voldemort
out…though Dumbledore, of course, would have said that it was love.
On Harry dug, deeper and deeper into the hard, cold earth, subsuming his grief in
sweat, denying the pain in his scar. In the darkness, with nothing but the sound of his
own breath and the rushing sea to keep him company, the things that had happened at the
Malfoys’ returned to him, the things he had heard came back to him, and understanding
blossomed in the darkness…
The steady rhythm of his arms beat time with his thoughts.
Hallows…Horcruxes…Hallows…Horcruxes…yet no longer burned with that weird,
obsessive longing. Loss and fear had snuffed it out. He felt as though he had been
slapped awake again.
Deeper and deeper Harry sank into the grave, and he knew where Voldemort had
been tonight, and whom he had killed in the topmost cell of Nurmengard, and why…
And he thought of Wormtail, dead because of one small unconscious impulse of
mercy…Dumbledore had foreseen that…How much more had he known?
Harry lost track of time. He knew only that the darkness had lightened a few
degrees when he was rejoined by Ron and Dean. “How’s Hermione?” “Better,” said
Ron. “Fleur’s looking after her.” Harry had his retort ready for when they asked him
why he had not simply created a perfect grave with his wand, but he did not need it.
They jumped down into the hole he had made with spades of their own and together they
worked in silence until the hole seemed deep enough.
Harry wrapped the elf more snuggly in his jacket. Ron sat on the edge of the
grave and stripped off his shoes and socks, which he placed on the elf’s bare feet. Dean
produced a woolen hat, which Harry placed carefully upon Dobby’s head, muffling his
batlike ears. “We should close his eyes.”
Harry had not heard the others coming through the darkness. Bill was wearing a
traveling cloak, Fleur a large white apron, from the pocket of which protruded a bottle of
what Harry recognized to be Skele-Gro. Hermione was wrapped in a borrowed dressing
gown, pale and unsteady on her feet; Ron put an arm around her when she reached him.
Luna, who was huddled in one of Fleur’s coats, crouched down and placed her fingers
tenderly upon each of the elf’s eyelids, sliding them over his glassy stare. “There,” she
said softly. “Now he could be sleeping.”
Harry placed the elf into the grave, arranged his tiny limbs so that he might have
been resting, then climbed out and gazed for the last time upon the little body. He forced
himself not to break down as he remembered Dumbledore’s funeral, and the rows and
rows of golden chairs, and the Minister of Magic in the front row, the recitation of
Dumbledore’s achievements, the stateliness of the white marble tomb. He felt that
Dobby deserved just as grand a funeral, and yet here the elf lay between bushes in a
roughly dug hole. “I think we ought to say something,” piped up Luna. “I’ll go first,
shall I?”
And as everybody looked at her, she addressed the dead elf at the bottom of the
grave. “Thank you so much Dobby for rescuing me from that cellar. It’s so unfair that
you had to die when you were so good and brave. I’ll always remember what you did for
us. I hope you’re happy now.”
She turned and looked expectingly at Ron, who cleared his throat and said in a
thick voice, “yeah…thanks Dobby.” “Thanks,” muttered Dean. Harry swallowed.
“Good bye Dobby,” he said It was all he could manage, but Luna had said it all for him.
Bill raised his wand, and the pile of earth beside the grave rose up into the air and fell
neatly upon it, a small, reddish mound. “D’ya mind if I stay here a moment?” He asked
the others.
They murmured words he did not catch; he felt gentle pats upon his back, and
then they all traipsed back toward the cottage, leaving Harry alone beside the elf.
He looked around: There were a number of large white stones, smoothed by the
sea, marking the edge of the flower beds. He picked up one of the largest and laid it,
pillowlike, over the place where Dobby’s head now rested. He then felt in his pocket for
a wand. There were two in there. He had forgotten, lost track; he could not now
remember whose wands these were; he seemed to remember wrenching them out of
someone’s hand. He selected the shorter of the two, which felt friendlier in his hand, and
pointed it at the rock.
Slowly, under his murmured instruction, deep cuts appeared upon the rock’s
surface. He knew that Hermione could have done it more neatly, and probably more
quickly, but he wanted to mark the spot as he had wanted to dig the grave. When Harry
stood up again, the stone read: HERE LIES DOBBY, A FREE ELF.
He looked at his handiwork for a few more seconds, then walked away, his scar
still prickling a little, and his mind full of those things that had come to him in the grave,
ideas that had taken shape in the darkness, ideas both fascinating and terrible.
They were all sitting in the living room when he entered the little hall, their
attention focused upon Bill, who was talking. The room was light-colored, pretty, with a
small fire of driftwood burning brightly in the fireplace. Harry did not want to drop mud
upon the carpet, so he stood in the doorway, listening.
“…lucky that Ginny’s on holiday. If she’d been at Hogwarts they could have
taken her before we reached her. Now we know she’s safe too.” He looked around and
saw Harry standing there. “I’ve been getting them all out of the Burrow,” he explained.
“Moved them to Muriel’s. The Death Eaters know Ron’s with you now, they’re bound to
target the family –don’t apologize,” he added at the sight of Harry’s expression. “It was
always a matter of time, Dad’s been saying so for months. We’re the biggest blood
traitor family there is.”
“How are they protected?” asked Harry. “Fidelius Charm. Dad’s Secret-Keeper.
And we’ve done it on this cottage too; I’m Secret-Keeper here. None of us can go to
work, but that’s hardly the most important thing now. Once Ollivander and Griphook are
well enough, we’ll move them to Muriel’s too. There isn’t much room here, but she’s got
plenty. Griphook’s legs are on the mend. Fleur’s given him Skele-Gro-we could
probably move them in an hour or—“
“No,” Harry said and Bill looked startled. “I need both of them here. I need to
talk to them. It’s important.” He heard the authority of his own voice, the conviction, the
voice of purpose that had come to him as he dug Dobby’s grave. All of their faces were
turned toward him looking puzzled.
“I’m going to wash,” Harry told Bill looking down at his hands still covered with
mud and Dobby’s blood. “Then I’ll need to see them, straight away.” He walked into the
little kitchen, to the basin beneath a window overlooking the sea. Dawn was breaking
over the horizon, shell pink and faintly gold, as he washed, again following the train of
thought that had come to him in the dark garden…
Dobby would never be able to tell them who had sent him to the cellar, but Harry
knew what he had seen. A piercing blue eye had looked out of the mirror fragment, and
then help had come. Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it.
Harry dried his hands, impervious to the beauty of the scene outside the window
and to the murmuring of the others in the sitting room. He looked out over the ocean and
felt closer, this dawn, than ever before, closer to the heart of it all.
And still his scar prickled, and he knew that Voldemort was getting there too.
Harry understood and yet did not understand. His instinct was telling him one thing, his
brain quite another. The Dumbledore in Harry’s head smiled, surveying Harry over the
tips of his fingers, pressed together as if in prayer.
You gave Ron the Deluminator…You understood him…You gave him a way
back…
And you understood Wormtail too…You knew there was a bit of regret there,
somewhere…
And if you knew them…What did you know about me, Dumbledore?
Am I meant to know but not to seek? Did you know how hard I’d feel that? Is
that why you made it this difficult? So I’d have time to work that out?
Harry stood quite still, eyes glazed, watching the place where a bright gold ray of
dazzling sun was rising over the horizon. Then he looked down at his clean hands and
was momentarily surprised to see the cloth he was holding in them. He set it down and
returned to the hall, and as he did so, he felt his scar pulse angrily, and then flashed
across his mind, swift as the reflection of a dragonfly over water, the outline of a building
he knew extremely well.
Bill and Fleur were standing at the foot of the stairs.
“I need to speak to Griphook and Ollivander,” Harry said.
“No,” said Fleur. “You will ‘ave to wait, ‘Arry. Zey are both too tired –”
“I’m sorry,” he said without heat, “but it can’t wait. I need to talk to them now.
Privately – and separately. It’s urgent.”
“Harry, what the hell’s going on?” asked Bill. “You turn up here with a dead
house-elf and a half-conscious goblin, Hermione looks as though she’s been tortured, and
Ron’s just refused to tell me anything –”
“We can’t tell you what we’re doing,” said Harry flatly. “You’re in the Order, Bill,
you know Dumbledore left us a mission. We’re not supposed to talk about it to anyone
else.”
Fleur made an impatient noise, but Bill did not look at her; he was staring at
Harry. His deeply scarred face was hard to read. Finally, Bill said, “All right. Who do
you want to talk to first?”
Harry hesitated. He knew what hung on his decision. There was hardly any time
left; now was the moment to decide: Horcruxes or Hallows?
“Griphook,” Harry said. “I’ll speak to Griphook first.”
His heart was racing as if he had been sprinting and had just cleared an enormous
obstacle.
“Up here, then,” said Bill, leading the way.
Harry had walked up several steps before stopping and looking back.
“I need you two as well!” he called to Ron and Hermione, who had been skulking,
half concealed, in the doorway of the sitting room.
They both moved into the light, looking oddly relieved.
“How are you?” Harry asked Hermione. “You were amazing – coming up with
that story when she was hurting you like that –”
Hermione gave a weak smile as Ron gave her a one-armed squeeze.
“What are we doing now, Harry?” he asked.
“You’ll see. Come on.”
Harry, Ron, and Hermione followed Bill up the steep stairs onto a small landing.
Three doors led off it.
“In here,” said Bill, opening the door into his and Fleur’s room, it too had a view
of the sea, now flecked with gold in the sunrise. Harry moved to the window, turned his
back on the spectacular view, and waited, his arms folded, his scar prickling. Hermione
took the chair beside the dressing table; Ron sat on the arm.
Bill reappeared, carrying the little goblin, whom he set down carefully upon the
bed. Griphook grunted thanks, and Bill left, closing the door upon them all.
“I’m sorry to take you out of bed,” said Harry. “How are your legs?”
“Painful,” replied the goblin. “But mending.”
He was still clutching the sword of Gryffindor, and wore a strange look: half
truculent, half intrigued. Harry noted the goblin’s sallow skin, his long thin fingers, his
black eyes. Fleur had removed his shoes: His long feet were dirty. He was larger than a
house-elf, but not by much. His domed head was much bigger than a human’s.
“You probably don’t remember –” Harry began.
“—that I was the goblin who showed you to your vault, the first time you ever
visited Gringotts?” said Griphook. “I remember, Harry Potter. Even amongst goblins, you
are very famous.”
Harry and the goblin looked at each other, sizing each other up. Harry’s scar was
still prickling. He wanted to get through this interview with Griphook quickly, and at the
same time was afraid of making a false move. While he tried to decide on the best way to
approach his request, the goblin broke the silence.
“You buried the elf,” he said, sounding unexpectedly rancorous. “I watched you
from the window of the bedroom next door.”
“Yes,” said Harry.
Griphook looked at him out of the corners of his slanting black eyes.
“You are an unusual wizard, Harry Potter.”
“In what way?” asked Harry, rubbing his scar absently.
“You dug the grave.”
“So?”
Griphook did not answer. Harry rather thought he was being sneered at for acting
like a Muggle, but it did not matter to him whether Griphook approved of Dobby’s grave
or not. He gathered himself for the attack.
“Griphook, I need to ask –”
“You also rescued a goblin.”
“What?”
“You brought me here. Saved me.”
“Well, I take it you’re not sorry?” said Harry a little impatiently.
“No, Harry Potter,” said Griphook, and with one finger he twisted the thin black
beard upon his chin, “but you are a very odd wizard.”
“Right,” said Harry. “Well, I need some help, Griphook, and you can give it to
me.”
The goblin made no sign of encouragement, but continued to frown at Harry as
though he had never seen anything like him.
“I need to break into a Gringotts vault.”
Harry had not meant to say it so badly: the words were forced from him as pain
shot through his lightning scar and he saw, again, the outline of Hogwarts. He closed his
mind firmly. He needed to deal with Griphook first. Ron and Hermione were staring at
Harry as though he had gone mad.
“Harry –” said Hermione, but she was cut off by Griphook.
“Break into a Gringotts vault?” repeated the goblin, wincing a little as he shifted
his position upon the bed. “It is impossible.”
“No, it isn’t,” Ron contradicted him. “It’s been done.”
“Yeah,” said Harry. “The same day I first met you, Griphook. My birthday, seven
years ago.”
“The vault in question was empty at the time,” snapped the goblin, and Harry
understood that even though Griphook had let Gringotts, he was offended at the idea of
its defenses being breached. “Its protection was minimal.”
“Well, the vault we need to get into isn’t empty, and I’m guessing its protection
will be pretty powerful,” said Harry. “It belongs to the Lestranges.”
He saw Hermione and Ron look at each other, astonished, but there would be time
enough to explain after Griphook had given his answer.
“You have no chance,” said Griphook flatly. “No chance at all. If you seek
beneath our floors, a treasure that was never yours –”
“Thief, you have been warned, beware – yeah, I know, I remember,” said Harry.
“But I’m not trying to get myself any treasure, I’m not trying to take anything for
personal gain. Can you believe that?”
The goblin looked slantwise at Harry, and the lightning scar on Harry’s forehead
prickled, but he ignored it, refusing to acknowledge its pain or its invitation.
“If there was a wizard of whom I would believe that they did not seek personal
gain,” said Griphook finally, “it would be you, Harry Potter. Goblins and elves are not
used to the protection or the respect that you have shown this night. Not from wandcarriers.”
“Wand-carriers,” repeated Harry: The phrase fell oddly upon his ears as his scar
prickled, as Voldemort turned his thoughts northward, and as Harry burned to question
Ollivander next door.
“The right to carry a wand,” said the goblin quietly, “has long been contested
between wizards and goblins.”
“Well, goblins can do magic without wands,” said Ron.
“That is immaterial! Wizards refuse to share the secrets of wand-lore with other
magical beings, they deny us the possibility of extending our powers!”
“Well, goblins won’t share any of their magic either,” said Ron. “You won’t tell
us how to make swords and armor the way you do. Goblins know how to work metal in a
way wizards have never –”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Harry, noting Griphook’s rising color. “This isn’t about
wizards versus goblins or any other sort of magical creature –”
Griphook gave a nasty laugh.
“But it is, it is precisely that! As the Dark Lord becomes ever more powerful,
your race is set still more firmly above mine! Gringotts falls under Wizarding rule,
house-elves are slaughtered, and who amongst the wand-carriers protests?”
“We do!” said Hermione. She had sat up straight, her eyes bright. “We protest!
And I’m hunted quite as much as any goblin or elf, Griphook! I’m a Mudblood!”
“Don’t call yourself –” Ron muttered.
“Why shouldn’t I?” said Hermione. “Mudblood, and proud of it! I’ve got no
higher position under this new order than you have, Griphook! It was me they chose to
torture, back at the Malfoys!”
As she spoke, she pulled aside the neck of the dressing gown to reveal the thin cut
Bellatrix had made, scarlet against her throat.
“Did you know that it was Harry who set Dobby free?” she asked. “Did you know
that we’ve wanted elves to be freed for years?” (Ron fidgeted uncomfortably on the arm
of Hermione’s chair.) “You can’t want You-Know-Who defeated more than we do,
Griphook!”
The goblin gazed at Hermione with the same curiousity he had shown Harry.
“What do you seek within the Lestranges’ vault?” he asked abruptly. “The sword
that lies inside it is a fake. This is the real one.” He looked from one to the other of them.
“I think that you already know this. You asked me to lie for you back there.”
“But the fake sword isn’t the only thing in that vault, is it?” asked Harry. “Perhaps
you’ve seen other things in there?”
His heart was pounding harder than ever. He redoubled his efforts to ignore the
pulsing of his scar.
The goblin twisted his beard around his finger again.
“It is against our code to speak of the secrets of Gringotts. We are the guardians
of fabulous treasures. We have a duty to the objects placed in our care, which were, so
often, wrought by our fingers.”
The goblin stroked the sword, and his black eyes roved from Harry to Hermione
to Ron and then back again.
“So young,” he said finally, “to be fighting so many.”
“Will you help us?” said Harry. “We haven’t got a hope of breaking in without a
goblin’s help. You’re our one chance.”
“I shall . . . think about it,” said Griphook maddeningly.
“But –” Ron started angrily; Hermione nudged him in the ribs.
“Thank you,” said Harry.
The goblin bowed his great domed head in acknowledgement, then flexed his
short legs.
“I think,” he said, settling himself ostentatiously upon Bill and Fleur’s bed, “that
the Skele-Gro has finished its work. I may be able to sleep at last. Forgive me. . . .”
“Yeah, of course,” said Harry, but before leaving the room he leaned forward and
took the sword of Gryffindor from beside the goblin. Griphook did not protest, but Harry
thought he saw resentment in the goblin’s eyes as he closed the door upon him.
“Little git,” whispered Ron. “He’s enjoying keeping us hanging.”
“Harry,” whispered Hermione, pulling them both away from the door, into the
middle of the still-dark landing, “are you saying what I think you’re saying? Are you
saying there’s a Horcrux in the Lestranges vault?”
“Yes,” said Harry. “Bellatrix was terrified when she thought we’d been in there,
she was beside herself. Why? What did she think we’d seen, what else did she think we
might have taken? Something she was petrified You-Know-Who would find out about.”
“But I thought we were looking for places You-Know-Who’s been, places he’s
done something important?” said Ron, looking baffled. “Was he ever inside the
Lestranges’ vault?”
“I don’t know whether he was ever inside Gringotts,” said Harry. “He never had
gold there when he was younger, because nobody left him anything. He would have seen
the bank from the outside, though, the first time he ever went to Diagon Alley.”
Harry’s scar throbbed, but he ignored it; he wanted Ron and Hermione to
understand about Gringotts before they spoke to Ollivander.
“I think he would have envied anyone who had a key to a Gringotts vault. I think
he’d have seen it as a real symbol of belonging to the Wizarding world. And don’t forget,
he trusted Bellatrix and her husband. They were his most devoted servants before he fell,
and they went looking for him after he vanished. He said it night he came back, I heard
him.”
Harry rubbed his scar.
“I don’t think he’d have told Bellatrix it was a Horcrux, though. He never told
Lucius Malfoy the truth about the diary. He probably told her it was a treasured
possession and asked her to place it in her vault. The safest place in the world for
anything you want to hide, Hagrid told me. . . except for Hogwarts.”
When Harry had finished speaking, Ron shook his head.
“You really understand him.”
“Bits of him,” said Harry. “Bits . . . I just wish I’d understood Dumbledore as
much. But we’ll see. Come on – Ollivander now.”
Ron and Hermione looked bewildered but very impressed as they followed him
across the little landing and knocked upon the door opposite Bill and Fleur’s. A weak
“Come in!” answered them.
The wandmaker was lying on the twin bed farthest from the window. He had been
held in the cellar for more than a year, and tortured, Harry knew, on at least one occasion.
He was emaciated, the bones of his face sticking out sharply against the yellowish skin.
His great silver eyes seemed vast in their sunken sockets. The hands that lay upon the
blanket could have belonged to a skeleton. Harry sat down on the empty bed, beside Ron
and Hermione. The rising sun was not visible here. The room faced the cliff-top garden
and the freshly dug grave.
“Mr. Ollivander, I’m sorry to disturb you,” Harry said.
“My dear boy,” Ollivander’s voice was feeble. “You rescued us, I thought we
would die in that place, I can never thank you . . . never thank you . . . enough.”
“We were glad to do it.”
Harry’s scar throbbed. He knew, he was certain, that there was hardly any time
left in which to beat Voldemort to his goal, or else to attempt to thwart him. He felt a
flutter of panic . . . yet he had made his decision when he chose to speak to Griphook first.
Feigning a calm he did not feel, he groped in the pouch around his neck and took out the
two halves of his broken wand.
“Mr. Ollivander, I need some help.”
“Anything. Anything.” Said the wandmaker weakly.
“Can you mend this? Is it possible?”
Ollivander held out a trembling hand, and Harry placed the two barely connected
halves in his palm.
“Holly and phoenix feather,” said Ollivander in a tremulous voice. “Eleven inches.
Nice and supple.”
“Yes,” said Harry. “Can you -- ?”
“No,” whispered Ollivander. “I am sorry, very sorry, but a wand that has suffered
this degree of damage cannot be repaired by any means that I know of.”
Harry had been braced to hear it, but it was a blow nevertheless. He took the wand
halves back and replaced them in the pouch around his neck. Ollivander stared at the
place where the shattered wand had vanished, and did not look away until Harry had
taken from his pocket the two wands he had brought from the Malfoys’.
“Can you identify these?” Harry asked.
The wandmaker took the first of the wands and held it close to his faded eyes,
rolling it between his knobble-knuckled fingers, flexing it slightly.
“Walnut and dragon heartstring,” he said. “Twelve-and-three-quarter inches.
Unyielding. This wand belonged to Bellatrix Lestrange.”
“And this one?”
Ollivander performed the same examination.
“Hawthorn and unicorn hair. Ten inches precisely. Reasonably springy. This was
the wand of Draco Malfoy.”
“Was?” repeated Harry. “Isn’t it still his?”
“Perhaps not. If you took it –”
“—I did – ”
“—then it may be yours. Of course, the manner of taking matters. Much also
depends upon the wand itself. In general, however, where a wand has been won, its
allegiance will change.”
There was a silence in the room, except for the distant rushing of the sea.
“You talk about wands like they’ve got feelings,” said Harry, “like they can think
for themselves.”
“The wand chooses the wizard,” said Ollivander. “That much has always been
clear to those of us who have studied wandlore.”
“A person can still use a wand that hasn’t chosen them, though?” asked Harry.
“Oh yes, if you are any wizard at all you will be able to channel your magic
through almost any instrument. The best results, however, must always come where there
is the strongest affinity between wizard and wand. These connections are complex. An
initial attraction, and then a mutual quest for experience, the wand learning from the
wizard, the wizard from the wand.”
The sea gushed forward and backward; it was a mournful sound.
“I took this wand from Draco Malfoy by force,” said Harry. “Can I use it safely?”
“I think so. Subtle laws govern wand ownership, but the conquered wand will
usually bend its will to its new master.”
“So I should use this one?” said Ron, pulling Wormtail’s wand out of his pocket
and handing it to Ollivander.
“Chestnut and dragon heartstring. Nine-and-a-quarter inches. Brittle. I was forced
to make this shortly after my kidnapping, for Peter Pettigrew. Yes, if you won it, it is
more likely to do your bidding, and do it well, than another wand.”
“And this holds true for all wands, does it?” asked Harry.
“I think so,” replied Ollivander, his protuberant eyes upon Harry’s face. “You ask
deep questions, Mr. Potter. Wandlore is a complex and mysterious branch of magic.”
“So, it isn’t necessary to kill the previous owner to take the possession of a
wand?” asked Harry.
Ollivander swallowed.
“Necessary? No, I should not say that it is necessary to kill.”
“There are legends, though,” said Harry, and as his heart rate quickened, the pain
in his scar became more intense; he was sure that Voldemort has decided to put his idea
into action. “Legends about a wand – or wands – that have been passed from hand to
hand by murder.”
Ollivander turned pale. Against the snowy pillow he was light gray, and his eyes
were enormous, bloodshot, and bulging with what looked like fear.
“Only one wand, I think,” he whispered.
“And You-Know-Who is interested in it, isn’t he?” asked Harry.
“I – how?” croaked Ollivander, and he looked appealingly at Ron and Hermione
for help. “How do you know this?”
“He wanted you to tell him how to overcome the connection between our wands,”
said Harry.
Ollivander looked terrified.
“He tortured me, you must understand that! The Cruciatus Curse, I – I had no
choice but to tell him what I knew, what I guessed!”
“I understand,” said Harry. “You told him about the twin cores? You said he just
had to borrow another wizard’s wand?”
Ollivander looked horrified, transfixed, by the amount that Harry knew. He
nodded slowly.
“But it didn’t work,” Harry went on. “Mine still beat the borrowed wand. Do you
know why that is?”
Ollivander shook his head slowly as he had just nodded.
“I had . . . never heard of such a thing. Your wand performed something unique
that night. The connection of the twin cores is incredibly rare, yet why your wand would
have snapped the borrowed wand, I do not know. . . .
“We were talking about the other wand, the wand that changes hands by murder.
When You-Know-Who realized my wand had done something strange, he came back and
asked about that other wand, didn’t he?”
“How do you know this?”
Harry did not answer.
“Yes, he asked,” whispered Ollivander. “He wanted to know everything I could
tell him about the wand variously known as the Deathstick, the Wand of Destiny, or the
Elder Wand.”
Harry glanced sideways at Hermione. She looked flaggergasted.
“The Dark Lord,” said Ollivander in hushed and frightened tones, “had always
been happy with the wand I made him – yes and phoenix feather, thirteen-and-a-half
inches. – until he discovered the connection of the twin cores. Now he seeks another,
more powerful wand, as the only way to conquer yours.”
“But he’ll know soon, if he doesn’t already, that mine’s broken beyond repair,”
said Harry quietly.
“No!” said Hermione, sounding frightened. “He can’t know that, Harry, how
could he --?”
“Priori Incantatem,” said Harry. “We left your wand and the blackthorn wand at
the Malfoys’, Hermione. If they examine them properly, make them re-create the spells
they’ve cast lately, they’d see that yours broke mine, they’ll see that you tried and failed
to mend it, and they’ll realize that I’ve been using the blackthorn one ever since.”
The little color she had regained since their arrival had drained from her face. Ron
gave Harry a reproachful look, and said, “Let’s not worry about that now ---”
But Mr. Ollivander intervened.
“The Dark Lord no longer seeks the Elder Wand only for your destruction, Mr.
Potter. He is determined to possess it because he believes it will make him truly
invulnerable.”
“And will it?”
“The owner of the Elder Wand must always fear attack,” said Ollivander, “but the
idea of the Dark Lord in possession of the Deathstick is, I must admit . . . formidable.”
Harry was suddenly reminded of how unsure, when they first met, of how much
he like Ollivander. Even now, having been tortured and imprisoned by Voldemort, the
idea of the Dark Wizard in possession of this wand seemed to enthrall him as much as it
repulsed him.
“You – you really think this wand exists, then, Mr. Ollivander?” asked Hermione.
“Oh yes,” said Ollivander. “Yes, it is perfectly possible to trace the wand’s course
through history. There are gaps, of, course, and long ones, where it vanishes from view,
temporarily lost or hidden; but always it resurfaces. It has certain identifying
characteristics that those who are learned in wandlore recognize. There are written
accounts, some of them obscure, that I and other wandmakers have made it our business
to study. They have the ring of authenticity.”
“So you – you don’t think it can be a fairy tale or a myth?” Hermione asked
hopefully.
“No,” said Ollivander. “Whether it needs to pass by murder, I do not know. Its
history is bloody, but that may be simply due to the fact that it is such a desirable object,
and arouses such passions in wizards. Immensely powerful, dangerous in the wrong
hands, and an object of incredible fascination to all of us who study the power of wands.”
“Mr. Ollivander,” said Harry, “you told You-Know-Who that Gregorovitch had
the Elder Wand, didn’t you?”
Ollivander turned, if possible, even paler. He looked ghostly as he gulped.
“But how – how do you -- ?”
“Never mind how I know it,” said Harry, closing his eyes momentarily as his scar
burned and he saw, for mere seconds, a vision of the main street in Hogsmeade, still dark,
because it was so much farther north. “You told You-Know-Who that Gregorovitch had
the wand?”
“It was a rumor,” whispered Ollivander. “A rumor, years and years ago, long
before you were born I believe Gregorovitch himself started it. You can see how good it
would be for business; that he was studying and duplicating the qualities of the Elder
Wand!”
“Yes, I can see that,” said Harry. He stood up. “Mr. Ollivander, one last thing, and
then we’ll let you get some rest. What do you know about the Deathly Hallows?”
“The – the what?” asked the wandmaker, looking utterly bewildered.
“The Deathly Hallows.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about. Is this still something to do
with wands?”
Harry looked into the sunken face and believed that Ollivander was not acting. He
did not know about the Hallows.
“Thank you,” said Harry. “Thank you very much. We’ll leave you to get some
rest now.”
Ollivander looked stricken.
“He was torturing me!” he gasped. “The Cruciatus Curse . . . you have no
idea. . . .”
“I do,” said Harry, “I really do. Please get some rest. Thank you for telling me all
of this.”
He led Ron and Hermione down the staircase. Harry caught glimpses of Bill,
Fleur, Luna, and Dean sitting at the table in the kitchen, cups of tea in front of them. They
all looked up at Harry as he appeared in the doorway, but he merely nodded to them and
continued into the garden, Ron and Hermione behind him. The reddish mound of earth
that covered Dobby lay ahead, and Harry walked back to it, as the pain in his head built
more and more powerfully. It was a huge effort now to close down the visions that were
forcing themselves upon him, but he knew that he would have to resist only a little longer.
He would yield very soon, because he needed to know that his theory was right. He must
make only one more short effort, so that he could explain to Ron and Hermione.
“Gregorovitch had the Elder Wand a long time ago,” he said, “I saw You-Know-
Who trying to find him. When he tracked him down, he found that Gregorovitch didn’t
have it anymore: It was stolen from him by Grindelwald. How Grindelwald found out
that Gregorovitch had it, I don’t know – but if Gregorovitch was stupid enough to spread
the rumor, it can’t have been that difficult.”
Voldemort was at the gates of Hogwarts; Harry could see him standing there, and
see too the lamp bobbing in the pre-dawn, coming closer and closer.
“And Grindelwald used the Elder Wand to become powerful. And at the height of
his power, when Dumbledore knew he was the only one who could stop him, he dueled
Grindelwald and beat him, and he took the Elder Wand.”
“Dumbledore had the Elder Wand?” said Ron. “But then – where is it now?”
“At Hogwarts,” said Harry, fighting to remain with them in the cliff-top garden.
“But then, let’s go!” said Ron urgently. “Harry, let’s go and get it before he
does!”
“It’s too late for that,” said Harry. He could not help himself, but clutched his
head, trying to help it resist. “He knows where it is. He’s there now.”
“Harry!” Ron said furiously. “How long have you known this – why have we
been wasting time? Why did you talk to Griphook first? We could have gone – we could
still go –”
“No,” said Harry, and he sank to his knees in the grass. “Hermione’s right.
Dumbledore didn’t want me to have it. He didn’t want me to take it. He wanted me to get
the Horcruxes.”
“The unbeatable wand, Harry!” moaned Ron.
“I’m not supposed to . . . I’m supposed to get the Horcruxes. . . .”
And now everything was cool and dark: The sun was barely visible over the
horizon as he glided alongside Snape, up through the grounds toward the lake.
“I shall join you in the castle shortly,” he said in his high, cold voice. “Leave me
now.”
Snape bowed and set off back up the path, his black cloak billowing behind him.
Harry walked slowly, waiting for Snape’s figure to disappear. It would not do for Snape,
or indeed anyone else, to see where he was going. But there were no lights in the castle
windows, and he could conceal himself . . . and in a second he had cast upon himself a
Disillusionment Charm that hid him even from his own eyes.
And he walked on, around the edge of the lake, taking in the outlines of the
beloved castle, his first kingdom, his birthright. . . .
And here it was, beside the lake, reflected in the dark waters. The white marble
tomb, an unnecessary blot on the familiar landscape. He felt again that rush of controlled
euphoria, that heady sense of purpose in destruction. He raised the old yew wand: How
fitting that this would be its last great act.
The tomb split open from head to foot. The shrouded figure was as long as thin as
it had been in life. He raised the wand again.
The wrappings fell open. The face was translucent, pale, sunken, yet almost
perfectly preserved. They had left his spectacles on the crooked nose: He felt amused
derision. Dumbledore’s hands were folded upon his chest, and there it lay, clutched
beneath them, buried with him.
Had the old fool imagined that marble or death would protect the wand? Had he
thought that the Dark Lord would be scared to violate his tomb? The spiderlike hand
swooped and pulled the wand from Dumbledore’s grasp, and as he took it, a shower of
sparks flew from its tip, sparkling over the corpse of its last owner, ready to serve a new
master at last.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Shell Cottage
Bill and Fleur's cottage stood alone on a cliff overlooking the sea, its walls embedded
with shells and whitewashed. It was a lonely and beautiful place. Wherever Harry went
inside the tiny cottage or its garden, he could hear the constant ebb and flow of the sea,
like the breathing of some great, slumbering creature. He spent much of the next few
days making excuses to escape the crowded cottage, craving the cliff-top view of open
sky and wide, empty sea, and the feel of cold, salty wind on his face.
The enormity of his decision not to race Voldemort to the wand still scared Harry. He
could not remember, ever before, choosing /not/ to act. He was full of doubts, doubts that
Ron could not help voicing whenever they were together.
"What if Dumbledore wanted us to work out the symbol in time to get the wand?" "What
if working out what the symbol meant made you 'worthy' to get the Hallows?" "Harry, if
that really is the Elder Wand, how the hell are we supposed to finish off You-Know-
Who?"
Harry had no answers: There were moments when he wondered whether it had been
outright madness not to try to prevent Voldemort breaking open the tomb. He could not
even explain satisfactorily why he had decided against it: Every time he tried to
reconstruct the internal arguments that had led to his decision, they sounded feebler to
him.
The odd thing was that Hermione's support made him feel just as confused as Ron's
doubts. Now forced to accept that the Elder Wand was real, she maintained that it was an
evil object, and that the way Voldemort had taken possession of it was repellent, not to be
considered.
"You could never have done that, Harry," she said again and again. "You couldn't have
broken into Dumbledore's grave."
But the idea of Dumbledore's corpse frightened Harry much less than the possibility that
he might have misunderstood the living Dumbledore's intentions. He felt that he was still
groping in the dark; he had chosen his path but kept looking back, wondering whether he
had misread the signs, whether he should not have taken the other way. From time to time,
anger at Dumbledore crashed over him again, powerful as the waves slamming
themselves against the cliff beneath the cottage, anger that Dumbledore had not explained
before he died.
"But /is/ he dead?" said Ron, three days after they had arrived at the cottage. Harry had
been staring out over the wall that separated the cottage garden from the cliff when Ron
and Hermione had found him; he wished they had not, having no wish to join in with
their argument.
"Yes, he is. Ron, /please" don't start that again!"
"Look at the facts, Hermione," said Ron, speaking across Harry, who continued to gaze at
the horizon. "The solve doe. The sword. The eye Harry saw in the mirror --"
"Harry admits he could have imagined the eye! Don't you, Harry?"
"I could have," said Harry without looking at her.
"But you don't thing you did, do you?" asked Ron.
"No, I don't," said Harry.
"There you go!" said Ron quickly, before Hermione could carry on. "If it wasn't
Dumbledore, explain how Dobby knew we were in the cellar, Hermione?"
"I can't -- but can you explain how Dumbledore sent him to us if he's lying in a tomb at
Hogwarts?"
"I dunno, it could've been his ghost!"
"Dumbledore wouldn't come back as a ghost," said Harry. There was little about
Dumbledore he was sure of now, but he knew that much. "He would have gone on."
"What d'you mean, 'gone on'?" asked Ron, but before Harry could say any more, a voice
behind them said, "'Arry?"
Fleur had come out of the cottage, her long silver hair flying in the breeze.
"'Arry, Grip'ook would like to speak to you. 'E eez in ze smallest bedroom, 'e says 'e does
not want to be over'eard."
Her dislike of the goblin sending her to deliver messages was clear; she looked irritable
as she walked back around the house.
Griphook was waiting for them, as Fleur had said, in the tiniest of the cottage's three
bedrooms, in which Hermione and Luna slept by night. He had drawn the red cotton
curtains against the bright, cloudy sky, which gave the room a fiery glow at odds with the
rest of the airy, light cottage.
"I have reached my decision, Harry Potter," said the goblin, who was sitting cross-legged
in a low chair, drumming its arms with his spindly fingers. "Though the goblins of
Gringotts will consider it base treachery, I have decided to help you --"
"That's great!" said Harry, relief surging through him. "Griphook, thank you, we're really
--"
"-- in return," said the goblin firmly, "for payment."
Slightly taken aback, Harry hesitated.
"How much do you want? I've got gold."
"Not gold," said Griphook. "I have gold."
His black eyes glittered; there were no whites to his eyes.
"I want the sword. The sword of Godric Gryffindor."
Harry's spirits plummeted.
"You can't have that," he said. "I'm sorry."
"Then," said the goblin softly, "we have a problem."
"We can give you something else," said Ron eagerly. "I'll bet the Lestranges have got
loads of stuff, you can take your pick once we get into the vault."
He had said the wrong thing. Griphook flushed angrily.
"I am not a thief, boy! I am not trying to procure treasures to which I have no right!"
"The sword's ours --"
"it is not," said the goblin.
"We're Gryffindors, and it was Godric Gryffindor's --"
"And before it was Gryffindor's, whose was it?" demanded the goblin, sitting up straight.
"No one's," said Ron. "It was made for him, wasn't it?"
"No!" cried the goblin, bristling with anger as he pointed a long finger at Ron.
"Wizarding arrogance again! That sword was Ragnuk the First's, taken from him by
Godric Gryffindor! It is a _____ _________, a masterpiece of goblinwork! It belongs
with the gobl___. The sword is the price of my hire, take it or leave it!"
Griphook glared at them. Harry glanced at the other ____, then said, "We need to discuss
this, Griphook, if that's all right. Could you give us a few minutes?"
The goblin nodded, looking sour.
Downstairs in the empty sitting room, Harry walked to the fireplace, brow furrowed,
trying to think what to do. Behind him, Ron said, "He's having a laugh. We can't let him
have that sword."
"It is true?" Harry asked Hermione. "Was the sword stolen by Gryffindor?"
"I don't know," she said hopelessly. "Wizarding history often skates over what the
wizards have done to other magical races, but there's no account that I know of that says
Gryffindor stole the sword."
"It'll be one of those goblin stories," said Ron, "about how the wizards are always trying
to get one over on them. I suppose we should think ourselves lucky he hasn't asked for
one of our wands."
"Goblins have got good reason to dislike wizards, Ron." said Hermione. "They've been
treated brutally in the past."
"Goblins aren't exactly fluffy little bunnies, though, are they?" said Ron. "They've killed
plenty of us. They've fought dirty too."
"But arguing with Griphook about whose race is most underhanded and violent isn't
going to make him more likely to help us, is it?"
There was a pause while they tried to think of a way around the problem. Harry looked
out of the window at Dobby's grave. Luna was arranging sea lavender in a jam jar beside
the headstone.
"Okay," said Ron, and Harry turned back to face him, "how's this? We tell Griphook we
need the sword until we get inside the _____ and then he can have it. There's a fake in
these, isn't there? We switch them, and give him the fake."
"Ron, he'd know the difference better than we would!" said Hermione. "He's the only one
who realized there had been a swap!"
"Yeah, but we could _ca_per before he realizes --"
He quailed beneath the look Hermione was giving him.
"That," she said quietly, "is despicable. Ask for his help, then double-cross him? And you
wonder why goblins don't like wizards, Ron?"
Ron's ears had turned red.
"All right, all right! It was the only thing I could think of! What's your solution, then?"
"We need to offer him something else, something just as valuable."
"Brilliant, I'll go and get one of our ancient goblin-made swords and you can gift wrap
it."
Silence fell between them again. Harry was sure that the goblin would accept nothing but
the sword, even if they had something as valuable to offer him. Yet the sword was their
one, indispensable weapon against the Horcruxes.
He closed his eyes for a moment or two and listened to the rush of the sea. The idea that
Gryffindor might have stolen the sword was unpleasant to him: He had always been
proud to be a Gryffindor; Gryffindor had been the champion of Muggle-borns, the wizard
who had clashed with the pureblood-loving Slytherin....
"Maybe he's lying," Harry said, opening his eyes again. "Griphook. Maybe Gryffindor
didn't take the sword. How do we know the goblin version of history's right?"
"Does it make a difference?" asked Hermione.
"Changes how I feel about it," said Harry.
He took a deep breath.
"We'll tell him he can have the sword after he's helped us get into that vault -- but we'll be
careful to avoid telling him exactly /when/ he can have it."
A grin spread slowly across Ron's face. Hermione, however, looked alarmed.
"Harry, we can't --"
"He can have it," Harry went on, "after we've used it on all of the Horcruxes. I'll make
sure he gets it then. I'll keep my word."
"But that could be years!" said Hermione.
"I know that, but /he/ needn't. I won't be lying... really."
Harry met her eyes with a mixture of defiance and shame. He remembered the words that
had been engraved over the gateway to Nurmengard: FOR THE GREATER GOOD. He
pushed the idea away. What choice did they have?
"I don't like it," said Hermione.
"Nor do I, much," Harry admitted.
"Well, I think it's genius," said Ron, standing up again. "Let's go and tell him."
Back in the smallest bedroom, Harry made the offer, careful to phrase it so as not to give
any definite time for the handover of the sword. Hermione frowned at the floor while he
was speaking; he felt irritated at her, afraid that she might give the game away. However,
Griphook had eyes for nobody but Harry.
"I have your word, Harry Potter, that you will give me the sword of Gryffindor if I help
you?"
"Yes," said Harry.
"Then shake," said the goblin, holding out his hand.
Harry took it and shook. He wondered whether those black eyes saw any misgivings in
his own. Then Griphook relinquished him, clapped his hands together, and said, "So. We
begin!"
It was like planning to break into the Ministry all over again. They settled to work in the
smallest bedroom, which was kept, according to Griphook's preference, in semidarkness.
"I have visited the Lestranges' vault only once," Griphook told them, "on the occasion I
was told to place inside it the false sword. It is one of the most ancient chambers. The
oldest Wizarding families store their treasures at the deepest level, where the vaults are
largest and best protected...."
They remained shut in the cupboardlike room for hours at a time. Slowly the days
stretched into weeks. There was problem after problem to overcome, not least of which
was that their store of Polyjuice Potion was greatly depleted.
"There's really only enough left for one of us," said Hermione, tilting the thick mudlike
potion against the lamplight.
"That'll be enough," said Harry, who was examining Griphook's hand-drawn map of the
deepest passageways.
The other inhabitants of Shell Cottage could hardly fail to notice that something was
going on now that Harry, Ron and Hermione only emerged for mealtimes. Nobody asked
questions, although Harry often felt Bill's eyes on the three of them at the table,
thoughtful, concerned.
The longer they spent together, the more Harry realized that he did not much like the
goblin. Griphook was unexpectedly bloodthirsty, laughed at the idea of pain in lesser
creatures and seemed to relish the possibility that they might have to hurt other wizards to
reach the Lestranges' vault. Harry could tell that his distaste was shared by the other two,
but they did not discuss it. They needed Griphook.
The goblin ate only grudgingly with the rest of them. Even after his legs had mended, he
continued to request trays of food in his room, like the still-frail Ollivander, until Bill
(following an angry outburst from Fleur) went upstairs to tell him that the arrangement
could not continue. Thereafter Griphook joined them at the overcrowded table, although
he refused to eat the same food, insisting, instead, on lumps of raw meat, roots, and
various fungi.
Harry felt responsible: It was, after all, he who had insisted that the goblin remain at Shell
Cottage so that he could question him; his fault that the whole Weasley family had been
driven into hiding, that Bill, Fred, George, and Mr. Weasley could no longer work.
"I'm sorry," he told Fleur, one blustery April evening as he helped her prepare dinner. "I
never meant you to have to deal with all of this."
She had just set some knives to work, chipping up steaks for Griphook and Bill, who had
preferred his meat bloody ever since he had been attacked by Greyback. While the knives
sliced behind her, her somewhat irritable expression softened.
"'Arry, you saved my sister's life, I do not forget."
This was not, strictly speaking, true, but Harry decided against reminding her that
Gabrielle had never been in real danger.
"Anyway," Fleur went on, pointing her want at a pot of sauce on the stove, which began
to bubble at once, "Mr. Ollivander leaves for Muriel's zis evening. Zat will make zings
easier. Ze goblin," she scowled a little at the mention of him, "can move downstairs, and
you, Ron, and Dean can take zat room."
"We don't mind sleeping in the living room," said Harry, who knew that Griphook would
thing poorly of having to sleep on the sofa; keeping Griphook happy was essential to
their plans. "Don't worry about us." And when she tried to protest he went on, "We'll be
off your hands soon too, Ron, Hermione, and I. We won't need to be here much longer."
"But, what do you mean?" she said, frowning at him, her wand pointing at the casserole
dish now suspended in midair. "Of course you must not leave, you are safe 'ere!"
She looked rather like Mrs. Weasley as she said it, and he was glad that the back door
opened at that moment. Luna and Dean entered, their hair damp from the rain outside and
their arms full of driftwood.
"... and tiny little ears," Luna was saying, "a bit like hippo's, Daddy says, only purple and
hairy. And if you want to call them, you have to hum; they prefer a waltz, nothing too
fast...."
Looking uncomfortable, Dean shrugged at Harry as he passed, following Luna into the
combined dining and sitting room where Ron and Hermione were laying the dinner table.
Seizing the chance to escape Fleur's questions, Harry grabbed two jugs of pumpkin juice
and followed them.
"... and if you ever come to our house I'll be able to show you the horn, Daddy wrote to
me about it but I haven't seen it yet, because the Death Eaters took me from the Hogwarts
Express and I never got home for Christmas," Luna was saying, as she and Dean relit the
fire.
"Luna, we told you," Hermione called over to her. "That horn exploded. It came from an
Erumpent, not a Crumple-Horned Snorkack --"
"No, it was definitely a Snorkack horn," said Luna serenely, "Daddy told me. It will
probably have re-formed by now, they mend themselves, you know."
Hermione shook her head and continued laying down forks as Bill appeared, leading Mr.
Ollivander down the stairs. The wandmaker still looked exceptionally frail, and he clung
to Bill's arm as the latter supported him, carrying a large suitcase.
"I'm going to miss you, Mr. Ollivander," said Luna, approaching the old man.
"And I you, my dear," said Ollivander, patting her on the shoulder.
"You were an inexpressible comfort to me in that terrible place."
"So, au revoir, Mr. Ollivander," said Fleur, kissing him on both cheeks. "And I wonder
whezzer you could oblige me by delivering a package to Bill's Auntie Murie!? I never
returned 'er tiara."
"It will be an honor," said Ollivander with a little bow, "the very least I can do in return
for your generous hospitality."
Fleur drew out a worn velvet case, which she opened to show the wandmaker. The tiara
sat glittering and twinkling in the light from the low-hanging lamp.
"Moonstones and diamonds," said Griphook, who had sidled into the room without Harry
noticing. "Made by goblins, I think?"
"And paid for by wizards," said Bill quietly, and the goblin shot him a look that was both
furtive and challenging.
A strong wind gusted against the cottage windows as Bill and Ollivander set off into the
night. The rest of them squeezed in around the table; elbow to elbow and with barely
enough room to move, they started to eat. The fire crackled and popped in the grate
beside them. Fleur, Harry noticed, was merely playing with her food; she glanced at the
window every few minutes; however, Bill returned before they had finished their first
course, his long hair tangled by the wind.
"Everything's fine," he told Fleur. "Ollivander settled in, Mum and Dad say hello. Ginny
sends you all her love, Fred and George are driving Muriel up the wall, they're still
operating an Owl-Order business out of her back room. It cheered her up to have her tiara
back, though. She said she thought we'd stolen it."
"Ah, she eez charmant, your aunt," said Fleur crossly, waving her wand and causing the
dirty plates to rise and form a stack in midair. She caught them and marched out of the
room.
"Daddy's made a tiara," piped up Luna, "Well, more of a crown, really."
Ron caught Harry's eye and grinned; Harry knew that he was remembering the ludicrous
headdress they had seen on their visit to Xenophilius.
"Yes, he's trying to re-create the lost diadem of Ravenclaw. He thinks he's identified most
of the main elements now. Adding the billywig wings really made a difference --"
There was a bang on the front door. Everyone's head turned toward it. Fleur came
running out of the kitchen, looking frightened; Bill jumped to his feed, his wand pointing
at the door; Harry, Ron, and Hermione did the same. Silently Griphook slipped beneath
the table, out of sight.
"Who is it?" Bill called.
"It is I, Remus John Lupin!" called a voice over the howling wind. Harry experienced a
thrill of fear; what had happened? "I am a werewolf, married to Nymphadora Tonks, and
you, the Secret-Keeper of Shell Cottage, told me the address and bade me come in an
emergency!"
"Lupin," muttered Bill, and he ran to the door and wrenched it open.
Lupin fell over the threshold. He was white-faced, wrapped in a traveling cloak, his
graying hair windswept. He straightened up, looked around the room, making sure of
who was there, then cried aloud, "It's a boy! We've named him Ted, after Dora's father!"
Hermione shrieked.
"Wha --? Tonks -- Tonks has had the baby?"
"Yes, yes, she's had the baby!" shouted Lupin. All around the table came cries of delight,
sighs of relief: Hermione and Fleur both squealed, "Congratulations!" and Ron said,
"Blimey, a baby!" as if he had never heard of such a thing before.
"Yes -- yes -- a boy," said Lupin again, who seemed dazed by his own happiness. He
strode around the table and hugged Harry; the scene in the basement of Grimmauld Place
might never have happened.
"You'll be godfather?" he said as he released Harry.
"M-me?" stammered Harry.
"You, yes, of course -- Dora quite agrees, no one better --"
"I -- yeah -- blimey --"
Harry felt overwhelmed, astonished, delighted; now Bill was hurrying to fetch wine, and
Fleur was persuading Lupin to join them for a drink.
"I can't stay long, I must get back," said Lupin, beaming around at them all: He looked
years younger than Harry had ever seen him. "Thank you, thank you, Bill"
Bill had soon filled all of their goblets, they stood and raised them high in a toast.
"To Teddy Remus Lupin," said Lupin, "a great wizard in the making!"
"'Oo does 'e look like?" Fleur inquired.
"I think he looks like Dora, but she thinks he is like me. Not much hair. It looked black
when he was born, but I swear it's turned ginger in the hour since. Probably blond by the
time I get back. Andromeda says Tonks's hair started changing color the day that she was
born." He drained his goblet. "Oh, go on then, just one more," he added, beaming, as Bill
made to fill it again.
The wind buffeted the little cottage and the fire leapt and crackled, and Bill was soon
opening another bottle of wine. Lupin's news seemed to have taken them out of
themselves, removed them for a while from their state of siege: Tidings of new life were
exhilarating. Only the goblin seemed untouched by the suddenly festive atmosphere, and
after a while he slunk back to the bedroom he now occupied alone. Harry thought he was
the only one who had noticed this, until he saw Bill's eyes following the goblin up the
stairs.
"No... no... I really must get back," said Lupin at last, declining yet another goblet of
wine. He got to his feet and pulled his traveling cloak back around himself.
"Good-bye, good-bye -- I'll try and bring some pictures in a few day's time -- they'll all be
so glad to know that I've seen you --"
He fastened his cloak and made his farewells, hugging the women and grasping hands
with the men, then, still beaming, returned into the wild night.
"Godfather, Harry!" said Bill as they walked into the kitchen together, helping clear the
table. "A real honor! Congratulations!"
As Harry set down the empty goblets he was carrying, Bill pulled the door behind him
closed, shutting out the still-voluble voices of the others, who were continuing to
celebrate even in Lupin's absence.
"I wanted a private word, actually, Harry. It hasn't been easy to get an opportunity with
the cottage this full of people."
Bill hesitated.
"Harry, you're planning something with Griphook."
It was a statement, not a question, and Harry did not bother to deny it. He merely looked
at Bill, waiting.
"I know goblins," said Bill. "I've worked for Gringotts ever since I left Hogwarts. As far
as there can be friendship between wizards and goblins, I have goblin friends -- or, at
least, goblins I know well, and like." Again, Bill hesitated.
"Harry, what do you want from Griphook, and what have you promised him in return?"
"I can't tell you that," said Harry. "Sorry, Bill."
The kitchen door opened behind them; Fleur was trying to bring through more empty
goblets.
"Wait," Bill told her, "Just a moment."
She backed out and he closed the door again.
"Then I have to say this," Bill went on. "If you have struck any kind of bargain with
Griphook, and most particularly if that bargain involves treasure, you must be
exceptionally careful. Goblin notions of ownership, payment, and repayment are not the
same as human ones."
Harry felt a slight squirm of discomfort, as though a small snake had stirred inside him.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"We are talking about a different breed of being," said Bill. "Dealings between wizards
and goblins have been fraught for centuries -- but you'll know all that from History of
Magic. There has been fault on both sides, I would never claim that wizards have been
innocent. However, there is a belief among some goblins, and those at Gringotts are
perhaps most prone to it, that wizards cannot be trusted in matters of gold and treasure,
that they have no respect for goblin ownership."
"I respect --" Harry began, but Bill shook his head.
"You don't understand, Harry, nobody could understand unless they have lived with
goblins. To a goblin, the rightful and true master of any object is the maker, not the
purchaser. All goblin made objects are, in goblin eyes, rightfully theirs."
"But it was bought --"
"-- then they would consider it rented by the one who had paid the money. They have,
however, great difficulty with the idea of goblin-made objects passing from wizard to
wizard. You saw Griphook's face when the tiara passed under his eyes. He disapproves. I
believe he thinks, as do the fiercest of his kind, that it ought to have been returned to the
goblins once the original purchaser died. They consider our habit of keeping goblin-made
objects, passing them from wizard to wizard without further payment, little more than
theft."
Harry had an ominous feeling now; he wondered whether Bill guessed more than he was
letting on.
"All I am saying," said Bill, setting his hand on the door back into the sitting room, "is to
be very careful what you promise goblins, Harry. It would be less dangerous to break into
Gringotts than to renege on a promise to a goblin."
"Right," said Harry as Bill opened the door, "yeah. Thanks. I'll bear that in mind."
As he followed Bill back to the others a wry thought came to him, born no doubt of the
wine he had drunk. He seemed set on ______ to become just as reckless a godfather to
Teddy Lupin as Sirius Black had been to him.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Gringotts
Their plans were made, their preparations complete; in the smallest bedroom a
single long, coarse black hair (plucked from the sweater Hermione had been wearing at
Malfoy Manor) lay curled in a small glass phial on the mantelpiece.
"And you'll be using her actual wand," said Harry, nodding toward the walnut
wand, "so I reckon you'll be pretty convincing."
Hermione looked frightened that the wand might sting or bit her as she picked it
up.
"I hate that thing," she said in a low voice. "I really hate it. It feels all wrong, it
doesn't work properly for me . . . It's like a bit of her."
Harry could not help but remember how Hermione has dismissed his loathing of
the blackthorn wand, insisting that he was imagining things when it did not work as well
as his own, telling him to simply practice. He chose not to repeat her own advice back to
her, however, the eve of their attempted assault on Gringotts felt like the wrong moment
to antagonize her.
"It'll probably help you get in character, though," said Ron. "think what that
wand's done!"
"But that's my point!" said Hermione. "This is the wand that tortured Neville's
mum and dad, and who knows how many other people? This is the wand that killed
Sirius!"
Harry had not thought of that: He looked down at the wand and was visited by a
brutal urge to snap it, to slice it in half with Gryffindor's sword, which was propped
against the wall beside him.
"I miss my wand," Hermione said miserably. "I wish Mr. Ollivander could have
made me another one too."
Mr. Ollivander had sent Luna a new wand that morning. She was out on the back
lawn at that moment, testing its capabilities in the late afternoon sun. Dean, who had lost
his wand to the Snatchers, was watching rather gloomily.
Harry looked down at the hawthorn wand that had once belonged to Draco
Malfoy. He had been surprised, but pleased to discover that it worked for him at least as
well as Hermione's had done. Remembering what Ollivander had told them of the secret
workings of wands, Harry thought he knew what Hermione's problem was: She had not
won the walnut wand's allegiance by taking it personally from Bellatrix.
The door of the bedroom opened and Griphook entered. Harry reached
instinctively for the hilt of the sword and drew it close to him, but regretted his action at
once. He could tell that the goblin had noticed. Seeking to gloss over the sticky moment,
he said, "We've just been checking the last-minute stuff, Griphook. We've told Bill and
Fleur we're leaving tomorrow, and we've told them not to get up to see us off."
They had been firm on this point, because Hermione would need to transform in
Bellatrix before they left, and the less that Bill and Fleur knew or suspected about what
they were about to do, the better. They had also explained that they would not be
returning. As they had lost Perkin's old tent on the night that the Snatcher's caught them,
Bill had lent them another one. It was now packed inside the beaded bag, which, Harry
was impressed to learn, Hermione had protected from the Snatchers by the simple
expedient of stuffing it down her sock.
Though he would miss Bill, Fleur, Luna, and Dean, not to mention the home
comforts they had enjoyed over the last few weeks, Harry was looking forward to
escaping the confinement of Shell Cottage. He was tired of trying to make sure that they
were not overheard, tired of being shut in the tiny, dark bedroom. Most of all, he longed
to be rid of Griphook. However, precisely how and when they were to part from the
goblin without handing over Gryffindor's sword remained a question to which Harry had
no answer. It had been impossible to decide how they were going to do it, because the
goblin rarely left Harry, Ron, and Hermione alone together for more than five minutes at
a time: "He could give my mother lessons," growled Ron, as the goblin's long fingers
kept appearing around the edges of doors. With Bill's warning in mind, Harry could not
help suspecting that Griphook was on the watch for possible skullduggery. Hermione
disapproved so heartily of the planned double-cross that Harry had given up attempting to
pick her brains on how best to do it: Ron, on the rare occasions that they had been able to
snatch a few Griphook-free moments, had come up with nothing better than "We'll just
have to wing it, mate."
Harry slept badly that night. Lying away in the early hours, he thought back to the
way he had felt the night before they had infiltrated the Ministry of Magic and
remembered a determination, almost an excitement. Now he was experiencing jolts of
anxiety nagging doubts: He could not shake off the fear that it was all going to go wrong.
He kept telling himself that their plan was good, that Griphook knew what they were
facing, that they were well-prepared for all the difficulties they were likely to encounter,
yet still he felt uneasy. Once or twice he heard Ron stir and was sure that he too was
awake, but they were sharing the sitting room with Dean, so Harry did not speak.
It was a relief when six o-clock arrived and they could slip out of their sleeping
bags, dress in the semidarkness, then creep out into the garden, where they were to meet
Hermione and Griphook. The dawn was chilly, but there was little wind now that it was
May. Harry looked up at the stars still glimmering palely in the dark sky and listened to
the sea washing backward and forward against the cliff: He was going to miss the sound.
Small green shoots were forcing their way up through the red earth of Dobby's
grave now, in a year's time the mound would be covered in flowers. The white stone that
bore the elf's name had already acquired a weathered look. He realized now that they
could hardly have laid Dobby to rest in a more beautiful place, but Harry ached with
sadness to think of leaving him behind. Looking down on the grave, he wondered yet
again how the elf had known where to come to rescue them. His fingers moved
absentmindedly to the little pouch still strung around his neck, thorough which he could
feel the jagged mirror fragment in which he had been sure he had seen Dumbledore's eye.
Then the sound of a door opening made him look around.
Bellatrix Lestrange was striding across the lawn toward them, accompanied by
Griphook. As she walked, she was tucking the small, beaded bag into the inside pocket of
another set of the old robes they had taken from Grimmauld Place. Though Harry knew
perfectly well that it was really Hermione, he could not suppress a shiver of loathing. She
was taller than he was, her long black hair rippling down her back, her heavily lidded
eyes disdainful as they rested upon him; but then she spoke, and he heard Hermione
through Bellatrix's low voice.
"She tasted disgusting, worse than Gurdyroots! Okay, Ron, come here so I can do
you . . ."
"right, but remember, I don't like the beard too long"
"Oh, for heaven's sake, this isn't about looking handsome"
"It's not that, it gets in the way! But I liked my nose a bit shorter, try and do it the
way you did last time."
Hermione sighed and set to work, muttering under her breath as she transformed
various aspects of Ron's appearance. He was to be given a completely fake identity, and
they were trusting to the malevolent aura cast by Bellatrix to protect him. Meanwhile
Harry and Griphook were to be concealed under the Invisibility Cloak.
"There," said Hermione, "how does he look, Harry?"
It was just not possible to discern Ron under his disguise, but only, Harry thought
because he knew him so well. Ron's hair was now long and wavy; he had a thick brown
beard and mustache, no freckles, a short, broad nose, and heavy eyebrows.
"Well, he's not my type, but he'll do," said Harry. "Shall we go, then?"
All three of them glanced back at Shell Cottage, lying dark and silent under the
fading stars, then turned and began to walk toward the point, just beyond the boundary
wall, where the Fidelius Chard stopped working and they would be able to Disapparate.
Once past the gate, Griphook spoke.
"I should climb up now, Harry Potter, I think?"
Harry bent down and the goblin clambered onto his back, his hands linked on
front of Harry's throat. He was not heavy, but Harry disliked the feeling of the goblin and
the surprising strength with which he clung on. Hermione pulled the Invisibility Cloak
out of the beaded bag and threw it over them both.
"Perfect," she said, bending down to check Harry's feet. "I can't see a thing. Let's
go."
Harry turned on the spot, with Griphook on his shoulders, concentrating with all
his might on the Leaky Cauldron, the inn that was the entrance to Diagon Alley. The
goblin clung even tighter as they moved into the compressing darkness, and seconds later
Harry's feet found pavement and he opened his eyes on Charing Cross Road. Muggles
bustled past wearing the hangdog expressions of early morning, quite unconscious of the
little inn's existence.
The bar of the Leaky Cauldron was nearly deserted. Ton, the stooped and
toothless landlord, was polishing glasses behind the bar counter; a couple of warlocks
having a muttered conversation in the far corner glanced at Hermione and drew back into
the shadows.
"Madam Lestrange," murmured Tom, and as Hermione paused he inclined his
head subserviently.
"Good morning," said Hermione, and as Harry crept past, still carrying Griphook
piggyback under the Cloak, he saw Tom look surprised.
"Too polite," Harry whispered in Hermione's ear as they passed out of the Inn into
the tiny backyard. "You need to treat people like they're scum!"
"Okay, okay!"
Hermione drew out Bellatrix's wand and rapped a brick in the nondescript wall in
front of them. At once the bricks began to whirl and spin: A hole appeared in the middle
of them, which grew wider and wider, finally forming an archway onto the narrow
cobbled street that was Diagon Alley.
It was quiet, barely time for the shops to open, and there were hardly and
shoppers abroad. The crooked, cobbled street was much altered now from the bustling
place Harry had visited before his first team at Hogwarts so many years before. More
shops than ever were boarded up, though several new establishments dedicated to the
Dark Arts had been created since his last visit. Harry's own face glared down at him from
posters plastered over many windows, always captioned with the words UNDESIRABLE
NUMBER ONE.
A number of ragged people sat huddled in doorways. He heard them moaning to
the few passersby, pleading for gold, insisting that they were really wizards. One man
had a bloody bandage over his eye.
As they set off along the street, the beggars glimpsed Hermione. they seemed to
melt away before her, drawing hoods over their faces and fleeing as fast as they could.
Hermione looked after them curiously, until the man with the bloodied bandage came
staggering right across her path.
"My children," he bellowed, pointing at her. His voice was cracked, high-pitched,
he sounded distraught. "Where are my children? What has he done with them? You know,
you know!"
"I--I really--" stammered Hermione.
The man lunged at her, reaching for her throat. Then, with a bang and a burst of
red light he was thrown backward onto the ground, unconscious. Ron stood there, his
wand still outstretched and a look of shock visible behind his beard. Faces appeared at the
windows on either side of the street, while a little knot of prosperous-looking passerby
gathered their robes about them and broke into gentle trots, keen to vacate the scene.
their entrance into Diagon Alley could hardly have been more conspicuous; for a
moment Harry wondered whether it might not be better to leave now and try to think of a
different plan. Before they could move or consult one another, however, they heard a cry
from behind them.
"Why, Madam Lestrange!"
Harry whirled around and Griphook tightened his hold around Harry's neck: A tall,
think wizard with a crown of bushy gray hair and a long, sharp nose was striding toward
them.
"It's Travers," hissed the goblin into Harry's ear, but at that moment Harry could
not think who Travers was. Hermione had drawn herself up to full height and said with as
much contempt as she could muster:
"And what do you want?"
Travers stopped in his tracks, clearly affronted.
"He's another Death Eater!" breathed Griphook, and Harry sidled sideways to
repeat the information into Hermione's ear.
"I merely sought to greet you," said Travers coolly, "but if my presence is not
welcome . . ."
Harry recognized his voice now: Travers was one of the Death Eaters who had
been summoned to Xenophilius’s house.
"No, no, not at all, Travers," said Hermione quickly, trying to cover up her
mistake. "How are you?"
"Well, I confess I am surprised to see you out and about, Bellatrix."
"Really? Why?" asked Hermione.
"Well," Travers coughed, "I heard that the Inhabitants of Malfoy Manor were
confined to the house, after the . . . ah . . . escape."
Harry willed Hermione to keep her head. If this was true, and Bellatrix was not
supposed to be out in public--
"The Dark Lord forgives those who have served him most faithfully in the past,"
said Hermione in a magnificent imitation of Bellatrix's most contemptuous manner.
"Perhaps your credit is not as good with him as mine is, Travers."
Though the Death Eater looked offended, he also seemed less suspicious. He
glanced down at the man Ron had just Stunned.
"How did it offend you?"
"It does not matter, it will not do so again," said Hermione coolly.
"Some of these wandless can be troublesome," said Travers. "While they do
nothing but beg I have no objection, but one of them actually asked me to plead her case
in the Ministry last week. 'I'm a witch, sir, I'm a witch, let me prove it to you!" he said in
a squeaky impersonation. "As if I was going to give her my wand--but whose wand," said
Travers curiously, "are you using at the moment, Bellatrix? I heard that your own was--"
"I have my wand here," said Hermione coldly, holding up Bellatrix's wand. "I
don't know what rumors you have been listening to, Travers, but you seem sadly
misinformed."
Travers seemed a little taken aback at that, and he turned instead to Ron.
"Who is your friend? I do not recognize him."
"This is Dragomir Despard," said Hermione; they had decided that a fictional
foreigner was the safest cover for Ron to assume. "He speaks very little English, but he is
in sympathy with the Dark Lord's aims. He has traveled here from Transylvania to see
our new regime."
"Indeed? How do you do, Dragomir?"
"'Ow you?" said Ron, holding out his hand.
Travers extended two fingers and shook Ron's hand as though frightened of
dirtying himself.
So what brings you and your--ah--sympathetic friend to Diagon Alley this early?"
asked Travers.
"I need to visit Gringotts," said Hermione.
"Alas, I also," said Travers. "Gold, filthy gold! We cannot live without it, yet I
confess I deplore the necessity of consorting with our long-fingered friends."
Harry felt Griphook's clasped hands tighten momentarily around his neck.
"Shall we?" said Travers, gesturing Hermione forward.
Hermione had no choice but to fall into step beside him and head along the
crooked, cobbled street toward the place where the snowy-white Gringotts stood towering
over the other little shops. Ron sloped along beside them, and Harry and Griphook
followed.
A watchful Death Eater was the very last thing they needed, and the worst of it
was, with Travers matching at what he believed to be Bellatrix's side, there was no means
for Harry to communicate with Hermione or Ron. All too soon they arrived at the foot of
the marble steps leading up to the great bronze doors. As Griphook had already warned
them, the liveried goblins who usually flanked the entrance had been replaced by two
wizards, both of whom were clutching long thin golden rods.
"Ah, Probity Probes," signed Travers theatrically, "so crude--but so effective!"
And he set off up the steps, nodding left and right to the wizards, who raised the
golden rods and passed them up and down his body. The Probes, Harry knew, detected
spells of concealment and hidden magical objects. Knowing that he had only seconds,
Harry pointed Draco's wand at each of the guards in turn and murmured, "Confundo"
twice. Unnoticed by Travers, who was looking through the bronze doors at the inner hall,
each of the guards gave a little start as the spells hit them.
Hermione's long black hair rippled behind her as she climbed the steps.
"One moment, madam," said the guard, raising his Probe.
"But you've just done that!" said Hermione in Bellatrix's commanding, arrogant
voice. Travers looked around, eyebrows raised. The guard was confused. He stared down
at the thin golden Probe and then at his companion, who said in a slightly dazed voice,
"Yeah, you've just checked them, Marius."
Hermione swept forward. Ron by her side, Harry and Griphook trotting invisibly
behind them. Harry glanced back as they crossed the threshold. The wizards were both
scratching their heads.
Two goblins stood before the inner doors, which were made of silver and which
carried the poem warning of dire retribution to potential thieves. Harry looked up at it,
and all of a sudden a knife-sharp memory came to him: standing on this very spot on the
day that he had turned eleven, the most wonderful birthday of his life, and Hagrid
standing beside him saying, "Like I said, yeh'd be mad ter try an' rob it." Gringotts had
seemed a place of wonder that day, the enchanted repository of a trove of gold he had
never known he possessed, and never for an instant could he have dreamed that he would
return to steal . . . But within seconds they were standing in the vast marble hall of the
bank.
The long counter was manned by goblins sitting on high stools serving the first
customers of the day. Hermione, Ron, and Travers headed toward an old goblin who was
examining a thick gold coin through an eyeglass. Hermione allowed Travers to step
ahead of her on the pretext of explaining features of the hall to Ron.
The goblin tossed the coin he was holding aside, said to nobody in particular,
"Leprechaun," and then greeted Travers, who passed over a tiny golden key, which was
examined and given back to him.
Hermione stepped forward.
"Madam Lestrange!" said the goblin, evidently startled. "Dear me!" How--how
may I help you today?"
"I wish to enter my vault," said Hermione.
The old goblin seemed to recoil a little. Harry glanced around. Not only was
Travers hanging back, watching, but several other goblins had looked up from their work
to stare at Hermione.
"You have . . . identification?" asked the goblin.
"Identification? I--I have never been asked for identification before!" said
Hermione.
"They know!" whispered Griphook in Harry's ear, "They must have been warned
there might be an imposter!"
"Your wand will do, madam," said the goblin. He held out a slightly trembling
hand, and in a dreadful blast of realization Harry knew that the goblins of Gringotts were
aware that Bellatrix's wand had been stolen.
"Act now, act now," whispered Griphook in Harry's ear, "the Imperious Curse!"
Harry raised the hawthorn wand beneath the cloak, pointed it at the old goblin,
and whispered, for the first time in his life, "Imperio!"
A curious sensation shot down Harry's arm, a feeling of tingling, warmth that
seemed to flow from his mind, down the sinews and veins connecting him to the wand
and the curse it had just cast. The goblin took Bellatrix's wand, examined it closely, and
then said, "Ah, you have had a new wand made, Madam Lestrange!"
"What?" said Hermione, "No, no, that's mine--"
"A new wand?" said Travers, approaching the counter again; still the goblins all
around were watching. "But how could you have done, which wandmaker did you use?"
Harry acted without thinking. Pointing his wand at Travers, he muttered,
"Imperio!" once more.
"Oh yes, I see," said Travers, looking down at Bellatrix's wand, "yes, very
handsome. and is it working well? I always think wands require a little breaking in, don't
you?"
Hermione looked utterly bewildered, but to Harry's enormous relief she accepted
the bizarre turn of events without comment.
The old goblin behind the counter clapped his hands and a younger goblin
approached.
"I shall need the Clankers," he told the goblin, who dashed away and returned a
moment later with a leather bag that seemed to be full of jangling metal, which he handed
to his senior. "Good, good! S, if you will follow me, Madam Lestrange," said the old
goblin, hopping down off his stool and vanishing from sight. "I shall take you to your
vault."
He appeared around the end of the counter, jogging happily toward them, the
contents of the leather bag still jingling. Travers was now standing quite still with his
mouth hanging wide open. Ron was drawing attention to this odd phenomenon by
regarding Travers with confusion.
“Wait – Bogrod!”
Another goblin came scurrying around the counter.
“We have instructions,” he said with a bow to Hermione. “Forgive me, Madam,
but there have been special orders regarding the vault of Lestrange.”
He whispered urgently in Bogrod’s ear, but the Imperiused goblin shook him off.
“I am aware of the instructions, Madam Lestrange wishes to visit her vault …
Very old family … old clients … This way, please … “
And, still clanking, he hurried toward one of the many doors leading off the hall.
Harry looked back at Travers , who was still rooted to the spot looking abnormally vacant,
and made his decision. With a flick of his wand he made Travers come with them,
walking meekly in their wake as they reached the door and passed into the rough stone
passageway beyond, which was lit with flaming torches.
“We’re in trouble; they suspect,” said Harry as the door slammed behind them
and he pulled off the Invisibility Cloak. Griphook jumped down from his shoulders:
neither Travers nor Bogrod showed the slightest surprise at the sudden appearance of
Harry Potter in their midst. “They’re Imperiused,” he added, in response to Hermione and
Ron’s confused queries about Travers and Bogrod, who were both now standing there
looking blank. “I don’t think I did it strongly enough, I don’t know …”
And another memory darted through his mind, of the real Bellatrix Lestrange
shrieking at him when he had first tried to use an Unforgivable Curse: “You need to mean
them, Potter!”
“What do we do?” asked Ron. “Shall we get out now, while we can?”
“If we can,” said Hermione, looking back toward the door into the main hall,
beyond which who knew what was happening.
“We’ve got this far, I say we go on,” said Harry.
“Good!” said Griphook. “So, we need Bogrod to control the cart; I no long have
the authority. But there will not be room for the wizard.”
Harry pointed his wand at Travers.
“Imperio!”
The wizard turned and set off along the dark track at a smart pace.
“What are you making him do?”
“Hide,” said Harry as he pointed his wand at Bogrod, who whistled to summon a
little cart that came trundling along the tracks toward them out of the darkness. Harry was
sure he could hear shouting behind them in the main hall as they all clambered into it,
Bogrod in front of Griphook, Harry, Ron, and Hermione crammed together in the back.
With a jerk the cart moved off, gathering speed: They hurried past Travers, who
was wriggling into a crack in the wall, then the cart began twisting and turning through
the labyrinthine passages, sloping downward all the time. Harry could not hear anything
over the rattling of the cart on the tracks: His hair flew behind him as they swerved
between stalactites, flying ever deeper into the earth, but he kept glancing back. They
might as well have left enormous footprints behind them; the more he thought about it,
the more foolish it seemed to have disguised Hermione as Bellatrix, to have brought
along Bellatrix’s wand, when the Death Eaters knew who had stolen it –
There were a deeper than Harry had ever penetrated within Gringotts; they took a
hairpin bend at speed and saw ahead of them, with seconds to spare, a waterfall pounding
over the track. Harry heard Griphook shout, “No!” but there was no braking. They
zoomed through it. Water filled Harry’s eyes and mouth: He could not see or breathe:
Then, with an awful lurch, the cart flipped over and they were all thrown out of it. Harry
heard the cart smash into pieces against the passage wall, heard Hermione shriek
something, and felt himself glide back toward the ground as though weightless, landing
painlessly on the rocky passage floor.
“C-Cushioning Charm,” Hermione spluttered, as Ron pulled her to her feet, but to
Harry’s horror he saw that she was no longer Bellatrix; instead she stood there in
overlarge robes, sopping wet and completely herself; Ron was red-haired and beardless
again. They were realizing it as they looked at each other, feeling their own faces.
“The Thief’s Downfall!” said Griphook, clambering to his feet and looking back
the deluge onto the tracks, which, Harry knew now, had been more than water. “It washes
away all enchantment, all magical concealment! They know there are imposers in
Gringotts, they have set off defenses against us!”
Harry saw Hermione checking that she still had the beaded bag, and hurriedly
thrust his own hand under his jacket to make sure he had not lost the Invisibility Cloak.
Then he turned to see Bogrod shaking his head in bewilderment: The Thief’s Downfall
seemed to have lifted his Imperius Curse.
“We need him,” said Griphook, “we cannot enter the vault without a Gringott’s
goblin. And we need the clankers!”
“Imperio!” Harry said again; his voice echoed through the stone passage as he felt
again the sense of heady control that flowed from brain to wand. Bogrod submitted once
more to his will, his befuddled expression changing to one of polite indifference, as Ron
hurried to pick up the leather bag of metal tools.
“Harry, I think I can hear people coming!” said Hermione, and she pointed
Bellatrix’s wand at the waterfall and cried, “Protego!” They saw the Shield Charm break
the flow of enchanted water as it flew up the passageway.
“Good thinking,” said Harry. “Lead the way, Griphook!”
“How are we going to get out again?” Ron asked as they hurried on foot into the
darkness after the goblin, Bogrod panting in their wake like an old dog.
“Let’s worry about that when we have to,” said Harry. He was trying to listen: He
thought he could hear something clanking and moving around nearby. “Griphook, how
much farther?”
“Not far, Harry Potter, not far … “
And they turned a corner and saw the thing for which Harry had been prepared,
but which still brought all of them to a halt.
A gigantic dragon was tethered to the ground in front of them, barring access to
four or five of the deepest vaults in the place. The beast’s scales had turned pale and flaky
during its long incarceration under the ground, its eyes were milkily pink; both rear legs
bore heavy cuffs from which chains led to enormous pegs driven deep into the rocky
floor. Its great spiked wings, folded close to its body, would have filled the chamber if it
spread them, and when it turned its ugly head toward them, it roared with a noise that
made the rock tremble, opened its mouth, and spat a jet of fire that sent them running
back up the passageway.
“It is partially blind,” panted Griphook, “but even more savage for that. However,
we have the means to control it. It has learned what to expect when the Clankers come.
Give them to me.”
Ron passed the bag to Griphook, and the goblin pulled out a number of small
metal instruments that when shaken made a long ringing noise like miniature hammers on
anvils. Griphook handed them out: Bogrod accepted his meekly.
“You know what to do,” Griphook told Harry, Ron, and Hermione. “It will expect
pain when it hears the noise. It will retreat, and Bogrod must place his palm upon the
door of the vault.”
They advanced around the corner again, shaking the Clankers, and the noise
echoed off the rocky walls, grossly magnified, so that the inside of Harry’s skull seemed
to vibrate with the den. The dragon let out another hoarse roar, then retreated. Harry
could see it trembling, and as they drew nearer he saw the scars made by vicious slashes
across its face, and guess that it had been taught to fear hot swords when it heard the
sound of the Clankers.
“Make him press his hand to the door!” Griphook urged Harry, who turned his
wand again upon Bogrod. The old goblin obeyed, pressing his palm to the wood, and the
door of the vault melted away to reveal a cavelike opening crammed from floor to ceiling
with golden coins and goblets, silver armor, the skins of strange creatures – some with
long spines, other with drooping wings – potions in jeweled flasks, and a skull still
wearing a crown. “Search, fast!” said Harry as they all hurried inside the vault. He had
described Hufflepuff’s cap to Ron and Hermione, but if it was the other, unknown
Horcrux that resided in this vault, he did not know what it looked like. He barely had
time to glance around, however, before there was a muffled clunk from behind them: The
door had reappeared, sealing them inside the vault, and they were plunged into total
darkness.
“No matter, Bogrod will be able to release us!” said Griphook as Ron gave a
shout of surprise. “Light your wands, can’t you? And hurry, we have little time!”
“Lumos!”
Harry shone his lit wand around the vault: Its beam fell upon glittering jewels; he
saw the fake sword of Gryffindor lying on a high shelf amongst a jumble of chains. Ron
and Hermione had lit their wands too, and were now examining the piles of objects
surrounding them.
“Harry, could this be -- ? Aargh!”
Hermione screamed in pain, and Harry turned his wand on her in time to see a
jeweled goblet tumbling from her grip. But as it fell, it split, became a shower of goblets,
so that a second later, with a great clatter, the floor was covered in identical cups rolling
in every direction, the original impossible to discern amongst them.
“It burned me!” moaned Hermione, sucking her blistered fingers.
“They have added Germino and Flagrante Curses!” said Griphook.
“Everything you touch will burn and multiply, but the copies are worthless – and
if you continue to handle the treasure, you will eventually be crushed to death by the
weight of expanding gold!”
“Okay, don’t touch anything!” said Harry desperately, but even as he said it, Ron
accidentally nudged one of the fallen goblets with his foot, and twenty more exploded
into being while Ron hopped on the spot, part of his shoe burned away by contact with
the hot metal.
“Stand still, don’t move!” said Hermione, clutching at Ron.
“Just look around!” said Harry. “Remember, the cup’s small and gold, it’s got a
badger engraved on it, two handles – otherwise see if you can spot Ravenclaw’s symbol
anywhere, the eagle –”
They directed their wands into every nook and crevice, turning cautiously on the
spot. It was impossible not to brush up against anything; Harry sent a great cascade of
fake Galleons onto the ground where they joined the goblets, and now there was scarcely
room to place their feet, and the glowing gold blazed with heat, so that the vault felt like a
furnace. Harry’s wandlight passed over shields and goblin-made helmets set on shelves
rising to the ceiling; higher and higher he raised the beam, until suddenly it found an
object that made his heart skip and his hand tremble.
“It’s there, it’s up there!”
Ron and Hermione pointed there wands at it too, so that the little golden cup
sparkled in a three-way spotlight: the cup that had belonged to Helga Hufflepuff, which
had passed into the possession of Hepzibah Smith, from whom it had been stolen by Tom
Riddle.
“And how the hell are we going to get up there without touching anything?” asked
Ron.
“Accio Cup!” cried Hermione, who had evidently forgotten in her desperation
what Griphook had told them during their planning sessions.
“No use, no use!” snarled the goblin.
“Then what do we do?” said Harry, glaring at the goblin. “If you want the sword,
Griphook, then you’ll have to help us more than – wait! Can I touch stuff with the sword?
Hermione, give it here!”
Hermione fumbled insider her robes, drew out a beaded bag, rummaged for a few
seconds, then removed the shining sword. Harry seized it by its rubied hilt and touched
the tip of the blade to a silver flagon nearby, which did not multiply.
“If I can just poke the sword through a handle – but how am I going to get up
there?”
The shelf on which the cup reposed was out of reach for any of them, even Ron,
who was tallest. The heat from the enchanted treasure rose in waves, and sweat ran down
Harry’s face and back as he struggled to think of a way up to the cup; and then he heard
the dragon roar on the other side of the vault door, and the sound of clanking growing
louder and louder.
They were truly trapped now: There was no way out except through the door, and
a horde of goblins seemed to be approaching on the other side. Harry looked at Ron and
Hermione and saw terror in their faces.
“Hermione,” said Harry, as the clanking grew louder, “I’ve got to get up there,
we’ve got to get rid of it –”
She raised her wand, pointed it at Harry, and whispered, “Levicorpus.”
Hoisted into the air by his ankle, Harry hit a suit of armor and replicas burst out of
it like white-hot bodies, filling the cramped space. With screams of pain, Ron, Hermione,
and the two goblins were knocked aside into other objects, which also began to replicate.
Half buried in a rising tide of red-hot treasure, they struggled and yelled has Harry thrust
the sword through the handle of Hufflepuff’s cup, hooking it onto the blade.
“Impervius!” screeched Hermione in an attempt to protect herself, Ron, and the
goblins from the burning metal.
Then the worst scream yet made Harry look down: Ron and Hermione were waist
deep in treasure, struggling to keep Bogrod from slipping beneath the rising tide, but
Griphook had sunk out of sight; and nothing but the tips of a few long fingers were left in
view.
Harry seized Griphook’s fingers and pulled. The blistered goblin emerged by
degrees, howling.
“Liberatocorpus!” yelled Harry, and with a crash he and Griphook landed on the
surface of the swelling treasure, and the sword flew out of Harry’s hand.
“Get it!” Harry yelled, fighting the pain of the hot metal on his skin, as Griphook
clambered onto his shoulders again, determined to avoid the swelling mass of red-hot
objects. “Where’s the sword? It had the cup on it!”
The clanking on the other side of the door was growing deafening – it was too late
–
“There!”
It was Griphook who had seen it and Griphook who lunged, and in that instant
Harry knew that the goblin had never expected them to keep their word. One hand
holding tightly to a fistful of Harry’s hair, to make sure he did not fall into the heaving
sea of burning gold, Griphook seized the hilt of the sword and swung it high out of
Harry’s reach. The tiny golden cup, skewered by the handle on the sword’s blade was
flung into the air. The goblin astride him, Harry dived and caught it, and although he
could feel it scalding his flesh he did not relinquish it, even while countless Hufflepuff
cups burst from his fist, raining down upon him as the entrance of the vault opened up
again and he found himself sliding uncontrollably on an expanding avalanche of fiery
gold and silver that bore him, Ron, Hermione into the outer chamber.
Hardly aware of the pain from the burns covering his body, and still borne along
the swell of replicating treasure, Harry shoved the cup into his pocket and reached up to
retrieve the sword, but Griphook was gone. Sliding from Harry’s shoulders the moment
he could, he had sprinted for cover amongst the surrounding goblins, brandishing the
sword and crying, “Thieves! Thieves! Help! Thieves!” He vanished into the midst of the
advancing crowd, all of whom were holding daggers and who accepted him without
question.
Slipping on the hot metal, Harry struggled to his feet and knew that the only way
out was through.
“Stupefy!” he bellowed, and Ron and Hermione joined in: Jets of red light flew
into the crowd of goblins, and some toppled over, but others advanced, and Harry saw
several wizard guards running around the corner.
The tethered dragon let out a roar, and a gush of flame flew over the goblins; The
wizards fled, doubled-up, back the way they had come, and inspiration, or madness, came
to Harry. Pointing his wand at the thick cuffs chaining the beast to the floor, he yelled,
“Relashio!”
The cuffs broken open with loud bangs.
“This way!” Harry yelled, and still shooting Stunning Spells at the advancing
goblins, he sprinted toward the blind dragon.
“Harry – Harry – what are you doing?” cried Hermione.
“Get up, climb up, come on –”
The dragon had not realized that it was free: Harry’s foot found the crook of its
hind leg and he pulled himself up onto its back. The scales were hard as steel; it did not
even seem to feel him. He stretched out an arm; Hermione hoisted herself up; Ron
climbed on behind them, and a second later the dragon became aware that it was
untethered.
With a roar it reared: Harry dug in his knees, clutching as tightly as he could to
the jagged scales as the wings opened, knocking the shrieking goblins aside like skittles,
and it soared into the air. Harry, Ron, and Hermione, flat on its back, scraped against the
ceiling as it dived toward the passage opening, while the pursuing goblins hurled daggers
that glanced off its flanks.
“We’ll never get out, it’s too big!” Hermione screamed, but the dragon opened its
mouth and belched flame again, blasting the tunnel, whose floors and ceiling cracked and
crumbled. By sheer force, the dragon clawed and fought its way through. Harry’s eyes
were shut tight against the heat and dust: Deafened by the crash of rock and the dragon’s
roars, he could only cling to its back, expecting to be shaken off at any moment; then he
heard Hermione yelling, “Defodio!”
She was helping the dragon enlarge the passageway, carving out the ceiling as it
struggled upward toward the fresher air, away from the shrieking and clanking goblins:
Harry and Ron copied her, blasting the ceiling apart with more gouging spells. They
passed the underground lake, and the great crawling, snarling beast seemed to sense
freedom and space ahead of it, and behind them the passage was full of the dragon’s
thrashing, spiked tail, of great lumps of rock, gigantic fractured stalactites, and the
clanking of the goblins seemed to be growing more muffled, while ahead, the dragon’s
fire kept their progress clear –
And then at last, by the combined force of their spells and the dragon’s brute
strength, they had blasted their way out of the passage into the marble hallway. Goblins
and wizards shrieked and ran for cover, and finally the dragon had room to stretch its
wings: Turning its horned head toward the cool outside air it could smell beyond the
entrance, it took off, and with Harry, Ron, and Hermione still clinging to its back, it
forced its way through the metal doors, leaving them buckled and hanging from their
hinges, as it staggered into Diagon Alley and launched itself into the sky.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Final Hiding Place
There was no means of steering; the dragon could not see where it was
going, and Harry knew that if it turned sharply or rolled in midair they
would find it impossible to cling onto its broad back. Nevertheless, as they
climbed higher and higher, London unfurling below them like a gray-and-green
map, Harry's overwhelming feeling was of gratitude for an escape that had
seemed impossible. Crouching low over the beast's neck, he clung tight to
the metallic scales, and the cool breeze was soothing on his burned and
blistered skin, the dragon's wings beating the air like the sails of a
windmill. Behind him, whether from delight or fear he could not tell. Ron
kept swearing at the top of his voice, and Hermione seemed to be sobbing.
After five minutes or so, Harry lost some of his immediate dread that
the dragon was going to throw them off, for it seemed intent on nothing but
getting as far away from its underground prison as possible; but the
question of how and when they were to dismount remained rather frightening.
He had no idea how long dragons could fly without landing, nor how this
particular dragon, which could barely see, would locate a good place to put
down. He glanced around constantly, imagining that he could feel his seat
prickling.
How long would it be before Voldemort knew that they had broken into the
Lestranges' vault? How soon would the goblins of Gringotts notify Bellatrix?
How quickly would they realize what had been taken? And then, when they
discovered that the golden cup was missing? Voldemort would know, at last,
that they were hunting Horcruxes.
The dragon seemed to crave cooler and fresher air. It climbed steadily
until they were flying through wisps of chilly cloud, and Harry could no
longer make out the little colored dots which were cars pouring in and out
of the capital. On and on they flew, over countryside parceled out in
patches of green and brown, over roads and rivers winding through the
landscape like strips of matte and glossy ribbon.
"What do you reckon it's looking for?" Ron yelled as they flew farther
and farther north.
"No idea," Harry bellow back. His hands were numb with cold but he did
not date attempt to shift his grip. He had been wondering for some time what
they would do if they saw the coast sail beneath them, if the dragon headed
for open seal he was cold and numb, not to mention desperately hungry and
thirsty. When, he wondered, had the beast itself last eaten? Surely it would
need sustenance before long? And what if, at that point, it realized it had
three highly edible humans sitting on its back?
The sun slipped lower in the sky, which was turning indigo; and still
the dragon flew, cities and towns gliding out of sight beneath them, its
enormous shadow sliding over the earth like a giant dark cloud. Every part
of Harry ached with the effort of holding on to the dragon's back.
"Is it my imagination," shouted Ron after a considerable stretch of
silence, "or are we losing height?"
Harry looked down and saw deep green mountains and lakes, coppery in the
sunset. the landscape seemed to grow larger and more detailed as he squinted
over the side of the dragon, and he wondered whether it had divined the
presence of fresh water by the flashes of reflected sunlight.
Lower and lower the dragon flew, in great spiraling circles, honing in,
it seemed, upon one of the smaller lakes.
"I say we jump when it gets low enough!" Harry called back to the
others. "Straight into the water before it realizes we're here!"
They agreed, Hermione a little faintly, and now Harry could see the
dragon's wide yellow underbelly rippling in the surface of the water.
"NOW!"
He slithered over the side of the dragon and plummeted feetfirst toward
the surface of the lake; the drop was greater than he had estimated and he
hit the water hard, plunging like a stone into a freezing, green,
reed-filled world. He kicked toward the surface and emerged, panting, to see
enormous ripples emanating in circles from the places where Ron and Hermione
had fallen. The dragon did not seem to have noticed anything; it was already
fifty feet away, swooping low over the lake to scoop up water in its scarred
snout. As Ron and Hermione emerged, spluttering and gasping, from the depths
of the lake, the dragon flew on, its wings beating hard, and landed at last
on a distant bank.
Harry, Ron and Hermione struck out for the opposite shore. The lake did
not seem to be deep. Soon it was more a question of fighting their way
through reeds and mud than swimming, and at last they flopped, sodden,
panting, and exhausted, onto slippery grass.
Hermione collapsed, coughing and shuddering. Though Harry could have
happily lain down and slept, he staggered to his feet, drew out his wand,
and started casting the usual protective spells around them.
When he had finished, he joined the others. It was the first time that
he had seen them properly since escaping from the vault. Both had angry red
burns all over their faces and arms, and their clothing was singed away in
places. They were wincing as they dabbed essence of dittany onto their many
injuries. Hermione handed Harry the bottle, then pulled out three bottles of
pumpkin juice she had brought from Shell Cottage and clean, dry robes for
all of them. They changes and then gulped down the juice.
"Well, on the upside," said Ron finally, who was sitting watching the
skin on his hands regrow, "we got the Horcrux. On the downside-"
"-- no sword," said Harry through gritted teeth, as he dripped dittany
through the singed hole in his jeans onto the angry burn beneath.
"No sword," repeated Ron. "That double-crossing little scab..."
Harry pulled the Horcrux from the pocket of the wet jacket he had just
taken off and set it down on the grass in front of them. Glinting in the
sun, it drew their eyes as they swigged their bottles of juice.
"At least we can't wear it this time, that'd look a bit weird hanging
around our necks," said Ron, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.
Hermione looked across the lake to the far bank where the dragon was
still drinking.
"What'll happen to it, do you think?" she asked, "Will it be alright?"
"You sound like Hagrid," said Ron, "It's a dragon, Hermione, it can look
after itself. It's us we need to worry about."
"What do you mean?"
"Well I don't know how to break this to you," said Ron, "but I think
they might have noticed we broke into Gringotts."
All three of them started to laugh, and once started, it was difficult
to stop. Harry's ribs ached, he felt lightheaded with hunger, but he lay
back on the grass beneath the reddening sky and laughed until his throat was
raw.
"What are we going to do, though?" said Hermione finally, hiccuping
herself back to seriousness. "He'll know, won't he? You-Know-Who will know
we know about his Horcruxes!"
"Maybe they'll be too scared to tell him!" said Ron hopefully, "Maybe
they'll cover up --"
The sky, the smell of the lake water, the sound of Ron's voice were
extinguished. Pain cleaved Harry's head like a sword stroke. He was standing
in a dimly lit room, and a semicircle of wizards faced him, and on the floor
at his feet knelt a small, quaking figure.
"What did you say to me?" His voice was high and cold, but fury and fear
burned inside him. The one thing that he had dreaded - but it could not be
true, he could not see how...
The goblin was trembling, unable to meet the red eyes high above his.
"Say it again!" murmured Voldemort. "Say it again!"
"M-my Lord," stammered the goblin, its black eyes wide with terror,
"m-my Lord... we t-tried to st-stop them... Im-impostors, my Lord... broke -
broke into the - into the Lestranges' vault..."
"Impostors? What impostors? I thought Gringotts had ways of revealing
impostors? Who were they?
"It was... it was... the P-Potter b-boy and the t-two accomplices..."
"And they took?" he said, his voice rising, a terrible fear gripping
him, "Tell me! What did they take?"
"A... a s-small golden c-cup m-my Lord..."
The scream of rage, of denial left him as if it were a stranger's. He
was crazed, frenzied, it could not be true, it was impossible, nobody had
known. How was it possible that the boy could have discovered his secret?
The Elder Wand slashed through the air and green light erupted through
the room; the kneeling goblin rolled over dead; the watching wizards
scattered before him, terrified. Bellatrix and Lucius Malfoy threw others
behind them in their race for the door, and again and again his wand fell,
and those who were left were slain, all of them, for bringing him this news,
for hearing about the golden cup -
Alone amongst the dead he stomped up and down, and they passed before him
in vision: his treasures, his safeguards, his anchors to immortality - the
diary was destroyed and the cup was stolen. What if, what if, the boy knew
about the others? Could he know, had he already acted, had he traced more of
them? Was Dumbledore at the root of this? Dumbledore, who had always
suspected him; Dumbledore, dead on his orders; Dumbledore, whose wand was
his now, yet who reached out from the ignominy of death through the boy, the
boy -
But surely if the boy had destroyed any of his Horcruxes, he, Lord
Voldemort, would have known, would have felt it? He, the greatest wizard of
them all; he, the most powerful; he, the killer of Dumbledore and of how
many other worthless, nameless men. How could Lord Voldemort not have known,
if he, himself, most important and precious, had been attacked, mutilated?
True, he had not felt it when the diary had been destroyed, but he had
thought that was because he had no body to fell, being less than ghost...
No, surely, the rest were safe... The other Horcruxes must be intact...
But he must know, he must be sure... He paced the room, kicking aside
the goblin's corpse as he passed, and the pictures blurred and burned in his
boiling brain: the lake, the shack, and Hogwarts -
A modicum of calm cooled his rage now. How could the boy know that he
had hidden the ring in the Gaunt shack? No one had ever known him to be
related to the Gaunts, he had hidden the connection, the killings had never
been traced to him. The ring, surely, was safe.
And how could the boy, or anybody else, know about the cave or penetrate
its protection? The idea of the locket being stolen was absurd...
As for the school: He alone knew where in Hogwarts he had stowed the
Horcrux, because he alone had plumed the deepest secrets of that place...
And there was still Nagini, who must remain close now, no longer sent to
do his bidding, under his protection...
But to be sure, to be utterly sure, he must return to each of his hiding
places, he must redouble protection around each of his Horcruxes... A job,
like the quest for the Elder Wand, that he must undertake alone...
Which should he visit first, which was in most danger? An old unease
flickered inside him. Dumbledore had known his middle name... Dumbledore
might have made the connection with the Gaunts... Their abandoned home was,
perhaps, the least secure of his hiding places, it was there that he would
go first...
The lake, surely impossible... though was there a slight possibility
that Dumbledore might have known some of his past misdeeds, through the
orphanage.
And Hogwarts... but he knew the his Horcrux there was safe; it would be
impossible for Potter to enter Hogsmeade without detection, let alone the
school. Nevertheless, it would be prudent to alert Snape to the fact that
the boy might try to reenter the castle. ... To tell Snape why the boy might
return would be foolish, of course; it had been a grave mistake to trust
Bellatrix and Malfoy. Didn't their stupidity and carelessness prove how
unwise it was ever to trust?
He would visit the Gaunt shack first, then, and take Nagini with him. He
would not be parted from the snake anymore ... and he strode from the room,
through the hall, and out into the dark garden where the fountain played; he
called the snake in Parseltongue and it slithered out to join him like a
long shadow. ...
Harry's eyes flew open as he wrenched himself back to the present. He
was lying on the bank of the lake in the setting sun, and Ron and Hermione
were looking down at him. Judging by their worried looks, and by the
continued pounding of his scar, his sudden excursion into Voldemort's mind
had not passed unnoticed. He struggled up, shivering, vaguely surprised that
he was still wet to his skin, and saw the cup lying innocently in the grass
before him, and the lake, deep blue shot with gold in the falling sun.
"He knows." His own voice sounded strange and low after Voldemort's high
screams. "He knows and he's going to check where the others are, and the
last one," he was already on his feet," is at Hogwarts. I knew it. I knew
it."
"What?"
Ron was gaping at him; Hermione sat up, looking worried.
"But what did you see? How do you know?"
"I saw him find out about the cup, I - I was in his head, he's" - Harry
remembered the killings - "he's seriously angry, and scared too, he can't
understand how we knew, and now he's going to check the others are safe, the
ring first. He things the Hogwarts one is safest, because Snape's there,
because it'll be so hard not to be seen getting in. I think he'll check that
one last, but he could still be there within hours -"
"Did you see where in Hogwarts it is?" asked Ron, now scrambling to his
feet too.
"No, he was concentrating on warning Snape, he didn't think about
exactly where it is -"
"Wait, wait!" cried Hermione as Ron caught up to the Horcrux and Harry
pulled out the Invisibility Cloak again. "We can't just go, we haven't got a
plan, we need to -"
"We need to get going," said Harry firmly. He had been hoping to sleep,
looking forward to getting into the new tent, but that was impossible now,
"Can you imagine what he's going to do once he realizes the ring and the
locket are gone? What if he moves the Hogwarts Horcrux, decides it isn't
safe enough?
"But how are we going to get in?"
"We'll go to Hogsmeade," said Harry, "and try to work something out once
we see what the protection around the school's like. Get under the Cloak,
Hermione, I want to stick together this time."
"But we don't really fit -"
"It'll be dark, no one's going to notice our feet."
The flapping of enormous wings echoed across the black water. The dragon
had drunk its fill and risen into the air. They paused in their preparations
to watch it climb higher and higher, now black against the rapidly darkening
sky, until it vanished over a nearby mountain. Then Hermione walked forward
and took her place between the other two, Harry pulled the Cloak down as far
as it would go, and together they turned on the spot into the crushing
darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The Missing Mirror
Harry's feet touched the road. He saw the achingly familiar Hogsmeade High Street:
dark shop
fronts, and the mist line of black mountains beyond the village and the curve in the road
ahead that
led off toward Hogwarts, and light spilling from the windows of the Three Broomsticks,
and with a
lurch of the hear, he remembered with piercing accuracy, how he had landed here nearly
a year before,
supporting a desperately weak Dumbledore, all this in a second, upon landing -- and then,
even as he
relaxed his grip upon Ron's and Hermione's arms, it happened.
The air was rent by a scream that sounded like Voldemort's when he had realized
the cup had
been stolen: It tore at every nerve in Harry's body, and he knew that their appearance had
caused it.
Even as he looked at the other two beneath the Cloak, the door of the Three Broomsticks
burst open
and a dozen cloaked and hooded Death Eaters dashed into the streets, their wands aloft.
Harry seized Ron's wrist as he raised his wand; there were too many of them to
run. Even
attempting it would have give away their position. One of the Death Eaters raised his
wand, and the
scream stopped, still echoing around the distant mountains.
"Accio Cloak!" roared one of the Death Eaters
Harry seized his folds, but it made no attempt to escape. The Summoning Charm
had not
worked on it.
"Not under your wrapper, then, Potter?" yelled the Death Eater who had tried the
charm and
then to his fellows. "Spread now. He's here."
Six of the Death Eaters ran toward them: Harry, Ron and Hermione backed as
quickly as
possible down the nearest side street, and the Death Eaters missed them by inches. They
waited
in the darkness, listening to the footsteps running up and down, beams of light flying
along the street
from the Death Eaters' searching wands.
"Let's just leave!" Hermione whispered. "Disapparate now!"
"Great idea," said Ron, but before Harry could reply, a Death Eater shouted,
"We know you are here, Potter, and there's no getting away! We'll find you!"
"They were ready for us," whispered Harry. "They set up that spell to tell them
we'd come.
I reckon they’ve done something to keep us here, trap us - "
"What about dementors?" called another Death Eater. "Let'em have free rein,
they'd find him
quick enough!"
"The Dark Lord wants Potter dead by no hands but his - "
" 'an dementors won't kill him! The Dark Lord wants Potter's life, nor his soul.
He'll be easier to
kill if he's been Kissed first!"
There were noises of agreement. Dread filled Harry: To repel dementors they
would have to produce
Patronuses which would give them away immediately.
"We're going to have to try to Disapparate, Harry!" Hermione whispered.
Even as she said it, he felt the unnatural cold being spread over the street. Light
was sucked from
the environment right up to the stars, which vanished. In the pitch blackness, he felt
Hermione take hold
of his arm and together, they turned on the spot.
The air through which they needed to move, seemed to have become solid: They
could not
Disapparate; the Death Eaters had cast their charms well. The cold was biting deeper and
deeper
into Harry's flesh. He, Ron and Hermione retreated down the side street, groping their
way along the wall
trying not to make a sound. Then, around the corner, gliding noiselessly, came dementors,
ten or more
of them, visible because they were of a denser darkness than their surroundings, with
their black cloaks
and their scabbed and rotting hands. Could they sense fear in the vicinity? Harry was sure
of it: They
seemed to be coming more quickly now, taking those dragging, rattling breaths he
detested, tasting
despair in the air, closing in -
He raised his wand: He could not, would not suffer the Dementor's Kiss, whatever
happened afterward.
It was of Ron and Hermione that he thought as he whispered "Expecto Patronum!"
The silver stag burst from his wand and charged: The Dementors scattered and
there was a triumphant
yell from somewhere out of sight
"It's him, down there, down there, I saw his Patronus, it was a stag!"
The Dementors have retreated, the stars were popping out again and the footsteps
of the Death Eaters
were becoming louder; but before Harry in his panic could decide what to do, there was a
grinding of bolts
nearby, a door opened on the left-side of the narrow street, and a rough voice said:
"Potter, in here, quick!"
He obeyed without hesitation, the three of them hurried through the open doorway.
"Upstairs, keep the Cloak on, keep quiet!" muttered a tall figure, passing them on
his way into the street
and slammed the door behind him.
Harry had had no idea where they were, but now he saw, by the stuttering light of
a single candle,
the grubby, sawdust bar of the Hog's Head Inn. They ran behind the counter and through
a second doorway,
which led to a trickery wooden staircase, that they climbed as fast as they could. The
stairs opened into
a sitting room with a durable carpet and a small fireplace, above which hung a single
large oil painting of a blonde
girl who gazed out at the room with a kind of a vacant sweetness.
Shouts reached from the streets below. Still wearing the Invisibility Cloak on,
they hurried toward the
grimy window and looked down. Their savior, whom Harry now recognized as the Hog's
Head's barman, was
the only person not wearing a hood.
"So what?" he was bellowing into one of the hooded faces. "So what? You send
dementors down my street,
I'll send a Patronus back at'em! I'm not having'em near me, I've told you that. I'm not
having it!"
"That wasn't your Patronus," said a Death Eater. "That was a stag. It was
Potter's!"
"Stag!" roared the barman, and he pulled out a wand. "Stag! You idiot - Expecto
Patronum!"
Something huge and horned erupted from the wand. Head down, it charged
toward the High Street, and
out of sight.
"That's not what I saw" said the Death Eater, though was less certainly
"Curfew's been broken, you heard the noise," one of his companions told the
barman. "Someone was
out on the streets against regulations - "
"If I want to put my cat out, I will, and be damned to your curfew!"
"You set off the Caterwauling Charm?"
"What if I did? Going to cart me off to Azkaban? Kill me for sticking my nose out
my own front door? Do it,
then, if you want to! But I hope for your sakes you haven't pressed your little Dark Marks,
and summoned him. He's
not going to like being called here, for me and my old cat, is he, now?"
"Don't worry about us." said one of the Death Eaters, "worry about yourself,
breaking curfew!"
"And where will you lot traffic potions and poisons when my pub's closed down?
What will happen to your
little sidelines then?"
"Are you threatening - ?"
"I keep my mouth shut, it's why you come here, isn't it?"
"I still say I saw a stag Patronus!" shouted the first Death Eater.
"Stag?" roared the barman. "It's a goat, idiot!"
"All right, we made a mistake," said the second Death Eater. "Break curfew again
and we won't be so lenient!"
The Death Eaters strode back towards the High Street. Hermione moaned with
relief, wove out from under the Cloak,
and sat down on a wobble-legged chair. Harry drew the curtains then pulled the Cloak off
himself and Ron. They could hear the
barman down below, rebolting the door of the bar, then climbing the stairs.
Harry's attention was caught by something on the mantelpiece: a small,
rectangular mirror, propped on top of it,
right beneath the portrait of the girl.
The barman entered the room.
"You bloody fools," he said gruffly, looking from one to the other of them. "What
were you thinking, coming here?"
"Thank you," said Harry. "You can't thank you enough. You saved our lives!"
The barman grunted. Harry approached him looking up into the face: trying to see
past the long, stringy, wire-gray hair
beard. He wore spectacles. Behind the dirty lenses, the eyes were a piercing, brilliant blue.
"It's your eye I've been seeing in the mirror."
There was a silence in the room. Harry and the barman looked at each other.
"You sent Dobby."
The barman nodded and looked around for the elf.
"Thought he'd be with you. Where've you left him?
"He's dead," said Harry, "Bellatrix Lestrange killed him."
The barman face was impassive. After a few moments he said, "I'm sorry to hear
it, I liked that elf."
He turned away, lightning lamps with prods of his wand, not looking at any of
them.
"You're Aberforth," said Harry to the man's back.
He neither confirmed or denied it, but bent to light the fire.
"How did you get this?" Harry asked, walking across to Sirius's mirror, the twin
of the one he had broken
nearly two years before.
"Bought it from Dung 'bout a year ago," said Aberforth. "Albus told me what it
was. Been trying to keep
an eye out for you."
Ron gasped.
"The silver doe," he said excitedly, "Was that you too?"
"What are you talking about?" asked Aberforth.
"Someone sent a doe Patronus to us!"
"Brains like that, you could be a Death Eater, son. Haven't I just prove my
Patronus is a goat?"
"Oh," said Ron, "Yeah... well, I'm hungry!" he added defensively as his stomach
gave an enormous
rumble.
"I got food," said Aberforth, and he sloped out of the room, reappearing moments
later with a large
loaf of bread, some cheese, and a pewter jug of mead, which he set upon a small table in
front of the fire.
Ravenous, they ate and drank, and for a while there was sound of chewing.
"Right then," said Aberforth when the had eaten their fill and Harry and Ron sat
slumped dozily in
their chairs. "We need to think of the best way to get you out of here. Can't be done by
night, you heard what
happens if anyone moves outdoors during darkness: Caterwauling Charm's set off, they'll
be onto you like
bowtruckles on doxy eggs. I don't reckon I'll be able to pass of a stag as a goat a second
time. Wait for daybreak
when curfew lifts, then you can put your Cloak back on and set out on foot. Get right out
of Hogsmeade, up into
the mountains, and you'll be able to Disapparate there. Might see Hagrid. He's been
hiding in a cave up there with
Grawp ever since they tried to arrest him."
"We're not leaving," said Harry. "We need to get into Hogwarts."
"Don't be stupid, boy," said Aberforth.
"We've got to," said Harry.
"What you've got to do," said Aberforth, leaning forward, "is to get as far from
here as from here as you
can."
"You don't understand. There isn't much time. We've got to get into the castle.
Dumbledore - I mean,
your brother - wanted us - "
The firelight made the grimy lenses of Aberforth's glasses momentarily opaque, a
bright flat white, and
Harry remembered the blind eyes of the giant spider, Aragog.
"My brother Albus wanted a lot of things," said Aberforth, "and people had a
habit of getting hurt while he
was carrying out his grand plans. You get away from this school, Potter, and out of the
country if you can. Forget
my brother and his clever schemes. He's gone where none of this can hurt him, and you
don't owe him anything."
"You don't understand." said Harry again.
"Oh, don't I? said Aberforth quietly. "You don't think I understood my own
brother? Think you know Albus
better than I did?"
"I didn't mean that," said Harry, whose brain felt sluggish with exhaustion and
from the surfeit of food and wine.
"It's... he left me a job."
"Did he now?" said Aberforth. "Nice job, I hope? Pleasant? Easy? Sort of thing
you'd expect an unqualified
wizard kid to be able to do without overstretching themselves?"
Ron gave a rather grim laugh. Hermione was looking strained.
"I-it's not easy, no," said Harry. "But I've got to - "
"Got to? Why got to? He's dead, isn't he?" said Aberforth roughly. "Let it go, boy,
before you follow him!
Save yourself!"
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"I - " Harry felt overwhelmed; he could not explain, so he took the offensive
instead. "But you're fighting too,
you're in the Order of the Phoenix - "
"I was," said Aberforth. "The Order of the Phoenix is finished. You-Know-Who's
won, it's over, and anyone
who's pretending different's kidding themselves. It'll never be safe for you here, Potter, he
wants you too badly.
So go abroad, go into hiding, save yourself. Best take these two with you." He jerked a
thumb at Ron and Hermione.
"They'll be in danger long as they live now everyone knows they've been working with
you."
"I can't leave," said Harry. "I've got a job - "
"Give it to someone else!"
"I can't. It's got to be me, Dumbledore explained it all - "
"Oh, did he now? And did he tell you everything, was he honest with you?"
Harry wanted him with all his heart to say "Yes," but somehow the simple word
would not rise to his lips,
Aberforth seemed to know what he was thinking.
"I knew my brother, Potter. He learned secrecy at our mother's knee. Secrets and
lies, that's how we grew
up, and Albus... he was a natural."
The old man's eyes traveled to the painting of the girl over the mantelpiece. It was,
now Harry looked around
properly, the only picture in the room. There was no photograph of Albus Dumbledore,
nor of anyone else.
"Mr. Dumbledore" said Hermione rather timidly. "Is that your sister? Ariana?
"Yes." said Aberforth tersely. "Been reading Rita Skeeter, have you, missy?"
Even by the rosy light of the fire it was clear that Hermione had turned red.
"Elphias Doge mentioned her to us," said Harry, trying to spare Hermione.
"That old berk," muttered Aberforth, taking another swig of mead. "Thought the
sun shone out of my
brother's every office, he did. Well, so did plenty of people, you three included, by the
looks of it."
Harry kept quiet. He did not want to express the doubts and uncertainties about
Dumbledore that had
riddled him for months now. He had made his choice while he dug Dobby's grave, he had
decided to continue
along the winding, dangerous path indicated for him by Albus Dumbledore, to accept that
he had not been told
everything that he wanted to know, but simply to trust. He had no desire to doubt again;
he did not want o hear
anything that would deflect him from his purpose. He met Aberforth's gaze, which was so
strikingly like his
brothers': The bright blue eyes gave the same impression that they were X-raying the
object of their scrutiny,
and Harry thought that Aberforth knew what he was thinking and despised him for it.
"Professor Dumbledore cared about Harry, very much," said Hermione in a low
voice.
"Did he now?" said Aberforth. "Funny thing how many of the people my brother
cared about very much
ended up in a worse state than if he'd left 'em well alone."
"What do you mean?" asked Hermione breathlessly.
"Never you mind," said Aberforth.
"But that's a really serious thing to say!" said Hermione. "Are you - are you
talking about your sister?"
Aberforth glared at her: His lips moved as if he were chewing the words he was
holding back. Then he burst
into speech.
"When my sister was six years old, she was attacked, by three Muggle boys.
They'd seen her doing magic,
spying through the back garden hedge: She was a kid, she couldn't control it, no witch or
wizard can at that age.
What they saw, scared them, I expect. They forced their way through the hedge, and
when she couldn't show them
the trick, they got a bit carried away trying to stop the little freak doing it."
Hermione's eyes were huge in the firelight; Ron looked slightly sick. Aberforth
stood up, tall as Albus, and
suddenly terrible in his anger and the intensity of his pain.
"It destroyed her, what they did: She was never right again. She wouldn't use
magic, but she couldn't get rid
of it; it turned inward and drove her mad, it exploded out of her when she couldn't control
it, and at times she was
strange and dangerous. But mostly she was sweet and scared and harmless.
"And my father went after the bastards that did it," said Aberforth, "and attacked
them. And they locked him
up in Azkaban for it. He never said why he'd done it, because the Ministry had known
what Ariana had become,
she'd have been locked up in St. Mungo's for good. They'd have seen her as a serious
threat to the International
Statute of Secrecy, unbalanced like she was, with magic exploding out of her at moments
when she couldn't keep it
in any longer.
"We had to keep her safe and quiet. We moved house, put it about she was ill, and
my mother looked after
her, and tried to keep her calm and happy.
"I was her favourite," he said, and as he said it, a grubby schoolboy seemed to
look out through Aberforth's
wrinkles and wrangled beard. "Not Albus, he was always up in his bedroom when he was
home, reading his books
and counting his prizes, keeping up with his correspondence with "the most notable
magical names of the day,"
Aberforth succored. "He didn't want to be bothered with her. She liked me best. I could
get her to eat when she wouldn't
do it for my mother, I could calm her down, when she was in one of her rages, and when
she was quiet, she used to
help me feed the goats.
"Then, when she was fourteen... See, I wasn't there." said Aberforth. "If I'd been
there, I could have calmed
her down. She had one of her rages, and my mother wasn't as young as she was, and . . . it
was an accident. Ariana
couldn't control it. But my mother was killed."
Harry felt a horrible mixture of pity and repulsion; he did not want to hear any
more, but Aberforth kept talking,
and Harry wondered how long it had been since he had spoken about this; whether, in
fact, he had ever spoken about it.
"So that put paid to Albus's trip round the world with little Doge. The pair of 'em
came home for my mother's
funeral and then Doge went off on his own, and Albus settled down as head of the family.
Ha!"
Aberforth spat into the fire.
"I'd have looked after her, I told him so, I didn't care about school, I'd have stayed
home and done it.
He told me I had to finish my education and he'd take over from my mother. Bit of a
comedown for Mr. Brilliant,
there's no prizes for looking after your half-mad sister, stopping her blowing up the house
every other day. But he
did all right for a few weeks . . . till he came."
And now a positively dangerous look crept over Aberforth’s face.
"Grindelwald. And at last, my brother had an equal to talk to someone just as
bright and talented he was. And
looking after Ariana took a backseat then, while they were hatching all their plans for a
new Wizarding order and looking
for Hallows, and whatever else it was they were so interested in. Grand plans for the
benefit of all Wizardkind, and if one
young girl neglected, what did that matter, when Albus was working for the greater
good?
"But after a few weeks of it, I'd had enough, I had. It was nearly time for me to go
hack to Hogwarts, so I told 'em,
both of 'em, face-to-face, like I am to you, now," and Aberforth looked downward Harry,
and it took a little imagination to
see him as a teenager, wiry and angry, confronting his elder brother. "I told him, you'd
better give it up now. You can't move her,
she's in no fit state, you can't take her with you, wherever it is you're planning to go,
when you're making your clever speeches,
trying to whip yourselves up a following. He didn't like that." said Aberforth, and his
eyes were briefly occluded by the fireflight on
the lenses of his glasses: They turned white and blind again. "Grindelwald didn't like that
at all. He got angry. He told me what a
stupid little boy I was, trying to stand in the way of him and my brilliant brother . . .
Didn't I understand, my poor sister wouldn't
have to be hidden once they'd changed the world, and led the wizards out of hiding, and
taught the Muggles their place?
"And there was an argument . . . and I pulled my wand, and he pulled out his, and
I had the Cruciatus Curse used on
me by my brother's best friend - and Albus was trying to stop him, and then all three of us
were dueling, and the flashing lights
and the bangs set her off, she couldn't stand it - "
The color was draining from Aberforth's face as though he had suffered a mortal
wound.
" - and I think she wanted to help, but she didn't really know what she was doing,
and I don't know which of us did it,
it could have been any of us - and she was dead."
His voice broke on the last word and he dropped down into the nearest chair.
Hermione's face was wet with tears, and Ron
was almost as pale as Aberforth. Harry felt nothing but revulsion: He wished he had not
heard it, wished he could wash is mind clean of it.
"I'm so . . . I'm so sorry," Hermione whispered.
"Gone," croaked Aberforth. "Gone forever."
He wiped his nose on hiss cuff and cleared his throat.
" 'Course, Grindelwald scarpered. He had a bit of a track record already, back in
his own country, and he didn't want Ariana
set to his account too. And Albus was free, wasn't he? Free of the burden of his sister,
free to become the greatest wizard of the - "
"He was never free," said Harry.
"I beg your pardon?" said Aberforth.
"Never," said Harry. "The night that your brother died, he drank a potion that
drove him out of his mind. He started screaming,
pleading with someone who wasn't there. 'Don't hurt them, please . . . hurt me instead.' "
Ron and Hermione were staring at Harry. He had never gone into details about
what had happened on the island on the lake:
The events that had taken place after he and Dumbledore had returned to Hogwarts had
eclipsed it so thoroughly.
"He thought he was back there with you and Grindelwald, I know he did," said
Harry, remembering Dumbledore whispering, pleading.
"He thought he was watching Grindelwald hurting you and Ariana . . . It was torture to
him, if you'd seen him then, you wouldn't say he was free."
Aberforth seemed lost in contemplation of his own knotted and veined hands.
After a long pause he said. "How can you be sure, Potter,
that my brother wasn't more interested in the greater good than in you? How can you be
sure you aren't dispensable, just like my little sister?"
A shard of ice seemed to pierce Harry's heart.
"I don't believe it. Dumbledore loved Harry," said Hermione.
"Why didn't he tell him to hide, then? shot back Aberforth. "Why didn't he say to
him, 'Take care of yourself, here's how to survive' ?"
"Because," said Harry before Hermione could answer, "sometimes you've got to
think about more than your own safety! Sometimes
you've got to think about the greater good! This is war!"
"You're seventeen, boy!"
"I'm of age, and I'm going to keep fighting even if you've given up!"
"Who says I've given up?"
"The Order of the Phoenix is finished," Harry repeated, "You-Know-Who's won,
it's over, and anyone who's pretending different's kidding
themselves."
"I don't say I like it, but it's the truth!"
"No, it isn't." said Harry. "Your brother knew how to finish You-Know-Who and
he passed the knowledge on to me. I'm going to keep going
until I succeed - or I die. Don't think I don't know how this might end. I've known it for
years."
He waited for Aberforth to jeer or to argue, but he did not. He merely moved.
"We need to get into Hogwarts," said Harry again. "If you can't help us, we'll wait
till daybreak, leave you in peace, and try to find a way
in ourselves. If you can help us - well, now would be a great time to mention it."
Aberforth remained fixed in his chair, gazing at Harry with the eye, that were so
extraordinarily like his brother's. At last he cleared his
throat, got to his feet, walked around the little table, and approached the portrait of Ariana.
"You know what to do," he said.
She smiled, turned, and walked away, not as people in portraits usually did, one of
the sides of their frames, but along what seemed to
be a long tunnel painted behind her. They watched her slight figure retreating until finally
she was swallowed by the darkness.
"Er - what - ?" began Ron.
"There's only one way in now," said Aberforth. "You must know they've got all
the old secret passageways covered at both ends, dementors
all around the boundary walls, regular patrols inside the school from what my sources tell
me. The place has never been so heavily guarded.
How you expect to do anything once you get inside it, with Snape in charge and the
Carrows as his deputies. . . well, that's your lookout, isn't it?
You say you're prepared to die."
"But what . . . ?" said Hermione, frowning at Ariana's picture.
A tiny white dot reappeared at the end of the painted tunnel, and now Ariana was
walking back toward them, growing bigger and bigger
as she came. But there was somebody else with her now, someone taller than she was,
who was limping along, looking excited. His hair was
longer than Harry had ever seen. He appeared and torn. Larger and larger the two figures
grew, until only their heads and shoulders filled the portrait.
Then the whole thing swang forward on the wall like a little door, and the entrance to a
real tunnel was revealed. And our of it, his hair overgrown,
his face cut, his robes ripped, clambered the real Neville Longbottom, who gave a roar of
delight, leapt down from the mantelpiece and yelled.
"I knew you'd come! I knew it, Harry!"
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The Lost Diadem
“Neville -- what the -- how -- ?”
But Neville had spotted Ron and Hermione, and with yells of delight was hugging
them too. The longer Harry looked at Neville, the worse he appeared: One of his eyes
was swollen yellow and purple, there were gouge marks on his face, and his general air of
unkemptness suggested that he had been living enough. Nevertheless, his battered visage
shone with happiness as he let go of Hermione and said again, “I knew you’d come! Kept
telling Seamus it was a matter of time!”
“Neville, what’s happened to you?”
“What? This?” Neville dismissed his injuries with a shake of the head. “This is
nothing, Seamus is worse. You’ll see. Shall we get going then? Oh,” he turned to
Aberforth, “Ab, there might be a couple more people no the way.”
“Couple more?” repeated Aberforth ominously. “What d’you mean, a couple
more, Longbottom? There’s a curfew and a Camwaulding Charm on the whole village!”
“I know, that’s why they’ll be Apparating directly into the bar,” said Neville.
“Just send them down the passage when they get here, will you? Thanks a lot.”
Neville held out his hand to Hermione and helped her to climb up onto the
mantelpiece and into the tunnel; Ron followed, then Neville. Harry addressed Aberforth.
“I don’t know how to thank you. You’ve saved our lives twice.”
“Look after ‘em, then,” said Aberforth gruffly. “I might not be able to save ‘em a
third time.”
Harry chambered up onto the mantelpiece and through the hole behind Ariana’s
portrait. There were smooth stone steps on the other side: It looked as though the
passageway had been there for years. Brass lamps hung from the walls and the earthy
floor was worn and smooth; as they walked, their shadows rippled, fanlike, across the
wall.
“How long’s this been here?” Ron asked as they set off. “It isn’t on the
Marauder’s Map, is it Harry? I thought there were only seven passages in and out of
school?”
“They sealed off all of those before the start of the year,” said Neville. “There’s
no chance of getting through any of them now, not with the curses over the entrances and
Death Eaters and dementors waiting at the exits.” He started walking backward, beaming,
drinking them in. “Never mind that stuff … Is it true? Did you break into Gringotts? Did
you escape on a dragon? It’s everywhere, everyone’s talking about it, Terry Boot got
beaten up by Carrow for yelling about it in the Great Hall at dinner!”
“Yeah, it’s true,” said Harry.
Neville laughed gleefully.
“What did you do with the dragon?”
“Released it into the wild,” said Ron. “Hermione was all for keeping it as a pet“
“Don’t exaggerate, Ron –“
“But what have you been doing? People have been saying you’ve just been on the
run, Harry, but I don’t think so. I think you’ve been up to something.”
“You’re right,” said Harry, “but tell us about Hogwarts, Neville, we haven’t heard
anything.”
“It’s been …. Well, it’s not really like Hogwarts anymore,” said Neville, the smile
fading from his face as he spoke. “Do you know about the Carrows?”
“Those two Death Eaters who teach here?”
“They do more than teach,” said Neville. “They’re in charge of all discipline.
They like punishment, the Carrows.”
“Like Umbridge?”
“Nah, they make her look tame. The other teachers are all supposed to refer us to
the Carrows if we do anything wrong. They don’t, though, if they can avoid it. You can
tell they all hate them as much as we do.”
“Amycus, the bloke, he teaches what used to be Defense Against the Dark Arts,
except now it’s just the Dark Arts. We’re supposed to practice the Cruciatus Curse on
people who’ve earned detentions – “
“What?”
Harry, Ron, and Hermione’s united voices echoed up and down the passage.
“Yeah,” said Neville. “That’s how I got this one,” he pointed at a particularly
deep gash in his cheek, “I refused to do it. Some people are into it, though; Crabbe and
Goyle love it. First time they’ve ever been top in anything, I expect.”
“Alecto, Amycus’s sister, teaches Muggle Studies, which is compulsory for
everyone. We’ve all got to listen to her explain how Muggles are like animals, stupid and
dirty, and how they drive wizards into hiding by being vicious toward them, and how the
natural order is being reestablished. I got this one,” he indicated another slash to his face,
“for asking her how much Muggle blood she and her brother have got.”
“Blimey, Neville,” said Ron, “there’s a time and a place for getting a smart
mouth.”
“You didn’t see her,” said Neville. “You wouldn’t have stood it either. The thing
is, it helps when people stand up to them, it gives everyone hope. I used to notice that
when you did it, Harry.”
“But they’ve used you as a knife sharpener,” said Ron, winding slightly as they
passed a lamp and Neville’s injuries were thrown into even greater relief.
Neville shrugged.
“Doesn’t matter. They don’t want to spill too much pure blood, so they’ll torture
us a bit if we’re mouthy but they won’t actually kill us.”
Harry did not know what was worse, the things that Neville was saying or the
matter-of-fact tone in which he said them.
“The only people in real danger are the ones whose friends and relatives on the
outside are giving trouble. They get taken hostage. Old Xeno Lovegood was getting a bit
too outspoken in The Quibbler, so they dragged Luna off the train on the way back for
Christmas.”
“Neville, she’s all right, we’ve seen her –“
“Yeah, I know, she managed to get a message to me.”
From his pocket he pulled a golden coin, and Harry recognized it as one of the
fake Galleons that Dumbledore’s Army had used to send one another messages.
“These have been great,” said Neville, beaming at Hermione. “The Carrows never
rumbled how we were communicating, it drove them mad. We used to sneak out at night
and put graffiti on the walls: Dumbledore’s Army, Still Recruiting, stuff like that. Snape
hated it.”
“You used to?” said Harry, who had noticed the past tense.
“Well, it got more difficult as time went one,” said Neville. “We lost Luna at
Christmas, and Ginny never came back after Easter, and the three of us were sort of the
leaders. The Carrows seemed to know I was behind a lot of it, so they started coming
down on me hard, and then Michael Corner went and got caught releasing a first-year
they’d chained up, and they tortured him pretty badly. That scared people off.”
“No kidding,” muttered Ron, as the passage began to slope upward.
“Yeah, well, I couldn’t ask people to go through what Michael did, so we dropped
those kinds of stunts. But we were still fighting, doing underground stuff, right up until a
couple of weeks ago. That’s when they decided there was only one way to stop me, I
suppose, and they went for Gran.”
“They what?” said Harry, Ron, and Hermione together.
“Yeah,” said Neville, panting a little now, because the passage was climbing so
steeply, “well, you can see their thinking. It had worked really well, kidnapping kids to
force their relatives to behave. I s’pose it was only a matter of time before they did it the
other way around. Thing was,” he faced them, and Harry was astonished to see that he
was grinning, “they bit off a bit more than they could chew with Gran. Little old witch
living alone, they probably thought hey didn’t need to send anyone particularly powerful.
Anyway,” Neville laughed, “Dawlish is still in St. Mungo’s and Gran’s on the run. She
sent me a letter,” he clapped a hand to the breast pocket of his robes, “telling me she was
proud of me, that I’m my parent’s son, and to keep it up.”
“Cool,” said Ron.
“Yea,” said Neville happily. “Only thing was, once they realized they had no hold
over me, they decided Hogwarts could do without me after all. I don’t know whether they
were planning to kill me or send me to Azkaban, either way, I knew it was time to
disappear.”
“But,” said Ron, looking thoroughly confused, “aren’t – aren’t we heading
straight back for Hogwarts?”
“’Course,” said Neville. “You’ll see. We’re here.”
They turned a corner and there ahead of them was the end of the passage. Another
short flight of steps led to a door just like the one hidden behind Ariana’s portrait. Neville
pushed it open and climbed through. As Harry followed, he heard Neville call out for
unseen people:
“Look who it is! Didn’t I tell you?”
As Harry emerged into the room behind the passage, there were several screams
and yells: “HARRY!” “It’s Potter, it’s POTTER!” “Ron!” “Hermione!”
He had a confused impression of colored hangings, of lamps and many faces. The
next moment, he, Ron, and Hermione were engulfed, hugged, pounded on the back, their
hair ruffled, their hands shaken, by what seemed to be more than twenty people. They
might have just won a Quidditch final.
“Okay, okay, calm down!” Neville called, and as the crowd backed away, Harry
was able to take in their surroundings.
He did not recognize the dorm at all. It was enormous, and looked rather like the
interior of a particularly sumptuous tree house, or perhaps a gigantic ship’s cabin.
Multicolored hammocks were strung from the ceiling and from the balcony that ran
around the dark wood-paneled and windowless walls, which were covered in bright
tapestry hangings. Harry saw the gold Gryffindor lion, emblazoned on scarlet; the black
badger of Hufflepuff, set against yellow; and the bronze eagle of Ravenclaw, on blue.
The silver and green of Slytherin alone were absent. There were bulging bookcases, a few
broomsticks propped against the walls, and in the corner, a large wood-cased wireless.
“Where are we?”
“Room of Requirement, of course!” said Neville. “Surpassed itself, hasn’t it? The
Carrows were chasing me, and I knew I had just one chance for a hideout: I managed to
get through the door and this is what I found! Well, it wasn’t exactly like this when I
arrived, it was a load smaller, there was only one hammock and just Gryffindor hangings.
But it’s expanded as more and more of the D.A. have arrived.”
“And the Carrows can’t get in?” asked Harry, looking around for the door.
“No,” said Seamus Finnigan, whom Harry had not recognized until he spoke:
Seamus’s face was bruised and puffy. “It’s a proper hideout, as long as one of us stays in
here, they can’t get at us, the door won’t open. It’s all down to Neville. He really gets this
room. You’ve got to ask for exactly what you need – like, “I don’t want any Carrow
supporters to be able to get in’ – and it’ll do it for you! You’ve just got to make sure you
close the loopholes. Neville’s the man!”
“It’s quite straightforward, really,” said Neville modestly. “I’d been in here about
a day and a half, and getting really hungry, and wishing I could get something to eat, and
that’s when the passage to Hog’s Head opened up. I went through it and met Aberforth.
He’s been providing us with food, because for some reason, that’s the one thing the room
doesn’t really do.
“Yeah, well, food’s one of the five exceptions to Gamp’s Law of Elemental
Transfiguration,” said Ron to general astonishment.
“So we’ve been hiding out here for nearly two weeks,” said Seamus, “and it just
makes more hammocks every time we need room, and it even sprouted a pretty good
bathroom once girls started turning up – “
“—and thought they’d quite like to wash, yes,” supplied Lavender Brown, whom
Harry had not noticed until that point. Now that he looked around properly, he recognized
many familiar faces. Both Patil twins were there, as were Terry Boot, Ernie Macmillan,
Anthony Goldstein, and Michael Corner.
“Tell us what you’ve been up to, though,” said Ernie. “There’ve been so many
rumors, we’ve been trying to keep up with you on Potterwatch.” He pointed at the
wireless. “You didn’t break into Gringotts?”
“They did!” said Neville. “And the dragon’s true too!”
There was a smattering of applause and a few whoops; Ron took a bow.
“What were you after?” asked Seamus eagerly.
Before any of them could parry the question with one of their own, Harry felt a
terrible, scorching pain in the lightning scar. As he turned his back hastily on the curious
and delighted faces, the Room of Requirement vanished, and he was standing inside a
ruined stone shack, and the rotting floorboards were ripped apart at his feet, a disinterred
golden box lay open and empty beside the hole, and Voldemort’s scream of fury vibrated
inside his head.
With an enormous effort he pulled out of Voldemort’s mind again, back to where
he stood, swaying, in the Room of Requirement, sweat pouring from his face and Ron
holding him up.
“Are you all right, Harry?” Neville was saying. “What to sit down? I expect
you’re tired, aren’t -- ?”
“No,” said Harry. He looked at Ron and Hermione, trying to tell them without
words that Voldemort had just discovered the loss of one of the other Horcruxes. Time
was running out fast: If Voldemort chose to visit Hogwarts next, they would miss their
chance.
“We need to get going,” he said, and their expressions told him that they
understood.
“What are we going to do, then, Harry?” asked Seamus. “What’s the plan?”
“Plan?” repeated Harry. He was exercising all his willpower to prevent himself
succumbing again to Voldemort’s rage: His scar was still burning. “Well, there’s
something we – Ron, Hermione, and I – need to do, and then we’ll get out of here.”
Nobody was laughing or whooping anymore. Neville looked confused.
“What d’you mean, ‘get out of here’?”
“We haven’t come back to stay,” said Harry, rubbing his scar, trying to soothe the
pain. “There’s something important we need to do – “
“What is it?”
“I – I can’t tell you.”
There was a ripple of muttering at this: Neville’s brows contracted.
“Why can’t you tell us? It’s something to do with fighting You-Know-Who,
right?”
“Well, yeah – “
“Then we’ll help you.”
The other members of Dumbledore’s Army were nodding, some enthusiastically,
others solemnly. A couple of them rose from their chairs to demonstrate their willingness
for immediate action.
“You don’t understand,” Harry seemed to have said that a lot in the last few hours.
“We – we can’t tell you. We’ve got to do it – alone.”
“Why?” asked Neville.
“Because … “ In his desperation to start looking for the missing Horcrux, or at
least have a private discussion with Ron and Hermione about where they might
commence their search. Harry found it difficult to gather his thoughts. His scar was still
searing. “Dumbledore left the three of us a job,” he said carefully, “and we weren’t
supposed to tell – I mean, he wanted us to do it, just the three of us.”
“We’re his army,” said Neville. “Dumbledore’s Army. We were all in it together,
we’ve been keeping it going while you three have been off on your own –“
“It hasn’t exactly been a picnic, mate,” said Ron.
“I never said it had, but I don’t see why you can’t trust us. Everyone in this
room’s been fighting and they’ve been driven in here because the Carrows were hunting
them down. Everyone in here’s proven they’re loyal to Dumbledore – loyal to you.”
“Look,” Harry began, without knowing what he was going to say, but it did not
matter. The tunnel door had just opened behind him.
“We got your message, Neville! Hello you three, I thought you must be here!”
It was Luna and Dean. Seamus gave a great roar of delight and ran to hug his best
friend.
“Hi, everyone!” said Luna happily. “Oh, it’s great to be back!”
“Luna,” said Harry distractedly, “what are you doing here? How did you -- ?”
“I sent for her,” said Neville, holding up the fake Galleon. “I promised her and
Ginny that if you turned up I’d let them know. We all thought that if you came back, it
would mean revolution. That we were going to overthrow Snape and the Carrows.”
“Of course that’s what it means,” said Luna brightly. “Isn’t it, Harry? We’re
going to fight them out of Hogwarts?”
“Listen,” said Harry with a rising sense of panic, “I’m sorry, but that’s not what
we came back for. There’s something we’ve got to do, and then –“
“You’re going to leave us in this mess?” demanded Michael Cornet.
“No!” said Ron. “What we’re doing will benefit everyone in the end, it’s all about
trying to get rid of You-Know-Who – “
“Then let us help!” said Neville angrily. “We want to be a part of it!”
There was another noise behind them, and Harry turned. His heart seemed to fall:
Ginny was now climbing through the hole in the wall, closely followed by Fred, George,
and Lee Jordan. Ginny gave Harry a radiant smile: He had forgotten, he had never fully
appreciated, how beautiful she was, but he had never been less pleased to see her.
“Aberforth’s getting a bit annoyed,” said Fred, raising his hand in answer to
several cries of greeting. “He wants a kip, and his bar’s turned into a railway station.”
Harry’s mouth fell open. Right behind Lee Jordan came Harry’s old girlfriend,
Cho Chang. She smiled at him.
“I got the message,” she said, holding up her own fake Galleon and she walked
over to sit beside Michael Corner.
“So what’s the plan, Harry?” said George.
“There isn’t one,” said Harry, still disoriented by the sudden appearance of all
these people, unable to take everything in while his scar was still burning so fiercely.
“Just going to make it up as we go along, are we? My favorite kind,” said Fred.
“You’ve got to stop this!” Harry told Neville. “What did you call them all back
for? This is insane – “
“We’re fighting, aren’t we?” said Dean, taking out his fake Galleon. “The
message said Harry was back, and we were going to fight! I’ll have to get a wand, though
–“
“You haven’t got a wand--?” began Seamus.
Ron turned suddenly to Harry.
“Why can’t they help?”
“What?”
“They can help.” He dropped his voice and said, so that none of them could hear
but Hermione, who stood between them, “We don’t know where it is. We’ve got to find it
fast. We don’t have to tell them it’s a Horcrux.”
Harry looked from Ron to Hermione, who murmured, “I think Ron’s right. We
don’t even know what we’re looking for, we need them.” And when Harry looked
unconvinced, “You don’t have to do everything alone, Harry.”
Harry thought fast, his scar still prickling, his head threatening to split again.
Dumbledore had warned him against telling anyone but Ron and Hermione about the
Horcruxes. Secrets and lies, that’s how we grew up, and Albus … he was a natural …
Was he turning into Dumbledore, keeping his secrets clutched to his chest, afraid to trust?
But Dumbledore had trusted Snape, and where had that led? To murder at the top of the
highest tower …
“All right,” he said quietly to the other two. “Okay,” he called to the room at large,
and all noise ceased: Fred and George, who had been cracking jokes for the benefit of
those nearest, fell silent, and all of the looked alert, excited.
“There’s something we need to find,” Harry said. “Something – something that’ll
help us overthrow You-Know-Who. It’s here at Hogwarts, but we don’t know where. It
might have belonged to Ravenclaw. Has anyone heard of an object like that? Has anyone
come across something with her eagle on it, for instance?”
He looked hopefully toward the little group of Ravenclaws, to Padma, Michael,
Terry, and Cho, but it was Luna who answered, perched on the arm of Ginny’s chair.
“Well, there’s her lost diadem. I told you about it, remember, Harry? The lost
diadem of Ravenclaw? Daddy’s trying to duplicate it.”
“Yeah, but the lost diadem,” said Michael Corner, rolling his eyes, “is lost, Luna.
That’s sort of the point.”
“When was it lost?” asked Harry.
“Centuries ago, they say,” said Cho, and Harry’s heart sank. “Professor Flitwick
says the diadem vanished with Ravenclaw herself. People have looked, but,” she
appealed to her fellow Ravenclaws. “Nobody’s ever found a trace of it, have them?”
They all shook their heads.
“Sorry, but what is a diadem?” asked Ron.
“It’s a kind of crown,” said Terry Boot. “Ravenclaw’s was supposed to have
magical properties, enhance the wisdom of the wearer.”
“Yes, Daddy’s Wrackspurt siphons – “
But Harry cut across Luna.
“And none of you have ever seen anything that looks like it?
They all shook their heads again. Harry looked at Ron and Hermione and his own
disappointment was mirrored back at him. An object that had been lost this long, and
apparently without trace, did not seem like a good candidate for the Horcrux hidden in
the castle … Before he could formulate a new question, however, Cho spoke again.
“If you’d like to see what the diadem’s supposed to look like, I could take you up
to our common room and show you, Harry. Ravenclaw’s wearing it in her statue.”
Harry’s scar scorched again: For a moment the Room of Requirement swam
before him, and he saw instead the dark earth soaring beneath him and felt the great
snake wrapped around his shoulders. Voldemort was flying again, whether to the
underground lake or here, to the castle, he did not know: Either way, there was hardly
any time left.
“He’s on the move,” he said quietly to Ron and Hermione. He glanced at Cho and
then back at them. “Listen, I know it’s not much of a lead, but I’m going to go look at
this statue, at least find out what the diadem looks like. Wait for me here and keep, you
know – the other one – safe.”
Cho had got to her feet, but Ginny said rather fiercely, “No, Luna will take Harry,
won’t you, Luna?”
“Oooh, yes, I’d like to,” said Luna happily, as Cho sat down again, looking
disappointed.
“How do we get out?” Harry asked Neville.
“Over here.”
“He led Harry and Luna to a corner, where a small cupboard opened onto a steep
staircase. “It comes out somewhere different every day, so they’ve never been able to
find it,” he said. “Only trouble is, we never know exactly where we’re going to end up
when we go out. Be careful, Harry, they’re always patrolling the corridors at night.”
“No problem,” said Harry. “See you in a bit.”
He and Luna hurried up the staircase, which was long, lit by torches, and turned
corners in unexpected places. At last they reached what appeared to be solid wall.
“Get under here,” Harry told Luna, pulling out the Invisibility Cloak and throwing
it over both of them. He gave the wall a little push.
It melted away at his touch and they slipped outside. Harry glanced back and saw
that it had resealed itself at once. They were standing in a dark corridor. Harry pulled
Luna back into the shadows, fumbled in the pouch around his neck, and took out the
Marauder’s Map. Holding it close to his nose he searched, and located his and Luna’s
dots at last.
“We’re up on the fifth floor,” he whispered, watching filch moving away from
them, a corridor ahead. “Come on, this way.”
They crept off.
Harry had prowled the castle at night many times before, but never had his heart
hammered that fast, never had so much depended on his safe passage through the place.
Through squares of moonlight upon the floor, past suits of armor whose helmets creaked
at the sound of their soft footsteps, around corners beyond which who knew what lurked.
Harry and Luna walked, checking the Marauder’s Map whenever light permitted, twice
pausing to allow a ghost to pass without drawing attention to themselves. He expected to
encounter an obstacle at any moment; his worst fear was Peeves, and he strained his ears
with every step to hear the first, telltale signs of the poltergeist’s approach.
“The way, Harry,” breathed Luna, plucking his sleeve and pulling him toward a
spiral staircase.
They climbed in tight, dizzying circles; Harry had never been up here before. At
last they reached a door. There was no handle and no keyhole: nothing but a plain
expanse of aged wood, and a bronze knocker in the shape an eagle.
Luna reached out a pale hand, which looked eerie floating in midair, unconnected
to arm or body. She knocked once, and in the silence it sounded to Harry like a cannon
blast. At once the beak of the eagle opened, but instead of a bird’s called, a soft, musical
voice said, “Which came first, the phoenix or the flame?”
“Hmm … What do you think, Harry?” said Luna, looking thoughtful.
“What? Isn’t there a password?”
“Oh no, you’ve got to answer a question,” said Luna.
“What if you get it wrong?”
“Well, you have to wait for somebody who gets it right,” said Luna. “That way
you learn, you see?”
“Yeah … Trouble is, we can’t really afford to wait for anyone else, Luna.”
“No, I see what you mean,” said Luna seriously. “Well then, I think the answer is
that a circle has no beginning.”
“Well reasoned,” said the voice, and the door swung open.
The deserted Ravenclaw common room was a wide, circular room, airier than any
Harry had ever seen at Hogwarts. Graceful arched windows punctuated the walls, which
were hung with blue-and-bronze silks. By day, the Ravenclaws would have a spectacular
view of the surrounding mountains. The ceiling was domed and painted with stars, which
were echoed in the midnight-blue carpet. There were tables, chairs, and bookcases, and in
a niche opposite the door stood a tall statue of white marble.
Harry recognized Rowena Ravenclaw from the bust he had seen at Luna’s house.
The statue stood beside a door that led, he guessed, to dormitories above. He strode right
up to the marble woman, and she seemed to look back at him with a quizzical half smile
on her face, beautiful yet slightly intimidating. A delicate-looking circlet had been
reproduced in marble on top of her head. It was not unlike the tiara Fleur had worn at her
wedding. There were tiny words etched into it. Harry stepped out from under the Cloak
and climbed up onto Ravenclaw’s plinth to read them.
“’Wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure.’”
“Which makes you pretty skint, witless,” said a cackling voice.
Harry whirled around, slipped off the plinth, and landed on the floor. The slopingshouldered
figure of Alecto Carrow was standing before him, and even as Harry raised
his wand, she pressed a stubby forefinger to the skull and snake branded on her forearm.
Chapter Thirty
The Sacking of Severus Snape
The moment her finger touched the Mark, Harry's scar burned savagely, the starry
room vanished from sight, and he was standing upon an outcrop of rock beneath a cliff,
and the sea was washing around him and there was a triumph in his heart – They have the
boy.
A loud bang brought Harry back to where he stood. Disoriented, he raised his
wand, but the witch before him was already falling forward; she hit the ground so hard
that the glass in the bookcases tinkled.
“I've never Stunned anyone except in our D.A. lessons,” said Luna, sounding
mildly interested. “That was noisier than I though it would be.”
And sure enough, the ceiling had begun to tremble Scurrying, echoing footsteps
were growing louder from behind the door leading to the dormitories. Luna's spell had
woken Ravenclaws sleeping above.
“Luna, where are you? I need to get under the Cloak!”
Luna's feet appeared out of nowhere,; he hurried to her side and she let the Cloak
fall back over them as the door opened and a stream of Ravenclaws, all in their
nightclothes, flooded into the common room. there were gasps and cries of surprise as
they saw Alecto lying there unconscious. Slowly they shuffled in around her, a savage
beast that might wake at any moment and attack them. Then one brave little first-year
darted up to her and prodded her backside with his big toe.
“I think she might be dead!” he shouted with delight.
“Oh look,” whispered Luna happily, as the Ravenclaws crowded in around Alecto.
“They're pleased!”
“Yeah... great... “
Harry closed his eyes, and as his scar throbbed he chose to sink again into
Voldemort's mind.... He was moving along the tunnel into the first cave.... He had
chosen to make sure of the locker before coming...but that would not take him long....
There was a rap on the common room door and every Ravenclaw froze. From the
other side, Harry heard the soft, musical voice that issued from the eagle door knocker:
“Where do Vanished objects go?”
“I dunno, do I? Shut it!” snarled an uncouth voice that Harry knew was that of
the Carrow brother , Amycus, “Alecto? Alecto? Are you there? Have you got him?
Open the door!”
The Ravenclaws were whispering amongst themselves, terrified. Then without
warning, there came a series of loud bangs, as though somebody was firing a gun into the
door.
“ALECTO! If he comes, and we haven't got Potter --d'you want to go the same
way as the Malfoys? ANSWER ME!” Amycus bellowed, shaking the door for all he
was worth, but still it did not open. The Ravenclaws were all backing away, and some of
the most frightened began scampering back up the stair case to their beds. Then, just as
Harry was wondering whether he ought not to blast open the door and Stun Amycus
before the Death Eater could do anything else, a second, most familiar voice rang out
beyond the door.
“May I ask what you are doing, Professor Carrow?”
“Trying—to get-- through this damned-- door!” shouted Amycus. “Go and get
Flitwick! Get him to open it, now!”
“But isn't your sister in there” asked Professor McGonagall. “Didn't Professor
Flitwick let her in earlier this evening, at your urgent request? Perhaps she could open
the door for you? Then you needn't wake up half the castle.”
“She ain't answering, you old besom! You open it! Garn! Do it, now!”
“Certainly, if you wish it,” said Professor McGonagall, with awful coldness,
There was a genteel tap of the knocker and the musical voice asked again.
“Where do Vanished objects go?”
“Into non being, which is to say, everything,” replied Professor McGonagall.
“Nicely phrased,” replied the eagle door knocker, and the door swung open.
The few Ravenclaws who had remained behind sprinted for the stairs as Amycus
burst over the threshold, brandishing his wand. Hunched like his sister, he had a pallid,
doughy face and tiny eyes, which fell at once on Alecto, sprawled motionless on the floor.
He let out a yell of fury and fear.
“What've they done, the little whelps?” he screamed. “I'll Cruciate the lot of 'em
till they tell me who did it---and what's the Dark Lord going to say?” he shrieked,
standing over his sister and smacking himself on the forehead with his fist, “We haven't
got him, and they've gone and killed her!”
“She's only Stunned,” said Professor McGonagall impatiently, who had stooped
down to examine Alecto. “She'll be perfectly all right.”
“No she bludgering well won't!” bellowed Amycus. “Not after the Dark Lord
gets hold of her! She's gone and sent for him, I felt me Mark burn, and he thinks we've
got Potter!”
“'Got Potter'?” said Professor McGonagall sharply, “What do you mean, 'got
Potter'?”
“He told us Potter might try and get inside Ravenclaw Tower, and to send for him
if we caught him!”
“Why would Harry Potter try to get inside Ravenclaw Tower! Potter belongs in
my House!”
Beneath the disbelief and anger, Harry heard a little strain of pride in her voice
and affection for Minerva McGonagall gushed up inside him.
“We was told he might come in here!” said Carrow. “I dunno why, do I?”
Professor McGonagall stood up and her beady eyes swept the room. Twice they
passed right over the place where Harry and Luna stood.
“We can push it off on the kids,” said Amycus, his pig like face suddenly crafty.
“Yeah, that's what we'll do. We'll say Alecto was ambushed by the kids, them kids up
there” -- he looked up at the starry ceiling toward the dormitories -- “ and we'll say they
forced her to pres her Mark, and that's why he got a false alarm.... He can punish them.
Couple of kids more or less, what's the difference?”
“Only the difference between truth and lied, courage and cowardice,” said
Professor McGonagall, who had turned pale, “a difference, in short, which you and your
sister seem unable to appreciate. But let me make one thing very clear. You are not
going to pass off y9our many ineptitudes on the students of Hogwarts. I shall not permit
it.”
“Excuse me?”
Amycus moved forward until he was offensively close to Professor McGonagall,
his face within inches of hers. She refused to back away, but looked down at him as if he
were something disgusting she had found stuck to the lavatory seat.
“It's not a case of what you'll permit, Minerva McGonagall. Your time's over. It's
us what's in charge here now, and you'll back me up or you'll pay the price.”
And he spat in her face.
Harry pulled the Cloak off himself, raised his wand, and said, “You shouldn't
have done that.”
As Amycus spun around, Harry shouted, “Crucio!”
The Death Eater was lifted off his feet. He writhed through the air like a
drowning man, thrashing and howling in pain, and then, with a crunch and a shattering of
glass, he smashed into the front of a bookcase and crumpled, insensible, to the floor.
“I see what Bellatrix meant,” said Harry, the blood thundering through his brain, “you
need to really mean it.”
“Potter!” whispered Professor McGonagall, clutching her heart. “Potter--- you're
here! What---? How---?” She struggled to pull herself together. “Potter, that was
foolish!”
“He spat at you,” said Harry.
“Potter, I --- that was very --- gallant of you --- but don't you realize --?”
“Yeah, I do,” Harry assured her. Somehow her panic steadied him. “Professor
McGonagall, Voldemort's on the way.”
“Oh, are we allowed to say the name now?” asked Luna with an air of interest,
pulling off the Invisibility Cloak. The appearance of a second outlaw seemed to
overwhelm Professor McGonagall, who staggered backward and fell into a nearby chair,
clutching at the neck of her old tartan dressing gown.
“I don't think it makes any difference what we call him,” Harry told Luna. “He
already knows where I am.”
In a distant part of Harry's brain, that part connected to the angry, burning scar, he
could see Voldemort sailing fast over the dark lake in the ghostly green boat.... He had
nearly reached the island where the stone basin stood....
“You must flee,” whispered Professor McGonagall, “Now Potter, as quickly as
you can!”
“I can't,” said Harry, “There's something I need to do. Professor, so you know
where the diadem of Ravenclaw is?”
“The d-diadem of Ravenclaw? Of course not --- hasn't it been lost for
centuries?” She sat up a little straighter “Potter, it was madness, utter madness, for you
to enter this castle---”
“I had to,” said Harry. “Professor, there's something hidden here that I'm
supposed to find, and it could be the diadem--- if I could just speak to Professor Flitwick-
--”
There was a sound of movement, of clinking glass. Amycus was coming round.
Before Harry or Luna could act, Professor McGonagall rose to her feet, pointed her wand
at the groggy Death Eater, and said, “Imperio.”
Amycus got up, walked over to his sister, picked up her wand, then shuffled
obediently to Professor McGonagall and handed it over along with his own. Then he lay
down on the floor beside Alecto. Professor McGonagall waved her wand again, and a
length of shimmering silver rope appeared out of thin air and snaked around the Carrows,
binding them tightly together.
“Potter,” said Professor McGonagall, turning to face him again with superb
indifference to the Carrows' predicament. “if He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named does indeed
know that you are here---”
As she said it, a wrath that was like physical pain blazed through Harry, setting
his scar on fire, and for a second he looked down upon a basin whose potion had turned
clear, and saw that no golden locket lay safe beneath the surface---.
“Potter, are you all right.” said a voice, and Harry came back. He was clutching
Luna's shoulder to steady himself.
“Time's running out, Voldemort's getting nearer, Professor, I'm acting on
Dumbledore's orders, I must find what he wanted me to find! But we've got to get the
students out while I'm searching the castle--- It's me Voldemort wants, but he won't care
about killing a few more or less, not now---” not now he knows I'm attacking Horcruxes,
Harry finished the sentence in his head.
“You're acting on Dumbledore's orders?” she repeated with a look of dawning
wonder. Then she drew herself up to her fullest height.
“We shall secure the school against He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named while you
search for this --- this object.”
“Is that possible?”
“I think so,” said Professor McGonagall dryly, “we teachers are rather good at
magic, you know. I am sure we will be able to hold him off for a while if we all put our
best efforts into it. Of course, something will have to be done about Professor Snape---”
“Let me ---”
“---and if Hogwarts is about to enter a state of siege, with the Dark Lord at the
gates, it would indeed be advisable to take as many innocent people out of the way as
possible. With the Floo Network under observation, and Apparition impossible within
the grounds---”
“There's a way,” said Harry quickly, and he explained about the passageway
leading into the Hog's Head.
“Potter, we're talking about hundreds of students---”
“I know, Professor, but if Voldemort and the Death Eaters are concentrating on
the school boundaries they won't be interested in anyone who's Disapparating out of
Hog's Head.”
“There's something in that,” she agreed. She pointed her wand at the Carrows,
and a silver net fell upon their bound bodies, tied itself around them, and hoisted them
into the air, where they dangled beneath the blue-and-gold ceiling like two large, ugly sea
creatures. “Come. We must alert the other Heads of House. You'd better put that Cloak
back on.”
She marched toward the door, and as she did so she raised her wand. From the tip
burst three silver cats with spectacle markings around their eyes. the Patronuses ran
sleekly ahead, filling the spiral staircase with silvery light, as Professor McGonagall,
Harry, and Luna hurried back down.
Along the corridors they raced, and one by one the Patronuses left them. Professor
McGonagall's tartan dressing gown rustled over the floor, and Harry and Luna jogged
behind her under the Cloak.
They had descended two more floors when another set of quiet joined theirs.
Harry, whose scar was still prickling, heard them first. He felt in the pouch around his
neck for the Marauder's Map, but before he could take it our, McGonagall too seemed to
become aware of their company. She halted, raised her wand ready to duel, and said,
“Who's there?”
“It is I,” said a low voice.
From behind a suit of armor stepped Severus Snape.
Hatred boiled up in Harry at the sight of him. He had forgotten the details of
Snape's appearance in the magnitude of his crimes, forgotten how his greasy black hair
hung in curtains around his thin face, how his black eyes had a dead, cold look. He was
not wearing nightclothes, but was dressed in his usual black cloak, and he too was
holding his wand ready for a fight.
“Where are the Carrows?” he asked quietly.
“Wherever you told them to be, I expect, Severus,” said Professor McGonagall.
Snape stepped nearer, and his eyes flitted over Professor McGonagall into the air
around her, as if he knew that Harry was there. Harry held his wand up too, ready to
attack.
“I was under the impression,” said Snape, “That Alecto had apprehended an
intruder.”
“Really?” said Professor McGonagall. “And what gave you that impression?”
Snape mad a slight flexing movement of his left arm, where the Dark Mark was
branded into his skin.
“Oh, but naturally,” said Professor McGonagall. “You Death Eaters have your
own private means of communication, I forgot.”
Snape pretended not to have heard her. His eyes were still probing the air all
about her, and he was moving gradually closer, with an air of hardly noticing what he
was doing.
“I did not know that it was your night to patrol the corridors Minerva.”
“You have some objection?”
“I wonder what could have brought you out of our bed at this late hour?”
“I thought I heard a disturbance,” said Professor McGonagall.
“Really? But all seems calm.”
Snape looked into her eyes.
“Have you seen Harry Potter, Minerva? Because if you have. I must insist---”
Professor McGonagall moved faster than Harry could have believed. Her wand
slashed through the air and for a split second Harry thought that Snape must crumple,
unconscious, but the swiftness of his Shield Charm was such that McGonagall was
thrown off balance. =She brandished her wand at a touch on the wall and it flew out of
its bracket. Harry, about to curse Snape, was forced to pull Luna out of the way of the
descending flames, which became a ring of fire that filled the corridor and flew like a
lasso at Snape---
Then it was no longer fire, but a great black serpent that McGonagall blasted to
smoke, which re-formed and solidified in seconds to become a swarm of pursuing
daggers. Snape avoided them only by forcing the suit of armor in front of him, and with
echoing clangs the daggers sank, one after another, into its breast---
“Minerva!” said a squeaky voice, and looking behind him, still shielding Luna
from flying spells, Harry saw Professors Flitwick and Sprout sprinting up the corridor
toward them in their nightclothes, with the enormous Professor Slughorn panting along at
the rear.
“No!” squealed Flitwick, raising his wand. “You'll do no more murder at
Hogwarts!”
Flitwick's spell hit the suit of armor behind which Snape had taken shelter. With
a clatter it came to life. Snape struggled free of the crushing arms and sent it flying back
toward his attackers. Harry and Luna had to dive sideways to avoid it as it smashed into
the wall and shattered. When Harry looked up again, Snape was in full flight,
McGonagall, Flitwick, and Sprout all thundering after him. He hurtled through a
classroom door and, moments later, he heard McGonagall cry, “Coward! COWARD!”
“What's happened, what's happened?” asked Luna.
Harry dragged her to her feet and they raced along the corridor, trailing the
Invisibility Cloak behind them, into the deserted classroom where Professors
McGonagall, Flitwick, and Sprout were standing at a smashed window.
“He jumped,” said Professor McGonagall as Harry and Luna ran into the room.
“You mean he's dead?” Harry sprinted to the window, ignoring Flitwick's and
Sprout's yells of shock at his sudden appearance.
“No, he's not dead,” said McGonagall bitterly. “Unlike Dumbledore, he was still
carrying a wand... and he seems to have learned a few tricks from his master.”
With a tingle of horror, Harry saw in the distance a huge, bat like shape flying
through the darkness toward the perimeter wall.
There were heavy footfalls behind them, and a great deal of puffing. Slughorn
had just caught up.
“Harry!” he panted, massaging his immense chest beneath his emerald-green silk
pajamas. “My dear boy... what a surprise...Minerva, do please
explain...Severus...what...?”
“Our headmaster is taking a short break,” said Professor McGonagall, pointing at
the Snape-shaped hole in the window.
“Professor!” Harry shouted his hand on his forehead, He could see the Inferifilled
lake sliding beneath him, and he felt a ghostly green boat bump into the
underground shore, and Voldemort lept from it with murder in his heart---
“Professor, we've got to barricade the school, he's coming now!”
“Very well. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is coming,” she told the other teachers.
Sprout and Flitwick gasped. Slughorn let out a low groan. “Potter has work to do in the
castle on Dumbledore's orders. We need to put in place every protection of which we are
capable while Potter does what he needs to do.”
“You realize , of course, that nothing we do will be able to keep out You-Know-
Who indefinitely?” squeaked Flitwick.
“But we can hold him up.” said Professor Sprout.
“Thank you, Pomona,” said Professor McGonagall, and between the two witches
there passed a look of grim understanding. I suggest we establish basic protection
around the place, then gather our students and meet in the Great Hall. Most must be
evacuated, though if any of those who are over age wish to stay and fight, I think they
ought to be given the chance.”
“Agreed,” said Professor Sprout, already hurrying toward the door. “I shall meet
you in the Great Hall in twenty minutes with my House.”
And as she jogged out of sight, they could hear her muttering, “Tentacula, Devil's
Snare. And Snargaluff pods...yes, I'd like to see the Death Eaters fighting those.”
I can act from here,” said Flitwick, and although he could barely see out of it, he
pointed his wand through the smashed window and started muttering incantations of great
complexity. Harry heard a weird rushing noise, as though Flitwick had unleashed the
power of the wind into the grounds.
“Professor,” Harry said, approaching the little Charms master. “Professor, I'm
sorry to interrupt, but this is important. Have you got any idea where the diadem of
Ravenclaw is?”
“---Protego Horribillis---the diadem of Ravenclaw?” squeaked Flitwick. “A little
extra wisdom never goes amiss, Potter, but I hardly think it would be much use in this
situation!”
“I only meant --- do you know where it is? Have you ever seen it?”
“Seen it” Nobody has seen it in living memory! Long since lost, boy.”
Harry felt a mixture of desperate disappointment and panic. What, then, was the
Horcrux?
“We shall meet you and your Ravenclaws in the Great Hall, Filius!” said
Professor McGonagall, beckoning to Harry and Luna to follow her.
They had just reached the door when Slughorn rumbled into speech.
“My word,” he puffed, pale and sweaty, his walrus mustache aquiver. “What a
to-do! I'm not at all sure whether this is wise, Minerva. He is bound to find a way in,
you know, and anyone who has tried to delay him will be in the most grievous peril---”
“I shall expect you and the Slytherins in the Great Hall in twenty minutes also.”
said Professor McGonagall. “If you wish to leave with your students, we shall not stop
you. But if any of you attempt to sabotage our resistance or take up arms against us
within this castle, then, Horace, we duel to kill.”
“Minerva!” he said, aghast.
“The time has come for Slytherin House to decide upon its loyalties,” interrupted
Professor McGonagall. “Go and wake your students, Horace.”
Harry did not stay to watch Slughorn splutter. He and Luna stayed after Professor
McGonagall, who had taken up a position in the middle of the corridor and raised her
wand.
“Piertotum---oh, for heaven's sake, Filch, not now---”
The aged caretaker had just come hobbling into view, shouting “Students out of
bed! Students in the corridors!”
“They're supposed to be you blithering idiot!” shouted McGonagall. “Now go
and do something constructive! Find Peeves!”
'P-Peeves?” stammered Filch as though he had never heard the name before.
“Yes, Peeves, you fool, Peeves! Haven't you been complaining about him for a
quarter of a century? Go and fetch him, at once.
Filch evidently thought Professor McGonagall had taken leave of her senses, but
hobbled away, hunch-shouldered, muttering under his breath.
“And now---Piertotum Locomator!” cried Professor McGonagall. And all along
the corridor the statues and suits of armor jumped down from their plinths, and from the
echoing crashes from the floors above and below, Harry knew that their fellows
throughout the castle had done the same.
“Hogwarts is threatened!” shouted Professor McGonagall. “Man the boundaries,
protect us, do your duty to our school!”
Clattering and yelling, the horde of moving statues stampeded past Harry, some of
them smaller, others larger than life. There were animals too, and the clanking suits of
armor brandished swords and spiked balls on chains.
“Now, Potter,” said McGonagall., “you and Miss Lovegood had better return to
your friends and bring them to the Great Hall --- I shall rouse the other Gryffindors.”
They parted at the top of the next staircase, Harry and Luna turning back toward
the concealed entrance to the Room of Requirement. As they ran, they met crowds of
students, most wearing traveling cloaks over their pajamas, being shepherded down to the
Great Hall by teachers and prefects.
“That was Potter!”
“Harry Potter!”
“It was him, I swear, I just saw him!”
“But Harry did not look back, and at last they reached the entrance to the Room of
Requirement, Harry leaned against the enchanted wall, which opened to admit them, and
he and Luna sped back down the steep staircase.
“Wh--?”
As the room came into view, Harry slipped down a few stairs in shock. It was
packed, far more crowded than when he had last been in there. Kingsley and Lupin were
looking up at him, as were Oliver Wood, Katie Bell, Angelina Johnson and Alicia
Spinnet, Bill and Fleur, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley.
“Harry, what's happening?” said Lupin, meeting him at the foot of the stairs.
“Voldemort's on his way, they're barricading he school---Snape's run for it---What
are you doing here? How did you know?
“We sent messages to the rest of Dumbledore's Army,” Fred explained. “You
couldn't expect everyone to miss the fun, Harry, and the D.A. let the Order of the Phoenix
know, and it all kind of snowballed.”
“What first, Harry?” called George. “What's going on?”
“They're evacuating the younger kids and everyone's meeting in the Great Hall to
get organized,” Harry said. “We're fighting.”
There was a great roar and a surge toward the stairs, he was pressed back against
he wall as they ran past hi, the mingled members of the Order of the Phoenix,
Dumbledore's Army, and Harry's old Quidditch team, all with their wands drawn,
heading up into the main castle.
“Come on, Luna,” Dean called as he passed, holding out his free hand, she took it
and followed him back up the stairs.
The crowd was thinning. Only a little knot of people remained below in the
Room of Requirement, and Harry joine3d them. Mrs. Weasley was struggling with
Ginny. Around them stood Lupin, Fred, George, Bill and Fleur.
“You're underage!” Mrs. Weasley shouted at her daughter as Harry approached
“I won't permit it! The boys, yes, but you, you've got to go home!”
“I won't!”
“Ginny's hair flew as she pulled her arm out of her mother's grip.
“I'm in Dumbledore's Army---”
“A teenagers' gang!”
“A teenagers' gang that's about to take him on, which no one else has dared to
do!” said Fred.
“She's sixteen!” shouted Mrs. Weasley. “She's not old enough! What you two
were thinking bringing her with you—-”
Fred and George looked slightly ashamed of themselves.
Mom's right, Ginny,” said Bill gently. “You can't do this. Everyone underage
will have to leave, it's only right.”
“I can't go home!” Ginny shouted, angry tears sparkling in her eyes. “my whole
family's here, I can't stand waiting there alone and not knowing and --”
Her eyes met Harry's for the first time. She looked at him beseechingly, but he
shook his head and she turned away bitterly.
“Fine,” she said, staring at the entrance to the tunnel back to the Hog's Head. “I'll
say good-by now, then, and---”
There was a scuffling and a great thump. Someone else had clambered out of the
tunnel, overbalanced slightly, and fallen. He pulled himself up no the nearest chair,
looked around through lopsided horn-rimmed glasses, and said, “Am I too late? Has it
started. I only just found out, so I --- I ---”
Percy spluttered into silence. Evidently he had not expected to run into most of
his family. There was a long moment of astonishment, broken by Fleur turning to Lupin
and saying, in a wildly transparent attempt to break the tension. “So--- 'ow eez leetle
Teddy?”
Lupin blinked at her, startled. The silence between the Weasleys seemed to be
solidifying, like ice.
“I --- oh yes--- he's fine!” Lupin said loudly. “yes, Tonks is with him--- at her
mother's ---”
Percy and the other Weasleys were still staring at one another, frozen.
“Here, I've got a picture?” Lupin shouted, pulling a photograph from inside his
jacket and showing it to Fleur and Harry, who saw a tiny baby with a tuft of bright
turquoise hair, waving fat fists at the camera.
“I was a fool!” Percy roared, so loudly that Lupin nearly dropped his photograph.
“I was an idiot, I was a pompous prat, I was a – a --”
“Ministry-loving, family-disowning, power-hungry moron,” said Fred.
Percy swallowed.
“Yes, I was!”
“Well, you can't say fairer than that,” said Fred, holding his hand out to Percy.
Mrs. Weasley burst into tears,. She ran forward, pushed Fred aside, and pulled
Percy into a strangling hug, while he patted her on the back, his eyes on his father.
“I'm sorry, Dad,” Percy said.
Mr. Weasley blinked rather rapidly, then he too hurried to hug his son.
“What made you see sense, Perce?” inquired George.
“It's been coming on for a while,” said Percy, mopping his eyes under his glasses
with a corner of his traveling cloak. “But I had to find a way out and it's not so easy at
the Ministry, they're imprisoning traitors all the time. I managed to make contact with
Aberforth and he tipped me off ten minutes ago that Hogwarts was going to make a fight
of it, so here I am.”
“Well, we do look to our prefects to take a lead at times such as these,” said
George in a good imitation of Percy's most pompous manner. “Now let's get upstairs and
fight, or all the good Death Eaters'll be taken.”
“So, you're my sister in-law now?” Said Percy, shaking hands with Fleur as they
hurried off toward the staircase with Bill, Fred, and George.
“Ginny!” barked Mrs. Weasley.
Ginny had been attempting, under cover of the reconciliations to sneak upstairs
too.
“Molly, how about this,” said Lupin. “Why doesn't Ginny stay here , then at least
she'll be on the scene and know what's going on, but she won't be in the middle of the
fighting?”
“I---”
“That's a good idea,” said Mr. Weasley firmly, “ Ginny, you stay in this room,
you hear me?”
Ginny did not seem to like the idea much, but under her father's unusually stern
gaze, she nodded. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley and Lupin headed off to the stairs as well.
“Where's Ron?” asked Harry, “Where's Hermione?”
“They must have gone up the Great Hall already,” Mr. Weasley called over his
shoulder.
“ I didn't see them pass me,” said Harry.
“They said something about a bathroom,” said Ginny, “not long after you left.”
“A bathroom?”
Harry strode across the room to an open door leading off the Room of
Requirement and checked the bathroom beyond. It was empty.
“You're sure they said bath---?”
But then his scar seared and the Room of Req1uirement vanished. He was
looking through the high wrought-iron gates with winged boats on pillars at either side,
looking through the dark grounds toward the castle, which was ablaze with lights. Nagini
lay draped over his shoulders. He was possessed of that cold, cruel sense of purpose that
preceded murder.
Chapter Thirty-One
The Battle of Hogwarts
The enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall was dark and scattered with stars, and
below it the four long House tables were lined with disheveled students, some in
traveling cloaks, others in dressing gowns. Here and there shone the pearly white figures
of the school ghosts. Every eye, living and dead was fixed upon Professor McGonagall,
who was speaking from the raised platform at the top of the Hall. Behind her stood the
remaining teaches, including the palomino centaur, Firenze, and the members of the
Order of the Phoenix who had arrived to fight.
"...evacuation will be overseen by Mr. Filch and Madame Pomfrey. Prefects,
when I give the word, you will organize your House and take your charges in orderly
fashion to the evacuation point.
Many of the students looked petrified. However, as Harry skirted the walls,
scanning the Gryffindor table for Ron and Hermione, Ernie Macmillan stood up at the
Hufflepuff table and shouted; "And what if we want to stay and fight?"
There was a smattering of applause.
"If you are of age, you may stay." said Professor McGonagall.
"What about our things?" called a girl at the Ravenclaw table. "Our trunks, our
owls?"
"We have no time to collect possessions." said Professor McGonagall. "The
important thing is to get you out of here safely."
"Where's Professor Snape?" shouted a girl from the Slytherin table.
"He has, to use the common phrase, done a bunk." replied Professor McGonagall
and a great cheer erupted from the Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, and Ravenclaws.
Harry moved up the Hall alongside the Gryffindor table, still looking for Ron and
Hermione. As he passed, faces turned in his direction, and a great deal of whispering
broke out in his wake.
"We have already placed protection around the castle," Professor McGonagall
was saying, "but it is unlikely to hold for very long unless we reinforce it. I must ask you,
therefore, to move quickly and calmly, and do as your prefects -"
But her final words were drowned as a different voice echoed throughout the Hall.
It was high, cold, and clear. There was no telling from where it came. It seemed to issue
from the walls themselves. Like the monster it had once commanded, it might have lain
dormant there for centuries.
"I know that you are preparing to fight." There were screams amongst the
students, some of whom clutched each other, looking around in terror for the source of
the sound. "Your efforts are futile. You cannot fight me. I do not want to kill you. I
have great respect for the teachers of Hogwarts. I do not want to spill magical blood."
There was silence in the Hall now, the kind of silence that presses against the
eardrums, that seems too huge to be contained by walls.
"Give me Harry Potter," said Voldemort's voice, "and they shall not be harmed.
Give me Harry Potter and I shall leave the school untouched. Give me Harry Potter and
you will be rewarded.
"You have until midnight."
The silence swallowed them all again. Every head turned, every eye in the place
seemed to have found Harry, to hold him forever in the glare of thousands of invisible
beams. Then a figure rose from the Slytherin table and he recognized Pansy Parkinson as
she raised a shaking arm and screamed, "But he's there! Potter's there. Someone grab
him!"
Before Harry could speak, there was a massive movement. The Gryffindors in
front of him had risen and stood facing, not Harry, but the Slytherins. Then the
Hufflepuffs stood, and almost at the same moment, the Ravenclaws, all of them with their
backs to Harry, all of them looking toward Pansy instead, and Harry, awestruck and
overwhelmed, saw wands emerging everywhere, pulled from beneath cloaks and from
under sleeves.
"Thank you, Miss Parkinson." said Professor McGonagall in a clipped voice.
"You will leave the Hall first with Mr. Filch. If the rest of your House could follow."
Harry heard the grinding of the benches and then the sound of the Slytherins
trooping out on the other side of the Hall.
"Ravenclaws, follow on!" cried Professor McGonagall.
Slowly the four tables emptied. The Slytherin table was completely deserted, but
a number of older Ravenclaws remained seated while their fellows filed out; even more
Hufflepuffs stayed behind, and half of Gryffindor remained in their seats, necessitating
Professor McGonagall's descent from the teachers' platform to chivvy the underage on
their way.
"Absolutely not, Creevey, go! And you, Peakes!"
Harry hurried over to the Weasleys, all sitting together at the Gryffindor table.
"Where are Ron and Hermione?"
"Haven't you found -?" began Mr. Weasley, looking worried.
But he broke off as Kingsley had stepped forward on the raised platform to
address those who had remained behind.
"We've only got half an half an hour until midnight, so we need to act fast. A
battle plan has been agreed between the teachers of Hogwarts and the Order of the
Phoenix. Professors Flitwick, Sprout and McGonagall are going to take groups of
fighters up to the three highest towers - Ravenclaw, Astronomy, and Gryffindor - where
they'll have good overview, excellent positions from which to work spells. Meanwhile
Remus" - he indicated Lupin - "Arthur" - he pointed toward Mr. Weasley, sitting at the
Gryffindor table - "and I will take groups into the grounds. We'll need somebody to
organize defense of the entrances or the passageways into the school -"
"Sounds like a job for us." called Fred, indicating himself and George, and
Kingsley nodded his approval.
"All right, leaders up here and we'll divide up the troops!"
"Potter," said Professor McGonagall, hurrying up to him, as students flooded the
platform, jostling for position, receiving instructions, "Aren't you supposed to be looking
for something?"
"What? Oh," said Harry, "oh yeah!"
He had almost forgotten about the Horcrux, almost forgotten that the battle was
being fought so that he could search for it: The inexplicable absence of Ron and
Hermione had momentarily driven every other thought from his mind.
"Then go, Potter, go!"
"Right - yeah -"
He sensed eyes following him as he ran out of the Great Hall again, into the
entrance hall still crowded with evacuating students. He allowed himself to be swept up
the marble staircase with them, but at the top he hurried off along a deserted corridor.
Fear and panic were clouding his thought processes. He tried to calm himself, to
concentrate on finding the Horcrux, but his thoughts buzzed as frantically and fruitlessly
as wasps trapped beneath a glass. Without Ron and Hermione to help him he could not
seem to marshal his ideas. He slowed down, coming to a halt halfway along a passage,
where he sat down on the plinth of a departed statue and pulled the Marauder's Map out
of the pouch around his neck. He could not see Ron's of Hermione's names anywhere on
it, though the density of the crowd of dots now making its way to the Room of
Requirement might, he thought, be concealing them. He put the map away, pressed his
hands over his face, and closed his eyes, trying to concentrate.
Voldemort thought I'd go to Ravenclaw Tower.
There it was, a solid fact, the place to start. Voldemort had stationed Alecto
Carrow in the Ravenclaw common room, and there could be only one explanation;
Voldemort feared that Harry already knew his Horcrux was connected to that House.
But the only object anyone seemed to associate with Ravenclaw was the lost
diadem... and how could the Horcrux be the diadem? How was it possible that
Voldemort, the Slytherin, had found the diadem that had eluded generations of
Ravenclaws? Who could have told him where to look, when nobody had seen the diadem
in living memory?
In living memory...
Beneath his fingers, Harry's eyes flew open again. He leapt up from the plinth
and tore back the way he had come, now in pursuit of his one last hope. The sound of
hundreds of people marching toward the Room of Requirement grew louder and louder
as he returned to the marble stairs. Prefects were shouting instructions, trying to keep
track of the students in their own houses, there was much pushing and shouting; Harry
saw Zacharias Smith bowling over first years to get to the front of the queue, here and
there younger students were in tears, while older ones called desperately for friends or
siblings.
Harry caught sight of a pearly white figure drifting across the entrance hall below
and yelled as loudly as he could over the clamor.
"Nick! NICK! I need to talk to you!"
He forced his way back through the tide of students, finally reaching the bottom
of the stairs, where Nearly Headless Nick, ghost of Gryffindor Tower, stood waiting for
him.
"Harry! My dear boy!"
Nick made to grasp Harry's hands with both of his own; Harry felt as though they
had been thrust into icy water.
"Nick, you've got to help me. Who's the ghost of Ravenclaw Tower?"
Nearly Headless Nick looked surprised and a little offended.
"The Gray Lady, of course; but if it is ghostly services you require -?"
"It's got to be her - d'you know where she is?"
"Let's see..."
Nick's head wobbled a little on his ruff as he turned hither and thither, peering
over the heads of the swarming students.
"That's her over there, Harry, the young woman with the long hair."
Harry looked in the direction of Nick's transparent, pointing finger and saw a tall
ghost who caught sight of Harry looking at her, raised her eyebrows, and drifted away
through a solid wall.
Harry ran after her. Once through the door of the corridor into which she had
disappeared, he saw her at the very end of the passage, still gliding smoothly away from
him.
"hey - wait - come back!"
She consented to pause, floating a few inches from the ground. Harry supposed
that she was beautiful, with her waist-length hair and floor-length cloak, but she also
looked haughty and proud. Close in, he recognized her as a ghost he had passed several
times in the corridor, but to whom he had never spoken.
"You're the Gray Lady?"
She nodded but did not speak.
"The ghost of Ravenclaw Tower?"
"That is correct."
Her tone was not encouraging.
"Please, I need some help. I need to know anything you can tell me about the lost
diadem."
A cold smile curved her lips.
"I am afraid," she said, turning to leave, "that I cannot help you."
"WAIT!"
He had not meant to shout, but anger and panic were threatening to overwhelm
him. He glanced at his watch as she hovered in front of him. It was a quarter to midnight.
"This is urgent." he said fiercely. "If that diadem's at Hogwarts, I've got to find it,
fast."
"You are hardly the first student to covet the diadem." she said disdainfully.
"Generations of students have badgered me -"
"This isn't about trying to get better marks!" Harry shouted at her, "It's about
Voldemort - defeating Voldemort - or aren't you interested in that?"
She could not blush, but her transparent cheeks became more opaque, and her
voice was heated as she replied, "Of course I - how dare you suggest -?"
"Well, help me then!"
Her composure was slipping.
"It - it is not a question of -" she stammered. My mother's diadem -"
"Your mother's?"
She looked angry with herself.
"When I lived," she said stiffly, "I was Helena Ravenclaw."
"You're her daughter? But then, you must know what happed to it."
"While the diadem bestows wisdom," she said with an obvious effort to pull
herself together, "I doubt that it would greatly increase you chances of defeating the
wizard who calls himself Lord -"
Haven't I told you, I'm not interested in wearing it!" Harry said fiercely. "There's
no time to explain - but if you care about Hogwarts, if you want to see Voldemort
finished, you've got to tell me anything you know about the diadem!"
She remained quite still, floating in midair, staring down at him, and a sense of
hopelessness engulfed Harry. Of course, if she had known anything, she would have told
Flitwick of Dumbledore, who had surely asked her the same question. He had shaken his
head and made to turn away when she spoke in a low voice.
"I stole the diadem from my mother."
"You - you did what?"
"I stole the diadem." repeated Helena Ravenclaw in a whisper. "I sought to make
myself cleverer, more important than my mother. I ran away with it."
He did not know how he had managed to gain her confidence and did not ask, he
simply listened, hard, as she went on.
"My mother, they say, never admitted that the diadem was gone, but pretended
that she had it still. She concealed her loss, my dreadful betrayal, even from the other
founders of Hogwarts.
"Then my mother fell ill - fatally ill. In spite of my perfidy, she was desperate to
see me one more time. She sent a man who had long loved me, though I spurned his
advances, to find me. She knew that he would not rest until he had done so."
Harry waited. She drew a deep breath and threw back her head.
"He tracked me to the forest where I was hiding. When I refused to return with
him, he became violent. The baron was always a hot-tempered man. Furious at my
refusal, jealous of my freedom, he stabbed me."
"The Baron? You mean -?"
"he Bloody Baron, yes," said the Gray Lady, and she lifted aside the cloak she
wore to reveal a single dark wound in her white chest. When he saw what he had done,
he was overcome with remorse. He took the weapon that had claimed my life, and used
it to kill himself. All these centuries later, he wears his chains as an act of penitence ... as
he should." she added bitterly.
"And - and the diadem?"
"It remained where I had hidden it when I heard the Baron blundering through the
forest toward me. Concealed inside a hollow tree."
"A hollow tree?" repeated Harry. "What tree? Where was this?"
"A forest in Albania. A lonely place I thought was far beyond my mother's
reach."
"Albania," repeated Harry. Sense was emerging miraculously from confusion,
and now he understood why she was telling him what she had denied Dumbledore and
Flitwick. "You've already told someone this story, haven't you? Another student?"
She closed her eyes and nodded.
"I had... no idea... He was flattering. He seemed to... understand... to
sympathize..."
Yes, Harry thought. Tom Riddle would certainly have understood Helena
Ravenclaw's desire to possess fabulous objects to which she had little right.
"Well, you weren't the first person Riddle wormed things out of." Harry muttered.
"He could be charming when he wanted..."
So, Voldemort had managed to wheedle the location of the lost diadem out of the
Gray Lady. He had traveled to that far-flung forest and retrieved the diadem from its
hiding place, perhaps as soon as he left Hogwarts, before he even started work at Borgin
and Burkes.
And wouldn't those secluded Albanian woods have seemed an excellent refuge
when, so much later, Voldemort and needed a place to lie low, undisturbed, for ten long
years?
But the diadem, once it became his precious Horcrux, had not been left in that
lowly tree. . . . No, the diadem had been returned secretly to its true home, and Voldemort
must have put it there –
“—the night he asked for a job!” said Harry, finishing his thought.
“I beg your pardon?”
“He hid the diadem in the castle, the night he asked Dumbledore to let him
teach!” said Harry. Saying it out loud enabled him to make sense of it all. “He must’ve
hidden the diadem on his way up to, or down from, Dumbledore’s office! But it was well
worth trying to get the job – then he might’ve got the chance to nick Gryffindor’s sword
as well – thank you, thanks!”
Harry left her floating there, looking utterly bewildered. As he rounded the corner
back into the entrance hall, he checked his watch. It was five minutes until midnight, and
though he now knew what the last Horcrux was, he was no closer to discovering where it
was. . .
Generations of students had failed to find the diadem; that suggested that it was
not in Ravenclaw Tower – but if not there, where? What hiding place had Tom Riddle
discovered inside Hogwarts Castle, that he believed would remain secret forever?
Lost in desperate speculation, Harry turned a corner, but he had taken only a few
steps down the new corridor when the window to his left broke open with a deafening,
shattering crash. As he leapt aside, a gigantic body flew in through the window and hit
the opposite wall.
Something large and furry detached itself, whimpering, from the new arrival and flung
itself at Harry.
“Hagrid!” Harry bellowed, fighting off Fang the boarhound’s attentions as the
enormous bearded figure clambered to his feet “What the --?”
“Harry, yer here! Yer here!”
Hagrid stooped down, bestowed upon Harry a cursory and rib-cracking hug, then
ran back to the shattered window.
“Good boy, Grawpy!” he bellowed through the hole in the window. “I’ll se yer in
a moment, there’s a good lad!”
Beyond Hagrid, out in the dark night, Harry saw bursts of light in the distance and
heard a weird, keening scream. He looked down at his watch: It was midnight. The battle
had begun.
“Blimey, Harry,” panted Hagrid, “this is it, eh? Time ter fight?”
“Hagrid, where have you come from?”
“Heard You-Know-Who from up in our cave,” said Hagrid grimly. “Voice carried,
didn’t it? ‘Yet got till midnight ter gimme Potter.’ Knew yeh mus’ be here, knew that
mus’ be happenin’. Get down, Fang. So we come ter join in, me an’ Grawpy an’ Fang.
Smashed our way through the boundary by the forest, Grawpy was carryin’ us, Fang an’
me. Told him ter let me down at the castle, so he shoved me through the window, bless
him. Not exactly what I meant, bu’ – where’s Ron an’ Hermione?”
“That,” said Harry, “is a really good question. Come on.”
They hurried together along the corridor, Fang lolloping beside them. Harry could
hear movement through the corridors all around: running footsteps, shouts; through the
windows, he could see more flashes of light in the dark grounds.
“Where’re we goin’?” puffed Hagrid, pounding along at Harry’s heels, making
the floorboards quake.
“I dunno exactly,” said Harry, making another random turn, “but Ron and
Hermione must be around here somewhere. . . .”
The first casualties of the battle were already strewn across the passage ahead:
The two stone gargoyles that usually guarded the entrance to the staffroom had been
smashed apart by a jinx that had sailed through another broken window. Their remains
stirred feebly on the floor, and as Harry leapt over one of their disembodied heads, it
moaned faintly. “Oh, don’t mind me . . . I’ll just be here and crumble. . . .”
Its ugly stone face made Harry think suddenly of the marble bust of Rowena
Ravenclaw at Xenophilius’s house, wearing that mad headdress – and then of the statue
in Ravenclaw Tower, with the stone diadem upon her white curls. . . .
And as he reached the end of the passage, the memory of a third stone effigy
came back to him: that of an ugly old warlock, onto whose head Harry himself had
placed a wig and a battered old hat. The shock shot through Harry with the heat of
firewhisky, and he nearly stumbled.
He knew, at least, where the Horcrux sat waiting for him. . . .
Tom Riddle, who confided in no one and operated alone, might have been
arrogant enough to assume that he, and only he, had penetrated the deepest mysteries of
Hogwarts Castle. Of course, Dumbledore and Flitwick, those model pupils, had never set
foot in that particular place, but he, Harry, had strayed off the beaten track in his time at
school – here at least was a secret area he and Voldemort knew, that Dumbledore had
never discovered –
He was roused by Professor Sprout, who was thundering past followed by Neville
and half a dozen others, all of them wearing earmuffs and carrying what appeared to be
large potted plants.
“Mandrakes!” Neville bellowed at Harry over his shoulder as he ran. “Going to
lob them over the walls – they won’t like this!”
Harry knew now where to go. He sped off, with Hagrid and Fang galloping
behind him. They passed portrait after portrait, and the painted figures raced alongside
them, wizards and witches in ruffs and breeches, in armor and cloaks, cramming
themselves into each others’ canvases, screaming news from other parts of the castle. As
they reached the end of this corridor, the whole castle shook, and Harry knew, as a
gigantic vase blew off its plinth with explosive force, that it was in the grip of
enchantments more sinister than those of the teachers and the Order.
“It’s all righ’, Fang – it’s all righ’!” yelled Hagrid, but the great boarhound had
taken flight as slivers of china flew like shrapnel through the air, and Hagrid pounded off
after the terrified dog, leaving Harry alone.
He forged on through the trembling passages, his wand at the ready, and for the
length of one corridor the little painted knight, Sir Cadrigan, rushed from painting to
painting beside him, clanking along in his armor, screaming encouragement, his fat little
pony cantering behind him.
“Braggarts and rogues, dogs and scoundrels, drive them out, Harry Potter, see
them off!”
Harry hurtled around a corner and found Fred and a small knot of students,
including Lee Jordan and Hannah Abbott, standing beside another empty plinth, whose
statue had concealed a secret passageway. Their wands were drawn and they were
listening at the concealed hole.
“Nice night for it!” Fred shouted as the castle quaked again, and Harry sprinted by,
elated and terrified in equal measure. Along yet another corridor he dashed, and then
there were owls everywhere, and Mrs. Norris was hissing and trying to bat them with her
paws, no doubt to return them to their proper place. . . .
“Potter!”
Aberforth Dumbledore stood blocking the corridor ahead, his wand held ready.
“I’ve had hundreds of kids thundering through my pub, Potter!”
“I know, we’re evacuating,” Harry said, “Voldemort’s –“
“– attacking because they haven’t handed you over, yeah,” said Aberforth. “I’m
not deaf, the whole of Hogsmeade heard him. And it never occurred to any of you to keep
a few Slytherins hostage? There are kids of Death Eaters you’ve just sent to safety.
Wouldn’t it have been a bit smarter to keep ‘em here?”
“It wouldn’t stop Voldemort,” said Harry, “and your brother would never have
done it.”
Aberforth grunted and tore away in the opposite direction.
Your brother would never have done it. . . . Well, it was the truth, Harry thought
as he ran on again: Dumbledore, who had defended Snape for so long, would never have
held students ransom. . . .
And then he skidded around a final corner and with a yell of mingled relief and
fury he saw them: Ron and Hermione; both with their arms full of large, curved, dirty
yellow objects, Ron with a broomstick under his arms.
“Where the hell have you been?” Harry shouted.
“Chamber of Secrets,” said Ron.
“Chamber – what?” said Harry, coming to an unsteady halt before them.
“It was Ron, all Ron’s idea!” said Hermione breathlessly. “Wasn’t it absolutely
brilliant? There we were, after we left, and I said to Ron, even if we find the other one,
how are we going to get rid of it? We still hadn’t got rid of the cup! And then he thought
of it! The basilisk!”
“What the – ?”
“Something to get rid of Horcruxes,” said Ron simply.
Harry’s eyes dropped to the objects clutched in Ron and Hermione’s arms: great
curved fangs; torn, he now realized, from the skull of a dead basilisk.
“But how did you get in there?” he asked, staring from the fangs to Ron. “You
need to speak Parseltongue!”
“He did!” whispered Hermione. “Show him, Ron!”
Ron made a horrible strangled hissing noise.
“It’s what you did to open the locket,” he told Harry apologetically. “I had to have
a few goes to get it right, but,” he shrugged modestly, “we got there in the end.”
“He was amazing!” said Hermione. “Amazing!”
“So . . .” Harry was struggling to keep up. “So . . .”
“So we’re another Horcrux down,” said Ron, and from under his jacket he pulled
the mangled remains of Hufflepuff’s cup. “Hermione stabbed it. Thought she should. She
hasn’t had the pleasure yet.”
“Genius!” yelled Harry.
“It was nothing,” said Ron, though he looked delighted with himself. “So what’s
new with you?”
As he said it, there was an explosion from overhead: All three of them looked up
as dust fell from the ceiling and they heard a distant scream.
“I know what the diadem looks like, and I know where it is,” said Harry, talking
fast. “He hid it exactly where I had my old Potions book, where everyone’s been hiding
stuff for centuries. He thought he was the only one to find it. Come on.”
As the walls trembled again, he led the other two back through the concealed
entrance and down the staircase into the Room of Requirement. It was empty except for
three women: Ginny, Tonks and an elderly witch wearing a moth-eaten hat, whom Harry
recognized immediately as Neville’s grandmother.
“Ah, Potter,” she said crisply as if she had been waiting for him. “You can tell us
what’s going on.”
“Is everyone okay?” said Ginny and Tonks together.
“’S far as we know,” said Harry. “Are there still people in the passage to the
Hog’s Head?”
He knew that the room would not be able to transform while there were still users
inside it.
“I was the last to come through,” said Mrs. Longbottom. “I sealed it, I think it
unwise to leave it open now Aberforth has left his pub. Have you seen my grandson?”
“He’s fighting,” said Harry.
“Naturally,” said the old lady proudly. “Excuse me, I must go and assist him.”
With surprising speed she trotted off toward the stone steps.
Harry looked at Tonks.
“I thought you were supposed to be with Teddy at your mother’s?”
“I couldn’t stand not knowing –“ Tonks looked anguished. “She’ll look after him
– have you seen Remus?”
“He was planning to lead a group of fighters into the grounds –“
Without another word, Tonks sped off.
“Ginny,” said Harry, “I’m sorry, but we need you to leave too. Just for a bit. Then
you can come back in.”
Ginny looked simply delighted to leave her sanctuary.
“And then you can come back in!” he shouted after her as she ran up the steps
after Tonks. “You’ve got to come back in!”
“Hang on a moment!” said Ron sharply. “We’ve forgotten someone!”
“Who?” asked Hermione.
“The house-elves, they’ll all be down in the kitchen, won’t they?”
“You mean we ought to get them fighting?” asked Harry.
“No,” said Ron seriously, “I mean we should tell them to get out. We don’t want
anymore Dobbies, do we? We can’t order them to die for us –“
There was a clatter as the basilisk fangs cascaded out of Hermione’s arms.
Running at Ron, she flung them around his neck and kissed him full on the mouth. Ron
threw away the fangs and broomstick he was holding and responded with such
enthusiasm that he lifted Hermione off her feet.
“Is this the moment?” Harry asked weakly, and when nothing happened except
that Ron and Hermione gripped each other still more firmly and swayed on the spot, he
raised his voice. “Oi! There’s a war going on here!”
Ron and Hermione broke apart, their arms still around each other.
“I know, mate,” said Ron, who looked as though he had recently been hit on the
back of the head with a Bludger, “so it’s now or never, isn’t it?”
“Never mind that, what about the Horcrux?” Harry shouted. “D’you think you
could just – just hold it in until we’ve got the diadem?”
“Yeah – right – sorry –“ said Ron, and he and Hermione set about gathering up
fangs, both pink in the face.
It was clear, as the three of them stepped back into the corridor upstairs, that in
the minutes that they had spent in the Room of Requirement the situation within the
castle had deteriorated severely: The walls and ceiling were shaking worse than ever;
dust filled the air, and through the nearest window, Harry saw bursts of green and red
light so close to the foot of the castle that he knew the Death Eaters must be very near to
entering the place. Looking down, Harry saw Grawp the giant meandering past, swinging
what looked like a stone gargoyle torn from the roof and roaring his displeasure.
“Let’s hope he steps on some of them!” said Ron as more screams echoed from
close by.
“As long as it’s not any of our lot!” said a voice: Harry turned and saw Ginny and
Tonks, both with their wands drawn at the next window, which was missing several
panes. Even as he watched, Ginny sent a well-aimed jinx into a crowd of fighters below.
“Good girl!” roared a figure running through the dust toward them, and Harry saw
Aberforth again, his gray hair flying as he led a small group of students past. “They look
like they might be breaching the north battlements, they’ve brought giants of their own.”
“Have you seen Remus?” Tonks called after him.
“He was dueling Dolohov,” shouted Aberforth, “haven’t seen him since!”
“Tonks,” said Ginny, “Tonks, I’m sure he’s okay –“
But Tonks had run off into the dust after Aberforth.
Ginny turned, helpless, to Harry, Ron, and Hermione.
“They’ll be all right,” said Harry, though he knew they were empty words.
“Ginny, we’ll be back in a moment, just keep out of the way, keep safe – come on!” he
said to Ron and Hermione, and they ran back to the stretch of wall beyond which the
Room of Requirement was waiting to do the bidding of the next entrant.
I need the place where everything is hidden. Harry begged of it inside his head,
and the door materialized on their third run past.
The furor of the battle died the moment they crossed the threshold and closed the
door behind them: All was silent. They were in a place the size of a cathedral with the
appearance of a city, its towering walls built of objects hidden by thousands of long-gone
students.
“And he never realized anyone could get in?” said Ron, his voice echoing in the
silence.
“He thought he was the only one,” said Harry. “Too bad for him I’ve had to hide
stuff in my time . . . this way,” he added. “I think it’s down here. . . .”
They sped off up adjacent aisles; Harry could hear the others’ footsteps echoing
through the towering piles of junk, of bottles, hats, crates, chairs, books, weapons,
broomsticks, bats. . . .
“Somewhere near here,” Harry muttered to himself. “Somewhere . . .
somewhere . . .”
Deeper and deeper into the labyrinth he went, looking for objects he recognized
from his one previous trip into the room. His breath was loud in his ears, and then his
very soul seemed to shiver. There it was, right ahead, the blistered old cupboard in which
he had hidden his old Potions book, and on top of it, the pockmarked stone warlock
wearing a dusty old wig and what looked like an ancient discolored tiara.
He had already stretched out his hand, though he remained few feet away, when a
voice behind him said, “Hold it, Potter.”
He skidded to a halt and turned around. Crabbe and Goyle were standing behind
him, shoulder to shoulder, wands pointing right at Harry. Through the small space
between their jeering faces he saw Draco Malfoy.
“That’s my wand you’re holding, Potter,” said Malfoy, pointing his own through
the gap between Crabbe and Goyle.
“Not anymore,” panted Harry, tightening his grip on the hawthorn wand.
“Winners, keepers, Malfoy. Who’s lent you theirs?”
“My mother,” said Draco.
Harry laughed, though there was nothing very humorous about the situation. He
could not hear Ron or Hermione anymore. They seemed to have run out of earshot,
searching for the diadem.
“So how come you three aren’t with Voldemort?” asked Harry.
“We’re gonna be rewarded,” said Crabbe. His voice was surprisingly soft for such
an enormous person: Harry had hardly ever heard him speak before. Crabbe was speaking
like a small child promised a large bag of sweets. “We ‘ung back, Potter. We decided not
to go. Decided to bring you to ‘im.”
“Good plan,” said Harry in mock admiration. He could not believe that he was
this close, and was going to be thwarted by Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle. He began edging
slowly backward toward the place where the Horcrux sat lopsided upon the bust. If he
could just get his hands on it before the fight broke out . . .
“So how did you get in here?” he asked, trying to distract them.
“I virtually lived in the Room of Hidden Things all last year,” said Malfoy, his
voice brittle. “I know how to get in.”
“We was hiding in the corridor outside,” grunted Goyle. “We can do Diss-lusion
Charms now! And then,” his face split into a gormless grin, “you turned up right in front
of us and said you was looking for a die-dum! What’s a die-dum?”
“Harry?” Ron’s voice echoed suddenly from the other side of the wall to Harry’s
right. “Are you talking to someone?”
With a whiplike movement, Crabbe pointed his wand at the fifty foot mountain of
old furniture, of broken trunks, of old books and robes and unidentifiable junk, and
shouted, “Descendo!”
The wall began to totter, then the top third crumbled into the aisle next door
where Ron stood.
“Ron!” Harry bellowed, as somewhere out of sight Hermione screamed, and
Harry heard innumerable objects crashing to the floor on the other side of the destabilized
wall: He pointed his wand at the rampart, cried, “Finite!” and it steadied.
“No!” shouted Malfoy, staying Crabbe’s arm as the latter made to repeat his spell.
“If you wreck the room you might bury this diadem thing!”
“What’s that matter?” said Crabbe, tugging himself free. “It’s Potter the Dark
Lord wants, who cares about a die-dum?”
“Potter came in here to get it,” said Malfoy with ill-disguised impatience at the
slow-wittedness of his colleagues. “so that must mean –“
“’Must mean’?” Crabbe turned on Malfoy with undisguised ferocity. “Who cares
what you think? I don’t take your orders no more, Draco. You an’ your dad are finished.”
“Harry?” shouted Ron again, from the other side of the junk wad. “What’s going
on?”
“Harry?” mimicked Crabbe. “What’s going on – no, Potter! Crucio!”
Harry had lunged for the tiara; Crabbe’s curse missed him but hit the stone bust,
which flew into the air; the diadem soared upward and then dropped out of sight in the
mass of objects on which the bust had rested.
“STOP!” Malfoy shouted at Crabbe, his voice echoing through the enormous
room. “The Dark Lord wants him alive –“
“So? I’m not killing him, am I?” yelled Crabbe, throwing off Malfoy’s restraining
arm. “But if I can, I will, the Dark Lord wants him dead anyway, what’s the diff – ?”
A jet of scarlet light shot past Harry by inches: Hermione had run around the
corner behind him and sent a Stunning Spell straight at Crabbe’s head. It only missed
because Malfoy pulled him out of the way.
“It’s that Mudblood! Avada Kedavra!”
Harry saw Hermione dive aside, and his fury that Crabbe had aimed to kill wiped
all else from his mind. He shot a Stunning Spell at Crabbe, who lurched out of the way,
knocking Malfoy’s wand out of his hand; it rolled out of sight beneath a mountain of
broken furniture and bones.
“Don’t kill him! DON’T KILL HIM!” Malfoy yelled at Crabbe and Goyle, who
were both aiming at Harry: Their split second’s hesitation was all Harry needed.
“Expelliarmus!”
Goyle’s wand flew out of his hand and disappeared into the bulwark of objects
beside him; Goyle leapt foolishly on the spot, trying to retrieve it; Malfoy jumped out of
range of Hermione’s second Stunning Spell, and Ron, appearing suddenly at the end of
the aisle, shot a full Body-Bind Curse at Crabbe, which narrowly missed.
Crabbe wheeled around and screamed, “Avada Kedavra!” again. Ron leapt out of
sight to avoid the jet of green light. The wand-less Malfoy cowered behind a three-legged
wardrobe as Hermione charged toward them, hitting Goyle with a Stunning Spell as she
came.
“It’s somewhere here!” Harry yelled at her, pointing at the pile of junk into which
the old tiara had fallen. “Look for it while I go and help R –“
“HARRY!” she screamed.
A roaring, billowing noise behind him gave him a moment’s warning. He turned
and saw both Ron and Crabbe running as hard as they could up the aisle toward them.
“Like it hot, scum?” roared Crabbe as he ran.
But he seemed to have no control over what he had done. Flames of abnormal size
were pursuing them, licking up the sides of the junk bulwarks, which were crumbling to
soot at their touch.
“Aguamenti!” Harry bawled, but the jet of water that soared from the tip of his
wand evaporated in the air.
“RUN!”
Malfoy grabbed the Stunned Goyle and dragged him along; Crabbe outstripped all
of them, now looking terrified; Harry, Ron, and Hermione pelted along in his wake, and
the fire pursued them. It was not normal fire; Crabbe had used a curse of which Harry had
no knowledge. As they turned a corner the flames chased them as though they were alive,
sentient, intent upon killing them. Now the fire was mutating, forming a gigantic pack of
fiery beasts: Flaming serpents, chimaeras, and dragons rose and fell and rose again, and
the detritus of centuries on which they were feeding was thrown up into the air into their
fanged mouths, tossed high on clawed feet, before being consumed by the inferno.
Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle had vanished from view: Harry, Ron and Hermione
stopped dead; the fiery monsters were circling them, drawing closer and closer, claws and
horns and tails lashed, and the heat was solid as a wall around them.
“What can we do?” Hermione screamed over the deafening roars of the fire.
“What can we do?”
“Here!”
Harry seized a pair of heavy-looking broomsticks from the nearest pile of junk
and threw one to Ron, who pulled Hermione onto it behind him. Harry swung his leg
over the second broom and, with hard kicks to the ground, they soared up in the air,
missing by feet the horned beak of a flaming raptor that snapped its jaws at them. The
smoke and heat were becoming overwhelming: Below them the cursed fire was
consuming the contraband of generations of hunted students, the guilty outcomes of a
thousand banned experiments, the secrets of the countless souls who had sought refuge in
the room. Harry couldnot see a trace of Malfoy, Crabbe, or Goyle anywhere. He swooped
as low as he dare over the marauding monsters of flame to try to find them, but there was
nothing but fire: What a terrible way to die. . . . He had never wanted this. . . .
“Harry, let’s get out, let’s get out!” bellowed Ron, though it was impossible to see
where the door was through the black smoke.
And then Harry heard a thin, piteous human scream from amidst the terrible
commotion, the thunder of devouring flame.
“It’s – too – dangerous – !” Ron yelled, but Harry wheeled in the air. His glasses
giving his eyes some small protection from the smoke, he raked the firestorm below,
seeking a sign of life, a limb or a face that was not yet charred like wood. . . .
And he saw them: Malfoy with his arms around the unconscious Goyle, the pair
of them perched on a fragile tower of charred desks, and Harry dived. Malfoy saw him
coming and raised one arm, but even as Harry grasped it he knew at once that it was no
good. Goyle was too heavy and Malfoy’s hand, covered in sweat, slid instantly out of
Harry’s –
“IF WE DIE FOR THEM, I’LL KILL YOU, HARRY!” roared Ron’s voice, and,
as a great flaming chimaera bore down upon them, he and Hermione dragged Goyle onto
their broom and rose, rolling and pitching, into the air once more as Malfoy clambered up
behind Harry.
“The door, get to the door, the door!” screamed Malfoy in Harry’s ear, and Harry
sped up, following Ron, Hermione, and Goyle through the billowing black smoke, hardly
able to breathe: and all around them the last few objects unburned by the devouring
flames were flung into the air, as the creatures of the cursed fire cast them high in
celebration: cups and shields, a sparkling necklace, and an old, discolored tiara –
“What are you doing, what are you doing, the door’s that way!” screamed Malfoy,
but Harry made a hairpin swerve and dived. The diadem seemed to fall in slow motion,
turning and glittering as it dropped toward the maw of a yawning serpent, and then he
had it, caught it around his wrist –
Harry swerved again as the serpent lunged at him; he soared upward and straight
toward the place where, he prayed, the door stood open; Ron, Hermione and Goyle had
vanished; Malfoy was screaming and holding Harry so tightly it hurt. Then, through the
smoke, Harry saw a rectangular patch on the wall and steered the broom at it, and
moments later clean air filled his lungs and they collided with the wall in the corridor
beyond.
Malfoy fell off the broom and lay facedown, gasping, coughing, and retching.
Harry rolled over and sat up: The door to the Room of Requirement had vanished, and
Ron and Hermione sat panting on the floor beside Goyle, who was still unconscious.
“C-Crabbe,” choked Malfoy as soon as he could speak. “C-Crabbe . . .”
“He’s dead,” said Ron harshly.
There was silence, apart from panting and coughing. Then a number of huge
bangs shook the castle, and a great cavalcade of transparent figures galloped past on
horses, their heads screaming with bloodlust under their arms. Harry staggered to his feet
when the Headless Hunt had passed and looked around: The battle was still going on all
around him. He could hear more scream than those of the retreating ghosts. Panic flared
within him.
“Where’s Ginny?” he said sharply. “She was here. She was supposed to be going
back into the Room of Requirement.”
“Blimey, d’you reckon it’ll still work after that fire?” asked Ron, but he too got to
his feet, rubbing his chest and looking left and right. “Shall we split up and look – ?”
“No,” said Hermione, getting to her feet too. Malfoy and Goyle remained
slumped hopelessly on the corridor floor; neither of them had wands. “Let’s stick
together. I say we go – Harry, what’s that on your arm?”
“What? Oh yeah –“
He pulled the diadem from his wrist and held it up. It was still hot, blackened with
soot, but as he looked at it closely he was just able to make out the tiny words etched
upon it; WIT BEYOND MEASURE IS MAN’S GREATEST TREASURE.
A bloodlike substance, dark and tarry, seemed to be leaking from the diadem.
Suddenly Harry felt the thing vibrate violently, then break apart in his hands, and as it did
so, he thought he heard the faintest, most distant scream of pain, echoing not from the
grounds or the castle, but from the thing that had just fragmented in his fingers.
“It must have been Fiendfyre!” whimpered Hermione, her eyes on the broken
piece.
“Sorry?”
“Fiendfyre – cursed fire – it’s one of the substances that destroy Horcruxes, but I
would never, ever have dared use it, it’s so dangerous – how did Crabbe know how to –
?”
“Must’ve learned from the Carrows,” said Harry grimly.
“Shame he wasn’t concentrating when they mentioned how to stop it, really,” said
Ron, whose hair, like Hermione’s, was singed, and whose face was blackened. “If he
hadn’t tried to kill us all, I’d be quite sorry he was dead.”
“But don’t you realize?” whispered Hermione. “This means, if we can just get the
snake –“
But she broke off as yells and shouts and the unmistakable noises of dueling filled
the corridor. Harry looked around and his heart seemed to fail: Death Eaters had
penetrated Hogwarts. Fred and Percy had just backed into view, both of them dueling
masked and hooded men.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione ran forward to help: Jets of light flew in every
direction and the man dueling Percy backed off, fast: Then his hood slipped and they saw
a high forehead and streaked hair –
“Hello, Minister!” bellowed Percy, sending a neat jinx straight at Thicknesse, who
dropped his wand and clawed at the front of his robes, apparently in awful discomfort.
“Did I mention I’m resigning?”
“You’re joking, Perce!” shouted Fred as the Death Eater he was battling collapsed
under the weight of three separate Stunning Spells. Thicknesse had fallen to the ground
with tiny spikes erupting all over him; he seemed to be turning into some form of sea
urchin. Fred looked at Percy with glee.
“You actually are joking, Perce. . . . I don’t think I’ve heard you joke since you
were –“
The air exploded. They had been grouped together, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Fred,
and Percy, the two Death Eaters at their feet, one Stunned, the other Transfigured; and in
that fragment of a moment, when danger seemed temporarily at bay, the world was rent
apart, Harry felt himself flying through the air, and all he could do was hold as tightly as
possible to that thin stick of wood that was his one and only weapon, and shield his head
in his arms: He heard the screams and yells of his companions without a hope of knowing
what had happened to them –
And then the world resolved itself into pain and semidarkness: He was half buried
in the wreckage of a corridor that had been subjected to a terrible attack. Cold air told
him that the side of the castle had been blown away, and hot stickiness on his cheek told
him that he was bleeding copiously. Then he heard a terrible cry that pulled at his insides,
that expressed agony of a kind neither flame nor curse could cause, and he stood up,
swaying, more frightened than he had been that day, more frightened, perhaps, than he
had been in his life. . . .
And Hermione was struggling to her feet in the wreckage, and three redheaded
men were grouped on the ground where the wall had blasted apart. Harry grabbed
Hermione’s hand as they staggered and stumbled over stone and wood.
“No – no – no!” someone was shouting. “No! Fred! No!”
And Percy was shaking his brother, and Ron was kneeling beside them, and Fred’s eyes
stared without seeing, the ghost of his last laugh still etched upon his face.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The Elder Wand
The world had ended, so why had the battle not ceased, the castle
fallen silent in horror, and every combatant laid down their arms?
Harry's mind was in free fall, spinning out of control, unable to
grasp the impossibility, because Fred Weasley could not be dead,
the evidence of all his senses must be lying--
And then a body fell past the hole blown into the side of the
school and curses flew in at them from the darkness, hitting the
wall behind their heads.
"Get down!" Harry shouted, as more curses flew through the night:
He and Ron had both grabbed Hermione and pulled her to the floor,
but Percy lay across Fred's body, shielding it from further harrm,
and when Harry shouted "Percy, come on, we've got to move!" he
shook his head.
"Percy!" Harry saw tear tracks streaking the grime coating ron's
face as he sezied his elder brother's shoulders and pulled, but
Percy would not budge. "Percy, you can't do anything for him! We're
going to--"
Hermione screamed, and Harry, turning, did not need to ask why. A
monstrous spider the size of a small car was trying to climb
through the huge hole in the wall. one of Aragog's descendants had
joined the fight.
Ron and Harry shouted together; their spells collided and the
monster was blown backward, its legs jerking horribly, and vanished
into the darkness.
"It brought friends!" Harry called to the others, glancing over the
edge of the castle through the hole in the wall the curses had
blasted. More giant spiders were climbing the side of the building,
liberated from the Forbidden Forest, into which the Death Eaters
must have penetrated. Harry fired Stunning Spells down upon them,
knocking the lead monster into its fellows, so that they rolled
back down the building and out of sight. Then more curses came
soaring over Harry's head, so close he felt the force of them blow
his hair.
"Let's move, NOW!"
Pushing Hermione ahead of him with ron, Harry stooped to seize
Fred's body under the armpit. Percy, realizing what Harry was
trying to do, stopped clinging to the body and helped: together,
crouching low to avoid the curses flying at them from the grounds,
they hauled Fred out of the way.
"Here," said Harry, and they placed him in a niche where a suit of
armor had stood earlier. He could not bear to look at Fred a second
longer than he had to, and after making sure that the body was wellhidden,
he took off after ron and Hermione. Malfoy and Goyle had
vanished but at the end of the corridor, which was now full of dust
and falling masonry, glass long gone from windows, he saw many
people running backward and forward, whether friends or foes he
could not tell. Rounding the corner, Percy let out a bull-like
roar: "ROOKWOOD!" and sprinted off in the direction of a tall man,
who was pursuing a couple of students.
"Harry, in here!" Hermione screamed.
She had pulled Ron behind a tapestry. They seemed to be wrestling
together, and for one mad second Harry thought that they were
embracing again; then hhe saw that Hermione was trying to restrain
Ron, to stop him running after Percy.
"Listen to me--LISTEN RON!"
"I wanna help--I wanna kill Death Eaters--"
His face was contorted, smeared with dust and smoke, and he was
shaking with rage and grief.
"ron, we're the only ones who can end it! Please--ron--we need the
snake, we've got to kill the snake!" said Hermione.
But Harry knew how Ron felt: Pursuing another Horcrux could not
bring the satisfaction of revenge; he too wanted to fight, to
punish them, the people who had killed Fred, and he wanted to find
the other Weasleys, and above all make sure, make quite sure, that
Ginny was not--but he could not permit that idea to form in his
mind--
"We will fight!" Hermione said. "We'll have to, to reach the snake!
But let's not lose sight now of what we're supposed to be d-doing!
We're the only ones who can end it!"
She was crying too, and she wiped her face on her torn and singed
sleeve as she spoke, but she took great heaving breaths to calm
herself as, still keeping a tight hold on ron, she turned to Harry.
"You need to find out where Voldemort is, because he'll have the
snake with him, won't he? Do it, Harry--look inside him!"
Why was it so easy? Because his scar had been burning for hours,
yearning to show him Voldemort's thoughts? He closed his eyes on
her command, and at once, the screams and bangs and all the
discordant sounds of the battle were drowned until they became
distant, as though he stood far, far away from them...
He was standing in the middle of a desolate but strangely familiar
room, with peeling paper on the walls and all the windows boarded
up except for one. The sounds of the assault on the castle were
muffled and distant. The single unblocked window revealed distant
bursts of light where the castle stood, but inside the room was
dark except for a solitary oil lamp.
He was rolling his wand between his figners, watching it, his
thoughts on the room in the castle, the secret room only he had
ever found, the room, like the chamber, that you had to be clever
and cunning and inquisitive to discover...He was confident that the
boy would not find the diadem...although Dumbledore's puppet had
come much farther than he ever expected...too far...
"My Lord," said a voice, desperate and cracked. He turned: there
was Lucius Malfoy sitting in the darkest corner, ragged and still
bearing the marks of the punishment he had received after the boy's
last escape. One of his eyes remained closed and puffy. "My
Lord...please...my son..."
"If your son is dead, Lucius, it is not my fault. He did not come
and join me, like the rest of the Slytherins. Perhaps he has
decided to befriend Harry Potter?"
"No--never," whispered Malfoy.
"You must hope not."
"Aren't--aren't you afraid, my Lord that Potter might die at
another hand but yours?" asked Malfoy, his voice shaking. "Wouldn't
it be...forgive me...more prudent to call off this battle, enter
the castle, and seek him y-yourself?"
"Do not pretend Lucius. You wish the battle to cease so that you
can discover what has happened to your son. And i do not need to
seek Potter. Before the night is out, Potter will have come to find
me."
Voldemort dropped his gaze once more to the wand in his fingers. It
troubled him...and those things that troubled Lord Voldemort needed
to be rearranged...
"Go and fetch Snape."
"Snape, m-my Lord?"
"Snape. Now. I need him. There is a --service--I require from him.
Go."
Frightened, stumbling a little through the gloom, Lucius left the
room. Vodlemort continued to stand there, twirling the wand between
his fingers, staring at it.
"It is the only way, Nagini," he whispered, and he looked around,
and there was the great thick snake, now suspended in midair,
twisting gracefully within the enchanted, protected space he had
made for her, a starry, transparent sphere somewhere between a
glittering cage and a tank.
With a gasp, Harry pulled back and opened his yees at the same
moment his ears were assaulted with the screeches and cries, the
smashes and bangs of battle.
"He's in the Shrieking Shack. The snake's with him, it's got some
sort of magical protection around it. He's just sent Lucius Malfoy
to find Snape."
"voldemort's sitting in the shrieking Shack?" said Hermione,
outraged. "He's not--he's not even FIGHTING?"
"He doesn't think he needs to fight," said Harry. "He thinks I'm
going to go to him."
"But why?"
"He knows I'm after Horcruxes--he's keeping Nagini close beside him-
-obviously I'm going to have to go to him to get near the thing--"
"Right," said Ron, squaring his shoulders. "So you can't go, that's
what he wants, what he's expecting. You stay here and look after
Hermione, and I'll go and get it--"
Harry cut across Ron.
"You two stay here, I'll go under the Cloak and I'll be back as
soon as I--"
"No," said Hermione,, "it makes much more sense if I take the Cloak
and--"
"Don't even think about it," Ron snarled at her.
before Hermione could get farther than "Ron, I'm just as capable --
" the tapestry at the top of the staircase on which they stood was
ripped open.
"POTTER!"
Two masked Death Eaters stood there, but even before their wands
were fully raised, Hermione shouted "Glisseo!"
The stairs beneath their feet flatteneed into a chute and she,
Harry, and Ron hurtled down it, unable to control their speed but
so fast that the Death Eaters' Stunning Spells flew far over their
heads. They shot through the concealing tapestry at the bottom and
spun onto the floor, hitting the opposite wall.
"Duro!" cried Hermione, pointing her wand at the tapestry, and
there were two loud, sickening crunches as the tapestry turned to
stone and the Death Eaters pursuing them crumpled against it.
"Get back!" shouted Ron, and he, Harry, and Hermione hurled
themselves against a door as a herd of galloping desks thundered
past, shepherdd by a sprinting Professor McGonagall. She appeared
not to notice them. Her hair had come down and there was a gash on
her cheek. As she turned the corner, they heard her scream,
"CHARGE!"
"Harry, you get the Cloak on," said Hermione. "Never mind us--"
But he threw it over all three of them; large though they were he
doubted anyone would see their disembodied feet through the dust
that clogged the air, the falling stone, the shimmer of spells.
they ran down the next staircase and found themselves in a corridor
full of duelers. The portraits on either side of the fighters were
crammed with figures screaming advice and encouragement, while
Death Eaters, both masked and unmasked, dueled students and
teachers. Dean had won himself a wand, for he was face-to-face with
Dolohov, Parvati with Travers. Harry, ron and Hermione raised their
wands at once, ready to strike, but the duelers were weaving and
darting so much that there was a strong likelihood of hurting on of
their own side if they cast curses. Even as they stood braced,
looking for the opportunity to act, there came a great "Wheeeeee!"
and looking up, Harry saw Peeves zoomign over them, dropping
Snargaluff pods down onto the Death Eaters, whose heads were
suddenly engulfed in wriggling green tubers like fat worms.
"ARGH!"
A fistful of tubers had hit the Cloak over Ron's head; the damp
green roots were suspended improbably in midair as Ron tried to
shake them loose.
"Someone's invisible there!" shouted a masked Death Eater, pointing.
Dean made the most of the Death Eater's momentary distraction,
knocking him out with a stunning Spell; Dolohov attempted to
retaliate, and Parvati shot a Body Bind Curse at him.
"LET'S GO!" Harry yelled, and he, Ron, and Hermione gathered the
Cloak tightly around themselves and pelted, heads down, through the
midst of the fighters, slipping a little in pools of Snargaluff
juice, toward the top of the marble staircase into the entrance
hall.
"I'm Draco Malfoy, I'm Draco, I'm on your side!"
Draco was on the upper landing, pleading with anoter masked Death
Eater. Harry Stunned the Death Eater as they passed. Malfoy looked
around, beaming, for his savior, and Ron punched him from under the
Cloak. Malfoy fell backward on top of the Death Eater, his mouth
bleeding, utterly bemused.
"And that's the second time we've saved your life tonight, you twofaced
bastard!" Ron yelled.
There were more duelers all over the stairs and in the hall. Death
Eaters everywhere Harry looked: Yaxley, close to the front doors,
in combat with Flitwick, a masked Death Eater dueling Kingsley
right beside them. Students ran in every direction; some carrying
or dragging injured friends. Harry directed a Stunnning Spell
toward the masked Death Eater; it missed but nearly hit Neville,
who had emerged from nowhere brandishing armfuls of Venomous
Tentacula, which looped itself happily around the nearest Death
Eater and began reeling him in.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione sped won the marble staircase: glass
shattered on the left, and the Slytherin hourglass that had
recorded House points spilled its emeralds everywhere, so that
people slipped and staggered as they ran. Two bodies fell from the
balcony overhead as they reached the ground a gray blur that Harry
took for an animal sped four-legged across the hall to sink its
teeth into one of the fallen.
"NO!" shrieked Hermione, and with a deafening blast from her wand,
Fenrir Greyback was thrown backward from the feebly struggling body
of Lavender Brown. He hit the marble banisters and struggled to
return to his feet. Then, with a bright white flash and a crack, a
crystal ball fell on top of his head, and he crumpled to the ground
and did not move.
"I have more!" shrieked Professor Trelawney from over the
banisters. "More for any who want them! Here--"
And with a move likea tennis serve, she heaved another enormous
crystal sphere from her bag, waved her wand through the air, and
caused the ball to speed across the hall and smash through a
window. At the same moment, the heavy wooden front doors burst
open, and more of the gigantic spiders forced their way into the
front hall.
Screams of terror rent the air: the fighters scattered, Death
Eaters and Hogwartians alike, and red and green jets of light flew
into the midst of the oncoming monsters, which shuddered and
reared, more terrifying than ever.
"How do we get out?" yelled ron over all the screaming, but before
either Harry or Hermione could answer they were bowled aside;
Hagrid had come thundering down the stairs, brandishing his flowery
pink umbrella.
"Don't hurt 'em, don't hurt 'em!" he yelled.
"HAGRID, NO!"
Harry forgot everything else: he sprinted out from under the cloak,
running bent double to avoid the curses illuminating the whole hall.
"HAGRID, COME BACK!"
But he was not even halfway to Hagrid when he saw it happen: Hagrid
vanished amongst the spiders, and with a great scurrying, a foul
swarming movement, they retreated under the onslaught of spells,
Hagrid buried in their midst.
"HAGRID!" Harry heard someone calling his own name, whether friend
or foe he did not care: He was springint down the front steps into
the dark grounds, and the spiders were swarming away with their
prey, and he could see nothing of Hagrid at all.
"HAGRID!"
He thought he could make out an enormous arm waving from the mdist
of the spider swarm, but as he made to chase after them, his way
was impeded by a monumental foot, which swung down out of the
darkness and made the ground on which he stood shudder. He looked
up: A giant stood before him, twenty feet high, its head ihidden in
shadow, nothing but its treelike, hairy shins illuminated by light
from the castle doors. With one brutal, fluid movement, it smashed
a massive fist through an upper window, and glass rained down upon
Harryk, forcing him back under the shelter of the doorway.
"Oh my--!" shrieked Hermione, as she and ron caught up with Harry
and gazed upward at the giant now trying to seize people through
the window above.
"DON'T!" ron yelled, grabbing Hermione's hand as she raised her
wand. "Stun him and he'll crush half the castle--"
"HAGGER?"
Grawp came lurching around the corner of the castle; only dnow did
Harry realzie that Grawp was, indeed, an undersized giant. The
gargantuan monster trying to crush people on the upper floors
turned around and let out a rorar. The stone steps tremebled as he
stomped toward his smaller kin, and Grawp's lopsided mouth fell
open, showing yellow, half brick-sized teeth; and then they
launched themselves at each other with the savagery of lions.
"RUN!" Harry roared; the ngiht was full of hideous yells and blows
as the giants wrestled, and he seized Hermione's hand and tore down
the steps into the grounds, Ron bringing up the rear. Harry had not
lost hope of finding and saving Hagrid; he ran so fast that they
were halfway toward the forest before they were brought up short
again.
The air around them had frozen: Harry's breath caught and
solidified in his chest. Shapes moved out in the darkness, swirling
figures of concentrated blackness, moving in a great wave towards
the castles, their faces hooded and their breath rattling...
ron and Hermione closed in beside him as the sounds of fighting
behind them grew suddenly muted, deadened, because a silence only
dementors could bring was falling thickly through the night, and
Fred was gone, and Hagrid was suurely dying or already dead...
"come on, Harry!" said Hermione's voice from a very long way away.
"Patronuses, Harry, come on!"
he raised his wand, but a dull hopelessness was spreading
throughout him: How many more lay dead that he did not yet know
about? He felt as though his soul had already half left his body....
"HARRY, COME ON!" screamed Hermione.
A hundred dementors were advancing, gliding toward them, sucking
their way closer to Harry's despair, which was like a promise of a
feast...
He saw Ron's silver terrier burst into the air, flicker feebly, and
expire; he saw Hermione's otter twist in midair and fade, and his
own wand trembled in his hand, and he almost welcomed the oncoming
oblivion, the promise of nothing, of no feeling...
And then a silver hare, a boar, and fox soared past Harry, Ron, and
Hermione's heads: the dementors fell back before the creatures'
approach. Three more people had arrived out of the darkness to
stand beside them, their wands outstretched, continuing to cast
Patronuses: Luna, Ernie, and Seamus.
"That's right," said Luna encouragingly, as if they were back in
the Room of Requirement and this was simply spell practice for the
D.A., "That's right, Harry...come on think of something happy..."
'something happy?" he said, his voice cracked.
"We're all still here," she whispered, "we;re still fighting. Come
on, now...."
There was a silver spark, then a wavering light, and then, with the
greatest effort it had ever cost him the stag burst from the end of
Harry's wand. It cantered forward, and now the dementors scattered
in earnest, and immediately the night was mild again, but the
sounds of the surrounding battle were loud in his ears.
"Can't thank you enough," said ron shakily, turning to Luna, Ernie,
and Seamus "you just saved--"
With a roar and an earth-quaking tremor, another giant came
lurching out of the darkness from the direction of the forest,
brandishing a club taller than any of them.
"RUN!" Harry shouted again, but the others needed no telling; They
all scattered, and not a second too soon, for the next moment the
creature's vast foot had fallen exactly where they had been
standing. Harry looked round: ron and Hermione were following him,
but the other three had vanished back into the battle.
"Let's get out of range!" yelled Ron as the giant swung its club
again and its bellows echoed through the night, across the grounds
wehere bursts of red and green light continued to illuminate the
darkness.
"The Whomping willow," said Harry, "go!"
Somehow he walled it all up in his mind, crammed it into a small
space into which he could not look now: thoughts of Fred and
Hagrid, and his terror for all the people he loved, scattered in
and outside the castle, must all wait, because they had to run, had
to reach the snake and Voldemort, because that was, as Hermione
said, the only way to end it--
He sprinted, half-believing he could outdistance death itself,
ignoring the jets of light flying in the darkness all around him,
and the sound of hte lake crashing like the sea, and the creaking
of the Forbidden Forest though the night was windless; through
grounds that seemed themselves to have risen in rebellion, he ran
faster than he had ever moved in his life, and it was he who saw
the great tree first, the Willow that protected the secret at its
roots with whiplike, slashing branches.
Panting and gasping, Harry slowed down, skirting the willow's
swiping branches, peering through the darkness toward its tick
trunk, trying to see the single knot in the bark of the old tree
that would paralyze it. Ron and Hermione caught up, Hermione so out
of breath that she could not speak.
"How--how're we going to get in?" panted ron. "I can--see the palce-
-if we jsut had--Crookshanks again--"
"Crookshanks?" wheezed Hermione, bent double, clutching her chest.
"Are you a wizard, or what?"
"Oh--right--yeah--"
Ron looked around, then directed his wand at a twig on the ground
and said "Winguardium Leviosa!" The twig flew up from the gruond,
spun through the air as if caught by a gust of wind, then zoomed
directly at the trunk through the Willow's ominously swaying
branches. It jabbed at a place near the roots, and at once, the
writhing tree became still.
"Perfect!" panted Hermione.
"Wait."
For one teetering second, while the crashes and booms of the battle
filled the air, Harry hesitated. Voldemort wanted him to do this,
wanted him to come...Was he leading Ron and Hermione into a trap?
But the reality seemed to close upon him, cruel and plain: the only
way forward was to kill the snake, and the snake was where
Voldemort was, and voldemort was at the end of this tunnel...
"Harry, we're coming, just get in there!" said Ron, pushing him
forward.
Harry wriggled into the earthy passage hidden in the tree's roots.
It was a much tighter squeeze than it had been the last time they
had entered it. The tunnel was low-ceilinged: they had had to
double up to move throuhgh it nearly four years previously; now
there was nothing for it but to crawl. Harry went first, his wand
illuminated, expecting at any moment to meet barriers, but none
came. They moved in silence, Harry's gaze fixed upon the swinging
beam of the wand held in his fist. At last, the tunnel began to
slope upward and Harry saw a sliver of light ahead. Hermione tugged
at his ankle.
"The Cloak!" she whispered. "Put the Cloak on!"
He groped behind him and she forced the bundle of slippery cloth
into his free hand. With difficulty he dragged it over himself,
murmered, "Nox," extinguishing his wandlight, and continued on his
hands and knees, as silently as possible, all his senses straining,
expecting every second to be discovered, to hear a cold clear
voice, see a flash of green light.
and then he heard voices coming from the room directly ahead of
them, only slightly muffled by the fact that the opening at the
endo fht etuunnel had been blocked up by what looked like an old
crate. Hardly daring to breathe, Harry edged right up tot he
opening and peered through a tiny gap left between crate and wall.
The room beyond was dimly lit, but he could see Nagini, swirlign
and coiling like a serpent underwater, safe in her enchanted,
starry sphere, which floated unsupported in midair. He could see
the edge of a table, and a long-fingered white hand toying with a
wand.
Then Snape spoke, and Harry's heart lurched: Snape was inches away
from where he crouched, hidden.
"...my Lord, their resistance is crumbling--"
"--and it is doing so without your help," said Voldemort in his
high, clear voice. "Skilled wizard though you are, Severus, I do
not think you will make much difference now. We are almost
there...almost."
"Let me find the boy. Let me bring you Potter. I know I can find
him, my Lord. Please."
Snape strode past the gap, and Harry drew back a little, keeping
his eyes fixed upon Nagini, wondering whether there was any spell
that might penetrate the protection surrounding her, but he could
not think of anything. One failed attempt, and he would give away
his position...
Voldemort stood up. Harry could see him now, see the red eyes, the
flattened, serpentine face, the pallor of him gleaming slightly in
the semidarkness.
"I have a problem, Severus," said Voldemort softly.
"My Lord?" said Snape.
Voldemort raised the Elder Wand, holding it as delicately and
precisely as a conductor's baton.
"Why doesn't it work for me, Severus?"
In the silence Harry imagined he could hear the snake hissing
slightly as it coiled and uncoiled--or was it Voldemort's sibilant
sigh lingering on the air?
"My--my lord?" said Snape blankly. "I do not understand. You--you
have performed extraordinary magic with that wand."
"No," said Voldemort. "I have performed my usual magic. I am
extraordinary, but this wand...no. It has not revealed the wonders
it has promised. I feel no difference between this wand and the one
I procured from Ollivander all those years ago."
Voldemort's tone was musing, calm, but Harry's scar had begun to
throb and pulse: Pain was building in his forehead, and he could
feel that controlled sense of fury building inside Voldemort.
"No difference," said Voldemort again.
Snape did not speak. Harry could not see his face. He wondered
whether Snape sensed danger, was trying to find the right words to
reassure his master.
Voldemort started to move around the room: Harry lost sight of him
for seconds as he prowled, speaking in that same measured voice,
while the pain and fury mounted in Harry.
"I have thought long and hard, Severus...do you know why I have
called you back from battle?"
And for a moment Harry saw Snape's profile. His eyes were fixed
upon the coiling snake in its enchanted cage.
"No, my Lord, but I beg you will let me return. Let me find Potter."
"You sound like Lucius. Neither of you understands Potter as I do.
He does not need finding. Potter will come to me. I knew his
weakness you see, his one great flaw. He will hate watching the
others struck down around him, knwoing that it is for him that it
happens. He will want to stop it at any cost. He will come."
"But my Lord, he might be killed accidentally by someone other than
yourself--"\
"My instructions to the Death Eaters have been perfectly clear.
Capture Potter. Kill his friends--the more, the better--but do not
kill him.
"But it is of you that I wished to speak, Severus, not Harry
Potter. You have been very valuable to me. Very valuable."
"My Lord knows I seek only to serve him. But--let me go and find
the boy, my Lord. Let me bring him to you. I know I can--"
"I have told you, no!" said Voldemort, and Harry caught the lgint
of red in his eyes as he turned again, and the swishing of his
cloak was like the slithering of a snake, and he felt Voldemort's
impatience in his burning scar. "My concern at the moment, Severus,
is what will happen when I finally meet the boy!"
"My Lord, there can be no question, surely--?"
"--but there is a question, Severus. There is."
Voldemort halted, and Harry could see him plainly again as he slid
the Elder Wand through his white fingers, staring at Snape.
"Why did both the wands I have used fail when directed at Harry
Potter?"
"I--I cannot answer that, my Lord."
"Can't you?"
The stab of rage felt like a spike driven through Harry's head: he
forced his own fist into his mouth to stop himself from crying out
in pain. He closed his eyes, and suddenly he was Voldemort, looking
into Snape's pale face.
"My wand of yew did everything of which I asked it, Severus, except
to kill Harry Potter. Twice it failed. Ollivander told me under
torture of the twin cores, told me to take another's wand. I did
so, but Lucius's wand shattered upon meeting Potter's."
"I--I have no explanation, my Lord."
Snape was not looking at Voldemort now. His dark eyes were still
fixed upon the coiling serpent in its protective sphere.
"I sought a third wand, Severus. the Elder Wand, the Wand of
Destiny, the Deathstick. I took it from its previous master. I took
it from the grfave of Albus Dumbledore."
And now Snape looked at Voldemort, and Snape's face was like a
death mask. it was marble white and so still that when he spoke, it
was a shock to see that anyone lived behind the blank eyes.
"My Lord--let me go to the boy--"
"all this long night when I am on the brink of victory, I have sat
here," said Voldemort, his voice barely louder than a whisper,
"wondering, wondering, why the Elder Wand refuses to be what it
ought to be, refuses to perform as legend says it must perform for
its rightful owner...and I think I have the answer."
Snape did not speak.
"Perhaps you already know it? You are a clever man, after all,
Severus. You have been a good and faithful servant, and I regret
what must happen."
"My Lord--"
"The Elder Wand cannot serve me properly, Severus, because I am not
its true master. The Elder Wand belongs to the wizard who killed
its last owner. You killed Albus Dumbledore. While you live,
Severus, the Elder Wand cannot truly be mine."
"My Lord!" Snape protested, raising his wand.
"It cannot be any other way," said Voldemort. "I must master the
wand, Severus. Master the wand, and I master Potter at last."
And Voldemort swiped the air with the Elder Wand. It did nothing to
Sanpe, who for a split second seemed to think he had been
reprieved: but then Voldemort's intention became clear. The snake's
cage was rolling through the air, and before Snape could do
anything more than yell, it had encased him, head and shoulders,
and Voldemort spoke in Parseltongue.
"Kill."
There was a terrible scream. Harry saw Snape's face losing the
little color it had left; it whitened as his black eyes widened, as
the snake's fangs pierced his neck, as he failed to push the
enchanted cage off himself, as his knees gave way and he fell to
the floor.
"I regret it," said Voldemort coldly.
He turned away; there was no sadness in him, no remorse. It was
time to leave this shack and take charge, with a wand that would
now do his full bidding. He pointed it at the starry cage holding
the snake, which drifted upward, off snape, who fell sideways onto
the floor, blood gushing from the wounds in his neck. Voldemort
swept from the room without a backward glance, and the great
serpent floated after him in its huge protective sphere.
Back in the tunnel and his own mind, Harry opened his eyes; He had
drawn blood biting down on his knuckles in an effort not to shout
out. Now he was looking through the tiny crack between crate and
wall, watching a foot in a black boot trembling on the floor.
"Harry!" breathed Hermione behind him, but he had already pointed
his wand at the crate blocking his view. It lifted an inch into the
air and drifted sideways silently. As quietly as he could, he
pulled himself up into the room.
He did not know why he was doing it, why he was approaching the
dying man: he did not know what he felt as he saw Snape's white
face, adn the fingers trying to staunch the bloody wound at his
neck. Harry took off the invisibility cloak and looked down upon
the man he hated, whose widening black eyes found Harry as he cried
to speak. Harry bent over him, and Snape seized the front of his
robes and pulled him close.
A terrible rasping, gurgling noise issued from Snape's throat.
"Take...it...Take...it..."
Something more than blood was leaking from Snape. Silvery blue,
neither gas nor liquid, it gushed form his mouth and his ears and
his eyes, and Harry knew what it was, but did not know what to do--
A flask, conjured from thin air, was thrust into his shaking hand
by Hermione. Harry lfited the silvery substance into it with his
wand. When the falsk was full to the brim, and Snape looked as
though there was no blood left in him, his grip on Harry's robes
slackened.
"Look...at....me..." he whispered.
The green eyes found the black, but after a second, something in
the depths of the dark pari seemed to vanish, leaving them fixed,
blank, and empty. The hand holding Harry thudded to the floor, and
Snape moved no more.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The Prince’s Tale
Harry remained kneeling at Snape’s side, simply staring down at him, until quite
suddenly a high, cold voice spoke so close to them that Harry jumped on his feet, the
flask gripped tightly in his hands, thinking that Voldemort had reentered the room.
Voldemort’s voice reverberated from the walls and floor, and Harry realized that
he was talking to Hogwarts and to all the surrounding area, that the residents of
Hogsmeade and all those still fighting in the castle would hear him as clearly as if he
stood beside them, his breath on the back of their necks, a deathblow away.
“You have fought,” said the high, cold voice, “valiantly. Lord Voldemort knows
how to value bravery.
“Yet you have sustained heavy losses. If you continue to resist me, you will all
die, one by one. I do not wish this to happen. Every drop of magical blood spilled is a
loss and a waste.
“Lord Voldemort is merciful. I command my forces to retreat immediately.
“You have one hour. Dispose of your dead with dignity. Treat your injured.
“I speak now, Harry Potter, directly to you. You have permitted your friends to
die for you rather than face me yourself. I shall wait for one hour in the Forbidden Forest.
If, at the end of that hour, you have not come to me, have not given yourself up, then
battle recommences. This time, I shall enter the fray myself, Harry Potter, and I shall find
you, and I shall punish every last man, woman, and child who has tried to conceal you
from me. One hour.”
Both Ron and Hermione shook their heads frantically, looking at Harry.
“Don’t listen to him,” said Ron.
“It’ll be all right,” said Hermione wildly. “Let’s – let’s get back to the castle, if
he’s gone to the forest we’ll need to think of a new plan – ”
She glanced at Snape’s body, then hurried back to the tunnel entrance. Ron
followed her. Harry gathered up the Invisibility Cloak, then looked down at Snape. He
did not know what to feel, except shock at the way Snape had been killed, and the reason
for which it had been done…
They crawled back through the tunnel, none of them talking, and Harry wondered
whether Ron and Hermione could still hear Voldemort ringing in their heads as he could.
You have permitted your friends to die for you rather than face me yourself. I
shall wait for one hour in the Forbidden Forest…One hour…
Small bundles seemed to litter the lawn at the front of the castle (?). It could only
be an hour or so from dawn, yet it was pitch-black. The three of them hurried toward the
stone steps. A lone dog, the size of a small boat, lay abandoned in front of them. There
was no other sign of Grawp or of his attacker.
The castle was unnaturally silent. There were no flashes of light now, no bangs or
screams or shouts. The flagstones of the deserted entrance hall were stained with blood.
Emeralds were still scattered all over the floor, along with pieces of marble and splintered
wood. Part of the banisters had been blown away.
“Where is everyone?” whispered Hermione.
Ron led the way to the Great Hall. Harry stopped in the doorway.
The House tables were gone and the room was crowded. The survivors stood in
groups, their arms around each other’s necks. The injured were being treated upon the
raised platform by Madam Pomfrey and a group of helpers. Firenze was amongst the
injured; his flank poured blood and he shook where he lay, unable to stand.
The dead lay in a row in the middle of the Hall. Harry could not see Fred’s body,
because his family surrounded him. George was kneeling at his head; Mrs. Weasley was
lying across Fred’s chest, her body shaking. Mr. Weasley stroking her hair while tears
cascaded down his cheeks.
Without a word to Harry, Ron and Hermione walked away. Harry saw Hermione
approach Ginny, whose face was swollen and blotchy, and hug her. Ron joined Bill, Fleur,
and Percy, who flung an arm around Ron’s shoulders. As Ginny and Hermione moved
closer to the rest of the family, Harry had a clear view of the bodies lying next to Fred.
Remus and Tonks, pale and still and peaceful-looking, apparently asleep beneath the dark,
enchanted ceiling.
The Great Hall seemed to fly away, become smaller, shrink, as Harry reeled
backward from the doorway. He could not draw breath. He could not bear to look at any
of the other bodies, to see who else had died for him. He could not bear to join the
Weasleys, could not look into their eyes, when if he had given himself up in the first
place, Fred might never have died…
He turned away and ran up the marble staircase. Lupin, Tonks… He yearned not
to feel… He wished he could rip out his heart, his innards, everything that was screaming
inside him…
The castle was completely empty; even the ghosts seemed to have joined the mass
mourning in the Great Hall. Harry ran without stopping, clutching the crystal flask of
Snape’s last thoughts, and he did not slow down until he reached the stone gargoyle
guarding the headmaster’s office.
“Password?”
“Dumbledore!” said Harry without thinking, because it was he whom he yearned
to see, and to his surprise the gargoyle slid aside revealing the spiral staircase behind.
But when Harry burst into the circular office he found a change. The portraits that
hung all around the walls were empty. Not a single headmaster or headmistress remained
to see him; all, it seemed, had flitted away, charging through the paintings that lined the
castle so that they could have a clear view of what was going on.
Harry glanced hopelessly at Dumbledore’s deserted frame, which hung directly
behind the headmaster’s chair, then turned his back on it. The stone Pensieve lay in the
cabinet where it had always been. Harry heaved it onto the desk and poured Snape’s
memories into the wide basin with its runic markings around the edge. To escape into
someone else’s head would be a blessed relief… Nothing that even Snape had left him
could be worse than his own thoughts. The memories swirled, silver white and strange,
and without hesitating, with a feeling of reckless abandonment, as though this would
assuage his torturing grief, Harry dived.
He fell headlong into sunlight, and his feet found warm ground. When he
straightened up, he saw that he was in a nearly deserted playground. A single huge
chimney dominated the distant skyline. Two girls were swinging backward and forward,
and a skinny boy was watching them from behind a clump of bushes. His black hair was
overlong and his clothes were so mismatched that it looked deliberate: too short jeans, a
shabby, overlarge coat that might have belonged to a grown man, an odd smocklike shirt.
Harry moved closer to the boy. Snape looked no more than nine or ten years old,
sallow, small, stringy. There was undisguised greed in his thin face as he watched the
younger of the two girls swinging higher and higher than her sister.
“Lily, don’t do it!” shrieked the elder of the two.
But the girl had let go of the swing at the very height of its arc and flown into the
air, quite literally flown, launched herself skyward with a great shout of laughter, and
instead of crumpling on the playground asphalt, she soared like a trapeze artist through
the air, staying up far too long, landing far too lightly.
“Mummy told you not to!”
Petunia stopped her swing by dragging the heels of her sandals on the ground,
making a crunching, grinding sound, then leapt up, hands on hips.
“Mummy said you weren’t allowed, Lily!”
“But I’m fine,” said Lily, still giggling. “Tuney, look at this. Watch what I can
do.”
Petunia glanced around. The playground was deserted apart from themselves and,
though the girls did not know it, Snape. Lily had picked up a fallen flower from the bush
behind which Snape lurked. Petunia advanced, evidently torn between curiosity and
disapproval. Lily waited until Petunia was near enough to have a clear view, then held
out her palm. The flower sat there, opening and closing its petals, like some bizarre,
many-lipped oyster.
“Stop it!” shrieked Petunia.
“It’s not hurting you,” said Lily, but she closed her hand on the blossom and
threw it back to the ground.
“It’s not right,” said Petunia, but her eyes had followed the flower’s flight to the
ground and lingered upon it. “How do you do it?” she added, and there was definite
longing in her voice.
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Snape could no longer contain himself, but had jumped
out from behind the bushes. Petunia shrieked and ran backward toward the swings, but
Lily, though clearly startled, remained where she was. Snape seemed to regret his
appearance. A dull flush of color mounted the sallow cheeks as he looked at Lily.
“What’s obvious?” asked Lily.
Snape had an air of nervous excitement. With a glance at the distant Petunia, now
hovering beside the swings, he lowered his voice and said, “I know what you are.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re…you’re a witch,” whispered Snape.
She looked affronted.
“That’s not a very nice thing to say to somebody!”
She turned, nose in the air, and marched off toward her sister.
“No!” said Snape. He was highly colored now, and Harry wondered why he did
not take off the ridiculously large coat, unless it was because he did not want to reveal the
smock beneath it. He flapped after the girls, looking ludicrously batlike, like his older self.
The sisters considered him, united in disapproval, both holding on to one of the
swing poles, as though it was the safe place in tag.
“You are,” said Snape to Lily. “You are a witch. I’ve been watching you for a
while. But there’s nothing wrong with that. My mum’s one, and I’m a wizard.”
Petunia’s laugh was like cold water.
“Wizard!” she shrieked, her courage returned now that she had recovered from
the shock of his unexpected appearance. “I know who you are. You’re that Snape boy!
They live down Spinner’s End by the river,” she told Lily, and it was evident from her
tone that she considered the address a poor recommendation. “Why have you been spying
on us?”
“Haven’t been spying,” said Snape, hot and uncomfortable and dirty-haired in the
bright sunlight. “Wouldn’t spy on you, anyway,” he added spitefully, “you’re a Muggle.”
Though Petunia evidently did not understand the word, she could hardly mistake
the tone.
“Lily, come on, we’re leaving!” she said shrilly. Lily obeyed her sister at once,
glaring at Snape as she left. He stood watching them as they marched through the
playground gate, and Harry, the only one left to observe him, recognized Snape’s bitter
disappointment, and understood that Snape had been planning this moment for a while,
and that it had all gone wrong…
The scene dissolved, and before Harry knew it, re-formed around him. He was
now in a small thicket of trees. He could see a sunlit river glittering through their trunks.
The shadows cast by the trees made a basin of cool green shade. Two children sat facing
each other, cross-legged on the ground. Snape had removed his coat now; his odd smock
looked less pecular in the half light.
“…and the Ministry can punish you if you do magic outside school, you get
letters.”
“But I have done magic outside school!”
“We’re all right. We haven’t got wands yet. They let you off when you’re a kid
and you can’t help it. But once you’re eleven,” he nodded importantly, “and they start
training you, then you’ve got to go careful.”
There was a little silence. Lily had picked up a fallen twig and twirled it in the air,
and Harry knew that she was imagining sparks trailing from it. Then she dropped the twig,
leaned in toward the boy, and said, “It is real, isn’t it? It’s not a joke? Petunia says you’re
lying to me. Petunia says there isn’t a Hogwarts. It is real, isn’t it?”
“It’s real for us,” said Snape. “Not for her. But we’ll get the letter, you and me.”
“Really?” whispered Lily.
“Definitely,” said Snape, and even with his poorly cut hair and his odd clothes, he
struck an oddly impressive figure sprawled in front of her, brimful of confidence in his
destiny.
“And will it really come by owl?” Lily whispered.
“Normally,” said Snape. “But you’re Muggle-born, so someone from the school
will have to come and explain to your parents.”
“Does it make a difference, being Muggle-born?”
Snape hesitated. His black eyes, eager in the greenish gloom, moved over the pale
face, the dark red hair.
“No,” he said. “It doesn’t make any difference.”
“Good,” said Lily, relaxing. It was clear that she had been worrying.
“You’ve got loads of magic,” said Snape. “I saw that. All the time I was watching
you…”
His voice trailed away; she was not listening, but had stretched out on the leafy
ground and was looking up at the canopy of leaves overhead. He watched her as greedily
as he had watched her in the playground.
“How are things at your house?” Lily asked.
A little crease appeared between his eyes.
“Fine,” he said.
“They’re not arguing anymore?”
“Oh yes, they’re arguing,” said Snape. He picked up a fistful of leaves and began
tearing them apart, apparently unaware of what he was doing. “But it won’t be that long
and I’ll be gone.”
“Doesn’t your dad like magic?”
“He doesn’t like anything, much,” said Snape.
“Severus?”
A little smile twisted Snape’s mouth when she said his name.
“Yeah?”
“Tell me about the dementors again.”
“What d’you want to know about them for?”
“If I use magic outside school – ”
“They wouldn’t give you to the dementors for that! Dementors are for people who
do really bad stuff. They guard the wizard prison, Azkaban. You’re not going to end up
in Azkaban, you’re too – ”
He turned red again and shredded more leaves. Then a small rustling noise behind
Harry made him turn: Petunia, hiding behind a tree, had lost her footing.
“Tuney!” said Lily, surprise and welcome in her voice, but Snape had jumped to
his feet.
“Who’s spying now?” he shouted. “What d’you want?”
Petunia was breathless, alarmed at being caught. Harry could see her struggling
for something hurtful to say.
“What is that you’re wearing, anyway?” she said, pointing at Snape’s chest.
“Your mum’s blouse?”
There was a crack. A branch over Petunia’s head had fallen. Lily screamed. The
branch caught Petunia on the shoulder, and she staggered backward and burst into tears.
“Tuney!”
But Petunia was running away. Lily rounded on Snape.
“Did you make that happen?”
“No.” He looked both defiant and scared.
“You did!” She was backing away from him. “You did! You hurt her!”
“No – no, I didn’t!”
But the lie did not convince Lily. After one last burning look, she ran from the
little thicket, off after her sister, and Snape looked miserable and confused…
And the scene re-formed. Harry looked around. He was on platform nine and
three quarters, and Snape stood beside him, slightly hunched, next to a thin, sallow-faced,
sour-looking woman who greatly resembled him. Snape was staring at a family of four a
short distance away. The two girls stood a little apart from their parents. Lily seemed to
be pleading with her sister. Harry moved closer to listen.
“…I’m sorry, Tuney, I’m sorry! Listen – ” She caught her sister’s hand and held
tight to it, even though Petunia tried to pull it away. “Maybe once I’m there – no, listen,
Tuney! Maybe once I’m there, I’ll be able to go to Professor Dumbledore and persuade
him to change his mind!”
“I don’t – want – to – go!” said Petunia, and she dragged her hand back out of her
sister’s grasp. “You think I want to go to some stupid castle and learn to be a – a…”
Her pale eyes roved over the platform, over the cats mewling in their owners’
arms, over the owls, fluttering and hooting at each other in cages, over the students, some
already in their long black robes, loading trunks onto the scarlet steam engine or else
greeting one another with glad cries after a summer apart.
“ – you think I want to be a – a freak?”
Lily’s eyes filled with tears as Petunia succeeded in tugging her hand away.
“I’m not a freak,” said Lily. “That’s a horrible thing to say.”
“That’s where you’re going,” said Petunia with relish. “A special school for
freaks. You and that Snape boy…weirdos, that’s what you two are. It’s good you’re
being separated from normal people. It’s for our safety.”
Lily glanced toward her parents, who were looking around the platform with an
air of wholehearted enjoyment, drinking in the scene. Then she looked back at her sister,
and her voice was low and fierce.
“You didn’t think it was such a freak’s school when you wrote to the headmaster
and begged him to take you.”
Petunia turned scarlet.
“Beg? I didn’t beg!”
“I saw his reply. It was very kind.”
“You shouldn’t have read – ” whispered Petunia, “that was my private – how
could you – ?”
Lily gave herself away by half-glancing toward where Snape stood nearby.
Petunia gasped.
“That boy found it! You and that boy have been sneaking in my room!”
“No – not sneaking – ” Now Lily was on the defensive. “Severus saw the
envelope, and he couldn’t believe a Muggle could have contacted Hogwarts, that’s all!
He says there must be wizards working undercover in the postal service who take care of
– ”
“Apparently wizards poke their noses in everywhere!” said Petunia, now as pale
as she had been flushed. “Freak!” she spat at her sister, and she flounced off to where her
parents stood…
The scene dissolved again. Snape was hurrying along the corridor of the
Hogwarts Express as it clattered through the countryside. He had already changed into his
school robes, had perhaps taken the first opportunity to take off his dreadful Muggle
clothes. At last he stopped, outside a compartment in which a group of rowdy boys were
talking. Hunched in a corner seat beside the window was Lily, her face pressed against
the windowpane.
Snape slid open the compartment door and sat down opposite Lily. She glanced at
him and then looked back out of the window. She had been crying.
“I don’t want to talk to you,” she said in a constricted voice.
“Why not?”
“Tuney h-hates me. Because we saw that letter from Dumbledore.”
“So what?”
She threw him a look of deep dislike.
“So she’s my sister!”
“She’s only a – ” He caught himself quickly; Lily, too busy trying to wipe her
eyes without being noticed, did not hear him.
“But we’re going!” he said, unable to suppress the exhilaration in his voice. “This
is it! We’re off to Hogwarts!”
She nodded, mopping her eyes, but in spite of herself, she half smiled.
“You’d better be in Slytherin,” said Snape, encouraged that she had brightened a
little.
“Slytherin?”
One of the boys sharing the compartment, who had shown no interest at all in Lily
or Snape until that point, looked around at the word, and Harry, whose attention had been
focused entirely on the two beside the window, saw his father: slight, black-haired like
Snape, but with that indefinable air of having been well-cared-for, even adored, that
Snape so conspicuously lacked.
“Who wants to be in Slytherin? I think I’d leave, wouldn’t you?” James asked the
boy lounging on the seats opposite him, and with a jolt, Harry realized that it was Sirius.
Sirius did not smile.
“My whole family have been in Slytherin,” he said.
“Blimey,” said James, “and I thought you seemed all right!”
Sirius grinned.
“Maybe I’ll break the tradition. Where are you heading, if you’ve got the choice?”
James lifted an invisible sword.
“‘Gryffindor, where dwell the brave at heart!’ Like my dad.”
Snape made a small, disparaging noise. James turned on him.
“Got a problem with that?”
“No,” said Snape, though his slight sneer said otherwise. “If you’d rather be
brawny than brainy – ”
“Where’re you hoping to go, seeing as you’re neither?” interjected Sirius.
James roared with laughter. Lily sat up, rather flushed, and looked from James to
Sirius in dislike.
“Come on, Severus, let’s find another compartment.”
“Oooooo…”
James and Sirius imitated her lofty voice; James tried to trip Snape as he passed.
“See ya, Snivellus!” a voice called, as the compartment door slammed…
And the scene dissolved once more…
Harry was standing right behind Snape as they faced the candlelit House tables,
lined with rapt faces. Then Professor McGonagall said, “Evans, Lily!”
He watched his mother walk forward on trembling legs and sit down upon the
rickety stool. Professor McGonagall dropped the Sorting Hat onto her head, and barely a
second after it had touched the dark red hair, the hat cried, “Gryffindor!”
Harry heard Snape let out a tiny groan. Lily took off the hat, handed it back to
Professor McGonagall, then hurried toward the cheering Gryffindors, but as she went she
glanced back at Snape, and there was a sad little smile on her face. Harry saw Sirius
move up the bench to make room for her. She took one look at him, seemed to recognize
him from the train, folded her arms, and firmly turned her back on him.
The roll call continued. Harry watched Lupin, Pettigrew, and his father join Lily
and Sirius at the Gryffindor table. At last, when only a dozen students remained to be
sorted, Professor McGonagall called Snape.
Harry walked with him to the stool, watched him place the hat upon his head.
“Slytherin!” cried the Sorting Hat.
And Severus Snape moved off to the other side of the Hall, away from Lily, to
where the Slytherins were cheering him, to where Lucius Malfoy, a prefect badge
gleaming upon his chest, patted Snape on the back as he sat down beside him…
And the scene changed…
Lily and Snape were walking across the castle courtyard, evidently arguing. Harry
hurried to catch up with them, to listen in. As he reached them, he realized how much
taller they both were. A few years seemed to have passed since their Sorting.
“…thought we were supposed to be friends?” Snape was saying, “Best friends?”
“We are, Sev, but I don’t like some of the people you’re hanging round with! I’m
sorry, but I detest Avery and Mulciber! Mulciber! What do you see in him, Sev, he’s
creepy! D’you know what he tried to do to Mary Macdonald the other day?”
Lily had reached a pillar and leaned against it, looking up into the thin, sallow
face.
“That was nothing,” said Snape. “It was a laugh, that’s all – ”
“It was Dark Magic, and if you think that’s funny – ”
“What about the stuff Potter and his mates get up to?” demanded Snape. His color
rose again as he said it, unable, it seemed, to hold in his resentment.
“What’s Potter got to do with anything?” said Lily.
“They sneak out at night. There’s something weird about that Lupin. Where does
he keep going?”
“He’s ill,” said Lily. “They say he’s ill – ”
“Every month at the full moon?” said Snape.
“I know your theory,” said Lily, and she sounded cold. “Why are you so obsessed
with them anyway? Why do you care what they’re doing at night?”
“I’m just trying to show you they’re not as wonderful as everyone seems to think
they are.”
The intensity of his gaze made her blush.
“They don’t use Dark Magic, though.” She dropped her voice. “And you’re being
really ungrateful. I heard what happened the other night. You went sneaking down that
tunnel by the Whomping Willow, and James Potter saved you from whatever’s down
there – ”
Snape’s whole face contorted and he spluttered, “Saved? Saved? You think he
was playing the hero? He was saving his neck and his friends’ too! You’re not going to –
I won’t let you – ”
“Let me? Let me?”
Lily’s bright green eyes were slits. Snape backtracked at once.
“I didn’t m ean – I just don’t want to see you made a fool of – He fancies you,
James Potter fancies you!” The words seemed wrenched from him against his will. “And
he’s not…everyone thinks…big Quidditch hero – ” Snape’s bitterness and dislike were
rendering him incoherent, and Lily’s eyebrows were traveling farther and farther up her
forehead.
“I know James Potter’s an arrogant toerag,” she said, cutting across Snape. “I
don’t need you to tell me that. But Mulciber’s and Avery’s idea of humor is just evil. Evil,
Sev. I don’t understand how you can be friends with them.”
Harry doubted that Snape had even heard her strictures on Mulciber and Avery.
The moment she had insulted James Potter, his whole body had relaxed, and as they
walked away there was a new spring in Snape’s step…
And the scene dissolved…
Harry watched again as Snape left the Great Hall after sitting his O.W.L. in
Defense Against the Dark Arts, watched as he wandered away from the castle and strayed
inadvertently close to the place beneath the beech tree where James, Sirius, Lupin, and
Pettigrew sat together. But Harry kept his distance this time, because he knew what
happened after James had hoisted Severus into the air and taunted him; he knew what had
been done and said, and it gave him no pleasure to hear it again… He watched as Lily
joined the group and went to Snape’s defense. Distantly he heard Snape shout at her in
his humiliation and his fury, the unforgivable word: “Mudblood.”
The scene changed…
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not interested.”
“I’m sorry!”
“Save your breath”
It was nighttime. Lily, who was wearing a dressing gown, stood with her arms
folded in front of the portrait of the Fat Lady, at the entrance to Gryffindor Tower.
“I only came out because Mary told me you were threatening to sleep here.”
“I was. I would have done. I never meant to call you Mudblood, it just – ”
“Slipped out?” There was no pity in Lily’s voice. “It’s too late. I’ve made excuses
for you for years. None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you. You and
your precious little Death Eater friends – you see, you don’t even deny it! You don’t even
deny that’s what you’re all aiming to be! You can’t wait to join You-Know-Who, can
you?”
He opened his mouth, but closed it without speaking.
“I can’t pretend anymore. You’ve chosen your way, I’ve chosen mine.”
“No – listen, I didn’t mean – ”
“ – to call me Mudblood? But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus.
Why should I be any different?”
He struggled on the verge of speech, but with a contemptuous look she turned and
climbed back through the portrait hole…
The corridor dissolved, and the scene took a little longer to reform: Harry seemed
to fly through shifting shapes and colors until his surroundings solidified again and he
stood on a hilltop, forlorn and cold in the darkness, the wind whistling through the
branches of a few leafless trees. The adult Snape was panting, turning on the spot, his
wand gripped tightly in his hand, waiting for something or for someone… His fear
infected Harry too, even though he knew that he could not be harmed, and he looked over
his shoulder, wondering what it was that Snape was waiting for –
Then a blinding, jagged jet of white light flew through the air. Harry thought of
lightning, but Snape had dropped to his knees and his wand had flown out of his hand.
“Don’t kill me!”
“That was not my intention.”
Any sound of Dumbledore Apparating had been drowned by the sound of the
wind in the branches. He stood before Snape with his robes whipping around him, and his
face was illuminated from below in the light cast by his wand.
“Well, Severus? What message does Lord Voldemort have for me?”
“No – no message – I’m here on my own account!”
Snape was wringing his hands. He looked a little mad, with his straggling black
hair flying around him.
“I – I come with a warning – no, a request – please – ”
Dumbledore flicked his wand. Though leaves and branches still flew through the
night air around them, silence fell on the spot where he and Snape faced each other.
“What request could a Death Eater make of me?”
“The – the prophecy…the prediction…Trelawney…”
“Ah, yes,” said Dumbledore. “How much did you relay to Lord Voldemort?”
“Everything – everything I heard!” said Snape. “That is why – it is for that reason
– he thinks it means Lily Evans!”
“The prophecy did not refer to a woman,” said Dumbledore. “It spoke of a boy
born at the end of July – ”
“You know what I mean! He thinks it means her son, he is going to hunt her down
– kill them all – ”
“If she means so much to you,” said Dumbledore, “surely Lord Voldemort will
spare her? Could you not ask for mercy for the mother, in exchange for the son?”
“I have – I have asked him – ”
“You disgust me,” said Dumbledore, and Harry had never heard so much
contempt in his voice. Snape seemed to shrink a little, “You do not care, then, about the
deaths of her husband and child? They can die, as long as you have what you want?”
Snape said nothing, but merely looked up at Dumbledore.
“Hide them all, then,” he croaked. “Keep her – them – safe. Please.”
“And what will you give me in return, Severus?”
“In – in return?” Snape gaped at Dumbledore, and Harry expected him to protest,
but after a long moment he said, “Anything.”
The hilltop faded, and Harry stood in Dumbledore’s office, and something was
making a terrible sound, like a wounded animal. Snape was slumped forward in a chair
and Dumbledore was standing over him, looking grim. After a moment or two, Snape
raised his face, and he looked like a man who had lived a hundred years of misery since
leaving the wild hilltop.
“I thought…you were going…to keep her…safe…”
“She and James put their faith in the wrong person,” said Dumbledore. “Rather
like you, Severus. Weren’t you hoping that Lord Voldemort would spare her?”
Snape’s breathing was shallow.
“Her boy survives,” said Dumbledore.
With a tiny jerk of the head, Snape seemed to flick off an irksome fly.
“Her son lives. He has her eyes, precisely her eyes. You remember the shape and
color of Lily Evans’s eyes, I am sure?”
“DON’T!” bellowed Snape. “Gone…dead…”
“Is this remorse, Severus?”
“I wish…I wish I were dead…”
“And what use would that be to anyone?” said Dumbledore coldly. “If you loved
Lily Evans, if you truly loved her, then your way forward is clear.”
Snape seemed to peer through a haze of pain, and Dumbledore’s words appeared
to take a long time to reach him.
“What – what do you mean?”
“You know how and why she died. Make sure it was not in vain. Help me protect
Lily’s son.”
“He does not need protection. The Dark Lord has gone – ”
“The Dark Lord will return, and Harry Potter will be in terrible danger when he
does.”
There was a long pause, and slowly Snape regained control of himself, mastered
his own breathing. At last he said, “Very well. Very well. But never – never tell,
Dumbledore! This must be between us! Swear it! I cannot bear…especially Potter’s
son…I want your word!”
“My word, Severus, that I shall never reveal the best of you?” Dumbledore sighed,
looking down into Snape’s ferocious, anguished face. “If you insist…”
The office dissolved but re-formed instantly. Snape was pacing up and down in
front of Dumbledore.
“ – mediocre, arrogant as his father, a determined rule-breaker, delighted to find
himself famous, attention-seeking and impertinent – ”
“You see what you expect to see, Severus,” said Dumbledore, without raising his
eyes from a copy of Transfiguration Today. “Other teachers report that the boy is modest,
likable, and reasonably talented. Personally, I find him an engaging child.”
Dumbledore turned a page, and said, without looking up, “Keep an eye on
Quirrell, won’t you?”
A whirl of color, and now everything darkened, and Snape and Dumbledore stood
a little apart in the entrance hall, while the last stragglers from the Yule Ball passed them
on their way to bed.
“Well?” murmured Dumbledore.
“Karkaroff’s Mark is becoming darker too. He is panicking, he fears retribution;
you know how much help he gave the Ministry after the Dark Lord fell.” Snape looked
sideways at Dumbledore’s crooked-nosed profile. “Karkaroff intends to flee if the Mark
burns.”
“Does he?” said Dumbledore softly, as Fleur Delacour and Roger Davies came
giggling in from the grounds. “And are you tempted to join him?”
“No,” said Snape, his black eyes on Fleur’s and Roger’s retreating figures. “I am
not such a coward.”
“No,” agreed Dumbledore. “You are a braver man by far than Igor Karkaroff.
You know, I sometimes think we Sort too soon…”
He walked away, leaving Snape looking stricken…
And now Harry stood in the headmaster’s office yet again. It was nighttime, and
Dumbledore sagged sideways in the thronelike chair behind the desk, apparently
semiconscious. His right hand dangled over the side, blackened and burned. Snape was
muttering incantations, pointing his wand at the wrist of the hand, while with his left
hand he tipped a goblet full of thick golden potion down Dumbledore’s throat. After a
moment or two, Dumbledore’s eyelids fluttered and opened.
“Why,” said Snape, without preamble, “why did you put on that ring? It carries a
curse, surely you realized that. Why even touch it?”
Marvolo Gaunt’s ring lay on the desk before Dumbledore. It was cracked; the
sword of Gryffindor lay beside it.
Dumbledore grimaced.
“I…was a fool. Sorely tempted…”
“Tempted by what?”
Dumbledore did not answer.
“It is a miracle you managed to return here!” Snape sounded furious. “That ring
carried a curse of extraordinary power, to contain it is all we can hope for; I have trapped
the curse in one hand for the time being – ”
Dumbledore raised his blackened, useless hand, and examined it with the
expression of one being shown an interesting curio.
“You have done very well, Severus. How long do you think I have?”
Dumbledore’s tone was conversational; he might have been asking for a weather
forecast. Snape hesitated, and then said, “I cannot tell. Maybe a year. There is no halting
such a spell forever. It will spread eventually, it is the sort of curse that strengthens over
time.”
Dumbledore smiled. The news that he had less than a year to live seemed a matter
of little or no concern to him.
“I am fortunate, extremely fortunate, that I have you, Severus.”
“If you had only summoned me a little earlier, I might have been able to do more,
buy you more time!” said Snape furiously. He looked down at the broken ring and the
sword. “Did you think that breaking the ring would break the curse?”
“Something like that…I was delirious, no doubt…” said Dumbledore. With an
effort he straightened himself in his chair. “Well, really, this makes matters much more
straightforward.”
Snape looked utterly perplexed. Dumbledore smiled.
“I refer to the plan Lord Voldemort is revolving around me. His plan to have the
poor Malfoy boy murder me.”
Snape sat down in the chair Harry had so often occupied, across the desk from
Dumbledore. Harry could tell that he wanted to say more on the subject of Dumbledore’s
cursed hand, but the other held it up in polite refusal to discuss the matter further.
Scowling, Snape said, “The Dark Lord does not expect Draco to succeed. This is merely
punishment for Lucius’s recent failures. Slow torture for Draco’s parents, while they
watch him fail and pay the price.”
“In short, the boy has had a death sentence pronounced upon him as surely as I
have,” said Dumbledore. “Now, I should have thought the natural successor to the job,
once Draco fails, is yourself?”
There was a short pause.
“That, I think, is the Dark Lord’s plan.”
“Lord Voldemort foresees a moment in the near future when he will not need a
spy at Hogwarts?”
“He believes the school will soon be in his grasp, yes.”
“And if it does fall into his grasp,” said Dumbledore, almost, it seemed, as an
aside, “I have your word that you will do all in your power to protect the students at
Hogwarts?”
Snape gave a stiff nod.
“Good. Now then. Your first priority will be to discover what Draco is up to. A
frightened teenage boy is a danger to others as well as to himself. Offer him help and
guidance, he ought to accept, he likes you – ”
“ – much less since his father has lost favor. Draco blames me, he thinks I have
usurped Lucius’s position.”
“All the same, try. I am concerned less for myself than for accidental victims of
whatever schemes might occur to the boy. Ultimately, of course, there is only one thing
to be done if we are to save him from Lord Voldemort’s wrath.”
Snape raised his eyebrows and his tone was sardonic as he asked, “Are you
intending to let him kill you?”
“Certainly not. You must kill me.”
There was a long silence, broken only by an odd clicking noise. Fawkes the
phoenix was gnawing a bit of cuttlebone.
“Would you like me to do it now?” asked Snape, his voice heavy with irony. “Or
would you like a few moments to compose an epitaph?”
“Oh, not quite yet,” said Dumbledore, smiling. “I daresay the moment will present
itself in due course. Given what has happened tonight,” he indicated his withered hand,
“we can be sure that it will happen within a year.”
“If you don’t mind dying,” said Snape roughly, “why not let Draco do it?”
“That boy’s soul is not yet so damaged,” said Dumbledore. “I would not have it
ripped apart on my account.”
“And my soul, Dumbledore? Mine?”
“You alone know whether it will harm your soul to help an old man avoid pain
and humiliation,” said Dumbledore. “I ask this one great favor of you, Severus, because
death is coming for me as surely as the Chudley Cannons will finish bottom of this year’s
league. I confess I should prefer a quick, painless exit to the protracted and messy affair it
will be if, for instance, Greyback is involved – I hear Voldemort has recruited him? Or
dear Bellatrix, who likes to play with her food before she eats it.”
His tone was light, but his blue eyes pierced Snape as they had frequently pierced
Harry, as though the soul they discussed was visible to him. At last Snape gave another
curt nod.
Dumbledore seemed satisfied.
“Thank you, Severus…”
The office disappeared, and now Snape and Dumbledore were strolling together
in the deserted castle grounds by twilight.
“What are you doing with Potter, all these evenings you are closeted together?”
Snape asked abruptly.
Dumbledore looked weary.
“Why? You aren’t trying to give him more detentions, Severus? The boy will
soon have spent more time in detention than out.”
“He is his father over again – ”
“In looks, perhaps, but his deepest nature is much more like his mother’s. I spend
time with Harry because I have things to discuss with him, information I must give him
before it is too late.”
“Information,” repeated Snape. “You trust him…you do not trust me.”
“It is not a question of trust. I have, as we both know, limited time. It is essential
that I give the boy enough information for him to do what he needs to do.”
“And why may I not have the same information?”
“I prefer not to put all of my secrets in one basket, particularly not a basket that
spends so much time dangling on the arm of Lord Voldemort.”
“Which I do on your orders!”
“And you do it extremely well. Do not think that I underestimate the constant
danger in which you place yourself, Severus. To give Voldemort what appears to be
valuable information while withholding the essentials is a job I would entrust to nobody
but you.”
“Yet you confide much more in a boy who is incapable of Occlumency, whose
magic is mediocre, and who has a direct connection into the Dark Lord’s mind!”
“Voldemort fears that connection,” said Dumbledore. “Not so long ago he had
one small taste of what truly sharing Harry’s mind means to him. It was pain such as he
has never experienced. He will not try to possess Harry again, I am sure of it. Not in that
way.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Lord Voldemort’s soul, maimed as it is, cannot bear close contact with a soul
like Harry’s. Like a tongue on frozen steel, like flesh in flame – ”
“Souls? We were talking of minds!”
“In the case of Harry and Lord Voldemort, to speak of one is to speak of the
other.”
Dumbledore glanced around to make sure that they were alone. They were close
by the Forbidden Forest now, but there was no sign of anyone near them.
“After you have killed me, Severus – ”
“You refuse to tell me everything, yet you expect that small service of me!”
snarled Snape, and real anger flared in the thin face now. “You take a great deal for
granted, Dumbledore! Perhaps I have changed my mind!”
“You gave me your word, Severus. And while we are talking about services you
owe me, I thought you agreed to keep a close eye on our young Slytherin friend?”
Snape looked angry, mutinous. Dumbledore sighed.
“Come to my office tonight, Severus, at eleven, and you shall not complain that I
have no confidence in you…”
They were back in Dumbledore’s office, the windows dark, and Fawkes sat silent
as Snape sat quite still, as Dumbledore walked around him, talking.
“Harry must not know, not until the last moment, not until it is necessary,
otherwise how could he have the strength to do what must be done?”
“But what must he do?”
“That is between Harry and me. Now listen closely, Severus. There will come a
time – after my death – do not argue, do not interrupt! There will come a time when Lord
Voldemort will seem to fear for the life of his snake.”
“For Nagini?” Snape looked astonished.
“Precisely. If there comes a time when Lord Voldemort stops sending that snake
forth to do his bidding, but keeps it safe beside him under magical protection, then, I
think, it will be safe to tell Harry.”
“Tell him what?”
Dumbledore took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
“Tell him that on the night Lord Voldemort tried to kill him, when Lily cast her
own life between them as a shield, the Killing Curse rebounded upon Lord Voldemort,
and a fragment of Voldemort’s soul was blasted apart from the whole, and latched itself
onto the only living soul left in that collapsed building. Part of Lord Voldemort lives
inside Harry, and it is that which gives him the power of speech with snakes, and a
connection with Lord Voldemort’s mind that he has never understood. And while that
fragment of soul, unmissed by Voldemort, remains attached to and protected by Harry,
Lord Voldemort cannot die.”
Harry seemed to be watching the two men from one end of a long tunnel, they
were so far away from him, their voices echoing strangely in his ears.
“So the boy…the boy must die?” asked Snape quite calmly.
“And Voldemort himself must do it, Severus. That is essential.”
Another long silence. Then Snape said, “I thought…all those years…that we were
protecting him for her. For Lily.”
“We have protected him because it has been essential to teach him, to raise him,
to let him try his strength,” said Dumbledore, his eyes still tight shut. “Meanwhile, the
connection between them grows ever stronger, a parasitic growth. Sometimes I have
thought he suspects it himself. If I know him, he will have arranged matters so that when
he does set out to meet his death, it will truly mean the end of Voldemort.”
Dumbledore opened his eyes. Snape looked horrified.
“You have kept him alive so that he can die at the right moment?”
“Don’t be shocked, Severus. How many men and women have you watched die?”
“Lately, only those whom I could not save,” said Snape. He stood up. “You have
used me.”
“Meaning?”
“I have spied for you and lied for you, put myself in mortal danger for you.
Everything was supposed to be to keep Lily Potter’s son safe. Now you tell me you have
been raising him like a pig for slaughter – ”
“But this is touching, Severus,” said Dumbledore seriously. “Have you grown to
care for the boy, after all?”
“For him?” shouted Snape. “Expecto Patronum!”
From the tip of his wand burst the silver doe. She landed on the office floor,
bounded once across the office, and soared out of the window. Dumbledore watched her
fly away, and as her silvery glow faded he turned back to Snape, and his eyes were full of
tears.
“After all this time?”
“Always,” said Snape.
And the scene shifted. Now, Harry saw Snape talking to the portrait of
Dumbledore behind his desk.
“You will have to give Voldemort the correct date of Harry’s departure from his
aunt and uncle’s,” said Dumbledore. “Not to do so will raise suspicion, when Voldemort
believes you so well informed. However, you must plant the idea of decoys; that, I think,
ought to ensure Harry’s safety. Try Confunding Mundungus Fletcher. And Severus, if
you are forced to take part in the chase, be sure to act your part convincingly…I am
counting upon you to remain in Lord Voldemort’s good books as long as possible, or
Hogwarts will be left to the mercy of the Carrows…”
Now Snape was head to head with Mundungus in an unfamiliar tavern,
Mundungus’s face looking curiously blank, Snape frowning in concentration.
“You will suggest to the Order of the Phoenix,” Snape murmured, “that they use
decoys. Polyjuice Potion. Identical Potters. It’s the only thing that might work. You will
forget that I have suggested this. You will present it as your own idea. You understand?”
“I understand,” murmured Mundungus, his eyes unfocused…
Now Harry was flying alongside Snape on a broomstick through a clear dark
night: He was accompanied by other hodded Death Eaters, and ahead were Lupin and a
Harry who was really George… A Death Eater moved ahead of Snape and raised his
wand, pointing it directly at Lupin’s back.
“Sectumsempra!” shouted Snape.
But the spell, intended for the Death Eater’s wand hand, missed and hit George
instead –
And next, Snape was kneeling in Sirius’s old bedroom. Tears were dripping from
the end of his hooked nose as he read the old letter from Lily. The second page carried
only a few words:
could ever have been friends with Gellert Grindelwald. I think her mind’s going,
personally!
Lots of love,
Lily
Snape took the page bearing Lily’s signature, and her love, and tucked it inside
his robes. Then he ripped in two the photograph he was also holding, so that he kept the
part from which Lily laughed, throwing the portion showing James and Harry back onto
the floor, under the chest of drawers…
And now Snape stood again in the headmaster’s study as Phineas Nigellus came
hurrying into his portrait.
“Headmaster! They are camping in the Forest of Dean! The Mudblood – ”
“Do not use that word!”
“ – the Granger girl, then, mentioned the place as she opened her bag and I heard
her!”
“Good. Very good!” cried the portrait of Dumbledore behind the headmaster’s
chair. “Now, Severus, the sword! Do not forget that it must be taken under conditions of
need and valor – and he must not know that you give it! If Voldemort should read
Harry’s mind and see you acting for him – ”
“I know,” said Snape curtly. He approached the portrait of Dumbledore and
pulled at its side. It swung forward, revealing a hidden cavity behind it from which he
took the sword of Gryffindor.
“And you still aren’t going to tell me why it’s so important to give Potter the
sword?” said Snape as he swung a traveling cloak over his robes.
“No, I don’t think so,” said Dumbledore’s portrait. “He will know what to do with
it. And Severus, be very careful, they may not take kindly to your appearance after
George Weasley’s mishap – ”
Snape turned at the door.
“Don’t worry, Dumbledore,” he said coolly. “I have a plan…”
And Snape left the room. Harry rose up out of the Pensieve, and moments later he
lay on the carpeted floor in exactly the same rooms Snape might just have closed the door.
Chapter Thirty-Four
The Forest Again
Finally, the truth. Lying with his face pressed into the dusty carpet of the office
where he had once thought he was learning the secrets of victory, Harry understood at
last that he was not supposed to survive. His job was to walk calmly into Death’s
welcoming arms. Along the way, he was to dispose of Voldemort’s remaining links to
life, so that when at last he flung himself across Voldemort’s path, and did not raise a
wand to defend himself, the end would be clean, and the job that ought to have been done
in Godric’s Hollow would be finished. Neither would live, neither could survive.
He felt his heart pounding fiercely in his chest. How strange that in his dread of
death, it pumped all the harder, valiantly keeping him alive. But it would have to stop,
and soon. Its beats were numbered. How many would there be time for, as he rose and
walked through the castle for the last time, out into the grounds and into the forest?
Terror washed over him as he lay on the floor, with that funeral drum pounding
inside him. Would it hurt to die? All those times he had thought that it was about to
happen and escaped, he had never really thought of the thing itself: His will to live had
always been so much stronger than his fear of death. Yet it did not occur to him now to
try to escape, to outrun Voldemort. It was over, he knew it, and all that was left was the
thing itself: dying.
If he could only have died on that summer’s night when he had left number four,
Privet Drive, for the last time, when the noble phoenix feather wand had saved him! If he
could only have died like Hedwig, so quickly he would not have known it had happened!
Or if he could have launched himself in front of a wand to save someone he loved . . . He
envied even his parents’ deaths now. This cold-blooded walk to his own destruction
would require a different kind of bravery. He felt his fingers trembling slightly and made
an effort to control them, although no one could see him; the portraits on the walls were
all empty.
Slowly, very slowly, he sat up, and as he did so he felt more alive and more aware
of his own living body than ever before. Why had he never appreciated what a miracle he
was, brain and nerve and bounding heart? It would all be gone . . . or at least, he would be
gone from it. His breath came slow and deep, and his mouth and throat were completely
dry, but so were his eyes.
Dumbledore’s betrayal was almost nothing. Of course there had been a bigger
plan: Harry had simply been too foolish to see it, he realized that now. He had never
questioned his own assumption that Dumbledore wanted him alive. Now he saw that his
life span had always been determined by how long it took to eliminate all the Horcruxes.
Dumbledore had passed the job of destroying them to him, and obediently he had
continued to chip away at the bonds tying not only Voldemort, but himself, to life! How
neat, how elegant, not to waste any more lives, but to give the dangerous task to the boy
who had already been marked for slaughter, and whose death would not be a calamity,
but another blow against Voldemort.
And Dumbledore had known that Harry would not duck out, that he would keep
going to the end, even though it was his end, because he had taken trouble to get to know
him, hadn’t he? Dumbledore knew, as Voldemort knew, that Harry would not let anyone
else die for him now that he had discovered it was in his power to stop it. The images of
Fred, Lupin, and Tonks lying dead in the Great Hall forced their way back into his mind’s
eye, and for a moment he could hardly breathe. Death was impatient . . .
But Dumbledore had overestimated him. He had failed: The snake survived. One
Horcrux remained to bind Voldemort to the earth, even after Harry had been killed. True,
that would mean an easier job for somebody. He wondered who would do it . . . Ron and
Hermione would know what needed to be done, of course . . . That would have been why
Dumbledore wanted him to confide in two others . . . so that if he fulfilled his true destiny
a little early, they could carry on . . .
Like rain on a cold window, these thoughts pattered against the hard surface of
the incontrovertible truth, which was that he must die. I must die. It must end.
Ron and Hermione seemed a long way away, in a far-off country; he felt as
though he had parted from them long ago. There would be no good-byes and no
explanations, he was determined of that. This was a journey they could not take together,
and the attempts they would make to stop him would waste valuable time. He looked
down at the battered gold watch he had received on his seventeenth birthday. Nearly half
of the hour allotted by Voldemort for his surrender had elapsed.
He stood up. His heart was leaping against his ribs like a frantic bird. Perhaps it
knew it had little time left, perhaps it was determined to fulfill a lifetime’s beats before
the end. He did not look back as he closed the office door.
The castle was empty. He felt ghostly striding through it alone, as if he had
already died. The portrait people were still missing from their frames; the whole place
was eerily still, as if all its remaining lifeblood were concentrated in the Great Hall where
the dead and the mourners were crammed.
Harry pulled the Invisibility Cloak over himself and descended through the floors,
at last walking down the marble staircase into the entrance hall. Perhaps some tiny part of
him hoped to be sensed, to be seen, to be stopped, but the Cloak was, as ever,
impenetrable, perfect, and he reached the front doors easily.
Then Neville nearly walked into him. He was one half of a pair that was carrying
a body in from the grounds. Harry glanced down and felt another dull blow to his
stomach: Colon Creevey, though underage, must have sneaked back just as Malfoy,
Crabbe, and Goyle had done. He was tiny in death.
“You know what? I can manage him alone, Neville,” said Oliver Wood, and he
heaved Colin over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift and carried him into the Great Hall.
Neville leaned against the door frame for a moment and wiped his forehead with
the back of his hand. He looked like an old man. Then he set off on the steps again into
the darkness to recover more bodies.
Harry took one glance back at the entrance of the Great Hall. People were moving
around, trying to comfort each other, drinking, kneeling beside the dead, but he could not
see any of the people he loved, no hint of Hermione, Ron, Ginny, or any of the other
Weasleys, no Luna. He felt he would have given all the time remaining to him for just
one last look at them; but then, would he ever have the strength to stop looking? It was
better like this.
He moved down the steps and out into the darkness. It was nearly four in the
morning, and the deathly stillness of the grounds felt as though they were holding their
breath, waiting to see whether he could do what he must.
Harry moved toward Neville, who was bending over another body.
“Neville.”
“Blimey, Harry, you nearly gave me heart failure!”
Harry had pulled off the Cloak: The idea had come to him out of nowhere, born
out of a desire to make absolutely sure.
“Where are you going, alone?” Neville asked suspiciously.
“It’s all part of the plan,” said Harry. “There’s someting I’ve got to do. Listen ---
Neville ---“
“Harry!” Neville looked suddenly scared. “Harry, you’re not thinking of handing
yourself over?”
“No,” Harry lied easily. “’Course not . . . this is something else. But I might be
out of sight for a while. You know Voldemort’s snake. Neville? He’s got a huge snake . . .
Calls it Nagini . . .”
“I’ve heard, yeah . . . What about it?”
“It’s got to be killed. Ron and Hermione know that, but just in case they ---“
The awfulness of that possibility smothered him for a moment, made it impossible
to keep talking. But he pulled himself together again: This was crucial, he must be like
Dumbledore, keep a cool head, make sure there were backups, others to carry on.
Dumbledore had died knowing that three people still knew about the Horcruxes; now
Neville would take Harry’s place: There would still be three in the secret.
“Just in case they’re --- busy --- and you get the chance ---“
“Kill the snake?”
“Kill the snake,” Harry repeated.
“All right, Harry. You’re okay, are you?”
“I’m fine. Thanks, Neville.”
But Neville seized his wrist as Harry made to move on.
“We’re all going to keep fighting, Harry. You know that?”
“Yeah, I ---“
The suffocating feeling extinguished the end of the sentence; he could not go on.
Neville did not seem to find it strange. He patted Harry on the shoulder, released him,
and walked away to look for more bodies.
Harry swung the Cloak back over himself and walked on. Someone else was
moving not far away, stooping over another prone figure on the ground. He was feet
away from her when he realized it was Ginny.
He stopped in his tracks. She was crouching over a girl who was whispering for
her mother.
“It’s all right,” Ginny was saying. “It’s ok. We’re going to get you inside.”
“But I want to go home,” whispered the girl. “I don’t want to fight anymore!”
“I know,” said Ginny, and her voice broke. “It’s going to be all right.”
Ripples of cold undulated over Harry’s skin. He wanted to shout out to the night,
he wanted Ginny to know that he was there, he wanted her to know where he was going.
He wanted to be stopped, to be dragged back, to be sent back home. . . .
But he was home. Hogwards was the first and best home he had known. He and
Voldemort and Snape, the abandoned boys, had all found home here. . . .
Ginny was kneeling beside the injured girl now, holding her hand. With a huge
effort Harry forced himself on. He thought he saw Ginny look around as he passed, and
wondered whether she had sensed someone walking nearby, but he did not speak, and he
did not look back.
Hagrid’s hut loomed out of the darkness. There were no lights, no sound of Fang
scrabbling at the door, his bark booming in welcome. All those visits to Hagrid, and the
gleam of the copper kettle on the fire, and rock cakes and giant grubs, and his great
bearded face, and Ron vomiting slugs, and Hermione helping him save Norbert . . .
He moved on, and now he reached the edge of the forest, and he stopped.
A swarm of dementors was gliding amongst the trees; he could feel their chill,
and he was not sure he would be able to pass safely through it. He had not strength left
for a Patronus. He could no longer control his own trembling. It was not, after all, so easy
to die. Every second he breathed, the smell of the grass, the cool air on his face, was so
precious: To think that people had years and years, time to waste, so much time it
dragged, and he was clinging to each second. At the same time he thought that he would
not be able to go on, and knew that he must. The long game was ended, the Snitch had
been caught, it was time to leave the air. . . .
The Snitch. His nerveless fingers fumbled for a moment with the pouch at his
neck and he pulled it out.
I open at the close.
Breathing fast and hard, he stared down at it. Now that he wanted time to move as
slowly as possible, he seemed to have sped up, and understanding was coming so fast it
seemed to have bypassed though. This was the close. This was the moment.
He pressed the golden metal to his lips and whispered, “I am about to die.”
The metal shell broke open. He lowered his shaking hand, raised Draco’s wand
beneath the Cloak, and murmured, “Lumos.”
The black stone with is jagged crack running down the center sat in the two
halves of the Snitch. The Resurrection Stone had cracked down the vertical line
representing the Elder Wand. The triangle and circle representing the Cloak and the stone
were still discernible.
And again Harry understood without having to think. It did not matter about
bringing them back, for he was about to join them. He was not really fetching them: They
were fetching him.
He closed his eyes and turned the stone over in his hand three times.
He knew it had happened, because he heard slight movements around him that
suggested frail bodies shifting their footing on the earthy, twig-strewn ground that
marked the outer edge of the forest. He opened his eyes and looked around.
They were neither ghost nor truly flesh, he could see that. They resembled most
closely the Riddle that had escaped from the diary so long ago, and he had been memory
made nearly solid. Less substantial than living bodies, but much more than ghosts, they
moved toward him. And on each face, there was the same loving smile.
James was exactly the same height as Harry. He was wearing the clothes in which
he had died, and his hair was untidy and ruffled, and his glasses were a little lopsided,
like Mr. Weasley’s.
Sirius was tall and handsome, and younger by far than Harry had seen him in life.
He loped with an easy grace, his hands in his pockets and a grin on his face.
Lupin was younger too, and much less shabby, and his hair was thicker and darker.
He looked happy to be back in this familiar place, scene of so many adolescent
wanderings.
Lily’s smile was widest of all. She pushed her long hair back as she drew closer to
him, and her green eyes, so like his, searched his face hungrily, as though she would
never be able to look at him enough.
“You’ve been so brave.”
He could not speak. His eyes feasted on her, and he thought that he would like to
stand and look at her forever, and that would be enough.
“You are nearly there,” said James. “Very close. We are . . . so proud of you.”
“Does it hurt?”
The childish question had fallen from Harry’s lips before he could stop it.
“Dying? Not at all,” said Sirius. “Quicker and easier than falling asleep.”
“And he will want it to be quick. He wants it over,” said Lupin.
“I didn’t want you to die,” Harry said. These words came without his volition.
“Any of you. I’m sorry ---“
He addressed Lupin more than any of them, beseeching him.
“--- right after you’d had your son . . . Remus, I’m sorry ---“
“I am sorry too,” said Lupin. “Sorry I will never know him . . . but he will know
why I died and I hope he will understand. I was trying to make a world in which he could
live a happier life.”
A chilly breeze that seemed to emanate from the heart of the forest lifted the hair
at Harry’s brow. He knew that they would not tell him to go, that it would have to be his
decision.
“You’ll stay with me?”
“Until the very end,” said James.
“They won’t be able to see you?” asked Harry.
“We are part of you,” said Sirius. “Invisible to anyone else.”
Harry looked at his mother.
“Stay close to me,” he said quietly.
And he set of. The dementors’ chill did not overcome him; he passed through it
with his companions, and they acted like Patronuses to him, and together they marched
through the old trees that grew closely together, their branches tangled, their roots
gnarled and twisted underfoot. Harry clutched the Cloak tightly around him in the
darkness, traveling deeper and deeper into the forest, with no idea where exactly
Voldemort was, but sure that he would find him. Beside him, making scarcely a sound,
walked James, Sirius, Lupin, and Lily, and their presence was his courage, and the reason
he was able to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
His body and mind felt oddly disconnected now, his limbs working without
conscious instruction, as if he were passenger, not driver, in the body he was about to
leave. The dead who walked beside him through the forest were much more real to him
now than the living back at the castle: Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and all the others were the
ones who felt like ghosts as he stumbled and slipped toward the end of his life, toward
Voldemort . . .
A thud and a whisper: Some other living creature had stirred close by. Harry
stopped under the Cloak, peering around, listening, and his mother and father, Lupin and
Sirius stopped too.
“Someone there,” came a rough whisper close at hand. “He’s got an Invisibility
Cloak. Could it be --- ?”
Two figures emerged from behind a nearby tree: Their wands flared, and Harry
saw Yaxley and Dolohov peering into the darkness, directly at the place Harry, his
mother and father and Sirius and Lupin stood. Apparently they could not see anything.
“Definitely heard something,” said Yaxley. “Animal, d’you reckon?”
“That head case Hagrid kept a whole bunch of stuff in here,” said Dolohov,
glancing over his shoulder.
Yaxley looked down at his watch.
“Time’s nearly up. Porter’s had his hour. He’s not coming.”
“Better go back,” said Yaxley. “Find out what the plan is now.”
He and Dolohov turned and walked deeper into the forest. Harry followed them,
knowing that they would lead him exactly where he wanted to go. He glanced sideways,
and his mother smiled at him, and his father nodded encouragement.
They had traveled on mere minutes when Harry saw light ahead, and Yaxley and
Dolohov stepped out into a clearing that Harry knew had been the place where the
monstrous Aragog had once lived. The remnants of his vast web were there still, but the
swarms of descendants he had spawned had been driven out by the Death Eaters, to fight
for their cause.
A fire burned in the middle of the clearing, and its flickering light fell over a
crowd of completely silent, watchful Death Eaters. Some of them were still masked and
hooded; others showed their faces. Two giants sat on the outskirts of the group, casting
massive shadows over the scene, their faces cruel, rough-hewn like rock. Harry saw
Fenrir, skulking, chewing his long nails; the great blond Rowle was dabbing at his
bleeding lip. He saw Lucius Malfoy, who looked defeated and terrified, and Narcissa,
whose eyes were sunken and full of apprehension.
Every eye was fixed upon Voldemort, who stood with his head bowed, and his
white hands folded over the Elder Wand in front of him. He might have been praying, or
else counting silently in his mind, and Harry, standing still on the edge of the scene,
though absurdly of a child counting in a game of hide-and-seek. Behind his head, still
swirling and coiling, the great snake Nagini floated in her glittering, charmed cage, like a
monstrous halo.
When Dolohov and Yaxley rejoined the circle, Voldemort looked up.
“No sign of him, my Lord,” said Dolohov.
Voldemort’s expression did not change. The red eyes seemed to burn in the
firelight. Slowly he drew the Elder Wand between his long fingers.
“My Lord ---“
Bellatrix had spoken: She sat closest to Voldemort, disheveled, her face a little
bloody but otherwise unharmed.
Voldemort raised his hand to silence her, and she did not speak another word, but
eyed him in worshipful fascination.
“I thought he would come,” said Voldemort in his high, clear voice, his eyes on
the leaping flames. “I expected him to come.”
Nobody spoke. They seemed as scared as Harry, whose heart was now throwing
itself against his ribs as though determined to escape the body he was about to cast aside.
His hands were sweating as he pulled off the Invisibility Cloak and stuffed it beneath his
robes, with his wand. He did not want to be tempted to fight.
“I was, it seems . . . mistaken,” said Voldemort.
“You weren’t.”
Harry said it as loudly as he could, with all the force he could muster: He did not
want to sound afraid. The Resurrection Stone slipped from between his numb fingers, and
out of the corner of his eyes he saw his parents, Sirius, and Lupin vanish as he stepped
forward into the firelight. At that moment he felt that nobody mattered but Voldemort. It
was just the two of them.
The illusion was gone as soon as it had come. The giants roared as the Death
Eaters rose together, and there were many cries, gasps, even laughter. Voldemort had
frozen where he stood, but his red eyes had found Harry, and he stared as Harry moved
toward him, with nothing but the fire between them.
Then a voice yelled: “HARRY! NO!”
He turned: Hagrid was bound and trussed, tied to a tree nearby. His massive body
shook the branches overhead as he struggled, desperate.
“NO! NO! HARRY, WHAT’RE YEH --- ?”
“QUIET!” shouted Rowle, and with a flick of his wand, Hagrid was silenced.
Bellatrix, who had leapt to her feet, was looking eagerly from Voldemort to Harry,
her breast heaving. The only things that moved were the flames and the snake, coiling
and uncoiling in the glittering cage behind Voldemort’s head.
Harry could feel his wand against his chest, but he made no attempt to draw it. He
knew that the snake was too well protected, knew that if he managed to point the wand at
Nagini, fifty curses would hit him first. And still, Voldemort and Harry looked at each
other, and now Voldemort tilted his head a little to the side, considering the boy standing
before him, and a singularly mirthless smile curled the lipless mouth.
“Harry Potter,” he said very softly. His voice might have been part of the spitting
fire. “The Boy Who Lived.”
None of the Death Eaters moved. They were waiting: Everything was waiting.
Hagrid was struggling, and Bellatrix was panting, and Harry thought inexplicably of
Ginny, and her blazing look, and the feel of her lips on his ---
Voldemort had raised his wand. His head was still tilted to one side, like a curious
child, wondering what would happen if he proceeded. Harry looked back into the red
eyes, and wanted it to happen now, quickly, while he could still stand, before he lost
control, before he betrayed fear ---
He saw the mouth move and a flash of green light, and everything was gone.
Chapter Thirty-Five
King’s Cross
He lay facedown, listening to the silence. He was perfectly alone. Nobody was
watching. Nobody else was there. He was not perfectly sure that he was there himself.
A long time later, or maybe no time at all, it came to him that he must exist, must
be more than disembodied thought, because he was lying, definitely lying, on some
surface. Therefore he had a sense of touch, and the thing against which he lay existed too.
Almost as soon as he had reached this conclusion, Harry became conscious that
he was naked. Convinced as he was of his total solitude, this did not concern him, but it
did intrigue him slightly. He wondered whether, as he could feel, he would be able to see.
In opening them, he discovered that he had eyes.
He lay in a bright mist, though it was not like mist he had ever experienced before.
His surroundings were not hidden by cloudy vapor; rather the cloudy vapor had not yet
formed into surroundings. The floor on which he lay seemed to be white, neither warm
nor cold, but simply there, a flat, blank something on which to be.
He sat up. His body appeared unscathed. He touched his face. He was not wearing
glasses anymore.
Then a noise reached him through the unformed nothingness that surrounded him:
the small soft thumpings of something that flapped, flailed, and struggled. It was a pitiful
noise, yet also slightly indecent. He had the uncomfortable feeling that he was
eavesdropping on something furtive, shameful.
For the first time, he wished he were clothed.
Barely had the wish formed in his head than robes appeared a short distance away.
He took them and pulled them on. They were soft, clean, and warm. It was extraordinary
how they had appeared just like that, the moment he had wanted them. . . .
He stood up, looking around. Was he in some great Room of Requirement? The
longer he looked, the more there was to see. A great domed glass roof glittered high
above him in sunlight. Perhaps it was a palace. All was hushed and still, except for those
odd thumping and whimpering noises coming from somewhere close by in the mist. . . .
Harry turned slowly on the spot, and his surroundings seemed to invent
themselves before his eyes. A wide-open space, bright and clean, a hall larger by far than
the Great Hall, with that clear domed glass ceiling. It was quite empty. He was the only
person there, except for –
He recoiled. He had spotted the thing that was making the noises. It had the form
of a small, naked child, curled on the ground, its skin raw and rough, flayed-looking, and
it lay shuddering under a seat where it had been left, unwanted, stuffed out of sight,
struggling for breath.
He was afraid of it. Small and fragile and wounded though it was, he did not want
to approach it. Nevertheless he drew slowly nearer, ready to jump back at any moment.
Soon he stood near enough to touch it, yet he could not bring himself to do it. He felt like
a coward. He ought to comfort it, but it repulsed him.
“You cannot help.”
He spun around. Albus Dumbledore was walking toward him, sprightly and
upright, wearing sweeping robes of midnight blue.
“Harry.” He spread his arms wide, and his hands were both whole and white and
undamaged. “You wonderful boy. You brave, brave man. Let us walk.”
Stunned, Harry followed as Dumbledore strode away from where the flayed child
lay whimpering, leading him to two seats that Harry had not previously noticed, set some
distance away under that high, sparkling ceiling. Dumbledore sat down in one of them,
and Harry fell into the other, staring at his old headmaster’s face. Dumbledore’s long
silver hair and beard, the piercingly blue eyes behind half-moon spectacles, the crooked
nose: Everything was as he had remembered it. And yet . . .
“But you’re dead,” said Harry.
“Oh yes,” said Dumbledore matter-of-factly.
“Then . . . I’m dead too?”
“Ah,” said Dumbledore, smiling still more broadly. “That is the question, isn’t it?
On the whole, dear boy, I think not.”
They looked at each other, the old man still beaming.
“Not?” repeated Harry.
“Not,” said Dumbledore.
“But . . .” Harry raised his hand instinctively toward the lightning scar. It did not
seem to be there. “But I should have died – I didn’t defend myself! I meant to let him kill
me!”
“And that,” said Dumbledore, “will, I think, have made all the difference.”
Happiness seemed to radiate from Dumbledore like light; like fire: Harry had
never seen the man so utterly, so palpably content.
“Explain,” said Harry.
“But you already know,” said Dumbledore. He twiddled his thumbs together.
“I let him kill me,” said Harry. “Didn’t I?”
“You did,” said Dumbledore, nodding. “Go on!”
“So the part of his soul that was in me . . .”
Dumbledore nodded still more enthusiastically, urging Harry onward, a broad
smile of encouragement on his face.
“. . . has it gone?”
“Oh yes!” said Dumbledore. “Yes, he destroyed it. Your soul is whole, and
completely your own, Harry.”
“But then . . .”
Harry trembled over his shoulder to where the small, maimed creature trembled
under the chair.
“What is that, Professor?”
“something that is beyond either of our help,” said Dumbledore.
“But if Voldemort used the Killing Curse,” Harry started again, “and nobody died
for me this time – how can I be alive?”
“I think you know,” said Dumbledore. “Think back. Remember what he did, in
his ignorance, in his greed and his cruelty.”
Harry thought. He let his gaze drift over his surroundings. If it was indeed a
palace in which they sat, it was an odd one, with chairs set in little rows and bits of
railing here and there, and still, he and Dumbledore and the stunted creatures under the
chair were the only beings there. Then the answer rose to his lips easily, without effort.
“He took my blood,” said Harry.
“Precisely!” said Dumbledore. “He took your blood and rebuilt his living body
with it! Your blood in his veins, Harry, Lily’s protection inside both of you! He thethered
you to life while he lives!”
“I live . . . while he lives? But I thought . . . I thought it was the other way around!
I thought we both had to die? Or is it the same thing?”
He was distracted by the whimpering and thumping of the agonized creature
behind them and glanced back at it yet again.
“Are you sure we can’t do anything?”
“There is no help possible.”
“Then explain . . . more,” said Harry, and Dumbledore smiled.
“You were the seventh Horcrux, Harry, the Horcrux he never meant to make. He
had rendered his soul so unstable that it broke apart when he committed those acts of
unspeakable evil, the murder of your parents, the attempted killing of a child. But what
escaped from that room was even less than he knew. He left more than his body behind.
He left part of himself latched to you, the would-be victim who had survived.
“And his knowledge remained woefully incomplete, Harry! That which
Voldemort does not value, he takes no trouble to comprehend. Of house-elves and
children’s tales, of love, loyalty, and innocence, Voldemort knows and understands
nothing. Nothing. That they all have a power beyond his own, a power beyond the reach
of any magic, is a truth he has never grasped.
“He took your blood believing it would strengthen him. He took into his body a
tiny part of the enchantment your mother laid upon you when she died for you. His body
keeps her sacrafice alive, and while that enchantment survives, so do you and so does
Voldemort’s one last hope for himself.”
Dumbledore smiled at Harry, and Harry stared at him.
“And you knew this? You knew – all along?”
“I guessed. But my guesses have usually been good,” said Dumbledore happily,
and they sat in silence for what seemed like a long time, while the creature behind them
continued to whimper and tremble.
“There’s more,” said Harry. “There’s more to it. Why did my wand break the
wand he borrowed?”
“As to that, I cannot be sure.”
“Have a guess, then,” said Harry, and Dumbledore laughed.
“What you must understand, Harry, is that you and Lord Voldemort have
journeyed together into realms of magic hitherto unknown and untested. But here is what
I think happened, and it is unprecedented, and no wandmaker could, I think, ever have
predicted or explained it to Voldemort.
“Without meaning to, as you now know, Lord Voldemort doubled the bond
between you when he returned to a human form. A part of his soul was still attached to
yours, and, thinking to strengthen himself, he took a part of your mother’s sacrafice into
himself. If he could only have understood the precise and terrible power of that sacrifice,
he would not, perhaps, have dared to touch your blood. . . . But then, if he had been able
to understand, he could not be Lord Voldemort, and might never have murdered at all.
“Having ensured this two-fold connection, having wrapped your destinies
together more securely than ever two wizards were joined in history, Voldemort
proceeded to attack you with a wand that shared a core with yours. And now something
very strange happened, as we know. The cores reacted in a way that Lord Voldemort,
who never knew that your wand was a twin of his, had ever expected.
“He was more afraid than you were that night, Harry. You had accepted, even
embraced, the possibility of death, something Lord Voldemort has never been able to do.
Your courage won, your wand overpowered his. And in doing so, something happened
between those wands, something that echoed the relationship between their masters.
“I believe that your wand imbibed some of the power and qualities of
Voldemort’s wand that night, which is to say that it contained a little of Voldemort
himself. So your wand recognized him when he pursued you, recognized a man who was
both kin and mortal enemy, and it regurgitated some of his own magic against him, magic
much more powerful than anything Lucius’s wand had ever performed. Your wand now
contained the power of your enormous courage and of Voldemort’s own deadly skill:
What chance did that poor stick of Lucius Malfoy’s stand?”
“But if my wand was so powerful, how come Hermione was able to break it?”
asked Harry.
“My dear boy, its remarkable effects were directed only at Voldemort, who had
tampered so ill-advisedly with the deepest laws of magic. Only toward him was that
wand abnormally powerful. Otherwise it was a wand like any other . . . though a good
one, I am sure,” Dumbledore finished kindly.
Harry sat in thought for a long time, or perhaps seconds. It was very hard to be
sure of things like time, here.
“He killed me with your wand.”
“He failed to kill you with my wand,” Dumbledore corrected Harry. “I think we
can agree that you are not dead – though, of course,” he added, as if fearing he had been
discourteous, “I do not minimize your sufferings, which I am sure were severe.”
“I feel great at the moment, though,” said Harry, looking down at his clean,
unblemished hands. “Where are we, exactly?”
“Well, I was going to ask you that,” said Dumbledore, looking around. “Where
would you say that we are?”
Until Dumbledore had asked, Harry had not known. Now, however, he found that
he had an answer ready to give.
“It looks,” he said slowly, “like King’s Cross station. Except a lo cleaner and
empty, and there are no trains as far as I can see.”
“King’s Cross station!” Dumbledore was chuckling immoderately. “Good
gracious, really?”
“Well, where do you think we are?” asked Harry, a little defensively.
“My dear boy, I have no idea. This is, as they say, your party.”
Harry had no idea what this meant; Dumbledore was being infuriating. He glared
at him, then remembered a much more pressing question than that of their current
location.
“The Deathly Hallows,” he said, and he was glad to see that the words wiped the
smile from Dumbledore’s face.
“Ah, yes,” he said. He even looked a little worried.
“Well?”
For the first time since Harry had met Dumbledore, he looked less than an old
man, much less. He looked fleetingly like a small boy caught in wrongdoing.
“Can you forgive me?” he said. “Can you forgive me for not trusting you? For not
telling you? Harry, I only feared that you would fail as I had failed. I only dreaded that
you would make my mistakes. I crave your pardon, Harry. I have known, for some time
now, that you are the better man.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Harry, startled by Dumbledore’s tone, by the
sudden tears in his eyes.
“The Hallows, the Hallows,” murmured Dumbledore. “A desperate man’s
dream!”
“But they’re real!”
“Real, and dangerous, and a lure for fools,” said Dumbledore. “And I was such a
fool. But you know, don’t you? I have no secrets from you anymore. You know.”
“What do I know?”
Dumbledore turned his whole body to face Harry, and tears still sparkled in the
brilliantly blue eyes.
“Master of death, Harry, master of Death! Was I better, ultimately, than
Voldemort?”
“Of course you were,” said Harry. “Of course – how can you ask that? You never
killed if you could avoid it!”
“True, true,” said Dumbledore, and he was like a child seeking reassurance. “Yet
I too sought a way to conquer death, Harry.”
“Not the way he did,” said Harry. After all his anger at Dumbledore, how odd it
was to sit here, beneath the high, vaulted ceiling, and defend Dumbledore from himself.
“Hallows, not Horcruxes.”
“Hallows,” murmured Dumbledore, “not Horcruxes. Precisely.”
There was a pause. The creature behind them whimpered, but Harry no longer
looked around.
“Grindelwald was looking for them too?” he asked.
Dumbledore closed his eyes for a moment and nodded.
“It was the thing, above all, that drew us together,” he said quietly. “Two clever,
arrogant boys with a shared obsession. He wanted to come to Godric’s Hollow, as I am
sure you have guessed, because of the grave of Ignotus Peverell. He wanted to explore
the place the third brother had died.”
“So it’s true?” asked Harry. “All of it? The Peverell brothers –”
“—were the three brothers of the tale,” said Dumbledore, nodding. “Oh yes, I
think so. Whether they met Death on a lonely road . . . I think it more likely that the
Peverell brothers were simply gifted, dangerous wizards who succeeded in creating those
powerful objects. The story of them being Death’s own Hallows seems to me the sort of
legend that might have sprung up around such creations.
“The Cloak, as you know now, traveled down through the ages, father to son,
mother to daughter, right down to Ignotus’s last living descendant, who was born, as
Ignotus was, in the village of Godric’s Hollow.”
Dumbledore smiled at Harry.
“Me?”
“You. You have guessed,, I know, why the Cloak was in my possession on the
night your parents died. James had showed it to me just a few days previously. It
explained much of his undetected wrongdoing at school! I could hardly believe what I
was seeing. I asked to borrow it, to examine it. I had long since given up my dream of
uniting the Hallows, but I could not resist, could not help taking a closer look. . . . It was
a Cloak the likes of which I had never seen, immensely old, perfect in every respect . . .
and then your father died, and I had two Hallows at last, all to myself!”
His tone was unbearably bitter.
“The Cloak wouldn’t have helped them survive, though,” Harry said quickly.
“Voldemort knew where my mum and dad were. The Cloak couldn’t have made them
curse-proof.”
“true,” sighed Dumbledore. “True.”
Harry waited, but Dumbledore did not speak, so he prompted him.
“So you’d given up looking for the Hallows when you saw the Cloak?”
“Oh yes,” said Dumbledore faintly. It seemed that he forced himself to meet
Harry’s eyes. “You know what happened. You know. You cannot despise me more than I
despise myself.”
“But I don’t despise you –”
“Then you should,” said Dumbledore. He drew a deep breath. “You know the
secret of my sister’s ill health, what those Muggles did, what she became. You know how
my poor father sought revenge, and paid the price, died In Azkaban. You know how my
mother gave up her own life to care for Ariana.
“I resented it, Harry.”
Dumbledore stated it baldly, coldly. He was looking now over the top of Harry’s
head, into the distance.
“I was gifted, I was brilliant. I wanted to escape. I wanted to shine. I wanted glory.
“Do not misunderstand me,” he said, and pain crossed the face so that he looked
ancient again. “I loved them, I loved my parents, I loved my brother and my sister, but I
was selfish, Harry, more selfish than you, who are a remarkably selfless person, could
possibly imagine.
“So that, when my mother died, and I was left the responsibility of a damaged
sister and a wayward brother, I returned to my village in anger and bitterness. Trapped
and wasted, I thought! And then of course, he came. . . .”
Dumbledore looked directly into Harry’s eyes again.
“Grindelwald. You cannot imagine how his ideas caught me, Harry, inflamed me.
Muggles forced into subservience. We wizards triumphant. Grindelwald and I, the
glorious young leaders of the revolution.
“Oh, I had a few scruples. I assuaged my conscience with empty words. It would
all be for the greater good, and any harm done would be repaid a hundredfold in benefits
for wizards. Did I know, in my heart of hearts, what Gellert Grindelwald was? I think I
did, but I closed my eyes. If the plans we were making came to fruition, all my dreams
would come true.
“And at the heart of our schemes, the Deathly Hallows! How they fascinated him,
how they fascinated both of us! The unbeatable wand, the weapon that would lead us to
power! The Resurrection Stone – to him, though I pretended not to know it, it meant an
army of Inferi! To me, I confess, it meant the return of my parents, and the lifting of all
responsibility from my shoulders.
“And the Cloak . . . somehow, we never discussed the Cloak much, Harry. Both
of us could conceal ourselves well enough without the Cloak, the true magic of which, of
course, is that it can be used to protect and shield others as well as its owner. I thought
that, if we ever found it, it might be useful in hiding Ariana, but our interest in the Cloak
was mainly that it completed the trio, for the legend said that the man who had united all
three objects would then be truly master of death, which we took to mean ‘invincible.’
“Invincible masters of death, Grindelwald and Dumbledore! Two months of
insanity, of cruel dreams, and neglect of the only two members of my family left to me.
“And then . . . you know what happened. Reality returned in the form of my rough,
unlettered, and infinitely more admirable brother. I did not want to hear the truths he
shouted at me. I did not want to hear that I could not set forth and seek Hallows with a
fragile and unstable sister in tow.
“The argument became a fight. Grindelwald lost control. That which I had always
sensed in him, though I pretended not to, now sprang into terrible being. And Ariana . . .
after all my mother’s care and caution . . . lay dead upon the floor.”
Dumbledore gave a little gasp and began to cry in earnest. Harry reached out and
was glad to find that he could touch him: He gripped his arm tightly and Dumbledore
gradually regained control.
“Well, Grindelwald fled, as anyone but I could have predicted. He vanished, with
his plans for seizing power, and his schemes for Muggle torture, and his dreams of the
Deathly Hallows, dreams in which I had encouraged him and helped him. He ran, while I
was left to bury my sister, and learn to live with my guilt and my terrible grief, the price
of my shame.
“Years passed. There were rumors about him. They said he had procured a wand
of immense power. I, meanwhile, was offered the post of Minister of Magic, not once,
but several times. Naturally, I refused. I had learned that I was not to be trusted with
power.”
“But you’d have been better, much better, than Fudge or Scimgeour!” burst out
Harry.
“Would I?” asked Dumbledore heavily. “I am not so sure. I had proven, as a very
young man, that power was my weakness and my temptation. It is a curious thing, Harry,
but perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it. Those
who, like you, have leadership thrust upon them, and take up the mantle because they
must, and find to their own surprise that they wear it well.
“I was safer at Hogwarts. I think I was a good teacher –”
“You were the best ---”
“--- you are very kind, Harry. But while I busied myself with the training of
young wizards, Grindelwald was raising an army. They say he feared me, and perhaps he
did, but less, I think, than I feared him.
“Oh, not death,” said Dumbledore, in answer to Harry’s questioning look. “Not
what he could do to me magically. I knew that we were evenly matched, perhaps that I
was a shade more skillful. It was the truth I feared. You see, I never knew which of us, in
that last, horrific fight, had actually cast the curse that killed my sister. You may call me
cowardly: You would be right, Harry. I dreaded beyond all things the knowledge that it
had been I who brought about her death, not merely through my arrogance and stupidity,
but that I actually struck the blow that snuffed out her life.
“I think he knew it, I think he knew what frightened me. I delayed meeting him
until finally, it would have been too shameful to resist any longer. People were dying and
he seemed unstoppable, and I had to do what I could.
“Well, you know what happened next. I won the duel. I won the wand.”
Another silence. Harry did not ask whether Dumbledore had ever found out who
struck Ariana dead. He did not want to know, and even less did he want Dumbledore to
have to tell him. At last he knew what Dumbledore would have seen when he looked in
the mirror of Erised, and why Dumbledore had been so understanding of the fascination it
had exercised over Harry.
They sat in silence for a long time, and the whipmerings of the creature behind
them barely disturbed Harry anymore.
At last he said, “Grindelwald tried to stop Voldemort going after the wand. He
lied, you know, pretended he had never had it.”
Dumbledore nodded, looking down at his lap, tears still glittering on the crooked
nose.
“They say he showed remorse in later years, alone in his cell at Nurmengard. I
hope that is true. I would like to think that he did feel the horror and shame of what he
had done. Perhaps that lie to Voldemort was his attempt to make amends . . . to prevent
Voldemort from taking the Hallow . . .”
“. . .or maybe from breaking into your tomb?” suggested Harry, and Dumbledore
dabbed his eyes.
After another short pause Harry said, “You tried to use the Resurrection Stone.”
Dumbledore nodded.
“When I discovered it, after all those years, buried in the abandoned home of the
Gaunts --- the Hallow I had craved most of all, though in my youth I had wanted it for
very different reasons --- I lost my head, Harry. I quite forgot that I was not a Horcrux,
that the ring was sure to carry a curse. I picked it up, and I put it on, and for a second I
imagined that I was about to see Ariana, and my mother, and my father, and to tell them
how very, very sorry, I was. . . .
“I was such a fool, Harry. After all those years I had learned nothing. I was
unworthy to unite the Deathly Hallows, I had proved it time and again, and here was final
proof.”
“Why?” said Harry. “It was natural! You wanted to see them again. What’s wrong
with that?”
“Maybe a man in a million could unite the Hallows, Harry. I was fit only to
possess the meanest of them, the least extraordinary. I was fit to own the Elder Wand,
and not boast of it, and not to kill with it. I was permitted to tame and use it, because I
took it, not for gain, but to save others from it.
“But the Cloak, I took out of vain curiousity, and so it could never have worked
for me as it works for you, its true owners. The stone I would have used in an attempt to
drag back those who are at peace, rather than enable my self-sacrafice, as you did. You
are the worthy possessor of the Hallows.”
Dumbledore patted Harry’s hand, and Harry looked up at the old man and smiled;
he could not help himself. How coul dhe remain angry with Dumbledore now?
“Why did you have to make it so difficult?”
Dumbledore’s smile was tremulous.
“I am afraid I counted on Miss Granger to slow you up, Harry. I was afraid that
your hot head might dominate your good heart. I was scared that, if presented outright
with the facts about those tempting objects, you might seize the Hallows as I did, at the
wrong time, for the wrong reasons. If you laid hands on them, I wanted you to possess
them safely. You are the true master of death, because the true master does not seek to
run away from Death. He accepts that he must die, and understands that there are far, far
worse things in the living world than dying.”
“And Voldemort never knew about the Hallows?”
“I do not think so, because he did not recognize the Resurrection Stone he turned
into a Horcrux. But even if he had known about them, Harry. I doubt that he woul dhave
been interested in any except the first. He would not think that he needed the Cloak, and
as for the stone, whom would he want to bring back from the dead? He fears the dead. He
does not love.”
“But you expected him to go after the wand?”
“I have been sure that he would try, ever since your wand beat Voldemort’s in the
graveyard of Little Hangleton. At first, he was afraid that you had conquered him by
superior skill. Once he had kidnapped Ollivander, however, he discovered the existence
of the twin cores. He thought that explained everything. Yet the borrowed wand did no
better against yours! So Voldemort, instead of asking himself what quality it was in you
that had made your wand so strong, what gift you possessed that he did not, naturally set
out to find the one wand that, they said, would beat any other. For him, the Elder Wand
has become an obsession to rival his obsession with you. He believes that the Elder Wand
removes his last weakness and makes him truly invincible. Poor Severus . . .”
“If you planned your death with Snape, you meant him to end up with the Elder
Wand, didn’t you?”
“I admit that was my intention,” said Dumbledore, “but it did not work as I
intended, did it?”
“No,” said Harry. “That bit didn’t work out.”
The creature behind them jerked and moaned, and Harry and Dumbledore sate
without talking for the longest time yet. The realization of what would happen next
settled gradually over Harry in the long minutes, like softly falling snow.
“I’ve got to go back, haven’t I?”
“That is up to you.”
“I’ve got a choice?”
“Oh yes,” Dumbledore smiled at him. “We are in King’s Cross you say? I think
that if you decided not to go back, you would be able to . . . let’s say . . . board a train.”
“And where would it take me?”
“On,” said Dumbledore simply.
Silence again.
“Voldemort’s got the Elder Wand.”
“True. Voldemort has the Elder Wand.”
“But you want me to go back?”
“I think,” said Dumbledore, “that if you choose to return, there is a chance that he
may be finished for good. I cannot promise it. But I know this, Harry, that you have less
to fear from returning here than he does.”
Harry glanced again at the raw looking thing that trembled and choked in the
shadow beneath the distant chair.
“Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and above all, those who live
without love. By returning, you may ensure that fewer souls are maimed, fewer families
are torn apart. If that seems to you a worthy goal, they we saw good-bye for the present.”
Harry nodded and sighed. Leaving this place would not be nearly as hard as
walking into the forest had been, but it was warm and light and peaceful here, and he
knew that he was heading back to pain and the fear of more loss. He stood up, and
Dumbledore did the same, and they looked for a long moment into each other’s faces.
“Tell me one last thing,” said Harry, “Is this real? Or has this been happening
inside my head?”
Dumbledore beamed at him, and his voice sounded loud and strong in Harry’s
ears even though the bright mist was descending again, obscuring his figure.
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that
mean it is not real?”
Chapter Thirty-Six
The Flaw in the Plan
He was flying facedown on the grond again. The smell of the forest filled his nostrils. He
could feel
the cold hard ground beneath his cheek, and the hinge of his glasses which have been
knocked sideways
by the fall cutting into his temple. Every inch of him ached, and the place where Killing
Curse had hit him
felt like the bruise of an iron-clad punch. He did not stir, but he remained exactly where
he had fallen, with
his left arm bent out at an akward angle and his mouth gaping.
He had expected to hear cheer of triumph and jubilation at his death, but instead
hurried footsteps,
whispers, and solicitous murmurs filled the air.
"My Lord... my Lord..."
It was Bellatrix's voice, and she spoke as if to a lover. Harry did not dare open his
eyes, but allowed
his other senses to explore his predicament. He knew that his wand was still stowed
beneath his robes because
he could feel it pressed between his chest and the ground. A slight cushioning effect in
the area of his stomach
told him that the Invisibility Cloak was also there, stuffed out of sight.
"My Lord..."
"That will do," said Voldemort's voice.
More footsteps. Several people were backing away from the same spot. Desperate
to see what was
happening and why, Harry opened his eyes by a milimeter.
Voldemort seemed to be getting to his feet. Various Death Eaters were hurrying
away from him,
returning to the crowd lining the clearing. Bellatrix alone remained behind, kneeling
beside Voldemort.
Harry closed his eyes again and considered what he had seen. The Death Eaters
have been buddled
around Voldemort, who seem to have fallen to the ground. Something had happened
when he had hit Harry with
the Killing Curse. Had Voldemort too collapsed? It seemed like it. And both of them had
briefly fallen unconcious
and both of them had now returned. . .
"My Lord, let me --"
"I do not require assitance," said Voldemort coldly, and though he could not see it,
Harry pictured
Bellatrix withdrawing a helpful hand. "The boy . . . Is he dead?"
There was a complete silence in the clearing. Nobody approached Harry, but he
felt their concentraded
gaze; it seemed to press him harder into the ground, and he was terrified a finger or an
eyelid might twitch.
"You," said Voldemort, and there was a bang and a small shrick of pain.
"Examine him. Tell me whether he is dead."
Harry did not know who had been sent to verify. He could only lie there, with his
heart thumping traitorously, and wait to be
examined, but at the same time nothing, small comfort through it was, that Voldemort
was wary of approaching him, that Voldemort
suspected that all had not gone to plan . . . .
Hands, softer than he had been expecting, touched Harry's face, and felt his heart.
He could hear the woman's fast breathing,
her pounding of life against his ribs.
"Is Draco alive? Is he in the castle?"
The whisper was barely audible, her lips were an inch from his car, her head bent
so low that her long hair shielded his face
from the onlookers.
"Yes," he breathed back.
He felt the hand on his chest contract: her nails pierced him. Then it was
withdrawn. She had sat up.
"He is dead!" Narcissa Malfoy called to the watchers.
And now they shouted, now they yelled in triumph and stamped their feet, and
through his eyelids, Harry saw bursts of red
and silver light shoot into the air in celebration.
Still feigning death on the ground, he understood. Narcissa knew that the only
way she would be permitted to enter Hogwarts,
and find her son, was as part of the conquering army. She no longer cared whether
Voldemort won.
"You see?" screeched Voldemort over the tumult. "Harry Potter is dead by my
hand, and no man alive can threaten me now!
Watch! Crucio!"
Harry had been expecting it, knew his body would not be allowed to remain
unsullied upon the forest floor; it must be subjected
to humiliation to prove Voldemort's victory. He was lifted into the air, and it took all his
determination to remain limp, yet the pain he
expected did not come. He was thrown once, twice, three times into the air. His glasses
flew off and he felt his wand slide a little beneath
his robes, but he kept himself floppy and lifeless, and when he fell no ground for the last
time, the clearing echoed with jeers and shrieks
of laughter.
"Now," said Voldemort, "we go to the castle, and show them what has become of
their hero. Who shall drag the body? No - Wait - "
There was a fresh outbreak of laughter, and after a few moments Harry felt the
ground trembling beneath him.
"You carry him," Voldemort said. "He will be nice and visible in your arms, will
he not? Pick up your little friend, Hagrid. And the
glasses - put on the glasses - he must be recognizable - "
Someone slammed Harry's glasses back onto his face with deliberate force, but
the enormous hands that lifted him into the air
were exceedingly gentle. Harry could feel Hagrid's arms trembling with the force of his
heaving sobs; great tears splashed down upon him
as Hagrid cradled Harry in his arms, and Harry did not dare, by movement or word, to
intimate to Hagrid that all was not, yet, lost.
"Move," said Voldemort, and Hagrid stumbled forward, forcing his way through
the close-growing trees, back through the forest.
Branches caught at Harry's hair and robes, but he lay quiescent, his mouth lolling open,
his eyes shut, and in the darkness, while the
Death Eaters croed all around them, and while Hagrid sobbed blindly, nobody looked to
see whether a pulse beat in the exposed neck of
Harry Potter. . . .
The two giants crashed along behind the Death Eaters; Harry could hear trees
creaking and falling as they passed; they made so
much din that birds toes shrieking into the sky, and even the jeers of the Death Eaters
were drowned. The victorious procession marched
on toward the open ground, and after a while Harry could tell, by the lightening of the
darkness through his closed eyelids, that the trees
were beginning to thin.
"BANE!"
Hagrid's unexpected bellow nearly forced Harry's eyes open. "Happy now, are
yeh, that yeh didn't fight, yeh cowardly bunch o' nags?
Are yeh happy Harry Potter's - d-dead . . . ?"
Hagrid could not continue, but broke down in fresh tears. Harry wondered how
many centaurs were watching their procession pass;
he dared not open his eyes to look. Some of the Death Eaters called insults at the centaurs
as they left them behind. A little later, Harry
sensed, by a freshening of the air, that they had reached the edge of the forest.
"Stop."
Harry thought that Hagrid must have been forced to obey Voldemort's command,
because he lurched a little. And now a chill settled
over them where they sood, and Harry heard the rasping breath of the dementors that
patrolled the other trees. They would not affect him now.
The fact of his own survival burned inside him, a talisman against them, as though his
father's stag kept guardian in his heart.
Someone passed close by Harry, and he knew that it was Voldemort himself
because he spoke a moment later, his voice magically
magnified so that it swelled through the ground, crashing upon Harry's eardrums.
"Harry Potter is dead. He was killed as he ran away, trying to save himself while
you lay down your lives for him. We bring you his
body as proof that your hero is gone.
"The battle is won. You have lost half of your fighters. My Death Eaters
outnumber you, and the Boy Who Lived is finished. There must
be no more war. Anyone who continues to resist, man, woman or child, will be
slaughtered, as will every member of their family. Come out of the
castle now, kneel before me, and you shall be spared. Your parents and children, your
brothers and sisters will live and be forgiven, and you will
join me in the new world we shall build togheter."
There was silence in the grounds and from the castle. Voldemort was so close to
him that Harry did not dare open his eyes again.
"Come," said Voldemort, and Harry heard him move ahead, and Hagrid was
forced to follow. Now Harry opened his eyes a fraction, and saw
Voldemort striding in front them, wearing the great snake Nagini around his shoulders,
now free of her enchanted cage. But Harry had no possibility
of extracting the wand concealed under his robes without being noticed by the Death
Eaters, who marched on the either side of them through the
slowly lightening darkness . . . .
"Harry," sobbed Hagrid. "Oh, Harry . . . Harry . . ."
Harry shut his eyes tight again. He knew that they were approaching the castle
and strained his ears to distinguish, above the gleeful voices
of the Death Eaters and their tramping footsteps, signs of life from those within.
"Stop."
The Death Eaters camte to a halt; Harry heard them spreading out in a line facing
the opne front doors of the school. He could see, even
though his closed lids, the teddish glow that meant light streamed upon him from the
entrance hall. He waited. Any moment, the people for whom
he had tried to die would see him, lying apparently dead, in Hagrid's arms.
"NO!"
The scream was the more terrible because he had never expected or dreamed that
Professor McGonagall could make such a sound. He heard
another women laughing nearby, and knew that Bellatrix gloried in McGonagall's despair.
He squinted again for a single second and saw the open
doorway filling with people, as the survivors of the battle came out onto the front steps
to face their vanquishers and see the truth of Harry's death for
themselves. He saw Voldemort standing a little in front of him, stroking Nagini's head
with a single white finger. He closed his eyes again.
"No!"
"No!"
"Harry! HARRY!"
Ron's, Hermione's, and Ginny's voices were worse than McGonagall's; Harry
wanted nothing more than to call back, yet he made himself lie
silent, and their cries acted like a trigger; the crowd of survivors took up the cause,
screaming and yelling abuse at the Death Eathers, until -
"SILENCE!" cried Voldemort, and there was a bang and a flash of bright light,
and silence was forced upn them all. "It is over! Set him down,
Hagrid, at my feet, where he belongs!"
Harry felt himself lowered onto the grass.
"You see? said Voldemort, and Harry felt him striding backward and forward
right beside the place where he lay. "Harry Potter is dead! Do you
understand now, deluded ones? He was nothing, ever, but a boy who relied on others to
sacrifice themselves for him!"
"He beat you!" yelled Ron, and the charm broke, and the defenders of Hogwarts
were shouting and screaming again until a second, more
powerful bang extinguished their voices once more.
"He was killed while trying to sneak out of the castle grounds," said Voldemort,
and there was a relish in his voice for the lie. "killed while trying
to save himself - "
But Voldemort broke off: Harry heard a scuffle and a shout, then another bang, a
flash of light, and grunt of pain; he opened his eyes an infinitesimal
amount. Someone had broken free of the crowd and charged at Voldemort: Harry saw the
figure hit the ground. Disarmed, Voldemort throwing the challenger's
wand aside and laughing.
"And who is this?" he said in his soft snake's hiss. "Who has volunteered to
demonstrate what happens to those who continue to fight when the
battle is lost?"
Bellatrix gave a delighted laugh.
"It is Neville Longbottom, my Lord! The boy who has been giving the Carrows so
much trouble! The son of the Aurors, remember?"
"Ah, yes, I remember," said Voldemort, looking down at Neville, who was
struggling back to his feet, unarmed and unproctected, standing in the
no-man's-land between the survivors and the Death Eaters. "But you are a pureblood,
aren't you, my brave boy? Voldemort asked Neville, who stood facing him,
his empty hands curled in fists.
"So what if I am?" said Neville loudly.
"You show spirit and bravery, and you come of noble stock. You will make a very
valuable Death Eater. We need your kind, Neville Longbottom."
"I'll join you when hell freezes over," said Neville. "Dumbledore's Army!" he
shouted, and there was an answering cheer from the crowd, whom
Voldemort's Silencing Charms seemed unable to hold.
"Very well," said Voldemort, and Harry heard more danger in the silkiness of his
voice than in the most powerful curse. "If that is your choice, Longbottom,
we revert to the original plan. On your head," he said quietly, "be it."
Still watching through his lashes, Harry saw Voldemort wave his wand. Seconds
later, out of one of the castle's shattered windows, something that looked like a
misshapen bird flew through the half light and landed in Voldemort's hand. He shook the
mildewed object by its pointed end and it dangled, emtpy and ragged: the Sorting Hat.
"There will be no more Sorting at Hogwarts School," said Voldemort. "There will
be no more Houses. The emblem, sheild and colors of my noble ancestor, Salazar
Slythering, will suffice everyone. Won't they, Neville Longbottom?"
He pointed his wand at Neville, who grew rigid and still, then forced the hat onto
Neville's head, so thta it slipped down below his eyes. There were movements from the
watching crowd in front of the castle, and as one, the Death Eaters raised their wands,
holding the fighters of Hogwarts at bay.
"Neville here is now going to demonstrate what happens to anyone foolish
enough to continue to oppose me," said Voldemort, and with a flick of his wand, he
caused the Sorting Hat to burst into flames.
Screams split the dawn, and Neville was a flame, rooted to the spot, unable to
move, and Harry could not bear it: He must act -
And then many things happened at the same moment.
They heard uproar from the distant boundary of the school as what sounded like
hundreds of people came swarming over the out-of-sight walls and pelted toward the
castle, uttering lowd war cries. At the same time, Grawp came lumbering around the side
of the castel and yelled, "HAGGER!" His cry was answered by roars from Voldemort's
giants: They ran at Grawp like bull elephants making the earth quake. Then came hooves
and the twangs of bows, and arrows were suddenly falling amongst the Death Eaters, who
broke ranks, shouting their surprise. Harry pulled the Invisibilty Cloak from inside his
robes, swunt it over himself, and sprang to his feet, as Neville moved too.
In one swift, fluid motin, Neville broke free of the Body-Bind Curse upon him;
the flaming har fell off him and he drew from its depths something silver, with a
glittering, rubied handle -
The slash of the silver blade could not be heard over the roar of the oncoming
crowd or the sounds of the clashing giants or of te stampending centaurs, and yet, it
seemd to draw every eye. With a single stroke Neville sliced off the great snake's head,
which spun high into the air, gleaming in the light flooding from the entrance hall, and
Voldemort's mouth was open in a scream of fury that nobody could hear, and the snake's
body thudded to the ground at his feet-
Hidden beneath the Invisibilty Cloak, Harry cast a Shield Charm between Neville
and Voldemort before the latter could raise his stamps of the battling giants, Hagrid's yell
came loudets of all.
"HARRY!" Hagrid shouted. "HARRY - WHERE'S HARRY?"
Chaos reigned. The charging centaurs were scattering the Death Eaters, everyone
was feeling the giants' stamping feet, and nearer and nearar thundered the reinforcements
that had come from who knew where; Harry saw great winget creatues soaring the heads
of Voldemort's giants, thestrals and Buckbeak the hippogriff scratching at their eyes
while Grawp punched and pummeled them and now the wizards, defenders of Hogwarts
and Death Eaters alike were being forced back into the castle. Harry was shooting jinxes
and curses at any Death Eater he could see, and they crumpled, not knowing what or who
had hit them, and their bodies were trampled by the retreating crowd. Still hidden beneath
the Invisibility Cloak, Harry was buffered into the entrance hall: He was searching for
Voldemort and saw him across the room, firing spells from his wand as he backed into
the Great Hall, still screaming instructions to his followers as he sent curses flying left
and right; Harry cast more Shield Charms, and Voldemort's would-be victims. Seamus
Finnigan and Hannah Abbott, datted past him into the Great Hall, where they joined the
fight already flourishing inside it.
And now there were more, even more people storming up the front steps, and
Harry saw Charlie Weasly overtaking Horace Slughorn, who was still wearing his emeral
pijamas. They seemed to have returned at the head of what looked like the families and
friends of every Hogwarts student who had remained to fight along with the shopkeeps
and homeowners of Hogsmeade. The centaurs Bane, Ronan and Magorian burst into the
hall with a great clatter of hooves, as behind Harry the door that led to the kitchens was
blasted off its hinges.
The house-elves of Hogwarts swarmed intot he entrance hall, screaming and
waving carving knives and cleaver, and at their head, the locker of Regulus Black
bouncing on his chest, was Kreacher, his bullfrog's voice audible even above this din:
"Fight! Fight! Fight for my Master, defender of house-elves! Fight the Dark Lord, in the
name of brave Regulus! Fight!"
They were hacking and stabbing at the ankles and shim of Death Eaters their tiny
faces alive with malice, and everywhere Harry looked Death Eaters were folding under
sheer weight of numbers, overcome by spells, dragging arrows from wounds, stabbed in
the leg by elves, or else simply attempting to escape, but swallowed by the oncoming
horde.
But it was not over yet: Harry sped between duelers, past atruggling prosoners,
and into he Great Hall.
Voldemort was in the center of the battle, and he was striking and smiting al
within reach. Harry could not get a clear shot, but fought his way nearer, still invisible,
and the Great Hall became more and more crowded as everyone who could walk forced
their way inside.
Harry saw Yaxley slammed tot he floor by George and Lee Jordan, saw Dolohov
fall with a scream at Flitwick's hands, saw Walden Macnair thrown across the room by
Hagrid, hit the stone wall opposite, and slide unconscious to the ground. He saw Ron and
Neville bringing down Fenrir Greyback. Aberforth Stunning Rookwood, Arthur and
Percy flooting Thicknesse, and Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy running through the crowd,
not even attempting to fight, screaming for their son.
Voldemort was now dueling McGonagall, Slughorn, Kingsley all at once, and
there was a cold hatred in his face as they wove and ducked around him, unable to finish
him -
Bellatrix was still fighing too, fifty yards away from Voldemort, and like her
master she dueled three at once: Hermione, Ginny and Luna, all battling their hardest, but
Bellatrix was equal to them, and Harry's attention was diverted as a Killing Curse shot so
close to Ginny that she missed death by an inch -
He changed course, running at Bellatrix rather than Voldemort, but before he had
gone a few steps he was knocked sideways.
"NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!"
Mrs. Weasley threw off her cloak as she ran, freeing her arms, Bellatrix spun on
the spot, roaring with laughter at the sight of the new challenger.
"OUT OF MY WAY!" shouted Mrs. Weasley to the three girls, and with a simple
swipe of her wand she began to duel. Harry watched with terror and elation as Molly
Weasley's wand slashed and twisted, and Bellatrix Lestrange's smile faltered and became
a snarl. Jets of light flew from both wands, the floor around the withces' feet became bot
and cracked; both woman were fighting to kill.
"No!" Mrs. Weasley cried as a few students ran forward, trying to come to her aid.
"Get back! Get back! She is mine!"
Hundreds of people now lined the walls, watching the two fights, Voldemort and
his three opponents, Bellatrix and Molly, and Harry stood, invisible, torn between both,
wanting to attack and yet to protect, unable to be sure that he would not hit the innocent.
"What will happen to your children when I've killed you?" taunted Bellatrix, as
mad as her master, capering as Molly's curses danced around her. "When Mummy's gone
the same way as Freddie?"
"You - will - never - touch - our - children - again!" screamed Mrs. Weasley.
Bellatrix laughed the same exhilarated laugh her cousin Sirius had given as he
toppled backward through the veil, and suddenly Harry knew what was going to happen
before it did.
Molly's curse soared beneath Bellatrix's constreched arm and hit her squarely in
the chest, directly over her heart.
Bellatrix's glounting smile froze, her eyes seemd to bulge: For the tiniest space of
time she knew what had happened, and then she toppled, and the watching crowd roared,
and Voldemord screamed.
Harry felt as though he turned into slow motin: he saw McGonagall, Kingsley and
Slughorn blasted backward, flailing and writhing through the air, as Voldemort's fury at
the fall of his last, best leutenant exploded with the force of a bomb, Voldemort raised his
wand and directed it at Molly Weasley.
"Protego!" roared Harry, and the Shield Charm expanded in the middle of the
Hall, and Voldemort stared around for the source as Harry pulled off the Invisibility
Cloak at last.
The yell of shock, the cheers, the screams on every side of :"Harry!" "HE'S
ALIVE!" were stifled at once. The crowd was afraid, and silence fell abruptly and
completely as Voldemort and Harry looked at each other, and began, at the same moment,
to circle each other.
"I don't want anyone else to help," Harry said loudly, and in the total silence his
voice carried like a trumpet call. "It's got to be like this. It's got to be me."
Voldemort hissed.
"Potter doesn't mean that," he said, his red eyes wide. "This isn't how he works, is
it? Who are you going to use as a shield today, Potter?"
"Nobody," said Harry simply. "There are no more Horcruxes. It's just you and me.
Neither can live while the other survives, and one of us is about to leave for good. . . ."
"One of us?" jeered Voldemort, and his wholy body was taut and his red eyes
stared, a snake that was about to strike. "You think it will be you, do you, the boy who
has survived by accident, and because Dumbledore was pulling the strings?"
"Accident, was it, when my mother died to save me?" asked Harry. They were
still moving sideways, both of them, in that perfect circle, maintaining the same distance
from each other, and for Harry no face existed but Voldemort's. "Accident, when I
decided to fight in that graveyard? Accident, that I didn't defend myself tonight, and still
survived, and returned to fight again?"
"Accidents!" screamed Voldemort, but still he did not strike, and the watching
crowd was frozen as if Petrified, and of the hundreds in the Hall, nobody seemed to
breathe but they two. "Accident and chance and the fact that you crouched and sniveled
behind the skirts of greater men and women, and permitted me to kill them for you!"
"You won't be killing anyone else tonight," said Harry as they circled, and stared
into each other's eyes, green into red. "You won't be able to kill any of them ever again.
Don't you get it? I was ready to die to stop you from hurting these people - "
"But you did not!"
" - I meant to, and that's what did it. I've done what my mother did. They're
protected from you. Haven't you noticed how none of the spells you put on them are
binding? You can't torture them. You can't touch them. You don't learn from your
mistakes, Riddle, do you?"
"You dare -"
"Yes, I dare," said Harry. "I know things you don't know, Tom Riddle. I know
lots of important things that you don't. Want to hear some, before you make another big
mistake?"
Voldemort did not speak, but powled in a circle, and Harry knew that he kept him
temporarily mesmerized at bay, held back by the faintest possibility that Harry might
indeed know a final secret. . . .
"Is it love again?" said Voldemort, his snake's face jeering. "Dumbledore favorite
solution, love, which he claimed conqered death, though love did not stop him falling
from the tower and breaking like and old waxwork? Love, which did not prevent me
stamping out your Modblood mother like a cockroack, Potter - and nobody seems to love
you enough to run forward this time and take my curse. So what will stop you dying now
when I strike?"
"Just one thing," said Harry, and still they circled each other, wrapped in each
other, held apart by nothing but the last secret.
"If it is not love that will save you this time," said Voldemort, "you must believe
that you have magic that i do not, or else a weapon more powerful than mine?"
"I believe both," said Harry, and he saw shock flit across the snakelike face,
though it was instantly dispelled; Voldemort began to laugh, and the sound was more
frightening than his screams; humorles and insane, it echoed around the silent Hall.
"You think you know more magic than I do?" he said. "Than I, than Lord
Voldemort, who has performed magic that Dumbledore himself never dreamed of?"
"Oh he dreamed of it," said Harry, "but he knew more than you, knew enough not
to do what you've done."
"You mean he was weak!" screamed Voldemort. "Too weak to dare, too weak to
take what might have been his, what will be mine!"
"No, he was cleverer than you," said Harry, "a better wizard, a better man."
"I brought about the death of Albus Dumbledore!"
"You thought you did," said Harry, "but you were wrong."
For the frist time, the watching crowd stirred as the hundreds of people around the
walls drew breath as one.
"Dumbledore is dead!" Voldemort hurled the words at Harry as in the marble
tomb in the grounds of this castle, I have seen it, Potter, and he will not return!"
"Yes, Dumbledore is dead," said Harry calmly, "but you didn't have him killed.
He chose his own manner of dying, chose it months before he died, arranged the whole
thing with the man you thought was your servant."
"What chldish dream is this?" said Voldemort, but still he did not strike, and his
red eyes did not waver from Harry's.
"Severus Snape wasn't yours," said Harry. "Snape was Dumbledore's.
Dumbledore's from the moment you starting hunting down my mother. And you never
realized it, because of the thing you can't understand. You never saw Snape cast a
Patronus, did you, Riddle?"
Voldemort did not answer. They continued to circle each other like wolves about
to tear each other apart.
"Snape's Patronus was a doe," said Harry, "the same as my mother's, because he
loved her for nearly all of his life, from the time when they were children. You should
have realized," he said as he saw Voldemort's nostrils flare, "he asked you to spare her
life, didn't he?"
"He desired her, that was all," sneered Voldemort, "but when she had gone, he
agreed that there were other women, and of purer blood, worhier of him - "
"Of course he told you that," said Harry, "but he was Dumbledore's spy from the
moment you threatened her, and he's been working against you ever since! Dumbledore
was already dying when Snape finished him!"
"It matters not!" shrieked Voldemort, who had followed every word with rapt
attention, but now let out a cackle of mad laughter. "It matters not whether Snape was
mine or Dumbledore's, or what petty obstacles they tried to put in my path! I crushed
them as I crushed your mother, Snape's supposed great love! Oh, but it all makes sense,
Potter, and in ways that you do not understand!
"Dumbledore was trying to keep the Elder Wand from me! He intended that
Snape should be the true master of the wand! But I got there ahead of you, little boy - I
reached the wand before you could get your hands on it, I understood the truth before you
caught up. I killed Severus Snape three hours ago, and the Elder Wand, the Deathstick,
the Wand of Destiny is truly mine! Dumbledore's last plan went wrong, Harry Potter!"
"Yeah, it did." said Harry. "You're right. But before you try to kill me, I'd advise
you think what you've done . . . . Think, and try for some remorse, Riddle. . . ."
"What is this?"
Of all the things that Harry had said to him, beyond any revelation or taunt,
nothing had socked Voldemort like this. Harry saw is pupils contract to thin slits, saw the
skin around his eyes whiten.
"It's your one last chance," said Harry, "it's all you've got left. . . . I've seen what
you'll be otherwise. . . . Be a man. . . try. . . Try for some remorse. . . ."
“You dare --- ?” said Voldemort again.
“Yes, I dare,” said Harry, “because Dumbledore’s last plan hasn’t backfired on
me at all. It’s backfired on you, Riddle.”
Voldemort’s hand was trembling on the Elder Wand, and Harry gripped Draco’s
very tightly. The moment, he knew, was seconds away.
“That wand still isn’t working properly for you because you murdered the wrong
person. Severus Snape was never the true master of the Elder Wand. He never defeated
Dumbledore.”
“He killed --- ”
“Aren’t you listening? Snape never beat Dumbledore! Dumbledore’s death was
planned between them! Dumbledore instended to die, undefeated, the wand’s last true
master! If all had gone as planned, the wand’s power would have died with him, because
it had never been won from him!”
“But then, Potter, Dumbledore as good as gave me the wand!” Voldemort’s voice
shook with malicious pleasure. “I stole the wand from its last master’s tomb! I removed it
against the last master’s wishes! Its power is mine!”
“You still don’t get it, Riddle, do you? Possessing the wand isn’t enough! Holding
it, using it, doesn’t make it really yours. Didn’t you listen to Ollivander? The wand
chooses the wizard . . . The Elder Wand recognized a new master before Dumbledore
died, someone who never even laid a hand on it. The new master removed the wand from
Dumbledore against his will, never realizing exactly what he had done, or that the
world’s most dangerous wand had given him its allegiance . . .”
Voldemort’s chest rose and fell rapidly, and Harry could feel the curse coming,
feel it building inside the wand pointed at his face.
“The true master of the Elder Wand was Draco Malfoy.”
Blank shock showed in Voldemort’s face for a moment, but then it was gone.
“But what does it matter?” he said softly. “Even if you are right, Potter, it makes
no difference to you and me. You no longer have the phoenix wand: We duel on skill
alone . . . and after I have killed you, I can attend to Draco Malfoy . . .”
“But you’re too late,” said Harry. “You’ve missed your chance. I got there first. I
overpowered Draco weeks ago. I took his wand from him.”
Harry twitched the hawthorn wand, and he felt the eyes of everyone in the Hall
upon it.
“So it all comes down to this, doesn’t it?” whispered Harry. “Does the wand in
your hand know its last master was Disarmed? Because if it does . . . I am the true master
of the Elder Wand.”
A red-glow burst suddenly across the enchanted sky above them as an edge of
dazzling sun appeared over the sill of the nearest window. The light hit both of their faces
at the same time, so that Voldemort’s was suddenly a flaming blur. Harry heard the high
voice shriek as he too yelled his best hope to the heavens, pointing Draco’s wand:
“Avada Kedavra!”
“Expelliarmus!”
The bang was like a cannon blast, and the golden flames that erupted between
them, at the dead center of the circle they had been treading, marked the point where the
spells collided. Harry saw Voldemort’s green jet meet his own spell, saw the Elder Wand
fly high, dark against the sunrise, spinning across the enchanted ceiling like the head of
Nagini, spinning through the air toward the master it would not kill, who had come to
take full possession of it at last. And Harry, with the unerring skill of the Seeker, caught
the wand in his free hand as Voldemort fell backward, arms splayed, the slit pupils of the
scarlet eyes rolling upward. Tom Riddle hit the floor with a mundane finality, his body
feeble and shrunken, the white hands empty, the snakelike face vacant and unknowing.
Voldemort was dead, killed by his own rebounding curse, and Harry stood with two
wands in his hand, staring down at his enemy’s shell.
One shivering second of silence, the shock of the moment suspended: and then the
tumult broke around Harry as the screams and the cheers and the roars of the watchers
rent the air. The fierce new sun dazzled the windows as they thundered toward him, and
the first to reach him were Ron and Hermione, and it was their arms that were wrapped
around him, their incomprehensible shouts that deafened him. The Ginny, Neville, and
Luna were there, and then all the Weasleys and Hagrid, and Kingsley and McGonagall
and Flitwick and Sprout, and Harry could not hear a word that anyone was shouting, not
tell whose hands were seizing him, pulling him, trying to hug some part of him, hundreds
of them pressing in, all of them determined to touch the Boy Who Lived, the reason it
was over at last ---
The sun rose steadily over Hogwarts, and the Great Hall blazed with life and light.
Harry was an indispensible part of the mingled outpourings of jubilation and mourning,
of grief and celebration. They wanted him there with them, their leader and symbol, their
savior and their guide, and that he had not slept, that he craved the company of only a few
of them, seemed to occur to no one. He must speak to the bereaved, clasp their hands,
witness their tears, receive their thanks, hear the news now creeping in from every quarter
as the morning drew on; that the Imperiused up and down the country had come back to
themselves, that Death Eaters were fleeing or else being captured, that the innocent of
Azkaban were being released at that very moment, and that Kingsley Shacklebolt had
been named temporary Minister of Magic.
They moved Voldemort’s body and laid it in a chamber off the Hall, away form
the bodies of Fred, Tonks, Lupin, Colin Creevey, and fifty others who had died fighting
him. McGonagall had replaced the House tables, not nobody was sitting according to
House anymore: All were jumbled together, teachers and pupils, ghosts and parents,
centaurs and house-elves, and Firenze lay recovering in the corner, and Grawp peered in
through a smashed window, and people were throwing food into his laughing mouth.
After a while, exhausted and drained, Harry found himself sitting on a bench beside Luna.
“I’d want some peace and quiet, if it were me,” she said.
“I’d love some,” he replied.
“I’ll distract them all,” she said. “Use your cloak.”
And before he could say a word, she had cried, “Oooh, look, a Blibbering
Humdinger!” and pointed out the window. Everyone who heard looked around, and
Harry slid the Cloak up over himself, and got to his feet.
Now he could move through the Hall without interference. He spotted Ginny two
tables away; she was sitting with her head on her mother’s shoulder: There would be time
to talk later, hours and days and maybe years in which to talk. He saw Neville, the sword
of Gryffindor lying beside his plate as he ate, surrounded by a knot of fervent admirers.
Along the aisle between the tables he walked, and he spotted the three Malfoys, huddled
together as though unsure whether or not they were supposed to be there, but nobody was
paying them any attention. Everywhere he looked, he saw families reunited, and finally,
he saw the two whose company he craved most.
“It’s me,” he muttered, crouching down between them. “Will you come with
me?”
They stood up at once, and together he, Ron and Hermione left the Great Hall.
Great chunks were missing from the marble staircase, part of the balustrade gone, and
rubble and bloodstains occurred ever few steps as their climbed.
Somewhere in the distance they could hear Peeves zooming through the
corridors singing a victory song of his own composition:
We did it, we bashed them, wee Potter’s the one,
And Voldy’s gone moldy, so now let’s have fun!
“Really gives a feeling for the scope and tragedy of the thing, doesn’t it?” said
Ron, pushing open a door to let Harry and Hermione through.
Happiness would come, Harry though, but at the moment it was muffled by
exhaustion, and the pain of losing Fred and Lupin and Tonks pierced him like a physical
wound every few steps. Most of all he felt the most stupendous relief, and a longing to
sleep. But first he owed an explanation to Ron and Hermione, who had stuck with him for
so long, and who deserved the truth. Painstakingly he recounted what he had seem in the
Pensieve and what had happened in the forest, and they had not even begun to express all
their shock and amazement, when at last they arrived at the place to which they had been
walking, though none of them had mentioned their destination.
Since he had last seen it, the gargoyle guarding the entrance to the headmaster’s
study had been knocked aside; it stood lopsided, looking a little punch-drunk, and Harry
wondered whether it would be able to distinguish passwords anymore.
“Can we go up?” he asked the gargoyle.
“Feel free,” groaned the statue.
They clambered over him and onto the spiral stone staircase that moved slowly
upward like an escalator. Harry pushed open the door at the top.
He had one, brief glimpse of the stone Pensieve on the desk where he had left it,
and then an earsplitting noise made him cry out, thinking of curses and returning Death
Eaters and the rebirth of Voldemort ---
But it was applause. All around the walls, the headmasters and headmistresses of
Hogwarts were giving him a standing ovation; they waved their hats and in some cases
their wigs, they reached through their frames to grip each other’s hands; they danced up
and down on their chairs in which they have been painted: Dilys Derwent sobbed
unashamedly; Dexter Fortescue was waving his ear-trumpet; and Phineas Niggelus called,
in his high, reedy voice, “And let it be noted that Slytherin House played its part! Let our
contribution not be forgotten!”
But Harry had eyes only for the man who stood in the largest portrait directly
behind the headmaster’s chair. Tears were sliding down from behind the half-moon
spectacles into the long silver beard, and the pride and the gratitude emanating from him
filled Harry wit h the same balm as phoenix song.
At last, Harry held up his hands, and the portraits fell respectfully silent, beaming
and mopping their eyes and waiting eagerly for him to speak. He directed his words at
Dumbledore, however, and chose them with enormous care. Exhausted and bleary-eyed
though he was, he must make one last effort, seeking one last piece of advice.
“The thing that was hidden in the Snitch,” he began, “I dropped it in the forest. I
don’t exactly here, but I’m not going to go looking for it again. Do you agree?”
“My dear boy, I do,” said Dumbledore, while his fellow pictures looked confused
and curious. “A wise and courageous decision, but no less than I would have expected of
you. Does anyone know else know where it fell?”
“No one,” said Harry, and Dumbledore nodded his satisfaction.
“I’m going to keep Ignotus’s present, though,” said Harry, and Dumbledore
beamed.
“But of course, Harry, it is yours forever, until you pass it on!”
“And then there’s this.”
Harry held up the Elder Wand, and Ron and Hermione looked at it with a
reverence that, even in his befuddled and sleep-deprived state, Harry did not like to see.
“I don’t want it.” said Harry.
“What?” said Ron loudly. “Are you mental?”
“I know it’s powerful,” said Harry wearily. “But I was happier with mine. So . . .”
He rummaged in the pouch hung around his neck, and pulled out the two halves
of holly tstill just connected by the finest threat of phoenix feather. Hermione had said
that they could not be repaired, that the damage was too severe. All he knew was that if
this did not work, nothing would.
He laid the broken wand upon the headmaster’s desk, touched it with the very tip
of the Elder Wand, and said, “Reparo.”
As his wand resealed, red sparks flew out of its end. Harry knew that he had
succeeded. He picked up the holly and phoenix wand and felt a sudden warmth in his
fingers, as though wand and hand were rejoicing at their reunion.
“I’m putting the Elder Wand,” he told Dumbledore, who was watching him with
enormous affection and admiration, “back where it came from. It can stay there. If I die a
natural death like Ignotus, its power will be broken, won’t it? The previous master will
never have been defeated. That’ll be the end of it.
Dumbledore nodded. They smiled at each other.
“Are you sure?” said Ron. There was the faintest trace of longing in his voice as
he looked at the Elder Wand.
“I think Harry’s right,” said Hermione quietly.
“That wand’s more trouble than it’s worth.” said Harry. “And quite honestly,” he
turned away from the painted portraits, thinking now only of the four-poster bed lying
waiting for him in Gryffindor Tower, and wondering whether Kreacher might bring him a
sandwich there, “I’ve had enough trouble for a lifetime.”
Epilogue
Nineteen Years Later
Autumn seemed to arrive suddenly that year. The morning of the first of September was
crisp as an apple, and as the little family bobbed across the rumbling road toward the
great sooty station, the fumes of car exhausts and the breath of pedestrians sparkled like
cobwebs in the cold air. Two large cages tattled on top of the laden trolleys the parents
were pushing; the owls inside them hooted indignantly, and the redheaded girl trailed
fearfully behind here brothers, clutching her father's arm.
"It won't be long, and you'll be going too," Harry told her.
"Two years," sniffed Lily. "I want to go now!"
The commuters stared curiously at the owls as the family wove its way toward the
barrier between platforms nine and ten, Albus's voice drifted back to Harry over the
surrounding clamor; his sons had resumed the argument they had started in the car.
"I won't! I won't be a Slytherin!"
"James, give it a rest!" said Ginny.
"I only said he might be," said James, grinning at his younger brother. "There's
nothing wrong with that. He might be in Slytherin"
But James caught his mother's eye and fell silent. The five Potters approached the
barrier. With a slightly cocky look over his shoulder at his younger brother, James took
the trolley from his mother and broke into a run. A moment later, he had vanished.
"You'll write to me, won't you?" Albus asked his parents immediately,
capitalizing on the momentary absence of his brother.
"Every day, of you want us to," said Ginny.
"Not every day," said Albus quickly, "James says most people only get letters
from home about once a month."
"We wrote to James three times a week last year," said Ginny.
"And you don't want to believe everything he tells you about Hogwarts," Harry
put in. "He likes a laugh, your brother."
Side by side, they pushed the second trolley forward, gathering speed. As they
reached the barrier, Albus winced, but no collision came. Instead, the family emerged
onto platform nine and three-quarters, which was obscured by thick white steam that was
pouring from the scarlet Hogwarts Express. Indistinct figures were swarming through the
mist, into which James had already disappeared.
"Where are they?" asked Albus anxiously, peering at the hazy forms they passed
as they made their way down the platform.
"We'll find them," said Ginny reassuringly.
But the vapor was dense, and it was difficult to make out anybody's faces.
Detached from their owners, voices sounded unnaturally loud, Harry thought he head
Percy discoursing loudly on broomstick regulations, and was quite glad of the excuse not
to stop and say hello. . . .
"I think that's them, Al," said Ginny suddenly.
A group of four people emerged from the mist, standing alongside the very last
carriage. Their faces only came into focus when Harry, Ginny, Lily, and Albus had drawn
right up to them.
"Hi," said Albus, sounding immensely relieved.
Roses, who was already wearing her brand-new Hogwarts robes, beamed at him.
"Parked all right, then?" Ron asked Harry. "I did. Hermione didn't believe I could
pass a Muggle driving test, did you? She thought I'd have to Confound the examiner."
"No, I didn't," said Hermione, "I had complete faith in you."
"As a matter of fact, I did Confund him," Ron whispered to Harry, as together
they lifted Albus's trunk and owl onto the train. "I only forgot to look in the wing mirror,
and let's face it, I can use a Supersensory Charm for that."
Back on the platform, they found Lily and Hugo, Rose's younger brother, having
an animated discussion about which House they would be sorted into when they finally
went to Hogwarts.
"If you're not in Gryffindor, we'll disinherit you," said Ron, "but no pressure."
"Ron!"
Lily and Hugo laughed, but Albus and Rose looked solemn.
"He doesn't mean it," said Hermione and Ginny, but Ron was no longer paying
attention. Catching Harry's eye, he nodded covertly to a point some fifty yards away. The
steam had thinned for a moment, and three people stood in sharp relief against the
shifting mist.
"Look who it is."
Draco Malfoy was standing there with his wife and son, a dark coat buttoned up
to his throat. His hair was receding somewhat, which emphasized the pointed chin. The
new boy resembled Draco as much as Albus resembled Harry. Draco caught sight of
Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny staring at him, nodded curtly, and turned away again.
"So that's little Scorpius," said Ron under his breath. "Make sure you beat him in
every test, Rosie. Thank God you inherited your mother's brains."
"Ron, for heaven's sake," said Hermione, half stern, half amused. "Don't try to
turn them against each other before they've even started school!"
"You're right, sorry," said Ron, but unable to help himself, he added, "Don't get
too friendly with him, though, Rosie. Granddad Weasley would never forgive you if you
married a pureblood."
"Hey!"
James had reappeared; he had divested himself of his trunk, owl, and trolley, and
was evidently bursting with news.
"Teddy's back there," he said breathlessly, pointing back over his shoulder into
the billowing clouds of steam. "Just seen him! And guess what he's doing? Snogging
Victoire!"
He gazed up at the adults, evidently disappointed by the lack of reaction.
"Our Teddy! Teddy Lupin! Snogging our Victoire! Our cousin! And I asked teddy
what he was doing --"
"You interrupted them?" said Ginny. "You are so like Ron --"
"-- and he said he'd come to see her off! And then he told me to go away. He's
snogging her!" James added as though worried he had not made himself clear.
"Oh, it would be lovely if they got married!" whispered Lily ecstatically. "Teddy
would really be part of the family then!"
"He already comes round for dinner about four times a week," said Harry "Why
don't we just invite him to live with is and have done with it?"
"Yeah!" said James enthusiastically. "I don't mind sharing with Al--Teddy could
have my room!"
"No," said Harry firmly, "you and Al will share a room only when I want the
house demolished."
He checked the battered old watch that had once been Fabian Prewett's.
"It's nearly eleven, you'd better get on board."
"Don't forget to give Neville our love!" Ginny told James as she hugged him.
"Mum! I can't give a professor love!"
"But you know Neville--"
James rolled his eyes.
"Outside, yeah, but at school he's Professor Longbottom, isn't he? I can't walk into
Herbology and give him love. . . ."
Shaking his head at his mother's foolishness, he vented his feelings by aiming a
kick at Albus.
"See you later, Al. Watch out for the thestrals."
"I thought they were invisible? You said they were invisible!"
but James merely laughed, permitted his mother to kiss him, gave his father a
fleeting hug, then leapt onto the rapidly filling train. They saw him wave, then sprint
away up the corridor to find his friends.
"Thestrals are nothing to worry about," Harry told Albus. "They're gentle things,
there's nothing scare about them. Anyway, you won't be going up to school in the
carriages, you'll be going in the boats."
Ginny kissed Albus good-bye.
"See you at Christmas."
"Bye, Al," said Harry as his son hugged him. "Don't forget Hagrid's invited you to
tea next Friday. Don't mess with Peeves. Don't duel anyone till you're learned how. And
don't let James wind you up."
"What if I'm in Slytherin?"
The whisper was for his father alone, and Harry knew that only the moment of
departure could have forced Albus to reveal how great and sincere that fear was.
Harry crouched down so that Albus's face was slightly above his own. Alone of
Harry's three children, Albus had inherited Lily's eyes.
"Ablus Severus," Harry said quietly, so that nobody but Ginny could hear, and she
was tactful enough to pretend to be waving to rose, who was now on the train, "you were
named for two headmasters of Hogwarts. One of them was a Slytherin and he was
probably the bravest man I ever knew."
"But just say--"
"--then Slytherin House will have gained an excellent student, won't it? It doesn't
matter to us, Al. But if it matter to you, you'll be able to choose Gryffindor over Slytherin.
The Sorting Hat takes your choice into account."
"Really?"
"It did for me," said Harry.
He had never told any of his children that before, and he saw the wonder in
Albus's face when he said it. But how the doorsr were slamming all along the scarlet train,
and the blurred outlines of parents swarming forward for final kisses, last-minute
reminders, Albus jumped into the carriage and ginny closed the door behind him.
Students were hanging from the windows nearest them. A great number of faces, both on
the train and off, seemed to be turned toward Harry.
"Why are they all staring?" demanded Albus as he and rose craned around to look
at the other students.
"Don't let it worry you," said Ron. "It's me, I'm extremely famous."
Albus, Rose, Hugo, and Lily laughed. The train began to more, and Harry walked
alongside it, watching his son's thin face, already ablaze with excitement. Harry kept
smiling and waving, even though it was like a little bereavement, watching his son glide
away from him. . . .
The last trace of steam evaporated in the autumn air. The train rounded a corner.
Harry's hand was still raised in farewell.
"He'll be alright," murmured Ginny.
As Harry looked dat her, he lowered his hand absentmindedly and touched the
lightning scar on his forehead.
"I know he will."
The scar had not pained Harry for nineteen years. All was well.