185[@more@]“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.