211[@more@]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 two-
faced 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