Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (80 page)

'Harry, I don't think you should touch it,' said Hermione sharply, as he stretched out his hand.

'Why not?' he said. 'It's something to do with me, isn't it?'

'Don't, Harry,' said Neville suddenly. Harry looked at him. Neville's round face was shining slightly with sweat. He looked as though he could not take much more suspense.

'It's got my name on,' said Harry.

And feeling slightly reckless, he closed his fingers around the dusty ball's surface. He had expected it to feel cold, but it did not. On the contrary, it felt as though it had been lying in the sun for hours, as though the glow of light within was warming it. Expecting, even hoping, that something dramatic was going to happen, something exciting that might make their long and dangerous journey worthwhile after all, Harry lifted the glass ball down from its shelf and stared at it.

Nothing whatsoever happened. The others moved in closer around Harry, gazing at the orb as he brushed it free of the clogging dust.

And then, from right behind them, a drawling voice spoke.

'Very good, Potter. Now turn around, nice and slowly, and give that to me.'

Black shapes were emerging out of thin air all around them, blocking their way left and right; eyes glinted through slits in hoods, a dozen lit wand tips were pointing directly at their hearts; Ginny gave a gasp of horror.

To me, Potter,' repeated the drawling voice of Lucius Malfoy as he held out his hand, palm up.

Harrys insides plummeted sickeningly. They were trapped, and outnumbered two to one.

To me,' said Malfoy yet again.

'Where's Sirius?' Harry said.

Several of the Death Eaters laughed; a harsh female voice from the midst of the shadowy figures to Harry's left said triumphantly, The Dark Lord always knows!'

'Always,' echoed Malfoy softly. 'Now, give me the prophecy Potter.'

'I want to know where Sirius is!'

'I want to know where Sirius is!' mimicked the woman to his left.

She and her fellow Death Eaters had closed in so that they were mere feet away from Harry and the others, the light from their wands dazzling Harry's eyes.

'You've got him,' said Harry, ignoring the rising panic in his chest, the dread he had been fighting since they had first entered the ninety-seventh row. 'He's here. I know he is.'

The little baby woke up jwightened and fort what it dweamed was twoo,' said the woman in a horrible, mock baby voice. Harry felt Ron stir beside him.

'Don't do anything,' Harry muttered. 'Not yet -'

The woman who had mimicked him let out a raucous scream of laughter.

'You hear him? You hear him? Giving instructions to the other children as though he thinks of fighting us!'

'Oh, you don't know Potter as I do, Bellatrix,' said Malfoy softly. 'He has a great weakness for heroics; the Dark Lord understands this about him. Now give me the prophecy, Potter.'

'I know Sirius is here,' said Harry, though panic was causing his chest to constrict and he felt as though he could not breathe properly. 'I know you've got him!'

More of the Death Eaters laughed, though the woman laughed loudest of all.

'It's time you learned the difference between life and dreams, Potter,' said Malfoy. 'Now give me the prophecy, or we start using wands.'

'Go on, then,' said Harry, raising his own wand to chest height. As he did so, the five wands of Ron, Hermione, Neville, Ginny and Luna rose on either side of him. The knot in Harry's stomach tightened. If Sirius really was not here, he had led his friends to their deaths for no reason at all…

But the Death Eaters did not strike.

'Hand over the prophecy and no one need get hurt,' said Malfoy coolly.

It was Harry's turn to laugh.

'Yeah, right!' he said. '1 give you this - prophecy, is it? And you'll just let us skip off home, will you?'

The words were hardly out of his mouth when the female Death Eater shrieked: 'Accto proph—'

Harry was just ready for her: he shouted 'Protego!' before she had finished her spell, and though the glass sphere slipped to the tips of his fingers he managed to cling on to it.

'Oh, he knows how to play, little bitty baby Potter,' she said, her mad eyes staring through the slits in her hood. 'Very well, then -'

'I TOLD YOU, NO!' Lucius Malfoy roared at the woman. 'If you smash it -!'

Harry's mind was racing. The Death Eaters wanted this dusty spun-glass sphere. He had no interest in it. He just wanted to get them all out of this alive, to make sure none of his friends paid a terrible price for his stupidity…

The woman stepped forward, away from her fellows, and pulled off her hood. Azkaban had hollowed Bellatrix Lestrange's face, making it gaunt and skull-like, but it was alive with a feverish, fanatical glow.

'You need more persuasion?' she said, her chest rising and falling rapidly. 'Very well - take the smallest one,' she ordered the Death Eaters beside her. 'Let him watch while we torture the little girl. I'll do it.'

Harry felt the others close in around Ginny; he stepped sideways so that he was right in front of her, the prophecy held up to his chest.

'You'll have to smash this if you want to attack any of us,' he told Bellatrix. 'I don't think your boss will be too pleased if you come back without it, will he?'

She did not move; she merely stared at him, the tip of her tongue moistening her thin mouth.

'So,' said Harry, 'what kind of prophecy are we talking about, anyway?'

He could not think what to do but to keep talking. Neville's arm was pressed against his, and he could feel him shaking; he could feel one of the others' quickened breath on the back of his head. He was hoping they were all thinking hard about ways to get out of this, because his mind was blank.

'What kind of prophecy?' repeated Bellatrix, the grin fading from her face. 'You jest, Harry Potter.'

'Nope, not jesting,' said Harry, his eyes flicking from Death Eater to Death Eater,.looking for a weak link, a space through which they could escape. 'How come Voldemort wants it?'

Several of the Death Eaters let out low hisses.

'You dare speak his name?' whispered Bellatrix.

'Yeah,' said Harry, maintaining his tight grip on the glass ball, expecting another attempt to bewitch it from him. 'Yeah, I've got no problem with saying Vol—'

'Shut your mouth!' Bellatrix shrieked. 'You dare speak his name with your unworthy lips, you dare besmirch it with your half-blood's tongue, you dare -'

'Did you know he's a half-blood too?' said Harry recklessly. Hermione gave a little moan in his ear. 'Voldemort? Yeah, his mother was a witch but his dad was a Muggle - or has he been telling you lot he's pure-blood?'

'STl/PEF—'

'NO/'

A jet of red light had shot from the end of Bellatrix Lestrange's wand, but Malfoy had deflected it; his spell caused hers to hit the shelf a foot to the left of Harry and several of the glass orbs there shattered.

Two figures, pearly-white as ghosts, fluid as smoke, unfurled themselves from the fragments of broken glass upon the floor and each began to speak; their voices vied with each other, so that only fragments of what they were saying could be heard over Malfoy and Bellatrix's shouts.

'… at the solstice will come a new …' said the figure of an old, bearded man.

'DO NOT ATTACK! WE NEED THE PROPHECY!'

'He dared - he dares -' shrieked Bellatrix incoherently, 'he stands there - filthy half-blood -'

'WAIT UNTIL WE'VE GOT THE PROPHECY!' bawled Malfoy.

'… and none will come after…' said the figure of a young woman.

The two figures that had burst from the shattered spheres had melted into thin air. Nothing remained of them or their erstwhile homes but fragments of glass upon the floor. They had, however, given Harry an idea. The problem was going to be conveying it to the others.

'You haven't told me what's so special about this prophecy I'm supposed to be handing over,' he said, playing for time. He moved his foot slowly sideways, feeling around for someone else's.

'Do not play games with us, Potter,' said Malfoy.

'I'm not playing games,' said Harry, half his mind on the conversation, half on his wandering foot. And then he found someone's toes and pressed down upon them. A sharp intake of breath behind him told him they were Hermiones.

'What?' she whispered.

'Dumbledore never told you the reason you bear that scar was hidden in the bowels of the Department of Mysteries?' Malfoy sneered.

'I - what?' said Harry. And for a moment he quite forgot his plan. 'What about my scar?'

'What?' whispered Hermione more urgently behind him.

'Can this be?' said Malfoy, sounding maliciously delighted; some of the Death Eaters were laughing again, and under cover of their laughter, Harry hissed to Hermione, moving his lips as little as possible, 'Smash shelves -'

'Dumbledore never told you?' Malfoy repeated. 'Well, this explains why you didn't come earlier, Potter, the Dark Lord wondered why -'

'- when I say now -'

'- you didn't come running when he showed you the place where it was hidden in your dreams. He thought natural curiosity would make you want to hear the exact wording…'

'Did he?' said Harry. Behind him he felt rather than heard Hermione passing his message to the others and he sought to keep talking, to distract the Death Eaters. 'So he wanted me to come and get it, did he? Why?'

'Why?' Malfoy sounded incredulously delighted. 'Because the only people who are permitted to retrieve a prophecy from the Department of Mysteries, Potter, are those about whom it was made, as the Dark Lord discovered when he attempted to use others to steal it for him.'

'And why did he want to steal a prophecy about me?'

'About both of you, Potter, about both of you… haven't you ever wondered why the Dark Lord tried to kill you as a baby?'

Harry stared into the slitted eye-holes through which Malfoy's grey eyes were gleaming. Was this prophecy the reason Harry's parents had died, the reason he carried his lightning-bolt scar? Was the answer to all of this clutched in his hand?

'Someone made a prophecy about Voldemort and me?' he said quietly, gazing at Lucius Malfoy, his fingers tightening over the warm glass sphere in his hand. It was hardly larger than a Snitch and still gritty with dust. 'And he's made me come and get it for him? Why couldn't he come and get it himself?'

'Get it himself?' shrieked Bellatrix, over a cackle of mad laughter.

The Dark Lord, walk into the Ministry of Magic, when they are so sweetly ignoring his return? The Dark Lord, reveal himself to the Aurors, when at the moment they are wasting their time on my dear cousin?'

'So, he's got you doing his dirty work for him, has he?' said Harry. 'Like he tried to get Sturgis to steal it - and Bode?'

'Very good, Potter, very good…' said Malfoy slowly. 'But the Dark Lord knows you are not unintell—'

'NOW!' yelled Harry.

Five different voices behind him bellowed, 'REDUCTO!' Five curses flew in five different directions and the shelves opposite them exploded as they hit; the towering structure swayed as a hundred glass spheres burst apart, pearly-white figures unfurled into the air and floated there, their voices echoing from who knew what long-dead past amid the torrent of crashing glass and splintered wood now raining down upon the floor -

'RUN!' Harry yelled, as the shelves swayed precariously and more glass spheres began to fall from above. He seized a handful of Hermione's robes and dragged her forwards, holding one arm over his head as chunks of shelf and shards of glass thundered down upon them. A Death Eater lunged forwards through the cloud of dust and Harry elbowed him hard in the masked face; they were all yelling, there were cries of pain, and thunderous crashes as the. shelves collapsed upon themselves, weirdly echoing fragments of the Seers unleashed from their spheres -

Harry found the way ahead clear and saw Ron, Ginny and Luna sprint past him, their arms over their heads; something . heavy struck him on the side of the face but he merely ducked his head and sprinted onwards; a hand caught him by the shoulder; he heard Hermione shout, 'Stupefy!' The hand released him at once -

They were at the end of row ninety-seven; Harry turned right and began to sprint in earnest; he could hear footsteps right behind him and Hermione's voice urging Neville on; straight ahead, the door through which they had come was ajar; Harry could see the glittering light of the bell jar; he pelted through the doorway, the prophecy still clutched tight and safe in his hand, and waited for the others to hurtle over the threshold before slamming the door behind them -

'Colloportus!' gasped Hermione and the door sealed itself with an odd squelching noise.

'Where - where are the others?' gasped Harry.

He had thought Ron, Luna and Ginny were ahead of them, that they would be waiting in this room, but there was nobody there.

They must have gone the wrong way!' whispered Hermione, terror in her face.

'Listen!' whispered Neville.

Footsteps and shouts echoed from behind the door they had just sealed; Harry put his ear close to the door to listen and heard Lucius Malfoy roar, 'Leave Nott, leave him, I say — his injuries will be nothing to the Dark Lord compared to losing that prophecy. Jugson, come back here, we need to organise! We'll split into pairs and search, and don't forget, be gentle with Potter until we've got the prophecy, you can kill the others if necessary -Bellatrix, Rodolphus, you take the left; Crabbe, Rabastan, go right -Jugson, Dolohov, the door straight ahead - Macnair and Avery, through here - Rookwood, over there - Mulciber, come with me!'

'What do we do?' Hermione asked Harry, trembling from head to foot.

'Well, we don't stand here waiting for them to find us, for a 't't start,' said Harry. 'Let's get away from this door.' | They ran as quietly as they could, past the shimmering bell jar j where the tiny egg was hatching and unhatching, towards the exit I into the circular hallway at the far end of the room. They were I almost there when Harry heard something large and heavy collide with the door Hermione had charmed shut.

'Stand aside!' said a rough voice. 'Alahomora!'

As the door flew open, Harry, Hermione and Neville dived under desks. They could see the bottom of the two Death Eaters' robes drawing nearer, their feet moving rapidly.

They might've run straight through to the hall,' said the rough voice.

'Check under the desks,' said another.

Harry saw the knees of the Death Eaters bend; poking his wand out from under the desk, he shouted, 'STUPEFY!'

A jet of red light hit the nearest Death Eater; he fell backwards into a grandfather clock and knocked it over; the second Death Eater, however, had leapt aside to avoid Harry's spell and was pointing his own wand at Hermione, who was crawling out from under the desk to get a better aim.

'Avada -

Harry launched himself across the floor and grabbed the Death Eater around the knees, causing him to topple and his aim to go awry. Neville overturned a desk in his anxiety to help; and pointing his wand wildly at the struggling pair, he cried:

'EXPELLIARMUS!'

Both Harry's and the Death Eater's wands flew out of their hands and soared back towards the entrance to the Hall of Prophecy; both scrambled to their feet and charged after them, the Death Eater in front, Harry hot on his heels, and Neville bringing up the rear, plainly horrorstruck by what he had done.