— CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE —
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.
Harry's 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!'
'
'
' 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?
'
'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. 'I 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: '
— '
Harry was just ready for her: he shouted '
'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?'
'
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.
'. . .
'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 Hermione's.
'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?'
'
'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
'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?'
'
'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, '
'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 —