[小说]哈利波特和死圣（英文版）全文

lws8891

。。。。那么长~~对这系列没什么爱

amyas

英国时间凌晨2点已经在wiki被透了……大力抽打JKR=   =

三英战大蛇

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 diffi***? 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 wand-
carriers.”

“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 diffi***.”

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.

nds

英文还贴?
...............

三英战大蛇

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 s*** 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 diffi***y 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."

三英战大蛇

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 diffi***

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 s*** anymore ... and he strode from the room,
through the hall, and out into the dark garden where the fountain played; he
called the s*** 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.
　

lightsss

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三英战大蛇

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!"

三英战大蛇

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 diffi*** 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 diffi*** 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
s*** 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 sloping-
shouldered figure of Alecto Carrow was standing before him, and even as Harry raised
his wand, she pressed a stubby forefinger to the skull and s*** branded on her forearm.