[Part 12] "Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows" by Rowling J.K.

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CHAPTER XXIII. MALFOY MANOR

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Harry looked around at the other two, now mere outlines in the darkness.

He saw Hermione point her wand, not toward the outside, but into his face; there was a bang, a burst of white light, and he buckled in agony, unable to see.

He could feel his face swelling rapidly under his hands as heavy footfalls surrounded him.

“Get up, vermin.”

Unknown hands dragged Harry roughly off the ground.

Before he could stop them, someone had rummaged through his pockets and removed the blackthorn wand.

Harry clutched at his excruciatingly painful face, which felt unrecognizable beneath his fingers, tight, swollen, and puffy as though he had suffered some violent allergic reaction.

His eyes had been reduced to slits through which he could barely see; his glasses fell off as he was bundled out of the tent; all he could make out were the blurred shapes of four or five people wrestling Ron and Hermione outside too.

“Get — off — her!” Ron shouted.

There was the unmistakable sound of knuckles hitting flesh: Ron grunted in pain and Hermione screamed, “No! Leave him alone, leave him alone!”

“Your boyfriend’s going to have worse than that done to him if he’s on my list,” said the horribly familiar, rasping voice.

“Delicious girl . . . What a treat . . . I do enjoy the softness of the skin. . . .”

Harry’s stomach turned over.

He knew who this was: Fenrir Greyback, the werewolf who was permitted to wear Death Eater robes in return for his hired savagery.

“Search the tent!” said another voice.

Harry was thrown facedown onto the ground.

A thud told him that Ron had been cast down beside him.

They could hear footsteps and crashes; the men were pushing over chairs inside the tent as they searched.

“Now, let’s see who we’ve got,” said Greyback’s gloating voice from overhead, and Harry was rolled over onto his back.

A beam of wandlight fell into his face and Greyback laughed.

“I’ll be needing butterbeer to wash this one down. What happened to you, ugly?”

Harry did not answer immediately.

“I said,” repeated Greyback, and Harry received a blow to the diaphragm that made him double over in pain, “what happened to you?”

“Stung,” Harry muttered. “Been stung.”

“Yeah, looks like it,” said a second voice.

“What’s your name?” snarled Greyback.

“Dudley,” said Harry.

“And your first name?”

“I — Vernon. Vernon Dudley.”

“Check the list, Scabior,” said Greyback, and Harry heard him move sideways to look down at Ron, instead.

“And what about you, ginger?”

“Stan Shunpike,” said Ron.

“Like ’ell you are,” said the man called Scabior. “We know Stan Shunpike, ’e’s put a bit of work our way.”

There was another thud.

“I’b Bardy,” said Ron, and Harry could tell that his mouth was full of blood.

“Bardy Weadley.”

“A Weasley?” rasped Greyback. “So you’re related to blood traitors even if you’re not a Mudblood. And lastly, your pretty little friend . . .”

The relish in his voice made Harry’s flesh crawl.

“Easy, Greyback,” said Scabior over the jeering of the others.

“Oh, I’m not going to bite just yet. We’ll see if she’s a bit quicker at remembering her name than Barny. Who are you, girly?”

“Penelope Clearwater,” said Hermione.

She sounded terrified, but convincing.

“What’s your blood status?”

“Half-blood,” said Hermione.

“Easy enough to check,” said Scabior.

“But the ’ole lot of ’em look like they could still be ’ogwarts age —”

“We’b lebt,” said Ron.

“Left, ’ave you, ginger?” said Scabior.

“And you decided to go camping? And you thought, just for a laugh, you’d use the Dark Lord’s name?”

“Nod a laugh,” said Ron. “Aggiden.”

“Accident?” There was more jeering laughter.

“You know who used to like using the Dark Lord’s name, Weasley?” growled Greyback.

“The Order of the Phoenix. Mean anything to you?”

“Doh.”

“Well, they don’t show the Dark Lord proper respect, so the name’s been Tabooed.

A few Order members have been tracked that way.

We’ll see.

Bind them up with the other two prisoners!”

Someone yanked Harry up by the hair, dragged him a short way, pushed him down into a sitting position, then started binding him back-to-back with other people.

Harry was still half blind, barely able to see anything through his puffed-up eyes.

When at last the man tying them had walked away, Harry whispered to the other prisoners.

“Anyone still got a wand?”

“No,” said Ron and Hermione from either side of him.

“This is all my fault. I said the name, I’m sorry —”

“Harry?”

It was a new, but familiar, voice, and it came from directly behind Harry, from the person tied to Hermione’s left.

“Dean?”

“It is you!

If they find out who they’ve got — !

They’re Snatchers, they’re only looking for truants to sell for gold —”

“Not a bad little haul for one night,” Greyback was saying, as a pair of hobnailed boots marched close by Harry and they heard more crashes from inside the tent.

“A Mudblood, a runaway goblin, and three truants.

You checked their names on the list yet, Scabior?” he roared.

“Yeah.

There’s no Vernon Dudley on ’ere, Greyback.”

“Interesting,” said Greyback.

“That’s interesting.”

He crouched down beside Harry, who saw, through the infinitesimal gap left between his swollen eyelids, a face covered in matted gray hair and whiskers, with pointed brown teeth and sores at the corners of his mouth.

Greyback smelled as he had done at the top of the tower where Dumbledore had died: of dirt, sweat, and blood.

“So you aren’t wanted, then, Vernon?

Or are you on that list under a different name?

What House were you in at Hogwarts?”

“Slytherin,” said Harry automatically.

“Funny ’ow they all thinks we wants to ’ear that,” jeered Scabior out of the shadows.

“But none of ’em can tell us where the common room is.”

“It’s in the dungeons,” said Harry clearly.

“You enter through the wall.

It’s full of skulls and stuff and it’s under the lake, so the light’s all green.”

There was a short pause.

“Well, well, looks like we really ’ave caught a little Slytherin,” said Scabior.

“Good for you, Vernon, ’cause there ain’t a lot of Mudblood Slytherins. Who’s your father?”

“He works at the Ministry,” Harry lied.

He knew that his whole story would collapse with the smallest investigation, but on the other hand, he only had until his face regained its usual appearance before the game was up in any case.

“Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes.”

“You know what, Greyback,” said Scabior.

“I think there is a Dudley in there.”

Harry could barely breathe: Could luck, sheer luck, get them safely out of this?

“Well, well,” said Greyback, and Harry could hear the tiniest note of trepidation in that callous voice, and knew that Greyback was wondering whether he had indeed just attacked and bound the son of a Ministry official.

Harry’s heart was pounding against the ropes around his ribs; he would not have been surprised to know that Greyback could see it.

“If you’re telling the truth, ugly, you’ve got nothing to fear from a trip to the Ministry.

I expect your father’ll reward us just for picking you up.”

“But,” said Harry, his mouth bone dry, “if you just let us —”

“Hey!” came a shout from inside the tent.

“Look at this, Greyback!”

A dark figure came bustling toward them, and Harry saw a glint of silver in the light of their wands.

They had found Gryffindor’s sword.

“Ve-e-ry nice,” said Greyback appreciatively, taking it from his companion.

“Oh, very nice indeed.

Looks goblin-made, that.

Where did you get something like this?”

“It’s my father’s,” Harry lied, hoping against hope that it was too dark for Greyback to see the name etched just below the hilt.

“We borrowed it to cut firewood —”

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“’ang on a minute, Greyback!

Look at this, in the Prophet!”

As Scabior said it, Harry’s scar, which was stretched tight across his distended forehead, burned savagely.

More clearly than he could make out anything around him, he saw a towering building, a grim fortress, jet-black and forbidding; Voldemort’s thoughts had suddenly become razor-sharp again; he was gliding toward the gigantic building with a sense of calmly euphoric purpose.

So close . . .

So close . . .

With a huge effort of will Harry closed his mind to Voldemort’s thoughts, pulling himself back to where he sat, tied to Ron, Hermione, Dean, and Griphook in the darkness, listening to Greyback and Scabior.

“‘’ermione Granger,’” Scabior was saying, “‘the Mudblood who is known to be traveling with ’arry Potter.’”

Harry’s scar burned in the silence, but he made a supreme effort to keep himself present, not to slip into Voldemort’s mind.

He heard the creak of Greyback’s boots as he crouched down in front of Hermione.

“You know what, little girly?

This picture looks a hell of a lot like you.”

“It isn’t!

It isn’t me!”

Hermione’s terrified squeak was as good as a confession.

“‘ . . . known to be traveling with Harry Potter,’” repeated Greyback quietly.

A stillness had settled over the scene.

Harry’s scar was exquisitely painful, but he struggled with all his strength against the pull of Voldemort’s thoughts: It had never been so important to remain in his own right mind.

“Well, this changes things, doesn’t it?” whispered Greyback.

Nobody spoke: Harry sensed the gang of Snatchers watching, frozen, and felt Hermione’s arm trembling against his.

Greyback got up and took a couple of steps to where Harry sat, crouching down again to stare closely at his misshapen features.

“What’s that on your forehead, Vernon?” he asked softly, his breath foul in Harry’s nostrils as he pressed a filthy finger to the taut scar.

“Don’t touch it!” Harry yelled; he could not stop himself; he thought he might be sick from the pain of it.

“I thought you wore glasses, Potter?” breathed Greyback.

“I found glasses!” yelped one of the Snatchers skulking in the background.

“There was glasses in the tent, Greyback, wait —”

And seconds later Harry’s glasses had been rammed back onto his face.

The Snatchers were closing in now, peering at him.

“It is!” rasped Greyback.

“We’ve caught Potter!”

They all took several steps backward, stunned by what they had done.

Harry, still fighting to remain present inside his own splitting head, could think of nothing to say: Fragmented visions were breaking across the surface of his mind —

— He was gliding around the high walls of the black fortress —

No, he was Harry, tied up and wandless, in grave danger —

— looking up, up to the topmost window, the highest tower —

He was Harry, and they were discussing his fate in low voices —

— Time to fly . . .

“. . . to the Ministry?”

“To hell with the Ministry,” growled Greyback.

“They’ll take the credit, and we won’t get a look in.

I say we take him straight to You-Know-Who.”

“Will you summon ’im?

’ere?” said Scabior, sounding awed, terrified.

“No,” snarled Greyback, “I haven’t got — they say he’s using the Malfoys’ place as a base.

We’ll take the boy there.”

Harry thought he knew why Greyback was not calling Voldemort.

The werewolf might be allowed to wear Death Eater robes when they wanted to use him, but only Voldemort’s inner circle were branded with the Dark Mark: Greyback had not been granted this highest honor.

Harry’s scar seared again —

— and he rose into the night, flying straight up to the window at the very top of the tower —

“. . . completely sure it’s him?

’Cause if it ain’t, Greyback, we’re dead.”

“Who’s in charge here?” roared Greyback, covering his moment of inadequacy.

“I say that’s Potter, and him plus his wand, that’s two hundred thousand Galleons right there!

But if you’re too gutless to come along, any of you, it’s all for me, and with any luck, I’ll get the girl thrown in!”

— The window was the merest slit in the black rock, not big enough for a man to enter.

. . . A skeletal figure was just visible through it, curled beneath a blanket.

. . . Dead, or sleeping . . . ?

“All right!” said Scabior.

“All right, we’re in!

And what about the rest of ’em, Greyback, what’ll we do with ’em?”

“Might as well take the lot.

We’ve got two Mudbloods, that’s another ten Galleons.

Give me the sword as well.

If they’re rubies, that’s another small fortune right there.”

The prisoners were dragged to their feet.

Harry could hear Hermione’s breathing, fast and terrified.

“Grab hold and make it tight.

I’ll do Potter!” said Greyback, seizing a fistful of Harry’s hair; Harry could feel his long yellow nails scratching his scalp.

“On three!

One — two — three —”

They Disapparated, pulling the prisoners with them.

Harry struggled, trying to throw off Greyback’s hand, but it was hopeless: Ron and Hermione were squeezed tightly against him on either side, he could not separate from the group, and as the breath was squeezed out of him his scar seared more painfully still —

— as he forced himself through the slit of a window like a snake and landed, lightly as vapor, inside the cell-like room —

The prisoners lurched into one another as they landed in a country lane.

Harry’s eyes, still puffy, took a moment to acclimatize, then he saw a pair of wrought-iron gates at the foot of what looked like a long drive.

He experienced the tiniest trickle of relief.

The worst had not happened yet: Voldemort was not here.

He was, Harry knew, for he was fighting to resist the vision, in some strange, fortresslike place, at the top of a tower.

How long it would take Voldemort to get to this place, once he knew that Harry was here, was another matter.

One of the Snatchers strode to the gates and shook them.

“How do we get in? They’re locked, Greyback, I can’t — blimey!”

He whipped his hands away in fright.

The iron was contorting, twisting itself out of the abstract furls and coils into a frightening face, which spoke in a clanging, echoing voice: “State your purpose!”

“We’ve got Potter!” Greyback roared triumphantly.

“We’ve captured Harry Potter!”

The gates swung open.

“Come on!” said Greyback to his men, and the prisoners were shunted through the gates and up the drive, between high hedges that muffled their footsteps.

Harry saw a ghostly white shape above him, and realized it was an albino peacock.

He stumbled and was dragged onto his feet by Greyback; now he was staggering along sideways, tied back-to-back to the four other prisoners.

Closing his puffy eyes, he allowed the pain in his scar to overcome him for a moment, wanting to know what Voldemort was doing, whether he knew yet that Harry was caught.

The emaciated figure stirred beneath its thin blanket and rolled over toward him, eyes opening in a skull of a face.

The frail man sat up, great sunken eyes fixed upon him, upon Voldemort, and then he smiled.

Most of his teeth were gone.

“So, you have come. I thought you would . . . one day. But your journey was pointless. I never had it.”

“You lie!”

As Voldemort’s anger throbbed inside him, Harry’s scar threatened to burst with pain, and he wrenched his mind back to his own body, fighting to remain present as the prisoners were pushed over gravel.

Light spilled out over all of them.

“What is this?” said a woman’s cold voice.

“We’re here to see He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named!” rasped Greyback.

“Who are you?”

“You know me!”

There was resentment in the werewolf’s voice.

“Fenrir Greyback! We’ve caught Harry Potter!”

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Greyback seized Harry and dragged him around to face the light, forcing the other prisoners to shuffle around too.

“I know ’e’s swollen, ma’am, but it’s ’im!” piped up Scabior.

“If you look a bit closer, you’ll see ’is scar. And this ’ere, see the girl? The Mudblood who’s been traveling around with ’im, ma’am. There’s no doubt it’s ’im, and we’ve got ’is wand as well! ’Ere, ma’am —”

Through his puffy eyelids Harry saw Narcissa Malfoy scrutinizing his swollen face.

Scabior thrust the blackthorn wand at her.

She raised her eyebrows.

“Bring them in,” she said.

Harry and the others were shoved and kicked up broad stone steps into a hallway lined with portraits.

“Follow me,” said Narcissa, leading the way across the hall.

“My son, Draco, is home for his Easter holidays. If that is Harry Potter, he will know.”

The drawing room dazzled after the darkness outside; even with his eyes almost closed Harry could make out the wide proportions of the room.

A crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling, more portraits against the dark purple walls.

Two figures rose from chairs in front of an ornate marble fireplace as the prisoners were forced into the room by the Snatchers.

“What is this?”

The dreadfully familiar, drawling voice of Lucius Malfoy fell on Harry’s ears.

He was panicking now: He could see no way out, and it was easier, as his fear mounted, to block out Voldemort’s thoughts, though his scar was still burning.

“They say they’ve got Potter,” said Narcissa’s cold voice.

“Draco, come here.”

Harry did not dare look directly at Draco, but saw him obliquely: a figure slightly taller than he was, rising from an armchair, his face a pale and pointed blur beneath white-blond hair.

Greyback forced the prisoners to turn again so as to place Harry directly beneath the chandelier.

“Well, boy?” rasped the werewolf.

Harry was facing a mirror over the fireplace, a great gilded thing in an intricately scrolled frame.

Through the slits of his eyes he saw his own reflection for the first time since leaving Grimmauld Place.

His face was huge, shiny, and pink, every feature distorted by Hermione’s jinx.

His black hair reached his shoulders and there was a dark shadow around his jaw.

Had he not known that it was he who stood there, he would have wondered who was wearing his glasses.

He resolved not to speak, for his voice was sure to give him away; yet he still avoided eye contact with Draco as the latter approached.

“Well, Draco?” said Lucius Malfoy.

He sounded avid.

“Is it? Is it Harry Potter?”

“I can’t — I can’t be sure,” said Draco.

He was keeping his distance from Greyback, and seemed as scared of looking at Harry as Harry was of looking at him.

“But look at him carefully, look! Come closer!”

Harry had never heard Lucius Malfoy so excited.

“Draco, if we are the ones who hand Potter over to the Dark Lord, everything will be forgiv —”

“Now, we won’t be forgetting who actually caught him, I hope, Mr. Malfoy?” said Greyback menacingly.

“Of course not, of course not!” said Lucius impatiently.

He approached Harry himself, came so close that Harry could see the usually languid, pale face in sharp detail even through his swollen eyes.

With his face a puffy mask, Harry felt as though he was peering out from between the bars of a cage.

“What did you do to him?” Lucius asked Greyback.

“How did he get into this state?”

“That wasn’t us.”

“Looks more like a Stinging Jinx to me,” said Lucius.

His gray eyes raked Harry’s forehead.

“There’s something there,” he whispered, “it could be the scar, stretched tight.

. . . Draco, come here, look properly! What do you think?”

Harry saw Draco’s face up close now, right beside his father’s.

They were extraordinarily alike, except that while his father looked beside himself with excitement, Draco’s expression was full of reluctance, even fear.

“I don’t know,” he said, and he walked away toward the fireplace where his mother stood watching.

“We had better be certain, Lucius,” Narcissa called to her husband in her cold, clear voice.

“Completely sure that it is Potter, before we summon the Dark Lord . . . They say this is his” — she was looking closely at the blackthorn wand — “but it does not resemble Ollivander’s description.

. . . If we are mistaken, if we call the Dark Lord here for nothing . . . Remember what he did to Rowle and Dolohov?”

“What about the Mudblood, then?” growled Greyback.

Harry was nearly thrown off his feet as the Snatchers forced the prisoners to swivel around again, so that the light fell on Hermione instead.

“Wait,” said Narcissa sharply.

“Yes — yes, she was in Madam Malkin’s with Potter!

I saw her picture in the Prophet!

Look, Draco, isn’t it the Granger girl?”

“I . . . maybe . . . yeah.”

“But then, that’s the Weasley boy!” shouted Lucius, striding around the bound prisoners to face Ron.

“It’s them, Potter’s friends — Draco, look at him, isn’t it Arthur Weasley’s son, what’s his name — ?”

“Yeah,” said Draco again, his back to the prisoners. “It could be.”

The drawing room door opened behind Harry.

A woman spoke, and the sound of the voice wound Harry’s fear to an even higher pitch.

“What is this? What’s happened, Cissy?”

Bellatrix Lestrange walked slowly around the prisoners, and stopped on Harry’s right, staring at Hermione through her heavily lidded eyes.

“But surely,” she said quietly, “this is the Mudblood girl? This is Granger?”

“Yes, yes, it’s Granger!” cried Lucius. “And beside her, we think, Potter! Potter and his friends, caught at last!”

“Potter?” shrieked Bellatrix, and she backed away, the better to take in Harry.

“Are you sure? Well then, the Dark Lord must be informed at once!”

She dragged back her left sleeve: Harry saw the Dark Mark burned into the flesh of her arm, and knew that she was about to touch it, to summon her beloved master —

“I was about to call him!” said Lucius, and his hand actually closed upon Bellatrix’s wrist, preventing her from touching the Mark.

“I shall summon him, Bella, Potter has been brought to my house, and it is therefore upon my authority —”

“Your authority!” she sneered, attempting to wrench her hand from his grasp.

“You lost your authority when you lost your wand, Lucius! How dare you! Take your hands off me!”

“This is nothing to do with you, you did not capture the boy —”

“Begging your pardon, Mr. Malfoy,” interjected Greyback, “but it’s us that caught Potter, and it’s us that’ll be claiming the gold —”

“Gold!” laughed Bellatrix, still attempting to throw off her brother-in-law, her free hand groping in her pocket for her wand.

“Take your gold, filthy scavenger, what do I want with gold? I seek only the honor of his — of —”

She stopped struggling, her dark eyes fixed upon something Harry could not see.

Jubilant at her capitulation, Lucius threw her hand from him and ripped up his own sleeve —

“STOP!” shrieked Bellatrix. “Do not touch it, we shall all perish if the Dark Lord comes now!”

Lucius froze, his index finger hovering over his own Mark.

Bellatrix strode out of Harry’s limited line of vision.

“What is that?” he heard her say.

“Sword,” grunted an out-of-sight Snatcher.

“Give it to me.”

“It’s not yorn, missus, it’s mine, I reckon I found it.”

There was a bang and a flash of red light: Harry knew that the Snatcher had been Stunned.

There was a roar of anger from his fellows: Scabior drew his wand.

“What d’you think you’re playing at, woman?”

“Stupefy!” she screamed. “Stupefy!”

They were no match for her, even though there were four of them against one of her.

She was a witch, as Harry knew, with prodigious skill and no conscience.

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They fell where they stood, all except Greyback, who had been forced into a kneeling position, his arms outstretched.

Out of the corners of his eyes Harry saw Bellatrix bearing down upon the werewolf, the sword of Gryffindor gripped tightly in her hand, her face waxen.

“Where did you get this sword?” she whispered to Greyback as she pulled his wand out of his unresisting grip.

“How dare you?” he snarled, his mouth the only thing that could move as he was forced to gaze up at her.

He bared his pointed teeth.

“Release me, woman!”

“Where did you find this sword?” she repeated, brandishing it in his face.

“Snape sent it to my vault in Gringotts!”

“It was in their tent,” rasped Greyback. “Release me, I say!”

She waved her wand, and the werewolf sprang to his feet, but appeared too wary to approach her.

He prowled behind an armchair, his filthy curved nails clutching its back.

“Draco, move this scum outside,” said Bellatrix, indicating the unconscious men.

“If you haven’t got the guts to finish them, then leave them in the courtyard for me.”

“Don’t you dare speak to Draco like —” said Narcissa furiously, but Bellatrix screamed,

“Be quiet! The situation is graver than you can possibly imagine, Cissy! We have a very serious problem!”

She stood, panting slightly, looking down at the sword, examining its hilt.

Then she turned to look at the silent prisoners.

“If it is indeed Potter, he must not be harmed,” she muttered, more to herself than to the others.

“The Dark Lord wishes to dispose of Potter himself. . . . But if he finds out . . . I must . . . I must know. . . .”

She turned back to her sister again.

“The prisoners must be placed in the cellar, while I think what to do!”

“This is my house, Bella, you don’t give orders in my —”

“Do it! You have no idea of the danger we are in!” shrieked Bellatrix.

She looked frightening, mad; a thin stream of fire issued from her wand and burned a hole in the carpet.

Narcissa hesitated for a moment, then addressed the werewolf.

“Take these prisoners down to the cellar, Greyback.”

“Wait,” said Bellatrix sharply. “All except . . . except for the Mudblood.”

Greyback gave a grunt of pleasure.

“No!” shouted Ron. “You can have me, keep me!”

Bellatrix hit him across the face; the blow echoed around the room.

“If she dies under questioning, I’ll take you next,” she said. “Blood traitor is next to Mudblood in my book. Take them downstairs, Greyback, and make sure they are secure, but do nothing more to them — yet.”

She threw Greyback’s wand back to him, then took a short silver knife from under her robes.

She cut Hermione free from the other prisoners, then dragged her by the hair into the middle of the room, while Greyback forced the rest of them to shuffle across to another door, into a dark passageway, his wand held out in front of him, projecting an invisible and irresistible force.

“Reckon she’ll let me have a bit of the girl when she’s finished with her?” Greyback crooned as he forced them along the corridor.

“I’d say I’ll get a bite or two, wouldn’t you, ginger?”

Harry could feel Ron shaking.

They were forced down a steep flight of stairs, still tied back-to-back and in danger of slipping and breaking their necks at any moment.

At the bottom was a heavy door.

Greyback unlocked it with a tap of his wand, then forced them into a dank and musty room and left them in total darkness.

The echoing bang of the slammed cellar door had not died away before there was a terrible, drawn-out scream from directly above them.

“HERMIONE!” Ron bellowed, and he started to writhe and struggle against the ropes tying them together, so that Harry staggered.

“HERMIONE!”

“Be quiet!” Harry said. “Shut up, Ron, we need to work out a way —”

“HERMIONE! HERMIONE!”

“We need a plan, stop yelling — we need to get these ropes off —”

“Harry?” came a whisper through the darkness. “Ron? Is that you?”

Ron stopped shouting.

There was a sound of movement close by them, then Harry saw a shadow moving closer.

“Harry? Ron?”

“Luna?”

“Yes, it’s me! Oh no, I didn’t want you to be caught!”

“Luna, can you help us get these ropes off?” said Harry.

“Oh yes, I expect so. . . . There’s an old nail we use if we need to break anything. . . . Just a moment . . .”

Hermione screamed again from overhead, and they could hear Bellatrix screaming too, but her words were inaudible, for Ron shouted again, “HERMIONE! HERMIONE!”

“Mr. Ollivander?” Harry could hear Luna saying.

“Mr. Ollivander, have you got the nail?

If you just move over a little bit . . . I think it was beside the water jug. . . .”

She was back within seconds.

“You’ll need to stay still,” she said.

Harry could feel her digging at the rope’s tough fibers to work the knots free.

From upstairs they heard Bellatrix’s voice.

“I’m going to ask you again!

Where did you get this sword?

Where?”

“We found it — we found it — PLEASE!”

Hermione screamed again; Ron struggled harder than ever, and the rusty nail slipped onto Harry’s wrist.

“Ron, please stay still!” Luna whispered.

“I can’t see what I’m doing —”

“My pocket!” said Ron.

“In my pocket, there’s a Deluminator, and it’s full of light!”

A few seconds later, there was a click, and the luminescent spheres the Deluminator had sucked from the lamps in the tent flew into the cellar.

Unable to rejoin their sources, they simply hung there, like tiny suns, flooding the underground room with light.

Harry saw Luna, all eyes in her white face, and the motionless figure of Ollivander the wandmaker, curled up on the floor in the corner.

Craning around, he caught sight of their fellow prisoners: Dean and Griphook the goblin, who seemed barely conscious, kept standing by the ropes that bound him to the humans.

“Oh, that’s much easier, thanks, Ron,” said Luna, and she began hacking at their bindings again.

“Hello, Dean!”

From above came Bellatrix’s voice.

“You are lying, filthy Mudblood, and I know it!

You have been inside my vault at Gringotts!

Tell the truth, tell the truth!”

Another terrible scream —

“HERMIONE!”

“What else did you take?

What else have you got?

Tell me the truth or, I swear, I shall run you through with this knife!”

“There!”

Harry felt the ropes fall away and turned, rubbing his wrists, to see Ron running around the cellar, looking up at the low ceiling, searching for a trapdoor.

Dean, his face bruised and bloody, said “Thanks” to Luna and stood there, shivering, but Griphook sank onto the cellar floor, looking groggy and disoriented, many welts across his swarthy face.

Ron was now trying to Disapparate without a wand.

“There’s no way out, Ron,” said Luna, watching his fruitless efforts.

“The cellar is completely escape-proof.

I tried, at first.

Mr. Ollivander has been here for a long time, he’s tried everything.”

Hermione was screaming again: The sound went through Harry like physical pain.

Barely conscious of the fierce prickling of his scar, he too started to run around the cellar, feeling the walls for he hardly knew what, knowing in his heart that it was useless.

“What else did you take, what else?

ANSWER ME!

CRUCIO!”

Hermione’s screams echoed off the walls upstairs, Ron was half sobbing as he pounded the walls with his fists, and Harry in utter desperation seized Hagrid’s pouch from around his neck and groped inside it.

He pulled out Dumbledore’s Snitch and shook it, hoping for he did not know what — nothing happened — he waved the broken halves of the phoenix wand, but they were lifeless — the mirror fragment fell sparkling to the floor, and he saw a gleam of brightest blue —

Dumbledore’s eye was gazing at him out of the mirror.

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“Help us!” he yelled at it in mad desperation.

“We’re in the cellar of Malfoy Manor, help us!”

The eye blinked and was gone.

Harry was not even sure that it had really been there.

He tilted the shard of mirror this way and that, and saw nothing reflected there but the walls and ceiling of their prison, and upstairs Hermione was screaming worse than ever, and next to him Ron was bellowing, “HERMIONE! HERMIONE!”

“How did you get into my vault?” they heard Bellatrix scream.

“Did that dirty little goblin in the cellar help you?”

“We only met him tonight!” Hermione sobbed.

“We’ve never been inside your vault. . . .

It isn’t the real sword!

It’s a copy, just a copy!”

“A copy?” screeched Bellatrix.

“Oh, a likely story!”

“But we can find out easily!” came Lucius’s voice.

“Draco, fetch the goblin, he can tell us whether the sword is real or not!”

Harry dashed across the cellar to where Griphook was huddled on the floor.

“Griphook,” he whispered into the goblin’s pointed ear, “you must tell them that sword’s a fake, they mustn’t know it’s the real one, Griphook, please —”

He could hear someone scuttling down the cellar steps; next moment, Draco’s shaking voice spoke from behind the door.

“Stand back.

Line up against the back wall.

Don’t try anything, or I’ll kill you!”

They did as they were bidden; as the lock turned, Ron clicked the Deluminator and the lights whisked back into his pocket, restoring the cellar’s darkness.

The door flew open; Malfoy marched inside, wand held out in front of him, pale and determined.

He seized the little goblin by the arm and backed out again, dragging Griphook with him.

The door slammed shut and at the same moment a loud crack echoed inside the cellar.

Ron clicked the Deluminator.

Three balls of light flew back into the air from his pocket, revealing Dobby the house-elf, who had just Apparated into their midst.

“DOB — !”

Harry hit Ron on the arm to stop him shouting, and Ron looked terrified at his mistake.

Footsteps crossed the ceiling overhead: Draco marching Griphook to Bellatrix.

Dobby’s enormous, tennis-ball-shaped eyes were wide; he was trembling from his feet to the tips of his ears.

He was back in the home of his old masters, and it was clear that he was petrified.

“Harry Potter,” he squeaked in the tiniest quiver of a voice, “Dobby has come to rescue you.”

“But how did you — ?”

An awful scream drowned Harry’s words: Hermione was being tortured again.

He cut to the essentials.

“You can Disapparate out of this cellar?” he asked Dobby, who nodded, his ears flapping.

“And you can take humans with you?”

Dobby nodded again.

“Right.

Dobby, I want you to grab Luna, Dean, and Mr. Ollivander, and take them — take them to —”

“Bill and Fleur’s,” said Ron.

“Shell Cottage on the outskirts of Tinworth!”

The elf nodded for a third time.

“And then come back,” said Harry.

“Can you do that, Dobby?”

“Of course, Harry Potter,” whispered the little elf.

He hurried over to Mr. Ollivander, who appeared to be barely conscious.

He took one of the wandmaker’s hands in his own, then held out the other to Luna and Dean, neither of whom moved.

“Harry, we want to help you!” Luna whispered.

“We can’t leave you here,” said Dean.

“Go, both of you!

We’ll see you at Bill and Fleur’s.”

As Harry spoke, his scar burned worse than ever, and for a few seconds he looked down, not upon the wandmaker, but on another man who was just as old, just as thin, but laughing scornfully.

“Kill me, then, Voldemort, I welcome death! But my death will not bring you what you seek. . . . There is so much you do not understand. . . .”

He felt Voldemort’s fury, but as Hermione screamed again he shut it out, returning to the cellar and the horror of his own present.

“Go!” Harry beseeched Luna and Dean. “Go! We’ll follow, just go!”

They caught hold of the elf’s outstretched fingers. There was another loud crack, and Dobby, Luna, Dean, and Ollivander vanished.

“What was that?” shouted Lucius Malfoy from over their heads. “Did you hear that? What was that noise in the cellar?”

Harry and Ron stared at each other.

“Draco — no, call Wormtail! Make him go and check!”

Footsteps crossed the room overhead, then there was silence. Harry knew that the people in the drawing room were listening for more noises from the cellar.

“We’re going to have to try and tackle him,” he whispered to Ron. They had no choice: The moment anyone entered the room and saw the absence of three prisoners, they were lost.

“Leave the lights on,” Harry added, and as they heard someone descending the steps outside the door, they backed against the wall on either side of it.

“Stand back,” came Wormtail’s voice. “Stand away from the door. I am coming in.”

The door flew open. For a split second Wormtail gazed into the apparently empty cellar, ablaze with light from the three miniature suns floating in midair.

Then Harry and Ron launched themselves upon him. Ron seized Wormtail’s wand arm and forced it upward; Harry slapped a hand to his mouth, muffling his voice. Silently they struggled: Wormtail’s wand emitted sparks; his silver hand closed around Harry’s throat.

“What is it, Wormtail?” called Lucius Malfoy from above.

“Nothing!” Ron called back, in a passable imitation of Wormtail’s wheezy voice. “All fine!”

Harry could barely breathe.

“You’re going to kill me?” Harry choked, attempting to prise off the metal fingers. “After I saved your life? You owe me, Wormtail!”

The silver fingers slackened. Harry had not expected it: He wrenched himself free, astonished, keeping his hand over Wormtail’s mouth.

He saw the ratlike man’s small watery eyes widen with fear and surprise: He seemed just as shocked as Harry at what his hand had done, at the tiny, merciful impulse it had betrayed, and he continued to struggle more powerfully, as though to undo that moment of weakness.

“And we’ll have that,” whispered Ron, tugging Wormtail’s wand from his other hand.

Wandless, helpless, Pettigrew’s pupils dilated in terror. His eyes had slid from Harry’s face to something else. His own silver fingers were moving inexorably toward his own throat.

“No —”

Without pausing to think, Harry tried to drag back the hand, but there was no stopping it.

The silver tool that Voldemort had given his most cowardly servant had turned upon its disarmed and useless owner; Pettigrew was reaping his reward for his hesitation, his moment of pity; he was being strangled before their eyes.

“No!”

Ron had released Wormtail too, and together he and Harry tried to pull the crushing metal fingers from around Wormtail’s throat, but it was no use.

Pettigrew was turning blue.

“Relashio!” said Ron, pointing the wand at the silver hand, but nothing happened; Pettigrew dropped to his knees, and at the same moment, Hermione gave a dreadful scream from overhead.

Wormtail’s eyes rolled upward in his purple face; he gave a last twitch, and was still.

Harry and Ron looked at each other, then leaving Wormtail’s body on the floor behind them, ran up the stairs and back into the shadowy passageway leading to the drawing room.

Cautiously they crept along it until they reached the drawing room door, which was ajar.

Now they had a clear view of Bellatrix looking down at Griphook, who was holding Gryffindor’s sword in his long-fingered hands.

Hermione was lying at Bellatrix’s feet. She was barely stirring.

“Well?” Bellatrix said to Griphook. “Is it the true sword?”

Harry waited, holding his breath, fighting against the prickling of his scar.

“No,” said Griphook. “It is a fake.”

“Are you sure?” panted Bellatrix. “Quite sure?”

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“Yes,” said the goblin.

Relief broke across her face, all tension drained from it.

“Good,” she said, and with a casual flick of her wand she slashed another deep cut into the goblin’s face, and he dropped with a yell at her feet.

She kicked him aside. “And now,” she said in a voice that burst with triumph, “we call the Dark Lord!”

And she pushed back her sleeve and touched her forefinger to the Dark Mark.

At once, Harry’s scar felt as though it had split open again. His true surroundings vanished: He was Voldemort, and the skeletal wizard before him was laughing toothlessly at him; he was enraged at the summons he felt — he had warned them, he had told them to summon him for nothing less than Potter.

If they were mistaken . . .

“Kill me, then!” demanded the old man. “You will not win, you cannot win! That wand will never, ever be yours —”

And Voldemort’s fury broke: A burst of green light filled the prison room and the frail old body was lifted from its hard bed and then fell back, lifeless, and Voldemort returned to the window, his wrath barely controllable . . .

They would suffer his retribution if they had no good reason for calling him back. . . .

“And I think,” said Bellatrix’s voice, “we can dispose of the Mudblood. Greyback, take her if you want her.”

“NOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

Ron had burst into the drawing room; Bellatrix looked around, shocked; she turned her wand to face Ron instead —

“Expelliarmus!” he roared, pointing Wormtail’s wand at Bellatrix, and hers flew into the air and was caught by Harry, who had sprinted after Ron.

Lucius, Narcissa, Draco, and Greyback wheeled about; Harry yelled, “Stupefy!” and Lucius Malfoy collapsed onto the hearth.

Jets of light flew from Draco’s, Narcissa’s, and Greyback’s wands; Harry threw himself to the floor, rolling behind a sofa to avoid them.

“STOP OR SHE DIES!”

Panting, Harry peered around the edge of the sofa. Bellatrix was supporting Hermione, who seemed to be unconscious, and was holding her short silver knife to Hermione’s throat.

“Drop your wands,” she whispered. “Drop them, or we’ll see exactly how filthy her blood is!”

Ron stood rigid, clutching Wormtail’s wand. Harry straightened up, still holding Bellatrix’s.

“I said, drop them!” she screeched, pressing the blade into Hermione’s throat: Harry saw beads of blood appear there.

“All right!” he shouted, and he dropped Bellatrix’s wand onto the floor at his feet.

Ron did the same with Wormtail’s. Both raised their hands to shoulder height.

“Good!” she leered. “Draco, pick them up! The Dark Lord is coming, Harry Potter! Your death approaches!”

Harry knew it; his scar was bursting with the pain of it, and he could feel Voldemort flying through the sky from far away, over a dark and stormy sea, and soon he would be close enough to Apparate to them, and Harry could see no way out.

“Now,” said Bellatrix softly, as Draco hurried back to her with the wands, “Cissy, I think we ought to tie these little heroes up again, while Greyback takes care of Miss Mudblood. I am sure the Dark Lord will not begrudge you the girl, Greyback, after what you have done tonight.”

At the last word there was a peculiar grinding noise from above.

All of them looked upward in time to see the crystal chandelier tremble; then, with a creak and an ominous jingling, it began to fall.

Bellatrix was directly beneath it; dropping Hermione, she threw herself aside with a scream.

The chandelier crashed to the floor in an explosion of crystal and chains, falling on top of Hermione and the goblin, who still clutched the sword of Gryffindor.

Glittering shards of crystal flew in all directions: Draco doubled over, his hands covering his bloody face.

As Ron ran to pull Hermione out of the wreckage, Harry took his chance: He leapt over an armchair and wrested the three wands from Draco’s grip, pointed all of them at Greyback, and yelled, “Stupefy!”

The werewolf was lifted off his feet by the triple spell, flew up to the ceiling, and then smashed to the ground.

As Narcissa dragged Draco out of the way of further harm, Bellatrix sprang to her feet, her hair flying as she brandished the silver knife; but Narcissa had directed her wand at the doorway.

“Dobby!” she screamed, and even Bellatrix froze.

“You! You dropped the chandelier — ?”

The tiny elf trotted into the room, his shaking finger pointing at his old mistress.

“You must not hurt Harry Potter,” he squeaked.

“Kill him, Cissy!” shrieked Bellatrix, but there was another loud crack, and Narcissa’s wand too flew into the air and landed on the other side of the room.

“You dirty little monkey!” bawled Bellatrix.

“How dare you take a witch’s wand, how dare you defy your masters?”

“Dobby has no master!” squealed the elf.

“Dobby is a free elf, and Dobby has come to save Harry Potter and his friends!”

Harry’s scar was blinding him with pain.

Dimly he knew that they had moments, seconds before Voldemort was with them.

“Ron, catch — and GO!” he yelled, throwing one of the wands to him; then he bent down to tug Griphook out from under the chandelier.

Hoisting the groaning goblin, who still clung to the sword, over one shoulder, Harry seized Dobby’s hand and spun on the spot to Disapparate.

As he turned into darkness he caught one last view of the drawing room: of the pale, frozen figures of Narcissa and Draco, of the streak of red that was Ron’s hair, and a blur of flying silver, as Bellatrix’s knife flew across the room at the place where he was vanishing —

Bill and Fleur’s . . . Shell Cottage . . . Bill and Fleur’s . . .

He had disappeared into the unknown; all he could do was repeat the name of the destination and hope that it would suffice to take him there.

The pain in his forehead pierced him, and the weight of the goblin bore down upon him; he could feel the blade of Gryffindor’s sword bumping against his back; Dobby’s hand jerked in his; he wondered whether the elf was trying to take charge, to pull them in the right direction, and tried, by squeezing the fingers, to indicate that that was fine with him.

And then they hit solid earth and smelled salty air.

Harry fell to his knees, relinquished Dobby’s hand, and attempted to lower Griphook gently to the ground.

“Are you all right?” he said as the goblin stirred, but Griphook merely whimpered.

Harry squinted around through the darkness.

There seemed to be a cottage a short way away under the wide starry sky, and he thought he saw movement outside it.

“Dobby, is this Shell Cottage?” he whispered, clutching the two wands he had brought from the Malfoys’, ready to fight if he needed to.

“Have we come to the right place? Dobby?”

He looked around.

The little elf stood feet from him.

“DOBBY!”

The elf swayed slightly, stars reflected in his wide, shining eyes.

Together, he and Harry looked down at the silver hilt of the knife protruding from the elf’s heaving chest.

“Dobby — no — HELP!” Harry bellowed toward the cottage, toward the people moving there.

“HELP!”

He did not know or care whether they were wizards or Muggles, friends or foes; all he cared about was that a dark stain was spreading across Dobby’s front, and that he had stretched out his thin arms to Harry with a look of supplication.

Harry caught him and laid him sideways on the cool grass.

“Dobby, no, don’t die, don’t die —”

The elf’s eyes found him, and his lips trembled with the effort to form words.

“Harry . . . Potter . . .”

And then with a little shudder the elf became quite still, and his eyes were nothing more than great glassy orbs, sprinkled with light from the stars they could not see.

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CHAPTER XXIV. THE WANDMAKER

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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 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 making suggestions about burying the elf.

Harry agreed without 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 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 he 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 snugly in his jacket. Ron sat on the edge of the grave and stripped off his shoes and socks, which he placed upon 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 expectantly 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’you 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 down 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.

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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 in his own voice, the conviction, the sense 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 in mud and Dobby’s blood. “Then I’ll need to see them, straightaway.”

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 find that?

Is that why you made it this difficult? So I’d have time to work that out?

Harry stood quite still, eyes glazed, watching the place where a bright gold rim 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 there 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 ill, 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 much 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.”

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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 baldly; 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 left 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 wandlore 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 about 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 curiosity 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 the 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 the 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.

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“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 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 into 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 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 true 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 had decided to put his idea into action. “Legends about a wand — or wands — that have 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 as 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 should 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 flabbergasted.

“The Dark Lord,” said Ollivander in hushed and frightened tones, “had always been happy with the wand I made him — yew 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’ll 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.”

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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 he had been unsure, when they first met, of how much he liked 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 a glimpse 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 difficult.”

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 and 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.