“I’m behind you,” he whispered into Hermione’s ear.
As he had expected, she jumped so violently she nearly overturned the bottle of ink with which she was supposed to be recording the interview, but both Umbridge and Yaxley were concentrating upon Mrs. Cattermole, and this went unnoticed.
“A wand was taken from you upon your arrival at the Ministry today, Mrs. Cattermole,” Umbridge was saying. “Eight-and-three-quarter inches, cherry, unicorn-hair core. Do you recognize the description?”
Mrs. Cattermole nodded, mopping her eyes on her sleeve.
“Could you please tell us from which witch or wizard you took that wand?”
“T-took?” sobbed Mrs. Cattermole. “I didn’t t-take it from anybody. I b-bought it when I was eleven years old. It—it—it—chose me.”
She cried harder than ever.
Umbridge laughed a soft girlish laugh that made Harry want to attack her. She leaned forward over the barrier, the better to observe her victim, and something gold swung forward too, and dangled over the void: the locket.
Hermione had seen it; she let out a little squeak, but Umbridge and Yaxley, still intent upon their prey, were deaf to everything else.
“No,” said Umbridge, “no, I don’t think so, Mrs. Cattermole. Wands only choose witches or wizards. You are not a witch. I have your responses to the questionnaire that was sent to you here—Mafalda, pass them to me.”
Umbridge held out a small hand: She looked so toadlike at that moment that Harry was quite surprised not to see webs between the stubby fingers. Hermione’s hands were shaking with shock. She fumbled in a pile of documents balanced on the chair beside her, finally withdrawing a sheaf of parchment with Mrs. Cattermole’s name on it.
“That’s—that’s pretty, Dolores,” she said, pointing at the pendant gleaming in the ruffled folds of Umbridge’s blouse.
“What?” snapped Umbridge, glancing down. “Oh yes—an old family heirloom,” she said, patting the locket lying on her large bosom. “The S stands for Selwyn… I am related to the Selwyns… Indeed, there are few pure-blood families to whom I am not related… A pity,” she continued in a louder voice, flicking through Mrs. Cattermole’s questionnaire, “that the same cannot be said for you. ‘Parents professions: greengrocers.’”
Yaxley laughed jeeringly. Below, the fluffy silver cat patrolled up and down, and the Dementors stood waiting in the corners.
It was Umbridge’s lie that brought the blood surging into Harry’s brain and obliterated his sense of caution—that the locket she had taken as a bribe from a petty criminal was being used to bolster her own pure-blood credentials. He raised his wand, not even troubling to keep it concealed beneath the Invisibility Cloak, and said, “Stupefy!”
There was a flash of red light; Umbridge crumpled and her forehead hit the edge of the balustrade: Mrs. Cattermole’s papers slid off her lap onto the floor and, down below, the prowling silver cat vanished. Ice-cold air hit them like an oncoming wind: Yaxley, confused, looked around for the source of the trouble and saw Harry’s disembodied hand and wand pointing at him. He tried to draw his own wand, but too late: “Stupefy!”
Yaxley slid to the ground to lie curled on the floor.
“Harry!”
“Hermione, if you think I was going to sit here and let her pretend—”
“Harry, Mrs. Cattermole!”
Harry whirled around, throwing off the Invisibility Cloak; down below, the Dementors had moved out of their corners; they were gliding toward the woman chained to the chair: Whether because the Patronus had vanished or because they sensed that their masters were no longer in control, they seemed to have abandoned restraint. Mrs. Cattermole let out a terrible scream of fear as a slimy, scabbed hand grasped her chin and forced her face back.
“EXPECTO PATRONUM!”
The silver stag soared from the tip of Harry’s wand and leaped toward the Dementors, which fell back and melted into the dark shadows again. The stag’s light, more powerful and more warming than the cat’s protection, filled the whole dungeon as it cantered around the room.
“Get the Horcrux,” Harry told Hermione.
He ran back down the steps, stuffing the Invisibility Cloak into his back, and approached Mrs. Cattermole.
“You?” she whispered, gazing into his face. “But—but Reg said you were the one who submitted my name for questioning!”
“Did I?” muttered Harry, tugging at the chains binding her arms, “Well, I’ve had a change of heart. Diffindo!” Nothing happened. “Hermione, how do I get rid of these chains?”
“Wait, I’m trying something up here—”
“Hermione, we’re surrounded by Dementors!”
“I know that, Harry, but if she wakes up and the locket’s gone—I need to duplicate it—Geminio! There… That should fool her…”
Hermione came running downstairs.
“Let’s see… Relashio!”
The chains clinked and withdrew into the arms of the chair. Mrs. Cattermole looked just as frightened as ever before.
“I don’t understand,” she whispered.
“You’re going to leave here with us,” said Harry, pulling her to her feet. “Go home, grab your children, and get out, get out of the country if you’ve got to. Disguise yourselves and run. You’ve seen how it is, you won’t get anything like a fair hearing here.”
“Harry,” said Hermione, “how are we going to get out of here with all those Dementors outside the door?”
“Patronuses,” said Harry, pointing his wand at his own. The stag slowed and walked, still gleaming brightly, toward the door. “As many as we can muster; do yours, Hermione.”
“Expec—Expecto patronum,” said Hermione. Nothing happened.
“It’s the only spell she ever has trouble with,” Harry told a completely bemused Mrs. Cattermole. “Bit unfortunate, really… Come on, Hermione…”
“Expecto patronum!”
A silver otter burst from the end of Hermione’s wand and swam gracefully through the air to join the stag.
“C’mon,” said Harry, and he led Hermione and Mrs. Cattermole to the door.
When the Patronuses glided out of the dungeon there were cries of shock from the people waiting outside. Harry looked around; the Dementors were falling back on both sides of them, melding into the darkness, scattering before the silver creatures.
“It’s been decided that you should all go home and go into hiding with your families,” Harry told the waiting Muggle-born, who were dazzled by the light of the Patronuses and still cowering slightly. “Go abroad if you can. Just get well away from the Ministry. That’s the—er—new official position. Now, if you’ll just follow the Patronuses, you’ll be able to leave the Atrium.”
They managed to get up the stone stops without being intercepted, but as they approached the lifts Harry started to have misgivings. If they emerged into the Atrium with a silver stag, and otter soaring alongside it, and twenty or so people, half of them accused Muggle-borns, he could not help feeling that they would attract unwanted attention. He had just reached this unwelcome conclusion when the lift clanged to a halt in front of them.
“Reg!” screamed Mrs. Cattermole, and she threw herself into Ron’s arms. “Runcorn let me out, he attacked Umbridge and Yaxley, and he’s told all of us to leave the country. I think we’d better do it, Reg, I really do, let’s hurry home and fetch the children and—why are you so wet?”
“Water,” muttered Ron, disengaging himself. “Harry, they know there are intruders inside the Ministry, something about a hole in Umbridge’s office door. I reckon we’ve got five minutes if that—”
Hermione’s Patronus vanished with a pop as she turned a horror struck face to Harry.
“Harry, if we’re trapped here—!”
“We won’t be if we move fast,” said Harry. He addressed the silent group behind them, who were all gawping at him.
“Who’s got wands?”
About half of them raised their hands.
“Okay, all of you who haven’t got wands need to attach yourself to somebody who has. We’ll need to be fast before they stop us. Come on.”
They managed to cram themselves into two lifts. Harry’s Patronus stood sentinel before the golden grilles as they shut and the lifts began to rise.
“Level eight,” said the witch’s cool voice, “Atrium.”
Harry knew at once that they were in trouble. The Atrium was full of people moving from fireplace to fireplace, sealing them off.
“Harry!” squeaked Hermione. “What are we going to—?”
“STOP!” Harry thundered, and the powerful voice of Runcorn echoed through the Atrium: The wizards sealing the fireplaces froze. “Follow me,” he whispered to the group of terrified Muggle-borns, who moved forward in a huddle, shepherded by Ron and Hermione.
“What’s up, Albert?” said the same balding wizard who had followed Harry out of the fireplace earlier. He looked nervous.
“This lot need to leave before you seal the exits,” said Harry with all the authority he could muster.
The group of wizards in front of him looked at one another.
“We’ve been told to seal all exits and not let anyone—”
“Are you contradicting me?” Harry blustered. “Would you like me to have your family tree examined, like I had Dirk Cresswell’s?”
“Sorry!” gasped the balding wizard, backing away. “I didn’t mean nothing, Albert, but I thought… I thought they were in for questioning and…”
“Their blood is pure,” said Harry, and his deep voice echoed impressively through the hall. “Purer than many of yours, I daresay. Off you go,” he boomed to the Muggle-borns, who scurried forward into the fireplaces and began to vanish in pairs. The Ministry wizards hung back, some looking confused, others scared and fearful. Then:
“Mary!”
Mrs. Cattermole looked over her shoulder. The real Reg Cattermole, no longer vomiting but pale and wan, had just come running out of a lift.
“R-Reg?”
She looked from her husband to Ron, who swore loudly.
The balding wizard gaped, his head turning ludicrously from one Reg Cattermole to the other.
“Hey—what’s going on? What is this?”
“Seal the exit! SEAL IT!”
Yaxley had burst out of another lift and was running toward the group beside the fireplaces, into which all of the Muggle-borns but Mrs. Cattermole had now vanished. As the balding wizard lifted his wand, Harry raised an enormous fist and punched him, sending him flying through the air.
“He’s been helping Muggle-borns escape, Yaxley!” Harry shouted.
The balding wizard’s colleagues set up and uproar, under cover of which Ron grabbed Mrs. Cattermole, pulled her into the still-open fireplace, and disappeared. Confused, Yaxley looked from Harry to the punched wizard, while the real Reg Cattermole screamed, “My wife! Who was that with my wife? What’s going on?”
Harry saw Yaxley’s head turn, saw an inkling of truth dawn on that brutish face.
“Come on!” Harry shouted at Hermione; he seized her hand and they jumped into the fireplace together as Yaxley’s curse sailed over Harry’s head. They spun for a few seconds before shooting up out of a toilet into a cubicle. Harry flung open the door: Ron was standing there beside the sinks, still wrestling with Mrs. Cattermole.
“Reg, I don’t understand—”
“Let go, I’m not your husband, you’ve got to go home!”
There was a noise in the cubicle behind them; Harry looked around; Yaxley had just appeared.
“LET’S GO!” Harry yelled. He seized Hermione by the hand and Ron by the arm and turned on the stop.
Darkness engulfed them, along with the sensation of compressing hands, but something was wrong… Hermione’s hand seemed to be sliding out of his grip…
He wondered whether he was going to suffocate; he could not breathe or see and the only solid things in the world were Ron’s arm and Hermione’s fingers, which were slowly slipping away…
And then he saw the door to number twelve, Grimmauld Place, with its serpent door knocker, but before he could draw breath, there was a scream and a flash of purple light: Hermione’s hand was suddenly vicelike upon his and everything went dark again.
14. THE THIEF
Harry opened his eyes and was dazzled by gold and green; he had no idea what had happened, he only knew that he was lying on what seemed to be leaves and twigs. Struggling to draw breath into lungs that felt flattened, he blinked and realized that the gaudy glare was sunlight streaming through a canopy of leaves far above him. Then an object twitched close to his face. He pushed himself onto his hands and knees, ready to face some small, fierce creature, but saw that the object was Ron’s foot. Looking around, Harry saw that they and Hermione were lying on a forest floor, apparently alone.
Harry’s first thought was of the Forbidden Forest, and for a moment, even though he knew how foolish and dangerous it would be for them to appear in the grounds of Hogwarts, his heart leapt at the thought of sneaking through the trees to Hagrid’s hut. However, in the few moments it took for Ron to give a low groan and Harry to start crawling toward him, he realized that this was not the Forbidden Forest; The trees looked younger, they were more widely spaced, the ground clearer.
He met Hermione, also on her hands and knees, at Ron’s head. The moment his eyes fell upon Ron, all other concerns fled Harry’s mind, for blood drenched the whole of Ron’s left side and his face stood out, grayish-white, against the leaf-strewn earth. The Polyjuice Potion was wearing off now: Ron was halfway between Cattermole and himself in appearance, his hair turning redder and redder as his face drained of the little color it had left.
“What’s happened to him?”
“Splinched,” said Hermione, her fingers already busy at Ron’s sleeve, where the blood was wettest and darkest.
Harry watched, horrified, as she tore open Ron’s short. He had always thought of Splinching as something comical, but this… His insides crawled unpleasantly as Hermione laid bare Ron’s upper arm, where a great chunk of flesh was missing, scooped cleanly away as though by a knife.
“Harry, quickly, in my bag, there’s a small bottle labeled ‘Essence of Dittany’—”
“Bag—right—”
Harry sped to the place where Hermione had landed, seized the tiny beaded bag, and thrust his hand inside it. At once, object after object began presenting itself to his touch: He felt the leather spines of books, woolly sleeves of jumpers, heels of shoes—
“Quickly!”
He grabbed his wand from the ground and pointed it into the depths of the magical bag.
“Accio Dittany!”
A small brown bottle zoomed out of the bag; he caught it and hastened back to Hermione and Ron, whose eyes were now half-closed, strips of white eyeball all that were visible between his lids.
“He’s fainted,” said Hermione, who was also rather pale; she no longer looked like Mafalda, though her hair was still gray in places. “Unstopper it for me, Harry, my hands are shaking.”
Harry wrenched the stopper off the little bottle, Hermione took it and poured three drops of the potion onto the bleeding wound. Greenish smoke billowed upward and when it had cleared, Harry saw that the bleeding had stopped. The wound now looked several days old; new skin stretched over what had just been open flesh.
“Wow,” said Harry.
“It’s all I feel safe doing,” said Hermione shakily. “There are spells that would put him completely right, but I daren’t try in case I do them wrong and cause more damage… He’s lost so much blood already…”
“How did he get hurt? I mean”—Harry shook his head, trying to clear it, to make sense of whatever had just taken place—“why are we here? I thought we were going back to Grimmauld Place?”
Hermione took a deep breath. She looked close to tears.
“Harry, I don’t think we’re going to be able to go back there.”
“What d’y
ou—?”
“As we Disapparated, Yaxley caught hold of me and I couldn’t get rid of him, he was too strong, and he was still holding on when we arrived at Grimmauld Place, and then—well, I think he must have seen the door, and thought we were stopping there, so he slackened his grip and I managed to sake him off and I brought us here instead!”
“But then, where’s he? Hang on… You don’t mean he’s at Grimmauld Place? He can’t get in there?”
Her eyes sparkled with unshed tears as she nodded.
“Harry, I think he can. I—I forced him to let go with a Revulsion Jinx, but I’d already taken him inside the Fidelius Charm’s protection. Since Dumbledore died, we’re Secret-Keepers, so I’ve given him the secret, haven’t I?”
There was no pretending; Harry was sure she was right. It was a serious blow. If Yaxley could now get inside the house, there was no way that they could return. Even now, he could be bringing other Death Eaters in there by Apparition. Gloomy and oppressive though the house was, it had been their one safe refuge; even, now that Kreacher was so much happier and friendlier, a kind of home. With a twinge of regret that had nothing to do with food, Harry imagined the house-elf busying himself over the steak-and-kidney pie that Harry, Ron, and Hermione would never eat.
“Harry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!”
“Don’t be stupid, it wasn’t your fault! If anything, it was mine…”
Harry put his hand in his pocket and drew out Mad-Eye’s eye. Hermione recoiled, looking horrified.
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