‘Yes,’ said Harry at once.
‘Very well, then: listen.’
Dumbledore drew himself up to his full height.
‘I take you with me on one condition: that you obey any command I might give you at once, and without question.’
‘Of course.’
‘Be sure to understand me, Harry. I mean that you must follow even such orders as “run”, “hide” or “go back”. Do I have your word?’
‘I – yes, of course.’
‘If I tell you to hide, you will do so?’
‘Yes.’
‘If I tell you to flee, you will obey?’
‘Yes.’
‘If I tell you to leave me, and save yourself, you will do as I tell you?’
‘I –’
‘Harry?’
They looked at each other for a moment.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Very good. Then I wish you to go and fetch your Cloak and meet me in the Entrance Hall in five minutes’ time.’
Dumbledore turned back to look out of the fiery window; the sun was now a ruby-red glare along the horizon. Harry walked quickly from the office and down the spiral staircase. His mind was oddly clear all of a sudden. He knew what to do.
Ron and Hermione were sitting together in the common room when he came back. ‘What does Dumbledore want?’ Hermione said at once. ‘Harry, are you OK?’ she added anxiously.
‘I’m fine,’ said Harry shortly, racing past them. He dashed up the stairs and into his dormitory, where he flung open his trunk and pulled out the Marauder’s Map and a pair of balled-up socks. Then he sped back down the stairs and into the common room, skidding to a halt where Ron and Hermione sat, looking stunned.
‘I haven’t got much time,’ Harry panted, ‘Dumbledore thinks I’m getting my Invisibility Cloak. Listen …’
Quickly he told them where he was going, and why. He did not pause either for Hermione’s gasps of horror or for Ron’s hasty questions; they could work out the finer details for themselves later.
‘… so you see what this means?’ Harry finished at a gallop. ‘Dumbledore won’t be here tonight, so Malfoy’s going to have another clear shot at whatever he’s up to. No, listen to me!’ he hissed angrily, as both Ron and Hermione showed every sign of interrupting. ‘I know it was Malfoy celebrating in the Room of Requirement. Here –’ He shoved the Marauder’s Map into Hermione’s hand. ‘You’ve got to watch him and you’ve got to watch Snape, too. Use anyone else who you can rustle up from the DA. Hermione, those contact Galleons will still work, right? Dumbledore says he’s put extra protection in the school, but if Snape’s involved, he’ll know what Dumbledore’s protection is, and how to avoid it – but he won’t be expecting you lot to be on the watch, will he?’
‘Harry –’ began Hermione, her eyes huge with fear.
‘I haven’t got time to argue,’ said Harry curtly. ‘Take this as well –’ He thrust the socks into Ron’s hands.
‘Thanks,’ said Ron. ‘Er – why do I need socks?’
‘You need what’s wrapped in them, it’s the Felix Felicis. Share it between yourselves and Ginny too. Say goodbye to her from me. I’d better go, Dumbledore’s waiting –’
‘No!’ said Hermione, as Ron unwrapped the tiny little bottle of golden potion, looking awestruck. ‘We don’t want it, you take it, who knows what you’re going to be facing?’
‘I’ll be fine, I’ll be with Dumbledore,’ said Harry. ‘I want to know you lot are OK … don’t look like that, Hermione, I’ll see you later …’
And he was off, hurrying back through the portrait hole towards the Entrance Hall.
Dumbledore was waiting beside the oaken front doors. He turned as Harry came skidding out on to the topmost stone step, panting hard, a searing stitch in his side.
‘I would like you to wear your Cloak, please,’ said Dumbledore, and he waited until Harry had thrown it on before saying, ‘Very good. Shall we go?’
Dumbledore set off at once down the stone steps, his own travelling cloak barely stirring in the still summer air. Harry hurried alongside him under the Invisibility Cloak, still panting and sweating rather a lot.
‘But what will people think when they see you leaving, Professor?’ Harry asked, his mind on Malfoy and Snape.
‘That I am off into Hogsmeade for a drink,’ said Dumbledore lightly. ‘I sometimes offer Rosmerta my custom, or else visit the Hog’s Head … or I appear to. It is as good a way as any of disguising one’s true destination.’
They made their way down the drive in the gathering twilight. The air was full of the smells of warm grass, lake water and wood smoke from Hagrid’s cabin. It was difficult to believe that they were heading for anything dangerous or frightening.
‘Professor,’ said Harry quietly, as the gates at the bottom of the drive came into view, ‘will we be Apparating?’
‘Yes,’ said Dumbledore. ‘You can Apparate now, I believe?’
‘Yes,’ said Harry, ‘but I haven’t got a licence.’
He felt it best to be honest; what if he spoiled everything by turning up a hundred miles from where he was supposed to go?
‘No matter,’ said Dumbledore, ‘I can assist you again.’
They turned out of the gates into the twilit, deserted lane to Hogsmeade. Darkness descended fast as they walked and by the time they reached the High Street night was falling in earnest. Lights twinkled from windows over shops and as they neared the Three Broomsticks they heard raucous shouting.
‘– and stay out!’ shouted Madam Rosmerta, forcibly ejecting a grubby-looking wizard. ‘Oh, hello, Albus … you’re out late …’
‘Good evening, Rosmerta, good evening … forgive me, I’m off to the Hog’s Head … no offence, but I feel like a quieter atmosphere tonight …’
A minute later they turned the corner into the side street where the Hog’s Head’s sign creaked a little, though there was no breeze. In contrast to the Three Broomsticks, the pub appeared to be completely empty.
‘It will not be necessary for us to enter,’ muttered Dumbledore, glancing around. ‘As long as nobody sees us go … now place your hand upon my arm, Harry. There is no need to grip too hard, I am merely guiding you. On the count of three – one … two … three …’
Harry turned. At once, there was that horrible sensation that he was being squeezed through a thick rubber tube; he could not draw breath, every part of him was being compressed almost past endurance and then, just when he thought he must suffocate, the invisible bands seemed to burst open, and he was standing in cool darkness, breathing in lungfuls of fresh, salty air.
— CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX —
The Cave
Harry could smell salt and hear rushing waves; a light, chilly breeze ruffled his hair as he looked out at moonlit sea and star-strewn sky. He was standing upon a high outcrop of dark rock, water foaming and churning below him. He glanced over his shoulder. A towering cliff stood behind, a sheer drop, black and faceless. A few large chunks of rock, such as the one upon which Harry and Dumbledore were standing, looked as though they had broken away from the cliff face at some point in the past. It was a bleak, harsh view; the sea and the rock unrelieved by any tree or sweep of grass or sand.
‘What do you think?’ asked Dumbledore. He might have been asking Harry’s opinion on whether it was a good site for a picnic.
‘They brought the kids from the orphanage here?’ asked Harry, who could not imagine a less cosy spot for a daytrip.
‘Not here, precisely,’ said Dumbledore. ‘There is a village of sorts about halfway along the cliffs behind us. I believe the orphans were taken there for a little sea air and a view of the waves. No, I think it was only ever Tom Riddle and his youthful victims who visited this spot. No Muggle could reach this rock unless they were uncommonly good mountaineers, and boats cannot approach the cliffs; the waters around them are too dangerous. I imagine that Riddle climbed down; magic would have served better than ropes. And he brought two small ch
ildren with him, probably for the pleasure of terrorising them. I think the journey alone would have done it, don’t you?’
Harry looked up at the cliff again and felt goosebumps.
‘But his final destination – and ours – lies a little further on. Come.’
Dumbledore beckoned Harry to the very edge of the rock, where a series of jagged niches that made footholds led down to boulders that lay half-submerged in water and closer to the cliff. It was a treacherous descent and Dumbledore, hampered slightly by his withered hand, moved slowly. The lower rocks were slippery with sea water. Harry could feel flecks of cold salt spray hitting his face.
‘Lumos,’ said Dumbledore, as he reached the boulder closest to the cliff face. A thousand flecks of golden light sparkled upon the dark surface of the water a few feet below where he crouched; the black wall of rock beside him was illuminated too.
‘You see?’ said Dumbledore quietly, holding his wand a little higher. Harry saw a fissure in the cliff into which dark water was swirling.
‘You will not object to getting a little wet?’
‘No,’ said Harry.
‘Then take off your Invisibility Cloak – there is no need for it now – and let us take the plunge.’
And with the sudden agility of a much younger man, Dumbledore slid from the boulder, landed in the sea and began to swim, with a perfect breaststroke, towards the dark slit in the rock face, his lit wand held in his teeth. Harry pulled off his Cloak, stuffed it into his pocket and followed.
The water was icy; Harry’s waterlogged clothes billowed around him and weighed him down. Taking deep breaths that filled his nostrils with the tang of salt and seaweed, he struck out for the shimmering, shrinking light now moving deeper into the cliff.
The fissure soon opened into a dark tunnel that Harry could tell would be filled with water at high tide. The slimy walls were barely three feet apart and glimmered like wet tar in the passing light of Dumbledore’s wand. A little way in, the passageway curved to the left and Harry saw that it extended far into the cliff. He continued to swim in Dumbledore’s wake, the tips of his benumbed fingers brushing the rough, wet rock.
Then he saw Dumbledore rising out of the water ahead, his silver hair and dark robes gleaming. When Harry reached the spot he found steps that led into a large cave. He clambered up them, water streaming from his soaking clothes, and emerged, shivering uncontrollably, into the still and freezing air.
Dumbledore was standing in the middle of the cave, his wand held high as he turned slowly on the spot, examining the walls and ceiling.
‘Yes, this is the place,’ said Dumbledore.
‘How can you tell?’ Harry spoke in a whisper.
‘It has known magic,’ said Dumbledore simply.
Harry could not tell whether the shivers he was experiencing were due to his spine-deep coldness or to the same awareness of enchantments. He watched as Dumbledore continued to revolve on the spot, evidently concentrating on things Harry could not see.
‘This is merely the ante-chamber, the entrance hall,’ said Dumbledore after a moment or two. ‘We need to penetrate the inner place … now it is Lord Voldemort’s obstacles that stand in our way, rather than those nature made …’
Dumbledore approached the wall of the cave and caressed it with his blackened fingertips, murmuring words in a strange tongue that Harry did not understand. Twice Dumbledore walked right around the cave, touching as much of the rough rock as he could, occasionally pausing, running his fingers backwards and forwards over a particular spot, until finally he stopped, his hand pressed flat against the wall.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘We go on through here. The entrance is concealed.’
Harry did not ask how Dumbledore knew. He had never seen a wizard work things out like this, simply by looking and touching; but Harry had long since learned that bangs and smoke were more often the marks of ineptitude than expertise.
Dumbledore stepped back from the cave wall and pointed his wand at the rock. For a moment, an arched outline appeared there, blazing white as though there was a powerful light behind the crack.
‘You’ve d-done it!’ said Harry through chattering teeth, but before the words had left his lips the outline had gone, leaving the rock as bare and solid as ever. Dumbledore looked round.
‘Harry, I’m so sorry, I forgot,’ he said; he pointed his wand at Harry and at once Harry’s clothes were as warm and dry as if they had been hanging in front of a blazing fire.
‘Thank you,’ said Harry gratefully, but Dumbledore had already turned his attention back to the solid cave wall. He did not try any more magic, but simply stood there staring at it intently, as though something extremely interesting was written on it. Harry stayed quite still; he did not want to break Dumbledore’s concentration.
Then, after two solid minutes, Dumbledore said quietly, ‘Oh, surely not. So crude.’
‘What is it, Professor?’
‘I rather think,’ said Dumbledore, putting his uninjured hand inside his robes and drawing out a short silver knife of the kind Harry used to chop potion ingredients, ‘that we are required to make payment to pass.’
‘Payment?’ said Harry. ‘You’ve got to give the door something?’
‘Yes,’ said Dumbledore. ‘Blood, if I am not much mistaken.’
‘Blood?’
‘I said it was crude,’ said Dumbledore, who sounded disdainful, even disappointed, as though Voldemort had fallen short of the standards Dumbledore expected. ‘The idea, as I am sure you will have gathered, is that your enemy must weaken him or herself to enter. Once again, Lord Voldemort fails to grasp that there are much more terrible things than physical injury.’
‘Yeah, but still, if you can avoid it …’ said Harry, who had experienced enough pain not to be keen for more.
‘Sometimes, however, it is unavoidable,’ said Dumbledore, shaking back the sleeve of his robes and exposing the forearm of his injured hand.
‘Professor!’ protested Harry, hurrying forwards as Dumbledore raised his knife. ‘I’ll do it, I’m –’
He did not know what he was going to say – younger, fitter? But Dumbledore merely smiled. There was a flash of silver, and a spurt of scarlet; the rock face was peppered with dark, glistening drops.
‘You are very kind, Harry,’ said Dumbledore, now passing the tip of his wand over the deep cut he had made in his own arm, so that it healed instantly, just as Snape had healed Malfoy’s wounds. ‘But your blood is worth more than mine. Ah, that seems to have done the trick, doesn’t it?’
The blazing silver outline of an arch had appeared in the wall once more, and this time it did not fade away: the blood-spattered rock within it simply vanished, leaving an opening into what seemed total darkness.
‘After me, I think,’ said Dumbledore, and he walked through the archway with Harry on his heels, lighting his own wand hastily as he went.
An eerie sight met their eyes: they were standing on the edge of a great black lake, so vast that Harry could not make out the distant banks, in a cavern so high that the ceiling, too, was out of sight. A misty greenish light shone far away in what looked like the middle of the lake; it was reflected in the completely still water below. The greenish glow and the light from the two wands were the only things that broke the otherwise velvety blackness, though their rays did not penetrate as far as Harry would have expected. The darkness was somehow denser than normal darkness.
‘Let us walk,’ said Dumbledore quietly. ‘Be very careful not to step into the water. Stay close to me.’
He set off around the edge of the lake and Harry followed close behind him. Their footsteps made echoing, slapping sounds on the narrow rim of rock that surrounded the water. On and on they walked, but the view did not vary: on one side of them, the rough cavern wall; on the other, the boundless expanse of smooth, glassy blackness, in the very middle of which was that mysterious greenish glow. Harry found the place and the silence oppressive, unnerving.
‘Professo
r?’ he said finally. ‘Do you think the Horcrux is here?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Dumbledore. ‘Yes, I’m sure it is. The question is, how do we get to it?’
‘We couldn’t … we couldn’t just try a Summoning Charm?’ Harry said, sure that it was a stupid suggestion, but much keener than he was prepared to admit on getting out of this place as soon as possible.
‘Certainly we could,’ said Dumbledore, stopping so suddenly that Harry almost walked into him. ‘Why don’t you do it?’
‘Me? Oh … OK …’
Harry had not expected this, but cleared his throat and said loudly, wand aloft, ‘Accio Horcrux!’
With a noise like an explosion, something very large and pale erupted out of the dark water some twenty feet away; before Harry could see what it was, it had vanished again with a crashing splash that made great, deep ripples on the mirrored surface. Harry leapt backwards in shock and hit the wall; his heart was still thundering as he turned to Dumbledore.
‘What was that?’
‘Something, I think, that is ready to respond should we attempt to seize the Horcrux.’
Harry looked back at the water. The surface of the lake was once more shining black glass: the ripples had vanished unnaturally fast; Harry’s heart, however, was still pounding.
‘Did you think that would happen, sir?’
‘I thought something would happen if we made an obvious attempt to get our hands on the Horcrux. That was a very good idea, Harry; much the simplest way of finding out what we are facing.’
‘But we don’t know what the thing was,’ said Harry, looking at the sinisterly smooth water.
‘What the things are, you mean,’ said Dumbledore. ‘I doubt very much that there is only one of them. Shall we walk on?’
‘Professor?’
‘Yes, Harry?’
‘Do you think we’re going to have to go into the lake?’
‘Into it? Only if we are very unfortunate.’
‘You don’t think the Horcrux is at the bottom?’
The Half-Blood Prince Page 48
