“Yeah, I got the idea from them,” said Malfoy, with a twisted smile. “I got the idea of poisoning the mead from the Mudblood Granger, as well, I heard her talking in the library about Filch not recognising potions…”
“Please do not use that offensive word in front of me,” said Dumbledore.
Malfoy gave a harsh laugh.
“You care about me saying ‘Mudblood’ when I’m about to kill you?”
“Yes, I do,” said Dumbledore, and Harry saw his feet slide a little on the floor as he struggled to remain upright. “But as for being about to kill me, Draco, you have had several long minutes now. We are quite alone. I am more defenceless than you can have dreamed of finding me, and still you have not acted…”
Malfoy’s mouth contorted involuntarily, as though he had tasted something very bitter.
“Now, about tonight,” Dumbledore went on, “I am a little puzzled about how it happened… you knew that I had left the school? But of course,” he answered his own question, “Rosmerta saw me leaving, she tipped you off using your ingenious coins, I’m sure…”
“That’s right,” said Malfoy. “But she said you were just going for a drink, you’d be back…”
“Well, I certainly did have a drink… and I came back… after a fashion,” mumbled Dumbledore. “So you decided to spring a trap for me?”
“We decided to put the Dark Mark over the Tower and get you to hurry up here, to see who’d been killed,” said Malfoy. “And it worked!”
“Well… yes and no…” said Dumbledore. “But am I to take it, then, that nobody has been murdered?”
“Someone’s dead,” said Malfoy and his voice seemed to go up an octave as he said it. “One of your people… I don’t know who, it was dark… I stepped over the body… I was supposed to be waiting up here when you got back, only your Phoenix lot got in the way…”
“Yes, they do that,” said Dumbledore.
There was a bang and shouts from below, louder than ever; it sounded as though people were fighting on the actual spiral staircase that led to where Dumbledore, Malfoy and Harry stood, and Harry’s heart thundered unheard in his invisible chest… someone was dead… Malfoy had stepped over the body… but who was it?
“There is little time, one way or another,” said Dumbledore. “So let us discuss your options, Draco.”
“My options!” said Malfoy loudly. “I’m standing here with a wand—I’m about to kill you—”
“My dear boy, let us have no more pretence about that. If you were going to kill me, you would have done it when you first Disarmed me, you would not have stopped for this pleasant chat about ways and means.”
“I haven’t got any options!” said Malfoy, and he was sud denly as white as Dumbledore. “I’ve got to do it! He’ll kill me! He’ll kill my whole family!”
“I appreciate the difficulty of your position,” said Dumbledore. “Why else do you think I have not confronted you before now? Because I knew that you would have been murdered if Lord Voldemort realised that I suspected you.”
Malfoy winced at the sound of the name.
“I did not dare speak to you of the mission with which I knew you had been entrusted, in case he used Legilimency against you,” continued Dumbledore. “But now at last we can speak plainly to each other… no harm has been done, you have hurt nobody, though you are very lucky that your unintentional victims survived… I can help you, Draco.”
“No, you can’t,” said Malfoy, his wand hand shaking very badly indeed. “Nobody can. He told me to do it or he’ll kill me. I’ve got no choice.”
“Come over to the right side, Draco, and we can hide you more completely than you can possibly imagine. What is more, I can send members of the Order to your mother tonight to hide her likewise. Your father is safe at the moment in Azkaban… when the time comes we can protect him too… come over to the right side, Draco… you are not a killer…”
Malfoy stared at Dumbledore.
“But I got this far, didn’t I?” he said slowly. “They thought I’d die in the attempt, but I’m here… and you’re in my power… I’m the one with the wand… you’re at my mercy…”
“No, Draco,” said Dumbledore quietly. “It is my mercy, and not yours, that matters now.”
Malfoy did not speak. His mouth was open, his wand hand still trembling. Harry thought he saw it drop by a fraction—
But suddenly footsteps were thundering up the stairs and a second later Malfoy was buffeted out of the way as four people in black robes burst through the door on to the ramparts. Still paralysed, his eyes staring unblinkingly, Harry gazed in terror upon four strangers: it seemed the Death Eaters had won the fight below.
A lumpy-looking man with an odd lopsided leer gave a wheezy giggle.
“Dumbledore cornered!” he said, and he turned to a stocky little woman who looked as though she could be his sister and who was grinning eagerly. “Dumbledore wandless, Dumbledore alone! Well done, Draco, well done!”
“Good evening, Amycus,” said Dumbledore calmly, as though welcoming the man to a tea party. “And you’ve brought Alecto too… charming…”
The woman gave an angry little titter.
“Think your little jokes’ll help you on your death bed, then?” she jeered.
“Jokes? No, no, these are manners,” replied Dumbledore.
“Do it,” said the stranger standing nearest to Harry, a big, rangy man with matted grey hair and whiskers, whose black Death Eater’s robes looked uncomfortably tight. He had a voice like none that Harry had ever heard: a rasping bark of a voice. Harry could smell a powerful mixture of dirt, sweat and, unmistakeably, of blood coming from him. His filthy hands had long yellowish nails.
“Is that you, Fenrir?” asked Dumbledore.
“That’s right,” rasped the other. “Pleased to see me, Dumbledore?”
“No, I cannot say that I am…”
Fenrir Greyback grinned, showing pointed teeth. Blood trickled down his chin and he licked his lips slowly, obscenely.
“But you know how much I like kids, Dumbledore.”
“Am I to take it that you are attacking even without the full moon now? This is most unusual… you have developed a taste for human flesh that cannot be satisfied once a month?”
“That’s right,” said Greyback. “Shocks you, that, does it, Dumbledore? Frightens you?”
“Well, I cannot pretend it does not disgust me a little,” said Dumbledore. “And, yes, I am a little shocked that Draco here invited you, of all people, into the school where his friends live…”
“I didn’t,” breathed Malfoy. He was not looking at Greyback; he did not seem to want to even glance at him. “I didn’t know he was going to come—”
“I wouldn’t want to miss a trip to Hogwarts, Dumbledore,” rasped Greyback. “Not when there are throats to be ripped out… delicious, delicious…”
And he raised a yellow fingernail and picked at his front teeth, leering at Dumbledore.
“I could do you for afters, Dumbledore…”
“No,” said the fourth Death Eater sharply. He had a heavy, brutal-looking face. “We’ve got orders. Draco’s got to do it. Now, Draco, and quickly.”
Malfoy was showing less resolution than ever. He looked terrified as he stared into Dumbledore’s face, which was even paler, and rather lower than usual, as he had slid so far down the rampart wall.
“He’s not long for this world anyway, if you ask me!” said the lopsided man, to the accompaniment of his sister’s wheezing giggles. “Look at him—what’s happened to you, then, Dumby?”
“Oh, weaker resistance, slower reflexes, Amycus,” said Dumbledore. “Old age, in short… one day, perhaps, it will happen to you… if you are lucky…”
“What’s that mean, then, what’s that mean?” yelled the Death Eater, suddenly violent. “Always the same, weren’t yeh, Dumby, talking and doing nothing, nothing, I don’t even know why the Dark Lord’s bothering to kill yeh! Come on, Draco, do it!”
But at that moment, there were renewed sounds of scuffling from below and a voice shouted, “They’ve blocked the stairs—Reducto! REDUCTO!”
Harry’s heart leapt: so these four had not eliminated all opposition, but merely broken through the fight to the top of the Tower, and, by the sound of it, created a barrier behind them—
“Now, Draco, quickly!” said the brutal-faced man angrily.
But Malfoy’s hand was shaking so badly that he could barely aim.
“I’ll do it,” snarled Greyback, moving towards Dumbledore with his hands outstretched, his teeth bared.
“I said no!” shouted the brutal-faced man; there was a flash of light and the werewolf was blasted out of the way; he hit the ramparts and staggered, looking furious. Harry’s heart was hammering so hard it seemed impossible that nobody could hear him standing there, imprisoned by Dumbledore’s spell—if he could only move, he could aim a curse from under the Cloak—
“Draco, do it, or stand aside so one of us—” screeched the woman, but at that precise moment the door to the ramparts burst open once more and there stood Snape, his wand clutched in his hand as his black eyes swept the scene, from Dumbledore slumped against the wall, to the four Death Eaters, including the enraged werewolf, and Malfoy.
“We’ve got a problem, Snape,” said the lumpy Amycus, whose eyes and wand were fixed alike upon Dumbledore, “the boy doesn’t seem able—”
But somebody else had spoken Snape’s name, quite softly.
“Severus…”
The sound frightened Harry beyond anything he had experienced all evening. For the first time, Dumbledore was pleading.
Snape said nothing, but walked forwards and pushed Malfoy roughly out of the way. The three Death Eaters fell back without a word. Even the werewolf seemed cowed.
Snape gazed for a moment at Dumbledore, and there was revulsion and hatred etched in the harsh lines of his face.
“Severus… please…”
Snape raised his wand and pointed it directly at Dumbledore.
“Avada Kedavra!”
A jet of green light shot from the end of Snape’s wand and hit Dumbledore squarely in the chest. Harry’s scream of horror never left him; silent and unmoving, he was forced to watch as Dumbledore was blasted into the air: for a split second he seemed to hang suspended beneath the shining skull, and then he fell slowly backwards, like a great rag doll, over the battlements and out of sight.
28. FLIGHT OF THE PRINCE
Harry felt as though he too were hurtling through space; it had not happened… It could not have happened…
“Out of here, quickly,” said Snape.
He seized Malfoy by the scruff of the neck and forced him through the door ahead of the rest; Greyback and the squat brother and sister followed, the latter both panting excitedly. As they vanished through the door, Harry realized he could move again. What was now holding him paralyzed against the wall was not magic, but horror and shock. He threw the Invisibility Cloak aside as the brutal-faced Death Eater, last to leave the tower top, was disappearing through the door.
“Petrificus Totalus!”
The Death Eater buckled as though hit in the back with something solid and fell to the ground, rigid as a waxwork, but he had barely hit the floor when Harry was clambering over him and running down the darkened staircase.
Terror tore at Harry’s heart… He had to get to Dumbledore and he had to catch Snape… Somehow the two things were linked… He could reverse what had happened if he had them both together… Dumbledore could not have died…
He leapt the last ten steps of the spiral staircase and stopped where he landed, his wand raised. The dimly lit corridor was full of dust; half the ceiling seemed to have fallen in; and a battle was raging before him, but even as he attempted to make out who were fighting whom, he heard the hated voice shout, “It’s over, time to go!” and saw Snape disappearing around the corner at the far end of the corridor; he and Malfoy seemed to have forced their way through the fight unscathed. As Harry plunged after them, one of the fighters detached themselves from the fray and flew at him: it was the werewolf, Fenrir. He was on top of Harry before Harry could raise his wand: Harry fell backward, with filthy matted hair in his face, the stench of sweat and blood filling his nose and mouth, hot greedy breath at his throat—
“Petrificus Totalus!”
Harry felt Fenrir collapse against him; with a stupendous effort he pushed the werewolf off and onto the floor as a jet of green light came flying toward him; he ducked and ran, headfirst, into the fight. His feet met something squashy and slippery on the floor and he stumbled: There were two bodies lying there, lying facedown in a pool of blood, but there was no time to investigate. Harry now saw red hair flying like flames in front of him: Ginny was locked in combat with the lumpy Death Eater, Amycus, who was throwing hex after hex at her while she dodged them: Amycus was giggling, enjoying the sport: “Crucio—Crucio—you can’t dance forever, pretty—”
“Impedimenta!” yelled Harry.
His jinx hit Amycus in the chest: He gave a piglike squeal of pain, was lifted off his feet and slammed into the opposite wall, slid down it, and fell out of sight behind Ron, Professor McGonagall, and Lupin, each of whom was battling a separate Death Eater. Beyond them, Harry saw Tonks fighting an enormous blond wizard who was sending curses flying in all directions, so that they ricocheted off the walls around them, cracking stone, shattering the nearest window—
“Harry, where did you come from?” Ginny cried, but there was no time to answer her. He put his head down and sprinted forward, narrowly avoiding a blast that erupted over his head, showering them all in bits of wall. Snape must not escape, he must catch up with Snape—
“Take that!” shouted Professor McGonagall, and Harry glimpsed the female Death Eater, Alecto, sprinting away down the corridor with her arms over her head, her brother right behind her. He launched himself after them but his foot caught on something, and next moment he was lying across someone’s legs. Looking around, he saw Neville’s pale, round face flat against the floor. “Neville, are you—?”
“’M’all right,” muttered Neville, who was clutching his stomach, “Harry… Snape ’n’ Malfoy… ran past…”
“I know, I’m on it!” said Harry, aiming a hex from the floor at the enormous blond Death Eater who was causing most of the chaos. The man gave a howl of pain as the spell hit him in the face: He wheeled around, staggered, and then pounded away after the brother and sister. Harry scrambled up from the floor and began to sprint along the corridor, ignoring the bangs issuing from behind him, the yells of the others to come back, and the mute call of the figures on the ground whose fate he did not yet know…
He skidded around the corner, his trainers slippery with blood; Snape had an immense head start. Was it possible that he had already entered the cabinet in the Room of Requirement, or had the Order made steps to secure it, to prevent the Death Eaters retreating that way? He could hear nothing but his own pounding feet, his own hammering heart as he sprinted along the next empty corridor, but then spotted a bloody footprint that showed at least one of the fleeing Death Eaters was heading toward the front doors—perhaps the Room of Requirement was indeed blocked—
He skidded around another corner and a curse flew past him; he dived behind a suit of armor that exploded. He saw the brother and sister running down the marble staircase ahead and aimed jinxes at them, but merely hit several bewigged witches in a portrait on the landing, who ran screeching into neighboring paintings. As he leapt the wreckage of armor, Harry heard more shouts and screams; other people within the castle seemed to have awoken…
He pelted toward a shortcut, hoping to overtake the brother and sister and close in on Snape and Malfoy, who must surely have reached the grounds by now. Remembering to leap the vanishing step halfway down the concealed staircase, he burst through a tapestry at the bottom and out into a corridor where a number of bewildered and pajama-clad Hufflepuffs stood.
“Harry
! We heard a noise, and someone said something about the Dark Mark—” began Ernie Macmillan.
“Out of the way!” yelled Harry, knocking two boys aside as he sprinted toward the landing and down the remainder of the marble staircase. The oak front doors had been blasted open, there were smears of blood on the flagstones, and several terrified students stood huddled against the walls, one or two still cowering with their arms over their faces. The giant Gryffindor hourglass had been hit by a curse, and the rubies within were still falling, with a loud rattle, onto the flagstones below.
Harry flew across the entrance hall and out into the dark grounds: He could just make out three figures racing across the lawn, heading for the gates beyond which they could Disapparate—by the looks of them, the huge blond Death Eater and, some way ahead of him, Snape and Malfoy…
The cold night air ripped at Harry’s lungs as he tore after them; he saw a flash of light in the distance that momentarily silhouetted his quarry. He did not know what it was but continued to run, not yet near enough to get a good aim with a curse—
Another flash, shouts, retaliatory jets of light, and Harry understood: Hagrid had emerged from his cabin and was trying to stop the Death Eaters escaping, and though every breath seemed to shred his lungs and the stitch in his chest was like fire, Harry sped up as an unbidden voice in his head said: not Hagrid… not Hagrid too…
Something caught Harry hard in the small of the back and he fell forward, his face smacking the ground, blood pouring out of both nostrils: He knew, even as he rolled over, his wand ready, that the brother and sister he had overtaken using his shortcut were closing in behind him…
“Impedimenta!” he yelled as he rolled over again, crouching close to the dark ground, and miraculously his jinx hit one of them, who stumbled and fell, tripping up the other; Harry leapt to his feet and sprinted on after Snape.
And now he saw the vast outline of Hagrid, illuminated by the light of the crescent moon revealed suddenly behind clouds; the blond Death Eater was aiming curse after curse at the gamekeeper; but Hagrid’s immense strength and the toughened skin he had inherited from his giantess mother seemed to be protecting him. Snape and Malfoy, however, were still running; they would soon be beyond the gates, able to Disapparate—
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