Mercy || Hermione Granger (Temporarily Discontinued)

Chapter 3

Warning - Long Chapter

He skidded to a halt and turned around. Crabbe and Goyle were standing behind him, shoulder to shoulder, wands pointing right at Harry. Through the small space between their jeering faces he saw Draco Malfoy.

"That's my wand you're holding, Potter," said Malfoy, pointing his own through the gap between Crabbe and Goyle. "Not anymore," panted Harry, tightening his grip on the hawthorn wand. "Winners, keepers, Malfoy. Who's lent you theirs?" "My mother," said Draco. Harry laughed, though there was nothing very humorous about the situation. He could not hear Regulus or Hermione anymore.

They seemed to have run out of earshot, searching for the diadem. "So how come you three aren't with Voldemort?" asked Harry.

"We're gonna be rewarded," said Crabbe: His voice was surprisingly soft for such an enormous person; Harry had hardly ever heard him speak before. Crabbe was smiling like a small child promised a large bag of sweets. "We 'ung back, Potter. We decided not to go. Decided to bring you to 'im."

"Good plan," said Harry in mock admiration. He could not believe that he was this close, and was going to be thwarted by Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle. He began edging slowly backward toward the place where the Horcrux sat lopsided upon the bust. If he could just get his hands on it before the fight broke out . . .

"So how did you get in here?" he asked, trying to distract them. "I virtually lived in the Room of Hidden Things all last year," said Malfoy, his voice brittle. "I know how to get in." "We was hiding in the corridor outside," grunted Goyle.

"We can do Diss-lusion Charms now! And then," his face split into a gormless grin, "you turned up right in front of us and said you was looking for a die-dum! What's a die-dum?"

"Harry?" Regulus's voice echoed suddenly from the other side of the wall to Harry's right. "Are you talking to someone?"

With a whiplike movement, Crabbe pointed his wand at the fifty-foot mountain of old furniture, of broken trunks, of old books and robes and unidentifiable junk, and shouted,

"Descendo!" The wall began to totter, then the top third crumbled into the aisle next door where Ron stood.

"Reg!" Harry bellowed, as somewhere out of sight Hermione screamed, and Harry heard innumerable objects crashing to the floor on the other side of the destabilized wall: He pointed his wand at the rampart, cried, "Finite!" and it steadied.

"No!" shouted Malfoy, staying Crabbe's arm as the latter made to repeat his spell. "If you wreck the room you might bury this diadem thing!" "What's that matter?" said Crabbe, tugging himself free. "It's Potter the Dark Lord wants, who cares about a die-dum?" "Potter came in here to get it," said Malfoy with ill-disguised impatience at the slow-wittedness of his colleagues, "so that must mean —" 

" 'Must mean'?" Crabbe turned on Malfoy with undisguised ferocity. 

"Who cares what you think? I don't take your orders no more,Draco. You an' your dad are finished." 

"Harry?" shouted Regulus again, from the other side of the junkwall. 

"What's going on?" 

"Harry?" mimicked Crabbe. "What's going — no, Potter!Crucio!" 

Harry had lunged for the tiara; Crabbe's curse missed him but hitthe stone bust, which flew into the air; the diadem soared upwardand then dropped out of sight in the mass of objects on which thebust had rested. 

"STOP!" Malfoy shouted at Crabbe, his voice echoing throughthe enormous room. "The Dark Lord wants him alive —" 

"So? I'm not killing him, am I?" yelled Crabbe, throwing offMalfoy's restraining arm. "But if I can, I will, the Dark Lord wantshim dead anyway, what's the diff — ?"