𝐑𝐄𝐖𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐒-ℍ𝕒𝕣𝕣𝕪 ℙ𝕠𝕥𝕥𝕖𝕣❥

𝐎𝐎𝐓𝐏 𝟑𝟑

Black shapes were emerging out of thin air all around them, blocking their way left and right; eyes glinted through slits in hoods, a dozen lit wand tips were pointing directly at their hearts. Ginny gave a gasp of horror.

"To me, Potter," repeated the drawling voice of Lucius Malfoy as he held out his hand, palm up.

Harry's insides plummeted sickeningly. They were trapped and outnumbered two to one.

"To me," said Malfoy yet again.

"Where's Sirius and Eric?" Harry said.

Several of the Death Eaters laughed. A harsh female voice from the midst of the shadowy figures to Harry's left said triumphantly, "The Dark Lord always knows!"

"Always," echoed Malfoy softly. "Now, give me the prophecy, Potter."

"I want to know where Sirius and Eric are!"

"I want to know where Sirius and Eric are!" mimicked the woman to her left. She and her fellow Death Eaters had closed in so that they were mere feet away from Harry and the others, the light from their wands dazzling Harry's eyes.

"You've got them," said Harry, ignoring the rising panic in his chest, the dread he had been fighting since they had first entered the ninety- seventh row. "They're here. I know they are."

"The little baby woke up fwightened and fort what it dweamed was twoo," said the woman in a horrible, mock-baby voice.

Harry felt Ron stir beside him.

"Don't do anything," he muttered. "Not yet —"

The woman who had mimicked him let out a raucous scream of laughter.

"You hear him? You hear him? Giving instructions to the other children as though he thinks of fighting us!"

"Oh, you don't know Potter as I do, Bellatrix," said Malfoy softly. "He has a great weakness for heroics; the Dark Lord understands this about him. Now give me the prophecy, Potter."

"I know Eric and Sirius are here," said Harry, though panic was causing his chest to constrict and he felt as though he could not breathe properly. "I know you've got them!"

More of the Death Eaters laughed, though the woman still laughed loudest of all.

"It's time you learned the difference between life and dreams, Potter," said Malfoy. "Now give me the prophecy, or we start using wands."

"Go on, then," said Harry, raising his own wand to chest height. As he did so, the five wands of Ron, Hermione, Neville, Ginny, and Luna rose on either side of him.

The knot in Harry's stomach tightened. If Sirius and Eric really were not here, he had led his friends to their deaths for no reason at all. . . . he had no clue to where Emily was, all he hoped was that she had found a way to get out of this place.

But the Death Eaters did not strike.

"Hand over the prophecy and no one need get hurt," said Malfoy coolly.

It was Harry's turn to laugh.

"Yeah, right!" he said. "I give you this. . . prophecy, is it? And you'll just let us skip off home, will you?"

The words were hardly out of his mouth when the female Death Eater shrieked, "Accio Proph-"

Harry was just ready for her. He shouted "Protego!" before she had finished her spell, and though the glass sphere slipped to the tips of his fingers he managed to cling on to it.

"Oh, he knows how to play, little bitty baby Potter," she said, her mad eyes staring through the slits in her hood. "Very well, then-"

"I TOLD YOU, NO!" Lucius Malfoy roared at the woman. "If you smash it-"