Certain Dark Things || Book Four

lxvi. the girl who lived

Harriet tripped once, catching herself on her right arm. The limb gave out beneath her, the cut opened by Crouch weeping, and Harriet cursed, the sound too close to a sob.

Get a grip, she told herself, repeating it. Get a grip, get a grip. You're leaving this bloody place and going home to your friends. Now think, Potter, think!

Harriet wondered if she should make for what she assumed was a Muggle village. Maybe she could find help—but what could Muggles do against wizards? And she had no doubt Death Eaters and Voldemort would have no issue cleaving a path through an innocent, unsuspecting crowd to find her.

She listened for the pop of Apparition, waiting for Aurors or Ministry people to appear. Harriet was underaged—and off school premises. Hadn't the Trace gone off? She must have cast half a dozen spells by now, and the Dark Lord had said the stupid house had belonged to his Muggle family. Surely someone in the bloody Ministry had received some kind of alert?

Maybe it's because of the Death Eaters, Harriet reasoned. So many adult wizards nearby might muddle the Trace. Either that or the Dark Lord did something to the property.

Whatever the truth, Harriet remained alone without any sign of incoming support.

Okay—what do I do, what do I do? She panted and peered through the swaying grass as her mind raced in a frantic circle. She couldn't make a Portkey; the only thing she knew about their creation was it took a great deal of power and skill, nothing beyond that. She'd seen others use the Patronus to send brief messages, but Harriet had never done that, and if she could figure it out, what would she say? Help, no bloody idea where I am, but am in desperate need of a pick-up? She was nowhere near a Floo, without access to a broom—but there was another method of transport Harriet had heard magical folk talk about. She'd never used the Knight Bus before, but she knew how to summon it. If she could get far enough away from here and lose the Dark wizards in the countryside, maybe she could call the Bus and escape.

"That's a very iffy maybe," Harriet whispered to herself as she tried to see which way to run. It was easy to get turned around in the grass, and the last thing she wanted to do was scamper right back into the Dark Lord's clutches. If she popped her head up to check, she'd be seen.

"I need to keep my Invisibility Cloak in my back pocket," she quietly griped, moving in a crawling half-crouch, looking for a glow of lights in the sky. "And Livius. Let's see how the bloody Dark Lord likes taking a Horned Serpent's bite right in the face—."

Her panicked ranting came to a stuttering halt as she heard cloth rippling in the air. Harriet froze like a rat praying an eagle passes her by, and after a moment of nothing happening, she dared peek over the stalks.

Voldemort had gotten tired of searching. Harriet could hardly believe her eyes as she saw the Dark Lord fly at least three meters from the ground with no broom, looking like a ghastly, unearthly fiend hovering against the black of night. He jerked his wand up—and great gouts of flames soared from its tip, crashing into the ground like the bodies of molten serpents devouring the fields. The sight horrified her—roiling, sticky Dark magic sloshing across the grounds, spiraling arms of inferno uncurling like the tentacles of a heinous, chthonic thing—.

It looked like Hell on earth.

Her face bathed in heat, Harriet bolted.

The graveyard! The graveyard—! If I can get to the other side, if I could find a path, a road—.

A rustle came from her left, and Harriet dove to the ground, avoiding a streak of red. "Stupefy!" she snarled in return, aiming for the Death Eater's mask that glowed a burnished white in the dark. He blocked it with an efficient motion—but he hadn't anticipated her other hand palming a glob of dirt and flinging it into his eyes. The mask blocked most of it, but the Death Eater grunted—flinched—and Harriet's second Stunner didn't miss. She ran before his body hit the ground.