𝐑𝐄𝐖𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐒-ℍ𝕒𝕣𝕣𝕪 ℙ𝕠𝕥𝕥𝕖𝕣❥

𝐃𝐇 𝟑𝟎

Emily felt sad that she knew what he was going through. Pursuing another Horcrux could not bring the satisfaction of revenge; she too wanted to fight, to punish them, the people who had killed Fred, and she wanted to find the other Weasleys, and above all make sure, make quite sure, that her father was not-but she could not permit that idea to form in her mind-

"We will fight!" Hermione said. "We'll have to, to reach the snake! But let's not lose sight now of what we're supposed to be d-doing! We're the only ones who can end it!"

She was crying too, and she wiped her face on her torn and singed sleeve as she spoke, but she took great heaving breaths to calm herself as, still keeping a tight hold on Ron, she turned to Harry and Emily. "You need to find out where Voldemort is, because he'll have the snake with him, won't he? Do it, Harry - look inside him!"

Why was it so easy? Because his scar had been burning for hours, yearning to show him Voldemort's thoughts? He closed his eyes on her command, and at once, the screams and bangs and all the discordant sounds of the battle were drowned until they became distant, as though he stood far, far away from them. . . .

He was standing in the middle of a desolate but strangely familiar room, with peeling paper on the walls and all the windows boarded up except for one. The sounds of the assault on the castle were muffled and distant. The single unblocked window revealed distant bursts of light where the castle stood, but inside the room was dark except for a solitary oil lamp.

He was rolling his wand between his fingers, watching it, his thoughts on the room in the castle, the secret room only he had ever found, the room, like the chamber, that you had to be clever and cunning and inquisitive to discover . . .
He was confident that the boy would not find the diadem . . . although Dumbledore's puppet had come much farther than he ever expected . . . too far. . . .

"My Lord," said a voice, desperate and cracked. He turned: there was Lucius Malfoy sitting in the darkest corner, ragged and still bearing the marks of the punishment he had received after the boy's last escape. One of his eyes remained closed and puffy. "My Lord ... please ... my son ..."

"If your son is dead, Lucius, it is not my fault. He did not come and join me, like the rest of the Slytherins. Perhaps he has decided to befriend Harry Potter?"

"No-never," whispered Malfoy.

"You must hope not."

"Aren't-aren't you afraid, my Lord that Potter might die at another hand but yours?" asked Malfoy, his voice shaking. "Wouldn't it be . . . forgive me . . . more prudent to call off this battle, enter the castle, and seek him y-yourself?"

"Do not pretend Lucius. You wish the battle to cease so that you can discover what has happened to your son. And I do not need to seek Potter. Before the night is out, Potter will have come to find me."

Voldemort dropped his gaze once more to the wand in his fingers. It troubled him . . . and those things that troubled Lord Voldemort needed to be rearranged. . . .

"Go and fetch Snape."

"Snape, m-my Lord?"

"Snape. Now. I need him. There is a-service-I require from him. Go."

Frightened, stumbling a little through the gloom, Lucius left the room. Voldemort continued to stand there, twirling the wand between his fingers, staring at it.

"It is the only way, Nagini," he whispered, and he looked around, and there was the great thick snake, now suspended in midair, twisting gracefully within the enchanted, protected space he had made for her, a starry, transparent sphere somewhere between a glittering cage and a tank.