Girl Who Escaped {Harry Potter: The Goblet of Fire} [BEING EDITED]

[20] The Parting of Ways.

Dumbledore stopped talking. He sat down opposite Harry and I, behind his desk. He was looking at us. Dumbledore was going to question Harry. He was going to make Harry relive everything.

"I need to know what happened after you touched the Portkey in the maze. Harry," said Dumbledore.

"We can leave that till morning, can't we, Dumbledore?" said Sirius harshly.

"Please Dumbledore." My voice was a quiet rasp. "We both want to sleep..."

On cue, a long and exausting yawn broke from behind my pink lips.

Dumbledore took no notice of mine or Sirius's words. He leaned forward toward Harry..

"If I thought I could help you," Dumbledore said gently, "By putting you into an enchanted sleep and allowing you to postpone the moment when you would have to think about what has happened tonight, I would do it. But I know better. Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it. You have shown bravery beyond anything I could have expected of you. I ask you to demonstrate your courage one more time. I ask you to tell us what happened."

The phoenix let out one soft, quavering note. It shivered in the air, and I felt as though a drop of hot liquid had slipped down my throat into my stomach, warming me, and strengthening me. It seemed to have the same effect on Harry. Fawkes was truly a miracle.

"Go on Harry." I whispered in his ear, grabbing his hand, and then as a single tear slipped down my cheek, "I'm here... I'm here for you."

He took a deep breath and began to tell them. As he spoke, visions of everything that had passed that night seemed give me a vivid imagery of what he had been through.

Once or twice, Sirius made a noise as though about to say something, but Dumbledore raised his hand to stop him, and I was glad of this, because it was easier to keep listening now that he had started. It was even a relief; I felt almost as though something poisonous were being extracted from me. I needed closure, and maybe Harry's story would give me some.

When Harry told of Wormtail piercing his arm with the dagger, Dumbledore walked around the desk and told Harry to stretch out his arm. Harry showed them both the place where his robes were torn and the cut beneath them.

"He said my blood would make him stronger than if he'd used someone else's," Harry told Dumbledore. "He said the protection my - my mother left in me - he'd have it too. And he was right - he could touch me without hurting himself, he touched my face."

For a fleeting instant, I thought I saw a gleam of something like triumph in Dumbledore's eyes. But next second. I was sure I had imagined it, for when Dumbledore had returned to his seat behind the desk, he looked as old and weary as I had ever seen him.

"Very well," he said, sitting down again. "Voldemort has overcome that particular barrier. Harry, continue, please."

Harry went on; he explained how Voldemort had emerged from the cauldron, and told them all he could remember of Voldemort's speech to the Death Eaters. Then he told how Voldemort had untied him, returned his wand to him, and prepared to duel.

But when he reached the part where the golden beam of light had connected his and Voldemort's wands, he seemed wordless. Almost as if he would choke on whatever he said next.

Sirius broke the silence.

"The wands connected?" he said, looking from Harry to Dumbledore. "Why?"

Harry looked up at Dumbledore again, on whose face there was an arrested look.

"Priori Incantatem," he muttered.