Supported & Torn (HP) {Book 3 of the Wild & Free Series}

31. The Only One He Ever Feared

We wrenched open the door into the circular black hall and saw Bellatrix disappearing through a door on the other side of the room — beyond her was the corridor leading back to the lifts.We ran, but she had slammed the door behind her and the walls had begun to rotate again. Once more we were surrounded by streaks of blue light from the whirling candelabra.

"Where's the exit?" Harry shouted desperately, as the wall rumbled to a halt again. "Where's the way out?" I was too angry and depressed to say anything.

The room seemed to have been waiting for us to ask. The door right behind us flew open, and the corridor toward the lifts stretched ahead of us, torch-lit and empty. We ran... We could hear a lift clattering ahead of us. We sprinted up the passageway, swung around the corner, and slammed his fist onto the button to call a second lift. It jangled and banged lower and lower; the grilles slid open and Harry and I dashed inside, now hammering the button marked Atrium. The doors slid shut and we were rising...

We forced our way out of the lift before the grilles were fully open and looked around. Bellatrix was almost at the telephone lift at the other end of the hall, but she looked back as we sprinted toward her,and aimed another spell at us. We dodged behind the Fountain of Magical Brethren; the spell zoomed past us and hit the wrought gold gates at the other end of the Atrium so that they rang like bells. There were no more footsteps. She had stopped running. We crouched behind the statues, listening.

"Come out, come out, little Harry and Liana!" she called in her mock-baby voice,which echoed off the polished wooden floors. "What did you come after me for, then? I thought you were here to avenge my dear cousin!"

"We are!"I shouted, and a score of ghostly Liana's seemed to chorus We are! We are! We are! all around the room.

"Aaaaaah . . . did you love him, little baby Potters?"

Hatred rose in me such as I had never known before. Harry and I flung ourselves out from behind the fountain and both bellowed "Crucio!"

Bellatrix screamed. The spell had knocked her off her feet, but she did not writhe and shriek with pain as Neville had — she was already on her feet again, breathless, no longer laughing. Harry and I dodged behind the golden fountain again — her counter spell hit the head of the handsome wizard, which was blown off and landed twenty feet away, gouging long scratches into the wooden floor.

"Never used an Unforgivable Curse before, have you, children?" she yelled. She had abandoned her baby voice now. "You need to mean them, Potters! You need to really want to cause pain — to enjoy it —righteous anger won't hurt me for long — I'll show you how it is done, shall I? I'll give you a lesson —"

I had been edging around the fountain on the other side. She screamed, "Crucio!" and Harry grabbed my arm and pulled my back, so that I was forced to duck down again as the centaur's arm, holding its bow, spun off and landed with a crash on the floor a short distance from the golden wizard's head.

"Potters, you cannot win against me!" she cried. I could hear her moving to the right, trying to get a clear shot of us. We backed around the statue away from her, crouching behind the centaur's legs,our heads level with the house-elf's.

"I was and am the Dark Lord's most loyal servant, I learned the Dark Arts from him, and I know spells of such power that you, pathetic little boy and girl, can never hope to compete —"

"Stupefy!" yelled Harry. He had edged right around to where the goblin stood beaming up at the now headless wizard and taken aim at her back as she peered around the fountain for me.

She reacted so fast I barely had time to pull my brother back."Protego!"The jet of red light, Harry's own Stunning Spell, bounced back at him.Harry scrambled back behind the fountain as I pulled him toward me, and one of the goblin'sears went flying across the room.