✓ | PLAY WITH FIRE ⎯⎯ harry potter

forty-one

Kreacher led Marina into the Drawing Room. The others were left in the kitchen. While she closed the door, he paced to the other side of the room.

He had placed the locket in a glass case.

"Do you trust me enough to give it to me?" Marina asked softly. He did not open his mouth but did instead move the glass case away from the locket. Before reaching for it, she looked Kreacher deeply into his eyes, and smiled, "thank you for taking care of my father. I will never forget everything you have done for my family, and I will never forgive Tom for what he did to you."

Marina reached for the locket. A serpentine S, inlaid with glittering, green stones shone brightly against the corner of her eye. When her skin met with the Horcrux, screams echoed in her head, and the taste of blood lingered on her lips. The stench of death traveled through the room. She fell to the floor, feeling as if she was falling through it and further down through the earth. She saw images of Voldemort flash before her; he was gasping, stumbling backward. He knew.

Marina got to her feet again and sprinted back into the kitchen, clutching the Horcrux in her hand. "He knows where I am - he saw it when I touched the locket. We need to go."

But even if she rushed and ran and screamed, it was too late. Tom had seen where she was, and he had not hesitated to send Death Eaters her way. Just as she put the locket around her neck, she heard them marching up the stairs.

"If he can see your thoughts, too, you should've just closed your mind!" she heard Ron yell (she let his words travel in through one ear and out the other before they could get to her head).

Hermione got to her feet before any of the boys could. She stepped outside of the kitchen, pointed her wand at the staircase, and shouted: "Glisseo!"

Marina furrowed her eyebrows. She had never heard the spell before. Stepping out of the kitchen, peeking over Hermione's shoulder, she found that the staircase had turned into a slide. The three Death Eaters had fallen and were now rushing back to the portrait of the wailing Walburga.

Marina let out a chuckle, then, she heard a small crack, and suddenly, a Death Eater was standing right next to her. Tall and muscular, breathing heavily, he pointed his wand at Harry, and cried: "Incarcarous!"

Harry ducked under the table. The robes that had been created for the sole purpose of tying him up collapsed against the chair he had been sitting on. Hermione pointed her wand at the Death Eater, and said clearly: "Obscuro!"

A black blindfold appeared over the Death Eaters' eyes. He stumbled backward, almost leaning on Marina. However, before he could touch her, she let her knee dive deep into his stomach; he gasped for air and stumbled back into the kitchen, leaving a reek of salt from his sweat behind. Harry disarmed him right before the other Death Eaters Apparated into the room.

"Crucio!" one of them shouted.

"Protego!" Ron was quick to answer.

"Stupefy!"

Marina did not think that one of the Death Eaters had been aiming for her, but she now found herself blasting backward into the hall. She hit a wall, her head slamming hard against it, making everything turn red for a few seconds. But she sat up straight and smirked, not showing a sign of weakness. "That's all you got?"