The Girl Who Hid | ✓

|119| Lily's Letter

"Severus Snape?"

Mad-Eye Moody's voice whispered out of the darkness, making all four of us jump back in fright. "We're not Snape!" I shouted, before something whooshed over me like cold air and my tongue curled backward on itself, making it impossible to speak. Before I had time to feel inside my mouth, however, my tongue had unraveled again.

The other three seemed to have experienced the same unpleasant sensation. Ron was making retching noises; Harry was feeling inside of his mouth; Hermione stammered, "That m-must have b-been the T-Tongue-Tying Curse Mad-Eye set up for Snape!"

Gingerly Harry took another step forward. I saw something shift in the shadows at the end of the hall, and before any of us could say another word, a figure had risen up out of the carpet, tall, dustcolored, and terrible: Hermione and I screamed and so did Mrs. Black, her curtains flying open; the gray figure was gliding toward us, faster and faster, its waist-length hair and beard streaming behind it, its face sunken, fleshless, with empty eye sockets: Horribly familiar, dreadfully altered, it raised a wasted arm, pointing at Harry.

"No!" I heard Harry shout. "No! It wasn't us! We didn't kill you —"

On the word kill, I heard a poof. I felt Ron's presence near Hermione and me, cowering in the corner with our arms wrapped around each other and our heads down not wanting to see...

Ron came over and patted up clumsily on our heads, saying, "It's all r-right... It's g-gone..."

Standing up, there was nothing in sight but dust swirling around like mist, catching on the blue gaslights, as Mrs. Black continued to scream.

"Mudbloods, filth, stains of dishonor, taint of shame on the house of my fathers —"

"SHUT UP!" I bellowed, directing my wand at her, and with a bang and a burst of red sparks, the curtains swung shut again, silencing her.

"T-that was..." Hermione stuttered as I helped her up.

"Yeah," said Harry, "but it wasn't really him, was it? Just something to scare Snape."

"W-well that was terrifying," I muttered. Hermione nodded next to me, still too afraid to talk.

"Before we go any farther, I think we'd better check," whispered Hermione, and she raised her wand, and said, "Homenum revelio."

Nothing happened.

"Well, you've just had a big shock," said Ron kindly. "What was that supposed to do?"

"It did what I meant it to do!" said Hermione rather crossly. "That was a spell to reveal human presence, and there's nobody here except us!"

"And old Dusty," said Ron, glancing at the patch of carpet from which the corpse-figure had risen.

"Eek! Let's go," I hit Ron's arm as Hermione and I hid behind him.

"Let's go up," Harry suggested, leading us to the first-floor drawing-room.

Hermione waved her wand to ignite the old gas lamps, then, shivering slightly in the drafty room, she perched on the sofa, her arms wrapped tightly around her. Ron crossed to the window and moved the heavy velvet curtain aside an inch.

"Can't see anyone out there," he reported. "And you'd think, if Harry and Maisey still had a Trace on them, they'd have followed us here. I know they can't get in the house, but —"

I gasped at the sharp pain on my collarbone and clamped my hand over my shoulder, feeling a wave of anger over me. Harry did the same over his forehead.