The Potter Twins and the Deathly Hallows {7}

33. The Dumbledore Legacy

I raise my wand: I can't, I won't, suffer the Dementor's Kiss, whatever happens afterwards. It's of the people surrounding me I think of as I whisper, "Expecto Patronum!"

The silver doe bursts from my wand and charges: the Dementors scattered, and there is a triumphant yell from somewhere in sight. 

"It's them, down there, down there, I saw her Patronus, it was a doe!"

The Dementors have retreated, the stars are popping out again, and the footsteps of the Death Eaters are becoming louder; but before I can decide what to do, there is a grinding of bolts nearby, a door opens on the left-hand side of the narrow street, and a rough voice says, "Potters, in here, quick!"

We obey without hesitation; the five of us hurtle through the open doorway. 

"Upstairs, keep the Cloak on, keep quiet!" mutters a tall figure, passing us on his way into the street and slamming the door behind him.

I have no idea where we are, but I can see, by the stuttering light of a single candle, the grubby, sawdust-strewn bar of the Hog's Head. We run behind the counter and the through a second doorway, which leads to a rickety wooden staircase, which we climb as fast as we can. The stairs open on to a sitting room with a threadbare carpet and a small fireplace, above which hangs a single large oil painting of a girl with blond hair who gazes out at the room with a kind of vacant sweetness. 

Shouts reach us from the street below. Still wearing the Cloak, we creep towards the grimy window and look down. Our saviour, whom I now recognize as the owner of the inn, is the only person not wearing a hood. 

"So what?" he is bellowing into one of the hooded faces. "So what? You send Dementors down my street; I'll send a Patronus back at 'em! I'm not having 'em near me, I've told you that, I'm not having it!"

"That wasn't your Patronus!" says a Death Eater. "That was a doe, it was Potter's --"!

"Doe!" roars the barman, and he pulls out a wand. "Doe! You idiot -- expecto patronum!"

Something vast and horned erupts from the wand: head down it charges towards the High Street and out of sight. 

"That's now what I saw --" says the Death Eater, though with less certainty. 

"Curfew's been broken, you heard the noise," one of his companions tells the barman. "Someone was out in the street against regulations --"

"If I want to put my cat out, I will, and be damned your curfew!"

"You set off the Caterwauling Charm?"

"What if I did? Going to cart me off to Azkaban? Kill me for sticking my nose out my own front door? Do it, then, if you want to! But I hope for your sakes you haven't pressed your little Dark Marks and summoned him. He's not going to like being called here for me and my old cat, is he, now?"

"Don't you worry about us," says one of the Death Eaters, "worry about yourself, breaking curfew!"

"And where will you lot traffic potions and poisons when my pub's closed down? What'll happen to your little sidelines then?"

"Are you threatening --?"

"I keep my mouth shut, it's why you come here, isn't it?"

"I still say I saw a doe Patronus!" shouts the first Death Eater. 

"Doe?" roars the barman. "It's a goat, idiot!"

"All right, we made a mistake," says the second Death Eater. "Break curfew again, and we won't be so lenient!"