"Ah, Mafalda!" Umbridge said, looking at Hermione. "Travers sent you, did he?"
"Y—yes," squeaked Hermione.
"Good, you'll do perfectly well." Umbridge spoke to the wizard in black and gold. "That's that problem solved, Minister, if Mafalda can be spared for record-keeping we shall be able to start straightaway." She consulted her clipboard. "Ten people today and one of them the wife of a Ministry employee!! Tut, tut even here, in the heart of the Ministry!" She stepped into the lift beside Hermione, as did the two wizards who had been listening to Umbridge's conversation with the Minister. "We'll go straight down, Mafalda, and you'll find everything you need in the
courtroom. Good morning, Albert, aren't you two getting out?" She gestured to Harry and Rory.
"Yes, of course," Harry said. Harry stepped out of the lift followed by Roru. The golden grilles clanged shut behind him. Glancing over their shoulders, they saw Hermione's anxious face sinking back out of sight, a tall wizard on either side of her, Umbridge's velvet hair-bow level with her shoulder.
"What brings you up here, Runcorn?" asked the new Minister of Magic.
"Needed a quick word with," Harry hesitated for a fraction of a second, "Arthur Weasley. Someone said he was up on level one."
"Ah," Pius Thickness said. "Has he been caught having contact with an Undesirable?"
"No," Harry said. "No, nothing like that."
"Ah, well. It's only a matter of time. If you ask me, the blood traitors are as bad as the Mudbloods. Good day, Runcorn."
"Good day, Minister." Harry watched Thicknesse march away along the corridor. The moment the Minister had passed out of sight, Harry tugged the Invisibility Cloak out from under his cloak, threw it over himself and Rory, and they set off along the corridor in the opposite direction. As they passed gleaming wooden door after gleaming wooden door, each bearing a small plaque with the owner's name and occupation upon it. They stopped walking and leaned against a wall. The silence pressed upon them. There was no bustling or talk or swift footsteps here. They set off along the corridor again, passing nobody but a frowning wizard who was murmuring instructions to a quill that floated in front of him, scribbling on a trail of parchment. Now paying attention to the names on the doors, they turned a corner. Halfway along the next corridor they emerged into a wide open space where a dozen witches and wizards sat in rows at small desks not unlike school desks, though much more highly polished and free from graffiti. They crept closer and Harry slid a completed pamphlet from the pile beside a young witch. He examined it beneath the Invisibility Cloak before passing it to Rory. Its pink cover was emblazoned with a golden title
MUDBLOODS
and the Dangers They Pose to
a Peaceful Pure-Blood Society
Beneath the title was a picture of a red rose with a simpering face in the middle of its petals, being strangled by a green weed with fangs and a scowl. There was no author's name upon the pamphlet. Then the young witch beside them confirmed their suspicions as she said, still waving and twirling her wand,
"Will the old hag be interrogating Mudbloods all day, does anyone know?"
"Careful," said the wizard beside her, glancing around nervously; one of his pages slipped and fell to the floor.
"What, has she got magic ears as well as an eye, now?" The witch glanced toward the shining mahogany door facing the space full of pamphlet-makers, Harry and Rory looked too. A large, round eye with a bright blue iris had been set into the wood. Rory looked at Harry and mouthed.
"Mad-eye" Harry nodded before they strode straight over to the door to examine the eye. It was not moving. It gazed blindly upward, frozen.
The plaque beneath it read:
Dolores Umbridge
Senior Undersecretary to the Minister
Below that, a slightly shinier new plaque read:
Head of the Muggle-born
Registration Commission
Harry looked back at the dozen pamphlet-makers. He withdrew from an inner pocket an odd object with little waving legs and a rubber-bulbed horn for a body. He grabbed Rory's arm before crouching down beneath the cloak pulling her with him, he placed the Decoy Detonator on the ground. It scuttled away at once through the legs of the witches and wizards in front of him. A few moments later, during which Harry waited with his hand upon the doorknob, there came a long band and a great deal of acrid black smoke billowed from a corner. The young witch in the front row shrieked. Pink pages flew everywhere as she and her fellows jumped up, looking around for the source of the commotion. Harry turned the doorknob, stepped into Umbridge's office with Rory, and closed the door behind them. Behind Mad-Eye's eye, a telescopic attachment enabled Umbridge to spy on the workers on the other side of the door. Harry took a look through it and saw that they were all still gathered around the Decoy Detonator. He wrenched the telescope out of the door, leaving a hole behind, pulled the magical eyeball out of it, and placed it in his pocket. Then he turned to face the room again, raised his wand, and murmured,
"Accio Locket." Nothing happened.
"Guess we best search" Rory said as Harry hurried behind her desk and began pulling open drawers whilst Rory went to a filing cabinet behind the desk and set to searching it. Like Filch's filing cabinets at Hogwarts, it was full of folders, each labelled with a name. It was not until she reached the bottommost drawer that she saw something to distract her from his search: Mr. Weasley's file. She pulled it out and opened it. "Harry" He walked over to her as they read over it.
Arthur Weasley
Blood Status Pureblood, but with unacceptable pro Muggle leanings.
Known member of the Order of the Phoenix
Family: Wife (pureblood), seven children, two youngest at Hogwarts.
NB: Youngest son currently at home, seriously ill, Ministry inspectors have confirmed.
Security Status: TRACKED. All movements are being monitored. Strong likelihood Undesirable No. 1 will contact (has stayed with Weasley family previously)
"Undesirable Number One," Harry muttered under his breath as Rory replaced Mr. Weasley's folder and shut the drawer. As Harry straightened up and glanced around the office for fresh hiding places, he saw a poster of himself on the wall, with the words Undesirable No. 1 emblazoned across his chest. A little pink note was stuck to it with a picture of a kitten in the corner. Harry moved across to read it and saw that Umbridge had written, "To be punished." Angrier than ever, he proceeded to grope in the bottoms of the vases and baskets of dried flowers, but was not at all surprised that the locket was not there. He gave the office one last sweeping look. Dumbledore was staring at him from a small rectangular mirror, propped up on a bookcase beside the desk. Harry crossed the room and snatched it up, but realised the moment he touched it that it was not am mirror at all. Dumbledore was smiling wistfully out of the front cover of a glossy book, Harry had not immediately noticed the curly green writing across his hat "The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore" nor the slightly smaller writing across his chest: "by Rita skeeter, bestselling author of Armando Dippet: Master or Moron?" Harry opened the book as Rory walked over to see what he was looking at. He opened it at random and saw a full-page photograph of two teenage boys, both laughing immoderately with their arms around each other's shoulders. Dumbledore, now with elbow length hair, had grown a tiny wispy beard. The boy who roared in silent amusement beside Dumbledore had a gleeful, wild look about him. His golden hair fell in curls to his shoulders. The door of the office opened. If Thicknesse had not been looking over his shoulder as he entered, Harry would not have had time to pull the Invisibility cloak over himself and Rory. As it was, they thought Thicknesse might have caught a glimpse of movement because for a moment or two he remained quite still, staring curiously at the place where Harry and Rory had just vanished. Thicknesse finally walked to the desk and pointed his wand at the quill standing ready in the ink pot. It sprang out and begun scribbling a note to Umbridge. Very slowly, hardly daring to breathe, Harry and Rory backed out of the office into the open area beyond. The pamphlet-makers were still clustered around the remains of the Decoy Detonator, which continued to hoot feebly as it smoked. They hurried off up the corridor as the young witch said,
"I bet it sneaked up here from Experimental Charms, they're so careless, remember that poisonous duck?" Speeding back toward the lifts. The lift was empty when it arrived. Harry and Rory jumped in and pulled off the Invisibility Cloak as it started its descent. To their enormous relief, when it rattle to a halt at level two, a soaking-wet and wild eyed Ron got in.
"M-morning," he stammered to Harry as the lift set off again.
"Ron, it's me, Harry and Rory!"
"Harry! Blimey, I forgot what you looked like why isn't Hermione with you?"
"She had to go down to the courtrooms with Umbridge, she couldn't refuse, and" But before Harry could finish the lift had stopped again. The doors opened and Mr. Weasley walked inside, talking to an elderly witch.
"I quite understand what you're saying, Wakanda, but I'm afraid I cannot be part to" Mr. Weasley broke off, he had noticed Harry. The lift doors closed and the four of them trundled downward once more. "Oh, hello, Reg," Mr. Weasley said, looking around at the sound of steady dripping from Ron's robes. "Isn't your wife in for questioning today? Er what's happened to you? Why are you so wet?"
"Yaxley's office is raining, I couldn't stop it, so they've sent me to get Bernie Pillsworth, I think they said"
"Yes, a lot of offices have been raining lately," Mr. Weasley said. "Did you try Meterolojinx Recanto? It worked for Bletchley."
"Meterolojinx Recanto?" whispered Ron. "No, I didn't. Thanks, D I mean, thanks, Arthur." The lift doors opened and the old witch left, and Ron darted past her out of sight. Harry and Rory made to follow him, but found their path blocked as Percy Weasley strode into the lift, his nose buried in some papers he was reading. Not until the doors had clanged shut again did Percy realize he was in a lift with his father. He glanced up, saw Mr. Weasley, turned radish red, and left the lift the moment the doors opened again. Rory and Harry shared a quick look before trying to get out again. But this time Harry found his way blocked by Mr. Weasley's arm.
"One moment, Runcorn." The lift doors closed and as they clanked down another floor,
Mr. Weasley said, "I hear you laid information about Dirk Cresswell."
"Sorry?" he said.
"Don't pretend, Runcorn," Mr. Weasley said fiercely. "You down the wizard who faked his family tree, didn't you?"
"I so what if I did?"
"So Dirk Cresswell is ten times the wizard you are," Mr. Weasley said quietly, as the lift sank ever lower. "And if he survives Azkaban, you'll have to answer to him, not to mention his wife, his sons, and his friends"
"Arthur," Harry interrupted, "you know you're being tracked, don't you?"
"Is that a threat, Runcorn?" Mr. Weasley said loudly.
"No, it's a fact! They're watching your every move Arthur" Rory said before continuing talking in a whisper looking at him "Mama Bear" She said so it could barely be heard. He looked at her for a moment.
"Nova" Mr Weasley whispered the name that only Charlie called her. She nodded as the lift doors opened. They had reached the Atrium. Mr. Weasley smiled at Rory before leaving the lift. The lift doors clanged shut. Harry pulled out the Invisibility Cloak and put it back on him and Rory.
"That was smart, using names only people close to us know" Harry whispers to his sister. When the doors opened, they stepped out into a torch-lit stone passageway quite different from the wood panelled and carpeted corridors above. As the lift rattled away again, Harry and Rory shivered slightly, looking toward the distant black door that marked the entrance to the Department of Mysteries. They set off, their destination not the black door, but the doorway on the left-hand side, which opened onto the flight of stairs down to the court chambers. It was becoming colder and colder with every step they took. And then they felt that stealing sense of despair, of hopelessness, filling them, expanding inside them.
"Dementors" Rory mouthed as they reached the foot of the stairs and turned to the right they saw a dreadful scene. The dark passage outside the courtrooms was packed with tall, black-hooded figures, their faces completely hidden, their ragged breathing the only sound in the place. The petrified Muggle-borns brought in for questioning sat huddled and shivering on hard wooden benches. Most of them were hiding their faces in their hands, perhaps in an instinctive attempt to shield themselves from the dementors' greedy mouths. Some were accompanied by families, others sat alone. The dementors were gliding up an down in front of them. Harry and Rory moved forward as silently as they could. Moving through the towering black figures was terrifying. The eyeless faces hidden beneath their hoods turned as they passed. And then, abruptly and shockingly amid the frozen silence, one of the dungeon doors on the left of the corridor was flung open and screams echoed out of it.
"No, no, I'm a half-blood, I'm a half-blood, I tell you! My father was a wizard, he was, look him up, Arkie Alderton, he's a well-known broomstick designer, look him up, I tell you get your hands off me, get your hands off"
"This is your final warning," Umbridge's soft voice said, magically magnified so that it sounded clearly over the man's desperate screams. "If you struggle, you will be subjected to the Dementor's Kiss." The man's screams subsided, but dry sobs echoed through the corridor. "Take him away," Two dementors appeared in the doorway of the courtroom, their rotting, scabbed hands clutching the upper arms of a wizard who appeared to be fainting. They glided away down the corridor with him, and the darkness they trailed behind them swallowed him from sight. "Next Mary Cattermole," called Umbridge. A small woman stood up, she was trembling from head to foot. As she passed the dementors, Harry saw her shudder. He did it instinctively, without any sort of plan, because he hated the sight of her walking alone into the dungeon: As the door began to swing closed, he slipped into the courtroom behind her pulling Rory with him. This room was fairly small, though the ceiling was quite high; it gave the claustrophobic sense of being stuck at the bottom of a deep well. There were more dementors in here, casting their freezing aura over the place; they stood like faceless sentinels in the corners farthest from the high raised platform. Here, behind a balustrade, sat Umbridge, with Yaxley on one side of her, and Hermione, quite as white-faced as Mrs. Cattermole, on the other. At the foot of the platform, a bright-silver, long-haired cat prowled up and down, up and down, up and down. "Sit down," Umbridge said in her soft, silky voice. Mrs. Cattermole stumbled to the single seat in the middle of the floor beneath the raised platform. The moment she had sat down, chains clinked out of the arms of the chair and bound her there. "You are Mary Elizabeth Cattermole?" asked Umbridge. Mrs. Cattermole gave a single, shaky nod. "Married to Reginald Cattermole of the Magical Maintenance Department?" Mrs. Cattermole burst into tears.
"I don't know where he is, he was supposed to meet me here!" Umbridge ignored her.
"Mother to Maisie, Ellie, and Alfred Cattermole?" Mrs. Cattermole sobbed harder than ever.
"They're frightened, they think I might not come home"
"Spare us," spat Yaxley. "The brats of Mudbloods do not stir our sympathies." Mrs. Cattermole's sobs masked Rory and Harry's footsteps as they made their way carefully toward the steps that led up to the raised platform. The moment they had passed the place where the Patronus cat patrolled, they felt the change in temperature. It was warm and comfortable here. The Patronus, they were sure was Umbridge's, and it glowed brightly because she was so happy here, in her element, upholding the twisted laws she had helped to write. Slowly, and very carefully, they edged their way along the platform behind Umbridge, Yaxley, and Hermione, taking a seat behind the latter. Then Umbridge raised her voice to address Mrs. Cattermole, and Harry seized his chance.
"I'm behind you with Rory," he whispered into Hermione's ear. As he had expected, she jumped so violently she nearly overturned the bottle of ink with which she was supposed to be recording the interview, but both Umbridge and Yaxley were concentrating upon Mrs. Cattermole, and this went unnoticed.
"A wand was taken from you upon your arrival at the Ministry today, Mrs. Cattermole," Umbridge was saying, "Eight-and-three-quarter inches, cherry, unicorn-hair core. Do you recognize that description?" Mrs. Cattermole nodded, mopping her eyes on her sleeve. "Could you please tell us from which witch or wizard you took that wand?"
"T— took?" sobbed Mrs. Cattermole. "I didn't t-take it from anybody. I b-bought it when I was eleven years old. It it it chose me." She cried harder than ever. Umbridge laughed a soft girlish laugh. She leaned forward over the barrier, the better to observe her victim, and something gold swung forward too, and dangled over the void, the locket. Hermione had seen it she let out a little squeak, but Umbridge and Yaxley, still intent upon their prey, were deaf to everything else.
"No," Umbridge said, "no, I don't think so, Mrs. Cattermole. Wands only choose witches or wizards. You are not a witch. I have your responses to the questionnaire that was sent to you here Mafalda, pass them to me." Umbridge held out a small hand. Hermione's hands were shaking with shock. She fumbled in a pile of documents balanced on the chair beside her, finally withdrawing a sheaf of parchment with Mrs. Cattermole's name on it.
"That's that's pretty, Dolores," she said, pointing at the pendant gleaming in the ruffled folds of Umbridge's blouse.
"What?" snapped Umbridge, glancing down. "Oh yes an old family heirloom," she said, patting the locket. "The S stands for Selwyn. I am related to the Selwyns. Indeed, there are few pure blood families to whom I am not related. A pity," Umbridge continued in a louder voice, flicking through Mrs. Cattermole's questionnaire, "that the same cannot be said for you. 'Parents professions: greengrocers.'" Yaxley laughed jeeringly. Below, the fluffy silver cat patrolled up and down, and the dementors stood waiting in the corners. Harry raised his wand, not even troubling to keep it concealed beneath the Invisibility Cloak, and said,
"Stupefy!" There was a flash of red light; Umbridge crumpled and her forehead hit the edge of the balustrade: Mrs. Cattermole's papers slid off her lap onto the floor and, down below, the prowling silver cat vanished. Ice-cold air hit them like an oncoming wind. Yaxley, confused, looked around for the source of the trouble and saw Harry's disembodied hand and wand pointing at him. He tried to draw his own wand, but too late: "Stupefy!" Yaxley slid to the ground to lie curled on the flood.
"Harry!"
"Hermione, if you think I was going to sit here and let her pretend"
"Harry, Mrs. Cattermole!" Harry whirled around, throwing off the Invisibility Cloak. Down
below, the dementors had moved out of their corners they were gliding toward the woman chained to the chair. Whether because the Patronus had vanished or because they sensed that their masters were no longer in control, they seemed to have abandoned restraint. Mrs. Cattermole let out a terrible scream of fear as a slimy, scabbed hand grasped her chin and forced her face back.
"EXPECTO PATRONUM!" Rory and Harry said in unison and the silver stag and wolf soared from the tips of their wands and ran toward the dementors, which fell back and melted into the dark shadows again. The stag's and wolfs light, both more powerful and more warming than the cat's protection, filed the whole dungeon as they ran around and around the room. "Get the Horcrux," Harry told Hermione. He ran back down the steps followed by Rory, stuffing the Invisibility Cloak back into his bag, and approached Mrs. Cattermole.
"You?" she whispered, gazing into his face. "But but Reg said you were the one who submitted my name for questioning!"
"Did I?" muttered Harry, tugging at the chains binding her arms. "Well, I've had a change of heart. Diffindo!" Nothing happened. "Hermione, how do I get rid of these chains?"
"Wait, I'm trying something up here"
"Relashio" Rory said and the chained clinked and withdrew into the arms of the chair just as Hermione answered Harry.
"Hermione, we're surrounded by dementors!"
"I know that, Harry, but if she wakes up and the locket's gone I need to replicate it Geminio! There. That should fool her" Hermione came running downstairs. Mrs. Cattermole looked just as frightened as before.
"I don't understand," she whispered.
"You're going to leave here with us," Harry said, pulling her to her feet. "Go home, grab your children, and get out, get out of the country if you've got to. Disguise yourselves and run. You've seen how it is, you won't get anything like a fair hearing here."
"Harry," Hermione said, "how are we going to get out of here with all those dementors outside the door?"
"Patronuses," Harry said, pointing his wand at his own. The stag slowed and walked, still gleaming brightly, toward the door followed by Rory's wolf. "As many as we can muster do yours, Hermione."
"Expec Expecto patronum," Hermione said. Nothing happened.
"It's the only spell she ever has trouble with," Harry told a completely bemused Mrs. Cattermole. "Bit unfortunate, really. Come on, Hermione"
"Expecto patronum!" A silver otter burst from the end of Hermione's wand and swam
gracefully through the air to join the stag and wolf.
"C'mon," Harry said, and he led Rory, Hermione and Mrs. Cattermole to the door. When the Patronuses glided out of the dungeon there were cries of shock from the people waiting outside. They looked around, the dementors were falling back on both sides of them, melding into the darkness, scattering before the silver creatures. "It's been decided that you should all go home and go into hiding with your families." Harry told the waiting Muggle-borns, who were dazzled by the light of the Patronuses and still cowering slightly. "Go abroad if you can. Just get well away from the Ministry. That's the er new official position. Now, if you'll just follow the Patronuses, you'll be able to leave from the Atrium." They managed to get up the stone steps without being intercepted the lift clanged to a halt in front of them.
"Reg!" screamed Mrs. Cattermole, and she threw herself into Ron's arms. "Runcorn let me out, he attacked Umbridge and Yaxley, and he's told all of us to leave the country, I think we'd better do it, Reg, I really do, let's hurry home and fetch the children and why are you so wet?"
"Water," muttered Ron, disengaging himself. "Harry, they know there are intruders inside the Ministry, something about a hole in Umbridge's office door. I reckon we've got five minutes of that" Hermione's Patronus vanished with a pop as she turned a horror struck face to Harry.
"Harry, if we're trapped here!"
"We won't be if we move fast," Harry said. He addressed the silent group behind them, who were all gawping at him. "Who's got wands?" About half of them raised their hands. "Okay, all of you who haven't got wands need to attach yourself to someone who has. We'll need to be fast before they stop us. Come on." They managed to cram themselves into two lifts. Harry's Patronus stood sentinel before the golden grilles as they shut and the lifts began to rise.
"Right one of you need to be near me" Rory said looking at Harry and Ron "If I need to I can put up a shield but" She started.
"You'll pass out. Got it" Ron said stepping closer to her side.
"Level eight," the cool witch's voice said, "Atrium." Harry knew at once that they were in trouble. The Atrium was full of people moving from fireplace to fireplace, sealing them off.
"Harry!" squeaked Hermione. "What are we going to?"
"STOP!" Harry thundered, and the powerful voice of Runcorn echoed through the Atrium. The wizards sealing the fireplaces froze. "Follow me," he whispered to the group of terrified Muggleborns, who moved forward in a huddle, shepherded by Rory, Ron and Hermione.
"What's up, Albert?" said the same balding wizard who had followed Harry out of the fireplace earlier. He looked nervous.
"This lot need to leave before you seal the exits," Harry said with all the authority he could muster. The group of wizards in front of him looked at one another.
"We've been told to seal all exits and not let anyone"
"Are you contradicting me?" Harry blustered. "Would you like me to have you family tree examined, like I had Dirk Cresswell's?"
"Sorry!" gasped the balding wizard, backing away. "I didn't mean nothing, Albert, but I thought. I thought they were in for questioning and"
"Their blood is pure," Harry said, and his deep voice echoed impressively through the hall. "Purer than many of yours. I daresay. Off you go," he boomed to the Muggle-borns, who scurried
forward into the fireplaces and began to vanish in pairs. The Ministry wizards hung back, some looking confused, others scared and resentful. Then
"Mary!" Mrs. Cattermole looked over her shoulder. The real Reg Cattermole, no longer vomiting but pale and wan, and just come running out of a lift.
"R–Reg?" She looked from her husband to Ron, who swore loudly. The balding wizard gaped, his head turning ludicrously from one Reg Cattermole to the other.
"Hey what's going on? What is this?"
"Seal the exit! SEAL IT!" Yaxley had burst out of another lift and was running toward the group beside the fireplaces into which all of the Muggle-borns but Mrs. Cattermole had now vanished. As the balding wizard lifted his wand Rory threw up a shield knocking him away as the blood started running from her nose. She threw the others as well just as Ron grabbed her.
"He's been helping Muggle-borns escape, Yaxley!" Harry shouted. The balding wizard's remaining colleagues set up an uproar, under cover of which Ron who had picked up a barely conscious Rory jumped into one of the fireplaces. Harry flung open the door Ron was standing there beside the sinks, holding Rory. There was a noise in the cubicle behind them, Harry looked around Yaxley had just appeared. Harry seized Hermione by the hand and Ron by the arm and turned on the spot. Darkness engulfed them and then he saw the door of number twelve, Grimmauld Place, with its serpent door knocker, but before he could draw breath, there was a scream and a flash of purple light. Hermione's hand was suddenly vicelike upon his hand and everything went dark again. Harry opened his eyes and was dazzled by gold and green, he had no idea what had happened, he only knew that he was lying on what seemed to be leaves and twigs. Struggling to draw breath into lungs that felt flattened, he blinked and realised that the gaudy glare was sunlight streaming though a canopy of leaves far above him. He pushed himself onto his hands and knees. Looking around, Harry saw that him, Rory, Ron and Hermione were lying on a forest floor, apparently alone. Ron gave a low groan and Harry to started crawling toward him, he met Hermione, also on her hands and knees, at Ron's head. The moment his eyes fell upon Ron, all other concerns fled Harry's mind, for blood drenched the whole of Ron's left side and his face stood out, greyish-white, against the leaf-strewn earth. The Polyjuice Potion was wearing off now, Ron was halfway between Cattermole and himself in appearance, his hair turning redder and redder as his face drained of the little colour it had left. "What's happened to him?"
"Splinched," Hermione said, her fingers already busy at Ron's sleeve, where the blood was wettest and darkest. "Rory can help him once she regains consciousness" Harry watched, horrified, as she tore open Ron's shirt. "Harry, quickly, in my bag, there's a small bottle labelled 'Essence of Dittany'"
"Bag right" Harry sped tot he place where Hermione had landed, seized the tiny beaded bag, and thrust his hand inside it. At once, object after object began presenting itself to his touch.
"Quickly!" He grabbed his wand from the ground and pointed it into the depths of the magical bag.
"Accio Dittany!" A small brown bottle zoomed out of the bag, he caught it and hastened back to Hermione and Ron, whose eyes were now half closed, strips of white eyeball all that were visible between his lids.
"He's fainted," Hermione said, she was also rather pale "Unstopper it for me, Harry, my hands are shaking." Harry wrenched the stopper off the little bottle, Hermione took it and poured three drops of the potion onto the bleeding wound. Greenish smoke billowed upward and when it had cleared, Harry saw that the bleeding had stopped. The wound now looked several days old, new skin stretched over what had just been open flesh.
"Wow," Harry said.
"It's all I feel safe doing," Hermione said shakily. "There are spells that would put him completely right, but I daren't try in case I do them wrong and cause more damage. He's lost too much blood already. Check Rory quickly" Harry made his way to Rory and checked her over. "Hermione she's bleeding from her leg" Harry said quickly as Hermione hurried over to him with the Dittany in hand.
"Can you rip her trouser leg" Hermione said undoing the bottle. Harry nodded before quickly ripping her trouser leg off.
"That's bad" Harry said looking at her leg, it looked very much the same as Ron's arm. Hermione did the same to Rory's wound as she had Ron's.
"They'll be okay" Hermione let out the breath she was holding.
"How did they get hurt? I mean" Harry shook his head, trying to clear it, to make sense of whatever had just taken place "why are we here? I thought were were going back to Grimmauld Place?" Hermione took a deep breath. She looked close to tears.
"Harry, I don't think we're going to be able to go back there."
"What d'you?"
"As we Disapparated, Yaxley caught hold of me and I couldn't get rid of him, he was too strong, and he was still holding on when we arrived at Grimmauld Place, and then well, I think he must have seen the door, and thought we were stopping there, so he slackened his grip and I managed to shake him off and I brought us here instead!"
"But then, where's he? Hang on. You don't mean he's at Grimmauld Place? He can't get in there?" Her eyes sparkled with unshed tears as she nodded.
"Harry, I think he can. I I forced him to let go with a Revulsion Jinx, but I'd already taken him inside the Fidelius Charm's protection. Since Dumbledore died, we're Secret-Keepers, so I've given him the secret, haven't I? Harry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!"
"Don't be stupid, it wasn't your fault! If anything, it was mine" Harry put his hand in his pocket and drew out Mad-Eye's eye. Hermione recoiled, looking horrified. "Umbridge had stuck it to her office door, to spy on people. I couldn't leave it there but that's how they knew there were intruders." Before Hermione could answer, Ron groaned and opened his eyes. He was still grey and his face glistened with sweat.
"How d'you feel?" Hermione whispered.
"Lousy," croaked Ron, wincing as he felt his injured arm. 'Where are we and where's Rory?"
"In the woods where they held the Quidditch World Cup," Hermione said. "I wanted somewhere enclosed, undercover, and this was"
"the first place you thought of," Harry finished for her, glancing around at the apparently deserted glade. "And Rory's here" He said pointing at his sister who was just in front of him.
"D'you reckon we should move on?" Ron asked Harry.
"I dunno." Ron still looked pale and clammy. He had made no attempt to sit up and it looked as though he was too weak to do so. The prospect of moving him was daunting. "Let's stay here for now," Harry said. Looking relieved, Hermione sprang to her feet.
"Where are we going?' asked Ron.
"If we're staying, we should put some protective enchantments around the place," she replied, and raising her wand, she began to walk in a wide circle around Harry, Rory and Ron, murmuring incantations as she went. Harry saw little disturbances in the surrounding air: It was as if Hermione had cast a heat haze upon their clearing. "Salvio Hexia . . . Protego Totalum . . . Repello Muggle-tum . . . Muffliato . . . You could get out the tent, Harry"
"Tent?"
"In the bag!"
"In the of course," Harry said. He did no bother to grope inside it this time, but used another Summoning Charm. The tent emerged in a lumpy mass of canvas, rope, and poles. "I thought this belonged to that bloke Perkins at the Ministry?" he asked, starting to disentangle the tent pegs.
"Apparently he didn't want it back, his lumbago's so bad," Hermione said, now performing complicated figure-of-eight movements with her wand, "so Ron's dad said I could borrow it. Erecto!" she added, pointing her wand at the misshapen canvas, which in one fluid motion rose into the air and settled, fully constructed, onto the ground before Harry, out of whose started hands a tent peg soared, to land with a final thud at the end of a guy rope. "Cave Imunicium," Hermione finished with a skyward flourish. "That's as much as I can do. At the very least, we should know they're coming. I can't guarantee it will keep our Vol"
"Don't say the name!" Ron cut across her, his voice harsh. Harry and Hermione looked at each other. "I'm sorry," Ron said, moaning a little as he raised himself to look at them, "but it feels like a a jinx or something. I think Rory was right. Can't we call him You-Know-Who please?"
"Dumbledore said fear of a name" began Harry.
"In case you hadn't noticed, mate, calling You-Know-Who by his name didn't do Dumbledore much good in the end," Ron snapped back. "Just just show You-Know-Who some respect, will you?"
"Respect?" Harry repeated, but Hermione shot him a warning look. Harry picked up Rory and carried her into the tent and placed her on one of the beds before going out and helping Hermione get Ron through the entrance of the tent. He shoved aside an old armchair and lowered Ron carefully onto the lower berth of a bunk bed. Even this very short journey had turned Ron whiter still, and once they had settled him on the mattress he closed his eyes again and did not speak for a while.
"I'll make some tea," Hermione said breathlessly, pulling kettle and mugs from the depths of her bag and heading toward the kitchen. After a minute or two, Ron broke the silence.
"What d'you reckon happened to the Cattermoles?"
"With any luck, they'll have got away," Hermione said, clutching her hot mug for comfort. "As long as Mr. Cattermole had his wits about him, he'll have transported Mrs. Cattermole by Side-Along-Apparition and they'll be fleeing the country right now with their children. That's what Harry told her to do."
"Blimey, I hope they escaped," Ron said, leaning back on his pillows. The tea seemed to be doing him good, a little of his colour had returned. "I didn't get the feeling Reg Cattermole was all that quick-witted, though, the way everyone was talking to me when I was him. God, I hope they made it. If they both end up in Azkaban because of us" Hermione was watching Ron fret over the fate of the Cattermoles. "How long do you reckon Rory's going to be unconscious" Ron asked.
"I don't know, it was 12 hours last time and that was without the added splinching" Hermione said looking over at Rory.
"So, have you got it?" Harry asked her distracting her.
"Got got what?" she said with a little start.
"What did we just go through all that for? The locket! Where's the locket?"
"You got it?" shouted Ron, raising himself a little higher on his pillow. "No one tells me anything! Blimey, you could have mentioned it!"
"Well, we were running for our lives from the Death Eaters, weren't we?" Hermione said. "Here." And she pulled the locket out of the pocket of her robes and handed it to Ron.
"There isn't any chance someone's destroyed it since Kreacher had it?" asked Ron hopefully. "I mean, are we sure it's still a Horcrux?"
"I think so," Hermione said, taking it back from him and looking at it closely. "There'd be some sign of damage if it had been magically destroyed." She passed it to Harry, who turned it over in his fingers. The thing looked perfect, pristine.
"I reckon Kreacher's right," Harry said. "We're going to have to work out how to open this thing before we can destroy it." He tried to prise the locket apart with his fingers, then attempted the charm Hermione had used to open Regulus's bedroom door. Neither worked. He handed the locket back to Ron and Hermione, each of whom did their best, but were no more successful at opening it than he had been.
"Can you feel it, though?" Ron asked in a hushed voice, as he held it tight in his clenched fist.
"What d'you mean?" Ron passed the Horcrux to Harry. After a moment or two, Harry thought he knew what Ron meant. Was it his own blood pulsing through his veins that he could feel, or was it something beating inside the locket, like a tiny metal heart?
"What are we going to do with it?" Hermione asked.
"Keep it safe till we work out how to destroy it." Harry replied and he hung the chain around his own neck, dropping the locket out of sight beneath his robes, where it rested against his chest beside the pouch Hagrid had given him. "I think we should take it in turns to keep watch outside the tent," he added to Hermione, standing up and stretching. "And we'll need to think about some food as well. You stay there," he added sharply, as Ron attempted to sit up and turned a nasty shade of green. With the Sneakoscope Hermione had given Harry for his birthday set carefully upon the table in the tent, Harry and Hermione spent the rest of the day sharing the role of lookout. However, the Sneakoscope remained silent and still upon its point all day and their patch of wood remained deserted, apart from occasional birds and squirrels. Evening brought no change, Harry lit his wand as he swapped places with Hermione at ten o'clock, and looked out upon a deserted scene, noting the bats fluttering high above him across the single patch of starry sky visible from their protected clearing. The surrounding silence was broken by odd rustlings and what sounded like crackings of twigs. Harry thought that they were caused by animals rather than people, yet he kept his wand held tight at the ready. He was distracted when he heard someone being sick. He ran into the tent to find Rory leaning over the side of the bed throwing up as Hermione held her hair before quickly getting rid of the sick once she had finished. "You alright Rory?" Harry asked looking at her. She was still very pale as she laid back down and closed her eyes resting her arm over her eyes.
"She'll be alright it was just a lot of stress on her body with the blood loss and the splinching" Hermione answered him as she went to make some more tea.