The Deathly Hallows Read online

  ‘So why aren’ you checkin’ me?’ panted Hagrid, still struggling to fit through the door.

  ‘You’re half-giant,’ said Lupin, looking up at Hagrid. ‘The Polyjuice Potion is designed for human use only.’

  ‘None of the Order would have told Voldemort we were moving tonight,’ said Harry: the idea was dreadful to him, he could not believe it of any of them. ‘Voldemort only caught up with me towards the end, he didn’t know which one I was in the beginning. If he’d been in on the plan, he’d have known from the start I was the one with Hagrid.’

  ‘Voldemort caught up with you?’ said Lupin sharply. ‘What happened? How did you escape?’

  Harry explained, briefly, how the Death Eaters pursuing them had seemed to recognise him as the true Harry, how they had abandoned the chase, how they must have summoned Voldemort, who had appeared just before he and Hagrid had reached the sanctuary of Tonks’s parents’.

  ‘They recognised you? But how? What had you done?’

  ‘I …’ Harry tried to remember; the whole journey seemed like a blur of panic and confusion. ‘I saw Stan Shunpike … you know, the bloke who was the conductor on the Knight Bus? And I tried to Disarm him instead of – well, he doesn’t know what he’s doing, does he? He must be Imperiused!’

  Lupin looked aghast.

  ‘Harry, the time for Disarming is past! These people are trying to capture and kill you! At least Stun if you aren’t prepared to kill!’

  ‘We were hundreds of feet up! Stan’s not himself, and if I Stunned him and he’d fallen he’d have died the same as if I’d used Avada Kedavra! Expelliarmus saved me from Voldemort two years ago,’ Harry added defiantly. Lupin was reminding him of the sneering Hufflepuff Zacharias Smith, who had jeered at Harry for wanting to teach Dumbledore’s Army how to Disarm.

  ‘Yes, Harry,’ said Lupin with painful restraint, ‘and a great number of Death Eaters witnessed that happening! Forgive me, but it was a very unusual move then, under imminent threat of death. Repeating it tonight in front of Death Eaters who either witnessed or heard about the first occasion was close to suicidal!’

  ‘So you think I should have killed Stan Shunpike?’ said Harry angrily.

  ‘Of course not,’ said Lupin, ‘but the Death Eaters – frankly, most people! – would have expected you to attack back! Expelliarmus is a useful spell, Harry, but the Death Eaters seem to think it is your signature move, and I urge you not to let it become so!’

  Lupin was making Harry feel idiotic, and yet there was still a grain of defiance inside him.

  ‘I won’t blast people out of my way just because they’re there,’ said Harry. ‘That’s Voldemort’s job.’

  Lupin’s retort was lost: finally succeeding in squeezing through the door, Hagrid staggered to a chair and sat down; it collapsed beneath him. Ignoring his mingled oaths and apologies, Harry addressed Lupin again.

  ‘Will George be OK?’

  All Lupin’s frustration with Harry seemed to drain away at the question.

  ‘I think so, although there’s no chance of replacing his ear, not when it’s been cursed off –’

  There was a scuffling from outside. Lupin dived for the back door; Harry leapt over Hagrid’s legs, and sprinted into the yard.

  Two figures had appeared in the yard and as Harry ran towards them he realised they were Hermione, now returning to her normal appearance, and Kingsley, both clutching a bent coat hanger. Hermione flung herself into Harry’s arms, but Kingsley showed no pleasure at the sight of any of them. Over Hermione’s shoulder Harry saw him raise his wand and point it at Lupin’s chest.

  ‘The last words Albus Dumbledore spoke to the pair of us?’

  ‘“Harry is the best hope we have. Trust him,”’ said Lupin calmly.

  Kingsley turned his wand on Harry, but Lupin said, ‘It’s him, I’ve checked!’

  ‘All right, all right!’ said Kingsley, stowing his wand back beneath his cloak. ‘But somebody betrayed us! They knew, they knew it was tonight!’

  ‘So it seems,’ replied Lupin, ‘but apparently they did not realise that there would be seven Harrys.’

  ‘Small comfort!’ snarled Kingsley. ‘Who else is back?’

  ‘Only Harry, Hagrid, George and me.’

  Hermione stifled a little moan behind her hand.

  ‘What happened to you?’ Lupin asked Kingsley.

  ‘Followed by five, injured two, might’ve killed one,’ Kingsley reeled off, ‘and we saw You-Know-Who as well, he joined the chase halfway through, but vanished pretty quickly. Remus, he can –’

  ‘Fly,’ supplied Harry. ‘I saw him too, he came after Hagrid and me.’

  ‘So that’s why he left – to follow you!’ said Kingsley. ‘I couldn’t understand why he’d vanished. But what made him change targets?’

  ‘Harry behaved a little too kindly to Stan Shunpike,’ said Lupin.

  ‘Stan?’ repeated Hermione. ‘But I thought he was in Azkaban?’

  Kingsley let out a mirthless laugh.

  ‘Hermione, there’s obviously been a mass breakout which the Ministry has hushed up. Travers’s hood fell off when I cursed him, he’s supposed to be inside too. But what happened to you, Remus? Where’s George?’

  ‘He lost an ear,’ said Lupin.

  ‘Lost an –?’ repeated Hermione in a high voice.

  ‘Snape’s work,’ said Lupin.

  ‘Snape?’ shouted Harry. ‘You didn’t say –’

  ‘He lost his hood during the chase. Sectumsempra was always a speciality of Snape’s. I wish I could say I’d paid him back in kind, but it was all I could do to keep George on the broom after he was injured, he was losing so much blood.’

  Silence fell between the four of them as they looked up at the sky. There was no sign of movement; the stars stared back, unblinking, indifferent, unobscured by flying friends. Where was Ron? Where were Fred and Mr Weasley? Where were Bill, Fleur, Tonks, Mad-Eye and Mundungus?

  ‘Harry, give us a hand!’ called Hagrid hoarsely from the door, in which he was stuck again. Glad of something to do, Harry pulled him free, then headed through the empty kitchen and back into the sitting room, where Mrs Weasley and Ginny were still tending to George. Mrs Weasley had staunched his bleeding now, and by the lamplight Harry saw a clean, gaping hole where George’s ear had been.

  ‘How is he?’

  Mrs Weasley looked round and said, ‘I can’t make it grow back, not when it’s been removed by Dark Magic. But it could have been so much worse … he’s alive.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Harry. ‘Thank God.’

  ‘Did I hear someone else in the yard?’ Ginny asked.

  ‘Hermione and Kingsley,’ said Harry.

  ‘Thank goodness,’ Ginny whispered. They looked at each other; Harry wanted to hug her, hold on to her; he did not even care much that Mrs Weasley was there, but before he could act on the impulse there was a great crash from the kitchen.

  ‘I’ll prove who I am, Kingsley, after I’ve seen my son, now back off if you know what’s good for you!’

  Harry had never heard Mr Weasley shout like that before. He burst into the living room, his bald patch gleaming with sweat, his spectacles askew, Fred right behind him, both pale but uninjured.

  ‘Arthur!’ sobbed Mrs Weasley. ‘Oh thank goodness!’

  ‘How is he?’

  Mr Weasley dropped to his knees beside George. For the first time since Harry had known him, Fred seemed to be lost for words. He gaped over the back of the sofa at his twin’s wound as if he could not believe what he was seeing.

  Perhaps roused by the sound of Fred and their father’s arrival, George stirred.

  ‘How do you feel, Georgie?’ whispered Mrs Weasley.

  George’s fingers groped for the side of his head.

  ‘Saint-like,’ he murmured.

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’ croaked Fred, looking terrified. ‘Is his mind affected?’

  ‘Saint-like,’ repeated George, opening his eyes and looking up at his brother. ‘You see … I’m holy. Holey, Fred, geddit?’

  Mrs Weasley sobbed harder than ever. Colour flooded Fred’s pale face.

  ‘Pathetic,’ he told George. ‘Pathetic! With the whole wide world of ear-related humour before you, you go for holey?’

  ‘Ah well,’ said George, grinning at his tear-soaked mother. ‘You’ll be able to tell us apart now, anyway, Mum.’

  He looked round.

  ‘Hi Harry – you are Harry, right?’

  ‘Yeah, I am,’ said Harry, moving closer to the sofa.

  ‘Well, at least we got you back OK,’ said George. ‘Why aren’t Ron and Bill huddled round my sickbed?’

  ‘They’re not back yet, George,’ said Mrs Weasley. George’s grin faded. Harry glanced at Ginny and motioned to her to accompany him back outside. As they walked through the kitchen, she said in a low voice, ‘Ron and Tonks should be back by now. They didn’t have a long journey; Auntie Muriel’s not that far from here.’

  Harry said nothing. He had been trying to keep fear at bay ever since reaching The Burrow, but now it enveloped him, seeming to crawl over his skin, throbbing in his chest, clogging his throat. As they walked down the back steps into the dark yard, Ginny took his hand.

  Kingsley was striding backwards and forwards, glancing up at the sky every time he turned. Harry was reminded of Uncle Vernon pacing the living room a million years ago. Hagrid, Hermione and Lupin stood shoulder to shoulder, gazing upwards in silence. None of them looked round when Harry and Ginny joined their silent vigil.

  The minutes stretched into what might as well have been years. The slightest breath of wind made them all jump and turn towards the whispering bush or tree in the hope that one of the missing Order members might leap unscathed from its leaves –

>   And then a broom materialised directly above them and streaked towards the ground –

  ‘It’s them!’ screamed Hermione.

  Tonks landed in a long skid that sent earth and pebbles everywhere.

  ‘Remus!’ Tonks cried as she staggered off the broom into Lupin’s arms. His face was set and white: he seemed unable to speak. Ron tripped dazedly towards Harry and Hermione.

  ‘You’re OK,’ he mumbled, before Hermione flew at him and hugged him tightly.

  ‘I thought – I thought –’

  ‘’M all right,’ said Ron, patting her on the back. ‘’M fine.’

  ‘Ron was great,’ said Tonks warmly, relinquishing her hold on Lupin. ‘Wonderful. Stunned one of the Death Eaters, straight to the head, and when you’re aiming at a moving target from a flying broom –’

  ‘You did?’ said Hermione, gazing up at Ron with her arms still around his neck.

  ‘Always the tone of surprise,’ he said a little grumpily, breaking free. ‘Are we the last back?’

  ‘No,’ said Ginny, ‘we’re still waiting for Bill and Fleur and Mad-Eye and Mundungus. I’m going to tell Mum and Dad you’re OK, Ron –’

  She ran back inside.

  ‘So what kept you? What happened?’ Lupin sounded almost angry at Tonks.

  ‘Bellatrix,’ said Tonks. ‘She wants me quite as much as she wants Harry, Remus, she tried very hard to kill me. I just wish I’d got her, I owe Bellatrix. But we definitely injured Rodolphus … then we got to Ron’s Auntie Muriel’s and we’d missed our Portkey and she was fussing over us –’

  A muscle was jumping in Lupin’s jaw. He nodded, but seemed unable to say anything else.

  ‘So what happened to you lot?’ Tonks asked, turning to Harry, Hermione and Kingsley.

  They recounted the stories of their own journeys, but all the time the continued absence of Bill, Fleur, Mad-Eye and Mundungus seemed to lie upon them like a frost, its icy bite harder and harder to ignore.

  ‘I’m going to have to get back to Downing Street. I should have been there an hour ago,’ said Kingsley finally, after a last sweeping gaze at the sky. ‘Let me know when they’re back.’

  Lupin nodded. With a wave to the others, Kingsley walked away into the darkness towards the gate. Harry thought he heard the faintest pop as Kingsley Disapparated just beyond The Burrow’s boundaries.

  Mr and Mrs Weasley came racing down the back steps, Ginny behind them. Both parents hugged Ron before turning to Lupin and Tonks.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Mrs Weasley, ‘for our sons.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Molly,’ said Tonks at once.

  ‘How’s George?’ asked Lupin.

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’ piped up Ron.

  ‘He’s lost –’

  But the end of Mrs Weasley’s sentence was drowned in a general outcry: a Thestral had just soared into sight and landed a few feet from them. Bill and Fleur slid from its back, windswept but unhurt.

  ‘Bill! Thank God, thank God –’

  Mrs Weasley ran forwards, but the hug Bill bestowed upon her was perfunctory. Looking directly at his father, he said, ‘Mad-Eye’s dead.’

  Nobody spoke, nobody moved. Harry felt as though something inside him was falling, falling through the earth, leaving him forever.

  ‘We saw it,’ said Bill; Fleur nodded, tear tracks glittering on her cheeks in the light from the kitchen window. ‘It happened just after we broke out of the circle: Mad-Eye and Dung were close by us, they were heading north too. Voldemort – he can fly – went straight for them. Dung panicked, I heard him cry out, Mad-Eye tried to stop him, but he Disapparated. Voldemort’s curse hit Mad-Eye full in the face, he fell backwards off his broom and – there was nothing we could do, nothing, we had half a dozen of them on our own tail –’

  Bill’s voice broke.

  ‘Of course you couldn’t have done anything,’ said Lupin.

  They all stood looking at each other. Harry could not quite comprehend it. Mad-Eye dead; it could not be … Mad-Eye, so tough, so brave, the consummate survivor …

  At last it seemed to dawn on everyone, though nobody said it, that there was no point waiting in the yard any more, and in silence they followed Mr and Mrs Weasley back into The Burrow, and into the living room, where Fred and George were laughing together.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ said Fred, scanning their faces, as they entered. ‘What’s happened? Who’s –?’

  ‘Mad-Eye,’ said Mr Weasley. ‘Dead.’

  The twins’ grins turned to grimaces of shock. Nobody seemed to know what to do. Tonks was crying silently into a handkerchief: she had been close to Mad-Eye, Harry knew, his favourite and his protégée at the Ministry of Magic. Hagrid, who had sat down on the floor in the corner where he had most space, was dabbing at his eyes with his tablecloth-sized handkerchief.

  Bill walked over to the sideboard and pulled out a bottle of Firewhisky and some glasses.

  ‘Here,’ he said, and with a wave of his wand he sent twelve full glasses soaring through the room to each of them, holding the thirteenth aloft. ‘Mad-Eye.’

  ‘Mad-Eye,’ they all said, and drank.

  ‘Mad-Eye,’ echoed Hagrid, a little late, with a hiccough.

  The Firewhisky seared Harry’s throat: it seemed to burn feeling back into him, dispelling the numbness and sense of unreality, firing him with something that was like courage.

  ‘So Mundungus disappeared?’ said Lupin, who had drained his own glass in one.

  The atmosphere changed at once: everybody looked tense, watching Lupin, both wanting him to go on, it seemed to Harry, and slightly afraid of what they might hear.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ said Bill, ‘and I wondered that too, on the way back here, because they seemed to be expecting us, didn’t they? But Mundungus can’t have betrayed us. They didn’t know there would be seven Harrys, that confused them the moment we appeared, and in case you’ve forgotten, it was Mundungus who suggested that little bit of skullduggery. Why wouldn’t he have told them the essential point? I think Dung panicked, it’s as simple as that. He didn’t want to come in the first place, but Mad-Eye made him, and You-Know-Who went straight for them: it was enough to make anyone panic.’

  ‘You-Know-Who acted exactly as Mad-Eye expected him to,’ sniffed Tonks. ‘Mad-Eye said he’d expect the real Harry to be with the toughest, most skilled Aurors. He chased Mad-Eye first, and when Mundungus gave them away he switched to Kingsley …’

  ‘Yes, and zat eez all very good,’ snapped Fleur, ‘but still eet does not explain ’ow zey knew we were moving ’Arry tonight, does eet? Somebody must ’ave been careless. Somebody let slip ze date to an outsider. Eet eez ze only explanation for zem knowing ze date but not ze ’ole plan.’

  She glared around at them all, tear tracks still etched on her beautiful face, silently daring any of them to contradict her. Nobody did. The only sound to break the silence was that of Hagrid hiccoughing from behind his handkerchief. Harry glanced at Hagrid, who had just risked his own life to save Harry’s – Hagrid, whom he loved, whom he trusted, who had once been tricked into giving Voldemort crucial information in exchange for a dragon’s egg …

  ‘No,’ Harry said aloud, and they all looked at him, surprised: the Firewhisky seemed to have amplified his voice. ‘I mean … if somebody made a mistake,’ Harry went on, ‘and let something slip, I know they didn’t mean to do it. It’s not their fault,’ he repeated, again a little louder than he would usually have spoken. ‘We’ve got to trust each other. I trust all of you, I don’t think anyone in this room would ever sell me to Voldemort.’

  More silence followed his words. They were all looking at him; Harry felt a little hot again, and drank some more Firewhisky for something to do. As he drank, he thought of Mad-Eye. Mad-Eye had always been scathing about Dumbledore’s willingness to trust people.

  ‘Well said, Harry,’ said Fred unexpectedly.

  ‘Yeah, ’ear, ’ear,’ said George, with half a glance at Fred, the corner of whose mouth twitched.

  Lupin was wearing an odd expression as he looked at Harry: it was close to pitying.

  ‘You think I’m a fool?’ demanded Harry.

  ‘No, I think you’re like James,’ said Lupin, ‘who would have regarded it as the height of dishonour to mistrust his friends.’

  Harry knew what Lupin was getting at: that his father had been betrayed by his friend, Peter Pettigrew. He felt irrationally angry. He wanted to argue, but Lupin had turned away from him, set down his glass upon a side table and addressed Bill, ‘There’s work to do. I can ask Kingsley whether –’