Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows hp-7 Read online

  Goblins! Hermione mouthed at Harry, who nodded.

  “Thank you,” said the goblins together in English.

  “So, you three have been on the run how long?” asked a new, mellow, and pleasant voice; it was vaguely familiar to Harry, who pictured a round-bellied, cheerful-faced man.

  “Six weeks… Seven… I forget,” said the tired man. “Met up with Griphook in the first couple of days and joined forces with Gornuk not long after. Nice to have a but of company.” There was a pause, while knives scraped plates and tin mugs were picked up and replaced on the ground. “What made you leave, Ted?” continued the man.

  “Knew they were coming for me,” replied mellow-voiced Ted, and Harry suddenly knew who he was: Tonks’s father. “Heard Death Eaters were in the area last week and decided I’d better run for it. Refused to register as a Muggle-born on principle, see, so I knew it was a matter of time, knew I’d have to leave in the end. My wife should be okay, she’s pure-blood. And then I met Dean here, what, a few days ago, son?”

  “Yeah,” said another voice, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione stared at each other, silent but besides themselves with excitement, sure they recognized the voice of Dean Thomas, their fellow Gryffindor.

  “Muggle-born, eh?” asked the first man.

  “Not sure,” said Dean. “My dad left my mum when I was a kid. I’ve got no proof he was a wizard, though.”

  There was silence for a while, except for the sounds of munching; then Ted spoke again.

  “I’ve got to say, Dirk, I’m surprised to run into you. Pleased, but surprised. Word was that you’d been caught.”

  “I was,” said Dirk. “I was halfway to Azkaban when I made a break for it. Stunned Dawlish, and nicked his broom. It was easier than you’d think; I don’t reckon he’s quite right at the moment. Might be Confunded. If so, I’d like to shake the hand of the witch or wizard who did it, probably saved my life.”

  There was another pause in which the fire crackled and the river rushed on. The Ted said, “And where do you two fit in? I, er, had the impression the goblins were for You-Know-Who, on the whole.”

  “You had a false impression,” said the higher-voiced of the goblins. “We take no sides. This is a wizards’ war.”

  “How come you’re in hiding, then?”

  “I deemed in prudent,” said the deeper-voiced goblin. “Having refused what I considered an impertinent request, I could see that my person safety was in jeopardy.”

  “What did they ask you to do?” asked Ted.

  “Duties ill-befitting the dignity of my race,” replied the goblin, his voice rougher and less human as he said it. “I am not a house-elf.”

  “What about you, Griphook?”

  “Similar reasons,” said the higher voiced goblin. “Gringotts is no longer under the sole control of my race. I recognize no Wizarding master.”

  He added something under his breath in Gobbledegook, and Gornuk laughed.

  “What’s the joke?” asked Dean.

  “He said,” replied Dirk, “that there are things wizards don’t recognize, either.”

  There was a short pause.

  “I don’t get it,” said Dean.

  “I had my small revenge before I left,” said Griphook in English.

  “Good man—goblin, I should say,” amended Ted hastily. “Didn’t manage to lock a Death Eater up in one of the old high-security vaults, I suppose?”

  “If I had, the sword would not have helped him break out,” replied Griphook. Gornuk laughed again and even Dirk gave a dry chuckle.

  “Dean and I are still missing something here,” said Ted.

  “So is Severus Snape, though he does not know it,” said Griphook, and the two goblins roared with malicious laughter. Inside the tent Harry’s breathing was shallow with excitement: He and Hermione stared at each other, listening as hard as they could.

  “Didn’t you hear about that, Ted?” asked Dirk. “About the kids who tried to steal Gryffindor’s sword out of Snape’s office at Hogwarts?”

  An electric current seemed to course through Harry, jangling his every nerve as he stood rooted to the spot.

  “Never heard a word,” said Ted, “Not in the Prophet, was it?”

  “Hardly,” chortled Dirk. “Griphook here told me, he heard about it from Bill Weasley who works for the bank. One of the kids who tried to take the sword was Bill’s younger sister.”

  Harry glanced toward Hermione and Ron, both of whom were clutching the Extendable Ears as tightly as lifelines.

  “She and a couple of friends got into Snape’s office and smashed open the glass case where he was apparently keeping the sword. Snape caught them as they were trying to smuggle it down the staircase.

  “Ah, God bless ’em,” said Ted. “What did they think, that they’d be able to use the sword on You-Know-Who? Or on Snape himself?”

  “Well, whatever they thought they were going to do with it, Snape decided the sword wasn’t safe where it was,” said Dirk. “Couple of days later, once he’d got the say-so from You-Know-Who, I imagine, he sent it down to London to be kept in Gringotts instead.”

  The goblins started to laugh again.

  “I’m still not seeing the joke,” said Ted.

  “It’s a fake,” rasped Griphook.

  “The sword of Gryffindor!”

  “Oh yes. It is a copy—an excellent copy, it is true—but it was Wizard-made. The original was forged centuries ago by goblins and had certain properties only goblin-made armor possesses. Wherever the genuine sword of Gryffindor is, it is not in a vault at Gringotts bank.”

  “I see,” said Ted. “And I take it you didn’t bother telling the Death Eaters this?’

  “I saw no reason to trouble them with the information,” said Griphook smugly, and now Ted and Dean joined in Gornuk and Dirk’s laughter.

  Inside the tent, Harry closed his eyes, willing someone to ask the question he needed answered, and after a minute that seemed ten, Dean obliged: he was (Harry remembered with a jolt) an ex-boyfriend of Ginny’s too.

  “What happened to Ginny and all the others? The ones who tried to steal it?”

  “Oh, they were punished, and cruelly,” said Griphook indifferently.

  “They’re okay, though?” asked Ted quickly, “I mean, the Weasleys don’t need any more of their kids injured, do they?”

  “They suffered no serious injury, as far as I am aware,” said Griphook.

  “Lucky for them,” said Ted. “With Snape’s track record I suppose we should just be glad they’re still alive.”

  “You believe that story, then, do you, Ted?” asked Dirk. “You believe Snape killed Dumbledore?

  “Course I do,” said Ted. “You’re not going to sit there and tell me you think Potter had anything to do with it?”

  “Hard to know what to believe these days,” muttered Dirk.

  “I know Harry Potter,” said Dean. “And I reckon he’s the real thing—the Chosen One, or whatever you want to call it.”

  “Yeah, there’s a lot would like to believe he’s that, son,” said Dirk, “me included. But where is he? Run for it, by the looks of things. You’d think if he knew anything we don’t, or had anything special going for him, he’d be out there now fighting, rallying resistance, instead of hiding. And you know, the Prophet made a pretty good case against him—”

  “The Prophet?” scoffed Ted. “You deserve to be lied to if you’re still reading that much, Dirk. You want the facts, try The Quibbler.”

  There was a sudden explosion of choking and retching, plus a good deal of thumping, by the sound of it. Dirk had swallowed a fish bone. At last he sputtered, “The Quibbler? That lunatic rag of Xeno Lovegood’s?”

  “It’s not so lunatic these days,” said Ted. “You want to give it a look, Xeno is printing all the stuff the Prophet’s ignoring, not a single mention of Crumple-Horned Snorkacks in the last issue. How long they’ll let him get with it, mind, I don’t know. But Xeno says, front page of every issue, that any
wizard who’s against You-Know-Who ought to make helping Harry Potter their number-one priority.”

  “Hard to help a boy who’s vanished off the face of the earth,” said Dirk.

  “Listen, the fact that they haven’t caught him yet’s one hell of an achievement,” said Ted. “I’d take tips from him gladly; it’s what we’re trying to do, stay free, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, well, you’ve got a point there,” said Dirk heavily. “With the whole of the Ministry and all their informers looking for him, I’d have expected him to be caught by now. Mind, who’s to say they haven’t already caught and killed him without publicizing it?”

  “Ah, don’t say that, Dirk,” murmured Ted.

  There was a long pause filled with more clattering of knives and forks. When they spoke again it was to discuss whether they ought to sleep on the back or retreat back up the wooded slope. Deciding the trees would give better cover, they extinguished their fire, then clambered back up the incline, their voices fading away.

  Harry, Ron, and Hermione reeled in the Extendable Ears. Harry, who had found the need to remain silent increasingly difficult the longer they eavesdropped, now found himself unable to say more then, “Ginny—the sword—”

  “I know!” said Hermione.

  She lunged for the tiny beaded bag, this time sinking her arm in it right up to the armpit.

  “Here… we… are…” she said between gritted teeth, and she pulled at something that was evidently in the depths of the bag. Slowly the edge of an ornate picture frame came into sight. Harry hurried to help her. As they lifted the empty portrait of Phineas Nigellus free of Hermione’s bag, she kept her wand pointing at it, ready to cast a spell at any moment.

  “If somebody swapped the real sword for the face while it was in Dumbledore’s office,” she panted, as they propped the painting against the side of the tent, “Phineas Nigellus would have seen it happen, he hangs right beside the case!”

  “Unless he was asleep,” said Harry, but he still held his breath as Hermione knelt down in front of the empty canvas, her wand directed at its center, cleared her throat, then said:

  “Er—Phineas? Phineas Nigellus?”

  Nothing happened.

  “Phineas Nigellus?” said Hermione again. “Professor Black? Please could we talk to you? Please?”

  “‘Please’ always helps,” said a cold, snide voice, and Phineas Nigellus slid into his portrait. At one, Hermione cried:

  “Obscura!”

  A black blindfold appeared over Phineas Nigellus’s clever, dark eyes, causing him to bump into the frame and shriek with pain.

  “What—how dare—what are you—?”

  “I’m very sorry, Professor Black,” said Hermione, “but it’s a necessary precaution!”

  “Remove this foul addition at once! Remove it, I say! You are ruining a great work of art! Where am I? What is going on?”

  “Never mind where we are,” said Harry, and Phineas Nigellus froze, abandoning his attempts to peel off the painted blindfold.

  “Can that possible be the voice of the elusive Mr. Potter?”

  “Maybe,” said Harry, knowing that this would keep Phineas Nigellus’s interest. “We’ve got a couple of questions to ask you—about the sword of Gryffindor.”

  “Ah,” said Phineas Nigellus, now turning his head this way and that in an effort to catch sight of Harry, “yes. That silly girl acted most unwisely there—”

  “Shut up about my sister,” said Ron roughly. Phineas Nigellus raised supercilious eyebrows.

  “Who else is here?” he asked, turning his head from side to side. “Your tone displeases me! The girl and her friends were foolhardily in the extreme. Thieving from the headmaster.”

  “They weren’t thieving,” said Harry. “That sword isn’t Snape’s.”

  “It belongs to Professor Snape’s school,” said Phineas Nigellus. “Exactly what claim did the Weasley girl have upon it? She deserved her punishment, as did the idiot Longbottom and the Lovegood oddity!”

  “Neville is not an idiot and Luna is not an oddity!” said Hermione.

  “Where am I?” repeated Phineas Nigellus, starting to wrestle with the blindfold again. “Where have you brought me? Why have you removed me from the house of my forebears?”

  “Never mind that! How did Snape punish Ginny, Neville, and Luna?” asked Harry urgently.

  “Professor Snape sent them into the Forbidden Forest, to do some work for the oaf, Hagrid.”

  “Hagrid’s not an oaf!” said Hermione shrilly.

  “And Snape might’ve though that was a punishment,” said Harry, “but Ginny, Neville, and Luna probably had a good laugh with Hagrid. The Forbidden Forest… they’ve faced plenty worse than the Forbidden Forest, big deal!”

  He felt relieved; he had been imagining horrors, the Cruciatus Curse at the very least.

  “What we really wanted to know, Professor Black, is whether anyone else has, um, taken out the sword at all? Maybe it’s been taken away for cleaning—or something!”

  Phineas Nigellus paused again in his struggles to free his eyes and sniggered.

  “Muggle-borns,” he said, “Goblin-made armor does not require cleaning, simple girl. Goblin’s silver repels mundane dirt, imbibing only that which strengthens it.”

  “Don’t call Hermione simple,” said Harry.

  “I grow weary of contradiction,” said Phineas Nigellus. “perhaps it is time for me to return to the headmaster’s office?”

  Still blindfolded, he began groping the side of his frame, trying to feel his way out of his picture and back into the one at Hogwarts. Harry had a sudden inspiration.

  “Dumbledore! Can’t you bring us Dumbledore?”

  “I beg your pardon?” asked Phineas Nigellus.

  “Professor Dumbledore’s portrait—couldn’t you bring him along, here, into yours?”

  Phineas Nigellus turned his face in the direction of Harry’s voice.

  “Evidently it is not only Muggle-borns who are ignorant, Potter. The portraits of Hogwarts may commune with each other, but they cannot travel outside of the castle except to visit a painting of themselves elsewhere. Dumbledore cannot come here with me, and after the treatment I have received at your hands, I can assure you that I will not be making a return visit!”

  Slightly crestfallen, Harry watched Phineas redouble his attempts to leave his frame.

  “Professor Black,” said Hermione, “couldn’t you just tell us, please, when was the last time the sword was taken out of its case? Before Ginny took it out, I mean?”

  Phineas snorted impatiently.

  “I believe that the last time I saw the sword of Gryffindor leave its case was when Professor Dumbledore used it to break open a ring.”

  Hermione whipped around to look at Harry. Neither of them dared say more in front of Phineas Nigellus, who had at least managed to locate the exit.

  “Well, good night to you,” he said a little waspishly, and he began to move out of sight again. Only the edge of his hat brim remained in view when Harry gave a sudden shout.

  “Wait! Have you told Snape you saw this?”

  Phineas Nigellus stuck his blindfolded head back into the picture.

  “Professor Snape has more important things on his mind that the many eccentricities of Albus Dumbledore. Good-bye, Potter!”

  And with that, he vanished completely, leaving behind him nothing but his murky backdrop.

  “Harry!” Hermione cried.

  “I know!” Harry shouted. Unable to contain himself, he punched the air; it was more than he had dared to hope for. He strode up and down the tent, feeling that he could have run a mile; he did not even feel hungry anymore. Hermione was squashing Phineas Nigellus’s back into the beaded bag; when she had fastened the clasp she threw the bag aside and raised a shining face to Harry.

  “The sword can destroy Horcruxes! Goblin-made blades imbibe only that which strengthens them—Harry, that sword’s impregnated with basilisk venom!”

 
; “And Dumbledore didn’t five it to me because he still needed it, he wanted to use it on the locket—”

  “—and he must have realized they wouldn’t let you have it if he put it in his will—”

  “—so he made a copy—”

  “—and put a fake in the glass case—”

  “—and he left the real one—where?”

  They gazed at each other. Harry felt that the answer was dangling invisibly in the air above them, tantalizingly close. Why hadn’t Dumbledore told him? Or had he, in fact, told Harry, but Harry had not realized it at the time?”

  “Think!” whispered Hermione. “Think! Where would he have left it?”

  “Not at Hogwarts,” said Harry, resuming his pacing.

  “Somewhere in Hogsmeade?” suggested Hermione.

  “The Shrieking Shack?” said Harry. “Nobody ever goes in there.”

  “But Snape knows how to get in, wouldn’t that be a bit risky?”

  “Dumbledore trusted Snape,” Harry reminded her.

  “Not enough to tell him that he had swapped the swords,” said Hermione.

  “Yeah, you’re right!” said Harry, and he felt even more cheered at the thought that Dumbledore had had some reservations, however faint, about Snape’s trustworthiness. “So, would he have hidden the sword well away from Hogsmeade, then? What d’you reckon, Ron? Ron?”

  Harry looked around. For one bewildered moment he thought that Ron had left the tent, then realized that Ron was lying in the shadow of a bunk, looking stony.

  “Oh, remembered me, have you?” he said.

  “What?”

  Ron snorted as he stared up at the underside of the upper bunk.

  “You two carry on. Don’t let me spoil your fun.”

  Perplexed, Harry looked to Hermione for help, but she shook her head, apparently as nonplussed as he was.

  “What’s the problem?” asked Harry.

  “Problem? There’s no problem,” said Ron, still refusing to look at Harry. “Not according to you, anyways.”

  There were several plunks on the canvas over their heads. It had started to rain.

  “Well, you’ve obviously got a problem,” said Harry. “Spit it out, will you?”

  Ron swung his long legs off the bed and sat up. He looked mean, unlike himself.