Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J. K. Rowling [236]
“If your son is dead, Lucius, it is not my fault. He did not come and join me, like the rest of the Slytherins. Perhaps he has decided to befriend Harry Potter?”
“No — never,” whispered Malfoy.
“You must hope not.”
“Aren’t — aren’t you afraid, my Lord, that Potter might die at another hand but yours?” asked Malfoy, his voice shaking. “Wouldn’t it be … forgive me … more prudent to call off this battle, enter the castle, and seek him y-yourself?”
“Do not pretend, Lucius. You wish the battle to cease so that you can discover what has happened to your son. And I do not need to seek Potter. Before the night is out, Potter will have come to find me.”
Voldemort dropped his gaze once more to the wand in his fingers. It troubled him … and those things that troubled Lord Voldemort needed to be rearranged. …
“Go and fetch Snape.”
“Snape, m-my Lord?”
“Snape. Now. I need him. There is a — service — I require from him. Go.”
Frightened, stumbling a little through the gloom, Lucius left the room. Voldemort continued to stand there, twirling the wand between his fingers, staring at it.
“It is the only way, Nagini,” he whispered, and he looked around, and there was the great thick snake, now suspended in midair, twisting gracefully within the enchanted, protected space he had made for her, a starry, transparent sphere somewhere between glittering cage and tank.
With a gasp, Harry pulled back and opened his eyes; at the same moment his ears were assaulted with the screeches and cries, the smashes and bangs of battle.
“He’s in the Shrieking Shack. The snake’s with him, it’s got some sort of magical protection around it. He’s just sent Lucius Malfoy to find Snape.”
“Voldemort’s sitting in the Shrieking Shack?” said Hermione, outraged. “He’s not — he’s not even fighting?”
“He doesn’t think he needs to fight,” said Harry. “He thinks I’m going to go to him.”
“But why?”
“He knows I’m after Horcruxes — he’s keeping Nagini close beside him — obviously I’m going to have to go to him to get near the thing —”
“Right,” said Ron, squaring his shoulders. “So you can’t go, that’s what he wants, what he’s expecting. You stay here and look after Hermione, and I’ll go and get it —”
Harry cut across Ron.
“You two stay here, I’ll go under the Cloak and I’ll be back as soon as I —”
“No,” said Hermione, “it makes much more sense if I take the Cloak and —”
“Don’t even think about it,” Ron snarled at her.
Before Hermione could get farther than “Ron, I’m just as capable —” the tapestry at the top of the staircase on which they stood was ripped open.
“POTTER!”
Two masked Death Eaters stood there, but even before their wands were fully raised, Hermione shouted, “Glisseo!”
The stairs beneath their feet flattened into a chute and she, Harry, and Ron hurtled down it, unable to control their speed but so fast that the Death Eaters’ Stunning Spells flew far over their heads. They shot through the concealing tapestry at the bottom and spun onto the floor, hitting the opposite wall.
“Duro!” cried Hermione, pointing her wand at the tapestry, and there were two loud, sickening crunches as the tapestry turned to stone and the Death Eaters pursuing them crumpled against it.
“Get back!” shouted Ron, and he, Harry, and Hermione flattened themselves against a door as a herd of galloping desks thundered past, shepherded by a sprinting Professor McGonagall. She appeared not to notice them: Her hair had come down and there was a gash on her cheek. As she turned the corner, they heard her scream, “CHARGE!”
“Harry, you get the Cloak on,” said Hermione. “Never mind us —”
But he threw it over all three of them; large though they were, he doubted anyone would see their disembodied feet through the dust that clogged the air, the falling stone, the shimmer of spells.
They ran down the next staircase and found themselves in a corridor full of duelers.