Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - J. K. Rowling [327]
“… at the Solstice will come a new …” said the figure of an old, bearded man.
“DO NOT ATTACK! WE NEED THE PROPHECY!”
“He dared — he dares —” shrieked Bellatrix incoherently. “— He stands there — filthy half-blood —”
“WAIT UNTIL WE’VE GOT THE PROPHECY!” bawled Malfoy.
“… and none will come after …” said the figure of a young woman.
The two figures that had burst from the shattered spheres had melted into thin air. Nothing remained of them or their erstwhile homes but fragments of glass upon the floor. They had, however, given Harry an idea. The problem was going to be conveying it to the others.
“You haven’t told me what’s so special about this prophecy I’m supposed to be handing over,” he said, playing for time. He moved his foot slowly sideways, feeling around for someone else’s.
“Do not play games with us, Potter,” said Malfoy.
“I’m not playing games,” said Harry, half his mind on the conversation, half on his wandering foot. And then he found someone’s toes and pressed down upon them. A sharp intake of breath behind him told him they were Hermione’s.
“What?” she whispered.
“Dumbledore never told you that the reason you bear that scar was hidden in the bowels of the Department of Mysteries?” said Malfoy sneeringly.
“I — what?” said Harry, and for a moment he quite forgot his plan. “What about my scar?”
“What?” whispered Hermione more urgently behind him.
“Can this be?” said Malfoy, sounding maliciously delighted; some of the Death Eaters were laughing again, and under cover of their laughter, Harry hissed to Hermione, moving his lips as little as possible, “Smash shelves —”
“Dumbledore never told you?” Malfoy repeated. “Well, this explains why you didn’t come earlier, Potter, the Dark Lord wondered why —”
“— when I say go —”
“— you didn’t come running when he showed you the place where it was hidden in your dreams. He thought natural curiosity would make you want to hear the exact wording. …”
“Did he?” said Harry. Behind him he felt rather than heard Hermione passing his message to the others and he sought to keep talking, to distract the Death Eaters. “So he wanted me to come and get it, did he? Why?”
“Why?” Malfoy sounded incredulously delighted. “Because the only people who are permitted to retrieve a prophecy from the Department of Mysteries, Potter, are those about whom it was made, as the Dark Lord discovered when he attempted to use others to steal it for him.”
“And why did he want to steal a prophecy about me?”
“About both of you, Potter, about both of you … Haven’t you ever wondered why the Dark Lord tried to kill you as a baby?”
Harry stared into the slitted eyeholes through which Malfoy’s gray eyes were gleaming. Was this prophecy the reason Harry’s parents had died, the reason he carried his lightning-bolt scar? Was the answer to all of this clutched in his hand?
“Someone made a prophecy about Voldemort and me?” he said quietly, gazing at Lucius Malfoy, his fingers tightening over the warm glass sphere in his hand. It was hardly larger than a Snitch and still gritty with dust. “And he’s made me come and get it for him? Why couldn’t he come and get it himself?”
“Get it himself?” shrieked Bellatrix on a cackle of mad laughter. “The Dark Lord, walk into the Ministry of Magic, when they are so sweetly ignoring his return? The Dark Lord, reveal himself to the Aurors, when at the moment they are wasting their time on my dear cousin?”
“So he’s got you doing his dirty work for him, has he?” said Harry. “Like he tried to get Sturgis to steal it — and Bode?”
“Very good, Potter, very good …” said Malfoy slowly. “But the Dark Lord knows you are not unintell —”
“NOW!” yelled Harry.
Five different voices behind him bellowed “REDUCTO!” Five curses flew in five different directions and the shelves opposite them exploded as they hit. The towering structure swayed as a hundred glass spheres burst apart,