Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - J. K. Rowling [330]
“WE’VE GOT HIM!” yelled the Death Eater nearest Harry, “IN AN OFFICE OFF —”
“Silencio!” cried Hermione, and the man’s voice was extinguished. He continued to mouth through the hole in his mask, but no sound came out; he was thrust aside by his fellow.
“Petrificus Totalus!” shouted Harry, as the second Death Eater raised his wand. His arms and legs snapped together and he fell forward, facedown onto the rug at Harry’s feet, stiff as a board and unable to move at all.
“Well done, Ha —”
But the Death Eater Hermione had just struck dumb made a sudden slashing movement with his wand from which flew a streak of what looked like purple flame. It passed right across Hermione’s chest; she gave a tiny “oh!” as though of surprise and then crumpled onto the floor where she lay motionless.
“HERMIONE!”
Harry fell to his knees beside her as Neville crawled rapidly toward her from under the desk, his wand held up in front of him. The Death Eater kicked out hard at Neville’s head as he emerged — his foot broke Neville’s wand in two and connected with his face — Neville gave a howl of pain and recoiled, clutching his mouth and nose. Harry twisted around, his own wand held high, and saw that the Death Eater had ripped off his mask and was pointing his wand directly at Harry, who recognized the long, pale, twisted face from the Daily Prophet: Antonin Dolohov, the wizard who had murdered the Prewetts.
Dolohov grinned. With his free hand, he pointed from the prophecy still clutched in Harry’s hand, to himself, then at Hermione. Though he could no longer speak his meaning could not have been clearer: Give me the prophecy, or you get the same as her. …
“Like you won’t kill us all the moment I hand it over anyway!” said Harry.
A whine of panic inside his head was preventing him thinking properly. He had one hand on Hermione’s shoulder, which was still warm, yet did not dare look at her properly. Don’t let her be dead, don’t let her be dead, it’s my fault if she’s dead. …
“Whaddever you do, Harry,” said Neville fiercely from under the desk, lowering his hands to show a clearly broken nose and blood pouring down his mouth and chin, “don’d gib it to him!”
Then there was a crash outside the door, and Dolohov looked over his shoulder — the baby-headed Death Eater had appeared in the doorway, his head bawling, his great fists still flailing uncontrollably at everything around him.
Harry seized his chance: “PETRIFICUS TOTALUS!”
The spell hit Dolohov before he could block it, and he toppled forward across his comrade, both of them rigid as boards and unable to move an inch.
“Hermione,” Harry said at once, shaking her as the baby-headed Death Eater blundered out of sight again. “Hermione, wake up. …”
“Whaddid he do to her?” said Neville, crawling out from under the desk again to kneel at her other side, blood streaming from his rapidly swelling nose. “I dunno. …”
Neville groped for Hermione’s wrist.
“Dat’s a pulse, Harry, I’b sure id is. …”
Such a powerful wave of relief swept through Harry that for a moment he felt light-headed.
“She’s alive?”
“Yeah, I dink so. …”
There was a pause in which Harry listened hard for the sounds of more footsteps, but all he could hear were the whimpers and blunderings of the baby Death Eater in the next room.
“Neville, we’re not far from the exit,” Harry whispered. “We’re right next to that circular room. … If we can just get you across it and find the right door before any more Death Eaters come, I’ll bet you can get Hermione up the corridor and into the lift. … Then you could find someone. … Raise the alarm …”
“And whad are you going do do?” said Neville, mopping his bleeding nose with his sleeve and frowning at Harry.
“I’ve got to find the others,” said Harry.
“Well, I’b going do find dem wid you,