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Then, high above them, two more doors burst open and five more people sprinted into the room: Sirius, Lupin, Moody, Tonks, and Kingsley.

Malfoy turned and raised his wand, but Tonks had already sent a Stunning Spell right at him. Harry did not wait to see whether it had made contact, but dived off the dais out of the way. The Death Eaters were completely distracted by the appearance of the members of the Order, who were now raining spells down upon them as they jumped from step to step toward the sunken floor: Through the darting bodies, the flashes of light, Harry could see Neville crawling along. He dodged another jet of red light and flung himself flat on the ground to reach Neville.

“Are you okay?” he yelled, as another spell soared inches over their heads.

“Yes,” said Neville, trying to pull himself up.

“And Ron?”

“I dink he’s all right — he was still fighding the brain when I left —”

The stone floor between them exploded as a spell hit it, leaving a crater right where Neville’s hand had been seconds before. Both scrambled away from the spot, then a thick arm came out of nowhere, seized Harry around the neck and pulled him upright, so that his toes were barely touching the floor.

“Give it to me,” growled a voice in his ear, “give me the prophecy —”

The man was pressing so tightly on Harry’s windpipe that he could not breathe — through watering eyes he saw Sirius dueling with a Death Eater some ten feet away. Kingsley was fighting two at once; Tonks, still halfway up the tiered seats, was firing spells down at Bellatrix — nobody seemed to realize that Harry was dying. … He turned his wand backward toward the man’s side, but had no breath to utter an incantation, and the man’s free hand was groping toward the hand in which Harry was grasping the prophecy —

“AARGH!”

Neville had come lunging out of nowhere: Unable to articulate a spell, he had jabbed Hermione’s wand hard into the eyehole of the Death Eater’s mask. The man relinquished Harry at once with a howl of pain and Harry whirled around to face him and gasped, “STUPEFY!”

The Death Eater keeled over backward and his mask slipped off. It was Macnair, Buckbeak’s would-be killer, one of his eyes now swollen and bloodshot.

“Thanks!” Harry said to Neville, pulling him aside as Sirius and his Death Eater lurched past, dueling so fiercely that their wands were blurs. Then Harry’s foot made contact with something round and hard and he slipped — for a moment he thought he had dropped the prophecy, then saw Moody’s magic eye spinning away across the floor.

Its owner was lying on his side, bleeding from the head, and his attacker was now bearing down upon Harry and Neville: Dolohov, his long pale face twisted with glee.

“Tarantallegra!” he shouted, his wand pointing at Neville, whose legs went immediately into a kind of frenzied tap dance, unbalancing him and causing him to fall to the floor again. “Now, Potter —”

He made the same slashing movement with his wand that he had used on Hermione just as Harry yelled, “Protego!”

Harry felt something streak across his face like a blunt knife but the force of it knocked him sideways, and he fell over Neville’s jerking legs, but the Shield Charm had stopped the worst of the spell.

Dolohov raised his wand again. “Accio Proph —”

Sirius hurtled out of nowhere, rammed Dolohov with his shoulder, and sent him flying out of the way. The prophecy had again flown to the tips of Harry’s fingers but he had managed to cling to it. Now Sirius and Dolohov were dueling, their wands flashing like swords, sparks flying from their wand tips —

Dolohov drew back his wand to make the same slashing movement he had used on Harry and Hermione. Springing up, Harry yelled, “Petrificus Totalus!” Once again, Dolohov’s arms and legs snapped together and he keeled over backward, landing with a crash on his back.

“Nice one!” shouted Sirius, forcing Harry’s head down as a pair of Stunning Spells flew toward them. “Now I want you to get out of —”

They both ducked again. A jet