He knew that the room would not be able to transform while there were still users inside it.
“I was the last to come through,” said Mrs. Longbottom. “I sealed it, I think it unwise to leave it open now Aberforth has left his pub. Have you seen my grandson?”
“He’s fighting,” said Harry.
“Naturally,” said the old lady proudly. “Excuse me, I must go and assist him.”
With surprising speed she trotted off toward the stone steps.
Harry looked at Tonks.
“I thought you were supposed to be with Teddy at your mother’s?”
“I couldn’t stand not knowing—” Tonks looked anguished. “She’ll look after him—have you seen Remus?”
“He was planning to lead a group of fighters into the grounds—”
Without another word, Tonks sped off.
“Ginny,” said Harry, “I’m sorry, but we need you to leave too. Just for a bit. Then you can come back in.”
Ginny looked simply delighted to leave her sanctuary.
“And then you can come back in!” he shouted after her as she ran up the steps after Tonks. “You’ve got to come back in!”
“Hang on a moment!” said Ron sharply. “We’ve forgotten someone!”
“Who?” asked Hermione.
“The house-elves, they’ll all be down in the kitchen, won’t they?”
“You mean we ought to get them fighting?” asked Harry.
“No,” said Ron seriously, “I mean we should tell them to get out. We don’t want anymore Dobbies, do we? We can’t order them to die for us—”
There was a clatter as the basilisk fangs cascaded out of Hermione’s arms. Running at Ron, she flung them around his neck and kissed him full on the mouth. Ron threw away the fangs and broomstick he was holding and responded with such enthusiasm that he lifted Hermione off her feet.
“Is this the moment?” Harry asked weakly, and when nothing happened except that Ron and Hermione gripped each other still more firmly and swayed on the spot, he raised his voice. “Oi! There’s a war going on here!”
Ron and Hermione broke apart, their arms still around each other.
“I know, mate,” said Ron, who looked as though he had recently been hit on the back of the head with a Bludger, “so it’s now or never, isn’t it?”
“Never mind that, what about the Horcrux?” Harry shouted. “D’you think you could just—just hold it in until we’ve got the diadem?”
“Yeah—right—sorry—” said Ron, and he and Hermione set about gathering up fangs, both pink in the face.
It was clear, as the three of them stepped back into the corridor upstairs, that in the minutes that they had spent in the Room of Requirement the situation within the castle had deteriorated severely: The walls and ceiling were shaking worse than ever; dust filled the air, and through the nearest window, Harry saw bursts of green and red light so close to the foot of the castle that he knew the Death Eaters must be very near to entering the place. Looking down, Harry saw Grawp the giant meandering past, swinging what looked like a stone gargoyle torn from the roof and roaring his displeasure.
“Let’s hope he steps on some of them!” said Ron as more screams echoed from close by.
“As long as it’s not any of our lot!” said a voice: Harry turned and saw Ginny and Tonks, both with their wands drawn at the next window, which was missing several panes. Even as he watched, Ginny sent a well-aimed jinx into a crowd of fighters below.
“Good girl!” roared a figure running through the dust toward them, and Harry saw Aberforth again, his gray hair flying as he led a small group of students past. “They look like they might be breaching the north battlements, they’ve brought giants of their own.”
“Have you seen Remus?” Tonks called after him.
“He was dueling Dolohov,” shouted Aberforth, “haven’t seen him since!”
“Tonks,” said Ginny, “Tonks, I’m sure he’s okay—”
But Tonks had run off into the dust after Aberforth.
Ginny turned, helpless, to Harry, Ron, and Hermione.
“They’ll be all right,” said Harry, though he knew they were empty words. “Ginny, we’ll be back in a moment, just keep out of the way, keep safe—come on!” he said to Ron and Hermione, and they ran back to the stretch of wall beyond which the Room of Requirement was waiting to do the bidding of the next entrant.
I need the place where everything is hidden. Harry begged of it inside his head, and the door materialized on their third run past.
The furor of the battle died the moment they crossed the threshold and closed the door behind them: All was silent. They were in a place the size of a cathedral with the appearance of a city, its towering walls built of objects hidden by thousands of long-gone students.
“And he never realized anyone could get in?” said Ron, his voice echoing in the silence.
“He thought he was the only one,” said Harry. “Too bad for him I’ve had to hide stuff in my time… this way,” he added. “I think it’s down here…”
They sped off up adjacent aisles; Harry could hear the others’ footsteps echoing through the towering piles of junk, of bottles, hats, crates, chairs, books, weapons, broomsticks, bats…
“Somewhere near here,” Harry muttered to himself. “Somewhere… somewhere…”
Deeper and deeper into the labyrinth he went, looking for objects he recognized from his one previous trip into the room. His breath was loud in his ears, and then his very soul seemed to shiver. There it was, right ahead, the blistered old cupboard in which he had hidden his old Potions book, and on top of it, the pockmarked stone warlock wearing a dusty old wig and what looked like an ancient discolored tiara.
He had already stretched out his hand, though he remained few feet away, when a voice behind him said, “Hold it, Potter.”
He skidded to a halt and turned around. Crabbe and Goyle were standing behind him, shoulder to shoulder, wands pointing right at Harry. Through the small space between their jeering faces he saw Draco Malfoy.
“That’s my wand you’re holding, Potter,” said Malfoy, pointing his own through the gap between Crabbe and Goyle.
“Not anymore,” panted Harry, tightening his grip on the hawthorn wand. “Winners, keepers, Malfoy. Who’s lent you theirs?”
“My mother,” said Draco.
Harry laughed, though there was nothing very humorous about the situation. He could not hear Ron or Hermione anymore. They seemed to have run out of earshot, searching for the diadem.
“So how come you three aren’t with Voldemort?” asked Harry.
“We’re gonna be rewarded,” said Crabbe. His voice was surprisingly soft for such an enormous person: Harry had hardly ever heard him speak before. Crabbe was speaking like a small child promised a large bag of sweets. “We ’ung back, Potter. We decided not to go. Decided to bring you to ’im.”
“Good plan,” said Harry in mock admiration. He could not believe that he was this close, and was going to be thwarted by Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle. He began edging slowly backward toward the place where the Horcrux sat lopsided upon the bust. If he could just get his hands on it before the fight broke out…
“So how did you get in here?” he asked, trying to distract them.
“I virtually lived in the Room of Hidden Things all last year,” said Malfoy, his voice brittle. “I know how to get in.”
“We was hiding in the corridor outside,” grunted Goyle. “We can do Diss-lusion Charms now! And then,” his face split into a gormless grin, “you turned up right in front of us and said you was looking for a die-dum! What’s a die-dum?”
“Harry?” Ron’s voice echoed suddenly from the other side of the wall to Harry’s right. “Are you talking to someone?”
With a whiplike movement, Crabbe pointed his wand at the fifty foot mountain of old furniture, of broken trunks, of old books and robes and unidentifiable junk, and shouted, “Descendo!”
The wall began to totter, then the top third crumbled into the aisle next door where Ron stood.
“Ron!” Harry bellowed, as somewhere out of sight Hermione screamed, and Harry heard innumerable objects crashing to the floor on the other side of the destabilized walclass="underline" He pointed his wand at the rampart, cried, “Finite!” and it steadied.