“He might be…” Harry whispered hoarsely, peering down the next alley. “Or maybe…” He hurried to look down the one beyond that.
“Harry?” said Hermione again.
“What?” he snarled.
“I… I don’t think Sirius is here.”
Nobody spoke. Harry did not want to look at any of them. He felt sick. He did not understand why Sirius was not here. He had to be here. This was where he, Harry, had seen him…
He ran up the space at the end of the rows, staring down them. Empty aisle after empty aisle flickered past. He ran the other way, back past his staring companions. There was no sign of Sirius anywhere, nor any hint of a struggle.
“Harry?” Ron called.
“What?”
He did not want to hear what Ron had to say; did not want to hear Ron tell him he had been stupid or suggest that they ought to go back to Hogwarts, but the heat was rising in his face and he felt as though he would like to skulk down here in the darkness for a long while before facing the brightness of the Atrium above and the others’ accusing stares…
“Have you seen this?” said Ron,
“What?” said Harry, but eagerly this time—it had to be a sign that Sirius had been there, a clue. He strode back to where they were all standing, a little way down row ninety-seven, but found nothing except Ron staring at one of the dusty glass spheres on the shelf.
“What?” Harry repeated glumly.
“It’s—it’s got your name on,” said Ron.
Harry moved a little closer. Ron was pointing at one of the small glass spheres that glowed with a dull inner light, though it was very dusty and appeared not to have been touched for many years.
“My name?” said Harry blankly.
He stepped forwards. Not as tall as Ron, he had to crane his neck to read the yellowish label affixed to the shelf right beneath the dusty glass ball. In spidery writing was written a date of some sixteen years previously, and below that:
S.P.T. to A.P.W.B.D.
Dark Lord and (?) Harry Potter
Harry stared at it.
“What is it?” Ron asked, sounding unnerved. “What’s your name doing down here?”
He glanced along at the other labels on that stretch of shelf.
“I’m not here,” he said, sounding perplexed. “None of the rest of us are here.”
“Harry, I don’t think you should touch it,” said Hermione sharply, as he stretched out his hand.
“Why not?” he said. “It’s something to do with me, isn’t it?”
“Don’t, Harry,” said Neville suddenly. Harry looked at him. Neville’s round face was shining slightly with sweat. He looked as though he could not take much more suspense.
“It’s got my name on,” said Harry.
And feeling slightly reckless, he closed his fingers around the dusty ball’s surface. He had expected it to feel cold, but it did not. On the contrary, it felt as though it had been lying in the sun for hours, as though the glow of light within was warming it. Expecting, even hoping, that something dramatic was going to happen, something exciting that might make their long and dangerous journey worthwhile after all, Harry lifted the glass ball down from its shelf and stared at it.
Nothing whatsoever happened. The others moved in closer around Harry, gazing at the orb as he brushed it free of the clogging dust.
And then, from right behind them, a drawling voice spoke.
“Very good, Potter. Now turn around, nice and slowly, and give that to me.”
35. BEYOND THE VEIL
Black shapes were emerging out of thin air all around them, blocking their way left and right; eyes glinted through slits in hoods, a dozen lit wand tips were pointing directly at their hearts; Ginny gave a gasp of horror.
“To me, Potter,” repeated the drawling voice of Lucius Malfoy as he held out his hand, palm up.
Harry’s insides plummeted sickeningly. They were trapped, and outnumbered two to one.
“To me,” said Malfoy yet again.
“Where’s Sirius?” Harry said.
Several of the Death Eaters laughed; a harsh female voice from the midst of the shadowy figures to Harry’s left said triumphantly, “The Dark Lord always knows!”
“Always,” echoed Malfoy softly. “Now, give me the prophecy, Potter.”
“I want to know where Sirius is!”
“I want to know where Sirius is!” mimicked the woman to his left.
She and her fellow Death Eaters had closed in so that they were mere feet away from Harry and the others, the light from their wands dazzling Harry’s eyes.
“You’ve got him,” said Harry, ignoring the rising panic in his chest, the dread he had been fighting since they had first entered the ninety-seventh row. “He’s here. I know he is.”
“The little baby woke up fwightened and fort what it dweamed was twoo,” said the woman in a horrible, mock baby voice. Harry felt Ron stir beside him.
“Don’t do anything,” Harry muttered. “Not yet—”
The woman who had mimicked him let out a raucous scream of laughter.
“You hear him? You hear him? Giving instructions to the other children as though he thinks of fighting us!”
“Oh, you don’t know Potter as I do, Bellatrix,” said Malfoy softly. “He has a great weakness for heroics; the Dark Lord understands this about him. Now give me the prophecy, Potter.”
“I know Sirius is here,” said Harry, though panic was causing his chest to constrict and he felt as though he could not breathe properly. “I know you’ve got him!”
More of the Death Eaters laughed, though the woman laughed loudest of all.
“It’s time you learned the difference between life and dreams, Potter,” said Malfoy. “Now give me the prophecy, or we start using wands.”
“Go on, then,” said Harry, raising his own wand to chest height. As he did so, the five wands of Ron, Hermione, Neville, Ginny and Luna rose on either side of him. The knot in Harry’s stomach tightened. If Sirius really was not here, he had led his friends to their deaths for no reason at all…
But the Death Eaters did not strike.
“Hand over the prophecy and no one need get hurt,” said Malfoy coolly.
It was Harry’s turn to laugh.
“Yeah, right!” he said. “I give you this—prophecy, is it? And you’ll just let us skip off home, will you?”
The words were hardly out of his mouth when the female Death Eater shrieked: “Accio proph—”
Harry was just ready for her: he shouted “Protego!” before she had finished her spell, and though the glass sphere slipped to the tips of his fingers he managed to cling on to it.
“Oh, he knows how to play, little bitty baby Potter,” she said, her mad eyes staring through the slits in her hood. “Very well, then—”
“I TOLD YOU, NO!” Lucius Malfoy roared at the woman. “If you smash it—!”
Harry’s mind was racing. The Death Eaters wanted this dusty spun-glass sphere. He had no interest in it. He just wanted to get them all out of this alive, to make sure none of his friends paid a terrible price for his stupidity…
The woman stepped forward, away from her fellows, and pulled off her hood. Azkaban had hollowed Bellatrix Lestrange’s face, making it gaunt and skull-like, but it was alive with a feverish, fanatical glow.
“You need more persuasion?” she said, her chest rising and falling rapidly. “Very well—take the smallest one,” she ordered the Death Eaters beside her. “Let him watch while we torture the little girl. I’ll do it.”
Harry felt the others close in around Ginny; he stepped sideways so that he was right in front of her, the prophecy held up to his chest.