First half of book:
https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003829962
Previous Chapters:
https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003833123
https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003838588
https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003840013
https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003841380
https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003842029
https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003842653
https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003843726
https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003844089
https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003844089/r/4400000000017564493
https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003844352
https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003844924
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@SaphireStark @Missy Clara Oswald @CatsAndRoblox @Pervaza972 @Mega.mind.harry.potter
Chapter Thirty: The Battle of Hogwarts
The enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall was dark and scattered with stars, and below it the four long House tables were lined with disheveled students, some in traveling cloaks, others in dressing gowns. Here and there shone the pearly white figures of the school ghosts. Every eye, living and dead, was fixed upon Professor McGonagall, who was speaking from the raised platform at the top of the Hall. Behind her stood the remaining teachers, including the palomino centaur, Firenze, and the members of the Order of the Phoenix who had arrived to fight.
‘—evacuation will be overseen by Mr Filch and Aurora Sinistra. Prefects, when I give the word, you will organize your House and take your charges, in an orderly fashion, to the evacuation point.’
Many of the students looked petrified. However, as Harry skirted the walls, scanning the Slytherin and Gryffindor tables for Theodore, Ernie Macmillan stood up at the Hufflepuff table and shouted. ‘And what if we want to stay and fight?’
There was a smattering of applause.
‘If you are of age, you may stay,’ said Professor McGonagall.
‘What about our things?’ called a girl at the Ravenclaw table. ‘Our trunks, our owls?’
‘We have no time to collect possessions,’ said Professor McGonagall. ‘The important thing is to get you out of here safely.’
‘Where is Headmaster Snape?’ shouted the annoying blood supremest sixth-year William Harper a girl from Harry’s House.
‘He has, to use the common phrase, done a bunk,’ replied Professor McGonagall, and a great cheer erupted from the Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws, and even most of the Slytherins.
Harry moved up the Hall alongside the Slytherin table, still looking for Theodore. As he paused, faces turned in his direction, and a great deal of whispering broke out in his wake.
‘We have already placed protection around the castle,’ Professor McGonagall was saying, ‘but it is unlikely to hold for very long unless we reinforce it. I must ask you, therefore, to move quickly and calmly, and do as your prefects—‘
But her final words were drowned as a different voice echoed throughout the Hall. It was high, cold, and clean. There was no telling from where it came; it seemed to issue from the walls themselves. Like the monster it had once commanded, it might have lain dormant there for centuries.
‘I know you are preparing to fight.’
There were screams amongst the students, some of whom clutched each other, looking around in terror for the source of the sound.
‘Your efforts are futile. You cannot fight me. I do not want to kill you. I have great respect for the teachers of Hogwarts. I do not want to spill magical blood.’
There was silence in the Hall now, the kind of silence that presses against the eardrums, that seems too huge to be contained by walls.
‘Give me Harry Potter,’ said Voldemort’s voice, ‘and none but him shall be harmed. Give me Harry Potter, and I shall leave the school untouched. Give me Harry Potter, and you should be rewarded. You have until midnight.’
The silence swallowed them all again. Every head turned, every eye in the place seemed to have found Harry, to hold him frozen in the glare of thousands of invisible beams. Then a figure rose from the Slytherin table and he recognized Pansy Parkinson as she raised a shaking arm and screamed, ‘But he’s there! Potter’s there! Someone grab him!’
Before Harry could speak, there was a massive movement. He watched as many Slytherins beside him rose and moved in front of him, but they weren’t facing Harry, but Pansy Parkinson. First Daphne Greengrass, then Niall Urquhart, as well as Ella Wilkins, Bridget Maloney, Scarlett Lympsham, Maynard Hatton, Simon Dedworth, and then finally Terence, Tracey, and Allison. They all stood with their arms raised protecting him from her and the other small minority that may wish to follow Voldemort’s orders. Soon enough they were joined by members of all four Houses, and Harry, awestruck and overwhelmed, saw wands emerging everywhere, pulled from beneath cloaks and under sleeves.
‘Thank you, Miss Parkinson,’ said Professor McGonagall in a clipped voice. ‘You will leave the Hall first with Mr Filch. You will be followed by the rest of former Inquisitorial Squad members.’
Harry heard the grinding of benches and then the sound of angry bullies trooping out on the other side of the Hall.
‘Any underaged Slytherins will follow behind, Ravenclaws, behind them!’ cried Professor McGonagall.
Slowly the four tables emptied. The Slytherin table really only had himself, Tracey, Allison, Terence, Daphne, Millicent, Niall, Ella, Bridget, Gemma Farley, and Adrian Pucey, but a number of older Ravenclaws remained seated while their fellows filed out; even more Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors stayed behind, necessitating Professor McGonagall’s descent from the teachers’ platform to chivvy the underage on their way.
‘Patel, Romsey, Madley! Absolutely not! Nor can you Wolpert, Peakes, Creevey!’
While she was referring to Dennis, hearing the name reminded Harry of one of his worries. He hurried over Remus, who was sitting at the Hufflepuff table with Canini.
‘Where are Theodore and Colin?’
‘They haven’t returned ye—?’ began Remus, looking worried. But he broke off as Kingsley had stepped forward on the raised platform to address those who had remained behind.
‘We’ve only got half an hour until midnight, so we need to act fast! A battle plan has been agreed between the teachers of Hogwarts and the Order of the Phoenix. Professors Flitwick, Sprout, and McGonagall are going to take groups of fighters up to the three highest towers—Ravenclaw, Astronomy, and Gryffindor—where they’ll have a good overview, excellent positions from which to work spells. Meanwhile Remus’—he indicated Harry’s adoptive father—‘Arthur’—he pointed toward Mr Weasley, sitting at the Gryffindor table with his family—‘and I will take groups into the grounds. We’ll need somebody to organize defense of the entrances of the passageways into the school—‘
‘Sounds like a job for us,’ called out Fred from the Gryffindor table, indicating himself and George, and Kingsley nodded his approval.
‘All right, leaders up here and we’ll divide up the troops!’
‘Potter,’ said Professor McGonagall, hurrying up to him, as students flooded the platform, jostling for position, receiving instructions, ‘Aren’t you supposed to be looking for something?’
‘What? Oh,’ said Harry, ‘oh yeah!’
He had almost forgotten about the Horcrux, almost forgotten that the battle was being fought so that he could search for it: The inexplicable absence of Theodore had momentarily driven every other thought from his mind.
‘Then go, Potter, go!’
‘Right—yeah—‘
He quickly ran up to Remus and Canini.
‘I have to go, you both keep each other safe,’ he said, giving each a hug.
‘We will, go do what you have to do,’ said Remus, and Harry was about to leave before he added. ‘Harry, I’m proud of you.’
Harry nodded in appreciation.
‘Good luck,’ said Canini before Harry ran off to join Allison and Tracey who had just said their own goodbyes to Terry and Terence.
Harry sensed eyes following them as he ran out of the Great Hall again, into the entrance hall still crowded with evacuating students. He allowed himself to be swept up the marble staircase with them, but at the top he hurried off along a deserted corridor. Fear and panic were clouding his thought processes as Allison and Tracey tried to catch up. He tried to calm himself, to concentrate on finding the Horcrux, but his thoughts buzzed as frantically and fruitlessly as wasps trapped beneath a glass. He was beginning to worry about what had happened to his foster brother and it seemed to marshal his ideas. He slowed down, coming to a halt halfway along an empty passage, where he sat down upon the plinth of a departed statue and pulled the Marauder’s Map out of the pouch around his neck.
‘What is it Harry?’ asked Tracey as she and Allison caught up.
‘I can’t see Theodore, or Colin for that matter, anywhere on the map,’ said Harry. Allison put a hand on his shoulder to try and calm him down.
‘They could just be in one of crowds. I’m certain they both are ok,’ she said. Then slowly she added, ‘We have to focus on the Horcrux.’
And so Harry put the map away, pressed his hands over his face, and closed his eyes, trying to concentrate…
Voldemort thought I’d go to Ravenclaw Tower.
There it was: a solid fact, the place to start. Voldemort had stationed Alecto Carrow in the Ravenclaw common room, and there could only be one explanation: Voldemort feared that Harry already knew his Horcrux was connected to that house.
But the only object anyone seemed to associate with Ravenclaw was the lost diadem…and how could the Horcrux be the diadem? How was it possible that Voldemort, a Slytherin, had found the diadem that had eluded generations of Ravenclaws? Who could have told him where to look, when nobody had seen the diadem in living memory?
In living memory...
Beneath his fingers, Harry’s eyes flew open again. He leapt up from the plinth.
‘I have an idea!’ he announced before tearing back the way he had come, now in pursuit of his one last hope. The sound of hundreds of people marching towards the Room of Requirement grew louder and louder as he returned to the marble stairs. Prefects were shouting instructions, trying to keep track of the students in their own Houses; there was much pushing and shoving; Harry saw Zacharias Smith bowling over first years to get to the front of the queue; here and there younger students were in tears, while older ones called desperately for friends, siblings, or other family members…
Harry caught sight of a pearly white figure drifting across the entrance hall below and yelled as loudly as he could over the clamor.
‘Nick! NICK! I need to talk to you!’
He forced his way back through the tide of students, finally reaching the bottom of the stairs, where Nearly Headless Nick, the ghost of Gryffindor, stood waiting for him.
‘Harry! Good to see you my boy!’
Nick made to grasp Harry’s hands with both of his own: Harry’s felt as though they had been thrust into icy water.
‘Nick, you’ve got to help me. Who’s the ghost of Ravenclaw Tower?’
Nearly Headless Nick looked surprised and a little offended.
‘The Gray Lady, of course; but if it is ghostly services you require—?’
‘It’s got to be her, it’s about her House—d’you know where she is?’
‘Harry?’ gasped Allison as she and Tracey caught up.
‘Let’s see…’
Nick’s head wobbled a little on his ruff as he turned hither and thither, peering over the heads of the swarming students.
‘That’s her over there, Harry, the young woman with the long hair.’
Harry looked in the direction of Nick’s transparent, pointing finger and saw a tall ghost who caught sight of Harry looking at her, raised her eyebrows, and drifted away through a solid wall.
Harry ran after her, with the girls trying to keep up but were getting caught behind the ocean of students. Once through the door of the corridor into which she had disappeared, he saw her at the very end of the passage, still gliding smoothly away from him.
‘Hey—wait—come back!’
She consented to pause, floating a few inches from the ground. Harry supposed that she was beautiful, with her waist-length hair and floor-length cloak, but she also looked haughty and proud. Close to, he recognized her as a ghost he had passed several times in the corridor, but to whom he had never spoken.
‘You’re the Gray Lady?’
She nodded but did not speak.
‘The ghost of Ravenclaw Tower?’
‘That is correct.’
Her tone was not encouraging.
‘Please: I need some help. I need to know anything you can tell me about the lost diadem.’
A cold smile curved her lips.
‘I am afraid,’ she said, turning to leave, ‘that I cannot help you.’
‘WAIT!’
He had not meant to shout, but anger and panic were threatening to overwhelm him. He glanced at his watch as she hovered in front of him. It was a quarter to midnight.
‘This is urgent,’ he said fiercely. ‘If that diadem’s at Hogwarts, I’ve got to find it, fast.’
‘You are hardly the first student to covet the diadem,’ she said disdainfully. ‘Generations of students have badgered me—‘
‘This isn’t about trying to get better marks!’ Harry shouted at her. ‘It’s about Voldemort—defeating Voldemort—or aren’t you interested in that?’
She could not blush, but her transparent cheeks became more opaque, and her voice was heated as she replied, ‘Of course I—how dare you suggest—?’
‘Well, help me, then!’
Her composure was slipping.
‘It—it is not a question of—‘ she stammered. ‘My mother’s diadem—‘
‘Your mother’s?’
She looked angry with herself.
‘When I lived,’ she said stiffly, ‘I was Helena Ravenclaw.’
‘You’re her daughter? But then, you must know what happened to it!’
‘While the diadem bestows wisdom,’ she said with an obvious effort to pull herself together, ‘I doubt that it would greatly increase your chances of defeating the wizard who calls himself Lord—‘
‘Haven’t I just told you, I’m not interested in wearing it!’ Harry said fiercely. ‘There’s no time to explain—but if you care about Hogwarts, if you want to see Voldemort finished, you’ve got to tell me anything you know about the diadem!’
She remained quite still, floating in midair, staring down at him, and a sense of hopelessness engulfed Harry. Of course, if she had known anything, she would have told Flitwick or Dumbledore, who had surely asked her the same question. He had shaken his head and made to turn away when she spoke in a low voice.
‘I stole the diadem from my mother.’
‘You—you did what?’
‘I stole the diadem,’ repeated Helena Ravenclaw in a in a whisper. ‘I sought to make myself cleverer, more important than my mother. I ran away with it.’
He did not know how he had managed to gain her confidence and did not ask; he simply listened, hard, as she went on.
‘My mother, they say, never admitted that the diadem was gone, but pretended that she had it still. She concealed her loss, my dreadful betrayal, even from the other founders of Hogwarts. Then my mother fell ill-fatally ill. In spite of my perfidy, she was desperate to see me one more time. She sent a man who had long loved me, though I spurned his advances, to find me. She knew that he would not rest until he had done so.’
Harry waited. She drew a deep breath of no air and threw back her head.
‘He tracked me to the forest where I was hiding. When I refused to return with him, he became violent. The Baron was always a hot-tempered man. Furious at my refusal, jealous of my freedom, he stabbed me.’
‘The Baron? You mean—?’
‘The Bloody Baron, yes, your House’s ghost,’ said the Gray Lady, and she lifted aside the cloak she wore to reveal a single dark wound in her white chest. ‘When he saw what he had done, he was overcome with remorse. He took the weapon that had claimed my life, and used it to kill himself. All these centuries later, he wears his chains as an act of penitence…as he should,’ she added bitterly.
‘And…and the diadem?’
‘It remained where I had hidden it when I heard the Baron blundering through the forest toward me. Concealed inside a hollow tree.’
‘A hollow tree?’ repeated Harry. ‘What tree? Where was this?’
‘A forest in Albania. A lonely place I thought was far beyond my mother’s reach.’
‘Albania,’ repeated Harry. Sense was emerging miraculously from confusion, and now he understood why she was telling him what she had denied Dumbledore and Flitwick. ‘You’ve already told someone this story, haven’t you? Another student?’
She closed her eyes and nodded.
‘Ihad...noidea...Hewas...flattering. Heseemedto...to understand…to sympathize…’
Yes, Harry thought, Tom Riddle would certainly have understood Helena Ravenclaw’s desire to possess fabulous objects to which she had little right.
‘Well, you weren’t the first person Riddle wormed things out of,’ Harry muttered. ‘He could be charming when he wanted…’
So Voldemort had managed to wheedle the location of the lost diadem out of the Gray Lady. He had traveled to that far-flung forest and retrieved the diadem from its hiding place, perhaps as soon as he left Hogwarts, before he even started work at Borgin and Burkes.
And wouldn’t those secluded Albanian woods have seemed an excellent refuge when, so much later, Voldemort had needed a place to lie low, undisturbed, for ten long years?
But the diadem, once it became his precious Horcrux, had not been left in that lowly tree…No, the diadem had been returned secretly to its true home, and Voldemort must have put it there—
‘—the night he asked for a job!’ said Harry, finishing his thought.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘He hid the diadem in the castle, the night he asked Dumbledore to let him teach!’ said Harry. Saying it out loud enabled him to make sense of it all. ‘He must’ve hidden the diadem on his way up to, or down from, Dumbledore’s office! But it was still worth trying to get the job—then he might’ve got the chance to nick Gryffindor’s sword as well…thank you, thanks!’
Harry left her floating there, looking utterly bewildered. As he rounded the corner back into the entrance hall, he checked his watch. It was five minutes until midnight, and though he now knew what the last Horcrux was, he was no closer to discovering where it was.
‘There you are-‘ said Tracey, as she and Allison finally found him, but lost in desperate speculation he ran right passed them, turned a corner, but he had taken only a few steps down the new corridor when the window to his left broke open with a deafening, shattering crash. As he leapt aside, a gigantic body flew in through the window and hit the opposite wall. Something large and furry detached itself, whimpering, from the new arrival and flung itself at Harry.
‘Hagrid!’ bellowed Harry and the girls, Harry had to fight off Fang the boarhound’s attentions as the enormous bearded figure clambered to his feet.
‘Harry, Tracey, Allison, yer here! Yer all here!’
Hagrid stooped down, bestowed upon the three friends a cursory and rib-cracking hug, then ran back to the shattered window.
‘Good boy, Grawpy!’ he bellowed through the hole in the window. ‘I’ll see yer in a moment, there’s a good lad!’
Beyond Hagrid, out in the dark night, Harry saw bursts of light in the distance and heard a weird, keening scream. He looked down at his watch. It was midnight. The battle had begun.
‘Blimey, Harry,’ panted Hagrid, ‘this is it, eh? Time ter fight?’
‘Hagrid, how did you know to be here?’ asked Tracey quickly.
‘Heard You-Know-Who from up in our cave,’ said Hagrid grimly. ‘Voice carried, didn’ it? “Yeh got till midnight ter gimme Potter.” Knew yeh mus’ be here, knew what mus’ be happenin’. Get down, Fang. So we come ter join in, me an’ Grawpy an’ Fang. Smashed our way through the boundary by the forest, Grawpy was carryin’ us, Fang an’ me. Told him ter let me down at the castle, so he shoved me through the window, bless him. Not exac’ly what I meant, bu’—where’s Theo?’
‘We don’t know, Harry I’m guessing you haven’t been able to find him yet,’ said Allison.
‘No,’ said Harry, ‘come on.’
They all hurried together along the corridor, Fang lolloping beside them. Harry could hear movement through the corridors all around: running footsteps, shouts; through the windows, he could see more flashes of light in the dark grounds.
‘Where’re we goin’?’ puffed Hagrid, pounding along at Harry’s heels, making the floorboards quake.
‘I dunno exactly,’ said Harry, making another random turn, ‘but Theodore and his boyfriend must be around here somewhere…’
The first casualties of the battle were already strewn across the passage ahead: The two stone gargoyles that usually guarded the entrance to the staffroom had been smashed apart by a jinx that had sailed through another broken window. Their remains stirred feebly on the floor, and as Harry and the girls leapt over one of their disembodied heads, it moaned faintly.
‘Oh, don’t mind me…I’ll just lie here and crumble…’
Its ugly stone face made Harry think suddenly of the marble bust of Rowena Ravenclaw at Xenophilius’s house, wearing that mad headdress—and then of the statue in Ravenclaw Tower, with the stone diadem upon her white curls…And as he reached the end of the passage, he finally remembered why the stone diadem had looked familiar, he remembered a third stone effigy came back to him: that of an ugly old warlock, onto whose head Harry himself had placed a wig and a battered old tiara. The shock shot through Harry with the heat of firewhisky, and he nearly stumbled.
He knew, at last, where the Horcrux sat waiting for him…
Tom Riddle, who confided in no one and operated alone, might have been arrogant enough to assume that he, and only he, had penetrated the deepest mysteries of Hogwarts Castle. Of course, Dumbledore and Flitwick, those model pupils, had never set foot in that particular place, but he, Harry, had strayed off the beaten track in his time at school—here at last was a secret he and Voldemort knew, that Dumbledore had never discovered—
He was roused by Professor Sprout, who was thundering past followed by Neville, Susan Bones, and half a dozen others, all of them wearing earmuffs and carrying what appeared to be large potted plants.
‘Mandrakes!’ Neville bellowed at them over his shoulder as he ran. ‘Going to lob them over the walls—they won’t like this!’
Harry knew now where to go. He sped off, with Hagrid and Fang galloping behind him. They passed portrait after portrait, and the painted figures raced alongside them, wizards and witches in ruffs and breeches, in armor and cloaks, cramming themselves into each others’ canvases, screaming news from other parts of the castle. As they reached the end of this corridor, the whole castle shook, and Harry knew, as a gigantic vase blew off its plinth with explosive force, that it was in the grip of enchantments more sinister than those of the teachers and the Order.
‘It’s all righ’, Fang—it’s all righ’!’ yelled Hagrid, but the great boarhound had taken flight as slivers of china flew like shrapnel through the air, and Hagrid pounded off after the terrified dog, leaving Harry with just Allison and Tracey.
‘Where are we going?’ begged Tracey, she and Allison both had their wands drawn now, but Harry had no time to answer.
He forged on through the trembling passages, his wand at the ready, and for the length of one corridor the little painted knight, Sir Cadogan, rushed from painting to painting beside him, clanking along in his armour, screaming encouragement, his fat little pony cantering behind him.
‘Braggarts and rogues, dogs and scoundrels, drive them out, Harry Potter, see them off!’
Harry hurtled around a corner and found Fred and a small knot of students, including Lee Jordan, Terry Boot, and Hannah Abbott, standing beside another empty plinth, whose statue had concealed a secret passageway. Their wands were drawn and they were listening at the concealed hole.
‘Nice night for it!’ Fred shouted as the castle quaked again, and the three friends sprinted by, elated and terrified in equal measure. Along yet another corridor he dashed, and then there were owls everywhere, and Mrs Norris was hissing and trying to bat them with her paws, no doubt to return them to their proper place…
‘Potter!’
Aberforth Dumbledore stood blocking the corridor ahead, his wand held ready.
‘I’ve had hundreds of kids thundering through my pub, Potter.’
‘Sorry—‘ began Allison.
‘We’re evacuating,’ Harry said, ‘Voldemort’s—‘
‘—attacking because they haven’t handed you over, yeah,’ said Aberforth. ‘I’m not deaf, the whole of Hogsmeade heard him. And it never occurred to any of you to keep a few Death Eater spawn hostage? You three may be good, but some of those Slytherins you just released are going to go straight to their parents!’
‘It wouldn’t stop Voldemort,’ said Harry, ‘and your brother would never have done it. We have to give everyone a chance and not punish those before they’ve made their choice.’
Aberforth grunted and tore away in the opposite direction.
“Your brother would never have done it”...Well, it was the truth, Harry thought as he ran on again: Dumbledore, who had defended Snape for so long, would never have held students ransom...
And then he skidded around a final corner and with a yell of mingled relief and fury he saw them: Theodore and Colin, both with their arms full of familiar large, curved, dirty yellow objects, Colin with a broomstick under his arm.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ Harry shouted.
‘I could kill you right now!’ shouted Allison, but Harry could tell she was relieved.
‘Chamber of Secrets,’ said Theodore.
‘Chamber—what?’ said Harry, the three of them coming to an unsteady halt before the couple.
‘Theo, he’s an absolute genius!’ said Colin completely out of breath. ‘He came up with a plan to help you guys! Just after you left Harry and I caught up a bit with Dennis I asked Theo what the plan was now, and at first he said he didn’t know, but then I could practically see the lightbulb turn on above his head. He said there were objects of some sort you needed to destroy to kill You-Know-Who, and that he just realized where he could get some, and so he took us to the Chamber of Secrets!’
‘Really—?’ asked Tracey.
‘Yes, I realized that Dumbledore only took one fang, so the dead Basilisk likely still had nearly a full mouthful,’ said Theodore simply, but he still had a wide grin on his face just like Colin’s.
Harry’s eyes dropped to the objects clutched in Theodore and Colin’s arms and realized what they were: probably every fang left from the mouth of Salazar’s basilisk.
‘But how did you get in there?’ he asked, staring from the fangs to Theodore. ‘You need to speak Parseltongue!’
Theodore made a horrible strangled hissing noise.
‘Sometimes when you have your Voldemort vision nightmares you talk Parseltongue in your sleep, I guess seven years as your dorm-mate has its advantages,’ he told Harry apologetically.
‘It still took him a few tries, but I guess he has a Grass Snake as a Patronus for a reason as eventually the door opened!’ explained Colin. ‘My boyfriend is absolutely brilliant!’
‘So…’ Harry was struggling to keep up. ‘So…’
‘So hand us the cup so that we’re one more down!’ exclaimed Theodore, so sudden desperation coming over him.
Tracey quickly shoved her hand into her purse and a moment later drew out the ancient cup and placed it in front of Theodore. He knelt down, raised the fang above his head, and with one hard thrust Theodore broke the cup into several pieces. Harry couldn’t be sure, but it was almost like there was a little screech along with the breaking of the metal.
‘Alright! What’s next!’ said Colin eagerly, but Theodore put down his fang and took Colin’s hands in his.
‘This next part has to be just the three of us, it’s too dangerous for more to know,’ said Theodore very seriously. ‘I need you to join the fight, they’ll need every D.A. member there is.’
Colin looked reluctant, but he gave Theodore the tiniest nod.
‘I’ll go find Dennis then, we should stick together, and I can return his broom,’ said Colin.
‘Just about everyone under seventeen was evacuated,’ noted Harry.
‘Ha, I know my brother, he double backed when no one was looking,’ said Colin as he let go of Theodore, he then gave his boyfriend a long proper kiss. ‘Stay safe, I love you.’
‘I love you too,’ Theodore managed before Colin ran down the corridor and out of sight. Slowly Theodore turned back to the others. ‘That is one more Horcrux we don’t have to worry about. What’s happened since I left? What is next?’
As he said it, there was an explosion from overhead: All four of them looked up as dust fell from the ceiling and they heard a distant scream.
‘I know what the diadem looks like, and I know where it is,’ said Harry, talking fast. ‘He hid it exactly where I hid my old Potions book, where everyone’s been hiding stuff for centuries. He thought he was the only one to find it. Come one.’
