Wand lit only a tiny part, was worry about what would happen next. It was as though he

Had been hurtling toward this point for weeks, months, maybe even years, but how he had

Come to an abrupt halt, run out of road.

There were other Horcruxes out there somewhere, but he did not have the faintest

Idea where they could be. He did not even know what all of them were. Meanwhile he

Was at a loss to know how to destroy the only one that they had found, the Horcrux that

Currently lay against the bare flesh of his chest. Curiously, it had not taken heat from his

Body, but lay so cold against his skin it might just have emerged from icy water. From

Time to time Harry thought, or perhaps imagined, that he could feel the tiny heartbeat

Ticking irregularly alongside his own. Nameless forebodings crept upon him as he sat

There in the dark. He tried to resist them, push them away, yet they came at him

Relentlessly. Neither can live while the other survives. Ron and Hermione, now talking

softly behind him in the tent, could walk away if they wanted to: He could not. And it

Seemed to Harry as he sat there trying to master his own fear and exhaustion, that the

Horcrux against his chest was ticking away the time he had left. . . . Stupid idea, he told

himself, don’t think that. . . .

His scar was starting to prickle again. He was afraid that he was making it happen

By having these thoughts, and tried to direct them into another channel. He thought of

Poor Kreacher, who had expected them home and had received Yaxley instead. Would

the elf keep silent or would he tell the Death Eater everything he knew? Harry wanted to

Believe that Kreacher had changed towards him in the past month, that he would be loyal

now, but who knew what would happen? What if the Death Eaters tortured the elf? Sick

images swarmed into Harry’s head and he tried to push these away too, for there was

nothing he could do for Kreacher: He and Hermione had already decided against trying to

summon him; what if someone from the Ministry came too? They could not count on

Elfish Apparition being free from the same flaw that had taken Yaxley to Grimmauld

Place on the hem of Hermione’s sleeve.

Harry’s scar was burning now. He thought that there was so much they did not

know: Lupin had been right about magic they had never encountered or imagined. Why

hadn’t Dumbledore explained more? Had he thought that there would be time; that he

would live for years, for centuries perhaps, like his friend Nicolas Flamel? If so, he had

Been wrong. . . . Snape had seen to that. . . . Snape, the sleeping snake, who had struck at

The top of the tower . . .

And Dumbledore had fallen . . . fallen . . .

“Give it to me, Gregorovitch.”

Harry’s voice was high, clear, and cold, his wand held in front of him by a longfingered

White hand. The man at whom he was pointing was suspended upside down in

Midair, though there were no ropes holding him; he swung there, invisibly and eerily

bound, his limbs wrapped about him, his terrified face, on a level with Harry’s ruddy due

to the blood that had rushed to his head. He had pure-white hair and a thick, bushy beard:

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 572