It was like sinking into an old nightmare; for an instant Harry knelt again besideDumbledore’s body at the foot of the tallest tower at Hogwarts, but in reality he was
staring at a tiny body curled upon the grass, pierced by Bellatrix’s silver knife. Harry’s
voice was still saying, “Dobby…Dobby…” even though he knew that the elf had gone
Where he could not call him back.
After a minute or so he realized that they had, after all, come to the right place, for
Here were Bill and Fleur, Dean and Luna, gathering around him as he knelt over the elf.
“Hermione,” he said suddenly. “Where is she?”
“Ron’s taken her inside,” said Bill. “She’ll be all right.” Harry looked back down at
Dobby. He stretched out a hand and pulled the sharp blade from the elf’s body, then
Dragged off his own jacket and covered Dobby in it like a blanket.
The sea was rushing against the rock somewhere nearby; Harry listened to it
While the others talked, discussing matters in which he could take no interest, making
Decisions, Dean carried the injured Griphook into the house, Fleur hurrying with them;
Now Bill was really knowing what he was saying. As he did so, he gazed down at the
Tiny body, and his scar prickled and burned, and in one part of his mind, viewed as if
From the wrong end of a long telescope, he saw Voldemort punishing those they had left
behind at the Malfoy Manor. His rage was dreadful and yet Harry’s grief for Dobby
Seemed to diminish it, so that it became a distant storm that reached Harry from across a
Vast, silent ocean.
“I want to do it properly,” were the first words of which Harry was fully
conscious of speaking. “Not by magic. Have you got a spade?” And shortly afterward he
Had set to work, alone, digging the grave in the place that Bill had shown him at the end
Of the garden, between bushes. He dug with a kind of fury, relishing the manual work,
Glorying in the non-magic of it, for every drop of his sweat and every blister felt like a
Gift to the elf who had saved their lives.
His scar burned, but he was master of the pain, he felt it, yet was apart from it.
He had learned control at last, learned to shut his mind to Voldemort, the very thing
Dumbledore had wanted him to learn from Snape. Just as Voldemort had not been able
To possess Harry while Harry was consumed with grief for Sirius, so his thoughts could
Not penetrate Harry now while he mourned Dobby. Grief, it seemed, drove Voldemort
out…though Dumbledore, of course, would have said that it was love.
On Harry dug, deeper and deeper into the hard, cold earth, subsuming his grief in
Sweat, denying the pain in his scar. In the darkness, with nothing but the sound of his
Own breath and the rushing sea to keep him company, the things that had happened at the
Malfoys’ returned to him, the things he had heard came back to him, and understanding
blossomed in the darkness…
The steady rhythm of his arms beat time with his thoughts.
Hallows…Horcruxes…Hallows…Horcruxes…yet no longer burned with that weird,
Obsessive longing. Loss and fear had snuffed it out. He felt as though he had been
Slapped awake again.
Date: 2015-12-11; view: 695
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