Vanished amongst the spiders, and with a great scurrying, a foulSwarming movement, they retreated under the onslaught of spells,
Hagrid buried in their midst.
"HAGRID!" Harry heard someone calling his own name, whether friend
or foe he did not care: He was springint down the front steps into
The dark grounds, and the spiders were swarming away with their
Prey, and he could see nothing of Hagrid at all.
"HAGRID!"
He thought he could make out an enormous arm waving from the mdist
Of the spider swarm, but as he made to chase after them, his way
Was impeded by a monumental foot, which swung down out of the
Darkness and made the ground on which he stood shudder. He looked
Up: A giant stood before him, twenty feet high, its head ihidden in
Shadow, nothing but its treelike, hairy shins illuminated by light
From the castle doors. With one brutal, fluid movement, it smashed
A massive fist through an upper window, and glass rained down upon
Harryk, forcing him back under the shelter of the doorway.
"Oh my--!" shrieked Hermione, as she and ron caught up with Harry
And gazed upward at the giant now trying to seize people through
The window above.
"DON'T!" ron yelled, grabbing Hermione's hand as she raised her
wand. "Stun him and he'll crush half the castle--"
"HAGGER?"
Grawp came lurching around the corner of the castle; only dnow did
Harry realzie that Grawp was, indeed, an undersized giant. The
Gargantuan monster trying to crush people on the upper floors
Turned around and let out a rorar. The stone steps tremebled as he
stomped toward his smaller kin, and Grawp's lopsided mouth fell
Open, showing yellow, half brick-sized teeth; and then they
Launched themselves at each other with the savagery of lions.
"RUN!" Harry roared; the ngiht was full of hideous yells and blows
as the giants wrestled, and he seized Hermione's hand and tore down
The steps into the grounds, Ron bringing up the rear. Harry had not
Lost hope of finding and saving Hagrid; he ran so fast that they
Were halfway toward the forest before they were brought up short
Again.
The air around them had frozen: Harry's breath caught and
Solidified in his chest. Shapes moved out in the darkness, swirling
Figures of concentrated blackness, moving in a great wave towards
The castles, their faces hooded and their breath rattling...
Ron and Hermione closed in beside him as the sounds of fighting
Behind them grew suddenly muted, deadened, because a silence only
Dementors could bring was falling thickly through the night, and
Fred was gone, and Hagrid was suurely dying or already dead...
"come on, Harry!" said Hermione's voice from a very long way away.
"Patronuses, Harry, come on!"
He raised his wand, but a dull hopelessness was spreading
throughout him: How many more lay dead that he did not yet know
about? He felt as though his soul had already half left his body....
"HARRY, COME ON!" screamed Hermione.
A hundred dementors were advancing, gliding toward them, sucking
their way closer to Harry's despair, which was like a promise of a
Feast...
He saw Ron's silver terrier burst into the air, flicker feebly, and
expire; he saw Hermione's otter twist in midair and fade, and his
Date: 2015-12-11; view: 511
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