‘Argh!’

  A fistful of tubers had hit the Cloak over Ron’s head; the slimy, green roots were suspended improbably in mid-air as Ron tried to shake them loose.

  ‘Someone’s invisible there!’ shouted a masked Death Eater, pointing.

  Dean made the most of the Death Eater’s momentary distraction, knocking him out with a Stunning Spell; Dolohov attempted to retaliate and Parvati shot a Body-Bind Curse at him.

  ‘LET’S GO!’ Harry yelled, and he, Ron and Hermione gathered the Cloak tightly around themselves and pelted, heads down, through the midst of the fighters, slipping a little in pools of Snargaluff juice, towards the top of the marble staircase into the Entrance Hall.

  ‘I’m Draco Malfoy, I’m Draco, I’m on your side!’

  Draco was on the upper landing, pleading with another masked Death Eater. Harry Stunned the Death Eater as they passed: Malfoy looked around, beaming, for his saviour, and Ron punched him from under the Cloak. Malfoy fell backwards on top of the Death Eater, his mouth bleeding, utterly bemused.

  ‘And that’s the second time we’ve saved your life tonight, you two-faced bastard!’ Ron yelled.

  There were more duellers all over the stairs and in the Hall, Death Eaters everywhere Harry looked: Yaxley, close to the front doors, in combat with Flitwick, a masked Death Eater duelling Kingsley right beside them. Students ran in every direction, some carrying or dragging injured friends. Harry directed a Stunning Spell towards the masked Death Eater, it missed but nearly hit Neville, who had emerged from nowhere brandishing armfuls of Venomous Tentacula, which looped itself happily around the nearest Death Eater and began reeling him in.

  Harry, Ron and Hermione sped down the marble staircase: glass shattered to their left and the Slytherin hourglass that had recorded house points spilled its emeralds everywhere, so that people slipped and staggered as they ran. Two bodies fell from the balcony overhead as they reached the ground and a grey blur that Harry took for an animal sped four-legged across the hall to sink its teeth into one of the fallen.

  ‘NO!’ shrieked Hermione, and with a deafening blast from her wand Fenrir Greyback was thrown backwards from the feebly stirring body of Lavender Brown. He hit the marble banisters and struggled to return to his feet. Then, with a bright white flash and a crack, a crystal ball fell on the top of his head and he crumpled to the ground and did not move.

  ‘I have more!’ shrieked Professor Trelawney from over the banisters, ‘more for any who want them! Here –’

  And with a movement like a tennis serve, she heaved another enormous crystal sphere from her bag, waved her wand through the air, and caused the ball to speed across the hall and smash through a window. At the same moment, the heavy wooden front doors burst open, and more of the gigantic spiders forced their way into the Entrance Hall.

  Screams of terror rent the air: the fighters scattered, Death Eaters and Hogwartians alike, and red and green jets of light flew into the midst of the oncoming monsters, which shuddered and reared, more terrifying than ever.

  ‘How do we get out?’ yelled Ron over all the screaming, but before either Harry or Hermione could answer they were bowled aside: Hagrid had come thundering down the stairs, brandishing his flowery pink umbrella.

  ‘Don’t hurt ’em, don’t hurt ’em!’ he yelled.

  ‘HAGRID, NO!’

  Harry forgot everything else: he sprinted out from under the Cloak, running bent double to avoid the curses illuminating the whole Hall.

  ‘HAGRID, COME BACK!’

  But he was not even halfway to Hagrid when he saw it happen: Hagrid vanished amongst the spiders, and with a great scurrying, a foul swarming 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 sprinting 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 midst 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 hidden in shadow, nothing but its tree-like, 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 Harry, forcing him back under the shelter of the doorway.

  ‘Oh my –!’ shrieked Hermione, as she and Ron caught up with Harry and gazed upwards 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 round the corner of the castle; only now did Harry realise that Grawp was, indeed, an undersized giant. The gargantuan monster trying to crush people on the upper floors looked around and let out a roar. The stone steps trembled as he stomped towards 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 night 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 towards 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 castle, 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 …

  ‘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 through him: Fred was gone, and Hagrid was surely dying or already dead; 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 towards 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 mid-air and fade, and his own wand trembled in his hand, and he almost welcomed the oncoming oblivion, the promise of nothing, of no feeling …

  And then a silver hare, a boar and a fox soared past Harry, Ron and Hermione’s heads: the Dementors fell back before the creatures’ approach. Three more people had arrived out of the darkness to stand beside them, their wands outstretched, continuing to cast their Patronuses: Luna, Ernie and Seamus.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Luna encouragingly, as if they were back in the Room of Requirement and this was simply spell practice for the DA. ‘That’s right, Harry … come on, think of something happy …’

  ‘Something happy?’ he said, his voice cracked.

  ‘We’re all still here,’ she whispered, ‘we’re still fighting. Come on, now …’

  There was a silver spark, then a wavering light, and then, with the greatest effort it had ever cost him, the stag burst from the end of Harry’s wand. It cantered forwards, and now the Dementors scattered in earnest, and immediately the night was mild again, but the sounds of the surrounding battle were loud in his ears.

  ‘Can’t thank you enough,’ said Ron shakily, turning to Luna, Ernie and Seamus, ‘you just saved –’

  With a roar and an earthquaking tremor, another giant came lurching out of the darkness from the direction of the Forest, brandishing a club taller than any of them.

  ‘RUN!’ Harry shouted again, but the others needed no telling: they all scattered, and not a second too soon, for next moment the creature’s vast foot had fallen exactly where they had been standing. Harry looked round: Ron and Hermione were following him, but the other three had vanished back into the battle.

  ‘Let’s get out of range!’ yelled Ron, as the giant swung its club again and its bellows echoed through the night, across the grounds where bursts of red and green light continued to illuminate the darkness.

  ‘The Whomping Willow,’ said Harry. ‘Go!’

  Somehow he walled it all up in his mind, crammed it into a small space into which he could not look now: thoughts of Fred and Hagrid, and his terror for all the people he loved, scattered in and outside the castle, must all wait, because they had to run, had to reach the snake, and Voldemort, because that was, as Hermione said, the only way to end it –

  He sprinted, half believing he could outdistance death itself, ignoring the jets of light flying in the darkness all around him, and the sound of the lake crashing like the sea, and the creaking of the Forbidden Forest though the night was windless; through grounds that seemed, themselves, to have risen in rebellion, he ran faster than he had ever moved in his life, and it was he who saw the great tree first, the Willow that protected the secret at its roots with whip-like, slashing branches.

  Panting and gasping Harry slowed down, skirting the Willow’s swiping branches, peering through the darkness towards its thick trunk, trying to see the single knot in the bark of the old tree that would paralyse it. Ron and Hermione caught up, Hermione so out of breath she could not speak.

  ‘How – how’re we going to get in?’ panted Ron. ‘I can – see the place – if we just had – Crookshanks again –’

  ‘Crookshanks?’ wheezed Hermione, bent double, clutching her chest. ‘Are you a wizard, or what?’

  ‘Oh – right – yeah –’

  Ron looked around, then directed his wand at a twig on the ground and said, ‘Wingardium Leviosa!’ The twig flew up from the ground, spun through the air as if caught by a gust of wind, then zoomed directly at the trunk through the Willow’s ominously swaying branches. It jabbed at a place near the roots and at once, the writhing tree became still.

  ‘Perfect!’ panted Hermione.

  ‘Wait.’

  For one teetering second, while the crashes and booms of the battle filled the air, Harry hesitated. Voldemort wanted him to do this, wanted him to come … was he leading Ron and Hermione into a trap?

  But then the reality seemed to close upon him, cruel and plain: the only way forwards was to kill the snake, and the snake was where Voldemort was, and Voldemort was at the end of this tunnel …

  ‘Harry, we’re coming, just get in there!’ said Ron, pushing him forwards.

  Harry wriggled into the earthy passage hidden in the tree’s roots. It was a much tighter squeeze than it had been the last time they had entered it. The tunnel was low-ceilinged: they had had to double up to move through it nearly four years previously, now there was nothing for it but to crawl. Harry went first, his wand illuminated, expecting at any moment to meet barriers, but none came. They moved in silence, Harry’s gaze fixed upon the swinging beam of the wand held in his fist.

  At last the tunnel began to slope upwards and Harry saw a sliver of light ahead. Hermione tugged at his ankle.

  ‘The Cloak!’ she whispered. ‘Put the Cloak on!’

  He groped behind him and she forced the bundle of slippery cloth into his free hand. With difficulty he dragged it over himself, murmured, ‘Nox,’ extinguishing his wandlight, and continued on his hands and knees, as silently as possible, all his senses straining, expecting every second to be discovered, to hear a cold clear voice, see a flash of green light.

  And then he heard voices coming from the room directly ahead of them, only slightly muffled by the fact that the opening at the end of the tunnel had been blocked up by what looked like an old crate. Hardly daring to breathe, Harry edged right up to the opening and peered through a tiny gap left between crate and wall.

  The room beyond was dimly lit, but he could see Nagini, swirling and coiling like a serpent underwater, safe in her enchanted, starry sphere, which floated unsupported in mid-air. He could see the edge of a table, and a long-fingered, white hand toying with a wand. Then Snape spoke, and Harry’s heart lurched: Snape was inches away from where he crouched, hidden.

  ‘… my Lord, their resistance is crumbling –’

  ‘– and it is doing so without your help,’ said Voldemort, in his high, clear voice. ‘Skilled wizard though you are, Severus, I do not think you will make much difference now. We are almost there … almost.’

  ‘Let me find the boy. Let me bring you Potter. I know I can find him, my Lord. Please.’

  Snape strode past the gap, and Harry drew back a little, keeping his eyes fixed upon Nagini, wondering whether there was any spell that might penetrate the protection surrounding her, but he could not think of anything. One failed attempt, and he would give away his position …

  Voldemort stood up. Harry could see him now, see the red eyes, the flattened, serpentine face, the pallor of him gleaming slightly in the semi-darkness.

  ‘I have a problem, Severus,’ said Voldemort softly.

  ‘My Lord?’ said Snape.

  Voldemort raised the Elder Wand, holding it as delicately and precisely as a conductor’s baton.

  ‘Why doesn’t it work for me, Severus?’

  In the silence, Harry imagined he could hear the snake hissing slightly as it coiled and uncoiled, or was it Voldemort’s sibilant sigh lingering on the air?

  ‘My – my Lord?’ said Snape blankly. ‘I do not understand. You – you have performed extraordinary magic with that wand.’

  ‘No,’ said Voldemort. ‘I have performed my usual magic. I am extraordinary, but this wand … no. It has not revealed the wonders it has promised. I feel no difference between this wand and the one I procured from Ollivander all those years ago.’

  Voldemort’s tone was musing, calm, but Harry’s scar had begun to throb and pulse: pain was building in his forehead and he could feel that controlled sense of fury building inside Voldemort.

  ‘No difference,’ said Voldemort again.

  Snape did not speak. Harry could not see his face: he wondered whether Snape sensed danger, was trying to find the right words, to reassure his master.

  Voldemort started to move around the room: Harry lost sight of him for seconds as he prowled, speaking in that same measured voice, while the pain and fury mounted in Harry.

  ‘I have thought long and hard, Severus … do you know why I have called you back from the battle?’

  And for a moment Harry saw Snape’s profile: his eyes were fixed upon the coiling snake in its enchanted cage.

  ‘No, my Lord, but I beg you will let me return. Let me find Potter.’

  ‘You sound like Lucius. Neither of you understands Potter as I do. He does not need finding. Potter will come to me. I know his weakness, you see, his one great flaw. He will hate watching the others struck down around him, knowing that it is for him that it happens. He will want to stop it at any cost. He will come.’

  ‘But my Lord, he might be killed accidentally by one other than yourself –’

  ‘My instructions to my Death Eaters have been perfectly clear. Capture Potter. Kill his friends – the more, the better – but do not kill him.

  ‘But it is of you that I wished to speak, Severus, not Harry Potter. You have been very valuable to me. Very valuable.’

  ‘My Lord knows I seek only to serve him. But – let me go and find the boy, my Lord. Let me bring him to you. I know I can –’

  ‘I have told you, no!’ said Voldemort, and Harry caught the glint of red in his eyes as he turned again, and the swishing of his cloak was like the slithering of a snake, and he felt Voldemort’s impatience in his burning scar. ‘My concern at the moment, Severus, is what will happen when I finally meet the boy!’

  ‘My Lord, there can be no question, surely –?’

  ‘– but there is a question, Severus. There is.’

  Voldemort halted, and Harry could see him plainly again as he slid the Elder Wand through his white fingers, staring at Snape.

  ‘Why did both the wands I have used fail when directed at Harry Potter?’

  ‘I – I cannot answer that, my Lord.’

  ‘Can’t you?’

  The stab of rage felt like a spike driven through Harry’s head: he forced his own fist into his mouth to stop himself from crying out in pain. He closed his eyes, and suddenly he was Voldemort, looking into Snape’s pale face.

  ‘My wand of yew did everything of which I asked it, Severus, except to kill Harry Potter. Twice it failed. Ollivander told me under torture of the twin cores, told me to take another’s wand. I did so, but Lucius’s wand shattered upon meeting Potter’s.’

  ‘I – I have no explanation, my Lord.’

  Snape was not looking at Voldemort now. His dark eyes were still fixed upon the coiling serpent in its protective sphere.

  ‘I sought a third wand, Severus. The Elder Wand, the Wand of Destiny, the Deathstick. I took it from its previous master. I took it from the grave of Albus Dumbledore.’

  And now Snape looked at Voldemort, and Snape’s face was like a death mask. It was marble white and so still that when he spoke it was a shock to see that anyone lived behind the blank eyes.