I have... RETURNED! Enjoy, sweetums. 😊
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Originally posted by H. S. 6
(...)Harry nodded. “It came out of the water. We got in it—he told me not to touch the water. It pulled us, but when we were going, we began to see these…” he hesitated a moment. “bodies. Inferi is what they’re called, I think.”
“Inferi? Interesting…” spoke McGonagall, her voice a slight whisper. “Predictable, though.”
Harry waited before starting again. “While we were in the boat, they didn’t do anything—just floated there—but that was what had jumped up when we had tried to summon the horcrux.”
“When we got to the island where the pedestal was, we got out of the boat. The pedestal had a… basin with this green potion in it.”
“Green?” asked Moody. He sat up in his chair, evidently interested. He frowned. “A green potion?”
Harry nodded. Moody narrowed his natural eye, frowning, but didn’t say anything. Harry wondered briefly why the Auror had reacted this way but dismissed it and continued.
“Dumbledore made me promise,” Harry paused. “He made me promise to do anything he asked me. He tried to Vanish the potion—he said he thought the horcrux was there—but he couldn’t.”
“He said he would have to drink it. He conjured up a goblet, made me promise to obey him again, and began to drink the stuff.”
Moody mumbled something incoherently.
“When he got about halfway through, though, he started to scream… like he was in pain.”
“What did he say, Harry?”
Silence. Harry reached up to message his head. This was even more painful than he had imagined it would be.
“He was saying things like, ‘Stop. Make it stop,’ and I remember him saying, ‘I don’t want to…’ ‘Don’t make me.’ I knew the potion was hurting him, but I had to make him—I had to make him drink it.”
Moody leaned forward, resting his arms on the table. His blue eye swiveled quickly at first, before slowing and stopping at Harry. “Was there anything he said that was particularly… interesting, Harry?”
At first, Harry was ready to answer right away. “No,” he replied. “No, there was nothing…” But he stopped, trailing off, thinking. “Actually, he was saying—he did say, ‘I know I did wrong. Make it stop and I won’t ever do it again…’ or something like that.” Now it was Harry’s turn to furrow his brow. He hadn’t really thought of that night like this before, reliving every single painful detail. “And… and he said, ‘It’s all my fault.’”
Harry watched Moody, who shifted his weight in his seat, electric blue orb whirring around rapidly.
McGonagall broke the silence. “And after that, Mr. Potter?”
“Well, I had to make him drink the whole basin, and by the time he was done, he was on the ground in pain. Those… those things—they started coming up out of the water. The Inferi. They looked like walking bodies… like zombies.”
“But Dumbledore kept shouting for water. I had to make him drink water from the lake, because when I tried to conjure up fresh water, it would vanish before I could make him drink it.
“Those things kept coming at us—they came up from everywhere. I tried to fight them off, but then—Dumbledore wound up saving me. He used fire as a barrier between us and them.”
“While the fire was going, they wouldn’t come near us. We got all the way to the other side of the lake, and the Inferi finally stopped following us. I remember Dumbledore looked really…” Harry paused a moment. “exhausted. Really tired. I told him I could get us back to the school by Apparating.”
“Did you?” inquired Mrs. Weasley.
Harry nodded. “I Apparated us both to Hogsmeade. We landed right up the way from… from Madame Rosmerta’s. She came out, told us about the Dark Mark over the school. That’s when we noticed it.”
“She lent us brooms. We flew up to the castle. We landed on the roof of the tower that was right under the Mark. Dumbledore told me to go on through the door and see what was going on…” Harry trailed off, casting his gaze downwards to the table.
“This is where we need the details, Mr. Potter. They are extremely important,” prodded Professor McGonagall.
“Just as I went to open the door, it swung open itself. Malfoy came out and cast a disarming spell on Dumbledore—he couldn’t see me because I had my invisibility cloak on—and at the same time Dumbledore cast a paralyzing spell on me, just before his wand flew over the ramparts.”
Moody shifted in his seat.
“So, when you opened the door to see what was happening, Malfoy came out, but he couldn’t see you because of the invisibility cloak. He cast a disarming spell and Albus cast a paralyzing spell on you?” said Mrs. Weasley, sucking in a breath of air when she was finished.
Harry nodded. “I was propped up against the rampart wall, under the cloak, and totally unable to move. If he didn’t cast that spell, I would have been able to do something…” He trailed off.
Moody answered quickly, saying, “There was nothing else you could have done, boy. Albus didn’t want you hurt, that’s all.” He grinned, “You’ve been known for your heroic acts in the past; can’t blame him for what he did.”
“Guess not,” replied Harry. There was an awkward moment of silence after.
McGonagall sat up, clearing her throat. “Continue, please.”
“Right. Well, we were up there for a while: me, Malfoy, and Dumbledore. Malfoy was stalling; he said he was supposed to kill Dumbledore, but he wasn’t doing anything. He had him at wand-point; Dumbledore didn’t have anything to defend himself with. Not to mention the fact that he seemed so tired…” Harry closed his eyes for a moment. “He seemed so weak.”
“The potion he drank,” commented Tonks. “It must have been the potion.”
Harry nodded. “Probably. And he was scared—Malfoy, I mean—he seemed scared to death. Dumbledore kept talking to him; he told him that it wasn’t too late to turn around—that it wasn’t too late to hide from Voldemort.”
“Malfoy didn’t want to hear it; he was saying Voldemort would kill him if he failed—kill his family. But Dumbledore kept telling him it wasn’t to late; that Snape…” He spat the word out as if a vile taste had just soured his mouth. “was still working for the Order, and that Voldemort had no idea.”
“But Malfoy knew—he knew Snape had been deceiving us all along. He knew Snape was a double-agent—an actual double agent. He told Dumbledore that he’d been tricked, but still Dumbledore refused to listen. And then… we heard shouts downstairs—bangs—and the door burst open. The Death Eaters were there.”
“Who was it that had come up?” inquired McGonagall.
“Fenrir and Dumbledore talked for a moment—Dumbledore stayed calm still. And then Amycus, Dumbledore noted, and Alecto?”
McGonagall nodded. “Friends.”
“And then, after a minute or two, Snape came up…” This time the pause was long. Moments passed without a word, without a breath.
“Dumbledore…” The word caught in Harry’s throat. Hot tears formed in his eyes, forcing him to close them. He was already imagining the moment when Snape had raised his wand, and…
“And that was when… that was when it happened?” Mrs. Weasley’s voice was soft and quiet. Harry took a deep breath, forcing his tears away. He opened his eyes to see that Mrs. Weasley’s own were moist. He nodded slightly in response.
“He… he begged,” Harry confessed. “He pleaded for his life—pleaded!—to the man he had trusted for so many years!” His voice had risen to a shout. The sadness evaporated, leaving only the familiar resentful bitterness that he had come to know for the days and weeks following that night.
Another silence. The world was muted for minutes, hours, years. Finally, shattering the silence like a hammer to glass, McGonagall pushed her chair away from the table to stand up. “That’s enough for today, Harry, thank you. This is painful for all of his, but I’m sure you can understand the importance of getting the details straight.” She smiled weakly.
Mrs. Weasley stood, dabbing her eyes with a folded piece of cloth she had conjured. She forced a smile, saying, “I’m sure Ron and Hermione are dying to talk to you.”
With heavy legs, Harry made his way out of the kitchen, into the family room, and up the stairs to the next floor. The others had said they were going to continue to talk, but nothing that Harry was needed to discuss. Just as he was making his way up the next set of stairs, a pair of voices called him from the hall below. He turned around to see the twins approaching.
“We wanted to talk to you…” said Fred.
“Yeah. Just to say that there’s more to that night than the others of the Order are letting on,” finished George.
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I laid some heavy clues in this one.
Comments, please! 🙂
And, until next time...
🏴☠️
Originally posted by Barker
I can finally shave my 3 Foot beard! 😱..
Gred and Forge? 😱
And just because the Steelers won, 😱!
😱
Originally posted by dumbledorez.gal
its really gud. even betta than mine. but mines from a different point of view! ur is gr8!!!
🙂 lovin it
Thanks. 😄
Originally posted by Knightfall93
I just read all. I'll add this to my favourites. WOW! Keep it coming...
1 point: the only thing is that you use American slang which is a bit distracting... stuff like puke. Its nothing major but doesnt sound quite right...
Damn, I didn't even realize puke was an American slang. disgust
Thanks for the comment. I realize I might not be the best at writing British dialogue, but I can't help it; I'm American. 😛