Scrimgeour took a couple of steps back from Harry

Scrimgeour took a couple of steps back from Harry, glancing at the hole he had made in Harry’s T-shirt. He seemed to regret his loss of temper.

“It – it was nothing,” he growled. “I … regret your attitude,” he said, looking Harry full in the face once more. “You seem to think that the Ministry does not desire what you – what Dumbledore – desired. We ought to work together.”

“I don’t like your methods, Minister,” said Harry. “Remember?”

For the second time, he raised his right fist and displayed to Scrimgeour the scar that still showed white on the back of it, spelling I must not tell lies . Scrimgeour’s expression hardened. He turned away without another word and limped from the room. Mrs. Weasley hurried after him; Harry heard her stop at the back door. After a minute or so she called, “He’s gone!”

“What did he want?” Mr. Weasley asked, looking around at Harry, Ron, and Hermione as Mrs. Weasley came hurrying back to them.

“To give us what Dumbledore left us,” said Harry. “They’ve only just released the content of his will.”

Outside in the garden, over the dinner tables, the three objects Scrimgeour had given them were passed from hand to hand. Everyone exclaimed over the Deluminator and The Tales of Beedle the Bard and lamented the fact that Scrimgeour had refused to pass on the sword, but none of them could offer any suggestion as to why Dumbledore would have left Harry an old Snitch. As Mr. Weasley examined the Deluminator for the third of fourth time, Mrs. Weasley said tentatively, “Harry, dear, everyone’s awfully hungry we didn’t like to start without you… Shall I serve dinner now?”

They all ate rather hurriedly and then after a hasty chorus of “Happy Birthday” and much gulping of cake, the party broke up. Hagrid, who was invited to the wedding the following day, but was far too bulky to sleep in the overstretched Burrow, left to set up a tent for himself in a neighboring field.

“Meet us upstairs,” Harry whispered to Hermione, while they helped Mrs. Weasley restore the garden to its normal state. “After everyone’s gone to bed.”

Up in the attic room, Ron examined his Deluminator, and Harry filled Hagrid’s moleskin purse, not with gold, but with those items he most prized, apparently worthless though some of them were the Marauder’s Map, the shard of Sirius’s enchanted mirror, and R.A.B.’s locket. He pulled the string tight and slipped the purse around his neck, then sat holding the old Snitch and watching its wings flutter feebly. At last, Hermione tapped on the door and tiptoed inside.

“Muffiato,” she whispered, waving her wand in the direction of the stairs.

“Thought you didn’t approve of that spell?” said Ron.

“Times change,“ said Hermione. ”Now, show us that Deluminator.“

Ron obliged at once. Holding I up in front of him, he clicked it. The solitary lamp they had lit went out at once.

“The thing is,” whispered Hermione through the dark, “we could have achieved that with Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder.”

There was a small click, and the ball of light from the lamp flew back to the ceiling and illuminated them all once more.

“Still, it’s cool,” said Ron, a little defensively. “And from what they said, Dumbledore invented it himself!”

“I know but, surely he wouldn’t have singled you out in his will just to help us turn out the lights!”

“D’you think he knew the Ministry would confiscate his will and examine everything he’d left us?” asked Harry.

“Definitely,” said Hermione. “He couldn’t tell us in the will why he was leaving us these things, but that will doesn’t explain…”

“… why he couldn’t have given us a hint when he was alive?” asked Ron.

“Well, exactly,“ said Hermione, now flicking through The Tales of Beedle the Bard. ”If these things are important enough to pass on right under the nose of the Ministry, you’d think he’d have left us know why… unless he thought it was obvious?“

“Thought wrong, then, didn’t he?” said Ron. “I always said he was mental. Brilliant and everything, but cracked. Leaving Harry an old Snitch – what the hell was that about?”

“I’ve no idea,” said Hermione. “When Scrimgeour made you take it, Harry, I was so sure that something was going to happen!”

“Yeah, well,” said Harry, his pulse quickened as he raised the Snitch in his fingers. “I wasn’t going to try too hard in front of Scrimgeour was I?”

“What do you mean?” asked Hermione.

“The Snitch I caught in my first ever Quidditch match?” said Harry. “Don’t you remember?”

Hermione looked simply bemused. Ron, however, gasped, pointing frantically from Harry to the Snitch and back again until he found his voice.

“That was the one you nearly swallowed!”

“Exactly,” said Harry, and with his heart beating fast, he pressed his mouth to the Snitch.

It did not open. Frustration and bitter disappointment welled up inside him: He lowered the golden sphere, but then Hermione cried out.

“Writing! There’s writing on it, quick, look!” He nearly dropped the Snitch in surprise and excitement. Hermione was quite right. Engraved upon the smooth golden surface, where seconds before there had been nothing, were five words written in the thin, slanted handwriting that Harry recognized as Dumbledore’s I open at the close.

He had barely read them when the words vanished again.

“I open at the close…. What’s that supposed to mean?”
chanel outlet
cheap uggs on sale
burberry outlet
nike outlet store
cheap uggs for sale

“Outside Snape's office, yes,”

“Outside Snape's office, yes,” whispered Hermione, her eyes sparkling with tears, “with Luna. We hung around for ages outside it and nothing happened... we didn't

know what was going on upstairs, Ron had taken the map ... it was nearly midnight when Professor Flitwick came sprinting down into the dungeons. He was shouting about

Death Eaters in the castle, I don't think he really registered that Luna and I were there at all, he just burst his way into Snape's office and we heard him saying that

Snape had to go back with him and help and then we heard a loud thump and Snape came hurtling out of his room and he saw us and—and—”

“What?” Harry urged her.

“I was so stupid, Harry!” said Hermione in a high-pitched whisper. “He said Professor Flitwick had collapsed and that we should go and take care of him while he—

while he went to help fight the Death Eaters—”

She covered her face in shame and continued to talk into her fingers, so that her voice was muffled. “We went into his office to see if we could help Professor

Flitwick and found him unconscious on the floor... and oh, it's so obvious now, Snape must have Stupefied Flitwick, but we didn't realize, Harry, we didn't realize, we

just let Snape go!”

“It's not your fault,” said Lupin firmly. “Hermione, had you not obeyed Snape and got out of the way, he probably would have killed you and Luna.”

“So then he came upstairs,” said Harry, who was watching Snape running up the marble staircase in his mind's eye, his black robes billowing behind him as ever,

pulling his wand from under his cloak as he ascended, “and he found the place where you were all fighting...”

“We were in trouble, we were losing,” said Tonks in a low voice. “Gibbon was down, but the rest of the Death Eaters seemed ready to fight to the death. Neville had

been hurt, Bill had been savaged by Greyback... it was all dark... curses flying everywhere... the Malfoy boy had vanished, he must have slipped past, up the stairs...

then more of them ran after him, but one of them blocked the stairs behind them with some kind of curse... Neville ran at it and got thrown up into the air—”

“None of us could break through,” said Ron, “and that massive Death Eater was still firing off jinxes all over the place, they were bouncing off the walls and barely

missing us...”

“And then Snape was there,” said Tonks, “and then he wasn't—”

“I saw him running toward us, but that huge Death Eater's jinx just missed me right afterward and I ducked and lost track of things,” said Ginny.

“I saw him run straight through the cursed barrier as though it wasn't there,” said Lupin. “I tried to follow him, but was thrown back just like Neville...”

Almost against his will he glanced from Ron to Hermione

Almost against his will he glanced from Ron to Hermione, both of whom looked devastated.

“I messed up, Harry,” said Ron bleakly. “We did like you told us: we checked the Marauder's Map and we couldn't see Malfoy on it, so we thought he must be in the

Room of Requirement, so me, Ginny, and Neville went to keep watch on it... but Malfoy got past us.”

“He came out of the Room about an hour after we started keeping watch,” said Ginny. “He was on his own, clutching that awful shriveled arm—”

“His Hand of Glory,” said Ron. “Gives light only to the holder, remember?”

“Anyway,” Ginny went on, “he must have been checking whether the coast was clear to let the Death Eaters out, because the moment he saw us he threw something into

the air and it all went pitch-black—”

“—Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder,” said Ron bitterly. “Fred and George's. I'm going to be having a word with them about who they let buy their products.”

“We tried everything, Lumos, Incendio,” said Ginny. “Nothing would penetrate the darkness; all we could do was grope our way out of the corridor again, and meanwhile

we could hear people rushing past us. Obviously Malfoy could see because of that hand thing and was guiding them, but we didn't dare use any curses or anything in case

we hit each other, and by the time we'd reached a corridor that was light, they'd gone.”

“Luckily,” said Lupin hoarsely, “Ron, Ginny, and Neville ran into us almost immediately and told us what had happened. We found the Death Eaters minutes later,

heading in the direction of the Astronomy Tower. Malfoy obviously hadn't expected more people to be on the watch; he seemed to have exhausted his supply of Darkness

Powder, at any rate. A fight broke out, they scattered and we gave chase. One of them, Gibbon, broke away and headed up the tower stairs—”

“To set off the Mark?” asked Harry.

“He must have done, yes, they must have arranged that before they left the Room of Requirement,” said Lupin. “But I don't think Gibbon liked the idea of waiting up

there alone for Dumbledore, because he came running back downstairs to rejoin the fight and was hit by a Killing Curse that just missed me.”

“So if Ron was watching the Room of Requirement with Ginny and Neville,” said Harry, turning to Hermione, “were you—?”

“Snape,” repeated McGonagall faintly,

“Snape,” repeated McGonagall faintly, falling into the chair. “We all wondered... but he trusted... always... Snape... I can't believe it...”

“Snape was a highly accomplished Occlumens,” said Lupin, his voice uncharacteristically harsh. “We always knew that.”

“But Dumbledore swore he was on our side!” whispered Tonks. “I always thought Dumbledore must know something about Snape that we didn't...” .

“He always hinted that he had an ironclad reason for trusting Snape,” muttered Professor McGonagall, now dabbing at the corners of her leaking eyes with a tartan-

edged handkerchief. “I mean... with Snape's history ... of course people were bound to wonder... but Dumbledore told me explicitly that Snape's repentance was

absolutely genuine... wouldn't hear a word against him!”

“I'd love to know what Snape told him to convince him,” said Tonks.

“I know,” said Harry, and they all turned to look at him. “Snape passed Voldemort the information that made Voldemort hunt down my mum and dad. Then Snape told

Dumbledore he hadn't realized what he was doing, he was really sorry he'd done it, sorry that they were dead.”

They all stared at him.

“And Dumbledore believed that?” said Lupin incredulously. “Dumbledore believed Snape was sorry James was dead? Snape hated James...”

“And he didn't think my mother was worth a damn either,” said Harry, “because she was Muggle-born... ‘Mudblood,’ he called her...”

Nobody asked how Harry knew this. All of them seemed to be lost in horrified shock, trying to digest the monstrous truth of what had happened.

“This is all my fault,” said Professor McGonagall suddenly. She looked disoriented, twisting her wet handkerchief in her hands. “My fault. I sent Filius to fetch

Snape tonight, I actually sent for him to come and help us! If I hadn't alerted Snape to what was going on, he might never have joined forces with the Death Eaters. I

don't think he knew they were there before Filius told him, I don't think he knew they were coming.”

“It isn't your fault, Minerva,” said Lupin firmly. “We all wanted more help, we were glad to think Snape was on his way....”

“So when he arrived at the fight, he joined in on the Death Eaters’ side?” asked Harry, who wanted every detail of Snape's duplicity and infamy, feverishly

collecting more reasons to hate him, to swear vengeance.

“I don't know exactly how it happened,” said Professor McGonagall distractedly. “It's all so confusing... Dumbledore had told us that he would be leaving the school

for a few hours and that we were to patrol the corridors just in case... Remus, Bill, and Nymphadora were to join us ... and so we patrolled. All seemed quiet. Every

secret passageway out of the school was covered. We knew nobody could fly in. There were powerful enchantments on every entrance into the castle. I still don't know how

the Death Eaters can possibly have entered...”

“I do,” said Harry, and he explained, briefly, about the pair of Vanishing Cabinets and the magical pathway they formed. “So they got in through the Room of

Requirement.”

Harry remembered how Snape

Harry remembered how Snape had mended Malfoy's Sectumsempra wounds so easily with his

wand.

“Can't you fix them with a charm or something?” he asked the matron.

“No charm will work on these,” said Madam Pomfrey. “I've tried everything I know, but there is no cure for werewolf bites.”

“But he wasn't bitten at the full moon,” said Ron, who was gazing down into his brother's face as though he could somehow force him to mend just by staring.

“Greyback hadn't transformed, so surely Bill won't be a—a real—?”

He looked uncertainly at Lupin.

“No, I don't think that Bill will be a true werewolf,” said Lupin, “but that does not mean that there won't be some contamination. Those are cursed wounds. They are

unlikely ever to heal fully, and—and Bill might have some wolfish characteristics from now on.”

“Dumbledore might know something that'd work, though,” Ron said. “Where is he? Bill fought those maniacs on Dumbledore's orders, Dumbledore owes him, he can't leave

him in this state—”

“Ron—Dumbledore's dead,” said Ginny.

“No!” Lupin looked wildly from Ginny to Harry, as though hoping the latter might contradict her, but when Harry did nor, Lupin collapsed into a chair beside Bill's

bed, his hands over his face. Harry had never seen Lupin lose control before; he felt as though he was intruding upon something private, indecent. He turned away and

caught Ron's eye instead, exchanging in silence a look that confirmed what Ginny had said.

“How did he die?” whispered Tonks. “How did it happen?”

“Snape killed him,” said Harry. “I was there, I saw it. We arrived back on the Astronomy Tower because that's where the Mark was... Dumbledore was ill, he was weak,

but I think he realized it was a trap when we heard footsteps running up the stairs. He immobilized me, I couldn't do anything, I was under the Invisibility Cloak—and

then Malfoy came through the door and disarmed him—”

Hermione clapped her hands to her mouth and Ron groaned. Luna's mouth trembled.

“—more Death Eaters arrived—and then Snape—and Snape did it. The Avada Kedavra.” Harry couldn't go on.

Madam Pomfrey burst into tears. Nobody paid her any attention except Ginny, who whispered, “Shh! Listen!”

Gulping, Madam Pomfrey pressed her fingers to her mouth, her eyes wide. Somewhere out in the darkness, a phoenix was singing in a way Harry had never heard before: a

stricken lament of terrible beauty. And Harry felt, as he had felt about phoenix song before, that the music was inside him, not without: it was his own grief turned

magically to song that echoed across the grounds and through the castle windows.

How long they all stood there, listening, he did not know, nor why it seemed to ease their pain a little to listen to the sound of their mourning, but it felt like a

long time later that the hospital door opened again and Professor McGonagall entered the ward. Like all the rest, she bore marks of the recent battle: there were grazes

on her face and her robes were ripped.

“Molly and Arthur are on their way,” she said, and the spell of the music was broken: everyone roused themselves as though coming out of trances, turning again to

look at Bill, or else to rub their own eyes, shake their heads. “Harry, what happened? According to Hagrid you were with Professor Dumbledore when he—when it

happened. He says Professor Snape was involved in some—”

“Snape killed Dumbledore,” said Harry.

She stared at him for a moment, then swayed alarmingly; Madam Pomfrey, who seemed to have pulled herself together, ran forward, conjuring a chair from thin air, which

she pushed under McGonagall.

Chapter 29 The Pheonix Lament

Chapter 29 The Pheonix Lament

“C'mere, Harry ...”

“No.”

“Yeh can’ stay here, Harry... come on, now...”

“No.”

He did not want to leave Dumbledore's side, he did not want to move anywhere. Hagrid's hand on his shoulder was trembling. Then another voice said, “Harry, come on.”

A much smaller and warmer hand had enclosed his and was pulling him upward. He obeyed its pressure without really thinking about it. Only as he walked blindly back

through the crowd did he realize, from a trace of flowery scent on the air, that it was Ginny who was leading him back into the castle. Incomprehensible voices battered

him, sobs and shouts and wails stabbed the night, but Harry and Ginny walked on, back up the steps into the entrance hall. Faces swam on the edges of Harry's vision,

people were peering at him, whispering, wondering, and Gryffindor rubies glistened on the floor like drops of blood as they made their way toward the marble staircase.

“We're going to the hospital wing,” said Ginny.

“I'm not hurt,” said Harry.

“It's McGonagall's orders,” said Ginny. “Everyone's up there, Ron and Hermione and Lupin and everyone —”

Fear stirred in Harry's chest again: he had forgotten the inert figures he had left behind.

“Ginny, who else is dead?”

“Don't worry, none of us.”

“But the Dark Mark—Malfoy said he stepped over a body—”

“He stepped over Bill, but it's all right, he's alive.”

There was something in her voice, however, that Harry knew boded ill.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I'm sure... he's a—a bit of a mess, that's all. Greyback attacked him. Madam Pomfrey says he won't—won't look the same anymore...”

Ginny's voice trembled a little.

“We don't really know what the after-effects will be. I mean, Greyback being a werewolf, but not transformed at the time.”

“But the other... there were other bodies on the ground...”

“Neville and Professor Flitwick are both hurt, but Madam Pomfrey says they'll be all right. And a Death Eater's dead, he got hit by a Killing Curse that huge blond one

was firing off everywhere—Harry, if we hadn't had your Felix potion, I think we'd all have been killed, but everything seemed to just miss us—”

They had reached the hospital wing. Pushing open the doors, Harry saw Neville lying, apparently asleep, in a bed near the door. Ron, Hermione, Luna, Tonks, and Lupin

were gathered around another bed near the far end of the ward. At the sound of the doors opening, they all looked up. Hermione ran to Harry and hugged him; Lupin moved

forward too, looking anxious.

“Are you all right, Harry?”

“I'm fine.... how's Bill?”

Nobody answered. Harry looked over Hermione's shoulder and saw an unrecognizable face lying on Bill's pillow, so badly slashed and ripped that he looked grotesque.

Madam Pomfrey was dabbing at his wounds with some harsh-smelling green ointment

“As he moved up the schoo

“As he moved up the school, he gathered about him a group of dedicated friends; I call them that, for want of a better term, although as I have already indicated,

Riddle undoubtedly felt no affection for any of them. This group had a kind of dark glamour within the castle. They were a motley collection; a mixture of the weak

seeking protection, the ambitious seeking some shared glory, and the thuggish gravitating toward a leader who could show them more refined forms of cruelty. In other

words, they were the forerunners of the Death Eaters, and indeed some of them became the first Death Eaters after leaving Hogwarts.

“Rigidly controlled by Riddle, they were never detected in open wrong-doing, although their seven years at Hogwarts were marked by a number of nasty incidents to which

they were never satisfactorily linked, the most serious of which was, of course, the opening of the Chamber of Secrets, which resulted in the death of a girl. As you

know, Hagrid was wrongly accused of that crime.

“I have not been able to find many memories of Riddle at Hogwarts,” said Dumbledore, placing his withered hand on the Pensieve. “Few who knew him then are prepared

to talk about him; they are too terrified. What I know, I found out after he had left Hogwarts, after much painstaking effort, after tracing those few who could be

tricked into speaking, after searching old records and questioning Muggle and wizard witnesses alike.

“Those whom I could persuade to talk told me that Riddle was obsessed with his parentage. This is understandable, of course; he had grown up in an orphanage and

naturally wished to know how he came to be there. It seems that he searched in vain for some trace of Tom Riddle senior on the shields in the trophy room, on the lists

of prefects in the old school records, even in the books of Wizarding history. Finally he was forced to accept that his father had never set foot in Hogwarts. I believe

that it was then that he dropped the name forever, assumed the identity of Lord Voldemort, and began his investigations into his previously despised mother's family—

the woman whom, you will remember, he had thought could not be a witch if she had succumbed to the shameful human weakness of death.

“All he had to go upon was the single name ‘Marvolo,’ which he knew from those who ran the orphanage had been his mother's father's name. Finally, after painstaking

research, through old books of Wizarding families, he discovered the existence of Slytherin's surviving line. In the summer of his sixteenth year, he left the orphanage

to which he returned annually and set off to find his Gaunt relatives. And now, Harry, if you will stand ...”

Dumbledore rose, and Harry saw that he was again holding a small crystal bottle filled with swirling, pearly memory.

“I was very lucky to collect this,” he said, as he poured the gleaming mass into the Pensieve. “As you will understand when we have experienced it. Shall we?”