Emma Potter; Going to War

92: Fallen [Pt.2]

"Hagrid?"

Harry and I struggled to raise ourselves out of the debris ofmetal and leather that surrounded us; my hands sank into inchesof muddy water as I tried to stand. I could not understandwhere Voldemort had gone and expected him to swoop out of thedarkness at any moment. 

Something hot and wet was tricklingdown my chin and from my forehead. We crawled out of the pondand stumbled toward the great dark mass on the ground that wasHagrid. 

"Hagrid? Hagrid, talk to me —"Harry was saying

 But the dark mass did not stir. 

"Who's there? Is it the Potters? Are you Harry and Emma Potter?" 

I did not recognize the man's voice. Then a woman shouted,"They've crashed, Ted! Crashed in the garden!" 

My head was swimming."Hagrid," I repeated stupidly, and my knees buckled.

The next thing I know, I was lying on my back on what feltlike cushions, with a burning sensation in my ribs and right arm. The scar on my forehead wasstill throbbing.

 "Hagrid?Harry?"

"Emma?" My brother's voice was groggy.

 I opened my eyes and saw that I was lying on a sofa in an unfamiliar, lamplit sitting room, Harry was on the other end. Our rucksacks lay on the floor a shortdistance away, wet and muddy. A fair-haired, big-bellied man waswatching Harry and me anxiously. 

"Hagrid's fine, dear," said the man, "the wife's seeing to him now.How are you feeling? Anything else broken? I've fixed your ribs,your tooth, and your arm. I'm Ted, by the way, Ted Tonks — Dora'sfather." 

I sat up too quickly: Lights popped in front of my eyes and I felt sick and giddy."Voldemort —" 

"Easy, now," said Ted Tonks, placing a hand on my shoulder and pushing me back against the cushions. "That was a nastycrash you just had. What happened, anyway? Something go wrongwith the bike? Arthur Weasley overstretch himself again, him andhis Muggle contraptions?" 

"No," said Harry, as my scar pulsed like an open wound. "DeathEaters, loads of them — we were chased —" 

"Death Eaters?" said Ted sharply. "What d'you mean, DeathEaters? I thought they didn't know you were being moved tonight,I thought —" 

"They knew," said Harry. 

Ted Tonks looked up at the ceiling as though he could see throughit to the sky above. 

"Well, we know our protective charms hold, then, don't we? Theyshouldn't be able to get within a hundred yards of the place in anydirection." 

Now I understood why Voldemort had vanished; it hadbeen at the point when the motorbike crossed the barrier of theOrder's charms. I only hoped they would continue to work: I imagined Voldemort, a hundred yards above us as we spoke,looking for a way to penetrate what I visualized as a greattransparent bubble. 

I swung my legs off the sofa; I needed to see Hagrid with my own eyes before I would believe that he was alive. I hadbarely stood up, however, when a door opened and Hagrid squeezedthrough it, his face covered in mud and blood, limping a little butmiraculously alive.

 "Emma!Harry!"

 Knocking over two delicate tables and an aspidistra, he coveredthe floor between them in two strides and pulled Harry and me into a hugthat nearly cracked my newly repaired ribs. "Blimey, Harry, Emma, how didyeh get out o' that? I thought we were both goners." 

"Yeah, me too. I can't believe —"Harry broke off. 

I had just noticed the woman who had enteredthe room behind Hagrid.