Ternion || Oliver Wood

Chapter 136

Aberforth Dumbledore

"He knows."

Harry uttered all of a sudden, he was sweating and was hyperventilating. Our heads turned to him with both confused and shocked expressions.

"He knows, and he's going to check where the others are, and the last one," said Harry, standing up to his feet, "is at Hogwarts. I knew it. I knew it."

"What?"

Ron was gaping at him. While Hermione and I sat up, looking worried.

"But what did you see? How do you know?" I asked him as I sat up.

"I saw him find out about the cup, I — I was in his head, he's — he's seriously angry, and scared too, he can't understand how we knew, and now he's going to check if the others are safe, the ring first. He thinks the Hogwarts one is safest, because Snape's there, because it'll be hard not to be seen getting in, I think he'll check that one last, but he could still be there within hours —"

"Did you see where in Hogwarts it is?" asked Ron, now scrambling to his feet too.

"No, he was concentrating on warning Snape, he didn't think about exactly where it was —" uttered Harry.

"Wait, wait!" cried Hermione as Ron took the Horcrux and Harry pulled out the Invisibility Cloak again, we all froze, even me who was fixing my things. "We can't just go, we haven't got a plan, and we need to—"

"We need to get going," said Harry firmly. "Can you imagine what he's going to do once he realizes the ring and the locket are gone? What if he moves the Hogwarts Horcrux, decides it isn't safe enough?"

"But how are we going to get in?" Hermione asked.

"To Hogsmeade?" I interfered before Harry could speak.

"Yes," he turned to me, "and try to work something out once we see what the protection around the school's like. Get under the Cloak, Hermione, I want to stick together this time."

"But we don't really fit —"

"It'll be dark, no one's going to notice our feet." answered Harry before she could finish. "Agape?" he turned to me once again.

I raised my hand and showed my ring to tell them that I'll just use it instead to take more room at the Cloak.

"Are you sure? I know you're tired from everything that happened, are you sure you still have the energy?" he asked worriedly.

"I got it, I regained my energy, promise I got it. You three go under the Cloak, I'll stay close." I explained, they all nodded.

The flapping of enormous wings echoed across the black water: The dragon had drunk its fill and risen into the air. We paused in our preparations to watch it climb higher and higher, now black against the rapidly darkening sky, until it vanished over a nearby mountain. Then Hermione walked forward and took her place between the other two. Harry pulled the Cloak down as far as it would go.

While I touched my ring and channeled my energy as I became invisible to the naked eye, only Hermione, Harry and Ron were the one who could see me, and together, we turned on the spot into the crushing darkness.

I looked around to the achingly familiar Hogsmeade High Street: dark shop fronts, and the outline of black mountains beyond the village, and the curve in the road ahead that led off toward Hogwarts, and light spilling from the windows of the Three Broomsticks, and with a lurch of the heart I remembered, the memories that we have made in this place.