Butterfly Effect ; H. Potter

86. sirius's last stand.

Black shapes were emerging out of thin air all around them, blocking their way left and right; eyes glinted through slits in hoods, a dozen lit wand-tips were pointing directly at their hearts; Ginny gave a gasp of horror.

"To me, Potter, Lupin," repeated the drawing voice of Lucius Malfoy as he held out his hand, palm up.

Harry's insides plummeted sickeningly. They were trapped, and outnumbered two to one.

"To me," said Malfoy yet again.

"Where's Sirius?" Harry said.

Several of the Death Eaters laughed; a harsh female voice from the midst of the shadowy figures to Antheia's left said triumphantly, "The Dark Lord always knows!"

"Always," echoed Malfoy softly. "Now, give me the prophecy."

"I want to know where Sirius is!"

"I want to know where Sirius is!" mimicked the woman to his left.

She and her fellow Death Eaters had closed in so that they were mere feet away from Harry and the others, the light from their wands dazzling Harry's eyes.

"You've got him," said Harry, ignoring the rising panic in his chest, the dread he had been fighting since they had first entered the ninety-seventh row. "He's here. I know he is."

"The little baby woke up fwightened and fort what it dweamed was twoo," said the woman in a horrible, mock baby voice. Harry felt Ron stir beside him.

"You're Bellatrix Lestrange, aren't you?" demanded Antheia, her fingers holding tightly onto the dusty sphere in her hand.

"Look here," cackled the woman, "it's little, baby Lupin! I know your mother, or should I say, I knew her."

Bellatrix smirked at her and Antheia felt her blood boil.

"Don't do anything," Harry muttered to her. "Not yet -"

The woman who had mimicked him let out a raucous scream of laughter.

"You hear him? You hear him? Giving instructions to the other children as though he thinks of fighting us!"

"Oh, you don't know Potter as I do, Bellatrix,' said Malfoy softly. "He has a great weakness for heroics; the Dark Lord understands this about him. Now give me the prophecy, Potter."

"I know Sirius is here," said Harry, though panic was causing his chest to constrict and he felt as though he could not breathe properly. "I know you've got him!"

More of the Death Eaters laughed, though the woman laughed loudest of all.

"It's time you learned the difference between life and dreams, Potter," said Malfoy. "Now give me the prophecy, or we start using wands."

"Go ahead, then," said Antheia raising her own wand to chest height. As she did so, the six wands of Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville, Ginny, and Luna rose on either side of her.

The knot in Harry's stomach tightened. If Sirius really was not here, he had led his friends to their deaths for no reason at all ...

But the Death Eaters did not strike.

"Hand over the prophecy and no one need get hurt," said Malfoy coolly.

It was Harry's turn to laugh.

"Yeah, right!" he said. "I give you this - prophecy, is it? And you'll just let us skip off home, will you?"

The words were hardly out of his mouth when the female Death Eater shrieked: "Accio proph--"