The Snake| Draco Malfoy

~Year 5~ The Prophecy

Black shapes were emerging out of thin air all around us, blocking our way left and right; eyes glinted through slits in hoods, a dozen lit wand tips were pointing directly at our hearts.

"To me, Potter," repeated the voice of Lucius Malfoy as he held out his hand, palm up. I looked around, we were greatly outnumbered. Several of the Death Eaters laughed; a harsh female voice from the midst of the shadowy figures to Harry's left said triumphantly:

"The Dark Lord always knows!" I recognized that voice from when I was a kid. It belonged to Draco's aunt. Bellatrix Lestrange.

"Always," echoed Lucius softly. "Now, give me the prophecy, Potter."

"I want to know where Sirius is!" Harry demanded.

"I want to know where Sirius is!" mimicked Bellatrix to his left. She smiled wide revealing her ragged yellow teeth. Her dark curly hair was wild. She definitely looked as if she had just escaped Azkaban.

"You've got him," said Harry, "He's here. I know he is."

"The little baby woke up fwightened and thought what it dweamed was twoo," said Bellatrix in a horrible, mock baby voice. Ron stir beside Harry.

"Don't do anything," Harry muttered to us. "Not yet—"

Bellatrix Lestrange 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 Lucius 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," Harry confidently, "I know you've got him!"

More of the Death Eaters laughed, Bellatrix laughed the loudest of all.

"Go on, then," said Harry, raising his own wand to chest height. As he did so, the five wands of Ron, Hermione, Neville, Ginny and Luna rose on either side of him, as well as mine.

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 Bellatrix Death Eater shrieked: "Accio proph —"

Harry was just ready for her: he shouted "Protego" before she had finished her spell, and though the glass sphere slipped to the tips of his fingers he managed to cling on to it.

"Oh, he knows how to play, little bitty baby Potter," she said, her mad eyes staring through the slits in her hood. "Very well, then—"

"I TOLD YOU, NO!" Lucius Malfoy roared at the woman. "If you smash it—!"

"Harry, that woman isn't someone to mess with." I whispered urgently to him as Lucius yelled at her. "We need to take that crystal ball with us and leave quickly." His eyes flickered to mine showing he understood, but there seemed to still be a need to find Sirius.

Bellatrix stepped forward, away from her fellows, and pulled off her hood. Azkaban had hollowed Bellatrix Lestrange's face, making it gaunt and skull-like, but it was alive with a feverish, fanatical glow.

"You need more persuasion?'" she said, her chest rising and falling rapidly. "Very well—take the smallest one," she ordered the Death Eaters beside her. "Let him watch while we torture the little girl. I'll do it."