meant to be (1)

55

I stumbled to the wall. I felt a horrible, stabbing pain in my shoulder.

"Oh my- Julie! Your shoulder..." Hermione whispered. For the first time, I forced myself to look at it. My sweater was covered in blood. I gently pulled it down, to see a huge cut across my whole, right shoulder.

"Lucky you two pay attention in Herbology." said Harry, as he joined us by the wall, oblivious to my injury.

"Yeah." said Ron "and lucky Julie didn't lose her arm- "there's no wood", honestly!"

"Jules, are you alright?" Harry asked me, finally noticing the cut.

"Yeah, I'm fine." I lied, forcing a smile on my face, trying not to cry.

"This way." said Harry, pointing down a stone passageway which was the only way on, not taking his eyes away from me.

All we could hear apart from our footsteps was the gentle drip of water trickling down the walls and the passageway sloped downwards.

"Can you hear something?" Ron whispered.
I listened, trying to ignore the pain. A soft rustling and clinking seemed to be coming from up ahead.

"Do you think it's a ghost?" Hermione asked.

"Don't know... sounds like wings to me." I answered

"There's light ahead - I can see something moving." Harry said.

We reached the end of the passageway and saw before us a brilliantly lit chamber, its ceiling arching high above us. It was full of small, jewel-bright birds, fluttering and tumbling all around the room. On the opposite side of the chamber was a heavy, wooden door.

"Do you think they'll attack us if we cross the room?" asked Ron.

"Probably." said Harry. "They don't look very vicious, but I suppose if they all swooped down at once... Well, there's nothing for it... I'll run!"

At this point I was in severe pain and didn't even bother to stop him. Harry took a deep breath, covered his face with his arms and sprinted across the room.

I expected to see sharp beaks and claws tearing at him any second, but nothing happened. He reached the door untouched. He pulled the handle, but it was locked.

We followed him and tugged and heaved at the door, but it wouldn't budge, not even when we tried the Alohomora Charm.

"Now what?"said Ron.

"These birds... they can't be here just for decoration" I cackled.

We watched the birds soaring overhead, glittering - glittering?

"They're not birds!" Harry said suddenly. "they're keys! Winged keys - look carefully. So that must mean..." he looked around the chamber while the other two squinted up at the flock of keys. "Yes - look! Broomsticks! We've got to catch the key to the door!"

"But there are hundreds of them!" Ron examined the lock on the door. "We're looking for a big, old-fashioned one - probably silver, like the handle!"

We seized a broomstick each and kicked off into the air, soaring into the midst of the cloud of keys. I don't know how I stayed on that broom. My shoulder was aching, the pain getting worse every second.

We grabbed and snatched but the bewitched keys darted and dived so quickly it was almost impossible to catch one.

After a few minutes weaving around through the whirl of keys, Harry yelled: "That one, that big one - there - no, there - with bright blue wings - the feathers are all crumpled on one side."

Ron went speeding in the direction that Harry was pointing, crashed into the ceiling and nearly fell off his broom.

"We've got to close in on it!" Harry called, not taking his eyes off the key with the damaged wing. "Ron, you come at it from above - Hermione, stay below and stop it going down, Jules stay in between them- and I'll try and catch it. Right, NOW!"

Ron dived, Hermione rocketed upwards, and I flew around the key, which dodged us all and Harry streaked after it; it sped towards the wall, Harry leant forward and with a nasty crunching noise, pinned it against the stone with one hand.

Ron and Hermiones cheers echoed around the high chamber, but I couldn't focuse on that. I honestly just wanted to get to the Stone already.

We landed quickly and Harry ran to the door, the key struggling in his hand. He rammed it into the lock and turned - it worked.

The moment the lock had clicked open, the key took light again, looking very battered now that it had been caught twice.

"Ready?" Harry asked us, his hand on the door handle. We nodded and he pulled the door open.