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chapter seventy-one. ( take me to the lakes where all the poets went to die )
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ASCELLA COULD SMELL SALT AND HEAR rushing waves; a light, chilly breeze ruffled her curls as she looked out at moonlit sea and star-strewn sky. She was standing upon a high outcrop of dark rock, water foaming and churning below her. She glanced over her shoulder. A towering cliff stood behind them, a sheer drop, black and faceless. A few large chunks of rock, such as the one upon which Ascella, Harry and Dumbledore were standing, looked as though they had broken away from the cliff face at some point in the past. It was a bleak, harsh view, the sea and the rock unrelieved by any tree or sweep of grass or sand.
"What do you think?" asked Dumbledore. He might have been asking Ascella's opinion on whether it was a good site for a picnic.
"Not exactly what I would call an outing," Ascella remarked.
"They brought the kids from the orphanage here?" asked Harry, who could not imagine a less cozy spot for a day trip.
"Not here, precisely," said Dumbledore. "There is a village of sorts about halfway along the cliffs behind us. I believe the orphans were taken there for a little sea air and a view of the waves. No, I think it was only ever Tom Riddle and his youthful victims who visited this spot. No Muggle could reach this rock unless they were uncommonly good mountaineers, and boats cannot approach the cliffs, the waters around them are too dangerous. I imagine that Riddle climbed down; magic would have served better than ropes. And he brought two small children with him, probably for the pleasure of terrorising them. I think the journey alone would have done it, don't you?"
Ascella looked up at the cliff again and felt goose bumps.
"But his final destination — and ours — lies a little farther on. Come."
Dumbledore beckoned Harry and Ascella to the very edge of the rock where a series of jagged niches made footholds leading down to boulders that lay half- submerged in water and closer to the cliff. It was a treacherous descent and Dumbledore, hampered slightly by his withered hand, moved slowly. The lower rocks were slippery with seawater. Ascella could feel flecks of cold salt spray hitting her face.
