Courage - Harry Potter

-103-

Book: Courage
Chapter 103
Word Count: 5077

Kreacher did not return the next morning or even that afternoon. Kreacher did not return the following day, nor the day after that. However, two cloaked men had appeared in the square outside number twelve, and they remained there into the night, gazing in the direction of the house that they cannot see.

"Death Eaters, for sure," said Ron, as he, Layla, Harry, and Hermione watched from the drawing room windows. "Reckon they know we're in here?"

"I don't think so," said Layla, "or they'd have sent Snape in after us, wouldn't they?"

"D'you reckon he's been in here and had his tongue tied by Moody's curse?" asked Ron.

"Yes," said Hermione, "otherwise he'd have been able to tell that lot how to get in, wouldn't he? But they're probably watching to see whether we turn up. They know that Harry owns the house, after all."

"How do they—?" began Harry.

"Wizarding wills are examined by the Ministry, remember? They'll know Sirius left you the place."

The presence of the Death Eaters outside increased the ominous mood inside number twelves. They had not heard a word from anyone beyond Grimmauld Place since Mr Weasley's Patronus, and the strain was starting to tell. Restless and irritable, Ron had developed an annoying habit of playing with the Deluminator in his pocket. This particularly infuriated Hermione, who was whiling away the wait for Kreacher by studying The Tales of Beedle the Bard and did not appreciate the way the lights kept flashing on and off.

"Will you stop it!" she cried out on the third evening of Kreacher's absence, as all light was sucked from the drawing room yet again.

"Sorry, sorry!" said Ron, clicking the Deluminator and restoring the lights. "I don't know I'm doing it!"

"Well, can't you find something useful to occupy yourself?"

"What, like reading kids' stories?"

"Dumbledore left me this book, Ron—"

"—and he left me the Deluminator, maybe I'm supposed to use it!"

Layla noticed Harry slipping out of the room and decided to leave Ron and Hermione to their bickering, following Harry out of the room.

Harry headed downstairs toward the kitchen.

"Harry?" said Layla. "Are you alright?"

"Oh, Layla," Harry spun around to face the girl. "Yeah, just needed to think in the quiet, I suppose."

"I get that," said Layla. "Those two in there don't really help, do they?"

"Not really," Harry chuckled. "Um, Layla, I--"

But Harry was interrupted by the sound of a tap on the front door, then metallic clicks and the grinding of the chain.

Layla and Harry exchanged anxious looks, both pulling out their wands and moving into the shadows beside the decapitated elf heads, and waited. The door opened: They saw a glimpse of the lamplit square outside, and a cloaked figure edged into the hall and closed the door behind it.

The intruder took a step forward, and Moody's voice asked, "Severus Snape?" Then the dust figure rose from the end of the hall, and rushed him, raising its dead hand.

"It was not I who killed you, Albus," said a quiet voice. Layla recognised that voice immediately and froze.

The jinx broke: The dust-figure exploded again, and it was impossible to make out the newcomer through the dense gray cloud it left behind.