Supported & Torn (HP) {Book 3 of the Wild & Free Series}

30. Beyond the Veil

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. Ginny gave a gasp of horror.

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

My insides plummeted sickeningly. We 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 my left said triumphantly, "The Dark Lord always knows!"

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

"I want to know where Sirius is!"

"I want to know where Sirius is!" mimicked the woman to my left. She and her fellow Death Eaters had closed in so that they were mere feet away from Harry, me and the others, the light from their wands dazzling my eyes.

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

"The little babies woke up fwightened and fort what they dweamed was twoo," said the woman in a horrible, mock-baby voice. I felt Rowan stir beside me.

"Don't do anything," I muttered. "Not yet —"

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

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

"Oh, you don't know Harry Potter as I do, Bellatrix," said Malfoy softly. "He has a great weakness for heroics and a great gift for pulling in his sister in his troubles; the Dark Lord understands this about them. Now give me the prophecy, Potter."

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

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

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

"Go on, then," said Harry and I, raising our own wands to chest height. As we did so, the eight wands of Ron, Lucy, Rowan, Hermione, Neville, Ginny, and Luna rose on either side of us. The knot in my stomach tightened. If Sirius really was not here, we had led our 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 my turn to laugh.

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

The words were hardly out of my mouth when the female 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 — !"