Slow Grenade

Chapter Fifty

Hermione and Ron stood in the Great Hall panting heavily as Harry skidded around a corner towards them.

"Where have you been?"

"We're another Horcrux down!" Ron beamed. "Hermione stabbed it. Thought she should. She hasn't had the pleasure yet."

"Brilliant!" yelled Harry.

As he said it, there was an explosion from overhead; all three of them looked up as dust fell from the ceiling and they heard a distant scream.

"I know what the diadem looks like, and I know where it is," said Harry, talking fast. "He hid it exactly where I hid my old Potions book, where everyone's been hiding stuff for centuries. He thought he was the only one to find it. Come on."

The furore of the battle died the moment they crossed the threshold of the Room of Requirement and closed the door behind them: all was silent. They were in a place the size of a cathedral with the appearance of a city, its towering walls built of objects hidden by thousands of long-gone students.

They passed a stuffed troll and the Vanishing Cabinet Draco had mended last year with such disastrous consequences. Looking up and down aisles of junk, Harry couldn't remember where to go next.

"Accio diadem," cried Hermione in desperation, nothing flew through the air towards them. It seemed that, like the vault at Gringotts, the room would not yield its hidden objects that easily.

The trio separated and sped off up adjacent aisles. Deeper and deeper into the labyrinth Hermione went. Her breath was loud in her ears, but she found nothing resembling the item they sought.

Rifling through weathered old cupboards and shelves, Hermione froze. She heard a voice so engrained into her consciousness it could have been her own.

"That's my wand you're holding, Potter," said Draco.

"How did you get in here?" Harry asked, ignoring the comment.

"I virtually lived in the Room of Hidden Things all last year," he drawled. "I know how to get inside."

Another voice grunted, "We was hiding in the corridor outside." Hermione thought it might be either Crabbe or Goyle. "We can do Diss-lusion Charms now! And then you turned up right in front of us and said you was looking for die-dum. What's a die-dum?"

"Harry?" Ron's voice echoed suddenly from the other side of the room. "Are you talking to someone?"

With a whip-like movement, one of Draco's companions pointed their wand at the fifty-foot mountain of old furniture and shouted, "Descendo!"

The wall began to totter, then crumbled into the aisle near to where she assumed Ron was standing.

"Ron!" Harry bellowed as, somewhere out of sight, Hermione screamed, and innumerable objects crashed to the floor. "Finite!" he yelled, pointing his wand at the rampart.

"Harry?" Ron called again. "What's going on?"

Hermione had crept around the corner and could see the confrontation more clearly.

"Harry?" mimicked Crabbe. "What's going – no, Potter! Crucio!"

Harry had lunged for the tiara; Crabbe's curse missed him but hit a stone bust, which flew into the air; the diadem soared upwards and then dropped out of sight in the mass of objects on which the bust had rested.

"STOP!" Draco shouted at Crabbe, his voice echoing through the enormous room. "The Dark Lord wants him alive – "

A flash of scarlet light shot past Harry by inches; Hermione ran towards him and sent a Stunning Spell straight at Crabbe's head. It only missed because Draco pulled him out of the way, eyes widening as he saw her.