Emma Potter

117: Voldermort proves his worth

Wormtail approached Harry and me, I scrambled to find my feet, to support my own weight before the ropes were untied. Wormtail raised his new silver hand, pulled out the wad ofmaterial gagging Harry and me, and then, with one swipe, cut through thebonds tying us to the gravestone.

 There was a split second, perhaps, when Harry might have considered running for it, but his injured leg shook under him as hestood on the overgrown grave, as the Death Eaters closed ranks,forming a tighter circle around us and Voldemort, so that thegaps where the missing Death Eaters should have stood were filled.

 Wormtail walked out of the circle to the place where Cedric's bodylay and returned with Harry's wand, which he thrust roughly intoHarry's hand without looking at him. Then Wormtail resumed hisplace in the circle of watching Death Eaters. 

"Where is Emma's wand?" asked Voldermort "find it. She cannot duel without a wand."

One hand trying to support Harry, I used the other to bring out my wand and grip it tightly in my hand. Voldermort smiled his cold smile. 

"You have been taught how to duel, Harry and Emma Potter?" said Voldemort softly, his red eyes glinting through the darkness.

At these words I remembered, as though from a former life,the dueling club at Hogwarts I had attended briefly two yearsago. . . . All I had learned there was the Disarming Spell, "Expelliarmus" . . . and what use would it be to deprive Voldemort of hiswand, even if I could, when I was surrounded by Death Eaters,outnumbered by at least thirty to two? I had never learned anything that could possibly fit me for this. I knew I was facingthe thing against which Moody had always warned . . . the unblockable Avada Kedavra curse — and Voldemort was right — our mother was not here to die for us this time. . . . We were quiteunprotected. . . . 

"We bow to each other, Harry,Emma" said Voldemort, bending a little,but keeping his snakelike face upturned to Harry and me. "Come, theniceties must be observed. . . . Dumbledore would like you to showmanners. . . . Bow to death. . . ." 

The Death Eaters were laughing again. Voldemort's liplessmouth was smiling. Harry  and I did not bow. We were not going to letVoldemort play with him before killing him . . . we were not goingto give him that satisfaction. . . . 

"I said, bow," Voldemort said, raising his wand — and I felt my spine curve as though a huge, invisible hand were bending me ruthlessly forward, and the Death Eaters laughed harder than ever. 

"Very good," said Voldemort softly, and as he raised his wandthe pressure bearing down upon me lifted too. "And now youface me, like a man and of course--woman . . . straight-backed and proud, the way yourfather and mother died. . . . 

"And now — we duel." 

Voldemort raised his wand, and before Harry or I could do anythingto defend ourselves, before we could even move, we had been hit again by the Cruciatus Curse. The pain was so intense, so all-consuming,that I no longer knew where I was. . . . White-hot knives werepiercing every inch of my skin, my head was surely going to burstwith pain, I was screaming more loudly than I'd ever screamed in my life —And then it stopped. 

Harry and I rolled over and scrambled to our feet; we were shaking as uncontrollably as Wormtail had done when hishand had been cut off; we staggered sideways into the wall ofwatching Death Eaters, and they pushed us away, back towardVoldemort.

 "A little break," said Voldemort, the slit-like nostrils dilatingwith excitement, "a little pause . . . That hurt, didn't it, Harry, Emma? Youdon't want me to do that again, do you?" 

We didn't answer. We were going to die like Cedric, those pitiless red eyes were telling us so . . . we were  going to die, and therewas nothing we could do about it. . . but we weren't going to playalong. We weren't going to obey Voldemort . . . we were not going tobeg. . . .