IMPOSSIBLE RISKS // Drarry

34) KREATURE'S LIE!

All around Harry, quills are scratching on parchment like scurrying, burrowing rats. The sun is very hot on the back of his head. He gazes blankly at the back of Parvati's head again. If he could only perform Legilimency and open a window in the back of her head and see what it was about trolls that had caused the breach between Pierre Bonaccord and Liechtenstein. . . .

Harry closes his eyes and buries his face in his hands, so that the glowing red of his eyelids grow dark and cool.
Bonaccord had wanted to stop troll-hunting and give the trolls rights . . . but Liechtenstein was having problems with a tribe of particularly vicious mountain trolls. . . . That was it. . . . He opens his eyes; they sting and water at the sight of the blazing-white parchment.

Slowly, he writes two lines about the trolls then reads through what he has done so far. It does not seem very informative or detailed, yet he is sure Hermione's notes on the confederation have gone on for pages and pages. . . .

He closes his eyes again, trying to see them, trying to remember. . . . The confederation had met for the first time in France, yes, he has written that already. . . . Goblins had tried to attend and been ousted. . . . He has written that too. . . . And nobody from Liechtenstein had wanted to come . . .

Think, he tells himself, his face in his hands, while all around him quills scratch out never-ending answers and the sand trickles through the hourglass at the front. . . .

He is now walking along the cool, dark corridor to the Department of Mysteries again, walking with a firm and purposeful tread, breaking occasionally into a run, determined to reach his destination at last. . . . The black door swings open for him as usual, and here he is in the circular room with its many doors. . . . Straight across the stone floor and through the second door . . . patches of dancing light on the walls and floor and that odd mechanical clicking, but no time to explore, he must hurry. . . .

He jogs the last few feet to the third door, which swings open just like the others. . . . Once again he is in the cathedral-sized room full of shelves and glass spheres. . . . His heart is beating very fast now. . . . He is going to get there this time. . . . When he reaches number ninety-seven, he turns left and hurries along the aisle between two rows. . . . But there is a shape on the floor at the very end, a black shape moving upon the floor like a wounded animal. . . .

Harry's stomach contracts with fear . . . with excitement. . . . A voice issues from his own mouth, a high, cold voice empty of any human kindness, "Take it for me. . . . Lift it down, now. . . . I cannot touch it . . . but you can . . ."
The black shape upon the floor shifts a little. Harry sees a long-fingered white hand clutching a wand rise on the end of his own arm . . . hears the high, cold voice say, "Crucio!"

The man on the floor lets out a scream of pain, and attempts to stand but falls back, writhing. Harry is laughing. He raises his wand, the curse lifted, and the figure groans and becomes motionless.

"Lord Voldemort is waiting . . ." Very slowly, his arms trembling, the man on the ground raises his shoulders a few inches and lifts his head. His face is bloodstained and gaunt, twisted in pain yet rigid with defiance. . . .

"You'll have to kill me," whispers Sirius.

"Undoubtedly I shall in the end," says the cold voice. "But you will fetch it for me first, Black. . . . Do you think you have felt pain thus far? Think again. . . . We have hours ahead of us and nobody to hear you scream . . ."

But somebody screams and Voldemort lowers his wand again; somebody yells and falls sideways off a hot desk onto the cold stone floor. Harry hits the ground and awakes, still yelling, his scar on fire, as the Great Hall erupts all around him.