The One That Got Away {Book One in The One Series}

Chapter Twenty-One ~ A Fight Meant To Be Won

Chapter Twenty-One

A Fight Meant To Be Won

            “Harry James Potter, you are in so much trouble!”

Nervous giggles and shuffling broke the silence, and Ron couldn’t help but grin “Oooh, she’s got you now mate.”

“Er,Ada-”

“Don’t you Adame!” she cried “You disappear for nine months, break into the ministry, then the bank and expect to hug me?!”

“Look who’s talking!” he shot back, wincing slightly, as if someone had just poked him in the forehead with a sharp pencil “You think I’m the only one who runs off and doesn’t tell anyone were you are?”

Before Adalyn could yell right back at him, Harry felt a terrible, scorching pain in the lightning scar. As he turned his back hastily on the curious and delighted faces, the Room of Requirement vanished, and he was standing inside a ruined stone shack, and the rotting floorboards were ripped apart at his feet, a disinterred golden box lay open and empty beside the hole, and Voldemort's scream of fury vibrated inside his head.

With an enormous effort he pulled out of Voldemort's mind again, back to where he stood, swaying, in the Room of Requirement, sweat pouring from his face and Ron holding him up.

"Are you all right, Harry?" Neville was saying. "Want to sit down? I expect you're tired, aren't you?"

"No," said Harry. He looked at Ron and Hermione, trying to tell them without words that Voldemort had just discovered the loss of one of the other Horcruxes. Time was running out fast: If Voldemort chose to visit Hogwarts next, they would miss their chance.

"We need to get going," he said, and their expressions told him that they understood.

"What are we going to do, then, Harry?" asked Seamus. "What's the plan?"

"Plan?" repeated Harry. He was exercising all his willpower to prevent himself succumbing again to Voldemort's rage: His scar was still burning. "Well, there's something we -Ron, Hermione, and I- need to do, and then we'll get out of here."

Nobody was laughing or whooping anymore. Neville looked confused.

"What d'you mean, 'get out of here'?"

"We haven't come back to stay," said Harry, rubbing his scar, trying to soothe the pain. "There's something important we need to do."

"What is it?"

"I-I can't tell you."

There was a ripple of muttering at this: Neville's brows contracted.

"Why can't you tell us? It's something to do with fighting You-Know-Who, right?"

"Well, yeah. "

"Then we'll help you."

The other members of Dumbledore's Army were nodding, some enthusiastically, others solemnly. A couple of them rose from their chairs to demonstrate their willingness for immediate action.

"You don't understand," Harry seemed to have said that a lot in the last few hours. "We-we can't tell you. We've got to do it…alone."

"Why?" asked Neville.

"Because ..." In his desperation to start looking for the missing Horcrux, or at least have a private discussion with Ron and Hermione about where they might commence their search. Harry found it difficult to gather his thoughts. His scar was still searing. "Dumbledore left the three of us a job," he said carefully, "and we weren't supposed to tell-I mean, he wanted us to do it, just the three of us."