The Girl Who Hid | ✓

|119| Lily's Letter

Once the café was restored to its previous condition, Harry and Ron heaved the Death Eaters back into their booth and propped them up facing each other.

"But how did they find us?" I asked, looking from one inert man to the other. "How did they know where we were?"

Hermione looked between Harry and me nervously.

"You— you don't think you two've still got your Trace on you, do you?"

"They can't have," said Ron. "The Trace breaks at seventeen, that's Wizarding law, you can't put it on an adult."

"As far as you know," said Hermione. "What if the Death Eaters have found a way to put it on a seventeen-year-old?"

"But Harry and Maisey haven't been near a Death Eater in the last twenty-four hours. Who's supposed to have put a Trace back on them?"

Hermione did not reply. I felt contaminated, tainted: Was that really how the Death Eaters had found us?

"If we can't use magic, and you can't use magic near us, without giving away our position —" I began.

"We're not splitting up!" said Hermione firmly.

"We need a safe place to hide," said Ron. "Give us time to think things through."

"Grimmauld Place," Harry finally spoke up.

The three of us gaped.

"Don't be silly, Harry, Snape can get in there!"

"Ron's dad said they've put up jinxes against him— and even if they haven't worked," he pressed on as Hermione and I began to argue, "so what? I swear, I'd like nothing better than to meet Snape!"

"But —"

"Maisey, where else is there? It's the best chance we've got. Snape's only one Death Eater. If we've still got the Trace on us, we'll have whole crowds of them on us wherever else we go."

While I unlocked the café door, Ron clicked the Deluminator to release the café's light. Then, on Harry's count of three, the three of them reversed the spells upon their three victims, and before the waitress or either of the Death Eaters could do more than stir sleepily, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and I had turned on the spot and vanished into the compressing darkness once more.

We were now standing in the middle of a familiar small and shabby square. Tall, dilapidated houses looked down on them from every side. We raced up the stone steps, and I tapped the front door once with my wand. We heard a series of metallic clicks and the clatter of a chain, then the door swung open with a creak and we hurried over the threshold.

As I closed the door behind us, the old-fashioned gas lamps sprang into life, casting flickering light along the length of the hallway. It looked just as I remembered it: Eerie, cobwebbed, the outlines of the house-elf heads on the wall throwing odd shadows up the staircase. Long dark curtains concealed the portrait of Sirius's mother. The only thing that was out of place was the troll's leg umbrella stand, which was lying on its side as if Tonks had just knocked it over again.

"I think somebody's been in here," I whispered, pointing toward it.

"That could've happened as the Order left," Ron murmured back.

"So where are these jinxes they put up against Snape?" Harry asked.

"Maybe they're only activated if he shows up?" suggested Ron.

Yet we remained close together on the doormat, backs against the door, scared to move farther into the house.

"Well, we can't stay here forever," said Harry.