Poisoned Youth | ✓

68- Death

A monstrous spider the size of a small car was trying to climb through the huge hole in the wall: One of Aragog's descendants had joined the fight. My brain spun as tears choked in my throat— I couldn't cast, but my wand did. The monster was blown backwards, its legs jerking horribly, and vanished into the darkness.

"It brought friends!" Harry called to us, glancing over the edge of the castle through the hole in the wall the curses had blasted: More giant spiders were climbing the side of the building, liberated from the Forbidden Forest, into which the Death Eaters must have penetrated. All of us fired Stunning Spells down upon them, knocking the lead monster into its fellows so that they rolled back down the building and out of sight. Then more curses came soaring over my head, so close I felt the force of them blow my hair.

"Let's move, NOW!"

Hermione grabbed Ron as Harry grabbed me, dragging us away from Fred's body. The older brother I never had, and never appreciated, lied dead a few feet away from us. Rounding the corner, Percy let out a bull-like roar: "ROOKWOOD!" and sprinted off in the direction of a tall man, who was pursuing a couple of students.

Harry dragged me behind a tapestry as I tried to struggle out of his grip, I wanted to avenge Fred. Ron seemed to have the same idea because it looked as if Hermione and Ron were wrestling; Hermione was trying to restrain Ron, to stop him running after his brother.

"Listen to me — LISTEN, RON!"

"I wanna— Fred — I wanna kill Death Eaters —"

His face was contorted, smeared with dust and smoke, and he was shaking with rage.

"Percy will be okay!" Harry shouted, holding me in place.

"Ron, we're the only ones who can end it! Please — Ron — we need the snake, we've got to kill the snake!" said Hermione.

"We will fight!" Harry said. "We'll have to, to reach the snake! But let's not lose sight now of what we're supposed to be d-doing! We're the only ones who can end it!"

Ron and I stopped resisting. My heart broke as it raced in my chest.

"You need to find out where Voldemort is, because he'll have the snake with him, won't he? Do it, Harry — look inside him!" Hermione encouraged him.

Within seconds, his mind was back and he was panting, "He's in the Shrieking Shack. The snake's with him, it's got some sort of magical protection around it. He's just sent Lucius Malfoy to find Snape."

"Voldemort's sitting in the Shrieking Shack?" said Hermione, outraged. "He's not — he's not even fighting?"

"He doesn't think he needs to fight," said Harry. "He thinks I'm going to go to him."

"But why?"

"He knows I'm after Horcruxes — he's keeping Nagini close beside him — obviously I'm going to have to go to him to get near the thing —"

"Right," said Ron, squaring his shoulders. "So you can't go, that's what he wants, what he's expecting. You stay here and look after Hermione and Iverson, and I'll go and get it —"

We stood there, fighting about who should go, when two masked Death Eaters stood there, but even before their wands were fully raised, Hermione shouted, "Glisseo!"

The stairs beneath our feet flattened into a chute and she, Harry, Ron, and I hurtled down it, unable to control our speed but so fast that the Death Eaters' Stunning Spells flew far over our heads. We shot through the concealing tapestry at the bottom and spun onto the floor, hitting the opposite wall.