Chapter Four: Voldemort's Lair
Not only did the lid of the piano open, but the rest of the piano itself began to break into pieces and slide apart. Zacharias gave a yell and fell backward into a jumble of boxes. No one helped him up.
The piano was sinking away into small slats in the floor, and as the dust and cobwebs cleared, a large black hole was revealed. The piano had been covering a tunnel.
Harry stood like a zombie, his mind taking him back through his adventures at Hogwarts. He was standing before the trap door on the forbiden corridor and Fluffy was snarling; he was standing before the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets in Moaning Mrytle's bathroom and Lockhart was babbling; he was standing at the end of the tunnel leading to the Shrieking Shack, bruised and battered from his battle with the Whomping Willow. Beside him, Ron swallowed and clapped him on the shoulder, jerking him back to reality.
"Seems a bit familiar, doesn't it?" he asked Harry nervously.
"Well, you four carry on," squeaked Zacharias behind them, dusting himself off. "I'll just wait upstairs. Ta-ta," and he turned to flee to the stairs, but Harry grabbed the back of his robes.
"I thought you wanted to come with us?" he demanded.
"Let him go," said Ron with a dismissive sneer. "He only gets in the way."
Ginny shook her head, "We can't, Ron. He knows things."
"We wouldn't have opened the tunnel without him," added Hermione reasonably.
Harry jerked Zacharias around and pushed him toward the tunnel. "We'll go first," he told the others.
"Then Ginny and I," said Hermione, standing beside Ginny.
"Then I suppose I'll bring up the rear," said Ron, who seemed pleased with this.
Zacharias straightened his clothes with jerky little movements, his blonde hair tumbling into his eyes. He scowled at all four of them. "Fine! Guess I'm coming along then, aren't I, Weasel?" he sneered at Ron. Then he turned, hesitated, and marched into the darkness of the tunnel.
Harry followed with the others behind him. Behind Harry, Hermione and Ginny exchanged shrewd looks.
The walls were slimy and slick, and in the distance echoed a steady drip,drip. The further they traveled, the more chilly it became. Harry could see his own breath misting the back of Zacharias's neck, which he didn't bother to stifle, even when Zacharias shivered and glared around at him.
"It's like a cave," remarked Ginny.
At the rear, Ron stubbed his toe on a loose rock and cursed.
"Shut up, Weasley," Zacharias snarled. "If there is still something downhere, I'll be the first to go when it hears you!"
"All the more reason to start yelling," Ron muttered, and Hermione smiled reluctantly.
The tunnel seemed to take them steeper and steeper under ground. The ceiling became so increasingly low that the five of them were forced into an odd sort of crouching walk. Harry could hear Hermione cry with pain behind him and shout at intervals for Ron to stay off her feet. He hoped with private weariness that they wouldn't start to bicker.
After what seemed hours, the tunnel had become to narrow they were all squished into each other with their faces in their knees. To move, they had to shuffle their feet forward, inch by inch, the ceiling grating their backs and their heads thrust forth. They couldn't even turn back of they wanted.
"Are you happy now, Potter?" snapped Zacharias after banging his head on the ceiling for the umpteenth time. "We're all stuck down here in this stinking rock burrow with our faces in our groins. Must feel like home, eh, Weasley?"
Hermione gasped angrily. Even that was little too Malfoy for Zacharias.
Ron began to sputter angrily from the rear, but being as tall as he was, he was least likely to be able to speak in their current position. Zacharias carried on, "Of course, Potter must enjoy this as well. He's used to closed spaces. Living in a cupboard for ten years will desensitize anyone to dung holes and rock pits."
Harry would have retorted at once, but he'd clenched his wand in this teeth long ago. He could only glare at Zacharias's back as they shuffled along.
"Well, you'd know all about dung holes," said Ginny in a surprising cool voice concerning the situation. "That's where they took your father when they arrested him, didn't they? To Azkaban?"
"What the devil are you talking about, Weasley?" demanded Zacharias, beginning to sound like himself again.
"Your father," Ginny repeated loudly. "Lucious Malfoy?"
"Malfoy!" Harry cried in a muffled voice around his wand.
"That's right," said Hermione, "We first noticed when he called Ron 'Weasel'."
"Very good, Granger," sneered Zacharias, "Never could keep your nose out of other people's business, or your filthy mudblood mouth shut!"
Ron finally gave a roar of fury and lunged forward. He landed hard on Hermione's back, and the rest of them were sent slamming forward, heels and heads scraping the ceiling. They were rolling like marbles down a slide, except the slide the very painful and -- unlilke marbles -- they could feel every scrape and bump.
Through the web-like cracks on his glasses, Harry was able to see Zacharias's blonde hair disappear down a hole. with all his strength, his thrust his legs our and braced himself against the frame of the hole, his resolved shaking threateningly when the three bodies of his friends slammed into him from behind.
"Ron, you idiot," swore Ginny, her mouth pressed into Harry's back.
"He called Hermione a mudblood!" exclaimed Ron from the rear, his voice muffled.
"What's going on," squeaked Hermione, her face in Ginny's hair, "Why have we stopped?"
"It was a trap," Harry grunted, his glasses slipping further and further down his nose. "Malfoy led us into a trap! The tunnel becomes a dead end at this hole, there's no other way forward."
"We can't go back," called Ron. "Too steep a climb. Know any good spells, Hermione?"
Hermione groaned uncertainly.
"I can't hold much longer!" Harry grunted.
His knees were beginning to shake. He couldn't hold three bodies against his back forever.
"Apparation," Ron said after a pause.
"No," said Harry firmly. "We can't leave after all this."
"Well, what happened to Malfoy?" Ginny demanded impatiently. "Can you see anything?"
"No, it's just dark! I heard him scream, but that was all."
"He could still be falling," Hermione said in wonder. Her voice was shaky. "He could still be falling to his death!"
"No more than he deserves," Ron grumbled.
Harry's legs gave way, and they slipped toward the mouth of the hole again. Harry reached out and grabbed the edge of the hole with his hands as well, his legs now dangling into it as the other three piled ontop of him.
"Hermione, now would be a good time," Harry groaned, only his head and arms visible beneath the mass of tangled bodies.
Hermione almost lost her wand, but caught it with her elbow, lifted it in her teeth, and cried, "Immobulous!" just as all four of them slid into the hole, screaming.
They were paralzyed in midair -- everyone, that is, except Hermione. Ron raised his wand and performed the spell, and soon the four of them were hovering together, Hermione a little way below.
"Good work, Hermione," Harry panted, gazing around.
They hung there in the darkness, like cloaks hung in a closet, panting and aching and sweating.
"Hermione!" called Ron, cupping his hands around his mouth, "Can you see anything down there?"
Hermione peered down into the darkness a long moment, the top of her bushy hair smudged black from the ceiling.
" . . . no . . ." she said carefully, and then, "Wait, I can see his wand!"
In deed, as Harry and the others watched, the yellow tip of a wand became apparent in the gloom. They could hear Zacharias's voice croak, "Accio!"as it echoed up to them in the darkness, and then the four of them werespeeding to the ground.
"What's the countercurse for accio, Hermione!" Ron yelled.
But Hermione's robes were tangled over her head and all she managed was amuffled scream as she disappeared ahead of them.
"Hermione!" panicked Ron.
Harry hardly had time to ready himself. The ground hurtled up before him and he was thrown feet-first at Zacharias, who was waiting in the gloom and stepped out of their way. They landed one after the other on the hard ground.
The last thing Harry heard was Ron's sobbing voice yelling Hermione's name and the voice of Zacharias shouting, "Expellairamus!" before he banged his head against the wall and blacked out.
"Harry?"
Harry looked up. He was lying on his face in a wood and there was soot and cobwebs in his hair. Standing before him was Albus Dumbledore in his shining, white robes.
"This task was given to you, Harry," the old wizard said. "If you don't find a way --"
"No one will," finished Harry, laughing as he took the older wizard's offered hand. "You've read The Lord of the Rings, too, Professor?"
Dumbledore smiled until his twinkling eyes were swallowed in his wrinkles, leaned over, and pulled Harry to his feet.
Harry was standing in a slimy, cavelike room, his shoulders being shaken and his face smacked. He opened his eyes to find them level with Malfoy's cold, gray ones.
"Nice of you to join us, Potter," Malfoy sneered.
The Polyjuice Potion had worn off and Draco Malfoy was standing before him, looking ridiculous in Zacharias Smith's smaller clothes. His blonde hair was mussed and his nose bleeding, as if he'd been in a brawl. The same sneer as ever was fixed to his face as he stepped back, eyes on Harry, and smiled.
"Ron . . ." sobbed a voice Harry recognized as Hermione's. "Oh, Ron . . ."
Harry looked around to see Ron slumped against the wall, Hermione kneeling beside him with her temple bleeding profusely. she broke down into miserable sobbing abd buried her face in Ron's robes.
Heart thuding, Harry looked around for Ginny, but she was backed into a corner, her lip bleeding and her body bound by a body bind spell.
"Nice work you've done, haven't you, Potter?" Malfoy spat. "Leading your friends once more to their deaths. Old Dumbledore would be proud."
Harry took a threatening step forward, "Why are you here?"
"To stop you, of course," answered Malfoy. "You think the Dark Lord doesn't know about your plan to destroy his work? The Dark Lord knows everything."
It dawned on Harry suddenly that Malfoy had no clue why he'd been sent after Harry. He didn't have the faintest inkling about the horcruxes.
"And how have you been ordered to stop me?" Harry asked, a smile puckering around the corners of his mouth. "It's too late, Malfoy."
Malfoy eyes flickered, "You really must think I'm stupid, Potter. I know you're lying."
"Yeah, I do think you're stupid, but, no, I'm not lying," answered Harry. "It's done."
Malfoy merely raised his wand, "Enough of this. My mission is to kill the others, and bring you to the Dark Lord -- alive, unfortunately."
Harry glanced sideways at Ginny, who was lifting her eyebrows and looking pointedly at Ron. She stopped quickly. Malfoy had followed Harry's gaze.
"Yes," said Malfoy, smiling, "I think Potter's little girlfriend will be first to die." He patted the collection of wands in his pocket teasingly and moved toward Ginny with a twisted smile.
"Now!" shouted Ron's voice suddenly.
Malfoy turned, but not fast enough. Ron tackled him to the ground, and the two them went rolling across it as Hermione scrambled after the dropped wands. Harry grabbed his own and aimed it at Malfoy, just as the blonde wizard was about to punch a crumpled Ron in the gut.
"Get off him," Harry ordered grimly.
Malfoy sneered, but obeyed, "Gladly. Wouldn't want the filth to rub off."
Ron staggered upright, glaring at Malfoy, and took his wand from Hermione. Ginny had been released by Hermione and her wand returned to her. The four or them stood, gazing up at the hole from which they'd fallen, silent and hopeless.
"What now?" Ron asked Harry around a painful moan.
"Yeah, what now, Potter?" added Malfoy, smiling sarcastically.
Harry sent a silent curse at Malfoy that caused his tongue to stick to the roof of his mouth.
"Um, there's -- there's something . . ." squeaked Hermione.
Everyone looked at her. Her face was stained with tears and soot, and she was pointing at yet another tunnel in the wall.
"Oh, good," said Ron in relief and started forward. Ginny pulled him back by the arm.
"Wait," she said, "there's something in there!"
A pair of green eyes glowed out at them from the darkness.