Harry Potter and the Headsman's Hostage

Chapter 4
Confrontation

"Hate is fear, and fear is rot,
That cankers root and fruit alike:
Fight cleanly then, hate not, fear not,
Strike with no madness when you strike."
-----Robert Graves

They walked out from under the tree and up near the lip of the ridge, staying low to avoid being spotted. Sirius led Buckbeak as close as he dared, then joined Harry. As the two of them mounted their brooms, Lupin began to change. His face and body lengthened while his legs shrank and his shoulders hunched; thick gray fur sprouted on his face and hands and he dropped to all fours. Harry recoiled, remembering the other time he had witnessed this transformation. This time, however, with the influence of the Wolfsbane Potion, the werewolf did not snarl and snap at the others; instead, he looked up at Harry and winked one golden eye, then slunk up to the very top of the ridge and crouched down, ready to sprint down the hill.

Hermione, carrying the two quiescent Bludgers, got down on the ground beside him and pointed down the hill with her wand, whispering something. The Bludgers rose into the air and hung there, a foot above the ground. Hermione backed down the slope a bit, stood up, and approached Buckbeak, bowing low. The hippogriff returned the courtesy promptly, and she walked up to him and stroked his beak, then put one foot on top of his wing where it joined his shoulder and swung up onto his back.

"All right," she said. "Everyone ready?"

Harry and Sirius looked nodded at her over their shoulders. She pointed her wand at the Bludgers and said, in a strong, clear voice "Catapultus!"

The Bludgers shot down the hillside. Harry and Sirius kicked off and accelerated hard, tearing down the slope in their wake, with Lupin running close behind them.

As they closed in on the house, they saw the Bludgers knock two of the three card players off their chairs and send them sprawling on the grass. The third leaped to his feet, grabbing for the wand in his belt. Harry and Sirius's Stunning Spells struck him at the same instant, making a red nimbus around his head and torso as he collapsed beside his companions.

There was no more time to think about the men on the ground; the wooden door was rushing up to meet them. Harry aimed his wand at it, and he and Sirius shouted in unison, "Reducto!"

The door blasted off its hinges and shattered. Harry and Sirius shot through the open doorway, braking hard. Across the room, the small figure of Cho Chang lay bound and gagged on the cot. Behind her, the tall man in the black robe and white skull mask rose swiftly from his chair against the wall, hefting his great axe. Sirius snapped the tip of his wand into line with the masked Death Eater and shouted, "Stupefy!" To Harry's shock, the man blocked the red ray from Sirius's wand with the blade of his axe - and reflected it back on Sirius, who fell from his broom and sprawled across the floor, Stunned.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl. Harry brought his Firebolt to a screeching halt in the middle of the room, slewing it sideways, his wand arm whipping out in full extension like a fencer's lunge. The Death Eater swung his battleaxe high overhead, then down in a glittering arc toward the slender neck of the girl lying bound and helpless before him. Harry felt as though he were moving in slow motion - he was too late, Cho was going to die before his eyes - he screamed at the top of his lungs, "Expelliarmus!"

Six inches from Cho's neck, the axe bounced upward as though it had struck an invisible barrier and spun out of the Death Eater's hands, clattering on the floor behind him.

The man froze for a moment in surprise; then he gave Harry a mocking bow, holding his hands wide apart to show he was unarmed, and said, "Not bad, boy. You've managed to impress me." Harry had been half-expecting to hear Lucius Malfoy's unctuous drawl, but instead the man spoke in a low, rough Scottish brogue, utterly devoid of human warmth.

Harry remembered the last time he'd heard that voice, and a chill ran up his spine. "Don't move!" he said through clenched teeth. "Unless you fancy dying... Macnair."

The Death Eater actually chuckled at that. "You think you could cast the Killing Curse, boy?"

"Care to find out?" Harry snarled. "Reach for your wand. I'll bloody well kill you where you stand!"

"Now, now, Potter, there's no need for such temper. I'd like to stay and discuss how you and your companions hexed my Portkey, but I'm afraid I have pressing business elsewhere."

Harry shouted, "Stupefy!" but it was too late; the Death Eater dived for his axe, and the jet of red light from Harry's wand went over his head. Now the cot - and Cho - were between Harry and his enemy. Harry dashed forward to get a clear shot, but before he could fire off another spell the man Disapparated.

Breathing hard, Harry bent over the cot where Cho was now struggling frantically, her eyes wide and frightened, and pulled the gag from her mouth. "Are you all right?" he asked. "Don't worry, he's gone...."

She was shaking her head urgently. "No!" she cried, the moment her mouth was clear, "Harry, get away, it's a trap!"

Even as she spoke, the door to the cellar swung open. The lamp suddenly blew out, and a wave of bone-chilling cold filled the room. Harry's head was filled with a terrible, anguished screaming. Of course, he thought, fighting back panic, Dumbledore said they'd join Voldemort's side.... He raised his wand and said, "Lumos!" The tip of the wand lit with a brilliant blue glow - just in time to illuminate the first of several towering, cloaked figures floating through the cellar door, reaching out for him and Cho with slimy, leprous gray hands. He could hear the dementors' rattling breath, and their malignant power seemed to settle on his mind like a poisonous fog, draining him of every happy thought.

He knew what he had to do. Resisting the black despair that threatened to overwhelm him, he called to mind the immense joy he had felt at finding his friends in the park that morning and shouted, "Expecto Patronum!"

A spray of silver light burst from the tip of his wand, resolving itself into the form of a huge, shining stag that nearly filled the room. The fog in Harry's mind lifted instantly. The stag pawed the ground and lowered its antlers at the dementors. They quailed before it; then, as it charged into their midst, they scattered, vanishing back into the dark of the cellar or out into the gathering dusk, where they blew away like leaves in a gale.

The Patronus turned to Harry and Cho, regarding them with eyes of liquid silver. It lowered its head and gently nuzzled Cho's face. She opened her eyes and stared up at it in wonder. The stag looked up at Harry and nodded its magnificent head, then dissipated, leaving only a wisp of sparkling silver mist hanging in the air.

As it vanished, Cho's eyes widened again in panic and she screamed, staring past Harry at the doorway. Harry spun around; one of the Death Eaters from outside stood there, raising his wand and shrieking the Killing Curse: "Avada Ked-AAAAARRRRGGGHHH!" The curse broke off in a wail of agony as a pair of massive claws seized the man's shoulders, bearing him to the ground. His wand was knocked out of his hand and skittered across the floor, fetching up under the cot.

Hermione slid down from Buckbeak's back, white-faced and trembling. "That was too close," she said, shakily.

Harry nodded, breathing hard. "But you made it. Thanks, Hermione. Better wake up Sirius; I'm going to help Cho."

Cho was lying curled up on the cot, eyes shut tight again, whimpering softly like a wounded animal. Harry felt another stab of cold rage at seeing the bright, vivacious girl who had so captivated him at Hogwarts reduced to such a state. Taking out his pocketknife, he quickly cut the leather thongs that bound her wrists and ankles. Then he sat on the cot, drew her into his arms, and murmured in her ear, "It's all right Cho, they're all gone. They can't hurt you now. Nothing's going to hurt you, you're safe now."

Her eyes fluttered open, and she looked up at him. "Harry...." she whispered. She hugged him convulsively, burying her face in his chest, and he could feel hot tears seeping through his shirt; then, with a soft sigh, she fainted.

Turning, Harry saw Sirius getting unsteadily to his feet. He leaned on Hermione for a moment, then straightened up and glanced around the room. "Do you need a hand, Harry?" he asked.

"No, thanks," Harry replied. "I can manage." He rose from the bed and cradled Cho in his arms with her head resting against his shoulder. Her slight frame seemed almost weightless, but he was very conscious of her bare legs, the smooth skin cool against his arm. She stirred slightly but remained limp and unconscious as he carried her out into the fading evening light. Buckbeak had dragged the equally inert Death Eater outside and was now lying down with his talons curled possessively over the man's body, a look of immense satisfaction in his fierce orange eyes. The gray wolf that was Lupin had curled up on the ground a little way away, licking a long, shallow cut on his left hind leg.

Harry gently set Cho down in one of the lounge chairs and knelt on the grass beside her. He touched two fingers to her throat and found her pulse, which was fast but steady; she seemed to be breathing normally. We did it, Cedric, he thought. She's going to be all right. And maybe, just maybe, so am I.

Hermione had followed Harry out of the cottage. "After the Bludgers knocked down the two outside, one of them Disapparated," she explained breathlessly. "But the other one pulled a knife out of his boot and threw it at Lupin as he came down the hill. An ordinary knife wouldn't have hurt him a bit, of course, but this one must have been made of silver, or at least plated with it. He went tumbling head over heels, and the Death Eater got up and started for the door. The Bludger came at him again, but he blasted it with his wand. Buckbeak and I were in the air by then; we would have been on him quicker, but a couple of those dementors came soaring right past us and spooked Buckbeak; he almost threw me off, and it took me a moment to get him calmed down again." The hippogriff ruffled his wings and shot her a reproving glance, and she quickly added, "I'm sorry, Buckbeak, I know it wasn't your fault; dementors do that to everyone."

Harry stood up and walked over to the hippogriff. "Thanks, Buckbeak," he said. "You saved my life in there." Then he grinned. "I guess that makes us even, huh? Now, let's see who you've got here." He knelt beside the fallen Death Eater and pulled off his mask.

Once the man's head was uncovered, Harry could see that his neck was bent at an impossible angle and he wasn't breathing. Harry felt a chill as he looked at the still features, but shrugged it off. He had seen death before, and he wasn't going to waste any sympathy on a man who'd helped kidnap and torture Cho. However, he was surprised at the Death Eater's youth: the man couldn't have been more than four or five years out of school. The implications were disturbing: clearly, Voldemort was gaining new followers.

As he turned back to Hermione, who was now on her knees examining Lupin's wound, pain flared in his scar. He clapped his hand to his forehead and groaned. "What is it," Hermione asked, glancing up at him.

"I think," said Harry through gritted teeth, "that Macnair just reported in to Voldemort, and Voldemort's... annoyed with him. He's probably getting a little taste of what he did to Cho. Serves him right. I just wish I didn't have to share the experience."

"In that case," said Sirius, emerging from the cottage, "I think the five of you had better be going, just in case Voldemort decides to send in reinforcements."

"Aren't you coming with us?" asked Harry.

"I'm going to have a look around, see if I can find anything here the Order can use as evidence. This kidnapping business might help us convince at least some people at the Ministry that we've been telling the truth all along. If any Death Eaters show up, I can Apparate away; the rest of you can't do that.

"All right," said Harry. "Just be careful."

Sirius nodded. Looking around at the werewolf, the hippogriff, Cho, and the Stunned Death Eater, he said, "I think the easiest thing will be to make this chair into a Portkey. Gather around, everyone." Harry and Hermione put their hands on the back of the lounge chair, and Lupin limped over and clamped the armrest in his teeth.

Sirius pointed his wand at the Death Eater and said, "Incarcerous!" Ropes burst from the tip of his wand and coiled like snakes around the unconscious man, binding him securely. "Mobilicorpus," Sirius said, and the inert body rose into the air and settled across the foot of the lounge chair. Finally, Sirius cajoled Buckbeak into placing one claw on the arm of the chair opposite Lupin.

"Now, I'm sending you to the Harrington Arms Inn at Number Forty-Seven, Lighthouse Road, Flamborough Head, in Yorkshire. It's very important you remember that address, because otherwise you won't be able to see it; it's protected by the Fidelius Charm."

"Harrington Arms Inn, Number Forty-Seven Lighthouse Road, Flamborough Head," Harry repeated. "Got it."

"Good. All right, everyone ready?" He moved his wand in a curlicue gesture at the chair and said, "Confundus Locaris." Then he tapped the back of it once and said, "Portus." For the third time that day, Harry felt himself jerked forward into a maelstrom of wind and swirling colors.

A moment later, Harry and the others landed beside a country road that ran through a grassy field. He looked around, getting his bearings. The waning evening light in the sky to his left told him that he was facing north. Off to the east, he could see the tall white tower of a lighthouse about half a mile away, and hear the cries of sea birds and the sound of waves breaking against a cliff. "The Harrington Arms Inn," he recited, "at Number Forty-Seven, Lighthouse Road, Flamborough Head." Beside him, Hermione was whispering the same thing.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, suddenly, a heavy wooden door stood before him where a moment before there had been nothing but an empty field. As he stared at the door, an entire building seemed to inflate around it: a three-story, fieldstone structure with a steep slate roof. Glancing up, he could see a wooden sign hanging from an iron bar set in the stone: a coat of arms consisting of a silver fret on a black field, surmounted by a crimson animal like a rampant heraldic lion, but with a human face, the wings of a dragon and the tail of a scorpion.

The knocker on the door was a stylized brass lion's head, with a heavy brass ring clamped in its jaws. Hermione reached out and thumped it twice against the wood, and the door swung slowly open.

Harry lifted Cho in his arms again and stepped inside. Hermione levitated the bound and unconscious Death Eater with the same spell Sirius had used and floated him across the threshold in front of her; Lupin limped though the doorway beside her.

As they stepped inside, candles set in sconces along the walls lit to reveal a large room, clearly the inn's common room. Immediately to their right was a low partition with a desk behind it; to the left was a large open area with several round tables, each with three or four chairs around it, and four large, comfortable-looking armchairs along the front wall, near the two windows. An enormous stone fireplace dominated the far left wall. Directly across from the door, a grand staircase curved up to the second floor, and on the back wall near the far left corner of the room was an open doorway that presumably led to the kitchen.

Hermione deposited the Death Eater unceremoniously on the floor just inside the door. "Would you mind keeping an eye on him, Professor?" she asked Lupin. The gray wolf gave her a lupine grin, tongue lolling out, and lay down with his nose inches from the man's face.

"Bedrooms will be upstairs," Hermione said. "Why don't you take Cho up there while I find someplace for Buckbeak to stay? There ought to be a stable or something."

"All right," said Harry. He carried Cho to the stairs while Hermione coaxed the hippogriff through the door and shut it behind him.

The candles continued to light by themselves in front of him as Harry climbed the stairs. The staircase ended in a hallway with four doors along each side. The first door on the right was ajar; Harry kicked it open.

A huge four-poster bed filled the far corner of the room, similar to the beds in his dormitory at Hogwarts but a foot longer and twice as wide, with diaphanous white curtains instead of red velvet ones. Beside the bed stood a big recliner chair and a small table with a shaded oil lamp for reading; an open window behind the chair let in a light breeze and the sound of waves breaking in the distance. Harry placed Cho, still unconscious, in the recliner, and pulled back the covers on the bed. Then he lifted her once again and laid her gently on the bed, pulling the covers up over her.

Unsure what else to do, he drew his wand and started a fire in the hearth in the corner, then lit the reading lamp and settled down in the recliner to wait, glancing idly around room. A large wardrobe stood in the corner behind the door, and beside it another door with a full-length mirror hanging on it led to what he guessed was a bathroom. On the other side of that door, near where he sat, was a low dresser, and between the foot of the bed and the hearth stood a small writing desk with a plain wooden chair. A larger stuffed armchair stood between the hearth and the door leading out into the hall.

In a few minutes Hermione appeared in the doorway, carrying a tray with a pitcher of water and a two tumblers. "How's she doing?" she asked in a hushed voice.

"Still out of it, but she doesn't seem hurt," Harry replied. "She's breathing normally, anyway. I think it was the dementors; we were both out for quite a while after our run-in with them last year, remember?"

Hermione shuddered. "I'm not likely to forget," she said, as she set the tray down on the nightstand. "So what do we do now?"

"Wait for Sirius, I guess. Unless you have a better idea?"

"No, I can't think of anything else. I think I'll go back downstairs, just in case that... scum wakes up. Not that Lupin couldn't handle him, but I'd rather he didn't have to."

"All right," said Harry. "I'm going to stay here in case Cho wakes up."

"Good idea," Hermione agreed. "I don't think it would do her any good to wake up alone in a strange place." She started for the door, then paused and turned back to Harry. "You're going to have to tell her, you know," she said quietly.

"Tell her what?" Harry asked, with a hint of irritation. Fond as he was of Hermione, her tendency to speak in cryptic phrases and assume that others would follow her train of thought could be infuriating.

"Everything. Harry, she's seen Sirius, and she's seen the Death Eaters. She's involved now, as much as you or Ron or I. She's suffered more than any of us - well, maybe not more than you. After what she's been through, she deserves to know the truth - about Voldemort, about Sirius, about the Order, and especially about how Cedric died. If anyone has the right, it's her. And if anyone is obliged to tell her, it's you."

Harry sighed heavily. "I suppose you're right. It's just... what do I do if she starts crying? Cedric was her boyfriend, you saw how she was at the Leaving Feast...."

Hermione glared at him in exasperation. "Just be nice to her," she told him. "You were doing fine back in the cottage."

"Was I? It just seemed... it seemed natural, somehow. Like... like the way Mrs. Weasley hugged me, in the hospital wing after...."

"That's exactly right," Hermione agreed. "She needs to feel safe, and to know that you care about her. You do, don't you?"

"Of course I do!"

"Then you have to let her know that. Look, you said you wished she were your girlfriend. Well, the most important part of that word 'girlfriend' is friend. Talk to her the way you would to me, let her cry on your shoulder if that's what she needs, and let the rest take care of itself."

"All right," said Harry dubiously, "I suppose I can do that."

Hermione flashed him a quick smile. "Of course you can. I'll see you in a bit, all right?"

"All right." She left the room; Harry poured himself a glass of ice water from the pitcher and settled back into his chair to wait. It put him in mind of waiting for his turn at the First Task in last year's Tournament - except that last year, he knew he'd be fighting a dragon. He had no idea what to expect from Cho when she awoke.