Harry Potter 05 - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

said Dumbledore calmly. ‘The Aurors are on their way –’
    ‘By which time I shall be gone, and you will be dead!’ spat Voldemort. He sent another killing curse at Dumbledore but missed, instead hitting the security guard’s desk, which burst into flame.
    Dumbledore flicked his own wand: the force of the spell that emanated from it was such that Harry, though shielded by his golden guard, felt his hair stand on end as it passed and this time Voldemort was forced to conjure a shining silver shield out of thin air to deflect it. The spell, whatever it was, caused no visible damage to the shield, though a deep, gong-like note reverberated from it – an oddly chilling sound.
    ‘You do not seek to kill me, Dumbledore?’ called Voldemort, his scarlet eyes narrowed over the top of the shield. ‘Above such brutality, are you?’
    ‘We both know that there are other ways of destroying a man, Tom,’ Dumbledore said calmly, continuing to walk towards Voldemort as though he had not a fear in the world, as though nothing had happened to interrupt his stroll up the hall. ‘Merely taking your life would not satisfy me, I admit –’
    ‘There is nothing worse than death, Dumbledore!’ snarled Voldemort.
    ‘You are quite wrong,’ said Dumbledore, still closing in upon Voldemort and speaking as lightly as though they were discussing the matter over drinks. Harry felt scared to see him walking along, undefended, shieldless; he wanted to cry out a warning, but his headless guard kept shunting him backwards towards the wall, blocking his every attempt to get out from behind it. ‘Indeed, your failure to understand that there are things much worse than death has always been your greatest weakness –’
    Another jet of green light flew from behind the silver shield. This time it was the one-armed centaur, galloping in front of Dumbledore, that took the blast and shattered into a hundred pieces, but before the fragments had even hit the floor, Dumbledore had drawn back his wand and waved it as though brandishing a whip. A long thin flame flew from the tip; it wrapped itself around Voldemort, shield and all. For a moment, it seemed Dumbledore had won, but then the fiery rope became a serpent, which relinquished its hold on Voldemort at once and turned, hissing furiously, to face Dumbledore.
    Voldemort vanished; the snake reared from the floor, ready to strike –
    There was a burst of flame in midair above Dumbledore just as Voldemort reappeared, standing on the plinth in the middle of the pool where so recently the five statues had stood.
    ‘Look out!’ Harry yelled.
    But even as he shouted, another jet of green light flew at Dumbledore from Voldemort’s wand and the snake struck –
    Fawkes swooped down in front of Dumbledore, opened his beak wide and swallowed the jet of green light whole: he burst into flame and fell to the floor, small, wrinkled and flightless. At the same moment, Dumbledore brandished his wand in one long, fluid movement – the snake, which had been an instant from sinking its fangs into him, flew high into the air and vanished in a wisp of dark smoke; and the water in the pool rose up and covered Voldemort like a cocoon of molten glass.
    For a few seconds Voldemort was visible only as a dark, rippling, faceless figure, shimmering and indistinct upon the plinth, clearly struggling to throw off the suffocating mass –
    Then he was gone and the water fell with a crash back into its pool, slopping wildly over the sides, drenching the polished floor.
    ‘MASTER!’ screamed Bellatrix.
    Sure it was over, sure Voldemort had decided to flee, Harry made to run out from behind his statue guard, but Dumbledore bellowed: ‘Stay where you are, Harry!’
    For the first time, Dumbledore sounded frightened. Harry could not see why: the hall was quite empty but for themselves, the sobbing Bellatrix still trapped under the witch statue, and the baby phoenix Fawkes croaking feebly on the floor –
    Then Harry’s scar burst open and he knew he was dead: it was pain beyond imagining, pain past endurance –
    He was gone from the hall, he was locked in the coils of a creature with red eyes, so tightly bound that Harry did not know where his body ended and the creature’s began: they were fused together, bound by pain, and there was no escape –
    And when the creature spoke, it used Harry’s mouth, so that in his agony he felt his jaw move …
    ‘Kill me now, Dumbledore …’
    Blinded and dying, every part