94 hp Diagon Alley

Can you - can you bear with me for a while until we find the crown? "

"Oh - ok - sorry -" said Ron, and hurriedly picked up the basilisk tooth with Hermione, both blushing.

The three returned to the upstairs hallway, only to find that within minutes of entering the Room of Requirement, the situation in the castle had seriously deteriorated: the walls and ceiling were shaking more violently, and the air was filled with dust.Through a nearby window Harry saw streaks of green and red light flying very close to the foot of the castle, and he knew the Death Eaters would be rushing in soon.Harry looked down and saw the giant Glop aimlessly walking by, snarling unhappily as he flung a stone beast that seemed to have been yanked from the roof.

"I wish he'd trample a few people down!" said Ron, and there were a few more screams from beside him.

"As long as it's not one of our own!" said a voice, and Harry turned his head to see Ginny and Tonks, both with their wands drawn, standing in front of a window with a few panes missing.While he was watching them, Ginny cast a hex at the group of fighters below, with perfect precision.

"Good girl!" shouted a figure running towards them from the dust, and Harry saw Aberforth again, his gray hair fluttering, leading a small group of students hastily past, "Looks like they're going to break On the north wall, they brought giants, too!"

"Did you see Remus?" Tonks asked after him.

"He was dueling Dolokhov just now," cried Aberforth, "and I haven't seen him since!"

"Tonks," said Ginny, "Tonks, I'm sure he's all right—"

But Tonks was already running after Aberforth through the flying dust.

Ginny turned helplessly, looking at Harry, Ron and Hermione.

"They'll be all right," said Harry, but he also knew the words were hollow. "Ginny, we'll be back in a moment, you stay out of danger and stay safe - let's go!" Min said the three of them ran back to the wall behind which the Room of Requirement was waiting to carry out the entrant's orders.

I need that hiding place, Harry pleaded in his head, and the door appeared as they ran past the third time.

No sooner had they crossed the threshold and closed the door than the noise of the battle was silenced, and there was solitude all around.The place was as big as a cathedral, and the surrounding landscape looked like a city, with those high walls made up of the things hidden by thousands of long-dead students.

"He never knew other people could come in?" said Ron, his voice echoing in the silence.

"He thought he was the only one who could get in," said Harry. "It's his fault that I happened to be hiding something... this way," he added, "I think it's right here..."

He passed the stuffed troll, passed the Vanishing Cabinet that Draco Malfoy had tried to fix last year with disastrous results, and then he hesitated, eyeing the passage between the dumps, not remembering where to go next... …

"The crown is flying," Hermione yelled anxiously, but nothing was flying towards them.This room, too, seemed to be as reluctant to hand over its contents as the Gringotts vault.

"Let's split up," said Harry to his two companions, "and find a stone bust of an old man in a wig and crown! It's on a big chest, it must be somewhere around here..."

They quickly ran away along the adjacent passages.Harry heard the footsteps of his two companions echoing among the towering rubbish heaps, bottles, hats, boxes, chairs, books, weapons, brooms, bats...

"Somewhere around here," Harry murmured to himself, "right... just..."

He walked deeper and deeper in the maze, looking for things he had seen in this room last time, and the sound of his own heavy breathing sounded in his ears.Suddenly, his soul seemed to tremble: there it is, right ahead.On top of that old blistered chest where he had hidden the old Potions textbook was the pockmarked bust of the wizard with the dusty hood on his head. Old wigs, and what looked like an old faded crown.

Although it was still about ten steps away, Harry had stretched out his hand, but suddenly a voice behind him said, "Stop, Potter."

Harry stopped slipping, and turned to see Crabbe and Goyle standing side by side behind him, both pointing their wands at him.In the narrow space between the two sarcastic faces, he saw Draco Malfoy.

"It's my wand you're holding, Potter," said Malfoy, pointing his own wand at Harry through the gap between Crabbe and Goyle.

"Not anymore," gasped Harry, clutching the hawthorn wand tightly in his hand. "Whoever wins, Malfoy. Who lent you their wand?"

"My mother," Draco said.

Harry laughed, but there was nothing funny about the situation.He could no longer hear Ron and Hermione, who had presumably gone off in search of the diadem.

"Why aren't you three with Voldemort?" Harry asked.

"We want to be rewarded," Crabbe said, his voice surprisingly low for such a large man.Harry had barely heard him speak before.Crabbe smiled innocently like a kid about to get a big bag of candy. "We stayed, Potter. We decided not to go. We decided to take you to him."

"Brilliant idea." Harry pretended to compliment him.He couldn't believe that Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle were going to make him fall short.He began to move back slowly, bit by bit, and there was the Horcrux, tilted over the bust's head.As long as he can grab it with his hands before the fight...

"How did you get in here?" he asked, trying to divert their attention.

"I've lived in the treasure room for nearly the last year," said Malfoy in a high-pitched voice. "I know how to get in."

"We were hiding in the corridor outside just now," Goyle muttered, "we will cast the Disillusionment Charm now! Then," he broke into a silly smile, "you suddenly appeared in front of us, Said to find a crown! What is a crown?"

"I told you that you should report to him." Malfoy suddenly interrupted Goyle's questioning, "We shouldn't make our own decisions..."

"Harry?" Ron's voice suddenly came from the other side of the wall to Harry's right. "Are you talking to someone?"

Suddenly, Crabbe pointed his wand at the fifty-foot-high pile of rubbish - old furniture, boxes, textbooks, school gowns, and other unidentifiable debris, and shouted: "Fall to the ground!"

The wall of garbage began to shake, then collapsed into the adjoining passage where Ron was.

"Ron!" Harry yelled, Hermione screamed out of sight, and countless things fell to the ground beyond the wobbly wall of rubbish.Harry pointed his wand at the wall and yelled, "Stop!" The wall of trash stopped shaking.

"Don't!" Crabbe wanted to say the spell again, but Malfoy yelled and grabbed his arm, "If you destroy this house, that diadem will be buried!"

"What does that matter?" said Crabbe, pulling Malfoy away with all his might. "The Dark Lord wants Potter, who cares about a broken hat?"

"Potter's here looking for it," said Malfoy, barely hiding his impatience with his dull-witted companion, "that must mean—"

"'Surely means'?" Crabbe turned to Malfoy with undisguised ferocity. "Who cares what you think, I won't listen to you anymore, Draco. You and your father are fucked .”

"Harry?" Ron called again from the other side of the trash wall. "What's going on?"

"Harry?" said Crabbe, imitating him. "What's the matter—no, Potter! Cruciatus!"

Harry had rushed to get the diadem, and Crabbe's spell missed him, but hit the stone statue.Immediately the stone statue flew into the air, the crown was thrown up, and then fell into a large pile of sundries along with the stone statue, out of sight.

"Stop!" Malfoy yelled at Crabbe, his voice echoing through the huge room, "The Dark Lord wants to catch alive—"

"So what? I didn't kill him!" Crabbe yelled, trying to break free from Malfoy's hold on his arm. "It would be nice if he could be killed, but the Dark Lord wanted him dead anyway, so what the difference?" ——?”

A blinding red light shot inches from Harry's side: it was Hermione running around the corner behind him and casting a Stunning Curse on Crabbe's head.Malfoy quickly pushed Clarbra aside, but the spell missed.

"It's that Mudblood! Avada Kedavra!"

"Don't kill!" Malfoy yelled at him.

Harry saw Hermione dodge on the ground.Crabbe actually became murderous, and Harry's anger was soaring, and he forgot everything in his mind.He cast a Stunning Charm at Crabbe, who dodged and knocked the wand out of Malfoy's hand.The wand rolled and disappeared under a mountain of old furniture and broken boxes.

"Don't kill him! Don't kill him!" Malfoy yelled at Crabbe and Goyle, who were both aiming at Harry, who hesitated for a moment, which was enough for Harry.

"Except your weapons!"

Goyle's wand flew out of his hand and disappeared into the clutter beside him, and Goyle jumped around foolishly, trying to snatch it back.Malfoy jumped up to avoid Hermione's second Stunning Spell, and Ron suddenly appeared at the end of the passage.