Harry listened. A soft rustling and clinking seemed to be coming from up ahead.

“Do you think it’s a ghost?”

“I don’t know… sounds like wings to me.”

“There’s light ahead—I can see something moving.”

They reached the end of the passageway and saw before them a brilliantly lit chamber, its ceiling arching high above them. It was full of small, jewel bright birds, fluttering and tumbling all around the room. On the opposite side of the chamber was a heavy wooden door.

“Do you think they’ll attack us if we cross the room?” said Ron.

“Probably,” said Harry. “They don’t look very vicious, but I suppose if they all swooped down at once… well, there’s no other choice… I’ll run.”

He took a deep breath, covered his face with his arms, and sprinted across the room. He expected to feel sharp beaks and claws tearing at him any second, but nothing happened. He reached the door untouched. He pulled the handle, but it was locked.

The other two followed him. They tugged and heaved at the door, but it wouldn’t budge, not even when Hermione tried her Alohomora charm.

“Now what?” said Ron.

“These birds… they can’t be here just for decoration,” said Hermione.

They watched the birds soaring overhead, glittering—glittering?

“They’re not birds!” Harry said suddenly. “They’re keys! Winged keys—look carefully. So that must mean…” he looked around the chamber while the other two squinted up at the flock of keys. “…yes—look! Broomsticks! We’ve got to catch the key to the door!”

“But there are hundreds of them!”

Ron examined the lock on the door.

“We’re looking for a big, old fashioned one—probably silver, like the handle.”

They each seized a broomstick and kicked off into the air, soaring into the midst of the cloud of keys. They grabbed and snatched, but the bewitched keys darted and dived so quickly it was almost impossible to catch one.

Not for nothing, though, was Harry the youngest Seeker in a century. He had a knack for spotting things other people didn’t. After a minute’s weaving about through the whirl of rainbow feathers, he noticed a large silver key that had a bent wing, as if it had already been caught and stuffed roughly into the keyhole.

“That one!” he called to the others. “That big one—there—no, there—with bright blue wings—the feathers are all crumpled on one side.”

Ron went speeding in the direction that Harry was pointing, crashed into the ceiling, and nearly fell off his broom.

“We’ve got to close in on it!” Harry called, not taking his eyes off the key with the damaged wing. “Ron, you come at it from above—Hermione, stay below and stop it from going down and I’ll try and catch it. Right, NOW!”

Ron dived, Hermione rocketed upward, the key dodged them both, and Harry streaked after it; it sped toward the wall, Harry leaned forward and with a nasty, crunching noise, pinned it against the stone with one hand. Ron and Hermione’s cheers echoed around the high chamber.

They landed quickly, and Harry ran to the door, the key struggling in his hand. He rammed it into the lock and turned—it worked. The moment the lock had clicked open, the key took flight again, looking very battered now that it had been caught twice.

“Ready?” Harry asked the other two, his hand on the door handle. They nodded. He pulled the door open.

Читайте також:

<== попередня сторінка	\|	наступна сторінка ==>
Harry climbed over it and looked down through the trapdoor. There was no sign of the bottom.	\|	The next chamber was so dark they couldn’t see anything at all. But as they stepped into it, light suddenly flooded the room to reveal an astonishing sight.

Не знайшли потрібну інформацію? Скористайтесь пошуком google:

Генерація сторінки за: 0.005 сек.