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Harry looked down into the boat. It really was very small.

“It doesn’t look like it was built for two people. Will it hold both of us? Will we be too heavy together?”

Dumbledore chuckled.

“Voldemort will not have cared about the weight, but about the amount of magical power that crossed his lake. I rather think an enchantment will have been placed upon this boat so that only one wizard at a time will be able to sail in it.”

“But then—?”

“I do not think you will count, Harry: You are underage and unqualified. Voldemort would never have expected a sixteen-year-old to reach this place: I think it unlikely that your powers will register compared to mine.”

These words did nothing to raise Harry’s morale; perhaps Dumbledore knew it, for he added, “Voldemort’s mistake, Harry, Voldemort’s mistake… Age is foolish and forgetful when it underestimates youth… Now, you first this time, and be careful not to touch the water.”

Dumbledore stood aside and Harry climbed carefully into the boat. Dumbledore stepped in too, coiling the chain onto the floor. They were crammed in together; Harry could not comfortably sit, but crouched, his knees jutting over the edge of the boat, which began to move at once. There was no sound other than the silken rustle of the boat’s prow cleaving the water; it moved without their help, as though an invisible rope was pulling it onward toward the light in the center. Soon they could no longer see the walls of the cavern; they might have been at sea except that there were no waves.

Harry looked down and saw the reflected gold of his wandlight sparkling and glittering on the black water as they passed. The boat was carving deep ripples upon the glassy surface, grooves in the dark mirror…

And then Harry saw it, marble white, floating inches below the surface.

“Professor!” he said, and his startled voice echoed loudly over the silent water.

“Harry?”

“I think I saw a hand in the water—a human hand!”

“Yes, I am sure you did,” said Dumbledore calmly.

Harry stared down into the water, looking for the vanished hand, and a sick feeling rose in his throat.

“So that thing that jumped out of the water—?”

But Harry had his answer before Dumbledore could reply; the wandlight had slid over a fresh patch of water and showed him, this time, a dead man lying faceup inches beneath the surface, his open eyes misted as though with cobwebs, his hair and his robes swirling around him like smoke.

“There are bodies in here!” said Harry, and his voice sounded much higher than usual and most unlike his own.

“Yes,” said Dumbledore placidly, “but we do not need to worry about them at the moment.”

“At the moment?” Harry repeated, tearing his gaze from the water to look at Dumbledore.

“Not while they are merely drifting peacefully below us,” said Dumbledore. “There is nothing to be feared from a body, Harry, any more than there is anything to be feared from the darkness. Lord Voldemort, who of course secretly fears both, disagrees. But once again he reveals his own lack of wisdom. It is the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more.”

Harry said nothing; he did not want to argue, but he found the idea that there were bodies floating around them and beneath them horrible and, what was more, he did not believe that they were not dangerous.

“But one of them jumped,” he said, trying to make his voice as level and calm as Dumbledore’s. “When I tried to Summon the Horcrux, a body leapt out of the lake.”

“Yes,” said Dumbledore. “I am sure that once we take the Horcrux, we shall find them less peaceable. However, like many creatures that dwell in cold and darkness, they fear light and warmth, which we shall therefore call to our aid should the need arise. Fire, Harry,” Dumbledore added with a smile, in response to Harry’s bewildered expression.

“Oh… right…” said Harry quickly. He turned his head to look at the greenish glow toward which the boat was still inexorably sailing. He could not pretend now that he was not scared. The great black lake, teeming with the dead… It seemed hours and hours ago that he had met Professor Trelawney, that he had given Ron and Hermione Felix Felicis… He suddenly wished he had said a better good-bye to them… and he hadn’t seen Ginny at all…

“Nearly there,” said Dumbledore cheerfully.

Sure enough, the greenish light seemed to be growing larger at last, and within minutes, the boat had come to a halt, bumping gently into something that Harry could not see at first, but when he raised his illuminated wand he saw that they had reached a small island of smooth rock in the center of the lake.

“Careful not to touch the water,” said Dumbledore again as Harry climbed out of the boat.

The island was no larger than Dumbledore’s office, an expanse of flat dark stone on which stood nothing but the source of that greenish light, which looked much brighter when viewed close to. Harry squinted at it; at first, he thought it was a lamp of some kind, but then he saw that the light was coming from a stone basin rather like the Pensieve, which was set on top of a pedestal.

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1. A blank silence greeted Hermione’s words. She looked around at all the faces upturned to her, rather disconcerted.
2. A chill that had nothing to do with the iced champagne was stealing through Harry’s chest.
3. A dark figure came bustling toward them, and Harry saw a glint of silver to the light of their wands. They had found Gryffindor’s sword.
4. A few moments later, Mr. Weasley came into the warm living room carrying his dinner on a tray. He looked completely exhausted.
5. A few of the centaurs looked worried now. Hermione, however, gave a gasp.
6. A few people looked around. Rita Skeeter’s eyes widened behind her jeweled spectacles as she saw who had spoken.
7. A mixture of gratitude and shame welled up in Harry. Had Lupin forgiven him, then, for the terrible things he had said when they had last met?
8. A motherly-looking Healer wearing a tinsel wreath in her hair came bustling up the corridor, smiling warmly at Harry and the others.
9. A paralyzing terror filled Harry so that he couldn’t move or speak. His Patronus flickered and died.
10. A seam had split on Hermione’s bag. Harry wasn’t surprised; he could see that it was crammed with at least a dozen large and heavy books.
11. A vivid image of the shrieking, spitting portrait of Sirius’s mother that hung in the hall of number twelve, Grimmauld Place flashed into Harry’s mind. “I bet there has,” he said.
12. A whistling in Harry’s ear told him the Bludger had just missed him again; he turned right over and sped in the opposite direction.

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