There were purple shadows under her brown eyes and he noticed a small sponge in her hand: She had been wiping his face.

“You’ve been ill,” she finished. “Quite ill.”

“How long ago did we leave?”

“Hours ago. It’s nearly morning.”

“And I’ve been… what, unconscious?”

“Not exactly,” said Hermione uncomfortably. “You’ve been shouting and moaning and… things,” she added in a tone that made Harry feel uneasy. What had he done? Screamed curses like Voldemort, cried like the baby in the crib?

“I couldn’t get the Horcrux off you,” Hermione said, and he knew she wanted to change the subject. “It was stuck, stuck to your chest. You’ve got a mark; I’m sorry, I had to use a Severing Charm to get it away. The snake hit you too, but I’ve cleaned the wound and put some dittany on it…”

He pulled the sweaty T-shirt he was wearing away from himself and looked down. There was a scarlet oval over his heart where the locket had burned him. He could also see the half healed puncture marks to his forearm.

“Where’ve you put the Horcrux?”

“In my bag. I think we should keep it off for a while.”

He lay back on his pillows and looked into her pinched gray face.

“We shouldn’t have gone to Godric’s Hollow. It’s my fault, it’s all my fault. Hermione, I’m sorry.”

“It’s not you fault. I wanted to go too; I really thought Dumbledore might have left the sword there for you.”

“Yeah, well… we got that wrong, didn’t we?”

“What happened, Harry? What happened when she took you upstairs? Was the snake hiding somewhere? Did it just come out and kill her and attack you?”

“No.” he said. “She was the snake… or the snake was her… all along.”

“W-what?”

He closed his eyes. He could still smell Bathilda’s house on him; it made the whole thing horribly vivid.

“Bathilda must’ve been dead a while. The snake was… was inside her. You-Know-Who put it there in Godric’s Hollow, to wait. You were right. He knew I’d go back.”

“The snake was inside her?”

He opened his eyes again. Hermione looked revolted, nauseated.

“Lupin said there would be magic we’d never imagined,” Harry said. “She didn’t want to talk in front of you, because it was Parseltongue, all Parseltongue, and I didn’t realize, but of course I could understand her. Once we were up in the room, the snake sent a message to You-Know-Who, I heard it happen inside my head, I felt him get excited, he said to keep me there… and then…”

He remembered the snake coming out of Bathilda’s neck: Hermione did not need to know the details.

“…she changed, changed into the snake, and attacked.”

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<== попередня сторінка	\|	наступна сторінка ==>
He could not get enough breath into his lungs to call back: Then a heavy smooth mass smashed him to the floor and he felt it slide over him, powerful, muscular—	\|	He looked down at the puncture marks.

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