Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

And then Harry saw him. Voldemort was flying like smoke on the wind, without broomstick or thestral to hold him, his snake-like face gleaming out of the blackness, his white fingers raising his wand again—

Hagrid let out a bellow of fear and steered the motorbike into a vertical dive. Clinging on for dear life, Harry sent Stunning Spells flying at random into the whirling night. He saw a body fly past him and knew he had hit one of them, but then he heard a bang and saw sparks from the engine; the motorbike spiraled through the air, completely out of control—

Green jets of light shot past them again. Harry had no idea which way was up, which down. His scar was still burning; he expected to die at any second. A hooded figure on a broomstick was feet from him, he saw it raise its arm—

“NO!”

With a shout of fury Hagrid launched himself off the bike at the Death Eater; to his horror, Harry saw both Hagrid and the Death Eater, falling out of sight, their combined weight too much for the broomstick—

Barely gripping the plummeting bike with his knees, Harry heard Voldemort scream, “Mine!”

It was over: He could not see or hear where Voldemort was; he glimpsed another Death Eater swooping out of the way and heard, “Avada—”

As the pain from Harry’s scar forced his eyes shut, his wand acted of its own accord. He felt it drag his hand around like some great magnet, saw a spurt of golden fire through his half-closed eyelids, heard a crack and a scream of fury. The remaining Death Eater yelled; Voldemort screamed, “NO!” Somehow, Harry found his nose an inch from the dragon-fire button. He punched it with his wand-free hand and the bike shot more flames into the air, hurtling straight toward the ground.

“Hagrid!” Harry called, holding on to the bike for dear life. “Hagrid—Accio Hagrid!”

The motorbike sped up, sucked towards the earth. Face level with the handlebars, Harry could see nothing but distant lights growing nearer and nearer: He was going to crash and there was nothing he could do about it. Behind him came another scream, “Your wand, Selwyn, give me your wand!”

He felt Voldemort before he saw him. Looking sideways, he stared into the red eyes and was sure they would be the last thing he ever saw: Voldemort preparing to curse him once more—

And then Voldemort vanished. Harry looked down and saw Hagrid spread-eagled on the ground below him. He pulled hard at the handlebars to avoid hitting him, groped for the brake, but with an earsplitting, ground trembling crash, he smashed into a muddy pond.

5. FALLEN WARRIOR

“Hagrid?”

Harry struggled to raise himself out of the debris of metal and leather that surrounded him; his hands sank into inches of muddy water as he tried to stand. He could not understand where Voldemort had gone and expected him to swoop out of the darkness at any moment. Something hot and wet was trickling down his chin and from his forehead. He crawled out of the pond and stumbled toward the great dark mass on the ground that was Hagrid.

“Hagrid? Hagrid, talk to me—”

But the dark mass did not stir.

“Who’s there? Is it Potter? Are you Harry Potter?”

Harry did not recognize the man’s voice. Then a woman shouted.

“They’ve crashed, Ted! Crashed in the garden!”

Harry’s head was swimming.

“Hagrid,” he repeated stupidly, and his knees buckled.

The next thing he knew, he was lying on his back on what felt like cushions, with a burning sensation in his ribs and right arm. His missing tooth had been regrown. The scar on his forehead was still throbbing.

“Hagrid?”

He opened his eyes and saw that he was lying on a sofa in an unfamiliar, lamplit sitting room. His rucksack lay on the floor a short distance away, wet and muddy. A fair-haired, big-bellied man was watching Harry anxiously.

“Hagrid’s fine, son,” said the man, “the wife’s seeing to him now. How are you feeling? Anything else broken? I’ve fixed your ribs, your tooth, and your arm. I’m Ted, by the way, Ted Tonks—Dora’s father.”

Harry sat up too quickly. Lights popped in front of his eyes and he felt sick and giddy.

“Voldemort—”

“Easy, now,” said Ted Tonks, placing a hand on Harry’s shoulder and pushing him back against the cushions. “That was a nasty crash you just had. What happened, anyway? Something go wrong with the bike? Arthur Weasley overstretch himself again, him and his Muggle contraptions?”

“No,” said Harry, as his scar pulsed like an open wound. “Death Eaters, loads of them—we were chased—”

“Death Eaters?” said Ted sharply. “What d’you mean, Death Eaters? I thought they didn’t know you were being moved tonight, I thought—”

“They knew,” said Harry.

Ted Tonks looked up at the ceiling as though he could see through it to the sky above.

“Well, we know our protective charms hold, then, don’t we? They shouldn’t be able to get within a hundred yards of the place in any direction.”