Summary: Chapter Thirty: The Sacking of Severus Snape
Harry has a vision of Voldemort receiving the summons.
Luna Stuns Alecto, knocking her out and waking the Ravenclaw students,
who enter the common room. Amycus pounds on the door, but he’s too stupid
to answer the doorknocker’s next question, and can’t get in. Harry
slips into Voldemort’s mind and sees that Voldemort has decided
to check on his locket Horcrux before coming to Hogwarts, giving
Harry a little extra time.
Professor McGonagall arrives outside the room and lets
Amycus in. Harry and Luna have recloaked, and Amycus sees only his Stunned
sister on the floor. His chief worry is that they will be punished
for giving a false alarm, and he muses aloud that he can blame the
summons on the Ravenclaw students, so Voldemort may be satisfied
with killing a few of them. When Professor McGonagall stands up
to Amycus defiantly, he spits in her face, prompting Harry to step
out of the Cloak and deliver a Cruciatus Curse at Amycus.
Professor McGonagall urges Harry to flee, but when he
explains that he is looking for the lost diadem of Ravenclaw on
Dumbledore’s orders, she says that the teachers will secure the
school from Voldemort while he searches. Visions of Voldemort reveal
to Harry that Voldemort has discovered that his locket is missing
and is on his way to the school.
Harry and Professor McGonagall quickly make a plan to
alert the other heads of houses and evacuate any students unwilling
or too young to fight against Voldemort. They are on their way to
alert the heads, with Harry and Luna hidden under the cloak, when
they meet Severus Snape in the hallway. When Snape demands to know
if McGonagall has seen Harry Potter, she attacks him, and they duel. McGonagall
holds Snape at bay, and he is finally forced to take flight when
Professors Sprout and Flitwick run up to aid her. Snape leaps from
the window and flies away on huge, batlike wings.
Professor McGonagall organizes the other professors in
establishing magical defenses and evacuating students, putting to
work those students who can help defend the school, including Dumbledore’s
Army. Lupin and the entire Weasley family enter the school in order
to help, with Percy apologizing for being a pro-Ministry prig and
Lupin showing pictures of his and Tonks’s baby.
Ginny Weasley tells Harry that Ron and Hermione said something
about heading to a bathroom. Harry starts to look for them when
he has a vision of Voldemort arriving at the school gates, Nagini
draped across his shoulders.
