分节阅读195
rly there,” said dubledore cheerfully sure enough, the greenish light seed to be grog rr at st, and with utes, the boat had e to a halt, bupg ntly to thg that harry uld not see at first, but when he raised his ilated wand he saw that they had reached a sall isnd of sooth rock the center of the ke ”careful not to touch the water,” said dubledore aga as harry clibed out of the boat
the isnd was no rr than dubledore39s office, an expanse of ft dark stone on which stood nothg but the urce of that greenish light, which looked uch
ighter when viewed close to harry sted at it at first, he thought it was a p of kd, but then he saw that the light was g fro a stone bas rather like the pensieve, which was set on of a pedestal dubledore approached the bas and harry followed side by side, they looked down to it the bas was full of an erald liq-uid eittg that phosphorescent glow
”what is it?” asked harry ietly
”i a not sure,” said dubledore ”thg ore worri than blood and bodies, however” dubledore phed back the sleeve of his robe over his bck-ened hand, and stretched out the tips of his burned frs toward the surface of the potion
”sir, no, don39t touch — !”
”i cannot touch,” said dubledore, silg fatly ”see? i cannot approach any nearer than this you try”
starg, harry put his hand to the bas and attepted to touch the potion he t an visible barrier that prevented hi g with an ch of it no atter how hard he phed, his frs enuntered nothg but what seed to be lid and flexible air
”out of the way, please, harry,” said dubledore he raised his wand and ade plicated ovents over the surface of the-potion, ururg undlessly nothg happened, except per haps that the potion glowed a little
ighter harry reaed silent while dubledore worked, but after a while dubledore with-drew his wand, and harry felt it was safe to talk aga
”you thk the horcrux is there, sir?”
”oh yes” dubledore peered ore closely to the bas harry saw his face reflected, upside down, the sooth surface of the green potion ”but how to reach it? this potion cannot be pen-etrated by hand, vanished, parted, soped up, or siphoned away, nor can it be transfigured, chard, or otherwise ade to chan its nature” alost absentdedly, dubledore raised his wand aga, irled it once idair, and then caught the crystal goblet that he had njured out of nowhere ”i can only ncde that this potion is supposed to be drunk”
”what?” said harry ”no!”
”yes, i thk : only by drkg it can i epty the bas and see what lies its depths”
”but what if— what if it kills you?”
”oh, i doubt that it would work like that,” said dubledore easily ”lord voldeort would not want to kill the pern who reached this isnd” harry uldn39t believe it was this ore of dubledore39s sane deteration to see good everyone?
”sir,” said harry, tryg to keep his voice reanable, ”sir, this is voldeort we39re —”
”i39 rry, harry i should have said, he would not want to i-diately kill the pern who reached this isnd,” dubledore rrected hiself ”he would want to keep the alive long enough to fd out how they anad to perate far through his de-fenses and, ost iportantly of all, why they were tent upon eptyg the bas do not fet that lord voldeort believes that he alone knows about his horcruxes”
harry ade to speak aga, but this ti dubledore raised his hand for silence, frowng slightly at the erald liid, evidently thkg hard ”undoubtedly,” he said, fally, ”this potion t act a way that will prevent takg the horcrux it ight paralyze , cae to fet what i a here for, create uch pa i a dis-tracted, or render capable other way this beg the case, harry, it will be your job to ake sure i keep drkg, even if you have to tip the potion to y protestg outh you understand?”
their eyes t over the bas, each pale face lit with that stran, green light harry did not speak was this why he had been vited along — that he uld force-feed dubledore a potion that ight cae hi unendurable pa?
”you reber,” said dubledore, ”the ndition on which i
ought you with ?”
harry hesitated, lookg to the be eyes that had turned green the reflected light of the bas
”but what if—?”
”you swore,