J. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

“Patronuses,” said Harry, pointing his wand at his own. The stag slowed and walked, still gleaming brightly, toward the door. “As many as we can muster; do yours, Hermione.”

“Expec—Expecto patronum,” said Hermione. Nothing happened.

“It’s the only spell she ever has trouble with,” Harry told a completely bemused Mrs. Cattermole. “Bit unfortunate, really… Come on, Hermione…”

“Expecto patronum!”

A silver otter burst from the end of Hermione’s wand and swam gracefully through the air to join the stag.

“C’mon,” said Harry, and he led Hermione and Mrs. Cattermole to the door.

When the Patronuses glided out of the dungeon there were cries of shock from the people waiting outside. Harry looked around; the Dementors were falling back on both sides of them, melding into the darkness, scattering before the silver creatures.

“It’s been decided that you should all go home and go into hiding with your families,” Harry told the waiting Muggle-born, who were dazzled by the light of the Patronuses and still cowering slightly. “Go abroad if you can. Just get well away from the Ministry. That’s the—er—new official position. Now, if you’ll just follow the Patronuses, you’ll be able to leave the Atrium.”

They managed to get up the stone stops without being intercepted, but as they approached the lifts Harry started to have misgivings. If they emerged into the Atrium with a silver stag, and otter soaring alongside it, and twenty or so people, half of them accused Muggle-borns, he could not help feeling that they would attract unwanted attention. He had just reached this unwelcome conclusion when the lift clanged to a halt in front of them.

“Reg!” screamed Mrs. Cattermole, and she threw herself into Ron’s arms. “Runcorn let me out, he attacked Umbridge and Yaxley, and he’s told all of us to leave the country. I think we’d better do it, Reg, I really do, let’s hurry home and fetch the children and—why are you so wet?”

“Water,” muttered Ron, disengaging himself. “Harry, they know there are intruders inside the Ministry, something about a hole in Umbridge’s office door. I reckon we’ve got five minutes if that—”

Hermione’s Patronus vanished with a pop as she turned a horror struck face to Harry.

“Harry, if we’re trapped here—!”

“We won’t be if we move fast,” said Harry. He addressed the silent group behind them, who were all gawping at him.

“Who’s got wands?”

About half of them raised their hands.

“Okay, all of you who haven’t got wands need to attach yourself to somebody who has. We’ll need to be fast before they stop us. Come on.”

They managed to cram themselves into two lifts. Harry’s Patronus stood sentinel before the golden grilles as they shut and the lifts began to rise.

“Level eight,” said the witch’s cool voice, “Atrium.”

Harry knew at once that they were in trouble. The Atrium was full of people moving from fireplace to fireplace, sealing them off.

“Harry!” squeaked Hermione. “What are we going to—?”

“STOP!” Harry thundered, and the powerful voice of Runcorn echoed through the Atrium: The wizards sealing the fireplaces froze. “Follow me,” he whispered to the group of terrified Muggle-borns, who moved forward in a huddle, shepherded by Ron and Hermione.

“What’s up, Albert?” said the same balding wizard who had followed Harry out of the fireplace earlier. He looked nervous.

“This lot need to leave before you seal the exits,” said Harry with all the authority he could muster.

The group of wizards in front of him looked at one another.

“We’ve been told to seal all exits and not let anyone—”

“Are you contradicting me?” Harry blustered. “Would you like me to have your family tree examined, like I had Dirk Cresswell’s?”

“Sorry!” gasped the balding wizard, backing away. “I didn’t mean nothing, Albert, but I thought… I thought they were in for questioning and…”

“Their blood is pure,” said Harry, and his deep voice echoed impressively through the hall. “Purer than many of yours, I daresay. Off you go,” he boomed to the Muggle-borns, who scurried forward into the fireplaces and began to vanish in pairs. The Ministry wizards hung back, some looking confused, others scared and fearful. Then:

“Mary!”

Mrs. Cattermole looked over her shoulder. The real Reg Cattermole, no longer vomiting but pale and wan, had just come running out of a lift.

“R-Reg?”

She looked from her husband to Ron, who swore loudly.

The balding wizard gaped, his head turning ludicrously from one Reg Cattermole to the other.

“Hey—what’s going on? What is this?”

“Seal the exit! SEAL IT!”

Yaxley had burst out of another lift and was running toward the group beside the fireplaces, into which all of the Muggle-borns but Mrs. Cattermole had now vanished. As the balding wizard lifted his wand, Harry raised an enormous fist and punched him, sending him flying through the air.

“He’s been helping Muggle-borns escape, Yaxley!” Harry shouted.

The balding wizard’s colleagues set up and uproar, under cover of which Ron grabbed Mrs. Cattermole, pulled her into the still-open fireplace, and disappeared. Confused, Yaxley looked from Harry to the punched wizard, while the real Reg Cattermole screamed, “My wife! Who was that with my wife? What’s going on?”

Harry saw Yaxley’s head turn, saw an inkling of truth dawn on that brutish face.

“Come on!” Harry shouted at Hermione; he seized her hand and they jumped into the fireplace together as Yaxley’s curse sailed over Harry’s head. They spun for a few seconds before shooting up out of a toilet into a cubicle. Harry flung open the door: Ron was standing there beside the sinks, still wrestling with Mrs. Cattermole.

“Reg, I don’t understand—”

“Let go, I’m not your husband, you’ve got to go home!”

There was a noise in the cubicle behind them; Harry looked around; Yaxley had just appeared.

“LET’S GO!” Harry yelled. He seized Hermione by the hand and Ron by the arm and turned on the stop.

Darkness engulfed them, along with the sensation of compressing hands, but something was wrong… Hermione’s hand seemed to be sliding out of his grip…

He wondered whether he was going to suffocate; he could not breathe or see and the only solid things in the world were Ron’s arm and Hermione’s fingers, which were slowly slipping away…

And then he saw the door to number twelve, Grimmauld Place, with its serpent door knocker, but before he could draw breath, there was a scream and a flash of purple light: Hermione’s hand was suddenly vicelike upon his and everything went dark again.

Harry opened his eyes and was dazzled by gold and green; he had no idea what had happened, he only knew that he was lying on what seemed to be leaves and twigs. Struggling to draw breath into lungs that felt flattened, he blinked and realized that the gaudy glare was sunlight streaming through a canopy of leaves far above him. Then an object twitched close to his face. He pushed himself onto his hands and knees, ready to face some small, fierce creature, but saw that the object was Ron’s foot. Looking around, Harry saw that they and Hermione were lying on a forest floor, apparently alone.

Harry’s first thought was of the Forbidden Forest, and for a moment, even though he knew how foolish and dangerous it would be for them to appear in the grounds of Hogwarts, his heart leapt at the thought of sneaking through the trees to Hagrid’s hut. However, in the few moments it took for Ron to give a low groan and Harry to start crawling toward him, he realized that this was not the Forbidden Forest; The trees looked younger, they were more widely spaced, the ground clearer.