How It All Goes Down
The Thief
- The trio find themselves in a forest somewhere. Ron is grievously hurt – he's been Splinched, a magical injury that happens when a wizard doesn't Apparate completely and leaves part of himself behind.
- Hermione takes care of Ron's wounds and explains what happened. Yaxley grabbed her as they were Disapparating, and saw that they were headed to Grimmauld Place, so they can't go back there. Instead, she's taken them to the woods where the Quidditch World Cup took place (see Book 4, The Goblet of Fire).
- Meanwhile, Harry reveals that he's taken Mad-Eye's, er, mad eye from Umbridge's office.
- Hermione casts some spells of protection, and sets up a spacious magic tent.
- They debrief what just went down at the Ministry. Ron is worried about the Cattermoles – we see Hermione's tenderness for him emerge.
- Harry reminds them of the business at hand – the locket. They've found their first Horcrux, but what to do with it now?
- They figure out that they need to open the locket to destroy it, but can't figure out how. Creepily, they can feel something mysterious pulsing inside it… something alive… a part of Voldemort.
- Harry, Ron, and Hermione try to settle down for a while in their woodland hideout. Harry's plagued by confused thoughts – and then out of the blue, he has another Voldemort vision.
- Voldemort has found Gregorovitch and is torturing the poor guy somewhere – Voldemort wants to know about some mysterious object that Gregorovitch was once in possession of, but the prisoner swears it was stolen years ago.
- Flashback – we're in Gregorovitch's memory now. At his wand workshop, there's a young mischievous, golden-haired young man about to leap out the window – the blond guy Stuns Gregorovitch, which is the end of the memory.
- Back to Voldemort's present – Gregorovitch pleads with him, but the Dark Lord kills him anyway.
- Harry is jolted awake by Hermione, who can tell that he's having a vision. She gets all snippy with him, so he goes inside the tent to tell Ron.
- What is Voldemort searching for? And who was the mocking, golden-haired thief?