Gothic in the Deathly Hallows: Isolating the heroes

Tied off with a red rope, there was what looked like a wooden boat in the water, half-covered by a mouldy canvas tarpaulin. There were several warehouses, a jetty, a tavern and some kind of stone fort with a large wooden door that had been covered in glossy red paint.

The windows in this alley had been shuttered: they were closed tight as people had retreated inside their homes for the night. Women were talking on the other side of the river, their soft laughter echoing off distant walls. He saw a small child playing with a teddy bear as he walked past an open window; then he saw a gentleman leave his house and climb into a waiting carriage.

Covered with gleaming oil, there was what looked like a giant engine at the base of the wall, partly hidden by a blistering cloud of steam. There was a series of smelters, a forge, a dipping tank and an office high above whose window was glowing brilliantly through the smoke.

The smell in this part of the chamber was overwhelming: the giant drains had become choked with rotting garbage washed down from the tenements above. People walked on the streets high above, their shadows flickering across metal grills in the ceiling. He heard a rattle of keys in locks as someone opened a door downstairs; then he heard a rumble in the lift-well on the other side of the wall.

Topped by a statue of a young boy, there was some kind of fountain in the middle, partly concealed by a black thorny hedge. There was a gazebo, a pond, an ornamental bridge and a tiny cave whose entrance led into an impenetrable darkness.

The wall here had been marked: it was scuffed and scratched where someone had once tried to climb out of the garden. Swans were swimming on the lake, their white feathers almost lost in the fog. She caught a fragment of conversation as the nurses walked behind the hedge; then she heard a bell ring from the tower on the hill.