Harry Potter 5(2) Full Novel

The team rose, shouldered their brooms and marched in single file out of the changing room and
into the dazzling sunlight. A roar of sound greeted them in which Harry could still hear singing,
though it was muffled by the cheers and whistles.
The Slytherin team was standing waiting for them. They, too, were wearing those silver crownshaped badges. The new Captain, Montague, was built along the same lines as Dudley Dursley, with massive forearms like hairy hams. Behind him lurked Crabbe and Goyle, almost as large, blinking stupidly in the sunlight, swinging their new Beaters’ bats. Malfoy stood to one side, the sunlight gleaming on his white-blond head. He caught Harry’s eye and smirked, tapping the crown-shaped badge on his chest.
“Captains, shake hands,” ordered the referee Madam Hooch, as Angelina and Montague reached
each other. Harry could tell that Montague was trying to crush Angelina’s fingers, though she did
not wince. “Mount your brooms…”
Madam Hooch placed her whistle in her mouth and blew.
The balls were released and the fourteen players shot upwards. Out of the corner of his eye Harry
saw Ron streak off towards the goal hoops. Harry zoomed higher, dodging a Bludger, and set off
on a wide lap of the pitch, gazing around for a glint of gold; on the other side of the stadium,
Draco Malfoy was doing exactly the same.
“And it’s Johnson - Johnson with the Quaffle, what a player that girl is, I’ve been saying it for
years but she still won’t go out with me -”
“JORDAN!” yelled Professor McGonagall.

“- just a fun fact, Professor, adds a bit of interest - and she’s ducked Warrington, she’s passed
Montague, she’s — ouch - been hit from behind by a Bludger from Crabbe… Montague catches
the Quaffle, Montague heading back up the pitch and - nice Bludger there from George Weasley,
that’s a Bludger to the head for Montague, he drops the Quaffle, caught by Katie Bell, Katie Bell
of Gryffindor reverse-passes to Alicia Spinnet and Spinnet’s away -”
Lee Jordan’s commentary rang through the stadium and Harry listened as hard as he could
through the wind whistling in his ears and the din of the crowd, all yelling and booing and
singing.
“- dodges Warrington, avoids a Bludger - close call, Alicia - and the crowd are loving this, just
listen to them, what’s that they’re singing?”
And as Lee paused to listen, the song rose loud and clear from the sea of green and silver in the
Slytherin section of the stands:
“Weasley cannot save a thing, He cannot block a single ring, That’s why Slytherins all sing:
Weasley is our King.”
“Weasley was born in a bin He always lets the Quaffle in Weasley will make sure we win
Weasley is our King.”
“—and Alicia passes back to Angelina!” Lee shouted, and as Harry swerved, his insides boiling
at what he had just heard, he knew Lee was trying to drown out the words of the song. “Come on
now, Angelina — looks like she’s got just the Keeper to beat! - SHE SHOOTS - SHE - aaaah…”
Bletchley, the Slytherin Keeper, had saved the goal; he threw the Quaffle to Warrington who
sped off with it, zig-zagging in between Alicia and Katie; the singing from below grew louder
and louder as he drew nearer and nearer Ron.
“Weasley is our King, Weasley is our King, He always lets the Quaffle in Weasley is our King.”
Harry could not help himself: abandoning his search for the Snitch, he wheeled around to watch
Ron, a lone figure at the far end of the pitch, hovering before the three goal hoops while the
massive Warrington pelted towards him.
“- and it’s Warrington with the Quaffle, Warrington heading for goal, he’s out of Bludger range
with just the Keeper ahead -”
A great swell of song rose from the Slytherin stands below:
“Weasley cannot save a thing, He cannot block a single ring…”
“- so it’s the first test for new Gryffindor Keeper Weasley, brother of Beaters Fred and George,
and a promising new talent on the team - come on, Ron!”
But the scream of delight came from the Slytherins’ end: Ron had dived wildly, his arms wide,
and the Quaffle had soared between them straight through Ron’s central hoop.
“Slytherin score!” came Lee’s voice amid the cheering and booing from the crowds below, “so
that’s ten-nil to Slytherin - bad luck, Ron.”
The Slytherins sang even louder:
“WEASLEY WAS BORN IN A BIN, HE ALWAYS LETS THE QUAFFLE IN…”
“- and Gryffindor back in possession and it’s Katie Bell tanking up the pitch -” cried Lee
valiantly, though the singing was now so deafening that he could hardly make himself heard
above it.
“WEASLEY WILL MAKE SURE WE WIN WEASLEY IS OUR KING…”
“Harry, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” screamed Angelina, soaring past him to keep up with
Katie. “GET GOING!”
Harry realized he had been stationary in midair for over a minute, watching the progress of the
match without sparing a thought for the whereabouts of the Snitch; horrified, he went into a dive
and started circling the pitch again, staring around, trying to ignore the chorus now thundering
through the stadium:
“WEASLEY IS OUR KING, WEASLEY IS OUR KING…”
There was no sign of the Snitch anywhere he looked; Malfoy was still circling the stadium just as
he was. They passed one another midway around the pitch, going in opposite directions, and
Harry heard Malfoy singing loudly:
“WEASLEY WAS BORN IN A BIN…”
“—and it’s Warrington again,” bellowed Lee, “who passes to Pucey, Pucey’s off past Spinnet,
come on now, Angelina, you can take him - turns out you can’t - but nice Bludger from Fred
Weasley, I mean, George Weasley, oh, who cares, one of them, anyway, and Warrington drops
the Quaffle and Katie Bell — er - drops it, too - so that’s Montague with the Quaffle, Slytherin
Captain Montague takes the Quaffle and he’s off up the pitch, come on now, Gryffindor, block
him!”
Harry zoomed around the end of the stadium behind the Slytherin goal hoops, willing himself not
to look at what was going on at Ron’s end. As he sped past the Slytherin Keeper, he heard
Bletchley singing along with the crowd below:
“WEASLEY CANNOT SAVE A THING…”
“- and Pucey’s dodged Alicia again and he’s heading straight for goal, stop it, Ron!”
Harry did not have to look to see what had happened: there was a terrible groan from the
Gryffindor end, coupled with fresh screams and applause from the Slytherins. Looking down,
Harry saw the pug-faced Pansy Parkinson right at the front of the stands, her back to the pitch as
she conducted the Slytherin supporters who were roaring:
“THAT’S WHY SLYTHERINS ALL SING WEASLEY ISOUR KING.”
But twenty-nil was nothing, there was still time for Gryffindor to catch up or catch the Snitch. A
few goals and they would be in the lead as usual, Harry assured himself, bobbing and weaving
through the other players in pursuit of something shiny that turned out to be Montague’s
watchstrap.
But Ron let in two more goals. There was an edge of panic in Harry’s desire to find the Snitch
now. If he could just get it soon and finish the game quickly.
“- and Katie Bell of Gryffindor dodges Pucey, ducks Montague, nice swerve, Katie, and she
throws to Johnson, Angelina Johnson takes the Quaffle, she’s past Warrington, she’s heading for
goal, come on now, Angelina - GRYFFINDOR SCORE! It’s forty-ten, forty-ten to Slytherin and
Pucey has the Quaffle”
Harry could hear Luna’s ludicrous lion hat roaring amidst the Gryffindor cheers and felt
heartened; only thirty points in it, that was nothing, they could pull back easily. Harry ducked a
Bludger that Crabbe had sent rocketing in his direction and resumed his frantic scouring of the
pitch for the Snitch, keeping one eye on Malfoy in case he showed signs of having spotted it, but
Malfoy, like him, was continuing to soar around the stadium, searching fruitlessly…
“— Pucey throws to Warrington, Warrington to Montague, Montague back to Pucey -Johnson
intervenes, Johnson takes the Quaffle, Johnson to Bell, this looks good - I mean bad - Bells hit
by a Bludger from Goyle of Slytherin and it’s Pucey in possession”
“WEASLEY WAS BORN IN A BIN, HE ALWAYS LETS THE QUAFFLE IN”
“WEASLEY WILL MAKE SURE WE WIN”
But Harry had seen it at last: the tiny fluttering Golden Snitch was hovering feet from the ground
at the Slytherin end of the pitch.
He dived…
In a matter of seconds, Malfoy was streaking out of the sky on Harry’s left, a green and silver
blur lying flat on his broom…
The Snitch skirted the foot of one of the goal hoops and scooted off towards the other side of the
stands; its change of direction suited Malfoy, who was nearer; Harry pulled his Firebolt around,
he and Malfoy were now neck and neck…
Feet from the ground, Harry lifted his right hand from his broom, stretching towards the
Snitch… to his right, Malfoy’s arm extended too, was reaching, groping…
It was over in two breathless, desperate, windswept seconds - Harry’s fingers closed around the
tiny, struggling ball - Malfoy’s fingernails scrabbled the back of Harrys hand hopelessly - Harry
pulled his broom upwards, holding the struggling ball in his hand and the Gryffindor spectators
screamed their approval…
They were saved, it did not matter that Ron had let in those goals, nobody would remember as
long as Gryffindor had won -
WHAM.
A Bludger hit Harry squarely in the small of the back and he flew forwards off his broom.
Luckily he was only five or six feet above the ground, having dived so low to catch the Snitch,
but he was winded all the same as he landed flat on his back on the frozen pitch. He heard
Madam Hooch’s shrill whistle, an uproar in the stands compounded of catcalls, angry yells and
jeering, a thud, then Angelinas frantic voice.
“Are you all right?”
“Course I am,” said Harry grimly, taking her hand and allowing her to pull him to his feet.
Madam Hooch was zooming towards one of the Slytherin players above him, though he could
not see who it was from this angle.
“It was that thug Crabbe,” said Angelina angrily, “he whacked the Bludger at you the moment he saw you’d got the Snitch - but we won, Harry, we won!”
Harry heard a snort from behind him and turned around, still holding the Snitch tightly in his
hand: Draco Malfoy had landed close by. White-faced with fury, he was still managing to sneer.
“Saved Weasley’s neck, haven’t you?” he said to Harry. “I’ve never seen a worse Keeper… but
then he was born in a bin… did you like my lyrics, Potter?”
Harry didn’t answer. He turned away to meet the rest of the team who were now landing one by
one, yelling and punching the air in triumph; all except Ron, who had dismounted from his
broom over by the goalposts and seemed to be making his way slowly back to the changing
rooms alone.
“We wanted to write another couple of verses!” Malfoy called, as Katie and Alicia hugged Harry. “But we couldn’t find rhymes for fat and ugly - we wanted to sing about his mother, see-”
“Talk about sour grapes,” said Angelina, casting Malfoy a disgusted look.
“- we couldn’t fit in useless loser either - for his father, you know -”
Fred and George had realized what Malfoy was talking about. Halfway through shaking Harry’s
hand, they stiffened, looking round at Malfoy.
“Leave it!” said Angelina at once, taking Fred by the arm. “Leave it, Fred, let him yell, he’s just
sore he lost, the jumped-up little -”
“- but you like the Weasleys, don’t you, Potter?” said Malfoy, sneering. “Spend holidays there
and everything, don’t you? Can’t see how you stand the stink, but I suppose when you’ve been
dragged up by Muggles, even the Weasleys’ hovel smells okay -”
Harry grabbed hold of George. Meanwhile, it was taking the combined efforts of Angelina,
Alicia and Katie to stop Fred leaping on Malfoy, who was laughing openly. Harry looked around
for Madam Hooch, but she was still berating Crabbe for his illegal Sludger attack.
“Or perhaps,” said Malfoy, leering as he backed away, “you can remember what your mother’s
house stank like, Potter, and Weasleys pigsty reminds you of it —”
Harry was not aware of releasing George, all he knew was that a second later both of them were
sprinting towards Malfoy. He had completely forgotten that all the teachers were watching: all he
wanted to do was cause Malfoy as much pain as possible; with no time to draw out his wand, he
merely drew back the fist clutching the Snitch and sank it as hard as he could into Malfoys
stomach -
“Harry! HARRY! GEORGE! NO”
He could hear girls’ voices screaming, Malfoy yelling, George swearing, a whistle blowing and
the bellowing of the crowd around him, but he did not care. Not until somebody in the vicinity
yelled “Impedimenta!” and he was knocked over backwards by the force of the spell, did he
abandon the attempt to punch every inch of Malfoy he could reach.
“What do you think you’re doing?” screamed Madam Hooch, as Harry leapt to his feet. It seemed to have been her who had hit him with the Impediment Jinx; she was holding her whistle
in one hand and a wand in the other; her broom lay abandoned several feet away. Malfoy was curled up on the ground, whimpering and moaning, his nose bloody; George was sporting a swollen lip; Fred was still being forcibly restrained by the three Chasers, and Crabbe was cackling in the background. “I’ve never seen behavior like it - back up to the castle, both of you, and straight to your Head of House’s office! Go! Now.”
Harry and George turned on their heels and marched off the pitch, both panting, neither saying a
word to the other. The howling and jeering of the crowd grew fainter and fainter until they
reached the Entrance Hall, where they could hear nothing except the sound of their own
footsteps. Harry became aware that something was still struggling in his right hand, the knuckles
of which he had bruised against Malfoy’s jaw. Looking down, he saw the Snitch’s silver wings
protruding from between his fingers, struggling for release.
They had barely reached the door of Professor McGonagall’s office when she came marching
along the corridor behind them. She was wearing a Gryffindor scarf, but tore it from her throat
with shaking hands as she strode towards them, looking livid.
“In!” she said furiously, pointing to the door. Harry and George entered. She strode around
behind her desk and faced them, quivering with rage as she threw the Gryffindor scarf aside on
to the floor.
“Well?” she said. “I have never seen such a disgraceful exhibition. Two on one! Explain
yourselves!”
“Malfoy provoked us,” said Harry stiffly.
“Provoked you?” shouted Professor McGonagall, slamming a fist on to her desk so that her tartan tin slid sideways off it and burst open, littering the floor with Ginger Newts. “He’d just lost, hadn’t he? Of course he wanted to provoke you! But what on earth he can have said that justified what you two —”
“He insulted my parents,” snarled George. “And Harry’s mother.”
“But instead of leaving it to Madam Hooch to sort out, you two decided to give an exhibition of
Muggle dueling, did you?” bellowed Professor McGonagall. “Have you any idea what you’ve -
?”
“Hem, hem.”
Harry and George both wheeled round. Dolores Umbridge was standing in the doorway wrapped
in a green tweed cloak that greatly enhanced her resemblance to a giant toad, and was smiling in
the horrible, sickly, ominous way that Harry had come to associate with imminent misery.
“May I help, Professor McGonagall?” asked Professor Umbridge in her most poisonously sweet
voice.
Blood rushed into Professor McGonagall’s face.
“Help?” she repeated, in a constricted voice. “What do you mean, help?”
Professor Umbridge moved forwards into the office, still smiling her sickly smile.
“Why, I thought you might be grateful for a little extra authority”
Harry would not have been surprised to see sparks fly from Professor McGonagall’s nostrils.
“You thought wrong,” she said, turning her back on Umbridge.
“Now, you two had better listen closely. I do not care what provocation Malfoy offered you, I do
not care if he insulted every family member you possess, your behavior was disgusting and I
am giving each of you a week’s worth of detentions! Do not look at me like that, Potter, you
deserve it! And if either of you ever -”
“Hem, hem.”
Professor McGonagall closed her eyes as though praying for patience as she turned her face
towards Professor Umbridge again.
“Yes?”
“I think they deserve rather more than detentions,” said Umbridge, smiling still more broadly.
Professor McGonagall’s eyes flew open.
“But unfortunately” she said, with an attempt at a reciprocal smile that made her look as though
she had lockjaw, “it is what I think that counts, as they are in my House, Dolores.”
“Well, actually, Minerva,” simpered Professor Umbridge, “I think you’ll find that what I
think does count. Now, where is it? Cornelius just sent it… I mean,” she gave a false little laugh
as she rummaged in her handbag, “the Minister just sent it… ah yes…”
She had pulled out a piece of parchment which she now unfurled, clearing her throat fussily
before starting to read what it said.
“Hem, hem… ‘Educational Decree Number Twenty-five’.”
“Not another one!” exclaimed Professor McGonagall violently.
“Well, yes,” said Umbridge, still smiling. “As a matter of fact, Minerva, it was you who made me see that we needed a further amendment… you remember how you overrode me, when I was
unwilling to allow the Gryffindor Quidditch team to re-form? How you took the case to
Dumbledore, who insisted that the team be allowed to play? Well, now, I couldn’t have that. I
contacted the Minister at once, and he quite agreed with me that the High Inquisitor has to have
the power to strip pupils of privileges, or she - that is to say, I - would have less authority than
common teachers! And you see now, don’t you, Minerva, how right I was in attempting to stop
the Gryffindor team re-forming? Dreadful tempers… anyway, I was reading out our
amendment… hem, hem… ‘High Inquisitor will henceforth have supreme authority over all
punishments, sanctions and removal of privileges pertaining to the students of Hogwarts, and the
power to alter such punishments, sanctions and removals of privileges as may have been ordered
by other staff members. Signed, Cornelius Fudge, Minister for Magic, Order of Merlin First
Class, etc., etc.’“
She rolled up the parchment and put it back into her handbag, still smiling.
“So… I really think I will have to ban these two from playing Quidditch ever again,” she said,
looking from Harry to George and back again.
Harry felt the Snitch fluttering madly in his hand.
“Ban us?” he said, and his voice sounded strangely distant. “From playing… ever again?”
“Yes, Mr. Potter, I think a lifelong ban ought to do the trick,” said Umbridge, her smile widening
still further as she watched him struggle to comprehend what she had said. “You and Mr. Weasley here. And I think, to be safe, this young man’s twin ought to be stopped, too - if his teammates had not restrained him, I feel sure he would have attacked young Mr. Malfoy as well. I will want their broomsticks confiscated, of course; I shall keep them safely in my office, to make sure there is no infringement of my ban. But I am not unreasonable, Professor McGonagall,” she continued, turning back to Professor McGonagall who was now standing as still as though carved from ice, staring at her. “The rest of the team can continue playing, I saw no signs of violence from any of them. Well… good afternoon to you.”
And with a look of the utmost satisfaction, Umbridge left the room, leaving a horrified silence in
her wake.
“Banned,” said Angelina in a hollow voice, late that evening in the common room. “Banned. No
Seeker and no Beaters… what on earth are we going to do?”
It did not feel as though they had won the match at all. Everywhere Harry looked there were
disconsolate and angry faces; the team themselves were slumped around the fire, all apart from
Ron, who had not been seen since the end of the match.
“It’s just so unfair,” said Alicia numbly. “I mean, what about Crabbe and that Bludger he hit after the whistle had been blown? Has she banned him?”
“No,” said Ginny miserably; she and Hermione were sitting on either side of Harry. “He just got
lines, I heard Montague laughing about it at dinner.”
“And banning Fred when he didn’t even do anything!” said Alicia furiously, pummeling her
knee with her fist.
“It’s not my fault I didn’t,” said Fred, with a very ugly look on his face, “I would’ve pounded the
little scumbag to a pulp if you three hadn’t been holding me back.”
Harry stared miserably at the dark window. Snow was falling. The Snitch he had caught earlier
was now zooming around and around the common room; people were watching its progress as
though hypnotized and Crookshanks was leaping from chair to chair, trying to catch it.
“I’m going to bed,” said Angelina, getting slowly t o her feet. “Maybe this will all turn out to have been a bad dream… maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow and find we haven’t played yet…”
She was soon followed by Alicia and Katie. Fred and George sloped off to bed some time later,
glowering at everyone they passed, and Ginny went not long after that. Only Harry and
Hermione were left beside the fire.
“Have you seen Ron?” Hermione asked in a low voice.
Harry shook his head.
“I think he’s avoiding us,” said Hermione. “Where d o you think he -?”
But at that precise moment, there was a creaking sound behind them as the Fat Lady swung
forwards and Ron came clambering through the portrait hole. He was very pale indeed and there
was snow in his hair. When he saw Harry and Hermione, he stopped dead in his tracks.
“Where have you been?” said Hermione anxiously, springing up.
“Walking,” Ron mumbled. He was still wearing his Quidditch things.
“You look frozen,” said Hermione. “Come and sit down!”
Ron walked to the fireside and sank into the chair furthest from Harry’s, not looking at him. The
stolen Snitch zoomed over their heads.
“I’m sorry,” Ron mumbled, looking at his feet.
“What for?” said Harry.
“For thinking I can play Quidditch,” said Ron. “I’m going to resign first thing tomorrow.”
“If you resign,” said Harry testily, “there’ll only be three players left on the team.” And when Ron looked puzzled, he said, “I’ve been given a lifetime ban. So’ve Fred and George.”
“What?” Ron yelped.
Hermione told him the full story; Harry could not bear to tell it again. When she had finished,
Ron looked more anguished than ever.
“This is all my fault -”
“You didn’t make me punch Malfoy,” said Harry angrily.
“- if I wasn’t so terrible at Quidditch -”
“- it’s got nothing to do with that.”
“- it was that song that wound me up -”
“- it would’ve wound anyone up.”
Hermione got up and walked to the window, away from the argument, watching the snow
swirling down against the pane.
“Look, drop it, will you!” Harry burst out. “It’s bad enough, without you blaming yourself for
everything!”
Ron said nothing but sat gazing miserably at the damp hem of his robes. After a while he said in
a dull voice, “This is the worst I’ve ever felt in my life.”
“Join the club,” said Harry bitterly.
“Well,” said Hermione, her voice trembling slightly. “I can think of one thing that might cheer
you both up.”
“Oh yeah?” said Harry skeptically.
“Yeah,” said Hermione, turning away from the pitch-black, snow-flecked window, a broad smile
spreading across her face. “Hagrids back.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Hagrid’s Tale
Harry sprinted up to the boys’ dormitories to fetch the Invisibility Cloak and the Marauder’s
Map from his trunk; he was so quick that he and Ron were ready to leave at least five minutes
before Hermione hurried back down from the girls’ dormitories, wearing scarf, gloves and one of
her own knobbly elf hats.
“Well, it’s cold out there!” she said defensively, as Ron clicked his tongue impatiently.
They crept through the portrait hole and covered themselves hastily in the Cloak - Ron had
grown so much he now needed to crouch to prevent his feet showing - then, moving slowly and
cautiously, they proceeded down the many staircases, pausing at intervals to check on the map
for signs of Filch or Mrs. Norris. They were lucky; they saw nobody but Nearly Headless Nick,
who was gliding along absent-mindedly humming something that sounded horribly like
Weasley is our King. They crept across the Entrance Hall and out into the silent, snowy
grounds. With a great leap of his heart, Harry saw little golden squares of light ahead and smoke
coiling up from Hagrid’s chimney. He set off at a quick march, the other two jostling and
bumping along behind him. They crunched excitedly through the thickening snow until at last
they reached the wooden front door. When Harry raised his fist and knocked three times, a dog
started barking frantically inside.
“Hagrid, its us!” Harry called through the keyhole.
“Shoulda known!” said a gruff voice.
They beamed at each other under the Cloak; they could tell by Hagrid’s voice that he was
pleased. “Bin home three seconds… out the way, Fang… out the way, yeh dozy dog…”
The bolt was drawn back, the door creaked open and Hagrid’s head appeared in the gap.
Hermione screamed.
“Merlin’s beard, keep it down!” said Hagrid hastily, staring wildly over their heads. “Under that
Cloak, are yeh? Well, get in, get in!”
“I’m sorry!” Hermione gasped, as the three of them squeezed past Hagrid into the house and
pulled the Cloak off themselves so he could see them. “I just - oh, Hagrid!”
“It’s nuthin’, it’s nuthin’!” said Hagrid hastily, shutting the door behind them and hurrying to
close all the curtains, but Hermione continued to gaze up at him in horror.
Hagrid’s hair was matted with congealed blood and his left eye had been reduced to a puffy slit
amid a mass of purple and black bruising. There were many cuts on his face and hands, some of
them still bleeding, and he was moving gingerly, which made Harry suspect broken ribs. It was
obvious that he had only just got home; a thick black traveling cloak lay over the back of a chair
and a haversack large enough to carry several small children leaned against the wall inside the
door. Hagrid himself, twice the size of a normal man, was now limping over to the fire and
placing a copper kettle over it.
“What happened to you?” Harry demanded, while Fang danced around them all, trying to lick
their faces.
“Told yeh, nuthin’,” said Hagrid firmly. “Want a cuppa?”
“Come off it,” said Ron, “you’re in a right state!”
“I’m tellin’ yeh, I’m fine,” said Hagrid, straightening up and turning to beam at them all, but
wincing. “Blimey, it’s good ter see yeh three again - had good summers, did yeh?”
“Hagrid, you’ve been attacked!” said Ron.
“Fer the las’ time, it’s nuthin’!” said Hagrid firmly.
“Would you say it was nothing if one of us turned up with a pound of mince instead of a face?”
Ron demanded.
“You ought to go and see Madam Pomfrey, Hagrid,” said Hermione anxiously, “some of those
cuts look nasty.”
“I’m dealin’ with it, all righ’?” said Hagrid repressively.
He walked across to the enormous wooden table that stood in the middle of his cabin and
twitched aside a tea towel that had been lying on it. Underneath was a raw, bloody, green-tinged
steak slightly larger than the average car tire.
“You’re not going to eat that, are you, Hagrid?” said Ron, leaning in for a closer look. “It looks
poisonous.”
“It’s s’posed ter look like that, it’s dragon meat,” Hagrid said. “An’ I didn’ get it ter eat.”
He picked up the steak and slapped it over the left side of his face. Greenish blood trickled down
into his beard as he gave a soft moan of satisfaction.
“Tha’s better. It helps with the stingin’, yeh know.”
“So, are you going to tell us what’s happened to you?” Harry asked.
“Can’t, Harry. Top secret. More’n me job’s worth ter tell yeh that.”
“Did the giants beat you up, Hagrid?” asked Hermione quietly.
Hagrid’s fingers slipped on the dragon steak and it slid squelchily on to his chest.
“Giants?” said Hagrid, catching the steak before it reached his belt and slapping it back over his
face, “who said anythin’ abou’ giants? Who yeh bin talkin’ to? Who’s told yeh what I’ve - who’s
said I’ve bin - eh?”
“We guessed,” said Hermione apologetically.
“Oh, yeh did, did yeh?” said Hagrid, surveying her sternly with the eye that was not hidden by
the steak.
“It was kind of… obvious,” said Ron. Harry nodded.
Hagrid glared at them, then snorted, threw the steak back on to the table and strode over to the
kettle, which was now whistling.
“Never known kids like you three fer knowin’ more’n yeh oughta,” he muttered, splashing
boiling water into three of his bucket-shaped mugs. “An’ I’m not complimentin’ yeh, neither.
Nosy, some’d call it. Interferin’.”
But his beard twitched.
“So you have been to look for giants?” said Harry, grinning as he sat down at the table.
Hagrid set tea in front of each of them, sat down, picked up his steak again and slapped it back
over his face.
“Yeah, all righ’,” he grunted, “I have.”
“And you found them?” said Hermione in a hushed voice.
“Well, they’re not that difficult ter find, ter be honest,” said Hagrid. “Pretty big, see.”
“Where are they?” said Ron.
“Mountains,” said Hagrid unhelpfully.
“So why don’t Muggles -?”
“They do,” said Hagrid darkly. “On’y their deaths are always put down ter mountaineerin’
accidents, aren’ they?”
He adjusted the steak a little so that it covered the worst of the bruising.
“Come on, Hagrid, tell us what you’ve been up to!” said Ron. “Tell us about being attacked by the giants and Harry can tell you about being attacked by the Dementors -”
Hagrid choked in his mug and dropped his steak at the same time; a large quantity of spit, tea and
dragon blood was sprayed over the table as Hagrid coughed and spluttered and the steak slid,
with a soft splat, on to the floor.
“Whadda yeh mean, attacked by Dementors?” growled Hagrid.
“Didn’t you know?” Hermione asked him, wide-eyed.
“I don’ know anythin’ that’s bin happenin’ since I left. I was on a secret mission, wasn’ I, didn’
wan’ owls followin’ me all over the place - ruddy Dementors! Yeh’re not serious?”
“Yeah, I am, they turned up in Little Whinging and attacked my cousin and me, and then the
Ministry of Magic expelled me -”
“WHAT?”
“- and I had to go to a hearing and everything, but tell us about the giants first.”
“You were expelled!”
“Tell us about your summer and I’ll tell you about mine.”
Hagrid glared at him through his one open eye. Harry looked right back, an expression of
innocent determination on his face.
“Oh, all righ’,” Hagrid said in a resigned voice.
He bent down and tugged the dragon steak out of Fang’s mouth.
“Oh, Hagrid, don’t, it’s not hygien—” Hermione began, but Hagrid had already slapped the meat
back over his swollen eye.
He took another fortifying gulp of tea, then said, “Well, we set off righ’ after term ended -”
“Madame Maxime went with you, then?” Hermione interjected.
“Yeah, tha’s righ’,” said Hagrid, and a softened expression appeared on the few inches of face
that were not obscured by beard or green steak. “Yeah, it was jus’ the pair of us. An’ I’ll tell yeh
this, she’s not afraid of roughin’ it, Olympe. Yeh know, she’s a fine, well-dressed woman, an’
knowin’ where we was goin’ I wondered ‘ow she’d feel abou’ clamberin’ over boulders an’
sleepin’ in caves an’ tha’, bu’ she never complained once.”
“You knew where you were going?” Harry repeated. “You knew where the giants were?”
“Well, Dumbledore knew, an’ he told us,” said Hagrid.
“Are they hidden?” asked Ron. “Is it a secret, where they are?”
“Not really” said Hagrid, shaking his shaggy head. “It’s jus’ that mos’ wizards aren’ bothered
where they are,’s long as it’s a good long way away. But where they are’s very difficult ter get
ter, fer humans anyway, so we needed Dumbledore’s instructions. Took us abou’ a month ter get
there -”
“A month?” said Ron, as though he had never heard o f a journey lasting such a ridiculously long
time. “But - why couldn’t you just grab a Portkey or something?”
There was an odd expression in Hagrid’s unobscured eye as he surveyed Ron; it was almost
pitying.
“We’re bein’ watched, Ron,” he said gruffly.
“What d’you mean?”
“Yeh don’ understand,” said Hagrid. “The Ministry’s keepin’ an eye on Dumbledore an’ anyone
they reckon’s in league with ‘im, an’ -”
“We know about that,” said Harry quickly keen to hear the rest of Hagrid’s story, “we know
about the Ministry watching Dumbledore -”
“So you couldn’t use magic to get there?” asked Ron, looking thunderstruck, “you had to act like
Muggles all the way?”
“Well, not exactly all the way” said Hagrid cagily. “We jus’ had ter be careful, ‘cause Olympe an’ me, we stick out a bit —”
Ron made a stifled noise somewhere between a snort and a sniff and hastily took a gulp of tea.
“- so we’re not hard ter follow. We was pretendin’ we was goin’ on holiday together, so we got
inter France an’ we made like we was headin’ fer where Olympes school is, ‘cause we knew we
was bein’ tailed by someone from the Ministry. We had to go slow, ‘cause I’m not really s’posed
ter use magic an’ we knew the Ministry’d be lookin’ fer a reason ter run us in. But we managed
ter give the berk tailin’ us the slip round abou’ Dee-John —”
“Ooooh, Dijon?” said Hermione excitedly. “I’ve been there on holiday, did you see -?”
She fell silent at the look on Ron’s face.
“We chanced a bit o’ magic after that an’ it wasn’ a bad journey. Ran inter a couple o’ mad trolls
on the Polish border an’ I had a sligh’ disagreement with a vampire in a pub in Minsk, bu’ apart
from tha’ couldn’t’a bin smoother.
“An’ then we reached the place, an’ we started trekkin’ up through the mountains, lookin’ fer
signs of ‘em…
“We had ter lay off the magic once we got near ‘em. Partly ‘cause they don’ like wizards an’ we
didn’ want ter put their backs up too soon, an’ partly ‘cause Dumbledore had warned us You-
Know-Who was bound ter be after the giants an’ all. Said it was odds on he’d sent a messenger
off ter them already. Told us ter be very careful of drawin’ attention ter ourselves as we got
nearer in case there was Death Eaters around.”
Hagrid paused for a long draught of tea.
“Go on!” said Harry urgently.
“Found ‘em,” said Hagrid baldly. “Went over a ridge one nigh’ an’ there they was, spread ou’
underneath us. Little fires burnin’ below an’ huge shadows… it was like watchin’ bits o’ the
mountain movin’.”
“How big are they?” asked Ron in a hushed voice.
“Bout twenty feet,” said Hagrid casually. “Some o’ the bigger ones mighta bin twenty-five.”
“And how many were there?” asked Harry.
“I reckon abou’ seventy or eighty,” said Hagrid.
“Is that all?” said Hermione.
“Yep,” said Hagrid sadly, “eighty left, an’ there was loads once, musta bin a hundred diff’rent
tribes from all over the world. Bu’ they’ve bin dyin’ out fer ages. Wizards killed a few, o’
course, bu’ mostly they killed each other, an’ now they’re dyin’ out faster than ever. They’re not
made ter live bunched up together like tha’. Dumbledore says it’s our fault, it was the wizards
who forced ‘em to go an’ made ‘em live a good long way from us an’ they had no choice bu’ ter
stick together fer their own protection.”
“So,” said Harry, “you saw them and then what?”
“Well, we waited till morning, didn’ want ter go sneakin’ up on ‘em in the dark, fer our own
safety,” said Hagrid. “Bout three in the mornin’ they fell asleep jus’ where they was sittin’. We
didn’ dare sleep. Fer one thing, we wanted ter make sure none of ‘em woke up an’ came up
where we were, an’ fer another, the snorin’ was unbelievable. Caused an avalanche near
mornin’.
“Anyway, once it was light we wen’ down ter see ‘em.”
“Just like that?” said Ron, looking awestruck. “You just walked right into a giant camp?”
“Well, Dumbledore’d told us how ter do it,” said Hagrid. “Give the Gurg gifts, show some
respect, yeh know.”
“Give the what gifts?” asked Harry.
“Oh, the Gurg - means the chief.”
“How could you tell which one was the Gurg?” asked Ron.
Hagrid grunted in amusement.
“No problem,” he said. “He was the biggest, the ugliest an’ the laziest. Sittin’ there waitin’ ter be
brought food by the others. Dead goats an’ such like. Name o’ Karkus. I’d put him at twenty-two, twenty-three feet an’ the weight o’ a couple o’ bull elephants. Skin like rhino hide an’ all.”
“And you just walked up to him?” said Hermione breathlessly.
“Well… down ter him, where he was lyin’ in the valley. They was in this dip between four pretty
high mountains, see, beside a mountain lake, an’ Karkus was lyin’ by the lake roarin’ at the
others ter feed him an’ his wife. Olympe an’ I went down the mountainside -”
“But didn’t they try and kill you when they saw you?” asked Ron incredulously.
“It was def’nitely on some o’ their minds,” said Ha grid, shrugging, “but we did what Dumbledore told us ter do, which was ter hold our gift up high an’ keep our eyes on the Gurg an’ ignore the others. So tha’s what we did. An’ the rest of ‘em went quiet an’ watched us pass an’ we got right up ter Karkus’s feet an’ we bowed an’ put our present down in front o’ him.”
“What do you give a giant?” asked Ron eagerly. “Food?”
“Nah, he can get food all righ’ fer himself,” said Hagrid. “We took him magic. Giants like magic, jus’ don’ like us usin’ it against ‘em. Anyway, that firs’ day we gave ‘im a branch o’ Gubraithian fire.”
Hermione said, “Wow!” softly, but Harry and Ron both frowned in puzzlement.
“A branch of -?”
“Everlasting fire,” said Hermione irritably, “you ought to know that by now. Professor Flitwick’s
mentioned it at least twice in class!”
“Well, anyway,” said Hagrid quickly, intervening before Ron could answer back, “Dumbledore’d bewitched this branch to burn fer evermore, which isn’ somethin’ any wizard could do, an’ so I lies it down in the snow by Karkus’s feet and says, ‘A gift to the Gurg of the giants from Albus Dumbledore, who sends his respectful greetings.’”
“And what did Karkus say?” asked Harry eagerly.
“Nothin’,” said Hagrid. “Didn’ speak English.”
“You’re kidding!”
“Didn’ matter,” said Hagrid imperturbably, “Dumbledore had warned us tha’ migh’ happen.
Karkus knew enough to yell fer a couple o’ giants who knew our lingo an’ they translated fer us.”
“And did he like the present?” asked Ron.
“Oh yeah, it went down a storm once they understood what it was,” said Hagrid, turning his
dragon steak over to press the cooler side to his swollen eye. “Very pleased. So then I said,
Dumbledore asks the Gurg to speak with his messenger when he returns tomorrow with another
gift.”
“Why couldn’t you speak to them that day?” asked Hermione.
“Dumbledore wanted us ter take it very slow,” said Hagrid. “Let ‘em see we kept our
promises. We’ll come back tomorrow with another present, an’ then we do come back with
another present - gives a good impression, see? An’ gives them time ter test out the firs’ present
an’ find out it’s a good one, an’ get ‘em eager fer more. In any case, giants like Karkus -
overload ‘em with information an’ they’ll kill yeh jus’ to simplify things. So we bowed outta the
way an’ went off an’ found ourselves a nice little cave ter spend that night in an’ the followin’
mornin’ we went back an’ this time we found Karkus sittin’ up waitin’ fer us lookin’ all eager.”
“And you talked to him?”
“Oh yeah. Firs’ we presented him with a nice battle helmet -goblin-made an’ indestructible, yeh
know - an’ then we sat down an’ we talked.”
“What did he say?”
“Not much,” said Hagrid. “Listened mostly. Bu’ there were good signs. He’d heard o’
Dumbledore, heard he’d argued against the killin’ o’ the last giants in Britain. Karkus seemed ter
be quite int’rested in what Dumbledore had ter say. An’ a few o’ the others, ‘specially the ones
who had some English, they gathered round an’ listened too. We were hopeful when we left that
day. Promised ter come back next mornin’ with another present…
“Bu’ that night it all wen’ wrong.”
“What d’you mean?” said Ron quickly.
“Well, like I say, they’re not meant ter live together, giants,” said Hagrid sadly. “Not in big
groups like that. They can’ help themselves, they half kill each other every few weeks. The men
fight each other an’ the women fight each other; the remnants of the old tribes fight each other,
an’ that’s even without squabbles over food an’ the best fires an’ sleepin’ spots. Yeh’d think,
seein’ as how their whole race is abou’ finished, they’d lay off each other, bu’…”
Hagrid sighed deeply.
“That night a fight broke out, we saw it from the mouth of our cave, lookin’ down on the valley.
Went on fer hours, yeh wouldn’ believe the noise. An’ when the sun came up the snow was
scarlet an’ his head was lyin’ at the bottom o’ the lake.”
“Whose head?” gasped Hermione.
“Karkus’s,” said Hagrid heavily. “There was a new Gurg, Golgomath.” He sighed deeply.
“Well, we hadn’ bargained on a new Gurg two days after we’d made friendly contact with the firs’ one, an’ we had a funny feelin’ Golgomath wouldn’ be so keen ter listen to us, bu’ we had ter try.”
“You went to speak to him?” asked Ron incredulously. “After you’d watched him rip off another
giant’s head?”
“Course we did,” said Hagrid, “we hadn’ gone all that way ter give up after two days! We wen’
down with the next present we’d meant ter give ter Karkus.
“I knew it was no go before I’d opened me mouth. He was sitting there wearin’ Karkus’s helmet,
leerin’ at us as we got nearer. He’s massive, one o’ the biggest ones there. Black hair an’
matchin’ teeth an’ a necklace o’ bones. Human-lookin’ bones, some of ‘em. Well, I gave it a go -
held out a great roll o’ dragon skin - an’ said, ‘gift fer the Gurg of the giants —’ Nex’ thing I
knew, I was hangin’ upside-down in the air by me feet, two of his mates had grabbed me.”
Hermione clapped her hands to her mouth.
“How did you get out of that?” asked Harry.
“Wouldn’ta done if Olympe hadn’ bin there,” said Hagrid. “She pulled out her wand an’ did some o’ the fastes’ spellwork I’ve ever seen. Ruddy marvellous. Hit the two holdin’ me right in the eyes with Conjunctivitus Curses an’ they dropped me straightaway - bu’ we were in trouble then, ‘cause we’d used magic against ‘em, an’ that’s what giants hate abou’ wizards. We had ter leg it an’ we knew there was no way we was going ter be able ter march inter the camp again.”
“Blimey, Hagrid,” said Ron quietly.
“So, how come it’s taken you so long to get home if you were only there for three days?” asked
Hermione.
“We didn’ leave after three days!” said Hagrid, looking outraged. “Dumbledore was relyin’ on
us!”
“But you’ve just said there was no way you could go back!”
“Not by daylight we couldn’, no. We just had ter rethink a bit. Spent a couple o’ days lyin’ low
up in the cave an’ watchin’. An’ wha’ we saw wasn’ good.”
“Did he rip off more heads?” asked Hermione, sounding squeamish.
“No,” said Hagrid, “I wish he had.”
“What d’you mean?”
“I mean we soon found out he didn’ object ter all wizards - just us.”
“Death Eaters?” said Harry quickly.
“Yep,” said Hagrid darkly. “Couple of ‘em were visitin’ him ev’ry day, bringin’ gifts ter the
Gurg, an’ he wasn’ dangling them upside-down.”
“How d’you know they were Death Eaters?” said Ron.
“Because I recognized one of ‘em,” Hagrid growled. “Macnair, remember him? Bloke they sent
ter kill Buckbeak? Maniac, he is. Likes killin’ as much as Golgomath; no wonder they were
gettin’ on so well.”
“So Macnairs persuaded the giants to join You-Know-Who?” said Hermione desperately.
“Hold yer Hippogriffs, I haven’ finished me story yet!” said Hagrid indignantly, who, considering he had not wanted to tell them anything in the first place, now seemed to be rather enjoying himself. “Me an’ Olympe talked it over an’ we agreed, jus’ ‘cause the Gurg looked like favorin’ You-Know-Who didn’ mean all of ‘em would. We had ter try an’ persuade some o’ the others, the ones who hadn’ wanted Golgomath as Gurg.”
“How could you tell which ones they were?” asked Ron.
“Well, they were the ones bein’ beaten to a pulp, weren’ they?” said Hagrid patiently. “The ones
with any sense were keepin’ outta Golgomath’s way, hidin’ out in caves roun’ the gully jus’ like
we were. So we decided we’d go pokin’ round the caves by night an’ see if we couldn’ persuade
a few o’ them.”
“You went poking around dark caves looking for giants?” said Ron, with awed respect in his
voice.
“Well, it wasn’ the giants who worried us most,” said Hagrid. “We were more concerned abou’
the Death Eaters. Dumbledore had told us before we wen’ not ter tangle with ‘em if we could
avoid it, an’ the trouble was they knew we was around — ‘spect Golgomath told ‘em abou’ us.
At night, when the giants were sleepin’ an’ we wanted ter be creepin’ inter the caves, Macnair
an’ the other one were sneakin’ round the mountains lookin’ fer us. I was hard put to stop
Olympe jumpin’ out at ‘em,” said Hagrid, the corners of his mouth lifting his wild beard, “she
was rarin’ ter attack ‘em… she’s somethin’ when she’s roused, Olympe… fiery, yeh know…
‘spect it’s the French in her…”
Hagrid gazed misty-eyed into the fire. Harry allowed him thirty seconds of reminiscence before
clearing his throat loudly.
“So, what happened? Did you ever get near any of the other giants?”
“What? Oh… oh, yeah, we did. Yeah, on the third night after Karkus was killed we crept outta
the cave we’d bin hidin’ in an’ headed back down inter the gully, keepin’ our eyes skinned fer
the Death Eaters. Got inside a few o’ the caves, no go - then, in abou’ the sixth one, we found
three giants hidin’.”
“Cave must’ve been cramped,” said Ron.
“Wasn’ room ter swing a Kneazle,” said Hagrid.
“Didn’t they attack you when they saw you?” asked Hermione.
“Probably woulda done if they’d bin in any condition,” said Hagrid, “but they was badly hurt, all
three o’ them; Golgomath’s lot had beaten ‘em unconscious; they’d woken up an’ crawled inter
the nearest shelter they could find. Anyway, one o’ them had a bit of English an’ ‘e translated fer
the others, an’ what we had ter say didn’ seem ter go down too badly. So we kep’ goin’ back,
visitin’ the wounded… I reckon we had abou’ six or seven o’ them convinced at one poin’.”
“Six or seven?” said Ron eagerly. “Well that’s not bad - are they going to come over here and
start fighting You-Know-Who with us?”
But Hermione said, “What do you mean ‘one point’, Hagrid?”
Hagrid looked at her sadly.
“Golgomath’s lot raided the caves. The ones tha’ survived didn’ wan’ no more ter to do with us
after that.”
“So… so there aren’t any giants coming?” said Ron, looking disappointed.
“Nope,” said Hagrid, heaving a deep sigh as he turned over his steak and applied the cooler side
to his face, “but we did wha’ we meant ter do, we g ave ‘em Dumbledore’s message an’ some o’
them heard it an’ I spect some o’ them’ll remember it. Jus’ maybe, them that don’ want ter stay
around Golgomath’ll move outta the mountains, an’ there’s gotta be a chance they’ll remember
Dumbledore’s friendly to ‘em… could be they’ll come.”
Snow was filling up the window now. Harry became aware that the knees of his robes were
soaked through: Fang was drooling with his head in Harry’s lap.
“Hagrid?” said Hermione quietly after a while.
“Mmm?”
“Did you… was there any sign of… did you hear anything about your… your… mother while
you were there?”
Hagrid’s unobscured eye rested upon her and Hermione looked rather scared.
“I’m sorry… I… forget it -”
“Dead,” Hagrid grunted. “Died years ago. They told me.”
“Oh… I’m… I’m really sorry” said Hermione in a very small voice. Hagrid shrugged his massive shoulders.
“No need,” he said shortly. “Can’t remember her much. Wasn’ a great mother.”
They were silent again. Hermione glanced nervously at Harry and Ron, plainly wanting them to
speak.
“But you still haven’t explained how you got in this state, Hagrid,” Ron said, gesturing towards
Hagrid’s bloodstained face.
“Or why you’re back so late,” said Harry. “Sirius says Madame Maxime got back ages ago -”
“Who attacked you?” said Ron.
“I haven’ bin attacked!” said Hagrid emphatically. “I -”
But the rest of his words were drowned in a sudden outbreak of rapping on the door. Hermione
gasped; her mug slipped through her fingers and smashed on the floor; Fang yelped. All four of
them stared at the window beside the doorway. The shadow of somebody small and squat rippled
across the thin curtain.
“It’s her!” Ron whispered.
“Get under here!” Harry said quickly; seizing the Invisibility Cloak, he whirled it over himself
and Hermione while Ron tore around the table and dived under the Cloak as well. Huddled
together, they backed away into a corner. Fang was barking madly at the door. Hagrid looked
thoroughly confused.
“Hagrid, hide our mugs!”
Hagrid seized Harry and Ron’s mugs and shoved them under the cushion in Fang’s basket. Fang
was now leaping up at the door; Hagrid pushed him out of the way with his foot and pulled it
open.
Professor Umbridge was standing in the doorway wearing her green tweed cloak and a matching
hat with earflaps. Lips pursed, she leaned back so as to see Hagrid’s face; she barely reached his
navel.
“So,” she said slowly and loudly, as though speaking to somebody deaf. “You’re Hagrid, are
you?”
Without waiting for an answer she strolled into the room, her bulging eyes rolling in every
direction.
“Get away,” she snapped, waving her handbag at Fang, who had bounded up to her and was
attempting to lick her face.
“Er - I don’ want ter be rude,” said Hagrid, staring at her, “but who the ruddy hell are you?”
“My name is Dolores Umbridge.”
Her eyes were sweeping the cabin. Twice they stared directly into the corner where Harry stood,
sandwiched between Ron and Hermione.
“Dolores Umbridge?” Hagrid said, sounding thoroughly confused. “I thought you were one o’
them Ministry - don’ you work with Fudge?”
“I was Senior Undersecretary to the Minister, yes,” said Umbridge, now pacing around the cabin,
taking in every tiny detail within, from the haversack against the wall to the abandoned traveling
cloak. “I am now the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher -”
“Tha’s brave of yeh,” said Hagrid, “there’s not many’d take tha’ job any more.”
“- and Hogwarts High Inquisitor,” said Umbridge, giving no sign that she had heard him.
“Wha’s that?” said Hagrid, frowning.
“Precisely what I was going to ask,” said Umbridge, pointing at the broken shards of china on the floor that had been Hermione’s mug.
“Oh,” said Hagrid, with a most unhelpful glance towards the corner where Harry, Ron and
Hermione stood hidden, “oh, tha’ was… was Fang. He broke a mug. So I had ter use this one
instead.”
Hagrid pointed to the mug from which he had been drinking, one hand still clamped over the
dragon steak pressed to his eye. Umbridge stood facing him now, taking in every detail of his
appearance instead of the cabin’s.
“I heard voices,” she said quietly.
“I was talkin’ ter Fang,” said Hagrid stoutly.
“And was he talking back to you?”
“Well… in a manner o’ speakin’,” said Hagrid, looking uncomfortable. “I sometimes say Fang’s
near enough human -”
“There are three sets of footprints in the snow leading from the castle doors to your cabin,” said
Umbridge sleekly.
Hermione gasped; Harry clapped a hand over her mouth. Luckily, Fang was sniffing loudly
around the hem of Professor Umbridge’s robes and she did not appear to have heard.
“Well, I on’y jus’ got back,” said Hagrid, waving an enormous hand at the haversack. “Maybe
someone came ter call earlier an’ I missed ‘em.”
“There are no footsteps leading away from your cabin door.”
“Well, I… I don’ know why that’d be…” said Hagrid, tugging nervously at his beard and again
glancing towards the corner where Harry, Ron and Hermione stood, as though asking for help.
“Erm…”
Umbridge wheeled round and strode the length of the cabin, looking around carefully. She bent
and peered under the bed. She opened Hagrid’s cupboards. She passed within two inches of
where Harry, Ron and Hermione stood pressed against the wall; Harry actually pulled in his
stomach as she walked by. After looking carefully inside the enormous cauldron Hagrid used for
cooking, she wheeled round again and said, “What has happened to you? How did you sustain
those injuries?”
Hagrid hastily removed the dragon steak from his face, which in Harrys opinion was a mistake,
because the black and purple bruising all around his eye was now clearly visible, not to mention
the large amount of fresh and congealed blood on his face. “Oh, I… had a bit of an accident,” he
said lamely.
“What sort of accident?”
“I - I tripped.”
“You tripped,” she repeated coolly.
“Yeah, tha’s right. Over… over a friend’s broomstick. I don’ fly, meself. Well, look at the size o’
me, I don’ reckon there’s a broomstick that’d hold me. Friend o’ mine breeds Abraxan horses, I
dunno if you’ve ever seen ‘em, big beasts, winged, yeh know, I’ve had a bit of a ride on one o’
them an’ it was -”
“Where have you been?” asked Umbridge, cutting coolly through Hagrid’s babbling.
“Where’ve I -?”
“Been, yes,” she said. “Term started two months ago. Another teacher has had to cover your
classes. None of your colleagues has been able to give me any information as to your
whereabouts. You left no address. Where have you been?”
There was a pause in which Hagrid stared at her with his newly uncovered eye. Harry could
almost hear his brain working furiously.
“I - I’ve been away for me health,” he said.
“For your health,” repeated Professor Umbridge. Her eyes traveled over Hagrid’s discolored
and swollen face; dragon blood dripped gently and silently on to his waistcoat. “I see.”
“Yeah,” said Hagrid, “bit o’ - o’ fresh air, yeh know -”
“Yes, as gamekeeper fresh air must be so difficult to come by,” said Umbridge sweetly. The
small patch of Hagrid’s face that was not black or purple, flushed.
“Well — change o’ scene, yeh know –“
“Mountain scenery?” said Umbridge swiftly.
She knows, Harry thought desperately.
“Mountains?” Hagrid repeated, clearly thinking fast. “Nope, South o’ France fer me. Bit o’ sun
an’… an’ sea.”
“Really?” said Umbridge. “You don’t have much of a tan.”
“Yeah… well… sensitive skin,” said Hagrid, attempting an ingratiating smile. Harry noticed that
two of his teeth had been knocked out. Umbridge looked at him coldly; his smile faltered. Then
she hoisted her handbag a little higher into the crook of her arm and said, “I shall, of course, be
informing the Minister of your late return.”
“Righ’,” said Hagrid, nodding.
“You ought to know, too, that as High Inquisitor it is my unfortunate but necessary duty to
inspect my fellow teachers. So I daresay we shall meet again soon enough.”
She turned sharply and marched back to the door.
“You’re inspectin’ us?” Hagrid repeated blankly, looking after her.
“Oh, yes,” said Umbridge softly, looking back at him with her hand on the door handle. “The
Ministry is determined to weed out unsatisfactory teachers, Hagrid. Goodnight.”
She left, closing the door behind her with a snap. Harry made to pull off the Invisibility Cloak
but Hermione seized his wrist.
“Not yet,” she breathed in his ear. “She might not be gone yet.”
Hagrid seemed to be thinking the same way; he stumped across the room and pulled back the
curtain an inch or so.
“She’s goin’ back ter the castle,” he said in a low voice. “Blimey… inspectin’ people, is she?”
“Yeah,” said Harry, pulling off the Cloak. “Trelawney’s on probation already…”
“Um… what sort of thing are you planning to do with us in class, Hagrid?” asked Hermione.
“Oh, don’ you worry abou’ that, I’ve got a great load o’ lessons planned,” said Hagrid
enthusiastically, scooping up his dragon steak from the table and slapping it over his eye again.
“I’ve bin keepin’ a couple o’ creatures saved fer yer OWL year; you wait, they’re somethin’
really special.”
“Erm… special in what way?” asked Hermione tentatively.
“I’m not sayin’,” said Hagrid happily. “I don’ wan t ter spoil the surprise.”
“Look, Hagrid,” said Hermione urgently, dropping all pretence, “Professor Umbridge won’t be at all happy if you bring anything to class that’s too dangerous.”
“Dangerous?” said Hagrid, looking genially bemused. “Don’ be silly, I wouldn’ give yeh anythin’ dangerous! I mean, all righ’, they can look after themselves -”
“Hagrid, you’ve got to pass Umbridge’s inspection, and to do that it would really be better if she
saw you teaching us how to look after Porlocks, how to tell the difference between Knarls and
hedgehogs, stuff like that!” said Hermione earnestly.
“But tha’s not very interestin’, Hermione,” said Hagrid. “The stuff I’ve got’s much more
impressive. I’ve bin bringin’ ‘em on fer years, I reckon I’ve got the on’y domestic herd in
Britain.”
“Hagrid… please…” said Hermione, a note of real desperation in her voice. “Umbridge is looking for any excuse to get rid of teachers she thinks are too close to Dumbledore. Please, Hagrid, teach us something dull that’s bound to come up in our OWL.”
But Hagrid merely yawned widely and cast a one-eyed look of longing towards the vast bed in
the corner.
“Lis’en, it’s bin a long day an’ it’s late,” he said, patting Hermione gently on the shoulder, so that her knees gave way and hit the floor with a thud. “Oh - sorry -” He pulled her back up by the
neck of her robes. “Look, don’ you go worryin’ abou’ me, I promise yeh I’ve got really good
stuff planned fer yer lessons now I’m back… now you lot had better get back up to the castle, an’
don’ forget ter wipe yer footprints out behind yeh!”
“I dunno if you got through to him,” said Ron a sho rt while later when, having checked that the
coast was clear, they walked back up to the castle through the thickening snow, leaving no trace
behind them due to the Obliteration Charm Hermione was performing as they went.
“Then I’ll go back again tomorrow,” said Hermione determinedly. “I’ll plan his lessons for him if I have to. I don’t care if she throws out Trelawney but she’s not getting rid of Hagrid!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The Eye of the Snake
Hermione ploughed her way back to Hagrid’s cabin through two feet of snow on Sunday
morning. Harry and Ron wanted to go with her, but their mountain of homework had reached an
alarming height again, so they remained grudgingly in the common room, trying to ignore the
gleeful shouts drifting up from the grounds outside, where students were enjoying themselves
skating on the frozen lake, tobogganing and, worst of all, bewitching snowballs to zoom up to
Gryffindor Tower and rap hard on the windows.
“Oy!” bellowed Ron, finally losing patience and sticking his head out of the window, “I am a
prefect and if one more snowball hits this window - OUCH!”
He withdrew his head sharply, his face covered in snow.
“It’s Fred and George,” he said bitterly, slamming the window behind him. “Gits…”
Hermione returned from Hagrid’s just before lunch, shivering slightly, her robes damp to the
knees.
“So?” said Ron, looking up when she entered. “Got all his lessons planned for him?”
“Well, I tried,” she said dully, sinking into a chair beside Harry. She pulled out her wand and
gave it a complicated little wave so that hot air streamed out of the tip; she then pointed this at
her robes, which began to steam as they dried out. “He wasn’t even there when I arrived, I was
knocking for at least half an hour. And then he came stumping out of the Forest -”
Harry groaned. The Forbidden Forest was teeming with the kind of creatures most likely to get
Hagrid the sack. “What’s he keeping in there? Did he say?” he asked.
“No,” said Hermione miserably. “He says he wants them to be a surprise. I tried to explain about
Umbridge, but he just doesn’t get it. He kept saying nobody in their right mind would rather
study Knarls than Chimaeras - oh, I don’t think he’s got a Chimaera,” she added at the appalled
look on Harry and Ron’s faces, “but that’s not for lack of trying, from what he said about how
hard it is to get eggs. I don’t know how many times I told him he’d be better off following
Grubbly-Plank’s plan, I honestly don’t think he listened to half of what I said. He’s in a bit of a
funny mood, you know. He still won’t say how he got all those injuries.”
Hagrid’s reappearance at the staff table at breakfast next day was not greeted by enthusiasm from
all students. Some, like Fred, George and Lee, roared with delight and sprinted up the aisle
between the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables to wring Hagrid’s enormous hand; others, like
Parvati and Lavender, exchanged gloomy looks and shook their heads. Harry knew that many of
them preferred Professor Grubbly-Plank’s lessons, and the worst of it was that a very small,
unbiased part of him knew that they had good reason: Grubbly-Plank’s idea of an interesting
class was not one where there was a risk that somebody might have their head ripped off.
It was with a certain amount of apprehension that Harry, Ron and Hermione headed down to
Hagrid’s on Tuesday, heavily muffled against the cold. Harry was worried, not only about what
Hagrid might have decided to teach them, but also about how the rest of the class, particularly
Malfoy and his cronies, would behave if Umbridge was watching them.
However, the High Inquisitor was nowhere to be seen as they struggled through the snow
towards Hagrid, who stood waiting for them on the edge of the Forest. He did not present a
reassuring sight; the bruises that had been purple on Saturday night were now tinged with green
and yellow and some of his cuts still seemed to be bleeding. Harry could not understand this: had
Hagrid perhaps been attacked by some creature whose venom prevented the wounds it inflicted
from healing? As though to complete the ominous picture, Hagrid was carrying what looked like
half a dead cow over his shoulder.
“We’re workin’ in here today!” Hagrid called happily to the approaching students, jerking his
head back at the dark trees behind him. “Bit more sheltered! Anyway, they prefer the dark.”
“What prefers the dark?” Harry heard Malfoy say sharply to Crabbe and Goyle, a trace of panic
in his voice. “What did he say prefers the dark - did you hear?”
Harry remembered the only other occasion on which Malfoy had entered the Forest before now;
he had not been very brave then, either. He smiled to himself; after the Quidditch match anything
that caused Malfoy discomfort was all right with him.
“Ready?” said Hagrid cheerfully, looking around at the class. “Right, well, I’ve bin savin’ a trip
inter the Forest fer yer fifth year. Thought we’d go an’ see these creatures in their natural habitat.
Now, what we’re studyin’ today is pretty rare, I reckon I’m probably the on’y person in Britain
who’s managed ter train ‘em.”
“And you’re sure they’re trained, are you?” said Malfoy, the panic in his voice even more
pronounced. “Only it wouldn’t be the first time you’d brought wild stuff to class, would it?”
The Slytherins murmured agreement and a few Gryffindors looked as though they thought
Malfoy had a fair point, too.
“Course they’re trained,” said Hagrid, scowling and hoisting the dead cow a little higher on his
shoulder.
“So what happened to your face, then?” demanded Malfoy.
“Mind yer own business!” said Hagrid, angrily. “Now, if yeh’ve finished askin’ stupid questions,
follow me!”
He turned and strode straight into the Forest. Nobody seemed much disposed to follow. Harry
glanced at Ron and Hermione, who sighed but nodded, and the three of them set off after Hagrid,
leading the rest of the class.
They walked for about ten minutes until they reached a place where the trees stood so closely
together that it was as dark as twilight and there was no snow at all on the ground. With a grunt,
Hagrid deposited his half a cow on the ground, stepped back and turned to face his class, most of
whom were creeping from tree to tree towards him, peering around nervously as though
expecting to be set upon at any moment.
“Gather roun’, gather roun’,” Hagrid encouraged. “Now, they’ll be attracted by the smell o’ the
meat but I’m goin’ ter give ‘em a call anyway, ‘cause they’ll like ter know it’s me.”
He turned, shook his shaggy head to get the hair out of his face and gave an odd, shrieking cry
that echoed through the dark trees like the call of some monstrous bird. Nobody laughed: most of
them looked too scared to make a sound.
Hagrid gave the shrieking cry again. A minute passed in which the class continued to peer
nervously over their shoulders and around trees for a first glimpse of whatever it was that was
coming. And then, as Hagrid shook his hair back for a third time and expanded his enormous
chest, Harry nudged Ron and pointed into the black space between two gnarled yew trees.
A pair of blank, white, shining eyes were growing larger through the gloom and a moment later
the dragonish face, neck and then skeletal body of a great, black, winged horse emerged from the
darkness. It surveyed the class for a few seconds, swishing its long black tail, then bowed its
head and began to tear flesh from the dead cow with its pointed fangs.
A great wave of relief broke over Harry. Here at last was proof that he had not imagined these
creatures, that they were real: Hagrid knew about them too. He looked eagerly at Ron, but Ron
was still staring around into the trees and after a few seconds he whispered, “Why doesn’t Hagrid call again?”
Most of the rest of the class were wearing expressions as confused and nervously expectant as
Ron’s and were still gazing everywhere but at the horse standing feet from them. There were
only two other people who seemed to be able to see them: a stringy Slytherin boy standing just
behind Goyle was watching the horse eating with an expression of great distaste on his face; and
Neville, whose eyes were following the swishing progress of the long black tail.
“Oh, an’ here comes another one!” said Hagrid proudly, as a second black horse appeared out of
the dark trees, folded its leathery wings closer to its body and dipped its head to gorge on the
meat. “Now… put yer hands up, who can see ‘em?”
Immensely pleased to feel that he was at last going to understand the mystery of these horses,
Harry raised his hand. Hagrid nodded at him.
“Yeah… yeah, I knew you’d be able ter, Harry,” he said seriously. “An’ you too, Neville, eh? An’ -”
“Excuse me,” said Malfoy in a sneering voice, “but what exactly are we supposed to be seeing?”
For an answer, Hagrid pointed at the cow carcass on the ground. The whole class stared at it for a
few seconds, then several people gasped and Parvati squealed. Harry understood why: bits of
flesh stripping themselves away from the bones and vanishing into thin air had to look very odd
indeed.
“What’s doing it?” Parvati demanded in a terrified voice, retreating behind the nearest tree.
“What’s eating it?”
“Thestrals,” said Hagrid proudly and Hermione gave a soft “Oh!” of comprehension at Harry’s
shoulder. “Hogwarts has got a whole herd of ‘em in here. Now, who knows -?”
“But they’re really, really unlucky!” interrupted Parvati, looking alarmed. “They’re supposed to
bring all sorts of horrible misfortune on people who see them. Professor Trelawney told me once
-”
“No, no, no,” said Hagrid, chuckling, “tha’s jus’ superstition, that is, they aren’ unlucky, they’re
dead clever an’ useful! Course, this lot don’ get a lot o’ work, it’s mainly jus’ pullin’ the school
carriages unless Dumbledore’s takin’ a long journey an’ don’ want ter Apparate - an’ here’s
another couple, look -”
Two more horses came quietly out of the trees, one of them passing very close to Parvati, who
shivered and pressed herself closer to the tree, saying, “I think I felt something, I think it’s near
me!”
“Don’ worry, it won’ hurt yen,” said Hagrid patiently. “Righ’, now, who can tell me why some o’ yeh can see ‘em an’ some can’t?”
Hermione raised her hand.
“Go on then,” said Hagrid, beaming at her.
“The only people who can see Thestrals,” she said, “are people who have seen death.”
“Tha’s exactly right,” said Hagrid solemnly, “ten points ter Gryffindor. Now, Thestrals -”
“Hem, hem.”
Professor Umbridge had arrived. She was standing a few feet away from Harry, wearing her
green hat and cloak again, her clipboard at the ready. Hagrid, who had never heard Umbridge’s
fake cough before, was gazing in some concern at the closest Thestral, evidently under the
impression that it had made the sound.
“Hem, hem.”
“Oh, hello!” Hagrid said, smiling, having located the source of the noise.
“You received the note I sent to your cabin this morning?” said Umbridge, in the same loud, slow voice she had used with him earlier, as though she were addressing somebody both foreign and very slow. “Telling you that I would be inspecting y our lesson?”
“Oh, yeah,” said Hagrid brightly. “Glad yeh found the place all righ’! Well, as you can see - or, I
dunno - can you? We’re doin’ Thestrals today -”
“I’m sorry?” said Professor Umbridge loudly, cupping her hand around her ear and frowning.
“What did you say?”
Hagrid looked a little confused.
“Er - Thestrals!” he said loudly. “Big - er - winged horses, yeh know!”
He flapped his gigantic arms hopefully. Professor Umbridge raised her eyebrows at him and
muttered as she made a note on her clipboard: “Has… to… resort… to… crude…
sign… language.”
“Well… anyway…” said Hagrid, turning back to the class and looking slightly flustered, “erm…
what was I sayin’?”
“Appears… to… have… poor… short… term… memory,” muttered Umbridge, loudly enough
for everyone to hear her. Draco Malfoy looked as though Christmas had come a month early;
Hermione, on the other hand, had turned scarlet with suppressed rage.
“Oh, yeah,” said Hagrid, throwing an uneasy glance at Umbridge’s clipboard, but ploughing on
valiantly. “Yeah, I was gonna tell yeh how come we got a herd. Yeah, so, we started off with a
male an’ five females. This one,” he patted the fir st horse to have appeared, “name o’ Tenebrus,
he’s my special favorite, firs’ one born here in the Forest -”
“Are you aware,” Umbridge said loudly, interrupting him, “that the Ministry of Magic has
classified Thestrals as ‘dangerous’?”
Harry’s heart sank like a stone, but Hagrid merely chuckled.
“Thestrals aren’ dangerous! All righ’, they might take a bite outta yeh if yeh really annoy them -”
“Shows… signs… of… pleasure… at… idea… of… violence,” muttered Umbridge, scribbling
on her clipboard again.
“No - come on!” said Hagrid, looking a little anxious now. “I mean, a dog’ll bite if yeh bait it,
won’ it - but Thestrals have jus’ got a bad reputation because o’ the death thing - people used ter
think they were bad omens, didn’ they? Jus’ didn’ understand, did they?”
Umbridge did not answer; she finished writing her last note, then looked up at Hagrid and said,
again very loudly and slowly, “Please continue teaching as usual. I am going to walk,” she
mimed walking (Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson were having silent fits of laughter) “among the
students” (she pointed around at individual members of the class) “and ask them questions.” She
pointed at her mouth to indicate talking.
Hagrid stared at her, clearly at a complete loss to understand why she was acting as though he
did not understand normal English. Hermione had tears of fury in her eyes now.
“You hag, you evil hag!” she whispered, as Umbridge walked towards Pansy Parkinson. “I know
what you’re doing, you awful, twisted, vicious -”
“Erm… anyway,” said Hagrid, clearly struggling to regain the flow of his lesson, “so - Thestrals.
Yeah. Well, there’s loads o’ good stuff abou’ them…”
“Do you find,” said Professor Umbridge in a ringing voice to Pansy Parkinson, “that you are able
to understand Professor Hagrid when he talks?”
Just like Hermione, Pansy had tears in her eyes, but these were tears of laughter; indeed, her
answer was almost incoherent because she was trying to suppress her giggles.
“No… because… well… it sounds… like grunting a lot of the time.”
Umbridge scribbled on her clipboard. The few unbruised bits of Hagrid’s face flushed, but he
tried to act as though he had not heard Pansy’s answer.
“Er… yeah… good stuff abou’ Thestrals. Well, once they’re tamed, like this lot, yeh’ll never be
lost again. ‘Mazin’ sense o’ direction, jus’ tell ‘em where yeh want ter go -”
“Assuming they can understand you, of course,” said Malfoy loudly, and Pansy Parkinson
collapsed in a fit of renewed giggles. Professor Umbridge smiled indulgently at them and then
turned to Neville.
“You can see the Thestrals, Longbottom, can you?” she said.
Neville nodded.
“Who did you see die?” she asked, her tone indifferent.
“My… my grandad,” said Neville.
“And what do you think of them?” she said, waving her stubby hand at the horses, who by now
had stripped a great deal of the carcass down to bone.
“Erm,” said Neville nervously, with a glance at Hagrid. “Well, they’re… er… okay…”
“Students… are… too… intimidated… to… admit… they… are… frightened,” muttered
Umbridge, making another note on her clipboard.
“No!” said Neville, looking upset. “No, I’m not scared of them!”
“It’s quite all right,” said Umbridge, patting Neville on the shoulder with what she evidently
intended to be an understanding smile, though it looked more like a leer to Harry. “Well, Hagrid,” she turned to look up at him again, speaking once more in that loud, slow voice, “I think I’ve got enough to be getting along with. You will receive” (she mimed taking something from the air in front of her) “the results of your inspection” (she pointed at the clipboard) “in ten days’ time.” She held up ten stubby little fingers, then, her smile wider and more toadlike than ever before beneath her green hat, she bustled from their midst, leaving Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson in fits of laughter, Hermione actually shaking with fury and Neville looking confused and upset.
“That foul, lying, twisting old gargoyle!” stormed Hermione half an hour later, as they made their way back up to the castle through the channels they had made earlier in the snow. “You see what she’s up to? It’s her thing about half-breeds all over again - she’s trying to make out Hagrid’s some kind of dimwitted troll, just because he had a giantess for a mother - and oh, it’s not fair, that really wasn’t a bad lesson at all - I mean, all right, if it had been Blast-Ended Skrewts again, but Thestrals are fine - in fact, for Hagrid, they’re really good!”
“Umbridge said they’re dangerous,” said Ron.
“Well, it’s like Hagrid said, they can look after themselves,” said Hermione impatiently, “and I
suppose a teacher like Grubbly-Plank wouldn’t usually show them to us before NEWT level, but,
well, they are very interesting, aren’t they? The way some people can see them and some can’t! I
wish I could.”
“Do you?” Harry asked her quietly.
She looked suddenly horrorstruck.
“Oh, Harry - I’m sorry - no, of course I don’t - that was a really stupid thing to say.”
“It’s okay,” he said quickly, “don’t worry”
“I’m surprised so many people could see them,” said Ron. “Three in a class -”
“Yeah, Weasley, we were just wondering,” said a malicious voice. Unheard by any of them in the muffling snow, Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle were walking along right behind them. “D’you reckon if you saw someone snuff it you’d be able to see the Quaffle better?”
He, Crabbe and Goyle roared with laughter as they pushed past on their way to the castle, then
broke into a chorus of “Weasley is our King”. Ron’s ears turned scarlet.
“Ignore them, just ignore them,” intoned Hermione, pulling out her wand and performing the
charm to produce hot air again, so that she could melt them an easier path through the untouched
snow between them and the greenhouses.
December arrived, bringing with it more snow and a positive avalanche of homework for the
fifth-years. Ron and Hermione’s prefect duties also became more and more onerous as Christmas
approached. They were called upon to supervise the decoration of the castle (“You try putting up
tinsel when Peeves has got the other end and is trying to strangle you with it,” said Ron), to
watch over first- and second-years spending their break-times inside because of the bitter cold
(“And they’re cheeky little snot-rags, you know, we definitely weren’t that rude when we were in first year,” said Ron) and to patrol the corridors in shifts with Argus Filch, who suspected that the holiday spirit might show itself in an outbreak of wizard duels (“He’s got dung for brains, that one,” said Ron furiously). They were so busy that Hermione had even stopped knitting elf hats and was fretting that she was down to her last three.
“All those poor elves I haven’t set free yet, having to stay here over Christmas because there
aren’t enough hats!”
Harry, who had not had the heart to tell her that Dobby was taking everything she made, bent
lower over his History of Magic essay. In any case, he did not want to think about Christmas. For
the first time in his school career, he very much wanted to spend the holidays away from
Hogwarts. Between his Quidditch ban and worry about whether or not Hagrid was going to be
put on probation, he felt highly resentful towards the place at the moment. The only thing he
really looked forward to were the D.A. meetings, and they would have to stop over the holidays,
as nearly everybody in the D.A. would be spending the time with their families. Hermione was
going skiing with her parents, something that greatly amused Ron, who had never heard of
Muggles strapping narrow strips of wood on to their feet to slide down mountains. Ron was
going home to The Burrow. Harry endured several days of envy before Ron said, in response to
Harry asking him how he was going to get home for Christmas: “But you’re coming too! Didn’t I say? Mum wrote and told me to invite you weeks ago!”
Hermione rolled her eyes, but Harry’s spirits soared: the thought of Christmas at The Burrow
was truly wonderful, though slightly marred by Harry’s guilty feeling that he would not be able
to spend the holiday with Sirius. He wondered whether he could possibly persuade Mrs. Weasley
to invite his godfather for the festivities. Even though he doubted whether Dumbledore would
permit Sirius to leave Grimmauld Place anyway, he could not help but think Mrs. Weasley might
not want him; they were so often at loggerheads. Sirius had not contacted Harry at all since his
last appearance in the fire, and although Harry knew that with Umbridge on constant watch it
would be unwise to attempt to contact him, he did not like to think of Sirius alone in his mother’s
old house, perhaps pulling a lonely cracker with Kreacher.
Harry arrived early in the Room of Requirement for the last D.A. meeting before the holidays andwas very glad he had, because when the lamps burst into light he saw that Dobby had taken it
upon himself to decorate the place for Christmas. He could tell the elf had done it, because
nobody else would have strung a hundred golden baubles from the ceiling, each showing a
picture of Harry’s face and bearing the legend: HAVE A VERY HARRY CHRISTMAS!
Harry had only just managed to get the last of them down before the door creaked open and Luna
Love good entered, looking as dreamy as always.
“Hello,” she said vaguely, looking around at what remained of the decorations. “These are nice,
did you put them up?”
“No,” said Harry, “it was Dobby the house-elf.”
“Mistletoe,” said Luna dreamily, pointing at a large clump of white berries placed almost over
Harry’s head. He jumped out from under it. “Good thinking,” said Luna very seriously. “It’s often infested with Nargles.”
Harry was saved the necessity of asking what Nargles were by the arrival of Angelina, Katie and
Alicia. All three of them were breathless and looked very cold.
“Well,” said Angelina dully, pulling off her cloak and throwing it into a corner, “we’ve finally
replaced you.”
“Replaced me?” said Harry blankly.
“You and Fred and George,” she said impatiently. “We’ve got another Seeker!”
“Who?” said Harry quickly.
“Ginny Weasley,” said Katie.
Harry gaped at her.
“Yeah, I know,” said Angelina, pulling out her wand and flexing her arm, “but she’s pretty good,
actually. Nothing on you, of course,” she said, throwing him a very dirty look, “but as we can’t
have you…”
Harry bit back the retort he was longing to utter: did she imagine for a second that he did not
regret his expulsion from the team a hundred times more than she did?
“And what about the Beaters?” he asked, trying to keep his voice even.
“Andrew Kirke,” said Alicia without enthusiasm, “and Jack Sloper. Neither of them are brilliant,
but compared to the rest of the idiots who turned up…”
The arrival of Ron, Hermione and Neville brought this depressing discussion to an end, and
within five minutes the room was full enough to prevent Harry seeing Angelina’s burning,
reproachful looks.
“Okay,” he said, calling them all to order. “I thought this evening we should just go over the things we’ve done so far, because it’s the last meeting before the holidays and there’s no point starting anything new right before a three-week break -”
“We’re not doing anything new?” said Zacharias Smith, in a disgruntled whisper loud enough to
carry through the room. “If I’d known that, I wouldn’t have come.”
“We’re all really sorry Harry didn’t tell you, then,” said Fred loudly.
Several people sniggered. Harry saw Cho laughing and felt the familiar swooping sensation in
his stomach, as though he had missed a step going downstairs.
“- we can practice in pairs,” said Harry. “We’ll start with the Impediment Jinx, for ten minutes,
then we can get out the cushions and try Stunning again.”
They all divided up obediently; Harry partnered Neville as usual. The room was soon full of
intermittent cries of “Impedimenta!” People froze f or a minute or so, during which their partner
would stare aimlessly around the room watching other pairs at work, then would unfreeze and
take their turn at the jinx.
Neville had improved beyond all recognition. After a while, when Harry had unfrozen three
times in a row, he had Neville join Ron and Hermione again so that he could walk around the
room and watch the others. When he passed Cho she beamed at him; he resisted the temptation
to walk past her several more times.
After ten minutes on the Impediment Jinx, they laid out cushions all over the floor and started
practicing Stunning again. Space was really too confined to allow them all to work this spell at
once; half the group observed the others for a while, then swapped over.
Harry felt himself positively swelling with pride as he watched them all. True, Neville did Stun
Padma Patil rather than Dean, at whom he had been aiming, but it was a much closer miss than
usual, and everybody else had made enormous progress.
At the end of an hour, Harry called a halt.
“You’re getting really good,” he said, beaming around at them. “When we get back from the
holidays we can start doing some of the big stuff - maybe even Patronuses.”
There was a murmur of excitement. The room began to clear in the usual twos and threes; most
people wished Harry a “Happy Christmas” as they went. Feeling cheerful, he collected up the
cushions with Ron and Hermione and stacked them neatly away. Ron and Hermione left before
he did; he hung back a little, because Cho was still there and he was hoping to receive a “Merry
Christmas” from her.
“No, you go on,” he heard her say to her friend Marietta and his heart gave a jolt that seemed to
take it into the region of his Adam’s apple.
He pretended to be straightening the cushion pile. He was quite sure they were alone now and
waited for her to speak. Instead, he heard a hearty sniff.
He turned and saw Cho standing in the middle of the room, tears pouring down her face.
“Wha—?”
He didn’t know what to do. She was simply standing there, crying silently.
“What’s up?” he said, feebly.
She shook her head and wiped her eyes on her sleeve.
“I’m - sorry,” she said thickly. “I suppose… it’s just… learning all this stuff… it just makes me… wonder whether… if he’d known it all… he’d still be alive.”
Harry’s heart sank right back past its usual spot and settled somewhere around his navel. He
ought to have known. She wanted to talk about Cedric.
“He did know this stuff,” Harry said heavily. “He was really good at it, or he could never have got to the middle of that maze. But if Voldemort really wants to kill you, you don’t stand a chance.”
She hiccoughed at the sound of Voldemort’s name, but stared at Harry without flinching.
“You survived when you were just a baby,” she said quietly.
“Yeah, well,” said Harry wearily, moving towards the door, “I dunno why nor does anyone else,
so it’s nothing to be proud of.”
“Oh, don’t go!” said Cho, sounding tearful again. “I’m really sorry to get all upset like this… I
didn’t mean to…”
She hiccoughed again. She was very pretty even when her eyes were red and puffy. Harry felt
thoroughly miserable. He’d have been so pleased with just a “Merry Christmas”.
“I know it must be horrible for you,” she said, mop ping her eyes on her sleeve again. “Me
mentioning Cedric, when you saw him die… I suppose you just want to forget about it?”
Harry did not say anything to this; it was quite true, but he felt heartless saying it.
“You’re a r-really good teacher, you know,” said Cho, with a watery smile. “I’ve never been able
to Stun anything before.”
“Thanks,” said Harry awkwardly.
They looked at each other for a long moment. Harry felt a burning desire to run from the room
and, at the same time, a complete inability to move his feet.
“Mistletoe,” said Cho quietly, pointing at the ceiling over his head.
“Yeah,” said Harry. His mouth was very dry. “It’s probably full of Nargles, though.”
“What are Nargles?”
“No idea,” said Harry. She had moved closer. His brain seemed to have been Stunned. “You’d
have to ask Loony. Luna, I mean.”
Cho made a funny noise halfway between a sob and a laugh. She was even nearer to him now.
He could have counted the freckles on her nose.
“I really like you, Harry.”
He could not think. A tingling sensation was spreading through him, paralysing his arms, legs
and brain.
She was much too close. He could see every tear clinging to her eyelashes…
He returned to the common room half an hour later to find Hermione and Ron in the best seats
by the fire; nearly everybody else had gone to bed. Hermione was writing a very long letter; she
had already filled half a roll of parchment, which was dangling from the edge of the table. Ron
was lying on the hearthrug, trying to finish his Transfiguration homework.
“What kept you?” he asked, as Harry sank into the armchair next to Hermione’s.
Harry didn’t answer. He was in a state of shock. Half of him wanted to tell Ron and Hermione
what had just happened, but the other half wanted to take the secret with him to the grave.
“Are you all right, Harry?” Hermione asked, peering at him over the tip of her quill.
Harry gave a half-hearted shrug. In truth, he didn’t know whether he was all right or not.
“What’s up?” said Ron, hoisting himself up on his elbow to get a clearer view of Harry. “What’s
happened?”
Harry didn’t quite know how to set about telling them, and still wasn’t sure whether he wanted
to. Just as he had decided not to say anything, Hermione took matters out of his hands.
“Is it Cho?” she asked in a businesslike way. “Did she corner you after the meeting?”
Numbly surprised, Harry nodded. Ron sniggered, breaking off when Hermione caught his eye.
“So - er - what did she want?” he asked in a mock casual voice.
“She -” Harry began, rather hoarsely; he cleared his throat and tried again. “She - er -”
“Did you kiss?” asked Hermione briskly.
Ron sat up so fast he sent his ink bottle flying all over the rug. Disregarding this completely, he
stared avidly at Harry.
“Well?” he demanded.
Harry looked from Ron’s expression of mingled curiosity and hilarity to Hermione’s slight
frown, and nodded.
“HA!”
Ron made a triumphant gesture with his fist and went into a raucous peal of laughter that made
several timid-looking second-years over beside the window jump. A reluctant grin spread over
Harry’s face as he watched Ron rolling around on the hearthrug.
Hermione gave Ron a look of deep disgust and returned to her letter.
“Well?” Ron said finally, looking up at Harry. “How was it?”
Harry considered for a moment.
“Wet,” he said truthfully.
Ron made a noise that might have indicated jubilation or disgust, it was hard to tell.
“Because she was crying,” Harry continued heavily.
“Oh,” said Ron, his smile fading slightly. “Are you that bad at kissing?”
“Dunno,” said Harry, who hadn’t considered this, and immediately felt rather worried. “Maybe I
am.”
“Of course you’re not,” said Hermione absently, still scribbling away at her letter.
“How do you know?” said Ron very sharply.
“Because Cho spends half her time crying these days,” said Hermione vaguely. “She does it at
mealtimes, in the loos, all over the place.”
“You’d think a bit of kissing would cheer her up,” said Ron, grinning.
“Ron,” said Hermione in a dignified voice, dipping the point of her quill into her inkpot, “you are
the most insensitive wart I have ever had the misfortune to meet.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” said Ron indignantly. “What sort of person cries while
someone’s kissing them?”
“Yeah,” said Harry, slightly desperately, “who does?”
Hermione looked at the pair of them with an almost pitying expression on her face.
“Don’t you understand how Cho’s feeling at the moment?” she asked.
“No,” said Harry and Ron together.
Hermione sighed and laid down her quill.
“Well, obviously, she’s feeling very sad, because of Cedric dying. Then I expect she’s feeling
confused because she liked Cedric and now she likes Harry, and she can’t work out who she
likes best. Then she’ll be feeling guilty, thinking it’s an insult to Cedric’s memory to be kissing
Harry at all, and she’ll be worrying about what everyone else might say about her if she starts
going out with Harry. And she probably can’t work out what her feelings towards Harry are,
anyway, because he was the one who was with Cedric when Cedric died, so that’s all very mixed
up and painful. Oh, and she’s afraid she’s going to be thrown off the Ravenclaw Quidditch team
because she’s been flying so badly.”
A slightly stunned silence greeted the end of this speech, then Ron said, “One person can’t feel
all that at once, they’d explode.”
“Just because you’ve got the emotional range of a teaspoon doesn’t mean we all have,” said
Hermione nastily picking up her quill again.
“She was the one who started it,” said Harry. “I wouldn’t’ve - she just sort of came at me - and
next thing she’s crying all over me - I didn’t know what to do —”
“Don’t blame you, mate,” said Ron, looking alarmed at the very thought.
“You just had to be nice to her,” said Hermione, looking up anxiously. “You were, weren’t you?”
“Well,” said Harry, an unpleasant heat creeping up his face, “I sort of - patted her on the back a
bit.”
Hermione looked as though she was restraining herself from rolling her eyes with extreme
difficulty.
“Well, I suppose it could have been worse,” she said. “Are you going to see her again?”
“I’ll have to, won’t I?” said Harry. “We’ve got D.A. meetings, haven’t we?”
“You know what I mean,” said Hermione impatiently.
Harry said nothing. Hermione’s words opened up a whole new vista of frightening possibilities.
He tried to imagine going somewhere with Cho — Hogsmeade, perhaps - and being alone with
her for hours at a time. Of course, she would have been expecting him to ask her out after what
had just happened… the thought made his stomach clench painfully.
“Oh well,” said Hermione distantly, buried in her letter once more, “you’ll have plenty of
opportunities to ask her.”
“What if he doesn’t want to ask her?” said Ron, who had been watching Harry with an unusually
shrewd expression on his face.
“Don’t be silly,” said Hermione vaguely, “Harry’s liked her for ages, haven’t you, Harry?”
He did not answer. Yes, he had liked Cho for ages, but whenever he had imagined a scene
involving the two of them it had always featured a Cho who was enjoying herself, as opposed to
a Cho who was sobbing uncontrollably into his shoulder.
“Who’re you writing the novel to, anyway?” Ron asked Hermione, trying to read the bit of
parchment now trailing on the floor. Hermione hitched it up out of sight.
“Viktor.”
“Krum?”
“How many other Viktors do we know?”
Ron said nothing, but looked disgruntled. They sat in silence for another twenty minutes, Ron
finishing his Transfiguration essay with many snorts of impatience and crossings-out, Hermione
writing steadily to the very end of the parchment, rolling it up carefully and sealing it, and Harry
staring into the fire, wishing more than anything that Sirius’s head would appear there and give
him some advice about girls. But the fire merely crackled lower and lower, until the red-hot
embers crumbled into ash and, looking around, Harry saw that they were, yet again, the last ones
in the common room.
“Well, night,” said Hermione, yawning widely as she set off up the girls’ staircase.
“What does she see in Krum?” Ron demanded, as he and Harry climbed the boys’ stairs.
“Well,” said Harry, considering the matter, “I s’pose he’s older, isn’t he… and he’s an
international Quidditch player…”
“Yeah, but apart from that,” said Ron, sounding aggravated. “I mean, he’s a grouchy git, isn’t
he?”
“Bit grouchy, yeah,” said Harry, whose thoughts were still on Cho.
They pulled off their robes and put on pajamass in silence; Dean, Seamus and Neville were
already asleep. Harry put his glasses on his bedside table and got into bed but did not pull the
hangings closed around his four-poster; instead, he stared at the patch of starry sky visible
through the window next to Neville’s bed. If he had known, this time last night, that in twenty-four hours’ time he would have kissed Cho Chang…
“Night,” grunted Ron, from somewhere to his right.
“Night,” said Harry.
Maybe next time… if there was a next time… she’d be a bit happier. He ought to have asked her
out; she had probably been expecting it and was now really angry with him… or was she lying in
bed, still crying about Cedric? He did not know what to think. Hermione’s explanation had made
it all seem more complicated rather than easier to understand.
That’s what they should teach us here, he thought, turning over on to his side, how girls’ brains
work… it’d be more useful than Divination, anyway…
Neville snuffled in his sleep. An owl hooted somewhere out in the night.
Harry dreamed he was back in the D.A. room. Cho was accusing him of luring her there under
false pretences; she said he had promised her a hundred and fifty Chocolate Frog Cards if she
showed up. Harry protested… Cho shouted, “Cedric gave me loads of Chocolate Frog Cards,
look!” And she pulled out fistfuls of Cards from in side her robes and threw them into the air.
Then she turned into Hermione, who said, “You did promise her, you know, Harry… I think
you’d better give her something else instead… how about your Firebolt?” And Harry was
protesting that he could not give Cho his Firebolt, because Umbridge had it, and anyway the
whole thing was ridiculous, he’d only come to the D.A. room to put up some Christmas baubles
shaped like Dobby’s head…
The dream changed…
His body felt smooth, powerful and flexible. He was gliding between shining metal bars, across
dark, cold stone… he was flat against the floor, sliding along on his belly… it was dark, yet he
could see objects around him shimmering in strange, vibrant colors… he was turning his
head… at first glance the corridor was empty… but no… a man was sitting on the floor ahead,
his chin drooping on to his chest, his outline gleaming in the dark…
Harry put out his tongue… he tasted the man’s scent on the air… he was alive but drowsy…
sitting in front of a door at the end of the corridor…
Harry longed to bite the man… but he must master the impulse… he had more important work to
do…
But the man was stirring… a silver Cloak fell from his legs as he jumped to his feet; and Harry
saw his vibrant, blurred outline towering above him, saw a wand withdrawn from a belt… he had
no choice… he reared high from the floor and struck once, twice, three times, plunging his fangs
deeply into the man’s flesh, feeling his ribs splinter beneath his jaws, feeling the warm gush of
blood…
The man was yelling in pain… then he fell silent… he slumped backwards against the wall…
blood was splattering on to the floor…
His forehead hurt terribly… it was aching fit to burst…
“Harry! HARRY!”
He opened his eyes. Every inch of his body was covered in icy sweat; his bed covers were
twisted all around him like a strait-jacket; he felt as though a white-hot poker were being applied
to his forehead.
“Harry!”
Ron was standing over him looking extremely frightened. There were more figures at the foot of
Harry’s bed. He clutched his head in his hands; the pain was blinding him… he rolled right over
and vomited over the edge of the mattress.
“He’s really ill,” said a scared voice. “Should we call someone?”
“Harry!Harry!”
He had to tell Ron, it was very important that he tell him… taking great gulps of air, Harry
pushed himself up in bed, willing himself not to throw up again, the pain half-blinding him.
“Your dad,” he panted, his chest heaving. “Your dad’s… been attacked…”
“What?” said Ron uncomprehendingly.
“Your dad! He’s been bitten, it’s serious, there was blood everywhere…”
“I’m going for help,” said the same scared voice, and Harry heard footsteps running out of the
dormitory.
“Harry, mate,” said Ron uncertainly, “you… you were just dreaming…”
“No!” said Harry furiously; it was crucial that Ron understand. “It wasn’t a dream… not an ordinary dream… I was there, I saw it… I did it…”
He could hear Seamus and Dean muttering but did not care. The pain in his forehead was
subsiding slightly, though he was still sweating and shivering feverishly. He retched again and
Ron leapt backwards out of the way.
“Harry, you’re not well,” he said shakily. “Neville’s gone for help.”
“I’m fine!” Harry choked, wiping his mouth on his p yjamas and shaking uncontrollably.
“There’s nothing wrong with me, it’s your dad you’ve got to worry about - we need to find out where he is - he’s bleeding like mad - I was - it was a huge snake.”
He tried to get out of bed but Ron pushed him back into it; Dean and Seamus were still
whispering somewhere nearby. Whether one minute passed or ten, Harry did not know; he
simply sat there shaking, feeling the pain recede very slowly from his scar… then there were
hurried footsteps coming up the stairs and he heard Neville’s voice again.
“Over here, Professor.”
Professor McGonagall came hurrying into the dormitory in her tartan dressing gown, her glasses
perched lopsidedly on the bridge of her bony nose.
“What is it, Potter? Where does it hurt?”
He had never been so pleased to see her; it was a member of the Order of the Phoenix he needed
now, not someone fussing over him and prescribing useless potions.
“It’s Ron’s dad,” he said, sitting up again. “He’s been attacked by a snake and it’s serious, I saw it happen.”
“What do you mean, you saw it happen?” said Professor McGonagall, her dark eyebrows
contracting.
“I don’t know… I was asleep and then I was there…”
“You mean you dreamed this?”
“No!” said Harry angrily; would none of them understand? “I was having a dream at first about
something completely different, something stupid… and then this interrupted it. It was real, I
didn’t imagine it. Mr. Weasley was asleep on the floor and he was attacked by a gigantic snake,
there was a load of blood, he collapsed, someone’s got to find out where he is…”
Professor McGonagall was gazing at him through her lopsided spectacles as though horrified at
what she was seeing.
“I’m not lying and I’m not mad!” Harry told her, his voice rising to a shout. “I tell you, I saw it
happen!”
“I believe you, Potter,” said Professor McGonagall curtly. “Put on your dressing gown - we’re
going to see the Headmaster.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries
Harry was so relieved she was taking him seriously that he did not hesitate, but jumped out of
bed at once, pulled on his dressing gown and pushed his glasses back on to his nose.
“Weasley, you ought to come too,” said Professor McGonagall.
They followed Professor McGonagall past the silent figures of Neville, Dean and Seamus, out of
the dormitory, down the spiral stairs into the common room, through the portrait hole and off
along the Fat Lady’s moonlit corridor. Harry felt as though the panic inside him might spill over
at any moment; he wanted to run, to yell for Dumbledore; Mr. Weasley was bleeding as they
walked along so sedately, and what if those fangs (Harry tried hard not to think ‘my fangs’) had
been poisonous? They passed Mrs Norris, who turned her lamplike eyes upon them and hissed
faintly, but Professor McGonagall said, “Shoo!” Mrs Norris slunk away into the shadows, and in
a few minutes they had reached the stone gargoyle guarding the entrance to Dumbledore’s office.
“Fizzing Whizzbee,” said Professor McGonagall.
The gargoyle sprang to life and leapt aside; the wall behind it split in two to reveal a stone
staircase that was moving continually upwards like a spiral escalator. The three of them stepped
on to the moving stairs; the wall closed behind them with a thud and they were moving upwards
in tight circles until they reached the highly polished oak door with the brass knocker shaped like
a griffin.
Though it was now well past midnight there were voices coming from inside the room, a positive
babble of them. It sounded as though Dumbledore was entertaining at least a dozen people.
Professor McGonagall rapped three times with the griffin knocker and the voices ceased abruptly
as though someone had switched them all off. The door opened of its own accord and Professor
McGonagall led Harry and Ron inside.
The room was in half-darkness; the strange silver instruments standing on tables were silent and
still rather than whirring and emitting puffs of smoke as they usually did; the portraits of old
headmasters and headmistresses covering the walls were all snoozing in their frames. Behind the
door, a magnificent red and gold bird the size of a swan dozed on its perch with its head under its
wing.
“Oh, it’s you, Professor McGonagall… and… ah.”
Dumbledore was sitting in a high-backed chair behind his desk; he leaned forward into the pool
of candlelight illuminating the papers laid out before him. He was wearing a magnificently
embroidered purple and gold dressing gown over a snowy white nightshirt, but seemed wideawake, his penetrating light blue eyes fixed intently upon Professor McGonagall.
“Professor Dumbledore, Potter has had a… well, a nightmare,” said Professor McGonagall. “He
says…”
“It wasn’t a nightmare,” said Harry quickly.
Professor McGonagall looked round at Harry, frowning slightly.
“Very well, then, Potter, you tell the Headmaster about it.”
“I… well, I was asleep…” said Harry and, even in his terror and his desperation to make
Dumbledore understand, he felt slightly irritated that the Headmaster was not looking at him, but
examining his own interlocked fingers. “But it wasn’t an ordinary dream… it was real… I saw it
happen…” He took a deep breath, “Ron’s dad - Mr. Weasley - has been attacked by a giant
snake.”
The words seemed to reverberate in the air after he had said them, sounding slightly ridiculous,
even comic. There was a pause in which Dumbledore leaned back and stared meditatively at the
ceiling. Ron looked from Harry to Dumbledore, white-faced and shocked.
“How did you see this?” Dumbledore asked quietly, still not looking at Harry.
“Well… I don’t know,” said Harry, rather angrily - what did it matter? “Inside my head, I suppose -”
“You misunderstand me,” said Dumbledore, still in the same calm tone. “I mean… can you
remember — er - where you were positioned as you watched this attack happen? Were you
perhaps standing beside the victim, or else looking down on the scene from above?”
This was such a curious question that Harry gaped at Dumbledore; it was almost as though he
knew…
“I was the snake,” he said. “I saw it all from the snake’s point of view.”
Nobody else spoke for a moment, then Dumbledore, now looking at Ron who was still wheyfaced, asked in a new and sharper voice, “Is Arthur seriously injured?”
“Yes,” said Harry emphatically - why were they all so slow on the uptake, did they not realize
how much a person bled when fangs that long pierced their side? And why could Dumbledore
not do him the courtesy of looking at him?
But Dumbledore stood up, so quickly it made Harry jump, and addressed one of the old portraits
hanging very near the ceiling. “Everard?” he said sharply. “And you too, Dilys!”
A sallow-faced wizard with a short black bangs and an elderly witch with long silver ringlets in
the frame beside him, both of whom seemed to have been in the deepest of sleeps, opened their
eyes immediately.
“You were listening?” said Dumbledore.
The wizard nodded; the witch said, “Naturally.”
“The man has red hair and glasses,” said Dumbledore. “Everard, you will need to raise the alarm, make sure he is found by the right people -”
Both nodded and moved sideways out of their frames, but instead of emerging in neighboring
pictures (as usually happened at Hogwarts) neither reappeared. One frame now contained
nothing but a backdrop of dark curtain, the other a handsome leather armchair. Harry noticed that
many of the other headmasters and mistresses on the walls, though snoring and drooling most
convincingly, kept sneaking peeks at him from under their eyelids, and he suddenly understood
who had been talking when they had knocked.
“Everard and Dilys were two of Hogwarts’s most celebrated Heads,” Dumbledore said, now
sweeping around Harry, Ron and Professor McGonagall to approach the magnificent sleeping
bird on his perch beside the door. “Their renown is such that both have portraits hanging in other
important wizarding institutions. As they are free to move between their own portraits, they can
tell us what may be happening elsewhere…”
“But Mr. Weasley could be anywhere!” said Harry.
“Please sit down, all three of you,” said Dumbledore, as though Harry had not spoken, “Everard
and Dilys may not be back for several minutes. Professor McGonagall, if you could draw up
extra chairs.”
Professor McGonagall pulled her wand from the pocket of her dressing gown and waved it; three
chairs appeared out of thin air, straight-backed and wooden, quite unlike the comfortable chintz
armchairs that Dumbledore had conjured up at Harry’s hearing. Harry sat down, watching
Dumbledore over his shoulder. Dumbledore was now stroking Fawkes’s plumed golden head
with one finger. The phoenix awoke immediately. He stretched his beautiful head high and
observed Dumbledore through bright, dark eyes.
“We will need,” Dumbledore said very quietly to the bird, “a warning.”
There was a flash of fire and the phoenix had gone.
Dumbledore now swooped down upon one of the fragile silver instruments whose function Harry
had never known, carried it over to his desk, sat down facing them again and tapped it gently
with the tip of his wand.
The instrument tinkled into life at once with rhythmic clinking noises. Tiny puffs of pale green
smoke issued from the minuscule silver tube at the top. Dumbledore watched the smoke closely,
his brow furrowed. After a few seconds, the tiny puffs became a steady stream of smoke that
thickened and coiled in the air… a serpent’s head grew out of the end of it, opening its mouth
wide. Harry wondered whether the instrument was confirming his story: he looked eagerly at
Dumbledore for a sign that he was right, but Dumbledore did not look up.
“Naturally, naturally,” murmured Dumbledore apparently to himself, still observing the stream of smoke without the slightest sign of surprise. “But in essence divided?”
Harry could make neither head nor tail of this question. The smoke serpent, however, split itself
instantly into two snakes, both coiling and undulating in the dark air. With a look of grim
satisfaction, Dumbledore gave the instrument another gentle tap with his wand: the clinking
noise slowed and died and the smoke serpents grew faint, became a formless haze and vanished.
Dumbledore replaced the instrument on its spindly little table. Harry saw many of the old
headmasters in the portraits follow him with their eyes, then, realizing that Harry was watching
them, hastily pretend to be sleeping again. Harry wanted to ask what the strange silver
instrument was for, but before he could do so, there was a shout from the top of the wall to their
right; the wizard called Everard had reappeared in his portrait, panting slightly.
“Dumbledore!”
“What news?” said Dumbledore at once.
“I yelled until someone came running,” said the wizard, who was mopping his brow on the
curtain behind him, “said I’d heard something moving downstairs - they weren’t sure whether to
believe me but went down to check - you know there are no portraits down there to watch from.
Anyway, they carried him up a few minutes later. He doesn’t look good, he’s covered in blood, I
ran along to Elfrida Cragg’s portrait to get a good view as they left -”
“Good,” said Dumbledore as Ron made a convulsive movement. “I take it Dilys will have seen
him arrive, then -”
And moments later, the silver-ringleted witch had reappeared in her picture, too; she sank,
coughing, into her armchair and said, “Yes, they’ve taken him to St. Mungo’s, Dumbledore…
they carried him past my portrait… he looks bad…”
“Thank you,” said Dumbledore. He looked round at Professor McGonagall.
“Minerva, I need you to go and wake the other Weasley children.”
“Of course…”
Professor McGonagall got up and moved swiftly to the door. Harry cast a sideways glance at
Ron, who was looking terrified.
“And Dumbledore - what about Molly?” said Professor McGonagall, pausing at the door.
“That will be a job for Fawkes when he has finished keeping a lookout for anybody approaching,”
said Dumbledore. “But she may already know… that excellent clock of hers…”
Harry knew Dumbledore was referring to the clock that told, not the time, but the whereabouts
and conditions of the various Weasley family members, and with a pang he thought that Mr.
Weasley’s hand must, even now, be pointing atmortal peril. But it was very late. Mrs. Weasley
was probably asleep, not watching the clock. Harry felt cold as he remembered Mrs. Weasley’s
Boggart turning into Mr. Weasley’s lifeless body, his glasses askew, blood running down his
face… but Mr. Weasley wasn’t going to die… he couldn’t…
Dumbledore was now rummaging in a cupboard behind Harry and Ron. He emerged from it
carrying a blackened old kettle, which he placed carefully on his desk. He raised his wand and
murmured, “Portus!” For a moment the kettle trembled, glowing with an odd blue light; then it
quivered to rest, as solidly black as ever.
Dumbledore marched over to another portrait, this time of a clever-looking wizard with a pointed
beard, who had been painted wearing the Slytherin colors of green and silver and was
apparently sleeping so deeply that he could not hear Dumbledore’s voice when he attempted to
rouse him.
“Phineas. Phineas.”
The subjects of the portraits lining the room were no longer pretending to be asleep; they were
shifting around in their frames, the better to watch what was happening. When the clever-looking
wizard continued to feign sleep, some of them shouted his name, too.
“Phineas! Phineas! PHINEAS!”
He could not pretend any longer; he gave a theatrical jerk and opened his eyes wide.
“Did someone call?”
“I need you to visit your other portrait again, Phineas,” said Dumbledore. “I’ve got another
message.”
“Visit my other portrait?” said Phineas in a reedy voice, giving a long, fake yawn (his eyes
traveling around the room and focusing on Harry). “Oh, no, Dumbledore, I am too tired tonight.”
Something about Phineas’s voice was familiar to Harry, where had he heard it before? But before
he could think, the portraits on the surrounding walls broke into a storm of protest.
“Insubordination, sir!” roared a corpulent, red-nosed wizard, brandishing his fists. “Dereliction of duty!”
“We are honor-bound to give service to the present Headmaster of Hogwarts!” cried a fraillooking old wizard whom Harry recognized as Dumbledore’s predecessor, Armando Dippet.
“Shame on you, Phineas!”
“Shall I persuade him, Dumbledore?” called a gimlet-eyed witch, raising an unusually thick wand that looked not unlike a birch rod.
“Oh, very well,” said the wizard called Phineas, eyeing the wand with mild apprehension,
“though he may well have destroyed my picture by now, he’s done away with most of the family
-”
“Sirius knows not to destroy your portrait,” said Dumbledore, and Harry realized immediately
where he had heard Phineas’s voice before: issuing from the apparently empty frame in his
bedroom in Grimmauld Place. “You are to give him the message that Arthur Weasley has been
gravely injured and that his wife, children and Harry Potter will be arriving at his house shortly.
Do you understand?”
“Arthur Weasley, injured, wife and children and Harry Potter coming to stay,” repeated Phineas
in a bored voice. “Yes, yes… very well.”
He sloped away into the frame of the portrait and disappeared from view at the very moment the
study door opened again. Fred, George and Ginny were ushered inside by Professor McGonagall,
all three of them looking dishevelled and shocked, still in their night things.
“Harry - what’s going on?” asked Ginny, who looked frightened. “Professor McGonagall says
you saw Dad get hurt -”
“Your father has been injured in the course of his work for the Order of the Phoenix,” said
Dumbledore, before Harry could speak. “He has been taken to St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical
Maladies and Injuries. I am sending you back to Sirius’s house, which is much more convenient
for the hospital than The Burrow. You will meet your mother there.”
“How’re we going?” asked Fred, looking shaken. “Floo powder?”
“No,” said Dumbledore, “Floo powder is not safe at the moment, the Network is being watched.
You will be taking a Portkey.” He indicated the old kettle lying innocently on his desk. “We are
just waiting for Phineas Nigellus to report back… I want to be sure that the coast is clear before
sending you -”
There was a flash of flame in the very middle of the office, leaving behind a single golden
feather that floated gently to the floor.
“It is Fawkes’s warning,” said Dumbledore, catching the feather as it fell. “Professor Umbridge
must know you’re out of your beds… Minerva, go and head her off - tell her any story -”
Professor McGonagall was gone in a swish of tartan.
“He says he’ll be delighted,” said a bored voice behind Dumbledore; the wizard called Phineas
had reappeared in front of his Slytherin banner. “My great-great-grandson has always had an odd
taste in house-guests.”
“Come here, then,” Dumbledore said to Harry and the Weasleys. “And quickly, before anyone
else joins us.”
Harry and the others gathered around Dumbledore’s desk.
“You have all used a Portkey before?” asked Dumbledore, and they nodded, each reaching out to
touch some part of the blackened kettle. “Good. On the count of three, then… one… two…”
It happened in a fraction of a second: in the infinitesimal pause before Dumbledore said “three”,
Harry looked up at him - they were very close together - and Dumbledore’s clear blue gaze
moved from the Portkey to Harry’s face.
At once, Harry’s scar burned white-hot, as though the old wound had burst open again - and
unbidden, unwanted, but terrifyingly strong, there rose within Harry a hatred so powerful he felt,
for that instant, he would like nothing better than to strike - to bite - to sink his fangs into the
man before him —
“… three.”
Harry felt a powerful jerk behind his navel, the ground vanished from beneath his feet, his hand
was glued to the kettle; he was banging into the others as they all sped forwards in a swirl of
colors and a rush of wind, the kettle pulling them onwards… until his feet hit the ground so
hard his knees buckled, the kettle clattered to the ground, and somewhere close at hand a voice
said:
“Back again, the blood-traitor brats. Is it true their father’s dying?”
“OUT!” roared a second voice.
Harry scrambled to his feet and looked around; they had arrived in the gloomy basement kitchen
of number twelve, Grimmauld Place. The only sources of light were the fire and one guttering
candle, which illuminated the remains of a solitary supper. Kreacher was disappearing through
the door to the hall, looking back at them malevolently as he hitched up his loincloth; Sirius was
hurrying towards them all, looking anxious. He was unshaven and still in his day clothes; there
was also a slightly Mundungus-like whiff of stale drink about him.
“What’s going on?” he said, stretching out a hand to help Ginny up. “Phineas Nigellus said
Arthur’s been badly injured —”
“Ask Harry,” said Fred.
“Yeah, I want to hear this for myself,” said George.
The twins and Ginny were staring at him. Kreacher’s footsteps had stopped on the stairs outside.
“It was -” Harry began; this was even worse than telling McGonagall and Dumbledore. “I had a - a kind of – vision.”
And he told them all that he had seen, though he altered the story so that it sounded as though he
had watched from the sidelines as the snake attacked, rather than from behind the snake’s own
eyes. Ron, who was still very white, gave him a fleeting look, but did not speak. When Harry had
finished, Fred, George and Ginny continued to stare at him for a moment. Harry did not know
whether he was imagining it or not, but he fancied there was something accusatory in their looks.
Well, if they were going to blame him just for seeing the attack, he was glad he had not told them
that he had been inside the snake at the time.
“Is Mum here?” said Fred, turning to Sirius.
“She probably doesn’t even know what’s happened yet,” said Sirius. “The important thing was to
get you away before Umbridge could interfere. I expect Dumbledores letting Molly know now.”
“We’ve got to go to St. Mungo’s,” said Ginny urgently. She looked around at her brothers; they
were of course still in their pajamass. “Sirius, can you lend us cloaks or anything?”
“Hang on, you can’t go tearing off to St. Mungo’s!” said Sirius.
“Course we can go to St. Mungo’s if we want,” said Fred, with a mulish expression. “He’s our
dad!”
“And how are you going to explain how you knew Arthur was attacked before the hospital even
let his wife know?”
“What does that matter?” said George hotly.
“It matters because we don’t want to draw attention to the fact that Harry is having visions of
things that are happening hundreds of miles away!” said Sirius angrily. “Have you any idea what
the Ministry would make of that information?”
Fred and George looked as though they could not care less what the Ministry made of anything.
Ron was still ashen-faced and silent.
Ginny said, “Somebody else could have told us… we could have heard it somewhere other than
Harry.”
“Like who?” said Sirius impatiently. “Listen, your dad’s been hurt while on duty for the Order
and the circumstances are fishy enough without his children knowing about it seconds after it
happened, you could seriously damage the Order’s -”
“We don’t care about the dumb Order!” shouted Fred.
“It’s our dad dying we’re talking about!” yelled George.
“Your father knew what he was getting into and he won’t thank you for messing things up for the
Order!” said Sirius, equally angry. “This is how it is - this is why you’re not in the Order - you
don’t understand - there are things worth dying for!”
“Easy for you to say, stuck here!” bellowed Fred. “I don’t see you risking your neck!”
The little color remaining in Sirius’s face drained from it. He looked for a moment as though he
would quite like to hit Fred, but when he spoke, it was in a voice of determined calm.
“I know it’s hard, but we’ve all got to act as though we don’t know anything yet. We’ve got to
stay put, at least until we hear from your mother, all right?”
Fred and George still looked mutinous. Ginny, however, took a few steps over to the nearest
chair and sank into it. Harry looked at Ron, who made a funny movement somewhere between a
nod and a shrug, and they sat down too. The twins glared at Sirius for another minute, then took
seats either side of Ginny.
“That’s right,” said Sirius encouragingly, “come on, let’s all… let’s all have a drink while we’re
waiting. Accio Butterbeer!”
He raised his wand as he spoke and half a dozen bottles came flying towards them out of the
pantry, skidded along the table, scattering the debris of Sinus’s meal, and stopped neatly in front
of the six of them. They all drank, and for a while the only sounds were those of the crackling of
the kitchen fire and the soft thud of their bottles on the table.
Harry was only drinking to have something to do with his hands. His stomach was full of
horrible hot, bubbling guilt. They would not be here if it were not for him; they would all still be
asleep in bed. And it was no good telling himself that by raising the alarm he had ensured that
Mr. Weasley was found, because there was also the in escapable business of it being he who had
attacked Mr. Weasley in the first place.
Don’t be stupid, you haven’t got fangs, he told himself, trying to keep calm, though the hand on
his Butterbeer bottle was shaking, you were lying in bed, you weren’t attacking anyone…
But then, what just happened in Dumbledore’s office? he asked himself. I felt like I wanted to
attack Dumbledore, too…
He put the bottle down a little harder than he meant to, and it slopped over on to the table. No
one took any notice. Then a burst of fire in midair illuminated the dirty plates in front of them
and, as they gave cries of shock, a scroll of parchment fell with a thud on to the table,
accompanied by a single golden phoenix tail feather.
“Fawkes!” said Sirius at once, snatching up the parchment. “That’s not Dumbledore’s writing - it
must be a message from your mother - here -”
He thrust the letter into George’s hand, who ripped it open and read aloud: “Dad is still alive. I
am setting out for St. Mungo’s now. Stay where you are. I will send news as soon as I can. Mum.”
George looked around the table.
“Still alive…” he said slowly. “But that makes it sound…”
He did not need to finish the sentence. It sounded to Harry, too, as though Mr. Weasley was
hovering somewhere between life and death. Still exceptionally pale, Ron stared at the back of
his mothers letter as though it might speak words of comfort to him. Fred pulled the parchment
out of George’s hands and read it for himself, then looked up at Harry, who felt his hand shaking
on his Butterbeer bottle again and clenched it more tightly to stop the trembling.
If Harry had ever sat through a longer night than this one, he could not remember it. Sirius
suggested once, without any real conviction, that they all go to bed, but the Weasleys’ looks of
disgust were answer enough. They mostly sat in silence around the table, watching the candle
wick sinking lower and lower into liquid wax, occasionally raising a bottle to their lips, speaking
only to check the time, to wonder aloud what was happening, and to reassure each other that if
there was bad news, they would know straightaway, for Mrs. Weasley must long since have
arrived at St. Mungo’s.
Fred fell into a doze, his head lolling sideways on to his shoulder. Ginny was curled like a cat on
her chair, but her eyes were open; Harry could see them reflecting the firelight. Ron was sitting
with his head in his hands, whether awake or asleep it was impossible to tell. Harry and Sirius
looked at each other every so often, intruders upon the family grief, waiting… waiting…
At ten past five in the morning by Ron’s watch, the kitchen door swung open and Mrs. Weasley
entered the kitchen. She was extremely pale, but when they all turned to look at her, Fred, Ron
and Harry half rising from their chairs, she gave a wan smile.
“He’s going to be all right,” she said, her voice weak with tiredness. “He’s sleeping. We can all
go and see him later. Bill’s sitting with him now; he’s going to take the morning off work.”
Fred fell back into his chair with his hands over his face. George and Ginny got up, walked
swiftly over to their mother and hugged her. Ron gave a very shaky laugh and downed the rest of
his Butterbeer in one.
“Breakfast!” said Sirius loudly and joyfully, jumping to his feet. “Where’s that accursed house-elf? Kreacher! KREACHER!”
But Kreacher did not answer the summons.
“Oh, forget it, then,” muttered Sirius, counting the people in front of him. “So, it’s breakfast for -
let’s see - seven… bacon and eggs, I think, and some tea, and toast -”
Harry hurried over to the stove to help. He did not want to intrude on the Weasleys’ happiness
and he dreaded the moment when Mrs. Weasley would ask him to recount his vision. However,
he had barely taken plates from the dresser when Mrs. Weasley lifted them out of his hands and
pulled him into a hug.
“I don’t know what would have happened if it hadn’t been for you, Harry,” she said in a muffled
voice. “They might not have found Arthur for hours, and then it would have been too late, but
thanks to you he’s alive and Dumbledore’s been able to think up a good cover story for Arthur
being where he was, you’ve no idea what trouble he would have been in otherwise, look at poor
Sturgis…”
Harry could hardly bear her gratitude, but fortunately she soon released him to turn to Sirius and
thank him for looking after her children through the night. Sirius said he was very pleased to
have been able to help, and hoped they would all stay with him as long as Mr. Weasley was in
hospital.
“Oh, Sirius, I’m so grateful… they think he’ll be there a little while and it would be wonderful to
be nearer… of course, that might mean we’re here for Christmas.”
“The more the merrier!” said Sirius with such obvious sincerity that Mrs. Weasley beamed at him, threw on an apron and began to help with breakfast.
“Sirius,” Harry muttered, unable to stand it a moment longer. “Can I have a quick word? Er -
now?”
He walked into the dark pantry and Sirius followed. Without preamble, Harry told his godfather
every detail of the vision he had had, including the fact that he himself had been the snake who
had attacked Mr. Weasley.
When he paused for breath, Sirius said, “Did you tell Dumbledore this?”
“Yes,” said Harry impatiently, “but he didn’t tell me what it meant. Well, he doesn’t tell me
anything any more.”
“I’m sure he would have told you if it was anything to worry about,” said Sirius steadily.
“But that’s not all,” said Harry, in a voice only a little above a whisper. “Sirius, I… I think I’m
going mad. Back in Dumbledore’s office, just before we took the Portkey… for a couple of
seconds there I thought I was a snake, I felt like one - my scar really hurt when I was looking at
Dumbledore - Sirius, I wanted to attack him!”
He could only see a sliver of Siriuss face; the rest was in darkness.
“It must have been the aftermath of the vision, that’s all,” said Sirius. “You were still thinking of
the dream or whatever it was and –”
“It wasn’t that,” said Harry, shaking his head, “it was like something rose up inside me, like
there’s a snake inside me.”
“You need to sleep,” said Sirius firmly. “You’re going to have breakfast, then go upstairs to bed,
and after lunch you can go and see Arthur with the others. You’re in shock, Harry; you’re
blaming yourself for something you only witnessed, and it’s lucky you did witness it or Arthur
might have died. Just stop worrying.”
He clapped Harry on the shoulder and left the pantry, leaving Harry standing alone in the dark.
Everyone but Harry spent the rest of the morning sleeping. He went up to the bedroom he and
Ron had shared over the last few weeks of summer, but while Ron crawled into bed and was
asleep within minutes, Harry sat fully clothed, hunched against the cold metal bars of the
bedstead, keeping himself deliberately uncomfortable, determined not to fall into a doze, terrified
that he might become the serpent again in his sleep and wake to find that he had attacked Ron, or
else slithered through the house after one of the others…
When Ron woke up, Harry pretended to have enjoyed a refreshing nap too. Their trunks arrived
from Hogwarts while they were eating lunch, so they could dress as Muggles for the trip to St
Mungo’s. Everybody except Harry was riotously happy and talkative as they changed out of their
robes into jeans and sweatshirts. When Tonks and Mad-Eye turned up to escort them across
London, they greeted them gleefully, laughing at the bowler hat Mad-Eye was wearing at an
angle to conceal his magical eye and assuring him, truthfully, that Tonks, whose hair was short
and bright pink again, would attract far less attention on the Underground.
Tonks was very interested in Harry’s vision of the attack on Mr. Weasley, something Harry was
not remotely interested in discussing.
“There isn’t any Seer blood in your family, is there?” she enquired curiously, as they sat side by
side on a train rattling towards the heart of the city.
“No,” said Harry, thinking of Professor Trelawney and feeling insulted.
“No,” said Tonks musingly, “no, I suppose it’s not really prophecy you’re doing, is it? I mean,
you’re not seeing the future, you’re seeing the present… it’s odd, isn’t it? Useful, though…”
Harry didn’t answer; fortunately, they got out at the next stop, a station in the very heart of
London, and in the bustle of leaving the train he was able to allow Fred and George to get
between himself and Tonks, who was leading the way. They all followed her up the escalator,
Moody clunking along at the back of the group, his bowler tilted low and one gnarled hand stuck
in between the buttons of his coat, clutching his wand. Harry thought he sensed the concealed
eye staring hard at him. Trying to avoid any more questions about his dream, he asked Mad-Eye
where St. Mungo’s was hidden.
“Not far from here,” grunted Moody as they stepped out into the wintry air on a broad store-lined
street packed with Christmas shoppers. He pushed Harry a little ahead of him and stumped along
just behind; Harry knew the eye was rolling in all directions under the tilted hat. “Wasn’t easy to
find a good location for a hospital. Nowhere in Diagon Alley was big enough and we couldn’t
have it underground like the Ministry - wouldn’t be healthy. In the end they managed to get hold
of a building up here. Theory was, sick wizards could come and go and just blend in with the
crowd.”
He seized Harry’s shoulder to prevent them being separated by a gaggle of shoppers plainly
intent on nothing but making it into a nearby shop full of electrical gadgets.
“Here we go,” said Moody a moment later.
They had arrived outside a large, old-fashioned, red-brick department store called Purge &
Dowse Ltd. The place had a shabby, miserable air; the window displays consisted of a few
chipped dummies with their wigs askew, standing at random and modelling fashions at least ten
years out of date. Large signs on all the dusty doors read: “Closed for Refurbishment”. Harry
distinctly heard a large woman laden with plastic shopping bags say to her friend as they passed,
“It’snever open, that place…”
“Right,” said Tonks, beckoning them towards a window displaying nothing but a particularly
ugly female dummy. Its false eyelashes were hanging off and it was modelling a green nylon
pinafore dress. “Everybody ready?”
They nodded, clustering around her. Moody gave Harry another shove between the shoulder
blades to urge him forward and Tonks leaned close to the glass, looking up at the very ugly
dummy, her breath steaming up the glass. “Wotcher… We’re here to see Arthur
Weasley.”
Harry thought how absurd it was for Tonks to expect the dummy to hear her talking so quietly
through a sheet of glass, with buses rumbling along behind her and all the racket of a street full
of shoppers. Then he reminded himself that dummies couldn’t hear anyway. Next second, his
mouth opened in shock as the dummy gave a tiny nod and beckoned with its jointed finger, and
Tonks had seized Ginny and Mrs. Weasley by the elbows, stepped right through the glass and
vanished.
Fred, George and Ron stepped after them. Harry glanced around at the jostling crowd; not one of
them seemed to have a glance to spare for window displays as ugly as those of Purge & Dowse
Ltd; nor did any of them seem to have noticed that six people had just melted into thin air in
front of them.
“C’mon,” growled Moody, giving Harry yet another poke in the back, and together they stepped
forward through what felt like a sheet of cool water, emerging quite warm and dry on the other
side.
There was no sign of the ugly dummy or the space where she had stood. They were in what
seemed to be a crowded reception area where rows of witches and wizards sat upon rickety
wooden chairs, some looking perfectly normal and perusing out-of-date copies of WitchWeekly,
others sporting gruesome disfigurements such as elephant trunks or extra hands sticking out of
their chests. The room was scarcely less quiet than the street outside, for many of the patients
were making very peculiar noises: a sweaty-faced witch in the center of the front row, who was
fanning herself vigorously with a copy of the Daily Prophet, kept letting off a high-pitched
whistle as steam came pouring out of her mouth; a grubby-looking warlock in the corner clanged
like a bell every time he moved and, with each clang, his head vibrated horribly so that he had to
seize himself by the ears to hold it steady.
Witches and wizards in lime-green robes were walking up and down the rows, asking questions
and making notes on clipboards like Umbridge’s. Harry noticed the emblem embroidered on
their chests: a wand and bone, crossed.
“Are they doctors?” he asked Ron quietly.
“Doctors?” said Ron, looking startled. “Those Muggle nutters that cut people up? Nah, they’re
Healers.”
“Over here!” called Mrs. Weasley above the renewed c langing of the warlock in the corner, and
they followed her to the queue in front of a plump blonde witch seated at a desk marked Enquiries. The wall behind her was covered in notices and posters saying things like: A
CLEAN CAULDRON KEEPS POTIONS FROM BECOMING POISONS and ANTIDOTES
ARE ANTI-DON’TS UNLESS APPROVED BY A QUALIFIED HEALER. There was also a
large portrait of a witch with long silver ringlets which was labelled:
Dilys Derwent
St. Mungo’s Healer 1722-
Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry 1741-
Dilys was eyeing the Weasley party closely as though counting them; when Harry caught her eye
she gave a tiny wink, walked sideways out of her portrait and vanished.
Meanwhile, at the front of the queue, a young wizard was performing an odd on-the-spot jig and
trying, in between yelps of pain, to explain his predicament to the witch behind the desk.
“It’s these - ouch - shoes my brother gave me - ow- they’re eating my - OUCH - feet - look at
them, there must be some kind of - AARGH - jinx on them and I can’t - AAAAARGH - get
them off.” He hopped from one foot to the other as though dancing on hot coals.
“The shoes don’t prevent you reading, do they?” said the blonde witch, irritably pointing at a
large sign to the left of her desk. “You want Spell Damage, fourth floor. Just like it says on the
floor guide. Next!”
As the wizard hobbled and pranced sideways out of the way, the Weasley party moved forward a
few steps and Harry read the floor guide:
ARTEFACT ACCIDENTS… Ground floor
Cauldron explosion, wand backfiring, broom crashes, etc.
CREATURE-INDUCED INJURIES… First floor
Bites, stings, burns, embedded spines, etc.
MAGICAL BUGS… Second floor
Contagious maladies, e.g. dragon pox, vanishing sickness, scrojungulus, etc.
POTION AND PLANT POISONING… Third floor
Rashes,regurgitation (uncontrollable), etc.
SPELL DAMAGE… Fourth floor
Unliftable jinxes, hexes, and incorrectly applied charms, etc.
VISITORS’ TEAROOM AND HOSPITAL SHOP… Fifth floor
IF YOU ARE UNSURE WHERE TO GO, INCAPABLE OF NORMAL SPEECH OR
UNABLE TO REMEMBER WHY YOU ARE HERE, OUR WELCOME WITCH WILL BE
PLEASED TO HELP.
A very old, stooped wizard with a hearing trumpet had shuffled to the front of the queue now.
“I’m here to see Broderick Bode!” he wheezed.
“Ward forty-nine, but I’m afraid you’re wasting your time,” said the witch dismissively. “He’s
completely addled, you know - still thinks he’s a teapot. Next!”
A harassed-looking wizard was holding his small daughter tightly by the ankle while she flapped
around his head using the immensely large, feathery wings that had sprouted right out through
the back of her romper suit.
“Fourth floor,” said the witch, in a bored voice, without asking, and the man disappeared through
the double doors beside the desk, holding his daughter like an oddly shaped balloon. “Next!”
Mrs. Weasley moved forward to the desk.
“Hello,” she said, “my husband, Arthur Weasley, was supposed to be moved to a different ward
this morning, could you tell us -?”
“Arthur Weasley?” said the witch, running her finger down a long list in front of her. “Yes, first
floor, second door on the right, Dai Llewellyn Ward.”
“Thank you,” said Mrs. Weasley. “Come on, you lot.”
They followed her through the double doors and along the narrow corridor beyond, which was
lined with more portraits of famous Healers and lit by crystal bubbles full of candles that floated
up on the ceiling, looking like giant soapsuds. More witches and wizards in lime-green robes
walked in and out of the doors they passed; a foul-smelling yellow gas wafted into the
passageway as they passed one door, and every now and then they heard distant wailing. They
climbed a flight of stairs and entered the Creature-Induced Injuries corridor, where the second
door on the right bore the words: Dangerous’ Dai Llewellyn Ward: Serious Bites. Underneath
this was a card in a brass holder on which had been handwritten:Healer-in-Charge: Hippocrates
Smethwyck. Trainee Healer: Augustus Pye.
“We’ll wait outside, Molly,” Tonks said. “Arthur won’t want too many visitors at once… it ought to be just the family first.”
Mad-Eye growled his approval of this idea and set himself with his back against the corridor
wall, his magical eye spinning in all directions. Harry drew back, too, but Mrs. Weasley reached
out a hand and pushed him through the door, saying, “Don’t be silly, Harry, Arthur wants to
thank you.”
The ward was small and rather dingy, as the only window was narrow and set high in the wall
facing the door. Most of the light came from more shining crystal bubbles clustered in the middle
of the ceiling. The walls were of panelled oak and there was a portrait of a rather vicious-looking
wizard on the wall, captioned: Urquhart Rackharrow, 1612—1697, Inventor of the Entrail-expelling Curse.
There were only three patients. Mr. Weasley was occupying the bed at the far end of the ward
beside the tiny window. Harry was pleased and relieved to see that he was propped up on several
pillows and reading the Daily Prophet by the solitary ray of sunlight falling on to his bed. He
looked up as they walked towards him and, seeing who it was, beamed.
“Hello!” he called, throwing the Prophet aside. “Bill just left, Molly, had to get back to work, but he says he’ll drop in on you later.”
“How are you, Arthur?” asked Mrs. Weasley, bending down to kiss his cheek and looking
anxiously into his face. “You’re still looking a bit peaky.”
“I feel absolutely fine,” said Mr. Weasley brightly, holding out his good arm to give Ginny a hug.
“If they could only take the bandages off, I’d be f it to go home.”
“Why can’t they take them off, Dad?” asked Fred.
“Well, I start bleeding like mad every time they try,” said Mr. Weasley cheerfully, reaching across for his wand, which lay on his bedside cabinet, and waving it so that six extra chairs appeared at his bedside to seat them all. “It seems there was some rather unusual kind of poison in that snake’s fangs that keeps wounds open. They’re sure they’ll find an antidote, though; they say they’ve had much worse cases than mine, and in the meantime I just have to keep taking a
Blood-Replenishing Potion every hour. But that fellow over there,” he said, dropping his voice
and nodding towards the bed opposite in which a man lay looking green and sickly and staring at
the ceiling. “Bitten by a werewolf, poor chap. No cure at all.”
“A werewolf?” whispered Mrs. Weasley, looking alarmed. “Is he safe in a public ward? Shouldn’t he be in a private room?”
“It’s two weeks till full moon,” Mr. Weasley reminded her quietly. “They’ve been talking to him this morning, the Healers, you know, trying to persuade him he’ll be able to lead an almost
normal life. I said to him - didn’t mention names, of course - but I said I knew a werewolf
personally, very nice man, who finds the condition quite easy to manage.”
“What did he say?” asked George.
“Said he’d give me another bite if I didn’t shut up,” said Mr. Weasley sadly. “And that woman
over there,” he indicated the only other occupied bed, which was right beside the door, “won’t
tell the Healers what bit her, which makes us all think it must have been something she was
handling illegally. Whatever it was took a real chunk out of her leg,very nasty smell when they
take off the dressings.”
“So, you going to tell us what happened, Dad?” asked Fred, pulling his chair closer to the bed.
“Well, you already know, don’t you?” said Mr. Weasley, with a significant smile at Harry. “It’s
very simple - I’d had a very long day, dozed off, got sneaked up on and bitten.”
“Is it in the Prophet, you being attacked?” asked Fred, indicating the newspaper Mr. Weasley had cast aside.
“No, of course not,” said Mr. Weasley, with a slightly bitter smile, “the Ministry wouldn’t want
everyone to know a dirty great serpent got —”
“Arthur!” Mrs. Weasley warned him.
“- got - er - me,” Mr. Weasley said hastily, though Harry was quite sure that was not what he had
meant to say.
“So where were you when it happened, Dad?” asked George.
“That’s my business,” said Mr. Weasley, though with a small smile. He snatched up the Daily
Prophe, shook it open again and said, “I was just reading about Willy Widdershins’s arrest
when you arrived. You know Willy turned out to be behind those regurgitating toilets back in the
summer? One of his jinxes backfired, the toilet exploded and they found him lying unconscious
in the wreckage covered from head to foot in -”
“When you say you were ‘on duty’,” Fred interrupted in a low voice, “what were you doing?”
“You heard your father,” whispered Mrs. Weasley, “we are not discussing this here! Go on about
Willy Widdershins, Arthur.”
“Well, don’t ask me how, but he actually got off the toilet charge,” said Mr. Weasley grimly. “I
can only suppose gold changed hands -”
“You were guarding it, weren’t you?” said George quietly. “The weapon? The thing You-Know-
Who’s after?”
“George, be quiet!” snapped Mrs. Weasley.
“Anyway,” said Mr. Weasley, in a raised voice, “this time Willy’s been caught selling biting
doorknobs to Muggles and I don’t think he’ll be able to worm his way out of it because,
according to this article, two Muggles have lost fingers and are now in St. Mungo’s for
emergency bone re-growth and memory modification. Just think of it, Muggles in St. Mungo’s! I
wonder which ward they’re in?”
And he looked eagerly around as though hoping to see a signpost.
“Didn’t you say You-Know-Who’s got a snake, Harry?” asked Fred, looking at his father for a
reaction. “A massive one? You saw it the night he returned, didn’t you?”
“That’s enough,” said Mrs. Weasley crossly. “Mad-Eye and Tonks are outside, Arthur, they want
to come and see you. And you lot can wait outside,” she added to her children and Harry. “You
can come and say goodbye afterwards. Go on.”
They trooped back into the corridor. Mad-Eye and Tonks went in and closed the door of the ward
behind them. Fred raised his eyebrows.
“Fine,” he said coolly, rummaging in his pockets, “be like that. Don’t tell us anything.”
“Looking for these?” said George, holding out what looked like a tangle of flesh-colored string.
“You read my mind,” said Fred, grinning. “Let’s see if St. Mungo’s puts Imperturbable Charms on its ward doors, shall we?”
He and George disentangled the string and separated five Extendable Ears from each other. Fred
and George handed them around. Harry hesitated to take one.
“Go on, Harry, take it! You saved Dad’s life. If anyone’s got the right to eavesdrop on him, it’s
you.”
Grinning in spite of himself, Harry took the end of the string and inserted it into his ear as the
twins had done.
“Okay, go!” Fred whispered.
The flesh-colored strings wriggled like long skinny worms and snaked under the door. At first,
Harry could hear nothing, then he jumped as he heard Tonks whispering as clearly as though she
were standing right beside him.
“… they searched the whole area but couldn’t find the snake anywhere. It just seems to have
vanished after it attacked you, Arthur… but You-Know-Who can’t have expected a snake to get
in, can he?”
“I reckon he sent it as a lookout,” growled Moody, “cause he’s not had any luck so far, has he?
No, I reckon he’s trying to get a clearer picture of what he’s facing and if Arthur hadn’t been
there the beast would’ve had a lot more time to look around. So, Potter says he saw it all
happen?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Weasley. She sounded rather uneasy. “You know, Dumbledore seems almost to
have been waiting for Harry to see something like this.”
“Yeah, well,” said Moody, “there’s something funny about the Potter kid, we all know that.”
“Dumbledore seemed worried about Harry when I spoke to him this morning,” whispered Mrs
Weasley.
“Course he’s worried,” growled Moody. “The boy’s seeing things from inside You-Know-Who’s
snake. Obviously, Potter doesn’t realize what that means, but if You-Know-Who’s possessing
him —”
Harry pulled the Extendable Ear out of his own, his heart hammering very fast and heat rushing
up his face. He looked around at the others. They were all staring at him, the strings still trailing
from their ears, looking suddenly fearful.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Christmas on the Closed Ward
Was this why Dumbledore would no longer meet Harry’s eyes? Did he expect to see Voldemort
staring out of them, afraid, perhaps, that their vivid green might turn suddenly to scarlet, with
catlike slits for pupils? Harry remembered how the snakelike face of Voldemort had once forced
itself out of the back of Professor Quirrell’s head and ran his hand over the back of his own,
wondering what it would feel like if Voldemort burst out of his skull.
He felt dirty, contaminated, as though he were carrying some deadly germ, unworthy to sit on the
Underground train back from the hospital with innocent, clean people whose minds and bodies
were free of the taint of Voldemort… he had not merely seen the snake, he hadbeen the snake, he
knew it now…
A truly terrible thought then occurred to him, a memory bobbing to the surface of his mind, one
that made his insides writhe and squirm like serpents.
What’s he after, apart from followers?
Stuff he can only get by stealth… like a weapon. Something he didn’t have last time.
I’m the weapon, Harry thought, and it was as though poison were pumping through his veins,
chilling him, bringing him out in a sweat as he swayed with the train through the dark tunnel. I’m
the one Voldemorts trying to use, that’s why they’ve got guards around me everywhere I go, it’s
not for my protection, it’s for other people’s, only it’s not working, they can’t have someone on
me all the time at Hogwarts… I did attack Mr. Weasley last night, it was me. Voldemort made me do it and he could be inside me, listening to my thoughts right now –
“Are you all right, Harry, dear?” whispered Mrs. Wea sley leaning across Ginny to speak to him as the train rattled along through its dark tunnel. “You don’t look very well. Are you feeling sick?”
They were all watching him. He shook his head violently and stared up at an advertisement for
home insurance.
“Harry, dear, are you sure you’re all right?” said Mrs. Weasley in a worried voice, as they walked around the unkempt patch of grass in the middle of Grimmauld Place. “You look ever so pale… are you sure you slept this morning? You go upstairs to bed right now and you can have a couple of hours of sleep before dinner, all right?”
He nodded; here was a ready-made excuse not to talk to any of the others, which was precisely
what he wanted, so when she opened the front door he hurried straight past the troll’s-leg
umbrella stand, up the stairs and into his and Ron’s bedroom.
Here, he began to pace up and down, past the two beds and Phineas Nigellus’s empty picture
frame, his brain teeming and seething with questions and ever more dreadful ideas.
How had he become a snake? Perhaps he was an Animagus… no, he couldn’t be, he would
know… perhapsVoldemort was an Animagus… yes, thought Harry, that would fit, he would turn
into a snake of course… and when he’s possessing me, then we both transform… that still
doesn’t explain how I got to London and back to my bed in the space of about five minutes… but
then Voldemort’s about the most powerful wizard in the world, apart from Dumbledore, it’s
probably no problem at all to him to transport people like that.
And then, with a terrible stab of panic, he thought,but this is insane - if Voldemort’s possessing
me, I’m giving him a clear view into the Headquarter s of the Order of the Phoenix right now!
He’ll know who’s in the Order and where Sirius is… and I’ve heard loads of stuff I shouldn’t
have, everything Sirius told me the first night I was here…
There was only one thing for it: he would have to leave Grimmauld Place straightaway. He
would spend Christmas at Hogwarts without the others, which would keep them safe over the
holidays at least… but no, that wouldn’t do, there were still plenty of people at Hogwarts to
maim and injure. What if it was Seamus, Dean or Neville next time? He stopped his pacing and
stood staring at Phineas Nigellus’s empty frame. A leaden sensation was settling in the pit of his
stomach. He had no alternative: he was going to have to return to Privet Drive, cut himself off
from other wizards entirely.
Well, if he had to do it, he thought, there was no point hanging around. Trying with all his might
not to think how the Dursleys were going to react when they found him on their doorstep six
months earlier than they had expected, he strode over to his trunk, slammed the lid shut and
locked it, then glanced around automatically for Hedwig before remembering that she was still at
Hogwarts - well, her cage would be one less thing to carry - he seized one end of his trunk and
had dragged it halfway towards the door when a snide voice said, “Running away, are we?”
He looked around. Phineas Nigellus had appeared on the canvas of his portrait and was leaning
against the frame, watching Harry with an amused expression on his face.
“Not running away, no,” said Harry shortly, dragging his trunk a few more feet across the room.
“I thought,” said Phineas Nigellus, stroking his pointed beard, “that to belong in Gryffindor house you were supposed to be brave! It looks to me as though you would have been better off in my own house. We Slytherins are brave, yes, but not stupid. For instance, given the choice, we will always choose to save our own necks.”
“It’s not my own neck I’m saving,” said Harry tersely, tugging the trunk over a patch of
particularly uneven, moth-eaten carpet right in front of the door.
“Oh, I see,” said Phineas Nigellus, still stroking his beard, “this is no cowardly flight - you are
being noble.”
Harry ignored him. His hand was on the doorknob when Phineas Nigellus said lazily, “I have a
message for you from Albus Dumbledore.”
Harry span round.
“What is it?”
“‘Stay where you are.’”
“I haven’t moved!” said Harry, his hand still upon the doorknob. “So what’s the message?”
“I have just given it to you, dolt,” said Phineas Ni gellus smoothly. “Dumbledore says, ‘Stay
where you are.’”
“Why?” said Harry eagerly, dropping the end of his trunk. “Why does he want me to stay? What
else did he say?”
“Nothing whatsoever,” said Phineas Nigellus, raising a thin black eyebrow as though he found
Harry impertinent.
Harry’s temper rose to the surface like a snake rearing from long grass. He was exhausted, he
was confused beyond measure, he had experienced terror, relief, then terror again in the last
twelve hours, and still Dumbledore did not want to talk to him!
“So that’s it, is it?” he said loudly. “‘Stay where you a re’! That’s all anyone could tell me after I got attacked by those Dementors, too! Just stay put while the grown-ups sort it out, Harry! We won’t bother telling you anything, though, because your tiny little brain might not be able to cope with it!”
“You know,” said Phineas Nigellus, even more loudly than Harry “this is precisely why I loathed
being a teacher! Young people are so infernally convinced that they are absolutely right about
everything. Has it not occurred to you, my poor puffed-up popinjay, that there might be an
excellent reason why the Headmaster of Hogwarts is not confiding every tiny detail of his plans
to you? Have you never paused, while feeling hard-done-by, to note that following Dumbledores
orders has never yet led you into harm? No. No, like all young people, you are quite sure that
you alone feel and think, you alone recognize danger, you alone are the only one clever enough
to realize what the Dark Lord may be planning -”
“He is planning something to do with me, then?” said Harry swiftly.
“Did I say that?” said Phineas Nigellus, idly examining his silk gloves. “Now, if you will excuse
me, I have better things to do than listen to adolescent agonising… good-day to you.”
And he strolled to the edge of his frame and out of sight.
“Fine, go then!” Harry bellowed at the empty frame. “And tell Dumbledore thanks for nothing!”
The empty canvas remained silent. Fuming, Harry dragged his trunk back to the foot of his bed,
then threw himself face down on the moth-eaten covers, his eyes shut, his body heavy and
aching.
He felt as though he had journeyed for miles and miles… it seemed impossible that less than
twenty-four hours ago Cho Chang had been approaching him under the mistletoe… he was so
tired… he was scared to sleep… yet he did not know how long he could fight it… Dumbledore
had told him to stay… that must mean he was allowed to sleep… but he was scared… what if it
happened again?
He was sinking into shadows…
It was as though a film in his head had been waiting to start. He was walking down a deserted
corridor towards a plain black door, past rough stone walls, torches, and an open doorway on to a
flight of stone steps leading downstairs on the left…
He reached the black door but could not open it… he stood gazing at it, desperate for entry…
something he wanted with all his heart lay beyond… a prize beyond his dreams… if only his scar
would stop prickling… then he would be able to think more clearly…
“Harry,” said Ron’s voice, from far, far away, “Mum says dinner’s ready, but she’ll save you
something if you want to stay in bed.”
Harry opened his eyes, but Ron had already left the room.
He doesn’t want to be on his own with me, Harry thought. Not after what he heard Moody say.
He supposed none of them would want him there any more, now that they knew what was inside
him.
He would not go down to dinner; he would not inflict his company on them. He turned over on to
his other side and, after a while, dropped back off to sleep. He woke much later, in the early
hours of the morning, his insides aching with hunger and Ron snoring in the next bed. Squinting
around the room, he saw the dark outline of Phineas Nigellus standing again in his portrait and it
occurred to Harry that Dumbledore had probably sent Phineas Nigellus to watch over him, in
case he attacked somebody else.
The feeling of being unclean intensified. He half-wished he had not obeyed Dumbledore… if this
was how life was going to be for him in Grimmauld Place from now on, maybe he would be
better off in Privet Drive after all.
Everybody else spent the following morning putting up Christmas decorations. Harry could not
remember Sirius ever being in such a good mood; he was actually singing carols, apparently
delighted that he was to have company over Christmas. Harry could hear his voice echoing up
through the floor in the cold drawing room where he was sitting alone, watching the sky growing
whiter outside the windows, threatening snow, all the time feeling a savage pleasure that he was
giving the others the opportunity to keep talking about him, as they were bound to be doing.
When he heard Mrs. Weasley calling his name softly u p the stairs around lunchtime, he retreated
further upstairs and ignored her.
Around six o’clock in the evening the doorbell rang and Mrs. Black started screaming again.
Assuming that Mundungus or some other Order member had come to call, Harry merely settled
himself more comfortably against the wall of Buckbeak’s room where he was hiding, trying to
ignore how hungry he felt as he fed dead rats to the Hippogriff. It came as a slight shock when
somebody hammered hard on the door a few minutes later.
“I know you’re in there,” said Hermione’s voice. “Will you please come out? I want to talk to
you.”
“What are you doing here?” Harry asked her, pulling open the door as Buckbeak resumed his
scratching at the straw-strewn floor for any fragments of rat he may have dropped. “I thought you were skiing with your mum and dad?”
“Well, to tell the truth, skiing’s not really my thing,” said Hermione. “So, I’ve come here for
Christmas.” There was snow in her hair and her face was pink with cold. “But don’t tell Ron. I
told him it’s really good because he kept laughing so much. Mum and Dad are a bit
disappointed, but I’ve told them that everyone who is serious about the exams is staying at
Hogwarts to study. They want me to do well, they’ll understand. Anyway,” she said briskly,
“let’s go to your bedroom, Ron’s mum has lit a fire in there and she’s sent up sandwiches.”
Harry followed her back to the second floor. When he entered the bedroom, he was rather
surprised to see both Ron and Ginny waiting for them, sitting on Ron’s bed.
“I came on the Knight Bus,” said Hermione airily, pulling off her jacket before Harry had time to speak. “Dumbledore told me what had happened first thing this morning, but I had to wait for
term to end officially before setting off. Umbridge is already livid that you lot disappeared right
under her nose, even though Dumbledore told her Mr. Weasley was in St. Mungo’s and he’d
given you all permission to visit. So…”
She sat down next to Ginny, and the two girls and Ron all looked up at Harry.
“How’re you feeling?” asked Hermione.
“Fine,” said Harry stiffly.
“Oh, don’t lie, Harry,” she said impatiently. “Ron and Ginny say you’ve been hiding from
everyone since you got back from St. Mungo’s.”
“They do, do they?” said Harry, glaring at Ron and Ginny. Ron looked down at his feet but
Ginny seemed quite unabashed.
“Well, you have!” she said. “And you won’t look at any of us!”
“It’s you lot who won’t look at me!” said Harry ang rily.
“Maybe you’re taking it in turns to look, and keep missing each other,” suggested Hermione, the
corners of her mouth twitching.
“Very funny,” snapped Harry, turning away.
“Oh, stop feeling all misunderstood,” said Hermione sharply. “Look, the others have told me what you overheard last night on the Extendable Ears -”
“Yeah?” growled Harry, his hands deep in his pockets as he watched the snow now falling
thickly outside. “All been talking about me, have you? Well, I’m getting used to it.”
“We wanted to talk to you, Harry,” said Ginny, “but as you’ve been hiding ever since we got back -”
“I didn’t want anyone to talk to me,” said Harry, w ho was feeling more and more nettled.
“Well, that was a bit stupid of you,” said Ginny angrily, “seeing as you don’t know anyone but
me who’s been possessed by You-Know-Who, and I can tell you how it feels.”
Harry remained quite still as the impact of these words hit him. Then he wheeled round.
“I forgot,” he said.
“Lucky you,” said Ginny coolly.
“I’m sorry” Harry said, and he meant it. “So… so, do you think I’m being possessed, then?”
“Well, can you remember everything you’ve been doing?” Ginny asked. “Are there big blank
periods where you don’t know what you’ve been up to?”
Harry racked his brains.
“No,” he said.
“Then You-Know-Who hasn’t ever possessed you,” said Ginny simply. “When he did it to me, I
couldn’t remember what I’d been doing for hours at a time. I’d find myself somewhere and not
know how I got there.”
Harry hardly dared believe her, yet his heart was lightening almost in spite of himself.
“That dream I had about your dad and the snake, though —”
“Harry you’ve had these dreams before,” Hermione said. “You had flashes of what Voldemort
was up to last year.”
“This was different,” said Harry, shaking his head. “I was inside that snake. It was like I was the
snake… what if Voldemort somehow transported me to London —?”
“One day,” said Hermione, sounding thoroughly exasperated, “you’ll read Hogwarts: A History,
and perhaps it will remind you that you can’t Apparate or Disapparate inside Hogwarts. Even
Voldemort couldn’t just make you fly out of your dormitory, Harry.”
“You didn’t leave your bed, mate,” said Ron. “I saw you thrashing around in your sleep for at
least a minute before we could wake you up.”
Harry started pacing up and down the room again, thinking. What they were all saying was not
only comforting, it made sense… without really thinking, he took a sandwich from the plate on
the bed and crammed it hungrily into his mouth.
I’m not the weapon after all, thought Harry. His heart swelled with happiness and relief, and he
felt like joining in as they heard Sirius tramping past their door towards Buckbeak’s room, singing “God Rest Ye, Merry Hippogriffs” at the top of his voice.
How could he have dreamed of returning to Privet Drive for Christmas? Sirius’s delight at
having the house full again, and especially at having Harry back, was infectious. He was no
longer their sullen host of the summer; now he seemed determined that everyone should enjoy
themselves as much, if not more than they would have done at Hogwarts, and he worked
tirelessly in the run-up to Christmas Day, cleaning and decorating with their help, so that by the
time they all went to bed on Christmas Eve the house was barely recognisable. The tarnished
chandeliers were no longer hung with cobwebs but with garlands of holly and gold and silver
streamers; magical snow glittered in heaps over the threadbare carpets; a great Christmas tree,
obtained by Mundungus and decorated with live fairies, blocked Sirius’s family tree from view,
and even the stuffed elf-heads on the hall wall wore Father Christmas hats and beards.
Harry awoke on Christmas morning to find a stack of presents at the foot of his bed and Ron
already halfway through opening his own, rather larger, pile.
“Good haul this year,” he informed Harry through a cloud of paper. “Thanks for the Broom
Compass, it’s excellent; beats Hermiones - she got me a homework planner–”
Harry sorted through his presents and found one with Hermiones handwriting on it. She had
given him, too, a book that resembled a diary except that it said things like “Do it today or later you'll pay!” every time he opend a page.
Sirius and Lupin had given Harry a set of excellent books entitled Practical Defensive Magic and its Use Against the Dark Arts, which had superb, moving color illustrations of all the counterjinxes and hexes it described. Harry flicked through the first volume eagerly; he could see it was going to be highly useful in his plans for the D.A.. Hagrid had sent a furry brown wallet that had fangs, which were presumably supposed to be an anti-theft device, but unfortunately prevented Harry putting any money in without getting his fingers ripped off. Tonks’s present was a small, working model of a Firebolt, which Harry watched fly around the room, wishing he still
had his full-size version; Ron had given him an enormous box of Every-Flavour Beans, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley the usual hand-knitted jumper and some mince pies, and Dobby a truly dreadful
painting that Harry suspected had been done by the elf himself. He had just turned it upsidedown
to see whether it looked better that way when, with a loudcrack, Fred and George
Apparated at the foot of his bed.
“Merry Christmas,” said George. “Don’t go downstairs for a bit.”
“Why not?” said Ron.
“Mum’s crying again,” said Fred heavily. “Percy sent back his Christmas jumper.”
“Without a note,” added George. “Hasn’t asked how Dad is or visited him or anything.”
“We tried to comfort her,” said Fred, moving around the bed to look at Harry’s portrait. “Told her Percy’s nothing more than a humungous pile of rat droppings.”
“Didn’t work,” said George, helping himself to a Chocolate Frog. “So Lupin took over. Best let
him cheer her up before we go down for breakfast, I reckon.”
“What’s that supposed to be, anyway?” asked Fred, squinting at Dobby’s painting. “Looks like a
gibbon with two black eyes.”
“It’s Harry!” said George, pointing at the back of the picture, “says so on the back!”
“Good likeness,” said Fred, grinning. Harry threw his new homework diary at him; it hit the wall
opposite and fell to the floor where it said happily: “If you’ve dotted the ‘i’s and crossed the ‘t’s then you may do whatever you please!”
They got up and dressed. They could hear the various inhabitants of the house calling “Merry
Christmas” to one another. On their way downstairs they met Hermione.
“Thanks for the book, Harry” she said happily. “I’ve been wanting that New Theory of
Numerology for ages! And that perfume’s really unusual, Ron.”
“No problem,” said Ron. “Who’s that for, anyway?” he added, nodding at the neatly wrapped
present she was carrying.
“Kreacher,” said Hermione brightly.
“It had better not be clothes!” Ron warned her. “You know what Sirius said: Kreacher knows too much, we can’t set him free!”
“It isn’t clothes,” said Hermione, “although if I had my way I’d certainly give him something to
wear other than that filthy old rag. No, it’s a patchwork quilt, I thought it would brighten up his
bedroom.”
“What bedroom?” said Harry, dropping his voice to a whisper as they were passing the portrait of Sirius’s mother.
“Well, Sirius says it’s not so much a bedroom, more a kind of -den,” said Hermione. “Apparently he sleeps under the boiler in that cupboard off the kitchen.”
Mrs. Weasley was the only person in the basement when they arrived there. She was standing at
the stove and sounded as though she had a bad head cold as she wished them “Merry Christmas,”
and they all averted their eyes.
“So, is this Kreacher’s bedroom?” said Ron, strolling over to a dingy door in the corner opposite
the pantry. Harry had never seen it open.
“Yes,” said Hermione, now sounding a little nervous. “Er… I think we’d better knock.”
Ron rapped on the door with his knuckles but there was no reply.
“He must be sneaking around upstairs,” he said, and without further ado pulled open the door.
“Urgh!”
Harry peered inside. Most of the cupboard was taken up with a very large and old-fashioned
boiler, but in the foot’s space underneath the pipes Kreacher had made himself something that
looked like a nest. A jumble of assorted rags and smelly old blankets were piled on the floor and
the small dent in the middle of it showed where Kreacher curled up to sleep every night. Here
and there among the material were stale bread crusts and mouldy old bits of cheese. In a far
corner glinted small objects and coins that Harry guessed Kreacher had saved, magpie-like, from
Sirius’s purge of the house, and he had also managed to retrieve the silver-framed family
photographs that Sirius had thrown away over the summer. Their glass might be shattered, but
still the little black-and-white people inside them peered up at him haughtily, including - he felt a
little jolt in his stomach - the dark, heavy-lidded woman whose trial he had witnessed in
Dumbledore’s Pensieve: Bellatrix Lestrange. By the looks of it, hers was Kreacher’s favorite
photograph; he had placed it to the fore of all the others and had mended the glass clumsily with
Spellotape.
“I think I’ll just leave his present here,” said Hermione, laying the package neatly in the middle
of the depression in the rags and blankets and closing the door quietly. “He’ll find it later, that’ll
be fine.”
“Come to think of it,” said Sirius, emerging from the pantry carrying a large turkey as they closed the cupboard door, “has anyone actually seen Kreacher lately?”
“I haven’t seen him since the night we came back here,” said Harry. “You were ordering him out of the kitchen.”
“Yeah…” said Sirius, frowning. “You know, I think that’s the last time I saw him, too… he must
be hiding upstairs somewhere.”
“He couldn’t have left, could he?” said Harry. “I mean, when you said ‘out’, maybe he thought you meant get out of the house?”
“No, no, house-elves can’t leave unless they’re given clothes. They’re tied to their family’s
house,” said Sirius.
“They can leave the house if they really want to,” Harry contradicted him. “Dobby did, he left the Malfoys’ to give me warnings two years ago. He had to punish himself afterwards, but he still managed it.”
Sirius looked slightly disconcerted for a moment, then said, “I’ll look for him later, I expect I’ll
find him upstairs crying his eyes out over my mother’s old bloomers or something. Of course, he
might have crawled into the airing cupboard and died… but I mustn’t get my hopes up.”
Fred, George and Ron laughed; Hermione, however, looked reproachful.
Once they had eaten their Christmas lunch, the Weasleys, Harry and Hermione were planning to
pay Mr. Weasley another visit, escorted by Mad-Eye and Lupin. Mundungus turned up in time
for Christmas pudding and trifle, having managed to ‘borrow’ a car for the occasion, as the
Underground did not run on Christmas Day. The car, which Harry doubted very much had been
taken with the knowledge or consent of it's owner, had had a similar Enlarging Spell put upon it as the Weasley's old Ford Anglia; although normally proportioned outside, ten people with Mundungus driving were able to fit into it quite comfortably. Mrs. Weasley hesitated before getting inside - Harry knew her disapproval of Mundungus was battling with her dislike of traveling without magic - but, finally, the cold outside and her children’s pleading triumphed, and she settled herself into the back seat between Fred and Bill with good grace.
The journey to St. Mungo’s was quite quick as there was very little traffic on the roads. A small
trickle of witches and wizards was creeping furtively up the otherwise deserted street to visit the
hospital. Harry and the others got out of the car, and Mundungus drove off around the corner to
wait for them. They strolled casually towards the window where the dummy in green nylon
stood, then, one by one, stepped through the glass.
The reception area looked pleasantly festive: the crystal orbs that illuminated St. Mungo’s had
been colored red and gold to become gigantic, glowing Christmas baubles; holly hung around
every doorway; and shining white Christmas trees covered in magical snow and icicles glittered
in every corner, each one topped with a gleaming gold star. It was less crowded than the last time
they had been there, although halfway across the room Harry found himself shunted aside by a
witch with a walnut jammed up her left nostril.
“Family argument, eh?” smirked the blonde witch behind the desk. “You’re the third I’ve seen
today… Spell Damage, fourth floor.”
They found Mr. Weasley propped up in bed with the remains of his turkey dinner on a tray on his
lap and a rather sheepish expression on his face.
“Everything all right, Arthur?” asked Mrs. Weasley, after they had all greeted Mr. Weasley and
handed over their presents.
“Fine, fine,” said Mr. Weasley, a little too heartily. “You — er — haven’t seen Healer
Smethwyck, have you?”
“No,” said Mrs. Weasley suspiciously, “why?”
“Nothing, nothing,” said Mr. Weasley airily, starting to unwrap his pile of gifts. “Well, everyone
had a good day? What did you all get for Christmas? Oh, Harry - this is absolutely wonderful!” For he had just opened Harry’s gift of fuse-wire and screwdrivers.
Mrs. Weasley did not seem entirely satisfied with Mr. Weasley’s answer. As her husband leaned
over to shake Harry’s hand, she peered at the bandaging under his nightshirt.
“Arthur,” she said, with a snap in her voice like a mousetrap, “you’ve had your bandages
changed. Why have you had your bandages changed a day early, Arthur? They told me they
wouldn’t need doing until tomorrow.”
“What?” said Mr. Weasley, looking rather frightened and pulling the bed covers higher up his
chest. “No, no - it’s nothing - it’s -I-”
He seemed to deflate under Mrs. Weasley’s piercing gaze.
“Well - now don’t get upset, Molly, but Augustus Pye had an idea… he’s the Trainee Healer, you know, lovely young chap and very interested in… um… complementary medicine… I mean,
some of these old Muggle remedies… well, they’re called stitches, Molly, and they work very
well on - on Muggle wounds -”
Mrs. Weasley let out an ominous noise somewhere between a shriek and a snarl. Lupin strolled
away from the bed and over to the werewolf, who had no visitors and was looking rather
wistfully at the crowd around Mr. Weasley; Bill muttered something about getting himself a cup
of tea and Fred and George leapt up to accompany him, grinning.
“Do you mean to tell me,” said Mrs. Weasley, her voice growing louder with every word and
apparently unaware that her fellow visitors were scurrying for cover, “that you have been
messing about with Muggle remedies?”
“Not messing about, Molly, dear,” said Mr. Weasley imploringly, “it was just - just something Pye and I thought we’d try - only, most unfortunately — well, with these particular kinds of wounds - it doesn’t seem to work as well as we’d hoped -”
“Meaning?”
“Well… well, I don’t know whether you know what - what stitches are?”
“It sounds as though you’ve been trying to sew your skin back together,” said Mrs. Weasley with
a snort of mirthless laughter, “but even you, Arthur, wouldn’t be that stupid —”
“I fancy a cup of tea, too,” said Harry, jumping to his feet.
Hermione, Ron and Ginny almost sprinted to the door with him. As it swung closed behind them,
they heard Mrs. Weasley shriek, “WHAT DO YOU MEAN, TH AT’S THE GENERAL IDEA?”
“Typical Dad,” said Ginny, shaking her head as they set off up the corridor. “Stitches… I ask
you…”
“Well, you know, they do work well on non-magical wounds,” said Hermione fairly. “I suppose
something in that snake’s venom dissolves them or something. I wonder where the tearoom is?”
“Fifth floor,” said Harry, remembering the sign over the welcome witch’s desk.
They walked along the corridor, through a set of double doors and found a rickety staircase lined
with more portraits of brutal-looking Healers. As they climbed it, the various Healers called out
to them, diagnosing odd complaints and suggesting horrible remedies. Ron was seriously
affronted when a medieval wizard called out that he clearly had a bad case of spattergroit.
“And what’s that supposed to be?” he asked angrily, as the Healer pursued him through six more
portraits, shoving the occupants out of the way.
“Tis a most grievous affliction of the skin, young master, that will leave you pockmarked and
more gruesome even than you are now -”
“Watch who you’re calling gruesome!” said Ron, his ears turning red.
“- the only remedy is to take the liver of a toad, bind it tight about your throat, stand naked at the
full moon in a barrel of eels’ eyes -”
“I have not got spattergroit!”
“But the unsightly blemishes upon your visage, young master -”
“They’re freckles!” said Ron furiously. “Now get back in your own picture and leave me alone!“
He rounded on the others, who were all keeping determinedly straight faces.
“What floor’s this?”
“I think it’s the fifth,” said Hermione.
“Nah, it’s the fourth,” said Harry, “one more —”
But as he stepped on to the landing he came to an abrupt halt, staring at the small window set
into the double doors that marked the start of a corridor signposted SPELL DAMAGE. A man
was peering out at them all with his nose pressed against the glass. He had wavy blond hair,
bright blue eyes and a broad vacant smile that revealed dazzlingly white teeth.
“Blimey!” said Ron, also staring at the man.
“Oh, my goodness,” said Hermione suddenly, sounding breathless. “Professor Lockhart!”
Their ex-Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher pushed open the doors and moved towards
them, wearing a long lilac dressing gown.
“Well, hello there!” he said. “I expect you’d like my autograph, would you?”
“Hasn’t changed much, has he?” Harry muttered to Ginny, who grinned.
“Er — how are you, Professor?” said Ron, sounding slightly guilty. It had been Ron’s
malfunctioning wand that had damaged Professor Lockhart’s memory so badly that he had
landed in St. Mungo’s in the first place, though as Lockhart had been attempting to permanently
wipe Harry and Ron’s memories at the time, Harrys sympathy was limited.
“I’m very well indeed, thank you!” said Lockhart exuberantly, pulling a rather battered peacockfeather quill from his pocket. “Now, how many autographs would you like? I can do joined-up writing now, you know!”
“Er - we don’t want any at the moment, thanks,” said Ron, raising his eyebrows at Harry, who
asked, “Professor, should you be wandering around the corridors? Shouldn’t you be in a ward?”
The smile faded slowly from Lockhart’s face. For a few moments he gazed intently at Harry,
then he said, “Haven’t we met?”
“Er… yeah, we have,” said Harry. “You used to teach us at Hogwarts, remember?”
“Teach?” repeated Lockhart, looking faintly unsettled. “Me? Did I?”
And then the smile reappeared upon his face so suddenly it was rather alarming.
“Taught you everything you know, I expect, did I? Well, how about those autographs, then?
Shall we say a round dozen, you can give them to all your little friends then and nobody will be
left out!”
But just then a head poked out of a door at the far end of the corridor and a voice called,
“Gilderoy, you naughty boy, where have you wandered off to?”
A motherly-looking Healer wearing a tinsel wreath in her hair came bustling up the corridor,
smiling warmly at Harry and the others.
“Oh, Gilderoy, you’ve got visitors! How lovely, and on Christmas Day, too! Do you know,
he never gets visitors, poor lamb, and I can’t think why, he’s such a sweetie, aren’t you?”
“We’re doing autographs!” Gilderoy told the Healer with another glittering smile. “They want
loads of them, won’t take no for an answer! I just hope we’ve got enough photographs!”
“Listen to him,” said the Healer, taking Lockhart’s arm and beaming fondly at him as though he
were a precocious two-year-old. “He was rather well known a few years ago; we very much hope
that this liking for giving autographs is a sign that his memory might be starting to come back.
Will you step this way? He’s in a closed ward, you know, he must have slipped out while I was
bringing in the Christmas presents, the door’s usually kept locked… not that he’s dangerous!
But,” she lowered her voice to a whisper, “he’s a bit of a danger to himself, bless him… doesn’t
know who he is, you see, wanders off and can’t remember how to get back… it is nice of you to
have come to see him.”
“Er,” said Ron, gesturing uselessly at the floor above, “actually, we were just — er -”
But the Healer was smiling expectantly at them, and Ron’s feeble mutter of “going to have a cup
of tea” trailed away into nothingness. They looked at each other helplessly, then followed
Lockhart and his Healer along the corridor.
“Let’s not stay long,” Ron said quietly.
The Healer pointed her wand at the door of the Janus Thickey Ward and muttered, “Alohomora.”
The door swung open and she led the way inside, keeping a firm grasp on Gilderoys arm until
she had settled him into an armchair beside his bed.
“This is our long-term residents’ ward,” she informed Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny
in a low voice. “For permanent spell damage, you know. Of course, with intensive remedial potions and charms and a bit of luck, we can produce some improvement. Gilderoy does seem to be getting back some sense of himself; and we’ve seen a real improvement in Mr. Bode, he seems to be regaining th e power of speech very well, though he isn’t speaking any language we recognize yet. Well, I must finish giving out the Christmas presents, I’ll leave you all to chat.”
Harry looked around. The ward bore unmistakable signs of being a permanent home to its
residents. They had many more personal effects around their beds than in Mr. Weasley’s ward;
the wall around Gilderoy’s headboard, for instance, was papered with pictures of himself, all
beaming toothily and waving at the new arrivals. He had autographed many of them to himself in
disjointed, childish writing. The moment he had been deposited in his chair by the Healer,
Gilderoy pulled a fresh stack of photographs towards him, seized a quill and started signing them
all feverishly.
“You can put them in envelopes,” he said to Ginny, throwing the signed pictures into her lap one
by one as he finished them. “I am not forgotten, you know, no, I still receive a very great deal of
fan mail… Gladys Gudgeon writes weekly… I just wish I knew why.” He paused, looking faintly puzzled, then beamed again and returned to his signing with renewed vigour. “I suspect it is simply my good looks…”
A sallow-skinned, mournful-looking wizard lay in the bed opposite staring at the ceiling; he was
mumbling to himself and seemed quite unaware of anything around him. Two beds along was a
woman whose entire head was covered in fur; Harry remembered something similar happening
to Hermione during their second year, although fortunately the damage, in her case, had not been
permanent. At the far end of the ward flowery curtains had been drawn around two beds to give
the occupants and their visitors some privacy.
“Here you are, Agnes,” said the Healer brightly to the furry-faced woman, handing her a small
pile of Christmas presents. “See, not forgotten, are you? And your son’s sent an owl to say he’s
visiting tonight, so that’s nice, isn’t it?”
Agnes gave several loud barks.
“And look, Broderick, you’ve been sent a potted plant and a lovely calendar with a different fancy Hippogriff for each month; they’ll brighten things up, won’t they?” said the Healer, bustling along to the mumbling man, setting a rather ugly plant with long, swaying tentacles on the bedside cabinet and fixing the calendar to the wall with her wand. “And - oh, Mrs. Longbottom, are you leaving already?”
Harry’s head span round. The curtains had been drawn back from the two beds at the end of the
ward and two visitors were walking back down the aisle between the beds: a formidable-looking
old witch wearing a long green dress, a moth-eaten fox fur and a pointed hat decorated with what
was unmistakeably a stuffed vulture and, trailing behind her looking thoroughly depressed -
Neville.
With a sudden rush of understanding, Harry realized who the people in the end beds must be. He
cast around wildly for some means of distracting the others so that Neville could leave the ward
unnoticed and unquestioned, but Ron had also looked up at the sound of the name “Longbottom”, and before Harry could stop him had called out, “Neville!”
Neville jumped and cowered as though a bullet had narrowly missed him.
“It’s us, Neville!” said Ron brightly, getting to h i s feet. “Have you seen -? Lockhart’s here!
Who’ve you been visiting?”
“Friends of yours, Neville, dear?” said Neville’s grandmother graciously, bearing down upon
them all.
Neville looked as though he would rather be anywhere in the world but here. A dull purple flush
was creeping up his plump face and he was not making eye contact with any of them.
“Ah, yes,” said his grandmother, looking closely at Harry and sticking out a shrivelled, clawlike
hand for him to shake. “Yes, yes, I know who you are, of course. Neville speaks most highly of
you.”
“Er - thanks,” said Harry, shaking hands. Neville did not look at him, but surveyed his own feet,
the color deepening in his face all the while.
“And you two are clearly Weasleys,” Mrs. Longbottom continued, proffering her hand regally to
Ron and Ginny in turn. “Yes, I know your parents — not well, of course — but fine people, fine
people… and you must be Hermione Granger?”
Hermione looked rather startled that Mrs. Longbottom knew her name, but shook hands all the
same.
“Yes, Neville’s told me all about you. Helped him out of a few sticky spots, haven’t you? He’s a
good boy,” she said, casting a sternly appraising look down her rather bony nose at Neville, “but
he hasn’t got his father’s talent, I’m afraid to say.” And she jerked her head in the direction of the two beds at the end of the ward, so that the stuffed vulture on her hat trembled alarmingly.
“What?” said Ron, looking amazed. (Harry wanted to stamp on Ron’s foot, but that sort of thing
is much harder to bring off unnoticed when you’re wearing jeans rather than robes.) “Is that
your dad down the end, Neville?”
“What’s this?” said Mrs. Longbottom sharply. “Haven’t you told your friends about your parents, Neville?”
Neville took a deep breath, looked up at the ceiling and shook his head. Harry could not
remember ever feeling sorrier for anyone, but he could not think of any way of helping Neville
out of the situation.
“Well, it’s nothing to be ashamed of!” said Mrs. Longbottom angrily. “You should be proud,
Neville, proud! They didn’t give their health and their sanity so their only son would be ashamed of them, you know!”
“I’m not ashamed,” said Neville, very faintly, still looking anywhere but at Harry and the others.
Ron was now standing on tiptoe to look over at the inhabitants of the two beds.
“Well, you’ve got a funny way of showing it!” said Mrs. Longbottom. “My son and his wife,” she said, turning haughtily to Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny, “were tortured into insanity by You- Know-Who’s followers.”
Hermione and Ginny both clapped their hands over their mouths. Ron stopped craning his neck
to catch a glimpse of Neville’s parents and looked mortified.
“They were Aurors, you know, and very well respected within the wizarding community” Mrs.
Longbottom went on. “Highly gifted, the pair of them. I - yes, Alice dear, what is it?”
Neville’s mother had come edging down the ward in her nightdress. She no longer had the
plump, happy-looking face Harry had seen in Moody’s old photograph of the original Order of
the Phoenix. Her face was thin and worn now, her eyes seemed overlarge and her hair, which had
turned white, was wispy and dead-looking. She did not seem to want to speak, or perhaps she
was not able to, but she made timid motions towards Neville, holding something in her
outstretched hand.
“Again?” said Mrs. Longbottom, sounding slightly weary. “Very well, Alice dear, very well -
Neville, take it, whatever it is.”
But Neville had already stretched out his hand, into which his mother dropped an empty
Drooble’s Best Blowing Gum wrapper.
“Very nice, dear,” said Neville’s grandmother in a falsely cheery voice, patting his mother on the
shoulder.
But Neville said quietly, “Thanks, Mum.”
His mother tottered away, back up the ward, humming to herself. Neville looked around at the
others, his expression defiant, as though daring them to laugh, but Harry did not think he’d ever
found anything less funny in his life.
“Well, we’d better get back,” sighed Mrs Longbottom, drawing on long green gloves. “Very nice
to have met you all. Neville, put that wrapper in the bin, she must have given you enough of
them to paper your bedroom by now.”
But as they left, Harry was sure he saw Neville slip the candy wrapper into his pocket.
The door closed behind them.
“I never knew,” said Hermione, who looked tearful.
“Nor did I,” said Ron rather hoarsely.
“Nor me,” whispered Ginny.
They all looked at Harry.
“I did,” he said glumly. “Dumbledore told me but I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone… that’s what Bellatrix Lestrange got sent to Azkaban for, using the Cruciatus Curse on Neville’s parents until they lost their minds.”
“Bellatrix Lestrange did that?” whispered Hermione, horrified. “That woman Kreacher’s got a
photo of in his den?”
There was a long silence, broken by Lockharts angry voice.
“Look, I didn’t learn joined-up writing for nothing, you know!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Occlumency
Kreacher, it transpired, had been lurking in the attic. Sirius said he had found him up there,
covered in dust, no doubt looking for more relics of the Black family to hide in his cupboard.
Though Sirius seemed satisfied with this story, it made Harry uneasy. Kreacher seemed to be in a
better mood on his reappearance, his bitter muttering had subsided somewhat and he submitted
to orders more docilely than usual, though once or twice Harry caught the house-elf staring at
him avidly, but always looking quickly away whenever he saw that Harry had noticed.
Harry did not mention his vague suspicions to Sirius, whose cheerfulness was evaporating fast
now that Christmas was over. As the date of their departure back to Hogwarts drew nearer, he
became more and more prone to what Mrs. Weasley call ed ‘fits of the sullens’, in which he would become taciturn and grumpy, often withdrawing to Buckbeak’s room for hours at a time. His gloom seeped through the house, oozing under doorways like some noxious gas, so that all of them became infected by it.
Harry didn’t want to leave Sirius again with only Kreacher for company; in fact, for the first time
in his life, he was not looking forward to returning to Hogwarts. Going back to school would
mean placing himself once again under the tyranny of Dolores Umbridge, who had no doubt
managed to force through another dozen decrees in their absence; there was no Quidditch to look
forward to now that he had been banned; there was every likelihood that their burden of
homework would increase as the exams drew even nearer; and Dumbledore remained as remote
as ever. In fact, if it hadn’t been for the D.A., Harry thought he might have begged Sirius to let
him leave Hogwarts and remain in Grimmauld Place.
Then, on the very last day of the holidays, something happened that made Harry positively dread
his return to school.
“Harry, dear,” said Mrs. Weasley, poking her head in to his and Ron’s bedroom, where the pair of them were playing wizard chess watched by Hermione, Ginny and Crookshanks, “could you
come down to the kitchen? Professor Snape would like a word with you.”
Harry did not immediately register what she had said; one of his castles was engaged in a violent
tussle with a pawn of Rons and he was egging it on enthusiastically.
“Squash him - squash him, he’s only a pawn, you idiot. Sorry, Mrs. Weasley, what did you say?”
“Professor Snape, dear. In the kitchen. He’d like a word.”
Harry’s mouth fell open in horror. He looked around at Ron, Hermione and Ginny, all of whom
were gaping back at him. Crookshanks, whom Hermione had been restraining with difficulty for
the past quarter of an hour, leapt gleefully on to the board and set the pieces running for cover,
squealing at the top of their voices.
“Snape?” said Harry blankly.
“Professor Snape, dear,” said Mrs. Weasley reprovingly. “Now come on, quickly, he says he can’t stay long.”
“What’s he want with you?” said Ron, looking unnerved as Mrs. Weasley withdrew from the
room. “You haven’t done anything, have you?”
“No!” said Harry indignantly, racking his brains to think what he could have done that would
make Snape pursue him to Grimmauld Place. Had his last piece of homework perhaps earned a T?
A minute or two later, he pushed open the kitchen door to find Sirius and Snape both seated at
the long kitchen table, glaring in opposite directions. The silence between them was heavy with
mutual dislike. A letter lay open on the table in front of Sirius.
“Er,” said Harry, to announce his presence.
Snape looked around at him, his face framed between curtains of greasy black hair.
“Sit down, Potter.”
“You know,” said Sirius loudly, leaning back on his rear chair legs and speaking to the ceiling, “I
think I’d prefer it if you didn’t give orders here, Snape. It’s my house, you see.”
An ugly flush suffused Snape’s pallid face. Harry sat down in a chair beside Sirius, facing Snape
across the table.
“I was supposed to see you alone, Potter,” said Snape, the familiar sneer curling his mouth, “but
Black -”
“I’m his godfather,” said Sirius, louder than ever.
“I am here on Dumbledore’s orders,” said Snape, whose voice, by contrast, was becoming more
and more quietly waspish, “but by all means stay, Black, I know you like to feel… involved.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” said Sirius, letting his chair fall back on to all four legs with a
loud bang.
“Merely that I am sure you must feel - ah - frustrated by the fact that you can do nothing useful,”
Snape laid a delicate stress on the word, “for the Order.”
It was Sirius’s turn to flush. Snape’s lip curled in triumph as he turned to Harry.
“The Headmaster has sent me to tell you, Potter, that it is his wish for you to study Occlumency
this term.”
“Study what?” said Harry blankly.
Snape’s sneer became more pronounced.
“Occlumency, Potter. The magical Defense of the mind against external penetration. An obscure
branch of magic, but a highly useful one.”
Harry’s heart began to pump very fast indeed. Defense against external penetration? But he was
not being possessed, they had all agreed on that…
“Why do I have to study Occlu — thing?” he blurted out.
“Because the Headmaster thinks it a good idea,” said Snape smoothly. “You will receive private
lessons once a week, but you will not tell anybody what you are doing, least of all Dolores
Umbridge. You understand?”
“Yes,” said Harry. “Who’s going to be teaching me?”
Snape raised an eyebrow.
“I am,” he said.
Harry had the horrible sensation that his insides were melting.
Extra lessons with Snape - what on earth had he done to deserve this? He looked quickly round
at Sirius for support.
“Why can’t Dumbledore teach Harry?” asked Sirius aggressively. “Why you?”
“I suppose because it is a headmaster’s privilege to delegate less enjoyable tasks,” said Snape
silkily. “I assure you I did not beg for the job.” He got to his feet. “I will expect you at six o’clock on Monday evening, Potter. My office. If anybody asks, you are taking remedial Potions.
Nobody who has seen you in my classes could deny you need them.”
He turned to leave, his black traveling cloak billowing behind him.
“Wait a moment,” said Sirius, sitting up straighter in his chair.
Snape turned back to face them, sneering.
“I am in rather a hurry, Black. Unlike you, I do not have unlimited leisure time.”
“I’ll get to the point, then,” said Sirius, standing up. He was rather taller than Snape who, Harry
noticed, balled his fist in the pocket of his cloak over what Harry was sure was the handle of his
wand. “If I hear you’re using these Occlumency lessons to give Harry a hard time, you’ll have
me to answer to.”
“How touching,” Snape sneered. “But surely you have noticed that Potter is very like his father?”
“Yes, I have,” said Sirius proudly.
“Well then, you’ll know he’s so arrogant that criticism simply bounces off him,” Snape said
sleekly.
Sirius pushed his chair roughly aside and strode around the table towards Snape, pulling out his
wand as he went. Snape whipped out his own. They were squaring up to each other, Sirius
looking livid, Snape calculating, his eyes darting from Sirius’s wand-tip to his face.
“Sirius!” said Harry loudly, but Sirius appeared not to hear him.
“I’ve warned you, Snivellus,” said Sirius, his face barely a foot from Snape’s, “I don’t care if
Dumbledore thinks you’ve reformed, I know better -”
“Oh, but why don’t you tell him so?” whispered Snape. “Or are you afraid he might not take very
seriously the advice of a man who has been hiding inside his mother’s house for six months?”
“Tell me, how is Lucius Malfoy these days? I expect he’s delighted his lapdog’s working at
Hogwarts, isn’t he?”
“Speaking of dogs,” said Snape softly, “did you know that Lucius Malfoy recognized you last
time you risked a little jaunt outside? Clever idea, Black, getting yourself seen on a safe station
platform… gave you a cast-iron excuse not to leave your hidey-hole in future, didn’t it?”
Sirius raised his wand.
“NO!” Harry yelled, vaulting over the table and trying to get in between them. “Sirius, don’t!”
“Are you calling me a coward?” roared Sirius, trying to push Harry out of the way, but Harry
would not budge.
“Why, yes, I suppose I am,” said Snape.
“Harry - get - out - of - it!” snarled Sirius, pushing him aside with his free hand.
The kitchen door opened and the entire Weasley family, plus Hermione, came inside, all looking
very happy, with Mr. Weasley walking proudly in thei r midst dressed in a pair of striped pajamass covered by a mackintosh.
“Cured!” he announced brightly to the kitchen at large. “Completely cured!”
He and all the other Weasleys froze on the threshold, gazing at the scene in front of them, which
was also suspended in mid-action, both Sirius and Snape looking towards the door with their
wands pointing into each other’s faces and Harry immobile between them, a hand stretched out
to each, trying to force them apart.
“Merlin’s beard,” said Mr. Weasley, the smile slidin g off his face, “what’s going on here?”
Both Sirius and Snape lowered their wands. Harry looked from one to the other. Each wore an
expression of utmost contempt, yet the unexpected entrance of so many witnesses seemed to
have brought them to their senses. Snape pocketed his wand, turned on his heel and swept back
across the kitchen, passing the Weasleys without comment. At the door he looked back.
“Six o’clock, Monday evening, Potter.”
And he was gone. Sirius glared after him, his wand at his side.
“What’s been going on?” asked Mr. Weasley again.
“Nothing, Arthur,” said Sirius, who was breathing heavily as though he had just run a long
distance. “Just a friendly little chat between two old school friends.” With what looked like an
enormous effort, he smiled. “So… you’re cured? That’s great news, really great.”
“Yes, isn’t it?” said Mrs. Weasley, leading her husb and forward to a chair. “Healer Smethwyck
worked his magic in the end, found an antidote to whatever that snake’s got in its fangs, and
Arthur’s learned his lesson about dabbling in Muggle medicine, haven’t you, dear?” she added,
rather menacingly.
“Yes, Molly, dear,” said Mr. Weasley meekly.
That night’s meal should have been a cheerful one, with Mr. Weasley back amongst them. Harry
could tell Sirius was trying to make it so, yet when his godfather was not forcing himself to
laugh loudly at Fred and George’s jokes or offering everyone more food, his face fell back into a
moody, brooding expression. Harry was separated from him by Mundungus and Mad-Eye, who
had dropped in to offer Mr. Weasley their congratulations. He wanted to talk to Sirius, to tell him
he shouldn’t listen to a word Snape said, that Snape was goading him deliberately and that the
rest of them didn’t think Sirius was a coward for doing as Dumbledore told him and remaining in
Grimmauld Place. But he had no opportunity to do so, and, eyeing the ugly look on Sirius’s face,
Harry wondered occasionally whether he would have dared to mention it even if he had the
chance. Instead, he told Ron and Hermione under his voice about having to take Occlumency
lessons with Snape.
“Dumbledore wants to stop you having those dreams about Voldemort,” said Hermione at once. “Well, you won’t be sorry not to have them any more, will you?”
“Extra lessons with Snape?” said Ron, sounding aghast. “I’d rather have the nightmares!”
They were to return to Hogwarts on the Knight Bus the following day, escorted once again by
Tonks and Lupin, both of whom were eating breakfast in the kitchen when Harry, Ron and
Hermione came down next morning. The adults seemed to have been mid-way through a
whispered conversation as Harry opened the door; all of them looked round hastily and fell
silent.
After a hurried breakfast, they all pulled on jackets and scarves against the chilly grey January
morning. Harry had an unpleasant constricted sensation in his chest; he did not want to say
goodbye to Sirius. He had a bad feeling about this parting; he didn’t know when they would next
see each other and he felt it was incumbent upon him to say something to Sirius to stop him
doing anything stupid - Harry was worried that Snape’s accusation of cowardice had stung Sirius
so badly he might even now be planning some foolhardy trip beyond Grimmauld Place. Before
he could think of what to say, however, Sirius had beckoned him to his side.
“I want you to take this,” he said quietly, thrusting a badly wrapped package roughly the size of a paperback book into Harry’s hands.
“What is it?” Harry asked.
“A way of letting me know if Snape’s giving you a hard time. No, don’t open it in here!” said
Sirius, with a wary look at Mrs. Weasley, who was trying to persuade the twins to wear handknitted mittens. “I doubt Molly would approve - but I want you to use it if you need me, all
right?”
“Okay,” said Harry, stowing the package away in the inside pocket of his jacket, but he knew he
would never use whatever it was. It would not be he, Harry, who lured Sirius from his place of
safety, no matter how foully Snape treated him in their forthcoming Occlumency classes.
“Let’s go, then,” said Sirius, clapping Harry on the shoulder and smiling grimly, and before
Harry could say anything else, they were heading upstairs, stopping before the heavily chained
and bolted front door, surrounded by Weasleys.
“Goodbye, Harry, take care,” said Mrs. Weasley, hugg ing him.
“See you, Harry, and keep an eye out for snakes for me!” said Mr. Weasley genially, shaking his
hand.
“Right - yeah,” said Harry distractedly; it was his last chance to tell Sirius to be careful; he
turned, looked into his godfather’s face: and opened his mouth to speak, but before he could do
so Sirius was giving him a brief, one-armed hug, and saying gruffly, “Look after yourself,
Harry.” Next moment, Harry found himself being shunted out into the icy winter air, with Tonks
(today heavily disguised as a tall, tweedy woman with iron-grey hair) chivvying him down the
steps.
The door of number twelve slammed shut behind them. They followed Lupin down the front
steps. As he reached the pavement, Harry looked round. Number twelve was shrinking rapidly as
those on either side of it stretched sideways, squeezing it out of sight. One blink later, it had
gone.
“Come on, the quicker we get on the bus the better,” said Tonks, and Harry thought there was
nervousness in the glance she threw around the square. Lupin flung out his right arm.
BANG.
A violently purple, triple-decker bus had appeared out of thin air in front of them, narrowly
avoiding the nearest lamppost, which jumped backwards out of its way.
A thin, pimply, jug-eared youth in a purple uniform leapt down on to the pavement and said,
“Welcome to the -”
“Yes, yes, we know, thank you,” said Tonks swiftly. “On, on, get on -”
And she shoved Harry forwards towards the steps, past the conductor, who goggled at Harry as
he passed.
“Ere - it’s ‘Arry -!”
“If you shout his name I will curse you into oblivion,” muttered Tonks menacingly, now shunting
Ginny and Hermione forwards.
“I’ve always wanted to go on this thing,” said Ron happily, joining Harry on board and looking
around.
It had been evening the last time Harry had traveled by Knight Bus and its three decks had been
full of brass bedsteads. Now, in the early morning, it was crammed with an assortment of
mismatched chairs grouped haphazardly around windows. Some of these appeared to have fallen
over when the bus stopped abruptly in Grimmauld Place; a few witches and wizards were still
getting to their feet, grumbling, and somebody’s shopping bag had slid the length of the bus: an
unpleasant mixture of frogspawn, cockroaches and custard creams was scattered all over the
floor.
“Looks like we’ll have to split up,” said Tonks briskly, looking around for empty chairs. “Fred,
George and Ginny, if you just take those seats at the back… Remus can stay with you.”
She, Harry, Ron and Hermione proceeded up to the very top deck, where there were two
unoccupied chairs at the very front of the bus and two at the back. Stan Shunpike, the conductor,
followed Harry and Ron eagerly to the back. Heads turned as Harry passed and, when he sat
down, he saw all the faces flick back to the front again.
As Harry and Ron handed Stan eleven Sickles each, the bus set off again, swaying ominously. It
rumbled around Grimmauld Place, weaving on and off the pavement, then, with another
tremendous BANG, they were all flung backwards; Ron’s chair toppled right over and
Pigwidgeon, who had been on his lap, burst out of his cage and flew twittering wildly up to the
front of the bus where he fluttered down on to Hermione’s shoulder instead. Harry, who had
narrowly avoided falling by seizing a candle bracket, looked out of the window: they were now
speeding down what appeared to be a motorway.
“Just outside Birmingham,” said Stan happily, answe ring Harry’s unasked question as Ron
struggled up from the floor. “You keepin’ well, then, ‘Arry? I seen your name in the paper loads
over the summer, but it weren’t never nuffink very nice. I said to Ern, I said, ‘e didn’t seem like a
nutter when we met ‘im, just goes to show, dunnit?”
He handed over their tickets and continued to gaze, enthralled, at Harry. Apparently, Stan did not
care how nutty somebody was, if they were famous enough to be in the paper. The Knight Bus
swayed alarmingly, overtaking a line of cars on the inside. Looking towards the front of the bus,
Harry saw Hermione cover her eyes with her hands, Pigwidgeon swaying happily on her
shoulder.
BANG.
Chairs slid backwards again as the Knight Bus jumped from the Birmingham motorway to a
quiet country lane full of hairpin bends. Hedgerows on either side of the road were leaping out of
their way as they mounted the verges. From here they moved to a main street in the middle of a
busy town, then to a viaduct surrounded by tall hills, then to a windswept road between high-rise
flats, each time with a loud BANG.
“I’ve changed my mind,” muttered Ron, picking himse lf up from the floor for the sixth time, “I
never want to ride on this thing again.”
“Listen, it’s ‘Ogwarts stop after this,” said Stan brightly, swaying towards them. “That bossy
woman up front ‘oo got on with you, she’s given us a little tip to move you up the queue. We’re
just gonna let Madam Marsh off first, though -” there was more retching from downstairs, followed by a horrible spattering sound “- she’s not feeling ‘er best.”
A few minutes later, the Knight Bus screeched to a halt outside a small pub, which squeezed
itself out of the way to avoid a collision. They could hear Stan ushering the unfortunate Madam
Marsh out of the bus and the relieved murmurings of her fellow passengers on the second deck.
The bus moved on again, gathering speed, until -
BANG.
They were rolling through a snowy Hogsmeade. Harry caught a glimpse of the Hog’s Head down
its side street, the severed boar’s head sign creaking in the wintry wind. Flecks of snow hit the
large window at the front of the bus. At last they rolled to a halt outside the gates to Hogwarts.
Lupin and Tonks helped them off the bus with their luggage, then got off to say goodbye. Harry
glanced up at the three decks of the Knight Bus and saw all the passengers staring down at them,
noses flat against the windows.
“You’ll be safe once you’re in the grounds,” said Tonks, casting a careful eye around at the
deserted road. “Have a good term, okay?”
“Look after yourselves,” said Lupin, shaking hands all round and reaching Harry last. “And
listen…” he lowered his voice while the rest of the m exchanged last-minute goodbyes with
Tonks, “Harry, I know you don’t like Snape, but he is a superb Occlumens and we all - Sirius
included - want you to learn to protect yourself, so work hard, all right?”
“Yeah, all right,” said Harry heavily, looking up into Lupin’s prematurely lined face. “See you,
then.”
The six of them struggled up the slippery drive towards the castle, dragging their trunks.
Hermione was already talking about knitting a few elf hats before bedtime. Harry glanced back
when they reached the oaken front doors; the Knight Bus had already gone and he half-wished,
given what was coming the following evening, that he was still on board.
Harry spent most of the next day dreading the evening. His morning double-Potions lesson did
nothing to dispel his trepidation, as Snape was as unpleasant as ever. His mood was further
lowered by the D.A. members constantly approaching him in the corridors between classes, askinghopefully if there would be a meeting that night.
“I’ll let you know in the usual way when the next one is,” Harry said over and over again, “but I
can’t do it tonight, I’ve got to go to - er - remedial Potions.”
“You take remedial Potions!” asked Zacharias Smith superciliously, having cornered Harry in the Entrance Hall after lunch. “Good Lord, you must be terrible. Snape doesn’t usually give extra
lessons, does he?”
As Smith strode away in an annoyingly buoyant fashion, Ron glared after him.
“Shall I jinx him? I can still get him from here,” he said, raising his wand and taking aim between Smith’s shoulder blades.
“Forget it,” said Harry dismally. “It’s what everyone’s going to think, isn’t it? That I’m really
stup —”
“Hi, Harry,” said a voice behind him. He turned round and found Cho standing there.
“Oh,” said Harry as his stomach leapt uncomfortably. “Hi.”
“We’ll be in the library, Harry,” said Hermione firmly as she seized Ron above the elbow and
dragged him off towards the marble staircase.
“Had a good Christmas?” asked Cho.
“Yeah, not bad,” said Harry.
“Mine was pretty quiet,” said Cho. For some reason, she was looking rather embarrassed.
“Erm… there’s another Hogsmeade trip next month, did you see the notice?”
“What? Oh, no, I haven’t checked the noticeboard since I got back.”
“Yes, it’s on Valentine’s Day…”
“Right,” said Harry, wondering why she was telling him this. “Well, I suppose you want to -?”
“Only if you do,” she said eagerly.
Harry stared. He had been about to say, “I suppose you want to know when the next D.A. meetingis?” but her response did not seem to fit.
“I - er —” he said.
“Oh, it’s okay if you don’t,” she said, looking mortified. “Don’t worry. I - I’ll see you around.”
She walked away. Harry stood staring after her, his brain working frantically. Then something
clunked into place.
“Cho! Hey - CHO!”
He ran after her, catching her halfway up the marble staircase.
“Er - d’you want to come into Hogsmeade with me on Valentine’s Day?”
“Oooh, yes!” she said, blushing crimson and beaming at him.
“Right… well… that’s settled then,” said Harry, and feeling that the day was not going to be a
complete loss after all, he headed off to the library to pick up Ron and Hermione before their afternoon lessons, walking in a rather bouncy way himself.
By six o’clock that evening, however, even the glow of having successfully asked out Cho
Chang could not lighten the ominous feelings that intensified with every step Harry took towards
Snape’s office.
He paused outside the door when he reached it, wishing he were almost anywhere else, then,
taking a deep breath, he knocked and entered.
The shadowy room was lined with shelves bearing hundreds of glass jars in which slimy bits of
animals and plants were suspended in variously colored potions. In one corner stood the
cupboard full of ingredients that Snape had once accused Harry - not without reason - of robbing.
Harry’s attention was drawn towards the desk, however, where a shallow stone basin engraved
with runes and symbols lay in a pool of candlelight. Harry recognized it at once - it was
Dumbledore’s Pensieve. Wondering what on earth it was doing there, he jumped when Snape’s
cold voice came out of the shadows.
“Shut the door behind you, Potter.”
Harry did as he was told, with the horrible feeling that he was imprisoning himself. When he
turned back into the room, Snape had moved into the light and was pointing silently at the chair
opposite his desk. Harry sat down and so did Snape, his cold black eyes fixed unblinkingly upon
Harry, dislike etched in every line of his face.
“Well, Potter, you know why you are here,” he said. “The Headmaster has asked me to teach you
Occlumency. I can only hope that you prove more adept at it than at Potions.”
“Right,” said Harry tersely.
“This may not be an ordinary class, Potter,” said Snape, his eyes narrowed malevolently, “but I
am still your teacher and you will therefore call me ‘sir’ or ‘professor’ at all times.”
“Yes… sir,” said Harry.
Snape continued to survey him through narrowed eyes for a moment, then said, “Now,
Occlumency. As I told you back in your dear godfather’s kitchen, this branch of magic seals the
mind against magical intrusion and influence.”
“And why does Professor Dumbledore think I need it, sir?” said Harry, looking directly into
Snape’s eyes and wondering whether Snape would answer.
Snape looked back at him for a moment and then said contemptuously, “Surely even you could
have worked that out by now, Potter? The Dark Lord is highly skilled at Legilimency -”
“What’s that? Sir?”
“It is the ability to extract feelings and memories from another persons mind -”
“He can read minds?” said Harry quickly, his worst fears confirmed.
“You have no subtlety, Potter,” said Snape, his dark eyes glittering. “You do not understand fine
distinctions. It is one of the shortcomings that makes you such a lamentable potion-maker.”
Snape paused for a moment, apparently to savor the pleasure of insulting Harry, before
continuing.
“Only Muggles talk of ‘mind-reading’. The mind is not a book, to be opened at will and examined at leisure. Thoughts are not etched on the inside of skulls, to be perused by any invader. The mind is a complex and many-layered thing, Potter - or at least, most minds are.” He smirked. “It is true, however, that those who have mastered Legilimency are able, under certain
conditions, to delve into the minds of their victims and to interpret their findings correctly. The Dark Lord, for instance, almost always knows when somebody is lying to him. Only those skilled at Occlumency are able to shut down those feelings and memories that contradict the lie, and so can utter falsehoods in his presence without detection.”
Whatever Snape said, Legilimency sounded like mind-reading to Harry, and he didn’t like the
sound of it at all.
“So he could know what we’re thinking right now? Sir?”
“The Dark Lord is at a considerable distance and the walls and grounds of Hogwarts are guarded
by many ancient spells and charms to ensure the bodily and mental safety of those who dwell
within them,” said Snape. “Time and space matter in magic, Potter. Eye contact is often essential
to Legilimency.”
“Well then, why do I have to learn Occlumency?”
Snape eyed Harry, tracing his mouth with one long, thin finger as he did so.
“The usual rules do not seem to apply with you, Potter. The curse that failed to kill you seems to
have forged some kind of connection between you and the Dark Lord. The evidence suggests
that at times, when your mind is most relaxed and vulnerable - when you are asleep, for instance
- you are sharing the Dark Lord’s thoughts and emotions. The Headmaster thinks it inadvisable
for this to continue. He wishes me to teach you how to close your mind to the Dark Lord.”
Harry’s heart was pumping fast again. None of this added up.
“But why does Professor Dumbledore want to stop it?” he asked abruptly. “I don’t like it much,
but it’s been useful, hasn’t it? I mean… I saw that snake attack Mr. Weasley and if I hadn’t,
Professor Dumbledore wouldn’t have been able to save him, would he? Sir?”
Snape stared at Harry for a few moments, still tracing his mouth with his finger. When he spoke
again, it was slowly and deliberately, as though he weighed every word.
“It appears that the Dark Lord has been unaware of the connection between you and himself until
very recently. Up till now it seems that you have been experiencing his emotions, and sharing his
thoughts, without his being any the wiser. However, the vision you had shortly before Christmas
-”
“The one with the snake and Mr. Weasley?”
“Do not interrupt me, Potter,” said Snape in a dangerous voice. “As I was saying, the vision you
had shortly before Christmas represented such a powerful incursion upon the Dark Lord’s
thoughts -”
“I saw inside the snake’s head, not his!”
“I thought I just told you not to interrupt me, Potter?”
But Harry did not care if Snape was angry; at last he seemed to be getting to the bottom of this
business; he had moved forwards in his chair so that, without realizing it, he was perched on the
very edge, tense as though poised for flight.
“How come I saw through the snakes eyes if it’s Voldemort’s thoughts I’m sharing?”
“Do not say the Dark Lord’s name!” spat Snape.
There was a nasty silence. They glared at each other across the Pensieve.
“Professor Dumbledore says his name,” said Harry quietly.
“Dumbledore is an extremely powerful wizard,” Snape muttered. “While he may feel secure
enough to use the name… the rest of us…” He rubbed his left forearm, apparently unconsciously, on the spot where Harry knew the Dark Mark was burned into his skin.
“I just wanted to know,” Harry began again, forcing his voice back to politeness, “why -”
“You seem to have visited the snake’s mind because that was where the Dark Lord was at that
particular moment,” snarled Snape. “He was possessing the snake at the time and so you dreamed you were inside it, too.”
“And Vol— he - realized I was there?”
“It seems so,” said Snape coolly.
“How do you know?” said Harry urgently. “Is this just Professor Dumbledore guessing, or -?”
“I told you,” said Snape, rigid in his chair, his eyes slits, “to call me ‘sir’.”
“Yes, sir,” said Harry impatiently, “but how do you know -?”
“It is enough that we know,” said Snape repressively. “The important point is that the Dark Lord is now aware that you are gaining access to his thoughts and feelings. He has also deduced that the process is likely to work in reverse; that is to say, he has realized that he might be able to
access your thoughts and feelings in return -”
“And he might try and make me do things?” asked Harry. “Sir?” he added hurriedly.
“He might,” said Snape, sounding cold and unconcerned. “Which brings us back to Occlumency.”
Snape pulled out his wand from an inside pocket of his robes and Harry tensed in his chair, but
Snape merely raised the wand to his temple and placed its tip into the greasy roots of his hair.
When he withdrew it, some silvery substance came away, stretching from temple to wand like a
thick gossamer strand, which broke as he pulled the wand away from it and fell gracefully into
the Pensieve, where it swirled silvery-white, neither gas nor liquid. Twice more, Snape raised the
wand to his temple and deposited the silvery substance into the stone basin, then, without
offering any explanation of his behavior, he picked up the Pensieve carefully, removed it to a
shelf out of their way and returned to face Harry with his wand held at the ready.
“Stand up and take out your wand, Potter.”
Harry got to his feet, feeling nervous. They faced each other with the desk between them.
“You may use your wand to attempt to disarm me, or defend yourself in any other way you can
think of,” said Snape.
“And what are you going to do?” Harry asked, eyeing Snape’s wand apprehensively.
“I am about to attempt to break into your mind,” said Snape softly. “We are going to see how well you resist. I have been told that you have already shown aptitude at resisting the Imperius Curse. You will find that similar powers are needed for this… brace yourself, now. Legilimens!”
Snape had struck before Harry was ready, before he had even begun to summon any force of
resistance. The office swam in front of his eyes and vanished; image after image was racing
through his mind like a flickering film so vivid it blinded him to his surroundings.
He was five, watching Dudley riding a new red bicycle, and his heart was bursting with
jealousy… he was nine, and Ripper the bulldog was chasing him up a tree and the Dursleys were
laughing below on the lawn… he was sitting under the Sorting Hat, and it was telling him he
would do well in Slytherin… Hermione was lying in the hospital wing, her face covered with
thick black hair… a hundred Dementors were closing in on him beside the dark lake… Cho
Chang was drawing nearer to him under the mistletoe…
“No,” said a voice inside Harry’s head, as the memory of Cho drew nearer, “you’re not watching
that, you’re not watching it, it’s private –“
He felt a sharp pain in his knee. Snape’s office had come back into view and he realized that he
had fallen to the floor; one of his knees had collided painfully with the leg of Snape’s desk. He
looked up at Snape, who had lowered his wand and was rubbing his wrist. There was an angry
weal there, like a scorch mark.
“Did you mean to produce a Stinging Hex?” asked Snape coolly.
“No,” said Harry bitterly, getting up from the floor.
“I thought not,” said Snape, watching him closely. “You let me get in too far. You lost control.”
“Did you see everything I saw?” Harry asked, unsure whether he wanted to hear the answer.
“Flashes of it,” said Snape, his lip curling. “To whom did the dog belong?”
“My Aunt Marge,” Harry muttered, hating Snape.
“Well, for a first attempt that was not as poor as it might have been,” said Snape, raising his wand once more. “You managed to stop me eventually, though you wasted time and energy shouting. You must remain focused. Repel me with your brain and you will not need to resort to your wand.”
“I’m trying,” said Harry angrily, “but you’re not telling me how!”
“Manners, Potter,” said Snape dangerously. “Now, I want you to close your eyes.”
Harry threw him a filthy look before doing as he was told. He did not like the idea of standing
there with his eyes shut while Snape faced him, carrying a wand.
“Clear your mind, Potter,” said Snape’s cold voice. “Let go of all emotion…”
But Harry’s anger at Snape continued to pound through his veins like venom. Let go of his
anger? He could as easily detach his legs…
“You’re not doing it, Potter… you will need more discipline than this… focus, now…”
Harry tried to empty his mind, tried not to think, or remember, or feel…
“Let’s go again… on the count of three… one - two - three -Legilimens!”
A great black dragon was rearing in front of him… his father and mother were waving at him out
of an enchanted mirror… Cedric Diggory was lying on the ground with blank eyes staring at
him…
“NOOOOOOO!”
Harry was on his knees again, his face buried in his hands, his brain aching as though someone
had been trying to pull it from his skull.
“Get up!” said Snape sharply. “Get up! You are not trying, you are making no effort. You are
allowing me access to memories you fear, handing me weapons!”
Harry stood up again, his heart thumping wildly as though he had really just seen Cedric dead in
the graveyard. Snape looked paler than usual, and angrier, though not nearly as angry as Harry
was.
“I - am - making - an - effort,” he said through clenched teeth.
“I told you to empty yourself of emotion!”
“Yeah? Well, I’m finding that hard at the moment,” Harry snarled.
“Then you will find yourself easy prey for the Dark Lord!” said Snape savagely. “Fools who wear their hearts proudly on their sleeves, who cannot control their emotions, who wallow in sad
memories and allow themselves to be provoked so easily - weak people, in other words - they
stand no chance against his powers! He will penetrate your mind with absurd ease, Potter!”
“I am not weak,” said Harry in a low voice, fury now pumping through him so that he thought he might attack Snape in a moment.
“Then prove it! Master yourself!” spat Snape. “Control your anger, discipline your mind! We
shall try again! Get ready, now! Legilimens!”
He was watching Uncle Vernon hammering the letterbox shut… a hundred Dementors were
drifting across the lake in the grounds towards him… he was running along a windowless
passage with Mr. Weasley… they were drawing nearer to the plain black door at the end of the
corridor… Harry expected to go through it… but Mr. Weasley led him off to the left, down a
flight of stone steps…
“I KNOW! I KNOW!”
He was on all fours again on Snape’s office floor, his scar was prickling unpleasantly, but the
voice that had just issued from his mouth was triumphant. He pushed himself up again to find
Snape staring at him, his wand raised. It looked as though, this time, Snape had lifted the spell
before Harry had even tried to fight back.
“What happened then, Potter?” he asked, eyeing Harry intently.
“I saw - I remembered,” Harry panted. “I’ve just realized…”
“Realized what?” asked Snape sharply.
Harry did not answer at once; he was still savoring the moment of blinding realization as he
rubbed his forehead…
He had been dreaming about a windowless corridor ending in a locked door for months, without
once realizing that it was a real place. Now, seeing the memory again, he knew that all along he
had been dreaming about the corridor down which he had run with Mr. Weasley on the twelfth of
August as they hurried to the courtrooms in the Ministry; it was the corridor leading to the
Department of Mysteries and Mr. Weasley had been there the night that he had been attacked by
Voldemort’s snake.
He looked up at Snape.
“What’s in the Department of Mysteries?”
“What did you say?” Snape asked quietly and Harry saw, with deep satisfaction, that Snape was
unnerved.
“I said, what’s in the Department of Mysteries, sir?” Harry said.
“And why,” said Snape slowly, “would you ask such a thing?”
“Because” said Harry, watching Snape’s face closely, “that corridor I’ve just seen - I’ve been dreaming about it for months — I’ve just recognized it - it leads to the Department of Mysteries… and I think Voldemort wants something from —”
”I have told you not to say the Dark Lord’s name!”
They glared at each other. Harrys scar seared again, but he did not care. Snape looked agitated;
but when he spoke again he sounded as though he was trying to appear cool and unconcerned.
“There are many things in the Department of Mysteries, Potter, few of which you would
understand and none of which concern you. Do I make myself plain?”
“Yes,” Harry said, still rubbing his prickling scar, which was becoming more painful.
“I want you back here same time on Wednesday. We will continue work then.”
“Fine,” said Harry. He was desperate to get out of Snape’s office and find Ron and Hermione.
“You are to rid your mind of all emotion every night before sleep; empty it, make it blank and
calm, you understand?”
“Yes,” said Harry, who was barely listening.
“And be warned, Potter… I shall know if you have not practiced”
“Right,” Harry mumbled. He picked up his schoolbag, swung it over his shoulder and hurried
towards the office door. As he opened it, he glanced back at Snape, who had his back to Harry
and was scooping his own thoughts out of the Pensieve with the tip of his wand and replacing
them carefully inside his own head. Harry left without another word, closing the door carefully
behind him, his scar still throbbing painfully.
Harry found Ron and Hermione in the library, where they were working on Umbridge’s most
recent ream of homework. Other students, nearly all of them fifth-years, sat at lamp-lit tables
nearby, noses close to books, quills scratching feverishly, while the sky outside the mullioned
windows grew steadily blacker. The only other sound was the slight squeaking of one of Madam
Pince’s shoes, as the librarian prowled the aisles menacingly, breathing down the necks of those
touching her precious books.
Harry felt shivery; his scar was still aching, he felt almost feverish.
When he sat down opposite Ron and Hermione, he caught sight of himself in the window
opposite; he was very white and his scar seemed to be showing up more clearly than usual.
“How did it go?” Hermione whispered, and then, looking concerned. “Are you all right, Harry?”
“Yeah… fine… I dunno,” said Harry impatiently, wincing as pain shot through his scar again. “Listen… I’ve just realized something”
And he told them what he had just seen and deduced.
“So… so are you saying…” whispered Ron, as Madam Pince swept past, squeaking slightly, “that the weapon - the thing You-Know-Who’s after — is in the Ministry of Magic?”
“In the Department of Mysteries, it’s got to be,” H arry whispered. “I saw that door when your dad took me down to the courtrooms for my hearing and it’s definitely the same one he was guarding when the snake bit him.”
Hermione let out a long, slow sigh.
“Of course,” she breathed.
“Of course what?” said Ron rather impatiently.
“Ron, think about it… Sturgis Podmore was trying to get through a door at the Ministry of
Magic… it must have been that one, it’s too much of a coincidence!”
“How come Sturgis was trying to break in when he’s on our side?” said Ron.
“Well, I don’t know,” Hermione admitted. “That is a bit odd…”
“So what’s in the Department of Mysteries?” Harry asked Ron. “Has your dad ever mentioned
anything about it?”
“I know they call the people who work in there ‘Unspeakables’,”said Ron, frowning. “Because no one really seems to know what they do - weird place to have a weapon.”
“It’s not weird at all, it makes perfect sense,” said Hermione. “It will be something top secret that the Ministry has been developing, I expect… Harry, are you sure you’re all right?”
For Harry had just run both his hands hard over his forehead as though trying to iron it.
“Yeah… fine…” he said, lowering his hands, which we re trembling. “I just feel a bit… I don’t
like Occlumency much.”
“I expect anyone would feel shaky if they’d had their mind attacked over and over again,” said
Hermione sympathetically. “Look, let’s get back to the common room, we’ll be a bit more
comfortable there.”
But the common room was packed and full of shrieks of laughter and excitement; Fred and
George were demonstrating their latest bit of joke shop merchandise.
“Headless Hats!” shouted George, as Fred waved a pointed hat decorated with a fluffy pink
feather at the watching students. “Two Galleons each, watch Fred, now!”
Fred swept the hat on to his head, beaming. For a second he merely looked rather stupid; then
both hat and head vanished.
Several girls screamed, but everyone else was roaring with laughter.
“And off again!” shouted George, and Fred’s hand groped for a moment in what seemed to be
thin air over his shoulder; then his head reappeared as he swept the pink-feathered hat from it.
“How do those hats work, then?” said Hermione, distracted from her homework and watching
Fred and George closely. “I mean, obviously it’s some kind of Invisibility Spell, but it’s rather
clever to have extended the field of invisibility beyond the boundaries of the charmed object…
I’d imagine the charm wouldn’t have a very long life though.”
Harry did not answer; he was feeling ill.
“I’m going to have to do this tomorrow,” he muttered, pushing the books he had just taken out of his bag back inside it.
“Well, write it in your homework planner then!” said Hermione encouragingly. “So you don’t
forget!”
Harry and Ron exchanged looks as he reached into his bag, withdrew the planner and opened it
tentatively.
“Don’t leave it till later, you big second-rater!” chided the book as Harry scribbled down
Umbridge’s homework. Hermione beamed at it.
“I think I’ll go to bed,” said Harry, stuffing the homework planner back into his bag and making a mental note to drop it in the fire the first opportunity he got.
He walked across the common room, dodging George, who tried to put a Headless Hat on him,
and reached the peace and cool of the stone staircase to the boys’ dormitories. He was feeling
sick again, just as he had the night he had had the vision of the snake, but thought that if he could
just lie down for a while he would be all right.
He opened the door of his dormitory and was one step inside it when he experienced pain so
severe he thought that someone must have sliced into the top of his head. He did not know where
he was, whether he was standing or lying down, he did not even know his own name.
Maniacal laughter was ringing in his ears… he was happier than he had been in a very long
time… jubilant, ecstatic, triumphant… a wonderful, wonderful thing had happened…
“Harry? HARRY!”
Someone had hit him around the face. The insane laughter was punctuated with a cry of pain.
The happiness was draining out of him, but the laughter continued…
He opened his eyes and, as he did so, he became aware that the wild laughter was coming out of
his own mouth. The moment he realized this, it died away; Harry lay panting on the floor, staring
up at the ceiling, the scar on his forehead throbbing horribly. Ron was bending over him, looking
very worried.
“What happened?” he said.
“I… dunno…” Harry gasped, sitting up again. “He’s really happy… really happy…”
“You-Know-Who is?”
“Something good’s happened,” mumbled Harry. He was shaking as badly as he had done after
seeing the snake attack Mr. Weasley and felt very sick. “Something he’s been hoping for.”
The words came, just as they had back in the Gryffindor changing room, as though a stranger
was speaking them through Harry’s mouth, yet he knew they were true. He took deep breaths,
willing himself not to vomit all over Ron. He was very glad that Dean and Seamus were not here
to watch this time.
“Hermione told me to come and check on you,” said Ron in a low voice, helping Harry to his
feet. “She says your Defenses will be low at the moment, after Snape’s been fiddling around with
your mind… still, I suppose it’ll help in the long run, won’t it?” He looked doubtfully at Harry as
he helped him towards his bed. Harry nodded without any conviction and slumped back on his
pillows, aching all over from having fallen to the floor so often that evening, his scar still
prickling painfully. He could not help feeling that his first foray into Occlumency had weakened
his mind’s resistance rather than strengthening it, and he wondered, with a feeling of great
trepidation, what had happened to make Lord Voldemort the happiest he had been in fourteen
years.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The Beetle at Bay
Harry’s question was answered the very next morning. When Hermione’s DailyProphet arrived
she smoothed it out, gazed for a moment at the front page and gave a yelp that caused everyone
in the vicinity to stare at her.
“What?” said Harry and Ron together.
For an answer she spread the newspaper on the table in front of them and pointed at ten blackand- white photographs that filled the whole of the front page, nine showing wizards’ faces and the tenth, a witch’s. Some of the people in the photographs were silently jeering; others were
tapping their fingers on the frame of their pictures, looking insolent. Each picture was captioned
with a name and the crime for which the person had been sent to Azkaban.
Antonin Dolohov, read the legend beneath a wizard with a long, pale, twisted face who was
sneering up at Harry, convicted of the brutal murders of Gideon and Fabian Prewett.
Augustus Rookwood, said the caption beneath a pockmarked man with greasy hair who was
leaning against the edge of his picture, looking bored, convicted of leaking Ministry of Magic
secrets to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.
But Harry’s eyes were drawn to the picture of the witch. Her face had leapt out at him the
moment he had seen the page. She had long, dark hair that looked unkempt and straggly in the
picture, though he had seen it sleek, thick and shining. She glared up at him through heavily
lidded eyes, an arrogant, disdainful smile playing around her thin mouth. Like Sirius, she
retained vestiges of great good looks, but something - perhaps Azkaban - had taken most of her
beauty.
Bellatrix Lestrange, convicted of the torture and permanent incapacitation of Frank and Alice
Longbottom.
Hermione nudged Harry and pointed at the headline over the pictures, which Harry,
concentrating on Bellatrix, had not yet read.
MASS BREAKOUT FROM AZKABAN
MINISTRY FEARS BLACK IS ‘RALLYING POINT’ FOR OLD DEATH EATERS
“Black?” said Harry loudly. “Not -?”
“Shh!” whispered Hermione desperately. “Not so loud - just read it!”
The Ministry of Magic announced late last night that there has been a mass breakout from
Azkaban.
Speaking to reporters in his private office, Cornelius Fudge, Minister for Magic, confirmed that
ten high-security prisoners escaped in the early hours of yesterday evening and that he has
already informed the Muggle Prime Minister of the dangerous nature of these individuals.
“We find ourselves, most unfortunately, in the same position we were two and a half years ago
when the murderer Sirius Black escaped,” said Fudge last night. “Nor do we think the two
breakouts are unrelated. An escape of this magnitude suggests outside help, and we must
remember that Black, as the first person ever to break out of Azkaban, would be ideally placed to
help others follow in his footsteps. We think it likely that these individuals, who include Black’s
cousin, Bellatrix Lestrange, have rallied around Black as their leader. We are, however, doing all we can to round up the criminals, and we beg the magical community to remain alert and
cautious. On no account should any of these individuals be approached.”
“There you are, Harry,” said Ron, looking awestruck. “That’s why he was happy last night.”
“I don’t believe this,” snarled Harry, “Fudge is blaming the breakout on Sirius?”
“What other options does he have?” said Hermione bitterly. “He can hardly say, ‘everyone,
Dumbledore warned me this might happen, the Azkaban guards have joined Lord Voldemort’ -
stop whimpering, Ron - ‘now Voldemort’s worst supporters have broken out, too.’ I mean, he’s
spent a good six months telling everyone you and Dumbledore are liars, hasn’t he?”
Hermione ripped open the newspaper and began to read the report inside while Harry looked
around the Great Hall. He could not understand why his fellow students were not looking scared
or at least discussing the terrible piece of news on the front page, but very few of them took the
newspaper every day like Hermione. There they all were, talking about homework and Quidditch
and who knew what other rubbish, when outside these walls ten more Death Eaters had swollen
Voldemort’s ranks.
He glanced up at the staff table. It was a different story there: Dumbledore and Professor
McGonagall were deep in conversation, both looking extremely grave. Professor Sprout had
the Prophet propped against a bottle of ketchup and was reading the front page with such
concentration that she was not noticing the gentle drip of egg yolk falling into her lap from her
stationary spoon. Meanwhile, at the far end of the table, Professor Umbridge was tucking into a
bowl of porridge. For once her pouchy toad’s eyes were not sweeping the Great Hall looking for
misbehaving students. She scowled as she gulped down her food and every now and then she
shot a malevolent glance up the table to where Dumbledore and McGonagall were talking so
intently.
“Oh my -” said Hermione wonderingly, still staring at the newspaper.
“What now?” said Harry quickly; he was feeling jumpy.
“It’s… horrible,” said Hermione, looking shaken. She fold ed back page ten of the newspaper and handed it to Harry and Ron.
TRAGIC DEMISE OF MINISTRY OF MAGIC WORKER
St. Mungo’s Hospital promised a full inquiry last night after Ministry of Magic worker Broderick Bode, 49, was discovered dead in his bed, strangled by a potted-plant. Healers called to the scene were unable to revive Mr. Bode, who had been injured in a workplace accident some weeks prior to his death.
Healer Miriam Strout, who was in charge of Mr. Bodes ward at the time of the incident, has been
suspended on full pay and was unavailable for comment yesterday, but a spokeswizard for the
hospital said in a statement:
“St. Mungo’s deeply regrets the death of Mr. Bode, whose health was improving steadily prior to
this tragic accident.
“We have strict guidelines on the decorations permitted on our wards but it appears that Healer
Strout, busy over the Christmas period, overlooked the dangers of the plant on Mr. Bode’s
bedside table. As his speech and mobility improved, Healer Strout encouraged Mr. Bode to look
after the plant himself, unaware that it was not an innocent Flitterbloom, but a cutting of Devil’s
Snare which, when touched by the convalescent Mr. Bode, throttled him instantly.
“St. Mungo’s is as yet unable to account for the presence of the plant on the ward and asks any
witch or wizard with information to come forward.”
“Bode…” said Ron. “Bode. It rings a bell…”
“We saw him,” Hermione whispered. “In St. Mungo’s, remember? He was in the bed opposite
Lockhart’s, just lying there, staring at the ceiling. And we saw the Devil’s Snare arrive. She - the
Healer - said it was a Christmas present.”
Harry looked back at the story. A feeling of horror was rising like bile in his throat.
“How come we didn’t recognize Devils Snare? We’ve seen it before… we could’ve stopped this
from happening.”
“Who expects Devils Snare to turn up in a hospital disguised as a pot plant?” said Ron sharply.
“It’s not our fault, whoever sent it to the bloke is to blame! They must be a real prat, why didn’t
they check what they were buying?”
“Oh, come on, Ron!” said Hermione shakily. “I don’t think anyone could put Devils Snare in a
pot and not realize it tries to kill whoever touches it? This - this was murder… a clever murder,
as well… if the plant was sent anonymously, how’s anyone ever going to find out who did it?”
Harry was not thinking about Devil’s Snare. He was remembering taking the lift down to the
ninth level of the Ministry on the day of his hearing and the sallow-faced man who had got in on
the. Atrium level.
“I met Bode,” he said slowly. “I saw him at the Ministry with your dad.”
Rons mouth fell open.
“I’ve heard Dad talk about him at home! He was an Unspeakable - he worked in the Department
of Mysteries!”
They looked at each other for a moment, then Hermione pulled the newspaper back towards her,
closed it, glared for a moment at the pictures of the ten escaped Death Eaters on the front, then
leapt to her feet.
“Where are you going?” said Ron, startled.
“To send a letter,” said Hermione, swinging her bag on to her shoulder. “It… well, I don’t know
whether… but it’s worth trying… and I’m the only one who can.”
“I hate it when she does that,” grumbled Ron, as he and Harry got up from the table and made
their own, slower way out of the Great Hall. “Would it kill her to tell us what she’s up to for
once? It’d take her about ten more seconds - hey, Hagrid!”
Hagrid was standing beside the doors into the Entrance Hall, waiting for a crowd of Ravenclaws
to pass. He was still as heavily bruised as he had been on the day he had come back from his
mission to the giants and there was a new cut right across the bridge of his nose.
“All righ’, you two?” he said, trying to muster a smile but managing only a kind of pained
grimace.
“Are you okay, Hagrid?” asked Harry, following him as he lumbered after the Ravenclaws.
“Fine, fine,” said Hagrid with a feeble assumption of airiness; he waved a hand and narrowly
missed concussing a frightened-looking Professor Vector, who was passing. “Jus’ busy, yeh
know, usual stuff lessons ter prepare - couple o’ salamanders got scale rot - an’ I’m on
probation,” he mumbled.
“You’re on probation?” said Ron very loudly, so that many of the passing students looked around curiously. “Sorry - I mean - you’re on probation?” he whispered.
“Yeah,” said Hagrid. “S’no more’n I expected, ter tell yeh the truth. Yeh migh’ not’ve picked up
on it, bu’ that inspection didn’ go too well, yeh know… anyway,” he sighed deeply. “Bes’ go an’
rub a bit more chilli powder on them salamanders or their tails’ll be hangin’ off ‘em next. See
yeh, Harry… Ron…”
He trudged away, out of the front doors and down the stone steps into the damp grounds. Harry
watched him go, wondering how much more bad news he could stand.
The fact that Hagrid was now on probation became common knowledge within the school over
the next few days, but to Harry’s indignation, hardly anybody appeared to be upset about it;
indeed, some people, Draco Malfoy prominent among them, seemed positively gleeful. As for
the freakish death of an obscure Department of Mysteries employee in St. Mungo’s, Harry, Ron
and Hermione seemed to be the only people who knew or cared. There was only one topic of
conversation in the corridors now: the ten escaped Death Eaters, whose story had finally filtered
through the school from those few people who read the newspapers. Rumors were flying that
some of the convicts had been spotted in Hogsmeade, that they were supposed to be hiding out in
the Shrieking Shack and that they were going to break into Hogwarts, just as Sirius Black had
once done.
Those who came from wizarding families had grown up hearing the names of these Death Eaters
spoken with almost as much fear as Voldemorts; the crimes they had committed during the days
of Voldemort’s reign of terror were legendary. There were relatives of their victims among the
Hogwarts students, who now found themselves the unwilling objects of a gruesome sort of
reflected fame as they walked the corridors: Susan Bones, whose uncle, aunt and cousins had all
died at the hands of one of the ten, said miserably during Herbology that she now had a good
idea what it felt like to be Harry.
“And I don’t know how you stand it - it’s horrible,” she said bluntly, dumping far too much
dragon manure on her tray of Screechsnap seedlings, causing them to wriggle and squeak in
discomfort.
It was true that Harry was the subject of much renewed muttering and pointing in the corridors
these days, yet he thought he detected a slight difference in the tone of the whisperers’ voices.
They sounded curious rather than hostile now, and once or twice he was sure he overheard
snatches of conversation that suggested that the speakers were not satisfied with the Prophets
version of how and why ten Death Eaters had managed to break out of the Azkaban fortress. In
their confusion and fear, these doubters now seemed to be turning to the only other explanation
available to them: the one that Harry and Dumbledore had been expounding since the previous
year.
It was not only the students’ mood that had changed. It was now quite common to come across
two or three teachers conversing in low, urgent whispers in the corridors, breaking off their
conversations the moment they saw students approaching.
“They obviously can’t talk freely in the staff room any more,” said Hermione in a low voice, as
she, Harry and Ron passed Professors McGonagall, Flitwick and Sprout huddled together outside
the Charms classroom one day. “Not with Umbridge there.”
“Reckon they know anything new?” said Ron, gazing back over his shoulder at the three teachers.
“If they do, we’re not going to hear about it, are we?” said Harry angrily. “Not after Decree…
what number are we on now?” For new notices had appeared on the house noticeboards the
morning after news of the Azkaban breakout:
BY ORDER OF THE HIGH INQUISITOROF HOGWARTS
Teachers are hereby banned from giving students any information that is not strictly related to the subjects they are paid to teach.
The above is in accordance with Educational Decree Number Twenty-six.
Signed: Dolores Jane Umbridge, High Inquisitor
This latest Decree had been the subject of a great number of jokes among the students. Lee
Jordan had pointed out to Umbridge that by the terms of the new rule she was not allowed to tell
Fred and George off for playing Exploding Snap in the back of the class.
“Exploding Snap’s got nothing to do with Defense Against the Dark Arts, Professor! That’s not
information relating to your subject!”
When Harry next saw Lee, the back of his hand was bleeding rather badly. Harry recommended
essence of Murtlap.
Harry had thought the breakout from Azkaban might have humbled Umbridge a little, that she
might have been abashed at the catastrophe that had occurred right under the nose of her beloved
Fudge. It seemed, however, to have only intensified her furious desire to bring every aspect of
life at Hogwarts under her personal control. She seemed determined at the very least to achieve a
sacking before long, and the only question was whether it would be Professor Trelawney or
Hagrid who went first.
Every single Divination and Care of Magical Creatures lesson was now conducted in the
presence of Umbridge and her clipboard. She lurked by the fire in the heavily perfumed tower
room, interrupting Professor Trelawney’s increasingly hysterical talks with difficult questions
about ornithomancy and heptomology, insisting that she predicted students’ answers before they
gave them and demanding that she demonstrate her skill at the crystal ball, the tea leaves and the
rune stones in turn. Harry thought Professor Trelawney might soon crack under the strain.
Several times he passed her in the corridors - in itself a very unusual occurrence as she generally
remained in her tower room - muttering wildly to herself, wringing her hands and shooting
terrified glances over her shoulder, and all the while giving off a powerful smell of cooking
sherry. If he had not been so worried about Hagrid, he would have felt sorry for her - but if one
of them was to be ousted from their job, there could be only one choice for Harry as to who
should remain.
Unfortunately, Harry could not see that Hagrid was putting up a better show than Trelawney.
Though he seemed to be following Hermione’s advice and had shown them nothing more
frightening than a Crup — a creature indistinguishable from a Jack Russell terrier except for its
forked tail - since before Christmas, he too seemed to have lost his nerve. He was oddly
distracted and jumpy during lessons, losing the thread of what he was saying to the class,
answering questions wrongly, and all the time glancing anxiously at Umbridge. He was also
more distant with Harry, Ron and Hermione than he had ever been before, and had expressly
forbidden them to visit him after dark.
“If she catches yeh, it’ll be all of our necks on the line,” he told them flatly, and with no desire to do anything that might jeoparize his job further they abstained from walking down to his hut in the evenings.
It seemed to Harry that Umbridge was steadily depriving him of everything that made his life at
Hogwarts worth living: visits to Hagrid’s house, letters from Sirius, his Firebolt and Quidditch.
He took his revenge the only way he could - by redoubling his efforts for the D.A..
Harry was pleased to see that all of them, even Zacharias Smith, had been spurred on to work
harder than ever by the news that ten more Death Eaters were now on the loose, but in nobody
was this improvement more pronounced than in Neville. The news of his parents’ attackers’
escape had wrought a strange and even slightly alarming change in him. He had not once
mentioned his meeting with Harry, Ron and Hermione on the closed ward in St. Mungo’s and,
taking their lead from him, they had kept quiet about it too. Nor had he said anything on the
subject of Bellatrix and her fellow torturers’ escape. In fact, Neville barely spoke during the D.A.
meetings any more, but worked relentlessly on every new jinx and counter-curse Harry taught
them, his plump face screwed up in concentration, apparently indifferent to injuries or accidents
and working harder than anyone else in the room. He was improving so fast it was quite
unnerving and when Harry taught them the Shield Charm - a means of deflecting minor jinxes so
that they rebounded upon the attacker - only Hermione mastered the charm faster than Neville.
Harry would have given a great deal to be making as much progress at Occlumency as Neville
was making during the D.A. meetings. Harry’s sessions with Snape, which had started badly
enough, were not improving. On the contrary Harry felt he was getting worse with every lesson.
Before he had started studying Occlumency, his scar had prickled occasionally, usually during
the night, or else following one of those strange flashes of Voldemort’s thoughts or mood that he
experienced every now and then. Nowadays, however, his scar hardly ever stopped prickling,
and he often felt lurches of annoyance or cheerfulness that were unrelated to what was happening
to him at the time, which were always accompanied by a particularly painful twinge from his
scar. He had the horrible impression that he was slowly turning into a kind of aerial that was
tuned in to tiny fluctuations in Voldemorts mood, and he was sure he could date this increased
sensitivity firmly from his first Occlumency lesson with Snape. What was more, he was now
dreaming about walking down the corridor towards the entrance to the Department of Mysteries
almost every night, dreams which always culminated in him standing longingly in front of the
plain black door.
“Maybe it’s a bit like an illness,” said Hermione, looking concerned when Harry confided in her
and Ron. “A fever or something. It has to get worse before it gets better.”
“The lessons with Snape are making it worse,” said Harry flatly. “I’m getting sick of my scar
hurting and I’m getting bored with walking down that corridor every night.” He rubbed his
forehead angrily. “I just wish the door would open, I’m sick of standing staring at it -”
“That’s not funny,” said Hermione sharply. “Dumbledore doesn’t want you to have dreams about
that corridor at all, or he wouldn’t have asked Snape to teach you Occlumency. You’re just going
to have to work a bit harder in your lessons.”
“I am working!” said Harry nettled. “You try it some time - Snape trying to get inside your head - it’s not a bundle of laughs, you know!”
“Maybe…” said Ron slowly.
“Maybe what?” said Hermione, rather snappishly.
“Maybe it’s not Harry’s fault he can’t close his mind,” said Ron darkly.
“What do you mean?” said Hermione.
“Well, maybe Snape isn’t really trying to help Harry…”
Harry and Hermione stared at him. Ron looked darkly and meaningfully from one to the other.
“Maybe,” he said again, in a lower voice, “he’s actually trying to open Harry’s mind a bit wider… make it easier for You-Know —”
“Shut up, Ron,” said Hermione angrily. “How many times have you suspected Snape, and when
have you ever been right? Dumbledore trusts him, he works for the Order, that ought to be
enough.”
“He used to be a Death Eater,” said Ron stubbornly. “And we’ve never seen proof that he really
swapped sides.”
“Dumbledore trusts him,” Hermione repeated. “And if we can’t trust Dumbledore, we can’t trust
anyone.”
With so much to worry about and so much to do - startling amounts of homework that frequently
kept the fifth-years working until past midnight, secret D.A. sessions and regular classes with
Snape - January seemed to be passing alarmingly fast. Before Harry knew it, February had
arrived, bringing with it wetter and warmer weather and the prospect of the second Hogsmeade
visit of the year. Harry had had very little time to spare for conversations with Cho since they
had agreed to visit the village together, but suddenly found himself facing a Valentine’s Day
spent entirely in her company.
On the morning of the fourteenth he dressed particularly carefully. He and Ron arrived at
breakfast just in time for the arrival of the post owls. Hedwig was not there - not that Harry had
expected her - but Hermione was tugging a letter from the beak of an unfamiliar brown owl as
they sat down.
“And about time! If it hadn’t come today…” she said, eagerly tearing open the envelope and
pulling out a small piece of parchment. Her eyes sped from left to right as she read through the
message and a grimly pleased expression spread across her face.
“Listen, Harry,” she said, looking up at him, “this is really important. Do you think you could
meet me in the Three Broomsticks around midday?”
“Well… I dunno,” said Harry uncertainly. “Cho might be expecting me to spend the whole day
with her. We never said what we were going to do.”
“Well, bring her along if you must,” said Hermione urgently. “But will you come?”
“Well… all right, but why?”
“I haven’t got time to tell you now, I’ve got to answer this quickly.”
And she hurried out of the Great Hall, the letter clutched in one hand and a piece of toast in the
other.
“Are you coming?” Harry asked Ron, but he shook his head, looking glum.
“I can’t come into Hogsmeade at all; Angelina wants a full day’s training. Like it’s going to help;
we’re the worst team I’ve ever seen. You should see Sloper and Kirke, they’re pathetic, even
worse than I am.” He heaved a great sigh. “I dunno why Angelina won’t just let me resign.”
“It’s because you’re good when you’re on form, that’s why,” said Harry irritably.
He found it very hard to be sympathetic to Ron’s plight, when he himself would have given
almost anything to be playing in the forthcoming match against Hufflepuff. Ron seemed to have
noticed Harrys tone, because he did not mention Quidditch again during breakfast, and there was
a slight frostiness in the way they said goodbye to each other shortly afterwards. Ron departed
for the Quidditch pitch and Harry, after attempting to flatten his hair while staring at his
reflection in the back of a teaspoon, proceeded alone to the Entrance Hall to meet Cho, feeling
very apprehensive and wondering what on earth they were going to talk about.
She was waiting for him a little to the side of the oak front doors, looking very pretty with her
hair tied back in a long pony-tail. Harry’s feet seemed to be too big for his body as he walked
towards her and he was suddenly horribly aware of his arms and how stupid they must look
swinging at his sides.
“Hi,” said Cho slightly breathlessly.
“Hi,” said Harry.
They stared at each other for a moment, then Harry said, “Well - er — shall we go, then?”
“Oh - yes…”
They joined the queue of people being signed out by Filch, occasionally catching each other’s
eye and grinning shiftily, but not talking to each other. Harry was relieved when they reached the
fresh air, finding it easier to walk along in silence than just stand about looking awkward. It was
a fresh, breezy sort of a day and as they passed the Quidditch stadium Harry glimpsed Ron and
Ginny skimming along over the stands and felt a horrible pang that he was not up there with
them.
“You really miss it, don’t you?” said Cho.
He looked round and saw her watching him.
“Yeah,” sighed Harry. “I do.”
“Remember the first time we played against each other, in the third year?” she asked him.
“Yeah,” said Harry, grinning. “You kept blocking me.”
“And Wood told you not to be a gentleman and knock me off my broom if you had to,” said Cho,
smiling reminiscently. “I heard he got taken on by Pride of Portree, is that right?”
“Nah, it was Puddlemere United; I saw him at the World Cup last year.”
“Oh, I saw you there, too, remember? We were on the same campsite. It was really good, wasn’t
it?”
The subject of the Quidditch World Cup carried them all the way down the drive and out through
the gates. Harry could hardly believe how easy it was to talk to her - no more difficult, in fact,
than talking to Ron and Hermione - and he was just starting to feel confident and cheerful when a
large gang of Slytherin girls passed them, including Pansy Parkinson.
“Potter and Chang!” screeched Pansy, to a chorus of snide giggles. “Urgh, Chang, I don’t think
much of your taste… at least Diggory was good-looking!”
The girls sped up, talking and shrieking in a pointed fashion with many exaggerated glances back
at Harry and Cho, leaving an embarrassed silence in their wake. Harry could think of nothing
else to say about Quidditch, and Cho, slightly flushed, was watching her feet.
“So… where d’you want to go?” Harry asked as they entered Hogsmeade. The High Street was
full of students ambling up and down, peering into the shop windows and messing about together
on the pavements.
“Oh… I don’t mind,” said Cho, shrugging. “Urn… shall we just have a look in the shops or
something?”
They wandered towards Dervish and Banges. A large poster had been stuck up in the window
and a few Hogsmeaders were looking at it. They moved aside when Harry and Cho approached
and Harry found himself staring once more at the pictures of the ten escaped Death Eaters. The
poster, By Order of the Ministry of Magic, offered a thousand-Galleon reward to any witch or
wizard with information leading to the recapture of any of the convicts pictured.
“It’s funny, isn’t it,” said Cho in a low voice, gazing up at the pictures of the Death Eaters,
“remember when that Sirius Black escaped, and there were Dementors all over Hogsmeade
looking for him? And now ten Death Eaters are on the loose and there are no Dementors
anywhere…”
“Yeah,” said Harry, tearing his eyes away from Bellatrix Lestrange’s face to glance up and down
the High Street. “Yeah, that is weird.”
He wasn’t sorry that there were no Dementors nearby, but now he came to think of it, their
absence was highly significant. They had not only let the Death Eaters escape, they weren’t
bothering to look for them… it looked as though they really were outside Ministry control now.
The ten escaped Death Eaters were staring out of every shop window he and Cho passed. It
started to rain as they passed Scrivenshaft’s; cold, heavy drops of water kept hitting Harry’s face
and the back of his neck.
“Um… d’you want to get a coffee?” said Cho tentatively, as the rain began to fall more heavily.
“Yeah, all right,” said Harry, looking around. “Where?”
“Oh, there’s a really nice place just up here; haven’t you ever been to Madam Puddifoot’s?” she
said brightly, leading him up a side road and into a small teashop that Harry had never noticed
before. It was a cramped, steamy little place where everything seemed to have been decorated
with frills or bows. Harry was reminded unpleasantly of Umbridge’s office.
“Cute, isn’t it?” said Cho happily.
“Er… yeah,” said Harry untruthfully.
“Look, she’s decorated it for Valentine’s Day!” said Cho, indicating a number of golden cherubs
that were hovering over each of the small, circular tables, occasionally throwing pink confetti
over the occupants.
“Aaah…”
They sat down at the last remaining table, which was over by the steamy window. Roger Davies,
the Ravenclaw Quidditch Captain was sitting about a foot and a half away with a pretty blonde
girl. They were holding hands. The sight made Harry feel uncomfortable, particularly when,
looking around the teashop, he saw that it was full of nothing but couples, all of them holding
hands. Perhaps Cho would expect him to hold her hand.
“What can I get you, m’dears?” said Madam Puddifoot, a very stout woman with a shiny black
bun, squeezing between their table and Roger Davies’s with great difficulty.
“Two coffees, please,” said Cho.
In the time it took for their coffees to arrive, Roger Davies and his girlfriend had started kissing
over their sugar bowl. Harry wished they wouldn’t; he felt that Davies was setting a standard
with which Cho would soon expect him to compete. He felt his face growing hot and tried
staring out of the window, but it was so steamed up he couldn’t see the street outside. To
postpone the moment when he would have to look at Cho, he stared up at the ceiling as though
examining the paintwork and received a handful of confetti in the face from their hovering
cherub.
After a few more painful minutes, Cho mentioned Umbridge. Harry seized on the subject with
relief and they passed a few happy moments abusing her, but the subject had already been so
thoroughly canvassed during D.A. meetings it did not last very long. Silence fell again. Harry wasvery conscious of the slurping noises coming from the table next door and cast wildly around forsomething else to say.
“Er… listen, d’you want to come with me to the Three Broomsticks at lunchtime? I’m meeting
Hermione Granger there.”
Cho raised her eyebrows.
“You’re meeting Hermione Granger? Today?”
“Yeah. Well, she asked me to, so I thought I would. D’you want to come with me? She said it
wouldn’t matter if you did.”
“Oh… well… that was nice of her.”
But Cho did not sound as though she thought it was nice at all. On the contrary, her tone was
cold and all of a sudden she looked rather forbidding.
A few more minutes passed in total silence, Harry drinking his coffee so fast that he would soon
need a fresh cup. Beside them, Roger Davies and his girlfriend seemed glued together at the lips.
Cho’s hand was lying on the table beside her coffee and Harry was feeling a mounting pressure
to take hold of it. Just do it, he told himself, as a fount of mingled panic and excitement surged
up inside his chest, just reach out and grab it. Amazing, how much more difficult it was to extend
his arm twelve inches and touch her hand than it was to snatch a speeding Snitch from midair…
But just as he moved his hand forwards, Cho took hers off the table. She was now watching
Roger Davies kissing his girlfriend with a mildly interested expression.
“He asked me out, you know,” she said in a quiet voice. “A couple of weeks ago. Roger. I turned
him down, though.”
Harry, who had grabbed the sugar bowl to excuse his sudden lunging movement across the table,
could not think why she was telling him this. If she wished she were sitting at the next table
being heartily kissed by Roger Davies, why had she agreed to come out with him?
He said nothing. Their cherub threw another handful of confetti over them; some of it landed in
the last cold dregs of coffee Harry had been about to drink.
“I came in here with Cedric last year,” said Cho.
In the second or so it took for him to take in what she had said, Harry’s insides had become
glacial. He could not believe she wanted to talk about Cedric now, while kissing couples
surrounded them and a cherub floated over their heads.
Cho’s voice was rather higher when she spoke again.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you for ages… did Cedric - did he - m - m - mention me at all before
he died?”
This was the very last subject on earth Harry wanted to discuss, and least of all with Cho.
“Well - no -” he said quietly. “There - there wasn’t time for him to say anything. Erm… so…
d’you… d’you get to see a lot of Quidditch in the holidays? You support the Tornados, right?”
His voice sounded falsely bright and cheery. To his horror, he saw that her eyes were swimming
with tears again, just as they had been after the last D.A. meeting before Christmas.
“Look,” he said desperately, leaning in so that nob ody else could overhear, “let’s not talk about
Cedric right now… let’s talk about something else.”
But this, apparently, was quite the wrong thing to say.
“I thought,” she said, tears spattering down on to the table, “I thought you’d u - u - understand!
I need to talk about it! Surely you n - need to talk about it t - too! I mean, you saw it happen, d -
didn’t you?”
Everything was going nightmarishly wrong; Roger Davies’s girlfriend had even unglued herself
to look round at Cho crying.
“Well - I have talked about it,” Harry said in a whisper, “to Ron and Hermione, but -”
“Oh, you’ll talk to Hermione Granger!” she said shrilly, her face now shining with tears. Several
more kissing couples broke apart to stare. “But you won’t talk to me! P - perhaps it would be best if we just… just p - paid and you went and met up with Hermione G - Granger, like you
obviously want to!”
Harry stared at her, utterly bewildered, as she seized a frilly napkin and dabbed at her shining
face with it.
“Cho?” he said weakly, wishing Roger would seize his girlfriend and start kissing her again to
stop her goggling at him and Cho.
“Go on, leave!” she said, now crying into the napkin. “I don’t know why you asked me out in the
first place if you’re going to make arrangements to meet other girls right after me… how many
are you meeting after Hermione?”
“It’s not like that!” said Harry, and he was so relieved at finally understanding what she was
annoyed about that he laughed, which he realized a split second too late was also a mistake.
Cho sprang to her feet. The whole tearoom was quiet and everybody was watching them now.
“I’ll see you around, Harry” she said dramatically, and hiccoughing slightly she dashed to the
door, wrenched it open and hurried off into the pouring rain.
“Cho!” Harry called after her, but the door had already swung shut behind her with a tuneful
tinkle.
There was total silence within the teashop. Every eye was on Harry. He threw a Galleon down on
to the table, shook pink confetti out of his hair, and followed Cho out of the door.
It was raining hard now and she was nowhere to be seen. He simply did not understand what had
happened; half an hour ago they had been getting along fine.
“Women!” he muttered angrily, sloshing down the rain-washed street with his hands in his
pockets. “What did she want to talk about Cedric for, anyway? Why does she always want to
drag up a subject that makes her act like a human hosepipe?”
He turned right and broke into a splashy run, and within minutes he was turning into the doorway
of the Three Broomsticks. He knew he was too early to meet Hermione, but he thought it likely
there would be someone in here with whom he could spend the intervening time. He shook his
wet hair out of his eyes and looked around. Hagrid was sitting alone in a corner, looking morose.
“Hi, Hagrid!” he said, when he had squeezed through the crammed tables and pulled up a chair
beside him.
Hagrid jumped and looked down at Harry as though he barely recognized him. Harry saw that he
had two fresh cuts on his face and several new bruises.
“Oh, it’s yeh, Harry,” said Hagrid. “Yeh all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” lied Harry; but, next to this battered and mournful-looking Hagrid, he felt he
didn’t really have much to complain about. “Er - are you okay?”
“Me?” said Hagrid. “Oh yeah, I’m grand, Harry, grand.”
He gazed into the depths of his pewter tankard, which was the size of a large bucket, and sighed.
Harry didn’t know what to say to him. They sat side by side in silence for a moment. Then
Hagrid said abruptly, “In the same boat, yeh an’ me, aren’ we, ‘Arry?”
“Er -” said Harry.
“Yeah… I’ve said it before… both outsiders, like,” said Hagrid, nodding wisely. “An’ both
orphans. Yeah… both orphans.”
He took a great swig from his tankard.
“Makes a diff’rence, havin’ a decent family,” he said. “Me dad was decent. An’ your mum an’
dad were decent. If they’d lived, life woulda bin diff’rent, eh?”
“Yeah… I s’pose,” said Harry cautiously. Hagrid seemed to be in a very strange mood.
“Family,” said Hagrid gloomily. “Whatever yeh say, blood’s important…”
And he wiped a trickle of it out of his eye.
“Hagrid,” said Harry, unable to stop himself, “where are you getting all these injuries?”
“Eh?” said Hagrid, looking startled. “Wha’ injuries?”
“All those!” said Harry, pointing at Hagrid’s face.
“Oh… tha’s jus’ normal bumps an’ bruises, Harry,” said Hagrid dismissively, “I got a rough job.”
He drained his tankard, set it back on the table and got to his feet.
“I’ll be seein’ yeh, Harry… take care now.”
And he lumbered out of the pub looking wretched, and disappeared into the torrential rain. Harry
watched him go, feeling miserable. Hagrid was unhappy and he was hiding something, but he
seemed determined not to accept help. What was going on? But before Harry could think about it
any further, he heard a voice calling his name.
“Harry! Harry, over here!”
Hermione was waving at him from the other side of the room. He got up and made his way
towards her through the crowded pub. He was still a few tables away when he realized that
Hermione was not alone. She was sitting at a table with the unlikeliest pair of drinking mates he
could ever have imagined: Luna Lovegood and none other than Rita Skeeter, ex-journalist on
the Daily Prophet and one of Hermione’s least favorite people in the world.
“You’re early!” said Hermione, moving along to give him room to sit down. “I thought you were
with Cho, I wasn’t expecting you for another hour at least!”
“Cho?” said Rita at once, twisting round in her seat to stare avidly at Harry. “A girl?”
She snatched up her crocodile-skin handbag and groped within it.
“It’s none of your business if Harry’s been with a h undred girls,” Hermione told Rita coolly. “So you can put that away right now.”
Rita had been on the point of withdrawing an acid-green quill from her bag. Looking as though
she had been forced to swallow Stinksap, she snapped her bag shut again.
“What are you up to?” Harry asked, sitting down and staring from Rita to Luna to Hermione.
“Little Miss Perfect was just about to tell me when you arrived,” said Rita, taking a large slurp of
her drink. “I suppose I’m allowed to talk to him, am I?” she shot at Hermione.
“Yes, I suppose you are,” said Hermione coldly.
Unemployment did not suit Rita. The hair that had once been set in elaborate curls now hung
lank and unkempt around her face. The scarlet paint on her two-inch talons was chipped and
there were a couple of false jewels missing from her winged glasses. She took another great gulp
of her drink and said out of the corner of her mouth, “Pretty girl, is she, Harry?”
“One more word about Harry’s love life and the deal’s off and that’s a promise,” said Hermione
irritably.
“What deal?” said Rita, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. “You haven’t mentioned a
deal yet, Miss Prissy, you just told me to turn up. Oh, one of these days…” She took a deep
shuddering breath.
“Yes, yes, one of these days you’ll write more horrible stories about Harry and me,” said
Hermione indifferently. “Find someone who cares, why don’t you?”
“They’ve run plenty of horrible stories about Harry this year without my help,” said Rita,
shooting a sideways look at him over the top of her glass and adding in a rough whisper, “How
has that made you feel, Harry? Betrayed? Distraught? Misunderstood?”
“He feels angry, of course,” said Hermione in a hard, clear voice. “Because he’s told the Minister
for Magic the truth and the Minister’s too much of an idiot to believe him.”
“So you actually stick to it, do you, that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is back?” said Rita,
lowering her glass and subjecting Harry to a piercing stare while her finger strayed longingly to
the clasp of the crocodile bag. “You stand by all this garbage Dumbledore’s been telling
everybody about You-Know-Who returning and you being the sole witness?”
“I wasn’t the sole witness,” snarled Harry. “There were a dozen-odd Death Eaters there as well.
Want their names?”
“I’d love them,” breathed Rita, now fumbling in her bag once more and gazing at him as though
he was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. “A great bold headline: ‘PotterAccuses… ’ A
sub-heading, ‘Harry Potter Names Death Eaters Still Among Us’. And then, beneath a nice big
photograph of you, ‘Disturbed teenage survivor of You-Know-Who’sattack, Harry Potter, 15,
caused outrage yesterday by accusing respectable and prominent members of the wizarding
community of being Death Eaters… ’”
The Quick-Quotes Quill was actually in her hand and halfway to her mouth when the rapturous
expression on her face died.
“But of course,” she said, lowering the quill and looking daggers at Hermione, “Little Miss
Perfect wouldn’t want that story out there, would she?”
“As a matter of fact,” said Hermione sweetly, “that’s exactly what Little Miss Perfect does want.”
Rita stared at her. So did Harry. Luna, on the other hand, sang Weasley is our King dreamily
under her breath and stirred her drink with a cocktail onion on a stick.
“You want me to report what he says about He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?”Rita asked Hermione in a hushed voice.
“Yes, I do,” said Hermione. “The true story. All the facts. Exactly as Harry reports them. He’ll
give you all the details, he’ll tell you the names of the undiscovered Death Eaters he saw there,
he’ll tell you what Voldemort looks like now - oh, get a grip on yourself,” she added
contemptuously, throwing a napkin across the table, for, at the sound of Voldemort’s name, Rita
had jumped so badly she had slopped half her glass of Firewhisky down herself.
Rita blotted the front of her grubby raincoat, still staring at Hermione. Then she said baldly,
“The Prophet wouldn’t print it. In case you haven’t noticed, nobody believes his cock-and-bull
story. Everyone thinks he’s delusional. Now, if you let me write the story from that angle -”
“We don’t need another story about how Harry’s lost his marbles!” said Hermione angrily.
“We’ve had plenty of those already, thank you! I want him given the opportunity to tell the truth!”
“There’s no market for a story like that,” said Rita coldly.
“You mean the Prophet won’t print it because Fudge won’t let them,” said Hermione irritably.
Rita gave Hermione a long, hard look. Then, leaning forwards across the table towards her, she
said in a businesslike tone, “All right, Fudge is leaning on the Prophet, but it comes to the same
thing. They won’t print a story that shows Harry in a good light. Nobody wants to read it. It’s
against the public mood. This last Azkaban breakout has got people quite worried enough.
People just don’t want to believe You-Know-Whos back.”
“So the Daily Prophet exists to tell people what they want to hear, does it?” said Hermione
scathingly.
Rita sat up straight again, her eyebrows raised, and drained her glass of Firewhisky.
“The Prophet exists to sell itself, you silly girl,” she said coldly.
“My dad thinks it’s an awful paper,” said Luna, chipping into the conversation unexpectedly.
Sucking on her cocktail onion, she gazed at Rita with her enormous, protuberant, slightly mad
eyes. “He publishes important stories he thinks the public needs to know. He doesn’t care about
making money.”
Rita looked disparagingly at Luna.
“I’m guessing your father runs some stupid little village newsletter?” she said. “Probably, Twenty- Five Ways to Mingle With Muggles and the dates of the next Bring and Fly Sale?”
“No,” said Luna, dipping her onion back into her Gillywater, “he’s the editor of The Quibbler.”
Rita snorted so loudly that people at a nearby table looked round in alarm.
“‘Important stories he thinks the public needs to know’, eh? “ she said witheringly. “I could manure my garden with the contents of that rag.”
“Well, this is your chance to raise the tone of it a bit, isn’t it?” said Hermione pleasantly. “Luna
says her father’s quite happy to take Harry’s interview. That’s who’ll be publishing it.”
Rita stared at them both for a moment, then let out a great whoop of laughter.
“The Quibbler!” she said, cackling. “You think people will take him seriously if he’s published
in The Quibbler!”
“Some people won’t,” said Hermione in a level voice. “But the Daily Prophet’s version of the
Azkaban breakout had some gaping holes in it. I think a lot of people will be wondering whether
there isn’t a better explanation of what happened, and if there’s an alternative story available,
even if it is published in a -” she glanced sideways at Luna, “in a - well, an unusual magazine - I
think they might be rather keen to read it.”
Rita didn’t say anything for a while, but eyed Hermione shrewdly, her head a little to one side.
“All right, let’s say for a moment I’ll do it,” she said abruptly. “What kind of fee am I going to
get?”
“I don’t think Daddy exactly pays people to write f or the magazine,” said Luna dreamily. “They
do it because it’s an honor and, of course, to see their names in print.”
Rita Skeeter looked as though the taste of Stinksap was strong in her mouth again as she rounded
on Hermione.
“I’m supposed to do this for free?”
“Well, yes,” said Hermione calmly, taking a sip of her drink. “Otherwise, as you very well know,
I will inform the authorities that you are an unregistered Animagus. Of course, the Prophet might
give you rather a lot for an insider’s account of life in Azkaban.”
Rita looked as though she would have liked nothing better than to seize the paper umbrella
sticking out of Hermione’s drink and thrust it up her nose.
“I don’t suppose I’ve got any choice, have I?” said Rita, her voice shaking slightly. She opened
her crocodile bag once more, withdrew a piece of parchment, and raised her Quick-Quotes Quill.
“Daddy will be pleased,” said Luna brightly. A muscle twitched in Rita’s jaw.
“Okay, Harry?” said Hermione, turning to him. “Ready to tell the public the truth?”
“I suppose,” said Harry, watching Rita balancing the Quick-Quotes Quill at the ready on the
parchment between them.
“Fire away, then, Rita,” said Hermione serenely, fishing a cherry out from the bottom of her
glass.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Seen and Unforeseen
Luna said vaguely that she did not know how soon Rita’s interview with Harry would appear
in The Quibbler, that her father was expecting a “‘lovely long article on recent sightings of
Crumple-Horned Snorkacks,’”- “and of course, that’ll be a very important story, so Harrys might
have to wait for the following issue,” said Luna.
Harry had not found it an easy experience to talk about the night when Voldemort had returned.
Rita had pressed him for every little detail and he had given her everything he could remember,
knowing that this was his one big opportunity to tell the world the truth. He wondered how
people would react to the story. He guessed that it would confirm a lot of people in the view that
he was completely insane, not least because his story would be appearing alongside utter rubbish
about Crumple-Horned Snorkacks. But the breakout of Bellatrix Lestrange and her fellow Death
Eaters had given Harry a burning desire to dosomething, whether or not it worked…
“Can’t wait to see what Umbridge thinks of you going public,” said Dean, sounding awestruck at
dinner on Monday night. Seamus was shoveling down large amounts of chicken and ham pie on
Dean’s other side, but Harry knew he was listening.
“It’s the right thing to do, Harry,” said Neville, who was sitting opposite him. He was rather pale, but went on in a low voice, “It must have been… tough… talking about it… was it?”
“Yeah,” mumbled Harry, “but people have got to know what Voldemorts capable of, haven’t
they?”
“That’s right,” said Neville, nodding, “and his Death Eaters, too… people should know…”
Neville left his sentence hanging and returned to his baked potato. Seamus looked up, but when
he caught Harrys eye he looked quickly back at his plate again. After a while, Dean, Seamus and
Neville departed for the common room, leaving Harry and Hermione at the table waiting for
Ron, who had not yet had dinner because of Quidditch practice.
Cho Chang walked into the Hall with her friend Marietta. Harry’s stomach gave an unpleasant
lurch, but she did not look over at the Gryffindor table, and sat down with her back to him.
“Oh, I forgot to ask you,” said Hermione brightly, glancing over at the Ravenclaw table, “what
happened on your date with Cho? How come you were back so early?”
“Er… well, it was…” said Harry, pulling a dish of rhubarb crumble towards him and helping
himself to seconds, “a complete fiasco, now you mention it.”
And he told her what had happened in Madam Puddifoot’s teashop.
“… so then,” he finished several minutes later, as the final bit of crumble disappeared, “she jumps up, right, and says, ‘I’ll see you around, Harry,’ an d runs out of the place!” He put down his spoon and looked at Hermione. “I mean, what was all that about? What was going on?”
Hermione glanced over at the back of Cho’s head and sighed.
“Oh, Harry” she said sadly. “Well, I’m sorry, but you were a bit tactless.”
“Me, tactless?” said Harry, outraged. “One minute we were getting on fine, next minute she was
telling me that Roger Davies asked her out and how she used to go and snog Cedric in that stupid
teashop - how was I supposed to feel about that?”
“Well, you see,” said Hermione, with the patient air of someone explaining that one plus one
equals two to an over-emotional toddler, “you shouldn’t have told her that you wanted to meet
me halfway through your date.”
“But, but,” spluttered Harry, “but - you told me to meet you at twelve and to bring her along, how was I supposed to do that without telling her?”
“You should have told her differently,” said Hermione, still with that maddeningly patient air.
“You should have said it was really annoying, but I’d made you promise to come along to the
Three Broomsticks, and you really didn’t want to go, you’d much rather spend the whole day
with her, but unfortunately you thought you really ought to meet me and would she please,
please come along with you and hopefully you’d be able to get away more quickly. And it might
have been a good idea to mention how ugly you think I am, too,” Hermione added as an
afterthought.
“But I don’t think you’re ugly,” said Harry, bemused.
Hermione laughed.
“Harry you’re worse than Ron… well, no, you’re not, “ she sighed, as Ron himself came
stumping into the Hall splattered with mud and looking grumpy. “Look - you upset Cho when
you said you were going to meet me, so she tried to make you jealous. It was her way of trying to
find out how much you liked her.”
“Is that what she was doing?” said Harry, as Ron dropped on to the bench opposite them and
pulled every dish within reach towards him. “Well, wouldn’t it have been easier if she’d just
asked me whether I liked her better than you?”
“Girls don’t often ask questions like that,” said Hermione.
“Well, they should!” said Harry forcefully. “Then I could’ve just told her I fancy her, and she
wouldn’t have had to get herself all worked up again about Cedric dying!”
“I’m not saying what she did was sensible,” said Hermione, as Ginny joined them, just as muddy as Ron and looking equally disgruntled. “I’m just trying to make you see how she was feeling at the time.”
“You should write a book,” Ron told Hermione as he cut up his potatoes, “translating mad things
girls do so boys can understand them.”
“Yeah,” said Harry fervently, looking over at the Ravenclaw table. Cho had just got up, and, still
not looking at him, she left the Great Hall. Feeling rather depressed, he looked back at Ron and
Ginny. “So, how was Quidditch practice?”
“It was a nightmare,” said Ron in a surly voice.
“Oh come on,” said Hermione, looking at Ginny, “I’m sure it wasn’t that -”
“Yes, it was,” said Ginny. “It was appalling. Angelina was nearly in tears by the end of it.”
Ron and Ginny went off for baths after dinner; Harry and Hermione returned to the busy
Gryffindor common room and their usual pile of homework. Harry had been struggling with a
new star-chart for Astronomy for half an hour when Fred and George turned up.
“Ron and Ginny not here?” asked Fred, looking around as he pulled up a chair, and when Harry
shook his head, he said, “Good. We were watching their practice. They’re going to be
slaughtered. They’re complete rubbish without us.”
“Come on, Ginny’s not bad,” said George fairly, sitting down next to Fred. “Actually, I dunno
how she got so good, seeing how we never let her play with us.”
“She’s been breaking into your broom shed in the garden since the age of six and taking each of
your brooms out in turn when you weren’t looking,” said Hermione from behind her tottering
pile of Ancient Rune books.
“Oh,” said George, looking mildly impressed. “Well - that’d explain it.”
“Has Ron saved a goal yet?” asked Hermione, peering over the top of Magical Hieroglyphs and
Logograms.
“Well, he can do it if he doesn’t think anyone’s watching him,” said Fred, rolling his eyes. “So all we have to do is ask the crowd to turn their backs and talk among themselves every time the
Quaffle goes up his end on Saturday.”
He got up again and moved restlessly to the window, staring out across the dark grounds.
“You know, Quidditch was about the only thing in this place worth staying for.”
Hermione cast him a stern look.
“You’ve got exams coming!”
“Told you already, we’re not fussed about NEWTs,” said Fred. “The Snackboxes are ready to
roll, we found out how to get rid of those boils, just a couple of drops of Murtlap essence sorts
them, Lee put us on to it.”
George yawned widely and looked out disconsolately at the cloudy night sky.
“I dunno if I even want to watch this match. If Zacharias Smith beats us I might have to kill
myself.”
“Kill him, more like,” said Fred firmly.
“That’s the trouble with Quidditch,” said Hermione absent-mindedly, once again bent over her
Runes translation, “it creates all this bad feeling and tension between the houses.”
She looked up to find her copy of Spellman’s Syllabary, and caught Fred, George and Harry all
staring at her with expressions of mingled disgust and incredulity on their faces.
“Well, it does!” she said impatiently. “It’s only a game, isn’t it?”
“Hermione,” said Harry, shaking his head, “you’re good on feelings and stuff, but you just don’t
understand about Quidditch.”
“Maybe not,” she said darkly, returning to her translation, “but at least my happiness doesn’t
depend on Ron’s goalkeeping ability.”
And though Harry would rather have jumped off the Astronomy Tower than admit it to her, by
the time he had watched the game the following Saturday he would have given any number of
Galleons not to care about Quidditch either.
The very best thing you could say about the match was that it was short; the Gryffindor
spectators had to endure only twenty-two minutes of agony. It was hard to say what the worst
thing was: Harry thought it was a close-run contest between Ron’s fourteenth failed save, Sloper
missing the Bludger but hitting Angelina in the mouth with his bat, and Kirke shrieking and
falling backwards off his broom when Zacharias Smith zoomed at him carrying the Quaffle. The
miracle was that Gryffindor only lost by ten points: Ginny managed to snatch the Snitch from
right under Hufflepuff Seeker Summerby’s nose, so that the final score was two hundred and
forty versus two hundred and thirty.
“Good catch,” Harry told Ginny back in the common room, where the atmosphere resembled that
of a particularly dismal funeral.
“I was lucky,” she shrugged. “It wasn’t a very fast Snitch and Summerby’s got a cold, he sneezed and closed his eyes at exactly the wrong moment. Anyway, once you’re back on the team -”
“Ginny, I’ve got a lifelong ban.”
“You’re banned as long as Umbridge is in the school,” Ginny corrected him. “There’s a difference. Anyway, once you’re back, I think I’ll try out for Chaser. Angelina and Alicia are both leaving next year and I prefer goal-scoring to Seeking anyway.”
Harry looked over at Ron, who was hunched in a corner, staring at his knees, a bottle of
Butterbeer clutched in his hand.
“Angelina still won’t let him resign,” Ginny said, as though reading Harry’s mind. “She says she
knows he’s got it in him.”
Harry liked Angelina for the faith she was showing in Ron, but at the same time thought it would
really be kinder to let him leave the team. Ron had left the pitch to another booming chorus of
Weasley is our King sung with great gusto by the Slytherins, who were now favorites to win
the Quidditch Cup.
Fred and George wandered over.
“I haven’t even got the heart to take the mickey out of him,” said Fred, looking over at Ron’s
crumpled figure. “Mind you… when he missed the fourteenth -”
He made wild motions with his arms as though doing an upright doggy-paddle.
“- well, I’ll save it for parties, eh?”
Ron dragged himself up to bed shortly after this. Out of respect for his feelings, Harry waited a
while before going up to the dormitory himself, so that Ron could pretend to be asleep if he
wanted to. Sure enough, when Harry finally entered the room Ron was snoring a little too loudly
to be entirely plausible.
Harry got into bed, thinking about the match. It had been immensely frustrating watching from
the sidelines. He was quite impressed by Ginny’s performance but he knew if he had been
playing he could have caught the Snitch sooner… there had been a moment when it had been
fluttering near Kirke’s ankle; if Ginny hadn’t hesitated, she might have been able to scrape a win
for Gryffindor.
Umbridge had been sitting a few rows below Harry and Hermione. Once or twice she had turned
squatly in her seat to look at him, her wide toad’s mouth stretched in what he thought had been a
gloating smile. The memory of it made him feel hot with anger as he lay there in the dark. After
a few minutes, however, he remembered that he was supposed to be emptying his mind of all
emotion before he slept, as Snape kept instructing him at the end of every Occlumency lesson.
He tried for a moment or two, but the thought of Snape on top of memories of Umbridge merely
increased his sense of grumbling resentment and he found himself focusing instead on how much
he loathed the pair of them. Slowly, Ron’s snores died away, to be replaced by the sound of
deep, slow breathing. It took Harry much longer to get to sleep; his body was tired, but it took his
brain a long time to close down.
He dreamed that Neville and Professor Sprout were waltzing around the Room of Requirement
while Professor McGonagall played the bagpipes. He watched them happily for a while, then
decided to go and find the other members of the D.A..
But when he left the room he found himself facing, not the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy, but a
torch burning in its bracket on a stone wall. He turned his head slowly to the left. There, at the
far end of the windowless passage, was a plain, black door.
He walked towards it with a sense of mounting excitement. He had the strangest feeling that this
time he was going to get lucky at last, and find the way to open it… he was feet from it, and saw
with a leap of excitement that there was a glowing strip of faint blue light down the right-hand
side… the door was ajar… he stretched out his hand to push it wide and -
Ron gave a loud, rasping, genuine snore and Harry awoke abruptly with his right hand stretched
in front of him in the darkness, to open a door that was hundreds of miles away. He let it fall
with a feeling of mingled disappointment and guilt. He knew he should not have seen the door,
but at the same time felt so consumed with curiosity about what was behind it that he could not
help feeling annoyed with Ron… if only he could have saved his snore for just another minute.
They entered the Great Hall for breakfast at exactly the same moment as the post owls on
Monday morning. Hermione was not the only person eagerly awaiting her Daily Prophet: nearly
everyone was eager for more news about the escaped Death Eaters, who, despite many reported
sightings, had still not been caught. She gave the delivery owl a Knut and unfolded the
newspaper eagerly while Harry helped himself to orange juice; as he had only received one note
during the entire year, he was sure, when the first owl landed with a thud in front of him, that it
had made a mistake.
“Who’re you after?” he asked it, languidly removing his orange juice from underneath its beak
and leaning forwards to see the recipient’s name and address:
Harry Potter, Great Hall, Hogwarts School
Frowning, he made to take the letter from the owl, but before he could do so, three, four, five
more owls had fluttered down beside it and were jockeying for position, treading in the butter
and knocking over the salt as each one attempted to give him their letter first.
“What’s going on?” Ron asked in amazement, as the whole of Gryffindor table leaned forwards
to watch and another seven owls landed amongst the first ones, screeching, hooting and flapping
their wings.
“Harry!” said Hermione breathlessly, plunging her hands into the feathery mass and pulling out a
screech owl bearing a long, cylindrical package. “I think I know what this means - open this one
first!”
Harry ripped off the brown packaging. Out rolled a tightly furled copy of the March edition
of The Quibbler. He unrolled it to see his own face grinning sheepishly at him from the front
cover. In large red letters across this picture were the words:
SPEAKS OUT AT LAST: THE TRUTH ABOUT HE-WHO-MUST-NOT-BE-NAMED AND
THE NIGHT I SAW HIM RETURN
“It’s good, isn’t it?” said Luna, who had drifted o ver to the Gryffindor table and now squeezed
herself on to the bench between Fred and Ron. “It came out yesterday, I asked Dad to send you a
free copy. I expect all these,” she waved a hand at the assembled owls still scrabbling around on
the table in front of Harry, “are letters from readers.”
“That’s what I thought,” said Hermione eagerly. “Harry, d’you mind if we -?”
“Help yourself,” said Harry, feeling slightly bemused.
Ron and Hermione both started ripping open envelopes.
“This one’s from a bloke who thinks you’re off your rocker,” said Ron, glancing down his letter.
“Ah well…”
“This woman recommends you try a good course of Shock Spells at St. Mungo’s,” said Hermione, looking disappointed and crumpling up a second.
“This one looks okay, though,” said Harry slowly, scanning a long letter from a witch in Paisley.
“Hey, she says she believes me!”
“This one’s in two minds,” said Fred, who had joined in the letter-opening with enthusiasm.
“Says you don’t come across as a mad person, but he really doesn’t want to believe You-Know-
Who’s back so he doesn’t know what to think now. Blimey, what a waste of parchment.”
“Here’s another one you’ve convinced, Harry!” said Hermione excitedly. “Having read your side
of the story, I am forced to the conclusion that the Daily Prophet has treated you very unfairly…
little though I want to think that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has returned, I am forced to accept that you are telling the truth… Oh, this is wonderful!”
“Another one who thinks you’re barking,” said Ron, throwing a crumpled letter over his shoulder
“… but this one says you’ve got her converted and she now thinks you’re a real hero - she’s put
in a photograph, too - wow!”
“What is going on here?” said a falsely sweet, girlish voice.
Harry looked up with his hands full of envelopes. Professor Umbridge was standing behind Fred
and Luna, her bulging toad’s eyes scanning the mess of owls and letters on the table in front of
Harry. Behind her he saw many of the students watching them avidly.
“Why have you got all these letters, Mr. Potter?” she asked slowly.
“Is that a crime now?” said Fred loudly. “Getting mail?”
“Be careful, Mr. Weasley, or I shall have to put you in detention,” said Umbridge. “Well, Mr.
Potter?”
Harry hesitated, but he did not see how he could keep what he had done quiet; it was surely only
a matter of time before a copy of The Quibbler came to Umbridges attention.
“People have written to me because I gave an interview,” said Harry. “About what happened to
me last June.”
For some reason he glanced up at the staff table as he said this. Harry had the strangest feeling
that Dumbledore had been watching him a second before, but when he looked towards the
Headmaster he seemed to be absorbed in conversation with Professor Flitwick.
“An interview?” repeated Umbridge, her voice thinner and higher than ever. “What do you
mean?”
“I mean a reporter asked me questions and I answered them,” said Harry. “Here -”
And he threw the copy of The Quibbler to her. She caught it and stared down at the cover. Her
pale, doughy face turned an ugly, patchy violet.
“When did you do this?” she asked, her voice trembling slightly.
“Last Hogsmeade weekend,” said Harry.
She looked up at him, incandescent with rage, the magazine shaking in her stubby fingers.
“There will be no more Hogsmeade trips for you, Mr. Potter,” she whispered. “How you dare…
how you could…” She took a deep breath. “I have tried again and again to teach you not to tell
lies. The message, apparently, has still not sunk in. Fifty points from Gryffindor and another
week’s worth of detentions.”
She stalked away, clutching The Quibbler to her chest, the eyes of many students following her.
By mid-morning enormous signs had been put up all over the school, not just on house
noticeboards, but in the corridors and classrooms too.
BY ORDER OF THE HIGH INQUISITOR OF HOGWARTS
Any student found in possession of the magazine The Quibbler will be expelled.
The above is in accordance with Educational Decree Number Twenty-seven.
Signed: Dolores Jane Umbridge, High Inquisitor
For some reason, every time Hermione caught sight of one of these signs she beamed with
pleasure.
“What exactly are you so happy about?” Harry asked her.
“Oh, Harry, don’t you see?” Hermione breathed. “If she could have done one thing to make
absolutely sure that every single person in this school will read your interview, it was banning
it!”
And it seemed that Hermione was quite right. By the end of the day, though Harry had not seen
so much as a corner of The Quibbler anywhere in the school, the whole place seemed to be
quoting the interview to each other. Harry heard them whispering about it as they queued up
outside classes, discussing it over lunch and in the back of lessons, while Hermione even
reported that every occupant of the cubicles in the girls’ toilets had been talking about it when
she nipped in there before Ancient Runes. “Then they spotted me, and obviously they know I
know you, so they bombarded me with questions,” Hermione told Harry, her eyes shining, “and
Harry, I think they believe you, I really do, I think you’ve finally got them convinced!”
Meanwhile, Professor Umbridge was stalking the school, stopping students at random and
demanding that they turn out their books and pockets: Harry knew she was looking for copies
of The Quibbler, but the students were several steps ahead of her. The pages carrying Harrys
interview had been bewitched to resemble extracts from textbooks if anyone but themselves read
it, or else wiped magically blank until they wanted to peruse it again. Soon it seemed that every
single person in the school had read it.
The teachers were of course forbidden from mentioning the interview by Educational Decree
Number Twenty-six, but they found ways to express their feelings about it all the same.
Professor Sprout awarded Gryffindor twenty points when Harry passed her a watering can; a
beaming Professor Flitwick pressed a box of squeaking sugar mice on him at the end of Charms,
said, “Shh!” and hurried away; and Professor Trelawney broke into hysterical sobs during
Divination and announced to the startled class, and a very disapproving Umbridge, that Harry
was not going to suffer an early death after all, but would live to a ripe old age, become Minister
for Magic and have twelve children.
But what made Harry happiest was Cho catching up with him as he was hurrying along to
Transfiguration the next day. Before he knew what had happened, her hand was in his and she
was breathing in his ear, “I’m really, really sorry. That interview was so brave… it made me cry.”
He was sorry to hear she had shed even more tears over it, but very glad they were on speaking
terms again, and even more pleased when she gave him a swift kiss on the cheek and hurried off
again. And unbelievably, no sooner had he arrived outside Transfiguration than something just as
good happened: Seamus stepped out of the queue to face him.
“I just wanted to say,” he mumbled, squinting at Harry’s left knee, “I believe you. And I’ve sent a copy of that magazine to me mam.”
If anything more was needed to complete Harry’s happiness, it was the reaction he got from
Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle. He saw them with their heads together later that afternoon in the
library; they were with a weedy-looking boy Hermione whispered was called Theodore Nott.
They looked round at Harry as he browsed the shelves for the book he needed on Partial
Vanishment: Goyle cracked his knuckles threateningly and Malfoy whispered something
undoubtedly malevolent to Crabbe. Harry knew perfectly well why they were acting like this: he
had named all of their fathers as Death Eaters.
“And the best bit,” whispered Hermione gleefully, as they left the library, “is they can’t contradict you, because they can’t admit they’ve read the article!”
To cap it all, Luna told him over dinner that no issue of The Quibbler had ever sold out faster.
“Dad’s reprinting!” she told Harry, her eyes popping excitedly. “He can’t believe it, he says
people seem even more interested in this than the Crumple-Horned Snorkacks!”
Harry was a hero in the Gryffindor common room that night. Daringly, Fred and George had put
an Enlargement Charm on the front cover of The Quibbler and hung it on the wall, so that Harry’s giant head gazed down upon the proceedings, occasionally saying things like ‘THE MINISTRY ARE MORONS’ and ‘EAT DUNG, UMBRIDGE’ in a booming voice. Hermione did not find this very amusing; she said it interfered with her concentration, and she ended up going to bed early out of irritation. Harry had to admit that the poster was not quite as funny after an hour or two, especially when the talking spell had started to wear off, so that it merely shouted
disconnected words like ‘DUNG’ and ‘UMBRIDGE’ at more and more frequent intervals in a
progressively higher voice. In fact, it started to make his head ache and his scar began prickling
uncomfortably again. To disappointed moans from the many people who were sitting around
him, asking him to relive his interview for the umpteenth time, he announced that he too needed
an early night.
The dormitory was empty when he reached it. He rested his forehead for a moment against the
cool glass of the window beside his bed; it felt soothing against his scar. Then he undressed and
got into bed, wishing his headache would go away. He also felt slightly sick. He rolled over on to
his side, closed his eyes, and fell asleep almost at once…
He was standing in a dark, curtained room lit by a single branch of candles. His hands were
clenched on the back of a chair in front of him. They were long-fingered and white as though
they had not seen sunlight for years and looked like large, pale spiders against the dark velvet of
the chair.
Beyond the chair, in a pool of light cast upon the floor by the candles, knelt a man in black robes.
“I have been badly advised, it seems,” said Harry, in a high, cold voice that pulsed with anger.
“Master, I crave your pardon,” croaked the man kneeling on the floor. The back of his head
glimmered in the candlelight. He seemed to be trembling.
“I do not blame you, Rookwood,” said Harry in that cold, cruel voice.
He relinquished his grip on the chair and walked around it, closer to the man cowering on the
floor, until he stood directly over him in the darkness, looking down from a far greater height
than usual.
“You are sure of your facts, Rookwood?” asked Harry.
“Yes, My Lord, yes… I used to work in the Department after - after all…”
“Avery told me Bode would be able to remove it.”
“Bode could never have taken it, Master… Bode would have known he could not… undoubtedly, that is why he fought so hard against Malfoy’s Imperius Curse…”
“Stand up, Rookwood,” whispered Harry.
The kneeling man almost fell over in his haste to obey. His face was pockmarked; the scars were
thrown into relief by the candlelight. He remained a little stooped when standing, as though
halfway through a bow, and he darted terrified looks up at Harry’s face.
“You have done well to tell me this,” said Harry. “Very well… I have wasted months on fruitless
schemes, it seems… but no matter… we begin again, from now. You have Lord Voldemort’s
gratitude, Rookwood…”
“My Lord… yes, My Lord,” gasped Rookwood, his voice hoarse with relief.
“I shall need your help. I shall need all the information you can give me.”
“Of course, My Lord, of course… anything…”
“Very well… you may go. Send Avery to me.”
Rookwood scurried backwards, bowing, and disappeared through a door.
Left alone in the dark room, Harry turned towards the wall. A cracked, age-spotted mirror hung
on the wall in the shadows. Harry moved towards it. His reflection grew larger and clearer in the
darkness… a face whiter than a skull… red eyes with slits for pupils…
“NOOOOOOOOO!”
“What?” yelled a voice nearby.
Harry flailed around madly, became entangled in the hangings and fell out of his bed. For a few
seconds he did not know where he was; he was convinced he was about to see the white, skulllike face looming at him out of the dark again, then very near to him Ron’s voice spoke.
“Will you stop acting like a maniac so I can get you out of here!”
Ron wrenched the hangings apart and Harry stared up at him in the moonlight, flat on his back,
his scar searing with pain. Ron looked as though he had just been getting ready for bed; one arm
was out of his robes.
“Has someone been attacked again?” asked Ron, pulling Harry roughly to his feet. “Is it Dad? Is it that snake?”
“No - everyone’s fine -” gasped Harry, whose forehead felt as though it were on fire. “Well…
Avery isn’t… he’s in trouble… he gave him the wrong information… Voldemort’s really angry”
Harry groaned and sank, shaking, on to his bed, rubbing his scar.
“But Rookwood’s going to help him now… he’s on the right track again…”
“What are you talking about?” said Ron, sounding scared. “D’you mean… did you just see You-
Know-Who?”
“I was You-Know-Who,” said Harry, and he stretched out his hands in the darkness and held
them up to his face, to check that they were no longer deathly white and long-fingered. “He was
with Rookwood, he’s one of the Death Eaters who escaped from Azkaban, remember? Rookwood’s just told him Bode couldn’t have done it.”
“Done what?”
“Remove something… he said Bode would have known he couldn’t have done it… Bode was
under the Imperius Curse… I think he said Malfoy’s dad put it on him.”
“Bode was bewitched to remove something?” Ron said. “But -Harry, that’s got to be -”
“The weapon,” Harry finished the sentence for him. “I know”
The dormitory door opened; Dean and Seamus came in. Harry swung his legs back into bed. He
did not want to look as though anything odd had just happened, seeing as Seamus had only just
stopped thinking Harry was a nutter.
“Did you say,” murmured Ron, putting his head close to Harry’s on the pretence of helping
himself to water from the jug on his bedside table, “that you were You-Know-Who?”
“Yeah,” said Harry quietly.
Ron took an unnecessarily large gulp of water; Harry saw it spill over his chin on to his chest.
“Harry,” he said, as Dean and Seamus clattered around noisily, pulling off their robes and talking, “you’ve got to tell -”
“I haven’t got to tell anyone,” said Harry shortly. “I wouldn’t have seen it at all if I could do
Occlumency. I’m supposed to have learned to shut this stuff out. That’s what they want.”
By ‘they’ he meant Dumbledore. He got back into bed and rolled over on to his side with his
back to Ron and after a while he heard Ron’s mattress creak as he, too, lay back down. Harry’s
scar began to burn; he bit hard on his pillow to stop himself making a noise. Somewhere, he
knew, Avery was being punished.
Harry and Ron waited until break next morning to tell Hermione exactly what had happened;
they wanted to be absolutely sure they could not be overheard. Standing in their usual corner of
the cool and breezy courtyard, Harry told her every detail of the dream he could remember.
When he had finished, she said nothing at all for a few moments, but stared with a kind of
painful intensity at Fred and George, who were both headless and selling their magical hats from
under their cloaks on the other side of the yard.
“So that’s why they killed him,” she said quietly, withdrawing her gaze from Fred and George at
last. “When Bode tried to steal this weapon, something funny happened to him. I think there must be defensive spells on it, or around it, to stop people touching it. That’s why he was in St.
Mungo’s, his brain had gone all funny and he couldn’t talk. But remember what the Healer told
us? He was recovering. And they couldn’t risk him getting better, could they? I mean, the shock
of whatever happened when he touched that weapon probably made the Imperius Curse lift.
Once he’d got his voice back, he’d explain what he’d been doing, wouldn’t he? They would have
known he’d been sent to steal the weapon. Of course, it would have been easy for Lucius Malfoy
to put the curse on him. Never out of the Ministry, is he?”
“He was even hanging around that day I had my hearing,” said Harry. “In the - hang on…” he
said slowly. “He was in the Department of Mysteries corridor that day! Your dad said he was
probably trying to sneak down and find out what happened in my hearing, but what if -”
“Sturgis!” gasped Hermione, looking thunderstruck.
“Sorry?” said Ron, looking bewildered.
“Sturgis Podmore -” said Hermione breathlessly, “arrested for trying to get through a door!
Lucius Malfoy must have got him too! I bet he did it the day you saw him there, Harry. Sturgis
had Moody’s Invisibility Cloak, right? So, what if he was standing guard by the door, invisible,
and Malfoy heard him move - or guessed someone was there - or just did the Imperius Curse on
the off-chance there’d be a guard there? So, when Sturgis next had an opportunity - probably
when it was his turn on guard duty again - he tried to get into the Department to steal the weapon
for Voldemort - Ron, be quiet - but he got caught and sent to Azkaban…”
She gazed at Harry.
“And now Rookwood’s told Voldemort how to get the weapon?”
“I didn’t hear all the conversation, but that’s what it sounded like,” said Harry. “Rookwood used
to work there… maybe Voldemort’ll send Rookwood to do it?”
Hermione nodded, apparently still lost in thought. Then, quite abruptly, she said, “But you shouldn’t have seen this at all, Harry.”
“What?” he said, taken aback.
“You’re supposed to be learning how to close your m ind to this sort of thing,” said Hermione,
suddenly stern.
“I know I am,” said Harry. “But -”
“Well, I think we should just try and forget what you saw,” said Hermione firmly. “And you
ought to put in a bit more effort on your Occlumency from now on.”
Harry was so angry with her he did not talk to her for the rest of the day, which proved to be
another bad one. When people were not discussing the escaped Death Eaters in the corridors,
they were laughing at Gryffindor’s abysmal performance in their match against Hufflepuff; the
Slytherins were singing Weasley is our King so loudly and frequently that by sundown Filch
had banned it from the corridors out of sheer irritation.
The week did not improve as it progressed. Harry received two more D’s in Potions; he was still
on tenterhooks that Hagrid might get the sack; and he couldn’t stop himself dwelling on the
dream in which he had been Voldemort - though he didn’t bring it up with Ron and Hermione
again; he didn’t want another telling-off from Hermione. He wished very much that he could
have talked to Sirius about it, but that was out of the question, so he tried to push the matter to
the back of his mind.
Unfortunately, the back of his mind was no longer the secure place it had once been.
“Get up, Potter.”
A couple of weeks after his dream of Rookwood, Harry was to be found, yet again, kneeling on
the floor of Snape’s office, trying to clear his head. He had just been forced, yet again, to relive a
stream of very early memories he had not even realized he still had, most of them concerning
humiliations Dudley and his gang had inflicted upon him in primary school.
“That last memory,” said Snape. “What was it?”
“I don’t know,” said Harry, getting wearily to his feet. He was finding it increasingly difficult to
disentangle separate memories from the rush of images and sound that Snape kept calling forth.
“You mean the one where my cousin tried to make me stand in the toilet?”
“No,” said Snape softly. “I mean the one with a man kneeling in the middle of a darkened
room…”
“It’s… nothing,” said Harry.
Snape’s dark eyes bored into Harry’s. Remembering what Snape had said about eye contact
being crucial to Legilimency, Harry blinked and looked away.
“How do that man and that room come to be inside your head, Potter?” said Snape.
“It -” said Harry, looking everywhere but at Snape, “it was -just a dream I had.”
“A dream?” repeated Snape.
There was a pause during which Harry stared fixedly at a large dead frog suspended in a jar of
purple liquid.
“You do know why we are here, don’t you, Potter?” said Snape, in a low, dangerous voice. “You
do know why I am giving up my evenings to this tedious job?”
“Yes,” said Harry stiffly.
“Remind me why we are here, Potter.”
“So I can learn Occlumency,” said Harry, now glaring at a dead eel.
“Correct, Potter. And dim though you may be -” Harry looked back at Snape, hating him “- I
would have thought that after over two months of lessons you might have made some progress.
How many other dreams about the Dark Lord have you had?”
“Just that one,” lied Harry.
“Perhaps,” said Snape, his dark, cold eyes narrowin g slightly, “perhaps you actually enjoy having these visions and dreams, Potter. Maybe they make you feel special - important?”
“No, they don’t,” said Harry, his jaw set and his fingers clenched tightly around the handle of his
wand.
“That is just as well, Potter,” said Snape coldly, “because you are neither special nor important,
and it is not up to you to find out what the Dark Lord is saying to his Death Eaters.”
“No - that’s your job, isn’t it?” Harry shot at him.
He had not meant to say it; it had burst out of him in temper. For a long moment they stared at
each other, Harry convinced he had gone too far. But there was a curious, almost satisfied
expression on Snape’s face when he answered.
“Yes, Potter,” he said, his eyes glinting. “That is my job. Now, if you are ready, we will start
again.”
He raised his wand: “One — two - three -Legilimens!”
A hundred Dementors were swooping towards Harry across the lake in the grounds… he
screwed up his face in concentration… they were coming closer… he could see the dark holes
beneath their hoods… yet he could also see Snape standing in front of him, his eyes fixed on
Harry’s face, muttering under his breath… and somehow, Snape was growing clearer, and the
Dementors were growing fainter…
Harry raised his own wand.
“Protego!”
Snape staggered - his wand flew upwards, away from Harry - and suddenly Harry’s mind was
teeming with memories that were not his: a hook-nosed man was shouting at a cowering woman,
while a small dark-haired boy cried in a corner… a greasy-haired teenager sat alone in a dark
bedroom, pointing his wand at the ceiling, shooting down flies… a girl was laughing as a
scrawny boy tried to mount a bucking broomstick -
“ENOUGH!”
Harry felt as though he had been pushed hard in the chest; he staggered several steps backwards,
hit some of the shelves covering Snape’s walls and heard something crack. Snape was shaking
slightly, and was very white in the face.
The back of Harry’s robes was damp. One of the jars behind him had broken when he fell against
it; the pickled slimy thing within was swirling in its draining potion.
“Reparo,” hissed Snape, and the jar sealed itself at once. “Well, Potter… that was certainly an
improvement…” Panting slightly, Snape straightened the Pensieve in which he had again stored
some of his thoughts before starting the lesson, almost as though he was checking they were still
there. “I don’t remember telling you to use a Shield Charm… but there is no doubt that it was
effective…”
Harry did not speak; he felt that to say anything might be dangerous. He was sure he had just
broken into Snape’s memories, that he had just seen scenes from Snape’s childhood. It was
unnerving to think that the little boy who had been crying as he watched his parents shouting was
actually standing in front of him with such loathing in his eyes.
“Let’s try again, shall we?” said Snape.
Harry felt a thrill of dread; he was about to pay for what had just happened, he was sure of it.
They moved back into position with the desk between them, Harry feeling he was going to find it
much harder to empty his mind this time.
“On the count of three, then,” said Snape, raising his wand once more. “One - two -”
Harry did not have time to gather himself together and attempt to clear his mind before Snape
cried, “Legilimens!”
He was hurtling along the corridor towards the Department of Mysteries, past the blank stone
walls, past the torches - the plain black door was growing ever larger; he was moving so fast he
was going to collide with it, he was feet from it and again he could see that chink of faint blue
light - The door had flown open! He was through it at last, inside a black-walled, black-floored
circular room lit with blue-flamed candles, and there were more doors all around him - he needed
to go on - but which door ought he to take -?
“POTTER!”
Harry opened his eyes. He was flat on his back again with no memory of having gotten there; he
was also panting as though he really had run the length of the Department of Mysteries corridor,
really had sprinted through the black door and found the circular room.
“Explain yourself!” said Snape, who was standing over him, looking furious.
“I… dunno what happened,” said Harry truthfully, st anding up. There was a lump on the back of
his head from where he had hit the ground and he felt feverish. “I’ve never seen that before. I
mean, I told you, I’ve dreamed about the door… but it’s never opened before”
“You are not working hard enough!”
For some reason, Snape seemed even angrier than he had done two minutes before, when Harry
had seen into his teacher’s memories.
“You are lazy and sloppy, Potter, it is small wonder that the Dark Lord -”
“Can you tell me something, sir?” said Harry, firing up again. “Why do you call Voldemort the
Dark Lord? I’ve only ever heard Death Eaters call him that.”
Snape opened his mouth in a snarl - and a woman screamed from somewhere outside the room.
Snapes head jerked upwards; he was gazing at the ceiling.
“What the -?” he muttered.
Harry could hear a muffled commotion coming from what he thought might be the Entrance
Hall. Snape looked round at him, frowning.
“Did you see anything unusual on your way down here, Potter?”
Harry shook his head. Somewhere above them, the woman screamed again. Snape strode to his
office door, his wand still held at the ready, and swept out of sight. Harry hesitated for a moment,
then followed.
The screams were indeed coming from the Entrance Hall; they grew louder as Harry ran towards
the stone steps leading up from the dungeons. When he reached the top he found the Entrance
Hall packed; students had come flooding out of the Great Hall, where dinner was still in
progress, to see what was going on; others had crammed themselves on to the marble staircase.
Harry pushed forwards through a knot of tall Slytherins and saw that the onlookers had formed a
great ring, some of them looking shocked, others even frightened. Professor McGonagall was
directly opposite Harry on the other side of the Hall; she looked as though what she was
watching made her feel faintly sick.
Professor Trelawney was standing in the middle of the Entrance Hall with her wand in one hand
and an empty sherry bottle in the other, looking utterly mad. Her hair was sticking up on end, her
glasses were lopsided so that one eye was magnified more than the other; her innumerable
shawls and scarves were trailing haphazardly from her shoulders, giving the impression that she
was falling apart at the seams. Two large trunks lay on the floor beside her, one of them upsidedown; it looked very much as though it had been thrown down the stairs after her. Professor Trelawney was staring, apparently terrified, at something Harry could not see but which seemed to be standing at the foot of the stairs.
“No!” she shrieked. “NO! This cannot be happening… it cannot… I refuse to accept it!”
“You didn’t realize this was coming?” said a high girlish voice, sounding callously amused, and
Harry, moving slightly to his right, saw that Trelawney’s terrifying vision was nothing other than
Professor Umbridge. “Incapable though you are of predicting even tomorrow’s weather, you
must surely have realized that your pitiful performance during my inspections, and lack of any
improvement, would make it inevitable that you would be sacked?”
“You c - can’t!” howled Professor Trelawney, tears streaming down her face from behind her
enormous lenses, “you c - can’t sack me! I’ve b - been here sixteen years! H - Hogwarts is in -
my h - home!”
“It was your home,” said Professor Umbridge, and Harry was revolted to see the enjoyment
stretching her toadlike face as she watched Professor Trelawney sink, sobbing uncontrollably, on
to one of her trunks, “until an hour ago, when the Minister of Magic countersigned your Order
of Dismissal. Now kindly remove yourself from this Hall. You are embarrassing us.”
But she stood and watched, with an expression of gloating enjoyment, as Professor Trelawney
shuddered and moaned, rocking backwards and forwards on her trunk in paroxysms of grief. Harry heard a muffled sob to his left and looked around. Lavender and Parvati were both crying
quietly, their arms round each other. Then he heard footsteps. Professor McGonagall had broken
away from the spectators, marched straight up to Professor Trelawney and was patting her firmly
on the back while withdrawing a large handkerchief from within her robes.
“There, there, Sibyll… calm down… blow your nose on this… it’s not as bad as you think,
now… you are not going to have to leave Hogwarts…”
“Oh really, Professor McGonagall?” said Umbridge in a deadly voice, taking a few steps forward. “And your authority for that statement is…?”
“That would be mine,” said a deep voice.
The oaken front doors had swung open. Students beside them scuttled out of the way as
Dumbledore appeared in the entrance. What he had been doing out in the grounds Harry could
not imagine, but there was something impressive about the sight of him framed in the doorway
against an oddly misty night. Leaving the doors wide open behind him he strode forwards
through the circle of onlookers towards Professor Trelawney, tear-stained and trembling, on her
trunk, Professor McGonagall alongside her.
“Yours, Professor Dumbledore?” said Umbridge, with a singularly unpleasant little laugh. “I’m
afraid you do not understand the position. I have here -” she pulled a parchment scroll from
within her robes “-an Order of Dismissal signed by myself and the Minister for Magic. Under the
terms of Educational Decree Number Twenty-three, the High Inquisitor of Hogwarts has the
power to inspect, place upon probation and sack any teacher she - that is to say, I - feel is not
performing to the standards required by the Ministry of Magic. I have decided that Professor
Trelawney is not up to scratch. I have dismissed her.”
To Harry’s very great surprise, Dumbledore continued to smile. He looked down at Professor
Trelawney, who was still sobbing and choking on her trunk, and said, “You are quite right, of
course, Professor Umbridge. As High Inquisitor you have every right to dismiss my teachers.
You do not, however, have the authority to send them away from the castle. I am afraid,” he went on, with a courteous little bow, “that the power to do that still resides with the Headmaster, and it is my wish that Professor Trelawney continue to live at Hogwarts.”
At this, Professor Trelawney gave a wild little laugh in which a hiccough was barely hidden.
“No - no, I’ll g - go, Dumbledore! I sh - shall - leave Hogwarts and s - seek my fortune elsewhere -”
“No,” said Dumbledore sharply. “It is my wish that you remain, Sibyll.”
He turned to Professor McGonagall.
“Might I ask you to escort Sibyll back upstairs, Professor McGonagall?”
“Of course,” said McGonagall. “Up you get, Sibyll…”
Professor Sprout came hurrying forwards out of the crowd and grabbed Professor Trelawney’s
other arm. Together, they guided her past Umbridge and up the marble stairs. Professor Flitwick
went scurrying after them, his wand held out before him; he squeaked “Locomotor trunks!” and
Professor Trelawney’s luggage rose into the air and proceeded up the staircase after her,
Professor Flitwick bringing up the rear.
Professor Umbridge was standing stock still, staring at Dumbledore, who continued to smile
benignly.
“And what,” she said, in a whisper that carried all around the Entrance Hall, “are you going to do
with her once I appoint a new Divination teacher who needs her lodgings?”
“Oh, that won’t be a problem,” said Dumbledore pleasantly. “You see, I have already found us a
new Divination teacher, and he will prefer lodgings on the ground floor.”
“You’ve found -?” said Umbridge shrilly. “You’ve found? Might I remind you, Dumbledore, that under Educational Decree Number Twenty-two -”
“The Ministry has the right to appoint a suitable candidate if -and only if- the Headmaster is
unable to find one,” said Dumbledore. “And I am happy to say that on this occasion I have
succeeded. May I introduce you?”
He turned to face the open front doors, through which night mist was now drifting. Harry heard
hooves. There was a shocked murmur around the Hall and those nearest the doors hastily moved
even further backwards, some of them tripping over in their haste to clear a path for the
newcomer.
Through the mist came a face Harry had seen once before on a dark, dangerous night in the
Forbidden Forest: white-blond hair and astonishingly blue eyes; the head and torso of a man
joined to the palomino body of a horse.
“This is Firenze,” said Dumbledore happily to a thunderstruck Umbridge. “I think you’ll find him suitable.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The Centaur and the Sneak
“I’ll bet you wish you hadn’t given up Divination now, don’t you, Hermione?” asked Parvati,
smirking.
It was breakfast time, two days after the sacking of Professor Trelawney, and Parvati was curling
her eyelashes around her wand and examining the effect in the back of her spoon. They were to
have their first lesson with Firenze that morning.
“Not really” said Hermione indifferently, who was reading the Daily Prophet. “I’ve never really
liked horses.”
She turned a page of the newspaper and scanned its columns.
“He’s not a horse, he’s a centaur!” said Lavender, sounding shocked.
“A gorgeous centaur…” sighed Parvati.
“Either way, he’s still got four legs,” said Hermione coolly. “Anyway I thought you two were all
upset that Trelawney had gone?”
“We are!” Lavender assured her. “We went up to her office to see her; we took her some daffodils - not the honking ones that Sprout’s got, nice ones.”
“How is she?” asked Harry.
“Not very good, poor thing,” said Lavender sympathetically. “She was crying and saying she’d
rather leave the castle forever than stay here where Umbridge is, and I don’t blame her,
Umbridge was horrible to her, wasn’t she?”
“I’ve got a feeling Umbridge has only just started being horrible,” said Hermione darkly.
“Impossible,” said Ron, who was tucking into a large plate of eggs and bacon. “She can’t get any worse than she’s been already.”
“You mark my words, she’s going to want revenge on Dumbledore for appointing a new teacher
without consulting her,” said Hermione, closing the newspaper. “Especially another part-human.
You saw the look on her face when she saw Firenze.”
After breakfast Hermione departed for her Arithmancy class as Harry and Ron followed Parvati
and Lavender into the Entrance Hall, heading for Divination.
“Aren’t we going up to North Tower?” asked Ron, looking puzzled, as Parvati bypassed the
marble staircase.
Parvati looked at him scornfully over her shoulder.
“How d’you expect Firenze to climb that ladder? We’re in classroom eleven now, it was on the
noticeboard yesterday.”
Classroom eleven was on the ground floor along the corridor leading off the Entrance Hall from
the opposite side to the Great Hall. Harry knew it was one of those classrooms that were never
used regularly, and therefore had the slightly neglected feeling of a cupboard or storeroom.
When he entered it right behind Ron, and found himself in the middle of a forest clearing, he was
therefore momentarily stunned.
“What the -?”
The classroom floor had become springily mossy and trees were growing out of it; their leafy
branches fanned across the ceiling and windows, so that the room was full of slanting shafts of
soft, dappled, green light. The students who had already arrived were sitting on the earthy floor
with their backs resting against tree trunks or boulders, arms wrapped around their knees or
folded tightly across their chests, and all looking rather nervous. In the middle of the clearing,
where there were no trees, stood Firenze.
“Harry Potter,” he said, holding out a hand when Harry entered.
“Er - hi,” said Harry, shaking hands with the centaur, who surveyed him unblinkingly through
those astonishingly blue eyes but did not smile. “Er - good to see you.”
“And you,” said the centaur, inclining his white-blond head. “It was foretold that we would meet
again.”
Harry noticed there was the shadow of a hoof-shaped bruise on Firenze’s chest. As he turned to
join the rest of the class on the ground, he saw they were all looking at him in awe, apparently
deeply impressed that he was on speaking terms with Firenze, whom they seemed to find
intimidating.
When the door was closed and the last student had sat down on a tree stump beside the
wastepaper basket, Firenze gestured around the room.
“Professor Dumbledore has kindly arranged this classroom for us,” said Firenze, when everyone
had settled down, “in imitation of my natural habitat. I would have preferred to teach you in the
Forbidden Forest, which was - until Monday - my home… but that is no longer possible.”
“Please - er - sir -” said Parvati breathlessly, raising her hand, “- why not? We’ve been in there
with Hagrid, we’re not frightened!”
“It is not a question of your bravery,” said Firenze, “but of my position. I cannot return to the
Forest. My herd has banished me.”
“Herd?” said Lavender in a confused voice, and Harry knew she was thinking of cows. “What -
oh!” Comprehension dawned on her face. “There are more o f you!” she said, stunned.
“Did Hagrid breed you, like the Thestrals?” asked Dean eagerly.
Firenze turned his head very slowly to face Dean, who seemed to realize at once that he had said
something very offensive.
“I didn’t - I meant - sorry” he finished in a hushed voice.
“Centaurs are not the servants or playthings of humans,” said Firenze quietly. There was a pause,
then Parvati raised her hand again.
“Please, sir… why have the other centaurs banished you?”
“Because I have agreed to work for Professor Dumbledore,” said Firenze. “They see this as a
betrayal of our kind.”
Harry remembered how, nearly four years ago, the centaur Bane had shouted at Firenze for
allowing Harry to ride to safety on his back; he had called him a ‘common mule’. He wondered
whether it had been Bane who had kicked Firenze in the chest.
“Let us begin,” said Firenze. He swished his long palomino tail, raised his hand towards the leafy canopy overhead, then lowered it slowly, and as he did so, the light in the room dimmed, so that they now seemed to be sitting in a forest clearing by twilight, and stars appeared on the ceiling.
There were oohs and gasps and Ron said audibly, “Blimey!”
“Lie back on the floor,” said Firenze in his calm voice, “and observe the heavens. Here is written, for those who can see, the fortune of our races.”
Harry stretched out on his back and gazed upwards at the ceiling. A twinkling red star winked at
him from overhead.
“I know that you have learned the names of the planets and their moons in Astronomy,” said
Firenze’s calm voice, “and that you have mapped the stars progress through the heavens.
Centaurs have unraveled the mysteries of these movements over centuries. Our findings teach us
that the future may be glimpsed in the sky above us -”
“Professor Trelawney did astrology with us!” said Parvati excitedly, raising her hand in front of
her so that it stuck up in the air as she lay on her back. “Mars causes accidents and burns and
things like that, and when it makes an angle to Saturn, like now -” she drew a right-angle in the
air above her “- that means people need to be extra careful when handling hot things -”
“That,” said Firenze calmly, “is human nonsense.”
Parvati’s hand fell limply to her side.
“Trivial hurts, tiny human accidents,” said Firenze, as his hooves thudded over the mossy floor.
“These are of no more significance than the scurryings of ants to the wide universe, and are
unaffected by planetary movements.”
“Professor Trelawney -” began Parvati, in a hurt and indignant voice.
“- is a human,” said Firenze simply. “And is therefore blinkered and fettered by the limitations of
your kind.”
Harry turned his head very slightly to look at Parvati. She looked very offended, as did several of
the people surrounding her.
“Sibyll Trelawney may have Seen, I do not know,” continued Firenze, and Harry heard the
swishing of his tail again as he walked up and down before them, “but she wastes her time, in the
main, on the self-flattering nonsense humans call fortune-telling. I, however, am here to explain
the wisdom of centaurs, which is impersonal and impartial. We watch the skies for the great tides
of evil or change that are sometimes marked there. It may take ten years to be sure of what we
are seeing.”
Firenze pointed to the red star directly above Harry.
“In the past decade, the indications have been that wizardkind is living through nothing more
than a brief calm between two wars. Mars, bringer of battle, shines brightly above us, suggesting
that the fight must soon break out again. How soon, centaurs may attempt to divine by the
burning of certain herbs and leaves, by the observation of fume and flame…”
It was the most unusual lesson Harry had ever attended. They did indeed burn sage and
mallowsweet there on the classroom floor, and Firenze told them to look for certain shapes and
symbols in the pungent fumes, but he seemed perfectly unconcerned that not one of them could
see any of the signs he described, telling them that humans were hardly ever good at this, that it
took centaurs years and years to become competent, and finished by telling them that it was
foolish to put too much faith in such things, anyway, because even centaurs sometimes read them
wrongly. He was nothing like any human teacher Harry had ever had. His priority did not seem
to be to teach them what he knew, but rather to impress upon them that nothing, not even
centaurs’ knowledge, was foolproof.
“He’s not very definite on anything, is he?” said Ron in a low voice, as they put out their
mallowsweet fire. “I mean, I could do with a few more details about this war we’re about to
have, couldn’t you?”
The bell rang right outside the classroom door and everyone jumped; Harry had completely
forgotten they were still inside the castle, and quite convinced that he was really in the Forest.
The class filed out, looking slightly perplexed.
Harry and Ron were on the point of following them when Firenze called, “Harry Potter, a word,
please.”
Harry turned. The centaur advanced a little towards him. Ron hesitated.
“You may stay,” Firenze told him. “But close the door, please.” Ron hastened to obey.
“Harry Potter, you are a friend of Hagrid’s, are you not?” said the centaur.
“Yes,” said Harry.
“Then give him a warning from me. His attempt is not working. He would do better to abandon
it.”
“His attempt is not working?” Harry repeated blankly.
“And he would do better to abandon it,” said Firenze, nodding. “I would warn Hagrid myself, but
I am banished - it would be unwise for me to go too near the Forest now - Hagrid has troubles
enough, without a centaurs’ battle.”
“But - what’s Hagrid attempting to do?” said Harry nervously.
Firenze surveyed Harry impassively.
“Hagrid has recently rendered me a great service,” said Firenze, “and he has long since earned my respect for the care he shows all living creatures. I shall not betray his secret. But he must be
brought to his senses. The attempt is not working. Tell him, Harry Potter. Good-day to you.”
The happiness Harry had felt in the aftermath of The Quibbler interview had long since
evaporated. As a dull March blurred into a squally April, his life seemed to have become one
long series of worries and problems again.
Umbridge had continued attending all Care of Magical Creatures lessons, so it had been very
difficult to deliver Firenzes warning to Hagrid. At last, Harry had managed it by pretending he’d
lost his copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and doubling back after class one day.
When he’d repeated Firenzes words, Hagrid gazed at him for a moment through his puffy,
blackened eyes, apparently taken aback. Then he seemed to pull himself together.
“Nice bloke, Firenze,” he said gruffly, “but he don’ know what he’s talkin’ abou’ on this. The
attemp’s comin’ on fine.”
“Hagrid, what’re you up to?” asked Harry seriously. “Because you’ve got to be careful, Umbridge has already sacked Trelawney and, if you ask me, she’s on a roll. If you’re doing anything you shouldn’t be, you’ll be -”
“There’s things more importan’ than keepin’ a job,” said Hagrid, though his hands shook slightly
as he said this and a basin full of Knarl droppings crashed to the floor. “Don’ worry abou’ me,
Harry jus’ get along now, there’s a good lad.”
Harry had no choice but to leave Hagrid mopping up the dung all over his floor, but he felt
thoroughly dispirited as he trudged back up to the castle.
Meanwhile, as the teachers and Hermione persisted in reminding them, the OWLs were drawing
ever nearer. All the fifth-years were suffering from stress to some degree, but Hannah Abbott
became the first to receive a Calming Draught from Madam Pomfrey after she burst into tears
during Herbology and sobbed that she was too stupid to take exams and wanted to leave school
now.
If it had not been for the D.A. lessons, Harry thought he would have been extremely unhappy. He sometimes felt he was living for the hours he spent in the Room of Requirement, working hard but thoroughly enjoying himself at the same time, swelling with pride as he looked around at his fellow D.A. members and saw how far they had come. Indeed, Harry sometimes wondered how Umbridge was going to react when all the members of the D.A. received ‘Outstanding’ in their Defense Against the Dark Arts OWLs.
They had finally started work on Patronuses, which everybody had been very keen to practice,
though, as Harry kept reminding them, producing a Patronus in the middle of a brightly lit
classroom when they were not under threat was very different from producing it when
confronted by something like a Dementor.
“Oh, don’t be such a killjoy,” said Cho brightly, watching her silvery swan-shaped Patronus soar
around the Room of Requirement during their last lesson before Easter. “They’re so pretty!”
“They’re not supposed to be pretty, they’re supposed to protect you,” said Harry patiently. “What we really need is a Boggart or something; that’s how I learned, I had to conjure a Patronus while the Boggart was pretending to be a Dementor -”
“But that would be really scary!” said Lavender, who was shooting puffs of silver vapour out of
the end of her wand. “And I still -can’t - do it!” she added angrily.
Neville was having trouble, too. His face was screwed up in concentration, but only feeble wisps
of silver smoke issued from his wand tip.
“You’ve got to think of something happy,” Harry reminded him.
“I’m trying,” said Neville miserably, who was trying so hard his round face was actually shining
with sweat.
“Harry, I think I’m doing it”‘ yelled Seamus, who had been brought along to his first ever D.A.
meeting by Dean. “Look - ah -it’s gone… but it was definitely something hairy, Harry!”
Hermione’s Patronus, a shining silver otter, was gamboling around her.
“They are sort of nice, aren’t they?” she said, looking at it fondly.
The door of the Room of Requirement opened, and closed. Harry looked round to see who had
entered, but there did not seem to be anybody there. It was a few moments before he realized that
the people close to the door had fallen silent. Next thing he knew, something was tugging at his
robes somewhere near the knee. He looked down and saw, to his very great astonishment, Dobby
the house-elf peering up at him from beneath his usual eight woolly hats.
“Hi, Dobby!” he said. “What are you - What’s wrong?”
The elf’s eyes were wide with terror and he was shaking. The members of the D.A. closest to
Harry had fallen silent; everybody in the room was watching Dobby. The few Patronuses people
had managed to conjure faded away into silver mist, leaving the room looking much darker than
before.
“Harry Potter, sir…” squeaked the elf, trembling from head to foot, “Harry Potter, sir… Dobby
has come to warn you… but the house-elves have been warned not to tell…”
He ran head-first at the wall. Harry, who had some experience of Dobbys habits of self punishment, made to seize him, but Dobby merely bounced off the stone, cushioned by his eight hats. Hermione and a few of the other girls let out squeaks of fear and sympathy.
“What’s happened, Dobby?” Harry asked, grabbing the elf’s tiny arm and holding him away from anything with which he might seek to hurt himself.
“Harry Potter… she… she…”
Dobby hit himself hard on the nose with his free fist. Harry seized that, too.
“Who’s ‘she’, Dobby?”
But he thought he knew; surely only one ‘she’ could induce such fear in Dobby? The elf looked
up at him, slightly cross-eyed, and mouthed wordlessly.
“Umbridge?” asked Harry, horrified.
Dobby nodded, then tried to bang his head on Harry’s knees. Harry held him at arm’s length.
“What about her? Dobby - she hasn’t found out about this - about us - about the D.A.?”
He read the answer in the elf’s stricken face. His hands held fast by Harry, the elf tried to kick
himself and fell to the floor.
“Is she coming?” Harry asked quietly.
Dobby let out a howl, and began beating his bare feet hard on the floor.
“Yes, Harry Potter, yes!”
Harry straightened up and looked around at the motionless, terrified people gazing at the
thrashing elf.
“WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?” Harry bellowed. “RUN!”
They all pelted towards the exit at once, forming a scrum at the door, then people burst through.
Harry could hear them sprinting along the corridors and hoped they had the sense not to try and
make it all the way to their dormitories. It was only ten to nine; if they just took refuge in the
library or the Owlery, which were both nearer -
“Harry, come on!” shrieked Hermione from the center of the knot of people now fighting to get
out.
He scooped up Dobby, who was still attempting to do himself serious injury, and ran with the elf
in his arms to join the back of the queue.
“Dobby - this is an order - get back down to the kitchen with the other elves and, if she asks you
whether you warned me, lie and say no!” said Harry. “And I forbid you to hurt yourself!” he
added, dropping the elf as he made it over the threshold at last and slammed the door behind him.
“Thank you, Harry Potter!” squeaked Dobby, and he streaked off. Harry glanced left and right,
the others were all moving so fast he caught only glimpses of flying heels at either end of the
corridor before they vanished; he started to run right; there was a boys’ bathroom up ahead, he
could pretend he’d been in there all the time if he could just reach it -
“AAARGH!”
Something caught him around the ankles and he fell spectacularly, skidding along on his front
for six feet before coming to a halt. Someone behind him was laughing. He rolled over on to his
back and saw Malfoy concealed in a niche beneath an ugly dragon-shaped vase.
“Trip Jinx, Potter!” he said. “Hey Professor - PROFESSOR! I’ve got one!”
Umbridge came bustling round the far corner, breathless but wearing a delighted smile.
“It’s him!” she said jubilantly at the sight of Harry on the floor. “Excellent, Draco, excellent, oh,
very good - fifty points to Slytherin! I’ll take him from here… stand up, Potter!”
Harry got to his feet, glaring at the pair of them. He had never seen Umbridge looking so happy.
She seized his arm in a vice-like grip and turned, beaming broadly, to Malfoy.
“You hop along and see if you can round up any more of them, Draco,” she said. “Tell the others
to look in the library - anybody out of breath - check the bathrooms, Miss Parkinson can do the
girls’ ones - off you go - and you,” she added in her softest, most dangerous voice, as Malfoy
walked away, “you can come with me to the Headmasters office, Potter.”
They were at the stone gargoyle within minutes. Harry wondered how many of the others had
been caught. He thought of Ron - Mrs. Weasley would kill him - and of how Hermione would
feel if she was expelled before she could take her OWLs. And it had been Seamus’s very first
meeting… and Neville had been getting so good…
“Fizzing Whizzbee,” sang Umbridge; the stone gargoyle jumped aside, the wall behind split
open, and they ascended the moving stone staircase. They reached the polished door with the
griffin knocker, but Umbridge did not bother to knock, she strode straight inside, still holding
tight to Harry.
The office was full of people. Dumbledore was sitting behind his desk, his expression serene, the
tips of his long fingers together. Professor McGonagall stood rigidly beside him, her face
extremely tense. Cornelius Fudge, Minister for Magic, was rocking backwards and forwards on
his toes beside the fire, apparently immensely pleased with the situation; Kingsley Shacklebolt
and a tough-looking wizard with very short wiry hair whom Harry did not recognize, were
positioned on either side of the door like guards, and the freckled, bespectacled form of Percy
Weasley hovered excitedly beside the wall, a quill and a heavy scroll of parchment in his hands,
apparently poised to take notes.
The portraits of old headmasters and headmistresses were not shamming sleep tonight. All of
them were alert and serious, watching what was happening below them. As Harry entered, a few
flitted into neighboring frames and whispered urgently into their neighbor’s ear.
Harry pulled himself free of Umbridge’s grasp as the door swung shut behind them. Cornelius
Fudge was glaring at him with a kind of vicious satisfaction on his face.
“Well,” he said. “Well, well, well…”
Harry replied with the dirtiest look he could muster. His heart drummed madly inside him, but
his brain was oddly cool and clear.
“He was heading back to Gryffindor Tower,” said Umbridge. There was an indecent excitement
in her voice, the same callous pleasure Harry had heard as she watched Professor Trelawney
dissolving with misery in the Entrance Hall. “The Malfoy boy cornered him.”
“Did he, did he?” said Fudge appreciatively. “I must remember to tell Lucius. Well, Potter… I
expect you know why you are here?”
Harry fully intended to respond with a defiant ‘yes’: his mouth had opened and the word was
half-formed when he caught sight of Dumbledore’s face. Dumbledore was not looking directly at
Harry - his eyes were fixed on a point just over his shoulder - but as Harry stared at him, he
shook his head a fraction of an inch to each side.
Harry changed direction mid-word.
“Ye—no.”
“I beg your pardon?” said Fudge.
“No,” said Harry, firmly.
“You don’t know why you are here?”
“No, I don’t,” said Harry.
Fudge looked incredulously from Harry to Professor Umbridge. Harry took advantage of his
momentary inattention to steal another quick look at Dumbledore, who gave the carpet the tiniest
of nods and the shadow of a wink.
“So you have no idea,” said Fudge, in a voice positively sagging with sarcasm, “why Professor
Umbridge has brought you to this office? You are not aware that you have broken any school
rules?”
“School rules?” said Harry. “No.”
“Or Ministry Decrees?” amended Fudge angrily.
“Not that I’m aware of,” said Harry blandly.
His heart was still hammering very fast. It was almost worth telling these lies to watch Fudges
blood pressure rising, but he could not see how on earth he would get away with them; if
somebody had tipped off Umbridge about the D.A. then he, the leader, might as well be packing
his trunk right now.
“So, it’s news to you, is it,” said Fudge, his voice now thick with anger, “that an illegal student
organization has been discovered within this school?”
“Yes, it is,” said Harry, hoisting an unconvincing look of innocent surprise on to his face.
“I think, Minister,” said Umbridge silkily from beside him, “we might make better progress if I
fetch our informant.”
“Yes, yes, do,” said Fudge, nodding, and he glanced maliciously at Dumbledore as Umbridge left the room. “There’s nothing like a good witness, is t here, Dumbledore?”
“Nothing at all, Cornelius,” said Dumbledore gravely, inclining his head.
There was a wait of several minutes, in which nobody looked at each other, then Harry heard the
door open behind him. Umbridge moved past him into the room, gripping by the shoulder Cho’s
curly-haired friend, Marietta, who was hiding her face in her hands.
“Don’t be scared, dear, don’t be frightened,” said Professor Umbridge softly, patting her on the
back, “it’s quite all right, now. You have done the right thing. The Minister is very pleased with
you. He’ll be telling your mother what a good girl you’ve been.
“Marietta’s mother, Minister,” she added, looking up at Fudge, “is Madam Edgecombe from the
Department of Magical Transportation, Floo Network office - she’s been helping us police the
Hogwarts fires, you know.”
“Jolly good, jolly good!” said Fudge heartily. “Like mother, like daughter, eh? Well, come on,
now, dear, look up, don’t be shy, let’s hear what you’ve got to - galloping gargoyles!”
As Marietta raised her head, Fudge leapt backwards in shock, nearly landing himself in the fire.
He cursed, and stamped on the hem of his cloak which had started to smoke. Marietta gave a
wail and pulled the neck of her robes right up to her eyes, but not before everyone had seen that
her face was horribly disfigured by a series of close-set purple pustules that had spread across her
nose and cheeks to form the word SNEAK.
“Never mind the spots now, dear,” said Umbridge impatiently, “just take your robes away from
your mouth and tell the Minister -”
But Marietta gave another muffled wail and shook her head frantically.
“Oh, very well, you silly girl, I’ll tell him,” snapped Umbridge. She hitched her sickly smile back on to her face and said, “Well, Minister, Miss Edgecombe here came to my office shortly after dinner this evening and told me she had something she wanted to tell me. She said that if I
proceeded to a secret room on the seventh floor, sometimes known as the Room of Requirement,
I would find out something to my advantage. I questioned her a little further and she admitted
that there was to be some kind of meeting there. Unfortunately, at that point this hex,” she waved
impatiently at Marietta’s concealed face, “came into operation and upon catching sight of her
face in my mirror the girl became too distressed to tell me any more.”
“Well, now,” said Fudge, fixing Marietta with what he evidently imagined was a kind and
fatherly look, “it is very brave of you, my dear, coming to tell Professor Umbridge. You did
exactly the right thing. Now, will you tell me what happened at this meeting? What was its
purpose? Who was there?”
But Marietta would not speak; she merely shook her head again, her eyes wide and fearful.
“Haven’t we got a counter-jinx for this?” Fudge asked Umbridge impatiently, gesturing at
Marietta’s face. “So she can speak freely?”
“I have not yet managed to find one,” Umbridge admitted grudgingly, and Harry felt a surge of
pride in Hermione’s jinxing ability. “But it doesn’t matter if she won’t speak, I can take up the
story from here.”
“You will remember, Minister, that I sent you a report back in October that Potter had met a
number of fellow students in the Hog’s Head in Hogsmeade -”
“And what is your evidence for that?” cut in Professor McGonagall.
“I have testimony from Willy Widdershins, Minerva, who happened to be in the bar at the time.
He was heavily bandaged, it is true, but his hearing was quite unimpaired,” said Umbridge
smugly. “He heard every word Potter said and hastened straight to the school to report to me -”
“Oh, so that’s why he wasn’t prosecuted for setting up all those regurgitating toilets!” said
Professor McGonagall, raising her eyebrows. “What an interesting insight into our justice
system!”
“Blatant corruption!” roared the portrait of the corpulent, red-nosed wizard on the wall behind
Dumbledore’s desk. “The Ministry did not cut deals with petty criminals in my day, no sir, they
did not!”
“Thank you, Fortescue, that will do,” said Dumbledore softly.
“The purpose of Potter’s meeting with these students,” continued Professor Umbridge, “was to
persuade them to join an illegal society, whose aim was to learn spells and curses the Ministry
has decided are inappropriate for school-age -”
“I think you’ll find you’re wrong there, Dolores,” said Dumbledore quietly, peering at her over
the half-moon spectacles perched halfway down his crooked nose.
Harry stared at him. He could not see how Dumbledore was going to talk him out of this one; if
Willy Widdershins had indeed heard every word he had said in the Hog’s Head there was simply
no escaping it.
“Oho!” said Fudge, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet again. “Yes, do let’s hear the
latest cock-and-bull story designed to pull Potter out of trouble! Go on, then, Dumbledore, go on
- Willy Widdershins was lying, was he? Or was it Potters identical twin in the Hog’s Head that
day? Or is there the usual simple explanation involving a reversal of time, a dead man coming
back to life and a couple of invisible Dementors?”
Percy Weasley let out a hearty laugh.
“Oh, very good, Minister, very good!”
Harry could have kicked him. Then he saw, to his astonishment, that Dumbledore was smiling
gently, too.
“Cornelius, I do not deny - and nor, I am sure, does Harry - that he was in the Hog’s Head that
day, nor that he was trying to recruit students to a Defense Against the Dark Arts group. I am
merely pointing out that Dolores is quite wrong to suggest that such a group was, at that time,
illegal. If you remember, the Ministry Decree banning all student societies was not put into effect
until two days after Harrys Hogsmeade meeting, so he was not breaking any rules at all in the
Hog’s Head.”
Percy looked as though he had been struck in the face by something very heavy. Fudge remained
motionless in mid-bounce, his mouth hanging open.
Umbridge recovered first.
“That’s all very fine, Headmaster,” she said, smiling sweetly, “but we are now nearly six months
on from the introduction of Educational Decree Number Twenty-four. If the first meeting was
not illegal, all those that have happened since most certainly are.”
“Well,” said Dumbledore, surveying her with polite interest over the top of his interlocked
fingers, “they certainly would be, if they had continued after the Decree came into effect. Do you have any evidence that any such meetings continued?”
As Dumbledore spoke, Harry heard a rustle behind him and rather thought Kingsley whispered
something. He could have sworn, too, that he felt something brush against his side, a gentle
something like a draught or bird wings, but looking down he saw nothing there.
“Evidence?” repeated Umbridge, with that horrible wide toad-like smile. “Have you not been
listening, Dumbledore? Why do you think Miss Edgecombe is here?”
“Oh, can she tell us about six months’ worth of meetings?” said Dumbledore, raising his
eyebrows. “I was under the impression that she was merely reporting a meeting tonight.”
“Miss Edgecombe,” said Umbridge at once, “tell us how long these meetings have been going on, dear. You can simply nod or shake your head, I’m sure that won’t make the spots worse. Have they been happening regularly over the last six months?”
Harry felt a horrible plummeting in his stomach. This was it, they had hit a dead end of solid
evidence that not even Dumbledore would be able to shift aside.
“Just nod or shake your head, dear,” Umbridge said coaxingly to Marietta, “come on, now, that
won’t re-activate the jinx.”
Everyone in the room was gazing at the top of Marietta’s face. Only her eyes were visible
between the pulled-up robes and her curly fringe. Perhaps it was a trick of the firelight, but her
eyes looked oddly blank. And then - to Harry’s utter amazement - Marietta shook her head.
Umbridge looked quickly at Fudge, then back at Marietta.
“I don’t think you understood the question, did you, dear? I’m asking whether you’ve been going to these meetings for the past six months? You have, haven’t you?”
Again, Marietta shook her head.
“What do you mean by shaking your head, dear?” said Umbridge in a testy voice.
“I would have thought her meaning was quite clear,” said Professor McGonagall harshly, “there
have been no secret meetings for the past six months. Is that correct, Miss Edgecombe?”
Marietta nodded.
“But there was a meeting tonight!” said Umbridge furiously. “There was a meeting, Miss
Edgecombe, you told me about it, in the Room of Requirement! And Potter was the leader, was
he not, Potter organized it, Potter - why are you shaking your head, girl?”
“Well, usually when a person shakes their head,” said McGonagall coldly, “they mean ‘no’. So
unless Miss Edgecombe is using a form of sign-language as yet unknown to humans -”
Professor Umbridge seized Marietta, pulled her round to face her and began shaking her very
hard. A split second later Dumbledore was on his feet, his wand raised; Kingsley started
forwards and Umbridge leapt back from Marietta, waving her hands in the air as though they had
been burned.
“I cannot allow you to manhandle my students, Dolores,” said Dumbledore and, for the first time, he looked angry.
“You want to calm yourself, Madam Umbridge,” said Kingsley, in his deep, slow voice. “You
don’t want to get yourself into trouble, now.”
“No,” said Umbridge breathlessly, glancing up at the towering figure of Kingsley. “I mean, yes -
you’re right, Shacklebolt - I - I forgot myself.”
Marietta was standing exactly where Umbridge had released her. She seemed neither perturbed
by Umbridge’s sudden attack, nor relieved by her release; she was still clutching her robe up to
her oddly blank eyes and staring straight ahead of her.
A sudden suspicion, connected to Kingsley’s whisper and the thing he had felt shoot past him,
sprang into Harry’s mind.
“Dolores,” said Fudge, with the air of trying to settle something once and for all, “the meeting
tonight - the one we know definitely happened -”
“Yes,” said Umbridge, pulling herself together, “yes… well, Miss Edgecombe tipped me off and I proceeded at once to the seventh floor, accompanied by certain trustworthy students, so as to
catch those in the meeting red-handed. It appears that they were forewarned of my arrival,
however, because when we reached the seventh floor they were running in every direction. It
does not matter, however. I have all their names here, Miss Parkinson ran into the Room of
Requirement for me to see if they had left anything behind. We needed evidence and the room
provided.”
And to Harry’s horror, she withdrew from her pocket the list of names that had been pinned upon
the Room of Requirement’s wall and handed it to Fudge.
“The moment I saw Potter’s name on the list, I knew what we were dealing with,” she said softly.
“Excellent,” said Fudge, a smile spreading across his face, “excellent, Dolores. And… by
thunder…”
He looked up at Dumbledore, who was still standing beside Marietta, his wand held loosely in
his hand.
“See what they’ve named themselves?” said Fudge quietly. “Dumbledore’s Army.”
Dumbledore reached out and took the piece of parchment from Fudge. He gazed at the heading
scribbled by Hermione months before and for a moment seemed unable to speak. Then he looked
up, smiling.
“Well, the game is up,” he said simply. “Would you like a written confession from me, Cornelius
- or will a statement before these witnesses suffice?”
Harry saw McGonagall and Kingsley look at each other. There was fear in both faces. He did not
understand what was going on, and nor, apparently, did Fudge.
“Statement?” said Fudge slowly. “What - I don’t -?”
“Dumbledore’s Army, Cornelius,” said Dumbledore, still smiling as he waved the list of names
before Fudge’s face. “Not Potter’s Army. Dumbledore’s Army.”
“But - but -”
Understanding blazed suddenly in Fudges face. He took a horrified step backwards, yelped, and
jumped out of the fire again.
“You?” he whispered, stamping again on his smouldering cloak.
“That’s right,” said Dumbledore pleasantly.
“You organized this?”
“I did,” said Dumbledore.
“You recruited these students for - for your army?”
“Tonight was supposed to be the first meeting,” said Dumbledore, nodding. “Merely to see
whether they would be interested in joining me. I see now that it was a mistake to invite Miss
Edgecombe, of course.”
Marietta nodded. Fudge looked from her to Dumbledore, his chest swelling.
“Then you have been plotting against me!” he yelled.
“That’s right,” said Dumbledore cheerfully.
“NO!” shouted Harry.
Kingsley flashed a look of warning at him, McGonagall widened her eyes threateningly, but it
had suddenly dawned on Harry what Dumbledore was about to do, and he could not let it
happen.
“No — Professor Dumbledore -!”
“Be quiet, Harry, or I am afraid you will have to leave my office,” said Dumbledore calmly.
“Yes, shut up, Potter!” barked Fudge, who was still ogling Dumbledore with a kind of horrified
delight. “Well, well, well - I came here tonight expecting to expel Potter and instead -”
“Instead you get to arrest me,” said Dumbledore, smiling. “It’s like losing a Knut and finding a
Galleon, isn’t it?”
“Weasley!” cried Fudge, now positively quivering with delight, “Weasley, have you written it all
down, everything he’s said, his confession, have you got it?”
“Yes, sir, I think so, sir!” said Percy eagerly, whose nose was splattered with ink from the speed
of his note-taking.
“The bit about how he’s been trying to build up an army against the Ministry, how he’s been
working to destabilize me?”
“Yes, sir, I’ve got it, yes!” said Percy, scanning his notes joyfully.
“Very well, then,” said Fudge, now radiant with glee, “duplicate your notes, Weasley, and send a
copy to the Daily Prophet at once. If we send a fast owl we should make the morning edition!”
Percy dashed from the room, slamming the door behind him, and Fudge turned back to
Dumbledore. “You will now be escorted back to the Ministry, where you will be formally
charged, then sent to Azkaban to await trial!”
“Ah,” said Dumbledore gently, “yes. Yes, I thought we might hit that little snag.”
“Snag?” said Fudge, his voice still vibrating with joy. “I see no snag, Dumbledore!”
“Well,” said Dumbledore apologetically, “I’m afraid I do.”
“Oh, really?”
“Well - it’s just that you seem to be laboring under the delusion that I am going to - what is the
phrase? - come quietly. I am afraid I am not going to come quietly at all, Cornelius. I have
absolutely no intention of being sent to Azkaban. I could break out, of course - but what a waste
of time, and frankly, I can think of a whole host of things I would rather be doing.”
Umbridge’s face was growing steadily redder; she looked as though she was being filled with
boiling water. Fudge stared at Dumbledore with a very silly expression on his face, as though he
had just been stunned by a sudden blow and could not quite believe it had happened. He made a
small choking noise, then looked round at Kingsley and the man with short grey hair, who alone
of everyone in the room had remained entirely silent so far. The latter gave Fudge a reassuring
nod and moved forwards a little, away from the wall. Harry saw his hand drift, almost casually,
towards his pocket.
“Don’t be silly, Dawlish,” said Dumbledore kindly. “I’m sure you are an excellent Auror - I seem to remember that you achieved ‘Outstanding’ in all your NEWT s — but if you attempt to — er — bring me in by force, I will have to hurt you.”
The man called Dawlish blinked rather foolishly. He looked towards Fudge again, but this time
seemed to be hoping for a clue as to what to do next.
“So,” sneered Fudge, recovering himself, “you intend to take on Dawlish, Shacklebolt, Dolores
and myself single-handed, do you, Dumbledore?”
“Merlin’s beard, no,” said Dumbledore, smiling, “not unless you are foolish enough to force me
to.”
“He will not be single-handed!” said Professor McGonagall loudly, plunging her hand inside her
robes.
“Oh yes he will, Minerva!” said Dumbledore sharply. “Hogwarts needs you!”
“Enough of this rubbish!” said Fudge, pulling out his own wand. “Dawlish! Shacklebolt! Take
him!”
A streak of silver light flashed around the room; there was a bang like a gunshot and the floor
trembled; a hand grabbed the scruff of Harry’s neck and forced him down on the floor as a
second silver flash went off; several of the portraits yelled, Fawkes screeched and a cloud of dust
filled the air. Coughing in the dust, Harry saw a dark figure fall to the ground with a crash in
front of him; there was a shriek and a thud and somebody cried, “No!”; then there was the sound
of breaking glass, frantically scuffling footsteps, a groan… and silence.
Harry struggled around to see who was half-strangling him and saw Professor McGonagall
crouched beside him; she had forced both him and Marietta out of harm’s way. Dust was still
floating gently down through the air on to them. Panting slightly, Harry saw a very tall figure
moving towards them.
“Are you all right?” Dumbledore asked.
“Yes!” said Professor McGonagall, getting up and dragging Harry and Marietta with her.
The dust was clearing. The wreckage of the office loomed into view: Dumbledore’s desk had
been overturned, all of the spindly tables had been knocked to the floor, their silver instruments
in pieces. Fudge, Umbridge, Kingsley and Dawlish lay motionless on the floor. Fawkes the
phoenix soared in wide circles above them, singing softly.
“Unfortunately, I had to hex Kingsley too, or it would have looked very suspicious,” said
Dumbledore in a low voice. “He was remarkably quick on the uptake, modifying Miss
Edgecombe’s memory like that while everyone was looking the other way - thank him, for me,
won’t you, Minerva?
“Now, they will all awake very soon and it will be best if they do not know that we had time to
communicate - you must act as though no time has passed, as though they were merely knocked
to the ground, they will not remember -”
“Where will you go, Dumbledore?” whispered Professor McGonagall. “Grimmauld Place?”
“Oh no,” said Dumbledore, with a grim smile, “I am not leaving to go into hiding. Fudge will
soon wish he’d never dislodged me from Hogwarts, I promise you.”
“Professor Dumbledore…” Harry began.
He did not know what to say first: how sorry he was that he had started the D.A. in the first place
and caused all this trouble, or how terrible he felt that Dumbledore was leaving to save him from
expulsion? But Dumbledore cut him off before he could say another word.
“Listen to me, Harry,” he said urgently. “You must study Occlumency as hard as you can, do you understand me? Do everything Professor Snape tells you and practice it particularly every night before sleeping so that you can close your mind to bad dreams - you will understand why soon enough, but you must promise me -”
The man called Dawlish was stirring. Dumbledore seized Harry’s wrist.
“Remember - close your mind -”
But as Dumbledore’s fingers closed over Harrys skin, a pain shot through the scar on his
forehead and he felt again that terrible, snakelike longing to strike Dumbledore, to bite him, to
hurt him -
“- you will understand,” whispered Dumbledore.
Fawkes circled the office and swooped low over him. Dumbledore released Harry, raised his
hand and grasped the phoenix’s long golden tail. There was a flash of fire and the pair of them
were gone.
“Where is he?” yelled Fudge, pushing himself up from the floor. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know!” shouted Kingsley, also leaping to his feet.
“Well, he can’t have Disapparated!” cried Umbridge. “You can’t do it from inside this school -”
“The stairs!” cried Dawlish, and he flung himself upon the door, wrenched it open and
disappeared, followed closely by Kingsley and Umbridge. Fudge hesitated, then got slowly to his
feet, brushing dust from his front. There was a long and painful silence.
“Well, Minerva,” said Fudge nastily, straightening his torn shirtsleeve, “I’m afraid this is the end
of your friend Dumbledore.”
“You think so, do you?” said Professor McGonagall scornfully.
Fudge seemed not to hear her. He was looking around at the wrecked office. A few of the
portraits hissed at him; one or two even made rude hand gestures.
“You’d better get those two off to bed,” said Fudge, looking back at Professor McGonagall with a dismissive nod towards Harry and Marietta.
Professor McGonagall said nothing, but marched Harry and Marietta to the door. As it swung
closed behind them, Harry heard Phineas Nigellus’s voice.
“You know, Minister, I disagree with Dumbledore on many counts… but you cannot deny he’s
got style…”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Snape’s Worst Memory
BY ORDER OF THE MINISTRY OF MAGIC
Dolores Jane Umbridge (High Inquisitor) has replaced Albus Dumbledore as Head of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
The above is in accordance with Educational Decree Number Twenty-eight.
Signed: Cornelius Oswald Fudge, Minister for Magic
The notices had gone up all around the school overnight, but they did not explain how every
single person within the castle seemed to know that Dumbledore had overcome two Aurors, the
High Inquisitor, the Minister for Magic and his Junior Assistant to escape. No matter where
Harry went within the castle, the sole topic of conversation was Dumbledore’s flight, and though
some of the details may have gone awry in the retelling (Harry overheard one second-year girl
assuring another that Fudge was now lying in St. Mungo’s with a pumpkin for a head) it was
surprising how accurate the rest of their information was. Everybody knew, for instance, that
Harry and Marietta were the only students to have witnessed the scene in Dumbledore’s office
and, as Marietta was now in the hospital wing, Harry found himself besieged with requests to
give a first-hand account.
“Dumbledore will be back before long,” said Ernie Macmillan confidently on the way back from
Herbology, after listening intently to Harry’s story. “They couldn’t keep him away in our second
year and they won’t be able to this time. The Fat Friar told me -” he dropped his voice
conspiratorially, so that Harry, Ron and Hermione had to lean closer to him to hear “- that
Umbridge tried to get back into his office last night after they’d searched the castle and grounds
for him. Couldn’t get past the gargoyle. The Head’s office has sealed itself against her.” Ernie
smirked. “Apparently, she had a right little tantrum.”
“Oh, I expect she really fancied herself sitting up there in the Heads office,” said Hermione
viciously, as they walked up the stone steps into the Entrance Hall. “Lording it over all the other
teachers, the stupid puffed-up, power-crazy old -”
“Now, do you really want to finish that sentence, Granger?”
Draco Malfoy had slid out from behind the door, closely followed by Crabbe and Goyle. His
pale, pointed face was alight with malice.
“Afraid I’m going to have to dock a few points from Gryffindor and Hufflepuff,” he drawled.
“It’s only teachers who can dock points from houses, Malfoy,” said Ernie at once.
“Yeah, we’re prefects, too, remember?” snarled Ron.
“I know prefects can’t dock points, Weasel King,” sneered Malfoy. Crabbe and Goyle sniggered.
“But members of the Inquisitorial Squad -”
“The what!” said Hermione sharply.
“The Inquisitorial Squad, Granger,” said Malfoy, pointing towards a tiny silver ‘I’ on his robes just beneath his prefect’s badge. “A select group of students who are supportive of the Ministry of Magic, hand-picked by Professor Umbridge. Anyway, members of the Inquisitorial Squad do
have the power to dock points… so, Granger, I’ll have five from you for being rude about our
new Headmistress. Macmillan, five for contradicting me. Five because I don’t like you, Potter.
Weasley, your shirts untucked, so I’ll have another five for that. Oh yeah, I forgot, you’re a
Mudblood, Granger, so ten off for that.”
Ron pulled out his wand, but Hermione pushed it away, whispering, “Don’t!”
“Wise move, Granger,” breathed Malfoy. “New Head, new times… be good now, Potty… Weasel King…”
Laughing heartily, he strode away with Crabbe and Goyle.
“He was bluffing,” said Ernie, looking appalled. “He can’t be allowed to dock points… that
would be ridiculous… it would completely undermine the prefect system.”
But Harry, Ron and Hermione had turned automatically towards the giant hour-glasses set in
niches along the wall behind them, which recorded the house-points. Gryffindor and Ravenclaw
had been neck and neck in the lead that morning. Even as they watched, stones flew upwards,
reducing the amounts in the lower bulbs. In fact, the only glass that seemed unchanged was the
emerald-filled one of Slytherin.
“Noticed, have you?” said Fred’s voice.
He and George had just come down the marble staircase and joined Harry, Ron, Hermione and
Ernie in front of the hour-glasses.
“Malfoy just docked us all about fifty points,” said Harry furiously, as they watched several more stones fly upwards from the Gryffindor hour-glass.
“Yeah, Montague tried to do us during break,” said George.
“What do you mean, ‘tried’?” said Ron quickly.
“He never managed to get all the words out,” said Fred, “due to the fact that we forced him headfirst into that Vanishing Cabinet on the first floor.”
Hermione looked very shocked.
“But you’ll get into terrible trouble!”
“Not until Montague reappears, and that could take weeks, I dunno where we sent him,” said
Fred coolly. “Anyway… we’ve decided we don’t care about getting into trouble any more.”
“Have you ever?” asked Hermione.
“Course we have,” said George. “Never been expelled, have we?”
“We’ve always known where to draw the line,” said Fred.
“We might have put a toe across it occasionally,” said George.
“But we’ve always stopped short of causing real mayhem,” said Fred.
“But now?” said Ron tentatively.
“Well, now -” said George.
“- what with Dumbledore gone -” said Fred.
“- we reckon a bit of mayhem —” said George.
“— is exactly what our dear new Head deserves,” said Fred.
“You mustn’t!” whispered Hermione. “You really mustn’t! She’d love a reason to expel you!”
“You don’t get it, Hermione, do you?” said Fred, smiling at her. “We don’t care about staying anymore. We’d walk out right now if we weren’t determined to do our bit for Dumbledore first. So, anyway,” he checked his watch, “phase one is about to begin. I’d get in the Great Hall for lunch, if I were you, that way the teachers will see you can’t have had anything to do with it.”
“Anything to do with what?” said Hermione anxiously.
“You’ll see,” said George. “Run along, now.”
Fred and George turned away and disappeared into the swelling crowd descending the stairs
towards lunch. Looking highly disconcerted, Ernie muttered something about unfinished
Transfiguration homework and scurried away.
“I think we should get out of here, you know,” said Hermione nervously. “Just in case”
“Yeah, all right,” said Ron, and the three of them moved towards the doors to the Great Hall, but
Harry had barely glimpsed the day’s ceiling of scudding white clouds when somebody tapped
him on the shoulder and, turning, he found himself almost nose-to-nose with Filch the caretaker.
He took several hasty steps backwards; Filch was best viewed at a distance.
“The Headmistress would like to see you, Potter,” he leered.
“I didn’t do it,” said Harry stupidly, thinking of whatever Fred and George were planning. Filch’s jowls wobbled with silent laughter.
“Guilty conscience, eh?” he wheezed. “Follow me.”
Harry glanced back at Ron and Hermione, who were both looking worried. He shrugged, and
followed Filch back into the Entrance Hall, against the tide of hungry students.
Filch seemed to be in an extremely good mood; he hummed creakily under his breath as they
climbed the marble staircase. As they reached the first landing he said, “Things are changing
around here, Potter.”
“I’ve noticed,” said Harry coldly.
“Yerse… I’ve been telling Dumbledore for years and years he’s too soft with you all,” said Filch,
chuckling nastily. “You filthy little beasts would never have dropped Stink Pellets if you’d
known I had it in my power to whip you raw, would you, now? Nobody would have thought of
throwing Fanged Frisbees down the corridors if I could’ve strung you up by the ankles in my
office, would they? But when Educational Decree Number Twenty-nine comes in, Potter, I’ll be
allowed to do them things… and she’s asked the Minister to sign an order for the expulsion of
Peeves… oh, things are going to be very different around here with her in charge.”
Umbridge had obviously gone to some lengths to get Filch on her side, Harry thought, and the
worst of it was that he would probably prove an important weapon; his knowledge of the
school’s secret passageways and hiding places was probably second only to that of the Weasley
twins.
“Here we are,” he said, leering down at Harry as he rapped three times on Professor Umbridge’s
door and pushed it open. “The Potter boy to see you, Ma’am.”
Umbridge’s office, so very familiar to Harry from his many detentions, was the same as usual
except for the large wooden block lying across the front of her desk on which golden letters
spelled the word: HEADMISTRESS. Also, his Firebolt and Fred and George’s Cleansweeps,
which he saw with a pang, were chained and padlocked to a stout iron peg in the wall behind the
desk.
Umbridge was sitting behind the desk, busily scribbling on some of her pink parchment, but she
looked up and smiled widely at their entrance.
“Thank you, Argus,” she said sweetly.
“Not at all, Ma’am, not at all,” said Filch, bowing as low as his rheumatism would permit, and
exiting backwards.
“Sit,” said Umbridge curtly, pointing towards a chair. Harry sat. She continued to scribble for a
few moments. He watched some of the foul kittens gamboling around the plates over her head,
wondering what fresh horror she had in store for him.
“Well, now,” she said finally, setting down her quill and surveying him complacently, like a toad
about to swallow a particularly juicy fly. “What would you like to drink?”
“What?” said Harry, quite sure he had misheard her.
“To drink, Mr. Potter,” she said, smiling still more widely. “Tea? Coffee? Pumpkin juice?”
As she named each drink, she gave her short wand a wave, and a cup or glass of it appeared on
her desk.
“Nothing, thank you,” said Harry.
“I wish you to have a drink with me,” she said, her voice becoming dangerously sweet. “Choose
one.”
“Fine… tea then,” said Harry, shrugging.
She got up and made quite a performance of adding milk with her back to him. She then bustled
around the desk with it, smiling in a sinisterly sweet fashion.
“There,” she said, handing it to him. “Drink it before it gets cold, won’t you? Well, now, Mr.
Potter… I thought we ought to have a little chat, after the distressing events of last night.”
He said nothing. She settled herself back into her seat and waited. When several long moments
had passed in silence, she said gaily, “You’re not drinking up!”
He raised the cup to his lips and then, just as suddenly, lowered it. One of the horrible painted
kittens behind Umbridge had great round blue eyes just like Mad-Eye Moody’s magical one and
it had just occurred to Harry what Mad-Eye would say if he ever heard that Harry had drunk
anything offered by a known enemy.
“What’s the matter?” said Umbridge, who was still watching him closely. “Do you want sugar?”
“No,” said Harry.
He raised the cup to his lips again and pretended to take a sip, though keeping his mouth tightly
closed. Umbridge’s smile widened.
“Good,” she whispered. “Very good. Now then…” She leaned forwards a little. “Where is Albus
Dumbledore?”
“No idea,” said Harry promptly.
“Drink up, drink up,” she said, still smiling. “Now, Mr. Potter, let us not play childish games. I
know that you know where he has gone. You and Dumbledore have been in this together from
the beginning. Consider your position, Mr. Potter…”
“I don’t know where he is,” Harry repeated.
He pretended to drink again. She was watching him very closely.
“Very well,” she said, though she looked displeased. “In that case, you will kindly tell me the
whereabouts of Sirius Black.”
Harry’s stomach turned over and his hand holding the teacup shook so that it rattled in its saucer.
He tilted the cup to his mouth with his lips pressed together, so that some of the hot liquid
trickled down on to his robes.
“I don’t know,” he said, a little too quickly.
“Mr. Potter,” said Umbridge, “let me remind you that it was I who almost caught the criminal
Black in the Gryffindor fire in October. I know perfectly well it was you he was meeting and if I
had had any proof neither of you would be at large today, I promise you. I repeat, Mr. Potter…
where is Sirius Black?”
“No idea,” said Harry loudly. “Haven’t got a clue.”
They stared at each other so long that Harry felt his eyes watering. Then Umbridge stood up.
“Very well, Potter, I will take your word for it this time, but be warned: the might of the Ministry
stands behind me. All channels of communication in and out of this school are being monitored.
A Floo Network Regulator is keeping watch over every fire in Hogwarts - except my own, of
course. My Inquisitorial Squad is opening and reading all owl post entering and leaving the
castle. And Mr. Filch is observing all secret passages in and out of the castle. If I find a shred of
evidence…”
BOOM!
The very floor of the office shook. Umbridge slipped sideways, clutching her desk for support,
and looking shocked.
“What was -?”
She was gazing towards the door. Harry took the opportunity to empty his almost-full cup of tea
into the nearest vase of dried flowers. He could hear people running and screaming several floors
below.
“Back to lunch you go, Potter!” cried Umbridge, raising her wand and dashing out of the office.
Harry gave her a few seconds’ start, then hurried after her to see what the source of all the uproar
was.
It was not difficult to find. One floor down, pandemonium reigned. Somebody (and Harry had a
very shrewd idea who) had set off what seemed to be an enormous crate of enchanted fireworks.
Dragons comprised entirely of green and gold sparks were soaring up and down the corridors,
emitting loud fiery blasts and bangs as they went; shocking-pink Catherine wheels five feet in
diameter were whizzing lethally through the air like so many flying saucers; rockets with long
tails of brilliant silver stars were ricocheting off the walls; sparklers were writing swear words in
midair of their own accord; firecrackers were exploding like mines everywhere Harry looked,
and instead of burning themselves out, fading from sight or fizzling to a halt, these pyrotechnical
miracles seemed to be gaining in energy and momentum the longer he watched.
Filch and Umbridge were standing, apparently transfixed in horror, halfway down the stairs. As
Harry watched, one of the larger Catherine wheels seemed to decide that what it needed was
more room to maneuver; it whirled towards Umbridge and Filch with a sinister ‘wheeeeeeeeee’.
They both yelled with fright and ducked, and it soared straight out of the window behind them
and off across the grounds. Meanwhile, several of the dragons and a large purple bat that was
smoking ominously took advantage of the open door at the end of the corridor to escape towards
the second floor.
“Hurry, Filch, hurry!” shrieked Umbridge, “they’ll be all over the school unless we do something
- Stupefy”
A jet of red light shot out of the end of her wand and hit one of the rockets. Instead of freezing in
midair, it exploded with such force that it blasted a hole in a painting of a soppy-looking witch in
the middle of a meadow; she ran for it just in time, reappearing seconds later squashed into the
next painting, where a couple of wizards playing cards stood up hastily to make room for her.
“Don’t Stun them, Filch!” shouted Umbridge angrily, for all the world as though it had been his
incantation.
“Right you are, Headmistress!” wheezed Filch, who as a Squib could no more have Stunned the
fireworks than swallowed them. He dashed to a nearby cupboard, pulled out a broom and began
swatting at the fireworks in midair; within seconds the head of the broom was ablaze.
Harry had seen enough; laughing, he ducked down low, ran to a door he knew was concealed
behind a tapestry a little way along the corridor and slipped through it to find Fred and George
hiding just behind it, listening to Umbridge and Filch’s yells and quaking with suppressed mirth.
“Impressive,” Harry said quietly, grinning. “Very impressive… you’ll put Dr. Filibuster out of
business, no problem…”
“Cheers,” whispered George, wiping tears of laughter from his face. “Oh, I hope she tries
Vanishing them next… they multiply by ten every time you try.”
The fireworks continued to burn and to spread all over the school that afternoon. Though they
caused plenty of disruption, particularly the firecrackers, the other teachers didn’t seem to mind
them very much.
“Dear, dear,” said Professor McGonagall sardonically, as one of the dragons soared around her
classroom, emitting loud bangs and exhaling flame. “Miss Brown, would you mind running
along to the Headmistress and informing her that we have an escaped firework in our
classroom?”
The upshot of it all was that Professor Umbridge spent her first afternoon as Headmistress
running all over the school answering the summonses of the other teachers, none of whom
seemed able to rid their rooms of the fireworks without her. When the final bell rang and they
were heading back to Gryffindor Tower with their bags, Harry saw, with immense satisfaction, a
disheveled and soot-blackened Umbridge tottering sweaty-faced from Professor Flitwick’s
classroom.
“Thank you so much, Professor!” said Professor Flitwick in his squeaky little voice. “I could have got rid of the sparklers myself, of course, but I wasn’t sure whether or not I had the authority.”
Beaming, he closed his classroom door in her snarling face.
Fred and George were heroes that night in the Gryffindor common room. Even Hermione fought
her way through the excited crowd to congratulate them.
“They were wonderful fireworks,” she said admiringly.
“Thanks,” said George, looking both surprised and pleased. “Weasleys’ Wildfire Whiz-bangs.
Only thing is, we used our whole stock; we’re going to have to start again from scratch now.”
“It was worth it, though,” said Fred, who was taking orders from clamouring Gryffindors. “If you want to add your name to the waiting list, Hermione, it’s five Galleons for your Basic Blaze box and twenty for the Deflagration Deluxe…”
Hermione returned to the table where Harry and Ron were sitting staring at their schoolbags as
though hoping their homework would spring out and start doing itself.
“Oh, why don’t we have a night off?” said Hermione brightly, as a silver-tailed Weasley rocket
zoomed past the window. “After all, the Easter holidays start on Friday, we’ll have plenty of time then.”
“Are you feeling all right?” Ron asked, staring at her in disbelief.
“Now you mention it,” said Hermione happily, “d’you know… I think I’m feeling a
bit… rebellious.”
Harry could still hear the distant bangs of escaped firecrackers when he and Ron went up to bed
an hour later; and as he got undressed a sparkler floated past the tower, still resolutely spelling
out the word TOO.
He got into bed, yawning. With his glasses off, the occasional firework passing the window had
become blurred, looking like sparkling clouds, beautiful and mysterious against the black sky.
He turned on to his side, wondering how Umbridge was feeling about her first day in
Dumbledore’s job, and how Fudge would react when he heard that the school had spent most of
the day in a state of advanced disruption. Smiling to himself, Harry closed his eyes…
The whizzes and bangs of escaped fireworks in the grounds seemed to be growing more
distant… or perhaps he was simply speeding away from them…
He had fallen right into the corridor leading to the Department of Mysteries. He was speeding
towards the plain black door… let it open… let it open…
It did. He was inside the circular room lined with doors… he crossed it, placed his hand on an
identical door and it swung inwards…
Now he was in a long, rectangular room full of an odd mechanical clicking. There were dancing
flecks of light on the walls but he did not pause to investigate… he had to go on…
There was a door at the far end… it, too, opened at his touch…
And now he was in a dimly lit room as high and wide as a church, full of nothing but rows and
rows of towering shelves, each laden with small, dusty, spun-glass spheres… now Harrys heart
was beating fast with excitement… he knew where to go… he ran forwards, but his footsteps
made no noise in the enormous, deserted room…
There was something in this room he wanted very, very much…
Something he wanted… or somebody else wanted…
His scar was hurting…
BANG!
Harry awoke instantly, confused and angry. The dark dormitory was full of the sound of
laughter.
“Cool!” said Seamus, who was silhouetted against the window. “I think one of those Catherine
wheels hit a rocket and it’s like they mated, come and see!”
Harry heard Ron and Dean scramble out of bed for a better look. He lay quite still and silent
while the pain in his scar subsided and disappointment washed over him. He felt as though a
wonderful treat had been snatched from him at the very last moment… he had got so close that
time.
Glittering pink and silver winged piglets were now soaring past the windows of Gryffindor
Tower. Harry lay and listened to the appreciative whoops of Gryffindors in the dormitories
below them. His stomach gave a sickening jolt as he remembered that he had Occlumency the
following evening.
Harry spent the whole of the next day dreading what Snape was going to say if he found out how
much further into the Department of Mysteries Harry had penetrated during his last dream. With
a surge of guilt he realized that he had not practiced Occlumency once since their last lesson:
there had been too much going on since Dumbledore had left; he was sure he would not have
been able to empty his mind even if he had tried. He doubted, however, whether Snape would
accept that excuse.
He attempted a little last-minute practice during classes that day, but it was no good. Hermione
kept asking him what was wrong whenever he fell silent trying to rid himself of all thought and
emotion and, after all, the best moment to empty his brain was not while teachers were firing
review questions at the class.
Resigned to the worst, he set off for Snape’s office after dinner. Halfway across the Entrance
Hall, however, Cho came hurrying up to him.
“Over here,” said Harry, glad of a reason to postpone his meeting with Snape, and beckoning her
across to the corner of the Entrance Hall where the giant hour-glasses stood. Gryffindor’s was
now almost empty. “Are you okay? Umbridge hasn’t been asking you about the D.A., has she?”
“Oh, no,” said Cho hurriedly. “No, it was only… well, I just wanted to say… Harry, I never
dreamed Marietta would tell…”
“Yeah, well,” said Harry moodily. He did feel Cho might have chosen her friends a bit more
carefully; it was small consolation that the last he had heard, Marietta was still up in the hospital
wing and Madam Pomfrey had not been able to make the slightest improvement to her pimples.
“She’s a lovely person really,” said Cho. “She just made a mistake -”
Harry looked at her incredulously.
“A lovely person who made a mistake? She sold us all out, including you!”
“Well… we all got away, didn’t we?” said Cho pleadingly. “You know, her mum works for the
Ministry, it’s really difficult for her -”
“Ron’s dad works for the Ministry too!” Harry said furiously. “And in case you hadn’t noticed, he hasn’t got sneak written across his face -”
“That was a really horrible trick of Hermione Granger’s,” said Cho fiercely. “She should have
told us she’d jinxed that list -”
“I think it was a brilliant idea,” said Harry coldly. Cho flushed and her eyes grew brighter.
“Oh yes, I forgot - of course, if it was darling Hermione’s idea -”
“Don’t start crying again,” said Harry warningly.
“I wasn’t going to!” she shouted.
“Yeah… well… good,” he said. “I’ve got enough to cope with at the moment.”
“Go and cope with it then!” Cho said furiously, turning on her heel and stalking off.
Fuming, Harry descended the stairs to Snape’s dungeon and, though he knew from experience
how much easier it would be for Snape to penetrate his mind if he arrived angry and resentful, he
succeeded in nothing but thinking of a few more things he should have said to Cho about
Marietta before reaching the dungeon door.
“You’re late, Potter,” said Snape coldly, as Harry closed the door behind him.
Snape was standing with his back to Harry, removing, as usual, certain of his thoughts and
placing them carefully in Dumbledores Pensieve. He dropped the last silvery strand into the
stone basin and turned to face Harry.
“So,” he said. “Have you been practicing?”
“Yes,” Harry lied, looking carefully at one of the legs of Snape’s desk.
“Well, we’ll soon find out, won’t we?” said Snape smoothly. “Wand out, Potter.”
Harry moved into his usual position, facing Snape with the desk between them. His heart was
pumping fast with anger at Cho and anxiety about how much Snape was about to extract from
his mind.
“On the count of three then,” said Snape lazily. “One - two -”
Snape’s office door banged open and Draco Malfoy sped in.
“Professor Snape, sir - oh - sorry -”
Malfoy was looking at Snape and Harry in some surprise.
“It’s all right, Draco,” said Snape, lowering his w and. “Potter is here for a little remedial Potions.”
Harry had not seen Malfoy look so gleeful since Umbridge had turned up to inspect Hagrid.
“I didn’t know,” he said, leering at Harry, who knew his face was burning. He would have given
a great deal to be able to shout the truth at Malfoy - or, even better, to hit him with a good curse.
“Well, Draco, what is it?” asked Snape.
“It’s Professor Umbridge, sir - she needs your help,” said Malfoy. “They’ve found Montague, sir, he’s turned up jammed inside a toilet on the fourth floor.”
“How did he get in there?” demanded Snape.
“I don’t know, sir, he’s a bit confused.”
“Very well, very well. Potter,” said Snape, “we shall resume this lesson tomorrow evening.”
He turned and swept from his office. Malfoy mouthed, “Remedial Potions?” at Harry behind
Snape’s back before following him.
Seething, Harry replaced his wand inside his robes and made to leave the room. At least he had
twenty-four more hours in which to practice; he knew he ought to feel grateful for the narrow
escape, though it was hard that it came at the expense of Malfoy telling the whole school that he
needed remedial Potions.
He was at the office door when he saw it: a patch of shivering light dancing on the doorframe.
He stopped, and stood looking at it, reminded of something… then he remembered: it was a little
like the lights he had seen in his dream last night, the lights in the second room he had walked
through on his journey through the Department of Mysteries.
He turned around. The light was coming from the Pensieve sitting on Snape’s desk. The silverwhite contents were ebbing and swirling within. Snape’s thoughts… things he did not want
Harry to see if he broke through Snape’s Defenses accidentally…
Harry gazed at the Pensieve, curiosity welling inside him… what was it that Snape was so keen
to hide from Harry?
The silvery lights shivered on the wall… Harry took two steps towards the desk, thinking hard.
Could it possibly be information about the Department of Mysteries that Snape was determined
to keep from him?
Harry looked over his shoulder, his heart now pumping harder and faster than ever. How long
would it take Snape to release Montague from the toilet? Would he come straight back to his
office afterwards, or accompany Montague to the hospital wing? Surely the latter… Montague
was Captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team, Snape would want to make sure he was all right.
Harry walked the remaining few feet to the Pensieve and stood over it, gazing into its depths. He
hesitated, listening, then pulled out his wand again. The office and the corridor beyond were
completely silent. He gave the contents of the Pensieve a small prod with the end of his wand.
The silvery stuff within began to swirl very fast. Harry leaned forwards over it and saw that it
had become transparent. He was, once again, looking down into a room as though through a
circular window in the ceiling… in fact, unless he was much mistaken, he was looking down into
the Great Hall.
His breath was actually fogging the surface of Snape’s thoughts… his brain seemed to be in
limbo… it would be insane to do the thing he was so strongly tempted to do… he was
trembling… Snape could be back at any moment… but Harry thought of Cho's anger, of
Malfoy’s jeering face, and a reckless daring seized him.
He took a great gulp of breath, and plunged his face into the surface of Snape’s thoughts. At
once, the floor of the office lurched, tipping Harry head-first into the Pensieve…
He was falling through cold blackness, spinning furiously as he went, and then -
He was standing in the middle of the Great Hall, but the four house tables were gone. Instead,
there were more than a hundred smaller tables, all facing the same way, at each of which sat a
student, head bent low, scribbling on a roll of parchment. The only sound was the scratching of
quills and the occasional rustle as somebody adjusted their parchment. It was clearly exam time.
Sunshine was streaming through the high windows on to the bent heads, which shone chestnut
and copper and gold in the bright light. Harry looked around carefully. Snape had to be here
somewhere… this was his memory…
And there he was, at a table right behind Harry. Harry stared. Snape-the-teenager had a stringy,
pallid look about him, like a plant kept in the dark. His hair was lank and greasy and was
flopping on to the table, his hooked nose barely half an inch from the surface of the parchment as
he scribbled. Harry moved around behind Snape and read the heading of the examination paper:
DEFENSE AGAINST THE DARK ARTS - ORDINARY WIZARDING LEVEL.
So Snape had to be fifteen or sixteen, around Harry’s own age. His hand was flying across the
parchment; he had written at least a foot more than his closest neighbors, and yet his writing
was minuscule and cramped.
“Five more minutes!”
The voice made Harry jump. Turning, he saw the top of Professor Flitwick’s head moving
between the desks a short distance away. Professor Flitwick was walking past a boy with untidy
black hair… very untidy black hair…
Harry moved so quickly that, had he been solid, he would have knocked desks flying. Instead he
seemed to slide, dreamlike, across two aisles and up a third. The back of the black-haired boy’s
head drew nearer and… he was straightening up now, putting down his quill, pulling his roll of
parchment towards him so as to reread what he had written…
Harry stopped in front of the desk and gazed down at his fifteen-year-old father.
Excitement exploded in the pit of his stomach: it was as though he was looking at himself but
with deliberate mistakes. James’s eyes were hazel, his nose was slightly longer than Harry’s and
there was no scar on his forehead, but they had the same thin face, same mouth, same eyebrows;
James’s hair stuck up at the back exactly as Harry’s did, his hands could have been Harry’s and
Harry could tell that, when James stood up, they would be within an inch of each other in height.
James yawned hugely and rumpled up his hair, making it even messier than it had been. Then,
with a glance towards Professor Flitwick, he turned in his seat and grinned at a boy sitting four
seats behind him.
With another shock of excitement, Harry saw Sirius give James the thumbs-up. Sirius was
lounging in his chair at his ease, tilting it back on two legs. He was very good-looking; his dark
hair fell into his eyes with a sort of casual elegance neither James’s nor Harry’s could ever have
achieved, and a girl sitting behind him was eyeing him hopefully, though he didn’t seem to have
noticed. And two seats along from this girl - Harry’s stomach gave another pleasurable squirm -
was Remus Lupin. He looked rather pale and peaky (was the full moon approaching?) and was
absorbed in the exam: as he reread his answers, he scratched his chin with the end of his quill,
frowning slightly.
So that meant Wormtail had to be around here somewhere, too… and sure enough, Harry spotted
him within seconds: a small, mousy-haired boy with a pointed nose. Wormtail looked anxious;
he was chewing his fingernails, staring down at his paper, scuffing the ground with his toes.
Every now and then he glanced hopefully at his neighbors paper. Harry stared at Wormtail for a
moment, then back at James, who was now doodling on a bit of scrap parchment. He had drawn
a Snitch and was now tracing the letters L.E. What did they stand for?
“Quills down, please!” squeaked Professor Flitwick. “That means you too, Stebbins! Please
remain seated while I collect your parchment! Accio!”
Over a hundred rolls of parchment zoomed into the air and into Professor Flitwick’s outstretched
arms, knocking him backwards off his feet. Several people laughed. A couple of students at the
front desks got up, took hold of Professor Flitwick beneath the elbows and lifted him back on to
his feet.
“Thank you… thank you,” panted Professor Flitwick. “Very well, everybody, you’re free to go!”
Harry looked down at his father, who had hastily crossed out the L.E. he had been
embellishing, jumped to his feet, stuffed his quill and the exam paper into his bag, which he
slung over his back, and stood waiting for Sirius to join him.
Harry looked around and glimpsed Snape a short way away, moving between the tables towards
the doors to the Entrance Hall, still absorbed in his own exam paper. Round-shouldered yet
angular, he walked in a twitchy manner that recalled a spider, and his oily hair was jumping
about his face.
A gang of chattering girls separated Snape from James, Sirius and Lupin, and by planting
himself in their midst, Harry managed to keep Snape in sight while straining his ears to catch the
voices of James and his friends.
“Did you like question ten, Moony?” asked Sirius as they emerged into the Entrance Hall.
“Loved it,” said Lupin briskly. “Give five signs that identify the werewolf. Excellent question.”
“D’you think you managed to get all the signs?” said James in tones of mock concern.
“Think I did,” said Lupin seriously, as they joined the crowd thronging around the front doors
eager to get out into the sunlit grounds. “One: he’s sitting on my chair. Two: he’s wearing my
clothes. Three: his name’s Remus Lupin.”
Wormtail was the only one who didn’t laugh.
“I got the snout shape, the pupils of the eyes and the tufted tail,’ he said anxiously, “but I couldn’t think what else -”
“How thick are you, Wormtail?” said James impatiently. “You run round with a werewolf once a
month -”
“Keep your voice down,” implored Lupin.
Harry looked anxiously behind him again. Snape remained close by, still buried in his exam
questions - but this was Snape’s memory and Harry was sure that if Snape chose to wander off in
a different direction once outside in the grounds, he, Harry, would not be able to follow James
any further. To his intense relief, however, when James and his three friends strode off down the
lawn towards the lake, Snape followed, still poring over the exam paper and apparently with no
fixed idea of where he was going. By keeping a little ahead of him, Harry managed to maintain a
close watch on James and the others.
“Well, I thought that paper was a piece of cake,” he heard Sirius say. “I’ll be surprised if I don’t
get ‘Outstanding’ on it at least.”
“Me too,” said James. He put his hand in his pocket and took out a struggling Golden Snitch.
“Where’d you get that?”
“Nicked it,” said James casually. He started playing with the Snitch, allowing it to fly as much as
a foot away before seizing it again; his reflexes were excellent. Wormtail watched him in awe.
They stopped in the shade of the very same beech tree on the edge of the lake where Harry, Ron
and Hermione had once spent a Sunday finishing their homework, and threw themselves down
on the grass. Harry looked over his shoulder yet again and saw, to his delight, that Snape had
settled himself on the grass in the dense shadow of a clump of bushes. He was as deeply
immersed in the OWL paper as ever, which left Harry free to sit down on the grass between the
beech and the bushes and watch the foursome under the tree. The sunlight was dazzling on the
smooth surface of the lake, on the bank of which the group of laughing girls who had just left the
Great Hall were sitting, with their shoes and socks off, cooling their feet in the water.
Lupin had pulled out a book and was reading. Sirius stared around at the students milling over
the grass, looking rather haughty and bored, but very handsomely so. James was still playing
with the Snitch, letting it zoom further and further away, almost escaping but always grabbed at
the last second. Wormtail was watching him with his mouth open. Every time James made a
particularly difficult catch, Wormtail gasped and applauded. After five minutes of this, Harry
wondered why James didn’t tell Wormtail to get a grip on himself, but James seemed to be
enjoying the attention. Harry noticed that his father had a habit of rumpling up his hair as though
to keep it from getting too tidy, and he also kept looking over at the girls by the water’s edge.
“Put that away, will you,” said Sirius finally, as James made a fine catch and Wormtail let out a
cheer, “before Wormtail wets himself with excitement.”
Wormtail turned slightly pink, but James grinned.
“If it bothers you,” he said, stuffing the Snitch back in his pocket. Harry had the distinct
impression that Sirius was the only one for whom James would have stopped showing off.
“I’m bored,” said Sirius. “Wish it was full moon.”
“You might,” said Lupin darkly from behind his book. “We’ve still got Transfiguration, if you’re
bored you could test me. Here…” and he held out his book.
But Sirius snorted. “I don’t need to look at that rubbish, I know it all.”
“This’ll liven you up, Padfoot,” said James quietly. “Look who it is…”
Sirius’s head turned. He became very still, like a dog that has scented a rabbit.
“Excellent,” he said softly. “Snivellus.”
Harry turned to see what Sirius was looking at.
Snape was on his feet again, and was stowing the OWL paper in his bag. As he left the shadows
of the bushes and set off across the grass, Sirius and James stood up.
Lupin and Wormtail remained sitting: Lupin was still staring down at his book, though his eyes
were not moving and a faint frown line had appeared between his eyebrows; Wormtail was
looking from Sirius and James to Snape with a look of avid anticipation on his face.
“All right, Snivellus?” said James loudly.
Snape reacted so fast it was as though he had been expecting an attack: dropping his bag, he
plunged his hand inside his robes and his wand was halfway into the air when James shouted,
“Expelliarmus!”
Snape’s wand flew twelve feet into the air and fell with a little thud in the grass behind him.
Sirius let out a bark of laughter.
“Impedimenta!” he said, pointing his wand at Snape, who was knocked off his feet halfway
through a dive towards his own fallen wand.
Students all around had turned to watch. Some of them had got to their feet and were edging
nearer. Some looked apprehensive, others entertained.
Snape lay panting on the ground. James and Sirius advanced on him, wands raised, James
glancing over his shoulder at the girls at the water’s edge as he went. Wormtail was on his feet
now, watching hungrily, edging around Lupin to get a clearer view.
“How’d the exam go, Snivelly?” said James.
“I was watching him, his nose was touching the parchment,” said Sirius viciously. “There’ll be
great grease marks all over it, they won’t be able to read a word.”
Several people watching laughed; Snape was clearly unpopular. Wormtail sniggered shrilly.
Snape was trying to get up, but the jinx was still operating on him; he was struggling, as though
bound by invisible ropes.
“You - wait,” he panted, staring up at James with an expression of purest loathing, “you - wait!”
“Wait for what?” said Sirius coolly. “What’re you going to do, Snivelly, wipe your nose on us?”
Snape let out a stream of mixed swear words and hexes, but with his wand ten feet away nothing
happened.
“Wash out your mouth,” said James coldly. “Scourgify!”
Pink soap bubbles streamed from Snape’s mouth at once; the froth was covering his lips, making
him gag, choking him -
“Leave him ALONE!”
James and Sirius looked round. James’s free hand immediately jumped to his hair.
It was one of the girls from the lake edge. She had thick, dark red hair that fell to her shoulders,
and startlingly green almond-shaped eyes - Harry’s eyes.
Harry’s mother.
“All right, Evans?” said James, and the tone of his voice was suddenly pleasant, deeper, more
mature.
“Leave him alone,” Lily repeated. She was looking a t James with every sign of great dislike.
“What’s he done to you?”
“Well,” said James, appearing to deliberate the point, “it’s more the fact that he exists, if you
know what I mean…”
Many of the surrounding students laughed, Sirius and Wormtail included, but Lupin, still
apparently intent on his book, didn’t, and nor did Lily.
“You think you’re funny,” she said coldly. “But you’re just an arrogant, bullying toerag, Potter.
Leave him alone.”
“I will if you go out with me, Evans,” said James quickly. “Go on… go out with me and I’ll never lay a wand on old Snivelly again.”
Behind him, the Impediment Jinx was wearing off. Snape was beginning to inch towards his
fallen wand, spitting out soapsuds as he crawled.
“I wouldn’t go out with you if it was a choice between you and the giant squid,” said Lily.
“Bad luck, Prongs,” said Sirius briskly, and turned back to Snape. “Oy!”
But too late; Snape had directed his wand straight at James; there was a flash of light and a gash
appeared on the side of James’s face, spattering his robes with blood. James whirled about: a
second flash of light later, Snape was hanging upside-down in the air, his robes falling over his
head to reveal skinny, pallid legs and a pair of graying underpants.
Many people in the small crowd cheered; Sirius, James and Wormtail roared with laughter.
Lily, whose furious expression had twitched for an instant as though she was going to smile,
said, “Let him down!”
“Certainly,” said James and he jerked his wand upwards; Snape fell into a crumpled heap on the
ground. Disentangling himself from his robes he got quickly to his feet, wand up, but Sirius said, "Locomotor mortis!" and Snape keeled over again at once, rigid as a board.
“LEAVE HIM ALONE!” Lily shouted. She had her own wand out now. James and Sirius eyed it warily.
“Ah, Evans, don’t make me hex you,” said James earnestly.
“Take the curse off him, then!”
James sighed deeply, then turned to Snape and muttered the counter-curse.
“There you go,” he said, as Snape struggled to his feet. “You’re lucky Evans was here, Snivellus
—”
“I don’t need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her!”
Lily blinked.
“Fine,” she said coolly. “I won’t bother in future. And I’d wash your pants if I were you, Snivellus.”
“Apologize to Evans!” James roared at Snape, his wand pointed threateningly at him.
“I don’t want you to make him apologize,” Lily shouted, rounding on James. “You’re as bad as he is.”
“What?” yelped James. “I’d NEVER call you a - you-know-what!”
“Messing up your hair because you think it looks cool to look like you’ve just got off your
broomstick, showing off with that stupid Snitch, walking down corridors and hexing anyone who
annoys you just because you can - I’m surprised your broomstick can get off the ground with that
fat head on it. You make me SICK.”
She turned on her heel and hurried away.
“Evans!” James shouted after her. “Hey, EVANS!”
But she didn’t look back.
“What is it with her?” said James, trying and failing to look as though this was a throwaway
question of no real importance to him.
“Reading between the lines, I’d say she thinks you’re a bit conceited, mate,” said Sirius.
“Right,” said James, who looked furious now, “right -”
There was another flash of light, and Snape was once again hanging upside-down in the air.
“Who wants to see me take off Snivelly’s pants?”
But whether James really did take off Snapes pants, Harry never found out. A hand had closed
tight over his upper arm, closed with a pincer-like grip. Wincing, Harry looked round to see who
had hold of him, and saw, with a thrill of horror, a fully grown, adult-sized Snape standing right
beside him, white with rage.
“Having fun?”
Harry felt himself rising into the air; the summer’s day evaporated around him; he was floating
upwards through icy blackness, Snape’s hand still tight upon his upper arm. Then, with a
swooping feeling as though he had turned head-over-heels in midair, his feet hit the stone floor
of Snape’s dungeon and he was standing again beside the Pensieve on Snape’s desk in the
shadowy, present-day Potion masters study.
“So,” said Snape, gripping Harry’s arm so tightly Harry’s hand was starting to feel numb. “So…
been enjoying yourself, Potter?”
“N-no,” said Harry, trying to free his arm.
It was scary: Snape’s lips were shaking, his face was white, his teeth were bared.
“Amusing man, your father, wasn’t he?” said Snape, shaking Harry so hard his glasses slipped
down his nose.
“I - didn’t -”
Snape threw Harry from him with all his might. Harry fell hard on to the dungeon floor.
“You will not repeat what you saw to anybody!” Snape bellowed.
“No,” said Harry, getting to his feet as far from Snape as he could. “No, of course I w—”
“Get out, get out, I don’t want to see you in this office ever again!”
And as Harry hurtled towards the door, a jar of dead cockroaches exploded over his head. He
wrenched the door open and flew along the corridor, stopping only when he had put three floors
between himself and Snape. There he leaned against the wall, panting, and rubbing his bruised
arm.
He had no desire at all to return to Gryffindor Tower so early, nor to tell Ron and Hermione what
he had just seen. What was making Harry feel so horrified and unhappy was not being shouted at
or having jars thrown at him; it was that he knew how it felt to be humiliated in the middle of a
circle of onlookers, knew exactly how Snape had felt as his father had taunted him, and that
judging from what he had just seen, his father had been every bit as arrogant as Snape had
always told him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Career Advice
“But why haven’t you got Occlumency lessons any more?” said Hermione, frowning.
“I’ve told you,” Harry muttered. “Snape reckons I can carry on by myself now I’ve got the basics.”
“So you’ve stopped having funny dreams?” said Hermione skeptically.
“Pretty much,” said Harry, not looking at her.
“Well, I don’t think Snape should stop until you’re absolutely sure you can control them!” said
Hermione indignantly. “Harry, I think you should go back to him and ask -”
“No,” said Harry forcefully. “Just drop it, Hermione, okay?”
It was the first day of the Easter holidays and Hermione, as was her custom, had spent a large
part of the day drawing up study schedule for the three of them. Harry and Ron had let her
do it; it was easier than arguing with her and, in any case, they might come in useful.
Ron had been startled to discover there were only six weeks left until their exams.
“How can that come as a shock?” Hermione demanded, as she tapped each little square on Ron’s
schedule with her wand so that it flashed a different color according to its subject.
“I dunno,” said Ron, “there’s been a lot going on. “
“Well, there you are,” she said, handing him his timetable, “if you follow that you should do
fine.”
Ron looked down it gloomily, but then brightened.
“You’ve given me an evening off every week!”
“That’s for Quidditch practice,” said Hermione.
The smile faded from Ron’s face.
“What’s the point?” he said dully. “We’ve got about as much chance of winning the Quidditch
Cup this year as Dad’s got of becoming Minister for Magic.”
Hermione said nothing; she was looking at Harry, who was staring blankly at the opposite wall
of the common room while Crookshanks pawed at his hand, trying to get his ears scratched.
“What’s wrong, Harry?”
“What?” he said quickly. “Nothing.”
He seized his copy of Defensive Magical Theory and pretended to be looking something up in the index. Crookshanks gave him up as a bad job and slunk away under Hermione’s chair.
“I saw Cho earlier,” said Hermione tentatively. “She looked really miserable, too… have you two had a row again?”
“Wha — oh, yeah, we have,” said Harry, seizing gratefully on the excuse.
“What about?”
“That sneak friend of hers, Marietta,” said Harry.
“Yeah, well, I don’t blame you!” said Ron angrily, setting down his revision timetable. “If it
hadn’t been for her…”
Ron went into a rant about Marietta Edgecombe, which Harry found helpful; all he had to do was
look angry, nod and say “Yeah” and “That’s right” whenever Ron drew breath, leaving his mind
free to dwell, ever more miserably, on what he had seen in the Pensieve.
He felt as though the memory of it was eating him from inside. He had been so sure his parents
were wonderful people that he had never had the slightest difficulty in disbelieving the
aspersions Snape cast on his father’s character. Hadn’t people like Hagrid and Sirius told Harry
how wonderful his father had been? (Yeah, well, look what Sirius was like himself, said a
nagging voice inside Harry’s head… he was as bad, wasn’t he?) Yes, he had once overheard
Professor McGonagall saying that his father and Sirius had been troublemakers at school, but she
had described them as forerunners of the Weasley twins, and Harry could not imagine Fred and
George dangling someone upside-down for the fun of it… not unless they really loathed them…
perhaps Malfoy, or somebody who really deserved it…
Harry tried to make a case for Snape having deserved what he had suffered at James’s hands: but
hadn’t Lily asked, “What’s he done to you?” And hadn’t James replied, “It’s more the fact that he exists, if you know what I mean.” Hadn’t James started it all simply because Sirius had said he was bored? Harry remembered Lupin saying back in Grimmauld Place that Dumbledore had
made him prefect in the hope that he would be able to exercise some control over James and
Sirius… but in the Pensieve, he had sat there and let it all happen…
Harry kept reminding himself that Lily had intervened; his mother had been decent. Yet, the
memory of the look on her face as she had shouted at James disturbed him quite as much as
anything else; she had clearly loathed James, and Harry simply could not understand how they
could have ended up married. Once or twice he even wondered whether James had forced her
into it…
For nearly five years the thought of his father had been a source of comfort, of inspiration.
Whenever someone had told him he was like James, he had glowed with pride inside. And
now… now he felt cold and miserable at the thought of him.
The weather grew breezier, brighter and warmer as the Easter holidays passed, but Harry, along
with the rest of the fifth- and seventh-years, was trapped inside, traipsing back and forth
to the library. Harry pretended his bad mood had no other cause but the approaching exams, and
as his fellow Gryffindors were sick of studying themselves, his excuse went unchallenged.
“Harry, I’m talking to you, can you hear me?”
“Huh?”
He looked round. Ginny Weasley, looking very windswept, had joined him at the library table
where he had been sitting alone. It was late on Sunday evening: Hermione had gone back to
Gryffindor Tower to review Ancient Runes, and Ron had Quidditch practice.
“Oh, hi,” said Harry, pulling his books towards him. “How come you’re not at practice?”
“It’s over,” said Ginny. “Ron had to take Jack Sloper up to the hospital wing.”
“Why?”
“Well, we’re not sure, but we think he knocked himself out with his own bat.” She sighed heavily. “Anyway… a package just arrived, it’s only just got through Umbridge’s new screening process.”
She hoisted a box wrapped in brown paper on to the table; it had clearly been unwrapped and
carelessly re-wrapped. There was a scribbled note across it in red ink, reading: Inspected and
Passed by the Hogwarts High Inquisitor.
“It’s Easter eggs from Mum,” said Ginny. “There’s one for you… there you go.”
She handed him a handsome chocolate egg decorated with small, iced Snitches and, according to
the packaging, containing a bag of Fizzing Whizzbees. Harry looked at it for a moment, then, to
his horror, felt a lump rise in his throat.
“Are you okay, Harry?” Ginny asked quietly.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” said Harry gruffly. The lump in his throat was painful. He did not understand
why an Easter egg should have made him feel like this.
“You seem really down lately,” Ginny persisted. “You know, I’m sure if you just talked to Cho…”
“It’s not Cho I want to talk to,” said Harry brusquely.
“Who is it, then?” asked Ginny, watching him closely.
“I…”
He glanced around to make quite sure nobody was listening. Madam Pince was several shelves
away, stamping out a pile of books for a frantic-looking Hannah Abbott.
“I wish I could talk to Sirius,” he muttered. “But I know I can’t.”
Ginny continued to watch him thoughtfully. More to give himself something to do than because
he really wanted any, Harry unwrapped his Easter egg, broke off a large bit and put it into his
mouth.
“Well,” said Ginny slowly, helping herself to a bit of egg, too, “if you really want to talk to Sirius, I expect we could think of a way to do it.”
“Come on,” said Harry dully. “With Umbridge policing the fires and reading all our mail?”
“The thing about growing up with Fred and George,” said Ginny thoughtfully, “is that you sort of start thinking anything’s possible if you’ve got enough nerve.”
Harry looked at her. Perhaps it was the effect of the chocolate - Lupin had always advised eating
some after encounters with Dementors - or simply because he had finally spoken aloud the wish
that had been burning inside him for a week, but he felt a bit more hopeful.
“WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?”
“Oh damn,” whispered Ginny, jumping to her feet. “I forgot -” Madam Pince was swooping down on them, her shriveled face contorted with rage.
“Chocolate in the library!” she screamed. “Out - out - OUT!” And whipping out her wand, she
caused Harry’s books, bag and ink bottle to chase him and Ginny from the library, whacking
them repeatedly over the head as they ran.
As though to underline the importance of their upcoming examinations, a batch of pamphlets,
leaflets and notices concerning various wizarding careers appeared on the tables in Gryffindor
Tower shortly before the end of the holidays, along with yet another notice on the board, which
read:
All fifth-years are required to attend a short meeting with their Head of House during the first
week of the summer term to discuss their future careers. Times of individual appointments are
listed below.
Harry looked down the list and found that he was expected in Professor McGonagall’s office at
half past two on Monday, which would mean missing most of Divination. He and the other fifth years spent a considerable part of the final weekend of the Easter break reading all the careers information that had been left there for their perusal.
“Well, I don’t fancy Healing,” said Ron on the last evening of the holidays. He was immersed in
a leaflet that carried the crossed bone-and-wand emblem of St. Mungo’s on its front. “It says here you need at least E at NEWT level in Potions, Herbology, Transfiguration, Charms and Defense Against the Dark Arts. I mean… blimey… don’t want much, do they?”
“Well, it’s a very responsible job, isn’t it?” said Hermione absently.
She was poring over a bright pink and orange leaflet that was headed, SO YOU THINK YOU’D
LIKE TO WORK IN MUGGLE RELATIONS?
“You don’t seem to need many qualifications to liaise with Muggles; all they want is an OWL in Muggle Studies: ‘Much more important is your enthusiasm, patience and a good sense of fun!’”
“You’d need more than a good sense of fun to liaise with my uncle,” said Harry darkly. “Good
sense of when to duck, more like.” He was halfway through a pamphlet on wizard banking.
“Listen to this: Are you seeking a challenging career involving travel, adventure and substantial,
danger-related treasure bonuses? Then consider a position with Gringotts Wizarding Bank, who
are currently recruiting Curse-Breakers for thrilling opportunities abroad… They want
Arithmancy, though; you could do it, Hermione!”
“I don’t much fancy banking,” said Hermione vaguely, now immersed in: HAVE YOU GOT
WHAT IT TAKES TO TRAIN SECURITY TROLLS?
“Hey,” said a voice in Harry’s ear. He looked round; Fred and George had come to join them.
“Ginnys had a word with us about you,” said Fred, stretching out his legs on the table in front of
them and causing several booklets on careers with the Ministry of Magic to slide off on to the
floor. “She says you need to talk to Sirius?”
“What?” said Hermione sharply, freezing with her hand halfway towards picking up MAKE A
BANG AT THE DEPARTMENT OF MAGICAL ACCIDENTS AND CATASTROPHES.
“Yeah…” said Harry, trying to sound casual, “yeah, I thought I’d like -”
“Don’t be so ridiculous,” said Hermione, straightening up and looking at him as though she could not believe her eyes. “With Umbridge groping around in the fires and frisking all the owls?”
“Well, we think we can find a way around that,” said George, stretching and smiling. “It’s a
simple matter of causing a diversion. Now, you might have noticed that we have been rather
quiet on the mayhem front during the Easter holidays?”
“What was the point, we asked ourselves, of disrupting leisure time?” continued Fred. “No point
at all, we answered ourselves. And of course, we’d have messed up people’s studying, too, which
would be the very last thing we’d want to do.”
He gave Hermione a sanctimonious little nod. She looked rather taken aback by this
thoughtfulness.
“But its business as usual from tomorrow,” Fred continued briskly. “And if we’re going to be
causing a bit of uproar, why not do it so that Harry can have his chat with Sirius?”
“Yes, but still,” said Hermione, with an air of explaining something very simple to somebody
very obtuse, “even if you do cause a diversion, how is Harry supposed to talk to him?”
“Umbridge’s office,” said Harry quietly.
He had been thinking about it for a fortnight and could come up with no alternative. Umbridge
herself had told him that the only fire that was not being watched was her own.
“Are - you - insane?” said Hermione in a hushed voice.
Ron had lowered his leaflet on jobs in the Cultivated Fungus Trade and was watching the
conversation warily.
“I don’t think so,” said Harry, shrugging.
“And how are you going to get in there in the first place?”
Harry was ready for this question.
“Sirius’s knife,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“Christmas before last Sirius gave me a knife that’ll open any lock,” said Harry. “So even if she’s bewitched the door so Alohomora won’t work, which I bet she has -”
“What do you think about this?” Hermione demanded of Ron, and Harry was reminded
irresistibly of Mrs. Weasley appealing to her husband during Harry’s first dinner in Grimmauld
Place.
“I dunno,” said Ron, looking alarmed at being asked to give an opinion. “If Harry wants to do it,
it’s up to him, isn’t it?”
“Spoken like a true friend and Weasley,” said Fred, clapping Ron hard on the back. “Right, then.
We’re thinking of doing it tomorrow, just after lessons, because it should cause maximum impact
if everybody’s in the corridors - Harry, we’ll set it off in the east wing somewhere, draw her right
away from her own office — I reckon we should be able to guarantee you, what, twenty
minutes?” he said, looking at George.
“Easy,” said George.
“What sort of diversion is it?” asked Ron.
“You’ll see, little bro’,” said Fred, as he and George got up again. “At least, you will if you trot
along to Gregory the Smarmy’s corridor round about five o’clock tomorrow.”
Harry awoke very early the next day, feeling almost as anxious as he had done on the morning of
his disciplinary hearing at the Ministry of Magic. It was not only the prospect of breaking into
Umbridge’s office and using her fire to speak to Sirius that was making him feel nervous, though
that was certainly bad enough; today also happened to be the first time Harry would be in close
proximity to Snape since Snape had thrown him out of his office.
After lying in bed for a while thinking about the day ahead, Harry got up very quietly and moved
across to the window beside Neville’s bed, and stared out on a truly glorious morning. The sky
was a clear, misty, opalescent blue. Directly ahead of him, Harry could see the towering beech
tree below which his father had once tormented Snape. He was not sure what Sirius could
possibly say to him that would make up for what he had seen in the Pensieve, but he was
desperate to hear Sirius’s own account of what had happened, to know of any mitigating factors
there might have been, any excuse at all for his father’s behavior…
Something caught Harry’s attention: movement on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Harry
squinted into the sun and saw Hagrid emerging from between the trees. He seemed to be limping.
As Harry watched, Hagrid staggered to the door of his cabin and disappeared inside it. Harry
watched the cabin for several minutes. Hagrid did not emerge again, but smoke furled from the
chimney, so Hagrid could not be so badly injured that he was unequal to stoking the fire.
Harry turned away from the window, headed back to his trunk and started to dress.
With the prospect of forcing entry into Umbridge’s office ahead, Harry had never expected the
day to be a restful one, but he had not reckoned on Hermione’s almost continual attempts to
dissuade him from what he was planning to do at five o’clock. For the first time ever, she was at
least as inattentive to Professor Binns in History of Magic as Harry and Ron were, keeping up a
stream of whispered admonitions that Harry tried very hard to ignore.
“… and if she does catch you there, apart from being expelled, she’ll be able to guess you’ve
been talking to Snuffles and this time I expect she’ll force you to drink Veritaserum and answer
her questions…”
“Hermione,” said Ron in a low and indignant voice, “are you going to stop telling Harry off and
listen to Binns, or am I going to have to take my own notes?”
“You take notes for a change, it won’t kill you!”
By the time they reached the dungeons, neither Harry nor Ron was speaking to Hermione.
Undeterred, she took advantage of their silence to maintain an uninterrupted flow of dire
warnings, all uttered under her breath in a vehement hiss that caused Seamus to waste five whole
minutes checking his cauldron for leaks.
Snape, meanwhile, seemed to have decided to act as though Harry were invisible. Harry was, of
course, well-used to this tactic, as it was one of Uncle Vernon’s favorites, and on the whole was
grateful he had to suffer nothing worse. In fact, compared to what he usually had to endure from
Snape in the way of taunts and snide remarks, he found the new approach something of an
improvement, and was pleased to find that when left well alone, he was able to concoct an
Invigoration Draught quite easily. At the end of the lesson he scooped some of the potion into a
flask, corked it and took it up to Snape’s desk for marking, feeling that he might at last have
scraped an E.
He had just turned away when he heard a smashing noise. Malfoy gave a gleeful yell of laughter.
Harry whipped around. His potion sample lay in pieces on the floor and Snape was surveying
him with a look of gloating pleasure.
“Whoops,” he said softly. “Another zero, then, Potter.”
Harry was too incensed to speak. He strode back to his cauldron, intending to fill another flask
and force Snape to mark it, but saw to his horror that the rest of the contents had vanished.
“I’m sorry!” said Hermione, with her hands over her mouth. “I’m really sorry, Harry. I thought
you’d finished, so I cleared up!”
Harry could not bring himself to answer. When the bell rang, he hurried out of the dungeon
without a backwards glance, and made sure that he found himself a seat between Neville and
Seamus for lunch so that Hermione could not start nagging him again about using Umbridge’s
office.
He was in such a bad mood by the time he got to Divination that he had quite forgotten his
careers appointment with Professor McGonagall, remembering it only when Ron asked him why
he wasn’t in her office. He hurtled back upstairs and arrived out of breath, only a few minutes
late.
“Sorry, Professor,” he panted, as he closed the door. “I forgot.”
“No matter, Potter,” she said briskly, but as she spoke, somebody else sniffed from the corner.
Harry looked round.
Professor Umbridge was sitting there, a clipboard on her knee, a fussy little pie-frill around her
neck and a small, horribly smug smile on her face.
“Sit down, Potter,” said Professor McGonagall tersely. Her hands shook slightly as she shuffled
the many pamphlets littering her desk.
Harry sat down with his back to Umbridge and did his best to pretend he could not hear the
scratching of her quill on her clipboard.
“Well, Potter, this meeting is to talk over any career ideas you might have, and to help you
decide which subjects you should continue into the sixth and seventh years,” said Professor
McGonagall. “Have you had any thoughts about what you would like to do after you leave
Hogwarts?”
“Er -” said Harry.
He was finding the scratching noise from behind him very distracting.
“Yes?” Professor McGonagall prompted Harry.
“Well, I thought of, maybe, being an Auror,” Harry mumbled.
“You’d need top grades for that,” said Professor McGonagall, extracting a small, dark leaflet
from under the mass on her desk and opening it. “They ask for a minimum of five NEWTs, and
nothing under ‘Exceeds Expectations’ grade, I see. Then you would be required to undergo a stringent series of character and aptitude tests at the Auror office. It’s a difficult career path, Potter, they only take the best. In fact, I don’t think anybody has been taken on in the last three years.”
At this moment, Professor Umbridge gave a very tiny cough, as though she was trying to see
how quietly she could do it. Professor McGonagall ignored her.
“You’ll want to know which subjects you ought to take, I suppose?” she went on, talking a little
louder than before.
“Yes,” said Harry. “Defense Against the Dark Arts, I suppose?”
“Naturally,” said Professor McGonagall crisply. “I would also advise -”
Professor Umbridge gave another cough, a little more audible this time. Professor McGonagall
closed her eyes for a moment, opened them again, and continued as though nothing had
happened.
“I would also advise Transfiguration, because Aurors frequently need to Transfigure or
Untransfigure in their work. And I ought to tell you now, Potter, that I do not accept students into
my NEWT classes unless they have achieved ‘Exceeds Expectations’ or higher at Ordinary Wizarding Level. I’d say you’re averaging ‘Acceptable’ at the moment, so you’ll need to put in some good hard work before the exams to stand a chance of continuing. Then you ought to do Charms, always useful, and Potions. Yes, Potter, Potions,” she added, with the merest flicker of a smile. “Poisons and antidotes are essential study for Aurors. And I must tell you that Professor Snape absolutely refuses to take students who get anything other than ‘Outstanding’ in their OWLs, so -”
Professor Umbridge gave her most pronounced cough yet.
“May I offer you a cough drop, Dolores?” Professor McGonagall asked curtly, without looking at Professor Umbridge.
“Oh, no, thank you very much,” said Umbridge, with that simpering laugh Harry hated so much.
“I just wondered whether I could make the teensiest interruption, Minerva?”
“I daresay you’ll find you can,” said Professor McGonagall through tightly gritted teeth.
“I was just wondering whether Mr. Potter has quite the temperament for an Auror?” said Professor Umbridge sweetly.
“Were you?” said Professor McGonagall haughtily. “Well, Potter,” she continued, as though there had been no interruption, “if you are serious in this ambition, I would advise you to concentrate hard on bringing your Transfiguration and Potions up to scratch. I see Professor Flitwick has graded you between ‘Acceptable’ and ‘Exceeds Expectations’ for the last two years, so your Charmwork seems satisfactory. As for Defense Against the Dark Arts, your marks have been generally high, Professor Lupin in particular thought you - are you quite sure you wouldn’t like a cough drop, Dolores!”
“Oh, no need, thank you, Minerva” simpered Professor Umbridge, who had just coughed her
loudest yet. “I was just concerned that you might not have Harrys most recent Defense Against
the Dark Arts marks in front of you. I’m quite sure I slipped in a note.”
“What, this thing?” said Professor McGonagall in a tone of revulsion, as she pulled a sheet of
pink parchment from between the leaves of Harry’s folder. She glanced down it, her eyebrows
slightly raised, then placed it back into the folder without comment.
“Yes, as I was saying, Potter, Professor Lupin thought you showed a pronounced aptitude for the
subject, and obviously for an Auror -”
“Did you not understand my note, Minerva?” asked Professor Umbridge in honeyed tones, quite
forgetting to cough.
“Of course I understood it,” said Professor McGonagall, her teeth clenched so tightly the words
came out a little muffled.
“Well, then, I am confused… I’m afraid I don’t quite understand how you can give Mr. Potter
false hope that -”
“False hope?” repeated Professor McGonagall, still refusing to look round at Professor
Umbridge. “He has achieved high marks in all his Defense Against the Dark Arts tests -”
“I’m terribly sorry to have to contradict you, Minerva, but as you will see from my note, Harry
has been achieving very poor results in his classes with me -”
“I should have made my meaning plainer,” said Professor McGonagall, turning at last to look
Umbridge directly in the eyes. “He has achieved high marks in all Defense Against the Dark Arts
tests set by a competent teacher.”
Professor Umbridge’s smile vanished as suddenly as a light bulb blowing. She sat back in her
chair, turned a sheet on her clipboard and began scribbling very fast indeed, her bulging eyes
rolling from side to side. Professor McGonagall turned back to Harry, her thin nostrils flared, her
eyes burning.
“Any questions, Potter?”
“Yes,” said Harry. “What sort of character and aptitude tests do the Ministry do on you, if you get enough NEWTs?”
“Well, you’ll need to demonstrate the ability to react well to pressure and so forth,” said
Professor McGonagall, “perseverance and dedication, because Auror training takes a further
three years, not to mention very high skills in practical Defense. It will mean a lot more study
even after you’ve left school, so unless you’re prepared to -”
“I think you’ll also find,” said Umbridge, her voice very cold now, “that the Ministry looks into
the records of those applying to be Aurors. Their criminal records.”
“- unless you’re prepared to take even more exams after Hogwarts, you should really look at
another -”
“Which means that this boy has as much chance of becoming an Auror as Dumbledore has of
ever returning to this school.”
“A very good chance, then,” said Professor McGonagall.
“Potter has a criminal record,” said Umbridge loudly.
“Potter has been cleared of all charges,” said McGonagall, even more loudly.
Professor Umbridge stood up. She was so short that this did not make a great deal of difference,
but her fussy, simpering demeanour had given place to a hard fury that made her broad, flabby
face look oddly sinister.
“Potter has no chance whatsoever of becoming an Auror!”
Professor McGonagall got to her feet, too, and in her case this was a much more impressive
move; she towered over Professor Umbridge.
“Potter,” she said in ringing tones, “I will assist you to become an Auror if it is the last thing I do! If I have to coach you nightly, I will make sure you achieve the required results!”
“The Minister for Magic will never employ Harry Potter!” said Umbridge, her voice rising
furiously.
“There may well be a new Minister for Magic by the time Potter is ready to join!” shouted
Professor McGonagall.
“Aha!” shrieked Professor Umbridge, pointing a stubby finger at McGonagall. “Yes! Yes, yes,
yes! Of course! That’s what you want, isn’t it, Minerva McGonagall? You want Cornelius Fudge
replaced by Albus Dumbledore! You think you’ll be where I am, don’t you: Senior
Undersecretary to the Minister and Headmistress to boot!”
“You are raving,” said Professor McGonagall, superbly disdainful. “Potter, that concludes our
careers consultation.”
Harry swung his bag over his shoulder and hurried out of the room, not daring to look at
Professor Umbridge. He could hear her and Professor McGonagall continuing to shout at each
other all the way back along the corridor.
Professor Umbridge was still breathing as though she had just run a race when she strode into
their Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson that afternoon.
“I hope you’ve thought better of what you were planning to do, Harry,” Hermione whispered, the moment they had opened their books to ‘Chapter Thirty-four, Non-Retaliation and Negotiation’.
“Umbridge looks like she’s in a really bad mood already…”
Every now and then Umbridge shot glowering looks at Harry, who kept his head down, staring
at Defensive Magical Theory, his eyes unfocused, thinking…
He could just imagine Professor McGonagall’s reaction if he was caught trespassing in Professor
Umbridge’s office mere hours after she had vouched for him… there was nothing to stop him
simply going back to Gryffindor Tower and hoping that some time during the next summer
holidays he would have a chance to ask Sirius about the scene he had witnessed in the
Pensieve… nothing, except that the thought of taking this sensible course of action made him
feel as though a lead weight had dropped into his stomach… and then there was the matter of
Fred and George, whose diversion was already planned, not to mention the knife Sirius had
given him, which was currently residing in his schoolbag along with his father’s old Invisibility
Cloak.
But the fact remained that if he was caught…
“Dumbledore sacrificed himself to keep you in school, Harry!” whispered Hermione, raising her
book to hide her face from Umbridge. “And if you get thrown out today it will all have been for
nothing!”
He could abandon the plan and simply learn to live with the memory of what his father had done
on a summer’s day more than twenty years ago…
And then he remembered Sirius in the fire upstairs in the Gryffindor common room…
You’re less like your father than I thought… the risk would’ve been what made it fun for
James…
But did he want to be like his father any more?
“Harry, don’t do it, please don’t do it!” Hermione said in anguished tones as the bell rang at the
end of the class.
He did not answer; he did not know what to do.
Ron seemed determined to give neither his opinion nor his advice; he would not look at Harry,
though when Hermione opened her mouth to try dissuading Harry some more, he said in a low
voice, “Give it a rest, okay? He can make up his own mind.”
Harrys heart beat very fast as he left the classroom. He was halfway along the corridor outside
when he heard the unmistakable sounds of a diversion going off in the distance. There were
screams and yells reverberating from somewhere above them; people exiting the classrooms all
around Harry were stopping in their tracks and looking up at the ceiling fearfully -
Umbridge came pelting out of her classroom as fast as her short legs would carry her. Pulling out
her wand, she hurried off in the opposite direction: it was now or never.
“Harry - please!” Hermione pleaded weakly.
But he had made up his mind; hitching his bag more securely on to his shoulder, he set off at a
run, weaving in and out of students now hurrying in the opposite direction to see what all the
fuss was about in the east wing.
Harry reached the corridor to Umbridge’s office and found it deserted. Dashing behind a large
suit of armor whose helmet creaked around to watch him, he pulled open his bag, seized Sirius’s knife and donned the Invisibility Cloak. He then crept slowly and carefully back out from behind the suit of armor and along the corridor until he reached Umbridge’s door.
He inserted the blade of the magical knife into the crack around it and moved it gently up and
down, then withdrew it. There was a tiny click, and the door swung open. He ducked inside the
office, closed the door quickly behind him and looked around.
Nothing was moving except the horrible kittens that were still frolicking on the wall plates above
the confiscated broomsticks.
Harry pulled off his Cloak and, striding over to the fireplace, found what he was looking for
within seconds: a small box containing glittering Floo powder.
He crouched down in front of the empty grate, his hands shaking. He had never done this before,
though he thought he knew how it must work. Sticking his head into the fireplace, he took a large
pinch of powder and dropped it on to the logs stacked neatly beneath him. They exploded at once
into emerald green flames.
“Number twelve, Grimmauld Place!” Harry said loudly and clearly.
It was one of the most curious sensations he had ever experienced. He had traveled by Floo
powder before, of course, but then it had been his entire body that had spun around and around in
the flames through the network of wizarding fireplaces that stretched over the country. This time,
his knees remained firm upon the cold floor of Umbridge’s office, and only his head hurtled
through the emerald fire…
And then, as abruptly as it had begun, the spinning stopped. Feeling rather sick and as though he
were wearing an exceptionally hot muffler around his head, Harry opened his eyes to find that he
was looking up out of the kitchen fireplace at the long, wooden table, where a man sat poring
over a piece of parchment.
“Sirius?”
The man jumped and looked around. It was not Sirius, but Lupin.
“Harry!” he said, looking thoroughly shocked. “What are you - what’s happened, is everything all right?”
“Yeah,” said Harry. “I just wondered — I mean, I just fancied a - a chat with Sirius.”
“I’ll call him,” said Lupin, getting to his feet, still looking perplexed, “he went upstairs to look for Kreacher, he seems to be hiding in the attic again…”
And Harry saw Lupin hurry out of the kitchen. Now he was left with nothing to look at but the
chair and table legs. He wondered why Sirius had never mentioned how very uncomfortable it
was to speak out of the fire; his knees were already objecting painfully to their prolonged contact
with Umbridge’s hard stone floor.
Lupin returned with Sirius at his heels moments later.
“What is it?” said Sirius urgently, sweeping his long dark hair out of his eyes and dropping to the
ground in front of the fire, so that he and Harry were on a level. Lupin knelt down too, looking
very concerned. “Are you all right? Do you need help?”
“No,” said Harry, “it’s nothing like that… I just wanted to talk… about my dad.”
They exchanged a look of great surprise, but Harry did not have time to feel awkward or
embarrassed; his knees were becoming sorer by the second and he guessed five minutes had
already passed from the start of the diversion; George had only guaranteed him twenty. He
therefore plunged immediately into the story of what he had seen in the Pensieve.
When he had finished, neither Sirius nor Lupin spoke for a moment. Then Lupin said quietly, “I
wouldn’t like you to judge your father on what you saw there, Harry. He was only fifteen -”
“I’m fifteen!” said Harry heatedly.
“Look, Harry” said Sirius placatingly, “James and Snape hated each other from the moment they
set eyes on each other, it was just one of those things, you can understand that, can’t you? I think
James was everything Snape wanted to be - he was popular, he was good at Quidditch - good at
pretty much everything. And Snape was just this little oddball who was up to his eyes in the
Dark Arts, and James - whatever else he may have appeared to you, Harry - always hated the
Dark Arts.”
“Yeah,” said Harry, “but he just attacked Snape for no good reason, just because - well, just
because you said you were bored,” he finished, with a slightly apologetic note in his voice.
“I’m not proud of it,” said Sirius quickly.
Lupin looked sideways at Sirius, then said, “Look, Harry, what you’ve got to understand is that
your father and Sirius were the best in the school at whatever they did - everyone thought they
were the height of cool - if they sometimes got a bit carried away -”
“If we were sometimes arrogant little berks, you mean,” said Sirius.
Lupin smiled.
“He kept messing up his hair,” said Harry in a pained voice.
Sirius and Lupin laughed.
“I’d forgotten he used to do that,” said Sirius affectionately.
“Was he playing with the Snitch?” said Lupin eagerly.
“Yeah,” said Harry, watching uncomprehendingly as Sirius and Lupin beamed reminiscently.
“Well… I thought he was a bit of an idiot.”
“Of course he was a bit of an idiot!” said Sirius bracingly, “we were all idiots! Well - not Moony
so much,” he said fairly, looking at Lupin.
But Lupin shook his head. “Did I ever tell you to lay off Snape?” he said. “Did I ever have the
guts to tell you I thought you were out of order?”
“Yeah, well,” said Sirius, “you made us feel ashamed of ourselves sometimes… that was
something…”
“And,” said Harry doggedly, determined to say everything that was on his mind now he was here, “he kept looking over at the girls by the lake, hoping they were watching him!”
“Oh, well, he always made a fool of himself whenever Lily was around,” said Sirius, shrugging,
“he couldn’t stop himself showing off whenever he got near her.”
“How come she married him?” Harry asked miserably. “She hated him!”
“Nah, she didn’t,” said Sirius.
“She started going out with him in seventh year,” said Lupin.
“Once James had deflated his head a bit,” said Sirius.
“And stopped hexing people just for the fun of it,” said Lupin.
“Even Snape?” said Harry.
“Well,” said Lupin slowly, “Snape was a special case I mean, he never lost an opportunity to
curse James so you couldn’t really expect James to take that lying down, could you?”
“And my mum was okay with that?”
“She didn’t know too much about it, to tell you the truth,” said Sirius. “I mean, James didn’t take
Snape on dates with her and jinx him in front of her, did he?”
Sirius frowned at Harry, who was still looking unconvinced.
“Look,” he said, “your father was the best friend I ever had and he was a good person. A lot of
people are idiots at the age of fifteen. He grew out of it.”
“Yeah, okay,” said Harry heavily. “I just never thought I’d feel sorry for Snape.”
“Now you mention it,” said Lupin, a faint crease between his eyebrows, “how did Snape react
when he found you’d seen all this?”
“He told me he’d never teach me Occlumency again,” said Harry indifferently, “like that’s a big
disappoint—”
“He WHAT?” shouted Sirius, causing Harry to jump and inhale a mouthful of ashes.
“Are you serious, Harry?” said Lupin quickly. “He’s stopped giving you lessons?”
“Yeah,” said Harry, surprised at what he considered a great over-reaction. “But it’s okay, I don’t
care, it’s a bit of a relief to tell you the -”
“I’m coming up there to have a word with Snape!” said Sirius forcefully, and he actually made to stand up, but Lupin wrenched him back down again.
“If anyone’s going to tell Snape it will be me!” he said firmly. “But Harry, first of all, you’re to
go back to Snape and tell him that on no account is he to stop giving you lessons — when
Dumbledore hears -”
“I can’t tell him that, he’d kill me!” said Harry, outraged. “You didn’t see him when we got out of the Pensieve.”
“Harry there is nothing so important as you learning Occlumency!” said Lupin sternly. “Do you
understand me? Nothing!”
“Okay, okay,” said Harry, thoroughly discomposed, not to mention annoyed. “I’ll… I’ll try and say something to him… but it won’t be-”
He fell silent. He could hear distant footsteps.
“Is that Kreacher coming downstairs?”
“No,” said Sirius, glancing behind him. “It must be somebody your end.” Harrys heart skipped
several beats.
“I’d better go!” he said hastily and pulled his head backwards out of the Grimmauld Place fire. For a moment his head seemed to be revolving on his shoulders, then he found himself kneeling in front of Umbridge’s fire with it firmly back on and watching the emerald flames flicker and die.
“Quickly, quickly!” he heard a wheezy voice mutter right outside the office door. “Ah, she’s left
it open -”
Harry dived for the Invisibility Cloak and had just managed to pull it back over himself when
Filch burst into the office. He looked absolutely delighted about something and was talking to
himself feverishly as he crossed the room, pulled open a drawer in Umbridge’s desk and began
rifling through the papers inside it.
“Approval for Whipping… Approval for Whipping… I can do it at last… they’ve had it coming
to them for years…”
He pulled out a piece of parchment, kissed it, then shuffled rapidly back out of the door,
clutching it to his chest.
Harry leapt to his feet and, making sure he had his bag and that the Invisibility Cloak was
completely covering him, he wrenched open the door and hurried out of the office after Filch,
who was hobbling along faster than Harry had ever seen him go.
One landing down from Umbridge’s office, Harry thought it was safe to become visible again.
He pulled off the Cloak, shoved it in his bag and hurried onwards. There was a great deal of
shouting and movement coming from the Entrance Hall. He ran down the marble staircase and
found what looked like most of the school assembled there.
It was just like the night when Trelawney had been sacked. Students were standing all around the
walls in a great ring (some of them, Harry noticed, covered in a substance that looked very like
Stinksap); teachers and ghosts were also in the crowd. Prominent among the onlookers were
members of the Inquisitorial Squad, who were all looking exceptionally pleased with themselves,
and Peeves, who was bobbing overhead, gazed down at Fred and George who stood in the
middle of the floor with the unmistakable look of two people who had just been cornered.
“So!” said Umbridge triumphantly. Harry realized she was standing just a few stairs in front of
him, once more looking down upon her prey. “So - you think it amusing to turn a school corridor
into a swamp, do you?”
“Pretty amusing, yeah,” said Fred, looking up at her without the slightest sign of fear.
Filch elbowed his way closer to Umbridge, almost crying with happiness.
“I’ve got the form, Headmistress,” he said hoarsely, waving the piece of parchment Harry had
just seen him take from her desk. “I’ve got the form and I’ve got the whips waiting… oh, let me
do it now…”
“Very good, Argus,” she said. “You two,” she went on, gazing down at Fred and George, “are
about to learn what happens to wrongdoers in my school.”
“You know what?” said Fred. “I don’t think we are.”
He turned to his twin.
“George,” said Fred, “I think we’ve outgrown full-time education.”
“Yeah, I’ve been feeling that way myself,” said George lightly.
“Time to test our talents in the real world, d’you reckon?” asked Fred.
“Definitely,” said George.
And before Umbridge could say a word, they raised their wands and said together:
“Accio brooms!”
Harry heard a loud crash somewhere in the distance. Looking to his left, he ducked just in time.
Fred and George’s broomsticks, one still trailing the heavy chain and iron peg with which
Umbridge had fastened them to the wall, were hurtling along the corridor towards their owners;
they turned left, streaked down the stairs and stopped sharply in front of the twins, the chain
clattering loudly on the flagged stone floor.
“We won’t be seeing you,” Fred told Professor Umbridge, swinging his leg over his broomstick.
“Yeah, don’t bother to keep in touch,” said George, mounting his own.
Fred looked around at the assembled students, at the silent, watchful crowd.
“If anyone fancies buying a Portable Swamp, as demonstrated upstairs, come to number ninety-three, Diagon Alley - Weasleys’ Wizarding Wheezes,” he said in a loud voice. “Our new
premises!”
“Special discounts to Hogwarts students who swear they’re going to use our products to get rid of this old bat,” added George, pointing at Professor Umbridge.
“STOP THEM!” shrieked Umbridge, but it was too late. As the Inquisitorial Squad closed in,
Fred and George kicked off from the floor, shooting fifteen feet into the air, the iron peg
swinging dangerously below. Fred looked across the hall at the poltergeist bobbing on his level
above the crowd.
“Give her hell from us, Peeves.”
And Peeves, who Harry had never seen take an order from a student before, swept his belled hat
from his head and sprang to a salute as Fred and George wheeled about to tumultuous applause
from the students below and sped out of the open front doors into the glorious sunset.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Grawp
The story of Fred and George’s flight to freedom was retold so often over the next few days that
Harry could tell it would soon become the stuff of Hogwarts legend: within a week, even those
who had been eye-witnesses were half-convinced they had seen the twins dive-bomb Umbridge
on their brooms and pelt her with Dungbombs before zooming out of the doors. In the immediate
aftermath of their departure there was a great wave of talk about copying them. Harry frequently
heard students saying things like, “Honestly some days I just feel like jumping on my broom and
leaving this place,” or else, “One more lesson like that and I might just do a Weasley.”
Fred and George had made sure nobody was likely to forget them too soon. For one thing, they
had not left instructions on how to remove the swamp that now filled the corridor on the fifth
floor of the east wing. Umbridge and Filch had been observed trying different means of
removing it but without success. Eventually the area was roped off and Filch, gnashing his teeth
furiously, was given the task of punting students across it to their classrooms. Harry was certain
that teachers like McGonagall or Flitwick could have removed the swamp in an instant but, just
as in the case of Fred and Georges Wildfire Whiz-bangs, they seemed to prefer to watch
Umbridge struggle.
Then there were the two large broom-shaped holes in Umbridge’s office door, through which
Fred and George’s Cleansweeps had smashed to rejoin their masters. Filch fitted a new door and
removed Harry’s Firebolt to the dungeons where, it was rumored, Umbridge had set an armed
security troll to guard it. However, her troubles were far from over.
Inspired by Fred and George’s example, a great number of students were now vying for the
newly vacant positions of Troublemakers-in-Chief. In spite of the new door, somebody managed
to slip a hairy-snouted Niffler into Umbridge’s office, which promptly tore the place apart in its
search for shiny objects, leapt on Umbridge when she entered and tried to gnaw the rings off her
stubby fingers. Dungbombs and Stink Pellets were dropped so frequently in the corridors that it
became the new fashion for students to perform Bubble-Head Charms on themselves before
leaving lessons, which ensured them a supply of fresh air, even though it gave them all the
peculiar appearance of wearing upside-down goldfish bowls on their heads.
Filch prowled the corridors with a horsewhip ready in his hands, desperate to catch miscreants,
but the problem was that there were now so many of them he never knew which way to turn. The
Inquisitorial Squad was attempting to help him, but odd things kept happening to its members.
Warrington of the Slytherin Quidditch team reported to the hospital wing with a horrible skin
complaint that made him look as though he had been coated in cornflakes; Pansy Parkinson, to
Hermiones delight, missed all her lessons the following day as she had sprouted antlers.
Meanwhile, it became clear just how many Skiving Snackboxes Fred and George had managed
to sell before leaving Hogwarts. Umbridge only had to enter her classroom for the students
assembled there to faint, vomit, develop dangerous fevers or else spout blood from both nostrils.
Shrieking with rage and frustration, she attempted to trace the mysterious symptoms to their
source, but the students told her stubbornly they were suffering from ‘Umbridge -itis’. After
putting four successive classes in detention and failing to discover their secret, she was forced to
give up and allow the bleeding, swooning, sweating and vomiting students to leave her classes in
droves.
But not even the users of the Snackboxes could compete with that master of chaos, Peeves, who
seemed to have taken Fred’s parting words deeply to heart. Cackling madly, he soared through
the school, upending tables, bursting out of blackboards, toppling statues and vases; twice he
shut Mrs. Norris inside a suit of armor, from which she was rescued, yowling loudly, by the
furious caretaker. Peeves smashed lanterns and snuffed out candles, juggled burning torches over
the heads of screaming students, caused neatly stacked piles of parchment to topple into fires or
out of windows; flooded the second floor when he pulled off all the taps in the bathrooms,
dropped a bag of tarantulas in the middle of the Great Hall during breakfast and, whenever he
fancied a break, spent hours at a time floating along after Umbridge and blowing loud raspberries
every time she spoke.
None of the staff but Filch seemed to be stirring themselves to help her. Indeed, a week after
Fred and George’s departure Harry witnessed Professor McGonagall walking right past Peeves,
who was determinedly loosening a crystal chandelier, and could have sworn he heard her tell the
poltergeist out of the corner of her mouth, “It unscrews the other way.”
To cap matters, Montague had still not recovered from his sojourn in the toilet; he remained
confused and disorientated and his parents were to be observed one Tuesday morning striding up
the front drive, looking extremely angry.
“Should we say something?” said Hermione in a worried voice, pressing her cheek against the
Charms window so that she could see Mr. and Mrs. Montague marching inside. “About what
happened to him? In case it helps Madam Pomfrey cure him?”
“Course not, he’ll recover,” said Ron indifferently.
“Anyway, more trouble for Umbridge, isn’t it?” said Harry in a satisfied voice.
He and Ron both tapped the teacups they were supposed to be charming with their wands.
Harry’s spouted four very short legs that could not reach the desk and wriggled pointlessly in
midair. Ron’s grew four very thin spindly legs that hoisted the cup off the desk with great
difficulty, trembled for a few seconds, then folded, causing the cup to crack into two.
“Reparo,” said Hermione quickly, mending Ron’s cup with a wave of her wand. “That’s all very
well, but what if Montague’s permanently injured?”
“Who cares?” said Ron irritably, while his teacup stood up drunkenly again, trembling violently
at the knees. “Montague shouldn’t have tried to take all those points from Gryffindor, should he?
If you want to worry about anyone, Hermione, worry about me!”
“You?” she said, catching her teacup as it scampered happily away across the desk on four sturdy little willow-patterned legs, and replacing it in front of her. “Why should I be worried about you?”
“When Mum’s next letter finally gets through Umbridge’s screening process,” said Ron bitterly,
now holding his cup up while its frail legs tried feebly to support its weight, “I’m going to be in
deep trouble. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s sent another Howler.”
“But -”
“It’ll be my fault Fred and George left, you wait, “ said Ron darkly. “She’ll say I should’ve
stopped them leaving, I should’ve grabbed the ends of their brooms and hung on or something…
yeah, it’ll be all my fault.”
“Well, if she does say that it’ll be very unfair, you couldn’t have done anything! But I’m sure she won’t, I mean, if it’s really true they’ve got premises in Diagon Alley, they must have been
planning this for ages.”
“Yeah, but that’s another thing, how did they get premises?” said Ron, hitting his teacup so hard
with his wand that its legs collapsed again and it lay twitching before him. “It’s a bit dodgy isn’t
it? They’ll need loads of Galleons to afford the rent on a place in Diagon Alley. She’ll want to
know what they’ve been up to, to get their hands on that sort of gold.”
“Well, yes, that occurred to me, too,” said Hermione, allowing her teacup to jog in neat little
circles around Harry’s, whose stubby little legs were still unable to touch the desktop, “I’ve been
wondering whether Mundungus has persuaded them to sell stolen goods or something awful.”
“He hasn’t,” said Harry curtly.
“How do you know?” said Ron and Hermione together.
“Because -” Harry hesitated, but the moment to confess finally seemed to have come. There was
no good to be gained in keeping silent if it meant anyone suspected that Fred and George were
criminals. “Because they got the gold from me. I gave them my Triwizard winnings last June.”
There was a shocked silence, then Hermione’s teacup jogged right over the edge of the desk and
smashed on the floor.
“Oh, Harry, you didn’t!” she said.
“Yes, I did,” said Harry mutinously. “And I don’t regret it, either. I didn’t need the gold and
they’ll be great at running a joke shop.”
“But this is excellent!” said Ron, looking thrilled. “It’s all your fault, Harry - Mum can’t blame
me at all! Can I tell her?”
“Yeah, I suppose you’d better,” said Harry dully, “specially if she thinks they’re receiving stolen
cauldrons or something.”
Hermione said nothing at all for the rest of the lesson, but Harry had a shrewd suspicion that her
self-restraint was bound to crack before long. Sure enough, once they had left the castle for break
and were standing around in the weak May sunshine, she fixed Harry with a beady eye and
opened her mouth with a determined air.
Harry interrupted her before she had even started.
“It’s no good nagging me, it’s done,” he said firmly. “Fred and George have got the gold - spent a good bit of it, too, by the sounds of it - and I can’t get it back from them and I don’t want to. So
save your breath, Hermione.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything about Fred and George!” she said in an injured voice.
Ron snorted disbelievingly and Hermione threw him a very dirty look.
“No, I wasn’t!” she said angrily. “As a matter of fact, I was going to ask Harry when he’s going
to go back to Snape and ask for more Occlumency lessons!”
Harry’s heart sank. Once they had exhausted the subject of Fred and George’s dramatic
departure, which admittedly had taken many hours, Ron and Hermione had wanted to hear news
of Sirius. As Harry had not confided in them the reason he had wanted to talk to Sirius in the first
place, it had been hard to think of what to tell them; he had ended up saying, truthfully, that
Sirius wanted Harry to resume Occlumency lessons. He had been regretting this ever since;
Hermione would not let the subject drop and kept reverting to it when Harry least expected it.
“You can’t tell me you’ve stopped having funny dreams,” Hermione said now, “because Ron told me you were muttering in your sleep again last night.”
Harry threw Ron a furious look. Ron had the grace to look ashamed of himself.
“You were only muttering a bit,” he mumbled apologetically. “Something about ‘just a bit
further’.”
“I dreamed I was watching you lot play Quidditch,” Harry lied brutally. “I was trying to get you
to stretch out a bit further to grab the Quaffle.”
Ron’s ears went red. Harry felt a kind of vindictive pleasure; he had not, of course, dreamed
anything of the sort.
Last night, he had once again made the journey along the Department of Mysteries corridor. He
had passed through the circular room, then the room full of clicking and dancing light, until he
found himself again inside that cavernous room full of shelves on which were ranged dusty glass
spheres.
He had hurried straight towards row number ninety-seven, turned left, and ran along it… it had
probably been then that he had spoken aloud… just a bit further… for he felt his conscious self
struggling to wake… and before he had reached the end of the row, he had found himself lying
in bed again, gazing up at the canopy of his four-poster.
“You are trying to block your mind, aren’t you?” said Hermione, looking beadily at Harry. “You
are keeping going with your Occlumency?”
“Of course I am,” said Harry, trying to sound as though this question was insulting, but not quite
meeting her eye. The truth was he was so intensely curious about what was hidden in that room
full of dusty orbs, that he was quite keen for the dreams to continue.
The problem was that with just under a month to go until the exams and every free moment
devoted to revision, his mind seemed so saturated with information when he went to bed he
found it very difficult to get to sleep at all; and when he did, his overwrought brain presented
him most nights with stupid dreams about the exams. He also suspected that part of his mind -
the part that often spoke in Hermione’s voice — now felt guilty on the occasions it strayed down
that corridor ending in the black door, and sought to wake him before he could reach the
journeys end.
“You know,” said Ron, whose ears were still flaming red, “if Montague doesn’t recover before
Slytherin play Hufflepuff, we might be in with a chance of winning the Cup.”
“Yeah, I s’pose so,” said Harry, glad of a change of subject.
“I mean, we’ve won one, lost one - if Slytherin lose to Hufflepuff next Saturday -”
“Yeah, that’s right,” said Harry, losing track of what he was agreeing to. Cho Chang had just
walked across the courtyard, determinedly not looking at him.
The final match of the Quidditch season, Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw, was to take place on the
last weekend of May. Although Slytherin had been narrowly defeated by Hufflepuff in their last
match, Gryffindor were not daring to hope for victory, due mainly (though of course nobody said
it to him) to Ron’s abysmal goal-keeping record. He, however, seemed to have found a new
optimism.
“I mean, I can’t get any worse, can I?” he told Harry and Hermione grimly over breakfast on the
morning of the match. “Nothing to lose now, is there?”
“You know,” said Hermione, as she and Harry walked down to the pitch a little later in the midst
of a very excitable crowd, “I think Ron might do better without Fred and George around. They
never exactly gave him a lot of confidence.”
Luna Lovegood overtook them with what appeared to be a live eagle perched on top of her head.
“Oh, gosh, I forgot!” said Hermione, watching the eagle flapping its wings as Luna walked
serenely past a group of cackling and pointing Slytherins. “Cho will be playing, won’t she?”
Harry, who had not forgotten this, merely grunted.
They found seats in the topmost row of the stands. It was a fine, clear day; Ron could not wish
for better, and Harry found himself hoping against hope that Ron would not give the Slytherins
cause for more rousing choruses of ‘Weasley is our King’.
Lee Jordan, who had been very dispirited since Fred and George had left, was commentating as
usual. As the teams zoomed out on to the pitch he named the players with something less than
his usual gusto.
“… Bradley… Davies… Chang,” he said, and Harry felt his stomach perform, less of a back flip,
more a feeble lurch as Cho walked out on to the pitch, her shiny black hair rippling in the slight
breeze. He was not sure what he wanted to happen any more, except that he could not stand any
more rows. Even the sight of her chatting animatedly to Roger Davies as they prepared to mount
their brooms caused him only a slight twinge of jealousy.
“And they’re off!” said Lee. “And Davies takes the Quaffle immediately, Ravenclaw Captain
Davies with the Quaffle, he dodges Johnson, he dodges Bell, he dodges Spinnet as well… he’s
going straight for goal! He’s going to shoot - and - and -” Lee swore very loudly. “And he’s
scored.”
Harry and Hermione groaned with the rest of the Gryffindors. Predictably, horribly, the
Slytherins on the other side of the stands began to sing: “Weasley cannot save a thing He cannot block a single ring…”
“Harry” said a hoarse voice in Harrys ear. “Hermione…”
Harry looked round and saw Hagrid’s enormous bearded face sticking between the seats.
Apparently, he had squeezed his way all along the row behind, for the first- and second-years he
had just passed had a ruffled, flattened look about them. For some reason, Hagrid was bent
double as though anxious not to be seen, though he was still at least four feet taller than
everybody else.
“Listen,” he whispered, “can yeh come with me? Now? While ev’ryone’s watchin’ the match?”
“Er… can’t it wait, Hagrid?” asked Harry. “Till the match is over?”
“No,” said Hagrid. “No, Harry, it’s gotta be now… while ev’ryone’s lookin’ the other way…
please?”
Hagrid’s nose was gently dripping blood. His eyes were both blackened. Harry had not seen him
this close-up since his return to the school; he looked utterly woebegone.
“Course,” said Harry at once, “course we’ll come.”
He and Hermione edged back along their row of seats, causing much grumbling among the
students who had to stand up for them. The people in Hagrid’s row were not complaining,
merely attempting to make themselves as small as possible.
“I ‘ppreciate this, you two, I really do,” said Hag rid as they reached the stairs. He kept looking
around nervously as they descended towards the lawn below. “I jus’ hope she doesn’ notice us
goin’.”
“You mean Umbridge?” said Harry. “She won’t, she’s got her whole Inquisitorial Squad sitting
with her, didn’t you see? She must be expecting trouble at the match.”
“Yeah, well, a bit o’ trouble wouldn’ hurt,” said Hagrid, pausing to peer around the edge of the
stands to make sure the stretch of lawn between there and his cabin was deserted. “Give us more
time.”
“What is it, Hagrid?” said Hermione, looking up at him with a concerned expression on her face
as they hurried across the grass towards the edge of the Forest.
“Yeh - yeh’ll see in a mo’,” said Hagrid, looking over his shoulder as a great roar rose from the
stands behind them. “Hey - did someone jus’ score?”
“It’ll be Ravenclaw,” said Harry heavily.
“Good… good…” said Hagrid distractedly. “Tha’s good…”
They had to jog to keep up with him as he strode across the lawn, looking around with every
other step. When they reached his cabin, Hermione turned automatically left towards the front
door. Hagrid, however, walked straight past it into the shade of the trees on the outermost edge
of the Forest, where he picked up a crossbow that was leaning against a tree. When he realized
they were no longer with him, he turned.
“We’re goin’ in here,” he said, jerking his shaggy head behind him.
“Into the Forest?” said Hermione, perplexed.
“Yeah,” said Hagrid. “C’mon now, quick, before we’re spotted!”
Harry and Hermione looked at each other, then ducked into the cover of the trees behind Hagrid,
who was already striding away from them into the green gloom, his crossbow over his arm.
Harry and Hermione ran to catch up with him.
“Hagrid, why are you armed?” said Harry.
“Jus’ a precaution,” said Hagrid, shrugging his massive shoulders.
“You didn’t bring your crossbow the day you showed us the Thestrals,” said Hermione timidly.
“Nah, well, we weren’ goin’ in so far then,” said Hagrid. “An’ anyway, tha’ was before Firenze
left the Forest, wasn’ it?”
“Why does Firenze leaving make a difference?” asked Hermione curiously.
“Cause the other centaurs are good an’ riled at me, tha’s why,” said Hagrid quietly, glancing
around. “They used ter be - well, yeh couldn’ call ‘em friendly — but we got on all righ’. Kept
‘emselves to ‘emselves, bu’ always turned up if I wanted a word. Not any more.”
He sighed deeply.
“Firenze said they’re angry because he went to work for Dumbledore,” Harry said, tripping on a
protruding root because he was busy watching Hagrid’s profile.
“Yeah,” said Hagrid heavily. “Well, angry doesn’ cover it. Ruddy livid. If I hadn’ stepped in, I
reckon they’d’ve kicked Firenze ter death -”
“They attacked him?” said Hermione, sounding shocked.
“Yep,” said Hagrid gruffly, forcing his way through several low-hanging branches. “He had half
the herd on to him.”
“And you stopped it?” said Harry, amazed and impressed. “By yourself?”
“Course I did, couldn’t stand by an’ watch ‘em kill ‘im, could I?” said Hagrid. “Lucky I was
passin’, really… an’ I’d’ve thought Firenze mighta remembered tha’ before he started sendin’
me stupid warnin’s!” he added hotly and unexpectedly.
Harry and Hermione looked at each other, startled, but Hagrid, scowling, did not elaborate.
“Anyway,” he said, breathing a little more heavily than -usual, “since then the other centaurs’ve
bin livid with me, an’ the trouble is they’ve got a lot of influence in the Forest… cleverest
creatures in here.”
“Is that why we’re here, Hagrid?” asked Hermione. “The centaurs?”
“Ah, no,” said Hagrid, shaking his head dismissively, “no, it’s not them. Well, o’ course, they
could complicate the problem, yeah… but yeh’ll see what I mean in a bit.”
On this incomprehensible note he fell silent and forged a little ahead, taking one stride for every
three of theirs, so that they had great trouble keeping up with him.
The path was becoming increasingly overgrown and the trees grew so closely together as they
walked further and further into the Forest that it was as dark as dusk. They were soon a long way
past the clearing where Hagrid had shown them the Thestrals, but Harry felt no sense of unease
until Hagrid stepped unexpectedly off the path and began wending his way in and out of trees
towards the dark heart of the Forest.
“Hagrid!” said Harry, fighting his way through thickly knotted brambles, over which Hagrid had
stepped with ease, and remembering very vividly what had happened to him on the other
occasion he had stepped off the Forest path. “Where are we going?”
“Bit further,” said Hagrid over his shoulder. “C’mon, Harry… we need ter keep together now.”
It was a great struggle to keep up with Hagrid, what with branches and thickets of thorn through
which Hagrid marched as easily as if they were cobwebs, but which snagged Harry and
Hermione’s robes, frequently entangling them so severely that they had to stop for minutes at a
time to free themselves. Harry’s arms and legs were soon covered in small cuts and scratches.
They were so deep in the Forest now that sometimes all Harry could see of Hagrid in the gloom
was a massive dark shape ahead of him. Any sound seemed threatening in the muffled silence.
The breaking of a twig echoed loudly and the tiniest rustle of movement, even though it might
have been made by an innocent sparrow, caused Harry to peer through the gloom for a culprit. It
occurred to him that he had never managed to get this far into the Forest without meeting some
kind of creature; their absence struck him as rather ominous.
“Hagrid, would it be all right if we lit our wands?” said Hermione quietly.
“Er… all righ’,” Hagrid whispered back. “In fact -”
He stopped suddenly and turned around; Hermione walked right into him and was knocked over
backwards. Harry caught her just before she hit the Forest floor.
“Maybe we bes’ jus’ stop fer a momen’, so I can… fill yeh in,” said Hagrid. “Before we ge’ there, like.”
“Good!” said Hermione, as Harry set her back on her feet. They both murmured “Lumos!” and
their wand-tips ignited. Hagrid’s face swam through the gloom by the light of the two wavering
beams and Harry saw again that he looked nervous and sad.
“Righ’,” said Hagrid. “Well… see… the thing is…”
He took a great breath.
“Well, there’s a good chance I’m goin’ ter be gettin’ the sack any day now,” he said.
Harry and Hermione looked at each other, then back at him.
“But you’ve lasted this long -” Hermione said tentatively. “What makes you think -”
“Umbridge reckons it was me that put tha’ Niffler in her office.”
“And was it?” said Harry, before he could stop himself.
“No, it ruddy well wasn’!” said Hagrid indignantly. “On’y any-thin’ ter do with magical creatures an’ she thinks it’s got somethin’ ter do with me. Yeh know she’s bin lookin’ fer a chance ter get rid of me ever since I got back. I don’ wan’ ter go, o’ course, but if it wasn’ fer… well… the special circumstances I’m abou’ ter explain to yeh, I’d leave righ’ now, before she’s go’ the chance ter do it in front o’ the whole school, like she did with Trelawney.”
Harry and Hermione both made noises of protest, but Hagrid overrode them with a wave of one
of his enormous hands.
“It’s not the end o’ the world, I’ll be able ter help Dumbledore once I’m outta here, I can be
useful ter the Order. An’ you lot’ll have Grubbly-Plank, yeh’ll - yeh’ll get through yer exams
fine…”
His voice trembled and broke.
“Don’ worry abou’ me,” he said hastily, as Hermione made to pat his arm. He pulled his
enormous spotted handkerchief from the pocket of his waistcoat and mopped his eyes with it.
“Look, I wouldn’ be tellin’ yer this at all if I didn’ have ter. See, if I go… well, I can’ leave
withou’… withou’ tellin’ someone… because I’ll - I’ll need yeh two ter help me. An’ Ron, if
he’s willin’.”
“Of course we’ll help you,” said Harry at once. “What do you want us to do?”
Hagrid gave a great sniff and patted Harry wordlessly on the shoulder with such force Harry was
knocked sideways into a tree.
“I knew yeh’d say yes,” said Hagrid into his handkerchief, “but I won’… never… forget…
well… c’mon… jus’ a little bit further through here… watch yerselves, now, there’s nettles…”
They walked on in silence for another fifteen minutes; Harry had opened his mouth to ask how
much further they had to go when Hagrid threw out his right arm to signal that they should stop.
“Really easy” he said softly. “Very quiet, now…”
They crept forwards and Harry saw that they were facing a large, smooth mound of earth nearly
as tall as Hagrid that he thought, with a jolt of dread, was sure to be the lair of some enormous
animal. Trees had been ripped up at the roots all around the mound, so that it stood on a bare
patch of ground surrounded by heaps of trunks and boughs that formed a kind of fence or
barricade, behind which Harry, Hermione and Hagrid now stood.
“Sleepin’,” breathed Hagrid.
Sure enough, Harry could hear a distant, rhythmic rumbling that sounded like a pair of enormous
lungs at work. He glanced sideways at Hermione, who was gazing at the mound with her mouth
slightly open. She looked utterly terrified.
“Hagrid,” she said in a whisper barely audible over the sound of the sleeping creature, “who is
he?”
Harry found this an odd question…”What is it?” was the one he had been planning on asking.
“Hagrid, you told us -” said Hermione, her wand now shaking in her hand, “you told us none of
them wanted to come!”
Harry looked from her to Hagrid and then, as realization hit him, he looked back at the mound
with a small gasp of horror.
The great mound of earth, on which he, Hermione and Hagrid could easily have stood, was
moving slowly up and down in time with the deep, grunting breathing. It was not a mound at all.
It was the curved back of what was clearly —
“Well - no - he didn’ want ter come,” said Hagrid, sounding desperate. “But I had ter bring him,
Hermione, I had ter!”
“But why?” asked Hermione, who sounded as though she wanted to cry. “Why - what -
oh, Hagrid!”
“I knew if I jus’ got him back,” said Hagrid, sounding close to tears himself, “an’ - an’ taught him a few manners - I’d be able ter take him outside an’ show ev’ryone he’s harmless!”
“Harmless!” said Hermione shrilly, and Hagrid made frantic hushing noises with his hands as the
enormous creature before them grunted loudly and shifted in its sleep. “He’s been hurting you all
this time, hasn’t he? That’s why you’ve had all these injuries!”
“He don’ know his own strength!” said Hagrid earnestly. “An’ he’s gettin’ better, he’s not fightin’ so much any more —”
“So, this is why it took you two months to get home!” said Hermione distractedly. “Oh, Hagrid,
why did you bring him back if he didn’t want to come? Wouldn’t he have been happier with his
own people?”
“They were all bullyin’ him, Hermione, ‘cause he’s so small!” said Hagrid.
“Small?” said Hermione. “Small?”
“Hermione, I couldn’ leave him,” said Hagrid, tears now trickling down his bruised face into his
beard. “See - he’s my brother!”
Hermione simply stared at him, her mouth open.
“Hagrid, when you say ‘brother’,” said Harry slowly, “d o you mean —?”
“Well - half-brother,” amended Hagrid. “Turns out me mother took up with another giant when
she left me dad, an’ she went an’ had Grawp here -”
“Grawp?” said Harry.
“Yeah… well, tha’s what it sounds like when he says his name,” said Hagrid anxiously. “He don’ speak a lot of English… I’ve bin tryin’ ter teach him… anyway, she don’ seem ter have liked him much more’n she liked me. See, with giantesses, what counts is producin’ good big kids, and he’s always been a bit on the runty side fer a giant - on’y sixteen foot -”
“Oh, yes, tiny!” said Hermione, with a kind of hysterical sarcasm. “Absolutely minuscule!”
“He was bein’ kicked aroun’ by all o’ them - I jus’ couldn’ leave him -”
“Did Madame Maxime want to bring him back?” asked Harry.
“She - well, she could see it was right importan’ ter me,” said Hagrid, twisting his enormous
hands. “Bu’ - bu’ she got a bit tired o’ him after a while, I must admit… so we split up on the
journey home… she promised not ter tell anyone, though…”
“How on earth did you get him back without anyone noticing?” said Harry.
“Well, tha’s why it took so long, see,” said Hagrid. “Could on’y travel by nigh’ an’ through wild
country an’ stuff. Course, he covers the ground pretty well when he wants ter, but he kep’
wantin’ ter go back.”
“Oh, Hagrid, why on earth didn’t you let him!” said Hermione, flopping down on to a ripped up
tree and burying her face in her hands. “What do you think you’re going to do with a violent
giant who doesn’t even want to be here!”
“Well, now - ‘violent’ - tha’s a bit harsh,” said Hagrid, still twisting his hands agitatedly. “I’ll admit he mighta taken a couple o’ swings at me when he’s bin in a bad mood, but he’s gettin’ better, loads better, settlin’ down well.”
“What are those ropes for, then?” Harry asked.
He had just noticed ropes thick as saplings stretching from around the trunks of the largest
nearby trees towards the place where Grawp lay curled on the ground with his back to them.
“You have to keep him tied up?” said Hermione faintly.
“Well… yeah…” said Hagrid, looking anxious. “See - it’s like I say - he doesn’ really know ‘is
own strength.”
Harry understood now why there had been such a suspicious lack of any other living creature in
this part of the Forest.
“So, what is it you want Harry and Ron and me to do?” Hermione asked apprehensively.
“Look after him,” said Hagrid croakily. “After I’m gone.”
Harry and Hermione exchanged miserable looks, Harry uncomfortably aware that he had already
promised Hagrid that he would do whatever he asked.
“What - what does that involve, exactly?” Hermione enquired.
“Not food or anythin’!” said Hagrid eagerly. “He can get his own food, no problem. Birds an’
deer an’ stuff… no, it’s company he needs. If I jus’ knew someone was carryin’ on tryin’ ter help
him a bit… teachin’ him, yeh know.”
Harry said nothing, but turned to look back at the gigantic form lying asleep on the ground in
front of them. Unlike Hagrid, who simply looked like an oversized human, Grawp looked
strangely misshapen. What Harry had taken to be a vast mossy boulder to the left of the great
earthen mound he now recognized as Grawp’s head. It was much larger in proportion to the body
than a human head, and was almost perfectly round and covered with tightly curling, close-growing hair the color of bracken. The rim of a single large, fleshy ear was visible on top of the head, which seemed to sit, rather like Uncle Vernon’s, directly upon the shoulders with little or no neck in between. The back, under what looked like a dirty brownish smock comprised of animal skins sewn roughly together, was very broad; and as Grawp slept, it seemed to strain a
little at the rough seams of the skins. The legs were curled up under the body. Harry could see
the soles of enormous, filthy, bare feet, large as sledges, resting one on top of the other on the
earthy Forest floor.
“You want us to teach him,” Harry said in a hollow voice. He now understood what Firenze’s
warning had meant. His attempt is not working. He would do better to abandon it. Of course, the
other creatures who lived in the Forest would have heard Hagrids fruitless attempts to teach
Grawp English.
“Yeah - even if yeh jus’ talk ter him a bit,” said Hagrid hopefully. “Cause I reckon, if he can talk
ter people, he’ll understand more that we all like ‘im really, an’ want ‘im ter stay.”
Harry looked at Hermione, who peered back at him from between the fingers over her face.
“Kind of makes you wish we had Norbert back, doesn’t it?” he said, and she gave a very shaky
laugh.
“Yeh’ll do it, then?” said Hagrid, who did not seem to have caught what Harry had just said.
“We’ll…” said Harry, already bound by his promise. “We’ll try, Hagrid.”
“I knew I could count on yeh, Harry,” Hagrid said, beaming in a very watery way and dabbing at
his face with his handkerchief again. “An’ I don’ want yeh ter put yerself out too much, like… I
know yeh’ve got exams… if yeh could jus’ nip down here in yer Invisibility Cloak maybe once a
week an’ have a little chat with ‘im. I’ll wake ‘im up, then - introduce yeh -”
“Wha— no!” said Hermione, jumping up. “Hagrid, no, don’t wake him, really, we don’t need -”
But Hagrid had already stepped over the great tree trunk in front of them and was proceeding
towards Grawp. When he was about ten feet away, he lifted a long, broken bough from the
ground, smiled reassuringly over his shoulder at Harry and Hermione, then poked Grawp hard in
the middle of the back with the end of the bough.
The giant gave a roar that echoed around the silent Forest; birds in the treetops overhead rose
twittering from their perches and soared away. In front of Harry and Hermione, meanwhile, the
gigantic Grawp was rising from the ground, which shuddered as he placed an enormous hand
upon it to push himself on to his knees. He turned his head to see who and what had disturbed
him.
“All righ’, Grawpy?” said Hagrid, in a would-be cheery voice, backing away with the long bough raised, ready to poke Grawp again. “Had a nice sleep, eh?”
Harry and Hermione retreated as far as they could while still keeping the giant within their
sights. Grawp knelt between two trees he had not yet uprooted. They looked up into his
startlingly huge face that resembled a grey full moon swimming in the gloom of the clearing. It
was as though the features had been hewn on to a great stone ball. The nose was stubby and
shapeless, the mouth lopsided and full of misshapen yellow teeth the size of half-bricks; the eyes,
small by giant standards, were a muddy greenish-brown and just now were half-gummed
together with sleep. Grawp raised dirty knuckles, each as big as a cricket ball, to his eyes, rubbed
vigorously, then, without warning, pushed himself to his feet with surprising speed and agility.
“Oh my!” Harry heard Hermione squeal, terrified, beside him.
The trees to which the other ends of the ropes around Grawp’s wrists and ankles were attached
creaked ominously. He was, as Hagrid had said, at least sixteen feet tall. Gazing blearily around,
Grawp reached out a hand the size of a beach umbrella, seized a bird’s nest from the upper
branches of a towering pine and turned it upside-down with a roar of apparent displeasure that
there was no bird in it; eggs fell like grenades towards the ground and Hagrid threw his arms
over his head to protect himself.
“Anyway, Grawpy,” shouted Hagrid, looking up apprehensively in case of further falling eggs,
“I’ve brought some friends ter meet yeh. Remember, I told yeh I might? Remember, when I said
I might have ter go on a little trip an’ leave them ter look after yeh fer a bit? Remember that,
Grawpy?”
But Grawp merely gave another low roar; it was hard to say whether he was listening to Hagrid
or whether he even recognized the sounds Hagrid was making as speech. He had now seized the
top of the pine tree and was pulling it towards him, evidently for the simple pleasure of seeing
how far it would spring back when he let go.
“Now, Grawpy, don’ do that!” shouted Hagrid. “Tha’s how you ended up pullin’ up the others -”
And sure enough, Harry could see the earth around the tree’s roots beginning to crack.
“I got company for yeh!” Hagrid shouted. “Company, see! Look down, yeh big buffoon, I
brought yeh some friends!”
“Oh, Hagrid, don’t,” moaned Hermione, but Hagrid had already raised the bough again and gave
Grawp’s knee a sharp poke.
The giant let go of the top of the tree, which swayed alarmingly and deluged Hagrid with a rain
of pine needles, and looked down.
“This,” said Hagrid, hastening over to where Harry and Hermione stood, “is Harry, Grawp! Harry Potter! He migh’ be comin’ ter visit yeh if I have ter go away, understand?”
The giant had only just realized that Harry and Hermione were there. They watched, in great
trepidation, as he lowered his huge boulder of a head so that he could peer blearily at them.
“An’ this is Hermione, see? Her—” Hagrid hesitated. Turning to Hermione, he said, “Would yeh
mind if he called yeh Hermy, Hermione? On’y it’s a difficult name fer him ter remember.”
“No, not at all,” squeaked Hermione.
“This is Hermy, Grawp! An’ she’s gonna be comin’ an’ all! Is’n’ tha’ nice? Eh? Two friends fer
yeh ter - GRAWPY, NO!”
Grawp’s hand had shot out of nowhere towards Hermione; Harry seized her and pulled her
backwards behind the tree, so that Grawp’s fist scraped the trunk but closed on thin air.
“BAD BOY, GRAWPY!” they heard Hagrid yelling, as Hermione clung to Harry behind the tree, shaking and whimpering. “VERY BAD BOY! YEH DON’ GRAB - OUCH!”
Harry poked his head out from around the trunk and saw Hagrid lying on his back, his hand over
his nose. Grawp, apparently losing interest, had straightened up and was again engaged in
pulling back the pine as far as it would go.
“Righ’,” said Hagrid thickly, getting up with one hand pinching his bleeding nose and the other
grasping his crossbow, “well… there yeh are… yeh’ve met him an’ - an’ now he’ll know yeh
when yeh come back. Yeah… well…”
He looked up at Grawp, who was now pulling back the pine with an expression of detached
pleasure on his boulderish face; the roots were creaking as he ripped them away from the ground.
“Well, I reckon tha’s enough fer one day,” said Hagrid. “We’ll -er - we’ll go back now, shall we?”
Harry and Hermione nodded. Hagrid shouldered his crossbow again and, still pinching his nose,
led the way back into the trees.
Nobody spoke for a while, not even when they heard the distant crash that meant Grawp had
pulled over the pine tree at last. Hermione’s face was pale and set. Harry could not think of a
single thing to say. What on earth was going to happen when somebody found out that Hagrid
had hidden Grawp in the Forbidden Forest? And he had promised that he, Ron and Hermione
would continue Hagrid’s totally pointless attempts to civilize the giant. How could Hagrid, even
with his immense capacity to delude himself that fanged monsters were loveably harmless, fool
himself that Grawp would ever be fit to mix with humans?
“Hold it,” said Hagrid abruptly, just as Harry and Hermione were struggling through a patch of
thick knotgrass behind him. He pulled an arrow out of the quiver over his shoulder and fitted it
into the crossbow. Harry and Hermione raised their wands; now that they had stopped walking,
they, too, could hear movement close by.
“Oh, blimey” said Hagrid quietly.
“I thought we told you, Hagrid,” said a deep male voice, “that you are no longer welcome here?”
A man’s naked torso seemed for an instant to be floating towards them through the dappled
green half-light; then they saw that his waist joined smoothly into a horse’s chestnut body. This
centaur had a proud, high-cheekboned face and long black hair. Like Hagrid, he was armed; a
quiverful of arrows and a longbow were slung over his shoulders.
“How are yeh, Magorian?” said Hagrid warily.
The trees behind the centaur rustled and four or five more centaurs emerged behind him. Harry
recognized the black-bodied and bearded Bane, whom he had met nearly four years ago on the
same night he had met Firenze. Bane gave no sign that he had ever seen Harry before.
“So,” he said, with a nasty inflection in his voice, before turning immediately to Magorian. “We
agreed, I think, what we would do if this human ever showed his face in the Forest again?”
“‘This human’ now, am I?” said Hagrid testily. “Jus ‘ fer stoppin’ all of yeh committin’ murder?”
“You ought not to have meddled, Hagrid,” said Magorian. “Our ways are not yours, nor are our
laws. Firenze has betrayed and dishonored us.”
“I dunno how yeh’work that out,” said Hagrid impatiently. “He’s done nothin’ except help Albus Dumbledore -”
“Firenze has entered into servitude to humans,” said a grey centaur with a hard, deeply lined face.
“Servitude!” said Hagrid scathingly. “He’s doin’ Dumbledore a favor is all -”
“He is peddling our knowledge and secrets among humans,” said Magorian quietly. “There can be no return from such disgrace.”
“If yeh say so,” said Hagrid, shrugging, “but personally I think yeh’re makin’ a big mistake -”
“As are you, human,” said Bane, “coming back into our Forest when we warned you -”
“Now, yeh listen ter me,” said Hagrid angrily. “I’ll have less of the ‘our’ Forest, if it’s all the
same ter yeh. It’s not up ter yeh who comes an’ goes in here -”
“No more is it up to you, Hagrid,” said Magorian smoothly. “I shall let you pass today because
you are accompanied by your young —”
“They’re not his!” interrupted Bane contemptuously. “Students, Magorian, from up at the school! They have probably already profited from the traitor Firenze’s teachings.”
“Nevertheless,” said Magorian calmly, “the slaughter of foals is a terrible crime - we do not touch the innocent. Today, Hagrid, you pass. Henceforth, stay away from this place. You forfeited the friendship of the centaurs when you helped the traitor Firenze escape us.”
“I won’ be kept outta the Fores’ by a bunch o’ old mules like yeh!” said Hagrid loudly.
“Hagrid,” said Hermione in a high-pitched and terrified voice, as both Bane and the grey centaur
pawed at the ground, “let’s go, please let’s go!”
Hagrid moved forwards, but his crossbow was still raised and his eyes were still fixed
threateningly upon Magorian.
“We know what you are keeping in the Forest, Hagrid!” Magorian called after them, as the
centaurs slipped out of sight. “And our tolerance is waning!”
Hagrid turned and gave every appearance of wanting to walk straight back to Magorian.
“Yeh’ll tolerate ‘im as long as he’s here, it’s as much his Forest as yours!” he yelled, as Harry
and Hermione both pushed with all their might against Hagrid’s moleskin waistcoat in an effort
to keep him moving forwards. Still scowling, he looked down; his expression changed to mild
surprise at the sight of them both pushing him; he seemed not to have felt it.
“Calm down, you two,” he said, turning to walk on while they panted along behind him. “Ruddy
old mules, though, eh?”
“Hagrid,” said Hermione breathlessly, skirting the patch of nettles they had passed on their way
there, “if the centaurs don’t want humans in the Forest, it doesn’t really look as though Harry and
I will be able -”
“Ah, you heard what they said,” said Hagrid dismissively, “they wouldn’t hurt foals - I mean,
kids. Anyway, we can’ let ourselves be pushed aroun’ by that lot.”
“Nice try,” Harry murmured to Hermione, who looked crestfallen.
At last they rejoined the path and, after another ten minutes, the trees began to thin; they were
able to see patches of clear blue sky again and, in the distance, the definite sounds of cheering
and shouting.
“Was that another goal?” asked Hagrid, pausing in the shelter of the trees as the Quidditch
stadium came into view. “Or d’yeh reckon the match is over?”
“I don’t know,” said Hermione miserably. Harry saw that she looked much the worse for wear;
her hair was full of twigs and leaves, her robes were ripped in several places and there were
numerous scratches on her face and arms. He knew he must look little better.
“I reckon it’s over, yeh know!” said Hagrid, still squinting towards the stadium. “Look - there’s
people comin’ out already - if yeh two hurry yeh’ll be able ter blend in with the crowd an’ no
one’ll know yeh weren’t there!”
“Good idea,” said Harry. “Well… see you later, then, Hagrid.”
“I don’t believe him,” said Hermione in a very unsteady voice, the moment they were out of
earshot of Hagrid. “I don’t believe him. I really don’t believe him.”
“Calm down,” said Harry.
“Calm down!” she said feverishly. “A giant! A giant in the Forest! And we’re supposed to give
him English lessons! Always assuming, of course, we can get past the herd of murderous
centaurs on the way in and out! I - don’t -believe - him!”
“We haven’t got to do anything yet!” Harry tried to reassure her in a quiet voice, as they joined a
stream of jabbering Hufflepuffs heading back towards the castle. “He’s not asking us to do
anything unless he gets chucked out and that might not even happen.”
“Oh, come off it, Harry!” said Hermione angrily, stopping dead in her tracks so that the people
behind had to swerve to avoid her. “Of course he’s going to be chucked out and, to be perfectly
honest, after what we’ve just seen, who can blame Umbridge?”
There was a pause in which Harry glared at her, and her eyes filled slowly with tears.
“You didn’t mean that,” said Harry quietly.
“No… well… all right… I didn’t,” she said, wiping her eyes angrily. “But why does he have to
make life so difficult for himself - for us?’
“I dunno -”
“Weasley is our King, Weasley is our King, He didn’t let the Quaffle in, Weasley is our King…”
“And I wish they’d stop singing that stupid song,” said Hermione miserably, “haven’t they
gloated enough?”
A great tide of students was moving up the sloping lawns from the pitch.
“Oh, let’s get in before we have to meet the Slytherins,” said Hermione.
“Weasley can save anything, He never leaves a single ring, That’s why Gryffindors all sing,
Weasley is our King.”
“Hermione…” said Harry slowly.
The song was growing louder, but it was issuing not from a crowd of green-and-silver-clad
Slytherins, but from a mass of red and gold moving slowly towards the castle, bearing a solitary
figure upon its many shoulders.
“Weasley is our King, Weasley is our King, He didn’t let the Quaffle in, Weasley is our King…”
“No?” said Hermione in a hushed voice.
“YES!” said Harry loudly.
“HARRY! HERMIONE!” yelled Ron, waving the silver Quidditch cup in the air and looking
quite beside himself. “WE DID IT! WE WON!”
They beamed up at him as he passed. There was a scrum at the door of the castle and Ron’s head
got rather badly bumped on the lintel, but nobody seemed to want to put him down. Still singing,
the crowd squeezed itself into the Entrance Hall and out of sight. Harry and Hermione watched
them go, beaming, until the last echoing strains of ‘Weasley is our King’ died away. Then they
turned to each other, their smiles fading.
“We’ll save our news till tomorrow, shall we?” said Harry.
“Yes, all right,” said Hermione wearily. “I’m not in any hurry.”
They climbed the steps together. At the front doors both instinctively looked back at the
Forbidden Forest. Harry was not sure whether or not it was his imagination, but he rather thought
he saw a small cloud of birds erupting into the air over the tree tops in the distance, almost as
though the tree in which they had been nesting had just been pulled up by the roots.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
O.W.L.s
Ron’s euphoria at helping Gryffindor scrape the Quidditch cup was such that he couldn’t settle to
anything next day. All he wanted to do was talk over the match, so Harry and Hermione found it
very difficult to find an opening in which to mention Grawp. Not that either of them tried very
hard; neither was keen to be the one to bring Ron back to reality in quite such a brutal fashion.
As it was another fine, warm day, they persuaded him to join them in revising under the beech
tree at the edge of the lake, where they had less chance of being overheard than in the common
room. Ron was not particularly keen on this idea at first - he was thoroughly enjoying being
patted on the back by every Gryffindor who walked past his chair, not to mention the occasional
outbursts of ‘Weasley is our King’ - but after a while he agreed that some fresh air might do him
good.
They spread their books out in the shade of the beech tree and sat down while Ron talked them
through his first save of the match for what felt like the dozenth time.
“Well, I mean, I’d already let in that one of Davies’s, so I wasn’t feeling all that confident, but I
dunno, when Bradley came towards me, just out of nowhere, I thought - you can do this! And I
had about a second to decide which way to fly, you know, because he looked like he was aiming
for the right goalhoop - my right, obviously, his left - but I had a funny feeling that he was
feinting, and so I took the chance and flew left - his right, I mean - and - well - you saw what
happened,” he concluded modestly, sweeping his hair back quite unnecessarily so that it looked
interestingly windswept and glancing around to see whether the people nearest to them — a
bunch of gossiping third-year Hufflepuffs — had heard him. “And then, when Chambers came at
me about five minutes later - What?” Ron asked, having stopped mid-sentence at the look on
Harry’s face. “Why are you grinning?”
“I’m not,” said Harry quickly, and looked down at his Transfiguration notes, attempting to
straighten his face. The truth was that Ron had just reminded Harry forcibly of another
Gryffindor Quidditch player who had once sat rumpling his hair under this very tree. “I’m just
glad we won, that’s all.”
“Yeah,” said Ron slowly, savoring the words, “we won. Did you see the look on Changs face
when Ginny got the Snitch right out from under her nose?”
“I suppose she cried, did she?” said Harry bitterly.
“Well, yeah - more out of temper than anything, though…” Ron frowned slightly. “But you saw
her chuck her broom away when she got back to the ground, didn’t you?”
“Er -” said Harry.
“Well, actually… no, Ron,” said Hermione with a heavy sigh, putting down her book and looking at him apologetically. “As a matter of fact, the only bit of the match Harry and I saw was
Davies’s first goal.”
Ron’s carefully ruffled hair seemed to wilt with disappointment. “You didn’t watch?” he said
faintly, looking from one to the other. “You didn’t see me make any of those saves?”
“Well - no,” said Hermione, stretching out a placatory hand towards him. “But Ron, we didn’t
want to leave — we had to!”
“Yeah?” said Ron, whose face was growing rather red. “How come?”
“It was Hagrid,” said Harry. “He decided to tell us why he’s been covered in injuries ever since
he got back from the giants. He wanted us to go into the Forest with him, we had no choice, you
know how he gets. Anyway…”
The story was told in five minutes, by the end of which Ron’s indignation had been replaced by a
look of total incredulity.
“He brought one back and hid it in the Forest?”
“Yep,” said Harry grimly.
“No,” said Ron, as though by saying this he could make it untrue. “No, he can’t have.”
“Well, he has,” said Hermione firmly. “Grawp’s about sixteen feet tall, enjoys ripping up twenty-foot pine trees, and knows me,” she snorted, “as Hermy.”
Ron gave a nervous laugh.
“And Hagrid wants us to…?”
“Teach him English, yeah,” said Harry.
“He’s lost his mind,” said Ron in an almost awed voice.
“Yes,” said Hermione irritably, turning a page of Intermediate Transfiguration and glaring at a
series of diagrams showing an owl turning into a pair of opera glasses. “Yes, I’m starting to think
he has. But, unfortunately, he made Harry and me promise.”
“Well, you’re just going to have to break your promise, that’s all,” said Ron firmly. “I mean,
come on… we’ve got exams and we’re about that far -” he held up his hand to show thumb and
forefinger almost touching “- from being chucked out as it is. And anyway… remember Norbert?
Remember Aragog? Have we ever come off better for mixing with any of Hagrid’s monster
mates?”
“I know, it’s just that - we promised,” said Hermione in a small voice.
Ron smoothed his hair flat again, looking preoccupied.
“Well,” he sighed, “Hagrid hasn’t been sacked yet, has he? He’s hung on this long, maybe he’ll
hang on till the end of term and we won’t have to go near Grawp at all.”
The castle grounds were gleaming in the sunlight as though freshly painted; the cloudless sky
smiled at itself in the smoothly sparkling lake; the satin green lawns rippled occasionally in a
gentle breeze. June had arrived, but to the fifth-years this meant only one thing: their OWLs were
upon them at last.
Their teachers were no longer setting them homework; lessons were devoted to revising those
topics the teachers thought most likely to come up in the exams. The purposeful, feverish
atmosphere drove nearly everything but the OWLs from Harry’s mind, though he did wonder
occasionally during Potions lessons whether Lupin had ever told Snape that he must continue
giving Harry Occlumency tuition. If he had, then Snape had ignored Lupin as thoroughly as he
was now ignoring Harry. This suited Harry very well; he was quite busy and tense enough
without extra classes with Snape, and to his relief Hermione was much too preoccupied these
days to badger him about Occlumency; she was spending a lot of time muttering to herself, and
had not laid out any elf clothes for days.
She was not the only person acting oddly as the OWLs drew steadily nearer. Ernie Macmillan
had developed an irritating habit of interrogating people about their study habits.
“How many hours d’you think you’re doing a day?” he demanded of Harry and Ron as they
queued outside Herbology, a manic gleam in his eyes.
“I dunno,” said Ron. “A few.”
“More or less than eight?”
“Less, I s’pose,” said Ron, looking slightly alarmed.
“I’m doing eight,” said Ernie, puffing out his chest. “Eight or nine. I’m getting an hour in before
breakfast every day. Eights my average. I can do ten on a good weekend day. I did nine and a
half on Monday. Not so good on Tuesday - only seven and a quarter. Then on Wednesday -”
Harry was deeply thankful that Professor Sprout ushered them into greenhouse three at that
point, forcing Ernie to abandon his recital.
Meanwhile, Draco Malfoy had found a different way to induce panic.
“Of course, it’s not what you know,” he was heard to tell Crabbe and Goyle loudly outside
Potions a few days before the exams were to start, “it’s who you know. Now, Father’s been
friendly with the head of the Wizarding Examinations Authority for years — old Griselda
Marchbanks - we’ve had her round for dinner and everything…”
“Do you think that’s true?” Hermione whispered in alarm to Harry and Ron.
“Nothing we can do about it if it is,” said Ron gloomily.
“I don’t think it’s true,” said Neville quietly from behind them. “Because Griselda Marchbanks is
a friend of my gran’s, and she’s never mentioned the Malfoys.”
“What’s she like, Neville?” asked Hermione at once. “Is she strict?”
“Bit like Gran, really,” said Neville in a subdued voice.
“Knowing her won’t hurt your chances, though, will it?” Ron told him encouragingly.
“Oh, I don’t think it will make any difference,” said Neville, still more miserably. “Grans always
telling Professor Marchbanks I’m not as good as my dad… well… you saw what she’s like at St
Mungo’s” Neville looked fixedly at the floor. Harry, Ron and Hermione glanced at each other, but didn’t know what to say. It was the first time Neville had acknowledged that they had met at the wizarding hospital.
Meanwhile, a flourishing black-market trade in aids to concentration, mental agility and
wakefulness had sprung up among the fifth- and seventh-years. Harry and Ron were much
tempted by the bottle of Baruffio’s Brain Elixir offered to them by Ravenclaw sixth-year Eddie
Carmichael, who swore it was solely responsible for the nine ‘Outstanding’ OWLs he had gained
the previous summer and was offering a whole pint for a mere twelve Galleons. Ron assured
Harry he would reimburse him for his half the moment he left Hogwarts and got a job, but before
they could close the deal, Hermione had confiscated the bottle from Carmichael and poured the
contents down a toilet.
“Hermione, we wanted to buy that!” shouted Ron.
“Don’t be stupid,” she snarled. “You might as well take Harold Dingle’s powdered dragon claw
and have done with it.”
“Dingle’s got powdered dragon claw?” said Ron eagerly.
“Not any more,” said Hermione. “I confiscated that, too. None of these things actually work, you
know.”
“Dragon claw does work!” said Ron. “It’s supposed to be incredible, really gives your brain a
boost, you come over all cunning for a few hours - Hermione, let me have a pinch, go on, it can’t
hurt -”
“This stuff can,” said Hermione grimly. “I’ve had a look at it, and it’s actually dried Doxy
droppings.”
This information took the edge off Harry and Rons desire for brain stimulants.
They received their examination timetables and details of the procedure for OWLs during their
next Transfiguration lesson.
“As you can see,” Professor McGonagall told the class as they copied down the dates and times
of their exams from the blackboard, “your OWLs are spread over two successive weeks. You
will sit the theory exams in the mornings and the practice in the afternoons. Your practical
Astronomy examination will, of course, take place at night.
“Now, I must warn you that the most stringent anti-cheating charms have been applied to your
examination papers. Auto-Answer Quills are banned from the examination hall, as are
Remembralls, Detachable Cribbing Cuffs and Self-Correcting Ink. Every year, I am afraid to say,
seems to harbor at least one student who thinks that he or she can get around the Wizarding
Examinations Authority’s rules. I can only hope that it is nobody in Gryffindor. Our new -
Headmistress —” Professor McGonagall pronounced the word with the same look on her face
that Aunt Petunia had whenever she was contemplating a particularly stubborn bit of dirt “- has
asked the Heads of House to tell their students that cheating will be punished most severely -
because, of course, your examination results will reflect upon the Headmistress’s new regime at
the school -”
Professor McGonagall gave a tiny sigh; Harry saw the nostrils of her sharp nose flare.
“- however, that is no reason not to do your very best. You have your own futures to think about.”
“Please, Professor,” said Hermione, her hand in the air, “when will we find out our results?”
“An owl will be sent to you some time in July” said Professor McGonagall.
“Excellent,” said Dean Thomas in an audible whisper, “so we don’t have to worry about it till the holidays.”
Harry imagined sitting in his bedroom in Privet Drive in six weeks’ time, waiting for his OWL
results. Well, he thought dully, at least he would be sure of one bit of post next summer.
Their first examination, Theory of Charms, was scheduled for Monday morning. Harry agreed to
test Hermione after lunch on Sunday, but regretted it almost at once; she was very agitated and
kept snatching the book back from him to check that she had got the answer completely right,
finally hitting him hard on the nose with the sharp edge of Achievements in Charming.
“Why don’t you just do it yourself?” he said firmly, handing the book back to her, his eyes
watering.
Meanwhile, Ron was reading two years’ worth of Charms notes with his fingers in his ears, his
lips moving soundlessly; Seamus Finnigan was lying flat on his back on the floor, reciting the
definition of a Substantive Charm while Dean checked it against The Standard Book of Spells,
Grade 5; and Parvati and Lavender, who were practicing basic Locomotion Charms, were
making their pencil-cases race each other around the edge of the table.
Dinner was a subdued affair that night. Harry and Ron did not talk much, but ate with gusto,
having studied hard all day. Hermione, on the other hand, kept putting down her knife and fork
and diving under the table for her bag, from which she would seize a book to check some fact or
figure. Ron was just telling her that she ought to eat a decent meal or she would not sleep that
night, when her fork slid from her limp fingers and landed with a loud tinkle on her plate.
“Oh, my goodness,” she said faintly, staring into the Entrance Hall. “Is that them? Is that the
examiners?”
Harry and Ron whipped around on their bench. Through the doors to the Great Hall they could
see Umbridge standing with a small group of ancient-looking witches and wizards. Umbridge,
Harry was pleased to see, looked rather nervous.
“Shall we go and have a closer look?” said Ron.
Harry and Hermione nodded and they hastened towards the double doors into the Entrance Hall,
slowing down as they stepped over the threshold to walk sedately past the examiners. Harry
thought Professor Marchbanks must be the tiny, stooped witch with a face so lined it looked as
though it had been draped in cobwebs; Umbridge was speaking to her deferentially. Professor
Marchbanks seemed to be a little deaf; she was answering Professor Umbridge very loudly
considering they were only a foot apart.
“Journey was fine, journey was fine, we’ve made it plenty of times before!” she said impatiently. “Now, I haven’t heard from Dumbledore lately!” she added, peering around the Hall as though
hopeful he might suddenly emerge from a broom cupboard. “No idea where he is, I suppose?”
“None at all,” said Umbridge, shooting a malevolent look at Harry, Ron and Hermione, who were now dawdling around the foot of the stairs as Ron pretended to do up his shoelace. “But I daresay the Ministry of Magic will track him down soon enough.”
“I doubt it,” shouted tiny Professor Marchbanks, “not if Dumbledore doesn’t want to be found! I
should know… examined him personally in Transfiguration and Charms when he did NEWTs…
did things with a wand I’d never seen before.”
“Yes… well…” said Professor Umbridge as Harry, Ron and Hermione dragged their feet up the
marble staircase as slowly as they dared, “let me show you to the staff room. I daresay you’d like a cup of tea after your journey.”
It was an uncomfortable sort of an evening. Everyone was trying to do some last-minute revising
but nobody seemed to be getting very far. Harry went to bed early but then lay awake for what
felt like hours. He remembered his careers consultation and McGonagall’s furious declaration
that she would help him become an Auror if it was the last thing she did. He wished he had
expressed a more achievable ambition now that exam time was here. He knew he was not the
only one lying awake, but none of the others in the dormitory spoke and finally, one by one, they
fell asleep.
None of the fifth-years talked very much at breakfast next day, either: Parvati was practicing
incantations under her breath while the salt cellar in front of her twitched; Hermione was
rereading Achievements in Charming so fast that her eyes appeared blurred; and Neville kept
dropping his knife and fork and knocking over the marmalade.
Once breakfast was over, the fifth- and seventh-years milled around in the Entrance Hall while
the other students went off to lessons; then, at half past nine, they were called forwards class by
class to re-enter the Great Hall, which had been rearranged exactly as Harry had seen it in the
Pensieve when his father, Sirius and Snape had been taking their OWLs; the four house tables
had been removed and replaced instead with many tables for one, all facing the staff-table end of
the Hall where Professor McGonagall stood facing them. When they were all seated and quiet,
she said, “You may begin,” and turned over an enormous hour-glass on the desk beside her, on
which there were also spare quills, ink bottles and rolls of parchment.
Harry turned over his paper, his heart thumping hard - three rows to his right and four seats
ahead Hermione was already scribbling - and lowered his eyes to the first question: a) Give the
incantation and b) describe the wand movement required to make objects fly.
Harry had a fleeting memory of a club soaring high into the air and landing loudly on the thick
skull of a troll… smiling slightly, he bent over the paper and began to write.
“Well, it wasn’t too bad, was it?” asked Hermione anxiously in the Entrance Hall two hours later, still clutching the exam paper. “I’m not sure I did myself justice on Cheering Charms, I just ran out of time. Did you put in the counter-charm for hiccoughs? I wasn’t, sure whether I ought to, it felt like too much - and on question twenty-three -”
“Hermione,” said Ron sternly, “we’ve been through this before… we’re not going through every
exam afterwards, it’s bad enough doing them once.”
The fifth-years ate lunch with the rest of the school (the four house tables had reappeared for the
lunch hour), then they trooped off into the small chamber beside the Great Hall, where they were
to wait until called for their practical examination. As small groups of students were called
forwards in alphabetical order, those left behind muttered incantations and practiced wand
movements, occasionally poking each other in the back or eye by mistake.
Hermione’s name was called. Trembling, she left the chamber with Anthony Goldstein, Gregory
Goyle and Daphne Greengrass. Students who had already been tested did not return afterwards,
so Harry and Ron had no idea how Hermione had done.
“She’ll be fine, remember she got a hundred and twelve percent on one of our Charms tests?”
said Ron.
Ten minutes later, Professor Flitwick called, “Parkinson, Pansy - Patil, Padma - Patil, Parvati -
Potter, Harry.”
“Good luck,” said Ron quietly. Harry walked into the Great Hall, clutching his wand so tightly
his hand shook.
“Professor Tofty is free, Potter,” squeaked Professor Flitwick, who was standing just inside the
door. He pointed Harry towards what looked like the very oldest and baldest examiner who was
sitting behind a small table in a far corner, a short distance from Professor Marchbanks, who was
halfway through testing Draco Malfoy.
“Potter, is it?” said Professor Tofty, consulting his notes and peering over his pince-nez at Harry
as he approached. “The famous Potter?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Harry distinctly saw Malfoy throw a scathing look over at him; the
wine-glass Malfoy had been levitating fell to the floor and smashed. Harry could not suppress a
grin; Professor Tofty smiled back at him encouragingly.
“That’s it,” he said in his quavery old voice, “no need to be nervous. Now, if I could ask you to
take this egg cup and make it do some cartwheels for me.”
On the whole, Harry thought it went rather well. His Levitation Charm was certainly much better
than Malfoy’s had been, though he wished he had not mixed up the incantations for Color
Change and Growth Charms, so that the rat he was supposed to be turning orange swelled
shockingly and was the size of a badger before Harry could rectify his mistake. He was glad
Hermione had not been in the Hall at the time and neglected to mention it to her afterwards. He
could tell Ron, though; Ron had caused a dinner plate to mutate into a large mushroom and had
no idea how it had happened.
There was no time to relax that night; they went straight to the common room after dinner and
submerged themselves in revision for Transfiguration next day; Harry went to bed with his head
buzzing with complex spell models and theories.
He forgot the definition of a Switching Spell during his written paper next morning but thought
his practical could have been a lot worse. At least he managed to Vanish the whole of his iguana,
whereas poor Hannah Abbott lost her head completely at the next table and somehow managed
to multiply her ferret into a flock of flamingos, causing the examination to be halted for ten
minutes while the birds were captured and carried out of the Hall.
They had their Herbology exam on Wednesday (other than a small bite from a Fanged Geranium,
Harry felt he had done reasonably well); and then, on Thursday, Defense Against the Dark Arts.
Here, for the first time, Harry felt sure he had passed. He had no problem with any of the written
questions and took particular pleasure, during the practical examination, in performing all the
counter-jinxes and defensive spells right in front of Umbridge, who was watching coolly from
near the doors into the Entrance Hall.
“Oh, bravo!” cried Professor Tofty, who was examining Harry again, when Harry demonstrated a perfect Boggart banishing spell. “Very good indeed! Well, I think that’s all, Potter… unless…”
He leaned forwards a little.
“I heard, from my dear friend Tiberius Ogden, that you can produce a Patronus? For a bonus
point…?”
Harry raised his wand, looked directly at Umbridge and imagined her being sacked.
“Expecto patronum!”
His silver stag erupted from the end of his wand and cantered the length of the Hall. All of the
examiners looked around to watch its progress and when it dissolved into silver mist Professor
Tofty clapped his veined and knotted hands enthusiastically.
“Excellent!” he said. “Very well, Potter, you may go!”
As Harry passed Umbridge beside the door, their eyes met. There was a nasty smile playing
around her wide, slack mouth, but he did not care. Unless he was very much mistaken (and he
was not planning on telling anybody, in case he was), he had just achieved an ‘Outstanding’
OWL.
On Friday, Harry and Ron had a day off while Hermione sat her Ancient Runes exam, and as
they had the whole weekend in front of them they permitted themselves a break from revision.
They stretched and yawned beside the open window, through which warm summer air was
wafting as they played wizard chess. Harry could see Hagrid in the distance, teaching a class on
the edge of the Forest. He was trying to guess what creatures they were examining - he thought it
must be unicorns, because the boys seemed to be standing back a little - when the portrait hole
opened and Hermione clambered in, looking thoroughly bad-tempered.
“How were the Runes?” said Ron, yawning and stretching.
“I mistranslated ehwaz,” said Hermione furiously. “It means partnership, not Defense; I mixed it
up with eihwaz.”
“Ah well,” said Ron lazily, “that’s only one mistake, isn’t it, you’ll still get -”
“Oh, shut up!” said Hermione angrily. “It could be the one mistake that makes the difference
between a pass and a fail. And what’s more, someone’s put another Niffler in Umbridge’s office.
I don’t know how they got it through that new door, but I just walked past there and Umbridge is
shrieking her head off - by the sound of it, it tried to take a chunk out of her leg -”
“Good,” said Harry and Ron together.
“It is not good!” said Hermione hotly. “She thinks it’s Hagrid doing it, remember? And we do not want Hagrid chucked out!”
“He’s teaching at the moment; she can’t blame him,” said Harry, gesturing out of the window.
“Oh, you’re so naive sometimes, Harry.You really think Umbridge will wait for proof?” said
Hermione, who seemed determined to be in a towering temper, and she swept off towards the
girls’ dormitories, banging the door behind her.
“Such a lovely, sweet-tempered girl,” said Ron, very quietly, prodding his queen forward to beat
up one of Harry’s knights.
Hermione’s bad mood persisted for most of the weekend, though Harry and Ron found it quite
easy to ignore as they spent most of Saturday and Sunday revising for Potions on Monday, the
exam which Harry had been looking forward to least - and which he was sure would be the
downfall of his ambitions to become an Auror. Sure enough, he found the written paper difficult,
though he thought he might have got full marks on the question about Polyjuice Potion; he could
describe its effects accurately, having taken it illegally in his second year.
The afternoon practical was not as dreadful as he had expected it to be. With Snape absent from
the proceedings, he found that he was much more relaxed than he usually was while making
potions. Neville, who was sitting very near Harry, also looked happier than Harry had ever seen
him during a Potions class. When Professor Marchbanks said, “Step away from your cauldrons,
please, the examination is over,” Harry corked his sample flask feeling that he might not have
achieved a good grade but he had, with luck, avoided a fail.
“Only four exams left,” said Parvati Patil wearily as they headed back to Gryffindor common
room.
“Only!” said Hermione snappishly. “I’ve got Arithmancy and it’s probably the toughest subject
there is!”
Nobody was foolish enough to snap back, so she was unable to vent her spleen on any of them
and was reduced to telling off some first-years for giggling too loudly in the common room.
Harry was determined to perform well in Tuesdays Care of Magical Creatures exam so as not to
let Hagrid down. The practical examination took place in the afternoon on the lawn on the edge
of the Forbidden Forest, where students were required to correctly identify the Knarl hidden
among a dozen hedgehogs (the trick was to offer them all milk in turn: Knarls, highly suspicious
creatures whose quills had many magical properties, generally went berserk at what they saw as
an attempt to poison them); then demonstrate correct handling of a Bowtruckle; feed and clean
out a Fire Crab without sustaining serious burns; and choose, from a wide selection of food, the
diet they would give a sick unicorn.
Harry could see Hagrid watching anxiously out of his cabin window. When Harry’s examiner, a
plump little witch this time, smiled at him and told him he could leave, Harry gave Hagrid a
fleeting thumbs-up before heading back to the castle.
The Astronomy theory paper on Wednesday morning went well enough. Harry was not
convinced he had got the names of all Jupiter’s moons right, but was at least confident that none
of them was inhabited by mice. They had to wait until evening for their practical Astronomy; the
afternoon was devoted instead to Divination.
Even by Harry’s low standards in Divination, the exam went very badly. He might as well have
tried to see moving pictures on the desktop as in the stubbornly blank crystal ball; he lost his
head completely during tea-leaf reading, saying it looked to him as though Professor Marchbanks
would shortly be meeting a round, dark, soggy stranger, and rounded off the whole fiasco by
mixing up the life and head lines on her palm and informing her that she ought to have died the
previous Tuesday.
“Well, we were always going to fail that one,” said Ron gloomily as they ascended the marble
staircase. He had just made Harry feel rather better by telling him how he had told the examiner
in detail about the ugly man with a wart on his nose in his crystal ball, only to look up and realize
he had been describing his examiner’s reflection.
“We shouldn’t have taken the stupid subject in the first place,” said Harry.
“Still, at least we can give it up now.”
“Yeah,” said Harry. “No more pretending we care what happens when Jupiter and Uranus get too
friendly.”
“And from now on, I don’t care if my tea-leaves spell die, Ron, die - I’m just chucking them in
the bin where they belong.”
Harry laughed just as Hermione came running up behind them. He stopped laughing at once, in
case it annoyed her.
“Well, I think I’ve done all right in Arithmancy” she said, and Harry and Ron both sighed with
relief. “Just time for a quick look over our star-charts before dinner, then…”
When they reached the top of the Astronomy Tower at eleven o’clock, they found a perfect night
for stargazing, cloudless and still. The grounds were bathed in silvery moonlight and there was a
slight chill in the air. Each of them set up his or her telescope and, when Professor Marchbanks
gave the word, proceeded to fill in the blank star-chart they had been given.
Professors Marchbanks and Tofty strolled among them, watching as they entered the precise
positions of the stars and planets they were observing. All was quiet except for the rustle of
parchment, the occasional creak of a telescope as it was adjusted on its stand, and the scribbling
of many quills. Half an hour passed, then an hour; the little squares of reflected gold light
flickering on the ground below started to vanish as lights in the castle windows were
extinguished.
As Harry completed the constellation Orion on his chart, however, the front doors of the castle
opened directly below the parapet where he was standing, so that light spilled down the stone
steps a little way across the lawn. Harry glanced down as he made a slight adjustment to the
position of his telescope and saw five or six elongated shadows moving over the brightly lit grass
before the doors swung shut and the lawn became a sea of darkness once more.
Harry put his eye back to his telescope and refocused it, now examining Venus. He looked down
at his chart to enter the planet there, but something distracted him; pausing with his quill
suspended over the parchment, he squinted down into the shadowy grounds and saw half a dozen
figures walking over the lawn. If they had not been moving, and the moonlight had not been
gilding the tops of their heads, they would have been indistinguishable from the dark ground on
which they walked. Even at this distance, Harry had a funny feeling he recognized the walk of
the squattest of them, who seemed to be leading the group.
He could not think why Umbridge would be taking a stroll outside after midnight, much less
accompanied by five others. Then somebody coughed behind him, and he remembered that he
was halfway through an exam. He had quite forgotten Venus’s position. Jamming his eye to his
telescope, he found it again and was once more about to enter it on his chart when, alert for any
odd sound, he heard a distant knock which echoed through the deserted grounds, followed
immediately by the muffled barking of a large dog.
He looked up, his heart hammering. There were lights on in Hagrid’s windows and the people he
had observed crossing the lawn were now silhouetted against them. The door opened and he
distinctly saw six sharply defined figures walk over the threshold. The door closed again and
there was silence.
Harry felt very uneasy. He glanced around to see whether Ron or Hermione had noticed what he
had, but Professor Marchbanks came walking behind him at that moment and, not wanting to
look as though he was sneaking looks at anyone else’s work, Harry hastily bent over his starchart
and pretended to be adding notes to it while really peering over the top of the parapet
towards Hagrid’s cabin. Figures were now moving across the cabin windows, temporarily
blocking the light.
He could feel Professor Marchbanks’s eyes on the back of his neck and pressed his eye again to
his telescope, staring up at the moon though he had marked its position an hour ago, but as
Professor Marchbanks moved on he heard a roar from the distant cabin that echoed through the
darkness right to the top of the Astronomy Tower. Several of the people around Harry ducked
out from behind their telescopes and peered instead in the direction of Hagrid’s cabin.
Professor Tofty gave another dry little cough.
“Try and concentrate, now, boys and girls,” he said softly.
Most people returned to their telescopes. Harry looked to his left. Hermione was gazing
transfixed at Hagrid’s cabin.
“Ahem - twenty minutes to go,” said Professor Tofty.
Hermione jumped and returned at once to her star-chart; Harry looked down at his own and
noticed that he had mislabelled Venus as Mars. He bent to correct it.
There was a loud BANG from the grounds. Several people cried ‘Ouch!’ when they poked
themselves in the face with the ends of their telescopes as they hastened to see what was going
on below.
Hagrid’s door had burst open and by the light flooding out of the cabin they saw him quite
clearly a massive figure roaring and brandishing his fists, surrounded by six people, all of whom,
judging by the tiny threads of red light they were casting in his direction, seemed to be
attempting to Stun him.
“No!” cried Hermione.
“My dear!” said Professor Tofty in a scandalised voice. “This is an examination!”
But nobody was paying the slightest attention to their star-charts any more. Jets of red light were
still flying about beside Hagrid’s cabin, yet somehow they seemed to be bouncing off him; he
was still upright and still, as far as Harry could see, fighting. Cries and yells echoed across the
grounds; a man yelled, “Be reasonable, Hagrid!”
Hagrid roared, “Reasonable be damned, yeh won’ take me like this, Dawlish!”
Harry could see the tiny outline of Fang, attempting to defend Hagrid, leaping repeatedly at the
wizards surrounding him until a Stunning Spell caught him and he fell to the ground. Hagrid
gave a howl of fury, lifted the culprit bodily from the ground and threw him; the man flew what
looked like ten feet and did not get up again. Hermione gasped, both hands over her mouth;
Harry looked round at Ron and saw that he, too, was looking scared. None of them had ever seen
Hagrid in a real temper before.
“Look!” squealed Parvati, who was leaning over the parapet and pointing to the foot of the castle
where the front doors had opened again; more light was spilling out on to the dark lawn and a
single long black shadow was now rippling across the lawn.
“Now, really!” said Professor Tofty anxiously. “Only sixteen minutes left, you know!”
But nobody paid him the slightest attention: they were watching the person now sprinting
towards the battle beside Hagrid’s cabin.
“How dare you!” the figure shouted as she ran. “How dare you!”
“It’s McGonagall!” whispered Hermione.
“Leave him alone! Alone, I say!” said Professor McGonagall’s voice through the darkness. “On
what grounds are you attacking him? He has done nothing, nothing to warrant such -”
Hermione, Parvati and Lavender all screamed. No fewer than four Stunners had shot from the figures around the cabin toward Professor McGonagall. Halfway between cabin and castle the red beams collided with her; for a moment she looked luminous, illuminated by an eerie red glow, then was lifted right off her feet, landed hard on her back, and moved no more.
“Galloping gargoyles!” shouted Professor Tofty, who seemed to have forgotten the exam
completely. “Not so much as a warning! Outrageous behavior!”
“COWARDS!” bellowed Hagrid, his voice carring clearly to the top of the tower, and several
lights flickered back on inside the castle. “RUDDY COWARDS! HAVE SOME O’ THAT - AN’ THAT -”
“Oh my —” gasped Hermione.
Hagrid took two massive swipes at his closest attackers; judging by their immediate collapse,
they had been knocked cold. Harry saw Hagrid double over, and thought he had finally been
overcome by a spell. But, on the contrary, next moment Hagrid was standing again with what
appeared to be a sack on his back - then Harry realized that Fang’s limp body was draped around
his shoulders.
“Get him, get him!” screamed Umbridge, but her remaining helper seemed highly reluctant to go
within reach of Hagrid’s fists; indeed, he was backing away so fast he tripped over one of his
unconscious colleagues and fell over. Hagrid had turned and begun to run with Fang still hung
around his neck. Umbridge sent one last Stunning Spell after him but it missed; and Hagrid,
running full-pelt towards the distant gates, disappeared into the darkness.
There was a long minutes quivering silence as everybody gazed open-mouthed into the grounds.
Then Professor Tofty’s voice said feebly, “Um… five minutes to go, everybody.”
Though he had only filled in two-thirds of his chart, Harry was desperate for the exam to end.
When it came at last he, Ron and Hermione forced their telescopes haphazardly back into their
holders and dashed back down the spiral staircase. None of the students were going to bed; they
were all talking loudly and excitedly at the foot of the stairs about what they had witnessed.
“That evil woman!” gasped Hermione, who seemed to be having difficulty talking due to rage.
“Trying to sneak up on Hagrid in the dead of night!”
“She clearly wanted to avoid another scene like Trelawney’s,” said Ernie Macmillan sagely,
squeezing over to join them.
“Hagrid did well, didn’t he?” said Ron, who looked more alarmed than impressed. “How come all the spells bounced off him?”
“It’ll be his giant blood,” said Hermione shakily. “Its very hard to Stun a giant, they’re like trolls,
really tough… but poor Professor McGonagall… four Stunners straight in the chest and she’s not
exactly young, is she?”
“Dreadful, dreadful,” said Ernie, shaking his head pompously. “Well, I’m off to bed. Night, all.”
People around them were drifting away, still talking excitedly about what they had just seen.
“At least they didn’t get to take Hagrid off to Azkaban,” said Ron. “I ‘spect he’s gone to join
Dumbledore, hasn’t he?”
“I suppose so,” said Hermione, who looked tearful. “Oh, this is awful, I really thought
Dumbledore would be back before long, but now we’ve lost Hagrid too.”
They traipsed back to the Gryffindor common room to find it full. The commotion out in the
grounds had woken several people, who had hastened to rouse their friends. Seamus and Dean,
who had arrived ahead of Harry, Ron and Hermione, were now telling everyone what they had
seen and heard from the top of the Astronomy Tower.
“But why sack Hagrid now?” asked Angelina Johnson, shaking her head. “It’s not like
Trelawney; he’s been teaching much better than usual this year!”
“Umbridge hates part-humans,” said Hermione bitterly, flopping down into an armchair. “She
was always going to try and get Hagrid out.”
“And she thought Hagrid was putting Nifflers in her office,” piped up Katie Bell.
“Oh, blimey,” said Lee Jordan, covering his mouth. “It’s me who’s been putting the Nifflers in
her office. Fred and George left me a couple; I’ve been levitating them in through her window.”
“She’d have sacked him anyway” said Dean. “He was too close to Dumbledore.”
“That’s true,” said Harry, sinking into an armchair beside Hermione’s.
“I just hope Professor McGonagall’s all right,” said Lavender tearfully.
“They carried her back up to the castle, we watched through the dormitory window,” said Colin
Creevey “She didn’t look very well.”
“Madam Pomfrey will sort her out,” said Alicia Spinnet firmly. “She’s never failed yet.”
It was nearly four in the morning before the common room cleared. Harry felt wide awake; the
image of Hagrid sprinting away into the dark was haunting him; he was so angry with Umbridge
he could not think of a punishment bad enough for her, though Ron’s suggestion of having her
fed to a box of starving Blast-Ended Skrewts had its merits. He fell asleep contemplating hideous
revenges and arose from bed three hours later feeling distinctly unrested.
Their final exam, History of Magic, was not to take place until that afternoon. Harry would very
much have liked to go back to bed after breakfast, but he had been counting on the morning for a
spot of last-minute revision, so instead he sat with his head in his hands by the common-room
window, trying hard not to doze off as he read through some of the notes stacked three-and-a-half feet high that Hermione had lent him.
The fifth-years entered the Great Hall at two o’clock and took their places in front of their facedown examination papers. Harry felt exhausted. He just wanted this to be over, so that he could go and sleep; then tomorrow, he and Ron were going to go down to the Quidditch pitch - he was going to have a fly on Rons broom - and savor their freedom from revision.
“Turn over your papers,” said Professor Marchbanks from the front of the Hall, flicking over the
giant hour-glass. “You may begin.”
Harry stared fixedly at the first question. It was several seconds before it occurred to him that he
had not taken in a word of it; there was a wasp buzzing distractingly against one of the high
windows. Slowly, tortuously, he at last began to write an answer.
He was finding it very difficult to remember names and kept confusing dates. He simply skipped
question four (In your opinion, did wand legislation contribute to, or lead to better control of,
goblin riots of the eighteenth century?), thinking that he would go back to it if he had time at the
end. He had a stab at question five (How wasthe Statute of Secrecy breached in 1749 and what
measures were introduced to prevent a recurrence?) but had a nagging suspicion that he had
missed several important points; he had a feeling vampires had come into the story somewhere.
He looked ahead for a question he could definitely answer and his eyes alighted upon number
ten: Describe the circumstances that led to the form ation of the International Confederation of
Wizards and explain why the warlocks of Liechtenstein refused to join.
I know this, Harry thought, though his brain felt torpid and slack. He could visualize a heading,
in Hermione’s handwriting: The formation of the International Confederation of Wizards… he
had read those notes only this morning.
He began to write, looking up now and again to check the large hour-glass on the desk beside
Professor Marchbanks. He was sitting right behind Parvati Patil, whose long dark hair fell below
the back of her chair. Once or twice he found himself staring at the tiny golden lights that
glistened in it when she moved her head slightly, and had to give his own head a little shake to
clear it.
… the first Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards was Pierre
Bonaccord, but his appointment was contested by the wizarding community of Liechtenstein,
because -
All around Harry quills were scratching on parchment like scurrying, burrowing rats. The sun
was very hot on the back of his head. What was it that Bonaccord had done to offend the wizards
of Liechtenstein? Harry had a feeling it had something to do with trolls… he gazed blankly at the
back of Parvati’s head again. If he could only perform Legilimency and open a window in the
back of her head and see what it was about trolls that had caused the breach between Pierre
Bonaccord and Liechtenstein…
Harry closed his eyes and buried his face in his hands, so that the glowing red of his eyelids grew
dark and cool. Bonaccord had wanted to stop troll-hunting and give the trolls rights… but
Liechtenstein was having problems with a tribe of particularly vicious mountain trolls… that was
it.
He opened his eyes; they stung and watered at the sight of the blazing white parchment. Slowly,
he wrote two lines about the trolls, then read through what he had done so far. It did not seem
very informative or detailed, yet he was sure Hermione’s notes on the Confederation had gone on
for pages and pages.
He closed his eyes again, trying to see them, trying to remember… the Confederation had met
for the first time in France, yes, he had written that already…
Goblins had tried to attend and been ousted… he had written that, too…
And nobody from Liechtenstein had wanted to come…
Think, he told himself, his face in his hands, while all around him quills scratched out neverending answers and the sand trickled through the hour-glass at the front…
He was walking along the cool, dark corridor to the Department of Mysteries again, walking
with a firm and purposeful tread, breaking occasionally into a run, determined to reach his
destination at last… the black door swung open for him as usual, and here he was in the circular
room with its many doors…
Straight across the stone floor and through the second door… patches of dancing light on the
walls and floor and that odd mechanical clicking, but no time to explore, he must hurry…
He jogged the last few feet to the third door, which swung open just like the others…
Once again he was in the cathedral-sized room full of shelves and glass spheres… his heart was
beating very fast now… he was going to get there this time… when he reached number ninety-seven he turned left and hurried along the aisle between two rows…
But there was a shape on the floor at the very end, a black shape moving on the floor like a
wounded animal… Harry’s stomach contracted with fear… with excitement…
A voice issued from his own mouth, a high, cold voice empty of any human kindness…
“Take it for me… lift it down, now… I cannot touch it… but you can”
The black shape on the floor shifted a little. Harry saw a long-fingered white hand clutching a
wand rise at the end of his own arm… heard the high, cold voice say “Crucio!”
The man on the floor let out a scream of pain, attempted to stand but fell back, writhing. Harry
was laughing. He raised his wand, the curse lifted and the figure groaned and became motionless.
“Lord Voldemort is waiting”
Very slowly, his arms trembling, the man on the ground raised his shoulders a few inches and
lifted his head. His face was bloodstained and gaunt, twisted in pain yet rigid with defiance…
“You’ll have to kill me,” whispered Sirius.
“Undoubtedly I shall in the end,” said the cold voice. “But you will fetch it for me first, Black…
you think you have felt pain thus far? Think again… we have hours ahead of us and nobody to
hear you scream…”
But somebody screamed as Voldemort lowered his wand again; somebody yelled and fell
sideways off a hot desk on to the cold stone floor; Harry awoke as he hit the ground, still yelling,
his scar on fire, as the Great Hall erupted all around him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Out of the Fire
“I’m not going… I don’t need the hospital wing… I don’t want”
He was gibbering as he tried to pull away from Professor Tofty, who was looking at Harry with
much concern after helping him out into the Entrance Hall with the students all around them
staring.
“I’m - I’m fine, sir,” Harry stammered, wiping the sweat from his face. “Really… I just fell
asleep… had a nightmare…”
“Pressure of examinations!” said the old wizard sympathetically, patting Harry shakily on the
shoulder. “It happens, young man, it happens! Now, a cooling drink of water, and perhaps you
will be ready to return to the Great Hall? The examination is nearly over, but you may be able to
round off your last answer nicely?”
“Yes,” said Harry wildly. “I mean… no… I’ve done - done as much as I can, I think…”
“Very well, very well,” said the old wizard gently. “I shall go and collect your examination paper
and I suggest that you go and have a nice lie down.”
“I’ll do that,” said Harry, nodding vigorously. “Thanks very much.”
The second that the old man’s heels disappeared over the threshold into the Great Hall, Harry ran
up the marble staircase, hurtled along the corridors so fast the portraits he passed muttered
reproaches, up more flights of stairs, and finally burst like a hurricane through the double doors
of the hospital wing, causing Madam Pomfrey - who had been spooning some bright blue liquid
into Montague’s open mouth - to shriek in alarm.
“Potter, what do you think you’re doing?”
“I need to see Professor McGonagall,” gasped Harry, the breath tearing his lungs. “Now… it’s
urgent!”
“She’s not here, Potter,” said Madam Pomfrey sadly. “She was transferred to St. Mungo’s this
morning. Four Stunning Spells straight to the chest at her age? It’s a wonder they didn’t kill her.”
“She’s… gone?” said Harry, shocked.
The bell rang just outside the dormitory and he heard the usual distant rumbling of students
starting to flood out into the corridors above and below him. He remained quite still, looking at
Madam Pomfrey. Terror was rising inside him.
There was nobody left to tell. Dumbledore had gone, Hagrid had gone, but he had always
expected Professor McGonagall to be there, irascible and inflexible, perhaps, but always
dependably, solidly present…
“I don’t wonder you’re shocked, Potter,” said Madam Pomfrey, with a kind of fierce approval in
her face. “As if one of them could have Stunned Minerva McGonagall face-on by daylight!
Cowardice, that’s what it was… despicable cowardice… if I wasn’t worried what would happen
to you students without me, I’d resign in protest.”
“Yes,” said Harry blankly.
He wheeled around and strode blindly from the hospital wing into the teeming corridor where he
stood, buffeted by the crowd, panic expanding inside him like poison gas so that his head swam
and he could not think what to do…
Ron and Hermione, said a voice in his head.
He was running again, pushing students out of the way, oblivious to their angry protests. He
sprinted back down two floors and was at the top of the marble staircase when he saw them
hurrying towards him.
“Harry!” said Hermione at once, looking very frightened. “What happened? Are you all right?
Are you ill?”
“Where have you been?” demanded Ron.
“Come with me,” Harry said quickly. “Come on, I’ve got to tell you something.”
He led them along the first-floor corridor, peering through doorways, and at last found an empty
classroom into which he dived, closing the door behind Ron and Hermione the moment they
were inside, and leaned against it, facing them.
“Voldemort’s got Sirius.”
“What?”
“How d’you -?”
“Saw it. Just now. When I fell asleep in the exam.”
“But - but where? How?” said Hermione, whose face was white.
“I dunno how,” said Harry. “But I know exactly where. There’s a room in the Department of
Mysteries full of shelves covered in these little glass balls and they’re at the end of row ninety-seven… he’s trying to use Sirius to get whatever it is he wants from in there… he’s torturing him… says he’ll end by killing him!”
Harry found his voice was shaking, as were his knees. He moved over to a desk and sat down on
it, trying to master himself.
“How’re we going to get there?” he asked them.
There was a moment’s silence. Then Ron said, “G-get there?”
“Get to the Department of Mysteries, so we can rescue Sirius!” Harry said loudly.
“But - Harry…” said Ron weakly.
“What? What?” said Harry.
He could not understand why they were both gaping at him as though he was asking them
something unreasonable.
“Harry,” said Hermione in a rather frightened voice, “er… how… how did Voldemort get into the Ministry of Magic without anybody realizing he was there?”
“How do I know?” bellowed Harry. “The question is how we’re going to get in there!”
“But… Harry, think about this,” said Hermione, taking a step towards him, “it’s five o’clock in
the afternoon… the Ministry of Magic must be full of workers… how would Voldemort and
Sirius have got in without being seen? Harry… they’re probably the two most wanted wizards in
the world… you think they could get into a building full of Aurors undetected?”
“I dunno, Voldemort used an Invisibility Cloak or something!” Harry shouted. “Anyway, the
Department of Mysteries has always been completely empty whenever I’ve been -”
“You’ve never been there, Harry,” said Hermione quietly. “You’ve dreamed about the place,
that’s all.”
“They’re not normal dreams!” Harry shouted in her face, standing up and taking a step closer to
her in turn. He wanted to shake her. “How d’you explain Ron’s dad then, what was all that about,
how come I knew what had happened to him?”
“He’s got a point,” said Ron quietly, looking at Hermione.
“But this is just — just sounds unlikely.” said Hermione desperately. “Harry, how on earth could Voldemort have got hold of Sirius when he’s been in Grimmauld Place all the time?”
“Sirius might’ve cracked and just wanted some fresh air,” said Ron, sounding worried. “He’s
been desperate to get out of that house for ages -”
“But why,” Hermione persisted, “why on earth would Voldemort want to use Sirius to get the
weapon, or whatever the thing is?”
“I dunno, there could be loads of reasons!” Harry yelled at her. “Maybe Sirius is just someone
Voldemort doesn’t care about seeing hurt -”
“You know what, I’ve just thought of something,” said Ron in a hushed voice. “Sirius’s brother
was a Death Eater, wasn’t he? Maybe he told Sirius the secret of how to get the weapon!”
“Yeah - and that’s why Dumbledore’s been so keen to keep Sirius locked up all the time!” said
Harry.
“Look, I’m sorry,” cried Hermione, “but neither of you is making sense, and we’ve got no proof
for any of this, no proof Voldemort and Sirius are even there -”
“Hermione, Harrys seen them!” said Ron, rounding on her.
“Okay,” she said, looking frightened yet determined, “I’ve just got to say this -”
“What?”
“You… this isn’t a criticism, Harry! But you do… sort of… I mean - don’t you think you’ve got
a bit of a - a -saving-people thing!” she said.
He glared at her.
“And what’s that supposed to mean, ‘a -saving-people thing’?”
“Well… you…” she looked more apprehensive than ever. “I mean… last year, for instance… in
the lake… during the Tournament… you shouldn’t have… I mean, you didn’t need to save that
little Delacour girl… you got a bit… carried away…”
A wave of hot, prickly anger swept through Harrys body; how could she remind him of that
blunder now?
“I mean, it was really great of you and everything,” said Hermione quickly, looking positively
petrified at the look on Harrys face, “everyone thought it was a wonderful thing to do -”
“That’s funny,” said Harry through gritted teeth, “because I definitely remember Ron saying I’d
wasted time acting the hero… is that what you think this is? You reckon I want to act the hero
again?”
“No, no, no!” said Hermione, looking aghast. “That’s not what I mean at all!”
“Well, spit out what you’ve got to say, because we’re wasting time here!” Harry shouted.
“I’m trying to say - Voldemort knows you, Harry! He took Ginny down into the Chamber of
Secrets to lure you there, it’s the kind of thing he does, he knows you’re the - the sort of person
who’d go to Sirius’s aid! What if he’s just trying to get you into the Department of Myst—?”
“Hermione, it doesn’t matter if he’s done it to get me there or not - they’ve taken McGonagall to
St. Mungo’s, there isn’t anyone from the Order left at Hogwarts who we can tell, and if we don’t
go, Sirius is dead!”
“But Harry - what if your dream was - was just that, a dream?”
Harry let out a roar of frustration. Hermione actually stepped back from him, looking alarmed.
“You don’t get it!” Harry shouted at her, “I’m not having nightmares, I’m not just dreaming!
What d’you think all the Occlumency was for, why d’you think Dumbledore wanted me
prevented from seeing these things? Because they’re REAL, Hermione - Sirius is trapped, I’ve
seen him. Voldemort’s got him, and no one else knows, and that means we’re the only ones who
can save him, and if you don’t want to do it, fine, but I’m going, understand? And if I remember
rightly, you didn’t have a problem with my saving-people thing when it was you I was saving
from the Dementors, or -” he rounded on Ron “- when it was your sister I was saving from the
Basilisk -”
“I never said I had a problem!” said Ron heatedly.
“But Harry, you’ve just said it,” said Hermione fiercely, “Dumbledore wanted you to learn to shut these things out of your mind, if you’d done Occlumency properly you’d never have seen this -”
“IF YOU THINK I’M JUST GOING TO ACT LIKE I HAVEN’T SEEN -”
“Sirius told you there was nothing more important than you learning to close your mind!”
“WELL, I EXPECT HE’D SAY SOMETHING DIFFERENT IF HE KNEW WHAT I’D JUST-”
The classroom door opened. Harry, Ron and Hermione whipped around. Ginny walked in,
looking curious, closely followed by Luna, who as usual looked as though she had drifted in
accidentally.
“Hi,” said Ginny uncertainly. “We recognized Harry’s voice. What are you yelling about?”
“Never you mind,” said Harry roughly.
Ginny raised her eyebrows.
“There’s no need to take that tone with me,” she said coolly, “I was only wondering whether I
could help.”
“Well, you can’t,” said Harry shortly.
“You’re being rather rude, you know,” said Luna serenely.
Harry swore and turned away. The very last thing he wanted now was a conversation with Luna
Lovegood.
“Wait,” said Hermione suddenly. “Wait… Harry, they can help.”
Harry and Ron looked at her.
“Listen,” she said urgently, “Harry, we need to establish whether Sirius really has left
Headquarters.”
“I’ve told you, I saw -”
“Harry, I’m begging you, please!” said Hermione desperately. “Please let’s just check that Sirius
isn’t at home before we go charging off to London. If we find out he’s not there, then I swear I
won’t try to stop you. I’ll come, I’ll d - do whatever it takes to try and save him.”
“Sirius is being tortured NOW!” shouted Harry. “We haven’t got time to waste.”
“But if this is a trick of Voldemort’s, Harry, we’ve got to check, we’ve got to.”
“How?” Harry demanded. “How’re we going to check?”
“We’ll have to use Umbridge’s fire and see if we can contact him,” said Hermione, who looked
positively terrified at the thought. “We’ll draw Umbridge away again, but we’ll need lookouts,
and that’s where we can use Ginny and Luna.”
Though clearly struggling to understand what was going on, Ginny said immediately, “Yeah,
we’ll do it,” and Luna said, “When you say ‘Sirius’, are you talking about Stubby Boardman?”
Nobody answered her.
“Okay,” Harry said aggressively to Hermione, “Okay, if you can think of a way of doing this quickly, I’m with you, otherwise I’m going to the Department of Mysteries right now.”
“The Department of Mysteries?” said Luna, looking mildly surprised. “But how are you going to
get there?”
Again, Harry ignored her.
“Right,” said Hermione, twisting her hands together and pacing up and down between the desks.
“Right… well… one of us has to go and find Umbridge and - and send her off in the wrong
direction, keep her away from her office. They could tell her - I don’t know - that Peeves is up to
something awful as usual”
“I’ll do it,” said Ron at once. “I’ll tell her Peeves is smashing up the Transfiguration department
or something, it’s miles away from her office. Come to think of it, I could probably persuade
Peeves to do it if I met him on the way.”
It was a mark of the seriousness of the situation that Hermione made no objection to the
smashing up of the Transfiguration department.
“Okay,” she said, her brow furrowed as she continued to pace. “Now, we need to keep students
right away from her office while we force entry, or some Slytherins bound to go and tip her off.”
“Luna and I can stand at either end of the corridor,” said Ginny promptly, “and warn people not to go down there because someone’s let off a load of Garrotting Gas.” Hermione looked surprised at the readiness with which Ginny had come up with this lie; Ginny shrugged and said, “Fred and George were planning to do it before they left.”
“Okay,” said Hermione. “Well then, Harry, you and I will be under the Invisibility Cloak and we’ll sneak into the office and you can talk to Sirius -”
“He’s not there, Hermione!”
“I mean, you can - can check whether Sirius is at home or not while I keep watch, I don’t think
you should be in there alone, Lee’s already proved the windows a weak spot, sending those
Nifflers through it.”
Even through his anger and impatience, Harry recognized Hermiones offer to accompany him
into Umbridge’s office as a sign of solidarity and loyalty.
“I… okay, thanks,” he muttered.
“Right, well, even if we do all of that, I don’t think we’re going to be able to bank on more than
five minutes,” said Hermione, looking relieved that Harry seemed to have accepted the plan, “not
with Filch and the wretched Inquisitorial Squad floating around.”
“Five minutes’ll be enough,” said Harry. “C’mon, let’s go -”
“Now?” said Hermione, looking shocked.
“Of course now!” said Harry angrily. “What did you think, we’re going to wait until after dinner
or something? Hermione, Sirius is being tortured right now!”
“I - oh, all right,” she said desperately. “You go and get the Invisibility Cloak and we’ll meet you
at the end of Umbridge’s corridor, okay?”
Harry didn’t answer, but flung himself out of the room and began to fight his way through the
milling crowds outside. Two floors up he met Seamus and Dean, who hailed him jovially and
told him they were planning a dusk-till-dawn end-of-exams celebration in the common room.
Harry barely heard them. He scrambled through the portrait hole while they were still arguing
about how many black-market Butterbeers they would need and was climbing back out of it, the
Invisibility Cloak and Sirius’s knife secure in his bag, before they noticed he had left them.
“Harry, d’you want to chip in a couple of Galleons? Harold Dingle reckons he could sell us some
Firewhisky -”
But Harry was already tearing away back along the corridor, and a couple of minutes later was
jumping the last few stairs to join Ron, Hermione, Ginny and Luna, who were huddled together
at the end of Umbridge’s corridor.
“Got it,” he panted. “Ready to go, then?”
“All right,” whispered Hermione as a gang of loud sixth-years passed them. “So Ron - you go and head Umbridge off… Ginny, Luna, if you can start moving people out of the corridor… Harry and I will get the Cloak on and wait until the coast is clear…”
Ron strode away, his bright-red hair visible right to the end of the passage; meanwhile Ginnys
equally vivid head bobbed between the jostling students surrounding them in the other direction,
trailed by Luna’s blonde one.
“Get over here,” muttered Hermione, tugging at Harry’s wrist and pulling him back into a recess
where the ugly stone head of a medieval wizard stood muttering to itself on a column. “Are - are
you sure you’re okay, Harry? You’re still very pale.”
“I’m fine,” he said shortly, tugging the Invisibil i ty Cloak from out of his bag. In truth, his scar
was aching, but not so badly that he thought Voldemort had yet dealt Sirius a fatal blow; it had
hurt much worse than this when Voldemort had been punishing Avery…
“Here,” he said; he threw the Invisibility Cloak over both of them and they stood listening
carefully over the Latin mumblings of the bust in front of them.
“You can’t come down here!” Ginny was calling to the crowd. “No, sorry, you’re going to have
to go round by the swivelling staircase, someone’s let off Garrotting Gas just along here -”
They could hear people complaining; one surly voice said, “I can’t see no gas.”
“That’s because it’s colorless,” said Ginny in a convincingly exasperated voice, “but if you want to walk through it, carry on, then we’ll have your body as proof for the next idiot who doesn’t believe us.”
Slowly, the crowd thinned. The news about the Garrotting Gas seemed to have spread; people
were not coming this way any more. When at last the surrounding area was quite clear,
Hermione said quietly, “I think that’s as good as we’re going to get, Harry — come on, let’s do
it.”
They moved forwards, covered by the Cloak. Luna was standing with her back to them at the far
end of the corridor. As they passed Ginny, Hermione whispered, “Good one… don’t forget the
signal.”
“What’s the signal?” muttered Harry, as they approached Umbridge’s door.
“A loud chorus of ‘Weasly is our King’ if they see Umbridge coming,” replied Hermione, as Harry inserted the blade of Sirius’s knife in the crack between door and wall. The lock clicked open and they entered the office.
The garish kittens were basking in the late-afternoon sunshine that was warming their plates, but
otherwise the office was as still and unoccupied as last time. Hermione breathed a sigh of relief.
“I thought she might have added extra security after the second Niffler.”
They pulled off the Cloak; Hermione hurried over to the window and stood out of sight, peering
down into the grounds with her wand out. Harry dashed over to the fireplace, seized the pot of
Floo powder and threw a pinch into the grate, causing emerald flames to burst into life there. He
knelt down quickly, thrust his head into the dancing fire and cried, “Number twelve, Grimmauld
Place!”
His head began to spin as though he had just got off a fair-ground ride though his knees remained
firmly planted on the cold office floor. He kept his eyes screwed up against the whirling ash and
when the spinning stopped he opened them to find himself looking out at the long, cold kitchen
of Grimmauld Place.
There was nobody there. He had expected this, yet was not prepared for the molten wave of
dread and panic that seemed to burst through his stomach at the sight of the deserted room.
“Sirius?” he shouted. “Sirius, are you there?”
His voice echoed around the room, but there was no answer except a tiny scuffing sound to the
right of the fire.
“Who’s there?” he called, wondering whether it was just a mouse.
Kreacher the house-elf crept into view. He looked highly delighted about something, though he
seemed to have recently sustained a nasty injury to both hands, which were heavily bandaged.
“It’s the Potter boy’s head in the fire,” Kreacher informed the empty kitchen, stealing furtive,
oddly triumphant glances at Harry. “What has he come for, Kreacher wonders?”
“Where’s Sirius, Kreacher?” Harry demanded.
The house-elf gave a wheezy chuckle.
“Master has gone out, Harry Potter.”
“Where’s he gone? Where’s he gone, Kreacher?”
Kreacher merely cackled.
“I’m warning you!” said Harry, fully aware that his scope for inflicting punishment upon
Kreacher was almost non-existent in this position. “What about Lupin? Mad-Eye? Any of them,
are any of them there?”
“Nobody here but Kreacher!” said the elf gleefully, and turning away from Harry he began to
walk slowly towards the door at the end of the kitchen. “Kreacher thinks he will have a little chat
with his mistress now, yes, he hasn’t had a chance in a long time, Kreacher’s master has been
keeping him away from her -”
“Where has Sirius gone?” Harry yelled after the elf. “Kreacher, has he gone to the Department of
Mysteries?”
Kreacher stopped in his tracks. Harry could just make out the back of his bald head through the
forest of chair legs before him.
“Master does not tell poor Kreacher where he is going,” said the elf quietly.
“But you know!” shouted Harry. “Don’t you? You know where he is!”
There was a moment’s silence, then the elf let out his loudest cackle yet.
“Master will not come back from the Department of Mysteries!” he said gleefully. “Kreacher and
his mistress are alone again!”
And he scurried forwards and disappeared through the door to the hall.
“You -!”
But before he could utter a single curse or insult, Harry felt a great pain at the top of his head; he
inhaled a lot of ash and, choking, found himself being dragged backwards through the flames,
until with a horrible abruptness he was staring up into the wide, pallid face of Professor
Umbridge who had dragged him backwards out of the fire by the hair and was now bending his
neck back as far as it would go, as though she were going to slit his throat.
“You think,” she whispered, bending Harry’s neck back even further, so that he was looking up at the ceiling, “that after two Nifflers I was going to let one more foul, scavenging little creature
enter my office without my knowledge? I had Stealth Sensoring Spells placed all around my
doorway after the last one got in, you foolish boy. Take his wand,” she barked at someone he
could not see, and he felt a hand grope inside the chest pocket of his robes and remove the wand.
“Hers, too.”
Harry heard a scuffle over by the door and knew that Hermione had also just had her wand
wrested from her.
“I want to know why you are in my office,” said Umbridge, shaking the fist clutching his hair so
that he staggered.
“I was - trying to get my Firebolt!” Harry croaked.
“Liar.” She shook his head again. “Your Firebolt is under strict guard in the dungeons, as you
very well know, Potter. You had your head in my fire. With whom have you been
communicating?”
“No one -” said Harry, trying to pull away from her. He felt several hairs part company with his
scalp.
“Liar!” shouted Umbridge. She threw him from her and he slammed into the desk. Now he could see Hermione pinioned against the wall by Millicent Bulstrode. Malfoy was leaning on the
windowsill, smirking as he threw Harry’s wand into the air one-handed and caught it again.
There was a commotion outside and several large Slytherins entered, each gripping Ron, Ginny,
Luna and - to Harry’s bewilderment - Neville, who was trapped in a stranglehold by Crabbe and
looked in imminent danger of suffocation. All four of them had been gagged.
“Got ‘em all,” said Warrington, shoving Ron roughly forwards into the room. “That one,” he
poked a thick finger at Neville, “tried to stop me taking her,” he pointed at Ginny, who was trying to kick the shins of the large Slytherin girl holding her, “so I brought him along too.”
“Good, good,” said Umbridge, watching Ginny’s struggles. “Well, it looks as though Hogwarts
will shortly be a Weasley-free zone, doesn’t it?”
Malfoy laughed loudly and sycophantically. Umbridge gave her wide, complacent smile and
settled herself into a chintz-covered armchair, blinking up at her captives like a toad in a
flowerbed.
“So, Potter,” she said. “You stationed lookouts around my office and you sent this buffoon,” she
nodded at Ron — Malfoy laughed even louder - “to tell me the poltergeist was wreaking havoc in the Transfiguration department when I knew perfectly well that he was busy smearing ink on the eyepieces of all the school telescopes - Mr. Filch having just informed me so.
“Clearly, it was very important for you to talk to somebody. Was it Albus Dumbledore? Or the
half-breed, Hagrid? I doubt it was Minerva McGonagall, I hear she is still too ill to talk to
anyone.”
Malfoy and a few of the other members of the Inquisitorial Squad laughed some more at that. Harry found he was so full of rage and hatred he was shaking.
“It’s none of your business who I talk to,” he snarled.
Umbridge’s slack face seemed to tighten.
“Very well,” she said in her most dangerous and falsely sweet voice. “Very well, Mr Potter… I
offered you the chance to tell me freely. You refused. I have no alternative but to force you.
Draco fetch Professor Snape.”
Malfoy stowed Harry’s wand inside his robes and left the room smirking, but Harry hardly
noticed. He had just realized something; he could not believe he had been so stupid as to forget
it. He had thought that all the members of the Order, all those who could help him save Sirius,
were gone - but he had been wrong. There was still a member of the Order of the Phoenix at
Hogwarts - Snape.
There was silence in the office except for the fidgetings and scufflings resulting from the
Slytherins’ efforts to keep Ron and the others under control. Ron’s lip was bleeding on to
Umbridge’s carpet as he struggled against Warrington’s half-nelson; Ginny was still trying to
stamp on the feet of the sixth-year girl who had both her upper arms in a tight grip; Neville was
turning steadily more purple in the face while tugging at Crabbe’s arms; and Hermione was
attempting, in vain, to throw Millicent Bulstrode off her. Luna, however, stood limply by the side
of her captor, gazing vaguely out of the window as though rather bored by the proceedings.
Harry looked back at Umbridge, who was watching him closely. He kept his face deliberately
smooth and blank as footsteps were heard in the corridor outside and Draco Malfoy entered the
room, closely followed by Snape.
“You wanted to see me, Headmistress?” said Snape, looking around at all the pairs of struggling
students with an expression of complete indifference.
“Ah, Professor Snape,” said Umbridge, smiling widely and standing up again. “Yes, I would like
another bottle of Veritaserum, as quick as you can, please.”
“You took my last bottle to interrogate Potter,” he said, surveying her coolly through his greasy
curtains of black hair. “Surely you did not use it all? I told you that three drops would be
sufficient.”
Umbridge flushed.
“You can make some more, can’t you?” she said, her voice becoming more sweetly girlish as it
always did when she was furious.
“Certainly,” said Snape, his lip curling. “It takes a full moon-cycle to mature, so I should have it
ready for you in around a month.”
“A month?” squawked Umbridge, swelling toadishly. “A month? But I need it this evening,
Snape! I have just found Potter using my fire to communicate with a person or persons
unknown!”
“Really?” said Snape, showing his first, faint sign of interest as he looked round at Harry. “Well,
it doesn’t surprise me. Potter has never shown much inclination to follow school rules.”
His cold, dark eyes were boring into Harry’s, who met his gaze unflinchingly, concentrating hard
on what he had seen in his dream, willing Snape to read it in his mind, to understand…
“I wish to interrogate him!” repeated Umbridge angrily, and Snape looked away from Harry back into her furiously quivering face. “I wish you to provide me with a potion that will force him to tell me the truth!”
“I have already told you,” said Snape smoothly, “that I have no further stocks of Veritaserum.
Unless you wish to poison Potter - and I assure you I would have the greatest sympathy with you
if you did - I cannot help you. The only trouble is that most venoms act too fast to give the victim
much time for truth-telling.”
Snape looked back at Harry, who stared at him, frantic to communicate without words.
Voldemort’s got Sirius in the Department of Mysteries, he thought desperately.Voldemort’s
got Sirius -
“You are on probation!” shrieked Professor Umbridge, and Snape looked back at her, his
eyebrows slightly raised. “You are being deliberately unhelpful! I expected better, Lucius Malfoy always speaks most highly of you! Now get out of my office!”
Snape gave her an ironic bow and turned to leave. Harry knew his last chance of letting the
Order know what was going on was walking out of the door.
“He’s got Padfoot!” he shouted. “He’s got Padfoot at the place where it’s hidden!”
Snape had stopped with his hand on Umbridges door handle.
“Padfoot?” cried Professor Umbridge, looking eagerly from Harry to Snape. “What is Padfoot?
Where what is hidden? What does he mean, Snape?”
Snape looked round at Harry. His face was inscrutable. Harry could not tell whether he had
understood or not, but he did not dare speak more plainly in front of Umbridge.
“I have no idea,” said Snape coldly. “Potter, when I want nonsense shouted at me I shall give you a Babbling Beverage. And Crabbe, loosen your hold a little. If Longbottom suffocates it will
mean a lot of tedious paperwork and I am afraid I shall have to mention it on your reference if
ever you apply for a job.”
He closed the door behind him with a snap, leaving Harry in a state of worse turmoil than before:
Snape had been his very last hope. He looked at Umbridge, who seemed to be feeling the same
way; her chest was heaving with rage and frustration.
“Very well,” she said, and she pulled out her wand. “Very well...I am left with no alternative...
this is more than a matter of school discipline...this is an issue of Ministry security...yes...yes…”
She seemed to be talking herself into something. She was shifting her weight nervously from
foot to foot, staring at Harry, beating her wand against her empty palm and breathing heavily. As
he watched her, Harry felt horribly powerless without his own wand.
“You are forcing me, Potter… I do not want to,” said Umbridge, still moving restlessly on the
spot, “but sometimes circumstances justify the use… I am sure the Minister will understand that I had no choice.”
Malfoy was watching her with a hungry expression on his face.
“The Cruciatus Curse ought to loosen your tongue,” said Umbridge quietly.
“No!” shrieked Hermione. “Professor Umbridge - it’s illegal.”
But Umbridge took no notice. There was a nasty, eager, excited look on her face that Harry had
never seen before. She raised her wand.
“The Minister wouldn’t want you to break the law, Professor Umbridge!” cried Hermione.
“What Cornelius doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” said Umbridge, who was now panting slightly as she pointed her wand at different parts of Harry’s body in turn, apparently trying to decide where it would hurt most. “He never knew I ordered Dementors to go after Potter last summer, but he was delighted to be given the chance to expel him, all the same.”
“It was you!” gasped Harry. “You sent the Dementors after me?”
“Somebody had to act,” breathed Umbridge, as her wand came to rest pointing directly at Harrys
forehead. “They were all bleating about silencing you somehow - discrediting you - but I was the one who actually did something about it… only you wriggled out of that one, didn’t you, Potter? Not today though, not now -” And taking a deep breath, she cried, “Cruc—”
“NO!” shouted Hermione in a cracked voice from behind Millicent Bulstrode. “No - Harry - we’ll have to tell her!”
“No way!” yelled Harry, staring at the little of Hermione he could see.
“We’ll have to, Harry, she’ll force it out of you anyway, what’s… what’s the point?”
And Hermione began to cry weakly into the back of Millicent Bulstrode’s robes. Millicent
stopped trying to squash her against the wall immediately and dodged out of her way looking
disgusted.
“Well, well, well!” said Umbridge, looking triumphant. “Little Miss Question-all is going to give
us some answers! Come on then, girl, come on!”
“Er - my - nee - no!” shouted Ron through his gag.
Ginny was staring at Hermione as though she had never seen her before. Neville, still choking
for breath, was gazing at her, too. But Harry had just noticed something. Though Hermione was
sobbing desperately into her hands, there was no trace of a tear.
“I’m - I’m sorry everyone,” said Hermione. “But - I can’t stand it -”
“That’s right, that’s right, girl!” said Umbridge, seizing Hermione by the shoulders, thrusting her into the abandoned chintz chair and leaning over her. “Now then… with whom was Potter
communicating just now?”
“Well,” gulped Hermione into her hands, “well, he was trying to speak to Professor Dumbledore.”
Ron froze, his eyes wide; Ginny stopped trying to stamp on her Slytherin captor’s toes; and even
Luna looked mildly surprised. Fortunately, the attention of Umbridge and her minions was
focused too exclusively upon Hermione to notice these suspicious signs.
“Dumbledore?” said Umbridge eagerly. “You know where Dumbledore is, then?”
“Well… no” sobbed Hermione. “We’ve tried the Leaky Cauldron in Diagon Alley and the Three
Broomsticks and even the Hog’s Head -”
“Idiot girl - Dumbledore won’t be sitting in a pub when the whole Ministry’s looking for him!”
shouted Umbridge, disappointment etched in every sagging line of her face.
“But - but we needed to tell him something important!” wailed Hermione, holding her hands
more tightly over her face, not, Harry knew, out of anguish, but to disguise the continued
absence of tears.
“Yes?” said Umbridge with a sudden resurgence of excitement. “What was it you wanted to tell
him?”
“We… we wanted to tell him it’s r - ready!” choked H ermione.
“What’s ready?” demanded Umbridge, and now she grabbed Hermione’s shoulders again and
shook her slightly. “What’s ready, girl?”
“The… the weapon,” said Hermione.
“Weapon? Weapon?” said Umbridge, and her eyes seemed to pop with excitement. “You have
been developing some method of resistance? A weapon you could use against the Ministry? On
Professor Dumbledore’s orders, of course?”
“Y — y - yes,” gasped Hermione, “but he had to leave before it was finished and n - n - now
we’ve finished it for him, and we c - c - can’t find him t - t - to tell him!”
“What kind of weapon is it?” said Umbridge harshly, her stubby hands still tight on Hermione’s
shoulders.
“We don’t r - r - really understand it,” said Hermione, sniffing loudly. “We j - j - just did what P - P - Professor Dumbledore told us t - t - to do.”
Umbridge straightened up, looking exultant.
“Lead me to the weapon,” she said.
“I’m not showing… them,” said Hermione shrilly, looking around at the Slytherins through her
fingers.
“It is not for you to set conditions,” said Professor Umbridge harshly.
“Fine,” said Hermione, now sobbing into her hands again. “Fine… let them see it, I hope they use it on you! In fact, I wish you’d invite loads and loads of people to come and see! Th - that would serve you right - oh, I’d love it if the wh - whole school knew where it was, and how to u - use it, and then if you annoy any of them they’ll be able to s - sort you out!”
These words had a powerful impact on Umbridge: she glanced swiftly and suspiciously around at
her Inquisitorial Squad, her bulging eyes resting for a moment on Malfoy, who was too slow to
disguise the look of eagerness and greed that had appeared on his face.
Umbridge contemplated Hermione for another long moment, then spoke in what she clearly
thought was a motherly voice.
“All right, dear, let’s make it just you and me… and we’ll take Potter, too, shall we? Get up,
now.”
“Professor,” said Malfoy eagerly, “Professor Umbridge, I think some of the Squad should come
with you to look after -”
“I am a fully qualified Ministry official, Malfoy, do you really think I cannot manage two
wandless teenagers alone?” asked Umbridge sharply. “In any case, it does not sound as though
this weapon is something that schoolchildren should see. You will remain here until I return and
make sure none of these -” she gestured around at Ron, Ginny, Neville and Luna “- escape.”
“All right,” said Malfoy, looking sulky and disappointed.
“And you two can go ahead of me and show me the way” said Umbridge, pointing at Harry and
Hermione with her wand. “Lead on.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Fight and Flight
Harry had no idea what Hermione was planning, or even whether she had a plan. He walked half
a pace behind her as they headed down the corridor outside Umbridge’s office, knowing it would
look very suspicious if he appeared not to know where they were going. He did not dare attempt
to talk to her; Umbridge was walking so closely behind them that he could hear her ragged
breathing.
Hermione led the way down the stairs into the Entrance Hall. The din of loud voices and the
clatter of cutlery on plates echoed from out of the double doors to the Great Hall - it seemed
incredible to Harry that twenty feet away were people who were enjoying dinner, celebrating the
end of exams, not a care in the world…
Hermione walked straight out of the oak front doors and down the stone steps into the balmy
evening air. The sun was falling towards the tops of the trees in the Forbidden Forest now, and as
Hermione marched purposefully across the grass - Umbridge jogging to keep up - their long dark
shadows rippled over the grass behind them like cloaks.
“It’s hidden in Hagrid’s hut, is it?” said Umbridge eagerly in Harry’s ear.
“Of course not,” said Hermione scathingly. “Hagrid might have set it off accidentally”
“Yes,” said Umbridge, whose excitement seemed to be mounting. “Yes, he would have done, of
course, the great half-breed oaf.”
She laughed. Harry felt a strong urge to swing round and seize her by the throat, but resisted. His
scar was throbbing in the soft evening air but it had not yet burned white-hot, as he knew it
would if Voldemort had moved in for the kill.
“Then… where is it?” asked Umbridge, with a hint of uncertainty in her voice as Hermione
continued to stride towards the Forest.
“In there, of course,” said Hermione, pointing into the dark trees. “It had to be somewhere that
students weren’t going to find it accidentally, didn’t it?”
“Of course,” said Umbridge, though she sounded a little apprehensive now. “Of course… very
well, then… you two stay ahead of me.”
“Can we have your wand, then, if we’re going first?” Harry asked her.
“No, I don’t think so, Mr. Potter,” said Umbridge sweetly, poking him in the back with it. “The
Ministry places a rather higher value on my life than yours, I’m afraid.”
As they reached the cool shade of the first trees, Harry tried to catch Hermiones eye; walking
into the Forest without wands seemed to him to be more foolhardy than anything they had done
so far this evening. She, however, merely gave Umbridge a contemptuous glance and plunged
straight into the trees, moving at such a pace that Umbridge, with her shorter legs, had difficulty
in keeping up.
“Is it very far in?” Umbridge asked, as her robe ripped on a bramble.
“Oh yes,” said Hermione, “yes, it’s well hidden.”
Harry’s misgivings increased. Hermione was not taking the path they had followed to visit
Grawp, but the one he followed three years ago to the lair of the monster Aragog. Hermione had
not been with him on that occasion; he doubted she had any idea what danger lay at the end of it.
“Er - are you sure this is the right way?” he asked her pointedly.
“Oh yes,” she said in a steely voice, crashing through the undergrowth with what he thought was
a wholly unnecessary amount of noise. Behind them, Umbridge tripped over a fallen sapling.
Neither of them paused to help her up again; Hermione merely strode on, calling loudly over her
shoulder, “It’s a bit further in!”
“Hermione, keep your voice down,” Harry muttered, hurrying to catch up with her. “Anything
could be listening in here -”
“I want us heard,” she answered quietly, as Umbridge jogged noisily after them. “You’ll see…”
They walked on for what seemed a long time, until they were once again so deep into the Forest
that the dense tree canopy blocked out all light. Harry had the feeling he had had before in the
Forest, one of being watched by unseen eyes.
“How much further?” demanded Umbridge angrily from behind him.
“Not far now!” shouted Hermione, as they emerged into a dim, dank clearing. “Just a little bit -”
An arrow flew through the air and landed with a menacing thud in the tree just over her head. The air was suddenly full of the sound of hooves; Harry could feel the Forest floor trembling;
Umbridge gave a little scream and pushed him in front of her like a shield -
He wrenched himself free of her and turned. Around fifty centaurs were emerging on every side,
their bows raised and loaded, pointing at Harry Hermione and Umbridge. They backed slowly
into the center of the clearing, Umbridge uttering odd little whimpers of terror. Harry looked
sideways at Hermione. She was wearing a triumphant smile.
“Who are you?” said a voice.
Harry looked left. The chestnut-bodied centaur called Magorian was walking towards them out
of the circle: his bow, like those of the others, was raised. On Harry’s right, Umbridge was still
whimpering, her wand trembling violently as she pointed it at the advancing centaur.
“I asked you who are you, human,” said Magorian rou ghly.
“I am Dolores Umbridge!” said Umbridge in a high-p i tched, terrified voice. “Senior
Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic and Headmistress and High Inquisitor of Hogwarts!”
“You are from the Ministry of Magic?” said Magorian, as many of the centaurs in the
surrounding circle shifted restlessly.
“That’s right!” said Umbridge, in an even higher voice, “so be very careful! By the laws laid
down by the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, any attack by
half-breeds such as yourselves on a human -”
“What did you call us?” shouted a wild-looking black centaur, whom Harry recognized as Bane.
There was a great deal of angry muttering and tightening of bowstrings around them.
“Don’t call them that!” Hermione said furiously, but Umbridge did not appear to have heard her.
Still pointing her shaking wand at Magorian, she continued, “Law Fifteen ‘B’ states clearly that
‘any attack by a magical creature who is deemed to have near-human intelligence, and therefore
considered responsible for its actions’ —”
“‘Near-human intelligence’?” repeated Magorian, as Bane and several others roared with rage and pawed the ground. “We consider that a great insult, human! Our intelligence, thankfully, far
outstrips your own.”
“What are you doing in our Forest?” bellowed the hard-faced grey centaur Harry and Hermione
had seen on their last trip into the Forest. “Why are you here?”
“Your Forest?” said Umbridge, shaking now not only with fright but also, it seemed, with
indignation. “I would remind you that you live here only because the Ministry of Magic permits
you certain areas of land -”
An arrow flew so close to her head that it caught at her mousy hair in passing: she let out an earsplitting scream and threw her hands over her head, while some of the centaurs bellowed their
approval and others laughed raucously. The sound of their wild, neighing laughter echoing
around the dimly lit clearing and the sight of their pawing hooves was extremely unnerving.
“Whose Forest is it now, human?” bellowed Bane.
“Filthy half-breeds!” she screamed, her hands still tight over her head. “Beasts! Uncontrolled
animals!”
“Be quiet!” shouted Hermione, but it was too late: Umbridge pointed her wand at Magorian and
screamed, “Incarcerous!”
Ropes flew out of midair like thick snakes, wrapping themselves tightly around the centaur’s
torso and trapping his arms: he gave a cry of rage and reared on to his hind legs, attempting to
free himself, while the other centaurs charged.
Harry grabbed Hermione and pulled her to the ground; face down on the Forest floor, he knew a
moment of terror as hooves thundered around him, but the centaurs leapt over and around them,
bellowing and screaming with rage.
“Nooooo!” he heard Umbridge shriek. “Noooooo… I am Senior Undersecretary… you cannot -
Unhand me, you animals… nooooo!”
Harry saw a flash of red light and knew she had attempted to Stun one of them; then she
screamed very loudly. Lifting his head a few inches, Harry saw that Umbridge had been seized
from behind by Bane and lifted high into the air, wriggling and yelling with fright. Her wand fell
from her hand to the ground, and Harry’s heart leapt. If he could just reach it -
But as he stretched out a hand towards it, a centaur’s hoof descended upon the wand and it broke
cleanly in half.
“Now!” roared a voice in Harry’s ear and a thick hairy arm descended from thin air and dragged
him upright. Hermione, too, had been pulled to her feet. Over the plunging, many-colored backs
and heads of the centaurs, Harry saw Umbridge being borne away through the trees by Bane.
Screaming non-stop, her voice grew fainter and fainter until they could no longer hear it over the
trampling of hooves surrounding them.
“And these?” said the hard-faced, grey centaur holding Hermione.
“They are young,” said a slow, doleful voice from behind Harry. “We do not attack foals.”
“They brought her here, Ronan,” replied the centaur who had such a firm grip on Harry. “And
they are not so young… he is nearing manhood, this one.”
He shook Harry by the neck of his robes.
“Please,” said Hermione breathlessly, “please, don’t attack us, we don’t think like her, we aren’t
Ministry of Magic employees! We only came in here because we hoped you’d drive her off for
us.”
Harry knew at once, from the look on the face of the grey centaur holding Hermione, that she
had made a terrible mistake in saying this. The grey centaur threw back his head, his back legs
stamping furiously, and bellowed, “You see, Ronan? They already have the arrogance of their
kind! So we were to do your dirty work, were we, human girl? We were to act as your servants,
drive away your enemies like obedient hounds?”
“No!” said Hermione in a horrorstruck squeak. “Please - I didn’t mean that! I just hoped you’d be able to - to help us -”
But she seemed to be going from bad to worse.
“We do not help humans!” snarled the centaur holding Harry, tightening his grip and rearing a
little at the same time, so that Harry’s feet left the ground momentarily. “We are a race apart and
proud to be so. We will not permit you to walk from here, boasting that we did your bidding!”
“We’re not going to say anything like that!” Harry shouted. “We know you didn’t do what you
did because we wanted you to -”
But nobody seemed to be listening to him.
A bearded centaur towards the back of the crowd shouted, “They came here unasked, they must
pay the consequences!”
A roar of approval met these words and a dun-colored centaur shouted, “They can join the
woman!”
“You said you didn’t hurt the innocent!” shouted Hermione, real tears sliding down her face now. “We haven’t done anything to hurt you, we haven’t used wands or threats, we just want to go back to school, please let us go back -”
“We are not all like the traitor Firenze, human girl!” shouted the grey centaur, to more neighing
roars of approval from his fellows. “Perhaps you thought us pretty talking horses? We are an
ancient people who will not stand wizard invasions and insults! We do not recognize your laws,
we do not acknowledge your superiority, we are -”
But they did not hear what else centaurs were, for at that moment there came a crashing noise on
the edge of the clearing so loud that all of them, Harry, Hermione and the fifty or so centaurs
filling the clearing, looked around. Harry’s centaur let him fall to the ground again as his hands
flew to his bow and quiver of arrows. Hermione had been dropped, too, and Harry hurried
towards her as two thick tree trunks parted ominously and the monstrous form of Grawp the
giant appeared in the gap.
The centaurs nearest him backed into those behind; the clearing was now a forest of bows and
arrows waiting to be fired, all pointing upwards at the enormous greyish face now looming over
them from just beneath the thick canopy of branches. Grawp’s lopsided mouth was gaping
stupidly; they could see his bricklike yellow teeth glimmering in the half-light, his dull sludgecolored eyes narrowed as he squinted down at the creatures at his feet. Broken ropes trailed from both ankles.
He opened his mouth even wider.
“Hagger.”
Harry did not know what ‘hagger’ meant, or what language it was from, nor did he much care; he
was watching Grawp’s feet, which were almost as long as Harry’s whole body. Hermione
gripped his arm tightly; the centaurs were quite silent, staring up at the giant, whose huge, round
head moved from side to side as he continued to peer amongst them as though looking for
something he had dropped.
“Hagger!” he said again, more insistently.
“Get away from here, giant!” called Magorian. “You are not welcome among us!”
These words seemed to make no impression whatsoever on Grawp. He stooped a little (the
centaurs’ arms tensed on their bows), then bellowed, “HAGGER!”
A few of the centaurs looked worried now. Hermione, however, gave a gasp.
“Harry!” she whispered. “I think he’s trying to say ‘Hagrid’!”
At this precise moment Grawp caught sight of them, the only two humans in a sea of centaurs.
He lowered his head another foot or so, staring intently at them. Harry could feel Hermione
shaking as Grawp opened his mouth wide again and said, in a deep, rumbling voice, “Hermy.”
“Goodness,” said Hermione, gripping Harry’s arm so tightly it was growing numb and looking as
though she was about to faint, “he - he remembered!”
“HERMY!” roared Grawp. “WHERE HAGGER?”
“I don’t know!” squealed Hermione, terrified. “I’m sorry, Grawp, I don’t know!”
“GRAWP WANT HAGGER!”
One of the giant’s massive hands reached down. Hermione let out a real scream, ran a few steps
backwards and fell over. Devoid of a wand, Harry braced himself to punch, kick, bite or
whatever else it took as the hand swooped towards him and knocked a snow-white centaur off
his legs.
It was what the centaurs had been waiting for — Grawp’s outstretched fingers were a foot from
Harry when fifty arrows soared through the air at the giant, peppering his enormous face, causing
him to howl with pain and rage and straighten up, rubbing his face with his enormous hands,
breaking off the arrow shafts but forcing the arrowheads in still deeper.
He yelled and stamped his enormous feet and the centaurs scattered out of the way; pebble-sized
droplets of Grawp’s blood showered Harry as he pulled Hermione to her feet and the pair of
them ran as fast as they could for the shelter of the trees. Once there they looked back; Grawp
was snatching blindly at the centaurs as blood ran down his face; they were retreating in
disorder, galloping away through the trees on the other side of the clearing. Harry and Hermione
watched Grawp give another roar of fury and plunge after them, smashing more trees aside as he
went.
“Oh no,” said Hermione, quaking so badly that her knees gave way. “Oh, that was horrible. And
he might kill them all.”
“I’m not that fussed, to be honest,” said Harry bitterly.
The sounds of the galloping centaurs and the blundering giant grew fainter and fainter. As Harry
listened to them, his scar gave another great throb and a wave of terror swept over him.
They had wasted so much time - they were even further from rescuing Sirius than they had been
when he had had the vision. Not only had Harry managed to lose his wand but they were stuck in
the middle of the Forbidden Forest with no means of transport whatsoever.
“Smart plan,” he spat at Hermione, having to release some of his fury. “Really smart plan. Where
do we go from here?”
“We need to get back up to the castle,” said Hermione faintly.
“By the time we’ve done that, Sirius’ll probably be dead!” said Harry, kicking a nearby tree in
temper. A high-pitched chattering started up overhead and he looked up to see an angry
Bowtruckle flexing its long twiglike fingers at him.
“Well, we can’t do anything without wands,” said Hermione hopelessly, dragging herself up
again. “Anyway, Harry, how exactly were you planning to get all the way to London?”
“Yeah, we were just wondering that,” said a familiar voice from behind her.
Harry and Hermione moved together instinctively and peered through the trees.
Ron came into sight, closely followed by Ginny, Neville and Luna. All of them looked a little the
worse for wear - there were several long scratches running the length of Ginny’s cheek; a large
purple lump was swelling above Neville’s right eye; Ron’s lip was bleeding worse than ever -
but all were looking rather pleased with themselves.
“So,” said Ron, pushing aside a low-hanging branch and holding out Harry’s wand, “had any
ideas?”
“How did you get away?” asked Harry in amazement, taking his wand from Ron.
“Couple of Stunners, a Disarming Charm, Neville brought off a really nice little Impediment
Jinx,” said Ron airily, now handing back Hermione’s wand, too. “But Ginny was best, she got
Malfoy - Bat Bogey Hex - it was superb, his whole face was covered in the great flapping things.
Anyway, we saw you out of the window heading into the Forest and followed. What’ve you done
with Umbridge?”
“She got carried away,” said Harry. “By a herd of centaurs.”
“And they left you behind?” asked Ginny, looking astonished.
“No, they got chased off by Grawp,” said Harry
“Who’s Grawp?” Luna asked interestedly.
“Hagrid’s little brother,” said Ron promptly. “Anyway, never mind that now. Harry, what did you find out in the fire? Has You-Know-Who got Sirius or -?”
“Yes,” said Harry, as his scar gave another painful prickle, “and I’m sure Sirius is still alive, but I can’t see how we’re going to get there to help him.”
They all fell silent, looking rather scared; the problem facing them seemed insurmountable.
“Well, we’ll have to fly, won’t we?” said Luna, in the closest thing to a matter-of-fact voice
Harry had ever heard her use.
“Okay,” said Harry irritably, rounding on her. “First of all, ‘we’ aren’t doing anything if you’re
including yourself in that, and second of all, Ron’s the only one with a broomstick that isn’t
being guarded by a security troll, so -”
“I’ve got a broom!” said Ginny.
“Yeah, but you’re not coming,” said Ron angrily.
“Excuse me, but I care what happens to Sirius as much as you do!” said Ginny, her jaw set so that her resemblance to Fred and George was suddenly striking.
“You’re too -” Harry began, but Ginny said fiercely, “I’m three years older than you were when
you fought You-Know-Who over the Sorcerer’s Stone, and it’s because of me that Malfoy’s
stuck back in Umbridge’s office with giant flying bogies attacking him -”
“Yeah, but -”
“We were all in the D.A, together,” said Neville quietly. “It was all supposed to be about fighting
You-Know-Who, wasn’t it? And this is the first chance we’ve had to do something real - or was
that all just a game or something?”
“No — of course it wasn’t -” said Harry impatiently.
“Then we should come too,” said Neville simply. “We want to help.”
“That’s right,” said Luna, smiling happily.
Harry’s eyes met Ron’s. He knew Ron was thinking exactly what he was: if he could have
chosen any members of the D.A., in addition to himself, Ron and Hermione, to join him in the
attempt to rescue Sirius, he would not have picked Ginny, Neville or Luna.
“Well, it doesn’t matter, anyway,” said Harry through gritted teeth, “because we still don’t know
how to get there -”
“I thought we’d settled that,” said Luna maddeningly. “We’re flying!”
“Look,” said Ron, barely containing his anger, “you might be able to fly without a broomstick but the rest of us can’t sprout wings whenever we -”
“There are ways of flying other than with broomsticks,” said Luna serenely.
“I s’pose we’re going to ride on the back of the Kacky Snorgle or whatever it is?” Ron
demanded.
“The Crumple-Horned Snorkack can’t fly,” said Luna in a dignified voice, “but they can, and
Hagrid says they’re very good at finding places their riders are looking for.”
Harry whirled round. Standing between two trees, their white eyes gleaming eerily, were two
Thestrals, watching the whispered conversation as though they understood every word.
“Yes!” he whispered, moving towards them. They tossed their reptilian heads, throwing back
long black manes, and Harry stretched out his hand eagerly and patted the nearest one’s shining
neck; how could he ever have thought them ugly?
“Is it those mad horse things?” said Ron uncertainly, staring at a point slightly to the left of the
Thestral Harry was patting. “Those ones you can’t see unless you’ve watched someone snuff it?”
“Yeah,” said Harry.
“How many?”
“Just two.”
“Well, we need three,” said Hermione, who was still looking a little shaken, but determined just
the same.
“Four, Hermione,” said Ginny, scowling.
“I think there are six of us, actually,” said Luna calmly, counting.
“Don’t be stupid, we can’t all go!” said Harry angrily. “Look, you three -” he pointed at Neville,
Ginny and Luna, “you’re not involved in this, you’re not -”
They burst into more protests. His scar gave another, more painful, twinge. Every moment they
delayed was precious; he did not have time to argue.
“Okay, fine, it’s your choice,” he said curtly, “but unless we can find more Thestrals you’re not
going to be able -”
“Oh, more of them will come,” said Ginny confidently, who like Ron was squinting in quite the
wrong direction, apparently under the impression that she was looking at the horses.
“What makes you think that?”
“Because, in case you hadn’t noticed, you and Hermione are both covered in blood,” she said
coolly, “and we know Hagrid lures Thestrals with raw meat. That’s probably why these two
turned up in the first place.”
Harry felt a soft tug on his robes at that moment and looked down to see the closest Thestral
licking his sleeve, which was damp with Grawp’s blood.
“Okay, then,” he said, a bright idea occurring, “Ron and I will take these two and go ahead, and
Hermione can stay here with you three and she’ll attract more Thestrals -”
“I’m not staying behind!” said Hermione furiously.
“There’s no need,” said Luna, smiling. “Look, here come more now… you two must really
smell…”
Harry turned: no fewer than six or seven Thestrals were picking their way through the trees, their
great leathery wings folded tight to their bodies, their eyes gleaming through the darkness. He
had no excuse now.
“All right,” he said angrily, “pick one and get on, then.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The Department of Mysteries
Harry wound his hand tightly into the mane of the nearest Thestral, placed a foot on a stump
nearby and scrambled clumsily on to the horses silken back. It did not object, but twisted its head
around, fangs bared, and attempted to continue its eager licking of his robes.
He found there was a way of lodging his knees behind the wing joints that made him feel more
secure, then looked around at the others. Neville had heaved himself over the back of the next
Thestral and was now attempting to swing one short leg over the creature’s back. Luna was
already in place, sitting side-saddle and adjusting her robes as though she did this every day.
Ron, Hermione and Ginny, however, were still standing motionless on the spot, open-mouthed
and staring.
“What?” he said.
“How’re we supposed to get on?” said Ron faintly. “When we can’t see the things?”
“Oh, it’s easy,” said Luna, sliding obligingly from her Thestral and marching over to him,
Hermione and Ginny. “Come here…”
She pulled them over to the other Thestrals standing around and one by one managed to help
them on to the back of their mount. All three looked extremely nervous as she wound their hands
into their horses mane and told them to grip tightly before she got back on to her own steed.
“This is mad,” Ron murmured, moving his free hand gingerly up and down his horse’s neck.
“Mad… if I could just see it -”
“You’d better hope it stays invisible,” said Harry darkly. “We all ready, then?”
They all nodded and he saw five pairs of knees tighten beneath their robes.
“Okay…”
He looked down at the back of his Thestral’s glossy black head and swallowed.
“Ministry of Magic, visitors’ entrance, London, then,” he said uncertainly. “Er… if you know…
where to go…”
For a moment Harry’s Thestral did nothing at all; then, with a sweeping movement that nearly
unseated him, the wings on either side extended; the horse crouched slowly, then rocketed
upwards so fast and so steeply that Harry had to clench his arms and legs tightly around the horse
to avoid sliding backwards over its bony rump. He closed his eyes and pressed his face down
into the horse’s silky mane as they burst through the topmost branches of the trees and soared out
into a blood-red sunset.
Harry did not think he had ever moved so fast: the Thestral streaked over the castle, its wide
wings hardly beating; the cooling air was slapping Harry’s face; eyes screwed up against the
rushing wind, he looked round and saw his five fellows soaring along behind him, each of them
bent as low as possible into the neck of their Thestral to protect themselves from his slipstream.
They were over the Hogwarts grounds, they had passed Hogsmeade; Harry could see mountains
and gullies below them. As the daylight began to fail, Harry saw small collections of lights as
they passed over more villages, then a winding road on which a single car was beetling its way
home through the hills…
“This is bizarre!” Harry barely heard Ron yell from somewhere behind him, and he imagined
how it must feel to be speeding along at this height with no visible means of support.
Twilight fell: the sky was turning to a light, dusky purple littered with tiny silver stars, and soon
only the lights of Muggle towns gave them any clue of how far from the ground they were, or
how very fast they were traveling. Harry’s arms were wrapped tightly around his horses neck as
he willed it to go even faster. How much time had elapsed since he had seen Sirius lying on the
Department of Mysteries floor? How much longer would Sinus be able to resist Voldemort? All
Harry knew for sure was that his godfather had neither done as Voldemort wanted, nor died, for
he was convinced that either outcome would have caused him to feel Voldemort’s jubilation or
fury course through his own body, making his scar sear as painfully as it had on the night Mr.
Weasley was attacked.
On they flew through the gathering darkness; Harry’s face felt stiff and cold, his legs numb from
gripping the Thestrals sides so tightly, but he did not dare shift his position lest he slip… he was
deaf from the thundering rush of air in his ears, and his mouth was dry and frozen from the cold
night wind. He had lost all sense of how far they had come; all his faith was in the beast beneath
him, still streaking purposefully through the night, barely flapping its wings as it sped ever
onwards.
If they were too late…
He’s still alive, he’s still fighting, I can feel it…
If Voldemort decided Sirius was not going to crack…
I’d know…
Harrys stomach gave a jolt; the Thestrals head was suddenly pointing towards the ground and he
actually slid forwards a few inches along its neck. They were descending at last… he thought he
heard a shriek behind him and twisted around dangerously, but could see no sign of a falling
body… presumably they had all received a shock from the change of direction, just as he had.
And now bright orange lights were growing larger and rounder on all sides; they could see the
tops of buildings, streams of headlights like luminous insect eyes, squares of pale yellow that
were windows. Quite suddenly, it seemed, they were hurtling towards the pavement; Harry
gripped the Thestral with every last ounce of his strength, braced for a sudden impact, but the
horse touched the dark ground as lightly as a shadow and Harry slid from its back, looking
around at the street where the overflowing skip still stood a short way from the vandalized
telephone box, both drained of color in the flat orange glare of the streetlights.
Ron landed a short way off and toppled immediately from his Thestral on to the pavement.
“Never again,” he said, struggling to his feet. He made as though to stride away from his
Thestral, but, unable to see it, collided with its hindquarters and almost fell over again. “Never,
ever again… that was the worst -”
Hermione and Ginny touched down on either side of him: both slid off their mounts a little more
gracefully than Ron, though with similar expressions of relief at being back on firm ground;
Neville jumped down, shaking; and Luna dismounted smoothly.
“Where do we go from here, then?” she asked Harry in a politely interested voice, as though this
was all a rather interesting day-trip.
“Over here,” he said. He gave his Thestral a quick, grateful pat, then led the way quickly to the
battered telephone box and opened the door. “Come on!” he urged the others, as they hesitated.
Ron and Ginny marched in obediently; Hermione, Neville and Luna squashed themselves in after
them; Harry took one glance back at the Thestrals, now foraging for scraps of rotten food inside
the skip, then forced himself into the box after Luna.
“Whoever’s nearest the receiver, dial six two four four two!” he said.
Ron did it, his arm bent bizarrely to reach the dial; as it whirred back into place the cool female
voice sounded inside the box.
“Welcome to the Ministry of Magic. Please state your name and business.”
“Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger,” Harry said very quickly, “Ginny Weasley,
Neville Longbottom, Luna Lovegood… we’re here to save someone, unless your Ministry can
do it first!”
“Thank you,” said the cool female voice. “Visitors, please take the badges and attach them to the
front of your robes.”
Half a dozen badges slid out of the metal chute where returned coins normally appeared.
Hermione scooped them up and handed them mutely to Harry over Ginny’s head; he glanced at
the topmost one, Harry Potter, Rescue Mission.
“Visitors to the Ministry, you are required to submit to a search and present your wands for
registration at the security desk, which is located at the far end of the Atrium.”
“Fine!” Harry said loudly, as his scar gave another throb. “Now can we move?”
The floor of the telephone box shuddered and the pavement rose up past its glass windows; the
scavenging Thestrals were sliding out of sight; blackness closed over their heads and with a dull
grinding noise they sank down into the depths of the Ministry of Magic.
A chink of soft golden light hit their feet and, widening, rose up their bodies. Harry bent his
knees and held his wand as ready as he could in such cramped conditions as he peered through
the glass to see whether anybody was waiting for them in the Atrium, but it seemed to be
completely empty. The light was dimmer than it had been by day; there were no fires burning
under the mantelpieces set into the walls, but as the lift slid smoothly to a halt he saw that golden
symbols continued to twist sinuously in the dark blue ceiling.
“The Ministry of Magic wishes you a pleasant evening,” said the woman’s voice.
The door of the telephone box burst open; Harry toppled out of it, closely followed by Neville
and Luna. The only sound in the Atrium was the steady rush of water from the golden fountain,
where jets from the wands of the witch and wizard, the point of the centaur’s arrow, the tip of the
goblin’s hat and the house-elf’s ears continued to gush into the surrounding pool.
“Come on,” said Harry quietly and the six of them sprinted off down the hall, Harry in the lead,
past the fountain towards the desk where the security man who had weighed Harry’s wand had
sat, and which was now deserted.
Harry felt sure there ought to be a security person there, sure that their absence was an ominous sign, and his feeling of foreboding increased as they passed through the golden gates to the lifts. He pressed the nearest ‘down’ button and a lift clattered into sight almost immediately, the golden grilles slid apart with a great, echoing clanking and they dashed inside. Harry stabbed the
number nine button; the grilles closed with a bang and the lift began to descend, jangling and
rattling. Harry had not realized how noisy the lifts were on the day he had come with Mr.
Weasley; he was sure the din would raise every security person within the building, yet when the
lift halted, the cool female voice said, “Department of Mysteries,” and the grilles slid open. They
stepped out into the corridor where nothing was moving but the nearest torches, flickering in the
rush of air from the lift.
Harry turned towards the plain black door. After months and months of dreaming about it, he
was here at last.
“Let’s go,” he whispered, and he led the way down t he corridor, Luna right behind him, gazing
around with her mouth slightly open.
“Okay, listen,” said Harry stopping again within six feet of the door. “Maybe… maybe a couple of people should stay here as a — as a lookout, and —”
“And how’re we going to let you know something’s coming?” asked Ginny, her eyebrows raised.
“You could be miles away.”
“We’re coming with you, Harry,” said Neville.
“Let’s get on with it,” said Ron firmly.
Harry still did not want to take them all with him, but it seemed he had no choice. He turned to
face the door and walked forwards… just as it had in his dream, it swung open and he marched
over the threshold, the others at his heels.
They were standing in a large, circular room. Everything in here was black including the floor
and ceiling; identical, unmarked, handleless black doors were set at intervals all around the black
walls, interspersed with branches of candles whose flames burned blue; their cool, shimmering
light reflected in the shining marble floor made it look as though there was dark water underfoot.
“Someone shut the door,” Harry muttered.
He regretted giving this order the moment Neville had obeyed it. Without the long chink of light
from the torchlit corridor behind them, the place became so dark that for a moment the only
things they could see were the bunches of shivering blue flames on the walls and their ghostly
reflections in the floor.
In his dream, Harry had always walked purposefully across this room to the door immediately
opposite the entrance and walked on. But there were around a dozen doors here. Just as he was
gazing ahead at the doors opposite him, trying to decide which was the right one, there was a
great rumbling noise and the candles began to move sideways. The circular wall was rotating.
Hermione grabbed Harry’s arm as though frightened the floor might move, too, but it did not.
For a few seconds, the blue flames around them were blurred to resemble neon lines as the wall
sped around; then, quite as suddenly as it had started, the rumbling stopped and everything
became stationary once again.
Harry’s eyes had blue streaks burned into them; it was all he could see.
“What was that about?” whispered Ron fearfully.
“I think it was to stop us knowing which door we came in through,” said Ginny in a hushed
voice.
Harry realized at once she was right: he could no sooner identify the exit door than locate an ant
on the jet-black floor; and the door through which they needed to proceed could be any one of the dozen surrounding them.
“How’re we going to get back out?” said Neville uncomfortably.
“Well, that doesn’t matter now,” said Harry forcefully, blinking to try to erase the blue lines from his vision, and clutching his wand tighter than ever, “we won’t need to get out till we’ve found Sirius -”
“Don’t go calling for him, though!” Hermione said urgently; but Harry had never needed her
advice less, his instinct was to keep as quiet as possible.
“Where do we go, then, Harry?” Ron asked.
“I don’t -” Harry began. He swallowed. “In the dreams I went through the door at the end of the
corridor from the lifts into a dark room - that’s this one - and then I went through another door
into a room that kind of… glitters. We should try a few doors,” he said hastily, “I’ll know the
right way when I see it. C’mon.”
He marched straight at the door now facing him, the others following close behind him, set his
left hand against its cool, shining surface, raised his wand ready to strike the moment it opened,
and pushed.
It swung open easily.
After the darkness of the first room, the lamps hanging low on golden chains from this ceiling
gave the impression that this long rectangular room was much brighter, though there were no
glittering, shimmering lights as Harry had seen in his dreams. The place was quite empty except
for a few desks and, in the very middle of the room, an enormous glass tank of deep green liquid,
big enough for all of them to swim in; a number of pearly-white objects were drifting around
lazily in it.
“What’re those things?” whispered Ron.
“Dunno,” said Harry.
“Are they fish?” breathed Ginny.
“Aquavirius Maggots!” said Luna excitedly. “Dad said the Ministry were breeding —”
“No,” said Hermione. She sounded odd. She moved forward to look through the side of the tank.
“They’re brains.”
“Brains?”
“Yes… I wonder what they’re doing with them?”
Harry joined her at the tank. Sure enough, there could be no mistake now he saw them at close
quarters. Glimmering eerily, they drifted in and out of sight in the depths of the green liquid,
looking something like slimy cauliflowers.
“Let’s get out of here,” said Harry. “This isn’t right, we need to try another door.”
“There are doors here, too,” said Ron, pointing around the walls. Harry’s heart sank; how big was this place?
“In my dream I went through that dark room into the second one,” he said. “I think we should go
back and try from there.”
So they hurried back into the dark, circular room; the ghostly shapes of the brains were now
swimming before Harry’s eyes instead of the blue candle flames.
“Wait!” said Hermione sharply, as Luna made to close the door of the brain room behind them.
“Flagrate!”
She drew with her wand in midair and a fiery ‘X’ appeared on the door. No sooner had the door
clicked shut behind them than there was a great rumbling, and once again the wall began to
revolve very fast, but now there was a great red-gold blur in amongst the faint blue and, when all
became still again, the fiery cross still burned, showing the door they had already tried.
“Good thinking,” said Harry. “Okay, let’s try this one -”
Again, he strode directly at the door facing him and pushed it open, his wand still raised, the
others at his heels.
This room was larger than the last, dimly lit and rectangular, and the center of it was sunken,
forming a great stone pit some twenty feet deep. They were standing on the topmost tier of what
seemed to be stone benches running all around the room and descending in steep steps like an
amphitheatre, or the courtroom in which Harry had been tried by the Wizengamot. Instead of a
chained chair, however, there was a raised stone dais in the center of the pit, on which stood a
stone archway that looked so ancient, cracked and crumbling that Harry was amazed the thing
was still standing. Unsupported by any surrounding wall, the archway was hung with a tattered
black curtain or veil which, despite the complete stillness of the cold surrounding air, was
fluttering very slightly as though it had just been touched.
“Who’s there?” said Harry, jumping down on to the bench below. There was no answering voice,
but the veil continued to flutter and sway.
“Careful!” whispered Hermione.
Harry scrambled down the benches one by one until he reached the stone bottom of the sunken
pit. His footsteps echoed loudly as he walked slowly towards the dais. The pointed archway
looked much taller from where he now stood than it had when he’d been looking down on it
from above. Still the veil swayed gently, as though somebody had just passed through it.
“Sirius?” Harry spoke again, but more quietly now that he was nearer.
He had the strangest feeling that there was someone standing right behind the veil on the other
side of the archway. Gripping his wand very tightly, he edged around the dais, but there was
nobody there; all that could be seen was the other side of the tattered black veil.
“Let’s go,” called Hermione from halfway up the stone steps. “This isn’t right, Harry, come on,
let’s go.”
She sounded scared, much more scared than she had in the room where the brains swam, yet
Harry thought the archway had a kind of beauty about it, old though it was. The gently rippling
veil intrigued him; he felt a very strong inclination to climb up on the dais and walk through it.
“Harry, let’s go, okay?” said Hermione more forcefully.
“Okay,” he said, but did not move. He had just heard something. There were faint whispering,
murmuring noises coming from the other side of the veil.
“What are you saying?” he said, very loudly, so that his words echoed all around the stone
benches.
“Nobody’s talking, Harry!” said Hermione, now moving over to him.
“Someone’s whispering behind there,” he said, moving out of her reach and continuing to frown
at the veil. “Is that you, Ron?”
“I’m here, mate,” said Ron, appearing around the side of the archway.
“Can’t anyone else hear it?” Harry demanded, for the whispering and murmuring was becoming
louder; without really meaning to put it there, he found his foot was on the dais.
“I can hear them too,” breathed Luna, joining them around the side of the archway and gazing at
the swaying veil. “There are people in there!”
“What do you mean, ‘in there’?” demanded Hermione, jumping down from the bottom step and
sounding much angrier than the occasion warranted, “there isn’t any ‘in there’, it’s just an archway, there’s no room for anybody to be there. Harry, stop it, come away -”
She grabbed his arm and pulled, but he resisted.
“Harry, we are supposed to be here for Sirius!” she said in a high-pitched, strained voice.
“Sirius,” Harry repeated, still gazing, mesmerized, at the continuously swaying veil. “Yeah…”
Something finally slid back into place in his brain; Sirius, captured, bound and tortured, and he
was staring at this archway…
He took several paces back from the dais and wrenched his eyes from the veil.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to - well, come on, then!” said Hermione, and she led the way back
around the dais. On the other side, Ginny and Neville were staring, apparently entranced, at the
veil too. Without speaking, Hermione took hold of Ginny’s arm, Ron grabbed Neville’s, and they
marched them firmly back to the lowest stone bench and clambered all the way back up to the
door.
“What d’you reckon that arch was?” Harry asked Hermione as they regained the dark circular
room.
“I don’t know, but whatever it was, it was dangerous,” she said firmly, again inscribing a fiery
cross on the door.
Once more, the wall span and became still again. Harry approached another door at random and
pushed. It did not move.
“What’s wrong?” said Hermione.
“It’s… locked…” said Harry, throwing his weight at the door, but it didn’t budge.
“This is it, then, isn’t it?” said Ron excitedly, joining Harry in the attempt to force the door open.
“Bound to be!”
“Get out of the way!” said Hermione sharply. She pointed her wand at the place where a lock
would have been on an ordinary door and said, “Alohomora!”
Nothing happened.
“Sirius’s knife!” said Harry. He pulled it out from inside his robes and slid it into the crack
between the door and the wall. The others all watched eagerly as he ran it from top to bottom,
withdrew it and then flung his shoulder again at the door. It remained as firmly shut as ever.
What was more, when Harry looked down at the knife, he saw the blade had melted.
“Right, we’re leaving that room,” said Hermione decisively.
“But what if that’s the one?” said Ron, staring at it with a mixture of apprehension and longing.
“It can’t be, Harry could get through all the doors in his dream,” said Hermione, marking the door with another fiery cross as Harry replaced the now-useless handle of Sirius’s knife in his pocket.
“You know what could be in there?” said Luna eagerly, as the wall started to spin yet again.
“Something blibbering, no doubt,” said Hermione under her breath and Neville gave a nervous
little laugh.
The wall slid to a halt and Harry, with a feeling of increasing desperation, pushed the next door
open.
“This is it!”
He knew it at once by the beautiful, dancing, diamond-sparkling light. As Harrys eyes became
accustomed to the brilliant glare, he saw clocks gleaming from every surface, large and small,
grandfather and carriage, hanging in spaces between the bookcases or standing on desks ranging
the length of the room, so that a busy, relentless ticking filled the place like thousands of
minuscule, marching footsteps. The source of the dancing, diamond-bright light was a towering
crystal ball jar that stood at the far end of the room.
“This way!”
Harry’s heart was pumping frantically now that he knew they were on the right track; he led the
way down the narrow space between the lines of desks, heading, as he had done in his dream, for
the source of the light, the crystal bell jar quite as tall as he was that stood on a desk and
appeared to be full of a billowing, glittering wind.
“Oh, look!” said Ginny, as they drew nearer, pointing at the very heart of the bell jar.
Drifting along in the sparkling current inside was a tiny, jewel-bright egg. As it rose in the jar, it
cracked open and a hummingbird emerged, which was carried to the very top of the jar, but as it
fell on the draught its feathers became bedraggled and damp again, and by the time it had been
borne back to the bottom of the jar it had been enclosed once more in its egg.
“Keep going!” said Harry sharply, because Ginny showed signs of wanting to stop and watch the
egg’s progress back into a bird.
“You dawdled enough by that old arch!” she said crossly, but followed him past the bell jar to the only door behind it.
“This is it,” Harry said again, and his heart was now pumping so hard and fast he felt it must
interfere with his speech, “it’s through here -”
He glanced around at them all; they had their wands out and looked suddenly serious and
anxious. He looked back at the door and pushed. It swung open.
They were there, they had found the place: high as a church and full of nothing but towering
shelves covered in small, dusty, glass orbs. They glimmered dully in the light issuing from more
candle-brackets set at intervals along the shelves. Like those in the circular room behind them,
their flames were burning blue. The room was very cold.
Harry edged forward and peered down one of the shadowy aisles between two rows of shelves.
He could not hear anything or see the slightest sign of movement.
“You said it was row ninety-seven,” whispered Hermione.
“Yeah,” breathed Harry, looking up at the end of the closest row. Beneath the branch of blueglowing candles protruding from it glimmered the silver figure fifty-three.
“We need to go right, I think,” whispered Hermione, squinting to the next row. “Yes… that’s
fifty-four…”
“Keep your wands ready,” Harry said softly.
They crept forward, glancing behind them as they went on down the long alleys of shelves, the
further ends of which were in near-total darkness. Tiny, yellowing labels had been stuck beneath
each glass orb on the shelves. Some of them had a weird, liquid glow; others were as dull and
dark within as blown light bulbs.
They passed row eighty-four… eighty-five… Harry was listening hard for the slightest sound of
movement, but Sirius might be gagged now, or else unconscious… or, said an unbidden voice
inside his head, he might already be dead…
I’d have felt it, he told himself, his heart now hammering against his Adam’s apple, I’d already
know…
“Ninety-seven!” whispered Hermione.
They stood grouped around the end of the row, gazing down the alley beside it. There was
nobody there.
“He’s right down at the end,” said Harry, whose mouth had become slightly dry. “You can’t see
properly from here.”
And he led them between the towering rows of glass balls, some of which glowed softly as they
passed…
“He should be near here,” whispered Harry, convinced that every step was going to bring the
ragged form of Sirius into view on the darkened floor. “Anywhere here… really close…”
“Harry?” said Hermione tentatively, but he did not want to respond. His mouth was very dry.
“Somewhere about… here…” he said.
They had reached the end of the row and emerged into more dim candlelight. There was nobody
there. All was echoing, dusty silence.
“He might be…” Harry whispered hoarsely, peering down the next alley. “Or maybe…” He
hurried to look down the one beyond that.
“Harry?” said Hermione again.
“What?” he snarled.
“I… I don’t think Sirius is here.”
Nobody spoke. Harry did not want to look at any of them. He felt sick. He did not understand
why Sirius was not here. He had to be here. This was where he, Harry, had seen him…
He ran up the space at the end of the rows, staring down them. Empty aisle after empty aisle
flickered past. He ran the other way, back past his staring companions. There was no sign of
Sirius anywhere, nor any hint of a struggle.
“Harry?” Ron called.
“What?”
He did not want to hear what Ron had to say; did not want to hear Ron tell him he had been
stupid or suggest that they ought to go back to Hogwarts, but the heat was rising in his face and
he felt as though he would like to skulk down here in the darkness for a long while before facing
the brightness of the Atrium above and the others’ accusing stares…
“Have you seen this?” said Ron,
“What?” said Harry, but eagerly this time - it had to be a sign that Sirius had been there, a clue.
He strode back to where they were all standing, a little way down row ninety-seven, but found
nothing except Ron staring at one of the dusty glass spheres on the shelf.
“What?” Harry repeated glumly.
“It’s — it’s got your name on,” said Ron.
Harry moved a little closer. Ron was pointing at one of the small glass spheres that glowed with
a dull inner light, though it was very dusty and appeared not to have been touched for many
years.
“My name?” said Harry blankly.
He stepped forwards. Not as tall as Ron, he had to crane his neck to read the yellowish label
affixed to the shelf right beneath the dusty glass ball. In spidery writing was written a date of
some sixteen years previously, and below that:
S.P.T. to A.P.W.B.D.
Dark Lord and (?)Harry Potter
Harry stared at it.
“What is it?” Ron asked, sounding unnerved. “What’s your name doing down here?”
He glanced along at the other labels on that stretch of shelf.
“I’m not here,” he said, sounding perplexed. “None of the rest of us are here.”
“Harry, I don’t think you should touch it,” said Hermione sharply, as he stretched out his hand.
“Why not?” he said. “It’s something to do with me, isn’t it?”
“Don’t, Harry,” said Neville suddenly. Harry looked at him. Neville’s round face was shining
slightly with sweat. He looked as though he could not take much more suspense.
“It’s got my name on,” said Harry.
And feeling slightly reckless, he closed his fingers around the dusty ball’s surface. He had
expected it to feel cold, but it did not. On the contrary, it felt as though it had been lying in the
sun for hours, as though the glow of light within was warming it. Expecting, even hoping, that
something dramatic was going to happen, something exciting that might make their long and
dangerous journey worthwhile after all, Harry lifted the glass ball down from its shelf and stared
at it.
Nothing whatsoever happened. The others moved in closer around Harry, gazing at the orb as he
brushed it free of the clogging dust.
And then, from right behind them, a drawling voice spoke.
“Very good, Potter. Now turn around, nice and slowly, and give that to me.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Beyond the Veil
Black shapes were emerging out of thin air all around them, blocking their way left and right;
eyes glinted through slits in hoods, a dozen lit wand tips were pointing directly at their hearts;
Ginny gave a gasp of horror.
“To me, Potter,” repeated the drawling voice of Lucius Malfoy as he held out his hand, palm up.
Harrys insides plummeted sickeningly. They were trapped, and outnumbered two to one.
“To me,” said Malfoy yet again.
“Where’s Sirius?” Harry said.
Several of the Death Eaters laughed; a harsh female voice from the midst of the shadowy figures
to Harry’s left said triumphantly, “The Dark Lord always knows!”
“Always,” echoed Malfoy softly. “Now, give me the prophecy Potter.”
“I want to know where Sirius is!”
“I want to know where Sirius is!” mimicked the woman to his left.
She and her fellow Death Eaters had closed in so that they were mere feet away from Harry and
the others, the light from their wands dazzling Harry’s eyes.
“You’ve got him,” said Harry, ignoring the rising panic in his chest, the dread he had been
fighting since they had first entered the ninety-seventh row. “He’s here. I know he is.”
“The little baby woke up fwightened and fort what it dweamed was twoo,” said the woman in a
horrible, mock baby voice. Harry felt Ron stir beside him.
“Don’t do anything,” Harry muttered. “Not yet -”
The woman who had mimicked him let out a raucous scream of laughter.
“You hear him? You hear him? Giving instructions to the other children as though he thinks of
fighting us!”
“Oh, you don’t know Potter as I do, Bellatrix,” said Malfoy softly. “He has a great weakness for
heroics; the Dark Lord understands this about him. Now give me the prophecy, Potter.”
“I know Sirius is here,” said Harry, though panic w as causing his chest to constrict and he felt as
though he could not breathe properly. “I know you’ve got him!”
More of the Death Eaters laughed, though the woman laughed loudest of all.
“It’s time you learned the difference between life and dreams, Potter,” said Malfoy. “Now give
me the prophecy, or we start using wands.”
“Go on, then,” said Harry, raising his own wand to chest height. As he did so, the five wands of
Ron, Hermione, Neville, Ginny and Luna rose on either side of him. The knot in Harry’s
stomach tightened. If Sirius really was not here, he had led his friends to their deaths for no
reason at all…
But the Death Eaters did not strike.
“Hand over the prophecy and no one need get hurt,” said Malfoy coolly.
It was Harry’s turn to laugh.
“Yeah, right!” he said. “I give you this - prophecy, is it? And you’ll just let us skip off home, will
you?”
The words were hardly out of his mouth when the female Death Eater shrieked: “Accio proph—”
Harry was just ready for her: he shouted “Protego!” before she had finished her spell, and though
the glass sphere slipped to the tips of his fingers he managed to cling on to it.
“Oh, he knows how to play, little bitty baby Potter,” she said, her mad eyes staring through the
slits in her hood. “Very well, then -”
“I TOLD YOU, NO!” Lucius Malfoy roared at the woman. “If you smash it -!”
Harry’s mind was racing. The Death Eaters wanted this dusty spun-glass sphere. He had no
interest in it. He just wanted to get them all out of this alive, to make sure none of his friends
paid a terrible price for his stupidity…
The woman stepped forward, away from her fellows, and pulled off her hood. Azkaban had
hollowed Bellatrix Lestrange’s face, making it gaunt and skull-like, but it was alive with a
feverish, fanatical glow.
“You need more persuasion?” she said, her chest rising and falling rapidly. “Very well - take the
smallest one,” she ordered the Death Eaters beside her. “Let him watch while we torture the little
girl. I’ll do it.”
Harry felt the others close in around Ginny; he stepped sideways so that he was right in front of
her, the prophecy held up to his chest.
“You’ll have to smash this if you want to attack any of us,” he told Bellatrix. “I don’t think your
boss will be too pleased if you come back without it, will he?”
She did not move; she merely stared at him, the tip of her tongue moistening her thin mouth.
“So,” said Harry, “what kind of prophecy are we talking about, anyway?”
He could not think what to do but to keep talking. Neville’s arm was pressed against his, and he
could feel him shaking; he could feel one of the others’ quickened breath on the back of his head.
He was hoping they were all thinking hard about ways to get out of this, because his mind was
blank.
“What kind of prophecy?” repeated Bellatrix, the grin fading from her face. “You jest, Harry
Potter.”
“Nope, not jesting,” said Harry, his eyes flicking from Death Eater to Death Eater, looking for a
weak link, a space through which they could escape. “How come Voldemort wants it?”
Several of the Death Eaters let out low hisses.
“You dare speak his name?” whispered Bellatrix.
“Yeah,” said Harry, maintaining his tight grip on the glass ball, expecting another attempt to
bewitch it from him. “Yeah, I’ve got no problem with saying Vol—”
“Shut your mouth!” Bellatrix shrieked. “You dare speak his name with your unworthy lips, you
dare besmirch it with your half-blood’s tongue, you dare -”
“Did you know he’s a half-blood too?” said Harry recklessly. Hermione gave a little moan in his
ear. “Voldemort? Yeah, his mother was a witch but his dad was a Muggle - or has he been telling
you lot he’s pure-blood?”
“STUPEF—”
“NO!”
A jet of red light had shot from the end of Bellatrix Lestrange’s wand, but Malfoy had deflected
it; his spell caused hers to hit the shelf a foot to the left of Harry and several of the glass orbs
there shattered.
Two figures, pearly-white as ghosts, fluid as smoke, unfurled themselves from the fragments of
broken glass upon the floor and each began to speak; their voices vied with each other, so that
only fragments of what they were saying could be heard over Malfoy and Bellatrix’s shouts.
“… at the solstice will come a new…” said the figure of an old, bearded man.
“DO NOT ATTACK! WE NEED THE PROPHECY!”
“He dared - he dares -” shrieked Bellatrix incoherently, “he stands there - filthy half-blood -”
“WAIT UNTIL WE’VE GOT THE PROPHECY!” bawled Malfoy.
“… and none will come after…” said the figure of a young woman.
The two figures that had burst from the shattered spheres had melted into thin air. Nothing
remained of them or their erstwhile homes but fragments of glass upon the floor. They had,
however, given Harry an idea. The problem was going to be conveying it to the others.
“You haven’t told me what’s so special about this prophecy I’m supposed to be handing over,” he said, playing for time. He moved his foot slowly sideways, feeling around for someone else’s.
“Do not play games with us, Potter,” said Malfoy.
“I’m not playing games,” said Harry, half his mind on the conversation, half on his wandering
foot. And then he found someone’s toes and pressed down upon them. A sharp intake of breath
behind him told him they were Hermiones.
“What?” she whispered.
“Dumbledore never told you the reason you bear that scar was hidden in the bowels of the
Department of Mysteries?” Malfoy sneered.
“I - what?” said Harry. And for a moment he quite forgot his plan. “What about my scar?”
“What?” whispered Hermione more urgently behind him.
“Can this be?” said Malfoy, sounding maliciously delighted; some of the Death Eaters were
laughing again, and under cover of their laughter, Harry hissed to Hermione, moving his lips as
little as possible, “Smash shelves -”
“Dumbledore never told you?” Malfoy repeated. “Well, this explains why you didn’t come
earlier, Potter, the Dark Lord wondered why -”
“- when I say now-”
“- you didn’t come running when he showed you the place where it was hidden in your dreams.
He thought natural curiosity would make you want to hear the exact wording…”
“Did he?” said Harry. Behind him he felt rather than heard Hermione passing his message to the
others and he sought to keep talking, to distract the Death Eaters. “So he wanted me to come and
get it, did he? Why?”
“Why?” Malfoy sounded incredulously delighted. “Because the only people who are permitted to
retrieve a prophecy from the Department of Mysteries, Potter, are those about whom it was
made, as the Dark Lord discovered when he attempted to use others to steal it for him.”
“And why did he want to steal a prophecy about me?”
“About both of you, Potter, about both of you… haven’t you ever wondered why the Dark Lord
tried to kill you as a baby?”
Harry stared into the slitted eye-holes through which Malfoy’s grey eyes were gleaming. Was
this prophecy the reason Harry’s parents had died, the reason he carried his lightning-bolt scar?
Was the answer to all of this clutched in his hand?
“Someone made a prophecy about Voldemort and me?” he said quietly, gazing at Lucius Malfoy,
his fingers tightening over the warm glass sphere in his hand. It was hardly larger than a Snitch
and still gritty with dust. “And he’s made me come and get it for him? Why couldn’t he come
and get it himself?”
“Get it himself?” shrieked Bellatrix, over a cackle of mad laughter. “The Dark Lord, walk into the Ministry of Magic, when they are so sweetly ignoring his return? The Dark Lord, reveal himself to the Aurors, when at the moment they are wasting their time on my dear cousin?”
“So, he’s got you doing his dirty work for him, has he?” said Harry. “Like he tried to get Sturgis
to steal it - and Bode?”
“Very good, Potter, very good…” said Malfoy slowly. “But the Dark Lord knows you are not
unintell—”
“NOW!” yelled Harry.
Five different voices behind him bellowed, “REDUCTO!” Five curses flew in five different
directions and the shelves opposite them exploded as they hit; the towering structure swayed as a
hundred glass spheres burst apart, pearly-white figures unfurled into the air and floated there,
their voices echoing from who knew what long-dead past amid the torrent of crashing glass and
splintered wood now raining down upon the floor -
“RUN!” Harry yelled, as the shelves swayed precariously and more glass spheres began to fall
from above. He seized a handful of Hermione’s robes and dragged her forwards, holding one
arm over his head as chunks of shelf and shards of glass thundered down upon them. A Death
Eater lunged forwards through the cloud of dust and Harry elbowed him hard in the masked face;
they were all yelling, there were cries of pain, and thunderous crashes as the shelves collapsed
upon themselves, weirdly echoing fragments of the Seers unleashed from their spheres -
Harry found the way ahead clear and saw Ron, Ginny and Luna sprint past him, their arms over
their heads; something heavy struck him on the side of the face but he merely ducked his head
and sprinted onwards; a hand caught him by the shoulder; he heard Hermione shout, “Stupefy!”
The hand released him at once –
They were at the end of row ninety-seven; Harry turned right and began to sprint in earnest; he
could hear footsteps right behind him and Hermione’s voice urging Neville on; straight ahead,
the door through which they had come was ajar; Harry could see the glittering light of the bell
jar; he pelted through the doorway, the prophecy still clutched tight and safe in his hand, and
waited for the others to hurtle over the threshold before slamming the door behind them -
“Colloportus!” gasped Hermione and the door sealed itself with an odd squelching noise.
“Where - where are the others?” gasped Harry.
He had thought Ron, Luna and Ginny were ahead of them, that they would be waiting in this
room, but there was nobody there.
“They must have gone the wrong way!” whispered Hermione, terror in her face.
“Listen!” whispered Neville.
Footsteps and shouts echoed from behind the door they had just sealed; Harry put his ear close to
the door to listen and heard Lucius Malfoy roar, “Leave Nott, leave him, I say — his injuries will
be nothing to the Dark Lord compared to losing that prophecy. Jugson, come back here, we need
to organize! We’ll split into pairs and search, and don’t forget, be gentle with Potter until we’ve
got the prophecy, you can kill the others if necessary - Bellatrix, Rodolphus, you take the left;
Crabbe, Rabastan, go right -Jugson, Dolohov, the door straight ahead - Macnair and Avery,
through here - Rookwood, over there - Mulciber, come with me!”
“What do we do?” Hermione asked Harry, trembling from head to foot.
“Well, we don’t stand here waiting for them to find us, for a start,” said Harry. “Let’s get away
from this door.” They ran as quietly as they could, past the shimmering bell jar where the tiny
egg was hatching and unhatching, towards the exit into the circular hallway at the far end of the
room. They were almost there when Harry heard something large and heavy collide with the
door Hermione had charmed shut.
“Stand aside!” said a rough voice. “Alahomora!”
As the door flew open, Harry, Hermione and Neville dived under desks. They could see the
bottom of the two Death Eaters’ robes drawing nearer, their feet moving rapidly.
“They might’ve run straight through to the hall,” said the rough voice.
“Check under the desks,” said another.
Harry saw the knees of the Death Eaters bend; poking his wand out from under the desk, he
shouted, “STUPEFY!”
A jet of red light hit the nearest Death Eater; he fell backwards into a grandfather clock and
knocked it over; the second Death Eater, however, had leapt aside to avoid Harry’s spell and was
pointing his own wand at Hermione, who was crawling out from under the desk to get a better
aim.
“Avada -
Harry launched himself across the floor and grabbed the Death Eater around the knees, causing
him to topple and his aim to go awry. Neville overturned a desk in his anxiety to help; and
pointing his wand wildly at the struggling pair, he cried:
“EXPELLIARMUS!”
Both Harry’s and the Death Eater’s wands flew out of their hands and soared back towards the
entrance to the Hall of Prophecy; both scrambled to their feet and charged after them, the Death
Eater in front, Harry hot on his heels, and Neville bringing up the rear, plainly horrorstruck by
what he had done.
“Get out of the way, Harry!” yelled Neville, clearly determined to repair the damage.
Harry flung himself sideways as Neville took aim again and shouted:
“STUPEFY!”
The jet of red light had flown right over the Death Eater’s shoulder and hit a glass-fronted cabinet on the wall full of variously shaped hour-glasses; the cabinet fell to the floor and burst apart, glass flying everywhere, sprang back up on to the wall, fully mended, then fell down again, and shattered -
The Death Eater had snatched up his wand, which lay on the floor beside the glittering bell jar.
Harry ducked down behind another desk as the man turned; his mask had slipped so that he
couldn’t see. He ripped it off with his free hand and shouted: “STUP—”
“STUPEFY!” screamed Hermione, who had just caught up with them. The jet of red light hit the
Death Eater in the middle of his chest: he froze, his arm still raised, his wand fell to the floor
with a clatter and he collapsed backwards towards the bell jar. Harry expected to hear a dunk, for
the man to hit solid glass and slide off the jar on to the floor, but instead, his head sank through
the surface of the bell jar as though it were nothing but a soap bubble and he came to rest,
sprawled on his back on the table, with his head lying inside the jar full of glittering wind.
“Accio wand!” cried Hermione. Harry’s wand flew from a dark corner into her hand and she
threw it to him.
“Thanks,” he said. “Right, let’s get out of —”
“Look out!” said Neville, horrified. He was staring at the Death Eater’s head in the bell jar.
All three of them raised their wands again, but none of them struck: they were all gazing, openmouthed, appalled, at what was happening to the man’s head.
It was shrinking very fast, growing balder and balder, the black hair and stubble retracting into
his skull; his cheeks becoming smooth, his skull round and covered with a peachlike fuzz…
A baby’s head now sat grotesquely on top of the thick, muscled neck of the Death Eater as he
struggled to get up again; but even as they watched, their mouths open, the head began to swell
to its previous proportions again; thick black hair was sprouting from the pate and chin…
“It’s Time,” said Hermione in an awestruck voice. “Time…”
The Death Eater shook his ugly head again, trying to clear it, but before he could pull himself
together it began to shrink back to babyhood once more…
There was a shout from a room nearby, then a crash and a scream.
“RON?” Harry yelled, turning quickly from the monstrous transformation taking place before
them. “GINNY? LUNA?”
“Harry!” Hermione screamed.
The Death Eater had pulled his head out of the bell jar. His appearance was utterly bizarre, his
tiny baby’s head bawling loudly while his thick arms flailed dangerously in all directions,
narrowly missing Harry, who had ducked. Harry raised his wand but to his amazement Hermione
seized his arm.
“You can’t hurt a baby!”
There was no time to argue the point; Harry could hear more footsteps growing louder from the
Hall of Prophecy and knew, too late, that he ought not to have shouted and given away their
position.
“Come on!” he said, and leaving the ugly baby-headed Death Eater staggering behind them they
took off for the door that stood open at the other end of the room, leading back into the black
hallway.
They had run halfway towards it when Harry saw through the open door two more Death Eaters
running across the black room towards them; veering left, he burst instead into a small, dark,
cluttered office and slammed the door behind them.
“Collo—” began Hermione, but before she could complete the spell the door had burst open and
the two Death Eaters had come hurtling inside.
With a cry of triumph, both yelled:
“IMPEDIMENTA!”
Harry, Hermione and Neville were all knocked backwards off their feet; Neville was thrown over
the desk and disappeared from view; Hermione smashed into a bookcase and was promptly
deluged in a cascade of heavy books; the back of Harry’s head slammed into the stone wall
behind him, tiny lights burst in front of his eyes and for a moment he was too dizzy and
bewildered to react.
“WE’VE GOT HIM!” yelled the Death Eater nearest Harry. “IN AN OFFICE OFF—”
“Silencio!” cried Hermione and the man’s voice was extinguished. He continued to mouth
through the hole in his mask, but no sound came out. He was thrust aside by his fellow Death
Eater.
“Petrificus Totalus!” shouted Harry, as the second Death Eater raised his wand. His arms and legs snapped together and he fell forwards, face down on to the rug at Harry’s feet, stiff as a board and unable to move.
“Well done, Ha—”
But the Death Eater Hermione had just struck dumb made a sudden slashing movement with his
wand; a streak of what looked like purple flame passed right across Hermione’s chest. She gave
a tiny “Oh!” as though of surprise and crumpled on to the floor, where she lay motionless.
“HERMIONE!”
Harry fell to his knees beside her as Neville crawled rapidly towards her from under the desk, his
wand held up in front of him. The Death Eater kicked out hard at Neville’s head as he emerged -
his foot broke Neville’s wand in two and connected with his face. Neville gave a howl of pain
and recoiled, clutching his mouth and nose. Harry twisted around, his own wand held high, and
saw that the Death Eater had ripped off his mask and was pointing his wand directly at Harry,
who recognized the long, pale, twisted face from the Daily Prophet: Antonin Dolohov, the
wizard who had murdered the Prewetts.
Dolohov grinned. With his free hand, he pointed from the prophecy still clutched in Harrys hand,
to himself, then at Hermione. Though he could no longer speak, his meaning could not have been
clearer. Give me the prophecy, or you get the same as her…
“Like you won’t kill us all anyway, the moment I hand it over!” said Harry.
A whine of panic inside his head was preventing him thinking properly: he had one hand on
Hermione’s shoulder, which was still warm, yet did not dare look at her properly. Don’t let her be dead, don’t let her be dead, it’s my fault if she’s dead…
“Whaddever you do, Harry,” said Neville fiercely from under the desk, lowering his hands to
show a clearly broken nose and blood pouring down his mouth and chin, “don’d gib it to him!”
Then there was a crash outside the door and Dolohov looked over his shoulder - the baby-headed
Death Eater had appeared in the doorway, his head bawling, his great fists still flailing
uncontrollably at everything around him. Harry seized his chance:
“PETRIFICUS TOTALUS!”
The spell hit Dolohov before he could block it and he toppled forwards across his comrade, both
of them rigid as boards and unable to move an inch.
“Hermione,” Harry said at once, shaking her as the baby-headed Death Eater blundered out of
sight again. “Hermione, wake up…”
“Whad did he do to her?” said Neville, crawling out from under the desk to kneel at her other side, blood streaming from his rapidly swelling nose.
“I dunno…”
Neville groped for Hermione’s wrist.
“Dat’s a pulse, Harry, I’b sure id is.”
Such a powerful wave of relief swept through Harry that for a moment he felt light-headed.
“She’s alive?”
“Yeah, I dink so.”
There was a pause in which Harry listened hard for the sound of more footsteps, but all he could
hear were the whimpers and blunderings of the baby-headed Death Eater in the next room.
“Neville, we’re not far from the exit,” Harry whispered, “we’re right next to that circular room…
if we can just get you across it and find the right door before any more Death Eaters come, I’ll
bet you can get Hermione up the corridor and into the lift… then you could find someone… raise
the alarm…”
“And whad are you going do do?” said Neville, mopping his bleeding nose with his sleeve and
frowning at Harry.
“I’ve got to find the others,” said Harry.
“Well, I’b going do find dem wid you,” said Neville firmly.
“But Hermione —”
“We’ll dake her wid us,” said Neville firmly. “I’ll carry her — you’re bedder at fighding dem dan I ab -”
He stood up and seized one of Hermione’s arms, glaring at Harry, who hesitated, then grabbed
the other and helped hoist Hermione’s limp form over Neville’s shoulders.
“Wait,” said Harry, snatching up Hermione’s wand from the floor and shoving it into Neville’s
hand, “you’d better take this.”
Neville kicked aside the broken fragments of his own wand as they walked slowly towards the
door.
“My gran’s going do kill be,” said Neville thickly, blood spattering from his nose as he spoke,
“dat was by dad’s old wand.”
Harry stuck his head out of the door and looked around cautiously. The baby-headed Death Eater
was screaming and banging into things, toppling grandfather clocks and overturning desks,
bawling and confused, while the glass-fronted cabinet that Harry now suspected had contained
Time-Turners continued to fall, shatter and repair itself on the wall behind them.
“He’s never going to notice us,” he whispered. “C’mon… keep close behind me…”
They crept out of the office and back towards the door into the black hallway, which now
seemed completely deserted. They walked a few steps forwards, Neville tottering slightly due to
Hermione’s weight; the door of the Time Room swung shut behind them and the walls began to
rotate once more. The recent blow on the back of Harrys head seemed to have unsteadied him; he
narrowed his eyes, swaying slightly, until the walls stopped moving again. With a sinking heart,
Harry saw that Hermione’s fiery crosses had faded from the doors.
“So which way d’you reck—?”
But before they could make a decision as to which way to try, a door to their right sprang open
and three people fell out of it.
“Ron!” croaked Harry, dashing towards them. “Ginny - are you all -?”
“Harry,” said Ron, giggling weakly, lurching forwards, seizing the front of Harry’s robes and
gazing at him with unfocused eyes, “there you are… ha ha ha… you look funny, Harry… you’re
all messed up…”
Ron’s face was very white and something dark was trickling from the corner of his mouth. Next
moment his knees had given way, but he still clutched the front of Harry’s robes, so that Harry
was pulled into a kind of bow.
“Ginny?” Harry said fearfully. “What happened?”
But Ginny shook her head and slid down the wall into a sitting position, panting and holding her
ankle.
“I think her ankle’s broken, I heard something crack,” whispered Luna, who was bending over
her and who alone seemed to be unhurt. “Four of them chased us into a dark room full of planets;
it was a very odd place, some of the time we were just floating in the dark -”
“Harry, we saw Uranus up close!” said Ron, still giggling feebly. “Get it, Harry? We saw Uranus
- ha ha ha -”
A bubble of blood grew at the corner of Ron’s mouth and burst.
“- anyway, one of them grabbed Ginny’s foot, I used the Reductor Curse and blew up Pluto in his face, but…”
Luna gestured hopelessly at Ginny, who was breathing in a very shallow way, her eyes still
closed.
“And what about Ron?” said Harry fearfully, as Ron continued to giggle, still hanging off the
front of Harry’s robes.
“I don’t know what they hit him with,” said Luna sadly, “but he’s gone a bit funny, I could hardly get him along at all.”
“Harry,” said Ron, pulling Harry’s ear down to his mouth and still giggling weakly, “you know
who this girl is, Harry? She’s Loony… Loony Lovegood… ha ha ha “
“We’ve got to get out of here,” said Harry firmly. “Luna, can you help Ginny?”
“Yes,” said Luna, sticking her wand behind her ear for safekeeping, then putting an arm around
Ginnys waist and pulling her up.
“It’s only my ankle, I can do it myself!” said Ginny impatiently, but next moment she had
collapsed sideways and grabbed Luna for support. Harry pulled Ron’s arm over his shoulder just
as, so many months ago, he had pulled Dudley’s. He looked around: they had a one in twelve
chance of getting the exit right first time -
He heaved Ron towards a door; they were within a few feet of it when another door across the
hall burst open and three Death Eaters sped in, led by Bellatrix Lestrange.
“There they are!” she shrieked.
Stunning Spells shot across the room: Harry smashed his way through the door ahead, flung Ron
unceremoniously from him and ducked back to help Neville in with Hermione: they were all
over the threshold just in time to slam the door against Bellatrix.
“Colloportus!” shouted Harry, and he heard three bodies slam into the door on the other side.
“It doesn’t matter!” said a man’s voice. “There are other ways in - WE’VE GOT THEM,
THEY’RE HERE!”
Harry span around; they were back in the Brain Room and, sure enough, there were doors all
around the walls. He could hear footsteps in the hall behind them as more Death Eaters came
running to join the first.
“Luna - Neville - help me!”
The three of them tore around the room, sealing the doors as they went; Harry crashed into a
table and rolled over the top of it in his haste to reach the next door:
“Colloportus!”
There were footsteps running along behind the doors, every now and then another heavy body
would launch itself against one, so it creaked and shuddered; Luna and Neville were bewitching
the doors along the opposite wall - then, as Harry reached the very top of the room, he heard
Luna cry:
“Collo—aaaaaaaaargh…”
He turned in time to see her flying through the air; five Death Eaters were surging into the room
through the door she had not reached in time; Luna hit a desk, slid over its surface and on to the
floor on the other side where she lay sprawled, as still as Hermione.
“Get Potter!” shrieked Bellatrix, and she ran at him; he dodged her and sprinted back up the
room; he was safe as long as they thought they might hit the prophecy -
“Hey!” said Ron, who had staggered to his feet and was now tottering drunkenly towards Harry,
giggling. “Hey Harry, there are brains in here, ha h a ha, isn’t that weird, Harry?”
“Ron, get out of the way, get down -”
But Ron had already pointed his wand at the tank.
“Honest, Harry, they’re brains - look -Accio brain!”
The scene seemed momentarily frozen. Harry, Ginny and Neville and each of the Death Eaters
turned in spite of themselves to watch the top of the tank as a brain burst from the green liquid
like a leaping fish: for a moment it seemed suspended in midair, then it soared towards Ron,
spinning as it came, and what looked like ribbons of moving images flew from it, unraveling
like rolls of film-
“Ha ha ha, Harry, look at it -” said Ron, watching it disgorge its gaudy innards, “Harry come and
touch it; bet it’s weird -”
“RON, NO!”
Harry did not know what would happen if Ron touched the tentacles of thought now flying
behind the brain, but he was sure it would not be anything good. He darted forwards but Ron had
already caught the brain in his outstretched hands.
The moment they made contact with his skin, the tentacles began wrapping themselves around
Ron’s arms like ropes.
“Harry, look what’s happen— No - no - I don’t like it - no, stop - stop -”
But the thin ribbons were spinning around Ron’s chest now; he tugged and tore at them as the
brain was pulled tight against him like an octopus’s body.
“Diffindo!” yelled Harry, trying to sever the feelers wrapping themselves tightly around Ron
before his eyes, but they would not break. Ron fell over, still thrashing against his bonds.
“Harry, it’ll suffocate him!” screamed Ginny, immobilized by her broken ankle on the floor – then a jet of red light flew from one of the Death Eater’s wands and hit her squarely in the face. She keeled over sideways and lay there unconscious.
“STUBEFY!” shouted Neville, wheeling around and waving Hermione’s wand at the oncoming
Death Eaters, “STUBEFY, STUBEFY!”
But nothing happened.
One of the Death Eaters shot their own Stunning Spell at Neville; it missed him by inches. Harry
and Neville were now the only two left fighting the five Death Eaters, two of whom sent off
streams of silver light like arrows which missed but left craters in the wall behind them. Harry
ran for it as Bellatrix Lestrange raced right at him: holding the prophecy high above his head, he
sprinted back up the room; all he could think of doing was to draw the Death Eaters away from
the others.
It seemed to have worked; they streaked after him, knocking chairs and tables flying but not
daring to bewitch him in case they hurt the prophecy, and he dashed through the only door still
open, the one through which the Death Eaters themselves had come; inwardly praying that
Neville would stay with Ron and find some way of releasing him. He ran a few feet into the new
room and felt the floor vanish -
He was falling down steep stone step after steep stone step, bouncing on every tier until at last,
with a crash that knocked all the breath out of his body, he landed flat on his back in the sunken
pit where the stone archway stood on its dais. The whole room was ringing with the Death
Eaters’ laughter: he looked up and saw the five who had been in the Brain Room descending
towards him, while as many more emerged through other doorways and began leaping from
bench to bench towards him. Harry got to his feet though his legs were trembling so badly they
barely supported him: the prophecy was still miraculously unbroken in his left hand, his wand
clutched tightly in his right. He backed away, looking around, trying to keep all the Death Eaters
within his sight. The back of his legs hit something solid: he had reached the dais where the
archway stood. He climbed backwards onto it.
The Death Eaters all halted, gazing at him. Some were panting as hard as he was. One was
bleeding badly; Dolohov, freed of the Body-Bind Curse, was leering, his wand pointing straight
at Harrys face.
“Potter, your race is run,” drawled Lucius Malfoy, pulling off his mask, “now hand me the
prophecy like a good boy.”
“Let - let the others go, and I’ll give it to you!” said Harry desperately.
A few of the Death Eaters laughed.
“You are not in a position to bargain, Potter,” said Lucius Malfoy, his pale face flushed with
pleasure. “You see, there are ten of us and only one of you… or hasn’t Dumbledore ever taught
you how to count?”
“He’s dot alone!” shouted a voice from above them. “He’s still god be!”
Harry’s heart sank: Neville was scrambling down the stone benches towards them, Hermiones
wand held fast in his trembling hand.
“Neville - no - go back to Ron -”
“STUBEFY!” Neville shouted again, pointing his wand at each Death Eater in turn. “STUBEFY!
STUBE—”
One of the largest Death Eaters seized Neville from behind, pinioning his arms to his sides. He
struggled and kicked; several of the Death Eaters laughed.
“It’s Longbottom, isn’t it” sneered Lucius Malfoy. “Well, your grandmother is used to losing
family members to our cause… your death will not come as a great shock.”
“Longbottom?” repeated Bellatrix, and a truly evil smile lit her gaunt face. “Why, I have had the
pleasure of meeting your parents, boy,”
“I DOE YOU HAB!” roared Neville, and he fought so hard against his captors encircling grip
that the Death Eater shouted, “Someone Stun him!”
“No, no, no,” said Bellatrix. She looked transported, alive with excitement as she glanced at
Harry, then back at Neville. “No, let’s see how long Longbottom lasts before he cracks like his
parents… unless Potter wants to give us the prophecy.”
“DON’D GIB ID DO DEM!” roared Neville, who seemed beside himself, kicking and writhing
as Bellatrix drew nearer to him and his captor, her wand raised. “DON’D GIB ID DO DEM,
HARRY!”
Bellatrix raised her wand. “Crucio!”
Neville screamed, his legs drawn up to his chest so that the Death Eater holding him was
momentarily holding him off the ground. The Death Eater dropped him and he fell to the floor,
twitching and screaming in agony.
“That was just a taster!” said Bellatrix, raising her wand so that Neville’s screams stopped and he
lay sobbing at her feet. She turned and gazed up at Harry. “Now, Potter, either give us the
prophecy, or watch your little friend die the hard way!”
Harry did not have to think; there was no choice. The prophecy was hot with the heat of his
clutching hand as he held it out. Malfoy jumped forwards to take it.
Then, high above them, two more doors burst open and five more people sprinted into the room:
Sirius, Lupin, Moody, Tonks and Kingsley.
Malfoy turned, and raised his wand, but Tonks had already sent a Stunning Spell right at him.
Harry did not wait to see whether it had made contact, but dived off the dais out of the way. The
Death Eaters were completely distracted by the appearance of the members of the Order, who
were now raining spells down upon them as they jumped from step to step towards the sunken
floor. Through the darting bodies, the flashes of light, Harry could see Neville crawling along.
He dodged another jet of red light and flung himself flat on the ground to reach Neville.
“Are you okay?” he yelled, as another spell soared inches over their heads.
“Yes,” said Neville, trying to pull himself up.
“And Ron?”
“I dink he’s all righd - he was still fighding de brain when I lefd -”
The stone floor between them exploded as a spell hit it, leaving a crater right where Neville’s
hand had been only seconds before; both scrambled away from the spot, then a thick arm came
out of nowhere, seized Harry around the neck and pulled him upright, so that his toes were
barely touching the floor.
“Give it to me,” growled a voice in his ear, “give me the prophecy -”
The man was pressing so tightly on Harry’s windpipe that he could not breathe. Through
watering eyes he saw Sirius dueling with a Death Eater some ten feet away; Kingsley was
fighting two at once; Tonks, still halfway up the tiered seats, was firing spells down at Bellatrix -
nobody seemed to realize that Harry was dying. He turned his wand backwards towards the
man’s side, but had no breath to utter an incantation, and the man’s free hand was groping
towards the hand in which Harry was grasping the prophecy -
“AARGH!”
Neville had come lunging out of nowhere; unable to articulate a spell, he had jabbed Hermione’s
wand hard into the eyehole of the Death Eaters mask. The man relinquished Harry at once with a
howl of pain. Harry whirled around to face him and gasped:
“STUPEFY!”
The Death Eater keeled over backwards and his mask slipped off: it was Macnair, Buckbeak’s
would-be killer, one of his eyes now swollen and bloodshot.
“Thanks!” Harry said to Neville, pulling him aside as Sirius and his Death Eater lurched past,
dueling so fiercely that their wands were blurs; then Harry’s foot made contact with something
round and hard and he slipped. For a moment he thought he had dropped the prophecy, but then
he saw Moody’s magical eye spinning away across the floor.
Its owner was lying on his side, bleeding from the head, and his attacker was now bearing down
upon Harry and Neville: Dolohov, his long pale face twisted with glee.
“Tarantallegra!” he shouted, his wand pointing at Neville, whose legs went immediately into a
kind of frenzied tap-dance, unbalancing him and causing him to fall to the floor again. “Now,
Potter -”
He made the same slashing movement with his wand that he had used on Hermione just as Harry
yelled, “Protego!”
Harry felt something streak across his face like a blunt knife; the force of it knocked him
sideways and he fell over Neville’s jerking legs, but the Shield Charm had stopped the worst of
the spell.
Dolohov raised his wand again. “Accio proph—”
Sirius had hurtled out of nowhere, rammed Dolohov with his shoulder and sent him flying out of
the way. The prophecy had again flown to the tips of Harry’s fingers but he had managed to
cling on to it. Now Sirius and Dolohov were dueling, their wands flashing like swords, sparks
flying from their wand-tips -
Dolohov drew back his wand to make the same slashing movement he had used on Harry and
Hermione. Springing up, Harry yelled, “Petrificus Totalus!” Once again, Dolohov’s arms and
legs snapped together and he keeled over backwards, landing with a crash on his back.
“Nice one!” shouted Sirius, forcing Harry’s head down as a pair of Stunning Spells flew towards
them. “Now I want you to get out of-”
They both ducked again; a jet of green light had narrowly missed Sirius. Across the room Harry
saw Tonks fall from halfway up the stone steps, her limp form toppling from stone seat to stone
seat and Bellatrix, triumphant, running back towards the fray.
“Harry, take the prophecy, grab Neville and run!” Sirius yelled, dashing to meet Bellatrix. Harry
did not see what happened next: Kingsley swayed across his field of vision, battling with the
pockmarked and no longer masked Rookwood; another jet of green light flew over Harry’s head
as he launched himself towards Neville -
“Can you stand?” he bellowed in Neville’s ear, as Neville’s legs jerked and twitched
uncontrollably. “Put your arm round my neck -”
Neville did so - Harry heaved — Neville’s legs were still flying in every direction, they would
not support him, and then, out of nowhere, a man lunged at them: both fell backwards, Neville’s
legs waving wildly like an overturned beetle’s, Harry with his left arm held up in the air to try to
save the small glass ball from being smashed.
“The prophecy, give me the prophecy, Potter!” snarled Lucius Malfoy’s voice in his ear, and
Harry felt the tip of Malfoy’s wand pressing hard between his ribs.
“No - get - off - me… Neville - catch it!”
Harry flung the prophecy across the floor, Neville spun himself around on his back and scooped
the ball to his chest. Malfoy pointed the wand instead at Neville, but Harry jabbed his own wand
back over his shoulder and yelled, “Impedimenta!”
Malfoy was blasted off his back. As Harry scrambled up again he looked around and saw Malfoy
smash into the dais on which Sirius and Bellatrix were now dueling. Malfoy aimed his wand at
Harry and Neville again, but before he could draw breath to strike, Lupin had jumped between
them.
“Harry, round up the others and GO!”
Harry seized Neville by the shoulder of his robes and lifted him bodily on to the first tier of stone
steps; Neville’s legs twitched and jerked and would not support his weight; Harry heaved again
with all the strength he possessed and they climbed another step -
A spell hit the stone bench at Harrys heel; it crumbled away and he fell back to the step below.
Neville sank to the ground, his legs still jerking and thrashing, and he thrust the prophecy into his
pocket.
“Come on!” said Harry desperately, hauling at Neville’s robes. “Just try and push with your legs”
He gave another stupendous heave and Neville’s robes tore all along the left seam - the small
spun-glass ball dropped from his pocket and, before either of them could catch it, one of
Neville’s floundering feet kicked it: it flew some ten feet to their right and smashed on the step
beneath them. As both of them stared at the place where it had broken, appalled at what had
happened, a pearly-white figure with hugely magnified eyes rose into the air, unnoticed by any
but them. Harry could see its mouth moving, but in all the crashes and screams and yells
surrounding them, not one word of the prophecy could he hear. The figure stopped speaking and
dissolved into nothingness.
“Harry, I’b sorry!” cried Neville, his face anguished as his legs continued to flounder. “I’b so
sorry, Harry, I didn’d bean do -”
“It doesn’t matter!” Harry shouted. “Just try and stand, let’s get out of -”
“Dubbledore!” said Neville, his sweaty face suddenly transported, staring over Harry’s shoulder.
“What?”
“DUBBLEDORE!”
Harry turned to look where Neville was staring. Directly above them, framed in the doorway
from the Brain Room, stood Albus Dumbledore, his wand aloft, his face white and furious. Harry
felt a kind of electric charge surge through every particle of his body - they were saved.
Dumbledore sped down the steps past Neville and Harry, who had no more thoughts of leaving.
Dumbledore was already at the foot of the steps when the Death Eaters nearest realized he was
there and yelled to the others. One of the Death Eaters ran for it, scrabbling like a monkey up the
stone steps opposite. Dumbledore’s spell pulled him back as easily and effortlessly as though he
had hooked him with an invisible line -
Only one pair was still battling, apparently unaware of the new arrival. Harry saw Sirius duck
Bellatrix’s jet of red light: he was laughing at her.
“Come on, you can do better than that!” he yelled, his voice echoing around the cavernous room.
The second jet of light hit him squarely on the chest.
The laughter had not quite died from his face, but his eyes widened in shock.
Harry released Neville, though he was unaware of doing so. He was jumping down the steps
again, pulling out his wand, as Dumbledore, too, turned towards the dais.
It seemed to take Sirius an age to fall: his body curved in a graceful arc as he sank backwards
through the ragged veil hanging from the arch.
Harry saw the look of mingled fear and surprise on his godfather’s wasted, once-handsome face
as he fell through the ancient doorway and disappeared behind the veil, which fluttered for a
moment as though in a high wind, then fell back into place.
Harry heard Bellatrix Lestrange’s triumphant scream, but knew it meant nothing - Sirius had
only just fallen through the archway, he would reappear from the other side any second…
But Sirius did not reappear.
“SIRIUS!” Harry yelled. “SIRIUS!”
He had reached the floor, his breath coming in searing gasps. Sirius must be just behind the
curtain, he, Harry, would pull him back out…
But as he reached the ground and sprinted towards the dais, Lupin grabbed Harry around the
chest, holding him back.
“There’s nothing you can do, Harry -”
“Get him, save him, he’s only just gone through!”
“- it’s too late, Harry.”
“We can still reach him -” Harry struggled hard and viciously, but Lupin would not let go…
“There’s nothing you can do, Harry… nothing… he’s gone.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The Only One He Ever Feared
“He hasn’t gone!” Harry yelled.
He did not believe it; he would not believe it; still he fought Lupin with every bit of strength he
had. Lupin did not understand; people hid behind that curtain; Harry had heard them whispering
the first time he had entered the room. Sirius was hiding, simply lurking out of sight.
“SIRIUS!” he bellowed. “SIRIUS!”
“He can’t come back, Harry,” said Lupin, his voice breaking as he struggled to contain Harry.
“He can’t come back, because he’s d-”
“HE - IS - NOT - DEAD!” roared Harry. “SIRIUS!”
There was movement going on around them, pointless bustling, the flashes of more spells. To
Harry it was meaningless noise, the deflected curses flying past them did not matter, nothing
mattered except that Lupin should stop pretending that Sirius - who was standing feet from them
behind that old curtain - was not going to emerge at any moment, shaking back his dark hair and
eager to re-enter the battle.
Lupin dragged Harry away from the dais. Harry, still staring at the archway, was angry at Sirius
now for keeping him waiting
But some part of him realized, even as he fought to break free from Lupin, that Sirius had never
kept him waiting before… Sirius had risked everything, always, to see Harry, to help him… if
Sirius was not reappearing out of that archway when Harry was yelling for him as though his life
depended on it, the only possible explanation was that he could not come back… that he really
was.
Dumbledore had most of the remaining Death Eaters grouped in the middle of the room,
seemingly immobilized by invisible ropes; Mad-Eye Moody had crawled across the room to
where Tonks lay, and was attempting to revive her; behind the dais there were still hashes of
light, grunts and cries - Kingsley had run forward to continue Sirius’s duel with Bellatrix.
“Harry?”
Neville had slid down the stone benches one by one to the place where Harry stood. Harry was
no longer struggling against Lupin, who maintained a precautionary grip on his arm nevertheless.
“Harry… I’b really sorry…” said Neville. His legs were still dancing uncontrollably. “Was dad
man - was Sirius Black a - a friend of yours?”
Harry nodded.
“Here,” said Lupin quietly, and pointing his wand at Neville’s legs he said, “Finite.” The spell
was lifted: Neville’s legs fell back to the floor and remained still. Lupin’s face was pale. “Let’s -
let’s find the others. Where are they all, Neville?”
Lupin turned away from the archway as he spoke. It sounded as though every word was causing
him pain.
“Dey’re all back dere,” said Neville. “A brain addacked Ron bud I dink he’s all righd - and
Herbione’s unconscious, bud we could feel a bulse”
There was a loud bang and a yell from behind the dais. Harry saw Kingsley hit the ground
yelling in pain: Bellatrix Lestrange turned tail and ran as Dumbledore whipped around. He aimed
a spell at her but she deflected it; she was halfway up the steps now
“Harry - no!” cried Lupin, but Harry had already ripped his arm from Lupin’s slackened grip.
“SHE KILLED SIRIUS!” bellowed Harry. “SHE KILLED HIM I’LL KILL HER!”
And he was off, scrambling up the stone benches; people were shouting behind him but he did
not care. The hem of Bellatrix’s robes whipped out of sight ahead and they were back in the
room where the brains were swimming…
She aimed a curse over her shoulder. The tank rose into the air and tipped. Harry was deluged in
the foul-smelling potion within: the brains slipped and slid over him and began spinning their
long colored tentacles, but he shouted, “Wingardium Leviosa!” and they flew off him up into
the air. Slipping and sliding, he ran on towards the door; he leapt over Luna, who was groaning
on the floor, past Ginny, who said, “Harry - what -?”, past Ron, who giggled feebly, and
Hermione, who was still unconscious. He wrenched open the door into the circular black hall and
saw Bellatrix disappearing through a door on the other side of the room; beyond her was the
corridor leading back to the lifts.
He ran, but she had slammed the door behind her and the walls were already rotating. Once
more, he was surrounded by streaks of blue light from the whirling candelabra.
“Where’s the exit?” he shouted desperately, as the wall rumbled to a halt again. “Where’s the way out?”
The room seemed to have been waiting for him to ask. The door right behind him flew open and
the corridor towards the lifts stretched ahead of him, torch-lit and empty. He ran…
He could hear a lift clattering ahead; he sprinted up the passageway, swung around the corner
and slammed his fist on to the button to call a second lift. It jangled and banged lower and lower;
the grilles slid open and Harry dashed inside, now hammering the button marked ‘Atrium’. The
doors slid shut and he was rising…
He forced his way out of the lift before the grilles were fully open and looked around. Bellatrix
was almost at the telephone lift at the other end of the hall, but she looked back as he sprinted
towards her and aimed another spell at him. He dodged behind the Fountain of Magical Brethren:
the spell zoomed past him and hit the wrought gold gates at the other end of the Atrium so that
they rang like bells. There were no more footsteps. She had stopped running. He crouched
behind the statues, listening.
“Come out, come out, little Harry!” she called in her mock baby voice, which echoed off the
polished wooden floors. “What did you come after me for, then? I thought you were here to
avenge my dear cousin!”
“I am!” shouted Harry, and a score of ghostly Harrys seemed to chorus I am! I am! I am! all
around the room
“Aaaaaah… did you love him, little baby Potter?”
Hatred rose in Harry such as he had never known before; he flung himself out from behind the
fountain and bellowed, “Crucio!”
Bellatrix screamed: the spell had knocked her off her feet, but she did not writhe and shriek with
pain as Neville had - she was already back on her feet, breathless, no longer laughing. Harry
dodged behind the golden fountain again. Her counter-spell hit the head of the handsome wizard,
which was blown off and landed twenty feet away, gouging long scratches into the wooden floor.
“Never used an Unforgivable Curse before, have you, boy?” she yelled. She had abandoned her
baby voice now. “You need to mean them, Potter! You need to really want to cause pain - to
enjoy it - righteous anger won’t hurt me for long - I’ll show you how it is done, shall I? I’ll give
you a lesson -”
Harry was edging around the fountain on the other side when she screamed, “Crucio!” and he
was forced to duck down again as the centaur’s arm, holding its bow, span off and landed with a
crash on the floor a short distance from the golden wizard’s head.
“Potter, you cannot win against me!” she cried.
He could hear her moving to the right, trying to get a clear shot of him. He backed around the
statue away from her, crouching behind the centaur’s legs, his head level with the house-elf’s.
“I was and am the Dark Lord’s most loyal servant. I learned the Dark Arts from him, and I know
spells of such power that you, pathetic little boy, can never hope to compete”
“Stupefy!” yelled Harry. He had edged right around to where the goblin stood beaming up at the
now headless wizard and taken aim at her back as she peered around the fountain. She reacted so
fast he barely had time to duck.
“Protego!”
The jet of red light, his own Stunning Spell, bounced back at him. Harry scrambled back behind
the fountain and one of the goblin’s ears went flying across the room.
“Potter, I’m going to give you one chance!” shouted Bellatrix. “Give me the prophecy - roll it out towards me now - and I may spare your life!”
“Well, you’re going to have to kill me, because it’s gone!” Harry roared and, as he shouted it,
pain seared across his forehead; his scar was on fire again, and he felt a surge of fury that was
quite unconnected with his own rage. “And he knows!’” said Harry, with a mad laugh to match
Bellatrix’s own. “Your dear old mate Voldemort knows it’s gone! He’s not going to be happy
with you, is he?”
“What? What do you mean?” she cried, and for the first time there was fear in her voice.
“The prophecy smashed when I was trying to get Neville up the steps! What do you think
Voldemort’ll say about that, then?”
His scar seared and burned… the pain of it was making his eyes stream…
“LIAR!” she shrieked, but he could hear the terror behind the anger now. “YOU’VE GOT IT,
POTTER, AND YOU WILL GIVE IT TO ME! Accio prophecy! ACCIO PROPHECY!”
Harry laughed again because he knew it would incense her, the pain building in his head so badly
he thought his skull might burst. He waved his empty hand from behind the one-eared goblin and
withdrew it quickly as she sent another jet of green light flying at him.
“Nothing there!” he shouted. “Nothing to summon! It smashed and nobody heard what it said, tell your boss that!”
“No!” she screamed. “It isn’t true, you’re lying! MASTER, I TRIED, I TRIED - DO NOT
PUNISH ME”
“Don’t waste your breath!” yelled Harry, his eyes screwed up against the pain in his scar, now
more terrible than ever. “He can’t hear you from here!”
“Can’t I, Potter?” said a high, cold voice.
Harry opened his eyes.
Tall, thin and black-hooded, his terrible snakelike face white and gaunt, his scarlet, slit-pupilled
eyes staring… Lord Voldemort had appeared in the middle of the hall, his wand pointing at
Harry who stood frozen, quite unable to move.
“So, you smashed my prophecy?” said Voldemort softly, staring at Harry with those pitiless red
eyes. “No, Bella, he is not lying… I see the truth looking at me from within his worthless mind… months of preparation, months of effort… and my Death Eaters have let Harry Potter thwart me again”
“Master, I am sorry I knew not, I was fighting the Animagus Black!” sobbed Bellatrix, flinging
herself down at Voldemort’s feet as he paced slowly nearer. “Master, you should know”
“Be quiet, Bella,” said Voldemort dangerously. “I shall deal with you in a moment. Do you think
I have entered the Ministry of Magic to hear your sniveling apologies?”
“But Master - he is here - he is below”
Voldemort paid no attention.
“I have nothing more to say to you, Potter,” he said quietly. “You have irked me too often, for too long. AVADA KEDAVRA!”
Harry had not even opened his mouth to resist; his mind was blank, his wand pointing uselessly
at the floor.
But the headless golden statue of the wizard in the fountain had sprung alive, leaping from its
plinth to land with a crash on the floor between Harry and Voldemort. The spell merely glanced
off its chest as the statue flung out its arms to protect Harry.
“What -?” cried Voldemort, staring around. And then he breathed, “Dumbledore!”
Harry looked behind him, his heart pounding. Dumbledore was standing in front of the golden
gates.
Voldemort raised his wand and another jet of green light streaked at Dumbledore, who turned
and was gone in a whirling of his cloak. Next second, he had reappeared behind Voldemort and
waved his wand towards the remnants of the fountain. The other statues sprang to life. The statue
of the witch ran at Bellatrix, who screamed and sent spells streaming uselessly off its chest,
before it dived at her, pinning her to the floor. Meanwhile, the goblin and the house-elf scuttled
towards the fireplaces set along the wall and the one-armed centaur galloped at Voldemort, who
vanished and reappeared beside the pool. The headless statue thrust Harry backwards, away from
the fight, as Dumbledore advanced on Voldemort and the golden centaur cantered around them
both.
“It was foolish to come here tonight, Tom,” said Dumbledore calmly. “The Aurors are on their
way”
“By which time I shall be gone, and you will be dead!” spat Voldemort. He sent another killing
curse at Dumbledore but missed, instead hitting the security guard’s desk, which burst into
flame.
Dumbledore flicked his own wand: the force of the spell that emanated from it was such that
Harry, though shielded by his golden guard, felt his hair stand on end as it passed and this time
Voldemort was forced to conjure a shining silver shield out of thin air to deflect it. The spell,
whatever it was, caused no visible damage to the shield, though a deep, gong-like note
reverberated from it - an oddly chilling sound.
“You do not seek to kill me, Dumbledore?” called Voldemort, his scarlet eyes narrowed over the
top of the shield. “Above such brutality, are you?”
“We both know that there are other ways of destroying a man, Tom,” Dumbledore said calmly,
continuing to walk towards Voldemort as though he had not a fear in the world, as though
nothing had happened to interrupt his stroll up the hall. “Merely taking your life would not
satisfy me, I admit”
“There is nothing worse than death, Dumbledore!” snarled Voldemort.
“You are quite wrong,” said Dumbledore, still closing in upon Voldemort and speaking as lightly
as though they were discussing the matter over drinks. Harry felt scared to see him walking
along, undefended, shieldless; he wanted to cry out a warning, but his headless guard kept
shunting him backwards towards the wall, blocking his every attempt to get out from behind it.
“Indeed, your failure to understand that there are things much worse than death has always been
your greatest weakness”
Another jet of green light flew from behind the silver shield. This time it was the one-armed
centaur, galloping in front of Dumbledore, that took the blast and shattered into a hundred pieces,
but before the fragments had even hit the floor, Dumbledore had drawn back his wand and
waved it as though brandishing a whip. A long thin flame flew from the tip; it wrapped itself
around Voldemort, shield and all. For a moment, it seemed Dumbledore had won, but then the
fiery rope became a serpent, which relinquished its hold on Voldemort at once and turned,
hissing furiously, to face Dumbledore.
Voldemort vanished; the snake reared from the floor, ready to strike.
There was a burst of flame in midair above Dumbledore just as Voldemort reappeared, standing
on the plinth in the middle of the pool where so recently the five statues had stood.
“Look out!” Harry yelled.
But even as he shouted, another jet of green light flew at Dumbledore from Voldemort’s wand
and the snake had struck.
Fawkes swooped down in front of Dumbledore, opened his beak wide and swallowed the jet of
green light whole: he burst into flame and fell to the floor, small, wrinkled and flightless. At the
same moment, Dumbledore brandished his wand in one long, fluid movement - the snake, which
had been an instant from sinking its fangs into him, flew high into the air and vanished in a wisp
of dark smoke; and the water in the pool rose up and covered Voldemort like a cocoon of molten
glass.
For a few seconds Voldemort was visible only as a dark, rippling, faceless figure, shimmering
and indistinct upon the plinth, clearly struggling to throw off the suffocating mass.
Then he was gone and the water fell with a crash back into its pool, slopping wildly over the
sides, drenching the polished floor.
“MASTER!” screamed Bellatrix.
Sure it was over, sure Voldemort had decided to flee, Harry made to run out from behind his
statue guard, but Dumbledore bellowed: “Stay where you are, Harry!”
For the first time, Dumbledore sounded frightened. Harry could not see why: the hall was quite
empty but for themselves, the sobbing Bellatrix still trapped under the witch statue, and the baby
phoenix Fawkes croaking feebly on the floor
And then Harry's scar burst open and he knew he was dead: it was pain beyond imagining, pain past endurance.
He was gone from the hall, he was locked in the coils of a creature with red eyes, so tightly
bound that Harry did not know where his body ended and the creature’s began: they were fused
together, bound by pain, and there was no escape
And when the creature spoke, it used Harry’s mouth, so that in his agony he felt his jaw move
“Kill me now, Dumbledore…”
Blinded and dying, every part of him screaming for release, Harry felt the creature use him
again…
“If death is nothing, Dumbledore, kill the boy…”
Let the pain stop, thought Harry… let him kill us… end it, Dumbledore… death is nothing
compared to this…
And I’ll see Sirius again…
And as Harry’s heart filled with emotion, the creature’s coils loosened, the pain was gone; Harry
was lying face down on the floor, his glasses gone, shivering as though he lay upon ice, not
wood…
And there were voices echoing through the hall, more voices than there should have been…
Harry opened his eyes, saw his glasses lying by the heel of the headless statue that had been
guarding him, but which now lay flat on its back, cracked and immobile. He put them on and
raised his head a little to find Dumbledore’s crooked nose inches from his own.
“Are you all right, Harry?”
“Yes,” said Harry, shaking so violently he could not hold his head up properly. “Yeah, I’m -
where’s Voldemort, where - who are all these - what’s –”
The Atrium was full of people; the floor was reflecting the emerald green flames that had burst
into life in all the fireplaces along one wall; and streams of witches and wizards were emerging
from them. As Dumbledore pulled him back to his feet, Harry saw the tiny gold statues of the
house-elf and the goblin, leading a stunned-looking Cornelius Fudge forward.
“He was there!” shouted a scarlet-robed man with a ponytail, who was pointing at a pile of
golden rubble on the other side of the hall, where Bellatrix had lain trapped only moments
before. “I saw him, Mr. Fudge, I swear it was You-Know-Who, he grabbed a woman and
Disapparated!”
“I know, Williamson, I know, I saw him too!” gibbered Fudge, who was wearing pajamas under
his pinstriped cloak and was gasping as though he had just run miles. “Merlin’s beard - here -
here! - in the Ministry of Magic! - great heavens above - it doesn’t seem possible - my word -
how can this be -?”
“If you proceed downstairs into the Department of Mysteries, Cornelius,” said Dumbledore -
apparently satisfied that Harry was all right, and walking forwards so that the newcomers
realized he was there for the first time (a few of them raised their wands; others simply looked
amazed; the statues of the elf and goblin applauded and Fudge jumped so much that his slipperclad feet left the floor) - “you will find several escaped Death Eaters contained in the Death Chamber, bound by an Anti-Disapparation Jinx and awaiting your decision as to what to do with them.”
“Dumbledore!” gasped Fudge, beside himself with amazement. “You-here-I-I”
He looked wildly around at the Aurors he had brought with him and it could not have been
clearer that he was in half a mind to cry, “Seize him!”
“Cornelius, I am ready to fight your men - and win, again!” said Dumbledore in a thunderous
voice. “But a few minutes ago you saw proof, with your own eyes, that I have been telling you
the truth for a year. Lord Voldemort has returned, you have been chasing the wrong man for
twelve months, and it is time - you listened to sense!”
“I - don’t – well” blustered Fudge, looking around as though hoping somebody was going to tell
him what to do. When nobody did, he said, “Very well - Dawlish! Williamson! Go down to the
Department of Mysteries and see… Dumbledore, you - you will need to tell me exactly - the
Fountain of Magical Brethren - what happened?” he added in a kind of whimper, staring around
at the floor, where the remains of the statues of the witch, wizard and centaur now lay scattered.
“We can discuss that after I have sent Harry back to Hogwarts,” said Dumbledore.
“Harry - Harry Potter?”
Fudge wheeled around and stared at Harry, who was still standing against the wall beside the
fallen statue that had guarded him during Dumbledore and Voldemort’s duel.
“He - here?” said Fudge, goggling at Harry. “Why - what’s all this about?”
“I shall explain everything,” repeated Dumbledore, “when Harry is back at school.”
He walked away from the pool to the place where the golden wizard’s head lay on the floor. He
pointed his wand at it and muttered, “Portus.” The head glowed blue and trembled noisily against
the wooden floor for a few seconds, then became still once more.
“Now see here, Dumbledore!” said Fudge, as Dumbledore picked up the head and walked back to Harry carrying it. “You haven’t got authorization for that Portkey! You can’t do things like that right in front of the Minister for Magic, you – you”
His voice faltered as Dumbledore surveyed him magisterially over his half-moon spectacles.
“You will give the order to remove Dolores Umbridge from Hogwarts,” said Dumbledore. “You
will tell your Aurors to stop searching for my Care of Magical Creatures teacher so that he can
return to work. I will give you…” Dumbledore pulled a watch with twelve hands from his
pocket and surveyed it… “half an hour of my time tonight, in which I think we shall be more
than able to cover the important points of what has happened here. After that, I shall need to
return to my school. If you need more help from me you are, of course, more than welcome to
contact me at Hogwarts. Letters addressed to the Headmaster will find me.”
Fudge goggled worse than ever; his mouth was open and his round face grew pinker under his
rumpled grey hair.
“I - you”
Dumbledore turned his back on him.
“Take this Portkey, Harry.”
He held out the golden head of the statue and Harry placed his hand on it, past caring what he did
next or where he went.
“I shall see you in half an hour,” said Dumbledore quietly “One… two… three…”
Harry felt the familiar sensation of a hook being jerked behind his navel. The polished wooden
floor was gone from beneath his feet; the Atrium, Fudge and Dumbledore had all disappeared
and he was flying forwards in a whirlwind of color and sound…
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
The Lost Prophecy
Harry’s feet hit solid ground; his knees buckled a little and the golden wizard’s head fell with a
resounding dunk to the floor. He looked around and saw that he had arrived in Dumbledore’s
office.
Everything seemed to have repaired itself during the Headmaster’s absence. The delicate silver
instruments stood once more on the spindle-legged tables, puffing and whirring serenely the
portraits of the headmasters and headmistresses were snoozing in their frames, heads lolling back
in armchairs or against the edge of the picture. Harry looked through the window. There was a
cool line of pale green along the horizon: dawn was approaching.
The silence and the stillness, broken only by the occasional grunt or snuffle of a sleeping portrait,
was unbearable to him. If his surroundings could have reflected the feelings inside him, the
pictures would have been screaming in pain. He walked around the quiet, beautiful office,
breathing quickly, trying not to think. But he had to think… there was no escape…
It was his fault Sirius had died; it was all his fault. If he, Harry, had not been stupid enough to
fall for Voldemort’s trick, if he had not been so convinced that what he had seen in his dream
was real, if he had only opened his mind to the possibility that Voldemort was, as Hermione had
said, banking on Harry’s love of playing the hero…
It was unbearable, he would not think about it, he could not stand it… there was a terrible hollow
inside him he did not want to feel or examine, a dark hole where Sirius had been, where Sirius
had vanished; he did not want to have to be alone with that great, silent space, he could not stand
it -
A picture behind him gave a particularly loud grunting snore, and a cool voice said, “Ah…
Harry Potter…”
Phineas Nigellus gave a long yawn, stretching his arms as he surveyed Harry out of shrewd,
narrow eyes.
“And what brings you here in the early hours of the morning?” said Phineas eventually “This
office is supposed to be barred to all but the rightful Headmaster. Or has Dumbledore sent you
here? Oh, don’t tell me…” He gave another shuddering yawn. “Another message for my
worthless great-great-grandson?”
Harry could not speak. Phineas Nigellus did not know that Sirius was dead, but Harry could not
tell him. To say it aloud would be to make it final, absolute, irretrievable.
A few more of the portraits had stirred now. Terror of being interrogated made Harry stride
across the room and seize the doorknob.
It would not turn. He was shut in.
“I hope this means,” said the corpulent, red-nosed wizard who hung on the wall behind the
Headmaster’s desk, “that Dumbledore will soon be back among us?”
Harry turned. The wizard was surveying him with great interest. Harry nodded. He tugged again
on the doorknob behind his back, but it remained immovable.
“Oh good,” said the wizard. “It has been very dull without him, very dull indeed.”
He settled himself on the throne-like chair on which he had been painted and smiled benignly
upon Harry
“Dumbledore thinks very highly of you, as I am sure you know,” he said comfortably. “Oh yes.
Holds you in great esteem.”
The guilt filling the whole of Harry’s chest like some monstrous, weighty parasite, now writhed
and squirmed. Harry could not stand this, he could not stand being himself any more… he had
never felt more trapped inside his own head and body, never wished so intensely that he could be
somebody; anybody, else…
The empty fireplace burst into emerald green flame, making Harry leap away from the door,
staring at the man spinning inside the grate. As Dumbledore’s tall form unfolded itself from the
fire, the wizards and witches on the surrounding walls jerked awake, many of them giving cries
of welcome.
“Thank you,” said Dumbledore softly.
He did not look at Harry at first, but walked over to the perch beside the door and withdrew,
from an inside pocket of his robes, the tiny, ugly, featherless Fawkes, whom he placed gently on
the tray of soft ashes beneath the golden post where the full-grown Fawkes usually stood.
“Well, Harry,” said Dumbledore, finally turning away from the baby bird, “you will be pleased to hear that none of your fellow students are going to suffer lasting damage from the night’s
events.”
Harry tried to say, “Good,” but no sound came out. It seemed to him that Dumbledore was
reminding him of the amount of damage he had caused, and although Dumbledore was for once
looking at him directly, and although his expression was kindly rather than accusatory, Harry
could not bear to meet his eyes.
“Madam Pomfrey is patching everybody up,” said Dumbledore. “Nymphadora Tonks may need
to spend a little time in St. Mungo’s, but it seems she will make a full recovery.”
Harry contented himself with nodding at the carpet, which was growing lighter as the sky outside
grew paler. He was sure all the portraits around the room were listening closely to every word
Dumbledore spoke, wondering where Dumbledore and Harry had been, and why there had been
injuries.
“I know how you’re feeling, Harry,” said Dumbledore very quietly.
“No, you don’t,” said Harry, and his voice was suddenly loud and strong; white-hot anger leapt
inside him; Dumbledore knew nothing about his feelings.
“You see, Dumbledore?” said Phineas Nigellus slyly “Never try to understand the students. They
hate it. They would much rather be tragically misunderstood, wallow in self-pity, stew in their
own -”
“That’s enough, Phineas,” said Dumbledore.
Harry turned his back on Dumbledore and stared determinedly out of the window. He could see
the Quidditch stadium in the distance. Sirius had appeared there once, disguised as the shaggy
black dog, so he could watch Harry play… he had probably come to see whether Harry was as
good as James had been… Harry had never asked him…
“There is no shame in what you are feeling, Harry,” said Dumbledore’s voice. “On the contrary… the fact that you can feel pain like this is your greatest strength.”
Harry felt the white-hot anger lick his insides, blazing in the terrible emptiness, filling him with
the desire to hurt Dumbledore for his calmness and his empty words.
“My greatest strength, is it?” said Harry, his voice shaking as he stared out at the Quidditch
stadium, no longer seeing it. “You haven’t got a clue… you don’t know…”
“What don’t I know?” asked Dumbledore calmly.
It was too much. Harry turned around, shaking with rage.
“I don’t want to talk about how I feel, all right?”
“Harry, suffering like this proves you are still a man! This pain is part of being human”
“THEN - I - DON’T - WANT - TO - BE - HUMAN!” Harry roared, and he seized the delicate
silver instrument from the spindlelegged table beside him and flung it across the room; it
shattered into a hundred tiny pieces against the wall. Several of the pictures let out yells of anger
and fright, and the portrait of Armando Dippet said, “Really!”
“I DON’T CARE!” Harry yelled at them, snatching up a lunascope and throwing it into the
fireplace. “I’VE HAD ENOUGH, I’VE SEEN ENOUGH, I WANT OUT, I WANT IT TO END,
I DON’T CARE ANY MORE”
He seized the table on which the silver instrument had stood and threw that, too. It broke apart on
the floor and the legs rolled in different directions.
“You do care,” said Dumbledore. He had not flinched or made a single move to stop Harry
demolishing his office. His expression was calm, almost detached. “You care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it.”
“I - DON’T!” Harry screamed, so loudly that he felt his throat might tear, and for a second he
wanted to rush at Dumbledore and break him, too; shatter that calm old face, shake him, hurt
him, make him feel some tiny part of the horror inside himself.
“Oh, yes, you do,” said Dumbledore, still more calmly. “You have now lost your mother, your
father, and the closest thing to a parent you have ever known. Of course you care.”
“YOU DON’T KNOW HOW I FEEL!” Harry roared. “YOU - STANDING THERE – YOU”
But words were no longer enough, smashing things was no more help; he wanted to run, he
wanted to keep running and never look back, he wanted to be somewhere he could not see the
clear blue eyes staring at him, that hatefully calm old face. He turned on his heel and ran to the
door, seized the doorknob again and wrenched at it.
But the door would not open. Harry turned back to Dumbledore. “Let me out,” he said. He was
shaking from head to foot.
“No,” said Dumbledore, simply. For a few seconds they stared at each other.
“Let me out,” Harry said again.
“No,” Dumbledore repeated.
“If you don’t - if you keep me in here - if you don ‘t let me”
“By all means continue destroying my possessions,” said Dumbledore serenely. “I daresay I have
too many.”
He walked around his desk and sat down. behind it, watching Harry.
“Let me out,” Harry said yet again, in a voice that was cold and almost as calm as
Dumbledore’s.
“Not until I have had my say,” said Dumbledore.
“Do you - do you think I want to - do you think I give a - I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU’VE
GOT TO SAY!” Harry roared. “I don’t want to hear anything you’ve got to say!”
“You will,” said Dumbledore steadily. “Because you are not nearly as angry with me as you
ought to be. If you are to attack me, as I know you are close to doing, I would like to have
thoroughly earned it.”
“What are you talking -?”
“It is my fault that Sirius died,” said Dumbledore clearly. “Or should I say, almost entirely my
fault - I will not be so arrogant as to claim responsibility for the whole. Sirius was a brave, clever
and energetic man, and such men are not usually content to sit at home in hiding while they
believe others to be in danger. Nevertheless, you should never have believed for an instant that
there was any necessity for you to go to the Department of Mysteries tonight. If I had been open
with you, Harry, as I should have been, you would have known a long time ago that Voldemort
might try and lure you to the Department of Mysteries, and you would never have been tricked
into going there tonight. And Sirius would not have had to come after you. That blame lies with
me, and with me alone.”
Harry was still standing with his hand on the doorknob but was unaware of it. He was gazing at
Dumbledore, hardly breathing, listening yet barely understanding what he was hearing.
“Please sit down,” said Dumbledore. It was not an order, it was a request.
Harry hesitated, then walked slowly across the room now littered with silver cogs and fragments
of wood, and took the seat facing Dumbledore’s desk.
“Am I to understand,” said Phineas Nigellus slowly from Harry’s left, “that my great-great-grandson - the last of the Blacks - is dead?”
“Yes, Phineas,” said Dumbledore.
“I don’t believe it,” said Phineas brusquely.
Harry turned his head in time to see Phineas marching out of his portrait and knew that he had
gone to visit his other painting in Grimmauld Place. He would walk, perhaps, from portrait to
portrait, calling for Sirius through the house…
“Harry, I owe you an explanation,” said Dumbledore. “An explanation of an old man’s mistakes.
For I see now that what I have done, and not done, with regard to you, bears all the hallmarks of
the failings of age. Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they
forget what it was to be young… and I seem to have forgotten, lately…”
The sun was rising properly now; there was a rim of dazzling orange visible over the mountains
and the sky above it was colorless and bright. The light fell upon Dumbledore, upon the silver
of his eyebrows and beard, upon the lines gouged deeply into his face.
“I guessed, fifteen years ago,” said Dumbledore, “when I saw the scar on your forehead, what it
might mean. I guessed that it might be the sign of a connection forged between you and
Voldemort.”
“You’ve told me this before, Professor,” said Harry bluntly. He did not care about being rude. He
did not care about anything very much any more.
“Yes,” said Dumbledore apologetically. “Yes, but you see - it is necessary to start with your scar. For it became apparent, shortly after you rejoined the magical world, that I was correct, and that your scar was giving you warnings when Voldemort was close to you, or else feeling powerful emotion.”
“I know,” said Harry wearily.
“And this ability of yours - to detect Voldemort’s presence, even when he is disguised, and to
know what he is feeling when his emotions are roused - has become more and more pronounced
since Voldemort returned to his own body and his full powers.”
Harry did not bother to nod. He knew all of this already.
“More recently” said Dumbledore, “I became concerned that Voldemort might realize that this
connection between you exists. Sure enough, there came a time when you entered so far into his
mind and thoughts that he sensed your presence. I am speaking, of course, of the night when you
witnessed the attack on Mr. Weasley”
“Yeah, Snape told me,” Harry muttered.
“Professor Snape, Harry” Dumbledore corrected him quietly. “But did you not wonder why it was not I who explained this to you? Why I did not teach you Occlumency? Why I had not so much as looked at you for months?”
Harry looked up. He could see now that Dumbledore looked sad and tired.
“Yeah,” Harry mumbled. “Yeah, I wondered.”
“You see,” Dumbledore continued, “I believed it could not be long before Voldemort attempted
to force his way into your mind, to manipulate and misdirect your thoughts, and I was not eager
to give him more incentives to do so. I was sure that if he realized that our relationship was - or
had ever been - closer than that of headmaster and pupil, he would seize his chance to use you as
a means to spy on me. I feared the uses to which he would put you, the possibility that he might
try and possess you. Harry, I believe I was right to think that Voldemort would have made use of
you in such a way. On those rare occasions when we had close contact, I thought I saw a shadow
of him stir behind your eyes…”
Harry remembered the feeling that a dormant snake had risen in him, ready to strike, in those
moments when he and Dumbledore had made eye-contact.
“Voldemort’s aim in possessing you, as he demonstrated tonight, would not have been my
destruction. It would have been yours. He hoped, when he possessed you briefly a short while
ago, that I would sacrifice you in the hope of killing him. So you see, I have been trying, in
distancing myself from you, to protect you, Harry. An old man’s mistake…”
He sighed deeply. Harry was letting the words wash over him. He would have been so interested
to know all this a few months ago, but now it was meaningless compared to the gaping chasm
inside him that was the loss of Sirius; none of it mattered…
“Sirius told me you felt Voldemort awake inside you the very night that you had the vision of
Arthur Weasley’s attack. I knew at once that my worst fears were correct: Voldemort had
realized he could use you. In an attempt to arm you against Voldemort’s assaults on your mind, I
arranged Occlumency lessons with Professor Snape.”
He paused. Harry watched the sunlight, which was sliding slowly across the polished surface of
Dumbledore’s desk, illuminate a silver ink pot and a handsome scarlet quill. Harry could tell that
the portraits all around them were awake and listening raptly to Dumbledore’s explanation; he
could hear the occasional rustle of robes, the slight clearing of a throat. Phineas Nigellus had still
not returned…
“Professor Snape discovered,” Dumbledore resumed, “ that you had been dreaming about the door to the Department of Mysteries for months. Voldemort, of course, had been obsessed with the possibility of hearing the prophecy ever since he regained his body; and as he dwelled on the
door, so did you, though you did not know what it meant.
“And then you saw Rockwood, who worked in the Department of Mysteries before his arrest,
telling Voldemort what we had known all along - that the prophecies held in the Ministry of
Magic are heavily protected. Only the people to whom they refer can lift them from the shelves
without suffering madness: in this case, either Voldemort himself would have to enter the
Ministry of Magic, and risk revealing himself at last - or else you would have to take it for him.
It became a matter of even greater urgency that you should master Occlumency”
“But I didn’t,” muttered Harry. He said it aloud to try and ease the dead weight of guilt inside
him: a confession must surely relieve some of the terrible pressure squeezing his heart. “I didn’t
practice, I didn’t bother, I could’ve stopped myself having those dreams, Hermione kept telling
me to do it, if I had he’d never have been able to show me where to go, and - Sirius wouldn’t -
Sirius wouldn’t”
Something was erupting inside Harry’s head: a need to justify himself, to explain -
“I tried to check he’d really taken Sirius, I went to Umbridge’s office, I spoke to Kreacher in the
fire and he said Sirius wasn’t there, he said he’d gone!”
“Kreacher lied,” said Dumbledore calmly. “You are not his master, he could lie to you without
even needing to punish himself. Kreacher intended you to go to the Ministry of Magic.”
“He - he sent me on purpose?”
“Oh yes. Kreacher, I am afraid, has been serving more than one master for months.”
“How?” said Harry blankly. “He hasn’t been out of Grimmauld Place for years.”
“Kreacher seized his opportunity shortly before Christmas,” said Dumbledore, “when Sirius,
apparently, shouted at him to ‘get out’. He took Sirius at his word, and interpreted this as an order to leave the house. He went to the only Black family member for whom he had any respect left… Black’s cousin Narcissa, sister of Bellatrix and wife of Lucius Malfoy”
“How do you know all this?” Harry said. His heart was beating very fast. He felt sick. He
remembered worrying about Kreacher’s odd absence over Christmas, remembered him turning
up again in the attic…
“Kreacher told me last night,” said Dumbledore. “You see, when you gave Professor Snape that
cryptic warning, he realized that you had had a vision of Sirius trapped in the bowels of the
Department of Mysteries. He, like you, attempted to contact Sirius at once. I should explain that
members of the Order of the Phoenix have more reliable methods of communicating than the fire
in Dolores Umbridge’s office. Professor Snape found that Sirius was alive and safe in
Grimmauld Place.
“When, however, you did not return from your trip into the Forest with Dolores Umbridge,
Professor Snape grew worried that you still believed Sirius to be a captive of Lord Voldemort’s.
He alerted certain Order members at once.”
Dumbledore heaved a great sigh and continued, “Alastor Moody, Nymphadora Tonks, Kingsley
Shacklebolt and Remus Lupin were at Headquarters when he made contact. All agreed to go to
your aid at once. Professor Snape requested that Sirius remain behind, as he needed somebody to
remain at Headquarters to tell me what had happened, for I was due there at any moment. In the
meantime he, Professor Snape, intended to search the Forest for you.
“But Sirius did not wish to remain behind while the others went to search for you. He delegated
to Kreacher the task of telling me what had happened. And so it was that when I arrived in
Grimmauld Place shortly after they had all left for the Ministry, it was the elf who told me -
laughing fit to burst - where Sirius had gone.”
“He was laughing?” said Harry in a hollow voice.
“Oh, yes,” said Dumbledore. “You see, Kreacher was not able to betray us totally. He is not
Secret Keeper for the Order, he could not give the Malfoys our whereabouts, or tell them any of
the Order’s confidential plans that he had been forbidden to reveal. He was bound by the
enchantments of his kind, which is to say that he could not disobey a direct order from his
master, Sirius. But he gave Narcissa information of the sort that is very valuable to Voldemort,
yet must have seemed much too trivial for Sirius to think of banning him from repeating it.”
“Like what?” said Harry.
“Like the fact that the person Sirius cared most about in the world was you,” said Dumbledore
quietly. “Like the fact that you were coming to regard Sirius as a mixture of father and brother.
Voldemort knew already, of course, that Sirius was in the Order, and that you knew where he
was - but Kreacher’s information made him realize that the one person for whom you would go
to any lengths to rescue was Sirius Black.”
Harry’s lips were cold and numb.
“So… when I asked Kreacher if Sirius was there last night…”
“The Malfoys - undoubtedly on Voldemort’s instructions - had told him he must find a way of
keeping Sirius out of the way once you had seen the vision of Sirius being tortured. Then, if you
decided to check whether Sirius was at home or not, Kreacher would be able to pretend he was
not. Kreacher injured Buckbeak the Hippogriff yesterday, and, at the moment when you made
your appearance in the fire, Sirius was upstairs tending to him.”
There seemed to be very little air in Harry’s lungs; his breathing was quick and shallow.
“And Kreacher told you all this… and laughed?” he croaked.
“He did not wish to tell me,” said Dumbledore. “But I am a sufficiently accomplished Legilimens myself to know when I am being lied to and I - persuaded him - to tell me the full story, before I left for the Department of Mysteries.”
“And,” whispered Harry, his hands curled in cold fists on his knees, “and Hermione kept telling
us to be nice to him”
“She was quite right, Harry,” said Dumbledore. “I warned Sirius when we adopted twelve
Grimmauld Place as our Headquarters that Kreacher must be treated with kindness and respect. I
also told him that Kreacher could be dangerous to us. I do not think Sinus took me very
seriously, or that he ever saw Kreacher as a being with feelings as acute as a human’s”
“Don’t you blame - don’t you - talk - about Sirius like -” Harry’s breath was constricted, he could not get the words out properly; but the rage that had subsided briefly flared in him again: he would not let Dumbledore criticize Sirius. “Kreacher’s a lying - foul - he deserved –”
“Kreacher is what he has been made by wizards, Harry” said Dumbledore. “Yes, he is to be
pitied. His existence has been as miserable as your friend Dobby’s. He was forced to do Sirius’s
bidding, because Sirius was the last of the family to which he was enslaved, but he felt no true
loyalty to him. And whatever Kreacher’s faults, it must be admitted that Sirius did nothing to
make Kreacher’s lot easier”
“DON’T TALK ABOUT SIRIUS LIKE THAT!” Harry yelled.
He was on his feet again, furious, ready to fly at Dumbledore, who had plainly not understood
Sirius at all, how brave he was, how much he had suffered…
“What about Snape?” Harry spat. “You’re not talking about him, are you? When I told him
Voldemort had Sirius he just sneered at me as usual –”
“Harry, you know Professor Snape had no choice but to pretend not to take you seriously in front
of Dolores Umbridge,” said Dumbledore steadily, “but as I have explained, he informed the
Order as soon as possible about what you had said. It was he who deduced where you had gone
when you did not return from the Forest. It was he, too, who gave Professor Umbridge fake
Veritaserum when she was attempting to force you to tell her Sirius’s whereabouts.”
Harry disregarded this; he felt a savage pleasure in blaming Snape, it seemed to be easing his
own sense of dreadful guilt, and he wanted to hear Dumbledore agree with him.
“Snape - Snape g - goaded Sirius about staying in the house - he made out Sirius was a coward”
“Sirius was much too old and clever to have allowed such feeble taunts to hurt him,” said
Dumbledore.
“Snape stopped giving me Occlumency lessons!” Harry snarled. “He threw me out of his office!”
“I am aware of it,” said Dumbledore heavily “I have already said that it was a mistake for me not
to teach you myself, though I was sure, at the time, that nothing could have been more dangerous
than to open your mind even further to Voldemort while in my presence –”
“Snape made it worse, my scar always hurt worse after lessons with him” Harry remembered
Ron’s thoughts on the subject and plunged on “- how do you know he wasn’t trying to soften me
up for Voldemort, make it easier for him to get inside my –”
“I trust Severus Snape,” said Dumbledore simply “But I forgot - another old man’s mistake - that
some wounds run too deep for the healing. I thought Professor Snape could overcome his
feelings about your father - I was wrong.”
“But that’s okay, is it?” yelled Harry, ignoring the scandalized faces and disapproving mutterings
of the portraits on the walls. “It’s okay for Snape to hate my dad, but it’s not okay for Sirius to hate Kreacher?”
“Sirius did not hate Kreacher,” said Dumbledore. “He regarded him as a servant unworthy of
much interest or notice. Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright
dislike… the fountain we destroyed tonight told a lie. We wizards have mistreated and abused
our fellows for too long, and we are now reaping our reward.”
“SO SIRIUS DESERVED WHAT HE GOT, DID HE?” Harry yelled.
“I did not say that, nor will you ever hear me say it,” Dumbledore replied quietly. “Sirius was not a cruel man, he was kind to house-elves in general. He had no love for Kreacher, because
Kreacher was a living reminder of the home Sirius had hated.”
“Yeah, he did hate it!” said Harry, his voice cracking, turning his back on Dumbledore and
walking away. The sun was bright inside the room now and the eyes of all the portraits followed
him as he walked, without realizing what he was doing, without seeing the office at all. “You
made him stay shut up in that house and he hated it, that’s why he wanted to get out last night”
“I was trying to keep Sirius alive,” said Dumbledore quietly
“People don’t like being locked up!” Harry said furiously, rounding on him. “You did it to me all
last summer”
Dumbledore closed his eyes and buried his face in his longfingered hands. Harry watched him,
but this uncharacteristic sign of exhaustion, or sadness, or whatever it was from Dumbledore, did
not soften him. On the contrary, he felt even angrier that Dumbledore was showing signs of
weakness. He had no business being weak when Harry wanted to rage and storm at him.
Dumbledore lowered his hands and surveyed Harry through his half-moon glasses.
“It is time,” he said, “for me to tell you what I should have told you five years ago, Harry. Please sit down. I am going to tell you everything. I ask only a little patience. You will have your
chance to rage at me - to do whatever you like - when I have finished. I will not stop you.”
Harry glared at him for a moment, then flung himself back into the chair opposite Dumbledore
and waited.
Dumbledore stared for a moment at the sunlit grounds outside the window, then looked back at
Harry and said, “Five years ago you arrived at Hogwarts, Harry, safe and whole, as I had planned
and intended. Well - not quite whole. You had suffered. I knew you would when I left you on
your aunt and uncle’s doorstep. I knew I was condemning you to ten dark and difficult years.”
He paused. Harry said nothing.
“You might ask - and with good reason - why it had to be so. Why could some wizarding family
not have taken you in? Many would have done so more than gladly, would have been honored
and delighted to raise you as a son.
“My answer is that my priority was to keep you alive. You were in more danger than perhaps
anyone but I realized. Voldemort had been vanquished hours before, but his supporters - and
many of them are almost as terrible as he - were still at large, angry, desperate and violent. And I
had to make my decision, too, with regard to the years ahead. Did I believe that Voldemort was
gone for ever? No. I knew not whether it would be ten, twenty or fifty years before he returned,
but I was sure he would do so, and I was sure, too, knowing him as I have done, that he would
not rest until he killed you.
“I knew that Voldemort’s knowledge of magic is perhaps more extensive than any wizard alive. I knew that even my most complex and powerful protective spells and charms were unlikely to be
invincible if he ever returned to full power.
“But I knew, too, where Voldemort was weak. And so I made my decision. You would be
protected by an ancient magic of which he knows, which he despises, and which he has always,
therefore, underestimated - to his cost. I am speaking, of course, of the fact that your mother died
to save you. She gave you a lingering protection he never expected, a protection that flows in
your veins to this day. I put my trust, therefore, in your mother’s blood. I delivered you to her
sister, her only remaining relative.”
“She doesn’t love me,” said Harry at once. “She doesn’t give a damn -”
“But she took you,” Dumbledore cut across him. “She may have taken you grudgingly, furiously,
unwillingly, bitterly, yet still she took you, and in doing so, she sealed the charm I placed upon
you. Your mother’s sacrifice made the bond of blood the strongest shield I could give you.”
“I still don’t.”
“While you can still call home the place where your mother’s blood dwells, there you cannot be
touched or harmed by Voldemort. He shed her blood, but it lives on in you and her sister. Her
blood became your refuge. You need return there only once a year, but as long as you can still
call it home, while you are there he cannot hurt you. Your aunt knows this. I explained what I
had done in the letter I left, with you, on her doorstep. She knows that allowing you houseroom
may well have kept you alive for the past fifteen years.”
“Wait,” said Harry. “Wait a moment.”
He sat up straighter in his chair, staring at Dumbledore.
“You sent that Howler. You told her to remember - it was your voice –”
“I thought,” said Dumbledore, inclining his head slightly, “that she might need reminding of the
pact she had sealed by taking you. I suspected the Dementor attack might have awoken her to the
dangers of having you as a surrogate son.”
“It did,” said Harry quietly. “Well - my uncle more than her. He wanted to chuck me out, but after the Howler came she - she said I had to stay”
He stared at the floor for a moment, then said, “But what’s this got to do with – “
He could not say Sirius’s name.
“Five years ago, then,” continued Dumbledore, as though he had not paused in his story, “you
arrived at Hogwarts, neither as happy nor as well-nourished as I would have liked, perhaps, yet
alive and healthy. You were not a pampered little prince, but as normal a boy as I could have
hoped under the circumstances. Thus far, my plan was working well.
“And then… well, you will remember the events of your first year at Hogwarts quite as clearly
as I do. You rose magnificently to the challenge that faced you and sooner - much sooner - than I
had anticipated, you found yourself face to face with Voldemort. You survived again. You did
more. You delayed his return to full power and strength. You fought a man’s fight. I was…
prouder of you than I can say.
“Yet there was a flaw in this wonderful plan of mine,” said Dumbledore. “An obvious flaw that I
knew, even then, might be the undoing of it all. And yet, knowing how important it was that my
plan should succeed, I told myself that I would not permit this flaw to ruin it. I alone could
prevent this, so I alone must be strong. And here was my first test, as you lay in the hospital
wing, weak from your struggle with Voldemort.”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying,” said Harry.
“Don’t you remember asking me, as you lay in the hospital wing, why Voldemort had tried to kill you when you were a baby?”
Harry nodded.
“Ought I to have told you then?”
Harry stared into the blue eyes and said nothing, but his heart was racing again.
“You do not see the flaw in the plan yet? No… perhaps not. Well, as you know, I decided not to
answer you. Eleven, I told myself, was much too young to know. I had never intended to tell you
when you were eleven. The knowledge would be too much at such a young age.
“I should have recognized the danger signs then. I should have asked myself why I did not feel
more disturbed that you had already asked me the question to which I knew, one day, I must give
a terrible answer. I should have recognized that I was too happy to think that I did not have to do
it on that particular day… YOU were too young, much too young.
“And so we entered your second year at Hogwarts. And once again you met challenges even
grown wizards have never faced: once again you acquitted yourself beyond my wildest dreams.
You did not ask me again, however, why Voldemort had left that mark on you. We discussed
your scar, oh yes… we came very, very close to the subject. Why did I not tell you everything?
“Well, it seemed to me that twelve was, after all, hardly better than eleven to receive such
information. I allowed you to leave my presence, bloodstained, exhausted but exhilarated, and if
I felt a twinge of unease that I ought, perhaps, to have told you then, it was swiftly silenced. You
were still so young, you see, and I could not find it in myself to spoil that night of triumph…
“Do you see, Harry? Do you see the flaw in my brilliant plan now? I had fallen into the trap I had foreseen, that I had told myself I could avoid, that I must avoid.”
“I don’t –”
“I cared about you too much,” said Dumbledore simply. “I cared more for your happiness than
your knowing the truth, more for your peace of mind than my plan, more for your life than the
lives that might be lost if the plan failed. In other words, I acted exactly as Voldemort expects we
fools who love to act.
“Is there a Defense? I defy anyone who has watched you as I have - and I have watched you more closely than you can have imagined - not to want to save you more pain than you had already suffered. What did I care if numbers of nameless and faceless people and creatures were
slaughtered in the vague future, if in the here and now you were alive, and well, and happy? I
never dreamed that I would have such a person on my hands.
“We entered your third year. I watched from afar as you struggled to repel Dementors, as you
found Sirius, learned what he was and rescued him. Was I to tell you then, at the moment when
you had triumphantly snatched your godfather from the jaws of the Ministry? But now, at the age
of thirteen, my excuses were running out. Young you might be, but you had proved you were
exceptional. My conscience was uneasy, Harry. I knew the time must come soon…
“But you came out of the maze last year, having watched Cedric Diggory die, having escaped
death so narrowly yourself… and I did not tell you, though I knew, now Voldemort had
returned, I must do it soon. And now, tonight, I know you have long been ready for the
knowledge I have kept from you for so long, because you have proved that I should have placed
the burden upon you before this. My only Defense is this: I have watched you struggling under
more burdens than any student who as ever passed through this school and I could not bring
myself to add another - the greatest one of all.”
Harry waited, but Dumbledore did not speak.
“I still don’t understand.”
“Voldemort tried to kill you when you were a child because of a prophecy made shortly before
your birth. He knew the prophecy had been made, though he did not know its full contents. He
set out to kill you when you were still a baby, believing he was fulfilling the terms of the
prophecy. He discovered, to his cost, that he was mistaken, when the curse intended to kill you
backfired. And so, since his return to his body, and particularly since your extraordinary escape
from him last year, he has been determined to hear that prophecy in its entirety. This is the
weapon he has been seeking so assiduously since his return: the knowledge of how to destroy
you.”
The sun had risen fully now: Dumbledore’s office was bathed in it. The glass case in which the
sword of Godric Gryffindor resided gleamed white and opaque, the fragments of the instruments
Harry had thrown to the floor glistened like raindrops, and behind him, the baby Fawkes made
soft chirruping noises in his nest of ashes.
“The prophecy’s smashed,” Harry said blankly. “I was pulling Neville up those benches in the -
the room where the archway was, and I ripped his robes and it fell…”
“The thing that smashed was merely the record of the prophecy kept by the Department of
Mysteries. But the prophecy was made to somebody, and that person has the means of recalling
it perfectly”
“Who heard it?” asked Harry, though he thought he knew the answer already
“I did,” said Dumbledore. “On a cold, wet night sixteen years ago, in a room above the bar at the
Hog’s Head inn. I had gone there to see an applicant for the post of Divination teacher, though it
was against my inclination to allow the subject of Divination to continue at all. The applicant,
however, was the great-great-granddaughter of a very famous, very gifted Seer and I thought it
common politeness to meet her. I was disappointed. It seemed to me that she had not a trace of
the gift herself. I told her, courteously I hope, that I did not think she would be suitable for the
post. I turned to leave.”
Dumbledore got to his feet and walked past Harry to the black cabinet that stood beside
Fawkes’s perch. He bent down, slid back a catch and took from inside it the shallow stone basin,
carved with runes around the edges, in which Harry had seen his father tormenting Snape.
Dumbledore walked back to the desk, placed the Pensieve upon it, and raised his wand to his
own temple. From it, he withdrew silvery, gossamer-fine strands of thought clinging to the wand
and deposited them into the basin. He sat back down behind his desk and watched his thoughts
swirl and drift inside the Pensieve for a moment. Then, with a sigh, he raised his wand and
prodded the silvery substance with its tip.
A figure rose out of it, draped in shawls, her eyes magnified to enormous size behind her glasses,
and she revolved slowly; her feet in the basin. But when Sibyll Trelawney spoke, it was not in
her usual ethereal, mystic voice, but in the harsh, hoarse tones Harry had heard her use once
before:
“The one with the power to vanquish the - Dark Lord approaches… born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies… and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not… and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives… the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies…”
The slowly revolving Professor Trelawney sank back into the silver mass below and vanished.
The silence within the office was absolute. Neither Dumbledore nor Harry nor any of the
portraits made a sound. Even Fawkes had fallen silent.
“Professor Dumbledore?” Harry said very quietly, for Dumbledore, still staring at the Pensieve,
seemed completely lost in thought. “It… did that mean… what did that mean?”
“It meant,” said Dumbledore, “that the person who has the only chance of conquering Lord
Voldemort for good was born at the end of July, nearly sixteen years ago. This boy would be
born to parents who had already defied Voldemort three times.”
Harry felt as though something was closing in on him. His breathing seemed difficult again.
“It means - me?”
Dumbledore surveyed him for a moment through his glasses.
“The odd thing, Harry,” he said softly, “is that it may not have meant you at all. Sibyll’s prophecy could have applied to two wizard boys, both born at the end of July that year, both of whom had parents in the Order of the Phoenix, both sets of parents having narrowly escaped Voldemort three times. One, of course, was you. The other was Neville Longbottom.”
“But then… but then, why was it my name on the prophecy and not Neville’s?”
“The official record was re-labeled after Voldemort’s attack on you as a child,” said
Dumbledore. “It seemed plain to the keeper of the Hall of Prophecy that Voldemort could only
have tried to kill you because he knew you to be the one to whom Sibyll was referring.”
“Then - it might not be me?” said Harry
“I am afraid,” said Dumbledore slowly, looking as though every word cost him a great effort,
“that there is no doubt that it is you.”
“But you said - Neville was born at the end of July, too - and his mum and dad –”
“You are forgetting the next part of the prophecy, the final identifying feature of the boy who
could vanquish Voldemort… Voldemort himself would mark him as his equal. And so he did,
Harry. He chose you, not Neville. He gave you the scar that has proved both blessing and curse.”
“But he might have chosen wrong!” said Harry. “He might have marked the wrong person!”
“He chose the boy he thought most likely to be a danger to him,” said Dumbledore. “And notice
this, Harry: he chose, not the pureblood (which, according to his creed, is the only kind of wizard
worth being or knowing) but the half-blood, like himself. He saw himself in you before he had
ever seen you, and in marking you with that scar, he did not kill you, as he intended, but gave
you powers, and a future, which have fitted you to escape him not once, but four times so far -
something that neither your parents, nor Neville’s parents, ever achieved.”
“Why did he do it, then?” said Harry, who felt numb and cold. “Why did he try and kill me as a
baby? He should have waited to see whether Neville or I looked more dangerous when we were
older and tried to kill whoever it was then –”
“That might, indeed, have been the more practical course,” said Dumbledore, “except that
Voldemort’s information about the prophecy was incomplete. The Hog’s Head inn, which Sibyll
chose for its cheapness, has long attracted, shall we say, a more interesting clientele than the
Three Broomsticks. As you and your friends found out to your cost, and I to mine that night, it is
a place where it is never safe to assume you are not being overheard. Of course, I had not
dreamed, when I set out to meet Sibyll Trelawney, that I would hear anything worth overhearing.
My - our - one stroke of good fortune was that the eavesdropper was detected only a short way
into the prophecy and thrown from the building.”
“So he only heard -?”
“He heard only the beginning, the part foretelling the birth of a boy in July to parents who had
thrice defied Voldemort. Consequently, he could not warn his master that to attack you would be
to risk transferring power to you, and marking you as his equal. So Voldemort never knew that
there might be danger in attacking you, that it might be wise to wait, to learn more. He did not
know that you would have power the Dark Lord knows not–”
“But I don’t!” said Harry, in a strangled voice. “I haven’t any powers he hasn’t got, I couldn’t
fight the way he did tonight, I can’t possess people or - or kill them -”
“There is a room in the Department of Mysteries,” interrupted Dumbledore, “that is kept locked at all times. It contains a force that is at once more wonderful and more terrible than death, than
human intelligence, than the forces of nature. It is also, perhaps, the most mysterious of the many
subjects for study that reside there. It is the power held within that room that you possess in such
quantities and which Voldemort has not at all. That power took you to save Sirius tonight. That
power also saved you from possession by Voldemort, because he could not bear to reside in a
body so full of the force he detests. In the end, it mattered not that you could not close your
mind. It was your heart that saved you.”
Harry closed his eyes. If he had not gone to save Sirius, Sirius would not have died… More to
stave off the moment when he would have to think of Sirius again, Harry asked, without caring
much about the answer, “The end of the prophecy... it was something about neither... can live...”
“… while the other survives,” said Dumbledore.
“So,” said Harry, dredging up the words from what felt like a deep well of despair inside him,
“so does that mean that… that one of us has got to kill the other one… in the end?”
“Yes,” said Dumbledore.
For a long time, neither of them spoke. Somewhere far beyond the office walls, Harry could hear
the sound of voices, students heading down to the Great Hall for an early breakfast, perhaps. It
seemed impossible that there could be people in the world who still desired food, who laughed,
who neither knew nor cared that Sirius Black was gone forever. Sirius seemed a million miles
away already; even now a part of Harry still believed that if he had only pulled back that veil, he
would have found Sirius looking back at him, greeting him, perhaps, with his laugh like a bark…
“I feel I owe you another explanation, Harry,” said Dumbledore hesitantly. “You may, perhaps,
have wondered why I never chose you as a prefect? I must confess… that I rather thought… you
had enough responsibility to be going on with.”
Harry looked up at him and saw a tear trickling down Dumbledore’s face into his long silver
beard.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
The Second War Begins
HE-WHO-MUST-NOT-BE-NAMED RETURNS
“In a brief statement on Friday night, Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge confirmed that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has returned to this country and is active once more.
“‘It is with great regret that I must confirm that t he wizard styling himself Lord - well, you know
who I mean - is alive and among us again,’ said Fudge, looking tired and flustered as he
addressed reporters. ‘It is with almost equal regret that we report the mass revolt of the
Dementors of Azkaban, who have shown themselves averse to continuing in the Ministry’s
employ. We believe the Dementors are currently taking direction from Lord - Thingy.
“‘We urge the magical population to remain vigilant. The Ministry is currently publishing guides
to elementary home and personal Defense which will be delivered free to all wizarding homes
within the coming month.’
The Minister’s statement was met with dismay and alarm from the wizarding community, which
as recently as last Wednesday was receiving Ministry assurances that there was ‘no truth
whatsoever in these persistent rumors that You-Know-Who is operating amongst us once
more’.
“Details of the events that led to the Ministry turnaround are still hazy, though it is believed that
He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and a select band of followers (known as Death Eaters) gained
entry to the Ministry of Magic itself on Thursday evening.
“Albus Dumbledore, newly reinstated Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and
Wizardry, reinstated member of the International Confederation of Wizards and reinstated Chief
Warlock of the Wizengamot, has so far been unavailable for comment. He has insisted over the
past year that You-Know-Who is not dead, as was widely hoped and believed, but is recruiting
followers once more for afresh attempt to seize power. Meanwhile, the ‘Boy Who Lived’ –”
“There you are, Harry, I knew they’d drag you into it somehow,” said Hermione, looking over the top of the paper at him.
They were in the hospital wing. Harry was sitting on the end of Ron’s bed and they were both
listening to Hermione read the front page of the Sun day Prophet. Ginny, whose ankle had been
mended in a trice by Madam Pomfrey, was curled up at the foot of Hermione’s bed; Neville,
whose nose had likewise been returned to its normal size and shape, was in a chair between the
two beds; and Luna, who had dropped in to visit, clutching the latest edition of The Quibbler, was reading the magazine upside-down and apparently not taking in a word Hermione was saying.
“He’s the ‘boy who lived’ again now, though, isn’t he?” said Ron darkly. “Not such a deluded
show-off any more, eh?”
He helped himself to a handful of Chocolate Frogs from the immense pile on his bedside cabinet,
threw a few to Harry, Ginny and Neville and ripped off the wrapper of his own with his teeth.
There were still deep welts on his forearms where the brain’s tentacles had wrapped around him.
According to Madam Pomfrey, thoughts could leave deeper scarring than almost anything else,
though since she had started applying copious amounts of Dr. Ubbly’s Oblivious Unction there
seemed to have been some improvement.
“Yes, they’re very complimentary about you now, Harry,” said Hermione, scanning down the
article. “‘A lone voice of truth… perceived as unbalanced, yet never wavered in his story… forced to bear ridicule and slander… ’ Hmmm,” she said, frowning, “I notice they don’t mention the fact that it was them doing all the ridiculing and slandering in the Prophet…”
She winced slightly and put a hand to her ribs. The curse Dolohov had used on her, though less
effective than it would have been had he been able to say the incantation aloud, had nevertheless
caused, in Madam Pomfrey’s words, ‘quite enough damage to be going on with’. Hermione was
having to take ten different types of potion every day, was improving greatly, and was already
bored with the hospital wing.
“You-Know-Who’s Last Attempt to Take Over, pages two to four, What the Ministry Should
Have Told Us, page five, Why Nobody Listened to Albus Dumbledore, pages six to eight,
Exclusive Interview with Harry Potter, page nine… Well,” said Hermione, folding up the
newspaper and throwing it aside, “it’s certainly given them lots to write about. And that interview with Harry isn’t exclusive, it’s the one that was in The Quibbler months ago…”
“Daddy sold it to them,” said Luna vaguely, turning a page of The Quibbler. “He got a very good
price for it, too, so we’re going to go on an expedition to Sweden this summer to see if we can
catch a Crumple-Horned Snorkack.”
Hermione seemed to struggle with herself for a moment, then said, “That sounds lovely”
Ginny caught Harry’s eye and looked away quickly, grinning.
“So, anyway,” said Hermione, sitting up a little straighter and wincing again, “what’s going on in school?”
“Well, Flitwick’s got rid of Fred and George’s swamp,” said Ginny, “he did it in about three
seconds. But he left a tiny patch under the window and he’s roped it off”
“Why?” said Hermione, looking startled.
“Oh, he just says it was a really good bit of magic,” said Ginny, shrugging.
“I think he left it as a monument to Fred and George,” said Ron, through a mouthful of chocolate.
“They sent me all these, you know,” he told Harry, pointing at the small mountain of Frogs beside him. “Must be doing all right out of that joke shop, eh?”
Hermione looked rather disapproving and asked, “So has all the trouble stopped now
Dumbledore’s back?”
“Yes,” said Neville, “everything’s settled right back to normal.”
“I s’pose Filch is happy, is he?” asked Ron, propping a Chocolate Frog Card featuring
Dumbledore against his water jug.
“Not at all,” said Ginny “He’s really, really miserable, actually…” She lowered her voice to a
whisper. “He keeps saying Umbridge was the best thing that ever happened to Hogwarts…”
All six of them looked around. Professor Umbridge was lying in a bed opposite them, gazing up
at the ceiling. Dumbledore had strode alone into the Forest to rescue her from the centaurs; how
he had done it - how he had emerged from the trees supporting Professor Umbridge without so
much as a scratch on him - nobody knew, and Umbridge was certainly not telling. Since she had
returned to the castle she had not, as far as any of them knew, uttered a single word. Nobody
really knew what was wrong with her, either. Her usually neat mousy hair was very untidy and
there were still bits of twigs and leaves in it, but otherwise she seemed to be quite unscathed.
“Madam Pomfrey says she’s just in shock,” whispered Hermione.
“Sulking, more like,” said Ginny
“Yeah, she shows signs of life if you do this,” said Ron, and with his tongue he made soft clipclopping noises. Umbridge sat bolt upright, looking around wildly.
“Anything wrong, Professor?” called Madam Pomfrey, poking her head around her office door.
“No… no…” said Umbridge, sinking back into her pillows. “No, I must have been dreaming…”
Hermione and Ginny muffled their laughter in the bedclothes.
“Speaking of centaurs,” said Hermione, when she had recovered a little, “who’s Divination teacher now? Is Firenze staying?”
“He’s got to,” said Harry, “the other centaurs won’t take him back, will they?”
“It looks like he and Trelawney are both going to teach,” said Ginny
“Bet Dumbledore wishes he could’ve got rid of Trelawney for good,” said Ron, now munching on his fourteenth Frog. “Mind you, the whole subject’s useless if you ask me, Firenze isn’t a lot
better…”
“How can you say that?” Hermione demanded. “After we’ve just found out that there are real
prophecies?”
Harry’s heart began to race. He had not told Ron, Hermione or anyone else what the prophecy
had contained. Neville had told them it had smashed while Harry was pulling him up the steps in
the Death Room and Harry had not yet corrected this impression. He was not ready to see their
expressions when he told them that he must be either murderer or victim, there was no other
way…
“It is a pity it broke,” said Hermione quietly, shaking her head.
“Yeah, it is,” said Ron. “Still, at least You-Know-Who never found out what was in it either -
where are you going?” he added, looking both surprised and disappointed as Harry stood up.
“Er - Hagrid’s,” said Harry. “You know, he just got back and I promised I’d go down and see him and tell him how you two are.”
“Oh, all right then,” said Ron grumpily, looking out of the dormitory window at the patch of
bright blue sky beyond. “Wish we could come.”
“Say hello to him for us!” called Hermione, as Harry proceeded down the ward. “And ask him
what’s happening about… about his little friend!”
Harry gave a wave of his hand to show he had heard and understood as he left the dormitory.
The castle seemed very quiet even for a Sunday. Everybody was clearly out in the sunny
grounds, enjoying the end of their exams and the prospect of a last few days of term unhampered
by revision or homework. Harry walked slowly along the deserted corridor, peering out of
windows as he went; he could see people messing around in the air over the Quidditch pitch and
a couple of students swimming in the lake, accompanied by the giant squid.
He was finding it hard to decide whether he wanted to be with people or not; whenever he was in
company he wanted to get away and whenever he was alone he wanted company. He thought he
might really go and visit Hagrid, though, as he had not talked to him properly since he’d
returned…
Harry had just descended the last marble step into the Entrance Hall when Malfoy, Crabbe and
Goyle emerged from a door on the right that Harry knew led down to the Slytherin common
room. Harry stopped dead; so did Malfoy and the others. The only sounds were the shouts,
laughter and splashes drifting into the Hall from the grounds through the open front doors.
Malfoy glanced around - Harry knew he was checking for signs of teachers - then he looked back
at Harry and said in a low voice, “You’re dead, Potter.”
Harry raised his eyebrows.
“Funny” he said, “you’d think I’d have stopped walking around…”
Malfoy looked angrier than Harry had ever seen him; he felt a kind of detached satisfaction at the
sight of his pale, pointed face contorted with rage.
“You’re going to pay,” said Malfoy in a voice barely louder than a whisper. “I’m going to make
you pay for what you’ve done to my father…”
“Well, I’m terrified now,” said Harry sarcastically. “I s’pose Lord Voldemort’s just a warm-up act compared to you three - what’s the matter?” he added, for Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle had all
looked stricken at the sound of the name. “He’s your dad’s mate, isn’t he? Not scared of him,
are you?”
“You think you’re such a big man, Potter,” said Malfoy, advancing now, Crabbe and Goyle
flanking him. “You wait. I’ll have you. You can’t land my father in prison”
“I thought I just had,” said Harry.
“The Dementors have left Azkaban,” said Malfoy quietly. “Dad and the others’ll be out in no
time…”
“Yeah, I expect they will,” said Harry “Still, at least everyone knows what scumbags they are
now”
Malfoy’s hand flew towards his wand, but Harry was too quick for him; he had drawn his own
wand before Malfoy’s fingers had even entered the pocket of his robes.
“Potter!”
The voice rang across the Entrance Hall. Snape had emerged from the staircase leading down to
his office and at the sight of him Harry felt a great rush of hatred beyond anything he felt
towards Malfoy… whatever Dumbledore said, he would never forgive Snape… never…
“What are you doing, Potter?” said Snape, as coldly as ever, as he strode over to the four of them.
“I’m trying to decide what curse to use on Malfoy, sir,” said Harry fiercely.
Snape stared at him.
“Put that wand away at once,” he said curtly. “Ten points from Gryff-”
Snape looked towards the giant hour-glasses on the walls and gave a sneering smile.
“Ah. I see there are no longer any points left in the Gryffindor hour-glass to take away. In that
case, Potter, we will simply have to -”
“Add some more?”
Professor McGonagall had just stumped up the stone steps into the castle; she was carrying a
tartan carpetbag in one hand and leaning heavily on a walking stick with her other, but otherwise
looked quite well.
“Professor McGonagall!” said Snape, striding forwards. “Out of St. Mungo’s, I see!”
“Yes, Professor Snape,” said Professor McGonagall, shrugging off her traveling cloak, “I’m quite as good as new. You two - Crabbe – Goyle”
She beckoned them forwards imperiously and they came, shuffling their large feet and looking
awkward.
“Here,” said Professor McGonagall, thrusting her carpetbag into Crabbe’s chest and her cloak into Goyle’s; “take these up to my office for me.”
They turned and stumped away up the marble staircase.
“Right then,” said Professor McGonagall, looking up at the hourglasses on the wall. “Well, I think Potter and his friends ought to have fifty points apiece for alerting the world to the return of You-Know-Who! What say you, Professor Snape?”
“What?” snapped Snape, though Harry knew he had heard perfectly well. “Oh - well - I
suppose…”
“So that’s fifty each for Potter, the two Weasleys, Longbottom and Miss Granger,” said Professor McGonagall, and a shower of rubies fell down into the bottom bulb of Gryffindor’s hour-glass as she spoke. “Oh - and fifty for Miss Lovegood, I suppose,” she added, and a number of sapphires fell into Ravenclaw’s glass. “Now, you wanted to take ten from Mr. Potter, I think, Professor Snape - so there we are…”
A few rubies retreated into the upper bulb, leaving a respectable amount below nevertheless.
“Well, Potter, Malfoy I think you ought to be outside on a glorious day like this,” Professor
McGonagall continued briskly.
Harry did not need telling twice- he thrust his wand back inside his robes and headed straight for
the front doors without another glance at Snape and Malfoy.
The hot sun hit him with a blast as he walked across the lawns towards Hagrid’s cabin. Students
lying around on the grass sunbathing, talking, reading the Sunday Prophet and eating sweets,
looked up at him as he passed; some called out to him, or else waved, clearly eager to show that
they, like the Prophet, had decided he was something of a hero. Harry said nothing to any of
them. He had no idea how much they knew of what had happened three days ago, but he had so
far avoided being questioned and preferred to keep it that way.
He thought at first when he knocked on Hagrid’s cabin door that he was out, but then Fang came
charging around the corner and almost bowled him over with the enthusiasm of his welcome.
Hagrid, it transpired, was picking runner beans in his back garden.
“All righ’, Harry!” he said, beaming, when Harry approached the fence. “Come in, come in, we’ll have a cup o’ dandelion juice…”
“How’s things?” Hagrid asked him, as they settled d own at his wooden table with a glass apiece
of iced juice. “Yeh - er - feelin’ all righ’, are yeh?”
Harry knew from the look of concern on Hagrid’s face that he was not referring to Harry’s
physical well-being.
“I’m fine,” Harry said quickly, because he could no t bear to discuss the thing that he knew was in Hagrid’s mind. “So, where’re you been?”
“Bin hidin’ out in the mountains,” said Hagrid. “Up in a cave, like Sirius did when he –”
Hagrid broke off, cleared his throat gruffly, looked at Harry, and took a long draught of juice.
“Anyway, back now,” he said feebly.
“You - you look better,” said Harry, who was determined to keep the conversation moving away
from Sirius.
“Wha’?” said Hagrid, raising a massive hand and feeling his face. “Oh - oh yeah. Well, Grawpy’s loads better behaved now, loads. Seemed right pleased ter see me when I got back, ter tell yeh the truth. He’s a good lad, really… I’ve bin thinkin’ abou’ tryin’ ter find him a lady friend, actually…”
Harry would normally have tried to persuade Hagrid out of this idea at once; the prospect of a
second giant taking up residence in the Forest, possibly even wilder and more brutal than Grawp,
was positively alarming, but somehow Harry could not muster the energy necessary to argue the
point. He was starting to wish he was alone again, and with the idea of hastening his departure he
took several large gulps of his dandelion juice, half-emptying his glass.
“Ev’ryone knows yeh’ve bin tellin’ the truth now, Harry,” said Hagrid softly and unexpectedly. He was watching Harry closely. “Tha’s gotta be better, hasn’ it?”
Harry shrugged.
“Look…” Hagrid leaned towards him across the table, “I knew Sirius longer ‘n yeh did… he died in battle, an’ tha’s the way he’d’ve wanted ter go –”
“He didn’t want to go at all!” said Harry angrily.
Hagrid bowed his great shaggy head…
“Nah, I don’ reckon he did,” he said quietly. “But s till, Harry… he was never one ter sit aroun’ at home an’ let other people do the fightin’. He couldn’ve lived with himself if he hadn’ gone ter
help –”
Harry leapt up.
“I’ve got to go and visit Ron and Hermione in the hospital wing,” he said mechanically.
“Oh,” said Hagrid, looking rather upset. “Oh… all righ’ then, Harry… take care o’ yerself then, an’ drop back in if yeh’ve got a –”
“Yeah… right…”
Harry crossed to the door as fast as he could and pulled it open; he was out in the sunshine again
before Hagrid had finished saying goodbye, and walking away across the lawn. Once again,
people called out to him as he passed. He closed his eyes for a few moments, wishing they would
all vanish, that he could open his eyes and find himself alone in the grounds…
A few days ago, before his exams had finished and he had seen the vision Voldemort had planted in his mind, he would have given almost anything for the wizarding world to know he had been telling the truth, for them to believe that Voldemort was back, and to know that he was neither a liar nor mad. Now, however…
He walked a short way around the lake, sat down on its bank, sheltered from the gaze of passersby behind a tangle of shrubs, and stared out over the gleaming water, thinking…
Perhaps the reason he wanted to be alone was because he had felt isolated from everybody since
his talk with Dumbledore. An invisible barrier separated him from the rest of the world. He was -
he had always been - a marked man. It was just that he had never really understood what that
meant…
And yet sitting here on the edge of the lake, with the terrible weight of grief dragging at him,
with the loss of Sirius so raw and fresh inside, he could not muster any great sense of fear. It was
sunny, and the grounds around him were full of laughing people, and even though he felt as
distant from them as though he belonged to a different race, it was still very hard to believe as he
sat here that his life must include, or end in, murder…
He sat there for a long time, gazing out at the water, trying not to think about his godfather or to
remember that it was directly across from here, on the opposite bank, that Sirius had once
collapsed trying to fend off a hundred Dementors…
The sun had set before he realized he was cold. He got up and returned to the castle, wiping his
face on his sleeve as he went.
Ron and Hermione left the hospital wing completely cured three days before the end of term.
Hermione kept showing signs of wanting to talk about Sirius, but Ron tended to make `hushing
noises every time she mentioned his name. Harry was still not sure whether or not he wanted to
talk about his godfather yet; his wishes varied with his mood. He knew one thing, though:
unhappy as he felt at the moment, he would greatly miss Hogwarts in a few days’ time when he
was back at number four, Privet Drive. Even though he now understood exactly why he had to
return there every summer, he did not feel any better about it. Indeed, he had never dreaded his
return more.
Professor Umbridge left Hogwarts the day before the end of term. It seemed she had crept out of
the hospital wing during dinnertime, evidently hoping to depart undetected, but unfortunately for
her, she met Peeves on the way, who seized his last chance to do as Fred had instructed, and
chased her gleefully from the premises whacking her alternately with a walking stick and a sock
full of chalk. Many students ran out into the Entrance Hall to watch her running away down the
path and the Heads of Houses tried only half-heartedly to restrain them. Indeed, Professor
McGonagall sank back into her chair at the staff table after a few feeble remonstrances and was
clearly heard to express a regret that she could not run cheering after Umbridge herself, because
Peeves had borrowed her walking stick.
Their last evening at school arrived; most people had finished packing and were already heading
down to the end-of-term feast, but Harry had not even started.
“Just do it tomorrow!” said Ron, who was waiting by the door of their dormitory. “Come on, I’m
starving.”
“I won’t be long… look, you go ahead…”
But when the dormitory door closed behind Ron, Harry made no effort to speed up his packing.
The very last thing he wanted to do was to attend the Leaving Feast. He was worried that
Dumbledore would make some reference to him in his speech. He was sure to mention
Voldemort’s return; he had talked to them about it last year, after all…
Harry pulled some crumpled robes out of the very bottom of his trunk to make way for folded
ones and, as he did so, noticed a badly wrapped package lying in a corner of it. He could not
think what it was doing there. He bent down, pulled it out from underneath his trainers and
examined it.
He realized what it was within seconds. Sirius had given it to him just inside the front door of
number twelve Grimmauld Place. ‘Use it if you need me, all right?’
Harry sank down on to his bed and unwrapped the package. Out fell a small, square mirror. It
looked old; it was certainly dirty. Harry held it up to his face and saw his own reflection looking
back at him.
He turned the mirror over. There on the reverse side was a scribbled note from Sirius.
This is a two-way mirror, I’ve got the other. If you need to speak to me, just say my name into it; you’ll appear in my mirror and I‘ll be able to talk in yours. James and I used to use them when we were in separate detentions.
Harry’s heart began to race. He remembered seeing his dead parents in the Mirror of Erised four
years ago. He was going to be able to talk to Sirius again, right now, he knew it -
He looked around to make sure there was nobody else there; the dormitory was quite empty. He
looked back at the mirror, raised it in front of his face with trembling hands and said, loudly and
clearly, “Sirius.”
His breath misted the surface of the glass. He held the mirror even closer, excitement flooding
through him, but the eyes blinking back at him through the fog were definitely his own.
He wiped the mirror clear again and said, so that every syllable rang clearly through the room:
“Sirius Black!”
Nothing happened. The frustrated face looking back out of the mirror was still, definitely, his
own…
Sirius didn’t have his mirror on him when he went through the archway, said a small voice in
Harry’s head. That’s why it’s not working…
Harry remained quite still for a moment, then hurled the mirror back into the trunk where it
shattered. He had been convinced, for a whole, shining minute, that he was going to see Sirius,
talk to him again…
Disappointment was burning in his throat; he got up and began throwing his things pell-mell into
the trunk on top of the broken mirror -
But then an idea struck him… a better idea than a mirror… a much bigger, more important
idea… how had he never thought of it before - why had he never asked?
He was sprinting out of the dormitory and down the spiral staircase hitting the walls as he ran
and barely noticing; he hurtled across the empty common room, through the portrait hole and off
along the corridor, ignoring the Fat Lady, who called after him: “The feast is about to start, you
know, you’re cutting it very fine!”
But Harry had no intention of going to the feast…
How could it be that the place was full of ghosts whenever you didn’t need one, yet now…
He ran down staircases and along corridors and met nobody either alive or dead. They were all,
clearly, in the Great Hall. Outside his Charms classroom he came to a halt, panting and thinking
disconsolately that he would have to wait until later, until after the end of the feast…
But just as he had given up hope, he saw it - a translucent somebody drifting across the end of
the corridor.
“Hey - hey Nick! NICK!”
The ghost stuck its head back out of the wall, revealing the extravagantly plumed hat and
dangerously wobbling head of Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington.
“Good evening,” he said, withdrawing the rest of his body from the solid stone and smiling at
Harry “I am not the only one who is late, then? Though,” he sighed, “in a rather different sense, of course…”
“Nick, can I ask you something?”
A most peculiar expression stole over Nearly Headless Nick’s face as he inserted a finger in the
stiff ruff at his neck and tugged it a little straighter, apparently to give himself thinking time. He
desisted only when his partially severed neck seemed about to give way completely.
“Er - now, Harry?” said Nick, looking discomfited. “Can’t it wait until after the feast?”
“No - Nick - please,” said Harry, “I really need to talk to you. Can we go in here?”
Harry opened the door of the nearest classroom and Nearly Headless Nick sighed.
“Oh, very well,” he said, looking resigned. “I can’t pretend I haven’t been expecting it.”
Harry was holding the door open for him, but he drifted through the wall instead.
“Expecting what?” Harry asked, as he closed the door.
“You to come and find me,” said Nick, now gliding over to the window and looking out at the
darkening grounds. “It happens, sometimes… when somebody has suffered a… loss.”
“Well,” said Harry, refusing to be deflected. “You were right, I’ve - I’ve come to find you.”
Nick said nothing.
“It’s -” said Harry, who was finding this more awkward than he had anticipated, “it’s just - you’re dead. But you’re still here, aren’t you?”
Nick sighed and continued to gaze out at the grounds.
“That’s right, isn’t it?” Harry urged him. “You died, but I’m talking to you… you can walk around Hogwarts and everything, can’t you?”
“Yes,” said Nearly Headless Nick quietly, “I walk and talk, yes.”
“So, you came back, didn’t you?” said Harry urgently. “People can come back, right? As ghosts.
They don’t have to disappear completely. Well?” he added impatiently, when Nick continued to
say nothing.
Nearly Headless Nick hesitated, then said, “Not everyone can come back as a ghost.”
“What d’you mean?” said Harry quickly
“Only… only wizards.”
“Oh,” said Harry, and he almost laughed with relief. “Well, that’s okay then, the person I’m asking about is a wizard. So he can come back, right?”
Nick turned away from the window and looked mournfully at Harry.
“He won’t come back.”
“Who?”
“Sirius Black,” said Nick.
“But you did!” said Harry angrily. “You came back - you’re dead and you didn’t disappear -”
“Wizards can leave an imprint of themselves upon the earth, to walk palely where their living
selves once trod,” said Nick miserably. “But very few wizards choose that path.”
“Why not?” said Harry. “Anyway - it doesn’t matter - Sirius won’t care if it’s unusual, he’ll come back, I know he will!”
And so strong was his belief, Harry actually turned his head to check the door, sure, for a split
second, that he was going to see Sirius, pearly-white and transparent but beaming, walking
through it towards him.
“He will not come back,” repeated Nick. “He will have… gone on.”
“What d’you mean, ‘gone on’?” said Harry quickly “Gone on where? Listen - what happens when you die, anyway? Where do you go? Why doesn’t everyone come back? Why isn’t this place full of ghosts? Why -?”
“I cannot answer,” said Nick.
“You’re dead, aren’t you?” said Harry exasperatedly. “Who can answer better than you?”
“I was afraid of death,” said Nick softly. “I chose to remain behind. I sometimes wonder whether I oughtn’t to have… well, that is neither here nor there… in fact, I am neither here nor there…”
He gave a small sad chuckle. “I know nothing of the secrets of death, Harry, for I chose my feeble imitation of life instead. I believe learned wizards study the matter in the Department of
Mysteries -”
“Don’t talk to me about that place!” said Harry fiercely.
“I am sorry not to have been more help,” said Nick gently “Well… well, do excuse me… the
feast, you know…”
And he left the room, leaving Harry there alone, gazing blankly at the wall through which Nick
had disappeared.
Harry felt almost as though he had lost his godfather all over again in losing the hope that he
might be able to see or speak to him once more. He walked slowly and miserably back up
through the empty castle, wondering whether he would ever feel cheerful again.
He had turned the corner towards the Fat Lady’s corridor when he saw somebody up ahead
fastening a note to a board on the wall. A second glance showed him it was Luna. There were no
good hiding places nearby, she was bound to have heard his footsteps, and in any case, Harry
could hardly muster the energy to avoid anyone at the moment.
“Hello,” said Luna vaguely, glancing around at him as she stepped back from the notice.
“How come you’re not at the feast?” Harry asked.
“Well, I’ve lost most of my possessions,” said Luna serenely. “People take them and hide them,
you know. But as it’s the last night, I really do need them back, so I’ve been putting up signs.”
She gestured towards the noticeboard, upon which, sure enough, she had pinned a list of all her
missing books and clothes, with a plea for their return.
An odd feeling rose in Harry; an emotion quite different from the anger and grief that had filled
him since Sirius’s death. It was a few moments before he realized that he was feeling sorry for
Luna.
“How come people hide your stuff?” he asked her, frowning.
“Oh… well…” she shrugged. “I think they think I’m a bit odd, you know. Some people call me
‘Loony’ Lovegood, actually.”
Harry looked at her and the new feeling of pity intensified rather painfully.
“That’s no reason for them to take your things,” he said flatly. “D’you want help finding them?”
“Oh, no,” she said, smiling at him. “They’ll come back, they always do in the end. It was just that I wanted to pack tonight. Anyway… why aren’t you at the feast?”
Harry shrugged. “Just didn’t feel like it.”
“No,” said Luna, observing him with those oddly misty, protuberant eyes. “I don’t suppose you
do. That man the Death Eaters killed was your godfather, wasn’t he? Ginny told me.”
Harry nodded curtly, but found that for some reason he did not mind Luna talking about Sirius.
He had just remembered that she, too, could see Thestrals.
“Have you…” he began. “I mean, who… has anyone you known ever died?”
“Yes,” said Luna simply, “my mother. She was a quite extraordinary witch, you know, but she did like to experiment and one of her spells went rather badly wrong one day. I was nine.”
“I’m sorry” Harry mumbled.
“Yes, it was rather horrible,” said Luna conversationally. “I still feel very sad about it sometimes. But I’ve still got Dad. And anyway, it’s not as though I’ll never see Mum again, is it?”
“Er - isn’t it?” said Harry uncertainly.
She shook her head in disbelief.
“Oh, come on. You heard them, just behind the veil, didn’t you?”
“You mean…”
“In that room with the archway. They were just lurking out of sight, that’s all. You heard them.”
They looked at each other. Luna was smiling slightly. Harry did not know what to say, or to
think; Luna believed so many extraordinary things… yet he had been sure he had heard voices
behind the veil, too.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to help you look for your stuff?” he said.
“Oh, no,” said Luna. “No, I think I’ll just go down and have some pudding and wait for it all to
turn up… it always does in the end… well, have a nice holiday Harry”
“Yeah… yeah, you too.”
She walked away from him and, as he watched her go, he found that the terrible weight in his
stomach- seemed to have lessened slightly.
The journey home on the Hogwarts Express next day was eventful in several ways. Firstly
Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle, who had clearly been waiting all week for the opportunity to strike
without teacher witnesses, attempted to ambush Harry halfway down the train as he made his
way back from the toilet. The attack might have succeeded had it not been for the fact that they
unwittingly chose to stage the attack right outside a compartment full of D.A. members, who saw
what was happening through the glass and rose as one to rush to Harry’s aid. By the time Ernie
Macmillan, Hannah Abbott, Susan Bones, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Anthony Goldstein and Terry
Boot had finished using a wide variety of the hexes and jinxes Harry had taught them, Malfoy,
Crabbe and Goyle resembled nothing so much as three gigantic slugs squeezed into Hogwarts
uniforms as Harry, Ernie and Justin hoisted them into the luggage rack and left them there to
ooze.
“I must say, I’m looking forward to seeing Malfoy’s mother’s face when he gets off the train,” said Ernie, with some satisfaction, as he watched Malfoy squirm above him. Ernie had never quite got over the indignity of Malfoy docking points from Hufflepuff during his brief spell as a member of the Inquisitorial Squad.
“Goyle’s mum’ll be really pleased, though,” said Ron, who had come to investigate the source of the commotion. “He’s loads better looking now… anyway, Harry, the food trolley’s just stopped if you want anything…”
Harry thanked the others and accompanied Ron back to their compartment, where he bought a
large pile of cauldron cakes and pumpkin pasties. Hermione was reading the Daily Prophet again, Ginny was doing a quiz in The Quibbler and Neville was stroking his Mimbulus mimbletonia, which had grown a great deal over the year and now made odd crooning noises when touched.
Harry and Ron whiled away most of the journey playing wizard chess while Hermione read out
snippets from the Prophet. It was now full of articles about how to repel Dementors, attempts by
the Ministry to track down Death Eaters and hysterical letters claiming that the writer had seen
Lord Voldemort walking past their house that very morning…
“It hasn’t really started yet,” sighed Hermione gloomily, folding up the newspaper again. “But it
won’t be long now…”
“Hey, Harry” said Ron softly, nodding towards the glass window on to the corridor.
Harry looked around. Cho was passing, accompanied by Marietta Edgecombe, who was wearing
a balaclava. His and Cho’s eyes met for a moment. Cho blushed and kept walking. Harry looked
back down at the chessboard just in time to see one of his pawns chased off its square by Ron’s
knight.
“What’s - er - going on with you and her, anyway?” Ron asked quietly
“Nothing,” said Harry truthfully.
“I - er - heard she’s going out with someone else now,” said Hermione tentatively.
Harry was surprised to find that this information did not hurt at all. Wanting to impress Cho
seemed to belong to a past that was no longer quite connected with him; so much of what he had
wanted before Sirius’, death felt that way these days… the week that had elapsed since he had
last seen Sirius seemed to have lasted much, much longer; it stretched across two universes, the
one with Sirius in it, and the one without.
“You’re well out of it, mate,” said Ron forcefully. “I mean, she’s quite good-looking and all that,
but you want someone a bit more cheerful.”
“She’s probably cheerful enough with someone else,” said Harry, shrugging.
“Who’s she with now, anyway?” Ron asked Hermione, but it was Ginny who answered.
“Michael Corner,” she said.
“Michael - but –” said Ron, craning around in hiss eat to stare at her. “But you were going out
with him!”
“Not any more,” said Ginny resolutely. “He didn’t like Gryffindor beating Ravenclaw at
Quidditch, and got really sulky, so I ditched him and he ran off to comfort Cho instead.” She
scratched her nose absently with the end of her quill, turned The Quibbler upside-down and began marking her answers. Ron looked highly delighted.
“Well, I always thought he was a bit of an idiot,” he said, prodding his queen forwards towards
Harry’s quivering castle. “Good for you. Just choose someone - better - next time.”
He cast Harry an oddly furtive look as he said it.
“Well, I’ve chosen Dean Thomas, would you say he’s better?” asked Ginny vaguely.
“WHAT?” shouted Ron, upending the chessboard: Crookshanks went plunging after the pieces
and Hedwig and Pigwidgeon twittered and hooted angrily from overhead.
As the train slowed down in the approach to King’s Cross, Harry thought he had never wanted to
leave it less. He even wondered fleetingly what would happen if he simply refused to get off, but
remained stubbornly sitting there until the first of September, when it would take him back to
Hogwarts. When it finally puffed to a standstill, however, he lifted down Hedwig’s cage and
prepared to drag his trunk from the train as usual.
When the ticket inspector signaled to Harry, Ron and Hermione that it was safe to walk through
the magical barrier between platforms nine and ten, however, he found a surprise awaiting him
on the other side: a group of people standing there to greet him who he had not expected at all.
There was Mad-Eye Moody, looking quite as sinister with his bowler hat pulled low over his
magical eye as he would have done without it, his gnarled hands clutching a long staff, his body
wrapped in a voluminous traveling cloak. Tonks stood just behind him, her bright bubble-gumpink hair gleaming in the sunlight filtering through the dirty glass of the station ceiling, wearing heavily patched jeans and a bright purple T-shirt bearing the legend The Weird Sisters. Next to Tonks was Lupin, his face pale, his hair graying, a long and threadbare overcoat covering a shabby jumper and trousers. At the front of the group stood Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, dressed in their Muggle best, and Fred and George, who were both wearing brand-new jackets in some lurid green, scaly material.
“Ron, Ginny!” called Mrs. Weasley, hurrying forwards and hugging her children tightly “Oh, and Harry dear - how are you?”
“Fine,” lied Harry, as she pulled him into a tight embrace. Over her shoulder he saw Ron goggling at the twins’ new clothes.
“What are they supposed to be?” he asked, pointing at the jackets.
“Finest dragonskin, little bro’,” said Fred, giving his zip a little tweak. “Business is booming and
we thought we’d treat ourselves.”
“Hello, Harry” said Lupin, as Mrs. Weasley let go of Harry and turned to greet Hermione.
“Hi,” said Harry “I didn’t expect… what are you all doing here?”
“Well,” said Lupin with a slight smile, “we thought we might have a little chat with your aunt and uncle before letting them take you home.”
“I dunno if that’s a good idea,” said Harry at once.
“Oh, I think it is,” growled Moody, who had limped a little closer. “That’ll be them, will it,
Potter?”
He pointed with his thumb over his shoulder; his magical eye was evidently peering through the
back of his head and his bowler hat. Harry leaned an inch or so to the left to see where Mad-Eye
was pointing and there, sure enough, were the three Dursleys, who looked positively appalled to
see Harry’s reception committee.
“Ah, Harry” said Mr. Weasley, turning from Hermione ‘s parents, who he had just greeted
enthusiastically, and who were now taking it in turns to hug Hermione. “Well - shall we do it,
then?”
“Yeah, I reckon so, Arthur,” said Moody.
He and Mr. Weasley took the lead across the station towards the Dursleys, who were apparently
rooted to the floor. Hermione disengaged herself gently from her mother to join the group.
“Good afternoon,” said Mr. Weasley pleasantly to Uncle Vernon as he came to a halt right in front of him. “You might remember me, my name’s Arthur Weasley”
As Mr. Weasley had single-handedly demolished most o f the Dursleys’ living room two years
previously, Harry would have been very surprised if Uncle Vernon had forgotten him. Sure
enough, Uncle Vernon turned a deeper shade of puce and glared at Mr. Weasley, but chose not to
say anything, partly, perhaps, because the Dursleys were outnumbered two to one. Aunt Petunia
looked both frightened and embarrassed; she kept glancing around, as though terrified somebody
she knew would see her in such company. Dudley, meanwhile, seemed to be trying to look small
and insignificant, a feat at which he was failing extravagantly.
“We thought we’d just have a few words with you about Harry,” said Mr. Weasley, still smiling.
“Yeah,” growled Moody. “About how he’s treated when he’s at your place.”
Uncle Vernon’s moustache seemed to bristle with indignation. Possibly because the bowler hat
gave him the entirely mistaken impression that he was dealing with a kindred spirit, he addressed
himself to Moody.
“I am not aware that it is any of your business what goes on in my house -”
“I expect what you’re not aware of would fill several books, Dursley,” growled Moody.
“Anyway, that’s not the point,” interjected Tonks, whose pink hair seemed to offend Aunt Petunia more than all the rest put together, for she closed her eyes rather than look at her. “The point is, if we find out you’ve been horrible to Harry –”
“- And make no mistake, we’ll hear about it,” added Lupin pleasantly.
“Yes,” said Mr. Weasley, “even if you won’t let Harry use the fellytone –”
“Telephone,” whispered Hermione.
“- Yeah, if we get any hint that Potter’s been mistreated in any way, you’ll have us to answer to,”
said Moody.
Uncle Vernon swelled ominously. His sense of outrage seemed to outweigh even his fear of this
bunch of oddballs.
“Are you threatening me, sir?” he said, so loudly t hat passers-by actually turned to stare.
“Yes, I am,” said Mad-Eye, who seemed rather pleased that Uncle Vernon had grasped this fact
so quickly.
“And do I look like the kind of man who can be intimidated?” barked Uncle Vernon.
“Well…” said Moody, pushing back his bowler hat to reveal his sinisterly revolving magical eye.
Uncle Vernon leapt backwards in horror and collided painfully with a luggage trolley. “Yes, I’d
have to say you do, Dursley”
He turned away from Uncle Vernon to survey Harry.
“So, Potter… give us a shout if you need us. If we don’t hear from you for three days in a row,
we’ll send someone along…”
Aunt Petunia whimpered piteously. It could not have been plainer that she was thinking of what
the neighbors would say if they caught sight of these people marching up the garden path.
“Bye, then, Potter,” said Moody, grasping Harry’s shoulder for a moment with a gnarled hand.
“Take care, Harry,” said Lupin quietly. “Keep in touch.”
“Harry, we’ll have you away from there as soon as we can,” Mrs. Weasley whispered, hugging
him again.
“We’ll see you soon, mate,” said Ron anxiously, shaking Harry’s hand.
“Really soon, Harry” said Hermione earnestly. “We promise.”
Harry nodded. He somehow could not find words to tell them what it meant to him, to see them
all ranged there, on his side. Instead, he smiled, raised a hand in farewell, turned around and led
the way out of the station towards the sunlit street, with Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia and Dudley
hurrying along in his wake.