“Our headmaster is taking a short break,“ said Professor McGonagall, pointing at the Snape-shaped hole in the window.
“Professor!” Harry shouted his hand on his forehead, He could see the Inferi-filled lake sliding beneath him, and he felt a ghostly green boat bump into the underground shore, and Voldemort lept from it with murder in his heart–
“Professor, we’ve got to barricade the school, he’s coming now!“
“Very well. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is coming,” she told the other teachers. Sprout and Flitwick gasped. Slughorn let out a low groan. “Potter has work to do in the castle on Dumbledore’s orders. We need to put in place every protection of which we are capable while Potter does what he needs to do.”
“You realize , of course, that nothing we do will be able to keep out You-Know-Who indefinitely?” squeaked Flitwick.
“But we can hold him up.” said Professor Sprout.
“Thank you, Pomona,” said Professor McGonagall, and between the two witches there passed a look of grim understanding.
“I suggest we establish basic protection around the place, then gather our students and meet in the Great Hall. Most must be evacuated, though if any of those who are over age wish to stay and fight, I think they ought to be given the chance.“
“Agreed,” said Professor Sprout, already hurrying toward the door. “I shall meet you in the Great Hall in twenty minutes with my House.”
And as she jogged out of sight, they could hear her muttering, “Tentacula, Devil’s Snare. And Snargaluff pods…yes, I’d like to see the Death Eaters fighting those.”
“I can act from here,” said Flitwick, and although he could barely see out of it, he pointed his wand through the smashed window and started muttering incantations of great complexity. Harry heard a weird rushing noise, as though Flitwick had unleashed the power of the wind into the grounds.
“Professor,” Harry said, approaching the little Charms master. “Professor, I’m sorry to interrupt, but this is important. Have you got any idea where the diadem of Ravenclaw is?”
“–Protego Horribillis – the diadem of Ravenclaw?“ squeaked Flitwick. ”A little extra wisdom never goes amiss, Potter, but I hardly think it would be much use in this situation!“
“I only meant – do you know where it is? Have you ever seen it?”
“Seen it! Nobody has seen it in living memory! Long since lost, boy.”
Harry felt a mixture of desperate disappointment and panic. What, then, was the Horcrux?
“We shall meet you and your Ravenclaws in the Great Hall, Filius!“ said Professor McGonagall, beckoning to Harry and Luna to follow her.
They had just reached the door when Slughorn rumbled into speech.
“My word,“ he puffed, pale and sweaty, his walrus mustache aquiver. ”What a to-do! I’m not at all sure whether this is wise, Minerva. He is bound to find a way in, you know, and anyone who has tried to delay him will be in the most grievous peril–“
“I shall expect you and the Slytherins in the Great Hall in twenty minutes also.” said Professor McGonagall. “If you wish to leave with your students, we shall not stop you. But if any of you attempt to sabotage our resistance or take up arms against us within this castle, then, Horace, we duel to kill.”
“Minerva!” he said, aghast.
“The time has come for Slytherin House to decide upon its loyalties,“ interrupted Professor McGonagall. ”Go and wake your students, Horace.“
Harry did not stay to watch Slughorn splutter. He and Luna stayed after Professor McGonagall, who had taken up a position in the middle of the corridor and raised her wand.
“Piertotum–oh, for heaven’s sake, Filch, not now–“
The aged caretaker had just come hobbling into view, shouting “Students out of bed! Students in the corridors!”
“They’re supposed to be you blithering idiot!“ shouted McGonagall. ”Now go and do something constructive! Find Peeves!“
Friday, December 3, 2010
Along the corridors they raced
Along the corridors they raced, and one by one the Patronuses left them. Professor McGonagall’s tartan dressing gown rustled over the floor, and Harry and Luna jogged behind her under the Cloak.
They had descended two more floors when another set of quiet joined theirs. Harry, whose scar was still prickling, heard them first. He felt in the pouch around his neck for the Marauder’s Map, but before he could take it our, McGonagall too seemed to become aware of their company. She halted, raised her wand ready to duel, and said, “Who’s there?”
“It is I,” said a low voice.
From behind a suit of armor stepped Severus Snape.
Hatred boiled up in Harry at the sight of him. He had forgotten the details of Snape’s appearance in the magnitude of his crimes, forgotten how his greasy black hair hung in curtains around his thin face, how his black eyes had a dead, cold look. He was not wearing nightclothes, but was dressed in his usual black cloak, and he too was holding his wand ready for a fight.
“Where are the Carrows?” he asked quietly.
“Wherever you told them to be, I expect, Severus,” said Professor McGonagall.
Snape stepped nearer, and his eyes flitted over Professor McGonagall into the air around her, as if he knew that Harry was there. Harry held his wand up too, ready to attack.
“I was under the impression,“ said Snape, ”That Alecto had apprehended an intruder.“
“Really?” said Professor McGonagall. “And what gave you that impression?”
Snape mad a slight flexing movement of his left arm, where the Dark Mark was branded into his skin.
“Oh, but naturally,” said Professor McGonagall. “You Death Eaters have your own private means of communication, I forgot.”
Snape pretended not to have heard her. His eyes were still probing the air all about her, and he was moving gradually closer, with an air of hardly noticing what he was doing.
“I did not know that it was your night to patrol the corridors Minerva.“
“You have some objection?”
“I wonder what could have brought you out of our bed at this late hour?”
“I thought I heard a disturbance,” said Professor McGonagall.
“Really? But all seems calm.”
Snape looked into her eyes.
“Have you seen Harry Potter, Minerva? Because if you have. I must insist–”
Professor McGonagall moved faster than Harry could have believed. Her wand slashed through the air and for a split second Harry thought that Snape must crumple, unconscious, but the swiftness of his Shield Charm was such that McGonagall was thrown off balance. She brandished her wand at a touch on the wall and it flew out of its bracket. Harry, about to curse Snape, was forced to pull Luna out of the way of the descending flames, which became a ring of fire that filled the corridor and flew like a lasso at Snape– Then it was no longer fire, but a great black serpent that McGonagall blasted to smoke, which re-formed and solidified in seconds to become a swarm of pursuing daggers. Snape avoided them only by forcing the suit of armor in front of him, and with echoing clangs the daggers sank, one after another, into its breast–
“Minerva!” said a squeaky voice, and looking behind him, still shielding Luna from flying spells, Harry saw Professors Flitwick and Sprout sprinting up the corridor toward them in their nightclothes, with the enormous Professor Slughorn panting along at the rear.
“No!” squealed Flitwick, raising his wand. “You’ll do no more murder at Hogwarts!”
Flitwick’s spell hit the suit of armor behind which Snape had taken shelter. With a clatter it came to life. Snape struggled free of the crushing arms and sent it flying back toward his attackers. Harry and Luna had to dive sideways to avoid it as it smashed into the wall and shattered. When Harry looked up again, Snape was in full flight, McGonagall, Flitwick, and Sprout all thundering after him. He hurtled through a classroom door and, moments later, he heard McGonagall cry, “Coward! COWARD!”
“What’s happened, what’s happened?” asked Luna.
Harry dragged her to her feet and they raced along the corridor, trailing the Invisibility Cloak behind them, into the deserted classroom where Professors McGonagall, Flitwick, and Sprout were standing at a smashed window.
“He jumped,” said Professor McGonagall as Harry and Luna ran into the room.
“You mean he’s dead?“ Harry sprinted to the window, ignoring Flitwick’s and Sprout’s yells of shock at his sudden appearance.
“No, he’s not dead,“ said McGonagall bitterly. ”Unlike Dumbledore, he was still carrying a wand… and he seems to have learned a few tricks from his master.“
With a tingle of horror, Harry saw in the distance a huge, bat like shape flying through the darkness toward the perimeter wall.
There were heavy footfalls behind them, and a great deal of puffing. Slughorn had just caught up.
“Harry!“ he panted, massaging his immense chest beneath his emerald-green silk pajamas. “My dear boy… what a surprise…Minerva, do please explain…Severus…what…?”
They had descended two more floors when another set of quiet joined theirs. Harry, whose scar was still prickling, heard them first. He felt in the pouch around his neck for the Marauder’s Map, but before he could take it our, McGonagall too seemed to become aware of their company. She halted, raised her wand ready to duel, and said, “Who’s there?”
“It is I,” said a low voice.
From behind a suit of armor stepped Severus Snape.
Hatred boiled up in Harry at the sight of him. He had forgotten the details of Snape’s appearance in the magnitude of his crimes, forgotten how his greasy black hair hung in curtains around his thin face, how his black eyes had a dead, cold look. He was not wearing nightclothes, but was dressed in his usual black cloak, and he too was holding his wand ready for a fight.
“Where are the Carrows?” he asked quietly.
“Wherever you told them to be, I expect, Severus,” said Professor McGonagall.
Snape stepped nearer, and his eyes flitted over Professor McGonagall into the air around her, as if he knew that Harry was there. Harry held his wand up too, ready to attack.
“I was under the impression,“ said Snape, ”That Alecto had apprehended an intruder.“
“Really?” said Professor McGonagall. “And what gave you that impression?”
Snape mad a slight flexing movement of his left arm, where the Dark Mark was branded into his skin.
“Oh, but naturally,” said Professor McGonagall. “You Death Eaters have your own private means of communication, I forgot.”
Snape pretended not to have heard her. His eyes were still probing the air all about her, and he was moving gradually closer, with an air of hardly noticing what he was doing.
“I did not know that it was your night to patrol the corridors Minerva.“
“You have some objection?”
“I wonder what could have brought you out of our bed at this late hour?”
“I thought I heard a disturbance,” said Professor McGonagall.
“Really? But all seems calm.”
Snape looked into her eyes.
“Have you seen Harry Potter, Minerva? Because if you have. I must insist–”
Professor McGonagall moved faster than Harry could have believed. Her wand slashed through the air and for a split second Harry thought that Snape must crumple, unconscious, but the swiftness of his Shield Charm was such that McGonagall was thrown off balance. She brandished her wand at a touch on the wall and it flew out of its bracket. Harry, about to curse Snape, was forced to pull Luna out of the way of the descending flames, which became a ring of fire that filled the corridor and flew like a lasso at Snape– Then it was no longer fire, but a great black serpent that McGonagall blasted to smoke, which re-formed and solidified in seconds to become a swarm of pursuing daggers. Snape avoided them only by forcing the suit of armor in front of him, and with echoing clangs the daggers sank, one after another, into its breast–
“Minerva!” said a squeaky voice, and looking behind him, still shielding Luna from flying spells, Harry saw Professors Flitwick and Sprout sprinting up the corridor toward them in their nightclothes, with the enormous Professor Slughorn panting along at the rear.
“No!” squealed Flitwick, raising his wand. “You’ll do no more murder at Hogwarts!”
Flitwick’s spell hit the suit of armor behind which Snape had taken shelter. With a clatter it came to life. Snape struggled free of the crushing arms and sent it flying back toward his attackers. Harry and Luna had to dive sideways to avoid it as it smashed into the wall and shattered. When Harry looked up again, Snape was in full flight, McGonagall, Flitwick, and Sprout all thundering after him. He hurtled through a classroom door and, moments later, he heard McGonagall cry, “Coward! COWARD!”
“What’s happened, what’s happened?” asked Luna.
Harry dragged her to her feet and they raced along the corridor, trailing the Invisibility Cloak behind them, into the deserted classroom where Professors McGonagall, Flitwick, and Sprout were standing at a smashed window.
“He jumped,” said Professor McGonagall as Harry and Luna ran into the room.
“You mean he’s dead?“ Harry sprinted to the window, ignoring Flitwick’s and Sprout’s yells of shock at his sudden appearance.
“No, he’s not dead,“ said McGonagall bitterly. ”Unlike Dumbledore, he was still carrying a wand… and he seems to have learned a few tricks from his master.“
With a tingle of horror, Harry saw in the distance a huge, bat like shape flying through the darkness toward the perimeter wall.
There were heavy footfalls behind them, and a great deal of puffing. Slughorn had just caught up.
“Harry!“ he panted, massaging his immense chest beneath his emerald-green silk pajamas. “My dear boy… what a surprise…Minerva, do please explain…Severus…what…?”
“The d-diadem of Ravenclaw?
“The d-diadem of Ravenclaw? Of course not – hasn’t it been lost for centuries?“ She sat up a little straighter ”Potter, it was madness, utter madness, for you to enter this castle–“
“I had to,“ said Harry. ”Professor, there’s something hidden here that I’m supposed to find, and it could be the diadem– if I could just speak to Professor Flitwick–“
There was a sound of movement, of clinking glass. Amycus was coming round. Before Harry or Luna could act, Professor McGonagall rose to her feet, pointed her wand at the groggy Death Eater, and said, “Imperio.”
Amycus got up, walked over to his sister, picked up her wand, then shuffled obediently to Professor McGonagall and handed it over along with his own. Then he lay down on the floor beside Alecto. Professor McGonagall waved her wand again, and a length of shimmering silver rope appeared out of thin air and snaked around the Carrows, binding them tightly together.
“Potter,” said Professor McGonagall, turning to face him again with superb indifference to the Carrows’ predicament. “if He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named does indeed know that you are here–”
As she said it, a wrath that was like physical pain blazed through Harry, setting his scar on fire, and for a second he looked down upon a basin whose potion had turned clear, and saw that no golden locket lay safe beneath the surface–.
“Potter, are you all right.” said a voice, and Harry came back. He was clutching Luna’s shoulder to steady himself.
“Time’s running out, Voldemort’s getting nearer, Professor, I’m acting on Dumbledore’s orders, I must find what he wanted me to find! But we’ve got to get the students out while I’m searching the castle – It’s me Voldemort wants, but he won’t care about killing a few more or less, not now–“ not now he knows I’m attacking Horcruxes, Harry finished the sentence in his head.
“You’re acting on Dumbledore’s orders?” she repeated with a look of dawning wonder. Then she drew herself up to her fullest height.
“We shall secure the school against He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named while you search for this – this object.”
“Is that possible?”
“I think so,” said Professor McGonagall dryly, “we teachers are rather good at magic, you know. I am sure we will be able to hold him off for a while if we all put our best efforts into it. Of course, something will have to be done about Professor Snape–”
“Let me –”
“–and if Hogwarts is about to enter a state of siege, with the Dark Lord at the gates, it would indeed be advisable to take as many innocent people out of the way as possible. With the Floo Network under observation, and Apparition impossible within the grounds–“
“There’s a way,” said Harry quickly, and he explained about the passageway leading into the Hog’s Head.
“Potter, we’re talking about hundreds of students–”
“I know, Professor, but if Voldemort and the Death Eaters are concentrating on the school boundaries they won’t be interested in anyone who’s Disapparating out of Hog’s Head.”
“There’s something in that,“ she agreed. She pointed her wand at the Carrows, and a silver net fell upon their bound bodies, tied itself around them, and hoisted them into the air, where they dangled beneath the blue-and-gold ceiling like two large, ugly sea creatures. ”Come. We must alert the other Heads of House. You’d better put that Cloak back on.“
She marched toward the door, and as she did so she raised her wand. From the tip burst three silver cats with spectacle markings around their eyes. the Patronuses ran sleekly ahead, filling the spiral staircase with silvery light, as Professor McGonagall, Harry, and Luna hurried back down.
“I had to,“ said Harry. ”Professor, there’s something hidden here that I’m supposed to find, and it could be the diadem– if I could just speak to Professor Flitwick–“
There was a sound of movement, of clinking glass. Amycus was coming round. Before Harry or Luna could act, Professor McGonagall rose to her feet, pointed her wand at the groggy Death Eater, and said, “Imperio.”
Amycus got up, walked over to his sister, picked up her wand, then shuffled obediently to Professor McGonagall and handed it over along with his own. Then he lay down on the floor beside Alecto. Professor McGonagall waved her wand again, and a length of shimmering silver rope appeared out of thin air and snaked around the Carrows, binding them tightly together.
“Potter,” said Professor McGonagall, turning to face him again with superb indifference to the Carrows’ predicament. “if He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named does indeed know that you are here–”
As she said it, a wrath that was like physical pain blazed through Harry, setting his scar on fire, and for a second he looked down upon a basin whose potion had turned clear, and saw that no golden locket lay safe beneath the surface–.
“Potter, are you all right.” said a voice, and Harry came back. He was clutching Luna’s shoulder to steady himself.
“Time’s running out, Voldemort’s getting nearer, Professor, I’m acting on Dumbledore’s orders, I must find what he wanted me to find! But we’ve got to get the students out while I’m searching the castle – It’s me Voldemort wants, but he won’t care about killing a few more or less, not now–“ not now he knows I’m attacking Horcruxes, Harry finished the sentence in his head.
“You’re acting on Dumbledore’s orders?” she repeated with a look of dawning wonder. Then she drew herself up to her fullest height.
“We shall secure the school against He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named while you search for this – this object.”
“Is that possible?”
“I think so,” said Professor McGonagall dryly, “we teachers are rather good at magic, you know. I am sure we will be able to hold him off for a while if we all put our best efforts into it. Of course, something will have to be done about Professor Snape–”
“Let me –”
“–and if Hogwarts is about to enter a state of siege, with the Dark Lord at the gates, it would indeed be advisable to take as many innocent people out of the way as possible. With the Floo Network under observation, and Apparition impossible within the grounds–“
“There’s a way,” said Harry quickly, and he explained about the passageway leading into the Hog’s Head.
“Potter, we’re talking about hundreds of students–”
“I know, Professor, but if Voldemort and the Death Eaters are concentrating on the school boundaries they won’t be interested in anyone who’s Disapparating out of Hog’s Head.”
“There’s something in that,“ she agreed. She pointed her wand at the Carrows, and a silver net fell upon their bound bodies, tied itself around them, and hoisted them into the air, where they dangled beneath the blue-and-gold ceiling like two large, ugly sea creatures. ”Come. We must alert the other Heads of House. You’d better put that Cloak back on.“
She marched toward the door, and as she did so she raised her wand. From the tip burst three silver cats with spectacle markings around their eyes. the Patronuses ran sleekly ahead, filling the spiral staircase with silvery light, as Professor McGonagall, Harry, and Luna hurried back down.
“Trying – to get– through this damned
“Trying – to get– through this damned – door!” shouted Amycus. “Go and get Flitwick! Get him to open it, now!”
“But isn’t your sister in there” asked Professor McGonagall. “Didn’t Professor Flitwick let her in earlier this evening, at your urgent request? Perhaps she could open the door for you? Then you needn’t wake up half the castle.”
“She ain’t answering, you old besom! You open it! Darn! Do it, now!“
“Certainly, if you wish it,“ said Professor McGonagall, with awful coldness, There was a genteel tap of the knocker and the musical voice asked again.
“Where do Vanished objects go?”
“Into non being, which is to say, everything,” replied Professor McGonagall.
“Nicely phrased,” replied the eagle door knocker, and the door swung open.
The few Ravenclaws who had remained behind sprinted for the stairs as Amycus burst over the threshold, brandishing his wand. Hunched like his sister, he had a pallid, doughy face and tiny eyes, which fell at once on Alecto, sprawled motionless on the floor. He let out a yell of fury and fear.
“What’ve they done, the little whelps?“ he screamed. ”I’ll Cruciate the lot of ‘em till they tell me who did it – and what’s the Dark Lord going to say?“ he shrieked, standing over his sister and smacking himself on the forehead with his fist, ”We haven’t got him, and they’ve gone and killed her!“
“She’s only Stunned,” said Professor McGonagall impatiently, who had stooped down to examine Alecto. “She’ll be perfectly all right.”
“No she bludgering well won’t!” bellowed Amycus. “Not after the Dark Lord gets hold of her! She’s gone and sent for him, I felt me Mark burn, and he thinks we’ve got Potter!”
“‘Got Potter’?” said Professor McGonagall sharply, “What do you mean, ‘got Potter’?”
“He told us Potter might try and get inside Ravenclaw Tower, and to send for him if we caught him!”
“Why would Harry Potter try to get inside Ravenclaw Tower! Potter belongs in my House!”
Beneath the disbelief and anger, Harry heard a little strain of pride in her voice and affection for Minerva McGonagall gushed up inside him.
“We was told he might come in here!” said Carrow. “I dunno why, do I?”
Professor McGonagall stood up and her beady eyes swept the room. Twice they passed right over the place where Harry and Luna stood.
“We can push it off on the kids,” said Amycus, his pig like face suddenly crafty. “Yeah, that’s what we’ll do. We’ll say Alecto was ambushed by the kids, them kids up there” – he looked up at the starry ceiling toward the dormitories – “ and we’ll say they forced her to pres her Mark, and that’s why he got a false alarm…. He can punish them. Couple of kids more or less, what’s the difference?”
“Only the difference between truth and lie, courage and cowardice,“ said Professor McGonagall, who had turned pale, ”a difference, in short, which you and your sister seem unable to appreciate. But let me make one thing very clear. You are not going to pass off your many ineptitudes on the students of Hogwarts. I shall not permit it.“
“Excuse me?”
Amycus moved forward until he was offensively close to Professor McGonagall, his face within inches of hers. She refused to back away, but looked down at him as if he were something disgusting she had found stuck to the lavatory seat.
“It’s not a case of what you’ll permit, Minerva McGonagall. Your time’s over. It’s us what’s in charge here now, and you’ll back me up or you’ll pay the price.“
And he spat in her face.
Harry pulled the Cloak off himself, raised his wand, and said, “You shouldn’t have done that.”
As Amycus spun around, Harry shouted, “Crucio!”
The Death Eater was lifted off his feet. He writhed through the air like a drowning man, thrashing and howling in pain, and then, with a crunch and a shattering of glass, he smashed into the front of a bookcase and crumpled, insensible, to the floor. “I see what Bellatrix meant,” said Harry, the blood thundering through his brain, “you need to really mean it.”
“Potter!“ whispered Professor McGonagall, clutching her heart. “Potter – you’re here! What–? How–?” She struggled to pull herself together. “Potter, that was foolish!”
“He spat at you,” said Harry.
“Potter, I – that was very – gallant of you – but don’t you realize –?“
“Yeah, I do,” Harry assured her. Somehow her panic steadied him. “Professor McGonagall, Voldemort’s on the way.”
“Oh, are we allowed to say the name now?” asked Luna with an air of interest, pulling off the Invisibility Cloak. The appearance of a second outlaw seemed to overwhelm Professor McGonagall, who staggered backward and fell into a nearby chair, clutching at the neck of her old tartan dressing gown.
“I don’t think it makes any difference what we call him,” Harry told Luna. “He already knows where I am.”
In a distant part of Harry’s brain, that part connected to the angry, burning scar, he could see Voldemort sailing fast over the dark lake in the ghostly green boat…. He had nearly reached the island where the stone basin stood….
“You must flee,” whispered Professor McGonagall, “Now Potter, as quickly as you can!”
“I can’t,” said Harry, “There’s something I need to do. Professor, so you know where the diadem of Ravenclaw is?”
“But isn’t your sister in there” asked Professor McGonagall. “Didn’t Professor Flitwick let her in earlier this evening, at your urgent request? Perhaps she could open the door for you? Then you needn’t wake up half the castle.”
“She ain’t answering, you old besom! You open it! Darn! Do it, now!“
“Certainly, if you wish it,“ said Professor McGonagall, with awful coldness, There was a genteel tap of the knocker and the musical voice asked again.
“Where do Vanished objects go?”
“Into non being, which is to say, everything,” replied Professor McGonagall.
“Nicely phrased,” replied the eagle door knocker, and the door swung open.
The few Ravenclaws who had remained behind sprinted for the stairs as Amycus burst over the threshold, brandishing his wand. Hunched like his sister, he had a pallid, doughy face and tiny eyes, which fell at once on Alecto, sprawled motionless on the floor. He let out a yell of fury and fear.
“What’ve they done, the little whelps?“ he screamed. ”I’ll Cruciate the lot of ‘em till they tell me who did it – and what’s the Dark Lord going to say?“ he shrieked, standing over his sister and smacking himself on the forehead with his fist, ”We haven’t got him, and they’ve gone and killed her!“
“She’s only Stunned,” said Professor McGonagall impatiently, who had stooped down to examine Alecto. “She’ll be perfectly all right.”
“No she bludgering well won’t!” bellowed Amycus. “Not after the Dark Lord gets hold of her! She’s gone and sent for him, I felt me Mark burn, and he thinks we’ve got Potter!”
“‘Got Potter’?” said Professor McGonagall sharply, “What do you mean, ‘got Potter’?”
“He told us Potter might try and get inside Ravenclaw Tower, and to send for him if we caught him!”
“Why would Harry Potter try to get inside Ravenclaw Tower! Potter belongs in my House!”
Beneath the disbelief and anger, Harry heard a little strain of pride in her voice and affection for Minerva McGonagall gushed up inside him.
“We was told he might come in here!” said Carrow. “I dunno why, do I?”
Professor McGonagall stood up and her beady eyes swept the room. Twice they passed right over the place where Harry and Luna stood.
“We can push it off on the kids,” said Amycus, his pig like face suddenly crafty. “Yeah, that’s what we’ll do. We’ll say Alecto was ambushed by the kids, them kids up there” – he looked up at the starry ceiling toward the dormitories – “ and we’ll say they forced her to pres her Mark, and that’s why he got a false alarm…. He can punish them. Couple of kids more or less, what’s the difference?”
“Only the difference between truth and lie, courage and cowardice,“ said Professor McGonagall, who had turned pale, ”a difference, in short, which you and your sister seem unable to appreciate. But let me make one thing very clear. You are not going to pass off your many ineptitudes on the students of Hogwarts. I shall not permit it.“
“Excuse me?”
Amycus moved forward until he was offensively close to Professor McGonagall, his face within inches of hers. She refused to back away, but looked down at him as if he were something disgusting she had found stuck to the lavatory seat.
“It’s not a case of what you’ll permit, Minerva McGonagall. Your time’s over. It’s us what’s in charge here now, and you’ll back me up or you’ll pay the price.“
And he spat in her face.
Harry pulled the Cloak off himself, raised his wand, and said, “You shouldn’t have done that.”
As Amycus spun around, Harry shouted, “Crucio!”
The Death Eater was lifted off his feet. He writhed through the air like a drowning man, thrashing and howling in pain, and then, with a crunch and a shattering of glass, he smashed into the front of a bookcase and crumpled, insensible, to the floor. “I see what Bellatrix meant,” said Harry, the blood thundering through his brain, “you need to really mean it.”
“Potter!“ whispered Professor McGonagall, clutching her heart. “Potter – you’re here! What–? How–?” She struggled to pull herself together. “Potter, that was foolish!”
“He spat at you,” said Harry.
“Potter, I – that was very – gallant of you – but don’t you realize –?“
“Yeah, I do,” Harry assured her. Somehow her panic steadied him. “Professor McGonagall, Voldemort’s on the way.”
“Oh, are we allowed to say the name now?” asked Luna with an air of interest, pulling off the Invisibility Cloak. The appearance of a second outlaw seemed to overwhelm Professor McGonagall, who staggered backward and fell into a nearby chair, clutching at the neck of her old tartan dressing gown.
“I don’t think it makes any difference what we call him,” Harry told Luna. “He already knows where I am.”
In a distant part of Harry’s brain, that part connected to the angry, burning scar, he could see Voldemort sailing fast over the dark lake in the ghostly green boat…. He had nearly reached the island where the stone basin stood….
“You must flee,” whispered Professor McGonagall, “Now Potter, as quickly as you can!”
“I can’t,” said Harry, “There’s something I need to do. Professor, so you know where the diadem of Ravenclaw is?”
Thursday, December 2, 2010
“No, I heard you coming out of my pocket
“No, I heard you coming out of my pocket. Your voice,” he held up the Deluminator again, “came out of this.”
“And what exactly did I say?” asked Hermione, her tone somewhere between skepticism and curiosity.
“My name. ‘Ron.’ And you said… something about a wand….”
Hermione turned a fiery shade of scarlet. Harry remembered: it had been the first time Ron’s name had been said aloud by either of them since the day he had left; Hermione had mentioned it when talking about repairing Harry’s wand.
“So I took it out,” Ron went on, looking at the Deluminator, “and it didn’t seem different or anything, but I was sure I’d heard you. So I clicked it. And the light went out in my room, but another light appeared right outside the window.”
Ron raised his empty hand and pointed in front of him, his eyes focused on something neither Harry nor Hermione could see.
“It was a ball of light, kind of pulsing, and bluish, like that light you get around a Portkey, you know?”
“Yeah,” said Harry and Hermione together automatically.
“I knew this was it,” said Ron. “I grabbed my stuff and packed it, then I put on my rucksack and went out into the garden.”
“The little ball of light was hovering there, waiting for me, and when I came out it bobbed along a bit and I followed it behind the shed and then it… well, it went inside me.”
“Sorry?” said Harry, sure he had not heard correctly.
“It sort of floated toward me,” said Ron, illustrating the movement with his free index finger, “right to my chest, and then – it just went straight through. It was here,” he touched a point close to his heard, “I could feel it, it was hot. And once it was inside me, I knew what I was supposed to do. I knew it would take me where I needed to go. So I Disapparated and came out on the side of a hill. There was snow everywhere….”
“We were there,” said Harry. “We spent two nights there, and the second night I kept thinking I could hear someone moving around in the dark and calling out!”
“Yeah, well, that would’ve been me,” said Ron. “Your protective spells work, anyway, because I couldn’t see you and I couldn’t hear you. I was sure you were around, though, so in the end I got in my sleeping bag and waited for one of you to appear. I thought you’d have to show yourselves when you packed up the tent.”
“No, actually,” said Hermione. “We’ve been Disapparating under the Invisibility Cloak as an extra precaution. And we left really early, because as Harry says, we’d heard somebody blundering around.”
“Well, I stayed on that hill all day,” said Ron. “I kept hoping you’d appear. But when it started to get dark I knew I must have missed you, so I clicked the Deluminator again, the blue light came out and went inside me, and I Disapparated and arrived here in these woods. I still couldn’t see you, so I just had to hope one of you would show yourselves in the end – and Harry did. Well, I saw the doe first, obviously.”
“You saw the what?” said Hermione sharply.
They explained what had happened and as the story of the silver doe and the sword in the pool unfolded, Hermione frowned form one to the other of them, concentrating so hard she forgot to keep her limbs locked together.
“But it must have been a Patronus!” she said. “Couldn’t you see who was casting it? Didn’t you see anyone? And it led you to the sword! I can’t believe this! Then what happened?”
Ron explained how he had watched Harry jump into the pool, and had waited for him to resurface; how he had realized that something was wrong, dived in, and saved Harry, then returned for the sword. He got as far as the opening of the locket, then hesitated, and Harry cut in.
“– and Ron stabbed it with the sword.”
“And… and it went? Just like that?” she whispered.
“Well, it – it screamed,” said Harry with half a glance at Ron. “Here.”
He threw the locket into her lap; gingerly she picked it up and examined its punctured windows.
Deciding that it was at last safe to do so, Harry removed the Shield Charm with a wave of Hermione’s wand and turned to Ron.
“Did you just say now that you got away from the snatchers with a spare wand?”
“What?” said Ron, who had been watching Hermione examining the locket. “Oh – oh yeah.”
He tugged open a buckle on his rucksack and pulled a short dark wand out of his pocket. “Here, I figured it’s always handy to have a backup.”
“You were right,” said Harry, holding out his hand. “Mine’s broken.”
“You’re kidding?” Ron said, but at that moment Hermione got to her feet, and he looked apprehensive again.
Hermione put the vanquished Horcrux into the beaded bag, then climbed back into her bed and settled down without another word.
Ron passed Harry the new wand.
“About the best you could hope for, I think,” murmured Harry.
“Yeah,” said Ron. “Could’ve been worse. Remember those birds she set on me?”
“I still haven’t ruled it out,” came Hermione’s muffled voice from beneath her blankets, but Harry saw Ron smiling slightly as he pulled his maroon pajamas out of his rucksack.
“And what exactly did I say?” asked Hermione, her tone somewhere between skepticism and curiosity.
“My name. ‘Ron.’ And you said… something about a wand….”
Hermione turned a fiery shade of scarlet. Harry remembered: it had been the first time Ron’s name had been said aloud by either of them since the day he had left; Hermione had mentioned it when talking about repairing Harry’s wand.
“So I took it out,” Ron went on, looking at the Deluminator, “and it didn’t seem different or anything, but I was sure I’d heard you. So I clicked it. And the light went out in my room, but another light appeared right outside the window.”
Ron raised his empty hand and pointed in front of him, his eyes focused on something neither Harry nor Hermione could see.
“It was a ball of light, kind of pulsing, and bluish, like that light you get around a Portkey, you know?”
“Yeah,” said Harry and Hermione together automatically.
“I knew this was it,” said Ron. “I grabbed my stuff and packed it, then I put on my rucksack and went out into the garden.”
“The little ball of light was hovering there, waiting for me, and when I came out it bobbed along a bit and I followed it behind the shed and then it… well, it went inside me.”
“Sorry?” said Harry, sure he had not heard correctly.
“It sort of floated toward me,” said Ron, illustrating the movement with his free index finger, “right to my chest, and then – it just went straight through. It was here,” he touched a point close to his heard, “I could feel it, it was hot. And once it was inside me, I knew what I was supposed to do. I knew it would take me where I needed to go. So I Disapparated and came out on the side of a hill. There was snow everywhere….”
“We were there,” said Harry. “We spent two nights there, and the second night I kept thinking I could hear someone moving around in the dark and calling out!”
“Yeah, well, that would’ve been me,” said Ron. “Your protective spells work, anyway, because I couldn’t see you and I couldn’t hear you. I was sure you were around, though, so in the end I got in my sleeping bag and waited for one of you to appear. I thought you’d have to show yourselves when you packed up the tent.”
“No, actually,” said Hermione. “We’ve been Disapparating under the Invisibility Cloak as an extra precaution. And we left really early, because as Harry says, we’d heard somebody blundering around.”
“Well, I stayed on that hill all day,” said Ron. “I kept hoping you’d appear. But when it started to get dark I knew I must have missed you, so I clicked the Deluminator again, the blue light came out and went inside me, and I Disapparated and arrived here in these woods. I still couldn’t see you, so I just had to hope one of you would show yourselves in the end – and Harry did. Well, I saw the doe first, obviously.”
“You saw the what?” said Hermione sharply.
They explained what had happened and as the story of the silver doe and the sword in the pool unfolded, Hermione frowned form one to the other of them, concentrating so hard she forgot to keep her limbs locked together.
“But it must have been a Patronus!” she said. “Couldn’t you see who was casting it? Didn’t you see anyone? And it led you to the sword! I can’t believe this! Then what happened?”
Ron explained how he had watched Harry jump into the pool, and had waited for him to resurface; how he had realized that something was wrong, dived in, and saved Harry, then returned for the sword. He got as far as the opening of the locket, then hesitated, and Harry cut in.
“– and Ron stabbed it with the sword.”
“And… and it went? Just like that?” she whispered.
“Well, it – it screamed,” said Harry with half a glance at Ron. “Here.”
He threw the locket into her lap; gingerly she picked it up and examined its punctured windows.
Deciding that it was at last safe to do so, Harry removed the Shield Charm with a wave of Hermione’s wand and turned to Ron.
“Did you just say now that you got away from the snatchers with a spare wand?”
“What?” said Ron, who had been watching Hermione examining the locket. “Oh – oh yeah.”
He tugged open a buckle on his rucksack and pulled a short dark wand out of his pocket. “Here, I figured it’s always handy to have a backup.”
“You were right,” said Harry, holding out his hand. “Mine’s broken.”
“You’re kidding?” Ron said, but at that moment Hermione got to her feet, and he looked apprehensive again.
Hermione put the vanquished Horcrux into the beaded bag, then climbed back into her bed and settled down without another word.
Ron passed Harry the new wand.
“About the best you could hope for, I think,” murmured Harry.
“Yeah,” said Ron. “Could’ve been worse. Remember those birds she set on me?”
“I still haven’t ruled it out,” came Hermione’s muffled voice from beneath her blankets, but Harry saw Ron smiling slightly as he pulled his maroon pajamas out of his rucksack.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
“What?” he bellowed, writhing in his attempts
“What?” he bellowed, writhing in his attempts to free himself from Ron’s grip. “Wha’ve I done? Setting a bleedin’ ‘house-elf on me, what are you playing at, wha’ve I done, lemme go, lemme go, of – ”
“You’re not in much of a position to make threats,” said Harry. He threw aside the newspaper, crossed the kitchen in a few strides, and dropped to his knees beside Mundungus, who stopped struggling and looked terrified. Ron got up, panting, and watched as Harry pointed his wand deliberately at Mundungus’s nose. Mundungus stank of stale sweat and tobacco smoke. His hair was matted and his robes stained.
“Kreacher apologizes for the delay in bringing the thief, Master,” croaked the elf. “Fletcher knows how to avoid capture, has many hidey-holes and accomplices.
Nevertheless, Kreacher cornered the thief in the end.”
“You’ve done really well, Kreacher,” said Harry, and the elf bowed low.
“Right, we’ve got a few questions for you,” Harry told Mundungus, who shouted at once.
“I panicked, okay? I never wanted to come along, no offense, mate, but I never volunteered to die for you, an’ that was bleedin’ You-Know-Who come flying at me, anyone woulda got outta there. I said all along I didn’t wanna do it – ”
“For your information, none of the rest of us Disapparated,” said Hermione.
“Well, you’re a bunch of bleedin’ ‘eroes then, aren’t you, but I never pretended I was up for killing meself – ”
“We’re not interested in why you ran out on Mad-Eye,” said Harry, moving his wand a little closer to Mundungus’s baggy, bloodshot eyes. “We already knew you were an unreliable bit of scum.”
“Well then, why the ‘ell am I being ‘unted down by ‘ouse-elves? Or is this about them goblets again? I ain’t got none of ‘em left, or you could ‘ave ‘em – ”
“It’s not about the goblets either, although you’re getting warmer,” said Harry. “Shut up and listen.”
It felt wonderful to have something to do, someone of whom he could demand some small portion of truth. Harry’s wand was now so close to the bridge of Mundungus’s nose that Mundungus had gone cross-eyed trying to keep it in view.
“When you cleaned out this house of anything valuable,” Harry began, but Mundungus interrupted him again.
“Sirius never cared about any of the junk – ”
There was the sound of pattering fee, a blaze of shining copper, an echoing clang, and a shriek of agony; Kreacher had taken a run at Mundungus and hit him over the head with a saucepan.
“Call ‘im off, call ‘im off, ‘e should be locked up!” screamed Mundungus, cowering as Kreacher raised the heavy-bottomed pan again.
“Kreacher, no!” shouted Harry.
Kreacher’s thin arms trembled with the weight of the pan, still held aloft.
“Perhaps just one more, Master Harry, for luck?”
Ron laughed.
“We need him conscious, Kreacher, but if he needs persuading, you can do the honors,” said Harry.
“Thank you very much, Master,” said Kreacher with a bow, and he retreated a short distance, his great pale eyes still fixed upon Mundungus with loathing.
“When you stripped this house of all the valuables you could find,” Harry began again, “you took a bunch of stuff from the kitchen cupboard. There was a locket there.” Harry’s mouth was suddenly dry: He could sense Ron and Hermione’s tension and excitement too. “What did you do with it?”
“Why?” asked Mundungus. “Is it valuable?”
“You’ve still got it!” cried Hermione.
“No, he hasn’t,” said Ron shrewdly. “He’s wondering whether he should have asked more money for it.”
“More?” said Mundungus. “That wouldn’t have been effing difficult…bleedin’ gave it away, di’n’ I? No choice.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was selling in Diagon Alley and she come up to me and asks if I’ve got a license for trading in magical artifacts. Bleedin’ snoop. She was gonna fine me, but she took a fancy to the locket an’ told me she’d take it and let me off that time, and to fink meself lucky.”
“Who was this woman?” asked Harry.
“I dunno, some Ministry hag.”
Mundungus considered for a moment, brow wrinkled.
“Little woman. Bow on top of ‘er head.”
He frowned and then added, “Looked like a toad.”
Harry dropped his wand: It hit Mundungus on the nose and shot red sparks into his eyebrows, which ignited.
“Aquamenti!” screamed Hermione, and a jet of water streamed from her wand, engulfing a spluttering and choking Mundungus.
Harry looked up and saw his own shock reflected in Ron’s and Hermione’s faces. The scars on the back of his right hand seemed to be tingling again.
“You’re not in much of a position to make threats,” said Harry. He threw aside the newspaper, crossed the kitchen in a few strides, and dropped to his knees beside Mundungus, who stopped struggling and looked terrified. Ron got up, panting, and watched as Harry pointed his wand deliberately at Mundungus’s nose. Mundungus stank of stale sweat and tobacco smoke. His hair was matted and his robes stained.
“Kreacher apologizes for the delay in bringing the thief, Master,” croaked the elf. “Fletcher knows how to avoid capture, has many hidey-holes and accomplices.
Nevertheless, Kreacher cornered the thief in the end.”
“You’ve done really well, Kreacher,” said Harry, and the elf bowed low.
“Right, we’ve got a few questions for you,” Harry told Mundungus, who shouted at once.
“I panicked, okay? I never wanted to come along, no offense, mate, but I never volunteered to die for you, an’ that was bleedin’ You-Know-Who come flying at me, anyone woulda got outta there. I said all along I didn’t wanna do it – ”
“For your information, none of the rest of us Disapparated,” said Hermione.
“Well, you’re a bunch of bleedin’ ‘eroes then, aren’t you, but I never pretended I was up for killing meself – ”
“We’re not interested in why you ran out on Mad-Eye,” said Harry, moving his wand a little closer to Mundungus’s baggy, bloodshot eyes. “We already knew you were an unreliable bit of scum.”
“Well then, why the ‘ell am I being ‘unted down by ‘ouse-elves? Or is this about them goblets again? I ain’t got none of ‘em left, or you could ‘ave ‘em – ”
“It’s not about the goblets either, although you’re getting warmer,” said Harry. “Shut up and listen.”
It felt wonderful to have something to do, someone of whom he could demand some small portion of truth. Harry’s wand was now so close to the bridge of Mundungus’s nose that Mundungus had gone cross-eyed trying to keep it in view.
“When you cleaned out this house of anything valuable,” Harry began, but Mundungus interrupted him again.
“Sirius never cared about any of the junk – ”
There was the sound of pattering fee, a blaze of shining copper, an echoing clang, and a shriek of agony; Kreacher had taken a run at Mundungus and hit him over the head with a saucepan.
“Call ‘im off, call ‘im off, ‘e should be locked up!” screamed Mundungus, cowering as Kreacher raised the heavy-bottomed pan again.
“Kreacher, no!” shouted Harry.
Kreacher’s thin arms trembled with the weight of the pan, still held aloft.
“Perhaps just one more, Master Harry, for luck?”
Ron laughed.
“We need him conscious, Kreacher, but if he needs persuading, you can do the honors,” said Harry.
“Thank you very much, Master,” said Kreacher with a bow, and he retreated a short distance, his great pale eyes still fixed upon Mundungus with loathing.
“When you stripped this house of all the valuables you could find,” Harry began again, “you took a bunch of stuff from the kitchen cupboard. There was a locket there.” Harry’s mouth was suddenly dry: He could sense Ron and Hermione’s tension and excitement too. “What did you do with it?”
“Why?” asked Mundungus. “Is it valuable?”
“You’ve still got it!” cried Hermione.
“No, he hasn’t,” said Ron shrewdly. “He’s wondering whether he should have asked more money for it.”
“More?” said Mundungus. “That wouldn’t have been effing difficult…bleedin’ gave it away, di’n’ I? No choice.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was selling in Diagon Alley and she come up to me and asks if I’ve got a license for trading in magical artifacts. Bleedin’ snoop. She was gonna fine me, but she took a fancy to the locket an’ told me she’d take it and let me off that time, and to fink meself lucky.”
“Who was this woman?” asked Harry.
“I dunno, some Ministry hag.”
Mundungus considered for a moment, brow wrinkled.
“Little woman. Bow on top of ‘er head.”
He frowned and then added, “Looked like a toad.”
Harry dropped his wand: It hit Mundungus on the nose and shot red sparks into his eyebrows, which ignited.
“Aquamenti!” screamed Hermione, and a jet of water streamed from her wand, engulfing a spluttering and choking Mundungus.
Harry looked up and saw his own shock reflected in Ron’s and Hermione’s faces. The scars on the back of his right hand seemed to be tingling again.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
That was the period of our lives when
That was the period of our lives when we had least contact. I wrote to Albus, describing, perhaps insensitively, the wonders of my journey, from narrow escapes from chimaeras in Greece to the experiments of the Egyptian alchemists. His letters told me little of his day-to-day life, which I guessed to be frustratingly dull for such a brilliant wizard. Immersed in my own experiences, it was with horror that I heard, toward the end of my year’s travels, that another tragedy had struck the Dumbledores: the death of his sister, Ariana.
Though Ariana had been in poor health for a long time, the blow, coming so soon after the loss of their mother, had a profound effect on both of her brothers. All those closest to Albus – and I count myself one of that lucky number – agree that Ariana’s death, and Albus’s feeling of personal responsibility for it (though, of course, he was guiltless), left their mark upon him forevermore.
I returned home to find a young man who had experienced a much older person’s suffering. Albus was more reserved than before, and much less light-hearted. To add to his misery, the loss of Ariana had led, not to a renewed closeness between Albus and Aberforth, but to an estrangement. (In time this would lift – in later years they reestablished, if not a close relationship, then certainly a cordial one.) However, he rarely spoke of his parents or of Ariana from then on, and his friends learned not to mention them.
Other quills will describe the triumphs of the following years. Dumbledore’s innumerable contributions to the store of Wizarding knowledge, including his discovery of the twelve uses of dragon’s blood, will benefit generations to come, as will the wisdom he displayed in the many judgments while Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. They say, still, that no Wizarding duel ever matched that between Dumbledore and Grindelwald in 1945. Those who witnessed it have written of the terror and the awe they felt as they watched these two extraordinary wizards to battle. Dumbledore’s triumph, and its consequences for the Wizarding world, are considered a turning point in magical history to match the introduction of the International Statute of Secrecy or the downfall of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.
Albus Dumbledore was never proud or vain; he could find something to value in anyone, however apparently insignificant or wretched, and I believe that his early losses endowed him with great humanity and sympathy. I shall miss his friendship more than I can say, but my loss is nothing compared to the Wizarding world’s. That he was the most inspiring and best loved of all Hogwarts headmasters cannot be in question. He died as he lived: working always for the greater good and, to his last hour, as willing to stretch out a hand to a small boy with dragon pox as he was on the day I met him.
Harry finished reading, but continued to gaze at the picture accompanying the obituary. Dumbledore was wearing his familiar, kindly smile, but as he peered over the top of his half-moon spectacles, he gave the impression, even in newsprint, of X-raying Harry, whose sadness mingled with a sense of humiliation.
He had thought he knew Dumbledore quite well, but ever since reading this obituary he had been forced to recognize that he had barely known him at all. Never once had he imagined Dumbledore’s childhood or youth; it was as though he had sprung into being as Harry had known him, venerable and silver-haired and old. The idea of a teenage Dumbledore was simply odd, like trying to imagine a stupid Hermione or a friendly Blast-Ended Skrewt.
He had never thought to ask Dumbledore about his past. No doubt it would have felt strange, impertinent even, but after all it had been common knowledge that Dumbledore had taken part in that legendary duel with Grindelwald, and Harry had not thought to ask Dumbledore what that had been like, nor about any of his other famous achievements. No, they had always discussed Harry, Harry’s past, Harry’s future, Harry’s plans… and it seemed to Harry now, despite the fact that his future was so dangerous and so uncertain, that he had missed irreplaceable opportunities when he had failed to ask Dumbledore more about himself, even though the only personal question he had ever asked his headmaster was also the only one he suspected that Dumbledore had not answered honestly:
“What do you see when you look in the mirror?”
“I? I see myself holding a pair of thick, woolen socks.”
After several minutes’ thought, Harry tore the obituary out of the Prophet, folded it carefully, and tucked it inside the first volume of Practical Defensive Magic and its Use against the Dark Arts. Then he threw the rest of the newspaper onto the rubbish pile and turned to face the room. It was much tidier. The only things left out of place were today’s Daily Prophet, still lying on the bed, and on top of it, the piece of broken mirror.
Harry moved across the room, slid the mirror fragment off today’s Prophet, and unfolded the newspaper. He had merely glanced at the headline when he had taken the rolled-up paper from the delivery owl early that morning and thrown it aside, after noting that it said nothing about Voldemort. Harry was sure that the Ministry was leaning on the Prophet to suppress news about Voldemort. It was only now, therefore, that he saw what he had missed.
Across the bottom half of the front page a smaller headline was set over a picture of Dumbledore striding along, looking harried:
DUMBLEDORE – THE TRUTH AT LAST?
Coming next week, the shocking story of the flawed genius considered by many to be the greatest wizard of his generation. Striping away the popular image of serene, silver-bearded wisdom, Rita Skeeter reveals the disturbed childhood, the lawless youth, the life-long feuds, and the guilty secrets that Dumbledore carried to his grave, WHY was the man tipped to be the Minister of Magic content to remain a mere headmaster? WHAT was the real purpose of the secret organization known as the Order of the Phoenix? HOW did Dumbledore really meet his end?
The answers to these and many more questions are explored in the explosive new biography, The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore, by Rita Skeeter, exclusively interviewed by Berry Braithwaite, page 13, inside.
Harry ripped open the paper and found page thirteen. The article was topped with a picture showing another familiar face: a woman wearing jeweled glasses with elaborately curled blonde hair, her teeth bared in what was clearly supposed to be a winning smile, wiggling her fingers up at him. Doing his best to ignore this nauseating image, Harry read on.
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Though Ariana had been in poor health for a long time, the blow, coming so soon after the loss of their mother, had a profound effect on both of her brothers. All those closest to Albus – and I count myself one of that lucky number – agree that Ariana’s death, and Albus’s feeling of personal responsibility for it (though, of course, he was guiltless), left their mark upon him forevermore.
I returned home to find a young man who had experienced a much older person’s suffering. Albus was more reserved than before, and much less light-hearted. To add to his misery, the loss of Ariana had led, not to a renewed closeness between Albus and Aberforth, but to an estrangement. (In time this would lift – in later years they reestablished, if not a close relationship, then certainly a cordial one.) However, he rarely spoke of his parents or of Ariana from then on, and his friends learned not to mention them.
Other quills will describe the triumphs of the following years. Dumbledore’s innumerable contributions to the store of Wizarding knowledge, including his discovery of the twelve uses of dragon’s blood, will benefit generations to come, as will the wisdom he displayed in the many judgments while Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. They say, still, that no Wizarding duel ever matched that between Dumbledore and Grindelwald in 1945. Those who witnessed it have written of the terror and the awe they felt as they watched these two extraordinary wizards to battle. Dumbledore’s triumph, and its consequences for the Wizarding world, are considered a turning point in magical history to match the introduction of the International Statute of Secrecy or the downfall of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.
Albus Dumbledore was never proud or vain; he could find something to value in anyone, however apparently insignificant or wretched, and I believe that his early losses endowed him with great humanity and sympathy. I shall miss his friendship more than I can say, but my loss is nothing compared to the Wizarding world’s. That he was the most inspiring and best loved of all Hogwarts headmasters cannot be in question. He died as he lived: working always for the greater good and, to his last hour, as willing to stretch out a hand to a small boy with dragon pox as he was on the day I met him.
Harry finished reading, but continued to gaze at the picture accompanying the obituary. Dumbledore was wearing his familiar, kindly smile, but as he peered over the top of his half-moon spectacles, he gave the impression, even in newsprint, of X-raying Harry, whose sadness mingled with a sense of humiliation.
He had thought he knew Dumbledore quite well, but ever since reading this obituary he had been forced to recognize that he had barely known him at all. Never once had he imagined Dumbledore’s childhood or youth; it was as though he had sprung into being as Harry had known him, venerable and silver-haired and old. The idea of a teenage Dumbledore was simply odd, like trying to imagine a stupid Hermione or a friendly Blast-Ended Skrewt.
He had never thought to ask Dumbledore about his past. No doubt it would have felt strange, impertinent even, but after all it had been common knowledge that Dumbledore had taken part in that legendary duel with Grindelwald, and Harry had not thought to ask Dumbledore what that had been like, nor about any of his other famous achievements. No, they had always discussed Harry, Harry’s past, Harry’s future, Harry’s plans… and it seemed to Harry now, despite the fact that his future was so dangerous and so uncertain, that he had missed irreplaceable opportunities when he had failed to ask Dumbledore more about himself, even though the only personal question he had ever asked his headmaster was also the only one he suspected that Dumbledore had not answered honestly:
“What do you see when you look in the mirror?”
“I? I see myself holding a pair of thick, woolen socks.”
After several minutes’ thought, Harry tore the obituary out of the Prophet, folded it carefully, and tucked it inside the first volume of Practical Defensive Magic and its Use against the Dark Arts. Then he threw the rest of the newspaper onto the rubbish pile and turned to face the room. It was much tidier. The only things left out of place were today’s Daily Prophet, still lying on the bed, and on top of it, the piece of broken mirror.
Harry moved across the room, slid the mirror fragment off today’s Prophet, and unfolded the newspaper. He had merely glanced at the headline when he had taken the rolled-up paper from the delivery owl early that morning and thrown it aside, after noting that it said nothing about Voldemort. Harry was sure that the Ministry was leaning on the Prophet to suppress news about Voldemort. It was only now, therefore, that he saw what he had missed.
Across the bottom half of the front page a smaller headline was set over a picture of Dumbledore striding along, looking harried:
DUMBLEDORE – THE TRUTH AT LAST?
Coming next week, the shocking story of the flawed genius considered by many to be the greatest wizard of his generation. Striping away the popular image of serene, silver-bearded wisdom, Rita Skeeter reveals the disturbed childhood, the lawless youth, the life-long feuds, and the guilty secrets that Dumbledore carried to his grave, WHY was the man tipped to be the Minister of Magic content to remain a mere headmaster? WHAT was the real purpose of the secret organization known as the Order of the Phoenix? HOW did Dumbledore really meet his end?
The answers to these and many more questions are explored in the explosive new biography, The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore, by Rita Skeeter, exclusively interviewed by Berry Braithwaite, page 13, inside.
Harry ripped open the paper and found page thirteen. The article was topped with a picture showing another familiar face: a woman wearing jeweled glasses with elaborately curled blonde hair, her teeth bared in what was clearly supposed to be a winning smile, wiggling her fingers up at him. Doing his best to ignore this nauseating image, Harry read on.
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Monday, November 29, 2010
“What're you doing here?” he said
“What're you doing here?” he said, scrambling to his feet again; why did she always have to find him lying on the floor?
“I came to see Dumbledore,” said Tonks. Harry thought she looked terrible: thinner than usual, her mouse-colored hair lank.
“His office isn't here,” said Harry, “it's round the other side of the castle, behind the gargoyle —”
“I know,” said Tonks. “He's not there. Apparently he's gone away again.”
“Has he?” said Harry, putting his bruised foot gingerly back on the floor. “Hey—you don't know where he goes, I suppose?”
“No,” said Tonks.
“What did you want to see him about?”
“Nothing in particular,” said Tonks, picking, apparently unconsciously, at the sleeve of her robe. “I just thought he might know what's going on... I've heard
rumors... people getting hurt.”
“Yeah, I know, it's all been in the papers,” said Harry. “That little kid trying to kill his —”
“The Prophet‘s often behind the times,” said Tonks, who didn't seem to be listening to him. “You haven't had any letters from anyone in the Order recently?”
“No one from the Order writes to me anymore,” said Harry, “not since Sirius —”
He saw that her eyes had filled with tears.
“I'm sorry,” he muttered awkwardly. “I mean... I miss him, as well...”
“What?” said Tonks blankly, as though she had not heard him. “Well... I'll see you around, Harry...”
And she turned abruptly and walked back down the corridor, leaving Harry to stare after her. After a minute or so, he pulled the Invisibility Cloak on again and resumed
his efforts to get into the Room of Requirement, but his heart was not in it. Finally, a hollow feeling in his stomach and the knowledge that Ron and Hermione would
soon be back for lunch made him abandon the attempt and leave the corridor to Malfoy who, hopefully, would be too afraid to leave for some hours to come.
He found Ron and Hermione in the Great Hall, already halfway through an early lunch.
“I did it—well, kind of!” Ron told Harry enthusiastically when he caught sight of him. “I was supposed to be Apparating to outside Madam Puddifoots’ Tea Shop and I
overshot it a bit, ended up near Scrivenshafts, but at least I moved!”
“Good one,” said Harry. “How'd you do, Hermione?”
“Oh, she was perfect, obviously,” said Ron, before Hermione could answer. “Perfect deliberation, divination, and desperation or whatever the hell it is—we all went
for a quick drink in the Three Broomsticks after and you should've heard Twycross going on about her—I'll be surprised if he doesn't pop the question soon —”
“I came to see Dumbledore,” said Tonks. Harry thought she looked terrible: thinner than usual, her mouse-colored hair lank.
“His office isn't here,” said Harry, “it's round the other side of the castle, behind the gargoyle —”
“I know,” said Tonks. “He's not there. Apparently he's gone away again.”
“Has he?” said Harry, putting his bruised foot gingerly back on the floor. “Hey—you don't know where he goes, I suppose?”
“No,” said Tonks.
“What did you want to see him about?”
“Nothing in particular,” said Tonks, picking, apparently unconsciously, at the sleeve of her robe. “I just thought he might know what's going on... I've heard
rumors... people getting hurt.”
“Yeah, I know, it's all been in the papers,” said Harry. “That little kid trying to kill his —”
“The Prophet‘s often behind the times,” said Tonks, who didn't seem to be listening to him. “You haven't had any letters from anyone in the Order recently?”
“No one from the Order writes to me anymore,” said Harry, “not since Sirius —”
He saw that her eyes had filled with tears.
“I'm sorry,” he muttered awkwardly. “I mean... I miss him, as well...”
“What?” said Tonks blankly, as though she had not heard him. “Well... I'll see you around, Harry...”
And she turned abruptly and walked back down the corridor, leaving Harry to stare after her. After a minute or so, he pulled the Invisibility Cloak on again and resumed
his efforts to get into the Room of Requirement, but his heart was not in it. Finally, a hollow feeling in his stomach and the knowledge that Ron and Hermione would
soon be back for lunch made him abandon the attempt and leave the corridor to Malfoy who, hopefully, would be too afraid to leave for some hours to come.
He found Ron and Hermione in the Great Hall, already halfway through an early lunch.
“I did it—well, kind of!” Ron told Harry enthusiastically when he caught sight of him. “I was supposed to be Apparating to outside Madam Puddifoots’ Tea Shop and I
overshot it a bit, ended up near Scrivenshafts, but at least I moved!”
“Good one,” said Harry. “How'd you do, Hermione?”
“Oh, she was perfect, obviously,” said Ron, before Hermione could answer. “Perfect deliberation, divination, and desperation or whatever the hell it is—we all went
for a quick drink in the Three Broomsticks after and you should've heard Twycross going on about her—I'll be surprised if he doesn't pop the question soon —”
“Well, you've just got to keep at it, haven't you?”
“Well, you've just got to keep at it, haven't you?”
The short queue of people waiting to file past Filch, who was doing his usual prodding act with the Secrecy Sensor, moved forward a few steps and Harry did not answer
in case he was overheard by the caretaker. He wished Ron and Hermione both luck, then turned and climbed the marble staircase again, determined, whatever Hermione said,
to devote an hour or two to the Room of Requirement.
Once out of sight of the entrance hall, Harry pulled the Marauder's Map and his Invisibility Cloak from his bag. Having concealed himself, he tapped the map, murmured,
“I solemnly swear that I am up to no good,” and scanned it carefully.
As it was Sunday morning, nearly all the students were inside their various common rooms, the Gryffindors in one tower, the Ravenclaws in another, the Slytherins in the
dungeons, and the Hufflepuffs in the basement near the kitchens. Here and there a stray person meandered around the library or up a corridor ... there were a few people
out in the grounds ... and there, alone in the seventh-floor corridor, was Gregory Goyle. There was no sign of the Room of Requirement, but Harry was not worried about
that; if Goyle was standing guard outside it, the room was open, whether the map was aware of it or not. He therefore sprinted up the stairs, slowing down only when he
reached the corner into the corridor, when he began to creep, very slowly, toward the very same little girl, clutching her heavy brass scales, that Hermione had so
kindly helped a fortnight before. He waited until he was right behind her before bending very low and whispering, “Hello... you're very pretty, aren't you?”
Goyle gave a high-pitched scream of terror, threw the scales up into the air, and sprinted away, vanishing from sight long before the sound of the scales smashing had
stopped echoing around the corridor. Laughing, Harry turned to contemplate the blank wall behind which, he was sure, Draco Malfoy was now standing frozen, aware that
someone unwelcome was out there, but not daring to make an appearance. It gave Harry a most agreeable feeling of power as he tried to remember what form of words he had
not yet tried.
Yet this hopeful mood did not last long. Half an hour later, having tried many more variations of his request to see what Malfoy was up to, the wall was just as
doorless as ever. Harry felt frustrated beyond belief. Malfoy might be just feet away from him, and there was still not the tiniest shred of evidence as to what he was
doing in there. Losing his patience completely, Harry ran at the wall and kicked it.
“OUCH!”
He thought he might have broken his toe; as he clutched it and hopped on one foot, the Invisibility Cloak slipped off him.
“Harry?”
He spun around, one-legged, and toppled over. There, to his utter astonishment, was Tonks, walking toward him as though she frequently strolled up this corridor.
The short queue of people waiting to file past Filch, who was doing his usual prodding act with the Secrecy Sensor, moved forward a few steps and Harry did not answer
in case he was overheard by the caretaker. He wished Ron and Hermione both luck, then turned and climbed the marble staircase again, determined, whatever Hermione said,
to devote an hour or two to the Room of Requirement.
Once out of sight of the entrance hall, Harry pulled the Marauder's Map and his Invisibility Cloak from his bag. Having concealed himself, he tapped the map, murmured,
“I solemnly swear that I am up to no good,” and scanned it carefully.
As it was Sunday morning, nearly all the students were inside their various common rooms, the Gryffindors in one tower, the Ravenclaws in another, the Slytherins in the
dungeons, and the Hufflepuffs in the basement near the kitchens. Here and there a stray person meandered around the library or up a corridor ... there were a few people
out in the grounds ... and there, alone in the seventh-floor corridor, was Gregory Goyle. There was no sign of the Room of Requirement, but Harry was not worried about
that; if Goyle was standing guard outside it, the room was open, whether the map was aware of it or not. He therefore sprinted up the stairs, slowing down only when he
reached the corner into the corridor, when he began to creep, very slowly, toward the very same little girl, clutching her heavy brass scales, that Hermione had so
kindly helped a fortnight before. He waited until he was right behind her before bending very low and whispering, “Hello... you're very pretty, aren't you?”
Goyle gave a high-pitched scream of terror, threw the scales up into the air, and sprinted away, vanishing from sight long before the sound of the scales smashing had
stopped echoing around the corridor. Laughing, Harry turned to contemplate the blank wall behind which, he was sure, Draco Malfoy was now standing frozen, aware that
someone unwelcome was out there, but not daring to make an appearance. It gave Harry a most agreeable feeling of power as he tried to remember what form of words he had
not yet tried.
Yet this hopeful mood did not last long. Half an hour later, having tried many more variations of his request to see what Malfoy was up to, the wall was just as
doorless as ever. Harry felt frustrated beyond belief. Malfoy might be just feet away from him, and there was still not the tiniest shred of evidence as to what he was
doing in there. Losing his patience completely, Harry ran at the wall and kicked it.
“OUCH!”
He thought he might have broken his toe; as he clutched it and hopped on one foot, the Invisibility Cloak slipped off him.
“Harry?”
He spun around, one-legged, and toppled over. There, to his utter astonishment, was Tonks, walking toward him as though she frequently strolled up this corridor.
“You might as well do the
“You might as well do the extra practice sessions in Hogsmeade and see where they get you,” said Harry reasonably. “It'll be more interesting than trying to get into
a stupid hoop anyway. Then, if you're still not—you know—as good as you'd like to be, you can postpone the test, do it with me over the summer—Myrtle, this is the
boys’ bathroom!”
The ghost of a girl had risen out of the toilet in a cubicle behind them and was now floating in midair, staring at them through thick, white, round glasses.
“Oh,” she said glumly. “It's you two.”
“Who were you expecting?” said Ron, looking at her in the mirror.
“Nobody,” said Myrtle, picking moodily at a spot on her chin. “He said he'd come back and see me, but then you said you'd pop in and visit me too...” she gave Harry
a reproachful look “... and I haven't seen you for months and months. I've learned not to expect too much from boys.”
“I thought you lived in that girls’ bathroom?” said Harry, who had been careful to give the place a wide berth for some years now.
“I do,” she said, with a sulky little shrug, “but that doesn't mean I can't visit other places. I came and saw you in your bath once, remember?”
“Vividly,” said Harry.
“But I thought he liked me,” she said plaintively. “Maybe if you two left, he'd come back again. We had lots in common. I'm sure he felt it.”
And she looked hopefully toward the door.
“When you say you had lots in common,” said Ron, sounding rather amused now, “d'you mean he lives in an S-bend too?”
“No,” said Myrtle defiantly, her voice echoing loudly around the old tiled bathroom. “I mean he's sensitive, people bully him too, and he feels lonely and hasn't got
anybody to talk to, and he's not afraid to show his feelings and cry!”
“There's been a boy in here crying?” said Harry curiously. “A young boy?”
“Never you mind!” said Myrtle, her small, leaky eyes fixed on Ron, who was now definitely grinning. “I promised I wouldn't tell anyone, and I'll take his secret to
the —”
“— not the grave, surely?” said Ron with a snort. “The sewers, maybe.”
Myrtle gave a howl of rage and dived back into the toilet, causing water to slop over the sides and onto the floor. Goading Myrtle seemed to have put fresh heart into
Ron.
“You're right,” he said, swinging his schoolbag back over his shoulder, “I'll do the practice sessions in Hogsmeade before I decide about taking the test.”
And so the following weekend, Ron joined Hermione and the rest of the sixth years who would turn seventeen in time to take the test in a fortnight. Harry felt rather
jealous watching them all get ready to go into the village; he missed making trips there, and it was a particularly fine spring day, one of the first clear skies they
had seen in a long time. However, he had decided to use the time to attempt another assault on the Room of Requirement.
“You'd do better,” said Hermione, when he confided this plan to Ron and her in the entrance hall, “to go straight to Slughorn's office and try and get that memory
from him.”
“I've been trying!” said Harry crossly, which was perfectly true. He had lagged behind after every Potions lesson that week in an attempt to corner Slughorn, but the
Potions master always left the dungeon so fast that Harry had not been able to catch him. Twice, Harry had gone to his office and knocked, but received no reply, though
on the second occasion he was sure he had heard the quickly stifled sounds of an old gramophone.
“He doesn't want to talk to me, Hermione! He can tell I've been trying to get him on his own again, and he's not going to let it happen!”
a stupid hoop anyway. Then, if you're still not—you know—as good as you'd like to be, you can postpone the test, do it with me over the summer—Myrtle, this is the
boys’ bathroom!”
The ghost of a girl had risen out of the toilet in a cubicle behind them and was now floating in midair, staring at them through thick, white, round glasses.
“Oh,” she said glumly. “It's you two.”
“Who were you expecting?” said Ron, looking at her in the mirror.
“Nobody,” said Myrtle, picking moodily at a spot on her chin. “He said he'd come back and see me, but then you said you'd pop in and visit me too...” she gave Harry
a reproachful look “... and I haven't seen you for months and months. I've learned not to expect too much from boys.”
“I thought you lived in that girls’ bathroom?” said Harry, who had been careful to give the place a wide berth for some years now.
“I do,” she said, with a sulky little shrug, “but that doesn't mean I can't visit other places. I came and saw you in your bath once, remember?”
“Vividly,” said Harry.
“But I thought he liked me,” she said plaintively. “Maybe if you two left, he'd come back again. We had lots in common. I'm sure he felt it.”
And she looked hopefully toward the door.
“When you say you had lots in common,” said Ron, sounding rather amused now, “d'you mean he lives in an S-bend too?”
“No,” said Myrtle defiantly, her voice echoing loudly around the old tiled bathroom. “I mean he's sensitive, people bully him too, and he feels lonely and hasn't got
anybody to talk to, and he's not afraid to show his feelings and cry!”
“There's been a boy in here crying?” said Harry curiously. “A young boy?”
“Never you mind!” said Myrtle, her small, leaky eyes fixed on Ron, who was now definitely grinning. “I promised I wouldn't tell anyone, and I'll take his secret to
the —”
“— not the grave, surely?” said Ron with a snort. “The sewers, maybe.”
Myrtle gave a howl of rage and dived back into the toilet, causing water to slop over the sides and onto the floor. Goading Myrtle seemed to have put fresh heart into
Ron.
“You're right,” he said, swinging his schoolbag back over his shoulder, “I'll do the practice sessions in Hogsmeade before I decide about taking the test.”
And so the following weekend, Ron joined Hermione and the rest of the sixth years who would turn seventeen in time to take the test in a fortnight. Harry felt rather
jealous watching them all get ready to go into the village; he missed making trips there, and it was a particularly fine spring day, one of the first clear skies they
had seen in a long time. However, he had decided to use the time to attempt another assault on the Room of Requirement.
“You'd do better,” said Hermione, when he confided this plan to Ron and her in the entrance hall, “to go straight to Slughorn's office and try and get that memory
from him.”
“I've been trying!” said Harry crossly, which was perfectly true. He had lagged behind after every Potions lesson that week in an attempt to corner Slughorn, but the
Potions master always left the dungeon so fast that Harry had not been able to catch him. Twice, Harry had gone to his office and knocked, but received no reply, though
on the second occasion he was sure he had heard the quickly stifled sounds of an old gramophone.
“He doesn't want to talk to me, Hermione! He can tell I've been trying to get him on his own again, and he's not going to let it happen!”
Thursday, November 25, 2010
There was a bang, and Harry felt his hands fly off Mundungus's throat
There was a bang, and Harry felt his hands fly off Mundungus's throat. Gasping and spluttering, Mundungus seized his fallen case, then—CRACK— he Disapparated.
Harry swore at the top of his voice, spinning on the spot to see where Mundungus had gone.
“COME BACK, YOU THIEVING — !”
“There's no point, Harry.” Tonks had appeared out of nowhere, her mousy hair wet with sleet.
“Mundungus will probably be in London by now. There's no point yelling.”
“He's nicked Sirius's stuff! Nicked it!”
“Yes, but still,” said Tonks, who seemed perfectly untroubled by this piece of information. “You should get out of the cold.”
She watched them go through the door of the Three Broomsticks. The moment he was inside, Harry burst out, “He was nicking Sirius's stuff!”
“I know, Harry, but please don't shout, people are staring,” whispered Hermione. “Go and sit down, I'll get you a drink.”
Harry was still fuming when Hermione returned to their table a few minutes later holding three bottles of Butterbeer.
“Can't the Order control Mundungus?” Harry demanded of the other two in a furious whisper. “Can't they at least stop him stealing everything that's not fixed down
when he's at headquarters?”
“Shh!” said Hermione desperately, looking around to make sure nobody was listening; there were a couple of warlocks sitting close by who were staring at Harry with
great interest, and Zabini was lolling against a pillar not far away. “Harry, I'd be annoyed too, I know it's your things he's stealing—”
Harry gagged on his Butterbeer; he had momentarily forgotten that he owned number twelve, Grimmauld Place.
“Yeah, it's my stuff!” he said. “No wonder he wasn't pleased to see me! Well, I'm going to tell Dumbledore what's going on, he's the only one who scares Mundungus.”
“Good idea,” whispered Hermione, clearly pleased that Harry was calming down. “Ron, what are you staring at?”
“Nothing,” said Ron, hastily looking away from the bar, but Harry knew he was trying to catch the eye of the curvy and attractive barmaid, Madam Rosmerta, for whom he
had long nursed a soft spot.
“I expect ‘nothing's’ in the back getting more firewhisky,” said Hermione waspishly.
Harry swore at the top of his voice, spinning on the spot to see where Mundungus had gone.
“COME BACK, YOU THIEVING — !”
“There's no point, Harry.” Tonks had appeared out of nowhere, her mousy hair wet with sleet.
“Mundungus will probably be in London by now. There's no point yelling.”
“He's nicked Sirius's stuff! Nicked it!”
“Yes, but still,” said Tonks, who seemed perfectly untroubled by this piece of information. “You should get out of the cold.”
She watched them go through the door of the Three Broomsticks. The moment he was inside, Harry burst out, “He was nicking Sirius's stuff!”
“I know, Harry, but please don't shout, people are staring,” whispered Hermione. “Go and sit down, I'll get you a drink.”
Harry was still fuming when Hermione returned to their table a few minutes later holding three bottles of Butterbeer.
“Can't the Order control Mundungus?” Harry demanded of the other two in a furious whisper. “Can't they at least stop him stealing everything that's not fixed down
when he's at headquarters?”
“Shh!” said Hermione desperately, looking around to make sure nobody was listening; there were a couple of warlocks sitting close by who were staring at Harry with
great interest, and Zabini was lolling against a pillar not far away. “Harry, I'd be annoyed too, I know it's your things he's stealing—”
Harry gagged on his Butterbeer; he had momentarily forgotten that he owned number twelve, Grimmauld Place.
“Yeah, it's my stuff!” he said. “No wonder he wasn't pleased to see me! Well, I'm going to tell Dumbledore what's going on, he's the only one who scares Mundungus.”
“Good idea,” whispered Hermione, clearly pleased that Harry was calming down. “Ron, what are you staring at?”
“Nothing,” said Ron, hastily looking away from the bar, but Harry knew he was trying to catch the eye of the curvy and attractive barmaid, Madam Rosmerta, for whom he
had long nursed a soft spot.
“I expect ‘nothing's’ in the back getting more firewhisky,” said Hermione waspishly.
They bundled their scarves back over
They bundled their scarves back over their faces and left the sweetshop. The bitter wind was like knives on their faces after the sugary warmth of Honeydukes. The
street was not very busy; nobody was lingering to chat, just hurrying toward their destinations. The exceptions were two men a little ahead of them, standing just
outside the Three Broomsticks. One was very tall and thin; squinting through his rain-washed glasses Harry recognized the barman who worked in the other Hogsmeade pub,
the Hog's Head. As Harry, Ron, and Hermione drew closer, the barman drew his cloak more tightly around his neck and walked away, leaving the shorter man to fumble with
something in his arms. They were barely feet from him when Harry realized who the man was.
“Mundungus!”
The squat, bandy-legged man with long, straggly, ginger hair jumped and dropped an ancient suitcase, which burst open, releasing what looked like the entire contents of
a junk shop window.
“Oh, ‘ello, ‘Arry,” said Mundungus Fletcher, with a most unconvincing stab at airiness. “Well, don't let me keep ya.”
And he began scrabbling on the ground to retrieve the contents of his suitcase with every appearance of a man eager to be gone.
“Are you selling this stuff?” asked Harry, watching Mundungus grab an assortment of grubby-looking objects from the ground.
“Oh, well, gotta scrape a living,” said Mundungus. “Gimme that!”
Ron had stooped down and picked up something silver.
“Hang on,” Ron said slowly. “This looks familiar —”
“Thank you!” said Mundungus, snatching the goblet out of Ron's hand and stuffing it back into the case. “Well, I'll see you all—OUCH!”
Harry had pinned Mundungus against the wall of the pub by the throat. Holding him fast with one hand, he pulled out his wand.
“Harry!” squealed Hermione.
“You took that from Sinus's house,” said Harry, who was almost nose to nose with Mundungus and was breathing in an unpleasant smell of old tobacco and spirits. “That
had the Black family crest on it.”
“I—no—what—?” spluttered Mundungus, who was slowly turning purple.
“What did you do, go back the night he died and strip the place?” snarled Harry.
“I—no—”
“Give it to me!”
“Harry, you mustn't!” shrieked Hermione, as Mundungus started to turn blue.
street was not very busy; nobody was lingering to chat, just hurrying toward their destinations. The exceptions were two men a little ahead of them, standing just
outside the Three Broomsticks. One was very tall and thin; squinting through his rain-washed glasses Harry recognized the barman who worked in the other Hogsmeade pub,
the Hog's Head. As Harry, Ron, and Hermione drew closer, the barman drew his cloak more tightly around his neck and walked away, leaving the shorter man to fumble with
something in his arms. They were barely feet from him when Harry realized who the man was.
“Mundungus!”
The squat, bandy-legged man with long, straggly, ginger hair jumped and dropped an ancient suitcase, which burst open, releasing what looked like the entire contents of
a junk shop window.
“Oh, ‘ello, ‘Arry,” said Mundungus Fletcher, with a most unconvincing stab at airiness. “Well, don't let me keep ya.”
And he began scrabbling on the ground to retrieve the contents of his suitcase with every appearance of a man eager to be gone.
“Are you selling this stuff?” asked Harry, watching Mundungus grab an assortment of grubby-looking objects from the ground.
“Oh, well, gotta scrape a living,” said Mundungus. “Gimme that!”
Ron had stooped down and picked up something silver.
“Hang on,” Ron said slowly. “This looks familiar —”
“Thank you!” said Mundungus, snatching the goblet out of Ron's hand and stuffing it back into the case. “Well, I'll see you all—OUCH!”
Harry had pinned Mundungus against the wall of the pub by the throat. Holding him fast with one hand, he pulled out his wand.
“Harry!” squealed Hermione.
“You took that from Sinus's house,” said Harry, who was almost nose to nose with Mundungus and was breathing in an unpleasant smell of old tobacco and spirits. “That
had the Black family crest on it.”
“I—no—what—?” spluttered Mundungus, who was slowly turning purple.
“What did you do, go back the night he died and strip the place?” snarled Harry.
“I—no—”
“Give it to me!”
“Harry, you mustn't!” shrieked Hermione, as Mundungus started to turn blue.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
"Where are you off to? Stay a little longer," he said to Varenka.
"Where are you off to? Stay a little longer," he said to Varenka.
"I must be going home," said Varenka, getting up, and again she went off into a giggle. When she had recovered, she said good-bye, and went into the house to get her hat.
Kitty followed her. Even Varenka struck her as different. She was not worse, but different from what she had fancied her before.
"Oh, dear! it's a long while since I've laughed so much!" said Varenka, gathering up her parasol and her bag. "How nice he is, your father!"
Kitty did not speak.
"When shall I see you again?" asked Varenka.
"Mamma meant to go and see the Petrovs. Won't you be there?" said Kitty, to try Varenka.
"Yes," answered Varenka. "They're getting ready to go away, so I promised to help them pack."
"Well, I'll come too, then."
"No, why should you?"
"Why not? why not? why not?" said Kitty, opening her eyes wide, and clutching at Varenka's parasol, so as not to let her go. "No, wait a minute; why not?"
"Oh, nothing; your father has come, and besides, they will feel awkward at your helping."
"No, tell me why you don't want me to be often at the Petrovs'. You don't want me to--why not?"
"I didn't say that," said Varenka quietly.
"No, please tell me!"
"Tell you everything?" asked Varenka.
"Everything, everything!" Kitty assented.
"Well, there's really nothing of any consequence; only that Mihail Alexeyevitch" (that was the artist's name) "had meant to leave earlier, and now he doesn't want to go away," said Varenka, smiling.
"Well, well!" Kitty urged impatiently, looking darkly at Varenka.
"Well, and for some reason Anna Pavlovna told him that he didn't want to go because you are here. Of course, that was nonsense; but there was a dispute over it--over you. You know how irritable these sick people are."
Kitty, scowling more than ever, kept silent, and Varenka went on speaking alone, trying to soften or soothe her, and seeing a storm coming--she did not know whether of tears or of words.
"So you'd better not go.... You understand; you won't be offended?..."
"And it serves me right! And it serves me right!" Kitty cried quickly, snatching the parasol out of Varenka's hand, and looking past her friend's face.
Varenka felt inclined to smile, looking at her childish fury, but she was afraid of wounding her.
"How does it serve you right? I don't understand," she said.
"It serves me right, because it was all sham; because it was all done on purpose, and not from the heart. What business had I to interfere with outsiders? And so it's come about that I'm a cause of quarrel, and that I've done what nobody asked me to do. Because it was all a sham! a sham! a sham! . . ."
"A sham! with what object?" said Varenka gently.
"Oh, it's so idiotic! so hateful! There was no need whatever for me.... Nothing but sham!" she said, opening and shutting the parasol.
"But with what object?"
"To seem better to people, to myself, to God; to deceive everyone. No! now I won't descend to that. I'll be bad; but anyway not a liar, a cheat."
"But who is a cheat?" said Varenka reproachfully. "You speak as if..."
But Kitty was in one of her gusts of fury, and she would not let her finish.
"I don't talk about you, not about you at all. You're perfection. Yes, yes, I know you're all perfection; but what am I to do if I'm bad? This would never have been if I weren't bad. So let me be what I am. I won't be a sham. What have I to do with Anna Pavlovna? Let them go their way, and me go mine. I can't be different.... And yet it's not that, it's not that."
"What is not that?" asked Varenka in bewilderment.
"Everything. I can't act except from the heart, and you act from principle. I liked you simply, but you most likely only wanted to save me, to improve me."
"You are unjust," said Varenka.
"But I'm not speaking of other people, I'm speaking of myself."
"Kitty," they heard her mother's voice, "come here, show papa your necklace."
Kitty, with a haughty air, without making peace with her friend, took the necklace in a little box from the table and went to her mother.
"What's the matter? Why are you so red?" her mother and father said to her with one voice.
"Nothing," she answered. "I'll be back directly," and she ran back.
"She's still here," she thought. "What am I to say to her? Oh, dear! what have I done, what have I said? Why was I rude to her? What am I to do? What am I to say to her?" thought Kitty, and she stopped in the doorway.
Varenka in her hat and with the parasol in her hands was sitting at the table examining the spring which Kitty had broken. She lifted her head.
"Varenka, forgive me, do forgive me," whispered Kitty, going up to her. "I don't remember what I said. I..."
"I really didn't mean to hurt you," said Varenka, smiling.
Peace was made. But with her father's coming all the world in which she had been living was transformed for Kitty. She did not give up everything she had learned, but she became aware that she had deceived herself in supposing she could be what she wanted to be. Her eyes were, it seemed, opened; she felt all the difficulty of maintaining herself without hypocrisy and self-conceit on the pinnacle to which she had wished to mount. Moreover, she became aware of all the dreariness of the world of sorrow, of sick and dying people, in which she had been living. The efforts she had made to like it seemed to her intolerable, and she felt a longing to get back quickly into the fresh air, to Russia, to Ergushovo, where, as she knew from letters, her sister Dolly had already gone with her children.
But her affection for Varenka did not wane. As she said good-bye, Kitty begged her to come to them in Russia.
"I'll come when you get married," said Varenka.
"I shall never marry."
"Well, then, I shall never come."
"Well, then, I shall be married simply for that. Mind now, remember your promise," said Kitty.
The doctor's prediction was fulfilled. Kitty returned home to Russia cured. She was not so gay and thoughtless as before, but she was serene. Her Moscow troubles had become a memory to her.
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"I must be going home," said Varenka, getting up, and again she went off into a giggle. When she had recovered, she said good-bye, and went into the house to get her hat.
Kitty followed her. Even Varenka struck her as different. She was not worse, but different from what she had fancied her before.
"Oh, dear! it's a long while since I've laughed so much!" said Varenka, gathering up her parasol and her bag. "How nice he is, your father!"
Kitty did not speak.
"When shall I see you again?" asked Varenka.
"Mamma meant to go and see the Petrovs. Won't you be there?" said Kitty, to try Varenka.
"Yes," answered Varenka. "They're getting ready to go away, so I promised to help them pack."
"Well, I'll come too, then."
"No, why should you?"
"Why not? why not? why not?" said Kitty, opening her eyes wide, and clutching at Varenka's parasol, so as not to let her go. "No, wait a minute; why not?"
"Oh, nothing; your father has come, and besides, they will feel awkward at your helping."
"No, tell me why you don't want me to be often at the Petrovs'. You don't want me to--why not?"
"I didn't say that," said Varenka quietly.
"No, please tell me!"
"Tell you everything?" asked Varenka.
"Everything, everything!" Kitty assented.
"Well, there's really nothing of any consequence; only that Mihail Alexeyevitch" (that was the artist's name) "had meant to leave earlier, and now he doesn't want to go away," said Varenka, smiling.
"Well, well!" Kitty urged impatiently, looking darkly at Varenka.
"Well, and for some reason Anna Pavlovna told him that he didn't want to go because you are here. Of course, that was nonsense; but there was a dispute over it--over you. You know how irritable these sick people are."
Kitty, scowling more than ever, kept silent, and Varenka went on speaking alone, trying to soften or soothe her, and seeing a storm coming--she did not know whether of tears or of words.
"So you'd better not go.... You understand; you won't be offended?..."
"And it serves me right! And it serves me right!" Kitty cried quickly, snatching the parasol out of Varenka's hand, and looking past her friend's face.
Varenka felt inclined to smile, looking at her childish fury, but she was afraid of wounding her.
"How does it serve you right? I don't understand," she said.
"It serves me right, because it was all sham; because it was all done on purpose, and not from the heart. What business had I to interfere with outsiders? And so it's come about that I'm a cause of quarrel, and that I've done what nobody asked me to do. Because it was all a sham! a sham! a sham! . . ."
"A sham! with what object?" said Varenka gently.
"Oh, it's so idiotic! so hateful! There was no need whatever for me.... Nothing but sham!" she said, opening and shutting the parasol.
"But with what object?"
"To seem better to people, to myself, to God; to deceive everyone. No! now I won't descend to that. I'll be bad; but anyway not a liar, a cheat."
"But who is a cheat?" said Varenka reproachfully. "You speak as if..."
But Kitty was in one of her gusts of fury, and she would not let her finish.
"I don't talk about you, not about you at all. You're perfection. Yes, yes, I know you're all perfection; but what am I to do if I'm bad? This would never have been if I weren't bad. So let me be what I am. I won't be a sham. What have I to do with Anna Pavlovna? Let them go their way, and me go mine. I can't be different.... And yet it's not that, it's not that."
"What is not that?" asked Varenka in bewilderment.
"Everything. I can't act except from the heart, and you act from principle. I liked you simply, but you most likely only wanted to save me, to improve me."
"You are unjust," said Varenka.
"But I'm not speaking of other people, I'm speaking of myself."
"Kitty," they heard her mother's voice, "come here, show papa your necklace."
Kitty, with a haughty air, without making peace with her friend, took the necklace in a little box from the table and went to her mother.
"What's the matter? Why are you so red?" her mother and father said to her with one voice.
"Nothing," she answered. "I'll be back directly," and she ran back.
"She's still here," she thought. "What am I to say to her? Oh, dear! what have I done, what have I said? Why was I rude to her? What am I to do? What am I to say to her?" thought Kitty, and she stopped in the doorway.
Varenka in her hat and with the parasol in her hands was sitting at the table examining the spring which Kitty had broken. She lifted her head.
"Varenka, forgive me, do forgive me," whispered Kitty, going up to her. "I don't remember what I said. I..."
"I really didn't mean to hurt you," said Varenka, smiling.
Peace was made. But with her father's coming all the world in which she had been living was transformed for Kitty. She did not give up everything she had learned, but she became aware that she had deceived herself in supposing she could be what she wanted to be. Her eyes were, it seemed, opened; she felt all the difficulty of maintaining herself without hypocrisy and self-conceit on the pinnacle to which she had wished to mount. Moreover, she became aware of all the dreariness of the world of sorrow, of sick and dying people, in which she had been living. The efforts she had made to like it seemed to her intolerable, and she felt a longing to get back quickly into the fresh air, to Russia, to Ergushovo, where, as she knew from letters, her sister Dolly had already gone with her children.
But her affection for Varenka did not wane. As she said good-bye, Kitty begged her to come to them in Russia.
"I'll come when you get married," said Varenka.
"I shall never marry."
"Well, then, I shall never come."
"Well, then, I shall be married simply for that. Mind now, remember your promise," said Kitty.
The doctor's prediction was fulfilled. Kitty returned home to Russia cured. She was not so gay and thoughtless as before, but she was serene. Her Moscow troubles had become a memory to her.
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Monday, November 22, 2010
"So much the better, so much the better. Shake hands on it."
"So much the better, so much the better. Shake hands on it."
And the baroness, detaining Vronsky, began telling him, with many jokes, about her last new plans of life, asking his advice.
"He persists in refusing to give me a divorce! Well, what am I to do?" (HE was her husband.) "Now I want to begin a suit against him. What do you advise? Kamerovsky, look after the coffee; it's boiling over. You see, I'm engrossed with business! I want a lawsuit, because I must have my property. Do you understand the folly of it, that on the pretext of my being unfaithful to him," she said contemptuously, "he wants to get the benefit of my fortune."
Vronsky heard with pleasure this light-hearted prattle of a pretty woman, agreed with her, gave her half-joking counsel, and altogether dropped at once into the tone habitual to him in talking to such women. In his Petersburg world all people were divided into utterly opposed classes. One, the lower class, vulgar, stupid, and, above all, ridiculous people, who believe that one husband ought to live with the one wife whom he has lawfully married; that a girl should be innocent, a woman modest, and a man manly, self-controlled, and strong; that one ought to bring up one's children, earn one's bread, and pay one's debts; and various similar absurdities. This was the class of old-fashioned and ridiculous people. But there was another class of people, the real people. To this class they all belonged, and in it the great thing was to be elegant, generous, plucky, gay, to abandon oneself without a blush to every passion, and to laugh at everything else.
For the first moment only, Vronsky was startled after the impression of a quite different world that he had brought with him from Moscow. But immediately as though slipping his feet into old slippers, he dropped back into the light-hearted, pleasant world he had always lived in.
The coffee was never really made, but spluttered over every one, and boiled away, doing just what was required of it--that is, providing much cause for much noise and laughter, and spoiling a costly rug and the baroness's gown.
"Well now, good-bye, or you'll never get washed, and I shall have on my conscience the worst sin a gentleman can commit. So you would advise a knife to his throat?"
"To be sure, and manage that your hand may not be far from his lips. He'll kiss your hand, and all will end satisfactorily," answered Vronsky.
"So at the Francais!" and, with a rustle of her skirts, she vanished.
Kamerovsky got up too, and Vronsky, not waiting for him to go, shook hands and went off to his dressing room.
While he was washing, Petritsky described to him in brief outlines his position, as far as it had changed since Vronsky had left Petersburg. No money at all. His father said he wouldn't give him any and pay his debts. His tailor was trying to get him locked up, and another fellow, too, was threatening to get him locked up. The colonel of the regiment had announced that if these scandals did not cease he would have to leave. As for the baroness, he was sick to death of her, especially since she'd taken to offering continually to lend him money. But he had found a girl--he'd show her to Vronsky--a marvel, exquisite, in the strict Oriental style, "genre of the slave Rebecca, don't you know." He'd had a row, too, with Berkoshov, and was going to send seconds to him, but of course it would come to nothing. Altogether everything was supremely amusing and jolly. And, not letting his comrade enter into further details of his position, Petritsky proceeded to tell him all the interesting news. As he listened to Petritsky's familiar stories in the familiar setting of the rooms he had spent the last three years in, Vronsky felt a delightful sense of coming back to the careless Petersburg life that he was used to.
"Impossible!" he cried, letting down the pedal of the washing basin in which he had been sousing his healthy red neck. "Impossible!" he cried, at the news that Laura had flung over Fertinghof and had made up to Mileev. "And is he as stupid and pleased as ever? Well, and how's Buzulukov?"
"Oh, there is a tale about Buzulukov--simply lovely!" cried Petritsky. "You know his weakness for balls, and he never misses a single court ball. He went to a big ball in a new helmet. Have you seen the new helmets? Very nice, lighter. Well, so he's standing.... No, I say, do listen."
"I am listening," answered Vronsky, rubbing himself with a rough towel.
"Up comes the Grand Duchess with some ambassador or other, and, as ill-luck would have it, she begins talking to him about the new helmets. The Grand Duchess positively wanted to show the new helmet to the ambassador. They see our friend standing there." (Petritsky mimicked how he was standing with the helmet.) "The Grand Duchess asked him to give her the helmet; he doesn't give it to her. What do you think of that? Well, every one's winking at him, nodding, frowning--give it to her, do! He doesn't give it to her. He's mute as a fish. Only picture it!... Well, the...what's his name, whatever he was...tries to take the helmet from him...he won't give it up!... He pulls it from him, and hands it to the Grand Duchess. 'Here, your Highness,' says he, 'is the new helmet.' She turned the helmet the other side up, And--just picture it!--plop went a pear and sweetmeats out of it, two pounds of sweetmeats!...He'd been storing them up, the darling!"
Vronsky burst into roars of laughter. And long afterwards, when he was talking of other things, he broke out into his healthy laugh, showing his strong, close rows of teeth, when he thought of the helmet.
Having heard all the news, Vronsky, with the assistance of his valet, got into his uniform, and went off to report himself. He intended, when he had done that, to drive to his brother's and to Betsy's and to pay several visits with a view to beginning to go into that society where he might meet Madame Karenina. As he always did in Petersburg, he left home not meaning to return till late at night.
And the baroness, detaining Vronsky, began telling him, with many jokes, about her last new plans of life, asking his advice.
"He persists in refusing to give me a divorce! Well, what am I to do?" (HE was her husband.) "Now I want to begin a suit against him. What do you advise? Kamerovsky, look after the coffee; it's boiling over. You see, I'm engrossed with business! I want a lawsuit, because I must have my property. Do you understand the folly of it, that on the pretext of my being unfaithful to him," she said contemptuously, "he wants to get the benefit of my fortune."
Vronsky heard with pleasure this light-hearted prattle of a pretty woman, agreed with her, gave her half-joking counsel, and altogether dropped at once into the tone habitual to him in talking to such women. In his Petersburg world all people were divided into utterly opposed classes. One, the lower class, vulgar, stupid, and, above all, ridiculous people, who believe that one husband ought to live with the one wife whom he has lawfully married; that a girl should be innocent, a woman modest, and a man manly, self-controlled, and strong; that one ought to bring up one's children, earn one's bread, and pay one's debts; and various similar absurdities. This was the class of old-fashioned and ridiculous people. But there was another class of people, the real people. To this class they all belonged, and in it the great thing was to be elegant, generous, plucky, gay, to abandon oneself without a blush to every passion, and to laugh at everything else.
For the first moment only, Vronsky was startled after the impression of a quite different world that he had brought with him from Moscow. But immediately as though slipping his feet into old slippers, he dropped back into the light-hearted, pleasant world he had always lived in.
The coffee was never really made, but spluttered over every one, and boiled away, doing just what was required of it--that is, providing much cause for much noise and laughter, and spoiling a costly rug and the baroness's gown.
"Well now, good-bye, or you'll never get washed, and I shall have on my conscience the worst sin a gentleman can commit. So you would advise a knife to his throat?"
"To be sure, and manage that your hand may not be far from his lips. He'll kiss your hand, and all will end satisfactorily," answered Vronsky.
"So at the Francais!" and, with a rustle of her skirts, she vanished.
Kamerovsky got up too, and Vronsky, not waiting for him to go, shook hands and went off to his dressing room.
While he was washing, Petritsky described to him in brief outlines his position, as far as it had changed since Vronsky had left Petersburg. No money at all. His father said he wouldn't give him any and pay his debts. His tailor was trying to get him locked up, and another fellow, too, was threatening to get him locked up. The colonel of the regiment had announced that if these scandals did not cease he would have to leave. As for the baroness, he was sick to death of her, especially since she'd taken to offering continually to lend him money. But he had found a girl--he'd show her to Vronsky--a marvel, exquisite, in the strict Oriental style, "genre of the slave Rebecca, don't you know." He'd had a row, too, with Berkoshov, and was going to send seconds to him, but of course it would come to nothing. Altogether everything was supremely amusing and jolly. And, not letting his comrade enter into further details of his position, Petritsky proceeded to tell him all the interesting news. As he listened to Petritsky's familiar stories in the familiar setting of the rooms he had spent the last three years in, Vronsky felt a delightful sense of coming back to the careless Petersburg life that he was used to.
"Impossible!" he cried, letting down the pedal of the washing basin in which he had been sousing his healthy red neck. "Impossible!" he cried, at the news that Laura had flung over Fertinghof and had made up to Mileev. "And is he as stupid and pleased as ever? Well, and how's Buzulukov?"
"Oh, there is a tale about Buzulukov--simply lovely!" cried Petritsky. "You know his weakness for balls, and he never misses a single court ball. He went to a big ball in a new helmet. Have you seen the new helmets? Very nice, lighter. Well, so he's standing.... No, I say, do listen."
"I am listening," answered Vronsky, rubbing himself with a rough towel.
"Up comes the Grand Duchess with some ambassador or other, and, as ill-luck would have it, she begins talking to him about the new helmets. The Grand Duchess positively wanted to show the new helmet to the ambassador. They see our friend standing there." (Petritsky mimicked how he was standing with the helmet.) "The Grand Duchess asked him to give her the helmet; he doesn't give it to her. What do you think of that? Well, every one's winking at him, nodding, frowning--give it to her, do! He doesn't give it to her. He's mute as a fish. Only picture it!... Well, the...what's his name, whatever he was...tries to take the helmet from him...he won't give it up!... He pulls it from him, and hands it to the Grand Duchess. 'Here, your Highness,' says he, 'is the new helmet.' She turned the helmet the other side up, And--just picture it!--plop went a pear and sweetmeats out of it, two pounds of sweetmeats!...He'd been storing them up, the darling!"
Vronsky burst into roars of laughter. And long afterwards, when he was talking of other things, he broke out into his healthy laugh, showing his strong, close rows of teeth, when he thought of the helmet.
Having heard all the news, Vronsky, with the assistance of his valet, got into his uniform, and went off to report himself. He intended, when he had done that, to drive to his brother's and to Betsy's and to pay several visits with a view to beginning to go into that society where he might meet Madame Karenina. As he always did in Petersburg, he left home not meaning to return till late at night.
Chapter 34
Chapter 34
When Vronsky went to Moscow from Petersburg, he had left his large set of rooms in Morskaia to his friend and favorite comrade Petritsky. Petritsky was a young lieutenant, not particularly well-connected, and not merely not wealthy, but always hopelessly in debt. Towards evening he was always drunk, and he had often been locked up after all sorts of ludicrous and disgraceful scandals, but he was a favorite both of his comrades and his superior officers. On arriving at twelve o'clock from the station at his flat, Vronsky saw, at the outer door, a hired carriage familiar to him. While still outside his own door, as he rang, he heard masculine laughter, the lisp of a feminine voice, and Petritsky's voice. "If that's one of the villains, don't let him in!" Vronsky told the servant not to announce him, and slipped quietly into the first room. Baroness Shilton, a friend of Petritsky's, with a rosy little face and flaxen hair, resplendent in a lilac satin gown, and filling the whole room, like a canary, with her Parisian chatter, sat at the round table making coffee. Petritsky, in his overcoat, and the cavalry captain Kamerovsky, in full uniform, probably just come from duty, were sitting each side of her.
"Bravo! Vronsky!" shouted Petritsky, jumping up, scraping his chair. "Our host himself! Baroness, some coffee for him out of the new coffee pot. Why, we didn't expect you! Hope you're satisfied with the ornament of your study," he said, indicating the baroness. "You know each other, of course?"
"I should think so," said Vronsky, with a bright smile, pressing the baroness's little hand. "What next! I'm an old friend."
"You're home after a journey," said the baroness, "so I'm flying. Oh, I'll be off this minute, if I'm in the way."
"You're home, wherever you are, baroness," said Vronsky. "How do you do, Kamerovsky?" he added, coldly shaking hands with Kamerovsky.
"There, you never know how to say such pretty things," said the baroness, turning to Petritsky.
"No; what's that for? After dinner I say things quite as good."
"After dinner there's no credit in them? Well, then, I'll make you some coffee, so go and wash and get ready," said the baroness, sitting down again, and anxiously turning the screw in the new coffee pot. "Pierre, give me the coffee," she said, addressing Petritsky, whom she called as a contraction of his surname, making no secret of her relations with him. "I'll put it in."
"You'll spoil it!"
"No, I won't spoil it! Well, and your wife?" said the baroness suddenly, interrupting Vronsky's conversation with his comrade. "We've been marrying you here. Have you brought your wife?"
"No, baroness. I was born a Bohemian, and a Bohemian I shall die."
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Chapter 38 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 once more active.
‘“It is with great regret that I must confirm that the 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 magician population to remain vigilant. The Ministry is currently publishing guides to elementary home and personal defence 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 rumours 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 Sunday 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.
‘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 once more active.
‘“It is with great regret that I must confirm that the 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 magician population to remain vigilant. The Ministry is currently publishing guides to elementary home and personal defence 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 rumours 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 Sunday 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.
For a long time
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 for ever. 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.
‘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.
‘That might, indeed
‘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 Sybill 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 Sybill 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.
‘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.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
‘The Minister for Magic will never employ Harry Potter
‘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 linger 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 Defence 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, OK? He can make up his own mind.’
Harry's heart beat very fast as he left the classroom. He was halfway along the corridor outside when he heard the unmistakeable 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 armour 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 armour 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 travelled 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.
‘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 linger 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 Defence 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, OK? He can make up his own mind.’
Harry's heart beat very fast as he left the classroom. He was halfway along the corridor outside when he heard the unmistakeable 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 armour 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 armour 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 travelled 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.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
‘Night,’ said Harry.
‘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 DA 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 inside 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 DA 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 colours ... 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 pyjamas 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.’
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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 DA 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 inside 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 DA 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 colours ... 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 pyjamas 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.’
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Tuesday, November 16, 2010
From something the Minister let slip when telling
From something the Minister let slip when telling me you are now a prefect, I gather that you are still seeing a lot of Harry Potter. I must tell you, Ron, that nothing could put you in danger of losing your badge more than continued fraternisation with that boy. Yes, I am sure you are surprised to hear this— no doubt you will say that Potter has always been Dumbledore's favourite—but I feel bound to tell you that Dumbledore may not be in charge at Hogwarts much longer and the people who count have a very different—and probably more accurate—view of Potter's behaviour. I shall say no more here, but if you look at the Daily Prophet tomorrow you will get a good idea of the way the wind is blowing—and see if you can spot yours truly!
Seriously, Ron, you do not want to be tarred with the same brush as Potter, it could be very damaging to your future prospects, and I am talking here about life after school, too. As you must be aware, given that our father escorted him to court, Potter had a disciplinary hearing this summer in front of the whole Wizengamot and he did not come out of it looking too good. He got off on a mere technicality, if you ask me, and many of the people I've spoken to remain convinced of his guilt.
It may be that you are afraid to sever ties with Potter—I know that he can be unbalanced and, for all I know, violent—but if you have any worries about this, or have spotted anything else in Potter's behaviour that is troubling you, I urge you to speak to Dolores Umbridge, a truly delightful woman who I know will be only too happy to advise you.
This leads me to my other bit of advice. As I have hinted above, Dumbledore's regime at Hogwarts may soon be over. Your loyalty, Ron, should be not to him, but to the school and the Ministry. I am very sorry to hear that, so far, Professor Umbridge is encountering very little co-operation from staff as she strives to make those necessary changes within Hogwarts that the Ministry so ardently desires (although she should find this easier from next week— again, see the Daily Prophet tomorrow!). I shall say only this—a student who shows himself willing to help Professor Umbridge now may be very well-placed for Head Boyship in a couple of years!
I am sorry that I was unable to see more of you over the summer. It pains me to criticise our parents, but I am afraid I can no longer live under their roof while they remain mixed up with the dangerous crowd around Dumbledore. (If you are writing to Mother at any point, you might tell her that a certain Sturgis Podmore, who is a great friend of Dumbledore's, has recently been sent to Azkaban for trespass at the Ministry. Perhaps that will open their eyes to the kind of petty criminals with whom they are currently rubbing shoulders.) I count myself very lucky to have escaped the stigma of association with such people—the Minister really could not be more gracious to me—and I do hope, Ron, that you will not allow family ties to blind you to the misguided nature of our parents’ beliefs and actions, either. I sincerely hope that, in time, they will realise how mistaken they were and I shall, of course, be ready to accept a full apology when that day comes.
Please think over what I have said most carefully, particularly the bit about Harry Potter, and congratulations again on becoming prefect.
Your brother,
Percy
Harry looked up at Ron.
‘Well,’ he said, trying to sound as though he found the whole thing a joke, ‘if you want to—er —what is it?'—he checked Percy's letter—'Oh yeah—"sever ties” with me, I swear I won't get violent.’
‘Give it back,’ said Ron, holding out his hand. ‘He is—’ Ron said jerkily, tearing Percy's letter in half ‘the world's—’ he tore it into quarters ‘biggest—’ he tore it into eighths ‘git.’ He threw the pieces into the fire.
‘Come on, we've got to get this finished sometime before dawn,’ he said briskly to Harry, pulling Professor Sinistra's essay back towards him.
Hermione was looking at Ron with an odd expression on her face.
‘Oh, give them here,’ she said abruptly.
‘What?’ said Ron.
‘Give them to me, I'll look through them and correct them,’ she said.
‘Are you serious? Ah, Hermione, you're a life-saver,’ said Ron, ‘what can I—?’
‘What you can say is, “We promise we'll never leave our homework this late again,” ’ she said, holding out both hands for their essays, but she looked slightly amused all the same.
‘Thanks a million, Hermione,’ said Harry weakly, passing over his essay and sinking back into his armchair, rubbing his eyes.
It was now past midnight and the common room was deserted but for the three of them and Crookshanks. The only sound was that of Hermione's quill scratching out sentences here and there on their essays and the ruffle of pages as she checked various facts in the reference books strewn across the table. Harry was exhausted. He also felt an odd, sick, empty feeling in his stomach that had nothing to do with tiredness and everything to do with the letter now curling blackly in the heart of the fire.
He knew that half the people inside Hogwarts thought him strange, even mad; he knew that the Daily Prophet had been making snide allusions to him for months, but there was something about seeing it written down like that in Percy's writing, about knowing that Percy was advising Ron to drop him and even to tell tales about him to Umbridge, that made his situation real to him as nothing else had. He had known Percy for four years, had stayed in his house during the summer holidays, shared a tent with him during the Quidditch World Cup, had even been awarded full marks by him in the second task of the Triwizard Tournament last year, yet now, Percy thought him unbalanced and possibly violent.
And with a surge of sympathy for his godfather, Harry thought Sirius was probably the only person he knew who could really understand how he felt at the moment, because Sirius was in the same situation. Nearly everyone in the wizarding world thought Sirius a dangerous murderer and a great Voldemort supporter and he had had to live with that knowledge for fourteen years ...
Harry blinked. He had just seen something in the fire that could not have been there. It had flashed into sight and vanished immediately. No ... it could not have been ... he had imagined it because he had been thinking about Sirius ...
‘OK, write that down,’ Hermione said to Ron, pushing his essay and a sheet covered in her own writing back to Ron, ‘then add this conclusion I've written for you.’
Seriously, Ron, you do not want to be tarred with the same brush as Potter, it could be very damaging to your future prospects, and I am talking here about life after school, too. As you must be aware, given that our father escorted him to court, Potter had a disciplinary hearing this summer in front of the whole Wizengamot and he did not come out of it looking too good. He got off on a mere technicality, if you ask me, and many of the people I've spoken to remain convinced of his guilt.
It may be that you are afraid to sever ties with Potter—I know that he can be unbalanced and, for all I know, violent—but if you have any worries about this, or have spotted anything else in Potter's behaviour that is troubling you, I urge you to speak to Dolores Umbridge, a truly delightful woman who I know will be only too happy to advise you.
This leads me to my other bit of advice. As I have hinted above, Dumbledore's regime at Hogwarts may soon be over. Your loyalty, Ron, should be not to him, but to the school and the Ministry. I am very sorry to hear that, so far, Professor Umbridge is encountering very little co-operation from staff as she strives to make those necessary changes within Hogwarts that the Ministry so ardently desires (although she should find this easier from next week— again, see the Daily Prophet tomorrow!). I shall say only this—a student who shows himself willing to help Professor Umbridge now may be very well-placed for Head Boyship in a couple of years!
I am sorry that I was unable to see more of you over the summer. It pains me to criticise our parents, but I am afraid I can no longer live under their roof while they remain mixed up with the dangerous crowd around Dumbledore. (If you are writing to Mother at any point, you might tell her that a certain Sturgis Podmore, who is a great friend of Dumbledore's, has recently been sent to Azkaban for trespass at the Ministry. Perhaps that will open their eyes to the kind of petty criminals with whom they are currently rubbing shoulders.) I count myself very lucky to have escaped the stigma of association with such people—the Minister really could not be more gracious to me—and I do hope, Ron, that you will not allow family ties to blind you to the misguided nature of our parents’ beliefs and actions, either. I sincerely hope that, in time, they will realise how mistaken they were and I shall, of course, be ready to accept a full apology when that day comes.
Please think over what I have said most carefully, particularly the bit about Harry Potter, and congratulations again on becoming prefect.
Your brother,
Percy
Harry looked up at Ron.
‘Well,’ he said, trying to sound as though he found the whole thing a joke, ‘if you want to—er —what is it?'—he checked Percy's letter—'Oh yeah—"sever ties” with me, I swear I won't get violent.’
‘Give it back,’ said Ron, holding out his hand. ‘He is—’ Ron said jerkily, tearing Percy's letter in half ‘the world's—’ he tore it into quarters ‘biggest—’ he tore it into eighths ‘git.’ He threw the pieces into the fire.
‘Come on, we've got to get this finished sometime before dawn,’ he said briskly to Harry, pulling Professor Sinistra's essay back towards him.
Hermione was looking at Ron with an odd expression on her face.
‘Oh, give them here,’ she said abruptly.
‘What?’ said Ron.
‘Give them to me, I'll look through them and correct them,’ she said.
‘Are you serious? Ah, Hermione, you're a life-saver,’ said Ron, ‘what can I—?’
‘What you can say is, “We promise we'll never leave our homework this late again,” ’ she said, holding out both hands for their essays, but she looked slightly amused all the same.
‘Thanks a million, Hermione,’ said Harry weakly, passing over his essay and sinking back into his armchair, rubbing his eyes.
It was now past midnight and the common room was deserted but for the three of them and Crookshanks. The only sound was that of Hermione's quill scratching out sentences here and there on their essays and the ruffle of pages as she checked various facts in the reference books strewn across the table. Harry was exhausted. He also felt an odd, sick, empty feeling in his stomach that had nothing to do with tiredness and everything to do with the letter now curling blackly in the heart of the fire.
He knew that half the people inside Hogwarts thought him strange, even mad; he knew that the Daily Prophet had been making snide allusions to him for months, but there was something about seeing it written down like that in Percy's writing, about knowing that Percy was advising Ron to drop him and even to tell tales about him to Umbridge, that made his situation real to him as nothing else had. He had known Percy for four years, had stayed in his house during the summer holidays, shared a tent with him during the Quidditch World Cup, had even been awarded full marks by him in the second task of the Triwizard Tournament last year, yet now, Percy thought him unbalanced and possibly violent.
And with a surge of sympathy for his godfather, Harry thought Sirius was probably the only person he knew who could really understand how he felt at the moment, because Sirius was in the same situation. Nearly everyone in the wizarding world thought Sirius a dangerous murderer and a great Voldemort supporter and he had had to live with that knowledge for fourteen years ...
Harry blinked. He had just seen something in the fire that could not have been there. It had flashed into sight and vanished immediately. No ... it could not have been ... he had imagined it because he had been thinking about Sirius ...
‘OK, write that down,’ Hermione said to Ron, pushing his essay and a sheet covered in her own writing back to Ron, ‘then add this conclusion I've written for you.’
Monday, November 15, 2010
Chapter 3 The Advanced Guard
I've just been attacked by dementors and I might be expelled from Hogwarts. I want to know what's going on and when I'm going to get out of here.
Harry copied these words on to three separate pieces of parchment the moment he reached the desk in his dark bedroom. He addressed the first to Sirius, the second to Ron, and the third to Hermione. His owl, Hedwig, was off hunting; her cage stood empty on the desk. Harry paced the bedroom waiting for her to come back, his head pounding, his brain too busy for sleep even though his eyes stung and itched with tiredness. His back ached from hauling Dudley home, and the two lumps on his head where the window and Dudley had hit him were throbbing painfully.
Up and down he paced, consumed with anger and frustration, grinding his teeth and clenching his fists, casting angry looks out at the empty, star-strewn sky every time he passed the window. Dementors sent to get him, Mrs. Figg and Mundungus Fletcher tailing him in secret, then suspension from Hogwarts and a hearing at the Ministry of Magic—and still no one was telling him what was going on.
And what, what, had that Howler been about? Whose voice had echoed so horribly, so menacingly, through the kitchen?
Why was he still trapped here without information? Why was everyone treating him like some naughty kid? Don't do any more magic, stay in the house...
He kicked his school trunk as he passed it, but far from relieving his anger he felt worse, as he now had a sharp pain in his toe to deal with in addition to the pain in the rest of his body.
Just as he limped past the window, Hedwig soared through it with a soft rustle of wings like a small ghost.
‘About time!’ Harry snarled, as she landed lightly on top of her cage. ‘You can put that down, I've got work for you!’
Hedwig's large, round, amber eyes gazed at him reproachfully over the dead frog clamped in her beak.
‘Come here,’ said Harry, picking up the three small rolls of parchment and a leather thong and tying the scrolls to her scaly leg. ‘Take these straight to Sirius, Ron and Hermione and don't come back here without good long replies. Keep pecking them till they've written decent-length answers if you've got to. Understand?’
Hedwig gave a muffled hooting noise, her beak still full of frog.
‘Get going, then,’ said Harry.
Harry copied these words on to three separate pieces of parchment the moment he reached the desk in his dark bedroom. He addressed the first to Sirius, the second to Ron, and the third to Hermione. His owl, Hedwig, was off hunting; her cage stood empty on the desk. Harry paced the bedroom waiting for her to come back, his head pounding, his brain too busy for sleep even though his eyes stung and itched with tiredness. His back ached from hauling Dudley home, and the two lumps on his head where the window and Dudley had hit him were throbbing painfully.
Up and down he paced, consumed with anger and frustration, grinding his teeth and clenching his fists, casting angry looks out at the empty, star-strewn sky every time he passed the window. Dementors sent to get him, Mrs. Figg and Mundungus Fletcher tailing him in secret, then suspension from Hogwarts and a hearing at the Ministry of Magic—and still no one was telling him what was going on.
And what, what, had that Howler been about? Whose voice had echoed so horribly, so menacingly, through the kitchen?
Why was he still trapped here without information? Why was everyone treating him like some naughty kid? Don't do any more magic, stay in the house...
He kicked his school trunk as he passed it, but far from relieving his anger he felt worse, as he now had a sharp pain in his toe to deal with in addition to the pain in the rest of his body.
Just as he limped past the window, Hedwig soared through it with a soft rustle of wings like a small ghost.
‘About time!’ Harry snarled, as she landed lightly on top of her cage. ‘You can put that down, I've got work for you!’
Hedwig's large, round, amber eyes gazed at him reproachfully over the dead frog clamped in her beak.
‘Come here,’ said Harry, picking up the three small rolls of parchment and a leather thong and tying the scrolls to her scaly leg. ‘Take these straight to Sirius, Ron and Hermione and don't come back here without good long replies. Keep pecking them till they've written decent-length answers if you've got to. Understand?’
Hedwig gave a muffled hooting noise, her beak still full of frog.
‘Get going, then,’ said Harry.
‘You heard me!’ said Uncle Vernon
, bending forwards now, his massive purple face coming so close to Harry's, he actually felt flecks of spit hit his face. ‘Get going! You were all keen to leave half an hour ago! I'm right behind you! Get out and never darken our doorstep again! Why we ever kept you in the first place, I don't know, Marge was right, it should have been the orphanage. We were too damn soft for our own good, thought we could squash it out of you, thought we could turn you normal, but you've been rotten from the beginning and I've had enough—OWLS!’
The fifth owl zoomed down the chimney so fast it actually hit the floor before zooming into the air again with a loud screech. Harry raised his hand to seize the letter, which was in a scarlet envelope, but it soared straight over his head, flying directly at Aunt Petunia, who let out a scream and ducked, her arms over her face. The owl dropped the red envelope on her head, turned, and flew straight back up the chimney.
Harry darted forwards to pick up the letter, but Aunt Petunia beat him to it.
‘You can open it if you like,’ said Harry, ‘but I'll hear what it says anyway. That's a Howler.’
‘Let go of it, Petunia!’ roared Uncle Vernon. ‘Don't touch it, it could be dangerous!’
‘It's addressed to me,’ said Aunt Petunia in a shaking voice. ‘It's addressed to me, Vernon, look! Mrs. Petunia Dursley, The Kitchen, Number Four, Privet Drive—’
She caught her breath, horrified. The red envelope had begun to smoke.
‘Open it!’ Harry urged her. ‘Get it over with! It'll happen anyway.’
‘No.’
Aunt Petunia's hand was trembling. She looked wildly around the kitchen as though looking for an escape route, but too late—the envelope burst into flames. Aunt Petunia screamed and dropped it.
An awful voice filled the kitchen, echoing in the confined space, issuing from the burning letter on the table.
‘REMEMBER MY LAST, PETUNIA.’
Aunt Petunia looked as though she might faint. She sank into the chair beside Dudley, her face in her hands. The remains of the envelope smouldered into ash in the silence.
‘What is this?’ Uncle Vernon said hoarsely. ‘What—I don't—Petunia?’
Aunt Petunia said nothing. Dudley was staring stupidly at his mother, his mouth hanging open. The silence spiralled horribly. Harry was watching his aunt, utterly bewildered, his head throbbing fit to burst.
‘Petunia, dear?’ said Uncle Vernon timidly. ‘P-Petunia?’
She raised her head. She was still trembling. She swallowed.
‘The boy—the boy will have to stay, Vernon,’ she said weakly.
‘W-what?’
‘He stays,’ she said. She was not looking at Harry. She got to her feet again.
‘He ... but Petunia...’
‘If we throw him out, the neighbours will talk,’ she said. She was rapidly regaining her usual brisk, snappish manner, though she was still very pale. ‘They'll ask awkward questions, they'll want to know where he's gone. We'll have to keep him.’
Uncle Vernon was deflating like an old tyre.
‘But Petunia, dear—’
Aunt Petunia ignored him. She turned to Harry.
‘You're to stay in your room,’ she said. ‘You're not to leave the house. Now get to bed.’
Harry didn't move.
‘Who was that Howler from?’
‘Don't ask questions,’ Aunt Petunia snapped.
‘Are you in touch with wizards?’
‘I told you to get to bed!’
‘What did it mean? Remember the last what?’
‘Go to bed!’
‘How come—?’
‘YOU HEARD YOUR AUNT, NOW GO UP TO BED!’
The fifth owl zoomed down the chimney so fast it actually hit the floor before zooming into the air again with a loud screech. Harry raised his hand to seize the letter, which was in a scarlet envelope, but it soared straight over his head, flying directly at Aunt Petunia, who let out a scream and ducked, her arms over her face. The owl dropped the red envelope on her head, turned, and flew straight back up the chimney.
Harry darted forwards to pick up the letter, but Aunt Petunia beat him to it.
‘You can open it if you like,’ said Harry, ‘but I'll hear what it says anyway. That's a Howler.’
‘Let go of it, Petunia!’ roared Uncle Vernon. ‘Don't touch it, it could be dangerous!’
‘It's addressed to me,’ said Aunt Petunia in a shaking voice. ‘It's addressed to me, Vernon, look! Mrs. Petunia Dursley, The Kitchen, Number Four, Privet Drive—’
She caught her breath, horrified. The red envelope had begun to smoke.
‘Open it!’ Harry urged her. ‘Get it over with! It'll happen anyway.’
‘No.’
Aunt Petunia's hand was trembling. She looked wildly around the kitchen as though looking for an escape route, but too late—the envelope burst into flames. Aunt Petunia screamed and dropped it.
An awful voice filled the kitchen, echoing in the confined space, issuing from the burning letter on the table.
‘REMEMBER MY LAST, PETUNIA.’
Aunt Petunia looked as though she might faint. She sank into the chair beside Dudley, her face in her hands. The remains of the envelope smouldered into ash in the silence.
‘What is this?’ Uncle Vernon said hoarsely. ‘What—I don't—Petunia?’
Aunt Petunia said nothing. Dudley was staring stupidly at his mother, his mouth hanging open. The silence spiralled horribly. Harry was watching his aunt, utterly bewildered, his head throbbing fit to burst.
‘Petunia, dear?’ said Uncle Vernon timidly. ‘P-Petunia?’
She raised her head. She was still trembling. She swallowed.
‘The boy—the boy will have to stay, Vernon,’ she said weakly.
‘W-what?’
‘He stays,’ she said. She was not looking at Harry. She got to her feet again.
‘He ... but Petunia...’
‘If we throw him out, the neighbours will talk,’ she said. She was rapidly regaining her usual brisk, snappish manner, though she was still very pale. ‘They'll ask awkward questions, they'll want to know where he's gone. We'll have to keep him.’
Uncle Vernon was deflating like an old tyre.
‘But Petunia, dear—’
Aunt Petunia ignored him. She turned to Harry.
‘You're to stay in your room,’ she said. ‘You're not to leave the house. Now get to bed.’
Harry didn't move.
‘Who was that Howler from?’
‘Don't ask questions,’ Aunt Petunia snapped.
‘Are you in touch with wizards?’
‘I told you to get to bed!’
‘What did it mean? Remember the last what?’
‘Go to bed!’
‘How come—?’
‘YOU HEARD YOUR AUNT, NOW GO UP TO BED!’
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