Free Read Online Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix By J.K. Rowling

part 2

“We’ve met about twenty of them,” said Ron, “but we think there are more.”

Harry glared at them.

“Well?” he demanded, looking from one to the other.

“Er,” said Ron. “Well what?”

“Voldemort!” said Harry furiously, and both Ron and Hermione winced. “What’s happening?

What’s he up to? Where is he? What are we doing to stop him?”

“We’ve told you, the Order don’t let us in on their meetings,” said Hermione nervously. “So we

don’t know the details - but we’ve got a general idea,” she added hastily, seeing the look on

Harry’s face.

“Fred and George have invented Extendable Ears, see,” said Ron. “They’re really useful.”

“Extendable -?”

“Ears, yeah. Only we’ve had to stop using them lately because Mum found out and went berserk.

Fred and George had to hide them all to stop Mum binning them. But we got a good bit of use

out of them before Mum realized what was going on. We know some of the Order are following

known Death Eaters, keeping tabs on them, you know -”

“Some of them are working on recruiting more people to the Order -” said Hermione.

“And some of them are standing guard over something,” said Ron. “They’re always talking about guard duty.”

“Couldn’t have been me, could it?” said Harry sarcastically.

“Oh, yeah,” said Ron, with a look of dawning comprehension.

Harry snorted. He walked around the room again, looking anywhere but at Ron and Hermione.

“So, what have you two been doing, if you’re not allowed in meetings?” he demanded. “You said you’d been busy”‘

“We have,” said Hermione quickly. “We’ve been decontaminating this house, it’s been empty for ages and stuff’s been breeding in here. We’ve managed to clean out the kitchen, most of the

bedrooms and I think we’re doing the drawing room tomo-”

With two loud cracks, Fred and George, Ron’s elder twin brothers, had materialized out of thin

air in the middle of the room. Pigwidgeon twittered more wildly than ever and zoomed off to join

Hedwig on top of the wardrobe.

“Stop doing that!” Hermione said weakly to the twins, who were as vividly red-haired as Ron,

though stockier and slightly shorter.

“Hello, Harry,” said George, beaming at him. “We thought we heard your dulcet tones.”

“You don’t want to bottle up your anger like that, Harry, let it all out,” said Fred, also beaming.

“There might be a couple of people fifty miles away who didn’t hear you.”

“You two passed your Apparation tests, then?” asked Harry grumpily.

“With distinction,” said Fred, who was holding what looked like a piece of very long, flesh colored string.

“It would have taken you about thirty seconds longer to walk down the stairs,” said Ron.

“Time is Galleons, little brother” said Fred. “Anyway, Harry, you’re interfering with reception.

Extendable Ears,” he added in response to Harry’s raised eyebrows, and held up the string which

Harry now saw was trailing out on to the landing. “We’re trying to hear what’s going on

downstairs.”

“You want to be careful,” said Ron, staring at the Ear, “if Mum sees one of them again…”

“It’s worth the risk, that’s a major meeting they’re having,” said Fred.

The door opened and a long mane of red hair appeared.

“Oh, hello, Harry!” said Ron’s younger sister, Ginny, brightly. “I thought I heard your voice.”

Turning to Fred and George, she said, “It’s no-go with the Extendable Ears, she’s gone and put

an Imperturbable Charm on the kitchen door.”

“How d’you know?” said George, looking crestfallen.

“Tonks told me how to find out,” said Ginny. “You just chuck stuff at the door and if it can’t

make contact the door’s been Imperturbed. I’ve been flicking Dungbombs at it from the top of

the stairs and they just soar away from it, so there’s no way the Extendable Ears will be able to

get under the gap.”

Fred heaved a deep sigh.

“Shame. I really fancied finding out what old Snape’s been up to.”

“Snape!” said Harry quickly. “Is he here?”

“Yeah,” said George, carefully closing the door and sitting down on one of the beds; Fred and

Ginny followed. “Giving a report. Top secret.”

“Git,” said Fred idly.

“He’s on our side now,” said Hermione reprovingly.

Ron snorted. “Doesn’t stop him being a git. The way he looks at us when he sees us.”

“Bill doesn’t like him, either,” said Ginny, as though that settled the matter.

Harry was not sure his anger had abated yet; but his thirst for information was now overcoming

his urge to keep shouting. He sank on to the bed opposite the others.

“Is Bill here?” he asked. “I thought he was working in Egypt?”

“He applied for a desk job so he could come home and work for the Order,” said Fred. “He says

he misses the tombs, but;” he smirked, “there are compensations.”

“What d’you mean?”

“Remember old Fleur Delacour?” said George. “She’s got a job at Gringotts to eempwve ‘er

Eeenglish -”

“And Bill’s been giving her a lot of private lessons,” sniggered Fred.

“Charlie’s in the Order, too,” said George, “but he’s still in Romania. Dumbledore wants as many foreign wizards brought in as possible, so Charlie’s trying to make contacts on his days off.”

“Couldn’t Percy do that?” Harry asked. The last he had heard, the third Weasley brother was

working in the Department of International Magical Co-operation at the Ministry of Magic.

At Harry’s words, all the Weasleys and Hermione exchanged darkly significant looks.

“Whatever you do, don’t mention Percy in front of Mum and Dad,” Ron told Harry in a tense

voice.

“Why not?”

“Because every time Percy’s name’s mentioned, Dad breaks whatever he’s holding and Mum

starts crying,” Fred said.

“It’s been awful,” said Ginny sadly.

“I think we’re well shut of him,” said George, with an uncharacteristically ugly look on his face.

“What’s happened?” Harry said.

“Percy and Dad had a row,” said Fred. “I’ve never seen Dad row with anyone like that. It’s

normally Mum who shouts.”

“It was the first week back after term ended,” said Ron. “We were about to come and join the

Order. Percy came home and told us he’d been promoted.”

“You’re kidding?” said Harry.

Though he knew perfectly well that Percy was highly ambitious, Harry’s impression was that

Percy had not made a great success of his first job at the Ministry of Magic. Percy had

committed the fairly large oversight of failing to notice that his boss was being controlled by

Lord Voldemort (not that the Ministry had believed it - they all thought Mr. Crouch had gone

mad).

“Yeah, we were all surprised,” said George, “because Percy got into a load of trouble about

Crouch, there was an inquiry and everything. They said Percy ought to have realized Crouch was

off his rocker and informed a superior. But you know Percy, Crouch left him in charge, he

wasn’t going to complain.”

“So how come they promoted him?”

“That’s exactly what we wondered,” said Ron, who see med very keen to keep normal

conversation going now that Harry had stopped yelling. “He came home really pleased with

himself - even more pleased than usual, if you can imagine that - and told Dad he’d been offered

a position in Fudge’s own office. A really good one for someone only a year out of Hogwarts:

Junior Assistant to the Minister. He expected Dad to be all impressed, I think.”

“Only Dad wasn’t,” said Fred grimly.

“Why not?” said Harry.

“Well, apparently Fudge has been storming round the Ministry checking that nobody’s having

any contact with Dumbledore,” said George.

“Dumbledore’s name is mud with the Ministry these days, see,” said Fred. “They all think he’s

just making trouble saying You-Know-Who’s back.”

“Dad says Fudge has made it clear that anyone who’s in league with Dumbledore can clear out

their desks,” said George.

“Trouble is, Fudge suspects Dad, he knows he’s friendly with Dumbledore, and he’s always

thought Dad’s a bit of a weirdo because of his Muggle obsession.”

“But what’s that got to do with Percy?” asked Harry, confused.

“I’m coming to that. Dad reckons Fudge only wants Percy in his office because he wants to use

him to spy on the family - and Dumbledore.”

Harry let out a low whistle.

“Bet Percy loved that.”

Ron laughed in a hollow sort of way.

“He went completely berserk. He said - well, he said loads of terrible stuff. He said he’s been

having to struggle against Dad’s lousy reputation ever since he joined the Ministry and that

Dad’s got no ambition and that’s why we’ve always been - you know - not had a lot of money, I

mean -”

“What?” said Harry in disbelief, as Ginny made a noise like an angry cat.

“I know,” said Ron in a low voice. “And it got worse. He said Dad was an idiot to run around

with Dumbledore, that Dumbledore was heading for big trouble and Dad was going to go down

with him, and that he - Percy - knew where his loyalty lay and it was with the Ministry. And if

Mum and Dad were going to become traitors to the Ministry he was going to make sure everyone

knew he didn’t belong to our family any more. And he packed his bags the same night and left.

He’s living here in London now.”

Harry swore under his breath. He had always liked Percy least of Ron’s brothers, but he had

never imagined he would say such things to Mr. Weasley.

“Mum’s been in a right state,” said Ron dully. “You know - crying and stuff. She came up to

London to try and talk to Percy but he slammed the door in her face. I dunno what he does if he

meets Dad at work - ignores him, I s’pose.”

“But Percy must know Voldemort’s back,” said Harry s lowly. “He’s not stupid, he must know

your mum and dad wouldn’t risk everything without proof.”

“Yeah, well, your name got dragged into the row,” said Ron, shooting Harry a furtive look.

“Percy said the only evidence was your word and… I dunno… he didn’t think it was good

enough.”

“Percy takes the Daily Prophet seriously,” said Hermione tartly, and the others all nodded.

“What are you talking about?” Harry asked, looking around at them all. They were all regarding

him warily.

“Haven’t - haven’t you been getting the Daily Prophet!” Hermione asked nervously.

“Yeah, I have!” said Harry.

“Have you - er - been reading it thoroughly?” Hermione asked, still more anxiously.

“Not cover to cover,” said Harry defensively. “If they were going to report anything about

Voldemort it would be headline news, wouldn’t it?”

The others flinched at the sound of the name. Hermione hurried on, “Well, you’d need to read it

cover to cover to pick it up, but they - um - they mention you a couple of times a week.”

“But I’d have seen -”

“Not if you’ve only been reading the front page, you wouldn’t,” said Hermione, shaking her

head. “I’m not talking about big articles. They just slip you in, like you’re a standing joke.”

“What d’you -?”

“It’s quite nasty, actually,” said Hermione in a voice of forced calm. “They’re just building on

Rita’s stuff.”

“But she’s not writing for them any more, is she?”

“Oh, no, she’s kept her promise - not that she’s got any choice,” Hermione added with

satisfaction. “But she laid the foundation for what they’re trying to do now.”

“Which is what?” said Harry impatiently.

“Okay, you know she wrote that you were collapsing all over the place and saying your scar was

hurting and all that?”

“Yeah,” said Harry, who was not likely to forget Rita Skeeters stories about him in a hurry.

“Well, they’re writing about you as though you’re this deluded, attention-seeking person who

thinks he’s a great tragic hero or something,” said Hermione, very fast, as though it would be less

unpleasant for Harry to hear these facts quickly. “They keep slipping in snide comments about

you. If some far-fetched story appears, they say something like, ‘tale worthy of Harry Potter’, and if anyone has a funny accident or anything it’s, ‘lets hope he hasn’t got a scar on his forehead or we’ll be asked to worship him next -”

“I don’t want anyone to worship -” Harry began hotly.

“I know you don’t,” said Hermione quickly, looking frightened. “I know, Harry. But you see what they’re doing? They want to turn you into someone nobody will believe. Fudge is behind it, I’ll bet anything. They want wizards on the street to think you’re just some stupid boy who’s a bit of a joke, who tells ridiculous tall stories because he loves being famous and wants to keep it

going.”

“I didn’t ask - I didn’t want - Voldemort killed my parents!” Harry spluttered. “I got famous

because he murdered my family but couldn’t kill me! Who wants to be famous for that? Don’t

they think I’d rather it’d never -”

“We know, Harry,” said Ginny earnestly.

“And of course, they didn’t report a word about the Dementors attacking you,” said Hermione.

“Someone’s told them to keep that quiet. That should’ve been a really big story, out-of-control

Dementors. They haven’t even reported that you broke the International Statute of Secrecy. We

thought they would, it would tie in so well with this image of you as some stupid show-off. We

think they’re biding their time until you’re expelled, then they’re really going to go to town - I

mean, if you’re expelled, obviously,” she went on hastily. “You really shouldn’t be, not if they

abide by their own laws, there’s no case against you.”

They were back on the hearing and Harry did not want to think about that. He cast around for

another change of subject, but was saved the necessity of finding one by the sound of footsteps

coming up the stairs.

“Uh oh.”

Fred gave the Extendable Ear a hearty tug; there was another loud crack and he and George

vanished. Seconds later, Mrs. Weasley appeared in the bedroom doorway.

“The meeting’s over, you can come down and have dinner now. Everyone’s dying to see you,

Harry. And who’s left all those Dungbombs outside the kitchen door?”

“Crookshanks,” said Ginny unblushingly. “He loves playing with them.”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Weasley, “I thought it might have been Kreacher, he keeps doing odd things like

that. Now don’t forget to keep your voices down in the hall. Ginny, your hands are filthy, what

have you been doing? Go and wash them before dinner, please.”

Ginny grimaced at the others and followed her mother out of the room, leaving Harry alone with

Ron and Hermione. Both of them were watching him apprehensively, as though they feared he

would start shouting again now that everyone else had gone. The sight of them looking so

nervous made him feel slightly ashamed.

“Look…” he muttered, but Ron shook his head, and Hermione said quietly, “We knew you’d be

angry, Harry, we really don’t blame you, but you’ve got to understand, we did try to persuade

Dumbledore -”

“Yeah, I know,” said Harry shortly.

He cast around for a topic that didn’t involve his headmaster, because the very thought of

Dumbledore made Harry’s insides burn with anger again.

“Who’s Kreacher?” he asked.

“The house-elf who lives here,” said Ron. “Nutter. Never met one like him.”

Hermione frowned at Ron.

“He’s not a nutter, Ron.”

“His life’s ambition is to have his head cut off and stuck up on a plaque just like his mother,” said Ron irritably. “Is that normal, Hermione?”

“Well - well, if he is a bit strange, it’s not his fault.”

Ron rolled his eyes at Harry.

“Hermione still hasn’t given up on SPEW -”

“It’s not SPEW!” said Hermione heatedly. “It’s the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare.

And it’s not just me, Dumbledore says we should be kind to Kreacher too.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Ron. “C’mon, I’m starving.”

He led the way out of the door and on to the landing, but before they could descend the stairs -

“Hold it!” Ron breathed, flinging out an arm to stop Harry and Hermione walking any further.

“They’re still in the hall, we might be able to hear something.”

The three of them looked cautiously over the banisters. The gloomy hallway below was packed

with witches and wizards, including all of Harry’s guard. They were whispering excitedly

together. In the very center of the group Harry saw the dark, greasy-haired head and prominent

nose of his least favorite teacher at Hogwarts, Professor Snape. Harry leaned further over the

banisters. He was very interested in what Snape was doing for the Order of the Phoenix…

A thin piece of flesh-colored string descended in front of Harry’s eyes. Looking up, he saw Fred

and George on the landing above, cautiously lowering the Extendable Ear towards the dark knot

of people below. A moment later, however, they all began to move towards the front door and

out of sight.

“Damnit,” Harry heard Fred whisper, as he hoisted t he Extendable Ear back up again.

They heard the front door open, then close.

“Snape never eats here,” Ron told Harry quietly. “Thank God. C’mon.”

“And don’t forget to keep your voice down in the hall, Harry,” Hermione whispered.

As they passed the row of house-elf heads on the wall, they saw Lupin, Mrs. Weasley and Tonks

at the front door, magically sealing its many locks and bolts behind those who had just left.

“We’re eating down in the kitchen,” Mrs. Weasley whispered, meeting them at the bottom of the

stairs. “Harry, dear, if you’ll just tiptoe across the hall, it’s through this door here -”

CRASH.

“Tonks!” cried Mrs. Weasley in exasperation, turning to look behind her.

“I’m sorry!” wailed Tonks, who was lying flat on the floor. “It’s that stupid umbrella stand, that’s the second time I’ve tripped over -”

But the rest of her words were drowned by a horrible, ear-splitting, blood-curdling screech.

The moth-eaten velvet curtains Harry had passed earlier had flown apart, but there was no door

behind them. For a split second, Harry thought he was looking through a window, a window

behind which an old woman in a black cap was screaming and screaming as though she were

being tortured - then he realized it was simply a life-size portrait, but the most realiztic, and the

most unpleasant, he had ever seen in his life.

The old woman was drooling, her eyes were rolling, the yellowing skin of her face stretched taut

as she screamed; and all along the hall behind them, the other portraits awoke and began to yell,

too, so that Harry actually screwed up his eyes at the noise and clapped his hands over his ears.

Lupin and Mrs. Weasley darted forward and tried to tug the curtains shut over the old woman,

but they would not close and she screeched louder than ever, brandishing clawed hands as

though trying to tear at their faces.

“Filth! Scum! By-products of dirt and vileness! Half-breeds, mutants, freaks, begone from this

place! How dare you befoul the house of my fathers -”

Tonks apologized over and over again, dragging the huge, heavy troll’s leg back off the floor;

Mrs. Weasley abandoned the attempt to close the curtains and hurried up and down the hall,

stunning all the other portraits with her wand; and a man with long black hair came charging out

of a door facing Harry.

“Shut up, you horrible old hag, shut UP!” he roared, seizing the curtain Mrs. Weasley had

abandoned.

The old woman’s face blanched.

“Yoooou!” she howled, her eyes popping at the sight of the man. “Blood traitor, abomination,

shame of my flesh!”

“I said - shut - UP!” roared the man, and with a stupendous effort he and Lupin managed to force the curtains closed again.

The old woman’s screeches died and an echoing silence fell. Panting slightly and sweeping his

long dark hair out of his eyes, Harry’s godfather Sirius turned to face him.

“Hello, Harry,” he said grimly, “I see you’ve met my mother.”

CHAPTER FIVE

The Order of the Phoenix

“Your -?”

“My dear old mum, yeah,” said Sirius. “We’ve been trying to get her down for a month but we

think she put a Permanent Sticking Charm on the back of the canvas. Let’s get downstairs, quick,

before they all wake up again.”

“But what’s a portrait of your mother doing here?” Harry asked, bewildered, as they went

through the door from the hall and led the way down a flight of narrow stone steps, the others

just behind them.

“Hasn’t anyone told you? This was my parents’ house,” said Sirius. “But I’m the last Black left,

so it’s mine now. I offered it to Dumbledore for Headquarters - about the only useful thing I’ve

been able to do.”

Harry, who had expected a better welcome, noted how hard and bitter Sirius’s voice sounded. He

followed his godfather to the bottom of the steps and through a door leading into the basement

kitchen.

It was scarcely less gloomy than the hall above, a cavernous room with rough stone walls. Most

of the light was coming from a large fire at the far end of the room. A haze of pipe smoke hung

in the air like battle fumes, through which loomed the menacing shapes of heavy iron pots and

pans hanging from the dark ceiling. Many chairs had been crammed into the room for the

meeting and a long wooden table stood in the middle of them, littered with rolls of parchment,

goblets, empty wine bottles, and a heap of what appeared to be rags. Mr. Weasley and his eldest

son Bill were talking quietly with their heads together at the end of the table.

Mrs. Weasley cleared her throat. Her husband, a thin, balding, red-haired man who wore horn-rimmed glasses, looked around and jumped to his feet.

“Harry!” Mr. Weasley said, hurrying forward to greet him, and shaking his hand vigorously.

“Good to see you!”

Over his shoulder Harry saw Bill, who still wore his long hair in a ponytail, hastily rolling up the

lengths of parchment left on the table.

“Journey all right, Harry?” Bill called, trying to gather up twelve scrolls at once. “Mad-Eye didn’t make you come via Greenland, then?”

“He tried,” said Tonks, striding over to help Bill and immediately toppling a candle on to the last

piece of parchment. “Oh no - sorry -

“Here, dear,” said Mrs. Weasley, sounding exasperated, and she repaired the parchment with a

wave of her wand. In the flash of light caused by Mrs. Weasley’s charm Harry caught a glimpse

of what looked like the plan of a building.

Mrs. Weasley had seen him looking. She snatched the plan off the table and stuffed it into Bill’s

already overladen arms.

“This sort of thing ought to be cleared away promptly at the end of meetings,” she snapped,

before sweeping off towards an ancient dresser from which she started unloading dinner plates.

Bill took out his wand, muttered, “Evanesco!” and the scrolls vanished.

“Sit down, Harry,” said Sirius. “You’ve met Mundungus, haven’t you?”

The thing Harry had taken to be a pile of rags gave a prolonged, grunting snore, then jerked

awake.

‘Some’n say m’name?’ Mundungus mumbled sleepily. “I ‘gree with Sirius…” He raised a very

grubby hand in the air as though voting, his droopy, bloodshot eyes unfocused.

Ginny giggled.

“The meeting’s over, Dung,” said Sirius, as they all sat down around him at the table. “Harry’s

arrived.”

“Eh?” said Mundungus, peering balefully at Harry through his matted ginger hair. “Blimey, so ‘e

‘as. Yeah… you all right, ‘Arry?”

“Yeah,” said Harry.

Mundungus fumbled nervously in his pockets, still staring at Harry, and pulled out a grimy black

pipe. He stuck it in his mouth, ignited the end of it with his wand and took a deep pull on it.

Great billowing clouds of greenish smoke obscured him within seconds.

“Owe you a ‘pology,” grunted a voice from the middle of the smelly cloud.

“For the last time, Mundungus,” called Mrs. Weasley, “will you please not smoke that thing in the kitchen, especially not when we’re about to eat!”

“Ah,” said Mundungus. “Right. Sorry, Molly.”

The cloud of smoke vanished as Mundungus stowed his pipe back in his pocket, but an acrid

smell of burning socks lingered.

“And if you want dinner before midnight I’ll need a hand,” Mrs. Weasley said to the room at

large. “No, you can stay where you are, Harry dear, you’ve had a long journey.”

“What can I do, Molly?” said Tonks enthusiastically, bounding forwards.

Mrs. Weasley hesitated, looking apprehensive.

“Er - no, it’s all right, Tonks, you have a rest too, you’ve done enough today.”

“No, no, I want to help!” said Tonks brightly, knocking over a chair as she hurried towards the

dresser, from which Ginny was collecting cutlery.

Soon, a series of heavy knives were chopping meat and vegetables of their own accord,

supervised by Mr. Weasley, while Mrs. Weasley stirred a cauldron dangling over the fire and the

others took out plates, more goblets and food from the pantry. Harry was left at the table with

Sirius and Mundungus, who was still blinking at him mournfully.

“Seen old Figgy since?” he asked.

“No,” said Harry, “I haven’t seen anyone.”

“See, I wouldn’t ‘ave left,” said Mundungus, leaning forward, a pleading note in his voice, “but I

‘ad a business opportunity -”

Harry felt something brush against his knees and started, but it was only Crookshanks,

Hermione’s bandy-legged ginger cat, who wound himself once around Harry’s legs, purring,

then jumped on to Sirius’s lap and curled up. Sirius scratched him absent-mindedly behind the

ears as he turned, still grim-faced, to Harry.

“Had a good summer so far?”

“No, it’s been lousy,” said Harry.

For the first time, something like a grin flitted across Sirius’s face.

“Don’t know what you’re complaining about, myself.”

“What?” said Harry incredulously.

“Personally, I’d have welcomed a Dementor attack. A deadly struggle for my soul would have

broken the monotony nicely. You think you’ve had it bad, at least you’ve been able to get out

and about, stretch your legs, get into a few fights… I’ve been stuck inside for a month.”

“How come?” asked Harry, frowning.

“Because the Ministry of Magic’s still after me, and Voldemort will know all about me being an

Animagus by now, Wormtail will have told him, so my big disguise is useless. There’s not much

I can do for the Order of the Phoenix… or so Dumbledore feels.”

There was something about the slightly flattened tone of voice in which Sirius uttered

Dumbledore’s name that told Harry that Sirius, too, was not very happy with the Headmaster.

Harry felt a sudden upsurge of affection for his godfather.

“At least you’ve known what’s been going on,” he said bracingly.

“Oh yeah,” said Sirius sarcastically. “Listening to Snape’s reports, having to take all his snide

hints that he’s out there risking his life while I’m sat on my backside here having a nice

comfortable time… asking me how the cleanings going -”

“What cleaning?” asked Harry.

“Trying to make this place fit for human habitation,” said Sirius, waving a hand around the dismal kitchen. “No one’s lived here for ten years, not since my dear mother died, unless you count her old house-elf, and he’s gone round the twist - hasn’t cleaned anything in ages.”

“Sirius,” said Mundungus, who did not appear to have paid any attention to the conversation, but

had been closely examining an empty goblet. “This solid silver, mate?”

“Yes,” said Sirius, surveying it with distaste. “Finest fifteenth-century goblin-wrought silver,

embossed with the Black family crest.”

“That’d come off, though,” muttered Mundungus, polishing it with his cuff.

“Fred - George - NO, JUST CARRY THEM!” Mrs. Weasley shrieked.

Harry, Sirius and Mundungus looked round and, a split second later, they had dived away from

the table. Fred and George had bewitched a large cauldron of stew, an iron flagon of Butterbeer

and a heavy wooden breadboard, complete with knife, to hurtle through the air towards them. The stew skidded the length of the table and came to a halt just before the end, leaving a long

black burn on the wooden surface; the flagon of Butterbeer fell with a crash, spilling its contents

everywhere; the bread knife slipped off the board and landed, point down and quivering

ominously, exactly where Sirius’s right hand had been seconds before.

“FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE!” screamed Mrs. Weasley. “THERE WAS NO NEED - I’VE HAD

ENOUGH OF THIS - JUST BECAUSE YOU’RE ALLOWED TO USE MAGIC NOW, YOU

DON’T HAVE TO WHIP YOUR WANDS OUT FOR EVERY TINY LITTLE THING!”

“We were just trying to save a bit of time!” said Fred, hurrying forward to wrench the bread knife out of the table. “Sorry, Sirius, mate - didn’t mean to -”

Harry and Sirius were both laughing; Mundungus, who had toppled backwards off his chair, was

swearing as he got to his feet; Crookshanks had given an angry hiss and shot off under the

dresser, from where his large yellow eyes glowed in the darkness.

“Boys,” Mr. Weasley said, lifting the stew back into the middle of the table, “your mother’s right, you’re supposed to show a sense of responsibility now you’ve come of age -”

“None of your brothers caused this sort of trouble!” Mrs. Weasley raged at the twins as she

slammed a fresh flagon of Butterbeer on to the table, and spilling almost as much again. “Bill

didn’t feel the need to Apparate every few feet! Charlie didn’t charm everything he met! Percy -”

She stopped dead, catching her breath with a frightened look at her husband, whose expression

was suddenly wooden.

“Let’s eat,” said Bill quickly.

“It looks wonderful, Molly,” said Lupin, ladling stew on to a plate for her and handing it across

the table.

For a few minutes there was silence but for the chink of plates and cutlery and the scraping of

chairs as everyone settled down to their food. Then Mrs. Weasley turned to Sirius.

“I’ve been meaning to tell you, Sirius, there’s something trapped in that writing desk in the

drawing room, it keeps rattling and shaking. Of course, it could just be a Boggart, but I thought

we ought to ask Alastor to have a look at it before we let it out.”

“Whatever you like,” said Sirius indifferently.

“The curtains in there are full of Doxys, too,” Mrs. Weasley went on. “I thought we might try and tackle them tomorrow.”

“I look forward to it,” said Sirius. Harry heard the sarcasm in his voice, but he was not sure that

anyone else did.

Opposite Harry, Tonks was entertaining Hermione and Ginny by transforming her nose between

mouthfuls. Screwing up her eyes each time with the same pained expression she had worn back

in Harry’s bedroom, her nose swelled to a beak-like protuberance that resembled Snape’s, shrank

to the size of a button mushroom and then sprouted a great deal of hair from each nostril.

Apparently this was a regular mealtime entertainment, because Hermione and Ginny were soon

requesting their favorite noses.

“Do that one like a pig snout, Tonks.”

Tonks obliged, and Harry, looking up, had the fleeting impression that a female Dudley was

grinning at him from across the table.

Mr. Weasley, Bill and Lupin were having an intense discussion about goblins.

“They’re not giving anything away yet,” said Bill. “I still can’t work out whether or not they

believe he’s back. Course, they might prefer not to take sides at all. Keep out of it.”

“I’m sure they’d never go over to You-Know-Who,” said Mr. Weasley, shaking his head.

“They’ve suffered losses too; remember that goblin family he murdered last time, somewhere

near Nottingham?”

“I think it depends what they’re offered,” said Lupin. “And I’m not talking about gold. If they’re

offered the freedoms we’ve been denying them for centuries they’re going to be tempted. Have

you still not had any luck with Ragnok, Bill?”

“He’s feeling pretty anti-wizard at the moment,” said Bill, “he hasn’t stopped raging about the

Bagman business, he reckons the Ministry did a cover-up, those goblins never got their gold

from him, you know -”

A gale of laughter from the middle of the table drowned the rest of Bill’s words. Fred, George,

Ron and Mundungus were rolling around in their seats.

“… and then,” choked Mundungus, tears running down his face, “and then, if you’ll believe it, ‘e

says to me, ‘e says, ‘Ere, Dung, where did ya get all them toads from? ‘Cos some son of a

Bludger’s gone and nicked all mine!’ And I says, ‘Nicked all your toads, Will, what next? So

you’ll be wanting some more, then?’ And if you’ll believe me, lads, the gormless gargoyle buys

all ‘is own toads back orf me for a lot more’n what ‘e paid in the first place -”

“I don’t think we need to hear any more of your business dealings, thank you very much,

Mundungus,” said Mrs. Weasley sharply, as Ron slumped forwards on to the table, howling with

laughter.

“Beg pardon, Molly,” said Mundungus at once, wiping his eyes and winking at Harry. “But, you

know, Will nicked ‘em orf Warty Harris in the first place so I wasn’t really doing nothing

wrong.”

“I don’t know where you learned about right and wrong, Mundungus, but you seem to have

missed a few crucial lessons,” said Mrs. Weasley coldly.

Fred and George buried their faces in their goblets of Butterbeer; George was hiccoughing. For

some reason, Mrs. Weasley threw a very nasty look at Sirius before getting to her feet and going

to fetch a large rhubarb crumble for pudding. Harry looked round at his godfather.

“Molly doesn’t approve of Mundungus,” said Sirius in an undertone.

“How come he’s in the Order?” Harry said, very quietly.

“He’s useful,” Sirius muttered. “Knows all the crooks - well, he would, seeing as he’s one

himself. But he’s also very loyal to Dumbledore, who helped him out of a tight spot once. It pays

to have someone like Dung around, he hears things we don’t. But Molly thinks inviting him to

stay for dinner is going too far. She hasn’t forgiven him for slipping off duty when he was

supposed to be tailing you.”

Three helpings of rhubarb crumble and custard later and the waistband on Harry’s jeans was

feeling uncomfortably tight (which was saying something as the jeans had once been Dudley’s).

As he laid down his spoon there was a lull in the general conversation: Mr. Weasley was leaning

back in his chair, looking replete and relaxed; Tonks was yawning widely, her nose now back to

normal; and Ginny who had lured Crookshanks out from under the dresser, was sitting cross-legged on the floor, rolling Butterbeer corks for him to chase.

“Nearly time for bed, I think,” said Mrs. Weasley with a yawn.

“Not just yet, Molly” said Sirius, pushing away his empty plate and turning to look at Harry.

“You know, I’m surprised at you. I thought the first thing you’d do when you got here would be

to start asking questions about Voldemort.”

The atmosphere in the room changed with the rapidity Harry associated with the arrival of

Dementors. Where seconds before it had been sleepily relaxed, it was now alert, even tense. A

frisson had gone around the table at the mention of Voldemort’s name. Lupin, who had been

about to take a sip of wine, lowered his goblet slowly, looking wary.

“I did!” said Harry indignantly. “I asked Ron and Hermione but they said we’re not allowed in the Order, so -”

“And they’re quite right,” said Mrs. Weasley. “You’re too young.”

She was sitting bolt upright in her chair, her fists clenched on its arms, every trace of drowsiness

gone.

“Since when did someone have to be in the Order of the Phoenix to ask questions?” asked Sirius.

“Harry’s been trapped in that Muggle house for a month. He’s got the right to know what’s been

happen—”

“Hang on!” interrupted George loudly.

“How come Harry gets his questions answered?” said Fred angrily.

“We’ve been trying to get stuff out of you for a month and you haven’t told us a single stinking

thing!” said George.

“‘You’re too young, you’re not in the Order’,” said Fred in a high-pitched voice that sounded

uncannily like his mother’s. “Harry’s not even of age!”

“It’s not my fault you haven’t been told what the Order’s doing,” said Sirius calmly, “that’s your

parents’ decision. Harry, on the other hand -”

“It’s not down to you to decide what’s good for Harry!” said Mrs. Weasley sharply. The

expression on her normally kind face looked dangerous. “You haven’t forgotten what

Dumbledore said, I suppose?”

“Which bit?” Sirius asked politely, but with the air of a man readying himself for a fight.

“The bit about not telling Harry more than he needs to know,” said Mrs. Weasley, placing a heavy emphasis on the last three words.

Ron, Hermione, Fred and George’s heads swiveled from Sirius to Mrs. Weasley as though they

were following a tennis rally. Ginny was kneeling amid a pile of abandoned Butterbeer corks,

watching the conversation with her mouth slightly open. Lupin’s eyes were fixed on Sirius.

“I don’t intend to tell him more than he needs to know, Molly,” said Sirius. “But as he was the

one who saw Voldemort come back” (again, there was a collective shudder around the table at

the name) “he has more right than most to -”

“He’s not a member of the Order of the Phoenix!” said Mrs. Weasley. “He’s only fifteen and -”

“And he’s dealt with as much as most in the Order,” said Sirius, “and more than some.”

“No one’s denying what he’s done!” said Mrs. Weasley, her voice rising, her fists trembling on

the arms of her chair. “But he’s still -”

“He’s not a child!” said Sirius impatiently.

“He’s not an adult either!” said Mrs. Weasley, the color rising in her cheeks. “He’s not James,

Sirius!”

“I’m perfectly clear who he is, thanks, Molly,” said Sirius coldly.

“I’m not sure you are!” said Mrs. Weasley. “Sometimes, the way you talk about him, it’s as

though you think you’ve got your best friend back!”

“What’s wrong with that?” said Harry.

“What’s wrong, Harry, is that you are not your father, however much you might look like him!”

said Mrs. Weasley, her eyes still boring into Sirius. “You are still at school and adults responsible for you should not forget it!”

“Meaning I’m an irresponsible godfather?” demanded Sirius, his voice rising.

“Meaning you have been known to act rashly, Sirius, which is why Dumbledore keeps reminding

you to stay at home and -”

“We’ll leave my instructions from Dumbledore out of this, if you please!” said Sirius loudly.

“Arthur!” said Mrs. Weasley, rounding on her husband. “Arthur, back me up!”

Mr. Weasley did not speak at once. He took off his glasses and cleaned them slowly on his robes,

not looking at his wife. Only when he had replaced them carefully on his nose did he reply.

“Dumbledore knows the position has changed, Molly. He accepts that Harry will have to be filled in, to a certain extent, now that he is staying at Headquarters.”

“Yes, but there’s a difference between that and inviting him to ask whatever he likes!”

“Personally,” said Lupin quietly, looking away from Sirius at last, as Mrs. Weasley turned

quickly to him, hopeful that finally she was about to get an ally, “I think it better that Harry gets

the facts - not all the facts, Molly, but the general picture - from us, rather than a garbled version

from… others.”

His expression was mild, but Harry felt sure Lupin, at least, knew that some Extendable Ears had

survived Mrs. Weasley’s purge.

“Well,” said Mrs. Weasley, breathing deeply and looking around the table for support that did not come, “well… I can see I’m going to be overruled. I’ll just say this: Dumbledore must have had his reasons for not wanting Harry to know too much, and speaking as someone who has Harry’s best interests at heart -”

“He’s not your son,” said Sirius quietly.

“He’s as good as,” said Mrs. Weasley fiercely. “Who else has he got?”

“He’s got me!”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Weasley, her lip curling, “the thing is, it’s been rather difficult for you to look

after him while you’ve been locked up in Azkaban, hasn’t it?”

Sirius started to rise from his chair.

“Molly, you’re not the only person at this table who cares about Harry,” said Lupin sharply.

“Sirius, sit down.”

Mrs. Weasley’s lower lip was trembling. Sirius sank slowly back into his chair, his face white.

“I think Harry ought to be allowed a say in this,” Lupin continued, “he’s old enough to decide for

himself.”

“I want to know what’s been going on,” Harry said at once.

He did not look at Mrs. Weasley. He had been touched by what she had said about his being as

good as a son, but he was also impatient with her mollycoddling. Sirius was right, he was not a

child.

“Very well,” said Mrs. Weasley, her voice cracking. “Ginny - Ron - Hermione - Fred - George – I want you out of this kitchen, now.”

There was instant uproar.

“We’re of age!” Fred and George bellowed together.

“If Harry’s allowed, why can’t I?” shouted Ron.

“Mum, I want to hear!” wailed Ginny.

“NO!” shouted Mrs. Weasley, standing up, her eyes over bright. “I absolutely forbid -”

“Molly, you can’t stop Fred and George,” said Mr. Weasley wearily. “They are of age.”

“They’re still at school.”

“But they’re legally adults now,” said Mr. Weasley, in the same tired voice.

Mrs. Weasley was now scarlet in the face.

“I - oh, all right then, Fred and George can stay, but Ron -”

“Harry’ll tell me and Hermione everything you say anyway!” said Ron hotly. “Won’t - won’t

you?” he added uncertainly, meeting Harry’s eyes.

For a split second, Harry considered telling Ron that he wouldn’t tell him a single word, that he

could try a taste of being kept in the dark and see how he liked it. But the nasty impulse vanished

as they looked at each other.

“Course I will,” Harry said.

Ron and Hermione beamed.

“Fine!” shouted Mrs. Weasley. “Fine! Ginny - BED!”

Ginny did not go quietly. They could hear her raging and storming at her mother all the way up

the stairs, and when she reached the hall Mrs. Blacks ear-splitting shrieks were added to the din.

Lupin hurried off to the portrait to restore calm. It was only after he had returned, closing the

kitchen door behind him and taking his seat at the table again, that Sirius spoke.

“Okay, Harry… what do you want to know?”

Harry took a deep breath and asked the question that had obsessed him for the last month.

“Where’s Voldemort?” he said, ignoring the renewed shudders and winces at the name. “What’s

he doing? I’ve been trying to watch the Muggle news, and there hasn’t been anything that looks

like him yet, no funny deaths or anything.”

“That’s because there haven’t been any funny deaths yet,” said Sirius, “not as far as we know,

anyway… and we know quite a lot.”

“More than he thinks we do, anyway,” said Lupin.

“How come he’s stopped killing people?” Harry asked. He knew Voldemort had murdered more

than once in the last year alone.

“Because he doesn’t want to draw attention to himself,” said Sirius. “It would be dangerous for

him. His comeback didn’t come off quite the way he wanted it to, you see. He messed it up.”

“Or rather, you messed it up for him,” said Lupin, with a satisfied smile.

“How?” Harry asked, perplexed.

“You weren’t supposed to survive!” said Sirius. “Nobody apart from his Death Eaters was

supposed to know he’d come back. But you survived to bear witness.”

“And the very last person he wanted alerted to his return the moment he got back was

Dumbledore,” said Lupin. “And you made sure Dumbledore knew at once.”

“How has that helped?” Harry asked.

“Are you kidding?” said Bill incredulously. “Dumbledore was the only one You-Know-Who was

ever scared of!”

“Thanks to you, Dumbledore was able to recall the Order of the Phoenix about an hour after

Voldemort returned,” said Sirius.

“So, what’s the Order been doing?” said Harry, looking around at them all.

“Working as hard as we can to make sure Voldemort can’t carry out his plans,” said Sirius.

“How d’you know what his plans are?” Harry asked quickly.

“Dumbledore’s got a shrewd idea,’ said Lupin, “and Dumbledore’s shrewd ideas normally turn

out to be accurate.”

“So what does Dumbledore reckon he’s planning?”

“Well, firstly, he wants to build up his army again,” said Sirius. “In the old days he had huge

numbers at his command: witches and wizards he’d bullied or bewitched into following him, his

faithful Death Eaters, a great variety of Dark creatures. You heard him planning to recruit the

giants; well, they’ll be just one of the groups he’s after. He’s certainly not going to try and take

on the Ministry of Magic with only a dozen Death Eaters.”

“So you’re trying to stop him getting more followers?”

“We’re doing our best,” said Lupin.

“How?”

“Well, the main thing is to try and convince as many people as possible that You-Know-Who

really has returned, to put them on their guard,” said Bill. “It’s proving tricky, though.”

“Why?”

“Because of the Ministry’s attitude,” said Tonks. “You saw Cornelius Fudge after You-Know-

Who came back, Harry. Well, he hasn’t shifted his position at all. He’s absolutely refusing to

believe it’s happened.”

“But why?” said Harry desperately. “Why’s he being so stupid? If Dumbledore -”

“Ah, well, you’ve put your finger on the problem,” said Mr. Weasley with a wry smile. “Dumbledore.”

“Fudge is frightened of him, you see,” said Tonks sadly.

“Frightened of Dumbledore?” said Harry incredulously.

“Frightened of what he’s up to,” said Mr. Weasley. “Fudge thinks Dumbledore’s plotting to

overthrow him. He thinks Dumbledore wants to be Minister for Magic.”

“But Dumbledore doesn’t want -”

“Of course he doesn’t,” said Mr. Weasley. “He’s never wanted the Minister’s job, even though a

lot of people wanted him to take it when Millicent Bagnold retired. Fudge came to power

instead, but he’s never quite forgotten how much popular support Dumbledore had, even though

Dumbledore never applied for the job.”

“Deep down, Fudge knows Dumbledore’s much cleverer than he is - a much more powerful

wizard, and in the early days of his Ministry he was forever asking Dumbledore for help and

advice,” said Lupin. “But it seems he’s become fond of power, and much more confident. He

loves being Minister for Magic and he’s managed to convince himself that he’s the clever one

and Dumbledore’s simply stirring up trouble for the sake of it.”

“How can he think that?” said Harry angrily. “How can he think Dumbledore would just make it

all up - that I’d make it all up?”

“Because accepting that Voldemort’s back would mean trouble like the Ministry hasn’t had to

cope with for nearly fourteen years,” said Sirius bitterly. “Fudge just can’t bring himself to face

it. It’s so much more comfortable to convince himself Dumbledore’s lying to destabilize him.”

“You see the problem,” said Lupin. “While the Ministry insists there is nothing to fear from

Voldemort it’s hard to convince people he’s back, especially as they really don’t want to believe

it in the first place. What’s more, the Ministry’s leaning heavily on the Daily Prophet not to report any of what they’re calling Dumbledore’s rumor-mongering, so most of the wizarding

community are completely unaware any things happened, and that makes them easy targets for

the Death Eaters if they’re using the Imperius Curse.”

“But you’re telling people, aren’t you?” said Harry, looking around at Mr. Weasley, Sirius, Bill,

Mundungus, Lupin and Tonks. “You’re letting people know he’s back?”

They all smiled humorlessly.

“Well, as everyone thinks I’m a mad mass-murderer and the Ministry’s put a ten thousand

Galleon price on my head, I can hardly stroll up the street and start handing out leaflets, can I?”

said Sirius restlessly.

“And I’m not a very popular dinner guest with most of the community,” said Lupin. “It’s an

occupational hazard of being a werewolf.”

“Tonks and Arthur would lose their jobs at the Ministry if they started shooting their mouths off,” said Sirius, “and it’s very important for us to have spies inside the Ministry, because you can bet Voldemort will have them.”

“We’ve managed to convince a couple of people, though,” said Mr. Weasley, “Tonks here, for

one - she’s too young to have been in the Order of the Phoenix last time, and having Aurors on

our side is a huge advantage - Kingsley Shacklebolt’s been a real asset, too; he’s in charge of the

hunt for Sirius, so he’s been feeding the Ministry information that Sirius is in Tibet.”

“But if none of you are putting the news out that Voldemorts back -” Harry began.

“Who said none of us are putting the news out?” said Sirius. “Why d’you think Dumbledore’s in

such trouble?”

“What d’you mean?” Harry asked.

“They’re trying to discredit him,” said Lupin. “Didn’t you see the Daily Prophet last week? They

reported that he’d been voted out of the Chairmanship of the International Confederation of

Wizards because he’s getting old and losing his grip, but it’s not true; he was voted out by

Ministry wizards after he made a speech announcing Voldemorts return. They’ve demoted him

from Chief Warlock on the Wizengamot - that’s the Wizard High Court - and they’re talking

about taking away his Order of Merlin, First Class, too.”

“But Dumbledore says he doesn’t care what they do as long as they don’t take him off the

Chocolate Frog Cards,” said Bill, grinning.

“It’s no laughing matter,” said Mr. Weasley sharply. “If he carries on defying the Ministry like

this he could end up in Azkaban, and the last thing we want is to have Dumbledore locked up.

While You-Know-Who knows Dumbledore’s out there and wise to what he’s up to he’s going to

go cautiously. If Dumbledore’s out of the way - well, You-Know-Who will have a clear field.”

“But if Voldemort’s trying to recruit more Death Eaters it’s bound to get out that he’s come back, isn’t it?” asked Harry desperately.

“Voldemort doesn’t march up to people’s houses and bang on their front doors, Harry,” said

Sirius. “He tricks, jinxes and blackmails them. He’s well-practiced at operating in secret. In any

case, gathering followers is only one thing he’s interested in. He’s got other plans too, plans he

can put into operation very quietly indeed, and he’s concentrating on those for the moment.’

“What’s he after apart from followers?” Harry asked swiftly. He thought he saw Sirius and Lupin

exchange the most fleeting of looks before Sirius answered.

“Stuff he can only get by stealth.”

When Harry continued to look puzzled, Sirius said, “Like a weapon. Something he didn’t have

last time.”

“When he was powerful before?”

“Yes.”

“Like what kind of weapon?” said Harry. “Something worse than the Avada Kedavra -?”

“That’s enough!”

Mrs. Weasley spoke from the shadows beside the door. Harry hadn’t noticed her return from

taking Ginny upstairs. Her arms were crossed and she looked furious.

“I want you in bed, now. All of you,” she added, looking around at Fred, George, Ron and

Hermione.

“You can’t boss us -” Fred began.

“Watch me,” snarled Mrs. Weasley. She was trembling slightly as she looked at Sirius. “You’ve

given Harry plenty of information. Any more and you might just as well induct him into the

Order straightaway.”

“Why not?” said Harry quickly. “I’ll join, I want to join, I want to fight.”

“No.”

It was not Mrs. Weasley who spoke this time, but Lupin.

“The Order is comprised only of overage wizards,” he said. “Wizards who have left school,” he

added, as Fred and George opened their mouths. “There are dangers involved of which you can

have no idea, any of you… I think Molly’s right, Sirius. We’ve said enough.”

Sirius half-shrugged but did not argue. Mrs. Weasley beckoned imperiously to her sons and

Hermione. One by one they stood up and Harry, recognizing defeat, followed suit.

CHAPTER SIX

The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black

Mrs. Weasley followed them upstairs looking grim.

“I want you all to go straight to bed, no talking,” she said as they reached the first landing, “we’ve got a busy day tomorrow. I expect Ginny’s asleep,” she added to Hermione, “so try not to wake her up.”

“Asleep, yeah, right,” said Fred in an undertone, after Hermione bade them goodnight and they

were climbing to the next floor. “If Ginny’s not lying awake waiting for Hermione to tell her

everything they said downstairs then I’m a Flobberworm…”

“All right, Ron, Harry,” said Mrs. Weasley on the second landing, pointing them into their

bedroom. “Off to bed with you.”

“Night,” Harry and Ron said to the twins.

“Sleep tight,” said Fred, winking.

Mrs. Weasley closed the door behind Harry with a sharp snap. The bedroom looked, if anything,

even danker and gloomier than it had on first sight. The blank picture on the wall was now

breathing very slowly and deeply, as though its invisible occupant was asleep. Harry put on his

pajamas, took off his glasses and climbed into his chilly bed while Ron threw Owl Treats up on

top of the wardrobe to pacify Hedwig and Pigwidgeon, who were clattering around and rustling

their wings restlessly.

“We can’t let them out to hunt every night,” Ron explained as he pulled on his maroon pajamas.

“Dumbledore doesn’t want too many owls swooping around the square, thinks it’ll look

suspicious. Oh yeah… I forgot…”

He crossed to the door and bolted it.

“What’re you doing that for?”

“Kreacher,” said Ron as he turned off the light. “First night I was here he came wandering in at

three in the morning. Trust me, you don’t want to wake up and find him prowling around your

room. Anyway…” he got into his bed, settled down under the covers then turned to look at Harry

in the darkness; Harry could see his outline by the moonlight filtering in through the grimy

window, “what d’you reckon?”

Harry didn’t need to ask what Ron meant.

“Well, they didn’t tell us much we couldn’t have guessed, did they?” he said, thinking of all that

had been said downstairs. “I mean, all they’ve really said is that the Order’s trying to stop people

joining Vol—”

There was a sharp intake of breath from Ron.

“—demort,” said Harry firmly. “When are you going to start using his name? Sirius and Lupin do.”

Ron ignored this last comment.

“Yeah, you’re right,” he said, “we already knew nearly everything they told us, from using the

Extendable Ears. The only new bit was -”

Crack.

“OUCH!”

“Keep your voice down, Ron, or Mum’ll be back up he re.”

“You two just Apparated on my knees!”

“Yeah, well, it’s harder in the dark.”

Harry saw the blurred outlines of Fred and George leaping down from Ron’s bed. There was a

groan of bedsprings and Harry’s mattress descended a few inches as George sat down near his

feet.

“So, got there yet?” said George eagerly.

“The weapon Sirius mentioned?” said Harry.

“Let slip, more like,” said Fred with relish, now sitting next to Ron. “We didn’t hear about that on the old Extendables, did we?”

“What d’you reckon it is?” said Harry.

“Could be anything,” said Fred.

“But there can’t be anything worse than the Avada Kedavra Curse, can there?” said Ron. “What’s worse than death?”

“Maybe it’s something that can kill loads of people at once,” suggested George.

“Maybe it’s some particularly painful way of killing people,” said Ron fearfully.

“He’s got the Cruciatus Curse for causing pain,” said Harry, “he doesn’t need anything more

efficient than that.”

There was a pause and Harry knew that the others, like him, were wondering what horrors this

weapon could perpetrate.

“So who d’you think’s got it now?” asked George.

“I hope it’s our side,” said Ron, sounding slightly nervous.

“If it is, Dumbledore’s probably keeping it,” said Fred.

“Where?” said Ron quickly. “Hogwarts?”

“Bet it is!” said George. “That’s where he hid the Sorcerer’s Stone.”

“A weapons going to be a lot bigger than the Stone, though!” said Ron.

“Not necessarily” said Fred.

“Yeah, size is no guarantee of power,” said George. “Look at Ginny.”

“What d’you mean?” said Harry.

“You’ve never been on the receiving end of one of her Bat-Bogey Hexes, have you?”

“Shh!” said Fred, half-rising from the bed. “Listen!”

They fell silent. Footsteps were coming up the stairs.

“Mum,” said George and without further ado there was a loud crack and Harry felt the weight

vanish from the end of his bed. A few seconds later, they heard the floorboard creak outside their

door; Mrs. Weasley was plainly listening to check whether or not they were talking.

Hedwig and Pigwidgeon hooted dolefully. The floorboard creaked again and they heard her

heading upstairs to check on Fred and George.

“She doesn’t trust us at all, you know,” said Ron regretfully.

Harry was sure he would not be able to fall asleep; the evening had been so packed with things to

think about that he fully expected to lie awake for hours mulling it all over. He wanted to

continue talking to Ron, but Mrs. Weasley was now creaking back downstairs again, and once

she had gone he distinctly heard others making their way upstairs… in fact, many-legged

creatures were cantering softly up and down outside the bedroom door, and Hagrid the Care of

Magical Creatures teacher was saying, “Beauties, arn’ they, eh, Harry? We’ll be studyin’ weapons this term…” and Harry saw that the creatures had cannons for heads and were wheeling to face him… he ducked…

The next thing he knew, he was curled into a warm ball under his bedclothes and Georges loud

voice was filling the room.

“Mum says get up, your breakfast is in the kitchen and then she needs you in the drawing room,

there are loads more Doxys than she thought and she’s found a nest of dead Puffskeins under the

sofa.”

Half an hour later Harry and Ron, who had dressed and breakfasted quickly, entered the drawing

room, a long, high-ceilinged room on the first floor with olive green walls covered in dirty

tapestries. The carpet exhaled little clouds of dust every time someone put their foot on it and the

long, moss green velvet curtains were buzzing as though swarming with invisible bees. It was

around these that Mrs. Weasley, Hermione, Ginny, Fred and George were grouped, all looking

rather peculiar as they had each tied a cloth over their nose and mouth. Each of them was also

holding a large bottle of black liquid with anozzle at the end.

“Cover your faces and take a spray,” Mrs. Weasley said to Harry and Ron the moment she saw

them, pointing to two more bottles of black liquid standing on a spindle-legged table. “It’s

Doxycide. I’ve never seen an infestation this bad - what that house-elf’s been doing for the last ten years -”

Hermione’s face was half concealed by a tea towel but Harry distinctly saw her throw a

reproachful look at Mrs. Weasley.

“Kreacher’s really old, he probably couldn’t manage -”

“You’d be surprised what Kreacher can manage when he wants to, Hermione,” said Sirius, who

had just entered the room carrying a bloodstained bag of what appeared to be dead rats. “I’ve just

been feeding Buckbeak,” he added, in reply to Harry s enquiring look. “I keep him upstairs in my

mothers bedroom. Anyway… this writing desk…”

He dropped the bag of rats into an armchair, then bent over to examine the locked cabinet which,

Harry now noticed for the first time, was shaking slightly.

“Well, Molly, I’m pretty sure this is a Boggart,” said Sirius, peering through the keyhole, “but

perhaps we ought to let Mad-Eye have a shifty at it before we let it out - knowing my mother, it

could be something much worse.”

“Right you are, Sirius,” said Mrs. Weasley.

They were both speaking in carefully light, polite voices that told Harry quite plainly that neither

had forgotten their disagreement of the night before.

A loud, clanging bell sounded from downstairs, followed at once by the cacophony of screams

and wails that had been triggered the previous night by Tonks knocking over the umbrella stand.

“I keep telling them not to ring the doorbell!” said Sirius exasperatedly, hurrying out of the room.

They heard him thundering down the stairs as Mrs. Black’s screeches echoed up through the

house once more:

“Stains, of dishonor, filthy half-breeds, blood traitors, children of filth”

“Close the door, please, Harry,” said Mrs. Weasley.

Harry took as much time as he dared to close the drawing-room door; he wanted to listen to what

was going on downstairs. Sirius had obviously managed to shut the curtains over his mother’s

portrait because she had stopped screaming. He heard Sirius walking down the hall, then the

clattering of the chain on the front door, and then a deep voice he recognized as Kingsley

Shacklebolt’s saying, “Hestia’s just relieved me, so she’s got Moody’s Cloak now, thought I’d

leave a report for Dumbledore…”

Feeling Mrs. Weasley’s eyes on the back of his head, Harry regretfully closed the drawing-room

door and rejoined the Doxy party.

Mrs. Weasley was bending over to check the page on Doxys in Gilderoy Lockhart’s Guide to

Household Pests, which was lying open on the sofa.

“Right, you lot, you need to be careful, because Doxys bite and their teeth are poisonous. I’ve got a bottle of antidote here, but I’d rather nobody needed it.”

She straightened up, positioned herself squarely in front of the curtains and beckoned them all

forward.

“When I say the word, start spraying immediately,” she said. “They’ll come flying out at us, I

expect, but it says on the sprays one good squirt will paralyze them. When they’re immobilized,

just throw them in this bucket.”

She stepped carefully out of their line of fire, and raised her own spray.

“All right - squirt!”

Harry had been spraying only a few seconds when a fully-grown Doxy came soaring out of a

fold in the material, shiny beetle-like wings whirring, tiny needle-sharp teeth bared, its fairy-like

body covered with thick black hair and its four tiny fists clenched with fury. Harry caught it full

in the face with a blast of Doxycide. It froze in midair and fell, with a surprisingly loud hunk, on

to the worn carpet below. Harry picked it up and threw it in the bucket.

“Fred, what are you doing?” said Mrs. Weasley sharply. “Spray that at once and throw it away!”

Harry looked round. Fred was holding a struggling Doxy between his forefinger and thumb.

“Right-o,’ Fred said brightly, spraying the Doxy quickly in the face so that it fainted, but the

moment Mrs. Weasley’s back was turned he pocketed it with a wink.

“We want to experiment with Doxy venom for our Skiving Snackboxes,” George told Harry under his breath.

Deftly spraying two Doxys at once as they soared straight for his nose, Harry moved closer to

George and muttered out of the corner of his mouth, “What are Skiving Snackboxes?”

“Range of sweets to make you ill,” George whispered, keeping a wary eye on Mrs. Weasley’s

back. “Not seriously ill, mind, just ill enough to get you out of a class when you feel like it. Fred

and I have been developing them this summer. They’re double-ended, color-coded chews. If

you eat the orange half of the Puking Pastilles, you throw up. Moment you’ve been rushed out of

the lesson for the hospital wing, you swallow the purple half –”

“which restores you to full fitness, enabling you to pursue the leisure activity of your own

choice during an hour that would otherwise have been devoted to unprofitable boredom. That’s

what we’re putting in the adverts, anyway,” whispered Fred, who had edged over out of Mrs.

Weasley’s line of vision and was now sweeping a few stray Doxys from the floor and adding

them to his pocket. “But they still need a bit of work. At the moment our testers are having a bit

of trouble stopping puking long enough to swallow the purple end.”

“Testers?”

“Us,” said Fred. “We take it in turns. George did the Fainting Fancies - we both tried the

Nosebleed Nougat -”

“Mum thought we’d been dueling,” said George.

“Joke shop still on, then?” Harry muttered, pretending to be adjusting the nozzle on his spray.

“Well, we haven’t had a chance to get premises yet,” said Fred, dropping his voice even lower as

Mrs. Weasley mopped her brow with her scarf before returning to the attack, “so we’re running it

as a mail-order service at the moment. We put advertisements in the Daily Prophet last week.”

“All thanks to you, mate,” said George. “But don’t worry… Mum hasn’t got a clue. She won’t read the Daily Prophet any more, ‘cause of it telling lies about you and Dumbledore.”

Harry grinned. He had forced the Weasley twins to take the thousand Galleons prize money he

had won in the Triwizard Tournament to help them realize their ambition to open a joke shop,

but he was still glad to know that his part in furthering their plans was unknown to Mrs.

Weasley. She did not think running a joke shop was a suitable career for two of her sons.

The de-Doxying of the curtains took most of the morning. It was past midday when Mrs.

Weasley finally removed her protective scarf, sank into a sagging armchair and sprang up again

with a cry of disgust, having sat on the bag of dead rats. The curtains were no longer buzzing;

they hung limp and damp from the intensive spraying. At the foot of them unconscious Doxys

lay crammed in the bucket beside a bowl of their black eggs, at which Crookshanks was now

sniffing and Fred and George were shooting covetous looks.

“I think we’ll tackle those after lunch.” Mrs. Weasley pointed at the dusty glass-fronted cabinets

standing on either side of the mantelpiece. They were crammed with an odd assortment of

objects: a selection of rusty daggers, claws, a coiled snakeskin, a number of tarnished silver

boxes inscribed with languages Harry could not understand and, least pleasant of all, an ornate

crystal bottle with a large opal set into the stopper, full of what Harry was quite sure was blood.

The clanging doorbell rang again. Everyone looked at Mrs. Weasley.

“Stay here,” she said firmly, snatching up the bag of rats as Mrs. Black’s screeches started up

again from down below. “I’ll bring up some sandwiches.”

She left the room, closing the door carefully behind her. At once, everyone dashed over to the

window to look down on the doorstep. They could see the top of an unkempt gingery head and a

stack of precariously balanced cauldrons.

“Mundungus!” said Hermione. “What’s he brought all those cauldrons for?”

“Probably looking for a safe place to keep them,” said Harry. “Isn’t that what he was doing the

night he was supposed to be tailing me? Picking up dodgy cauldrons?”

“Yeah, you’re right!” said Fred, as the front door opened; Mundungus heaved his cauldrons

through it and disappeared from view. “Blimey, Mum won’t like that…”

He and George crossed to the door and stood beside it, listening closely. Mrs. Black’s screaming

had stopped.

“Mundungus is talking to Sirius and Kingsley,” Fred muttered, frowning with concentration. “Can’t hear properly… d’you reckon we can risk the Extendable Ears?”

“Might be worth it,” said George. “I could sneak up stairs and get a pair -”

But at that precise moment there was an explosion of sound from downstairs that rendered

Extendable Ears quite unnecessary. All of them could hear exactly what Mrs. Weasley was

shouting at the top of her voice.

“WE ARE NOT RUNNING A HIDEOUT FOR STOLEN GOODS!”

“I love hearing Mum shouting at someone else,” said Fred, with a satisfied smile on his face as he opened the door an inch or so to allow Mrs. Weasley’s voice to permeate the room better, “it

makes such a nice change.”

“- COMPLETELY IRRESPONSIBLE, AS IF WE HAVEN’T GOT ENOUGH TO WORRY

ABOUT WITHOUT YOU DRAGGING STOLEN CAULDRONS INTO THE HOUSE -”

“The idiots are letting her get into her stride,” said George, shaking his head. “You’ve got to head her off early otherwise she builds up a head of steam and goes on for hours. And she’s been

dying to have a go at Mundungus ever since he sneaked off when he was supposed to be

following you, Harry - and there goes Sirius’s mum again.”

Mrs. Weasley’s voice was lost amid fresh shrieks and screams from the portraits in the hall.

George made to shut the door to drown the noise, but before he could do so, a house-elf edged

into the room.

Except for the filthy rag tied like a loincloth around its middle, it was completely naked. It

looked very old. Its skin seemed to be several times too big for it and, though it was bald like all

house-elves, there was a quantity of white hair growing out of its large, batlike ears. Its eyes

were a bloodshot and watery grey and its fleshy nose was large and rather snoutlike.

The elf took absolutely no notice of Harry and the rest. Acting as though it could not see them, it

shuffled hunchbacked, slowly and doggedly, towards the far end of the room, all the while

muttering under its breath in a hoarse, deep voice like a bullfrogs.

“… smells like a drain and a criminal to boot, but she’s no better, nasty old blood traitor with her

brats messing up my mistress’s house, oh, my poor mistress, if she knew, if she knew the scum

they’ve let into her house, what would she say to old Kreacher, oh, the shame of it, Mudbloods

and werewolves and traitors and thieves, poor old Kreacher, what can he do…”

“Hello, Kreacher,” said Fred very loudly, closing the door with a snap.

The house-elf froze in his tracks, stopped muttering, and gave a very pronounced and very

unconvincing start of surprise.

“Kreacher did not see young master,” he said, turning around and bowing to Fred. Still facing the

carpet, he added, perfectly audibly, “Nasty little brat of a blood traitor it is.”

“Sorry?” said George. “Didn’t catch that last bit.”

“Kreacher said nothing,” said the elf, with a second bow to George, adding in a clear undertone,

“and there’s its twin, unnatural little beasts they are.”

Harry didn’t know whether to laugh or not. The elf straightened up, eyeing them all

malevolently, and apparently convinced that they could not hear him as he continued to mutter.

“… and there’s the Mudblood, standing there bold as brass, oh, if my mistress knew, oh, how

she’d cry, and there’s a new boy, Kreacher doesn’t know his name. What is he doing here?

Kreacher doesn’t know…”

“This is Harry, Kreacher,” said Hermione tentatively. “Harry Potter.”

Kreacher’s pale eyes widened and he muttered faster and more furiously than ever.

“The Mudblood is talking to Kreacher as though she is my friend, if Kreacher’s mistress saw him

in such company, oh, what would she say -”

“Don’t call her a Mudblood!” said Ron and Ginny together, very angrily.

“It doesn’t matter,” Hermione whispered, “he’s not in his right mind, he doesn’t know what he’s -”

“Don’t kid yourself, Hermione, he knows exactly what he’s saying,” said Fred, eyeing Kreacher

with great dislike.

Kreacher was still muttering, his eyes on Harry.

“Is it true? Is it Harry Potter? Kreacher can see t he scar, it must be true, that’s the boy who

stopped the Dark Lord, Kreacher wonders how he did it -”

“Don’t we all, Kreacher,” said Fred.

“What do you want, anyway?” George asked.

Kreacher’s huge eyes darted towards George.

“Kreacher is cleaning,” he said evasively.

“A likely story,” said a voice behind Harry.

Sirius had come back; he was glowering at the elf from the doorway. The noise in the hall had

abated; perhaps Mrs. Weasley and Mundungus had moved their argument down into the kitchen.

At the sight of Sirius, Kreacher flung himself into a ridiculously low bow that flattened his

snoutlike nose on the floor.

“Stand up straight,” said Sirius impatiently. “Now, what are you up to?”

“Kreacher is cleaning,” the elf repeated. “Kreacher lives to serve the Noble House of Black -”

“And it’s getting blacker every day, it’s filthy,” said Sirius.

“Master always liked his little joke,” said Kreacher, bowing again, and continuing in an

undertone, “Master was a nasty ungrateful swine who broke his mother’s heart -”

“My mother didn’t have a heart, Kreacher,” snapped Sirius. “She kept herself alive out of pure

spite.”

Kreacher bowed again as he spoke.

“Whatever Master says,” he muttered furiously. “Master is not fit to wipe slime from his mother’s boots, oh, my poor mistress, what would she say if she saw Kreacher serving him, how she hated him, what a disappointment he was -”

“I asked you what you were up to,” said Sirius coldly. “Every time you show up pretending to be

cleaning, you sneak something off to your room so we can’t throw it out.”

“Kreacher would never move anything from its proper place in Master’s house,” said the elf, then muttered very fast, “Mistress would never forgive Kreacher if the tapestry was thrown out, seven centuries it’s been in the family, Kreacher must save it, Kreacher will not let Master and the blood traitors and the brats destroy it -”

“I thought it might be that,” said Sirius, casting a disdainful look at the opposite wall. “She’ll have put another Permanent Sticking Charm on the back of it, I don’t doubt, but if I can get rid of it I certainly will. Now go away, Kreacher.”

It seemed that Kreacher did not dare disobey a direct order; nevertheless, the look he gave Sirius

as he shuffled out past him was full of deepest loathing and he muttered all the way out of the

room.

“- comes back from Azkaban ordering Kreacher around, oh, my poor mistress, what would she

say if she saw the house now, scum living in it, her treasures thrown out, she swore he was no

son of hers and he’s back, they say he’s a murderer too -”

“Keep muttering and I will be a murderer!” said Sirius irritably as he slammed the door shut on

the elf.

“Sirius, he’s not right in the head,” Hermione pleaded, “I don’t think he realizes we can hear him.”

“He’s been alone too long,” said Sirius, “taking mad orders from my mother’s portrait and talking to himself, but he was always a foul little -”

“If you could just set him free,” said Hermione hopefully, “maybe -”

“We can’t set him free, he knows too much about the Order” said Sirius curtly. “And anyway, the shock would kill him. You suggest to him that he leaves this house, see how he takes it.”

Sirius walked across the room to where the tapestry Kreacher had been trying to protect hung the

length of the wall. Harry and the others followed.

The tapestry looked immensely old; it was faded and looked as though Doxys had gnawed it in

places. Nevertheless, the golden thread with which it was embroidered still glinted brightly

enough to show them a sprawling family tree dating back (as far as Harry could tell) to the

Middle Ages. Large words at the very top of the tapestry read:

The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black Toujours pur

“You’re not on here!” said Harry, after scanning the bottom of the tree closely.

“I used to be there,” said Sirius, pointing at a small, round, charred hole in the tapestry, rather like a cigarette burn. “My sweet old mother blasted me off after I ran away from home - Kreacher’s quite fond of muttering the story under his breath.”

“You ran away from home?”

“When I was about sixteen,” said Sirius. “I’d had enough.”

“Where did you go?” asked Harry, staring at him.

“Your dad’s place,” said Sirius. “Your grandparents were really good about it; they sort of adopted me as a second son. Yeah, I camped out at your dad’s in the school holidays, and when I was seventeen I got a place of my own. My Uncle Alphard had left me a decent bit of gold - he’s been wiped off here, too, that’s probably why - anyway, after that I looked after myself. I was always welcome at Mr. and Mrs. Potter’s for Sunday lunch, though.”

“But… why did you…?”

“Leave?” Sirius smiled bitterly and ran his fingers through his long, unkempt hair. “Because I

hated the whole lot of them: my parents, with their pure-blood mania, convinced that to be a

Black made you practically royal… my idiot brother, soft enough to believe them… that’s him.”

Sirius jabbed a finger at the very bottom of the tree, at the name Regulus Black. A date of death

(some fifteen years previously) followed the date of birth.

“He was younger than me,” said Sirius, “and a much better son, as I was constantly reminded.”

“But he died,” said Harry.

“Yeah,” said Sirius. “Stupid idiot… he joined the Death Eaters.”

“You’re kidding!”

“Come on, Harry, haven’t you seen enough of this house to tell what kind of wizards my family

were?” said Sirius testily.

“Were - were your parents Death Eaters as well?”

“No, no, but believe me, they thought Voldemort had the right idea, they were all for the

purification of the wizarding race, getting rid of Muggle-borns and having pure-bloods in charge.

They weren’t alone, either, there were quite a few people, before Voldemort showed his true

colors, who thought he had the right idea about things… they got cold feet when they saw what

he was prepared to do to get power, though. But I bet my parents thought Regulus was a right

little hero for joining up at first.”

“Was he killed by an Auror?” Harry asked tentatively.

“Oh, no,” said Sirius. “No, he was murdered by Voldemort. Or on Voldemort’s orders, more likely; I doubt Regulus was ever important enough to be killed by Voldemort in person. From what I found out after he died, he got in so far, then panicked about what he was being asked to do and tried to back out. Well, you don’t just hand in your resignation to Voldemort. It’s a lifetime of service or death.”

“Lunch,” said Mrs. Weasleys voice.

She was holding her wand high in front of her, balancing a huge tray loaded with sandwiches and

cake on its tip. She was very red in the face and still looked angry. The others moved over to her,

eager for some food, but Harry remained with Sirius, who had bent closer to the tapestry.

“I haven’t looked at this for years. There’s Phineas Nigellus… my great-great-grandfather, see?… least popular Headmaster Hogwarts ever had… and Araminta Mehflua… cousin of my

mothers… tried to force through a Ministry Bill to make Muggle-hunting legal… and dear Aunt

Elladora… she started the family tradition of beheading house-elves when they got too old to

carry tea trays… of course, any time the family produced someone halfway decent they were

disowned. I see Tonks isn’t on here. Maybe that’s why Kreacher won’t take orders from her - he’s supposed to do whatever anyone in the family asks him -”

“You and Tonks are related?” Harry asked, surprised.

“Oh, yeah, her mother Andromeda was my favorite cousin,” said Sirius, examining the tapestry

closely. “No, Andromeda’s not on here either, look -”

He pointed to another small round burn mark between two names, Bellatrix and Narcissa.

“Andromeda’s sisters are still here because they made lovely, respectable pure-blood marriages,

but Andromeda married a Muggle-born, Ted Tonks, so -”

Sirius mimed blasting the tapestry with a wand and laughed sourly. Harry, however, did not

laugh; he was too busy staring at the names to the right of Andromeda’s burn mark. A double line of gold embroidery linked Narcissa Black with Lucius Malfoy and a single vertical gold line

from their names led to the name Draco.

“You’re related to the Malfoys!”

“The pure-blood families are all interrelated,” said Sirius. “If you’re only going to let your sons

and daughters marry pure-bloods your choice is very limited; there are hardly any of us left.

Molly and I are cousins by marriage and Arthur’s something like my second cousin once

removed. But there’s no point looking for them on here - if ever a family was a bunch of blood

traitors it’s the Weasleys.”

But Harry was now looking at the name to the left of Andromeda’s burn: Bellatrix Black, which

was connected by a double line to Rodolphus Lestrange.

“Lestrange…” Harry said aloud. The name had stirred something in his memory; he knew it from somewhere, but for a moment he couldn’t think where, though it gave him an odd, creeping

sensation in the pit of his stomach.

“They’re in Azkaban,” said Sirius shortly.

Harry looked at him curiously.

“Bellatrix and her husband Rodolphus came in with Barty Crouch junior,” said Sirius, in the same brusque voice. “Rodolphuss brother Rabastan was with them, too.”

Then Harry remembered. He had seen Bellatrix Lestrange inside Dumbledore’s Pensieve, the

strange device in which thoughts and memories could be stored: a tall dark woman with heavylidded eyes, who had stood at her trial and proclaimed her continuing allegiance to Lord

Voldemort, her pride that she had tried to find him after his downfall and her conviction that she

would one day be rewarded for her loyalty.

“You never said she was your -”

“Does it matter if she’s my cousin?” snapped Sirius. “As far as I’m concerned, they’re not my

family. She’s certainly not my family. I haven’t seen her since I was your age, unless you count a

glimpse of her coming into Azkaban. D’you think I’m proud of having a relative like her?”

“Sorry,” said Harry quickly, “I didn’t mean - I was just surprised, that’s all -”

“It doesn’t matter, don’t apologize,” Sirius mumbled. He turned away from the tapestry, his hands deep in his pockets. “I don’t like being back here,” he said, staring across the drawing room. “I never thought I’d be stuck in this house again.”

Harry understood completely. He knew how he would feel, when he was grown up and thought

he was free of the place for ever, to return and live at number four, Privet Drive.

“It’s ideal for Headquarters, of course,” Sirius said. “My father put every security measure known to wizard kind on it when he lived here. It’s unplottable, so Muggles could never come and call - as if they’d ever have wanted to - and now Dumbledore’s added his protection, you’d be hard put to find a safer house anywhere. Dumbledore is Secret Keeper for the Order, you know – nobody can find Headquarters unless he tells them personally where it is - that note Moody showed you last night, that was from Dumbledore…” Sirius gave a short, bark-like laugh. “If my parents could see the use their house was being put to now… well, my mothers portrait should give you some idea.”

He scowled for a moment, then sighed.

“I wouldn’t mind if I could just get out occasionally and do something useful. I’ve asked

Dumbledore whether I can escort you to your hearing - as Snuffles, obviously - so I can give you

a bit of moral support, what d’you think?”

Harry felt as though his stomach had sunk through the dusty carpet. He had not thought about the

hearing once since dinner the previous evening; in the excitement of being back with the people

he liked best, and hearing everything that was going on, it had completely flown his mind. At

Sirius’s words, however, the crushing sense of dread returned to him. He stared at Hermione and

the Weasleys, all tucking into their sandwiches, and thought how he would feel if they went back

to Hogwarts without him.

“Don’t worry,” Sirius said. Harry looked up and realized that Sirius had been watching him. “I’m

sure they’ll clear you, there’s definitely something in the International Statute of Secrecy about

being allowed to use magic to save your own life.”

“But if they do expel me,” said Harry quietly, “can I come back here and live with you?”

Sirius smiled sadly.

“We’ll see.”

“I’d feel a lot better about the hearing if I knew I didn’t have to go back to the Dursleys,” Harry

pressed him.

“They must be bad if you prefer this place,” said Sirius gloomily.

“Hurry up, you two, or there won’t be any food left,” Mrs. Weasley called.

Sirius heaved another great sigh, cast a dark look at the tapestry, then he and Harry went to join

the others.

Harry tried his best not to think about the hearing while they emptied the glass-fronted cabinets

that afternoon. Fortunately for him, it was a job that required a lot of concentration, as many of

the objects in there seemed very reluctant to leave their dusty shelves. Sirius sustained a bad bite

from a silver snuffbox; within seconds his bitten hand had developed an unpleasant crusty

covering like a tough brown glove.

“It’s okay,” he said, examining the hand with interest before tapping it lightly with his wand and

restoring its skin to normal, “must be Wartcap powder in there.”

He threw the box aside into the sack where they were depositing the debris from the cabinets;

Harry saw George wrap his own hand carefully in a cloth moments later and sneak the box into

his already Doxy-filled pocket.

They found an unpleasant-looking silver instrument, something like a many-legged pair of

tweezers, which scuttled up Harry’s arm like a spider when he picked it up, and attempted to

puncture his skin. Sirius seized it and smashed it with a heavy book entitled Nature’s Nobility: A

Wizarding Genealogy. There was a musical box that emitted a faintly sinister, tinkling tune

when wound, and they all found themselves becoming curiously weak and sleepy, until Ginny

had the sense to slam the lid shut; a heavy locket that none of them could open; a number of

ancient seals; and, in a dusty box, an Order of Merlin, First Class, that had been awarded to

Sirius’s grandfather for services to the Ministry.

“It means he gave them a load of gold,” said Sirius contemptuously, throwing the medal into the

rubbish sack.

Several times Kreacher sidled into the room and attempted to smuggle things away under his

loincloth, muttering horrible curses every time they caught him at it. When Sirius wrested a large

golden ring bearing the Black crest from his grip, Kreacher actually burst into furious tears and

left the room sobbing under his breath and calling Sirius names Harry had never heard before.

“It was my father’s,” said Sirius, throwing the ring into the sack. “Kreacher wasn’t quite as devoted to him as to my mother, but I still caught him snogging a pair of my father’s old trousers last week.”

Mrs. Weasley kept them all working very hard over the next few days. The drawing room took

three days to decontaminate. Finally, the only undesirable things left in it were the tapestry of the

Black family tree, which resisted all their attempts to remove it from the wall, and the rattling

writing desk. Moody had not dropped by Headquarters yet, so they could not be sure what was

inside it.

They moved from the drawing room to a dining room on the ground floor where they found

spiders as large as saucers lurking in the dresser (Ron left the room hurriedly to make a cup of

tea and did not return for an hour and a half). The china, which bore the Black crest and motto,

was all thrown unceremoniously into a sack by Sirius, and the same fate met a set of old

photographs in tarnished silver frames, all of whose occupants squealed shrilly as the glass

covering them smashed.

Snape might refer to their work as ‘cleaning’, but in Harry’s opinion they were really waging war on the house, which was putting up a very good fight, aided and abetted by Kreacher. The house-elf kept appearing wherever they were congregated, his muttering becoming more and more offensive as he attempted to remove anything he could from the rubbish sacks. Sirius went as far as to threaten him with clothes, but Kreacher fixed him with a watery stare and said, “Master must do as Master wishes,” before turning away and muttering very loudly, “but Master will not turn Kreacher away, no, because Kreacher knows what they are up to, oh yes, he is plotting against the Dark Lord, yes, with these Mudbloods and traitors and scum…” At which Sirius, ignoring Hermione’s protests, seized Kreacher by the back of his loincloth and

threw him bodily from the room.

The doorbell rang several times a day, which was the cue for Sirius’s mother to start shrieking

again, and for Harry and the others to attempt to eavesdrop on the visitor, though they gleaned

very little from the brief glimpses and snatches of conversation they were able to sneak before

Mrs. Weasley recalled them to their tasks. Snape flitted in and out of the house several times

more, though to Harry’s relief they never came face to face; Harry also caught sight of his

Transfiguration teacher Professor McGonagall, looking very odd in a Muggle dress and coat, and

she also seemed too busy to linger. Sometimes, however, the visitors stayed to help. Tonks

joined them for a memorable afternoon in which they found a murderous old ghoul lurking in an

upstairs toilet, and Lupin, who was staying in the house with Sirius but who left it for long

periods to do mysterious work for the Order, helped them repair a grandfather clock that had

developed the unpleasant habit of shooting heavy bolts at passers-by. Mundungus redeemed

himself slightly in Mrs. Weasley’s eyes by rescuing Ron from an ancient set of purple robes that

had tried to strangle him when he removed them from their wardrobe.

Despite the fact that he was still sleeping badly, still having dreams about corridors and locked

doors that made his scar prickle, Harry was managing to have fun for the first time all summer.

As long as he was busy he was happy; when the action abated, however, whenever he dropped

his guard, or lay exhausted in bed watching blurred shadows move across the ceiling, the thought

of the looming Ministry hearing returned to him. Fear jabbed at his insides like needles as he

wondered what was going to happen to him if he was expelled. The idea was so terrible that he

did not dare voice it aloud, not even to Ron and Hermione, who, though he often saw them

whispering together and casting anxious looks in his direction, followed his lead in not

mentioning it. Sometimes, he could not prevent his imagination showing him a faceless Ministry

official who was snapping his wand in two and ordering him back to the Dursleys’… but he

would not go. He was determined on that. He would come back here to Grimmauld Place and

live with Sirius.

He felt as though a brick had dropped into his stomach when Mrs. Weasley turned to him during

dinner on Wednesday evening and said quietly, “I’ve ironed your best clothes for tomorrow

morning, Harry, and I want you to wash your hair tonight, too. A good first impression can work

wonders.”

Ron, Hermione, Fred, George and Ginny all stopped talking and looked over at him. Harry

nodded and tried to keep eating his chops, but his mouth had become so dry he could not chew.

“How am I getting there?” he asked Mrs. Weasley, trying to sound unconcerned.

“Arthurs taking you to work with him,” said Mrs. Weasley gently.

Mr. Weasley smiled encouragingly at Harry across the table.

“You can wait in my office until it’s time for the hearing,” he said.

Harry looked over at Sirius, but before he could ask the question, Mrs. Weasley had answered it.

“Professor Dumbledore doesn’t think it’s a good idea for Sirius to go with you, and I must say I -”

“think he’s quite right,” said Sirius through clenched teeth.

Mrs. Weasley pursed her lips.

“When did Dumbledore tell you that?” Harry said, staring at Sirius.

“He came last night, when you were in bed,” said Mr. Weasley.

Sirius stabbed moodily at a potato with his fork. Harry lowered his own eyes to his plate. The

thought that Dumbledore had been in the house on the eve of his hearing and not asked to see

him made him feel, if it were possible, even worse.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The Ministry of Magic

Harry awoke at half past five the next morning as abruptly and completely as if somebody had

yelled in his ear. For a few moments he lay immobile as the prospect of the disciplinary hearing

filled every tiny particle of his brain, then, unable to bear it, he leapt out of bed and put on his

glasses. Mrs. Weasley had laid out his freshly laundered jeans and T-shirt at the foot of his bed.

Harry scrambled into them. The blank picture on the wall sniggered.

Ron was lying sprawled on his back with his mouth wide open, fast asleep. He did not stir as

Harry crossed the room, stepped out on to the landing and closed the door softly behind him.

Trying not to think of the next time he would see Ron, when they might no longer be fellow

students at Hogwarts, Harry walked quietly down the stairs, past the heads of Kreacher’s

ancestors, and down into the kitchen.

He had expected it to be empty, but when he reached the door he heard the soft rumble of voices

on the other side. He pushed it open and saw Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Sirius, Lupin and Tonks

sitting there almost as though they were waiting for him. All were fully dressed except Mrs.

Weasley, who was wearing a quilted purple dressing gown. She leapt to her feet the moment

Harry entered.

“Breakfast,” she said as she pulled out her wand and hurried over to the fire.

“M - m - morning, Harry,” yawned Tonks. Her hair was blonde and curly this morning. “Sleep all right?”

“Yeah,” said Harry.

“I’ve b - b - been up all night,” she said, with another shuddering yawn. “Come and sit down…”

She drew out a chair, knocking over the one beside it in the process.

“What do you want, Harry?” Mrs. Weasley called. “Porridge? Muffins? Kippers? Bacon and

eggs? Toast?”

“Just - just toast, thanks,” said Harry.

Lupin glanced at Harry, then said to Tonks, “What were you saying about Scrimgeour?”

“Oh… yeah… well, we need to be a bit more careful, he’s been asking Kingsley and me funny

questions…”

Harry felt vaguely grateful that he was not required to join in the conversation. His insides were

squirming. Mrs. Weasley placed a couple of pieces of toast and marmalade in front of him; he

tried to eat, but it was like chewing carpet. Mrs. Weasley sat down on his other side and started

fussing with his T-shirt, tucking in the label and smoothing out the creases across his shoulders.

He wished she wouldn’t.

“… and I’ll have to tell Dumbledore I can’t do night duty tomorrow, I’m just too tired,” Tonks

finished, yawning hugely again.

“I’ll cover for you,” said Mr. Weasley. “I’m okay, I’ve got a report to finish anyway.”

Mr. Weasley was not wearing wizards’ robes but a pair of pinstriped trousers and an old bomber

jacket. He turned from Tonks to Harry.

“How are you feeling?”

Harry shrugged.

“It’ll all be over soon,” Mr. Weasley said bracingly. “In a few hours time you’ll be cleared.”

Harry said nothing.

“The hearing’s on my floor, in Amelia Bones’s office. She’s Head of the Department of Magical

Law Enforcement, and the one who’ll be questioning you.”

“Amelia Bones is okay, Harry,” said Tonks earnestly. “She’s fair, she’ll hear you out.”

Harry nodded, still unable to think of anything to say.

“Don’t lose your temper,” said Sirius abruptly. “Be polite and stick to the facts.”

Harry nodded again.

“The law’s on your side,” said Lupin quietly. “Even underage wizards are allowed to use magic in life-threatening situations.”

Something very cold trickled down the back of Harry’s neck; for a moment he thought someone

was putting a Disillusionment Charm on him, then he realized that Mrs. Weasley was attacking

his hair with a wet comb. She pressed hard on the top of his head.

“Doesn’t it ever lie flat?” she said desperately.

Harry shook his head.

Mr. Weasley checked his watch and looked up at Harry.

“I think we’ll go now,” he said. “We’re a bit early but I think you’ll be better off at the Ministry

than hanging around here.”

“Okay,” said Harry automatically, dropping his toast and getting to his feet.

“You’ll be all right, Harry,” said Tonks, patting him on the arm.

“Good luck,” said Lupin. “I’m sure it will be fine.” ‘

“And if it’s not,” said Sirius grimly “I’ll see to Amelia Bones for you…”

Harry smiled weakly. Mrs. Weasley hugged him.

“We’ve all got our fingers crossed,” she said.

“Right,” said Harry. “Well… see you later then.”

He followed Mr. Weasley upstairs and along the hall. He could hear Sirius’s mother grunting in

her sleep behind her curtains. Mr. Weasley unbolted the door and they stepped out into the cold,

grey dawn.

“You don’t normally walk to work, do you?” Harry asked him, as they set off briskly around the

square.

“No, I usually Apparate,” said Mr. Weasley, “but obviously you can’t, and I think it’s best we

arrive in a thoroughly non-magical fashion… makes a better impression, given what you’re

being disciplined for…”

Mr. Weasley kept his hand inside his jacket as they walked. Harry knew it was clenched around

his wand. The run-down streets were almost deserted, but when they arrived at the miserable

little underground station they found it already full of early-morning commuters. As ever when

he found himself in close proximity to Muggles going about their daily business, Mr. Weasley

was hard put to contain his enthusiasm.

“Simply fabulous,” he whispered, indicating the automatic ticket machines. “Wonderfully

ingenious.”

“They’re out of order,” said Harry, pointing at the sign.

“Yes, but even so…” said Mr. Weasley, beaming at them fondly

They bought their tickets instead from a sleepy-looking guard (Harry handled the transaction, as

Mr. Weasley was not very good with Muggle money) and five minutes later they were boarding

an underground train that rattled them off towards the center of London. Mr. Weasley kept

anxiously checking and re-checking the Underground Map above the windows.

“Four more stops, Harry… Three stops left now… Two stops to go, Harry…”

They got off at a station in the very heart of London, and were swept from the train in a tide of

besuited men and women carrying briefcases. Up the escalator they went, through the ticket

barrier (Mr. Weasley delighted with the way the stile swallowed his ticket), and emerged on to a

broad street lined with imposing-looking buildings and already full of traffic.

“Where are we?” said Mr. Weasley blankly, and for one heart-stopping moment Harry thought

they had got off at the wrong station despite Mr. Weasley’s continual references to the map; but

a second later he said, “Ah yes… this way, Harry,” and led him down a side road.

“Sorry,” he said, “but I never come by train and it all looks rather different from a Muggle

perspective. As a matter of fact, I’ve never even used the visitors’ entrance before.”

The further they walked, the smaller and less imposing the buildings became, until finally they

reached a street that contained several rather shabby-looking offices, a pub and an overflowing

dumpster. Harry had expected a rather more impressive location for the Ministry of Magic.

“Here we are,” said Mr. Weasley brightly, pointing at an old red telephone box, which was

missing several panes of glass and stood before a heavily graffitied wall. “After you, Harry.”

He opened the telephone-box door.

Harry stepped inside, wondering what on earth this was about. Mr. Weasley folded himself in

beside Harry and closed the door. It was a tight fit; Harry was jammed against the telephone

apparatus, which was hanging crookedly from the wall as though a vandal had tried to rip it off.

Mr. Weasley reached past Harry for the receiver.

“Mr. Weasley, I think this might be out of order, too,” Harry said.

“No, no, I’m sure it’s fine,” said Mr. Weasley, holding the receiver above his head and peering at

the dial. “Let’s see… six…” he dialed the number, “two… four… and another four… and

another two…”

As the dial whirred smoothly back into place, a cool female voice sounded inside the telephone

box, not from the receiver in Mr. Weasley’s hand, but as loudly and plainly as though an

invisible woman were standing right beside them.

“Welcome to the Ministry of Magic. Please state your name and business.”

“Er…” said Mr. Weasley, clearly uncertain whether or not he should talk into the receiver. He

compromised by holding the mouthpiece to his ear, “Arthur Weasley, Misuse of Muggle

Artifacts Office, here to escort Harry Potter, who has been asked to attend a disciplinary hearing…”

“Thank you,” said the cool female voice. “Visitor, please take the badge and attach it to the front

of your robes.”

There was a click and a rattle, and Harry saw something slide out of the metal chute where

returned coins usually appeared. He picked it up: it was a square silver badge with Harry Potter,

Disciplinary Hearing on it. He pinned it to the front of his T-shirt as the female voice spoke

again.

“Visitor to the Ministry, you are required to submit to a search and present your wand for

registration at the security desk, which is located at the far end of the Atrium.”

The floor of the telephone box shuddered. They were sinking slowly into the ground. Harry

watched apprehensively as the pavement seemed to rise up past the glass windows of the

telephone box until darkness closed over their heads. Then he could see nothing at all; he could

hear only a dull grinding noise as the telephone box made its way down through the earth. After

about a minute, though it felt much longer to Harry, a chink of golden light illuminated his feet

and, widening, rose up his body, until it hit him in the face and he had to blink to stop his eyes

from watering.

“The Ministry of Magic wishes you a pleasant day,” said the woman’s voice.

The door of the telephone box sprang open and Mr. Weasley stepped out of it, followed by

Harry, whose mouth had fallen open.

They were standing at one end of a very long and splendid hall with a highly polished, dark

wood floor. The peacock blue ceiling was inlaid with gleaming golden symbols that kept moving

and changing like some enormous heavenly notice board. The walls on each side were paneled in

shiny dark wood and had many gilded fireplaces set into them. Every few seconds a witch or

wizard would emerge from one of the left-hand fireplaces with a soft whoosh. On the right-hand

side, short queues of wizards were forming before each fireplace, waiting to depart.

Halfway down the hall was a fountain. A group of golden statues, larger than life-size, stood in

the middle of a circular pool. Tallest of them all was a noble-looking wizard with his wand

pointing straight up in the air. Grouped around him were a beautiful witch, a centaur, a goblin

and a house-elf. The last three were all looking adoringly up at the witch and wizard. Glittering

jets of water were flying from the ends of their wands, the point of the centaur’s arrow, the tip of

the goblins hat and each of the house-elf’s ears, so that the tinkling hiss of falling water was

added to the pops and cracks of the Apparators and the clatter of footsteps as hundreds of

witches and wizards, most of whom were wearing glum, early-morning looks, strode towards a

set of golden gates at the far end of the hall.

“This way,” said Mr. Weasley.

They joined the throng, wending their way between the Ministry workers, some of whom were

carrying tottering piles of parchment, others battered briefcases; still others were reading the

Daily Prophet while they walked. As they passed the fountain Harry saw silver Sickles and

bronze Knuts glinting up at him from the bottom of the pool. A small smudged sign beside it

read:

ALL PROCEEDS FROM THE FOUNTAIN OF MAGICAL BRETHREN WILL BE GIVEN

TO ST. MUNGO’S HOSPITAL FOR MAGICAL MALADIES AND INJURIES.

If I’m not expelled from Hogwarts, I’ll put in ten Galleons, Harry found himself thinking

desperately.

“Over here, Harry,” said Mr. Weasley, and they stepped out of the stream of Ministry employees

heading for the golden gates. Seated at a desk to the left, beneath a sign saying Security, a badly shaven wizard in peacock blue robes looked up as they approached and put down his Daily

Prophet.

“I’m escorting a visitor,” said Mr. Weasley, gesturing towards Harry.

“Step over here,” said the wizard in a bored voice.

Harry walked closer to him and the wizard held up a long golden rod, thin and flexible as a car

aerial, and passed it up and down Harry’s front and back.

“Wand,” grunted the security wizard at Harry, putting down the golden instrument and holding

out his hand.

Harry produced his wand. The wizard dropped it on to a strange brass instrument, which looked

something like a set of scales with only one dish. It began to vibrate. A narrow strip of

parchment came speeding out of a slit in the base. The wizard tore this off and read the writing

on it.

“Eleven inches, phoenix-feather core, been in use four years. That correct?”

“Yes,” said Harry nervously.

“I keep this,” said the wizard, impaling the slip of parchment on a small brass spike. “You get this back,” he added, thrusting the wand at Harry.

“Thank you.”

“Hang on…” said the wizard slowly.

His eyes had darted from the silver visitors badge on Harry’s chest to his forehead.

“Thank you, Eric,” said Mr. Weasley firmly, and grasping Harry by the shoulder he steered him

away from the desk and back into the stream of wizards and witches walking through the golden

gates.

Jostled slightly by the crowd, Harry followed Mr. Weasley through the gates into the smaller hall

beyond, where at least twenty lifts stood behind wrought golden grilles. Harry and Mr. Weasley

joined the crowd around one of them. Nearby, stood a big bearded wizard holding a large

cardboard box which was emitting rasping noises.

“All right, Arthur?” said the wizard, nodding at Mr. Weasley.

“What’ve you got there, Bob?” asked Mr. Weasley, looking at the box.

“We’re not sure,” said the wizard seriously. “We thought it was a bog-standard chicken until it

started breathing fire. Looks like a serious breach of the Ban on Experimental Breeding to me.”

With a great jangling and clattering a lift descended in front of them; the golden grille slid back

and Harry and Mr. Weasley stepped into the lift with the rest of the crowd and Harry found

himself jammed against the back wall. Several witches and wizards were looking at him

curiously; he stared at his feet to avoid catching anyone’s eye, flattening his fringe as he did so.

The grilles slid shut with a crash and the lift ascended slowly, chains rattling, while the same

cool female voice Harry had heard in the telephone box rang out again.

“Level Seven, Department of Magical Games and Sports, incorporating the British and Irish

Quidditch League Headquarters, Official Gobstones Club and Ludicrous Patents Office.”

The lift doors opened. Harry glimpsed an untidy-looking corridor, with various posters of

Quidditch teams tacked lopsidedly on the walls. One of the wizards in the lift, who was carrying

an armful of broomsticks, extricated himself with difficulty and disappeared down the corridor.

The doors closed, the lift juddered upwards again and the woman’s voice announced:

“Level Six, Department of Magical Transportation, incorporating the Floo Network Authority,

Broom Regulatory Control, Portkey Office and Apparation Test Center.”

Once again the lift doors opened and four or five witches and wizards got out; at the same time,

several paper aeroplanes swooped into the lift. Harry stared up at them as they flapped idly

around above his head; they were a pale violet color and he could see Ministry of Magic

stamped along the edge of their wings.

“Just inter-departmental memos,” Mr. Weasley muttered to him. “We used to use owls, but the

mess was unbelievable… droppings all over the desks…”

As they clattered upwards again the memos flapped around the lamp swaying from the lift’s

ceiling.

“Level Five, Department of International Magical Co -operation, incorporating the International

Magical Trading Standards Body, the International Magical Office of Law and the International

Confederation of Wizards, British Seats.”

When the doors opened, two of the memos zoomed out with a few more of the witches and

wizards, but several more memos zoomed in, so that the light from the lamp flickered and

flashed overhead as they darted around it.

“Level Four, Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, incorporating

Beast, Being and Spirit Divisions, Goblin Liaison Office and Pest Advisory Bureau.”

“S’cuse,” said the wizard carrying the fire-breathing chicken and he left the lift pursued by a little flock of memos. The doors clanged shut yet again.

“Level Three, Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, including the Accidental

Magic Reversal Squad, Obliviator Headquarters and Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee.”

Everybody left the lift on this floor except Mr. Weasley, Harry and a witch who was reading an

extremely long piece of parchment that was trailing on the floor. The remaining memos

continued to soar around the lamp as the lift juddered upwards again, then the doors opened and

the voice made its announcement.

“Level Two, Department of Magical Law Enforcement, including the Improper Use of Magic

Office, Auror Headquarters and Wizengamot Administration Services.”

“This is us, Harry,” said Mr. Weasley, and they followed the witch out of the lift into a corridor

lined with doors. “My office is on the other side o f the floor.”

“Mr. Weasley” said Harry, as they passed a window through which sunlight was streaming,

“aren’t we still underground?”

“Yes, we are,” said Mr. Weasley. “Those are enchanted windows. Magical Maintenance decide

what weather we’ll get every day. We had two months of hurricanes last time they were angling

for a pay rise… Just round here, Harry.”

They turned a corner, walked through a pair of heavy oak doors and emerged in a cluttered open

area divided into cubicles, which was buzzing with talk and laughter. Memos were zooming in

and out of cubicles like miniature rockets. A lopsided sign on the nearest cubicle read: Auror

Headquarters.

Harry looked surreptitiously through the doorways as they passed. The Aurors had covered their

cubicle walls with everything from pictures of wanted wizards and photographs of their families,

to posters of their favorite Quidditch teams and articles from the Daily Prophet. A scarlet-robed

man with a ponytail longer than Bill’s was sitting with his boots up on his desk, dictating a report

to his quill. A little further along, a witch with a patch over one eye was talking over the top of

her cubicle wall to Kingsley Shacklebolt.

“Morning, Weasley,” said Kingsley carelessly, as they drew nearer. “I’ve been wanting a word

with you, have you got a second?”

“Yes, if it really is a second,” said Mr. Weasley, “I’m in rather a hurry.”

They were talking as though they hardly knew each other and when Harry opened his mouth to

say hello to Kingsley, Mr. Weasley stood on his foot. They followed Kingsley along the row and

into the very last cubicle.

Harry received a slight shock; blinking down at him from every direction was Sirius’s face.

Newspaper cuttings and old photographs - even the one of Sirius being best man at the Potters’

wedding -papered the walls. The only Sirius-free space was a map of the world in which little red

pins were glowing like jewels.

“Here,” said Kingsley brusquely to Mr. Weasley, shoving a sheaf of parchment into his hand. “I

need as much information as possible on flying Muggle vehicles sighted in the last twelve

months. We’ve received information that Black might still be using his old motorcycle.”

Kingsley tipped Harry an enormous wink and added, in a whisper, “Give him the magazine, he

might find it interesting.” Then he said in normal tones, “And don’t take too long, Weasley, the

delay on that firelegs report held our investigation up for a month.”

“If you had read my report you would know that the term is firearms,” said Mr. Weasley coolly.

“And I’m afraid you’ll have to wait for information on motorcycles; we’re extremely busy at the

moment.” He dropped his voice and said, “If you can get away before seven, Molly’s making

meatballs.”

He beckoned to Harry and led him out of Kingsley’s cubicle, through a second set of oak doors,

into another passage, turned left, marched along another corridor, turned right into a dimly lit and

distinctly shabby corridor, and finally reached a dead end, where a door on the left stood ajar,

revealing a broom cupboard, and a door on the right bore a tarnished brass plaque reading:

Misuse of Muggle Artifacts.

Mr. Weasley’s dingy office seemed to be slightly smaller than the broom cupboard. Two desks

had been crammed inside it and there was barely space to move around them because of all the

overflowing filing cabinets lining the walls, on top of which were tottering piles of files. The

little wall space available bore witness to Mr. Weasley’s obsessions: several posters of cars,

including one of a dismantled engine; two illustrations of postboxes he seemed to have cut out of

Muggle children’s books; and a diagram showing how to wire a plug.

Sitting on top of Mr. Weasley’s overflowing in-tray was an old toaster that was hiccoughing in a

disconsolate way and a pair of empty leather gloves that were twiddling their thumbs. A

photograph of the Weasley family stood beside the in-tray. Harry noticed that Percy appeared to

have walked out of it.

“We haven’t got a window,” said Mr. Weasley apologetically, taking off his bomber jacket and

placing it on the back of his chair. “We’ve asked, but they don’t seem to think we need one. Have a seat, Harry, doesn’t look as if Perkins is in yet.”

Harry squeezed himself into the chair behind Perkins’s desk while Mr. Weasley riffled through

the sheaf of parchment Kingsley Shacklebolt had given him.

“Ah,” he said, grinning, as he extracted a copy of a magazine entitled The Quibbler from its

midst, “yes…” He flicked through it. “Yes, he’s right, I’m sure Sirus will find that very amusing - oh dear, what’s this now?”

continued in next post