Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix By J.K. Rowling Part 8

“Precisely what I was going to ask,” said Umbridge, pointing at the broken shards of china on the floor that had been Hermione’s mug.
“Oh,” said Hagrid, with a most unhelpful glance towards the corner where Harry, Ron and
Hermione stood hidden, “oh, tha’ was… was Fang. He broke a mug. So I had ter use this one
instead.”
Hagrid pointed to the mug from which he had been drinking, one hand still clamped over the
dragon steak pressed to his eye. Umbridge stood facing him now, taking in every detail of his
appearance instead of the cabin’s.
“I heard voices,” she said quietly.
“I was talkin’ ter Fang,” said Hagrid stoutly.
“And was he talking back to you?”
“Well… in a manner o’ speakin’,” said Hagrid, looking uncomfortable. “I sometimes say Fang’s
near enough human -”
“There are three sets of footprints in the snow leading from the castle doors to your cabin,” said
Umbridge sleekly.
Hermione gasped; Harry clapped a hand over her mouth. Luckily, Fang was sniffing loudly
around the hem of Professor Umbridge’s robes and she did not appear to have heard.
“Well, I on’y jus’ got back,” said Hagrid, waving an enormous hand at the haversack. “Maybe
someone came ter call earlier an’ I missed ‘em.”
“There are no footsteps leading away from your cabin door.”
“Well, I… I don’ know why that’d be…” said Hagrid, tugging nervously at his beard and again
glancing towards the corner where Harry, Ron and Hermione stood, as though asking for help.
“Erm…”
Umbridge wheeled round and strode the length of the cabin, looking around carefully. She bent
and peered under the bed. She opened Hagrid’s cupboards. She passed within two inches of
where Harry, Ron and Hermione stood pressed against the wall; Harry actually pulled in his
stomach as she walked by. After looking carefully inside the enormous cauldron Hagrid used for
cooking, she wheeled round again and said, “What has happened to you? How did you sustain
those injuries?”
Hagrid hastily removed the dragon steak from his face, which in Harrys opinion was a mistake,
because the black and purple bruising all around his eye was now clearly visible, not to mention
the large amount of fresh and congealed blood on his face. “Oh, I… had a bit of an accident,” he
said lamely.
“What sort of accident?”
“I - I tripped.”
“You tripped,” she repeated coolly.
“Yeah, tha’s right. Over… over a friend’s broomstick. I don’ fly, meself. Well, look at the size o’
me, I don’ reckon there’s a broomstick that’d hold me. Friend o’ mine breeds Abraxan horses, I
dunno if you’ve ever seen ‘em, big beasts, winged, yeh know, I’ve had a bit of a ride on one o’
them an’ it was -”
“Where have you been?” asked Umbridge, cutting coolly through Hagrid’s babbling.
“Where’ve I -?”
“Been, yes,” she said. “Term started two months ago. Another teacher has had to cover your
classes. None of your colleagues has been able to give me any information as to your
whereabouts. You left no address. Where have you been?”
There was a pause in which Hagrid stared at her with his newly uncovered eye. Harry could
almost hear his brain working furiously.
“I - I’ve been away for me health,” he said.
“For your health,” repeated Professor Umbridge. Her eyes traveled over Hagrid’s discolored
and swollen face; dragon blood dripped gently and silently on to his waistcoat. “I see.”
“Yeah,” said Hagrid, “bit o’ - o’ fresh air, yeh know -”
“Yes, as gamekeeper fresh air must be so difficult to come by,” said Umbridge sweetly. The
small patch of Hagrid’s face that was not black or purple, flushed.
“Well — change o’ scene, yeh know –“
“Mountain scenery?” said Umbridge swiftly.
She knows, Harry thought desperately.
“Mountains?” Hagrid repeated, clearly thinking fast. “Nope, South o’ France fer me. Bit o’ sun
an’… an’ sea.”
“Really?” said Umbridge. “You don’t have much of a tan.”
“Yeah… well… sensitive skin,” said Hagrid, attempting an ingratiating smile. Harry noticed that
two of his teeth had been knocked out. Umbridge looked at him coldly; his smile faltered. Then
she hoisted her handbag a little higher into the crook of her arm and said, “I shall, of course, be
informing the Minister of your late return.”
“Righ’,” said Hagrid, nodding.
“You ought to know, too, that as High Inquisitor it is my unfortunate but necessary duty to
inspect my fellow teachers. So I daresay we shall meet again soon enough.”
She turned sharply and marched back to the door.
“You’re inspectin’ us?” Hagrid repeated blankly, looking after her.
“Oh, yes,” said Umbridge softly, looking back at him with her hand on the door handle. “The
Ministry is determined to weed out unsatisfactory teachers, Hagrid. Goodnight.”
She left, closing the door behind her with a snap. Harry made to pull off the Invisibility Cloak
but Hermione seized his wrist.
“Not yet,” she breathed in his ear. “She might not be gone yet.”
Hagrid seemed to be thinking the same way; he stumped across the room and pulled back the
curtain an inch or so.
“She’s goin’ back ter the castle,” he said in a low voice. “Blimey… inspectin’ people, is she?”
“Yeah,” said Harry, pulling off the Cloak. “Trelawney’s on probation already…”
“Um… what sort of thing are you planning to do with us in class, Hagrid?” asked Hermione.
“Oh, don’ you worry abou’ that, I’ve got a great load o’ lessons planned,” said Hagrid
enthusiastically, scooping up his dragon steak from the table and slapping it over his eye again.
“I’ve bin keepin’ a couple o’ creatures saved fer yer OWL year; you wait, they’re somethin’
really special.”
“Erm… special in what way?” asked Hermione tentatively.
“I’m not sayin’,” said Hagrid happily. “I don’ wan t ter spoil the surprise.”
“Look, Hagrid,” said Hermione urgently, dropping all pretence, “Professor Umbridge won’t be at all happy if you bring anything to class that’s too dangerous.”
“Dangerous?” said Hagrid, looking genially bemused. “Don’ be silly, I wouldn’ give yeh anythin’ dangerous! I mean, all righ’, they can look after themselves -”
“Hagrid, you’ve got to pass Umbridge’s inspection, and to do that it would really be better if she
saw you teaching us how to look after Porlocks, how to tell the difference between Knarls and
hedgehogs, stuff like that!” said Hermione earnestly.
“But tha’s not very interestin’, Hermione,” said Hagrid. “The stuff I’ve got’s much more
impressive. I’ve bin bringin’ ‘em on fer years, I reckon I’ve got the on’y domestic herd in
Britain.”
“Hagrid… please…” said Hermione, a note of real desperation in her voice. “Umbridge is looking for any excuse to get rid of teachers she thinks are too close to Dumbledore. Please, Hagrid, teach us something dull that’s bound to come up in our OWL.”
But Hagrid merely yawned widely and cast a one-eyed look of longing towards the vast bed in
the corner.
“Lis’en, it’s bin a long day an’ it’s late,” he said, patting Hermione gently on the shoulder, so that her knees gave way and hit the floor with a thud. “Oh - sorry -” He pulled her back up by the
neck of her robes. “Look, don’ you go worryin’ abou’ me, I promise yeh I’ve got really good
stuff planned fer yer lessons now I’m back… now you lot had better get back up to the castle, an’
don’ forget ter wipe yer footprints out behind yeh!”
“I dunno if you got through to him,” said Ron a sho rt while later when, having checked that the
coast was clear, they walked back up to the castle through the thickening snow, leaving no trace
behind them due to the Obliteration Charm Hermione was performing as they went.
“Then I’ll go back again tomorrow,” said Hermione determinedly. “I’ll plan his lessons for him if I have to. I don’t care if she throws out Trelawney but she’s not getting rid of Hagrid!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The Eye of the Snake
Hermione ploughed her way back to Hagrid’s cabin through two feet of snow on Sunday
morning. Harry and Ron wanted to go with her, but their mountain of homework had reached an
alarming height again, so they remained grudgingly in the common room, trying to ignore the
gleeful shouts drifting up from the grounds outside, where students were enjoying themselves
skating on the frozen lake, tobogganing and, worst of all, bewitching snowballs to zoom up to
Gryffindor Tower and rap hard on the windows.
“Oy!” bellowed Ron, finally losing patience and sticking his head out of the window, “I am a
prefect and if one more snowball hits this window - OUCH!”
He withdrew his head sharply, his face covered in snow.
“It’s Fred and George,” he said bitterly, slamming the window behind him. “Gits…”
Hermione returned from Hagrid’s just before lunch, shivering slightly, her robes damp to the
knees.
“So?” said Ron, looking up when she entered. “Got all his lessons planned for him?”
“Well, I tried,” she said dully, sinking into a chair beside Harry. She pulled out her wand and
gave it a complicated little wave so that hot air streamed out of the tip; she then pointed this at
her robes, which began to steam as they dried out. “He wasn’t even there when I arrived, I was
knocking for at least half an hour. And then he came stumping out of the Forest -”
Harry groaned. The Forbidden Forest was teeming with the kind of creatures most likely to get
Hagrid the sack. “What’s he keeping in there? Did he say?” he asked.
“No,” said Hermione miserably. “He says he wants them to be a surprise. I tried to explain about
Umbridge, but he just doesn’t get it. He kept saying nobody in their right mind would rather
study Knarls than Chimaeras - oh, I don’t think he’s got a Chimaera,” she added at the appalled
look on Harry and Ron’s faces, “but that’s not for lack of trying, from what he said about how
hard it is to get eggs. I don’t know how many times I told him he’d be better off following
Grubbly-Plank’s plan, I honestly don’t think he listened to half of what I said. He’s in a bit of a
funny mood, you know. He still won’t say how he got all those injuries.”
Hagrid’s reappearance at the staff table at breakfast next day was not greeted by enthusiasm from
all students. Some, like Fred, George and Lee, roared with delight and sprinted up the aisle
between the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables to wring Hagrid’s enormous hand; others, like
Parvati and Lavender, exchanged gloomy looks and shook their heads. Harry knew that many of
them preferred Professor Grubbly-Plank’s lessons, and the worst of it was that a very small,
unbiased part of him knew that they had good reason: Grubbly-Plank’s idea of an interesting
class was not one where there was a risk that somebody might have their head ripped off.
It was with a certain amount of apprehension that Harry, Ron and Hermione headed down to
Hagrid’s on Tuesday, heavily muffled against the cold. Harry was worried, not only about what
Hagrid might have decided to teach them, but also about how the rest of the class, particularly
Malfoy and his cronies, would behave if Umbridge was watching them.
However, the High Inquisitor was nowhere to be seen as they struggled through the snow
towards Hagrid, who stood waiting for them on the edge of the Forest. He did not present a
reassuring sight; the bruises that had been purple on Saturday night were now tinged with green
and yellow and some of his cuts still seemed to be bleeding. Harry could not understand this: had
Hagrid perhaps been attacked by some creature whose venom prevented the wounds it inflicted
from healing? As though to complete the ominous picture, Hagrid was carrying what looked like
half a dead cow over his shoulder.
“We’re workin’ in here today!” Hagrid called happily to the approaching students, jerking his
head back at the dark trees behind him. “Bit more sheltered! Anyway, they prefer the dark.”
“What prefers the dark?” Harry heard Malfoy say sharply to Crabbe and Goyle, a trace of panic
in his voice. “What did he say prefers the dark - did you hear?”
Harry remembered the only other occasion on which Malfoy had entered the Forest before now;
he had not been very brave then, either. He smiled to himself; after the Quidditch match anything
that caused Malfoy discomfort was all right with him.
“Ready?” said Hagrid cheerfully, looking around at the class. “Right, well, I’ve bin savin’ a trip
inter the Forest fer yer fifth year. Thought we’d go an’ see these creatures in their natural habitat.
Now, what we’re studyin’ today is pretty rare, I reckon I’m probably the on’y person in Britain
who’s managed ter train ‘em.”
“And you’re sure they’re trained, are you?” said Malfoy, the panic in his voice even more
pronounced. “Only it wouldn’t be the first time you’d brought wild stuff to class, would it?”
The Slytherins murmured agreement and a few Gryffindors looked as though they thought
Malfoy had a fair point, too.
“Course they’re trained,” said Hagrid, scowling and hoisting the dead cow a little higher on his
shoulder.
“So what happened to your face, then?” demanded Malfoy.
“Mind yer own business!” said Hagrid, angrily. “Now, if yeh’ve finished askin’ stupid questions,
follow me!”
He turned and strode straight into the Forest. Nobody seemed much disposed to follow. Harry
glanced at Ron and Hermione, who sighed but nodded, and the three of them set off after Hagrid,
leading the rest of the class.
They walked for about ten minutes until they reached a place where the trees stood so closely
together that it was as dark as twilight and there was no snow at all on the ground. With a grunt,
Hagrid deposited his half a cow on the ground, stepped back and turned to face his class, most of
whom were creeping from tree to tree towards him, peering around nervously as though
expecting to be set upon at any moment.
“Gather roun’, gather roun’,” Hagrid encouraged. “Now, they’ll be attracted by the smell o’ the
meat but I’m goin’ ter give ‘em a call anyway, ‘cause they’ll like ter know it’s me.”
He turned, shook his shaggy head to get the hair out of his face and gave an odd, shrieking cry
that echoed through the dark trees like the call of some monstrous bird. Nobody laughed: most of
them looked too scared to make a sound.
Hagrid gave the shrieking cry again. A minute passed in which the class continued to peer
nervously over their shoulders and around trees for a first glimpse of whatever it was that was
coming. And then, as Hagrid shook his hair back for a third time and expanded his enormous
chest, Harry nudged Ron and pointed into the black space between two gnarled yew trees.
A pair of blank, white, shining eyes were growing larger through the gloom and a moment later
the dragonish face, neck and then skeletal body of a great, black, winged horse emerged from the
darkness. It surveyed the class for a few seconds, swishing its long black tail, then bowed its
head and began to tear flesh from the dead cow with its pointed fangs.
A great wave of relief broke over Harry. Here at last was proof that he had not imagined these
creatures, that they were real: Hagrid knew about them too. He looked eagerly at Ron, but Ron
was still staring around into the trees and after a few seconds he whispered, “Why doesn’t Hagrid call again?”
Most of the rest of the class were wearing expressions as confused and nervously expectant as
Ron’s and were still gazing everywhere but at the horse standing feet from them. There were
only two other people who seemed to be able to see them: a stringy Slytherin boy standing just
behind Goyle was watching the horse eating with an expression of great distaste on his face; and
Neville, whose eyes were following the swishing progress of the long black tail.
“Oh, an’ here comes another one!” said Hagrid proudly, as a second black horse appeared out of
the dark trees, folded its leathery wings closer to its body and dipped its head to gorge on the
meat. “Now… put yer hands up, who can see ‘em?”
Immensely pleased to feel that he was at last going to understand the mystery of these horses,
Harry raised his hand. Hagrid nodded at him.
“Yeah… yeah, I knew you’d be able ter, Harry,” he said seriously. “An’ you too, Neville, eh? An’ -”
“Excuse me,” said Malfoy in a sneering voice, “but what exactly are we supposed to be seeing?”
For an answer, Hagrid pointed at the cow carcass on the ground. The whole class stared at it for a
few seconds, then several people gasped and Parvati squealed. Harry understood why: bits of
flesh stripping themselves away from the bones and vanishing into thin air had to look very odd
indeed.
“What’s doing it?” Parvati demanded in a terrified voice, retreating behind the nearest tree.
“What’s eating it?”
“Thestrals,” said Hagrid proudly and Hermione gave a soft “Oh!” of comprehension at Harry’s
shoulder. “Hogwarts has got a whole herd of ‘em in here. Now, who knows -?”
“But they’re really, really unlucky!” interrupted Parvati, looking alarmed. “They’re supposed to
bring all sorts of horrible misfortune on people who see them. Professor Trelawney told me once
-”
“No, no, no,” said Hagrid, chuckling, “tha’s jus’ superstition, that is, they aren’ unlucky, they’re
dead clever an’ useful! Course, this lot don’ get a lot o’ work, it’s mainly jus’ pullin’ the school
carriages unless Dumbledore’s takin’ a long journey an’ don’ want ter Apparate - an’ here’s
another couple, look -”
Two more horses came quietly out of the trees, one of them passing very close to Parvati, who
shivered and pressed herself closer to the tree, saying, “I think I felt something, I think it’s near
me!”
“Don’ worry, it won’ hurt yen,” said Hagrid patiently. “Righ’, now, who can tell me why some o’ yeh can see ‘em an’ some can’t?”
Hermione raised her hand.
“Go on then,” said Hagrid, beaming at her.
“The only people who can see Thestrals,” she said, “are people who have seen death.”
“Tha’s exactly right,” said Hagrid solemnly, “ten points ter Gryffindor. Now, Thestrals -”
“Hem, hem.”
Professor Umbridge had arrived. She was standing a few feet away from Harry, wearing her
green hat and cloak again, her clipboard at the ready. Hagrid, who had never heard Umbridge’s
fake cough before, was gazing in some concern at the closest Thestral, evidently under the
impression that it had made the sound.
“Hem, hem.”
“Oh, hello!” Hagrid said, smiling, having located the source of the noise.
“You received the note I sent to your cabin this morning?” said Umbridge, in the same loud, slow voice she had used with him earlier, as though she were addressing somebody both foreign and very slow. “Telling you that I would be inspecting y our lesson?”
“Oh, yeah,” said Hagrid brightly. “Glad yeh found the place all righ’! Well, as you can see - or, I
dunno - can you? We’re doin’ Thestrals today -”
“I’m sorry?” said Professor Umbridge loudly, cupping her hand around her ear and frowning.
“What did you say?”
Hagrid looked a little confused.
“Er - Thestrals!” he said loudly. “Big - er - winged horses, yeh know!”
He flapped his gigantic arms hopefully. Professor Umbridge raised her eyebrows at him and
muttered as she made a note on her clipboard: “Has… to… resort… to… crude…
sign… language.”
“Well… anyway…” said Hagrid, turning back to the class and looking slightly flustered, “erm…
what was I sayin’?”
“Appears… to… have… poor… short… term… memory,” muttered Umbridge, loudly enough
for everyone to hear her. Draco Malfoy looked as though Christmas had come a month early;
Hermione, on the other hand, had turned scarlet with suppressed rage.
“Oh, yeah,” said Hagrid, throwing an uneasy glance at Umbridge’s clipboard, but ploughing on
valiantly. “Yeah, I was gonna tell yeh how come we got a herd. Yeah, so, we started off with a
male an’ five females. This one,” he patted the fir st horse to have appeared, “name o’ Tenebrus,
he’s my special favorite, firs’ one born here in the Forest -”
“Are you aware,” Umbridge said loudly, interrupting him, “that the Ministry of Magic has
classified Thestrals as ‘dangerous’?”
Harry’s heart sank like a stone, but Hagrid merely chuckled.
“Thestrals aren’ dangerous! All righ’, they might take a bite outta yeh if yeh really annoy them -”
“Shows… signs… of… pleasure… at… idea… of… violence,” muttered Umbridge, scribbling
on her clipboard again.
“No - come on!” said Hagrid, looking a little anxious now. “I mean, a dog’ll bite if yeh bait it,
won’ it - but Thestrals have jus’ got a bad reputation because o’ the death thing - people used ter
think they were bad omens, didn’ they? Jus’ didn’ understand, did they?”
Umbridge did not answer; she finished writing her last note, then looked up at Hagrid and said,
again very loudly and slowly, “Please continue teaching as usual. I am going to walk,” she
mimed walking (Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson were having silent fits of laughter) “among the
students” (she pointed around at individual members of the class) “and ask them questions.” She
pointed at her mouth to indicate talking.
Hagrid stared at her, clearly at a complete loss to understand why she was acting as though he
did not understand normal English. Hermione had tears of fury in her eyes now.
“You hag, you evil hag!” she whispered, as Umbridge walked towards Pansy Parkinson. “I know
what you’re doing, you awful, twisted, vicious -”
“Erm… anyway,” said Hagrid, clearly struggling to regain the flow of his lesson, “so - Thestrals.
Yeah. Well, there’s loads o’ good stuff abou’ them…”
“Do you find,” said Professor Umbridge in a ringing voice to Pansy Parkinson, “that you are able
to understand Professor Hagrid when he talks?”
Just like Hermione, Pansy had tears in her eyes, but these were tears of laughter; indeed, her
answer was almost incoherent because she was trying to suppress her giggles.
“No… because… well… it sounds… like grunting a lot of the time.”
Umbridge scribbled on her clipboard. The few unbruised bits of Hagrid’s face flushed, but he
tried to act as though he had not heard Pansy’s answer.
“Er… yeah… good stuff abou’ Thestrals. Well, once they’re tamed, like this lot, yeh’ll never be
lost again. ‘Mazin’ sense o’ direction, jus’ tell ‘em where yeh want ter go -”
“Assuming they can understand you, of course,” said Malfoy loudly, and Pansy Parkinson
collapsed in a fit of renewed giggles. Professor Umbridge smiled indulgently at them and then
turned to Neville.
“You can see the Thestrals, Longbottom, can you?” she said.
Neville nodded.
“Who did you see die?” she asked, her tone indifferent.
“My… my grandad,” said Neville.
“And what do you think of them?” she said, waving her stubby hand at the horses, who by now
had stripped a great deal of the carcass down to bone.
“Erm,” said Neville nervously, with a glance at Hagrid. “Well, they’re… er… okay…”
“Students… are… too… intimidated… to… admit… they… are… frightened,” muttered
Umbridge, making another note on her clipboard.
“No!” said Neville, looking upset. “No, I’m not scared of them!”
“It’s quite all right,” said Umbridge, patting Neville on the shoulder with what she evidently
intended to be an understanding smile, though it looked more like a leer to Harry. “Well, Hagrid,” she turned to look up at him again, speaking once more in that loud, slow voice, “I think I’ve got enough to be getting along with. You will receive” (she mimed taking something from the air in front of her) “the results of your inspection” (she pointed at the clipboard) “in ten days’ time.” She held up ten stubby little fingers, then, her smile wider and more toadlike than ever before beneath her green hat, she bustled from their midst, leaving Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson in fits of laughter, Hermione actually shaking with fury and Neville looking confused and upset.
“That foul, lying, twisting old gargoyle!” stormed Hermione half an hour later, as they made their way back up to the castle through the channels they had made earlier in the snow. “You see what she’s up to? It’s her thing about half-breeds all over again - she’s trying to make out Hagrid’s some kind of dimwitted troll, just because he had a giantess for a mother - and oh, it’s not fair, that really wasn’t a bad lesson at all - I mean, all right, if it had been Blast-Ended Skrewts again, but Thestrals are fine - in fact, for Hagrid, they’re really good!”
“Umbridge said they’re dangerous,” said Ron.
“Well, it’s like Hagrid said, they can look after themselves,” said Hermione impatiently, “and I
suppose a teacher like Grubbly-Plank wouldn’t usually show them to us before NEWT level, but,
well, they are very interesting, aren’t they? The way some people can see them and some can’t! I
wish I could.”
“Do you?” Harry asked her quietly.
She looked suddenly horrorstruck.
“Oh, Harry - I’m sorry - no, of course I don’t - that was a really stupid thing to say.”
“It’s okay,” he said quickly, “don’t worry”
“I’m surprised so many people could see them,” said Ron. “Three in a class -”
“Yeah, Weasley, we were just wondering,” said a malicious voice. Unheard by any of them in the muffling snow, Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle were walking along right behind them. “D’you reckon if you saw someone snuff it you’d be able to see the Quaffle better?”
He, Crabbe and Goyle roared with laughter as they pushed past on their way to the castle, then
broke into a chorus of “Weasley is our King”. Ron’s ears turned scarlet.
“Ignore them, just ignore them,” intoned Hermione, pulling out her wand and performing the
charm to produce hot air again, so that she could melt them an easier path through the untouched
snow between them and the greenhouses.
December arrived, bringing with it more snow and a positive avalanche of homework for the
fifth-years. Ron and Hermione’s prefect duties also became more and more onerous as Christmas
approached. They were called upon to supervise the decoration of the castle (“You try putting up
tinsel when Peeves has got the other end and is trying to strangle you with it,” said Ron), to
watch over first- and second-years spending their break-times inside because of the bitter cold
(“And they’re cheeky little snot-rags, you know, we definitely weren’t that rude when we were in first year,” said Ron) and to patrol the corridors in shifts with Argus Filch, who suspected that the holiday spirit might show itself in an outbreak of wizard duels (“He’s got dung for brains, that one,” said Ron furiously). They were so busy that Hermione had even stopped knitting elf hats and was fretting that she was down to her last three.
“All those poor elves I haven’t set free yet, having to stay here over Christmas because there
aren’t enough hats!”
Harry, who had not had the heart to tell her that Dobby was taking everything she made, bent
lower over his History of Magic essay. In any case, he did not want to think about Christmas. For
the first time in his school career, he very much wanted to spend the holidays away from
Hogwarts. Between his Quidditch ban and worry about whether or not Hagrid was going to be
put on probation, he felt highly resentful towards the place at the moment. The only thing he
really looked forward to were the D.A. meetings, and they would have to stop over the holidays,
as nearly everybody in the D.A. would be spending the time with their families. Hermione was
going skiing with her parents, something that greatly amused Ron, who had never heard of
Muggles strapping narrow strips of wood on to their feet to slide down mountains. Ron was
going home to The Burrow. Harry endured several days of envy before Ron said, in response to
Harry asking him how he was going to get home for Christmas: “But you’re coming too! Didn’t I say? Mum wrote and told me to invite you weeks ago!”
Hermione rolled her eyes, but Harry’s spirits soared: the thought of Christmas at The Burrow
was truly wonderful, though slightly marred by Harry’s guilty feeling that he would not be able
to spend the holiday with Sirius. He wondered whether he could possibly persuade Mrs. Weasley
to invite his godfather for the festivities. Even though he doubted whether Dumbledore would
permit Sirius to leave Grimmauld Place anyway, he could not help but think Mrs. Weasley might
not want him; they were so often at loggerheads. Sirius had not contacted Harry at all since his
last appearance in the fire, and although Harry knew that with Umbridge on constant watch it
would be unwise to attempt to contact him, he did not like to think of Sirius alone in his mother’s
old house, perhaps pulling a lonely cracker with Kreacher.
Harry arrived early in the Room of Requirement for the last D.A. meeting before the holidays andwas very glad he had, because when the lamps burst into light he saw that Dobby had taken it
upon himself to decorate the place for Christmas. He could tell the elf had done it, because
nobody else would have strung a hundred golden baubles from the ceiling, each showing a
picture of Harry’s face and bearing the legend: HAVE A VERY HARRY CHRISTMAS!
Harry had only just managed to get the last of them down before the door creaked open and Luna
Love good entered, looking as dreamy as always.
“Hello,” she said vaguely, looking around at what remained of the decorations. “These are nice,
did you put them up?”
“No,” said Harry, “it was Dobby the house-elf.”
“Mistletoe,” said Luna dreamily, pointing at a large clump of white berries placed almost over
Harry’s head. He jumped out from under it. “Good thinking,” said Luna very seriously. “It’s often infested with Nargles.”
Harry was saved the necessity of asking what Nargles were by the arrival of Angelina, Katie and
Alicia. All three of them were breathless and looked very cold.
“Well,” said Angelina dully, pulling off her cloak and throwing it into a corner, “we’ve finally
replaced you.”
“Replaced me?” said Harry blankly.
“You and Fred and George,” she said impatiently. “We’ve got another Seeker!”
“Who?” said Harry quickly.
“Ginny Weasley,” said Katie.
Harry gaped at her.
“Yeah, I know,” said Angelina, pulling out her wand and flexing her arm, “but she’s pretty good,
actually. Nothing on you, of course,” she said, throwing him a very dirty look, “but as we can’t
have you…”
Harry bit back the retort he was longing to utter: did she imagine for a second that he did not
regret his expulsion from the team a hundred times more than she did?
“And what about the Beaters?” he asked, trying to keep his voice even.
“Andrew Kirke,” said Alicia without enthusiasm, “and Jack Sloper. Neither of them are brilliant,
but compared to the rest of the idiots who turned up…”
The arrival of Ron, Hermione and Neville brought this depressing discussion to an end, and
within five minutes the room was full enough to prevent Harry seeing Angelina’s burning,
reproachful looks.
“Okay,” he said, calling them all to order. “I thought this evening we should just go over the things we’ve done so far, because it’s the last meeting before the holidays and there’s no point starting anything new right before a three-week break -”
“We’re not doing anything new?” said Zacharias Smith, in a disgruntled whisper loud enough to
carry through the room. “If I’d known that, I wouldn’t have come.”
“We’re all really sorry Harry didn’t tell you, then,” said Fred loudly.
Several people sniggered. Harry saw Cho laughing and felt the familiar swooping sensation in
his stomach, as though he had missed a step going downstairs.
“- we can practice in pairs,” said Harry. “We’ll start with the Impediment Jinx, for ten minutes,
then we can get out the cushions and try Stunning again.”
They all divided up obediently; Harry partnered Neville as usual. The room was soon full of
intermittent cries of “Impedimenta!” People froze f or a minute or so, during which their partner
would stare aimlessly around the room watching other pairs at work, then would unfreeze and
take their turn at the jinx.
Neville had improved beyond all recognition. After a while, when Harry had unfrozen three
times in a row, he had Neville join Ron and Hermione again so that he could walk around the
room and watch the others. When he passed Cho she beamed at him; he resisted the temptation
to walk past her several more times.
After ten minutes on the Impediment Jinx, they laid out cushions all over the floor and started
practicing Stunning again. Space was really too confined to allow them all to work this spell at
once; half the group observed the others for a while, then swapped over.
Harry felt himself positively swelling with pride as he watched them all. True, Neville did Stun
Padma Patil rather than Dean, at whom he had been aiming, but it was a much closer miss than
usual, and everybody else had made enormous progress.
At the end of an hour, Harry called a halt.
“You’re getting really good,” he said, beaming around at them. “When we get back from the
holidays we can start doing some of the big stuff - maybe even Patronuses.”
There was a murmur of excitement. The room began to clear in the usual twos and threes; most
people wished Harry a “Happy Christmas” as they went. Feeling cheerful, he collected up the
cushions with Ron and Hermione and stacked them neatly away. Ron and Hermione left before
he did; he hung back a little, because Cho was still there and he was hoping to receive a “Merry
Christmas” from her.
“No, you go on,” he heard her say to her friend Marietta and his heart gave a jolt that seemed to
take it into the region of his Adam’s apple.
He pretended to be straightening the cushion pile. He was quite sure they were alone now and
waited for her to speak. Instead, he heard a hearty sniff.
He turned and saw Cho standing in the middle of the room, tears pouring down her face.
“Wha—?”
He didn’t know what to do. She was simply standing there, crying silently.
“What’s up?” he said, feebly.
She shook her head and wiped her eyes on her sleeve.
“I’m - sorry,” she said thickly. “I suppose… it’s just… learning all this stuff… it just makes me… wonder whether… if he’d known it all… he’d still be alive.”
Harry’s heart sank right back past its usual spot and settled somewhere around his navel. He
ought to have known. She wanted to talk about Cedric.
“He did know this stuff,” Harry said heavily. “He was really good at it, or he could never have got to the middle of that maze. But if Voldemort really wants to kill you, you don’t stand a chance.”
She hiccoughed at the sound of Voldemort’s name, but stared at Harry without flinching.
“You survived when you were just a baby,” she said quietly.
“Yeah, well,” said Harry wearily, moving towards the door, “I dunno why nor does anyone else,
so it’s nothing to be proud of.”
“Oh, don’t go!” said Cho, sounding tearful again. “I’m really sorry to get all upset like this… I
didn’t mean to…”
She hiccoughed again. She was very pretty even when her eyes were red and puffy. Harry felt
thoroughly miserable. He’d have been so pleased with just a “Merry Christmas”.
“I know it must be horrible for you,” she said, mop ping her eyes on her sleeve again. “Me
mentioning Cedric, when you saw him die… I suppose you just want to forget about it?”
Harry did not say anything to this; it was quite true, but he felt heartless saying it.
“You’re a r-really good teacher, you know,” said Cho, with a watery smile. “I’ve never been able
to Stun anything before.”
“Thanks,” said Harry awkwardly.
They looked at each other for a long moment. Harry felt a burning desire to run from the room
and, at the same time, a complete inability to move his feet.
“Mistletoe,” said Cho quietly, pointing at the ceiling over his head.
“Yeah,” said Harry. His mouth was very dry. “It’s probably full of Nargles, though.”
“What are Nargles?”
“No idea,” said Harry. She had moved closer. His brain seemed to have been Stunned. “You’d
have to ask Loony. Luna, I mean.”
Cho made a funny noise halfway between a sob and a laugh. She was even nearer to him now.
He could have counted the freckles on her nose.
“I really like you, Harry.”
He could not think. A tingling sensation was spreading through him, paralysing his arms, legs
and brain.
She was much too close. He could see every tear clinging to her eyelashes…
He returned to the common room half an hour later to find Hermione and Ron in the best seats
by the fire; nearly everybody else had gone to bed. Hermione was writing a very long letter; she
had already filled half a roll of parchment, which was dangling from the edge of the table. Ron
was lying on the hearthrug, trying to finish his Transfiguration homework.
“What kept you?” he asked, as Harry sank into the armchair next to Hermione’s.
Harry didn’t answer. He was in a state of shock. Half of him wanted to tell Ron and Hermione
what had just happened, but the other half wanted to take the secret with him to the grave.
“Are you all right, Harry?” Hermione asked, peering at him over the tip of her quill.
Harry gave a half-hearted shrug. In truth, he didn’t know whether he was all right or not.
“What’s up?” said Ron, hoisting himself up on his elbow to get a clearer view of Harry. “What’s
happened?”
Harry didn’t quite know how to set about telling them, and still wasn’t sure whether he wanted
to. Just as he had decided not to say anything, Hermione took matters out of his hands.
“Is it Cho?” she asked in a businesslike way. “Did she corner you after the meeting?”
Numbly surprised, Harry nodded. Ron sniggered, breaking off when Hermione caught his eye.
“So - er - what did she want?” he asked in a mock casual voice.
“She -” Harry began, rather hoarsely; he cleared his throat and tried again. “She - er -”
“Did you kiss?” asked Hermione briskly.
Ron sat up so fast he sent his ink bottle flying all over the rug. Disregarding this completely, he
stared avidly at Harry.
“Well?” he demanded.
Harry looked from Ron’s expression of mingled curiosity and hilarity to Hermione’s slight
frown, and nodded.
“HA!”
Ron made a triumphant gesture with his fist and went into a raucous peal of laughter that made
several timid-looking second-years over beside the window jump. A reluctant grin spread over
Harry’s face as he watched Ron rolling around on the hearthrug.
Hermione gave Ron a look of deep disgust and returned to her letter.
“Well?” Ron said finally, looking up at Harry. “How was it?”
Harry considered for a moment.
“Wet,” he said truthfully.
Ron made a noise that might have indicated jubilation or disgust, it was hard to tell.
“Because she was crying,” Harry continued heavily.
“Oh,” said Ron, his smile fading slightly. “Are you that bad at kissing?”
“Dunno,” said Harry, who hadn’t considered this, and immediately felt rather worried. “Maybe I
am.”
“Of course you’re not,” said Hermione absently, still scribbling away at her letter.
“How do you know?” said Ron very sharply.
“Because Cho spends half her time crying these days,” said Hermione vaguely. “She does it at
mealtimes, in the loos, all over the place.”
“You’d think a bit of kissing would cheer her up,” said Ron, grinning.
“Ron,” said Hermione in a dignified voice, dipping the point of her quill into her inkpot, “you are
the most insensitive wart I have ever had the misfortune to meet.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” said Ron indignantly. “What sort of person cries while
someone’s kissing them?”
“Yeah,” said Harry, slightly desperately, “who does?”
Hermione looked at the pair of them with an almost pitying expression on her face.
“Don’t you understand how Cho’s feeling at the moment?” she asked.
“No,” said Harry and Ron together.
Hermione sighed and laid down her quill.
“Well, obviously, she’s feeling very sad, because of Cedric dying. Then I expect she’s feeling
confused because she liked Cedric and now she likes Harry, and she can’t work out who she
likes best. Then she’ll be feeling guilty, thinking it’s an insult to Cedric’s memory to be kissing
Harry at all, and she’ll be worrying about what everyone else might say about her if she starts
going out with Harry. And she probably can’t work out what her feelings towards Harry are,
anyway, because he was the one who was with Cedric when Cedric died, so that’s all very mixed
up and painful. Oh, and she’s afraid she’s going to be thrown off the Ravenclaw Quidditch team
because she’s been flying so badly.”
A slightly stunned silence greeted the end of this speech, then Ron said, “One person can’t feel
all that at once, they’d explode.”
“Just because you’ve got the emotional range of a teaspoon doesn’t mean we all have,” said
Hermione nastily picking up her quill again.
“She was the one who started it,” said Harry. “I wouldn’t’ve - she just sort of came at me - and
next thing she’s crying all over me - I didn’t know what to do —”
“Don’t blame you, mate,” said Ron, looking alarmed at the very thought.
“You just had to be nice to her,” said Hermione, looking up anxiously. “You were, weren’t you?”
“Well,” said Harry, an unpleasant heat creeping up his face, “I sort of - patted her on the back a
bit.”
Hermione looked as though she was restraining herself from rolling her eyes with extreme
difficulty.
“Well, I suppose it could have been worse,” she said. “Are you going to see her again?”
“I’ll have to, won’t I?” said Harry. “We’ve got D.A. meetings, haven’t we?”
“You know what I mean,” said Hermione impatiently.
Harry said nothing. Hermione’s words opened up a whole new vista of frightening possibilities.
He tried to imagine going somewhere with Cho — Hogsmeade, perhaps - and being alone with
her for hours at a time. Of course, she would have been expecting him to ask her out after what
had just happened… the thought made his stomach clench painfully.
“Oh well,” said Hermione distantly, buried in her letter once more, “you’ll have plenty of
opportunities to ask her.”
“What if he doesn’t want to ask her?” said Ron, who had been watching Harry with an unusually
shrewd expression on his face.
“Don’t be silly,” said Hermione vaguely, “Harry’s liked her for ages, haven’t you, Harry?”
He did not answer. Yes, he had liked Cho for ages, but whenever he had imagined a scene
involving the two of them it had always featured a Cho who was enjoying herself, as opposed to
a Cho who was sobbing uncontrollably into his shoulder.
“Who’re you writing the novel to, anyway?” Ron asked Hermione, trying to read the bit of
parchment now trailing on the floor. Hermione hitched it up out of sight.
“Viktor.”
“Krum?”
“How many other Viktors do we know?”
Ron said nothing, but looked disgruntled. They sat in silence for another twenty minutes, Ron
finishing his Transfiguration essay with many snorts of impatience and crossings-out, Hermione
writing steadily to the very end of the parchment, rolling it up carefully and sealing it, and Harry
staring into the fire, wishing more than anything that Sirius’s head would appear there and give
him some advice about girls. But the fire merely crackled lower and lower, until the red-hot
embers crumbled into ash and, looking around, Harry saw that they were, yet again, the last ones
in the common room.
“Well, night,” said Hermione, yawning widely as she set off up the girls’ staircase.
“What does she see in Krum?” Ron demanded, as he and Harry climbed the boys’ stairs.
“Well,” said Harry, considering the matter, “I s’pose he’s older, isn’t he… and he’s an
international Quidditch player…”
“Yeah, but apart from that,” said Ron, sounding aggravated. “I mean, he’s a grouchy git, isn’t
he?”
“Bit grouchy, yeah,” said Harry, whose thoughts were still on Cho.
They pulled off their robes and put on pajamass in silence; Dean, Seamus and Neville were
already asleep. Harry put his glasses on his bedside table and got into bed but did not pull the
hangings closed around his four-poster; instead, he stared at the patch of starry sky visible
through the window next to Neville’s bed. If he had known, this time last night, that in twenty-four hours’ time he would have kissed Cho Chang…
“Night,” grunted Ron, from somewhere to his right.
“Night,” said Harry.
Maybe next time… if there was a next time… she’d be a bit happier. He ought to have asked her
out; she had probably been expecting it and was now really angry with him… or was she lying in
bed, still crying about Cedric? He did not know what to think. Hermione’s explanation had made
it all seem more complicated rather than easier to understand.
That’s what they should teach us here, he thought, turning over on to his side, how girls’ brains
work… it’d be more useful than Divination, anyway…
Neville snuffled in his sleep. An owl hooted somewhere out in the night.
Harry dreamed he was back in the D.A. room. Cho was accusing him of luring her there under
false pretences; she said he had promised her a hundred and fifty Chocolate Frog Cards if she
showed up. Harry protested… Cho shouted, “Cedric gave me loads of Chocolate Frog Cards,
look!” And she pulled out fistfuls of Cards from in side her robes and threw them into the air.
Then she turned into Hermione, who said, “You did promise her, you know, Harry… I think
you’d better give her something else instead… how about your Firebolt?” And Harry was
protesting that he could not give Cho his Firebolt, because Umbridge had it, and anyway the
whole thing was ridiculous, he’d only come to the D.A. room to put up some Christmas baubles
shaped like Dobby’s head…
The dream changed…
His body felt smooth, powerful and flexible. He was gliding between shining metal bars, across
dark, cold stone… he was flat against the floor, sliding along on his belly… it was dark, yet he
could see objects around him shimmering in strange, vibrant colors… he was turning his
head… at first glance the corridor was empty… but no… a man was sitting on the floor ahead,
his chin drooping on to his chest, his outline gleaming in the dark…
Harry put out his tongue… he tasted the man’s scent on the air… he was alive but drowsy…
sitting in front of a door at the end of the corridor…
Harry longed to bite the man… but he must master the impulse… he had more important work to
do…
But the man was stirring… a silver Cloak fell from his legs as he jumped to his feet; and Harry
saw his vibrant, blurred outline towering above him, saw a wand withdrawn from a belt… he had
no choice… he reared high from the floor and struck once, twice, three times, plunging his fangs
deeply into the man’s flesh, feeling his ribs splinter beneath his jaws, feeling the warm gush of
blood…
The man was yelling in pain… then he fell silent… he slumped backwards against the wall…
blood was splattering on to the floor…
His forehead hurt terribly… it was aching fit to burst…
“Harry! HARRY!”
He opened his eyes. Every inch of his body was covered in icy sweat; his bed covers were
twisted all around him like a strait-jacket; he felt as though a white-hot poker were being applied
to his forehead.
“Harry!”
Ron was standing over him looking extremely frightened. There were more figures at the foot of
Harry’s bed. He clutched his head in his hands; the pain was blinding him… he rolled right over
and vomited over the edge of the mattress.
“He’s really ill,” said a scared voice. “Should we call someone?”
“Harry!Harry!”
He had to tell Ron, it was very important that he tell him… taking great gulps of air, Harry
pushed himself up in bed, willing himself not to throw up again, the pain half-blinding him.
“Your dad,” he panted, his chest heaving. “Your dad’s… been attacked…”
“What?” said Ron uncomprehendingly.
“Your dad! He’s been bitten, it’s serious, there was blood everywhere…”
“I’m going for help,” said the same scared voice, and Harry heard footsteps running out of the
dormitory.
“Harry, mate,” said Ron uncertainly, “you… you were just dreaming…”
“No!” said Harry furiously; it was crucial that Ron understand. “It wasn’t a dream… not an ordinary dream… I was there, I saw it… I did it…”
He could hear Seamus and Dean muttering but did not care. The pain in his forehead was
subsiding slightly, though he was still sweating and shivering feverishly. He retched again and
Ron leapt backwards out of the way.
“Harry, you’re not well,” he said shakily. “Neville’s gone for help.”
“I’m fine!” Harry choked, wiping his mouth on his p yjamas and shaking uncontrollably.
“There’s nothing wrong with me, it’s your dad you’ve got to worry about - we need to find out where he is - he’s bleeding like mad - I was - it was a huge snake.”
He tried to get out of bed but Ron pushed him back into it; Dean and Seamus were still
whispering somewhere nearby. Whether one minute passed or ten, Harry did not know; he
simply sat there shaking, feeling the pain recede very slowly from his scar… then there were
hurried footsteps coming up the stairs and he heard Neville’s voice again.
“Over here, Professor.”
Professor McGonagall came hurrying into the dormitory in her tartan dressing gown, her glasses
perched lopsidedly on the bridge of her bony nose.
“What is it, Potter? Where does it hurt?”
He had never been so pleased to see her; it was a member of the Order of the Phoenix he needed
now, not someone fussing over him and prescribing useless potions.
“It’s Ron’s dad,” he said, sitting up again. “He’s been attacked by a snake and it’s serious, I saw it happen.”
“What do you mean, you saw it happen?” said Professor McGonagall, her dark eyebrows
contracting.
“I don’t know… I was asleep and then I was there…”
“You mean you dreamed this?”
“No!” said Harry angrily; would none of them understand? “I was having a dream at first about
something completely different, something stupid… and then this interrupted it. It was real, I
didn’t imagine it. Mr. Weasley was asleep on the floor and he was attacked by a gigantic snake,
there was a load of blood, he collapsed, someone’s got to find out where he is…”
Professor McGonagall was gazing at him through her lopsided spectacles as though horrified at
what she was seeing.
“I’m not lying and I’m not mad!” Harry told her, his voice rising to a shout. “I tell you, I saw it
happen!”
“I believe you, Potter,” said Professor McGonagall curtly. “Put on your dressing gown - we’re
going to see the Headmaster.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries
Harry was so relieved she was taking him seriously that he did not hesitate, but jumped out of
bed at once, pulled on his dressing gown and pushed his glasses back on to his nose.
“Weasley, you ought to come too,” said Professor McGonagall.
They followed Professor McGonagall past the silent figures of Neville, Dean and Seamus, out of
the dormitory, down the spiral stairs into the common room, through the portrait hole and off
along the Fat Lady’s moonlit corridor. Harry felt as though the panic inside him might spill over
at any moment; he wanted to run, to yell for Dumbledore; Mr. Weasley was bleeding as they
walked along so sedately, and what if those fangs (Harry tried hard not to think ‘my fangs’) had
been poisonous? They passed Mrs Norris, who turned her lamplike eyes upon them and hissed
faintly, but Professor McGonagall said, “Shoo!” Mrs Norris slunk away into the shadows, and in
a few minutes they had reached the stone gargoyle guarding the entrance to Dumbledore’s office.
“Fizzing Whizzbee,” said Professor McGonagall.
The gargoyle sprang to life and leapt aside; the wall behind it split in two to reveal a stone
staircase that was moving continually upwards like a spiral escalator. The three of them stepped
on to the moving stairs; the wall closed behind them with a thud and they were moving upwards
in tight circles until they reached the highly polished oak door with the brass knocker shaped like
a griffin.
Though it was now well past midnight there were voices coming from inside the room, a positive
babble of them. It sounded as though Dumbledore was entertaining at least a dozen people.
Professor McGonagall rapped three times with the griffin knocker and the voices ceased abruptly
as though someone had switched them all off. The door opened of its own accord and Professor
McGonagall led Harry and Ron inside.
The room was in half-darkness; the strange silver instruments standing on tables were silent and
still rather than whirring and emitting puffs of smoke as they usually did; the portraits of old
headmasters and headmistresses covering the walls were all snoozing in their frames. Behind the
door, a magnificent red and gold bird the size of a swan dozed on its perch with its head under its
wing.
“Oh, it’s you, Professor McGonagall… and… ah.”
Dumbledore was sitting in a high-backed chair behind his desk; he leaned forward into the pool
of candlelight illuminating the papers laid out before him. He was wearing a magnificently
embroidered purple and gold dressing gown over a snowy white nightshirt, but seemed wideawake, his penetrating light blue eyes fixed intently upon Professor McGonagall.
“Professor Dumbledore, Potter has had a… well, a nightmare,” said Professor McGonagall. “He
says…”
“It wasn’t a nightmare,” said Harry quickly.
Professor McGonagall looked round at Harry, frowning slightly.
“Very well, then, Potter, you tell the Headmaster about it.”
“I… well, I was asleep…” said Harry and, even in his terror and his desperation to make
Dumbledore understand, he felt slightly irritated that the Headmaster was not looking at him, but
examining his own interlocked fingers. “But it wasn’t an ordinary dream… it was real… I saw it
happen…” He took a deep breath, “Ron’s dad - Mr. Weasley - has been attacked by a giant
snake.”
The words seemed to reverberate in the air after he had said them, sounding slightly ridiculous,
even comic. There was a pause in which Dumbledore leaned back and stared meditatively at the
ceiling. Ron looked from Harry to Dumbledore, white-faced and shocked.
“How did you see this?” Dumbledore asked quietly, still not looking at Harry.
“Well… I don’t know,” said Harry, rather angrily - what did it matter? “Inside my head, I suppose -”
“You misunderstand me,” said Dumbledore, still in the same calm tone. “I mean… can you
remember — er - where you were positioned as you watched this attack happen? Were you
perhaps standing beside the victim, or else looking down on the scene from above?”
This was such a curious question that Harry gaped at Dumbledore; it was almost as though he
knew…
“I was the snake,” he said. “I saw it all from the snake’s point of view.”
Nobody else spoke for a moment, then Dumbledore, now looking at Ron who was still wheyfaced, asked in a new and sharper voice, “Is Arthur seriously injured?”
“Yes,” said Harry emphatically - why were they all so slow on the uptake, did they not realize
how much a person bled when fangs that long pierced their side? And why could Dumbledore
not do him the courtesy of looking at him?
But Dumbledore stood up, so quickly it made Harry jump, and addressed one of the old portraits
hanging very near the ceiling. “Everard?” he said sharply. “And you too, Dilys!”
A sallow-faced wizard with a short black bangs and an elderly witch with long silver ringlets in
the frame beside him, both of whom seemed to have been in the deepest of sleeps, opened their
eyes immediately.
“You were listening?” said Dumbledore.
The wizard nodded; the witch said, “Naturally.”
“The man has red hair and glasses,” said Dumbledore. “Everard, you will need to raise the alarm, make sure he is found by the right people -”
Both nodded and moved sideways out of their frames, but instead of emerging in neighboring
pictures (as usually happened at Hogwarts) neither reappeared. One frame now contained
nothing but a backdrop of dark curtain, the other a handsome leather armchair. Harry noticed that
many of the other headmasters and mistresses on the walls, though snoring and drooling most
convincingly, kept sneaking peeks at him from under their eyelids, and he suddenly understood
who had been talking when they had knocked.
“Everard and Dilys were two of Hogwarts’s most celebrated Heads,” Dumbledore said, now
sweeping around Harry, Ron and Professor McGonagall to approach the magnificent sleeping
bird on his perch beside the door. “Their renown is such that both have portraits hanging in other
important wizarding institutions. As they are free to move between their own portraits, they can
tell us what may be happening elsewhere…”
“But Mr. Weasley could be anywhere!” said Harry.
“Please sit down, all three of you,” said Dumbledore, as though Harry had not spoken, “Everard
and Dilys may not be back for several minutes. Professor McGonagall, if you could draw up
extra chairs.”
Professor McGonagall pulled her wand from the pocket of her dressing gown and waved it; three
chairs appeared out of thin air, straight-backed and wooden, quite unlike the comfortable chintz
armchairs that Dumbledore had conjured up at Harry’s hearing. Harry sat down, watching
Dumbledore over his shoulder. Dumbledore was now stroking Fawkes’s plumed golden head
with one finger. The phoenix awoke immediately. He stretched his beautiful head high and
observed Dumbledore through bright, dark eyes.
“We will need,” Dumbledore said very quietly to the bird, “a warning.”
There was a flash of fire and the phoenix had gone.
Dumbledore now swooped down upon one of the fragile silver instruments whose function Harry
had never known, carried it over to his desk, sat down facing them again and tapped it gently
with the tip of his wand.
The instrument tinkled into life at once with rhythmic clinking noises. Tiny puffs of pale green
smoke issued from the minuscule silver tube at the top. Dumbledore watched the smoke closely,
his brow furrowed. After a few seconds, the tiny puffs became a steady stream of smoke that
thickened and coiled in the air… a serpent’s head grew out of the end of it, opening its mouth
wide. Harry wondered whether the instrument was confirming his story: he looked eagerly at
Dumbledore for a sign that he was right, but Dumbledore did not look up.
“Naturally, naturally,” murmured Dumbledore apparently to himself, still observing the stream of smoke without the slightest sign of surprise. “But in essence divided?”
Harry could make neither head nor tail of this question. The smoke serpent, however, split itself
instantly into two snakes, both coiling and undulating in the dark air. With a look of grim
satisfaction, Dumbledore gave the instrument another gentle tap with his wand: the clinking
noise slowed and died and the smoke serpents grew faint, became a formless haze and vanished.
Dumbledore replaced the instrument on its spindly little table. Harry saw many of the old
headmasters in the portraits follow him with their eyes, then, realizing that Harry was watching
them, hastily pretend to be sleeping again. Harry wanted to ask what the strange silver
instrument was for, but before he could do so, there was a shout from the top of the wall to their
right; the wizard called Everard had reappeared in his portrait, panting slightly.
“Dumbledore!”
“What news?” said Dumbledore at once.
“I yelled until someone came running,” said the wizard, who was mopping his brow on the
curtain behind him, “said I’d heard something moving downstairs - they weren’t sure whether to
believe me but went down to check - you know there are no portraits down there to watch from.
Anyway, they carried him up a few minutes later. He doesn’t look good, he’s covered in blood, I
ran along to Elfrida Cragg’s portrait to get a good view as they left -”
“Good,” said Dumbledore as Ron made a convulsive movement. “I take it Dilys will have seen
him arrive, then -”
And moments later, the silver-ringleted witch had reappeared in her picture, too; she sank,
coughing, into her armchair and said, “Yes, they’ve taken him to St. Mungo’s, Dumbledore…
they carried him past my portrait… he looks bad…”
“Thank you,” said Dumbledore. He looked round at Professor McGonagall.
“Minerva, I need you to go and wake the other Weasley children.”
“Of course…”
Professor McGonagall got up and moved swiftly to the door. Harry cast a sideways glance at
Ron, who was looking terrified.
“And Dumbledore - what about Molly?” said Professor McGonagall, pausing at the door.
“That will be a job for Fawkes when he has finished keeping a lookout for anybody approaching,”
said Dumbledore. “But she may already know… that excellent clock of hers…”
Harry knew Dumbledore was referring to the clock that told, not the time, but the whereabouts
and conditions of the various Weasley family members, and with a pang he thought that Mr.
Weasley’s hand must, even now, be pointing atmortal peril. But it was very late. Mrs. Weasley
was probably asleep, not watching the clock. Harry felt cold as he remembered Mrs. Weasley’s
Boggart turning into Mr. Weasley’s lifeless body, his glasses askew, blood running down his
face… but Mr. Weasley wasn’t going to die… he couldn’t…
Dumbledore was now rummaging in a cupboard behind Harry and Ron. He emerged from it
carrying a blackened old kettle, which he placed carefully on his desk. He raised his wand and
murmured, “Portus!” For a moment the kettle trembled, glowing with an odd blue light; then it
quivered to rest, as solidly black as ever.
Dumbledore marched over to another portrait, this time of a clever-looking wizard with a pointed
beard, who had been painted wearing the Slytherin colors of green and silver and was
apparently sleeping so deeply that he could not hear Dumbledore’s voice when he attempted to
rouse him.
“Phineas. Phineas.”
The subjects of the portraits lining the room were no longer pretending to be asleep; they were
shifting around in their frames, the better to watch what was happening. When the clever-looking
wizard continued to feign sleep, some of them shouted his name, too.
“Phineas! Phineas! PHINEAS!”
He could not pretend any longer; he gave a theatrical jerk and opened his eyes wide.
“Did someone call?”
“I need you to visit your other portrait again, Phineas,” said Dumbledore. “I’ve got another
message.”
“Visit my other portrait?” said Phineas in a reedy voice, giving a long, fake yawn (his eyes
traveling around the room and focusing on Harry). “Oh, no, Dumbledore, I am too tired tonight.”
Something about Phineas’s voice was familiar to Harry, where had he heard it before? But before
he could think, the portraits on the surrounding walls broke into a storm of protest.
“Insubordination, sir!” roared a corpulent, red-nosed wizard, brandishing his fists. “Dereliction of duty!”
“We are honor-bound to give service to the present Headmaster of Hogwarts!” cried a fraillooking old wizard whom Harry recognized as Dumbledore’s predecessor, Armando Dippet.
“Shame on you, Phineas!”
“Shall I persuade him, Dumbledore?” called a gimlet-eyed witch, raising an unusually thick wand that looked not unlike a birch rod.
“Oh, very well,” said the wizard called Phineas, eyeing the wand with mild apprehension,
“though he may well have destroyed my picture by now, he’s done away with most of the family
-”
“Sirius knows not to destroy your portrait,” said Dumbledore, and Harry realized immediately
where he had heard Phineas’s voice before: issuing from the apparently empty frame in his
bedroom in Grimmauld Place. “You are to give him the message that Arthur Weasley has been
gravely injured and that his wife, children and Harry Potter will be arriving at his house shortly.
Do you understand?”
“Arthur Weasley, injured, wife and children and Harry Potter coming to stay,” repeated Phineas
in a bored voice. “Yes, yes… very well.”
He sloped away into the frame of the portrait and disappeared from view at the very moment the
study door opened again. Fred, George and Ginny were ushered inside by Professor McGonagall,
all three of them looking dishevelled and shocked, still in their night things.
“Harry - what’s going on?” asked Ginny, who looked frightened. “Professor McGonagall says
you saw Dad get hurt -”
“Your father has been injured in the course of his work for the Order of the Phoenix,” said
Dumbledore, before Harry could speak. “He has been taken to St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical
Maladies and Injuries. I am sending you back to Sirius’s house, which is much more convenient
for the hospital than The Burrow. You will meet your mother there.”
“How’re we going?” asked Fred, looking shaken. “Floo powder?”
“No,” said Dumbledore, “Floo powder is not safe at the moment, the Network is being watched.
You will be taking a Portkey.” He indicated the old kettle lying innocently on his desk. “We are
just waiting for Phineas Nigellus to report back… I want to be sure that the coast is clear before
sending you -”
There was a flash of flame in the very middle of the office, leaving behind a single golden
feather that floated gently to the floor.
“It is Fawkes’s warning,” said Dumbledore, catching the feather as it fell. “Professor Umbridge
must know you’re out of your beds… Minerva, go and head her off - tell her any story -”
Professor McGonagall was gone in a swish of tartan.
“He says he’ll be delighted,” said a bored voice behind Dumbledore; the wizard called Phineas
had reappeared in front of his Slytherin banner. “My great-great-grandson has always had an odd
taste in house-guests.”
“Come here, then,” Dumbledore said to Harry and the Weasleys. “And quickly, before anyone
else joins us.”
Harry and the others gathered around Dumbledore’s desk.
“You have all used a Portkey before?” asked Dumbledore, and they nodded, each reaching out to
touch some part of the blackened kettle. “Good. On the count of three, then… one… two…”
It happened in a fraction of a second: in the infinitesimal pause before Dumbledore said “three”,
Harry looked up at him - they were very close together - and Dumbledore’s clear blue gaze
moved from the Portkey to Harry’s face.
At once, Harry’s scar burned white-hot, as though the old wound had burst open again - and
unbidden, unwanted, but terrifyingly strong, there rose within Harry a hatred so powerful he felt,
for that instant, he would like nothing better than to strike - to bite - to sink his fangs into the
man before him —
“… three.”
Harry felt a powerful jerk behind his navel, the ground vanished from beneath his feet, his hand
was glued to the kettle; he was banging into the others as they all sped forwards in a swirl of
colors and a rush of wind, the kettle pulling them onwards… until his feet hit the ground so
hard his knees buckled, the kettle clattered to the ground, and somewhere close at hand a voice
said:
“Back again, the blood-traitor brats. Is it true their father’s dying?”
“OUT!” roared a second voice.
Harry scrambled to his feet and looked around; they had arrived in the gloomy basement kitchen
of number twelve, Grimmauld Place. The only sources of light were the fire and one guttering
candle, which illuminated the remains of a solitary supper. Kreacher was disappearing through
the door to the hall, looking back at them malevolently as he hitched up his loincloth; Sirius was
hurrying towards them all, looking anxious. He was unshaven and still in his day clothes; there
was also a slightly Mundungus-like whiff of stale drink about him.
“What’s going on?” he said, stretching out a hand to help Ginny up. “Phineas Nigellus said
Arthur’s been badly injured —”
“Ask Harry,” said Fred.
“Yeah, I want to hear this for myself,” said George.
The twins and Ginny were staring at him. Kreacher’s footsteps had stopped on the stairs outside.
“It was -” Harry began; this was even worse than telling McGonagall and Dumbledore. “I had a - a kind of – vision.”
And he told them all that he had seen, though he altered the story so that it sounded as though he
had watched from the sidelines as the snake attacked, rather than from behind the snake’s own
eyes. Ron, who was still very white, gave him a fleeting look, but did not speak. When Harry had
finished, Fred, George and Ginny continued to stare at him for a moment. Harry did not know
whether he was imagining it or not, but he fancied there was something accusatory in their looks.
Well, if they were going to blame him just for seeing the attack, he was glad he had not told them
that he had been inside the snake at the time.
“Is Mum here?” said Fred, turning to Sirius.
“She probably doesn’t even know what’s happened yet,” said Sirius. “The important thing was to
get you away before Umbridge could interfere. I expect Dumbledores letting Molly know now.”
“We’ve got to go to St. Mungo’s,” said Ginny urgently. She looked around at her brothers; they
were of course still in their pajamass. “Sirius, can you lend us cloaks or anything?”
“Hang on, you can’t go tearing off to St. Mungo’s!” said Sirius.
“Course we can go to St. Mungo’s if we want,” said Fred, with a mulish expression. “He’s our
dad!”
“And how are you going to explain how you knew Arthur was attacked before the hospital even
let his wife know?”
“What does that matter?” said George hotly.
“It matters because we don’t want to draw attention to the fact that Harry is having visions of
things that are happening hundreds of miles away!” said Sirius angrily. “Have you any idea what
the Ministry would make of that information?”
Fred and George looked as though they could not care less what the Ministry made of anything.
Ron was still ashen-faced and silent.
Ginny said, “Somebody else could have told us… we could have heard it somewhere other than
Harry.”
“Like who?” said Sirius impatiently. “Listen, your dad’s been hurt while on duty for the Order
and the circumstances are fishy enough without his children knowing about it seconds after it
happened, you could seriously damage the Order’s -”
“We don’t care about the dumb Order!” shouted Fred.
“It’s our dad dying we’re talking about!” yelled George.
“Your father knew what he was getting into and he won’t thank you for messing things up for the
Order!” said Sirius, equally angry. “This is how it is - this is why you’re not in the Order - you
don’t understand - there are things worth dying for!”
“Easy for you to say, stuck here!” bellowed Fred. “I don’t see you risking your neck!”
The little color remaining in Sirius’s face drained from it. He looked for a moment as though he
would quite like to hit Fred, but when he spoke, it was in a voice of determined calm.
“I know it’s hard, but we’ve all got to act as though we don’t know anything yet. We’ve got to
stay put, at least until we hear from your mother, all right?”
Fred and George still looked mutinous. Ginny, however, took a few steps over to the nearest
chair and sank into it. Harry looked at Ron, who made a funny movement somewhere between a
nod and a shrug, and they sat down too. The twins glared at Sirius for another minute, then took
seats either side of Ginny.
“That’s right,” said Sirius encouragingly, “come on, let’s all… let’s all have a drink while we’re
waiting. Accio Butterbeer!”
He raised his wand as he spoke and half a dozen bottles came flying towards them out of the
pantry, skidded along the table, scattering the debris of Sinus’s meal, and stopped neatly in front
of the six of them. They all drank, and for a while the only sounds were those of the crackling of
the kitchen fire and the soft thud of their bottles on the table.
Harry was only drinking to have something to do with his hands. His stomach was full of
horrible hot, bubbling guilt. They would not be here if it were not for him; they would all still be
asleep in bed. And it was no good telling himself that by raising the alarm he had ensured that
Mr. Weasley was found, because there was also the in escapable business of it being he who had
attacked Mr. Weasley in the first place.
Don’t be stupid, you haven’t got fangs, he told himself, trying to keep calm, though the hand on
his Butterbeer bottle was shaking, you were lying in bed, you weren’t attacking anyone…
But then, what just happened in Dumbledore’s office? he asked himself. I felt like I wanted to
attack Dumbledore, too…
He put the bottle down a little harder than he meant to, and it slopped over on to the table. No
one took any notice. Then a burst of fire in midair illuminated the dirty plates in front of them
and, as they gave cries of shock, a scroll of parchment fell with a thud on to the table,
accompanied by a single golden phoenix tail feather.
“Fawkes!” said Sirius at once, snatching up the parchment. “That’s not Dumbledore’s writing - it
must be a message from your mother - here -”
He thrust the letter into George’s hand, who ripped it open and read aloud: “Dad is still alive. I
am setting out for St. Mungo’s now. Stay where you are. I will send news as soon as I can. Mum.”
George looked around the table.
“Still alive…” he said slowly. “But that makes it sound…”
He did not need to finish the sentence. It sounded to Harry, too, as though Mr. Weasley was
hovering somewhere between life and death. Still exceptionally pale, Ron stared at the back of
his mothers letter as though it might speak words of comfort to him. Fred pulled the parchment
out of George’s hands and read it for himself, then looked up at Harry, who felt his hand shaking
on his Butterbeer bottle again and clenched it more tightly to stop the trembling.
If Harry had ever sat through a longer night than this one, he could not remember it. Sirius
suggested once, without any real conviction, that they all go to bed, but the Weasleys’ looks of
disgust were answer enough. They mostly sat in silence around the table, watching the candle
wick sinking lower and lower into liquid wax, occasionally raising a bottle to their lips, speaking
only to check the time, to wonder aloud what was happening, and to reassure each other that if
there was bad news, they would know straightaway, for Mrs. Weasley must long since have
arrived at St. Mungo’s.
Fred fell into a doze, his head lolling sideways on to his shoulder. Ginny was curled like a cat on
her chair, but her eyes were open; Harry could see them reflecting the firelight. Ron was sitting
with his head in his hands, whether awake or asleep it was impossible to tell. Harry and Sirius
looked at each other every so often, intruders upon the family grief, waiting… waiting…
At ten past five in the morning by Ron’s watch, the kitchen door swung open and Mrs. Weasley
entered the kitchen. She was extremely pale, but when they all turned to look at her, Fred, Ron
and Harry half rising from their chairs, she gave a wan smile.
“He’s going to be all right,” she said, her voice weak with tiredness. “He’s sleeping. We can all
go and see him later. Bill’s sitting with him now; he’s going to take the morning off work.”
Fred fell back into his chair with his hands over his face. George and Ginny got up, walked
swiftly over to their mother and hugged her. Ron gave a very shaky laugh and downed the rest of
his Butterbeer in one.
“Breakfast!” said Sirius loudly and joyfully, jumping to his feet. “Where’s that accursed house-elf? Kreacher! KREACHER!”
But Kreacher did not answer the summons.
“Oh, forget it, then,” muttered Sirius, counting the people in front of him. “So, it’s breakfast for -
let’s see - seven… bacon and eggs, I think, and some tea, and toast -”
Harry hurried over to the stove to help. He did not want to intrude on the Weasleys’ happiness
and he dreaded the moment when Mrs. Weasley would ask him to recount his vision. However,
he had barely taken plates from the dresser when Mrs. Weasley lifted them out of his hands and
pulled him into a hug.
“I don’t know what would have happened if it hadn’t been for you, Harry,” she said in a muffled
voice. “They might not have found Arthur for hours, and then it would have been too late, but
thanks to you he’s alive and Dumbledore’s been able to think up a good cover story for Arthur
being where he was, you’ve no idea what trouble he would have been in otherwise, look at poor
Sturgis…”
Harry could hardly bear her gratitude, but fortunately she soon released him to turn to Sirius and
thank him for looking after her children through the night. Sirius said he was very pleased to
have been able to help, and hoped they would all stay with him as long as Mr. Weasley was in
hospital.
“Oh, Sirius, I’m so grateful… they think he’ll be there a little while and it would be wonderful to
be nearer… of course, that might mean we’re here for Christmas.”
“The more the merrier!” said Sirius with such obvious sincerity that Mrs. Weasley beamed at him, threw on an apron and began to help with breakfast.
“Sirius,” Harry muttered, unable to stand it a moment longer. “Can I have a quick word? Er -
now?”
He walked into the dark pantry and Sirius followed. Without preamble, Harry told his godfather
every detail of the vision he had had, including the fact that he himself had been the snake who
had attacked Mr. Weasley.
When he paused for breath, Sirius said, “Did you tell Dumbledore this?”
“Yes,” said Harry impatiently, “but he didn’t tell me what it meant. Well, he doesn’t tell me
anything any more.”
“I’m sure he would have told you if it was anything to worry about,” said Sirius steadily.
“But that’s not all,” said Harry, in a voice only a little above a whisper. “Sirius, I… I think I’m
going mad. Back in Dumbledore’s office, just before we took the Portkey… for a couple of
seconds there I thought I was a snake, I felt like one - my scar really hurt when I was looking at
Dumbledore - Sirius, I wanted to attack him!”
He could only see a sliver of Siriuss face; the rest was in darkness.
“It must have been the aftermath of the vision, that’s all,” said Sirius. “You were still thinking of
the dream or whatever it was and –”
“It wasn’t that,” said Harry, shaking his head, “it was like something rose up inside me, like
there’s a snake inside me.”
“You need to sleep,” said Sirius firmly. “You’re going to have breakfast, then go upstairs to bed,
and after lunch you can go and see Arthur with the others. You’re in shock, Harry; you’re
blaming yourself for something you only witnessed, and it’s lucky you did witness it or Arthur
might have died. Just stop worrying.”
He clapped Harry on the shoulder and left the pantry, leaving Harry standing alone in the dark.
Everyone but Harry spent the rest of the morning sleeping. He went up to the bedroom he and
Ron had shared over the last few weeks of summer, but while Ron crawled into bed and was
asleep within minutes, Harry sat fully clothed, hunched against the cold metal bars of the
bedstead, keeping himself deliberately uncomfortable, determined not to fall into a doze, terrified
that he might become the serpent again in his sleep and wake to find that he had attacked Ron, or
else slithered through the house after one of the others…
When Ron woke up, Harry pretended to have enjoyed a refreshing nap too. Their trunks arrived
from Hogwarts while they were eating lunch, so they could dress as Muggles for the trip to St
Mungo’s. Everybody except Harry was riotously happy and talkative as they changed out of their
robes into jeans and sweatshirts. When Tonks and Mad-Eye turned up to escort them across
London, they greeted them gleefully, laughing at the bowler hat Mad-Eye was wearing at an
angle to conceal his magical eye and assuring him, truthfully, that Tonks, whose hair was short
and bright pink again, would attract far less attention on the Underground.
Tonks was very interested in Harry’s vision of the attack on Mr. Weasley, something Harry was
not remotely interested in discussing.
“There isn’t any Seer blood in your family, is there?” she enquired curiously, as they sat side by
side on a train rattling towards the heart of the city.
“No,” said Harry, thinking of Professor Trelawney and feeling insulted.
“No,” said Tonks musingly, “no, I suppose it’s not really prophecy you’re doing, is it? I mean,
you’re not seeing the future, you’re seeing the present… it’s odd, isn’t it? Useful, though…”
Harry didn’t answer; fortunately, they got out at the next stop, a station in the very heart of
London, and in the bustle of leaving the train he was able to allow Fred and George to get
between himself and Tonks, who was leading the way. They all followed her up the escalator,
Moody clunking along at the back of the group, his bowler tilted low and one gnarled hand stuck
in between the buttons of his coat, clutching his wand. Harry thought he sensed the concealed
eye staring hard at him. Trying to avoid any more questions about his dream, he asked Mad-Eye
where St. Mungo’s was hidden.
“Not far from here,” grunted Moody as they stepped out into the wintry air on a broad store-lined
street packed with Christmas shoppers. He pushed Harry a little ahead of him and stumped along
just behind; Harry knew the eye was rolling in all directions under the tilted hat. “Wasn’t easy to
find a good location for a hospital. Nowhere in Diagon Alley was big enough and we couldn’t
have it underground like the Ministry - wouldn’t be healthy. In the end they managed to get hold
of a building up here. Theory was, sick wizards could come and go and just blend in with the
crowd.”
He seized Harry’s shoulder to prevent them being separated by a gaggle of shoppers plainly
intent on nothing but making it into a nearby shop full of electrical gadgets.
“Here we go,” said Moody a moment later.
They had arrived outside a large, old-fashioned, red-brick department store called Purge &
Dowse Ltd. The place had a shabby, miserable air; the window displays consisted of a few
chipped dummies with their wigs askew, standing at random and modelling fashions at least ten
years out of date. Large signs on all the dusty doors read: “Closed for Refurbishment”. Harry
distinctly heard a large woman laden with plastic shopping bags say to her friend as they passed,
“It’snever open, that place…”
“Right,” said Tonks, beckoning them towards a window displaying nothing but a particularly
ugly female dummy. Its false eyelashes were hanging off and it was modelling a green nylon
pinafore dress. “Everybody ready?”
They nodded, clustering around her. Moody gave Harry another shove between the shoulder
blades to urge him forward and Tonks leaned close to the glass, looking up at the very ugly
dummy, her breath steaming up the glass. “Wotcher… We’re here to see Arthur
Weasley.”
Harry thought how absurd it was for Tonks to expect the dummy to hear her talking so quietly
through a sheet of glass, with buses rumbling along behind her and all the racket of a street full
of shoppers. Then he reminded himself that dummies couldn’t hear anyway. Next second, his
mouth opened in shock as the dummy gave a tiny nod and beckoned with its jointed finger, and
Tonks had seized Ginny and Mrs. Weasley by the elbows, stepped right through the glass and
vanished.
Fred, George and Ron stepped after them. Harry glanced around at the jostling crowd; not one of
them seemed to have a glance to spare for window displays as ugly as those of Purge & Dowse
Ltd; nor did any of them seem to have noticed that six people had just melted into thin air in
front of them.
“C’mon,” growled Moody, giving Harry yet another poke in the back, and together they stepped
forward through what felt like a sheet of cool water, emerging quite warm and dry on the other
side.
There was no sign of the ugly dummy or the space where she had stood. They were in what
seemed to be a crowded reception area where rows of witches and wizards sat upon rickety
wooden chairs, some looking perfectly normal and perusing out-of-date copies of WitchWeekly,
others sporting gruesome disfigurements such as elephant trunks or extra hands sticking out of
their chests. The room was scarcely less quiet than the street outside, for many of the patients
were making very peculiar noises: a sweaty-faced witch in the center of the front row, who was
fanning herself vigorously with a copy of the Daily Prophet, kept letting off a high-pitched
whistle as steam came pouring out of her mouth; a grubby-looking warlock in the corner clanged
like a bell every time he moved and, with each clang, his head vibrated horribly so that he had to
seize himself by the ears to hold it steady.
Witches and wizards in lime-green robes were walking up and down the rows, asking questions
and making notes on clipboards like Umbridge’s. Harry noticed the emblem embroidered on
their chests: a wand and bone, crossed.
“Are they doctors?” he asked Ron quietly.
“Doctors?” said Ron, looking startled. “Those Muggle nutters that cut people up? Nah, they’re
Healers.”
“Over here!” called Mrs. Weasley above the renewed c langing of the warlock in the corner, and
they followed her to the queue in front of a plump blonde witch seated at a desk marked Enquiries. The wall behind her was covered in notices and posters saying things like: A
CLEAN CAULDRON KEEPS POTIONS FROM BECOMING POISONS and ANTIDOTES
ARE ANTI-DON’TS UNLESS APPROVED BY A QUALIFIED HEALER. There was also a
large portrait of a witch with long silver ringlets which was labelled:
Dilys Derwent

St. Mungo’s Healer 1722-
Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry 1741-
Dilys was eyeing the Weasley party closely as though counting them; when Harry caught her eye
she gave a tiny wink, walked sideways out of her portrait and vanished.
Meanwhile, at the front of the queue, a young wizard was performing an odd on-the-spot jig and
trying, in between yelps of pain, to explain his predicament to the witch behind the desk.
“It’s these - ouch - shoes my brother gave me - ow- they’re eating my - OUCH - feet - look at
them, there must be some kind of - AARGH - jinx on them and I can’t - AAAAARGH - get
them off.” He hopped from one foot to the other as though dancing on hot coals.
“The shoes don’t prevent you reading, do they?” said the blonde witch, irritably pointing at a
large sign to the left of her desk. “You want Spell Damage, fourth floor. Just like it says on the
floor guide. Next!”
As the wizard hobbled and pranced sideways out of the way, the Weasley party moved forward a
few steps and Harry read the floor guide:
ARTEFACT ACCIDENTS… Ground floor
Cauldron explosion, wand backfiring, broom crashes, etc.
CREATURE-INDUCED INJURIES… First floor
Bites, stings, burns, embedded spines, etc.
MAGICAL BUGS… Second floor
Contagious maladies, e.g. dragon pox, vanishing sickness, scrojungulus, etc.
POTION AND PLANT POISONING… Third floor
Rashes,regurgitation (uncontrollable), etc.
SPELL DAMAGE… Fourth floor
Unliftable jinxes, hexes, and incorrectly applied charms, etc.
VISITORS’ TEAROOM AND HOSPITAL SHOP… Fifth floor
IF YOU ARE UNSURE WHERE TO GO, INCAPABLE OF NORMAL SPEECH OR
UNABLE TO REMEMBER WHY YOU ARE HERE, OUR WELCOME WITCH WILL BE
PLEASED TO HELP.
A very old, stooped wizard with a hearing trumpet had shuffled to the front of the queue now.
“I’m here to see Broderick Bode!” he wheezed.
“Ward forty-nine, but I’m afraid you’re wasting your time,” said the witch dismissively. “He’s
completely addled, you know - still thinks he’s a teapot. Next!”
A harassed-looking wizard was holding his small daughter tightly by the ankle while she flapped
around his head using the immensely large, feathery wings that had sprouted right out through
the back of her romper suit.
“Fourth floor,” said the witch, in a bored voice, without asking, and the man disappeared through
the double doors beside the desk, holding his daughter like an oddly shaped balloon. “Next!”
Mrs. Weasley moved forward to the desk.
“Hello,” she said, “my husband, Arthur Weasley, was supposed to be moved to a different ward
this morning, could you tell us -?”
“Arthur Weasley?” said the witch, running her finger down a long list in front of her. “Yes, first
floor, second door on the right, Dai Llewellyn Ward.”
“Thank you,” said Mrs. Weasley. “Come on, you lot.”
They followed her through the double doors and along the narrow corridor beyond, which was
lined with more portraits of famous Healers and lit by crystal bubbles full of candles that floated
up on the ceiling, looking like giant soapsuds. More witches and wizards in lime-green robes
walked in and out of the doors they passed; a foul-smelling yellow gas wafted into the
passageway as they passed one door, and every now and then they heard distant wailing. They
climbed a flight of stairs and entered the Creature-Induced Injuries corridor, where the second
door on the right bore the words: Dangerous’ Dai Llewellyn Ward: Serious Bites. Underneath
this was a card in a brass holder on which had been handwritten:Healer-in-Charge: Hippocrates
Smethwyck. Trainee Healer: Augustus Pye.
“We’ll wait outside, Molly,” Tonks said. “Arthur won’t want too many visitors at once… it ought to be just the family first.”
Mad-Eye growled his approval of this idea and set himself with his back against the corridor
wall, his magical eye spinning in all directions. Harry drew back, too, but Mrs. Weasley reached
out a hand and pushed him through the door, saying, “Don’t be silly, Harry, Arthur wants to
thank you.”
The ward was small and rather dingy, as the only window was narrow and set high in the wall
facing the door. Most of the light came from more shining crystal bubbles clustered in the middle
of the ceiling. The walls were of panelled oak and there was a portrait of a rather vicious-looking
wizard on the wall, captioned: Urquhart Rackharrow, 1612—1697, Inventor of the Entrail-expelling Curse.
There were only three patients. Mr. Weasley was occupying the bed at the far end of the ward
beside the tiny window. Harry was pleased and relieved to see that he was propped up on several
pillows and reading the Daily Prophet by the solitary ray of sunlight falling on to his bed. He
looked up as they walked towards him and, seeing who it was, beamed.
“Hello!” he called, throwing the Prophet aside. “Bill just left, Molly, had to get back to work, but he says he’ll drop in on you later.”
“How are you, Arthur?” asked Mrs. Weasley, bending down to kiss his cheek and looking
anxiously into his face. “You’re still looking a bit peaky.”
“I feel absolutely fine,” said Mr. Weasley brightly, holding out his good arm to give Ginny a hug.
“If they could only take the bandages off, I’d be f it to go home.”
“Why can’t they take them off, Dad?” asked Fred.
“Well, I start bleeding like mad every time they try,” said Mr. Weasley cheerfully, reaching across for his wand, which lay on his bedside cabinet, and waving it so that six extra chairs appeared at his bedside to seat them all. “It seems there was some rather unusual kind of poison in that snake’s fangs that keeps wounds open. They’re sure they’ll find an antidote, though; they say they’ve had much worse cases than mine, and in the meantime I just have to keep taking a
Blood-Replenishing Potion every hour. But that fellow over there,” he said, dropping his voice
and nodding towards the bed opposite in which a man lay looking green and sickly and staring at
the ceiling. “Bitten by a werewolf, poor chap. No cure at all.”
“A werewolf?” whispered Mrs. Weasley, looking alarmed. “Is he safe in a public ward? Shouldn’t he be in a private room?”
“It’s two weeks till full moon,” Mr. Weasley reminded her quietly. “They’ve been talking to him this morning, the Healers, you know, trying to persuade him he’ll be able to lead an almost
normal life. I said to him - didn’t mention names, of course - but I said I knew a werewolf
personally, very nice man, who finds the condition quite easy to manage.”
“What did he say?” asked George.
“Said he’d give me another bite if I didn’t shut up,” said Mr. Weasley sadly. “And that woman
over there,” he indicated the only other occupied bed, which was right beside the door, “won’t
tell the Healers what bit her, which makes us all think it must have been something she was
handling illegally. Whatever it was took a real chunk out of her leg,very nasty smell when they
take off the dressings.”
“So, you going to tell us what happened, Dad?” asked Fred, pulling his chair closer to the bed.
“Well, you already know, don’t you?” said Mr. Weasley, with a significant smile at Harry. “It’s
very simple - I’d had a very long day, dozed off, got sneaked up on and bitten.”
“Is it in the Prophet, you being attacked?” asked Fred, indicating the newspaper Mr. Weasley had cast aside.
“No, of course not,” said Mr. Weasley, with a slightly bitter smile, “the Ministry wouldn’t want
everyone to know a dirty great serpent got —”
“Arthur!” Mrs. Weasley warned him.
“- got - er - me,” Mr. Weasley said hastily, though Harry was quite sure that was not what he had
meant to say.
“So where were you when it happened, Dad?” asked George.
“That’s my business,” said Mr. Weasley, though with a small smile. He snatched up the Daily
Prophe, shook it open again and said, “I was just reading about Willy Widdershins’s arrest
when you arrived. You know Willy turned out to be behind those regurgitating toilets back in the
summer? One of his jinxes backfired, the toilet exploded and they found him lying unconscious
in the wreckage covered from head to foot in -”
“When you say you were ‘on duty’,” Fred interrupted in a low voice, “what were you doing?”
“You heard your father,” whispered Mrs. Weasley, “we are not discussing this here! Go on about
Willy Widdershins, Arthur.”
“Well, don’t ask me how, but he actually got off the toilet charge,” said Mr. Weasley grimly. “I
can only suppose gold changed hands -”
“You were guarding it, weren’t you?” said George quietly. “The weapon? The thing You-Know-
Who’s after?”
“George, be quiet!” snapped Mrs. Weasley.
“Anyway,” said Mr. Weasley, in a raised voice, “this time Willy’s been caught selling biting
doorknobs to Muggles and I don’t think he’ll be able to worm his way out of it because,
according to this article, two Muggles have lost fingers and are now in St. Mungo’s for
emergency bone re-growth and memory modification. Just think of it, Muggles in St. Mungo’s! I
wonder which ward they’re in?”
And he looked eagerly around as though hoping to see a signpost.
“Didn’t you say You-Know-Who’s got a snake, Harry?” asked Fred, looking at his father for a
reaction. “A massive one? You saw it the night he returned, didn’t you?”
“That’s enough,” said Mrs. Weasley crossly. “Mad-Eye and Tonks are outside, Arthur, they want
to come and see you. And you lot can wait outside,” she added to her children and Harry. “You
can come and say goodbye afterwards. Go on.”
They trooped back into the corridor. Mad-Eye and Tonks went in and closed the door of the ward
behind them. Fred raised his eyebrows.
“Fine,” he said coolly, rummaging in his pockets, “be like that. Don’t tell us anything.”
“Looking for these?” said George, holding out what looked like a tangle of flesh-colored string.
“You read my mind,” said Fred, grinning. “Let’s see if St. Mungo’s puts Imperturbable Charms on its ward doors, shall we?”
He and George disentangled the string and separated five Extendable Ears from each other. Fred
and George handed them around. Harry hesitated to take one.
“Go on, Harry, take it! You saved Dad’s life. If anyone’s got the right to eavesdrop on him, it’s
you.”
Grinning in spite of himself, Harry took the end of the string and inserted it into his ear as the
twins had done.
“Okay, go!” Fred whispered.
The flesh-colored strings wriggled like long skinny worms and snaked under the door. At first,
Harry could hear nothing, then he jumped as he heard Tonks whispering as clearly as though she
were standing right beside him.
“… they searched the whole area but couldn’t find the snake anywhere. It just seems to have
vanished after it attacked you, Arthur… but You-Know-Who can’t have expected a snake to get
in, can he?”
“I reckon he sent it as a lookout,” growled Moody, “cause he’s not had any luck so far, has he?
No, I reckon he’s trying to get a clearer picture of what he’s facing and if Arthur hadn’t been
there the beast would’ve had a lot more time to look around. So, Potter says he saw it all
happen?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Weasley. She sounded rather uneasy. “You know, Dumbledore seems almost to
have been waiting for Harry to see something like this.”
“Yeah, well,” said Moody, “there’s something funny about the Potter kid, we all know that.”
“Dumbledore seemed worried about Harry when I spoke to him this morning,” whispered Mrs
Weasley.
“Course he’s worried,” growled Moody. “The boy’s seeing things from inside You-Know-Who’s
snake. Obviously, Potter doesn’t realize what that means, but if You-Know-Who’s possessing
him —”
Harry pulled the Extendable Ear out of his own, his heart hammering very fast and heat rushing
up his face. He looked around at the others. They were all staring at him, the strings still trailing
from their ears, looking suddenly fearful.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Christmas on the Closed Ward
Was this why Dumbledore would no longer meet Harry’s eyes? Did he expect to see Voldemort
staring out of them, afraid, perhaps, that their vivid green might turn suddenly to scarlet, with
catlike slits for pupils? Harry remembered how the snakelike face of Voldemort had once forced
itself out of the back of Professor Quirrell’s head and ran his hand over the back of his own,
wondering what it would feel like if Voldemort burst out of his skull.
He felt dirty, contaminated, as though he were carrying some deadly germ, unworthy to sit on the
Underground train back from the hospital with innocent, clean people whose minds and bodies
were free of the taint of Voldemort… he had not merely seen the snake, he hadbeen the snake, he
knew it now…
A truly terrible thought then occurred to him, a memory bobbing to the surface of his mind, one
that made his insides writhe and squirm like serpents.
What’s he after, apart from followers?
Stuff he can only get by stealth… like a weapon. Something he didn’t have last time.
I’m the weapon, Harry thought, and it was as though poison were pumping through his veins,
chilling him, bringing him out in a sweat as he swayed with the train through the dark tunnel. I’m
the one Voldemorts trying to use, that’s why they’ve got guards around me everywhere I go, it’s
not for my protection, it’s for other people’s, only it’s not working, they can’t have someone on
me all the time at Hogwarts… I did attack Mr. Weasley last night, it was me. Voldemort made me do it and he could be inside me, listening to my thoughts right now –
“Are you all right, Harry, dear?” whispered Mrs. Wea sley leaning across Ginny to speak to him as the train rattled along through its dark tunnel. “You don’t look very well. Are you feeling sick?”
They were all watching him. He shook his head violently and stared up at an advertisement for
home insurance.
“Harry, dear, are you sure you’re all right?” said Mrs. Weasley in a worried voice, as they walked around the unkempt patch of grass in the middle of Grimmauld Place. “You look ever so pale… are you sure you slept this morning? You go upstairs to bed right now and you can have a couple of hours of sleep before dinner, all right?”
He nodded; here was a ready-made excuse not to talk to any of the others, which was precisely
what he wanted, so when she opened the front door he hurried straight past the troll’s-leg
umbrella stand, up the stairs and into his and Ron’s bedroom.
Here, he began to pace up and down, past the two beds and Phineas Nigellus’s empty picture
frame, his brain teeming and seething with questions and ever more dreadful ideas.
How had he become a snake? Perhaps he was an Animagus… no, he couldn’t be, he would
know… perhapsVoldemort was an Animagus… yes, thought Harry, that would fit, he would turn
into a snake of course… and when he’s possessing me, then we both transform… that still
doesn’t explain how I got to London and back to my bed in the space of about five minutes… but
then Voldemort’s about the most powerful wizard in the world, apart from Dumbledore, it’s
probably no problem at all to him to transport people like that.
And then, with a terrible stab of panic, he thought,but this is insane - if Voldemort’s possessing
me, I’m giving him a clear view into the Headquarter s of the Order of the Phoenix right now!
He’ll know who’s in the Order and where Sirius is… and I’ve heard loads of stuff I shouldn’t
have, everything Sirius told me the first night I was here…
There was only one thing for it: he would have to leave Grimmauld Place straightaway. He
would spend Christmas at Hogwarts without the others, which would keep them safe over the
holidays at least… but no, that wouldn’t do, there were still plenty of people at Hogwarts to
maim and injure. What if it was Seamus, Dean or Neville next time? He stopped his pacing and
stood staring at Phineas Nigellus’s empty frame. A leaden sensation was settling in the pit of his
stomach. He had no alternative: he was going to have to return to Privet Drive, cut himself off
from other wizards entirely.
Well, if he had to do it, he thought, there was no point hanging around. Trying with all his might
not to think how the Dursleys were going to react when they found him on their doorstep six
months earlier than they had expected, he strode over to his trunk, slammed the lid shut and
locked it, then glanced around automatically for Hedwig before remembering that she was still at
Hogwarts - well, her cage would be one less thing to carry - he seized one end of his trunk and
had dragged it halfway towards the door when a snide voice said, “Running away, are we?”
He looked around. Phineas Nigellus had appeared on the canvas of his portrait and was leaning
against the frame, watching Harry with an amused expression on his face.
“Not running away, no,” said Harry shortly, dragging his trunk a few more feet across the room.
“I thought,” said Phineas Nigellus, stroking his pointed beard, “that to belong in Gryffindor house you were supposed to be brave! It looks to me as though you would have been better off in my own house. We Slytherins are brave, yes, but not stupid. For instance, given the choice, we will always choose to save our own necks.”
“It’s not my own neck I’m saving,” said Harry tersely, tugging the trunk over a patch of
particularly uneven, moth-eaten carpet right in front of the door.
“Oh, I see,” said Phineas Nigellus, still stroking his beard, “this is no cowardly flight - you are
being noble.”
Harry ignored him. His hand was on the doorknob when Phineas Nigellus said lazily, “I have a
message for you from Albus Dumbledore.”
Harry span round.
“What is it?”
“‘Stay where you are.’”
“I haven’t moved!” said Harry, his hand still upon the doorknob. “So what’s the message?”
“I have just given it to you, dolt,” said Phineas Ni gellus smoothly. “Dumbledore says, ‘Stay
where you are.’”
“Why?” said Harry eagerly, dropping the end of his trunk. “Why does he want me to stay? What
else did he say?”
“Nothing whatsoever,” said Phineas Nigellus, raising a thin black eyebrow as though he found
Harry impertinent.
Harry’s temper rose to the surface like a snake rearing from long grass. He was exhausted, he
was confused beyond measure, he had experienced terror, relief, then terror again in the last
twelve hours, and still Dumbledore did not want to talk to him!
“So that’s it, is it?” he said loudly. “‘Stay where you a re’! That’s all anyone could tell me after I got attacked by those Dementors, too! Just stay put while the grown-ups sort it out, Harry! We won’t bother telling you anything, though, because your tiny little brain might not be able to cope with it!”
“You know,” said Phineas Nigellus, even more loudly than Harry “this is precisely why I loathed
being a teacher! Young people are so infernally convinced that they are absolutely right about
everything. Has it not occurred to you, my poor puffed-up popinjay, that there might be an
excellent reason why the Headmaster of Hogwarts is not confiding every tiny detail of his plans
to you? Have you never paused, while feeling hard-done-by, to note that following Dumbledores
orders has never yet led you into harm? No. No, like all young people, you are quite sure that
you alone feel and think, you alone recognize danger, you alone are the only one clever enough
to realize what the Dark Lord may be planning -”
“He is planning something to do with me, then?” said Harry swiftly.
“Did I say that?” said Phineas Nigellus, idly examining his silk gloves. “Now, if you will excuse
me, I have better things to do than listen to adolescent agonising… good-day to you.”
And he strolled to the edge of his frame and out of sight.
“Fine, go then!” Harry bellowed at the empty frame. “And tell Dumbledore thanks for nothing!”
The empty canvas remained silent. Fuming, Harry dragged his trunk back to the foot of his bed,
then threw himself face down on the moth-eaten covers, his eyes shut, his body heavy and
aching.
He felt as though he had journeyed for miles and miles… it seemed impossible that less than
twenty-four hours ago Cho Chang had been approaching him under the mistletoe… he was so
tired… he was scared to sleep… yet he did not know how long he could fight it… Dumbledore
had told him to stay… that must mean he was allowed to sleep… but he was scared… what if it
happened again?
He was sinking into shadows…
It was as though a film in his head had been waiting to start. He was walking down a deserted
corridor towards a plain black door, past rough stone walls, torches, and an open doorway on to a
flight of stone steps leading downstairs on the left…
He reached the black door but could not open it… he stood gazing at it, desperate for entry…
something he wanted with all his heart lay beyond… a prize beyond his dreams… if only his scar
would stop prickling… then he would be able to think more clearly…
“Harry,” said Ron’s voice, from far, far away, “Mum says dinner’s ready, but she’ll save you
something if you want to stay in bed.”
Harry opened his eyes, but Ron had already left the room.
He doesn’t want to be on his own with me, Harry thought. Not after what he heard Moody say.
He supposed none of them would want him there any more, now that they knew what was inside
him.
He would not go down to dinner; he would not inflict his company on them. He turned over on to
his other side and, after a while, dropped back off to sleep. He woke much later, in the early
hours of the morning, his insides aching with hunger and Ron snoring in the next bed. Squinting
around the room, he saw the dark outline of Phineas Nigellus standing again in his portrait and it
occurred to Harry that Dumbledore had probably sent Phineas Nigellus to watch over him, in
case he attacked somebody else.