Tomorrow morning he would be woken by the alarm at five o'clock so he could pay the owl that delivered the Daily Prophet - but was there any point continuing to take it? Harry merely glanced at the front page before throwing it aside these days; when the idiots who ran the paper finally realised that Voldemort was back it would be headline news, and that was the only kind Harry cared about.
In fact, Harry thought his behaviour had been very good considering how frustrated and angry he felt at being stuck in Privet Drive so long, reduced to hiding in flowerbeds in the hope of hearing something that might point to what Lord Voldemort was doing. Nevertheless, it was quite galling to be told not to be rash by a man who had served twelve years in the wizard prison, Azkaban, escaped, attempted to commit the murder he had been convicted for in the first place, then gone on the run with a stolen Hippogriff.
In the past, his scar hurting had warned that Voldemort was getting stronger again, but now that Voldemort was back they would probably remind him that its regular irritation was only to be expected . . . nothing to worry about . . . old news . . .
The injustice of it all welled up inside him so that he wanted to yell with fury. If it hadn't been for him, nobody would even have known Voldemort was back! And his reward was to be stuck in Little Whinging for four solid weeks, completely cut off from the magical world, reduced to squatting among dying begonias so hat he could hear about water-skiing budgerigars! How could Dumbledore have forgotten him so easily? Why had Ron and Hermione got together without inviting him along, too? How much longer was he supposed to endure Sirius telling him to sit tight and be a good boy; or resist the temptation to write to the stupid Daily Prophet and point out that Voldemort had returned? These curious thoughts whirled around in Harry's head, and his insides writhed with anger as a sultry, velvety night fell around him, the air full of the smell of warm, dry grass, and the only sound that of the low grumble of traffic on the road beyond the park railings.
Why had the Dementors come to Little Whinging? How could it be coincidence that they had arrived in the alleyway where Harry was? Had they been sent? Had the Ministry of Magic lost control of the Dementors? Had they deserted Azkaban and joined Voldemort, as Dumbledore had predicted they would?
'He must have sent them,' said Harry quietly, more to himself than to Uncle Vernon.
'What's that? Who must have sent them?'
'Lord Voldemort,' said Harry.
He registered dimly how strange it was that the Dursleys, who flinched, winced and squawked if they heard words like 'wizard', 'magic' or 'wand', could hear the name of the most evil wizard of all time without the slightest tremor.
'Lord - hang on,' said Uncle Vernon, his face screwed up, a look of dawning comprehension coming into his piggy eyes. 'I've heard that name . . . that was the one who - '
'Murdered my parents, yes,' Harry said dully.
'But he's gone,' said Uncle Vernon impatiently, without the slightest sign that the murder of Harry's parents might be a painful topic. That giant bloke said so. He's gone.'
'He's back,' said Harry heavily.
It felt very strange to be standing here in Aunt Petunia's surgi-cally clean kitchen, beside the top'-of-the-range fridge and the wide-screen television, talking calmly of Lord Voldemort to Uncle Vernon. The arrival of the Dementors in Little Whinging seemed to have breached the great, invisible wall that divided the relent-lessly non-magical world of Privet Drive and the world beyond. Harry's two lives had somehow become fused and everything had been turned upside-down; the Dursleys were asking for details about the magical world, and Mrs Figg knew Albus Dumbledore; Dementors were soaring around Little Whinging, and he might never return to Hogwarts. Harry's head throbbed more painfully.
'Back?' whispered Aunt Petunia.
She was looking at Harry as she had never looked at him before. And all of a sudden, for the very first time in his life, Harry fully appreciated that Aunt Petunia was his mother's sister. He could not have said why this hit him so very powerfully at this moment. All he knew was that he was not the only person in the room who had an inkling of what Lord Voldemort being back might mean. Aunt Petunia had never in her life looked at him like that before. Her large, pale eyes (so unlike her sisters) were not narrowed in dislike or anger, they were wide and fearful. The furious pretence that Aunt Petunia had maintained all Harry's life - that there was no magic and no world other than the world she inhabited with Uncle Vernon - seemed to have fallen away.
'Yes,' Harry said, talking directly to Aunt Petunia now. 'He came back a month ago. I saw him.'
Her hands found Dudley's massive leather-clad shoulders and clutched them.
'Hang on,' said Uncle Vernon, looking from his wife to Harry and back again, apparently dazed and confused by the unprece-dented understanding that seemed to have sprung up between them. 'Hang on. This Lord Voldything's back, you say.'
'Yes.'
The one who murdered your parents.'
'Yes.'
'And now he's sending Dismembers after you?'
'Looks like it,' said Harry.
'Er - yeah,' said Harry. 'Look - ' he turned back to Lupin, 'what's going on, I haven't heard anything from anyone, what's Vol-?'
Several of the witches and wizards made odd hissing noises; Dedalus Diggle dropped his hat again and Moody growled, 'Shut up!'
'It's a secret society,' said Hermione quickly 'Dumbledore's in charge, he founded it. It's the people who fought against You-Know-Who last time.'
'Er,' said Ron. 'Well what?'
'Voldemort!' said Harry furiously, and both Ron and Hermione winced. 'What's happening? What's he up to? Where is he? What are we doing to stop him?'
'SO YOU HAVEN'T BEEN IN THE MEETINGS, BIG DEAL! YOU'VE STILL BEEN HERE, HAVEN'T YOU? YOU'VE STILL BEEN TOGETHER! ME, I'VE BEEN STUCK AT THE DURSLEYS' FOR A MONTH! AND I'VE HANDLED MORE THAN YOU TWO'VE EVER MANAGED AND DUMBLEDORE KNOWS IT - 'WHO SAVED THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE? WHO GOT RID OF RIDDLE? WHO SAVED BOTH YOUR SKINS FROM THE DEMENTORS?'
Though he knew perfectly well that Percy was highly ambitious, Harry's impression was that Percy had not made a great success of his first job at the Ministry of Magic. Percy had committed the fairly large oversight of failing to notice that his boss was being controlled by Lord Voldemort (not that the Ministry had believed it - they all thought Mr Crouch had gone mad).
'But Percy must know Voldemort's back,' said Harry slowly. 'He's not stupid, he must know your mum and dad wouldn't risk every-thing without proof.'
'Dumbledore's name is mud with the Ministry these days, see,' said Fred. They all think he's just making trouble saying You-Know-Who's back.'
'Not cover to cover,' said Harry defensively. 'If they were going to report anything about Voldemort it would be headline news, wouldn't it?'
The others flinched at the sound of the name. Hermione hur-ried on, 'Well, you'd need to read it cover to cover to pick it up, but they - um - they mention you a couple of times a week.'
'I didn't ask - I didn't want - Voldemort killed my parents!' Harry spluttered. 'I got famous because he murdered my family but couldn't kill me! Who wants to be famous for that? Don't I hey think I'd rather it'd never- '
Harry didn't need to ask what Ron meant.
'Well, they didn't tell us much we couldn't have guessed, did they?' he said, thinking of all that had been said downstairs. 'I mean, all they've really said is that the Order's trying to stop people joining Vol-'
There was a sharp intake of breath from Ron. -demort,' said Harry firmly. 'When are you going to start using his name? Sirius and Lupin do.'
'Were - were your parents Death Eaters as well?'
'No, no, but believe me, they thought Voldemort had the right idea, they were all for the purification of the wizarding race, get-ting rid of Muggle-borns and having pure-bloods in charge. They weren't alone, either, there were quite a few people, before Voldemort showed his true colours, who thought he had the right idea about things . . . they got cold feet when they saw what he was prepared to do to get power, though. But I bet my parents thought Regulus was a right little hero for joining up at first.'
'Was he killed by an Auror?' Harry asked tentatively.
'Oh, no,' said Sirius. 'No, he was murdered by Voldemort. Or on Voldemort's orders, more likely; I doubt Regulus was ever impor-tant enough to be killed by Voldemort in person. From what I found out after he died, he got in so far, then panicked about what he: was being asked to do and tried to back out. Well, you don't just hand in your resignation to Voldemort. It's a lifetime of service or death.'
Then Harry remembered. He had seen Bellatrix Lestrange inside Dumbledore's Pensieve, the strange device in which thoughts and memories could be stored: a tall dark woman with heavy-lidded eyes, who had stood at her trial and proclaimed her continuing allegiance to Lord Voldemort, her pride that she had tried to find him after his downfall and her conviction that she would one day be rewarded for her loyalty.
Harry felt winded, as though he had just walked into something solid. He had last seen those cold grey eyes through slits in a Death Hater's hood, and last heard that man's voice jeering in a dark grave-yard while Lord Voldemort tortured him. Harry could not believe that Lucius Malfoy dared look him in the face; he could not believe that he was here, in the Ministry of Magic, or that Cornelius Fudge was talking to him, when Harry had told Fudge mere weeks ago that Malfoy was a Death Eater.
The fact as that living at the Headquarters of the anti-Voldemort movement was not nearly as interesting or exciting as Harry would have expected before he'd experienced it. Though members of the Order of the Phoenix came and went regularly, sometimes staying for meals, sometimes only for a few minutes of whispered con-versation, Mrs Weasley made sure that Harry and the others were kept well out of earshot (whether Extendable or normal) and nobody, not even Sirius, seemed to feel that Harry needed to know anything more than he had heard on the night of his arrival.
Not all the time, though, Harry argued with himself. They didn't fight Quirrell with me. They didn't take on Riddle and the Basilisk. They didn't get rid of all those Dementors the night Sirius escaped. They weren't in that graveyard with me, the night Voldemort returned . . .
And the same feeling of ill-usage that had overwhelmed him on the night he had arrived rose again. I've definitely done more, Harry thought indignantly. I've done more than either of them!
That's Dumbledore's brother Aberforth, only time I ever met him, strange bloke . . . that's Dorcas Meadowes, Voldemort killed her personally . . . Sirius, when he still had short hair . . . and . . . there you go, thought that would interest you!'
Harry's heart turned over. His mother and father were beaming up at him, sitting on either side of a small, watery-eyed man whom Harry recognised at once as Wormtail, the one who had betrayed his parents' whereabouts to Voldemort and so helped to bring about their deaths.
'Molly, that's enough,' said Lupin firmly. This isn't like last time. The Order are better prepared, we've got a head start, we know what Voldemort's up to - '
Mrs Weasley gave a little squeak of fright at the sound of the name.
'Oh, Molly, come on, it's about time you got used to hearing his name - look, I can't promise no one's going to get hurt, nobody can promise that, but we're much better off than we were last time. You weren't in the Order then, you don't understand. Last time we were outnumbered twenty to one by the Death Eaters and they were picking us off one by one . . .'
'Don't worry about Percy,' said Sirius abruptly. 'He'll come round. It's only a matter of time before Voldemort moves into the open; once he does, the whole Ministry's going to be begging us to forgive them. And I'm not sure I'll be accepting their apology,' he added bitterly.
'Why?' said Harry irritably. 'I thought Voldemort was supposed to be lying low, or are you telling me he's going to jump out from behind a dustbin to try and do me in.'
He had been stupid not to expect this, he thought angrily as he walked through the much emptier upstairs corridors. Of course everyone was staring at him; he had emerged from the Triwizard maze two months previously clutching the dead body of a fellow student and claiming to have seen Lord Voldemort return to power. There had not been time last term to explain himself before they'd all had to go home - even if he had felt up to giving the whole school a detailed account of the terrible events in that graveyard.
'Out of order, am I?' shouted Seamus, who in contrast with Ron was going pale. 'You believe all the rubbish he's come out with about You-Know-Who, do you, you reckon he's telling the truth?'
'Yeah, I do!' said Ron angrily.
'Then you're mad, too,' said Seamus in disgust.
'My gran says that's rubbish,' piped up Neville. 'She says it's the Daily Prophet that's going downhill, not Dumbledore. She's can-celled our subscription. We believe Harry,' said Neville simply. He climbed into bed and pulled the covers up to his chin, looking owlishly over them at Seamus. 'My grans always said You-Know-Who would come back one day. She says if Dumbledore says he's back, he's back.'
'Seamus reckons Harry's lying about You-Know-Who,' said Ron succinctly, when Harry did not respond.
Hermione, who Harry had expected to react angrily on his behalf, sighed.
'Yes, Lavender thinks so too,' she said gloomily.
Harry and Ron both looked at her blankly and Hermione sighed again.
'About You-Know-Who. He said his "gift for spreading discord and enmity is very great. We can fight it only by showing an equally strong bond of friendship and trust - " '
'The point,' Hermione pressed on loudly, 'is that this sort of thing is exactly what Dumbledore was talking about. You-Know-Who's only been back two months and we've already started fighting among ourselves. And the Sorting Hat's warning was the same: stand together, be united - '
'Poisonous toadstools don't change their spots,' said Ron sagely. 'Anyway, I've always thought Dumbledore was cracked to trust Snape. Where's the evidence he ever really stopped working for You-Know-Who?'
'I think Dumbledore's probably got plenty of evidence, even if he doesn't share it with you, Ron,' snapped Hermione.
'Who do you imagine wants to attack children like yourselves?' enquired Professor Umbridge in a horribly honeyed voice.
'Hmm, let's think . . .' said Harry in a mock thoughtful voice. 'Maybe . . . Lord Voldemort?'
Ron gasped; Lavender Brown uttered a little scream; Neville slipped sideways off his stool. Professor Umbridge, however, did not flinch. She was staring at Harry with a grimly satisfied expres-sion on her face.
'It was murder,' said Harry. He could feel himself shaking. He had hardly spoken to anyone about this, least of all thirty eagerly listening classmates. 'Voldemort killed him and you know it.'
'But I was telling the truth!' said Harry, outraged. 'Voldemort is back, you know he is; Professor Dumbledore knows he is - '
'For heaven's sake, Potter!' said Professor McGonagall, straight-ening her glasses angrily (she had winced horribly when he had used Voldemort's name). 'Do you really think this is about truth or lies? It's about keeping your head down and your temper under control!'
'He says he saw Cedric Diggory murdered . . .'
'He reckons he duelled with You-Know-Who . . .'
'Come off it . . .'
'Who does he think he's kidding?'
'Look, you don't understand what it was like after it happened,' said Hermione quietly. 'You arrived back in the middle of the lawn clutching Cedric's dead body . . . none of us saw what what happened in the maze . . . we just had Dumbledore's word for it that You-Know-Who had come back and killed Cedric and fought you.'
'Remember when she said she wanted us to come and tell her if we hear anyone saying You-Know-Who's back?'
'Of course she's here to spy on us all, that's obvious, why else would Fudge have wanted her to come?' snapped Hermione.
'I didn't decide not to be there!' said Harry, stung by the in-justice of these words. 'I got detention from that Umbridge woman, just because I told her the truth about You-Know-Who.'
'Well, you can just go straight to her and ask her to let you off en Friday,' said Angelina fiercely, 'and I don't care how you do it. Tell her You-Know-Who's a figment of your imagination if you like, just make sure you're there!'
Hermione listened closely. When Harry had finished, she said slowly, 'You're worried You-Know-Who's controlling her like he controlled Quirrell?'
'Well,' said Harry, dropping his voice, 'it's a possibility, isn't it?'
'I suppose so,' said Hermione, though she sounded unconvinced. 'But I don't think he can be possessing her the way he possessed Quirrell, I mean, he's properly alive again now, isn't he, he's got his own body, he wouldn't need to share someone else's. He could have her under the Imperius Curse, I suppose . . .'
Harry watched Fred, George and Lee Jordan juggling empty Butterbeer bottles for a moment. Then Hermione said, 'But last year your scar hurt when nobody was touching you, and didn't Dumbledore say it had to do with what You-Know-Who was feeling at the time? I mean, maybe this hasn't got anything to do with Umbridge at all, maybe it's just coincidence it happened while you were with her?'
And with a surge of sympathy for his godfather, Harry thought Sirius was probably the only person he knew who could really understand how he felt at the moment, because Sirius was in the same situation. Nearly everyone in the wizarding world thought Sirius a dangerous murderer and a great Voldemort supporter and he had had to live with that knowledge for fourteen years . . .
'Yeah, and Dumbledore said it happened whenever Voldemort was feeling a powerful emotion,' said Harry, ignoring, as usual, Ron and Hermione's winces. 'So maybe he was just, I dunno, really angry or something the night I had that detention.'
'Well, now he's back it's bound to hurt more often,' said Sirius.
'Yeah, Quirrell was a great teacher,' said Harry loudly, 'there was just that minor drawback of him having Lord Voldemort sticking out of the back of his head.'
'Let's think,' he said, pulling a face like Goyle concentrating. 'Uh . . . first year - you saved the Philosopher's Stone from You-Know-Who.'
'But that was luck,' said Harry, 'it wasn't skill - '
'Second year,' Ron interrupted, 'you killed the Basilisk and destroyed Riddle.'
'Last year,' Ron said, almost shouting now, 'you fought off You-know-Who again - '
'You don't know what it's like! You - neither of you - you've never had to face him, have you? You think it's just memorising a bunch of spells and throwing them at him, like you're in class or something? The whole time you're sure you know there's nothing between you and dying except your own - your own brain or guts or whatever - 'like you can think straight when you know you're about a nanosecond from being murdered, or tortured, or watching your friends die - 'they've never taught us that in their classes, what it's like to deal with things like that - and you two sit there acting like I'm a clever little boy to be standing here, alive, like Diggory was stupid, like he messed up - you just don't get it, that could just as easily have been me, it would have been if Voldemort hadn't needed me -'
'We weren't saying anything like that, mate,' said Ron, looking aghast. 'We weren't having a go at Diggory, we didn't - you've got the wrong end of the - '
'Harry,' she said timidly, 'don't you see? This . . . this is exactly why we need you . . . we need to know what it's r-really like . . . facing him . . . facing V-Voldemort.'
It was the first time she had ever said Voldemort's name and it was this, more than anything else, that calmed Harry. Still breathing hard, he sank back into his chair, becoming aware as he did so that his hand was throbbing horribly again. He wished he had not smashed the bowl of Murtlap essence.
'Well,' said Hermione, looking a mite anxious again. 'Well . . . now, don't fly off the handle again, Harry, please . . . but I really think you ought to teach anyone who wants to learn. I mean, we're talking about defending ourselves against V-Voldemort. Oh, don't be pathetic, Ron. It doesn't seem fair if we don't offer the chance to other people.'
'The trouble is,' she said to Harry, 'until V-Voldemort - oh, for heaven's sake, Ron - comes out into the open, Sirius is going to have to stay hidden, isn't he? I mean, the stupid Ministry isn't going to realise Sirius is innocent until they accept that Dumbledore's been telling the truth about him all along. And once the fools start catching real Death Eaters again, it'll be obvious Sirius isn't one . . . I mean, he hasn't got the Mark, for one thing.'
'Of course I do,' said Hermione at once. 'But more than that, I want to be properly trained in defence because . . . because . . .' she took a great breath and finished, 'because Lord Voldemort is back.'
The reaction was immediate and predictable. Clio's friend shrieked and slopped Butterbeer down herself; Terry Boot gave a kind of involuntary twitch; Padma Patil shuddered, and Neville gave an odd yelp that he managed to turn into a cough. All of them, however, looked fixedly, even eagerly, at Harry.
'Well . . . that's the plan, anyway,' said Hermione. 'If you want to join us, we need to decide how we're going to -
'Where's the proof You-Know-Who's back?' said the blond Hufflepuff player in a rather aggressive voice.
'Zacharias Smith,' said the boy, 'and I think we've got the right to know exactly what makes him say You-Know-Who's back.'
'What makes me say You-Know-Who's back?' he repeated, looking Zacharias straight in the face. 'I saw him. But Dumbledore told the whole school what happened last year, and if you didn't believe him, you won't believe me, and I'm not wasting an afternoon trying to convince anyone.'
The whole group seemed to have held its breath while Harry spoke. Harry had the impression that even the barman was lis-tening. He was wiping the same glass with the filthy rag, making it steadily dirtier.
Zacharias said dismissively, 'All Dumbledore told us last year was that Cedric Diggory got killed by You-Know-Who and that you brought Diggory's body back to Hogwarts. He didn't give us details, he didn't tell us exactly how Diggory got murdered, I think we'd all like to know - '
'If you've come to hear exactly what it looks like when Voldemort murders someone I can't help you,' Harry said. His temper, always so close to the surface these days, was rising again. He did not take his eyes from Zacharias Smith's aggressive face, and was determined not to look at Cho. 'I don't want to talk about Cedric Diggory, all right? So if that's what you're here for, you might as well clear out.'
'I'm sure we can find a night that suits everyone,' said Hermione, slightly impatiently, 'but you know, this is rather important, we're talking about learning to defend ourselves against V-Voldemort's Death Eaters - '
'Well said!' barked Ernie Macmillan, who Harry had been expecting to speak long before this. 'Personally, I think this is really important, possibly more important than anything else we'll do this year, even with our OWLs coming up!'
He looked around impressively, as though waiting for people to cry 'Surely not!' When nobody spoke, he went on, 'I, personally, am at a loss to see why the Ministry has foisted such a useless teacher on us at this critical period. Obviously, they are in denial about the return of You-Know-Who, but to give us a teacher who is trying to actively prevent us from using defensive spells - '
'Philosopher's,' hissed Hermione.
'Yes, that - from You-Know-Who,' finished Neville.
'No,' Harry muttered, sinking on to a bench and rubbing his forehead. 'He's probably miles away. It hurt because . . . he's . . . angry.'
Harry had not meant to say that at all, and heard the words as though a stranger had spoken them - yet knew at once that they were true. He did not know how he knew it, but he did; Voldemort, wherever he was, whatever he was doing, was in a towering temper.
'Did you see him?' said Ron, looking horrified. 'Did you . . . get a vision, or something?'
Harry sat quite still, staring at his feet, allowing his mind and his memory to relax in the aftermath of the pain.
A confused tangle of shapes, a howling rush of voices . . .
'He wants something done, and it's not happening fast enough,' he said.
Again, he felt surprised to hear the words coming out of his mouth, and yet was quite certain they were true.
'Is this what it was about last time?' said Ron in a hushed voice. 'When your scar hurt in Umbridge's office? You-Know-Who was angry?'
'No,' said Harry, shaking his head. 'It's more like . . . his mood, I suppose. I'm just getting flashes of what mood he's in. Dumbledore said something like this was happening last year. He said that when Voldemort was near me, or when he was feeling hatred, I could tell. Well, now I'm feeling it when he's pleased, too . . .'
'No, you know what you're doing?' Ron said, sounding both scared and impressed. 'Harry, you're reading You-Know-Who's mind!'
'No,' said Harry, shaking his head. 'It's more like . . . his mood, I suppose. I'm just getting flashes of what mood he's in. Dumbledore said something like this was happening last year. He said that when Voldemort was near me, or when he was feeling hatred, I could tell. Well, now I'm feeling it when he's pleased, too . . .'
They hurried back through the dark grounds, sliding and stum-bling up the muddy lawns, not talking. Harry was thinking hard. What was it that Voldemort wanted done that was not happening quickly enough?
'. . . he's got other plans . . . plans he can put into operation very quietly indeed . . . stuff he can only get by stealth . . . like a weapon. Something he didn't have last time.'
Harry had not thought about those words in weeks; he had been too absorbed in what was going on at Hogwarts, too busy dwelling on the ongoing battles with Umbridge, the injustice of all the Ministry interference . . . but now they came back to him and made him wonder . . . Voldemort s anger would make sense if he was no nearer to laying hands on the weapon, whatever it was. Had the Order thwarted him, stopped him from seizing it? Where was it kept? Who had it now?
. . . the Daily Prophet would think his brain was inflamed if they found out that he knew what Voldemort was feeling . . .
. . . therefore much used in Confusing and Befuddlement Draughts . . .
. . . confusing was the word, all right; why did he know what Voldemort was feeling? What was this weird connection between them, which Dumbledore had never been able to explain satisfac-torily?
'Oh, please,' said Zacharias Smith, rolling his eyes and folding his arms. 'I don't think Expelliarmus is exactly going to help us against You-Know-Who, do you?'
'I've used it against him,' said Harry quietly. 'It saved my life in June.'
Smith opened his mouth stupidly. The rest of the room was very quiet.
'Well, they've forbidden me to get on the wrong side of Umbridge, too,' said Cho, drawing herself up proudly. 'But if they think I'm not going to fight You-Know-Who after what happened to Cedric - '
'No, what's that?'
'The Death Eaters' scars. Voldemort touches one of them, and all their scars burn, and they know they've got to join him.'
'We had ter lay off the magic once we got near 'em. Partly 'cause they don' like wizards an' we didn' want ter put their backs up too soon, an' partly 'cause Dumbledore had warned us You-Know-Who was bound ter be after the giants an' all. Said it was odds on he'd sent a messenger off ter them already. Told us ter be verv careful of drawin' attention ter ourselves as we got nearer in case there was Death Eaters around.'
'So Macnair's persuaded the giants to join You-Know-Who?' said Hermione desperately.
'Hold yer Hippogriffs, I haven' finished me story yet!' said Hagrid indignantly, who, considering he had not wanted to tell them any-thing in the first place, now seemed to be rather enjoying himself. 'Me an' Olympe talked it over an' we agreed, jus' 'cause the Gurg looked like favourin' You-Know-Who didn' mean all of 'em would. We had ter try an' persuade some o' the others, the ones who hadn' wanted Golgomath as Gurg.'
'Six or seven?' said Ron eagerly. 'Well that's not bad - are they going to come over here and start fighting You-Know-Who with us?'
'He did know this stuff,' Harry said heavily. 'He was really good a': 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.'
'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.
'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?'
'. . . they searched the whole area taut 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?'
'Course he's worried,' growled Moody. 'The boy's seeing things from inside You-Know-Who's snake. Obviously, Potter doesn't realise what that means, but if You-Know-Who's possessing him - '
Was this why Dumbledore would no longer meet Harry's eyes? Did he expect to see Voldemort staring out of them, afraid, per-haps, 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 had been the snake, he knew it now . . .
A truly terrible thought then occurred to him, a memory bob-bing 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 Voldemort's 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 - '
How had he become a snake? Perhaps he was an Animagus . . . no, he couldn't be, he would know . . . perhaps Voldemort 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 trans-port 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 Headquarters 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 . . .
'Harry, you've had these dreams before,' Hermione said. 'You had flashes of what Voldemort was up to last year.'
This was different,' said Harry, shaking his head. T was inside that snake. It was like I was the snake . . . what if Voldemort somehow transported me to London - ?'
'One day,' said Hermione, sounding thoroughly exasperated, 'you'll read Hogwarts: A History, and perhaps it will remind you that you can't Apparate or Disapparaie inside Hogwarts. Even Voldemort couldn't just make you fly out of your dormitory, Harry.'
'I didn't want anyone to talk to me,' said Harry, who was feeling more and more nettled.
'Well, that was a bit stupid of you,' said Ginny angrily, 'seeing as you don't know anyone but me who's been possessed by You-Know-Who, and I can tell you how it feels.'
Harry remained quite still as the impact of these words hit him. Then he wheeled round.
'I forgot,' he said.
'Lucky you,' said Ginny coolly.
Harry racked his brains.
'No,' he said.
'Then You-Know-Who hasn't ever possessed you,' said Ginny simply. 'When he did it to me, I couldn't remember what I'd been doing for hours at a time. I'd find myself somewhere and not know how I got there.'
'Well, you've got a funny way of showing it!' said Mrs Longbottom. 'My son and his wife,' she said, turning haughtily to Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny, 'were tortured into insanity by You-Know-Who's followers.'
'Dumbledore wants to stop you having those dreams about Voldemort,' said Hermione at once. Well, you won't be sorry not to have them any more, will you?'
'How come I saw through the snake's eyes if it's Voldemort's thoughts I'm sharing?'
'Do not say the Dark Lord's name!' spat Snape.
There was a nasty silence. They glared at each other across the Pensieve.
'Professor Dumbledore says his name.' said Harry quietly.
'Dumbledore is an extremely powerful wizard,' Snape muttered. 'While he may feel secure enough to use the name . . . the rest of us . . .' He rubbed his left forearm, apparently unconsciously, on the spot where Harry knew the Dark Mark was burned into his skin.
'I just wanted to know,' Harry began again, forcing his voice back to politeness, 'why - '
'You seem to have visited the snake's mind because that was where the Dark Lord was at that particular moment,' snarled Snape. 'He was possessing the snake at the time and so you dreamed you were inside it, too.'
'And Vol - he - realised I was there?'
'It seems so,' said Snape coolly.
'How do you know?' said Harry urgently. 'Is this just Professor Dumbledore guessing, or - ?'
'I told you,' said Snape, rigid in his chair, his eyes slits, 'to call me "sir".
'Yes, sir,' said Harry impatiently, 'but how do you know - '?
'It is enough that we know,' said Snape repressively. The impor-tant point is that the Dark Lord is now aware that you are gaining access to his thoughts and feelings. He has also deduced that the process is likely to work in reverse; that is to say, he has realised that he might be able to access your thoughts and feelings in return - '
'And he might try and make me do things?' asked Harry. 'Sir?' he added hurriedly.
'He might,' said Snape, sounding cold and unconcerned. 'Which brings us back to Occlumency.'
He had been dreaming about a windowless corridor ending in a locked door for months, without once realising that it was a real place. Now, seeing the memory again, he knew that all along he had been dreaming about the corridor down which he had run with Mr Weasley on the twelfth of August as they hurried to the courtrooms in the Ministry; it was the corridor leading to the Department of Mysteries and Mr Weasley had been there the night that he had been attacked by Voldemort's snake.
'Because,' said Harry, watching Snape's face closely, 'that corridor I've just seen - I've been dreaming about it for montns - I've just recognised it - it leads to the Department of Mysteries . . . and I think Voldemort wants something from - '
'I have told you not to say the Dark Lord's name!'
'Yeah . . . fine . . . I dunno,' said Harry impatiently, wincing as pain shot through his scar again. 'Listen . . . I've just realised some-thing . . .'
And he told them what he had just seen and deduced.
'So . . . so are you saying . . .' whispered Ron, as Madam Pince swept past, squeaking slightly 'that the weapon - the thing You-Know-Who's after - is in the Ministry of Magic?'
'I . . . dunno . . .' Harry gasped, sitting up again. 'He's really happy . . . really happy . . .'
'You-Know-Who is?'
'Something good's happened,' mumbled Harry. He was shaking as badly as he had done after seeing the snake attack Mr Weasley and felt very sick. 'Something he's been hoping for.'
The words came, just as they had back in the Gryffindor changing room, as though a stranger was speaking them through Harry's mouth, yet he knew they were true. He took deep breaths, willing himself not to vomit all over Ron. He was very glad that Dean and Seamus were not here to watch this time.
'Hermione told me to come and check on you,' said Ron in a low voice, helping Harry to his feet. 'She says your defences will be low at the moment, after Snape's been fiddling around with your mind . . . still, I suppose it'll help in the long run, won't it?' He looked doubtfully at Harry as he helped him towards his bed. Harry nodded without any conviction and slumped back on his pillows, aching all over from having fallen to the floor so often that evening, his scar still prickling painfully. He could not help feeling that his first foray into Occlumency had weakened his mind's resistance rather than strengthening it, and he wondered, with a feeling of great trepidation, what had happened to make Lord Voldemort the happiest he had been in fourteen years.
'What other options does he have?' said Hermione bitterly. 'He can hardly say, "Sorry, everyone, Dumbledore warned me this might happen, the Azkaban guards have joined Lord Voldemort" - stop whimpering, Ron - "and now Voldemort's worst supporters have broken out, too." I mean, he's spent a good six months telling everyone you and Dumbledore are liars, hasn't he?'
Hermione ripped open the newspaper and began to read the report inside while Harry looked around the Great Hall. He could not understand why his fellow students were not looking scared or at least discussing the terrible piece of news on the front page, but very few of them took the newspaper every day like Hermione. There they all were, talking about homework and Quidditch and who knew what other rubbish, when outside these walls ten more Death Eaters had swollen Voldemort's ranks.
'Maybe,' he said again, in a lower voice, 'he's actually trying to open Harry's mind a bit wider . . . make it easier for You-Know-
Those who came from wizarding families had grown up hearing the names of these Death Eaters spoken with almost as much fear as Voldemorts; the crimes they had committed during the days of Voldemort's reign of terror were legendary. There were relatives cf their victims among the Hogwarts students, who now found them-selves the unwilling objects of a gruesome sort of reflected fame as they walked the corridors: Susan Bones, whose uncle, aunt and cousins had all died at the hands of one of the ten, said miserably during Herbology that she now had a good idea what it felt like to be Harry.
Before he had started studying Occlumency, his scar had prickled occasionally, usually during the night, or else following one of those strange flashes of Voldemort's thoughts or mood that he experienced every now and then. Nowadays, however, his scar hardly ever stopped prickling, and he often felt lurches of annoyance or cheerfulness that were unrelated to what was hap-pening to him at the time, which were always accompanied by a particularly painful twinge from his scar. He had the horrible impression that he was slowly turning into a kind of aerial that was tuned in to tiny fluctuations in Voldemort's mood, and he was sure he could date this increased sensitivity firmly from his first Occlumency lesson with Snape. What was more, he was now dreaming about walking down the corridor towards the entrance to the Department of Mysteries almost every night, dreams which always culminated in him standing longingly in front of the plain black door.
'You want me to report what he says about He Who Must Not Be Named?' Rita asked Hermione in a hushed voice.
'Yes, I do,' said Hermione. 'The true story. All the facts. Exactly a; Harry reports them. He'll give you all the details, he'll tell you the names of the undiscovered Death Eaters he saw there, he'll tell you what Voldemort looks like now - oh, get a grip on yourself,' she added contemptuously, throwing a napkin across the table, for, at the sound of Voldemort's name, Rita had jumped so badly she had slopped half her glass of Firewhisky down herself.
'So you actually stick to it, do you, that He Who Must Not Be Named is back?' said Rita, lowering her glass and subjecting Harry to a piercing stare while her finger strayed longingly to the clasp of the crocodile bag. 'You stand by all this garbage Dumbledore'5 been telling everybody about You-Know-Who returning and you being the sole witness?'
'I'd love them,' breathed Rita, now fumbling in her bag once more and gazing at him as though he was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. 'A great bold headline: "Potter Accuses . . ." A sub-heading, "Harry Potter Names Death Eaters Still Among Us". And then, beneath a nice big photograph of you, "Disturbed teenage sur-vivor of You-Know-Who's attack, Harry Potter, 15, caused outrage yester-day by accusing respectable and prominent members of the wizarding community of being Death Eaters . . ." '
Rita gave Hermione a long, hard look. Then, leaning forwards across the table towards her, she said in a businesslike tone, 'All right, Fudge is leaning on the Prophet, but it comes to the same thing. They won't print a story that shows Harry in a good light. Nobody wants to read it. It's against the public mood. This last Azkaban breakout has got people quite worried enough. People just don't want to believe You-Know-Who's back.'
Harry had not found it an easy experience to talk about the night when Voldemort had returned. Rita had pressed him for every little detail and he had given her everything he could remember, knowing that this was his one big opportunity to tell the world the truth. He wondered how people would react to the story. He guessed that it would confirm a lot of people in the view that he was completely insane, not least because his story would be appearing alongside utter rubbish about Crumple-Horned Snorkacks. But the breakout of Bellatrix Lestrange and her fellow Death Eaters had given Harry a burning desire to do something, whether or not it worked . . .
'Yeah,' mumbled Harry, 'but people have got to know what Voldemort's capable of, haven't they?'
'That's right,' said Neville, nodding, 'and his Death Eaters, too . . . people should know . . ."
He rolled over on to his side, closed his eyes, and fell asleep almost at once . . .
He was standing in a dark, curtained room lit by a single branch of candles. His hands were clenched on the back of a chair in front of him. They were long-fingered and white as though they had not seen sunlight for years and looked like large, pale spiders agairst the dark velvet of the chair.
Beyond the chair, in a pool of light cast upon the floor by t'le candles, knelt a man in black robes.
'I have been badly advised, it seems,' said Harry, in a high, cold voice that pulsed with anger.
'Master, I crave your pardon,' croaked the man kneeling on the floor. The back of his head glimmered in the candlelight. He seemed to be trembling.
'I do not blame you, Rookwood,' said Harry in that cold, cruel voice.
He relinquished his grip on the chair and walked around it, closer to the man cowering on the floor, until he stood directly over him in the darkness, looking down from a far greater height than usual.
'You are sure of your facts, Rookwood?' asked Harry.
'Yes, My Lord, yes . . . I used to work in the Department aftet - 'after all . . ."
'Avery told me Bode would be able to remove it.'
'Bode could never have taken it, Master . . . Bode would have known he could not . . . undoubtedly, that is why he fought so hard against Malfoy's Imperius Curse . . ."
'Stand up, Rookwood,' whispered Harry.
The kneeling man almost fell over in his haste to obey. His face was pockmarked; the scars were thrown into relief by the candle-light. He remained a little stooped when standing, as though halfway through a bow, and he darted terrified looks up at Harry's face.
'You have done well to tell me this,' said Harry. 'Very well . . . I have wasted months on fruitless schemes, it seems . . . but no matter . . . we begin again, from now. You have Lord Voldemort's grati-tude, Rookwood . . .'
'My Lord . . . yes, My Lord,' gasped Rookwood, his voice hoarse with relief.
'I shall need your help. I shall need all the information you can give me.'
'Of course, My Lord, of course . . . anything . . .'
'Very well . . . you may go. Send Avery to me.'
Rookwood scurried backwards, bowing, and disappeared through a door.
Left alone in the dark room, Harry turned towards the wall. A cracked, age-spotted mirror hung on the wall in the shadows. Harry moved towards it. His reflection grew larger and clearer in the darkness . . . a face whiter than a skull . . . red eyes with slits for pupils . . .
'No - everyone's fine - ' gasped Harry, whose forehead felt as though it were on fire. 'Well . . . Avery isn't . . . he's in trouble . . . he gave him the wrong information . . . Voldemort's really angry . . .'
Harry groaned and sank, shaking, on to his bed, rubbing his scar.
'But Rookwood's going to help him now . . . he's on the right track again'
'What are you talking about?' said Ron, sounding scared. 'D'you mean . . . did you just see You-Know-Who?'
'I was You-Know-Who,' said Harry, and he stretched out his hands in the darkness and held them up to his face, to check that they were no longer deathly white and long-fingered. 'He was with Rookwood, he's one of the Death Eaters who escaped from Azkaban, remember? Rookwood's just told him Bode couldn't have done it.'
'Done what?'
'Remove something . . . he said Bode would have known he couldn't have done it . . . Bode was under the Imperius Curse . . . I think he said Malfoy's dad put it on him.'
'Bode was bewitched to remove something?' Ron said. 'But - 'Harry, that's got to be - '
The weapon,' Harry finished the sentence for him. 'I know.'
'Did you say,' murmured Ron, putting his head close to Harry's on the pretence of helping himself to water from the jug on his bedside table, 'that you were You-Know-Who?'
'Yeah,' said Harry quietly.
'This one's in two minds,' said Fred, who had joined in the letter-opening with enthusiasm. 'Says you don't come across as a mad person, but he really doesn't want to believe You-Know-Who's back so he doesn't know what to think now. Blimey, what a waste of parchment.'
'Here's another one you've convinced, Harry!' said Hermione excitedly. 'Having read your side of the story, I am forced to the con-clusion that the Daily Prophet has treated you very unfairly . . . little though I want to think that He Who Must Not Be Named has returned, I am forced to accept that you are telling the truth . . . Oh, this is wonderful!'
'Sturgis Podmore - ' said Hermione breathlessly, 'arrested for trying to get through a door! Lucius Malfoy must have got him too! I bet he did it the day you saw him there, Harry. Sturgis had Moody's Invisibility Cloak, right? So, what if he was standing guard by the door, invisible, and Malfoy heard him move - or guessed someone was there - or just did the Imperius Curse on the off-chance there'd be a guard there? So, when Sturgis next had an opportunity - probably when it was his turn on guard duty again - he tried to get into the Department to steal the weapon for Voldemort - Ron, be quiet - but he got caught and sent to Azkaban . . .'
She gazed at Harry.
'And now Rookwood's told Voldemort how to get the weapon?'
'I didn't hear all the conversation, but that's what it sounded like,' said Harry. 'Rookwood used to work there . . . maybe Voldemort'll send Rookwood to do it?'
The week did not improve as it progressed. Harry received two more 'Ds in Potions; he was still on tenterhooks that Hagrid might get the sack; and he couldn't stop himself dwelling on the dream in which he had been Voldemort - though he didn't bring it up with Ron and Hermione again; he didn't want another telling-off from Hermione. He wished very much that he could have talked to Sirius about it, but that was out of the question, so he tried to push the matter to the back of his mind.
'Correct, Potter. And dim though you may be - ' Harry looked back at Snape, hating him ' - I would have thought that after over two months of lessons you might have made some progress. How many other dreams about the Dark Lord have you had?'
That is just as well, Potter,' said Snape coldly, 'because you are neither special nor important, and it is not up to you to find out what the Dark Lord is saying to his Death Eaters.'
'You are lazy and sloppy, Potter, it is small wonder that the Dark Lord - '
'Can you tell me something, sir?' said Harry, firing up again. 'Why do you call Voldemort the Dark Lord? I've only ever heard Death Eaters call him that.'
He was walking along the cool, dark corridor to the Department of Mysteries again, walking with a firm and purposeful tread, breaking occasionally into a run, determined to reach his destina-tion at last . . . the black door swung open for him as usual, and here he was in the circular room with its many doors . . .
Straight across the stone floor and through the second door . . . patches of dancing light on the walls and floor and that odd mechanical clicking, but no time to explore, he must hurry . . .
He jogged the last few feet to the third door, which swung open just like the others . . .
Once again he was in the cathedral-sized room full of shelves and glass spheres . . . his heart was beating very fast now . . . he was going to get there this time . . . when he reached number ninety-seven he turned left and hurried along the aisle between two rows . . .
But there was a shape on the floor at the very end, a black shape moving on the floor like a wounded animal . . . Harry's stomach contracted with fear . . . with excitement . . .
A voice issued from his own mouth, a high, cold voice empty of any human kindness . . .
'Take it for me . . . lift it down, now . . . I cannot touch it . . . but you can . . .'
The black shape on the floor shifted a little. Harry saw a long-fingered white hand clutching a wand rise at the end of his own arm . . . heard the high, cold voice say 'Crucio!'
The man on the floor let out a scream of pain, attempted to stand but fell back, writhing. Harry was laughing. He raised his wand, the curse lifted and the figure groaned and became motion-less.
'Lord Voldemort is waiting . . .'
Very slowly, his arms trembling, the man on the ground raised his shoulders a few inches and lifted his head. His face was blood-stained and gaunt, twisted in pain yet rigid with defiance . . .
'You'll have to kill me,' whispered Sirius.
'Undoubtedly I shall in the end,' said the cold voice. 'But you will fetch it for me first, Black . . . you think you have felt pain thus far? Think again . . . we have hours ahead of us and nobody to hear you scream . . .'
But somebody screamed as Voldemort lowered his wand again; somebody yelled and fell sideways off a hot desk on to the cold stone floor; Harry awoke as he hit the ground, still yelling, his scar on fire, as the Great Hall erupted all around him.
'Voldemorts got Sirius.'
'What?'
'How d'you - ?'
'Saw it. Just now. When I fell asleep in the exam.'
'But - but where? How?' said Hermione, whose face was white.
'I dunno how,' said Harry. 'But I know exactly where. There's a room in the Department of Mysteries full of shelves covered in these little glass balls and they're at the end of row ninety-seven . . . he's trying to use Sirius to get whatever it is he wants from in there . . . he's torturing him . . . says he'll end by killing him!'
'Harry,' said Hermione in a rather frightened voice, 'er . . . how . . . how did Voldemort get into the Ministry of Magic without any-body realising he was there?'
'But . . . Harry, think about this,' said Hermione, taking a step towards him, 'its five o'clock in the afternoon . . . the Ministry of Magic must be full of workers . . . how would Voldemort and Sirius have got in without being seen? Harry . . . they're probably the two most wanted wizards in the world . . . you think they could get into a building full of Aurors undetected?'
'I dunno, Voldemort used an Invisibility Cloak or something!' Harry shouted. 'Anyway, the Department of Mysteries has always been completely empty whenever I've been - '
'But this is just - just so unlikely!' said Hermione desperately. 'Harry, how on earth could Voldemort have got hold of Sirius when he's been in Grimmauld Place all the time?'
'But why,' Hermione persisted, 'why on earth would Voldemort want to use Sirius to get the weapon, or whatever the thing is?'
'I dunno, there could be loads of reasons!' Harry yelled at her. 'Maybe Sirius is just someone Voldemort doesn't care about seeing hurt - '
'Look, I'm sorry,' cried Hermione, 'but neither of you is making sense, and we've got no proof for any of this, no proof Voldemort and Sirius are even there - '
'I'm trying to say - Voldemort knows you, Harry! He took Ginny down into the Chamber of Secrets to lure you there, it's the kind of thing he does, he knows you're the - the sort of person who'd go to Sirius's aid! What if he's just trying to get you into the Department of Myst - ?'
'You don't get it!' Harry shouted at her, 'I'm not having night-mares, I'm not just dreaming! What d'you think all the Occlumency was for, why d'you think Dumbledore wanted me prevented from seeing these things? Because they're REAL, Hermione - Sirius is trapped, I've seen him. Voldemort's got him, and no one else knows, and that means we're the only ones who can save him, and if you don't want to do it, fine, but I'm going, understand? And if I remember rightly, you didn't have a problem with my saving-people thing when it was you I was saving from the Dementors, or - ' he rounded on Ron - when it was your sister I was saving from the Basilisk - '
'But if this is a trick of Voldemort's, Harry, we've got to check, we've got to.'
'I'm fine,' he said shortly, tugging the Invisibility Cloak from out of his bag. In truth, his scar was aching, but not so badly that he thought Voldemort had yet dealt Sirius a fatal blow; it had hurt much worse than this when Voldemort had been punishing Avery . . .
Snape looked back at Harry, who stared at him, frantic to communicate without words.
Voldemort's got Sirius in the Department of Mysteries, he thought desperately. Voldemorts got Sirius - '
She laughed. Harry felt a strong urge to swing round and seize her by the throat, but resisted. His scar was throbbing in the soft evening air but it had not yet burned white-hot, as he knew it would if Voldemort had moved in for the kill.
'Hagrid's little brother,' said Ron promptly. 'Anyway, never mind that now. Harry, what did you find out in the fire? Has You-Know-Who got Sirius or - ?'
'Yes,' said Harry, as his scar gave another painful prickle, 'and I'm sure Sirius is still alive, but I can't see how we're going to get there to help him.'
'You're too - ' Harry began, but Ginny said fiercely, 'I'm three years older than you were when you fought You-Know-Who over the Philosophers Stone, and it's because of me that Malfoy's stuck back in Umbridge's office with giant flying bogies attacking him - '
'Yeah, but - '
'We were all in the DA together,' said Neville quietly. 'It was all supposed to be about fighting You-Know-Who, wasn't it? And this is the first chance we've had to do something real - or was that all just a game or something?'
How much time had elapsed since he had seen Sirius lying on the Department of Mysteries floor? How much longer would Sirius be able to resist Voldemort? All Harry knew for sure was that his godfather had neither done as Voldemort wanted, nor died, for he was convinced that either outcome would have caused him to feel Voldemort's jubilation or fury course through his own body, making his scar sear as painfully as it had on the night Mr Weasley was attacked.
If Voldemort decided Sirius was not going to crack . . .
Several of the Death Eaters laughed; a harsh female voice from the midst of the shadowy figures to Harry's left said triumphantly, The Dark Lord always knows!'
'Oh, you don't know Potter as I do, Bellatrix,' said Malfoy softly. 'He has a great weakness for heroics; the Dark Lord understands this about him. Now give me the prophecy, Potter.'
'Nope, not jesting,' said Harry, his eyes flicking from Death Eater to Death Eater, looking for a weak link, a space through which they could escape. 'How come Voldemort wants it?
Several of the Death Eaters let out low hisses.
'You dare speak his name?' whispered Bellatrix.
'Yeah,' said Harry, maintaining his tight grip on the glass ball, expecting another attempt to bewitch it from him. 'Yeah, I've got no problem with saying Vol-
'Shut your mouth!' Bellatrix shrieked. 'You dare speak his name with your unworthy lips, you dare besmirch it with your half-blood's tongue, you dare - '
'Did you know he's a half-blood too?' said Harry recklessly. Hermione gave a little moan in his ear. 'Voldemort? Yeah, his mother was a witch but his dad was a Muggle - or has he been telling you lot he's pure-blood?'
'Dumbledore never told you?' Malfoy repeated. 'Well, this explains why you didn't come earlier, Potter, the Dark Lord wondered why - '
'Why?' Malfoy sounded incredulously delighted. 'Because the only people who are permitted to retrieve a prophecy from the Department of Mysteries, Potter, are those about whom it was made, as the Dark Lord discovered when he attempted to use others to steal it for him.'
'About both of you, Potter, about both of you . . . haven't you ever wondered why the Dark Lord tried to kill you as a baby?'
'Someone made a prophecy about Voldemort and me?' he said quietly, gazing at Lucius Malfoy, his fingers tightening over the warm glass sphere in his hand. It was hardly larger than a Snitch and still gritty with dust. 'And he's made me come and get it for him? Why couldn't he come and get it himself?'
'Get it himself?' shrieked Bellatrix, over a cackle of mad laughter.
The Dark Lord, walk into the Ministry of Magic, when they are so sweetly ignoring his return? The Dark Lord, reveal himself to the Aurors, when at the moment they are wasting their time on my dear cousin?'
'So, he's got you doing his dirty work for him, has he?' said Harry. 'Like he tried to get Sturgis to steal it - and Bode?'
'Very good, Potter, very good . . .' said Malfoy slowly. 'But the Dark Lord knows you are not unintell-'
Footsteps and shouts echoed from behind the door they had just sealed; Harry put his ear close to the door to listen and heard Lucius Malfoy roar, 'Leave Nott, leave him, I say - his injuries will be nothing to the Dark Lord compared to losing that prophecy. Jugson, come back here, we need to organise! We'll split into pairs and search, and don't forget, be gentle with Potter until we've got the prophecy, you can kill the others if necessary - 'Bellatrix, Rodolphus, you take the left; Crabbe, Rabastan, go right - 'Jugson, Dolohov, the door straight ahead - Macnair and Avery, through here - Rookwood, over there - Mulciber, come with me!'
'Well, you're going to have to kill me, because it's gone!' Harry roared and, as he shouted it, pain seared across his forehead; his scar was on fire again, and he felt a surge of fury that was quite unconnected with his own rage. 'And he knows!' said Harry, with a mad laugh to match Bellatrix's own. 'Your dear old mate Voldemort knows it's gone! He's not going to be happy with you, is he?'
'What? What do you mean?' she cried, and for the first time there was fear in her voice.
The prophecy smashed when I was trying to get Neville up the steps! What do you think Voldemort'll say about that, then?'
He could hear her moving to the right, trying to get a clear shot of him. He backed around the statue away from her, crouching behind the centaur's legs, his head level with the house-elf's.
'I was and am the Dark Lord's most loyal servant. I learned the Dark Arts from him, and I know spells of such power that you, pathetic little boy, can never hope to compete - '
'No!' she screamed. 'It isn't true, you're lying! MASTER, I TRIED, I TRIED - DO NOT PUNISH ME - '
'Don't waste your breath!' yelled Harry, his eyes screwed up against the pain in his scar, now more terrible than ever. 'He can't hear you from here!'
'Can't I, Potter?' said a high, cold voice.
Harry opened his eyes.
Tall, thin and black-hooded, his terrible snakelike face white and gaunt, his scarlet, slit-pupilled eyes staring . . . Lord Voldemort had appeared in the middle of the hall, his wand pointing at Harry who stood frozen, quite unable to move.
'So, you smashed my prophecy?' said Voldemort softly, staring at Harry with those pitiless red eyes. 'No, Bella, he is not lying . . . I see the truth looking at me from within his worthless mind . . . months of preparation, months of effort . . . and my Death Eaters have let Harry Potter thwart me again . . .'
'Master, I am sorry, I knew not, I was fighting the Animagus Black!' sobbed Bellatrix, flinging herself down at Voldemort's feet as he paced slowly nearer. 'Master, you should know - '
'Be quiet, Bella,' said Voldemort dangerously. 'I shall deal with you in a moment. Do you think I have entered the Ministry of Magic to hear your snivelling apologies?'
'But Master - he is here - he is below - '
Voldemort paid no attention.
'I have nothing more to say to you, Potter,' he said quietly. 'You have irked me too often, for too long. AVADA KEDAVRA!'
Harry had not even opened his mouth to resist; his mind was blank, his wand pointing uselessly at the floor.
But the headless golden statue of the wizard in the fountain had sprung alive, leaping from its plinth to land with a crash on the floor between Harry and Voldemort. The spell merely glanced off its chest as the statue flung out its arms to protect Harry.
'What - ?' cried Voldemort, staring around. And then he breathed, 'Dumbledore!'
Harry looked behind him, his heart pounding. Dumbledore was standing in front of the golden gates.
Voldemort raised his wand and another jet of green light streaked at Dumbledore, who turned and was gone in a whirling of his cloak. Next second, he had reappeared behind Voldemort and waved his wand towards the remnants of the fountain. The other statues sprang to life. The statue of the witch ran at Bellatrix, who screamed and sent spells streaming uselessly off its chest, before it dived at her, pinning her to the floor. Meanwhile, the goblin and the house-elf scuttled towards the fireplaces set along the wall and the one-armed centaur galloped at Voldemort, who vanished and reappeared beside the pool. The headless statue thrust Harry backwards, away from the fight, as Dumbledore advanced on Voldemort and the golden centaur cantered around them both.
'It was foolish to come here tonight, Tom,' said Dumbledore calmly. The Aurors are on their way - '
'By which time I shall be gone, and you will be dead!' spat Voldemort. He sent another killing curse at Dumbledore but missed, instead hitting the security guard's desk, which burst into flame.
Dumbledore flicked his own wand: the force of the spell that emanated from it was such that Harry, though shielded by his golden guard, felt his hair stand on end as it passed and this time Voldemort was forced to conjure a shining silver shield out of thin air to deflect it. The spell, whatever it was, caused no visible damage to the shield, though a deep, gong-like note reverberated from it - an oddly chilling sound.
'You do not seek to kill me, Dumbledore?' called Voldemort, his scarlet eyes narrowed over the top of the shield. 'Above such brutality, are you?'
'We both know that there are other ways of destroying a man, Tom,' Dumbledore said calmly, continuing to walk towards Voldemort as though he had not a fear in the world, as though nothing had happened to interrupt his stroll up the hall. 'Merely taking your life would not satisfy me, I admit - '
There is nothing worse than death, Dumbledore!' snarled Voldemort.
'You are quite wrong,' said Dumbledore, still closing in upon Voldemort and speaking as lightly as though they were discussing the matter over drinks. Harry felt scared to see him walking along, undefended, shieldless; he wanted to cry out a warning, but his headless guard kept shunting him backwards towards the wall, blocking his every attempt to gel out from behind it. 'Indeed, your failure to understand that there are things much worse than death has always been your greatest weakness - '
Another jet of green light flew from behind the silver shield. This time it was the one-armed centaur, galloping in front of Dumbledore, that took the blast and shattered into a hundred pieces, but before the fragments had even hit the floor, Dumbledore had drawn back his wand and waved it as though brandishing a whip. A long thin flame flew from the tip; it wrapped itself around Voldemort, shield and all. For a moment, it seemed Dumbledore had won, but then the fiery rope became a serpent, which relin-quished its hold on Voldemort at once and turned, hissing furi-ously, to face Dumbledore.
Voldemort vanished; the snake reared from the floor, ready to strike - '
There was a burst of flame in midair above Dumbledore just as Voldemort reappeared, standing on the plinth in the middle of the pool where so recently the five statues had stood.
'Look out!' Harry yelled.
But even as he shouted, another jet of green light flew at Dumbledore from Voldemort's wand and the snake struck - '
Fawkes swooped down in front of Dumbledore, opened his beak wide and swallowed the jet of green light whole: he burst into flame and fell to the floor, small, wrinkled and flightless. At the same moment, Dumbledore brandished his wand in one long, fluid movement - the snake, which had been an instant from sinking its fangs into him, flew high into the air and vanished in a wisp of dark smoke; and the water in the pool rose up and covered Voldemort like a cocoon of molten glass.
For a few seconds Voldemort was visible only as a dark, rip-pling, faceless figure, shimmering and indistinct upon the plinth, clearly struggling to throw off the suffocating mass - '
Then he was gone and the water fell with a crash back into its pool, slopping wildly over the sides, drenching the polished floor.
'MASTER!' screamed Bellatrix.
Sure it was over, sure Voldemort had decided to flee, Harry made to run out from behind his statue guard, but Dumbledore bellowed: 'Stay where you are, Harry!'
For the first time, Dumbledore sounded frightened. Harry could not see why: the hall was quite empty but for themselves, the sob-bing Bellatrix still trapped under the witch statue, and the baby phoenix Fawkes croaking feebly on the floor - '
Then Harry's scar burst open and he knew he was dead: it was pain beyond imagining, pain past endurance - '
He was gone from the hall, he was locked in the coils of a crea-ture with red eyes, so tightly bound that Harry did not know where his body ended and the creatures began: they were fused together, bound by pain, and there was no escape - '
And when the creature spoke, it used Harry's mouth, so that in his agony he felt his jaw move . . .
'Kill me now, Dumbledore . . .'
Blinded and dying, every part of him screaming for release, Harry felt the creature use him again . . .
'If death is nothing, Dumbledore, kill the boy . . .'
Let the pain stop, thought Harry . . . let him kill us . . . end it, Dumbledore . . . death is nothing compared to this . . .
And I'll see Sirius again . . .
And as Harry's heart filled with emotion, the creatures coils loosened, the pain was gone; Harry was lying face down on the floor, his glasses gone, shivering as though he lay upon ice, not wood . . .
'Yes,' said Harry, shaking so violently he could not hold his head up properly. 'Yeah, I'm - where's Voldemort, where - who are all these - what's - '
'He was there!' shouted a scarlet-robed man with a ponytail, who was pointing at a pile of golden rubble on the other side of the hall, where Bellatrix had lain trapped only moments before. 'I saw him, Mr Fudge, I swear it was You-Know-Who, he grabbed a woman and Disapparated!'
'I know, Williamson, I know, I saw him too!' gibbered Fudge, who was wearing pyjamas under his pinstriped cloak and was gasping as though he had just run miles. 'Merlin's beard - here - here! - in the Ministry of Magic! - great heavens above - it doesn't seem possible - my word - how can this be - ?'
'Cornelius, I am ready to fight your men - and win, again!' said Dumbledore in a thunderous voice. 'But a few minutes ago you saw proof, with your own eyes, that I have been telling you the truth for a year. Lord Voldemort has returned, you have been chasing the wrong man for twelve months, and it is time you listened to sense!'
Fudge wheeled around and stared at Harry, who was still standing against the wall beside the fallen statue that had guarded him during Dumbledore and Voldemort's duel.
It was his fault Sirius had died; it was all his fault. If he, Harry, had not been stupid enough to fall for Voldemort's trick, if he had not been so convinced that what he had seen in his dream was real, if he had only opened his mind to the possibility that Voldemort was, as Hermione had said, banking on Harry's love of playing the hero . . .
'It is my fault that Sirius died,' said Dumbledore clearly. 'Or should I say, almost entirely my fault - I will not be so arrogant as to claim responsibility for the whole. Sirius was a brave, clever and ener-getic man, and such men are not usually content to sit at home in hiding while they believe others to be in danger. Nevertheless, you should never have believed for an instant that there was any necessity for you to go to the Department of Mysteries tonight. If I had been open with you, Harry, as I should have been, you would have known a long time ago that Voldemort might try and lure you to the Department of Mysteries, and you would never have been tricked into going there tonight. And Sirius would not have had to come after you. That blame lies with me, and with me alone.'
'I guessed, fifteen years ago,' said Dumbledore, 'when I saw the scar on your forehead, what it might mean. I guessed that it might be the sign of a connection forged between you and Voldemort.'
'Yes,' said Dumbledore apologetically. 'Yes, but you see - it is necessary to start with your scar. For it became apparent, shortly after you rejoined the magical world, that I was correct, and that your scar was giving you warnings when Voldemort was close to you, or else feeling powerful emotion.'
'I know,' said Harry wearily.
'And this ability of yours - to detect Voldemort's presence, even when he is disguised, and to know what he is feeling when his emotions are roused - has become more and more pronounced since Voldemort returned to his own body and his full powers.'
Harry did not bother to nod. He knew all of this already.
'More recently,' said Dumbledore, 'I became concerned that Voldemort might realise that this connection between you exists. Sure enough, there came a time when you entered so far into his mind and thoughts that he sensed your presence. I am speaking, of course, of the night when you witnessed the attack on Mr Weasley'
'You see,' Dumbledore continued, 'I believed it could not be long before Voldemort attempted to force his way into your mind, to manipulate and misdirect your thoughts, and I was not eager to give him more incentives to do so. I was sure that if he realised that our relationship was - or had ever been - closer than that of headmaster and pupil, he would seize his chance to use you as a means to spy on me. I feared the uses to which he would put you, the possibility that he might try and possess you. Harry, I believe I was right to think that Voldemort would have made use of you in such a way. On those rare occasions when we had close con-tact, I thought I saw a shadow of him stir behind your eyes . . .'
Harry remembered the feeling that a dormant snake had risen in him, ready to strike, in those moments when he and Dumbledore had made eye-contact.
'Voldemort's aim in possessing you, as he demonstrated tonight, would not have been my destruction. It would have been yours. He hoped, when he possessed you briefly a short while ago, that I would sacrifice you in the hope of killing him. So you see, I have been trying, in distancing myself from you, to protect you, Harry. An old man s mistake . . ."
'Sirius told me you felt Voldemort awake inside you the very night that you had the vision of Arthur Weasley's attack. I knew at once that my worst fears were correct: Voldemort had realised he could use you. In an attempt to arm you against Voldemort s assaults on your mind, I arranged Occlumency lessons with Professor Snape.'
'Professor Snape discovered,' Dumbledore resumed, 'that you had been dreaming about the door to the Department of Mysteries for months. Voldemort, of course, had been obsessed with the pos-sibility of hearing the prophecy ever since he regained his body; and as he dwelled on the door, so did you, though you did not <now what it meant.
'And then you saw Rookwood, who worked in the Department of Mysteries before his arrest, telling Voldemort what we had known all along - that the prophecies held in the Ministry of Magic are heavily protected. Only the people to whom they refer can lilt them from the shelves without suffering madness: in this case, either Voldemort himself would have to enter the Ministry of Magic, and risk revealing himself at last - or else you would have to take it for him. It became a matter of even greater urgency that you should master Occlumency.'
'When, however, you did not return from your trip into the Forest with Dolores Umbridge, Professor Snape grew worried that you still believed Sirius to be a captive of Lord Voldemort's. He alerted certain Order members at once.'
'Oh, yes,' said Dumbledore. 'You see, Kreacher was not able to betray us totally. He is not Secret Keeper for the Order, he could not give the Malfoy's our whereabouts, or tell them any of the Order's confidential plans that he had been forbidden to reveal. He was bound by the enchantments of his kind, which is to say that he could not disobey a direct order from his master, Sirius. But he gave Narcissa information of the sort that is very valuable lo Voldemort, yet must have seemed much too trivial for Sirius to think of banning him from repeating it.'
'Like the fact that the person Sirius cared most about in the world was you,' said Dumbledore quietly. 'Like the fact that you were coming to regard Sirius as a mixture of father and brother.
Voldemort knew already, of course, that Sirius was in the Order, and that you knew where he was - but Kreacher's information made him realise that the one person for whom you would go to any lengths to rescue was Sirius Black.'
'The Malfoy's - undoubtedly on Voldemort's instructions - had told him he must find a way of keeping Sirius out of the way once you had seen the vision of Sirius being tortured. Then, if you decided to check whether Sirius was at home or not, Kreacher would be able to pretend he was not. Kreacher injured Buckbeak the Hippogriff yesterday, and, at the moment when you made your appearance in the fire, Sirius was upstairs tending to him.'
'What about Snape?' Harry spat. 'You're not talking about him, are you? When I told him Voldemort had Sirius he just sneered at me as usual - '
'I am aware of it,' said Dumbledore heavily. 'I have already said that it was a mistake for me not to teach you myself, though I was sure, at the time, that nothing could have been more dangerous than to open your mind even further to Voldemort while in my presence - '
'Snape made it worse, my scar always hurt worse after lessons with him - ' Harry remembered Ron's thoughts on the subject and plunged on '- how do you know he wasn't trying to soften me up for Voldemort, make it easier for him to get inside my - '
'My answer is that my priority was to keep you alive. You were in more danger than perhaps anyone but I realised. Voldemort had been vanquished hours before, but his supporters - and many of them are almost as terrible as he - were still at large, angry, desperate and violent. And I had to make my decision, too, with regard to the years ahead. Did I believe that Voldemort was gone for ever? No. I knew not whether it would be ten, twenty or fifty years before he returned, but I was sure he would do so, and I was sure, too, knowing him as I have done, that he would not rest until he killed you.
'I knew that Voldemort's knowledge of magic is perhaps more extensive than any wizard alive. I knew that even my most com-plex and powerful protective spells and charms were unlikely to be invincible if he ever returned to full power.
'But I knew, too, where Voldemort was weak. And so I made my decision. You would be protected by an ancient magic of which he knows, which he despises, and which he has always, therefore, underestimated - to his cost. I am speaking, of course, of the fact that your mother died to save you. She gave you a lingering protection he never expected, a protection that flows in your veins to this day. I put my trust, therefore, in your mother's blood. I delivered you to her sister, her only remaining relative.'
'While you can still call home the place where your mother's blood dwells, there you cannot be touched or harmed by Voldemort. He shed her blood, but it lives on in you and her sister. Her blood became your refuge. You need return there only once a year, but as long as you can still call it home, whilst you are there he cannot hurt you. Your aunt knows this. I explained what I had done in the letter I left, with you, on her doorstep. She knows that allowing you houseroom may well have kept you alive for the past fifteen years.'
'And then . . . well, you will remember the events of your first year at Hogwarts quite as clearly as I do. You rose magnificently to the challenge that faced you and sooner - much sooner - than I had anticipated, you found yourself face to face with Voldemort. You survived again. You did more. You delayed his return to full power and strength. You fought a man's fight. I was . . . prouder of you than I can say.
'Yet there was a flaw in this wonderful plan of mine,' said Dumbledore. 'An obvious flaw that I knew, even then, might be the undoing of it all. And yet, knowing how important it was that my plan should succeed, I told myself that I would not permit this flaw to ruin it. I alone could prevent this, so I alone must be strong. And here was my first test, as you lay in the hospital wing, weak from your struggle with Voldemort.'
'I don't understand what you're saying,' said Harry.
'Don't you remember asking me, as you lay in the hospital wing, why Voldemort had tried to kill you when you were a baby?'
'And so we entered your second year at Hogwarts. And once again you met challenges even grown wizards have never faced; once again you acquitted yourself beyond my wildest dreams. You did not ask me again, however, why Voldemort had left that mark on you. We discussed your scar, oh yes . . . we came very, very close to the subject. Why did I not tell you everything;
'I cared about you too much,' said Dumbledore simply. 'I cared more for your happiness than your knowing the truth, more for your peace of mind than my plan, more for your life than the lives that might be lost if the plan failed. In other words, I acted exactly as Voldemort expects we fools who love to act.'
'But you came out of the maze last year, having watched Cedric Diggory die, having escaped death so narrowly yourself . . . and I did not tell you, though I knew, now Voldemort had returned, I must do it soon. And now, tonight, I know you have long been ready for the knowledge I have kept from you for so long, because you have proved that I should have placed the burden upon you before this. My only defence is this: I have watched you struggling under more burdens than any student who has ever passed through this school and I could not bring myself to add another - the greatest one of all.'
'Voldemort tried to kill you when you were a child because of a prophecy made shortly before your birth. He knew the prophecy had been made, though he did not know its full contents. He set out to kill you when you were still a baby, believing he was ful-filling the terms of the prophecy. He discovered, to his cost, that he was mistaken, when the curse intended to kill you backfired. And so, since his return to his body, and particularly since your extraordinary escape from him last year, he has been determined to hear that prophecy in its entirety. This is the weapon he has been seeking so assiduously since his return: the knowledge of how to destroy you.'
'It meant,' said Dumbledore, 'that the person who has the only chance of conquering Lord Voldemort for good was born at the end of July, nearly sixteen years ago. This boy would be born to parents who had already defied Voldemort three times.'
The odd thing, Harry,' he said softly, 'is that it may not have meant you at all. Sybill's prophecy could have applied to two wizard boys, both born at the end of July that year, both of whom had parents in the Order of the Phoenix, both sets of parents having narrowly escaped Voldemort three times. One, of course, was you. The other was Neville Longbottom.'
The official record was re-labelled after Voldemort's attack on you as a child,' said Dumbledore. 'It seemed plain to the keeper of the Hall of Prophecy that Voldemort could only have tried to kill you because he knew you to be the one to whom Sybill was referring.'
'You are forgetting the next part of the prophecy, the final iden-tifying feature of the boy who could vanquish Voldemort . . . Voldemort himself would mark him as his equal. And so he did, Harry. He chose you, not Neville. He gave you the scar that has proved both blessing and curse.'
'That might, indeed, have been the more practical course,' said Dumbledore, 'except that Voldemort's information about the prophecy was incomplete. The Hog's Head inn, which Sybill chose for its cheapness, has long attracted, shall we say, a more inter-esting clientele than the Three Broomsticks. As you and your friends found out to your cost, and I to mine that night, it is a place where it is never safe to assume you are not being overheard. Of course, I had not dreamed, when I set out to meet Sybill Trelawney, that I would hear anything worth overhearing. My - our - one stroke of good fortune was that the eavesdropper was detected only a short way into the prophecy and thrown from the building.'
'So he only heard - ?'
'He heard only the beginning, the part foretelling the birth of a boy in July to parents who had thrice defied Voldemort. Consequently, he could not warn his master that to attack you would be to risk transferring power to you, and marking you as his equal. So Voldemort never knew that there might be danger in attacking you, that it might be wise to wait, to learn more. He did not know that you would have power the Dark Lord knows not - '
'There is a room in the Department of Mysteries,' interrupted Dumbledore, 'that is kept locked at all times. It contains a force that is at once more wonderful and more terrible than death, than human intelligence, than the forces of nature. It is also, perhaps, the most mysterious of the many subjects for study that reside there. It is the power held within that room that you possess in such quantities and which Voldemort has not at all. That power took you to save Sirius tonight. That power also saved you from pos-session by Voldemort, because he could not bear to reside in a body so full of the force he detests. In the end, it mattered not that you could not close your mind. It was your heart that saved you.'
HE WHO MUST NOT BE NAMED RETURNS
'In a brief statement on Friday night, Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge confirmed that He Who Must Not Be Named has returned to this country and is once more active.
' "It is with great regret that I must confirm that the wizard styling himself Lord - well, you know who I mean - is alive and among us again," said Fudge, looking tired and flustered as he addressed reporters. "It is with almost equal regret that we report the mass revolt of the Dementors of Azkaban, who have shown themselves averse to continuing in the Ministry's employ. We believe the Dementors are currently taking direction from Lord - Thingy.
' "We urge the magician population to remain vigilant. The Ministry is currently publishing guides to elementary home and personal defence which will be delivered free to all wizarding homes within the coming month."
'The Minister's statement was met with dismay and alarm from the wizarding community, which as recently as last Wednesday was receiving Ministry assurances that there was "no truth what-soever in these persistent rumours that You-Know-Who is oper-ating amongst us once more".
'Details of the events that led to the Ministry turnaround are still hazy, though it is believed that He Who Must Not Be Named and a select band of followers (known as Death Eaters) gained entry to the Ministry of Magic itself on Thursday evening.
'Albus Dumbledore, newly reinstated Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, reinstated member of the International Confederation of Wizards and reinstated Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, has so far been unavailable for com-ment. He has insisted over the past year that You-Know-Who is not dead, as was widely hoped and believed, but is recruiting fol-lowers once more for afresh attempt to seize power. Meanwhile, the "Boy Who Lived" - '
'You-Know- Who's Last Attempt to Take Over, pages two to Jour, What the Ministry Should Have Told Us, page five, Why Nobody Listened to Albus Dumbledore, pages six to eight, Exclusive Interview with Harry Potter, page nine . . . Well,' said Hermione, folding up the newspaper and throwing it aside, 'it's certainly given them lots to write about. And that interview with Harry isn't exclusive, it's the one that was in The Quibbler months ago . . .'
'It is a pity it broke,' said Hermione quietly, shaking her head.
'Yeah, it is,' said Ron. 'Still, at least You-Know-Who never found out what was in it either - where are you going?' he added, looking both surprised and disappointed as Harry stood up.
'Right then,' said Professor McGonagall, looking up at the hour-glasses on the wall. 'Well, I think Potter and his friends ought to have fifty points apiece for alerting the world to the return of You-Know-Who! What say you, Professor Snape?'
'What?' snapped Snape, though Harry knew he had heard perfectly well. 'Oh - well - I suppose . . .'
'Well, I'm terrified now,' said Harry sarcastically. 'I s'pose Lord Voldemort's just a warm-up act compared to you three - what's the matter?' he added, for Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle had all looked stricken at the sound of the name. 'He's a mate of your dad, isn't he? Not scared of him, are you?'
A few days ago, before his exams had finished and he had seen the vision Voldemort had planted in his mind, he would have given almost anything for the wizarding world to know he had been telling the truth, for them to believe that Voldemort was back, and to know that he was neither a liar nor mad. Now, however . . .
But when the dormitory door closed behind Ron, Harry made no effort to speed up his packing. The very last thing he wanted to do was to attend the Leaving Feast. He was worried that Dumbledore would make some reference to him in his speech. He was sure to mention Voldemort's return; he had talked to them about it last year, after all . . .
Harry and Ron whiled away most of the journey playing wizard chess while Hermione read out snippets from the Prophet. It was now full of articles about how to repel Dementors, attempts by the Ministry to track down Death Eaters and hysterical letters claiming that the writer had seen Lord Voldemort walking past their house that very morning . . .