Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (105 page)

A few rubies retreated into the upper bulb, leaving a respectable amount below nevertheless. ‘Well, Potter, Malfoy, I think you ought to be outside on a glorious day like this,’ Professor McGonagall continued briskly.

Harry did not need telling twice; he thrust his wand back inside his robes and headed straight for the front doors without another glance at Snape and Malfoy.

The hot sun hit him with a blast as he walked across the lawns towards Hagrid’s cabin. Students lying around on the grass sunbathing, talking, reading the
Sunday Prophet
and eating sweets, looked up at him as he passed; some called out to him, or else waved, clearly eager to show that they, like the
Prophet
, had decided he was something of a hero. Harry said nothing to any of them. He had no idea how much they knew of what had happened three days ago, but he had so far avoided being questioned and preferred to keep it that way.

He thought at first when he knocked on Hagrid’s cabin door that he was out, but then Fang came charging around the corner and almost bowled him over with the enthusiasm of his welcome. Hagrid, it transpired, was picking runner beans in his back garden.

‘All righ’, Harry!’ he said, beaming, when Harry approached the fence. ‘Come in, come in, we’ll have a cup o’ dandelion juice …

‘How’s things?’ Hagrid asked him, as they settled down at his wooden table with a glass apiece of iced juice. ‘Yeh – er – feelin’ all righ’, are yeh?’

Harry knew from the look of concern on Hagrid’s face that he was not referring to Harry’s physical well-being.

‘I’m fine,’ Harry said quickly, because he could not bear to discuss the thing that he knew was in Hagrid’s mind. ‘So, where’ve you been?’

‘Bin hidin’ out in the mountains,’ said Hagrid. ‘Up in a cave, like Sirius did when he –’

Hagrid broke off, cleared his throat gruffly, looked at Harry, and took a long draught of juice.

‘Anyway, back now,’ he said feebly.

‘You – you look better,’ said Harry, who was determined to keep the conversation moving away from Sirius.

‘Wha’?’ said Hagrid, raising a massive hand and feeling his face. ‘Oh – oh yeah. Well, Grawpy’s loads better behaved now, loads. Seemed right pleased ter see me when I got back, ter tell yeh the truth. He’s a good lad, really … I’ve bin thinkin’ abou’ tryin’ ter find him a lady friend, actually …’

Harry would normally have tried to persuade Hagrid out of this idea at once; the prospect of a second giant taking up residence in the Forest, possibly even wilder and more brutal than Grawp, was positively alarming, but somehow Harry could not muster the energy necessary to argue the point. He was starting to wish he was alone again, and with the idea of hastening his departure he took several large gulps of his dandelion juice, half-emptying his glass.

‘Ev’ryone knows yeh’ve bin tellin’ the truth now, Harry,’ said Hagrid softly and unexpectedly. ‘Tha’s gotta be better, hasn’ it?’

Harry shrugged.

‘Look …’ Hagrid leaned towards him across the table, ‘I knew Sirius longer ’n yeh did … he died in battle, an’ tha’s the way he’d’ve wanted ter go –’

‘He didn’t want to go at all!’ said Harry angrily.

Hagrid bowed his great shaggy head.

‘Nah, I don’ reckon he did,’ he said quietly. ‘But still, Harry … he was never one ter sit aroun’ at home an’ let other people do the fightin’. He couldn’ve lived with himself if he hadn’ gone ter help –’

Harry leapt up.

‘I’ve got to go and visit Ron and Hermione in the hospital wing,’ he said mechanically.

‘Oh,’ said Hagrid, looking rather upset. ‘Oh … all righ’ then, Harry … take care o’ yerself then, an’ drop back in if yeh’ve got a mo …’

‘Yeah … right …’

Harry crossed to the door as fast as he could and pulled it open; he was out in the sunshine again before Hagrid had finished saying goodbye, and walking away across the lawn. Once again, people called out to him as he passed. He closed his eyes for a few moments, wishing they would all vanish, that he could open his eyes and find himself alone in the grounds …

A few days ago, before his exams had finished and he had seen the vision Voldemort had planted in his mind, he would have given almost anything for the wizarding world to know he had been telling the truth, for them to believe that Voldemort was back, and to know that he was neither a liar nor mad. Now, however …

He walked a short way around the lake, sat down on its bank, sheltered from the gaze of passers-by behind a tangle of shrubs, and stared out over the gleaming water, thinking …

Perhaps the reason he wanted to be alone was because he had felt isolated from everybody since his talk with Dumbledore. An invisible barrier separated him from the rest of the world. He was – he had always been – a marked man. It was just that he had never really understood what that meant …

And yet sitting here on the edge of the lake, with the terrible weight of grief dragging at him, with the loss of Sirius so raw and fresh inside, he could not muster any great sense of fear. It was sunny, and the grounds around him were full of laughing people, and even though he felt as distant from them as though he belonged to a different race, it was still very hard to believe as he sat here that his life must include, or end in, murder …

He sat there for a long time, gazing out at the water, trying not to think about his godfather or to remember that it was directly across from here, on the opposite bank, that Sirius had once collapsed trying to fend off a hundred Dementors …

The sun had set before he realised he was cold. He got up and returned to the castle, wiping his face on his sleeve as he went.

*

Ron and Hermione left the hospital wing completely cured three days before the end of term. Hermione kept showing signs of wanting to talk about Sirius, but Ron tended to make ‘hushing’ noises every time she mentioned his name. Harry was still not sure whether or not he wanted to talk about his godfather yet; his wishes varied with his mood. He knew one thing, though: unhappy as he felt at the moment, he would greatly miss Hogwarts in a few days’ time when he was back at number four, Privet Drive. Even though he now understood exactly why he had to return there every summer, he did not feel any better about it. Indeed, he had never dreaded his return more.

Professor Umbridge left Hogwarts the day before the end of term. It seemed she had crept out of the hospital wing during dinnertime, evidently hoping to depart undetected, but unfortunately for her, she met Peeves on the way, who seized his last chance to do as Fred had instructed, and chased her gleefully from the premises whacking her alternately with a walking stick and a sock full of chalk. Many students ran out into the Entrance Hall to watch her running away down the path and the Heads of Houses tried only half-heartedly to restrain them. Indeed, Professor McGonagall sank back into her chair at the staff table after a few feeble remonstrances and was clearly heard to express a regret that she could not run cheering after Umbridge herself, because Peeves had borrowed her walking stick.

Their last evening at school arrived; most people had finished packing and were already heading down to the end-of-term Leaving Feast, but Harry had not even started.

‘Just do it tomorrow!’ said Ron, who was waiting by the door of their dormitory. ‘Come on, I’m starving.’

‘I won’t be long … look, you go ahead …’

But when the dormitory door closed behind Ron, Harry made no effort to speed up his packing. The very last thing he wanted to do was to attend the Leaving Feast. He was worried that Dumbledore would make some reference to him in his speech. He was sure to mention Voldemort’s return; he had talked to them about it last year, after all …

Harry pulled some crumpled robes out of the very bottom of his trunk to make way for folded ones and, as he did so, noticed a badly wrapped package lying in a corner of it. He could not think what it was doing there. He bent down, pulled it out from underneath his trainers and examined it.

He realised what it was within seconds. Sirius had given it to him just inside the front door of number twelve Grimmauld Place.
‘Use it if you need me, all right?’

Harry sank down on to his bed and unwrapped the package. Out fell a small, square mirror. It looked old; it was certainly dirty. Harry held it up to his face and saw his own reflection looking back at him.

He turned the mirror over. There on the reverse side was a scribbled note from Sirius.

Harry’s heart began to race. He remembered seeing his dead parents in the Mirror of Erised four years ago. He was going to be able to talk to Sirius again, right now, he knew it –

He looked around to make sure there was nobody else there; the dormitory was quite empty. He looked back at the mirror, raised it in front of his face with trembling hands and said, loudly and clearly, ‘Sirius.’

His breath misted the surface of the glass. He held the mirror even closer, excitement flooding through him, but the eyes blinking back at him through the fog were definitely his own.

He wiped the mirror clear again and said, so that every syllable rang clearly through the room:

‘Sirius Black!’

Nothing happened. The frustrated face looking back out of the mirror was still, definitely, his own …

Sirius didn’t have his mirror on him when he went through the archway, said a small voice in Harry’s head.
That’s
why it’s not working …

Harry remained quite still for a moment, then hurled the mirror back into the trunk where it shattered. He had been convinced, for a whole, shining minute, that he was going to see Sirius, talk to him again …

Disappointment was burning in his throat; he got up and began throwing his things pell-mell into the trunk on top of the broken mirror –

But then an idea struck him … a better idea than a mirror … a much bigger, more important idea … how had he never thought of it before – why had he never asked?

He was sprinting out of the dormitory and down the spiral staircase, hitting the walls as he ran and barely noticing; he hurtled across the empty common room, through the portrait hole and off along the corridor, ignoring the Fat Lady, who called after him: ‘The feast is about to start, you know, you’re cutting it very fine!’

But Harry had no intention of going to the feast …

How could it be that the place was full of ghosts whenever you didn’t need one, yet now …

He ran down staircases and along corridors and met nobody either alive or dead. They were all, clearly, in the Great Hall. Outside his Charms classroom he came to a halt, panting and thinking disconsolately that he would have to wait until later, until after the end of the feast …

But just as he had given up hope, he saw it – a translucent somebody drifting across the end of the corridor.

‘Hey – hey, Nick! NICK!’

The ghost stuck its head back out of the wall, revealing the extravagantly plumed hat and dangerously wobbling head of Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington.

‘Good evening,’ he said, withdrawing the rest of his body from the solid stone and smiling at Harry. ‘I am not the only one who is late, then? Though,’ he sighed, ‘in a rather different sense, of course …’

‘Nick, can I ask you something?’

A most peculiar expression stole over Nearly Headless Nick’s face as he inserted a finger in the stiff ruff at his neck and tugged it a little straighter, apparently to give himself thinking time. He desisted only when his partially severed neck seemed about to give way completely.

‘Er – now, Harry?’ said Nick, looking discomfited. ‘Can’t it wait until after the feast?’

‘No – Nick – please,’ said Harry, ‘I really need to talk to you. Can we go in here?’

Harry opened the door of the nearest classroom and Nearly Headless Nick sighed.

‘Oh, very well,’ he said, looking resigned. ‘I can’t pretend I haven’t been expecting it.’

Harry was holding the door open for him, but he drifted through the wall instead.

‘Expecting what?’ Harry asked, as he closed the door.

‘You to come and find me,’ said Nick, now gliding over to the window and looking out at the darkening grounds. ‘It happens, sometimes … when somebody has suffered a … loss.’

‘Well,’ said Harry, refusing to be deflected. ‘You were right, I’ve – I’ve come to find you.’ Nick said nothing. ‘It’s –’ said Harry, who was finding this more awkward than he had anticipated, ‘it’s just – you’re dead. But you’re still here, aren’t you?’

Nick sighed and continued to gaze out at the grounds.

‘That’s right, isn’t it?’ Harry urged him. ‘You died, but I’m talking to you … you can walk around Hogwarts and everything, can’t you?’

‘Yes,’ said Nearly Headless Nick quietly, ‘I walk and talk, yes.’

‘So, you came back, didn’t you?’ said Harry urgently. ‘People can come back, right? As ghosts. They don’t have to disappear completely.
Well?
’ he added impatiently, when Nick continued to say nothing.

Nearly Headless Nick hesitated, then said, ‘Not everyone can come back as a ghost.’

‘What d’you mean?’ said Harry quickly.

‘Only … only wizards.’

‘Oh,’ said Harry, and he almost laughed with relief. ‘Well, that’s OK then, the person I’m asking about is a wizard. So he can come back, right?’

Nick turned away from the window and looked mournfully at Harry.

‘He won’t come back.’

‘Who?’

‘Sirius Black,’ said Nick.

‘But you did!’ said Harry angrily. ‘You came back – you’re dead and you didn’t disappear –’

‘Wizards can leave an imprint of themselves upon the earth, to walk palely where their living selves once trod,’ said Nick miserably. ‘But very few wizards choose that path.’

‘Why not?’ said Harry. ‘Anyway – it doesn’t matter
–
Sirius won’t care if it’s unusual, he’ll come back, I know he will!’

And so strong was his belief, Harry actually turned his head to check the door, sure, for a split second, that he was going to see Sirius, pearly-white and transparent but beaming, walking through it towards him.