Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (14 page)

‘“– which restores you to full fitness, enabling you to pursue the leisure activity of your own choice during an hour that would otherwise have been devoted to unprofitable boredom.” That’s what we’re putting in the adverts, anyway,’ whispered Fred, who had edged over out of Mrs Weasley’s line of vision and was now sweeping a few stray Doxys from the floor and adding them to his pocket. ‘But they still need a bit of work. At the moment our testers are having a bit of trouble stopping themselves puking long enough to swallow the purple end.’

‘Testers?’

‘Us,’ said Fred. ‘We take it in turns. George did the Fainting Fancies – we both tried the Nosebleed Nougat –’

‘Mum thought we’d been duelling,’ said George.

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

‘Well, we haven’t had a chance to get premises yet,’ said Fred, dropping his voice even lower as Mrs Weasley mopped her brow with her scarf before returning to the attack, ‘so we’re running it as a mail-order service at the moment. We put advertisements in the
Daily Prophet
last week
.’

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

Harry grinned. He had forced the Weasley twins to take the thousand Galleons prize money he had won in the Triwizard Tournament to help them realise their ambition to open a joke shop, but he was still glad to know that his part in furthering their plans was unknown to Mrs Weasley. She did not think running a joke shop was a suitable career for two of her sons.

The de-Doxying of the curtains took most of the morning. It was past midday when Mrs Weasley finally removed her protective scarf, sank into a sagging armchair and sprang up again with a cry of disgust, having sat on the bag of dead rats. The curtains were no longer buzzing; they hung limp and damp from the intensive spraying. At the foot of them unconscious Doxys lay crammed in the bucket beside a bowl of their black eggs, at which Crookshanks was now sniffing and Fred and George were shooting covetous looks.

‘I think we’ll tackle
those
after lunch.’ Mrs Weasley pointed at the dusty glass-fronted cabinets standing on either side of the mantelpiece. They were crammed with an odd assortment of objects: a selection of rusty daggers, claws, a coiled snakeskin, a number of tarnished silver boxes inscribed with languages Harry could not understand and, least pleasant of all, an ornate crystal bottle with a large opal set into the stopper, full of what Harry was quite sure was blood.

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

‘Stay here,’ she said firmly, snatching up the bag of rats as Mrs Black’s screeches started up again from down below. ‘I’ll bring up some sandwiches.’

She left the room, closing the door carefully behind her. At once, everyone dashed over to the window to look down on the doorstep. They could see the top of an unkempt gingery head and a stack of precariously balanced cauldrons.

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

‘Probably looking for a safe place to keep them,’ said Harry. ‘Isn’t that what he was doing the night he was supposed to be tailing me? Picking up dodgy cauldrons?’

‘Yeah, you’re right!’ said Fred, as the front door opened; Mundungus heaved his cauldrons through it and disappeared from view. ‘Blimey, Mum won’t like that …’

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

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

‘Might be worth it,’ said George. ‘I could sneak upstairs and get a pair –’

But at that precise moment there was an explosion of sound from downstairs that rendered Extendable Ears quite unnecessary. All of them could hear exactly what Mrs Weasley was shouting at the top of her voice.

‘WE ARE NOT RUNNING A HIDEOUT FOR STOLEN GOODS!’

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

‘– COMPLETELY IRRESPONSIBLE, AS IF WE HAVEN’T GOT ENOUGH TO WORRY ABOUT WITHOUT YOU DRAGGING STOLEN CAULDRONS INTO THE HOUSE –’

‘The idiots are letting her get into her stride,’ said George, shaking his head. ‘You’ve got to head her off early otherwise she builds up a head of steam and goes on for hours. And she’s been dying to have a go at Mundungus ever since he sneaked off when he was supposed to be following you, Harry – and there goes Sirius’s mum again.’

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

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

Except for the filthy rag tied like a loincloth around its middle, it was completely naked. It looked very old. Its skin seemed to be several times too big for it and, though it was bald like all house-elves, there was a quantity of white hair growing out of its large, batlike ears. Its eyes were a bloodshot and watery grey and its fleshy nose was large and rather snoutlike.

The elf took absolutely no notice of Harry and the rest. Acting as though it could not see them, it shuffled hunchbacked, slowly and doggedly, towards the far end of the room, all the while muttering under its breath in a hoarse, deep voice like a bullfrog’s.

‘… smells like a drain and a criminal to boot, but she’s no better, nasty old blood traitor with her brats messing up my mistress’s house, oh, my poor mistress, if she knew, if she knew the scum they’ve let into her house, what would she say to old Kreacher, oh, the shame of it, Mudbloods and werewolves and traitors and thieves, poor old Kreacher, what can he do …’

‘Hello, Kreacher,’ said Fred very loudly, closing the door with a snap.

The house-elf froze in his tracks, stopped muttering, and gave a very pronounced and very unconvincing start of surprise.

‘Kreacher did not see young master,’ he said, turning around and bowing to Fred. Still facing the carpet, he added, perfectly audibly, ‘Nasty little brat of a blood traitor it is.’

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

‘Kreacher said nothing,’ said the elf, with a second bow to George, adding in a clear undertone, ‘and there’s its twin, unnatural little beasts they are.’

Harry didn’t know whether to laugh or not. The elf straightened up, eyeing them all malevolently, and apparently convinced that they could not hear him as he continued to mutter.

‘… and there’s the Mudblood, standing there bold as brass, oh, if my mistress knew, oh, how she’d cry, and there’s a new boy, Kreacher doesn’t know his name. What is he doing here? Kreacher doesn’t know …’

‘This is Harry, Kreacher,’ said Hermione tentatively. ‘Harry Potter.’

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

‘The Mudblood is talking to Kreacher as though she is my friend, if Kreacher’s mistress saw him in such company, oh, what would she say –’

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

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Hermione whispered, ‘he’s not in his right mind, he doesn’t know what he’s –’

‘Don’t kid yourself, Hermione, he knows
exactly
what he’s saying,’ said Fred, eyeing Kreacher with great dislike.

Kreacher was still muttering, his eyes on Harry.

‘Is it true? Is it Harry Potter? Kreacher can see the scar, it must be true, that’s the boy who stopped the Dark Lord, Kreacher wonders how he did it –’

‘Don’t we all, Kreacher,’ said Fred.

‘What do you want, anyway?’ George asked.

Kreacher’s huge eyes darted towards George.

‘Kreacher is cleaning,’ he said evasively.

‘A likely story,’ said a voice behind Harry.

Sirius had come back; he was glowering at the elf from the doorway. The noise in the hall had abated; perhaps Mrs Weasley and Mundungus had moved their argument down into the kitchen. At the sight of Sirius, Kreacher flung himself into a ridiculously low bow that flattened his snoutlike nose on the floor.

‘Stand up straight,’ said Sirius impatiently. ‘Now, what are you up to?’

‘Kreacher is cleaning,’ the elf repeated. ‘Kreacher lives to serve the Noble House of Black –’

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

‘Master always liked his little joke,’ said Kreacher, bowing again, and continuing in an undertone, ‘Master was a nasty ungrateful swine who broke his mother’s heart –’

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

Kreacher bowed again as he spoke.

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

‘I asked you what you were up to,’ said Sirius coldly. ‘Every time you show up pretending to be cleaning, you sneak something off to your room so we can’t throw it out.’

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

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

It seemed that Kreacher did not dare disobey a direct order; nevertheless, the look he gave Sirius as he shuffled out past him was full of deepest loathing and he muttered all the way out of the room.

‘– comes back from Azkaban ordering Kreacher around, oh, my poor mistress, what would she say if she saw the house now, scum living in it, her treasures thrown out, she swore he was no son of hers and he’s back, they say he’s a murderer too –’

‘Keep muttering and I will be a murderer!’ said Sirius irritably as he slammed the door shut on the elf.

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

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

‘If you could just set him free,’ said Hermione hopefully, ‘maybe –’

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

Sirius walked across the room to where the tapestry Kreacher had been trying to protect hung the length of the wall. Harry and the others followed.

The tapestry looked immensely old; it was faded and looked as though Doxys had gnawed it in places. Nevertheless, the golden thread with which it was embroidered still glinted brightly enough to show them a sprawling family tree dating back (as far as Harry could tell) to the Middle Ages. Large words at the very top of the tapestry read:

The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black

‘Toujours pur’

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

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

‘You ran away from home?’

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

‘Where did you go?’ asked Harry, staring at him.

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

‘But … why did you …?’

‘Leave?’ Sirius smiled bitterly and ran his fingers through his long, unkempt hair. ‘Because I hated the whole lot of them: my parents, with their pure-blood mania, convinced that to be a Black made you practically royal … my idiot brother, soft enough to believe them … that’s him.’

Sirius jabbed a finger at the very bottom of the tree, at the name ‘Regulus Black’. A date of death (some fifteen years previously) followed the date of birth.

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

‘But he died,’ said Harry.

‘Yeah,’ said Sirius. ‘Stupid idiot … he joined the Death Eaters.’

‘You’re kidding!’

‘Come on, Harry, haven’t you seen enough of this house to tell what kind of wizards my family were?’ said Sirius testily.

‘Were – were your parents Death Eaters as well?’

‘No, no, but believe me, they thought Voldemort had the right idea, they were all for the purification of the wizarding race, getting rid of Muggle-borns and having pure-bloods in charge. They weren’t alone, either, there were quite a few people, before Voldemort showed his true 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 important enough to be killed by Voldemort in person. From what I found out after he died, he got in so far, then panicked about what he was being asked to do and tried to back out. Well, you don’t just hand in your resignation to Voldemort. It’s a lifetime of service or death.’