Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (20 page)

‘Why wasn’t he waiting outside Fudge’s office if they’ve got business to do together?’ Harry burst out furiously. ‘What was he doing down here?’

‘Trying to sneak down to the courtroom, if you ask me,’ said Mr Weasley, looking extremely agitated and glancing over his shoulder as though making sure they could not be overheard. ‘Trying to find out whether you’d been expelled or not. I’ll leave a note for Dumbledore when I drop you off, he ought to know Malfoy’s been talking to Fudge again.’

‘What private business have they got together, anyway?’

‘Gold, I expect,’ said Mr Weasley angrily. ‘Malfoy’s been giving generously to all sorts of things for years … gets him in with the right people … then he can ask favours … delay laws he doesn’t want passed … oh, he’s very well-connected, Lucius Malfoy.’

The lift arrived; it was empty except for a flock of memos that flapped around Mr Weasley’s head as he pressed the button for the Atrium and the doors clanged shut. He waved them away irritably.

‘Mr Weasley,’ said Harry slowly, ‘if Fudge is meeting Death Eaters like Malfoy, if he’s seeing them alone, how do we know they haven’t put the Imperius Curse on him?’

‘Don’t think it hasn’t occurred to us, Harry,’ said Mr Weasley quietly. ‘But Dumbledore thinks Fudge is acting of his own accord at the moment – which, as Dumbledore says, is not a lot of comfort. Best not talk about it any more just now, Harry.’

The doors slid open and they stepped out into the now almost-deserted Atrium. Eric the watchwizard was hidden behind his
Daily Prophet
again. They had walked straight past the golden fountain before Harry remembered.

‘Wait …’ he told Mr Weasley, and, pulling his moneybag from his pocket, he turned back to the fountain.

He looked up into the handsome wizard’s face, but close-to Harry thought he looked rather weak and foolish. The witch was wearing a vapid smile like a beauty contestant, and from what Harry knew of goblins and centaurs, they were most unlikely to be caught staring so soppily at humans of any description. Only the house-elf’s attitude of creeping servility looked convincing. With a grin at the thought of what Hermione would say if she could see the statue of the elf, Harry turned his moneybag upsidedown and emptied not just ten Galleons, but the whole contents into the pool.

*

‘I knew it!’ yelled Ron, punching the air. ‘You always get away with stuff!’

‘They were bound to clear you,’ said Hermione, who had looked positively faint with anxiety when Harry had entered the kitchen and was now holding a shaking hand over her eyes, ‘there was no case against you, none at all.’

‘Everyone seems quite relieved, though, considering you all knew I’d get off,’ said Harry, smiling.

Mrs Weasley was wiping her face on her apron, and Fred, George and Ginny were doing a kind of war dance to a chant that went: ‘
He got off, he got off, he got off …
’

‘That’s enough! Settle down!’ shouted Mr Weasley, though he too was smiling. ‘Listen, Sirius, Lucius Malfoy was at the Ministry –’

‘What?’ said Sirius sharply.

‘
He got off, he got off, he got off …
’

‘Be quiet, you three! Yes, we saw him talking to Fudge on Level Nine, then they went up to Fudge’s office together. Dumbledore ought to know.’

‘Absolutely,’ said Sirius. ‘We’ll tell him, don’t worry.’

‘Well, I’d better get going, there’s a vomiting toilet waiting for me in Bethnal Green. Molly, I’ll be late, I’m covering for Tonks, but Kingsley might be dropping in for dinner –’

‘
He got off, he got off, he got off …
’

‘That’s enough – Fred – George – Ginny!’ said Mrs Weasley, as Mr Weasley left the kitchen. ‘Harry, dear, come and sit down, have some lunch, you hardly ate breakfast.’

Ron and Hermione sat themselves down opposite him, looking happier than they had done since he had first arrived at Grimmauld Place, and Harry’s feeling of giddy relief, which had been somewhat dented by his encounter with Lucius Malfoy, swelled again. The gloomy house seemed warmer and more welcoming all of a sudden; even Kreacher looked less ugly as he poked his snoutlike nose into the kitchen to investigate the source of all the noise.

‘Course, once Dumbledore turned up on your side, there was no way they were going to convict you,’ said Ron happily, now dishing great mounds of mashed potato on to everyone’s plates.

‘Yeah, he swung it for me,’ said Harry. He felt it would sound highly ungrateful, not to mention childish, to say, ‘I wish he’d talked to me, though. Or even
looked
at me.’

And as he thought this, the scar on his forehead burned so badly that he clapped his hand to it.

‘What’s up?’ said Hermione, looking alarmed.

‘Scar,’ Harry mumbled. ‘But it’s nothing … it happens all the time now …’

None of the others had noticed a thing; all of them were now helping themselves to food while gloating over Harry’s narrow escape; Fred, George and Ginny were still singing. Hermione looked rather anxious, but before she could say anything, Ron had said happily, ‘I bet Dumbledore turns up this evening, to celebrate with us, you know.’

‘I don’t think he’ll be able to, Ron,’ said Mrs Weasley, setting a huge plate of roast chicken down in front of Harry. ‘He’s really very busy at the moment.’

‘HE GOT OFF, HE GOT OFF, HE GOT OFF …’

‘SHUT UP!’ roared Mrs Weasley.

*

Over the next few days Harry could not help noticing that there was one person within number twelve, Grimmauld Place, who did not seem wholly overjoyed that he would be returning to Hogwarts. Sirius had put up a very good show of happiness on first hearing the news, wringing Harry’s hand and beaming just like the rest of them. Soon, however, he was moodier and surlier than before, talking less to everybody, even Harry, and spending increasing amounts of time shut up in his mother’s room with Buckbeak.

‘Don’t you go feeling guilty!’ said Hermione sternly, after Harry had confided some of his feelings to her and Ron while they scrubbed out a mouldy cupboard on the third floor a few days later. ‘You belong at Hogwarts and Sirius knows it. Personally, I think he’s being selfish.’

‘That’s a bit harsh, Hermione,’ said Ron, frowning as he attempted to prise off a bit of mould that had attached itself firmly to his finger, ‘
you
wouldn’t want to be stuck inside this house without any company.’

‘He’ll have company!’ said Hermione. ‘It’s Headquarters to the Order of the Phoenix, isn’t it? He just got his hopes up that Harry would be coming to live here with him.’

‘I don’t think that’s true,’ said Harry, wringing out his cloth. ‘He wouldn’t give me a straight answer when I asked him if I could.’

‘He just didn’t want to get his own hopes up even more,’ said Hermione wisely. ‘And he probably felt a bit guilty himself, because I think a part of him was really hoping you’d be expelled. Then you’d both be outcasts together.’

‘Come off it!’ said Harry and Ron together, but Hermione merely shrugged.

‘Suit yourselves. But I sometimes think Ron’s mum’s right and Sirius gets confused about whether you’re you or your father, Harry.’

‘So you think he’s touched in the head?’ said Harry heatedly.

‘No, I just think he’s been very lonely for a long time,’ said Hermione simply.

At this point, Mrs Weasley entered the bedroom behind them.

‘Still not finished?’ she said, poking her head into the cupboard.

‘I thought you might be here to tell us to have a break!’ said Ron bitterly. ‘D’you know how much mould we’ve got rid of since we arrived here?’

‘You were so keen to help the Order,’ said Mrs Weasley, ‘you can do your bit by making Headquarters fit to live in.’

‘I feel like a house-elf,’ grumbled Ron.

‘Well, now you understand what dreadful lives they lead, perhaps you’ll be a bit more active in S.P.E.W.!’ said Hermione hopefully, as Mrs Weasley left them to it. ‘You know, maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to show people exactly how horrible it is to clean all the time – we could do a sponsored scrub of Gryffindor common room, all proceeds to S.P.E.W., it would raise awareness as well as funds.’

‘I’ll sponsor you to shut up about
S.P.E.W.
,’ Ron muttered irritably, but only so Harry could hear him.

*

Harry found himself daydreaming about Hogwarts more and more as the end of the holidays approached; he could not wait to see Hagrid again, to play Quidditch, even to stroll across the vegetable patches to the Herbology greenhouses; it would be a treat just to leave this dusty, musty house, where half of the cupboards were still bolted shut and Kreacher wheezed insults out of the shadows as you passed, though Harry was careful not to say any of this within earshot of Sirius.

The fact was 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 conversation, 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.

On the very last day of the holidays Harry was sweeping up Hedwig’s owl droppings from the top of the wardrobe when Ron entered their bedroom carrying a couple of envelopes.

‘Booklists have arrived,’ he said, throwing one of the envelopes up to Harry, who was standing on a chair. ‘About time, I thought they’d forgotten, they usually come much earlier than this …’

Harry swept the last of the droppings into a rubbish bag and threw the bag over Ron’s head into the wastepaper basket in the corner, which swallowed it and belched loudly. He then opened his letter. It contained two pieces of parchment: one the usual reminder that term started on the first of September; the other telling him which books he would need for the coming year.

‘Only two new ones,’ he said, reading the list, ‘
The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 5
, by Miranda Goshawk, and
Defensive Magical Theory
, by Wilbert Slinkhard.’

Crack.

Fred and George Apparated right beside Harry. He was so used to them doing this by now that he didn’t even fall off his chair.

‘We were just wondering who set the Slinkhard book,’ said Fred conversationally.

‘Because it means Dumbledore’s found a new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher,’ said George.

‘And about time too,’ said Fred.

‘What d’you mean?’ Harry asked, jumping down beside them.

‘Well, we overheard Mum and Dad talking on the Extendable Ears a few weeks back,’ Fred told Harry, ‘and from what they were saying, Dumbledore was having real trouble finding anyone to do the job this year.’

‘Not surprising, is it, when you look at what’s happened to the last four?’ said George.

‘One sacked, one dead, one’s memory removed and one locked in a trunk for nine months,’ said Harry, counting them off on his fingers. ‘Yeah, I see what you mean.’

‘What’s up with you, Ron?’ asked Fred.

Ron did not answer. Harry looked round. Ron was standing very still with his mouth slightly open, gaping at his letter from Hogwarts.

‘What’s the matter?’ said Fred impatiently, moving around Ron to look over his shoulder at the parchment.

Fred’s mouth fell open, too.

‘Prefect?’ he said, staring incredulously at the letter.
‘Prefect?’

George leapt forwards, seized the envelope in Ron’s other hand and turned it upside-down. Harry saw something scarlet and gold fall into George’s palm.

‘No way,’ said George in a hushed voice.

‘There’s been a mistake,’ said Fred, snatching the letter out of Ron’s grasp and holding it up to the light as though checking for a watermark. ‘No one in their right mind would make Ron a prefect.’

The twins’ heads turned in unison and both of them stared at Harry.

‘We thought you were a cert!’ said Fred, in a tone that suggested Harry had tricked them in some way.

‘We thought Dumbledore was
bound
to pick you!’ said George indignantly.

‘Winning the Triwizard and everything!’ said Fred.

‘I suppose all the mad stuff must’ve counted against him,’ said George to Fred.

‘Yeah,’ said Fred slowly. ‘Yeah, you’ve caused too much trouble, mate. Well, at least one of you’s got their priorities right.’

He strode over to Harry and clapped him on the back while giving Ron a scathing look.

‘
Prefect …
ickle Ronnie the Prefect.’

‘Ohh, Mum’s going to be revolting,’ groaned George, thrusting the prefect badge back at Ron as though it might contaminate him.

Ron, who still had not said a word, took the badge, stared at it for a moment, then held it out to Harry as though asking mutely for confirmation that it was genuine. Harry took it. A large ‘P’ was superimposed on the Gryffindor lion. He had seen a badge just like this on Percy’s chest on his very first day at Hogwarts.

The door banged open. Hermione came tearing into the room, her cheeks flushed and her hair flying. There was an envelope in her hand.

‘Did you – did you get –?’

She spotted the badge in Harry’s hand and let out a shriek.

‘I knew it!’ she said excitedly, brandishing her letter. ‘Me too, Harry, me too!’

‘No,’ said Harry quickly, pushing the badge back into Ron’s hand. ‘It’s Ron, not me.’

‘It – what?’

‘Ron’s prefect, not me,’ Harry said.

‘Ron?’
said Hermione, her jaw dropping. ‘But … are you sure? I mean –’

She turned red as Ron looked round at her with a defiant expression on his face.

‘It’s my name on the letter,’ he said.

‘I …’ said Hermione, looking thoroughly bewildered. ‘I … well … wow! Well done, Ron! That’s really –’

‘Unexpected,’ said George, nodding.

‘No,’ said Hermione, blushing harder than ever, ‘no it’s not … Ron’s done loads of … he’s really …’

The door behind her opened a little wider and Mrs Weasley backed into the room carrying a pile of freshly laundered robes.