Teachers are hereby banned from giving students any infor- mation that is not strictly related to the subjects they are paid to teach.

The above is in accordance with Educational Decree Number Twenty-six.

Signed:

 

 

 

 

High inquisitor

 

 

 

 

This latest decree had been the subject of a great number of jokes among the students. Lee Jordan had pointed out to Umbridge that by the terms of the new rule she was not allowed to tell Fred and George off for playing Exploding Snap in the back of the class.

“Exploding Snap’s got nothing to do with Defense Against the Dark Arts, Professor! That’s not information relating to your subject! ” When Harry next saw Lee, the back of his hand was bleeding rather badly. Harry recommended essence of murtlap.

Harry had thought that the breakout from Azkaban might have humbled Umbridge a little, that she might have been abashed at the catastrophe that had occurred right under her beloved Fudge’s nose. It seemed, however, to have only intensified her furious desire to bring every aspect of life at Hogwarts under her personal control. She 

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seemed determined at the very least to achieve a sacking before long, and the only question was whether it would be Professor Trelawney or Hagrid who went first.

Every single Divination and Care of Magical Creatures lesson was now conducted in the presence of Umbridge and her clipboard. She lurked by the fire in the heavily perfumed tower room, interrupting Professor Trelawney’s increasingly hysterical talks with difficult ques- tions about Ornithomancy and Heptomology, insisting that she pre- dict students’ answers before they gave them and demanding that she demonstrate her skill at the crystal ball, the tea leaves, and the rune stones in turn. Harry thought that Professor Trelawney might soon crack under the strain; several times he passed her in the corridors (in itself a very unusual occurrence as she generally remained in her tower room), muttering wildly to herself, wringing her hands, and shooting terrified glances over her shoulder, all the time giving off a powerful smell of cooking sherry. If he had not been so worried about Hagrid, he would have felt sorry for her — but if one of them was to be ousted out of a job, there could be only one choice for Harry as to who should remain.

 

Unfortunately, Harry could not see that Hagrid was putting up a better show than Trelawney. Though he seemed to be following Her- mione’s advice and had shown them nothing more frightening than a crup, a creature indistinguishable from a Jack Russell terrier except for its forked tail, since before Christmas, he also seemed to have lost his nerve. He was oddly distracted and jumpy in lessons, losing the thread of what he was saying while talking to the class, answering questions wrongly and glancing anxiously at Umbridge all the time. He was also more distant with Harry, Ron, and Hermione than he had ever been before, expressly forbidding them to visit him after dark. “If she catches yeh, it’ll be all of our necks on the line, ” he told them flatly, and with no desire to do anything that jeopardized his job further, they abstained from walking down to his hut in the evenings.

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It seemed to Harry that Umbridge was steadily depriving him of everything that made his life at Hogwarts worth living: visits to Ha- grid’s house, letters from Sirius, his Firebolt, and Quidditch. He took his revenge the only way he had: redoubling his efforts for the D.A. Harry was pleased to see that all of them, even Zacharias Smith, had been spurred to work harder than ever by the news that ten more Death Eaters were now on the loose, but in nobody was this improve- ment more pronounced than in Neville. The news of his parents’ at- tacker’s escape had wrought a strange and even slightly alarming change in him. He had not once mentioned his meeting with Harry, Ron, and Hermione on the closed ward in St. Mungo’s, and taking their lead from him, they had kept quiet about it too. Nor had he said anything on the subject of Bellatrix and her fellow torturers’ escape; in fact, he barely spoke during D.A. meetings anymore, but worked re- lentlessly on every new jinx and countercurse Harry taught them, his plump face screwed up in concentration, apparently indifferent to in- juries or accidents, working harder than anyone else in the room. He was improving so fast it was quite unnerving and when Harry taught them the Shield Charm, a means of deflecting minor jinxes so that they rebounded upon the attacker, only Hermione mastered the charm faster than Neville.

 

In fact Harry would have given a great deal to be making as much progress at Occlumency as Neville was making during D.A. meetings. Harry’s sessions with Snape, which had started badly enough, were not improving; on the contrary, Harry felt he was getting worse with every lesson.

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 moods 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 happening to him at the time, which were

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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 dream- ing about walking down the corridor toward the entrance to the Department of Mysteries almost every night, dreams that always cul- minated in him standing longingly in front of the plain black door. “Maybe it’s a bit like an illness, ” said Hermione, looking concerned when Harry confided in her and Ron. “A fever or something. It has to get worse before it gets better.”

“It’s lessons with Snape that are making it worse, ” said Harry flatly. “I’m getting sick of my scar hurting, and I’m getting bored walking down that corridor every night.” He rubbed his forehead angrily. “I just wish the door would open, I’m sick of standing staring at it —” “That’s not funny, ” said Hermione sharply. “Dumbledore doesn’t want you to have dreams about that corridor at all, or he wouldn’t have asked Snape to teach you Occlumency. You’re just going to have to work a bit harder in your lessons.”

 

“I am working! ” said Harry, nettled. “You try it sometime, Snape trying to get inside your head, it’s not a bundle of laughs, you know! ” “Maybe...” said Ron slowly.

“Maybe what? ” said Hermione rather snappishly. “Maybe it’s not Harry’s fault he can’t close his mind, ” said Ron darkly. “What do you mean? ” said Hermione.

 

“Well, maybe Snape isn’t really trying to help Harry....” Harry and Hermione stared at him. Ron looked darkly and mean- ingfully from one to the other.

“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 —” “Shut up, Ron, ” said Hermione angrily. “How many times have 

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you suspected Snape, and when have you ever been right? Dumble-

dore trusts him, he works for the Order, that ought to be enough.” “He used to be a Death Eater, ” said Ron stubbornly. “And we’ve

never seen proof that he really swapped sides....”

 

“Dumbledore trusts him, ” Hermione repeated. “And if we can’t trust Dumbledore, we can’t trust anyone.”

 

 

With so much to worry about and so much to do — startling amounts of homework that frequently kept the fifth years working until past midnight, secret D.A. meetings, and regular classes with Snape — January seemed to be passing alarmingly fast. Before Harry knew it, February had arrived, bringing with it wetter and warmer weather and the prospect of the second Hogsmeade visit of the year. Harry had had very little time to spare on conversations with Cho since they had agreed to visit the village together, but suddenly found himself facing a Valentine’s Day spent entirely in her company.

On the morning of the fourteenth he dressed particularly carefully. He and Ron arrived at breakfast just in time for the arrival of the post owls. Hedwig was not there — not that he had expected her — but Hermione was tugging a letter from the beak of an unfamiliar brown owl as they sat down.

 

“And about time! If it hadn’t come today...” she said eagerly, tear- ing open the envelope and pulling out a small piece of parchment. Her eyes sped from left to right as she read through the message and a grimly pleased expression spread across her face.

 

“Listen, Harry, ” she said, looking up at him. “This is really impor- tant.... Do you think you could meet me in the Three Broomsticks around midday? ”

“Well... I dunno, ” said Harry dubiously. “Cho might be expect- ing me to spend the whole day with her. We never said what we were going to do.”

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“Well, bring her along if you must, ” said Hermione urgently. “But will you come? ”

 

“Well... all right, but why? ”

“I haven’t got time to tell you now, I’ve got to answer this quickly —”

And she hurried out of the Great Hall, the letter clutched in one hand and a piece of uneaten toast in the other.

“Are you coming? ” Harry asked Ron, but he shook his head, look- ing glum.

“I can’t come into Hogsmeade at all, Angelina wants a full day’s training. Like it’s going to help — we’re the worst team I’ve ever seen. You should see Sloper and Kirke, they’re pathetic, even worse than I am.” He heaved a great sigh. “I dunno why Angelina won’t just let me resign....”

“It’s because you’re good when you’re on form, that’s why, ” said Harry irritably.

He found it very hard to be sympathetic to Ron’s plight when he himself would have given almost anything to be playing in the forth- coming match against Hufflepuff. Ron seemed to notice Harry’s tone, because he did not mention Quidditch again during breakfast, and there was a slight frostiness in the way they said good-bye to each other shortly afterward. Ron departed for the Quidditch pitch and Harry, after attempting to flatten his hair while staring at his reflection in the back of a teaspoon, proceeded alone to the entrance hall to meet Cho, feeling very apprehensive and wondering what on earth they were going to talk about.

She was waiting for him a little to the side of the oak front doors, looking very pretty with her hair tied back in a long ponytail. Harry’s feet seemed to be too big for his body as he walked toward her, and he was suddenly horribly aware of his arms and how stupid they looked swinging at his sides.

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“Hi, ” said Cho slightly breathlessly.

“Hi, ” said Harry.

 

They stared at each other for a moment, then Harry said, “Well — er — shall we go, then? ”

 

“Oh — yes...”

They joined the queue of people being signed out by Filch, occa- sionally catching each other’s eye and grinning shiftily, but not talking to each other. Harry was relieved when they reached the fresh air, find- ing it easier to walk along in silence than just stand there looking awk- ward. It was a fresh, breezy sort of day and as they passed the Quidditch stadium, Harry glimpsed Ron and Ginny skimming over the stands and felt a horrible pang that he was not up there with them.... “You really miss it, don’t you? ” said Cho.

 

He looked around and saw her watching him.

“Yeah, ” sighed Harry. “I do.”

 

“Remember the first time we played against each other, in the third year? ” she asked him.

 

“Yeah, ” said Harry, grinning. “You kept blocking me.” “And Wood told you not to be a gentleman and knock me off my broom if you had to, ” said Cho, smiling reminiscently. “I heard he got taken on by Pride of Portree, is that right? ”

 

“Nah, it was Puddlemere United, I saw him at the World Cup last year.”

 

“Oh, I saw you there too, remember? We were on the same camp- site. It was really good, wasn’t it? ”

 

The subject of the Quidditch World Cup carried them all the way down the drive and out through the gates. Harry could hardly believe how easy it was to talk to her, no more difficult, in fact, than talking to Ron and Hermione, and he was just starting to feel confident and cheerful when a large gang of Slytherin girls passed them, including Pansy Parkinson.

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“Potter and Chang! ” screeched Pansy to a chorus of snide giggles. “Urgh, Chang, I don’t think much of your taste.... At least Diggory was good-looking! ”

They sped up, talking and shrieking in a pointed fashion with many exaggerated glances back at Harry and Cho, leaving an embar- rassed silence in their wake. Harry could think of nothing else to say about Quidditch, and Cho, slightly flushed, was watching her feet. “So... where d’you want to go? ” Harry asked as they entered Hogsmeade. The High Street was full of students ambling up and down, peering into the shop windows and messing about together on the pavements.

“Oh... I don’t mind, ” said Cho, shrugging. “Um... shall we just have a look in the shops or something? ”

 

They wandered toward Dervish and Banges. A large poster had been stuck up in the window and a few Hogsmeaders were looking at it. They moved aside when Harry and Cho approached and Harry found himself staring once more at the ten pictures of the escaped Death Eaters. The poster (“By Order of the Ministry of Magic”) of- fered a thousand-Galleon reward to any witch or wizard with infor- mation relating to the recapture of any of the convicts pictured.

“It’s funny, isn’t it, ” said Cho in a low voice, also gazing up at the pictures of the Death Eaters. “Remember when that Sirius Black es- caped, and there were dementors all over Hogsmeade looking for him? And now ten Death Eaters are on the loose and there aren’t de- mentors anywhere....”

 

“Yeah, ” said Harry, tearing his eyes away from Bellatrix Lestrange’s face to glance up and down the High Street. “Yeah, it is weird....” He was not sorry that there were no dementors nearby, but now he came to think of it, their absence was highly significant. They had not only let the Death Eaters escape, they were not bothering to look for them.... It looked as though they really were outside Ministry con- trol now.

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The ten escaped Death Eaters were staring out of every shop window he and Cho passed. It started to rain as they passed Scrivenshaft’s; cold, heavy drops of water kept hitting Harry’s face and the back of his neck. “Um... d’you want to get a coffee? ” said Cho tentatively, as the rain began to fall more heavily.

“Yeah, all right, ” said Harry, looking around. “Where —? ” “Oh, there’s a really nice place just up here, haven’t you ever been to Madam Puddifoot’s? ” she said brightly, and she led him up a side road and into a small tea shop that Harry had never noticed before. It was a cramped, steamy little place where everything seemed to have been decorated with frills or bows. Harry was reminded unpleasantly of Umbridge’s office.

“Cute, isn’t it? ” said Cho happily.

 

“Er... yeah, ” said Harry untruthfully.

“Look, she’s decorated it for Valentine’s Day! ” said Cho, indicating a number of golden cherubs that were hovering over each of the small, circular tables, occasionally throwing pink confetti over the occupants. “Aaah...”

They sat down at the last remaining table, which was situated in the steamy window. Roger Davies, the Ravenclaw Quidditch Captain, was sitting about a foot and a half away with a pretty blonde girl. They were holding hands. The sight made Harry feel uncomfortable, par- ticularly when, looking around the tea shop, he saw that it was full of nothing but couples, all of them holding hands. Perhaps Cho would

expect him to hold her hand.

 

“What can I get you, m’dears? ” said Madam Puddifoot, a very stout woman with a shiny black bun, squeezing between their table and Roger Davies’s with great difficulty.

“Two coffees, please, ” said Cho.

 

In the time it took for their coffees to arrive, Roger Davies and his girlfriend started kissing over their sugar bowl. Harry wished they wouldn’t; he felt that Davies was setting a standard with which Cho

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would soon expect him to compete. He felt his face growing hot and tried staring out of the window, but it was so steamed up he could not see the street outside. To postpone the moment when he had to look at Cho he stared up at the ceiling as though examining the paintwork and received a handful of confetti in the face from their hovering cherub.

 

After a few more painful minutes Cho mentioned Umbridge; Harry seized on the subject with relief and they passed a few happy moments abusing her, but the subject had already been so thoroughly canvassed during D.A. meetings it did not last very long. Silence fell again. Harry was very conscious of the slurping noises coming from the table next door and cast wildly around for something else to say. “Er... listen, d’you want to come with me to the Three Broom- sticks at lunchtime? I’m meeting Hermione Granger there.”

Cho raised her eyebrows.

 

“You’re meeting Hermione Granger? Today? ”

“Yeah. Well, she asked me to, so I thought I would. D’you want to come with me? She said it wouldn’t matter if you did.”

“Oh... well... that was nice of her.”

 

But Cho did not sound as though she thought it was nice at all; on the contrary, her tone was cold and all of a sudden she looked rather forbidding.

A few more minutes passed in total silence, Harry drinking his cof- fee so fast that he would soon need a fresh cup. Next door, Roger Davies and his girlfriend seemed glued together by the lips.

 

Cho’s hand was lying on the table beside her coffee, and Harry was

feeling a mounting pressure to take hold of it. Just do it, he told him-

 

self, as a fount of mingled panic and excitement surged up inside his

chest. Just reach out and grab it.... Amazing how much more difficult

 

it was to extend his arm twelve inches and touch her hand than to snatch a speeding Snitch from midair...

 

But just as he moved his hand forward, Cho took hers off the table.

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She was now watching Roger Davies kissing his girlfriend with a mildly interested expression.

 

“He asked me out, you know, ” she said in a quiet voice. “A couple of weeks ago. Roger. I turned him down, though.”

 

Harry, who had grabbed the sugar bowl to excuse his sudden lung- ing movement across the table, could not think why she was telling him this. If she wished she were sitting at the table next door being heartily kissed by Roger Davies, why had she agreed to come out with him?

He said nothing. Their cherub threw another handful of confetti over them; some of it landed in the last cold dregs of coffee Harry had been about to drink.

“I came in here with Cedric last year, ” said Cho. In the second or so it took for him to take in what she had said, Harry’s insides had become glacial. He could not believe she wanted to talk about Cedric now, while kissing couples surrounded them and a cherub floated over their heads.

 

Cho’s voice was rather higher when she spoke again. “I’ve been meaning to ask you for ages.... Did Cedric — did he m-m-mention me at all before he died? ”

This was the very last subject on earth Harry wanted to discuss, and least of all with Cho.

“Well — no —” he said quietly. “There — there wasn’t time for him to say anything. Erm... so... d’you... d’you get to see a lot of Quidditch in the holidays? You support the Tornados, right? ”

 

His voice sounded falsely bright and cheery. To his horror, he saw that her eyes were swimming with tears again, just as they had been af- ter the last D.A. meeting before Christmas.

“Look, ” he said desperately, leaning in so that nobody else could overhear, “let’s not talk about Cedric right now.... Let’s talk about something else....”

 

But this, apparently, was quite the wrong thing to say.

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“I thought, ” she said, tears spattering down onto the table. “I

thought you’d u-u-understand! I need to talk about it! Surely you

 

n-need to talk about it t-too! I mean, you saw it happen, d-didn’t you? ”

 

Everything was going nightmarishly wrong; Roger Davies’ girl- friend had even unglued herself to look around at Cho crying. “Well — I have talked about it, ” Harry said in a whisper, “to Ron and Hermione, but —”

 

“Oh, you’ll talk to Hermione Granger! ” she said shrilly, her face now shining with tears, and several more kissing couples broke apart to stare. “But you won’t talk to me! P-perhaps it would be best if we just... just p-paid and you went and met up with Hermione G-Granger, like you obviously want to! ”

 

Harry stared at her, utterly bewildered, as she seized a frilly napkin and dabbed at her shining face with it.

 

“Cho? ” he said weakly, wishing Roger would seize his girlfriend and start kissing her again to stop her goggling at him and Cho. “Go on, leave! ” she said, now crying into the napkin. “I don’t know why you asked me out in the first place if you’re going to make arrangements to meet other girls right after me.... How many are you meeting after Hermione? ”

 

“It’s not like that! ” said Harry, and he was so relieved at finally un- derstanding what she was annoyed about that he laughed, which he realized a split second too late was a mistake.

Cho sprang to her feet. The whole tearoom was quiet, and every- body was watching them now.

“I’ll see you around, Harry, ” she said dramatically, and hiccuping slightly she dashed to the door, wrenched it open, and hurried off into the pouring rain.

 

“Cho! ” Harry called after her, but the door had already swung shut behind her with a tuneful tinkle.

 

There was total silence within the tea shop. Every eye was upon

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Harry. He threw a Galleon down onto the table, shook pink confetti out of his eyes, and followed Cho out of the door.

 

It was raining hard now, and she was nowhere to be seen. He sim- ply did not understand what had happened; half an hour ago they had been getting along fine.

“Women! ” he muttered angrily, sloshing down the rain-washed street with his hands in his pockets. “What did she want to talk about Cedric for anyway? Why does she always want to drag up a subject that makes her act like a human hosepipe? ”

He turned right and broke into a splashy run, and within minutes he was turning into the doorway of the Three Broomsticks. He knew he was too early to meet Hermione, but he thought it likely there would be someone in here with whom he could spend the intervening time. He shook his wet hair out of his eyes and looked around. Hagrid was sitting alone in a corner, looking morose.

 

“Hi, Hagrid! ” he said, when he had squeezed through the crammed tables and pulled up a chair beside him.

 

Hagrid jumped and looked down at Harry as though he barely rec- ognized him. Harry saw that he had two fresh cuts on his face and sev- eral new bruises.

“Oh, it’s you, Harry, ” said Hagrid. “You all righ’? ” “Yeah, I’m fine, ” lied Harry; in fact, next to this battered and mournful-looking Hagrid, he felt he did not have much to complain about. “Er — are you okay? ”

“Me? ” said Hagrid. “Oh yeah, I’m grand, Harry, grand....” He gazed into the depths of his pewter tankard, which was the size of a large bucket, and sighed. Harry did not know what to say to him. They sat side by side in silence for a moment. Then Hagrid said abruptly, “In the same boat, you an’ me, aren’ we, Harry? ”

 

“Er —” said Harry.

“Yeah... I’ve said it before.... Both outsiders, like, ” said Hagrid, nodding wisely. “An’ both orphans. Yeah... both orphans.”

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He took a great swig from his tankard.

“Makes a diff’rence, havin’ a decent family, ” he said. “Me dad was decent. An’ your mum an’ dad were decent. If they’d lived, life woulda bin diff’rent, eh? ”

 

“Yeah... I s’pose, ” said Harry cautiously. Hagrid seemed to be in a very strange mood.

 

“Family, ” said Hagrid gloomily. “Whatever yeh say, blood’s im- portant....”

 

And he wiped a trickle of it out of his eye.

“Hagrid, ” said Harry, unable to stop himself, “where are you get- ting all these injuries? ”

“Eh? ” said Hagrid, looking startled. “Wha’ injuries? ” “All those! ” said Harry, pointing at Hagrid’s face. “Oh... tha’s jus’ normal bumps an’ bruises, Harry, ” said Hagrid dismissively. “I got a rough job.”

 

He drained his tankard, set it back upon the table, and got to his feet.

 

“I’ll be seein’ yeh, Harry.... Take care now....” And he lumbered out of the pub looking wretched and then disap- peared into the torrential rain. Harry watched him go, feeling miser- able. Hagrid was unhappy and he was hiding something, but he seemed determined not to accept help. What was going on? But be- fore Harry could think about the matter any further, he heard a voice calling his name.

“Harry! Harry, over here! ”

 

Hermione was waving at him from the other side of the room. He got up and made his way toward her through the crowded pub. He was still a few tables away when he realized that Hermione was not alone; she was sitting at a table with the unlikeliest pair of drinking mates he could ever have imagined: Luna Lovegood and none other

than Rita Skeeter, ex-journalist on the     Daily Prophet and one of

 

Hermione’s least favorite people in the world.

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“You’re early! ” said Hermione, moving along to give him room to sit down. “I thought you were with Cho, I wasn’t expecting you for another hour at least! ”

“Cho? ” said Rita at once, twisting around in her seat to stare avidly

 

at Harry. “A girl? ”

She snatched up her crocodile-skin handbag and groped within it.

 

“It’s none of your business if Harry’s been with a hundred girls, ”

Hermione told Rita coolly. “So you can put that away right now.” Rita had been on the point of withdrawing an acid-green quill from her bag. Looking as though she had been forced to swallow Stinksap, she snapped her bag shut again.

“What are you up to? ” Harry asked, sitting down and staring from Rita to Luna to Hermione.

 

“Little Miss Perfect was just about to tell me when you arrived, ” said Rita, taking a large slurp of her drink. “I suppose I’m allowed to

 

talk to him, am I? ” she shot at Hermione.

“Yes, I suppose you are, ” said Hermione coldly. Unemployment did not suit Rita. The hair that had once been set in elaborate curls now hung lank and unkempt around her face. The scarlet paint on her two-inch talons was chipped and there were a cou- ple of false jewels missing from her winged glasses. She took another great gulp of her drink and said out of the corner of her mouth, “Pretty girl, is she, Harry? ”

 

“One more word about Harry’s love life and the deal’s off and that’s a promise, ” said Hermione irritably.

 

“What deal? ” said Rita, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. “You haven’t mentioned a deal yet, Miss Prissy, you just told me to turn up. Oh, one of these days...” She took a deep shuddering breath. “Yes, yes, one of these days you’ll write more horrible stories about Harry and me, ” said Hermione indifferently. “Find someone who cares, why don’t you? ”

 

“They’ve run plenty of horrible stories about Harry this year

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without my help, ” said Rita, shooting a sideways look at him over the top of her glass and adding in a rough whisper, “How has that made you feel, Harry? Betrayed? Distraught? Misunderstood? ”

“He feels angry, of course, ” said Hermione in a hard, clear voice. “Because he’s told the Minister of Magic the truth and the Minister’s too much of an idiot to believe him.”

 

“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’s been telling everybody about You-Know-Who returning and you being the sole witness —? ”

“I wasn’t the sole witness, ” snarled Harry. “There were a dozen-odd Death Eaters there as well. Want their names? ”

“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 subheading:

 

‘ Harry Potter Names Death Eaters Still Among Us.’ And then, beneath a

nice big photograph of you: ‘ Disturbed teenage survivor of You-Know-

 

Who’s attack, Harry Potter, 15, caused outrage yesterday by accusing re- spectable and prominent members of the Wizarding community of being

Death Eaters....’”

 

The Quick-Quotes Quill was actually in her hand and halfway to her mouth when the rapturous expression died out of her face. “But of course, ” she said, lowering the quill and looking daggers at Hermione, “Little Miss Perfect wouldn’t want that story out there, would she? ”

“As a matter of fact, ” said Hermione sweetly, “that’s exactly what

 

Little Miss Perfect does want.”

Rita stared at her. So did Harry. Luna, on the other hand, sang, “Weasley Is Our King” dreamily under her breath and stirred her drink with a cocktail onion on a stick.

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“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 as 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 that she had slopped half her glass of firewhisky down herself.

Rita blotted the front of her grubby raincoat, still staring at

 

Hermione. Then she said baldly, “The Prophet wouldn’t print it. In

case you haven’t noticed, nobody believes his cock-and-bull story. Everyone thinks he’s delusional. Now, if you let me write the story from that angle —”

“We don’t need another story about how Harry’s lost his marbles! ” said Hermione angrily. “We’ve had plenty of those already, thank you! I want him given the opportunity to tell the truth! ”

 

“There’s no market for a story like that, ” said Rita coldly.

“You mean the Prophet won’t print it because Fudge won’t let

 

them, ” said Hermione irritably.

Rita gave Hermione a long, hard look. Then, leaning forward across the table toward 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.”

 

“So the Daily Prophet exists to tell people what they want to hear,

does it? ” said Hermione scathingly.

 

Rita sat up straight again, her eyebrows raised, and drained her glass of firewhisky.

 

“The Prophet exists to sell itself, you silly girl, ” she said coldly.

? 567‘

 CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

 

 

 

“My dad thinks it’s an awful paper, ” said Luna, chipping into the conversation unexpectedly. Sucking on her cocktail onion, she gazed at Rita with her enormous, protuberant, slightly mad eyes. “He pub- lishes important stories that he thinks the public needs to know. He doesn’t care about making money.”

Rita looked disparagingly at Luna.

 

“I’m guessing your father runs some stupid little village news- letter? ” she said. “‘Twenty-five Ways to Mingle with Muggles’ and the dates of the next Bring-and-Fly Sale? ”

“No, ” said Luna, dipping her onion back into her gillywater, “he’s

 

the editor of The Quibbler.”

Rita snorted so loudly that people at a nearby table looked around in alarm.

 

“‘Important stories he thinks the public needs to know’? ” she said witheringly. “I could manure my garden with the contents of that rag.” “Well, this is your chance to raise the tone of it a bit, isn’t it? ” said Hermione pleasantly. “Luna says her father’s quite happy to take Harry’s interview. That’s who’ll be publishing it.”

Rita stared at them both for a moment and then let out a great whoop of laughter.

“ The Quibbler! ” she said, cackling. “You think people will take him

 

seriously if he’s published in The Quibbler? ”

“Some people won’t, ” said Hermione in a level voice. “But the

 

Daily Prophet’s version of the Azkaban breakout had some gaping

holes in it. I think a lot of people will be wondering whether there isn’t a better explanation of what happened, and if there’s an alternative story available, even if it is published in a” — she glanced sideways at

 

Luna, “in a — well, an unusual magazine — I think they might be

rather keen to read it.”

 

Rita did not say anything for a while, but eyed Hermione shrewdly, her head a little to one side.

? 568‘

 THE BEETLE AT BAY

 

 

 

“All right, let’s say for a moment I’ll do it, ” she said abruptly. “What kind of fee am I going to get? ”

 

“I don’t think Daddy exactly pays people to write for the maga- zine, ” said Luna dreamily. “They do it because it’s an honor, and, of course, to see their names in print.”

Rita Skeeter looked as though the taste of Stinksap was strong in her mouth again as she rounded on Hermione. “I’m supposed to do

this for free? ”

 

“Well, yes, ” said Hermione calmly, taking a sip of her drink. “Other- wise, as you very well know, I will inform the authorities that you are

 

an unregistered Animagus. Of course, the   Prophet might give you

rather a lot for an insider’s account of life in Azkaban....”

Rita looked as though she would have liked nothing better than to seize the paper umbrella sticking out of Hermione’s drink and thrust it up her nose.

 

“I don’t suppose I’ve got any choice, have I? ” said Rita, her voice shaking slightly. She opened her crocodile bag once more, withdrew a piece of parchment, and raised her Quick-Quotes Quill.

“Daddy will be pleased, ” said Luna brightly. A muscle twitched in Rita’s jaw.

“Okay, Harry? ” said Hermione, turning to him. “Ready to tell the public the truth? ”

“I suppose, ” said Harry, watching Rita balancing the Quick- Quotes Quill at the ready on the parchment between them.

“Fire away, then, Rita, ” said Hermione serenely, fishing a cherry out of the bottom of her glass.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - S I X

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SEEN AND UNFORESEEN

 

 

 

 

 

una said vaguely that she did not know how soon Rita’s interview

L

with Harry would appear in The Quibbler, that her father was ex-

 

pecting a lovely long article on recent sightings of Crumple-Horned Snorkacks. “And, of course, that’ll be a very important story, so Harry’s might have to wait for the following issue, ” said Luna.

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 in- sane, not least because his story would be appearing alongside utter rubbish about Crumple-Horned Snorkacks. But the breakout of Bel- latrix Lestrange and her fellow Death Eaters had given Harry a burn- ing desire to do something, whether it worked or not....

 

“Can’t wait to see what Umbridge thinks of you going public, ” said Dean, sounding awestruck at dinner on Monday night. Seamus was 

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shoveling down large amounts of chicken-and-ham pie on Dean’s other side, but Harry knew he was listening.

 

“It’s the right thing to do, Harry, ” said Neville, who was sitting op- posite him. He was rather pale, but went on in a low voice, “It must have been... tough... talking about it.... Was it? ”

“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....”

Neville left his sentence hanging and returned to his baked potato. Seamus looked up, but when he caught Harry’s eye he looked quickly back at his plate again. After a while Dean, Seamus, and Neville de- parted for the common room, leaving Harry and Hermione at the table waiting for Ron, who had not yet had dinner because of Quid- ditch practice.

 

Cho Chang walked into the hall with her friend Marietta. Harry’s stomach gave an unpleasant lurch, but she did not look over at the Gryffindor table and sat down with her back to him.

“Oh, I forgot to ask you, ” said Hermione brightly, glancing over at the Ravenclaw table, “what happened on your date with Cho? How come you were back so early? ”

 

“Er... well, it was...” said Harry, pulling a dish of rhubarb crumble toward him and helping himself to seconds, “a complete fi- asco, now you mention it.”

And he told her what had happened in Madam Puddifoot’s Tea Shop.

“... so then, ” he finished several minutes later, as the final bit of crumble disappeared, “she jumps up, right, and says ‘I’ll see you around, Harry, ’ and runs out of the place! ” He put down his spoon and looked at Hermione. “I mean, what was all that about? What was going on? ”

? 571‘

 CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

 

 

 

Hermione glanced over at the back of Cho’s head and sighed. “Oh, Harry, ” she said sadly. “Well, I’m sorry, but you were a bit tactless.”

 

“ Me, tactless? ” said Harry, outraged. “One minute we were getting

on fine, next minute she was telling me that Roger Davies asked her out, and how she used to go and snog Cedric in that stupid tea shop — how was I supposed to feel about that? ”

 

“Well, you see, ” said Hermione, with the patient air of one ex- plaining that one plus one equals two to an overemotional toddler, “you shouldn’t have told her that you wanted to meet me halfway through your date.”

 

“But, but, ” spluttered Harry, “but — you told me to meet you at twelve and to bring her along, how was I supposed to do that without telling her —? ”

 

“You should have told her differently” said Hermione, still with that maddeningly patient air. “You should have said it was really an-

 

noying, but I’d made you promise to come along to the Three Broom-

sticks, and you really didn’t want to go, you’d much rather spend the whole day with her, but unfortunately you thought you really ought to meet me and would she please, please come along with you, and hopefully you’d be able to get away more quickly? And it might have been a good idea to mention how ugly you think I am too, ” Hermi- one added as an afterthought.

“But I don’t think you’re ugly, ” said Harry, bemused. Hermione laughed.

“Harry, you’re worse than Ron.... Well, no, you’re not, ” she sighed, as Ron himself came stumping into the Hall splattered with mud and looking grumpy. “Look — you upset Cho when you said you were going to meet me, so she tried to make you jealous. It was her way of trying to find out how much you liked her.”

 

“Is that what she was doing? ” said Harry as Ron dropped onto the bench opposite them and pulled every dish within reach toward him-

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self. “Well, wouldn’t it have been easier if she’d just asked me whether I liked her better than you? ”

 

“Girls don’t often ask questions like that, ” said Hermione. “Well, they should! ” said Harry forcefully. “Then I could’ve just told her I fancy her, and she wouldn’t have had to get herself all worked up again about Cedric dying! ”

 

“I’m not saying what she did was sensible, ” said Hermione, as Ginny joined them, just as muddy as Ron and looking equally dis- gruntled. “I’m just trying to make you see how she was feeling at the time.”

 

“You should write a book, ” Ron told Hermione as he cut up his potatoes, “translating mad things girls do so boys can understand them.”

 

“Yeah, ” said Harry fervently, looking over at the Ravenclaw table. Cho had just got up; still not looking at him, she left the Great Hall. Feeling rather depressed, he looked back at Ron and Ginny. “So, how was Quidditch practice? ”

 

“It was a nightmare, ” said Ron in a surly voice.

“Oh come on, ” said Hermione, looking at Ginny, “I’m sure it wasn’t that —”

“Yes, it was, ” said Ginny. “It was appalling. Angelina was nearly in tears by the end of it.”

Ron and Ginny went off for baths after dinner; Harry and Her- mione returned to the busy Gryffindor common room and their usual pile of homework. Harry had been struggling with a new star chart for Astronomy for half an hour when Fred and George turned up.

“Ron and Ginny not here? ” asked Fred, looking around as he pulled up a chair and, when Harry shook his head, he said, “Good. We were watching their practice. They’re going to be slaughtered. They’re complete rubbish without us.”

“Come on, Ginny’s not bad, ” said George fairly, sitting down next 

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 CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

 

 

 

to Fred. “Actually, I dunno how she got so good, seeing how we never let her play with us....”

 

“She’s been breaking into your broom shed in the garden since the age of six and taking each of your brooms out in turn when you weren’t looking, ” said Hermione from behind her tottering pile of An- cient Rune books.

 

“Oh, ” said George, looking mildly impressed. “Well — that’d ex- plain it.”

 

“Has Ron saved a goal yet? ” asked Hermione, peering over the top

of Magical Hieroglyphs and Logograms.

 

“Well, he can do it if he doesn’t think anyone’s watching him, ” said Fred, rolling his eyes. “So all we have to do is ask the crowd to turn their backs and talk among themselves every time the Quaffle goes up his end on Saturday.”

He got up again and moved restlessly to the window, staring out across the dark grounds.

“You know, Quidditch was about the only thing in this place worth staying for.”

Hermione cast him a stern look.

 

“You’ve got exams coming! ”

“Told you already, we’re not fussed about N.E.W.T.s, ” said Fred. “The Snackboxes are ready to roll, we found out how to get rid of those boils, just a couple of drops of murtlap essence sorts them, Lee put us onto it....”

George yawned widely and looked out disconsolately at the cloudy night sky.

“I dunno if I even want to watch this match. If Zacharias Smith beats us I might have to kill myself.”

“Kill him, more like, ” said Fred firmly.

 

“That’s the trouble with Quidditch, ” said Hermione absentmind- edly, once again bent over her Rune translation, “it creates all this bad feeling and tension between the Houses.”

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She looked up to find her copy of Spellman’s Syllabary and caught

Fred, George, and Harry looking at her with expressions of mingled disgust and incredulity on their faces.

“Well, it does! ” she said impatiently. “It’s only a game, isn’t it? ” “Hermione, ” said Harry, shaking his head, “you’re good on feelings and stuff, but you just don’t understand about Quidditch.” “Maybe not, ” she said darkly, returning to her translation again, “but at least my happiness doesn’t depend on Ron’s goalkeeping ability.” And though Harry would rather have jumped off the Astronomy Tower than admit it to her, by the time he had watched the game the following Saturday he would have given any number of Galleons not to care about Quidditch either.

The very best thing you could say about the match was that it was short; the Gryffindor spectators had to endure only twenty-two min- utes of agony. It was hard to say what the worst thing was: Harry thought it was a close-run contest between Ron’s fourteenth failed save, Sloper missing the Bludger but hitting Angelina in the mouth with his bat, and Kirke shrieking and falling backward off his broom as Zacha- rias Smith zoomed at him carrying the Quaffle. The miracle was that Gryffindor only lost by ten points: Ginny managed to snatch the Snitch from right under Hufflepuff Seeker Summerby’s nose, so that the final score was two hundred and forty versus two hundred and thirty. “Good catch, ” Harry told Ginny back in the common room, where the atmosphere closely resembled that of a particularly dismal funeral. “I was lucky, ” she shrugged. “It wasn’t a very fast Snitch and Sum- merby’s got a cold, he sneezed and closed his eyes at exactly the wrong moment. Anyway, once you’re back on the team —”

 

“Ginny, I’ve got a lifelong ban.”

“You’re banned as long as Umbridge is in the school, ” Ginny cor- rected him. “There’s a difference. Anyway, once you’re back, I think I’ll try out for Chaser. Angelina and Alicia are both leaving next year and I prefer goal-scoring to Seeking anyway.”

? 575‘

 CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

 

 

 

Harry looked over at Ron, who was hunched in a corner, staring at his knees, a bottle of butterbeer clutched in his hand.

 

“Angelina still won’t let him resign, ” Ginny said, as though reading Harry’s mind. “She says she knows he’s got it in him.”

 

Harry liked Angelina for the faith she was showing in Ron, but at the same time thought it would really be kinder to let him leave the team. Ron had left the pitch to another booming chorus of “Weasley Is Our King” sung with great gusto by the Slytherins, who were now favorites to win the Quidditch Cup.

Fred and George wandered over.

 

“I haven’t got the heart to take the mickey out of him, even, ” said Fred, looking over at Ron’s crumpled figure. “Mind you... when he missed the fourteenth...”

 

He made wild motions with his arms as though doing an upright doggy-paddle.

 

“Well, I’ll save it for parties, eh? ”

Ron dragged himself up to bed shortly after this. Out of respect for his feelings, Harry waited a while before going up to the dormitory himself, so that Ron could pretend to be asleep if he wanted to. Sure enough, when Harry finally entered the room Ron was snoring a little too loudly to be entirely plausible.

 

Harry got into bed, thinking about the match. It had been im- mensely frustrating watching from the sidelines. He was quite im- pressed by Ginny’s performance but he felt that if he had been playing he could have caught the Snitch sooner.... There had been a mo- ment when it had been fluttering near Kirke’s ankle; if she hadn’t hes- itated, she might have been able to scrape a win for Gryffindor.... Umbridge had been sitting a few rows below Harry and Hermione. Once or twice she had turned squatly in her seat to look at him, her wide toad’s mouth stretched in what he thought had been a gloating smile. The memory of it made him feel hot with anger as he lay there 

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in the dark. After a few minutes, however, he remembered that he was supposed to be emptying his mind of all emotion before he slept, as Snape kept instructing him at the end of every Occlumency lesson. He tried for a moment or two, but the thought of Snape on top of memories of Umbridge merely increased his sense of grumbling re- sentment, and he found himself focusing instead on how much he loathed the pair of them. Slowly, Ron’s snores died away, replaced by the sound of deep, slow breathing. It took Harry much longer to get to sleep; his body was tired, but it took his brain a long time to close down.

 

He dreamed that Neville and Professor Sprout were waltzing around the Room of Requirement while Professor McGonagall played the bagpipes. He watched them happily for a while, then de- cided to go and find the other members of the D.A....

But when he left the room he found himself facing, not the tapes- try of Barnabas the Barmy, but a torch burning in its bracket on a stone wall. He turned his head slowly to the left. There, at the far end of the windowless passage, was a plain, black door.

He walked toward it with a sense of mounting excitement. He had the strangest feeling that this time he was going to get lucky at last, and find the way to open it.... He was feet from it and saw with a leap of excitement that there was a glowing strip of faint blue light down the right-hand side.... The door was ajar.... He stretched out his hand to push it wide and —

Ron gave a loud, rasping, genuine snore, and Harry awoke abruptly with his right hand stretched in front of him in the darkness, to open a door that was hundreds of miles away. He let it fall with a feeling of mingled disappointment and guilt. He knew he should not have seen the door, but at the same time, felt so consumed with curiosity about what was behind it that he could not help feeling annoyed with Ron.

.  .. If he could have saved his snore for just another minute...

? 577‘

 CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

 

 

 

 

?        ‘  ‘

They entered the Great Hall for breakfast at exactly the same moment as the post owls on Monday morning. Hermione was not the only

person eagerly awaiting her Daily Prophet: Nearly everyone was eager

 

for more news about the escaped Death Eaters, who, despite many re- ported sightings, had still not been caught. She gave the delivery owl a Knut and unfolded the newspaper eagerly while Harry helped him- self to orange juice; as he had only received one note during the entire year he was sure, when the first owl landed with a thud in front of him, that it had made a mistake.

 

“Who’re you after? ” he asked it, languidly removing his orange juice from underneath its beak and leaning forward to see the recipi- ent’s name and address:

otter

 

 

Harry P	all	l
Great H
ts Schoo

Hogwar

 

 

 

Frowning, he made to take the letter from the owl, but before he could do so, three, four, five more owls had fluttered down beside it and were jockeying for position, treading in the butter, knocking over the salt, and each attempting to give him their letters first.

 

“What’s going on? ” Ron asked in amazement, as the whole of Gryffindor table leaned forward to watch as another seven owls landed amongst the first ones, screeching, hooting, and flapping their wings.

 

“Harry! ” said Hermione breathlessly, plunging her hands into the feathery mass and pulling out a screech owl bearing a long, cylindrical package. “I think I know what this means — open this one first! ” Harry ripped off the brown packaging. Out rolled a tightly furled

copy of March’s edition of The Quibbler. He unrolled it to see his own

? 578‘