[Part 14] "Harry Potter and Order of Phoenix" by Rowling J.K.

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CHAPTER XXVII. THE CENTAUR AND THE SNEAK

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I’ll bet you wish you hadn’t given up Divination now, don’t you, Hermione?” asked Parvati, smirking.

It was breakfast time a few days after the sacking of Professor Trelawney, and Parvati was curling her eyelashes around her wand and examining the effect in the back of her spoon.

They were to have their first lesson with Firenze that morning.

“Not really,” said Hermione indifferently, who was reading the Daily Prophet.

“I’ve never really liked horses.”

She turned a page of the newspaper, scanning its columns.

“He’s not a horse, he’s a centaur!” said Lavender, sounding shocked.

“A gorgeous centaur . . .” sighed Parvati.

“Either way, he’s still got four legs,” said Hermione coolly.

“Anyway, I thought you two were all upset that Trelawney had gone?”

“We are!” Lavender assured her.

“We went up to her office to see her, we took her some daffodils — not the honking ones that Sprout’s got, nice ones . . .”

“How is she?” asked Harry.

“Not very good, poor thing,” said Lavender sympathetically.

“She was crying and saying she’d rather leave the castle forever than stay here if Umbridge is still here, and I don’t blame her.

Umbridge was horrible to her, wasn’t she?”

“I’ve got a feeling Umbridge has only just started being horrible,” said Hermione darkly.

“Impossible,” said Ron, who was tucking into a large plate of eggs and bacon.

“She can’t get any worse than she’s been already.”

“You mark my words, she’s going to want revenge on Dumbledore for appointing a new teacher without consulting her,” said Hermione, closing the newspaper.

“Especially another part-human.

You saw the look on her face when she saw Firenze . . .”

After breakfast Hermione departed for her Arithmancy class and Harry and Ron followed Parvati and Lavender into the entrance hall, heading for Divination.

“Aren’t we going up to North Tower?” asked Ron, looking puzzled, as Parvati bypassed the marble staircase.

Parvati looked scornfully over her shoulder at him.

“How d’you expect Firenze to climb that ladder?

We’re in classroom eleven now, it was on the notice board yesterday.”

Classroom eleven was situated in the ground-floor corridor leading off the entrance hall on the opposite side to the Great Hall.

Harry knew it to be one of those classrooms that were never used regularly, and that it therefore had the slightly neglected feeling of a cupboard or storeroom.

When he entered it right behind Ron, and found himself right in the middle of a forest clearing, he was therefore momentarily stunned.

“What the — ?”

The classroom floor had become springily mossy and trees were growing out of it; their leafy branches fanned across the ceiling and windows, so that the room was full of slanting shafts of soft, dappled, green light.

The students who had already arrived were sitting on the earthy floor with their backs resting against tree trunks or boulders, arms wrapped around their knees or folded tightly across their chests, looking rather nervous.

In the middle of the room, where there were no trees, stood Firenze.

“Harry Potter,” he said, holding out a hand when Harry entered.

“Er — hi,” said Harry, shaking hands with the centaur, who surveyed him unblinkingly through those astonishingly blue eyes but did not smile.

“Er — good to see you . . .”

“And you,” said the centaur, inclining his white-blond head.

“It was foretold that we would meet again.”

Harry noticed that there was the shadow of a hoof-shaped bruise on Firenze’s chest.

As he turned to join the rest of the class upon the floor, he saw that they were all looking at him with awe, apparently deeply impressed that he was on speaking terms with Firenze, whom they seemed to find intimidating.

When the door was closed and the last student had sat down upon a tree stump beside the wastepaper basket, Firenze gestured around the room.

“Professor Dumbledore has kindly arranged this classroom for us,” said Firenze, when everyone had settled down, “in imitation of my natural habitat.

I would have preferred to teach you in the Forbidden Forest, which was — until Monday — my home . . . but this is not possible.”

“Please — er — sir —” said Parvati breathlessly, raising her hand, “why not?

We’ve been in there with Hagrid, we’re not frightened!”

“It is not a question of your bravery,” said Firenze, “but of my position.

I can no longer return to the forest.

My herd has banished me.”

“Herd?” said Lavender in a confused voice, and Harry knew she was thinking of cows.

“What — oh!”

Comprehension dawned on her face.

“There are more of you?” she said, stunned.

“Did Hagrid breed you, like the thestrals?” asked Dean eagerly.

Firenze turned his head very slowly to face Dean, who seemed to realize at once that he had said something very offensive.

“I didn’t — I meant — sorry,” he finished in a hushed voice.

“Centaurs are not the servants or playthings of humans,” said Firenze quietly.

There was a pause, then Parvati raised her hand again.

“Please, sir . . . why have the other centaurs banished you?”

“Because I have agreed to work for Professor Dumbledore,” said Firenze.

“They see this as a betrayal of our kind.”

Harry remembered how, nearly four years ago, the centaur Bane had shouted at Firenze for allowing Harry to ride to safety upon his back, calling him a “common mule.”

He wondered whether it had been Bane who had kicked Firenze in the chest.

“Let us begin,” said Firenze.

He swished his long palomino tail, raised his hand toward the leafy canopy overhead then lowered it slowly, and as he did so, the light in the room dimmed, so that they now seemed to be sitting in a forest clearing by twilight, and stars emerged upon the ceiling.

There were oohs and gasps, and Ron said audibly, “Blimey!”

“Lie back upon the floor,” said Firenze in his calm voice, “and observe the heavens.

Here is written, for those who can see, the fortune of our races.”

Harry stretched out on his back and gazed upward at the ceiling.

A twinkling red star winked at him from overhead.

“I know that you have learned the names of the planets and their moons in Astronomy,” said Firenze’s calm voice, “and that you have mapped the stars’ progress through the heavens.

Centaurs have unraveled the mysteries of these movements over centuries.

Our findings teach us that the future may be glimpsed in the sky above us . . .”

“Professor Trelawney did Astrology with us!” said Parvati excitedly, raising her hand in front of her so that it stuck up in the air as she lay on her back.

“Mars causes accidents and burns and things like that, and when it makes an angle to Saturn, like now” — she drew a right angle in the air above her — “that means that people need to be extra careful when handling hot things —”

“That,” said Firenze calmly, “is human nonsense.”

Parvati’s hand fell limply to her side.

“Trivial hurts, tiny human accidents,” said Firenze, as his hooves thudded over the mossy floor.

“These are of no more significance than the scurryings of ants to the wide universe, and are unaffected by planetary movements.”

“Professor Trelawney —” began Parvati, in a hurt and indignant voice.

“— is a human,” said Firenze simply.

“And is therefore blinkered and fettered by the limitations of your kind.”

Harry turned his head very slightly to look at Parvati.

She looked very offended, as did several of the people surrounding her.

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“Sybill Trelawney may have Seen, I do not know,” continued Firenze, and Harry heard the swishing of his tail again as he walked up and down before them.

“But she wastes her time, in the main, on the self-flattering nonsense humans call fortune-telling.

I, however, am here to explain the wisdom of centaurs, which is impersonal and impartial.

We watch the skies for the great tides of evil or change that are sometimes marked there.

It may take ten years to be sure of what we are seeing.”

Firenze pointed to the red star directly above Harry.

“In the past decade, the indications have been that Wizard-kind is living through nothing more than a brief calm between two wars.

Mars, bringer of battle, shines brightly above us, suggesting that the fight must break out again soon.

How soon, centaurs may attempt to divine by the burning of certain herbs and leaves, by the observation of fume and flame . . .”

It was the most unusual lesson Harry had ever attended.

They did indeed burn sage and mallowsweet there on the classroom floor, and Firenze told them to look for certain shapes and symbols in the pungent fumes, but he seemed perfectly unconcerned that not one of them could see any of the signs he described, telling them that humans were hardly ever good at this, that it took centaurs years and years to become competent, and finished by telling them that it was foolish to put too much faith in such things anyway, because even centaurs sometimes read them wrongly.

He was nothing like any human teacher Harry had ever had.

His priority did not seem to be to teach them what he knew, but rather to impress upon them that nothing, not even centaurs’ knowledge, was foolproof.

“He’s not very definite on anything, is he?” said Ron in a low voice, as they put out their mallowsweet fire.

“I mean, I could do with a few more details about this war we’re about to have, couldn’t you?”

The bell rang right outside the classroom door and everyone jumped.

Harry had completely forgotten that they were still inside the castle, quite convinced that he was really in the forest.

The class filed out, looking slightly perplexed.

Harry and Ron were on the point of following them when Firenze called, “Harry Potter, a word, please.”

Harry turned.

The centaur advanced a little toward him.

Ron hesitated.

“You may stay,” Firenze told him.

“But close the door, please.”

Ron hastened to obey.

“Harry Potter, you are a friend of Hagrid’s, are you not?” said the centaur.

“Yes,” said Harry.

“Then give him a warning from me. His attempt is not working. He would do better to abandon it.”

“His attempt is not working?” Harry repeated blankly.

“And he would do better to abandon it,” said Firenze, nodding.

“I would warn Hagrid myself, but I am banished — it would be unwise for me to go too near the forest now — Hagrid has troubles enough, without a centaurs’ battle.”

“But — what’s Hagrid attempting to do?” said Harry nervously.

Firenze looked at Harry impassively.

“Hagrid has recently rendered me a great service,” said Firenze, “and he has long since earned my respect for the care he shows all living creatures. I shall not betray his secret. But he must be brought to his senses. The attempt is not working. Tell him, Harry Potter. Good day to you.”

The happiness Harry had felt in the aftermath of The Quibbler interview had long since evaporated.

As a dull March blurred into a squally April, his life seemed to have become one long series of worries and problems again.

Umbridge had continued attending all Care of Magical Creatures lessons, so it had been very difficult to deliver Firenze’s warning to Hagrid.

At last Harry had managed it by pretending he had lost his copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and doubling back after class one day.

When he passed on Firenze’s message, Hagrid gazed at him for a moment through his puffy, blackened eyes, apparently taken aback.

Then he seemed to pull himself together.

“Nice bloke, Firenze,” he said gruffly, “but he don’ know what he’s talkin’ abou’ on this. The attemp’s comin’ on fine.”

“Hagrid, what’re you up to?” asked Harry seriously.

“Because you’ve got to be careful, Umbridge has already sacked Trelawney and if you ask me, she’s on a roll. If you’re doing anything you shouldn’t be —”

“There’s things more important’ than keepin’ a job,” said Hagrid, though his hands shook slightly as he said this and a basin full of knarl droppings crashed to the floor.

“Don’ worry abou’ me, Harry, jus’ get along now, there’s a good lad...”

Harry had no choice but to leave Hagrid mopping up the dung all over his floor, but he felt thoroughly dispirited as he trudged back up to the castle.

Meanwhile, as the teachers and Hermione persisted in reminding them, the O.W.L.s were drawing ever nearer.

All the fifth years were suffering from stress to some degree, but Hannah Abbott became the first to receive a Calming Draught from Madam Pomfrey after she burst into tears during Herbology and sobbed that she was too stupid to take exams and wanted to leave school now.

If it had not been for the D.A. lessons, Harry thought he would have been extremely unhappy.

He sometimes felt that he was living for the hours he spent in the Room of Requirement, working hard but thoroughly enjoying himself at the same time, swelling with pride as he looked around at his fellow D.A. members and saw how far they had come.

Indeed, Harry sometimes wondered how Umbridge was going to react when all the members of the D.A. received “Outstanding” in their Defense Against the Dark Arts O.W.L.s.

They had finally started work on Patronuses, which everybody had been very keen to practice.

Though as Harry kept reminding them, producing a Patronus in the middle of a brightly lit classroom when they were not under threat was very different to producing it when confronted by something like a dementor.

“Oh, don’t be such a killjoy,” said Cho brightly, watching her silvery swan-shaped Patronus soar around the Room of Requirement during their last lesson before Easter.

“They’re so pretty!”

“They’re not supposed to be pretty, they’re supposed to protect you,” said Harry patiently.

“What we really need is a boggart or something; that’s how I learned, I had to conjure a Patronus while the boggart was pretending to be a dementor —”

“But that would be really scary!” said Lavender, who was shooting puffs of silver vapor out of the end of her wand.

“And I still — can’t — do it!” she added angrily.

Neville was having trouble too.

His face was screwed up in concentration, but only feeble wisps of silver smoke issued from his wand-tip.

“You’ve got to think of something happy,” Harry reminded him.

“I’m trying,” said Neville miserably, who was trying so hard his round face was actually shining with sweat.

“Harry, I think I’m doing it!” yelled Seamus, who had been brought along to his first ever D.A. meeting by Dean.

“Look — ah — it’s gone. . . . But it was definitely something hairy, Harry!”

Hermione’s Patronus, a shining silver otter, was gamboling around her.

“They are sort of nice, aren’t they?” she said, looking at it fondly.

The door of the Room of Requirement opened and then closed again.

Harry looked around to see who had entered, but there did not seem to be anybody there.

It was a few moments before he realized that the people close to the door had fallen silent.

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Next thing he knew, something was tugging at his robes somewhere near the knee.

He looked down and saw, to his very great astonishment, Dobby the house-elf peering up at him from beneath his usual eight hats.

“Hi, Dobby!” he said.

“What are you — what’s wrong?”

For the elf’s eyes were wide with terror and he was shaking.

The members of the D.A. closest to Harry had fallen silent now.

Everybody in the room was watching Dobby.

The few Patronuses people had managed to conjure faded away into silver mist, leaving the room looking much darker than before.

“Harry Potter, sir...” squeaked the elf, trembling from head to foot.

“Harry Potter, sir... Dobby has come to warn you... but the house-elves have been warned not to tell...”

He ran headfirst at the wall.

Harry, who had some experience of Dobby’s habits of self-punishment, made to seize him.

But Dobby merely bounced off the stone, cushioned by his eight hats.

Hermione and a few of the other girls let out squeaks of fear and sympathy.

“What’s happened, Dobby?” Harry asked, grabbing the elf’s tiny arm and holding him away from anything with which he might seek to hurt himself.

“Harry Potter... she... she...”

Dobby hit himself hard on the nose with his free fist.

Harry seized that too.

“Who’s ‘she,’ Dobby?”

But he thought he knew.

Surely only one “she” could induce such fear in Dobby?

The elf looked up at him, slightly cross-eyed, and mouthed wordlessly.

“Umbridge?” asked Harry, horrified.

Dobby nodded, then tried to bang his head off Harry’s knees.

Harry held him at bay.

“What about her? Dobby — she hasn’t found out about this — about us — about the D.A.?”

He read the answer in the elf’s stricken face.

His hands held fast by Harry, the elf tried to kick himself and sank to his knees.

“Is she coming?” Harry asked quietly.

Dobby let out a howl.

“Yes, Harry Potter, yes!”

Harry straightened up and looked around at the motionless, terrified people gazing at the thrashing elf.

“WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?” Harry bellowed.

“RUN!”

They all pelted toward the exit at once, forming a scrum at the door.

Then people burst through.

Harry could hear them sprinting along the corridors and hoped they had the sense not to try and make it all the way to their dormitories.

It was only ten to nine, if they just took refuge in the library or the Owlery, which were both nearer —

“Harry, come on!” shrieked Hermione from the center of the knot of people now fighting to get out.

He scooped up Dobby, who was still attempting to do himself serious injury, and ran with the elf in his arms to join the back of the queue.

“Dobby — this is an order — get back down to the kitchen with the other elves, and if she asks you whether you warned me, lie and say no!” said Harry.

“And I forbid you to hurt yourself!” he added, dropping the elf as he made it over the threshold at last and slamming the door behind him.

“Thank you, Harry Potter!” squeaked Dobby, and he streaked off.

Harry glanced left and right.

The others were all moving so fast that he caught only glimpses of flying heels at either end of the corridor before they vanished.

He started to run right.

There was a boys’ bathroom up ahead, he could pretend he’d been in there all the time if he could just reach it —

“AAARGH!”

Something caught him around the ankles and he fell spectacularly, skidding along on his front for six feet before coming to a halt.

Someone behind him was laughing.

He rolled over onto his back and saw Malfoy concealed in a niche beneath an ugly dragon-shaped vase.

“Trip Jinx, Potter!” he said.

“Hey, Professor — PROFESSOR! I’ve got one!”

Umbridge came bustling around the far corner, breathless but wearing a delighted smile.

“It’s him!” she said jubilantly at the sight of Harry on the floor.

“Excellent, Draco, excellent, oh, very good — fifty points to Slytherin! I’ll take him from here. . . . Stand up, Potter!”

Harry got to his feet, glaring at the pair of them.

He had never seen Umbridge looking so happy.

She seized his arm in a vicelike grip and turned, beaming broadly, to Malfoy.

“You hop along and see if you can round up any more of them, Draco,” she said.

“Tell the others to look in the library — anybody out of breath — check the bathrooms, Miss Parkinson can do the girls’ ones — off you go — and you,” she added in her softest, most dangerous voice, as Malfoy walked away.

“You can come with me to the headmaster’s office, Potter.”

They were at the stone gargoyle within minutes.

Harry wondered how many of the others had been caught.

He thought of Ron — Mrs. Weasley would kill him — and of how Hermione would feel if she was expelled before she could take her O.W.L.s.

And it had been Seamus’s very first meeting . . . and Neville had been getting so good. . . .

“Fizzing Whizbee,” sang Umbridge, and the stone gargoyle jumped aside, the wall behind split open, and they ascended the moving stone staircase.

They reached the polished door with the griffin knocker, but Umbridge did not bother to knock, she strode straight inside, still holding tight to Harry.

The office was full of people.

Dumbledore was sitting behind his desk, his expression serene, the tips of his long fingers together.

Professor McGonagall stood rigidly beside him, her face extremely tense.

Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic, was rocking backward and forward on his toes beside the fire, apparently immensely pleased with the situation.

Kingsley Shacklebolt and a tough-looking wizard Harry did not recognize with very short, wiry hair were positioned on either side of the door like guards.

The freckled, bespectacled form of Percy Weasley hovered excitedly beside the wall, a quill and a heavy scroll of parchment in his hands, apparently poised to take notes.

The portraits of old headmasters and mistresses were not shamming sleep tonight.

All of them were watching what was happening below, alert and serious.

As Harry entered, a few flitted into neighboring frames and whispered urgently into their neighbors’ ears.

Harry pulled himself free of Umbridge’s grasp as the door swung shut behind them.

Cornelius Fudge was glaring at him with a kind of vicious satisfaction upon his face.

“Well,” he said.

“Well, well, well . . .”

Harry replied with the dirtiest look he could muster.

His heart drummed madly inside him, but his brain was oddly cool and clear.

“He was heading back to Gryffindor Tower,” said Umbridge.

There was an indecent excitement in her voice, the same callous pleasure Harry had heard as she watched Professor Trelawney dissolving with misery in the entrance hall.

“The Malfoy boy cornered him.”

“Did he, did he?” said Fudge appreciatively.

“I must remember to tell Lucius. Well, Potter . . . I expect you know why you are here?”

Harry fully intended to respond with a defiant “yes.”

His mouth had opened and the word was half-formed when he caught sight of Dumbledore’s face.

Dumbledore was not looking directly at Harry; his eyes were fixed upon a point just over his shoulder, but as Harry stared at him, he shook his head a fraction of an inch to each side.

Harry changed direction mid-word.

“Yeh — no.”

“I beg your pardon?” said Fudge.

“No,” said Harry, firmly.

“You don’t know why you are here?”

“No, I don’t,” said Harry.

Fudge looked incredulously from Harry to Professor Umbridge.

Harry took advantage of his momentary inattention to steal another quick look at Dumbledore, who gave the carpet the tiniest of nods and the shadow of a wink.

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“So you have no idea,” said Fudge in a voice positively sagging with sarcasm, “why Professor Umbridge has brought you to this office?”

“You are not aware that you have broken any school rules?”

“School rules?” said Harry.

“No.”

“Or Ministry decrees?” amended Fudge angrily.

“Not that I’m aware of,” said Harry blandly.

His heart was still hammering very fast.

It was almost worth telling these lies to watch Fudge’s blood pressure rising, but he could not see how on earth he would get away with them.

If somebody had tipped off Umbridge about the D.A. then he, the leader, might as well be packing his trunk right now.

“So it’s news to you, is it,” said Fudge, his voice now thick with anger, “that an illegal student organization has been discovered within this school?”

“Yes, it is,” said Harry, hoisting an unconvincing look of innocent surprise onto his face.

“I think, Minister,” said Umbridge silkily from beside him, “we might make better progress if I fetch our informant.”

“Yes, yes, do,” said Fudge, nodding, and he glanced maliciously at Dumbledore as Umbridge left the room.

“There’s nothing like a good witness, is there, Dumbledore?”

“Nothing at all, Cornelius,” said Dumbledore gravely, inclining his head.

There was a wait of several minutes, in which nobody looked at each other.

Then Harry heard the door open behind him.

Umbridge moved past him into the room, gripping by the shoulder Cho’s curly-haired friend Marietta, who was hiding her face in her hands.

“Don’t be scared, dear, don’t be frightened,” said Professor Umbridge softly, patting her on the back.

“It’s quite all right, now. You have done the right thing.”

“The Minister is very pleased with you. He’ll be telling your mother what a good girl you’ve been. Marietta’s mother, Minister,” she added, looking up at Fudge, “is Madam Edgecombe from the Department of Magical Transportation. Floo Network office — she’s been helping us police the Hogwarts fires, you know.”

“Jolly good, jolly good!” said Fudge heartily.

“Like mother, like daughter, eh? Well, come on, now, dear, look up, don’t be shy, let’s hear what you’ve got to — galloping gargoyles!”

As Marietta raised her head, Fudge leapt backward in shock, nearly landing himself in the fire.

He cursed and stamped on the hem of his cloak, which had started to smoke, and Marietta gave a wail and pulled the neck of her robes right up to her eyes.

But not before the whole room had seen that her face was horribly disfigured by a series of close-set purple pustules that had spread across her nose and cheeks to form the word “SNEAK.”

“Never mind the spots now, dear,” said Umbridge impatiently.

“Just take your robes away from your mouth and tell the Minister —”

But Marietta gave another muffled wail and shook her head frantically.

“Oh, very well, you silly girl, I’ll tell him,” snapped Umbridge.

She hitched her sickly smile back onto her face and said, “Well, Minister, Miss Edgecombe here came to my office shortly after dinner this evening and told me she had something she wanted to tell me.”

“She said that if I proceeded to a secret room on the seventh floor, sometimes known as the Room of Requirement, I would find out something to my advantage.”

“I questioned her a little further and she admitted that there was to be some kind of meeting there.”

“Unfortunately at that point this hex,” she waved impatiently at Marietta’s concealed face, “came into operation and upon catching sight of her face in my mirror the girl became too distressed to tell me any more.”

“Well, now,” said Fudge, fixing Marietta with what he evidently imagined was a kind and fatherly look.

“It is very brave of you, my dear, coming to tell Professor Umbridge, you did exactly the right thing.”

“Now, will you tell me what happened at this meeting?”

“What was its purpose? Who was there?”

But Marietta would not speak.

She merely shook her head again, her eyes wide and fearful.

“Haven’t we got a counterjinx for this?” Fudge asked Umbridge impatiently, gesturing at Marietta’s face.

“So she can speak freely?”

“I have not yet managed to find one,” Umbridge admitted grudgingly, and Harry felt a surge of pride in Hermione’s jinxing ability.

“But it doesn’t matter if she won’t speak, I can take up the story from here.”

“You will remember, Minister, that I sent you a report back in October that Potter had met a number of fellow students in the Hog’s Head in Hogsmeade —”

“And what is your evidence for that?” cut in Professor McGonagall.

“I have testimony from Willy Widdershins, Minerva, who happened to be in the bar at the time.”

“He was heavily bandaged, it is true, but his hearing was quite unimpaired,” said Umbridge smugly.

“He heard every word Potter said and hastened straight to the school to report to me —”

“Oh, so that’s why he wasn’t prosecuted for setting up all those regurgitating toilets!” said Professor McGonagall, raising her eyebrows.

“What an interesting insight into our justice system!”

“Blatant corruption!” roared the portrait of the corpulent, red-nosed wizard on the wall behind Dumbledore’s desk.

“The Ministry did not cut deals with petty criminals in my day, no sir, they did not!”

“Thank you, Fortescue, that will do,” said Dumbledore softly.

“The purpose of Potter’s meeting with these students,” continued Professor Umbridge, “was to persuade them to join an illegal society, whose aim was to learn spells and curses the Ministry has decided are inappropriate for school-age —”

“I think you’ll find you’re wrong there, Dolores,” said Dumbledore quietly, peering at her over the half-moon spectacles perched halfway down his crooked nose.

Harry stared at him.

He could not see how Dumbledore was going to talk him out of this one; if Willy Widdershins had indeed heard every word he said in the Hog’s Head there was simply no escaping it.

“Oho!” said Fudge, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet again.

“Yes, do let’s hear the latest cock-and-bull story designed to pull Potter out of trouble! Go on, then, Dumbledore, go on — Willy Widdershins was lying, was he? Or was it Potter’s identical twin in the Hog’s Head that day? Or is there the usual simple explanation involving a reversal of time, a dead man coming back to life, and a couple of invisible dementors?”

Percy Weasley let out a hearty laugh.

“Oh, very good, Minister, very good!”

Harry could have kicked him.

Then he saw, to his astonishment, that Dumbledore was smiling gently too.

“Cornelius, I do not deny — and nor, I am sure, does Harry — that he was in the Hog’s Head that day, nor that he was trying to recruit students to a Defense Against the Dark Arts group. I am merely pointing out that Dolores is quite wrong to suggest that such a group was, at that time, illegal. If you remember, the Ministry decree banning all student societies was not put into effect until two days after Harry’s Hogsmeade meeting, so he was not breaking any rules in the Hog’s Head at all.”

Percy looked as though he had been struck in the face by something very heavy.

Fudge remained motionless in mid-bounce, his mouth hanging open.

Umbridge recovered first.

“That’s all very fine, Headmaster,” she said, smiling sweetly.

“But we are now nearly six months on from the introduction of Educational Decree Number Twenty-four. If the first meeting was not illegal, all those that have happened since most certainly are.”

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“Well,” said Dumbledore, surveying her with polite interest over the top of his interlocked fingers, “they certainly would be, if they had continued after the decree came into effect. Do you have any evidence that these meetings continued?”

As Dumbledore spoke, Harry heard a rustle behind him and rather thought Kingsley whispered something.

He could have sworn too that he felt something brush against his side, a gentle something like a draft or bird wings, but looking down he saw nothing there.

“Evidence?” repeated Umbridge with that horrible wide toadlike smile.

“Have you not been listening, Dumbledore? Why do you think Miss Edgecombe is here?”

“Oh, can she tell us about six months’ worth of meetings?” said Dumbledore, raising his eyebrows.

“I was under the impression that she was merely reporting a meeting tonight.”

“Miss Edgecombe,” said Umbridge at once, “tell us how long these meetings have been going on, dear. You can simply nod or shake your head, I’m sure that won’t make the spots worse. Have they been happening regularly over the last six months?”

Harry felt a horrible plummeting in his stomach.

This was it, they had hit a dead end of solid evidence that not even Dumbledore would be able to shift aside.

“Just nod or shake your head, dear,” Umbridge said coaxingly to Marietta.

“Come on, now, that won’t activate the jinx further . . .”

Everyone in the room was gazing at the top of Marietta’s face.

Only her eyes were visible between the pulled up robes and her curly fringe.

Perhaps it was a trick of the firelight, but her eyes looked oddly blank.

And then — to Harry’s utter amazement — Marietta shook her head.

Umbridge looked quickly at Fudge and then back at Marietta.

“I don’t think you understood the question, did you, dear? I’m asking whether you’ve been going to these meetings for the past six months? You have, haven’t you?”

Again, Marietta shook her head.

“What do you mean by shaking your head, dear?” said Umbridge in a testy voice.

“I would have thought her meaning was quite clear,” said Professor McGonagall harshly.

“There have been no secret meetings for the past six months. Is that correct, Miss Edgecombe?”

Marietta nodded.

“But there was a meeting tonight!” said Umbridge furiously.

“There was a meeting, Miss Edgecombe, you told me about it, in the Room of Requirement! And Potter was the leader, was he not, Potter organized it, Potter — why are you shaking your head, girl?”

“Well, usually when a person shakes their head,” said McGonagall coldly, “they mean ‘no.’ So unless Miss Edgecombe is using a form of sign language as yet unknown to humans —”

Professor Umbridge seized Marietta, pulled her around to face her, and began shaking her very hard.

A split second later Dumbledore was on his feet, his wand raised.

Kingsley started forward and Umbridge leapt back from Marietta, waving her hands in the air as though they had been burned.

“I cannot allow you to manhandle my students, Dolores,” said Dumbledore, and for the first time, he looked angry.

“You want to calm yourself, Madam Umbridge,” said Kingsley in his deep, slow voice.

“You don’t want to get yourself into trouble now.”

“No,” said Umbridge breathlessly, glancing up at the towering figure of Kingsley.

“I mean, yes — you’re right, Shacklebolt — I — I forgot myself.”

Marietta was standing exactly where Umbridge had released her.

She seemed neither perturbed by Umbridge’s sudden attack, nor relieved by her release.

She was still clutching her robe up to her oddly blank eyes, staring straight ahead of her.

A sudden suspicion connected to Kingsley’s whisper and the thing he had felt shoot past him sprang into Harry’s mind.

“Dolores,” said Fudge, with the air of trying to settle something once and for all, “the meeting tonight — the one we know definitely happened —”

“Yes,” said Umbridge, pulling herself together, “yes . . . well, Miss Edgecombe tipped me off and I proceeded at once to the seventh floor, accompanied by certain trustworthy students, so as to catch those in the meeting red-handed. It appears that they were forewarned of my arrival, however, because when we reached the seventh floor they were running in every direction. It does not matter, however. I have all their names here, Miss Parkinson ran into the Room of Requirement for me to see if they had left anything behind. . . . We needed evidence and the room provided . . .”

And to Harry’s horror, she withdrew from her pocket the list of names that had been pinned upon the Room of Requirement’s wall and handed it to Fudge.

“The moment I saw Potter’s name on the list, I knew what we were dealing with,” she said softly.

“Excellent,” said Fudge, a smile spreading across his face.

“Excellent, Dolores. And . . . by thunder . . .”

He looked up at Dumbledore, who was still standing beside Marietta, his wand held loosely in his hand.

“See what they’ve named themselves?” said Fudge quietly.

“Dumbledore’s Army.”

Dumbledore reached out and took the piece of parchment from Fudge.

He gazed at the heading scribbled by Hermione months before and for a moment seemed unable to speak.

Then he looked up, smiling.

“Well, the game is up,” he said simply.

“Would you like a written confession from me, Cornelius — or will a statement before these witnesses suffice?”

Harry saw McGonagall and Kingsley look at each other.

There was fear in both faces.

He did not understand what was going on, and neither, apparently, did Fudge.

“Statement?” said Fudge slowly.

“What — I don’t — ?”

“Dumbledore’s Army, Cornelius,” said Dumbledore, still smiling as he waved the list of names before Fudge’s face.

“Not Potter’s Army. Dumbledore’s Army.”

“But — but —”

Understanding blazed suddenly in Fudge’s face.

He took a horrified step backward, yelped, and jumped out of the fire again.

“You?” he whispered, stamping again on his smoldering cloak.

“That’s right,” said Dumbledore pleasantly.

“You organized this?”

“I did,” said Dumbledore.

“You recruited these students for — for your army?”

“Tonight was supposed to be the first meeting,” said Dumbledore, nodding.

“Merely to see whether they would be interested in joining me. I see now that it was a mistake to invite Miss Edgecombe, of course.”

Marietta nodded.

Fudge looked from her to Dumbledore, his chest swelling.

“Then you have been plotting against me!” he yelled.

“That’s right,” said Dumbledore cheerfully.

“NO!” shouted Harry.

Kingsley flashed a look of warning at him, McGonagall widened her eyes threateningly, but it had suddenly dawned upon Harry what Dumbledore was about to do, and he could not let it happen.

“No — Professor Dumbledore!”

“Be quiet, Harry, or I am afraid you will have to leave my office,” said Dumbledore calmly.

“Yes, shut up, Potter!” barked Fudge, who was still ogling Dumbledore with a kind of horrified delight.

“Well, well, well — I came here tonight expecting to expel Potter and instead —”

“Instead you get to arrest me,” said Dumbledore, smiling.

“It’s like losing a Knut and finding a Galleon, isn’t it?”

“Weasley!” cried Fudge, now positively quivering with delight.

“Weasley, have you written it all down, everything he’s said, his confession, have you got it?”

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“Yes, sir, I think so, sir!” said Percy eagerly, whose nose was splattered with ink from the speed of his note-taking.

“The bit about how he’s been trying to build up an army against the Ministry, how he’s been working to destabilize me?”

“Yes, sir, I’ve got it, yes!” said Percy, scanning his notes joyfully.

“Very well, then,” said Fudge, now radiant with glee. “Duplicate your notes, Weasley, and send a copy to the Daily Prophet at once. If we send a fast owl we should make the morning edition!”

Percy dashed from the room, slamming the door behind him, and Fudge turned back to Dumbledore.

“You will now be escorted back to the Ministry, where you will be formally charged and then sent to Azkaban to await trial!”

“Ah,” said Dumbledore gently, “yes. Yes, I thought we might hit that little snag.”

“Snag?” said Fudge, his voice still vibrating with joy. “I see no snag, Dumbledore!”

“Well,” said Dumbledore apologetically, “I’m afraid I do.”

“Oh really?”

“Well — it’s just that you seem to be laboring under the delusion that I am going to — what is the phrase? ‘Come quietly.’ I am afraid I am not going to come quietly at all, Cornelius. I have absolutely no intention of being sent to Azkaban. I could break out, of course — but what a waste of time, and frankly, I can think of a whole host of things I would rather be doing.”

Umbridge’s face was growing steadily redder, she looked as though she was being filled with boiling water.

Fudge stared at Dumbledore with a very silly expression on his face, as though he had just been stunned by a sudden blow and could not quite believe it had happened.

He made a small choking noise and then looked around at Kingsley and the man with short gray hair, who alone of everyone in the room had remained entirely silent so far.

The latter gave Fudge a reassuring nod and moved forward a little, away from the wall.

Harry saw his hand drift, almost casually, toward his pocket.

“Don’t be silly, Dawlish,” said Dumbledore kindly. “I’m sure you are an excellent Auror, I seem to remember that you achieved ‘Outstanding’ in all your N.E.W.T.s, but if you attempt to — er — ‘bring me in’ by force, I will have to hurt you.”

The man called Dawlish blinked, looking rather foolish.

He looked toward Fudge again, but this time seemed to be hoping for a clue as to what to do next.

“So,” sneered Fudge, recovering himself, “you intend to take on Dawlish, Shacklebolt, Dolores, and myself single-handed, do you, Dumbledore?”

“Merlin’s beard, no,” said Dumbledore, smiling. “Not unless you are foolish enough to force me to.”

“He will not be single-handed!” said Professor McGonagall loudly, plunging her hand inside her robes.

“Oh yes he will, Minerva!” said Dumbledore sharply. “Hogwarts needs you!”

“Enough of this rubbish!” said Fudge, pulling out his own wand. “Dawlish! Shacklebolt! Take him!”

A streak of silver light flashed around the room.

There was a bang like a gunshot, and the floor trembled.

A hand grabbed the scruff of Harry’s neck and forced him down on the floor as a second silver flash went off — several of the portraits yelled, Fawkes screeched, and a cloud of dust filled the air.

Coughing in the dust, Harry saw a dark figure fall to the ground with a crash in front of him.

There was a shriek and a thud and somebody cried, “No!”

Then the sound of breaking glass, frantically scuffling footsteps, a groan — and silence.

Harry struggled around to see who was half-strangling him and saw Professor McGonagall crouched beside him.

She had forced both him and Marietta out of harm’s way.

Dust was still floating gently down through the air onto them.

Panting slightly, Harry saw a very tall figure moving toward them.

“Are you all right?” said Dumbledore.

“Yes!” said Professor McGonagall, getting up and dragging Harry and Marietta with her.

The dust was clearing.

The wreckage of the office loomed into view: Dumbledore’s desk had been overturned, all of the spindly tables had been knocked to the floor, their silver instruments in pieces.

Fudge, Umbridge, Kingsley, and Dawlish lay motionless on the floor.

Fawkes the phoenix soared in wide circles above them, singing softly.

“Unfortunately, I had to hex Kingsley too, or it would have looked very suspicious,” said Dumbledore in a low voice.

“He was remarkably quick on the uptake, modifying Miss Edgecombe’s memory like that while everyone was looking the other way — thank him for me, won’t you, Minerva?”

“Now, they will all awake very soon and it will be best if they do not know that we had time to communicate — you must act as though no time has passed, as though they were merely knocked to the ground, they will not remember —”

“Where will you go, Dumbledore?” whispered Professor McGonagall.

“Grimmauld Place?”

“Oh no,” said Dumbledore with a grim smile. “I am not leaving to go into hiding. Fudge will soon wish he’d never dislodged me from Hogwarts, I promise you . . .”

“Professor Dumbledore . . .” Harry began.

He did not know what to say first: how sorry he was that he had started the D.A. in the first place and caused all this trouble, or how terrible he felt that Dumbledore was leaving to save him from expulsion?

But Dumbledore cut him off before he could say another word.

“Listen to me, Harry,” he said urgently, “you must study Occlumency as hard as you can, do you understand me?”

“Do everything Professor Snape tells you and practice it particularly every night before sleeping so that you can close your mind to bad dreams — you will understand why soon enough, but you must promise me —”

The man called Dawlish was stirring.

Dumbledore seized Harry’s wrist.

“Remember — close your mind —”

But as Dumbledore’s fingers closed over Harry’s skin, a pain shot through the scar on his forehead, and he felt again that terrible, snakelike longing to strike Dumbledore, to bite him, to hurt him —

“— you will understand,” whispered Dumbledore.

Fawkes circled the office and swooped low over him.

Dumbledore released Harry, raised his hand, and grasped the phoenix’s long golden tail.

There was a flash of fire and the pair of them had gone.

“Where is he?” yelled Fudge, pushing himself up from the ground.

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know!” shouted Kingsley, also leaping to his feet.

“Well, he can’t have Disapparated!” cried Umbridge. “You can’t inside this school —”

“The stairs!” cried Dawlish, and he flung himself upon the door, wrenched it open, and disappeared, followed closely by Kingsley and Umbridge.

Fudge hesitated, then got to his feet slowly, brushing dust from his front.

There was a long and painful silence.

“Well, Minerva,” said Fudge nastily, straightening his torn shirtsleeve, “I’m afraid this is the end of your friend Dumbledore.”

“You think so, do you?” said Professor McGonagall scornfully.

Fudge seemed not to hear her.

He was looking around at the wrecked office.

A few of the portraits hissed at him; one or two even made rude hand gestures.

“You’d better get those two off to bed,” said Fudge, looking back at Professor McGonagall with a dismissive nod toward Harry and Marietta.

She said nothing, but marched Harry and Marietta to the door.

As it swung closed behind them, Harry heard Phineas Nigellus’s voice.

“You know, Minister, I disagree with Dumbledore on many counts . . . but you cannot deny he’s got style . . .”

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CHAPTER XXVIII. SNAPE’S WORST MEMORY

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——— BY ORDER OF ———

The Ministry of Magic Dolores Jane Umbridge (High Inquisitor) has replaced Albus Dumbledore as Head of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

The above is in accordance with Educational Decree Number Twentyeight.

Signed: Cornelius Oswald Fudge

Minister of Magic

The notices had gone up all over the school overnight, but they did not explain how every single person within the castle seemed to know that Dumbledore had overcome two Aurors, the High Inquisitor, the Minister of Magic, and his Junior Assistant to escape.

No matter where Harry went within the castle next day, the sole topic of conversation was Dumbledore’s flight, and though some of the details might have gone awry in the retelling (Harry overheard one second-year girl assuring another that Fudge was now lying in St. Mungo’s with a pumpkin for a head), it was surprising how accurate the rest of their information was.

Everybody seemed aware, for instance, that Harry and Marietta were the only students to have witnessed the scene in Dumbledore’s office, and as Marietta was now in the hospital wing, Harry found himself besieged with requests to give a firsthand account wherever he went.

“Dumbledore will be back before long,” said Ernie Macmillan confidently on the way back from Herbology after listening intently to Harry’s story.

“They couldn’t keep him away in our second year and they won’t be able to this time. The Fat Friar told me . . .”

He dropped his voice conspiratorially, so that Harry, Ron, and Hermione had to lean closer to him to hear, “. . . that Umbridge tried to get back into his office last night after they’d searched the castle and grounds for him. Couldn’t get past the gargoyle. The Head’s office has sealed itself against her.”

Ernie smirked.

“Apparently she had a right little tantrum . . .”

“Oh, I expect she really fancied herself sitting up there in the Head’s office,” said Hermione viciously, as they walked up the stone steps into the entrance hall.

“Lording it over all the other teachers, the stupid puffed-up, power-crazy old —”

“Now, do you really want to finish that sentence, Granger?”

Draco Malfoy had slid out from behind the door, followed by Crabbe and Goyle.

His pale, pointed face was alight with malice.

“Afraid I’m going to have to dock a few points from Gryffindor and Hufflepuff,” he drawled.

“You can’t take points from fellow prefects, Malfoy,” said Ernie at once.

“I know prefects can’t dock points from each other,” sneered Malfoy; Crabbe and Goyle sniggered.

“But members of the Inquisitorial Squad —”

“The what?” said Hermione sharply.

“The Inquisitorial Squad, Granger,” said Malfoy, pointing toward a tiny silver I upon his robes just beneath his prefect’s badge.

“A select group of students who are supportive of the Ministry of Magic, hand-picked by Professor Umbridge. Anyway, members of the Inquisitorial Squad do have the power to dock points. . . . So, Granger, I’ll have five from you for being rude about our new headmistress. . . . Macmillan, five for contradicting me. . . . Five because I don’t like you, Potter . . . Weasley, your shirt’s untucked, so I’ll have another five for that. . . . Oh yeah, I forgot, you’re a Mudblood, Granger, so ten for that . . .”

Ron pulled out his wand, but Hermione pushed it away, whispering, “Don’t!”

“Wise move, Granger,” breathed Malfoy.

“New Head, new times . . . Be good now, Potty . . . Weasel King . . .”

He strode away, laughing heartily with Crabbe and Goyle.

“He was bluffing,” said Ernie, looking appalled.

“He can’t be allowed to dock points . . . that would be ridiculous. . . . It would completely undermine the prefect system . . .”

But Harry, Ron, and Hermione had turned automatically toward the giant hourglasses set in niches along the wall behind them, which recorded the House points.

Gryffindor and Ravenclaw had been neck and neck in the lead that morning.

Even as they watched, stones flew upward, reducing the amounts in the lower bulbs.

In fact, the only glass that seemed unchanged was the emerald-filled one of Slytherin.

“Noticed, have you?” said Fred’s voice.

He and George had just come down the marble staircase and joined Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ernie in front of the hourglasses.

“Malfoy just docked us all about fifty points,” said Harry furiously, as they watched several more stones fly upward from the Gryffindor hourglass.

“Yeah, Montague tried to do us during break,” said George.

“What do you mean, ‘tried’?” said Ron quickly.

“He never managed to get all the words out,” said Fred, “due to the fact that we forced him headfirst into that Vanishing Cabinet on the first floor.”

Hermione looked very shocked.

“But you’ll get into terrible trouble!”

“Not until Montague reappears, and that could take weeks, I dunno where we sent him,” said Fred coolly.

“Anyway . . . we’ve decided we don’t care about getting into trouble anymore.”

“Have you ever?” asked Hermione.

“’Course we have,” said George.

“Never been expelled, have we?”

“We’ve always known where to draw the line,” said Fred.

“We might have put a toe across it occasionally,” said George.

“But we’ve always stopped short of causing real mayhem,” said Fred.

“But now?” said Ron tentatively.

“Well, now —” said George.

“— what with Dumbledore gone —” said Fred.

“— we reckon a bit of mayhem —” said George.

“— is exactly what our dear new Head deserves,” said Fred.

“You mustn’t!” whispered Hermione.

“You really mustn’t! She’d love a reason to expel you!”

“You don’t get it, Hermione, do you?” said Fred, smiling at her.

“We don’t care about staying anymore. We’d walk out right now if we weren’t determined to do our bit for Dumbledore first. So anyway,” he checked his watch, “phase one is about to begin. I’d get in the Great Hall for lunch if I were you, that way the teachers will see you can’t have had anything to do with it.”

“Anything to do with what?” said Hermione anxiously.

“You’ll see,” said George.

“Run along, now.”

Fred and George turned away and disappeared in the swelling crowd descending the stairs toward lunch.

Looking highly disconcerted, Ernie muttered something about unfinished Transfiguration homework and scurried away.

“I think we should get out of here, you know,” said Hermione nervously.

“Just in case . . .”

“Yeah, all right,” said Ron, and the three of them moved toward the doors to the Great Hall.

But Harry had barely glimpsed today’s ceiling of scudding white clouds when somebody tapped him on the shoulder and, turning, he found himself almost nose to nose with Filch, the caretaker.

He took several hasty steps backward; Filch was best viewed at a distance.

“The headmistress would like to see you, Potter,” he leered.

“I didn’t do it,” said Harry stupidly, thinking of whatever Fred and George were planning.

Filch’s jowls wobbled with silent laughter.

“Guilty conscience, eh?” he wheezed.

“Follow me . . .”

Harry glanced back at Ron and Hermione, who were both looking worried.

He shrugged and followed Filch back into the entrance hall, against the tide of hungry students.

Filch seemed to be in an extremely good mood; he hummed creakily under his breath as they climbed the marble staircase.

As they reached the first landing he said, “Things are changing around here, Potter.”

“I’ve noticed,” said Harry coldly.

“Yerse . . . I’ve been telling Dumbledore for years and years he’s too soft with you all,” said Filch, chuckling nastily.

“You filthy little beasts would never have dropped Stinkpellets if you’d known I had it in my power to whip you raw, would you, now? Nobody would have thought of throwing Fanged Frisbees down the corridors if I could’ve strung you up by the ankles in my office, would they? But when Educational Decree Twenty-nine comes in, Potter, I’ll be allowed to do them things. . . . And she’s asked the Minister to sign an order for the expulsion of Peeves. . . . Oh, things are going to be very different around here with her in charge . . .”

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Umbridge had obviously gone to some lengths to get Filch on her side, Harry thought, and the worst of it was that he would probably prove an important weapon; his knowledge of the school’s secret passageways and hiding places was probably second only to the Weasley twins.

“Here we are,” he said, leering down at Harry as he rapped three times upon Professor Umbridge’s door and pushed it open.

“The Potter boy to see you, ma’am.”

Umbridge’s office, so very familiar to Harry from his many detentions, was the same as usual except for the large wooden block lying across the front of her desk on which golden letters spelled the word HEADMISTRESS; also his Firebolt, and Fred’s and George’s Cleansweeps, which he saw with a pang were now chained and padlocked to a stout iron peg in the wall behind the desk.

Umbridge was sitting behind the desk, busily scribbling upon some of her pink parchment, but looked up and smiled widely at their entrance.

“Thank you, Argus,” she said sweetly.

“Not at all, ma’am, not at all,” said Filch, bowing as low as his rheumatism would permit, and exiting backward.

“Sit,” said Umbridge curtly, pointing toward a chair, and Harry sat.

She continued to scribble for a few moments.

He watched some of the foul kittens gamboling around the plates over her head, wondering what fresh horror she had in store for him.

“Well now,” she said finally, setting down her quill and looking like a toad about to swallow a particularly juicy fly.

“What would you like to drink?”

“What?” said Harry, quite sure he had misheard her.

“To drink, Mr. Potter,” she said, smiling still more widely.

“Tea? Coffee? Pumpkin juice?”

As she named each drink, she gave her short wand a wave, and a cup or glass of it appeared upon her desk.

“Nothing, thank you,” said Harry.

“I wish you to have a drink with me,” she said, her voice becoming more dangerously sweet.

“Choose one.”

“Fine . . . tea then,” said Harry, shrugging.

She got up and made quite a performance of adding milk with her back to him.

She then bustled around the desk with it, smiling in sinisterly sweet fashion.

“There,” she said, handing it to him.

“Drink it before it gets cold, won’t you?

“Well, now, Mr. Potter . . . I thought we ought to have a little chat, after the distressing events of last night.”

He said nothing.

She settled herself back into her seat and waited.

When several long moments had passed in silence, she said gaily, “You’re not drinking up!”

He raised the cup to his lips and then, just as suddenly, lowered it.

One of the horrible painted kittens behind Umbridge had great round blue eyes just like Mad-Eye Moody’s magical one, and it had just occurred to Harry what Mad-Eye would say if he ever heard that Harry had drunk anything offered by a known enemy.

“What’s the matter?” said Umbridge, who was still watching him.

“Do you want sugar?”

“No,” said Harry.

He raised the cup to his lips again and pretended to take a sip, though keeping his mouth tightly closed.

Umbridge’s smile widened.

“Good,” she whispered.

“Very good.

“Now then . . .”

She leaned forward a little.

“Where is Albus Dumbledore?”

“No idea,” said Harry promptly.

“Drink up, drink up,” she said, still smiling.

“Now, Mr. Potter, let us not play childish games.

“I know that you know where he has gone.

“You and Dumbledore have been in this together from the beginning.

“Consider your position, Mr. Potter . . .”

“I don’t know where he is.”

Harry pretended to drink again.

“Very well,” said Umbridge, looking displeased.

“In that case, you will kindly tell me the whereabouts of Sirius Black.”

Harry’s stomach turned over and his hand holding the teacup shook so that the cup rattled in its saucer.

He tilted the cup to his mouth with his lips pressed together, so that some of the hot liquid trickled down onto his robes.

“I don’t know,” he said a little too quickly.

“Mr. Potter,” said Umbridge, “let me remind you that it was I who almost caught the criminal Black in the Gryffindor fire in October.

“I know perfectly well it was you he was meeting and if I had had any proof neither of you would be at large today, I promise you.

“I repeat, Mr. Potter . . . Where is Sirius Black?”

“No idea,” said Harry loudly.

“Haven’t got a clue.”

They stared at each other so long that Harry felt his eyes watering.

Then she stood up.

“Very well, Potter, I will take your word for it this time, but be warned:

“The might of the Ministry stands behind me.

“All channels of communication in and out of this school are being monitored.

“A Floo Network Regulator is keeping watch over every fire in Hogwarts — except my own, of course.

“My Inquisitorial Squad is opening and reading all owl post entering and leaving the castle.

“And Mr. Filch is observing all secret passages in and out of the castle.

“If I find a shred of evidence . . .”

BOOM!

The very floor of the office shook; Umbridge slipped sideways, clutching her desk for support, looking shocked.

“What was — ?”

She was gazing toward the door; Harry took the opportunity to empty his almost full cup of tea into the nearest vase of dried flowers.

He could hear people running and screaming several floors below.

“Back to lunch with you, Potter!” cried Umbridge, raising her wand and dashing out of the office.

Harry gave her a few seconds’ start then hurried after her to see what the source of all the uproar was.

It was not difficult to find.

One floor down, pandemonium reigned.

Somebody (and Harry had a very shrewd idea who) had set off what seemed to be an enormous crate of enchanted fireworks.

Dragons comprised entirely of green-and-gold sparks were soaring up and down the corridors, emitting loud fiery blasts and bangs as they went.

Shocking-pink Catherine wheels five feet in diameter were whizzing lethally through the air like so many flying saucers.

Rockets with long tails of brilliant silver stars were ricocheting off the walls.

Sparklers were writing swearwords in midair of their own accord.

Firecrackers were exploding like mines everywhere Harry looked, and instead of burning themselves out, fading from sight, or fizzling to a halt, these pyrotechnical miracles seemed to be gaining in energy and momentum the longer he watched.

Filch and Umbridge were standing, apparently transfixed with horror, halfway down the stairs.

As Harry watched, one of the larger Catherine wheels seemed to decide that what it needed was more room to maneuver; it whirled toward Umbridge and Filch with a sinister wheeeeeeeeee.

Both adults yelled with fright and ducked and it soared straight out of the window behind them and off across the grounds.

Meanwhile, several of the dragons and a large purple bat that was smoking ominously took advantage of the open door at the end of the corridor to escape toward the second floor.

“Hurry, Filch, hurry!” shrieked Umbridge.

“They’ll be all over the school unless we do something — Stupefy!”

A jet of red light shot out of the end of her wand and hit one of the rockets.

Instead of freezing in midair, it exploded with such force that it blasted a hole in a painting of a soppy-looking witch in the middle of a meadow — she ran for it just in time, reappearing seconds later squashed into the painting next door, where a couple of wizards playing cards stood up hastily to make room for her.

“Don’t Stun them, Filch!” shouted Umbridge angrily, for all the world as though it had been his suggestion.

“Right you are, Headmistress!” wheezed Filch, who was a Squib and could no more have Stunned the fireworks than swallowed them.

He dashed to a nearby cupboard, pulled out a broom, and began swatting at the fireworks in midair; within seconds the head of the broom was ablaze.

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Harry had seen enough.

Laughing, he ducked down low, ran to a door he knew was concealed behind a tapestry a little way along the corridor and slipped through it to find Fred and George hiding just behind it, listening to Umbridge’s and Filch’s yells and quaking with suppressed mirth.

“Impressive,” Harry said quietly, grinning.

“Very impressive . . . You’ll put Dr. Filibuster out of business, no problem . . .”

“Cheers,” whispered George, wiping tears of laughter from his face.

“Oh, I hope she tries Vanishing them next. . . . They multiply by ten every time you try . . .”

The fireworks continued to burn and to spread all over the school that afternoon.

Though they caused plenty of disruption, particularly the firecrackers, the other teachers did not seem to mind them very much.

“Dear, dear,” said Professor McGonagall sardonically, as one of the dragons soared around her classroom, emitting loud bangs and exhaling flame.

“Miss Brown, would you mind running along to the headmistress and informing her that we have an escaped firework in our classroom?”

The upshot of it all was that Professor Umbridge spent her first afternoon as headmistress running all over the school answering the summonses of the other teachers, none of whom seemed able to rid their rooms of the fireworks without her.

When the final bell rang and the students were heading back to Gryffindor Tower with their bags, Harry saw, with immense satisfaction, a disheveled and soot-blackened Umbridge tottering sweaty-faced from Professor Flitwick’s classroom.

“Thank you so much, Professor!” said Professor Flitwick in his squeaky little voice.

“I could have got rid of the sparklers myself, of course, but I wasn’t sure whether I had the authority . . .”

Beaming, he closed his classroom door in her snarling face.

Fred and George were heroes that night in the Gryffindor common room.

Even Hermione fought her way through the excited crowd around them to congratulate them.

“They were wonderful fireworks,” she said admiringly.

“Thanks,” said George, looking both surprised and pleased.

“Weasleys’ Wildfire Whiz-Bangs.

Only thing is, we used our whole stock, we’re going to have to start again from scratch now . . .”

“It was worth it, though,” said Fred, who was taking orders from clamoring Gryffindors.

“If you want to add your name to the waiting list, Hermione, it’s five Galleons for your Basic Blaze box and twenty for the Deflagration Deluxe . . .”

Hermione returned to the table where Harry and Ron were sitting staring at their schoolbags as though hoping their homework might spring out of it and start doing itself.

“Oh, why don’t we have a night off?” said Hermione brightly, as a silver-tailed Weasley rocket zoomed past the window.

“After all, the Easter holidays start on Friday, we’ll have plenty of time then . . .”

“Are you feeling all right?” Ron asked, staring at her in disbelief.

“Now you mention it,” said Hermione happily, “d’you know . . . I think I’m feeling a bit . . . rebellious.”

Harry could still hear the distant bangs of escaped firecrackers when he and Ron went up to bed an hour later, and as he got undressed a sparkler floated past the tower, still resolutely spelling out the word “POO”.

He got into bed, yawning.

With his glasses off, the occasional firework still passing the window became blurred, looking like sparkling clouds, beautiful and mysterious against the black sky.

He turned onto his side, wondering how Umbridge was feeling about her first day in Dumbledore’s job, and how Fudge would react when he heard that the school had spent most of the day in a state of advanced disruption. . . .

Smiling to himself, he closed his eyes. . . .

The whizzes and bangs of escaped fireworks in the grounds seemed to be growing more distant . . . or perhaps he, Harry, was simply speeding away from them. . . .

He had fallen right into the corridor leading to the Department of Mysteries.

He was speeding toward the plain black door. . . .

Let it open. . . .

Let it open. . . .

It did.

He was inside the circular room lined with doors. . . .

He crossed it, placed his hand upon an identical door, and it swung inward. . . .

Now he was in a long, rectangular room full of an odd, mechanical clicking.

There were dancing flecks of light on the walls but he did not pause to investigate. . . .

He had to go on. . . .

There was a door at the far end. . . .

It too opened at his touch. . . .

And now he was in a dimly lit room as high and wide as a church, full of nothing but rows and rows of towering shelves, each laden with small, dusty, spun-glass spheres. . . .

Now Harry’s heart was beating fast with excitement. . . .

He knew where to go. . . .

He ran forward, but his footsteps made no noise in the enormous, deserted room. . . .

There was something in this room he wanted very, very much. . . .

Something he wanted. . . . or somebody else wanted. . . .

His scar was hurting. . . .

BANG!

Harry awoke instantly, confused and angry.

The dark dormitory was full of the sound of laughter.

“Cool!” said Seamus, who was silhouetted against the window.

“I think one of those Catherine wheels hit a rocket and it’s like they mated, come and see!”

Harry heard Ron and Dean scramble out of bed for a better look.

He lay quite still and silent while the pain in his scar subsided and disappointment washed over him.

He felt as though a wonderful treat had been snatched from him at the very last moment. . . .

He had got so close that time. . . .

Glittering, pink-and-silver winged piglets were now soaring past the windows of Gryffindor Tower.

Harry lay and listened to the appreciative whoops of Gryffindors in the dormitories below them.

His stomach gave a sickening jolt as he remembered that he had Occlumency the following evening. . . .

Harry spent the whole of the next day dreading what Snape was going to say if he found out how much farther into the Department of Mysteries he had penetrated during his last dream.

With a surge of guilt he realized that he had not practiced Occlumency once since their last lesson:

There had been too much going on since Dumbledore had left.

He was sure he would not have been able to empty his mind even if he had tried.

He doubted, however, whether Snape would accept that excuse. . . .

He attempted a little last-minute practice during classes that day, but it was no good, Hermione kept asking him what was wrong whenever he fell silent trying to rid himself of all thought and emotion and, after all, the best moment to empty his brain was not while teachers were firing review questions at the class.

Resigned to the worst, he set off for Snape’s office after dinner.

Halfway across the entrance hall, however, Cho came hurrying up to him.

“Over here,” said Harry, glad of a reason to postpone his meeting with Snape and beckoning her across to the corner of the entrance hall where the giant hourglasses stood.

Gryffindor’s was now almost empty.

“Are you okay?

Umbridge hasn’t been asking you about the D.A., has she?”

“Oh no,” said Cho hurriedly.

“No, it was only . . . Well, I just wanted to say . . . Harry, I never dreamed Marietta would tell . . .”

“Yeah, well,” said Harry moodily.

He did feel Cho might have chosen her friends a bit more carefully.

It was small consolation that the last he had heard, Marietta was still up in the hospital wing and Madam Pomfrey had not been able to make the slightest improvement to her pimples.

“She’s a lovely person really,” said Cho.

“She just made a mistake —”

Harry looked at her incredulously.

“A lovely person who made a mistake?

She sold us all out, including you!”

“Well . . . we all got away, didn’t we?” said Cho pleadingly.

“You know, her mum works for the Ministry, it’s really difficult for her —”

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“Ron’s dad works for the Ministry too!” Harry said furiously.

“And in case you hadn’t noticed, he hasn’t got ‘sneak’ written across his face —”

“That was a really horrible trick of Hermione Granger’s,” said Cho fiercely.

“She should have told us she’d jinxed that list —”

“I think it was a brilliant idea,” said Harry coldly.

Cho flushed and her eyes grew brighter.

“Oh yes, I forgot — of course, if it was darling Hermione’s idea —”

“Don’t start crying again,” said Harry warningly.

“I wasn’t going to!” she shouted.

“Yeah . . . well . . . good,” he said.

“I’ve got enough to cope with at the moment.”

“Go and cope with it then!” she said furiously, turning on her heel and stalking off.

Fuming, Harry descended the stairs to Snape’s dungeon, and though he knew from experience how much easier it would be for Snape to penetrate his mind if he arrived angry and resentful, he succeeded in nothing but thinking of a few more good things he should have said to Cho about Marietta before reaching the dungeon door.

“You’re late, Potter,” said Snape coldly, as Harry closed the door behind him.

Snape was standing with his back to Harry, removing, as usual, certain of his thoughts and placing them carefully in Dumbledore’s Pensieve.

He dropped the last silvery strand into the stone basin and turned to face Harry.

“So,” he said.

“Have you been practicing?”

“Yes,” Harry lied, looking carefully at one of the legs of Snape’s desk.

“Well, we’ll soon find out, won’t we?” said Snape smoothly.

“Wand out, Potter.”

Harry moved into his usual position, facing Snape with the desk between them.

His heart was pumping fast with anger at Cho and anxiety about how much Snape was about to extract from his mind.

“On the count of three then,” said Snape lazily.

“One — two —”

Snape’s office door banged open and Draco Malfoy sped in.

“Professor Snape, sir — oh — sorry —”

Malfoy was looking at Snape and Harry in some surprise.

“It’s all right, Draco,” said Snape, lowering his wand.

“Potter is here for a little Remedial Potions.”

Harry had not seen Malfoy look so gleeful since Umbridge had turned up to inspect Hagrid.

“I didn’t know,” he said, leering at Harry, who knew his face was burning.

He would have given a great deal to be able to shout the truth at Malfoy — or, even better, to hit him with a good curse.

“Well, Draco, what is it?” asked Snape.

“It’s Professor Umbridge, sir — she needs your help,” said Malfoy.

“They’ve found Montague, sir.

He’s turned up jammed inside a toilet on the fourth floor.”

“How did he get in there?” demanded Snape.

“I don’t know, sir, he’s a bit confused . . .”

“Very well, very well — Potter,” said Snape, “we shall resume this lesson tomorrow evening instead.”

He turned and swept from his office.

Malfoy mouthed “Remedial Potions?” at Harry behind Snape’s back before following him.

Seething, Harry replaced his wand inside his robes and made to leave the room.

At least he had twenty-four more hours in which to practice;

he knew he ought to feel grateful for the narrow escape, though it was hard that it came at the expense of Malfoy telling the whole school that he needed Remedial Potions. . . .

He was at the office door when he saw it: a patch of shivering light dancing on the door frame.

He stopped, looking at it, reminded of something. . . .

Then he remembered: It was a little like the lights he had seen in his dream last night, the lights in the second room he had walked through on his journey through the Department of Mysteries.

He turned around.

The light was coming from the Pensieve sitting on Snape’s desk.

The silver-white contents were ebbing and swirling within.

Snape’s thoughts . . . things he did not want Harry to see if he broke through Snape’s defenses accidentally. . . .

Harry gazed at the Pensieve, curiosity welling inside him. . . .

What was it that Snape was so keen to hide from Harry?

The silvery lights shivered on the wall. . . .

Harry took two steps toward the desk, thinking hard.

Could it possibly be information about the Department of Mysteries that Snape was determined to keep from him?

Harry looked over his shoulder, his heart now pumping harder and faster than ever.

How long would it take Snape to release Montague from the toilet?

Would he come straight back to his office afterward, or accompany Montague to the hospital wing?

Surely the latter . . . Montague was Captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team, Snape would want to make sure he was all right. . . .

Harry walked the remaining few feet to the Pensieve and stood over it, gazing into its depths.

He hesitated, listening, then pulled out his wand again.

The office and the corridor beyond were completely silent.

He gave the contents of the Pensieve a small prod with the end of his wand.

The silvery stuff within began to swirl very fast.

Harry leaned forward over it and saw that it had become transparent.

He was, once again, looking down into a room as though through a circular window in the ceiling. . . .

In fact, unless he was much mistaken, he was looking down upon the Great Hall. . . .

His breath was actually fogging the surface of Snape’s thoughts. . . .

His brain seemed to be in limbo. . . .

It would be insane to do the thing that he was so strongly tempted to do . . .

He was trembling. . . .

Snape could be back at any moment . . . but Harry thought of Cho’s anger, of Malfoy’s jeering face, and a reckless daring seized him.

He took a great gulp of breath and plunged his face into the surface of Snape’s thoughts.

At once, the floor of the office lurched, tipping Harry headfirst into the Pensieve. . . .

He was falling through cold blackness, spinning furiously as he went, and then —

He was standing in the middle of the Great Hall, but the four House tables were gone.

Instead there were more than a hundred smaller tables, all facing the same way, at each of which sat a student, head bent low, scribbling on a roll of parchment.

The only sound was the scratching of quills and the occasional rustle as somebody adjusted their parchment.

It was clearly exam time.

Sunshine was streaming through the high windows onto the bent heads, which shone chestnut and copper and gold in the bright light.

Harry looked around carefully.

Snape had to be here somewhere. . . .

This was his memory. . . .

And there he was, at a table right behind Harry.

Harry stared.

Snape-the-teenager had a stringy, pallid look about him, like a plant kept in the dark.

His hair was lank and greasy and was flopping onto the table, his hooked nose barely half an inch from the surface of the parchment as he scribbled.

Harry moved around behind Snape and read the heading of the examination paper: DEFENSE AGAINST THE DARK ARTS — ORDINARY WIZARDING LEVEL

So Snape had to be fifteen or sixteen, around Harry’s own age.

His hand was flying across the parchment; he had written at least a foot more than his closest neighbors, and yet his writing was minuscule and cramped.

“Five more minutes!”

The voice made Harry jump; turning, he saw the top of Professor Flitwick’s head moving between the desks a short distance away.

Professor Flitwick was walking past a boy with untidy black hair . . . very untidy black hair. . . .

Harry moved so quickly that, had he been solid, he would have knocked desks flying.

Instead he seemed to slide, dreamlike, across two aisles and up a third.

The back of the black-haired boy’s head drew nearer and nearer. . . .

He was straightening up now, putting down his quill, pulling his roll of parchment toward him so as to reread what he had written. . . .

Harry stopped in front of the desk and gazed down at his fifteen-year-old father.

Excitement exploded in the pit of his stomach: It was as though he was looking at himself but with deliberate mistakes.

James’s eyes were hazel, his nose was slightly longer than Harry’s, and there was no scar on his forehead, but they had the same thin face, same mouth, same eyebrows.

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James’s hair stuck up at the back exactly as Harry’s did, his hands could have been Harry’s, and Harry could tell that when James stood up, they would be within an inch of each other’s heights.

James yawned hugely and rumpled up his hair, making it even messier than it had been.

Then, with a glance toward Professor Flitwick, he turned in his seat and grinned at a boy sitting four seats behind him.

With another shock of excitement, Harry saw Sirius give James the thumbs-up.

Sirius was lounging in his chair at his ease, tilting it back on two legs.

He was very good-looking; his dark hair fell into his eyes with a sort of casual elegance neither James’s nor Harry’s could ever have achieved, and a girl sitting behind him was eyeing him hopefully, though he didn’t seem to have noticed.

And two seats along from this girl — Harry’s stomach gave another pleasurable squirm — was Remus Lupin.

He looked rather pale and peaky (was the full moon approaching?) and was absorbed in the exam: As he reread his answers he scratched his chin with the end of his quill, frowning slightly.

So that meant Wormtail had to be around here somewhere too . . . and sure enough, Harry spotted him within seconds: a small, mousy-haired boy with a pointed nose.

Wormtail looked anxious; he was chewing his fingernails, staring down at his paper, scuffing the ground with his toes.

Every now and then he glanced hopefully at his neighbor’s paper.

Harry stared at Wormtail for a moment, then back at James, who was now doodling on a bit of scrap parchment.

He had drawn a Snitch and was now tracing the letters L. E.

What did they stand for?

“Quills down, please!” squeaked Professor Flitwick.

“That means you too, Stebbins!

Please remain seated while I collect your parchment!

Accio!”

More than a hundred rolls of parchment zoomed into the air and into Professor Flitwick’s outstretched arms, knocking him backward off his feet.

Several people laughed.

A couple of students at the front desks got up, took hold of Professor Flitwick beneath the elbows, and lifted him onto his feet again.

“Thank you . . . thank you,” panted Professor Flitwick.

“Very well, everybody, you’re free to go!”

Harry looked down at his father, who had hastily crossed out the L. E. he had been embellishing, jumped to his feet, stuffed his quill and the exam question paper into his bag, which he slung over his back, and stood waiting for Sirius to join him.

Harry looked around and glimpsed Snape a short way away, moving between the tables toward the doors into the entrance hall, still absorbed in his own examination paper.

Round-shouldered yet angular, he walked in a twitchy manner that recalled a spider, his oily hair swinging about his face.

A gang of chattering girls separated Snape from James and Sirius, and by planting himself in the midst of this group, Harry managed to keep Snape in sight while straining his ears to catch the voices of James and his friends.

“Did you like question ten, Moony?” asked Sirius as they emerged into the entrance hall.

“Loved it,” said Lupin briskly.

“‘Give five signs that identify the werewolf.’ Excellent question.”

“D’you think you managed to get all the signs?” said James in tones of mock concern.

“Think I did,” said Lupin seriously, as they joined the crowd thronging around the front doors eager to get out into the sunlit grounds.

“One: He’s sitting on my chair.

Two: He’s wearing my clothes.

Three: His name’s Remus Lupin . . .”

Wormtail was the only one who didn’t laugh.

“I got the snout shape, the pupils of the eyes, and the tufted tail,” he said anxiously, “but I couldn’t think what else —”

“How thick are you, Wormtail?” said James impatiently.

“You run round with a werewolf once a month —”

“Keep your voice down,” implored Lupin.

Harry looked anxiously behind him again.

Snape remained close by, still buried in his examination questions;

but this was Snape’s memory, and Harry was sure that if Snape chose to wander off in a different direction once outside in the grounds, he, Harry, would not be able to follow James any farther.

To his intense relief, however, when James and his three friends strode off down the lawn toward the lake, Snape followed, still poring over the paper and apparently with no fixed idea of where he was going.

By jogging a little ahead of him, Harry managed to maintain a close watch on James and the others.

“Well, I thought that paper was a piece of cake,” he heard Sirius say.

“I’ll be surprised if I don’t get Outstanding on it at least.”

“Me too,” said James.

He put his hand in his pocket and took out a struggling Golden Snitch.

“Where’d you get that?”

“Nicked it,” said James casually.

He started playing with the Snitch, allowing it to fly as much as a foot away and seizing it again; his reflexes were excellent.

Wormtail watched him in awe.

They stopped in the shade of the very same beech tree on the edge of the lake where Harry, Ron, and Hermione had spent a Sunday finishing their homework, and threw themselves down on the grass.

Harry looked over his shoulder yet again and saw, to his delight, that Snape had settled himself on the grass in the dense shadows of a clump of bushes.

He was as deeply immersed in the O.W.L. paper as ever, which left Harry free to sit down on the grass between the beech and the bushes and watch the foursome under the tree.

The sunlight was dazzling on the smooth surface of the lake, on the bank of which the group of laughing girls who had just left the Great Hall were sitting with shoes and socks off, cooling their feet in the water.

Lupin had pulled out a book and was reading.

Sirius stared around at the students milling over the grass, looking rather haughty and bored, but very handsomely so.

James was still playing with the Snitch, letting it zoom farther and farther away, almost escaping but always grabbed at the last second.

Wormtail was watching him with his mouth open.

Every time James made a particularly difficult catch, Wormtail gasped and applauded.

After five minutes of this, Harry wondered why James didn’t tell Wormtail to get a grip on himself, but James seemed to be enjoying the attention.

Harry noticed his father had a habit of rumpling up his hair as though to make sure it did not get too tidy, and also that he kept looking over at the girls by the water’s edge.

“Put that away, will you?” said Sirius finally, as James made a fine catch and Wormtail let out a cheer.

“Before Wormtail wets himself from excitement.”

Wormtail turned slightly pink but James grinned.

“If it bothers you,” he said, stuffing the Snitch back in his pocket.

Harry had the distinct impression that Sirius was the only one for whom James would have stopped showing off.

“I’m bored,” said Sirius.

“Wish it was full moon.”

“You might,” said Lupin darkly from behind his book.

“We’ve still got Transfiguration, if you’re bored you could test me . . . Here.”

He held out his book.

Sirius snorted.

“I don’t need to look at that rubbish, I know it all.”

“This’ll liven you up, Padfoot,” said James quietly.

“Look who it is . . .”

Sirius’s head turned.

He had become very still, like a dog that has scented a rabbit.

“Excellent,” he said softly.

“Snivellus.”

Harry turned to see what Sirius was looking at.

Snape was on his feet again and was stowing the O.W.L. paper in his bag.

As he emerged from the shadows of the bushes and set off across the grass, Sirius and James stood up.

Lupin and Wormtail remained sitting: Lupin was still staring down at his book, though his eyes were not moving and a faint frown line had appeared between his eyebrows.

Wormtail was looking from Sirius and James to Snape with a look of avid anticipation on his face.

“All right, Snivellus?” said James loudly.

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Snape reacted so fast it was as though he had been expecting an attack:

Dropping his bag, he plunged his hand inside his robes, and his wand was halfway into the air when James shouted, “Expelliarmus!”

Snape’s wand flew twelve feet into the air and fell with a little thud in the grass behind him.

Sirius let out a bark of laughter.

“Impedimenta!” he said, pointing his wand at Snape, who was knocked off his feet, halfway through a dive toward his own fallen wand.

Students all around had turned to watch.

Some of them had gotten to their feet and were edging nearer to watch.

Some looked apprehensive, others entertained.

Snape lay panting on the ground.

James and Sirius advanced on him, wands up, James glancing over his shoulder at the girls at the water’s edge as he went.

Wormtail was on his feet now, watching hungrily, edging around Lupin to get a clearer view.

“How’d the exam go, Snivelly?” said James.

“I was watching him, his nose was touching the parchment,” said Sirius viciously.

“There’ll be great grease marks all over it, they won’t be able to read a word.”

Several people watching laughed; Snape was clearly unpopular.

Wormtail sniggered shrilly.

Snape was trying to get up, but the jinx was still operating on him; he was struggling, as though bound by invisible ropes.

“You — wait,” he panted, staring up at James with an expression of purest loathing.

“You — wait . . .”

“Wait for what?” said Sirius coolly.

“What’re you going to do, Snivelly, wipe your nose on us?”

Snape let out a stream of mixed swearwords and hexes, but his wand being ten feet away nothing happened.

“Wash out your mouth,” said James coldly.

“Scourgify!”

Pink soap bubbles streamed from Snape’s mouth at once; the froth was covering his lips, making him gag, choking him —

“Leave him ALONE!”

James and Sirius looked around.

James’s free hand jumped to his hair again.

It was one of the girls from the lake edge.

She had thick, dark red hair that fell to her shoulders and startlingly green almond-shaped eyes — Harry’s eyes.

Harry’s mother . . .

“All right, Evans?” said James, and the tone of his voice was suddenly pleasant, deeper, more mature.

“Leave him alone,” Lily repeated.

She was looking at James with every sign of great dislike.

“What’s he done to you?”

“Well,” said James, appearing to deliberate the point, “it’s more the fact that he exists, if you know what I mean . . .”

Many of the surrounding watchers laughed, Sirius and Wormtail included, but Lupin, still apparently intent on his book, didn’t, and neither did Lily.

“You think you’re funny,” she said coldly.

“But you’re just an arrogant, bullying toerag, Potter.

Leave him alone.”

“I will if you go out with me, Evans,” said James quickly.

“Go on . . . Go out with me, and I’ll never lay a wand on old Snivelly again.”

Behind him, the Impediment Jinx was wearing off.

Snape was beginning to inch toward his fallen wand, spitting out soapsuds as he crawled.

“I wouldn’t go out with you if it was a choice between you and the giant squid,” said Lily.

“Bad luck, Prongs,” said Sirius briskly, turning back to Snape.

“OY!”

But too late; Snape had directed his wand straight at James; there was a flash of light and a gash appeared on the side of James’s face, spattering his robes with blood.

James whirled about; a second flash of light later, Snape was hanging upside down in the air, his robes falling over his head to reveal skinny, pallid legs and a pair of graying underpants.

Many people in the small crowd watching cheered.

Sirius, James, and Wormtail roared with laughter.

Lily, whose furious expression had twitched for an instant as though she was going to smile, said, “Let him down!”

“Certainly,” said James and he jerked his wand upward.

Snape fell into a crumpled heap on the ground.

Disentangling himself from his robes, he got quickly to his feet, wand up, but Sirius said, “Petrificus Totalus!” and Snape keeled over again at once, rigid as a board.

“LEAVE HIM ALONE!” Lily shouted.

She had her own wand out now.

James and Sirius eyed it warily.

“Ah, Evans, don’t make me hex you,” said James earnestly.

“Take the curse off him, then!”

James sighed deeply, then turned to Snape and muttered the countercurse.

“There you go,” he said, as Snape struggled to his feet again, “you’re lucky Evans was here, Snivellus —”

“I don’t need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her!”

Lily blinked.

“Fine,” she said coolly.

“I won’t bother in future.

And I’d wash your pants if I were you, Snivellus.”

“Apologize to Evans!” James roared at Snape, his wand pointed threateningly at him.

“I don’t want you to make him apologize,” Lily shouted, rounding on James.

“You’re as bad as he is . . .”

“What?” yelped James.

“I’d NEVER call you a — you-know-what!”

“Messing up your hair because you think it looks cool to look like you’ve just got off your broomstick, showing off with that stupid Snitch, walking down corridors and hexing anyone who annoys you just because you can —

I’m surprised your broomstick can get off the ground with that fat head on it.

You make me SICK.”

She turned on her heel and hurried away.

“Evans!” James shouted after her, “Hey, EVANS!”

But she didn’t look back.

“What is it with her?” said James, trying and failing to look as though this was a throwaway question of no real importance to him.

“Reading between the lines, I’d say she thinks you’re a bit conceited, mate,” said Sirius.

“Right,” said James, who looked furious now, “right —”

There was another flash of light, and Snape was once again hanging upside down in the air.

“Who wants to see me take off Snivelly’s pants?”

But whether James really did take off Snape’s pants, Harry never found out.

A hand had closed tight over his upper arm, closed with a pincerlike grip.

Wincing, Harry looked around to see who had hold of him, and saw, with a thrill of horror, a fully grown, adult-sized Snape standing right beside him, white with rage.

“Having fun?”

Harry felt himself rising into the air.

The summer’s day evaporated around him; he was floating upward through icy blackness, Snape’s hand still tight upon his upper arm.

Then, with a swooping feeling as though he had turned head over heels in midair, his feet hit the stone floor of Snape’s dungeon, and he was standing again beside the Pensieve on Snape’s desk in the shadowy, present-day Potions master’s study.

“So,” said Snape, gripping Harry’s arm so tightly Harry’s hand was starting to feel numb.

“So . . . been enjoying yourself, Potter?”

“N-no . . .” said Harry, trying to free his arm.

It was scary: Snape’s lips were shaking, his face was white, his teeth were bared.

“Amusing man, your father, wasn’t he?” said Snape, shaking Harry so hard that his glasses slipped down his nose.

“I — didn’t —”

Snape threw Harry from him with all his might.

Harry fell hard onto the dungeon floor.

“You will not tell anybody what you saw!” Snape bellowed.

“No,” said Harry, getting to his feet as far from Snape as he could.

“No, of course I w —”

“Get out, get out, I don’t want to see you in this office ever again!”

And as Harry hurtled toward the door, a jar of dead cockroaches exploded over his head.

He wrenched the door open and flew away up the corridor, stopping only when he had put three floors between himself and Snape.

There he leaned against the wall, panting, and rubbing his bruised arm.

He had no desire at all to return to Gryffindor Tower so early, nor to tell Ron and Hermione what he had just seen.

What was making Harry feel so horrified and unhappy was not being shouted at or having jars thrown at him — it was that he knew how it felt to be humiliated in the middle of a circle of onlookers, knew exactly how Snape had felt as his father had taunted him, and that judging from what he had just seen, his father had been every bit as arrogant as Snape had always told him.