Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (7 page)

'Where are we?' Harry asked, but Lupin said quietly, 'In a minute.'

Moody was rummaging in his cloak, his gnarled hands clumsy with cold.

'Got it,' he muttered, raising what looked like a silver cigarette lighter into the air and clicking it.

The nearest streetlamp went out with a pop. He clicked the unlighter again; the next lamp went out; he kept clicking until every lamp in the square was extinguished and the only remaining light came from curtained windows and the sickle moon overhead.

'Borrowed it from Dumbledore,' growled Moody, pocketing the Put-Outer. That'll take care of any Muggles looking out of the window, see? Now come on, quick.'

He took Harry by the arm and led him from the patch of grass, across the road and on to the pavement; Lupin and Tonks followed, carrying Harry's trunk between them, the rest of the guard, all with their wands out, flanking them.

The muffled pounding of a stereo was coming from an upper window in the nearest house. A pungent smell of rotting rubbish came from the pile of bulging bin-bags just inside the broken gate.

'Here,' Moody muttered, thrusting a piece of parchment towards Harry's Disillusioned hand and holding his lit wand close to it, so as to illuminate the writing. 'Read quickly and memorise.'

Harry looked down at the piece of paper. The narrow handwriting was vaguely familiar. It said:

The Headquarters of the Order of the
Phoenix
may be found at number twelve,
Grimmauld Place
,
London
.

'What's the Order of the -?' Harry began.

'Not here, boy!' snarled Moody. 'Wait till we're inside!'

He pulled the piece of parchment out of Harry's hand and set fire to it with his wand-tip. As the message curled into flames and floated to the ground, Harry looked around at the houses again. They were standing outside number eleven; he looked to the left and saw number ten; to the right, however, was number thirteen.

'But where's -?'

Think about what you've just memorised,' said Lupin quietly.

Harry thought, and no sooner had he reached the part about number twelve, Grimmauld Place, than a battered door emerged out of nowhere between numbers eleven and thirteen, followed swiftly by dirty walls and grimy windows. It was as though an extra house had inflated, pushing those on either side out of its way. Harry gaped at it. The stereo in number eleven thudded on. Apparently the Muggles inside hadn't felt anything.

'Come on, hurry,' growled Moody, prodding Harry in the back.

Harry walked up the worn stone steps, staring at the newly materialised door. Its black paint was shabby and scratched. The silver doorknocker was in the form of a twisted serpent. There was no keyhole or letterbox.

Lupin pulled out his wand and tapped the door once. Harry heard many loud, metallic clicks and what sounded like the clatter of a chain. The door creaked open.

'Get in quick, Harry,' Lupin whispered, 'but don't go far inside and don't touch anything.'

Harry stepped over the threshold into the almost total darkness of the hall. He could smell damp, dust and a sweetish, rotting smell; the place had the feeling of a derelict building. He looked over his shoulder and saw the others filing in behind him, Lupin and Tonks carrying his trunk and Hedwig's cage. Moody was standing on the top step releasing the balls of light the Put-Outer had stolen from the streetlamps; they flew back to their bulbs and the square glowed momentarily with orange light before Moody limped inside and closed the front door, so that the darkness in the hall became complete.

'Here -'

He rapped Harry hard over the head with his wand; Harry felt as though something hot was trickling down his back this time and knew that the Disillusionment Charm must have lifted.

'Now stay still, everyone, while I give us a bit of light in here,' Moody whispered.

The others' hushed voices were giving Harry an odd feeling of foreboding; it was as though they had just entered the house of a dying person. He heard a soft hissing noise and then old-fashioned gas lamps sputtered into life all along the walls, casting a flickering insubstantial light over the peeling wallpaper and threadbare carpet of a long, gloomy hallway, where a cobwebby chandelier glimmered overhead and age-blackened portraits hung crooked on the walls. Harry heard something scuttling behind the skirting board. Both the chandelier and the candelabra on a rickety table nearby were shaped like serpents.

There were hurried footsteps and Rons mother, Mrs. Weasley, emerged from a door at the far end of the hall. She was beaming in welcome as she hurried towards them, though Harry noticed that she was rather thinner and paler than she had been last time he had seen her.

'Oh, Harry, it's lovely to see you!' she whispered, pulling him into a rib-cracking hug before holding him at arm's length and examining him critically. 'You're looking peaky; you need feeding up, but you'll have to wait a bit for dinner, I'm afraid.'

She turned to the gang of wizards behind him and whispered urgently, 'He's just arrived, the meeting's started.'

The wizards behind Harry all made noises of interest and excitement and began filing past him towards the door through which Mrs. Weasley had just come. Harry made to follow Lupin, but Mrs. Weasley held him back.

'No, Harry, the meetings only for members of the Order. Ron and Hermione are upstairs, you can wait with them until the meetings over, then we'll have dinner. And keep your voice down in the hall,' she added in an urgent whisper.

'Why?'

'I don't want anything to wake up.'

'What d'you -?'

Til explain later, I've got to hurry, I'm supposed to be at the meeting - I'll just show you where you're sleeping.'

Pressing her finger to her lips, she led him on tiptoe past a pair of long, moth-eaten curtains, behind which Harry supposed there must be another door, and after skirting a large umbrella stand that looked as though it had been made from a severed troll's leg they started up the dark staircase, passing a row of shrunken heads mounted on plaques on the wall. A closer look showed Harry that the heads belonged to house-elves. All of them had the same rather snout-like nose.

Harry's bewilderment deepened with every step he took. What on earth were they doing in a house that looked as though it belonged to the Darkest of wizards?

'Mrs. Weasley, why -?'

'Ron and Hermione will explain everything, dear, I've really got to dash,' Mrs. Weasley whispered distractedly. There -' they had reached the second landing, '- you're the door on the right. I'll call you when it's over.'

And she hurried off downstairs again.

Harry crossed the dingy landing, turned the bedroom doorknob, which was shaped like a serpents head, and opened the door.

He caught a brief glimpse of a gloomy high-ceilinged, twin-bedded room; then there was a loud twittering noise, followed by an even louder shriek, and his vision was completely obscured by a large quantity of very bushy hair. Hermione had thrown herself on to him in a hug that nearly knocked him flat, while Ron's tiny owl, Pigwidgeon, zoomed excitedly round and round their heads.

'HARRY! Ron, he's here, Harrys here! We didn't hear you arrive! Oh, how are you? Are you all right? Have you been furious with us? I bet you have, I know our letters were useless - but we couldn't tell you anything, Dumbledore made us swear we wouldn't, oh, we've got so much to tell you, and you've got things to tell us -the Dementors! When we heard - and that Ministry hearing - it's just outrageous, I've looked it all up, they can't expel you, they just can't, there's provision in the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery for the use of magic in life-threatening situations -'

'Let him breathe, Hermione,' said Ron, grinning as he closed the door behind Harry. He seemed to have grown several more inches during their month apart, making him taller and more gangly looking than ever, though the long nose, bright red hair and freckles were the same.

Still beaming, Hermione let go of Harry, but before she could say another word there was a soft whooshing sound and something white soared from the top of a dark wardrobe and landed gently on Harrys shoulder.

'Hedwig!'

The snowy owl clicked her beak and nibbled his ear affectionately as Harry stroked her feathers.

'She's been in a right state,' said Ron. 'Pecked us half to death when she brought your last letters, look at this -'

He showed Harry the index finger ol his right hand, which sported a half-healed but clearly deep cut.

'Oh, yeah,' Harry said. 'Sorry about that, but I wanted answers, you know -'

'We wanted to give them to you, mate,' said Ron. 'Hermione was going spare, she kept saying you'd do something stupid if you were stuck all on your own without news, but Dumbledore made us -'

'— swear not to tell me,' said Harry. 'Yeah, Hermione's already said. '

The warm glow that had flared inside him at the sight of his two best friends was extinguished as something icy flooded the pit of his stomach. All of a sudden - after yearning to see them for a solid month — he felt he would rather Ron and Hermione left him alone.

There was a strained silence in which Harry stroked Hedwig automatically, not looking at either of the others.

'He seemed to think it was best,' said Hermione rather breathlessly. 'Dumbledore, I mean.'

'Right,' said Harry. He noticed that her hands, too, bore the marks of Hedwigs beak and found that he was not at all sorry.

'I think he thought you were safest with the Muggles -' Ron began.

'Yeah?' said Harry, raising his eyebrows. 'Have either of you been attacked by Dementors this summer?'

'Well, no - but that's why he's had people from the Order of the Phoenix tailing you all the time -'

Harry felt a great jolt in his guts as though he had just missed a step going downstairs. So everyone had known he was being followed, except him.

'Didn't work that well, though, did it?' said Harry, doing his utmost to keep his voice even. 'Had to look after myself after all, didn't I?'

'He was so angry,' said Hermione, in an almost awestruck voice. 'Dumbledore. We saw him. When he found out Mundungus had left before his shift had ended. He was scary.'

'Well, I'm glad he left,' Harry said coldly. 'If he hadn't, I wouldn't have done magic and Dumbledore would probably have left me at Privet Drive all summer.'

'Aren't you… aren't you worried about the Ministry of Magic hearing?' said Hermione quietly.

'No,' Harry lied defiantly. He walked away from them, looking around, with Hedwig nestled contentedly on his shoulder, but this room was not likely to raise his spirits. It was dank and dark. A blank stretch of canvas in an ornate picture frame was all that relieved the bareness of the peeling walls, and as Harry passed it he thought he heard someone, who was lurking out of sight, snigger.

'So why's Dumbledore been so keen to keep me in the dark?'

Harry asked, still trying hard to keep his voice casual. 'Did you -er - bother to ask him at all?'

He glanced up just in time to see them exchanging a look that told him he was behaving just as they had feared he would. It did nothing to improve his temper.

'We told Dumbledore we wanted to tell you what was going on,' said Ron. 'We did, mate. But he's really busy now, we've only seen him twice since we came here and he didn't have much time, he just made us swear not to tell you important stuff when we wrote, he said the owls might be intercepted.'

'He could still've kept me informed if he'd wanted to,' Harry said shortly. 'You're not telling me he doesn't know ways to send messages without owls.'

Hermione glanced at Ron and then said, '1 thought that, too. But he didn't want you to know anything.'

'Maybe he thinks I can't be trusted,' said Harry, watching their expressions.

'Don't be thick,' said Ron, looking highly disconcerted.

'Or that I can't take care of myself.'

'Of course he doesn't think that!' said Hermione anxiously.

'So how come I have to stay at the Dursleys' while you two get to join in everything that's going on here?' said Harry, the words tumbling over one another in a rush, his voice growing louder with every word. 'How come you two are allowed to know everything that's going on?'

'We're not!' Ron interrupted. 'Mum won't let us near the meetings, she says we're too young -'

But before he knew it, Harry was shouting.

'SO YOU HAVEN'T BEEN IN THE MEETINGS, BIG DEAL! YOU'VE STILL BEEN HERE, HAVEN'T YOU? YOU'VE STILL BEEN TOGETHER! ME, I'VE BEEN STUCK AT THE DURSLEYS' FOR A MONTH! AND I'VE HANDLED MORE THAN YOU TWO'VE EVER MANAGED AND DUMBLEDORE KNOWS IT -WHO SAVED THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE? WHO GOT RID OF RIDDLE? WHO SAVED BOTH YOUR SKINS FROM THE DEMENTORS?'

Every bitter and resentful thought Harry had had in the past month was pouring out of him: his frustration at the lack of news, the hurt that they had all been together without him, his fury at being followed and not told about it - all the feelings he was half-ashamed of finally burst their boundaries. Hedwig took fright at the noise and soared off to the top of the wardrobe again; Pigwidgeon twittered in alarm and zoomed even taster around their heads.

'WHO HAD TO GET PAST DRAGONS AND SPHINXES AND EVERY OTHER FOUL THING LAST YEAR? WHO SAW HIM COME BACK? WHO HAD TO ESCAPE FROM HIM? ME!'

Ron was standing there with his mouth half-open, clearly stunned and at a loss for anything to say, whilst Hermione looked on the verge of tears.

'BUT WHY SHOULD I KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON? WHY SHOULD ANYONE BOTHER TO TELL ME WHAT'S BEEN HAPPENING?'

'Harry, we wanted to tell you, we really did -' Hermione began.

'CANT'VE WANTED TO THAT MUCH, CAN YOU, OR YOU'D HAVE SENT ME AN OWL, BUT Dl/MBLEDORE MADE YOU SWEAR -

Well, he did -'

'FOUR WEEKS I'VE BEEN STUCK IN PRIVET DRIVE, NICKING PAPERS OUT OF BINS TO TRY AND FIND OUT WHAT'S BEEN GOING ON -'

We wanted to -'

'I SUPPOSE YOU'VE BEEN HAVING A REAL LAUGH, HAVEN'T YOU, ALL HOLED UP HERE TOGETHER -'

'No, honest -'

'Harry we're really sorry!' said Hermione desperately, her eyes now sparkling with tears. 'You're absolutely right, Harry - I'd be furious if it was me!'

Harry glared at her, still breathing deeply, then turned away from them again, pacing up and down. Hedwig hooted glumly from the top of the wardrobe. There was a long pause, broken only by the mournful creak of the floorboards below Harry's feet.

'What is this place, anyway?' he shot at Ron and Hermione.

'Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix,' said Ron at once.

'Is anyone going to bother telling me what the Order of the Phoenix -?'

'It's a secret society,' said Hermione quickly. 'Dumbledore's in charge, he founded it. It's the people who fought against You-Know-Who last time.'

'Who's in it?' said Harry, coming to a halt with his hands in his pockets.

'Quite a few people -'

'We've met about twenty of them,' said Ron, 'but we think there are more.'

Harry glared at them.

'Well?' he demanded, looking from one to the other.

'Er,' said Ron. 'Well what?'

'Voldemort!' said Harry furiously, and both Ron and Hermione winced. 'What's happening? What's he up to? Where is he? What are we doing to stop him?'

'We've told you, the Order don't let us in on their meetings,' said Hermione nervously. 'So we don't know the details - but we've got a general idea,' she added hastily, seeing the look on Harry's face.

'Fred and George have invented Extendable Ears, see,' said Ron. They're really useful.'

'Extendable -?'