Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (8 page)

'Ears, yeah. Only we've had to stop using them lately because Mum found out and went berserk. Fred and George had to hide them all to stop Mum binning them. But we got a good bit of use out of them before Mum realised what was going on. We know some of the Order are following known Death Eaters, keeping tabs on them, you know -'

'Some of them are working on recruiting more people to the Order -' said Hermione.

'And some of them are standing guard over something,' said Ron. They're always talking about guard duty.'

'Couldn't have been me, could it?' said Harry sarcastically.

'Oh, yeah,' said Ron, with a look of dawning comprehension.

Harry snorted. He walked around the room again, looking anywhere but at Ron and Hermione. 'So, what have you two been doing, if you're not allowed in meetings?' he demanded. 'You said you'd been busy.'

'We have,' said Hermione quickly. 'We've been decontaminating this house, it's been empty for ages and stuff's been breeding in here. We've managed to clean out the kitchen, most of the bedrooms and I think we're doing the drawing room tomo— AARGH!'

With two loud cracks, Fred and George, Ron's elder twin brothers, had materialised out of thin air in the middle of the room. Pigwidgeon twittered more wildly than ever and zoomed off to join Hedwig on top of the wardrobe.

'Stop doing that!' Hermione said weakly to the twins, who were as vividly red-haired as Ron, though stockier and slightly shorter.

'Hello, Harry,' said George, beaming at him. 'We thought we heard your dulcet tones.'

'You don't want to bottle up your anger like that, Harry, let it all out,' said Fred, also beaming. There might be a couple of people fifty miles away who didn't hear you.'

'You two passed your Apparation tests, then?' asked Harry grumpily.

'With distinction,' said Fred, who was holding what looked like a piece of very long, flesh-coloured string.

'It would have taken you about thirty seconds longer to walk down the stairs,' said Ron.

Time is Galleons, little brother,' said Fred. 'Anyway, Harry, you're interfering with reception. Extendable Ears,' he added in response" to Harry's raised eyebrows, and held up the string which Harry now saw was trailing out on to the landing. We're trying to hear what's going on downstairs.'

'You want to be careful,' said Ron, staring at the Ear, 'if Mum sees one of them again…"

'It's worth the risk, that's a major meeting they're having,' said Fred.

The door opened and a long mane of red hair appeared.

'Oh, hello, Harry!' said Ron's younger sister, Ginny, brightly. 'I thought I heard your voice.'

Turning to Fred and George, she said, 'It's no-go with the Extendable Ears, she's gone and put an Imperturbable Charm on the kitchen door.'

'How d'you know?' said George, looking crestfallen.

Tonks told me how to find out,' said Ginny. 'You just chuck stuff at the door and if it can't make contact the door's been Imperturbed. I've been flicking Dungbombs at it from the top of the stairs and they just soar away from it, so there's no way the Extendable Ears will be able to get under the gap.'

Fred heaved a deep sigh.

'Shame. I really fancied finding out what old Snape's been up to.'

'Snape!' said Harry quickly. 'Is he here?'

'Yeah,' said George, carefully closing the door and sitting down on one of the beds; Fred and Ginny followed. 'Giving a report. Top secret.'

'Git,' said Fred idly.

'He's on our side now,' said Hermione reprovingly.

Ron snorted. 'Doesn't stop him being a git. The way he looks at us when he sees us.'

'Bill doesn't like him, either,' said Ginny, as though that settled the matter.

Harry was not sure his anger had abated yet; but his thirst for information was now overcoming his urge to keep shouting. He sank on to the bed opposite the others.

'Is Bill here?' he asked. 'I thought he was working in Egypt?'

'He applied for a desk job so he could come home and work for the Order,' said Fred. 'He says he misses the tombs, but; he smirked, 'there are compensations.'

'What d'you mean?'

'Remember old Fleur Delacour?' said George. 'She's got a job at Gringotts to eempwve 'er Eeenglish -'

'And Bill's been giving her a lot of private lessons,' sniggered Fred.

'Charlie's in the Order, too,' said George, 'but he's still in Romania. Dumbledore wants as many foreign wizards brought in as possible, so Charlie's trying to make contacts on his days off.'

'Couldn't Percy do that?' Harry asked. The last he had heard, the third Weasley brother was working in the Department of International Magical Co-operation at the Ministry of Magic.

At Harry's words, all the Weasleys and Hermione exchanged darkly significant looks.

'Whatever you do, don't mention Percy in front of Mum and Dad,' Ron told Harry in a tense voice.

'Why not?'

'Because every time Percy's name's mentioned, Dad breaks whatever he's holding and Mum starts crying,' Fred said.

'It's been awful,' said Ginny sadly.

'I think we're well shot of him,' said George, with an uncharacteristically ugly look on his face.

'What's happened?' Harry said.

'Percy and Dad had a row,' said Fred. 'I've never seen Dad row with anyone like that. It's normally Mum who shouts.'

'It was the first week back after term ended,' said Ron. 'We were about to come and join the Order. Percy came home and told us he'd been promoted.'

'You're kidding?' said Harry.

Though he knew perfectly well that Percy was highly ambitious, Harry's impression was that Percy had not made a great success of his first job at the Ministry of Magic. Percy had committed the fairly large oversight of failing to notice that his boss was being controlled by Lord Voldemort (not that the Ministry had believed it - they all thought Mr Crouch had gone mad).

'Yeah, we were all surprised,' said George, 'because Percy got into a load of trouble about Crouch, there was an inquiry and everything. They said Percy ought to have realised Crouch was off his rocker and informed a superior. But you know Percy, Crouch left him in charge, he wasn't going to complain.'

'So how come they promoted him?'

That's exactly what we wondered,' said Ron, who seemed very keen to keep normal conversation going now that Harry had stopped yelling. 'He came home really pleased with himself -even more pleased than usual, if you can imagine that — and told Dad he'd been offered a position in Fudge's own office. A really good one for someone only a year out of Hogwarts: Junior Assistant to the Minister. He expected Dad to be all impressed, I think.'

'Only Dad wasn't,' said Fred grimly.

'Why not?' said Harry. .f-

'Well, apparently Fudge has been storming round the Ministry checking that nobody's having any contact with Dumbledore,' said George.

'Dumbledore's name is mud with the Ministry these days, see,' said Fred. They all think he's just making trouble saying You-Know-Whos back.'

'Dad says Fudge has made it clear that anyone who's in league with Dumbledore can clear out their desks,' said George.

'Trouble is, Fudge suspects Dad, he knows he's friendly with Dumbledore, and he's always thought Dad's a bit of a weirdo because of his Muggle obsession.'

'But what's that got to do with Percy?' asked Harry, contused.

'I'm coming to that. Dad reckons Fudge only wants Percy in his office because he wants to use him to spy on the family - and Dumbledore.'

Harry let out a low whistle.

'Bet Percy loved that.'

Ron laughed in a hollow sort of way.

'He went completely berserk. He said — well, he said loads of terrible stuff. He said he's been having to struggle against Dad's lousy reputation ever since he joined the Ministry and that Dad's got no ambition and that's why we've always been - you know -not had a lot of money, I mean -'

'What?' said Harry in disbelief, as Ginny made a noise like an angry cat.

'I know,' said Ron in a low voice. 'And it got worse. He said Dad was an idiot to run around with Dumbledore, that Dumbledore was heading for big trouble and Dad was going to go down with him, and that he - Percy - knew where his loyalty lay and it was with the Ministry. And if Mum and Dad were going to become traitors to the Ministry he was going to make sure everyone knew he didn't belong to our family any more. And he packed his bags the same night and left. He's living here in London now.'

Harry swore under his breath. He had always liked Percy least of Ron's brothers, but he had never imagined he would say such things to Mr Weasley.

'Mum's been in a right state,' said Ron dully. 'You know - crying and stuff. She came up to London to try and talk to Percy but he slammed the door in her face. I dunno what he does if he meets Dad at work - ignores him, I's'pose.'

'But Percy must know Voldemort's back,' said Harry slowly. 'He's not stupid, he must know your mum and dad wouldn't risk everything without proof.'

'Yeah, well, your name got dragged into the row,' said Ron, shooting Harry a furtive look. 'Percy said the only evidence was your word and… I dunno… he didn't think it was good enough.'

'Percy takes the Daily Prophet seriously,' said Hermione tartly, and the others all nodded.

'What are you talking about?' Harry asked, looking around at them all. They were all regarding him warily.

'Haven't - haven't you been getting the Daily Prophet!' Hermione asked nervously.

'Yeah, I have!' said Harry.

'Have you - er - been reading it thoroughly?' Hermione asked, still more anxiously.

'Not cover to cover,' said Harry defensively. 'If they were going to report anything about Voldemort it would be headline news, wouldn't it?'

The others flinched at the sound of the name. Hermione hurried on, 'Well, you'd need to read it cover to cover to pick it up, but they - um - they mention you a couple of times a week.'

'But I'd have seen -'

'Not if you've only been reading the front page, you wouldn't,' said Hermione, shaking her head. 'I'm not talking about big articles. They just slip you in, like you're a standing joke.'

'What d'you -?'

'It's quite nasty, actually,' said Hermione in a voice of forced calm. They're just building on Rita's stuff.'

'But she's not writing for them any more, is she?'

'Oh, no, she's kept her promise — not that she's got any choice,' Hermione added with satisfaction. 'But she laid the foundation for what they're trying to do now.'

'Which is what?' said Harry impatiently.

'OK, you know she wrote that you were collapsing all over the place and saying your scar was hurting and all that?'

'Yeah,' said Harry, who was not likely to forget Rita Skeeter's stories about him in a hurry.

'Well, they're writing about you as though you're this deluded, attention-seeking person who thinks he's a great tragic hero or something,' said Hermione, very fast, as though it would be less unpleasant for Harry to hear these facts quickly. They keep slipping in snide comments about you. If some far-fetched story appears, they say something like, “A tale worthy of Harry Potter”, and if anyone has a funny accident or anything it's, “Let's hope he hasn't got a scar on his forehead or we'll be asked to worship him next” -'

'I don't want anyone to worship —' Harry began hotly.

'I know you don't,' said Hermione quickly, looking frightened. 'I know, Harry. But you see what they're doing? They want to turn you into someone nobody will believe. Fudge is behind it, I'll bet anything. They want wizards on the street to think you're just some stupid boy who's a bit of a joke, who tells ridiculous tall stories because he loves being famous and wants to keep it going.'

'I didn't ask - I didn't want - Voldemort killed my parents!' Harry spluttered. 'I got famous because he murdered my family but couldn't kill me! Who wants to be famous for that? Don't they think I'd rather it'd never -'

'We know, Harry,' said Ginny earnestly.

'And of course, they didn't report a word about the Dementors attacking you,' said Hermione. 'Someone's told them to keep that quiet. That should've been a really big story, out-of-control Dementors. They haven't even reported that you broke the International Statute of Secrecy. We thought they would, it would tie in so well with this image of you as some stupid show-off. We think they're biding their time until you're expelled, then they're really going to go to town - I mean, if you're expelled, obviously,' she went on hastily. 'You really shouldn't be, not if they abide by their own laws, there's no case against you.'

They were back on the hearing and Harry did not want to think about that. He cast around for another change of subject, but was saved the necessity of finding one by the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs.

'Uh oh.'

Fred gave the Extendable Ear a hearty tug; there was another loud crack and he and George vanished. Seconds later, Mrs. Weasley appeared in the bedroom doorway.

The meeting's over, you can come down and have dinner now. Everyone's dying to see you, Harry. And who's left all those Dungbombs outside the kitchen door?'

'Crookshanks,' said Ginny unblushmgly. 'He loves playing with them.'

'Oh,' said Mrs. Weasley, 'I thought it might have been Kreacher, he keeps doing odd things like that. Now don't forget to keep your voices down in the hall. Ginny, your hands are filthy, what have you been doing? Go and wash them before dinner, please.'

Ginny grimaced at the others and followed her mother out of the room, leaving Harry alone with Ron and Hermione. Both of them were watching him apprehensively, as though they feared he would start shouting again now that everyone else had gone. The sight of them looking so nervous made him feel slightly ashamed.

'Look…' he muttered, but Ron shook his head, and Hermione said quietly, 'We knew you'd be angry, Harry, we really don't blame you, but you've got to understand, we did try to persuade Dumbledore -'

'Yeah, I know,' said Harry shortly.

He cast around for a topic that didn't involve his headmaster, because the very thought of Dumbledore made Harry's insides burn with anger again.