The Order of the Phoenix Read online

  As the wizard hobbled and pranced sideways out of the way, the Weasley party moved forward a few steps and Harry read the floor guide:

  ARTEFACT ACCIDENTS .............................. Ground floor

  Cauldron explosion, wand backfiring, broom crashes, etc.

  CREATURE-INDUCED INJURIES ................. First floor

  Bites, stings, burns, embedded spines, etc.

  MAGICAL BUGS .......................................... Second floor

  Contagious maladies, e.g. dragon pox, vanishing sickness, scrofungulus, etc.

  POTION AND PLANT POISONING ............ Third floor

  Rashes, regurgitation, uncontrollable giggling, etc.

  SPELL DAMAGE .......................................... Fourth floor

  Unliftable jinxes, hexes, incorrectly applied charms, etc.

  VISITORS’ TEAROOM / HOSPITAL SHOP ..... Fifth floor

  IF YOU ARE UNSURE WHERE TO GO, INCAPABLE OF NORMAL SPEECH OR UNABLE TO REMEMBER WHY YOU ARE HERE, OUR WELCOME WITCH WILL BE PLEASED TO HELP.

  A very old, stooped wizard with a hearing trumpet had shuffled to the front of the queue now. ‘I’m here to see Broderick Bode!’ he wheezed.

  ‘Ward forty-nine, but I’m afraid you’re wasting your time,’ said the witch dismissively. ‘He’s completely addled, you know – still thinks he’s a teapot. Next!’

  A harassed-looking wizard was holding his small daughter tightly by the ankle while she flapped around his head using the immensely large, feathery wings that had sprouted right out through the back of her romper suit.

  ‘Fourth floor,’ said the witch, in a bored voice, without asking, and the man disappeared through the double doors beside the desk, holding his daughter like an oddly shaped balloon. ‘Next!’

  Mrs Weasley moved forward to the desk.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, ‘my husband, Arthur Weasley, was supposed to be moved to a different ward this morning, could you tell us –?’

  ‘Arthur Weasley?’ said the witch, running her finger down a long list in front of her. ‘Yes, first floor, second door on the right, Dai Llewellyn Ward.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Mrs Weasley. ‘Come on, you lot.’

  They followed her through the double doors and along the narrow corridor beyond, which was lined with more portraits of famous Healers and lit by crystal bubbles full of candles that floated up on the ceiling, looking like giant soapsuds. More witches and wizards in lime-green robes walked in and out of the doors they passed; a foul-smelling yellow gas wafted into the passageway as they passed one door, and every now and then they heard distant wailing. They climbed a flight of stairs and entered the Creature-Induced Injuries corridor, where the second door on the right bore the words: ‘Dangerous’ Dai Llewellyn Ward: Serious Bites. Underneath this was a card in a brass holder on which had been handwritten: Healer-in-Charge: Hippocrates Smethwyck. Trainee Healer: Augustus Pye.

  ‘We’ll wait outside, Molly,’ Tonks said. ‘Arthur won’t want too many visitors at once … it ought to be just the family first.’

  Mad-Eye growled his approval of this idea and set himself with his back against the corridor wall, his magical eye spinning in all directions. Harry drew back, too, but Mrs Weasley reached out a hand and pushed him through the door, saying, ‘Don’t be silly, Harry, Arthur wants to thank you.’

  The ward was small and rather dingy, as the only window was narrow and set high in the wall facing the door. Most of the light came from more shining crystal bubbles clustered in the middle of the ceiling. The walls were of panelled oak and there was a portrait of a rather vicious-looking wizard on the wall, captioned: Urquhart Rackharrow, 1612–1697, Inventor of the Entrail-expelling Curse.

  There were only three patients. Mr Weasley was occupying the bed at the far end of the ward beside the tiny window. Harry was pleased and relieved to see that he was propped up on several pillows and reading the Daily Prophet by the solitary ray of sunlight falling on to his bed. He looked up as they walked towards him and, seeing who it was, beamed.

  ‘Hello!’ he called, throwing the Prophet aside. ‘Bill just left, Molly, had to get back to work, but he says he’ll drop in on you later.’

  ‘How are you, Arthur?’ asked Mrs Weasley, bending down to kiss his cheek and looking anxiously into his face. ‘You’re still looking a bit peaky.’

  ‘I feel absolutely fine,’ said Mr Weasley brightly, holding out his good arm to give Ginny a hug. ‘If they could only take the bandages off, I’d be fit to go home.’

  ‘Why can’t they take them off, Dad?’ asked Fred.

  ‘Well, I start bleeding like mad every time they try,’ said Mr Weasley cheerfully, reaching across for his wand, which lay on his bedside cabinet, and waving it so that six extra chairs appeared at his bedside to seat them all. ‘It seems there was some rather unusual kind of poison in that snake’s fangs that keeps wounds open. They’re sure they’ll find an antidote, though; they say they’ve had much worse cases than mine, and in the meantime I just have to keep taking a Blood-Replenishing Potion every hour. But that fellow over there,’ he said, dropping his voice and nodding towards the bed opposite in which a man lay looking green and sickly and staring at the ceiling. ‘Bitten by a werewolf, poor chap. No cure at all.’

  ‘A werewolf?’ whispered Mrs Weasley, looking alarmed. ‘Is he safe in a public ward? Shouldn’t he be in a private room?’

  ‘It’s two weeks till full moon,’ Mr Weasley reminded her quietly. ‘They’ve been talking to him this morning, the Healers, you know, trying to persuade him he’ll be able to lead an almost normal life. I said to him – didn’t mention names, of course – but I said I knew a werewolf personally, very nice man, who finds the condition quite easy to manage.’

  ‘What did he say?’ asked George.

  ‘Said he’d give me another bite if I didn’t shut up,’ said Mr Weasley sadly. ‘And that woman over there,’ he indicated the only other occupied bed, which was right beside the door, ‘won’t tell the Healers what bit her, which makes us all think it must have been something she was handling illegally. Whatever it was took a real chunk out of her leg, very nasty smell when they take off the dressings.’

  ‘So, you going to tell us what happened, Dad?’ asked Fred, pulling his chair closer to the bed.

  ‘Well, you already know, don’t you?’ said Mr Weasley, with a significant smile at Harry. ‘It’s very simple – I’d had a very long day, dozed off, got sneaked up on and bitten.’

  ‘Is it in the Prophet, you being attacked?’ asked Fred, indicating the newspaper Mr Weasley had cast aside.

  ‘No, of course not,’ said Mr Weasley, with a slightly bitter smile, ‘the Ministry wouldn’t want everyone to know a dirty great serpent got –’

  ‘Arthur!’ Mrs Weasley warned him.

  ‘– got – er – me,’ Mr Weasley said hastily, though Harry was quite sure that was not what he had meant to say.

  ‘So where were you when it happened, Dad?’ asked George.

  ‘That’s my business,’ said Mr Weasley, though with a small smile. He snatched up the Daily Prophet, shook it open again and said, ‘I was just reading about Willy Widdershins’s arrest when you arrived. You know Willy turned out to be behind those regurgitating toilets back in the summer? One of his jinxes backfired, the toilet exploded and they found him lying unconscious in the wreckage covered from head to foot in –’

  ‘When you say you were “on duty”,’ Fred interrupted in a low voice, ‘what were you doing?’

  ‘You heard your father,’ whispered Mrs Weasley, ‘we are not discussing this here! Go on about Willy Widdershins, Arthur.’

  ‘Well, don’t ask me how, but he actually got off the toilet charge,’ said Mr Weasley grimly. ‘I can only suppose gold changed hands –’

  ‘You were guarding it, weren’t you?’ said George quietly. ‘The weapon? The thing You-Know-Who’s after?’

  ‘George, be quiet!’ snapped Mrs Weasley.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Mr
Weasley, in a raised voice, ‘this time Willy’s been caught selling biting doorknobs to Muggles and I don’t think he’ll be able to worm his way out of it because, according to this article, two Muggles have lost fingers and are now in St Mungo’s for emergency bone re-growth and memory modification. Just think of it, Muggles in St Mungo’s! I wonder which ward they’re in?’

  And he looked eagerly around as though hoping to see a signpost.

  ‘Didn’t you say You-Know-Who’s got a snake, Harry?’ asked Fred, looking at his father for a reaction. ‘A massive one? You saw it the night he returned, didn’t you?’

  ‘That’s enough,’ said Mrs Weasley crossly. ‘Mad-Eye and Tonks are outside, Arthur, they want to come and see you. And you lot can wait outside,’ she added to her children and Harry. ‘You can come and say goodbye afterwards. Go on.’

  They trooped back into the corridor. Mad-Eye and Tonks went in and closed the door of the ward behind them. Fred raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Fine,’ he said coolly, rummaging in his pockets, ‘be like that. Don’t tell us anything.’

  ‘Looking for these?’ said George, holding out what looked like a tangle of flesh-coloured string.

  ‘You read my mind,’ said Fred, grinning. ‘Let’s see if St Mungo’s puts Imperturbable Charms on its ward doors, shall we?’

  He and George disentangled the string and separated five Extendable Ears from each other. Fred and George handed them around. Harry hesitated to take one.

  ‘Go on, Harry, take it! You saved Dad’s life. If anyone’s got the right to eavesdrop on him, it’s you.’

  Grinning in spite of himself, Harry took the end of the string and inserted it into his ear as the twins had done.

  ‘OK, go!’ Fred whispered.

  The flesh-coloured strings wriggled like long skinny worms and snaked under the door. At first, Harry could hear nothing, then he jumped as he heard Tonks whispering as clearly as though she were standing right beside him.

  ‘… they searched the whole area but couldn’t find the snake anywhere. It just seems to have vanished after it attacked you, Arthur … but You-Know-Who can’t have expected a snake to get in, can he?’

  ‘I reckon he sent it as a lookout,’ growled Moody, ‘’cause he’s not had any luck so far, has he? No, I reckon he’s trying to get a clearer picture of what he’s facing and if Arthur hadn’t been there the beast would’ve had a lot more time to look around. So, Potter says he saw it all happen?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mrs Weasley. She sounded rather uneasy. ‘You know, Dumbledore seems almost to have been waiting for Harry to see something like this.’

  ‘Yeah, well,’ said Moody, ‘there’s something funny about the Potter kid, we all know that.’

  ‘Dumbledore seemed worried about Harry when I spoke to him this morning,’ whispered Mrs Weasley.

  ‘Course he’s worried,’ growled Moody. ‘The boy’s seeing things from inside You-Know-Who’s snake. Obviously, Potter doesn’t realise what that means, but if You-Know-Who’s possessing him –’

  Harry pulled the Extendable Ear out of his own, his heart hammering very fast and heat rushing up his face. He looked around at the others. They were all staring at him, the strings still trailing from their ears, looking suddenly fearful.

  — CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE —

  Christmas on the Closed Ward

  Was this why Dumbledore would no longer meet Harry’s eyes? Did he expect to see Voldemort staring out of them, afraid, perhaps, that their vivid green might turn suddenly to scarlet, with catlike slits for pupils? Harry remembered how the snakelike face of Voldemort had once forced itself out of the back of Professor Quirrell’s head and ran his hand over the back of his own, wondering what it would feel like if Voldemort burst out of his skull.

  He felt dirty, contaminated, as though he were carrying some deadly germ, unworthy to sit on the Underground train back from the hospital with innocent, clean people whose minds and bodies were free of the taint of Voldemort … he had not merely seen the snake, he had been the snake, he knew it now …

  A truly terrible thought then occurred to him, a memory bobbing to the surface of his mind, one that made his insides writhe and squirm like serpents.

  What’s he after, apart from followers?

  Stuff he can only get by stealth … like a weapon. Something he didn’t have last time.

  I’m the weapon, Harry thought, and it was as though poison were pumping through his veins, chilling him, bringing him out in a sweat as he swayed with the train through the dark tunnel. I’m the one Voldemort’s trying to use, that’s why they’ve got guards around me everywhere I go, it’s not for my protection, it’s for other people’s, only it’s not working, they can’t have someone on me all the time at Hogwarts … I did attack Mr Weasley last night, it was me. Voldemort made me do it and he could be inside me, listening to my thoughts right now –

  ‘Are you all right, Harry, dear?’ whispered Mrs Weasley, leaning across Ginny to speak to him as the train rattled along through its dark tunnel. ‘You don’t look very well. Are you feeling sick?’

  They were all watching him. He shook his head violently and stared up at an advertisement for home insurance.

  ‘Harry, dear, are you sure you’re all right?’ said Mrs Weasley in a worried voice, as they walked around the unkempt patch of grass in the middle of Grimmauld Place. ‘You look ever so pale … are you sure you slept this morning? You go upstairs to bed right now and you can have a couple of hours of sleep before dinner, all right?’

  He nodded; here was a ready-made excuse not to talk to any of the others, which was precisely what he wanted, so when she opened the front door he hurried straight past the troll’s-leg umbrella stand, up the stairs and into his and Ron’s bedroom.

  Here, he began to pace up and down, past the two beds and Phineas Nigellus’s empty picture frame, his brain teeming and seething with questions and ever more dreadful ideas.

  How had he become a snake? Perhaps he was an Animagus … no, he couldn’t be, he would know … perhaps Voldemort was an Animagus … yes, thought Harry, that would fit, he would turn into a snake of course … and when he’s possessing me, then we both transform … that still doesn’t explain how I got to London and back to my bed in the space of about five minutes … but then Voldemort’s about the most powerful wizard in the world, apart from Dumbledore, it’s probably no problem at all to him to transport people like that.

  And then, with a terrible stab of panic, he thought, but this is insane – if Voldemort’s possessing me, I’m giving him a clear view into the Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix right now! He’ll know who’s in the Order and where Sirius is … and I’ve heard loads of stuff I shouldn’t have, everything Sirius told me the first night I was here …

  There was only one thing for it: he would have to leave Grimmauld Place straightaway. He would spend Christmas at Hogwarts without the others, which would keep them safe over the holidays at least … but no, that wouldn’t do, there were still plenty of people at Hogwarts to maim and injure. What if it was Seamus, Dean or Neville next time? He stopped his pacing and stood staring at Phineas Nigellus’s empty frame. A leaden sensation was settling in the pit of his stomach. He had no alternative: he was going to have to return to Privet Drive, cut himself off from other wizards entirely.

  Well, if he had to do it, he thought, there was no point hanging around. Trying with all his might not to think how the Dursleys were going to react when they found him on their doorstep six months earlier than they had expected, he strode over to his trunk, slammed the lid shut and locked it, then glanced around automatically for Hedwig before remembering that she was still at Hogwarts – well, her cage would be one less thing to carry – he seized one end of his trunk and had dragged it halfway towards the door when a snide voice said, ‘Running away, are we?’

  He looked around. Phineas Nigellus had appeared on the canvas of his portrait and was leaning against the frame, watching Harry with an amused e
xpression on his face.

  ‘Not running away, no,’ said Harry shortly, dragging his trunk a few more feet across the room.

  ‘I thought,’ said Phineas Nigellus, stroking his pointed beard, ‘that to belong in Gryffindor house you were supposed to be brave? It looks to me as though you would have been better off in my own house. We Slytherins are brave, yes, but not stupid. For instance, given the choice, we will always choose to save our own necks.’

  ‘It’s not my own neck I’m saving,’ said Harry tersely, tugging the trunk over a patch of particularly uneven, moth-eaten carpet right in front of the door.

  ‘Oh, I see,’ said Phineas Nigellus, still stroking his beard, ‘this is no cowardly flight – you are being noble.’

  Harry ignored him. His hand was on the doorknob when Phineas Nigellus said lazily, ‘I have a message for you from Albus Dumbledore.’

  Harry spun round.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘“Stay where you are.”’

  ‘I haven’t moved!’ said Harry, his hand still upon the doorknob. ‘So what’s the message?’

  ‘I have just given it to you, dolt,’ said Phineas Nigellus smoothly. ‘Dumbledore says, “Stay where you are.”’

  ‘Why?’ said Harry eagerly, dropping the end of his trunk. ‘Why does he want me to stay? What else did he say?’

  ‘Nothing whatsoever,’ said Phineas Nigellus, raising a thin black eyebrow as though he found Harry impertinent.

  Harry’s temper rose to the surface like a snake rearing from long grass. He was exhausted, he was confused beyond measure, he had experienced terror, relief, then terror again in the last twelve hours, and still Dumbledore did not want to talk to him!

  ‘So that’s it, is it?’ he said loudly. ‘“Stay where you are”? That’s all anyone could tell me after I got attacked by those Dementors, too! Just stay put while the grown-ups sort it out, Harry! We won’t bother telling you anything, though, because your tiny little brain might not be able to cope with it!’