The Order of the Phoenix Read online

  ‘I – am – making – an – effort,’ he said through clenched teeth.

  ‘I told you to empty yourself of emotion!’

  ‘Yeah? Well, I’m finding that hard at the moment,’ Harry snarled.

  ‘Then you will find yourself easy prey for the Dark Lord!’ said Snape savagely. ‘Fools who wear their hearts proudly on their sleeves, who cannot control their emotions, who wallow in sad memories and allow themselves to be provoked so easily – weak people, in other words – they stand no chance against his powers! He will penetrate your mind with absurd ease, Potter!’

  ‘I am not weak,’ said Harry in a low voice, fury now pumping through him so that he thought he might attack Snape in a moment.

  ‘Then prove it! Master yourself!’ spat Snape. ‘Control your anger, discipline your mind! We shall try again! Get ready, now! Legilimens!’

  He was watching Uncle Vernon hammering the letterbox shut … a hundred Dementors were drifting across the lake in the grounds towards him … he was running along a windowless passage with Mr Weasley … they were drawing nearer to the plain black door at the end of the corridor … Harry expected to go through it … but Mr Weasley led him off to the left, down a flight of stone steps …

  ‘I KNOW! I KNOW!’

  He was on all fours again on Snape’s office floor, his scar was prickling unpleasantly, but the voice that had just issued from his mouth was triumphant. He pushed himself up again to find Snape staring at him, his wand raised. It looked as though, this time, Snape had lifted the spell before Harry had even tried to fight back.

  ‘What happened then, Potter?’ he asked, eyeing Harry intently.

  ‘I saw – I remembered,’ Harry panted. ‘I’ve just realised …’

  ‘Realised what?’ asked Snape sharply.

  Harry did not answer at once; he was still savouring the moment of blinding realisation as he rubbed his forehead …

  He had been dreaming about a windowless corridor ending in a locked door for months, without once realising that it was a real place. Now, seeing the memory again, he knew that all along he had been dreaming about the corridor down which he had run with Mr Weasley on the twelfth of August as they hurried to the courtrooms in the Ministry; it was the corridor leading to the Department of Mysteries and Mr Weasley had been there the night that he had been attacked by Voldemort’s snake.

  He looked up at Snape.

  ‘What’s in the Department of Mysteries?’

  ‘What did you say?’ Snape asked quietly and Harry saw, with deep satisfaction, that Snape was unnerved.

  ‘I said, what’s in the Department of Mysteries, sir?’ Harry said.

  ‘And why,’ said Snape slowly, ‘would you ask such a thing?’

  ‘Because,’ said Harry, watching Snape closely for a reaction, ‘that corridor I’ve just seen – I’ve been dreaming about it for months – I’ve just recognised it – it leads to the Department of Mysteries … and I think Voldemort wants something from –’

  ‘I have told you not to say the Dark Lord’s name!’

  They glared at each other. Harry’s scar seared again, but he did not care. Snape looked agitated; but when he spoke again he sounded as though he was trying to appear cool and unconcerned.

  ‘There are many things in the Department of Mysteries, Potter, few of which you would understand and none of which concern you. Do I make myself plain?’

  ‘Yes,’ Harry said, still rubbing his prickling scar, which was becoming more painful.

  ‘I want you back here same time on Wednesday. We will continue work then.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Harry. He was desperate to get out of Snape’s office and find Ron and Hermione.

  ‘You are to rid your mind of all emotion every night before sleep; empty it, make it blank and calm, you understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Harry, who was barely listening.

  ‘And be warned, Potter … I shall know if you have not practised …’

  ‘Right,’ Harry mumbled. He picked up his schoolbag, swung it over his shoulder and hurried towards the office door. As he opened it, he glanced back at Snape, who had his back to Harry and was scooping his own thoughts out of the Pensieve with the tip of his wand and replacing them carefully inside his own head. Harry left without another word, closing the door carefully behind him, his scar still throbbing painfully.

  Harry found Ron and Hermione in the library, where they were working on Umbridge’s most recent ream of homework. Other students, nearly all of them fifth-years, sat at lamp-lit tables nearby, noses close to books, quills scratching feverishly, while the sky outside the mullioned windows grew steadily blacker. The only other sound was the slight squeaking of one of Madam Pince’s shoes, as the librarian prowled the aisles menacingly, breathing down the necks of those touching her precious books.

  Harry felt shivery; his scar was still aching, he felt almost feverish. When he sat down opposite Ron and Hermione, he caught sight of himself in the window opposite; he was very white and his scar seemed to be showing up more clearly than usual.

  ‘How did it go?’ Hermione whispered, and then, looking concerned. ‘Are you all right, Harry?’

  ‘Yeah … fine … I dunno,’ said Harry impatiently, wincing as pain shot through his scar again. ‘Listen … I’ve just realised something …’

  And he told them what he had just seen and deduced.

  ‘So … so are you saying …’ whispered Ron, as Madam Pince swept past, squeaking slightly, ‘that the weapon – the thing You-Know-Who’s after – is in the Ministry of Magic?’

  ‘In the Department of Mysteries, it’s got to be,’ Harry whispered. ‘I saw that door when your dad took me down to the courtrooms for my hearing and it’s definitely the same one he was guarding when the snake bit him.’

  Hermione let out a long, slow sigh.

  ‘Of course,’ she breathed.

  ‘Of course what?’ said Ron rather impatiently.

  ‘Ron, think about it … Sturgis Podmore was trying to get through a door at the Ministry of Magic … it must have been that one, it’s too much of a coincidence!’

  ‘How come Sturgis was trying to break in when he’s on our side?’ said Ron.

  ‘Well, I don’t know,’ Hermione admitted. ‘That is a bit odd …’

  ‘So what’s in the Department of Mysteries?’ Harry asked Ron. ‘Has your dad ever mentioned anything about it?’

  ‘I know they call the people who work in there “Unspeakables”,’ said Ron, frowning. ‘Because no one really seems to know what they do – weird place to have a weapon.’

  ‘It’s not weird at all, it makes perfect sense,’ said Hermione. ‘It will be something top secret that the Ministry has been developing, I expect … Harry, are you sure you’re all right?’

  For Harry had just run both his hands hard over his forehead as though trying to iron it.

  ‘Yeah … fine …’ he said, lowering his hands, which were trembling. ‘I just feel a bit … I don’t like Occlumency much.’

  ‘I expect anyone would feel shaky if they’d had their mind attacked over and over again,’ said Hermione sympathetically. ‘Look, let’s get back to the common room, we’ll be a bit more comfortable there.’

  But the common room was packed and full of shrieks of laughter and excitement; Fred and George were demonstrating their latest bit of joke shop merchandise.

  ‘Headless Hats!’ shouted George, as Fred waved a pointed hat decorated with a fluffy pink feather at the watching students. ‘Two Galleons each, watch Fred, now!’

  Fred swept the hat on to his head, beaming. For a second he merely looked rather stupid; then both hat and head vanished.

  Several girls screamed, but everyone else was roaring with laughter.

  ‘And off again!’ shouted George, and Fred’s hand groped for a moment in what seemed to be thin air over his shoulder; then his head reappeared as he swept the pink-feathered hat from it.

  ‘How do those hats work, then?’ said Hermio
ne, distracted from her homework and watching Fred and George. ‘I mean, obviously it’s some kind of Invisibility Spell, but it’s rather clever to have extended the field of invisibility beyond the boundaries of the charmed object … I’d imagine the charm wouldn’t have a very long life though.’

  Harry did not answer; he was feeling ill.

  ‘I’m going to have to do this tomorrow,’ he muttered, pushing the books he had just taken out of his bag back inside it.

  ‘Well, write it in your homework planner then!’ said Hermione encouragingly. ‘So you don’t forget!’

  Harry and Ron exchanged looks as he reached into his bag, withdrew the planner and opened it tentatively.

  ‘Don’t leave it till later, you big second-rater!’ chided the book as Harry scribbled down Umbridge’s homework. Hermione beamed at it.

  ‘I think I’ll go to bed,’ said Harry, stuffing the homework planner back into his bag and making a mental note to drop it in the fire the first opportunity he got.

  He walked across the common room, dodging George, who tried to put a Headless Hat on him, and reached the peace and cool of the stone staircase to the boys’ dormitories. He was feeling sick again, just as he had the night he had had the vision of the snake, but thought that if he could just lie down for a while he would be all right.

  He opened the door of his dormitory and was one step inside it when he experienced pain so severe he thought that someone must have sliced into the top of his head. He did not know where he was, whether he was standing or lying down, he did not even know his own name.

  Maniacal laughter was ringing in his ears … he was happier than he had been in a very long time … jubilant, ecstatic, triumphant … a wonderful, wonderful thing had happened …

  ‘Harry? HARRY!’

  Someone had hit him around the face. The insane laughter was punctuated with a cry of pain. The happiness was draining out of him, but the laughter continued …

  He opened his eyes and, as he did so, he became aware that the wild laughter was coming out of his own mouth. The moment he realised this, it died away; Harry lay panting on the floor, staring up at the ceiling, the scar on his forehead throbbing horribly. Ron was bending over him, looking very worried.

  ‘What happened?’ he said.

  ‘I … dunno …’ Harry gasped, sitting up again. ‘He’s really happy … really happy …’

  ‘You-Know-Who is?’

  ‘Something good’s happened,’ mumbled Harry. He was shaking as badly as he had done after seeing the snake attack Mr Weasley and felt very sick. ‘Something he’s been hoping for.’

  The words came, just as they had back in the Gryffindor changing room, as though a stranger was speaking them through Harry’s mouth, yet he knew they were true. He took deep breaths, willing himself not to vomit all over Ron. He was very glad that Dean and Seamus were not here to watch this time.

  ‘Hermione told me to come and check on you,’ said Ron in a low voice, helping Harry to his feet. ‘She says your defences will be low at the moment, after Snape’s been fiddling around with your mind … still, I suppose it’ll help in the long run, won’t it?’

  He looked doubtfully at Harry as he helped him towards his bed. Harry nodded without any conviction and slumped back on his pillows, aching all over from having fallen to the floor so often that evening, his scar still prickling painfully. He could not help feeling that his first foray into Occlumency had weakened his mind’s resistance rather than strengthening it, and he wondered, with a feeling of great trepidation, what had happened to make Lord Voldemort the happiest he had been in fourteen years.

  — CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE —

  The Beetle at Bay

  Harry’s question was answered the very next morning. When Hermione’s Daily Prophet arrived she smoothed it out, gazed for a moment at the front page and gave a yelp that caused everyone in the vicinity to stare at her.

  ‘What?’ said Harry and Ron together.

  For answer she spread the newspaper on the table in front of them and pointed at ten black-and-white photographs that filled the whole of the front page, nine showing wizards’ faces and the tenth, a witch’s. Some of the people in the photographs were silently jeering; others were tapping their fingers on the frame of their pictures, looking insolent. Each picture was captioned with a name and the crime for which the person had been sent to Azkaban.

  Antonin Dolohov, read the legend beneath a wizard with a long, pale, twisted face who was sneering up at Harry, convicted of the brutal murders of Gideon and Fabian Prewett.

  Augustus Rookwood, said the caption beneath a pockmarked man with greasy hair who was leaning against the edge of his picture, looking bored, convicted of leaking Ministry of Magic secrets to He Who Must Not Be Named.

  But Harry’s eyes were drawn to the picture of the witch. Her face had leapt out at him the moment he had seen the page. She had long, dark hair that looked unkempt and straggly in the picture, though he had seen it sleek, thick and shining. She glared up at him through heavily lidded eyes, an arrogant, disdainful smile playing around her thin mouth. Like Sirius, she retained vestiges of great good looks, but something – perhaps Azkaban – had taken most of her beauty.

  Bellatrix Lestrange, convicted of the torture and permanent incapacitation of Frank and Alice Longbottom.

  Hermione nudged Harry and pointed at the headline over the pictures, which Harry, concentrating on Bellatrix, had not yet read.

  MASS BREAKOUT FROM AZKABAN MINISTRY FEARS BLACK IS ‘RALLYING POINT’ FOR OLD DEATH EATERS

  ‘Black?’ said Harry loudly. ‘Not –?’

  ‘Shhh!’ whispered Hermione desperately. ‘Not so loud – just read it!’

  The Ministry of Magic announced late last night that there has been a mass breakout from Azkaban.

  Speaking to reporters in his private office, Cornelius Fudge, Minister for Magic, confirmed that ten high-security prisoners escaped in the early hours of yesterday evening and that he has already informed the Muggle Prime Minister of the dangerous nature of these individuals.

  ‘We find ourselves, most unfortunately, in the same position we were two and a half years ago when the murderer Sirius Black escaped,’ said Fudge last night. ‘Nor do we think the two breakouts are unrelated. An escape of this magnitude suggests outside help, and we must remember that Black, as the first person ever to break out of Azkaban, would be ideally placed to help others follow in his footsteps. We think it likely that these individuals, who include Black’s cousin, Bellatrix Lestrange, have rallied around Black as their leader. We are, however, doing all we can to round up the criminals, and we beg the magical community to remain alert and cautious. On no account should any of these individuals be approached.’

  ‘There you are, Harry,’ said Ron, looking awestruck. ‘That’s why he was happy last night.’

  ‘I don’t believe this,’ snarled Harry, ‘Fudge is blaming the breakout on Sirius?’

  ‘What other options does he have?’ said Hermione bitterly. ‘He can hardly say, “Sorry, everyone, Dumbledore warned me this might happen, the Azkaban guards have joined Lord Voldemort” – stop whimpering, Ron – “and now Voldemort’s worst supporters have broken out, too.” I mean, he’s spent a good six months telling everyone you and Dumbledore are liars, hasn’t he?’

  Hermione ripped open the newspaper and began to read the report inside while Harry looked around the Great Hall. He could not understand why his fellow students were not looking scared or at least discussing the terrible piece of news on the front page, but very few of them took the newspaper every day like Hermione. There they all were, talking about homework and Quidditch and who knew what other rubbish, when outside these walls ten more Death Eaters had swollen Voldemort’s ranks.

  He glanced up at the staff table. It was a different story there: Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall were deep in conversation, both looking extremely grave. Professor Sprout had the Prophet propped against a bottle of ketchup and was reading the front
page with such concentration that she was not noticing the gentle drip of egg yolk falling into her lap from her stationary spoon. Meanwhile, at the far end of the table, Professor Umbridge was tucking into a bowl of porridge. For once her pouchy toad’s eyes were not sweeping the Great Hall looking for misbehaving students. She scowled as she gulped down her food and every now and then she shot a malevolent glance up the table to where Dumbledore and McGonagall were talking so intently.

  ‘Oh my –’ said Hermione wonderingly, still staring at the newspaper.

  ‘What now?’ said Harry quickly; he was feeling jumpy.

  ‘It’s … horrible,’ said Hermione, looking shaken. She folded back page ten of the newspaper and handed it to Harry and Ron.

  TRAGIC DEMISE OF MINISTRY OF MAGIC WORKER

  St Mungo’s Hospital promised a full inquiry last night after Ministry of Magic worker Broderick Bode, 49, was discovered dead in his bed, strangled by a pot plant. Healers called to the scene were unable to revive Mr Bode, who had been injured in a workplace accident some weeks prior to his death.

  Healer Miriam Strout, who was in charge of Mr Bode’s ward at the time of the incident, has been suspended on full pay and was unavailable for comment yesterday, but a spokeswizard for the hospital said in a statement:

  ‘St Mungo’s deeply regrets the death of Mr Bode, whose health was improving steadily prior to this tragic accident.

  ‘We have strict guidelines on the decorations permitted on our wards but it appears that Healer Strout, busy over the Christmas period, overlooked the dangers of the plant on Mr Bode’s bedside table. As his speech and mobility improved, Healer Strout encouraged Mr Bode to look after the plant himself, unaware that it was not an innocent Flitterbloom, but a cutting of Devil’s Snare which, when touched by the convalescent Mr Bode, throttled him instantly.

  ‘St Mungo’s is as yet unable to account for the presence of the plant on the ward and asks any witch or wizard with information to come forward.’