The Order of the Phoenix Read online

  ‘There is nothing worse than death, Dumbledore!’ snarled Voldemort.

  ‘You are quite wrong,’ said Dumbledore, still closing in upon Voldemort and speaking as lightly as though they were discussing the matter over drinks. Harry felt scared to see him walking along, undefended, shieldless; he wanted to cry out a warning, but his headless guard kept shunting him backwards towards the wall, blocking his every attempt to get out from behind it. ‘Indeed, your failure to understand that there are things much worse than death has always been your greatest weakness –’

  Another jet of green light flew from behind the silver shield. This time it was the one-armed centaur, galloping in front of Dumbledore, that took the blast and shattered into a hundred pieces, but before the fragments had even hit the floor, Dumbledore had drawn back his wand and waved it as though brandishing a whip. A long thin flame flew from the tip; it wrapped itself around Voldemort, shield and all. For a moment, it seemed Dumbledore had won, but then the fiery rope became a serpent, which relinquished its hold on Voldemort at once and turned, hissing furiously, to face Dumbledore.

  Voldemort vanished; the snake reared from the floor, ready to strike –

  There was a burst of flame in midair above Dumbledore just as Voldemort reappeared, standing on the plinth in the middle of the pool where so recently the five statues had stood.

  ‘Look out!’ Harry yelled.

  But even as he shouted, another jet of green light flew at Dumbledore from Voldemort’s wand and the snake struck –

  Fawkes swooped down in front of Dumbledore, opened his beak wide and swallowed the jet of green light whole: he burst into flame and fell to the floor, small, wrinkled and flightless. At the same moment, Dumbledore brandished his wand in one long, fluid movement – the snake, which had been an instant from sinking its fangs into him, flew high into the air and vanished in a wisp of dark smoke; and the water in the pool rose up and covered Voldemort like a cocoon of molten glass.

  For a few seconds Voldemort was visible only as a dark, rippling, faceless figure, shimmering and indistinct upon the plinth, clearly struggling to throw off the suffocating mass –

  Then he was gone and the water fell with a crash back into its pool, slopping wildly over the sides, drenching the polished floor.

  ‘MASTER!’ screamed Bellatrix.

  Sure it was over, sure Voldemort had decided to flee, Harry made to run out from behind his statue guard, but Dumbledore bellowed: ‘Stay where you are, Harry!’

  For the first time, Dumbledore sounded frightened. Harry could not see why: the hall was quite empty but for themselves, the sobbing Bellatrix still trapped under the witch statue, and the baby phoenix Fawkes croaking feebly on the floor –

  Then Harry’s scar burst open and he knew he was dead: it was pain beyond imagining, pain past endurance –

  He was gone from the hall, he was locked in the coils of a creature with red eyes, so tightly bound that Harry did not know where his body ended and the creature’s began: they were fused together, bound by pain, and there was no escape –

  And when the creature spoke, it used Harry’s mouth, so that in his agony he felt his jaw move …

  ‘Kill me now, Dumbledore …’

  Blinded and dying, every part of him screaming for release, Harry felt the creature use him again …

  ‘If death is nothing, Dumbledore, kill the boy …’

  Let the pain stop, thought Harry … let him kill us … end it, Dumbledore … death is nothing compared to this …

  And I’ll see Sirius again …

  And as Harry’s heart filled with emotion, the creature’s coils loosened, the pain was gone; Harry was lying face down on the floor, his glasses gone, shivering as though he lay upon ice, not wood …

  And there were voices echoing through the hall, more voices than there should have been … Harry opened his eyes, saw his glasses lying by the heel of the headless statue that had been guarding him, but which now lay flat on its back, cracked and immobile. He put them on and raised his head a little to find Dumbledore’s crooked nose inches from his own.

  ‘Are you all right, Harry?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Harry, shaking so violently he could not hold his head up properly. ‘Yeah, I’m – where’s Voldemort, where – who are all these – what’s –’

  The Atrium was full of people; the floor was reflecting the emerald green flames that had burst into life in all the fireplaces along one wall; and streams of witches and wizards were emerging from them. As Dumbledore pulled him back to his feet, Harry saw the tiny gold statues of the house-elf and the goblin, leading a stunned-looking Cornelius Fudge forward.

  ‘He was there!’ shouted a scarlet-robed man with a ponytail, who was pointing at a pile of golden rubble on the other side of the hall, where Bellatrix had lain trapped only moments before. ‘I saw him, Mr Fudge, I swear it was You-Know-Who, he grabbed a woman and Disapparated!’

  ‘I know, Williamson, I know, I saw him too!’ gibbered Fudge, who was wearing pyjamas under his pinstriped cloak and was gasping as though he had just run miles. ‘Merlin’s beard – here – here! – in the Ministry of Magic! – great heavens above – it doesn’t seem possible – my word – how can this be –?’

  ‘If you proceed downstairs into the Department of Mysteries, Cornelius,’ said Dumbledore – apparently satisfied that Harry was all right, and walking forwards so that the newcomers realised he was there for the first time (a few of them raised their wands; others simply looked amazed; the statues of the elf and goblin applauded and Fudge jumped so much that his slipper-clad feet left the floor) – ‘you will find several escaped Death Eaters contained in the Death Chamber, bound by an Anti-Disapparition Jinx and awaiting your decision as to what to do with them.’

  ‘Dumbledore!’ gasped Fudge, beside himself with amazement. ‘You – here – I – I –’

  He looked wildly around at the Aurors he had brought with him and it could not have been clearer that he was in half a mind to cry, ‘Seize him!’

  ‘Cornelius, I am ready to fight your men – and win, again!’ said Dumbledore in a thunderous voice. ‘But a few minutes ago you saw proof, with your own eyes, that I have been telling you the truth for a year. Lord Voldemort has returned, you have been chasing the wrong man for twelve months, and it is time you listened to sense!’

  ‘I – don’t – well –’ blustered Fudge, looking around as though hoping somebody was going to tell him what to do. When nobody did, he said, ‘Very well – Dawlish! Williamson! Go down to the Department of Mysteries and see … Dumbledore, you – you will need to tell me exactly – the Fountain of Magical Brethren – what happened?’ he added in a kind of whimper, staring around at the floor, where the remains of the statues of the witch, wizard and centaur now lay scattered.

  ‘We can discuss that after I have sent Harry back to Hogwarts,’ said Dumbledore.

  ‘Harry – Harry Potter?’

  Fudge spun round and stared at Harry, who was still standing against the wall beside the fallen statue that had guarded him during Dumbledore and Voldemort’s duel.

  ‘He – here?’ said Fudge. ‘Why – what’s all this about?’

  ‘I shall explain everything,’ repeated Dumbledore, ‘when Harry is back at school.’

  He walked away from the pool to the place where the golden wizard’s head lay on the floor. He pointed his wand at it and muttered, ‘Portus.’ The head glowed blue and trembled noisily against the wooden floor for a few seconds, then became still once more.

  ‘Now see here, Dumbledore!’ said Fudge, as Dumbledore picked up the head and walked back to Harry carrying it. ‘You haven’t got authorisation for that Portkey! You can’t do things like that right in front of the Minister for Magic, you – you –’

  His voice faltered as Dumbledore surveyed him magisterially over his half-moon spectacles.

  ‘You will give the order to remove Dolores Umbridge from Hogwarts,’ said Dumbledore. ‘You will tell your Aurors to stop
searching for my Care of Magical Creatures teacher so that he can return to work. I will give you …’ Dumbledore pulled a watch with twelve hands from his pocket and glanced at it ‘… half an hour of my time tonight, in which I think we shall be more than able to cover the important points of what has happened here. After that, I shall need to return to my school. If you need more help from me you are, of course, more than welcome to contact me at Hogwarts. Letters addressed to the Headmaster will find me.’

  Fudge goggled worse than ever; his mouth was open and his round face grew pinker under his rumpled grey hair.

  ‘I – you –’

  Dumbledore turned his back on him.

  ‘Take this Portkey, Harry.’

  He held out the golden head of the statue and Harry placed his hand on it, past caring what he did next or where he went.

  ‘I shall see you in half an hour,’ said Dumbledore quietly. ‘One … two … three …’

  Harry felt the familiar sensation of a hook being jerked behind his navel. The polished wooden floor was gone from beneath his feet; the Atrium, Fudge and Dumbledore had all disappeared and he was flying forwards in a whirlwind of colour and sound …

  — CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN —

  The Lost Prophecy

  Harry’s feet hit solid ground; his knees buckled a little and the golden wizard’s head fell with a resounding clunk to the floor. He looked around and saw that he had arrived in Dumbledore’s office.

  Everything seemed to have repaired itself during the Headmaster’s absence. The delicate silver instruments stood once more on the spindle-legged tables, puffing and whirring serenely. The portraits of the headmasters and headmistresses were snoozing in their frames, heads lolling back in armchairs or against the edge of the picture. Harry looked through the window. There was a cool line of pale green along the horizon: dawn was approaching.

  The silence and the stillness, broken only by the occasional grunt or snuffle of a sleeping portrait, was unbearable to him. If his surroundings could have reflected the feelings inside him, the pictures would have been screaming in pain. He walked around the quiet, beautiful office, breathing quickly, trying not to think. But he had to think … there was no escape …

  It was his fault Sirius had died; it was all his fault. If he, Harry, had not been stupid enough to fall for Voldemort’s trick, if he had not been so convinced that what he had seen in his dream was real, if he had only opened his mind to the possibility that Voldemort was, as Hermione had said, banking on Harry’s love of playing the hero …

  It was unbearable, he would not think about it, he could not stand it … there was a terrible hollow inside him he did not want to feel or examine, a dark hole where Sirius had been, where Sirius had vanished; he did not want to have to be alone with that great, silent space, he could not stand it –

  A picture behind him gave a particularly loud grunting snore, and a cool voice said, ‘Ah … Harry Potter …’

  Phineas Nigellus gave a long yawn, stretching his arms as he watched Harry with shrewd, narrow eyes.

  ‘And what brings you here in the early hours of the morning?’ said Phineas eventually. ‘This office is supposed to be barred to all but the rightful Headmaster. Or has Dumbledore sent you here? Oh, don’t tell me …’ He gave another shuddering yawn. ‘Another message for my worthless great-great-grandson?’

  Harry could not speak. Phineas Nigellus did not know that Sirius was dead, but Harry could not tell him. To say it aloud would be to make it final, absolute, irretrievable.

  A few more of the portraits had stirred now. Terror of being interrogated made Harry stride across the room and seize the doorknob.

  It would not turn. He was shut in.

  ‘I hope this means,’ said the corpulent, red-nosed wizard who hung on the wall behind the Headmaster’s desk, ‘that Dumbledore will soon be back among us?’

  Harry turned. The wizard was eyeing him with great interest. Harry nodded. He tugged again on the doorknob behind his back, but it remained immovable.

  ‘Oh good,’ said the wizard. ‘It has been very dull without him, very dull indeed.’

  He settled himself on the throne-like chair on which he had been painted and smiled benignly upon Harry.

  ‘Dumbledore thinks very highly of you, as I am sure you know,’ he said comfortably. ‘Oh yes. Holds you in great esteem.’

  The guilt filling the whole of Harry’s chest like some monstrous, weighty parasite, now writhed and squirmed. Harry could not stand this, he could not stand being himself any more … he had never felt more trapped inside his own head and body, never wished so intensely that he could be somebody, anybody, else …

  The empty fireplace burst into emerald green flame, making Harry leap away from the door, staring at the man spinning inside the grate. As Dumbledore’s tall form unfolded itself from the fire, the wizards and witches on the surrounding walls jerked awake, many of them giving cries of welcome.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Dumbledore softly.

  He did not look at Harry at first, but walked over to the perch beside the door and withdrew, from an inside pocket of his robes, the tiny, ugly, featherless Fawkes, whom he placed gently on the tray of soft ashes beneath the golden post where the full-grown Fawkes usually stood.

  ‘Well, Harry,’ said Dumbledore, finally turning away from the baby bird, ‘you will be pleased to hear that none of your fellow students are going to suffer lasting damage from the night’s events.’

  Harry tried to say, ‘Good,’ but no sound came out. It seemed to him that Dumbledore was reminding him of the amount of damage he had caused, and although Dumbledore was for once looking at him directly, and although his expression was kindly rather than accusatory, Harry could not bear to meet his eyes.

  ‘Madam Pomfrey is patching everybody up,’ said Dumbledore. ‘Nymphadora Tonks may need to spend a little time in St Mungo’s, but it seems she will make a full recovery.’

  Harry contented himself with nodding at the carpet, which was growing lighter as the sky outside grew paler. He was sure all the portraits around the room were listening eagerly to every word Dumbledore spoke, wondering where Dumbledore and Harry had been, and why there had been injuries.

  ‘I know how you’re feeling, Harry,’ said Dumbledore very quietly.

  ‘No, you don’t,’ said Harry, and his voice was suddenly loud and strong; white-hot anger leapt inside him; Dumbledore knew nothing about his feelings.

  ‘You see, Dumbledore?’ said Phineas Nigellus slyly. ‘Never try to understand the students. They hate it. They would much rather be tragically misunderstood, wallow in self-pity, stew in their own –’

  ‘That’s enough, Phineas,’ said Dumbledore.

  Harry turned his back on Dumbledore and stared determinedly out of the window. He could see the Quidditch stadium in the distance. Sirius had appeared there once, disguised as the shaggy black dog, so he could watch Harry play … he had probably come to see whether Harry was as good as James had been … Harry had never asked him …

  ‘There is no shame in what you are feeling, Harry,’ said Dumbledore’s voice. ‘On the contrary … the fact that you can feel pain like this is your greatest strength.’

  Harry felt the white-hot anger lick his insides, blazing in the terrible emptiness, filling him with the desire to hurt Dumbledore for his calmness and his empty words.

  ‘My greatest strength, is it?’ said Harry, his voice shaking as he stared out at the Quidditch stadium, no longer seeing it. ‘You haven’t got a clue … you don’t know …’

  ‘What don’t I know?’ asked Dumbledore calmly.

  It was too much. Harry turned around, shaking with rage.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about how I feel, all right?’

  ‘Harry, suffering like this proves you are still a man! This pain is part of being human –’

  ‘THEN – I – DON’T – WANT – TO – BE – HUMAN!’ Harry roared, and he seized the delicate silver instrument from the spindle-legged table b
eside him and flung it across the room; it shattered into a hundred tiny pieces against the wall. Several of the pictures let out yells of anger and fright, and the portrait of Armando Dippet said, ‘Really!’

  ‘I DON’T CARE!’ Harry yelled at them, snatching up a lunascope and throwing it into the fireplace. ‘I’VE HAD ENOUGH, I’VE SEEN ENOUGH, I WANT OUT, I WANT IT TO END, I DON’T CARE ANY MORE –’

  He seized the table on which the silver instrument had stood and threw that, too. It broke apart on the floor and the legs rolled in different directions.

  ‘You do care,’ said Dumbledore. He had not flinched or made a single move to stop Harry demolishing his office. His expression was calm, almost detached. ‘You care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it.’

  ‘I – DON’T!’ Harry screamed, so loudly that he felt his throat might tear, and for a second he wanted to rush at Dumbledore and break him, too; shatter that calm old face, shake him, hurt him, make him feel some tiny part of the horror inside himself.

  ‘Oh, yes, you do,’ said Dumbledore, still more calmly. ‘You have now lost your mother, your father, and the closest thing to a parent you have ever known. Of course you care.’

  ‘YOU DON’T KNOW HOW I FEEL!’ Harry roared. ‘YOU – STANDING THERE – YOU –’

  But words were no longer enough, smashing things was no more help; he wanted to run, he wanted to keep running and never look back, he wanted to be somewhere he could not see the clear blue eyes staring at him, that hatefully calm old face. He ran to the door, seized the doorknob again and wrenched at it.

  But the door would not open.

  Harry turned back to Dumbledore.

  ‘Let me out,’ he said. He was shaking from head to foot.

  ‘No,’ said Dumbledore simply.

  For a few seconds they stared at each other.

  ‘Let me out,’ Harry said again.

  ‘No,’ Dumbledore repeated.

  ‘If you don’t – if you keep me in here – if you don’t let me –’