Career’s Advice
“But why haven't you got Occlumency
lessons any more?” said Hermione, frowning.
“I've told you,” Harry muttered.
“Snape reckons I can carry on by myself now I've got the basics.”
“So you've
stopped having funny dreams?” said Hermione sceptically.
“Pretty much,” said
Harry, not looking at her.
“Well, I don't think Snape should stop until
you're absolutely sure you can control them!” said Hermione indignantly. “Harry,
I think you should go back to him and ask—”
“No,” said Harry forcefully.
“Just drop it, Hermione, OK?”
It was the first day of the Easter holidays and
Hermione, as was her custom, had spent a large part of the day drawing up
revision timetables for the three of them. Harry and Ron had let her do it; it
was easier than arguing with her and, in any case, they might come in
useful.
Ron had been startled to discover there were only six weeks left
until their exams.
“How can that come as a shock?” Hermione demanded, as she
tapped each little square on Ron's timetable with her wand so that it flashed a
different colour according to its subject.
“I dunno,” said Ron, “there's been
a lot going on.”
“Well, there you are,” she said, handing him his timetable,
“if you follow that you should do fine.”
Ron looked down it gloomily, but
then brightened.
“You've given me an evening off every week!”
“That's for
Quidditch practice,” said Hermione.
The smile faded from Ron's
face.
“What's the point?” he said dully. “We've got about as much chance of
winning the Quidditch Cup this year as Dad's got of becoming Minister for
Magic.”
Hermione said nothing; she was looking at Harry, who was staring
blankly at the opposite wall of the common room while Crookshanks pawed at his
hand, trying to get his ears scratched.
“What's wrong, Harry?”
“What?” he
said quickly. “Nothing.”
He seized his copy of Defensive Magical Theory and
pretended to be looking something up in the index. Crookshanks gave him up as a
bad job and slunk away under Hermione's chair.
“I saw Cho earlier,” said
Hermione tentatively. “She looked really miserable, too...have you two had a row
again?”
“Wha— oh, yeah, we have,” said Harry, seizing gratefully on the
excuse.
“What about?”
“That sneak friend of hers, Marietta,” said
Harry.
“Yeah, well, I don't blame you!” said Ron angrily, setting down his
revision timetable. “If it hadn't been for her...”
Ron went into a rant about
Marietta Edgecombe, which Harry found helpful; all he had to do was look angry,
nod and say “Yeah” and “That's right” whenever Ron drew breath, leaving his mind
free to dwell, ever more miserably, on what he had seen in the Pensieve.
He
felt as though the memory of it was eating him from inside. He had been so sure
his parents were wonderful people that he had never had the slightest difficulty
in disbelieving the aspersions Snape cast on his father's character. Hadn't
people like Hagrid and Sirius told Harry how wonderful his father had been?
(Yeah, well, look what Sirius was like himself, said a nagging voice inside
Harry's head...he was as bad, wasn't he?) Yes, he had once overheard Professor
McGonagall saying that his father and Sirius had been troublemakers at school,
but she had described them as forerunners of the Weasley twins, and Harry could
not imagine Fred and George dangling someone upside-down for the fun of it...not
unless they really loathed them...perhaps Malfoy, or somebody who really
deserved it...
Harry tried to make a case for Snape having deserved what he
had suffered at James's hands: but hadn't Lily asked, “What's he done to you?”
And hadn't James replied, “It's more the fact that he exists, if you know what I
mean.” Hadn't James started it all simply because Sirius had said he was bored?
Harry remembered Lupin saying back in Grimmauld Place that Dumbledore had made
him prefect in the hope that he would be able to exercise some control over
James and Sirius...but in the Pensieve, he had sat there and let it all
happen...
Harry kept reminding himself that Lily had intervened; his mother
had been decent. Yet, the memory of the look on her face as she had shouted at
James disturbed him quite as much as anything else; she had clearly loathed
James, and Harry simply could not understand how they could have ended up
married. Once or twice he even wondered whether James had forced her into
it...
For nearly five years the thought of his father had been a source of
comfort, of inspiration. Whenever someone had told him he was like James, he had
glowed with pride inside. And now...now he felt cold and miserable at the
thought of him.
The weather grew breezier, brighter and warmer as the Easter
holidays passed, but Harry, along with the rest of the fifth- and seventh-years,
was trapped inside, revising, traipsing back and forth to the library. Harry
pretended his bad mood had no other cause but the approaching exams, and as his
fellow Gryffindors were sick of studying themselves, his excuse went
unchallenged.
“Harry, I'm talking to you, can you hear me?”
“Huh?”
He
looked round. Ginny Weasley, looking very windswept, had joined him at the
library table where he had been sitting alone. It was late on Sunday evening:
Hermione had gone back to Gryffindor Tower to revise Ancient Runes, and Ron had
Quidditch practice.
“Oh, hi,” said Harry, pulling his books towards him. “How
come you're not at practice?”
“It's over,” said Ginny. “Ron had to take Jack
Sloper up to the hospital wing.”
“Why?”
“Well, we're not sure, but we
think he knocked himself out with his own bat.” She sighed heavily. “Anyway...a
package just arrived, it's only just got through Umbridge's new screening
process.”
She hoisted a box wrapped in brown paper on to the table; it had
clearly been unwrapped and carelessly re-wrapped. There was a scribbled note
across it in red ink, reading: Inspected and Passed by the Hogwarts High
Inquisitor.
“It's Easter eggs from Mum,” said Ginny. “There's one for
you...there you go.”
She handed him a handsome chocolate egg decorated with
small, iced Snitches and, according to the packaging, containing a bag of
Fizzing Whizzbees. Harry looked at it for a moment, then, to his horror, felt a
lump rise in his throat.
“Are you OK, Harry?” Ginny asked quietly.
“Yeah,
I'm fine,” said Harry gruffly. The lump in his throat was painful. He did not
understand why an Easter egg should have made him feel like this.
“You seem
really down lately,” Ginny persisted. “You know, I'm sure if you just talked to
Cho...”
“It's not Cho I want to talk to,” said Harry brusquely.
“Who is
it, then?” asked Ginny, watching him closely.
“I...”
He glanced around to
make quite sure nobody was listening. Madam Pince was several shelves away,
stamping out a pile of books for a frantic-looking Hannah Abbott.
“I wish I
could talk to Sirius,” he muttered. “But I know I can't.”
Ginny continued to
watch him thoughtfully. More to give himself something to do than because he
really wanted any, Harry unwrapped his Easter egg, broke off a large bit and put
it into his mouth.
“Well,” said Ginny slowly, helping herself to a bit of
egg, too, “if you really want to talk to Sirius, I expect we could think of a
way to do it.”
“Come on,” said Harry dully. “With Umbridge policing the fires
and reading all our mail?”
“The thing about growing up with Fred and George,”
said Ginny thoughtfully, “is that you sort of start thinking anything's possible
if you've got enough nerve.”
Harry looked at her. Perhaps it was the effect
of the chocolate—Lupin had always advised eating some after encounters with
Dementors—or simply because he had finally spoken aloud the wish that had been
burning inside him for a week, but he felt a bit more hopeful.
“WHAT DO YOU
THINK YOU ARE DOING?”
“Oh damn,” whispered Ginny, jumping to her feet. “I
forgot—” Madam Pince was swooping down on them, her shrivelled face contorted
with rage.
“Chocolate in the library!” she screamed. “Out—out—OUT!” And
whipping out her wand, she caused Harry's books, bag and ink bottle to chase him
and Ginny from the library, whacking them repeatedly over the head as they
ran.
***
As though to underline the importance of their upcoming
examinations, a batch of pamphlets, leaflets and notices concerning various
wizarding careers appeared on the tables in Gryffindor Tower shortly before the
end of the holidays, along with yet another notice on the board, which
read:
All fifth-years are required to attend a short meeting with
their
Head of House during the first week of the summer term to
discuss
their future careers. Times of individual appointments are listed
below.
Harry looked down the list and found that he was expected in Professor
McGonagall's office at half past two on Monday, which would mean missing most of
Divination. He and the other fifth-years spent a considerable part of the final
weekend of the Easter break reading all the careers information that had been
left there for their perusal.
“Well, I don't fancy Healing,” said Ron on the
last evening of the holidays. He was immersed in a leaflet that carried the
crossed bone-and-wand emblem of St Mungo's on its front. “It says here you need
at least "E" at NEWT level in Potions, Herbology, Transfiguration, Charms and
Defence Against the Dark Arts. I mean...blimey...don't want much, do
they?”
“Well, it's a very responsible job, isn't it?” said Hermione
absently.
She was poring over a bright pink and orange leaflet that was
headed, “SO YOU THINK YOU'D LIKE TO WORK IN MUGGLE RELATIONS?”
“You don't
seem to need many qualifications to liaise with Muggles; all they want is an OWL
in Muggle Studies: Much more important is your enthusiasm, patience and a good
sense of fun”
“You'd need more than a good sense of fun to liaise with my
uncle,” said Harry darkly. “Good sense of when to duck, more like.” He was
halfway through a pamphlet on wizard banking. “Listen to this: Are you seeking a
challenging career involving travel, adventure and substantial, danger-related
treasure bonuses? Then consider a position with Gringotts Wizarding Bank, who
are currently recruiting Curse-Breakers for thrilling opportunities
abroad...They want Arithmancy, though; you could do it, Hermione!”
“I don't
much fancy banking,” said Hermione vaguely, now immersed in: “HAVE YOU GOT WHAT
IT TAKES TO TRAIN SECURITY TROLLS?”
“Hey,” said a voice in Harry's ear. He
looked round; Fred and George had come to join them. “Ginny’s had a word with us
about you,” said Fred, stretching out his legs on the table in front of them and
causing several booklets on careers with the Ministry of Magic to slide off on
to the floor. “She says you need to talk to Sirius?”
“What?” said Hermione
sharply, freezing with her hand halfway towards picking up “MAKE A BANG AT THE
DEPARTMENT OF MAGICAL ACCIDENTS AND CATASTROPHES'.
“Yeah...” said Harry,
trying to sound casual, “yeah, I thought I'd like—”
“Don't be so ridiculous,”
said Hermione, straightening up and looking at him as though she could not
believe her eyes. “With Umbridge groping around in the fires and frisking all
the owls?”
“Well, we think we can find a way around that,” said George,
stretching and smiling. “It's a simple matter of causing a diversion. Now, you
might have noticed that we have been rather quiet on the mayhem front during the
Easter holidays?”
“What was the point, we asked ourselves, of disrupting
leisure time?” continued Fred. “No point at all, we answered ourselves. And of
course, we'd have messed up people's revision, too, which would be the very last
thing we'd want to do.”
He gave Hermione a sanctimonious little nod. She
looked rather taken aback by this thoughtfulness.
“But its business as usual
from tomorrow,” Fred continued briskly. “And if we're going to be causing a bit
of uproar, why not do it so that Harry can have his chat with Sirius?”
“Yes,
but still,” said Hermione, with an air of explaining something very simple to
somebody very obtuse, “even if you do cause a diversion, how is Harry supposed
to talk to him?”
“Umbridge's office,” said Harry quietly.
He had been
thinking about it for a fortnight and could come up with no alternative.
Umbridge herself had told him that the only fire that was not being watched was
her own.
“Are—you—insane?” said Hermione in a hushed voice.
Ron had
lowered his leaflet on jobs in the Cultivated Fungus Trade and was watching the
conversation warily.
“I don't think so,” said Harry, shrugging.
“And how
are you going to get in there in the first place?”
Harry was ready for this
question.
“Sirius's knife,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“Christmas before
last Sirius gave me a knife that'll open any lock,” said Harry. “So even if
she's bewitched the door so Alohomora won't work, which I bet she has—”
“What
do you think about this?” Hermione demanded of Ron, and Harry was reminded
irresistibly of Mrs Weasley appealing to her husband during Harry's first dinner
in Grimmauld Place.
“I dunno,” said Ron, looking alarmed at being asked to
give an opinion. “If Harry wants to do it, it's up to him, isn't it?”
“Spoken
like a true friend and Weasley,” said Fred, clapping Ron hard on the back.
“Right, then. We're thinking of doing it tomorrow, just after lessons, because
it should cause maximum impact if everybody's in the corridors—Harry, we'll set
it off in the east wing somewhere, draw her right away from her own office—I
reckon we should be able to guarantee you, what, twenty minutes?” he said,
looking at George.
“Easy,” said George.
“What sort of diversion is it?”
asked Ron.
“You'll see, little bro',” said Fred, as he and George got up
again. “At least, you will if you trot along to Gregory the Smarmy's corridor
round about five o'clock tomorrow.”
***
Harry awoke very early the next
day, feeling almost as anxious as he had done on the morning of his disciplinary
hearing at the Ministry of Magic. It was not only the prospect of breaking into
Umbridge's office and using her fire to speak to Sirius that was making him feel
nervous, though that was certainly bad enough; today also happened to be the
first time Harry would be in close proximity to Snape since Snape had thrown him
out of his office.
After lying in bed for a while thinking about the day
ahead, Harry got up very quietly and moved across to the window beside Nevilles
bed, and stared out on a truly glorious morning. The sky was a clear, misty,
opalescent blue. Directly ahead of him, Harry could see the towering beech tree
below which his father had once tormented Snape. He was not sure what Sirius
could possibly say to him that would make up for what he had seen in the
Pensieve, but he was desperate to hear Sirius's own account of what had
happened, to know of any mitigating factors there might have been, any excuse at
all for his father's behaviour...
Something caught Harry's attention:
movement on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Harry squinted into the sun and
saw Hagrid emerging from between the trees. He seemed to be limping. As Harry
watched, Hagrid staggered to the door of his cabin and disappeared inside it.
Harry watched the cabin for several minutes. Hagrid did not emerge again, but
smoke furled from the chimney, so Hagrid could not be so badly injured that he
was unequal to stoking the fire.
Harry turned away from the window, headed
back to his trunk and started to dress.
With the prospect of forcing entry
into Umbridge's office ahead, Harry had never expected the day to be a restful
one, but he had not reckoned on Hermione's almost continual attempts to dissuade
him from what he was planning to do at five o'clock. For the first time ever,
she was at least as inattentive to Professor Binns in History of Magic as Harry
and Ron were, keeping up a stream of whispered admonitions that Harry tried very
hard to ignore.
“...and if she does catch you there, apart from being
expelled, she'll be able to guess you've been talking to Snuffles and this time
I expect she'll force you to drink Veritaserum and answer her
questions...”
“Hermione,” said Ron in a low and indignant voice, “are you
going to stop telling Harry off and listen to Binns, or am I going to have to
take my own notes?”
“You take notes for a change, it won't kill you!”
By
the time they reached the dungeons, neither Harry nor Ron was speaking to
Hermione. Undeterred, she took advantage of their silence to maintain an
uninterrupted flow of dire warnings, all uttered under her breath in a vehement
hiss that caused Seamus to waste five whole minutes checking his cauldron for
leaks.
Snape, meanwhile, seemed to have decided to act as though Harry were
invisible. Harry was, of course, well-used to this tactic, as it was one of
Uncle Vernon's favourites, and on the whole was grateful he had to suffer
nothing worse. In fact, compared to what he usually had to endure from Snape in
the way of taunts and snide remarks, he found the new approach something of an
improvement, and was pleased to find that when left well alone, he was able to
concoct an Invigoration Draught quite easily. At the end of the lesson he
scooped some of the potion into a flask, corked it and took it up to Snape's
desk for marking, feeling that he might at last have scraped an “£'.
He had
just turned away when he heard a smashing noise. Malfoy gave a gleeful yell of
laughter. Harry whipped around. His potion sample lay in pieces on the floor and
Snape was surveying him with a look of gloating pleasure.
“Whoops,” he said
softly. “Another zero, then, Potter.”
Harry was too incensed to speak. He
strode back to his cauldron, intending to fill another flask and force Snape to
mark it, but saw to his horror that the rest of the contents had
vanished.
“I'm sorry!” said Hermione, with her hands over her mouth. “I'm
really sorry, Harry. I thought you'd finished, so I cleared up!”
Harry could
not bring himself to answer. When the bell rang, he hurried out of the dungeon
without a backwards glance, and made sure that he found himself a seat between
Neville and Seamus for lunch so that Hermione could not start nagging him again
about using Umbridge's office.
He was in such a bad mood by the time he got
to Divination that he had quite forgotten his careers appointment with Professor
McGonagall, remembering it only when Ron asked him why he wasn't in her office.
He hurtled back upstairs and arrived out of breath, only a few minutes
late.
“Sorry, Professor,” he panted, as he closed the door. “I
forgot.”
“No matter, Potter,” she said briskly, but as she spoke, somebody
else sniffed from the corner. Harry looked round.
Professor Umbridge was
sitting there, a clipboard on her knee, a fussy little pie-frill around her neck
and a small, horribly smug smile on her face.
“Sit down, Potter,” said
Professor McGonagall tersely. Her hands shook slightly as she shuffled the many
pamphlets littering her desk.
Harry sat down with his back to Umbridge and
did his best to pretend he could not hear the scratching of her quill on her
clipboard.
“Well, Potter, this meeting is to talk over any career ideas you
might have, and to help you decide which subjects you should continue into the
sixth and seventh years,” said Professor McGonagall. “Have you had any thoughts
about what you would like to do after you leave Hogwarts?”
“Er—” said
Harry.
He was finding the scratching noise from behind him very
distracting.
“Yes?” Professor McGonagall prompted Harry.
“Well, I thought
of, maybe, being an Auror,” Harry mumbled.
“You'd need top grades for that,”
said Professor McGonagall, extracting a small, dark leaflet from under the mass
on her desk and opening it. “They ask for a minimum of five NEWTs, and nothing
under "Exceeds Expectations" grade, I see. Then you would be required to undergo
a stringent series of character and aptitude tests at the Auror office. It's a
difficult career path, Potter, they only take the best. In fact, I don't think
anybody has been taken on in the last three years.”
At this moment, Professor
Umbridge gave a very tiny cough, as though she was trying to see how quietly she
could do it. Professor McGonagall ignored her.
“You'll want to know which
subjects you ought to take, I suppose?” she went on, talking a little louder
than before.
“Yes,” said Harry. “Defence Against the Dark Arts, I
suppose?”
“Naturally,” said Professor McGonagall crisply. “I would also
advise—”
Professor Umbridge gave another cough, a little more audible this
time. Professor McGonagall closed her eyes for a moment, opened them again, and
continued as though nothing had happened.
“I would also advise
Transfiguration, because Aurors frequently need to Transfigure or Untransfigure
in their work. And I ought to tell you now, Potter, that I do not accept
students into my NEWT classes unless they have achieved "Exceeds Expectations"
or higher at Ordinary Wizarding Level. I'd say you're averaging "Acceptable" at
the moment, so you'll need to put in some good hard work before the exams to
stand a chance of continuing. Then you ought to do Charms, always useful, and
Potions. Yes, Potter, Potions,” she added, with the merest flicker of a smile.
“Poisons and antidotes are essential study for Aurors. And I must tell you that
Professor Snape absolutely refuses to take students who get anything other than
"Outstanding" in their OWLs, so—”
Professor Umbridge gave her most pronounced
cough yet.
“May I offer you a cough drop, Dolores?” Professor McGonagall
asked curtly, without looking at Professor Umbridge.
“Oh, no, thank you very
much,” said Umbridge, with that simpering laugh Harry hated so much. “I just
wondered whether I could make the teensiest interruption, Minerva?”
“I
daresay you'll find you can,” said Professor McGonagall through tightly gritted
teeth.
“I was just wondering whether Mr Potter has quite the temperament for
an Auror?” said Professor Umbridge sweetly.
“Were you?” said Professor
McGonagall haughtily. “Well, Potter,” she continued, as though there had been no
interruption, “if you are serious in this ambition, I would advise you to
concentrate hard on bringing your Transfiguration and Potions up to scratch. I
see Professor Flitwick has graded you between "Acceptable" and "Exceeds
Expectations" for the last two years, so your Charmwork seems satisfactory. As
for Defence Against the Dark Arts, your marks have been generally high,
Professor Lupin in particular thought you—are you quite sure you wouldn't like a
cough drop, Dolores”
“Oh, no need, thank you, Minerva”; simpered Professor
Umbridge, who had just coughed her loudest yet. “I was just concerned that you
might not have Harry’s most recent Defence Against the Dark Arts marks in front
of you. I'm quite sure I slipped in a note.”
“What, this thing?” said
Professor McGonagall in a tone of revulsion, as she pulled a sheet of pink
parchment from between the leaves of Harry's folder. She glanced down it, her
eyebrows slightly raised, then placed it back into the folder without
comment.
“Yes, as I was saying, Potter, Professor Lupin thought you showed a
pronounced aptitude for the subject, and obviously for an Auror—”
“Did you
not understand my note, Minerva?” asked Professor Umbridge in honeyed tones,
quite forgetting to cough.
“Of course I understood it,” said Professor
McGonagall, her teeth clenched so tightly the words came out a little
muffled.
“Well, then, I am confused...I'm afraid I don't quite understand how
you can give Mr Potter false hope that—”
“False hope?” repeated Professor
McGonagall, still refusing to look round at Professor Umbridge. “He has achieved
high marks in all his Defence Against the Dark Arts tests—”
“I'm terribly
sorry to have to contradict you, Minerva, but as you will see from my note,
Harry has been achieving very poor results in his classes with me—”
“I should
have made my meaning plainer,” said Professor McGonagall, turning at last to
look Umbridge directly in the eyes. “He has achieved high marks in all Defence
Against the Dark Arts tests set by a competent teacher.”
Professor Umbridge's
smile vanished as suddenly as a light bulb blowing. She sat back in her chair,
turned a sheet on her clipboard and began scribbling very fast indeed, her
bulging eyes rolling from side to side. Professor McGonagall turned back to
Harry, her thin nostrils flared, her eyes burning.
“Any questions,
Potter?”
“Yes,” said Harry. “What sort of character and aptitude tests do the
Ministry do on you, if you get enough NEWTs?”
“Well, you'll need to
demonstrate the ability to react well to pressure and so forth,” said Professor
McGonagall, “perseverance and dedication, because Auror training takes a further
three years, not to mention very high skills in practical Defence. It will mean
a lot more study even after you've left school, so unless you're prepared
to—”
“I think you'll also find,” said Umbridge, her voice very cold now,
“that the Ministry looks into the records of those applying to be Aurors. Their
criminal records.”
“—unless you're prepared to take even more exams after
Hogwarts, you should really look at another—”
“Which means that this boy has
as much chance of becoming an Auror as Dumbledore has of ever returning to this
school.”
“A very good chance, then,” said Professor McGonagall.
“Potter
has a criminal record,” said Umbridge loudly.
“Potter has been cleared of all
charges,” said McGonagall, even more loudly.
Professor Umbridge stood up. She
was so short that this did not make a great deal of difference, but her fussy,
simpering demeanour had given place to a hard fury that made her broad, flabby
face look oddly sinister.
“Potter has no chance whatsoever of becoming an
Auror!”
Professor McGonagall got to her feet, too, and in her case this was a
much more impressive move; she towered over Professor Umbridge.
“Potter,” she
said in ringing tones, “I will assist you to become an Auror if it is the last
thing I do! If I have to coach you nightly, I will make sure you achieve the
required results!”
“The Minister for Magic will never employ Harry Potter!”
said Umbridge, her voice rising furiously.
“There may well be a new Minister
for Magic by the time Potter is ready to join!” shouted Professor
McGonagall.
“Aha!” shrieked Professor Umbridge, pointing a stubby finger at
McGonagall. “Yes! Yes, yes, yes! Of course! That's what you want, isn't it,
Minerva McGonagall? You want Cornelius Fudge replaced by Albus Dumbledore! You
think you'll be where I am, don't you: Senior Undersecretary to the Minister and
Headmistress to boot!”
“You are raving,” said Professor McGonagall, superbly
disdainful. “Potter, that concludes our careers consultation.”
Harry swung
his bag over his shoulder and hurried out of the room, not daring to look at
Professor Umbridge. He could hear her and Professor McGonagall continuing to
shout at each other all the way back along the corridor.
Professor Umbridge
was still breathing as though she had just run a race when she strode into their
Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson that afternoon.
“I hope you've thought
better of what you were planning to do, Harry,” Hermione whispered, the moment
they had opened their books to “Chapter Thirty-four, Non-Retaliation and
Negotiation”. “Umbridge looks like she's in a really bad mood
already...”
Every now and then Umbridge shot glowering looks at Harry, who
kept his head down, staring at Defensive Magical Theory, his eyes unfocused,
thinking...
He could just imagine Professor McGonagall's reaction if he was
caught trespassing in Professor Umbridge's office mere hours after she had
vouched for him...there was nothing to stop him simply going back to Gryffindor
Tower and hoping that some time during the next summer holidays he would have a
chance to ask Sirius about the scene he had witnessed in the Pensieve...nothing,
except that the thought of taking this sensible course of action made him feel
as though a lead weight had dropped into his stomach...and then there was the
matter of Fred and George, whose diversion was already planned, not to mention
the knife Sirius had given him, which was currently residing in his schoolbag
along with his father's old Invisibility Cloak.
But the fact remained that if
he was caught...
“Dumbledore sacrificed himself to keep you in school,
Harry!” whispered Hermione, raising her book to hide her face from Umbridge.
“And if you get thrown out today it will all have been for nothing!”
He could
abandon the plan and simply learn to live with the memory of what his father had
done on a summer's day more than twenty years ago...
And then he remembered
Sirius in the fire upstairs in the Gryffindor common room...
You're less like
your father than I thought...the risk would've been what made it fun for
James...
But did he want to be like his father any more?
“Harry, don't do
it, please don't do it!” Hermione said in anguished tones as the bell rang at
the end of the class.
He did not answer; he did not know what to do.
Ron
seemed determined to give neither his opinion nor his advice; he would not look
at Harry, though when Hermione opened her mouth to try dissuading Harry some
more, he said in a low voice, “Give it a rest, OK? He can make up his own
mind.”
Harry’s heart beat very fast as he left the classroom. He was halfway
along the corridor outside when he heard the unmistake-able sounds of a
diversion going off in the distance. There were screams and yells reverberating
from somewhere above them; people exiting the classrooms all around Harry were
stopping in their tracks and looking up at the ceiling fearfully—
Umbridge
came pelting out of her classroom as fast as her short legs would carry her.
Pulling out her wand, she hurried off in the opposite direction: it was now or
never.
“Harry—please!” Hermione pleaded weakly.
But he had made up his
mind; hitching his bag more securely on to his shoulder, he set off at a run,
weaving in and out of students now hurrying in the opposite direction to see
what all the fuss was about in the east wing.
Harry reached the corridor to
Umbridge's office and found it deserted. Dashing behind a large suit of armour
whose helmet creaked around to watch him, he pulled open his bag, seized Siriuss
knife and donned the Invisibility Cloak. He then crept slowly and carefully back
out from behind the suit of armour and along the corridor until he reached
Umbridge's door.
He inserted the blade of the magical knife into the crack
around it and moved it gently up and down, then withdrew it. There was a tiny
click, and the door swung open. He ducked inside the office, closed the door
quickly behind him and looked around.
Nothing was moving except the horrible
kittens that were still frolicking on the wall plates above the confiscated
broomsticks.
Harry pulled off his Cloak and, striding over to the fireplace,
found what he was looking for within seconds: a small box containing glittering
Floo powder.
He crouched down in front of the empty grate, his hands shaking.
He had never done this before, though he thought he knew how it must work.
Sticking his head into the fireplace, he took a large pinch of powder and
dropped it on to the logs stacked neatly beneath him. They exploded at once into
emerald green flames.
“Number twelve, Grimmauld Place!” Harry said loudly and
clearly.
It was one of the most curious sensations he had ever experienced.
He had travelled by Floo powder before, of course, but then it had been his
entire body that had spun around and around in the flames through the network of
wizarding fireplaces that stretched over the country. This time, his knees
remained firm upon the cold floor of Umbridge's office, and only his head
hurtled through the emerald fire...
And then, as abruptly as it had begun,
the spinning stopped. Feeling rather sick and as though he were wearing an
exceptionally hot muffler around his head, Harry opened his eyes to find that he
was looking up out of the kitchen fireplace at the long, wooden table, where a
man sat poring over a piece of parchment.
“Sirius?”
The man jumped and
looked around. It was not Sirius, but Lupin.
“Harry!” he said, looking
thoroughly shocked. “What are you -what's happened, is everything all
right?”
“Yeah,” said Harry. “I just wondered—I mean, I just fancied a -a chat
with Sirius.”
“I'll call him,” said Lupin, getting to his feet, still looking
perplexed, “he went upstairs to look for Kreacher, he seems to be hiding in the
attic again...”
And Harry saw Lupin hurry out of the kitchen. Now he was left
with nothing to look at but the chair and table legs. He wondered why Sirius had
never mentioned how very uncomfortable it was to speak out of the fire; his
knees were already objecting painfully to their prolonged contact with
Umbridge's hard stone floor.
Lupin returned with Sirius at his heels moments
later.
“What is it?” said Sirius urgently, sweeping his long dark hair out of
his eyes and dropping to the ground in front of the fire, so that he and Harry
were on a level. Lupin knelt down too, looking very concerned. “Are you all
right? Do you need help?”
“No,” said Harry, “it's nothing like that...I just
wanted to talk...about my dad.”
They exchanged a look of great surprise, but
Harry did not have time to feel awkward or embarrassed; his knees were becoming
sorer by the second and he guessed five minutes had already passed from the
start of the diversion; George had only guaranteed him twenty. He therefore
plunged immediately into the story of what he had seen in the Pensieve.
When
he had finished, neither Sirius nor Lupin spoke for a moment. Then Lupin said
quietly, “I wouldn't like you to judge your father on what you saw there, Harry.
He was only fifteen—”
“I'm fifteen!” said Harry heatedly.
“Look, Harry”
said Sirius placatingly, “James and Snape hated each other from the moment they
set eyes on each other, it was just one of those things, you can understand
that, can't you? I think James was everything Snape wanted to be—he was popular,
he was good at Quidditch—good at pretty much everything. And Snape was just this
little oddball who was up to his eyes in the Dark Arts, and James—whatever else
he may have appeared to you, Harry—always hated the Dark Arts.”
“Yeah,” said
Harry, “but he just attacked Snape for no good reason, just because—well, just
because you said you were bored,” he finished, with a slightly apologetic note
in his voice.
“I'm not proud of it,” said Sirius quickly.
Lupin looked
sideways at Sirius, then said, “Look, Harry, what you've got to understand is
that your father and Sirius were the best in the school at whatever they
did—everyone thought they were the height of cool—if they sometimes got a bit
carried away—”
“If we were sometimes arrogant little berks, you mean,” said
Sirius.
Lupin smiled.
“He kept messing up his hair,” said Harry in a
pained voice.
Sirius and Lupin laughed.
“I'd forgotten he used to do
that,” said Sirius affectionately.
“Was he playing with the Snitch?” said
Lupin eagerly.
“Yeah,” said Harry, watching uncomprehendingly as Sirius and
Lupin beamed reminiscently. “Well...I thought he was a bit of an idiot.”
“Of
course he was a bit of an idiot!” said Sirius bracingly, “we were all idiots!
Well—not Moony so much,” he said fairly, looking at Lupin.
But Lupin shook
his head. “Did I ever tell you to lay off Snape?” he said. “Did I ever have the
guts to tell you I thought you were out of order?”
“Yeah, well,” said Sirius,
“you made us feel ashamed of ourselves sometimes...that was
something...”
“And,” said Harry doggedly, determined to say everything that
was on his mind now he was here, “he kept looking over at the girls by the lake,
hoping they were watching him!”
“Oh, well, he always made a fool of himself
whenever Lily was around,” said Sirius, shrugging, “he couldn't stop himself
showing off whenever he got near her.”
“How come she married him?” Harry
asked miserably. “She hated him!”
“Nah, she didn't,” said Sirius.
“She
started going out with him in seventh year,” said Lupin.
“Once James had
deflated his head a bit,” said Sirius.
“And stopped hexing people just for
the fun of it,” said Lupin.
“Even Snape?” said Harry.
“Well,” said Lupin
slowly, “Snape was a special case. I mean, he never lost an opportunity to curse
James so you couldn't really expect James to take that lying down, could
you?”
“And my mum was OK with that?”
“She didn't know too much about it,
to tell you the truth,” said Sirius. “I mean, James didn't take Snape on dates
with her and jinx him in front of her, did he?”
Sirius frowned at Harry, who
was still looking unconvinced.
“Look,” he said, “your father was the best
friend I ever had and he was a good person. A lot of people are idiots at the
age of fifteen. He grew out of it.”
“Yeah, OK,” said Harry heavily. “I just
never thought I'd feel sorry for Snape.”
“Now you mention it,” said Lupin, a
faint crease between his eyebrows, “how did Snape react when he found you'd seen
all this?”
“He told me he'd never teach me Occlumency again,” said Harry
indifferently, “like that's a big disappoint—“
“He WHAT?” shouted Sirius,
causing Harry to jump and inhale a mouthful of ashes.
“Are you serious,
Harry?” said Lupin quickly. “He's stopped giving you lessons?”
“Yeah,” said
Harry, surprised at what he considered a great over-reaction. “But it's OK, I
don't care, it's a bit of a relief to tell you the—”
“I'm coming up there to
have a word with Snape!” said Sirius forcefully, and he actually made to stand
up, but Lupin wrenched him back down again.
“If anyone's going to tell Snape
it will be me!” he said firmly. “But Harry, first of all, you're to go back to
Snape and tell him that on no account is he to stop giving you lessons—when
Dumbledore hears—”
“I can't tell him that, he'd kill me!” said Harry,
outraged. “You didn't see him when we got out of the Pensieve.”
“Harry there
is nothing so important as you learning Occlumency!” said Lupin sternly. “Do you
understand me? Nothing!”
“OK, OK,” said Harry, thoroughly discomposed, not to
mention annoyed. “Til...I'll try and say something to him...but it won't
be-”
He fell silent. He could hear distant footsteps.
“Is that Kreacher
coming downstairs?”
“No,” said Sirius, glancing behind him. “It must be
somebody your end.”
Harry’s heart skipped several beats.
“I'd better go!”
he said hastily and pulled his head backwards out of the Grimmauld Place fire.
For a moment his head seemed to be revolving on his shoulders, then he found
himself kneeling in front of Umbridge's fire with it firmly back on and watching
the emerald flames flicker and die.
“Quickly, quickly!” he heard a wheezy
voice mutter right outside the office door. “Ah, she's left it open—”
Harry
dived for the Invisibility Cloak and had just managed to pull it back over
himself when Filch burst into the office. He looked absolutely delighted about
something and was talking to himself feverishly as he crossed the room, pulled
open a drawer in Umbridge's desk and began rifling through the papers inside
it.
“Approval for Whipping...Approval for Whipping...I can do it at
last...they've had it coming to them for years...”
He pulled out a piece of
parchment, kissed it, then shuffled rapidly back out of the door, clutching it
to his chest.
Harry leapt to his feet and, making sure he had his bag and
that the Invisibility Cloak was completely covering him, he wrenched open the
door and hurried out of the office after Filch, who was hobbling along faster
than Harry had ever seen him go.
One landing down from Umbridge's office,
Harry thought it was safe to become visible again. He pulled off the Cloak,
shoved it in his bag and hurried onwards. There was a great deal of shouting and
movement coming from the Entrance Hall. He ran down the marble staircase and
found what looked like most of the school assembled there.
It was just like
the night when Trelawney had been sacked. Students were standing all around the
walls in a great ring (some of them, Harry noticed, covered in a substance that
looked very like Stinksap); teachers and ghosts were also in the crowd.
Prominent among the onlookers were members of the Inquisitorial Squad, who were
all looking exceptionally pleased with themselves, and Peeves, who was bobbing
overhead, gazed down at Fred and George who stood in the middle of the floor
with the unmistakeable look of two people who had just been cornered.
“So!”
said Umbridge triumphantly. Harry realised she was standing just a few stairs in
front of him, once more looking down upon her prey. “So—you think it amusing to
turn a school corridor into a swamp, do you?”
“Pretty amusing, yeah,” said
Fred, looking up at her without the slightest sign of fear.
Filch elbowed his
way closer to Umbridge, almost crying with happiness.
“I've got the form,
Headmistress,” he said hoarsely, waving the piece of parchment Harry had just
seen him take from her desk. “I've got the form and I've got the whips
waiting...oh, let me do it now...”
“Very good, Argus,” she said. “You two,”
she went on, gazing down at Fred and George, “are about to learn what happens to
wrongdoers in my school.”
“You know what?” said Fred. “I don't think we
are.”
He turned to his twin.
“George,” said Fred, “I think we've outgrown
full-time education.”
“Yeah, I've been feeling that way myself,” said George
lightly.
“Time to test our talents in the real world, d'you reckon?” asked
Fred.
“Definitely,” said George.
And before Umbridge could say a word,
they raised their wands and said together:
“Accio brooms!”
Harry heard a
loud crash somewhere in the distance. Looking to his left, he ducked just in
time. Fred and George's broomsticks, one still trailing the heavy chain and iron
peg with which Umbridge had fastened them to the wall, were hurtling along the
corridor towards their owners; they turned left, streaked down the stairs and
stopped sharply in front of the twins, the chain clattering loudly on the
flagged stone floor.
“We won't be seeing you,” Fred told Professor Umbridge,
swinging his leg over his broomstick.
“Yeah, don't bother to keep in touch,”
said George, mounting his own.
Fred looked around at the assembled students,
at the silent, watchful crowd.
“If anyone fancies buying a Portable Swamp, as
demonstrated upstairs, come to number ninety-three, Diagon Alley—Weasleys’
Wizarding Wheezes,” he said in a loud voice. “Our new premises!”
“Special
discounts to Hogwarts students who swear they're going to use our products to
get rid of this old bat,” added George, pointing at Professor Umbridge.
“STOP
THEM!” shrieked Umbridge, but it was too late. As the Inquisitorial Squad closed
in, Fred and George kicked off from the floor, shooting fifteen feet into the
air, the iron peg swinging dangerously below. Fred looked across the hall at the
poltergeist bobbing on his level above the crowd.
“Give her hell from us,
Peeves.”
And Peeves, who Harry had never seen take an order from a student
before, swept his belled hat from his head and sprang to a salute as Fred and
George wheeled about to tumultuous applause from the students below and sped out
of the open front doors into the glorious sunset.
© Ãàððè Ïîòòåð ôàí ñàéò
À êîãäà âûðàñòåøü Àðìèÿ Ðîññèè ñäåëàåò èç òåáÿ ìóæ÷èíó.