Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix - Rowling Joanne Kathleen - Страница 32

Ron and Hermione beamed as everyone drank to them, and then applauded.

'I was never a prefect myself,' said Tonks brightly from behind Harry as everybody moved towards the table to help themselves to food. Her hair was tomato red and waist-length today; she looked like Ginny's older sister. 'My Head of House said I lacked certain necessary qualities.'

'Like what?' said Ginny, who was choosing a baked potato.

'Like the ability to behave myself,' said Tonks.

Ginny laughed; Hermione looked as though she did not know whether to smile or not and compromised by taking an extra large gulp of Butterbeer and choking on it.

'What about you, Sirius?' Ginny asked, thumping Hermione on the back.

Sirius, who was right beside Harry, let out his usual bark-like laugh.

'No one would have made me a prefect, I spent too much time in detention with James. Lupin was the good boy, he got the badge.'

'I think Dumbledore might have hoped I would be able to exercise some control over my best friends,' said Lupin. 'I need scarcely say that I failed dismally.'

Harry's mood suddenly lifted. His father had not been a prefect either. All at once the party seemed much more enjoyable; he loaded up his plate, feeling doubly fond of everyone in the room.

Ron was rhapsodising about his new broom to anybody who would listen.

'. . . nought to seventy in ten seconds, not bad, is it? When you think the Comet Two Ninety's only nought to sixty and that's with a decent tailwind according to Which Broomstick? '

Hermione was talking very earnestly to Lupin about her view of elf rights.

'I mean, it's the same kind of nonsense as werewolf segregation, isn't it? It all stems from this horrible thing wizards have of thinking they're superior to other creatures . . .'

Mrs Weasley and Bill were having their usual argument about Bill's hair.

'. . . getting really out of hand, and you're so good-looking, it would look much better shorter, wouldn't it, Harry?'

'Oh — I dunno — ' said Harry, slightly alarmed at being asked his opinion; he slid away from them in the direction of Fred and George, who were huddled in a corner with Mundungus.

Mundungus stopped talking when he saw Harry, but Fred winked and beckoned Harry closer.

'It's OK,' he told Mundungus, 'we can trust Harry, he's our financial backer.'

'Look what Dung's got us,' said George, holding out his hand to Harry. It was full of what looked like shrivelled black pods. A faint rattling noise was coming from them, even though they were completely stationary.

'Venomous Tentacula seeds,' said George. 'We need them for the Skiving Snackboxes but they're a Class C Non-Tradeable Substance so we've been having a bit of trouble getting hold of them.'

'Ten Galleons the lot, then, Dung?' said Fred.

'Wiv all the trouble I went to to get 'em?' said Mundungus, his saggy, bloodshot eyes stretching even wider. 'I'm sorry, lads, but I'm not taking a Knut under twenty.'

'Dung likes his little joke,' Fred said to Harry.

'Yeah, his best one so far has been six Sickles for a bag of Knarl quills,' said George.

'Be careful,' Harry warned them quietly.

'What?' said Fred. 'Mum's busy cooing over Prefect Ron, we're OK.'

'But Moody could have his eye on you.' Harry pointed out.

Mundungus looked nervously over his shoulder.

'Good point, that,' he grunted. 'All right, lads, ten it is, if you'll take 'em quick.'

'Cheers, Harry!' said Fred delightedly, when Mundungus had emptied his pockets into the twins' outstretched hands and scuttled off towards the food. 'We'd better get these upstairs . . .'

Harry watched them go, feeling slightly uneasy. It had just occurred to him that Mr and Mrs Weasley would want to know how Fred and George were financing their joke shop business when, as was inevitable, they finally found out about it. Giving the twins his Triwizard winnings had seemed a simple thing to do at the time, but what if it led to another family row and a Percy-like estrangement? Would Mrs Weasley still feel that Harry was as good as her son if she found out he had made it possible for Fred and George to start a career she thought quite unsuitable?

Standing where the twins had left him, with nothing but a guilty weight in the pit of his stomach for company, Harry caught the sound of his own name. Kingsley Shacklebolts deep voice was audible even over the surrounding chatter.

'. . . why Dumbledore didn't make Potter a prefect?' said Kingsley.

'He'll have had his reasons,' replied Lupin.

'But it would've shown confidence in him. It's what I'd've done,' persisted Kingsley, ' 'specially with the Daily Prophet having a go at him every few days . . .'

Harry did not look round; he did not want Lupin or Kingsley to know he had heard. Though not remotely hungry, he followed Mundungus back towards the table. His pleasure in the party had evaporated as quickly as it had come; he wished he were upstairs in bed.

Mad-Eye Moody was sniffing at a chicken-leg with what remained of his nose; evidently he could not detect any trace of poison, because he then tore a strip off it with his teeth.

'. . . the handle's made of Spanish oak with anti-jinx varnish and in-built vibration control — ' Ron was saying to Tonks.

Mrs Weasley yawned widely.

'Well, I think I'll sort out that Boggart before I turn in . . . Arthur, I don't want this lot up too late, all right? Night, Harry, dear.'

She left the kitchen. Harry set down his plate and wondered whether he could follow her without attracting attention.

'You all right, Potter?' grunted Moody.

'Yeah, fine,' lied Harry.

Moody took a swig from his hipflask, his electric-blue eye staring sideways at Harry.

'Come here, I've got something that might interest you,' he said.

From an inner pocket of his robes Moody pulled a very tattered old wizarding photograph.

'Original Order of the Phoenix,' growled Moody. 'Found it last night when I was looking for my spare Invisibility Cloak, seeing as Podmore hasn't had the manners to return my best one . . . thought people might like to see it.'

Harry took the photograph. A small crowd of people, some waving at him, others lifting their glasses, looked back up at him.

'There's me,' said Moody, unnecessarily pointing at himself. The Moody in the picture was unmistakeable, though his hair was slightly less grey and his nose was intact. 'And there's Dumbledore beside me, Dedalus Diggle on the other side . . . that's Marlene McKinnon, she was killed two weeks after this was taken, they got her whole family. That's Frank and Alice Longbottom — '

Harry's stomach, already uncomfortable, clenched as he looked at Alice Longbottom; he knew her round, friendly face very well, even though he had never met her, because she was the image of her son, Neville.

' — poor devils,' growled Moody. 'Better dead than what happened to them . . . and that's Emmeline Vance, you've met her, and that there's Lupin, obviously . . . Benjy Fenwick, he copped it too, we only ever found bits of him . . . shift aside there,' he added, poking the picture, and the little photographic people edged sideways, so that those who were partially obscured could move to the front.

'That's Edgar Bones . . . brother of Amelia Bones, they got him and his family, too, he was a great wizard . . . Sturgis Podmore, blimey, he looks young . . . Caradoc Dearborn, vanished six months after this, we never found his body . . . Hagrid, of course, looks exactly the same as ever . . . Elphias Doge, you've met him, I'd forgotten he used to wear that stupid hat . . . Gideon Prewett, it took five Death Eaters to kill him and his brother Fabian, they fought like heroes . . . budge along, budge along . . .'

The little people in the photograph jostled among themselves and those hidden right at the back appeared at the forefront of the picture.

'That's Dumbledore's brother Aberforth, only time I ever met him, strange bloke . . . that's Dorcas Meadowes, Voldemort killed her personally . . . Sirius, when he still had short hair . . . and . . . there you go, thought that would interest you!'

Harry's heart turned over. His mother and father were beaming up at him, sitting on either side of a small, watery-eyed man whom Harry recognised at once as Wormtail, the one who had betrayed his parents' whereabouts to Voldemort and so helped to bring about their deaths.

'Eh?' said Moody.

Harry looked up into Moody s heavily scarred and pitted face. Evidently Moody was under the impression he had just given Harry a bit of a treat.

'Yeah,' said Harry, once again attempting to grin. 'Er . . . listen, I've just remembered, I haven't packed my . . .'

He was spared the trouble of inventing an object he had not packed. Sirius had just said, 'What's that you've got there, Mad-Eye?' and Moody had turned towards him. Harry crossed the kitchen, slipped through the door and up the stairs before anyone could call him back.

He did not know why it had been such a shock; he had seen pictures of his parents before, after all, and he had met Wormtail . . . but to have them sprung on him like that, when he was least expecting it . . . no one would like that, he thought angrily . . .

And then, to see them surrounded by all those other happy faces . . . Benjy Fenwick, who had been found in bits, and Gideon Prewett, who had died like a hero, and the Longbottoms, who had been tortured into madness . . . all waving happily out of the photograph forever more, not knowing that they were doomed . . . well, Moody might find that interesting . . . he, Harry, found it disturbing . . .

Harry tiptoed up the stairs in the hall past the stuffed elf-heads, glad to be on his own again, but as he approached the first landing he heard noises. Someone was sobbing in the drawing room.

'Hello?' Harry said.

There was no answer but the sobbing continued. He climbed the remaining stairs two at a time, walked across the landing and opened the drawing-room door.

Someone was cowering against the dark wall, her wand in her hand, her whole body shaking with sobs. Sprawled on the dusty old carpet in a patch of moonlight, clearly dead, was Ron.

All the air seemed to vanish from Harry's lungs; he felt as though he were falling through the floor; his brain turned icy cold — Ron dead, no, it couldn't be — '

But wait a moment, it couldn 't be — Ron was downstairs —

'Mrs Weasley?' Harry croaked.

'R — r — riddikulus! ' Mrs Weasley sobbed, pointing her shaking wand at Ron's body.

Crack

Ron's body turned into Bill's, spread-eagled on his back, his eyes wide open and empty. Mrs Weasley sobbed harder than ever.