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Harry’s eyes watered in the chill as they soared upwards; he could see nothing below now but tiny pinpricks of light that were car headlights and streetlamps. Two of those tiny lights might belong to Uncle Vernon’s car… the Dursleys would be heading back to their empty house right now, full of rage about the non-existent Lawn Competition… and Harry laughed aloud at the thought, though his voice was drowned by the flapping robes of the others, the creaking of the harness holding his trunk and the cage, and the whoosh of the wind in their ears as they sped through the air. He had not felt this alive in a month, or this happy.
“Bearing south!” shouted Mad-Eye. “Town ahead!”
They soared right to avoid passing directly over the glittering spider’s web of lights below.
“Bear southeast and keep climbing, there’s some low cloud ahead we can lose ourselves in!” called Moody.
“We’re not going through clouds!” shouted Tonks angrily, “we’ll get soaked, Mad-Eye!”
Harry was relieved to hear her say this; his hands were growing numb on the Firebolt’s handle. He wished he had thought to put on a coat; he was starting to shiver.
They altered their course every now and then according to Mad-Eye’s instructions. Harry’s eyes were screwed up against the rush of icy wind that was starting to make his ears ache; he could remember being this cold on a broom only once before, during the Quidditch match against Hufflepuff in his third year, which had taken place in a storm. The guard around him was circling continuously like giant birds of prey. Harry lost track of time. He wondered how long they had been flying, it felt like an hour at least.
“Turning southwest!” yelled Moody. “We want to avoid the motorway!”
Harry was now so chilled he thought longingly of the snug, dry interiors of the cars streaming along below, then, even more longingly, of travelling by Floo powder; it might be uncomfortable to spin around in fireplaces but it was at least warm in the flames… Kingsley Shacklebolt swooped around him, bald pate and earring gleaming slightly in the moonlight… now Emmeline Vance was on his right, her wand out, her head turning left and right… then she, too, swooped over him, to be replaced by Sturgis Podmore…
“We ought to double back for a bit, just to make sure we’re not being followed!” Moody shouted.
“ARE YOU MAD, MAD-EYE?” Tonks screamed from the front. “We’re all frozen to our brooms! If we keep going off-course we’re not going to get there until next week! Besides, we’re nearly there now!”
“Time to start the descent!” came Lupin’s voice. “Follow Tonks, Harry!”
Harry followed Tonks into a dive. They were heading for the largest collection of lights he had yet seen, a huge, sprawling crisscrossing mass, glittering in lines and grids, interspersed with patches of deepest black. Lower and lower they flew, until Harry could see individual headlights and streetlamps, chimneys and television aerials. He wanted to reach the ground very much, though he felt sure someone would have to unfreeze him from his broom.
“Here we go!” called Tonks, and a few seconds later she had landed.
Harry touched down right behind her and dismounted on a patch of unkempt grass in the middle of a small square. Tonks was already unbuckling Harry’s trunk. Shivering, Harry looked around. The grimy fronts of the surrounding houses were not welcoming; some of them had broken windows, glimmering dully in the light from the streetlamps, paint was peeling from many of the doors and heaps of rubbish lay outside several sets of front steps.
“Where are we?” Harry asked, but Lupin said quietly, “In a minute.”
Moody was rummaging in his cloak, his gnarled hands clumsy with cold.
“Got it,” he muttered, raising what looked like a silver cigarette lighter into the air and clicking it.
The nearest streetlamp went out with a pop. He clicked the unlighter again; the next lamp went out; he kept clicking until every lamp in the square was extinguished and the only remaining light came from curtained windows and the sickle moon overhead.
“Borrowed it from Dumbledore,” growled Moody, pocketing the Put-Outer. “That’ll take care of any Muggles looking out of the window, see? Now come on, quick.”
He took Harry by the arm and led him from the patch of grass, across the road and on to the pavement; Lupin and Tonks followed, carrying Harry’s trunk between them, the rest of the guard, all with their wands out, flanking them.
The muffled pounding of a stereo was coming from an upper window in the nearest house. A pungent smell of rotting rubbish came from the pile of bulging bin-bags just inside the broken gate.
“Here,” Moody muttered, thrusting a piece of parchment towards Harry’s Disillusioned hand and holding his lit wand close to it, so as to illuminate the writing. “Read quickly and memorise.”
Harry looked down at the piece of paper. The narrow handwriting was vaguely familiar. It said:
The Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix may be found at number twelve, Grimmauld Place, London.
4. NUMBER TWELVE, GRIMMAULD PLACE
“What’s the Order of the—?” Harry began.
“Not here, boy!” snarled Moody. “Wait till we’re inside!”
He pulled the piece of parchment out of Harry’s hand and set fire to it with his wand-tip. As the message curled into flames and floated to the ground, Harry looked around at the houses again. They were standing outside number eleven; he looked to the left and saw number ten; to the right, however, was number thirteen.
“But where’s—?”
“Think about what you’ve just memorised,” said Lupin quietly.
Harry thought, and no sooner had he reached the part about number twelve, Grimmauld Place, than a battered door emerged out of nowhere between numbers eleven and thirteen, followed swiftly by dirty walls and grimy windows. It was as though an extra house had inflated, pushing those on either side out of its way. Harry gaped at it. The stereo in number eleven thudded on. Apparently the Muggles inside hadn’t felt anything.
“Come on, hurry,” growled Moody, prodding Harry in the back.
Harry walked up the worn stone steps, staring at the newly materialised door. Its black paint was shabby and scratched. The silver doorknocker was in the form of a twisted serpent. There was no keyhole or letterbox.
Lupin pulled out his wand and tapped the door once. Harry heard many loud, metallic clicks and what sounded like the clatter of a chain. The door creaked open.
“Get in quick, Harry,” Lupin whispered, “but don’t go far inside and don’t touch anything.”
Harry stepped over the threshold into the almost total darkness of the hall. He could smell damp, dust and a sweetish, rotting smell; the place had the feeling of a derelict building. He looked over his shoulder and saw the others filing in behind him, Lupin and Tonks carrying his trunk and Hedwig’s cage. Moody was standing on the top step releasing the balls of light the Put-Outer had stolen from the streetlamps; they flew back to their bulbs and the square glowed momentarily with orange light before Moody limped inside and closed the front door, so that the darkness in the hall became complete.
“Here—”
He rapped Harry hard over the head with his wand; Harry felt as though something hot was trickling down his back this time and knew that the Disillusionment Charm must have lifted.
“Now stay still, everyone, while I give us a bit of light in here,” Moody whispered.
The others’ hushed voices were giving Harry an odd feeling of foreboding; it was as though they had just entered the house of a dying person. He heard a soft hissing noise and then old-fashioned gas lamps sputtered into life all along the walls, casting a flickering insubstantial light over the peeling wallpaper and threadbare carpet of a long, gloomy hallway, where a cobwebby chandelier glimmered overhead and age-blackened portraits hung crooked on the walls. Harry heard something scuttling behind the skirting board. Both the chandelier and the candelabra on a rickety table nearby were shaped like serpents.