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“We can’t let them out to hunt every night,” Ron explained as he pulled on his maroon pyjamas. “Dumbledore doesn’t want too many owls swooping around the square, thinks it’ll look suspicious. Oh yeah… I forgot…”
He crossed to the door and bolted it.
“What’re you doing that for?”
“Kreacher,” said Ron as he turned off the light. “First night I was here he came wandering in at three in the morning. Trust me, you don’t want to wake up and find him prowling around your room. Anyway…” he got into his bed, settled down under the covers then turned to look at Harry in the darkness; Harry could see his outline by the moonlight filtering in through the grimy window, “what d’you reckon?”
Harry didn’t need to ask what Ron meant.
“Well, they didn’t tell us much we couldn’t have guessed, did they?” he said, thinking of all that had been said downstairs. “I mean, all they’ve really said is that the Order’s trying to stop people joining Vol—”
There was a sharp intake of breath from Ron.
“—demort,” said Harry firmly. “When are you going to start using his name? Sirius and Lupin do.”
Ron ignored this last comment.
“Yeah, you’re right,” he said, “we already knew nearly everything they told us, from using the Extendable Ears. The only new bit was—”
Crack.
“OUCH!”
“Keep your voice down, Ron, or Mum’ll be back up here.”
“You two just Apparated on my knees!”
“Yeah, well, it’s harder in the dark.”
Harry saw the blurred outlines of Fred and George leaping down from Ron’s bed. There was a groan of bedsprings and Harry’s mattress descended a few inches as George sat down near his feet.
“So, got there yet?” said George eagerly.
“The weapon Sirius mentioned?” said Harry.
“Let slip, more like,” said Fred with relish, now sitting next to Ron. “We didn’t hear about that on the old Extendables, did we?”
“What d’you reckon it is?” said Harry.
“Could be anything,” said Fred.
“But there can’t be anything worse than the Avada Kedavra Curse, can there?” said Ron. “What’s worse than death?”
“Maybe it’s something that can kill loads of people at once,” suggested George.
“Maybe it’s some particularly painful way of killing people,” said Ron fearfully.
“He’s got the Cruciatus Curse for causing pain,” said Harry, “he doesn’t need anything more efficient than that.”
There was a pause and Harry knew that the others, like him, were wondering what horrors this weapon could perpetrate.
“So who d’you think’s got it now?” asked George.
“I hope it’s our side,” said Ron, sounding slightly nervous.
“If it is, Dumbledore’s probably keeping it,” said Fred.
“Where?” said Ron quickly. “Hogwarts?”
“Bet it is!” said George. “That’s where he hid the Philosopher’s Stone.”
“A weapons going to be a lot bigger than the Stone, though!” said Ron.
“Not necessarily,” said Fred.
“Yeah, size is no guarantee of power,” said George. “Look at Gi
“What d’you mean?” said Harry.
“You’ve never been on the receiving end of one of her Bat-Bogey Hexes, have you?”
“Shhh!” said Fred, half-rising irom the bed. “Listen!”
They fell silent. Footsteps were coming up the stairs.
“Mum,” said George and without further ado there was a loud crack and Harry felt the weight vanish from the end of his bed. A few seconds later, they heard the floorboard creak outside their door; Mrs. Weasley was plainly listening to check whether or not they were talking.
Hedwig and Pigwidgeon hooted dolefully. The floorboard creaked again and they heard her heading upstairs to check on Fred and George.
“She doesn’t trust us at all, you know,” said Ron regretfully.
Harry was sure he would not be able to fall asleep; the evening had been so packed with things to think about that he fully expected to lie awake for hours mulling it all over. He wanted to continue talking to Ron, but Mrs. Weasley was now creaking back downstairs again, and once she had gone he distinctly heard others making their way upstairs… in fact, many-legged creatures were cantering softly up and down outside the bedroom door, and Hagrid the Care of Magical Creatures teacher was saying, “Beauties, arm they, eh, Harry? We’ll be studyin’ weapons this term…” and Harry saw that the creatures had ca
The next thing he knew, he was curled into a warm ball under his bedclothes and George’s loud voice was filling the room.
“Mum says get up, your breakfast is in the kitchen and then she needs you in the drawing room, there are loads more Doxys than she thought and she’s found a nest of dead Puffskeins under the sofa.”
Half an hour later Harry and Ron, who had dressed and breakfasted quickly, entered the drawing room, a long, high-ceilinged room on the first floor with olive green walls covered in dirty tapestries. The carpet exhaled little clouds of dust every time someone put their foot on it and the long, moss green velvet curtains were buzzing as though swarming with invisible bees. It was around these that Mrs. Weasley, Hermione, Gi
“Cover your faces and take a spray,” Mrs. Weasley said to Harry and Ron the moment she saw them, pointing to two more bottles of black liquid standing on a spindle-legged table. “It’s Doxycide. I’ve never seen an infestation this bad—what that house-elf’s been doing for the last ten years—”
Hermione’s face was half concealed by a tea towel but Harry distinctly saw her throw a reproachful look at Mrs. Weasley.
“Kreacher’s really old, he probably couldn’t manage—”
“You’d be surprised what Kreacher can manage when he wants to, Hermione,” said Sirius, who had just entered the room carrying a bloodstained bag of what appeared to be dead rats. “I’ve just been feeding Buckbeak,” he added, in reply to Harry’s enquiring look. “I keep him upstairs in my mother’s bedroom. Anyway… this writing desk…”
He dropped the bag of rals into an armchair, then bent over to examine the locked cabinet which, Harry now noticed for the first time, was shaking slightly.
“Well, Molly, I’m pretty sure this is a Boggart,” said Sirius, peering through the keyhole, “but perhaps we ought to let Mad-Eye have a shifty at it before we let it out—knowing my mother, it could be something much worse.”
“Right you are, Sirius,” said Mrs. Weasley.
They were both speaking in carefully light, polite voices that told Harry quite plainly that neither had forgotten their disagreement of the night before.
A loud, clanging bell sounded from downstairs, followed at once by the cacophony of screams and wails that had been triggered the previous night by Tonks knocking over the umbrella stand.
“I keep telling them not to ring the doorbell!” said Sirius exasperatedly, hurrying out of the room. They heard him thundering down the stairs as Mrs. Black’s screeches echoed up through the house once more:
“Stains of dishonour, filthy half-breeds, blood traitors, children of filth—”
“Close the door, please, Harry,” said Mrs. Weasley.
Harry took as much time as he dared to close the drawing-room door; he wanted to listen to what was going on downstairs. Sirius had obviously managed to shut the curtains over his mother’s portrait because she had stopped screaming. He heard Sirius walking down the hall, then the clattering of the chain on the front door, and then a deep voice he recognised as Kingsley Shacklebolt’s saying, “Hestia’s just relieved me, so she’s got Moody’s Cloak now, thought I’d leave a report for Dumbledore…”
Feeling Mrs. Weasley’s eyes on the back of his head, Harry regretfully closed the drawing-room door and rejoined the Doxy party.