Harry was first to wake up in his dormitory next morning. He lay for a moment watching dust swirl in the ray of sunlight coming through the gap in his four-poster's hangings, and savoured the thought that it was Saturday. The first week of term seemed to have dragged on for ever, like one gigantic History of Magic lesson.
Judging by the sleepy silence and the freshly minted look of that beam of sunlight, it was just after daybreak. He pulled open the curtains around his bed, got up and started to dress. The only sound apart from the distant twittering of birds was the slow, deep breathing of his fellow Gryffindors. He opened his schoolbag carefully, pulled out parchment and quill and headed out of the dormitory for the common room.
Making straight for his favourite squashy old armchair beside the now extinct fire, Harry settled himself down comfortably and unrolled his parchment while looking around the room. The detritus of crumpled-up bits of parchment, old Gobstones, empty ingredient jars and sweet wrappers that usually covered the common room at the end of each day was gone, as were all Hermione's elf hats. Wondering vaguely how many elves had now been set free whether they wanted to be or not, Harry uncorked his ink bottle, dipped his quill into it, then held it suspended an inch above the smooth yellowish surface of his parchment, thinking hard ... but after a minute or so he found himself staring into the empty grate, at a complete loss for what to say.
He could now appreciate how hard it had been for Ron and Hermione to write him letters over the summer. How was he supposed to tell Sirius everything that had happened over the past week and pose all the questions he was burning to ask without giving potential letter-thieves a lot of information he did not want them to have?
He sat quite motionless for a while, gazing into the fireplace, then, finally coming to a decision, he dipped his quill into the ink bottle once more and set it resolutely on the parchment.
Dear Snuffles,
Hope you're OK, the first week back here's been terrible, I'm really glad it's the weekend.
We've got a new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Umbridge. She's nearly as nice as your mum. I'm writing because that thing I wrote to you about last summer happened again last night when I was doing a detention with Umbridge.
We're all missing our biggest friend, we hope he'll be back soon.
Please write back quickly.
Best,
Harry
Harry reread the letter several times, trying to see it from the point of view of an outsider. He could not see how they would know what he was talking about—or who he was talking to—just from reading this letter. He did hope Sirius would pick up the hint about Hagrid and tell them when he might be back. Harry did not want to ask directly in case it drew too much attention to what Hagrid might be up to while he was not at Hogwarts.
Considering it was a very short letter, it had taken a long time to write; sunlight had crept halfway across the room while he had been working on it and he could now hear distant sounds of movement from the dormitories above. Sealing the parchment carefully, he climbed through the portrait hole and headed off for the Owlery.
‘I would not go that way if I were you,’ said Nearly Headless Nick, drifting disconcertingly through a wall just ahead of Harry as he walked down the passage. ‘Peeves is planning an amusing joke on the next person to pass the bust of Paracelsus halfway down the corridor.’
‘Does it involve Paracelsus falling on top of the person's head?’ asked Harry.
‘Funnily enough, it does,’ said Nearly Headless Nick in a bored voice. ‘Subtlety has never been Peeves's strong point. I'm off to try and find the Bloody Baron ... he might be able to put a stop to it ... see you, Harry ...’
‘Yeah, bye,’ said Harry and instead of turning right, he turned left, taking a longer but safer route up to the Owlery. His spirits rose as he walked past window after window showing brilliantly blue sky; he had training later, he would be back on the Quidditch pitch at last.
Something brushed his ankles. He looked down and saw the caretaker's skeletal grey cat, Mrs Norris, slinking past him. She turned lamplike yellow eyes on him for a moment before disappearing behind a statue of Wilfred the Wistful.
‘I'm not doing anything wrong,’ Harry called after her. She had the unmistakeable air of a cat that was off to report to her boss, yet Harry could not see why; he was perfectly entitled to walk up to the Owlery on a Saturday morning.
The sun was high in the sky now and when Harry entered the Owlery the glassless windows dazzled his eyes; thick silvery beams of sunlight crisscrossed the circular room in which hundreds of owls nestled on rafters, a little restless in the early-morning light, some clearly just returned from hunting. The straw-covered floor crunched a little as he stepped across tiny animal bones, craning his neck for a sight of Hedwig.
‘There you are,’ he said, spotting her somewhere near the very top of the vaulted ceiling. ‘Get down here, I've got a letter for you.’
With a low hoot she stretched her great white wings and soared down on to his shoulder.
‘Right, I know this says Snuffles on the outside,’ he told her, giving her the letter to clasp in her beak and, without knowing exactly why, whispering, ‘but it's for Sirius, OK?’
She blinked her amber eyes once and he took that to mean that she understood.
‘Safe flight, then,’ said Harry and he carried her to one of the windows; with a moments pressure on his arm, Hedwig took off into the blindingly bright sky. He watched her until she became a tiny black speck and vanished, then switched his gaze to Hagrid's hut, clearly visible from this window, and just as clearly uninhabited, the chimney smokeless, the curtains drawn.
The treetops of the Forbidden Forest swayed in a light breeze. Harry watched them, savouring the fresh air on his face, thinking about Quidditch later ... then he saw it. A great, reptilian winged hcrse, just like the ones pulling the Hogwarts carriages, with leahery black wings spread wide like a pterodactyl's, rose up out of the trees like a grotesque, giant bird. It soared in a great circle, then plunged back into the trees. The whole thing had happened so quickly, Harry could hardly believe what he had seen, except that his heart was hammering madly.
The Owlery door opened behind him. He leapt in shock and, turning quickly, saw Cho Chang holding a letter and a parcel in his hands.
‘Hi,’ said Harry automatically.
‘Oh ... hi,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I didn't think anyone would be up here this early ... I only remembered five minutes ago, it's my mum's birthday’
She held up the parcel.
‘Right,’ said Harry. His brain seemed to have jammed. He wanted to say something funny and interesting, but the memory of that terrible winged horse was fresh in his mind.
‘Nice day,’ he said, gesturing to the windows. His insides seemed to shrivel with embarrassment. The weather. He was talking about the weather ...
‘Yeah,’ said Cho, looking around for a suitable owl. ‘Good Quidditch conditions. I haven't been out all week, have you?’
‘No,’ said Harry.
Cho had selected one of the school barn owls. She coaxed it down on to her arm where it held out an obliging leg so that she could attach the parcel.
‘Hey has Gryffindor got a new Keeper yet?’ she asked.
‘Yeah,’ said Harry. ‘It's my friend Ron Weasley, d'you know him?’
‘The Tornados-hater?’ said Cho rather coolly. ‘Is he any good?’
‘Yeah,’ said Harry, ‘I think so. I didn't see his tryout, though, I was in detention.’
Cho looked up, the parcel only half-attached to the owl's legs.
‘That Umbridge woman's foul,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Putting you in detention just because you told the truth about how—how—how he died. Everyone heard about it, it was all over the school. You were really brave standing up to her like that.’
Harry's insides re-inflated so rapidly he felt as though he might actually float a few inches off the dropping-strewn floor. Who cared about a stupid flying horse; Cho thought he had been really brave. For a moment, he considered accidentally-on-purpose showing her his cut hand as he helped her tie her parcel on to her owl ... but the very instant this thrilling thought occurred, the Owlery door opened again.
Filch the caretaker came wheezing into the room. There were purple patches on his sunken, veined cheeks, his jowls were aquiver and his thin grey hair dishevelled; he had obviously run here. Mrs. Norris came trotting at his heels, gazing up at the owls overhead and mewing hungrily. There was a restless shifting of wings from above and a large brown owl snapped his beak in a menacing fashion.
‘Aha!’ said Filch, taking a flat-footed step towards Harry, his pouchy cheeks trembling with anger. ‘I've had a tip-off that you are intending to place a massive order for Dungbombs!’
Harry folded his arms and stared at the caretaker.
‘Who told you I was ordering Dungbombs?’
Cho was looking from Harry to Filch, also frowning; the barn owl on her arm, tired of standing on one leg, gave an admonitory hoot but she ignored it.
‘I have my sources.’ said Filch in a self-satisfied hiss. ‘Now hand over whatever it is you're sending.’
Feeling immensely thankful that he had not dawdled in posting off the letter, Harry said, ‘I can't, it's gone.’
‘Gone?’ said Filch, his face contorting with rage.
‘Gone,’ said Harry calmly.
Filch opened his mouth furiously, mouthed for a few seconds, then raked Harry's robes with his eyes.
‘How do I know you haven't got it in your pocket?’
‘Because—’
‘I saw him send it,’ said Cho angrily.
Filch rounded on her.
‘You saw him—?’
‘That's right, I saw him,’ she said fiercely.
There was a moment's pause in which Filch glared at Cho and Cho glared right back, then the caretaker turned on his heel and shuffled back towards the door. He stopped with his hand on the handle and looked back at Harry.
‘If I get so much as a whiff of a Dungbomb ...’
He stumped off down the stairs. Mrs. Norris cast a last longing look at the owls and followed him.
Harry and Cho looked at each other.
‘Thanks,’ Harry said.
‘No problem,’ said Cho, finally fixing the parcel to the barn owl's other leg, her face slightly pink. ‘You weren't ordering Dungbombs, were you?’
‘No,’ said Harry.
‘I wonder why he thought you were, then?’ she said as she carried the owl to the window.
Harry shrugged. He was quite as mystified by that as she was, though oddly it was not bothering him very much at the moment.
They left the Owlery together. At the entrance of a corridor that led towards the west wing of the castle, Cho said, ‘I'm going this way.Well, I'll ... I'll see you around, Harry.’
‘Yeah ... see you.’
She smiled at him and departed. Harry walked on, feeling quietly elated. He had managed to have an entire conversation with her and not embarrassed himself once ... you were really brave standing up to her like that ...Cho had called him brave ... she did not hate him for being alive ...
Of course, she had preferred Cedric, he knew that ... though if he'd only asked her to the Ball before Cedric had, things might have turned out differently ... she had seemed sincerely sorry that she'd had to refuse when Harry asked her ...
‘Morning,’ Harry said brightly to Ron and Hermione as he joined them at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall.
‘What are you looking so pleased about?’ said Ron, eyeing Harry in surprise.
‘Erm ... Quidditch later,’ said Harry happily, pulling a large platter of bacon and eggs towards him.
‘Oh ... yeah ...’ said Ron. He put down the piece of toast he was eating and took a large swig of pumpkin juice. Then he said, ‘Listen ... you don't fancy going out a bit earlier with me, do you? Just to—er—give me some practice before training? So I can, you know, get my eye in a bit.’
‘Yeah, OK,’ said Harry.
‘Look, I don't think you should,’ said Hermione seriously. ‘You're both really behind on homework as it—’
But she broke off; the morning post was arriving and, as usual, the Daily Prophet was soaring towards her in the beak of a screech owl, which landed perilously close to the sugar bowl and held out a leg. Hermione pushed a Knut into its leather pouch, took the newspaper, and scanned the front page critically as the owl took off.
‘Anything interesting?’ said Ron. Harry grinned, knowing Ron was keen to keep her off the subject of homework.
‘No,’ she sighed, ‘just some guff about the bass player in the Weird Sisters getting married.’
Hermione opened the paper and disappeared behind it. Harry devoted himself to another helping of eggs and bacon. Ron was staring up at the high windows, looking slightly preoccupied.
‘Wait a moment,’ said Hermione suddenly. ‘Oh no ... Sirius!’
‘What's happened?’ said Harry, snatching at the paper so violently it ripped down the middle, with him and Hermione each holding one half.
’ “The Ministry of Magic has received a tip-off from a reliable source that Sirius Black, notorious mass murderer ... blah blah blah ...is currently hiding in London!”‘Hermione read from her half in an anguished whisper.
‘Lucius Malfoy, I'll bet anything,’ said Harry in a low, furious voice. ‘He did recognise Sirius on the platform ...’
‘What?’ said Ron, looking alarmed. ‘You didn't say—’
‘Shh!’ said the other two.
‘... “Ministry warns wizarding community that Black is very dangerous ... killed thirteen people ... broke out of Azkaban ...” the usual rubbish,’ Hermione concluded, laying down her half of the paper and looking fearfully at Harry and Ron. ‘Well, he just won't be able to leave the house again, that's all,’ she whispered. ‘Dumbledore did warn him not to.’
Harry looked down glumly at the bit of the Prophet he had torn off. Most of the page was devoted to an advertisement for Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions, which was apparently having a sale.
‘Hey!’ he said, flattening it down so Hermione and Ron could see it. ‘Look at this!’
‘I've got all the robes I want,’ said Ron.
‘No,’ said Harry. ‘Look ... this little piece here ...’
Ron and Hermione bent closer to read it; the item was barely an inch long and placed right at the bottom of a column. It was headlined:
TRESPASS AT MINISTRY
Sturgis Podmore, 38, of number two, Laburnum Gardens, Clapham, has appeared in front of the Wizcngamot charged with trespass and attempted robbery at the Ministry of Magic on 31st August. Podmore was arrested by Ministry of Magic watchwizard Eric Munch, who found him attempting to force his way through a top-security door at one o'clock in the morning. Podmore, who refused to speak, in his own defence, was convicted on both charges and sentenced to six months in Azkaban.
‘Sturgis Podmore?’ said Ron slowly. ‘He's that bloke who looks like his head's been thatched, isn't he? He's one of the Ord—
‘Ron, shh!’ said Hermione, casting a terrified look around them.
‘Six months in Azkaban!’ whispered Harry, shocked. ‘Just for trying to get through a door!’
‘Don't be silly, it wasn't just for trying to get through a door. What on earth was he doing at the Ministry of Magic at one o'clock in the morning?’ breathed Hermione.
D'you reckon he was doing something for the Order?’ Ron muttered.
‘Wait a moment ...’ said Harry slowly. ‘Sturgis was supposed to come and see us off, remember?’
The other two looked at him.
‘Yeah, he was supposed to be part of our guard going to King's Cross, remember? And Moody was all annoyed because he didn't turn up; so he couldn't have been on a job for them, could he?’
‘Well, maybe they didn't expect him to get caught,’ said Hermione.
‘It could be a frame-up!’ Ron exclaimed excitedly. ‘No—listen!’ he went on, dropping his voice dramatically at the threatening look on Hermione's face. ‘The Ministry suspects he's one of Dumbledore's lot so—I dunno—they lured him to the Ministry, and he wasn't trying to get through a door at all! Maybe they've just made something up to get him!’
There was a pause while Harry and Hermione considered this. Harry thought it seemed far-fetched. Hermione, on the other hand, looked rather impressed.
‘Do you know, I wouldn't be at all surprised if that were true.’
She folded up her half of the newspaper thoughtfully. As Harry laid down his knife and fork, she seemed to come out of a reverie.
‘Right, well, I think we should tackle that essay for Sprout on self-fertilising shrubs first and if we're lucky we'll be able to start McGonagall's Inanimatus Conjurus Spell before lunch ...’
Harry felt a small twinge of guilt at the thought of the pile of homework awaiting him upstairs, but the sky was a clear, exhilarating blue, and he had not been on his Firebolt for a week ...
‘I mean, we can do it tonight,’ said Ron, as he and Harry walked down the sloping lawns towards the Quidditch pitch, their broomsticks over their shoulders, and with Hermione's dire warnings that they would fail all their OWLs still ringing in their ears. ‘And we've got tomorrow. She gets too worked up about work, that's her trouble ...’ There was a pause and he added, in a slightly more anxious tone, ‘D'you think she meant it when she said we weren't copying from her?’
‘Yeah, I do,’ said Harry. ‘Still, this is important, too, we've got to practise if we want to stay on the Quidditch team ...’
‘Yeah, that's right,’ said Ron, in a heartened tone. ‘And we have got plenty of time to do it all ...’
As they approached the Quidditch pitch, Harry glanced over to his right to where the trees of the Forbidden Forest were swaying darkly. Nothing flew out of them; the sky was empty but for a few distant owls fluttering around the Owlery tower. He had enough to worry about; the flying horse wasn't doing him any harm; he pushed it out of his mind.
They collected balls from the cupboard in the changing room and set to work, Ron guarding the three tall goalposts, Harry playing Chaser and trying to get the Quaffle past Ron. Harry thought Ron was pretty good; he blocked three-quarters of the goals Harry attempted to put past him and played better the longer they practised. After a couple of hours they returned to the castle for lunch—during which Hermione made it quite clear she thought they were irresponsible—then returned to the Quidditch pitch for the real training session. All their teammates but Angelina were already in the changing room when they entered.
‘All right, Ron?’ said George, winking at him.
‘Yeah,’ said Ron, who had become quieter and quieter all the way down to the pitch.
‘Ready to show us all up, Ickle Prefect?’ said Fred, emerging tousle-haired from the neck of his Quidditch robes, a slightly malicious grin on his face.
‘Shut up,’ said Ron, stony-faced, pulling on his own team robes for the first time. They fitted him well considering they had been Oliver Wood's, who was rather broader in the shoulder.
‘OK, everyone,’ said Angelina, entering from the Captain's office, already changed. ‘Let's get to it; Alicia and Fred, if you can just bring out the ball crate for us. Oh, and there are a couple of people out there watching but I want you to just ignore them, all right?’
Something in her would-be casual voice made Harry think he might know who the uninvited spectators were, and sure enough, when they left the changing room for the bright sunlight of the pitch it was to a storm of catcalls and jeers from the Slytherin Quidditch team and assorted hangers-on, who were grouped halfway up the empty stands and whose voices echoed loudly around the stadium.
‘What's that Weasley's riding?’ Malfoy called in his sneering drawl. ‘Why would anyone put a flying charm on a mouldy old log like that?’
Crabbe, Goyle and Pansy Parkinson guffawed and shrieked with laughter. Ron mounted his broom and kicked off from the ground and Harry followed him, watching his ears turn red from behind.
‘Ignore them,’ he said, accelerating to catch up with Ron, ‘we'll see who's laughing after we play them ...’
‘Exactly the attitude I want, Harry,’ said Angelina approvingly soaring around them with the Quaffle under her arm and slowing to hover on the spot in front of her airborne team. ‘OK, everyone, we're going to start with some passes just to warm up, the whole team please—’
‘Hey, Johnson, what's with that hairstyle, anyway?’ shrieked Pansy Parkinson from below. ‘Why would anyone want to look like they've got worms coming out of their head?’
Angelina swept her long braided hair out of her face and continued calmly, ‘Spread out, then, and let's see what we can do ...’
Harry reversed away from the others to the far side of the pitch. Ron fell back towards the opposite goal. Angelina raised the Quaffle with one hand and threw it hard to Fred, who passed to George, who passed to Harry, who passed to Ron, who dropped it.
The Slytherins, led by Malfoy, roared and screamed with laughter. Ron, who had pelted towards the ground to catch the Quaffle before it landed, pulled out of the dive untidily, so that he slipped sideways on his broom, and returned to playing height, blushing. Harry saw Fred and George exchange looks, but uncharacteristically neither of them said anything, for which he was grateful.
‘Pass it on, Ron,’ called Angelina, as though nothing had happened.
Ron threw the Quaffle to Alicia, who passed back to Harry, who passed to George ...
‘Hey, Potter, how's your scar feeling?’ called Malfoy. ‘Sure you don't need a lie down? It must be, what, a whole week since you were in the hospital wing, that's a record for you, isn't it?’
George passed to Angelina; she reverse-passed to Harry, who had not been expecting it, but caught it in the very tips of his fingers and passed it quickly to Ron, who lunged for it and missed by inches.
‘Come on now, Ron,’ said Angelina crossly, as he dived for the ground again, chasing the Quaffle. ‘Pay attention.’
It would have been hard to say whether Ron's face or the Quaffle was a deeper scarlet when he again returned to playing height. Malfoy and the rest of the Slytherin team were howling with laughter.
On his third attempt, Ron caught the Quaffle; perhaps out of relief he passed it on so enthusiastically that it soared straight though Katie's outstretched hands and hit her hard in the face.
‘Sorry!’ Ron groaned, zooming forwards to see whether he had done any damage.
‘Get back in position, she's fine!’ barked Angelina. ‘But as you're passing to a teammate, do try not to knock her off her broom, won't you? We've got Bludgers for that!’
Katie's nose was bleeding. Down below, the Slytherins were stamping their feet and jeering. Fred and George converged on Katie.
‘Here, take this,’ Fred told her, handing her something small anc purple from out of his pocket, ‘it'll clear it up in no time.’
‘All right,’ called Angelina, ‘Fred, George, go and get your bats and a Bludger. Ron, get up to the goalposts. Harry, release the Snitch when I say so. We're going to aim for Ron's goal, obviously.’
Harry zoomed off after the twins to fetch the Snitch.
‘Ron's making a right pig's ear of things, isn't he?’ muttered George, as the three of them landed at the crate containing the balls and opened it to extract one of the Bludgers and the Snitch.
‘He's just nervous,’ said Harry, ‘he was fine when I was practising with him this morning.’
‘Yeah, well, I hope he hasn't peaked too soon,’ said Fred gloomily.
They returned to the air. When Angelina blew her whistle, Harry released the Snitch and Fred and George let fly the Bludger. From that moment on, Harry was barely aware of what the others were doing. It was his job to recapture the tiny fluttering golden ball that was worth a hundred and fifty points to the Seeker's team and doing so required enormous speed and skill. He accelerated, rolling and swerving in and out of the Chasers, the warm autumn air whipping his face, and the distant yells of the Slytherins so much meaningless roaring in his ears ... but too soon, the whistle brought him to a halt again.
‘Stop—stop— STOP!’ screamed Angelina. ‘Ron—you're not covering your middle post!’
Harry looked round at Ron, who was hovering in front of the left-hand hoop, leaving the other two completely unprotected.
‘Oh ... sorry ...’
‘You keep shifting around while you're watching the Chasers!’ said Angelina. ‘Either stay in centre position until you have to move to defend a hoop, or else circle the hoops, but don't drift vaguely off to one side, that's how you let in the last three goals!’
‘Sorry ...’ Ron repeated, his red face shining like a beacon against the bright blue sky.
‘And Katie, can't you do something about that nosebleed?’
‘It's just getting worse!’ said Katie thickly, attempting to stem the flow with her sleeve.
Harry glanced round at Fred, who was looking anxious and checking his pockets. He saw Fred pull out something purple, examine it for a second and then look round at Katie, evidently horror-struck.
‘Well, let's try again,’ said Angelina. She was ignoring the Slytherins, who had now set up a chant of ‘Gryffindor are losers, Gryffindor are losers,’ but there was a certain rigidity about her seat on the broom nevertheless.
This time they had been flying for barely three minutes when Angelinas whistle sounded. Harry, who had just sighted the Snitch circling the opposite goalpost, pulled up feeling distinctly aggrieved.
‘What now?’ he said impatiently to Alicia, who was nearest.
‘Katie,’ she said shortly.
Harry turned and saw Angelina, Fred and George all flying as fast as they could towards Katie. Harry and Alicia sped towards her, too. It was plain that Angelina had stopped training just in time; Katie was now chalk white and covered in blood.
‘She needs the hospital wing,’ said Angelina.
‘We'll take her,’ said Fred. ‘She—er—might have swallowed a Blood Blisterpod by mistake—’
‘Well, there's no point continuing with no Beaters and a Chaser gone,’ said Angelina glumly as Fred and George zoomed off towards the castle supporting Katie between them. ‘Come on, let's go and get changed.’
The Slytherins continued to chant as they trailed back into the changing rooms.
‘How was practice?’ asked Hermione rather coolly half an hour later, as Harry and Ron climbed through the portrait hole into the Gryffindor common room.
‘It was—’ Harry began.
‘Completely lousy,’ said Ron in a hollow voice, sinking into a chair beside Hermione. She looked up at Ron and her frost mess seemed to melt.
‘Well, it was only your first one,’ she said consolingly, ‘it's bound to take time to—’
‘Who said it was me who made it lousy?’ snapped Ron.
‘No one,’ said Hermione, looking taken aback, ‘I thought—’
‘You thought I was bound to be rubbish?’
‘No, of course I didn't! Look, you said it was lousy so I just—’
‘I'm going to get started on some homework,’ said Ron angrily and stomped off to the staircase to the boys’ dormitories and vanished from sight. Hermione turned to Harry.
‘Was he lousy?’
‘No,’ said Harry loyally.
Hermione raised her eyebrows.
‘Well, I suppose he could've played better,’ Harry muttered, ‘but it was only the first training session, like you said ...’
Neither Harry nor Ron seemed to make much headway with their homework that night. Harry knew Ron was too preoccupied with how badly he had performed at Quidditch practice and he himself was having difficulty in getting the ‘Gryffindor are losers’ chant out of his head.
They spent the whole of Sunday in the common room, buried in ! heir books while the room around them filled up, then emptied. It was another clear, fine day and most of their fellow Gryffindors spent the day out in the grounds, enjoying what might well be some of the last sunshine that year. By the evening, Harry felt as though somebody had been beating his brain against the inside of his skull.
‘You know, we probably should try and get more homework done during the week,’ Harry muttered to Ron, as they finally laid aside Professor McGonagall's long essay on the Inanimatus Conjurus Spell and turned miserably to Professor Sinistra's equally long and difficult essay about Jupiter's many moons.
‘Yeah,’ said Ron, rubbing slightly bloodshot eyes and throwing his fifth spoiled bit of parchment into the fire beside them. ‘Listen ... shall we just ask Hermione if we can have a look at what she's done?’
Harry glanced over at her; she was sitting with Crookshanks on her lap and chatting merrily to Ginny as a pair of knitting needles flashed in midair in front of her, now knitting a pair of shapeless elf socks.
‘No,’ he said heavily, ‘you know she won't let us.’
And so they worked on while the sky outside the windows became steadily darker. Slowly, the crowd in the common room began to thin again. At half past eleven, Hermione wandered over to them, yawning.
‘Nearly done?’
‘No,’ said Ron shortly.
‘Jupiter's biggest moon is Ganymede, not Callisto,’ she said, pointing over Ron's shoulder at a line in his Astronomy essay, ‘and it's Io that's got the volcanoes.’
‘Thanks,’ snarled Ron, scratching out the offending sentences.
‘Sorry, I only— ’
‘Yeah, well, if you've just come over here to criticise—’
‘Ron—’
‘I haven't got time to listen to a sermon, all right, Hermione, I'm up to my neck in it here— ’
‘No—look!’
Hermione was pointing to the nearest window. Harry and Ron both looked over. A handsome screech owl was standing on the windowsill, gazing into the room at Ron.
‘Isn't that Hermes?’ said Hermione, sounding amazed.
‘Blimey, it is!’ said Ron quietly, throwing down his quill and getting to his feet. ‘What's Percy writing to me for?’
He crossed to the window and opened it; Hermes flew inside, landed on Ron's essay and held out a leg to which a letter was attached. Ron took the letter off it and the owl departed at once, leaving inky footprints across Ron's drawing of the moon Io.
‘That's definitely Percy's handwriting,’ said Ron, sinking back into his chair and staring at the words on the outside of the scroll: Ronald Weasley, Gryffindor House, Hogwarts. He looked up at the other two. ‘What d'you reckon?’
‘Open it!’ said Hermione eagerly, and Harry nodded.
Ron unrolled the scroll and began to read. The further clown the parchment his eyes travelled, the more pronounced became his scowl. When he had finished reading, he looked disgusted. He thrust the letter at Harry and Hermione, who leaned towards each other to read it together:
Dear Ron,
I have only just heard (from no less a person than the Minister for Magic himself, who has it from your new teacher, Professor Umbridge) that you have become a Hogwarts prefect.
I was most pleasantly surprised when f heard this news and must firstly offer my congratulations. I must admit that I have always been afraid that you would take what we might call the ‘Fred and George’ route, rather than following in my footsteps, so you can imagine my feelings on hearing you have stopped flouting authority and have decided to shoulder some real responsibility.
But I want to give you more than congratulations, Ron, I want to give you some advice, which is why I am sending this at night rather than by the usual morning post. Hopefully, you will be able to read this away from prying eyes and avoid awkward questions.
From something the Minister let slip when telling me you are now a prefect, I gather that you are still seeing a lot of Harry Potter. I must tell you, Ron, that nothing could put you in danger of losing your badge more than continued fraternisation with that boy. Yes, I am sure you are surprised to hear this— no doubt you will say that Potter has always been Dumbledore's favourite—but I feel bound to tell you that Dumbledore may not be in charge at Hogwarts much longer and the people who count have a very different—and probably more accurate—view of Potter's behaviour. I shall say no more here, but if you look at the Daily Prophet tomorrow you will get a good idea of the way the wind is blowing—and see if you can spot yours truly!
Seriously, Ron, you do not want to be tarred with the same brush as Potter, it could be very damaging to your future prospects, and I am talking here about life after school, too. As you must be aware, given that our father escorted him to court, Potter had a disciplinary hearing this summer in front of the whole Wizengamot and he did not come out of it looking too good. He got off on a mere technicality, if you ask me, and many of the people I've spoken to remain convinced of his guilt.
It may be that you are afraid to sever ties with Potter—I know that he can be unbalanced and, for all I know, violent—but if you have any worries about this, or have spotted anything else in Potter's behaviour that is troubling you, I urge you to speak to Dolores Umbridge, a truly delightful woman who I know will be only too happy to advise you.
This leads me to my other bit of advice. As I have hinted above, Dumbledore's regime at Hogwarts may soon be over. Your loyalty, Ron, should be not to him, but to the school and the Ministry. I am very sorry to hear that, so far, Professor Umbridge is encountering very little co-operation from staff as she strives to make those necessary changes within Hogwarts that the Ministry so ardently desires (although she should find this easier from next week— again, see the Daily Prophet tomorrow!). I shall say only this—a student who shows himself willing to help Professor Umbridge now may be very well-placed for Head Boyship in a couple of years!
I am sorry that I was unable to see more of you over the summer. It pains me to criticise our parents, but I am afraid I can no longer live under their roof while they remain mixed up with the dangerous crowd around Dumbledore. (If you are writing to Mother at any point, you might tell her that a certain Sturgis Podmore, who is a great friend of Dumbledore's, has recently been sent to Azkaban for trespass at the Ministry. Perhaps that will open their eyes to the kind of petty criminals with whom they are currently rubbing shoulders.) I count myself very lucky to have escaped the stigma of association with such people—the Minister really could not be more gracious to me—and I do hope, Ron, that you will not allow family ties to blind you to the misguided nature of our parents’ beliefs and actions, either. I sincerely hope that, in time, they will realise how mistaken they were and I shall, of course, be ready to accept a full apology when that day comes.
Please think over what I have said most carefully, particularly the bit about Harry Potter, and congratulations again on becoming prefect.
Your brother,
Percy
Harry looked up at Ron.
‘Well,’ he said, trying to sound as though he found the whole thing a joke, ‘if you want to—er —what is it?'—he checked Percy's letter—'Oh yeah—"sever ties” with me, I swear I won't get violent.’
‘Give it back,’ said Ron, holding out his hand. ‘He is—’ Ron said jerkily, tearing Percy's letter in half ‘the world's—’ he tore it into quarters ‘biggest—’ he tore it into eighths ‘git.’ He threw the pieces into the fire.
‘Come on, we've got to get this finished sometime before dawn,’ he said briskly to Harry, pulling Professor Sinistra's essay back towards him.
Hermione was looking at Ron with an odd expression on her face.
‘Oh, give them here,’ she said abruptly.
‘What?’ said Ron.
‘Give them to me, I'll look through them and correct them,’ she said.
‘Are you serious? Ah, Hermione, you're a life-saver,’ said Ron, ‘what can I—?’
‘What you can say is, “We promise we'll never leave our homework this late again,” ’ she said, holding out both hands for their essays, but she looked slightly amused all the same.
‘Thanks a million, Hermione,’ said Harry weakly, passing over his essay and sinking back into his armchair, rubbing his eyes.
It was now past midnight and the common room was deserted but for the three of them and Crookshanks. The only sound was that of Hermione's quill scratching out sentences here and there on their essays and the ruffle of pages as she checked various facts in the reference books strewn across the table. Harry was exhausted. He also felt an odd, sick, empty feeling in his stomach that had nothing to do with tiredness and everything to do with the letter now curling blackly in the heart of the fire.
He knew that half the people inside Hogwarts thought him strange, even mad; he knew that the Daily Prophet had been making snide allusions to him for months, but there was something about seeing it written down like that in Percy's writing, about knowing that Percy was advising Ron to drop him and even to tell tales about him to Umbridge, that made his situation real to him as nothing else had. He had known Percy for four years, had stayed in his house during the summer holidays, shared a tent with him during the Quidditch World Cup, had even been awarded full marks by him in the second task of the Triwizard Tournament last year, yet now, Percy thought him unbalanced and possibly violent.
And with a surge of sympathy for his godfather, Harry thought Sirius was probably the only person he knew who could really understand how he felt at the moment, because Sirius was in the same situation. Nearly everyone in the wizarding world thought Sirius a dangerous murderer and a great Voldemort supporter and he had had to live with that knowledge for fourteen years ...
Harry blinked. He had just seen something in the fire that could not have been there. It had flashed into sight and vanished immediately. No ... it could not have been ... he had imagined it because he had been thinking about Sirius ...
‘OK, write that down,’ Hermione said to Ron, pushing his essay and a sheet covered in her own writing back to Ron, ‘then add this conclusion I've written for you.’
‘Hermione, you are honestly the most wonderful person I've ever met,’ said Ron weakly, ‘and if I'm ever rude to you again—’
‘—I'll know you're back to normal,’ said Hermione. ‘Harry, yours is OK except for this bit at the end, I think you must have misheard Professor Sinistra, Europa's covered in ice, not mice—Harry?’
Harry had slid off his chair on to his knees and was now crouching on the singed and threadbare hearthrug, gazing into the flames.
‘Er—Harry?’ said Ron uncertainly. ‘Why are you down there?’
‘Because I've just seen Sirius's head in the fire,’ said Harry.
He spoke quite calmly; after all, he had seen Sirius's head in this very fire the previous year and talked to it, too; nevertheless, he could not be sure that he had really seen it this time ... it had vanished so quickly ...
‘Sirius's head?’ Hermione repeated. ‘You mean like when he wanted to talk to you during the Triwizard Tournament? But he wouldn't do that now, it would be too—Sirius!’
She gasped, gazing at the fire; Ron dropped his quill. There in the middle of the dancing flames sat Sirius's head, long dark hair failing around his grinning face.
‘I was starting to think you'd go to bed before everyone else had disappeared,’ he said. ‘I've been checking every hour.’
‘You've been popping into the fire every hour?’ Harry said, half-laughing.
‘Just for a few seconds to check if the coast was clear.’
‘But what if you'd been seen?’ said Hermione anxiously.
‘Well, I think a girl—first-year, by the look of her—might've get a glimpse of me earlier, but don't worry,’ Sirius said hastily, as Hermione clapped a hand to her mouth, ‘I was gone the moment she looked back at me and I'll bet she just thought I was an oddly-shaped log or something.’
‘But, Sirius, this is taking an awful risk—’ Hermione began.
‘You sound like Molly,’ said Sirius. ‘This was the only way I could come up with of answering Harry's letter without resorting to a code—and codes are breakable.’
At the mention of Harry's letter, Hermione and Ron both turned to stare at him.
‘You didn't say you'd written to Sirius! said Hermione accusingly.
‘I forgot,’ said Harry, which was perfectly true; his meeting with Cho in the Owlery had driven everything before it out of his mind. ‘Don't look at me like that, Hermione, there was no way anyone would have got secret information out of it, was there, Sirius?’
‘No, it was very good,’ said Sirius, smiling. ‘Anyway, we'd better be quick, just in case we're disturbed—your scar.’
‘What about—?’ Ron began, but Hermione interrupted him.
‘We'll tell you afterwards. Go on, Sirius.’
‘Well, I know it can't be fun when it hurts, but we don't think its anything to really worry about. It kept aching all last year, didn't it?’
‘Yeah, and Dumbledore said it happened whenever Voldemort was feeling a powerful emotion,’ said Harry, ignoring, as usual, Ron and Hermione's winces. ‘So maybe he was just, I dunno, really angry or something the night I had that detention.’
‘Well, now he's back it's bound to hurt more often,’ said Sirius.
‘So you don't think it had anything to do with Umbridge touching me when I was in detention with her?’ Harry asked.
‘I doubt it,’ said Sirius. ‘I know her by reputation and I'm sure she's no Death Eater—’
‘She's foul enough to be one,’ said Harry darkly, and Ron and Hermione nodded vigorously in agreement.
‘Yes, but the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters,’ said Sirius with a wry smile. ‘I know she's a nasty piece of work, though—you should hear Remus talk about her.’
‘Does Lupin know her?’ asked Harry quickly, remembering Umbridge's comments about dangerous half-breeds during her first lesson.
‘No,’ said Sirius, ‘but she drafted a bit of anti-werewolf legislation two years ago that makes it almost impossible for him to get a job.’
Harry remembered how much shabbier Lupin looked these days and his dislike of Umbridge deepened even further.
‘What's she got against werewolves?’ said Hermione angrily.
‘Scared of them, I expect,’ said Sirius, smiling at her indignation. ‘Apparently, she loathes part-humans; she campaigned to have merpeople rounded up and tagged last year, too. Imagine wasting your time and energy persecuting merpeople when there are little toerags like Kreacher on the loose.’
Ron laughed but Hermione looked upset.
‘Sirius!’ she said reproachfully. ‘Honestly, if you made a bit of an effort with Kreacher, I'm sure he'd respond. After all, you are the only member of his family he's got left, and Professor Dumbledore said—’
‘So, what are Umbridge's lessons like?’ Sirius interrupted. ‘Is she training you all to kill half-breeds?’
‘No,’ said Harry, ignoring Hermione's affronted look at being cut off in her defence of Kreacher. ‘She's not letting us use magic at all!’
‘All we do is read the stupid textbook,’ said Ron.
‘Ah, well, that figures,’ said Sirius. ‘Our information from inside the Ministry is that Fudge doesn't want you trained in combat.’
‘Trained in combat!’ repeated Harry incredulously. ‘What does he think we're doing here, forming some sort of wizard army?’
‘That's exactly what he thinks you're doing,’ said Sirius, ‘or, rather, that's exactly what he's afraid Dumbledore's doing—forming his own private army, with which he will be able to take on the Ministry of Magic.’
There was a pause at this, then Ron said, That's the most stupid thing I've ever heard, including all the stuff that Luna Lovegood comes out with.’
‘So we're being prevented from learning Defence Against the Dark Arts because Fudge is scared we'll use spells against the Ministry?’ said Hermione, looking furious.
‘Yep,’ said Sirius. ‘Fudge thinks Dumbledore will stop at nothing to seize power. He's getting more paranoid about Dumbledore by the day. It's a matter of time before he has Dumbledore arrested on some trumped-up charge.’
This reminded Harry of Percy's letter.
‘D'you know if there's going to be anything about Dumbledore in the Daily Prophet tomorrow? Ron's brother Percy reckons there will be—’
‘I don't know,’ said Sirius, ‘I haven't seen anyone from the Order all weekend, they're all busy. It's just been Kreacher and me here.’
There was a definite note of bitterness in Sirius's voice.
‘So you haven't had any news about Hagrid, either?’
‘Ah ...’ said Sirius, ‘well, he was supposed to be back by now, no one's sure what's happened to him.’ Then, seeing their stricken faces, he added quickly, ‘But Dumbledore's not worried, so don't you three get yourselves in a state; I'm sure Hagrid's fine.’
‘But if he was supposed to be back by now ...’ said Hermione in a small, anxious voice.
‘Madame Maxime was with him, we've been in touch with her and she says they got separated on the journey home—but there's nothing to suggest he's hurt or—well, nothing to suggest he's not perfectly OK.’
Unconvinced, Harry, Ron and Hermione exchanged worried looks.
‘Listen, don't go asking too many questions about Hagrid,’ said Sirius hastily, ‘it'll just draw even more attention to the fact that he's not back and I know Dumbledore doesn't want that. Hagrid's tough, he'll be OK.’ And when they did not appear cheered by this, Sirius added, ‘When's your next Hogsmeade weekend, anyway? I was thinking, we got away with the dog disguise at the station, didn't we? I thought I could—’
‘NO!’ said Harry and Hermione together, very loudly.
‘Sirius, didn't you see the Daily Prophet?’ said Hermione anxiously.
‘Oh, that,’ said Sirius, grinning, ‘they're always guessing where I am, they haven't really got a clue—’
‘Yeah, but we think this time they have,’ said Harry. ‘Something Malfoy said on the train made us think he knew it was you, and his father was on the platform, Sirius— you know, Lucius Malfoy—so don't come up here, whatever you do. If Malfoy recognises you again—’
‘All right, all right, I've got the point,’ said Sirius. He looked most displeased. ‘Just an idea, thought you might like to get together.’
‘I would, I just don't want you chucked back in Azkaban!’ said Harry.
There was a pause in which Sirius looked out of the fire at Harry, a crease between his sunken eyes.
‘You're less like your father than I thought,’ he said finally, a definite coolness in his voice. ‘The risk would've been what made it fun for James.’
‘Look—’
‘Well, I'd better get going, I can hear Kreacher coming down the stairs,’ said Sirius, but Harry was sure he was lying. ‘I'll write to tell you a time I can make it back into the fire, then, shall I? If you can stand to risk it?’
There was a tiny pop, and the place where Sirius's head had been was flickering flame once more.
第二天早晨，哈利第一个从他的宿舍中醒来。他躺在床书看着从四柱大床床幔的缝隙中漏过阳光和在打着旋的灰尘，并且品味着它。今天是星期六。这个学期的第一周看起来已经拖延了，像巨人的魔法历史。
由睡觉的寂静和清新的薄荷味，以及光线的照入，可以看出现在刚好是黎明之后。他拉开了他床旁的窗帘，然后起床穿衣。细微的声音除了远处的鸟鸣，还有他同伴慢而深沉的呼吸。他细心的打开了他的书包，取出了羊皮纸和羽毛笔，走出宿舍来到公共休息室。
他将他最喜欢的旧软椅直放在已经熄灭的火炉旁，他安乐将自己安顿在椅上，看着房间的周围解开羊皮纸。这张有点褶皱的羊皮纸上，旧的Gobstones，空的罐子和糖果纸常常在一天之后隐藏在公共休息室中，像是所有荷米恩的小精灵的帽子。令人奇怪的是现在有多少小精灵获得自由，并且它们是否想要这样。哈利取开墨水瓶的瓶塞，把羽毛沾了些墨水，在羊皮纸上约一英寸高的光滑地方停住了，努力地思考着。但是一会之后，他发现他在注视着空的壁炉，茫然若失。
他现在可以感受到暑假中罗恩和荷米恩给他写信是多么的难，他想应该怎样告诉天狼星前一周所发生的事情和他急切想知道而不能被信贼得知的问题？
他坐了许久，凝视着壁炉。最终，他做了决定，他再次把羽毛笔沾上了墨水，坚定地在羊皮纸上写下了：
亲爱的伤风:
希望你一切都好，回来的第一周是十分可怕的，真的。
令人庆幸的是现在是周末。
我们已经讲到黑魔法防御科的新老师，昂布瑞吉教授。她几乎像你妈妈一样美好，上个暑假所发生的事在昨晚我和昂布瑞吉教授关禁闭时再次发生了。
我们想念我们的大朋友，我们希望他很快会回来。
请尽快回信。
最好的朋友
哈利
哈利将这封信读了好几遍，试图以局外人的观点来读它。他不知道他们会怎样理解他正在说的——或者他同谁说话——仅仅读这封信。他十分希望天狼星找到哈格力的线索，并且告诉他们他和时将要回来。哈利并不希望直接问以防对哈格力不在霍格瓦彻时吸引了太多的注意力。
考虑到那是一封很短的信，但他已经花了许久时间去写他。在他忙于心中的时候，阳光已经穿过了房间爬了进来。他可以听见远处宿舍的声音。小心地合上了羊皮纸，他爬过了肖像洞，来到了猫头鹰屋。
“如果我是你的话我一定不愿意走那条路。”几乎没头的尼克说到，令人不安地当哈利沿着通道向下走的时候在哈利面前飘动着穿过了一堵墙。“皮皮鬼计划对下一个在半路上向走廊走去而穿过帕拉塞尔苏斯半身像的人开一个笑。”
“它包括帕拉塞尔苏斯掉在了人的头上吗？”哈利问。
“这样做够好笑了。”几乎没头的尼克用一种无聊的声音说道。“精明并非皮皮鬼地优点。我正试着离开去找血人巴罗，他可能会阻止他。再见了，哈利。”
“好的，再见，”哈利说道并且改道向左走来代替向左走，换了一条更长的但是更安全的路来到了猫头鹰屋。他穿过一个个窗户时看到的明亮的天空，使他的精神好转。一会后，他有了训练。他最终要回到魁地奇训练场。
有什么东西刷到了他的踝部，他向下看，看到了管理员的灰猫，洛丽斯太太从他身边溜过。在“渴望的威尔弗来德”雕像后消失之前,她用她的黄眼睛看了他一会。
“我并没做错任何事。”哈利在他后面叫道。
她有一只猫不易弄错的嗅觉，那是ofi来报告她的主人，哈利还没有看清怎么了，但他用那种具有充足资格的脚步在周六早晨走进了猫头鹰屋。
当哈利走进猫头鹰屋时，太阳正高高地挂在了天上，耀眼的阳光经过玻璃的反射，炫耀了哈利的双眼；粗厚的光柱交叉地映在了圆形的房间里，成百只猫头鹰舒适的停在房椽上，一点不平静的东西夹在晨光中，很明显，他们中有一些刚刚捕食回来。
但他踏过小动物的骨头的时候，地上平整的稻草发出了一点咯吱咯吱的响声，海维看到了哈利，伸出了它的脖子。
“原来你在这儿！”他说，发现它在高处拱形的天花板上，“下来，我要给你一封信。”
随着一声低叫，她伸出了她的美丽的白翼，飞下来落到了他的肩膀上。
“好的，我知道这里说伤风在外面，”他告诉她，把这封信扣在了她的嘴上，并且，并不知道正确的原因，低声说，“但它是送给天狼星的，知道吗？”
她眨了眨她琥珀色的眼睛，哈利知道这表示她听懂了。
“飞的时候注意安全！”哈利说道。他带她到一个窗子前。在她压了一下哈利的手臂之后，海维飞到了那令人眼盲的明亮的天空。他一着看着她直道她变成了一个黑色的斑点，并且消失。然后转向看哈格力的小屋，透过他的窗户可以很清楚地看到，里面没有任何人居住，无烟的烟囱，寂寞的门帘。
禁林中的树梢在微风中轻轻地摇摆，哈利看着他们，享受着他脸前的新鲜空气，想着有关魁地奇的事。然后他就看见了它，长着翅膀的像爬虫一样的马，就像霍格瓦彻的拉马车，长着皮革一般的黑翼像翼龙一般宽阔的展开，奇异地像巨鸟一般向树外飞。他在天空中绕着一个巨大的圆盘旋，然后飞回了树丛中。整件事发生得如此之快，以至于哈利无法相信他所看到的东西，除了他的心在疯狂地跳。
猫头鹰屋大门在他身后打开了，他吓了一跳，转过身来。他看见张秋的手里握着一封信和一个包裹。
“好呀，”哈利机械的说了一声。
“哦，你好，”她气喘吁吁的说道，“我没想到竟然有人这么早就来到这里。我只记得在五分钟之前，那是我妈妈的生日。”
她拿起了包裹。
“好的，”哈利说道。他的大脑已经混乱不堪了。他想说一些有趣的事，但是那匹长着翅膀的黑马总是令他记忆犹新。
“好日子，”他说道，手指着窗户。但他的内心已经因为可怕的困难而束手无策。天气，他正在谈论天气。
“是的，”张秋说到，同时为找一只适当的猫头鹰而四处观望。“关于魁地奇的好消息，我并不需要一整个星期都呆在外头，你呢？”
“不，”哈利说道。
秋选择了一支学校农仓里的猫头鹰，她耐心而亲切地使她飞下来到她的手臂上，她一边系上这个包裹。
“嗨，格兰芬多找到了一个新的守门员了吗？”她问到。
“是的，他是我的朋友罗恩·威斯莱。你认识他吗？”
“那个对龙卷风队严重憎恶的人吗？”秋冷淡地说，“他有什么好的地方吗？”
“是的。”哈利说道，“我也这么认为。虽然我不能看见他的训练，我被关禁闭了。”
秋向上看，它的包裹仅仅只有一半绑在猫头鹰的脚上。
“你因为昂布瑞吉女士而犯规了，”她低声说，“把你关禁闭只是因为你说出了事实——如何——如何——他如何死。所有人都知道这件事，他已经在全学校传遍了。那次你真是勇敢地站在了她的面前。”
哈利的心膨胀得那么快，他觉得自己似乎从地板上撒满的鸟粪上飘动了几英寸。谁还会去在乎那个愚蠢的飞马呢，既然秋都认为他真的很勇敢。当他帮她把包裹系到猫头鹰上的时候，那一刻，他考虑要不要把手上的伤给她看，但就在他产生这个令人发抖的想法的那一瞬间，猫头鹰屋的门又被推开了。
费奇，学院的管理者，喘息着走了进来。深陷的脸颊上有着紫色的斑点，颚骨上充满了兴奋。稀疏的灰发散乱着，显然，他是跑到这里的。洛丽斯夫人在他的脚后跟那里走来走去，凝视着高架上的猫头鹰，饥饿地叫着。鸟儿们狡猾的翅膀发出了一点声响，一只灰大的猫头鹰突然用一种险恶的方式咬住了他的鸟嘴。
“啊哈！”费奇说道，拖着脚步向哈利走了一步，他紫迹斑斑的脸颊因愤怒而发抖了。“我知道，你正在弄了一大批的订单去购买粪蛋。”
哈利曲起了他的双臂，盯着费奇看。
“谁告诉你购买粪蛋？”
秋看看哈利，又看看费奇，同时也皱了皱眉头；她手臂上的农仓里的猫头鹰疲劳地单脚站着，劝告似地叫了一声，但是她忽略了它。
“我有我消息来源，”费奇自得地嘘了一声，“不论你送的是什么，交过来。”
感到幸运的是他并没有在寄信的时候贪玩，哈利说道，“我不能，信已经送走了。”
“送走了？”费奇说道，他的脸因愤怒而扭曲。
“是的，送走了。”哈利平静地说。
费奇气愤地张开了嘴，持续了好几秒，然后扫视着哈利的长袍。
“我怎么知道你没有把它塞进口袋里？”
“因为——”
“我看到他把这封信送走了，”秋生气地说。
费奇在她身旁绕了一圈。
“你看到他——？”
“是的，我看到他，”她激烈地说。
之后有好长一段时间说话暂停了，因为费奇对秋怒目而视，并且秋也同样回敬费奇，然后管理员转过身，慢吞吞的向门走去。在他手握着门柄时，他停下并且转过身看着哈利。
“如果我抓到一些粪蛋——”
无语，他下了楼。
洛丽斯夫人最后看了一眼猫头鹰，然后跟他走了。
哈利和秋互相看着。
“谢谢，”哈利说。
“没问题，”秋说，最终，她在猫头鹰的另一只脚上固定了包裹，她的脸有一些粉红。
“你并不是在购买粪蛋，是吗？”
“不，我没有。”哈利说道。
“我真搞不懂为什么他认为你是？”她把猫头鹰送出窗外时说。
哈利耸了耸肩。他因为秋刚才的表现十分奇怪，虽然并未惊动费奇而被他的知道也是一件奇怪的事。
他们一起离开了猫头鹰屋。在走廊的入口引他们到了城堡的西边，秋说，“我要走这条路。嗯, 我将，我将目送你离开，哈利。” “好的，再见。”
她微笑的看着他，然后离开了。哈利继续走着，感觉平静而高兴。他已经没法完整而使自己不困窘地同秋谈话。“那次你真是勇敢地站在了她的面前。”秋说他勇敢。秋变活泼后并没有讨厌他。
最早，她喜欢塞德里克，他了解那些，虽然他仅仅是在塞德里克之前邀请她，而事情是会发生改变的。她看起来对她拒绝哈利的邀请已经感到真诚的愧疚。
“早上好，”但他在大厅中的格兰芬多桌加入他们后，哈利大声地对罗恩和荷米恩说。
“什么值得你这么高兴？”罗恩说道，惊奇地看着哈利。
“嗯，魁地奇训练一会便开始了，”哈利高兴的说着，把一大盘咸肉和鸡蛋拖到了他的面前。
“哦，是这样。”罗恩说道。他放下了他正在吃的烤面包，喝了一大口南瓜汁。然后他说，“听，你不想和我早一点出去，是吗？仅仅是去——嗯——在训练之前给我一点练习？这样我能，你知道，用好我的眼睛。”
“行，好呀。”哈利说道。
“看，我不认为你应在这样做，”荷米恩严肃地说，“你们都应该在作业完成后来做——”
但是她停住了，早信到了，像平常一样，预言家日报应该从长耳猫头鹰的嘴里飞向她，掉在糖碗的附近，并且弄到一只腿上。
荷米恩向他的皮袋里放了一个Knut，拿着报纸，当猫头鹰离开时带着批评的目光浏览了第一版。
“有有趣的东西吗？”罗恩问道。哈利露齿笑笑，知道罗恩渴望避开她来做家庭作业。
“没有，”她叹息道，“仅仅是一些有关于怪异姐妹中的低音演唱者要结婚的胡言乱语。”
荷米恩打开了报纸，并且消失在他后面。哈利又吃了些蛋和咸肉。罗恩凝视着高处的窗户，全神贯注的看着。
“等等，”荷米恩突然说道，“哦，不，天狼星！”
“发生了什么？”哈利说道，把报纸抢到了中间，他和荷米恩一人抓着一半。
“魔法部已经收到了一条来源可靠的消息，天狼星·布莱克，声名狼藉的疯狂凶手，废话，废话，嗯，正藏在伦敦！”荷米恩从他的一半那读到了这些消息，对哈利痛苦的耳语。
“卢修斯·马尔夫赌任何东西，”哈利用一种低沉，愤怒的声音说道，“他确实在月台上承认他是天狼星。”
“什么？”罗恩说道，看起来十分惊慌，“你不是说——”
“嘘！”另外两人说道。
“魔法部警告说布莱克是个十分危险的人物，杀了十三个人，从阿兹卡班逃了出来。”
“平平的垃圾。”荷米恩带有推断性的说道，放下他那一半的报纸，担心地看着哈利和罗恩。“嗯，他不能再离开房子了，就这样，”她低声说道，“丹伯多已经警告过他不能这样做了。”
哈利忧郁地看着他已经撕掉的预言家日报，许多版面都专注的为适合于所有场合的摩金夫人的长袍做广告,显然那正在举行一场拍卖活动。
“嗨！”他说道，把报纸在桌上放平，让罗恩和荷米恩能够阅读到，“看这里！”
“我已经有了所有我想要的长袍，”罗恩说道。
“不，”哈利说道，“看着一小块。”
罗恩和荷米恩弯着身子阅读着，这一块在一栏的底部，仅仅不到一英寸长，上面写着标题：
魔法部被侵入
在8月31日，克拉彭金链花园2区38号的Sturgis Podmore，在Wizengamot前发生了一起肆意侵入并且尝试在魔法部偷窃的案件。Podmore被魔法部的警卫埃里克·曼趋（Eric Munch）逮捕，埃里克在早晨一点钟的时候发现他试图穿过一个高度机密的门。拒绝为自己答辩的Podmore被判刑六个月，在阿兹卡班里监禁。
“Sturgis Podmore？”罗恩一字一句地说，“他是那个被浓密的头发所覆盖的小子，不是吗？他是一个凤——”
“罗恩，嘘——”荷米恩说道，用受惊的眼神看着他们。
“在阿兹卡班带六个月！”哈利震惊了，低声耳语，“仅仅是试图穿过一扇门！”
“别傻了，那不仅仅是试图穿过一扇门，他在凌晨一点钟在魔法部做什么？”荷米恩小声地说道。
“你认为他在为凤凰令办事？”罗恩喃喃自语。
“等等，”哈利缓缓地说，“Sturgis曾想来为我们送行，记得吗？”
另外两位看着他。
“是的，他曾想参加我们去国王十字街的守卫，记得吗？而且穆迪曾苦恼他并没有出现，是吗？”
“嗯，或许他们并不期望他被抓住，”荷米恩说道。
“那可能是一个阴谋！”罗恩惊呼，“不，听着！”他继续讲，戏剧性而引人注目地在荷米恩严峻的目光下降低了声音，“魔法部猜想他是和丹伯多一伙的——我不知道——他们引诱他来到了魔法部，而且他根本不想尝试去穿过一扇门！或许他们在他身上做了些什么！”
哈利和荷米恩考虑这些的时候，出现了暂时的沉默。哈利觉得这些话很牵强，而另一方面，这些话看起来给荷米恩留下了深刻的印象。
“你们知道吗，就算那些话是真的，我也不会感到一点惊讶。”
她思考着，将他的那一半报纸则了起来。当哈利放下刀叉时，她似乎冒出了一个想法。
“好的，嗯，我想我们应该先解决那个会自我生长的灌木萌芽，如果我们幸运的话，我们能在午餐前开始麦格教授的召唤魔咒。”
哈利为楼上等待他的一大堆作业而痛苦不堪，但天空晴朗，惹人喜爱的蓝色，他已经一周没坐他的火弩箭了。
“我想，我们能在今晚做它，”罗恩说道。当他和哈利走向用于魁地奇练习的倾斜的草坪时，扫帚在天上飞。但荷米恩严肃的警告他们可能不能通过他们的标准巫师等级测试的话，仍然回响在他们耳边。“我们有明天，她实在太勤奋了，那是她的毛病。”停了一会，他补充道，用一种有些担忧的声音，“你认为她是说她不借我们抄了吗？”
“是的，我是，”哈利说道，“确实，那也十分重要。如果我们呆在魁地奇队里，我们也不得不练习。”
“是的，非常正确，”罗恩用一种振奋的音调说道，“并且我们要有足够的时间来做这件事。”
但他们接近魁地奇场地的时候，哈利向他的右边扫了一眼，看看禁林中的树正在黑暗地摇向哪里。没有任何东西从他们中飞出来；天空中空荡荡的，但远处有一些猫头鹰振翅盘旋在猫头鹰塔上。他十分担心，关于飞马并不对他造成任何伤害；他尽量去遗忘它。
他们放出了盒中的球，罗恩守着高高的球门，哈利做找球手，试着越过罗恩抓住鬼飞球。哈利想罗恩干得不错，他守住了三个球门，哈利试着做得比他更好，做得更熟练。一小时之后他们回到城堡里吃午餐——在荷米恩把它弄得十分清楚的时候。她想他们是不负责任的——然后他们又回到魁地奇场进行了真正的训练会。除了安吉莉娜，但他们进入时，他们所有的队友都已经在更衣室里了。
“好了，罗恩？”乔治说道，对他眨眼。
“是的，”罗恩说道，变得越来越安静地向魁地奇场走去。
“全部都准备好了吗，Ickle长官？”弗来德说道，从脖子中露出了乱发，脸上不怀好意地笑着。
“闭嘴，”罗恩说道，面无表情，第一次拉着他自己的队服。考虑到他们曾经参加奥利弗·伍德的队伍，相当宽广肩部的人把他的衣服弄好。
“好，所有人，”安吉莉娜说道，从队长办公室进来，已经发生了改变。“让我们到那边；艾丽娅和弗来德，帮我们拿出球箱。哦，有两个人在那里看，但我希望你们只要忽略他们就是了，行吗？”
她的一些偶然的话使哈利认为她可能知道谁是那位未被邀请的观众，可以确信，他们因为魁地奇场上那强烈的阳光而离开更衣室，斯莱特林的魁地奇对那儿发出一阵不满的嘘声和嘲笑，并且有许多人在看台上奉从，声音在场上回响着。
“威斯里的扫帚是什么？”马尔夫用轻蔑的口吻说着，“为什么有人会在像那样发霉的圆木上施放飞翔魔法？”
克雷布、高尔和潘西·帕金森狂笑，并且尖叫。
罗恩在地上装好了扫帚，走了，哈利紧随着他，从后面开到他的耳朵变红了。
“别理睬他们，”他说道，加速赶上了罗恩，“我们要看比赛之后是谁在笑。”
“我希望要有正确的态度，哈利，”安吉莉娜赞许地说道，臂下带着鬼飞球在天空中盘旋着翱翔，然后减慢了速度在空运队的场地上盘旋，“好的，所有人，我们要传球来热身，整个的队请——”
“嗨，约翰逊，那发型是什么？”潘西·帕金森在下面尖笑，“为什么所有人想要看起来像他们有虫子要从头上爬出来？”
安吉莉娜仍然平静地撩开了她的辫子，“散开，然后，让我们看看我们能做什么。”
哈利从其它人间退开，到场地的远处，罗恩掉头到另一边的梦那里。
安吉莉娜用一只手举起鬼飞球，用力扔给弗来德，然后传给了乔治，传给了哈利，结果掉了下来。斯莱特林的队伍中由于马尔夫的带领，都在笑吼而且尖叫。
罗恩，在鬼飞球着地之前将其向前投掷，不熟练的俯冲拉住了它，所以他滑到了扫帚的一边，但他又返回高处，脸红了。哈利看到弗来德和乔治交换了一下眼神，但他们两人都没有特别的说了什么关于感谢谁的话。
“传过来，罗恩，”安吉莉娜叫道，就像什么事也没发生过。
罗恩把鬼飞球扔给了安吉莉娜，然后传回给哈利，接着传给乔治。
“嗨，波特，你感觉你的伤疤怎样？”马尔夫叫道，“你确信你不需要躺下？那一定是，什么，自从你进入医院之后的一整周，那里有你的记录，不是吗？”
乔治把球传给安吉莉娜；她又把它传给哈利，哈利并没有准备，但用手指尖抓住了它，并且迅速传给了罗恩，罗恩冲过去，却在一英寸外把它接丢了。
“过来，罗恩，”安吉莉娜不高兴的说着。他再次冲向地面，追鬼飞球。“专心！”
但罗恩再次飞翔高处的时候，很难分出罗恩的脸更红还是鬼飞球更红。马尔夫和休息着的斯莱特林队伍大笑着嚎叫。
在他的第三次尝试中，罗恩抓住了鬼飞球，
或许他传球是太激动了，以至于把球径直扔到了凯蒂伸出的手，并且重重的打在了她的脸上。
“对不起！”罗恩道歉道，快速前方的高处飞去，看看他是否让对方受伤了。
“回到你的位置，她很好！”安吉莉娜叫道，“但是当你把球传给队友时，试着不要把她打下扫帚，可以吗？我们已经有游走球来干那件事了！”
凯蒂的鼻子正在流血，在下面，斯莱特林的人顿足嘲笑。弗来德和乔治围着凯蒂。
“这里，服下这，”弗来德告诉她，从他口袋中掏出一些紫色的小东西递给她，“他将立刻清除它。”
“好的，”安吉莉娜叫道，“弗来德、乔治，去拿出你们发疯的游走球。罗恩，到门柱那去。哈利，当我说的时候放出金色飞贼。我们显然要瞄准罗恩的门。”
哈利在双胞胎取来了金色飞贼后飞离开来。
“罗恩的做法真象猪一样，不是吗？”乔治喃喃自语，但他们中的三个在装着球的板条箱旁着陆后，取出了一个游走球和金色飞贼。
“他只不过是太紧张了，”哈利说道，“今天上午我和他一起练习的时候他还十分的出色。”
“是的，嗯，我不希望他只有一小段时间状态很好。”弗来德忧郁的说到。
他们回到了天空中。当安吉莉娜吹响她的口哨时，哈利释放了金色飞贼，弗来德和乔治让游走球飞起来。从那刻起，哈利几乎不能知道其他人在干什么。取回小小的金色飞贼是他的任务，那对于找球手的队伍是150分的奖励，那需要极快的速度和高超的技能。哈利加速着，摇摆，转进，避开追球手，温暖的秋风拂着他的脸，远处斯莱特林的人发出的无意义的叫喊充斥在他的耳边。但是很快，口哨再次使他们的训练中断。
“停止——停止——停止！”安吉莉娜大叫道，“罗恩，你并没有守住中间的球门！”
哈利在四周看着罗恩，他正在左边的门前盘旋，离开了另外两个完全没有保护的球门。
“哦，对不起。”
“当你注视着追球手时，要巧妙的环绕以保住球门！”安吉莉娜说到，“要么死守中间的位置直道你不得不因为防卫而绕圈，或者绕着圆圈，但不要忽视任何一边，那就是你怎样让最后三个球进入的原因！”
“对不起。”罗恩重复着，他红脸射出的光像朝着明亮的蓝天上放的焰火。
“并且凯蒂，你不能做一些关于鼻出血的事吗？”
“它刚刚变得更糟！”凯蒂闷塞的的说，努力用袖子使它停止流血。
哈利环视着弗来德，那个看起来十分担忧的在检查他的口袋的人。他看见弗来德拿出了一些紫色的东西，花了一秒钟检查它，然后环视着凯蒂，惊恐的动着。
“好的，让我们再试一次，”安吉莉娜说道。她不理睬正在唱“格兰芬多是失败者”的斯莱特林，但她已经觉得扫帚上的座位已经变得僵化了。
这次练习仅仅进行了三分钟就被安吉莉娜叫停了。哈利刚刚看到金色飞贼在对面的门柱上绕圈就被迫停下来，感到十分不悦。
“怎么了？”他不高兴的向在他附近的艾丽娅问道。
“凯蒂，”她简短的回答。
哈利转过头看着安吉莉娜，弗来德和乔治都以最快的速度飞向了凯蒂。哈利和艾丽娅叶加速飞向她。显然，安吉莉娜已经立刻停止了训练，凯蒂脸色苍白，都是血。
“她需要去医院，”安吉莉娜说道。
“我们会带她去。”弗来德说道，“她——嗯——他可能已经错误的吞下了血疱荚——”
“嗯，击球手和追球手走了以后，我们已经不能再得分了，”当弗来德和乔治护送着凯蒂去城堡之后安吉莉娜不高兴的说道，“过来，让我们做些改变。”
但他们退回更衣室的时候，斯莱特林的人仍然在唱着他们的歌。
“刚才的训练怎样？”一个半小时之后，但哈利和罗恩穿过肖像洞进入公共休息室之后，荷米恩冷冷的说。
“训练——”哈利开始发话。
“非常糟糕，”罗恩沮丧的说到，坐在荷米恩身后的椅子上沉默了。她看着罗恩，冷冷的神情渐渐消失了。
“嗯，那只是你的第一次，”她安慰地说，“那需要花时间去——”
“谁说那是被我搞砸的？”罗恩打断了她的话。
“不是这样，”荷米恩说到，向后看了看，“我想——”
“你想我是垃圾？”
“不不，我当然没有！你说练习糟透了，所以我只是——”
“我要开始做作业了，”罗恩生气地说道，重重走向了男生宿舍，在眼前消失。荷米恩转向了哈利。
“是他弄糟了什么吗？”
“不，”哈利诚恳地说。
荷米恩皱了皱眉。
“嗯，我想他可以做得更好，”哈利喃喃自语，“但这只是他的第一次训练，就像你说的那样。”
那天晚上，哈利和罗恩的家庭作业都没有什么进展。哈利知道罗恩对刚才他在魁地奇场不好的表现深深地感到内疚，并且他也很难忘记那首“格兰芬多必败”的歌。
他们在公共休息时里度过了一整个周日，他们埋在了书堆里，最后清理干净。又是一个晴朗的好日子，他们格兰芬多的同学在操场上度过了这一天，享受着可能是那一年最后一次的好天气。傍晚之前，他感觉有人在头里敲他的大脑。
“你知道，我们应该试一下在平时多做一些作业，”哈利低声的对罗恩抱怨，他们最终倒在了麦格教授的关于传唤魔咒的长篇论文中，并且在辛尼斯塔教授的关于木星的卫星的长篇论文中变得更加悲惨。
“是的，”罗恩说到，揉着他那充满血丝的眼睛，第五次往火炉里扔掉了他那写错的羊皮纸，“听着，我们要不要问问荷米恩我们是否能大致地看看她已经做完的东西？”
哈利看着她，她正在和金妮愉快地聊天着，克鲁克山伏在他的腿上，一对编织针在半空中闪亮，现在她正在织一双精灵袜。
“不，”哈利沉重地说，“你知道，她不会让我们这样的。”
窗外的天要黑了，他们继续工作。慢慢的，拥挤的公共休息室中的人少了起来。十一点半，荷米恩在他们旁边走来走去，打着哈欠。
“快完了吗？”
“不，”罗恩简短地说道。
“木星最大的卫星是木卫三，不是木卫四。”她说道，手伸过罗恩的肩膀指着罗恩的天文学论文，“而且看，那时填火山。”
“谢谢，”罗恩咆哮着，不愉快地说道。
“对不起，我只是——”
“是的，好，如果你只是来这边批评的话——”
“罗恩——”
“我没时间一整个晚上的教训，好的，荷米恩，我已经陷入作业的泥潭中了——”
“没有——看！”
荷米恩指着最近的窗户，哈利和罗恩都往那边看。一只英俊的长耳猫头鹰站在窗台上，凝视着房间里的罗恩。
“那不是赫梅尔吗？”荷米恩吃惊的说。
“啊，它是！”罗恩小声地说，扔下它的羽毛笔并且站了起来，“珀西给我些什么呢？”
他走到了窗户前打开了它，赫耳墨斯费了进来，停在了罗恩的羊皮纸上并且伸出了那只绑上了信的脚。罗恩取下了信，然后那只猫头鹰立刻就离开了，只是在罗恩的卫星图上留下了漆黑的脚印。
“那确实是珀西的手迹。”罗恩说道，沉默地退回了椅子，注视着卷轴外面的字：霍格瓦彻，格兰芬多屋，罗恩·威斯里。他看着另外两个，“你估计那是什么？”
“打开它！”荷米恩急切的说，哈利也点点头。
罗恩解开了卷轴，开始读了起来，他越往下看，就越生气。但他读完之后，他感到十分厌恶。他把信塞给了哈利和荷米恩，他们俩斜着身一起读了起来：
亲爱的罗恩：
我刚刚听说（正如一个魔法部的人自己，你们的新老师，昂布瑞吉教授）你已经成为了级长。
当我听到这则消息使我感到惊喜，我必须先献上我的祝贺。我必须承认我总是害怕你走我们所谓的“弗来德和乔治”路线，甚至比跟着我的步伐（更担心），所以你可以想象我听到你已经停止嘲笑权威、承担真正的责任的时候的感觉。
但是我想告诉你比祝贺更重要的东西，罗恩，我想给你一些忠告，这就是我为什么一反平常送早信的作风，在如此深的夜里给你写信。我充满希望地，希望读完这封信后你能擦亮你的眼睛，消除你那些笨拙的问题。
从魔法部告诉我的消息来看，我知道你仍然的哈利·波特在一起。我必须告诉你，罗恩，没有比和那个男孩继续交往还更危险的事可以让你失去级长的职务。是的，我肯定你读到这时会感到惊讶——无疑你会说波特是丹伯多面前的红人——当时我很遗憾的告诉你，丹伯多不会再在霍格瓦彻呆太久的，继任的人会与他非常不同——或许更加正确地——看待哈利的表现。我不想在这里说更多，但是如果你看明天的预言家日报，你会为这个风声而获得更好的思维——并且希望你能发现你真实的一面！
特别的，罗恩，你不要把这件事对波特说，那对你的前景十分不利，并且我也是在这里对你说你毕业之后的生活。你必须知道，我们的爸爸护送他去法院，波特在整个Wizengamot听证会里被训戒了，他出来时看起来并不好。他出来仅仅是一个特例，如果你问我，我曾说过的许多人都认为他有罪行。
那可能是你害怕和波特切断关系——我知道他可能是个疯子，据我所知，他是十分暴力的——但是如果你对这些有些担心，或者因为你与波特的关系而坏了事，我力劝你对德洛丽丝·昂布瑞吉说，那时我告诉你的一个真正的令人愉快的女人。
说到这里，我将对你进行其它的一些小小的忠告。当我上面提示你时，丹伯多的政权可能很快就要结束。你要忠诚，罗恩，但不是对他，是对学校和魔法部。我很遗憾听到那些，到现在为止，昂布瑞吉热心的为魔法部在霍格瓦彻作一些必要的改变时，已经遇上了一点麻烦（虽然她从下个星期起应该比较容易——再次对你说，看明天的预言家日报！），我说的只有这些——一个想要帮助昂布瑞吉的学生将会十分受欢迎的！
我很抱歉我不能在夏天来看你，那痛苦地使我要批评我们的父母，但我担心我们不能与他们同住了，因为继续同丹伯多呆在一起是十分危险的（如果你什么时候写信给妈妈，你可以确定地告诉她，Sturgis Podmore，丹伯多的一个好朋友，已经因为乱闯而被魔法部送进阿兹卡班了。或许那会使那些磨肩的人张开他们的眼睛。）。我想我十分幸运的逃脱了这种耻辱的人——部长真的对我不能再亲切了——并且我希望，罗恩，你不要再为和你父母的关系、信任、动作误导，弄瞎了你的眼睛。
我真诚地希望，他们能及时认识到他们所犯的错误，我当然，已经准备好接受完全道歉的日子来到。
请仔细思考我说过的话，尤其是那些与哈利·波特有关的话，祝你再次成为级长！
你的哥哥
珀西
哈利抬头看了看罗恩。
“好吧，”他说，努力使他的声音象是把整个事情当做玩笑。“如果你想——呃——这是什么？”——他检查了珀西的信——“哦，对——‘切断关系’和我——我发誓我没有暴力。”
“把它放回去吧，”罗恩说，伸出他的手臂。“他是——”罗恩急忙说，把珀西的信撕成两半，‘这个世界——’他把信撕成4片，‘最大的——’他又撕成8片，‘哼’。他把碎片扔到火炉里。
"来吧，我们在黎明前要弄完一些东西，”他活泼地对哈利说，把Sinistra教授的论文拉到他前面。
荷米恩用古怪的表情看着罗恩。
”哦，把它们放在这里，“她突然说。
“什么？”罗恩说。
“把它们给我，我再检查一遍，”她说。
“你那么认真？哦，荷米恩，你能救人命，”罗恩说，“我能——”
“你怎么这样说，”“我们要保证不要把家庭作业再留到这么晚再写，”她说，两只手拿着他们的论文，但她有些嘲弄地看着它们。
“太感谢了，荷米恩，”哈利虚弱地说，放开他的论文，然后缩回他的扶手椅里，揉了揉眼睛。
这时已经过半夜了，公共休息室里只有他们三个和克鲁克山。唯一的声音就是荷米恩的羽毛笔在羊皮纸以及他们的论文上写句子的声音，还有她翻书的声音。哈利已经精疲力尽了。他的感觉很奇怪，象生病了一样，他的胃感觉空空的，而且现在他困得什么也想做了，除了看在火焰中燃烧的信。
他知道在霍格瓦彻的一半人都认为他很奇怪，甚至疯了；他知道预言家日报这一个月来一直在把一些与他根本不相关的事情加在他头上，但是有些事情在珀西的信里也有提到，信里也劝告他不要那么固执，甚至向昂布瑞吉教授说谎，这使得他的处境越来越糟糕。他认识珀西已经4年了，也在他的家里过了暑假，在魁地奇世界杯的时候和他住在同一个帐篷里，甚至珀西也在勇士争霸赛里第2个项目中给了他满分，但现在，珀西却认为他精神错乱和太极端了。
哈利对他的教父满怀同情，哈利认为他是现在唯一一个能够理解他的感受的人，因为他的处境和自己一样。几乎在巫师世界里的每一个人都认为天狼星是个危险的杀手和伏地魔的助手，他也带着这样的名誉活了14年……
哈利眨了眨眼睛。他刚刚看见在火里有些东西但现在没有了。它只出现了一下但很快就消失了。不……这不是……他想它是天狼星因为他刚才想到了天狼星……
“好的，把它写下来，”荷米恩对罗恩说，推了一下他的论文，然后把自己写的给罗恩，“然后加上这个我写给你的。”
“荷米恩，你是我在世界上遇到的最诚实最好的人，”罗恩虚弱地说，“如果我再对你粗鲁的话——”
“——我知道你会跟往常一样，”荷米恩说。“哈利，你的已经好了，除了结尾的一点，我想你听错了Sinitra教授的话，是冰，不是老鼠——哈利？”
哈利在他的椅子缩成一团，只露出一个头，注视着火炉。
“嗯——哈利？”罗恩不确定地说。“为什么你坐在那里？”
“因为我刚刚看见天狼星的头在火炉里，”哈利说。
他含糊不清的说，毕竟，他在早先已经在火里看到过天狼星的头还跟他讲过话，然而，他此时并不确定真的看到了……它消失得太快了……
“天狼星的头？”荷米恩重复道。“你的意思是他会象在勇士争霸赛那样跟你说话？但他现在不会那样做，那样太—天狼星！”
她喘着粗气，注视着火炉。罗恩的羽毛笔从他手中掉了下来。在跳动的火焰中间，天狼星的脸出现了，长长的黑发围绕着他笑嘻嘻的脸。
“我刚开始想你会在每个人消失之前去睡觉，”他说。“我每个小时都来检查。”
“你每个小时都来到火力？”哈利说，半笑不笑的样子。
“只是几秒钟，看一看旁边是不是没人了。”
“但是你看见什么了？”荷米恩忧虑地说。
“好吧，我看见一个一年级的女孩，被她看到——只是一刹那，但别担心，”天狼星匆忙地说，当荷米恩捂住嘴时，“她再次回头看的时候我就回去了，我想她只是认为我是一个奇怪的图形或其他东西。”
“但是，天狼星，这是一次可怕的冒险—”荷米恩开始了。
“你就象茉莉（就是威斯里夫人）说的那样,”天狼星说。 “这是唯一的方法我可以回答哈利的信而不用密码—而且密码是会被破解的。” 提到哈利的信， 荷米恩和罗恩都转过来看着他。 “你不是说你已经信给天狼星了！”荷米恩责怪地说。
“我忘记了,”哈利说, 这是完全真实的; 他与秋的在猫头鹰屋的会面已经使把脑子里的每一样事情都忘记了。 “别那样看着我, 荷米恩, 任何人都没有方法把秘密的信息从那里弄出, 有吗,天狼星？”
“不,它非常好,”天狼星微笑地说。“无论如何，我们最好快点, 我们仅仅是扰乱—你的伤疤·” “什么大约 —？” 罗恩刚开始说，但是荷米恩打断了他。“我们待会会告诉你。 继续,天狼星·”
“好的，我知道当它痛的时候可不是好玩的，但是我们不认为它是一件真正值得烦恼的事情。它去年一直在痛,不是吗？”
“是的,而且丹伯多说它每当伏地魔感到情绪激动时,”哈利 ,忽略了, 像往常一样 , 罗恩和荷米恩的畏缩说。“也许他只是, 我不知道, 很生气或我被关紧闭的那个夜晚·” “好的，现在他回来了，它也更频繁地痛了,”天狼星说。
“因此你不认为当我在和她关紧闭的时候 , 昂布瑞吉碰我时没做任何事？” 哈利问。
“我怀疑它,”天狼星说。“我知道她的名声，我确定她不是食死徒—”
“她已经足够当一个了,”哈利说小声说,罗恩和荷米恩同意地点了点头。
“是的，但是世界没有分成好人和食死徒,”天狼星扭歪地微笑着说。“我知道她很邪恶—你应该听到 Remus 谈论她·” “卢平认识她吗？'”哈利快速地问，记起昂布瑞吉在第一节课上说危险的泥巴种的事情。
“不 ,”天狼星说,“但是她2年以前起草了一条反对狼人立法使他几乎不可能有工作。”
哈利记得了卢平那些天穿得是多么破烂，这使得他对昂布瑞吉的嫌恶更进一步加深了。
“反对狼人她能得到什么？”荷米恩愤怒地说。
“他们会害怕,我想,”天狼星 , 对她的愤怒微笑着说。 “表面上她厌恶部份人；她在竞选活动上也会驱赶很多人而且去年还弄上了标签。 想一下，浪费你的时间和精力迫害那么多人，当那里有象Kreacher那样自由的小精灵 。” 罗恩笑了但荷米恩看上去很担忧·
"天狼星 ！" 她申斥地说。 "真的，如果你对Kreacher的态度好一点点的话, 我相信他一定会有反应。 毕竟，你是他的他是家庭的唯一的成员了, 丹伯多教授说—— "'那么， 昂布瑞吉的课是怎么样的" 天狼星打断她。"她正在教你杀泥巴种吗？'"不 ,"说哈利,不理睬荷米恩因为对Kreacher关心却被打断而投来的被冒犯了的眼光。“她全然不让我们使用魔法！”
“我们都在读那些愚蠢的书，”罗恩说。
"啊 , 好的 , 那个人 ," 天狼星说。 "我们在魔法部里的人说福吉不想你在战斗中训练·""在战斗中训练！" 哈利怀疑地重复。"他认为我们正在这里做什么,组织巫师军队？""那正是他想正在做的事情,'天狼星说,"或者, 这样说,他很害怕丹伯多做的事情—-形组织他的自己私人的军队, 他能可以征服魔法部·"这时大家都愣住了,然后罗恩说,"那是我曾经有听到的最愚蠢的事情, 包括露娜Lovegood 突然说出的所有事情·""我们之所以被妨碍学习黑魔法防卫术是因为福吉怕我们会使用对抗魔法部的咒语？"荷米恩狂怒地说。
“是啊，”天狼星说，“福吉认为丹伯多会停止做没用的事情来贮备力量。他对丹伯多的偏见越来越大了。在他捏造一些罪名来逮捕丹伯多之前，他还是很需要时间的。”
这使哈利想起了珀西的信。
“你知道明天的预言家日报里会有关于丹伯多的什么消息吗？罗恩的哥哥珀西猜想那里会—”
“我不知道，”天狼星说，“整个周末我都没看到组织里的任何人。他们都很忙。这里只有我和Kreacher（天狼星家里的家养小精灵）。”
天狼星的声音明显有点悲哀。
“你们谁都不知道哈格力怎么样了是吧？”
“呃…”天狼星说，“好吧，他说他很快就回来，没人知道他怎么了。”然后，看到他们似乎受到了打击的样子，连忙加上一句,"但丹伯多并不担心，所以你们也别操心了，我确信他很好。““但是如果他说很快就回来，”荷米恩小声，但很忧虑地说。
“玛克西姆夫人（是一个女巨人）和他在一起，我们碰到了她，她说他们在回家的途中分开了—但不知道他有没有受伤—好吧，没有任何东西可以确定他很好。”这一点也没有说服力，哈利，罗恩和荷米恩互相担心地看了一下。
“听着，不要问太多关于哈格力的问题，”天狼星急躁地说，“这只会更加清楚地知道哈格力回不来了，而且我知道丹伯多不希望这样。哈格力很坚强，他会没事的。”当他们并没为知道这个而愉快时，天狼星又说，“总之，下一次你去霍格玛德村是什么时候？我正在想，我可以变成狗和你们在车站一起出发，不能吗？我想我能—”
“不！”哈利和荷米恩同时大声地说。
“天狼星，难道你没看预言家日报吗？”荷米恩忧虑地说。
“哦，那个，”天狼星说，露齿而笑，“他们总是在猜我在哪里，但实际上他们一点线索也没有—”
“是的，但是我们想这时他们已经有了，”哈利说，“马尔夫在火车上说的那些话使我们想他知道那是你，他的父亲也站在站台上。天狼星，—你知道，卢修斯·马尔夫—所以别去那里了，不论你在干什么。如果马尔夫再认出你—”
“好的，好的，我知道怎么回事了，”天狼星说，他看起来非常不高兴。“只是一个想法而已，我以为你喜欢聚让我们聚在一起。”
“我希望，我只是不想你再回答阿兹卡班而已！”哈利说。
“你比我想象的更不象你的父亲，”他最后说，声音冷冰冰的。“冒险对于詹姆来说是很有趣的。”
“看着—”
“好的，我最好还是走吧，我能听见Kreacher正在下楼梯，“天狼星说，但哈利知道他在说谎。“直到我写信告诉你一个时间，我能让它再回到火里，直到那时，行吧？你能再冒一次险吧？”
一声微小的爆炸声，天狼星的头又消失在火中了。
欢迎访问英文小说网http://novel.tingroom.com