Chapter 1 The Dark Lord Ascending

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

J. K. Rowling
Dark Miasma

THE DEDICATION OF THIS BOOK IS SPLIT SEVEN WAYS TO NEIL, TO JESS ICA, TO DAVID, TO KENZIE, TO DI, TO ANNE, AND TO YOU, IF YOU HAVE STUCK WITH HARRY UNTIL THE VERY END.




Chapter 1
The Dark Lord Ascending

The two men appeared out of nowhere, a few yards apart in the nar- row, moonlit lane. For a second they stood quite still, wands di- rected at each other’s chests; then, recognizing each other , they stowed their wands beneath their cloaks and started walking briskly in the same direction.
“News?” asked the taller of the two.

”The best,” replied Severus Snape.

The lane was bordered on the left by wild, low-growing brambles, on the right by a high, nearly manicured hedge. The men’s long cloaks flapped around their ankles as they marched.
“Thought I might be late,” said Yaxley, his blunt features sliding in and out of sight as the branches of overhanging tress broke the moonlight. “It was a little trickier than I expected. But I hope he will be satisfied. You should confident that your reception will be good?”
Snape nodded, but did not elaborate. They turned right, into a wide drive- way that led off the lane. The high hedge curved into them, running off into the distance beyond the pair of impressive wrought-iron gates barring the men’s way. Neither of them broke step; In silence both raised their left arms in a kind of salute and passed straight through, as though the dark metal were smoke.

The yew hedges muffled the sound of the men’s footsteps. There was a rustle somewhere to their right; Yaxley drew his wand again, pointing it over his companion’s head, but the source of the noise proved to be nothing more than a pure-white peacock, strutting majestically along the top of the hedge.
“He always did himself well, Lucius. Peacocks . . . ” Yaxley thrust his wand back under his cloak with a snort.
A handsome manor house grew out of the darkness at the end of the straight drive, lights glinting in the diamond-paned downstairs windows. Somewhere in the dark garden beyond the hedge a fountain was playing. Gravel crack- led beneath their feet as Snape and Yaxley sped toward the front door, which swung inward at their approach, though nobody had visibly opened it.
The hallway was large, dimly light, and sumptuously decorated, with a magnificent carpet covering most of the stone floor. The eyes of the pale-faced portraits on the walls followed Snape and Yaxley as they strode past. The two men halted at a heavy wooden door leading into the next room, hesitated for the space of a heartbeat, then Snape turned the bronze handle.
The drawing room was full of silent people, sitting at a long and ornate table. The room’s usual furniture had been pushed carelessly up against the walls. Illumination came from a roaring fire beneath a handsome marble man- telpiece surmounted by a gilded mirror. Snape and Yaxley lingered for a mo- ment on the threshold. As their eyes grew accustomed to the lack of light, they were drawn upward to the strangest feature of the scenes an apparently uncon- scious human figure hanging upside down over the table, revolving slowly as if suspended by an invisible rope, and reflected in the mirror and in the bare, polished surface of the table below it. He seemed unable to prevent himself from glancing upward every minute or so.
“Yaxley, Snape,” said a high, clear voice from the head of the table. “You are very nearly late.”
The speaker was seated directly in front of the fireplace, so that it was diffi- cult, at first, for the new arrivals to make out more than his silhouette. As they drew nearer, however, this face shone through the gloom, hairless, snakelike, with slits for nostrils and gleaming red eyes whose pupils were vertical. He was so pale that he seemed to emit a pearly glow.
“Severus, here,” said Voldemort, indication the seat on his immediate right.

“Yaxley—beside Dolohov.”

The two men took their allotted places. Most of the eyes around the table followed Snape, and it was to him that Voldemort spoke first.
“So?”

“My Lord, the Order of the Phoenix intends to move Harry Potter from his current place of safety on Saturday next, at nightfall.”
The interest around the table sharpened palpably; Some stiffened, others fidgeted, all gazing at Snape and Voldemort.
“Saturday . . . at nightfall,” repeated Voldemort. His red eyes fastened upon Snape’s black ones with such intensity that some of the watchers looked away, apparently fearful that they themselves would be scorched by the ferocity of the gaze. Snape, however, looked calmly back into Voldemort’s face and, after a moment or two. Voldemort’s lipless mouth curved into something like a smile.
“Good. very good. And this information comes—”

“—from the source we discussed,” said Snape.

“My Lord.”

Yaxley had leaned forward to look down the long table at Voldemort and

Snape. All faces turned to him.

“My Lord, I have heard differently,”

Yaxley waited but Voldemort did not speak, so he went on, “Dawlish, the Auror, let slip that Potter will not be moved until the thirtieth, the night before the boy turns seventeen.”
Snape was smiling,

“My source told me that there are plans to lay a false trail; this must be it. No doubt a Confundus Charm has been placed upon Dawlish. It would not be the first time; he is known to be susceptible.”
“I assure you, my Lord, Dawlish seemed quite certain,” said Yaxley.
“If he has been Confunded, naturally he is certain,” said Snape. “I assure you, Yaxley, the Auror Office will play no further part in the protection of Harry Potter. The Order believes that we have infiltrated the Ministry.”
“The Order’s got one thing right, then, eh?” said a squat man sitting a short distance from Yaxley; he gave a wheezy giggle that was echoed here and there along the table.
Voldemort did not laugh. His gaze had wandered upward to the body re- volving slowly overhead, and he seemed to be lost in thought.
“My Lord,” Yaxley went on, “Dawlish believes an entire party of Aurors will be used to transfer the boy—”
Voldemort held up a large white hand, and Yaxley subsided at once, watch- ing resentfully as Voldemort turned back to Snape.
“Where are they going to hide the boy next?”

“At the home of one of the Order,” said Snape. “The place, according to the source, has been given every protection that the Order and Ministry together could provide. I think that there is little chance of taking him once he is there, my Lord, unless, of course, the Ministry has fallen before next Saturday, which might give us the opportunity to discover and undo enough of the enchant- ments to break through the rest.”
“Well, Yaxley?” Voldemort called down the table, the firelight glinting strangely in his red eyes. “Will the Ministry have fallen by next Saturday?”
Once again, all heads turned. Yaxley squared his shoulders.

“My Lord, I have good news on that score. I have—with difficulty, and after great effort—succeeded in placing an Imperius Curse upon Pius Thicknesse.” Many of those sitting around Yaxley looked impressed; his neighbor, Dolohov, a man with a long, twisted face, clapped him on the back.

“It is a start,” said Voldemort. “But Thicknesse is only one man. Scrimgeour must be surrounded by our people before I act. One failed attempt on the Minister’s life will set me back a long way.”
“Yes—my Lord, that is true—buy you know, as Head of the Department of

Magical Law Enforcement, Thicknesse has regular contact not only with the Minister himself, but also with the Heads of all the other Ministry depart- ments. I will, I think, be easy now that we have such a high-ranking official under our control, to subjugate the others, and then they can all work together to bring Scrimgeour down.”

“As long as our friend Thicknesse is not discovered before he has converted the rest,” said Voldemort. “At any rate, it remains unlikely that the Ministry will be mine before next Saturday. if we cannot touch the boy at his destination, the it must be done while he travels.”
“We are at an advantage there, my Lord,” said Yaxley, who seemed de- termined to receive some portion of approval. “We now have several people planted within the Department of Magical Transport. If Potter Apparates or uses the Floo Network, we shall know immediately.”
“He will not do either,” said Snape. “The order is eschewing any form of transport that is controlled or regulated by the Ministry; they mistrust every- thing to do with the place.”
“All the better,” said Voldemort. “He will have to move in the open. Easier to take, by far.”
Again, Voldemort looked up at the slowly revolving body as he went on, “ I shall attend to the boy in person. There have been too many mistakes where Harry Potter is concerned. Some of them have been my own. That Potter lives is due more to my errors than to his triumphs.”

The company around the table watched Voldemort apprehensively, each of them, bu his or her expression, afraid that they might be blamed for Harry Potter’s continued existence. Voldemort, however, seemed to be speaking more to himself than to any of them, still addressing the unconscious body above him.
“I have been careless, and so have been thwarted by luck and chance, those wreckers of all but the best-laid plans. But I know better now. I understand those things that I did not understand before. I must be the one to kill Harry Potter, and I shall be.”
At these words, seemingly in response to them, a sudden wail sounded, a terrible, drawn-out cry of misery and pain. Many of those at the table looked downward, startled, for the sound had seemed to issue from below their feet.
“Wormtail,” said Voldemort, with no change in his quiet, thoughtful tone, and without removing his eyes from the revolving body above, “have I not spo- ken to you about keeping our prisoner quiet?”
“Yes, m-my Lord,” gasped a small man halfway down the table, who had been sitting so low in his chair that it had appeared, at first glance, to be un- occupied. Now he scrambled from his seat and scurried from the room, leaving nothing behind him but a curious gleam of silver.
“As I was saying,” continued Voldemort, looking again at the tense faces of his followers, “I understand better now. I shall need, for instance, to borrow a wand from one of you before I go to kill Potter.”
The faces around his displayed nothing but shock; he might have announced that he wanted to borrow one of their arms.
“No volunteers?” said Voldemort. “Let’s see . . . Lucius, I see no reason for you to have a wand anymore.”
Lucius Malfoy looked up. His skin appeared yellowish and waxy in the firelight, and his eyes were sunken and shadowed. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse.
“My Lord?”

“Your wand, Lucius. I require your wand.”

“I . . . ”

Malfoy glanced sideways at his wife. She was staring straight ahead, quite as pale as he was, her long blonde hair hanging down her back, but beneath the table her slim fingers closed briefly on his wrist. At her touch, Malfoy put his hand into his robes, withdrew a wand, and passed it along to Voldemort, who held it up in from of his red eyes, examining it closely.
“What is it?”

“Elm, my Lord,” whispered Malfoy.

“And the core?”

“Dragon—dragon heartstring.”
“Good,” said Voldemort. He drew out his own wand and compared the lengths. Lucius Malfoy made an involuntary movement; for a fraction of a sec- ond, it seemed he expected to receive Voldemort’s want in exchange for his own. The gesture was not missed by Voldemort, whose eyes widened maliciously.
“Give you my wand, Lucius? My wand?” Some of the throng sniggered.
“I have given you your liberty, Lucius, is that not enough for you? But I have noticed that you and your family seem less than happy of late . . . What is it about my presence in your home that displeases you, Lucius?”

“Nothing—nothing, my Lord!”

“Such lies, Lucius . . . ”

The soft voice seems to hiss on even after the cruel mouth had stopped moving. One or two of the wizards barely repressed a shudder as the hissing grew louder; something heavy could be heard sliding across the floor beneath the table.

The huge snake emerged to climb slowly up Voldemort’s chair. It rose, seem- ingly endlessly, and came to rest across Voldemort’s shoulders; its neck the thickness of a man’s thigh; its eyes, with their vertical slits for pupils, un- blinking. Voldemort stroked the creature absently with long thin fingers, still looking at Lucius Malfoy.
“Why do the Malfoys look so unhappy with their lot? Is my return, my rise

to power, not the very thing they professed to desire for so many years?”

“Of course, my Lord,” said Lucius Malfoy. His hand shook as he wiped sweat from his upper lip. “We did desire it—we do.”
To Malfoy’s left, his wife made an odd, stiff nod, her eyes averted from Volde- mort and the snake. To his right, his son, Draco, who had been gazing up at the inert body overhead, glanced quickly at Voldemort and away again, terrified to make eye contact.
“My Lord,” said a dark woman halfway down the table, her voice constricted with emotion, “it is an honor to have you here, in our family’s house. There can be no higher pleasure.”
She sat beside her sister, as unlike her in looks, with her dark hair and heavily lidded eyes, as she was in bearing and demeanor; where Narcissa sat rigid and impassive, Bellatrix leaned toward Voldemort, for mere words could not demonstrate her longer for closeness.
“No higher pleasure,” repeated Voldemort, his head tilted a little to one side as he considered Bellatrix. “That means a great deal, Bellatrix, from you,”
Her face flooded with color; her eyes welled with tears of delight.

“My Lord knows I speak nothing but the truth!”

“No higher pleasure . . . even compared with the happy event that, I hear, has taken place in your family this week?”
She stared at him, her lips parted, evidently confused.

“I don’t know what you mean, my Lord.”

“I’m talking about your niece, Bellatrix. And your, Lucius and Narcissa. She has just married the werewolf, Remus Lupin. You must be so proud.”
There was an eruption of jeering laughter from around the table. Many leaned forward to exchange gleeful looks, a few thumped the table with their fists. The great snake, disliking the disturbance, opened its mouth and hissed angrily, but the Death Eaters did not hear it, so jubilant where that at Bel- latrix and the Malfoys’ humiliation. Bellatrix’s face, so recently flushed with happiness, had turned an ugly, blotchy red.
“She is no niece of ours, my Lord,” she cried over the outpouring of mirth.

“We—Narcissa and I—have never set eyes on our sister since she married the Mudblood. This brat has nothing to do with either of us, nor any beast she marries.”
“What say you, Draco?” asked Voldemort, and though his voice was quiet, it carried clearly through the catcalls and jeers. “Will you babysit the cubs?”

The hilarity mounted; Draco Malfoy looked in terror at his father, who was staring down into his own lap, then caught his mother’s eye. She shook her head almost imperceptibly, then resumed her own deadpan stare at the oppo- site wall.
“Enough,” said Voldemort, stroking the angry snake. “Enough.”
And the laughter died at once.

“Many of our oldest family trees become a little diseased over time,” he said as Bellatrix gazed at him, breathless and imploring. “You must prune yours, must you not, to keep it healthy? Cut away those parts that threaten the health
of the rest.”

“Yes, my Lord,” whispered Bellatrix, and her eyes swam with tears of grati- tude again. “At the first chance!”
“You shall have it,” said Voldemort. “And in your family, so in the world

. . . we shall cut away the canker that infects us until only those of the true blood remain . . . ”
Voldemort raised Lucius Malfoy’s wand, pointed it directly at the slowly revolving figure suspended over the table, and gave it a tiny flick. The figure came to life with a groan and began to struggle against invisible bonds.
“Do you recognize our guest, Severus?” asked Voldemort.

Snape raised his eyes to the upside down face. All of the Death Eaters were looking up at the captive now, as though they had been given permission
to show curiosity. As she revolved to face the firelight, the woman said in a cracked and terrified voice. “Severus! Help me!”
“Ah, yes,” said Snape as the prisoner turned slowly away again.

“And you, Draco?” asked Voldemort, stroking the snake’s snout with his wand-free hand. Draco shook his head jerkily. now that the woman had woken, he seems unable to look at her anymore.
“But you would not have taken her classes,” said Voldemort. “For those of you who do not know, we are joined here tonight by Charity Burbage, who until recently, taught at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”
There were small noises of comprehension around the table. A broad, hunched woman with pointed teeth cackled.
“Yes . . . Professor Burbage taught the children of witches and wizards all about Muggles . . . how they are not so different from us . . . ”
One of the Death Eaters spat on the floor. Charity Burbage revolved to face

Snape again.
“Severus . . . please . . . please . . . ”

“Silence,” said Voldemort, with another twitch of Malfoy’s wand, and Char- ity fell silent as if gagged. “Not content with corrupting and polluting the minds
of Wizarding children, last week Professor Burbage wrote an impassioned de- fense of Mudbloods in the Daily Prophet. Wizards, she says, must accept those thieves of their knowledge and magic. The dwindling of the purebloods is, says Professor Burbage, a most desirable circumstance . . . She would have use all mate with Muggles . . . or, no doubt, werewolves . . . ”
Nobody laughed this time; There was no mistaking the anger and contempt

in Voldemort’s voice. For the third time, Charity Burbage revolved to face Snape. Tears were pouring from her eyes into her hair. Snape looked back at her, quite impassive, as she turned slowly away from his again.
“Avada Kedavra.”

The flash of green light illuminated every corner of the room. Charity fell, with a resounding crash, onto the table below, which trembled and creaked. Several of the Death Eaters leapt back in their chairs. Draco fell out of his onto the floor.
“Dinner, Nagini,” said Voldemort softly, and the great snake swayed and slithered from his shoulders onto the polished wood.

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Chapter 6 The Ghoul in Pajamas

Chapter 6
The Ghoul in Pajamas

The shock of losing Mad-Eye hung over the house in the days that followed; Harry kept expecting to see him stumping in through the back door like the other Order members, who passed in and out to
relay news. Harry felt that nothing but action would assuage his feelings of guilt and grief and that he ought to set out on his mission to find and destroy Horcruxes as soon as possible.
“Well, you can’t do anything about the”—Ron mouthed the word Horcruxes—

“till you’re seventeen. You’ve still got the Trace on you. And we can plan here as well as anywhere, can’t we? Or,” he dropped his voice to a whisper, “d’you reckon you already know where the You-Know-Whats are?”
“No,” Harry admitted.

“I think Hermione’s been doing a bit of research,” said Ron. “She said she was saving it for when you got here.”
They were sitting at the breakfast table; Mr. Weasley and Bill had just left for work. Mrs. Weasley had gone upstairs to wake Hermione and Ginny, while Fleur had drifted off to take a bath.
“The Trace’ll break on the thirty-first,” said Harry. “That means I only need to stay here four days. Then I can—”
“Five days,” Ron corrected him firmly. “We’ve got to stay for the wedding.

They’ll kill us if we miss it.”

Harry understood “they” to mean Fleur and Mrs. Weasley.

“It’s one extra day,” said Ron, when Harry looked mutinous.

“Don’t they realize how important—?”

“’Course they don’t,” said Ron. “They haven’t got a clue. And now you men- tion it, I want to talk to you about that.”
Ron glanced toward the door into the hall to check that Mrs. Weasley was not returning yet, then leaned in closer to Harry.
“Mum’s been trying to get it out of Hermione and me. What we’re off to do. She’ll try you next, so brace yourself. Dad and Lupin’ve both asked us as well, but when we said Dumbledore told you not to tell anyone except us, they dropped it. Not Mum, though. She’s determined.”
Ron’s prediction came true within hours. Shortly before lunch, Mrs. Weasley detached Harry from the others by asking him to help identify a lone man’s sock that she thought might’ve come out of his rucksack. Once she had him cornered in the tiny scullery of the kitchen, she started.
“Ron and Hermione seem to think that the three of you are dropping out of

Hogwarts,” she began in a light, casual tone.

“Oh,” said Harry. “Well, yeah. We are.”

The mangle turned of its own accord in a corner, wringing what looked like one of Mr. Weasley’s vests.
“May I ask why you are abandoning your education?” said Mrs. Weasley.

“Well, Dumbledore left me . . . stuff to do,” mumbled Harry. “Ron and Hermione know about it, and they want to come too.”
“What sort of ’stuff ’?”

“I’m sorry, I can’t—”

“Well, frankly I think Arthur and I have a right to know and I’m sure Mr. and Mrs. Granger would agree!” said Mrs. Weasley. Harry had been afraid of the “concerned parent” attack. He forced himself to look directly into her eyes, noticing as he did that they were precisely the same shade of brown as Ginny’s. This did not help.
“Dumbledore didn’t want anyone else to know, Mrs. Weasley. I’m sorry, Ron and Hermione don’t have to come, it’s their choice—”
“I don’t see that you have to go either!” she snapped, dropping all pretense now. “You’re barely of age, any of you! It’s utter nonsense, if Dumbledore needed work doing, he had the whole Order at his command! Harry, you must have misunderstood him. Probably he was telling you something he wanted done, and you took it to mean that he wanted you—”
“I didn’t misunderstand,” said Harry flatly. “It’s got to be me.”

He handed her back the single stock he was supposed to be identifying, which was patterned with golden bulrushes.
“And that’s not mine, I don’t support Puddlemere United.”

“Oh, of course not,” said Mrs. Weasley with a sudden and rather unnerving return to her casual tone. “I should have realized. Well, Harry, while we’ve still got you here, you won’t mind helping with the preparations for Bill and Fleur’s wedding, will you? There’s still so much to do.”
“No—I—of course not,” said Harry, disconcerted by this sudden change of subject.
“Sweet of you,” she replied, and she smiled as she left the scullery.

From that moment on, Mrs. Weasley keep Harry, Ron, and Hermione so busy with preparations for the wedding that they hardly had any time to think. The kindest explanation of this behavior would have been that Mrs. Weasley wanted to distract them all from thoughts of Mad-Eye and the terrors of their recent journey. After two days of nonstop cutlery cleaning, of color-matching fa- vors, ribbons, and flowers, of de-gnoming the garden and helping Mrs. Weasley cook vast batches of canape´ s, however, Harry started to suspect her of a differ- ent motive. All the jobs she handed out seems to keep him, Ron, and Hermione away from one another; he had not had a chance to speak to the two of them alone since the first night, when he had told them about Voldemort torturing Ollivander.
“I think Mum thinks that if she can stop the three of you getting together and planning, she’ll be able to delay you leaving,” Ginny told Harry in an undertone, as they laid the table for dinner on the third night of his stay.

“And then what does she think’s going to happen?” Harry muttered. “Some- one else might kill off Voldemort while she’s holding us here making vol-au- vents?”
He had spoken without thinking, and saw Ginny’s face whiten.

“So it’s true?” She said, “That’s what you’re trying to do?”

“I—not—I was joking,” said Harry evasively.

They stared at each other, and there was something more than shock in Ginny’s expression. Suddenly Harry became aware that this was the first time that he had been alone with her since their stolen hours in secluded corners of the Hogwarts grounds. He was sure she was remembering them too. Both of them jumped as the door opened, and Mr. Weasley, Kingsley, and Bill walked in.
They were often joined by other Order members for dinner now, because the Burrow had replaced number twelve, Grimmauld Place as the headquar- ters. Mr. Weasley had explained that after the death of Dumbledore, their Secret-Keeper, each of the people to whom Dumbledore had confided Grim- mauld Place’s location had become a Secret People in turn.
“And as there are around twenty of us, that greatly dilutes the power of the Fidelius Charm. Twenty times as many opportunities for the Death Eaters to get the secret out of somebody. We can’t expect it to hold much longer.”
“But surely Snape will have told the Death Eaters the address by now?”

asked Harry.

“Well, Mad-Eye set up a couple of curses against Snape in case he turns up there again. We hope they’ll be strong enough both to keep him out and
to bind his tongue if he tries to talk about the place, but we can’t be sure. It would have been insane to keep using the place as headquarters now that its protection has become so shaky.”
The kitchen was so crowded that evening was difficult to maneuver knives and forks. Harry found himself crammed beside Ginny; the unsaid things that had just passed between them made him wish they had been separated by a few more people. He was trying to hard to avoid brushing her arm he could barely cut his chicken.
“No news about Mad-Eye?” Harry asked Bill.

“Nothing,” replied Bill.

They had not been able to hold a funeral for Moody, because Bill and Lupin had failed to recover his body. It had been difficult to know where he might have fallen, given the darkness and the confusion of the battle.
“The Daily Prophet hasn’t said a word about him dying or about finding the body,” Bill went on. “But that doesn’t mean much. It’s keeping a lot quiet these days.”
“And they still haven’t called a hearing about all the underage magic I used escaping the Death Eaters?” Harry called across the table to Mr. Weasley, who shook his head.
“Because they know I had no choice or because they don’t want me to tell the world Voldemort attacked me?” “The latter, I think. Scrimgeour doesn’t want to admit that You-Know-Who is as powerful as he is, nor that Azkaban’s seen a mass breakout.”
“Yeah, why tell the public the truth?” said Harry, clenching his knife so tightly that the faint scars on the back of his right hand stood out, white against his skin: I must not tell lies.
“Isn’t anyone at the Ministry prepared to stand up to him?” asked Ron angrily.
“Of course, Ron, but people are terrified.” Mr. Weasley replied, “terrified that they will be next to disappear, their children the next to be attacked! There are nasty rumors going around; I for one don’t believe the Muggle Studies pro- fessor at Hogwarts resigned. She hasn’t been seen for weeks now. Meanwhile Scrimgeour remains shut up in his office all day. I just hope he’s working on
a plan. There was a pause in which Mrs. Weasley magicked her empty plates onto the work surface and served apple tart.
“We must decide ’ow you will be disguised,’Arry,” said Fleur, once every- one had pudding. “For ze wedding,” she added, when he looked confused. “Of course, none of our guests are Death Eaters, but we cannot guarantee zat zey will not let something slip after zey ’aev ’ad champagne.”
From this, Harry gathered that she still suspected Hagrid.

“Yes, good point,” said Mrs. Weasley from the top of the table, where she sat, spectacles perched on the end of her nose, scanning an immense list of jobs that she had scribbled on a very long piece of parchment. “Now, Ron, have you cleaned out your room yet?”
“Why?” exclaimed Ron, slamming his spoon down and glaring at his mother.

“Why does my room have to be cleaned out? Harry and I are both fine with it the way it is!”
“We are holding your brother’s wedding here in a few days’ time, young man—”
“And are they getting married in my bedroom?” asked Ron furiously. “No! So why in the name of Merlin’s saggy left—”
“Don’t you talk to your mother like that,” said Mr. Weasley firmly, “And do as you’re told.”
Ron scowled at both his parents, then picked up his spoon and attacked the last few mouthfuls of his apple tart.
“I can help, some of it’s my mess.” Harry told Ron, but Mrs. Weasley cut across him.
“No, Harry, dear, I’d much rather you helped Arthur muck out the chickens, and Hermione, I’d be ever so grateful if you’d change the sheets for Monsieur and Madame Delacour, you know they’re arriving at eleven tomorrow morn- ing.”
But as it turned out, there was very little to do for the chickens,

“There’s no need to, er, mention it to Molly,” Mr. Weasley told Harry, block- ing his access to the coop, “but, er, Ted Tonks sent me most of what was left of Sirius’s bike, and, er, I’m hiding—that’s to say, keeping—it in here. Fantastic stuff! There’s an exhaust gaskin, as I believe it’s called, the most magnificent battery, and it’ll be a great opportunity to find out how brakes work. I’m going
to try and put it all back together again when Molly’s not—I mean, when I’ve got time.”

When they returned to the house, Mrs. Weasley was nowhere to be seen, so

Harry slipped upstairs to Ron’s attic bedroom.

“I’m doing it, I’m doing—! Oh, it’s you,” said Ron in relief, as Harry entered the room. Ron lay back down on the bed, which he had evidently just vacated. The room was just as messy as it had been all week; the only change was that Hermione was now sitting in the far corner, her fluffy ginger cat, Crookshanks,
at her feet, sorting books, some of which Harry recognized as his own, into two enormous piles.
“Hi, Harry,” she said, as he sat down on his camp bed.

“And how did you manage to get away?”

“Oh, Ron’s mum forgot that she asked Ginny and me to change the sheets yesterday,” said Hermione. She threw Numerology and Grammatica onto one pile and Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts onto the other.
“We were just talking about Mad-Eye,” Ron told Harry. “I reckon he might have survived.”
“But Bill saw him hit by the Killing Curse,” said Harry.

“Yeah, but Bill was under attack too,” said Ron. “How can he be sure what he saw?”
“Even if the Killing curse missed, Mad Eye still fell about a thousand feet,” said Hermione, now weighing Quidditch Teams of Britain and Ireland in her hand.
“He could have used a Shield Charm—”

“Fleur said his wand was blasted out of his hand,” said Harry.

“Well, all right, if you want him to be dead,” said Ron grumpily, punching his pillow into a more comfortable shape.
“Of course we don’t want him to be dead!” said Hermione, looking shocked.

“It’s dreadful that he’s dead! But we’re being realistic!”

For the first time, Harry imagined Mad—Eye’s body, broken as Dumble- dore’s had been, yet with that one eye still whizzing in its socket. He felt a stab
of revulsion mixed with a bizarre desire to laugh.

“The Death Eaters probably tidied up after themselves, that’s why no one’s found him,” said Ron wisely.
“Yeah,” said Harry. “Like Barty Crouch, turned into a bone and buried in

Hagrid’s front garden. They probably transfigured Moody and stuffed him—”

“Don’t!” squealed Hermione. Startled, Harry looked over just in time to see her burst into tears over her copy of Spellman’s Syllabary.
“Oh no,” said Harry, struggling to get up from the old camp bed. “Hermione,

I wasn’t trying to upset—”

But with a great creaking of rusty bedsprings, Ron bounded off the bed and got there first. One arm around Hermione, he fished in his jeans pocket and withdrew a revolting-looking handkerchief that he had used to clean out the over earlier. Hastily pulling out his wand, he pointed it at the rag and said,
“Tergeo.”

The wand siphoned off most of the grease. Looking rather pleased with himself, Ron handed the slightly smoking handkerchief to Hermione.
“Oh . . . thanks, Ron. . . . I’m sorry. . . . ” She blew her nose and hiccuped. “It’s just so awf-ful, isn’t it? R-right after Dumbledore . . . I j-just n-never imagined Mad-Eye dying, somehow, he seemed so tough!”
“Yeah, I know,” said Ron, giving her a squeeze. “But you know what he’d say to us if he was here?”
“’C-constant vigilance,”’ said Hermione, mopping her eyes.

“That’s right,” said Ron, nodding. “He’d tell us to learn from what hap- pened to him. And what I’ve learned is not to trust that cowardly little squit, Mundungus.”
Hermione gave a shaky laugh and leaned forward to pick up two more books. A second later, Ron had snatched his arm back from around her shoul- ders; she had dropped The Monster Book of Monsters on his foot. The book had broken free from its restraining belt and snapped viciously at Ron’s ankle.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Hermione cried as Harry wrenched the book from

Ron’s leg and retied it shut.

“What are you doing with all those books anyway?” Ron asked, limping back to his bed.

“Just trying to decide which ones to take with us,” said Hermione. “When we’re looking for the Horcruxes.”
“Oh, of course,” said Ron, clapping a hand to his forehead. “I forgot we’ll be hunting down Voldemort in a mobile library.”
“Ha ha,” said Hermione, looking down at Spellman’s Syllabary. “I wonder

. . . will we need to translate runes? It’s possible. . . . I think we’d better take it, to be safe.”
She dropped the syllabary onto the larger of the two piles and picked up

Hogwarts, A History.

“Listen,” said Harry.

He had sat up straight. Ron and Hermione looked at him with similar mixtures of resignation and defiance.
“I know you said after Dumbledore’s funeral that you wanted to come with me,” Harry began.
“Here he goes,” Ron said to Hermione, rolling his eyes.

“As we knew he would,” she sighed, turning back to the books. “You know,

I think I will take Hogwarts, A History. Even if we’re not going back there, I

don’t think I’d feel right if I didn’t have it with—”

“Listen!” said Harry again.

“No, Harry, you listen,” said Hermione. “We’re coming with you. That was decided months ago—years, really.”
“But—”

“Shut up,” Ron advised him.

“—are you sure you’ve thought this through?” Harry persisted.

“Let’s see,” said Hermione, slamming Travels with Trolls onto the discarded pile with a rather fierce look. “I’ve been packing for days, so we’re ready to leave at a moment’s notice, which for your information has included doing some pretty difficult magic, not to mention smuggling Mad-Eye’s whole stock
of Polyjuice Potion right under Ron’s mum’s nose.

“I’ve also modified my parents’ memories so that they’re convinced that they’re really called Wendell and Monica Wilkins, and that their life’s ambi- tion is to move to Australia, which they have now done. That’s to make it more difficult for Voldemort to track them down and interrogate them about me—or you, because unfortunately, I’ve told them quite a bit about you.
“Assuming I survive our hunt for the Horcruxes, I’ll find Mum and Dad and lift the enchantment. If I don’t—well, I think I’ve cast a good enough charm
to keep them safe and happy. Wendell and Monica Wilkins don’t know that they’ve got a daughter, you see.”
Hermione’s eyes were swimming with tears again. Ron got back off the bed, put his arms around her once more, and frowned at Harry as though reproach- ing him for lack of tact. Harry could not think of anything to say, not least because it was highly unusual for Ron to be teaching anyone else tact.
“I—Hermione, I’m sorry—I didn’t—”

“Didn’t realize that Ron and I know perfectly well what might happen if we come with you? Well, we do. Ron, show Harry what you’ve done.”
“Nah, he’s just eaten,” said Ron.

“Go on, he needs to know!”

“Oh, all right. Harry, come here.”

For the second time Ron withdrew his arm from around Hermione and stumped over to the door.
“C’mon.”

“Why?” Harry asked, following Ron out of the room onto the tiny landing.

“Descendo,” muttered Ron, pointing his wand at the low ceiling. A hatch opened right over their heads and a ladder slid down to their feet. A horrible, half-sucking, half, moaning sound came out of the square hole, along with an unpleasant smell like open drains.
“That’s your ghoul, isn’t it?” asked Harry, who had never actually met the creature that sometimes disrupted the nightly silence.
“Yeah, it is,” said Ron, climbing the ladder. “Come and have a look at him.” Harry followed Ron up the few short steps into the tiny attic space. His
head and shoulders were in the room before he caught sight of the creature curled up a few feet from him, fast asleep in the gloom with its large mouth wide open.
“But it . . . it looks . . . do ghouls normally wear pajamas?”

“no,” said Ron. “Nor have they usually got red hair or that number of pus- tules.”
Harry contemplated the thing, slightly revolted. It was human in shape and size, and was wearing what, now that Harry’s eyes became used to the darkness, was clearly an old pair of Ron’s pajamas. he was also sure that ghouls were generally rather slimy and bald, rather than distinctly hairy and covered
in angry purple blisters.

“He’s me, see?” said Ron.

“No,” said Harry. “I don’t.”

“I’ll explain it back in my room, the smell’s getting to me,” said Ron. They climbed back down the ladder, which Ron returned to the ceiling, and rejoined Hermione, who was still sorting books.
“Once we’ve left, the ghoul’s going to come and live down here in my room,” said Ron. “I think he’s really looking forward to it—well, it’s hard to tell, be- cause all he can do is moan and drool—but he nods a lot when you mention it. Anyway, he’s going to be me with spattergroit. Good, eh?”
Harry merely looked his confusion.

“It is!” said Ron, clearly frustrated that Harry had not grasped the bril-

liance of the plan. “Look, when we three don’t turn up at Hogwarts again,everyone’s going to think Hermione and I must be with you, right? Which means the
Death Eaters will go straight for our families to see if they’ve got information on where you are.”
“But hopefully it’ll look like I’ve gone away with Mum and Dad; a lot of

Muggle—borns are talking about going into hiding at the moment,” said Hermione.

“We can’t hide my whole family, it’ll look too fishy and they can’t all leave their jobs,” said Ron. “So we’re going to put out the story that I’m seriously
ill with spattergroit, which is why I can’t go back to school. If anyone comes calling to investigate, Mum or dad can show then the ghoul in my bed, covered in pustules. Spattergroit’s really contagious, so they’re not going to want

to go near him. It won’t matter that he can’t say anything, either, because apparently you can’t once the fungus has spread to your uvula.”
“And your mum and dad are in on this plan?” asked Harry.

“Dad is. He helped Fred and George transform the ghoul. Mum . . . well, you’ve seen what she’s like. She won’t accept we’re going till we’ve gone.”
There was silence in the room, broken only by gentle thuds as Hermione continued to throw books into one pile or the other. Ron sat watching her, and Harry looked from one to the other. The measures they had taken to protect their families made him realize, more than anything else could have done, that they really were going to come with him and that they knew exactly how dan- gerous that would be. He wanted to tell them what that meant to him, but he simply could not find words important enough.
Through the silence came the muffled sounds of Mrs. Weasley shouting from four floors below.
“Ginny’s probably left a speck of dust on a poxy napkin ring,” said Ron. “I

dunno why the Delacours have got to come two days before the weddings.”

“Fleur’s sister’s a bridesmaid, she needs to be here for the rehearsal, and she’s too young to come on her own,” said Hermione, as she pored indecisively over Break with a Banshee.
“Well, guests aren’t going to help Mum’s stress levels,” said Ron.

“what we really need to decide,” said Hermione, tossing Defensive Magical Theory into the bin without a second glance and picking up An Appraisal of Magical Education in Europe, “is where we’re going after we leave here. I know you said you wanted to go to Godric’s Hollow first, Harry, and I understand why, but . . . well . . . shouldn’t we make the Horcruxes our priority?”
“If we knew where any of the Horcruxes were, I’d agree with you,” said Harry, who did not believe that Hermione really understood his desire to Go- dric’s Hollow. His parents graves were only part of the attraction: He had
a strong, though inexplicable, feeling that the place held answers for him. Perhaps it was simply because it was there that he had survived Voldemort’s Killing Curse; now that he was facing the challenge of repeating the feat, Harry was drawn to the place where it happened, wanting to understand.
“Don’t you think there’s a possibility that Voldemort’s keeping a watch on Godric’s Hollow?” Hermione asked. “He might expect you to go back and visit your parents’ graves once you’re free to go wherever you like?”
This had not occurred to Harry. While he struggled to find a counterargu- ment, Ron spoke up, evidently following his own train of thought.
“This R.A.B. person,” he said, “You know, the one who stole the real locket?” Hermione nodded.
“He said in his note that he was going to destroy it, didn’t he?”

Harry dragged his rucksack toward him and pulled out the fake Horcrux in which R.A.B.’s note was still folded.
“‘I have stolen the real Horcrux and intend to destroy it as soon as I can,’” Harry read out.
“Well, what if he did finish it off?” said Ron.

“Or she.” interposed Hermione.

“Whichever,” said Ron, “it’d be one less for us to do!”

“Yes, but we’re still going to have to try and trace the real locket, aren’t we?”

said Hermione, “to find out whether or not it’s destroyed.”

“And once we get hold of it, how do you destroy a Horcrux?” asked Ron.

“Well,” said Hermione, “I’ve been researching that.”

“How?” asked Harry. “I didn’t think there were any books on Horcruxes in the library?”
“There weren’t,” said Hermione, who had turned pink. “Dumbledore re- moved them all, but he—he didn’t destroy them.”
Ron sat up straight, wide-eyed.

“It—it wasn’t stealing!” said Hermione, looking from Harry to Ron with a kind of desperation. “They were still library books, even if Dumbledore had taken them off the shelves. Anyway, if he really didn’t want anyone to get at them, I’m sure he would have made it much harder to—”
“Get to the point!” said Ron.
“Well . . . it was easy,” said Hermione in a small voice. “I just did a Summon- ing Charm. You know—Accio. And. . . they zoomed out of Dumbledore’s study window right into the girls’ dormitory.”
“But when did you do this?” Harry asked, regarding Hermione with a mix- ture of admiration and incredulity.
“Just after his—Dumbledore’s—funeral,” said Hermione in an even smaller voice. “Right after we agreed we’d leave school and go and look for the Hor- cruxes. When I went back upstairs to get my things it—it just occurred to me that the more we knew about them, the better it would be . . . and I was alone
in there . . . so I tried . . . and it worked. They flew straight in through the open window and I—I packed them.”
She swallowed and then said imploringly, “I can’t believe Dumbledore would have been angry, it’s not as though we’re going to use the information to make
a Horcrux, is it?”

“Can you hear us complaining?” said Ron. “Where are these books anyway?” Hermione rummaged for a moment and then extracted from the pile a large volume, bound in faded black leather. She looked a little nauseated and held it
as gingerly as if it were something recently dead.

“This is the one that gives explicit instructions on how to make a Horcrux.

Secrets of the Darkest Art—it’s a horrible book, really awful, full of evil magic.

I wonder when Dumbledore removed it from the library. . . . If he didn’t do it until he was headmaster, I bet Voldemort got all the instruction he needed from here.”
“Why did he have to ask Slughorn how to make a Horcrux, then, if he’d already read that?” asked Ron.
“He only approached Slughorn to find out what would happen if you split your soul into seven,” said Harry. “Dumbledore was sure Riddle already knew how to make a Horcrux but the time he asked Slughorn about them. I think you’re right, Hermione, that could easily have been where he got the informa- tion.”
“And the more I’ve read about them,” said Hermione, “the more horrible they seem, and the less I can believe that he actually made six. It warns in this book how unstable you make the rest of your soul by ripping it, and that’s just by making one Horcrux!”
Harry remembered what Dumbledore had said about Voldemort moving be- yond “usual evil.”
“Isn’t there any way of putting yourself back together?” Ron asked.

“Yes,” said Hermione with a hollow smile, “but it would be excruciatingly painful.”
“Why? How do you do it?” asked Harry.

“Remorse,” said Hermione. “You’ve got to really feel what you’ve done. There’s a footnote. Apparently the pain of it can destroy you. I can’t see Volde- mort attempting it somehow, can you?”
“No,” said Ron, before Harry could answer. “So does it say how to destroy

Horcruxes in that book?”

“Yes,” said Hermione, now turning the fragile pages as if examining rotting entrails. “because it warns Dark wizards how strong they have to make the enchantments on them. From all that I’ve read, what Harry did to Riddle’s diary was one of the really foolproof ways of destroying a Horcrux.”
“What, stabbing it with a basilisk fang?” asked Harry.

“Oh well, lucky we’ve got such a large supply of basilisk fangs, then,” said

Ron. “I was wondering what we were going to do with them.”

“It doesn’t have to be a basilisk fang,” said Hermione patiently. “It has to be something so destructive that the Horcrux can’t repair itself. Basilisk venom only has one antidote, and it’s incredibly rare—”
“—phoenix tears,” said Harry, nodding.

“Exactly,” said Hermione, “Our problem is that the are very few substances as destructive as basilisk venom, and they’re all dangerous to carry around with you. That’s a problem we’re going to have to solve though, because ripping, smashing, or crushing a Horcrux won’t do the trick. You’ve got to put it beyond magical repair.”
“But even if we wreck the thing it lives in,” said Ron, “Why can’t the bit of soul in it just go and live in something else?”

“Because a Horcrux is the complete opposite of a human being.”

Seeing that Harry and Ron looked thoroughly confused, Hermione hurried on, “Look, if I picked up a sword right now, Ron, and ran you through with it, I wouldn’t damage your soul at all.”
“Which would be a real comfort to me, I’m sure,” said Ron. Harry Laughed.

“It should be, actually! But my point is that whatever happens to your body, your soul will survive untouched,” said Hermione. “But it’s the other way round with a Horcrux. The fragment of soul inside it depends on it’s container, its enchanted body, for survival, It can’t exist without it.”
“That diary sort of died when I stabbed it,” said Harry, remembering ink pouring like blood from the punctured pages, and the screams of the piece of Voldemort’s soul as it vanished.
“And once the diary was properly destroyed, the bit of soul trapped in it could no longer exist. Ginny tried to get rid of the diary before you did, flushing
it away, but obviously it came back good as new.”

“Hang on,” said Ron, frowning. “The bit of soul in that diary was possessing

Ginny, wasn’t it? How does that work, then?”

“ While the magical container is still intact, the bit of soul inside it can flit

in and out of someone if they get too close to the object. I don’t mean holding it for long, it’s nothing to do with touching it,” she added before Ron could speak.
“ I mean close emotionally. Ginny poured her heart out into that diary, she made herself incredibly vulnerable. You’re in trouble if you get too fond of or dependent on the Horcrux.”
“I wonder how Dumbledore destroyed the ring?” said Harry. “Why didn’t I

ask him? I never really . . . ”

His voice tailed away: He was thinking of all the things he should have asked Dumbledore, and of how, since the headmaster had died, it seemed to Harry that he had wasted so many opportunities when Dumbledore had been alive, to find out more . . . to find out everything . . . .
The silence was shattered as the bedroom door flew open with a wall-shaking crash. Hermione shrieked and dropped Secrets of the Darkest Art. Crookshanks streaked under the bed, hissing indignantly; Ron jumped off the bed, skidded on a discarded Chocolate Frog wrapper, and smacked his head on the opposite wall; and Harry instinctively dived for his wand before realizing that he was looking up at Mrs. Weasley, whose hair was disheveled and whose face was contorted with rage.
“I’m so sorry to break up this cozy little gathering,” she said, her voice trem- bling. “ I’m sure you all need your rest . . . but there are wedding presents stacked in my room that need sorting out and I was under the impression that you had agreed to help.”
“Oh yes,” said Hermione, looking terrified as she leapt on her feet, sending books flying in every direction, “we will . . . we’re sorry . . . ”
With an anguished look at Harry and Ron, Hermione, hurried out of the room after Mrs. Weasley.
“It’s like being a house-elf,” complained Ron in an undertone, still massag- ing his head as he and Harry followed. “Except without the job satisfaction. The sooner this wedding’s over, the happier I’ll be.”
“Yeah,” said Harry, “then we’ll have nothing to do except find Horcruxes. . . . It’ll be like a holiday, won’t it?”
Ron started to laugh, but at the sight of the enormous pile of wedding presents waiting for them in Mrs. Weasley’s room, stopped quite abruptly.
The Delacours arrived the following morning at eleven o’clock. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny were feeling quite resentful toward Fleur’s family by this time, and it was with ill grace that Ron stumped back upstairs to put on matching socks, and Harry attempted to flatten his hair. Once they had all been deemed smart enough, they trooped out into the sunny backyard to await the visitors.
Harry had never seen the place looking so tidy. The rusty cauldrons and old Wellington boots that usually littered the steps by the back door were gone, replaced by two new Flutterby bushes standing either side of the door in large pots, though there was no breeze, the leaves waved lazily, giving an attractive rippling effect. The chickens had been shut away, the yard had been swept, and the nearby garden had been pruned, plucked, and generally spruced up, although Harry, who liked it in its overgrown state, thought that it looked rather forlorn without its usually contingent of capering gnomes.
He had lost track of how many security enhancements had been placed upon the Burrow by both the Order and the Ministry; all he knew was that it was no longer possible for anybody to travel by magic directly into the place. Mr. Weasley had therefore gone to meet the Delacours on top of a nearby hill, where they were to arrive by Portkey. The first sound of their approach was an unusu- ally high-pitched laugh, which turned out to be coming from Mr. Weasley, who appeared at the gate moments later, laden with luggage and leading a beautiful blonde woman in long, leaf-green robes, who could only be Fleur’s mother.
“Maman!” cried Fleur, rushing forward to embrace her. “Papa!”

Monsieur Delacour was nowhere near as attractive as his wife; he was a head shorter and extremely plump, with a little, pointed black beard. However, he looked good-natured. Bouncing toward Mrs. Weasley on high-heeled boots, he kissed her twice on each cheek, leaving her flustered.
“You ’ave been to much trouble,” he said in a deep voice. “Fleur tells us you

’ave been working very ’ard.”

“Oh, it’s been nothing, nothing” trilled Mrs. Weasley. “No trouble at all.”

Ron relieved his feelings by aiming a kick at a gnome who was peering out from behind one of the new Flutterby bushes.
“Dear lady!” said Monsieur Delacour, still holding Mrs. Weasley’s hand between his two plump ones and beaming. “We are most honored at the ap- proaching union of our two families! Let me present my wife, Apolline.”
Madame Delacour glided forward and stooped to kiss Mrs. Weasley too.

“Enchante´e,” she said. ”Your ’usband ’as been telling us such amusing stories!” Mr. Weasley gave a maniacal laugh; Mrs. Weasley threw him a look, upon which he became immediately silent and assumed an expression appropriate
to the sickbed of a close friend.

“And, of course, you ’ave met my leetle daughter, Gabrielle!” said Monsieur Delacour. Gabrielle was Fleur in miniature; eleven years old, with waist— length hair of pure, silvery blonde, she gave Mrs. Weasley a dazzling smile and hugged her, then threw Harry a glowing look, batting her eyelashes. Ginny cleared her throat loudly.
“Well, com in, do!” said Mrs. Weasley brightly, and she ushered the Dela- cours into the house, with many “No, please!”s and “After you!”s and “Not at all!”s.
The Delacours, as it soon transpired, were helpful, pleasant guests. They were pleased with everything and keen to assist with the preparations for the wedding. Monsieur Delacour pronounced everything from the seating plan
to the bridesmaids’ shows “Charmant!” Madame Delacour was most accom- plished at household spells and had the oven properly cleaned in a trice; Gabrielle followed her elder sister around, trying to assist in any way she could and jab- bering away in rapid French.
On the downside, the Burrow was not built to accommodate so many people. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were now sleeping in the sitting room, having shouted down Monsieur and Madame Delacour’s protests and insisted they take their bedroom. Gabrielle was sleeping with Fleur in Percy’s old room, and Bill would be sharing with Charlie, his best man, once Charlie arrived from Romania. Opportunities to make plans together became virtually nonexistent, and it was
in desperation that Harry, Ron, and Hermione took to volunteering to feed the chickens just to escape the overcrowded house.
“But she still won’t leave us alone!” snarled Ron, as their second attempt at

a meeting in the yard was foiled by the appearance of Mrs. Weasley carrying a large basket of laundry in her arms.
“Oh, good, you’ve fed the chickens,” she called as she approached them.

“We’d better shut them away again before the men arrive tomorrow . . . to put up the tent for the wedding,” she explained, pausing to lean against the hen- house. She looked exhausted. “Millamant’s Magic Marquees . . . they’re very good. Bill’s escorting them. . . . You’d better stay inside while they’re here, Harry. I must say it does complicate organizing a wedding, having all these security spells around the place.”

“I’m sorry,” said Harry humbly.

“Oh, don’t be silly, dear!” said Mrs. Weasley at once. “I didn’t mean—well, your safety’s much more important! Actually, I’ve been wanting to ask you how you want to celebrate your birthday, Harry. Seventeen, after all, it’s an important day. . . . ”
“I don’t want a fuss,” said Harry quickly, envisaging the addition strain this would put on them all. “Really, Mrs. Weasley, just a normal dinner would be fine. . . . It’s the day before the wedding. . . . ”
“Oh, well, if you’re sure, dear. I’ll invite Remus and Tonks, shall I? And how about Hagrid?”
“That’d be great,” said Harry. “But please don’t go to loads of trouble.”

“Not at all, not at all . . . It’s no trouble. . . . ” She looked at him, a long, searching look, then smiled a little sadly, straightened up, and walked away. Harry watched as she waved her wand near the washing line, and the damp clothes rose into the air to hang themselves up, and suddenly he felt a great wave of remorse for the inconvenience and the pain he was giving her.

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Chapter 7 The Will of Albus Dumbledore

Chapter 7
The Will of Albus Dumbledore

He was walking along a mountain road in the cool blue light of dawn. Far below, swathed in mist, was the shadow of a small town. Was the man he sought down there, the man he needed so
badly he could think of little else, the man who held the answer, the answer to his problem . . . ?
“Oi, wake up,”

Harry opened his eyes. He was lying again on the camp bed in Ron’s dingy attic room. The sun had not yet risen and the room was still shadowy. Pig- widgeon was asleep with his head under his tiny wing. the scar on Harry’s forehead was prickling.
“You were muttering in your sleep.”

“Was I?”

“Yeah. ‘Gregorovitch.’ You kept saying ‘Gregorovitch.”’

Harry was not wearing his glasses; Ron’s face appeared slightly blurred.

“Who’s Gregorovitch?”

“I dunno, do I? You were the one saying it.”

Harry rubbed his forehead, thinking. He had a vague idea he had heard the name before, but he could not think where.

“I think Voldemort’s looking for him.”

“Poor bloke,” said Ron fervently.

Harry sat up, still rubbing his scar, now wide awake. He tried to remember exactly what he had seen in the dream, but all that came back was a moun- tainous horizon and the outline of the little village cradled in a deep valley.
“I think he’s abroad.”

“Who, Gregorovitch?”

“Voldemort. I think he’s somewhere abroad, looking for Gregorovitch. It didn’t look like anywhere in Britain.”
“You reckon you were seeing into his mind again?” Ron sounded worried.
“Do me a favor and don’t tell Hermione,” said Harry. “Although how she expects me to stop seeing stuff in my sleep . . . ”
He gazed up at little Pigwidgeon’s cage, thinking . . . Why was the name

“Gregorovitch” familiar?

“I think,” he said slowly, “he’s got something to do with Quidditch. there’s some connection, but I can’t—I can’t think what it is.”
“Quidditch?” said Ron. “Sure you’re not thinking of Gorgovitch?”

“Who?”

“Dragomir Gorgovitch, Chaser, transferred to the Chudley Cannons for a record fee two years ago. Record holder for most Quaffle drops in a season.”
“No,” said Harry, “I’m definitely not think of Gorgovitch.”

“I try not to either,” said Ron. “Well, happy birthday anyway.”

“Wow—that’s right, I forgot! I’m seventeen.”

Harry seized the wand lying beside his camp bed, pointed it at the cluttered desk where he had left his glasses, and said “Accio Glasses!” Although they were only around a foot away, there was something immensely satisfying about seeing them zoom toward him, or at least until they poked him in the eye.
“Slick,” snorted Ron.

Reveling in the removal of his Trace, Harry sent Ron’s possessions flying around the room, causing Pigwidgeon to wake up flutter excitedly around his cage. Harry also tried tying the laces of his trainers by magic (the resultant knot took several minutes to untie by hand) and, purely for the pleasure of it, turned the orange robes on Ron’s Chudley Cannons posters right blue.
“I’d do your fly by hand, though,” Ron advised Harry, sniggering when Harry immediately checked it. “Here’s your present. Unwrap it up here, it’s not for my mother’s eyes.”
“A book?” said Harry as he took the rectangular parcel. “Bit of a departure from tradition, isn’t it?”
“This isn’t your average book,” said Ron. “It’s pure gold: Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches. Explains everything you need to know about girls. If only I’d had this last year I’d have known exactly how to get rid of Lavender and I wouldn’t have known how to get going with . . . Well, Fred and George gave me a copy, and I’ve learned a lot. You’d be surprised, it’s not all about wandwork, either.”
When they arrived in the kitchen they found a pile of presents waiting on the table. Bill and Monsieur Delacour were finishing their breakfasts, while Mrs. Weasley stood chatting to them over the frying pan.
“Arthur told me to wish you a happy seventeenth, Harry,” said Mrs. Weasley, beaming at him. ”He had to leave early for work, but he’ll be back for dinner. That’s our present on top.”
Harry sat down, took the square parcel she had indicated, and unwrapped

it. Inside was a watch very like the one Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had given Ron for his seventeenth; it was gold, with stars circling around the face instead of hands.
“It’s traditional to give a wizard a watch when he comes of age.” said Mrs. Weasley, watching him anxiously from beside the corner. “I’m afraid that one isn’t new like Ron’s, it was actually my brother Fabian’s and he wasn’t terribly careful with his possessions, it’s a bit dented on the back, but-”
The rest of her speech was lost; Harry had got up and hugged her, He tried

to put a lot of unsaid things into the hug and perhaps she understood them, because she patted his check clumsily when he released her, then waved her wand in a slightly random way, causing half a pack of bacon out of the frying pan onto the floor.
“Happy birthday, Harry!” said Hermione, hurrying into the kitchen and adding her own present to the top of the pile. “It’s not much, but I hope you like it. What did you get him?” she added to Ron, who seemed not to hear her.”
“Come on, then, open Hermione’s! said Ron.

She had bought him a new Sneakoscope. The other packages contained an enchanted razor from Bill and Fleur. (“Ah yes, zis will give you ze smoothest shave you will eve ’ave,” Monsieur Delacour assured him, “but you must tell it clearly what you want . . . ozzerwise you might find you ’ave a leetle less hair zan you would like. . . .”), chocolates from the Delacours, and an enormous box
of the latest Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes merchandise from Fred and George. Harry, Ron, and Hermione did not linger at the table, as the arrival of
Madame Delacour, Fleur, and Gabrielle made the kitchen uncomfortably crowded.

“I’ll pack these for you,” Hermione said brightly, taking Harry’s presents out

of his arms as the three of them headed back upstairs. “I’m nearly done, I’m just waiting for the rest of your underpants to come out of the wash, Ron—”
Ron’s splutter was interrupted by the opening of a door on the first-floor landing.
“Harry, will you come in here a moment?”

It was Ginny, Ron came to an abrupt halt, but Hermione took him by the elbow rugged him on up the stairs. Feeling nervous, Harry followed Ginny into her room.
He had never been inside it before. It was small, but bright. There was a large poster of the Wizarding band the Weird Sisters on one wall and a pic- ture of Gwenog Jones, Captain of the all-witch Quidditch team the Holyhead Harpies, on the other. A desk stood facing the open window, which looked out over the orchard where he and Ginny had once played two-a-side Quidditch with Ron and Hermione, and which now housed a large, pearly white marquee. The golden flag on top was level with Ginny’s window.
Ginny looked up into Harry’s face, took a deep breath, and said, “Happy seventeenth.”
“Yeah. . . thanks.”

She was looking at him steadily; he, however, found it difficult to look back at her; it was like gazing into a brilliant light.
“Nice view,” he said feebly, pointing toward the window. She ignored this. He could not blame her,
“I couldn’t think what to get you,” she said.

“You didn’t have to get me anything.” She disregarded this too.

“I didn’t know what would be useful. Nothing too big, because you wouldn’t be able to take it with you.”
He chanced a glance at her. She was not tearful; that was one of the many wonderful things about Ginny, she was rarely weepy. He had sometimes thought that having six brother must have toughened her up.
She took a step closer to him.

“So then I thought, I’d like you to have something to remember me by, you know, if you meet some veela when you’re off doing whatever you’re doing.”
“I think dating opportunities are going to be pretty thin on the ground, to be honest.”
“There’s the silver lining I’ve been looking for,” she whispered, and then she was kissing him as she had never kissed him before, and Harry was kissing her back, and it was blissful oblivion better than firewhisky; she was the only real thing in the world, Ginny, the feel of her, one hand at her back and one in her long, sweet-smelling hair—
The door banged open behind them and they jumped apart.

“Oh,” said Ron pointedly. “Sorry.”

“Ron!” Hermione was just behind him, slightly out of breath. There was a strained silence, then Ginny said in a flat little voice,
“Well, happy birthday anyway, Harry.”

Ron’s ears were scarlet; Hermione looked nervous. Harry wanted to slam the door in their faces, but it felt as though i cold drain had entered the room when the door appeared, and his shining moment had popped like a soap bub- ble. All the reasons for ending his relationship with Ginny, for staying well away from her, seemed to have slunk inside the room with Ron, and all happy forgetfulness was gone.
He looked at Ginny wanting to say something, though he hardly knew what, but she had turned her back on him. He thought that she might have suc- cumbed, for once, to tears. He could not do anything to comfort her in front of Ron.
“I’ll see you later,” he said, and followed the other two out of the bedroom. Ron marched downstairs, through the still-crowded kitchen and into the
yard, and Harry kept pace with him all the way, Hermione trotting along be-

hind them looking scared.

Once he reached the seclusion of the freshly mow lawn, Ron rounded on

Harry.

“You ditched her. What are you doing now, messing her around/”

“I’m not messing her around,” said Harry, as Hermione caught up with them.
“Ron—”

But Ron held up a hand to silence her.

“She was really cut up when you ended it—”

“So was I. You know why I stopped it, and it wasn’t because I wanted to.”

“Yeah, but you go snogging her now and she’s just going to get her hopes up again—”
“She’s not an idiot, she knows it can’t happen, she’s not expecting us to—to end up married, or—”
“As he said it, a vivid picture formed in Harry’s mind of Ginny in a white dress, marrying a tall, faceless, and unpleasant stranger.
In one spiraling moment it seemed to hit him: Her future was free and unencumbered, whereas his . . . he could see nothing but Voldemort ahead.
“If you keep groping her every chance you get—”

“It won’t happen again,” said Harry harshly. The day was cloudless, but he felt as though the sun had gone in. “Okay?”

Ron looked half resentful, half sheepish; he rocked backward and forward on his feet for a moment, then said, “Right then, well, that’s . . . yeah.”
Ginny did not seek another one-to-one meeting with Harry for the rest of the day, nor by any look or gesture did she show that they had shared more than polite conversation in her room. Nevertheless, Charlie’s arrival came as a relief to Harry. It provided a distraction, watching Mrs. Weasley force Charlie into a chair, raise her wand threateningly, and announce that he was about to get a proper haircut.
As Harry’s birthday dinner would have stretched the Burrow’s kitchen to breaking point even before the arrival of Charlie, Lupin, Tonks, and Hagrid, several tables were placed end to end in the garden. Fred and George be- witched a number of purple lanterns, all emblazoned with a large number 17,
to hang in midair over the guests. Thanks to Mrs. Weasley’s ministrations, George’s wound was neat and clean, but Harry was not yet used to the dark hole in the side of his head, despite the twins many jokes about it.
Hermione made purple and gold streamers erupt from the end of her wand and drape themselves artistically over the trees and bushes.
“Nice,” said Ron, as with one final flourish of her wand, Hermione turned the leaves on the crabapple tree to gold. “You’ve really got an eye for that sort of thing.”

“Thank you, Ron!” said Hermione, looking both pleased and a little con- fused. Harry turned away, smiling to himself. He had a funny notion that he would find a chapter on compliments when he found time to peruse his copy of Twelve Fail-Safe ways to Charm Witches; he caught Ginny’s eye and grinned at her before remembering his promise to Ron and hurriedly striking up a con- versation with Monsieur Delacour.
“Out of the way, out of the way¡‘ sang Mrs. Weasley, coming through the gate with what appeared to be a giant, beach-ball-sized Snitch floating in front
of her. Seconds later Harry realized that it was his birthday cake, which Mrs. Weasley was suspending with her wand, rather than risk carrying it over the uneven ground. When the cake had finally landed in the middle of the table, Harry said,
“That looks amazing, Mrs. Weasley.”

“Oh, it’s nothing, dear.” she said fondly. Over her shoulder, Ron gave Harry the thumbs-up and mouthed, Good one.
By seven o’clock all the guests had arrived, led into the house by Fred and George, who had waited for them at the end of the lane. Hagrid had honored the occasion by wearing his best, and horrible, hairy brow suit. Although Lupin smiled as he shook Harry’s hand, Harry thought he looked rather unhappy. It was all very odd; Tonks, beside him, looked simply radiant.
“Happy birthday, Harry,” she said, hugging him tightly.

“Seventeen, eh!” said Hagrid as he accepted a bucket-sized glass of wine from Fred. “Six years ter the day we met, Harry, d’yeh remember it?”
“Vaguely,” said Harry, grinning up at him. “Didn’t you smash down the front door, give Dudley a pig’s tail, and tell me I was a wizard?’
“I forge’ the details,” Hagrid Chortled. “All righ’, Ron, Hermione?”

“We’re fine,” said Hermione. “Who are you?”

“Ar, not bad. Bin busy, we got some newborn unicorns. I’ll show yeh when yeh get back—” Harry avoided Ron’s and Hermione’s gazes and Hagrid rum- maged in his pocket. “Here, Harry—couldn’ think what ter get yeh, but then I remembered this.” He pulled out a small, slightly furry drawstring pouch with
a long string, evidently intended to be worn around the neck. “Mokeskin. Hide anythin’ in there an’ no one but the owner can get it out. They’re rare, them.”
“Hagrid, thanks!”

“’S’nothin’,” said Hagrid with a wave of a dustbin-lid-sized hand, “An’ there’s

Charlie! always liked him—hey! Charlie!”

Charlie approached, running his hand slightly ruefully over his new, bru- tally short haircut. He was shorter than Ron, thickset, with a number of burns and scratches up his muscly arms.
“Hi, Hagrid, how’s it going?”

“Bin meanin’ ter write fer ages. How’s Norbert doin”’
“Norbert?” Charlie laughed. “The Norwegian Ridgeback? We call her Nor- berta now.”
“Wha—Norbert’s a girl?”

“Oh yeah,” said Charlie.

“How can you tell?” asked Hermione

“They’re a lot more vicious.” said Charlie. He looked over his shoulder and dropped his voice. “Wish Dad would hurry up and get here. Mum’s getting edgy.”
They all looked over at Mrs. Weasley. She was trying to talk to Madame

Delacour while glancing repeatedly at the gate.

“I think we’d better start without Arthur,” she called to the garden at large after a moment or two. “He must have been held up at—oh!”
They all saw it at the same time: a streak of light that came flying across the yard and onto the table, where it resolved itself into a bright silver weasel, which stood on its hind legs and spoke with Mr. Weasley’s voice.
“Minister of Magic coming with me.”

The Patronus dissolved into thin air, leaving Fleur’s family peering in as- tonishment where it had vanished.
“We shouldn’t be here,” said Lupin at once. “Harry—I’m sorry—I’ll explain another time—”
He seized Tonks’s wrist and pulled her away; the reached the fence, climbed over it, and vanished from sight. Mrs. Weasley looked bewildered.
“The Minister—but why—? I don’t understand—”

But there was no time to discuss the matter; a second later, Mr. Weasley had appeared out of thin air at the gate, accompanied by Rufus Scrimgeour, instantly recognizable by his mane of grizzled hair.
the two newcomers marched across the yard toward the garden and the lantern-lit table, where everybody sat in silence, watching them draw closer. As Scrimgeour came within range of the lantern light, Harry saw that he looked much older than the last time they had met, scraggy and grim.
“Sorry to intrude,” said Scrimgeour, as he limped to a halt before the table.
“Especially as I can see that I am gate crashing a party.”

His eyes lingered for a moment on the giant Snitch cake.

“Many happy returns.”

“Thanks,” said Harry.

“I require a private word with you,” Scrimgeour went on. “Also with Mr. Ronald Weasley and Miss Hermione Granger.”
“Us?” said Ron, sounding surprised, “Why us?”

“I shall tell you that when we are somewhere more private,” said Scrim- geour. “Is there such a place?” he demanded of Mr. Weasley.
“Yes, of course,” said Mr. Weasley, who looked nervous. “The, er, sitting room, why don’t you use that?”
“You can lead the way,” Scrimgeour said to Ron. “There will be no need for you to accompany us, Arthur.”
Harry saw Mr. Weasley exchange a worried look with Mrs. Weasley as he, Ron, and Hermione stood up. As they led the way back to the house in silence, Harry knew that the other two were thinking the same as he was: Scrimgeour must, somehow, have learned that the three of them were planning to drop out of Hogwarts.

Scrimgeour did not speak as they all passed through the messy kitchen and into the Burrow’s sitting room. Although the garden had been full of soft golden evening light, it was already dark in here. Harry flicked his wand at the oil lamps as he entered and they illuminated the shabby but cozy room. Scrimgeour sat himself in the sagging armchair that Mr. Weasley normally occupied, leaving Harry, Ron, and Hermione to squeeze side by side onto the sofa. Once they had done so, Scrimgeour spoke,
“I have some questions for the three of your and I think it will be best if we do it individually. If you two“—he pointed at Harry and Hermione—” can wait upstairs, I will start with Ronald.”
“We’re not going anywhere,” said Harry, while Hermione nodded vigorously.

“You can speak to us together, or not at all.”

Scrimgeour gave Harry a cold, appraising look. Harry had the impression that the minister was wondering it was worthwhile opening hostilities this early.
“Very well then, together,” he said, shrugging. He cleared his throat. “I am here, as I’m sure you know, because of Albus Dumbledore’s will.”
Harry, Ron, and Hermione looked at one another.

“A surprise, apparently? You were not aware the that Dumbledore had left you anything?”
“A—all of us?” said Ron. “Me and Hermione too?”

“Yes, all of—”

But Harry interrupted.

“Dumbledore died over a month ago. Why has it taken this long to give us what he left us?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” said Hermione, before Scrimgeour could answer. “They wanted to examine whatever he’s left us. You had no right to do that!” she said, and her voice trembled slightly.
“I had every right,” said Scrimgeour dismissively. “The Decree for Justifi- able Confiscation gives the Ministry the power to confiscate the contents of a will—”
“That law was created to stop wizards passing on Dark artifacts,” said Hermione, “and the Ministry is supposed to have evidence that the deceased’s possessions are illegal before seizing them! Are you telling me that you thought Dumbledore was trying to pass us something cursed?”
“Are you planning to follow a career in Magical Law, Miss Granger?” asked

Scrimgeour.

“No, I’m not,” retorted Hermione. “I’m hoping to do some good in the world!” Ron laughed, Scrimgeour’s eyes flickered toward him and away again as
Harry spoke.

“So why have you decided to let us have our things now? Can’t you think of

a pretext to keep them?”

“No, it’ll be because the thirty-one days are up,” said Hermione at once.

“They can’t keep the objects longer than that unless they can prove they’re dangerous. Right?”

“Would you say you were close to Dumbledore, Ronald?” asked Scrimgeour, ignoring Hermione. Ron looked startled.
“Me? No—not really . . . It was always Harry who . . . ”

Ron looked around at Harry and Hermione to see Hermione giving him a stop—talking—now! sort of look, but the damage was done: Scrimgeour looked as though he had heard exactly what he had expected, and wanted, to hear. He
swooped like a bird of prey upon Ron’s answer.

“If you were not very close to Dumbledore, how do you account for the fact that he remembered you in his will? He made exceptionally few personal be- quests. The vast majority of his possessions—his private library, his magical instruments, and other personal effects—were left to Hogwarts. Why do you think you were singled out?”
“I . . . dunno,” said Ron, “I . . . when I say we weren’t close . . . I mean, I think he liked me. . . . ”
“You’re being modest, Ron,” said Hermione. “Dumbledore was very fond of you.”
This was stretching the truth to breaking points as far as Harry knew, Ron and Dumbledore had never been alone together, and direct contact between them had been negligible. However, Scrimgeour did not seem to be listening. He put his hand inside his cloak and drew out a drawstring pouch much larger than the one Hagrid had given Harry. From it, he removed a scroll of parch- ment which he unrolled and read aloud.
“‘The Last Will and Testament of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore’

. . . Yes, here we are. . . . ’To Ronald Bilius Weasley, I leave my Deluminator, in the hope that he will remember me when he uses it.”’
Scrimgeour took something from the bag an object that Harry had seen before. It looked something like a silver cigarette lighter, but it had, he knew, the power to suck all light from a place, and restore it, with a simple click. Scrimgeour leaned forward and passed the Deluminator to Ron, who took it and turned it over in his fingers, looking stunned.
“That is a valuable object,” said Scrimgeour, watching Ron. “It may even be unique. Certainly it is of Dumbledore’s ow design. Why would he have left you an item so rare?”
Ron shook his head, looking bewildered.

“Dumbledore must have taught thousands of students,” Scrimgeour perse- vered. “Yet the only one he remembered in his will are you three. Why is that? To what use did he think you would put his Deluminator, Mr. Weasley?”
“Put out lights, I s’pose,” mumbled Ron. “What else could I do with it?” Evidently Scrimgeour had no suggestions. After squinting at Ron for a mo-
ment or two, he turned back to Dumbledore’s will.

“‘To Miss Hermione Jean Granger, I leave my copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, in the hope that she will find it entertaining and instructive.”’
Scrimgeour now pulled out of the bag a small book that looked as ancient

as the copy of Secrets of the Darkest Arts upstairs. Its binding was stained and peeling in places. Hermione took it from Scrimgeour without a word. She held the book in her lap and gazed at it. Harry saw that the title was in runes; he had never learned to read them. As he looked, a tear splashed onto the embossed symbols.
“Why do you think Dumbledore left you that book, Miss Granger?” asked Scrimgeour

“He . . . he knew I liked books,” said Hermione in a thick voice, mopping her eyes with her sleeve.
“But why that particular book?”

“I don’t know. He must have thought I’d enjoy it.”

“Did you ever discuss codes, or any means of passing secret messages, with

Dumbledore?”

“No, I didn’t,” said Hermione, still wiping her eyes on her sleeve. “And if the Ministry still hasn’t found any hidden codes in this book in thirty-one days, I doubt that I will.”
She suppressed a sob. They were wedged together so tightly that Ron had difficultly extracting his arm to put it around Hermione’s shoulders. Scrimgeour turned back to the will.

“’To Harry James Potter,’”he read, and Harry’s insides contracted with a sudden excitement, ”’I leave the Snitch he caught in his first Quidditch match
at Hogwarts, as a reminder of the rewards of perseverance and skill.’”

As Scrimgeour pulled out the tiny, walnut-sized golden ball, its silver wings fluttered rather feebly, and Harry could not help feeling definite sense of anti- climax.
“Why did Dumbledore leave you this Snitch?” asked Scrimgeour.

“No idea,” said Harry. “For the reasons you just read out, I suppose . . . to remind me what you can get if you . . . persevere ad whatever it was.”
“You think this is a mere symbolic keepsake, then?”

“I suppose so,” said Harry. “What else could it be?”

“I’m asking the questions,” said Scrimgeour, shifting his chair a little closer

to the sofa. Dusk was really falling outside now; the marquee beyond the win- dows towered ghostly white over the hedge.
“I notice that your birthday cake is in the shape of a Snitch,” Scrimgeour said to Harry. “Why is that?”
Hermione laughed derisively.

“Oh, it can’t be a reference to the fact that Harry’s a great Seeker, that’s way too obvious,” she said. “There must be a secret message from Dumbledore hidden in the icing!”
“I don’t think there’s anything hidden in the icing,” said Scrimgeour, “but a Snitch would be a very good hiding place for a small object. You know why, I’m sure?”
Harry shrugged. Hermione, however, answered: Harry though that an- swering questions correctly was such a deeply ingrained habit she could not suppress the urge.
“Because Snitches have flesh memories,” she said.

“What?” said Harry and Ron together; both considered Hermione’s Quid- ditch knowledge negligible.
“Correct,” said Scrimgeour. “A Snitch is not touched by bare skin before it is released, not even by the maker, who wears gloves. It carries an enchantment by which it can identify the first human to lay hands upon it, in the case of disputed capture. This Snitch”—he held up the tiny golden ball—“will remem- ber your touch, Potter. It occurs to me that Dumbledore, who had prodigious magical skill, whatever his other faults, might have enchanted this Snitch so that it will open only for you.”
Harry’s heart was beating rather fast. He was sure that Scrimgeour was right. How could he avoid taking the Snitch with his bare hand in front of the Minister?
“You don’t say anything,” said Scrimgeour. “Perhaps you already know what the Snitch contains?”
“No,” said Harry, still wondering how he could appear to touch the Snitch without really doing so. If only he knew Legilimency, really knew it, and could read Hermione’s mind; he could practically hear her brain whirring beside him.
“Take it,” said Scrimgeour quietly.

Harry met the minister’s yellow eyes and knew he had no option but to obey. He held out his hand, and Scrimgeour leaned forward again and placed the Snitch, slowly and deliberately, into Harry’s palm. Nothing happened. As Harry’s fingers closed around the Snitch, its tired wings fluttered and were still. Scrimgeour, Ron, and Hermione continued to gaze avidly at the now par- tially concealed ball, as if still hoping it might transform in some way.
“That was dramatic,” said Harry coolly. Both Ron and Hermione laughed.

“That’s all, then, is it?” asked Hermione, making to prise herself off the sofa.
“Not quite,” said Scrimgeour, who looked bad tempered now, “Dumbledore left you a second bequest, Potter.”
“What is it?” asked Harry, excitement rekindling. Scrimgeour did not bother to read from the will this time.
“The sword of Godric Gryffindor,” he said.

Hermione and Ron both stiffened. Harry looked around for a sign of the ruby-encrusted hilt, but Scrimgeour did not pull the sword from the leather pouch, which in any case looked much too small to contain it.

“So where is it?” Harry asked suspiciously.

“Unfortunately,” said Scrimgeour, “that sword was not Dumbledore’s to give away. The sword of Godric Gryffindor is an important historical artifact, and as such, belongs—”

“It belongs to Harry!” said Hermione hotly. “It chose him, he was the one who found it, it came to him out of the Sorting Hat—”
“According to reliable historical sources, the sword may present itself to any worthy Gryffindor,” said Scrimgeour. “That does not make it the exclusive property of Mr. Potter, whatever Dumbledore may have decided.” Scrimgeour scratched his badly shaven cheek, scrutinizing Harry. “Why do you think—?”
“—Dumbledore wanted to give me the sword?” said Harry, struggling to keep his temper. “Maybe he thought it would look nice on my wall.”
“This is not a joke, Potter!” growled Scrimgeour. “Was it because Dumb- ledore believed that only the sword of Godric Gryffindor could defeat the Heir
of Slytherin? Did he wish to give you that sword, Potter, because he believed, as do many, that you are the one destined to destroy He-Who-Must-Not-Be- Named?”
“Interesting theory,” said Harry. “Has anyone ever tried sticking a sword

in Voldemort? Maybe the Ministry should put some people onto that, instead

of wasting their time stripping down Deluminators or covering up breakouts from Azkaban. So this is what you’ve been doing, Minister, shut up in your office, trying to break open a Snitch? People are dying—I was nearly one of them—Voldemort chased me across three countries, he killed Mad-Eye Moody, but there’s been no word about any of that from the Ministry, has there? And you still expect us to cooperate with you!”
“You go too far!” shouted Scrimgeour, standing up; Harry jumped to his feet too. Scrimgeour limped toward Harry and jabbed him hard in the chest with the point of his wand: It singed a hole in Harry’s T-shirt like a lit cigarette.
“Oi!” said Ron, jumping up and raising his own wand, but Harry said,

“No! D’you want to give him an excuse to arrest us?”
“Remembered you’re not at school, have you?” said Scrimgeour, breathing hard into Harry’s face. “Remembered that I am not Dumbledore, who forgave your insolence and insubordination? You may wear that scar like a crown, Potter, but it is not up to a seventeen-year-old boy to tell me how to do my job! It’s time you learned some respect!”
“It’s time you earned it.” said Harry.

The floor trembled; there was a sound of running footsteps, then the door to the sitting room burst open and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley ran in.
“We—we thought we heard—” began Mr. Weasley, looking thoroughly alarmed at the sight of Harry and the Minister virtually nose to nose.
“—raised voices,” panted Mrs. Weasley.

Scrimgeour took a couple of steps back from Harry, glancing at the hole he had made in Harry’s T-shirt. He seemed to regret his loss of temper.
“It—it was nothing,” he growled. “I . . . regret your attitude,” he said, look- ing Harry full in the face once more. “You seem to think that the Ministry does not desire what you—what Dumbledore—desired. We ought to be working to- gether.”
“I don’t like your methods, Minister,” said Harry. “Remember?”

For the second time, he raised his right fist and displayed to Scrimgeour the scars that still showed white on the back of it, spelling I must not tell lies. Scrimgeour’s expression hardened. He turned away without another word and limped from the room. Mrs. Weasley hurried after him; Harry heard her stop
at the back door. After a minute or so she called, “He’s gone!”

“What did he want?” Mr. Weasley asked, looking around at Harry, Ron, and

Hermione as Mrs. Weasley came hurrying back to them.

“To give us what Dumbledore left us,” said Harry. “They’ve only just re- leased the contents of his will.”
Outside in the garden, over the dinner tables, the three objects Scrimgeour had given them were passed from hand to hand. Everyone exclaimed over the Deluminator and The Tales of Beedle the Bard and lamented the fact that Scrimgeour had refused to pass on the sword, but none of them could offer any suggestion as to why Dumbledore would have left Harry an old Snitch. As Mr. Weasley examined the Deluminator for the third or fourth time, Mrs. Weasley said tentatively, “Harry, dear, everyone’s awfully hungry, we didn’t like to start without you. . . . Shall I serve dinner now?”
They all ate rather hurriedly and then, after a hasty chorus of “Happy Birthday” and much gulping of cake, the party broke up. Hagrid, who was invited to the wedding the following day, but was far too bulky to sleep in the overstretched Burrow, left to set up a tent for himself in a neighboring field.
“Meet us upstairs,” Harry whispered to Hermione, while they helped Mrs. Weasley restore the garden to its normal state. “After everyone’s gone to bed.” Up in the attic room, Ron examined his Deluminator, and Harry filled Ha-
grid’s mokeskin purse, not with gold, but with those items he most prized, ap-

parently worthless though some of them were: the Marauder’s Map, the shard

of Sirius’s enchanted mirror, and R.A.B.’s locket. He pulled the strings tight and slipped the purse around his neck, then sat holding the old Snitch and watching its wings flutter feebly. At last, Hermione tapped on the door and tiptoed inside.
“Muffliato,” she whispered, waving her hand in the direction of the stairs.

“Thought you didn’t approve of that spell?” said Ron.

“Times change,” said Hermione. “Now, show us that Deluminator.”

Ron obliged at once. Holding it up in front of him, he clicked it. The solitary lamp they had lit went out at once.
“The thing is,” whispered Hermione through the dark, “we could have achieved that with Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder.”
There was a small click, and the ball of light from the lamp flew back to the ceiling and illuminated them all once more.
“Still, it’s cool,” said Ron, a little defensively. “And from what they said, Dumbledore invented it himself!”
“I know, but surely he wouldn’t have singled you out in his will just to help us turn out the lights!”
“D’you think he knew the Ministry would confiscate his will and examine everything he’d left us?” asked Harry.

“Definitely,” said Hermione. “He couldn’t tell us in the will why he was leaving us these things, but that still doesn’t explain . . . ”
“ . . . why he couldn’t have given us a hint when he was alive?” asked Ron.

“Well, exactly,” said Hermione, now flicking through the The Tales of Beedle the Bard. “If these things are important enough to pass on right under the nose
of the Ministry, you’d think he’d have let us know why . . . unless he thought it was obvious?”
“Thought wrong, then, didn’t he?” said Ron. “I always said he was mental. Brilliant and everything, but cracked. Leaving Harry an old Snitch—what the hell was that about?”
“I’ve no idea,” said Hermione. “When Scrimgeour made you take it, Harry,

I was so sure that something was going to happen!”

“Yeah, well,” said Harry, his pulse quickening as he raised the Snitch in his fingers. “I wasn’t going to try too hard in front of Scrimgeour, was I?”
“What do you mean?” asked Hermione.

“The Snitch I caught in my first ever Quidditch match?” said Harry. “Don’t you remember?”
Hermione looked simply bemused. Ron, however, gasped, pointing franti- cally from Harry to the Snitch and back again until he found his voice.
“That was the one you nearly swallowed!”

“Exactly,” said Harry, and with his heart beating fast, he pressed his mouth to the Snitch.
It did not open. Frustration and bitter disappointment welled up inside him: He lowered the golden sphere, but then Hermione cried out.
“Writing! There’s writing on it, quick, look!”

He nearly dropped the Snitch in surprise and excitement. Hermione was quite right. Engraved upon the smooth golden surface, where seconds before there had been nothing, were five words written in the thin, slanting handwrit- ing that Harry recognized as Dumbledore’s:
I open at the close.
He had barely read them when the words vanished again.

“‘I open at the close . . . ’ What’s that supposed to mean?” Hermione and Ron shook their heads, looking back.
“I open at the close. . . at the close . . . I open at the close . . . ”

But no matter how often they repeated the words, with many different in- flections, they were unable to wring any more meaning from them.
“And the sword,” said Ron finally, when they had at last abandoned their attempts to divine meaning in the Snitch’s inscription. “Why did he want Harry
to have the sword?”

“And why couldn’t he just have told me?” Harry said quietly. “I was there

it was right there on the wall of his office during all our talks last year! If he wanted me to have it, why didn’t he just give it to me then?
He felt as though he were sitting in an examination with a question he ought to have been able to answer in front of him, his brain slow and unrespon- sive. Was there something he had missed in the long talks with Dumbledore last year? Ought he to know what it all meant? Had Dumbledore expected him
to understand?

“And as for this book” said Hermione, “The Tales of Beedle the Bard . . . I’ve never even heard of them.”
“You’ve never heard of The Tales of Beedle the Bard?” said Ron incredu- lously. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No, I’m not.” said Hermione in surprise. “Do you know them, then?”

“Well, of course I do!”

Harry looked up, diverted. The circumstance of Ron having read a book that Hermione had not was unprecedented. Ron, however, looked bemused by their surprise.
“Oh come on! All the old kids’ stories are supposed to be Beedle’s, aren’t they? ‘The Fountain of Fair Fortune’ . . . ‘The Wizard and the Hopping Pot’
. . . ‘Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump’ . . . ”

“Excuse me?” said Hermione, giggling. “What was that last one?”

“Come off it!” said Ron, looking in disbelief from Harry to Hermione. “You must’ve heard of Bubbitty Rabbitty—”

“Ron, you know full well Harry and I were brought up by Muggles!” said

Hermione. “We didn’t hear stories like that when we were little, we heard

‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ and ‘Cinderella’—”

“What’s that, an illness?” asked Ron.

“So these are children’s stories?” asked Hermione, bending again over the runes.
“Yeah,” said Ron uncertainly, “I mean, that’s just what you hear, you know, that all these old stories came from Beedle. I dunno what they’re like in the original versions.
“but I wonder why Dumbledore thought I should read them?” Something creaked downstairs.
“Probably just Charlie, now Mum’s asleep, sneaking off to regrow his hair,”

said Ron nervously.

“All the same, we should get to bed,” whispered Hermione. “It wouldn’t do to oversleep tomorrow.’
“No,” agreed Ron. “A brutal triple murder by the bridegroom’s mother might put a bit of a damper of the wedding. I’ll get the lights.”
And he clicked the Deluminator once more as Hermione left the room.

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