Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (66 page)

‘Stand up and take out your wand, Potter.’

Harry got to his feet, feeling nervous. They faced each other with the desk between them.

‘You may use your wand to attempt to disarm me, or defend yourself in any other way you can think of,’ said Snape.

‘And what are you going to do?’ Harry asked, eyeing Snape’s wand apprehensively.

‘I am about to attempt to break into your mind,’ said Snape softly. ‘We are going to see how well you resist. I have been told that you have already shown aptitude at resisting the Imperius Curse. You will find that similar powers are needed for this … brace yourself, now.
Legilimens!
’

Snape had struck before Harry was ready, before he had even begun to summon any force of resistance. The office swam in front of his eyes and vanished; image after image was racing through his mind like a flickering film so vivid it blinded him to his surroundings.

He was five, watching Dudley riding a new red bicycle, and his heart was bursting with jealousy … he was nine, and Ripper the bulldog was chasing him up a tree and the Dursleys were laughing below on the lawn … he was sitting under the Sorting Hat, and it was telling him he would do well in Slytherin … Hermione was lying in the hospital wing, her face covered with thick black hair … a hundred Dementors were closing in on him beside the dark lake … Cho Chang was drawing nearer to him under the mistletoe …

No
, said a voice inside Harry’s head, as the memory of Cho drew nearer,
you’re not watching that, you’re not watching it, it’s private –

He felt a sharp pain in his knee. Snape’s office had come back into view and he realised that he had fallen to the floor; one of his knees had collided painfully with the leg of Snape’s desk. He looked up at Snape, who had lowered his wand and was rubbing his wrist. There was an angry weal there, like a scorch mark.

‘Did you mean to produce a Stinging Hex?’ asked Snape coolly.

‘No,’ said Harry bitterly, getting up from the floor.

‘I thought not,’ said Snape contemptuously. ‘You let me get in too far. You lost control.’

‘Did you see everything I saw?’ Harry asked, unsure whether he wanted to hear the answer.

‘Flashes of it,’ said Snape, his lip curling. ‘To whom did the dog belong?’

‘My Aunt Marge,’ Harry muttered, hating Snape.

‘Well, for a first attempt that was not as poor as it might have been,’ said Snape, raising his wand once more. ‘You managed to stop me eventually, though you wasted time and energy shouting. You must remain focused. Repel me with your brain and you will not need to resort to your wand.’

‘I’m trying,’ said Harry angrily, ‘but you’re not telling me how!’

‘Manners, Potter,’ said Snape dangerously. ‘Now, I want you to close your eyes.’

Harry threw him a filthy look before doing as he was told. He did not like the idea of standing there with his eyes shut while Snape faced him, carrying a wand.

‘Clear your mind, Potter,’ said Snape’s cold voice. ‘Let go of all emotion …’

But Harry’s anger at Snape continued to pound through his veins like venom. Let go of his anger? He could as easily detach his legs …

‘You’re not doing it, Potter … you will need more discipline than this … focus, now …’

Harry tried to empty his mind, tried not to think, or remember, or feel …

‘Let’s go again … on the count of three … one – two – three –
Legilimens!
’

A great black dragon was rearing in front of him … his father and mother were waving at him out of an enchanted mirror … Cedric Diggory was lying on the ground with blank eyes staring at him …

‘NOOOOOOO!’

Harry was on his knees again, his face buried in his hands, his brain aching as though someone had been trying to pull it from his skull.

‘Get up!’ said Snape sharply. ‘Get up! You are not trying, you are making no effort. You are allowing me access to memories you fear, handing me weapons!’

Harry stood up again, his heart thumping wildly as though he had really just seen Cedric dead in the graveyard. Snape looked paler than usual, and angrier, though not nearly as angry as Harry was.

‘I – am – making – an – effort,’ he said through clenched teeth.

‘I told you to empty yourself of emotion!’

‘Yeah? Well, I’m finding that hard at the moment,’ Harry snarled.

‘Then you will find yourself easy prey for the Dark Lord!’ said Snape savagely. ‘Fools who wear their hearts proudly on their sleeves, who cannot control their emotions, who wallow in sad memories and allow themselves to be provoked so easily – weak people, in other words – they stand no chance against his powers! He will penetrate your mind with absurd ease, Potter!’

‘I am not weak,’ said Harry in a low voice, fury now pumping through him so that he thought he might attack Snape in a moment.

‘Then prove it! Master yourself!’ spat Snape. ‘Control your anger, discipline your mind! We shall try again! Get ready, now!
Legilimens!
’

He was watching Uncle Vernon hammering the letterbox shut … a hundred Dementors were drifting across the lake in the grounds towards him … he was running along a windowless passage with Mr Weasley … they were drawing nearer to the plain black door at the end of the corridor … Harry expected to go through it … but Mr Weasley led him off to the left, down a flight of stone steps …

‘I KNOW! I KNOW!’

He was on all fours again on Snape’s office floor, his scar was prickling unpleasantly, but the voice that had just issued from his mouth was triumphant. He pushed himself up again to find Snape staring at him, his wand raised. It looked as though, this time, Snape had lifted the spell before Harry had even tried to fight back.

‘What happened then, Potter?’ he asked, eyeing Harry intently.

‘I saw – I remembered,’ Harry panted. ‘I’ve just realised …’

‘Realised what?’ asked Snape sharply.

Harry did not answer at once; he was still savouring the moment of blinding realisation as he rubbed his forehead …

He had been dreaming about a windowless corridor ending in a locked door for months, without once realising that it was a real place. Now, seeing the memory again, he knew that all along he had been dreaming about the corridor down which he had run with Mr Weasley on the twelfth of August as they hurried to the courtrooms in the Ministry; it was the corridor leading to the Department of Mysteries and Mr Weasley had been there the night that he had been attacked by Voldemort’s snake.

He looked up at Snape.

‘What’s in the Department of Mysteries?’

‘What did you say?’ Snape asked quietly and Harry saw, with deep satisfaction, that Snape was unnerved.

‘I said, what’s in the Department of Mysteries,
sir
?’ Harry said.

‘And why,’ said Snape slowly, ‘would you ask such a thing?’

‘Because,’ said Harry, watching Snape closely for a reaction, ‘that corridor I’ve just seen – I’ve been dreaming about it for months – I’ve just recognised it – it leads to the Department of Mysteries … and I think Voldemort wants something from –’

‘I have told you not to say the Dark Lord’s name!’

They glared at each other. Harry’s scar seared again, but he did not care. Snape looked agitated; but when he spoke again he sounded as though he was trying to appear cool and unconcerned.

‘There are many things in the Department of Mysteries, Potter, few of which you would understand and none of which concern you. Do I make myself plain?’

‘Yes,’ Harry said, still rubbing his prickling scar, which was becoming more painful.

‘I want you back here same time on Wednesday. We will continue work then.’

‘Fine,’ said Harry. He was desperate to get out of Snape’s office and find Ron and Hermione.

‘You are to rid your mind of all emotion every night before sleep; empty it, make it blank and calm, you understand?’

‘Yes,’ said Harry, who was barely listening.

‘And be warned, Potter … I shall know if you have not practised …’

‘Right,’ Harry mumbled. He picked up his schoolbag, swung it over his shoulder and hurried towards the office door. As he opened it, he glanced back at Snape, who had his back to Harry and was scooping his own thoughts out of the Pensieve with the tip of his wand and replacing them carefully inside his own head. Harry left without another word, closing the door carefully behind him, his scar still throbbing painfully.

Harry found Ron and Hermione in the library, where they were working on Umbridge’s most recent ream of homework. Other students, nearly all of them fifth-years, sat at lamp-lit tables nearby, noses close to books, quills scratching feverishly, while the sky outside the mullioned windows grew steadily blacker. The only other sound was the slight squeaking of one of Madam Pince’s shoes, as the librarian prowled the aisles menacingly, breathing down the necks of those touching her precious books.

Harry felt shivery; his scar was still aching, he felt almost feverish. When he sat down opposite Ron and Hermione, he caught sight of himself in the window opposite; he was very white and his scar seemed to be showing up more clearly than usual.

‘How did it go?’ Hermione whispered, and then, looking concerned. ‘Are you all right, Harry?’

‘Yeah … fine … I dunno,’ said Harry impatiently, wincing as pain shot through his scar again. ‘Listen … I’ve just realised something …’

And he told them what he had just seen and deduced.

‘So … so are you saying …’ whispered Ron, as Madam Pince swept past, squeaking slightly, ‘that the weapon – the thing You-Know-Who’s after – is in the Ministry of Magic?’

‘In the Department of Mysteries, it’s got to be,’ Harry whispered. ‘I saw that door when your dad took me down to the courtrooms for my hearing and it’s definitely the same one he was guarding when the snake bit him.’

Hermione let out a long, slow sigh.

‘Of course,’ she breathed.

‘Of course what?’ said Ron rather impatiently.

‘Ron, think about it … Sturgis Podmore was trying to get through a door at the Ministry of Magic … it must have been that one, it’s too much of a coincidence!’

‘How come Sturgis was trying to break in when he’s on our side?’ said Ron.

‘Well, I don’t know,’ Hermione admitted. ‘That is a bit odd …’

‘So what’s in the Department of Mysteries?’ Harry asked Ron. ‘Has your dad ever mentioned anything about it?’

‘I know they call the people who work in there “Unspeakables”,’ said Ron, frowning. ‘Because no one really seems to know what they do – weird place to have a weapon.’

‘It’s not weird at all, it makes perfect sense,’ said Hermione. ‘It will be something top secret that the Ministry has been developing, I expect … Harry, are you sure you’re all right?’

For Harry had just run both his hands hard over his forehead as though trying to iron it.

‘Yeah … fine …’ he said, lowering his hands, which were trembling. ‘I just feel a bit … I don’t like Occlumency much.’

‘I expect anyone would feel shaky if they’d had their mind attacked over and over again,’ said Hermione sympathetically. ‘Look, let’s get back to the common room, we’ll be a bit more comfortable there.’

But the common room was packed and full of shrieks of laughter and excitement; Fred and George were demonstrating their latest bit of joke shop merchandise.

‘Headless Hats!’ shouted George, as Fred waved a pointed hat decorated with a fluffy pink feather at the watching students. ‘Two Galleons each, watch Fred, now!’

Fred swept the hat on to his head, beaming. For a second he merely looked rather stupid; then both hat and head vanished.

Several girls screamed, but everyone else was roaring with laughter.

‘And off again!’ shouted George, and Fred’s hand groped for a moment in what seemed to be thin air over his shoulder; then his head reappeared as he swept the pink-feathered hat from it.

‘How do those hats work, then?’ said Hermione, distracted from her homework and watching Fred and George. ‘I mean, obviously it’s some kind of Invisibility Spell, but it’s rather clever to have extended the field of invisibility beyond the boundaries of the charmed object … I’d imagine the charm wouldn’t have a very long life though.’

Harry did not answer; he was feeling ill.

‘I’m going to have to do this tomorrow,’ he muttered, pushing the books he had just taken out of his bag back inside it.

‘Well, write it in your homework planner then!’ said Hermione encouragingly. ‘So you don’t forget!’

Harry and Ron exchanged looks as he reached into his bag, withdrew the planner and opened it tentatively.

‘Don’t leave it till later, you big second-rater!’
chided the book as Harry scribbled down Umbridge’s homework. Hermione beamed at it.

‘I think I’ll go to bed,’ said Harry, stuffing the homework planner back into his bag and making a mental note to drop it in the fire the first opportunity he got.

He walked across the common room, dodging George, who tried to put a Headless Hat on him, and reached the peace and cool of the stone staircase to the boys’ dormitories. He was feeling sick again, just as he had the night he had had the vision of the snake, but thought that if he could just lie down for a while he would be all right.

He opened the door of his dormitory and was one step inside it when he experienced pain so severe he thought that someone must have sliced into the top of his head. He did not know where he was, whether he was standing or lying down, he did not even know his own name.

Maniacal laughter was ringing in his ears … he was happier than he had been in a very long time … jubilant, ecstatic, triumphant … a wonderful, wonderful thing had happened …

‘Harry? HARRY!’

Someone had hit him around the face. The insane laughter was punctuated with a cry of pain. The happiness was draining out of him, but the laughter continued …

He opened his eyes and, as he did so, he became aware that the wild laughter was coming out of his own mouth. The moment he realised this, it died away; Harry lay panting on the floor, staring up at the ceiling, the scar on his forehead throbbing horribly. Ron was bending over him, looking very worried.

‘What happened?’ he said.