Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (68 page)

And then he remembered Sirius in the fire upstairs in the Gryffindor common room…

You're less like your father than I thought… the risk would've been what made it fun for James…

But did he want to be like his father any more?

'Harry, don't do it, please don't do it!' Hermione said in anguished tones as the bell rang at the end of the class.

He did not answer; he did not know what to do.

Ron seemed determined to give neither his opinion nor his advice; he would not look at Harry, though when Hermione opened her mouth to try dissuading Harry some more, he said in a low voice, 'Give it a rest, OK? He can make up his own mind.'

Harrys heart beat very fast as he left the classroom. He was halfway along the corridor outside when he heard the unmistake-able sounds of a diversion going off in the distance. There were screams and yells reverberating from somewhere above them; people exiting the classrooms all around Harry were stopping in their tracks and looking up at the ceiling fearfully -

Umbridge came pelting out of her classroom as fast as her short legs would carry her. Pulling out her wand, she hurried off in the opposite direction: it was now or never.

'Harry - please!' Hermione pleaded weakly.

But he had made up his mind; hitching his bag more securely on to his shoulder, he set off at a run, weaving in and out of students now hurrying in the opposite direction to see what all the fuss was about in the east wing.

Harry reached the corridor to Umbridge's office and found it deserted. Dashing behind a large suit of armour whose helmet creaked around to watch him, he pulled open his bag, seized Siriuss knife and donned the Invisibility Cloak. He then crept slowly and carefully back out from behind the suit of armour and along the corridor until he reached Umbridge's door.

He inserted the blade of the magical knife into the crack around it and moved it gently up and down, then withdrew it. There was a tiny click, and the door swung open. He ducked inside the office, closed the door quickly behind him and looked around.

Nothing was moving except the horrible kittens that were still frolicking on the wall plates above the confiscated broomsticks.

Harry pulled off his Cloak and, striding over to the fireplace, found what he was looking for within seconds: a small box containing glittering Floo powder.

He crouched down in front of the empty grate, his hands shaking. He had never done this before, though he thought he knew how it must work. Sticking his head into the fireplace, he took a large pinch of powder and dropped it on to the logs stacked neatly beneath him. They exploded at once into emerald green flames.

'Number twelve, Grimmauld Place!' Harry said loudly and clearly.

It was one of the most curious sensations he had ever experienced. He had travelled by Floo powder before, of course, but then it had been his entire body that had spun around and around in the flames through the network of wizarding fireplaces that stretched over the country. This time, his knees remained firm upon the cold floor of Umbridge's office, and only his head hurtled through the emerald fire…

And then, as abruptly as it had begun, the spinning stopped. Feeling rather sick and as though he were wearing an exceptionally hot muffler around his head, Harry opened his eyes to find that he was looking up out of the kitchen fireplace at the long, wooden table, where a man sat poring over a piece of parchment.

'Sirius?'

The man jumped and looked around. It was not Sirius, but Lupin.

'Harry!' he said, looking thoroughly shocked. 'What are you -what's happened, is everything all right?'

'Yeah,' said Harry. 'I just wondered — I mean, I just fancied a -a chat with Sirius.'

'I'll call him,' said Lupin, getting to his feet, still looking perplexed, 'he went upstairs to look for Kreacher, he seems to be hiding in the attic again…'

And Harry saw Lupin hurry out of the kitchen. Now he was left with nothing to look at but the chair and table legs. He wondered why Sirius had never mentioned how very uncomfortable it was to speak out of the fire; his knees were already objecting painfully to their prolonged contact with Umbridge's hard stone floor.

Lupin returned with Sirius at his heels moments later.

'What is it?' said Sirius urgently, sweeping his long dark hair out of his eyes and dropping to the ground in front of the fire, so that he and Harry were on a level. Lupin knelt down too, looking very concerned. 'Are you all right? Do you need help?'

'No,' said Harry, 'it's nothing like that… I just wanted to talk… about my dad.'

They exchanged a look of great surprise, but Harry did not have time to feel awkward or embarrassed; his knees were becoming sorer by the second and he guessed five minutes had already passed from the start of the diversion; George had only guaranteed him twenty. He therefore plunged immediately into the story of what he had seen in the Pensieve.

When he had finished, neither Sirius nor Lupin spoke for a moment. Then Lupin said quietly, 'I wouldn't like you to judge your father on what you saw there, Harry. He was only fifteen -'

'I'm fifteen!' said Harry heatedly.

'Look, Harry' said Sirius placatingly, 'James and Snape hated each other from the moment they set eyes on each other, it was just one of those things, you can understand that, can't you? I think James was everything Snape wanted to be - he was popular, he was good at Quidditch - good at pretty much everything. And Snape was just this little oddball who was up to his eyes in the Dark Arts, and James - whatever else he may have appeared to you, Harry - always hated the Dark Arts.'

'Yeah,' said Harry, 'but he just attacked Snape for no good reason, just because - well, just because you said you were bored,' he finished, with a slightly apologetic note in his voice.

'I'm not proud of it,' said Sirius quickly.

Lupin looked sideways at Sirius, then said, 'Look, Harry, what you've got to understand is that your father and Sirius were the best in the school at whatever they did - everyone thought they were the height of cool - if they sometimes got a bit carried away -'

'If we were sometimes arrogant little berks, you mean,' said Sirius.

Lupin smiled.

'He kept messing up his hair,' said Harry in a pained voice.

Sirius and Lupin laughed.

'I'd forgotten he used to do that,' said Sirius affectionately.

'Was he playing with the Snitch?' said Lupin eagerly.

'Yeah,' said Harry, watching uncomprehendingly as Sirius and Lupin beamed reminiscently. 'Well… I thought he was a bit of an idiot.'

'Of course he was a bit of an idiot!' said Sirius bracingly, 'we were all idiots! Well - not Moony so much,' he said fairly, looking at Lupin.

But Lupin shook his head. 'Did I ever tell you to lay off Snape?' he said. 'Did I ever have the guts to tell you I thought you were out of order?'

'Yeah, well,' said Sirius, 'you made us feel ashamed of ourselves sometimes… that was something…"

'And,' said Harry doggedly, determined to say everything that was on his mind now he was here, 'he kept looking over at the girls by the lake, hoping they were watching him!'

'Oh, well, he always made a fool of himself whenever Lily was around,' said Sirius, shrugging, 'he couldn't stop himself showing off whenever he got near her.'

'How come she married him?' Harry asked miserably. 'She hated him!'

'Nah, she didn't,' said Sirius.

'She started going out with him in seventh year,' said Lupin.

'Once James had deflated his head a bit,' said Sirius.

'And stopped hexing people just for the fun of it,' said Lupin.

'Even Snape?' said Harry.

Well,' said Lupin slowly, 'Snape was a special case. I mean, he never lost an opportunity to curse James so you couldn't really expect James to take that lying down, could you?'

'And my mum was OK with that?'

'She didn't know too much about it, to tell you the truth,' said Sirius. '1 mean, James didn't take Snape on dates with her and jinx him in front of her, did he?'

Sirius frowned at Harry, who was still looking unconvinced.

'Look,' he said, 'your father was the best friend I ever had and he was a good person. A lot of people are idiots at the age of fifteen. He grew out of it.'

'Yeah, OK,' said Harry heavily. 'I just never thought I'd feel sorry for Snape.'

'Now you mention it,' said Lupin, a faint crease between his eyebrows, 'how did Snape react when he found you'd seen all this?'

'He told me he'd never teach me Occlumency again,' said Harry indifferently, 'like that's a big disappoint—'

'He WHAT?' shouted Sirius, causing Harry to jump and inhale a mouthful of ashes.

'Are you serious, Harry?' said Lupin quickly. 'He's stopped giving you lessons?'

'Yeah,' said Harry, surprised at what he considered a great over-reaction. 'But it's OK, I don't care, it's a bit of a relief to tell you the -'

'I'm coming up there to have a word with Snape!' said Sirius forcefully, and he actually made to stand up, but Lupin wrenched him back down again.

'If anyone's going to tell Snape it will be me!' he said firmly. 'But Harry, first of all, you're to go back to Snape and tell him that on no account is he to stop giving you lessons — when Dumbledore hears -'

'I can't tell him that, he'd kill me!' said Harry, outraged. 'You didn't see him when we got out of the Pensieve.'

'Harry there is nothing so important as you learning Occlumency!' said Lupin sternly. 'Do you understand me? Nothing!'

'OK, OK,' said Harry, thoroughly discomposed, not to mention annoyed. Til… I'll try and say something to him… but it won't be-'

He fell silent. He could hear distant footsteps.

'Is that Kreacher coming downstairs?'

'No,' said Sirius, glancing behind him. 'It must be somebody your end.'

Harrys heart skipped several beats.

I'd better go!' he said hastily and pulled his head backwards out of the Grimmauld Place fire. For a moment his head seemed to be revolving on his shoulders, then he found himself kneeling in front of Umbridge's fire with it firmly back on and watching the emerald flames flicker and die.

'Quickly, quickly!' he heard a wheezy voice mutter right outside the office door. 'Ah, she's left it open -'

Harry dived for the Invisibility Cloak and had just managed to pull it back over himself when Filch burst into the office. He looked absolutely delighted about something and was talking to himself feverishly as he crossed the room, pulled open a drawer in Umbridge's desk and began rifling through the papers inside it.

'Approval for Whipping… Approval for Whipping… I can do it at last… they've had it coming to them for years…'

He pulled out a piece of parchment, kissed it, then shuffled rapidly back out of the door, clutching it to his chest.

Harry leapt to his feet and, making sure he had his bag and that the Invisibility Cloak was completely covering him, he wrenched open the door and hurried out of the office after Filch, who was hobbling along faster than Harry had ever seen him go.

One landing down from Umbridge's office, Harry thought it was safe to become visible again. He pulled off the Cloak, shoved it in his bag and hurried onwards. There was a great deal of shouting and movement coming from the Entrance Hall. He ran down the marble staircase and found what looked like most of the school assembled there.

It was just like the night when Trelawney had been sacked. Students were standing all around the walls in a great ring (some of them, Harry noticed, covered in a substance that looked very like Stinksap); teachers and ghosts were also in the crowd. Prominent among the onlookers were members of the Inquisitorial Squad, who were all looking exceptionally pleased with themselves, and Peeves, who was bobbing overhead, gazed down at Fred and George who stood in the middle of the floor with the unmistakeable look of two people who had just been cornered.

'So!' said Umbridge triumphantly. Harry realised she was standing just a few stairs in front of him, once more looking down upon her prey. 'So - you think it amusing to turn a school corridor into a swamp, do you?'

'Pretty amusing, yeah,' said Fred, looking up at her without the slightest sign of fear.

Filch elbowed his way closer to Umbridge, almost crying with happiness.

'I've got the form, Headmistress,' he said hoarsely, waving the piece of parchment Harry had just seen him take from her desk. 'I've got the form and I've got the whips waiting… oh, let me do it now…"

'Very good, Argus,' she said. 'You two,' she went on, gazing down at Fred and George, 'are about to learn what happens to wrongdoers in my school.'

'You know what?' said Fred. 'I don't think we are.'

He turned to his twin.

'George,' said Fred, 'I think we've outgrown full-time education.'

'Yeah, I've been feeling that way myself,' said George lightly.

Time to test our talents in the real world, d'you reckon?' asked Fred.

'Definitely,' said George.

And before Umbridge could say a word, they raised their wands and said together:

'Accio brooms!'

Harry heard a loud crash somewhere in the distance. Looking to his left, he ducked just in time. Fred and George's broomsticks, one still trailing the heavy chain and iron peg with which Umbridge had fastened them to the wall, were hurtling along the corridor towards their owners; they turned left, streaked down the stairs and stopped sharply in front of the twins, the chain clattering loudly on the flagged stone floor.

'We won't be seeing you,' Fred told Professor Umbridge, swinging his leg over his broomstick.

'Yeah, don't bother to keep in touch,' said George, mounting his own.

Fred looked around at the assembled students, at the silent, watchful crowd.

'If anyone fancies buying a Portable Swamp, as demonstrated upstairs, come to number ninety-three, Diagon Alley - Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes,' he said in a loud voice. 'Our new premises!'

'Special discounts to Hogwarts students who swear they're going to use our products to get rid of this old bat,' added George, pointing at Professor Umbridge.