she whispered, pulling him into a rib-cracking hug before holding him at arm's length and examining him critically. ‘You're looking peaky; you need feeding up, but you'll have to wait a bit for dinner, I'm afraid....’
She turned to the gang of wizards behind him and whispered urgently, ‘He's just arrived, the meeting's started.’
The wizards behind Harry all made noises of interest and excitement and began filing past him towards the door through which Mrs. Weasley had just come. Harry made to follow Lupin, but Mrs. Weasley held him back.
‘No, Harry, the meeting's only for members of the Order. Ron and Hermione are upstairs, you can wait with them until the meetings over, then we'll have dinner. And keep your voice down in the hall,’ she added in an urgent whisper.
‘Why?’
‘I don't want anything to wake up.’
‘What d'you—?’
‘I'll explain later, I've got to hurry, I'm supposed to be at the meeting— I'll just show you where you're sleeping.’
Pressing her finger to her lips, she led him on tiptoe past a pair of long, moth-eaten curtains, behind which Harry supposed there must be another door, and after skirting a large umbrella stand that looked as though it had been made from a severed troll's leg, they started up the dark staircase, passing a row of shrunken heads mounted on plaques on the wall. A closer look showed Harry that the heads belonged to house-elves. All of them had the same rather snout-like nose.
Harry's bewilderment deepened with every step he took. What on earth were they doing in a house that looked as though it belonged to the Darkest of wizards?
‘Mrs. Weasley, why—?’
‘Ron and Hermione will explain everything, dear, I've really got to dash,’ Mrs. Weasley whispered distractedly. ‘There'—they had reached the second landing—'you're the door on the right. I'll call you when it's over.’
And she hurried off downstairs again.
Harry crossed the dingy landing, turned the bedroom doorknob, which was shaped like a serpent's head, and opened the door.
He caught a brief glimpse of a gloomy high-ceilinged, twin-bedded room; then there was a loud twittering noise, followed by an even louder shriek, and his vision was completely obscured by a large quantity of very bushy hair— Hermione had thrown herself on to him in a hug that nearly knocked him flat, while Ron's tiny owl, Pigwidgeon, zoomed excitedly round and round their heads.
‘HARRY! Ron, he's here, Harry's here! We didn't hear you arrive! Oh, how are you? Are you all right? Have you been furious with us? I bet you have, I know our letters were useless—but we couldn't tell you anything, Dumbledore made us swear we wouldn't, oh, we've got so much to tell you, and you've got things to tell us—the dementors! When we heard—and that Ministry hearing—it's just outrageous, I've looked it all up, they can't expel you, they just can't, there's provision in the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery for the use of magic in life-threatening situations—’
‘Let him breathe, Hermione,’ said Ron, grinning as he closed the door behind Harry. He seemed to have grown several more inches during their month apart, making him taller and more gangly looking than ever, though the long nose, bright red hair and freckles were the same.
Still beaming, Hermione let go of Harry, but before she could say another word there was a soft whooshing sound and something white soared from the top of a dark wardrobe and landed gently on Harry's shoulder.
‘Hedwig!’
No comments:
Post a Comment