‘And what about Scabbers?’ said Ron, pointing at the lump in his chest pocket. ‘He needs rest and relaxation! How’s he going to get it with that thing around?’
‘That reminds me, you forgot your Rat Tonic,’ said Hermione, slapping the small red bottle into Ron’s hand. ‘And stop worrying, Crookshanks will be sleeping in my dormitory and Scabbers in yours. What’s the problem? Poor Crookshanks, that witch said he’d been in there for ages: no one wanted him.’
‘I wonder why,’ said Ron sarcastically, as they set off towards the Leaky Cauldron.
They found Mr Weasley sitting in the bar, reading the Daily Prophet.
‘Harry!’ he said, smiling as he looked up. ‘How are you?’
‘Fine, thanks,’ said Harry, as he, Ron and Hermione joined Mr Weasley with all their shopping.
Mr Weasley put down his paper, and Harry saw the now familiar picture of Sirius Black staring up at him.
‘They still haven’t caught him, then?’ he asked.
‘No,’ said Mr Weasley, looking extremely grave. ‘They’ve pulled us all off our regular jobs at the Ministry to try and find him, but no luck so far.’
‘Would we get a reward if we caught him?’ asked Ron. ‘It’d be good to get some more money –’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Ron,’ said Mr Weasley, who on closer inspection looked very strained. ‘Black’s not going to be caught by a thirteen-year-old wizard. It’s the Azkaban guards who’ll get him back, you mark my words.’
At that moment Mrs Weasley entered the bar, laden with shopping and followed by the twins, Fred and George, who were about to start their fifth year at Hogwarts, the newly elected Head Boy, Percy, and the Weasleys’ youngest child and only girl, Ginny.
Ginny, who had always been very taken with Harry, seemed even more heartily embarrassed than usual when she saw him, perhaps because he had saved her life during their last term at Hogwarts. She went very red and muttered ‘hello’ without looking at him. Percy, however, held out his hand solemnly as though he and Harry had never met and said, ‘Harry. How nice to see you.’
‘Hello, Percy,’ said Harry, trying not to laugh.
‘I hope you’re well?’ said Percy pompously, shaking hands. It was rather like being introduced to the mayor.
‘Very well, thanks –’
‘Harry!’ said Fred, elbowing Percy out of the way and bowing deeply. ‘Simply splendid to see you, old boy –’
‘Marvellous,’ said George, pushing Fred aside and seizing Harry’s hand in turn. ‘Absolutely spiffing.’
Percy scowled.
‘That’s enough, now,’ said Mrs Weasley.
‘Mum!’ said Fred, as though he’d only just spotted her, and seized her hand, too. ‘How really corking to see you –’
‘I said, that’s enough,’ said Mrs Weasley, depositing her shopping in an empty chair. ‘Hello, Harry, dear. I suppose you’ve heard our exciting news?’ She pointed at the brand-new silver badge on Percy’s chest. ‘Second Head Boy in the family!’ she said, swelling with pride.
‘And last,’ Fred muttered under his breath.
‘I don’t doubt that,’ said Mrs Weasley, frowning suddenly. ‘I notice they haven’t made you two Prefects.’
‘What do we want to be Prefects for?’ said George, looking revolted at the very idea. ‘It’d take all the fun out of life.’
Ginny giggled.
‘You want to set a better example to your sister!’ snapped Mrs Weasley.
‘Ginny’s got other brothers to set her an example, Mother,’ said Percy loftily. ‘I’m going up to change for dinner …’
He disappeared and George heaved a sigh.
‘We tried to shut him in a pyramid,’ he told Harry. ‘But Mum spotted us.’
*
Dinner that night was a very enjoyable affair. Tom the innkeeper put three tables together in the parlour and the seven Weasleys, Harry and Hermione ate their way through five delicious courses.
‘How’re we getting to King’s Cross tomorrow, Dad?’ asked Fred, as they tucked into a sumptuous chocolate pudding.
‘The Ministry’s providing a couple of cars,’ said Mr Weasley.
Everyone looked up at him.
‘Why?’ said Percy curiously.
‘It’s because of you, Perce,’ said George seriously. ‘And there’ll be little flags on the bonnets, with HB on them –’
‘– for Humungous Bighead,’ said Fred.
Everyone except Percy and Mrs Weasley snorted into their pudding.
‘Why are the Ministry providing cars, Father?’ Percy asked again, in a dignified voice.
‘Well, as we haven’t got one any more,’ said Mr Weasley, ‘and as I work there, they’re doing me a favour …’
His voice was casual, but Harry couldn’t help noticing that Mr Weasley’s ears had gone red, just like Ron’s did when he was under pressure.
‘Good job, too,’ said Mrs Weasley briskly. ‘Do you realise how much luggage you’ve all got between you? A nice sight you’d be on the Muggle Underground … You are all packed, aren’t you?’
‘Ron hasn’t put all his new things in his trunk yet,’ said Percy, in a long-suffering voice. ‘He’s dumped them on my bed.’
‘You’d better go and pack properly, Ron, because we won’t have much time in the morning,’ Mrs Weasley called down the table. Ron scowled at Percy.
After dinner everyone felt very full and sleepy. One by one they made their way upstairs to their rooms to check their things for the next day. Ron and Percy were next door to Harry. He had just closed and locked his own trunk when he heard angry voices through the wall, and went to see what was going on.
The door of number twelve was ajar and Percy was shouting.
‘It was here, on the bedside table, I took it off for polishing –’
‘I haven’t touched it, all right?’ Ron roared back.
‘What’s up?’ said Harry.
‘My Head Boy badge has gone,’ said Percy, rounding on Harry.
‘So’s Scabbers’s Rat Tonic,’ said Ron, throwing things out of his trunk to look. ‘I think I might’ve left it in the bar –’
‘You’re not going anywhere till you’ve found my badge!’ yelled Percy.
‘I’ll get Scabbers’s stuff, I’m packed,’ Harry said to Ron, and he went downstairs.
Harry was halfway along the passage to the bar, which was now very dark, when he heard another pair of angry voices coming from the parlour. A second later, he recognised them as Mr and Mrs Weasley’s. He hesitated, not wanting them to know he’d heard them rowing, when the sound of his own name made him stop, then move closer to the parlour door.
‘… makes no sense not to tell him,’ Mr Weasley was saying heatedly. ‘Harry’s got a right to know. I’ve tried to tell Fudge, but he insists on treating Harry like a child. He’s thirteen years old and –’
‘Arthur, the truth would terrify him!’ said Mrs Weasley shrilly. ‘Do you really want to send Harry back to school with that hanging over him? For heaven’s sake, he’s happy not knowing!’
‘I don’t want to make him miserable, I want to put him on his guard!’ retorted Mr Weasley. ‘You know what Harry and Ron are like, wandering off by themselves – they’ve even ended up in the Forbidden Forest! But Harry mustn’t do that this year! When I think what could have happened to him that night he ran away from home! If the Knight Bus hadn’t picked him up, I’m prepared to bet he would have been dead before the Ministry found him.’
‘But he’s not dead, he’s fine, so what’s the point –’
‘Molly, they say Sirius Black’s mad, and maybe he is, but he was clever enough to escape from Azkaban, and that’s supposed to be impossible. It’s been a month now, and no one’s seen hide nor hair of him, and I don’t care what Fudge keeps telling the Daily Prophet, we’re no nearer catching Black than inventing self-spelling wands. The only thing we know for sure is what Black’s after –’
‘But Harry will be perfectly saf
e at Hogwarts.’
‘We thought Azkaban was perfectly safe. If Black can break out of Azkaban, he can break into Hogwarts.’
‘But no one’s really sure that Black’s after Harry –’
There was a thud on wood, and Harry was sure Mr Weasley had banged his fist on the table.
‘Molly, how many times do I have to tell you? They didn’t report it in the press because Fudge wanted it kept quiet, but Fudge went out to Azkaban the night Black escaped. The guards told Fudge that Black’s been talking in his sleep for a while now. Always the same words: “He’s at Hogwarts … he’s at Hogwarts.”Black is deranged, Molly, and he wants Harry dead. If you ask me, he thinks murdering Harry will bring You-Know-Who back to power. Black lost everything the night Harry stopped You-Know-Who, and he’s had twelve years alone in Azkaban to brood on that …’
There was a silence. Harry leant still closer to the door, desperate to hear more.
‘Well, Arthur, you must do what you think is right. But you’re forgetting Albus Dumbledore. I don’t think anything could hurt Harry at Hogwarts while Dumbledore’s Headmaster. I suppose he knows about all this?’
‘Of course he knows. We had to ask him if he minds the Azkaban guards stationing themselves around the entrances to the school grounds. He wasn’t happy about it, but he agreed.’
‘Not happy? Why shouldn’t he be happy, if they’re there to catch Black?’
‘Dumbledore isn’t fond of the Azkaban guards,’ said Mr Weasley heavily. ‘Nor am I, if it comes to that … but when you’re dealing with a wizard like Black, you sometimes have to join forces with those you’d rather avoid.’
‘If they save Harry –’
‘– then I will never say another word against them,’ said Mr Weasley wearily. ‘It’s late, Molly, we’d better go up …’
Harry heard chairs move. As quietly as he could, he hurried down the passage to the bar and out of sight. The parlour door opened, and a few seconds later footsteps told him that Mr and Mrs Weasley were climbing the stairs.
The bottle of Rat Tonic was lying under the table they had sat at earlier. Harry waited until he heard Mr and Mrs Weasley’s bedroom door close, then headed back upstairs with the bottle.
Fred and George were crouching in the shadows on the landing, heaving with laughter as they listened to Percy dismantling his and Ron’s room in the search for his badge.
‘We’ve got it,’ Fred whispered to Harry. ‘We’ve been improving it.’
The badge now read Bighead Boy.
Harry forced a laugh, went to give Ron the rat tonic, then shut himself in his room and lay down on his bed.
So Sirius Black was after him. That explained everything. Fudge had been lenient with him because he was so relieved to find him alive. He’d made Harry promise to stay in Diagon Alley, where there were plenty of wizards to keep an eye on him. And he was sending two Ministry cars to take them all to the station tomorrow, so that the Weasleys could look after Harry until he was on the train.
Harry lay listening to the muffled shouting next door and wondered why he didn’t feel more scared. Sirius Black had murdered thirteen people with one curse; Mr and Mrs Weasley obviously thought Harry would be panic-stricken if he knew the truth. But Harry happened to agree whole-heartedly with Mrs Weasley that the safest place on earth was wherever Albus Dumbledore happened to be. Didn’t people always say that Dumbledore was the only person Lord Voldemort had ever been afraid of? Surely Black, as Voldemort’s right-hand man, would be just as frightened of him?
And then there were these Azkaban guards everyone kept talking about. They seemed to scare most people senseless, and if they were stationed all around the school, Black’s chances of getting inside seemed very remote.
No, all in all, the thing that bothered Harry most was the fact that his chances of visiting Hogsmeade now looked like zero. Nobody would want Harry to leave the safety of the castle until Black was caught; in fact, Harry suspected his every move would be carefully watched until the danger had passed.
He scowled at the dark ceiling. Did they think he couldn’t look after himself? He’d escaped Lord Voldemort three times, he wasn’t completely useless …
Unbidden, the image of the beast in the shadows of Magnolia Crescent crossed his mind. What to do when you know the worst is coming …
‘I’m not going to be murdered,’ Harry said out loud.
‘That’s the spirit, dear,’ said his mirror sleepily.
– CHAPTER FIVE –
The Dementor
Tom woke Harry next morning with his usual toothless grin and a cup of tea. Harry got dressed and was just persuading a disgruntled Hedwig to get back into her cage when Ron banged his way into the room, pulling a sweatshirt over his head and looking irritable.
‘The sooner we get on the train, the better,’ he said. ‘At least I can get away from Percy at Hogwarts. Now he’s accusing me of dripping tea on his photo of Penelope Clearwater. You know,’ Ron grimaced, ‘his girlfriend. She’s hidden her face under the frame because her nose has gone all blotchy …’
‘I’ve got something to tell you,’ Harry began, but they were interrupted by Fred and George, who had looked in to congratulate Ron on infuriating Percy again.
They headed down to breakfast, where Mr Weasley was reading the front page of the Daily Prophet with a furrowed brow and Mrs Weasley was telling Hermione and Ginny about a Love Potion she’d made as a young girl. All three of them were rather giggly.
‘What were you saying?’ Ron asked Harry, as they sat down.
‘Later,’ Harry muttered, as Percy stormed in.
Harry had no chance to speak to Ron or Hermione in the chaos of leaving; they were too busy heaving all their trunks down the Leaky Cauldron’s narrow staircase and piling them up near the door, with Hedwig and Hermes, Percy’s screech owl, perched on top in their cages. A small wickerwork basket stood beside the heap of trunks, spitting loudly.
‘It’s all right, Crookshanks,’ Hermione cooed through the wickerwork, ‘I’ll let you out on the train.’
‘You won’t,’ snapped Ron. ‘What about poor Scabbers, eh?’
He pointed at his chest, where a large lump indicated that Scabbers was curled up in his pocket.
Mr Weasley, who had been outside waiting for the Ministry cars, stuck his head inside.
‘They’re here,’ he said. ‘Harry, come on.’
Mr Weasley marched Harry across the short stretch of pavement towards the first of two old-fashioned dark green cars, each of which was driven by a furtive-looking wizard, wearing a suit of emerald velvet.
‘In you get, Harry,’ said Mr Weasley, glancing up and down the crowded street.
Harry got into the back of the car, and was shortly joined by Hermione, Ron and, to Ron’s disgust, Percy.
The journey to King’s Cross was very uneventful compared to Harry’s trip on the Knight Bus. The Ministry of Magic cars seemed almost ordinary, though Harry noticed that they could slide through gaps that Uncle Vernon’s new company car certainly couldn’t have managed. They reached King’s Cross with twenty minutes to spare; the Ministry drivers found them trolleys, unloaded their trunks, touched their hats to Mr Weasley and drove away, somehow managing to jump to the head of an unmoving queue for the traffic lights.
Mr Weasley kept close to Harry’s elbow all the way into the station.
‘Right then,’ he said, glancing around them. ‘Let’s do this in pairs, as there are so many of us. I’ll go through first with Harry.’
Mr Weasley strolled towards the barrier between platforms nine and ten, pushing Harry’s trolley and apparently very interested in the InterCity 125 that had just arrived at platform nine. With a meaningful look at Harry, he leant casually against the barrier. Harry imitated him.
Next moment, they had fallen sideways through the solid metal onto platform nine and three-quarters and looked up to see the Hogwarts Express, a scarlet steam engine, puffing smoke over a platform packed with witches and wiz
ards seeing their children onto the train.
Percy and Ginny suddenly appeared behind Harry. They were panting, and had apparently taken the barrier at a run.
‘Ah, there’s Penelope!’ said Percy, smoothing his hair and going pink again. Ginny caught Harry’s eye and they both turned away to hide their laughter as Percy strode over to a girl with long, curly hair, walking with his chest thrown out so that she couldn’t miss his shiny badge.
Once the remaining Weasleys and Hermione had joined them, Harry and Mr Weasley led the way to the end of the train, past packed compartments, to a carriage that looked quite empty. They loaded the trunks onto it, stowed Hedwig and Crookshanks in the luggage rack, then went back outside to say goodbye to Mr and Mrs Weasley.
Mrs Weasley kissed all her children, then Hermione, and finally, Harry. He was embarrassed, but really quite pleased, when she gave him an extra hug.
‘Do take care, won’t you, Harry?’ she said as she straightened up, her eyes oddly bright. Then she opened her enormous handbag and said, ‘I’ve made you all sandwiches. Here you are, Ron … no, they’re not corned beef … Fred? Where’s Fred? Here you are, dear …’
‘Harry,’ said Mr Weasley quietly, ‘come over here a moment.’
He jerked his head towards a pillar, and Harry followed him behind it, leaving the others crowded around Mrs Weasley.
‘There’s something I’ve got to tell you before you leave –’ said Mr Weasley, in a tense voice.
‘It’s all right, Mr Weasley,’ said Harry, ‘I already know.’
‘You know? How could you know?’
‘I – er – I heard you and Mrs Weasley talking last night. I couldn’t help hearing,’ Harry added quickly. ‘Sorry –’
‘That’s not the way I’d have chosen for you to find out,’ said Mr Weasley, looking anxious.
‘No – honestly, it’s OK. This way, you haven’t broken your word to Fudge and I know what’s going on.’
‘Harry, you must be very scared –’
‘I’m not,’ said Harry sincerely. ‘Really,’ he added, because Mr Weasley was looking disbelieving. ‘I’m not trying to be a hero, but seriously, Sirius Black can’t be worse than Voldemort, can he?’
The Prisoner of Azkaban Page 6
