The Order of the Phoenix

by J. K. Rowling

  ‘Woodlice,’ said Hermione promptly, which explained why what Harry had taken to be grains of brown rice were moving. ‘But fairy eggs if they can get them.’

  ‘Good girl, take another five points. So, whenever you need leaves or wood from a tree in which a Bowtruckle lodges, it is wise to have a gift of woodlice ready to distract or placate it. They may not look dangerous, but if angered they will try to gouge at human eyes with their fingers, which, as you can see, are very sharp and not at all desirable near the eyeballs. So if you’d like to gather closer, take a few woodlice and a Bowtruckle – I have enough here for one between three – you can study them more closely. I want a sketch from each of you with all body-parts labelled by the end of the lesson.’

  The class surged forwards around the trestle table. Harry deliberately circled around the back so that he ended up right next to Professor Grubbly-Plank.

  ‘Where’s Hagrid?’ he asked her, while everyone else was choosing Bowtruckles.

  ‘Never you mind,’ said Professor Grubbly-Plank repressively, which had been her attitude last time Hagrid had failed to turn up for a class, too. Smirking all over his pointed face, Draco Malfoy leaned across Harry and seized the largest Bowtruckle.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Malfoy in an undertone, so that only Harry could hear him, ‘the stupid great oaf’s got himself badly injured.’

  ‘Maybe you will if you don’t shut up,’ said Harry out of the side of his mouth.

  ‘Maybe he’s been messing with stuff that’s too big for him, if you get my drift.’

  Malfoy walked away, smirking over his shoulder at Harry, who felt suddenly sick. Did Malfoy know something? His father was a Death Eater after all; what if he had information about Hagrid’s fate that had not yet reached the ears of the Order? He hurried back around the table to Ron and Hermione who were squatting on the grass some distance away and attempting to persuade a Bowtruckle to remain still long enough for them to draw it. Harry pulled out parchment and quill, crouched down beside the others and related in a whisper what Malfoy had just said.

  ‘Dumbledore would know if something had happened to Hagrid,’ said Hermione at once. ‘It’s just playing into Malfoy’s hands to look worried; it tells him we don’t know exactly what’s going on. We’ve got to ignore him, Harry. Here, hold the Bowtruckle for a moment, just so I can draw its face …’

  ‘Yes,’ came Malfoy’s clear drawl from the group nearest them, ‘Father was talking to the Minister just a couple of days ago, you know, and it sounds as though the Ministry’s really determined to crack down on sub-standard teaching in this place. So even if that overgrown moron does show up again, he’ll probably be sent packing straightaway.’

  ‘OUCH!’

  Harry had gripped the Bowtruckle so hard that it had almost snapped, and it had just taken a great retaliatory swipe at his hand with its sharp fingers, leaving two long deep cuts there. Harry dropped it. Crabbe and Goyle, who had already been guffawing at the idea of Hagrid being sacked, laughed still harder as the Bowtruckle set off at full tilt towards the Forest, a little moving stick-man soon swallowed up among the tree roots. When the bell echoed distantly over the grounds, Harry rolled up his blood-stained Bowtruckle picture and marched off to Herbology with his hand wrapped in Hermione’s handkerchief, and Malfoy’s derisive laughter still ringing in his ears.

  ‘If he calls Hagrid a moron one more time …’ snarled Harry.

  ‘Harry, don’t go picking a row with Malfoy, don’t forget, he’s a prefect now, he could make life difficult for you …’

  ‘Wow, I wonder what it’d be like to have a difficult life?’ said Harry sarcastically. Ron laughed, but Hermione frowned. Together, they traipsed across the vegetable patch. The sky still appeared unable to make up its mind whether it wanted to rain or not.

  ‘I just wish Hagrid would hurry up and get back, that’s all,’ said Harry in a low voice, as they reached the greenhouses. ‘And don’t say that Grubbly-Plank woman’s a better teacher!’ he added threateningly.

  ‘I wasn’t going to,’ said Hermione calmly.

  ‘Because she’ll never be as good as Hagrid,’ said Harry firmly, fully aware that he had just experienced an exemplary Care of Magical Creatures lesson and was thoroughly annoyed about it.

  The door of the nearest greenhouse opened and some fourth-years spilled out of it, including Ginny.

  ‘Hi,’ she said brightly as she passed. A few seconds later, Luna Lovegood emerged, trailing behind the rest of the class, a smudge of earth on her nose, and her hair tied in a knot on the top of her head. When she saw Harry, her prominent eyes seemed to bulge excitedly and she made a beeline straight for him. Many of his classmates turned curiously to watch. Luna took a great breath and then said, without so much as a preliminary hello, ‘I believe He Who Must Not Be Named is back and I believe you fought him and escaped from him.’

  ‘Er – right,’ said Harry awkwardly. Luna was wearing what looked like a pair of orange radishes for earrings, a fact that Parvati and Lavender seemed to have noticed, as they were both giggling and pointing at her earlobes.

  ‘You can laugh,’ Luna said, her voice rising, apparently under the impression that Parvati and Lavender were laughing at what she had said rather than what she was wearing, ‘but people used to believe there were no such things as the Blibbering Humdinger or the Crumple-Horned Snorkack!’

  ‘Well, they were right, weren’t they?’ said Hermione impatiently. ‘There weren’t any such things as the Blibbering Humdinger or the Crumple-Horned Snorkack.’

  Luna gave her a withering look and flounced away, radishes swinging madly. Parvati and Lavender were not the only ones hooting with laughter now.

  ‘D’you mind not offending the only people who believe me?’ Harry asked Hermione as they made their way into class.

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Harry, you can do better than her,’ said Hermione. ‘Ginny’s told me all about her; apparently, she’ll only believe in things as long as there’s no proof at all. Well, I wouldn’t expect anything else from someone whose father runs The Quibbler.’

  Harry thought of the sinister winged horses he had seen on the night he had arrived and how Luna had said she could see them too. His spirits sank slightly. Had she been lying? But before he could devote much more thought to the matter, Ernie Macmillan had stepped up to him.

  ‘I want you to know, Potter,’ he said in a loud, carrying voice, ‘that it’s not only weirdos who support you. I personally believe you one hundred per cent. My family have always stood firm behind Dumbledore, and so do I.’

  ‘Er – thanks very much, Ernie,’ said Harry, taken aback but pleased. Ernie might be pompous on occasions like this, but Harry was in a mood to deeply appreciate a vote of confidence from somebody who did not have radishes dangling from their ears. Ernie’s words had certainly wiped the smile from Lavender Brown’s face and as he turned to talk to Ron and Hermione, Harry caught Seamus’s expression, which looked both confused and defiant.

  To nobody’s surprise, Professor Sprout started their lesson by lecturing them about the importance of O.W.L.s. Harry wished all the teachers would stop doing this; he was starting to get an anxious, twisted feeling in his stomach every time he remembered how much homework he had to do, a feeling that worsened dramatically when Professor Sprout gave them yet another essay at the end of class. Tired and smelling strongly of dragon dung, Professor Sprout’s preferred type of fertiliser, the Gryffindors trooped back up to the castle, none of them talking very much; it had been another long day.

  As Harry was starving, and he had his first detention with Umbridge at five o’clock, he headed straight for dinner without dropping off his bag in Gryffindor Tower so that he could bolt something down before facing whatever she had in store for him. He had barely reached the entrance of the Great Hall, however, when a loud and angry voice yelled, ‘Oi, Potter!’

  ‘What now?’ he muttered wearily, turning to face Angelina Johnson, who looked as though she was in a towering
temper.

  ‘I’ll tell you what now,’ she said, marching straight up to him and poking him hard in the chest with her finger. ‘How come you’ve landed yourself in detention for five o’clock on Friday?’

  ‘What?’ said Harry. ‘Why … oh yeah, Keeper tryouts!’

  ‘Now he remembers!’ snarled Angelina. ‘Didn’t I tell you I wanted to do a tryout with the whole team, and find someone who fitted in with everyone? Didn’t I tell you I’d booked the Quidditch pitch specially? And now you’ve decided you’re not going to be there!’

  ‘I didn’t decide not to be there!’ said Harry, stung by the injustice of these words. ‘I got detention from that Umbridge woman, just because I told her the truth about You-Know-Who.’

  ‘Well, you can just go straight to her and ask her to let you off on Friday,’ said Angelina fiercely, ‘and I don’t care how you do it. Tell her You-Know-Who’s a figment of your imagination if you like, just make sure you’re there!’

  She stormed away.

  ‘You know what?’ Harry said to Ron and Hermione as they entered the Great Hall. ‘I think we’d better check with Puddlemere United whether Oliver Wood’s been killed during a training session, because Angelina seems to be channelling his spirit.’

  ‘What d’you reckon are the odds of Umbridge letting you off on Friday?’ said Ron sceptically, as they sat down at the Gryffindor table.

  ‘Less than zero,’ said Harry glumly, tipping lamb chops on to his plate and starting to eat. ‘Better try, though, hadn’t I? I’ll offer to do two more detentions or something, I dunno …’ He swallowed a mouthful of potato and added, ‘I hope she doesn’t keep me too long this evening. You realise we’ve got to write three essays, practise Vanishing Spells for McGonagall, work out a counter-charm for Flitwick, finish the Bowtruckle drawing and start that stupid dream diary for Trelawney?’

  Ron moaned and for some reason glanced up at the ceiling.

  ‘And it looks like it’s going to rain.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with our homework?’ said Hermione, her eyebrows raised.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Ron at once, his ears reddening.

  At five to five Harry bade the other two goodbye and set off for Umbridge’s office on the third floor. When he knocked on the door she called, ‘Come in,’ in a sugary voice. He entered cautiously, looking around.

  He had known this office under three of its previous occupants. In the days when Gilderoy Lockhart had lived here it had been plastered in beaming portraits of himself. When Lupin had occupied it, it was likely you would meet some fascinating Dark creature in a cage or tank if you came to call. In the impostor Moody’s days it had been packed with various instruments and artefacts for the detection of wrongdoing and concealment.

  Now, however, it looked totally unrecognisable. The surfaces had all been draped in lacy covers and cloths. There were several vases full of dried flowers, each one residing on its own doily, and on one of the walls was a collection of ornamental plates, each decorated with a large technicoloured kitten wearing a different bow around its neck. These were so foul that Harry stared at them, transfixed, until Professor Umbridge spoke again.

  ‘Good evening, Mr Potter.’

  Harry started and looked around. He had not noticed her at first because she was wearing a luridly flowered set of robes that blended only too well with the tablecloth on the desk behind her.

  ‘Evening, Professor Umbridge,’ Harry said stiffly.

  ‘Well, sit down,’ she said, pointing towards a small table draped in lace beside which she had drawn up a straight-backed chair. A piece of blank parchment lay on the table, apparently waiting for him.

  ‘Er,’ said Harry, without moving. ‘Professor Umbridge. Er – before we start, I – I wanted to ask you a … a favour.’

  Her bulging eyes narrowed.

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘Well, I’m … I’m in the Gryffindor Quidditch team. And I was supposed to be at the tryouts for the new Keeper at five o’clock on Friday and I was – was wondering whether I could skip detention that night and do it – do it another night … instead …’

  He knew long before he reached the end of his sentence that it was no good.

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Umbridge, smiling so widely that she looked as though she had just swallowed a particularly juicy fly. ‘Oh, no, no, no. This is your punishment for spreading evil, nasty, attention-seeking stories, Mr Potter, and punishments certainly cannot be adjusted to suit the guilty one’s convenience. No, you will come here at five o’clock tomorrow, and the next day, and on Friday too, and you will do your detentions as planned. I think it rather a good thing that you are missing something you really want to do. It ought to reinforce the lesson I am trying to teach you.’

  Harry felt the blood surge to his head and heard a thumping noise in his ears. So he told ‘evil, nasty, attention-seeking stories’, did he?

  She was watching him with her head slightly to one side, still smiling widely, as though she knew exactly what he was thinking and was waiting to see whether he would start shouting again. With a massive effort, Harry looked away from her, dropped his schoolbag beside the straight-backed chair and sat down.

  ‘There,’ said Umbridge sweetly, ‘we’re getting better at controlling our temper already, aren’t we? Now, you are going to be doing some lines for me, Mr Potter. No, not with your quill,’ she added, as Harry bent down to open his bag. ‘You’re going to be using a rather special one of mine. Here you are.’

  She handed him a long, thin black quill with an unusually sharp point.

  ‘I want you to write, I must not tell lies,’ she told him softly.

  ‘How many times?’ Harry asked, with a creditable imitation of politeness.

  ‘Oh, as long as it takes for the message to sink in,’ said Umbridge sweetly. ‘Off you go.’

  She moved over to her desk, sat down and bent over a stack of parchment that looked like essays for marking. Harry raised the sharp black quill, then realised what was missing.

  ‘You haven’t given me any ink,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, you won’t need ink,’ said Professor Umbridge, with the merest suggestion of a laugh in her voice.

  Harry placed the point of the quill on the paper and wrote: I must not tell lies.

  He let out a gasp of pain. The words had appeared on the parchment in what appeared to be shining red ink. At the same time, the words had appeared on the back of Harry’s right hand, cut into his skin as though traced there by a scalpel – yet even as he stared at the shining cut, the skin healed over again, leaving the place where it had been slightly redder than before but quite smooth.

  Harry looked round at Umbridge. She was watching him, her wide, toadlike mouth stretched in a smile.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Harry quietly.

  He looked back at the parchment, placed the quill on it once more, wrote I must not tell lies, and felt the searing pain on the back of his hand for a second time; once again, the words had been cut into his skin; once again, they healed over seconds later.

  And on it went. Again and again Harry wrote the words on the parchment in what he soon came to realise was not ink, but his own blood. And, again and again, the words were cut into the back of his hand, healed, and reappeared the next time he set quill to parchment.

  Darkness fell outside Umbridge’s window. Harry did not ask when he would be allowed to stop. He did not even check his watch. He knew she was watching him for signs of weakness and he was not going to show any, not even if he had to sit there all night, cutting open his own hand with this quill …

  ‘Come here,’ she said, after what seemed hours.

  He stood up. His hand was stinging painfully. When he looked down at it he saw that the cut had healed, but that the skin there was red raw.

  ‘Hand,’ she said.

  He extended it. She took it in her own. Harry repressed a shudder as she touched him with her thick, stubby fingers on which she wore a number
of ugly old rings.

  ‘Tut, tut, I don’t seem to have made much of an impression yet,’ she said, smiling. ‘Well, we’ll just have to try again tomorrow evening, won’t we? You may go.’

  Harry left her office without a word. The school was quite deserted; it was surely past midnight. He walked slowly up the corridor, then, when he had turned the corner and was sure she would not hear him, broke into a run.

  *

  He had not had time to practise Vanishing Spells, had not written a single dream in his dream diary and had not finished the drawing of the Bowtruckle, nor had he written his essays. He skipped breakfast next morning to scribble down a couple of made-up dreams for Divination, their first lesson, and was surprised to find a dishevelled Ron keeping him company.

  ‘How come you didn’t do it last night?’ Harry asked, as Ron stared wildly around the common room for inspiration. Ron, who had been fast asleep when Harry got back to the dormitory, muttered something about ‘doing other stuff’, bent low over his parchment and scrawled a few words.

  ‘That’ll have to do,’ he said, slamming the diary shut. ‘I’ve said I dreamed I was buying a new pair of shoes, she can’t make anything weird out of that, can she?’

  They hurried off to North Tower together.

  ‘How was detention with Umbridge, anyway? What did she make you do?’

  Harry hesitated for a fraction of a second, then said, ‘Lines.’

  ‘That’s not too bad, then, eh?’ said Ron.

  ‘Nope,’ said Harry.

  ‘Hey – I forgot – did she let you off for Friday?’

  ‘No,’ said Harry.

  Ron groaned sympathetically.

  It was another bad day for Harry; he was one of the worst in Transfiguration, not having practised Vanishing Spells at all. He had to give up his lunch hour to complete the picture of the Bowtruckle and, meanwhile, Professors McGonagall, Grubbly-Plank and Sinistra gave them yet more homework, which he had no prospect of finishing that evening because of his second detention with Umbridge. To cap it all, Angelina Johnson tracked him down at dinner again and, on learning that he would not be able to attend Friday’s Keeper tryouts, told him she was not at all impressed by his attitude and that she expected players who wished to remain on the team to put training before their other commitments.