The minutes stretched into what might as well have been years. The slightest breath of wind made them all jump and turn toward the whispering bush or tree in the hope that one of the missing Order me
m bers might leap u n
scathed from its leaves Ц
And then a broom materialized directly above them and streaked toward the ground Ц
"It's them!" screamed Hermione.
Tonks landed in a long skid that sent earth and pebbles everywhere.
"Remus!" Tonks cried as she staggered off the broom into Lupin's arms. His face was set and white: He seemed unable to speak, Ron tripped dazedly t o
ward Harry and Hermione.
"You're okay," he mumbled, before Hermione flew at him and hugged him tightly.
"I thought Ц I thought Ц "
"'M all right," said Ron, patting her on the back. "'M fine."
"Ron was great," said Tonks warmly, relinquis h
ing her hold on Lupin. "Wonderful. Stunned one of the Death Eaters, straight to the head, and when you're aiming at a moving target from a fl y
ing broom Ц "
"You did?" said Hermione, gazing up at Ron with her arms still around his neck.
"Always the tone of surprise," he said a little grumpily, breaking free. "Are we the last back?"
"No," said Ginny, "we're still waiting for Bill and Fleur and Mad-Eye and Mundu n
gus. I'm going to tell Mum and Dad you're okay, Ron Ц "
She ran back inside.
"So what kept you? What happened?" Lupin sounded almost angry at Tonks.
"Bellatrix," said Tonks. "She wants me quite as much as she wants Harry, Remus, She tried very hard to kill me. I just wish I'd got her, I owe Bellatrix. But we definitely i n
jured Rodolphus . . . . Then we got to Ron's Auntie Muriel's and we missed our Por t
key and she was fussing over us Ц "
A muscle was jumping in Lupin's jaw. He no d ded, but seemed unable to say an
y thing else.
"So what happened to you lot?" Tonks asked, turning to Harry, Hermione, and Kingsley.
They recounted the stories of their own jou r neys, but all the time the continued absence of Bill, Fleur,
Mad-Eye, and Mundungus seemed to lie upon them like a frost, its icy bite harder and harder to i g nore.
"I'm going to have to get back to Dow n
ing Street, I should have been there an hour ago," said Kingsley finally, after a last sweeping gaze at the sky. "Let me know when they're back,."
Lupin nodded. With a wave to the ot h
ers, Kingsley walked away into the darkness toward the gate. Harry thought he heard the faintest pop
as Kingsley Disapparated just b e yond the Burrow's boundaries.
Mr. And Mrs. Weasley came racing down the back steps, Ginny behind them. Both parents hugged Ron before turning to Lupin and Tonks.
"Thank you," said Mrs. Weasley, "for our sons."
"Don't be silly, Molly," said Tonks at once.
"How's George?" asked Lupin.
"What's wrong with him?" piped up Ron.
"He's lost Ц "
But the end of Mrs. Weasley's sentence was drowned in a general outcry. A thestral had just soared into sight and landed a few feet from them. Bill and Fleur slid from its back, windswept but u
n hurt.
"Bill! Thank God, thank God Ц "
Mrs. Weasley ran forward, but the hug Bill b e stowed upon her was perfunctory. Looking d
i rectly at his father, he said, "Mad-Eye's dead."
Nobody spoke, nobody moved. Harry felt as though something inside him was falling, fa l
ling through the earth, leaving him forever.
"We saw it," said Bill; Fleur nodded, tear tracks glittering on her cheeks in the light from the kitchen window. "It happened just after we broke out of the circle: Mad-Eye and Dung were close by us, they were heading north too. Voldemort Ц h
e can fly Ц went straight for them. Dung pa n
icked, I heard him cry out, Mad-Eye tried to stop him, but he Disapp a rated. Vold
e mort's curse hit Mad-Eye full in the face, he fell backward off his broom and Ц there was not
h ing we could do, not h
ing, we had half a dozen of them on our own tail Ц "
Bill's voice broke.
"Of course you couldn't have done an y thing," said Lupin.
They all stood looking at each other. Harry could not quite comprehend it. Mad-Eye dead; it could not be . . . . Mad-Eye, so tough, so brave, the consummate survivor . . .
At last it seemed to dawn on everyone, though nobody said it, that there was no point of waiting in the yard anymore, and in silence they followed Mr. And Mrs. Weasley back into the Burrow, and into the living room, where Fred and George were laughing t
o gether.
"What's wrong?" said Fred, scanning their faces as they entered, "What's happened? Who's --?"
"Mad-Eye," said Mr. Weasley, "Dead."
The twins' grins turned to grimaces of shock. N o body seemed to know what to do. Tonks was cr
y ing silently into a handkerchief: She had been close to Mad-Eye, Harry knew, his favorite and his protйgй
e at the Ministry of Magic. Hagrid, who had sat down on the floor in the corner where he had most space, was dabbing at his eyes with his tablecloth-sized handkerchief.
Bill walked over to the sideboard and pulled out a bottle of fire-whisky and some glasses.
"Here," he said, and with a wave of his wand, eh sent twelve full glasses soaring through the room to each of them, holding the thirteenth aloft. "Mad-Eye."
"Mad-Eye," they all said, and drank.
"Mad-Eye," echoed Hagrid, a little late, with a hiccup. The firewhisky seared Harry's throat. It seemed to burn feeling back into him, dispelling the numbness and sense of unreality firing him with something that was like courage.
"So Mundungus disappeared?" said Lupin, who had drained his own glass in one.
The atmosphere changed at once. Everybody looked tense, watching Lupin, both wanting him to go on, it seemed to Harry, and slightly afraid of what they might hear.
"I know what you're thinking," said Bill, "and I wondered that too, on the way back here, because they seemed to be expecting us, didn't they? But Mundu n
gus can't have betrayed us. They didn't know there would be seven Harrys, that confused them the
m o ment we appeared,
and in case you've forgotten, it was Mundungus who suggested that little bit of skul l
duggery. Why wouldn't he have told them the esse n tial point? I think Dung pa
n icked, it's as simple as that. He didn't want to come in the first place, but Mad-Eye made him
, and You-Know-Who went straight for them. It was enough to make anyone panic."
"You-Know-Who acted exactly as Mad-Eye e x
pected him to," sniffed Tonks. "Mad-Eye said he'd expect the real Harry to be with the toughest, most skilled Aurors. He chased Mad-Eye first, and when Mundungus gave them away he switched to Kingsley. . . . "
"Yes, and zat eez all very good," snapped Fleur, "but still eet does not explain 'ow zey know we were moving 'Arry tonight, does eet? Somebody must 'ave been careless. Somebody let slip ze date to an ou
t sider. It is ze only explanation for zem knowing ze date but not ze 'ole plan."
She glared around at them all, tear tracks still etched on her beautiful face, s i
lently daring any of them to contradict her. Nobody did. The only sound to break the s i
lence was that of Hagrid hiccupping from behind his handkerchief. Harry glanced at Hagrid, who had just risked his own life to save Harry's Ц Hagrid, whom he loved, whom he trusted, who had once been tricked into giving Voldemort crucial i
n formation in e x
change for a dragon's egg. . . .
"No," Harry said aloud, and they all looked at him, surprised: The firewhisky seemed to have ampl i
fied his voice. "I mean . . . if somebody made a mi s take," Harry went on, "and let som
e thing slip, I know they didn't mean to do it. It's not their fault," he r
e
peated, again a little louder than he would usually have spoken. "We've got to trust each other. I trust all of you, I don't think anyone in this room would ever sell me to Voldemort."
More silence followed his words. They were all looking at him; Harry felt a li t
tle hot again, and drank some more firewhisky for something to do. As he drank, he thought of Mad-Eye. Mad-Eye had a l
ways been scat h
ing about Dumbledore's willingness to trust people.
"Well said, Harry," said Fred unexpec t edly.
"Year, 'ear, 'ear," said George, with half a glance at Fred, the corner of whose mouth twitched.
Lupin was wearing an odd expression as he looked at Harry. It was close to pitying.
"You think I'm a fool?" demanded Harry.
"No, I think you're like James," said Lupin, "who would have regarded it as the height of dishonor to mistrust his friends."
Harry knew what Lupin was getting at: that his father had been betrayed by his friend Peter Pettigrew. He felt irrationally angry. He wan
ted to argue, but Lupin had turned away from him, set down his glass upon a side table, and addressed Bill, "There's work to do. I can ask Kingsley whether Ц "
"No," said Bill at once, "I'll do it, I'll come."
"Where are you going?" said Tonks and Fleur t o gether.
"Mad-Eye's body," said Lupin. "We need to r e cover it."
"Can't it -- ?" began Mrs. Weasley with an a p pealing look at Bill.
"Wait?" said Bill, "Not unless you'd rather the Death Eaters took it?"
Nobody spoke. Lupin and Bill said good bye and left.
The rest of them now dropped into chairs, all e x cept for Harry, who remained standing. The sudde
n ness and completeness of death was with them like a presence.
"I've got to go too," said Harry.
Ten pairs of startled eyes looked at him.
"Don't be silly, Harry," said Mrs. Weasley, "What are you talking about?"
"I can't stay here."
He rubbed his forehead; it was pric k ling again, he had not hurt like this for more than a year.
"You're all in danger while I'm here. I don't want Ц "
"But don't be so silly!" said Mrs.
Weasley. "The whole point of tonight was to get you here safely, and thank goodness it worked. And Fleur's agreed to get married here rather than in France, we've arranged everything so that we can all stay together and look after you Ц "
She did not understand; she was making him feel worse, not better.
"If Voldemort finds out I'm here Ц "
"But why should he?" asked Mrs. Weasley.
"There are a dozen places you might be now, Harry," said Mr. Weasley. "He's got no way of kno w
ing which safe house you're in."
"It's not me I'm worried for!" said Harry.
"We know that," said Mr. Weasley qu i etly, but it would make our efforts tonight seem rather poin
t less if you left."
"Yer not goin' anywhere," growled Hagrid. "Bl i mey, Harry, after all we wen' through ter get you here?"
"Yeah, what about my bleeding ear?" said George, hoisting himself up on his cus h ions.
"I know that Ц "
"Mad-Eye wouldn't want Ц "
"I KNOW!" Harry bellowed.
He felt beleaguered and blackmailed: Did they think he did not know what they had done for him, did
n't they understand that it was for precisely that reason that he wanted to go now, before they had to suffer any more on his behalf? There was a long and awkward silence in which his scar continued to prickle and throb, and which was broken at last by Mr
s. Weasley.
"Where's Hedwig, Harry?" she said coaxingly. "We can put her up with Pidwidgeon and give her something to eat."
His insides clenched like a fist. He could not tell her the truth. He drank the last of his fir e
whisky to avoid answering.
"Wait till it gets out yeh did it again, Harry," said Hagrid. "Escaped him, fought him off when he was right on top of yeh!"
"It wasn't me," said Harry flatly. "It was my wand. My wand acted of its own a c cord."
After a few moments, Hermione said gently, "But that's impossible, Harry. You mean that you did magic without meaning to; you r e
acted instinctively."
"No," said Harry. "The bike was falling, I coul d n't have told you where Vold
e mort was, but my wand spun in my hand and found him and shot a spell at him, and it wa
s n't even a spell I recognized. I've never made gold flames a
p pear before."
"Often," said Mr. Weasley, "when you're in a pressured situation you can pr o
duce magic you never dreamed of. Small children often find, before they're trained Ц "
"It wasn't like that," said Harry through gritted teeth. His scar was burning. He felt angry and fru s
trated; he hated the idea that they were all imagining him to have power to match Vold e mort's.
No one said anything. He knew that they did not believe him. Now that he came to think of it, he had never heard of a wand pe r
forming magic on its own before.
His scar seared with pain, it was all he could do not to moan aloud. Muttering about fresh air, he set down his glass and left the room.
As he crossed the yard, the great skeletal thestral looked up Ц rustled its eno r
mous batlike wings, then resumed its grazing. Harry stopped at the gate into the garden, staring out at its overgrown plants, rubbing his pounding forehead and thinking of Du m
bledore.
Dumbledore would have believed him, he knew it. Dumbledore would have known how and why Harry's wand had acted independently, because Du m
bledore always had the a n
swers; he had known about wands, had explained to Harry the strange co n
nection that existed between his wand and Vold e mort's . . . . But Dumbledore, like Mad-Eye, like Si
r
ius, like his parents, like his poor owl, all were gone where Harry could never talk to them again. He felt a burning in his throat that had nothing to do with fir e
whisky. . . .
And then, out of nowhere, the pain in his scar peaked. As he clutched his forehead and closed his eyes, a voice screamed inside his head.
" You told me the problem would be solved by u s
ing another's wand! "
And into his mind burst the vision of an emac i ated old man lying in rags upon a stone floor, screa
m ing, a horrible drawn-out scream, a scream of une
n durable agony. . . .
"No! No! I beg you, I beg you. . . ."
"You lied to Lord Voldemort, Olliva n der!"
"I did not. . . . I swear I did not. . . ."
"You sought to help Potter, to help him escape me!"
"I swear I did not. . . . I believed a different wand would work. . . ."
"Explain, then, what happened. Lucius's wand is destroyed!"
"I cannot understand. . . . The connection . . . e x ists only . . between your two wands. . . ."
" Lies! "
"Please . . . I beg you. . . ."
And Harry saw the white hand raise its wand and felt Voldemort's surge of vicious a n
ger, saw the frail old main on the floor writhe in agony Ц
"Harry?"
It was over as quickly as it had come: Harry stood shaking in the darkness, clutching the gate into the garden, his heart racing, his scar still tingling. It was several moments before he rea
l ized that Ron and Hermione were at his side.
"Harry, come back in the house," Hermione whispered, "You aren't still thinking of lea v ing?"
"Yeah, you've got to stay, mate," said Ron, thumping Harry on the back.
"Are you all right?" Hermione asked, close enough now to look into Harry's face. "You look a w
ful!"
"Well," said Harry shakily, "I probably look be t ter than Ollivander. . . ."
When he had finished telling them what he had seen, Ron looked appalled, but Hermione dow n right terrified.
"But it was supposed to have stopped! Your scar Ц it wasn't supposed to do this an y
more! You mustn't let that connection open up again Ц Dumbl e dore wanted you to close your mind!"
When he did not reply, she gripped his arm.
"Harry, he's taking over the Ministry and the newspapers and half the Wizarding world! Don't let him inside your head too!"

Chapter Six
The Ghoul in Pajamas
The shock of losing Mad-Eye hung over the house in the days that followed; Harry kept e x
pecting to see him stumping in through the back door like the other Order members, who passed in and out to relay news. Harry felt that nothing but action would a s
suage his feelings of guilt and grief and that he ought to set out on his mission to find and destroy Ho r
cruxes as soon as possible.
“Well, you canТ t do anything about the” Ц Ron mouthed the word Horcruxes Ц “
till youТ re seventeen. YouТ ve still got the Trace on you. And we can plan here as well as anywhere, canТ t we? Or,” he dropped his voice to a whi s
per, “dТ you reckon you already know where the You-Know-Whats are?”
“No,” Harry admitted.
“I think HermioneТ s been doing a bit of r e search,” said Ron. “She said she was sa
v ing it for when you got here.”
They were sitting at the breakfast table; Mr. Weasley and Bill had just left for work. Mrs. Weasley had gone upstairs to wake Hermione and Ginny, while Fleur had drifted off to take a bath.
“The TraceТ ll break on the thirty-first,” said Harry. “That means I only need to stay here four days. Then I can Ц “
“Five days,” Ron corrected him firmly. “WeТ ve got to stay for the wedding. TheyТ ll kill us if we miss it.”
Harry understood “they” to mean Fleur and Mrs. Weasley.
“ItТ s one extra day,” said Ron, when Harry looked mutinous.
“DonТ t they realize how important Ц ?”
“Т Course they donТ t,” said Ron. “They havenТ t got a clue. And now you mention it, I wanted to talk to you about that.”
Ron glanced toward the door into the hall to check that Mrs. Weasley was not retur n
ing yet, then leaned in closer to Harry.
“MumТ s been trying to get it out of Hermione and me. What weТ re off to do. SheТ ll try you next, so brace yourself. Dad and L u
pinТ ve both asked as well, but when we
said Dumbledore told you not to tell anyone except us, they dropped it. Not Mum, though. SheТ s determined.”
RonТ s prediction came true within hours. Shortly before lunch, Mrs. Weasley detached Harry from the others by asking him to help identify a lone manТ s sock that she thought might have come out of hi
s rucksack. Once she had him cornered in the tiny scu l lery off the kitchen, she started.
“Ron and Hermione seem to think that the three of you are dropping out of Ho g warts,”
she began in a light, casual tone.
“Oh,” said Harry. “Well, yeah. We are.”
The mangle turned of its own accord in a co r ner, wringing out what looked like one of Mr. WeasleyТ s vests.

“May I ask why you are abandoning your educ
a tion?” said Mrs. Weasley.
“Well, Dumbledore left me . . . stuff to do,” mumbled Harry. “Ron and Hermione know about it, and they want to come too.”
“What sort of С stuffТ ?”
“IТ m sorry, I canТ t Ц “
“Well, frankly, I think Arthur and I have a right to know, and IТ m sure Mr. And Mrs. Granger would agree!” said Mrs. Weasley. Harry had been afraid of the “co n
cerned parent” attack. He forced himself to look directly into her eyes, noticing as he did so that they were precisely the same shade of brown as GinnyТ s. This did not help.

“Dumbledore didnТ t want anyone else to know, Mrs. Weasley. IТ m sorry. Ron and Hermione donТ t have to come, itТ s their choice Ц “
“I donТ t see that you have to go either!” she snapped, dropping all pretense now. “YouТ
re barely of age, any of you! ItТ s utter nonsense, if Dumbledore needed work doing, he had the whole Order at his command! Harry, you must have misunderstood him. Probably he was telling you something he
wanted done, and you took it to mean that he wanted
you Ц “
“I didnТ t misunderstand,” said Harry flatly. “ItТ s got to be me.”
He handed her back the single sock he was su p posed to be identifying, which was pa
t terned with golden bulrushes.
“And thatТ s not mine. I donТ t support Pu d dlemere United.”
“Oh, of course not,” said Mrs. Weasley with a sudden and rather unnerving return to her casual tone. “I should have rea l
ized. Well, Harry, while weТ ve still got you here, you wonТ t mind helping with the prep a
rations for Bill and FleurТ s wedding, will you? ThereТ s still so much to do.”
“No Ц I Ц of course not,” said Harry, disco n certed by this sudden change of subject.
“Sweet of you,” she replied, and she smiled as she left the scullery.
From that moment on, Mrs. Weasley kept Harry, Ron and Hermione so busy with prepar a
tions for the wedding that they hardly had any time to think. The kindest explanation of this beha v
ior would have been that Mrs. Weasley wanted to distract them all from thoughts of Mad-Eye and the terrors of their recent journey. After two days of nonstop cu t
lery cleaning, of color-matching favors, ribbons, and flo w
ers, of de-gnoming the garden and helping Mrs. Weasley cook vast batches of canapйs, however, Harry started to suspect her of a di
f
ferent motive. All the jobs she handed out seemed to keep him, Ron, and Hermione away from one another; he had not had a chance to speak to the
two of them alone since the first night, when he had told them about Voldemort to r
turing Ollivander.
“I think Mum thinks that if she can stop the three of you getting together and planning, sheТ ll be able to delay you leaving,” Ginny told Harry in an undertone, as they laid the table for dinner on the third night of his stay.
“And then what does she thinkТ s going to ha p pen?” Harry muttered. “
Someone else might kill off Voldemort while sheТ s holding us here making vol-au-vents?”
He had spoken without thinking, and saw GinnyТ s face whiten.
“So itТ s true?” she said. “ThatТ s what youТ re tr y ing to do?”
“I Ц not Ц I was joking,” said Harry ev a sively.
They stared at each other, and there was som e thing more than shock in GinnyТ s expression. Su
d denly Harry became aware that this was the first time that he had been alone with her since those stolen hours in s
e
cluded corners of the Hogwarts grounds. He was sure she was remembering them too. Both of them jumped as the door opened, and Mr. Weasley, Kingsley, and Bill walked in.
They were often joined by other Order members for
dinner now, because the Burrow had replaced number twelve, Grimmauld Place as the headquarters. Mr. Weasley had explained that after the death of Dumbledore, their Secret-Keeper, each of the people to whom Dumbledore had co
n fided Grimmauld PlaceТ s location had become a Secret-Keeper in turn.
“And as there are around twenty of us, that greatly dilutes the power of the Fidelius Charm. Twenty times as many opportunities for the Death Eaters to get the secret out of som e
body. We canТ t expect it to hold much longer.”
“But surely Snape will have told the Death Eaters the address by now?” asked Harry.
“Well, Mad-Eye set up a couple of curses against Snape in case he turns up there again. We hope theyТ ll be strong enough both to keep him out and to bind his tongue if he tries to talk about the place, but we canТ
t be sure. It would have been insane to keep using the place as headquarters now that its protection has b e
come so shaky.”
The kitchen was so crowded that evening it was difficult to maneuver knives and forks. Harry found himself crammed beside Ginny; the unsaid things that had just passed between them made him wish they had been separated by a few more people. He was tr
y ing so hard to avoid brushing her arm he could barely cut his chicken.
“No news about Mad-Eye?” Harry asked Bill.
“Nothing,” replied Bill.
They had not been able to hold a funeral for Moody, because Bill and Lupin had failed to recover his body. It had been diff i
cult to know where he might have fallen, given the darkness and the confusion of the battle.
“The Daily Prophet hasnТ t said a word about him dying or about finding the body,” Bill went on. “
But that doesnТ t mean much. ItТ s keeping a lot quiet these days.”
“And they still havenТ t called a hearing about all the underage magic I used escaping the Death Ea t ers?
” Harry called across the table to Mr. Weasley, who shook his head.
“Because they know I had no choice or because they donТ t want me to tell the world Voldemort a t tacked me?
”
“The latter, I think. Scrimgeour doesnТ t want to admit that You-Know-Who is as powe
r ful as he is, nor that AzkabanТ s seen a mass breakout.”
“Yeah, why tell the public the truth?” said Harry, clenching his knife so tightly that the faint scars on the back of his right hand stood out, white against his skin: I must n
ot tell lies .
“IsnТ t anyone at the Ministry prepared to stand up to him?” asked Ron angrily.
“Of course, Ron, but people are terrified,” Mr. Weasley replied, “terrified that they will be next to disappear, their children the next to be attacked! There are nasty rumors going around; I for one donТ
t believe the Muggle Studies professor at Hogwarts r e signed. She hasnТ
t been seen for weeks now. Meanwhile Scrimgeour remains shut up in his office all day; I just hope heТ s working on a plan.”
There was a pause in which Mrs. Weasley magicked the empty plates onto the work surface and served apple tart.
“We must decide С ow you will be disguised, С Arry,” said Fleur, once everyone had pudding. “For ze wedding,” she added, when he looked confused. “Of course, none of our guests are Death Eaters, but we cannot gua
r antee zat zey will not let something slip after zey С ave С ad champagne.”
From this, Harry gathered that she still su s pected Hagrid.
“Yes, good point,” said Mrs. Weasley from the top of the table where she sat, spect a
cles perched on the end of her nose, sca n
ning an immense list of jobs that she had scribbled on a very long piece of parc h ment. “
Now, Ron, have you cleaned out your room yet?”
“ Why? ” exclaimed Ron, slamming his spoon down and glaring at his mother. “W
hy does my room have to be cleaned out? Harry and I are fine with it the way it is!”
“We are holding your brotherТ s wedding here in a few daysТ time, young man Ц “
“And are they getting married in my bedroom?” asked Ron furiously. “No! So why in the name of MerlinТ s saggy left Ц “
“DonТ t talk to your mother like that,” said Mr. Weasley firmly. “And do as youТ re told.”
Ron scowled at both his parents, then picked up his spoon and attacked the last few mout h fuls of his apple tart.

“I can help, some of itТ s my mess.” Harry told Ron, but Mrs. Weasley cut across him.
“No, Harry, dear, IТ d much rather you helped A r thur much out the chickens, and Hermione, IТ
d be ever so grateful if youТ d change the sheets for Mo n sieur and Madame Delacour; you know theyТ
re arri v ing at eleven tomorrow morning.”
But as it turned out, there was very li t tle to do for the chickens. “ThereТ
s no need to, er, mention it to Molly,” Mr. Weasley told Harry, blocking his access to the coop, “but, er, Ted Tonks sent me most of what was left of SiriusТ s bike and, er, IТ m hiding Ц thatТ s to say, keeping Ц
it in here. Fantastic stuff: ThereТ s an exhaust gaskin, as I believe itТ s called, the most ma g
nificent ba t tery, and itТ ll be a great opportunity to find out how brakes work. IТ
m going to try and put it all back t o gether again when MollyТ s not Ц I mean, when IТ
ve got time.”
When they returned to the house, Mrs. Weasley was nowhere to be seen, so Harry slipped upstairs to RonТ s attic bedroom.
“IТ m doing it, IТ m doing Ц ! Oh, itТ s you,” said Ron in rel
ief, as Harry entered the room. Ron lay back down on the bed, which he had evidently just vacated. The room was just as messy as it had been all week; the only chance was that Hermione was now sitting in the far corner, her fluffy ginger cat, Croo
k shanks, at her feet, sorting books, some of which Harry reco
g nized as his own, into two enormous piles.
“Hi, Harry,” she said, as he sat down on his camp bed.
“And how did you manage to get away?”
“Oh, RonТ s mum forgot that she asked Ginny and me to change the sheets yeste r day,”
said Hermione. She threw Numerology and Grammatica onto one pile and
The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts onto the other.
“We were just talking about Mad-Eye,” Ron told Harry. “I reckon he might have su r vived.”
“But Bill saw him hit by the Killing Curse,” said Harry.
“Yeah, but Bill was under attack too,” said Ron. “How can he be sure what he saw?”
“Even if the Killing Curse missed, Mad-Eye still fell about a thousand feet,” said Hermione, now weight Quidditch Teams of Britain and Ireland
in her hand.
“He could have used a Shield Charm Ц “
“Fleur said his wand was blasted out of his hand,” said Harry.
“Well, all right, if you want him to be dead,”
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