Malfoy glanced around - Harry knew he was checking for signs of teachers - then he looked back at Harry and said in a low voice, 'You're dead, Potter.'

Harry raised his eyebrows.

Funny' he said, 'you'd think I'd have stopped walking around:'

Malfoy looked angrier than Harry had ever seen him; he felt a kind of detached satisfaction at the sight of his pale, pointed face contorted with rage.

'You're going to pay,' said Malfoy in a voice barely louder than a whisper. 'I'm going to make you pay for what you've done to my father:'

'Well, I'm terrified now,' said Harry sarcastically. 'I's'pose Lord Voldemort's just a warm-up act compared to you three - what's the matter?' he added, for Malfoy Crabbe and Goyle had all looked stricken at the sound of the name. 'He's a mate of your dad, isn't he? Not scared of him, are you?'

'You think you're such a big man, Potter,' said Malfoy, advancing now, Crabbe and Goyle flanking him. 'You wait. I'll have you. You can't land my father in prison - '

'I thought I just had,' said Harry.

'The Dementors have left Azkaban,' said Malfoy quietly. 'Dad and the others'll be out in no time:'

'Yeah, I expect they will,' said Harry 'Still, at least everyone knows what scumbags they are now – '

Malfoy's hand flew towards his wand, but Harry was too quick for him; he had drawn his own wand before Malfoy's fingers had even entered the pocket of his robes.

'Potter!'

The voice rang across the Entrance Hall. Snape had emerged from the staircase leading down to his office and at the sight of him Harry felt a great rush of hatred beyond anything he felt towards Malfoy: whatever Dumbledore said, he would never forgive Snape: never:

'What are you doing, Potter?' said Snape, as coldly as ever, as he strode over to the four of them.

'I'm trying to decide what curse to use on Malfoy, sir,' said Harry fiercely.

Snape stared at him.

'Put that wand away at once,' he said curtly. 'Ten points from Gryff-'

Snape looked towards the giant hour-glasses on the walls and gave a sneering smile.

'Ah. I see there are no longer any points left in the Gryffindor hour-glass to take away. In that case, Potter, we will simply have to -

'Add some more?'

Professor McGonagall had just stumped up the stone steps into the castle; she was carrying a tartan carpetbag in one hand and leaning heavily on a walking stick with her other, but otherwise looked quite well.

'Professor McGonagall!' said Snape, striding forwards. 'Out of St Mungo's, I see!'

'Yes, Professor Snape,' said Professor McGonagall, shrugging off her travelling cloak, 'I'm quite as good as new. You two - Crabbe - Goyle – '

She beckoned them forwards imperiously and they came, shuffling their large feet and looking awkward.

'Here,' said Professor McGonagall, thrusting her carpetbag into Crabbe's chest and her cloak into Goyle's; 'take these up to my office for me.'

They turned and stumped away up the marble staircase.

'Right then,' said Professor McGonagall, looking up at the hourglasses on the wall. 'Well, I think Potter and his friends ought to have fifty points apiece for alerting the world to the return of You-Know-Who! What say you, Professor Snape?'

What?' snapped Snape, though Harry knew he had heard perfectly well. 'Oh - well - I suppose:'

'So that's fifty each for Potter, the two Weasleys, Longbottom and Miss Granger,' said Professor McGonagall, and a shower of rubies fell down into the bottom bulb of Gryffindor's hour-glass as she spoke. 'Oh - and fifty for Miss Lovegood, I suppose,' she added, and a number of sapphires fell into Ravenclaw's glass. 'Now, you wanted to take ten from Mr Potter, I think, Professor Snape - so there we are:'

A few rubies retreated into the upper bulb, leaving a respectable amount below nevertheless.

'Well, Potter, Malfoy I think you ought to be outside on a glorious day like this,' Professor McGonagall continued briskly.

Harry did not need telling twice- he thrust his wand back inside his robes and headed straight for the front doors without another glance at Snape and Malfoy.

The hot sun hit him with a blast as he walked across the lawns towards Hagrid's cabin. Students lying around on the grass sunbathing, talking, reading the Sunday Prophet and eating sweets, looked up at him as he passed; some called out to him, or else waved, clearly eager to show that they, like the Prophet, had decided he was something of a hero. Harry said nothing to any of them. He had no idea how much they knew of what had happened three days ago, but he had so far avoided being questioned and preferred to keep it that way.

He thought at first when he knocked on Hagrid's cabin door that he was out, but then Fang came charging around the corner and almost bowled him over with the enthusiasm of his welcome. Hagrid, it transpired, was picking runner beans in his back garden.

'All righ', Harry!' he said, beaming, when Harry approached the fence. 'Come in, come in, we'll have a cup o' dandelion juice:

'How's things?' Hagrid asked him, as they settled down at his wooden table with a glass apiece of iced juice. 'Yeh - er - feelin' all righ', are yeh?'

Harry knew from the look of concern on Hagrid's face that he was not referring to Harry's physical well-being.

'I'm fine,' Harry said quickly, because he could not bear to discuss the thing that he knew was in Hagrid's mind. 'So, where're you been?'

'Bin hidin' out in the mountains,' said Hagrid. 'Up in a cave, like Sirius did when he – '

Hagrid broke off, cleared his throat gruffly, looked at Harry, and took a long draught of juice.

'Anyway, back now,' he said feebly.

'You -you look better,' said Harry, who was determined to keep the conversation moving away from Sirius.

'Wha'?' said Hagrid, raising a massive hand and feeling his face. 'Oh - oh yeah. Well, Grawpy's loads better behaved now, loads. Seemed right pleased ter see me when I got back, ter tell yeh the

truth. He's a good lad, really: I've bin thinkin' abou' tryin' ter find him a lady friend, actually:'

Harry would normally have tried to persuade Hagrid out of this idea at once; the prospect of a second giant taking up residence in the Forest, possibly even wilder and more brutal than Grawp, was positively alarming, but somehow Harry could not muster the energy necessary to argue the point. He was starting to wish he was alone again, and with the idea of hastening his departure he took several large gulps of his dandelion juice, half-emptying his glass.

'Ev'ryone knows yeh've bin tellin' the truth now, Harry,' said Hagrid softly and unexpectedly. He was watching Harry closely. 'Tha's gotta be better, hasn' it?'

Harry shrugged.

'Look:' Hagrid leaned towards him across the table, 'I knew Sirius longer 'n yeh did: he died in battle, an' tha's the way he'd've wanted ter go – '

'He didn't want to go at all!' said Harry angrily.

Hagrid bowed his great shaggy head:

'Nah, I don' reckon he did,' he said quietly. 'But still, Harry: he was never one ter sit aroun' at home an' let other people do the fightin'. He couldn've lived with himself if he hadn' gone ter help – '

Harry leapt up.

'I've got to go and visit Ron and Hermione in the hospital wing,' he said mechanically.

'Oh,' said Hagrid, looking rather upset. 'Oh: all righ' then, Harry: take care o' yerself then, an' drop back in if yeh've got a

'Yeah: right:'

Harry crossed to the door as fast as he could and pulled it open; he was out in the sunshine again before Hagrid had finished saying goodbye, and walking away across the lawn. Once again, people called out to him as he passed. He closed his eyes for a few moments, wishing they would all vanish, that he could open his eyes and find himself alone in the grounds:

A few days ago, before his exams had finished and he had seen the vision Voldemort had planted in his mind, he would have given almost anything for the wizarding world to know he had been telling the truth, for them to believe that Voldemort was back, and to know that he was neither a liar nor mad. Now, however:

He walked a short way around the lake, sat down on its bank, sheltered from the gaze of passers-by behind a tangle of shrubs, and stared out over the gleaming water, thinking:

Perhaps the reason he wanted to be alone was because he had felt isolated from everybody since his talk with Dumbledore. An invisible barrier separated him from the rest of the world. He was - he had always been - a marked man. It was just that he had never really understood what that meant:

And yet sitting here on the edge of the lake, with the terrible weight of grief dragging at him, with the loss of Sirius so raw and fresh inside, he could not muster any great sense of fear. It was sunny, and the grounds around him were full of laughing people, and even though he felt as distant from them as though he belonged to a different race, it was still very hard to believe as he sat here that his life must include, or end in, murder:

He sat there for a long time, gazing out at the water, trying not to think about his godfather or to remember that it was directly across from here, on the opposite bank, that Sirius had once collapsed trying to fend off a hundred Dementors:

The sun had set before he realised he was cold. He got up and returned to the castle, wiping his face on his sleeve as he went.

Ron and Hermione left the hospital wing completely cured three days before the end of term. Hermione kept showing signs of wanting to talk about Sirius, but Ron tended to make 'hushing noises every time she mentioned his name. Harry was still not sure whether or not he wanted to talk about his godfather yet; his wishes varied with his mood. He knew one thing, though: unhappy as he felt at the moment, he would greatly miss Hogwarts in a few days' time when he was back at number four, Privet Drive. Even though he now understood exactly why he had to return there every summer, he did not feel any better about it. Indeed, he had never dreaded his return more.

Professor Umbridge left Hogwarts the day before the end of term. It seemed she had crept out of the hospital wing during dinnertime, evidently hoping to depart undetected, but unfortunately for her, she met Peeves on the way, who seized his last chance to do as Fred had instructed, and chased her gleefully from the premises whacking her alternately with a walking stick and a sock full of chalk. Many students ran out into the Entrance Hall to watch her running away down the path and the Heads of Houses tried only half-heartedly to restrain them. Indeed, Professor McGonagall sank back into her chair at the staff table after a few feeble remonstrances and was clearly heard to express a regret that she could not run cheering after Umbridge herself, because Peeves had borrowed her walking stick.

Their last evening at school arrived; most people had finished packing and were already heading down to the end-of-term leaving feast, but Harry had not even started.

'Just do it tomorrow!' said Ron, who was waiting by the door of their dormitory. 'Come on, I'm starving.'

'I won't be long: look, you go ahead:'

But when the dormitory door closed behind Ron, Harry made no effort to speed up his packing. The very last thing he wanted to do was to attend the Leaving Feast. He was worried that Dumbledore would make some reference to him in his speech. He was sure to mention Voldemort's return; he had talked to them about it last year, after all:

Harry pulled some crumpled robes out of the very bottom of his trunk to make way for folded ones and, as he did so, noticed a badly wrapped package lying in a corner of it. He could not think what it was doing there. He bent down, pulled it out from underneath his trainers and examined it.

He realised what it was within seconds. Sirius had given it to him just inside the front door of number twelve Grimmauld Place. 'Use it if you need me, all right?'

Harry sank down on to his bed and unwrapped the package. Out fell a small, square mirror. It looked old; it was certainly dirty. Harry held it up to his face and saw his own reflection looking back at him

He turned the mirror over. There on the reverse side was a scribbled note from Sirius.

This is a two-way mirror, I've got the other one of the pair. If you need to speak to me, just say my name into it; you'll appear in my mirror and I'll be able to talk in yours. James and I used to use them when we were in separate detentions.

Harry's heart began to race. He remembered seeing his dead parents in the Mirror of Erised four years ago. He was going to be able to talk to Sirius again, right now, he knew it -

He looked around to make sure there was nobody else there; the dormitory was quite empty. He looked back at the mirror, raised it in front of his face with trembling hands and said, loudly and clearly, 'Sirius.'

His breath misted the surface of the glass. He held the mirror even closer, excitement flooding through him, but the eyes blinking back at him through the fog were definitely his own.

He wiped the mirror clear again and said, so that every syllable rang clearly through the room:

'Sirius Black!'

Nothing happened. The frustrated face looking back out of the mirror was still, definitely, his own:

Title: Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix
Author: J.K.Rîwling
Viewed 430485 times

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