Sirius didn't have his mirror on him when he went through the archway, said a small voice in Harry's head. That's why it's not working:

Harry remained quite still for a moment, then hurled the mirror back into the trunk where it shattered. He had been convinced, for a whole, shining minute, that he was going to see Sirius, talk to him again:

Disappointment was burning in his throat; he got up and began throwing his things pell-mell into the trunk on top of the broken mirror -

But then an idea struck him: a better idea than a mirror: a much bigger, more important idea: how had he never thought of it before - why had he never asked?

He was sprinting out of the dormitory and down the spiral staircase, hitting the walls as he ran and barely noticing; he hurtled across the empty common room, through the portrait hole and off along the corridor, ignoring the Fat Lady, who called after him: 'The feast is about to start, you know, you're cutting it very fine!'

But Harry had no intention of going to the feast:

How could it be that the place was full of ghosts whenever you didn't need one, yet now:

He ran down staircases and along corridors and met nobody either alive or dead. They were all, clearly, in the Great Hall. Outside his Charms classroom he came to a halt, panting and thinking disconsolately that he would have to wait until later, until after the end of the feast:

But just as he had given up hope, he saw it - a translucent somebody drifting across the end of the corridor.

'Hey - hey Nick! NICK!'

The ghost stuck its head back out of the wall, revealing the extravagantly plumed hat and dangerously wobbling head of Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington.

'Good evening,' he said, withdrawing the rest of his body from the solid stone and smiling at Harry 'I am not the only one who is late, then? Though,' he sighed, 'in a rather different sense, of course:

'Nick, can I ask you something?'

A most peculiar expression stole over Nearly Headless Nick's face as he inserted a finger in the stiff ruff at his neck and tugged it a little straighter, apparently to give himself thinking time. He desisted only when his partially severed neck seemed about to give way completely.

'Er - now, Harry?' said Nick, looking discomfited. 'Can't it wait until after the feast?'

'No - Nick - please,' said Harry, 'I really need to talk to you. Can we go in here?'

Harry opened the door of the nearest classroom and Nearly Headless Nick sighed.

'Oh, very well,' he said, looking resigned. 'I can't pretend I haven't been expecting it.'

Harry was holding the door open for him, but he drifted through the wall instead.

'Expecting what?' Harry asked, as he closed the door.

'You to come and find me,' said Nick, now gliding over to the window and looking out at the darkening grounds. 'It happens, sometimes: when somebody has suffered a: loss.'

'Well,' said Harry, refusing to be deflected. 'You were right, I've - I've come to find you.'

Nick said nothing.

'It's -'said Harry, who was finding this more awkward than he had anticipated, 'it's just - you're dead. But you're still here, aren't you?'

Nick sighed and continued to gaze out at the grounds.

'That's right, isn't it?' Harry urged him. 'You died, but I'm talking to you: you can walk around Hogwarts and everything, can't you?'

'Yes,' said Nearly Headless Nick quietly, 'I walk and talk, yes.'

'So, you came back, didn't you?' said Harry urgently. 'People can come back, right? As ghosts. They don't have to disappear completely. Well?' he added impatiently, when Nick continued to say nothing.

Nearly Headless Nick hesitated, then said, 'Not everyone can come back as a ghost.'

'What d'you mean?' said Harry quickly

'Only: only wizards.'

'Oh,' said Harry, and he almost laughed with relief. 'Well, that's OK then, the person I'm asking about is a wizard. So he can come back, right?'

Nick turned away from the window and looked mournfully at Harry.

'He won't come back.'

'Who?'

'Sinus Black,' said Nick.

'But you did!' said Harry angrily. 'You came back -you're dead and you didn't disappear -'

'Wizards can leave an imprint of themselves upon the earth, to walk palely where their living selves once trod,' said Nick miserably. 'But very few wizards choose that path.'

'Why not?' said Harry. 'Anyway - it doesn't matter - Sirius won't care if it's unusual, he'll come back, I know he will!'

And so strong was his belief, Harry actually turned his head to check the door, sure, for a split second, that he was going to see Sirius, pearly-white and transparent but beaming, walking through it towards him.

'He will not come back,' repeated Nick. 'He will have: gone on.'

'What d'you mean, "gone on"?' said Harry quickly 'Gone on where? Listen - what happens when you die, anyway? Where do you go? Why doesn't everyone come back? Why isn't this place full of ghosts? Why -?T

'I cannot answer,' said Nick.

'You're dead, aren't you?' said Harry exasperatedly. 'Who can answer better than you?'

'I was afraid of death,' said Nick softly. 'I chose to remain behind. I sometimes wonder whether I oughtn't to have: well, that is neither here nor there: in fact, I am neither here nor there:' He gave a small sad chuckle. 'I know nothing of the secrets of death, Harry, for I chose my feeble imitation of life W stead. I believe learned wizards study the matter in the Department of Mysteries -'

'Don't talk to me about that place!' said Harry fiercely.

'I am sorry not to have been more help,' said Nick gently 'Well: well, do excuse me: the feast, you know:'

And he left the room, leaving Harry there alone, gazing blankly at the wall through which Nick had disappeared.

Harry felt almost as though he had lost his godfather all over again in losing the hope that he might be able to see or speak to him once more. He walked slowly and miserably back up through the empty castle, wondering whether he would ever feel cheerful again.

He had turned the corner towards the Fat Lady's corridor when he saw somebody up ahead fastening a note to a board on the wall. A second glance showed him it was Luna. There were no good hiding places nearby, she was bound to have heard his footsteps, and in any case, Harry could hardly muster the energy to avoid anyone at the moment.

'Hello,' said Luna vaguely, glancing around at him as she stepped back from the notice.

'How come you're not at the feast?' Harry asked.

'Well, I've lost most of my possessions,' said Luna serenely. 'People take them and hide them, you know. But as it's the last night, I really do need them back, so I've been putting up signs.'

She gestured towards the noticeboard, upon which, sure enough, she had pinned a list of all her missing books and clothes, with a plea for their return.

An odd feeling rose in Harry; an emotion quite different from the anger and grief that had filled him since Sirius's death. It was a few moments before he realised that he was feeling sorry for Luna.

'How come people hide your stuff?' he asked her, frowning.

'Oh: well:' she shrugged. 'I think they think I'm a bit odd, you know. Some people call me "Loony" Lovegood, actually.'

Harry looked at her and the new feeling of pity intensified rather painfully.

'That's no reason for them to take your things,' he said flatly. D'you want help finding them?'

'Oh, no,' she said, smiling at him. 'They'll come back, they always do in the end. It was just that I wanted to pack tonight. Anyway: why aren't you at the feast?'

Harry shrugged. 'Just didn't feel like it.'

'No,' said Luna, observing him with those oddly misty, protuberant eyes. 'I don't suppose you do. That man the Death Eaters killed was your godfather, wasn't he? Ginny told me.'

Harry nodded curtly, but found that for some reason he did not mind Luna talking about Sirius. He had just remembered that she, too, could see Thestrals.

'Have you:' he began. 'I mean, who: has anyone you known ever died?'

'Yes,' said Luna simply, 'my mother. She was a quite extraordinary witch, you know, but she did like to experiment and one of her spells went rather badly wrong one day. I was nine.'

'I'm sorry' Harry mumbled.

'Yes, it was rather horrible,' said Luna conversationally. 'I still feel very sad about it sometimes. But I've still got Dad. And anyway, it's not as though I'll never see Mum again, is it?'

'Er - isn't it?' said Harry uncertainly.

She shook her head in disbelief.

'Oh, come on. You heard them, just behind the veil, didn't you?'

'You mean:'

'In that room with the archway. They were just lurking out of sight, that's all. You heard them.'

They looked at each other. Luna was smiling slightly. Harry did not know what to say, or to think; Luna believed so many extraordinary things: yet he had been sure he had heard voices behind the veil, too.

'Are you sure you don't want me to help you look for your stuff?' he said.

'Oh, no,' said Luna. 'No, I think I'll just go down and have some pudding and wait for it all to turn up: it always does in the end: well, have a nice holiday Harry'

'Yeah: yeah, you too.'

She walked away from him and, as he watched her go, he found that the terrible weight in his stomach- seemed to have lessened slightly.

The journey home on the Hogwarts Express next day was eventful in several ways. Firstly Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle, who had clearly been waiting all week for the opportunity to strike without teacher witnesses, attempted to ambush Harry halfway down the train as he made his way back from the toilet. The attack might have succeeded had it not been for the fact that they unwittingly chose to stage the attack right outside a compartment full of DA members, who saw what was happening through the glass and rose as one to rush to Harry's aid. By the time Ernie Macmillan, Hannah Abbott, Susan Bones, Justin Finch-Fletchley Anthony Goldstein and Terry Boot had finished using a wide variety of the hexes and jinxes Harry had taught them, Malfoy Crabbe and Goyle resembled nothing so much as three gigantic slugs squeezed into Hogwarts uniform as Harry, Ernie and Justin hoisted them into the luggage rack and left them there to ooze.

'I must say, I'm looking forward to seeing Malfoy's mother's face when he gets off the train,' said Ernie, with some satisfaction, as he watched Malfoy squirm above him. Ernie had never quite got over the indignity of Malfoy docking points from Hufflepuff during his brief spell as a member of the Inquisitorial Squad.

'Goyle's mum'll be really pleased, though,' said Ron, who had come to investigate the source of the commotion. 'He's loads better looking now: anyway, Harry, the food trolley's just stopped if you want anything:'

Harry thanked the others and accompanied Ron back to their compartment, where he bought a large pile of cauldron cakes and pumpkin pasties. Hermione was reading the Daily Prophet again, Ginny was doing a quiz in The Quibbler and Neville was stroking his Mimbulus mimbletonia, which had grown a great deal over the year and now made odd crooning noises when touched.

Harry and Ron whiled away most of the journey playing wizard chess while Hermione read out snippets from the Prophet. It was now full of articles about how to repel Dementors, attempts by the Ministry to track down Death Eaters and hysterical letters claiming that the writer had seen Lord Voldemort walking past their house that very morning:

'It hasn't really started yet,' sighed Hermione gloomily, folding up the newspaper again. 'But it won't be long now:'

'Hey, Harry' said Ron softly, nodding towards the glass window on to the corridor.

Harry looked around. Cho was passing, accompanied by Marietta Edgecombe, who was wearing a balaclava. His and Cho's eyes met for a moment. Cho blushed and kept walking. Harry looked back down at the chessboard just in time to see one of his pawns chased off its square by Ron's knight.

'What's - er - going on with you and her, anyway?' Ron asked quietly

'Nothing,' said Harry truthfully.

'I - er - heard she's going out with someone else now,' said Hermione tentatively.

Harry was surprised to find that this information did not hurt at all. Wanting to impress Cho seemed to belong to a past that was no longer quite connected with him; so much of what he had wanted before Sirius's death felt that hollow these days: the week that had elapsed since he had last seen Sirius seemed to have lasted much, much longer; it stretched across two universes, the one with Sirius in it, and the one without.

'You're well out of it, mate,' said Ron forcefully. 'I mean, she's quite good-looking and all that, but you want someone a bit more cheerful.'

'She's probably cheerful enough with someone else,' said Harry, shrugging.

'Who's she with now, anyway?' Ron asked Hermione, but it was Ginny who answered.

'Michael Corner,' she said.

Title: Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix
Author: J.K.Rîwling
Viewed 430491 times

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